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

On today's podcast:   

1) Iranian officials have privately expressed pessimism about reaching a deal to end hostilities with Washington and reopen the Strait of Hormuz before US midterm elections in November, according to people familiar with the matter. Iran and the US made little progress during talks in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last week and the Islamic Republic believes there’s a high chance of the conflict escalating after the Nov. 3 vote, according to the people, some of whom were briefed by Iranian officials. They asked not to be named discussing sensitive matters.   

2) President Donald Trump criticized the release on bail of five men held over an alleged terror plot against a Royal Air Force base used by the US for strikes against Iran, as British police continue to investigate foreign links to the incident. “I’m surprised that they released them, I wouldn’t have done that,” Trump told reporters on Monday.The decision to release the suspects sowed confusion about an incident that authorities had only a day earlier described as a serious attempted attack disrupted at a late stage.   

3) The US Treasury Department took a big step toward curbing a Wall Street boom in investment strategies that help cut tax bills, with a notice signaling potential action on an array of tactics and a ruling that will limit the benefits of a popular ETF maneuver. The notice detailed a list of tax trades similar to those deemed “potentially abusive” and “too good to be true” by Treasury officials at an industry seminar in July. These include hedge-fund strategies that use swaps and currency derivatives to generate ordinary losses that can offset income tax — transactions which are at the heart of products such as AQR Capital Management’s Delphi Plus fund.