Morning Edition · Tuesday, August 18, 2026
Macro
Thirty-Year Treasury Yield Reaches 5.31 Percent, Highest Since 2007, as Oil Climbs
The S&P 500 closed 0.52 percent lower at 7,745.06 while gold held near $4,388 an ounce, still well below its January peak.
Macro
Trump's 50 Percent Tariffs on $20 Billion of Canadian Goods Take Effect in First Use of Section 338
The duties apply even to goods that qualify for free treatment under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada will hold its retaliation back while talks continue.
Geopolitics
Trump Threatens to Bomb Oman as Talks to Reopen the Strait of Hormuz Stall
Shipping through the waterway remains in the single digits per day, against more than 130 before the war, and a bulk carrier was struck by a projectile on Tuesday.
Geopolitics
Trump Orders Joint Drills With South Korea Cut, Citing His Relationship With Kim Jong Un
The 11-day exercise began on schedule with 21,000 troops despite Trump's order, as South Korea's president warned the country must prepare for a "worst-case scenario."
Tech
Synchrony Puts Its Store Cards Inside ChatGPT as AI Agents Gain Spending Authority
The lender behind the Amazon, Walmart and Lowe's cards is also in talks with Anthropic and Google to embed financing in their assistants.
Tech
China's Zhipu Claims Parity With Western Models on Cyber Defence and Publishes Its Own Standard
GLM-5.3 scored 84.5 percent on a code-vulnerability test against 83.8 percent for its American benchmark, while state media pressed developers to drop English artificial-intelligence terms.
Markets
Global Private Equity Stops Writing New Equity Cheques in China
Beijing has tightened national security review of foreign capital in sensitive sectors, while Russian legislators propose folding seized foreign-owned firms into the domestic small-business regime.
Crypto
Bitcoin Holds Above $64,000 as Miners Divert a Fifth of Their Computing Power to AI
Listed miners outside one expanding operator cut realised hashrate 21 percent in six months, while Moscow banned mining outright from August 15.
World
Zambia's Hichilema Wins a Second Term With About 60 Percent Amid Fraud Allegations
The vote decides who oversees a plan to lift copper output to three million tonnes a year by 2031 in a country that defaulted on its debt in 2020.
World
Congo's Ebola Outbreak Becomes the Country's Deadliest With More Than 2,300 Dead
The Bundibugyo strain has no approved vaccine or treatment, and the World Health Organization recorded 579 cases and 304 deaths in a single week.
World
Japan and Indonesia Write Emergency Budgets for Two Separate Earthquakes
Tokyo will finish a Kumamoto aid package by the end of August that includes measures to revive cancelled Kyushu hotel bookings, while Jakarta runs military airlifts into East Nusa Tenggara.
Geopolitics
Russia Reports 150 Drones Over the Moscow Region and Renewed Airport Shutdowns
Moscow's mayor called it the largest drone attack on the region in two years, with 620 aircraft involved and three people injured, including a child, in accounts that cannot be independently verified.
Macro
Airlines Hold Fare Increases in Place Even as Jet Fuel Costs Ease
Israel's agriculture ministry reversed a poultry import approval six months after granting it, and average wages there rose 7 percent without households noticing the difference.