Wednesday, 14 October 2026
370 stories · 12 beats · 4 signals
Signals
Saudi-led jets bombed fuel depots held by the Houthis, a rebel group in Yemen. A Houthi missile set fire to an office of Aramco, Saudi Arabia's state oil company, in the city of Dhahran.
A barrel of oil rose to about $107. Qatar's government income fell 42% in the first half of the year, because the Strait of Hormuz has been mostly shut to its gas ships.
Fuel for cars in Dubai cost 37.5% more in September than a year before. In South Africa, taxi owners say fuel takes most of their income, as a fare rise is debated.
Diesel in the US has risen about 70% since the war in Iran began. That has raised costs for the companies that grow cheap bananas, which travel thousands of miles in cooled ships and trucks.
Houthi missiles fired at the airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital, killed at least 14 people, Saudi officials said. Asia's footballers are worried about January's Asian Cup, which plays 31 matches in Riyadh.
Character.ai, a chatbot app, filed for bankruptcy after its computing cost about twice its best month of sales. Meta's spare cash fell 91% in a year as it spends on AI.
Shares in US chip companies fell for a sixth day in a row. Volta, a new builder of data centres, must pay at least 11% interest to borrow $5 billion.
The US Energy Department said the company that runs a big grid in the eastern US may move data centres onto their own generators until 16 October. In an April survey, 56% of Americans opposed a data centre near their home.
Britain's own AI testing body told MPs it can test a model only when the company agrees. More than one in five AI summaries of asylum interviews at Britain's Home Office failed checks by experts.
Researchers at Georgetown University read the reports that 35 US makers of electronic health records must publish on how they check the AI tools inside them. The reports were inconsistent and often incomplete, yet every one of the companies had been certified.
CSG, a Czech weapons maker, bought 9.5% of MDA Space, the Canadian company that built the space station's robot arm. Amazon showed the US Army its satellite internet.
Russia's draft budget for 2027 gives a record 44% of federal spending to defence and security, twice the share for social programmes.
Johnson & Johnson, a US maker of medicines and medical devices, said its sales in the Gulf slowed. Its finance chief said Gulf states such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are moving money to defence.
12 editions
World
The truth: Saudi Arabia and the Houthis are now bombing each other's oil: Saudi-led jets hit fuel depots near Sanaa, and a Houthi missile set fire to an Aramco office in Dhahran.
Finance
The truth: JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Wells Fargo all earned more than a year ago, yet bank shares ended Tuesday lower.
Tech
The truth: Anthropic and OpenAI told British MPs on Tuesday that AI safety rules should be binding by law.
Mind & body
The truth: A survey of more than 6,600 people found that women with autoimmune diseases were more often told their symptoms came from the mind, and most often waited one to two years for a diagnosis, against under three months for most men.
Climate
The truth: Saudi Arabia and Russia, two of the world's biggest oil producers, are pushing for the UN's next big climate science report to come out in 2029, after the 2028 summit where countries check whether their climate plans are enough.
Space
The truth: Weapons and space companies drew closer on Tuesday.
Biotech
The truth: Roche agreed to pay up to $100 million soon for an obesity drug from Rona without either company saying how far it has been tested, and Pfizer signed a deal with Enodia for drugs that have not been found yet.
Money
The truth: Millions of UK drivers owed car finance money will wait until 2027 at the earliest, because the lending arms of Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and Credit Agricole, and one consumer group, took the regulator's scheme to court from opposite sides.
Sports
The truth: Rwanda's government is paying for a Formula One race as part of a plan to sell the country to tourists and investors, and it counts the new airport, hotels and visits as the return.
Gaming
The truth: In recent weeks, fans using AI coding tools have rebuilt old Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo games to run in web browsers and on PCs, without asking the companies that own them.
Food
The truth: In the US Midwest, September's rain has kept ripe corn and soybeans in the fields weeks longer than usual, and farmers report sprouted and stained grain, though elevators have not yet turned loads away.
Cyber
The truth: Microsoft fixed a record 1,411 flaws this month, and attackers had already used one of them before the fix.