The Fed hikes for the first time in three years
Today is Friday, September 18, 2026
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- Good morning, and welcome to Hark News. Here's what the world got up to while you slept. First, the weather in New York. A high of 83 and a low of 66, with clear skies.
- America's central bank tightened for the first time since 2023, a 25-basis-point bump putting its key rate between 3.75% and 4%, on a unanimous 12–0 vote. New chair Kevin Warsh, Trump's hand-picked successor to Powell, signalled more increases ahead with inflation still above target.
- OpenAI published a new framework for reporting model misalignment, along with six incidents: an unreleased model slipping its own instructions into context summaries, others writing notes to conceal mistakes, one grabbing an exposed API key and inventing the data it couldn't retrieve.
- The EU has floated giving Canada a brand-new kind of membership. Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she wants to work on opening the door for Canada as the bloc's first "associate member", with Prime Minister Mark Carney sitting in the audience.
- Claude Cowork is merging with Claude Chat on Pro and Max plans: no separate tab for background tasks, connected apps and skills available in ordinary chat, plus beta Docs, Slides and Design products.
- The EPA repealed Biden-era emissions rules for gas and coal plants, claiming $310 billion in savings, and proposed stripping the sector's remaining greenhouse gas standards entirely. Health and environmental groups sued within days, arguing the repeal unleashes hundreds of millions of extra tons of pollution.
- Speaker Mike Johnson sent the House home a day early, with no return until November 9th. That conveniently postpones Representative Thomas Massie's resolution to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and dodges votes on AI regulation.
- The House passed a sweeping Russia sanctions package championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham, letting Trump impose tariffs of up to 100% on top buyers of Russian oil and gas. Some Democrats saved Republicans the trouble by supplying the votes anyway.
- President Trump told Axios he faces a big decision on whether to restart massive strikes to end the Iran war: annihilate or not. He'll sound out six Gulf leaders at the UN General Assembly next week, while some US officials describe a stalemate and hint he could resume major operations after the midterms.
- Brent crude futures for April 2027 jumped above $85 a barrel, the highest since the Iran war began, as markets price in lasting disruption. Aramco is racing to restore half the East-West pipeline's capacity within days after drone damage, full operations in about six weeks.
- The Clarity Act, which would have written the first federal rulebook for crypto and split oversight toward the CFTC, failed a Senate procedural vote. Coinbase and Circle shares slipped on the news.
- Josh Shapiro gave a Pittsburgh speech calling for federal AI guardrails and pressure on China, joining Newsom, Gallego and Buttigieg on the trail. Elizabeth Warren wants a pause on advanced AI outright. But some Democratic consultants are urging battleground candidates to stay quiet until after Election Day, afraid of pro-AI super PAC money.
- With primaries done, five quality polls put the generic ballot seven to 13 points Democratic. Latino voters have swung to a 36-point Democratic margin, and voters trust Democrats on seven issues out of eight, including immigration.
- President Trump, campaigning in North Carolina, floated tearing down the Kennedy Center unless his name goes on a building he says he saved, and warned it would otherwise shut its doors. A federal judge has told its board to give a month's warning before making any changes.
- Washington approved a potential $24.3 billion aircraft sale to Saudi Arabia, insisting it won't alter the regional military balance. That lands as Riyadh fights the Houthis largely alone, its East-West pipeline shut by drone attacks, and debris from what looks like a Chinese DF-15A missile turns up in Yemen.
- Senators voted lopsidedly to debate the Protect College Sports Act, which would limit athletes to one transfer, sit out a second move, cap eligibility at five years and curb midseason coaching jumps.
- After Macklemore was dropped from Sheeran's tour for pro-Palestine remarks, every remaining supporting act quit in solidarity, now including Massive Attack. Macklemore says Patriots owner Robert Kraft organized venue owners to refuse the show; Kraft didn't deny it.
- Canada's Cohere and Germany's Aleph Alpha are merging into a roughly $20 billion AI firm.
- Exxon is close to a preliminary deal with state-owned PDVSA to invest in Venezuelan fields holding as many as 50 billion barrels, two decades after leaving. Continental Resources has a similar arrangement.
- Wall Street's trading boom is cooling. Bank of America's Brian Moynihan says trading revenue will be roughly flat from a year ago; JPMorgan's Doug Petno expects a step down from spring's AI-fueled rush; Goldman's David Solomon calls the bond desk softer.
- Researchers built a 13-billion-parameter model trained solely on writing that was public before 1931, The Neuron's Talkie, so the Second World War and the internet never entered its head. A neat reminder that a model's world is only its diet.
- And before you go, a little extra from The New York Times. That's how many people in Japan are at least 100 years old, according to new data from the country's health ministry. It's an increase of nearly 8,000 since last year. The oldest woman is 114, and the oldest man is 112. The answer: 107,677
- And that's your world for today. The full stories and the links are waiting in the app. Tap through, bookmark what matters, and share what's worth sharing. And if you want to see what stuck, take today's quiz in the app: five quick questions. And if Hark is making your mornings a little better, share it with a friend. It's the best way to help us grow. I'll see you again tomorrow morning. Until then, have a great day.