the daily brief

• US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said all Iranian commercial airlines will be shut down globally starting Wednesday, September 23, through sweeping secondary sanctions that bar foreign hubs, fuel suppliers and ticket sellers from serving Iranian carriers without losing US dollar-clearing access — the week
• Erdoğan addressed the UN General Assembly's 81st session for the 16th time on the opening day of the high-level debate, expected to focus on Gaza, Palestinian statehood recognition and possible measures against Israel — report.az
• Erdoğan met Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in New York to discuss bilateral relations and regional developments on the sidelines of the UN gathering — aa
• Turkey's finance minister raised his estimate of the Iran war's impact on annual inflation to at least 7 percentage points, saying disinflation continues but more slowly than the government wants — aa
• Saudi Arabia carried out fresh airstrikes on Yemen's Houthi-held port city of Mokha, part of the broader escalation since the Houthis seized the city — aa
• Russian drones struck an apartment building in Sumy, killing a woman and injuring her husband, while a separate nighttime attack on Zaporizhzhia left five more injured — globalsecurity.org
• Ukraine's General Staff estimates Russia's total combat losses since the full-scale invasion began have reached roughly 1,519,650 personnel as of September 21 — globalsecurity.org
• South Korea's presidential chief of staff, Kang Hoon-sik, offered to resign, citing responsibility for consecutive failures of ministerial candidates — sbs

• Meta's Muse personal AI agent has logged more than 2.5 million downloads since its September 8 debut and overtook ChatGPT as the top free iOS app in the US — cnbc
• ARM, Intel and AMD shares surged as Meta's Muse fueled fresh bets on AI-driven chip demand, with retail investor sentiment turning "extremely bullish" — yahoo finance
• Amazon blocked Meta's Muse AI assistant from its platform in a new standoff over "agentic shopping" — geekwire
• ChatGPT Voice can now call on GPT-5.6 or GPT-6 Astra to search the web or reason through harder questions, using the same model and reasoning-effort controls as text chat — releasebot

• The Nasdaq closed at a record 27,122 (+2.26%), the S&P 500 rose 1.49% to 7,764 and the Dow gained 0.71% to 52,050, powered by a broad chipmaker rally — fool
• WTI crude tumbled 4.51% to $95.78 a barrel, its lowest in over two weeks, as investors grew hopeful of diplomatic progress on the Iran war — yahoo finance
• Novo Nordisk fell as weight-loss-drug rivals took market share, HP slid on a weak PC forecast, UPS dropped on concerns its cash flow won't cover its dividend, and Hasbro was dragged down by weak consumer spending — yahoo finance

• A study proposes that the Dead Sea Scrolls' Qumran sect really did follow its distinctive 364-day calendar in practice before abandoning it as political ties with the Hasmonean dynasty shifted, resolving a decades-old debate — sciencedaily
• South Korea's Kim Young-beom, 20, won Asian Games gold in the 50-metre freestyle with a new tournament record, while the national baseball team shut out Taiwan 5-0 in pursuit of a fifth straight Asian Games title — sbs
• India fielded a historic men's T20 International against Japan at Tochigi's Sano International Cricket Ground — Japan's first-ever men's T20I against a full ICC member — dainik jagran
• President Droupadi Murmu presented India's 72nd National Film Awards in Gujarat — dainik jagran
• A large Amazon study found that protecting already-standing forest may be the most powerful conservation lever available, ranking above restoration efforts — sciencedaily
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists developed a surprisingly simple chemical method to convert polyethylene plastic waste into other useful materials — sciencedaily

full archive →