Tuesday, September 22, 2026 · Evening Edition

Today

By StaffNews Desk

Good morning. New Jersey regulators fined a data center more than $1 million after a state inspection found 62 natural-gas generators operating without required environmental permits — the fossil-fueled underside of an AI buildout the industry keeps selling as clean and inevitable. It is not even cheap for the firms chasing it: McKinsey warns agent costs can vary up to 30x between different runs. The bill for the machine lands on the air first.

Capital is reaching into the newsrooms too. Paramount's settlement to clear the path for its Warner Bros. Discovery merger will install an editorial board to oversee CNN and CBS News — a merged conglomerate seating itself over two of the country's major news divisions.

The state offered grieving families nothing. A grand jury declined to bring charges in the death of Nolan Wells, a Black Mississippi teen whose family questions whether his race contributed to his July 4th death on an island off the Mississippi coast; his parents held a press conference Tuesday and said they will not give up. And ICE has quietly removed thousands of people ordered deported from its online detainee locator, which an attorney said could make it nearly impossible for some to challenge their deportation orders. In Washington, Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah called for the Senate Judiciary Committee to subpoena the sons of President Trump and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Abroad, the war grinds on while its backers duck the vote. Sen. Jon Husted wants the Iran war over but won't cast the vote to end it, telling Politico, "The war needs to come to an end as quickly as possible so that we can lower gas prices." He talks gas prices as another U.S. soldier is dead, 66 more wounded this month, the official casualty count above 850. Xi is expected to press Trump to halt a frozen $14 billion arms deal Trump has described as "a very good negotiating chip."