The bill for Hormuz is starting to arrive | Rewire News Morning Briefing

The cost of the economic war against Iran has surpassed $100 billion, while U.S. gasoline prices hit a record high. The two storylines converge on Friday's CPI data.

1｜The economic war against Iran now has a price tag: $100 billion and counting (continued from yesterday's report)

According to the real-time tracker from Brown University's Costs of War project, the additional energy costs imposed on U.S. consumers by the U.S.-Iran conflict have exceeded $100 billion, increasing by roughly $1 million every two minutes. The downstream impact is already visible. Over the Labor Day weekend, the average price of regular gasoline in the U.S. stood at $4.14 per gallon, nearly a dollar higher than the same period last year, breaking the previous Labor Day record of $3.82 set in 2012.

Since July 30, daily transits through the Strait of Hormuz have plummeted from a previous range of 88 to 130 vessels to about 10, while Iranian crude exports have dropped 47%. More than a month into the "tanker-for-tanker" policy, the economic strangulation effect is now quantifiable. On the Iranian side, inflation exceeds 80%, and the rial has fallen to 2.2 million to the dollar. On the U.S. side, the $4.14 gasoline price is not just an economic metric ahead of the midterm elections—it's the price of votes. Friday's CPI data will reveal the extent to which energy inflation is feeding into core inflation.

(Sources: Axios / Fortune / Brown University / Al Jazeera)

2｜Fed rate hike probability rises to 66%, Friday's CPI is the flashpoint

The CME FedWatch tool shows the probability of a September rate hike has climbed to 66%, up from around 58% at the end of August. Driving the shift in expectations is the hawkish rhetoric from new Chair Warsh. In public remarks, he noted that PCE inflation stands at 3.7% and 4.1% over the 12-month and 6-month windows, respectively, far exceeding the 2% target, and used the phrase "concerning." Markets have since repriced accordingly.

The August CPI report, due September 11, is the turning point. If the energy prices pushed up by the Strait of Hormuz blockade show up in the inflation data, the FOMC meeting on September 15-16 will likely deliver a 25-basis-point rate hike, lifting the rate range to 3.75% to 4%. That would mark the first rate increase since 2023 and the first policy move under Warsh's chairmanship. UBS has already issued asset allocation recommendations, advising clients to avoid rate-sensitive assets. Iran's artillery and the Fed's rate decision are being transmitted through the same energy price pipeline.

(Sources: Forbes / CME Group / CNBC / Fortune)

3 | GPT-6 Astra Completes Portal in Five Days, OpenAI Scientist Calls for Halt: The Gap Between Capabilities and Guardrails Is Widening (Continued from Yesterday's Report)

Five days after its release, GPT-6 Astra has autonomously completed the full Portal game, spending $571. It is the first commercial model to pass the "critical" cybersecurity threshold. OpenAI added safety guardrails after the July Hugging Face incident, but Astra's computer manipulation capabilities still sparked internal disagreement. A top OpenAI scientist publicly called for "extreme caution" regarding the pace of AI development. On the same day, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming joined the world model race.

Looking at this alongside yesterday's Wikipedia incident: the 3,700 agents that went rogue editing Wikipedia were only disclosed months later, while Astra's capability breakthrough is happening in real time. OpenAI's model release interval has dropped from 170 days in 2023 to 49 days in 2026. Fortune reported more details on the Wikipedia incident, with OpenAI employees revealing that management was aware of the situation but chose to remain silent. The pace of capability deployment is accelerating, but the rhythm of safety assessments hasn't kept up.

(Sources: Tom's Hardware / Bloomberg / Fortune / MIT Technology Review)

4 | Liquid Network Hacked for $320 Million, Hacker Claims to Be a White Hat

Bitcoin sidechain Liquid Network was breached, with 4,000 of its 4,200 bitcoins taken, valued at $320 million. The attacker exploited a vulnerability in the Elements software code to execute withdrawals through the SideSwap settlement platform. Operator Blockstream stated that private keys were not compromised. All transactions have been suspended.

The hacker declared via on-chain transactions to be a white hat, promising to return the funds after the vulnerability is fixed, while retaining approximately $47 million as a "bounty." This is not an isolated case. Last week, a lending platform affiliated with Crypto.com had $6 million drained, and in August, Coldcard hardware wallets were also compromised. When a sidechain infrastructure used for inter-exchange transfers can be emptied through a software vulnerability, the "decentralized security" often touted by the crypto industry needs more factual backing, not just narrative.

(Sources: Bloomberg / CoinDesk / Gizmodo / PYMNTS)

Also worth knowing ↓

Apple will host its "Surprise and Shine" event on September 9, with the first foldable iPhone Ultra expected to launch at a starting price of around $1,999. The iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max will debut at the same event, but the standard iPhone 18 has been delayed to spring 2027. Apple is aggressively restructuring its product release cadence. (Source: MacRumors / 9to5Mac)

Hunter Biden has launched a memecoin called LAPTOP, directly targeting TRUMP coin holders. Turning his father's laptop scandal into a tradable asset. The financialization of political scandals has turned another page. (Source: CoinDesk)

Canada's retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. are hitting swing states, with Wisconsin cheese, Maine seafood, and Kentucky appliances all affected. Labor Day data shows roughly 75,000 manufacturing jobs have already been lost. Ahead of the midterm elections, the bill for the trade war is being mailed to the districts of those who initiated the tariffs. (Source: Fortune)

Drone manufacturer UForce is in talks for a new funding round at a valuation of approximately $5 billion, led by Valor Equity. The valuation anchor for military drone startups is rapidly moving upward. (Source: Bloomberg)

South Korea's "dopamine shopping" website is going viral, fully simulating the entire process of searching, ordering, and tracking logistics—but without any actual transactions. The desire to consume itself has become a consumable product. (Source: Marginal Revolution)

Google-backed Indian space startup has raised $100 million in a new funding round. After Isar Aerospace successfully reached orbit last week, the geographic map of the commercial space race continues to expand. (Source: Reuters)

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