Supreme Court lets third-country removals resume; Trump and AI chiefs sign Super Intelligence accord
Justices stay a Massachusetts order blocking deportations to third countries and set December arguments; after a White House lunch, Trump and six tech CEOs sign a voluntary safety accord and he renames AI “Super Intelligence.”
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I'm Nora Vale with your Evening World Brief for Tuesday, September 29. Supreme Court stays third-country removal block; December arguments set. Trump and AI chiefs sign Super Intelligence accord; AI renamed by executive order. DOE seeks exchange of up to 40 million SPR barrels; bids due Oct. 6. Trump: Iran failing badly; Hormuz ship hit by suspected projectile. Putin expands army to 2.44 million; Zelenskyy warns of more North Korean troops. In national weather, from the National Weather Service: Hurricane Nolo, with top winds near 100 mph, may bring impacts to parts of Hawaii. Tropical Storm Polo, with top winds near 65 mph, may bring impacts to parts of New Mexico and Texas. Our opinion. Enforce immigration law while courts decide; real AI audits; nuclear limits before Hormuz relief; Ukraine needs an endgame. That's your Evening World Brief. I'm Nora Vale. See you at nine.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday at the America.gov event that Iran is “failing very badly,” will not have a nuclear weapon, and that the conflict “will be over with very soon,” Fox News reported. Separately Tuesday, UK Maritime Trade Operations said a ship in the Strait of Hormuz caught fire after a “suspected unknown projectile” overnight; the fire was extinguished, the crew was safe, and the vessel continued underway, Fox News reported. Iranian IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi called Trump a “big liar” and disputed that the strait is open, while Reuters-cited Kpler data in the same Fox live coverage put September Hormuz oil exports near 10 million barrels a day — about half pre-war volume.
A presidential decree published Monday on Russia’s official legal database sets the size of Russia’s armed forces at 2,441,630, including 1,550,500 active servicemen — an increase of 15,500 active troops and the fourth such expansion this year, CNBC reported Tuesday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that more than 8,000 North Korean troops are already on Russian territory and that another 10,000 are being selected for training and deployment, and that Russia is paying partly with technology including Shahed-type drone production in North Korea. The moves come as Russia continues near-daily strikes on Ukraine and diplomatic talks remain stalled.
The Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday that overnight it and Shin Bet forces eliminated Azz al-Din Bik (also reported as Izz al-Din Al-Beik), commander of Hamas’s Northern Brigade in the northern Gaza Strip, in a “precise strike,” Fox News reported citing the IDF. The military said he directed terror plots against IDF forces and Israeli civilians and sought to rebuild the brigade after wartime losses. Israeli and Palestinian officials also confirmed the killing to Reuters, according to an FDD overnight brief summarizing that wire report.
After a White House “Super Intelligence” lunch Tuesday, President Donald Trump and leaders of Anthropic, Google, Meta, Nvidia, OpenAI and xAI signed a one-page “White House Accord on Super Intelligence: Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities,” the New York Post and Fox News reported. Trump called the voluntary pledge “almost like a constitution” and “morally binding,” and House Speaker Mike Johnson described layers of internal controls, external audits and board review; Trump also said he plans to name an “AI czar” within days. Later Tuesday he signed an executive order directing the executive branch to use the term “Super Intelligence” instead of “artificial intelligence,” with White House officials given 60 days to draft proposed legislative language defining the term, Fox News reported from the order text.
The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday issued a Request for Proposal for an exchange of up to 40 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s Big Hill and Bryan Mound sites, continuing execution of President Trump’s previously announced 172-million-barrel release coordinated with a broader International Energy Agency 400-million-barrel commitment, DOE said. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the United States and Japan are delivering on their pledges while “several European member countries have released only a fraction” of what they promised, and noted exchanges refill the SPR with premium barrels at no cost to taxpayers. Bids are due by 11 a.m. Central Time Tuesday, Oct. 6, with deliveries under awarded exchanges scheduled for November and December 2026, according to the department.
In a brief unsigned order Tuesday afternoon in Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D., No. 26A406 / 26-426, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s application to stay a February 25, 2026, District of Massachusetts order and judgment that had blocked third-country removals without the notice and challenge process that judge required, according to the Court’s miscellaneous order and SCOTUSblog. The justices also treated the stay application as a petition for certiorari, granted review, and directed briefing for argument in the December 2026 session on jurisdiction, classwide APA relief under 8 U.S.C. §1252(f)(1), and whether the government’s third-country-removal guidance is unlawful. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the stay.
Separate from Tuesday’s D.V.D. order, the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the Trump administration’s emergency application in Trump v. Kingdom seeking to pause a district court order blocking the Bureau of Prisons’ February 2026 ban on gender-transition surgeries, hormone therapy and related social accommodations for transgender inmates; challengers’ response remains due by 4 p.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 8, SCOTUSblog reported. Justice Samuel Alito still will not participate in Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, with oral argument still set for Monday, Oct. 5 — the first day of the new term.
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