Good morning. Three weeks ago, Washington and Tehran signed a ceasefire memorandum that was supposed to be the end of the Strait of Hormuz crisis. This weekend it ended instead, in the worst way: a strike on a tanker, strikes on Iran, and strikes on two US bases in the Gulf, all inside about 60 hours.
In today's newsletter: a three-week-old US-Iran ceasefire collapses entirely after Iran hits a tanker and both sides bomb each other's interests across the Gulf, Venezuela's earthquake death toll climbs past 1,400 as India flies in a field hospital and a 41-member rescue team, and Washington quietly lets Anthropic bring its most powerful AI model back to more than a hundred trusted companies, for now.
Weekend Chai
Streaming pick. Netflix's four-part documentary "Baahubali: The Torchbearer" revisits the making of SS Rajamouli's franchise, with new interviews from Prabhas, Rana Daggubati and Rajamouli himself, streaming in Telugu, Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam. |
At the theatres. Akshay Kumar's "Welcome to the Jungle" crossed Rs 39 crore in its first two days, putting the comedy on track for a roughly Rs 50 crore opening weekend. |
Iran and the US Are Trading Strikes Again, and the Ceasefire Didn't Survive the Weekend
The US military struck ten Iranian military targets in and around the Strait of Hormuz late Saturday, going after missile and drone storage sites, coastal radar stations and minelaying equipment, hours after an Iranian drone hit the Panama-flagged tanker M/T Kiku, which was hauling more than two million barrels of crude for Qatar's state energy company.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard retaliated early Sunday, firing ballistic missiles and drones at the US-operated Ali Al Salem air base in Kuwait and the Fifth Fleet's home at Port Salman in Bahrain, marking the first time this round of fighting has reached Gulf soil outside Iran and Israel.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard is now threatening a "complete halt" to the talks meant to end the war, while President Trump has accused Tehran of a "foolish violation" of the ceasefire memorandum the two sides signed on June 18. For India, which still draws heavily on Gulf crude, every fresh round through the strait is a reason to watch fuel prices into the new week.
This is the third ceasefire collapse in this conflict in barely two weeks, and each one has followed the same script: an attack on commercial shipping, an American strike in response, then an Iranian strike back. Nobody involved has found an exit ramp yet, and Qatar, the country trying hardest to broker one, just had its own cargo hit.
Iran struck US military bases this time, not just shipping or Israeli targets, the first time since the war began that American forces stationed in Kuwait and Bahrain have taken direct fire. That changes the size of the audience watching what Washington does next.
Venezuela's Earthquake Death Toll Crosses 1,400, and India Sends a Field Hospital
The death toll from Venezuela's twin earthquakes has climbed to at least 1,400, with thousands more still reported missing, four days after a 7.2-magnitude foreshock and a 7.5-magnitude mainshock struck 39 seconds apart and flattened parts of La Guaira and Caracas. Rescue crews are still pulling survivors and bodies from collapsed buildings, hampered by aftershocks and a shortage of heavy machinery.
India launched "Operation Amistad," flying two Indian Air Force C-17 Globemaster aircraft to Venezuela carrying a 41-member rescue team, an Army field hospital unit, two BHISHM portable hospital cubes and roughly 30 tonnes of relief supplies and medicines, one of India's largest disaster-relief deployments to Latin America in years.
Washington Quietly Lets Anthropic's Banned AI Model Back Out, to a Select Few
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Anthropic in a letter that "appropriate safeguards are in place" to let select trusted partners access Claude Mythos 5, reopening the door for more than a hundred companies and government agencies weeks after the model was blocked from export over national-security concerns.
The lighter Fable model stays blocked, and Lutnick reserved the right to change the list of approved partners "at any time", leaving Anthropic's biggest customers one letter away from losing access all over again.
Breaking.exe
Next stop, full power. ISRO fired its semi-cryogenic rocket engine at 175 tonnes of thrust, 88 percent of its rated capacity, in the eighth hot test of a programme meant to replace the LVM3's current core stage, clearing the way for a trial at full 200-tonne thrust. |
End of an era, no announcement needed. OpenAI quietly retired GPT-4.5 from ChatGPT's model picker, closing out the GPT-4 line with a single note in its release log; o3 follows in August, though both remain available through the API for now. |
Pangaea Revisited
Europe can't catch a break. France hit a new June temperature record of 44.3 degrees Celsius and the UK logged its hottest June day on record at 37.3 degrees, as a heatwave blamed for hundreds of deaths forced Paris to shut the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre early. |
Karachi's first attack since 2024. Militants bombed and then opened fire on a Sindh Rangers base in Karachi's Gulistan-e-Jauhar neighbourhood, killing three paramilitary troops in a nearly 90-minute gun battle that ended with security forces killing three attackers and capturing a fourth. |
Also, Also, Also
Win some, resign anyway. Scotland manager Steve Clarke stepped down after his side's group-stage exit from the World Cup was confirmed, barely a month after signing a contract extension that was meant to run through 2030. |
Delhi's dry spell is over. India's monsoon shifted into central India and reached Delhi, with Jharkhand and Bihar expected to be fully covered within days. |