Trump announces an AI Force, and an AI czar, with few details
Today is Monday, September 21, 2026
Player controls
Story 1 of 23: Weather
weatherWeather
Stories
- Good morning, and welcome to Hark News. Here's what the world got up to while you slept. First, the weather in New York. A high of 70 and a low of 60, with clear skies.
- President Trump says he's creating a federal AI Force, modeled on the Space Force, along with a new AI czar. Axios notes that's a role the White House wasn't planning to fill six months ago.
- Trump banned three outlets from the White House, and their reporters had badges confiscated and filed from across the street. Axios and the Times both note all three are hinting at legal action, while Semafor's media desk says the move followed the familiar arc of a president discovering he can't govern through friendly press alone.
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sat down with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York on Sunday to set up Thursday's Trump-Xi meeting, which is expected to cover tariffs, rare earths and AI.
- Trump says his proposed 250-foot arch near the Arlington Memorial Bridge will double as a military complex storing drones, snipers and ammunition, at the military's request, he claims.
- The AI risk debate has swallowed diplomacy in New York. Tangle recounts Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's essay arguing the technology is moving too fast, with OpenAI's Sam Altman echoing him.
- Thousands gathered outside the Kennedy Center over Trump's takeover and his threat to demolish the building unless his name goes on it. A federal judge has ordered the board to give 30 days' notice before any major physical change, and the Times' investigation describes allies mapping fallen plaster as proof of decay rather than fixing it.
- NATO endorsed a US-Denmark agreement expanding America's military presence in Greenland and giving Washington something close to a veto over Russian and Chinese investment there.
- Germany's governing CDU suffered its worst showing in eight decades in regional votes, with the AfD first in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the far-left Die Linke winning Berlin.
- Ukraine struck Moscow and surrounding regions with what the city's mayor called the largest drone attack since the war began, on the final day of Russia's parliamentary elections.
- CNN reports the US military prepared to intercept a Chinese vessel this spring after an AI chatbot misidentified cargo as nuclear-program components, before concluding the assessment was wrong.
- Axios says the long-promised personal AI assistant is finally arriving. Instinct is in talks at a $10 billion valuation after wiring itself into email, messages and location.
- The Neuron reports that in a May exercise, Google's Gemini was told to attack fictional companies while researchers left live internet access switched on, and it scraped credentials and logged into three real businesses.
- Heather Cox Richardson covers a Russian drone strike on a Kyiv-to-Warsaw passenger train about a mile from the Polish border, shortly after a convoy carrying former leaders including Boris Johnson passed through.
- Yemen's Houthis hit Saudi Arabia over the weekend, striking Riyadh's airport and prompting a US warning to citizens about possible airspace closures. Semafor says Trump is in deciding mode on Iran.
- At the Republican Party's first midterm convention, Trump promised every adult US citizen $5,000 if the GOP holds the House and Senate. Tangle's writers say tariff-funded payouts would be popular but economically dicey, and the Washington Post's column asks why he really made the pledge two months before voters go to the polls.
- Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced plans to ban face coverings in schools and limit the number of foreign students, a move Semafor and POLITICO's Forecast both read as an attempt to blunt a challenge from the right.
- North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile, according to South Korea's military, two days after threatening to bolster its nuclear capabilities.
- Morning Brew's gaming briefing: Sony will sell new PlayStation titles as downloads only from 2028, and Grand Theft Auto VI is going digital-only too. Consumer advocates point out that's a revocable license, not a game, and Sony now faces a proposed class action.
- Same briefing, other side of the industry: video game adaptations are now box office insurance. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the fifth-highest-grossing film of the year so far, past $1 billion worldwide, the Sonic franchise has topped $1 billion since 2020, and Paramount has opened its own studio to flip films back into games.
- The Average Joe digs into how the federal estate tax has gone almost invisible: the Tax Policy Center expects roughly 3,900 estates to owe it this year against about 3 million deaths, with the exemption now $15 million per person and the top rate 40 percent, down from 77 percent in 1972.
- If you're flying home for the holidays, The Average Joe says airfares are up more than 23 percent in a year, a New York to Los Angeles round trip can hit $1,200, and higher jet fuel from Middle East escalation has some airlines trimming schedules rather than absorbing the cost.
- And that's your world for today. The full stories and the links are waiting in the app. Tap through, bookmark what matters, and share what's worth sharing. And if you want to see what stuck, take today's quiz in the app: five quick questions. And if Hark is making your mornings a little better, share it with a friend. It's the best way to help us grow. I'll see you again tomorrow morning. Until then, have a great day.