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The Federal Open Market Committee voted unanimously to raise the benchmark federal funds rate a quarter point to a range of 3.75% to 4%, the first increase in more than three years. Policymakers pointed to hotter inflation readings, an oil-price surge tied to the Iran war, and a sharp selloff in long-term Treasurys. The median committee member penciled in one more hike before year's end, despite President Trump's loud public opposition.
The House passed an Iran war powers resolution as seven Republicans crossed over to join all 213 voting Democrats, the third time the chamber has voted to curb the war. The measure would bar continued military action without congressional authorization. It lands as the Congressional Budget Office pegs the Pentagon's war cost at $38.1 billion from February through August — roughly $246 million a day.
The Kennedy Center's board voted to close the 50-year-old Washington institution immediately, citing water damage, rusting structural steel and three-decade-old chillers, plus a cash crunch the board called dire. The vote came hours after a federal judge blocked the board from inscribing President Trump's name on the facade or renaming the grounds in his honor. A $257 million renovation funded through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is now on the clock, and Rep. Joyce Beatty is demanding an emergency hearing.
The CLARITY Act failed a key procedural vote as Democrats were joined by Republicans including Susan Collins, Josh Hawley and Jerry Moran. Democrats balked at ethics language they said was too weak on the Trump family's growing crypto holdings. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, the bill's chief architect, declared it finished: "I think we're done. It's over."
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Wednesday that Washington and Tehran should take effective measures to reopen the Strait of Hormuz at an early date and rebuild a negotiating mechanism. Iran's top diplomat is en route to Beijing as the war grinds on. Meanwhile Sweden expelled an Iranian embassy official over conduct it called incompatible with the Vienna Convention, and Saudi Arabia says drones launched from Iraqi territory damaged two pumping stations on its East-West oil pipeline.
Beijing opened the Pinglu Canal on Wednesday, a roughly $10.1 billion waterway linking the Xijiang River to ports on the Beibu Gulf and giving landlocked southwestern China direct ocean access. It handles vessels up to 5,000 tons and is the first canal of its kind China has built since 1949. Analysts read it as a marquee win for the Belt and Road Initiative and Beijing's New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor.
The left bloc edged the governing right bloc 49.5% to 49.1% in Sunday's general election, a margin thin enough that neither side has a clean path to a government. The Sweden Democrats took just under 18% — down about three points from 2022 — even as they added roughly a third more seats. Forming a working coalition is now the hard part, and it may take weeks.
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed a giant ten-sided atmospheric wave encircling Saturn's south pole — a geometric cousin to the famous hexagon that has churned at the north pole since Voyager spotted it in the 1980s. The decagon spans about 104,000 miles, with each side running roughly 10,000 miles. Researchers had hunted for a southern counterpart since 1990; this one appears to have formed only in the last few years and is still strengthening.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope burned only 40 pounds of propellant on its first mid-course correction — about nine percent of the 441 pounds budgeted for the maneuver. Combined with a launch weight nearly two tons under the original estimate, the savings push Roman's potential operating life from ten years to about twenty-two. A second correction burn is planned for later this month.
Two tractor-trailers loaded with roughly 800 barrels of Guinness — about 70,000 pints, worth £115,000 — were hauled out of an industrial park depot near Liverpool by a pair of drivers who simply pulled up and left with them. Cheshire Constabulary is still hunting the stout, which had been bound for pubs. One detective sergeant's line for the ages: "It is famously said that Guinness is good for you, but that is only the case when it has been bought and paid for."
