Global and U.S. News

Britain's chancellor, John Healey, used his first budget on 28 October to announce the abolition of standing charges on gas bills, asking Ofgem to remove the fixed daily fee from 2027, The Guardian reports. The Treasury says about 23 million homes are affected and most households would save an average of £45 a year, with the cost shifted to unit rates so heavy users pay more. The budget also carries a means-tested package of more than £1 billion, adding about £100 to the Warm Home Discount, and approval of the Jackdaw gasfield.

Five EU countries plan to deport failed asylum seekers to Rwanda, potentially housing them in facilities Britain built for its abandoned deportation scheme, the Financial Times reports. Germany, Austria, Greece, Denmark and the Netherlands agreed in September to pursue "return hubs" outside the bloc, and an EU official told Reuters earlier this month that Rwanda was among the candidates; two MEPs who visited Kigali were shown a hotel and another site prepared under the British plan, though talks were then described as preliminary.

Supporters of the student-led movement that won Serbia's election on 25 October stormed the offices of a pro-government tabloid, and another outlet apologised for years of "one-sided" coverage, The New York Times reports, as the leaderless movement turns on the media that served Aleksandar Vučić.

Exchange-traded funds are using newly authorised perpetual-futures derivatives to offer bets on private AI companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI, the Financial Times reports. One example, Corgi Invest's MN ETF, which began trading on Cboe on 2 October, gets that exposure through cash-settled swaps priced off perpetual futures, capped at 15% of assets, and its own release warns that those reference prices can differ materially from the companies' actual value. The products widen retail exposure to the AI build-out before either company's shares trade.

Why it matters: It adds a new, thinly traded layer of public-market exposure to the private valuations financing the AI build-out.

The euro hit a 17-month low against the dollar as French political and fiscal risks reduced the chances of an ECB rate rise, and Danske Bank said the currency has room to weaken further, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Shares of Jio Platforms, India's largest telecom operator, jumped in their first day of trading after the company raised more than $3 billion in the country's biggest initial public offering, The Wall Street Journal reports. The size of the first-day gain was not available in readable coverage.

A strike vote by about 250 port watchmen could lead to a walkout starting Sunday at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the country's busiest container complex, just as retailers rush in the last of their holiday goods, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges, one of Wall Street's best-known law firms, has brought in Davis Polk and a bankruptcy lawyer to advise on its options after a marathon partners' meeting on Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reports; a second Journal piece says the firm cannot afford to keep losing partners.

Early results from Israel's 27 October election show Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc improving as votes were counted but still short of a 61-seat majority and of the seats his coalition now holds, The Wall Street Journal reports. The Financial Times reports Netanyahu urging rivals to join a Jewish coalition and shun Arab parties, whose voters turned out in record numbers, according to The New York Times; President Isaac Herzog must now choose who gets the first chance to form a government.

Gulf states are assembling a peace plan under which Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz within four days of sanctions being lifted and the Houthis would pull substantial forces back inside Yemen, The Guardian reports; Washington is holding out for more, and European diplomats say readmitting UN inspectors to Iran's bombed nuclear sites is the minimum Trump will accept, which Tehran has so far refused. The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. has warned Gulf governments of a possible short, intense renewal of the war after the midterm elections, with signs that American and Israeli forces are preparing strikes to force Iran to the table.

The Houthis said on 27 October that they struck Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura refinery in the Eastern Province with a ballistic missile, and oil prices rose on the attack, The Wall Street Journal reports. No Saudi confirmation of damage was available in readable coverage.

At a rally in Corpus Christi, Texas, Donald Trump showed off a tanker he said carried a million barrels of Venezuelan oil, supplied under a deal with the U.S.-backed interim government in Caracas that he said will cover billions of barrels "at zero cost to the American taxpayer," The Guardian reports. He said Venezuela could "maybe some day soon" become a "prosperous 51st state." No elections have been held in Venezuela since U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro in January.

Canada and the United Arab Emirates signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement on 27 October in the presence of Prime Minister Mark Carney and Abu Dhabi's crown prince, Al Jazeera reports. Once in force, expected in 2027, it will cut or remove tariffs on more than 99% of Canadian exports to the UAE; two-way trade was C$3.5 billion last year. The deal is part of Carney's pledge to double Canada's non-U.S. trade within a decade after U.S. tariffs.

A federal grand jury declined to indict Cassidy Hutchinson, the former White House aide whose testimony implicated Donald Trump in the January 6 Capitol attack, The New York Times and The Guardian report. The Times calls the rejection the latest extraordinary setback in the president's campaign against his opponents; the Justice Department had been seeking charges that she lied to Congress.

The Pentagon has told lawmakers the war with Iran cost $47.1 billion through 16 October, with bombs, missiles and other munitions accounting for more than 60% of the spending, The New York Times reports.

Federal judge Michael Seabright ruled on 27 October that Bill Essayli, the former Republican lawmaker leading the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, is unlawfully serving and disqualified him from overseeing two prosecutions whose defendants had challenged his authority, The Guardian reports. Essayli was never nominated or confirmed; after his interim term ended the administration kept him on as acting and then first assistant. The order does not take effect immediately, and the Justice Department plans to appeal; Essayli said the Supreme Court will settle the question.

China's elderly dependency ratio reached 23% of the working-age population in 2025, overtaking the child ratio of 22% for the first time, according to official data reported by the BBC. The National Bureau of Statistics counts more than 223 million people aged 65 and over, nearly 16% of the population, against about 213 million aged 14 and under. Demographers told the BBC the shift will pull public spending from schools toward pensions and health care and could weigh on growth.

Astronomers have probably found a new dwarf planet beyond Pluto, an object designated for now as 2026 ED138, among the first discoveries of the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, The New York Times reports.

IBM has connected quantum bits on two separate chips with superconducting cables, a key step toward building larger quantum computers from modules, though the link still needs improvement, Science reports.

Cyclone Arnab crossed India's east coast into Andhra Pradesh early on 28 October as a very severe cyclonic storm with winds of up to 135 km/h, felling trees across highways and cutting power, before weakening inland, Al Jazeera reports. At least 180,000 people were moved to shelters in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, more than 12 million live in its path, and forecasters warned of a storm surge up to 1.5 metres; flights, trains and schools were halted. No deaths had been reported.

King Charles III opened his first Caribbean tour as monarch in the Bahamas on 27 October, acknowledging the "great suffering of the past" as protesters called for reparations and the return of artefacts, the BBC reports. Buckingham Palace says he will not apologise for Britain's role in the slave trade or offer reparations. The nine-day tour moves to Guyana and then to Antigua and Barbuda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting of 56 countries, which will discuss the region's legacy of slavery.