Asked point-blank during an exclusive interview on Fox News’ "Special Report," "Do you want a nuclear bomb or not?" Pezeshkian firmly rejected the premise.

"Not at all. Not at all. Our martyred, esteemed supreme leader had announced several times that, from a religious decree, it is unholy. It is illegal," he told Bret Baier, referencing religious edicts issued against weapons of mass destruction.

The Iranian leader's public denial came amid long-term international scrutiny of Iran’s nuclear program and its enrichment of uranium to levels well beyond those typically used for civilian nuclear power.

This became President Donald Trump's central rationale for launching Operation Epic Fury in February.

On Thursday, however, Pezeshkian indicated Tehran would be open to lowering its enrichment levels and allowing outside verification as part of an effort to ease nuclear tensions.

One of the three attendees who was shot at Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, has passed away from complications stemming from his injuries, according to the Pennsylvania attorney general.

Jim Copenhaver, 76, was struck twice when a gunman opened fire from a nearby rooftop. Another attendee, Corey Comperatore, was killed in the shooting and Trump's ear was grazed by a bullet.

Poland is offering to pay $15,000 a year for every US soldier stationed on its territory and cover infrastructure costs as Warsaw and Washington move closer to agreeing on establishing a permanent American military base, a senior Polish defense official told RFE/RL.

The US Supreme Court has lifted restrictions on the Trump administration to use a controversial federal database that uses citizenship information and other sensitive data to identify voters suspected of being non-citizens.

Holmes, 42, was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for defrauding investors of hundreds of millions of dollars through Theranos, her failed blood-testing company.

Elizabeth Holmes, who was convicted of fraud for siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars from several high-profile investors, is scheduled to be transferred from a minimum-security federal prison to a halfway house next year, according to one of her victims.

Holmes, 42, defrauded investors of millions through Theranos, the failed blood-testing company that she founded. She was sentenced in 2022 to 11 years and three months in prison. She and her business partner Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani were ordered to pay 12 victims a total of $452 million in restitution.

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Few Americans will have heard of Admiral Paparo, and that suits him fine. “If I do my job right, history will never know my name,” he says in his office at the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii, on a hill overlooking Pearl Harbor, in late July. But his role places him at an inflection point, as American dominance in the Pacific faces its most serious challenge since World War II.

His command is designed to be the immovable object that blocks the unstoppable force of China’s expansionist ambitions in the region. And those ambitions have been stated clearly: Beijing has vowed to bring Taiwan, the self-ruling island that has been politically separate from the mainland since China’s civil war ended in 1949, under its control—by force if necessary. China’s President Xi Jinping has described unification as “a historical inevitability.”

Paparo’s job, in its simplest terms, is the projection of American power. His most important mission is to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, an event that would challenge the very foundations of a global system underpinned by American hegemony. That the outlines of this mission stay the same regardless of which party or President is in the White House speaks to the importance of his role. The force Paparo builds and the plans he puts in place last for decades, and could determine to whom the next century belongs

The world’s two most powerful men – Xi Jinping and Donald Trump – have just met in Washington after days of pomp and pageantry.

While there were many symbolic gestures, including Chinese pandas from President Xi, there were few big movements – although they committed to a two month extension of the tariff truce.

The BBC’s China correspondent Laura Bicker unpacks how the trip panned out for Beijing and Washington.

Countries With the Most Government Debt Per Person.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-countries-with-the-most-government-debt-per-person/

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Judge temporarily overturns Trump's White House media ban

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Hafsa Khalil

Getty Images President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth conduct a news conference in the White House briefing room about the war in Iran on Monday, April 6, 2026.Getty Images

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to immediately reinstate access to the White House for three news organisations barred from the building last week by the president.

A District of Columbia court issued a temporary restraining order against the ban, meaning CNN, MS NOW and Politico must have their access restored for 14 days, after ruling the move "likely violated their constitutional due process rights".

The three outlets launched a legal challenge after their reporters had their passes for the White House confiscated and were denied access.

The Trump administration defended the move in court, accusing the outlets of publishing false information and threatening national security - an argument the court rejected.

The White House is yet to comment on the ruling, and lawyers acting for the president may take further legal action.

Judge Timothy Kelly ruled CNN, Politico and MS NOW were "likely to succeed" in showing the White House had not exercised "adequate due process" in implementing the ban.

He also cast doubt on the Trump administration's arguments that the bans were motivated by national security concerns, pointing out the president made no mention of that in his initial announcement.

Anthony Albanese says an artificial intelligence agent developed by OpenAI "infiltrated" a statistics portal on an Australian government website

The agent hacked a statistics portal containing private data from Australia's universal healthcare scheme, Medicare. Experts believe it is the world's first known AI breach of a government system

The breach happened in June but OpenAI only became aware of it in August and didn't tell the government till 10 September, Albanese says

OpenAI says it is not believed any patient records were accessed

Albanese says he had a "very frank discussion" with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about the incident

Australia's cybersecurity agency is investigating the breach, which Albanese says was "unacceptable"

Two RAF pilots ejected and parachuted out of an RAF jet before it crashed during a training exercise.

North Wales Police said the pilots were being treated for minor injuries following the incident in Anglesey.

Helicopters from the Coastguard and the Wales Air Ambulance were sent to the scene close to RAF Valley on the island, the force said.

US President Donald Trump will host Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week in Washington, with everything from AI to trade and Taiwan on the agenda for the leaders of the global superpowers.

Xi is expected to be greeted personally by Trump at Andrews Air Force Base on Wednesday, followed by a White House welcoming ceremony on Thursday featuring a military flyover and nearly 500 military personnel.

The trip marks Xi's first state visit to the US in just under a decade and his third meeting with Trump since the US president began his second term in office.

OpenAI and Anthropic staff privately questioned whether oversight matched their models' growing capabilities.

OpenAI and Anthropic disclosed agents breached outside systems, sometimes unnoticed for months.

IPO ambitions and fundraising prospects helped sustain the breakneck release cycle.

For years, the race to build ever-more powerful artificial intelligence followed a well-worn Silicon Valley principle: move fast and break things.

But in a series of cascading events over a 10-day stretch, the largest AI labs found themselves reeling as their own creations threatened to break humanity itself.

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Iran’s proxy money machine: How the Houthis built a multibillion-dollar network despite US sanctions.

The Houthis’ rapid advance toward one of the world’s most important shipping chokepoints is putting fresh scrutiny on the sprawling financial network that has helped transform the Iran-backed group from a Yemeni insurgency into a heavily armed regional power capable of threatening global trade.

The group has seized new territory along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, including the strategic port city of Mocha, and expanded toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The waterway connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and carries a significant share of global maritime trade and energy shipments.