the daily brief

• Trump told administration envoys to halt conversations with Iran even as he called the overall situation "so good" — al jazeera
• Trump separately claimed the US is in "possession" and "complete control" of the Strait of Hormuz; only about six vessels transited the waterway in the past 24 hours — newsonair
• Israel struck an air base in northwest Syria, saying the strike aimed to prevent Turkish troops from deploying there — al jazeera
• Russia plans to increase missile counts to as many as 200 per attack on Ukraine, according to Kyiv's top drone commander, retaliating against Ukraine's campaign against Russian oil refineries, fuel depots and transport hubs from the Baltic to western Siberia — al jazeera
• Kyiv is appealing to 40 countries for air-defense interceptors, securing some from nations whose stockpiles are nearing expiry — al jazeera
• Türkiye's emerging opposition "New Party" begins its congress process on August 22, with its first national convention set for mid-November — türkiye today

• Anthropic reached a valuation of roughly $183 billion following a $13 billion Series F round led by ICONIQ — aiweekly
• Claude Opus 5 processed raw NMR and LC-MS lab data in 23 and 19 minutes respectively, with purity readings within 0.1% of the lab's own results — aiweekly
• OpenAI previewed Private Safety Processing, a ZDR-compatible safety upgrade that flags risk patterns across related interactions without giving staff access to customer content — openai
• ChatGPT rolled out updates spanning Sites, Codex and Work — custom Site URLs, Apple Messages support on Apple-silicon Macs, expanded Computer History access, read-only Codex chat snapshots, and pinned-chat sync between desktop and iOS — releasebot
• AI feature adoption more than doubled across every business function in the first half of 2026; usage by CEOs at companies with 200+ employees jumped from 9% to 36% — artificialintelligence-news

• US stocks fell sharply Thursday as a Treasury-driven bond rally faded and yields reversed higher: the Dow dropped 703.84 points (1.32%) to 52,759.21, dragged down by a 9% plunge in Walmart shares; the S&P 500 lost 0.87% to 7,641.16 and the Nasdaq fell 1% to 26,067.17 — yahoo finance
• Walmart beat earnings estimates but same-store sales growth of 2.6% and its 2026 guidance came in weaker than hoped; management said $4 gas prices appear to be weighing on consumer psychology — yahoo finance
• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the debt-buyback operation could end up larger than the $4 billion originally announced — yahoo finance
• Target's turnaround is gaining traction, with investments in pricing, labor, store standards and merchandise improving both comparable sales and store traffic — yahoo finance
• Erdoğan approved a five-year national AI roadmap aiming to make Türkiye a global technology hub by 2030; the GITEX AI 2026 expo comes to Istanbul on September 9–10 — türkiye today

• Microplastics have been found throughout the human body, including in placentas and reproductive organs, raising new questions about their effects on pregnancy — sciencedaily
• AI chatbots are becoming increasingly effective at changing people's minds, researchers find — sciencedaily
• Researchers are studying what triggers lucid episodes in Alzheimer's patients and what they reveal about caring for people with dementia — sciencedaily
• Trabzonspor fell 1-0 to Ferencváros in a Europa League play-off first leg, while Beşiktaş routed Kaunas Žalgiris 3-0 in the same round — türkiye today
• The 20th Mediterranean Games opened in Taranto, Italy, running through September 3 and bringing together 5,000 athletes from 26 countries across Europe, Africa and Asia — türkiye today

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