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The USS Abraham Lincoln, a US aircraft carrier deployed by US President Donald Trump’s war against Iran, has arrived off a Thai port. A heavy security presence was in force at Laem Chabang port near Pattaya, south of Bangkok when USS Abraham Lincoln arrived. At least 5,000-crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln arrived on Wednesday morning after more than 270 days at sea. They arrived amid reports of deteriorating living conditions and poor mental health on the vessel, including attempted suicides. As they arrived, reports of crackdown on prostitution in the port town of Pattaya surfaced.&nbsp;&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/iran-war-drives-fuel-food-and-borrowing-costs-higher-1788184229407">Iran war drives fuel, food and borrowing costs higher</a>&nbsp;Pattaya is now hugely popular with foreign tourists, known for its beaches and a nightlife scene that has long drawn scrutiny over sex tourism. Sex work is illegal in Thailand, but authorities often turn a blind eye, said Pattarachit Gozzoli, a sociologist at Mahidol University told Guardian. Pattaya police chief Anek Srathongyoo explained that sex workers could potentially solicit in public areas without the knowledge ⁠of the authorities: “We are doing our best, but it is difficult.”&nbsp;&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/iranian-students-face-uncertainty-over-foreign-university-admissions-1788173408545">Iranian students face uncertainty over foreign university admissions</a>&nbsp;Once a quiet fishing village, the sex industry infrastructure grew after American troops arrived here post Vietnam war. There has been widespread crackdown on illegal prostitution. The FBI described Pattaya a decade ago as "one of the world's leading sex tourism destinations." However, Pattaya’s mayor, Poramase Ngampiches, has downplayed and said that the recent crackdown on sex workers was not linked to the US arrivals. Local police arrested 25 women for soliciting on the beachfront promenade a week before the ship arrived. Ahead of its arrival, police are preparing additional patrols around Pattaya's main beachfront ⁠and nightlife district besides raids over the weekend that led to 40 ​to ⁠50 people in detention for suspected prostitution. &nbsp;&nbsp;

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier arrived at Thailand’s Laem Chabang port after more than 270 days at sea. The 5,000-strong crew arrived amid reports of poor living conditions and mental health concerns, including attempted suicides, as US-Iran tensions continue.


The USS Abraham Lincoln, a US aircraft carrier deployed by US President Donald Trump’s war against Iran, has arrived off a Thai port. A heavy security presence was in force at Laem Chabang port near Pattaya, south of Bangkok when USS Abraham Lincoln arrived. At least 5,000-crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln arrived on Wednesday morning after more than 270 days at sea. They arrived amid reports of deteriorating living conditions and poor mental health on the vessel, including attempted suicides. As they arrived, reports of crackdown on prostitution in the port town of Pattaya surfaced. Also Read: Iran war drives fuel, food and borrowing costs higher Pattaya is now hugely popular with foreign tourists, known for its beaches and a nightlife scene that has long drawn scrutiny over sex tourism. Sex work is illegal in Thailand, but authorities often turn a blind eye, said Pattarachit Gozzoli, a sociologist at Mahidol University told Guardian. Pattaya police chief Anek Srathongyoo explained that sex workers could potentially solicit in public areas without the knowledge ⁠of the authorities: “We are doing our best, but it is difficult.” Also Read: Iranian students face uncertainty over foreign university admissions Once a quiet fishing village, the sex industry infrastructure grew after American troops arrived here post Vietnam war. There has been widespread crackdown on illegal prostitution. The FBI described Pattaya a decade ago as "one of the world's leading sex tourism destinations." However, Pattaya’s mayor, Poramase Ngampiches, has downplayed and said that the recent crackdown on sex workers was not linked to the US arrivals. Local police arrested 25 women for soliciting on the beachfront promenade a week before the ship arrived. Ahead of its arrival, police are preparing additional patrols around Pattaya's main beachfront ⁠and nightlife district besides raids over the weekend that led to 40 to ⁠50 people in detention for suspected prostitution.

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier arrived at Thailand’s Laem Chabang port after more than 270 days at sea. The 5,000-strong crew arrived amid reports of poor living conditions and mental health concerns, including attempted suicides, as US-Iran tensions continue.

Thailand steps up prostitution crackdown as USS Abraham Lincoln arrives in Pattaya

A bus crash in Egypt's eastern Sinai Peninsula killed 16 people and injured 28 others on Wednesday (Sep 2), the health ministry said. At least twenty ambulances rushed to the scene of the accident, between the popular tourist towns of Dahab and Nuweiba on South Sinai's eastern coast. The victims included 10 people from Jordan, according to state television in the kingdom. "Ten Jordanians died after a passenger bus overturned on the Dahab-Nuweiba road in Egypt's South Sinai governorate," Jordan's official Al-Mamlaka channel said, adding that the bus was carrying 43 people in total, 22 of them Jordanians.&nbsp;Jordan's Ministry spokesperson Ambassador Fouad Majali said that preliminary information received by the Jordanian Embassy in Cairo indicated that an Egyptian passenger bus carrying Jordanian and Egyptian nationals was involved in the accident, which resulted in several deaths and injuries. Majali said initial information confirmed that a number of Jordanians were among the casualties. The ministry’s Operations and Consular Affairs Directorate and the Jordanian Embassy in Cairo are coordinating with Egyptian authorities to follow up on the accident and the condition of the Jordanian nationals involved, he added. A team from the Jordanian Embassy in Cairo is on its way to Nuweiba to follow up on the condition of the injured and facilitate the repatriation of the bodies of the Jordanian victims to the Kingdom.

A bus crash on Egypt’s South Sinai coast killed 16 people and injured 28 on Wednesday. The accident occurred on the Dahab-Nuweiba road, with at least 10 Jordanians among the dead. The bus was carrying 43 people, including 22 Jordanians, Jordanian state media reported.

A bus crash in Egypt's eastern Sinai Peninsula killed 16 people and injured 28 others on Wednesday (Sep 2), the health ministry said. At least twenty ambulances rushed to the scene of the accident, between the popular tourist towns of Dahab and Nuweiba on South Sinai's eastern coast. The victims included 10 people from Jordan, according to state television in the kingdom. "Ten Jordanians died after a passenger bus overturned on the Dahab-Nuweiba road in Egypt's South Sinai governorate," Jordan's official Al-Mamlaka channel said, adding that the bus was carrying 43 people in total, 22 of them Jordanians. Jordan's Ministry spokesperson Ambassador Fouad Majali said that preliminary information received by the Jordanian Embassy in Cairo indicated that an Egyptian passenger bus carrying Jordanian and Egyptian nationals was involved in the accident, which resulted in several deaths and injuries. Majali said initial information confirmed that a number of Jordanians were among the casualties. The ministry’s Operations and Consular Affairs Directorate and the Jordanian Embassy in Cairo are coordinating with Egyptian authorities to follow up on the accident and the condition of the Jordanian nationals involved, he added. A team from the Jordanian Embassy in Cairo is on its way to Nuweiba to follow up on the condition of the injured and facilitate the repatriation of the bodies of the Jordanian victims to the Kingdom.

A bus crash on Egypt’s South Sinai coast killed 16 people and injured 28 on Wednesday. The accident occurred on the Dahab-Nuweiba road, with at least 10 Jordanians among the dead. The bus was carrying 43 people, including 22 Jordanians, Jordanian state media reported.

Bus crash in Egypt’s Sinai kills at least 16, Jordanians among those dead

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Aug 2 appeared to mock the appearance of a uniformed woman featured in a Canadian cadet post, sharing her image on X with a Canadian flag and the words: “(this is real).” The image, originally posted by the cadets showed the woman in Canadian military camouflage standing alongside another person in cadet attire. Hegseth did give any explanation of his comment. However, the post was interpreted as a weight-related jibe given his repeated use of the phrase “fit not fat”as Hegseth is known for pushing tougher physical standards in the US military.&nbsp;&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/short-videos/why-did-us-army-secretary-quit-from-pete-hegseth-s-team-1788286821361">Why did US army secretary quit from Pete Hegseth's team?</a>&nbsp;At the US Army War College in April 2025, Hegseth told military leaders they needed to be “fit not fat, sharp not shabby” while discussing a force-wide review of fitness, training and physical standards. His language became more pointed at a gathering of senior US military commanders at Quantico in September 2025. “It’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon,” Hegseth said while laying out stricter fitness and appearance standards. In the same speech, he also complained about seeing “fat troops” in military formations. The Pentagon subsequently issued new guidance on physical fitness and grooming standards. &nbsp;In February, Hegseth praised the US Army on X by writing: “Well done @USArmy. Merit-based &amp; Fit NOT Fat.” At West Point in May, he told graduating cadets: “You're fit, not fat. You are disciplined, not distracted.”&nbsp;&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-admin-hit-by-another-top-level-exit-as-us-army-secretary-dan-driscoll-resigns-1788227779264">Trump admin hit by another top-level exit as US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll</a>&nbsp;This comes amid trade war between Canada and the US. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney urged the Trump administration to take a more serious approach to trade negotiations, telling Washington to ‘stop doing memes, stop throwing shade and stop trying to be tough’ following another round of public attacks against Canada. Carney said trade talks could resume if US President Donald Trump and his administration approach negotiations seriously. However, he warned that some of Washington's demands could leave Canadian industries ‘gradually wound down in Canada and wiped out’. &nbsp;

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth sparked controversy after sharing an image of a Canadian cadet with the words “this is real”, amid his repeated push for tougher military fitness standards. The post comes as US-Canada tensions rise over trade, tariffs and Canadian sovereignty.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Aug 2 appeared to mock the appearance of a uniformed woman featured in a Canadian cadet post, sharing her image on X with a Canadian flag and the words: “(this is real).” The image, originally posted by the cadets showed the woman in Canadian military camouflage standing alongside another person in cadet attire. Hegseth did give any explanation of his comment. However, the post was interpreted as a weight-related jibe given his repeated use of the phrase “fit not fat”as Hegseth is known for pushing tougher physical standards in the US military. Also Read: Why did US army secretary quit from Pete Hegseth's team? At the US Army War College in April 2025, Hegseth told military leaders they needed to be “fit not fat, sharp not shabby” while discussing a force-wide review of fitness, training and physical standards. His language became more pointed at a gathering of senior US military commanders at Quantico in September 2025. “It’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon,” Hegseth said while laying out stricter fitness and appearance standards. In the same speech, he also complained about seeing “fat troops” in military formations. The Pentagon subsequently issued new guidance on physical fitness and grooming standards. In February, Hegseth praised the US Army on X by writing: “Well done @USArmy. Merit-based & Fit NOT Fat.” At West Point in May, he told graduating cadets: “You're fit, not fat. You are disciplined, not distracted.” Also Read: Trump admin hit by another top-level exit as US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll This comes amid trade war between Canada and the US. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney urged the Trump administration to take a more serious approach to trade negotiations, telling Washington to ‘stop doing memes, stop throwing shade and stop trying to be tough’ following another round of public attacks against Canada. Carney said trade talks could resume if US President Donald Trump and his administration approach negotiations seriously. However, he warned that some of Washington's demands could leave Canadian industries ‘gradually wound down in Canada and wiped out’.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth sparked controversy after sharing an image of a Canadian cadet with the words “this is real”, amid his repeated push for tougher military fitness standards. The post comes as US-Canada tensions rise over trade, tariffs and Canadian sovereignty.

‘This is real’: Hegseth’s post on Canadian military woman sparks controversy

Erin Piacenti, a New Jersey resident and lawyer, was fatally stabbed on Monday afternoon in one of Manhattan’s busiest areas near West 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue. Police said Piacenti was one of two people attacked in what investigators described as a random and unprovoked stabbing. The second victim, a 68-year-old man, survived the attack and was taken to a hospital for further treatment. "We are shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our colleague," the bank said in a statement issued.<h2>Who was Erin Piacenti?</h2>Piacenti worked as a vice-president at Bank of America in its global corporate and investment banking division. She had been with the company for around 18 months and was part of its Business Selection and Conflicts unit, according to reports. She was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Fordham Law School, where she earned her law degree in 2021. Her husband, Frank Piacenti, also graduated from Fordham Law in the same year.&nbsp;According to reports, the couple had recently celebrated their second wedding anniversary and had purchased a home in Chester, New Jersey. Bank of America expressed shock and sadness following Piacenti’s death and said it was cooperating with authorities as they investigated the attack.&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/inside-c430l-the-alleged-secret-russian-mission-to-help-iran-with-supersonic-missiles-1788329402775">Inside C430L: The alleged secret Russian mission to help Iran with supersonic missiles</a><h2>What happened in Times Square?</h2>The stabbing happened at approximately 4:24 pm on Monday, August 31, as Times Square was crowded with tourists and commuters. Police identified the suspect as 49-year-old Pamela Cisneros of Queens. Investigators said Cisneros was carrying two large knives inside a shopping bag and attacked the two victims within a short period.&nbsp;Piacenti was taken to Bellevue Hospital after the stabbing but later died from her injuries. Police subsequently confronted Cisneros near the scene. Officers repeatedly ordered her to drop the knives and attempted to stop her with a Taser, according to police. Investigators said Cisneros continued moving toward officers while armed, prompting police to open fire. She was pronounced dead at the scene.&nbsp;The investigation into the stabbing remains ongoing as authorities work to establish the circumstances surrounding the random attack and what led to the confrontation.

Erin Piacenti, a Bank of America executive and lawyer, was killed in a random Times Square stabbing. Here’s what happened and who she was.

Erin Piacenti, a New Jersey resident and lawyer, was fatally stabbed on Monday afternoon in one of Manhattan’s busiest areas near West 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue. Police said Piacenti was one of two people attacked in what investigators described as a random and unprovoked stabbing. The second victim, a 68-year-old man, survived the attack and was taken to a hospital for further treatment. "We are shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our colleague," the bank said in a statement issued. Who was Erin Piacenti? Piacenti worked as a vice-president at Bank of America in its global corporate and investment banking division. She had been with the company for around 18 months and was part of its Business Selection and Conflicts unit, according to reports. She was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Fordham Law School, where she earned her law degree in 2021. Her husband, Frank Piacenti, also graduated from Fordham Law in the same year. According to reports, the couple had recently celebrated their second wedding anniversary and had purchased a home in Chester, New Jersey. Bank of America expressed shock and sadness following Piacenti’s death and said it was cooperating with authorities as they investigated the attack. Also Read: Inside C430L: The alleged secret Russian mission to help Iran with supersonic missiles What happened in Times Square? The stabbing happened at approximately 4:24 pm on Monday, August 31, as Times Square was crowded with tourists and commuters. Police identified the suspect as 49-year-old Pamela Cisneros of Queens. Investigators said Cisneros was carrying two large knives inside a shopping bag and attacked the two victims within a short period. Piacenti was taken to Bellevue Hospital after the stabbing but later died from her injuries. Police subsequently confronted Cisneros near the scene. Officers repeatedly ordered her to drop the knives and attempted to stop her with a Taser, according to police. Investigators said Cisneros continued moving toward officers while armed, prompting police to open fire. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The investigation into the stabbing remains ongoing as authorities work to establish the circumstances surrounding the random attack and what led to the confrontation.

Bank of America's vice-president Erin Piacenti was fatally stabbed in Times Square in a random attack that left another man injured

Who was Erin Piacenti? Bank of America's vice-president killed in New York's Times Square stabbing

A Financial Times report is claiming that Russia has been secretly helping Iran develop advanced supersonic cruise missiles under a programme codenamed ‘C430L’. The multiyear programme began in 2023, claimed the report, which cited leaked Russian communications, travel documents and defence patent analysis. The programme allegedly involves Russian missile specialists, technical exchanges and assistance with a ramjet propulsion system that could allow missiles to travel at several times the speed of sound, the FT investigative report published on Tuesday (Sep 1) said.<h2>How C430L began</h2>According to the report, the defence programme was arranged by Russia’s state arms exporter Rosoboronexport in coordination with NPO Mashinostroyenia, which is a Russian design bureau sanctioned by the US since 2014.Russian arms-export officials and senior NPO Mashinostroyenia engineers repeatedly travelled to Iran before a formal agreement was signed with Iran’s Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics in November 2023, said the report.Senior NPO engineers with expertise in cruise missiles and air-breathing propulsion, including a specialist in supersonic ramjet technology were involved, it claimed.<h2>Supersonic missile for Iran? The ramjet technology&nbsp;</h2>Ramjet engines use a technology specifically designed for supersonic speeds. A ramjet propulsion system is at the centre of the C430L programme. Unlike conventional rocket propulsion, a ramjet uses the missile’s forward speed to compress incoming air before combustion, allowing sustained high-speed flight within the atmosphere.Military experts told FT this tech was almost certainly for anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles. If developed, these weapons could threaten US aircraft carriers, warships and other military assets in the Middle East.Ramjet tech is covted for long by Iran, which built and flight-tested it. But the FT report said there is no evidence that a fully Russian-assisted supersonic cruise missile has entered operational service.Also read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/iranian-president-masoud-pezeshkian-asks-pm-narendra-modi-to-use-india-s-influence-to-end-west-asia-war-1788179170273">Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian asks PM Narendra Modi to use India’s influence to end West Asia war</a><h2>The alleged Russian technical assistance to Iran</h2>By 2025, the NPO received extensive Iranian technical material relating to the ramjet system.The Russian engineers who examined data from an Iranian flight test enquired about fuel-system changes, combustion stability, air intakes and engine nozzles. The correspondence suggests Russian specialists were not simply transferring designs but were helping Iranian engineers identify technical problems and improve an already tested propulsion system, claimed the FT report. It said Rosoboronexport in 2025 proposed sending about 24 Russian specialists to Iran for technical consultations linked to Tehran’s responses to the Russian questions about the flight-test data.C430L remained active amid US-Iran war. Russian officials were preparing technical reports for Tehran while both sides discussed a further phase of cooperation amid the US-Iran conflict this year. In June, a letter from Rosoboronexport allegedly showed negotiations continuing over elements of that next phase, but it's not clear if that has begun.<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/iran-war-irgc-strike-claim-raises-questions-as-pentagon-cracks-deepen-1788288595083/embed">https://www.wionews.com/videos/iran-war-irgc-strike-claim-raises-questions-as-pentagon-cracks-deepen-1788288595083/embed</a><h2>Why the ramjet technology matters for Iran</h2>A reliable ramjet could give Iran the foundation to build several generations of high-speed cruise missiles rather than simply acquire one finished weapon. Russian expertise could be particularly valuable because ramjet development is technically difficult, FT cited Fabian Hinz of Conflict Armament Research as saying. “Getting a 60-year-old engineer to fly over and problem-solve, using their experience, is hugely valuable.”Also read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/iran-launches-retaliatory-strikes-with-missiles-and-drones-iranian-media-1788294861231">Iran launches retaliatory strikes with missiles and drones; Trump warns of ‘much harder’ attack</a><h2>Russia-Iran military partnership is growing</h2>C430L fits into a broader pattern of Russia-Iran military cooperation. During the Ukraine war, Iran supplied Russia with drone technology, while Russia provided Iran with military and intelligence assistance during the latter's conflict with Israel and US.Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted at the two nations' cooperation during a meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek.Putin told Pezeshkian that Moscow was “trying to give you the help you need in this difficult period” and was “supplying you with the goods you need”. He did not mention what assistance or goods, and his remarks came the same day as the FT report.There has been no official confirmation of the C430L allegations made in the FT report. There is no concrete evidence that a Russian-assisted supersonic cruise missile is currently operational with Iran.Disclaimer: WION takes utmost care to accurately and responsibly report ongoing conflicts in West Asia involving Israel, Iran, the US, Gulf nations, and non-state actors like Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, Islamic State, and others. Claims and counterclaims, disinformation and misinformation are being made online and offline. Given this context, WION cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, social media posts, photos, and videos. &nbsp;

An FT investigation report has alleged that Russia secretly helped Iran develop ramjet-powered supersonic cruise missiles. The programme codenamed C430L, could give Iran the capability to target US warships, as per the report

A Financial Times report is claiming that Russia has been secretly helping Iran develop advanced supersonic cruise missiles under a programme codenamed ‘C430L’. The multiyear programme began in 2023, claimed the report, which cited leaked Russian communications, travel documents and defence patent analysis. The programme allegedly involves Russian missile specialists, technical exchanges and assistance with a ramjet propulsion system that could allow missiles to travel at several times the speed of sound, the FT investigative report published on Tuesday (Sep 1) said. How C430L began According to the report, the defence programme was arranged by Russia’s state arms exporter Rosoboronexport in coordination with NPO Mashinostroyenia, which is a Russian design bureau sanctioned by the US since 2014. Russian arms-export officials and senior NPO Mashinostroyenia engineers repeatedly travelled to Iran before a formal agreement was signed with Iran’s Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics in November 2023, said the report. Senior NPO engineers with expertise in cruise missiles and air-breathing propulsion, including a specialist in supersonic ramjet technology were involved, it claimed. Supersonic missile for Iran? The ramjet technology Ramjet engines use a technology specifically designed for supersonic speeds. A ramjet propulsion system is at the centre of the C430L programme. Unlike conventional rocket propulsion, a ramjet uses the missile’s forward speed to compress incoming air before combustion, allowing sustained high-speed flight within the atmosphere. Military experts told FT this tech was almost certainly for anti-ship and land-attack cruise missiles. If developed, these weapons could threaten US aircraft carriers, warships and other military assets in the Middle East. Ramjet tech is covted for long by Iran, which built and flight-tested it. But the FT report said there is no evidence that a fully Russian-assisted supersonic cruise missile has entered operational service. Also read: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian asks PM Narendra Modi to use India’s influence to end West Asia war The alleged Russian technical assistance to Iran By 2025, the NPO received extensive Iranian technical material relating to the ramjet system. The Russian engineers who examined data from an Iranian flight test enquired about fuel-system changes, combustion stability, air intakes and engine nozzles. The correspondence suggests Russian specialists were not simply transferring designs but were helping Iranian engineers identify technical problems and improve an already tested propulsion system, claimed the FT report. It said Rosoboronexport in 2025 proposed sending about 24 Russian specialists to Iran for technical consultations linked to Tehran’s responses to the Russian questions about the flight-test data. C430L remained active amid US-Iran war. Russian officials were preparing technical reports for Tehran while both sides discussed a further phase of cooperation amid the US-Iran conflict this year. In June, a letter from Rosoboronexport allegedly showed negotiations continuing over elements of that next phase, but it's not clear if that has begun. https://www.wionews.com/videos/iran-war-irgc-strike-claim-raises-questions-as-pentagon-cracks-deepen-1788288595083/embed Why the ramjet technology matters for Iran A reliable ramjet could give Iran the foundation to build several generations of high-speed cruise missiles rather than simply acquire one finished weapon. Russian expertise could be particularly valuable because ramjet development is technically difficult, FT cited Fabian Hinz of Conflict Armament Research as saying. “Getting a 60-year-old engineer to fly over and problem-solve, using their experience, is hugely valuable.” Also read: Iran launches retaliatory strikes with missiles and drones; Trump warns of ‘much harder’ attack Russia-Iran military partnership is growing C430L fits into a broader pattern of Russia-Iran military cooperation. During the Ukraine war, Iran supplied Russia with drone technology, while Russia provided Iran with military and intelligence assistance during the latter's conflict with Israel and US. Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted at the two nations' cooperation during a meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek. Putin told Pezeshkian that Moscow was “trying to give you the help you need in this difficult period” and was “supplying you with the goods you need”. He did not mention what assistance or goods, and his remarks came the same day as the FT report. There has been no official confirmation of the C430L allegations made in the FT report. There is no concrete evidence that a Russian-assisted supersonic cruise missile is currently operational with Iran. Disclaimer: WION takes utmost care to accurately and responsibly report ongoing conflicts in West Asia involving Israel, Iran, the US, Gulf nations, and non-state actors like Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, Islamic State, and others. Claims and counterclaims, disinformation and misinformation are being made online and offline. Given this context, WION cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, social media posts, photos, and videos.

An FT investigation report has alleged that Russia secretly helped Iran develop ramjet-powered supersonic cruise missiles. The programme codenamed C430L, could give Iran the capability to target US warships, as per the report

Inside C430L: The alleged secret Russian mission to help Iran with supersonic missiles

The immediate threat of a US government shutdown has been pushed beyond the November 2026 midterm elections. But for President Donald Trump, the political battle over government funding may prove more consequential than the shutdown itself.The House on September 1 passed a bipartisan stopgap funding measure by a sweeping 370-48 vote, extending government funding through December 11. The Senate had already approved the measure, effectively removing the possibility of a shutdown dominating the final stretch of the midterm campaign.&nbsp;On paper, that is a win for Trump and congressional Republicans. A government shutdown just weeks before voters head to the polls would have handed Democrats a powerful political weapon, allowing them to argue that Republicans, despite controlling Washington, could not keep the government functioning. But the political picture is considerably more complicated. For Trump, the biggest question is no longer simply whether the government stays open. It is whether Republicans can retain control of Congress after the midterms.&nbsp;The funding fight has once again highlighted the divisions within Washington and the difficulty of converting Republican control of the White House and Congress into a smooth governing agenda. The latest deal avoids an immediate crisis, but it also postpones the underlying confrontation. That could be politically useful for Trump. The government will remain funded through December 11, meaning the next major funding battle will come after voters have already cast their ballots. Trump and Republican candidates can therefore campaign without the immediate threat of federal workers being furloughed, government services being disrupted and Washington becoming consumed by another shutdown.&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/will-trump-become-a-lame-duck-president-democrats-senate-comeback-house-majority-chances-in-us-midterm-elections-gather-pace-1788248973880">Will Trump become a lame-duck president? Democrats’ Senate comeback, House majority chances in midterm elections gather pace</a>&nbsp;That is particularly important because the 2026 midterms are increasingly being viewed as a referendum on Trump’s presidency.Recent polling offers the White House reason for concern. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found Trump’s approval rating at 33%, while Democrats appeared more motivated heading into the midterms. Forty-six per cent of Democrats surveyed said they were very enthusiastic about voting, compared with 31% of Republicans. Democrats also held an advantage among independents on the generic congressional ballot.&nbsp;Those numbers matter because turnout and enthusiasm can be decisive in midterm elections. The shutdown fight could therefore become part of a larger Democratic argument: if Republicans control Washington, voters should judge them on whether that control has produced tangible results. Democrats can point to the funding standoff as evidence of dysfunction. Republicans, on the other hand, will argue that they ultimately prevented a shutdown and secured a funding extension without allowing Democrats to dictate the terms.&nbsp;For Trump, the challenge will be controlling that narrative. The president has built much of his political appeal around projecting strength and delivering results. A prolonged budget crisis would have cut directly against that message. Avoiding the shutdown gives him an opportunity to move the campaign conversation back toward issues where Republicans believe they have stronger political ground. But avoiding one crisis does not automatically create momentum.&nbsp;The deeper danger for Trump is that the midterms could become less about individual Republican candidates and more about the president himself. Historically, midterm elections often function as a test of the party occupying the White House. If Democrats succeed in turning 2026 into a referendum on Trump's record, Republican candidates in competitive districts could find themselves defending the administration rather than simply campaigning on local issues.&nbsp;The stakes are enormous. A Republican loss of either the House or Senate would fundamentally alter Trump's political operating environment. A Democratic-controlled chamber could block or reshape parts of his agenda, intensify congressional investigations and make the remainder of his term considerably more difficult to navigate. The December funding deadline could then become an early test of that new political reality.&nbsp;If Republicans retain control, Trump could enter those negotiations with renewed leverage. If Democrats win control of Congress, the same funding fight could become one of the first major battlegrounds between Trump and a newly empowered opposition.That makes the current shutdown agreement less of an ending than a postponement.&nbsp;Trump has bought himself something valuable: time. But the midterms will determine what that time ultimately means. The shutdown threat may have been pushed beyond Election Day. The bigger question for Trump is whether voters will give Republicans another chance to control Washington. For now, the government stays open. For Trump, however, the political countdown to November has only become more important.

Trump avoids a government shutdown before the 2026 midterms, but low approval and Democratic momentum could make the elections a major test for his presidency

The immediate threat of a US government shutdown has been pushed beyond the November 2026 midterm elections. But for President Donald Trump, the political battle over government funding may prove more consequential than the shutdown itself. The House on September 1 passed a bipartisan stopgap funding measure by a sweeping 370-48 vote, extending government funding through December 11. The Senate had already approved the measure, effectively removing the possibility of a shutdown dominating the final stretch of the midterm campaign. On paper, that is a win for Trump and congressional Republicans. A government shutdown just weeks before voters head to the polls would have handed Democrats a powerful political weapon, allowing them to argue that Republicans, despite controlling Washington, could not keep the government functioning. But the political picture is considerably more complicated. For Trump, the biggest question is no longer simply whether the government stays open. It is whether Republicans can retain control of Congress after the midterms. The funding fight has once again highlighted the divisions within Washington and the difficulty of converting Republican control of the White House and Congress into a smooth governing agenda. The latest deal avoids an immediate crisis, but it also postpones the underlying confrontation. That could be politically useful for Trump. The government will remain funded through December 11, meaning the next major funding battle will come after voters have already cast their ballots. Trump and Republican candidates can therefore campaign without the immediate threat of federal workers being furloughed, government services being disrupted and Washington becoming consumed by another shutdown. Also Read: Will Trump become a lame-duck president? Democrats’ Senate comeback, House majority chances in midterm elections gather pace That is particularly important because the 2026 midterms are increasingly being viewed as a referendum on Trump’s presidency. Recent polling offers the White House reason for concern. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found Trump’s approval rating at 33%, while Democrats appeared more motivated heading into the midterms. Forty-six per cent of Democrats surveyed said they were very enthusiastic about voting, compared with 31% of Republicans. Democrats also held an advantage among independents on the generic congressional ballot. Those numbers matter because turnout and enthusiasm can be decisive in midterm elections. The shutdown fight could therefore become part of a larger Democratic argument: if Republicans control Washington, voters should judge them on whether that control has produced tangible results. Democrats can point to the funding standoff as evidence of dysfunction. Republicans, on the other hand, will argue that they ultimately prevented a shutdown and secured a funding extension without allowing Democrats to dictate the terms. For Trump, the challenge will be controlling that narrative. The president has built much of his political appeal around projecting strength and delivering results. A prolonged budget crisis would have cut directly against that message. Avoiding the shutdown gives him an opportunity to move the campaign conversation back toward issues where Republicans believe they have stronger political ground. But avoiding one crisis does not automatically create momentum. The deeper danger for Trump is that the midterms could become less about individual Republican candidates and more about the president himself. Historically, midterm elections often function as a test of the party occupying the White House. If Democrats succeed in turning 2026 into a referendum on Trump's record, Republican candidates in competitive districts could find themselves defending the administration rather than simply campaigning on local issues. The stakes are enormous. A Republican loss of either the House or Senate would fundamentally alter Trump's political operating environment. A Democratic-controlled chamber could block or reshape parts of his agenda, intensify congressional investigations and make the remainder of his term considerably more difficult to navigate. The December funding deadline could then become an early test of that new political reality. If Republicans retain control, Trump could enter those negotiations with renewed leverage. If Democrats win control of Congress, the same funding fight could become one of the first major battlegrounds between Trump and a newly empowered opposition. That makes the current shutdown agreement less of an ending than a postponement. Trump has bought himself something valuable: time. But the midterms will determine what that time ultimately means. The shutdown threat may have been pushed beyond Election Day. The bigger question for Trump is whether voters will give Republicans another chance to control Washington. For now, the government stays open. For Trump, however, the political countdown to November has only become more important.

Donald Trump avoids a pre-midterm shutdown, but low approval, Democratic enthusiasm and narrow GOP majorities make the 2026 elections a major test

Donald Trump dodges a shutdown. Now comes the bigger test: The midterm elections

In a latest interview, former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that the current Bangladeshi government should not make a hue and cry about her event in India as she never made any issue out of incumbent Bangladeshi PM Tarique Rahman's political meetings while he was in exile in Britain. She also said that his government should not link her extradition to India- Bangladesh ties. Highlighting alleged persecution of Awami League leaders, she said that Bangladesh’s political crisis cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. She also backed her son son Sajeeb Wazed Joy's statement that Bangladesh is on its path to become “another Pakistan.” Hasina made the remarks in an interview with Hindustan Times.&nbsp;&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-tarique-rahman-boeing-deal-bangladesh-1788273030584">Trump thanks Bangladesh PM for Boeing deal, hints at meeting</a><h2>What Hasina said on her extradition?</h2>She said, “I am going back to my own country, I don’t understand why he [Tarique Rahman] is objecting to that. They are talking about the extradition treaty, I want to go back on my own to my country. I will go back. Can I stay abroad my whole life? I have to return to my country, to my own people.” About Rahman's activity in Britain, she claimed, “I addressed a press conference at an international forum. How can this be a problem for relations between two countries? Tarique Rahman signed a stamp paper and given an undertaking that he would not do politics when he [left Bangladesh and] went to Britain in 2007. He indulged in politics from London and, in place of his mother [Khaleda Zia], acted as the chairman of his party. He participated in public and party meetings via video-conference. Did I ever tell the British government to stop a fugitive from my country from holding such meetings? I never made such an accusation. What is his problem?” She also confirmed that she is determined to return by December. “I have said I intend to return by December because Bangladesh’s political crisis cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. I will announce the specific date, time and point of entry in due course. I want to return because Bangladesh is being pulled away from the path of development, democracy and stability,” she added.&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/activists-urge-india-to-intervene-as-hindu-persecution-in-bangladesh-continues-say-rights-leaders-face-politically-motivated-cases-1788185506059">Activists urge India to intervene as Hindu persecution in Bangladesh continues, say rights leaders face ‘politically motivated’ cases</a><h2>What she said about Awami League?</h2>"Of the political parties in Bangladesh, the Awami League is the only one created in 1947. It worked for the country since its creation. My father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, took this party to make the country independent. The Awami League did the most work for Bangladesh’s development, and the people. This is not only an Awami League issue, it is a national crisis. When development stops, jobs disappear. When law breaks down, people lose security. When extremist networks regain space, Bangladesh becomes a regional concern. Many Awami League leaders are outside the country, many others remain inside Bangladesh but are forced to live in hiding," she said. About Bangladesh becoming another Pakistan, she said, "The phrase refers to a dangerous conglomeration of extremism, communal politics, terrorist networks, political patronage and weakened institutions. Bangladesh is being pushed in that direction, and that is dangerous not only for Bangladesh, but for the entire region.&nbsp;

Former Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina said she plans to return home by December. She accused the government of persecuting Awami League leaders and backed her son’s warning that Bangladesh is heading towards “another Pakistan.”

In a latest interview, former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that the current Bangladeshi government should not make a hue and cry about her event in India as she never made any issue out of incumbent Bangladeshi PM Tarique Rahman's political meetings while he was in exile in Britain. She also said that his government should not link her extradition to India- Bangladesh ties. Highlighting alleged persecution of Awami League leaders, she said that Bangladesh’s political crisis cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. She also backed her son son Sajeeb Wazed Joy's statement that Bangladesh is on its path to become “another Pakistan.” Hasina made the remarks in an interview with Hindustan Times. Also Read: Trump thanks Bangladesh PM for Boeing deal, hints at meeting What Hasina said on her extradition? She said, “I am going back to my own country, I don’t understand why he [Tarique Rahman] is objecting to that. They are talking about the extradition treaty, I want to go back on my own to my country. I will go back. Can I stay abroad my whole life? I have to return to my country, to my own people.” About Rahman's activity in Britain, she claimed, “I addressed a press conference at an international forum. How can this be a problem for relations between two countries? Tarique Rahman signed a stamp paper and given an undertaking that he would not do politics when he [left Bangladesh and] went to Britain in 2007. He indulged in politics from London and, in place of his mother [Khaleda Zia], acted as the chairman of his party. He participated in public and party meetings via video-conference. Did I ever tell the British government to stop a fugitive from my country from holding such meetings? I never made such an accusation. What is his problem?” She also confirmed that she is determined to return by December. “I have said I intend to return by December because Bangladesh’s political crisis cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. I will announce the specific date, time and point of entry in due course. I want to return because Bangladesh is being pulled away from the path of development, democracy and stability,” she added. Also Read: Activists urge India to intervene as Hindu persecution in Bangladesh continues, say rights leaders face ‘politically motivated’ cases What she said about Awami League? "Of the political parties in Bangladesh, the Awami League is the only one created in 1947. It worked for the country since its creation. My father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, took this party to make the country independent. The Awami League did the most work for Bangladesh’s development, and the people. This is not only an Awami League issue, it is a national crisis. When development stops, jobs disappear. When law breaks down, people lose security. When extremist networks regain space, Bangladesh becomes a regional concern. Many Awami League leaders are outside the country, many others remain inside Bangladesh but are forced to live in hiding," she said. About Bangladesh becoming another Pakistan, she said, "The phrase refers to a dangerous conglomeration of extremism, communal politics, terrorist networks, political patronage and weakened institutions. Bangladesh is being pushed in that direction, and that is dangerous not only for Bangladesh, but for the entire region.

Former Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina said she plans to return home by December. She accused the government of persecuting Awami League leaders and backed her son’s warning that Bangladesh is heading towards “another Pakistan.”

'I have said I intend to return...': Sheikh Hasina slams Bangladesh PM Tarique Rahman over her extradition row

The Himalayas are at risk of several more glacial lake outbursts in the future because of global warming. Experts from the United Nations and China have warned that the region could be slammed by glacial floods similar to what swept through Nepal and Tibet on August 26. Kanni Wignaraja, an assistant secretary-general at the United Nations, said, citing updated data on glacial lakes in the region, that millions are at risk from these events.&nbsp;Meanwhile, China's Ministry of Water Resources warned on Monday that the glaciers surrounding the Cuojian River in Nepal, where the glacier collapse occurred last week, have become unstable and could cause more flooding.<h2>What is a glacial lake?</h2> Glacial lakes are formed when a glacier melts and the water either gets filled inside, under or around the glacier. Natural barriers, such as the glacier wall and loose debris and mud, prevent the water from flowing out. The water continues to accumulate, and when the pressure builds to an extreme level, the barriers break, sending the water gushing out at great speed.Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/nepal-and-tibet-floods-warning-sign-of-a-looming-disaster-two-days-before-tragedy-struck-1788234797394">Nepal and Tibet floods: Warning sign of a looming disaster recorded two days before tragedy struck</a><h2>The Nepal-Tibet floods</h2> Tragedy unfolded in Nepal and Tibet when a glacier near the Langtang Lirung mountain peak collapsed and fell to the valley floor. A landslide was triggered, and the flood washed down the Trishuli River. More than 1,000 deaths have been reported, over 4,000 remain missing, and more than 900 hydropower workers are trapped in a tunnel.Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/nepal-pm-calls-for-action-against-climate-change-amid-disaster-in-the-himalayas-1788237842731">Nepal PM calls for action against climate change amid disaster in the Himalayas</a><h2>Glacial floods could become common</h2> Experts have warned that we are now seeing the effects of climate change unfold in real time. Glaciers in the Himalayas have become unstable, are melting and could trigger devastating flooding in the future. Scientists say the Himalayas are warming faster than other areas, putting Nepal, China and India at major risk.&nbsp;Chinese experts have cautioned that millions of tons of ice in glaciers in the affected valley have become unstable and can collapse. The water in the impact crater on Nepal's Cuojian River has gone down significantly, shrinking to about 83,000 square metres from 108,000 square metres on Sunday morning, Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery showed. However, more landslides could create another blockade, threatening the formation of another barrier lake, the Chinese ministry said.<h2>Glacial lakes in Himalayas</h2> In 2020, researchers identified 47 glacial lakes in Nepal, China and India. Latest data shows that the number of these lakes has increased, and as they burst, similar devastation could unfold again. The Nepal flash floods are a clear sign that the effects of climate change are already being felt by humans. A continuously warming world could mean the beginning of the end for all of humanity.

Nepal floods: The world could be staring at the beginning of the end as climate change begins to show its fangs. The Nepal-Tibet flood is a clear sign that a warming world has made glaciers weak, which could collapse at any time, experts have warned.

The Himalayas are at risk of several more glacial lake outbursts in the future because of global warming. Experts from the United Nations and China have warned that the region could be slammed by glacial floods similar to what swept through Nepal and Tibet on August 26. Kanni Wignaraja, an assistant secretary-general at the United Nations, said, citing updated data on glacial lakes in the region, that millions are at risk from these events. Meanwhile, China's Ministry of Water Resources warned on Monday that the glaciers surrounding the Cuojian River in Nepal, where the glacier collapse occurred last week, have become unstable and could cause more flooding. What is a glacial lake? Glacial lakes are formed when a glacier melts and the water either gets filled inside, under or around the glacier. Natural barriers, such as the glacier wall and loose debris and mud, prevent the water from flowing out. The water continues to accumulate, and when the pressure builds to an extreme level, the barriers break, sending the water gushing out at great speed. Also Read: Nepal and Tibet floods: Warning sign of a looming disaster recorded two days before tragedy struck The Nepal-Tibet floods Tragedy unfolded in Nepal and Tibet when a glacier near the Langtang Lirung mountain peak collapsed and fell to the valley floor. A landslide was triggered, and the flood washed down the Trishuli River. More than 1,000 deaths have been reported, over 4,000 remain missing, and more than 900 hydropower workers are trapped in a tunnel. Also Read: Nepal PM calls for action against climate change amid disaster in the Himalayas Glacial floods could become common Experts have warned that we are now seeing the effects of climate change unfold in real time. Glaciers in the Himalayas have become unstable, are melting and could trigger devastating flooding in the future. Scientists say the Himalayas are warming faster than other areas, putting Nepal, China and India at major risk. Chinese experts have cautioned that millions of tons of ice in glaciers in the affected valley have become unstable and can collapse. The water in the impact crater on Nepal's Cuojian River has gone down significantly, shrinking to about 83,000 square metres from 108,000 square metres on Sunday morning, Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery showed. However, more landslides could create another blockade, threatening the formation of another barrier lake, the Chinese ministry said. Glacial lakes in Himalayas In 2020, researchers identified 47 glacial lakes in Nepal, China and India. Latest data shows that the number of these lakes has increased, and as they burst, similar devastation could unfold again. The Nepal flash floods are a clear sign that the effects of climate change are already being felt by humans. A continuously warming world could mean the beginning of the end for all of humanity.

Nepal floods: The world could be staring at the beginning of the end as climate change begins to show its fangs. The Nepal-Tibet flood is a clear sign that a warming world has made glaciers weak, which could collapse at any time, experts have warned.

Beginning of the end? More glacial lake outbursts threaten millions in India, Nepal and China

Latest News Today Live Updates: The conflict between the US and Iran has escalated, with Washington launching fresh strikes on Iran and Tehran retaliating against US bases in Bahrain and Iraqi Kurdistan. Yemen's Houthis have voiced support for Iran, while the US has issued a security alert for Americans in West Asia amid fears of further escalation.In India, the Bombay High Court has ordered a CBI probe into the 2020 death of former celebrity manager Disha Salian. The Delhi government has also tightened bus safety rules following the alleged gang rape of a 16-year-old girl inside a sleeper bus in Greater Noida. In Defence news, Air Vice Marshal Shakti Sharma has become the first woman non-medical officer of the Indian Air Force to attain the rank of Air Vice Marshal. In Bangladesh, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has spoken exclusively about her possible return to the country, saying her return would be about standing with the people rather than seeking power, amid an extradition demand from Dhaka.Meanwhile, Nepal has sought climate compensation from major emitters including India, China and the US after deadly floods killed more than 1,000 people and left thousands missing.Stay with us for more latest news, breaking updates and developments as they unfold.

Vijay was in Salem on Tuesday, where he conducted inspection of the Mettur hydroelectric power station. While returning he stopped and met women working in a farm. Vijay gifted the sunglasses he was wearing to an elderly woman, Chellam, who says, “I was surprised when he came and stood next to me. I told him how happy I was to see him, and he gifted me these sunglasses.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560"&gt;&lt;p lang="en" dir="ltr"&gt;VIDEO | Salem: Tamil Nadu CM C Joseph Vijay gifts the sunglasses he was wearing to an elderly woman, Chellam, who says, “I was surprised when he came and stood next to me. I told him how happy I was to see him, and he gifted me these sunglasses.”&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;(Full video available on PTI… &lt;a href="https://t.co/ppg5zpToYO"&gt;pic.twitter.com/ppg5zpToYO&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&amp;mdash; Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) &lt;a href="https://x.com/PTI_News/status/2094741256337571868?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"&gt;September 1, 2026&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt; &lt;script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;

CM Vijay gifts his Dior sunglasses to elderly woman, sweet gesture goes viral: ‘Looked just like in movies

A woman employee returning from maternity leave is entitled to be reinstated in the same position she held before proceeding on leave, the Delhi high court on Monday held, saying that motherhood cannot be allowed to become a source of ignominy at the workplace.

Women returning from maternity leave entitled to position before leave: HC

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has blocked or removed seven Army officers from a two-star general promotion list, triggering the resignation of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. Frustrated by constant interference, Driscoll reported his concerns regarding Army transformation and readiness directly to President Donald Trump before stepping down.

Hegseth targets 7 more officers as Driscoll quits 

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he is nominating acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao to permanently lead the service, calling the former Navy special operations officer a "true WARRIOR" and urging the Senate to quickly confirm him.

Trump taps Hung Cao as Navy secretary after 4 months as acting leader

In a latest interview, former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that the current Bangladeshi government should not make a hue and cry about her event in India as she never made any issue out of incumbent Bangladeshi PM Tarique Rahman's political meetings while he was in exile in Britain. She also said that his government should not link her extradition to India- Bangladesh ties. Highlighting alleged persecution of Awami League leaders, she said that Bangladesh’s political crisis cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. She also backed her son son Sajeeb Wazed Joy's statement that Bangladesh is on its path to become “another Pakistan.” Hasina made the remarks in an interview with Hindustan Times. <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/i-have-said-i-intend-to-return-sheikh-hasina-slams-bangladesh-pm-tarique-rahman-over-her-extradition-row-1788329540483">READ MORE</a>

A Financial Times report is claiming that Russia has been secretly helping Iran develop advanced supersonic cruise missiles under a programme codenamed ‘C430L’. The multiyear programme began in 2023, claimed the report, which cited leaked Russian communications, travel documents and defence patent analysis. The programme allegedly involves Russian missile specialists, technical exchanges and assistance with a ramjet propulsion system that could allow missiles to travel at several times the speed of sound, the FT investigative report published on Tuesday (Sep 1) said.<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/inside-c430l-the-alleged-secret-russian-mission-to-help-iran-with-supersonic-missiles-1788329402775">READ MORE</a>&nbsp;

Erin Piacenti, a New Jersey resident and lawyer, was fatally stabbed on Monday afternoon in one of Manhattan’s busiest areas near West 42nd Street and Seventh Avenue. Police said Piacenti was one of two people attacked in what investigators described as a random and unprovoked stabbing. The second victim, a 68-year-old man, survived the attack and was taken to a hospital for further treatment. "We are shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our colleague," the bank said in a statement issued.<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/who-was-erin-piacenti-bank-of-america-s-vice-president-killed-in-new-york-s-times-square-stabbing-1788335800440"> READ MORE</a>

Amid the chaos of Nepal floods, the Bihar government has issued an advisory urging people to avoid consuming unknown or unusual fish reportedly reaching parts of the state along with floodwaters from the neighbouring country. &nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/don-t-consider-any-unfamiliar-fish-fit-for-consumption-bihar-govt-urges-people-amid-nepal-floods-1788339182363">READ MORE</a>

‘Don’t consider any unfamiliar fish fit for consumption’: Bihar govt urges people amid Nepal floods

The Delhi government has issued fresh safety directions for all buses operating in the capital, including those from other states. The development comes amid outrage over the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl on a sleeper bus headed to Delhi from Greater Noida.

Delhi tightens bus safety rules

The US-Iran war has dramatically escalated into its heaviest exchange of fire following massive U.S. airstrikes on southern Iran and immediate, widespread Iranian ballistic missile and drone counter-retaliation across the Middle East<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/iran-attacks-bahrain-iraqi-kurdistan-as-trump-claims-total-control-of-hormuz-houthis-back-tehran-peru-cuts-ties-what-s-happening-1788314106600">READ MORE</a>

Iran-US conflict escalates

The US-Iran conflict has escalated with fresh US strikes on Iran and Iranian attacks on US bases, while Houthis backed Tehran. The US issued a security alert amid fears of escalation. India saw a CBI probe into Disha Salian's death, new Delhi bus safety rules and a historic IAF promotion

Latest News Today Live Updates: The conflict between the US and Iran has escalated, with Washington launching fresh strikes on Iran and Tehran retaliating against US bases in Bahrain and Iraqi Kurdistan. Yemen's Houthis have voiced support for Iran, while the US has issued a security alert for Americans in West Asia amid fears of further escalation. In India, the Bombay High Court has ordered a CBI probe into the 2020 death of former celebrity manager Disha Salian. The Delhi government has also tightened bus safety rules following the alleged gang rape of a 16-year-old girl inside a sleeper bus in Greater Noida. In Defence news, Air Vice Marshal Shakti Sharma has become the first woman non-medical officer of the Indian Air Force to attain the rank of Air Vice Marshal. In Bangladesh, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has spoken exclusively about her possible return to the country, saying her return would be about standing with the people rather than seeking power, amid an extradition demand from Dhaka. Meanwhile, Nepal has sought climate compensation from major emitters including India, China and the US after deadly floods killed more than 1,000 people and left thousands missing. Stay with us for more latest news, breaking updates and developments as they unfold.

The US-Iran conflict has escalated with fresh US strikes on Iran and Iranian attacks on US bases, while Houthis backed Tehran. The US issued a security alert amid fears of escalation. India saw a CBI probe into Disha Salian's death, new Delhi bus safety rules and a historic IAF promotion

Latest News India and World LIVE Updates: Iran-US conflict escalates, Delhi tightens bus safety rules and more

The US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly voted to censure North Carolina Congressman Chuck Edwards after a bipartisan Ethics Committee investigation found that he engaged in what lawmakers described as persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct toward two young female staffers. The censure passed by a vote of 413-2, with Edwards and South Carolina Congressman Ralph Norman the only members voting against the measure. Edwards has also ended his bid for re-election.&nbsp;The House Ethics Committee's investigation detailed thousands of dollars in gifts, late-night text messages, personal notes and unwanted attention directed toward the two staffers. Investigators concluded that the conduct violated House rules concerning sexual harassment and contributed to a hostile work environment. Speaking on the House floor on Tuesday, Edwards apologized to the women and acknowledged that his judgment had been poor, while maintaining that his actions were intended as part of what he believed was a friendship. “I’m sorry that my actions, my judgment, or the way that I expressed a friendship ever put either of you in an uncomfortable position. My intentions were only grounded in what I understood our friendship to be.”&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/stop-doing-memes-carney-urges-trump-administration-to-get-serious-on-trade-talks-1788319382074">'Stop doing memes': Carney urges Trump administration to get serious on trade talks</a>&nbsp;House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest said the case did not involve what he described as “quid pro quo sexual harassment.” Instead, he said the investigation found a pattern of behavior that created a hostile work environment. “While Representative Edwards denies that his conduct was intended to be sexual or romantic, his pattern of behavior would lead a reasonable person to interpret it as such,” Guest said.&nbsp;According to Guest, Edwards gave the staffers lavish gifts, made comments about their appearance and clothing, sent notes expressing affection, and invited them to intimate dinners and vacations. Guest also said Edwards knew that the women were uncomfortable with his conduct but continued the pattern of behaviour. The bipartisan censure marks a significant congressional rebuke for Edwards, who has already withdrawn from the race for another term.

US House censures Rep. Chuck Edwards in a 413-2 vote after an Ethics Committee investigation into inappropriate conduct toward two female staffers

The US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly voted to censure North Carolina Congressman Chuck Edwards after a bipartisan Ethics Committee investigation found that he engaged in what lawmakers described as persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct toward two young female staffers. The censure passed by a vote of 413-2, with Edwards and South Carolina Congressman Ralph Norman the only members voting against the measure. Edwards has also ended his bid for re-election. The House Ethics Committee's investigation detailed thousands of dollars in gifts, late-night text messages, personal notes and unwanted attention directed toward the two staffers. Investigators concluded that the conduct violated House rules concerning sexual harassment and contributed to a hostile work environment. Speaking on the House floor on Tuesday, Edwards apologized to the women and acknowledged that his judgment had been poor, while maintaining that his actions were intended as part of what he believed was a friendship. “I’m sorry that my actions, my judgment, or the way that I expressed a friendship ever put either of you in an uncomfortable position. My intentions were only grounded in what I understood our friendship to be.” Also Read: 'Stop doing memes': Carney urges Trump administration to get serious on trade talks House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest said the case did not involve what he described as “quid pro quo sexual harassment.” Instead, he said the investigation found a pattern of behavior that created a hostile work environment. “While Representative Edwards denies that his conduct was intended to be sexual or romantic, his pattern of behavior would lead a reasonable person to interpret it as such,” Guest said. According to Guest, Edwards gave the staffers lavish gifts, made comments about their appearance and clothing, sent notes expressing affection, and invited them to intimate dinners and vacations. Guest also said Edwards knew that the women were uncomfortable with his conduct but continued the pattern of behaviour. The bipartisan censure marks a significant congressional rebuke for Edwards, who has already withdrawn from the race for another term.

US House votes 413-2 to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards after an Ethics Committee probe found inappropriate conduct toward two female staffers

US House votes 413-2 to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards over conduct towards staffers

A new documentary about President Donald Trump’s secret transfer from Air Force One to another military aircraft in Turkey is set to be released on Netflix. Titled Instadocs: The Decoy Plane, the documentary by showrunner Steve Yaccino will give details of the July 8 incident from the perspective of the travelling press corps. The maker promises the docu series will give firsthand accounts from on board the plane, including The Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe, who was part of the reporting team that first broke the story.&nbsp;"Beyond showing the lengths the Secret Service will go to protect the president, this instalment reveals the cost of that mission: to get him home safely, a plane full of reporters and the public they answer to were left flying blind," Netflix said in a statement.&nbsp;Instadocs is Netflix’s new "quick-turn documentary series that moves at the speed of the story and arrives at the height of the conversation." The Decoy Plane is the third installment in the series after "Instadocs: Alex Murdaugh, Unconvicted" and "Instadocs: The Prediction Games."<h2>How did Trump switch planes?</h2>According to a report in The Washington Post, Trump secretly took off from Turkey on a military aircraft after being transferred in a catering truck, which is typically used to deliver food and and beverages to the aeroplanes.&nbsp; &nbsp;Back then, the White House had stated that the president traveled on a Qatar-gifted Boeing 747-B Air Force One due to security threats from Iran. He took the plane from Turkey to RAF Mildenhall in England, switched back to the Qatari jet, and continued on to Joint Base Andrews near Washington, D.C.&nbsp;The aircraft swap was a deliberate ruse to protect the president during his trip to Turkey for the NATO summit.&nbsp;

"It's up to the Secret Service. I just follow what they'd like to do. I go by Secret Service and the military," Trump later told reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Aug. 11. "They wanted me to go on a different plane, a different plane, uh, equal safety, but they wanted me to do it, so I do it."&nbsp;Trump’s aide Natalie Harp and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegeseth had accompanied the US President on the flight while other top officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, adviser Stephen Miller, former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and reporters traveling with the president, remained on what became a "decoy" plane.&nbsp;Instadocs: The Decoy Plane will be premiering on Netflix on September 4.

US President Donald Trump's secret plane swap in Turkey back in July is now the subject of a docu series on Netflix. Titled Instadocs: The Decoy Plane, the series will give first hand account of those who were travelling with the president on that day. 

A new documentary about President Donald Trump’s secret transfer from Air Force One to another military aircraft in Turkey is set to be released on Netflix. Titled Instadocs: The Decoy Plane, the documentary by showrunner Steve Yaccino will give details of the July 8 incident from the perspective of the travelling press corps. The maker promises the docu series will give firsthand accounts from on board the plane, including The Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe, who was part of the reporting team that first broke the story. "Beyond showing the lengths the Secret Service will go to protect the president, this instalment reveals the cost of that mission: to get him home safely, a plane full of reporters and the public they answer to were left flying blind," Netflix said in a statement. Instadocs is Netflix’s new "quick-turn documentary series that moves at the speed of the story and arrives at the height of the conversation." The Decoy Plane is the third installment in the series after "Instadocs: Alex Murdaugh, Unconvicted" and "Instadocs: The Prediction Games." How did Trump switch planes? According to a report in The Washington Post, Trump secretly took off from Turkey on a military aircraft after being transferred in a catering truck, which is typically used to deliver food and and beverages to the aeroplanes. Back then, the White House had stated that the president traveled on a Qatar-gifted Boeing 747-B Air Force One due to security threats from Iran. He took the plane from Turkey to RAF Mildenhall in England, switched back to the Qatari jet, and continued on to Joint Base Andrews near Washington, D.C. The aircraft swap was a deliberate ruse to protect the president during his trip to Turkey for the NATO summit.

US President Donald Trump's secret plane swap in Turkey back in July is now the subject of a docu series on Netflix. Titled Instadocs: The Decoy Plane,&nbsp;the series will give first hand account of those who were travelling with the president on that day.&nbsp;

Netflix to release docuseries on Donald Trump's secret plane switch in Turkey

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has urged the Trump administration to take a more serious approach to trade negotiations, telling Washington to ‘stop doing memes, stop throwing shade and stop trying to be tough’ following another round of public attacks against Canada. Carney said trade talks could resume if US President Donald Trump and his administration approach negotiations seriously. However, he warned that some of Washington's demands could leave Canadian industries ‘gradually wound down in Canada and wiped out’.&nbsp;"When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade and stop trying to be tough, and start being serious about having those discussions, we can have those discussions," Carney said. “It’s not constructive, but that’s their democracy.” Tensions between Ottawa and Washington have intensified since trade negotiations broke down on Aug. 21. Since then, Trump has continued his public criticism of Canada, including his move to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America" and repeated comments about Canada on social media.&nbsp;US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also dismissed Canada's ability to respond to the United States on an equal footing, saying Ottawa could not go ‘tit for tat’ against an economy 13 times larger. The rhetoric escalated further Monday when US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth mocked Canada's military in an online post featuring an image of two female cadets in British Columbia with the caption “this is real.” Carney criticised the post, describing it as "beneath their office." The Pentagon responded Tuesday by saying, "The X post speaks for itself."&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/russian-sky-is-becoming-completely-dangerous-zelensky-warns-as-ukraine-steps-up-drone-strikes-1788315781266">'Russian sky is becoming completely dangerous': Zelensky warns as Ukraine steps up drone strikes</a><h2>Carney rejects US trade demands</h2>Carney said some of the US proposals would effectively force Canadian companies to operate as subsidiaries of American firms or leave them vulnerable to being eliminated from the Canadian market. "Canada is a sovereign state. We will strike free trade deals with the countries we wish to strike free trade deals," Carney said.&nbsp;"We’re not going to, of course, we’re not going to accept those terms," Carney said. The prime minister described several US demands as unacceptable, particularly proposals involving Canada's auto industry. He said Washington was seeking an "uncompetitive" arrangement that could weaken Canadian businesses.&nbsp;Carney also identified proposed restrictions involving French-language protections as a potential dealbreaker. Washington had additionally sought limits on Canada's ability to negotiate future trade agreements with other countries. Despite the collapse of negotiations, Carney said the discussions had included some "mutually beneficial" elements that could potentially provide a basis for future talks.<h2>Liberal wins strengthen Carney's position</h2>Carney's comments came after the Liberal Party won all three special elections held Monday, including a victory in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, Quebec, where the Conservatives finished third. The results leave the Liberals with 173 of the 343 seats in the House of Commons, giving Carney additional political strength as he confronts Washington over trade, economic security and Canadian sovereignty. Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto, said: "Quebecers have the most to lose in an apocalyptic scenario where the US absorbs Canada, and the status of the French language disappears."<h2>Tariffs add to Canada-US tensions</h2>The failure of negotiations has already produced new tariffs. Trump imposed 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods after the talks collapsed. Canada is set to introduce retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion in US goods beginning Sept. 8. The Canadian measures will range from 15% to 50%. The escalating trade dispute comes as Trump continues to publicly discuss the possibility of Canada becoming the 51st US state, adding another layer to an increasingly tense relationship between the two North American neighbors. For now, Carney has signaled that Canada remains open to negotiations, but only if Washington returns to the table with what Ottawa considers serious and mutually workable terms.

Mark Carney urges Trump to take Canada-US trade talks seriously as tariffs, sovereignty disputes and tensions escalate between Ottawa and Washington

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has urged the Trump administration to take a more serious approach to trade negotiations, telling Washington to ‘stop doing memes, stop throwing shade and stop trying to be tough’ following another round of public attacks against Canada. Carney said trade talks could resume if US President Donald Trump and his administration approach negotiations seriously. However, he warned that some of Washington's demands could leave Canadian industries ‘gradually wound down in Canada and wiped out’. "When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade and stop trying to be tough, and start being serious about having those discussions, we can have those discussions," Carney said. “It’s not constructive, but that’s their democracy.” Tensions between Ottawa and Washington have intensified since trade negotiations broke down on Aug. 21. Since then, Trump has continued his public criticism of Canada, including his move to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America" and repeated comments about Canada on social media. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also dismissed Canada's ability to respond to the United States on an equal footing, saying Ottawa could not go ‘tit for tat’ against an economy 13 times larger. The rhetoric escalated further Monday when US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth mocked Canada's military in an online post featuring an image of two female cadets in British Columbia with the caption “this is real.” Carney criticised the post, describing it as "beneath their office." The Pentagon responded Tuesday by saying, "The X post speaks for itself." Also Read: 'Russian sky is becoming completely dangerous': Zelensky warns as Ukraine steps up drone strikes Carney rejects US trade demands Carney said some of the US proposals would effectively force Canadian companies to operate as subsidiaries of American firms or leave them vulnerable to being eliminated from the Canadian market. "Canada is a sovereign state. We will strike free trade deals with the countries we wish to strike free trade deals," Carney said. "We’re not going to, of course, we’re not going to accept those terms," Carney said. The prime minister described several US demands as unacceptable, particularly proposals involving Canada's auto industry. He said Washington was seeking an "uncompetitive" arrangement that could weaken Canadian businesses. Carney also identified proposed restrictions involving French-language protections as a potential dealbreaker. Washington had additionally sought limits on Canada's ability to negotiate future trade agreements with other countries. Despite the collapse of negotiations, Carney said the discussions had included some "mutually beneficial" elements that could potentially provide a basis for future talks. Liberal wins strengthen Carney's position Carney's comments came after the Liberal Party won all three special elections held Monday, including a victory in Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, Quebec, where the Conservatives finished third. The results leave the Liberals with 173 of the 343 seats in the House of Commons, giving Carney additional political strength as he confronts Washington over trade, economic security and Canadian sovereignty. Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto, said: "Quebecers have the most to lose in an apocalyptic scenario where the US absorbs Canada, and the status of the French language disappears." Tariffs add to Canada-US tensions The failure of negotiations has already produced new tariffs. Trump imposed 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods after the talks collapsed. Canada is set to introduce retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion in US goods beginning Sept. 8. The Canadian measures will range from 15% to 50%. The escalating trade dispute comes as Trump continues to publicly discuss the possibility of Canada becoming the 51st US state, adding another layer to an increasingly tense relationship between the two North American neighbors. For now, Carney has signaled that Canada remains open to negotiations, but only if Washington returns to the table with what Ottawa considers serious and mutually workable terms.

Mark Carney tells Donald Trump to ‘stop doing memes’ as Canada rejects US trade demands and tensions rise over tariffs, sovereignty and industry

'Stop doing memes': Carney urges Trump administration to get serious on trade talks

At least 12 people were killed including one Indian national in the latest Russian attacks on Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday (Sep 1). As per reports, another person was injured. Russian drones and ballistic missiles struck several cities in the eastern European nation, damaging residential buildings and civilian infrastructure. Russian guided aerial bomb and drone strikes also continued against Odesa and the surrounding region. A border crossing with Romania and export infrastructure were also "deliberately damaged", according to Zelensky. The Ukrainian president blamed Russia for deliberately targeting civilians and called for increased air defence assistance to Ukraine.&nbsp;&nbsp;<blockquote>"My condolences to everyone who has lost family and loved ones," the Ukrainian president added. Zelenskyy said dozens of people were injured in the attacks, which also hit Kyiv, Odesa, Kherson, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy and Dnipro regions.</blockquote>HT reported the identity of the Indian national killed and the one injured. Sudarshan Bhabhilala, a 40-year-old resident of Gujarat, died due to a severe head injury sustained in a Russian attack in Kyiv region, while Ganesh Kalleda, a 35-year-old resident of Telengana, was injured in the attacks. “We are deeply saddened by the tragic death of an Indian national in an attack in Ukraine. The embassy is in touch with the bereaved family and extends its deepest condolences,” the Indian mission in Kyiv said on social media. “We are providing all possible assistance for early repatriation of the mortal remains. In this regard, the embassy is in contact with his company and the Ukrainian authorities.”&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/from-not-an-era-of-war-to-end-of-war-4-times-pm-modi-urged-russia-s-putin-to-stop-ukraine-conflict-1788256232437">From 'not an era of war' to 'end of war': 4 times PM Modi urged Russia's Putin to stop Ukraine conflict</a><h2>Modi-Putin meeting&nbsp;</h2>This comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Kyrgyzstan. He told the Russian president, “Every day spent in war sets humanity back, whereas every step taken towards peace fills humanity with new hope and enthusiasm. We must move away from endless war towards an end to the war. This is essential for the well-being of humanity. A peaceful resolution to all issues at the earliest is the call of humanity, and this is India’s message. Modi added that the “land of Gandhi and the land of Buddha share a single message: the path of peace."&nbsp;Just a day ago, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri also said that 227 Indian nationals have been recruited into the Russian armed forces, of whom 139 have been discharged while 51 have passed away. He added that New Delhi is in constant discussions with Moscow for the release and repatriation of those who remain.<h3>&nbsp;</h3>

An Indian citizen was among 12 people killed in the latest Russian strikes on Ukraine, President Zelenskyy said. Russian drones and ballistic missiles hit Kyiv, Odesa and other regions, damaging homes and civilian infrastructure

At least 12 people were killed including one Indian national in the latest Russian attacks on Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday (Sep 1). As per reports, another person was injured. Russian drones and ballistic missiles struck several cities in the eastern European nation, damaging residential buildings and civilian infrastructure. Russian guided aerial bomb and drone strikes also continued against Odesa and the surrounding region. A border crossing with Romania and export infrastructure were also "deliberately damaged", according to Zelensky. The Ukrainian president blamed Russia for deliberately targeting civilians and called for increased air defence assistance to Ukraine. "My condolences to everyone who has lost family and loved ones," the Ukrainian president added. Zelenskyy said dozens of people were injured in the attacks, which also hit Kyiv, Odesa, Kherson, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy and Dnipro regions. HT reported the identity of the Indian national killed and the one injured. Sudarshan Bhabhilala, a 40-year-old resident of Gujarat, died due to a severe head injury sustained in a Russian attack in Kyiv region, while Ganesh Kalleda, a 35-year-old resident of Telengana, was injured in the attacks. “We are deeply saddened by the tragic death of an Indian national in an attack in Ukraine. The embassy is in touch with the bereaved family and extends its deepest condolences,” the Indian mission in Kyiv said on social media. “We are providing all possible assistance for early repatriation of the mortal remains. In this regard, the embassy is in contact with his company and the Ukrainian authorities.” Also Read: From 'not an era of war' to 'end of war': 4 times PM Modi urged Russia's Putin to stop Ukraine conflict Modi-Putin meeting This comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Kyrgyzstan. He told the Russian president, “Every day spent in war sets humanity back, whereas every step taken towards peace fills humanity with new hope and enthusiasm. We must move away from endless war towards an end to the war. This is essential for the well-being of humanity. A peaceful resolution to all issues at the earliest is the call of humanity, and this is India’s message. Modi added that the “land of Gandhi and the land of Buddha share a single message: the path of peace." Just a day ago, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri also said that 227 Indian nationals have been recruited into the Russian armed forces, of whom 139 have been discharged while 51 have passed away. He added that New Delhi is in constant discussions with Moscow for the release and repatriation of those who remain.

An Indian citizen was among 12 people killed in the latest Russian strikes on Ukraine, President Zelenskyy said. Russian drones and ballistic missiles hit Kyiv, Odesa and other regions, damaging homes and civilian infrastructure

Indian killed, another injured as Russia attacks Ukrainian cities day after PM Modi meets Putin

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned airlines, insurance companies and other aviation stakeholders that growing Ukrainian drone activity is making Russian airspace increasingly dangerous and could effectively force the closure of the country’s skies. “Today, we want to warn every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer, everyone who still uses key Russian airports: the Russian sky is becoming completely dangerous,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.&nbsp;Zelenskyy stressed that Ukraine does not pose a threat to civilian aviation, while warning that Ukrainian drones would continue operating over Russian territory. “Ukraine poses no threat to civil aviation, but there will be drones in Russia’s skies and due notice must be taken,” he said. The Ukrainian president also accused Russian authorities of failing to adequately communicate aviation risks linked to the ongoing drone activity. He said that, regardless of official announcements, the security situation would effectively lead to Russian airspace becoming closed.&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/charlie-kirk-murder-case-trial-tyler-robinson-faces-possible-death-penalty-after-court-ruling-1788313352702">Charlie Kirk murder case trial: Tyler Robinson faces possible death penalty after court ruling</a>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">It was from Russia that the first missiles and the first drones came, and they crossed our country’s border from Russian airspace. This escalation cannot and will not remain confined to Ukrainian territory. Today, we want to warn every airline that uses Russian airspace, every…&mdash; Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) <a href="https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/2094847676848480297?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 1, 2026</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“Although Russian authorities are not properly announcing it, Russian airspace will effectively be closing. The war started by Russia is closing its own skies,” Zelenskyy added. The warning comes as Russia has intensified its air campaign against Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in recent weeks. Moscow’s latest attacks killed 12 people and injured many others, marking the sixth consecutive day of heavy assaults on the Ukrainian capital.&nbsp;Ukraine, meanwhile, has continued launching drone strikes against targets inside Russia. Several of the attacks have focused on facilities linked to Russia’s oil industry, along with retail and other sites. Zelenskyy’s latest warning highlights the growing impact of the drone war on Russia’s aviation sector. As Ukrainian drone operations continue across Russian territory and Russian missile and drone attacks intensify against Ukrainian cities, concerns over the safety of Russian airspace are becoming increasingly prominent.

Zelenskyy warns airlines and insurers that Ukrainian drones are making Russian airspace increasingly dangerous as attacks intensify across Russia and Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned airlines, insurance companies and other aviation stakeholders that growing Ukrainian drone activity is making Russian airspace increasingly dangerous and could effectively force the closure of the country’s skies. “Today, we want to warn every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer, everyone who still uses key Russian airports: the Russian sky is becoming completely dangerous,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. Zelenskyy stressed that Ukraine does not pose a threat to civilian aviation, while warning that Ukrainian drones would continue operating over Russian territory. “Ukraine poses no threat to civil aviation, but there will be drones in Russia’s skies and due notice must be taken,” he said. The Ukrainian president also accused Russian authorities of failing to adequately communicate aviation risks linked to the ongoing drone activity. He said that, regardless of official announcements, the security situation would effectively lead to Russian airspace becoming closed. Also Read: Charlie Kirk murder case trial: Tyler Robinson faces possible death penalty after court ruling

Zelenskyy warns airlines and insurers that Ukrainian drone activity is making Russian airspace increasingly dangerous and could effectively close it

'Russian sky is becoming completely dangerous': Zelensky warns as Ukraine steps up drone strikes

The war between Iran and United States (US) has renewed with US President Donald Trump claiming that he is not trying to force Iran back to the negotiating table. He also claimed that the US has “total control of the Hormuz Strait”, while Iran contradicted his claims. Iran launched retaliatory strikes on US bases in Bahrain and Iraqi Kurdistan, while Houthis pledged support to Tehran. Meanwhile, the US State Department has reissued a security alert to American citizens in the West Asia, urging them to exercise caution due to the “potential for unforeseen escalation.” Additionally, Peru severed diplomatic relations with Iran, accusing Tehran of inciting “an escalation of conflicts.” The strike has killed 11 people across the Khuzestan and Hormozgan provinces.<h2>What Trump said about Hormuz and deal with Iran?</h2>Dismissing reports that Washington is seeking a new agreement with Tehran, Trump said: “I like our position now much better, with almost , and their economy totally collapsing,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. He added that Iran was “playing out the inevitable” and asked: “When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?” He also slammed ABC News accusing it of sharing fake news.&nbsp;<h2>Houthis in solidarity with Iran</h2>The Houthi-run Foreign Ministry in Sanaa has issued a statement of solidarity with Tehran. In a statement carried by the Houthi-controlled Saba news agency, the ministry said that US attacks would not weaken Iran’s resolve, and that Tehran’s response was a legitimate right under international law. The ministry accused the US of pushing the region towards tension and said Washington bore responsibility for the consequences, along with those supporting it. It warned countries hosting US forces that they would face “repercussions”, adding that regimes turning their territories into US platforms for aggression “must pay the price”.&nbsp;Iran, meanwhile, targeted US forces at an air base in Washington-allied Bahrain. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also said that they struck US bases with missiles and drones in Erbil in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, state media reported. The Guards said they “carried out a coordinated missile and drone attack on US bases in Erbil” that destroyed a maintenance centre, warehouses and the “guidance system of a US surveillance aerostat,” according to a statement carried by the state-run IRNA.<h2>US reissues alert urging citizens in Mideast to exercise caution</h2>In the latest alert, US warned Americans currently in the Middle East to “exercise heightened vigilance and be aware of potential flight cancellations, airspace closures and travel disruptions.” “Americans traveling to or from the region should monitor information about airport and airline operations. US diplomatic facilities, including outside the Middle East, have been targeted. Iran and groups supportive of Iran may target other US interests overseas or at locations associated with the United States and Americans throughout the world, including US businesses and other institutions,” the alert added.&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/iran-launches-retaliatory-strikes-with-missiles-and-drones-iranian-media-1788294861231">Iran launches retaliatory strikes with missiles and drones; Trump warns of ‘much harder’ attack</a><h2>US attacks Iran again</h2>US launched renewed strikes on Iran on Sep 1 and targeted Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, Konarak, Chabahar, Jask, Sirik, Lavan and Asluyeh in southern Iran. US CENTCOM said in a post on X, “Today at 12 pm ET, US forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran. The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.”&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-admin-hit-by-another-top-level-exit-as-us-army-secretary-dan-driscoll-resigns-1788227779264">Trump admin hit by another top-level exit as US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigns</a>&nbsp;US President Donald Trump claimed that Gulf allies were notified before the latest round of US strikes on Iran. Speaking to Fox News, Trump also warned Iran against retaliating, adding that the USS George Washington “is loaded to the gills.” "The United States is, as we speak, striking Iranian Targets near the Strait of Hormuz. The strikes are large and powerful, and in retaliation for the Iranians’ failed attempt at adding sea mines to the Strait, and the Iranians shooting eight missiles, all successfully knocked down, at our Military Base in Jordan,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!” Trump said. “If they retaliate, they'll be hit much harder. And if they do it again, they'll be no longer,” the president told Fox News. Asked whether he's still interested in a deal with Iran, the president said, “I think an agreement with them isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. We gave them a lot of chances.”

Trump said he is not seeking a new deal with Iran, claiming the US has near-total control of the Strait of Hormuz and that Iran’s economy is collapsing. Iran retaliated with missile and drone strikes on US positions in Bahrain and Iraq, while Houthis backed Tehran and warned US allies.

The war between Iran and United States (US) has renewed with US President Donald Trump claiming that he is not trying to force Iran back to the negotiating table. He also claimed that the US has “total control of the Hormuz Strait”, while Iran contradicted his claims. Iran launched retaliatory strikes on US bases in Bahrain and Iraqi Kurdistan, while Houthis pledged support to Tehran. Meanwhile, the US State Department has reissued a security alert to American citizens in the West Asia, urging them to exercise caution due to the “potential for unforeseen escalation.” Additionally, Peru severed diplomatic relations with Iran, accusing Tehran of inciting “an escalation of conflicts.” The strike has killed 11 people across the Khuzestan and Hormozgan provinces. What Trump said about Hormuz and deal with Iran? Dismissing reports that Washington is seeking a new agreement with Tehran, Trump said: “I like our position now much better, with almost , and their economy totally collapsing,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. He added that Iran was “playing out the inevitable” and asked: “When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?” He also slammed ABC News accusing it of sharing fake news. Houthis in solidarity with Iran The Houthi-run Foreign Ministry in Sanaa has issued a statement of solidarity with Tehran. In a statement carried by the Houthi-controlled Saba news agency, the ministry said that US attacks would not weaken Iran’s resolve, and that Tehran’s response was a legitimate right under international law. The ministry accused the US of pushing the region towards tension and said Washington bore responsibility for the consequences, along with those supporting it. It warned countries hosting US forces that they would face “repercussions”, adding that regimes turning their territories into US platforms for aggression “must pay the price”. Iran, meanwhile, targeted US forces at an air base in Washington-allied Bahrain. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also said that they struck US bases with missiles and drones in Erbil in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, state media reported. The Guards said they “carried out a coordinated missile and drone attack on US bases in Erbil” that destroyed a maintenance centre, warehouses and the “guidance system of a US surveillance aerostat,” according to a statement carried by the state-run IRNA. US reissues alert urging citizens in Mideast to exercise caution In the latest alert, US warned Americans currently in the Middle East to “exercise heightened vigilance and be aware of potential flight cancellations, airspace closures and travel disruptions.” “Americans traveling to or from the region should monitor information about airport and airline operations. US diplomatic facilities, including outside the Middle East, have been targeted. Iran and groups supportive of Iran may target other US interests overseas or at locations associated with the United States and Americans throughout the world, including US businesses and other institutions,” the alert added. Also Read: Iran launches retaliatory strikes with missiles and drones; Trump warns of ‘much harder’ attack US attacks Iran again US launched renewed strikes on Iran on Sep 1 and targeted Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, Konarak, Chabahar, Jask, Sirik, Lavan and Asluyeh in southern Iran. US CENTCOM said in a post on X, “Today at 12 pm ET, US forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran. The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.” Also Read: Trump admin hit by another top-level exit as US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigns US President Donald Trump claimed that Gulf allies were notified before the latest round of US strikes on Iran. Speaking to Fox News, Trump also warned Iran against retaliating, adding that the USS George Washington “is loaded to the gills.” "The United States is, as we speak, striking Iranian Targets near the Strait of Hormuz. The strikes are large and powerful, and in retaliation for the Iranians’ failed attempt at adding sea mines to the Strait, and the Iranians shooting eight missiles, all successfully knocked down, at our Military Base in Jordan,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!” Trump said. “If they retaliate, they'll be hit much harder. And if they do it again, they'll be no longer,” the president told Fox News. Asked whether he's still interested in a deal with Iran, the president said, “I think an agreement with them isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. We gave them a lot of chances.”

Trump said he is not seeking a new deal with Iran, claiming the US has near-total control of the Strait of Hormuz and that Iran’s economy is collapsing. Iran retaliated with missile and drone strikes on US positions in Bahrain and Iraq, while Houthis backed Tehran and warned US allies.

Iran attacks Bahrain, Iraqi Kurdistan as Trump claims ‘total control’ of Hormuz; Houthis back Tehran, Peru cuts ties: What's happening

Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk, could face the death penalty after a Utah judge ruled on Tuesday (September 1) that prosecutors presented enough evidence to proceed with an aggravated murder trial. Robinson, 23, appeared in court for an evidentiary review, an early stage of Utah’s legal process where prosecutors must establish probable cause showing that sufficient evidence exists for the case to move forward.&nbsp;Robinson is accused of fatally shooting Kirk last September as the 31-year-old conservative activist spoke at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University. The appearance was part of a campus tour organized by Turning Point USA, the conservative youth organization Kirk co-founded. District Judge Tony Graf agreed with prosecutors that the shooting put people other than Kirk at risk. That finding is central to the aggravated murder charge, a capital felony under Utah law that allows the death penalty to be considered following a conviction.&nbsp;Graf emphasized that his ruling did not determine whether Robinson was guilty. “These circumstances support a reasonable inference that defendant was aware that other individuals were positioned near Mr. Kirk when he fired,” Graf said. Robinson pleaded not guilty on Tuesday. Kirk’s family said they want the case to move through the courts without unnecessary delays.&nbsp;Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/iran-launches-retaliatory-strikes-with-missiles-and-drones-iranian-media-1788294861231">Iran launches retaliatory strikes with missiles and drones; Trump warns of ‘much harder’ attack</a>&nbsp;“Today’s decision, which comes nearly a year since Charlie was taken from us, marks an important step in our family’s pursuit of justice for him,” they said. Prosecutors said the fatal shot was fired from approximately 400 feet away. Deputy Utah County Attorney Ryan McBride argued that the precision required for the shot does not eliminate the danger posed to others in the crowd. According to McBride, the bullet could have missed Kirk by about seven feet if Robinson’s aim had been off by only one degree. “You can’t shoot a rifle into a crowd of 3,000 people without knowing that you create a great risk of death to all those around your target,” he said.&nbsp;Robinson’s defense attorneys sought to remove the death penalty from consideration and have the charge reduced to a lesser form of murder. That offense carries a minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum sentence of life in prison. Defense lawyers argued in court filings that Robinson did not knowingly create a great risk to other people because he “did not miss his intended target and did not chamber another round.”&nbsp;Staci Visser, one of Robinson’s defense attorneys, argued in court that the evidence pointed to a single intended victim. “There is one shot, there is one bullet, there is one victim,” defense attorney Staci Visser said in court on Tuesday. “There was no evidence that would suggest anyone else was threatened.”&nbsp;The defense also pointed to the fact that Robinson did not reload the bolt-action rifle belonging to his grandfather. Attorneys argued that this supported their position that he did not intend to hurt anyone other than Kirk. The judge’s decision allows the aggravated murder case to proceed, while the question of Robinson’s guilt will be determined later in the legal process.

Tyler Robinson could face the death penalty after a Utah judge ruled there is enough evidence to proceed with his aggravated murder trial

Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk, could face the death penalty after a Utah judge ruled on Tuesday (September 1) that prosecutors presented enough evidence to proceed with an aggravated murder trial. Robinson, 23, appeared in court for an evidentiary review, an early stage of Utah’s legal process where prosecutors must establish probable cause showing that sufficient evidence exists for the case to move forward. Robinson is accused of fatally shooting Kirk last September as the 31-year-old conservative activist spoke at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University. The appearance was part of a campus tour organized by Turning Point USA, the conservative youth organization Kirk co-founded. District Judge Tony Graf agreed with prosecutors that the shooting put people other than Kirk at risk. That finding is central to the aggravated murder charge, a capital felony under Utah law that allows the death penalty to be considered following a conviction. Graf emphasized that his ruling did not determine whether Robinson was guilty. “These circumstances support a reasonable inference that defendant was aware that other individuals were positioned near Mr. Kirk when he fired,” Graf said. Robinson pleaded not guilty on Tuesday. Kirk’s family said they want the case to move through the courts without unnecessary delays. Also Read: Iran launches retaliatory strikes with missiles and drones; Trump warns of ‘much harder’ attack “Today’s decision, which comes nearly a year since Charlie was taken from us, marks an important step in our family’s pursuit of justice for him,” they said. Prosecutors said the fatal shot was fired from approximately 400 feet away. Deputy Utah County Attorney Ryan McBride argued that the precision required for the shot does not eliminate the danger posed to others in the crowd. According to McBride, the bullet could have missed Kirk by about seven feet if Robinson’s aim had been off by only one degree. “You can’t shoot a rifle into a crowd of 3,000 people without knowing that you create a great risk of death to all those around your target,” he said. Robinson’s defense attorneys sought to remove the death penalty from consideration and have the charge reduced to a lesser form of murder. That offense carries a minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum sentence of life in prison. Defense lawyers argued in court filings that Robinson did not knowingly create a great risk to other people because he “did not miss his intended target and did not chamber another round.” Staci Visser, one of Robinson’s defense attorneys, argued in court that the evidence pointed to a single intended victim. “There is one shot, there is one bullet, there is one victim,” defense attorney Staci Visser said in court on Tuesday. “There was no evidence that would suggest anyone else was threatened.” The defense also pointed to the fact that Robinson did not reload the bolt-action rifle belonging to his grandfather. Attorneys argued that this supported their position that he did not intend to hurt anyone other than Kirk. The judge’s decision allows the aggravated murder case to proceed, while the question of Robinson’s guilt will be determined later in the legal process.

Tyler Robinson could face the death penalty after a Utah judge ruled prosecutors showed enough evidence to proceed with an aggravated murder trial

Charlie Kirk murder case trial: Tyler Robinson faces possible death penalty after court ruling

Anthropic has agreed to a $35 billion cloud computing deal with Lambda, a cloud provider backed by Nvidia, to secure access to artificial intelligence computing capacity at a data center under development in Nueces County, Texas, according to people familiar with the matter cited in reporting first published by Bloomberg on August 31, 2026.&nbsp;The arrangement was described by sources rather than confirmed in an on-the-record joint statement. A representative for Anthropic declined to comment when approached by reporters, and Nvidia, Lambda and the data center's developer, Hut 8, did not immediately respond to requests for comment, according to the reporting.&nbsp;How the deal is structured&nbsp;The agreement ties together several companies. Hut 8 is developing the data center campus, known as Beacon Point, on roughly 1 gigawatt of secured utility capacity in Nueces County. Nvidia holds two 15-year leases on the campus covering about 704 megawatts of contracted capacity split across two phases of roughly 352 megawatts each, a lease arrangement first reported by the Wall Street Journal with a base value of about $19.6 billion that could grow toward $50 billion over its full term with renewals.&nbsp;Anthropic's new $35 billion deal with Lambda draws on roughly 350 megawatts of that capacity, according to the reporting -- effectively one phase of the Beacon Point site. Under the structure, Lambda installs Nvidia chips at the facility and sells the resulting computing capacity to Anthropic, while Nvidia itself sits above the arrangement as both chip supplier and the entity that leased the underlying data center space from Hut 8. Initial energization of the campus is expected in the first quarter of 2027.&nbsp;Lambda, for its part, is reportedly in the process of raising up to $3 billion in new funding at a valuation of $12 billion or higher, after previously raising $1.5 billion in a funding round last November.&nbsp;A rapid run of mega deals&nbsp;The Lambda agreement is Anthropic's second major cloud deal within days. On August 26, 2026, Bloomberg and CNBC reported that Anthropic had struck a roughly $45 billion, six-year deal with Nscale, a UK-based AI infrastructure company, to rent about 460 megawatts of capacity from a West Virginia data center expected to use Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips and come online by the end of 2027.&nbsp;Those two deals sit alongside a broader run of infrastructure commitments Anthropic has made in 2026: a roughly $50 billion partnership with Fluidstack covering data centers in Texas and New York, a roughly $45 billion computing arrangement with Elon Musk's SpaceX disclosed in May, and a roughly $10 billion, six-year compute deal with Volta Infra Holdings, a cloud startup that was only founded months earlier. Taken together, the four previously reported deals alone add up to more than $150 billion in compute commitments, a figure that grows further once the new Lambda agreement is included.&nbsp;The buildout follows a period earlier in the year when Anthropic faced a compute supply shortage as demand for its Claude models, including its Claude Code coding tool, outpaced the capacity it had secured. The company has since been signing capacity deals with a widening circle of cloud and infrastructure providers, several of them, like Lambda and Nscale, themselves backed by Nvidia investment.&nbsp;Revenue growth behind the spending&nbsp;The infrastructure spree comes as Anthropic's own financial results have surged. CNBC reported on August 15, 2026, citing documents viewed by Bloomberg News, that Anthropic's preliminary revenue for the second quarter of 2026 topped $11.5 billion, up from about $787 million in the same quarter a year earlier -- growth of more than fourteen times. The company also reported positive adjusted operating income for the quarter, according to the same reporting. The figures were described as preliminary and could still change.&nbsp;Anthropic is preparing for a stock market listing, having submitted confidential IPO paperwork in June 2026, according to reporting on the company's plans. The compute commitments are widely seen by industry observers as necessary groundwork for sustaining the growth Anthropic is showing investors ahead of that listing.&nbsp;Questions about circular financing&nbsp;The structure of the Lambda deal, in which Nvidia supplies the chips, holds an equity stake in the cloud provider buying those chips, and separately leases the data center where they will run, has revived a debate in the AI industry over so-called circular financing: arrangements in which a chipmaker's investments and lease commitments effectively help fund the very customers that then purchase its hardware.&nbsp;Mizuho chip analyst Jordan Klein described the financing model underpinning these deals as concerning, characterizing it as a structure in which Nvidia GPUs are effectively used as collateral and rented back into the AI supply chain, with lease payments from tenants like Lambda and Anthropic ultimately used to repay the debt raised to build the data centers -- a model he said functions much like Nvidia pre-funding purchases of its own products.&nbsp;Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya has separately pointed to a related tension: many of Nvidia's investments are designed to support frontier AI labs including OpenAI and Anthropic, even as both companies are simultaneously developing their own custom chips that could eventually reduce their reliance on Nvidia hardware.&nbsp;Nvidia's finance chief, Colette Kress, has acknowledged the criticism directly, saying the company recognizes the scale of its support for AI labs and knows some will call it circular financing. Her defense rests on the argument that Nvidia's computing platform is fungible and durable and can be redeployed to support other customers even if a particular lab's demand changes, rather than being tied permanently to any single counterparty. Nvidia has disclosed it had closed a recent quarter with $279 billion in supply obligations and $108.5 billion in guarantee obligations tied to AI cloud partners, and Kress has said the company has invested nearly $50 billion across frontier AI labs.&nbsp;The case for genuine demand&nbsp;Anthropic's defenders of the spending point to a different set of numbers: the company's revenue climbing from roughly $787 million to more than $11.5 billion in a single year is an independently reported, verifiable growth rate that predates and is separate from any of the Nvidia-linked financing structures now drawing scrutiny. By this reading, Anthropic's compute needs are being driven by real, paying customer demand for Claude and related products such as Claude Code, and the string of infrastructure deals -- however entangled with Nvidia's own balance sheet -- reflects a company scrambling to keep pace with genuine usage rather than financial engineering designed to manufacture the appearance of demand.&nbsp;Skeptics counter that rapid revenue growth and circular financing concerns are not mutually exclusive: even a company with real underlying demand can end up locked into deals whose true economics are harder to assess when the counterparty supplying the chips is also, in effect, backing the buyer and the landlord. Whether the compute Anthropic is contracting for ultimately gets used at the scale implied by these multibillion-dollar commitments will not be fully clear until the facilities involved, including the Nueces County campus, are built out and running.&nbsp;What happens next&nbsp;None of the companies involved -- Anthropic, Nvidia, Lambda or Hut 8 -- has issued an on-the-record confirmation of the deal's exact terms, and the reporting to date rests on people described as familiar with private discussions. Initial capacity at the Beacon Point campus is not expected to come online until the first quarter of 2027, meaning the practical impact of the Lambda agreement on Anthropic's available compute will not be visible for several months.&nbsp;For now, the deal adds to a picture of an AI industry in which chipmaker, cloud provider, landlord and end customer are increasingly the same small set of interconnected companies -- a structure that has so far coincided with, but not conclusively explained, some of the fastest revenue growth reported anywhere in the technology sector.

Anthropic has struck a $35 billion cloud computing deal with Nvidia-backed Lambda for capacity at a Texas data center, its second mega compute deal in a week, as analysts debate whether the Nvidia-linked financing structure is circular.

Anthropic has agreed to a $35 billion cloud computing deal with Lambda, a cloud provider backed by Nvidia, to secure access to artificial intelligence computing capacity at a data center under development in Nueces County, Texas, according to people familiar with the matter cited in reporting first published by Bloomberg on August 31, 2026. The arrangement was described by sources rather than confirmed in an on-the-record joint statement. A representative for Anthropic declined to comment when approached by reporters, and Nvidia, Lambda and the data center's developer, Hut 8, did not immediately respond to requests for comment, according to the reporting. How the deal is structured The agreement ties together several companies. Hut 8 is developing the data center campus, known as Beacon Point, on roughly 1 gigawatt of secured utility capacity in Nueces County. Nvidia holds two 15-year leases on the campus covering about 704 megawatts of contracted capacity split across two phases of roughly 352 megawatts each, a lease arrangement first reported by the Wall Street Journal with a base value of about $19.6 billion that could grow toward $50 billion over its full term with renewals. Anthropic's new $35 billion deal with Lambda draws on roughly 350 megawatts of that capacity, according to the reporting -- effectively one phase of the Beacon Point site. Under the structure, Lambda installs Nvidia chips at the facility and sells the resulting computing capacity to Anthropic, while Nvidia itself sits above the arrangement as both chip supplier and the entity that leased the underlying data center space from Hut 8. Initial energization of the campus is expected in the first quarter of 2027. Lambda, for its part, is reportedly in the process of raising up to $3 billion in new funding at a valuation of $12 billion or higher, after previously raising $1.5 billion in a funding round last November. A rapid run of mega deals The Lambda agreement is Anthropic's second major cloud deal within days. On August 26, 2026, Bloomberg and CNBC reported that Anthropic had struck a roughly $45 billion, six-year deal with Nscale, a UK-based AI infrastructure company, to rent about 460 megawatts of capacity from a West Virginia data center expected to use Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips and come online by the end of 2027. Those two deals sit alongside a broader run of infrastructure commitments Anthropic has made in 2026: a roughly $50 billion partnership with Fluidstack covering data centers in Texas and New York, a roughly $45 billion computing arrangement with Elon Musk's SpaceX disclosed in May, and a roughly $10 billion, six-year compute deal with Volta Infra Holdings, a cloud startup that was only founded months earlier. Taken together, the four previously reported deals alone add up to more than $150 billion in compute commitments, a figure that grows further once the new Lambda agreement is included. The buildout follows a period earlier in the year when Anthropic faced a compute supply shortage as demand for its Claude models, including its Claude Code coding tool, outpaced the capacity it had secured. The company has since been signing capacity deals with a widening circle of cloud and infrastructure providers, several of them, like Lambda and Nscale, themselves backed by Nvidia investment. Revenue growth behind the spending The infrastructure spree comes as Anthropic's own financial results have surged. CNBC reported on August 15, 2026, citing documents viewed by Bloomberg News, that Anthropic's preliminary revenue for the second quarter of 2026 topped $11.5 billion, up from about $787 million in the same quarter a year earlier -- growth of more than fourteen times. The company also reported positive adjusted operating income for the quarter, according to the same reporting. The figures were described as preliminary and could still change. Anthropic is preparing for a stock market listing, having submitted confidential IPO paperwork in June 2026, according to reporting on the company's plans. The compute commitments are widely seen by industry observers as necessary groundwork for sustaining the growth Anthropic is showing investors ahead of that listing. Questions about circular financing The structure of the Lambda deal, in which Nvidia supplies the chips, holds an equity stake in the cloud provider buying those chips, and separately leases the data center where they will run, has revived a debate in the AI industry over so-called circular financing: arrangements in which a chipmaker's investments and lease commitments effectively help fund the very customers that then purchase its hardware. Mizuho chip analyst Jordan Klein described the financing model underpinning these deals as concerning, characterizing it as a structure in which Nvidia GPUs are effectively used as collateral and rented back into the AI supply chain, with lease payments from tenants like Lambda and Anthropic ultimately used to repay the debt raised to build the data centers -- a model he said functions much like Nvidia pre-funding purchases of its own products. Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya has separately pointed to a related tension: many of Nvidia's investments are designed to support frontier AI labs including OpenAI and Anthropic, even as both companies are simultaneously developing their own custom chips that could eventually reduce their reliance on Nvidia hardware. Nvidia's finance chief, Colette Kress, has acknowledged the criticism directly, saying the company recognizes the scale of its support for AI labs and knows some will call it circular financing. Her defense rests on the argument that Nvidia's computing platform is fungible and durable and can be redeployed to support other customers even if a particular lab's demand changes, rather than being tied permanently to any single counterparty. Nvidia has disclosed it had closed a recent quarter with $279 billion in supply obligations and $108.5 billion in guarantee obligations tied to AI cloud partners, and Kress has said the company has invested nearly $50 billion across frontier AI labs. The case for genuine demand Anthropic's defenders of the spending point to a different set of numbers: the company's revenue climbing from roughly $787 million to more than $11.5 billion in a single year is an independently reported, verifiable growth rate that predates and is separate from any of the Nvidia-linked financing structures now drawing scrutiny. By this reading, Anthropic's compute needs are being driven by real, paying customer demand for Claude and related products such as Claude Code, and the string of infrastructure deals -- however entangled with Nvidia's own balance sheet -- reflects a company scrambling to keep pace with genuine usage rather than financial engineering designed to manufacture the appearance of demand. Skeptics counter that rapid revenue growth and circular financing concerns are not mutually exclusive: even a company with real underlying demand can end up locked into deals whose true economics are harder to assess when the counterparty supplying the chips is also, in effect, backing the buyer and the landlord. Whether the compute Anthropic is contracting for ultimately gets used at the scale implied by these multibillion-dollar commitments will not be fully clear until the facilities involved, including the Nueces County campus, are built out and running. What happens next None of the companies involved -- Anthropic, Nvidia, Lambda or Hut 8 -- has issued an on-the-record confirmation of the deal's exact terms, and the reporting to date rests on people described as familiar with private discussions. Initial capacity at the Beacon Point campus is not expected to come online until the first quarter of 2027, meaning the practical impact of the Lambda agreement on Anthropic's available compute will not be visible for several months. For now, the deal adds to a picture of an AI industry in which chipmaker, cloud provider, landlord and end customer are increasingly the same small set of interconnected companies -- a structure that has so far coincided with, but not conclusively explained, some of the fastest revenue growth reported anywhere in the technology sector.

Anthropic has agreed to a $35 billion cloud computing deal with Lambda, a cloud provider backed by Nvidia, to draw on roughly 350 megawatts of a Texas data center campus where Nvidia itself holds the underlying lease.&nbsp;

Anthropic signs $35 billion cloud deal with Nvidia-backed Lambda for Texas data center capacity

Clay, a New York-based startup that sells artificial intelligence tools for sales and marketing teams, has agreed to a new funding round led by Wellington Management at a $7 billion pre-money valuation, Axios reported on August 31, 2026, citing people familiar with the deal. Axios described Clay as having inked the deal; the report did not disclose the total dollar amount being raised, and public reporting so far does not make clear whether the round has fully closed.&nbsp;The figure marks a sharp climb in Clay's valuation over roughly the past year. The company was valued at $3.1 billion in an August 2025 Series C round led by CapitalG, then at $5 billion in a January 2026 employee tender offer led by DST Global. The reported $7 billion pre-money figure comes about seven months after that tender and just over a year after the $3.1 billion round.&nbsp;A fast-rising valuation&nbsp;Clay's valuation history stretches back further. The company was founded in 2017 by Kareem Amin, who serves as chief executive, and Nicolae Rusan, according to search results describing the company's founding team. It raised a $2.5 million seed round from First Round Capital, a Series A led by Sequoia Capital in 2023, and a $46 million Series B led by Meritech Capital Partners in mid-2024.&nbsp;A Series B extension in January 2025, also led by Meritech, valued the company at roughly $1.25 billion, and a Sequoia-led employee tender offer in May 2025 pushed that figure to $1.5 billion just months later. Clay's institutional funding -- capital that lands on the company's own balance sheet, as distinct from tender transactions -- totaled roughly $204 million as of last August, according to TechCrunch.&nbsp;The January 2026 tender and Clay's other secondary sales are a different category of transaction from its priced funding rounds. They let employees sell existing shares to outside investors, such as DST Global and Sequoia, at the company's current valuation, giving staff liquidity without adding new capital to Clay's balance sheet or requiring an initial public offering. It was Clay's second employee tender offer in nine months.&nbsp;What Clay actually sells&nbsp;Clay markets itself as a go-to-market, or GTM, platform: software that pulls data from more than 150 external sources and uses AI agents to research prospects, monitor competitors and personalize outbound sales messages at scale. The company has promoted the term GTM engineer for the hybrid data-and-sales role its tools are meant to support inside customer organizations.&nbsp;Its customers reportedly include OpenAI, Anthropic, Canva, Intercom and Rippling, according to prior reporting on the company. Amin said in August 2025 that Clay expected to end that year with about $100 million in annual revenue, which he described as roughly tripling the prior year's figure.&nbsp;That revenue figure comes from company statements rather than independently audited financials, and neither Clay nor its investors appear to have published updated revenue numbers alongside the reported $7 billion valuation. It should be treated as a company-disclosed metric rather than a verified one.&nbsp;Wellington and the investor roster&nbsp;Wellington Management is a Boston-based asset manager that oversees a large multi-trillion-dollar book of public and private assets, including a growing portfolio of late-stage, pre-IPO technology investments. A lead role in Clay's new round would place the firm alongside a roster of existing backers that includes Sequoia Capital, CapitalG, Meritech Capital Partners, DST Global, First Round Capital, BoxGroup, Boldstart Ventures and Sapphire Ventures.&nbsp;Those firms participated across Clay's various priced rounds and tender offers going back to its 2017 seed financing, a lineup that spans early-stage venture firms, growth-equity investors and, with Wellington's reported involvement, a large asset manager increasingly active in pre-IPO technology deals.&nbsp;A crowded field&nbsp;Clay operates in a fast-consolidating market for sales and marketing data tools. Rivals including Apollo.io and ZoomInfo have each added their own data-enrichment and workflow-orchestration features over the past year, pushing toward the kind of all-in-one platform Clay has built largely by stitching together outside data providers rather than owning a single proprietary database.&nbsp;Moat or wrapper?&nbsp;The valuation jump raises a question that now shadows much of the AI application layer: whether tools like Clay represent durable, defensible businesses, or are largely coordination layers sitting on top of foundation models and third-party data feeds that a well-funded rival -- or the underlying data providers and model makers themselves -- could replicate. Clay's own pitch, that it orchestrates data from outside sources rather than owning them, cuts both ways: it lets the company move quickly, but it also means much of what it offers is, in principle, available to competitors through the same vendors.&nbsp;That question sits inside a broader debate about whether venture and growth-equity money is flowing into AI startups faster than the underlying businesses can clearly justify, with valuations climbing on annualized revenue run-rates, secondary-market demand and competitive pressure to not miss out, rather than on audited profits. Clay's trajectory, more than doubling in reported value twice within about a year, is likely to be cited by critics of the current AI funding cycle either as evidence of unusually strong product-market fit or as a symptom of a market pricing optimism ahead of proven, durable results.&nbsp;The spam problem&nbsp;A more specific risk sits inside Clay's core pitch. The company's own marketing material has acknowledged that when sales teams try to scale outbound messaging without preserving research and personalization, outbound campaigns risk turning into spam. Automated, AI-generated prospecting at the volume Clay's tools are designed to enable could run into exactly that dynamic.&nbsp;Email providers and individual recipients have been tightening spam filters and personal filtering habits in ways increasingly tuned to catch mass-personalized, AI-generated outreach. If deliverability and response rates degrade as automated outbound scales up industrywide, that could blunt the practical value of the automation Clay and its rivals sell, even as investors price the category at ever-higher valuations.&nbsp;What happens next&nbsp;Neither Clay nor Wellington Management had publicly confirmed the new round's final size or closing as of this writing. Reported deals of this kind sometimes take additional weeks to formally close after terms are agreed, and reported valuations occasionally shift before a transaction is finalized, so the $7 billion figure should be treated as Axios's reporting on the deal's terms rather than a confirmed, closed outcome.&nbsp;If the figure holds, it would mark Clay's fourth valuation increase in roughly eighteen months and would place it among the more richly valued AI application startups to emerge from the current funding cycle -- a trajectory its backers will be watching to see whether it is matched by equally durable revenue growth.

Clay, a New York AI sales automation startup, has reportedly agreed to a new funding round led by Wellington Management at a $7 billion pre-money valuation, up sharply from $3.1 billion a year earlier.

Clay, a New York-based startup that sells artificial intelligence tools for sales and marketing teams, has agreed to a new funding round led by Wellington Management at a $7 billion pre-money valuation, Axios reported on August 31, 2026, citing people familiar with the deal. Axios described Clay as having inked the deal; the report did not disclose the total dollar amount being raised, and public reporting so far does not make clear whether the round has fully closed. The figure marks a sharp climb in Clay's valuation over roughly the past year. The company was valued at $3.1 billion in an August 2025 Series C round led by CapitalG, then at $5 billion in a January 2026 employee tender offer led by DST Global. The reported $7 billion pre-money figure comes about seven months after that tender and just over a year after the $3.1 billion round. A fast-rising valuation Clay's valuation history stretches back further. The company was founded in 2017 by Kareem Amin, who serves as chief executive, and Nicolae Rusan, according to search results describing the company's founding team. It raised a $2.5 million seed round from First Round Capital, a Series A led by Sequoia Capital in 2023, and a $46 million Series B led by Meritech Capital Partners in mid-2024. A Series B extension in January 2025, also led by Meritech, valued the company at roughly $1.25 billion, and a Sequoia-led employee tender offer in May 2025 pushed that figure to $1.5 billion just months later. Clay's institutional funding -- capital that lands on the company's own balance sheet, as distinct from tender transactions -- totaled roughly $204 million as of last August, according to TechCrunch. The January 2026 tender and Clay's other secondary sales are a different category of transaction from its priced funding rounds. They let employees sell existing shares to outside investors, such as DST Global and Sequoia, at the company's current valuation, giving staff liquidity without adding new capital to Clay's balance sheet or requiring an initial public offering. It was Clay's second employee tender offer in nine months. What Clay actually sells Clay markets itself as a go-to-market, or GTM, platform: software that pulls data from more than 150 external sources and uses AI agents to research prospects, monitor competitors and personalize outbound sales messages at scale. The company has promoted the term GTM engineer for the hybrid data-and-sales role its tools are meant to support inside customer organizations. Its customers reportedly include OpenAI, Anthropic, Canva, Intercom and Rippling, according to prior reporting on the company. Amin said in August 2025 that Clay expected to end that year with about $100 million in annual revenue, which he described as roughly tripling the prior year's figure. That revenue figure comes from company statements rather than independently audited financials, and neither Clay nor its investors appear to have published updated revenue numbers alongside the reported $7 billion valuation. It should be treated as a company-disclosed metric rather than a verified one. Wellington and the investor roster Wellington Management is a Boston-based asset manager that oversees a large multi-trillion-dollar book of public and private assets, including a growing portfolio of late-stage, pre-IPO technology investments. A lead role in Clay's new round would place the firm alongside a roster of existing backers that includes Sequoia Capital, CapitalG, Meritech Capital Partners, DST Global, First Round Capital, BoxGroup, Boldstart Ventures and Sapphire Ventures. Those firms participated across Clay's various priced rounds and tender offers going back to its 2017 seed financing, a lineup that spans early-stage venture firms, growth-equity investors and, with Wellington's reported involvement, a large asset manager increasingly active in pre-IPO technology deals. A crowded field Clay operates in a fast-consolidating market for sales and marketing data tools. Rivals including Apollo.io and ZoomInfo have each added their own data-enrichment and workflow-orchestration features over the past year, pushing toward the kind of all-in-one platform Clay has built largely by stitching together outside data providers rather than owning a single proprietary database. Moat or wrapper? The valuation jump raises a question that now shadows much of the AI application layer: whether tools like Clay represent durable, defensible businesses, or are largely coordination layers sitting on top of foundation models and third-party data feeds that a well-funded rival -- or the underlying data providers and model makers themselves -- could replicate. Clay's own pitch, that it orchestrates data from outside sources rather than owning them, cuts both ways: it lets the company move quickly, but it also means much of what it offers is, in principle, available to competitors through the same vendors. That question sits inside a broader debate about whether venture and growth-equity money is flowing into AI startups faster than the underlying businesses can clearly justify, with valuations climbing on annualized revenue run-rates, secondary-market demand and competitive pressure to not miss out, rather than on audited profits. Clay's trajectory, more than doubling in reported value twice within about a year, is likely to be cited by critics of the current AI funding cycle either as evidence of unusually strong product-market fit or as a symptom of a market pricing optimism ahead of proven, durable results. The spam problem A more specific risk sits inside Clay's core pitch. The company's own marketing material has acknowledged that when sales teams try to scale outbound messaging without preserving research and personalization, outbound campaigns risk turning into spam. Automated, AI-generated prospecting at the volume Clay's tools are designed to enable could run into exactly that dynamic. Email providers and individual recipients have been tightening spam filters and personal filtering habits in ways increasingly tuned to catch mass-personalized, AI-generated outreach. If deliverability and response rates degrade as automated outbound scales up industrywide, that could blunt the practical value of the automation Clay and its rivals sell, even as investors price the category at ever-higher valuations. What happens next Neither Clay nor Wellington Management had publicly confirmed the new round's final size or closing as of this writing. Reported deals of this kind sometimes take additional weeks to formally close after terms are agreed, and reported valuations occasionally shift before a transaction is finalized, so the $7 billion figure should be treated as Axios's reporting on the deal's terms rather than a confirmed, closed outcome. If the figure holds, it would mark Clay's fourth valuation increase in roughly eighteen months and would place it among the more richly valued AI application startups to emerge from the current funding cycle -- a trajectory its backers will be watching to see whether it is matched by equally durable revenue growth.

Clay, a New York-based AI sales and go-to-market automation startup, has agreed to a new funding round led by Wellington Management at a $7 billion pre-money valuation, Axios reported on August 31, 2026. The figure marks Clay's third valuation jump in about a year, up from $3.1 billion in August 2025 and $5 billion in a January 2026 employee tender offer led by DST Global. The round's exact size has not been disclosed, and it is unclear from public reporting whether it has fully closed.

AI sales startup Clay raises funding at a $7 billion valuation

Hugging Face hosts more than three million AI models. It is the place open-weight AI is published, downloaded and evaluated, and it works because every laboratory treats it as neutral ground.&nbsp;Nvidia has reportedly agreed to buy it.&nbsp;What Is Reported&nbsp;The Information reported on August 27 that Nvidia had agreed to acquire Hugging Face for approximately $12.9 billion, citing a person with direct knowledge of the talks. Other reporting has put the valuation above $13 billion.&nbsp;It would be by a wide margin Nvidia's largest acquisition. The company paid $6.9 billion for Mellanox in 2020, and nothing since has approached that.&nbsp;The caveat is important and should not be buried. As of the reporting, no signed agreement had been reached, and neither Nvidia nor Hugging Face has publicly confirmed anything. Deals of this size are reported at this stage regularly and do not all complete.&nbsp;What Nvidia Would Be Buying&nbsp;Not a large revenue business. Hugging Face sells compute, enterprise hosting and access to inference providers, and those are modest lines by the standards of a company Nvidia's size.&nbsp;What it owns is position. More than three million models and over a million datasets sit on the platform. Roughly 1.18 million models were added during 2025 alone, more than the cumulative total of every prior year. When a Chinese laboratory publishes open weights, they appear there. When a researcher reproduces a result, they pull from there. When a company evaluates an open alternative to a paid API, that is where it starts.&nbsp;The company was last valued at $4.5 billion in 2023. A sale near $13 billion is close to a tripling in three years.&nbsp;The Problem With The Buyer&nbsp;The difficulty is the one that attaches to this specific acquirer.&nbsp;Hugging Face functions as infrastructure because it is not aligned with any model developer. Meta, Alibaba, Mistral, Moonshot and Google all publish to the same registry, alongside tens of thousands of independent developers with no commercial relationship to any of them.&nbsp;Nvidia is not a neutral party in that arrangement. It supplies the hardware every one of those laboratories depends on, it has been funding open-weight model work of its own, and it has recently been assembling positions across the layer above its chips — a $6 billion technology and investment agreement with Poolside that moved more than 100 engineers onto its Nemotron effort, and reported talks over a stake in Perplexity.&nbsp;A model registry owned by the dominant chip supplier is not obviously neutral ground any more. It is a competitor's warehouse, and the rational response from rival laboratories is to reduce dependence on it.&nbsp;None of that would happen quickly, and the migration would not need to be complete to matter.&nbsp;The Argument For It&nbsp;There is a serious case on the other side, and it deserves stating.&nbsp;Hugging Face is a venture-funded company carrying the distribution layer for open AI on a business model that has never been especially strong. Registries are expensive to run and hard to monetise without compromising the openness that makes them valuable. An owner with effectively unlimited capital removes the pressure to find a business model that would damage the thing.&nbsp;Nvidia also has a genuine strategic interest in open-weight models thriving, because open models running on general-purpose hardware are a counterweight to the hyperscalers designing their own silicon for their own closed models. Its incentives and the open ecosystem's are aligned more than they conflict.&nbsp;That is a coherent argument. It is also the argument every acquirer of neutral infrastructure has made.&nbsp;What It Would Confirm&nbsp;The market has been pricing models as the scarce asset and distribution as commodity infrastructure. Anthropic is discussed at $2 trillion; the registry through which all open AI reaches the world is being bought for less than one per cent of that.&nbsp;The history of technology suggests that ordering is usually wrong, and that whoever controls distribution eventually extracts more than whoever makes the product. Nvidia paying $12.9 billion for the layer nobody thought was strategic is a bet on exactly that.&nbsp;For anyone building on open models, the question is narrower and more immediate: whether the place you publish and the place you download from is about to have an owner with a view about which models matter.

The Information reports Nvidia agreed to acquire Hugging Face for around $12.9 billion — its largest deal ever, nearly double the Mellanox price. No signed agreement has been announced and neither company has confirmed.

Hugging Face hosts more than three million AI models. It is the place open-weight AI is published, downloaded and evaluated, and it works because every laboratory treats it as neutral ground. Nvidia has reportedly agreed to buy it. What Is Reported The Information reported on August 27 that Nvidia had agreed to acquire Hugging Face for approximately $12.9 billion, citing a person with direct knowledge of the talks. Other reporting has put the valuation above $13 billion. It would be by a wide margin Nvidia's largest acquisition. The company paid $6.9 billion for Mellanox in 2020, and nothing since has approached that. The caveat is important and should not be buried. As of the reporting, no signed agreement had been reached, and neither Nvidia nor Hugging Face has publicly confirmed anything. Deals of this size are reported at this stage regularly and do not all complete. What Nvidia Would Be Buying Not a large revenue business. Hugging Face sells compute, enterprise hosting and access to inference providers, and those are modest lines by the standards of a company Nvidia's size. What it owns is position. More than three million models and over a million datasets sit on the platform. Roughly 1.18 million models were added during 2025 alone, more than the cumulative total of every prior year. When a Chinese laboratory publishes open weights, they appear there. When a researcher reproduces a result, they pull from there. When a company evaluates an open alternative to a paid API, that is where it starts. The company was last valued at $4.5 billion in 2023. A sale near $13 billion is close to a tripling in three years. The Problem With The Buyer The difficulty is the one that attaches to this specific acquirer. Hugging Face functions as infrastructure because it is not aligned with any model developer. Meta, Alibaba, Mistral, Moonshot and Google all publish to the same registry, alongside tens of thousands of independent developers with no commercial relationship to any of them. Nvidia is not a neutral party in that arrangement. It supplies the hardware every one of those laboratories depends on, it has been funding open-weight model work of its own, and it has recently been assembling positions across the layer above its chips — a $6 billion technology and investment agreement with Poolside that moved more than 100 engineers onto its Nemotron effort, and reported talks over a stake in Perplexity. A model registry owned by the dominant chip supplier is not obviously neutral ground any more. It is a competitor's warehouse, and the rational response from rival laboratories is to reduce dependence on it. None of that would happen quickly, and the migration would not need to be complete to matter. The Argument For It There is a serious case on the other side, and it deserves stating. Hugging Face is a venture-funded company carrying the distribution layer for open AI on a business model that has never been especially strong. Registries are expensive to run and hard to monetise without compromising the openness that makes them valuable. An owner with effectively unlimited capital removes the pressure to find a business model that would damage the thing. Nvidia also has a genuine strategic interest in open-weight models thriving, because open models running on general-purpose hardware are a counterweight to the hyperscalers designing their own silicon for their own closed models. Its incentives and the open ecosystem's are aligned more than they conflict. That is a coherent argument. It is also the argument every acquirer of neutral infrastructure has made. What It Would Confirm The market has been pricing models as the scarce asset and distribution as commodity infrastructure. Anthropic is discussed at $2 trillion; the registry through which all open AI reaches the world is being bought for less than one per cent of that. The history of technology suggests that ordering is usually wrong, and that whoever controls distribution eventually extracts more than whoever makes the product. Nvidia paying $12.9 billion for the layer nobody thought was strategic is a bet on exactly that. For anyone building on open models, the question is narrower and more immediate: whether the place you publish and the place you download from is about to have an owner with a view about which models matter.

Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for around $12.9 billion, according to reporting by The Information, with talks valuing the platform above $13 billion. It would be Nvidia's largest acquisition ever, nearly double the $6.9 billion it paid for Mellanox. No signed agreement has been announced and neither company has confirmed it.

Nvidia is reportedly buying Hugging Face for $12.9 billion

The Pentagon now runs a single portal where three million defence personnel can use commercial AI models on government systems. Three of the four leading American laboratories are on it. The fourth asked for limits on how its technology could be used, and is not.&nbsp;What Launched&nbsp;GenAI.mil is a secure platform giving Department of Defense staff access to commercial frontier models without routing sensitive government data through consumer services.&nbsp;Google Cloud's Gemini for Government products went live first. On August 31 the department added OpenAI's ChatGPT Mil and Grok for Government, supplied through Starshield, the national security arm associated with SpaceX and xAI.&nbsp;More than 1.7 million unique users have already been onboarded out of roughly three million personnel. That is an adoption rate most enterprise software never reaches, in an organisation not known for rapid technology adoption.&nbsp;The Absence&nbsp;Anthropic's Claude was expected on the platform. Officials had previously indicated it would follow.&nbsp;It did not, and the reason is documented rather than speculative. Anthropic's leadership insisted on contractual guardrails that would prevent the department from applying its models to mass surveillance of Americans, or to lethal autonomous weapons. The department did not accept those terms, and the plan to add Claude was derailed.&nbsp;What followed is the part that makes this more than a procurement disagreement. The Pentagon designated Anthropic a national security supply-chain risk — a label ordinarily applied to companies whose products might expose military systems to infiltration by adversaries.&nbsp;Anthropic sued. Last week, Judge Rita Lin of the federal district court in San Francisco ruled that the designation and the actions taken against the company were illegal and baseless, finding a First Amendment violation and writing that the department had acted out of a desire to make a public example of the company.&nbsp;GenAI.mil expanded four days later, without Claude.&nbsp;Why That Sequence Matters&nbsp;A court has said the punishment was unlawful. The commercial consequence of the punishment continues.&nbsp;That is not necessarily defiance of the ruling. Lin's decision addressed the supply-chain designation and the retaliation; it did not order the department to buy anything from Anthropic, and no court can compel a customer to select a particular vendor. Procurement discretion is real and broad.&nbsp;But it demonstrates the limit of the remedy. A company can win a First Amendment case against a government customer and still lose the contract, because the decision not to buy is separately defensible and effectively unreviewable.&nbsp;The Bargain On Offer&nbsp;Strip away the litigation and the underlying transaction is simple.&nbsp;The Department of Defense wanted commercial AI without restrictions on how it might be applied. Three laboratories accepted those terms. One asked for two specific carve-outs — no mass surveillance of Americans, no lethal autonomous weapons — and is now outside a platform serving three million people.&nbsp;Both positions are defensible. A military buyer has reasonable grounds to resist a supplier constraining its operational use of a tool, particularly one that may matter in a conflict. And a company has reasonable grounds to decline to supply capabilities it believes should not exist, particularly when its entire public identity rests on that claim.&nbsp;What the outcome establishes is the price. The two refusals Anthropic made are the ones every laboratory's usage policy nominally contains. It is now clear what enforcing them costs.&nbsp;The Question For The Other Three&nbsp;Google, OpenAI and xAI all publish usage policies restricting certain applications of their models.&nbsp;None of them has said publicly what contractual limits, if any, apply to their GenAI.mil deployments. When NOTUS asked a Pentagon official on August 31 whether the tools could be used for operational planning, intelligence analysis, targeting, weapons-related work or decisions involving the use of force, the official confirmed only that they are certified to Impact Level 5 and did not address those specific uses.&nbsp;That is an answer about data security classification, not about permitted application. The two are different questions and only one of them was answered.&nbsp;What It Signals&nbsp;For the AI industry, this is the clearest test yet of whether published safety commitments survive contact with the most powerful customer available.&nbsp;The answer so far is that they survive only at a cost the company must be willing to pay. Anthropic was — it has a near-record public listing ahead of it and a brand built on precisely this — and it still lost the business.&nbsp;A smaller company, or one without that positioning, would find the same refusal considerably harder to afford. Which means the usage policies most likely to hold are the ones belonging to firms that can absorb losing three million users, and that is a very short list.

The Pentagon added ChatGPT Mil and Grok for Government to GenAI.mil on August 31, alongside Gemini. Anthropic is absent after demanding limits on surveillance and autonomous weapons — days after a judge ruled the retaliation against it illegal.

The Pentagon now runs a single portal where three million defence personnel can use commercial AI models on government systems. Three of the four leading American laboratories are on it. The fourth asked for limits on how its technology could be used, and is not. What Launched GenAI.mil is a secure platform giving Department of Defense staff access to commercial frontier models without routing sensitive government data through consumer services. Google Cloud's Gemini for Government products went live first. On August 31 the department added OpenAI's ChatGPT Mil and Grok for Government, supplied through Starshield, the national security arm associated with SpaceX and xAI. More than 1.7 million unique users have already been onboarded out of roughly three million personnel. That is an adoption rate most enterprise software never reaches, in an organisation not known for rapid technology adoption. The Absence Anthropic's Claude was expected on the platform. Officials had previously indicated it would follow. It did not, and the reason is documented rather than speculative. Anthropic's leadership insisted on contractual guardrails that would prevent the department from applying its models to mass surveillance of Americans, or to lethal autonomous weapons. The department did not accept those terms, and the plan to add Claude was derailed. What followed is the part that makes this more than a procurement disagreement. The Pentagon designated Anthropic a national security supply-chain risk — a label ordinarily applied to companies whose products might expose military systems to infiltration by adversaries. Anthropic sued. Last week, Judge Rita Lin of the federal district court in San Francisco ruled that the designation and the actions taken against the company were illegal and baseless, finding a First Amendment violation and writing that the department had acted out of a desire to make a public example of the company. GenAI.mil expanded four days later, without Claude. Why That Sequence Matters A court has said the punishment was unlawful. The commercial consequence of the punishment continues. That is not necessarily defiance of the ruling. Lin's decision addressed the supply-chain designation and the retaliation; it did not order the department to buy anything from Anthropic, and no court can compel a customer to select a particular vendor. Procurement discretion is real and broad. But it demonstrates the limit of the remedy. A company can win a First Amendment case against a government customer and still lose the contract, because the decision not to buy is separately defensible and effectively unreviewable. The Bargain On Offer Strip away the litigation and the underlying transaction is simple. The Department of Defense wanted commercial AI without restrictions on how it might be applied. Three laboratories accepted those terms. One asked for two specific carve-outs — no mass surveillance of Americans, no lethal autonomous weapons — and is now outside a platform serving three million people. Both positions are defensible. A military buyer has reasonable grounds to resist a supplier constraining its operational use of a tool, particularly one that may matter in a conflict. And a company has reasonable grounds to decline to supply capabilities it believes should not exist, particularly when its entire public identity rests on that claim. What the outcome establishes is the price. The two refusals Anthropic made are the ones every laboratory's usage policy nominally contains. It is now clear what enforcing them costs. The Question For The Other Three Google, OpenAI and xAI all publish usage policies restricting certain applications of their models. None of them has said publicly what contractual limits, if any, apply to their GenAI.mil deployments. When NOTUS asked a Pentagon official on August 31 whether the tools could be used for operational planning, intelligence analysis, targeting, weapons-related work or decisions involving the use of force, the official confirmed only that they are certified to Impact Level 5 and did not address those specific uses. That is an answer about data security classification, not about permitted application. The two are different questions and only one of them was answered. What It Signals For the AI industry, this is the clearest test yet of whether published safety commitments survive contact with the most powerful customer available. The answer so far is that they survive only at a cost the company must be willing to pay. Anthropic was — it has a near-record public listing ahead of it and a brand built on precisely this — and it still lost the business. A smaller company, or one without that positioning, would find the same refusal considerably harder to afford. Which means the usage policies most likely to hold are the ones belonging to firms that can absorb losing three million users, and that is a very short list.

The Department of Defense added OpenAI's ChatGPT Mil and Starshield's Grok for Government to GenAI.mil on August 31, joining Google's Gemini for Government. Anthropic's Claude, once expected on the platform, is absent after the company insisted on contractual limits barring mass surveillance of Americans and lethal autonomous weapons — and days after a federal judge ruled the Pentagon's retaliation against it illegal.

Pentagon just launched its AI portal with ChatGPT, Grok and Gemini

Iran has started firing missiles and drones in response to US strikes on Tuesday, reported Iranian semiofficial media outlets after American forces pounded several areas in the Islamic Republic while targeting IRGC centres for the second time in three days.&nbsp;Iran’s Fars and Tasnim news agencies, which are close to Tehran’s security forces, reported late Tuesday that the Iranian forces had launched retaliatory operations. There were reports of explosions being seen over the southern Jordanian city of Aqaba after Iran said it was retaliating for US strikes.&nbsp;The IRGC said its fighters have begun a “regretful response to the aggressors” as the US continues its attacks on southern Iran, reported state broadcaster IRIB.The IRGC said in a statement, “In blind and desperate attacks”, the US bombed several locations, including civilian areas.&nbsp;“The brave warriors of the IRGC have begun a regretful response to the aggressors, and in the first action, using the new aerospace defence system, they shot down the 50th advanced MQ9 drone of the invading American army,” it claimed.&nbsp;“Attacks that tightened the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and strengthened the determination of the fighters to suppress the foreign forces interfering in the Strait of Hormuz,” the IRGC added.&nbsp;<h2>‘US will regret new strikes’: IRGC</h2>&nbsp;Iran’s Revolutionary Guard vowed to make the US regret its latest attacks, even as President Donald Trump warned Tehran against striking back.“Severe punishment awaits the aggressors; the United States will regret its new attacks,” said IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebi in a post on social media, after explosions were heard in multiple areas along and east of the Strait of Hormuz.&nbsp;&nbsp;<h2>‘US bases, assets in region to be targeted’: Iranian media</h2>&nbsp;Iran’s armed forces announced that US bases and interests in the region are being hit by missiles and drones as they launched an operation in response to the US strikes.&nbsp;Iran’s Fars news agency reported that a US strike targeted a residential area in the coastal city of Kuhestak in the Hormozgan governorate.US forces targeted Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, Konarak, Chabahar, Jask, Sirik, Lavan and Asluyeh in southern Iran.&nbsp;Washington began striking targets in Iran at 12pm EST (16:00 GMT), according to CENTCOM.&nbsp;&nbsp;US CENTCOM said in a post on X, “Today at 12 pm ET, US forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran. The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.”&nbsp;<h2>‘Gulf allies notified before US strikes on Iran’: Trump</h2>&nbsp;The US president claimed that Gulf allies were notified before the latest round of US strikes on Iran. Speaking to Fox News, Trump also warned Iran against retaliating, adding that the USS George Washington “is loaded to the gills”.&nbsp;Trump said the US military had been monitoring Iran’s efforts to rebuild radar systems and waited until the work was almost completed before carrying out the strikes.&nbsp;“The United States is, as we speak, striking Iranian Targets near the Strait of Hormuz. The strikes are large and powerful, and in retaliation for the Iranians’ failed attempt at adding sea mines to the Strait, and the Iranians shooting eight missiles, all successfully knocked down, at our Military Base in Jordan,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.&nbsp;“If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!” Trump said.&nbsp;<h2>‘We gave them a lot of chances’: Trump</h2>&nbsp;President Trump warned Iran against retaliating against the US for Tuesday's strikes. “If they retaliate, they'll be hit much harder. And if they do it again, they'll be no longer,” the president told Fox News.&nbsp;Asked whether he's still interested in a deal with Iran, the president said, “I think an agreement with them isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. We gave them a lot of chances.”

The IRGC said its fighters have begun a “regretful response to the aggressors” as the US continued its attacks on southern Iran, reported state broadcaster IRIB. The IRGC said in a statement, “In blind and desperate attacks”, the US bombed several locations, including civilian areas.

Iran has started firing missiles and drones in response to US strikes on Tuesday, reported Iranian semiofficial media outlets after American forces pounded several areas in the Islamic Republic while targeting IRGC centres for the second time in three days. Iran’s Fars and Tasnim news agencies, which are close to Tehran’s security forces, reported late Tuesday that the Iranian forces had launched retaliatory operations. There were reports of explosions being seen over the southern Jordanian city of Aqaba after Iran said it was retaliating for US strikes. The IRGC said its fighters have begun a “regretful response to the aggressors” as the US continues its attacks on southern Iran, reported state broadcaster IRIB. The IRGC said in a statement, “In blind and desperate attacks”, the US bombed several locations, including civilian areas. “The brave warriors of the IRGC have begun a regretful response to the aggressors, and in the first action, using the new aerospace defence system, they shot down the 50th advanced MQ9 drone of the invading American army,” it claimed. “Attacks that tightened the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and strengthened the determination of the fighters to suppress the foreign forces interfering in the Strait of Hormuz,” the IRGC added. ‘US will regret new strikes’: IRGC Iran’s Revolutionary Guard vowed to make the US regret its latest attacks, even as President Donald Trump warned Tehran against striking back. “Severe punishment awaits the aggressors; the United States will regret its new attacks,” said IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebi in a post on social media, after explosions were heard in multiple areas along and east of the Strait of Hormuz. ‘US bases, assets in region to be targeted’: Iranian media Iran’s armed forces announced that US bases and interests in the region are being hit by missiles and drones as they launched an operation in response to the US strikes. Iran’s Fars news agency reported that a US strike targeted a residential area in the coastal city of Kuhestak in the Hormozgan governorate. US forces targeted Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, Konarak, Chabahar, Jask, Sirik, Lavan and Asluyeh in southern Iran. Washington began striking targets in Iran at 12pm EST (16:00 GMT), according to CENTCOM. US CENTCOM said in a post on X, “Today at 12 pm ET, US forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran. The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.” ‘Gulf allies notified before US strikes on Iran’: Trump The US president claimed that Gulf allies were notified before the latest round of US strikes on Iran. Speaking to Fox News, Trump also warned Iran against retaliating, adding that the USS George Washington “is loaded to the gills”. Trump said the US military had been monitoring Iran’s efforts to rebuild radar systems and waited until the work was almost completed before carrying out the strikes. “The United States is, as we speak, striking Iranian Targets near the Strait of Hormuz. The strikes are large and powerful, and in retaliation for the Iranians’ failed attempt at adding sea mines to the Strait, and the Iranians shooting eight missiles, all successfully knocked down, at our Military Base in Jordan,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!” Trump said. ‘We gave them a lot of chances’: Trump President Trump warned Iran against retaliating against the US for Tuesday's strikes. “If they retaliate, they'll be hit much harder. And if they do it again, they'll be no longer,” the president told Fox News. Asked whether he's still interested in a deal with Iran, the president said, “I think an agreement with them isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. We gave them a lot of chances.”

The IRGC said its fighters have begun a “regretful response to the aggressors” as the US continued its attacks on southern Iran, reported state broadcaster IRIB. The IRGC said in a statement, “In blind and desperate attacks”, the US bombed several locations, including civilian areas.

Iran launches retaliatory strikes with missiles and drones;  Trump warns of ‘much harder’ attack

Is it virtually impossible to become a permanent resident of America in your life time, if you are an Indian. And you apply today?&nbsp;According to a new analysis, an Indian professional who applies for a US Green Card today could face a wait of up to a staggering 179 years.&nbsp;Close to a million Indians are already waiting in line.&nbsp;At present, Indian professionals tend to apply for an employment-based green card through three main categories.&nbsp;The first category is reserved for outstanding professors, and those with extraordinary ability in sciences, arts, business or sports.&nbsp;Second preference is given to professionals with advanced degrees.&nbsp;On the other hand, the third category pertains to those capable of performing skilled labour.&nbsp;According to a latest study by National Foundation for American Policy, the potential wait time for Indians falling in the second category seeking a green card is 179 years as compared to 25 years for Chinese nationals.&nbsp;While both Indians as well as Chinese in the first category take close to five years to obtain permanent residency, the gap is again wide as far as skilled workers are concerned.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Now, one of the main reasons which disproportionately affects Indians is the nationality-based green card caps. As per US law, no country can get more than 7% of all green cards in a single year. Thus, a small country like Iceland and a large country like India face the same 7% cap. With only around one hundred forty thousand green cards available annually, very few Indians end up acquiring permanent residence. If we look at the overall figures, close to a million Indians are still waiting for a green card. They account for 79% of all the people across the globe who are awaiting permanent residence. According to the NGO, the green card backlog for Indians has grown by 19% since 2020. Now, this comes amid the Trump administration tightening restrictions for even legal immigrants. Last week, it paused all US immigrant visa applications and even cancelled pre-scheduled interviews. According to reports, this was done to ensure in-depth training of all consular officers. This is not all. The US Department of Homeland Security has proposed imposing a fee of over one hundred thousand US dollars on H-1b petitions. This would considerably increase the cost of employing foreign professionals in US. This is particularly significant for Indians who accounted for 71% of H-1b beneficiaries in 2024.

One of the main reasons which disproportionately affects Indians is the nationality-based green card caps. As per US law, no country can get more than 7% of all green cards in a single year. Thus, a small country like Iceland and a large country like India face the same 7% cap.

Is it virtually impossible to become a permanent resident of America in your life time, if you are an Indian. And you apply today? According to a new analysis, an Indian professional who applies for a US Green Card today could face a wait of up to a staggering 179 years. Close to a million Indians are already waiting in line. At present, Indian professionals tend to apply for an employment-based green card through three main categories. The first category is reserved for outstanding professors, and those with extraordinary ability in sciences, arts, business or sports. Second preference is given to professionals with advanced degrees. On the other hand, the third category pertains to those capable of performing skilled labour. According to a latest study by National Foundation for American Policy, the potential wait time for Indians falling in the second category seeking a green card is 179 years as compared to 25 years for Chinese nationals. While both Indians as well as Chinese in the first category take close to five years to obtain permanent residency, the gap is again wide as far as skilled workers are concerned.

One of the main reasons which disproportionately affects Indians is the nationality-based green card caps. As per US law, no country can get more than 7% of all green cards in a single year. Thus, a small country like Iceland and a large country like India face the same 7% cap.

Nearly 1 million Indians stuck in US Green Card backlog, wait could stretch to 179 years | Gravitas

Imagine five-year-olds facing the prospect of marriage. Fresh data from the UK home office indicates that this crisis is brewing in Britain as well.&nbsp;According to data obtained through freedom of information requests, at least hundred children aged 12 or under were referred to UK's forced marriage unit from 2021 to 2025.&nbsp;This government unit provides advice and support to potential victims of forced marriage.&nbsp;What is startling is that this list included 27 children aged five or below.&nbsp;It is worth noting that forcing someone to marry in UK carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison.&nbsp;In 2023, the legal age of marriage in England and Wales was raised from 16 to 18.&nbsp;While every referral to the forced marriage unit does not imply a forced marriage has taken place, the cases are on the rise.&nbsp;According to UK home office, 406 cases were referred to this unit in 2025, marking a 69% yearly increase in the number of cases.&nbsp;This is not all.&nbsp;&nbsp;

40% of these cases involved victims aged 17 and below. Pakistan was the destination of forced marriage in 165 of these cases. This drew a fiery reaction from Nigel Farage's party, who largely held the Conservative Party's tenure in power responsible for a rise in forced marriage cases. Reform UK's home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf claimed, "This sudden rise in forced marriages tracks almost perfectly with the Boris wave, which saw the Tories import 4 million new people into the UK." He added that Tories won't be forgiven for this betrayal. Reacting to this, UK's home office asserted that the problem of forced marriage was not specific to one country, religion or culture. Activists though found the data deeply disturbing and warned that actual forced marriage figures are likely to be higher as many victims cannot even reach out to the authorities.

According to data obtained through freedom of information requests, at least hundred children aged 12 or under were referred to UK's forced marriage unit from 2021 to 2025. This government unit provides advice and support to potential victims of forced marriage.

Imagine five-year-olds facing the prospect of marriage. Fresh data from the UK home office indicates that this crisis is brewing in Britain as well. According to data obtained through freedom of information requests, at least hundred children aged 12 or under were referred to UK's forced marriage unit from 2021 to 2025. This government unit provides advice and support to potential victims of forced marriage. What is startling is that this list included 27 children aged five or below. It is worth noting that forcing someone to marry in UK carries a sentence of up to seven years in prison. In 2023, the legal age of marriage in England and Wales was raised from 16 to 18. While every referral to the forced marriage unit does not imply a forced marriage has taken place, the cases are on the rise. According to UK home office, 406 cases were referred to this unit in 2025, marking a 69% yearly increase in the number of cases. This is not all.

According to data obtained through freedom of information requests, at least hundred children aged 12 or under were referred to UK's forced marriage unit from 2021 to 2025. This government unit provides advice and support to potential victims of forced marriage.

Over 100 children aged 12 & below in UK may have been forced into marriage | Gravitas

U.S. President Donald Trump claims Iran is a failed nation...But look closer...And you see how cracks within the Pentagon are widening.With the resignation of U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, the extent of damage by Iran continues to startle America...Iranian state media released these visuals of ballistic missiles being fired at the U.S. bases of King Hussein and Muwaffaq Salti in Jordan. This was a retaliation for America's strike on two launchers in Larak Island, which resulted in multiple civilian and military casualties.Although Jordan's army claimed to have averted any damage by destroying eight Iranian missiles that breached its airspace, satellite imagery depicts a different story.Take a look at these images.According to Iranian state media, they confirm a direct impact and extensive damage to an aircraft hangar at the Muwaffaq Salti air base.While trying to repel Iran's strikes, a report claimed that U.S. forces fired over 80 Patriot interceptor missiles, which could account for around ten per cent of the remaining U.S. stockpile of these missiles. It added that up to four interceptors were fired at each Iranian missile.Now, this assumes significance, as three U.S. military personnel were killed in the last Iranian ballistic and drone attack on this Jordan air base on July 17.Frustrated by Iran's resistance, Trump lost his cool when asked about the possibility of using nuclear weapons on Iran.Ironically, Trump's bravado comes at a time when key military leaders advised U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth against extending operations against Iran. They reportedly warned him that prolonging the war is unsustainable and risks weakening the U.S. military's ability to confront threats elsewhere.Amid this, Daniel Driscoll, who oversaw operations, modernisation and resource allocation for nearly one million active and reserve soldiers, quit after months of friction with Hegseth.Now, let's take a brief look at his background.Driscoll was commissioned into the U.S. Army in 2007, after which he was deployed to Iraq. He has received multiple military awards, including the Army Recommendation Medal and Combat Action Badge.After retiring from the Army, he held leadership positions in investment banking, private equity and business operations, such as the COO of a 200 million U.S. dollar venture capital fund.In February 2025, he became the youngest-ever U.S. Secretary of the Army. He is said to be close to U.S. Vice President JD Vance.He came into the spotlight last year, after Trump chose him to take part in talks with Moscow and Kyiv to end the war in Ukraine.But what was the trigger for his exit?According to Reuters, he reportedly raised concerns about Hegseth blocking his efforts to modernise the Army. He was reportedly miffed at the U.S. Secretary of War firing generals who were leading these efforts.Driscoll was believed to be pushing the Army to acquire cheaper weapons.The report claimed that while Hegseth long wanted to remove Driscoll, his ties to Vance made it tough for him to do so.U.S. Army Chief Randy George's ouster in April reportedly caught Driscoll off guard and led to his increased frustration with Trump.Hegseth has been under scrutiny for blocking the promotion of senior Army officials and his leadership during the ongoing Iran war.This is not all.According to the report, Deputy Under-Secretary of Army Dave FitzGerald, who has been focusing on innovation, is also likely to quit soon.While it is unclear whether Driscoll's resignation has been accepted, White House lauded his outstanding leadership role in advancing Trump's agenda to make America strong again and restore an emphasis on readiness and lethality.At a time when the U.S. is dealing with depleted weapon stockpiles and exhausted personnel, its Army's top civilian and uniformed leadership positions are vacant now...However, is the U.S. contemplating a return to hostilities in West Asia?According to Axios, Trump and his senior aides have been considering waging limited strikes in the Strait of Hormuz. This is aimed at preventing Iran from reconstituting its radar and missile capabilities to attack ships.While the U.S. President sparked speculation in this regard by posting an AI-generated video of an attack on Iran's oil lifeline of Kharg Island, Vance construed it as a message to the Iranians.Speaking at the SCO summit in Bishkek, Pezeshkian made a key intervention. He accused the U.S. of making excessive demands and breaching its commitments less than two weeks after signing the memorandum of understanding with Iran.At the same time, he made it clear that Iran will reciprocate if the U.S. honours the MOU.Pezeshkian's stance is vital, as Iranians have been bearing the brunt of the U.S. naval blockade as well as the enhanced economic sanctions.With the Iranian president extending an olive branch, will America now reciprocate?All eyes will be on the next few days to determine Trump's future course of action.<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/iran-unleashes-fury-on-us-base-in-jordan-frustrated-trump-erupts-over-nuke-question-1788286787276/embed">https://www.wionews.com/videos/iran-unleashes-fury-on-us-base-in-jordan-frustrated-trump-erupts-over-nuke-question-1788286787276/embed</a>&nbsp;

Donald Trump faces growing Pentagon tensions as Iran strikes US bases, Daniel Driscoll resigns and Washington weighs possible renewed strikes.

U.S. President Donald Trump claims Iran is a failed nation... But look closer... And you see how cracks within the Pentagon are widening. With the resignation of U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, the extent of damage by Iran continues to startle America... Iranian state media released these visuals of ballistic missiles being fired at the U.S. bases of King Hussein and Muwaffaq Salti in Jordan. This was a retaliation for America's strike on two launchers in Larak Island, which resulted in multiple civilian and military casualties. Although Jordan's army claimed to have averted any damage by destroying eight Iranian missiles that breached its airspace, satellite imagery depicts a different story. Take a look at these images. According to Iranian state media, they confirm a direct impact and extensive damage to an aircraft hangar at the Muwaffaq Salti air base. While trying to repel Iran's strikes, a report claimed that U.S. forces fired over 80 Patriot interceptor missiles, which could account for around ten per cent of the remaining U.S. stockpile of these missiles. It added that up to four interceptors were fired at each Iranian missile. Now, this assumes significance, as three U.S. military personnel were killed in the last Iranian ballistic and drone attack on this Jordan air base on July 17. Frustrated by Iran's resistance, Trump lost his cool when asked about the possibility of using nuclear weapons on Iran. Ironically, Trump's bravado comes at a time when key military leaders advised U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth against extending operations against Iran. They reportedly warned him that prolonging the war is unsustainable and risks weakening the U.S. military's ability to confront threats elsewhere. Amid this, Daniel Driscoll, who oversaw operations, modernisation and resource allocation for nearly one million active and reserve soldiers, quit after months of friction with Hegseth. Now, let's take a brief look at his background. Driscoll was commissioned into the U.S. Army in 2007, after which he was deployed to Iraq. He has received multiple military awards, including the Army Recommendation Medal and Combat Action Badge. After retiring from the Army, he held leadership positions in investment banking, private equity and business operations, such as the COO of a 200 million U.S. dollar venture capital fund. In February 2025, he became the youngest-ever U.S. Secretary of the Army. He is said to be close to U.S. Vice President JD Vance. He came into the spotlight last year, after Trump chose him to take part in talks with Moscow and Kyiv to end the war in Ukraine. But what was the trigger for his exit? According to Reuters, he reportedly raised concerns about Hegseth blocking his efforts to modernise the Army. He was reportedly miffed at the U.S. Secretary of War firing generals who were leading these efforts. Driscoll was believed to be pushing the Army to acquire cheaper weapons. The report claimed that while Hegseth long wanted to remove Driscoll, his ties to Vance made it tough for him to do so. U.S. Army Chief Randy George's ouster in April reportedly caught Driscoll off guard and led to his increased frustration with Trump. Hegseth has been under scrutiny for blocking the promotion of senior Army officials and his leadership during the ongoing Iran war. This is not all. According to the report, Deputy Under-Secretary of Army Dave FitzGerald, who has been focusing on innovation, is also likely to quit soon. While it is unclear whether Driscoll's resignation has been accepted, White House lauded his outstanding leadership role in advancing Trump's agenda to make America strong again and restore an emphasis on readiness and lethality. At a time when the U.S. is dealing with depleted weapon stockpiles and exhausted personnel, its Army's top civilian and uniformed leadership positions are vacant now... However, is the U.S. contemplating a return to hostilities in West Asia? According to Axios, Trump and his senior aides have been considering waging limited strikes in the Strait of Hormuz. This is aimed at preventing Iran from reconstituting its radar and missile capabilities to attack ships. While the U.S. President sparked speculation in this regard by posting an AI-generated video of an attack on Iran's oil lifeline of Kharg Island, Vance construed it as a message to the Iranians. Speaking at the SCO summit in Bishkek, Pezeshkian made a key intervention. He accused the U.S. of making excessive demands and breaching its commitments less than two weeks after signing the memorandum of understanding with Iran. At the same time, he made it clear that Iran will reciprocate if the U.S. honours the MOU. Pezeshkian's stance is vital, as Iranians have been bearing the brunt of the U.S. naval blockade as well as the enhanced economic sanctions. With the Iranian president extending an olive branch, will America now reciprocate? All eyes will be on the next few days to determine Trump's future course of action. https://www.wionews.com/videos/iran-unleashes-fury-on-us-base-in-jordan-frustrated-trump-erupts-over-nuke-question-1788286787276/embed

Donald Trump faces growing Pentagon tensions as Iran strikes US bases, Daniel Driscoll resigns and Washington weighs possible renewed strikes.

Iran unleashes fury on US base in Jordan, frustrated Trump erupts over nuke question | Gravitas

Can Nepal outsource its own responsibility towards the Himalayas?&nbsp;Well, apparently, it has.&nbsp;&nbsp;Even as families are still coming to terms with the tragedy, the Balendra Shah government has written to India, China and the United States to take blame for the recent flash floods, and pay compensation, instead of sending aid.&nbsp;So, even as people suffer, Nepal doesn't want help. It needs accountability.&nbsp;Is Nepal right in doing so?&nbsp;Well, Nepal is right about one thing: the Himalayan climate crisis is real, and it is human-made.&nbsp;&nbsp;But Kathmandu's demand for climate reparations cannot absolve it of responsibility.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/nepal-floods-nepal-pm-balendra-shah-govt-cannot-absolve-itself-of-blame-1788284122135/embed">https://www.wionews.com/videos/nepal-floods-nepal-pm-balendra-shah-govt-cannot-absolve-itself-of-blame-1788284122135/embed</a>&nbsp;The uncomfortable question Nepal must answer is this: what has Kathmandu itself done to protect the ecological system from which it earns billions of dollars in tourism, hydropower and other economic activity?&nbsp;Take, for instance, Mount Everest. Nepal has long known that the world's highest mountain is being subjected to extraordinary commercial pressure. Yet the response has too often been to raise permit prices rather than impose stricter rules. Overcrowding happens every year, despite a cap on the number of permits.&nbsp;Veteran sherpas have repeatedly argued for a ceiling of 250 climbers, yet thousands of people end up at Mount Everest, generating enormous quantities of waste and putting additional pressure on an extremely fragile environment.&nbsp;Nepal possesses enormous hydropower potential and is actively seeking foreign investment to exploit it. And it has Chinese companies investing in it. Indian companies also have investments.&nbsp;But are other countries invading and forcing themselves in? No. Nepal makes decisions about which projects to approve, which companies to invite, which environmental assessments to conduct and which rivers and valleys to develop.&nbsp;If Kathmandu believes that Himalayan countries deserve compensation because they are disproportionately exposed to climate change, then the next logical step is for Nepal to become a model of Himalayan environmental governance. Limit tourism, impose scientific rules, enforce waste rules rather than merely announcing them, and conduct environmental assessments for hydropower and infrastructure projects.&nbsp;The answer, therefore, is not to blame other countries immediately, when your own actions have contributed to your country's situation.&nbsp;Every country has a responsibility to support genuine climate finance, and avert global warming. but it is not a one-way street.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Himalayas don't know political borders. All they know is how to respond to human exploitation.&nbsp;And that is exactly what they have done this time too.

Nepal has long known that the world's highest mountain, Mt. Everest, is being subjected to extraordinary commercial pressure. Yet the response has too often been to raise permit prices rather than impose stricter rules. Overcrowding happens every year, despite a cap on the number of permits.

Can Nepal outsource its own responsibility towards the Himalayas? Well, apparently, it has. Even as families are still coming to terms with the tragedy, the Balendra Shah government has written to India, China and the United States to take blame for the recent flash floods, and pay compensation, instead of sending aid. So, even as people suffer, Nepal doesn't want help. It needs accountability. Is Nepal right in doing so? Well, Nepal is right about one thing: the Himalayan climate crisis is real, and it is human-made. But Kathmandu's demand for climate reparations cannot absolve it of responsibility. https://www.wionews.com/videos/nepal-floods-nepal-pm-balendra-shah-govt-cannot-absolve-itself-of-blame-1788284122135/embed The uncomfortable question Nepal must answer is this: what has Kathmandu itself done to protect the ecological system from which it earns billions of dollars in tourism, hydropower and other economic activity? Take, for instance, Mount Everest. Nepal has long known that the world's highest mountain is being subjected to extraordinary commercial pressure. Yet the response has too often been to raise permit prices rather than impose stricter rules. Overcrowding happens every year, despite a cap on the number of permits. Veteran sherpas have repeatedly argued for a ceiling of 250 climbers, yet thousands of people end up at Mount Everest, generating enormous quantities of waste and putting additional pressure on an extremely fragile environment. Nepal possesses enormous hydropower potential and is actively seeking foreign investment to exploit it. And it has Chinese companies investing in it. Indian companies also have investments. But are other countries invading and forcing themselves in? No. Nepal makes decisions about which projects to approve, which companies to invite, which environmental assessments to conduct and which rivers and valleys to develop. If Kathmandu believes that Himalayan countries deserve compensation because they are disproportionately exposed to climate change, then the next logical step is for Nepal to become a model of Himalayan environmental governance. Limit tourism, impose scientific rules, enforce waste rules rather than merely announcing them, and conduct environmental assessments for hydropower and infrastructure projects. The answer, therefore, is not to blame other countries immediately, when your own actions have contributed to your country's situation. Every country has a responsibility to support genuine climate finance, and avert global warming. but it is not a one-way street. The Himalayas don't know political borders. All they know is how to respond to human exploitation. And that is exactly what they have done this time too.

Nepal has long known that the world's highest mountain, Mt. Everest, is being subjected to extraordinary commercial pressure. Yet the response has too often been to raise permit prices rather than impose stricter rules. Overcrowding happens every year, despite a cap on the number of permits.

The Verdict | Nepal wants climate reparations, but what about its own responsibility?

US CENTCOM has confirmed that it has begun fresh strikes on IRGC targets in Iran at 12 pm in local time on Tuesday, September 1, 2026. Iran's state broadcaster, IRIB, has reported that several explosions were heard at Iran's Bandar Abbas.&nbsp;“Today at 12 p.m. ET, US forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran. The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region," said US CENTCOM in a post on the social media platform X.According to an Al Jazeera report, which cites IRIB, five explosions were heard around Masan village in Qeshm, while four explosions were also heard from the Strait of Hormuz in Qeshm. According to the deputy political, security, and social affairs officer of the Hormozgan governorate in Bandar Abbas, no casualties have been reported.Also Read: <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/putin-praises-iran-resilience-russia-necessary-equipment-1788279988882">Putin praises Iran’s resilience, says Russia providing Tehran with ‘necessary equipment’</a>According to Al Jazeera, which cites anonymous US officials, the attack on an IRGC target is still going on. According to Iranian state media IRNA, explosions were heard in Chabahar and Konarak. The Deputy Governor for Security and Law Enforcement of Sistan and Baluchestan Province said four projectiles struck Chabahar and Konarak.&nbsp;“Expert investigations are underway to determine the details of the incident, potential damages, and further information,” said General Ali Khalil Abadi.<h2>Trump threatens Iran; "biggest" attacks are waiting&nbsp;</h2>In a Truth Social post, US President Donald Trump said that there will be "much harder and higher level" attacks on Iran if it retaliates against these attacks.&nbsp;"If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!," wrote Trump in a Truth Social post as US CENTCOM carried out attack on Iran.&nbsp;US attack on Iran comes after the recent escalation since Sunday, August 30. US first struck Iran’s Larak Island on Sunday evening; Iran retaliated by targeting a US military base in Jordan and the UAE. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump posted an AI video of an attack on Iranian Kharg Island. Then, on Monday, Trump said that there will be a further response to the Iranian attacks.US Embassy across the West Asia region has issued a security alert urging US citizens to stay alert, review travel plans, and prepare for potential travel disruptions or consider departing due to elevated regional tensions. US Crude oil prices are hovering around $90/barrel and now stand at their highest level since July 24. Meanwhile, Iran's parliament speaker and top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, urged citizens to curb their petrol consumption on Tuesday.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

US CENTCOM confirmed strikes on IRGC targets in Iran on Tuesday, citing attempted attacks on commercial shipping and US service members.

US CENTCOM has confirmed that it has begun fresh strikes on IRGC targets in Iran at 12 pm in local time on Tuesday, September 1, 2026. Iran's state broadcaster, IRIB, has reported that several explosions were heard at Iran's Bandar Abbas. “Today at 12 p.m. ET, US forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran. The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region," said US CENTCOM in a post on the social media platform X. According to an Al Jazeera report, which cites IRIB, five explosions were heard around Masan village in Qeshm, while four explosions were also heard from the Strait of Hormuz in Qeshm. According to the deputy political, security, and social affairs officer of the Hormozgan governorate in Bandar Abbas, no casualties have been reported. Also Read: Putin praises Iran’s resilience, says Russia providing Tehran with ‘necessary equipment’ According to Al Jazeera, which cites anonymous US officials, the attack on an IRGC target is still going on. According to Iranian state media IRNA, explosions were heard in Chabahar and Konarak. The Deputy Governor for Security and Law Enforcement of Sistan and Baluchestan Province said four projectiles struck Chabahar and Konarak. “Expert investigations are underway to determine the details of the incident, potential damages, and further information,” said General Ali Khalil Abadi. Trump threatens Iran; "biggest" attacks are waiting In a Truth Social post, US President Donald Trump said that there will be "much harder and higher level" attacks on Iran if it retaliates against these attacks. "If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings and, when it is over, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran!," wrote Trump in a Truth Social post as US CENTCOM carried out attack on Iran. US attack on Iran comes after the recent escalation since Sunday, August 30. US first struck Iran’s Larak Island on Sunday evening; Iran retaliated by targeting a US military base in Jordan and the UAE. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump posted an AI video of an attack on Iranian Kharg Island. Then, on Monday, Trump said that there will be a further response to the Iranian attacks. US Embassy across the West Asia region has issued a security alert urging US citizens to stay alert, review travel plans, and prepare for potential travel disruptions or consider departing due to elevated regional tensions. US Crude oil prices are hovering around $90/barrel and now stand at their highest level since July 24. Meanwhile, Iran's parliament speaker and top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, urged citizens to curb their petrol consumption on Tuesday.

US CENTCOM confirmed strikes on IRGC targets in Iran on Tuesday, citing attempted attacks on commercial shipping and US service members.

US strikes IRGC targets in Iran as explosions reported in Bandar Abbas

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Trump faces Pentagon turmoil as Iran strikes US bases in Jordan | Gravitas

The Verdict | Nepal wants climate reparations, but what about responsibility?

US strikes IRGC targets in Iran as explosions reported in Bandar Abbas