Saudi Arabia and Yemen's Houthis bomb each other's oil, as an AI chatbot firm goes bust

World

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.

Finance

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.

Money

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.

Food

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.

Sports

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.

Tech

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.

Finance

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.

Climate

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.

Tech

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.

Mind & body

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.

Space

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.

World

Russia's draft budget for 2027 gives a record 44% of federal spending to defence and security, twice the share for social programmes.

Finance

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.