September 18, 2026 – Short News

September 18 starts with a pretty wild mix from Washington, Moscow and Paris.

U.N. investigators say there are reasonable grounds to believe the U.S. may have committed war crimes in 2 strikes in Iran, while the White House is going after the U.N. Human Rights Council head-on. In Russia, coloring liquids are being banned from polling places ahead of the State Duma election, while apartments and cars are being raffled off at the same time. Donald Trump is opening more federal land to hunting and fishing and explicitly wants traditional lead ammunition to be allowed as well.

Meanwhile, employees at France's public radio are striking over a commentator from the far-right camp, a federal judge has imposed a 30-day notice requirement on Trump before major changes or a possible demolition of the Kennedy Center, and OpenAI has acknowledged 6 cases in which its own models fabricated data, hid errors or tried to get around restrictions.

U.N. Investigators See Possible U.S. War Crimes - White House Hits Back

The investigation hits Washington in a sensitive spot. Experts commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council say there are "reasonable grounds" to believe that the United States may have committed war crimes in 2 strikes in Iran. The investigators are explicitly not claiming more than that at this point. But even that finding was enough to put the White House on the attack. Spokeswoman Anna Kelly went straight after the U.N. Human Rights Council on Thursday. She said the body had accomplished nothing for human rights for decades and was spouting "unserious nonsense." The White House flatly rejected the allegation of possible American war crimes. According to Kelly, the Iranian regime alone had committed war crimes in this conflict.

Read also our article: Documentation: 178 civilians dead - UN investigators see possible U.S. war crimes in Iran

She pointed out that Iran had killed thousands of people in its own country and killed Americans overseas. She also accused Tehran of terrorist acts in the Strait of Hormuz and indiscriminate attacks on neighboring countries. Washington's answer is therefore clear: It does not accept the accusation against the United States and is instead questioning the credibility of the U.N. body itself. The fight is probably only beginning. On one side are investigators from a U.N. human rights body who say there is enough evidence to support a possible violation of the laws of war. On the other is a U.S. government that dismisses the finding as nonsense and says Iran alone is responsible for war crimes. Two strikes are now enough to put a question on the table that Washington would obviously rather not have there at all.

Brilliant Green Is Restricted, Apartments Are Raffled Off - Russia's Strange Campaign Ahead of the Duma Election

Ahead of the State Duma election, at least 4 Russian regions have introduced new rules for coloring liquids. In Tyumen, pharmacies were asked before the September 18 to 20 vote not to sell larger quantities of brilliant green or iodine to individual buyers. Police officers reportedly recommended cutting people off at 5 packages. The pharmacies received no written order. In Surgut, the issue is already part of the official election plan: Coloring liquids and flammable substances may not be brought into polling places because they could be used for protest actions. Kostroma and Chelyabinsk have introduced similar bans. In Kostroma, all 448 polling places will be equipped with metal detectors. Around 700 police officers are expected to be on duty each day. More than 100 members of the National Guard will join them, and private security personnel are also planned.

There is a reason for all that. During the 2024 presidential election, ballot boxes were doused with brilliant green or ink, and there were attempted arson attacks elsewhere. Such incidents were recorded at 29 polling places in 20 regions. Two years later, the Russian state now treats even a bottle of coloring liquid as a possible problem at the entrance to a polling place. At the same time, quite a lot is being done around those same election days to get people interested. In Moscow, participants in the "Million Prizes" program who vote electronically or through terminals receive at least 1,000 city points. 1 point equals 1 ruble. 100 Russian rubles currently equal about 1.03 euros or 1.18 U.S. dollars. Additional prizes worth up to 50,000 points are also being offered.

The offer is even bigger in Krasnoyarsk. A regional quiz is being held there during the election with 369 prizes. The prizes include 3 apartments and 6 cars. There are also 90 cellphones and 90 smart speakers, along with other prizes. The quiz forms are handed out near polling places. You explicitly do not have to vote to win. In the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, the "Yugra - Together!" campaign is promising several thousand prizes. They include 6 apartments and 3 cars. To participate, people have to answer at least 3 of 5 questions correctly. So authorities are strictly controlling what people bring into polling places. Around them, though, there is apparently plenty to win.

Trump Wants to Expand Hunting and Fishing on Federal Lands - Lead Ammunition Could Become Easier to Use Again

Big words from a president who has only 2 things on his mind: enriching himself and destroying things

Donald Trump signed 2 orders aimed at expanding hunting and fishing on federal lands. The Interior Department and other federal agencies have 90 days to find new hunting opportunities. That also includes species that are not covered by certain protections for endangered species. More fishing is supposed to be allowed as well, both in freshwater and at sea. Washington is changing rules that determine where hunting is allowed on public land and where it has been off-limits until now.

Read also our article: Trump administration wants to make killing endangered animals largely go unpunished

The order becomes even clearer with the 180-day deadline. By then, agencies are supposed to come up with proposals for changing existing restrictions on federal lands. Trump also wants assistive technology to be allowed on access trails and at hunting locations. And then there is a sentence that could easily be overlooked: Traditional lead ammunition and lead fishing tackle are supposed to be allowed. Lead is therefore explicitly part of the package the administration is using to make hunting and fishing easier. This is about a lot more than simply opening a few more access routes.

The orders were signed at first without much of an audience. That changed in the evening. More than 100 invited hunters and anglers came to the White House Rose Garden, along with industry representatives. There they could celebrate what the agencies now have to work through. 90 days for new hunting opportunities, 180 days for changes to existing rules. Trump sets the direction, and the administration is supposed to deliver. And somewhere between public land, a rifle and a fishing hook, there will soon be more lead again.

Strike at France's Public Radio Over Far-Right Commentator at France Inter

At France Inter on Sunday, the one program that went silent was the show hosted by the man at the center of a dispute that has been growing for weeks. Employees of France's public radio system went on strike for 2 days because Charles Sapin has been delivering a weekly political commentary on the country's most-listened-to radio station since late August. Sapin is deputy editor-in-chief of Valeurs Actuelles. Unions accuse him of promoting far-right positions and say the weekly's editorial line is incompatible with the mission of a publicly funded broadcaster. Parts of France Inter's other morning programming were also pulled and replaced with music. franceinfo and France Culture aired normally. Valeurs Actuelles describes itself as conservative, but it has faced numerous court cases and has been convicted, among other things, of public racist insults.

France Inter's management is standing by Sapin. Director Céline Pigalle defended the decision by pointing to political pluralism ahead of next spring's presidential election. She said that kind of pluralism was fundamental for a public broadcaster and that she trusted Sapin not to put France Inter's programming at risk. Around 300 public figures had already pushed back on Saturday in a joint column and demanded that Sapin lose his political commentary slot. His appointment, they said, was "outrageous." Political pluralism had to operate within republican values and should not be confused with tolerance for ideas that threaten democracy or fundamental rights. The signatories include actress Julie Gayet and Nobel Prize-winning author Annie Ernaux. Jean-Luc Mélenchon had already called Sapin's appointment a "fascist takeover" in early September.

The fight comes right in the middle of an election campaign in which France will choose Emmanuel Macron's successor. The presidential election is scheduled for April and May. Marine Le Pen is currently polling at her strongest level yet in her chances of reaching the Élysée Palace. She will also still be able to run despite being convicted in the case involving misuse of European Parliament funds. An appeals court shortened her ban on running from 5 years to 15 months, starting on March 31, 2025. That means the ban will expire before the election. Le Pen has also filed a further appeal. A decision is not expected before the vote, and until then the ruling will not take effect. So while France is deciding who its next president will be, the country's biggest public radio station is already fighting over how far political pluralism should go.

Judge Sets a Clear Limit for Trump at the Kennedy Center - 30 Days' Notice Before Demolition or Major Changes

Donald Trump cannot simply have major changes made to the Kennedy Center overnight. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered the Kennedy Center to provide 30 days' notice before making significant physical changes to the building. That explicitly includes a possible demolition, which Trump recently talked about. Cooper wrote that his decision was meant to avoid any confusion on that point given recent events. The president had said just on Wednesday that the building was in very bad and dangerous condition.

Trump now runs the Kennedy Center himself. Last year, board members close to him made him chairman. Since then, he has reached deeply into the management of the historic institution. Trump said Wednesday that his work to restore the building deserved recognition. If that did not happen, he said, the Kennedy Center would have to close. After that, it could eventually be torn down. That exact possibility is now subject to a court-ordered notice period.

The court is not banning Trump from renovating the building or even demolishing it. But it is taking away his ability to carry out such a decision without advance notice. For major changes, a 30-day clock now starts first. For a building whose future is now directly tied to the president's decisions, 30 days suddenly amounts to quite a lot of time.

OpenAI Acknowledges 6 Cases of Troubling Model Behavior - Data Was Fabricated and Errors Were Hidden

OpenAI has disclosed systematically for the first time that its own models repeatedly showed behavior over the past 6 months that the company itself describes as "unpredictable or concerning." GPT-5.6 Sol was among the models involved, along with models that have not yet been released. OpenAI names 6 cases in total. Models looked for ways to get around normal restrictions. In other cases, data was fabricated or distorted. Errors made while carrying out tasks were sometimes hidden. OpenAI also acknowledges that it had previously disclosed such incidents too rarely and without a consistent process. Its own reports had been more sporadic and should have come more often. A formal process is now supposed to be used. Even incidents whose significance is initially unclear are supposed to be disclosed more readily. There are still no common industry standards for this.

The new disclosures come alongside other incidents from recent months. An OpenAI system broke into systems at Hugging Face. In an investigation by the British institute responsible for the safety of advanced AI models, leading models from OpenAI and Anthropic independently got into third-party software. They then sent messages designed to obtain other people's login credentials. The British researchers described it at the time as an extraordinary case of deliberately deceptive model behavior. In an earlier round of testing, the same institute had also found that one system created fake online identities in order to gain unauthorized access to protected systems.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei therefore called a few days ago for the development of such systems to slow down so potential dangers could be controlled more effectively. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk supported that call. At the same time, OpenAI and Anthropic are planning to go public. Altman said Saturday that an OpenAI IPO probably would not happen before 2027 at the earliest. He cited growing concerns about AI safety as one reason. Anthropic, by contrast, is still planning an IPO this year. OpenAI now at least wants to document when its own models do things that even the company itself did not expect.