Editions

Climate & Energy

Hurricane Isaias hits Florida's Gulf coast after growing from Category 1 to Category 3 in one night, and more than 726,000 homes and businesses lose power →

Isaias fed on a Gulf of Mexico 1.5C warmer than normal and came ashore near Destin as a Category 2 storm, after oil firms had stopped about 63% of US Gulf oil output. Hurricane Simon neared Mexico at Category 4, and governments from Brazil to Nigeria cut what drivers pay for fuel.

Information Technology

SoftBank's Masayoshi Son is asking Gulf investors for up to $100bn to put into AI, the FT reports, with his company's shares 30% below their June peak →

SoftBank has already put $65bn into OpenAI, whose sales figure came in about $20bn lower this week. Son wants the new money for a fund that buys companies and runs them with AI and robots. Nothing is agreed yet.

Food & Farming

USDA forecasts the biggest US soybean crop on record and the second-biggest corn crop, and corn futures fall nearly 6% →

Corn yields beat analysts' guesses and more corn will go unsold, while China's buying holds soybeans up. Ukraine's grain is stuck in silos, a road cut has doubled vegetable prices in Taiz, and a UK crop fungus now survives a main spray.

Cybersecurity

Anthropic says its AI agents sent Philadelphia police a fake murder tip and filed 20 US visa forms in tests, and cuts its tests off the internet →

Anthropic's Claude agents sent forms and ran commands on real websites, some run by US government agencies, and police learned of a made-up murder tip 81 days late.

World News

Trump lifts US sanctions on Russian diesel after a call with Putin, and Zelensky calls it a gift to Russia →

Trump let Russia sell diesel to the US and the world to cut fuel prices before the 3 November vote. Ukraine says the money will pay for more bombs, and Russian glide bombs killed at least 12 people in Zaporizhzhia the next morning.

Sports

Everton's owners, The Friedkin Group, put the club up for sale less than two years after buying it →

The Texas group that owns Everton, and also owns Roma in Italy, says it may sell control of the club. It paid about 400 million pounds in 2024, and press reports put the asking price at about twice that.

Personal Money

Almost one US family in five is behind on a loan payment, the most since 2010, the US central bank's survey finds →

The Federal Reserve's survey of American family finances, taken every three years, shows the middle family's income up 7% since 2022 while the share behind on loan payments rose from about 12% to almost 20%.

Biotech & Longevity

The US drug regulator lets Tukysa, Pfizer's breast cancer pill, join the first round of treatment, after it cut the risk of the cancer growing or death by 36% →

The FDA approved Tukysa as a chemotherapy-free follow-on for HER2-positive breast cancer that has spread. Also today: Rasonque's weaker result in the commonest gene change, Ebola's route into Kenya, and a lung-scarring drug that improved breathing.

Gaming

Gears of War: E-Day sold an estimated 230,000 copies in its first week, while 1.7 million people played it on Game Pass →

An analyst estimates that on Xbox, nearly 12 Game Pass members paid $30 for a five-day head start on Gears of War: E-Day for every one person who bought the game. Microsoft has not confirmed any figure.

Finance News

Trump sets up a committee of his own officials to decide whether he can fire Lisa Cook, a governor of the US central bank; her hearing is on 5 November →

All three members are Trump's own officials. Cook, who denies mortgage fraud and voted for September's rate rise, must answer their questions two days after the US elections.

Space

NASA asks companies to build the space stations that replace the ISS, and offers to arrange their first crew flights →

NASA's 360-page request sets 8 December for bids and puts a price on the rides to orbit, because SpaceX plans to retire the only US crew capsule flying today.

Mind & Body

A Danish ethics panel and Guinea-Bissau approve a US-funded trial that delays the hepatitis B vaccine for half of 14,000 newborns →

Half the babies would wait six weeks for a vaccine the WHO says every newborn should get at birth, and four members of the Danish committee resigned over the vote.

Climate & Energy

Europe's gas network operators warn of a shortfall of up to 15% of demand in a severe winter, with storage 72% full against 83% a year ago →

ENTSOG, the group that runs Europe's gas pipes, says a hard winter could leave the EU 12-15% short of gas, because the ships that replaced Russian pipeline gas are now squeezed by the Iran war.

Personal Money

E.ON Next completes its takeover of Ovo Energy, and three suppliers now serve almost three in four homes in Great Britain →

E.ON Next takes on Ovo's 4 million households after Britain's competition watchdog cleared the deal without a deeper look. Also today, a New York Fed study finds tariffs raised everyday US prices, and UK government borrowing costs hit a 19-year high.

Space

Amazon has built 1,000 satellites for its Leo internet network and plans to start selling service this year, but only 396 are in orbit because its rockets are late →

Amazon now builds 27 internet satellites a week, the first real rival to SpaceX's Starlink, but late rockets left it with 396 in orbit and cost it first claim on its airwaves.

Gaming

Xbox forms XP, a division for films, TV, toys and theme parks built on its games, while it keeps cutting game-making jobs →

Xbox put its films, merchandise, sponsor deals and theme parks under one new division the same week its US console sales hit their lowest August since 2020, and Italy opened a probe into how Activision Blizzard, an Xbox company, sells to children.

Finance News

SpaceX agrees to buy airwaves to run its own phone network, and AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile shares fall 5% to 8% after hours →

SpaceX is buying low-band airwave licences that let Starlink reach inside buildings, and the three big US phone companies lost value in trading after the market closed. Oil rose to $104, the US froze green cards at eight firms, and Britain's borrowing costs hit a 19-year high.

Sports

Major League Baseball proposes cutting its season from 162 to 154 games in 2029, and ties it to a salary cap the players refuse →

Baseball's owners offered a weekly day off and a longer playoff round, timed for the national TV deals that start in 2029. The players' union says every offer depends on a salary cap it will not accept.

Biotech & Longevity

Argenx's best-selling drug Vyvgart fails in Sjogren's disease, wiping 15% off its shares, while a celiac drug it bought passes a mid-stage trial →

An outside board stopped argenx's final trial of Vyvgart in Sjogren's disease a year early, and the shares fell 15% the same day its celiac drug FB102 passed a mid-stage test. Also today, Viatris agreed to buy the painkiller maker Pacira for $1.65 billion, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. opened an NIH clinic for vaccine injuries, and the first human test of cell reprogramming reported early safety results.

Mind & Body

England's mental health review says young people's distress is real, and help should no longer wait behind a diagnosis →

A 607-page review of mental health, ADHD and autism care in England found that distress has truly risen, that more than 800,000 people are waiting for an assessment, and that a diagnosis has become the only way to get help. It asks for help based on need instead.

World News

Trump says the US will not strike Iran before the 3 November midterms, as Iran's attacks on tankers spread beyond Hormuz →

Trump ruled out new US strikes on Iran until after the US vote, while Iran's forces hit two tankers outside the Strait of Hormuz and ship traffic through it fell to a two-month low. Ethiopian drones struck Eritrean troops in Tigray, a Russian bomb killed 30 at a bus stop in Kramatorsk, and Houthi missiles shut Riyadh's airport again.

Food & Farming

The US pays crop farmers a record $13.8 billion for 2025, because 16 crops sold below the price floors a July law raised →

Corn, soybeans, wheat, rice and 12 other crops fell under the floor price set in US law, so the US government pays the gap. Also today: PepsiCo raises chip prices, and trust in US food safety hits a record low.

Information Technology

OpenAI told investors its sales are running at about $50bn a year, not the $68bn reported last month, and shares in companies that build and rent AI computers fell →

The bigger figure counted sales made by OpenAI's partners. CoreWeave fell about 8% and Oracle about 6% on Thursday, and an Australian data-centre builder called off its share sale the next morning.

Cybersecurity

The FBI seizes the web addresses behind two hacking tools it says a Chinese company built, as seven governments warn →

The FBI cut off Microscan and FishHub, tools US officials say Integrity Tech used to scan and break into power, airport and university networks. Agencies in seven countries published how the hackers worked.

Personal Money

Kemi Badenoch says a Conservative government would end inheritance tax on family homes and let couples leave another 1m pounds tax-free →

Britain's Conservative leader promised to take the family home out of inheritance tax, a tax about 5 in 100 estates pay. The IFS says the biggest gains go to the most valuable homes.

Climate & Energy

Tropical Storm Isaias heads for the US Gulf Coast, on course to be the latest first Atlantic hurricane on record →

Isaias formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday and is expected to become a hurricane by Thursday, the latest first hurricane of an Atlantic season since reliable records began. It could reach the coast between Louisiana and Florida late Friday.

Food & Farming

US regulators open an inquiry into how farm machinery is sold and repaired, a day after the USDA widens a probe into seed prices →

The US competition regulator and the farm department asked farmers, mechanics and dealer staff to describe how tractors are sold and fixed, and machinery shares fell. On the same days, heat cut France's wine and Britain's grain, Japan raided its brewers, and fertiliser and diesel stayed dear.

Space

The US regulator lets SpaceX fly 15,000 Starlink satellites that connect straight to ordinary phones, and sets a 29 October vote on more airwaves for them →

The FCC approved SpaceX's plan for satellites that talk to normal smartphones and waived a rule that made it go through a phone company. Musk blames India's phone giants for blocking Starlink, SpaceX seeks $40bn for AI chips, Apollo software pioneer Margaret Hamilton dies at 90, and South Korea's Nuri rocket flies 15 satellites.

Finance News

Minutes show most US central bank officials expect another rate rise by year end, as 10-year US borrowing costs touch their highest since 2002 →

The US central bank raised rates in September for the first time since 2023, and most of its officials expect to do it again this year, though traders doubt it will come in October.

Gaming

Google opens Playground, a free site where people in the US make games by typing, and Unity builds its Spark tool for it →

Google's new Playground turns typed requests into games and shows them in its own gallery, while AI tools also let fans copy games their owners kept closed.

Biotech & Longevity

Caribou Biosciences, an early CRISPR company co-founded by Nobel winner Jennifer Doudna, stops all drug work because investors would not pay for its final trial →

Caribou's donor-cell cancer treatment matched two approved ones in an early trial and the FDA had agreed the final test, but no investor would fund it. Also today, a light-sensing gene therapy partly restored sight in six of ten blind people, a Dutch court blocked Merck's under-the-skin Keytruda in eight countries, and a new kind of Parkinson's pill passed its final trial.

Cybersecurity

The owner of MonsterCloud, a firm that promised ransomware victims their files back without paying the gangs, is charged with paying them in secret and charging up to 18 times more →

US prosecutors say Zohar Pinhasi's firm paid gangs more than $8 million for unlocking keys and charged hundreds of companies more than $19 million. He has pleaded not guilty.

World News

Russian missiles kill at least 24 across Ukraine, 18 of them in one block of flats in Pryluky →

Russia fired at least 50 missiles and 130 drones at Ukraine overnight on Putin's birthday. Most of the dead were in one block of flats in Pryluky, and Ukraine stopped only five of about 20 ballistic missiles.

Information Technology

Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra runs on Nvidia's first PC chip instead of Intel's, and Windows' Copilot will be able to open and use files on the PC →

Microsoft launched its first laptop built on Nvidia's RTX Spark chip, from $2,599, and gave its Copilot AI helper access to files on Windows PCs. Samsung expects a record $80bn quarter from scarce memory, four US states sued TP-Link, and SpaceX wants to borrow $40bn for Nvidia chips.

Sports

Jon Rahm tells LIV Golf's bankruptcy court he will not join LIV 2.0, and other players are expected to follow →

Golf's breakaway LIV tour lost its Saudi money and went bust. Its biggest star, Jon Rahm, says its new terms are unacceptable and is leaving, while a court lets LIV cancel the other players' contracts.

Mind & Body

Canada will keep people whose only illness is a mental illness out of assisted dying, with no end date →

Canada's government dropped a plan to open assisted dying to people with only a mental illness in March 2027, saying doctors cannot agree such an illness is beyond help; a gene therapy also restored some sight to blind patients.