Previously: September 8’s roundup covered Canada’s 232M Greenland package alongside NATO’s Arctic Shield drills, and Bosnia downgrading ties with Serbia over the Mladic funeral.
Iran — US Destroys Five Iranian Tankers, Iran Strikes a US Base in Jordan
US forces destroyed five Iranian oil tankers — the Kaviz, Charminar, Horizon 1, Riesco, and Derya — in strikes across the Gulf of Oman and near Kharg Island on Tuesday, with CENTCOM saying crews were ordered to evacuate before the vessels were hit. It’s the second such strike in under a week, following the September 5 attack on three tankers that Iran cited when it threatened a Hormuz “restricted zone” in September 8’s roundup. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: “Iran continues to try to hit US naval ships, and for every time they do that or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers.”
Iran’s IRGC responded by attacking roughly 10 ships near the Strait of Hormuz and firing ballistic missiles at the Al Azraq base in Jordan, which hosts US forces. Jordan’s military said it intercepted 18 of the 20 incoming missiles, with the remaining two landing in unpopulated areas; no casualties were reported on either side. Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned the US strikes as a violation of the UN charter and called them a “war crime.” CBS News reported oil prices approaching $100 a barrel as the exchange escalated six months into the US-Israel war on Iran.
Sources: Al Jazeera — US strikes five Iranian oil tankers, as Iran attacks 10 ships, Jordan base · Euronews — US destroys five Iranian tankers as Tehran launches retaliatory strikes on Jordan · CBS News — U.S. forces hit IRGC-linked oil tankers as oil nears $100 a barrel · Irish Times — Iran attacks US base in Jordan, ships near Hormuz after tankers sunk
Ukraine — Trump and Putin Hold a ‘Frank’ Call, No Ceasefire Announced
Trump and Putin spoke by phone for about an hour on Tuesday in a call Russian adviser Yury Ushakov described as “constructive and quite frank.” Putin used the call to lay out Russia’s military objectives and battlefield position in Ukraine and said “we don’t have any aggressive plans regarding Europe,” according to the Kremlin readout, but the two sides announced no ceasefire or other formal agreement. The call followed the weekend visits by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Moscow and Kyiv reported in September 7’s roundup, after which Zelenskyy said “it is very important that the delegation has arrived to see us.”
Fighting resumed after a brief weekend truce during the envoys’ visits. The White House said Trump and Zelenskyy are expected to meet later in September, and Trump has continued to press for an end to the war after previously walking back earlier claims that he could resolve the conflict within 24 hours of taking office.
Sources: Al Jazeera — Trump, Putin hold ‘frank’ phone call as US revives Ukraine peace efforts · The Moscow Times — Trump Presses Putin for Swift End to Ukraine War in ‘Confidential’ Call · The Japan Times — Putin and Trump discuss Ukraine in ‘extremely frank’ call
Apple — ‘Surprise and Shine’ Event Set to Unveil the First Foldable iPhone
Apple holds its fall product event today at 10 a.m. Pacific from the Steve Jobs Theater — the first major launch presented by John Ternus since he succeeded Tim Cook as CEO on September 1. Reporting ahead of the event points to Apple’s first foldable iPhone as the headline reveal, alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max; there’s no standard iPhone 18 this cycle, with the more affordable line pushed to spring 2027. Rumored specs for the foldable describe a book-style, iPad-like design with roughly a 5.5-inch outer OLED display and a 7.8-inch inner display, a titanium frame, Touch ID built into the power button, dual front cameras, and a starting price near $2,000, with pre-orders expected September 11–12 and retail availability from September 18.
The event is also expected to bring new Apple Watch models, AirPods updates, and release-date confirmations for iOS 27 and the rest of Apple’s fall software lineup. As with any pre-event coverage, the specific hardware and pricing details remain reporting from Apple press sources rather than Apple’s own confirmation until the keynote airs.
Sources: TechCrunch — What we expect from the upcoming Apple launch · MacRumors — iPhone Ultra, iPhone 18 Pro, and More: Apple’s September 9 Event Preview · 9to5Mac — Apple announces iPhone 18 Pro and foldable iPhone Ultra event: ‘Surprise and shine’
AI — OpenAI’s Navier-Stokes Claim Sparks a Credit Dispute
OpenAI said a system of up to 10,000 coordinating agents produced a proposed solution to the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem — one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems, carrying a $1 million prize — in about 88 hours, at an estimated compute cost in the low millions of dollars. The proof argues a fluid vortex can reach infinite speed in finite time while retaining finite total energy. OpenAI says it does not intend to claim the prize money, and the proof still needs extensive outside scrutiny on a timeline of years, not days, before it’s accepted.
The result has been overshadowed by a credit dispute: NYU mathematician Tristan Buckmaster alleged OpenAI’s approach matched his own unpublished work so closely that he asked whether the model had been trained on his sessions in OpenAI’s Codex tool, and said OpenAI researcher Sebastien Bubeck pushed back on his questions, telling him “why would you ruin your career?” Bubeck denied using Buckmaster’s prompts or proofs to train or prompt OpenAI’s models. Fields Medalist Terence Tao separately warned that this style of AI-driven math risks discouraging mathematicians from pursuing alternative approaches and could “destroy the ecosystem” of the field.
Sources: Fortune — OpenAI says it cracked Navier-Stokes, one of math’s grand challenges · Axios — OpenAI’s historic math solution overshadowed by credit controversy · CNBC — OpenAI claims to have solved the 90-year-old Navier-Stokes math problem in 88 hours · OpenAI — On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem
Science — A 2,884-Supernova Dataset Challenges the Standard Dark Energy Model
Researchers at the University of Queensland, led by Professor Tamara Davis with PhD candidate Ryan Camilleri, published the most comprehensive catalog yet of Type Ia supernovae — 2,884 of the exploding white dwarf stars used as cosmic “standard candles” — rebuilding three decades of observations into a single consistent framework that corrects for cosmic dust, host-galaxy mass, and gravitational lensing. The dataset adds an independent line of evidence, alongside separate measurements from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), that dark energy’s strength may vary over time rather than staying constant as the standard cosmological model assumes.
Davis said the work “may also hold the clue to explain how gravity and quantum physics fit together.” The team expects hundreds more supernovae from the upcoming Dark Energy Bedrock All-Sky Supernova survey (DEBASS) to further test the result.
Sources: University of Queensland — Big supernova dataset challenges dark energy theory · Phys.org — Big supernova dataset challenges dark energy theory