Good morning. An Iranian airline accused of ferrying cash, weapons and personnel for the regime's powerful Revolutionary Guard is expanding its footprint, despite more than a decade under U.S. sanctions and a recent push by the Trump administration to ground it.

The U.S. and other governments allege Mahan, ostensibly a private civilian carrier, grew into a key conduit for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to support its allies and advance its activities in the region and beyond.

Fresh sanctions: On Tuesday, the U.S. intensified its pressure on the airline, sanctioning intermediaries that this summer helped it buy at least three secondhand Boeing B-777s that had been diverted through the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Out-of-date aircraft: Mahan's three dozen planes tend to be aging, secondhand Boeing and Airbus aircraft, some in service for as long as 35 years. Passengers who post about their trips on social media say there is no onboard entertainment or alcohol, and tickets have to be purchased in cash instead of international credit or debit cards.

New horizons: Despite the lack of amenities, and the sanctions scrutiny, Mahan has been adding new destinations for passenger and cargo services during the war between the U.S. and Iran.

Compliance

Amazon illegally punished pregnant workers who sought accommodations, lawsuit alleges.

A group of former Amazon.com warehouse employees is suing the company, alleging they were illegally punished and eventually terminated for seeking accommodations related to their pregnancies.

The class-action, led by four ex-warehouse workers, alleges that Amazon deducted their bank of unpaid time off or flagged them for "time off-task" for medically necessary breaks or absences.

One plaintiff was flagged for excessive time off-task for pumping in the company's lactation room, the lawsuit said.

European nations impose trade bans on Israel over West Bank settlements.

The U.K., France, Canada and nine other countries said they would impose new trade restrictions on Israel, escalating a dispute over the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Tuesday's announcement prompted a swift retaliation from Israel against the U.K., which was the first to announce it would halt trade with settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israel said it would close the British consulate in East Jerusalem, which deals largely with Palestinian affairs, and expel British representatives from the U.S.-led coordination center for postwar Gaza.

Risk Journal reports: "To those who finance or facilitate illegal settlements, let me say this, you will face the full force of U.K. sanctions," Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said in a statement at the House of Commons on Tuesday. "Settlements are illegal." (free link)

Two systems that could have slowed an Amazon Air flight that crashed in Miami over the weekend weren't deployed before the plane careened off a runway and crashed into nearby vehicles, investigators said late Tuesday.

U.S. security agencies on Tuesday accused six Chinese artificial intelligence companies of systematically exploiting American AI models to train their own systems.

Chinese humanoid-robotics companies could face a narrower path to public markets as authorities seek to calm the frenzy that followed robot maker Unitree's roller-coaster listing.

The Australian government is pushing toward stricter rules for technology giants with plans to introduce new requirements that would give social media users the ability to opt out of algorithms that shape their social media feeds.

The amount that spending on AI infrastructure is expected to reach globally through 2050, according to projections from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Events

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Risk

Shipping powers say wars, shadow fleets threaten free seas.

A group of the 18 biggest shipping countries warned Tuesday that global conflicts, trade restrictions and chokepoints were raising costs and spreading uncertainty across global supply chains.

The Consultative Shipping Group, an informal alliance made up of shipping powers like Germany, Denmark, Japan South Korea and the U.K., said attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz and the Black Sea were not one-off shocks, but a "signal of a structural shift in the operating environment of global trade."

The changes are eroding freedom of navigation, a cornerstone of global shipping, the group said.

Trump signs orders to ban some Canadian products from U.S. market

President Trump on Tuesday signed orders to ban the importation of many dairy products, alcoholic beverages and motorcycles from Canada in three weeks-a retaliation for Canadian tariffs that took effect earlier the same day.

Trump also modified the scope of some existing 50% tariffs on Canada, removing levies on cement, road salt and some hospital products, while imposing 50% levies on other products including some all-terrain vehicles, boats and cheeses.

The tariff changes will take effect Sept. 15, according to proclamations posted on the White House website, while the trade prohibitions are set to kick in on Sept. 29.

The States on the Front Lines of the Trade War With Canada

Canada's Carney Vows to Backstop Economy as U.S. Trade Row Escalates

The U.S. launched new attacks on Iranian oil tankers on Tuesday in response to a fresh attempt by Tehran to strike U.S. warships in the Middle East, according to a U.S. official.

The Trump administration's holistic approach to overhauling America's critical-minerals sourcing is going to dramatically derisk the country's commodities supply chain and boost national security, according to Assistant Secretary of Energy Audrey Robertson, Risk Journal reports. (free link)

An Anthropic researcher is quitting the artificial-intelligence industry over fears that the lab and its competitors are racing to build systems they won't be able to control, a sign of mounting safety concerns within top AI companies.

Copper prices climbed to a fresh record on the London Metal Exchange as distortions to trade flows due to concerns over potential U.S. tariffs collided with supply challenges at key mines worldwide.

China's producer-price index rose 3.8% in August from a year earlier, driven by rising oil costs tied to Middle East tensions.

What Else Matters

Efforts to halt the spread of the Congo's deadliest outbreak of Ebola are faltering. Health workers who are angry about unpaid wages have violated basic Ebola control protocols and allowed grieving families to touch the bodies of relatives killed by the virus.

New York City officials released a trove of documents Tuesday detailing air-quality issues and what the city knew about the toxic conditions around Ground Zero following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Wall Street's marquee event this fall is expected to be Anthropic's initial public offering. It could raise up to $100 billion and value the artificial-intelligence giant at around $2 trillion.

Meta Platforms is betting that making AI agents easy to use will get mainstream consumers to start adopting them in their daily lives.

About Us

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You can also reach us by replying to any newsletter, or by emailing our editors Perry Cleveland-Peck at perry.cleveland-peck@wsj.com and David Smagalla at david.smagalla@wsj.com.

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