World
The truth: Saudi Arabia has been squeezed out of three oil routes in six months, and each squeeze came from a different place.
Saturday, 12 September 2026
348 stories · 12 beats · 4 signals
Signals
Drones launched from Iraq hit the 1,200km pipeline that carries Saudi crude across the desert to the Red Sea, and Saudi Arabia shut it on Friday. The line was built so that oil could reach buyers without passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran closed in February.
Diesel in the United States passed $6 a gallon this week, the highest price ever recorded there. Brent crude, the main international oil price, ended the week 8.7% higher at $104.61 a barrel.
Saudi oil exports fell last month to their lowest level in at least 13 years. The International Energy Agency, the energy watchdog for rich countries, cut its forecast for how much oil the world will use this year.
The heavy fuel oil that powers cargo ships now costs more than 70% more than it did before the war with Iran. Refineries that are still working are turning the crude they can get into diesel instead.
A company running artificial intelligence put 69 portable gas turbines beside a neighbourhood in Southaven, Mississippi, under a rule needing no air permit. With no permit nothing had to be reported, so the pollution figures came from state inspectors, a NASA satellite and a mother with three air monitors.
Police found 35 bodies and more than 100 sets of ashes at a funeral home in Hull, in northern England. England has no licence, no register and no inspection for funeral directors, so nothing was due to go and look.
A company called IDScan posted its first admission of a break-in on a page carrying an instruction telling search engines not to list it. McKesson, which supplies medicines and supports 3,300 cancer-care providers, has published nothing about the size of its own break-in since 29 August.
A mathematician asked whether OpenAI's model had benefited from his own sessions on the company's coding tool while it worked on a 90-year-old maths problem. Only OpenAI can look at that record.
Rocket Lab asked a US government watchdog on 11 September to reopen NASA's $700m contract for the spacecraft that will carry Mars data home, which Blue Origin won. It is arguing that NASA broke the eligibility rules, because that is the only kind of argument a losing bidder is allowed to make.
Bayer goes before a judge in Missouri on Monday asking approval of a $7.25bn deal covering about 65,000 cancer claims over its weedkiller Roundup. The deal is written to cover people who have not sued yet.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have opened a criminal investigation into the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team. Bankruptcy papers for the golf tour LIV show that the player Phil Mickelson holds a stake in the tour itself.
Sony told a court that its customers never owned the digital games they bought, only a licence to play them. A federal judge has paused a Minnesota law banning two prediction-market firms while that case runs.
American regulators cleared a lung cancer pill as a first treatment on 69 patients who all got the drug, with nobody to compare them against. A second cancer medicine was cleared on how long patients went before a scan showed the cancer growing, not on how long they lived.
Almost all the evidence for the new tooth pastes, peptides and gels comes from extracted teeth in laboratory rigs rather than from people. Sixteen of 20 Australian sunscreens sold as SPF 50 or above came in below the number printed on the bottle.
12 editions
World
The truth: Saudi Arabia has been squeezed out of three oil routes in six months, and each squeeze came from a different place.
Finance
The truth: Kevin Warsh has said for weeks that the US central bank would have work to do if inflation did not come down.
Tech
The truth: OpenAI published a proof anyone can check by machine, and Tristan Buckmaster's question is not about the proof.
Mind & body
The truth: Dentistry is moving from drilling tooth away to putting mineral back, and almost all the evidence for the new pastes, peptides and gels comes from extracted teeth in laboratory rigs rather than from people.
Climate
The truth: SpaceXAI could not get grid power to Colossus 2 fast enough, so it put 69 portable gas turbines on a site in Southaven, Mississippi, under a state rule that lets portable equipment run for a year with no air permit.
Space
The truth: Rocket Lab is not arguing that its Mars spacecraft was better than Blue Origin's.
Biotech
The truth: The US drug regulator cleared two cancer medicines this week without waiting to see whether patients live longer.
Money
The truth: Robert Bush kept 35 bodies at his Hull funeral home because his business ran out of money, and no licence, register or inspection existed in England that could have found that out.
Sports
The truth: South Africa and New Zealand moved the last match of their series to Baltimore because the day is worth several million dollars more there than at home.
Gaming
The truth: Roblox spent twelve years keeping creators' games and creators' earnings inside Roblox.
Food
The truth: Bayer is not paying $7.25 billion for the 65,000 Roundup lawsuits already filed.
Cyber
The truth: Three groups got inside Cisco firewall consoles without breaking anything.