What you need to know

Super El Niño odds climb fast

A tropical Pacific El Niño is intensifying at unusual speed, and forecasters now see a real chance it ranks among the strongest events in decades. NOAA puts the probability of a "very strong" event at 81% for October to December, a range that would put 2026 alongside the historic 1982-83, 1997-98, and 2015-16 events.

The pace is the story. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology recorded its Niño-3.4 index jumping from roughly 0.5°C (0.9°F) in May to about 1.94°C (3.5°F) by late July, including a half-degree Celsius (0.9°F) jump in just two weeks. Ocean and atmosphere indicators, including weakened trade winds, are now aligned, which forecasters treat as confirmation the event is coupled and strengthening.

Peak still weeks away

El Niño events typically peak between September and January, so the current numbers are not the ceiling. Forecasters say it is too early to say whether this event will beat the record anomalies of roughly 2.4°C (4.3°F) in 1982-83 and about 2.3°C (4.1°F) in both 1997-98 and 2015-16, but the trajectory has moved the "Super El Niño" label from unlikely to plausible.

Where the weather risk lands

El Niño reshuffles rainfall and heat patterns globally rather than guaranteeing extremes everywhere, but the regional exposure list is long.

Economic exposure builds into 2027

The heaviest economic impact window runs late 2026 into 2027. Simultaneous crop stress across Australia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia is the biggest watch item for global food markets.

What to watch

NOAA's August 13 ENSO update is the near-term marker. A continued rise in model confidence would harden the case for a historically strong event, while the actual peak, expected between September and January, will determine whether 2026 joins the three benchmark Super El Niño years.

Birthplace of civilization

Netanyahu breaks with Washington over Gaza plan

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly rejected the U.S.-backed 15-point roadmap for Gaza, opening a real rift with President Donald Trump's Board of Peace over how disarmament and withdrawal should be sequenced. The dispute is not about whether Hamas disarms, both sides agree it must, but about what happens first.

Speaking to his cabinet on Sunday, August 9, Netanyahu said Israel would not withdraw further until Hamas is fully disarmed of both heavy and light weapons. That is a harder line than the U.S. plan, which links withdrawal to certified progress rather than full disarmament upfront. Notably, Israel has still cut back military operations in Gaza since Netanyahu met Board of Peace envoy Nickolay Mladenov earlier last week, suggesting the rejection is more about terms than a return to full-scale operations.

The timing gap, explained

The U.S.-backed roadmap calls for a staged process: Hamas weapons are removed, stored, and disabled under international supervision, with Israeli forces withdrawing progressively as each area is certified demilitarized. Hamas says it remains committed to the mediator-brokered framework, though it has avoided calling the process "disarmament" outright.

Mladenov pushes back publicly

Mladenov responded directly to Netanyahu's objections in an interview with Israel's Channel 12, stating the plan does not require Israeli withdrawal before Hamas takes verifiable disarmament steps. He said Israeli forces would pull back "sector by sector" only after weapons are removed from armed factions and certified unusable.

Mladenov also addressed Israeli security concerns directly: Israel retains the right to respond to imminent threats, implementation rests on verification rather than trust, and the process can halt if either side fails to meet commitments. He argued full implementation is the strongest available safeguard against Gaza again becoming a major security threat to Israel.

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Houthi campaign escalates toward western coast

The Houthi offensive against Yemen's internationally recognized government has shifted from military camps in Marib and Hadramawt on August 6 to sustained strikes on Marib city and, increasingly, government-held western coast areas around Mocha and Al-Khawkhah. Government forces are now retaliating on the ground, producing the most sustained exchange since the 2022 truce took hold.

The trajectory matters more than any single strike. The sequence, camps, then city and displacement camps, then port and economic infrastructure, then an attempt on senior leadership, then repeated follow-on attacks, resembles the opening stages of renewed war rather than isolated incidents tied to the broader Iran conflict.

Marib under renewed fire

Houthis launched ballistic missiles and drones at Marib city on the evening of August 7, hitting residential areas and displacement camps. Yemeni authorities reported two killed and 14 wounded. Attacks continued into August 8, with Yemen's Defense Ministry saying air defenses intercepted two explosive drones with no casualties, though officials reported further shelling.

Mocha assault marks a westward escalation

On August 9, Houthis hit Mocha's commercial port and government-aligned forces with a large missile-and-drone barrage, a significant widening of the campaign's geographic scope. Government air defenses said they downed 11 Houthi drones. Casualty counts remain unreconciled across separate reports, but combined figures suggest at least 18 people may have died in successive strikes, a total still provisional pending a consolidated government tally.

Attack on Hodeidah governor raises the stakes

A Houthi ballistic missile struck the residence or headquarters of government-appointed Hodeidah Governor Al-Hassan Taher in Al-Khawkhah on August 9. Taher survived. The strike matters because it shows the campaign extending beyond battlefield targets to senior officials and administrative centers inside government territory, a escalation in intent, not just intensity.

Government shifts from defense to retaliation

Yemeni government forces are no longer just intercepting attacks. After the Marib strikes, government forces launched operations against Houthi positions on multiple fronts; after Mocha, government artillery hit Houthi positions around Taiz along established front lines. United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg warned after the Marib and Hadramawt attacks that Yemen faces its greatest risk of renewed large-scale war since the 2022 truce, a warning the Mocha attacks have since reinforced.

Next?

Watch whether Houthis extend strikes to additional government military centers in Hadramawt, Shabwa, or al-Dhale, beyond the currently unconfirmed reports from Asharq Al-Awsat, or instead concentrate on Mocha.

Also watch whether government retaliation escalates into a coordinated ground offensive across Taiz, Hodeidah, and Marib simultaneously, which would amount to a de facto collapse of the post-2022 pause even without a formal declaration.

Mocha's strategic value, military, economic, and proximity to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, makes it the likely flashpoint determining whether this becomes a renewed nationwide civil war.

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Bipartisan bill ties Lebanon aid package to Hezbollah disarmament

Senators Jeanne Shaheen and James Lankford introduced legislation on August 7 authorizing at least $1.2 billion in Lebanon security assistance over five years, with most funding conditioned on the Lebanese government actually disarming Hezbollah rather than simply pledging to. The Lebanon Sanctions, Stabilization, and Support Act marks one of the most explicit U.S. attempts yet to use aid leverage to force state action against the group.

The bill has only been introduced. It still needs to pass both chambers and be signed by the president before any of its provisions take effect.

Funding structure and the disarmament trigger

The bill authorizes $240 million annually for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and Internal Security Forces, split across $200 million in Foreign Military Financing, $25 million for law enforcement, $11.5 million for counterterrorism, and $3.5 million for military education. Annual assistance could rise to $300 million if the secretary of state certifies meaningful Lebanese progress against Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed groups.

The conditionality is unusually specific: no more than 50% of baseline funding can be obligated until the secretary of state certifies both that Lebanon has declared Hezbollah's military activities illegal and that the LAF is implementing directives to establish a state monopoly on weapons and disarm Hezbollah.

Reconstruction fund excludes a key Hezbollah-linked body

The bill would create a U.S.-administered fund, overseen by the secretary of state, to rebuild Lebanese government services, municipal institutions, and civilian infrastructure nationwide. It explicitly bars that funding from flowing to or through the Council for South Lebanon, a pointed exclusion given the council's association with Hezbollah-aligned reconstruction efforts.

Sanctions leverage extends beyond Lebanon

The legislation also authorizes sanctions against foreign individuals who support Iranian financing of Hezbollah or obstruct Lebanese disarmament and financial-sector reforms, extending U.S. pressure beyond Lebanon's borders to the wider financing network.

Shaheen framed the bill as capitalizing on what she called Lebanon's best opportunity in decades to reclaim sovereignty. Lankford said it would strengthen the Lebanese state while increasing pressure on Hezbollah's finances.

The bill's fate in Congress will indicate how much bipartisan appetite exists for conditioning Lebanon aid on concrete disarmament steps rather than rhetorical commitments. If enacted, the 50% funding threshold and certification requirement would give Washington a recurring lever to assess LAF follow-through, making the secretary of state's certification decisions the key implementation checkpoint to track.

It’s the U.S. vs China, everyone needs to pick a side

Turkey clears major U.S.-origin arms transfer to Ukraine

Turkey is moving to transfer nearly $283.9 million in U.S.-origin weaponry to Ukraine, one of the largest such transfers to date, including ATACMS ballistic missiles and M270 rocket systems. The deal is now in U.S. congressional review, required because the equipment falls under American arms-export controls.

This is not a new U.S.-to-Ukraine sale. It is a third-party re-export from Turkish stocks under Section 3(d) of the Arms Export Control Act, which requires Washington's consent before Turkey can permanently transfer American-origin defense articles to Kyiv.

What's in the package

The disclosed package covers 12 M270 tracked multiple-launch rocket systems, 2,524 M26 rockets, and 47,000 M509A1 203mm artillery rounds, valued at roughly $255.9 million, plus a separate notification for 70 M39 ATACMS missiles valued at about $28 million.

The State Department notification says Ukraine intends to use the equipment to strengthen offensive and defensive fire-support capacity. For Ankara, the transfer effectively clears legacy American stock while freeing funds for modernizing its own newer systems.

Timing exploits the August recess

The State Department delivered the notifications to Congress on August 3, and Senator Jim Risch, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, entered them into the Congressional Record on August 6, just as the House began its August recess and the Senate moved toward its own break.

The review period runs on calendar days regardless of recess, and because Ukraine does not qualify for the shortened 15-day NATO/ally track, the applicable window is 30 calendar days. Congress does not need to approve the transfer, it takes effect automatically unless both chambers pass a joint resolution blocking it within that window, a high bar made harder to clear with lawmakers out of Washington.

Process

The transfer is set to proceed once the 30-day review period lapses, with no signal so far of organized congressional opposition. Beyond the hardware, the deal illustrates Turkey's balancing act: Ankara maintains political and economic ties with Moscow while simultaneously enabling Kyiv to acquire substantial American-origin heavy weaponry from Turkish reserves.

Move fast and break things

Trump splits birthright citizenship fight into two legal tracks

President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on August 6 responding to his Supreme Court loss on birthright citizenship, replacing the single sweeping order the Court struck down on June 30 with a narrower, two-track approach. One order tries to expand the historical exceptions to the Fourteenth Amendment's citizenship guarantee; the other targets birth tourism through visa and entry authority rather than reinterpreting citizenship itself.

The split matters strategically. Rather than reviving the failed order, the administration has separated a constitutionally risky claim from a legally stronger one, making the package harder to strike down as a single unit since courts could reject one order while leaving the other intact.

Court precedent narrows the opening

In Trump v. Barbara on June 30, the Supreme Court ruled that children born in the U.S. to unlawfully present or temporary-status parents are citizens at birth, with Chief Justice John Roberts rejecting Trump's "subject to the jurisdiction" argument. Justice Brett Kavanaugh's concurrence described the exceptions from United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) as a "closed set": children of foreign sovereigns or ministers, those born on foreign public vessels, those born to occupying enemy forces, and the historical tribal Indian category.

Trump's new citizenship order tries to stretch those categories to cover children born when one parent is an "alien enemy" (defined to include designated terrorist organization members), a foreign government employee, or someone engaged in a "commercial transaction to purchase or access birthright citizenship."

Visa order sidesteps the constitutional fight entirely

The second order does not touch citizenship determination. Instead, Trump delegated authority under Section 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to the secretaries of State and Homeland Security to deny visas, revoke existing ones, refuse admission, and potentially bar entry to people found traveling for birth-tourism purposes, and to target facilitating organizations.

This track rests on firmer legal ground because presidential authority over foreign national entry is broad, and State Department rules denying B visas for suspected birth-tourism purposes have applied since 2020. By preventing mothers from entering before any child is born, this order avoids the constitutional question altogether.

What to watch

The American Civil Liberties Union has already signaled it will challenge the citizenship order as unconstitutional, arguing Barbara settled the matter. Expect litigation to concentrate on whether courts will let the administration redefine "alien enemy" and commercial birth tourism as falling within Wong Kim Ark's closed exceptions, the citizenship order's most vulnerable provisions. The visa order, by moving the fight upstream to entry rather than citizenship status, may prove substantially harder for opponents to unwind even if the citizenship order fails in court.

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Supreme Court ruling clears path for TPS rollback

A June 25 Supreme Court decision in Mullin v. Doe has removed the main legal obstacle to the Trump administration's campaign to end Temporary Protected Status for migrants from multiple countries. The ruling held that federal courts generally cannot review non-constitutional challenges to a homeland security secretary's TPS decisions, eliminating the statutory and administrative-law arguments that previously blocked terminations in court.

The shift is procedural but consequential: plaintiffs can still raise constitutional claims like discriminatory intent, but those are harder to establish than the administrative challenges that dominated earlier litigation. The administration now holds the stronger legal position across nearly every active case.

Haiti, Myanmar, and South Sudan protections have ended

TPS for Haiti effectively ended after a federal judge on August 5 acknowledged the prior blocking order could not survive the Supreme Court ruling. The designation formally expired July 27, affecting roughly 330,000 to 350,000 people. A discrimination-based constitutional challenge continues, but without an injunction, leaving affected migrants unprotected unless they qualify under another legal status.

Ethiopia and Somalia are the next test cases

The First Circuit Court of Appeals overturned an order preserving Ethiopian TPS on July 29 because it relied on statutory arguments the Supreme Court had foreclosed, though a district judge has since imposed a temporary stay while constitutional claims proceed. Ethiopian TPS documents remain recognized through August 19.

Somalia's case is similarly positioned, with a Massachusetts federal court maintaining a temporary stay while parties brief whether any viable claims survive the Supreme Court ruling; briefing concludes August 20. These two cases will determine how much room remains for lower courts to slow the broader rollback.

Work authorization fight opens a second front

On August 5, a Massachusetts federal judge declined to block a one-year limit on automatic employment-authorization extensions for TPS holders from El Salvador, Ukraine, and Sudan. This does not end those countries' TPS designations, but it means some migrants could lose work permission before their underlying protection expires. Plaintiffs have appealed to the First Circuit seeking to preserve authorizations pending the case's outcome.

Court action expected before August 20 on the Ethiopia and Somalia cases will show whether constitutional claims can still block terminations post-Mullin. TPS has already ended or been allowed to expire for Haiti, Myanmar, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Nepal, Honduras, Nicaragua, and large numbers of Venezuelans. For migrants without independent legal status, asylum applications, permanent residency, or other visas, losing TPS strips both removal protection and work authorization, increasing exposure to detention and deportation even though termination doesn't trigger automatic removal.

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