World
A planned meeting in Oman on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz was postponed this week after fresh Houthi attacks on Saudi targets. Iran said the delay came at Saudi Arabia's request, and a senior Iranian official rejected talk of negotiations until its conditions are met. The United Nations' maritime agency reported that a vessel was damaged on Saturday with two seafarers missing. The strait has been mostly closed since the war began on February 28, and before the conflict it carried about 20 percent of world oil exports. Saudi tankers are rerouting around the Horn of Africa, and oil prices have risen as the confrontation spreads across the Gulf and the Red Sea.
Reuters
Politics
The House passed a short-term spending measure on Tuesday to fund the federal government into early December, voting 370-48 to avoid a shutdown during campaign season. The Senate has already approved the bill by a wide margin, so it now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature. Lawmakers needed to act before the fiscal year ends on September 30. The stopgap does not settle the twelve annual appropriations bills, and House appropriators say Senate Democrats have slowed progress. Congress also faces unresolved questions about the cost of the war with Iran, which the Congressional Budget Office puts above $38 billion.
Associated Press
Business
The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday, its first increase in more than three years, and signaled that another move is likely before the end of 2026. Officials pointed to inflation that has stayed elevated for 65 months, pushed higher by oil prices after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Chairman Kevin Warsh has argued the central bank must show it can return inflation to target. Treasury yields had already climbed toward 5 percent before the decision. The hike lifts costs on credit cards, auto loans and variable-rate debt, and raises financing costs for companies funding data centers and factories.
CNBC
Technology
Shares of Intel and SK Hynix rose on Wednesday after Reuters reported the two companies have discussed building memory chip production in the United States for the first time. The talks are exploratory and no decisions have been made, and SK Hynix said no plans have been confirmed. The report lands in the middle of the sharpest memory shortage in years, with AI data center demand absorbing high-bandwidth memory output. DRAM contract prices rose about 93 to 98 percent quarter over quarter in early 2026, and a 36-gigabyte HBM3E module traded near $2,100 on the spot market against long-term prices of $300 to $400.
CNBC
Science
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has passed its post-launch systems check while operating in deep space, NASA said this week. The observatory launched on August 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Roman is an infrared telescope with a field of view far larger than Hubble's, which lets it survey wide patches of sky in single exposures. It will study dark energy and find exoplanets through microlensing. The mission now enters commissioning, a phase expected to last several months as teams calibrate detectors, check pointing stability and test observing modes. NASA had committed to launch no later than May 2027 and moved the date forward after final assembly finished in late 2025, which the agency cites as evidence it can still deliver flagship science missions on schedule and within budget.
NASA / ESA
Sports
The WNBA returns to action on September 17 after a roughly two-week pause for the FIBA World Cup. The break left teams one week to settle the standings: the regular season ends September 24 and the playoffs tip off September 27. Eight of the league's 15 teams qualify, and the first round is a best-of-three series. Atlanta, Indiana, Las Vegas, Washington, New York, Dallas and Golden State are among the teams fighting for position. Las Vegas forward A'ja Wilson is the favorite for MVP. In baseball, Milwaukee has clinched the NL Central and owns the best record in the majors.
ESPN
Health
People who limited eating to an eight-hour window lost more weight than those who ate across 12 hours or longer, according to a pooled analysis of individual data from five trials. The results were covered by medical news outlets on September 14. A separate Spanish study of 99 adults found that weight loss was maintained a year later in fasting groups whether the window came early or late. At the American Diabetes Association 2026 sessions, specialists debated how much muscle mass patients lose during rapid weight loss, and a physician survey found most think fixing the food environment matters more than relying only on GLP-1 drugs.
News-Medical
Environment
The U.S. Forest Service is taking public comment until September 21 on a proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which bans road building, logging and mining across roughly 58 million acres of undeveloped national forest. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says the change would improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk. Conservation groups argue more roads mean more human-caused ignitions. The proposal comes in one of the worst fire years on record, with 7.3 million acres burned in about 49,000 fires through August 17. Separately, Interior has proposed deep Colorado River cuts for Arizona, California and Nevada after a record-dry winter left the two largest reservoirs at a combined record low.
Reuters