Good morning. By meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, President Trump is hoping to forge in person what he hasn’t been able to accomplish by phone—a partnership with the Kremlin leader to end the Ukraine war.

Putin is coming to Alaska with a very different goal: keeping in Trump’s good graces while pursuing his longer-term ambition of reasserting Moscow’s dominance over Kyiv.

• Laying down arms: Trump in recent days has said he would urge Putin to accept a cease-fire in Ukraine, seeking to jump-start long-stalled negotiations.
   
• Stern warning: Should Putin balk, Trump is threatening Moscow with “very severe consequences,” possibly including sanctions on major buyers of Russian oil, such as China. The U.S. could also decide to withdraw from the peace process altogether, he said, leaving Moscow and Kyiv to continue the conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.
   
• Oil tariffs: Trump imposed 50% tariffs on India this month for purchasing Russian oil, but his deadline for a deal by last Friday passed without applying secondary sanctions on other customers of Russian energy, as Trump repeatedly threatened.

Honduran official pleads guilty in bribery case.

A Honduran government official in charge of procuring equipment for the country’s national police pleaded guilty to taking roughly $188,000 from the owner of a Georgia-based supplier in exchange for contracts worth more than $10 million, Risk Journal’s Max Fillion reports.

Francisco Roberto Cosenza Centeno in a federal court filing on Wednesday admitted to the scheme, which took place for four years until about November 2019. One of his co-defendants, a Florida businessman who helped funnel the bribes on behalf of the Georgia-based supplier, pleaded guilty in June.

• Apple is bringing back the blood oxygen feature for some models of the Apple Watch nearly two years after it was forced to remove the capability due to a bruising patent dispute with a rival.
   
• Lyft co-founders Logan Green and John Zimmer are stepping down from their roles as chair and vice chair of the board of directors.

One inflation gauge just rose at the fastest rate in three years.

Wholesale prices—the cost of goods and services purchased directly from producers—rose at the sharpest monthly rate in three years, raising fresh alarm that tariffs are taking root in the economy and pushing up inflation.

The data offer insight into price pressures companies themselves are facing months into a tumultuous season of on-again, off-again tariffs. Wholesale prices for computers, household appliances and furniture all climbed.

• U.S. Jobless Claims Fell Last Week

EU, U.S. inch forward on joint trade statement.

U.S. trade negotiators wrote to the European Union outlining their version of a long-awaited trade agreement between the two regions, an EU spokesperson said, as both sides work to finalize a deal.

EU President Ursula von der Leyen and U.S. President Trump shook hands on a trade deal in July after months of negotiations. Now officials from both sides are grappling to put together a so-called joint statement; a rundown of agreements which could also serve as a basis for further talks.

• Eurozone Industrial Production Slumps More Than Expected as Tariff Effects Sting

• After President Trump initiated a series of trade battles with Canada earlier this year, Canadian provinces, which largely handle alcohol imports and distribution in the country, stopped placing orders for American-made spirits, beer and wine. That’s creating a headache for American liquor and winemakers.
   
• Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel would move ahead with a controversial settlement expansion near East Jerusalem that would isolate key Palestinian communities and significantly complicate prospects for a Palestinian state.
   
• Air Canada said it has started to cancel flights and expects to wind down operations by early Saturday morning as the carrier braces for a strike by its 10,000 flight attendants. A shutdown could have reverberations across the continent, for passenger air travel and supply-chain networks.
   
• Intel and the Trump administration are discussing the possibility of the U.S. government taking a financial stake in the troubled chip maker, according to people familiar with the matter, in a deal that could advance President Trump’s America-first manufacturing agenda while relieving political pressure on Intel Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan.
   
• Fresh data on China’s economy pointed to a broad-based slowdown last month, adding to the pressure on Beijing to do more to rev up growth and consumer spending in the face of President Trump’s tariffs.
   
• With the world’s attention focused on crises elsewhere, Sudan’s war-induced famine is growing in what used to be productive farmlands.

• IT departments are overloaded with busy work. Maybe AI can change that.
   
• California Democrats are planning their own redistricting effort to counter President Trump’s push for a redrawn congressional map in Texas.
   
• Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife, Penny Knight, are donating $2 billion to Oregon Health & Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute—the largest known single gift to a U.S. university, coming at a time when colleges’ public funding is under siege.
   
• AI is making ever more jobs obsolete. The solution from Silicon Valley? A universal paycheck, no work required.
   

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