Diesel has topped $6 a gallon for the first time, raising costs for the trucks and trains that move nearly everything Americans buy.
Plus, President Donald Trump closed the Republican midterm convention with a voting pledge that included “cheat like hell like they do,” after Vice President JD Vance delivered the final-night keynote.
And Anthropic says scientists used Claude for research that could support biological weapons development, prompting the AI company to block their accounts.
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Diesel hits record $6 a gallon as oil prices remain above $100
For the first time ever, the average price of diesel has topped $6 a gallon. AAA reported that diesel is now about 63% more expensive than a year ago, and that doesn’t just affect truckers and farmers.
Diesel powers the trucks and trains that move much of what Americans buy, so those higher fuel costs can eventually show up in consumer prices.
And there’s now another threat to global shipping.
Iran-backed Houthi rebels have seized the strategic Red Sea port of Mokha in Yemen, bringing them closer to the Bab el-Mandeb strait. That’s a critical shipping route on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula from the Strait of Hormuz, where the war with Iran has already disrupted oil shipments.
Trump has said prices will come down once the U.S. wins the war.
In an interview with Fox News, he was asked whether he had any regrets about the conflict as higher fuel prices weigh on his approval ratings.
“No. No. I think, I think, I, I don’t believe in the word regret,” Trump said. “Uh, you can always question yourself a little bit. Uh, and a few people have asked me that. If I had it to do again, I’d do exactly as I did. I took out their nuclear capability. Supposing we were cruising and all of a sudden Iran has a nuclear weapon, they would use it. They’re crazy.”
Brent crude, the global benchmark, topped $108 a barrel Thursday before pulling back. It was trading above $104 early Friday morning, with U.S. crude around $100.
Republicans wrap up midterm convention as Trump tells crowd to ‘cheat like hell’
The Republicans’ first-ever midterm convention wrapped up Thursday night in Dallas after two days of some of the party’s biggest names making their case for GOP candidates in November.
Much of the final night focused on American values, with speakers including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., portraying today’s Democratic Party as having abandoned them.
Vance, Thursday night’s keynote speaker, picked up that theme after a protester waving a Mexican flag interrupted his address.
“So what? What the people at home missed was that we just had a protester interrupting us and waving the Mexican flag,” Vance said. “Well… Well, my friend, if you love Mexico so much, get your ass over there. I’ll buy you the plane ticket.”
“We just discovered the symbol of the far left: an idiot waving a Mexican flag at a protest when he should be waving the flag of the United States of America.”
“But while we wave the American flag and fight for the American dream, we have to remind ourselves tonight that the good life that is the foundation of this country’s promise is not guaranteed.”
“And while the president works every day to build upon that great nation, every single day, the far left is working right now to make sure that your children never see that birthright.”
Vice President JD Vance
Trump returned to close out the convention, leading the crowd in a pledge to get their friends and family to vote in November.
Then, in the middle of that pledge, Trump told them to “cheat like hell” while again accusing Democrats of cheating in elections.
“Please raise your right hand. ‘I pledge. To the greatest president in the history of the United States. That loves us so much he can’t even breathe. That I will go out with my family, my friends – I’ll do it anyway. I don’t care if I’m registered or not; I’m gonna try and cheat like hell like they do. There’s never been bigger cheaters. They don’t care. I am gonna go out, and I’m gonna get my friends and family, and we are going to vote on November 3rd, or we are going to vote before that.’”
President Donald Trump
Trump then told everyone who took the pledge that they’d “go to hell” if they didn’t vote. The convention ended with a balloon drop as opera singer Christopher Macchio performed “America the Beautiful.”
Court keeps new mail rules blocked, saying administration hasn’t shown rules are lawful
A federal appeals court has decided to keep the Trump administration’s new mail ballot rules on hold just weeks before the midterms.
The rules would require states to use specific designs and unique barcodes on mail ballots. Election officials would also have to provide the U.S. Postal Service with information about mail-in voters.
Mail ballots that don’t comply would be returned to election offices.
The Trump administration said the changes are modest and intended to protect against voter fraud. But states and voting rights groups sued, arguing that USPS lacks that authority and that the changes could disenfranchise voters.
A three-judge panel on the First Circuit refused Thursday to lift a lower court order blocking the rules.
The judges said the administration had not shown the lower court was wrong to find the rules likely unlawful.
On the administration’s argument about fraud, the court wrote: “There is no record evidence of past fraud or a likelihood of impending fraud related to the November 3 election.”
The Trump administration has also asked the Supreme Court to let the rules take effect. The high court hasn’t yet ruled on that request.
Anthropic identifies five Claude-linked bioresearch risks
The company behind one of the world’s most powerful AI chatbots says some scientists have been using it for research that could help develop biological weapons.
Anthropic said it has blocked their accounts.
The company released a new report Thursday detailing how people have misused its Claude AI models.
Anthropic identified five cases involving scientists whose work had the potential to support biological weapons development. The company did not identify the scientists and said it can’t say they intended to cause harm.
Legitimate biological research can also produce information that could be used to make a pathogen more dangerous.
Anthropic said it has since strengthened safeguards in its newer models.
The report also detailed Claude being used for propaganda and surveillance, including by actors Anthropic said were aligned with governments in Iran and China.
Anthropic said it’s disclosing the cases because “as models become increasingly capable, their risks will increase, unless AI developers and society’s defenders act to make them safer.”
The report comes just days after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon quit. Appearing on CNN, he said he’s worried about what happens as these systems become more powerful.
“If you extrapolate into the future the level of capabilities of these AIs, with the same independent volition, they could cause extreme havoc. For example, hacking critical infrastructure, building extinction-level bioweapons; there are a lot of ways AI could actuate itself in the world.”
US marks 25 years since 9/11, Bush reflects on lessons from attacks
Friday marks 25 years since the Sept. 11 attacks, a day that changed America and the world.
On that morning in 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger planes. Two were flown into the World Trade Center, and a third into the Pentagon. The fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers.
The attacks killed 2,977 people.
It reshaped U.S. national security and led to changes Americans still live with today.
At that time, George W. Bush was the president. On Wednesday night, he sat down with Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser on 9/11, to discuss what he believes the country should still take from that day.
“We saw this as an ideological conflict. And for people to have no idea what we’re talking about, just understand there are people in the world who can’t stand America because of our freedoms. And what changed on that day of September 11 was that those who can’t stand what we stand for had the capacity to come and kill. And that’s what really changed the whole strategic equation for a president and the country. And, but you know, that and my view is, is that freedom is necessary for peace. It is I say it all the time. It’s not America’s gift to the world.”
George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States
Bush also said he worries Americans “don’t pay attention to the lesson of 9/11,” arguing that “what happens overseas matters to our national security at home.”
And 25 years after the attacks, the man accused of masterminding them still hasn’t gone to trial. A military judge has set a June 2028 trial date for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three other men accused of helping plot the attack.
Baby orangutans found in India, prompting a smuggling investigation
Five baby orangutans have turned up in a place they definitely don’t belong, a forest in eastern India. Authorities now want to know how they got there.
Forest workers found the little apes during a routine patrol.
Orangutans live naturally only on Borneo and Sumatra, more than a thousand miles away in Southeast Asia. Officials are investigating whether the babies were brought into India as part of an international wildlife smuggling operation.
STORY | Relaxed to anxious to playful: Rescued baby orangutans show range of emotions at Odisha zoo
Five orangutans, who were recently rescued from Odisha’s Balasore district and kept at a zoo here, have been displaying a range of emotions – from momentary mood swings, playful… pic.twitter.com/HVrzEVBdOC
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) September 10, 2026
One conservation official put it simply: “They are not Indian species, so how did they come here?”
The three males and two females have since been moved to a state zoo for quarantine and medical care. Officials said four appear healthy.
For now, they’re being fed fruit and milk while veterinarians monitor them.
More from Straight Arrow:
9/11 launched a new era of surveillance. 25 years later, AI is making it smarter
Drive past one of the roughly 140,000 automated license plate-reading cameras scattered across the United States, and it can record your license plate, details about your car, when you passed by and the direction you were heading. That information can be stored in a searchable database available to law enforcement.
You do not have to be suspected of a crime.
Most of the cameras are made by Flock Safety, which is why they are known as “Flock cameras.” They give police a powerful tool for finding missing people, crime suspects and stolen cars, often across multiple jurisdictions.
But the same network also lets the police — and when access is shared, state and federal agencies — trace the movements of millions of law-abiding Americans. Enormous troves of data are collected without a warrant, without an officer at the scene and at minimal cost.
Flock cameras, geofence warrants, facial recognition and other monitoring tools have fundamentally changed the country’s surveillance architecture.
