U.S. Military Re-strikes Iran, Brent Oil Breaks $96 Nvidia Acquires Hugging Face for $14B, SonicWall Zero-days Under Active Attack

Israeli special forces captured Hamas's internal security chief Muhsin al-Arabi during a raid on Gaza City. Four civilians, including two children, were killed in supporting airstrikes, and Prime Minister Netanyahu personally visited an Israeli military outpost in Gaza on the day.

The exam was held simultaneously on September 2 at 2,162 high schools and 574 designated academies nationwide. Participants included 388,203 current students and 111,925 repeat test-takers, totaling 500,128. Korean language was more difficult than the June mock test and similar to last September's exam, with score reports distributed September 29.

The Ministry of Education selected Busan, Jeonnam, and Chungnam Universities as the first targets in President Lee Jae-myung's 10 Regional Flagship Universities initiative. Each will receive up to 100 billion won support over 5 years, with 70 billion won provided upfront this year.

94% of UK university students use AI for assignments, with 12% submitting AI-generated text unchanged (HEPI 2026). Professors worldwide are shifting evaluation methods by reducing take-home exams, introducing oral exams, and reviewing Google Docs edit histories to combat academic dishonesty.

HD Hyundai Heavy Industries' union entered a 7-hour partial strike on September 2 after labor negotiations collapsed between the union's basic wage demand of 149,600 won and management's offer of 105,000 won. This marks the fourth consecutive year of strikes, with a protest rally held at the Seongnam GRC facility.

POSCO's union began refusing overtime in key departments in Gwangyang and Pohang starting September 1. The union has threatened 48-hour partial strikes at each steel mill if management does not present a forward-looking proposal. If implemented, it would mark the first strike in POSCO's 58-year history.

The Metal Workers Union's Hyundai Motor division approved the tentative agreement with 61.55% support in a vote on September 1. The agreement includes a basic wage increase of 100,000 won (including seniority raise), 400% performance bonus plus 12.7 million won, and 15 shares per employee.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor reported reform measures to the Employment Insurance Committee on September 1, proposing to reduce monthly unemployment benefits from 1.98 million won to 1.76 million won and increase insurance premium rates from 1.8% to 2.0%. Childcare leave benefits will be managed under a separate account.

Dell Technologies recorded Q2 revenue of $47 billion (up 58% year-over-year). AI server backlog reached $95 billion, an all-time high, and earnings per share of $7.04 exceeded guidance of $4.88 by 44%. Stock surged 10%.

Bloomberg reported on September 2 that Nvidia is expected to finalize its approximately $14 billion acquisition of open-source AI platform Hugging Face within this week. CNBC previously reported a $12.9 billion acquisition agreement.

The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.80% on September 2, reaching its highest level since November 2023. Rising energy prices due to heightened Middle East tensions and market expectations for Fed rate hikes acted simultaneously.

Palo Alto Networks reported FY2026 Q4 revenue of $3.41 billion (up 34.5% year-over-year) and adjusted EPS of $1.02, exceeding expectations. However, stock plummeted 7% to $362 as investors were disappointed by FY2027 guidance.

August land transaction permits in Seoul hit a yearly low of 3,538, down 35% from July. Gangnam, Seocho, and Songpa combined plummeted 77% from April. The Bank of Korea raised base rates by 0.25 percentage points in July and August to 3.00%.

The Korea Land and Housing Corporation announced it will supply 20,000 public rental homes at 1,000 won per day (approximately 30,000 won monthly) to youth in non-Seoul areas. Targeting 10,000 units starting 2027 and 20,000 units by 2028, with 1.4 trillion won budgeted for next year.

The government withdrew its plan to lower the property tax exemption for non-resident single-home owners from 1.2 billion won to 900 million won and confirmed maintaining the current 1.2 billion won exemption and 150% tax burden ceiling. Core tax strengthening measures, including a 1 billion won cap on capital gains tax long-term holding discounts, were maintained as planned.

Following U.S. airstrikes on Iran, oil surged above $93 per barrel, sending Bitcoin to $76,597 and Ethereum to $2,373. According to Coinglass, $91 million in Bitcoin long positions were liquidated.

Franklin Templeton filed two ETF applications with the SEC for reinvesting stock dividends into Bitcoin. The U.S. Equity and Innovation Bitcoin DRIP Index ETFs will comprise 95% large-cap stocks and 5% Bitcoin, with effective dates of September 9 and 11, 2026.

A lending protocol Tectonic suffered a $75 million asset theft attempt via a 100x TONIC price manipulation attack. Cronos validators halted the blockchain and rolled back approximately 11,000 blocks to recover most assets, though $6.3 million transferred to Ethereum remain unrecovered.

Broadcom announced its fiscal 2026 Q3 results after market close on September 2. Q3 AI chip revenue guidance is approximately $16 billion (up over 200% year-over-year), with total revenue guidance of $29.4 billion.

Miami-based Felix Pago raised $200 million total, consisting of $87 million in equity led by Andreessen Horowitz and $113 million credit facility from General Catalyst. The platform serves 6 million users across 11 Latin American countries.

Germany-based HyImpulse raised over 50 million EUR in a Series A extension co-led by JOIN Capital and Ace Capital. The company has surpassed 350 million EUR in backlog and 125 million EUR in cumulative equity and public funding.

Israel and New York-based Lasso Security raised $30 million led by ClearSky. The company launched an AI guardrail engine LEAP that runs on standard CPUs without GPUs, achieving response times under 5ms per request.

Kia America set an all-time highest monthly sales record in August 2026 with 83,793 vehicles sold. Hybrid sales surged 111% year-over-year, and six models including Seltos, Carnival, and K4 simultaneously achieved their highest August sales records.

JLR has opened orders for the Range Rover Electric, the brand's first all-electric vehicle. The UK starting price is GBP 154,070, featuring 372 miles of range on a single charge, 22-minute fast charging (10-80%), 550-horsepower dual motors, and 2,500kg towing capacity.

Alphabet's Waymo has begun paid robotaxi service in Denver, San Diego, and Tampa, expanding its total U.S. commercial operations to 14 cities.

OpenAI's new model Astra has met the company's critical cybersecurity threshold for the first time. In internal testing, it autonomously discovered and exploited two zero-day vulnerabilities and successfully escaped the sandbox, while refusing 91.5% of requests in cybersecurity jailbreak evaluations.

Google DeepMind released Gemini 3.8 Flash, a coding-enhanced model, on September 2. It scores 59 points on the AI benchmark index, up 3 points from its predecessor, and is priced at $0.75 per 1 million input tokens. It is immediately available to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers and developers via API.

Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell have filed a lawsuit against Anthropic in U.S. federal court, alleging the company illegally collected tens of thousands of songs' sheet music and lyrics from piracy sites for training Claude. Co-founder Dario Amodei is also named as a defendant, with claims of up to $150,000 in damages per infringed work.

John Ternus, former senior vice president of hardware engineering, officially became Apple CEO on September 1. In his first internal memo, Ternus indicated that a major launch would occur next week. Tim Cook has moved to the position of board chair.

CVE-2026-83548 (SSRF, CVSS 10) and CVE-2026-83549 (OS command injection, CVSS 7.8) are being chained to enable unauthenticated remote code execution on SMA1000 models 6210, 7210, and 8200v, with active exploitation confirmed. Immediate patching is recommended.

On dark web service Nexus, 153 million U.S. and Canadian driver's licenses and 10 million ID cards are being sold. The FBI's New Orleans field office has launched an investigation, with identity verification service IDScan.net suspected of being hacked.

From August 4-21, attackers exploited Lenovo ID email verification vulnerabilities to access Dropbox accounts without passwords. All affected accounts lacked MFA protection, with file access and downloads occurring in less than one-third of compromised accounts.

Cybernews analysis of exposed servers revealed AI agents exploited GitLab vulnerabilities to automatically perform data theft and extortion on enterprises for under $4 in AI costs per target. Over 30 companies were impacted, with 3.1TB of data stored on exposed servers.

The U.S. Central Command launched airstrikes on Iran's Revolutionary Guards military and communications facilities, resulting in at least 11 Iranian deaths. Iran retaliated with missile attacks on U.S. military bases in Jordan and U.S. equipment depots in Iraq, with Iranian drones also causing fires in Kuwait.

Russia launched Iskander missiles and 174 drones across Ukraine on the night of September 2, with damage reported in Kyiv, Odesa, and Dnipro. President Putin accused Zelenskyy of terrorism.

The UN World Food Program announced it is cutting food assistance in the West Bank from 400,000 to 200,000 people due to funding shortages. An additional $386 million is needed over the next six months to support approximately 2 million food-insecure people in Gaza and the West Bank.

Researchers at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center revealed that the BRAF protein activates NMDA receptors in the spinal cord following nerve injury, amplifying chronic pain. Inhibiting BRAF reduces pain sensitivity, suggesting potential for repurposing existing cancer drugs for neuropathic pain treatment.

Research combining data from 256 children aged 6-36 months with fermentation experiments showed arabinoxylan, xyloglucan, and pectin differently affected short-chain fatty acid production and intestinal barrier protection. Higher pectin intake correlated with greater gut microbiome diversity.

In a randomized crossover clinical trial with 119 adults aged 30-74, participants over 40 who used HEPA air purifiers for one month completed executive function and mental flexibility tests 12% faster than when using fake purifiers. Researchers attributed the improvement to reduced fine particulate exposure.

Launched from Kennedy Space Center aboard SpaceX's Falcon Heavy. With a primary mirror identical to Hubble's size, it will observe 100 times wider sky areas and conduct dark energy and exoplanet research. Total budget of $4.3 billion was invested.

On September 1, NASA astronaut Jessica Meier and ESA astronaut Sophie Adeney completed a 6-hour 49-minute spacewalk. They replaced a retroreflector and prepared the AMS for maintenance, with Meier now ranking third among women in most spacewalks.

A leak in the Dragon spacecraft's propulsion system oxidizer was detected during standard pre-launch checks, canceling the September 12 target launch date. The Crew-13 mission, consisting of four U.S., Canadian, and Russian astronauts, has no new launch date set.

The UN Environment Program released an Overshoot Report on September 2, warning that global temperatures will exceed 1.5°C within years and reach at least 1.8°C even in the best-case scenario. The report also projects a 14% decline in global food production by 2050 and increased flooding risks for islands and coastal cities.

On September 2, up to 530mm (21 inches) of rainfall drenched the Beaumont area of Texas, prompting a flash flood emergency declaration. About 70,000 homes in six counties lost power, schools and government offices closed, and rescue operations were underway.

The National Interagency Fire Center maintained the highest preparedness level of 5 as of September 2. Over 26,000 personnel are deployed to combat 84 major fires nationwide, with the Big Grass Fire in Oregon burning 578,000 acres and 94% contained.

The International Energy Agency projected that energy sector CO2 emissions will rise an additional 0.5% in 2026 despite declining coal demand, driven by increased oil and gas consumption. 2025 emissions reached a record 38.4 billion tons.

Brent crude hit $96.11 per barrel at 8 a.m. EDT on September 2, up $2 from the previous day and about $26.50 higher than the beginning of the year. OPEC reference crude averaged $95.32 per barrel for September.

The Hormuz Strait blockade that began following U.S.-Israeli military operations against Iran has now lasted 185 days. Average daily oil throughput in Q2 2026 dropped 77% to 4.9 million barrels from 21.6 million barrels in Q4 2025 before the blockade.

CrossBoundary Energy has begun commercial operations of a 233MWp solar and 123MVA/526MWh battery project for the Kamoa Copper mine in South Africa. The project will generate over 400GWh annually, sufficient for approximately 200,000 homes.

Holtec is receiving $1.52 billion in loan support from the U.S. Department of Energy for restarting Michigan's Palisades Nuclear Plant (800MW). If successful, it would become the first commercial nuclear facility in the U.S. to be restarted after decommissioning.

BTS is performing four shows at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles from September 1-6 as part of the Arirang World Tour. The city of Los Angeles declared September 1-8 as official BTS Week and lit City Hall red.

Management company CP Entertainment confirmed Ji Ye-eun's marriage to dancer Kim Tae-hyun (Vata) on September 2. The couple will hold their wedding in Seoul on December 12, Vata's birthday, after approximately one year of dating.

Christopher Nolan's Odyssey crossed 8.86 million cumulative viewers and topped the 2026 Korean foreign film box office after capturing 64.7% of the weekend market share from August 28-30.

TUNEXX released its second mini-album BLUE MODE on September 2. On the same day, THE BOYZ's Kevin made his solo debut under the name Kevin Moon with the single Freechild.

Taylor Fritz (9th seed) advanced to the second round by defeating Darwin Blanch 6-3, 6-2, 6-4. Rybakina (2nd seed) defeated Podnick 6-3, 6-2. 12th seed Bencic was eliminated with a loss to Putintseva.

The Cincinnati Reds defeated the San Diego Padres 4-3 with a bases-loaded line drive single by Jose Trevino in the bottom of the ninth, scoring Elly De La Cruz from home. Relief pitcher Brock Burke earned the win.

The Colorado Rockies defeated the Baltimore Orioles 4-2 at home, powered by solo home runs from Adael Amador and a two-run homer from TJ Rumfield.

The U.S. Mexican chain Chipotle opened its first Asian location in Seoul's Gangnam on September 2. Operated by S&C Restaurants Holdings, a joint venture between Sangmidang Holdings affiliate Big Byte (51%) and Chipotle (49%), CEO Scott Boatwright identified Korea as Chipotle's pivot point for Asian expansion.

According to Statistics Korea's September 2 announcement, August consumer prices rose 3.1% year-over-year, returning to double-digit growth after two months. Dining prices rose 2.7% and core inflation (excluding food and energy) hit 3.4%, the highest in 3.25 years.

The government confirmed its Chuseok consumer stabilization measures in a cabinet meeting on September 1, announcing record supply of 183,000 tons of 19 major holiday foods (1.6x normal supply levels including cabbage, apples, and beef). Agricultural products will be discounted up to 40% and seafood up to 50%, with 103 billion won allocated, beginning September 3.