9/11 25th Anniversary, Trump Dividend, Saudi Pipeline, CPI and 49ers-Rams | Sept. 12, 2026

Transcript

Good morning. This is Artificially Intelligent News for Saturday, September twelfth, twenty twenty-six. I’m Mark Ellison. This program is AI-created, independently fact-checked, and current as of this Saturday morning.

Americans marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September eleventh attacks on Friday with ceremonies in New York, at the Pentagon, in Pennsylvania, and across the country.

Nearly three thousand people were killed when al-Qaida hijackers crashed four commercial jets in two thousand one. At Ground Zero, relatives again read the names of those killed. The ceremony added a new moment of silence for people who were exposed to toxic dust after the World Trade Center collapsed and later died of cancer or other illnesses. That recognition reflects the continuing toll beyond the attacks themselves, including illness among responders, workers, residents, and others who spent time at the site.

President Trump attended the Pentagon ceremony and spoke about the lasting effects of the attacks. In Pennsylvania, people gathered near Shanksville, where passengers and crew members resisted the hijackers before United Flight ninety-three crashed. The anniversary is a moment of remembrance, but it also underscores how profoundly the attacks changed American security policy, military action overseas, aviation, emergency response, and the lives of survivors and families. Airport screening and other security measures that later became familiar were shaped in part by the response to that day. The man accused of being the principal planner, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, still has not gone to trial.

In Washington politics, President Trump’s proposal to send every American adult a five-thousand-dollar payment if Republicans retain Congress remains a campaign promise rather than a plan with legislative backing.

Trump announced the idea during the Republican midterm convention in Dallas. No bill, funding source, eligibility rules, or timetable has been released. A payment of that size to every adult would cost more than one trillion dollars by outside estimates, and it would require congressional approval. In practical terms, the proposal has not created a federal program, an application process, or authorized payments for anyone.

Supporters cast it as an affordability measure. Critics note the federal government is running large deficits and argue that broad cash payments could add to inflation pressure. The useful distinction is simple: this is not a benefit now being issued. It is a contingent political pledge tied to the November election and to future action by Congress. Whether it advances would depend on the election, the details of any legislation, and votes in Congress.

Election rules are also at the center of a major dispute in Missouri. The state appears set to use its congressional map from twenty twenty-two in November after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to block a Missouri Supreme Court ruling.

The newer map had been backed by President Trump and was designed to give Republicans a better chance at another House seat, including by reshaping the Kansas City-based district held by Democrat Emanuel Cleaver. But opponents gathered signatures for a referendum. Missouri’s high court held that the petition suspended the newer map and required the older districts to be used while voters decide the referendum.

Missouri’s secretary of state has directed local officials to use the twenty twenty-two map. The change is unusual because the state already held its primary under the newer boundaries. Candidates, parties, and county officials now have to work from districts that differ from the ones used in that earlier vote. The case shows how late redistricting fights can create real uncertainty for candidates, election administrators, and voters, particularly when ballot preparation, precinct assignments, and voter information must be adjusted on an election calendar.

The Justice Department has also intensified its effort to obtain election information from states. According to letters reviewed by the Associated Press, the department instructed election officials in twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia to preserve records from the twenty twenty-four election.

Those jurisdictions are involved in the administration’s broader effort to obtain detailed voter-registration information, including data that can contain addresses, dates of birth, driver’s-license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers. The department has sued states that did not provide the requested lists and says it is enforcing federal election laws. The legal question is not only what information may be requested, but how far federal authority extends when states administer elections and maintain their own records.

State officials and voting-rights advocates have raised privacy and federalism concerns. The immediate action is a preservation directive, not a finding of wrongdoing by the states. But it extends a legal fight over the federal government’s authority to demand, retain, and potentially share sensitive voter data ahead of the midterms. That distinction matters because a records-preservation order seeks to keep material available while the larger disputes continue.

Federal investigators are continuing to examine the deadly Amazon cargo-plane crash at Miami International Airport. New flight information indicates that one pilot repeatedly warned the other that the aircraft was approaching too fast before it ran off the runway.

The plane traveled about thirteen hundred feet beyond the end of the runway, struck a van carrying workers from a cleaning company, crossed a public road, and caught fire. All five people who died were in the van. Five other people were injured, and the two pilots survived. The scale of the overrun is central to investigators’ effort to reconstruct the landing and the events immediately afterward.

Those cockpit warnings are preliminary evidence, not a conclusion about the cause. The National Transportation Safety Board is responsible for the investigation, which will examine the aircraft, crew actions, airport conditions, and the full sequence after touchdown. Investigators typically review recorded flight data, cockpit communications, maintenance information, and operational procedures before issuing conclusions. Families of the victims are now waiting for a process that commonly takes many months.

In public health news, federal officials say the record cyclospora outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce has ended, and they say recalled lettuce associated with that outbreak is off the market.

Nearly thirteen thousand reported cases were tied to the outbreak across twenty-one states. Michigan reported the most cases and two deaths linked to the outbreak. Since May first, federal authorities have received nearly twenty thousand laboratory-confirmed cyclospora cases overall, more than sixteen times the number reported during the same period last year.

Cyclospora is a parasite that can cause prolonged gastrointestinal illness. Investigators connected the main outbreak to iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms and grown in central Mexico, but the precise route of contamination remains unresolved. Identifying a food source can allow recalls and warnings to end an outbreak, while determining how contamination happened is a separate task. The end of the outbreak does not answer that source question, and health officials will be looking closely at what could prevent a recurrence.

One more domestic development with wider civic consequences: the McClatchy newspaper chain has made deep cuts at The Miami Herald and other local papers.

The NewsGuild says more than ninety unionized journalists and media workers were laid off across seventeen publications, roughly thirty percent of McClatchy workers represented by the union. The affected outlets include The Sacramento Bee, The Kansas City Star, The Charlotte Observer, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Job losses at local newsrooms matter beyond the industry itself. Local reporters cover school boards, courts, public records, statehouses, and disasters that may receive little sustained national attention. They also provide regular reporting on the institutions people encounter most directly in their communities. The company has not publicly laid out the full long-term effect on coverage, but the reductions add to a long-running contraction in local journalism.

Overseas, the most consequential immediate concern remains the widening pressure on Middle East energy routes. Iraq says attacks on a key Saudi oil pipeline were launched from Iraqi territory, and its government says it has opened an investigation and dismissed the local operations commander.

Saudi Arabia shut the East-West pipeline as a precaution. That route has been especially important because the war with Iran disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The pipeline provides an overland route to Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, making it more significant when passage through the Gulf is under pressure. Meanwhile, Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen have seized a key island and captured a Red Sea port, heightening concern over the Bab el-Mandab chokepoint.

The pipeline and the two waterways matter far beyond the region because they are central corridors for oil, gas, cargo, and insurance markets. A threat to one route can redirect traffic toward another, adding time, expense, and uncertainty for shippers. Saudi officials say they are working with partners to protect navigation. The United States has not announced direct intervention against the Houthis. For consumers, the risk is that prolonged disruption raises transport and energy costs even where there is no physical shortage of fuel.

In New Delhi, leaders of the eleven-member BRICS group are gathering for a summit centered on trade, investment, energy, supply chains, and global conflicts.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hosting Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian, and leaders from the other member states. BRICS now represents about half the world’s population, though its members have sharply different interests and political systems. That size gives the forum weight, even when its members do not agree on a common approach.

The group is expected to discuss using national currencies more often in trade and reducing reliance on Western-dominated financial institutions. Settling more transactions in national currencies is different from creating a single shared currency, and no shared BRICS currency is imminent. It does show why the meeting bears watching for Americans: the group includes major trading partners and rivals, and its choices can affect commodity markets, sanctions enforcement, supply chains, and the dollar’s international role.

Now to the economy and markets. Because this is Saturday, the most recent completed U.S. trading session was Friday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at fifty-two thousand five hundred seventy-three point twenty-nine, up five hundred nine point nineteen points, or one percent. The S and P five hundred closed at seven thousand six hundred fifty-six point ninety-eight, up sixty-five point twenty-eight points, or zero point nine percent. The Nasdaq Composite finished at twenty-six thousand three hundred thirty-three point zero four, up two hundred fifty-one point thirty-one points, or one percent. Those are final Friday closes, not futures or intraday values.

Stocks recovered after four losing sessions for the S and P five hundred as oil prices eased from their recent surge and investors weighed the latest inflation report. The rebound did not erase the week’s losses: the Dow finished down one point six percent for the week, the S and P five hundred down zero point eight percent, and the Nasdaq down zero point seven percent.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that consumer prices rose zero point four percent in August after a zero point one percent increase in July. Over twelve months, the consumer price index was up three point four percent. Core prices, excluding food and energy, rose zero point three percent for the month and two point four percent over the year. The core measure is watched because food and energy prices can move sharply from month to month, although those costs remain important to household budgets.

Gasoline rose three point nine percent in August and accounted for more than one-third of the monthly overall increase. Energy prices were up sixteen point three percent over the year, while gasoline was up twenty-seven point four percent. Shelter rose zero point three percent for the month. Food rose zero point one percent.

That combination explains the tension in the markets. Friday’s figures were close to expectations, but inflation is still above the Federal Reserve’s two-percent target and energy risk has become harder to ignore. Bond-market expectations for a Fed rate increase strengthened Friday. The next policy decision will turn on incoming data and the durability of those price pressures, not on a single report.

In sports, the San Francisco 49ers opened their season with a twenty-seven to seven rout of the Los Angeles Rams in Melbourne, the first regular-season NFL game played in Australia.

Brock Purdy threw three touchdown passes as the 49ers scored the final twenty-four points. The game drew one hundred thousand and twenty-one fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the seventh-largest regular-season crowd in NFL history. The setting made the game a milestone for the league’s international schedule as well as a season-opening result for both teams.

The matchup also drew attention because the teams prepared differently for the trip. San Francisco arrived a week early. The Rams arrived less than two days before kickoff. Rams coach Sean McVay said travel was not the reason for the loss, but the performance will invite continued questions. Los Angeles quarterback Matthew Stafford passed for one hundred fifty-five yards and one score, while Myles Garrett had no tackles in his Rams debut and acknowledged afterward that his knee is not fully healthy.

College sports has a different kind of controversy. The Southeastern Conference has been considering whether to discipline or even expel LSU over the school’s effort to place former NFL signees on its roster.

LSU backed away from rostering Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris, two players who had signed with NFL teams as undrafted free agents. The SEC has a rule barring athletes with major professional experience from joining member-school rosters. The conference sued LSU and said its presidents and chancellors would discuss the school’s membership.

Expulsion would require a two-thirds vote of the conference’s top leaders. LSU is a founding SEC member and one of college sports’ largest brands, so the stakes are considerable. For now, the immediate football issue has eased because the players were left off the roster, but the legal and governance dispute has not fully disappeared.

A quick look at notable results. The 49ers beat the Rams twenty-seven to seven in Melbourne. In baseball, the Yankees beat the Mets six to four behind Cody Bellinger’s three-run homer. The Braves edged the Phillies six to five. The Brewers overwhelmed the Reds twenty to nothing. And the Cubs beat the Pirates twelve to two.

Finally, in entertainment, the eighty-third Venice International Film Festival closes today with its jury awards still to be announced as of this broadcast.

The Maggie Gyllenhaal-led jury will award the Golden Lion for best film along with prizes for direction and acting. Among the films drawing the most attention is NAZA, a documentary in which Israeli military insiders discuss the Gaza war. It received a reported twenty-five-minute standing ovation, the longest on record at the festival.

Venice has also been a showcase for established stars and awards-season contenders. The festival honored George Clooney with a lifetime-achievement Golden Lion, and observers have pointed to performances by John Malkovich in Wild Horse Nine and Robert Pattinson in Primetime as early awards possibilities. The final awards will shape the conversation, but festival acclaim is not the same as an Oscar nomination or a commercial release.

That is your calm morning briefing. We remembered the lives lost on September eleventh, tracked the policy and election stories shaping the United States, and followed the energy risks and diplomacy moving markets around the world.

Follow Artificially Intelligent News, and share this briefing with one person who would value a calm morning news summary. I’m Mark Ellison. Thanks for listening, and take care.