Saturday, 31 October 2026
347 stories · 12 beats · 4 signals
Signals
Poland's president forced his way into the Constitutional Tribunal, the country's top court, after judges chosen by parliament suspended its chief. Each side says the other side's judges are not lawful.
A US appeals court restored a jury's verdict that the NFL broke competition law by selling out-of-town games only as one package. It threw out the $4.7 billion award and ordered a new trial on what the league owes.
A jury in St Louis, Missouri, cleared Monsanto, owned by Bayer, of every claim from three women who blamed its weedkiller Roundup for their cancer. A $7.25 billion deal for about 65,000 other cases waits on a judge.
Meta settled with a second teenager who said Instagram and Facebook were built to be addictive, before a jury could rule.
What is going on
When both sides accept the court, a ruling moves money: Bayer is closer to settling 65,000 Roundup cases, and NFL fans await a trial on what they are owed. In Poland neither side accepts the other's judges, so on Friday night it was settled by who got into the building.
Where it is heading
The next test is the Missouri judge's decision on Bayer's $7.25 billion settlement for the remaining Roundup cases.
At least 35 ships were attacked near the Strait of Hormuz, the sea lane out of the Gulf, in October, the most of the war. Oman's navy pulled 25 sailors off a burning tanker on Friday.
About a tenth of the world's refining capacity is shut, and US diesel averaged $6.32 a gallon on Friday. Exxon's refineries earned $7.2 billion in three months, more than its oil and gas wells.
A gallon of US petrol took 9.5 minutes of work in October, against 6.3 in February. Pakistan raised its diesel price again, to 402.96 rupees a litre.
Middle East fertiliser exports fell by about 70%, says Kpler, a data firm. The Gulf sells 30% to 40% of the urea, a nitrogen fertiliser, shipped by sea.
What is going on
The Iran war and Ukraine's drone strikes on Russia have shut about a tenth of the world's refining, so diesel and petrol cost more. The refiners still running, such as Exxon and Chevron, earn record sums on that, while drivers pay at the pump and farmers who buy fertiliser abroad pay more.
Where it is heading
The next test is Tuesday's US midterm elections on 3 November, where 36% of voters in one poll named living costs their top issue.
Amazon set up a loan of up to $80 billion backed by the AI machines it buys. Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Oracle raised $326 billion of debt in 2026, triple last year.
S&P Global, a credit rating agency, turned Meta's credit outlook negative over its spending on AI data centres. OpenAI cut the target of its latest fundraising by $10 billion, and big US tech shares had their worst month since March 2025.
What is going on
Alphabet, Amazon and Meta are spending more cash than their businesses bring in, so they borrow, and lenders ask for the AI machines as security. If those machines lose value faster than the loans are repaid, the loss falls on the lenders, and on Nvidia if it stands behind Nscale's loans.
Where it is heading
The next sign is whether Nvidia, the biggest AI chip maker, agrees to guarantee the loans of Nscale, a British AI cloud company.
OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Anthropic promised to obey one line in a website's robots.txt file, the file that tells web crawlers what they may read, that refuses AI training. Britain's competition watchdog is investigating Meta's terms for using publishers' work in AI.
Anthropic told its AI, Claude, to stop rebuilding other people's games. Book publishers are suing AI firms while urging their own staff to use AI.
OpenAI said it will limit weapons information for teens and tell parents when a teen's account is paused. A survey of 5,500 US pupils aged 9 to 17 found 90% have used an AI chatbot.
What is going on
Website owners, game makers and parents are getting ways to say no to what AI takes or does. Each limit covers only what comes next: pages the AI companies already copied stay with them.
Where it is heading
Microsoft starts obeying the shared robots.txt line on 1 February 2027; Meta has not promised to.
12 editions
World
The truth: Poland's government says the top court's judges were put there unlawfully by the last government, and Poland's president says the same about the judges the new parliament chose.
Finance
The truth: About a tenth of the world's refining capacity is shut by the Iran war and Ukraine's drone strikes on Russia, so diesel in the US costs $6.32 a gallon.
Tech
The truth: Alphabet, Amazon and Meta are spending more cash than their businesses bring in, so Amazon is borrowing against its AI machines and Nvidia may stand behind Nscale's loans.
Mind & body
The truth: Most US pupils now use AI chatbots, and nearly two-thirds also use them when stressed or lonely, while nobody can yet say whether that helps or harms them.
Climate
The truth: Nearly 200 countries in Yerevan agreed to try harder on 2030 nature targets that they are mostly missing, but they did not settle who pays.
Space
The truth: NASA has asked companies how they would save Hubble, but it has set aside no money, so Thursday's request is a search for prices and bidders, not a rescue.
Biotech
The truth: The FDA approved Inovio's Voceryq because fewer patients needed throat operations in the first year of an open trial of 32 adults, and Inovio must still prove the benefit in more trials.
Money
The truth: Medicare's agency ended a subsidy that held stand-alone drug plan premiums down, so 10.4 million Medicare members will pay more in 2027 unless they change plans by 7 December.
Sports
The truth: On Friday two courts overruled two of sport's biggest bodies.
Gaming
The truth: Fans spent a record 4.45 trillion yen on Japanese anime in 2025, and the studios that draw it earned 505.5 billion yen of that.
Food
The truth: A St.
Cyber
The truth: CrowdStrike says a Chinese state-backed group used ARTEX, an AI attack tool, to go after more than 200 organisations in 11 days, at over 1,500 commands an hour.