The Emmy Awards are underway. “The Pitt” and “Widow’s Bay” are generating buzz as they compete for top prizes. The ceremony is also honoring the anniversaries of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Charlie’s Angels.”
Here are some highlights as the show roars into the night.
Mariska Hargitay kicked off the show with New York Knicks star Jalen Brunson in an exuberant, looney pre-taped bit that had her sing a version of “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll” by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, renamed “I Love TV Screens.”
The first-time Emmy host was seen relaxed in bed with “Hacks” star Jean Smart, ate a burger in a nod to “Beef,” rode a horse and drank bubble tea with Jennifer Coolidge.
On stage, she reveled in the fact that she was the first woman to host in 15 years. The star of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” entering its 28th season, also joked that she never had to pronounce the word “finale” and pretended to have words with Nicole Kidman over her cheesy AMC ads.
“She crushed it,” said Amy Poehler, who took the stage after the opening.
Jean Smart was predicted to win her fifth straight Emmy for “Hacks” and did it with style. “What a ride this has been,” she said.
It’s her eighth trophy overall, which ties the all-time performer record shared by Cloris Leachman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Allison Janney. Smart also becomes the first woman to win best actress for each season of a show’s run.
Smart, 74, who first got noticed in the CBS comedy “Designing Women,” won her first Emmys for guest appearances on “Frasier” and then another for a supporting role on “Samantha Who.”
On Monday, she kept a special thank you to the end — “Hacks” creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky: “It all begins and ends with them,” she said.
Just six months after the “Buffy” reboot was scrapped, stars Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz reunited onstage to celebrate the show’s 30th anniversary.
After Boreanaz mused whether their characters, Buffy and Angel, would ever get together, Gellar had a sharp retort referencing the cancellation.
“Guess we’ll never find out!” Gellar said.
She also acknowledged it had been a tough two years for the show’s cast and crew, implicitly acknowledging the recent deaths of actors Anthony Head (Giles), Nicholas Brendon (Xavier) and Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn).
Sofia Vergara made it to the Emmys this year to present supporting actor in a comedy, bypassing the emergency room. Last year, she had to bow out of presenting at the last minute after suffering an eye allergy just before the show.
In the hour before the show opens, the Peacock Theater lobby was as jammed as an LA freeway.
Women wearing long trains attempt to protect them from an errant shoe as guests bump elbows and brush backs trying to make their way across the lobby. It’s time to gird for the three-hour show ahead, which means buying $9 cups of popcorn, $8 hot dogs and $23 beers and cocktails to carry to seats. It doesn’t appear nachos are a popular item — too messy for folks in tuxes and gowns
Meg Stalter, a nominee for best supporting actress for “Hacks,” was dressed as an Emmy statuette, complete with wings and a coat of gold makeup. She even held up a sphere like the real trophy itself.
It was Stalter’s first time attending the Emmys as a nominee. She earned her first career nod for supporting actress in a comedy series for playing Kayla Schaeffer in the fifth and final season of “Hacks.”
Similar to the Grammys held across the street, this year the Emmys are having the biggest names seated at small tables with lamps on them in front of the stage.
Typically, the guests are seated in long rows like a movie theater. There’s still the same pre-show hobnobbing. It seems no one wants to sit down early, knowing they’ll be in those seats for the next three hours.
For more coverage of this year’s Emmy Awards, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/emmy-awards
Jean Smart arrives at the 78th Emmy Awards on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)
Host Mariska Hargitay speaks during the 78th Emmy Awards on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Meg Stalter, left, and Paul W. Downs arrive at the 78th Emmy Awards on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have seized the strategic islands of Greater and Lesser Hanish in the southern Red Sea, bolstering the Iran-backed rebels' ability to control a key maritime shipping route.
Recent fighting between the Iran-backed rebels and government forces in Yemen has killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands.
Meanwhile, repairs to a crucial Saudi Arabian oil pipeline that was struck in an attack last week could last three to five weeks, putting it mostly out of service, two regional officials said.
Here’s a look at the latest news in the Middle East. Full coverage can be found here.
Houthi officials said Monday that rebels had taken over the two islands just as Saudi-backed government forces tried to claw back territory from the rebels' swift advances around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial shipping alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz — through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas transits in peacetime — in the opening days of the war. The Saudis have since used the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which leads out of the Red Sea, for crude oil exports.
The Houthis’ latest takeover, following the seizure of the Red Sea port of Mokha and a strategic island last week, puts more pressure on Saudi shipments and, in turn, global oil supplies and prices.
This could give Iran additional leverage in its war with the United States.
Nearly 94,000 people have fled their homes in Yemen since fighting between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and government forces escalated this month, the International Organization for Migration said Monday.
The worst-hit areas are Taiz and Lahj, where 48,000 have been displaced, the U.N. agency said, adding that more than 2,000 people have fled across the sea into Djibouti.
Around 200 schools have been converted to shelters in southwestern Yemen to absorb an influx of families, the International Rescue Committee, an aid group, said.
Fears are mounting that Yemen is inching closer to a return to a civil war that killed 150,000 before a 2022 ceasefire. The World Health Organization said more than 500 people were killed in a weeklong period ending Saturday, a sharp increase.
Saudi Arabia relies on the East-West Pipeline to move crude from Gulf ports to ports on its western, Red Sea coast. From there it can be put on tankers for export.
Two officials briefed on the matter said repairing damage from an attack on Sept. 10 could take weeks, including at a major pumping facility.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief the media. One said the line may work partially while teams carry out the repairs.
China, a major Middle East oil importer, called Houthi attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure “unacceptable” and said that it was “deeply concerned” about further escalations by the rebels.
— By Samy Magdy in Cairo
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Monday that Saudi Arabia had “demanded" that a meeting bringing together Iran with other regional countries to discuss the Strait of Hormuz be scrapped “for the time being.”
Baghaei called the meeting, which was to be hosted by Oman, a “proper opportunity” to restore security in the region.
The spokesperson said that an agreement between Iran and Oman on the Strait of Hormuz has been finalized and it will be announced later.
Saudi Arabia had submitted amendments to the agreement, citing concerns that it could have lasting implications for the Strait of Hormuz, negatively impacting other Gulf Cooperation Council countries, according to a Gulf official familiar with the matter who wasn't authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Iran denounced on Monday the refusal by Austria to issue visas to the Iranian nuclear chief and other delegation members for the International Atomic Energy Agency’s general conference in Vienna, calling the decision “completely unjustified.”
Baghaei said that Tehran summoned the Austrian chargé d’affaires, saying Austria was obligated as the host country to issue the visas.
Baghaei accused Western countries of denying Iran an opportunity to defend itself and blamed the U.S. for pressuring Austria to deny the visas.
The refusal is part of U.N. sanctions on Iran, reinstated last year, that include a travel ban on Iranian officials.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Monday criticized Iran’s failure to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
Wright was particularly critical of Tehran’s refusal to grant U.N. inspectors access to Iran’s nuclear sites affected by the war. He said that Iran had “ample time to address its egregious negligence" toward its obligations "but that time is up.”
Speaking at the IAEA general conference in Vienna, Wright said that giving Iran more time "only delays overdue accountability.”
Wright said that additional safeguards contained in a U.S.-Saudi nuclear accord include “absolutely rigorous” terms against proliferation. He told the IAEA general conference that the U.N. nuclear agency "was part of it all along.”
The U.S.-Saudi accord, signed in July, could potentially provide the kingdom the capability to enrich uranium for its civilian nuclear program.
Wright was responding to a question from the media about why the U.S. requested Iran to sign an Additional Protocol and not Saudi Arabia. The Additional Protocol is an agreement between the IAEA and a country that grants agency inspectors increased access to nuclear sites.
Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip on Monday killed two people and wounded several others, hospital officials and the health ministry said.
One person was killed in Gaza City, while the other was killed when a strike hit tents in Muwasi, according to Shifa and Nasser hospitals.
The strikes also wounded people in Zawaida in central Gaza and Khan Younis in southern Gaza, the health ministry said. The Israeli military confirmed the strikes and said they targeted militants.
The heaviest fighting between Israel and Hamas has subsided since a ceasefire last October, but Israeli fire has killed more than 1,360 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health officials in the territory.
The B’Tselem human rights group said Monday Israel is carrying out a systematic and accelerated project aimed at “dismantling the foundations of Palestinian existence” in the occupied West Bank.
The group said in a new report that Israeli actions against Palestinians in the West Bank by settlers and the military are designed to undermine Palestinian collective life “while entrenching a permanent system of Jewish supremacy” across the territory.
Settler violence has surged under the ultranationalist government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Rights groups say the military frequently turns a blind eye to the violence, and that when it intervenes it often focuses on protecting the settlers.
The B’Tselem report also says that Israeli actions rely heavily on open cooperation between state authorities and armed settlers who attack Palestinian communities, while the military either fails to prevent the violence or sometimes participates in it.
The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday issued full sanctions on VTB Bank — one of Russia's largest financial institutions — as part of its efforts to target Iran’s remaining financial lifelines.
But the impact of the sanctions remains unclear as the Biden administration had also issued sweeping sanctions against the state-owned bank shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Under Trump, U.S. officials are now accusing the institution of helping the Islamic Republic evade sanctions by establishing correspondent relationships with sanctioned Iranian banks. For years, VTB Bank has been expanding its global presence, including opening branches in China, India and Iran.
This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.
A man walks in front of a mural symbolising restrictions on shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world's key shipping lanes, in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)
People chat at a coffee shop in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, Sept. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)
Displaced Yemenis, from Al Khawkhah city, 400 kilometers (249 miles) south west of Sanaa, wait to enter a temporary shelter in Aden, Yemen, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdulnasser Alseddik)
Yemeni civilians celebrate while riding in the back of a pickup truck in the Bani Matar district, Yemen, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026, as they follow a convoy carrying Houthi prisoners freed in Mokha on its way to Sanaa following the Houthi takeover of the southern Red Sea port city. (AP Photo/STR)
