AI Agents Hacked a Government Site

As Trump and Xi prepare to meet in Washington, will the U.S. confront Beijing over its support for Iran? Plus, a judge orders the White House to restore access to banned journalists. And in an apparent first, an AI agent hacks into government files, sparking anger in Australia. This is a very serious incident, as the prime minister has made clear overnight. It is utterly unacceptable. It's Thursday, September 24th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. The U.S. and China have agreed to extend a bilateral trade truce until January, delaying higher tariffs that had been set to go into effect in November. That announcement came just hours after Chinese leader Xi Jinping landed in Washington for a state visit. That said, expectations for today's meeting are low, with China ultimately deciding against bringing a corporate delegation to the U.S. and a number of thorny issues separating the two sides, including AI regulation, U.S. support for Taiwan, and the war with Iran. We are reporting that in recent months, China has sent around 1,300 shipments of dual-use components to Iran's defense ministry, including parts used in drones. Drones and missiles, building on other forms of support for Tehran, including oil purchases and the processing of Iranian financial transactions. Journal reporter Rory Jones says American officials are walking a tightrope when it comes to discussing China's support for Iran. We should be very clear that Beijing has said that it opposes attempts to smear China by associating it with the conflict, and Beijing maintains that it supports efforts towards peace. For the record, Iranian officials didn't respond to requests for comment on our reporting. But this leaves Washington in a tricky spot. It's obviously sanctioning Iran, and the Treasury has sanctioned some Chinese entities that it believes are helping Iran. But at the same time, the White House has proven reluctant to more seriously confront Beijing over its support for Tehran. Ahead of this week's summit, we report that Trump told officials and aides that maintaining good relations with Iran is not a good thing. He said that the U.S. and other countries should be more careful about their relations with Xi. And that as a result of that, you're going to see senior officials playing down, and they have played down, the significance of the aid that Beijing has provided. However, there is a sense among some in the administration that by failing to more aggressively confront Beijing in its support for Iran, that the U.S. has weaker leverage over Iran. And we've seen bipartisan calls to support Tehran, and we've seen bipartisan calls for President Trump to take on Xi more directly. Meanwhile, back at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Venezuela's interim president, Delce Rodriguez, says that elections will be held in the country, but she offered no details on when or how a democratic transition would occur. Those comments from Rodriguez, the former deputy of ousted leader Nicolas Maduro, follow three unsuccessful attempts by Venezuelan opposition figure Maria Karina Machado to return to the country in recent days. Machado sat down with our Vero Bergen-Gruen last week in Panama and tried to pitch her return as a contribution to Venezuela's transition, not a challenge to the government. This is not about me. This is about 30 million Venezuelans that are suffering and demanding the possibility to move ahead into transition to democracy and freedom, to have our children come back home, to rebuild institutions, to turn Venezuela into the greatest ally of the United States for the long term. Instead, recent developments appear to have entrenched Washington's partnership with Rodriguez, including the announcement of a major oil deal negotiated with her government. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address the U.N. today, and journal reporter Anat Peled says that in contrast to past U.S. visits, this one would look different. These are the first elections since the October 7th Hamas-led attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza. The current polls show Netanyahu failing to, you know, achieve a ruling majority. So he hopes to kind of receive a boost in the polls where he's been lagging from this highly publicized and photographed event, which is actually probably going to air during the primetime Israeli nightly news. Anat says that isolated on the world stage and facing elections next month that could end his political career, Netanyahu's meeting schedule is sparse, and he's expected to direct his remarks to an Israeli audience. Netanyahu is going to be flying in and leaving shortly after his speech on Thursday. There's not going to be a Trump meeting, even though we understand that Netanyahu had wanted one. The U.S. and Israeli officials say that is due to scheduling constraints. However, relations between the two men have cooled, have even deteriorated, you could say, since the war in Iran. The two have clashed over things like bombing in Lebanon, Israel kind of wanting to continue the fight in Iran while the U.S. seeks an off-ramp, and the peace plan in Gaza. One thing Netanyahu won't have to worry about is a 2024 ICC arrest warrant for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza. As recently as July, New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani said city lawyers were studying having Netanyahu arrested, though he's since acknowledged that local authorities can't do that. A federal judge has ordered President Trump to temporarily restore access to three news outlets that were banned from the White House. Earlier this month, journalists from CNN, MSNOW, and Politico were removed from the press pool. In a ruling this morning, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, said that was a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Kelly has issued a temporary restraining order that allows the outlets to get their access back while litigation proceeds. Eight U.S. Navy personnel assigned to the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group attempted suicide during its months-long deployment in the fight against Iran. That's according to a letter acting Navy Secretary Hung Kao sent to Democratic Senator Kristen Gillibrand, who had asked about suicide attempts, mental health resources, and living conditions on the ship. A Navy official said that around 7,000 people are part of that strike group, which was deployed in November 2025, and that two of the suicide attempts took place while the ship was in a combat zone. None of the eight people died, according to Kao's letter, and that two of the suicide attempts took place while the ship was in a combat zone. M.H., holding company Christian Dior S. will be delisted, with Bernard Arnault's own holding company assuming full ownership. Arnault has long worked to secure control of the company, which his children hold positions in, even though ultimate succession plans remain unknown. In an apparent first, an AI agent has hacked a government website. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said yesterday that the agent from OpenAI gained unauthorized access to both public and non-public files within an Australian government healthcare statistics portal in June, but that OpenAI didn't notify the government about the hack until September 10th. I spoke with the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, to express Australia's extreme concern about this incident. And I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government of what had occurred and the nature of the notification as well was unacceptable. An OpenAI spokesperson said that no personal data had been compromised, but that its models took unintended actions while looking up answers during an evaluation. The revelation came during a session on AI at the UN General Assembly, where the CEOs of Anthropic and OpenAI warned of the growing risks associated with AI and promised to slow down its development. Well, despite those concerns, some developers are forging ahead with new offerings, not least Meta, which has seen its Muse AI app take off this week. At its annual developer conference last night, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced several new AI-integrated products, including a keychain charm and smart glasses. So without cameras, this opens up a lot of new design possibilities. They can look like any other glasses. Meta is hoping those gadgets will drive further adoption of Muse to the point that users won't even have to touch the app. That said, critics have warned that dropping the camera might not be enough to ease privacy concerns about Meta's smart glasses, as the new Ray-Bans offer no clear signal to bystanders that a recording is underway. And that's it for What's News for this Thursday morning. Today's show was produced by Daniel Bach and Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff, and I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. And until then, thanks for listening.