Evening Wrap: Trump expects Iran talks Monday as Starship eyes first orbit at dawn
A recap of Sunday’s biggest stories — Bessent says Iran’s China oil lifeline nearly dry; Russia hits Kyivstar HQ; South Africa twin shootings kill 27 with one Wedela arrest; DOT still set Monday for ~34.5 mpg CAFE; pocket rescission toward Wednesday; Amodei dines at the White House; SCOTUS third-country response due Monday 4 p.m. Eastern.
Evening Wrap video brief · 3:36Presenter voice and image generated with AI tools.Read transcript
I'm Nora Vale with your Evening Wrap World Brief for Sunday, September 27. Trump expects Iran talks as early as Monday via Qatar. Bessent: Iran's China oil lifeline nearly dry; Hormuz flows 15–22M barrels/day. Russia hits Kyivstar HQ; claims Vodafone data-center strike. Zelenskyy: Kyiv data center hit twice; two children wounded. Twin South Africa shootings kill 27. First Wedela tavern suspect arrested in Limpopo; eight still sought. DOT still set Monday for ~34.5 mpg CAFE. Pocket rescission of ~$810M still runs toward Wednesday FY end. Starship Flight 14 still targets Monday 7:15 a.m. CT — first orbital try. SCOTUS third-country response due Monday 4 p.m. Eastern. In national weather, from the National Weather Service: Hurricane Nolo, with top winds near 145 mph, may bring impacts to parts of Hawaii. A round of heavy rain and embedded thunderstorms associated with the meandering Nor'easter is forecast to impact southern New England to the northern Mid-Atlantic through tonight and into Monday. Our opinion. Iran needs real enrichment limits. Ukraine needs an endgame, not blank checks. Stop mandating the cars you drive. Cut wasteful migrant spending. Starship shows free enterprise. Courts should not block lawful removals. Full stories and sources are at WorldBriefNow.com. I'm Nora Vale. Thanks for watching.
One day after rejecting Tehran’s seven-day Hormuz reopening plan, President Donald Trump told Axios in a Sunday phone interview that he expects U.S. negotiators to engage in more talks with Iran this week, saying, “They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make… They overplayed their hand.” Two regional sources told Axios they expect another round of indirect U.S.-Iran dialogue as early as Monday, with Qatari mediators set to meet separately with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News Sunday that only about 15 million barrels of Iranian oil remain out for delivery to China under Operation Economic Outcast and that Tehran will have “nothing left to trade” within about two weeks; he said U.S.-facilitated Hormuz oil flows are averaging 15 to 22 million barrels a day.
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 data center belonging to Vodafone Ukraine, the country’s second-largest cell network; Vodafone Ukraine did not immediately comment. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia struck a data center in Kyiv twice on Sunday morning, wounding two children and an adult. Ukraine’s digital ministry has said Moscow’s data-center hits over the past week caused service outages for about 100,000 households in Kyiv and the surrounding region.
At least 27 people were killed in two overnight mass shootings in South Africa, Deutsche Welle reported Sunday, citing police. Gunmen armed with AK-47s and pistols killed 17 and wounded 15 at a tavern in Wedela near Carletonville west of Johannesburg on Saturday night; a separate attack at an entertainment venue in Lwandle, Cape Town, killed 10 and wounded 11, Eyewitness News and SAPS said. South African police later arrested a man in Tzaneen, Limpopo, believed linked to the Wedela tavern massacre, PrimeTime News reported, citing Gauteng Police Commissioner Gen. Tommy Mthombeni; a manhunt continued for eight other gunmen, and no Lwandle arrests were 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 reported. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the administration would formally announce the change Monday. Under Biden, automakers faced a 50.4 mpg standard; a December proposal would lower the fleetwide average to about 34.5 mpg for cars and light trucks in model year 2031. AAA had the national average for regular gas at $4.48 a gallon on Saturday, up from $3.14 a year earlier.
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 package also targets migrant-education grants, international education programs and other initiatives the administration argued do not benefit American citizens. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, called the maneuver unlawful under the Impoundment Control Act; OMB Director Russ Vought has argued the statute does not forbid rescinding funds near fiscal-year end.
As of Sunday night, 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. Solicitor General D. John Sauer’s emergency application seeks a stay of lower-court limits on third-country removals and an immediate administrative stay; SCOTUSblog reported Jackson set the Monday response deadline after the First Circuit dissolved its prior stay pending appeal. The government says the reinstated district-court order has canceled removal flights and blocked an essential tool against criminal aliens.
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 — about 407 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 Ship splashdown targeted in the Pacific off Chile and the Super Heavy booster splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about seven minutes after liftoff. Prior Starship flights were suborbital; SpaceX coverage is set to begin about 30 minutes before liftoff.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei was set to join President Donald Trump for a private dinner at the White House on Sunday, the first one-on-one meeting between the two, CNBC confirmed, after Amodei missed Thursday’s state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping because of a scheduling conflict. A White House official said Trump has been clear America will lead in “Super Intelligence” while protecting consumers, driving innovation and strengthening competitiveness. The sit-down comes amid strained ties: Amodei recently urged slower advanced-model development and more government oversight, drawing a sharp Truth Social rebuke from Trump, and a federal appeals court on Friday upheld the Defense Department’s supply-chain-risk designation against Anthropic after collapsed Pentagon talks over military use of its models.
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