Thursday morning news: October 1, 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.

Iraq withdrawal » President Trump is celebrating the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq.

TRUMP: I'm pleased to announce that the last American forces are leaving Iraq.

The Pentagon says the final troops left an air base in Erbil Wednesday. That was the deadline in a 2024 deal with Baghdad.

The moment comes 23 years after President George W. Bush sent American forces into Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein.

BUSH: Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly... yet our purpose is sure.

Trump on Wednesday again called that war a mistake. But the troops leaving now weren't fighting it. President Barack Obama pulled all U.S. forces out in 2011.

Critics, including his own defense secretary, Leon Panetta, said the White House didn't push hard enough to keep a residual force and that the withdrawal helped create a power vacuum that ISIS rose up to fill.

In 2014, Obama sent troops back to fight the terror group. That's the mission ending now.

TRUMP: So this day is a victory for the United States, it's a victory for Iraq, and a decisive victory over ISIS, which has been completely decimated, which is the reason we went in there in the first place.

But officials in Iraq's Kurdish region say losing American air defenses worries them after more than a thousand drone and missile attacks there during this year's U.S. war with Iran.

Israel-Dubai flight » Terror in the skies over the Middle East after a pilot apparently tried to hijack a commercial airliner.

SOUND: [Airplane video]

Authorities say passengers aboard a Boeing 737 had to leap into action Wednesday after one of the pilots stabbed the other then tried to crash the plane.

The flight operated by the airline Flydubai had left the United Arab Emirates on its way to Tel Aviv, carrying around 170 people, mostly Israelis.

AUDIO: [Passenger]

In this video posted to social media during the flight a bloody passenger says they've, in his words, controlled the terrorists and are now in need of help.

Another crew member on board was ultimately able to land the plane in Saudi Arabia.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he later spoke to one of the passengers who intervened.

NETANYAHU: He told me that the plane went into a spin and began to dive. He told me that, against all odds, he managed to break into the cockpit with one of the crewmembers and together, they neutralized the stabbing pilot while he was trying to sabotage the plane's systems.

Netanyahu said Saudi officials arrested the pilot suspected in the attack. He is reportedly an Omani national. There was no immediate word on his identity or motivation.

UK says Iran played part in plot » Meantime, Britain Prime Minister Andy Burnham is pointing to Iran in a suspected plot against an air base used by American bombers.

Police arrested five British men in their 20s Sunday near RAF Fairford, a Royal Air Force base west of London. U.S. bombers have flown from there to strike Iran during this year's war.

The men were held on suspicion of explosives and terrorism offenses. Police say they found gasoline in the vans, but no explosives.

Burnham told the BBC:

BURNHAM: There are strong indications that Iran played a part in what happened over the weekend at RAF Fairford, but of course it remains an ongoing complex and serious police investigation.

He added that officials are, his words, "working closely with our colleagues in the United States of America."

Burnham did not say what links the men to Iran. Britain's counterterrorism police chief says investigators are looking at whether they acted for a foreign state, knowingly or not. Iran denies any role.

Police released all five on bail Monday without charges, a decision President Trump criticized this week.

Inflation cools » The Fed’s favorite inflation gauge shows that inflation wasn’t as high as expected in August. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher has more:

BENJAMIN EICHER: That gauge is known as the PCE index. It tracks how much prices change for the things Americans buy.

It rose by just three-tenths of a percent in August, and 3.4 percent year-over-year, beating expectations.

Core PCE, which leaves out volatile food and energy prices, rose just two-tenths of a percent. That put its annual rate at 3%.

But that's still above the Federal Reserve’s target. The Fed last month raised interest rates for the first time in three years to fight inflation, and projected one more hike later this year.

Wall Street believes this cooler reading could delay that.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield, which helps drive borrowing costs like mortgage rates, climbed to its highest level in more than two decades.

For WORLD, I'm Benjamin Eicher.

Hurricane Polo remnants » Forecasters are warning of flash flooding across Texas today from what's left of a Pacific hurricane.

Hurricane Polo slammed into Mexico's Baja California peninsula Tuesday, crossed the Gulf of California and hit mainland Mexico before falling apart.

In Arizona and Utah, rescue crews pulled people from floodwaters. One homeowner sized up the water surrounding the house:

AUDIO: Right now, there's about a foot of water standing right there, and on that side of the house there's about the same, and across the front there's about eight to 10 inches of water.

In southern New Mexico, water poured over the top of an earthen dam Tuesday near the farm town of Hatch, prompting an evacuation.

Now that moisture is moving east. Forecasters say several inches could fall from south Texas up through Kansas and Iowa, and some spots could top half a foot.

I'm Kent Covington.

Still to come, a shield against taxpayer-funded abortion has survived for a half-century, but will it live on? Plus, does cloud seeding actually make it rain?

This is The World and Everything in It.

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