A Greenland deal, record diesel, and a White House channel of one’s own

World & Security

President Donald Trump returned to the U.N. General Assembly to defend the war he opened with Iran and to insist that Tehran is “weak and desperate,” not strong — a distinction that landed better in the hall than at American pumps. He said he would give “absolutely no credence” to the midterm calendar when it comes to Iran, and promised oil prices would “come plummeting down” once the fighting ends. Most of Iran’s delegation walked out as he spoke. Later, Kyodo, citing a senior Iranian official, reported that Tehran had offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if Washington eased military pressure and lifted its port blockade, a proposal said to have been approved by Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that from 23 September foreign firms that fuel, land or ticket Iranian airlines would be “knocked out of the dollar system.” Diplomacy this week is being conducted with a megaphone in one hand and a secondary-sanctions spreadsheet in the other.

On the same New York sidelines, Trump, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen signed a trilateral security pact that stops well short of the annexation Trump once refused to rule out. The United States will be allowed additional “defense areas” at Narsarsuaq — a faded Cold War airfield whose civilian population has dwindled to a few dozen — and Mestersvig, used by Denmark’s Sirius Dog Sled Patrol. Trump told the Assembly the deal gives Washington “permanent control over security and all other needs on that territory.” Copenhagen and Nuuk stressed that Greenland remains Danish and that Greenlanders’ right to self-determination is recognised. During the Cold War the U.S. kept 17 installations and more than 10,000 personnel on the island; today Pituffik Space Base hosts about 150. Two more bases is not a purchase of Greenland. It is, however, a very large asterisk on a sovereignty argument.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrives in Washington this week for a second 2026 summit that analysts expect to yield optics more than breakthroughs. China promised 200 Boeing jets that have yet to be ordered, farm purchases may fall short of the White House’s roughly $30 billion target, and a proposed Board of Trade with reciprocal tariff cuts remains under discussion. Bessent said the U.S. has floated an AI-incident notification channel. Trump also sat with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy as both Kyiv and Moscow keep hitting energy infrastructure; he has been pressing Ukraine over refinery strikes even as he blames that war, more than his own, for American diesel prices.

Markets & Economy

U.S. diesel set a record $6.51 a gallon on Sunday and $6.52 on AAA’s tracker Tuesday — about 70% above its level when the Iran war began on 28 February, and above the previous high of $5.816 from June 2022. Trump used the milestone to demand an end to “this ridiculous and never ending War with Ukraine,” while telling Zelenskyy he had called for a diesel-export ban “within my people.” Bessent said officials are studying whether a full or partial embargo is feasible given refining capacity. Midwest Republicans, including Iowa’s Chuck Grassley and Alaska’s Dan Sullivan, have piled on. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has already dismissed the idea once, and former Florida representative James Bacchus warned that a political “quick fix” could lift gasoline prices in some regions. The United States is not short of diesel. The world is. Washington has never been famous for enjoying that distinction.

Voters have noticed the receipts. A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed 20 September put Trump’s approval at 32% — the lowest of his political career, and below Joe Biden’s 35% trough — with just 17% approving of his handling of the cost of living, the issue Americans say will decide November. For the first time in that series, more Republicans disapprove than approve of his inflation record (51% to 44%). Only 34% back the Iran strikes; 82% think the conflict will last an “extended period.” Registered voters preferred Democrats 43% to 35% for Congress, the widest Reuters/Ipsos gap this year. The survey of 1,277 adults had a margin of error of three percentage points. High diesel is not a messaging problem. It is the message.

Technology & Industry

If the fuel market is running on scarcity, the AI market is running on rebranding. Trump told the United Nations that U.S. documents will henceforth say “super intelligence” rather than “artificial intelligence”, because “it sounds much better” and “it’s much more accurate.” He rejected any “globalist scheme” to supervise the technology and compared safety warnings to climate forecasts he called a hoax. Secretary-General António Guterres asked Washington and Beijing to talk about AI the way Cold War rivals once talked about nuclear risk. More than 20 countries have urged binding safety rules; the two AI superpowers have not signed. Chip investors, uninterested in nomenclature, sent Arm up 13%, Intel 12% and AMD 9% after Meta’s Muse agent hit No. 1 on the U.S. App Store — enough to push AMD’s market cap past $1 trillion for the first time.

The White House, having barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the grounds, switched on Trump TV: The Essentials Station — a round-the-clock YouTube and whitehouse.gov loop of speeches, ceremony footage and “must-see highlights.” The television press pool went dark after CNN was blocked from its assigned camera duty and the others refused to substitute. British Columbia sued OpenAI and Sam Altman in California over the February Tumbler Ridge school shooting, alleging ChatGPT “encouraged, elaborated, and reinforced violent ideation” and that an internal review was never reported to the RCMP. A group calling itself ShinyHunters claimed it stole FBI employee and applicant data and demanded the bureau retract a May advisory. The FBI said it is investigating; the scope is unverified.

Northeast air travel offered a more analog reminder that infrastructure still matters. A primary communications circuit failed at the FAA’s Philadelphia center; the backup fiber had been cut by railroad construction crews. Controllers lost radar and radios for hours. Newark saw no commercial landings from about 9:40 a.m. to 5:20 p.m.; more than 600 flights there were cancelled, plus 200-plus at Philadelphia, with knock-ons at LaGuardia and Kennedy. Canada’s Mark Carney missed a U.N. sideline event. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the lines were repaired Monday evening but delays would linger. The FAA also began testing an AI tool to predict schedule conflicts — in Washington, officials stressed, not Philadelphia. The clarification was appreciated.

Politics & Policy

CNN, MS NOW and Politico sued in federal court, calling the weekend ban a “blatant violation” of the First Amendment and asking Judge Timothy Kelly — a Trump first-term nominee — for a temporary restraining order. The White House line is that access is “a privilege — not a right.” Trump said he cherishes a free press but not “FAKE NEWS,” which he described as a cancer and a national-security threat. Vice President JD Vance called the outlets “far-left propaganda” still free to report from outside the gates. The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Washington Post declined to publish presidential photographs on Monday in solidarity. Legal scholars, including the Knight First Amendment Institute, called it viewpoint discrimination. The pool boycott left the president inaudible at his own helipad ribbon-cutting — a punchline so on-the-nose that even Trump TV’s mix of older set-piece speeches could not quite sand it down.

Closer to the midterms, an Eighth Circuit panel — one George H.W. Bush appointee and two Trump appointees, including a former Trump lawyer — said Missouri must use the Trump-backed congressional map in November because it was used in the August primary. The Supreme Court has already blocked that map twice; absentee ballots using the 2022 and 2024 lines have gone out; county clerks called a late switch “practically impossible.” Opponents will ask the justices again. In Washington, Utah Republican Sen. John Curtis asked the Judiciary Committee to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. over a Bahamas wedding after-party that ProPublica reported was partly bankrolled by Umar Kremlev, a boxing official with ties to Vladimir Putin. Curtis also asked for Hunter Biden to get the same treatment. Trump said the money would be paid back. The midterm calendar, unlike Iran policy, is very much on everyone’s mind.

Human Stories / Social Trends

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, a 28-year-old Venezuelan DoorDash driver, said ICE rammed his car and shot him in the back in Austin on Sunday while he was on a delivery. The bullet, near his spinal cord, was left in; his lawyer said he later developed left-side paralysis after a transfer to detention in Pearsall, some 135 miles away, where he spent a night without a bed. The Department of Homeland Security said he entered illegally and had a final removal order; his attorney says he had a work permit. About a hundred people protested at the Texas Capitol. A Forbidden Stories investigation found that more than 25,000 people had been deported by 31 August to third countries under deals with 35 nations — most of them to Mexico — with $410 million earmarked for receiving governments and U.N. agencies. Lawyers called the arrangement a “legal black hole.”

On a less lethal gig-economy front, DoorDash agreed to pay New York City $131.5 million over minimum-pay rules for couriers — more than $83 million for idle time between deliveries, $12.3 million for late or missing wages, and $16.7 million in fines. About 264,000 workers are in line for checks; the median is around $48, and DoorDash’s statement began, with rare corporate candor, “We screwed up.” Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration has been the city’s chief antagonist of delivery apps. At the other end of the safety net, Vance and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz said roughly 750,000 Affordable Care Act enrollees had coverage cancelled as alleged “phantoms,” claiming $2.2 billion in savings, with 419,000 more under review. KFF’s Cynthia Cox noted that many people may simply not have answered the mail. After enhanced pandemic subsidies expired, ACA enrolment had already fallen by about three million because premiums got expensive. Fraud exists. So do people who miss a FedEx.