SpaceX lands USSF-385 booster as Trump posts “Trump Strait” and bars CNN from Air Force One
Ukraine reports 173 drones overnight; White House pocket-rescinds about $810 million; third-country deportation briefs still due Monday.
10 AM CT video brief · 1:21Presenter voice and image generated with AI tools.Read transcript
I'm Nora Vale with your 10 AM World Brief for Saturday, September 26th. A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 9:01 a.m. Central with a classified Space Force satellite. The booster, on its tenth flight, landed on a ship at sea. What this means. Landing and reflying boosters is how SpaceX works toward rockets that can carry people to Mars — and it keeps your national-security satellites on American rockets. On Iran, President Trump posted a map labeling the Strait of Hormuz the Trump Strait, while Tehran still awaits a formal U.S. reply. The Wall Street Journal reported he had privately rejected the seven-day plan. What this means. For you and your family already paying the Hormuz premium, a social-media map is not a treaty. You deserve a clear official answer. At the White House, CNN was left off Air Force One for the president's Tennessee football trip, replaced on the pool list by Real America's Voice after a judge restored White House grounds access but did not explicitly cover the jet. And at the Supreme Court, no new Saturday orders. Third-country deportation briefs are still due Monday at 4 p.m. Eastern. Full stories and sources are at WorldBriefNow.com. I'm Nora Vale. Thanks for watching.
President Donald Trump early Saturday posted a Truth Social map labeling the Strait of Hormuz the “Trump Strait,” the Associated Press reported, while the White House had yet to expand publicly on the post. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed U.S. officials, reported Trump had privately rejected Iran’s seven-day plan to reopen the strait and resume nuclear talks if Washington lifts its naval blockade, waives oil sanctions and meets other conditions; a U.S. official told Al Jazeera Washington is in no hurry and sees itself in a strong position on the waterway. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday the choice “now rests with the United States,” and mediated talks through Qatar continued even as officials told the Journal Trump expects renewed bombing after November’s midterms.
Russian attacks killed six people and injured 45 others across Ukraine over the past day, local authorities said Saturday, the Kyiv Independent reported. Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia launched 173 Shahed-type drones overnight, including 50 jet-powered models; air defenses intercepted 134, with strikes recorded at 19 locations and debris at eight more. Earlier Saturday, the Associated Press reported four people killed in Saturday attacks — two women in Zaporizhzhia trapped under rubble and two people in Sumy — while Russia’s Defense Ministry said its strike on Kyiv damaged a data center supporting cellphone internet and Starlink service.
Correction (Sep 26, 2026): We got this wrong. An earlier version said the White House guidance was “reported by the Associated Press and NBC News” while our source list named only the New York Post, NBC News and Reuters; in fact the New York Post article we linked is an Associated Press report, and the text and source list now say so and also credit Reuters’ report. We apologize for the error.
The White House on Friday night removed CNN from the media pool for President Donald Trump’s Saturday trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he is scheduled to attend the University of Texas–University of Tennessee college football game, according to White House guidance reported by The Associated Press (in an AP story published by the New York Post) and NBC News; Reuters, citing The Washington Post, also reported CNN was blocked from the flight. CNN had been set to fly on Air Force One as part of rotating network pool duties; guidance listed Real America’s Voice News in that spot instead, and NBC reported no other traditional network was listed as a replacement. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly’s temporary order earlier this week restored White House grounds access for CNN, MS NOW and Politico for 14 days after Trump barred them, but the order addressed credentials for the grounds and did not explicitly require restoring CNN’s television-pool seat on Air Force One.
Correction (Sep 26, 2026): We got this wrong. An earlier version said in its headline that the White House pocket-rescinded “about $810 million” and in its text that it would cancel “nearly $1 billion,” without explaining the difference; in fact “nearly $1 billion” is the White House’s own description, and the program amounts itemized in its release total $810 million, the figure Sen. Susan Collins cited. We apologize for the error.
Editor’s note (Sep 26, 2026): We fell short of our standards. An earlier version of our analysis said taxpayers “should not forever fund NGO pipelines that treat the border as a client list”; it now says taxpayers are right to question open-ended federal grants to outside groups that serve migrants. The facts are unchanged. We apologize for falling short of our standards.
The White House said Friday evening it is using a “pocket rescission” under the Impoundment Control Act to cancel what it described as “another nearly $1 billion” in congressionally appropriated funds; the program amounts itemized in its release add up to $810 million, the same total Sen. Susan Collins cited for the package Congress received and the figure in our headline. The package includes $567 million in HHS services the administration said went to programs and NGOs serving refugees, asylees and other non-citizens, plus additional cuts at DHS, Education, HUD, DOJ and other accounts detailed in its briefing. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, said lawmakers received an $810 million package “without warning or consultation,” that OMB appeared to withhold funds for months, and that the Government Accountability Office has concluded pocket rescissions are unlawful; she called any rescission without congressional approval “a clear violation of the law.” The fiscal year ends Wednesday; CBS News noted the Supreme Court last year allowed a prior foreign-aid pocket rescission to proceed while saying that order was not a final merits ruling.
The Supreme Court posted no new Saturday orders on the emergency application in Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D., No. 26A406 — the government’s request for a stay seeking to restore third-country deportations. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Sept. 24 order continues to direct respondents to file their response by 4 p.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 28, according to the Court’s public docket; the application was docketed Sept. 24 after submission to Justice Jackson, and as of mid-morning Saturday the docket showed no further order on the merits of the stay.
Correction (Sep 26, 2026): We got this wrong. An earlier version of our analysis said SpaceX “put a classified Space Force payload into orbit”; in fact the Falcon 9 launched the classified USSF-385 mission, and SpaceX has not publicly confirmed payload deployment. An earlier version also said “Full after-liftoff details, including cargo notes and the Mars reuse line, are in our World News Update”; that was internal production wording and now reads “Full after-liftoff details are in our World News Update.” We apologize for the error.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off at 9:01 a.m. CT Saturday from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, carrying the U.S. Space Force USSF-385 mission, a classified national-security payload; details were not released. Booster B1100, on its 10th flight, landed successfully on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship in the Pacific at about 9:10 a.m. CT, SpaceX said. SpaceX has not publicly confirmed payload deployment for the classified mission. Full after-liftoff details are in our World News Update.
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