Wiki News Live
Today:
The trans CIA official ousted by Trump: ‘We’re a government crippled by its own decisions’
NEWS | 16 September 2026
She had known her days might be numbered as the incoming White House was ousting national security staffers en masse. In 2017, she penned an anonymous piece about being a trans intelligence officer, encouraging other trans people to apply. She soon after joined the first Trump administration, even as the president moved to ban trans people from the military. The staffers were career public servants who were considered non-partisan policy experts, on loan to the White House from the CIA, state department and other agencies. And because the Trump administration had little consultation with allies before the war, when the US asked European nations for help reopening the strait, those nations refused.

Top Stories:
Carney says Canada will pursue ‘unique security and economic alliance’ with EU amid US trade spat
NEWS | 16 September 2026
Mark Carney said Canada will pursue a “unique security and economic alliance” with Europe as he positions his country as a base to build in the “new global economic order”. Over the last 18 months, the relationship with the US has fractured, leaving Canada searching for ways to avert economic devastation. Tariffs are used as leverage,” Carney said – a nod to the Donald Trump’s penchant for trade levies. That shift has been exemplified in recent weeks by Carney’s effort to strengthen Canada’s economic and political ties to the EU. “Canada has what the world wants,” Carney said during media availability late Tuesday morning.

World:
US set to deliver 2,000lb bombs to Israel as part of vast arms deal
NEWS | 16 September 2026
The Trump administration is planning to deliver powerful 2,000lb bombs to Israel as part of an upcoming arms deal, weapons that prompted such concerns about the possibility of mass casualties in Gaza that the Biden administration paused their delivery two years ago. The proposed sale is just the latest in a series of Trump administration steps to improve Israeli’s military capacity. Last year, the Trump administration bypassed a normal congressional review process and approved a nearly $3bn sale to Israel that included more than 35,500 of the bombs. The Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in 2023 killed around 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel has since killed more than 73,264 Palestinians, including those killed in violation of the ceasefire, Gaza’s health ministry said.

Current Events:
Six green card holders in Texas charged in federal crackdown on illegal voting – US politics live
NEWS | 16 September 2026
Donald Trump, whose false claim that voting by non-citizens is rampant inspired the investigation, won the state by a margin of 1,558,347 votes over his nearest rival, Kamala Harris. It’s not enough to leave it to Donald Trump. It came to this conclusion for a simple reason: The federal law that created the Kennedy Center permitted no other result. “Yet the drama at the Kennedy Center continues,” Cooper added, before barring the Trump-appointed board from enacting a resolution to add Trump’s name to the center’s facade, calling it the Trump Kennedy Center and also naming the plaza outside the center for Trump. The judge also said the board cannot proceed with plans to rename ​the campus where it sits the “President Donald J. Trump ‌Plaza”.

News Flash:
Kennedy Center to close as Trump threatens to block repairs over name dispute
NEWS | 16 September 2026
Trump’s ultimatum came shortly after the president’s handpicked board voted, again, to close the institution’s performing arts building in Washington, citing safety and financial concerns. In a Truth Social post, Trump said the board voted “almost unanimously” to close the riverside landmark “for Safety reasons, and so that I can begin the process of Reconstruction”. “Simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” US district judge Christopher Cooper wrote. “The board’s latest shutdown vote is more of the same failure and abuse that has characterized this administration’s treatment of the Kennedy Center,” Beatty said in a joint statement with attorneys Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky. The board voted in August to reinstate an inscription and proceed with the closure.

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Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 16 September 2026
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Latest:
Houthis threaten more Saudi strikes as UN warns of humanitarian crisis in Yemen
NEWS | 16 September 2026
Saudi cities faced the threat of a second day of Houthi attacks as fighting across Yemen led the UN to warn of a humanitarian crisis with 100,000 Yemenis already displaced. The strait has become vital to Saudi crude oil exports as the wider Middle East war chokes the strait of Hormuz in the Gulf. An emergency meeting of the UN security council in New York heard repeated calls for Houthi forces to show restraint. Oil prices rose sharply after Reuters reported that ⁠loadings at Saudi Arabia’s ⁠Red ⁠Sea port ​of Yanbu had ⁠been suspended, citing shipping industry sources. Houthi forces have been advancing in recent days amid a new offensive.

Breaking:
Iran war cost US $38bn and significantly depleted missile stockpile, report finds
NEWS | 16 September 2026
The Pentagon’s report did not address an internal Pentagon investigation into the Minab school strike on the first day of the war, which killed 156 people, including 120 children. The new $38bn estimate in the CBO report, which is some of the first public accounting of the cost of the war in Iran, was requested by the Democratic congressman Brendan Boyle, the ranking member of the House budget committee. Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, separately dismissed a CNN report on the depleted stockpiles as “not true” in August. The request included $12.1bn for classified programs CBO could not examine – a far larger share of secret funding than in past war supplementals. CBO further added that it still cannot estimate the cost of repairing bomb-damaged US bases, nor any future diplomatic and foreign aid costs tied to the war.

Trending:
All supporting acts withdraw from Ed Sheeran’s tour in solidarity with Macklemore
NEWS | 16 September 2026
All four supporting acts for upcoming dates of Ed Sheeran’s Loop tour have withdrawn in solidarity with fellow opening act Macklemore, as backlash grows against his removal from the tour over onstage comments in support of Palestine. “Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed,” Finneas wrote on social media. “I have decided to withdraw from my upcoming tour dates with Ed Sheeran. “Ed has been a friend to me and has changed my life, I could never thank him enough for this. “Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine,” he wrote in a multipage post on Instagram.

This Just In:
Ed Sheeran responds to backlash over removing Macklemore from tour after ‘Free Palestine’ comments
NEWS | 16 September 2026
Singer Ed Sheeran has responded to the backlash over the removal of Macklemore from his North American Loop tour, following the rapper’s “Free Palestine” speech on stage at MetLife stadium in New Jersey. There are too many wars across the world causing immeasurable pain, none of which should be tolerated.”According to Sheeran, Macklemore “asked to join my tour last year and I agreed, because I respect him as an artist”. “I said: free Palestine! “Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine,” he said. “Ed has been a friend to me and has changed my life, I could never thank him enough for this.

Today:
Could AI really wipe out humanity – six experts spell out the risks
NEWS | 16 September 2026
That is what we need to control, not the AI.”‘We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! “Just as we can’t uninvent the bomb, once we develop AI systems that surpass humanity it would be almost impossible to go back.” But the key point is that superintelligent AI does not yet exist and is not guaranteed to happen. The Rand Corporation concluded AI cannot cause the use of nuclear weapons because of strict safeguards built into their command and control systems. The UN resolved in December that human control and oversight should be maintained over nuclear weapon control systems. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons warns “cyber-attacks could manipulate the information decision-makers get to launch nuclear weapons, and interfere with the operation of nuclear weapons themselves”.

Top Stories:
AI models chatting in ‘surreal’ dialect mixing poetic language and tech bro jargon
NEWS | 16 September 2026
AI models have begun communicating in a strange new version of English that reads like a cross between James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and tech bro jargon, new research has found. Autonomous AI agents are rapidly creating novel dialects allowing them to converse in an often barely comprehensible language, which risks making it harder for humans to monitor their behaviour. It comes amid rising concern that as AI models become more powerful – and potentially dangerous – they are becoming harder to monitor. View image in fullscreen James Joyce, author of Finnegans Wake and Ulysses, whose stream-of-consciousness style appears to have inspired today’s AI models. Interest in the language used by AI agents increased in July when chat logs were released detailing how rogue OpenAI agents that set up message boards and hacked into Hugging Face used hybrid language.

World:
Anthropic CEO renews call for AI slowdown as Nvidia’s urges acceleration
NEWS | 16 September 2026
Anthropic’s CEO took the stage at a conference in San Francisco on Tuesday to reiterate his call for a slowdown of AI development, while Nvidia’s CEO argued against such deceleration. Amodei, xAI’s Elon Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman have recently called for a slowdown in the pace of AI development. Huang, who also made an appearance at Dreamforce on Tuesday, said companies should not slow down AI development. He argued that new regulations were not necessary, advising AI companies to simply wait to release products until they know they are safe rather than begging the US government to intervene. Huang said he envisioned a future where “every company, every enterprise … would become an AI company”.

Current Events:
Why a decade of doomsday warnings failed to slow the AI race
NEWS | 16 September 2026
Rather than push for a pause on any development, a faction of researchers breaks away to create a new AI company. His concerns were echoed by dozens of staffers from Anthropic, OpenAI and other competing firms. “AI brings risks, and because it is such a powerful technology, these risks are serious,” Amodei wrote in a blog post. They include the risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyber-attacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption. Two weeks after the 2026 Hugging Face breach, OpenAI announced it was pausing development of some aspects of AI training.

News Flash:
‘This should be condemned by any thinking human’: film industry rallies behind NAZA directors
NEWS | 16 September 2026
The 80-minute documentary won the special jury prize at this year’s Venice film festival on Saturday, after receiving a 25-minute standing ovation – a festival record. “Documentary film-makers are among the best long-form journalists working and critical to our understanding of the world,” said Julie Huntsinger. NAZA will screen at the San Sebastián film festival next week. The documentary will show at the Bologna film festival tonight, before its North American premiere, at the New York film festival, later this month. Tricia Tuttle, director of the Berlin film festival, said: “Artists must be free to critically examine the world.