IRGC claims U.S. underwater drone seized in Hormuz as Kyiv toll rises and Starship eyes Monday orbit
CENTCOM denies the Remus 600 claim; South Africa manhunt continues with no arrests; DOT still set Monday for ~34.5 mpg CAFE; SCOTUS third-country response still due Monday 4 p.m. Eastern.
2 PM CT video brief · 2:13Presenter voice and image generated with AI tools.Read transcript
I'm Nora Vale with your 2 PM World Brief for Sunday, September 27th. IRGC claims Remus 600 underwater drone seized in Hormuz; CENTCOM denies. Araghchi: fully prepared for war; still awaits official U.S. reply. Russia hits Kyivstar HQ. Kyiv prosecutors: security guard killed; two 16-year-old girls wounded. Zelenskyy: data center hit twice. South Africa manhunt for 8 Wedela gunmen after shootings kill 27. Ramaphosa condemns; no arrests yet. DOT still set Monday to finalize ~34.5 mpg CAFE by 2031, down from 50.4. AAA had gas at $4.48 Saturday. No new Supreme Court orders this afternoon. Third-country deportation response still due Monday at 4 p.m. Eastern. In national weather, from the National Weather Service: Hurricane Nolo, with top winds near 105 mph, may bring impacts to parts of Hawaii. A strong Nor'easter off the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast will bring coastal flooding, rip currents, strong wind gusts, and heavy rain to the region through Monday evening. Our opinion. Iran should put real enrichment limits in writing before America gives an inch on Hormuz. Ukraine needs an endgame, not blank checks. Stop mandating the cars you drive. Clear the path to remove criminal aliens. Full stories and sources are at WorldBriefNow.com. I'm Nora Vale. Thanks for watching.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy said Sunday it seized a U.S. Remus 600 autonomous underwater vehicle in the Strait of Hormuz after what it called a coordinated intelligence and electronic warfare operation, and that specialists were working to recover data, CNBC, Euronews and Anadolu Agency reported, citing IRGC and state media. U.S. Central Command denied the claim: spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins told Al Jazeera, via Euronews, that the United States has “positive control of all of our operational drone assets.” The IRGC also again declared the strait closed; separately, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Iran is “fully prepared for the war to be resumed” while still awaiting an official U.S. reply through mediators after President Donald Trump rejected Tehran’s seven-day Hormuz plan.
Russia hit the headquarters of Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile service provider, on Sunday, with the company telling Interfax Ukraine there were no casualties among staff, Reuters reported. Russia’s defense ministry said it also struck a Vodafone Ukraine data center; Vodafone Ukraine did not immediately comment. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia struck a Kyiv data center twice Sunday morning, wounding two children and an adult. The Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office separately reported that a 56-year-old security guard was killed in the Solomyanskyi district and that a 24-year-old woman and two 16-year-old girls were injured by glass in the Shevchenkivskyi district, The New Voice of Ukraine reported. Ukraine’s digital ministry has said recent data-center hits caused service outages for about 100,000 households in Kyiv and the surrounding region, according to Reuters.
South African police were still hunting the perpetrators of two township shootings that killed 27 people within hours, Reuters and Deutsche Welle reported Sunday, with President Cyril Ramaphosa saying “This cannot go on like this.” In Wedela township west of Johannesburg, gunmen armed with AK-47 rifles and pistols killed 17 people — 13 men and four women — and wounded 15 at a tavern Saturday evening; Gauteng police said they were hunting eight unidentified suspects who allegedly took cellphones and fled in two vehicles, DW reported citing SAPS. In Lwandle near Cape Town, gunmen killed 10 and wounded 11 at an entertainment venue early Sunday; police said no arrests had been made. Authorities said one line of inquiry near Johannesburg involved a possible illegal-mining turf war, Reuters reported.
The Transportation Department remains set Monday to finalize sharply lower Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards after President Donald Trump said Saturday he approved new rules that “TERMINATE” what he called the Biden administration’s EV mandate, the New York Post and Washington Examiner reported. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said a “major victory for America’s auto workers is COMING MONDAY.” The December proposal would set a fleetwide average near 34.5 miles per gallon by model year 2031, down from Biden-era 50.4 mpg; the New York Post noted AAA had the national average for regular gas at $4.48 a gallon Saturday. Congress has already removed fines for missing mileage standards, the Post reported.
The Trump administration’s pocket rescission of about $810 million in congressionally approved spending — announced Friday and still pending as the federal fiscal year ends Wednesday, Sept. 30 — includes some $567 million aimed at Health and Human Services programs supporting refugees, asylees and other noncitizens, Fox News reported, citing the White House. The White House said the package also targets education programs for migrant students, “Woke International Education” grants, and other initiatives it argues do not benefit American citizens. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, called the move an attempt to undermine Congress’s power of the purse and said the Government Accountability Office has concluded pocket rescissions are unlawful; OMB Director Russ Vought has argued the Impoundment Control Act does not forbid end-of-year rescissions, Fox News reported.
As of Sunday afternoon, the Supreme Court’s public docket for Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D., No. 26A406, still showed only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Sept. 24 order directing respondents to file a response by 4 p.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 28, with no further Sunday order listed on the docket page. The Trump administration’s emergency application asks the Court to stay a First Circuit order that blocked expedited third-country removals; Solicitor General D. John Sauer has argued the lower-court ruling disrupted removal flights, including cancellation of a flight carrying aliens with criminal convictions. No new Sunday orders appear on the Court’s orders page as of this edition.
SpaceX is still targeting Starship Flight 14 for Monday, Sept. 28, during a 75-minute window that opens at 8:15 a.m. EDT (7:15 a.m. CT) from Pad 2 at Starbase in South Texas, Space.com reported Sunday. If successful, the fully stacked vehicle — more than 400 feet tall — would reach orbit for the first time and deploy 26 Starlink Version 3 internet satellites on a roughly 10-hour mission, with the Super Heavy booster aimed at a Gulf of Mexico splashdown and the Ship at a Pacific splashdown off Chile, Space.com reported. Prior Starship flights have all been suborbital; SpaceX coverage is expected to begin about 30 minutes before liftoff.
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