Asian shares have mostly retreated and oil prices are higher after the U.S. launched fresh airstrikes against Iran, raising questions again over prospects for a permanent end to the war. The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil rose 50 cents to about $92. The U.S. military launched airstrikes following the crash of an Army helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz that U.S. President Donald Trump blamed on the Islamic Republic. U.S. futures edged lower after chipmakers including Micron Technology and AMD fell Tuesday on Wall Street. The benchmark S&P 500 slipped 0.3%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite dropped 1%.

Hollywood directors have reached a four-year tentative contract agreement with studios and streaming services. The Directors Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers struck the deal Tuesday after four weeks of talks. This is the first negotiation under new DGA President Christopher Nolan. Similar four-year deals have been ratified recently by unions representing writers and actors. This agreement adds to the likelihood of long-term labor peace in Hollywood despite industry upheavals. The collective bargaining agreement must still be approved by the guild’s national board and ratified by the guild membership.

Bill Gates was set to appear before a congressional panel investigating the Jeffrey Epstein files, becoming the latest powerful figure linked to the disgraced financier to testify. Members of the House Oversight Committee are slated on Wednesday to interview the billionaire Microsoft co-founder behind closed doors, as they have done with other witnesses in the investigation. Transcripts are often released later. Republican U.S. Rep. James Comer, the committee chairman, formally requested that Gates testify after he appeared multiple times in a trove of documents released by the Justice Department as part of its Epstein probe. The files read like a who’s who of powerful men across tech, finance, politics and other industries.

Even as President Donald Trump boosts coal over clean energy, solar power is hitting new milestones in the U.S. and remains the leading source of new power. New reports released Wednesday by global energy think tank Ember and the Solar Energy Industries Association show the continued growth of solar and decline of coal in the United States despite federal policy. Ember says that in May, for the first time, solar supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal, or 12.8%. Coal supplied 12.2%, its fourth-lowest monthly share ever. Trump has been helping the struggling U.S. coal industry while curtailing solar and wind. He says coal’s a great business.

Consumer prices probably jumped in May for the third straight month, heightening concerns for the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve and underscoring the threat rising costs pose for the Trump administration as midterm elections near. Inflation is expected to reach 4.2% in May from a year earlier when the Labor Department reports last month’s figures Wednesday, according to a survey of economists by data provider FactSet The annual increase would be up from the 3.8% reading in April. On a monthly basis, prices are forecast to have risen a hefty 0.5%, slightly below the 0.6% increase in April.

The U.S. military launched airstrikes and Iran retaliated following the crash of an Army helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz that U.S. President Donald Trump blamed on the Islamic Republic. Iran launched attacks Wednesday morning in Bahrain and Kuwait, which both sounded alerts and fired air defenses in response. Iran also said it targeted an air base in Jordan hosting U.S. forces, which was not immediately acknowledged by American or Jordanian officials. The war that started Feb. 28 has shaken the global economy, and officials have been unable to turn the April ceasefire into a deal to permanently end the conflict.