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A bipartisan House majority has voted to require congressional approval before President Trump expands military action against Iran, while newly redrawn congressional maps in six states are headed for court over claims they dilute Black voting power.

We'll also cover a landmark sentencing, Intel's surprise rebound, and a new theory on humanity's disappearing languages.

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The House passed a war powers resolution telling President Trump to come to Congress before expanding the Iran fight any further. A handful of Republicans crossed over — the second time this year they've done it. The Senate, for its part, blocked a parallel debate, leaving the measure symbolic but loud.

The vote lands with strikes now reaching from the Persian Gulf into Iraq and the Red Sea, well past what Trump described back in June. Constitutional scholars have argued for decades that sustained hostilities require Article I sign-off. The tally shows cracks widening inside the GOP over how far the White House can push alone.

Freshly drawn congressional maps tied to a Trump-backed redistricting push have split predominantly Black districts across six Republican-led states, diluting voting power in areas that once anchored existing seats. Voting-rights advocates warn the changes could weaken Black representation for years, while supporters argue the maps reflect lawful population shifts.

The stakes extend beyond individual districts, as even a handful of flipped seats could decide control of the House. Court challenges are already underway, with civil-rights groups calling the effort a coordinated national strategy and supporters defending it as routine redistricting.

A federal judge sentenced Vance Boelter to life in prison for last year's home attack on Minnesota state lawmakers. Prosecutors had declined to pursue the death penalty, and Boelter pleaded guilty, sparing the state a trial that would have revisited one of the most chilling political attacks in recent memory.

Boelter, disguised as a police officer, targeted legislators inside their homes in a case that shook Minnesota's Capitol. The sentencing closes the criminal chapter. It leaves open the harder policy question of how to protect state officials at home.

Houthi forces claimed strikes on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, with a projectile igniting a fire near Al Shuqaiq. Trump declared the U.S. would hold Tehran responsible for Houthi attacks, widening the conflict beyond the Strait of Hormuz.sea

Verified video showed southern Iraq border crossings hit in the latest expansion of Middle East hostilities, with travelers scattering as facilities burned. Iraq had tried to stay on the sidelines — that posture just got harder to hold.

An Angolan court sentenced two Russian men to 11 and eight years in prison after convicting them of terrorism and espionage over an alleged plot to destabilize the country before the 2027 presidential election. Both denied the charges and have appealed the verdict.

The Secret Service confirmed an agent on Vice President JD Vance's detail is being investigated for allegedly "compromising operational and information security." The agency didn't spell out the alleged conduct, but the phrasing points to a leak or breach rather than a physical lapse.

A Massachusetts bill would let physicians decide whether an abortion is necessary after 24 weeks, replacing narrower statutory criteria. Supporters call it medical judgment; opponents say it removes legislative guardrails.

The CDC says cyclosporiasis cases have topped 4,100 so far this year, a record for the parasitic intestinal illness usually traced to contaminated produce. Confirmation takes weeks per case, so the true count is almost certainly higher.

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Intel rallied 11% after posting blowout earnings and its fastest revenue growth in nearly 15 years, driven by AI chip demand. After years of being written off, the company suddenly has a story investors want to buy.

Albertsons shares plunged after the chain lowered its full-year outlook and flagged softening spending in its core grocery business. When even grocery baskets shrink, the consumer story gets harder to spin.

Eli Lilly plans to seek approval for retatrutide in 2027 after two more successful late-stage trials, adding to five Phase 3 studies supporting the drug. The treatment could strengthen Lilly's lead in the fast-growing weight-loss market as rivals race to catch up.

The Fields Medals went to four mathematicians under 40, the discipline's top honor and one handed out only once every four years. Their work spans number theory, geometry, and probability — the quiet plumbing behind everything from cryptography to AI.

Scientists confirmed a cosmic accelerator inside the Milky Way that produces the galaxy's highest-energy protons, closing out a decades-long puzzle. The find helps explain the invisible traffic zipping between stars.

Researchers identified a previously unknown lymphatic network in the eye that clears fluid and debris from behind the retina. It could reshape treatment for glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration, two leading causes of blindness.

Carolina second-year pass rusher Nic Scourton was carted off with a torn ACL on the first day of training camp, ending his season before it began. Brutal blow for a Panthers defense that had penciled him in as a cornerstone.

Patrick Kane is going home, signing a two-year, $8 million-per-year contract with the Blackhawks, where he built his Hall of Fame résumé. Chicago gets a marquee name. Kane gets one more shot in the sweater that made him.

Minnesota public records show Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards married Shannon Jackson, a detail he managed to keep entirely off the internet until a county database gave it away. Turns out privacy is still possible — barely.

The Venice Film Festival unveiled a lineup featuring a Rupert Murdoch biopic alongside new films from Danny Boyle, Martin McDonagh, Werner Herzog, and Casey Affleck. The Lido is shaping up as the fall's first real awards battleground.

The touring Beach Boys, led by 85-year-old Mike Love, scrapped nearly 30 concerts over six weeks, citing a need to rest before fall dates. The endless summer, it turns out, has an intermission.

A Guardian review of Ludwig Göransson's score for Christopher Nolan's Odyssey calls it meticulously crafted using period instruments — yet ultimately as bloodless as the film it serves. Craft, the critic argues, isn't the same as soul.

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What it is: New research suggests early humanity spoke a staggering number of languages around the dawn of agriculture, far more than the roughly 7,000 tongues spoken today. Many of those languages then vanished as settled farming reshaped where people lived, how large their communities grew, and who they traded and married with. The study challenges the common assumption that linguistic diversity has steadily declined throughout human history, instead pointing to a dramatic rise before a long period of consolidation.

The detail: Researchers argue the shift from small nomadic bands to permanent farming villages first triggered an explosion of linguistic diversity, as scattered groups developed distinct speech in relative isolation. Larger and more connected populations later reversed that trend, because dominant languages spread along trade routes and empires, absorbing smaller ones and steadily thinning the global count over thousands of years. Population growth, migration, and expanding political networks accelerated the process, leaving many smaller languages with few opportunities to survive.

Why it matters: Language is not just vocabulary but a vessel for memory, law, medicine, navigation, and cosmology that rarely survives translation into a bigger neighbor's tongue. Understanding why diversity first spiked and then collapsed gives linguists a framework for predicting which of the world's surviving languages now face the steepest odds of disappearing within a generation.

What to watch: Fieldworkers are racing to record endangered languages before their last fluent speakers die, often working with communities that have only a handful of elders left. Funding and policy decisions over the next few years will largely determine how much of that vanishing knowledge is preserved in usable form, or lost for good.

Five Minute Daily brings the day’s essential developments into one clear briefing. Share this edition and subscribe to keep the news manageable.

—The Five Minute Daily Team