AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EDT

MS NOW, CNN and Politico say their journalists were denied access to White House after Trump ban

NEW YORK (AP) — Reporters from three major news organizations — CNN, MS NOW and Politico — were denied access to the White House on Saturday, a day after President Donald Trump said he was barring them because of reporting he found to be “fake news.”

The actions were a clear escalation of Trump’s long-running efforts — in the courts and through administrative action — to restrict news coverage by journalists he finds objectionable, and the latest test of First Amendment protections in the United States. Trump had said Friday he would ban all three outlets because of coverage he disliked.

White House reporters from the two cable networks — Betsy Klein of CNN and Akayla Gardner of MS NOW — both went live to report they’d been turned away, their press badges deactivated, when arriving for their jobs at the White House. Soon after, Politico said its White House reporter Cheyenne Haslett was also denied entry and had her badge confiscated.

All three news outlets hinted at legal action. “We will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights,” Politico Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Greenberger said in a statement to the Politico newsroom. A CNN statement said the network “will not be deflected from our duty to hold the government and other public bodies to account.”

And MS NOW said it “intends to take any and all steps necessary to defend our First Amendment rights and the essential role of independent journalism in our democracy.”

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Oil prices are high but could be much worse. Trump has China’s Xi to thank for that

WASHINGTON (AP) — It could be much worse.

When President Donald Trump launched his war against Iran in late February, energy analysts issued dire warnings that oil prices could more than double during a protracted conflict and urged investors and motorists to buckle up for a bumpy ride.

The war grinds on and oil prices certainly remain volatile. But the most dire projections have not yet come to pass six months into a conflict that has no end in sight.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is making a much-anticipated state visit to Washington next week, could make a credible argument that the world has his country’s energy strategy to thank for that.

It’s unclear how much the two leaders will discuss Iran during the visit, which comes as Trump’s Republican Party faces pressure from voters over high gasoline prices, and as China’s buffer is being further tested as the conflict in the Middle East spreads. Trump, who has sought to keep a fragile trade truce with Beijing intact, has been careful in public comments about differences with Xi over the country’s relationship with Iran.

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Ed Sheeran says situation in Gaza is ‘catastrophic and unjustifiable’ as he opens concert

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Ed Sheeran opened a concert Saturday with comments about Gaza after controversy swirled around his tour and supporting acts withdrew in solidarity with opener Macklemore, who was dropped after making pro-Palestinian comments onstage.

Sheeran began the concert alone on stage with no opener, but was joined by other musicians later in the show.

Sheeran said he wants his music and shows to be about unity and humanity, not politics. But he said the attacks in Israel of Oct. 7, 2023, were horrific and what is happening in Gaza “catastrophic and unjustifiable.”

“I don’t want to disappoint fans, and I’ve never wanted to be an activist musician, but this has put me in the middle of an important and passionate argument about freedom of speech and the most complex political issue on the planet,” Sheeran said during his performance at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

The comments before a nearly full stadium came after a tumultuous week that began with rapper Macklemore, Sheeran’s original U.S. opener, being dropped in response to exclaiming “Free Palestine” during a Sept. 5 show in New Jersey.

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Saudi Arabia confirms Yemen’s Houthi rebels tried to attack its capital with a ballistic missile

CAIRO (AP) — Saudi Arabia on Saturday confirmed that Yemen’s Houthi rebels tried to attack its capital with a ballistic missile, the first targeting of Riyadh since the escalation in fighting with the Tehran-backed rebels that has opened a new front in the Iran war.

The statement by the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis came long after the dawn attempt, which the coalition said was intercepted. Some residents in Riyadh heard an explosion. Later, some saw a plume of smoke near the airport. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

The statement also said the Houthis tried to attack civilian infrastructure in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu — where a key Saudi pipeline ends — and in Taif, Baysh and Farasan but they were thwarted, giving no further details.

The Houthis earlier claimed, without providing evidence, that they had targeted “sensitive sites” in Riyadh and facilities of Saudi oil giant Aramco in Yanbu, causing “massive fires.” Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, did not respond to a request for comment.

The growing conflict near another important global shipping corridor has brought new pressures for markets.

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Saudi Arabia says Houthis tried to attack its capital, and other Mideast developments

Saudi Arabia on Saturday confirmed that Yemen’s Houthi rebels tried to attack its capital with a ballistic missile, the first targeting of Riyadh since the escalation in fighting with the Tehran-backed rebels that has opened a new front in the Iran war..

Meanwhile, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said Tehran has sent Washington its conditions for ending the war via Qatar, a key mediator. Israeli strikes killed three people in Gaza. And Israel’s military said it struck Hezbollah targets across several areas in southern Lebanon.

Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Saturday. Full coverage is available here.

Saudi Arabia on Saturday said that Yemen’s Houthi rebels tried to attack Riyadh with a ballistic missile, the first time the Saudi capital has been targeted since the escalation in fighting with the Iran-backed rebels opened a new front in the Iran war.

The statement said the attack was intercepted. Some residents in Riyadh heard an explosion, and later some saw a plume of smoke near the airport. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

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Lawsuit says Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made illegal agreement on AI slowdown

A new lawsuit claims Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google made an illegal deal to slow the pace of their respective AI development.

The lawsuit, which was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that the leading AI companies violated antitrust laws when they agreed to coordinate slowdown efforts, and that doing so would reduce the value consumers get for paid AI subscriptions.

The coordination largely took place on Sept. 12, the lawsuit argues, when Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging for industrywide cooperation on decelerating advancements in favor of enhanced safety measures. That same day, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk and Google DeepMind’s co-founder and chair Demis Hassabis each publicly responded to Amodei’s proposals in agreement.

But the lawsuit also alleges that the coordination began to take shape months earlier. It points to a statement from July 2026 that high-ranking employees from several of the leading AI labs signed that acknowledged the “intense competitive pressure not to unilaterally slow” development. That statement called on the government to support a global effort to slow automated AI development.

It is clear that an agreement among the chief rivals in AI that their progress “should be slower than competition would otherwise produce has an anticompetitive effect on consumers,” the plaintiffs argue.

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Voting groups sound alarm on funding shortfalls that they say could affect midterm turnout

WASHINGTON (AP) — Several of the nation’s largest left-leaning voter engagement and racial justice organizations are facing steep funding shortfalls and staffing cutbacks just as voting is getting underway in an election that will determine control of Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term.

The shortfalls are setting off alarms among Democratic strategists, who are betting on high turnout and robust voter protection efforts to boost the party’s chances this fall. They are worried that many grassroots groups will not be able to mount effective registration and get-out-the-vote efforts, much less protect against the possibility of election interference from the Republican administration.

America Votes, a coordinating hub for more than 400 progressive groups, has fallen “well below” the level of funding it had during the 2022 midterms, Daria Dawson, America Votes’ executive director, said in a statement to The Associated Press. America Votes has acted as a nerve center for the voter mobilization efforts of groups such as the NAACP, Planned Parenthood, the League of Conservation Voters, the AFL-CIO and SEIU labor unions, as well as local groups focused on racial justice, climate and civil liberties.

“There is still time to reach voters and bring them into this election, but we are no longer talking about a future opportunity,” Dawson said. “The window to engage them is open now, and it is narrowing every day.”

Wealthy donors and philanthropic groups have reduced their support of many liberal causes since the 2024 presidential election. That pullback has been especially stark for voting groups geared toward engaging communities of color.

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Russian election observer loses consciousness during arrest by police, opposition party says

Russia’s liberal opposition Yabloko party said that one of its election observers lost consciousness while being arrested by police at a St. Petersburg polling station on Saturday, the second day of a tightly controlled parliamentary election.

The voting to elect members of the State Duma is Russia’s first parliamentary election since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. The three-day election, which began Friday and ends Sunday, features virtually no opposition and is all but certain to secure the Kremlin’s political dominance.

Yabloko said that officials at the polling station accused a party election observer of attempting to “disrupt the elections” and called the police, which “used force” against him.

It was unclear whether he received prompt medical attention after falling unconscious, the party said in a statement on Telegram Saturday, adding that he was taken to a police station and charged with disobeying police orders.

Russian officials didn’t immediately comment on the incident.

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Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi tells the AP that Iranians paying the price for war and repression

Iranians are suffering as economic misery and internal repression leave “no room for people to breathe” after 1 1/2 years of wars, Iran’s most prominent human rights activist has told The Associated Press.

Narges Mohammadi, 54, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023, was temporarily released from prison for medical reasons earlier this year after falling unconscious and being transferred to a hospital.

Her memoir — titled “A Woman Never Stops Fighting” — was written behind bars, with parts of it smuggled out by fellow inmates. Editions in French, German and nine other languages are being released this month. The English and Farsi editions will be released next year.

In an interview conducted Friday by The Associated Press from outside Iran, Mohammadi said that Iranians are grappling with multiple crises stemming from the ongoing war and deepening economic pressure, and the brutal crackdowns on protests.

“I am sorry to say, but since the outbreak of war, in the past months and last year and a half, we have seen that repression in society has severely increased and now, with these economic pressures and with the repression that really has left no room for people to breathe, it’s the people who are paying an extremely heavy price,” she said.

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This swing state Republican keeps distancing himself from Trump. It may not save him in the midterms

YARDLEY, Pa. (AP) — Mary Ryan may be a registered Republican but she has never voted for President Donald Trump, turned off by his crass style of politics and chaotic approach to governing.

But the 60-year-old medical writer from the Philadelphia suburbs has consistently backed her party’s congressman, five-term Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick.

Until now.

This year, Ryan is so fed up with Trump and his grip on Congress that she is planning to vote in November for Fitzpatrick’s Democratic opponent in the 1st Congressional District, Bob Harvie, a twice countywide elected commissioner who is a former social studies teacher.

Even though Fitzpatrick has pitched himself as a voice of reason in Washington, Ryan said that “I don’t see it happening.”