Monday morning news: September 14, 2026

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

Gulf state leaders trying to get oil flowing again » Gulf state leaders are talking with Iran and trying to get oil flowing again in the Middle East. But the Iranian foreign minister Tehran won’t cooperate until Washington agrees to Iran’s terms.

In the meantime, it continues to choke traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. And Saudi Arabia lost its main backup route Friday, when drones knocked out a pipeline around the strait.

And last week the Iran-backed Houthi rebels took a Yemeni port and an island at the gate to the Red Sea.

That’s three ways to move oil out of Saudi Arabia, all squeezed.

MARIB: [Speaking Arabic]

A senior official with Yemen’s government says Yemeni forces will return to Red Sea coast and fight back against Houthi rebels.

Meanwhile, American forces destroyed another Iranian tanker on Sunday, the eighth in ten days. President Trump told reporters:

TRUMP: Iran wants to make a deal so badly. They are calling constantly. They wanna make a deal. Mr. President, they gotta make the right deal. I'm not gonna make a deal that's no good.

No one has claimed the Saudi pipeline attack, U.S. and Saudi officials believe the drones came out of Iraq in an area where Iran-backed forces operate.

The Saudis are holding fire there, at Baghdad's request. But according to the Houthis, that’s not the case in Yemen, where they say Saudi jets hit them well over 100 times in two days. Riyadh has not confirmed it.

Diesel / Trump-Ukraine » Diesel set another record in the U.S. Sunday, $6.20 a gallon. But President Trump says the Middle East turmoil is not the main cause of that. In Ireland Sunday, he said he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy:

TRUMP: Stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia. Let him go after targets, but not diesel fuel, 'cause he's causing a shortage of diesel fuel. This isn't done by the Middle East, this is done by what's happening with Russia and Ukraine. So, uh, we spoke to Mr. Zelensky about it. There are plenty of other targets. Don't hit diesel fuel.

The International Energy Agency says Gulf and Russian refineries supplied almost half the world's seaborne diesel in February. Ukraine hit two more Russian refineries over the weekend.

AI warning » The CEO of a major artificial intelligence company says his own industry is moving too fast.

Dario Amodei runs the AI company Anthropic, the makers of the Claude AI platform. He’s calling on companies to slow down and let safety catch up.

He warns that within six to 12 months, AI could be capable of leading a swarm of programs capable of taking over much or even all of the internet.

Amodei wants outside reviewers inside the big AI companies, with the right to publish their findings. OpenAI's Sam Altman says his company is on board.

White House Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett says he thinks industry leaders are stepping up.

HASSET:  And I think that, uh, if you look at the movement that the private sector is making, the fact that, uh, Elon a- and, uh, OpenAI folks have already supported the actually pretty, uh, sensible moves that D- Dario's advising, I think that that's a good, a good movement forward.

But a number of governors and lawmakers in Washington say the plan doesn't go far enough.

And other critics argue the review plan could give already-established major AI players a tighter grip on the market.

Cyber crimes task force » Federal prosecutors have moved against an online marketplace where criminals shop for the tools to rob Americans. It's called Xinbi Guarantee, a Chinese-language operation on the messaging app Telegram.

Prosecutors say vendors there sold fake investment websites, money laundering, and recruiting for scam compounds in Southeast Asia.

The Secret Service froze $52 million in cryptocurrency. Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia:

PIRRO: Americans are losing, according to the State Department, up to $12 billion a year to cyber fraud and these scam centers, which are mainly in Southeast Asia. It is on an industrial scale.

Pirro started the Scam Center Strike Force last fall. It's now restrained well over $900 million dollars, though restrained means locked in place, not recovered. Prosecutors seized cryptocurrency from two Xinbi-linked digital wallets and asked a court to freeze 47 more.

PIRRO: These are not basement scammers who are like going after one guy or another guy. This is a huge operation.

Treasury sanctioned Xinbi the same day. But the marketplace is still running.

Indonesian ferry » Rescuers in Indonesia are into a second day of searching for about 130 people missing in the Java Sea. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher reports:

BENJAMIN EICHER: A ferry rolled over Sunday in heavy seas, on a run from Java to Borneo.

Indonesian officials say crews pulled 107 people from the water Sunday and recovered six bodies.

The ship did not sink. It was still afloat Sunday, upside down, and rescuers have concentrated on the hull itself.

Waves over eight feet are slowing the search. The local search chief says even his own rescue ship is in danger amid the rough seas.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

I'm Kent Covington.

Coming up, David Banhsen is here for the Monday Moneybeat.

This is The World and Everything in It.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.