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Episode Date: September 23, 2026

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Live from NPR News, I'm Giles Snyder. President Trump says he has a big decision to make on Iran. Does he make a deal or, in his words, annihilate them? NPR's Michelle Callumann reports on Trump's address to the UN General Assembly. President Trump says he has some options on Iran. He says he thinks they'll make a deal after the U.S. midterm elections. But he's also warning Iran that the U.S. could, quote, drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope for. future greatness for generations. The U.S. launched the war without international backing, and many countries are looking to the U.S. and Iran to de-escalate and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen are threatening another key trade route in the Red Sea, and the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez says it's time to resolve this.

Michelle Kellerman and PR News, the United Nations. While at the U.N. Tuesday, President Trump confirmed that U.S. and Iranian officials met for what he said was a three-hour meeting. He told reporters that the meeting came shortly after his UN speech. Iranian President Mosupazeshkian is expected to address the General Assembly later today. The attorney for a Venezuelan man shot by a federal immigration officer in Austin, Texas on Sunday, says he is back in iced detention center after being taken to a hospital for a second time. A member from Congressman Joaquin Castro's office visited him and told us that he was losing mobility in his left arm because the bullet is lodged near his spine. So his family and I spent the night

very concerned for him. Attorney Kate Lincoln Goldfinch speaking to NPR, she has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop attempts to remove her client, 28-year-old Wilbur, Raphael Garces Perez from the country. The judge's order Garces Perez to appear in person at a hearing September 30th in San Antonio. The former head of the U.S. Forest Service under the first Trump administration is speaking out against a controversial reorganization of the agency. That's happening under the current administration. M.P.S. Kirk Sigler reports former staffers argue the plan will amount to the dismantling a country's primary wildfire agency. The Forest Service, along with its parent agency, the U.S. Agriculture Department, are undergoing a massive reorganization, including the closure of seven regional offices, research stations, and the relocation of its headquarters,

from Washington, D.C. to Utah. Vicki Christensen was a Trump appointee who ran the agency from 2018 to 2021. The reduction in the federal workforce without any real specific strategy is concerning. In a press call organized by environmental groups, Christensen said the broader reorg of the forest services misguided and lacking any accountability from Congress. The USDA has defended it in statements to NPR saying it will make the agency more efficient. Kirk Sigler, NPR News.

This is NPR. To Jackson, Mississippi now Nolan Wells family, pushing back after a grand jury declined to recommend charges in his death. The district attorney overseeing the Wells case announced the grand jury decision late Monday, saying it found no evidence of criminal conduct, and said Wells' death is consistent with drowning. Wells was a black college student who was found dead

after a July 4th boating trip to an island off the Mississippi the U.S. Supreme Court has denied a request to intervene in a multi-state custody battle over a newborn with a heart defect. Tullamaniosi Bamawa with member station KERA reports on the rejection of an Alaska surrogate's emergency appeal via the court's shadow docket. Surrogate McKenna West left Alaska for Texas in July to give birth to a California couple's genetic child. The couple had asked West to get an abortion months earlier after doctors detected a severe fetal heart abnormality. West argues she's the child's mother under Texas law. Earlier this month, a Dallas judge upheld a California court's order establishing the couple as the child's parents. West unsuccessfully asked Justice Elena Kagan, who handles appeals from California to overturn the

order. Last week, the Texas Supreme Court cleared the way for the newborn's genetic parents to take him back to California for medical care. For NPR news, I'm Toluwani, Osi Bamu in Dallas. Hurricane Polo gaining strength along Mexico's southwestern coast to Category 5 storm. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says Polo extremely dangerous, heavy rain could cause flash flooding and mudslides. I'm Giles Snyder, NPR News.