Trump says US and Iranian officials met Tuesday, shortly after warning he may 'annihilate' Iran
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — President Donald Trump said U.S. and Iranian officials met Tuesday, an unexpected engagement that came even as he threatened in his address to the U.N. General Assembly that he may “annihilate” the Islamic Republic if a deal isn’t reached soon to end the nearly seven-month war.
Trump told reporters that his chief envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, met for about three hours with the Iranian officials on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders but he offered few details about how the discussions transpired or the substance of the exchange.
“It was a very good meeting,” Trump said. The president later added that the Iranian officials were “not the highest level, but it’s something.”
Witkoff said in a posting on X that the talks were conducted through mediators who shuttled between the U.S. and Iranian teams. He added that he was hopeful the effort “will prove constructive and promising.”
The engagement comes after months of U.S.-Iran communications languishing following the collapse of a short-lived ceasefire that was brokered in June. U.S. and Iranian negotiators met separately with Qatari and Pakistani mediators in Doha in early July for indirect talks.
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FACT FOCUS: Trump made multiple false and misleading claims in front of the UN General Assembly
President Donald Trump made myriad false and misleading claims during his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, many of which he has repeated frequently throughout his second term in the White House.
They covered topics such as U.S. munitions supply, drug seizures, oil and the economy.
Here's a closer look at the facts.
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CLAIM: “We have more munitions than we could ever possibly even think of using, and we’re building them at levels that we have never done before.”
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Is it 'killer robots' or 'super intelligence'? At the UN, leaders see both
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — It's killer robots versus super intelligence.
Visions of the future straight out of comic books are playing out at the United Nations as world leaders talk about the threat — or promise — of artificial intelligence.
Once again it was Donald Trump against the U.N, chief and other leaders on a pressing issue involving science and the future, echoing ongoing disputes over the threat of climate change.
Armed with a new U.N. science report that warns of a slight but real potential of catastrophic and irreversible harm, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres kicked off the parade of world leaders speaking at the General Assembly by calling for more oversight of AI, warning in vivid if not ominous terms of what could go wrong.
“Let us resolve that life-and-death decisions must never be surrendered to machines. Killer robots must have no place in our future,” Guterres said in his farewell address to world leaders. He also warned about AI in his first General Assembly address a decade ago.
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‘You should not be here,' Trump tells CNN at UN as standoff with media outlets persists
NEW YORK (AP) — On a day of high-stakes diplomacy on the global stage, President Donald Trump began his United Nations visit by telling a prominent U.S. journalist, “You should not be here.”
“It’s an honor to be here,” Trump said as he entered U.N. doors Tuesday ahead of his speech to the General Assembly and faced Kaitlan Collins of CNN, a frequent target of his ire. “I’m surprised that CNN is here covering me. You should not be here covering me. You said you weren’t going to cover me.”
As Collins noted later on air, CNN said nothing of the kind. The administration had banned CNN from White House grounds days earlier — along with MS NOW and Politico — and removed the network from pool duty. But CNN had been admitted into the U.N. as regularly credentialed media.
In any case, the tense moment was a stark reminder of how dramatically the bitter conflict between Trump and news outlets whose coverage he objects to as “fake news" has escalated in just a few days.
The current ban was the subject of a joint lawsuit filed Monday by the three outlets, calling the decision selective — based on the content of their coverage — and asking a judge to find Trump's move unconstitutional.
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Trump administration to remove 760,000 Affordable Care Act enrollees over fraud claims
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President JD Vance and other Trump administration officials said Tuesday they plan to remove 760,000 Affordable Care Act enrollees from public healthcare exchanges, alleging that the individuals were fraudulently enrolled in the program, or simply do not exist.
Vance said the discovery and canceled subsidy payments for hundreds of thousands of people from the exchanges, part of an administration-wide crackdown on fraud, would result in $2.2 billion in cost savings.
“We’re actually making sure that the people receiving Obamacare subsidies are actually entitled to receive them,” said Vance, who leads a government task force to eliminate fraud. He was flanked by Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, and other administration officials.
Vance said the cancellation of approximately 315,000 enrollments covering 760,000 people was done in part because the government was not checking whether people enrolled were eligible. Vance said another 419,000 enrollments will get additional verification to make sure they are eligible for the benefit.
The Trump administration also announced a six-month suspension on new agents or brokers who sign up enrollees for healthcare coverage, who officials say commit a disproportionate amount of the fraud they uncovered.
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Hayden Panettiere died from an overdose involving fentanyl. She had just gone to rehab, coroner says
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Actor Hayden Panettiere died from an accidental overdose of several drugs, including fentanyl, and had been in rehab just weeks before, according to a coroner’s report obtained by The Associated Press.
Panettiere, 36, was found unresponsive in an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina, on Aug. 16. Her on-and-off boyfriend Brian Hickerson and his brother Zach Hickerson were at the home.
A combination of fentanyl and its chemical byproduct, as well as the anti-anxiety medication alprazolam, a muscle relaxer and a drug used to treat major depression and other serious mental health disorders, was found in Panettiere’s system, according to a statement from the Greenville County Coroner’s Office.
A more detailed report released to the AP said a senior deputy coroner who came to the Airbnb apartment to investigate Panettiere’s death found blue pressed pills and a straw on a table that would later test positive for fentanyl. A white powdery substance was found in her suitcase in a sunglasses case, according to the report.
When the investigator called Panettiere's father, he said she planned to spend her birthday five days later in Greenville, then head to Ukraine to visit her daughter.
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Nolan Wells' family pushes back after grand jury declines to recommend charges in his death
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A grand jury has declined to recommend charges in the death of Nolan Wells, a Black college student who was found dead two days after a July 4 boat trip and party on an island off the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
The district attorney announced the grand jury’s findings late Monday after months of intense speculation about how the 18-year-old went missing from the party and why Wells’ friends left the island without him. Wells' family immediately pushed back on the findings that said there was no evidence of criminal conduct, saying they still didn't have answers about what happened.
Scrutiny of the investigation started almost immediately, as a photo of Wells surrounded by white friends on a boat from the day he went missing fueled online speculation that racial dynamics played a role in his death. People launched accusations and rumors as they grappled with Mississippi's history of racial tension and what it means to be a Black person in a majority-white setting.
The day had started with the group of friends piling into boats and heading to the popular, uninhabited Horn Island for a gathering of a few hundred people. It's still unclear what happened after several of the friends left around 3 p.m. because their boat was taking on water. They said Wells decided to stay behind.
The grand jury said in a redacted report posted to the district attorney's office Facebook page that Wells' death was “consistent with drowning." The grand jury noted the state's autopsy report, which hasn't been made public, and an independent one commissioned by Wells’ family both found bruising on the back of his head but couldn’t determine the cause of death.
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Judge sets hearing for Venezuelan man shot by ICE and police in Texas release some video from scene
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A judge has ordered a Venezuelan man shot in Texas by a federal immigration officer to appear in court as his attorneys seek to stop his removal from the U.S. and criticize his medical care, saying he remains in pain from a bullet lodged in his back.
Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, was back in a federal detention center Tuesday after being treated and released at a hospital for a second time since he was shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on Sunday in Austin, according to his attorney, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch.
Austin police on Tuesday released body camera footage showing Garces Perez hunching over in the front seat of his car and grabbing his shoulder and rocking back and forth after the shooting. An officer later cut off Perez's shirt, and a wound can be seen in his upper back.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas said he planned to visit Garces Perez on Wednesday to “check on his condition and demand his release.” The Department of Homeland Security defended Garces Perez's treatment and its operations, saying ICE would not slow down or leave Austin.
Castro has joined other Democrats in sharply criticizing the shooting, which came amid a surge in enforcement during President Donald Trump’s second term. The encounter has sparked protests in Austin, including a gathering outside the Texas Capitol on Monday night.
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Hurricane Polo churns off Mexico's Pacific coast as 'one of the strongest storms ever'
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hurricane Polo grew into one of the most powerful Pacific cyclones in decades on Tuesday, and it was expected to skirt Mexico’s southwestern coast as a Category 5 hurricane.
Polo was an “extremely dangerous” storm with maximum sustained winds of 165 mph (265 kph), the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said in an update from a NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft that was sent into the cyclone.
It was the third Category 5 hurricane of the Pacific season, following Genevieve and Lowell earlier this year. Category 5 is the highest level on the Saffir-Simpson scale, reflecting that a storm has maximum sustained winds exceeding 157 mph (253 kph).
Polo was centered 210 miles (338 kilometers) south of Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and nearly stationary over the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday night. The hurricane center said Polo was expected to start a slow but sharp turn northwest during the night and then travel in a generally west-northwestward direction over the next several days.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said in her morning press briefing that experts had indicated that the hurricane was not likely to touch land. Still, the NHC said hurricane-force winds are happening up to 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the storm's center and tropical storm-force winds up to 105 miles (169 kilometers) away.
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‘Looksmaxxing’ influencer known as 'Clavicular' is charged with rape in Massachusetts
BOSTON (AP) — The social media influencer “Clavicular,” who gained a following promoting the online “looksmaxxing” trend, has been charged in Massachusetts with raping a 17-year-old girl who told police she became heavily intoxicated after he gave her alcohol at his family's Cape Cod home.
Braden Peters, 20, is charged with rape, administering a substance for sexual intercourse and procuring alcohol for a person under 21 in the alleged May 23, 2025, assault in Chatham, according to court records. A clerk-magistrate found probable cause for the charges on Sept. 4, and a criminal complaint was issued Sept. 8.
An email and text message were sent to Peters' publicist seeking comment Tuesday. Peters, who lives in Florida and is not in custody, is scheduled to be arraigned in Massachusetts on Oct. 14.
“We are not commenting at this time since the proper authorities are handling this,” said Andrew Moss, one of the teen's attorneys.
The accuser told Chatham police that she and Peters began messaging on Instagram and that he later paid her to appear in “looksmaxxing” videos he streamed online. She said Peters knew she was 17 but that he told her to tell his viewers that she was 18 and that vodka he gave her was water, according to a police report.
