World
Canada will impose retaliatory tariffs on U.S. steel, dairy, electronics, and other goods starting September 8, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on August 22, after trade talks with Washington collapsed. The breakdown on August 21 triggered new 50 percent U.S. tariffs on about $20 billion of Canadian goods, including hockey sticks and cement, representing about 5.5 percent of Canadian exports to the United States. Carney said Canada could not accept the U.S. terms, calling them uneconomic and unfair. Canada had offered to drop its remaining retaliatory tariffs on steel, aluminum, and autos if Washington substantially lowered its own duties. Ottawa will announce support measures next week for domestic industries hit by the new duties, and those measures could last years.
Al Jazeera / Reuters
Politics
A new online tracker shows the Trump administration has deleted or altered nearly 400 federal datasets across more than 60 agencies. The tracker, built by the research group dataindex.us, counts at least 28 deleted datasets and 338 modified data collections. Health data suffered the biggest losses, making up about 40 percent of the total. Examples include a database of federal law enforcement officer misconduct records, a survey of violence against children and youth, and real-time air quality readings from U.S. embassies around the world. Surveillance tools that track drug overdoses, disease outbreaks, and maternal health were among the most affected. Researchers warn the removals endanger the nation's ability to detect and respond to emerging disease threats and cut off public access to information about local health trends and chemical safety.
The Guardian
Business
The Federal Reserve kept its benchmark interest rate at 3.50 to 3.75 percent at its July meeting, in a 9-3 vote. Three officials wanted an immediate quarter-point increase. Since then, fresh inflation data has come in milder than expected, giving the Fed room to stay patient. But the debate is not settled. Energy prices have swung with the conflict involving Iran, and mortgage rates climbed to 6.81 percent, their highest level in a year, before easing to 6.65 percent. The Fed's June projections showed nine members expecting at least one hike in 2026 and eight expecting no change. Most economists expect the Fed to hold rates for the rest of 2026, but the three dissents keep a September hike on the table.
Charles Schwab / Reuters
Technology
Nvidia has notified some of its largest customers that prices for servers containing its AI chips will rise by more than 15 percent in many cases, Bloomberg News reported on August 22. The increases stem from soaring memory chip costs and will hit systems built around the flagship Vera Rubin and Grace Blackwell chips. The higher prices apply to systems shipped early next year, and the size of the increase will depend on the chip generation and memory configuration. Reuters could not independently verify the report. The move comes as AI data center spending keeps climbing and memory suppliers raise prices on high-bandwidth memory used in AI accelerators. The increases add pressure to budgets already stretched by AI buildouts across the industry.
Reuters / Bloomberg
Science
NASA engineers are preparing a risky power maneuver called 'the Big Bang' to keep the Voyager probes exploring interstellar space. The two spacecraft, launched in 1977, are running low on electricity from their aging nuclear power sources. In April, engineers shut down an instrument on Voyager 1 called the Low-energy Charged Particles experiment to buy about a year of time. The Big Bang plan swaps a group of powered devices all at once, turning some off and replacing others with lower-power alternatives to keep the spacecraft warm enough to keep working. Tests on Voyager 2 are planned for May and June, with Voyager 1 to follow no sooner than July. If all goes well, the probes could keep doing science into the early 2030s, with Voyager 1 possibly reaching 200 astronomical units from Earth around 2035.
NASA JPL / Space.com
Sports
Caitlin Clark set a career high with eight three-pointers and scored 37 points as the Indiana Fever beat the Chicago Sky 113-90 on Sunday. Clark shot 13 of 24 from the field and 8 of 12 from beyond the arc, and added 10 assists. It was her fifth career game with at least 30 points and 10 assists, a mark no other player in league history has reached more than four times. The win snapped a two-game losing streak for the Fever, who had lost to the New York Liberty the day before. Clark also crossed 100 three-pointers for the season. She is averaging a career-best 22.1 points and 8.3 assists per game across 35 appearances this season.
ESPN / Sports Illustrated
Health
A study of more than 260,000 adults finds that waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio predict cardiovascular disease risk better than body mass index alone. The research, published in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology, followed participants for an average of about 20 years. Nearly one in five people with a normal BMI but a high waist-to-hip ratio had up to 50 percent higher risk for several heart conditions, and BMI alone would have missed them. Inflammation explained part of the link between belly fat and heart failure. The authors say waist measurements should be part of routine heart risk checks, since BMI cannot show where fat is stored and fat around the organs is more dangerous than fat under the skin.
American College of Cardiology
Environment
At least 145 gray whale carcasses have washed up on North American Pacific beaches so far in 2026, including 13 in Alaska, and experts warn the real death toll is higher because most dead whales sink at sea. NOAA Fisheries has documented 56 strandings in the United States, with the total across the U.S., Mexico, and Canada reaching 123 by late spring. Malnutrition is the most common finding among examined whales, pointing to food shortages in Arctic waters disrupted by warming. Researchers have declared an unusual mortality event. If the trend continues, 2026 could rank among the deadliest years for whales on the West Coast, second only to 2019, when 122 whales were reported dead in U.S. waters.
E&E News / NOAA