The briefing for Wednesday, September 2.

American forces resumed strikes against Iran on Tuesday, according to US Central Command, marking the first direct US-Iran hostilities in over a month. Iran's Red Crescent said four people, including a young child, were killed and more than 50 injured when shrapnel from a US missile attack hit a home in Sirik, southern Iran, where a wedding celebration was underway. Centcom said the strikes followed "recent attempted attacks" by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and US personnel in the region.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard said the US would "regret" the strikes, and Iranian state media reported retaliatory missile and drone attacks had begun, including a barrage aimed at a US Marine base in Jordan's Aqaba. Jordanian officials said no deaths or injuries resulted from that attack. President Trump warned that Iran would face strikes at "a much harder and higher level" if it retaliated, calling Tuesday's strikes "large and powerful" and saying a larger-scale attack was "waiting in the wings."

The renewed hostilities come after a June memorandum extending a ceasefire between the two countries expired, following a February conflict in which the US and Israel launched wide-ranging strikes on Iran. Washington has also imposed a fresh sanctions campaign and a naval blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran has targeted shipping attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz without its permission. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tuesday that Iran would reciprocate if the US returned to honoring the expired agreement.

The exchange raises the risk of a broader escalation cycle in a region already strained by disrupted oil shipping and rising fuel prices. Centcom said US forces do not target civilians, contrasting its conduct with that of the Revolutionary Guard, though Iranian casualty reports are likely to fuel further retaliation and complicate any path back to negotiations.

Chevron confirmed Wednesday it will expand operations in Venezuela, days after President Trump announced a sweeping deal to develop the country's oil reserves that also gives the Pentagon a stake in profits. The company said it has been assigned additional acreage in the Orinoco Belt and plans to invest more than $7 billion over five years, aiming to more than double production to about 600,000 barrels a day. CEO Mike Wirth cited "confidence in the country's deep resource potential."

The broader agreement, signed in Caracas, grants a US-led company called North American Blue Energy Partners 100-year concessions over 17 oilfields containing roughly 65 billion barrels of crude — more than a fifth of Venezuela's proven reserves. Trump called it "the biggest oil deal in world history," while interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez said it would generate $100 billion in investment. Under the deal's terms, the US government will hold veto power over Nabep's board appointments, and a majority of board members must be US citizens.

Critics have raised sharp objections. Trump's former special envoy on Venezuela and Iran, Elliott Abrams, called it a "terrible deal" that gave away national patrimony "for nothing," likening its one-sided terms to a "fever dream of colonialism." Energy analysts also question the timeline: Trump has predicted profits within two to three years, but experts at Rice University's Baker Institute say Venezuela needs roughly $100 billion over eight years just to restore production to levels seen three decades ago.

Legal questions remain unresolved, including whether Rodríguez has authority to grant 100-year rights to Venezuela's oil fields, and whether future US or Venezuelan governments could overturn the arrangement. The deal follows the US military's removal of Nicolás Maduro from power in January and reflects the Trump administration's stated goal of shifting global energy geopolitics away from the Middle East and toward the Western Hemisphere.

Germany's government formally blamed Russia on Tuesday for a failed drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport on August 4, in which a drone carrying an explosive device was found near Ukrainian cargo planes. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the drone's components, explosives and detonator matched patterns from "other Russian hybrid operations," pointing to high technical expertise carried out by "low-level" agents acting on behalf of Russian state entities. A second drone reportedly collided with a cargo aircraft nearby, and a third was found ten days later.

In response, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul announced Germany will close the Russian consulate in Bonn effective September 18 and terminate the lease on the Russian House cultural center in Berlin, alongside tighter entry controls for Russian nationals and increased pressure on Russia's sanctions-evading "shadow fleet" of tankers. Russia's foreign ministry said Moscow would respond in a "mirror-image" fashion, with spokesperson Maria Zakharova accusing Berlin of "sponsoring terrorism" through its support for Ukraine. President Putin separately accused Germany of planting evidence, without providing proof.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen both voiced full solidarity with Germany, with von der Leyen calling it a "new escalation on European Union soil" and vowing additional sanctions. EU foreign ministers meeting in Ireland discussed further measures targeting Russia's shadow fleet, though EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas acknowledged the bloc is struggling to find new options beyond the nearly two dozen sanctions packages already imposed. France, Belgium and the Netherlands said they summoned Russian ambassadors in protest.

The attribution comes amid a broader pattern of suspected sabotage across Germany and Poland, including two power substation incidents and fires at drone-component factories, that officials say fit an escalating campaign of Russian hybrid warfare against European infrastructure and support for Ukraine. The episode marks one of the most direct and formally attributed incidents of its kind, raising pressure on European governments to demonstrate that such attacks carry real consequences.

Congo's Ebola outbreak has killed more than 3,000 people out of over 6,100 confirmed cases, according to government data released Wednesday, making it the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record. The outbreak, declared a global health emergency in mid-May, has spread to six provinces, with two new health zones affected in North Kivu last week alone, where fatality rates are especially high.

The US Centers for Disease Control said containment efforts "remained below established response targets," and the World Health Organization warns the outbreak is on track to exceed the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record — West Africa's 2014-2016 epidemic, which killed 11,000 people. The Africa CDC said actual case numbers could be three times higher than reported, given weak surveillance and contact tracing in the region.

Conflict in eastern Congo, attacks on health workers, constantly moving mining populations, and inadequate health infrastructure have all contributed to the virus's rapid spread. The recent resumption of schools has raised additional concerns about classroom transmission. There is currently no approved vaccine or treatment for the Bundibugyo virus strain driving this outbreak, though the Ervebo vaccine — effective against other Ebola strains — began distribution to frontline health workers last week in the northeastern Tshopo region.

The United Nations Environment Programme acknowledged for the first time in a report issued Wednesday that the world will exceed the 1.5 Celsius warming threshold set by the 2015 Paris climate accord, marking a strategic shift from prevention to recovery. "Humanity is speeding past the limit to avoid climate catastrophe," UN Secretary-General António Guterres said. The report projects the most optimistic scenario has warming peaking at 1.8C around mid-century, while current government policies point toward 2.6C by 2100.

Rather than abandoning the 1.5 goal, UN officials and scientists are proposing an "overshoot" strategy: limit the peak temperature, then work to bring warming back below 1.5C by ending fossil fuel use and developing technology to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said the target remains the goal but must now be approached "differently from above." Report co-author Richard Betts of the University of Exeter called it "a reality check" requiring the world to live with a warmer climate while still working to limit further damage.

Scientists caution the overshoot period will likely last decades and will bring intensified weather disasters, rising seas, extinctions and melting ice even under the best-case scenarios. Every five years of delayed emissions cuts adds at least a tenth of a degree to peak warming, according to co-author Joeri Rogelj of Imperial College London, underscoring the report's urgency despite its acknowledgment that the original 1.5 target is now out of reach.

A federal judge on Monday struck down New York's law requiring fossil fuel companies to pay into a $75 billion fund to address climate change damages, ruling the state had overstepped into an area of federal authority. U.S. District Judge Brenda Sannes found the 2024 law, signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, sought damages for conduct occurring "nearly everywhere on Earth," conflicting with the need for uniform national energy policy and exceeding what the federal Clean Air Act authorizes.

The law had been challenged by fossil fuel interests, business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 22 Republican state attorneys general, and the EPA. Sannes also ruled that seeking damages from foreign oil producers violated the constitutional foreign affairs doctrine. The Justice Department said the ruling protects "American energy from state overreach," while a Hochul administration spokesperson said the state was reviewing its options and argued taxpayers "shouldn't have to foot the bill for damages caused by polluters."

The law would have required major emitters to collectively pay $3 billion annually over 25 years toward infrastructure projects such as coastal wetland restoration and flood-resistant upgrades. The ruling follows similar Trump administration challenges to comparable laws in Michigan, Hawaii and Vermont, and represents a significant setback for state-led efforts nationwide to hold fossil fuel companies financially accountable for climate impacts.