Massive MAHA Coalition Representing 63 Million Followers Sends Open Letter to Trump and RFK Jr. Demanding Removal of mRNA Platform

Posted on by
Reply
By Nicolas Hulscher
September 22, 2026

168 prominent physicians, scientists, lawmakers, and public figures unite behind six demands for sweeping federal action on mRNA policy.

A coalition of 168 physicians, scientists, researchers, health-freedom advocates, and public figures—collectively representing over 63 million followers across social media—has just sent an open letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Donald Trump calling for decisive action on the mRNA platform.

The effort was coordinated by Dr. Mary Talley Bowden and includes signatories such as Dr. Peter McCullough, Louisiana Deputy Surgeon General Dr. Sean Troxclair, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, and myself. The full list is at the bottom of this article.

The letter argues that current federal actions have fallen short of the health-freedom movement’s stated goals and calls for the removal of mRNA/gene-therapy-derived vaccine technologies, termination of the COVID-19 PREP Act declaration, repeal of the PREP Act, an end to pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer advertising, and reforms addressing conflicts of interest and coercive healthcare incentives.

Below is the full open letter and list of signatories.

Open Letter Regarding the Removal of the mRNA Platform 

Dear Secretary Kennedy and President Trump,

Executive Summary

As influential leaders within the MAHA and health freedom movements, we are writing to object to policies under your oversight related to the mRNA platform, and to call you to act on our policy goals.

While the centerpiece of the MAHA and health freedom agenda has been removal of mRNA shots, you have failed to take decisive action on this front despite overwhelming credible evidence to the harm of this technology. Instead, your policies related to mRNA technology are neutered and self-defeating, putting pregnant women and children at risk, misleading parents and eroding their rights, and failing to help those harmed by vaccines.

If you continue to ignore our central issue of removing the mRNA platform, the MAHA and health freedom movements will withdraw their support of you, and you will face the political consequences.

Our Objections

We are writing to express deep concerns about policies emerging from HHS, the CDC, and the FDA. Specifically, we object to:

  • The administration of COVID mRNA shots to over 50 million Americans this year. Included are 7 million children, despite no studies demonstrating prevention of hospitalization or death and voluminous data demonstrating severe harms, including deaths of children (at least 10 acknowledged by the FDA to date).
  • The appointment of Erica Schwartz to lead the CDC, who declared during her Senate confirmation hearing that mRNA technology is safe and effective. As you are well aware, it is not possible to make legally valid determinations of safety or efficacy for EUA Countermeasures under ongoing public health emergency under the PREP Act. No technology can be presumptively deemed safe or effective for medical applications for all people or all ages and health statuses.
  • The approval of a new mRNA flu shot that was not tested against a true placebo, lacks long-term safety data, did not measure hospitalization or death outcomes, showed significantly higher side effects, higher deaths, and was not compared to early treatment or any alternative prophylaxis.
  • The absence of meaningful help for those injured from the mRNA shots.
  • The HHS award of $1.24 billion contracts with Pfizer for future mRNA shots, including for children.
  • Failure of the CDC to provide up-to-date cancer statistics amid rising concerns of accelerating incidence of cancer linked to mRNA shots.
  • Failure to enforce the contractual obligations of mRNA shot providers to report adverse events to VAERS.

Removal of the mRNA platform from the market remains one of the central goals of the grassroots medical freedom movement.

Millions of concerned citizens set aside partisan differences and identities to support the historic MAGA/MAHA alliance. Instead of decisive policy actions on these core issues, we see distractions, linguistic misdirections, and watered-down announcements that avoid serious action on the deadly mRNA injections.

Meaningless and constitution-corroding executive action 

Despite the Executive Order from August 10, 2026 reducing the recommended vaccination schedule from 17 to 11 types of vaccines, it simultaneously elevates pneumococcal and HPV shots into the “universal core recommendation”. The elevation of HPV shots to universal core recommendation is surprising given Merck just reached a $50M settlement¹ with 200 plaintiffs who alleged the Gardasil HPV vaccine caused autoimmunity. In addition, the EO promotes the unconstitutional notion of “shared” decision making between the federal government and parents with respect to the mRNA and some additional vaccines. This Orwellian language does not belong in a free society.

Overwhelming credible data calls for the removal of mRNA

We do not need more data to determine whether mRNA products should be removed from the market. The data are already in from multiple credible sources, including over 4,550 peer reviewed publications, the Pfizer documents released through Aaron Siri’s lawsuits, the VAERS and V-safe datasets, and data from foreign governments. These sources document catastrophic levels of deaths and serious injuries from the mRNA injections, as well as reproductive harm, including approximately 400% increase in miscarriage rates.

Self-defeating action puts pregnant women at risk, erodes parental rights

You stated that the shots were removed from the CDC recommendation for pregnant women. Yet pregnancy remains listed as a “high-risk” health category in the revised FDA policy for mRNA shots. It is especially troubling that the new versions of these injections are recommended for all pregnant women, even though this platform has never been tested and proven safe in pregnancy.

Pregnant women have not been made safer by this linguistic shift. Removing the mRNA injection from CDC recommendations for pregnant women and healthy children is meaningless when the American Academy of Pediatrics, to which the vast majority of pediatricians belong, still recommends all babies get a mRNA shot.

Further, the CDC still recommends the shots for every child except those labeled “healthy.” Those outside of this category include children with minor ailments such as an acute illness or allergies. The risks of these shots far outweigh any benefits, particularly given they now carry an FDA warning for increased risk of myocarditis and pericarditis in children.

Parental choice is not realistic when parents are not getting informed consent on the true risks of these products. CDC language appears to erode parental rights. Even for healthy children, the CDC frames the decision as one that parents must “share” with healthcare providers—including pharmacists who lack authority to treat patients. By treating the decision to inject a child with mRNA as a “shared decision,” while treating routine injections as the default, a dangerous legal precedent is being set that assigns powers to the federal government that have historically belonged solely to parents.

Failure to remove labeling of COVID-19 injections as FDA-approved 

The CDC’s COVID shot policy claims to be evidence-based. However, no evidence has been provided—and none exists to our knowledge—showing that the categories of people labeled “vulnerable” under this policy would benefit from mRNA injections. A formal Citizen Petition authored by Children’s Health Defense, asking to properly relabel the COVID-19 vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna as “EUA Countermeasures” is pending with HHS since December 8, 2025.

Under the PREP Act declaration for COVID emergency, the products that went on the market de novo as “EUA Countermeasures” – a non-investigational legal status – cannot be declared “safe, effective and fully approved by the FDA” without complying with the investigational pharmaceutical product requirements under the applicable federal law. The PREP Act was extended by the Biden Administration in December 2024 and upheld by you to date to last until December 31, 2029. The COVID-19 injections never underwent legally valid investigational assessment for safety and efficacy, being subject to only emergency distribution requirements, since the PREP Act precludes use of bio-chemical compounds in clinical investigation. This Petition gathered a record number of public comments in support of it (over 104,000). Your failure to respond to this Petition speaks louder than any placating HHS / Trump Administration messaging on vaccine schedule issues in advance of the midterm elections.

Conflating clearly established risks with an automatically assumed benefit from a product that remains a poorly regulated, liability-free EUA Countermeasure under the PREP Act emergency declaration defies both scientific reason and common sense.

The health freedom movement will withdraw support without action

We did not fight to place you in positions of leadership so that our clearly stated policy goals would suffer a “bait and switch” that rebranded the grassroots powerful objection to the damaging mRNA platform as a concern about coloring agents in Skittles. Health freedom is not the possession of Secretary Kennedy or his advisors. Health freedom agenda arose from the voices of millions of those impacted by the harmful government policies during the pandemic.

The MAHA/health freedom vote was a historic game-changer. Neither Republicans nor the Democrats could have prevailed without this critical swing vote.

Health freedom voters can and will walk away if we continue to see inaction—or condescending non-policy—on our core issues.

If you continue to ignore the centerpiece of our policy agenda—removing all mRNA products covered by PREP Act emergency declarations entirely from the market—you will pay a political price. We will run our own candidates at the state level, and we will support other challengers and sponsors who share our values and advance our draft bills at the federal level for the midterms and for 2028.

Our call to action

We ask you to deliver our actual policy goals in the near term, or face the political consequences:

  1. Ban mRNA/gene therapy-derived technologies for all vaccines, due to their demonstrated abject failure regarding safety, efficacy, and disease prevention after more than four years of real-world use and billions of doses administered.
  2. Terminate the PREP Act declaration for COVID injections, as no emergency exists. Extending this declaration, with its ironclad liability shield for manufacturers and administrators, serves no public health interest.
  3. Recommend that Congress repeal the PREP Act entirely, due to its numerous constitutional conflicts.
  4. Ban pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer advertising, as is the practice in every other country except New Zealand.
  5. Review and revise current HHS-level policies that create perverse incentives for healthcare providers to engage in medical coercion, including but not limited to vaccinations.
  6. End conflicts of interest at the CDC, FDA, NIH, and NIAID.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/massive-maha-coalition-open-letter-trump-rfk-jr-demanding-removal-mrna-platform/5941290

Federal Court Orders Reinstatement of CNN, Ms Now and Politico to White House

Posted on by
Reply

Johnathan Turley

Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, issued a Temporary Restraining Order yesterday in CNN, Inc. v. Trump to restore the access of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico to the White House. As I previously explained, it was the only decision that he could make in light of controlling precedent from the D.C. Circuit in Sherrill v. Knight (D.C. Cir. 1977). The White House will have to get either the D.C. Circuit to overturn the long-standing precedent or get the Supreme Court to do so. Neither is likely.

On September 18, 2026, President Trump announced in a social media post that, “effective immediately,” he was “banning” the news organizations CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO “from the White House.” I criticized the move at the time and discussed how the move ran against the grain of controlling precedent. All of the networks, including Fox News, boycotted the White House in opposition to the move.

The move set a dangerous precedent that could be used against other media, including conservative media in the future. While the Biden Administration constantly attacked Fox News, it never banned it entirely from the White House. Indeed, when President Barack Obama barred Fox from one event, all the networks joined in boycotting the White House until Fox’s access was restored.

For decades, the courts have acknowledged that the White House is not a “public forum” but rejected that access could be denied arbitrarily or based on viewpoint discrimination.

As previously discussed, in Sherrill v. Knight, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia considered a ban on Robert Sherrill, a reporter for The Nation. The D.C. Circuit held “White House press facilities having been made publicly available as a source of information for newsmen, the protection afforded newsgathering under the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press . . . requires that this access not be denied arbitrarily or for less than compelling reasons.”

Even cases that have supported the Administration reaffirmed this line. Last year, the D.C. Circuit ruled for the White House in Ateba v. Leavitt. Journalist Simon Ateba challenged White House credentialing requirements after he was denied a permanent “hard pass.” The appeals court found that, as a nonpublic forum, such a denial was permissible.

However, the Court in Ateba rejected the notion of “unbridled discretion” in such denials. Citing  Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788 (1985), the Court still reaffirmed that “[a]s a nonpublic forum, access to the White House Press Area “can be restricted as long as the restrictions are viewpoint neutral and reasonable.”

Likewise, after the Trump White House denied access to CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, a federal judge (and Trump appointee) ordered the White House to restore the press pass due to the lack of due process and notice.

The D.C. Circuit also considered such denials in the case involving the Associated Press when the Administration barred access to Air Force One and the Oval Office after AP refused to change references to the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America.

In Associated Press v. Budowich, the D.C. Circuit noted:

In Sherrill, we held that the “White House press facilities having been made publicly available as a source of information for newsmen, the protection afforded newsgathering under the [F]irst [A]mendment guarantee of freedom of the press” attached, requiring that “access not be denied arbitrarily or for less than compelling reasons.” 569 F.2d at 129 (cleaned up).

AP initially prevailed before District Judge Trevor McFadden, also a Trump appointee, who ruled that the ban probably violated the First Amendment. He wrote that “under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists – be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere – it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints.”

A divided panel of the D.C. Circuit later lifted the injunction by stressing that Air Force One and the Oval Office are very specific locations subject to greater discretion and controls. However, the court stressed that Sherrill is still good law and bars arbitrary denials. The litigation is still ongoing.

This is why Judge Kelly, as a lower court judge, had no alternative to ruling for the media litigants under binding precedent. He did so, however, on the narrowest grounds (which is also what courts are supposed to do in constitutional cases). Rather than addressing the more sweeping question under the First Amendment of viewpoint discrimination, Judge Kelly found the order issued on social media to be a denial of due process:

Plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success, at least on their Fifth Amendment procedural due process claim. The merits of this claim are assessed in two steps: “the first asks whether there exists a liberty or property interest which has been interfered with by the State; the second examines whether the procedures attendant upon that deprivation were constitutionally sufficient.” Plaintiffs have shown they are likely to succeed at both steps.

As for the first, the D.C. Circuit held in Sherrill v. Knight (D.C. Cir. 1977) that “the interest of a bona fide Washington correspondent in obtaining a White House press pass … undoubtedly qualifies as [a] liberty [interest] which may not be denied with-out due process of law under the fifth amendment.” And if there were any doubt about what Sherill meant, the D.C. Circuit more recently reaffirmed this conclusion in Karem v. Trump (D.C. Cir. 2020), holding that “a duly issued hard pass may not be suspended without due process.”

It would be ideal if the White House would simply let this one go without further litigation. President Trump has made impressive gains in executive power in prior opinions, including Trump v. Slaughter, which overturned the 1935 precedent limiting a president’s power to fire executive branch officials in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States.

President Trump could lose presidential territory over this challenge if it goes to the Supreme Court. The odds are against the Administration, and he could increase, rather than reduce, media rights over access to the White House. It is, of course, possible that a slim majority on the Court could support him, but I think that it is unlikely.

There is also a political dimension to this controversy. The move may be playing well with many in the President’s base, but it is not playing well with the key independents and moderates that Republicans need in the midterm election. There is a great deal of grumbling on the Hill privately that this does not make matters easier for the party as it struggles to hold on to at least one house in the midterm.

It is never easy to get a president to drop a high-profile stance, particularly this President. However, this is how Las Vegas casinos make their money: getting gamblers to double down on a bad hand to recoup their money. It would be far better for the Administration (and future presidents) for President Trump to walk away from the table. He can count some major wins under Article I and could well have some additional victories in the making this term. That would be a better focus of the efforts of the Justice Department.

[…]

Via https://jonathanturley.org/2026/09/24/federal-court-orders-reinstatement-of-cnn-ms-now-and-politico-at-white-house/

Cannon Fodder No More – South Korea Rejects Trump’s Pressure to Join His Criminal War on Iran

Posted on by
Reply
Finian Cunningham
September 24, 2026

Korean defiance is a rallying call for global repudiation of American imperialism.

This is a pivotal moment in history as South Korea tells Trump it is done with being a vassal for American imperialist wars.

KJ Noh notes in this interview for Strategic Culture Foundation that South Korea’s defiance of U.S. power is resonating with growing resistance among other nations towards Washington’s bullying and warmongering.

President Lee Jae-myung of South Korea gave a televised nationwide address last week declaring that his country would not be deploying military forces to the Strait of Hormuz.

That announcement followed weeks of speculation that South Korea would cave to pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been arm-twisting Seoul and other allies to send military support for his seven-month war on Iran. A war that is plunging the global and American economy into turmoil and could derail his presidency in the U.S. mid-term elections.

Geopolitical commentator KJ Noh says the public rejection of Trump’s appeal by South Korea is a major blow to Washington’s international image.

He notes that the Republic of Korea has been a loyal vassal of the United States, always sending its troops to fight American wars. South Korean soldiers have deployed in every U.S. overseas war from Vietnam to Iraq.

“The Korean people are saying they do not want to be cannon fodder for any more U.S. wars,” comments KJ Noh.

He adds that this defiance will inspire other nations to reject American hegemony.

However, KJ Noh warns that Washington is exerting severe pressure on South Korea to bend the knee. “South Korea is a living example of the maxim that to be an enemy of America is dangerous, but to be an ally is fatal.”

Trump is in a deep mess of his own making as a result of his criminal war against Iran, which he is losing. He needs “allies” to bail him out by supplying weapons and military personnel to act as cannon fodder.

Over the past eight decades, South Korea would have bent over and loyally obliged. But not anymore, it seems. The Korean people have had enough of being Uncle Sam’s vassal.

Korean defiance is a rallying call for global repudiation of American imperialism.

[…]

Via https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/09/24/cannon-fodder-no-more-south-korea-rejects-trump-pressure-join-his-criminal-war-iran/

Google’s Gemini joins rogue-AI case list

Posted on by
Reply
Google’s Gemini joins rogue-AI case list– WSJ
© Getty Images / SOPA Images/LightRocket

RT

Google’s Gemini has joined a growing list of advanced AI models going rogue after hacking three real companies during a cybersecurity exercise, the Wall Street Journal has reported. It is the first known case involving a Google system.

The incidents occurred in May during tests conducted by AI security firm Irregular, Google confirmed to the outlet on Friday. Gemini was tasked with breaking into a simulated software company, but was inadvertently given internet access. It breached one real company by guessing passwords and two others using credentials found in public code repositories.

Irregular alerted Google in late July, after OpenAI agents were found to have hacked AI company Hugging Face. Google did not disclose its own incidents until contacted by the WSJ this week, according to the newspaper.

Google said Gemini caused no harm and stopped after realizing it had accessed real companies rather than simulated targets.

”This event highlights the importance of training powerful AI models to act responsibly,” Heather Adkins, Google’s vice president of security engineering, told the outlet. “In this case, the model acted appropriately.”

Google blamed the breaches on mistaken identity and a testing error. The fictional company shared a name with a real business, while Gemini had internet access it was not supposed to have. The company declined to identify the three targets or the model involved, but said the affected firms and federal authorities were notified.

Concerns over rogue AI have grown amid reports of models deceiving users, ignoring instructions, or taking unintended actions. The UK government-backed Loss of Control Observatory recorded more than 300 such incidents in July, nearly twice the previous month’s figure, the Guardian reported.

Former OpenAI and Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon added to those concerns last week when he quit and accused both companies of racing toward self-improving superintelligence without “acting responsibly.” He warned AI could “kill us all” by the end of the decade, citing risks including loss of control, cyberattacks, and bioterrorism.

Leaders from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and xAI have backed calls to slow AI development. US President Donald Trump has rejected such restrictions, arguing that they could hamper the US in its technological competition with China.
[…]

OpenAI agent hacks Australian government

Posted on by
1
OpenAI agent hacks Australian government
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ©  Hilary Wardhaugh / Getty Images

RT

24 Sept 2026

The tech company did not disclose the breach for nearly three months after its AI accessed restricted Medicare files, PM Anthony Albanese has said

An OpenAI artificial intelligence agent “infiltrated” an Australian government health portal in what is believed to be the world’s first publicly reported AI-led hack of a state website. The IT giant kept the breach quiet for nearly three months after its agent accessed restricted files, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has claimed.

An AI agent is a software system that can independently carry out tasks on a user’s behalf, making decisions and taking actions with limited human supervision.

The OpenAI agent hacked the public-facing Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal on June 18 while researching Australian spending on medicines, Albanese said. The portal, widely used by researchers and academics, hosts aggregate data on health spending and government drug subsidies.

The prime minister disclosed the breach in New York on Wednesday after a telephone conversation with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Both are attending the UN General Assembly, where Albanese said he had a “very frank discussion” with the tech executive over the company taking “too long” to report the breach.

The agent repeatedly tried to obtain information from the portal and, after being blocked, found ways around the restrictions. It ultimately accessed restricted files, but officials said there is no evidence that personal Medicare records were compromised.

“The AI agent found a way around those blocks. Didn’t accept no for an answer, if you like,” the Australian prime minister told reporters.

OpenAI, however, did not tell the Australian government about the breach for nearly three months. The company claimed it became aware of the incident only in August during an ongoing review of “misaligned model activity” and eventually notified Australian officials on September 10. The portal has since been shut down and its data moved to more secure systems.

Albanese said he had expressed “Australia’s extreme concern about this incident” and warned there would “obviously be legal consequences.” Altman acknowledged there were “issues with protocols” at OpenAI, according to the prime minister.

A “forensic investigation” led by the Australian Signals Directorate will examine whether OpenAI could face criminal charges, whether other government systems were affected, and why Australian security agencies failed to detect the intrusion. Albanese suggested the agent may have been examining Medicare spending for “commercial reasons,” including expenditure on particular medicines.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said it was the first known case of an AI agent gaining unauthorized access to Australian government IT systems.

This is not the first time OpenAI has been accused of covering up rogue agent activity. The company reportedly kept unauthorized activity quiet for months after its agents bypassed restrictions and used more than ten previously undisclosed websites to communicate. On Germany’s DseWiki alone, they made over 15,000 edits and exchanged tactics for evading safeguards and detection.

In a more serious breach in July, OpenAI agents circumvented safeguards during cybersecurity testing, reached the open internet and gained unauthorized access to systems belonging to Hugging Face, a major AI platform. The incident showed that rogue agent behavior could spill beyond controlled tests and compromise real-world systems. OpenAI acknowledged the breach, calling it a “warning shot” over the risks posed by increasingly autonomous AI.

Other developers have reported similarly troubling behavior in controlled tests. Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 resorted to blackmail when threatened with replacement in simulated scenarios, while other agents covertly altered code, facilitated fraud and manipulated records – behavior researchers call “agentic misalignment.”

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/news/646188-openai-australia-breach/

Israeli Election Committee bars candidate from Knesset race over Gaza war opposition

Posted on by
Reply
Far-left Israeli politician Ofer Cassif speaks to AA in Jerusalem on October 20, 2025. [Mostafa Alkharouf - Anadolu Agency]

Far-left Israeli politician Ofer Cassif speaks to AA in Jerusalem on October 20, 2025. [Mostafa Alkharouf – Anadolu Agency]

Israel’s Central Elections Committee on Wednesday decided to disqualify Knesset member Ofer Cassif from running on the Joint List in the upcoming parliamentary elections, Anadolu reports.

Cassif is known for his opposition to the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government toward the Palestinian people, particularly Israel’s ongoing war in the Gaza Strip since 2023.

Israeli Channel 13 reported that the committee is holding sessions Wednesday and Thursday to discuss requests to bar several political parties from the Knesset elections and has decided to disqualify Cassif from running.

It said the decision was made following a request submitted by Netanyahu’s Likud party against Cassif, with the case to be referred to the Supreme Court, the country’s highest judicial body, for a ruling.The channel quoted Cassif as saying: “The committee seeks not only to exclude Arab voices, but also to silence and exclude from the Knesset any voice that attempts to offer a real alternative to the rhetoric of wars and revenge.”

“Presenting my opposition to the government’s policies and the actions of its agents as support for the enemy, breach of loyalty and harm to the state is a blatant distortion of reality and a complete perversion of the spirit of democracy,” he said, noting that “opposition to crimes committed in the name of the state does not contradict its interests and does not strengthen its enemies.”

Israeli elections will be held amid a fragmented political landscape.

Netanyahu has led the current government since December 2022.

He faces corruption charges, while the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for him over charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.

[…]

Via https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260923-israeli-election-committee-bars-candidate-from-knesset-race-over-gaza-war-opposition/

Iran FM meets with US envoy on UN meeting’s sidelines at American side’s insistence

Posted on by
3

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (R) and the United States’ regional envoy Steve Witkoff

Press TV
22 Sept 2026

At the insistence of the American side, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has met with the United States’ regional envoy Steve Witkoff on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly’s 81st meeting, a report says.

The news outlet affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Iran’s national broadcaster, carried the report on Tuesday, citing an exclusive IRIB source.

According to the source, “Iran agreed to Witkoff’s request for the meeting in order to convey Tehran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.”

Iran’s “firm positions” were communicated to the US representative during the meeting, it noted.

Iran’s conditions

The source identified the conditions specified by the Islamic Republic during the meeting as the immediate lifting of the illegal naval blockade that the United States has imposed on Iranian ports and vessels, the immediate release of all of Iran’s frozen assets, and “an end to the war on all resistance fronts.”

Iran closed the chokepoint following the launch of the latest round of unprovoked American-Israeli aggression against the country on February 28.

The Islamic Republic and the United States agreed on a 60-day reopening period as part of a Pakistan-mediated memorandum of understanding in June.

Iran devised the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), an authority tasked with managing legal transit through the strait, towards implementation of the understanding, but American violations forced the Islamic Republic to reestablish the closure.

As part of Iran’s efforts at enforcing the closure, the Islamic Republic’s Armed Forces have been targeting the vessels trying to illegally cross the chokepoint under American escort.

Tehran has, meanwhile, warned ship owners, charterers, and buyers against buying into Washington’s pledges of “protection” for the vessels seeking to illegally cross the waterway.

At the insistence of the American side, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has met with the United States’ regional envoy Steve Witkoff on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly’s 81st meeting, a report says.

The news outlet affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Iran’s national broadcaster, carried the report on Tuesday, citing an exclusive IRIB source.

According to the source, “Iran agreed to Witkoff’s request for the meeting in order to convey Tehran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.”

Iran’s “firm positions” were communicated to the US representative during the meeting, it noted.

Iran’s conditions

The source identified the conditions specified by the Islamic Republic during the meeting as the immediate lifting of the illegal naval blockade that the United States has imposed on Iranian ports and vessels, the immediate release of all of Iran’s frozen assets, and “an end to the war on all resistance fronts.”

Iran closed the chokepoint following the launch of the latest round of unprovoked American-Israeli aggression against the country on February 28.

The Islamic Republic and the United States agreed on a 60-day reopening period as part of a Pakistan-mediated memorandum of understanding in June.

Iran devised the Persian Gulf Strait Authority (PGSA), an authority tasked with managing legal transit through the strait, towards implementation of the understanding, but American violations forced the Islamic Republic to reestablish the closure.

As part of Iran’s efforts at enforcing the closure, the Islamic Republic’s Armed Forces have been targeting the vessels trying to illegally cross the chokepoint under American escort.

Tehran has, meanwhile, warned ship owners, charterers, and buyers against buying into Washington’s pledges of “protection” for the vessels seeking to illegally cross the waterway.

[…]

Via https://www.presstv.co.uk/Detail/2026/09/22/776828/Iran-meeting-United-States-Witkoff-Araghchi-New-York-United-Nations-General-Assembly

Tehran vows to paralyze airports across West Asia if US allies join campaign against Iranian aviation

Posted on by
3
(Photo credit: Reuters)

The Cradle

SEP 23, 2026

Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei warned neighboring states against joining in on Washington’s ‘adventure,’ after the US announced a campaign targeting the Islamic Republic’s civil aviation

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council warned neighboring states allied to Washington on 23 September that their airports will be “paralyzed” if they cooperate with US attempts to prevent the landing of Iranian airliners.

“We ask all the countries of the region not to join America’s adventure. If they do not allow Iranian aircraft to travel, their own airports will not be able to have flights either,” said Supreme National Security Council chief Mohsen Rezaei in an interview with state television.

“You are our friends, but you should not join America’s ranks. You should prevent the war from spreading,” he added.

Hours earlier, flight tracker FlightRadar24 confirmed that an Iranian airliner belonging to Mahan Air landed in southern China on 23 September despite the new US sanctions against the Islamic Republic’s civil aviation.

Washington’s campaign against Iranian aviation began on Tuesday and was announced a day earlier by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“On 23 September, all Iranian airlines will be grounded globally,” he told CNBC.

“If they land, they cannot be supplied with fuel or landing services, nor can tickets be sold for them; otherwise, you will be cut off from the dollar system,” Bessent added.

Earlier this month, Washington had unveiled sweeping sanctions on all Iranian airliners and foreign companies that do business with them. This included Mahan Air.

Rezaei’s stern warning on Tuesday coincided with the UN General Assembly (UNGA) session in New York, where Iran’s president made a speech.

On the sidelines, and via Qatar, Iran issued its conditions for a return to diplomacy with the US.

Tehran is demanding an end to the fighting on all fronts, a halt to US acts of aggression, the lifting of Washington’s naval blockade, an end to its economic war on Iran, and the release of Iranian assets.

Iran’s military released a statement days ago saying it received intelligence of upcoming, regionally backed US attacks on the Islamic Republic.

“We warn that if the US makes any mistake against the Islamic Republic of Iran, all its positions and interests in the region will be targeted by sustained, effective and painful attacks, without any limitations or considerations,” the army stated, while extending warnings to regional countries allied to Washington.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned on 22 September that any new escalation will be met with an “expansion of the geography” of the war, as well as the use of “new weapons” against “new targets.”

[…]

Via https://thecradle.co/articles/tehran-vows-to-paralyze-airports-across-west-asia-if-us-allies-join-campaign-against-iranian-aviation

Israel Attacks Six Countries in Three Days

Posted on by
2

REVISED_Interactive_Israel_attacks_nations_Sept10_2025

In just three days, Israel has carried out strikes in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Qatar and Yemen.

 

Al Jazeera

By Marium Ali and Alia Chughtai

Data journalist. Senior Data Journalist.

Published On 10 Sep 2025

On Tuesday, Israel launched a targeted air strike on a Hamas leadership compound in Qatar’s capital, Doha, during a meeting to discuss a US-proposed ceasefire for Gaza.

The strike killed six people, including the son of senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, the director of al-Hayya’s office, three bodyguards and a Qatari security officer. However, its top leaders are reported to have survived the attack.

The attack was part of a wider wave of Israeli strikes extending beyond its immediate borders, and marked the sixth country attacked in just 72 hours and the seventh since the start of this year.

Israel continues to bombard Gaza

Israeli attacks across Gaza have killed at least 150 people and injured more than 540 others since Monday.

On Monday, 67 people were killed and hospitals received 320 wounded, including 14 people killed while seeking aid, while six people – among them two children – died from famine-related causes. On Tuesday, another 83 people were killed and 223 were injured.

Israel is continuing its assault on Gaza City, targeting high-rise buildings, destroying infrastructure, and forcing residents from their homes, leaving many with nowhere safe to seek shelter.

Since its onset in October 2023, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 64,656 people, including at least 404 who have died of starvation. Thousands more have been lost under the rubble and are believed to be dead.

Despite a truce, Israel bombs Lebanon

On Monday at 1:00pm local time (10:00am GMT), Israeli warplanes carried out strikes in the Bekaa and Hermel districts of eastern Lebanon, killing at least five people.

Israel’s military claimed it had struck weapons depots and military facilities used by Hezbollah, though the assertion could not be independently verified. Hezbollah has not yet issued a response.

The attacks marked the latest breach of a ceasefire agreement signed last November.

Despite the truce, Israel has continued near-daily assaults on Lebanese territory, particularly in the south, and maintains an occupation at five border outposts in violation of the ceasefire’s withdrawal terms.

On Tuesday, an Israeli drone strike was reported at the entrance of the village of Barja, about 30km (19 miles) south of Beirut, wounding a Hezbollah member.

(Al Jazeera)

Israel targets Syria

On late Monday night, Israeli warplanes struck several sites in Syria, hitting a Syrian air force base in Homs and a military barracks near Latakia, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

Residents reported powerful explosions in Homs and ambulances rushing to the scene in Latakia, though there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned the attacks as a “blatant violation” of its sovereignty and a “direct threat” to its national and regional security. State media described the strikes as part of “a series of aggressive escalations” by Israel aimed at undermining Syrian sovereignty.

Since the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on military sites and infrastructure across Syria. It has also expanded its presence in the occupied Golan Heights by seizing the demilitarised buffer zone, in violation of a 1974 disengagement agreement with Damascus.

The SOHR reports that Israel has already carried out nearly 100 attacks this year, including 86 air raids and 11 ground assaults, destroying approximately 135 sites and killing 61 people.

Gaza flotilla attacked twice off the coast of Tunisia

On Monday night, the Global Sumud Flotilla’s (GSF) main ship, the Family Boat, was struck by a suspected Israeli drone while docked at the Tunisian port of Sidi Bou Said, igniting a fire.

The 23-metre (76-foot) vessel, sailing under a Portuguese flag and carrying the flotilla’s steering committee, had six people on board. According to the GSF, the blaze damaged the main deck and storage areas but was quickly extinguished by passengers. All crew and activists were reported as safe.

The Family Boat is part of a coalition of more than 50 vessels with delegates from at least 44 nations seeking to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza. It departed on August 31, 2025, before joining other ships at Sidi Bou Said port.

A second attack followed late on Tuesday night, when another flotilla vessel, the Alma, sailing under a UK flag, was also targeted by a suspected Israeli drone in Tunisian waters. The GSF said the strike caused fire damage to the ship’s top deck, though the flames were brought under control and no casualties were reported.

Since 2010, several flotillas have attempted to break the blockade of Gaza, with most being intercepted or attacked by Israel in international waters.

[Al Jazeera]

Israel targets Hamas leaders in Qatar

The attack on Qatar, nearly 2,000 km (1,243 miles) from Israel, marks the first time Israel has struck the small Gulf nation, which has hosted multiple rounds of negotiations between Hamas, Israel and the United States.

The explosions were heard across Doha with thick smoke rising above the skyline. Israel’s military later confirmed it had struck a compound in the West Bay Lagoon area, a district which is home to foreign embassies, schools, nurseries, supermarkets and residential compounds housing native Qataris and foreign residents.

The Hamas leadership has been hosted by Qatar at the request of the United States, which also has a regional command centre, CENTCOM, located just 35km (22 miles) away from the location of the attack.

Israel attacks Yemen’s capital

Israel launched an air strike on Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, on Wednesday, targeting Houthi positions. The strike hit Sanaa airport, marking the second attack on the site in a month. Israel previously struck Sanaa airport on May 6, destroying its terminal building and badly damaging the runway.

On August 28, 2025, Israeli air strikes targeted a Houthi government meeting in the capital, killing Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi and several other senior officials.

[…]

Via https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/10/maps-israel-has-attacked-six-countries-in-the-past-72-hours

Iran War Leads to Fluoride Shortages for Some Utilities

Posted on by
2

Fran Kritz

By: Zachary Stieber The Epoch Times

Multiple water providers have lowered the amount of fluoride they add to water for millions of Americans, amid shortages stemming from the U.S.–Iran war.

The Baltimore City Department of Public Works said on April 13 that it is reducing the level of fluoride in their water supply. The move, officials said, was driven by disruptions to the supply chain caused by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. A key Israeli supplier, specifically, has been struggling to meet demand. “This is an adjustment driven solely by supply availability,” Matthew Garbark, director of the Baltimore City Department of Public Works, said in a statement. Read the good news here.