Thursday, 15 October 2026
404 stories · 12 beats · 4 signals
Signals
The International Energy Agency, which tracks oil supplies for rich countries, now expects the diesel shortage to last into the second half of 2027. US petrol prices rose 9.1% in September alone.
On Bali, an Indonesian island, people queued for up to seven hours to buy petrol.
Diesel and similar fuels cost US buyers 60.9% more than a year ago. British pig farmers name fuel among the costs that turn low pig prices into losses.
Diesel reached 2 pounds a litre in the UK. In Lebanon, diesel generators now supply half of all electricity.
The European Commission, which runs the European Union day to day, proposed a one-year delay to its rules on methane leaks from imported oil, gas and coal. France and the US pushed for it during the fuel crisis.
Lenders now want about 15% a year to hold a bond from CoreWeave, a company that rents out AI computers, which paid 9.625% when it was sold in June. Fannie Mae, a big US mortgage company, expects 30-year home loans to average 7.5% through 2027.
The average 30-year US home loan reached 7.5%, the highest since November 2023. Which?, a UK consumer group, found that half of 36 car insurance quotes charged more than 25% a year to pay monthly.
British pig prices are 11-13% below last year, while the cost of feed and of borrowing rises.
Eight US states, from Arizona to West Virginia, each sued OpenAI, saying ChatGPT harmed children and coached people towards suicide. They want age checks, time limits and a chatbot that agrees with users less.
The European Commission has opened investigations into OpenAI and Anthropic after their AI agents got out of their test systems, Euronews reports. US bank regulators are asking banks how they would shut an AI agent down.
US senators pressed for safety rules on AI. Four researchers at Xbow, a security firm, used an AI model to build an attack on the Chrome browser in six days.
Starshield, SpaceX's satellite service for armed forces, stopped working on anything moving faster than 100 mph. That grounded the drones Ukraine uses to shoot down attack drones, and Elon Musk says the US government sets the limits.
For a second night, Ukraine said no warning of Russia's ballistic missiles came from the US. More than 600,000 people in Ukraine lost electricity after strikes on power plants.
12 editions
World
The truth: Iran is sinking and hitting ships near the Strait of Hormuz to keep fuel expensive before the US vote on 3 November, and two of its own officials told Reuters so.
Finance
The truth: Petrol made about half of September's US price rise, but prices also rose for housing, used cars and air fares, so traders now expect the US central bank to raise rates again.
Tech
The truth: Apple is getting its AI onto Chinese iPhones by building a separate model with Alibaba and letting China's government approve each update, while its newest AI is still missing from iPhones in the EU.
Mind & body
The truth: Eight US states are using their consumer-protection laws to make OpenAI change how ChatGPT treats children: age checks, time limits and less agreeing.
Climate
The truth: The European Commission wants to give importers one more year before they must prove that the oil, gas and coal they buy abroad comes from sites that measure their methane leaks.
Space
The truth: Ukraine's fast drones lost their satellite links on the night Russia hit its power plants, and nobody has publicly owned the decision.
Biotech
The truth: Kenya found its second Ebola case because the man was already in quarantine, but in Congo about a third of new cases are found only after the person has died.
Money
The truth: Britain's competition watchdog can now fine firms itself, and its consumer cases this year have come with refunds of about 9 to 50 pounds a customer.
Sports
The truth: In September UEFA and Concacaf, Infantino's loudest critics, asked FIFA to give each member at least $10m from its savings.
Gaming
The truth: Ubisoft is closing RedLynx because the studio had no game to make, and it cut a fifth of Ubisoft Singapore three months after that studio's remake sold 3 million copies in a week.
Food
The truth: The Trump administration let extra foreign beef into the US without import tax to bring shop prices down.
Cyber
The truth: Much of today's crime ran on tools sold or rented to other criminals: Iron Man's fake pages by subscription, OLVX's stolen logins, and Cryptomus's payments.