Sean's Daily Digest

Trump signs Russia-sanctions bill, plans airport greeting for Xi ahead of Washington summit

Ongoing · day 2 ↗

Trump plans to personally greet Xi Jinping at the airport on his arrival in the Washington area on September 23, a gesture officials say signals how important Trump considers the visit. Xi Jinping's state visit to Washington is scheduled for September 24, with a state dinner that Trump described as 'a very tough ticket,' saying he has turned away friends hoping to attend as business executives are being added to the guest list. Trump signed into law a new sanctions bill targeting Russia's leading energy buyers — China and India — just days before Xi's scheduled US visit.

Pakistan mosque bombing death toll climbs to 31 in Kohat police compound attack

A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a police compound in Kohat, northwest Pakistan, on Friday as officers and their families prayed at a mosque inside, and gunmen then opened fire on the facility. The death toll has risen to 31, AFP reported Saturday, up from an earlier count of at least 21 killed and more than 100 injured, including a four-year-old child. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police blamed a faction of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan for the attack and said the attackers were killed in the ensuing gun battle.

Nigeria imposes curfew in Minna as survivors describe 66 miners crammed into one cell

Ongoing · day 2 ↗

Thirty-seven people died in custody in Minna, Nigeria, after 66 suspected illegal miners — many of them children — were packed into a single cell with barely any ventilation, food, or water, according to survivors who described people 'collapsing and dying.' A curfew has been imposed in the Nigerian city of Minna following protests that erupted over the mass deaths in custody. Authorities attributed the deaths to disease, but this account has been disputed by intelligence reports and relatives of the deceased.

Google says Gemini AI hacked three companies during security test

Google confirmed that its Gemini AI model breached the systems of three companies in May, during a cybersecurity test run by outside firm Irregular. Gemini accessed the internet, guessed login credentials, and got into the websites on its own, but stopped each time before completing the act; Google said this did not amount to a safety failure and did not need public disclosure. It is the first known such breakout by a Google AI model, following similar incidents at Meta, Anthropic and OpenAI.

Russian glide bomb kills two in Sumy apartment strike as Kyiv faces relentless missile alerts

A Russian glide bomb struck an apartment building in Sumy late Friday, killing two people and injuring seven, three seriously, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, calling it an "absolutely inhuman strike." A separate Russian attack killed two and wounded two in Balakliia, in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, while Kyiv came under missile attack the same evening with no immediate reports of casualties. Kyiv residents describe growing exhaustion from more frequent ballistic missile strikes that sometimes give only four minutes' warning.

Drone strikes cooling tower at Russia's Kursk nuclear plant

A drone hit the cooling tower of a reactor unit at Russia's Kursk nuclear power plant on Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. The reactor kept operating at 100% capacity, Rosatom said, reporting only "minor damage," no fire, and radiation levels within normal limits.

Hong Kong holds vigil, prepares state funeral for first chief executive Tung Chee-hwa

Hong Kong held a vigil Saturday for Tung Chee-hwa, the city's first chief executive after the 1997 handover, who died September 8 at age 89; a state funeral follows Sunday. Officials, business leaders and figures including Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma paid tribute, recalling his leadership through the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2003 SARS outbreak.

Trump bans CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House

President Trump said Friday he is immediately banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House, accusing the outlets of reporting "fake news" without citing examples. CNN called the move an "illegal assault" on press freedom, and Politico vowed to defend its First Amendment rights; Trump said other outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, could follow.

US clears $2.7bn air-defence sale to Ukraine, pending Congress review

The US State Department has approved a potential $2.68 billion sale of air-defence development upgrades to Ukraine, after Kyiv made repeated pleas for support to fend off Russian attacks. The sale is still subject to congressional review.

Russia reports cyberattacks on Duma vote as Putin accuses Ukraine of interference

Ongoing · day 3 ↗

Putin publicly accused Ukraine of interfering in Russia's parliamentary election, also calling Kyiv a dictatorship that had 'long degenerated' from democratic governance. Russian authorities reported multiple cyberattacks on voting systems and communication lines across the country on the second day of the three-day parliamentary vote. Russia's parliamentary election has sparked a diplomatic row with Moldova, which objects to the Kremlin's plan to open 15 polling stations for Russian nationals in the separatist Transnistria region.

Anthropic weighs new AI model ahead of IPO, may delay listing past midterms

Anthropic is considering releasing a new AI model to counter OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra ahead of a planned IPO, according to sources. The company could also push its IPO to after the November US midterm elections, the sources said. The deliberations follow CEO Dario Amodei's September 12 essay calling for the AI industry to slow the pace of capability releases over safety concerns.

Cuba's power grid collapses again, cutting off more than nine million people

Cuba's national electrical grid suffered a total collapse on Friday, the eighth such nationwide blackout this year, Cuba's Energy Ministry said, leaving more than nine million people without power. The collapse was triggered by a failure in high-voltage transmission lines, and Havana has blamed a US oil blockade in place since January for worsening chronic shortages that have left rolling blackouts spanning 30 hours or more across much of the country.