Thursday morning news: September 10, 2026

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Iran latest » Brent crude, the world's benchmark oil price, closed above $100 a barrel Wednesday for the first time since May.

The U.S. and Iran are in their seventh month of war. Central Command says American forces destroyed five Iranian tankers Tuesday, after Iran twice tried and failed to hit a Navy warship.

President Trump says Iran's leaders are hanging by a thread… trying to leverage the November midterms.

TRUMP: The war will end immediately after the election. Because? Because they can't hold out any longer. They're desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice weak group of people in there and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapons.

AAA put the national average for regular gas at $4.22 Wednesday.

The president also predicted those prices will come down substantially not long after Election Day … which is now less than eight weeks away.

Democrats, though, predict drivers will continue to feel pain at the pump from what they call a war of choice in Iran.

RNC Midterm Convention » And President Trump headlined a gathering of Republicans Wednesday in Texas … at the Republican National Committee Midterm convention. WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports now from Dallas.

TRUMP:  Friends, distinguished guests, Vice President Vance, and the proud citizens of the United States of America, welcome to the first ever midterm convention of any party. 

MARY MUNCY: President Trump says the government will give out $5,000 dollar dividends to every US adult… IF the GOP wins the midterms. He called it the Trump Dividend.

He spoke for nearly two hours to an energetic crowd… saying he would visit every state with a Republican running for Congress to drum up support for the midterms.

He touted substantial drops in illegal immigrants and fentanyl coming across the border….and called men in women’s sports “demeaning.”

The GOP also got an unexpected boost from Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman. He appeared in a video saying he’s a “common-sense” democrat against socialism.

New Yorker Rusat Rampogal says maintaining a GOP majority would mean the President can further his agenda.

RUSAT RAMGOPAL: People understandably may have frustrations with a party in power at different points in time. But the case needs to be made that if the midterms are lost… that is basically the end of enacting the Trump agenda come the beginning of next year.

MUNCY: Vice President JD Vance will wrap up the convention tonight with his keynote address.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy in Dallas, Texas.

U.K. vs. West Bank settlers » Israel is facing growing international pressure over the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Earlier this week...the United Kingdom banned trade with those Israeli settlements and imposed sanctions… singling out what it called settler terrorists.

U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband says he believes a so-called “two-state solution” is the only path forward.

MILIBAND: Two viable and secure states alongside each other, and that prospect is being destroyed by the facts on the ground. The creation of all of these settlements which have been with increasing pace and we weren't willing to stand by in the face of that.

France and Canada announced that they plan to take similar actions.

But Israeli President Isaac Herzog warned that those measures would only backfire.

HERZOG: It will serve no one. It will directly harm, unfortunately, Palestinians, robbing them of business and employment. And, ultimately, it will undermine the interests and national security of freedom-loving nations. 

He said dialogue is the solution, not sanctions.

Israel also responded by saying it would close the British consulate in Jerusalem.

Ex-missionary pleads guilty to molesting kids » A former missionary from Ohio has admitted to sexually abusing boys during mission trips to Haiti. WORLD’s Benjamin Eicher reports.

BENJAMIN EICHER: Jeriah Mast pleaded guilty this week in federal court in Cleveland to two counts of sexually abusing children overseas. Prosecutors had charged him over four boys. The 45-year-old made mission trips there over a span of more than 15 years.

In 2019, Mast confessed to his church, and then to police … that he had molested more than 30 boys in Haiti.

An Ohio judge granted him early release last year … where he had been serving time for molesting boys in Ohio. But federal agents arrested him weeks later.

His plea agreement with prosecutors calls for at least 25 years behind bars, but a federal judge will have the final say at sentencing in December.

For WORLD, I’m Benjamin Eicher.

TSA Pre-check gate access » That, of course, changed after 9/11, but … just ahead of the 25th anniversary of those attacks … TSA is once again letting some people walk to the gate without tickets.

A new program called Gateside started this month. It's free, but you have to have TSA PreCheck or another trusted traveler clearance. And you have to apply in advance … one to three days is recommended.

Right now, the program is running at 13 U.S. airports, including LA, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Las Vegas. But TSA says more will follow.

I’m Kent Covington.

Still ahead… Mississippi’s remarkable reading turnaround. And later… Charlie Kirk’s legacy, one year after his assassination.

This is The World and Everything in It.

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