The Headlines - U.S. Withdraws From Iraq After Two Decades, and Trump Tells A.I. Giants to Police Themselves

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

Plus, the nepo babies take Fat Bear Week. Here’s what we’re covering:After Two Decades, U.S. Forces Leave Iraq to an Uncertain Future, by Erika Solomon, Falih Hassan and Eric SchmittOpenAI Ignored Employees Who Warned It Wasn’t Doing Enough About Security, by Sheera Frenkel, Dustin Volz and Dylan FreedmanAt White House, Trump Asks A.I. Titans to Police Themselves, by Katie Rogers and Cecilia KangSupreme Court Allows Rapid Third-Country Deportations, for Now, by Abbie VanSickleICE Plans 5,000 New Hires to Help With Deportation Drive, by Alexandra Berzon and Hamed AleazizBackpack Is the Fattest of the Fat Bears, by Madison Malone Kircher Tune in every weekday morning, and tell us what you think at: [e-mail]. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today is Wednesday, September 30th. Here's what we're covering. Even with all eyes on Iran at the moment, the big story today is next door in Iraq. As of this morning, U.S. forces have formally withdrawn from the country, ending a two-decade military presence that began with the U.S. toppling of the dictator Saddam Hussein back in 2003. This is actually the U.S.'s second withdrawal. American forces first left Iraq in 2011, only to return a few years later to fight ISIS after the jihadist group spread across the region.

Now, the last of the U.S. forces that were still stationed in Iraq are gone. Under a withdrawal agreement, the Baghdad government struck with the Biden administration. It set a deadline of September 30th, and the Trump administration has followed through. Iraq is marking the occasion with a three-day, quote, celebration of sovereignty. an end to the U.S. military presence that set off so much deadly violence there and included grave abuses like the torture of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib by American soldiers and the extrajudicial killings of Iraqi civilians by private defense contractors. Still, some in Iraq are concerned that it's a precarious time to see American troops go. We spoke to one man from Mosul who described how his wife went blind because she was hurt. by an American bullet. His uncle was paralyzed by an American bullet. But now, 20 years later,

watching the Americans leave, the feeling of happiness he expected is mixed with a lot of anxiety. Erica Solomon covers Iraq for the times. She says one of the biggest concerns is what the withdrawal will mean for Iran's influence in Iraq. A vast array of Iran-backed militias operate in the country. And in recent months, Iran has used the groups to launch strikes and so chaos. in the region. Officially, Iraq is celebrating this moment. But privately, when you speak to an Iraqi official or just a normal Iraqi in their home, they're really afraid they have this anxiety of being swallowed by the regional crisis all around them. You know, the United States and Iran, which is their neighbor, are at war. It's creating regional turmoil. And they all remember

quite clearly how the last time the U.S. withdrew just a few years later, jihadist militants took over swathes of their country. So they're very worried about what happens next with these militias. Erica says for now, the United States and Iraq have still not hammered out final plans for what their security relationships will look like moving forward. And as of today, the Iran-backed militias are treating the withdrawal as a victory for them, calling for their own celebrations in the streets of Baghdad this afternoon. Over the last few weeks, the tech giant OpenAI has faced intense scrutiny after multiple. Incidents have come to light of its AI agents going rogue. This situation is obviously unacceptable. They hacked into an Australian government health care website.

There's new worries about artificial intelligence after yet another system's breach. They meddled with U.S. government sites and tried to get into other databases, too, on top of the hugging face hacking incident that really supercharged the global debate around AI safety. And while other companies like Google, meta, and Anthropic, have had had. had similarly troubling incidents, OpenAI's been facing particular scrutiny over the sheer number it's disclosed. Now, the Times has learned that months before OpenAI's agents went rogue, employees inside the company were raising concerns about security and whether the technology could be contained. But those warnings were repeatedly ignored. My colleagues and I spoke to two OpenAI employees who showed us messages between them and senior

executives at the company. And what we found was that they weren't using the best security practices available to them, according to the warnings of people within their own company. Shear Frankel covers technology for the times. She spoke not only with OpenAI employees, but also a number of independent security researchers who tried to flag issues and vulnerabilities to OpenAI. We found that months ago, when OpenAI was doing the testing on its newest, most advanced models, people in the company were saying, hey, we need better safeguards. We need to slow down. But the company had timetables. They needed to move forward. And those warnings were not heated. And what struck me was what one of these independent security researchers said,

which is that they still seem to be operating like a startup. They were still in that mode of we've got to rush, we've got to push, we've got to get things out, and not like this global leader of AI technology that they've actually become. In response to questions from the Times, an OpenAI spokesman said the company was committed to safety and took any security reports or concerns seriously. Earlier this week, the company announced it would not be releasing its latest model just yet because of security concerns that its researchers had flagged. Meanwhile, well, I think I'm seeing tremendous self-policing, and they understand that they have to self-police. President Trump hosted top AI executives at the time. at the White House yesterday, where he praised their progress and unveiled a voluntary agreement they

signed committing to safety policies. While recent polling shows that a majority of Americans want the federal government to do more to regulate the technology, Trump has insisted that he doesn't want to slow down AI development and potentially lose ground to China. Instead, he said American AI companies can police themselves, and the new voluntary agreement includes risk reviews, audits, and third-party evaluations of AI systems. When asked if the agreement was binding, Trump replied, quote, I think it's morally binding. Now, two developments in the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign. First, in an emergency ruling yesterday, the Supreme Court gave President Trump a temporary win

in the fight over so-called third-country deportations. It will allow his administration for now to resume sending migrants to places they have no ties to, including countries that have a history of human rights abuses. The ruling was unsigned, as is typical for emergency rulings, though the court's three liberal justices noted that they would not have allowed for the deportations to continue. This isn't the final ruling on the issue, though. The justices said they are fast-tracking the case and have scheduled oral arguments in December to hear a fuller consideration of the policy.

And the Times has learned that ICE is preparing a major hiring surge, aiming to bring on 5,000 new employees by the end of the year, according to people familiar with the plans. It made a similar hiring push last year, but the agency faced a lot of criticism for the speed of that effort, as they let in new agents with limited to no initial vetting. One whistleblower called it a, quote, unprecedented lowering of standards, and ICE later removed several hundred of the new hires.

There are concerns that could happen again, considering ICE still has a massive backlog when it comes to extensive background checks for officers it already brought on. The hiring push comes as ICE arrests have soared to record highs, with ICE agents fanning out across the country, carrying out operations at hospitals, airports, outside schools and truck stops, They've been working to meet arrest quotas set by the White House, with some agents under pressure to work seven days a week. And finally, in Alaska, the annual Fat Bear Week has a new winner.

Meet Bear 89, otherwise known as Backpack. All hail 89 backpack. He'll stand up for himself when necessary, but he prefers to use a quiet strength to gain access to preferred fishing spas. 89 backpack is his name. I will get to Y later. He won the wildly popular competition in which people vote for which brown bear

in Alaska's Catmine National Park is the chonkiest. The viral stunt started as a way for people to engage with the park online, and now every year people flock to a live feed to watch the bears feeding on salmon in the park, trying to pack on the weight before winter. This year marked the rise of the nepo babies. 89 Backpacks' mother was a previous

fat bear weak champion. He got his name from the way he used to cling to her back while she swam across the river. And this year's runner-up, known only as 9-10, who a wildlife expert described as a balloon of a bear, also descended from a champion. But before anyone goes undercutting backpack as having an unfair leg up, given his connections, you should know that he did have to work for it. He overcame an injury in 2007 that nearly killed him, and now he's thriving and full of fish. Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow. And if you are not a time subscriber yet, you can get a full month of free access to everything we publish when you download the Times app now.