Global and U.S. News

Iran has attacked at least 15 container ships in the Strait of Hormuz over the past ten days with drones, mines and, on Sunday, a rocket-propelled grenade fired from a small boat, the Guardian reports. One vessel carrying 2,500 containers sank after hitting a mine, and rumours of luxury cargo drew fishers to the wreckage until the Revolutionary Guards declared the goods state property. UKMTO counted 12 attacks in the week to October 16, and weekly transits are about 70 percent below pre-war levels; Brent crude neared $108 on Monday. Iran has offered to reopen the strait within six days in return for sanctions relief.

The High Court in Mombasa found Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and about 30 co-accused guilty of murder over the deaths of 190 children and one adult, members of his Good News International Church who were told to starve to reach heaven before the end of the world, the Guardian reports. Justice Diana Kavedza Mochache rejected his defence that he forced no one, finding that some children were isolated and denied food while their parents watched. More than 400 bodies have been recovered from Shakahola forest and only 26 identified; Mackenzie still faces terrorism charges and a separate case over 52 deaths at Kwa Binzaro.

Kenya's health director-general Patrick Amoth confirmed an eighth case of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, all traced to a man who fell ill in Congo, flew to Nairobi on October 3 and died two days later, the Guardian reports. About 108 people are in quarantine. The regional outbreak, the second-largest on record, has passed 9,000 cases and 4,300 deaths, and a Kenyan court has halted a U.S.-built quarantine centre for returning Americans at the Laikipia airbase pending a ruling in November.

Citizen Lab found high-confidence indicators that Rade Bajić, a prosecutor in the Serbian organised-crime unit that indicted senior officials over the planned $500m Trump hotel and tower in Belgrade, was targeted with advanced spyware such as Pegasus, the Guardian reports. Apple had warned Bajić in August of a mercenary attack on his iPhone; he says the case was the sole reason, though Citizen Lab has not identified the attacker. The disclosure comes five days before snap elections in which Aleksandar Vučić seeks to move from president to prime minister.

Students and other protesters fought riot police in Tirana for a seventh consecutive day, with 295 people injured, 186 of them police, before Monday's clashes, the BBC reports. Protesters demanding Prime Minister Edi Rama's resignation over university conditions and corruption have attacked a police station and government buildings, and police have used water cannon and tear gas. Rama, in power for 13 years, said the state would fall the moment it negotiated with the protesters.

Britain's unemployment rate fell to 4.7 percent in the three months to August from 4.9 percent, against forecasts of a rise to 5 percent, the Office for National Statistics said, as reported by the Guardian. Regular pay growth edged up to 3.7 percent while vacancies fell to 691,000, the lowest since 2021. The Bank of England is widely expected to raise rates at its next meeting, with inflation forecast to reach 3.4 percent, and chancellor John Healey presents his first budget next week.

Microsoft has ended a deal with Nscale, the British AI data-centre builder preparing to list, the Financial Times reports. The FT says the move exposes faultlines running through the fast-growing data-centre end of the AI sector.

Why it matters: A hyperscaler pulling back from a contracted builder is the demand risk the AI build-out's lenders and IPO buyers carry.

Depositions filed in federal court in March show TikTok safety staff repeatedly escalated evidence of child sexual exploitation and self-harm content, including to then-chief operating officer V Pappas, and were frustrated by the response, NPR reports. One internal investigation found children aged 13 to 15 in 112,000 Live videos in January 2022 alone and "significant revenue" from gifts on rule-breaking streams. Staff also flagged loopholes that let children reach the adult version of the app. TikTok declined to comment; it faces multi-district litigation alongside Meta, Google and Snap.

Tradeweb Markets agreed to buy Trumid, a fixed-income trading platform, for about $1.97 billion, the Wall Street Journal reports. The deal moves Tradeweb earlier in the credit lifecycle and into grey-market trading of new bond issues.

Temporary protected status for about 101,000 Ukrainians and 1,800 Sudanese was due to end on Monday, but the Department of Homeland Security said those covered "retain protection" until an announcement "at the appropriate time", the Guardian reports. DHS gave no end date and did not say whether work permits remain valid. The administration has ended TPS for more than a million people from 13 countries, and deferred a similar decision for about 200,000 Salvadorans last month.

Mahmoud Khalil, the recent Columbia graduate whose arrest by ICE made him the face of the administration's crackdown on pro-Palestinian protest, has asked the Supreme Court to stop his deportation, the New York Times reports.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill struck a deal with the Trump administration to keep its federal funding, the New York Times reports. It will pay no financial penalty but agreed to abide by the administration's views on diversity and other matters.

Volumes of credit default swaps linked to big technology groups have soared as investors seek protection against the AI boom unravelling, the Financial Times reports.

Why it matters: The derivatives market is pricing the risk in the debt that finances the AI build-out, the exposure the owner follows in this section.

Chipmakers and AI infrastructure companies slid in U.S. premarket trading on Tuesday as Brent crude rose back above $110 a barrel, the Wall Street Journal reports, with traders weighing persistent attacks on Hormuz shipping against signs of recovering Gulf output. Investors pulled back from risk again after Monday's rebound.

Shares in Elice, a South Korean data-centre start-up, fell as much as 36 percent in afternoon trading on their first day, the Wall Street Journal reports; the Financial Times put the drop at 32 percent. Both papers read the slide as a sign of rising investor caution toward AI valuations.

President Trump said he would be open to meeting Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and willing to discuss denuclearisation with them, the Wall Street Journal reports. The remark follows Putin's proposal of a three-way summit on Ukraine that would leave out Volodymyr Zelensky.

Victoria police charged Brendan Nugent, 43, with intentionally causing serious injury, dangerous driving and harming a Commonwealth public official after independent MP Helen Haines was struck by a LandCruiser outside her office in Wangaratta, the Guardian reports. Haines is in critical but stable condition after losing one leg, with surgeons trying to save the other. Police allege the attack was targeted and isolated; Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called it a deliberate act and said political temperatures had risen. Nugent appears in court on Wednesday.

Indonesia is expelling key stocks in an effort to fend off a downgrade by MSCI, the Financial Times reports. The index provider has repeatedly raised concerns about investability in south-east Asia's largest economy.

Myanmar's government released photos of the detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, 81, after officials handed her two gardening books, a sealed envelope and a diplomatic pouch from King Charles, the Guardian reports. She is serving multiple sentences under house arrest in Naypyidaw. Her son Kim Aris welcomed the gifts but warned against letting the regime use selective disclosures to gain legitimacy, as Min Aung Hlaing, installed as president after widely condemned elections, courts neighbours and holds talks with Washington.

With more than a million ballots counted, unofficial Elections Alberta results show about 77 percent voting to remain in Canada and 23 percent backing a process toward independence, NPR reports. The referendum would only have opened the way to a later, binding separation vote. Prime Minister Mark Carney said "Albertans chose Canada" and promised faster work on trade diversification and energy projects; Premier Danielle Smith, who called the vote under pressure from separatists in her own party, said Albertans had chosen a stronger province in a united country. Separatist organisers said a quarter of the province still wants better treatment, and one floated a new pro-independence party; official results are due on October 29.

Fourteen people died when a gold mine collapsed in Colombia, the New York Times reports. The Times says the mine is one of a growing number of small-scale, unlicensed operations in the country, driven by the metal's rising global price.

The Russian satellite Kosmos 2612 manoeuvred menacingly close to another craft in orbit before backing away, the New York Times reports. Analysts see the move as part of a pattern of Russian aggression in space.

A 13-year study shows the deep-sea animal communities devastated by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill have not recovered, Science reports, and how sensitive such life is to disturbance.

Researchers at Mass General Brigham report in Lancet Digital Health that tools trained on more than 40 million facial photos can estimate biological age and predict cancer survival from one picture, the Guardian reports. Radiotherapy patients the model judged five or more years older than their age had a 21 percent higher risk of death over about four years, and those judged five years younger a 17 percent lower risk. The authors say the aim is to support treatment decisions, and doctors caution that more research is needed before wide use.

Japan is months away from running out of the critical rare earth yttrium as China restricts supply, the Financial Times reports. Tokyo has asked Washington to help persuade Beijing to ease its chokehold and avert a shutdown of manufacturing.