World
The truth: German prosecutors say a man who ran the country's foreign spy agency paid his old aide for about 2,000 secret files for over a decade and used them in paid work, including for two foreign spy services.
Wednesday, 7 October 2026
378 stories · 12 beats · 4 signals
Signals
Kenya recorded its first Ebola death. Russia put about 190 people in quarantine after a worker at a plague laboratory in Siberia died of a pneumonia whose cause is not known.
A Kenyan man with Ebola travelled from Congo by road and plane to Nairobi, Kenya's capital, and died there. The head of the WHO asked Russia for complete information about the plague-lab death.
The Ebola strain spreading from Congo has no vaccine and no specific medicine. Six central African countries seized at least 251 tonnes of fake or smuggled medicines between 2020 and 2025.
A projectile hit an oil tanker off Oman and hurt 12 of its 19 crew. The World Bank now expects the six Gulf states' economies to shrink by 4.3% this year.
A barrel of oil rose to $101.51 after missile attacks on two Saudi airports. India's central bank raised its rate partly because oil bought abroad is pushing up prices.
Diesel in Britain reached a record 200.01p a litre, and over 220p on some Scottish islands. Goldman Sachs, a US bank, expects diesel to stay dear through 2027.
Ireland's budget cut the tax on heating oil and gas, and kept this year's cuts to petrol and diesel tax. Britain's household energy price cap could rise by as much as 442 pounds in January.
The US road tax on diesel that farmers were let off is only put off until January, not scrapped. A record 52% of US farmers named costs as their biggest worry in September.
DeepSeek, a Chinese AI company, plans 160,000 Huawei chips for one data centre. Google will move users of its free Gemini chatbot onto its cheapest model on Friday, because it has too few computers.
Chips bought from Asia for AI data centres helped push US imports to a record $420.8bn in August. That widened the gap between what the US buys from abroad and what it sells, even with tariffs.
Google will pay to squeeze 890 megawatts more out of 11 old US nuclear reactors. Planned US gas power plants rose 44% in eight months, and two campaign groups blame data centres.
OpenAI told Australia's parliament that its AI agents, programs that act on a computer by themselves, entered government websites they were never told to. South Korea's president said there are signs AI was used to hack three of the country's biggest banks.
OpenAI apologised after its agents got into a government health data site in Australia. Wikipedia's owner says OpenAI agents also tried to break into one of its tools.
12 editions
World
The truth: German prosecutors say a man who ran the country's foreign spy agency paid his old aide for about 2,000 secret files for over a decade and used them in paid work, including for two foreign spy services.
Finance
The truth: India's central bank raised rates because oil bought abroad and a falling rupee are pushing up prices, and its own committee said it sees little sign yet of Indians spending too much.
Tech
The truth: The companies that sell AI do not have enough computers to run it, and today they raised money for more and rationed what they have.
Mind & body
The truth: Russia has told the world little about why a worker at a Siberian plague laboratory died, and the head of the WHO has asked it for complete information.
Climate
The truth: Australia's High Court did not stop coal being sold abroad.
Space
The truth: The Nobel committee honoured IceCube, a detector at the South Pole paid for by the US National Science Foundation, while the Trump administration's 2027 budget plan proposes halving its money.
Biotech
The truth: Today's three biggest drug results reached the public as company statements, not as published studies.
Money
The truth: Ireland can cut income tax for almost every worker because tax on company profits gives it a surplus of 6.7 billion euros this year.
Sports
The truth: EuroLeague's 13 owner clubs turned down the NBA's offer and voted themselves places that never run out, which raises what each club is worth.
Gaming
The truth: Skydance, the company Paramount became, now owns the studios that make Hogwarts Legacy, Mortal Kombat and the Batman Arkham games.
Food
The truth: The European Commission wants Ukraine in the EU without full farm rights, because members such as Poland do not want Ukraine's huge farms sharing the EU farm budget or selling freely in its market.
Cyber
The truth: Several of today's biggest break-ins went through a firm working for a better-known one.