Global and U.S. News

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday that two oil tankers, each carrying about two million barrels of crude, caught fire after hitting naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, Al Jazeera reported, citing the state news agency IRNA, which said the ships had switched off their positioning systems and tried an unauthorized route. Iran has controlled the strait since the U.S.-Israeli war on it began in February and demands that ships seek its permission; the claim has not been independently verified. Separate attacks on tankers off Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Yemen were also reported, as traffic through the strait swings wildly from day to day.

Joseph Kabila, who ruled Congo until 2019 and was sentenced to death in absentia last year for treason, now leads the Front pour la Refondation de la Nation, a movement launched in rebel-held Goma on Monday that replaces the AFC-M23 alliance and calls for resistance to President Félix Tshisekedi "by all means, including force," Al Jazeera reported. The front says it assumes the alliance's commitments in the Qatar-hosted Doha talks, but residents and activists fear that both those talks and a U.S.-brokered deal between Congo and Rwanda will now yield agreements without peace.

With Israel's election on October 27 expected to leave no bloc near the 61 seats needed for a majority, Arab-led parties could hold the balance, but Benjamin Netanyahu and his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, have ruled out governing with them, the Associated Press reported. Mansour Abbas's Ra'am, which joined a coalition in 2021, is running separately from the Joint List, whose leader called the vote "existential." The AP's likeliest outcomes are a minority government backed from outside by Arab parties, or months of deadlock and another election with Netanyahu as caretaker.

People were killed and injured in an incident on Saturday afternoon that caused a major fire in a training area at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright in Alberta, Defence Minister David McGuinty said, without giving a toll or cause; he called the situation "very, very active and delicate," and the RCMP is investigating. Local health facilities were overwhelmed and patients were taken to Edmonton, 180 kilometres away, NPR reported. Winds pushed the fire beyond the base before it was held overnight; it closed two advance polling stations ahead of Monday's Alberta independence referendum.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who trails the hard-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro before Brazil's October 25 runoff after losing the first round by about 2.2 million votes, said on TV Globo that he now backs lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 16 for "heinous" crimes, the Guardian reported. He cited polling showing 80% support; the Bolsonaros want the age set at 14, and human-rights groups and the Catholic bishops' conference oppose such moves. Lula has also won congressional approval for a shorter working week and promised free weekend public transport.

Juan Francisco Solórzano Foppa, a former prosecutor who led Guatemala's tax authority from 2016 to 2018 and pursued powerful business figures, was shot dead with another man at a Guatemala City sports complex on Saturday, Al Jazeera reported. Police arrested two men. President Bernardo Arévalo condemned the "cowardly murder" and said those who ordered it must face the law; last year Solórzano Foppa had alleged links between the Barrio 18 gang, a political party and the courts.

More than 1,200 people were arrested and 150 police officers injured on Saturday as cost-of-living protests across France turned to arson and looting, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said; masked protesters set fire to Limoges's 143-year-old town hall, which the prefect said was largely lost, and Lyon's tourist office burned. In Paris, shops were looted along the Boulevard Magenta and the mayor said whole streets had been "devastated." President Macron promised prosecutions and the interior minister ruled out a state of emergency, while Jean-Luc Mélenchon accused the police of brutality and Marine Le Pen blamed the far left, the BBC reported.

Arizona has joined Nevada's legal challenge to the Interior Department's proposed restrictions on the Colorado River, Governor Katie Hobbs announced on Friday, saying "we are drawing a line in the sand." The cuts, announced this summer after the seven basin states missed several deadlines to agree, could reduce water to the lower-basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada over the next two years while sparing Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. Hobbs accused Washington of refusing to hold the upper basin to the deliveries it owes Arizona, as Lake Mead and Lake Powell sit near historic lows. California has not joined the suit, the Guardian reported.

A new round of anti-Trump "No Kings" demonstrations took place across the United States on Saturday, with organizers using them to urge supporters to vote early in the midterm elections on November 3, the New York Times reported. Its takeaways piece said the gatherings were more subdued than past events and that many prominent Democrats stayed away.

The Norte fire, which started on Friday in San Clemente and was driven by Santa Ana winds into San Juan Capistrano, had burned 570 acres and was 5% contained by Saturday morning, with about 6,000 homes and 16,000 residents under mandatory evacuation, the Guardian reported. At least six homes were destroyed or damaged and two firefighters were hospitalized. The fire is one of 13 burning across California; PG&E cut power to about 62,000 customers in the north of the state as a precaution against wind-sparked blazes.

America's roughly $10 trillion bet on AI infrastructure is starting to fray as it runs into the unforgiving economics of the physical world, the Financial Times reported in a Sunday analysis. It follows a week in which CoreWeave's bonds traded at distressed levels and chip stocks posted their longest losing streak since 2008.

Why it matters: The owner's standing interest: who carries the build-out's debt if demand slows.

Diesel prices remain stubbornly high despite efforts to boost global supplies, because inventories are sitting near historically low levels, the Wall Street Journal reported. Oil futures rose the same day after Ukraine renewed attacks on Russian refineries.

A cybersecurity incident at BAE Systems, which runs the federal judiciary's Bankruptcy Noticing Center, has stopped the production and delivery of notices for every U.S. bankruptcy court since October 9, CyberScoop reported, with no date set for restoration. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts first called it a cybersecurity incident on October 15; BAE says the breach is isolated to the noticing system. Courts are still accepting filings, but creditors who rely on the center's electronic notices may not be reached, and neither BAE nor the judiciary has said whether data was accessed.

The private-credit firm Blue Owl's founders have promised a comeback and executives have tried to reassure employees, but the stock remains about 67% below its January 2025 record, the Wall Street Journal reported. Blue Owl is among the larger financiers of data centres leased to the hyperscalers.

Why it matters: Private credit is one of the channels through which losses on the AI build-out would travel.

Nearly all the volume on ADI Predictstreet, the FIFA-linked prediction market backed by Abu Dhabi's royal family, is circular trading, the Wall Street Journal reported. The platform paid close to $150 million for advertising rights during the World Cup.

The Trump administration this month opened direct talks with Myanmar's regime and is discussing lifting sanctions, with a State Department intelligence official's visit to Naypyidaw focused on access to rare earths, according to a Guardian column by Steve Bloomfield. Min Aung Hlaing, who became president after elections the West called a sham, is also courting neighbours: Malaysia's prime minister has floated readmitting Myanmar to ASEAN. The civil war has killed about 100,000 people and displaced 5 million, by UN counts; the House has passed a bill extending U.S. sanctions for six years.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio will hold talks with India's foreign minister, S. Jaishankar, in Mumbai on Monday and then tour Reliance's Jamnagar refinery, without visiting New Delhi, Al Jazeera reported. The row began when the U.S. ambassador, Sergio Gor, said Washington "expected" Jaishankar to travel to Mumbai; Rahul Gandhi said Rubio had "summoned his employee." The visit comes with trade talks stalled after the U.S. cut its tariff on most Indian goods from 50% to 18% in February, and as President Trump moves to waive sanctions that would have penalized buyers of Russian oil such as India.

Tankers in Russia's sanctions-evading "shadow fleet" have begun broadcasting false locations that place them in two places at once, the Financial Times reported, in a method of deception that appears co-ordinated and suggests Moscow is tightening its control over the fleet.

A federal judge on October 13 temporarily barred the Agriculture Department from closing or consolidating Agricultural Research Service facilities, including the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland, and from relocating staff outside their commuting areas, finding the moves likely conflict with congressional limits on funds, WJLA reported. The wider reorganization affects about 2,600 employees. The relevant funding restrictions expire on December 11, leaving it to Congress to decide whether the pause continues.

PRIMA, a light-powered retinal implant paired with camera glasses from Science Corporation, has let more than 80% of patients with geographic atrophy read, do crosswords and use phones after training, MIT Technology Review reported. The 378-pixel chip is driven by near-infrared light beamed from the glasses and needs no battery. Approved in Europe in July and awaiting FDA clearance, it is the first treatment to restore sight for a condition affecting more than 5 million people.