Today's top stories, with context, in just 15 minutes.

On today's podcast:

1) Iran fired on American forces overnight and the US and Saudi Arabia struck Tehran-backed militias in Iraq, abruptly ending a days-long lull in hostilities.
The US and Iran had paused attacks at the end of last week to give diplomacy another chance, leading to a significant drop in energy prices.

2) Oil surged as a fresh round of fighting erupted across the Middle East, threatening further disruptions to energy flows and severely undermining diplomatic efforts to end the months-old conflict.
Brent climbed almost 4% to above $87 a barrel, paring some of the 16% loss over the past three sessions that was its biggest such decline since 2020. Since the start of July, the benchmark has traded in range of almost $32.

3) US stocks edged higher as traders held off on major bets ahead of a US interest-rate decision where markets see room for a hike and earnings from two of the world’s biggest spenders on artificial intelligence.
S&P 500 futures rose 0.2%. Nasdaq 100 contracts were flat after a selloff in chipmakers left the underlying index on the brink of a technical correction. Treasuries stalled after three days of gains, with traders assigning about a 30% chance of a Federal Reserve rate increase. The dollar barely budged.