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Man shot by ICE officer is detained in Texas with a bullet still in his back, attorney’s office says

AUSTIN, Texas — A Venezuelan man shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer was in custody Monday at an ICE detention center in Texas after he was released from a hospital with a bullet still lodged in his back, the man’s attorney said.

Speaking by phone during a news conference, Wilber Rafael Garces Perez said doctors didn’t remove the bullet because it’s near his spine. He said ICE pressed for him to be released quickly from the hospital so it could move him to a detention center. He said he had received no pain medication or treatment there, and had slept on the floor, before eventually being given a “pill” by a nurse on Monday.

Perez, 28, was making a DoorDash delivery in Austin on Sunday when his car was “sideswiped” twice by ICE officers in an unmarked truck, immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch told reporters Monday.

An ICE officer shot Perez in the back of the neck before officers pulled him from his car, she said. He was taken to a hospital, Lincoln-Goldfinch said, but was released later Sunday into ICE custody with the bullet still inside him.

“I am not doing well due to the gunshot wound, and I have not received the medical attention that I require,” Perez said, speaking in Spanish over the phone as his wife translated during the news conference.

Perez was being detained at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, about 130 miles southwest of Austin, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. She said Perez told her in a prior phone call that he was being interrogated.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has released little information and has not said what prompted the shooting. In a statement early Monday, the department said it was investigating the shooting of a Venezuelan man in the U.S. illegally who “had a final order of removal.”

Homeland Security did not immediately respond to email messages seeking further comment on the shooting.

Perez entered the U.S. legally in 2024 as an asylum seeker and had a valid work permit, Lincoln-Goldfinch said. She said a judge issued a deportation order for Perez after he missed a hearing in immigration court because the hearing notice was sent to a former address.

“Not that being out of status would justify any of this at all,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said of the shooting in a social media post.

The shooting occurred amid a surge in ICE enforcement across the U.S. during President Donald Trump’s second term. During the summer, it reported more than 50,000 monthly arrests in July and August — a first for the agency.

Immigration officers have come under intense scrutiny amid a series of shootings during the crackdown. At least four people have been fatally shot by federal officers during immigration enforcement operations this year.

Local advocates, leaders of the civil rights group the League of United Latin American Citizens, and two Democratic congressmen who represent parts of Austin called during the news conference for the creation of an independent body to review use-of-force incidents by ICE and refer suspected crimes to prosecutors.

They also urged Congress to ban ICE officers from making traffic stops, saying the officers are undertrained and too quick to resort to violence.

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat, has said he wants local police to have a role in investigating the shooting. Watson said it wouldn’t be appropriate for ICE to investigate on its own.

The area beneath an overpass where a large crowd of protesters had gathered Sunday near the shooting scene was quiet Monday. Trash-filled plastic bags were left below concrete pylons marked with anti-ICE graffiti.

Amid discarded police tape, people left candles, flowers, and a sign that read “Justice for Wilber.”

September 21, 2026
More U.S. households are struggling financially, analysis finds

A growing number of American households became financially strapped over the past year and had a harder time keeping their heads above water, a long-running analysis finds.

The share of households considered vulnerable — those that have trouble saving, paying bills, repaying debts, and planning for future needs — rose to 17% from 15% last year, according to findings from the Financial Health Network, a nonprofit focused on financial stability.

And more households are reporting high levels of financial stress — 16%, up from 13% last year.

The findings come as families continue to face rising costs for basics like groceries and gas and for bigger-ticket purchases like homes and cars as well as a pullback in federal assistance for healthcare and food purchases.

The increase this year reversed a small improvement measured in 2025 and matched the highest level recorded since the network began publishing its annual report, Financial Health Pulse, eight years ago, researchers said.

“Households are struggling,” said Taylor Nelms, the network’s vice president of research and insights. The 2026 report, which will be publicly available Tuesday, is based on a survey of more than 7,600 households conducted this spring. The survey uses a nationally representative sample drawn from the Understanding America Study, a probability-based panel administered by the University of Southern California, to estimate findings about all U.S. households. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.1%.

The share of households considered financially healthy held steady, at just under a third, the report said. That level has remained flat for five years. The network defines healthy households as those able to meet current financial needs, stay on track to meet future needs, and recover from unexpected expenses or a drop in income.

Households may shift over time among the study’s different tiers — vulnerable, coping, and healthy. Those considered to be coping are successfully managing at least some aspects of their finances.

About 7.8 million households that were seen as coping in the spring of 2025 found themselves vulnerable this year, the report found. At the same time, about 6 million ascended from vulnerable to coping. The result was that the vulnerable segment grew by about 1.8 million households.

Low-income households were hit hard, researchers found. The share of those families paying all their bills on time, for instance, fell to 49% from 54%.

What’s pressuring Americans’ finances?

A number of challenges, including high costs for food, housing, and utilities, and less generous student loan and healthcare policies, are buffeting Americans, the report found. Financial vulnerability among student loan borrowers, for instance, rose to 27% from 21%, as the government began charging interest on loans that had been in a multiyear pause during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The share of households reporting unmanageable debt rose to 31% — the highest level in eight years — from 29% last year, while the share saying they paid all their bills on time fell by 3 percentage points, to 68%.

Changes in government programs have also pressured family finances, including the end of subsidies that had lowered the cost of Affordable Care Act health plans and new restrictions on SNAP food benefits, the report noted.

Were there any bright spots in household finances?

Household emergency savings held roughly steady this year, the analysis found, possibly because of larger tax refunds around the time the survey was conducted. (The bigger refunds followed a basket of tax breaks enacted as part of the budget law.)

But with less than half of households reporting that they are spending less than their income, it is unclear how long that cushion can last, Nelms said.

Mingli Zhong, a senior research associate in the family and financial well-being division at the think tank Urban Institute, said it was not easy to save when costs were high, but even $50 a month could add up over time. Saving the equivalent of one month of income is often an adequate buffer for many families, she said. “Emergency savings is about preventing people from falling into poverty in the first place.”

Where can I get help building an emergency fund?

More employers are offering options to help workers build emergency savings, either as part of traditional retirement offerings or through separate programs managed by outside providers like Sunny Day Fund.

Sid Pailla, CEO of Sunny Day Fund, said the program encouraged saving for unexpected bills but also for longer-term goals like starting a family, buying a car, or taking a vacation. “Otherwise,” he said, “it comes off as a chore.”

The program’s suggested target of $2,000 may be a “stretch goal,” Pailla said, yet it is “one they feel they can get to.” Employers typically offer incentives, like a $25 or $50 sign-up bonus. Funds are deducted from workers’ paychecks and held at a federally insured bank currently paying just over 3% interest, he said. Withdrawals average $376.

Abner Rivera, 61, a production manager in Lakeland, Fla., for TRG Packaging & Display Solutions, said he had no emergency savings account, whether because money was tight or from “procrastination,” until his employer partnered with Sunny Day. He began saving $25 a week a year ago. “Before I knew it, I had $500,” he said, adding that he was able to use the funds for a $400 car repair. That encouraged him to increase his savings to $70 a week, and he is now nearing his $2,000 goal. Next, he aims to save even more, for a trip to Spain. He said he liked that Sunny Day sends him a weekly email updating his progress. “There’s a structure to it,” he said, which makes it easier to save.

What if I haven’t built up any reserves?

Some employers offer grants for workers facing a crisis, often through third-party coordinators. Rachel Schneider, CEO of Canary, a company that manages workplace hardship grants for employers, said workers could request relief for a variety of setbacks, like a natural disaster, an eviction notice or a utility shut-off order, a sudden medical event, or a car accident leaving the employee without transportation. “People don’t have to put money in,” she said, “and they don’t have to pay it back.”

Companies set the rules for their programs, which Canary administers. Employers can fund grants themselves or raise donations from their workforce. Canary reviews applications submitted via an online portal so workers do not have to be embarrassed by approaching their manager.

“If you just got an eviction notice,” she said, “you don’t want to tell your boss that.”

Ari Medoff, CEO of home care services provider Arosa and a Canary board member and investor, said his company’s employees could request a total of $1,500 in grants over three years. Most of the money comes from Arosa’s workers who contribute a few dollars from each paycheck or at fundraising events. “I think, at its core, a healthy fund gets workers to participate,” he said. “It says, ‘Your peers are here for you.’”

This article originally appeared in the New York Times.

September 21, 2026
To a binational tribe, Trump’s border wall feels like betrayal

TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION — The first fence to slice through the Tohono O’odham Nation was simple barbed wire meant to keep cows from roaming south into Mexico. The second, which rose nearly a century later, was a sturdier steel barricade that stopped smuggler trucks from barreling north into the United States.

The binational tribe, whose land stretches from modern-day Arizona into the Mexican state of Sonora, has long been caught in the middle of disputes over a border between two countries that did not exist when the O’odham’s ancestors first settled here thousands of years ago.

The tribe’s leaders have adapted, working with the U.S. government as it ratcheted up immigration security on their territory. But now they are facing the biggest wall yet, and they are drawing a line.

The Trump administration wants to build a towering 62-mile barrier that would bisect the Tohono O’odham homeland along the international boundary with Mexico, and construction could begin as soon as October. Leaders of the Native American nation say it will restrict member movement, endanger wildlife, destroy sacred burial sites, and undermine tribal sovereignty while doing little to tamp down illegal activity.

“It’s like me bulldozing right through the Arlington Cemetery,” said Verlon Jose, the chairperson of the Tohono O’odham Nation. “We don’t matter to the U.S. government. They want to erase us. They want to take our land; they want to desecrate it. They want to hit us where it hurts.”

The tribe has sued to prevent construction, but the federal government is pushing ahead as it seeks to wall off most of the southern frontier. Last month, masked and armed Border Patrol agents escorted a group of contractors through the reservation to do survey work at the planned wall site. O’odham leaders accused the workers of trespassing.

It is one of many battles simmering along the southern border, where President Donald Trump’s wall has drawn bipartisan outrage in national parks, on private ranches, and among environmentalists and Catholic priests. But this escalating confrontation on Native land southwest of Tucson, Ariz., stands out because it upends decades of uneasy cooperation between the tribe and the United States.

The Tohono O’odham Nation, which occupies a reservation roughly the size of Connecticut, has for years allowed federal immigration authorities to operate bases and surveillance towers on its land. The tribe spends $3 million a year on border security, and its police force works closely with Border Patrol agents.

“We’ve bent over backwards to work with the federal government,” Jose said. “But we will never agree to a wall.”

During Trump’s first term, the tribe successfully lobbied against a wall. But since Trump’s reelection, O’odham leaders say they have found federal officials unwilling to compromise.

The administration, which has waived environmental reviews to speed wall construction, has argued that the tribe’s vast and varied territory is a hot spot for cartel-sponsored crime.

“The project will close one of the most dangerous smuggling and trafficking corridors on the Southwest border,” Rodney Scott, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner, said in a statement.

The Tohono O’odham, whose enrolled members number nearly 40,000, have long moved freely among the Sonoran Desert’s skyscraping saguaros, Seussian ocotillos, herds of javelina, and packs of coyotes.

In the 1850s, the Gadsden Purchase divided O’odham land nearly in half as a new boundary was drawn between the United States and Mexico. Today, Mexico is home to some 2,000 tribal members, as well as ancestral cemeteries and ceremony sites. But to cross, the O’odham must call a Border Patrol agent, who then checks documentation and unlocks one of three gates along the existing barrier.

Illegal immigration and drug smuggling through the reservation surged in the 1990s, raising fears among tribal members and prompting O’odham leaders to increase collaboration with Border Patrol.

“We’ve been homeland security,” Jose said. “We care about who’s coming through our borders.”

The tribe now says the federal government has betrayed that partnership. If the CBP proceeds, Jose said, the O’odham could seek to cancel leases allowing the agency’s offices and towers on the reservation.

The tribe sued in June, claiming the wall would illegally reduce the size of its reservation without congressional approval. Its lawyers asked for an emergency court order to stop construction. Last month, a federal judge denied the request, writing that the government’s security needs outweighed the O’odham’s concerns. The tribe is appealing.

Critical to the court challenge is a 60-foot-wide ribbon of federal land that runs along the border from California to New Mexico, known as the Roosevelt Reservation, where the Trump administration has claimed broad authority to build walls.

The tribe argues that its borderland is exempt from the Roosevelt Reservation and that wall construction would inevitably spill beyond the strip.

A few feet from the border fence, a group of O’odham members has been tending a fire of creosote branches for weeks while praying for a halt to the wall construction. Tribal members at the prayer camp said the idea that CBP would listen to them was far-fetched.

“We don’t trust the government,” said Wynona P. Larson Yazzie, a Marine Corps veteran who lives a few miles from the border.

Some see the dispute as a continuation of abuse and exploitation that dates to Spanish colonization of the area.

“It’s just opening old wounds again,” said Samuel Fayuant, a cultural affairs specialist with the tribe. “They have never healed. It just continues and continues, and I don’t know if it’s ever going to stop.”

If the tribe loses in court, many members have said they would put their bodies on the line to stop a wall, citing the massive protests in support of the Standing Rock Sioux’s fight against an oil pipeline in 2016.

The tribe also has concerns about construction outside the reservation. In nearby Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, where CBP built a wall during the last Trump administration, it is now building a second barrier that will run parallel to the first.

Bulldozers have begun clearing miles of desert to make way for construction, and the tribe is worried the work will wreak havoc on a sacred site known as Quitobaquito Springs.

The spring, a rare desert oasis, hosts three endangered species — a fish, a turtle, and a snail — and was long the site of religious rites for the Hia-C’ed O’odham, a band of Tohono O’odham.

“Quitobaquito is the aquatic, biological gem of that broader desert landscape,” said Russ McSpadden, a conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. Because the Trump administration waived environmental laws, “contractors are pretty much working blind,” he said.

CBP conducts cultural and environmental reviews before construction and hires monitors to oversee the contractors, said Hilton Beckham, an assistant commissioner at the agency.

Illegal immigration also threatens the environment, she said, when border crossers leave “trash, pollution, and damage to natural resources.” Beckham said construction would “avoid Quitobaquito Springs and minimize impacts to sensitive resources.”

But activists and tribal members say the government has a poor track record. Six years ago, border wall construction in the area unearthed human remains and destroyed protected saguaros. In April, contractors plowed through a 1,000-year-old O’odham archaeological site.

Lorraine Marquez Eiler, whose great-grandparents lived near Quitobaquito Springs, fears the cherished place will not survive a second wall. “How much more damage can it take?” she said.

The atmosphere around the reservation is tense these days. On a recent afternoon, Jose was driving along the planned wall site to monitor construction preparation when a Border Patrol agent flashed his lights and swerved his truck in front of the Jose’s SUV.

“Why are you stopping me?” Jose demanded.

“I’m trying to get your attention,” the agent replied. He asked Jose to roll down his windows and identify the passengers in his car, saying he was checking for smugglers. “We don’t normally have a lot of vehicles coming down this way.”

Jose refused, saying, “This is my territory.”

Jose fumed as he drove on, angry that a federal agent would accuse an O’odham leader of wrongdoing on his own land. He continued his survey until he reached a hill on the reservation’s eastern boundary.

Leaning on a dried saguaro rib for support, Jose walked to an overlook and gazed out. Far below, the old steel border fence faded into desert scrub, almost out of sight.

This article originally appeared in the New York Times.

September 21, 2026
White House moves to take control of NIH scientific grants

The White House has begun drafting a new executive order that could further cement President Donald Trump’s ability to control billions of dollars in scientific grants funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Discussed at a highly contentious meeting at the White House on Friday, the directive aims to create a new external committee with the power to veto awards in the nation’s vast biomedical research portfolio that do not conform to Trump’s political agenda, according to people with knowledge of the effort.

The meeting was first reported by the Washington Post. Officials at the Office of Management and Budget, which is drafting the executive order, declined to comment. A spokesperson for the NIH, Joshua Pradko, declined to discuss details of the meeting.

“NIH remains committed to its mission of funding biomedical research to benefit the health of the American people,” Pradko said in a text message.

Referring to reports that Russell Vought, director of the OMB, wants to rescind NIH funding, Pradko added, “There will be no rescissions to NIH grant monies. All NIH grant monies will be spent.”

If the order moves forward, it would mark the latest attempt by the Trump administration to usurp the scientific autonomy of the NIH, a $48 billion agency that distributes a majority of its budget to labs across the country for research into areas such as heart disease, cancer, and infectious diseases.

Traditionally, the NIH selects projects based on expert review of their scientific merit. But Trump has sought through a series of recent directives in his second term to bring that process under political review, arguing in part that the government has been funding “woke” liberal priorities.

Friday’s meeting brought to a head months of conflict between two of the attendees: Vought, who wants to impose greater political control over NIH grant approvals, and Jay Bhattacharya, the NIH director, who is resisting those efforts, according to two people close to Bhattacharya.

Their relationship has grown so contentious that Vought had refused to meet with Bhattacharya, the people said. During the session Friday, Vought accused the NIH director of funding projects that were in conflict with administration priorities, such as supporting research related to diversity and equity.

One of Trump’s executive orders, issued on his first day back in office, ended all administration programs involving “diversity, equity and inclusion.” It has had far-reaching effects on NIH studies, including those investigating “health disparities” — why people of certain races and ethnicities may be more or less prone to certain diseases or to suffer worse outcomes.

As a Stanford University economist, Bhattacharya conducted research on health disparities and has been trying to find a way to preserve NIH funding for such work. In 2011, for instance, he and colleagues reported on “persistent racial disparities in survival after heart transplantation.”

The study, funded by the NIH, found that Black heart transplant patients were at higher risk of death than similar white patients were.

But as NIH director, Bhattacharya has also supported eliminating funding for work he regards as low-quality or ideologically driven. In a brief conversation with reporters early in his tenure, Bhattacharya said the cancellations were targeting “politicized expressions of devotion to a particular ideology” as opposed to “good science.”

On Friday, Vought also sought access to funds for the current fiscal year that have not yet been spent, but he did not succeed. The main argument between them, however, appears to reflect a philosophical difference: Vought wants to cut federal spending for research; Bhattacharya does not.

Nor does Congress, which overruled Trump’s proposal to cut biomedical research spending last year.

Moreover, Bhattacharya opposes Vought’s push to give political appointees the final say over all federal spending, including health and scientific research.

A proposed rule earlier this year would have integrated political review into the entire federal grant-making process, calling for “ending government sponsorship of gender ideology and other radical doctrines,” such as DEI projects.

The changes were widely denounced by the scientific and medical research community, and drew bipartisan rebuke in Congress, where lawmakers blocked the White House from proceeding.

The White House has issued a number of executive orders to stop scientific research into areas that conflict with administration priorities. Thousands of grants were terminated for being in conflict with these priorities.

Even before Friday’s meeting, the administration was entangled in multiple lawsuits that challenged those actions.

Last week, a class-action lawsuit was filed in California district court by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of scientists alleging that the NIH was unconstitutionally censoring scientific research.

The lawsuit, on behalf of researchers who study health disparities, Alzheimer’s disease, and sexual harassment, among other topics, argued that measures the agency was already using to screen grants for compliance with political priorities were a violation of the free speech rights of scientists.

“What the First Amendment does not allow is the government’s use of its funding power to target or silence the expression of disfavored viewpoints within the biomedical research community,” the lawsuit said.

This article originally appeared in the New York Times.

September 20, 2026
Iran-backed Houthi rebels warn against joining Saudi Arabia in Yemen’s growing civil war

CAIRO — A senior official with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels is warning countries against joining Saudi Arabia in Yemen’s revived civil war, telling the Associated Press on Sunday that his group has assured the Trump administration that it won’t attack U.S. vessels in the Red Sea.

Mohamed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthis’ political bureau, said Washington reached out to the rebels after their rapid advance down Yemen’s western coast to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait earlier this month.

“We confirmed that we are not targeting the United States, or any other nation, in the strait, with the sole exception of the Saudi enemy,” he told the AP in a Zoom interview from the rebel-held Yemeni capital, Sanaa. “That remains the case.”

U.S. President Donald Trump last weekend said his administration has “had discussions” with the Houthis, but did not say when. “The Houthis called us, and they don’t want to fight with us,” he said. “They would much prefer not having us involved, and they’re letting most ships go through.”

The AP later reported that Oman hosted a meeting between U.S. and Houthi representatives last weekend, citing a Houthi official and another individual familiar with the talks. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

However, al-Bukhaiti only confirmed indirect contacts with U.S. officials through longtime mediator Oman, which brokered a 2025 ceasefire between the Houthis and the Trump administration. That ended a weekslong U.S. bombing campaign against the rebels in return for them ceasing attacks on U.S. vessels in the Red Sea.

“The goal of our military operations is not to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, but rather to ensure freedom of navigation through it for everyone, including Yemen,” he said.

Houthis claim they can fight a war on multiple fronts

Al-Bukhaiti said the rebels have the capacity to fight a war on multiple fronts “should any nation become implicated in the aggression against Yemen alongside Saudi Arabia.”

“Today, Yemen is capable of waging battle — not merely an internal conflict, but an international one as well,” he said.

He said the Houthi attacks against neighboring Saudi Arabia will persist until Riyadh ends its decade-long blockade on rebel-held areas in Yemen and allows vessels to reach Houthi-controlled ports on the Red Sea. Then they will be ready to negotiate, he said.

Al-Bukhaiti blamed Saudi Arabia for the latest escalation of violence in Yemen, which he said erupted after an airstrike blamed on the Saudi-led coalition fighting the rebels hit the Sanaa international airport. The strike prevented an Iranian flight carrying a Houthi delegation to land. The flight was a Houthi attempt to challenge the coalition’s air and naval blockade.

The Houthis responded with missile and drone strikes on Saudi Arabia, including one that targeted Riyadh on Saturday before being intercepted. Saudi officials said debris from a Houthi drone also killed one civilian and injured others.

The Houthis also declared a blockade on Saudi shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea, attacking Saudi-linked vessels and oil facilities inside the kingdom, the world’s top oil exporter.

The Saudis and their allies have long struggled to contain the Houthis, and may be tempted to seek a diplomatic solution to halt attacks. That might ultimately require U.S. concessions to Iran, the only country with leverage over the Houthis. But Washington’s negotiations with Tehran over their own war fell apart weeks ago.

“We have not closed the door to peace,” Mahdi al-Mashat, president of the Houthis’ Supreme Political Council, the top executive body, said in a speech Sunday marking the anniversary of their 2014 takeover of Sanaa.

The U.S., which bombed the Houthis under the Biden and Trump administrations, has shown no interest in getting involved militarily this time around.

The rebels believe power has shifted in their favor

The rebels’ advance inside Yemen seized the crucial port city of Mokha and key Red Sea islands that allow them to better monitor shipping traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb, through which some 12% of world trade normally passes.

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces, long divided into factions, withdrew but have vowed to regroup.

The escalation ended a 2022 ceasefire that largely ended fighting in Yemen’s civil war, which started when the Houthis swept in from their mountainous heartland and seized much of northern and central Yemen, including Sanaa, 12 years ago.

The Saudi-led coalition entered the war the following year on behalf of the internationally recognized government. The civil war killed at least 150,000 people, according to U.N. estimates, and pushed the country to the brink of famine.

Now, with Houthis in control of Yemen’s western coast overlooking the Red Sea shipping corridor, “the balance of power has shifted in favor of the Sanaa government,” al-Bukhaiti said, referring to the rebels’ de facto authorities there.

“Ultimately, (Saudi Arabia) lost its most critical card: the west coast,” he said.

September 20, 2026
North Korea launches 2 ballistic missiles toward the sea and dials up pressure on the U.S.

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea on Sunday, South Korea’s military said, days after the North threatened to bolster its nuclear deterrent capabilities and respond to what it called U.S. hostilities.

The launches were the latest in a series of weapons demonstrations by North Korea even after U.S. President Donald Trump scaled back a joint military exercise with South Korea last month in an apparent effort to revive diplomacy with the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

The two missile launches — about three hours apart — were conducted from North Korea’s eastern coastal Wonsan area. The first missile flew about 280 miles while the second one flew more than 370 miles, both toward the North’s eastern waters, South Korea’s military said.

The missiles eventually ended up in the sea. South Korea’s presidential office urged North Korea to immediately halt ballistic missile launches that are banned by U.N. Security Council resolutions. The South’s military said it maintains readiness to repel any provocations by the North under a solid alliance with the United States.

Japan’s Defense Ministry said it detected a suspected North Korean missile earlier Sunday but that the weapon did not land in its territorial waters.

North Korea escalates pressure on U.S.

Kim’s sister and senior official, Kim Yo Jong, earlier shrugged off Trump’s overture, saying that shortening the drill wouldn’t change its “provocative, aggressive nature.” North Korea’s military later launched about 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea, apparently following through with a previous threat to respond to the U.S.-South Korean drill.

On Friday, Kim’s sister slammed another recent U.S.-led multilateral maritime exercise in the region as a “frantic military move” by the Americans meant to prolong their hegemony in the Asia-Pacific area. The “Pacific Vanguard” exercise brought together the U.S., South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.

She claimed that “regular U.S.-led war rehearsals” are the main source of worsening tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the region.

“Our will to defend our sovereignty will be expressed in clearer action and there will be never ever change in the course of intensifying the nuclear war deterrence,” she said.

Earlier this month, North Korea conducted what it called a joint live-fire drill involving missiles, artillery, and drones, a day after the United States, South Korea, and Japan wrapped their five-day trilateral military drill that North Korea described as a provocation. North Korea said its drill included firing different types of weapons simultaneously, likely aiming at developing the ability to overwhelm South Korean and U.S. air defenses.

Chances of a swift resumption of U.S.-North Korea talks are unclear

Kim Jong Un has been focusing on expanding his nuclear arsenal after his earlier high-stakes diplomacy with Trump collapsed in 2019.

When Trump ordered the Pentagon to “substantially reduce” the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise with South Korea, he cited what he called a good relationship with Kim, who has called such drills invasion rehearsals.

Emboldened by his advancing nuclear arsenal and deepening ties with Russia and China, experts say, Kim likely thinks he now has greater leverage in possible fresh diplomacy with Trump. Earlier this year, Kim said he could return to talks if the U.S. drops its “hostile policy” against his country and respects what he calls the North’s status as a nuclear state.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, a liberal who advocates improved ties with the North, said on Friday that a resumption of U.S.-North Korea talks would be “an important starting point” toward boosting chances for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

“What is clear is that President Trump wants dialogue and I’ve also been encouraging President Trump to seek dialogue” with Kim, Lee told reporters.

September 20, 2026
Rising gas prices frustrate voters. Trump says it’s an ‘inexpensive price to pay’ for the Iran war

EDINBURG, Texas — Quinten Martinez, pumping gas under a hot South Texas sun, remembers a time when fueling up didn’t require difficult decisions.

“Is it going to be groceries this week?” asked the 28-year-old Amazon delivery driver as he watched the numbers tick higher. ”Is it going to be getting gas in our tank to go to work?”

He shook his head when asked about President Donald Trump’s assertion last week that higher gas prices are a small price to pay for the war with Iran.

“I don’t feel like it’s a good trade-off,” Martinez said. “I don’t feel like this is good for anyone.”

Voters across the country, and across the political spectrum, tend to agree.

Interviews with voters in several states, along with a fresh round of national polling, reveal an overwhelming sense of frustration that skyrocketing gas prices — a direct result of Trump’s war — are creating serious and sustained financial hardships for America’s working class.

The acute concerns are adding to a bad political environment that may be worsening for Trump and his Republican Party as early voting gets underway in the November midterm elections.

Historically, the party holding the White House has suffered major losses in midterms. Today, seven weeks before Election Day, Republican candidates at all levels are struggling with the additional burden of Trump’s weak approval ratings, an unpopular foreign conflict and an affordability crisis that Trump and his congressional allies had promised to fix.

But when Trump campaigned in North Carolina on Wednesday, he played down the impact of surging gas prices.

“You have a little higher. It’s a very inexpensive price to pay for what we’ve done,” Trump said of the war, which he describes as critical to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. ”Remember that. It’s a little more. Frankly, even if it was a lot more.”

‘Gas prices matter,’ Republican strategist says

Despite what Trump says, there are few things that may matter more this election year than the price of a gallon of gasoline, according to political operatives in both parties.

Gas prices are moving sharply in the wrong direction at a time of year when drivers typically get some relief. The national average for a gallon of gas reached $4.48 on Friday, according to AAA, up roughly 17 cents over the last week, 40 cents in a month and $1.27 from a year ago.

“Gas prices matter because they’re one of the few economic indicators voters experience and see in real time,” said veteran Republican strategist Chris Wilson. “The price is literally staring them in the face several times a week. So I wouldn’t minimize the frustration we’re seeing, particularly among working- and middle-class voters.”

Interviews with voters this week found bipartisan frustration and disappointment.

Democrats and independents were especially motivated to punish Republicans at the ballot box for their economic hardship, while some of Trump’s working-class supporters pledged to support Republicans this fall, even if they weren’t happy with the president’s leadership on the economy.

Some Republicans say they’re disappointed

Dan Lloyd, who voted for Trump, lamented the president’s leadership as the 63-year-old carpenter paid $4.39 a gallon to fill up his pickup truck in Mesa, Ariz.

“He hurt himself stepping into this,” Lloyd said of Trump. “Where’s all this oil from Venezuela? I thought we were flush with gas and everything, but no. The American people eat it every time, whether it’s interest rates, food, gasoline.”

Still, he expects to vote Republican in the midterms.

“I think the Democratic Party has lost its way,” Lloyd said. “I just feel like the whole system’s on the verge of collapse.”

In sweltering Edinburg, Texas, 52-year-old Kristin Jimenez shrugged off the rising price of gas after filling up her Mercedes.

“We’ve paid the same price under Republican presidents, we’ve paid this price under Democrat presidents,” said Jimenez, a mother who runs a small business. She plans to vote for a Republican in November because they’re the “lesser of two evils.”

She said gas prices aren’t part of her calculation.

“We don’t mind paying $8 for a cup of coffee at Starbucks, but we have a problem paying four bucks at the pump?” she said. “Make it make sense.”

More than 1,500 miles to the north in central Michigan, 35-year-old Garth Johnson is trying to make ends meet running a deep-cleaning business with several gas-powered vehicles and one machine fueled by diesel, which was $6.79 a gallon as he filled up his SUV.

Johnson voted for Trump, but doesn’t know what he’s going to do in November. Johnson doesn’t feel qualified to second-guess the president’s evaluation of the war, but he’s feeling financial pressure in his own life.

“I like a lot of the things he’s done,” Johnson said, but added, “I’m a little guy and I’ve got to live my life.”

Other voters are not so forgiving

Midterm voting was already underway on Friday in Virginia, where 60-year-old engineer Alan Johnson said Trump seems to have “no empathy” for Americans who are struggling financially.

“With the gas prices being what they are and continuing to grow, we’ve got to do something. Hopefully the Democrats can get into office and turn the ship around,” said Johnson, who cast ballots in the morning for Democrats for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House.

In Raleigh, N.C., teacher Brittney Bivins sees surging gas prices as evidence that Trump and his Republican Party aren’t dealing with the issues that matter most to people like her.

“He really doesn’t care about everyday people,” the 45-year-old said. “He can afford the gas, but most of us can’t. So it feels like he’s not even connected to his own people.”

Bivins, who described herself as an independent, said she’s eager to support Democrats this fall — especially the party’s emerging democratic socialist wing.

At a gas station in Lansing, Michigan., Rina Risper spent $50 on 8 gallons of premium gas.

“When I rolled up I was in shock, actually, and said, well, maybe I should drink water instead of having that $4.99 bottle of whatever it was I was going to get,” Risper said. She thinks Trump’s tariffs will make affordability even worse.

“We’re not in Miami. We’re in Lansing, Mich.,” she said. “It’s really going to impact our people.”

Most voters think administration has made economy worse, poll shows

Nationwide, more than three times as many voters say they are falling behind financially as getting ahead, according to a Fox News survey released Wednesday. By a 15 percentage point margin, Democrats are considered the party that would better handle inflation and prices at a time when the cost of living and the economy are voters’ top concerns.

The Fox poll found that 61% of voters say gas prices are a major problem for their household, compared with 48% two years ago, while 52% say the same for healthcare costs, compared with 44% in 2024. Majorities also view housing costs and grocery prices as major problems, although neither has increased.

Overall, nearly two-thirds of voters (63%) say the administration has made the economy worse, compared with 52% in September 2025, including one-quarter of Republicans. Only 46% of Republicans say the administration has improved the economy, while about one-quarter don’t see an impact.

Back in rural South Texas, an area where Trump’s GOP made gains in recent elections, Martinez, the Amazon delivery driver, could not contain his frustration.

Trump “likes to tout that we are the best economy in the world,” said Martinez, but in more rural towns, “you don’t see any of the winning, you don’t see any of the ups that he’s talking about.”

“You just see struggles for day to day life,” he said.

September 20, 2026
Ukraine fires over 1,000 drones at Russia, including ‘largest ever’ attack on Moscow

Ukrainian forces fired more than 1,000 drones at Russia overnight, including hundreds that were launched toward Moscow, officials said Sunday, as the Kremlin was wrapping up the third and last day of its parliamentary elections.

Moscow’s mayor described the wave of drones as the “largest ever” drone attack on the Russian capital and said there had been damage to the Moscow Oil Refinery, which is among several sites that supply the Russian capital, and a residential building.

Across the wider Moscow region, the attack killed two people and wounded 20, local Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said. The dead were a 74-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman, he said.

Writing on social media, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Kyiv had used a range of missiles and drones in the attack — including Ukraine’s domestically made Flamingo and Pelican missiles — to hit oil and logistics facilities.

“These are billions of dollars that sustain the war machine,” Zelensky said, referring to the financial pressure that Kyiv hopes to put on Russia’s economy.

Ukraine also continued to fend off Russian attacks, Zelensky said. A Russian drone strike hit a monastery in Ukraine’s Kherson region Saturday, killing a member of the clergy and wounding four people, he said.

A Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital also killed two children and their mother on Saturday evening, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv regional state administration. He later said that another child wounded in the same attack had died in hospital on Sunday.

Russia votes in an election devoid of opposition

The attack took place on the final day of Russia’s first wartime parliamentary election — balloting that has been virtually devoid of opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s policies and is all but certain to cement the Kremlin’s dominance.

Russia was also holding the vote in the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the war began but still doesn’t fully control, and in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. Kyiv has denounced the action as illegal.

In a Russian-occupied area of Ukraine’s Kherson region, a Ukrainian attack killed a member of the local electoral committee, Russia’s Central Election Commission said in a statement.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Sunday that its forces shot down a total of 1,110 Ukrainian drones across Russia, as well as over the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the waters of the Black Sea.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that 450 drones had been destroyed en route to the Russian capital, and that the attack had damaged the Moscow Oil Refinery and a residential building.

He said the “unprecedented attack” on Moscow was an attempt to disrupt the elections. “The enemy failed in this regard,” he said.

Since Russia’s invasion more than four years ago, Ukraine has become a global leader in military drone technology, deploying domestically produced long-range drones alongside missiles for strikes deep inside Russia. Its drone technology has impressed governments and defense manufacturers around the world.

Kyiv is aiming to make the Russian public feel the war’s consequences and pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into negotiating a peace settlement. Putin has so far shown no signs he intends to stop the invasion.

Instead, Moscow and Kyiv have been drawn into an escalating duel of long-range aerial strikes as fighting along the roughly 780-mile front line in eastern and southern Ukraine has slowed, restricted by large numbers of drones and ground robots threatening troop movements.

September 20, 2026
Hackers who broke into OpenAI warn the AI industry has a security problem

SAN FRANCISCO — Cybersecurity researchers who broke into ChatGPT maker OpenAI this summer say the artificial intelligence industry is unprepared for the security risks created by the growing power of its own technology.

Researchers from computer security startup Hacktron got inside the company’s systems with help from the Claude chatbot made by OpenAI’s primary rival, Anthropic. After first targeting a public-facing messaging board, they were able to access OpenAI’s private systems, including some of the AI company’s internal code, according to posts on X late Thursday by Hacktron describing the campaign.

OpenAI patched the problem and paid the hackers $6,500 for reporting the vulnerability. But the episode, along with incidents in which AI models accessed the internet undetected and attacked other companies, has drawn criticism from cybersecurity experts. They warn that the effort deployed by AI developers to protect their systems doesn’t match the immense power they claim their technology to have.

Mohan Pedhapati, one of the Hacktron researchers who broke into OpenAI, said the company’s use of conventional business software such as Slack, consumer-grade internet browsers, and other apps that are accessible through the public internet makes it vulnerable to a potential attack.

“If the people building these systems truly believe they are powerful enough to create nuclear-level risks, and they are talking about slowing down because of those risks, why is that work … done through ordinary SAAS products,” Pedhapati said early on Saturday in a post on X, using an industry term for cloud software.

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman recently joined calls from other leaders in the field to slow the pace of AI development, out of concern that its capabilities are outstripping the industry’s ability to control the technology.

“We thank the researchers for contacting us and sharing their findings,” an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement, which also said the company had tightened its security measures. (The Washington Post has a content partnership with OpenAI.)

Frank Cilluffo, director of the McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security at Auburn University, said the ability of a small team of researchers to carry out a hack — at what they said was the cost of $3,000 paid for using Anthropic’s systems — should be considered a “warning shot.”

“If three responsible researchers armed with commercial AI tools could achieve this level of access in days, we have to assume well-resourced foreign intelligence services are pursuing the same targets continuously and certainly never tipping off the target about what they did and how,” Cilluffo said.

National security experts have long warned that American AI companies should expect to be targeted by hackers backed by foreign governments eager to cut into the United States’ lead in the technology. China has a history of seeking to steal U.S. technological secrets.

Calls for an AI slowdown have prompted lawmakers in both major parties to say the industry should be subject to more government oversight. President Donald Trump has firmly rejected such proposals, saying the industry must race forward to stay ahead of China.

The Hacktron breach of OpenAI, which used the security prowess of Anthropic’s chatbot Claude, comes after months of debate in the tech industry and Trump administration about how to respond to the growing power of AI models to identify security holes in software. Although OpenAI and Anthropic have restricted who can access the full cybersecurity skills of their chatbots, Chinese firms release free AI models that now have potent hacking capabilities available to anyone.

In July, OpenAI said some of its own AI agents had broken out of the company’s computer systems during internal tests, accessed the public internet, and hacked into another AI company.

The incident triggered criticism from some cybersecurity experts, who said the company could have done more to make sure its AI couldn’t break out of its networks. OpenAI hired outside AI researchers to study why its agents escaped, but the investigation did not include a traditional independent cybersecurity postmortem.

The Hacktron hack of OpenAI happened around the same time as the incident involving the AI agents. Soon after, OpenAI redirected a substantial amount of engineering resources toward improving its security, OpenAI President Greg Brockman said in a podcast interview with venture firm Andreessen Horowitz released this week.

“We took 25% of our production engineers and said, ‘Sorry, all your projects are on hold. You are now defending,’” Brockman said. “We found a number of serious issues, and we fixed them.”

Hacktron’s researchers criticized how OpenAI responded when they notified the company they had found a way into their systems.

Like many major companies, OpenAI openly encourages security researchers to report vulnerabilities. Fabian Faessler, Hacktron’s head of agent engineering, said in a post on X early on Saturday that OpenAI’s chief information security officer, Dane Stuckey, had called the researchers unprofessional and that Faessler had expected a more welcoming response from the company.

Dan Wallach, an AI security resident at the research organization Rand, said OpenAI was fortunate that the vulnerability was discovered by researchers who came forward and shared what they found.

“As a general rule it’s not polite to do what they did, but I would think that OpenAI should be pleased that the attacker was nice enough to tell them,” Wallach said.

OpenAI’s Stuckey reached out to apologize after Faessler posted his X thread, Faessler said in a later post.

September 20, 2026
Trump and sons invest heavily in AI economy as he resists calls for slowdown

President Donald Trump’s sprawling family business empire has become increasingly intertwined with the boom in artificial intelligence, at the same time that he has resisted calls to slow the development of the technology, a Washington Post analysis of his financial disclosures and corporate announcements found.

Several factors play into Trump’s push for rapid AI development: He has surrounded himself with technology executives and investors who have advocated for the government to accelerate AI development, including venture capitalist David Sacks, Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, and Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. The president fears ceding an economic and technological advantage to China. And he has celebrated the stock market’s record highs, which are heavily tied to the performance of AI-related firms.

But Trump also has a personal financial stake in industries benefiting from the AI build-out, creating potential conflicts of interest as his administration makes decisions that could affect the value of those investments. Unlike his recent predecessors, Trump has not placed his assets in a blind trust, and he has continued to buy and sell stocks while in office.

“No president since we’ve had this regime of conflict-of-interest statutes has ever conducted their finances this way,” said Don Fox, a former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics in the Obama administration. “His predecessors in the post-Watergate era wanted the American people — whether they agreed with them or not — to believe the president was doing what was in the best interest of his country.”

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement that there are “no conflicts of interest.” Trump’s investments are “made entirely by independent managers,” he said.

“All holdings are maintained in discretionary accounts and invested through computer-based model portfolios that automatically replicate recognized indexes, such as the Schwab 1000,” Ingle said in a statement. “Neither President Trump nor any member of his family has any ability to direct, influence, or provide input regarding how the portfolio is invested or when investments are bought or sold.”

The Trump family’s expanding web of investments illustrates how Trump’s personal wealth and his family’s increasingly technology-focused ventures overlap with one of the most consequential policy debates confronting his administration: how aggressively the government should respond to rapid advances in artificial intelligence.

Trump’s investment accounts have disclosed nearly 30,000 securities transactions since he returned to the White House, including many purchases and sales of shares in companies supplying the chips, servers, and energy infrastructure underpinning the AI boom.

Trump has purchased shares in companies including Dell Technologies, Micron Technology, and GE Vernova, government filings show. Those companies’ profits are tied to the enormous spending on computing and electricity infrastructure needed to develop and operate advanced AI systems.

On Monday, shares of all three companies fell amid a broader sell-off in AI-related stocks after prominent technology leaders warned about the risks of racing ahead with increasingly powerful AI systems.

It is not known whether Trump still owns the shares he bought in any of those companies since he does not have to disclose trades in real time. He has also disclosed buying technology stocks whose share prices went up Monday.

At the same time, businesses controlled by or tied to Trump’s family are striking deals that would give them greater exposure to the AI economy. Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, has announced a merger with a nuclear fusion company that plans to develop power plants as electricity demand surges, in large part because of the rapid expansion of AI data centers.

Trump’s sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are investors in a number of AI and data center ventures, primarily through the investment firms 1789 Capital and American Ventures. Trump Jr. is a partner at 1789 Capital, a Florida-based venture capital firm that announced it had closed a $1.2 billion fund that will focus on real estate ventures, including deals aimed at digital infrastructure like data centers.

In a statement, a 1789 spokesperson said Donald Trump Jr. was operating as a private citizen and not in a government capacity.

A growing number of lawmakers, researchers, and technology executives have called for safeguards around increasingly powerful AI systems, with those calls mounting after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and xAI founder Elon Musk warned that the pace of AI development could outstrip the ability of leading labs to control the technology.

(The Post has a content partnership with OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT.)

Trump recently offered a number of responses to concerns about out-of-control AI. Days ago, he posted that the only necessary guardrail for AI was “a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT.” On Saturday in a Truth Social post, Trump suggested policing ”BAD” aspects of the industry through enforcement of existing laws and a new, scantily described “AI Force.”

The clash comes as AI is emerging as a political issue ahead of the midterm elections. Multiple polls show a majority of Americans are concerned about the pace of AI development and opposed to the construction of data centers.

Trump’s stock holdings

The past volatile week in the stock market illustrated how Trump’s wealth could be affected by AI news developments that he has influence over.

After some prominent AI industry leaders spent the weekend advocating for slowing AI advancements over their fears of an AI doomsday, technology stocks dropped sharply Monday even as Trump spent the day ridiculing AI fears as a “hoax.”

Investors, worried that an AI slowdown could hit profits of AI-related companies, sold off stocks of many companies connected to the mammoth, trillion-dollar construction of AI data centers across the country.

Trump’s financial disclosures this year show that he had bought stock of several of the losers in Monday’s stock market decline, including computer chipmakers Broadcom and Texas Instruments and the data center equipment companies Credo Technology and Super Micro Computer.

Trump has attributed his income of more than $2 billion in 2025 to the highs in financial markets.

“You know why I’m profiting, because the stock market’s going up,” Trump told reporters in July after his financial disclosures were released. “Everybody’s profiting. … Thank you, President Trump.”

U.S. stocks have been on a tear for most of the four years since the public launch of ChatGPT kicked off an AI surge. Stocks related to AI are responsible for about two-thirds of the increase in the S&P 500 index this year, according to calculations by Matt Orton, chief market strategist at the investment firm Raymond James Investment Management.

The AI-related market gains have made wealthier, stock-owning Americans richer and spurred them to spend more money, which has boosted overall U.S. economic growth, economists say.

Trump’s family businesses

Since Trump’s first term, his family businesses have evolved from real estate and reality TV to encompass a wide range of technologies at the center of Washington’s regulatory debate.

As Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) prepares for its merger with the nuclear fusion company TAE Technologies, its subsidiary Truth Social is also investing in AI-related products.

TMTG interim CEO Kevin McGurn told CNBC in August that it was going into the “AI world” by licensing access to Truth Social posts to AI labs. AI companies are eager to vacuum up social media posts so they can feed them into AI algorithms in an effort to train those models to mimic human speech patterns.

TMTG would provide data through TruthAPI, the controversial tool that provides companies and investors with access to posts from the president and others. The tool allows investors to access the president’s announcements more quickly than the general public, inviting legal and ethical concerns.

Truth Social has also rolled out a search tool powered by “answer engine” Perplexity. The tool provides answers to questions based on Trump-friendly media sources, such as Fox News and Newsmax, but the Post previously found that it nonetheless frequently contradicts Trump.

TMTG did not respond to a request for comment.

Much of Trump’s income increasingly comes from cryptocurrency-related ventures. Last year he made more than $500 million from World Liberty Financial, a crypto company that Trump founded in 2024 alongside his sons and the sons of Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East.

World Liberty Financial has collaborated with WorldClaw, a Hong Kong-based business that provides access to a suite of AI models. Customers are able to pay for access using USD1, World Liberty Financial’s token. WorldClaw offers access to models made by Chinese companies that the U.S. government has flagged for national security concerns, Reuters reported.

World Liberty Financial also sold a large stake to investors tied to the United Arab Emirates just before Trump’s inauguration. Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser and chairperson of the UAE-based AI company G42, was involved in the purchase.

“World Liberty does not control WorldClaw’s product decisions, including which AI models it makes available. WorldClaw is not accessible to users in the United States,” David Wachsman, a spokesperson for World Liberty, wrote in an email.

The company did not respond to the question of whether the Trump family’s stake posed a conflict of interest but, instead, noted that WorldClaw competed with a similar product operated by Amazon, whose founder, Jeff Bezos, owns the Post.

Trump’s sons’ interests

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are involved in firms that have invested in a broad array of AI-related companies, according to news and data from PitchBook, a venture capital research database.

Within days of Donald Trump’s 2024 election win, Donald Trump Jr. announced he was becoming a partner at 1789 Capital, which bills itself as “funding the next generation of American exceptionalism.” Since Trump returned to office, the firm has made many investments in companies related to AI and the infrastructure underpinning the technology, including Cerebras Systems, Perplexity, and Musk’s xAI, which later merged with SpaceX.

Eric Trump invests through American Ventures, a branch of a boutique investment bank called Dominari Holdings, the Post previously reported. He is an investor in companies operating in defense and robotics, including Space-Eyes, a company that uses AI to process streams of data from satellites and other sensors.

A month after their father returned to the White House, Trump Jr. and Eric Trump also launched an initiative called American Data Centers, which was intended to support the build-out of AI infrastructure. That company then merged with American Bitcoin, a digital asset mining operation majority-owned by Hut 8, a crypto infrastructure company. Hut 8 is developing Beacon Point, a massive data center project in Texas.

Dominari Holdings did not respond to requests for comment.

September 20, 2026