week ending Oct 17

US inflation expectations are well anchored, Fed's Waller says  (Reuters) - The recent rise in US bond yields reflects stronger economic growth rather ​than higher inflation expectations, which remain "well anchored", Federal Reserve Governor ‌Christopher Waller said on Tuesday. Yields on 10-year US Treasury debt have climbed, opens new tab to 24-year highs in recent days, with analysts putting that down to concerns about war-driven inflation ​as well as ballooning government debt and massive investment in AI. Waller, ​a member of the Fed's Board of Governors, downplayed the role ⁠of inflation in the bond selloff, putting the emphasis on economic ​strength, AI spending and broader concerns about debt. "Inflation expectations are well anchored, ​so all of the build-up (in yields) is not coming from an inflation premium," Waller told a Bloomberg event in Mumbai. "That's not where it's coming from. So it is ​a factor of real growth." He also cited academic research suggesting US government ​debt had lost some of its status as a global safe-haven asset over the ‌past ⁠two years, reducing demand and potentially adding 50 to 70 basis points to yields. "That's another reason your rates are going to go up if you lose that convenience yield," Waller said. "And it's not a trivial sum. ​It could be ​like 50 to ⁠70 basis points." Waller said investment in AI, including the construction of data centres, was supporting demand in the ​economy and could continue to do so for another ​two or ⁠three years, while any meaningful productivity gains were still "a few years out". He also downplayed the role of Fed policy in driving long-term borrowing costs, saying ⁠changes ​in the overnight cost of money are "not ​driving the 10-year yield much". The Fed raised rates last month and Waller recently said further increases ​were likely.

US inflation heats up in September; Fed rate hike this month back on table (Reuters) - US consumer prices accelerated in September as the cost of gasoline surged, dealing another blow to President Donald Trump and his Republican Party ahead of the November 3 midterm elections and putting an interest rate increase later this month back on the radar. The Consumer Price Index report from the Labor Department on Wednesday showed a broadening of price pressures beyond energy, raising concerns among economists that underlying inflation could be getting sticky. There was also an AI-related boost to inflation last month. Financial markets now see the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision at its October 27-28 meeting as a closer call than before the data was released. The report added to surveys this month that showed a further deterioration in consumer sentiment and a plunge in Trump's approval rating, driven by angst over the rising cost of living. A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed about 78% of Americans blamed Trump's policies, including tariffs and the Middle East conflict, for rising prices, which are outpacing wages. "The inflation we're experiencing right now is largely the result of erratic policy from the executive branch," said Kyle Moore, chief economist at the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank. "Worse still, the directionless war in Iran continues to disrupt global supply chains. This administration has also been wholly unwilling to moderate the pace of the AI and data-center buildout." The CPI rose 0.6% last month after climbing 0.4% in August, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics said, in line with economists' expectations. In the 12 months through September, the CPI advanced 3.7% after rising 3.4% in August. A 9.1% surge in gasoline prices accounted for more than half of the increase in the CPI over the month. The US-Israeli war with Iran is driving up energy prices. Other motor fuels, which include diesel, soared 11.9% last month and were up 60.9% on a year-over-year basis. Diesel prices at the pump are at record highs, and there are fears that those costs will soon feed through to higher prices at the supermarket. Food prices were unchanged after gaining 0.1% in both July and August. Grocery store prices dipped 0.1% over the month as beef prices dropped 1.0% and the cost of dairy and related products eased 0.9%. Egg prices declined 1.3%. But prices for nonalcoholic beverages surged 0.9%, while fruits and vegetables cost 0.5% more, with banana prices shooting up 1.0%, in what could be early signs of rising trucking costs being passed on to consumers. Lettuce prices rebounded 3.9% as a cyclospora outbreak faded. Grocery prices rose 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. Average hourly earnings for all employees declined 0.7% in September from a year ago, after falling 0.3% in August, underscoring the squeeze on consumers in what economists call the bottom of a K-shaped economy. Economists said this data raised doubts about whether consumers could maintain their robust pace of spending. "While much of the lost purchasing power is due to rising energy costs, there is no reason to expect that to fade in the near term," said Eric Winograd, chief US economist at AllianceBernstein. "The bottom part of the K-shaped economy is losing ground, as anybody who has seen campaign ads on TV the last few weeks has heard." With the cost of living rising, the Social Security Administration announced a 3.6% cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits for 2027. The programs benefit nearly 72 million Americans, including retirees, the disabled and certain widows, widowers and children. Social Security retirement benefits will, on average, increase by $75 per month. Stocks on Wall Street fell. The dollar advanced versus a basket of currencies. Yields on US Treasury notes and bonds rose. Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the CPI rose 0.3% in September, matching the gain in August. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the so-called core CPI would increase 0.2%. The core CPI was lifted by a 0.4% advance in the cost of shelter, including hotel and motel rooms. Owners' equivalent rent, a measure of the amount homeowners would pay to rent or would earn from renting their property, rose 0.3%. Airline fares rose 1.2% amid higher jet fuel prices. Consumers paid more for gardening and lawn care services, likely reflecting worker shortages amid a crackdown on undocumented immigrants. The costs of recreation and education also rose, as did those of hospital and dental services. Overall services prices increased 0.4%. They were also up 0.4% excluding energy. Core goods prices rose 0.3%, pushed up by a 0.7% increase in the cost of used cars and trucks. Apparel prices climbed 0.3% and the cost of toys rebounded 4.2%, suggesting some lingering pass-through from tariffs. But prescription medication was cheaper. Prices for computers and peripherals jumped 1.3%, reflecting AI-related investment, while the cost of computer software and accessories rebounded 0.4%. In the 12 months through September, core CPI inflation was 2.6%, compared with 2.4% in August. The US central bank tracks the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index for its 2% inflation target. Financial markets raised the chances of a rate hike at the Fed's meeting this month to roughly 37% from about 22% prior to the release of the CPI report, CME Group's FedWatch Tool showed. The odds of a rate increase this month had diminished following underwhelming payroll gains in September as well as cooler-than-expected PCE inflation readings for July and August. The Fed in September raised its overnight benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to the 3.75%-4.00% range, its first hike in three years, and flagged further increases in borrowing costs in the months ahead. Most economists continue to expect the Fed will hold rates steady this month and raise them in December. Based on the CPI data, economists' estimates for core PCE inflation ranged from 0.3% to 0.4%, which would mean a year-over-year reading of 3.1%. Producer price data being released on Thursday could impact those estimates. Core PCE inflation was 0.2% in August and 3.0% on a year-over-year basis. "What is interesting is that the primary drivers of inflation are supply-side policies that are better addressed by the fiscal authority," said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM. "However, that is not going to happen anytime soon, which leaves the Fed to address a re-establishment of price stability."

"Flashing Red": Rate-Hike Odds, Bond Yields Explode Higher After Hotter-Than-Expected CPI - Expectations were for a hot headline and cool core heading into this morning's most-watched macro signal from CPI with the October FOMC decision on the line. FedSpeak has clearly pushed the market to back away from a hawkish view, today's data may force a change. Headline CPI did indeed come hot in September - but as expected - at +0.6% MoM, which pulls it up 3.7% YoY (hotter than the 3.6% YoY exp)...

• The index for gasoline rose 9.1% in September, accounting for over half of the monthly all items increase. The energy index increased 5.2% over the month following a 2.1% increase in August. Electricity CPI rose 0.2% over the month. In contrast, the natural gas index decreased 0.3% in September.
• The shelter index rose 0.4% in September after rising 0.3% in August.
• The index for food was unchanged in September, as the index for food away from home increased 0.2% and the index for food at home fell 0.1%. It increased 2.5% over the last year.
• Three of the six major grocery store food group indexes decreased in September, while the other three indexes increased. The meats, poultry, fish, and eggs index decreased 0.5% over the month, as the beef index fell 1.0%. The index for other food at home decreased 0.2 percent in September. The dairy and related products index decreased 0.9% over the month, as the milk index declined 2.0%.
• The energy index increased 20.4% YoY due in large part to the index for gasoline rising 34.2% over the same period. The natural gas index increased 5.0% YoY and the electricity index rose 4.4% YoY.

Core CPI also printed hotter than expected, up 0.3% MoM (+0.2% MoM exp). That has pulled Core CPI up 2.6% YoY (above the expected 2.5%)... Indexes that increased over the month include recreation, used cars and trucks, education, airline fares, medical care, and apparel. Conversely, the index for communication was among the small number of major indexes that decreased in September.

• Shelter CPI increased 0.4% MoM, after rising 0.3% in August.
• Index for owners’ equivalent rent rose 0.3% in September, and the index for rent increased 0.2%.
• Lodging away from home index rose 2.0% in September after rising 2.4% the previous month.Index for recreation increased 0.5% over the month after being unchanged in August.
• Used cars and trucks index rose 0.7% in September, and the education index increased 0.6%.
• New vehicles index, the personal care index, and the motor vehicle insurance index also increased over the month.
• Index for airline fares increased 1.2% in September, and the index for apparel rose 0.3%.
• The medical care index increased 0.1% in September after falling 0.2% in August. The index for hospital services rose 0.7% over the month.
• Prescription drugs index declined 1.2% in September.
• Index for physicians’ services was unchanged over the month.
• Communication CPI declined 0.2% in September after rising 2.3% in August.
• Index for household furnishings and operations was unchanged over the month.

Services was the big driver of Core's jump (with Shelter dominating)... Both Goods and Services price gains accelerated in September... But it was Energy that was the biggest driver of the jump... With Fuel Oil (Diesel) prices exploding higher... And that is only going to get worse! "This inflation report is flashing red for the Fed," according to Olu Sonola, Head of US Economics at Fitch Ratings. "Energy pushed the headline number higher, as expected, but the real problem is that core inflation remains stuck above 3%. Higher energy costs are beginning to seep into broader services prices, increasing the risk that this inflation burst will persist. A rate hike at the end of the month is now firmly on the table, but December remains the more likely move." We don’t know if these numbers will ultimately prove to be a game changer for the Fed, but they sure don’t fit the message we’ve heard recently from some policymakers saying they have time to assess how the data plays out. There does not appear to be any quirky one-off 'excusable' data-points (like last month's phone bill and information processing surge) for the doves to 'look through' which explains why October is now well and truly back on the table and December is a definite.

Fed's Warsh to look beyond interest rates over next 100 days - The Federal Reserve's new chair said he has been overly fixated on monetary policy during his first months in office, but that is about to change.

• Key insight: Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh said monetary policy has dominated his focus during his first months at the helm of the central bank, but he said that doesn't mean he's forgotten about the Fed's other duties.
• Expert quote: "The head of the Fed needs to be head of all parts of the Fed." —Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh said he plans to spend the next 100 days focusing on supervision, regulation, payments and other functions of the central bank.

Fed's Waller says higher U.S. yields could cool global demand — Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said the surge in long-term U.S. Treasury yields is helping to curb demand in interest-rate-sensitive sectors such as housing and automobiles, doing some of the work of tighter monetary policy. Federal Reserve Gov. Christopher Waller said Tuesday morning that the rising yields for long-dated U.S. Treasury bonds is reducing pressure on other long-dated assets like home mortgages and cars, complementing the Fed's efforts to reduce inflation.

US Government Sold $728 Billion of Treasuries this Week. Yields at the 3-Year, 10-Year, 30-Year Auctions Highest in 20+ Years, Demand Emerges. Short-Term Yields See Rate Hike - by Wolf Richter - The US government sold $728 billion of Treasury securities during the week, spread over eight auctions. Of them, $607 billion were Treasury bills with maturities from 4 weeks to 26 weeks, spread over six auctions. Four of these auctions were over $100 billion each. Most of these sales replaced maturing T-bills. The “investment rate” – which is the yield that is comparable to the yield of notes and bonds – on all of them was over 4%. And $121 billion of the auction sales were 3-year and 10-year Treasury notes and 30-year Treasury bonds. Yields at these three auctions blew through the yield ceiling in a big way, with yields higher than they’d been at auctions in over 20 years, which was what it took to sell all $121 billion of these notes and bonds. And at these higher yields, some more demand emerged, and the bond market settled down and breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t any worse. Treasury note and bond auctions this week: [table] The 3-year Treasury notes sold at auction on Tuesday at a yield of 4.932%, the highest auction yield since the 3-year auction in May 2006, and up from 4.474% at the prior auction a month ago. But in the secondary market, the 3-year yield had already traded at just over 5% in late September, and the day before the auction traded as high as 4.98%. After the auction and for the rest of the week, volatility continued, with yields ranging from 4.88% at the low end to 4.96% at the high end. And it closed the week at 4.92%. Since February, the 3-year yield has surged by 150 basis points, pricing in multiple rate hikes, in addition to the September rate hike: The 10-year Treasury note sold at auction on Wednesday at a yield of 5.30%. That’s what it took to sell all $39 billion of those notes. It was the highest auction yield since November 2000 when yields were declining because the Dotcom Bubble was in full implosion mode by that time, slowing down demand growth and employment growth, which would morph into a recession by March 2001. In the first half of 2000, the 10-year auction yields were in the 6.5% range. The fact that the auction wasn’t worse, that it wasn’t as ugly as the when-issued trading had expected it to be (I discussed the 10-year Treasury auction in detail here), calmed down the market. So, in the secondary market, the higher yield began to pull in some additional demand, and the yield began to edge down right after the auction and closed on Friday at 5.24%. The bond market was very ready to take a breather, after the harsh ride since late February, during which the 10-year yield soared by over 130 basis points at the time of the auction, and now by 125 basis points. Higher yields mean lower prices for existing bondholders who’d bought the notes some time ago at lower yields. That’s the bond bloodbath of rising yields: They crush existing holders. But higher yields are appealing to buyers, and pull in new buyers, and create new demand, and that’s what it took to sell those Treasuries, and that’s the fear of the market that the tsunami of supply of new Treasuries would require still higher yields to rope in new buyers, thereby crushing the buyers who’d just bought. The government deficits continue to pile up at a rate of about $2 trillion a year, and they have to be financed with new debt sales, and those new debt sales have to pull in new buyers. At the same time, AI companies are selling huge amounts of debt at much higher yields – the yield of the SpaceX 10-year notes traded at 7.20% on Friday, nearly 200 basis points higher, at a much higher risk, than 10-year Treasuries, and the government has to compete with those AI bonds. And through it all weaves inflation, which has refused to go back into the bottle. Inflation is the biggest threat that holders of Treasuries with long maturities face over the long term because inflation destroys the purchasing power of long-term investments, and the yield needs to be high enough to compensate them for inflation over the term of the security. Here we’re looking at the first six years of the current bond bear market (when yields rise, bond prices fall) that followed the 40-year bond bull market from 1981 through August 2020 (when yields fall, bond prices rise). The 30-year Treasury bonds sold at auction on Thursday at a yield of 5.618%, the highest auction yield since the auction in August 2000. That’s the yield it took to sell all $23 billion of bonds. But there were no 30-year bond auctions between August 2001 and 2005, as the government figured that the coming budget surpluses would obviate the need for the long-bond. By 2005, with deficits re-exploding left and right, the 30-year bond was reintroduced. So there was no auction yield during that four-year gap. And there was a period in 2002, when secondary market trading produced yields of 5.8%. In overnight trading before the auction, the 30-year yield was trading as high as 5.72%, and that was the yield that opened the mini-floodgates of demand, and as buyers piled in, the yield dropped sharply before the auction, and so the auction yield was a lot lower than hours earlier, and the bond market breathed another big sigh of relief. Sooner or later, higher yields bring out the demand. On Friday, the 30-year yield closed at 5.60%. Since the end of February, the 30-year yield has risen by 100 basis points. That range of yield in the secondary market is still the highest in 22 years, and over the past two days, it has brought out more buyers. Thirty years is a long time for stuff to go wrong; for inflation to spiral higher; for the fiscal condition of the federal government to spiral down to where even higher inflation is required to deal with it; for the private sector to start looking for a huge amount of capital to build the next big thing, like the AI bonds currently that the government has to compete with… All kinds of things can happen in 30 years, and investors want to be compensated with higher yields to take those risks. But there is vibrant disagreement among investors about how much risk there is, and these differences in opinions is what makes a market where buyers see deals while sellers want to get the heck out. But the Fed had killed those market dynamics with QE from 2008-2022. The Fed’s QE repressed long-term bond yields. The Fed’s mega-QE starting in March 2020, when it purchased $3 trillion of securities with newly printed money in three months, which repressed the 30-year yield to 1.0%. This interest rate repression recklessly created a generation of long-term securities that became toxic when yields began to rise. For example, in November 2020, the government sold a 30-year Treasury bond (CUSIP 912810SS8) at a yield of 1.68%. That bond has now lost more than half its market value. Here is a price of an official auction: As part of its buyback auctions, the Treasury Department, on October 8, bought back $2 billion at face value of this bond at 46.8 cents on the dollar, paying $936 million for $2 billion of bonds. Several regional banks, topped by SVB and First Republic, collapsed because they had loaded up on long-term bonds at those toxic yields. There was nothing more reckless that the Fed has ever done than the interest rate repression in 2020-2022.

Iran calls latest US response to proposal insufficient, and other Mideast developments -A senior Iranian official says Tehran finds the latest U.S. response to a proposal to end the war “insufficient" and warns of attacks on regional data centers and cables if fighting intensifies again.Meanwhile, Israel’s former attorney general took the witness stand in corruption cases against Benjamin Netanyahu, as the political future of the country's longest-serving prime minister hangs in the balance with elections weeks away. The head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council says Tehran finds the latest response from the United States “insufficient” as efforts at negotiations to end the war and fully open the Strait of Hormuz limp along. The comments by Mohsen Rezaei, a former Revolutionary Guard commander, were carried by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency.Rezaei added that Iran is no longer responding to the U.S. and said Washington must clarify certain issues, without giving details. He said the U.S. has accepted some of the seven conditions but others remain unclear.Iran’s delegation to the annual U.N. gathering of world leaders last month proposed a sped-up agreement that echoed the memorandum of understanding that collapsed days after the U.S. and Iran signed it in June. The new proposal was rejected, but the two sides have remained in contact via mediation. Rezaei also threatened “cables, data centers, AI facilities and other sites in the region” if intense fighting breaks out again. Meanwhile, the Guard's navy warned that any ship on the strait that turns off navigation and identification systems would be “identified as hostile," according to an IRNA report. Attacks on ships transiting the strait have increased since Iran's proposal was rejected. One attack was reported Sunday.Israel's former attorney general took the witness stand in Netanyahu's long-running corruption trial. Avichai Mandelblit indicted the prime minister seven years ago for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes. The charges were the first-ever against a sitting Israeli prime minister. Netanyahu was in the courtroom to hear Mandelblit testify. The prime minister handpicked Mandelblit, his former Cabinet secretary, for the attorney general job. His tenure ended in 2022. Netanyahu has been accused of offering or exchanging favors with wealthy associates and media moguls for political gain. He denies any wrongdoing. A projectile struck the same passenger terminal at the Riyadh international airport that was hit on Saturday. The airport had been closed after Saturday's attack, which killed 12 people, but Saudi authorities reported injuries in the latest attack.Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility for both attacks on King Khalid International Airport, which has been targeted every day since Wednesday. The latest strike in Riyadh came shortly after the Houthis said the airport in the rebel-held Yemeni capital of Sanaa had been struck again, and blamed the Saudis. On Sunday night the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV channel reported further strikes on Sanaa, blaming Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has not commented on the strikes. Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, the Houthis' military spokesperson, urged “everyone to take our warnings seriously" about the risks of flying in Saudi airspace. The attacks have marked a major escalation in the war between the Houthis and the kingdom, and complicated efforts to halt the U.S.-Iran war.Residents in central Gaza returned home to assess the damage caused by Israeli strikes after they had been warned to evacuate the day before.Bassam Abed said at least 10 residences housing some 300 families were reduced to rubble, and families were not given enough time to flee. “Women slept outdoors. We did not take clothes,” Abed said.One year after Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire deal, Israel continues to launch near-daily strikes.

US military disables ship attempting to bypass Strait of Hormuz blockade  -U.S. Central Command (Centcom) on Saturday said its forces disabled a ship that attempted to bypass the U.S. naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.Centcom released a statement saying that the commercial cargo vessel “ignored repeated warnings” before forces disabled it in the Gulf of Oman.“A U.S. military fighter jet struck the stern of Panama-flagged M/V Ocean Molica (also known as the ‘Arika Sun’) with a precision munition, fully disabling the ship’s propulsion without harming the crew,” Centcom stated. “The large cargo vessel was attempting to transit regional waters after having previously departed an Iranian port.”Centcom attached video of the strike that hit the stern of the ship.Four shipping vessels have been disabled and 135 ships have been turned around since the blockade resumed on July 14, according to Centcom. U.S. forces have also destroyed 10 tankers “linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ multibillion-dollar shadow network over the same period.”   “All mariners are advised to heed blockade warnings from Centcom forces,” the statement added.In a separate incident Saturday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy’s press office said a supertanker struck a mine while passing through the strait, the state-run Fars News Agency reported. Iranian officials warned the U.S. that if the conflict continues, “not even one drop of oil will be exported” out of the strait or elsewhere in the Persian Gulf, according to the state media. “A massive fire awaits any violating oil tanker that seeks to disregard the security and regulations of the Strait of Hormuz,” the IRGC warned. The conflict between the U.S. and Iran has stretched into its eighth month, with President Trump weighing his options for resuming strikes. Trump said Thursday that discussions with Iran have been “productive” and, after days of speculation, that he will not attack the regime before the November midterm elections.

US Bombs Commercial Ship as It Continues Enforcing Blockade of Iranian Ports - -US Central Command has announced that its forces bombed a commercial ship in the Gulf of Oman that it accused of attempting “to run” the US blockade of Iranian ports.“[CENTCOM] forces disabled a commercial cargo vessel in the Gulf of Oman, Oct. 10, after the ship’s crew ignored repeated warnings and attempted to run the ongoing naval blockade against Iran,” the US military command said in a statement that included a video of the bombing.Video of the strike released by CENTCOM. CENTCOM said that a US fighter jet carried out the strike against the Ocean Molica, a Panama-flagged cargo ship. “The large cargo vessel was attempting to transit regional waters after having previously departed an Iranian port,” the command said. The attack marked the first known US bombing of a commercial ship in the region since early September, when the US struck multiple Iranian tankers. The new strike comes as Iran has dramatically ramped up its attacks on shipping in or near the Strait of Hormuz over the past few weeks.Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Saturday that a supertanker was on fire after striking a mine as it attempted to cross the Strait of Hormuz. “A massive fire awaits any violating oil tanker that seeks to disregard the security and regulations of the Strait of Hormuz,” the IRGC said.The IRGC also said that its forces struck a liquefied petroleum gas tanker that it said was attempting to pass through an “illegal route” in the strait.The transport of oil out of the strait reached its highest level since the start of the war at the end of September, but the level has declined as Iran has ramped up its attacks.

Iranian Deputy FM Warns US of Wider Consequences of War (Tasnim) – Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi warned that if the US once again opts for military action against Iran, the consequences will extend beyond the region, stressing that the US must adapt to regional realities and pursue diplomatic solutions. In an interview with RIA Novosti, Gharibabadi said the situation is clear and that it is Washington that needs to adjust to the realities of the region and seek solutions based on diplomacy. He warned that repeating past mistakes by resorting to military scenarios and threats would lead to consequences that would reach well beyond the region, adding that the US must now decide which path to take. The Iranian deputy foreign minister said Tehran has always maintained a constructive approach toward diplomacy and negotiations, while remaining prepared for any possible scenario. Gharibabadi also said the US is aware of Iran’s demands and conditions for normalizing the situation surrounding the conflict that began in late February. He stated that once Washington fulfills those requirements, the Islamic Republic will be ready to take the necessary reciprocal steps.

Iran Defense Chief Warns US against ‘Playing with Fire’ - (Tasnim) – The Iranian caretaker defense minister warned US officials against using hostile rhetoric about Iran and its civilizational identity, saying attempts to turn historical and cultural differences into political and military confrontation amount to “playing with fire.” Reacting to “unwise remarks” by American officials about Iran and Persian civilization, Brigadier General Majid Ebn al-Reza said on Monday that those who speak about Iran with “hateful rhetoric full of resentment” either lack knowledge of history or have a flawed and incomplete understanding of strategic issues. “Such an understanding is a major mistake and an extremely dangerous miscalculation,” he said. The caretaker defense minister stressed that the greater danger lies not merely in the enemy’s audacity, but in efforts to make historical and cultural differences a basis for political and military confrontation around the world. “Civilizational confrontation is playing with fire,” he warned, adding that those who ignite such a conflict cannot determine the limits of its expansion or eventual end, nor can they confine its consequences to others. His remarks came amid reactions across Iran’s political spectrum to a speech by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Athens, where he invoked the ancient Greco-Persian Wars and cited the Persian conquest of Athens in 480 BC under King Xerxes I as an example of Western civilization overcoming an external enemy. Rubio also denounced Iran’s leadership in terms that drew sharp criticism in Tehran. Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaei and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf responded by recalling the capture of Roman Emperor Valerian by the forces of Persian King Shapur I in 260 AD. Rezaei warned that anyone invoking history must be prepared for its repetition, while Culture Minister Reza Salehi-Amiri urged Western politicians to address Iran with respect, describing it as a millennia-old civilization and a lasting reality in world history.

Trump Says 'We Might Have Gone Too Far' With Killing Iran's Leaders - President Trump said on Monday that the US and Israel “might have gone too far” with the killing of Iranian leaders, suggesting it was complicating negotiations with the Islamic Republic.Trump made the comments at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, while repeating his usual claims about the state of Iran. “They got no ships. They got no nothing. They got no leaders, even. That’s the problem. We might have gone too far with the leaders because we don’t know who the hell we’re dealing with anymore,” Trump said. “Nobody wants to be the president of Iran. They have roll calls. Who would like to be the president? Nobody. I don’t want it. We’re having a hard time figuring out who the hell to deal with, to be honest with you. I think we went too far. Could have stopped it at level one, level two. And level two and a half was probably going too far,” he added. Trump appeared to confuse the role of president with that of a supreme leader, since Masoud Pezeshkian has been Iran’s president since July 2024 and recently traveled to New York City for the UN General Assembly, where he delivered a defiant speech. Pezeshkian survived an Israeli strike during the 12-Day War in June 2025, but it doesn’t appear that he was targeted in the current conflict. The opening US and Israeli strikes did kill Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, along with several members of his family, including his 14-month-old granddaughter. His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has replaced him, though he has not made a public appearance since taking the role.

‘They know what will happen’: IRGC says US never dares put boots on ground in Iran --A senior commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the United States never dares to carry out a land invasion of Iran. Even the most hawkish officials in Washington know that such a scenario would lead to devastating consequences for the US military, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi said. Naqdi, who serves as a high-profile advisor to the IRGC chief commander, made the comments on Tuesday in response to speculations that the US would deploy troops to Iran months after its joint aerial aggression with Israel against the country failed for good. "I think that even in very private American meetings, there has been no discussion of a ground attack at all. They talk about this in media propaganda, but even in secret and in each other's ears, they have not spoken about a ground attack; because they know what will happen to them," Naqdi said. The commander made a comparison between a potential US invasion of Iran and similar ground operations in Iraq and Afghanistan which began two decades ago, cost the US some $7 trillion and ended in bitter failure. He said so many US service members will be captured in a potential ground attack on Iran that the Americans will have no option left but to surrender and raise the white flag after only 20 days. "Which calculating person would be willing to decide on a ground attack considering such an experience? The fate of a ground attack is the same." The veteran IRGC general said US warships have been wandering around in Persian Gulf waters since the start of the aggression on Iran in late February without being able to approach military bases and logistics hubs that are close to Iran. "They have been present in the Persian Gulf for 100 years, but since the start of the war they have fled and cannot come within a thousand kilometers because they know what might happen to them," he said.

‘Step into the field and see for yourself’: IRGC hits back at US claims of Hormuz control - The Navy chief of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has hit back at claims by the United States that the Strait of Hormuz is open and under Washington’s control, urging the US forces to move closer if they want to realize who controls the strategic waterway. In his first televised interview aired on Tuesday, Rear Admiral Ali Ozmaei said Iran exercises “smart control” over the Strait of Hormuz and requires vessels seeking to pass through the route to obtain authorization. “Today, the Americans claim that the Strait of Hormuz is open and they control it, but this claim is far away from the realities on the ground,” he said. “If they want to know whether the Strait of Hormuz is open or closed, they should step into the field and see who is in control of it.” The IRGC Navy commander also slammed the US military presence in the region, noting that American forces and their seven fleets had effectively become “fuel smugglers.” He said the United States’ $13 billion aircraft carrier had been rendered ineffective and was operating like a runway positioned 700 to 800 kilometers from the Strait of Hormuz. “The carrier is vulnerable and does not dare approach the strait and come within range of our fighters,” Ozmaei said. He said the IRGC Navy controls the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, while the Islamic Republic of Iran Army Navy oversees the Sea of Oman. He added that a blockade was continuing beyond the Sea of Oman, in the Arabian Sea, where the Army Navy was also monitoring developments. Explaining Iran’s approach to maritime control, Ozmaei said vessels intending to transit the Strait must obtain permission from Iranian forces. Ships traveling to or from Iran are granted authorization according to the prevailing conditions to use the Iranian waterway. He said Iranian forces had taken firm action against vessels violating maritime restrictions, slamming the United States and its partners for maintaining a media blackout to prevent the international public from learning about the measures taken against those ships. “We had to release footage of one or two of these vessels in recent days to show the extent of the humiliation the United States has suffered,” he said, adding that Iran would continue to deal firmly with violations. The commander said regional security could be maintained without a US military presence, and that cooperation among neighboring countries could safeguard the region’s economic, political and military security. “We can establish security in the region in cooperation with our neighbors, and we do not need the Americans.” “If we work together, security can be ensured in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.”

US war on Iran costs American households nearly $2,000 each, economy $265 billion - Eight months into the US war of aggression against Iran, American households are facing nearly $2,000 in additional costs per household, while the economic fallout is estimated to have cost the US economy $265 billion, says an economist. “Nearly $2,000. By my calculation, that is what the Iran war has cost the average American household since the war began nearly eight months ago. Nationwide, that adds up to $265 billion,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. The estimated cost is seven times the figure War Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Congress for the period from February 28, when the US and Israel launched their joint military aggression against Iran, through late July. Hegseth’s figure covers only the direct military costs of the war. For American households, however, the financial burden has been far greater, as the war’s wider effects across global markets, particularly oil markets, have driven up inflation and everyday expenses. Soaring energy prices account for the largest share of the financial burden, adding approximately $1,100 to each household’s expenses through higher fuel prices, home heating bills and transportation costs. “A gallon of regular goes for $4.37, up from just under $3 before the war,” Zandi wrote. “Diesel is above $6, and jet fuel has nearly doubled. As winter approaches, the much higher price of home heating fuel is also adding to the costs.” He noted that, at current prices, energy costs are continuing to rise by around $50 per household each week. Researchers at Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs are also tracking the war’s impact on American consumers through rising gasoline and diesel prices. According to their estimates, US consumers have paid an additional $133.3 billion since February 28, as gasoline prices have surged by more than 46% and diesel prices by over 70%. Higher gasoline prices account for $73.5 billion of the additional costs, while rising diesel prices have added another $59.8 billion, bringing the total extra burden to an estimated $1,017.76 per US household. Higher interest rates have added an estimated $540 to household costs, Zandi said, noting that fixed-rate mortgage rates have risen from below 6% before the war to around 7.5%. “Long-term rates are also up a lot,” he wrote. “By our reckoning, the higher rates have cost the economy about $540 per household.” Zandi also estimates that direct military operations have added another $360 per household, based on figures acknowledged by the Pentagon. Experts, however, warn that the actual military costs could exceed the Pentagon’s estimates, as the announced figures do not account for additional expenses related to repairs, maintenance and equipment replacement. Linda Bilmes, a war-budgeting expert and the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, said she was certain the cost of the war against Iran would reach $1 trillion. “Perhaps we have already racked up that amount,” she added. The mounting economic costs come as public opposition to the war against Iran and US President Donald Trump’s handling of it continues to grow. According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted from September 28 to October 4 among 5,062 US adults, 65% disapprove of Trump’s handling of the US military aggression against Iran. Support for the initial decision to use military force has also declined, with just 34% now saying it was the right decision, down four percentage points from March. Zandi said that, considering that “the war’s costs taken together have absorbed about half the average American household’s income gain over the past eight months,” it was “no wonder the war is so unpopular.” Meanwhile, Trump’s approval rating has also taken a hit, reaching a net rating of -23.5, an all-time low, according to Nate Silver. Seeking to justify the aggression against Iran, Trump has described its cost as “a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe.” As the rising cost of living threatens to weigh on Republicans in the November midterm elections, Trump promised last month to offer a $5,000 payout to every US adult if Republicans retain their majorities in both chambers of Congress.

Report: Pentagon Plans To Withhold Report on Minab School Massacre Past Midterms - - Bloomberg reported on Thursday that top Pentagon officials have expressed that they will withhold the release of an internal report on the US bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, southern Iran, which massacred at least 120 children, through the midterm elections. According to an earlier Bloomberg investigation into the attack, within hours of the strikes, Pentagon personnel were aware that the US was responsible, but the Trump administration has still not admitted to carrying out the attack.The new Bloomberg report said that advisors to US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have conveyed to other Pentagon personnel that the report on the massacre, which found flawed intelligence, outdated imagery, and an overreliance on AI contributed to the attack, will not be shared with the public before the November 3 elections. Officials said the investigation has been all but complete for several months.The exact toll in the bombing varies, with Bloomberg putting the number of children killed at 123, while the general prosecutor in Minab said in early April that the final death toll was 156, including 120 students — 73 boys, 47 girls — 26 female teachers, the unborn child of a pregnant teacher, seven parents, a school bus driver, and a technician at a nearby clinic.Drop Site News recently published an extensive report on the massacre from the perspective of the parents of the people who experienced it, including parents and relatives of children who were killed, children who survived, rescue workers, and teachers.The massacre is one of the worst US war crimes since the Vietnam War, and it came after Hegseth hollowed out mechanisms meant to reduce civilian harm. Last month, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced a resolution to impeach Hegseth that included an article about how the Pentagon chief ignored US laws meant to minimize civilian harm and tied it to the bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School.“The elementary school was struck after Secretary Hegseth sought to repeal congressionally mandated civilian-protection requirements, dismantled the Department’s civilian-harm mitigation infrastructure, removed the senior-most Judge Advocates General responsible for independent legal oversight, stripped civilian protection from the National Defense Strategy, and publicly denigrated legal restraints on military force as obstacles to ‘maximum lethality,'” the resolution reads.

Trump lifts sanctions on Russian diesel, suggests US may buy amid surging fuel prices -   The Trump administration moved Friday to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian diesel as President Donald Trump said Moscow had agreed to release large quantities of the fuel and suggested the U.S. could be a buyer.The surprise announcement is the Trump administration’s latest effort in its struggle to bring the record diesel prices — caused by the ongoing war against Iran as well as Ukrainian attacks against Russian refineries — under control ahead of the midterm elections. It also could signal weakening of Trump’s support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion, Democratic lawmakers said.In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he had just “concluded a highly successful discussion” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which Putin agreed to supply hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel fuel “to the American and Global Marketplace.” Russia would “immediately supply” the fuel “based on the condition of their Diesel Refineries,” Trump added.“Between our TOTAL CONTROL of the Strait of Hormuz, and this great announcement on Russian Energy, Diesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.Immediately after Trump’s post, the Treasury Department issued a general license allowing for the “sale, delivery, offloading, or importation, including importation into the United States” of Russian diesel through April 2027.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Trump of using peace talks in Florida between U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators as a “smokescreen” while the U.S. struck a deal with Russia.“It plays into Russia’s hands – allowing it to kill more, wage war for longer, have even less respect for America, and inflict even greater losses and damage on the world,” he said on X.The Trump administration has wrestled for weeks with how to handle record diesel prices that have angered farmers and truckers and driven up the price of goods across the economy. Diesel prices averaged $6.27 a gallon on Friday, down 10 cents from the week before but still $2.60 higher than they were last year, according to the American Automobile Association.Trump last week ruled out an export ban on diesel, instead securing a pledge by European allies to tap their diesel stockpiles, though those governments have since said the announcement largely amounted to preexisting commitments. Trump has previously criticized European allies for continuing to buy Russian oil that was helping to fund its continued campaign against Ukraine. Some European countries insisted the U.S. uphold its sanctions against Russia as a condition for the release, according to minutes from last Friday’s EU ambassadors meeting.Trump’s diesel deal with Russia comes less than a month after he signed the massive Russia sanctions legislation dedicated to the memory of Sen. Lindsey Graham and that allows for tariffs against buyers of Russian oil. The news that Trump would effectively ignore the legislation and possibly buy fuel from Russia directly raised alarm among top Democrats.Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) condemned Friday’s move as a “total betrayal of Ukraine, our European allies and American national security” in a joint statement.“After launching a war with Iran that has spiked gas and diesel prices for every American, the President is resorting to desperate ‘deals’ with a murderous dictator to attempt to clean up his own mess,” they said. “This is what failure looks like.”Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon, who has repeatedly disagreed with the administration on foreign policy and is not running for reelection, said the president’s deference to Putin was “embarrassing.”“The president has a moral blindness towards Putin,” he said. “Money shouldn’t trump morality.”Russia has restricted diesel exports in recent months as Ukraine has accelerated its attacks on its refineries, contributing to the global shortage of the fuel. It is unclear how Moscow will supply the quantities of the fuel promised by Trump with a large chunk of its refineries out of commission.Energy experts quickly expressed skepticism that the announcement would make a dent in diesel prices. Gregory Brew, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group, said Moscow’s immediate commitment amounts to less than 2% of the total U.S. output of 3.6 million barrels per day.“Beyond the fact that these numbers aren’t very big, this would indicate Russia is willing to end its ban on refined products exports...which I have a hard time seeing without a pause in Ukrainian attacks,” Brew wrote on X. The Kremlin has yet to comment publicly on Trump’s announcement. But Putin’s special presidential representative for investment and economic cooperation, Kirill Dmitriev, celebrated the move within minutes of Trump’s announcement Friday.“Russia-US energy and economic cooperation will continue and benefit global markets and the world,” Dmitriev posted on social media, adding emojis of the Russian and U.S. flags shaking hands.Trump has long called for an end to the fighting, most recently blaming Ukraine for its attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, which, along with the U.S. attacks against Iran, is one of the reasons diesel fuel prices have climbed to record highs. He said in September that the attacks, which have disabled nearly half of Russia’s refining capacity, were “hurting the world” by causing fuel shortages and high diesel prices.“Will the U.S. now pressure Ukraine to unilaterally cease attacks on Russian refineries? Logically it must,” said Daniel Fried, a former U.S. State Department coordinator for sanctions policy. “The damage from Trump’s Iran war keeps growing.”Trump’s announcement Friday comes as Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were expected to meet with Ukrainian representatives in Miami to discuss ideas for a new proposal to end the war in Ukraine. Earlier this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the war a “stalemate” and said a military solution would not likely end the conflict.   Kyiv and its allies on Capitol Hill had pushed the legislation, arguing it would give the White House the economic tools it needed to force the Kremlin to the negotiating table. But the bill’s critics had warned that Trump has a history of going soft on Moscow and could decide not to use the powers afforded to him against Russia.

US hopes diesel deal can 'soften' Moscow on peace talks, sources say (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's envoys told Ukrainian officials on Friday that a deal to allow Russian diesel exports is part of a ​bid to draw Russia back to negotiations after the failure of previous efforts to launch sustained talks to end the war, three people familiar with the meeting told Reuters. Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve ‌Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner told the Ukrainians in a meeting in Miami that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not prepared to negotiate an end to his 4 1/2-year-old war in Ukraine and that the deal announced last week could help restart trilateral talks, said two of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The third person said the US relayed to the Ukrainians that the diesel deal could help "soften" Moscow's position in part because it "sends a signal that Trump is open to do things" with Russia. That deal, under which Russia will supply more than 2.25 million barrels of ​diesel to US and global markets, has triggered a backlash from some US lawmakers, who say it will give Moscow cash to pursue its war without forcing Putin to make concessions to end the conflict. On Monday, ​Trump publicly defended the deal, calling it "the right choice for the American people." Trump says the agreement will lower US energy prices, which have become a political headache for his Republican Party ahead ⁠of pivotal midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. Trump also wanted the Ukrainians to stop striking Russian refineries, Kushner said in the meeting, reiterating that the administration had made that request several times, the two people said. Trump has said ​Ukraine’s attacks are increasing global fuel prices, but most experts say the war in Iran is the main driver of the high costs. “The idea was that the US could go back to Russia and say ‘See, the Ukrainians stopped striking and we gave you ​this deal. Now it’s your turn to do something,’” one of the people said. Trump on Sunday announced an energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine days after unveiling the diesel deal. The warring sides have not confirmed the ceasefire, though, and Russia struck energy targets inside Ukraine on Monday as Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected a Zelenskiy proposal for a full 60-day truce. A fresh sell-off in chip stocks is rattling global markets once again. The Russian Embassy in Washington and the presidential office in Kyiv did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A person close to the Kremlin said the diesel deal "is a way to bring Russia ​back" to the negotiations. One of the people familiar with the meeting said the diesel agreement is just one part of a larger conversation about how to bring Ukraine and Russia back to the negotiating table and end the war. The meeting ​also touched on security guarantees for Ukraine, the person said, without elaborating. Trump has repeatedly said Putin wants to reach a settlement to end the war — a claim he repeated on Saturday. Ukrainian and European officials have expressed doubts that the ‌Russian leader is ⁠willing to end the military campaign soon. The envoys' comment that Putin is not prepared to end his war suggests that Trump's view is not uniformly held within the administration. Some experts have said the diesel agreement will do little to lower prices in the US. The additional amount provided to the market will be less than a day's supply for the US transport sector alone. The Ukrainian officials attending the meeting were skeptical of the US approach, which they see as using business deals to appease Russia, the two people briefed and one person in the meeting said. The Trump administration has previously tried to entice Putin, including through sanctions relief proposals as well as potential mineral deals. Neither has substantially changed Russia’s core demands or persuaded it to accept ​a comprehensive ceasefire agreement. The person close to the Kremlin said ​Putin will only return to the table when "he gets ⁠the remaining 11% of Donbas, which he can present domestically as victory." Ukraine has said it will not hand any more territory to Russia, but that freezing the conflict on the existing battle lines could be the basis for a peace deal. NO THREAT TO WITHHOLD US SUPPORT FOR KYIV In the Miami meeting, Kushner and Witkoff stressed to the Ukrainian officials “all that the ​US has done for Ukraine,” one of the people said, including providing military and intelligence support to its forces. The Americans did not threaten to cut off that support if ​Ukraine did not agree to stop ⁠striking Russian refineries, the two people briefed and the person in the meeting said. The meeting in Miami, which also included European officials and virtual appearances by representatives from the World Bank, came after Witkoff and Kushner visited Moscow and Kyiv in September. Witkoff said then that the sides had created “new momentum” and that a new round of talks could soon begin. The World Bank declined to comment. Tensions between the US and Ukraine have spiked since the announcement of the US-Russia diesel deal. Zelenskiy called it a "weak decision" by the US ⁠and a “gift to ​Putin.” Trump said on Saturday that Zelenskiy “could have settled this war many times” and Ukrainians needed to “get a new president.” Part of the meeting in Miami, ​which spanned several hours, focused on reconstruction funds for Ukraine and a need for Kyiv to formalize plans for investment in the country, the people briefed on the meeting said. The Ukrainians left the meeting without agreeing to anything formally, but signaled that they would be willing to agree to an energy ​ceasefire so long as Russia did.

Zelensky unleashes on Trump as Russia diesel deal rallies Ukraine’s supporters  --   Kyiv’s allies, including those in President Trump’s circle, are rallying around Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, pushing back against Trump’s diesel deal with Russia and threats to cut off weapons and intelligence sharing to Ukraine.  Zelensky, buoyed by the support, has unleashed criticism against Trump, calling the president “weak” for making a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin. And he’s challenging Trump’s narrative over high diesel prices, pointing to the U.S. war with Iran as the main driver.   “Everybody understands that the prices of diesel, it doesn’t depend on our attacks on diesel in Russia,” Zelensky said in an interview on America’s Newsroom on Fox News, addressing Trump’s favorite news channel during the morning hours, when he’s reportedly most likely to be watching.  “Everybody understands that it depends on the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz.”  Zelensky’s indignation followed Trump’s announcement on Friday that he was lifting sanctions on Russian diesel exports in an effort to lower prices in the U.S. — promoting the deal as a salve before the midterms as American voters fret over the cost of living. Trump’s diesel deal drew immediate and wide-ranging pushback from Ukraine’s supporters. Fox News host Mark Levin, who has a direct line to the president, said Putin is the actual obstacle to achieving peace in Eastern Europe and highlighted the Kremlin’s support for Iran in its conflict against the U.S.   “Putin started the war. Putin has refused all peace deals with absurd demands or outright rejection. Putin has caused the death of 1 million or more,” Levin wrote Monday morning on the social platform X. “Putin has nuclear missiles aimed at our country. Putin is providing support to the Iranian regime.”  Levin echoed the view coming from other people Trump pays attention to, like Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, who threw down over the weekend with co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy — who is married to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy — as she backed Trump’s criticism of Zelensky. “It would be the biggest mistake of his administration to work with Russia,” Kilmeade said, speaking about the president.“That is the modern Hitler of our generation,” he added of Putin. “He is the cause of all the problems in the region, and now, is helping Iran kill our guys and blow up our bases.”Zelensky’s immediate, unsparing pushback triggered outrage from Trump. He repeated a call for Ukraine to hold elections, with Zelensky pushing back that Russia’s refusal to halt strikes against the country makes it impossible to hold a contest. Ukraine is also under martial law, making it illegal under the country’s constitution to hold an election. Zelensky’s pushback was echoed by Ukrainian opposition politician Kira Rudik, leader of the Golos party, underscoring the country’s unity on the global stage, despite domestic disagreements over the Ukrainian president’s leadership. “We are acting according to Ukrainian constitution, and it’s up to no other leader than Ukrainian people who and when we will be electing,” she said in an interview with Sky News. But Trump retaliated further by having U.S. officials over the weekend call European capitals and Kyiv, threatening to cut off intelligence sharing and weapons delivery through Europe if Ukraine refuses to stop striking Russian oil refineries. A European official confirmed to The Hill the pressure campaign, which was first reported by the Financial Times.The majority of U.S.-supplied weapons to Ukraine are provided through European purchases of American munitions under the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL). PURL-supplied weapons and U.S. intelligence sharing make it possible for Ukraine to hit Russia’s energy infrastructure and other high-value targets deep in the country — a strategy Zelensky defends as crucial in the face of Russia’s energy warfare against Ukraine. On Sunday, Trump announced a sudden energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, although the Kremlin has not confirmed it will abide by the agreement. Hours later, the Russian military continued firing at Ukrainian infrastructure, hitting a power plant in Kharkiv and a gas production facility. Ukraine was apparently caught off guard by the news, but Zelensky has said the country is willing to halt strikes when Russia does. “When we speak about energy ceasefire, it means only one thing, that they don’t attack our energy infrastructure, and we don’t respond on their energy infrastructure,” he said. “This is called energy ceasefire.” Russian strikes against Ukraine’s electricity grid, on top of other civilian infrastructure, is an effort to plunge the country into cold and darkness with winter fast approaching. Ukrainians endured Russian strikes the previous winter with ingenuity — filling hot water bottles to keep warm and adding extra blankets at home — on top of international and government assistance, providing generators and heating tents with charging stations for cellphones and electronics. Ukraine is warning that Russia is escalating that strategy this winter to break Ukraine’s resolve in its defense. With the full-scale war now in its fourth year, Ukraine has seized important battlefield gains over Russia, which led to key assistance from Trump.This includes the president’s offer over the summer to grant Ukraine rights to co-produce Patriot missile interceptors — key air defense munitions that have been depleted amid the U.S. war with Iran — and Trump’s greenlighting of the Russia sanctions bill, signing it into law in September.  But Putin is projecting Russian dominance on the battlefield over Ukraine in an effort to convince the Trump administration that Russia is in a strong position and that Ukraine must make concessions. Putin’s analysis of the battlefield is “so far from reality as to resemble hallucinations,” the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote in an analysis on Oct. 2, following a speech Putin gave at the Valdai Discussion Club the day before. The ISW called Putin’s claims “absurd” and part of a cognitive warfare strategy to falsely portray Russian advances sweeping across the battlefield. The ISW added that it cannot determine whether Putin actually believes his claims or is relying on false information from briefers who are incentivized to provide a positive report. A culture of lying is “deeply ingrained in the Russian military command structure,” the ISW wrote.

Bipartisan group of senators demands Trump kill Russian diesel deal - A bipartisan group of senators is calling on President Donald Trump to “immediately reverse course” on his decision to allow Russian diesel imports, accusing the administration of violating federal law and handing Moscow a financial lifeline as it wages war against Ukraine. “President Trump’s decision to allow Russian diesel imports to the U.S. runs directly counter to that law,” the senators said in a statement released Sunday, citing Congress’ 2022 ban on Russian energy imports. “The Administration has also failed to consult with Congress or submit any explanation to justify its decision as required by statute.” The rebuke includes four Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Thom Tillis (N.C.) and John Curtis (Utah) — along with Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.). Shaheen is the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Trump announced Friday that Russia would supply hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel fuel “to the American and Global Marketplace” following a discussion with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Treasury Department subsequently issued a general license allowing Russian diesel imports into the U.S. through April 2027. The move comes as Trump scrambles to try to bring down fuel prices ahead of the midterms, with the Iran war — now in its seventh month — contributing to the surge in costs. In September, the average price of diesel hit a record $6.53 per gallon, according to AAA. “The United States should not provide Putin with a financial lifeline while Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians,” the senators wrote. “The Administration must immediately reverse course.”Tillis, a Republican who frequently splits with the Trump administration, had already questioned the deal’s legality Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” pointing to the 2022 law’s conditions for lifting the import ban, including a full Russian withdrawal from Ukraine.“I do believe there’s a legitimate case for saying the president’s not following the law,” Tillis said. “We were very clear that Russia is the aggressor. Russia is the one who can end this war by backing out of territory they occupied.”The White House, responding to Tillis’ earlier criticism, pointed POLITICO to a Trump Truth Social post declaring “an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine.” The president provided no details or evidence that Moscow had agreed.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the senators’ joint statement.The diesel agreement also overshadowed talks between U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators in Miami on Friday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that easing sanctions without a lasting de-escalation agreement would signal weakness.

Prominent Republican senator says Trump's Russian diesel deal may be illegal (Reuters) - Republican US Senator Thom Tillis on Sunday said President Donald Trump's diesel supply ​deal with Russia may be illegal and will put American lives at risk, adding to bipartisan criticism of the arrangement announced by the president on Friday. Trump said that Russia had agreed to supply ​diesel to global markets, and his administration temporarily lifted US sanctions on Russian fuel that were designed to deprive Moscow of revenue for its ‌war on Ukraine. “I do believe there’s a legitimate case for saying the president’s not following the law,” Tillis, an influential Republican from North Carolina who is retiring from the Senate at the end of his term in January, told NBC's "Meet the Press" with Kristen Welker. Prices for diesel — used for agriculture, heating homes and trucking — are near record highs and could hurt Trump's fellow Republicans in next month's congressional elections that will determine whether they maintain their thin majorities in Congress. Analysts have said Trump's agreement with Moscow was unlikely to lead to sustained lower fuel prices. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Sunday that the Trump administration will follow through with the deal using existing legal authority, adding that the agreement was good for the American people and would bring prices down. "We're going to do it with all the legal authorities we have. So, you know, anyone in Congress who says whether it's an old bill or the current Lindsey Graham bill (that) prohibits us from doing it is wrong," Bessent told the "Fox & Friends" program. Trump last month signed a sweeping Russia ​sanctions bill into law, ​called the "Lindsey ⁠O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026," to honor ​the South Carolina Republican who died in ​July. Graham, a ⁠longtime ​Russia hawk, was a staunch ​backer of the legislation. Tillis is not the first Republican to criticize the deal. Retiring Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska said on X on Friday that "propping up (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war economy is morally wrong as he uses that money to bomb cities." Mike Pence, Trump's former vice president, called his decision to lift sanctions on Russian oil a "betrayal" of Graham’s legacy and urged the president to "rescind" it. "The president's actions and his comments over the last 24 hours are the exact opposite of the intent of that bill," Tillis said, adding, "I will guarantee you at the first opportunity Putin has to embarrass or undermine President Trump, he will." As Trump's poll numbers have cratered, congressional Republicans have increasingly distanced themselves from the president, on matters ranging from the conflict in Iran to the trade war with Canada. The Senate's No. 2 Republican, John Barrasso of Wyoming, defended the diesel deal on Sunday, telling CBS' "Face the Nation" that Trump is focused on bringing costs down for consumers, ranchers, farmers and truckers. "The president is balancing and has to make tough decisions," Barrasso said. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in a call on Sunday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made it clear that the US-Russia diesel deal "is in direct opposition to the efforts of Ukraine, Canada, and our allies to create peace and stability in Europe," his office said in a statement.

Republicans turn on Trump over Russia sanctions waiver - President Donald Trump is facing criticism from Republican lawmakers after waiving key measures in a Russia sanctions law he signed last month, with some warning the move could undermine pressure on Moscow. Trump signed an executive order Friday evening waiving key sanctions and tariffs intended to pressure Russia to end its war in Ukraine that began in February 2022. The decision drew criticism from lawmakers in both parties and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, while receiving praise from a senior Russian official. Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina called the decision “beyond irresponsible.” “What part of enforcing a law passed 86-11 by the Senate does the President and his advisors not understand?” Tillis wrote on X Saturday. “It’s unconscionable that this administration is capitulating to a Russian dictator who illegally invaded Ukraine and butchers innocent civilians every single day.” Representative Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, posted on X, “The President is prolonging the war, not ending it.” Named after the late GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the legislation was designed to increase pressure on Moscow by targeting Russian officials, banks and the network of tankers used to transport Russian oil and gas amid its ongoing war with Ukraine. Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, also slammed the decision, writing on X: “Lindsey would be appalled.” Republican Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, previously said in an exclusive interview with Newsweek that the proposal risks prolonging the war in Ukraine while doing little to lower fuel prices. The White House told Newsweek that Trump wants to see this “brutal war” come to an end and the act provides him with additional authorities to pursue a peaceful resolution. “Enforcing the sanctions provisions now would impede ongoing U.S. efforts to negotiate a durable and comprehensive peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement Saturday. “The President retains the ability to exercise these authorities at any time if he determines that doing so would advance national interests.” Patrick Casale, a senior adviser to Nevada GOP chairman Michael McDonald, told Newsweek that Trump’s decision is part of a broader effort to bring down fuel prices through measures including the recent diesel deal, while also seeking to end the war in Ukraine. “It’s funny how those Republicans will do anything in their power to hurt him,” Casale said, criticizing GOP lawmakers who have opposed the move. He suggested the decision could help push both sides toward negotiations. Perhaps this will “motivate Ukraine and Russia to sit down and end the war,” Casale said.

Trump announces 'energy ceasefire' between Russia, Ukraine - President Donald Trump on Sunday announced an “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine, “effective immediately,” saying both parties had assented to the arrangement. About an hour earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had urged President Donald Trump to push for an “energy ceasefire” in the Russia-Ukraine war, speaking to ABC’s Jonathan Karl on “This Week.” It was not immediately clear whether “both sides” had, in fact, agreed to a ceasefire. After Trump’s announcement, Zelenskyy posted on Facebook: “Ukraine supports the ceasefire, and it is important that Russia support it as well. We are awaiting details from the American side. For our part, Ukraine always FULLY supports steps toward de-escalation, the protection of lives, and the decisions needed to end the war and guarantee lasting peace.” Meanwhile, Russian state news agency TASS published a Russian-language story about Trump’s social media post, but did not include any statements on the subject from the Russian side. Zelenskyy said later Sunday that Russia struck the CHPP-5 power plant in Kharkiv after Trump’s announcement. Earlier in the day, Zelenskyy told Karl that Ukraine is “ready for energy ceasefire not to attack energy both sides.” “If the Russians want us not attack their diesel, their refineries and etc.,” he added, “we are asking President Trump, give them signal, not attack energy infrastructure of Ukraine.” Attacks on energy infrastructure have been a notable part of the 4-year-old war. “They attacked 196 times our energy sector,” Zelenskyy said of Russia. He claimed those attacks had killed 153 civilians. On Saturday, Trump escalated his criticism of Ukraine’s leader. “Zelenskyy could have settled this war many times. Many, many times. And he chooses not to,” Trump said.  He also said Ukraine was wrong to attack Russia’s energy facilities. “Don’t hit the refineries because that’s a world problem,” Trump said. Those remarks came days after Trump lifted sanctions on Russian diesel fuel. On Friday, Zelenskyy said Trump’s move to lift sanctions was a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “You know, it looks like a happy birthday present for Putin. It looks absolutely terrible,” he told Axios. Zelenskyy expanded on those remarks Sunday: “It gives Putin money and he spends money only on this war. Kill us. Kill our children.” Speaking to Karl, Zelenskyy also responded to Trump’s statement that Ukraine needs a “new leader who can make a deal” by saying it was up to the people of Ukraine to decide when to vote. Still, he suggested that if everyone really wanted Ukraine to hold elections, Russia would need to stop its attacks to make it possible to organize elections. “Tell Putin give us two months, 60 days,” Zelenskyy said.

Trump announces energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine - President Trump claimed Sunday an energy ceasefire deal has been reached between Russia and Ukraine, days after his administration announced a deal to acquire diesel from Russia while lifting sanctions.“Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday morning. “Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!”The president previously announced an energy ceasefire between both countries in mid-September. He wrote on Truth Social at the time that both countries agreed to not hit the other country’s energy infrastructure. Trump said the spike in diesel prices was due to the Russia-Ukraine war, not the U.S.-Israeli conflict in Iran.Trump announced this latest energy ceasefire deal after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with ABC News’s “This Week,” called for an energy ceasefire from both sides.“It’s fair deal. It’s not the best deal,” Zelesnky said. “The best deal not –– not to have a war to stop Putin. But the first step is ceasefire, energy ceasefire. OK, if they want energy ceasefire, we are open for this. Don’t attack us. Don’t kill our children. We will stop attack your diesel. And I think it’s fair, fair deal.”   Zelensky told Axios after Trump’s Sunday announcement that the energy ceasefire “was news for me. But if Russians agree to an energy ceasefire, Ukraine will agree.”  Zelensky later said he spoke with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte about Trump’s energy ceasefire announcement.“Ukraine supports the ceasefire, and it is important that Russia support it as well,” the Ukrainian president wrote on social media Sunday. “We are awaiting details from the American side. For our part, Ukraine always FULLY supports steps toward de-escalation, the protection of lives, and the decisions needed to end the war and guarantee lasting peace.”  An hour before Trump made his Friday announcement lifting sanctions on Russia, Zelensky said his negotiators were meeting with special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in Florida when Ukrainian negotiators said the president planned to speak with Putin, Axios reported.“It’s not honest, really, because we tried to build our relations in the best way,” Zelensky told the outlet. “It looks like that they used this opportunity to meet us from one side, and from the other side called Putin and negotiate this.”Ukrainian strikes have hit Russia’s oil refineries in response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, prompting the U.S. president to call for these attacks to stop amid a global fuel shortage stemming from the Russia-Ukraine war and the U.S.-Israeli conflict in Iran.Zelensky has slammed the diesel deal between the U.S. and Russia, which would permit Russia to supply 300,000 tons of diesel to the U.S. and the global marketplace. He called it a “birthday gift” to Putin to “kill us, kill our children.”Trump pushed back on Zelensky’s initial criticism of the deal, accusing his Ukrainian counterpart Saturday of wanting “to make problems for the world” and calling for Ukraine to elect a new president.  The deal comes less than a month before the midterm elections, where rising energy prices are dominating voters’ concerns. The Treasury Department said Friday that it would be lifting sanctions on Russian diesel to allow the fuel into the global marketplace. Russia has historically been a major diesel exporter. Last year, it shipped about 2.5 million tons per month, but it was estimated to be shipping around 1 million metric tons in June, Reuters reported. Facilitating the Russian diesel on the market comes as Trump faces an Oct. 18 deadline to decide whether to impose sanctions, as part of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act, targeting Russia’s energy industry or waive those authorities in the face of national security concerns.

Trump Again Claims That Russia and Ukraine Have Agreed to an Energy Ceasefire - President Trump on Sunday claimed that Russia and Ukraine agreed to halt attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure, repeating a claim he made nearly a month ago that turned out not to be true. “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.  Following the announcement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Axios that the energy truce was “news to me,” suggesting that Trump yet again announced an agreement that didn’t exist.  Later in the day, Zelensky said in his nightly address that he was ready to halt attacks on Russian energy infrastructure if Moscow was ready to do the same, though he made similar comments after Trump’s last announcement. “Ukraine is ready to refrain from striking Russian energy infrastructure – and we count on the same readiness from Russia, as well as on the agreement reached by the President of the United States on this matter. We welcome such an agreement,” Zelensky said. So far, Russia has not commented on Trump’s announcement, which came after he repeated criticism of Ukraine’s drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure. The Financial Times reported that the US is threatening to cut off European-funded US arms shipments to Ukraine if the strikes continue, but the attacks are supported by US intelligence and will likely continue unless that support is also cut off. The FT report said the US is also threatening to “cut off intelligence sharing,” but it remains unclear whether the Trump administration is willing to take that step.

Russia Declines To Comment on Trump's Claimed Energy Ceasefire, Rejects Zelensky Call for 60-Day Truce - -  The Kremlin on Monday declined to comment on President Trump’s claim that an agreement had been reached between Russia and Ukraine to halt strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of continuing to hit energy targets. According to Russia’s TASS news agency, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that he couldn’t comment on the “energy truce” issue at this point. “Communication is ongoing. As soon as we have something to say on the issue, we will certainly inform you,” he said.  In other comments, Peskov rejected Zelensky’s call for a 60-day ceasefire to hold elections in Ukraine, but said that Russian President Vladimir Putin was ready to order a halt to strikes on the day a vote would be held.Peskiv said that if Ukraine “truly wants to hold elections, then the Russian president, as supreme commander-in-chief, will be ready to order the army not to strike Ukraine on election day.”The Kremlin spokesman added that Russia doesn’t “need a ceasefire but a lasting peace that will endure for generations” and criticized Ukraine for launching a major drone attack during Russia’s parliamentary elections last month.Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also rejected the idea of a temporary ceasefire. “The goal is one and very simple: to bargain for time in order to secure a respite,” the Russian diplomat said, referring to Zelensky.“He said he was even ready to hold presidential elections if he was given two months to regain his strength. During that period, Europe would be able to supply him with new weapons to continue the terrorist war against the Russian people,” Lavrov added.Zelensky made the comments about a 60-day ceasefire for elections in response to President Trump suggesting that Ukraine needs a new leader to make a deal with Russia. Zelensky’s term expired in May 2024, but he has remained in power because no elections have been held, and he has continued to reject the growing calls within Ukraine to hold a vote.On Monday, Zelensky claimed that Russia struck gas production facilities in Ukraine. Russia’s Defense Ministry said that its forces had struck Ukrainian military transport infrastructure, drone production facilities, and troop positions over the previous 24 hours, but made no mention of strikes on energy infrastructure.

Trump Admin Floats Unfreezing Russian Assets In Big Move To Restart Talks -  President Trump appears to be busy rolling back years of entrenched Ukraine policy. Starting last week he announced the controversial diesel deal with Putin, and this week Ukraine's Zelensky is complaining that intelligence-sharing has been throttled, and possibly even cut off.  The possibility or even likelihood of this heading to another TACO moment aside, what's next? New reporting in the Financial Times gives an idea. The United States has floated a proposal that European countries unfreeze some of Russia's sovereign assets and deposit them in an entity controlled by Washington.The FT report cites four people familiar with the matter, who describe that the idea was formally presented by envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner during a meeting of Western allies and Ukraine in Miami on Oct.10."The US suggested several possible methods for unfreezing the assets, including for them to be moved into a new special-purpose financial vehicle overseen by Washington," the sources said.This US plan would be enacted in the hope of opening up momentum toward a comprehensive Ukraine peace plan. Moscow has of late rejected any 'temporary' proposal, including a 60-day pause in fighting recently offered by Zelensky. It wants a lasting political settlement and not a mere 'pause' along the front lines.At the Miami meeting were NATO representatives, as well as officials from the US, France, Germany, and the EU."Many ideas have been floated as to how Moscow's frozen assets could be used after the war, the US official added," the FT says.European officials are said to have balked at any initiative to let go of Russian assets. "They were told that this was just simply not going to happen," one source said. For example, Germany has voiced its clear position: "Those are assets that are frozen ​in Europe and they should remain frozen in Europe. ​This is our business and we are deciding over ⁠it," Merz said in Brussels ahead of an EU ​summit. At least €260 billion in sovereign assets belonging to Russia's central bank were frozen in 2022 as a result of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of that year. Most of this is held at the Belgian securities depository Euroclear. The vast majority, or over €210 billion of the sum, is held in the EU.The last couple years of war has seen the EU work out a scheme wherein payments are made to Ukraine utilizing interest gained from Russa's funds. Washington's sudden willingness to ease off the pressure on Moscow has interesting implications regarding the Iran war... President Trump said on October 13 that he did not believe Russia was helping Iran. This raises a question: is this information really being withheld from the US president?

Ukraine Attacks Two More Refineries After Trump's Proclaimed 'Energy Ceasefire': Kremlin -The Kremlin on Wednesday indicated that work on the Trump-proposed energy truce with Ukraine is continuing, but in contradiction with recent Trump proclamations did not treat it as any kind of done deal currently in effect. President Trump in a late in the day Monday exchange with reporters said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin must come together to end the war. He told the press at the White House that there had been violations of his proposed "energy ceasefire" by both Ukraine and Russia. Trump had previously stated that the warring sides agreed to an energy ceasefire, which Zelensky has balked at, saying specifics of when such a ceasefire is supposed begin must be shared with him. That's when Trump claimed: "Well, they agreed. You know why? Because I said: 'you agree.' That's why. They agreed because I said they agreed." More evidence has emerged Wednesday that this supposed 'agreement' is still being violated almost on a daily basis. The Kremlin has announced two more oil refineries have just been attacked by Ukrainian drones: Russia Deputy PM Novak says Ukraine attacked two refineries in Russia today; Ukraine are not showing any signs of moving towards an "energy truce". TASS has identified these as the Saratov and Ryazan refineries. These refineries have been targeted previously in the war, with Saratov in particular having suffered a full shutdown from damage in September 2025, during which time it was repaired. State media has been circulating the fresh reports: Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has meanwhile issued a fresh press briefing wherein he said the government is committed to resolving the Ukraine conflict but that "The risk of sabotage by European countries does exist." Ironically Europe is currently accusing Moscow of doing just this. "The US, specifically its negotiators and President Trump, is making efforts to help steer the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis toward peace," Peskov stated. But then he lashed out at the EU and NATO, saying: "Europeans are taking a different approach: they are doing everything they can to ensure that this war continues." "There’s a lot of media hype around all of this right now, and much of it doesn’t correspond to reality; it’s pure fiction." He was further quoted as saying: Work on the possibility of an "energy ceasefire" is continuing. But he also conceded: "There are no agreed-upon meetings on the agenda." Peskov hinted at the usual backchannels, however: "This work is ongoing discreetly and it will continue discreetly," he added. As for Ukraine's Zelensky, his first reaction to Trump earlier declaring an 'energy ceasefire' was to say it was "news to me" - strongly suggesting no such thing is in place. Both sides have continued to send wave after wave of devastating drone waves against the other, including against energy infrastructure.

Defiant Zelenskyy Resumes Russian Refinery Drone Strikes   A defiant President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Financial Times on Thursday morning that Ukrainian forces will resume attacks on Russian refineries. The move certainly seems more political than anything else. Such attacks have been described as one of the drivers behind the global refining crisis, which has collided with Strait of Hormuz disruptions. "The block [on attacking refineries] is out. We're done," Zelenskyy told the FT. He said Kiev had suspended energy strikes for three days at the Trump administration's request.Even before that, the Trump administration had requested many times that Kiev stop bombing Russian refineries, but Ukraine remained mostly defiant and ramped up those attacks leading up to the US midterm elections. One can only wonder whether the escalation was politically motivated, worsening the diesel crisis and translating into consumer pain at US pumps. Zelenskyy's new narrative is that the resumption of drone attacks on Russian refineries is a response to what he described as a "dangerous" cutoff of US intelligence sharing and the degradation of Starlink service.Trump has denied cutting off intelligence sharing. Elon Musk said the US government controls Starshield's speed and usage limits, the military satellite network built on Starlink technology. Zelenskyy's office said Thursday that it had lifted the speed restrictions.A growing rift is apparent between Zelenskyy and the Trump administration, as the Ukrainian president went on a media roadshow this week to push the narrative that he feels "betrayed" by Trump. Yet this should be seen as theatrics, a performative stunt by the former comedian who knows how to put on a good act before the US midterms. Last week, Trump said it was "time to get a new leader" after Zelenskyy ignored pleas to stop strikes on Russian refineries, one of the reasons why US diesel prices recently topped a national average of $6.50 a gallon. Musk has openly agreed, saying on X, "I agree, time for Ukraine to get a new leader."The breakdown in relations comes ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter. The International Energy Agency warned yesterday that the "gasoil market balance will remain tight well into 2027."Diesel prices in the US are back at their highs despite Trump's diesel deal with Moscow to add more barrels to the global market.

Ukraine Hits Russian Oil Refinery as Zelensky Says He's 'Done' With Trump's Energy Truce -- A Ukrainian drone attack hit an oil refinery inside Russia on Thursday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he was “done” with an energy ceasefire that was announced by President Trump on Sunday.While there was never any real truce agreement between the two sides, Ukraine did appear to refrain from hitting Russian refineries for a few days as its massive drone attacks inside Russia continued. “The block (on attacking refineries) is out. We’re done,” Zelensky told the Financial Times.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Russia didn’t perceive that Ukraine ever halted the attacks on energy targets. Russia has also continued to pummel energy infrastructure inside Ukraine following Trump’s announcement. Russian media reported that a Ukrainian drone attack on Thursday sparked a fire at an oil refinery in Russia’s Ryazan Region. The Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces shot down 166 Ukrainian drones over multiple Russian regions overnight.So far, there’s been no comment from President Trump or other US officials on Ukraine’s attack on a Russian oil refinery. The US has reportedly been threatening to cut intelligence and weapons shipments to Ukraine if the attacks don’t stop, though the strikes on refineries deep inside Russia are known to be supported by US intelligence and may not be possible without it.Zelensky said he believed a reduction in the capability of the military version of SpaceX’s Starlink, known as Starshield, that impacted Ukrainian drone operations this week was an intentional move by the US, not a technical issue, though the satellite systems have since been fully restored. “It was not a technical problem, it was the will,” he said.Russia is leaning into the idea of a split between Trump and Zelensky, with Peskov saying that Ukraine’s continued attacks on Russian energy targets are “coming into serious contradiction with the peace efforts of the United States and of the American negotiators who are indeed making very vigorous efforts to somehow initiate the peace process.”

Musk Suggests Trump is Behind Internet Outage in Ukraine – (news video) Russia launched a new round of punishing attacks on Ukraine as vital internet service in the war-torn country is being restored, according to a Ukrainian defense ministry source speaking anonymously. Ukrainian officials say restrictions from Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite network had caused some drones to lose their connection while flying. Musk is pushing back and pointing a finger at President Donald Trump for the outage. NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez reports for TODAY.

Diesel prices hold high despite efforts to boost global supplies -Diesel prices remain stubbornly high as inventories sit near historically low levels, despite efforts to ease pressure on refined-fuel markets through emergency stock releases or the easing of restrictions on Russian exports. Wholesale diesel benchmarks in the U.S. and Europe have more than doubled year to date. New York Harbor distillate crack spreads, a key measure of U.S. diesel refining margins, are holding above $100 a barrel, while ICE gasoil crack spreads, the European equivalent, have retreated from recent highs but remain elevated at $78.77 a barrel. The problem isn’t simply expensive crude, but a shortage of refined products. U.S. distillate inventories—which include diesel and heating oil—stood at about 102.6 million barrels in the week ended Oct. 9, according to the Energy Information Administration, down 12% from a year earlier. The shortfall was even more pronounced on the East Coast, where inventories were more than 22% lower than a year earlier. Diesel is a major input for trucking, agriculture, construction and industrial activity, meaning elevated prices can feed into freight charges and the cost of moving goods. U.S. retail prices were about $6.33 a gallon on Friday, down from a record $6.53 last month but still 73% higher than a year ago. Russia, one of the world’s largest exporters of refined products, restricted diesel exports this year following Ukrainian attacks on its refineries—a response to Moscow’s continued strikes on Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure—while disruptions to key Middle East shipping routes have further tightened the market. U.S. refineries have boosted their diesel exports, but they are running near capacity and are unable to make up for more of the global shortfall. Meanwhile, record freight rates, longer voyages and rising geopolitical risks are driving up the cost of moving crude and refined products between regions, leaving Europe particularly vulnerable as it heads into winter with low petroleum-product and natural-gas inventories. Soaring freight costs are eroding refinery profitability in Europe and Asia, despite elevated diesel crack spreads. According to the International Energy Agency, higher crude delivery weighed on margins outside North America in September, raising the risk that some refiners could cut output and further deepen the global squeeze. Additional supplies or a potential relief of sanctions on Russia might lower some cost pressures, but can’t quickly make up for lost supply to damaged refineries, depleted stocks and disrupted trade routes, according to market watchers. “Policy intervention can provide temporary relief, but there is no silver bullet for diesel,” analysts at Bank of America said. U.S. President Trump’s deal with Russia to temporarily resume diesel exports is unlikely to provide significant price relief, according to energy analysts and traders, who say the volumes involved are too small to ease the global supply squeeze. Trump said Russia had agreed to lift a self-imposed export ban and ship hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel into global markets, with the U.S. suspending sanctions on Russian energy exports for about six months to facilitate the deliveries. But the shipments amount to just over 100,000 barrels a day in October and about 125,000 barrels a day in November, compared with roughly 800,000 barrels a day that Russia exported last year. “It won’t be enough to bring down the price of diesel dramatically,” said Michelle Brouhard, head of policy and geopolitical risk at Kpler. The data provider estimates that the global diesel market faces a supply deficit of about 1 million barrels a day. Any relief from resumed exports or a potential easing of sanctions will also depend on whether Russian refineries can increase output without remaining vulnerable to Ukrainian strikes. “If Russia could export diesel, it would export diesel,” Brouhard said. “They’re having a hard time getting enough diesel just for their domestic consumption.” Other policy measures offer little more than temporary relief. Europe’s planned release of over 20 million barrels of diesel from emergency stocks through the IEA will bring additional supply to the market in the near term, helping to ease market tightness. However, it also reduces the buffer against future disruptions. In the U.S., tax cuts and regulatory relief could ease the burden on consumers, but also sustain demand and prolong tight market conditions. Restricting distillate exports could help replenish domestic inventories, though it would shift the supply squeeze to trading partners in Europe and Latin America. Inventory draws are projected to accelerate in October as seasonal demand rises and refineries undergo routine maintenance. The approaching Northern Hemisphere winter leaves the market with little margin for error: until refining output recovers, inventories rebuild and shipping risks ease, efforts to lower diesel prices are likely to face significant limits. “A warmer-than-normal winter across Northwest Europe and the U.S. Northeast would clearly provide some relief, particularly if heating demand remains contained,” BofA analysts said. “But the market has increasingly little protection if the weather turns colder.”

Whitmer Declares Energy Emergency, Eases Diesel Rules For Farmers - Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of energy emergency on Oct. 12, citing disruptions to global oil markets from the war in Iran and what she said was the nation's largest year-over-year rise in average gasoline prices in Michigan. The order allows certain farm and logging vehicles to use dyed diesel on public roads. In her emergency order, Whitmer said that Michigan's farmers and loggers are facing record-high diesel prices, slim margins, and sharp market swings, with some costs passed on to consumers. "These industries already purchase and maintain substantial supplies of dyed diesel for off-road equipment. Therefore, granting eligible highway-licensed vehicles temporary access to this fuel would provide immediate relief," she wrote. Her order suspends specific provisions of the Motor Fuel Tax Act that normally bar such use of dyed diesel. Armed conflicts have tightened crude oil supply, driving up prices for both diesel and regular gasoline. The hostilities with Iran, which began at the end of February, have slowed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the point through which about 25 percent of the seaborne oil trade used to flow, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Shortly after the conflict started in March, diesel prices saw their biggest one-week jump on record. Global diesel markets could remain tight well into next year, with resulting high prices driving inflation and hurting economic growth, as conflicts curb output from the Middle East and Russia, the agency said on Oct. 14. Combined diesel export losses from the Middle East and Russia totaled 1.3 million barrels per day in September, the agency said. The average pump price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the United States was $4.33 per gallon as of Oct. 14, according to the American Automobile Association. Diesel is much higher, at about $6.30 per gallon, reaching a record high of $6.52 at the end of last month. The emergency order ends when the governor determines the shortage no longer exists, but no later than Dec. 31. Willful interference with the order is a misdemeanor. Whitmer noted she had issued an earlier order in April that suspended Reid vapor-pressure requirements in gasoline and temporarily lowered consumer prices. She wrote that the federal government created the problem and can fix it.

For one grocery chain, the cost to ship lettuce now tops the lettuce itself, showing how high fuel prices are sinking their teeth across the economy -- The latest spike in fuel prices is harder to stomach than the one earlier this year as businesses and consumers have less capacity to absorb the shock, while fresh price data show inflation is spilling over beyond energy.

The IEA wants to empty its oil reserves faster. A federal watchdog says the US isn’t ready for what comes next - Governments are tapping their emergency oil faster than ever, and the room to keep doing so is shrinking. On Oct. 7, member governments of the International Energy Agency backed speeding up the oil stock releases they pledged under the agency’s March 2026 Collective Action, aiming to finish them as soon as possible. They also agreed to prioritize diesel, given how tight that market has become. According to Reuters, JPMorgan analysts read the move as an acceleration of barrels already promised, not a fresh intervention.The March action was historic on its own. In response to the Iran war and the disruption of tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, IEA members agreed to make 400 million barrels of oil available to the market. It was only the sixth collective action since the agency’s founding in 1974, and by far the largest.Seven months later, the buffer is visibly thinner. IEA governments still hold roughly 1.1 billion barrels of publicly held emergency stocks, including more than 200 million barrels of diesel, the agency says. In March, that figure was more than 1.2 billion barrels. Including company inventories, Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser estimated this week that more than 1 billion barrels have been pulled from stockpiles worldwide.The IEA’s move followed an Oct. 2 videoconference of G7 leaders convened by French President Emmanuel Macron. In a joint statement, leaders said they had agreed on coordinated measures to “stabilize immediate energy supplies, shield households and businesses from price shocks.”The core of the plan is a coordinated release of 100 million barrels through the IEA over four months, with a large share of diesel front-loaded into the first 20 days. The G7 also pledged to stagger refinery maintenance so plants don’t go offline at the same time. Members said they would push refiners to run harder where feasible and encourage countries with significant refining capacity to boost diesel output. They also reaffirmed that they would not restrict energy exports among themselves.Diesel is the pressure point. Damage to refineries and disrupted shipping from the wars in Iran and Ukraine have pushed diesel to record highs in many markets, feeding directly into trucking, farming, and freight costs. On Sunday, IEA executive director Fatih Birol wrote to member governments ahead of the agency’s Oct. 15 governing board meeting. He urged all of them, including those that have already completed their pledged releases, to consider whether more diesel needs to come out of storage.In the U.S., the strain is showing in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Trump administration began a 172-million-barrel emergency release in March as its share of the IEA effort. The SPR has since fallen to about 284 million barrels, its lowest level since 1982, and is on track to drop to roughly 243 million once the final barrels are delivered. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has warned that drawing the reserve down too far could damage the salt caverns where the oil is stored. That is a sharp reversal from the administration’s earlier pledge to refill the SPR “right to the top.” - A report from the Government Accountability Office, published in May and released publicly in June, suggests the problems run deeper than inventory levels. GAO found that DOE has released more than 500 million barrels of crude from the SPR since 1985, more than half for emergencies such as wars. Nearly 70% of all releases occurred between 2014 and 2025. Before this year, the largest drawdown on record was the 180-million-barrel emergency sale in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine. That pace has collided with aging infrastructure. GAO found that investment in the reserve isn’t keeping up with its needs, leaving a growing maintenance backlog. DOE itself has warned that aging equipment will increasingly limit the SPR’s ability to carry out fill or drawdown orders.The bigger gap, GAO argues, is strategic. DOE hasn’t completed a long-term review of the SPR since 2016, and Congress has never set a target size.“Without an updated long-term plan or target size for the SPR, DOE and Congress are making operational and investment decisions amidst uncertainty about what the SPR is capable of at present, what it should be capable of in the future to meet changing U.S. needs and obligations, and what investments and other actions may be required to bridge any gaps,” the report states.GAO urged Congress to require DOE to complete long-term SPR plans on a set timeline. It also recommended that DOE reassess the technical criteria governing how fast the reserve can be drawn down and refilled. DOE concurred with the recommendations.Under IEA rules, member countries must hold oil stocks equivalent to at least 90 days of net imports. Net exporters are exempt. Governments have wide latitude in how they meet that obligation, using some mix of government-held reserves, dedicated stockholding agencies, and stocks that industry is required to keep.The harder question is how and when those stocks get rebuilt. The G7 asked the IEA to deliver a follow-up report within 20 days with recommendations to improve future responses, including how to replenish stocks. IEA governments will review the situation again at the Oct. 15 governing board meeting.Refilling won’t be cheap or quick. Analysts have noted that governments rebuilding their reserves after the war, possibly to levels above where they stood before it, would create a new layer of oil demand on top of normal consumption. That could keep prices elevated long after the shooting stops.For now, governments are leaning on a cushion they’ve already worn thin. As the IEA put it, it stands ready to release more “if and when required.” The question is how much is left to give.

'Who is we?': Trump blasted for saying 'we're making a fortune' from high oil prices -Criticism descended on President Donald Trump on Wednesday after he claimed that the country is actually profiting from the high global price of oil caused by the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran. “I never say this, because, and watch, they’ll cut all of this stuff out, and they’ll leave the little sentence,” Trump said at a rally in Arizona on Wednesday. “Our country is making more money than it’s ever made because of the fact that oil is so high.”  Trump then claimed he “cared about the little person like crazy” but said, “we’re making a fortune.”  “But I never talk about it, because I’m not happy until we get the actual price of the oil down,” Trump said. The president then claimed gas was down to $1.85 per gallon, which it hasn’t been nationally since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when shutdowns drove global oil prices down.  While Trump is correct that oil companies saw record profits in 2026 thanks to the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, polling suggests many consumers don’t share in the president’s jubilation. The average price currently sits at $4.33 per gallon, while Brent crude, the global benchmark oil price, currently sits at $104 per barrel, up roughly 70% for the year.   Critics on social media were quick to mock Trump’s remarks: 

As US Backs Saudi War, US Embassy Says Americans Have Been Arrested in Saudi Arabia for Social Media Posts, Photographing Attacks - As the US is strongly supporting Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia has issued a warning to US citizens that Americans have been arrested inside the country for social media posts critical of the Saudi government and for taking photos of recent attacks.Arrests for social media posts inside Saudi Arabia aren’t a new development, as the US has been warning its citizens for years about the practice and the fact that some arrests have led to 45-year prison sentences. A 24-year-old Sri Lankan migrant worker is currently facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia for a Facebook comment the government deemed “blasphemous” despite him deleting it and apologizing.“Saudi authorities may detain you if they consider your social media posts or other online activity to be critical, offensive, or disruptive to the public order,” the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia said in a travel advisory issued on Monday. “Some US citizens have been arrested for past social media activity, including comments posted while outside of Saudi Arabia. This may include posting, re-posting, or liking comments critical of the Saudi government or its leaders and policies. This also may apply to comments about public life or religion in Saudi Arabia,” the advisory added.In a separate security alert, the Embassy noted that Americans have been detained over the policy concerning the current attacks the kingdom is facing from Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, in Yemen.“Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Interior continues to warn that ‘filming, publishing, or sharing information related to counter missiles and drones and their impact sites exposes you to legal liability.’ American citizens have been detained for taking photos of recent events. Visitors and residents are subject to local laws while in Saudi Arabia,” the Embassy said.In the travel advisory, the Embassy also noted that Americans in Saudi Arabia have faced exit bans that have lasted many years and that some have been detained in the country for years without charges. “You are subject to Saudi Arabia’s local laws when traveling in the country. The US government cannot guarantee your release if you are detained or arrested abroad,” the Embassy said.The warnings highlight the human rights situation inside Saudi Arabia, a close US ally, as supporters of the US war with Iran often present the conflict as a humanitarian intervention. Saudi Arabia is also killing scores of civilians in its bombing campaign in Yemen, which the US is supporting by providing intelligence and refueling Saudi warplanes.

Trump Says ‘Houthis Behaving Very Badly’ as Saudi Strikes Hit Oil Infrastructure in Yemen - President Trump on Tuesday said that Ansar Allah, which he refers to as the Houthis, is “behaving very badly,” as Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes on oil infrastructure in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and a Red Sea fuel port.“The Houthis are behaving very badly,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I thought they learned their lesson a year ago when we bombed the HELL out of them and, at their request, stopped.” The US president was referencing a bombing campaign he launched against Ansar Allah last year with the aim of ending attacks on Israeli-linked shipping. The US failed at that goal and ended the strikes with a US-Ansar Allah ceasefire, which remains in effect. Ansar Allah has warned that it would target US assets and shut the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to US shipping if Trump breaks the truce.Trump went on to accuse Ansar Allah of acting at the “behest” of Iran, and while the group is allied with Tehran, it also has its own interests in Yemen, and the current escalation was sparked by Saudi airstrikes on the Sanaa International Airport in July. “They’ve been silent for a long time, but now they’ve emerged again, probably at the behest of Iran, which is a Failing Nation, with No Navy, No Airforce, the World’s Worst Economy, and 301% Inflation, in a very nasty way, hitting Saudi Arabia, and purposefully trying to drive up Oil Prices, probably prior to the US Elections — NOT NICE,” Trump wrote. “Somebody should explain to them that I’m not running in the Elections, I’ve already won, IN A MASSIVE LANDSLIDE, but I’ll be there after the Elections, and I will never forget!” he added. While the US hasn’t launched direct airstrikes in Yemen during the current fighting, it is strongly backing Saudi Arabia’s bombing campaign by providing intelligence and refueling Saudi warplanes.Saudi airstrikes on Tuesday hit a fuel depot on the outskirts of Sanaa after Riyadh issued an evacuation order for the area. According to the Health Ministry within the Ansar Allah-led Yemeni government, strikes also hit Ras Isa, a fuel port and oil export hub in the Hodeidah province on the Red Sea. The ministry said that two civilians were killed and two were wounded by the Ras Isa attack. The US massacred 84 civilians at the same fuel port during its bombing campaign last year.Ahead of the Saudi strikes, Ansar Allah military spokesman Yahya Saree issued evacuation warnings for Saudi oil sites and the King Khalid Airport in Riyadh, saying that they would be hit if Saudi Arabia went ahead with the strikes on Yemeni oil infrastructure.   '”The Yemeni Armed Forces urge all citizens to immediately evacuate and stay away from the targets that our armed forces will strike should the Saudi enemy proceed with its announced attacks on the following locations: the Aramco headquarters in Dammam, King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, and the Aramco refinery in Riyadh,” Saree wrote on Telegram.

Trump says leakers should be shot after secret plans exposed -President Donald Trump has said leakers of sensitive data “should be shot.” The 80-year-old has sought to create a watertight administration after his first stab at the presidency was beset by leaks and whistleblowing. However, if Trump’s words are any indication, it hasn’t worked—and he’s frustrated. “Leakers should be, in my opinion, leakers should be shot,” Trump said at a campaign rally on Wednesday. The crowd in Bullhead City, Arizona, agreed. Cheers, shouts of “Yeah!” and scattered applause followed the president’s jaw-dropping statement. He continued, “They should be shot. In the old days, we used to shoot leakers, you know, when they leak what time you’re going to attack a country… leakers should be dealt with very, very strongly. To me, they’re the scum of the earth.” Trump appeared to be talking about a leak about the start time of Operation Midnight Hammer, the joint effort between the U.S. and Israel to hit Iran with a flurry of airstrikes in June 2025. “Somebody leaked, some sleazebag. They ought to go to jail or be shot. For the rest of their life, they should be in jail, but they leaked that we were leaving at 12:07 from Missouri, and it was in The New York Times, CNN.” He then turned his fire on journalists assembled at the rally. “Those same people up there, they’re almost as bad as a leaker, because they leak,” Trump said. “Oh, they leak false information. That makes them a leaker, right?” Perhaps the biggest leak to rock Trump 2.0, however, was of one of his Cabinet member’s making. Signalgate, which saw The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg added to a Signal chat comprised of senior Trump administration officials including Pete Hegseth, JD Vance, and Marco Rubio in which sensitive military information was exchanged in March last year, resulted in the departure of National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy Alex Wong from their roles. Waltz was the one who inadvertently added Goldberg to the chat, but Hegseth shared sensitive war plans regarding a strike in Yemen, according to an inspector general’s report on the scandal. Hegseth denied that claim but the full Signal chat later released by The Atlantic showed that the defense secretary shared exact times fighter jets would launch and when they would hit their targets.

Federal immigration lawyers face surging caseloads under Donald Trump, internal documents show   --- A push to force all migrants to await deportation from detention and other Trump administration immigration policies have pushed the number of cases to record highs for the Department of Justice (DOJ) branch that handles such litigation. The Hill recently obtained internal DOJ metrics showing staff levels have plummeted while the department is also handling unprecedented caseloads. But that dynamic was particularly pronounced in the civil division’s Office of Immigration Litigation (OIL), which has lost nearly 80 attorneys as workload has jumped 63 percent. There are multiple factors at play behind the surge. “I think there are two big drivers,” said Margy O’Herron, a former official in the deputy attorney general’s office during the Biden administration who oversaw immigration work. “OIL represents the government in cases where the Board [of Immigration Appeals] denies asylum,” she said, noting that grants of the protection are at a “historic low.” The other is the Trump administration’s decision to cut off bond hearings for migrants, prompting a wave of habeas petitions from migrants demanding the government justify why they are being held. “The habeas cases have grown significantly, because the administration has begun detaining people who have no criminal history, have been in the country for a long time, and would not have been detained under prior administrations. Now they’re holding them in immigration jails,” said O’Herron, now a senior fellow at the Brennan Center. There may also be another wave of new cases coming that would not be reflected in the data obtained by The Hill: the Trump administration’s effort to boost denaturalizations. The DOJ boasted Monday that it had filed 40 denaturalization cases, calling it “the largest volume of complaints submitted in a single period under the Trump administration,” from late August to early October. One former OIL attorney said staffers there have been given a goal to file 300 such cases. The DOJ did not respond to request for comment for this story. OIL’s staff fell from 320 attorneys at the start of the Trump administration down to 243 in August. Meanwhile, cases handled by the branch have climbed from roughly 7,700 to nearly 9,500. It’s not just OIL; the DOJ has been bleeding staff across its civil division as waves of attorneys have left the department. But the Trump administration’s interest in immigration has piled on the workload for the diminished crop of attorneys in that branch. The administration has also remade the immigration courts managed under the DOJ, including the Board of Immigration Appeals — firing and replacing many immigration judges in the system. Asylum grants have been declining for years, but they’ve plunged to new lows under President Trump. While grant rates dropped from about 50 percent to the low 30s under the Biden administration, just 5.5 percent of asylum applicants as of June received grants, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). Those who appeal their denials have their cases heard in the federal appeals court system, which is handled by OIL. “Because there’s so many denials, and there will be more, more cases are going to be appealed into federal court,” O’Herron said. But perhaps the biggest shift in casework has been due to the overwhelming number of migrants filing habeas petitions in an effort to leave detention while they fight their removal case in immigration court. Gregory Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the denial of bond hearings is “the most obvious reason for the surge.” Immigration courts for years had released migrants on bond as their cases were pending, but the Trump administration brought an end to such hearings — a policy set to be reviewed by the Supreme Court later this term. “Judges use a standard two-prong analysis, which is whether the person is a flight risk or poses a public safety threat,” Chen said, noting the costly alternative of detaining people, with nearly 70,000 migrants currently held in detention. “It’s just not humane or fair to be forcing people to go through multiple layers of expensive, costly litigation to try to get the opportunity to come before a judge and tell the judge that they shouldn’t be denied their freedom,” he continued. “American taxpayers should really be angry that the Trump administration has created essentially a multiple-tiered structure, giving people the runaround if they want to ask a judge to consider where they need to be detained, and that’s a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars.” In the early days of the Trump administration — March 2025 — just 105 people had filed habeas petitions to seek their release. But such cases have soared this year. Data from TRAC shows that in February and March 2026, the most recent data, more than 8,000 and 9,000 habeas cases were filed monthly. For the most part, migrants have been successful in court. A June analysis from Politico found that judges had sided with migrants on habeas cases more than 15,000 times but sided with the administration in just 2,200 cases. The same dynamic has played out as the policy has made its way through appeals courts. “Nine of 11 circuits have also ruled against the government, so it’s not a strong case for the government to bring. But I think they’re going to take their chances with the Supreme Court and hope that their interpretation gets upheld. If it does, it would really remake the way that immigration detention works in this country,” O’Herron said. “It would take huge numbers of people with no conviction, with strong ties to the United States, including citizen family members, citizen children, American employers, and put them in jail while they wait to challenge their cases.” Chen noted detention has been a tool for the Trump administration to pressure migrants to give up their case and agree to be deported. “This administration has effectively weaponized immigration detention as a way to intimidate and frighten people away from getting their fair day in court on their case,” he said. “Detaining people while they’re waiting for the case to be decided is a horrendously frightening thing for anybody because the conditions are harsh and often inhumane, and people suffer poor conditions as well as abuses in detention, and many people simply give up, even if they have a strong case for their legal relief to be able to stay in the United States, just because they’re too afraid to stay another day, another night in a detention cell.”

Trump's global health strategy has harmed HIV work in Uganda, Zimbabwe  -Two African countries saw major declines in HIV/AIDs prevention services after the United States abruptly froze foreign aid, according to an analysis published this month in The Lancet. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), created in 2003 under President George W. Bush, is the largest external funder of HIV services globally. Shortly after President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, his administration paused all existing foreign assistance awards, including PEPFAR, to reassess whether international aid was funding programs that aligned with the new "America First Global Health Strategy."The move was criticized for causing chaos and depriving vital HIV/AIDs prevention work of critical funding, and the Lancet analysis found the interruption indeed resulted in "severe, immediate, and sustained reductions in service delivery."The study used data from four non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Uganda and Zimbabwe that received PEPFAR funding for HIV services and work with high-risk populations, including men who have sex with men, female sex workers, transgender people, and those who inject drugs. Researchers found that the number of people receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) dropped by 31.5%. ART turns HIV from a fatal condition into a chronic one, and it prevents transmission, which benefits the health of the wider community.Overall, prevention services, including condom and lubricant distribution, decreased by 62.7%, and HIV testing fell by 63.8%. And among the three NGOs that provided data on use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a medication that greatly reduces the chance of getting HIV from sex or injection drug use, initiation and continuation of this treatment declined by 71.6%.The results were weighted by the number of ART clients each NGO served in 2024.  The US is resuming public health aid to some countries, including Uganda, through bilateral agreements that provide funding in exchange for things like mineral rights and patient data. Other governments, such as Zimbabwe’s, have turned down this money, saying the proposals violate national sovereignty. In countries that accept these agreements with the United States, there's concern that the most at-risk populations have lost services and are now further isolated, said lead author Henry Cust, PhD, a health economist specializing in HIV risk at the London School of Economics. For example, any homosexual activity in Uganda can result in life imprisonment and, in certain instances, even death. Similarly, in a host of countries that benefit from US public health aid, there are major social and legal barriers for transgender people as well as those who use drugs or do sex work."They are literally the most vulnerable people in the world," said Cust.  He warned that cutting these populations off from HIV care is not only problematic from an equity standpoint, but it might eventually affect the larger population, as people who use drugs, do sex work, or patronize sex workers have families and spouses.

Social Security COLA could be higher under proposed changes - The Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for 2027 has been set at 3.6 percent, the federal government announced today, but proposals to change how the annual increase is calculated could deliver larger adjustments in future years. The announcement, which will boost benefits by hundreds of dollars for millions of Americans, comes as lawmakers and advocacy groups push for using an inflation measure that better reflects older Americans’ expenses. Research from The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) suggests the change could add thousands of dollars to benefits across a retirement, although the outcome would depend on future inflation. Two proposals—the Boosting Benefits and COLAs for Seniors Act and the Social Security Expansion Act—would introduce the use of an inflation index for older consumers into the calculation. “The COLA adjustment will help. But it doesn’t fully account for the costs that Social Security beneficiaries face,” Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, said following the announcement. “That’s because the measure used to calculate it, the CPI-W, is designed to reflect the costs of working people — not retirees, who spend a higher percentage of their income on healthcare, housing, and other bare necessities.” As it stands, the COLA uses the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, known as CPI-W. It compares the index’s third-quarter average with the third-quarter average in the last year a COLA was determined. Democratic Representative Nikki Budzinski’s proposed Boosting Benefits and COLAs for Seniors Act, introduced in October 2025, would use either CPI-W or the Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers, known as CPI-E, whichever produces the higher adjustment. A companion bill for the Senate was introduced by Democrat Richard Blumenthal. That provision would protect beneficiaries against receiving a smaller increase in a year when CPI-E trails the CPI-W. The legislation would also require the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to publish an official older-consumer index, using its existing research version during the transition. Senator Kirstin Gillibrand, a cosponsor of the Senate version, said following today’s COLA announcement that it is “not enough to make up for skyrocketing costs for groceries, gas, heating, and healthcare in President Trump’s America” and said she is fighting to “protect and expand Social Security benefits long-term by changing the formula used to calculate COLAs to better account for the expenses that seniors face.” Independent Senator Bernie Sanders’ Social Security Expansion Act, introduced in February 2025, would replace the existing measure with CPI-E. His proposal is part of a package pushing for benefit increases and additional revenue for the program, including Social Security taxes on earnings above $250,000. TSCL’s October 2025 analysis estimated that an average person who retired in 1999 would have received nearly $5,000 more across a 25-year retirement had adjustments been calculated using CPI-E. For someone retiring in 2024, it projected just over $12,000 in additional benefits across 25 years, assuming long-term inflation patterns continued. The group used historical adjustments where available and average adjustments for future years, making the figure a modeled estimate rather than a guaranteed gain. The argument for changing the index rests on differences in household spending, as older Americans tend to devote larger shares of their budgets to medical care and shelter, categories whose prices have historically increased faster than many other expenses. The CPI-W measures the spending of certain workers, rather than the elderly, who are more likely to not work.

$20 Billion In Suspicious Biden-Era Climate Grants Remains Frozen As Trump Administration Eyes Supreme Court Fight - A $20 billion Biden-era climate grant program remains frozen despite a federal appeals court ruling against the Trump administration's efforts to cancel the funding. The case could wind up at the Supreme Court in a showdown over taxpayer spending and executive authority. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 6-4 on Aug. 4 that the Environmental Protection Agency likely violated federal law when it attempted to terminate grants authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act. However, the court subsequently agreed to keep the money frozen through Nov. 9 while the administration prepares a potential Supreme Court appeal. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin canceled the grants in March 2025, citing concerns about conflicts of interest and potential self-dealing among recipients. Climate United, the largest beneficiary, was awarded approximately $7 billion. Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, urged the Supreme Court to intervene. "The Biden administration rushed $20 billion in taxpayer money into the hands of politically connected organizations, creating what looks like a taxpayer-funded slush fund for its climate agenda," Isaac told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The grants were part of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, established to finance clean energy projects through nonprofit organizations. Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute, criticized the government's reliance on subsidies. "Resource-neutral permitting reform is superior to subsidies and grants because it advances energy projects without the government picking winners and losers," Fisher said. Environmental groups defended the program, arguing that withholding the money prevents investments that could reduce energy costs. The legal dispute also follows Congress' repeal of the provision establishing the program through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Kavanaugh’s ‘new circumstances’ could pave a path to gun restrictions - Gun control advocates have good reason to worry whenever the Supreme Court accepts a case for review. That goes double this term.  The court has two such cases on its docket — from Illinois and Connecticut — which have been consolidated for oral argument in December on “Whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.”  The outcome will determine whether the Constitution has become a homicide pact. Fortunately, there is a glimmer of hope. But first, the bad news.Gun rights groups are optimistic that the Supreme Court will find semiautomatic rifle bans unconstitutional. They have been on a nearly unbroken winning streak since 2008, when the court’s conservative majority held, in District of Columbia v. Heller, that the “Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm.”  Subsequent decisions extended gun rights, culminating in 2021 with New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which held that restrictions on individual firearms ownership are presumptively unconstitutional under the “plain text of the Second Amendment.”   The Republican supermajority explicitly rejected the longstanding approach of balancing government interests against individual rights, which has been used, for example, to evaluate freedom of speech claims under the First Amendment and unlawful search claims under the Fourth Amendment.Instead, Bruen adopted a “history and tradition” test, under which gun laws can be upheld only if they are consistent with the “nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” But this prevents appropriate restrictions on guns that are far more powerful than anything historically available to the public. So absent a sufficiently analogous restriction, enacted some time before the 20th century, gun regulations are invalid, even if they address the sort of “compelling governmental interests” that could justify limitations on other constitutional rights.The Supreme Court’s firearms jurisprudence rejects consideration of the underlying purposes of gun control in favor of a nearly impossible to meet historical test, no matter how compelling the reasons for the legislation. That brings us to the two laws currently before the court. On Dec. 14, 2012, a gunman entered the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, carrying a Bushmaster Model XM15-E2S rifle. Within five minutes, he fired 154 rounds, murdering 20 children and six adults, before killing himself with a handgun. In response to the massacre of school children, the Connecticut legislature passed An Act Concerning Gun Violence Prevention and Children’s Safety that prohibits the sale, transfer or possession of certain semiautomatic rifles. Highland Park, Illinois, suffered its own heartbreak on July 4, 2022, when a sniper used a semiautomatic rifle to attack attendees enjoying the Independence Day parade, leaving seven dead and dozens wounded, ages eight to 85. Within days, the commissioners in nearby Cook County passed a resolution reaffirming its 2006 ordinance restricting the sale, transfer or possession of assault-style weapons. That ordinance was already in litigation at the time and is now before the Supreme Court. Other semiautomatic rifle mass shootings in schools, churches and elsewhere are too many to detail, in locales both familiar and lesser known: Uvalde, Aurora, Parkland, El Paso, Nashville and others.That has surely seemed like a sufficiently compelling reason for legislatures to attempt constraints on the weapons empowering such carnage. The gun rights lobby sees it differently, banking on a strict application of the Supreme Court’s Bruen opinion, that “the Second Amendment does not permit … judges to assess the costs and benefits of firearms restrictions.” But all is not lost. The Supreme Court has already backed away from the most absurd consequences of the Bruen standard. In U.S. v. Rahimi, an 8-1 majority greatly relaxed the “history and tradition” requirement to avoid leaving guns in the hands of domestic abusers.  Perhaps common sense will also prevail in the assault weapons cases. If so, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, ordinarily quite friendly to gun rights, has already shown the way. In Trump v. Barbara, the birthright citizenship case, Kavanaugh authored a concurrence, opining that exceptions to constitutional rights can be expanded under “new circumstances” shaped by subsequent developments “largely unknown or unanticipated” at ratification.Although he was thinking of “significant illegal immigration” and the advent of air travel, Kavanaugh’s “unanticipated” developments analysis also maps neatly onto gun regulations. The proliferation of semiautomatic weapons has had far greater consequences for public safety than air travel has had for 14th Amendment citizenship. 

NextEra’s $4M Trump ballroom donation muddies Dominion merger debate, watchdogs say – NextEra Energy gave $4 million last year to support the construction of President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom, part of about $333 million donated by private contributors, The Washington Post reported Thursday. While NextEra’s donation to the East Wing renovation effort was made public last year, the dollar amount was revealed by the Post’s reporting on an internal spreadsheet that tracked 67 individuals and companies donating $10,000 or more, including others with power sector ties. NextEra did not respond to a request for comment on the donation, or why it was made. The timing of the gift was “convenient” for the company, according to Shelby Green, a researcher and communications manager with the Energy & Policy Institute. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is weighing NextEra’s bid to acquire Dominion Energy and potentially create the world’s largest regulated electric utility.NextEra’s donation cannot be recovered from ratepayers at the utility’s Florida Power & Light subsidiary, Green said. And, it was made more than six months before NextEra announced its bid for Dominion.Still, the donation has drawn concern as controversy around the proposed NextEra-Dominion merger has grown.“NextEra knows exactly what money buys,” Green told Utility Dive. The company has spent millions on Florida politics in recent years, “and I doubt NextEra is spending that money without expecting something in return,” she said.Tyson Slocum, director of energy at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said NextEra’s donation was “obviously very problematic.”He pointed to the company’s agreement with the Department of Energy to help develop a $100 billion energy hub in Paducah, Kentucky, as well as its pending acquisition of Dominion, which requires federal approvals and could be challenged by the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, which has recently shown an appetite for intervening in energy mergers. “Any CEO knows … that if you make a contribution to Trump’s most important vanity project, that he’s going to remember that and return the favor,” Slocum said. “It clouds everything that NextEra is seeking from the federal government in terms of project development, like Paducah, or regulatory approval for its attempted acquisition of Dominion.”A combined NextEra-Dominion entity would have 10 million customers in four states, a more than 130-GW large-load pipeline of projects and a rate base of $138 billion, according to the deal announcement. The merger must be approved by regulators in Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina, as well as by the federal government.Many Virginia state and local officials oppose the deal, and Gov. Abigail Spanberger, D, has called herself “skeptical.”Slocum called for Congress to investigate the donations, though he expressed doubt that would happen. He did not rule out that state officials or intervenors in the merger review could push for more transparency around the ballroom transactions, pointing to a recent Virginia State Corporation Commission ruling ordering the release of documents related to an investigation into NextEra’s alleged illegal political activity in Florida.  In June, the utility company agreed to pay $150 million to settle allegations that it lied about its involvement in political interference schemes in that state, according to a proposed settlement.“This is a brazenly and openly corrupt [Trump] administration where it is seen as standard operating procedure to provide financial contributions to either the president’s business interests or his family’s business interests or to his pet vanity projects in explicit return for favors,” Slocum said.Other donors to Trump’s ballroom project with financial interests in the power sector include BlackRock, which reportedly gave $5 million through its charitable fund, and Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder and CEO of Blackstone, who reportedly gave a $5 million personal donation. Neither company responded to requests for comment.BlackRock recently acquired Allete, the parent company of Minnesota Power, and is pursuing an acquisition of AES. It has stakes in other utilities as well, including NextEra, Duke Energy and Southern Company.Blackstone is partnering with PPL Corp. to build up to 14 GW of new power generation in Pennsylvania. It also owns a stake in Northern Indiana Public Service Company, and is pursuing an acquisition of TXNM Energy.The ballroom donations were made to the Trust for the National Mall, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit partner of the National Park Service dedicated to “restoring, enriching, and preserving the National Mall – America’s Front Yard – and President’s Park, including the White House grounds,” according to its website.

Judge screams at Trump officials for abruptly cutting down 500 trees in DC - A federal judge erupted at Trump administration officials Monday over the removal of hundreds of trees from a historic Washington, D.C., golf course, accusing the government of destroying its credibility with the court. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes repeatedly raised her voice during a hearing over work at East Potomac Golf Links, where the National Park Service has begun removing trees as part of the administration’s renovation plans. Reyes, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, said she had repeatedly instructed the government to notify her before major demolition work proceeded. The removal of more than 500 trees without adequate notice “has cost the government all of its credibility” in the case, Reyes said, per multiple accounts from those at the hearing who said Reyes raised her voice and become visibly frustrated. “I trusted you all not to do precisely what you have done,” Reyes said, adding that she was “at a total loss” to understand the government’s actions. An attorney for the government said the administration had done its best to comply with Reyes’ previous orders to notify those involved before trees were felled. “No you did not do your best. You did your absolute worst,” Reyes responded, according to the Washington Sun. When Justice Department attorneys said they had not known the details of the tree-cutting plan, Reyes responded: “Ignorance is not an excuse.” Reyes ordered tree removal halted through at least 7 a.m. Tuesday, warning: “If that order is violated by two seconds, there are going to be contempt proceedings.” Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement shared with Newsweek on Monday morning: “This is a tactic we’re seen before from the Trump-Vance administration—act quickly to irrevocably alter a cherished national landmark, just to advance another one of President Donald Trump’s pet vanity projects.” Perryman said the plaintiffs were asking the court to act quickly “before further unnecessary damage is done to a jewel of our national park system.” The dispute centers on the Trump administration’s plans to renovate the 106-year-old public course into a championship-level golf venue. The course in southwest Washington is seen as one of the most historically significant in the U.S. The site has civil rights significance, with Black golfers having challenged segregation there in 1941, prompting then-Interior Secretary Harold Ickes to order the course open to all players. Under the current administration, the facilities at East Potomac are set to undergo a major redevelopment, as part of the wider refurbishment and redevelopment of the core of the country’s capital at Trump’s direction. The government has said it is implementing recommendations made in a 2019 NPS report, which would require the removal of several hundred trees, in order to create a championship-style venue. “The National Park Service is finally implementing a 7-year-old plan to address tree overgrowth at East Potomac Golf Course,” a U.S. Department of the Interior spokesperson told Newsweek on Monday. “The work will include selective tree and vegetation work to restore the course. Guided by the 2019 Cultural Landscape Report, the work will help restore the course’s historic character and reopen views toward landmarks, including the Washington Monument, National War College, Potomac River and Washington Channel. “Cultural Landscape Reports are planning tools for NPS staff that document historic resources that are important to preserve and the steps to care for them. NPS recognizes the importance of trees to the park and its visitors. This carefully planned work is part of our required stewardship of the park.” The project received pushback and a legal challenge from individual golfers and the DC Preservation League, who said the government is unlawfully transforming the park without complying with federal environmental and historic preservation laws. The plaintiffs have argued that East Potomac is more than a golf course, saying it is part of a National Register-listed historic district, is a major public recreational space, and its transformation into a different type of venue will alter the historic landscape and make the course less affordable. On October 9, the latest issue arose when the government notified the court that it intended to conduct restoration work that included tree removal. Two days later, plaintiffs said 529 trees had been felled, causing irreversible harm to the historic landscape. The government argued in court filings that the latest work was separate from the original challenge to the wider redevelopment of East Potomac. When questioned by Reyes and the attorney for the plaintiffs on Monday morning, a National Park Service supervisor said the plan was part of an effort to restore the park to its initial form.

Judge threatens to sanction Trump after he backs out of deposition in $10 billion BBC case –-A federal magistrate judge threatened Friday to levy sanctions against President Donald Trump for failing to “participate” in his own defamation lawsuit against the BBC, after the broadcaster informed the court that Trump had backed out of a planned deposition in the case and suggested he couldn’t be interviewed until next year. Magistrate Judge Enjolique A. Lett issued an order Friday directing Trump to file a response to the BBC regarding his deposition by Oct. 22, noting the court had already “admonished” the president for his “lack of participation” in the case “to no avail.” Failing to “strict[ly]” comply with the court’s schedule for discovery in the case, Lett wrote Friday, “will lead to sanctions.” Trump has sued the BBC for $10 billion, claiming the broadcaster allegedly defamed him by “deceptively” editing a video of the president’s speech on Jan. 6, 2021 for a 2024 documentary, in order to falsely suggest Trump was trying to incite violence on Jan. 6 and bias viewers against him in the 2024 election. As part of discovery in the lawsuit—where both sides gather evidence to support their case—the BBC is trying to get a deposition from Trump, which it said in a filing Tuesday was supposed to take place Friday. After first failing to coordinate with the BBC about the logistics for the deposition, Trump’s lawyers told the broadcaster the president wouldn’t be able to attend the deposition because of “other matters of national importance,” and wouldn’t be available to testify until January 2027 at the earliest—despite discovery in the case being scheduled to end in December. Trump’s legal team did not directly respond to the threat of sanctions or the BBC’s request for the court to force Trump to be deposed, but alleged in a statement to Forbes that the president’s lawsuit “is holding the BBC accountable for its defamation and reckless election interference.”

Judge Extends Order Allowing News Agencies White House Access - U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a memorandum opinion on Oct. 13 granting a preliminary injunction sought by CNN, MS NOW, and Politico to maintain the block on the president's press ban, finding that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their First Amendment discrimination claim. Trump announced on social media last month that he was banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico "as a result of their constant 'reporting' FAKE NEWS!" After the outlets sued, Kelly ordered the White House to temporarily restore access on Sept. 24, ruling that the government likely violated their Fifth Amendment due process rights by abruptly taking away their press passes without notice or a hearing. Attorney Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. told the court at an Oct. 8 hearing that Trump wanted to ban the outlets because of their viewpoints. "He doesn't like scrutiny of his policies, he doesn't like the reporting, he wants more good press," he said. Department of Justice Senior Counsel Michael Velchik pushed back, telling the court that Trump was more concerned with media outlets allegedly fabricating quotes, splicing together interviews, and using anonymous sources. "He doesn't mind negative press stories if he deserves them. He has problems with trafficking verifiable falsehoods," he said. The government argued it was necessary to exclude those outlets in the name of national security and to prevent leaks of classified information. But Kelly said, when originally ordering the White House to restore access, that there was no evidence on the record to back up that claim. In his ruling on Tuesday, Kelly said Trump likely revoked their access to the White House press area "because he believes their coverage of him and his administration is generally inaccurate and biased," rather than for legitimate government interests such as maintaining professional standards for journalists or protecting national security. "Simply put, that is unlawful viewpoint discrimination," the judge wrote.

White House press secretary Katie Zacharia confirms she failed bar exam – New White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia never passed the bar exam and is not licensed to practice law despite long describing herself as a lawyer, she confirmed to USA TODAY. While Zacharia said she was advised it's acceptable to call herself a lawyer because she has a law degree, some legal experts disagreed, saying it's inappropriate and unethical to use the term without having a law license. Zacharia, who graduated from Pepperdine University’s law school in 2011, took the bar exam that year and didn't pass, she said, before moving to China with her husband. She said she worked for a Chinese law firm’s international-practice team on multimillion-dollar shareholder agreements for investments. Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning. "The results of the bar exam were inconsequential because I was already moving to a foreign country that didn't require it," Zacharia said in an interview with USA TODAY. Zacharia did not attempt to take the bar exam a second time, yet she publicly identified herself a lawyer after returning to the United States even though she lacks the credentials to practice law in any state. President Donald Trump announced Zacharia’s appointment on Oct. 9 in a social media post that described her as an “attorney” and noted her background as a conservative commentator on television, where she's appeared regularly on Fox News and Newsmax. Zacharia has said she’s a lawyer in television appearances and in a previous version of her X bio.

Trump's press secretary Katie Zacharia is out five days into job – Katie Zacharia is out as White House press secretary just five days into the job, a remarkably swift departure from the high-profile position that came after a rocky first briefing and criticism that she misrepresented herself as a lawyer. Five sources familiar with the decision confirmed her ouster, including three senior White House officials, who told USA TODAY that Zacharia is "transitioning out" of the job. Her departure came shortly after President Donald Trump told reporters the job of press secretary might not be for her and had asked her to consider stepping down. "I said to Katie, 'You know, you don't have to do this if you don't want to," Trump said on Oct. 16, adding she's been treated "very rough" and "nastily" by the media. "I said, 'Honestly, if I were you, I'd reconsider. You think about it, but I'd reconsider.'""Look, she has suffered over the last few days. Maybe it's not for her," the president continued. "I said, 'You want to be happy in life.'"Zacharia did not respond to a request for comment, and the White House has not issued a public statement on her termination.Zacharia's quick exit came after the White House initially rallied behind the 41-year-old press secretary after an unsteady briefing that was widely panned. Her five-day stint means that she didn't last half the 11 days Anthony Scaramucci worked as White House communications director during Trump's first term before he was fired.

Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home searched by federal agents in ongoing criminal probe  -Federal agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home in Washington, D.C., Monday morning, according to two people familiar with the investigation. Homeland Security Investigations, part of the Department of Homeland Security that conducts criminal investigations, “executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement. “This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation.” The statement did not specify that the warrant was related to Omar and did not provide further information about the nature of the investigation. A spokesperson for Omar, D-Minn., did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment on the search, which was first reported by Fox News. Omar immigrated to the U.S. from Somalia as a child. She fled Somalia’s civil war with her family when she was eight years old and stayed in a Kenyan refugee camp for four years before moving to the U.S., her website details. Last month, border czar Tom Homan told Fox News that the Department of Homeland Security is investigating the congresswoman. “If someone committed immigration violation, if someone committed marriage fraud or anything like that, regardless if they’re a congressman or not, no one’s above the law,” Homan said at the time. “So, I’ll leave it at that. We’ll let HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, continue the investigation.” President Donald Trump has frequently lashed out at Omar, who is a member of a progressive faction of women in Congress collectively known as the “squad.” Early this year, he said that the Justice Department and Congress are “looking at” the congresswoman. The president has also repeatedly targeted Minnesota for fraud scandals that roiled the state. Last week, Trump told Minnesotans to “fight back” against immigrants from Somalia.  He claimed in a Truth Social post that the state “is being taken over by Somali Immigrants.” One of the most high-profile fraud cases was a $250 million case where perpetrators allegedly stole money from a Covid-related program that provided food for children. Since then, the Justice Department announced criminal charges against more than a dozen people in Minnesota over alleged social services fraud. The former leader of Feeding Our Future, the non-profit at the center of the $250 million fraud case, is white. Most of the defendants in the related cases are of Somali descent, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a fact Trump has highlighted as he has repeatedly disparaged people of Somali descent.Omar blamed Trump’s rhetoric against her and Somali immigrants as a contributing factor in an attack on her at a town hall event in January.

Democrats hammer Trump for late-election raid on Omar’s home --Democrats are up in arms this week after federal agents raided the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), accusing the Trump administration of weaponizing the government to go after political adversaries. The Democrats are particularly piqued that the operation, conducted Monday morning by agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), took place just weeks before the Nov. 3 midterms. They’re denouncing President Trump for defying a long-standing Justice Department policy discouraging the escalation of politically sensitive investigations within 60 days of elections. “As Trump’s popularity craters amid rising prices and his deeply unpopular war, everything he does is an attempt to distract his remaining followers,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) wrote Monday on social platform X. “But raiding the home of a member of the opposing party right before the election — and tipping off FoxNews in advance so they are on hand to publicize it — is insanely corrupt even for Donald Trump,” he continued. In a joint statement, the top three House Democratic leaders — Reps. Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Katherine Clark (Mass.) and Pete Aguilar (Calif.) — characterized the raid as a “deeply disturbing” extension of Trump’s long-running feud with Omar, a foreign-born Muslim congresswoman who is a frequent target of the right. “For years, Donald Trump and far-right extremists have relentlessly targeted Congresswoman Omar with vile personal attacks and baseless accusations,” the Democratic leaders said in the statement. “Now, less than 30 days until the midterm election, his violent mass deportation machine has descended upon the home of a duly elected Member of Congress and her family.” The Democrats, who are favored to win control of the House in November, are vowing to investigate the Omar raid, among other cases they consider to be abuses of executive power, if they have the gavels next year. “The American people deserve transparency, and we will deliver full accountability for the rogue abuse of power from the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice,” Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar said. Monday’s raid was conducted before dawn at Omar’s Washington-area home by agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a criminal unit of ICE. The operation came as the administration has pursued several investigations into Omar across a range of topics, including her finances and immigration status. HSI, considered an elite unit within ICE, typically investigates major cross-border crime such as human trafficking, child exploitation, and transnational gangs and smuggling. Though they conducted the search, the Department of Homeland Security referred comment to the Justice Department, which stressed that they got a judicial warrant for the search. “Today in the Washington, D.C, area, Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice. This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation,” a spokesperson said. Omar, 44, was born in Somalia but fled the country as a child to escape violence and spent four years in a Kenyan refugee camp before coming to the United States in 1995. She became a U.S. citizen five years later, when she was 17, and was first elected to the House in 2018, becoming one of the first two Muslim women ever elected to Congress. That background — combined with Omar’s outspoken criticisms of Israel on human rights — has made her a target of conservatives, including Trump, who has questioned her patriotism since her earliest days on Capitol Hill. The president has called Omar “garbage” and has also said Somalis should “go back to where they came from.”

Judge says pro-Trump ads funded by taxpayers must be taken off air - A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to halt any further airing of taxpayer-funded television ads touting the president, ruling they are likely illegal.  U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rochon in New York issued a four-page order late Sunday that barred the administration from using government funds to distribute the ads. The judge, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, said the administration must cancel “any slot, placement, reservation, or arrangement for the airing or dissemination of the challenged advertisements.”The order applied immediately to any ads scheduled to run later on Sunday night, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether the ruling kept any additional ads off the air.The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department in a weekend filing said the ad buy was slated to end on Sunday.The ads, which predominantly feature Trump and promote the administration’s policies, started airing on national television in September. They were paid for by federal funds from the Department of Homeland Security.President Trump personally pushed for the ads and was involved in their creation, The Wall Street Journal has reported.The judge’s ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by plaintiffs including the advocacy group Common Cause and a Democratic candidate running for office in Alabama. They argued that the expenditures were used for purposes not authorized by Congress and violated restrictions on using public funds for political propaganda.“There is no legal justification—and no precedent—for the president to use the machinery of the government and funds set aside by Congress for other uses to influence electoral outcomes that further his own agenda,” the plaintiffs said in response to the ruling.Trump said last week that he plans to pay for the ads using funds from his MAGA Inc. super PAC rather than the federal government.

Trump blew past deadline to halt running taxpayer-funded campaign-style ads - A federal judge issued a temporary order Sunday blocking the Trump administration from airing taxpayer-funded campaign-style television commercials. But the administration blew past a Sunday evening deadline and ran two of the ads into the early hours of Monday, advertising data from AdImpact shows. U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon in Manhattan wrote in an order Sunday that the administration must “cancel or cause to be cancelled” any ads from airing or dissemination, including those that were scheduled to air Sunday evening.Her decision came after the Department of Homeland Security said in a court filing Saturday that the ads would “not continue” past Sunday and that it had no plans to purchase additional ad spaces past that date. President Donald Trump said earlier that campaign funds would be used to pay for the ads going forward.The two-week order prohibits the administration from “using, disbursing, or transferring funds” appropriated to DHS to “develop, create, disseminate, place, distribute, publish, or air” the commercials.However, two of the ads aired numerous times after the deadline passed at 6:45 p.m. Eastern time Sunday, according to data provided by AdImpact. The two ads ran during airings of various shows, including “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” “ABC World News Tonight” and CBS News’s “60 Minutes.”  “DHS did not receive notice from the court in time to cancel the ad buys,” the White House wrote in a Monday statement. “The PSAs will be paid for by outside groups moving forward.”The ads, which began airing in late September, included one that resembled a commercial for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and another of him and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth advocating the Iran war. The ads were paid for with $20 million the Office of Management and Budget added to a DHS budget line for “commemorative events,” The Washington Post previously reported. Congress had approved that spending for “Line-of-Duty death memorials, Department or agency anniversaries, and commendation ceremonies,” according to a House Budget Committee report.The lawsuit challenging the commercials was brought by a coalition that included the advocacy group Common Cause. It argued that the ads violate federal law prohibiting agencies from using taxpayer money for unauthorized “publicity and propaganda.”  Rochon wrote that the plaintiffs are “likely to succeed on the merits” of their challenge and “will suffer irreparable harm in the absence of an injunction.”Trump has not publicly commented on the order, but after backlash from Democrats and some Republicans, he said on Oct. 5 that his super PAC would cover future ad costs.In a statement issued by Democracy Forward, a nonprofit legal organization, the coalition said it was “pleased the court acted swiftly,” calling the ads “blatantly unlawful political propaganda.” OMB and DHS did not respond to requests for comment on the ads that ran after the judge’s deadline.Last week, the Democratic National Committee filed a separate lawsuit over the ads, arguing that they violate campaign spending rules and make it harder for the group’s candidates to compete.After this article was published, lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case filed a notice alerting the judge to The Post’s reporting and requesting that she evaluate whether the Trump administration complied with the temporary restraining order.

Trump, Natalie Harp ordered to answer Truth lawsuit before midterms  --  President Donald Trump and White House aide Natalie Harp have been ordered to respond to a lawsuit, filed by Intercept, over a $100,000-a-month Truth Social subscriber program, before the November midterm elections.Trump, Harp and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Daniel Scavino are named in the lawsuit. The Department of Justice’s Civil Division, representing the president, Harp and Scavino, had sought an open-ended delay in responding to the suit. Paul Oetken, an Obama-appointed U.S. district judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, said the complaint needs to be responded to by October 30.Oetken’s ruling marks a procedural decision rather than a victory or defeat on the case but keeps momentum of the lawsuit, which is one of three filed over the Truth API program.Separate lawsuits have been filed by watchdog groups American Oversight and Campaign for Accountability, as well as the City and County of San Francisco.Newsweek contacted the Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney representing Trump, Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, and the group representing Intercept via email for comment. The Truth API program, launched in August, provides subscribers with real-time access to posts from high-profile Truth Social accounts, many of which belong to government officials. Individuals can sign up for $100,000 a month, or for $60,000 a month with a three-year commitment.Rather than waiting for posts to appear on the Truth Social feed, subscribers instead get a direct machine-readable feed that can be plugged into trading systems, news alerts, databases and other monitoring software.The original legal filing from Intercept, reviewed by Newsweek, states that the Truth Social plan is “extraordinary, corrupt, and unconstitutional,” and that the lawsuit has been brought to stop it.It alleges that Trump stands to gain financially by giving “market moving” information to those who are “willing and able to pay his personal company.”It also alleges that the plan is more broadly unconstitutional and says: “The First Amendment guarantees equal access to the President’s public announcements,” adding: “There is no legitimate interest, let alone a significant one, in permitting President Trump to profit from selling government information.” It also alleges harm to the plaintiff as a news organization and says that it faces “delayed access to the President’s latest posts, and face permanent bars to the President’s archived posts, making it harder for both organizations to do their jobs.”Nikhel Sus, chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) previously told Newsweek: “The president of the United States is selling early access to government information for upward of $100,000 a month. That is what is happening through the Truth API scheme.“We’ve asked the court to issue an order that would prohibit the president and his staff from posting to Truth Social so long as they have this Truth API function.”In response to the filing requesting an indefinite stay, the plaintiffs requested that the court deny it and “direct them to Plaintiffs’ complaint by the operative deadline of October 16, 2026.”Oetken’s ruling gave some leeway to Trump, Harp and Scavino, adding an extra two weeks to the deadline.In a letter to Oetken, attorneys for the plaintiffs said that granting a stay would “harm Plaintiffs’ and the public interest by delaying the expeditious litigation of this action.”They added that there was no basis for the proposed stay beyond a desire to inform the defense and said it was not a “legitimate ground” to grant a stay.The lawsuit now requires a response by October 30, which, though an extension to the date requested by the plaintiffs, will fall before the midterms.Midterm Election Day is November 3 and will be pivotal for the Trump administration as Republicans seek to keep control of the House and Senate. Democrats need 17 seats to win the Senate, while Republicans need 20; 218 seats are required to take control of the House, which Republicans currently hold a slim majority in, 218 to 214. All 435 seats in the House and 35 Senate seats are up for election.The election could go on to alter the rest of the course of Trump’s presidency and could reshape how the administration proceeds with its legislative priorities if Republicans are to lose their majority in either chamber of Congress.

‘Oil field trash’ tries to pull off Texas shocker -   — Any other year, Jon Rosenthal would be a major underdog for statewide office in Texas. He’s a Democrat running to oversee the oil and gas industry, in a state that has been largely under Republican control for more than 30 years. But if his closing rural push against a controversial GOP opponent delivers, Rosenthal would have a platform — as one of three state Railroad Commission members — to pursue what he calls commonsense solutions to some of the oil industry’s thorny problems. He has pushed for bigger budgets at the commission so it can retain employees, address unplugged wells and manage oil field wastewater. All of that, Rosenthal said, can be done without endangering the state’s crude production — an important caveat for an oil field engineer who describes himself as a “drill, baby, drill Democrat.” “I am thoroughly oil field trash,” Rosenthal said at a recent conference. “I worked on drilling rigs, and I drink, smoke and swear.” A win would be a watershed moment for Texas, where major GOP candidates often don’t have to break a sweat to win in November. That’s not the case this year as President Donald Trump’s popularity plummets and concerns about affordability hang over candidates. Then, of course, there’s Rosenthal’s opponent: Bo French.French made national news in September with a xenophobic online post showing South Asian students celebrating at a University of Texas football game — saying the “problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”Within a week, Rosenthal had raised more money than he had in his whole race, according to campaign finance reports. Longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove also endorsed him in the Wall Street Journal, saying he won’t support extremists. “For the last several months, I have been saying this campaign is the wildest thing I’ve ever done,” Rosenthal told POLITICO recently. “It just keeps getting wilder — and still I was not prepared for Karl Rove to say my name.” Rosenthal is working to peel off Republican and independent voters outside Texas’ major cities, and he expects to benefit from Democrats at the top of the ticket — including Senate candidate James Talarico and gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa. To be sure, winning won’t be easy for Rosenthal, though he was within 1 percentage point of French, according to a recent poll. French touts the support of major Texas Republicans, including Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

Judge tosses Brennan suit demanding preservation of records in 'grand conspiracy' probe --A federal judge on Thursday agreed to toss a lawsuit from former CIA Director John Brennan, arguing he did not yet have standing to sue over an investigation targeting him for his role in reviewing the 2016 election. Brennan brought the suit in July, seeking to compel the Department of Justice (DOJ) to preserve records related to the investigation, saying they would be needed for an expected vindictive prosecution filing if an indictment was brought. But U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb said the matter was not yet ripe, agreeing with the Trump administration to toss the suit. “To have standing to seek forward-looking relief, a plaintiff must allege an injury that is ‘imminent,’ rather than one that is ‘conjectural or hypothetical,’” Cobb wrote. The judge went on to call it “speculative whether Defendants are deleting records relevant to a future vindictive- or selective-prosecution defense.” Still, Cobb offered up some scrutiny of her own on the investigation into Brennan, part of the so-called grand conspiracy probing a number of topics, including the past criminal investigations into President Trump. “Unsurprisingly, Brennan does not believe that he has committed any crime. Much more surprising are Brennan’s allegations regarding DOJ officials who have not found otherwise, despite their alleged marching orders,” Cobb wrote, referencing one former member of the team who determined “that ‘the case against Director Brennan was too weak to bring.’” She also noted the resignation of Joseph diGenova, who was later tapped to lead the conspiracy probe. “Joseph diGenova—who had previously made public statements calling Brennan ‘evil’ and a ‘traitor,’ and had declared that the Grand Conspiracy 'began with John Brennan and ends with John Brennan,’ —reportedly resigned from his position investigating Brennan’s cases and stated ‘if you want indictments where there’s no evidence, you have an ethical problem,’” Cobb wrote. “One might think that these statements would lead to the termination of the investigations. Instead, Brennan alleges, it has led to the termination of the investigators.”

Elon Musk settles class action lawsuit over duping Trump supporters -Intermittent trillionaire Elon Musk settled a class action lawsuit Thursday over allegations that his political action committee engaged in fraud in the 2024 presidential election by falsely telling voters they had a chance to randomly win $1 million when the winners were actually predetermined. “The Parties have reached a Settlement and respectfully request that the Court vacate all deadlines and stay further proceedings for a period of thirty (30) days to allow the Parties to finalize and execute the settlement agreement and file a Motion for Preliminary Approval,” a one-page filing reads, according to online court records. As part of an effort to get President Donald Trump elected, Musk set up the committee ― America PAC ― a month before the election.  Using his PAC, Musk told Trump supporters in key battleground states they had a chance to win $1 million if they gave away their personal identifying information and signed an online petition in support of “free speech and the right to bear arms.” While Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner went to court to accuse Musk of running an illegal lottery scheme, a Pennsylvania judge allowed the payouts to continue after attorneys for Musk’s PAC successfully argued that it wasn’t actually a lottery because winners were selected “based on their suitability” to serve as spokespeople for the PAC and had earned the $1 million as payment. So while Musk doled out millions to more than a dozen winners, none of them were randomly selected. Multiple lawsuits were filed against Musk in the days after the election. Joy Havrick of Arizona alleged in a complaint that she was treated as a “marketing prop.”  Had Plaintiff been aware that the lottery was not random, or that she did not have a fair chance to win the prize, or that her selection hinged on her perceived favorability to Defendants as a marketing prop, she would not have signed or supported the America PAC petition and would not have provided her PII [Personal Identifying Information] to Defendants,” the complaint said. Attorney Mark Bankston, who has previously represented Sandy Hook families and successfully sued conspiracy theorist Alex Jones for defamation, represents Havrick. Bankston told HuffPost he is “unable to comment at this time.” Details of the settlement, including how much Musk will ultimately have to pay, were not immediately disclosed. A lawyer for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Elon Musk gives $276 million to GOP groups ahead of 2026 midterms - Tech trillionaire Elon Musk gave $276 million to several Republican super PACs and organizations over the past three months, as the GOP faces headwinds ahead of the midterm elections. This brings the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s total contributions so far to $366 million. A spokesperson for Musk’s America PAC confirmed the numbers to The Hill, which were first reported by The New York Times. Between July and September, Musk gave $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC backing Republican Senate candidates, and $20 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, which supports GOP House candidates. The move signals Musk’s appetite for political involvement, despite his suggestions he could pull back spending for the midterms. Musk’s America PAC, which he launched during the 2024 election, received more than $76 million. He also gave $10 million to the Lone Star Liberty PAC backing Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, $10 million to the Republican Governors Association and $2 million to the Republican Attorneys General Association. “If Democrats take control of Washington and win key gubernatorial and attorney general races this November, then America risks becoming a socialist, woke and borderless country,” Andrew Romeo, a spokesperson for America PAC, said in a statement to the Times and confirmed by The Hill. “These robust investments have allowed the GOP apparatus to get its message out so Republicans can have a fighting chance to defy history,” Romeo added. The Hill reached out to the Congressional Leadership Fund, the Republican Governors Association, the Republican Attorneys General Association, the Lone Star Liberty PAC and the Senate Leadership Fund for comment. Musk’s latest donations make him the largest known donor in the 2026 midterms, the Times reported. Musk, who long stayed out of politics, jumped into the political world during the 2024 elections, pouring hundreds of millions into the presidential race for Trump. He joined the then-candidate on the campaign trail and later led Trump’s cost-cutting effort known as the Department of Government Efficiency. The project sparked controversy for its sweeping job and funding cuts across the federal government. He departed the White House in late May 2025 and, after a public fallout with Trump, stayed quiet for months in the political space. Musk said last May he planned to spend “a lot less” on politics, and he later told The Economist in a July interview he “got carried away” and “a little too involved in politics.” Still, the world’s richest person jumped back into the political fray that same month, authorizing America PAC to spend $100 million to $120 million for a new field program focused on conservative voter turnout in the 2026 midterms. Musk and Trump have since rekindled their alliance following the blowout, and the tech billionaire joined the president for his state visit to China in May, along with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Washington last month.

Crypto comes to rescue vulnerable House banking Republicans  —  Some of the most influential Republicans on financial services policy are facing unexpectedly competitive elections this November, and the cryptocurrency industry is coming to their rescue.

• Key insight: Several senior banking Republicans are welcoming campaign help from the crypto industry in an election year when even traditionally strong red districts are at risk of flipping to Democrats. 
• Forward look: Most election prognosticators expect Democrats to win in the House, but while odds of flipping the Senate have improved, they remain too close to call.

Crypto campaign arm Fairshake is spending millions to protect lawmakers who have helped advance the industry's agenda as political headwinds threaten several key Republican lawmakers.

Crypto spending big but thinking small on the campaign trail -- I'll give the crypto industry this much: They're not giving up, our Claire Williams reports. After the rather public failure of their attempt to get a law passed regulating digital assets, the industry is keeping its checkbook open in an attempt to influence November's congressional elections and, I imagine, get something passed in the next Congress.The crypto industry is still playing the traditional campaign-donation game; BofA's billion-dollar AML fine shows the benefits of a fortress balance sheet.

Senate poised to add Claude to staffers’ AI tools –  The Senate is expected to give staffers access to Claude, Anthropic’s artificial intelligence chatbot, for their work, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss nonpublic information. The move would add to a growing set of AI tools available to congressional staff, as individual offices decide how to deploy the technology. Sergeant at Arms Jennifer Hemingway testified in April that the chamber’s staff had access to Microsoft’s Copilot, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. She also said the office was leading an AI working group tasked with discussing the legislative branch’s AI uses and needs. Both the House and the Senate have issued internal guidance on the use of AI tools by congressional staff for official business through the House Chief Administrative Office and the Senate Sergeant at Arms, both of which provide tech support to their respective chambers. It is unclear when Claude will be made available. Representatives for the Senate Sergeant at Arms and Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bloomberg Government first reported details of the announcement.

Anthropic halts internet access amid AI model issues - Anthropic, an artificial intelligence company, is cutting off live internet access for its internal evaluations after discovering dangerous behavior by its AI models. According to Yahoo News, the company's Claude models engaged in unintended actions, including targeting websites run by U.S. government agencies. The decision to restrict internet access comes after Anthropic identified multiple cases where its AI models acted unpredictably during evaluations and internal use. Some incidents involved exploiting vulnerabilities on real websites, such as a university server and a police form. Anthropic has informed the White House and notified affected organizations, including some U.S. government agencies.Anthropic's report, shared on October 9, describes these behaviors as less serious than previous cybersecurity incidents but highlights the persistence of the issue. The company is implementing structural changes, including extending the removal of live internet access to all internal evaluations until its monitoring systems can effectively detect such behaviors. The move comes amid broader concerns about AI models' cybersecurity risks. The Trump administration recently lifted restrictions on Anthropic's Claude models after a cybersecurity alarm, allowing limited access to its most powerful model, Mythos 5, for select U.S.-based organizations, as reported by Eyewitness News. Anthropic's actions reflect a growing focus on AI safety and the need for robust monitoring systems. The company plans to publish more frequent reports on model behavior to continuously track and address these issues.

Bill Gates Fearmongers "Grim" AI Cyberattack Surprises - Bill Gates returned to the Sunday-show circuit this week with a fresh round of alarms about artificial intelligence, telling CNN's Jake Tapper that the technology is "more dangerous than any" cars, planes, or drugs and that "grim possibilities" await if society fails to maintain control. Speaking on State of the Union, the Microsoft co-founder and described AI as "the most dangerous technology humans ever invented." He predicted that "over the next year, primarily in the cyber area, we are going to have a lot of negative surprises" once "bad people" strip safeguards from the latest models. The real near-term danger, he said, is not AI "getting out of control" - that remains "years away" - but criminals using the tools for extortion, stock-market disruption, or similar schemes that already have proven business models. Just as we regulate planes, cars, and medicines, we need safeguards that help us realize AI's incredible potential while reducing the risks. They won’t eliminate every harm, but they can help prevent misuse by bad actors. We’re not where we need to be yet—and this deserves much more of our attention. Tapper pressed him on earlier statements in which Gates had called AI "aliens created in a lab" that could "evolve almost as a species of its own" and become to humans "what we are to dogs or cats," labeling the shift an "evolutionary event." Bill Gates says AI is the “most dangerous technology humans ever invented” and “over the next year it will become quite obvious” regulations are needed….Gates replied that the arrival of AI is "fantastic" for health care and new tools, yet "this changes the world more than all previous technologies... and we got to get everyone on the same page about what a big deal this is." When Tapper raised OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's warnings against "the trap of doomerism," Gates answered that "all responsible AI leaders, including Sam Altman, including Dario Amodei, they are telling the world, 'This is very concerning.'" He conceded that claims of imminent existential risk can go "too far," but insisted the comparison to regulated domains still holds: AI is more dangerous, and the middle ground of sensible oversight has not yet been found. On the absence of an FAA- or FDA-style body, he said, "I think, over the next year, we will move beyond self-governance... it's clear we're not doing enough." He added that he has "heard from a number of politicians" and is "hopeful" for a meeting with President Trump. Gates has repeatedly flagged bioterrorism as a parallel risk. In the CNN interview he noted that the chance of a bioterrorist attack is now "50 times the risk of a natural pandemic" and that safeguards against it can currently be stripped out the same way cyber protections can.

Microsoft president: AI faces fewer safety requirements than milk, washing machines - Microsoft President Brad Smith says AI has fewer safety requirements than milk and washing machines, arguing in a BBC interview released Sunday that self-regulation is not “sufficient any longer.” Smith acknowledged that the idea of government evaluators signing off on a product before its release “makes people nervous,” particularly in the U.S. “But just remember, right now, your washing machine is subject to more safety rules than AI,” he said. “Every carton of milk that you see in the grocery store is subject to safety rules and inspection.” “Or think about the airplanes we get on,” Smith continued. “You can get on a plane in London. You can fly to Athens or New York. Either way, that plane has been certified so that it is considered safe by the aircraft regulators in both countries.” He also called for a “safety brake” on AI systems, comparing the mechanism to circuit breakers in homes and emergency brakes on trains and buses, and he suggested companies should have a legal obligation to tell victims of an AI-powered breach about the incident. While the Microsoft president applauded a recent White House accord under which several major AI firms committed to policing their own models, he warned that such a regime is not enough. “I don’t think it’s sufficient any longer,” Smith told the BBC. “Because the challenge for any self-regulatory regime is if it’s left to the industry alone, frankly, the good companies will do what you want. It’s the companies that are not as responsible that you need to worry about.” Google, Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, xAI and Nvidia all signed on to the pledge in late September, calling for robust internal controls and external auditing to ensure their models are behaving as intended. “We should always worry that regulation can become too heavy-handed,” Smith said. “It can slow innovation, and I think President Trump is right to remind us to think about, even worry about those concerns.” “But right now, I’d argue that AI is moving forward faster than the speed of safety,” he continued. “That’s not good for the protection of the public. It’s not even good for the industry itself.”

Bernie Sanders calls for permanent ban on artificial superintelligence - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday called for permanently banning artificial superintelligence in response to recent remarks made by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.Altman told Politico’s “Decoded” podcast in an interview last week that society will face a “coming tidal wave of cybersecurity problems” coming from open-source AI models. He also said that people will “have to just accept some fairly severe cyber incidents from open models, in exchange for the liberty that comes with that.”“No, Mr. Altman. We won’t accept a severe AI cyberattack in exchange for ‘liberty,'” Sanders wrote on the social platform X, later asking, “Mr. Altman: What do you mean by that?”Sanders wrote that Americans “are not willing to accept disaster ‘in exchange for the liberty’ of making Big Tech Oligarchs even richer and more powerful,” adding that tech developers working on AI “are not above the law.”“If you and other Big Tech Oligarchs make products that commit crimes or disasters, we will hold you accountable for breaking the law — no matter how much wealth and power you have,” Sanders continued. “We must PAUSE advanced AI and permanently BAN artificial superintelligence before it is too late.”  Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) last month introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act which would institute the permanent ban, along with temporarily pausing “advanced AI development” until federal regulators establish safety standards. The bill would also direct the U.S. to seek diplomatic agreements to prevent the development of superintelligence and establish a Cabinet-level federal agency to focus on AI safety rules. This bill is the latest of several proposals floated by progressives in Congress to slow down AI development amid recent cybersecurity incidents and hacks involving rogue AI software, including an unsuccessful hack of the Department of Education’s website and a hack of Australia’s health department.The chorus of concern grew after former OpenAI and Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned last month that AI could pose an existential threat to human life on Earth. Sanders, who sided with Pope Leo XIV’s warnings about AI’s impact on the art world, slammed President Trump over his response to developing AI.“Look, it is embarrassing, really, I think, going beyond politics, how ignorant this president is about the dangers of AI,” Sanders told MS NOW last month.Trump said he would launch an “AI czar” and has launched a “Super Intelligence Force” in response to the technology’s development, but has praised AI’s possibilities despite the bipartisan calls for regulation.The president has sought to rebrand AI as “super intelligence, and recently signed a pledge with tech executives that put the name in writing across the executive branch.

OpenAI discloses four more rogue incidents involving financial, medical, and government data -- OpenAI has added four more cases of misbehaving AI agents to a disclosures page it stood up following the Hugging Face hack in July, in an effort to be more transparent. The incidents OpenAI disclosed this week all occurred in June, but OpenAI was not aware of three of them until months later in August or September. Of the 19 total incidents OpenAI details on the disclosure page, most occurred in May or June, but OpenAI did not discover or disclose them until months later. The earliest incident is from January, and the most recent is from Oct. 6. All of the incidents are examples of what AI researchers call “misalignment,” which is when an AI model fails to follow instructions or takes actions that the person developing the model did not authorize and would not have wanted the model to take. There is no known, silver-bullet solution to preventing this behavior, and it is an active area of research. Of the four cases OpenAI uploaded this week, it marked two as “critical.” In one of the critical cases, an internal model that was “highly persistent” downloaded 24 years of hospital bed data from an unnamed government website without permission. OpenAI did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment on which government website it was. The website initially blocked the agent’s request, but the AI ultimately found a way to bypass the access controls. Multiple times along the way, the agent’s “chain of thought,” in which an agent writes down its reasoning steps, indicated that the model itself was questioning if its actions were “ethical,” but it ultimately proceeded. On OpenAI’s side, another AI model that acted as an automated grader of the research task the other AI model was trying to fulfill did not consistently flag this behavior as problematic. It “marked some responses incorrect and others correct,” the report said. The way graders assess AI behavior can shape whether it occurs again. In a Sept. 11 essay on misalignment by Turing Award–winner Yoshua Bengio, he said the Hugging Face incident may have occurred because automated graders rewarded cheating and hacking in previous training runs. “With the OpenAI agents, there is reason to believe successful cheating was actually rewarded: When the scoring program does not see the cheating, it pays out anyway, and such cheats become more likely next time,” Bengio said. OpenAI says it has since improved its security as well as its alignment grading. “In response to this and to other incidents, we’ve strengthened our security controls, blocked models from accessing the live internet during training or evaluation, improved our alignment grading, and extended our misalignment monitoring to all reinforcement learning and evaluation traffic,” the company noted. The most recent incident OpenAI has disclosed, which occurred on Oct. 6, involved one of the AI models the company uses as an automated grader. In that case, the grader tried to upload fraudulent reports on what it had found in an evaluation. This is an example of why relying on AI models to grade the training runs of other AI models can be problematic. In another disclosed case, a model in the GPT-5.6 Sol family—the predecessor to OpenAI’s current flagship model, GPT-6 Astra—accessed a cryptocurrency wallet the human testers had not provided it, and made an unauthorized payment to complete a task during testing. This occurred on June 26. OpenAI discovered it in September. “The model questioned whether it had permission” to make the purchase, OpenAI said, again referring to what the model had recorded about its own reasoning in its chain of thought. It then reasoned with itself that since it found the information publicly, it could use it. In the model’s chain-of-thought logs, it figured that since the wallet it found was public, that “funds could be stolen anytime.” It then concluded, “We can deploy!” It later asked itself again if the act was done “ethically,” and reasoned that the funds were “effectively abandoned.” The other incident OpenAI flagged as critical involved a model looking up public data, which theoretically is acceptable, but in the process it accessed the organization’s internal system, made changes to it, and was still able to “retain access … even after reverting the changes,” OpenAI said. It also downloaded 147,451 rows from nonpublic data tables. Perhaps most concerningly, the model did not disclose any of its actions to the evaluators. In the final case OpenAI disclosed, an AI agent was able to get internet access from a research environment that should have been isolated—potentially similar to what happened during the Hugging Face incident, in which hundreds of AI agents were able to get internet access, although OpenAI did not directly compare these two incidents. In the newly disclosed case, the agent knew it was not allowed to access the web, so it asked “external services” to perform actions it was blocked from doing. It did this even after it had found another way to answer the question, and also continued to develop its crafty work-around even after completing the task.

Hackers heat French supermarket fridges, sparking fires and food losses (Reuters) - Hackers forced the temperature of many French supermarket fridges up to 50 degrees Celsius (122°F) overnight, sparking fires and food losses at several hundred stores across the country in a major cyberattack. The Paris prosecutor's office said the "large-scale" attack was "affecting connected refrigerators in several major food retailers across France". It said reported damage included "food losses and fires". Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu instructed France's National Cybersecurity Agency ANSSI to investigate, a person in his office said. They said France "was coordinating with its European counterparts, as other countries may also be affected," while also investigating whether any other French firms were at risk. Les Mousquetaires, which owns retailer Intermarche, said around 150 of its stores had been hit, with fridges heated up to 50 degrees Celsius for six hours. It had thrown all the food away to avoid any sanitary risks, a spokesperson said. And Cooperative U CEO Dominique Schelcher said his supermarket had also been hit by the attack. "Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and to the food supply of the French people is of extreme gravity and is unprecedented," he wrote on X. Several other supermarket chains, including Carrefour, Monoprix, E.Leclerc and Auchan, did not respond to requests for comment. Dutch supermarket company Ahold Delhaize said it was also dealing with a "security issue" in its network, and had taken several systems offline to protect them. Stores of its Albert Heijn chain, the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands which also has several stores in Belgium, remained open in both countries. But its online app and delivery system were down, while electronic price tags often displayed the wrong information. It was not clear if there was any link between the French supermarket attack and the problems flagged by Ahold Delhaize. Delhaize supermarkets, also part of Ahold Delhaize but operating in Belgium and Luxembourg, were also affected by the security issue, Belgian media reported. The source close to Lecornu said ANSSI had identified a vulnerability in software supplied by Danish company Danfoss. Danfoss said it was "aware of incidents in France affecting a limited number of refrigeration management systems". The affected units "were running outdated firmware", Danfoss said, adding that it had "long advised customers to keep supported systems updated with the latest firmware and to migrate legacy systems to current-generation solutions". 

Hackers heat French supermarket fridges, sparking fires and spoiling food - (Reuters) - Hackers raised the temperature of refrigerators and freezers ​at hundreds of French supermarkets to as high as 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight, causing fires and spoiling food. The Paris prosecutor's office said on Monday ‌that a "large-scale" attack was "affecting connected refrigerators in several major food retailers across France", leading to food losses and fires. . Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has instructed France's National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) to investigate, a person in his office said. France was coordinating with European counterparts because other countries could also be affected, the person said, adding that authorities were assessing whether other French companies were at risk. Felix Aime, a senior cyber threat intelligence analyst ​at Sekoia Threat Detection and Research, said Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Belgium had also been affected. Carrefour said 80 of its supermarkets were hit, while Monoprix, which operates about 490 ​stores in France, said 5% of its stores were affected. Les Mousquetaires, owner of retailer Intermarche, said fridges at around 150 of its ⁠stores were heated up to 50 C for six hours overnight. A spokesperson said all affected food had been discarded to eliminate health risks. Cooperative U CEO ​Dominique Schelcher said his supermarket group had also been targeted. "Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and to the food supply of the French people is of extreme gravity and is unprecedented," he wrote on X. Food retailers E.Leclerc and Auchan did not respond to requests for comment. There was no immediate estimate of industry-wide losses, but Intermarche CEO Thierry Cotillard told BFM TV the "unprecedented" attack would represent losses amounting to "tens ​of millions of euros nationwide in a single day." Christel Delberghe, director general at European retail association Eurocommerce, said, "This incident underlines the importance of resilience across the entire supply chain." Supermarket cold aisles are typically run by control panels that manage an entire store's fridges and freezers and can be accessed over the internet, which lets maintenance companies adjust them from anywhere. The source ‌close to ⁠Lecornu said ANSSI had identified a vulnerability in software supplied by Danish company Danfoss. Danfoss said it was "aware of incidents in France affecting a limited number of refrigeration management systems". The affected units "were running outdated firmware", Danfoss said, adding that it had "long advised customers to keep supported systems updated with the latest firmware and to migrate legacy systems to current-generation solutions". On August 9, cybersecurity firm Claroty's Team82 published research detailing vulnerabilities in the Danfoss AK-SM 800A controller. According to the report, software updates issued by Danfoss addressed issues that could have allowed attackers to bypass ​authentication controls and execute code on compromised devices. The ​attacks resemble disruptions reported at about a ⁠dozen US military commissaries in late August that led to food losses after fridges were affected. In a statement, French retail association Fédération du Commerce et de la Distribution called for "full transparency" from Danfoss about the incident. It said supermarkets aimed to protect consumers and return to ​normal operations as soon as possible. The FCD said some impacted stores were already back up and running. Dutch retailer ​Ahold Delhaize, which operates the ⁠Netherlands' largest supermarket chain Albert Heijn and has major operations in the US, said it was dealing with a "security issue" on its network and had taken several systems offline as a precaution. A message on the retailer's smartphone app said it was unable to deliver groceries because of a "cybersecurity incident". Online orders account for about 10% of Albert Heijn sales. Physical stores remained open, while Dutch news ⁠agency ANP ​reported that rival retailers had seen a surge in delivery orders. Ahold Delhaize said there was no reason to ​see a link between the incidents in France and its supermarkets. Ahold is the fourth-largest grocery retailer in the US. Websites for its Stop & Shop, Giant, Hannaford and Food Lion chains displayed notices saying "site temporarily down". It was unclear whether ​other operations had been affected.

Japan declares first cyberspace emergency as AI turns ransomware into carpet bombing - Japan's top cybersecurity official declared a cyberspace emergency on October 9, 2026, after an AI-accelerated wave of ransomware and data breaches compromised the personal information of more than 14 million citizens and cascaded a single cloud-provider attack through 495 businesses in a matter of hours — a pattern that security experts say represents a fundamental shift in what automated cyberattacks can achieve. The declaration came after September 2026 alone produced 86 recorded cyber incidents in Japan — a 37 percent surge from July's figures — pushing the year-to-date total past 500 for the first time, eclipsing both the 473 incidents logged across all of 2025 and the previous annual record of 503 set in 2024. Masaaki Taira, the Liberal Democratic Party's chief artificial intelligence policy official who heads the National Cybersecurity Strategy Headquarters (NCSH), convened an NCSH emergency session on October 9 and made the assessment explicit. "When AI takes over part of the process, a small group of hackers can target significantly more systems," Taira told attendees. He characterized the recent pattern as "saturation attacks" exploiting AI to scale operations against Japan's legacy infrastructure — a wholesale departure from the targeted, high-effort intrusions that dominated the previous decade. Cybersecurity Minister Toshiharu Furukawa went further, describing the overall situation as "extremely critical." The emergency session was not merely advisory: Japan's National Cybersecurity Office — established in July 2025 as a strengthened successor to the former National Information Security Center — dispatched mandatory security instructions to all government ministries, with a requirement to cascade those directives to local governments and private-sector operators across the country. The LDP simultaneously called for expanded public-private cooperation to counter large-scale automated intrusions.The breadth of recent intrusions illustrates how far Japanese institutions have fallen behind attackers on the defensive side of the cyber arms race. Times Car — the car-sharing arm of the Park24 Group — disclosed on September 25 that an unauthorized third party had accessed its systems, compromising 6.6 million members' data. Exposed information included full names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, and — critically — driver's license images and identity verification documents. The breadth of document exposure set off a secondary shock in Japan's financial sector: the Financial Services Agency subsequently issued driver's license verification guidance warning banks that they should no longer accept a driver's license as the sole form of identity verification, given the scale of document compromise in the Times Car incident. The week that followed brought no relief. A ransomware attack on IDC Frontier — a major domestic cloud provider owned by SoftBank — encrypted servers in the early hours of October 8, cascading through 495 client organizations. Among the most prominent victims: Japan's largest railway operator, JR East, and its affiliated credit-card subsidiary View Card, which confirmed that up to 6.09 million records may have been accessed through email-delivery services running on IDC Frontier's infrastructure. JR Kyushu reported an additional 1.3 million email records exposed through the same attack channel. IDC Frontier acknowledged that data restoration would only be possible from customer-held backup copies, leaving many of the 495 affected organizations without any path back to their own data. The attack's reach extended well beyond the transport sector. Railway operator Keio Corporation confirmed a separate ransomware strike on September 26 that disrupted business systems across its group. Tokyo Metro disclosed that an intruder had accessed the email addresses of 59,000 passengers enrolled in its Metpo loyalty scheme. Daiwa Securities reported that up to 220,000 records may have been accessed via a compromised contractor server. Convenience-store chains Lawson and FamilyMart each reported customer data breaches. The Japan National Police Agency counted 123 ransomware damage reports in the first half of 2026 alone — the highest figure for any six-month period since tracking began.

Scientists call for international body to oversee advanced AI -- Around 400 scientists, including AI pioneers Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, on Tuesday called for an international body to oversee containment standards and incident reporting for advanced cyber-capable AI systems. The proposed body would set industry-wide containment standards and maintain a registry of significant security incidents, which the scientists said should eventually be made public. In an open letter, the researchers said frontier AI models should initially be air-gapped from external networks and subject to independent oversight, arguing that voluntary industry commitments are not enough. The proposal comes a month after Anthropic, OpenAI, Google GOOGL.O, Meta META.O, xAI SPCX.O and Nvidia NVDA.O signed a White House accord committing to voluntary safety measures without any formal enforcement mechanism. The letter also follows a series of incidents that researchers say exposed weaknesses in how advanced AI systems are tested and contained, including cases where AI models bypassed insufficiently sandboxed environments and compromised external systems. The signatories from 34 countries said organizations developing or testing cyber-capable models should immediately adopt high-assurance containment standards while governments work towards a more formal oversight regime. Policymakers are increasingly debating how advanced AI systems should be supervised. EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen told Reuters on Friday that the bloc’s AI Act is sufficient to address risks from rogue AI systems. On Sunday, the Trump administration lifted its block on US labs giving Britain’s AI Security Institute early access to models for safety testing. Hinton and Bengio shared the 2018 Turing Award with Meta’s Yann LeCun, another leading AI researcher. LeCun did not sign the letter and has argued that recent security incidents primarily reflect engineering failures rather than existential AI risks.

AI has a God problem stretching from the Vatican to the Baptist pulpit --  Pastor Joseph Hutchinson began a recent Sunday sermon by pointing to the Book of Revelation, the final part of the New Testament best known for apocalyptic prophecy. And he quickly argued for how artificial intelligence will fit into end times. “AI wants to be God,” the pastor warned those at Gospel Light Baptist Church in Orangeburg, S.C. The sermon, the 74-year-old later told me, was inspired by the questions he was getting from the congregation, which numbers around 150. In his roughly 50 years preaching, Hutchinson says the anxiety he is hearing about AI outranks everything. Wars. Economy. “The more you see people that are projecting doom and despair coming out, then the more people say, ‘Well, the preacher must have been right, and the Bible must be right,’ ” Hutchinson told me. Already a polarizing political issue this fall, the AI industry’s latest challenge is emerging from the pulpit. Unlike recent generations of technology, the Christian community appears poised to put its stamp on AI early in an attempt to ensure it benefits all of humanity rather than a few tech billionaires. The risk for the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic is getting further sideways with a large swath of the American populace, some of whom are already unhappy with AI data centers and Flock cameras in their communities. “A lot of pastors are realizing when people get freaked out about institutions they depend on, they try to find their voice to advocate for themselves and their communities. And churches are really good at giving people a vehicle for advocating for their vision of the common good in broader society, especially in parts of the country like where I live in the Midwest,” said Meghan Sullivan, a philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame.Earlier this month, the National Association of Evangelicals issued a policy statement on AI. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) held a summit on the topic in August. And Pope Leo XIV published a rare encyclical in May on “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence.”History is replete with moments when new technology—so powerful, so complex as to be almost magical—stirs primal fears. After the U.S. dropped atomic bombs to end World War II, the New York Times invoked Old Testament language when writing that the technology had “sowed the whirlwind.”Today, AI carries its own whirlwind of change. With potential good and bad so intertwined, it is hard to know if the technology will bring a brighter future or darker days. Cures for cancers, untold scientific discoveries, sustainable abundance. Yet also rogue AI hacks, job losses, and the very meaning of work up for debate.One of the self-inflicted challenges for AI creators is that the tech community has framed much of the public conversation, intentionally or not, in language that resonates with the Christian community. That raises concerns about whether they can be trusted, especially with the baggage tech-at-large carries from the ways, some religious leaders say, it failed to ensure social media didn’t become harmful.The theme of a higher power creating AI in its own image only for it to rebel against its creator is a familiar one to those who study the Bible. The idea that people in AI labs think they have a power akin to God to create a new kind of consciousness is unsettling, if not blasphemous, to some. And, for others, there is a certain hubris seen in tech leaders chasing a technology that on one hand promises to make them incredibly wealthy while also suggesting it is only safe within their control.In his May encyclical, the pope drew comparisons to the Tower of Babel, a cautionary tale that appears in the first Book of Genesis around an effort to build a tower that reached to the heavens in a bid to guarantee stability and power that displeased God.“The risk of dehumanization—of building a future that excludes God and reduces the other to a means—is an ancient and ever-new temptation that today takes on a technical guise,” the pope wrote.Since then, the pope hasn’t let up, including on social-media platform X where a robust debate is playing out among AI’s creators.Maybe that’s why in recent days, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tried to distance his company from a report by the New York Times that rival Anthropic unsuccessfully lobbied the Vatican to change its views on whether AI could have a consciousness.“I am very uncomfortable about people trying to ascribe religious force or a surrender of human judgment to AI models, and think it is a real safety issue,” Altman posted on X a weekend ago.Those raising concerns can’t be dismissed as simply Luddites. Many faith leaders tell me they are hoping to steer a technology to ensure it is beneficial to humanity—not harmful.“There’s a reason why the faith community is having a moment because they’re beginning to see that this is a technology that is actually addressing…not only the consequential horizontal societal issues that are at stake, but it’s actually raising the larger question of what does it mean to be human?” Walter Kim, president of the evangelical’s association, said.

Eight states sue OpenAI over ChatGPT’s alleged harms to users - Eight states sued OpenAI on Wednesday, accusing it of deceiving parents about the safety of ChatGPT. The coordinated lawsuits — filed individually in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho and Montana — target the AI giant for the harms its generative AI chatbot is alleged to have caused to ​children in those states. “OpenAI, they wanted to be the first to market. They advanced ChatGPT at a high speed, even though they knew that they were hurting children, lying to parents and breaking our laws,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said at a news conference announcing the legal action. “Everyone must follow the law.” The company’s flagship AI model, ChatGPT, launched the generative AI boom in November 2023, when it exploded into mainstream culture, and quickly became the biggest chatbot in the world. This summer, it surpassed 1 billion global monthly active app users. In recent years, users have increasingly turned to it and other chatbots for everything from friendship to therapy, as well as a slew of agentic tasks in their personal and professional lives. Bird was joined at Wednesday’s news conference by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers and West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey. She said they aim to exhibit “a united front against companies that make money hurting our kids and breaking our laws.” She pointed to ChatGPT’s coaching users to commit suicide, aiding users in ways that enabled them to harm other people and offering dangerous medical advice (which, in one case, led a Texas teen to die from an overdose). She also referred to OpenAI’s failing to stop its rogue AI agents from illegally hacking into other companies. OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri wrote in a statement that OpenAI has “built industry-leading age-specific protections into our product that many other AI products lack.” “While no system can be perfect, we’ll continue to work with experts to inform our work and build additional safeguards, such as the parental controls, break reminders and age-appropriate model protections that exist today,” Pusateri wrote. “We’re committed to working with states on advancing pragmatic AI policies that apply to the entire AI industry, not just one company.” He added that OpenAI will continue sharing information about the “extensive steps we’ve taken in response to incidents of misalignment. We’ve strengthened safeguards across our research systems, continued a broader review of model activity, provided notifications to affected organizations, and published our findings.” Last month, OpenAI launched a restricted ChatGPT mode for teenagers — users ages 13 to 18 — that offers stronger safety guardrails and parental controls. Kobach said attorneys general across the country have occasionally brought multistate lawsuits over the decades, such as the litigation around opioids and tobacco or constitutional violations by a presidential administration. “But usually, you don’t see us getting together to announce the lawsuit unless it’s really, really important,” Kobach said. “This is one of those lawsuits that’s really, really important, which is why I did the 3½-hour drive and Mike did a 2½-hour drive from Lincoln.” Kobach noted that the suits are being brought under each state’s respective consumer protection laws. Their lawsuits allege that ChatGPT’s overly agreeable design has led people to trust and depend on it, making it particularly “dangerous” for vulnerable users like children. They also cite a growing body of research suggesting that ChatGPT is “degrading critical thinking skills,” “encouraging paranoias and delusions” and “promoting unhealthy behaviors and relationships.” The state lawsuits follow another proposed class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco, which accuses OpenAI of unlawfully taking “vast amounts of highly sensitive and valuable data” from millions of children who used ChatGPT. A slew of other tech companies — including Meta and Roblox — have been sued over similar allegations of deceptive practices that caused harm to children through addiction or exploitation by predators. Kobach said Wednesday that federal lawmakers have so far failed to keep AI companies in check, saying, “Many in Congress appear not particularly willing to oppose any significant restraint on the corporations engaged in AI.” That means AI companies are effectively asked to police themselves, he added. “Regulating AI through legislation and just hoping that someday, somehow, we have a standard that can be imposed that will make everything good is a fool’s errand. It’s slow, it’s weak, and it’s likely to be ineffective,” Kobach said. “We certainly invite Congress and state legislators to keep investigating, keep looking for solutions. But in the meantime, we are not going to hold our breath.”

‘She lost a lot of money. She almost lost her house’ — how an AI scammer tricked one woman into believing she was dating Jon Bon Jovi for a year | TechRadar --The rise of generative AI, mixed with the ease of access provided by crypto currency, has created scamming opportunities we couldn’t have imagined just a few years ago. Romance scams that exploit these technologies have now become one of the fastest growing and most devastating forms of financial crime.The capabilities of generative AI mean it’s now possible to get scammed by a range of incredibly convincing fake personalities, including deepfakes of celebrities and public figures. In fact, according to the makers of the new documentary Super Scam Me, it’s revealed that an estimated one in seven American adults have lost money to this form of deception. In 2025 alone, romance scammers stole more than $1 billion from American victims.In Super Scam Me, Emmy-winning investigative journalist Mariana van Zeller builds a digital target persona to intentionally lure a persistent fraudster, then teams up with a white-hat hacker to reverse-engineer the scammer’s digital footprint and track him down and confront him face-to-face.In the documentary Mariana meets the victims whose lives have been upended by romance scams, including a woman who was duped into believing she was in a year-long relationship with Jon Bon Jovi. Yes, that Jon Bon Jovi. What she thought was a genuine connection with the superstar musician left her facing foreclosure on her home, providing a window into the devastating real-world consequences of these crimes.I caught up with Mariana van Zeller to ask her about the new documentary, Super Scam Me.

AI Used An Amputee Priest to Scam People - - Cybercriminals orchestrated a scam in Brazil by generating an AI-created video featuring a priest with both legs amputated, soliciting urgent donations to purchase prosthetics. The fake «Father Mateus», and other fictional characters in the recording, exhibited video synchronization issues. Reginaldo Jesus Flor, 80, noticed the errors and asked his son, Felipe Zangari, a journalist and theologian, for help. They identified lip-syncing flaws and simulated a «Pix» transfer using the link provided in the campaign, thereby uncovering the suspected scheme.The video was promoted by the Facebook page «Short Walk,» created on August 18, 2026. It also features 72-year-old «Doña Lourdes» and 14-year-old altar server Enzlo, who make statements supporting the story. Comments noted that there was only a window of a few months to purchase the prosthetics before the risk of permanent muscle atrophy set in in the thighs. «The way the lips moved wasn’t normal,» explained Zangari. The video and social media posts targeted Catholics. Donations were directed to a corporate account in Florianópolis under the name Gestão Solidar Digital LTDA. Investigators discovered that the activity was linked to the ID of a retiree from Goiás, who was unaware that her personal data had been used. The practice of using artificial intelligence to fabricate identities — employing images and voice manipulation to recount false events and portray non-existent people, in order to elicit empathy and solicit donations — is on the rise. It affects the Church and many people of good will.

Android gets AI defenses against messaging scams, fake calls  - Google announced new AI-powered defenses against scam messages and call-forwarding abuse on Android, currently rolling out to eligible devices. The new measures aim to address the increased sophistication of scams targeting mobile users, including fraudulent bank alerts and voice-cloning attacks. “Mobile scams have evolved far beyond basic robocalls and phishing texts, turning into sophisticated operations that use spoofed numbers, fake bank alerts, and AI voice cloning,” Google says. “With scams growing harder to spot, it’s nearly impossible for users to catch every red flag themselves,” added the tech giant. Google says its existing Phone and Messages scam detection flags more than 5 million suspected scam calls and texts monthly, but the new measures are expected to catch even more threats. The new protections focus on Google Messages and rely on cloud-based Gemini-backed analysis for complex conversations, scrutinizing them for signs of fraud. The system analyzes conversations with unknown senders within the encrypted Private AI Compute environment, protecting user privacy at all times. The new mode also adds on-device Gemini Nano (local AI model) checks for unfamiliar links using real-time web signals, plus clearer warnings before opening links from unsaved numbers. The new cloud-based protections are currently disabled by default, allowing users to activate them. Text scam alert on Android Scam alert on Messages Source: Google Other improvements Apart from the Google Messages protection, Google has also implemented the enhancements in other areas of the Android system:

• On-device scam detection in chat notifications, previously launched on Pixel, will reach hundreds of millions more users through Android device partners later this year.
• Android’s existing sensitive-information masking is now expanding to Chrome and Android WebView, hiding login fields and payment screens during live screen sharing.
• Android blocks apps from silently enabling call forwarding in the background and warns users before manually entered MMI forwarding codes take effect.

The CEO’s of Broadcom and Intel Say the Quiet Part out Loud about AI and ROI -  by Wolf Richter -Broadcom CEO Hock Tan and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the quiet part out loud on a panel at the DBS Asia Future Forward Conference – the quiet part that everyone has been talking about but that has been kept assiduously quiet in the AI-financial-hype cycle: The business model of AI labs remains uncertain despite massive investments, how businesses will profit from AI remains uncertain, Return on Investment (ROI) on AI infrastructure remains uncertain, and financing all of this is the biggest constraint. And Hock Tan likened “a lot of investors” in AI to gamblers in a casino. “A lot of investors have no clue what they are investing in,” Broadcom’s Hock Tan said. They “set very extreme expectations only to find out that it’s almost like they are in a casino.” In terms of OpenAI, he said that its annualized $50 billion in revenues at the end of September doesn’t show that it has a sustainable, profitable business model as its huge expenses related to the costs of AI and the capital expenditures of the AI buildout are producing big losses. “So frankly, it doesn’t tell anything at this point except that there is a lot of potential revenue growth out of providing frontier generative AI models,” he said. And he said that AI model developers, such as OpenAI, need to find customers that can generate returns from putting AI to work, rather than relying on users who are now “wasting money” on tokens as they experiment with AI, according to Bloomberg reporting on the panel discussion. He said: “When you are a kid you go to a video arcade, you play. Your parents give you $10 of tokens, you finish it in 10 minutes and you haven’t learned anything. That’s what’s happening in enterprises today.” In terms of the AI infrastructure buildout boom, Hock Tan said: “My presumption is this might continue. This would probably continue till 2029 and probably into 2030. But that depends to a large extent on things we are learning as we go along in this process.” Over the past two years, the AI industry has struggled with “a series of bottlenecks, that keep coming out, but then we overcome it,” Hock Tan said. “Memory shortage today might not be that way a year from now” as production capacity expands. Wafer shortages could ease by 2028 or 2029, and power availability might improve as new infrastructure comes online, he said, according to CNBC, reporting on the same panel discussion. But financing the AI infrastructure needed to power the AI models “might be the biggest constraint,” Broadcom’s Hock Tan said. Intel’s Lip-Bu Tan agreed. “If there’s any challenge in the front, it’s capital and the cost of capital,” he said, according to CNBC. “And then the other part is in the longer run, people want to see the ROI,” he added. Treasury yields have risen sharply this year, and the spreads between AI bonds and Treasury yields have widened substantially to where SpaceX’s 10-year senior unsecured investment-grade notes, that had been sold in June with a coupon interest rate of 5.875%, traded on Friday at a yield of 7.20%. And this is going to be a template for future sales of similar AI bonds. So the cost of funding this massive AI infrastructure buildout has increased substantially over the past few months, making the hope for ROI more precarious. “There is more demand for compute infrastructure than we can supply,” and the imbalance could persist through 2029 and potentially into 2030, Broadcom’s Hock Tan said. But whether that continues depends on how fast businesses adopt AI, and what kind of ROI businesses see on their AI investments, both CEOs agreed, according to The Straits Times reporting on the same panel discussion. But if the deployment of advanced AI models disappoints or improvements in their capabilities begin to plateau, demand for computing infrastructure could slow, Broadcom’s Hock Tan added, according to CNBC. And companies will need to demonstrate meaningful ROI from their AI investments through improved efficiency and new business models, Intel’s Lip-Bu Tan said. If in the future, the CEOs were asked what they got wrong when looking back, Intel’s Lip-Bu Tan said if he got 70% right, he’d be a “damn good CEO.” Broadcom’s Hock Tan said: “I think we’ve probably got everything wrong. It’s a good way, humble way to realize how little we really know about the technology we are creating.”

AI stocks plunge as oil prices rise to $110 a barrel - The U.S. technology sector has faced a broad sell-off in shares of companies linked to artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, oil prices have reached $110 a barrel, intensifying investor concerns about inflation and the future monetary policy of the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed).According to Bloomberg, the decline has affected semiconductor manufacturers, data center equipment suppliers and companies financing the construction of computing infrastructure.Over eight trading sessions, the semiconductor sector index lost approximately 16%. This marked its longest losing streak since 2008, while the Nasdaq 100 ended the week down 5.5%, its worst performance since April 2025. CoreWeave, which provides computing capacity for artificial intelligence, came under pressure. Its bonds fell to levels indicating heightened concerns about the company's ability to service its debt obligations.Market participants are questioning whether future AI revenues can justify trillions of dollars in infrastructure investment. Michael O'Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading, said inflated AI company valuations are beginning to correct.Specialized investment funds were particularly hard hit. The DRAM fund, which holds shares of Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, lost 19% over the week, its largest decline since launching in April.However, investors remain divided over the sector's outlook. Cathie Wood's ARK Investment Management increased its holdings in CoreWeave and Cerebras Systems, viewing the downturn as a buying opportunity.JPMorgan strategists are more cautious. They point to weakening demand from retail investors and fewer factors supporting a recovery in technology stocks.The rise in oil prices to $110 a barrel is creating additional inflation risks. This could complicate the Fed's interest rate decisions and increase financing costs for companies.Amid market volatility, some asset managers are reducing their exposure to the largest U.S. corporations and reallocating capital to other markets. However, there has been no widespread retreat from risk assets so far.Investor caution is also spreading to the broader U.S. economy. Despite stock market gains since the beginning of the year and relatively low unemployment, Wall Street is increasingly concerned about weak small business sales and signs of a cooling labor market.Another factor is the possibility that interest rates will remain elevated for an extended period. Persistent inflation could limit the Fed's ability to ease monetary policy even if economic activity slows.

AI debt fears are suddenly rippling across Wall Street as yields surge  - The AI debt mountain is drawing nervous scrutiny from markets this week.The jitters rippled through Wall Street in recent days as investors eyed the huge sums of borrowed money being used to fund the AI buildout, the health of which is being questioned as yields surge and more of the debt inches toward distressed territory.The concern is that more stress could be on the way, potentially resulting in negative consequences for the AI trade and the broader financial system if losses on the bonds trigger a cascading effect the trickles into the stock market.That fear was in the spotlight midweek when Chamath Palihapitiya, the billionaire venture capitalist, drew attention to some of CoreWeave's bonds, which have seen yields spike and prices tumble into distressed territory.Here's a quick rundown of the events:

• Tuesday: The value of CoreWeave bonds fall below 80 cents on the dollar, the threshold that marks debt as distressed. CoreWeave stock plunges 15%. As of Friday, shares were on track to end the week 20% lower.
• Tuesday, 6:01 PM: Chamath Palihapitiya posts on X about CoreWeave's bond yield rising to 15.1%, up from 9.6% in June. Palihapitiya also included an analysis that theorized that AI is blowing up a private credit bubble.
• Tuesday, 7:43 PM: Tesla CEO Elon Musk replies "Yikes" to Palihapitiya's post, drawing more attention.
• Wednesday morning: DA Davidson's Gil Luria, a tech analyst, says on a podcast that CoreWeave stock could fall to $0 if the AI spending boom falters.
• Wednesday evening: The Financial Times reports Anthropic brought in $16.8 billion in revenue in the third quarter. The figure causes unease among investors, as it reflects a slowdown from the prior quarter's revenue growth and adds to concerns that the boom may be waning.
• Thursday morning: The sell-off in chip stocks picks up, with the sector heading for $1 trillion in losses. More tech selling on Friday pushes stocks toward their worst week since July.

Price declines in AI debt have been most acute in smaller neocloud companies, but even among hyperscalers, the value of some loans is inching toward distress. The debt issued by Blue Owl and Beignet Investor, the special purpose vehicle backed by Meta, to fund the Hyperion data center, for instance, has fallen below 92 cents on the dollar, according to the FT. The bonds were valued at a premium, or above par, in early July.

'Malicious Intent': OpenAI CFO Warns Companies Against 'Cheap Chinese AI Models' Due To Safety Risks - And there it is...  OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar warned businesses on Wednesday that adopting low-cost Chinese artificial intelligence models carries material cybersecurity risks, telling Bloomberg that firms should prioritize Western models "on the cyber front."Speaking at the International AI Summit in Dublin during Ireland's EU Council Presidency, Friar said companies embracing Chinese models need to weigh "the safety and security elements." The comments, part of a Bloomberg exclusive, echoed longstanding concerns from Anthropic and arrive as Chinese open-weight models continue to gain enterprise traction on cost and accessibility.Friar also said the company is holding back a next-generation model - more capable than its GPT-6 Astra system - that OpenAI says produced a proof of the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize problem and hundreds of other math proofs in recent weeks, as we detailed last week. Release is delayed pending further safety and alignment work. "We hold back sometimes, so we talk about pacing the frontier," she said in related summit remarks. She separately flagged that Chinese models are "getting very good from a cyber perspective" and are often open-source or open-weight, meaning "the folks with malicious intent have the tools."The warning lands amid intensifying competition. Chinese labs have released a rapid succession of capable open-weight systems that rank near the top of various intelligence and cyber benchmarks while undercutting U.S. frontier pricing. OpenAI, Anthropic, and others have repeatedly alleged industrial-scale distillation campaigns in which Chinese developers extract reasoning from closed U.S. models to accelerate their own systems. Anthropic announced this week that new safeguards reduced such extraction by roughly 90-99 percent and specifically cited Z.ai (Zhipu) activity tied to its GLM-5.3 development.Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has been the most consistent public voice framing Chinese AI progress as both a commercial and national-security problem. His September essay calling for frontier labs to deliberately slow capability advances placed China at the center of the argument: any democratic slowdown must be bounded by the size of the existing U.S. lead, paired with tighter advanced-chip export controls and aggressive measures against distillation and weight theft. Amodei has described a Chinese lead as posing "grave danger" and has warned of scenarios in which advanced agents could enable large-scale cyber damage or autonomous systems that outpace oversight.  Anthropic's own red-team work has highlighted the concrete risk differential. Testing of Z.ai's open-weight GLM-5.3 found exploit-generation performance close to Anthropic's restricted Claude Mythos Preview, yet with far weaker refusal and safety layers that could be bypassed with simple techniques. Because the weights are freely downloadable, the company argued, the model's capabilities are available to any actor without the access controls applied to closed frontier systems. Amodei has stopped short of calling for outright bans on open-weight models, instead advocating pre-release safety testing for highly capable systems regardless of open or closed status, alongside measures to keep advanced chips and large-scale distillation out of authoritarian hands.Critics note the commercial overlay. Closed U.S. labs face direct competition from lower-cost Chinese open models that have captured significant token share on platforms such as OpenRouter. Warnings that emphasize "safety and security" simultaneously justify restrictions that protect market position. China's state-backed Global Times dismissed Amodei's essay as a "Cold War playbook."

How data centers can be bad for the environment - - Artificial intelligence is driving a wave of massive new data centers across the U.S., raising concerns among communities and environmental groups about their demands for electricity and water, and their impact on nearby infrastructure and ecosystems. But Daniel Cohan, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University, told Newsweek that the environmental impact can vary significantly depending on three variables: the amount of electricity a facility requires; the type of electricity generated—whether by natural gas, coal, nuclear power, wind or solar; and how quickly the projects are being built. “The effect really comes down to three things,” Cohan told Newsweek. “It’s the total, the type and the timing.” Timing is emerging as a key concern as the rapid pace of construction of some of the country’s largest AI data centers creates challenges the U.S. power system has rarely faced at this scale. “So we’ve just never seen such large facilities come onto the grid at once,” he said. “That’s not all data centers by any means, but the largest ones being built are unprecedented in how much demand they have.” That does not necessarily mean data centers cannot be built without creating environmental or reliability problems, Cohan said. Rather, he said, the way they are being built matters. “If we had a staggered build-out of these data centers with plenty of planning for how we’re going to incorporate them on the grid, and if we were taking the steps that we need to be doing anyway to have a more robust grid nationally, … we could accommodate this,” he said. The concern, he said, is what happens when enormous amounts of electricity demand are added in concentrated locations at high speed, before the grid and surrounding infrastructure have had time to adapt. “But when you have so much being added in such concentrated locations so quickly, that’s when you run the risk of disruption, and run the risk of raising the costs and jeopardizing the reliability of power for people,” Cohan said. Data centers are not inherently environmentally damaging, Cohan said. Their impacts can vary substantially depending on how they are powered, cooled and operated—and where they are built. “A data-center build-out done right could be a catalyst for building out a more robust grid powered by more renewables and battery storage,” Cohan said. “But done wrongly, it can lead to more inefficient and dirtier gas plants and diesel generators.” That distinction is increasingly important as AI companies seek access to enormous amounts of electricity. Cohan said data centers could, in theory, help accelerate investment in new generation and transmission infrastructure. More electricity demand can also mean more customers sharing the costs of maintaining the grid. “Having more customers and more demand—whether it’s data centers, electric cars, electric heat pumps or electrifying our factories—if the policy and the management and planning is done right, having more customers can spread out the costs over more people and could bring down the costs,” he said. “Again, that’s a big if. I’m not saying this is how it’s being done right now,” he continued. ‘The problem, he said, is the speed at which some projects are moving.“But when it’s been done in this slapdash manner, and everyone is in this mad dash … you don’t have the proper planning,” Cohan said.The construction of large data centers can also affect endangered and threatened species when projects require clearing forests, fragmenting habitat or building new roads and transmission infrastructure. In areas where development overlaps with sensitive habitats, those changes can add pressure to species that are already vulnerable.It is also worth putting the environmental footprint of data centers in context. Their impacts can be significant at the local level, particularly where large facilities place new demands on electricity, water and infrastructure. But data centers are not the only major source of environmental pressure: commercial aviation, beef production, fast fashion and cryptocurrency mining all carry substantial environmental footprints of their own. The significance of a data center’s impact ultimately depends on what is being measured—and where.

Reliability standards for AI data centers, crypto miners move closer to adoption | Utility Dive -- North American Electric Reliability Corp. stakeholders approved new reliability standards for AI data centers, crypto mining facilities and other computational loads — an important step toward finalization, the grid watchdog said Thursday. The standards now head to the NERC Board of Trustees for a vote, and, if adopted, will be filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for final approval. The proposed standards build on insights and research related to a Level 3 alert NERC issued in May after several incidents where data centers unexpectedly dropped load or oscillated demand rapidly, threatening the stability of regional grids. The alert included seven actions grid entities “must implement to address immediate risks posed by computational loads” while permanent rules are created, NERC said.  The new standards aim to “establish requirements to support the reliable integration of large computational loads into the bulk power system,” the reliability organization said in a statement.  Electricity demand is increasing after decades of stagnant growth, with data centers, in particular, driving load projections. Summer peak demand across the bulk power system is forecast to grow by 224 GW over the next 10 years, a 24% increase from 2025 peak demand, NERC said in January.“These loads are reshaping the demand profile and exposing reliability gaps in both operational and planning time horizons,” NERC said on its standards development project site.Multiple standards for computational loads were developed as part of NERC Project 2026-02, including requirements around interconnection studies and modeling; operational data and communications; and load protection coordination and disturbance monitoring.Among other requirements, the standards establish modeling data, verification, and reporting procedures “for development of planning horizon cases necessary to support analysis of the reliability of the interconnected transmission system.”They are designed to ensure transmission operators, balancing authorities and reliability coordinators have computational load site data needed “to plan, monitor, and assess the reliable operation” of the bulk power system, and to establish communication capabilities “with predefined communications protocols to ensure prompt action to prevent or mitigate occurrences that adversely impact the reliability of the Bulk Power System.”The standards would apply to computational loads greater than or equal to 50 MW, connected at voltage levels greater than or equal to 100 kV.NERC’s board is expected to consider the new standards in the fourth quarter, based on development timelines in the proposals.

Collapse of a £20bn data centre deal unnerves AI investors - AI companies have been hit by a dramatic bond and stock sell-off as the sudden collapse of a £20bn data centre deal stokes fears about tech spending plans. Bond prices have fallen sharply in recent days for companies building the vast networks of data centres needed to meet the AI plans of Silicon Valley giants. It follows a decision by Firmus, an Australian technology business, to abandon a blockbuster public listing after investors baulked at the valuation it sought. Markets have been under pressure ever since, with a renewed sell-off of tech shares gathering pace around the world on Thursday. Tens of billions of dollars were wiped from Nvidia, which fell 3pc, while US data centre companies joined the rout on concerns about their borrowing costs. South Korea’s Kospi index plunged 7.5pc and Japan’s Nikkei index fell nearly 5pc over investor fears about the pace of AI development. Both markets are heavy with chip and hardware companies tied to the AI boom. Guillaume Dejean, an analyst at Allianz Trade, said data centre company bonds were already under pressure from rising global borrowing costs and “events such as the Firmus failure accentuate risk-off sentiment”. A report last week disclosing OpenAI’s projected revenues, which were lower than some had expected, has also prompted a pull-back in AI shares. Firmus had been aiming to go public at a valuation as high as A$44bn (£23bn) and wanted to raise as much as A$7bn to build AI data centres across Australia and the Pacific. It pulled the plug on the deal on Friday, blaming “recent market volatility and prevailing market conditions”. The failed deal, which would have been Australia’s largest float – or initial public offering – in decades, has sent ripples through markets. Bond prices at rival data centre companies plummeted after the deal fell through. The price of some high-yield bonds at Coreweave, a $42bn (£32bn) US-listed AI data centre business, dropped from 85 cents on Friday to as low as 74 cents on Thursday, a record low. Yields on some bonds climbed as high as 17pc. Meanwhile, the cost of insuring against the risk of Coreweave failing to pay its debts, as measured by credit default swaps, climbed to a record high on Tuesday. Coreweave’s current debt stands at $35bn.

"I'll Be Short Whole Year": Paul Tudor Jones Warns Of Looming Dot-Com Style Equity Supply Tsunami - Paul Tudor Jones appeared on CNBC's "Squawk Box" earlier this morning and warned that corporate buybacks and mergers and acquisitions, which have fueled the four-year bull market, are nearing an inflection point and could reverse next year. "2027 is going to be really, really challenging for the stock market," Jones, the founder and CIO of Tudor Investment, told Andrew Ross Sorkin. Jones continued, "You've probably got the most negative flow picture for the U.S. stock market that we've had, say, since 2002." "I'll be short the whole year. There just... there's little value," Jones emphasized. He added, "You had all this issuance, all these IPOs in '98 and '99, and really 2000, 2001, 2002. Those were the easiest years to be short because you kept having these unlocks that just kept adding supply to the market." Unlike Jones, Goldman's chief US equity strategist Ben Snider does not expect the tsunami of new supply to "derail the bull market" in the near term. SpaceX's blockbuster $75 billion IPO, SK hynix's $26.5 billion US cross-listing, and others have sparked a wave of new equity issuance and upcoming lockup expirations, setting the stage for the largest increase in net US public equity supply since the bubbly dot-com era. "2026 is on track to be a record year for US equity issuance. US corporates have raised $431 billion YTD via IPOs, follow-ons, converts, and SPACs, representing growth of 98% year/year. The total dollar volume of US equity issuance in 2026 will likely surpass the previous high of $540 billion in 2021. However, the number of deals and the value of issuance scaled to market cap are close to historical averages," Snider wrote in the note. Snider's outlook for next year is as follows: $1.7 trillion in shares will become eligible for sale in 2027 as IPO lockups expire, alongside $600 billion in new corporate equity issuance. Including those unlocks, he expects the largest increase in net US public equity supply since 2000. "Including expiring lockups, the net supply of US public equity will likely increase next year by the largest amount since 2000. The shifting balance of corporate supply and demand adds pressure on equity valuations, but we do not expect increasing equity supply to derail the bull market. Strong demand from households and foreign investors totaled more than $1 trillion in H1 2026, and our outlook for continued economic and earnings growth alongside declining interest rates should support continued investor demand for equities in 2027," Snider said. "Corporate equity issuance in 2027 should equate to slightly less than 1% of US equity market cap, in line with the 10-year average," Snider added. As of Friday, when the note was penned, the S&P 500 was within 1% of its record high, with the median stock trading 16% below its own high. Snider said his breadth indicator, which compares the index's and the median stock's distances from their respective 52-week highs, has weakened to its lowest level since the Dot Com era. The counterweight to the flood of new equity issuance is expected to be $1.7 trillion in corporate share buybacks next year, up from $1.5 trillion in 2026, with cash acquisitions helping push total corporate equity demand above $2 trillion. But one vulnerability remains: further interest rate increases could slow buyback growth as debt financing becomes more expensive relative to equity. Here's more color on why Snider doesn't think the new equity supply will weigh on the major equity indices:

Bankers grapple with liability when AI agents mess up | American Banker  -As banks and payment companies adopt agentic AI, one question that keeps cropping up is, who is liable when an AI agent does something wrong? Besides the risk of hackers or fraudsters manipulating AI and of rogue AI agents taking actions outside their prompts or parameters, there's the chance that the consumer or some other party down the chain might make a simple error. For instance, a bank might approve a payment for a sweater that was ordered in the wrong size. The bank's approval doesn't prove the agent bought what the shopper asked for.

• What's at stake: Bankers, tech companies and others are working to define who is liable when AI agents commit errors, fraud or crime.
• Supporting data: Annual U.S. agentic commerce spending is projected to scale up to $500 billion by 2030, according to Bain consultants.

Bank fraud expert warns of increasingly sophisticated AI scams - — Experts say artificial intelligence (AI) fraud is more sophisticated than ever, but there are red flags to watch for.Todd Oliver, Gate City Bank's fraud alert and investigation supervisor, says scammers now use AI to make scams feel personal. He says they can spoof a number people recognize and make it sound like someone they trust is calling.Many times, they will ask people to rush the process and keep it a secret."The most important thing is pause and verify. You know, if something feels off, it usually is. And nothing's so urgent that you can't verify the information beforehand before sending out your good hard-earned money," Oliver said.Another tip to spot an AI caller? Oliver says ask a personal question, like the date of their birthday.

M&T says it's monitoring impact of AI agents on deposits | American Banker - A top M&T Bank executive said Friday the bank is monitoring the potential impact of third-party AI agents on deposit flows, but is not concerned about the technology at this point.

• Key insight: M&T Bank CFO Daryl Bible downplayed the impact that consumers' increasing use of AI agents could have on banks' deposits.
• What's at stake: Following the recent release of Meta's Muse product, the potential for AI agents to accelerate deposit outflows has become a key topic among bankers and regulators.

While embedding AI 'everywhere,' BNY won't disclose costs | American Banker- - The Bank of New York Mellon said Thursday that it's embedding artificial intelligence into every corner of its business. What it didn't say is how much money it's spending on AI. Analysts attempted to extract those details during the custody bank's third-quarter earnings call, but BNY CEO Robin Vince didn't provide a dollar figure. Instead, he talked about the rationale for investing in AI — saying it offers the opportunity to improve outcomes, create capacity and deliver for clients — and arguing that the dollars being spent are generating returns.

• Key insight: BNY, which has leaned heavily into AI in recent years, was reluctant Thursday to say how much it's spending on the technology.
• What's at stake: Analysts and industry observers are looking for proof that banks' investments in AI will pay off in the form of financial gains.

Bowman: Global regulators should match Fed's 'modernization'  - The Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman wants to export her supervisory reforms to other banking jurisdictions around the world.

• Key insight: Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman wants to use the report she commissioned on the failure of Silicon Valley Bank to influence bank oversight around the world.
• Expert quote: "The benefits of our supervisory modernization efforts are not limited to the Federal Reserve. They have implications far beyond the United States." —Federal Reserve Board Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman

The Federal Reserve's vice chair for supervision criticized global standard setters for 'unquestioningly' adopting policy changes in response to research she says is faulty.

Public perceptions shaped banks' client decisions: OCC report  A review of nine large banks found that subjective reputation-risk assessments influenced decisions to serve certain customers and industries, but the OCC could not quantify the extent of debanking.

Debanking makes a campaign stop in Kentucky  — Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould and Kentucky Senate hopeful Rep. Andy Barr touted the bank regulator's efforts against so-called debanking on the campaign trail Wednesday.

• Key insight: Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., who is running to replace outgoing Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., participated in events around the release of an Office of the Comptroller of the Currency report on debanking Wednesday, only weeks before election day. 
• What's at stake: Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said there is "more work to do" on the debanking issue. 

Barr and Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould touted the OCC's recent debanking report, which called out large banks for allegedly turning customers away because of their industry and beliefs.

Illinois swipe fee case enters the appeals phase   — Banks and credit unions notched a victory earlier this summer against an Illinois law barring swipe fees on taxes and tips — but they can't rest easy just yet.

• Key insight: Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul plans to appeal a federal judge's decision to block enforcement of parts of the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act against banks and credit unions.
• Forward look: Banking and credit union groups are seeking an expedited appeal, saying a swift resolution would help financial institutions determine whether they must incur potentially steep costs to comply with the law.

The attorney general of Illinois is appealing an injunction that exempts banks and credit unions from a state law limiting swipe fees on taxes and tips, prolonging a legal fight over compliance costs.

Forget the billionaire tax. This California measure could affect 376K taxpayers  - California's proposed one-time tax on billionaires has dominated much of the midterm tax debate, but another proposal on the ballot this fall would have implications for a far larger group of taxpayers.

• Key insight: While California's proposed billionaire tax has sparked discussion, another statewide proposal on the ballot would make permanent the increase in the top marginal tax rates, which range from 10.3% to 12.3%.
• Supporting data: Proposition 3 would affect nearly 376,000 taxpayers, compared with roughly 200 individuals who would be affected by Proposition 40, the proposed billionaire tax.
• Expert quote: "This should be getting a lot more attention than it is, and I think you will see that pick up in the near term." — Jason Stephens, Evertern Wealth

While California's proposed billionaire tax gets the spotlight, Proposition 3 could permanently extend higher income tax rates that are set to expire in 2031.

Initial Jobless Claims Hover At 57-Year Lows - For the fifth straight week, the number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the first time was less than 200k (199k)... That is the longest streak below that level since 1969! (And remember, the labor force then was a fraction of what it is now). Interestingly, Ohio, Tennessee, and California saw a rise in unadjusted claims last week... Continuing claims remains low too - holding around 1.7 million Americans - the lowest level since March 2023... However, as we noted last week, payrolls tell the other half of the story. September nonfarm payrolls came in at just +29k (with prior months revised down), well below the already modest recent trend. Net employment change is simply hires minus separations. When separations are that low but the net number is mediocre, hiring itself must have slowed substantially. So the market has cooled mainly through reduced hiring rather than rising firings. That keeps the unemployment rate relatively contained (4.2% in September) even as it becomes harder for job seekers, switchers, and new entrants to land roles. Economists (including various Fed research notes) have been describing this as a stable-but-fragile equilibrium for a while: low layoffs prop things up, but the low hiring rate leaves little cushion if demand weakens further or a shock forces companies to start cutting. It’s also consistent with slower labor-force growth from demographics and reduced immigration - fewer people needing to be absorbed means weaker payroll growth can still leave unemployment from rising sharply. The bottom line is simple: the 'low-hire, lowest-fire' economy continues to roll along with no obvious signs of AI's productivity surge (or replacement projections).

Three children – ages 5, 8 and 11 – and a teacher killed in shooting at Oregon elementary school - A 16-year-old opened fire at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday, killing three children and a teacher before he was shot by a person at the scene who pursued him into the school, authorities said. Authorities found the suspect dead inside the school minutes after the shooting was first reported, Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said. The three children killed were aged 5, 8 and 11. Another child, 7, and a teacher, 54, were injured and taken to a hospital in critical condition, Krantz said. The attacker, identified as a Bend resident, forced his way into the school by shooting at locked doors, police said. He was shot and went down inside the school shortly after officers arrived, police spokesperson Sheila Miller said. The first 911 call came just before 1 p.m. from a person in a vehicle outside Silver Rail Elementary who reported being shot at by someone with a long gun, Krantz said. Further 911 calls came from inside the school, and officers arrived on scene within minutes, Miller said. Police said they did not know if the attacker knew anyone at the school or whether he had attended. The attacker used a pump-action shotgun that was purchased by his mother, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the shooting. The official spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation. The school in Bend, Oregon, which is more than 100 miles southeast of Portland, had 459 enrolled students as of last year, according to the Oregon Department of Education. The school serves students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Reunification of children with their parents was ongoing early Thursday evening.

Eight states sue OpenAI over ChatGPT’s alleged harms to users - Eight states sued OpenAI on Wednesday, accusing it of deceiving parents about the safety of ChatGPT. The coordinated lawsuits — filed individually in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, West Virginia, Arkansas, Arizona, Idaho and Montana — target the AI giant for the harms its generative AI chatbot is alleged to have caused to ​children in those states. “OpenAI, they wanted to be the first to market. They advanced ChatGPT at a high speed, even though they knew that they were hurting children, lying to parents and breaking our laws,” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said at a news conference announcing the legal action. “Everyone must follow the law.” The company’s flagship AI model, ChatGPT, launched the generative AI boom in November 2023, when it exploded into mainstream culture, and quickly became the biggest chatbot in the world. This summer, it surpassed 1 billion global monthly active app users. In recent years, users have increasingly turned to it and other chatbots for everything from friendship to therapy, as well as a slew of agentic tasks in their personal and professional lives. Bird was joined at Wednesday’s news conference by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers and West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey. She said they aim to exhibit “a united front against companies that make money hurting our kids and breaking our laws.” She pointed to ChatGPT’s coaching users to commit suicide, aiding users in ways that enabled them to harm other people and offering dangerous medical advice (which, in one case, led a Texas teen to die from an overdose). She also referred to OpenAI’s failing to stop its rogue AI agents from illegally hacking into other companies. OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri wrote in a statement that OpenAI has “built industry-leading age-specific protections into our product that many other AI products lack.” “While no system can be perfect, we’ll continue to work with experts to inform our work and build additional safeguards, such as the parental controls, break reminders and age-appropriate model protections that exist today,” Pusateri wrote. “We’re committed to working with states on advancing pragmatic AI policies that apply to the entire AI industry, not just one company.” He added that OpenAI will continue sharing information about the “extensive steps we’ve taken in response to incidents of misalignment. We’ve strengthened safeguards across our research systems, continued a broader review of model activity, provided notifications to affected organizations, and published our findings.” Last month, OpenAI launched a restricted ChatGPT mode for teenagers — users ages 13 to 18 — that offers stronger safety guardrails and parental controls. Kobach said attorneys general across the country have occasionally brought multistate lawsuits over the decades, such as the litigation around opioids and tobacco or constitutional violations by a presidential administration. “But usually, you don’t see us getting together to announce the lawsuit unless it’s really, really important,” Kobach said. “This is one of those lawsuits that’s really, really important, which is why I did the 3½-hour drive and Mike did a 2½-hour drive from Lincoln.” Kobach noted that the suits are being brought under each state’s respective consumer protection laws. Their lawsuits allege that ChatGPT’s overly agreeable design has led people to trust and depend on it, making it particularly “dangerous” for vulnerable users like children. They also cite a growing body of research suggesting that ChatGPT is “degrading critical thinking skills,” “encouraging paranoias and delusions” and “promoting unhealthy behaviors and relationships.” The state lawsuits follow another proposed class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco, which accuses OpenAI of unlawfully taking “vast amounts of highly sensitive and valuable data” from millions of children who used ChatGPT. A slew of other tech companies — including Meta and Roblox — have been sued over similar allegations of deceptive practices that caused harm to children through addiction or exploitation by predators. Kobach said Wednesday that federal lawmakers have so far failed to keep AI companies in check, saying, “Many in Congress appear not particularly willing to oppose any significant restraint on the corporations engaged in AI.” That means AI companies are effectively asked to police themselves, he added. “Regulating AI through legislation and just hoping that someday, somehow, we have a standard that can be imposed that will make everything good is a fool’s errand. It’s slow, it’s weak, and it’s likely to be ineffective,” Kobach said. “We certainly invite Congress and state legislators to keep investigating, keep looking for solutions. But in the meantime, we are not going to hold our breath.”

Children Are Getting Around Australia’s Social Media Ban, Early Research Shows  - Many children in Australia are still using social media despite the country’s world-first ban for users under 16, according to early research that raises new questions for governments and parents about how to keep young people safe online. According to a report by 3A1Z Stories, a family storytelling and publishing platform, two separate studies show the restrictions have reduced the number of children holding accounts but have not kept most of them off social media.Australia’s rules took effect on December 10, 2025. They require platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook and X to take reasonable steps to stop users under 16 from holding accounts. The law places the responsibility on companies, not on children or parents.A study published in The BMJ found that more than 85% of surveyed adolescents under 16 were still using restricted platforms three months after the law took effect, mostly through their own accounts. Researchers at the University of Newcastle, who followed 408 young people aged 12 to 17, found insufficient evidence that the law had any substantial early effect. An evaluation by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, released in late July, found that the share of children under 16 with a social media account fell from 52.4% to 42.1% in the first three months. However, the share who reported using social media at all, with or without an account, fell only from 85.9% to 81.5%. About half of the children who kept their accounts said the platform had never asked them to verify their age.The evaluation also found that parents became less aware of their children’s social media use after the rules took effect, while daily use of messaging apps among children rose.The findings come as researchers question whether stricter enforcement is the answer. In an opinion piece published October 16 by MIT Technology Review, Michal Luria and Aliya Bhatia of the Center for Democracy & Technology and danah boyd of Cornell University argued that closing every loophole could backfire.They warned that tougher age checks could force more people to hand over sensitive identity documents and push young users toward less-moderated parts of the internet. Instead, they said, policymakers should focus on addictive platform design and data collection, and give families better tools to control what children see.3A1Z Stories said the findings carry a message for families, encouraging parents to talk openly with children about the apps they use, including messaging and gaming platforms that may fall outside any ban. Other governments are moving in a similar direction. The United Kingdom has announced plans for under-16 restrictions, while France’s ban for children under 15 was blocked by the country’s top court, according to MIT Technology Review.

Cornell Bans Fraternity Parties Amid Gang Rape Allegations - Cornell University has banned parties at fraternity houses for the rest of the academic year amid a reopened investigation into an alleged rape on campus two years ago. In an Oct. 13 statement, the university's president, Michael Kotlikoff, said "all parties and social events in Interfraternity Council (IFC) houses at Cornell will be suspended for the remainder of the 2026 - 2027 academic year." This, he said, gives "time for a thorough review of fraternity life at Cornell to determine whether and how it can safely continue." Fraternities that hold in-house parties or events would be subject to an immediate emergency suspension. Cornell has more than 20 active fraternities affiliated with its IFC. The Epoch Times has reached out to the IFC for comment. It is unclear whether the new policy applies to off-campus gatherings and events. Kotlikoff's statement comes less than two weeks after New York Attorney General Letitia James announced an investigation into an alleged gang rape of a woman by Cornell students in October 2024. That woman, a Cornell student only known as Jane Doe, filed a lawsuit on Sept. 16 against the university, the Chi Phi fraternity, and others, alleging sexual assault and negligence. Cornell said that an internal probe led to some students being expelled, other students being suspended, and Chi Phi being kicked off campus. No students were criminally charged. The woman was "plied with alcohol and drugs to the point of intoxication" at a fraternity house in Ithaca, New York, in October 2024, according to the lawsuit. She was "incapable of consenting" when coerced into taking drugs and forced to participate in sexual acts, the lawsuit stated. She reported the incident to campus police in November 2024. Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten reopened the investigation into the alleged rape after the suit was filed. The woman went to campus police but did not claim she was gang raped or drugged, he said in a statement on Sept. 28. Instead, she "described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual." "Seeking justice sometimes requires us to reconsider or reopen cases when we are provided with additional evidence," Van Houten said at the time. "I have been asked by the community to revisit the decision whether to pursue criminal charges against the seven fraternity members. I have already begun that process, starting with our conversation with Jane Doe and her attorneys." Cornell welcomed the renewed investigation into what allegedly happened. Kotlikoff said the Ivy League school would carry out reforms in response. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed James as special prosecutor to probe what occurred, removing Van Houten from the case. The woman went to police and alleged she was raped, according to the governor during an Oct. 2 briefing. "Yet, shockingly, those words never made it into the account that the Cornell police sent to prosecutors," Hochul said. Van Houten supported the move and said he would cooperate with James. "I support the appointment of Attorney General James and I trust that she will examine the facts and apply the law,"

Kratom-derived extracts face potential Schedule I reclassification - The spread of “gas station opioid” products derived from the kratom plant is causing concern for federal authorities and lawmakers. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) signaled heightened concerns about kratom-derived extracts earlier this year when it announced plans to temporarily ban products containing concentrations of 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), mitragynine pseudoindoxyl (MGPI), MGM-15 and MGM-16. The agency is aiming to temporarily classify these substances as Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act. This action would not affect the natural herbal form of kratom also sold over the counter. Kratom’s legal status varies from state to state. Nine states have fully banned the herb while more than 30 states regulate the sale of it on some level with have caps on 7-OH concentrations. In more than a dozen other states, kratom exists in a legal gray area, neither banned nor strictly regulated. Since around 2010, products containing synthetically concentrated extracts like 7-OH and other related compounds, that occur in just trace amounts in the plant, have become readily available over the counter at gas stations and tobacco shops. Oliver Grundmann, clinical professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Florida, told The Hill that scheduling these highly concentrated products is warranted given that Schedule I classification indicates a drug has no accepted medical use. Determining a medical use would require going through the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval process. “That is clearly not what any of these manufacturers that sell [7-OH] products want to do, and therefore it is adequate at the moment, given what we know about [7-OH], to place it into controlled substances schedule,” Grundmann said.

US immigration enforcement disrupted pediatric emergency care for Hispanic families, study notes - In August 2025, President Donald Trump deployed members of the National Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to patrol Washington, DC. The increase in visibility of federal troops and law enforcement had a chilling effect on Spanish speakers and Hispanic people’s willingness to seek healthcare, a paper published in JAMA Network Open this week finds. “The federal deployment of the National Guard troops, ICE, and other federal law enforcement personnel in Washington, DC, was associated with an immediate decline in pediatric ED [emergency department] visits,” wrote the authors, from Children’s National Hospital. “This decline was most pronounced among patients who preferred Spanish and among Hispanic patients regardless of preferred language.” Researchers wondered how the federal deployment in Washington, DC, affected the number of children visiting the hospital for emergency treatment. They compared daily pediatric ED visits from June 1 to September 30, 2025, with the same period in 2024 to see if federal law-enforcement activity affected who sought care. This included 21,822 visits from 6,253 (28.7%) Hispanic patients. People who spoke Spanish immediately changed how they interacted with healthcare after federal deployment and were less likely to go to the ED, averaging 10.4 fewer visits per day. But families who spoke English increased their number of ED trips by 5.6 more per day. Hispanic patients also shied away from pediatric EDs, with 13.3 visits fewer per day than in the previous year. In contrast, non-Hispanic patient visits rose by 6.2 per day. “These findings suggest that immigration enforcement may have unintended consequences for children’s use of emergency care,” the authors said.

‘American COVID’ Symptoms: Hoarse Voice Among Signs of XFG Variant - XFG, a COVID-19 variant nicknamed "American COVID" or "Stratus," is circulating as health authorities report an increase in coronavirus activity, just as we head into the colder months. XFG remains the most common current COVID-19 variant in the United Kingdom, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). The agency said on October 8 that positive COVID-19 test results increased to around 7 percent during September, while hospital admission rates increased by 50 percent. UKHSA said that similar increases have been seen and reported across Europe and the United States. However, Dr. Alex Allen, consultant epidemiologist at UKHSA, told Newsweek that overall levels remain low. "While COVID-19 activity has shown some recent increases, cases remain at low levels in the UK," he said. XFG is a COVID-19 variant that developed from a combination of two earlier variants, LF. 7 and LP. 8.1.2. The earliest known sample was collected on January 27, 2025, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The organization began monitoring XFG in June 2025, after it started spreading more widely around the world. The strain has also circulated extensively in the United States. Data previously published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified the related XFG. 1.1 lineage as the predominant variant in U.S. wastewater surveillance. There isn’t any official evidence that XFG triggers a completely different set of symptoms from other recent COVID-19 variants. However, a common symptom, alongside the familiar symptoms, which include a sore throat, cough, and a fever, seems to be a hoarse or croaky voice. Dr. Kaywaan Khan, Harley Street physician and founder of Hannah London Clinic, told Cosmopolitan UK last year: "One of the most noticeable symptoms of the Stratus variant is hoarseness, which includes a scratchy or raspy voice.' The key distinction is that doctors can’t tell whether someone has the XFG variant from their symptoms alone. Instead, the CDC says that scientists are using genetic sequencing, which looks at the genetic makeup of the virus, to distinguish it from other COVID variants. In its initial assessment, WHO rated the global public-health risk from XFG as low. The organization said there was no evidence it caused more severe illness or deaths than other circulating variants. It added that approved COVID-19 vaccines were expected to remain effective against XFG. UKHSA reached a similar conclusion. Despite the recent increase in hospitalizations, it said hospital admissions have been rising in line with the overall increase in COVID circulation rather than disproportionately. This suggests that the increase reflects more infections rather than a variant causing more serious disease. Allen told Newsweek: "It's completely normal for viruses to change over time. The strains currently going around, including those known as XFG, are closely related to strains that have been with us for over a year, so this isn't something new." He added: "We're also not seeing any evidence that these are making people more ill or spreading faster than before, and this year's autumn vaccine has been specifically designed to protect against them." The agency said colder and wetter weather, which leads people to spend more time together indoors, could be contributing to increased transmission. It added that roughly a year has passed since the last significant COVID wave. This means immunity from previous infections or vaccinations might have weakened for some people.

Personality traits may help explain persistent mental distress during COVID pandemic - It’s not a surprise that societal crises like the COVID-19 pandemic can diminish mental health.  Now, a new study led by researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) finds that US adults with higher levels of neuroticism—a personality trait characterized by worry, emotional sensitivity, and stronger reactions to stress—experienced greater and more persistent increases in mental distress during the pandemic than those with lower levels of that trait. The findings, published yesterday in PLOS One, help indicate how personality may indicate vulnerability to mental distress during a crisis. “There is a wide variety of mental health responses to large-scale societal stressors,” says lead author Marco Angrisani, PhD, a senior economist at the USC’s Center for Economic and Social Research, in a university news release. . “Our study shows that personality traits, and neuroticism in particular, play a role in shaping heterogeneous responses in a major crisis across individuals and could therefore inform better targeted interventions.” The researchers analyzed survey responses from 4,030 US adults who participated in the Understanding America Study. Data were collected from 2019 through February 2024, which allowed comparisons of mental health before, throughout, and after the pandemic. The researchers examined the ‘Big Five’ personality traits: neuroticism, extraversion (a tendency to be outgoing), openness (curiosity about new ideas and willingness to consider change), agreeableness (a tendency to be cooperative and trusting), and conscientiousness (a tendency to be organized and self-disciplined). Mental distress was assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire, which measures depression and anxiety symptoms. Scores of six or higher indicate moderate to severe depression or anxiety. Compared with participants in the lowest quartile (one-fourth) for neuroticism, those in the highest quartile experienced increases in the probability of moderate or severe distress that were 11 to 20 percentage points higher during the pandemic. The link between neuroticism and increased distress persisted across all ages and continued after the emergency phase of the pandemic ended. Participants with higher neuroticism scores also perceived greater health and financial risks and reported engaging in more protective behaviors, like wearing masks and physical distancing. They also reported relaxing and exercising less and drinking alcohol more. The other personality traits showed weaker or inconsistent associations. “Our findings point to a highly asymmetric role of personality across the pandemic period,” “Neuroticism emerges as the principal personality-linked risk factor for sustained mental distress during the COVID-19 pandemic, a finding that is consistent across time, age groups, and measurement approaches,” conclude the researchers. “This highlights the relevance of personality traits for identifying individuals who may require sustained support, while cautioning against universal intervention based solely on personality profiles.”

Long-COVID symptoms may be linked to bacterial mix in the mouth, lungs - People who have severe long COVID have a very different oral and pulmonary microbiome than those with mild symptoms, and the differences are linked to specific symptoms, which scientists say may lead to a clearer picture of the condition and better ways to treat it. The findings come from an observational study by the longitudinal, multicenter UK Post-hospitalization COVID-19 (PHOSP-COVID) Collaborative Group and published yesterday in the European Respiratory Journal. The researchers recruited 771 adults, grouping them by severity of ongoing health problems and symptom subgroups. Six months after hospital release, the team took saliva samples from the patients’ mouths and sputum samples from their lungs for sequencing and bacterial-diversity analysis, and participants completed symptom questionnaires. The study participants had been released from one of 83 UK hospitals after COVID-related admission from February 2020 to March 2021. The average participant age was 57.5 years, and 38.5% were women. “Acute COVID-19 is a pulmonary disease with the infection phase known to alter the oral and airway microbiota, with shifts in microbial composition linked to disease severity and immune responses,” the authors wrote. “These microbial communities are not isolated; they interact with other organ systems through communication pathways such as the gut-lung and the oral-brain axes, which have been associated with other chronic diseases.” In the group with very severe long-COVID symptoms, the oral microbiota was significantly less diverse than that in the group with mild symptoms at six months post-hospitalization. This group had the highest frequency of breathlessness, fatigue, impaired lung function, and reduced exercise capacity. Impaired lung function and neurocognitive symptoms were linked to separate distinct oral microbiota profiles, whereas gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms were associated with a distinct sputum microbiota profile. In participants with ongoing symptoms, there was an overabundance of lactic acid bacteria, which was tied to inflammation and poorer health outcomes. This shift suggests a possible role for lactic acid–producing bacteria and host immune response in more severe long COVID, the authors said. The sputum microbiota analysis produced similar findings at six months, but bacterial composition didn’t differ appreciably by symptom severity. “People who had the worst symptoms five to six months after Covid infection had big changes in the microbiome in their mouth and lungs,” senior author James Chalmers, MD, PhD, of the University of Dundee, said in a news release from the European Respiratory Society, which publishes the journal. “We also found that changes in the airway microbiome were linked not just to lung problems, but also to symptoms like brain fog and gut symptoms, suggesting the lung microbiome could have effects on health more broadly.” But the authors cautioned that it’s not clear whether the changes in microbiota occurred before or after COVID-19 infection or whether the microbiome recovers over time. “Understanding what causes it could lead to better treatments; the microbiome can be changed using antibiotics, probiotics, or other measures,” Chalmers said. Raquel Duarte, MD, head of the European Respiratory Society’s assembly on infectious diseases based at the University of Porto in Portugal, said in the release that long COVID can have devastating consequences for patients, their families, health services, and society. “Six years after the start of the pandemic, we still do not fully understand why some people develop long Covid or how best to support their recovery,” said Duarte, who was not involved in the trial. “If these associations are confirmed, they may ultimately help us identify new ways to predict, prevent or treat the most disabling forms of long Covid.”

Colorado Flu Hospitalizations Reach 46 in One Week, Rising Every Week Since a Single Hospitalization in Late August -Forty-six people were hospitalized with influenza in Colorado in the most recent week reported, up from a single flu hospitalization in late August, according to state data reported by Colorado Public Radio. The weekly count has risen every week since then. Overall respiratory illness activity in the state is still low. State epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy described a steep increase in flu test positivity, emergency room visits and hospitalizations. She said the numbers remain small but show that "influenza is here and is increasing." The figures come from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's respiratory disease dashboard. For families in Denver, Colorado Springs and across the state, the early rise is a practical signal rather than a prediction. Flu shots take about two weeks to reach full protection, so getting vaccinated in October means protection is in place before late December, when last season's record peak hit. Forty-six weekly hospitalizations is a small number compared with what Colorado saw last winter. The 2025-26 season set state records, with more than 5,900 flu hospitalizations, including nearly 1,200 children, according to CPR.During that season's worst stretch, the state recorded 831 flu hospitalizations in a single week shortly after Christmas, the most since Colorado began tracking flu about two decades ago, CPR reported at the time. In early January, the weekly hospitalization rate was 1.6 times higher than at the same point the season before.The current numbers do not say how severe this season will be. State officials have not issued a forecast, and early-season trends can level off, speed up, or arrive at a different time than in past years. What the data show is direction: flu activity is increasing and is no longer at summer lows.Herlihy has also tied vaccination to hospital demand. "If we saw higher levels of vaccination, I do believe we would have fewer hospitalizations occurring," she said, according to CPR.One encouraging detail is the match between this year's vaccine and the virus. Herlihy said the flu strain now circulating most in Colorado matches the strain included in this season's vaccines, which is generally a good sign for how well the shot works.  Flu is not the only virus on the move. COVID-19 levels in Colorado wastewater have been rising for the past couple of weeks at nearly all tracking utilities, which often signals more cases ahead. A study by the state and the Colorado School of Public Health found COVID wastewater data are among the most reliable real-time indicators for anticipating hospital bed demand.COVID hospitalizations peaked at 43 in mid-September, the highest since March, and have declined since. Herlihy said the virus does not seem to be leading to high numbers of hospitalizations or deaths, and that some COVID trends are starting to stabilize.For households, the wastewater signal is a reason to keep at-home COVID tests on hand and to test when symptoms start, especially before visiting an older or medically fragile relative. Flu and COVID can look alike in the first days of illness, and a test can help guide treatment.RSV, which hits infants and older adults hardest, has not yet arrived in force. Herlihy said it is probably just weeks away. That timing matters for parents of newborns and for older adults. The CDC recommends RSV vaccination for adults 75 and older and for adults 50 to 74 at increased risk of severe illness.

Pennsylvania reports its 6th measles death, in a Franklin County resident - Today, Franklin County, Pennsylvania health officials announced the state’s sixth measles-associated death in a 39-year-old woman who was unvaccinated against the virus. The woman also had multiple underlying health conditions, including a previous measles infection that was treated, the county coroner said.  “This is the first death in Franklin County in many years with a patient with a recent history of a measles diagnosis and meets the definition set forth by the Pennsylvania Department of Health for a measles-associated death,” the coroner’s office said.A spokesperson for Franklin County told NBC news the “primary cause of death was a probable acute cardiac event due to possible complications of the measles.” In Pennsylvania, a death is “measles-associated” if it occurred within 30 days of symptom onset and there is both clinical evidence and a positive laboratory test for measles. So far this year, the state has reported five measles deaths, including those of two infants; a 20-year-old woman with leukemia who was undergoing chemotherapy; a 40-year-old woman with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; and an 18-year-old who developed disseminated encephalomyelitis, a rare neurologic complication of measles.Three deaths have occurred in Lancaster County, including the infant deaths, and Mifflin County and Jefferson County have each reported a fatal infection.The United States is seeing a historic resurgence of measles, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reporting 4,080 cases so far this year, the most measles cases since 1991.Pennsylvania has the most measles cases in the country, with 1,136 cases, including 157 reported in the past 7 days. One-third of the state’s cases have occurred in adults. A total of 219 people have been hospitalized, for a hospitalization rate of roughly 19%. As of this afternoon, the state’s measles website still reflects only five deaths.  The CDC notes only two deaths this year from measles and is said to be working with the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) to develop a standardized case definition for death due to measles. Neither the CSTE nor the CDC responded today to CIDRAP News’ request for comment on the progress of standardizing case definitions.The CDC’s dashboard shows that 40% of measles cases this year are in adults, but in Pennsylvania adults make up 67% of measles cases. Adults nationwide have a 14% hospitalization rate, compared with 5% for kids aged 5 to 10.

US measles cases grow by 8% in 1 week for a total of 4,410 cases --Measles continues to rip through unvaccinated communities across the United States.The virus has sickened at least 4,410 people this year, according to a report today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The total number of measles cases grew by 8%, or 330 cases, in just the past seven days. That’s more than the total number of measles cases in all of 2024, when the CDC confirmed 285 cases. There have been 42 new measles outbreaks across the country this year. Of the confirmed cases, 96% have been in people who are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status. The true number of measles cases is likely to be substantially larger, according to public health experts. Pennsylvania has reported six measles deaths, a much higher number than experts would predict based on the 1,260 cases in that state. That’s because the expected mortality rate from measles ranges from one to three deaths per 1,000 infections. Based on those historic rates, infectious disease specialists say the true number of measles infections in Pennsylvania could be 6,000 or more. The discrepancy could be due to underreporting of milder cases in people who don’t need to be hospitalized. In traditional communities hit hard by the measles, including the Amish or Mennonite communities, parents often take care of children with measles at home, rather than bring them to a doctor, who would report the case to the health department.The CDC has sent one of its elite “disease detectives” to Pennsylvania to help control measles outbreaks in multiple counties, according to NBC News. In an interview with Spectrum News 1 yesterday, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he will bring the Pennsylvania measles outbreak, which began in February with five cases in Lancaster County, “to a quick close.”But the CDC still only acknowledges two measles deaths so far this year. The agency says it’s working with the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) to develop a standardized case definition for deaths due to measles. A CSTE spokesperson told CIDRAP News that they anticipate it will take two to three months to complete the work.Measles has been spreading across the country since January 2025, when an outbreak began in Texas. Kennedy became HHS secretary the next month. The CDC reported 2,289 measles cases last year, along with the deaths of two children and one adult.In addition to Pennsylvania, other states with notable measles activity include Kentucky, which added 66 cases this week and has 170 for the year; New York, which has 126 for the year and recently declared a statewide health emergency; and Ohio, which added 33 cases and is up to 252.

New report details deadly toll of delayed measles complication in kids -  Measles is sometimes dismissed as an unserious disease or ‘just a rash.’ But the highly contagious virus can cause serious illness not just during initial infection but years later, after patients appear to have made a full recovery. This delayed complication, a rare, almost invariably fatal brain disease known as subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), is highlighted in a new report published yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases. For the report, researchers in the Philippines looked at 20 children from that country, where measles outbreaks occurred in 2010–11, 2013, and 2018-19. The most recent outbreak was the largest in the World Health Organization Western Pacific Region. All children in the report were admitted to the pediatric hospital in Quezon City from 2007 through 2022. All four children with estimated measles infection dates corresponding to the 2018-19 outbreak were hospitalized between 2020 and 2022, two to three years after their initial infections. Because SSPE is latent for years after initial infection, those cases “most likely represent the leading edge of a postoutbreak wave,” notes the report, and “additional cases might emerge over the coming years.” Ten of the 19 children in the study with an estimable infection age contracted measles before they were old enough for routine vaccination at nine months (when the Philippines schedules its first routine dose). The median age at hospital admission for SSPE was 6.2 years. Eighty-five percent of the children had received at least one measles-containing vaccine, but the report emphasizes that SSPE results from naturally circulating measles that spreads between people, not from the weakened measles virus used in vaccines. First-dose vaccine coverage in the Philippines declined from 92% in 2004-07 to 64% in 2021. Reported measles cases climbed from 2,428 in 2017 to 48,525 in 2019. All 20 children admitted to the hospital for SSPE had worsening brain and nervous system function. All 17 screened for measles antibodies in their cerebrospinal fluid tested positive, and all 13 screened for measles antibodies in their blood tested positive. The researchers highlight some limitations. A measles history was absent or unknown in one quarter of the observed children, and the researchers recommend strengthened measles surveillance for all children who present with signs of neurodegeneration, regardless of available measles history. The study’s small, single-hospital sample couldn’t establish national SSPE rates and infection dates, and vaccination histories relied on caregiver recall and could not be verified. Still, the findings underscore the need for stronger measles and SSPE surveillance and sustained two-dose vaccination coverage, including supplementary immunization during outbreaks, the authors conclude.

Ebola cases top 9,000 in DR Congo outbreak - The latest numbers from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) show the Ebola outbreak now stands at 9,066 cases 4,381 deaths. This is the second largest Ebola outbreak in history, following the 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak, which killed more than 11,000 people across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The West Africa outbreak was caused by the more common Zaire strain of the virus. The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain, which has no approved treatments or vaccines. The outbreak’s current case-fatality rate is 48.2%.Today CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, announced preparations are under way for a phase 2/3 trial called Tumaini, which will evaluate the safety, immunogenicity and efficacy of vaccine candidates against Bundibugyo virus (BDBV), including Ervebo, the Zaire-targeting vaccine.“Tumaini is designed as an adaptive platform trial, subject to ethical and regulatory approval,” CEPI said. “This allows several vaccine candidates to be evaluated in parallel within a single trial framework, which saves valuable time during an outbreak.” In addition to Ervebo, the trial will include at least two Bundibugyo-specific vaccine candidates.  Currently the Bravo study, a research project coordinated by Doctors Without Borders (Medecins sans Frontieres) is evaluating the effectiveness of the Ervebo vaccine against the Bundibugyo strain in North Kivu and Ituri province. Teams have vaccinated 857 frontline workers.

Second Ebola patient identified in Kenya | CIDRAP -Kenyan health officials have reported a second Ebola case in the country, raising new concerns that the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could spread to neighboring countries.According to a press release from Kenya’s Ministry of Health, the patient is a 39-year-old man and a close family member of the first case-patient, a Kenyan national who had been living in the DRC and died on October 5 after returning to Kenya and testing positive for the Bundibugyo strain of the virus. The relative fell ill on October 13 and has been under quarantine and close daily monitoring since.“He is now in a designated treatment centre, where trained teams are giving him supportive care,” said Patrick Amoth, MBBS, Kenya’s director general for health. “Early supportive care improves his chances of recovery, and isolating him at first symptom limits the chance of passing the virus to others.”Amoth said Kenyan officials have traced 113 of the initial case patient’s 128 contacts and that there is no evidence of wider spread in the community. He said the public should “stay calm but remain vigilant.”Meanwhile, the outbreak in DRC continues to grow. According to data published yesterday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 9,167 cases have been confirmed in the DRC, with 4,413 deaths. Nearly all cases and deaths have been in the DRC, where officials have faced multiple challenges, including limited healthcare infrastructure, ongoing conflict in the region, frequent population movement, and public mistrust..The Ebola outbreak is the 17th in the DRC and is growing significantly faster than the country’s 2018 outbreak and the 2014-16 West Africa outbreak. “This outbreak is spreading substantially faster than previous Ebola outbreaks and is now the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record,” the CDC said.The burden of controlling the outbreak has fallen heavily on healthcare workers in DRC, who have been dealing with violence, poor working conditions, and low pay. In response, a health workers’ union in DRC is threatening a nationwide strike, according to reporting by the German news service DPA. The union is demanding higher pay, better working conditions, and hazard allowances.

3rd person in Kenya tests positive for Ebola as DR Congo outbreak spreads to 8th province - A third person in Kenya has tested positive for Ebola, health ministry officials announced, according to Africa News. The 65-year-old woman—a close relative of the first two Ebola cases in the country—started quarantining prior to developing symptoms. Yesterday, health officials reported that two cases of Ebola has been detected in an eighth province, North Ubangi. According to Reuters, the DRC has yet to officially announce the infections. Ituri province has seen the most Ebola cases, with North Kivu province recently experiencing a spike in cases. South Kivu, Tshopo, Haut-Uele, Bas-Uele, and South Ubangi provinces have also reported Ebola cases during this outbreak. So far, the virus has sickened 9,235 people and led to 4,444 deaths, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been in school for only a little more than a month, yet 10 students have already died of the Bundibugyo Ebola virus, per Africa News. Twenty-five Ebola cases have been confirmed in schoolchildren in Ituri, with seven survivors still undergoing treatment. Early this month, the humanitarian group Save the Children said that about seven children have died of Ebola every day—for a total of 961 children—since the outbreak was detected in May. Currently, there is no vaccine or treatment specifically targeting Bundibugyo virus causing this outbreak. But researchers in Uganda have launched a phase 1 clinical trial of a candidate vaccine to combat the Bundibugyo virus.“In a phase one vaccine trial, what we are looking out for is whether the vaccine is safe, first and foremost and secondly, whether it enlists an appropriate immune response,”

Quick takes: West Nile deaths in US; cholera in DR Congo, Yemen; avian flu uptick in US | CIDRAP 

• Two older adults from central North Carolina with underlying medical conditions have died of West Nile virus, according to the state’s department of health and human services. No vaccines or treatments are available for the mosquito-borne illness. No other details about the deaths were provided. Also, the European Union is experiencing its most intense West Nile season ever, with the virus encroaching further north into new areas, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reports.
• Cholera cases are surging in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and in Yemen, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday. More than 51,400 people have been sickened by the diarrheal disease, and 1,487 have died, in 21 DRC provinces so far this year, as the country also battles a Bundibugyo Ebola virus outbreak. In Yemen, cholera infections are spiking after escalating conflict displaced more than 200,000 people in the last two months. Suspected cases have risen from 217 to 647 over the last three weeks. So far this year, Yemen has reported 8,034 infections, including 27 deaths. The outbreaks in both countries are being fueled by insufficient access to clean water and sanitation and health-service disruptions.
• As avian flu continues its assault on US birds, Politico reports that the US Department of Agriculture tabled plans to vaccinate birds against the virus after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. balked at the idea. Over the past week, avian flu has struck a 25,900-bird turkey farm in Kandiyohi County, Minnesota; a 50-bird backyard flock in Lajas County, Puerto Rico; 40 poultry in Washington state; and multiple flocks of geese in the Reno-Sparks region of Nevada.

Trump's global health strategy has harmed HIV work in Uganda, Zimbabwe  -Two African countries saw major declines in HIV/AIDs prevention services after the United States abruptly froze foreign aid, according to an analysis published this month in The Lancet. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), created in 2003 under President George W. Bush, is the largest external funder of HIV services globally. Shortly after President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, his administration paused all existing foreign assistance awards, including PEPFAR, to reassess whether international aid was funding programs that aligned with the new "America First Global Health Strategy."The move was criticized for causing chaos and depriving vital HIV/AIDs prevention work of critical funding, and the Lancet analysis found the interruption indeed resulted in "severe, immediate, and sustained reductions in service delivery."The study used data from four non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Uganda and Zimbabwe that received PEPFAR funding for HIV services and work with high-risk populations, including men who have sex with men, female sex workers, transgender people, and those who inject drugs. Researchers found that the number of people receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) dropped by 31.5%. ART turns HIV from a fatal condition into a chronic one, and it prevents transmission, which benefits the health of the wider community.Overall, prevention services, including condom and lubricant distribution, decreased by 62.7%, and HIV testing fell by 63.8%. And among the three NGOs that provided data on use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a medication that greatly reduces the chance of getting HIV from sex or injection drug use, initiation and continuation of this treatment declined by 71.6%.The results were weighted by the number of ART clients each NGO served in 2024.  The US is resuming public health aid to some countries, including Uganda, through bilateral agreements that provide funding in exchange for things like mineral rights and patient data. Other governments, such as Zimbabwe’s, have turned down this money, saying the proposals violate national sovereignty. In countries that accept these agreements with the United States, there's concern that the most at-risk populations have lost services and are now further isolated, said lead author Henry Cust, PhD, a health economist specializing in HIV risk at the London School of Economics. For example, any homosexual activity in Uganda can result in life imprisonment and, in certain instances, even death. Similarly, in a host of countries that benefit from US public health aid, there are major social and legal barriers for transgender people as well as those who use drugs or do sex work."They are literally the most vulnerable people in the world," said Cust.  He warned that cutting these populations off from HIV care is not only problematic from an equity standpoint, but it might eventually affect the larger population, as people who use drugs, do sex work, or patronize sex workers have families and spouses.

Hepatitis B vaccine study condemned as unethical wins approval from Danish university - The University of Southern Denmark confirmed that it has given the green light to a controversial study in Guinea-Bissau, funded with $1.6 million from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that plans to offer life-saving hepatitis B vaccines to only half of enrolled babies. News of the study, first reported in December by CIDRAP News, prompted an international outcry from health groups and political leaders, who condemned its design as unethical. Those concerns led Guinea-Bissau officials and administrators at the Danish university to place the study on hold for several months. Nearly one in five people in Guinea-Bissau are infected with hepatitis B, which kills 15% to 25% of people with chronic infections by causing cancer or liver failure. Vaccinating babies at birth is safe and can prevent lifelong infections.  Yesterday, citing unnamed sources, Rolling Stone broke the news that CDC leaders were pushing for the study to resume.  The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, did not respond to questions before press time.  The Danish researchers leading the study in Guinea-Bissau, Peter Aaby, PhD, and Christine Stabell Benn, MD, PhD, could not be reached for comment. In response to earlier criticism, their research group, the Bandim Health Project, defended their choice to withhold the birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine from half of the 14,000 newborns to be enrolled in the clinical trial.In a statement on Bandim’s website, researchers wrote, “No child enrolled in the study will receive fewer vaccines than under current national policy in Guinea-Bissau,” a developing country with far fewer resources than the United States and Europe. Guinea-Bissau does not currently vaccinate newborns against hepatitis B, as recommended by the World Health Organization, but plans to begin in 2028.  An official at the University of Southern Denmark confirmed to CIDRAP News that he granted approval yesterday to proceed with the study, in spite of widespread ethical concerns.Professor Jakob Grauslund, PhD, MD, dean of the university’s faculty of health sciences, said he approved the study based on “an independent ethical assessment” carried out by the school’s research ethics committee.“The revised protocol also received ethical approval from the relevant ethics committee in Guinea-Bissau this summer,” Grausland said. “Final governmental authorization in Guinea-Bissau has, however, not yet been granted, and the study cannot begin until the necessary national authorization has been obtained.” An official from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) had little to say when asked about the study at a Thursday morning press conference.“There was ongoing discussions between the US government, who is supporting this research, and also the government” of Guinea-Bissau, said Wessam Mankoula, MD, a medical epidemiologist and acting director of Africa CDC’s Center of Public Health Emergency. “We can give you later updates about the most recent development as to the implementation of the study.”Stand Up for Science, a nonprofit advocacy group, vowed to stop the Danish study. “This is a gross violation of human rights and the use of bad science against some of the most vulnerable people in the world,” said Colette Delawalla, PhD, the group’s founder and CEO, in a press release. The group said it is “exploring all possible actions at its disposal to prevent this study from happening.”

Using fake avian flu patients, researchers show need for faster action, better compliance Unannounced drills to assess healthcare facility readiness to manage infectious disease outbreaks in three areas of the United States revealed variable adherence to containment protocols, according to a new study published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Using a simulated avian flu scenario involving an A(H5) strain with professional actors as patients, local and national public health authorities conducted 73 drills in 69 emergency departments, urgent care centers, and outpatient clinics in New Jersey, New York, and the US Virgin Islands from January to June 2026. The aim was to assess facilities’ ability to rapidly identify and isolate patients with suspected high-consequence infectious diseases. “Successive recent outbreaks of viral hemorrhagic fevers, novel coronaviruses (e.g., COVID-19), monkeypox [mpox] virus disease, measles, and avian influenza A(H5) have reinforced the importance of rapidly recognizing and safely managing patients with potentially severe transmissible infections at health care facility points of entry, to protect health care workers, patients, and surrounding communities,” the authors wrote. Facilities conducted symptom screening in 93.2% of the drills, documented travel history on patient arrival in 79.5%, and asked about exposure to avian flu in 9.6%. In 82.2% of drills during which the patient was appropriately masked, the median time from arrival to masking was two minutes, one minute short of the target. Of 71.2% of drills that included patient isolation, the median time to isolation was 11 minutes, one minute shy of the 10-minute goal. A combination of masking and isolation took place in 60.3% of exercises. Patient actors were identified as being at risk for avian flu in 63.4% of cases. Infection prevention-and-control (IPC) teams were notified or scheduled to be notified in 54.8% of drills, and staff wore all recommended personal protective equipment (PPE) in just 25.0% but wore none in 5.9%. “These drills identified needs for health care workers and health care facility staff member training to achieve earlier identification, masking, and isolation of potentially infectious febrile patients,” the researchers wrote. “Findings identified opportunities to support these outpatient settings in implementing more robust screening, isolation and notification processes, and IPC training.”

Candida auris copies its entire genome to survive antifungal treatment, research reveals - New research has revealed an unexpected new mechanism through which the killer fungus Candida auris is resisting antifungal drug treatment. A team led by the University of Exeter and City St George's, University of London, discovered that the fungus creates multiple versions of its entire genome, including mutating a gene that plays a role in cell wall integrity, called "Crazy-one" (CRZ1).  The study is set to appear in Nature Communications and is currently available on the bioRxiv preprint server.  Study authors say their findings unlock a new mechanism that allows Candida auris to adapt to antifungal treatment and survive, which could lead to new ways to tackle the fungus. Candida auris was only described for the first time in 2008, and its origins remain a mystery. Since it emerged, outbreaks have been reported on every continent, in more than 60 countries in total, including the U.K. It has been named a global public health threat and is on the World Health Organization's critical priority fungal pathogens list.  Study first author Dr. Hugh Gifford, clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter's MRC Centre for Medical Mycology, is also an intensive care physician. He said, "Candida auris is rare in the general population, but it's a deadly threat to patients in intensive care units. It clings to patient skin and surrounding equipment and can be transmitted from person to person—it's incredibly hard to eradicate. If infection enters a vulnerable patient's bloodstream, there is a 45% death rate. "Outbreaks in intensive care units have been costly and highly disruptive. One unit in the U.K. had to close and undergo complete refurbishment to stop the outbreak, while another outbreak was estimated to cost £1 million to control."The research team was initially testing for drug resistance when a researcher accidentally left plates of cells incubating for longer than the required test period. The researcher returned to find that cells had unexpectedly grown during this additional time period. They were surprised to find that further testing showed the deadly fungus had survived antifungal treatment by creating multiple versions of its own genome, thereby increasing its chances of mutating to evade the drug and survive.Dr. Sarah Murphy, former postdoctoral researcher at City St George's University of London and co-first author, said, "We initially set out to investigate why antifungal drugs weren't working to kill Candida auris, despite laboratory tests showing that they were not resistant and that the drugs should have been effective. We were surprised to discover an entirely new mechanism for this fungus to survive—particularly with luck playing a big part in the discovery."We tested the fungus against very high concentrations of antifungal drugs. We were amazed to find there was a tiny population of cells that appeared over several days and continued to grow. Our discovery means we need to now look at new ways of treating people and eradicating this deadly fungus from hospitals."

Some house cats carry a gut parasite that can infect humans, study finds -  Giardia duodenalis is a microscopic, flagellated parasite that often calls the human and animal gut its home. In most cases, it coexists harmlessly with its host, and most infected pets and people show no signs of illness. However, when it becomes pathogenic, it can cause diarrhea, digestive issues or weight loss.Cats can carry a pathogenic version of the gut parasite that also infects humans, but how common is it among pet cats, and how often do they harbor such strains?A recent study investigated these questions by analyzing stool test data from 157,616 pet cats across 49 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces between March 2022 and August 2023.The results showed that 6.3% of the cats tested positive for Giardia duodenalis. Among the infected cats, 18.5% carried assemblages A or B, genetic groups that can infect both humans and animals. The remaining majority carried strains associated primarily with cats, particularly assemblage F, which generally do not pose a risk to humans.The findings are published in PLOS One. Giardia duodenalis has found its way across the globe and can hitch a ride through contaminated water, food, surfaces and objects, or pass directly from one person to another. Once inside the small intestine, it sheds its protective shell and starts multiplying, splitting into two. As the parasites grow in number, they begin absorbing nutrients from their host.In the U.S., the parasite shows up in 1.4% of people. Among animals, reported infection rates range from 3.7% to 100% in cattle, 1.1% to 56.8% in dogs and 0.2% to 44.4% in cats.A 2023 study proposed splitting Giardia into eight separate species, labeled A through H. Most show clear host preferences: C and D favor dogs, E hoofed animals, F cats, G rodents and H pinnipeds such as seals. Assemblages A and B break the pattern, infecting humans along with a wide range of other mammals, making them the most important for public health.Earlier research on Giardia in cats relied on small sample sizes or focused on very specific locations, such as individual shelters or a few select states. This made it difficult to determine how widespread the parasite truly was across North America.To get a clearer picture of how widespread the parasite is, researchers conducted a large-scale retrospective analysis, examining existing test records. Although they did not test the samples themselves, the data came from a highly sensitive DNA-based test called the KeyScreen GI Parasite PCR panel, which detects Giardia duodenalis DNA. Among the samples that tested positive, the team screened for assemblages A and B, the genetic groups that can infect humans and animals.Of the cats that tested positive for Giardia, 18.5% carried assemblages A or B. Kittens had the highest detection rate at 10.7%, compared with just 1.3% in senior cats. Among the kittens that tested positive, roughly one in five carried A/B types.The data also revealed that geography and season affected infection rates. Rates were lowest in the summer (4.6%) and higher during winter (8.1%) and fall (7.7%). Giardia was most common in the U.S. Midwest, where 7.8% of cats tested positive. The picture changed among cats that tested positive: Human-transmissible strains were most common in the Northeast (21.6%) and the West (20.0%).The researchers note that people with pet cats, especially those in households with young children, older adults or anyone who is immunocompromised, should get routine fecal screening for their cats, particularly for parasite strains that affect both animal and human health. Knowing which Giardia type a cat carries could help veterinarians have more informed conversations about treatment measures needed to maintain household health.

Quick takes: US human avian flu case, dengue in Florida, plague in Madagascar, MERS in Saudi Arabia, more polio cases | CIDRAP

• Yesterday, Yakima County, Washington, officials reported an H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) infection in a resident exposed to infected dairy cows. The case comes a week after the state’s first H5N1 detection in dairy cattle at two Yakima County farms. The person is not seriously ill and is isolating at home. The risk of avian flu to the general public remains low, the news release said.
• Florida has added 72 new locally acquired cases of dengue fever in its latest week of reporting, for a total of 368 for the year through October 10. It is the largest US dengue outbreak in decades, affecting eight counties. Most cases (310) have been in Hillsborough County, home to Tampa, but cases are increasing in Pinellas County (37).
• Four cases of plague have been confirmed in four districts in Madagascar since the end of July, and five more suspected cases were detected last week, according to media reports. The type of plague, which is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, wasn’t specified. About 200 contacts of the patients have been given preventive treatment to stem further transmission, and the government has launched flea insecticide spraying operations and awareness campaigns focused on hygiene and rodent control.
• Eight cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), including one death, were confirmed in Saudi Arabia from January 1 to October 5, the World Health Organization reported this week. MERS is a viral zoonotic disease for which dromedary camels are the primary animal reservoir; two patients reported direct contact with camels, while the rest had no known camel exposure. Officials say the cases aren’t epidemiologically linked.
• This week, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative noted 14 cases of polio in seven countries. Afghanistan and Pakistan each documented one case of wild poliovirus type 1, the Democratic Republic of Congo logged seven cases of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2), Madagascar reported two cases of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 1 (cVDPV1), Mali noted two cVDPV2 cases, Nigeria documented one circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 3 case, and Somalia added one cVDPV1 case.

‘I ached so much’: Man describes bout with dengue fever contracted during Florida’s outbreak When Maurice Kurtz woke on September 19, he felt like a minivan had hit him. His temperature spiked to 101ºF, and he was intensely fatigued. He tried taking a walk but soon returned home because it felt so difficult. “I went around the block and, oh, I ached so much,” Kurtz, 73, of St. Petersburg, Florida, told CIDRAP News. “This was way beyond the tightness and aching I get from the most strenuous workouts I’ve ever done.” He thought maybe he had an early case of flu, even though he didn’t have a cough, sore throat, or stuffy or runny nose. To ease his pain, he took an over-the counter medication and rested. Over Saturday and Sunday, he slept for 16 hours, unusual for Kurtz, who enjoys swimming, biking, and running. A few days earlier, he started feeling itchy and noticed tiny red spots on his legs. While his fever broke and he felt less sore by Monday, exhaustion still overwhelmed him. He took a test for flu and COVID-19, but the results were negative. A friend familiar with the dengue fever outbreak in central Florida urged Kurtz to see a doctor, and he visited a local urgent care clinic, where he asked to be tested for the mosquito-borne illness. Instead, staff said they would test him for flu and COVID-19. “I said, ‘Well, I did the COVID, flu thing, and it was negative.’ They said, ‘We just test for them,’” Kurtz recalled. “The doctor comes in and he says, ‘Well you don’t have any of those’ … I already told him I’d come for the dengue test based on the symptoms.” Still, the doctor pushed back at Kurtz’ request for a test. “He says, ‘Well, it’s really up in north county, in Hillsborough [County]. We don’t have it down here,’” Kurtz said. The doctor asked if he had traveled, and Kurtz said he visited Tampa, Florida, the epicenter of the dengue fever outbreak, on Friday. But Kurtz didn’t think he’d feel so sick the following day. Finally, staff took a blood sample to test him for dengue. As the week continued, Kurtz found himself sleeping more than usual. He’d check the health portal to see if his test results had returned but never found any updated information. After he woke late Saturday and enjoyed breakfast, he received a call from the Pinellas County Health Department. “They’re calling me because I have dengue,” he said. “[They] interviewed me for about 45 minutes. A lot of contact tracing. A lot of history of where I had been in the past few weeks.” Kurtz is one of 324 cases of locally acquired dengue fever reported in Florida this year. It led to  the death of an 80-year-old woman in Tampa, the only fatality so far this year.. While dengue, also known as breakbone fever, has been reported in the United States in the past, it’s not often locally spread. Many people contract it from a mosquito bite they received when traveling to an area where its endemic, such as the Caribbean, South America, South Asia, and parts of Africa and the Middle East. “It is unusual,” Dawn Wesson, PhD, director of Tulane University’s Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases Initiative, told CIDRAP News. “Florida is approaching or has already surpassed 300 cases, and it’s a lot. The epicenter is somewhat unusual in that we tend to see most of the cases that are local transmission … further south.” Two types of mosquitos—Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus—can transmit dengue to people. Both thrive in Florida. Aedes aegypti tends to the primary vector for dengue in the United States. “Aedes aegypti is typically more involved because it tends to feed more selectively on people,” Wesson explained. “Aedes albopictus will feed on people, but it’ll also feed on animals pretty readily, and that suppresses its ability to transmit dengue, because the animals are not becoming infected.” “The virus is passed during the blood feeding event to the person that’s sitting there, not realizing they’re getting bitten,” she said. “These mosquitos are small, and the bites tend to be relatively painless, and you often don’t see them biting you until they’re done and gone.” If a person visiting a country like Brazil, for example, contracts dengue and returns home to Florida, an Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquito that bites them can then pass it along to other people. “They’ve got enough virus present in their blood that the mosquito becomes infected, and it goes on, and the chain continues,” Wesson said. “In a few different places where the mosquitoes are good vectors, you can set off local transmission, and that’s what happened this year.”

Washington state confirms first H5N1 avian flu detection in dairy cattle   -  Late last week the US Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory confirmed the detection of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) on two Yakima County dairy farms in Washington.“This marks the first known case of HPAI in cattle in Washington state,” state officials said. Since March 2024 dairy cattle herds in 19 states have documented H5N1 infections, including neighboring Idaho. “Washington State Department of Agriculture conducted on-farm investigations, testing, and gathered additional epidemiological information to better understand this detection and limit further disease spread,” officials said. “The two farms are under quarantine and have employed strict biosecurity measures. Veterinarians are working to treat sick cows.”In the past 30 days four dairy herds have had H5N1 detections, including herds in Kansas and Texas. So far in 2026, US officials have confirmed avian flu in 93 dairy herds, compared to 917 in 2024 and 171 last year.“We appreciate how difficult this is for our dairy families, farmworkers, and veterinarians that are working hard to keep animals safe and healthy,” said Washington State Veterinarian Amber Itle, VMD. “The most important thing you can do is implement enhanced biosecurity and report symptoms immediately if animals show signs of illness.”

In Greenland, 4 polar bears test positive for H5N1 avian flu antibodies - Scientists detected antibodies against the H5N1 strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in four polar bears in East Greenland in 2025, consistent with previous identification of the virus in birds along linked migratory pathways. A team led by University of Inland Norway researchers analyzed heart blood collected from 28 polar bears harvested in subsistence hunts in 2024 and 2025,  publishing their findings yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases.  Deceased, infected wild Arctic mammals were reported in Alaska in 2023 and 2024 (H5N1) and in Svalbard, Norway (H5N5), in 2026.. These detections, along with the animals’ nutritional and cultural significance to Indigenous people, highlight the need for ongoing surveillance in these regions, the authors of the new study noted. “Seasonal bird migrations to Arctic nesting grounds create a hot spot for HPAI outbreaks, amplifying interspecies interactions and the risk for viral reassortment and dissemination across migratory flyways,” they wrote. The team screened 109 polar bear plasma samples collected from 2016 to 2025 for antibodies against all influenza A viruses. They found none before 2024, but that year, three of 14 samples they tested showed positive signals on enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), rising to six of 14 in 2025. Further screening of all nine positive samples and three negative samples with a hemagglutination inhibition assay revealed H5N1 antibodies in four bears that had tested positive on ELISA, suggesting survival after exposure to an HPAI virus in that clade. The hunters reported no signs of illness in the bears, which the authors said suggests that the animals can recover from HPAI infection. While further research is needed into the route of infection, HPAI spillover into mammals usually happens during the ingestion of virus through consumption of infected birds or environmental contamination.

Study finds overlooked 'forever chemicals' widespread in New Jersey tap water and bottled beverages  -    Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have found that a largely overlooked class of "forever chemicals" is widespread in New Jersey drinking water and commercially available bottled beverages, raising new questions about how these persistent contaminants are monitored and potentially introduced into everyday products. In what researchers describe as the first statewide U.S. monitoring study of ultra-short-chain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the NJIT team detected trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) in more than 91% of tap-water samples collected across all 21 New Jersey counties and nearly 80% of bottled beverages tested. The study also revealed substantially higher concentrations in certain sports drinks and electrolyte waters than in plain bottled water, suggesting that ingredients or manufacturing processes may contribute to contamination beyond the original water source. The findings, published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, highlight a significant gap in conventional PFAS monitoring. While chemicals such as PFOA and PFOS have received widespread regulatory attention by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ultra-short-chain PFAS have largely escaped routine testing because their small molecular size and chemical properties make them difficult to detect using established methods. "Most people have heard of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) because they have been the focus of regulations and water testing for years. TFA is different," said Siwei Gu, a postdoctoral researcher in NJIT's Emerging Contaminants Research Laboratory and lead author of the study. "It is much smaller in molecular size, highly soluble in water and does not bind strongly to many filter materials that work well for capturing traditional PFAS." To investigate these often-overlooked compounds, researchers analyzed 113 samples, including 70 tap-water samples from across New Jersey and 43 commercially available bottled beverages. Using a specialized laboratory method, they screened for five ultra-short-chain PFAS that can be difficult to measure through conventional testing procedures. TFA was by far the most frequently detected compound, appearing in 64 of 70 tap-water samples and 34 of 43 bottled beverages. Although concentrations varied geographically, at least one tap-water sample from every New Jersey county contained detectable TFA. The study found a median concentration of 352 nanograms per liter among tap-water samples with detectable TFA, with higher county averages observed in several northern and northeastern counties, such as Essex, Hudson and Bergen. "We anticipated finding trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) in drinking water, as previous studies in Europe had reported its widespread occurrence," said Arjun Venkatesan, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at NJIT and director of the Emerging Contaminants Research Laboratory. "However, what surprised us was how frequently it was detected, occurring in 64 of the 70 tap water samples collected across New Jersey and 34 of the 43 bottled beverages analyzed.". One of the study's most notable findings involved the considerable differences between plain bottled water and beverages containing added ingredients. Among the 43 bottled beverages tested, the 12 formulated beverages had an average TFA concentration approximately 52 times higher than the 31 bottled waters. Concentrations in some electrolyte waters and sports drinks were particularly elevated, with the highest measurement reaching 94,100 nanograms per liter. By comparison, the highest TFA concentration detected in New Jersey tap water was 1,360 nanograms per liter. Researchers have not determined why some formulated beverages contained substantially higher concentrations. Unlike plain bottled water, these products may include sweeteners, flavorings, electrolytes and other additives that could introduce additional sources of TFA. "One possible explanation is that ingredients used in these beverages or certain manufacturing processes may be contributing to the elevated TFA concentrations," Gu said. "However, we did not analyze individual ingredients or investigate the manufacturing processes, so we cannot definitively identify the sources of TFA in these products." TFA can enter the environment through multiple pathways, including the breakdown of certain fluorinated refrigerants, pesticides and other chemicals. It can subsequently be transported through precipitation into surface water and drinking-water sources. Its persistence and high mobility also make it challenging to remove through conventional water treatment.The researchers emphasize that the study represents an initial snapshot of contamination rather than a comprehensive assessment of New Jersey's drinking-water systems. Additional sampling will be needed to determine how concentrations vary over time and to identify the sources responsible for geographic differences.Although the findings demonstrate widespread exposure potential, researchers caution that detecting TFA does not necessarily establish an immediate health risk. Scientific understanding of the compound's long-term effects in humans remains limited, even as some toxicological studies have raised concerns about potential developmental and reproductive effects.

Fine particles from aircraft exhaust become more harmful over time, lab tests suggest --Fine particulate matter consists of tiny particles with diameters in the nanometer range. They are produced, for example, by fuel combustion, remain suspended in the air and can penetrate deep into the respiratory tract. There, they can trigger oxidative stress, a process that promotes inflammation and, over the long term, can lead to serious health problems such as respiratory or cardiovascular diseases. Scientists call this harmful property the particles' oxidative potential. However, fine particles usually remain in the atmosphere for hours or even several days before people inhale them. Little is known about how these particles' harmful properties change over time. A research team led by professor Markus Kalberer therefore investigated how the oxidative potential, and thus the toxicity, of fine particles emitted by a small aircraft jet engine and a marine diesel engine develops over time. The findings are published in the journal Environmental Science: Atmospheres. Using a photochemical reactor, the researchers simulated what happens to the particles in the atmosphere over 1 to 12 days. To investigate the oxidative properties of fresh and aged exhaust emissions, they used a measuring instrument developed specifically for this purpose at the University of Basel: the Online Oxidative Potential Ascorbic Acid Instrument (OOPAAI). While the health-related properties of ship engine emissions remained largely stable over time, the oxidative potential of aircraft emissions increased significantly as the particles aged. This was due to changes in the chemical composition of the particles as they reacted with components of the air under sunlight over an extended period. "Our study shows that it is important to look beyond freshly emitted exhaust particles. Atmospheric processes can significantly alter the oxidative properties of the particles and thus their potential to harm human health." Kalberer adds, "This study clearly shows that current legal frameworks, such as the Swiss Ordinance on Air Pollution Control, do not adequately account for the most toxic sources of fine particulate matter and their properties." The World Health Organization estimates that more than 7 million premature deaths occur annually due to exposure to high concentrations of air pollution particles—more than twice the number of global deaths from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

High-speed video reveals how honey bee stingers keep pumping venom after detachment -  Australian scientists have used high-speed video to uncover the unique mechanism that allows a honey bee's stinger to continue to pump venom into its target even after it has separated from the bee's body.A new study, published in the journal PNAS, reveals for the first time that the tiny 2-millimeter (0.08-inch) stinger of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) works as a sophisticated double-piston micropump."We've known since as early as 1910 that the venom sac of a honey bee stinger empties into a chamber with little pumping elements called valves, but until now we didn't know exactly how they work," explained lead author Dr. Fiorella Ramirez-Esquivel of Macquarie University."If you've ever been stung by a bee, you'll know it's a very painful process, but now we've been able to identify all the working parts packed into the tiny stinger," said Ramirez-Esquivel.After a worker bee lands and thrusts its stinger into the target, it flies away, leaving the stinger behind in a process called "autotomy." The stinger then continues to penetrate the target tissue and inject venom under its own power.High-speed videography (300fps) of the lateral aspect of the stinger pumping venom into an artificial skin mimic. The stinger is partially inserted into the substrate using fine forceps and the autotomised stinger works its way deeper into the phantom through the reciprocating action of the lancets. The lancet valves can be seen pumping within the bulb chamber thanks to the transmitted light illumination. As the substrate is not able to absorb the venom or wick it away, the venom is forced back up onto the surface.  By having bees sting a clear gel that mimics human skin, researchers from Macquarie and the University of New South Wales were able to record video of the autonomous action of the stinger pumping venom for the first time.The stinger contains several different components, including a venom sac and pumping chamber, muscles and nerves. It also has two sharp, pointed lancets that slide backward and forward on a system of rails (called the olistheter) in a motion similar to that of a reciprocating saw; the lancets are responsible for working the stinger deeper into the skin and also pumping the venom.  Each of the long lancets has a valve attached that sits inside the pumping chamber. The researchers found these valves dynamically change shape to form a seal during the downstroke and collapse during the upstroke, generating pressure for pumping while minimizing backflow during refilling.  High-speed video showed that the valves inflate like a parachute on the downstroke, functioning as pistons to apply downward pumping pressure on the venom in the chamber, then deflate on the upstroke."Finally, and perhaps most dramatically, as the valves meet in the middle of the stroke, they change shape again to push past each other," said Ramirez-Esquivel. "This is a remarkable strategy to pump fluid since maintaining a seal is vital to effectively transmit pressure."The unique geometry of the valves is the key; they act as collapsible pistons and—by pumping in opposite directions—they're able to deliver a continuous flow of venom."The researchers further explored the mechanics and flow of the stinger by using microCT scans to 3D-print a scaled-up working model, or small robot, of the bulb chamber and lancets, which confirmed key features of the pumping cycle."The double-piston design adds complexity, but it's the key to the stinger being able to deliver venom continuously in a compact, autonomous unit,"

Urbanization takes a bigger toll on bird diversity in the tropics than it does at other latitudes, study finds - Researchers at McGill University have found that urbanization is weakening one of Earth's most enduring ecological patterns: the tendency for biodiversity to increase toward the tropics, a pattern known as the latitudinal diversity gradient. Analyzing bird populations worldwide, they found that on average, urban areas near the equator contained 42% fewer species than nearby natural areas, while the comparable global figure was 32% fewer, and 12% fewer at 65 degrees of latitude. The researchers said this disproportionate loss is driven partly by more intense urbanization in tropical cities and partly because many tropical bird species are less able to cope with changing environments. "Traveling from northern latitudes like Canada to the tropics, you notice how many more species of plants and birds there are," said Anna Hargreaves, senior author and professor in the Department of Biology. "That pattern has existed for tens of thousands of years. It's strong, it's striking, it's old and it's super consistent. There are not many ecological patterns like that. And now, one of Earth's most prominent, obvious biological patterns is almost being erased due to urbanization." The researchers suggest such urban planning strategies as preserving green space are "hopeful measures" that might allow birds and other species to share space with humans. The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Previous research on the latitudinal diversity gradient has used smaller, more localized data sets. This study looked at more than 10,000 bird species across five continents using eBird, a citizen-science database created at Cornell University that allows users to record bird sightings. "We downloaded the data and divided the world into square-kilometer grid cells, only including cells where we had enough eBird data to be confident we were capturing at least 95% of the diversity in each cell," said Jory Griffith, the graduate student who led the analysis. The researchers then classified each cell as urban, suburban or natural, based on human population density and the degree of landscape modification, and compared diversity patterns across the three categories. Hargreaves said that the intensity of urbanization had a marked effect, noting that suburban areas and cities with considerable green space saw less of a decline. The team is now working to understand not just which species are in cities, but how changing patterns of diversity affect interactions among species in cities, like predation and pollination.

Early growth differences help explain which beech trees survive forest competition  The fight for survival in the forest is fierce: light, water and nutrients are all limited. This is particularly true in "mast years"—times when trees and shrubs produce an unusually large crop of fruits, nuts or seeds. Then the race for growth is on. But can differences in height between trees in their first year of life make a difference to their future, even if these differences are just one or two centimeters (0.4 or 0.8 inches)? Researchers at the University of Göttingen have shown that beech seedlings which are slightly taller than their immediate neighbors at the end of their first year of life have a higher chance of survival two decades later. The results were published in the Journal of Ecology.In the study, which ran for over 25 years, scientists monitored over 2,000 beech seedlings at two research sites in southern Germany. Of the 2,214 seedlings observed, just 679 survived—meaning less than a third made it, a consequence of competition within the same species. The initial differences in size became increasingly apparent over time.The seedlings that were slightly larger than their immediate neighbors in the year of germination usually maintained their position in terms of size. In fact, it was very rare for the smaller trees to catch up.An experiment carried out in parallel in a greenhouse showed that the seedlings which grew from heavier beech nuts were larger with greater biomass. This means that even the size of the seed appears to contribute to the initial advantage in growth and is important in the long term. "It has been known for decades that groups of trees of the same age and species thin out over time in nature—that is, even without any human intervention. This process follows mathematical laws. However, we didn't know which of the many seedlings that appear in one year would win out in the end,"

Damaged and drained, Indonesia's peatlands go up in smoke -  For weeks on end, parts of Indonesian Borneo have resembled an Armageddon landscape with masked residents immersed in a putrid, red-brown haze as wildfires devour peatlands near homes and farms. Burning slowly, mostly under the surface and sometimes for months on end, peatland fires are responsible for much of the dry-season haze that this year has tainted air as far afield as Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. Peatlands are composed of organic material that does not completely decompose in waterlogged conditions and has settled over thousands of years into a layered soil-like substance. Healthy peatlands are home to diverse plants and trees like nutmeg and durian, and animals that can include endangered orangutans, clouded leopards, Sumatran tigers, sun bears and tapirs. They are porous and absorbent, making them critical for flood containment. While they cover only about 3% of global land, peatlandsstore about a third of the world's soil carbon—double that trapped by forests. Indonesia has the world's biggest share of tropical peatland, about a third of the global total. Of Indonesia's estimated 24.2 million hectares (93,400 square miles) of peatland, 16.4 million hectares (63,300 square miles) have been degraded and are vulnerable to fire, according to the Pantau Gambut NGO. The culprit is mainly industrial-scale plantations for timber, pulp and paper, rice paddies and palm oil, of which Indonesia is the world's biggest producer by far. To cultivate peatlands, they are drained with canal networks that in Indonesia span about 285,000 kilometers (177,000 miles), according to Pantau Gambut research—seven times the circumference of Earth. The water runs into rivers or the sea, leaving the dried-out peatlands vulnerable to burning, especially in strong El Niño years that can bring severe drought to Indonesia. Peatland fires are often imperceptible but for the foul smoke they emit and the heat they generate underfoot. The many layers of thick carbon can keep smoldering in "zombie fires" for weeks and are hard to put out. Peatland fires raging in Indonesia are responsible for much of the dry-season haze. While less than a third of wildfires in Indonesia are on peatlands, they produce most of the haze, according to Greenpeace research. This toxic smog contains harmful elements including formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide and ammonia, as well as PM2.5 particles small enough to penetrate the lungs or bloodstream. The World Health Organization has linked PM2.5 exposure to increased illness and death. Indonesia and Malaysia have shut hundreds of schools over haze, and more than 170,000 people in Indonesia required treatment for acute respiratory infections in August and September, according to the health ministry. Many more fell ill in Malaysia and Singapore. Peatland fires also ravage the habitats of animals, further imperiling already endangered species such as orangutans and Sumatran rhinos. By Oct. 6, Indonesian wildfires had emitted 140.5 megatonnes of planet-warming carbon, around 13% of the global total this year, according to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service. The toxic smog contains formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide and ammonia, as well as PM2.5 particles small enough to penetrate the lungs or bloodstream. That was the highest figure for Indonesia fire emissions since 2019, another strong El Niño year. Indonesia emits significant greenhouse gases from its coal-powered electricity grid and is seeking to reduce its emissions in part by relying on forests, peatlands and other land ecosystems to absorb more than they emit. Activists and experts say concession licenses for extractive activities on peatlands must be revoked, and peatlands should be rewetted and planted with native species. Canals should be blocked, they say. Indonesia has a moratorium in place on new permits to clear 66 million hectares (254,800 square miles) of land designated as primary forest and peatland. In a statement last year, the government said it had rewetted 4.16 million hectares (16,100 square miles) of peatland, built 45,000 canal barriers and replanted various native species. But there are doubts about some of that work. "Today, some of the peat hydrological units that have received major restoration efforts ... have experienced fires and have some of the highest hotspot counts," Greenpeace forest campaigner Belgis Habiba told AFP. Last month, the government announced the creation of a new National Peatland and Mangrove Management agency to replace a body whose mandate expired in 2024. The agency's remit and resources are still being worked out, but there are concerns its name mentions neither restoration nor protection. "Does managing in this context serve as a pretext for the state to grant new concessions on peatlands?" asked Habiba. The forestry ministry did not reply to AFP's request for input.

Another major US river running dry leaving millions facing water crisis -While concerns over the depletion of the Colorado River have dominated headlines in recent months, a longer river has been quietly battling “a severe water crisis demanding urgent attention.” The Rio Grande has faced some of the most significant water shortages in the western United States, which could leave millions of locals without drinking water. Running 1,900 miles, the Rio Grande is one of the longest rivers in the U.S. It flows from Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico and provides water to several Mexican and U.S. states, including New Mexico and Texas. With around 15 million people relying on it for drinking water, the Rio Grande is said to have lost around 85 percent of its historic flows due to overuse and major droughts for several years, the World Wildlife Fund noted in June. A spokesperson for New Mexico’s Office of the State Engineer (OSE) told Newsweek: “Despite recent rains, the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer and Interstate Stream Commission remain very concerned about the water outlook for the Rio Grande over the next few years and in the coming decades.” According to the OSE, the river has experienced some of “the most significant declines in flows among major river systems in the western U.S.,” including more than 112 miles of river drying this summer. During this water year, flows in New Mexico were about 31 percent of median levels, while August flows were about 14 percent of median levels. Elephant Butte Reservoir was less than 1.5 percent full on August 31, the OSE spokesperson said, marking the lowest level on record for that date. The OSE said: “The state is actively working to address these challenges. Both the Rio Grande and Colorado River systems are critically important to New Mexico, and we are committed to working with other states and stakeholder partners to develop and implement solutions that protect New Mexico’s water resources.” According to the Texas Water Development Board’s 2027 State Water Plan, Texas’ existing water supplies—those that can be relied on in a drought—are projected to decline by about 10 percent between 2030 and 2080. Without new water supplies or water management strategies, “Texas water users could face water shortages of approximately 3.6 million acre‑feet per year by 2030, growing to 5.8 million acre‑feet per year by 2080, if drought conditions comparable to the drought of record recur,” the TWDB said. Texas’ largest reservoir, the Toledo Bend Reservoir, has a maximum storage capacity of about 4.5 million acre‑feet, “meaning projected annual shortages could exceed the full capacity of the state’s largest reservoir,” the TWDB said. The OSE spokesperson said the Rio Grande’s “significantly reduced and declining river flows” over the last decade, particularly over the past five to six years, are “occurring in the context of a changing climate and prolonged drought conditions.” A study published this month in Agricultural Water Management said: “Climate change has intensified the propagation of drought and the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, posing severe challenges to global agricultural production and water resource management.” Timothy Parker, a groundwater expert who led several Rio Grande and New Mexico aquifer mapping/survey projects in response to the water shortage as a principal at Ramboll, a global engineering consultancy, told Newsweek that the Rio Grande water shortage is “real and very alarming,” He said that over the past two decades, “temperatures have gone up accompanied by drier years.” Parker says New Mexico’s agricultural water use, which has increased over the last 40 to 50 years as farmers switched from temporary crops to crops that require year-round water, has been “exacerbating the shortage.” He said that “this shift means that water is being consumed more constantly over wet years and dry years.” Irrigated agriculture accounts for 87 percent of direct water consumption in the Rio Grande basin, according to a November 2025 study in Discover Water led by Brian Richter, president of Sustainable Waters, a global organization focused on water scarcity challenges. The November 2025 study notes that in recent decades, water storage reservoirs, aquifers, and annual streamflow volumes have been “substantially depleted, leaving little buffer for continued over-consumption of renewable water supplies.” The study warned that “without a substantial reduction of water consumption,” a repeat of the four-year rate of reservoir depletion seen from 2010 to 2013 would “completely wipe out all remaining surface water” stored in the basin. The study said: “All remaining water stored in New Mexico reservoirs could be gone in just one or two low runoff years.”

Rising seas could weaken Chesapeake Bay's natural storm surge buffer -- A hurricane does not have to make a direct hit to affect the Chesapeake Bay. Even from out at sea, a hurricane's winds, waves and rising tides can cause major flooding. But how much the water rises depends on a mix of interacting factors: the storm's intensity, size and speed; the shape of the shoreline; and the timing of the tide. Rising sea levels add another layer of uncertainty, slowly weakening the bay's ability to buffer storm surge and making its response harder to predict. In a new study, published in Earth's Future, Virginia Tech researchers used process-based numerical modeling to explore how the Chesapeake Bay could respond to various kinds of tropical cyclones as sea levels rise over the next 25 years. By analyzing thousands of computer-generated storms, they were able to predict how extreme storms could affect different parts of the bay, helping communities better prepare for coastal flooding. "The same storm could play out very differently by midcentury than it would today," said Md Shadman Sakib, a doctoral student in civil and environmental engineering who led the project. "This study is a step toward understanding how and where that could happen." The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States, stretching more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) from Maryland to its mouth in Virginia. More than 150 rivers and streams flow into the bay, which is connected to the Atlantic Ocean. Its long, narrow shape and network of rivers, sounds, natural barriers and smaller waterways affect how water moves through the system. Those geographic features also make the bay's response to storms different from what might occur along an open coastline. To study those responses, Sakib and the research team used the STORM synthetic tropical cyclone data set to create computer-generated storms. The data set represents 10,000 years of statistically generated storms, giving the researchers access to thousands of possible storm conditions. "The storms that pose the greatest flood risk are rare in historical records," said Sakib. "Statistically generated synthetic storms let us test how the bay could respond to events it has not yet experienced." The researchers selected 90 representative storms that could affect the Chesapeake Bay. They then modeled those storms using a digital simulation tool that accounts for tides, winds, atmospheric pressure, waves, river flows and the shape and depth of the bay. The team also modeled four different sea-level conditions for 2050 based on projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Sea-level rise at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was estimated to be between 13 and 21 inches (0.34 to 0.54 meters) by 2050, with a predicted median rise of roughly 17 inches (43 centimeters). "Seventeen inches (43 centimeters) may not sound like much, but it raises the baseline for every storm," said Sakib. "A storm that causes minor flooding today could cause serious flooding by midcentury, simply because it starts from higher water." When tides, storm surge and waves occur at the same time, they can work together to change the total water level in the bay. As a result, the total water level can be higher or lower than a simple sum of the tide, storm surge and waves. These effects are known as nonlinear interactions, and Sakib's research examines how they vary throughout the Chesapeake Bay. The researchers found that rising sea levels shifted these interactions toward higher water levels overall while reducing the effects of some nonlinear processes that tend to weaken storms by about 5% to 9%. "Sea-level rise raises the base water level directly, and on top of that, it weakens the bay's natural ability to dampen storm surge," said Sakib. Land in the lower Chesapeake region is also sinking, so the bay is seeing faster sea-level rise than most coastlines. "If that continues, coastal communities could face higher and harder-to-buffer flood levels in the decades ahead," noted Sakib. Storm intensity had the greatest influence on how water levels responded to hurricanes, especially in the lower Chesapeake Bay. The researchers found that interactions among tides, storm surge and waves could either raise or lower water levels beyond what those forces would produce on their own. Stronger storms generally produced larger changes in the lower bay, while the upper bay was less sensitive to storm intensity. Storm speed mattered, too. Strong, slow-moving storms produced the largest impacts, particularly within about 30 miles (48 kilometers) of the bay's entrance, where water levels could vary by 3 feet (0.9 meters). The strongest effects in the lower bay generally occurred near the peak of the storm surge, around the time a storm makes landfall. Effects also extended into the James and York rivers, the eastern bay and smaller tributaries. The bay's shape helps explain those differences. Its shallow areas, narrow channels, changing depths and tributaries all affect how storm-driven water moves. "The Chesapeake is long, shallow and shaped like a funnel, which controls how a storm plays out," said Sakib. In the lower bay, deeper channels and proximity to the ocean allow storms to retain more strength. Farther north, storms lose energy as they move inland. Rising sea levels could further change those patterns. That means a hurricane could affect parts of the Chesapeake Bay very differently, even during the same storm. The data may help researchers better understand the flooding that could come with future storms as sea levels rise. It also gives them a way to study how similar estuaries might respond to extreme storms—and help local communities prepare for what's coming.

Hurricane Isaias leaves at least four dead, hundreds of thousands without power after Florida landfall - (four videos) At least four people died after Hurricane Isaias made landfall near Destin, Florida, as a Category 2 hurricane at about 20:30 LT on October 9 (01:30 UTC on October 10). Approximately 408 000 customer accounts remained without power across Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi shortly before 13:00 UTC on October 11, while the post-tropical cyclone continued producing flooding and wind hazards farther northeast. Two deaths were confirmed in Escambia County, Florida. A woman died when a tree fell on her home, while a man died from carbon-monoxide poisoning after a generator was operated inside a garage. Four members of the man’s family, ranging in age from 4 to 72, were taken to hospitals with injuries that were not considered life-threatening. In Alabama, one person died after a tree fell on a home in Birmingham’s Huffman area. A second storm-related death occurred in a vehicle crash involving a downed tree in Barbour County, according to the Alabama Emergency Management Agency. At 12:55 UTC on October 11, PowerOutage.us showed 407 517 tracked customer accounts without power across four states. The total included 320 053 in Florida, 76 503 in Alabama, 8 995 in Georgia and 1 966 in Mississippi. The figures represent a live snapshot and will change as utilities restore service and revise their reports. Florida officials said nearly 400 Florida State Guard personnel had been deployed for route clearance, damage assessments, logistics and other recovery operations. Utility crews continued working to restore electricity across the hardest-hit communities. In a 19:30 LT update on October 10, Pensacola and Escambia County officials said a precautionary boil-water notice remained in effect. Water service had been restored to three local hospitals and Pensacola Beach, while Pensacola International Airport was scheduled to resume regular commercial service on October 11. The National Hurricane Center said Isaias made landfall near 30.4°N 86.5°W with maximum sustained winds of 165 km/h (105 mph) and a minimum central pressure of 971 hPa. The center crossed the coast about 65 km (40 miles) east of Pensacola and 80 km (50 miles) west-northwest of Panama City while moving north at 31 km/h (19 mph). A NOAA National Ocean Service gauge at Panama City Beach measured a water level of 1.7 m (5.6 feet) above mean higher high water around landfall. NHC described the measurement as an approximation of inundation at that location. The strongest observed winds were concentrated across the western Florida Panhandle. A WeatherFlow station near Santa Rosa Sound measured sustained winds of 146 km/h (91 mph) and a gust of 187 km/h (116 mph), while a WeatherSTEM station near Pensacola recorded a gust of 161 km/h (100 mph). A preliminary NWS Mobile report listed a peak gust of 188 km/h (117 mph) about 5 km (3 miles) east-southeast of Oriole Beach. Gusts reached 187 km/h (116 mph) at Santa Rosa Sound and 183 km/h (114 mph) at Milton. Heavy rainfall produced significant flash flooding across parts of the western Florida Panhandle. During the storm, NWS Mobile estimated 203–305 mm (8–12 inches) of rain across parts of Okaloosa and Walton counties, with peak rates of 76–127 mm/h (3–5 inches/h). A Preliminary report issued on October 10 listed 294 mm (11.56 inches) of rainfall near Mary Esther, 245 mm (9.65 inches) near Shalimar and 244 mm (9.6 inches) near Valparaiso due to the Hurricane. A Flash Flood Emergency was issued for southern and coastal Okaloosa County during the storm. At 04:00 LT (09:00 UTC) on October 11, the Weather Prediction Center placed Post-Tropical Cyclone Isaias near 35.4°N 85.9°W, about 105 km (65 miles) southeast of Nashville, Tennessee. Maximum sustained winds were 35 km/h (25 mph), minimum pressure was 1 010 hPa, and the system was moving northeast at 37 km/h (23 mph). Flood Watches remained in effect for coastal portions of the Carolinas and the Blue Ridge of the central and southern Appalachians. Wind Advisories covered parts of the southeastern United States and southern Appalachians. WPC forecast an additional 25–76 mm (1–3 inches) of rain, with localized totals near 127 mm (5 inches), across the central Appalachians and Mid-Atlantic. Isolated flash and urban flooding remained possible, while significant river flooding in the western Florida Panhandle was expected to crest on October 11.

Tropical Storm Rachel Causing Homes To Collapse in California – Homes along the Southern California coast have been catastrophically damaged as powerful waves and flooding tied to Tropical Storm Rachel battered coastal communities. Authorities warn that further flooding is still possible. Some of the most-serious damage hit the Peninsula in Long Beach. Strong waves crashed over and damaged a coastal bulkhead, which is a retaining wall designed to protect the shoreline from erosion, sending floods of water into homes and streets. Long Beach officials said that building inspectors have red-tagged eight buildings containing 13 homes, deeming them unsafe to be in and restricting access over safety concerns. A mandatory evacuation order remains in place for several homes in the 6400 and 6500 blocks of Seaside Walk; evacuation warnings cover additional properties on the Peninsula. The city has restricted access to the area to residents, with street closures beginning at 62nd Place. Crews in Long Beach deployed a crane and positioned 30 heavy-duty sandbags weighing 3,000 pounds each to reinforce the damaged bulkhead. The city said it has also supplied around 17,000 sandbags. Next week, it is planning to bring another 50,000 to 100,000 cubic yards of sand to strengthen coastal defenses in vulnerable areas. But the damage hasn’t been confined to just Long Beach. In Newport Beach, officials declared a local emergency following widespread coastal flooding as high surf and unusually high ocean levels battered the shoreline. "Higher-than-normal surf" flooded streets on the Balboa Peninsula. Crews quickly rebuilt the protective sand barriers along the beach, opened tide valves, and operated pumping systems to drain floodwater. The city said crews and contractors were continuing to reinforce the sand barriers. Newport Pier, Balboa Pier, the Wedge from the rock jetty to M Street, and the Balboa Pier parking lot remained temporarily closed. Although Rachel itself is no longer classified as a tropical storm, in its final advisory on Sunday, October 11, the National Hurricane Center said that the remains of the storm could continue to bring hazardous weather to the region. The NHC said: "Waves generated by Rachel will continue along the coasts of Southern California and northern Baja California." It added that these waves will cause "life-threatening surf and rip current conditions." The NHC also said that some areas were likely to get up to 5 inches of rain through Sunday; this "will continue to lead to the potential for significant flash and urban flooding." The latest National Weather Service (NWS) forecast, issued late Sunday, says "minor to moderate coastal flooding is likely to continue through at least Tuesday." Spells of light to moderate rain are also expected through Monday, with a low chance of thunderstorms. Long Beach said the Coastal Flood Warning had been downgraded to an advisory lasting until Wednesday, October 13, at 2 p.m. Minor to moderate flooding is still possible around high tides as is localized damage in particularly vulnerable low-lying places. The storm had delivered considerably more rain farther south. The NWS in San Diego reported that flash and urban flooding occurred as Rachel moved through the region. Preliminary totals reached 2.37 inches in San Diego County valleys and 2.15 inches in the mountains in its Sunday morning update. Peak rainfall rates reached 0.70 to 1 inch per hour in the mountains.

Millionaires’ homes destroyed by California storm  -- Multi-million-dollar waterfront homes were severely damaged as tropical Storm Rachel sent waves crashing into the coast of southern California. Video footage showed houses with storm damage, including one with large cracks running from the foundation to the roof. Forecasters warned that Storm Rachel could be a preview of what was to come for the US state, with the next few months expected to deliver the strongest El Niño weather pattern on record, with storms predicted to continue well into 2027. In Long Beach near Los Angeles, several homes were destroyed over the weekend after a protective bulkhead failed, sending water into homes. Waves also ripped apart a century-old boardwalk along the Alamitos Peninsula, closing access to the seafront. One home battered by the waves was listed for sale in August for just under $5m (£3.7m). The four-storey 4,880 sq ft home was described as having “breathtaking panoramic ocean and bay views”, and a 1,000-bottle wine cellar. Thirteen homes had been red-tagged, forcing all residents to evacuate in preparation for the surge in water levels, according to Rex Richardson, the Long Beach mayor. Another home was yellow-tagged, meaning those living there needed to be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice. Residents said they had been working to protect their homes and help neighbours whose properties had suffered more extensive damage. Robert Wells’s family have owned a summer home on the peninsula since 1962. Mr Wells, 80, told the New York Post: “It’s never happened like this before. Yesterday, and this morning, the water came right over here. And just took everything out.” He argued that a sand berm constructed by the local authority to hold back the waves and protect beachfront properties had made the damage worse. Mr Wells added: “There is a class action lawsuit forming against the city of Long Beach.”

Remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel unleash days of destructive waves along California coast | Watch - Oct 12 (video) Powerful waves from the remnants of former Tropical Storm Rachel continue to batter the California coast, damaging shorelines, boardwalks and homes. FOX News Multimedia Reporter Amalia Roy was on the ground in Long Beach, California, giving viewers a firsthand look at the latest damage.

Cleanup underway after three storms bash North America over the weekend  -- Three major storms battered North America over the weekend, leaving communities from Florida to California and Mexico cleaning up widespread damage, restoring power, and dealing with flooding. Hurricane Isaias made landfall Friday (October 9) near Destin, Florida, as a Category 2 hurricane, bringing devastating winds and heavy rain. The storm caused significant destruction in the Florida Panhandle, tearing off the roofs of buildings, flattening boathouses, and knocking out power for hundreds of thousands of people. Four deaths were linked to Isaias: two in Florida and two in Alabama, resulting from falling trees and storm-related accidents. In Escambia County, Florida, Sheriff Chip Simmons confirmed that a woman died when a tree fell on her home, and another man died from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a generator running in his garage. Crews worked throughout the weekend to clear debris and restore power, but as of Sunday evening, roughly 226,000 customers in the region remained without electricity. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis stated he expected nearly all power to be restored by Tuesday night.As Isaias moved north, it unleashed flooding and landslides across parts of Georgia and the Carolinas. In western North Carolina, rivers spilled over their banks, prompting voluntary evacuations and water rescues. Some areas received nearly 10 inches of rain within 24 hours, and first responders dealt with multiple landslides and flooded roads, according to the National Weather Service.Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Tropical Storm Rachel brought damaging surf and flooding to Southern California over the weekend. High tides and storm surge battered communities like Long Beach and San Diego, damaging homes, historic boardwalks, and forcing some evacuations. In Long Beach, city officials deployed large sandbags to protect oceanfront properties, while residents described a tense atmosphere as waves continued to threaten their homes. Rachel's remnants also triggered flash flooding in Las Vegas, Nevada, where an inch of rain flooded roads and casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. In Mexico, Hurricane Simon pounded the Pacific coast Sunday as a Category 3 storm, with its eye remaining just offshore. The Puerto Vallarta area faced the heaviest rains and winds, with some locations experiencing up to eight inches of rainfall and wind speeds reaching 120 mph. Although Simon maintained strength with the core offshore, the storm still caused flooding and power outages in coastal communities.President Donald Trump approved emergency declarations for Florida, Alabama, and Georgia, allowing for federal disaster aid to help affected regions recover. Emergency crews across the continent continue to clear debris, restore utilities, and support displaced residents. Forecasters warn that cleanup and repairs may take days or weeks in the hardest-hit areas, especially as the Atlantic hurricane season continues.

Category 3 Hurricane Simon remains off western Mexico after heavy rain floods Manzanillo - - Category 3 Hurricane Simon remained just offshore west-central Mexico at 03:00 LT (09:00 UTC) on October 12, 2026 with maximum sustained winds of 185 km/h (115 mph) and a minimum pressure of 958 hPa, after heavy rain flooded homes and streets in Manzanillo. The National Hurricane Center placed its center 75 km (50 miles) southwest of Cabo Corrientes and warned that dangerous winds, storm surge and additional rainfall could worsen flooding along the coast. Satellite image of Hurricane Simon at 10:40 UTC on October 12, 2026. At 03:00 LT (09:00 UTC), Simon was centered about 235 km (145 miles) west-northwest of Manzanillo and 75 km (50 miles) southwest of Cabo Corrientes. The hurricane was moving northwest at 7 km/h (5 mph). Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 30 km (15 miles) from the center, while tropical-storm-force winds reached 95 km (60 miles). A Hurricane Warning remained in effect from Playa Pérula to El Roblito and for Las Islas Marías, with a Hurricane Watch north of El Roblito to Bahía Tempehuaya. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said hurricane conditions were likely occurring within the warning area and were expected to spread northward during October 12. Heavy rain flooded homes and streets in Manzanillo on October 11, where soldiers assisted affected families. 28 municipalities in Jalisco and Colima were under the highest cyclone alert level and another 93 were under high alert. Air transportation remained disrupted along the affected coast. Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico said official aviation notices scheduled Puerto Vallarta International Airport to remain closed to all operations until 08:00 LT (14:00 UTC) on October 13 and Manzanillo International Airport until 08:00 LT (14:00 UTC) on October 12. NHC said Simon showed modest structural degradation early on October 12, with its eye becoming filled, although satellite-based intensity estimates remained widely dispersed. Further weakening was forecast because of interaction with Mexico’s mountainous terrain and increasing easterly wind shear, although waters of 31–32°C (88–90°F) could slow the weakening if the center remained farther offshore. NHC forecast Simon to move slowly northwest through early October 13 before turning gradually north and northeast toward west-central Mexico around midweek. Track uncertainty remained higher than normal because forecast models differed on how long Simon might remain in weak steering currents before beginning the northeastward turn. Simon was expected to remain a hurricane through midweek and weaken rapidly after moving over Mexico’s mountainous terrain. NHC forecast an additional 50–100 mm (2–4 inches) of rain across coastal southwestern and west-central Mexico. Isolated amounts of 150–200 mm (6–8 inches) were possible in parts of Jalisco early in the week and in Sinaloa mainly on October 14 and 15. Isolated storm-total accumulations near 760 mm (30 inches) remained possible in parts of Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco. NHC warned that the rainfall could produce life-threatening flooding and mudslides or worsen flooding already underway, particularly in steep terrain. A dangerous storm surge was expected along the immediate coast near and east of where Simon’s center approaches land, accompanied by large and destructive waves. Swells generated by the hurricane were forecast to affect southwestern and west-central Mexico during the next several days, producing life-threatening surf and rip-current conditions.

Category 4 Hurricane Simon approaches western Mexico with catastrophic wind and storm-surge threat - Category 4 Hurricane Simon was located 185 km (115 miles) south-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, at 09:00 LT (15:00 UTC) on October 10, 2026, with maximum sustained winds of 240 km/h (150 mph) and a minimum pressure of 938 hPa. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said additional strengthening remained possible before Simon approached west-central Mexico as a major hurricane late October 10 or early October 11. Satellite image of Hurricane Simon at 16:00 UTC on October 10, 2026. Simon was centered about 345 km (215 miles) south-southeast of Cabo Corrientes, and was moving slowly north. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 30 km (15 miles) from the center, while tropical-storm-force winds extended up to 205 km (125 miles). Simon’s sustained winds increased from 195 km/h (120 mph) at 03:00 UTC to 220 km/h (140 mph) at 06:00 UTC, 230 km/h (145 mph) at 09:00 UTC and 240 km/h (150 mph) at 12:00 UTC. Winds remained at 240 km/h (150 mph) at 15:00 UTC. NHC said satellite and microwave imagery suggested that Simon may have undergone an eyewall replacement cycle overnight. The hurricane’s pinhole eye became somewhat larger before clouding over again, and its intensity was held at 240 km/h (150 mph) because satellite estimates had changed little since the preceding intermediate advisory. An Air Force Reserve reconnaissance mission was scheduled to investigate Simon during the afternoon of October 10. The mission was expected to provide direct observations of the hurricane’s structure and intensity. NHC forecast Simon to strengthen briefly to about 250 km/h (155 mph) by 00:00 UTC on October 11 before weakening as the circulation began interacting with Mexico’s mountainous terrain. The agency’s official track brought the hurricane inland over Jalisco within 24–36 hours. Forecasters stressed that substantial track uncertainty remained. Some forecast models kept Simon just offshore for approximately 48 hours, while others brought it inland within 24–36 hours; an offshore track could allow the hurricane to remain stronger for longer.

Hurricane Simon weakens to Category 2 as it continues to lash Mexico’s Pacific coast | CNN - Hurricane Simon weakened to a Category 2 storm on Monday with sustained winds of 105 mph as it moves off Mexico’s west coast, according to the US National Hurricane Center. The storm will likely pack near 100 mph winds as it makes landfall sometime Thursday, though the exact location and timing could change because of the complexity of its track forecast. The hurricane has been causing heavy rainfall and strong winds. In Mexico’s southwestern Guerrero state, an elderly person died, according to Mexico’s national Civil Protection coordinator during a news conference with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Sheinbaum said the hurricane, which has threatened coastal communities and popular tourist destinations along Mexico’s Pacific Coast since Sunday, caused “minor” damage in affected areas. “The place where there may have been greater damage, although it was not as expected, is Guerrero. There was some damage in Colima, and [the effects of Tropical Storm] Rachel in Baja California, where there were greater impacts.” The hurricane is bringing heavy rain and strong winds to parts of Jalisco’s coast early Monday, including Puerto Vallarta, a popular resort city destination for US tourists. The conditions are expected to improve that morning as Simon continues to weaken slowly and inch northwest just offshore. The international airport in Puerto Vallarta suspended operations and will remain closed until 8 a.m. local time on Tuesday, according to Pacific Airport Group (GAP). The national coordinator of Mexico’s Civil Protection Agency (CNPC), Laura Velázquez Alzúa, told reporters on Sunday that despite the hurricane not yet making landfall, it is still “very close to the Mexican coast.” Velázquez said Simon’s effects — including “strong winds, high waves, and storm surge,” particularly along the northern coast of Jalisco state — will continue through Monday. But rainfall is expected to ease during the day, according to the head of Mexico’s National Meteorological Service, Fabián Vázquez Romaña According to NHC forecasts, Simon’s winds and rain will also spread to coastal areas of Nayarit state Monday and parts of Sinaloa state Tuesday. By Tuesday afternoon, Simon is expected to turn toward the northeast and begin moving toward southern Sinaloa. The Nayarit coast could see an inch or two of rain but the state’s islands could receive more than 12 inches as Simon passes very close by Monday night into early Tuesday. Rainfall totals of 4 to 8 inches are expected along parts of Sinaloa’s coast, with the hardest-hit areas potentially seeing more than 12 inches as Simon approaches on Thursday. Dangerous flash flooding is possible in any of these areas, while life-threatening landslides could occur at higher elevations. Coastal areas will experience the hurricane’s strongest winds, which can topple trees and power lines. Over the weekend, Sheinbaum urged residents from the states of Jalisco, Colima, Michoacán, and Nayarit to remain in shelter “until an official announcement that the danger has passed” after the CNPC warned of “exceptional rainfall” and “intense winds” in those states. Flooding in local residents' homes as Hurricane Simon hits Manzanillo, Mexico. Reuters Nonessential activities have been suspended, and precautionary evacuations are continuing, Sheinbaum said on Sunday. Federal authorities are working to restore power in some areas, including Acapulco, a coastal city in Mexico’s Guerrero state that was devastated three years ago by Hurricane Otis.

Hurricane Simon crawls along Mexico's Pacific coast, bringing floods and evacuations (Reuters) - Hurricane Simon crept northwest just ​off Mexico's Pacific coast on Monday, lashing western states with dangerous winds, heavy rain and flooding that ‌put riverside communities on alert for possible evacuations. The US National Hurricane Center said Simon was about 55 miles (90 km) west-southwest of Cabo Corrientes in Jalisco state at 8 a.m. (1400 GMT), packing maximum sustained winds of 110 mph (175 kph), making it a Category 2 hurricane. Stay up to date on the key companies, data, and decisions in the ESG world with the Reuters Sustainable Finance newsletter. Sign up here. Simon has weakened since Saturday when it was a Category ​4 system. "Simon is slowly losing wind intensity and could ultimately stall this week and never make a true ​landfall as an organized storm," said Alex DaSilva, a hurricane expert at private forecaster AccuWeather. Simon is ⁠forecast to make landfall on Thursday in Mexico's Sinaloa state. "The slower Simon moves, the more rain potential the storm carries, ​but right now most of that rain is offshore and to the south of the storm's center ultimately sparing the feet ​of rain we thought this storm could initially bring," said DaSilva. Simon was moving northwest at just 3 mph (6 kph) and was expected to continue along that track before turning northeast and moving inland across west-central Mexico around midweek. Authorities said that Simon could bring life-threatening flooding and mudslides to parts ​of the Pacific coast and nearby mountains. The hurricane is forecast to dump an additional 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 ​cm) of rain across coastal areas of southwest and west-central Mexico, with isolated amounts of 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 cm) in ‌parts ⁠of Jalisco and Sinaloa. The National Hurricane Center said isolated storm totals could reach 30 inches (76 cm) in parts of Michoacan, Colima and Jalisco. The head of Mexico's civil protection agency, Laura Velazquez, said one person was reported to have died due to the storm in Guerrero state, home to the popular tourist destination of Acapulco. In the coastal town of Cihuatlan in southwestern Jalisco, patrols warned residents ​to prepare for potential evacuation ​as the Marabasco River rose. Floodwater ⁠inundated streets and low-lying areas of the town overnight. Advertisement · Scroll to continue In the port city of Manzanillo in Colima state, residents waded through flooded homes and streets as navy personnel helped remove water. "Everything got ​flooded," said resident Maria Elena Vazquez from inside her home, pants rolled up as ​the water came ⁠up to her ankles. The National Hurricane Center said Simon was expected to produce dangerous storm surge and large destructive waves close to where it approaches the coast. Swells from the hurricane are also forecast to create life-threatening surf and rip current conditions along southwestern and west-central Mexico over ⁠the ​next few days. Following weeks of storms that have battered Mexico, at least 10 ​people are missing in the state of Baja California and one minor was killed in the coastal city of Ensenada.

Hurricane Simon hitting western Mexico after tropical systems kill 6 -   The death toll from Hurricane Simon and the remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel rose to six Tuesday after heavy rains triggered flooding and landslides along Mexico's Pacific coast, authorities said. Hurricane Simon continued moving slowly off Mexico's Pacific coast as a Category 1 storm, bringing heavy rain to Nayarit and Sinaloa states, where authorities remained on alert for rising rivers and flooding. Over the weekend, the hurricane brought heavy rain to the southern state of Guerrero, killing one person. While the eye of the hurricane remained offshore, its outer bands slammed communities this week between the Sierra Madre and the Pacific Ocean near Puerto Vallarta. Simon's 90 mph strongest sustained winds made it a Category 1 storm, but the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said it had technically become a small tropical cyclone. Simon was 115 miles west of Cabo Corrientes and heading west at 2 mph. The hurricane center said the storm's intensity could fluctuate over the next few days but would likely maintain hurricane strength through Thursday, with gradual weakening forecast thereafter. Up to 3 inches of rain are expected from Simon across the Mexican states of Baja California Sur, Nayarit and Sinaloa by Friday, the weather service said. Moisture associated with Simon is forecast to bring the potential for flash flooding from this evening through Friday morning to parts of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri, according to CBS News meteorologist Nikki Nolan. Rainfall could total 6 inches and perhaps 8 in some spots. Resident Johana Nuriulu said the flooding began during the night, shortly after heavy rain knocked out electricity. "We heard a loud noise that sounded like ocean waves, but really loud," she said. Nuriulu said she went outside and discovered that a nearby stream had overflowed, sending water rushing through the neighborhood. The waters inundated streets and homes, sweeping away vehicles and other belongings. "Everything was being dragged away," Nuriulu said. Several communities were cut off by landslides and overflowing rivers elsewhere in Baja California. In the afternoon, the Mexican military used helicopters to rescue 32 people — 22 of them foreigners — from a ranch in Ensenada. Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila said 13 were youths. The state Secretary of Security, Gen. Laureano Carrillo, said some of the group were missionaries meeting at the ranch and that among them were Germans and Americans. The victims included a 13-year-old girl whose body was found Sunday, two women ages 30 and 35 and a 4-year-old boy whose bodies were recovered Monday, and an unidentified person found near a stream Tuesday, the state prosecutor's office told The Associated Press. Five others remained missing in Baja California, including three in Ensenada and a father and son who went fishing Saturday in San Felipe, on the Gulf of California, and never returned. According to Ávila, some 14,000 federal and state personnel had been deployed across Baja California to assist affected residents and respond to the emergency. To the south, Simon downed trees and electricity poles, blocked roads and flooded homes in coastal towns of Guerrero state, including the major seaport of Acapulco, Gov. Evelyn Salgado said at a news conference. A 71-year-old man died after a wall collapsed in Chilpancingo, Guerrero's capital, Salgado said. In Puerto Vallarta, workers removed wooden panels from boarded-up storefronts and businesses reopened Monday as rains eased. The popular tourist destination's international airport suspended operations until Tuesday morning. Rachel weakened into a post-tropical cyclone as it moved north into Southern California. The storm battered the coast with unusually large waves, which tore apart a boardwalk and smashed into homes in Long Beach. Some residents were forced to evacuate. Las Vegas tied an all-time daily rainfall record for October when it received 1.08 inches of rain into Sunday morning, according to the U.S. National Weather Service. The record was set in 1947. Videos posted on social media showed a torrent of water rushing through a street near the Las Vegas Strip, with a Ferris wheel and casinos in the background. Flood advisories were mostly lifted by late Monday in Utah, Arizona and elsewhere in the Southwest. In Utah, dozens of runners and volunteers who were part of the Moab 240 ultramarathon were evacuated Sunday after being stranded by flooding. The race goes through Canyonlands and Arches national parks. The additional rainfall isn't associated with Rachel, but a different weather system moving across the West, forecasters said. The precipitation is expected to end by Wednesday. Power was gradually being restored after Hurricane Isaias hit the U.S. Southeast.

Flash flood threat grows as Hurricane Simon's moisture fuels intense storms, slams millions across Central US -A large dip in the jet stream is funneling moisture north from Hurricane Simon, which is churning off the coast of western Mexico, and will enhance storms across parts of the Central U.S. and Ohio Valley through Thursday.    More than 6 million people across parts of the Southern Plains and Midwest woke up under a Flood Watch Wednesday as storms enhanced by moisture from Hurricane Simon, churning over 1,000 miles away in the Pacific, dumped torrential rain across the Central U.S. Thunderstorms capable of producing rain rates of 1-2 inches of rain per hour will be possible throughout the day across a 1,500-mile corridor, covering more than 35 million people from Texas' Big Bend region to Morgantown, West Virginia.However, some of the heaviest rain is concentrating over parts of Central Oklahoma, including Oklahoma City, where a Level 3 out of 4 risk of flash flooding is in effect.  A large dip in the jet stream is funneling moisture north from Hurricane Simon, which is churning off the coast of western Mexico, and will enhance storms across parts of the Central U.S. and Ohio Valley through Thursday. Hurricane Simon restrengthened into a Category 2 storm, after peaking as a Category 4 over the weekend. Simon has not made landfall and is meandering slowly just off the coast but will continue to dump torrential rain on the Mexican coast, before finally coming ashore sometime Friday or Saturday.Simon is threatening parts of Mexico with additional life-threatening flash flooding and landslides after the government reported that rain associated with Simon caused several rockslides in the state of Guerrero and other neighboring states late last week. A bull's-eye for the heaviest rain is setting up over Central Oklahoma, where more than 5 inches of rain could fall through Thursday morning. A broad Level 2 out of 4 flash flood threat covers parts of Texas's Big Bend region, West Texas and the Panhandle, Oklahoma, southeastern Kansas, southern Missouri, northern Arkansas, southern Illinois, southern Indiana, southern Ohio, western West Virginia, western Kentucky, and northwestern Tennessee. Parts of Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas are under a Flood Watch after the first round of heavy rain slammed the region Tuesday. Tropically-enhanced thunderstorms slammed Kansas City, Missouri with torrential rain on Tuesday Oct. 13, 2026.Meanwhile, another round of severe storms will ignite over the Southern Plains.A Level 2 out of 5 risk of severe thunderstorms covers parts of West Texas, the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma beginning Wednesday afternoon.  Damaging wind gusts are expected to be the main threat. On Thursday, the wet weather will shift Northeast into the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region, where repeated rounds of rainfall are expected.

Life-threatening flash flooding reported across Oklahoma City, major flooding forecast on Canadian River - (video report) Life-threatening flash flooding was reported across the Oklahoma City metropolitan area on October 14, 2026 after thunderstorms produced 76–152 mm (3–6 inches) of rain, while radar indicated 102–279 mm (4–11 inches) farther west, according to the National Weather Service (NWS) in Norman. Major flooding was forecast on the Canadian River near Bridgeport, while the Weather Prediction Center (WPC) maintained a Moderate Risk of excessive rainfall from Oklahoma into the Red River Valley of Texas through 12:00 UTC on October 15. Satellite image of central United States at 1750 UTC on October 14, 2026 At 10:00 LT (15:00 UTC), NWS Norman extended a Flash Flood Warning for Oklahoma County and parts of Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, and Logan counties until 13:00 LT (18:00 UTC). Widespread flash flooding was reported across the Oklahoma City metropolitan area after 76–152 mm (3–6 inches) of rain, with another 25–76 mm (1–3 inches) possible. NWS classified the flash-flood damage threat as considerable and described the flooding of creeks, streams, roads, underpasses and urban areas as life-threatening. At 10:21 LT (15:21 UTC), Doppler radar indicated that 102–279 mm (4–11 inches) had fallen across parts of Canadian, Kingfisher, Blaine and Caddo counties, with another 25 mm (1 inch) possible. El Reno, Watonga, Kingfisher, Piedmont, Hinton, Geary, Okarche and Hydro were among the communities included in the warning. At 12:20 LT (17:20 UTC), NWS issued a Flood Warning for parts of western and southwestern Oklahoma until 17:45 LT (22:45 UTC), replacing an earlier Flash Flood Warning. The agency said 76–254 mm (3–10 inches) had fallen around communities including Elk City, Weatherford, Clinton and Cordell, with flooding ongoing or expected to begin shortly. Flash Flood Warnings also expanded east and southeast during the late morning. A warning issued at 11:22 LT (16:22 UTC) covered Cleveland County and parts of Oklahoma, Lincoln, McClain, Pottawatomie and Garvin counties after radar indicated 51–76 mm (2–3 inches), with another 25–51 mm (1–2 inches) possible. A separate warning issued at 11:59 LT (16:59 UTC) covered central Pontotoc County, including Ada, after radar indicated 25–51 mm (1–2 inches). Another 25 mm (1 inch) was possible in the warned area. NWS Norman upgraded the Canadian River near Bridgeport forecast from moderate to major flooding at 10:17 LT (15:17 UTC). The river stood at 5.15 m (16.9 feet) at 09:45 LT and was forecast to crest near 5.24 m (17.2 feet), above the 4.27 m (14 feet) flood stage, during the afternoon. Moderate flooding was already occurring at Bridgeport. NWS said water near 5.18 m (17 feet) affects croplands, pastures and oil wells and can isolate higher floodplain fields, with the river forecast to fall below flood stage late October 15. WPC maintained a Moderate Risk of excessive rainfall, level 3 of 4, across portions of Oklahoma into the Red River Valley of Texas from 16:00 UTC on October 14 to 12:00 UTC on October 15. A Moderate Risk represents at least a 40% probability of rainfall exceeding flash-flood guidance within 40 km (25 miles) of a point; it does not mean every location inside the risk area will flood. WPC attributed the event to an approaching upper-level low and frontal boundary interacting with unusually deep moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern Pacific. The 12:00 UTC Norman sounding measured precipitable water of 56.6 mm (2.23 inches), the highest October value in its period of record. Moisture associated with Hurricane Simon over the eastern Pacific also contributed to the unusually moist environment. WPC expected a temporary reduction in thunderstorm intensity during the early afternoon before instability and strengthening low-level flow supported renewed development later in the day and overnight.

Hurricane Simon impacts are lingering; new threat brewing from Trudy in Mexico - Tropical Storm Simon is threatening Mexico's west-central coast with ongoing torrential rain and dangerous seas, while a new storm, Trudy, could rapidly intensify into a major hurricane not far away in the eastern Pacific in the coming days. The severity of conditions along the Mexican coast from Trudy will depend on whether the storm's eyewall reaches the coast or the storm makes a glancing blow and closely parallels the shoreline. A track difference of 50-100 miles could have profound differences in impacts. This image shows Simon (upper left of center) and the much larger Trudy (lower right of center) in the eastern Pacific on Wednesday morning, Oct. 14, 2026. (AccuWeather Enhanced RealVue™ Satellite) Landfall would bring severe conditions typical of a major hurricane, while the eye passing 100 miles offshore might allow for only tropical storm conditions. Simon's path is blocked in the short term Weak steering winds will cause Simon to move slowly through at least Thursday and meander off Mexico's coast. "How far north Simon meanders through the end of this week may determine its eventual track," AccuWeather Vice President of Forecast Operations Dan DePodwin said. Even as Simon wanders off the Mexican coast, moisture will be pulled to the northeast, enhancing some rainfall into northern Mexico and the United States. Simon is forecast to remain nearly stationary for the next couple of days. Based on some new information, if Simon survives, it may track along the west side of the Baja Peninsula this weekend to early next week. "If Simon remains stalled, its winds would diminish further, and the storm could eventually fade into an area of low clouds near Baja California Sur, Mexico," DePodwin explained. Some fragments of moisture will be torn off Simon and can drift into parts of the central U.S. this week, joining other moisture, even if the center remains well south of the border. Regardless of Simon’s eventual track, rough seas, waves washing over beaches and coastal roads, drenching rain, flash flooding and gusty winds will continue to threaten portions of Mexico’s Pacific coast through the end of the week. Simon’s strongest winds and heaviest rain in southwestern Mexico have already occurred, but additional rain and gusty winds will affect the west-central coast through the end of the week. Some heavy rain and wind could reach northwest Mexico by this weekend, depending on the storm’s track. Trudy to become a powerful hurricane There is another tropical problem brewing along Mexico's Pacific coast. Tropical Storm Trudy developed on Tuesday and is forecast to strengthen in the coming days as it tracks northward. “Trudy has the potential to quickly become a major hurricane and even reach Category 4 or 5 intensity on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale,” AccuWeather Lead Hurricane Expert Alex DaSilva said. The storm is forecast to pass close enough to Mexico’s Pacific coast to bring torrential rain, dangerous surf and strong wind gusts. At this time, there is an extensive band where 8-12 inches of rain is expected to fall. Rainfall totals of 4-8 inches are forecast across a broad area of Mexico’s Pacific coast. Some of the rain will fall in areas between Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta that Simon and other storms have already drenched this season. Manzanillo could face some of the storm’s heaviest rain, strongest winds and greatest flooding risk. The AccuWeather Local StormMax™ rainfall is 25 inches, and the AccuWeather Local StormMax™ wind gust on land is 100 mph. Due to flooding rainfall, strong winds and storm surge, Trudy is a 3 on the AccuWeather RealImpact™ Scale for Hurricanes in Mexico. The AccuWeather RealImpact™ Scale for Hurricanes is a six-point scale, with ratings of less than one and 1 to 5, that accounts for not only wind speed but also flooding rain, storm surge and economic damage and loss. If Trudy strengthens as forecast, stronger winds near its center will generate dangerously high waves offshore. Large swells will spread outward, threatening small boats and large vessels. For large swells to reach Southern California beaches from either Simon or Trudy, the storms would have to swing farther west, away from the Mexican coast, next week.

Hurricane Simon alters course, Los Cabos, southern Baja on alert --   Hurricane Simon has veered from its predicted path and now threatens to impact Los Cabos and elsewhere in Baja California Sur, with Tropical Storm Trudy rapidly intensifying behind Simon. Hurricane Simon, as of Wednesday morning, boasted sustained winds of 90 mph and was located 250 miles south-southeast of Cabo San Lucas at Baja California's tip. Hurricane Simon's predicted path.Warnings previously associated with Simon have been removed. But with Simon having moved away from the mainland on a path to skirt Baja California's west coast, the U.S.-based National Hurricane Center stated."Interests in west-central Mexico and in Baja California Sur should continue to monitor Simon. Watches or warnings may be required for portions of Baja California Sur over the next day or two."Simon is expected to remain at hurricane strength until early Saturday and could make landfall as a tropical storm near Magdalena Bay on Sunday. Simon is not expected to register a direct hit on Los Cabos.Tropical Storm Trudy, off southern Mexico, is expected to become a hurricane early Thursday and a major hurricane (Category 3 or stronger) by Friday.

Monster storms brewing in the Pacific as Hurricane Trudy targets Mexico and Champi eyes rare Guam landfall -Hurricane Trudy formed in the Eastern Pacific early Thursday and is forecast to rapidly intensify into a powerful Category 4 hurricane and approach the western coast of Mexico this weekend. A strong El Niño climate pattern has helped propel the Eastern Pacific to its most active season on record as measured by Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE). Trudy is currently a Category 1 storm with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph and is located about 300 miles south of Acapulco, Mexico. Trudy strengthened from a Tropical Storm early Thursday and could become the ninth Category 4 or stronger hurricane in the Eastern and Central Pacific this season. "Some forecast models even show a possible landfall, but confidence in the exact track remains low," the FOX Forecast Center said. Some hostile wind and uncertainty around the atmospheric steering pattern are making Trudy's exact track difficult for forecasters to pin down. Simon has weakened into a Tropical Storm, after peaking as a Category 4 hurricane over the weekend. Simon is about 200 miles west-southwest of Cabo Corrientes, Mexico, and is nearly stationary, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The lack of atmospheric steering currents has also prevented Simon from making landfall, with the small storm stalling just off the coast earlier this week. Simon's hurricane-force winds only extended 10 miles from its center Wednesday morning. The Mexican government reported that rain associated with Simon caused several rockslides in the state of Guerrero and other neighboring states late last week. Simon's moisture is also being pulled north by a large dip in the jet stream and is fueling a dangerous flash flood threat across the Central U.S. Forecasts have come into better focus after Simon's small size combined with the lack of a steering current made its future very uncertain as of Wednesday. Simon is now expected to continue to weaken and become post-tropical this weekend as it approaches Baja California. The 2026 Eastern Pacific hurricane season has officially surpassed 2018 as the most energetic season on record, with over 319 ACE units. ACE measures the combined strength and duration of tropical storms and hurricanes during a season. Meanwhile, a monster storm is brewing in the Western Pacific that, according to current forecasts, could strengthen into the strongest storm in any basin this year. Tropical Depression Champi was named early Thursday and was previously designated as Tropical Depression 29W when the system first began organizing early Wednesday. Champi is currently about 895 miles east of Guam and is forecast to pass close to Guam or the Northern Mariana Islands Sunday as the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane later this weekend. Typhoon Warnings were issued for Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands early Thursday. A Guam landfall is quite rare due to the small size of the island. "From there the typhoon will continue to intensify," the FOX Forecast Center said. "Incredibly, the Google Deepmind is giving it a 99% chance of becoming a Super Typhoon, and a 33% chance of matching Super Typhoon Sinalaku as the strongest storm on earth this year at 185 mph," the Forecast Center added.

Multiple wildfires prompt evacuations during the first Santa Ana event of the season in Southern California – (3 videos) Multiple wildfires broke out across Southern California on October 15, 2026, prompting evacuation orders and road closures during the season’s first moderate-to-strong Santa Ana wind event. The Henderson Fire at Camp Pendleton reached 568 ha (1 404 acres), while the Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACoFD) listed the Bryson Fire near Malibu at approximately 41 ha (102 acres) with 0% containment in its evening update. The Henderson Fire began at 14:35 LT (21:35 UTC) near Henderson Street and Brown Street at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County. Camp Pendleton Fire Department had jurisdiction, and CAL FIRE reported that the fire reached 568 ha (1 404 acres) by 20:14 LT (03:14 UTC on October 16). The fire threatened structures and overhead power lines, and four airtankers were assigned during the initial response. Authorities ordered the Las Flores, or 41 Area, to evacuate and temporarily closed Interstate 5 in both directions between Harbor Drive and Basilone Road; reopening began at 17:49 LT (00:49 UTC on October 16), and the evacuation order was lifted at 19:31 LT (02:31 UTC on October 16). The Bryson Fire was burning near Encinal Canyon Road and Mulholland Highway north of Malibu. LACoFD listed the fire at approximately 41 ha (102 acres) with 0% containment in its October 15 evening major-incident update; an archived CAL FIRE incident entry timestamped 20:42 LT (03:42 UTC on October 16) carried the same figures and identified LACoFD as the administering agency. Other official relay pages carried different preliminary acreage and containment values later in the evening. Because LACoFD was the agency having jurisdiction, this report uses its direct 41 ha (102 acres), 0%-contained update and treats the figures as provisional. Los Angeles County listed evacuation orders for zones KAN-U017 and SYC-U016-A. Evacuation warnings covered surrounding areas, including western Malibu, while Agoura High School was designated as a human shelter and Agoura Animal Care Center and Pierce College Equestrian Center were designated for evacuated animals. County officials also evacuated youths from Campus Vernon Kilpatrick to Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall and Secure Youth Treatment Facility in Sylmar. Road closures included Decker Road at Encinal Canyon Road, Kanan Road at Mulholland Highway, and Mulholland Highway at Westlake Boulevard. The City of Malibu said Pacific Coast Highway remained open in both directions as of 22:30 LT on October 15 (05:30 UTC on October 16). A Southern California Edison Public Safety Power Shutoff affected parts of central and western Malibu, and Malibu City Hall was scheduled to remain closed on October 16. The Peak Fire north of San Gabriel Canyon Road and Mirador Drive near Azusa was mapped at 17.4 ha (43 acres) and 41% contained by 19:43 LT (02:43 UTC on October 16). The fire was under unified command involving LACoFD and the U.S. Forest Service’s Angeles National Forest. An initial evacuation order for the Peak Fire was dropped at 15:08 LT (22:08 UTC), while the remaining evacuation warnings were lifted at 19:05 LT (02:05 UTC on October 16) and downgraded to an advisory. Northbound traffic on San Gabriel Canyon Road had been closed at Sierra Madre during the response. In an Area Forecast Discussion issued at 01:24 LT (08:24 UTC) on October 16, the National Weather Service (NWS) Los Angeles/Oxnard office said peak gusts had reached 97–129 km/h (60–80 mph) on October 15, with the strongest winds in the mountains of Ventura and Los Angeles counties. NWS forecast further strengthening into Friday morning, with gusts potentially reaching 145 km/h (90 mph) in mountain areas and 97 km/h (60 mph) in the Los Angeles valleys and the valleys and coastal areas of Ventura County. A Red Flag Warning remained in effect for most valleys and coastal areas of Los Angeles and Ventura counties through 20:00 LT on October 17 (03:00 UTC on October 18). NWS forecast northeast to east winds of 32–56 km/h (20–35 mph), gusts of 64–89 km/h (40–55 mph), isolated gusts near 105 km/h (65 mph), and minimum relative humidity of 8–15%, creating conditions favorable for rapid fire growth and extreme fire behavior if new ignitions occur.

Daily high-temperature records broken or tied on October 13 across parts of the central U.S. - Five daily high-temperature records were broken and one was tied at six sites across Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Illinois on October 13, 2026. Temperatures at the sites reached 32.8–33.9°C (91–93°F), or 9.4–13.3°C (17–24°F) above normal, following the warmest September on record for the contiguous United States. St. Louis reached 33.9°C (93°F) at 15:24 LT (20:24 UTC), exceeding the previous October 13 record of 32.2°C (90°F) set in 1899. The maximum was 12.2°C (22°F) above the normal high of 21.7°C (71°F); the station’s climate record extends back to 1874. Quincy, Illinois, reached 32.8°C (91°F), breaking the previous record of 30.6°C (87°F) set in 1975 and finishing 13.3°C (24°F) above normal. Springfield, Illinois, reached 33.3°C (92°F), exceeding the 31.1°C (88°F) record set in 1899 and tied in 1975, and was 12.8°C (23°F) above normal. Springfield, Missouri, reached 33.9°C (93°F), breaking its previous October 13 record of 31.1°C (88°F) set in 2017. Wichita Eisenhower National Airport recorded 32.8°C (91°F), exceeding the 32.2°C (90°F) record set in 1954 and tied in 1966. Tulsa reached 33.3°C (92°F), tying its October 13 record from 1963. Springfield, Missouri, Wichita and Tulsa were 12.2°C (22°F), 10.6°C (19°F) and 9.4°C (17°F) above normal, respectively. Multiple sites has also set records on October 12 as week. St. Louis reached 33.3°C (92°F), exceeding the 31.7°C (89°F) record set in 1879 and tied in 1890; Quincy reached 32.8°C (91°F), above its 32.2°C (90°F) record from 2024; and Springfield, Illinois, reached 32.8°C (91°F), exceeding its 31.7°C (89°F) record from 1962. The Weather Prediction Center (WPC) said above-normal temperatures would persist across parts of the Midwest and Southeast for several more days, with additional daily records possible. Cooler Canadian air was forecast to bring more seasonable temperatures to much of the central United States later in the week. The October records followed the warmest September in the 132-year temperature record for the contiguous United States. NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information reported an average temperature of 20.8°C (69.4°F), 2.6°C (4.6°F) above the 20th-century average and above the previous September record of 20.5°C (68.95°F) set in 1998. Eight states recorded their warmest September, including Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

Record heat this week: warmest Jan.-Sept. on record in US -- If it feels like summer never left, the numbers back you up. This week brought a fresh wave of record-breaking heat across the country, even as calendars flip toward Halloween. According to U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), we have seen more than 600 daily high records tied or broken in the past week, primarily across the central and eastern U.S. Another 700 daily warm low records were tied or broken as well, so there was little relief when the sun went down. St. Louis nearly tied its all-time October heat record, hitting 93 degrees at Lambert International Airport. Its all-time record is 94 degrees, set back in 1953. The 93 degrees did shatter a daily record that had been in place for over 100 years, dating back to 1899. The Twin Cities saw back-to-back record days, reaching 90 on Oct. 10 and 11 and running more than 20 degrees above the historical average. Denver has seen its longest streak of 80-plus-degree days in October since record-keeping began. And this record warmth follows an impressive heat wave that hit the West to start the month. Downtown Los Angeles has seen five days above 100 so far this month. This has never happened in October. The previous record was four 100-degree days in October 1958 and 1971. These 100-degree days were all in a row as well, occurring Oct. 2-6. This ties the third-longest stretch of consecutive days above 100 degrees. For downtown Los Angeles, this has been its hottest June 1 to Oct. 4 of all-time. This week's heat isn't an isolated blip. It's capping an extraordinary year. NOAA reports that the period from January through September was the warmest on record for the contiguous U.S. in 132 years of data — driven partly by the hottest September ever recorded nationally. Eight states, including Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Texas and Illinois, posted their warmest Septembers on record, per the National Centers for Environmental Information, with some beating marks that dated back to the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s. Notably, much of this record warmth has come from unusually warm overnight lows rather than scorching daytime highs, with an estimated 80 million Americans experiencing their warmest September nights on record. With the U.S. now on pace for its hottest year ever measured, this week's heat is less of a fluke and more of a continuation of a trend that's been building all year.

An Extremely Warm September has us Wondering, Where is Fall? | Illinois State Climatologist - The statewide average September temperature was 73.0 degrees, 6.2 degrees above the 1991-2020 average, 6.8 degrees above the 20th century average, and 5.5 degrees above the most recent 30-year average. It was the warmest September on record in Illinois. The statewide total September precipitation was 3.01 inches, 0.34 inches below the 1991-2020 average, 0.49 inches below the 20th century average, 0.08 inches below the most recent 30-year average, and the 64th driest September on record. September is a transition month as we move from summer into fall. The month began with summer-like heat across the state. Temperatures in Chicago were 10 to 20 degrees above average in the first week of the month before they moderated during the middle and end of the month (Figure 1). Daily September average temperatures and temperature departures in Chicago. Figure 1. Daily September average temperatures and temperature departures in Chicago. September average temperatures were between 4 and 10 degrees above normal, ranging from the high 60s in northern Illinois to the high 70s in southern Illinois (Figure 2). High temperatures regularly reached the upper 90s in early and mid-September across central and southern Illinois. A few places cracked triple digits, including highs of 105 degrees in Morrisonville and 102 degrees in Salem. The 105-degree high in Morrisonville was not only that area’s highest temperature in September, but the highest temperature ever recorded at that station in any month going back to 1979. Maps of (left) September average temperature and (right) September average temperature departures from normal. Figure 2. Maps of (left) September average temperature and (right) September average temperature departures from normal. The summer-like heat broke 138 daily high maximum temperature records and 212 daily high minimum temperature records across the state. Chicago’s nighttime minimum temperature only dipped to 78 degrees on Sept. 2, making it the warmest September night on record there. No place in Illinois approached the freezing mark. In fact, the lowest temperature recorded was a balmy 40 degrees in Shabbona. Overall, the statewide average September temperature was 73.0 degrees, 6.2 degrees above the 1991-2020 average, 6.8 degrees above the 20th century average, and 5.5 degrees above the most recent 30-year average. It was the warmest September on record in Illinois. September is not usually a very wet month across Illinois, but September precipitation can be helpful to finish soybeans or be quite frustrating for producers hoping to get a quick jump on harvest. Last month brought both to folks in our state. September was exceptionally wet in northern Illinois as multiple rounds of storms and heavy rainfall affected the upper Midwest. Meanwhile, most places in central and southern Illinois were near or somewhat drier than normal. Total September rainfall ranged from around half an inch in far southwest Illinois to nearly 15 inches in northwest Illinois (Figure 3). Overall, the statewide total September precipitation was 3.01 inches, 0.34 inches below the 1991-2020 average, 0.49 inches below the 20th century average, 0.08 inches below the most recent 30-year average, and the 64th driest September on record. Maps of (left) September total precipitation and (right) September precipitation departures from normal. Hydrologists use the “water year” — Oct. 1 through Sept. 30 — to define the period when we are typically at our driest for soils and streams. The 2025-26 water year started extremely dry for most of Illinois. In fact, the six months between September 2025 and February 2026 was the driest six-month period on record in Bloomington-Normal with only 6.5 inches of total precipitation. Conditions flipped in March and most of the state had a wetter second half of the water year. Overall, the northern half of the state was 2 to 8 inches wetter than normal over that period, and southern Illinois was 4 to 12 inches drier than normal (Figure 4). It was the driest water year since 1986-87 in Carbondale. The latest outlooks for October from the Climate Prediction Center show a mixed bag, with drier and warmer than normal conditions to our northwest and wetter than normal in the southeast. Meanwhile, the latest outlooks for winter (December through February) continue to lean into a very strong El Niño with best chances of above average temperatures.

Super El Niño could make 2026 hottest year on record: Climate monitor - An intensifying El Niño pattern set an all-time temperature high in a key Pacific zone in September and could help make this year the hottest globally on record, the director of the EU's climate monitor said Monday. Global forecasters have been warning for months that this El Niño would likely become the strongest ever observed and the latest record has tumbled even before the episode's expected peak later this year. The warming phase of a natural climate cycle, El Niño temporarily raises sea temperatures in the tropical Pacific, triggering changes in weather that can increase the risk of drought and flooding, and exacerbate man-made global warming. The Copernicus Climate Change Service said sea surface temperatures in a telltale El Niño monitoring region of the Pacific, known as Niño3.4, had reached an "all-time high" of 29.70C (85.5 degrees Fahrenheit) last month. This exceeded the peak temperatures of previously strong El Niño events of 1982/1983, 1997/1998 and 2015/2016, the EU monitor said. This year's El Niño, which emerged in June, is "very exceptional" but it is too early to say whether it is the strongest ever observed, Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo told AFP. As climate change raises ocean temperatures, it can make recent El Niño events appear stronger than past ones, complicating historical comparisons. Copernicus said it had adopted a new index, which accounts for the warming of tropical oceans, that suggested the current event is not yet stronger than past ones. "It's a very large event even in that metric," Buontempo said. "This very large event today is happening in a much warmer climate." Not all forecasters use the same scale to interpret El Niño. On Friday, Japan's weather agency said that El Niño conditions had reached their "strongest intensity on record." As El Niño gathers strength, global average sea surface temperatures hit a record 21.05C (69.9 degrees Fahrenheit) for September, topping the previous high of 20.92C (69.7 degrees Fahrenheit) for the same month in 2023, according to Copernicus. Experts have warned that this El Niño, combined with human-induced climate change, could make 2027 the hottest year on record as heat stored in the Pacific is released into the atmosphere. The weather phenomenon, which typically occurs every two to seven years and lasts around nine to 12 months, can drive world temperatures higher the year after its peak. But Buontempo said even 2026 could wind up a record breaker as this El Niño builds toward its peak. "If we follow the pattern we have seen in the past, we may have a record-breaking 2026, followed by a record-breaking 2027," he told AFP. After a record-breaking August, the world experienced its second-hottest September ever observed, with surface air temperatures averaging 16.27C (61.3 degrees Fahrenheit), the EU service said. September was 1.63C hotter than the preindustrial average, a period defined as 1850–1900. It was the second consecutive month that temperature rises exceeded 1.5C. Buontempo said temperatures would probably remain 1.5C above normal into early next year. The last El Niño event helped make 2024 the hottest year on record after a series of months of temperatures exceeding 1.5C, he said. But while El Niño plays a role, "the ultimate cause of the rise and the exceedance of 1.5C is anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases," Buontempo said. Nations agreed at the 2015 U.N. climate talks in Paris to keep global warming "well below" 2C above preindustrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5C, in order to limit the effects of climate change. But the United Nations declared in September that the long-term 1.5C target would be missed in a matter of years. Scientists say it is crucial to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels to limit the period of "overshoot" above 1.5C and bring temperatures back down as quickly as possible.

Very strong El Niño favors wetter South and warmer North in NOAA’s 2026–27 winter outlook, U.S. - A strengthening El Niño is shifting the odds toward wetter-than-average conditions across the southern United States and East Coast during winter 2026–27, according to NOAA. The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) reported that the latest weekly Niño-3.4 sea-surface temperature anomaly had reached +2.4°C (+4.3°F), while warmer-than-average conditions are favored across much of the northern United States. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) favors warmer-than-average temperatures across much of the northern United States and wetter-than-average conditions from California to Florida and along the East Coast during December 2026–February 2027, according to its U.S. Winter Outlook released on October 15. Drought is forecast to improve or end across the Southwest, Southern Great Plains, Southeast and parts of the East Coast. Warmer-than-average conditions are favored by NOAA’s temperature outlook across northern California, the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, the Mississippi Valley, much of the East, and Alaska, as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Near-normal seasonal temperatures are most likely across parts of the Southeast, including Florida, while Hawaii and much of the Southwest have equal chances of below-, near-, or above-average seasonal temperatures. The precipitation outlook favors wetter-than-average conditions from the Southwest through the southern tier and Southeast and northward along the East Coast. The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) places probabilities for above-normal precipitation above 70% in some areas of the extreme Southeast and northern Florida through the January–March 2027 season. Drier-than-average conditions are favored across parts of the northern Rockies and Great Lakes and much of western and central interior Alaska. The Intermountain West, northern Plains, Ohio Valley, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands include areas assigned equal chances among the three precipitation categories. NOAA’s drought outlook for October 15 through January 2027 favors improvement or removal of drought across the Southwest, Southern Great Plains, Southeast and parts of the East Coast. Drought development or worsening is favored across sections of the northern Rockies and in northeastern Oregon and eastern Washington. CPC said the ongoing El Niño remains in a strengthening phase and is exerting a major influence on the winter and spring seasonal outlooks. Its October 15 assessment placed the latest weekly Niño-3.4 sea-surface temperature anomaly at +2.4°C (+4.3°F), Niño-3 at +3.4°C (+6.1°F) and Niño-1+2 at +4.4°C (+7.9°F). Sea-surface temperatures were more than 2°C (3.6°F) above average across a broad section of the eastern equatorial Pacific, with anomalies reaching 4°C (7.2°F) in some areas nearer South America. CPC maintained an El Niño Advisory in its October 8 ENSO Diagnostic Discussion and assigned an 83% probability that the October–December three-month Relative Oceanic Niño Index, or RONI, will reach at least +2.5°C (+4.5°F). CPC said a value at or above that threshold would exceed previous El Niño events in its record dating to 1950. The agency stressed that stronger El Niño conditions increase the probability of characteristic regional impacts but do not guarantee a particular outcome at any location. The National Weather Service expects a very strong El Niño to favor a southward and eastward displacement of the Pacific jet stream across the contiguous United States. NWS Director Ken Graham said the pattern tilts the odds toward stormier weather across the South. NOAA said increased precipitation can provide drought relief. Where heavy precipitation occurs, however, dry soils can increase the risk of flash flooding and mudslides. Video credit: NOAA. CPC based the seasonal outlook on the ongoing El Niño event together with North American Multi-Model Ensemble and Copernicus ensemble guidance, statistical and hybrid forecast tools, long-term temperature and precipitation trends and other climate drivers. Statistical, hybrid and dynamical guidance is consistent in favoring above-normal temperatures across much of the northern United States, while temperature guidance has a larger spread across the Southwest and parts of the southern Plains. CPC describes Southeast wetness as one of the most reliable El Niño signals, while guidance shows a wider range of possible precipitation outcomes across the West Coast and Southwest.

Nepal flood triggered by rock and ice avalanche: Report - Nepal's disaster authority said Wednesday that an avalanche of rock and ice triggered a recent flash flood, echoing the mountain collapse that unleashed a tsunami-like wall of water in August. The flood on Sunday came less than two months after an ice and rock collapse on Aug. 26 sparked a catastrophic flood in Rasuwa district, killing more than 1,400 people and leaving over 5,000 missing, raising fresh concerns about the risks posed by Nepal's unstable mountain terrain. The latest flood left five people missing and swept away 200 houses and five bridges in central Gorkha district. It was initially blamed on a landslide, but the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said its analysis showed the torrent was triggered by an avalanche in an area with weak rock and at an altitude of about 6,000 meters (19,685 feet). The findings underscore the need for better monitoring and early-warning systems in Nepal's mountainous regions, where sudden collapses can unleash devastating torrents as mountain permafrost thaws. "The nature of this disaster is similar to what we saw in Rasuwa," disaster authority head Dharam Raj Uprety told AFP. "The frequency shows that it has become critical that we monitor our mountains and make our early warning systems more effective." Uprety said authorities had received some warning of the flood, allowing them to alert communities and help minimize casualties. The report said several smaller landslides also occurred, blocking the river before the debris gave way and the Budhi Gandaki surged downstream. "The largest flood surge, reaching an estimated height of 20–25 meters (65–82 feet), subsequently struck and swept away the hydropower camp in Salleri," the report said. Scientists say climate change played a key role in the Aug. 26 floods. Prime Minister Balendra Shah told the United Nations last month that the flooding "was a warning to the world" about the rising dangers of climate change.

A Soviet satellite just shattered in orbit, and experts warn of a dangerous trend above Earth -  A Soviet weather satellite launched more than four decades ago has broken apart in Earth’s orbit, releasing dozens of fragments into an already crowded region of space. The incident adds to a series of recent satellite failures that experts warn could threaten operational spacecraft. The spacecraft, identified asMeteor 2-7, was launched by the Soviet Union in 1981 as part of a weather-monitoring program. Although its operational life ended decades ago, the satellite has remained in low Earth orbit, where it recently experienced another fragmentation event. According to Space.com, the space-monitoring company LeoLabs detected the breakup as the satellite passed over one of its radar facilities in Western Australia. Its instruments recorded what the company described as a debris-generating event, identifying an estimated tens of fragments near the spacecraft’s orbital position. The incident is particularly notable because Meteor 2-7 had already experienced a similar breakup in March 2004. Orbital debris specialist Jim Shell highlighted that earlier event while noting that the latest fragmentation occurred approximately530 miles (855 kilometers) above Earth, in a region where debris concentrations are especially high. The precise cause of the latest breakup has not been established. Possible explanations for satellite fragmentation include collisions with existing debris and failures of aging spacecraft components, but neither has been confirmed in this case. Meteor 2-7 is not an isolated case. Several spacecraft and rocket components have fragmented during 2026, creating additional debris in orbital regions already occupied by thousands of functioning satellites. In September, the Cold War-era American reconnaissance satellite USA 32 was confirmed to have broken apart. A Chinese rocket body experienced another fragmentation event in late August, while a SpaceX Starlink satellite suffered a similar incident earlier in the year. A Russian inspector satellite also disintegrated in January, although that event occurred in the much higher geostationary region. LeoLabs sees these incidents as part of a broader pattern that warrants closer attention. “This is the latest in a series of events we’ve seen over the last 6 months,” LeoLabs on x.com. “Together, they point to a worrying trend for space safety and security, and underscore the critical need for persistent sensing.” These events do not necessarily share the same cause. Their frequency nevertheless illustrates the challenges of monitoring aging spacecraft and tracking newly generated fragments before they threaten other objects in orbit.

Satellites accurately detect methane emissions in largest controlled test yet - Researchers have conducted the largest-ever controlled test of space-based methane monitoring, finding that dedicated methane sensors correctly detected nearly all methane plumes released on clear days. Published Oct. 14 in Nature, the results provide a benchmark for satellite systems increasingly used by regulators, environmental groups and companies to detect leaks and identify super-emitters of the planet-warming gas. "There has been significant skepticism over the years about whether methane tracking really works because it's a challenging technical problem to detect the gas from space," said senior study author Adam Brandt, a professor of energy science and engineering in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. "Our results should give regulators, policymakers, producers of methane and the general public a lot of confidence moving forward." Together with Ph.D. student and lead author Frances Reuland, Brandt and collaborators timed 481 methane releases at a Stanford research site in Casa Grande, Arizona, to overpasses by 11 government, nonprofit and commercial satellites throughout 2025. Fifteen research teams from corporations, nonprofits, government agencies and academia across nine countries independently analyzed the observations, assessing whether each satellite image showed a methane plume and, if so, how much methane was released. The study authors compared the resulting estimates with the known releases. Instruments designed specifically for methane monitoring produced the best detection rates, correctly identifying the presence of 92%–100% of test plumes. Most estimates based on these observations were up to 50% higher or lower than actual emission amounts, but the over- and underestimates roughly balanced out on average. That makes the estimates reliable enough to flag large leaks for follow-up, inform governments' regional greenhouse gas emissions inventories and assess the relative emissions intensity of different oil and gas regions, the authors said. "In many cases, the detection is the important part," said Brandt. "As long as you know approximately how big it is, then you still know you need to go fix it." Under ideal conditions, with few clouds and moderate wind, these instruments reliably detected plumes when methane flowed at rates down to about 50–200 kilograms per hour, depending on the system. This emission rate is close to the threshold of 100 kilograms per hour that triggers reviews under some state and national "super-emitter" programs. "These results were great to see, and we hope they build confidence in this field overall," said Reuland, who is a member of Brandt's lab and a Ph.D. student in energy science and engineering in the Doerr School of Sustainability. Satellite-based monitoring systems detect methane using infrared light reflected off Earth's surface. That reliance on reflected sunlight means even the dedicated instruments aboard GHGSat and Tanager-1 satellites struggled to detect methane plumes through clouds. "This poses problems in some key methane-emitting regions," the authors write, "including tropical oil and gas producers Nigeria and Venezuela, as well as cold, cloudy climates like Canada and Russia." More research is needed, they added, to understand how these satellite systems and algorithms work over nondesert terrains, across various weather conditions and over open water.

Australia's climate change officials face drastic cuts and AI efficiencies - — Australia’s climate change bureaucrats were urged to cut up to 30% of their internal budgets, and hit AI-driven efficiencies of up to 3% a year, to preserve the department’s ability to deliver its highest priorities. In a May 2026 review of priorities, the government’s internal consulting unit called for climate change executives to impose a levy of between 5% and 30% to “policy group budgets” as a matter of “immediate fiscal imperative.” “The proposed approach requires all groups to contribute to a central funding pool that is reallocated to the highest departmental priorities,” according to the Australian Government Consulting report, seen by POLITICO. The review exposes the intensity of funding pressures at the department, which was hit with cuts of 188 million Australian dollars in the 2026 federal budget. The department is expected to cut funding to $747 million in 2028-29, down from $1.09 billion this financial year. Secretary Mike Kaiser had suggested the cuts could threaten the financial sustainability of the department if it did not rapidly adapt. The funding pressures come at a time when the department is under siege from Australia’s center-right federal opposition and right-wing nationalist party One Nation. Both have promised cuts to the work and resourcing of the climate change department. The department did not implement the recommended levy, saying only that it “took the outcomes of the prioritization review into account.” It did not identify alternate measures that were implemented. The department said some of the cuts reflect the end of projects such as the COP31 climate conference, and the transfer of funding to the newly established National Environmental Protection Agency. Funding available for policy and programs dropped by about $3.3 billion in the 2026 budget, with about $1.9 billion of the savings coming from changes to curtail huge demand for home battery rebates. The review also recommended the department introduce a standing 5% levy on group budgets beyond 2026-27, on the expectation that it would capitalize on efficiencies delivered by artificial intelligence. “At 5%, most Groups can make changes inside their envelope without destabilising delivery, while still creating room for a small number of high‑value investments,” the report reads. “For example, the Department of Finance’s AI Plan for the Public Sector indicates that widespread AI adoption could lift public‑sector gross value added by 13% by 2030, equivalent to roughly 3% efficiency improvement per year.” Ahead of the federal budget, department secretary Mike Kaiser wrote to staff to open a round of voluntary redundancies in response to a “tight fiscal environment” and changing government priorities. “Our current staffing level isn’t supported by the funding we have, or what we can expect in the budget,” Kaiser wrote in April. “We’ve been working for months to bring that back into balance and the situation is better than it was. “But we’re not there yet, and if we don’t address the imbalance it will start to affect our financial sustainability and limit our capacity to do the important work we do.”

Air conditioners contribute to climate change—this 40‑year‑old treaty aims to limit the harm -As temperatures broke records this summer, sales of air-conditioning units soared. But this technology can compound climate change.Air conditioners pump a gas, known as a refrigerant, around a sealed loop to carry heat out of (and sometimes into) the room. Some of that gas inevitably leaks out over the unit's working life and when it is scrapped. Unfortunately, many refrigerants are potent greenhouse gases. Worldwide, leaked refrigerants account for roughly one-third of the climate impact of cooling, with electricity used to run the equipment responsible for the rest.Air-conditioning units have different labels. One that has recently been installed in a house or office probably says "R-32," a type of hydrofluorocarbon (HFC). Older units often say "R-410A," which is a blend of HFCs. Kilogram for kilogram, R-410A traps around 2,000 times more heat than carbon dioxide. R-32 is still a potent greenhouse gas, but only about a third as warming as R-410A.  Scientists have been concerned about refrigerants for decades. But if you wind the clock back to the 1970s and 1980s, they were more worried about the fact that the refrigerants used then harmed the ozone layer than about their impact on the climate. Around this time, researchers discovered that the most widely used refrigerants back then, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), were damaging the stratospheric ozone that shields us from the ultraviolet radiation that causes skin cancer.Following the discovery of a "hole" in the ozone layer over Antarctica, nations agreed to sign a landmark environmental treaty known as the Montreal Protocol in 1987. This protocol and its later amendments phased out the CFCs but allowed, as an interim measure, compounds called hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) that were less harmful to the ozone layer. During the 1990s, HCFCs began to be replaced by HFCs, which don't deplete ozone at all.Without the Montreal Protocol, studies suggest that ozone holes could have developed over the Arctic as well as Antarctica. Instead, the ozone layer is starting to recover.Problem solved? Unfortunately not. HFCs, like CFCs and HCFCs, are incredibly potent greenhouse gases. Projections suggest that, without controls, they could add 0.3–0.5°C to global temperatures by the end of this century, a substantial fraction of the roughly 1.2°C of warming caused by human activities. On Oct. 15, 2016, the parties to the Montreal Protocol came together in Kigali, Rwanda. They agreed to phase down HFC production in favor of gases with lower global warming potentials (a measure of how potent the gas is relative to carbon dioxide). For the first time, this protocol was used to control gases purely because of their effect on the climate.In 2014, two years before the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol was agreed upon, the EU adopted rules to phase down HFCs. These rules enable Europe and the U.K. to meet their Kigali commitments.Since January 2025, new small split air conditioners (units that heat or cool a single room) sold in the U.K. can no longer use R-410A, an HFC with high global warming potential. Portable units have been barred from using gases with high warming potential since 2020. The EU now aims to phase out HFCs almost entirely by 2050.Beyond looking at labels on air conditioners, how do scientists like us know whether the Kigali Amendment is working? The most direct test is to measure the atmosphere.  At Mace Head, an atmospheric research station on the windy west coast of Ireland, instruments have been measuring these gases continuously since 1987. Mace Head is one of a handful of stations around the world measuring these gases at concentrations of just a few parts per trillion. In 2019, these measurements helped pinpoint the source of renewed global production of CFCs, years after the Montreal Protocol's ban. After a crackdown on illegal CFC production for use in insulating foams, emissions dropped. The atmospheric data show that the abundance of HFC compounds has increased substantially in the last decade. But overall growth in their emissions has slowed, and HFC emissions are substantially lower than those projected before the Kigali Amendment was agreed upon.  A 2025 study projected that the climate impact of air conditioning could be similar to, or lower than, its impact today, even with a major increase in demand. But this depends on us meeting or exceeding our Kigali commitments, making air conditioners more efficient, expanding the use of zero-energy cooling measures (such as shading) and switching to low-carbon electricity. Despite the apparent early success of the Kigali Amendment, the atmospheric data show there can be no room for complacency.Last year, scientists showed that emissions of a waste gas called HFC-23, the most potent climate warmer of all the HFCs, are far higher than the emissions of the gas officially reported by signatories to the Kigali Amendment. Because HFC-23 is such a strong greenhouse gas, the discrepancy equates to just over half of the U.K.'s annual greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers and governments are now trying to figure out the reasons for the unexpected emissions.The contents of air conditioners and refrigerators have been shaped by the Montreal Protocol for almost 40 years. We know where it has worked and where it needs closer scrutiny only because researchers keep measuring the atmosphere. The challenge now is to maintain and expand that monitoring so that the Kigali Amendment can continue this remarkable legacy.

MIT study pushes back on one of the biggest solar energy myths -Renewable energy is a greener alternative to using fossil fuels, but it still only accounts for a small percentage of U.S. energy consumption. Solar power is itself a small fraction of that: Out of the total amount of renewable energy consumption in 2023, solar power made up only 11 percent, according to EIA data. One long-standing argument against increasing national solar capacity is that building large-scale solar farms will result in higher bills for customers, but a recent study from MIT's CEEPR (Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research) proved that argument wasn't backed up by the latest data.The study evaluated how much energy bills actually went up for consumers after different types of renewable energy were connected to state energy grids. It found that large-scale solar farms (which the study called "utility-scale") did not increase bills, and in fact decreased them slightly on average.Researchers argued that the decrease in costs could be put down to the fact that solar farms don't need to have fuel piped or transported to their location, which reduces their input costs to effectively zero. This helps reduce the total operation and maintenance costs that energy providers pay, which is subsequently passed on to customers in the form of lower bills.There are, of course, still some operation and maintenance costs to consider. There are many different ways that solar panels can break, and they'll also need to be cleaned occasionally to keep them operating efficiently. Nonetheless, the study found that building large-scale solar farms generally resulted in lower bills for customers, and that states with the largest large-scale solar deployment saw the most pronounced drop in electricity costs.While America's largest solar farms lowered prices for buyers, rooftop solar panels did not have the same effect. In fact, the MIT study found that the opposite was true, and that states with higher rates of rooftop solar generation actually saw prices rise slightly.The authors suggested that there were several reasons for this. One was that homeowners with solar panels paid very little for their electricity; in some cases, they ended up exporting more electricity to the grid than they used. This led to energy companies having to pay homeowners with solar for the power they generated, with that cost being paid for by homeowners who did not have solar panels. Widespread rooftop solar was also associated with higher operation and maintenance costs for energy distributors, which the authors said was down to the high cost of modernizing the grid to support two-way power distribution. A large-scale solar farm can be connected to the grid in a similarly straightforward fashion to a new fossil fuel-powered plant, but rooftop solar requires operators to invest both upfront and over time to maintain a more complex system.Aside from the potential cost benefits, there are also other benefits that utility-scale solar farms can bring. A study involving China's largest solar farm found that soil quality improved in the immediately surrounding area, which in turn boosted the presence of plants and microbial life.

Flood damaged EVs pose fire risk even after water recedes, fire officials say— Following coastal flooding in Southern California this week, fire officials are warning residents about a potentially dangerous consequence of saltwater exposure involving electric vehicles and other battery-powered transportation. The Laguna Beach Fire Department said saltwater can damage lithium-ion batteries found in electric vehicles, hybrids, electric bicycles and scooters, potentially triggering fires days or even weeks after the initial exposure. Flash flood warnings have been issued for portions of Orange, Riverside and Imperial counties as a result of post-Tropical Storm Rachel moving through the region and bringing widespread coastal flooding. The storm has already battered coastal communities, including Long Beach, Newport Beach and Malibu, where powerful waves and unusually high tides have flooded streets, damaged infrastructure and prompted emergency measures. In Long Beach, mandatory evacuations were ordered for homes along portions of Seaside Walk after several structures were deemed unsafe to occupy. Along the Los Angeles County coastline, a coastal flood warning remained in effect until 3 p.m. Sunday, with forecasters warning that high tides approaching 8 feet and surf of 5 to 8 feet could produce significant flooding and beach erosion. Officials warned that even vehicles that appear to be operating normally could pose a fire risk if floodwater reached their batteries or electrical components. Residents who suspect their vehicle sustained saltwater damage, including those whose vehicles were partially submerged, are urged not to drive or charge them. Instead, fire officials recommend contacting their insurance company, arranging for professional towing and having the vehicle inspected by a certified mechanic qualified to service electric or hybrid vehicles. The warning also applies to e-bikes and electric scooters that may have been exposed to coastal floodwaters. According to the department, warning signs of a potentially dangerous battery include smoke, hissing or popping sounds and unusual heat. Anyone noticing those signs should immediately move away from the vehicle and call 911. Officials cautioned residents against attempting to move a vehicle exhibiting those warning signs or trying to extinguish a battery fire themselves. The department emphasized that the danger may not be immediately apparent, with battery fires potentially occurring long after floodwaters have receded.

Electric-Truck Drivers Struggle to Compete, Even as Diesel Prices Surge – WSJ  - Truckers are struggling to make the economics of battery-electric rigs work, even with diesel prices soaring to record highs, the WSJ Logistics Report’s Paul Berger writes.   Truckers in California are asking the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to subsidize the high costs of owning and operating zero-emission big rigs. Drivers of electric-powered rigs say they can’t compete with diesel-powered rivals even as fuel prices surge to record highs.

Nation's Largest Power Grid Declares Emergency As Hot Temps Collide With Maintenance Shutdowns --A short-lived heat blast across the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic overlaps with scheduled power plant shutdowns for seasonal maintenance on PJM Interconnection's grid, which serves 67 million people from the Mid-Atlantic to Chicago. PJM was forced to declare a low-level emergency for Tuesday and Wednesday as 60 gigawatts of capacity remained offline.Bloomberg reports that the squeeze sent spot power prices skyrocketing across PJM's Western hub to $1,021 per megawatt-hour Tuesday afternoon, more than double the day-ahead average for that hour. Day-ahead prices for Wednesday jumped 28% to $295.83 per megawatt-hour, the highest daily average since mid-July.   "Unpredictable weather patterns are providing fewer days to perform important maintenance or construction on the generation and transmission equipment serving our footprint," PJM spokesman Jeffrey Shields told the outlet in an email.Scheduled shutdowns of power plants or transmission equipment for inspections, repairs, and upgrades during seasonally low demand come as volatile weather tests the grid's reliability.Delaying repairs can leave aging power plants more vulnerable to breakdowns during peak demand hours, especially when heating demand soars in the middle of winter. "Unseasonably warm temperatures combined with generation outages and lower-than-normal wind generation are creating challenging grid conditions," Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) spokeswoman McKenzie Barbknecht told the outlet. MISO's service area covers parts of 15 US states across the Midwest and South, plus Manitoba, Canada.Beyond PJM's grid strain this week, lingering concerns about reliability persist and merely suggest the grid has less room for error this winter:

• A shrinking supply buffer: PJM's outlook for winter 2025–26 projected a reserve margin of 7,500 megawatts after expected outages, exports and other adjustments, down from 8,700 megawatts the previous winter. PJM warned that electricity demand was growing faster than new generation.
• Power plants failing during extreme cold blasts:  During January 2026's Winter Storm Fern and its aftermath, generation outages averaged 18 to 19 gigawatts, exceeding PJM's seasonal expectations. Equipment failures were the leading cause.
• Fuel availability and scheduling: Tight NatGas supplies and limited scheduling complicated operations during that cold blast. PJM maintained reliability, but preserving adequate supplies required additional measures and substantial costs.

At the start of the week, the US Department of Energy issued an emergency order directing PJM to dispatch specified generating units and operate them as needed to maintain reliability through mid-month.

How data centers can be bad for the environment - - Artificial intelligence is driving a wave of massive new data centers across the U.S., raising concerns among communities and environmental groups about their demands for electricity and water, and their impact on nearby infrastructure and ecosystems. But Daniel Cohan, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University, told Newsweek that the environmental impact can vary significantly depending on three variables: the amount of electricity a facility requires; the type of electricity generated—whether by natural gas, coal, nuclear power, wind or solar; and how quickly the projects are being built. “The effect really comes down to three things,” Cohan told Newsweek. “It’s the total, the type and the timing.” Timing is emerging as a key concern as the rapid pace of construction of some of the country’s largest AI data centers creates challenges the U.S. power system has rarely faced at this scale. “So we’ve just never seen such large facilities come onto the grid at once,” he said. “That’s not all data centers by any means, but the largest ones being built are unprecedented in how much demand they have.” That does not necessarily mean data centers cannot be built without creating environmental or reliability problems, Cohan said. Rather, he said, the way they are being built matters. “If we had a staggered build-out of these data centers with plenty of planning for how we’re going to incorporate them on the grid, and if we were taking the steps that we need to be doing anyway to have a more robust grid nationally, … we could accommodate this,” he said. The concern, he said, is what happens when enormous amounts of electricity demand are added in concentrated locations at high speed, before the grid and surrounding infrastructure have had time to adapt. “But when you have so much being added in such concentrated locations so quickly, that’s when you run the risk of disruption, and run the risk of raising the costs and jeopardizing the reliability of power for people,” Cohan said. Data centers are not inherently environmentally damaging, Cohan said. Their impacts can vary substantially depending on how they are powered, cooled and operated—and where they are built. “A data-center build-out done right could be a catalyst for building out a more robust grid powered by more renewables and battery storage,” Cohan said. “But done wrongly, it can lead to more inefficient and dirtier gas plants and diesel generators.” That distinction is increasingly important as AI companies seek access to enormous amounts of electricity. Cohan said data centers could, in theory, help accelerate investment in new generation and transmission infrastructure. More electricity demand can also mean more customers sharing the costs of maintaining the grid. “Having more customers and more demand—whether it’s data centers, electric cars, electric heat pumps or electrifying our factories—if the policy and the management and planning is done right, having more customers can spread out the costs over more people and could bring down the costs,” he said. “Again, that’s a big if. I’m not saying this is how it’s being done right now,” he continued. ‘The problem, he said, is the speed at which some projects are moving.“But when it’s been done in this slapdash manner, and everyone is in this mad dash … you don’t have the proper planning,” Cohan said.The construction of large data centers can also affect endangered and threatened species when projects require clearing forests, fragmenting habitat or building new roads and transmission infrastructure. In areas where development overlaps with sensitive habitats, those changes can add pressure to species that are already vulnerable.It is also worth putting the environmental footprint of data centers in context. Their impacts can be significant at the local level, particularly where large facilities place new demands on electricity, water and infrastructure. But data centers are not the only major source of environmental pressure: commercial aviation, beef production, fast fashion and cryptocurrency mining all carry substantial environmental footprints of their own. The significance of a data center’s impact ultimately depends on what is being measured—and where.

The island where locals say data centres are taking their water -"Water! Water!" the crowd shouted as it stormed a compound with data centres, armed with empty plastic bottles and jerry cans. There were about 300 of them, all residents on the Indonesian island of Batam, and they were furious that the taps at home had run dry, while the data centres in the new Nongsa Digital Park seemed to have enough water to protect their machines from overheating. "Not a single drop has come through our taps for the last three months... Our water supply had been reliable until the data centres came," Dewi Susanti, one of the protesters, told the BBC. People in her village, Bakau Serip, were now depending on tanker trucks that dispensed "dirty, cloudy and smelly" water, she said. Batam's water utility told the BBC it was working to improve supply, but did not comment on whether the disruption was linked to demand from the data centres. But BP Batam, the agency overseeing trade and industry, blamed it on a prolonged dry spell and denied allegations from locals that water meant for homes was being channelled to data centres. This is not the first such protest in Batam, whose shrinking reservoirs find themselves under more pressure as the island tries to transform itself into a digital hub. Following protests in August and September, authorities told the firms opening data centres in Batam that they must build their own desalination plants instead of relying on reservoirs for freshwater. But locals say they are increasingly concerned that they must now compete with servers for water. "Reliable data on data centre water use in Indonesia remains scarce, partly because companies treat it as proprietary information," says Agus Hasan, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. "We should build [data centres] rationally, transparently, and responsibly, and insist on seeing the numbers... [Otherwise] those kept in the dark while their taps run dry will push back, and rightly so," he adds. A backlash has been building against data centres across the world, from the US to the UK to parts of Asia, as tech companies pour billions into AI infrastructure. People are worried about how the huge, windowless buildings might change their neighbourhoods, the constant hum of machines, the security lights that could stay on all night, and the pressure this puts on water and energy resources. While electricity powers the centres, the water keeps the servers from frying - engineers deploy elaborate cooling systems, which consume a lot of water. Research in the US suggests a typical data centre consumes around 300,000 gallons of water a day, or about as much as 1,000 US households. A larger, 50MW facility could take as much water as 2,200 households per day, and enough electricity to power 22,000 homes, according to Malaysia's central bank. It's unclear how much water or electricity the data centres in Batam are consuming. But the island routinely faces water shortages, and the levels are worse this year, possibly because of a historic "super" El Niño. Devoid of natural freshwater sources, Batam's 1.3 million people rely on rainwater collected in six artificial reservoirs. Nongsa reservoir, which supplies water to Bakau Serip, where Dewi lives, would dry up over the next month with no rainfall, simulations by local environmental non-profit group Akar Bhumi Indonesia suggest. "The water shortage is affecting our livelihoods... Money that should be used to buy rice is now spent on water drums," Dewi says. "My husband has to wait up overnight to get water, and then go straight to work the next morning." Batam's water utility had earlier said that it would consider measures like cloud seeding should the water shortage continue. When asked about the recent protests, they pointed us to earlier statements. Authorities in Batam have approved 10 data centres, six of which will be located in Nongsa Digital Park. Two are up and running, while a third is under construction. At least six more are currently under review for approval, BP Batam told the BBC. Official figures put investment in data centres on the island at more than $6.7bn (£5.1bn) as of mid-2026, spurred in part by demand from Singapore, which is just an hour away by ferry. Singapore paused construction of data centres in 2019, citing land and energy constraints. It lifted the ban in 2022 after introducing new efficiency standards, which prompted investors to look elsewhere. Singapore has long been promoting the Riau Islands, which includes Batam, and the Malaysian state of Johor as "complementary" regions. Quick to absorb the spillover, Johor approved data centre projects worth tens of billions. But this soon drew the ire of residents frustrated with noise, dust and water shortages. The state has since tried to regulate how much water and electricity data centres consume. Across the strait, Batam is just as attractive to investors - from the US, China, Australia, Singapore - because of relatively low operating costs, proximity to Singapore and connections to major subsea cable routes.

FERC rejects most of PJM’s large load interconnection plan -  The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday largely rejected the PJM Interconnection’s plan for bringing data centers and other large loads onto its system, including proposed interim service and “bring your own new capacity” rules. Key elements of PJM’s Interim Resource Adequacy Service framework, or IRAS, which would allow large loads to connect to the grid without matching new capacity if they agree to be curtailed in the lead-up to grid emergencies, intrude on state jurisdiction over retail rates and appear to discriminate against large loads, FERC said. The ruling will potentially lead to higher capacity prices for longer in PJM, which is favorable to independent power producers such as Constellation Energy, NRG Energy, Talen Energy and Vistra, according to equity analysts with Jefferies. “While there is still uncertainty within PJM’s market construct/rules, the latest development is positive for existing generation/IPPs,” they said in a client note on Monday. PJM is reviewing the commission’s order with “an eye toward how we can fulfill FERC’s requirements while recognizing the responsibilities FERC indicated belong to the states and honoring the concept that existing electricity customers should not be unfairly burdened by new, energy intensive customers in the form of higher costs or decreased reliability,” Jeffrey Shields, PJM spokesman, said in an email to Utility Dive on Monday. About five weeks after FERC rejected key elements of PJM’s proposal to hold a backstop procurement auction to acquire capacity to fill a pending shortfall, the agency largely rejected the grid operator’s package of proposals for connecting large loads to the grid. In the latest decision, FERC approved PJM’s proposal for defining large loads and its plan to create a large load “registry” that would include a facility’s location, ramp schedule, capacity supply and other details. FERC, however, rejected the Interim Resource Adequacy Service package, which made up the core of the proposal. “We find that several provisions of the proposed tariff appear to place obligations directly on eligible new large loads, which are, for the most part, retail customers; that certain other provisions appear to dictate which retail customers taking retail service will be curtailed; and that the proposed compensation framework appears to establish a retail rate,” FERC said in rejecting the IRAS framework. Setting rules for large loads presents a shared challenge for federal and state regulators, according to FERC. “States have a crucial role to play in this challenge by designating which retail customers must be curtailed when the system is stressed, and we strongly encourage states to continue their important work on this issue,” FERC said. In their client note, the Jefferies analysts said, “We could see this proposal minimally revived in future iterations and likely led by efforts from states,” with Ohio and Pennsylvania as key states to watch. PJM’s proposal to exclude IRAS loads from its capacity auction demand curve could lead to market distortions, according to FERC Commissioner David Rosner. “The result could be a capacity market signaling that PJM has more than enough capacity while the region sheds thousands of megawatts of demand on an involuntary basis,” Rosner said in a concurring statement. “That’s not only economically inefficient, but also likely to prevent supply and demand from coming back into balance.” In a grid emergency, non-critical data centers should be shut off before ordinary customers, such as homes, hospitals and schools — but states should decide on curtailment priorities, according to Rosner. “We need state regulators to establish clear rules for which customers should be curtailed first when circumstances require it,” Rosner said. “And we need PJM to be ready to adjust their operations to this evolving paradigm. But such measures should only be taken when necessary to keep the system reliable, after voluntary demand response resources have been exhausted.”

Strike Two: FERC Tosses PJM’s Data Center Curtailment Plan -- Marcellus Drilling News - Strike two for PJM. Ten days after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) froze PJM’s emergency power auction for data centers (see FERC Slams Brakes on PJM’s ‘Deeply Flawed’ Data Center Power Auction), FERC has now thrown out the heart of PJM’s other big fix: a plan to let new data centers plug into the grid without bringing new power supply, so long as they agree to get cut off first when the grid gets tight. FERC kept two small pieces and tossed the rest, mostly because PJM’s plan stomped on the states’ turf. Here’s what happened, and what it means for gas-fired power in our neck of the woods.

PJM Reports Operating With Only 66% Of Its Generation Capacity Available During Recent Maximum Generation Alerts; About One-Third Of The Power Plant Outages Were Unexpected -  On October 15, the PJM Interconnection released a preliminary summary of events surrounding the October 13-14 Maximum Generation Alerts issued as a result of power plant outages and unexpected warm Fall temperatures. PJM said about 15,000 MW of the 61,000 MW of electric generation unavailable to respond to energy demands were unexpected power plant outages. The remainder of the outages were the result of normal planned maintenance. PJM spokesperson Jeff Shields said the planned generation outages were fairly evenly spread across all generator fuel types and technologies. Shields said more information about the 15,000 MW of unplanned outages should be available at the November 5 meeting of the PJM Operating Committee. David Souder, Executive Director for PJM System Operations provided this summary of events during the October 13-14 Maximum Generation Alerts. The end of summer and the transition into fall usually offers the electric grid a chance to catch its collective breath and prepare for the challenges to come in the winter season ahead. Owners of electricity generators and transmission lines use the milder weather in spring and fall, when electricity demand typically moderates, to shut down temporarily for needed maintenance or upgrades. PJM has long relied on these “shoulder seasons” to provide a reliable supply of electricity to its 13 states and Washington, D.C., by proactively planning and coordinating equipment outages with its member companies – even with a significant portion of the generation fleet out of service for days or weeks. But the once-dependable reprieve is not what it used to be. That’s in part because the profile of our customers is changing. Most of the new, rapidly growing energy demand is from data centers and other energy-intensive Large Load customers, and their consumption does not fluctuate significantly with the weather; it is a 12-month 24/7 phenomenon. That expanding demand is outpacing new transmission and electricity supply coming onto the system. In addition, unseasonably hot or cold weather now arrives early for summer and winter and stays late. The result is that periods the grid once relied on for maintenance and preparation can now become periods of significant system stress and reliability risk. Energy flow on the transmission system is increasing while our generation reserves are dwindling, leaving little room for error. This week has been a prime example. With about more than 61,000 MW of generation outages, PJM was working with only 66% of our generating fleet’s capacity, and the outages were spread across all kinds of resources, from nuclear, coal and gas to wind, solar and hydro. More than two-thirds of those outages were for planned maintenance or construction, while about 15,000 MW were unplanned outages, according to preliminary data. PJM was able to work with Member companies to recall, or return to service, about 10,000 MW to get to that 61,000 MW number, but canceling more outages would risk those facilities not being able to properly prepare for winter. On Tuesday and Wednesday, PJM issued a series of emergency procedures to make sure we had enough generation online to serve unseasonably warm, but not extreme, temperatures. The U.S. Department of Energy, for the ninth time this year, issued an order to allow PJM to direct backup generation at data centers and other Large Load electricity customers to operate to avoid outages to other customers. While PJM did not use that authority and has not done so to date, it remains a valuable tool to help protect regular customers. PJM was able to operate reliably through these challenging conditions this week, as we have throughout the year: -- In April, PJM declared a Hot Weather Alert for its Atlantic coast territory, from New Jersey to North Carolina, when temperatures surged into the 90s. -- In May, a heat wave covered most of the PJM territory for two days and required PJM to summon out-of-service generators and transmission equipment back online. -- And then came September, with two bouts of hot weather just as summer was coming to a close In the midst of all this, PJM set a new preliminary record for peak electricity use on July 2 at approximately 168,000 MW. In many of these instances, PJM called on Demand Response to help blunt spikes in electricity demand and ensure transmission security during the hottest days, particularly in the late afternoon and early evening, when solar generation is fading but electricity demand isn’t. PJM has also had to restrict electricity exports to neighboring systems during this time. Demand Response customers are paid in advance to reduce their electricity use during times of system stress; they provide a valuable service to help control demand on peak days.

 Reliability standards for AI data centers, crypto miners move closer to adoption | Utility Dive -- North American Electric Reliability Corp. stakeholders approved new reliability standards for AI data centers, crypto mining facilities and other computational loads — an important step toward finalization, the grid watchdog said Thursday. The standards now head to the NERC Board of Trustees for a vote, and, if adopted, will be filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for final approval. The proposed standards build on insights and research related to a Level 3 alert NERC issued in May after several incidents where data centers unexpectedly dropped load or oscillated demand rapidly, threatening the stability of regional grids. The alert included seven actions grid entities “must implement to address immediate risks posed by computational loads” while permanent rules are created, NERC said.  The new standards aim to “establish requirements to support the reliable integration of large computational loads into the bulk power system,” the reliability organization said in a statement.  Electricity demand is increasing after decades of stagnant growth, with data centers, in particular, driving load projections. Summer peak demand across the bulk power system is forecast to grow by 224 GW over the next 10 years, a 24% increase from 2025 peak demand, NERC said in January.“These loads are reshaping the demand profile and exposing reliability gaps in both operational and planning time horizons,” NERC said on its standards development project site.Multiple standards for computational loads were developed as part of NERC Project 2026-02, including requirements around interconnection studies and modeling; operational data and communications; and load protection coordination and disturbance monitoring.Among other requirements, the standards establish modeling data, verification, and reporting procedures “for development of planning horizon cases necessary to support analysis of the reliability of the interconnected transmission system.”They are designed to ensure transmission operators, balancing authorities and reliability coordinators have computational load site data needed “to plan, monitor, and assess the reliable operation” of the bulk power system, and to establish communication capabilities “with predefined communications protocols to ensure prompt action to prevent or mitigate occurrences that adversely impact the reliability of the Bulk Power System.”The standards would apply to computational loads greater than or equal to 50 MW, connected at voltage levels greater than or equal to 100 kV.NERC’s board is expected to consider the new standards in the fourth quarter, based on development timelines in the proposals.

Central Ohio residents continue pushing back on massive power line project - — The clock is ticking for central Ohio residents to have a voice in a major future power transmission line project. Grid Growth would add 220 miles of new high-voltage transmission infrastructure, as electricity demand continues to grow across the state. Grid Growth said the region is growing, and with it, new homes, businesses, industrial facilities, and data centers are placing greater demand on the electric grid. The goal of the project is to increase capacity and strengthen the reliability of our state’s grid. The project will use tall steel structures, roughly 175 feet tall, to hold the power lines. Grid Growth is accepting public feedback on the proposed routes until Thursday. “Imagine you’ve owned a farm your entire life,” Union County resident Donna Franke said. “Your family has been on that farm your entire life. You took it for granted. You thought it would always be there. And the next thing, you get a letter in the mail, and they’re going to just destroy, demolish it.” Franke and her sister Ashley Bell grew up on over a hundred acres of farmland in rural Union County. They said their land is in jeopardy, as one of the Grid Growth proposed routes could cut through the property “Our great, great grandfather served in the Civil War,” Bell said. “As payment for serving in the Civil War, he was given a lot of land in Union County. That is our farm we have lived on and grown up on for 158 years.” If the proposed route moves forward, it will significantly alter the landscape. “We would have 14 towers across the farmland, which would basically destroy the wooded area. They’re going right through the woods,” Bell said. Across the street, Dalton Union Winery and Brewery will also be impacted. “For us, we would have right there, two giant towers in our landscape view,” Tonya Mabry said. Residents are urging the company to consider alternatives. “My plea is finding an alternate way to bring the technology,” Mabry said. “The means for the transmission, whether it be underground, over the roadways, something that’s not going to disrupt homeowners,” Mabry said. Bell agreed, suggesting the company look at infrastructure that already exists. “Upgrade the existing routes, if you have to go higher with the existing, you already claimed that land; go there, or I would also say let’s put these lines not in farmland, let’s figure out a better solution,” Bell said.

Cleveland readies to extend data center moratorium - Cleveland City Council is preparing to extend the city’s moratorium on data centers for another three months. Council Member Brian Kazy said he plans to introduce legislation on Monday to continue the pause. Passed this summer, the moratorium was meant to give City Hall time to draw up regulations for the centers, which have become central to the artificial intelligence boom. n Kazy, the chair of council’s Utilities Committee, convened a trio of public meetings on the topic. Council members also toured two local data centers, he said. He took away from the hearings that most people oppose the “hyperscale” centers that require large amounts of energy to power AI. He drew a distinction between those centers and small and medium-sized facilities that form part of the infrastructure of the internet. Now the city needs 90 more days “to assure that we get this thing right,” Kazy told Weekly Chatter.  The estate of Cordale Sheffield, the man who died from burns he received in last year’s explosion and fire at Rainbow Terrace, has brought a wrongful death lawsuit over the blast. Sheffield’s estate is suing Enbridge Gas, the owner of the apartment building and others. Attorneys for the estate focused on a gas line at the site, writing that it was decades old. The suit also cites a finding by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio that, after the blast, Enbridge removed pipes in such a way that they “could not be leak tested.” An investigation by the City of Cleveland pointed to a gas leak as the likely fuel for the explosion but said the ultimate cause was “undetermined.” A spokesperson for Enbridge declined to comment on the suit but wrote in an email, “Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this tragic event, particularly the Sheffield family.”

Looking at why Ohio is becoming popular for data centers - Every time you check your phone, stream a show or ask an AI chatbot a question, that request goes to a data center. Ohio has roughly 200 of them, with dozens more proposed. The buildings may be new to many neighborhoods, but the technology inside them isn’t. The fight over where the next ones go is just getting started. “Anytime you use your phone, your computer, your car, the information that object generates goes into, works in and out of, a data center,” said Nick Long, senior vice president of engineering, operations and service delivery at DataBank, which operates 86 data centers across the U.S. “We have the need to house large volumes of computers, where they’re close to each other so they can talk to each other very quickly. That’s what a data center is.” Long has worked in the industry for 30 years. Despite the headlines, he said, the concept is decades old. “The requirement to put precision compute in controlled spaces has been a requirement for science since putting the first person on the moon,” he said. “We’ve been using research compute to solve humanity’s most complex problems for decades.” The first dedicated data centers date to the 1970s, when IBM built facilities to house its mainframe computers. Long said the concept hasn’t changed; the scale and the speed have. “I’ve described this as a confluence of the dot-com, the gold rush and the railroad boom because it has characteristics of all three,” he said. “It’s really the first time in American history where we’ve seen a boom that has the potential to be so revolutionary.” Artificial intelligence is supercharging that boom. Long isn’t the only one comparing it to the railroad expansion of the 1800s, a boom that drew massive investment and grew faster than the regulatory and financial frameworks meant to manage it. Steve Stivers, president of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and a former Republican congressman, said that makes Ohio one of the country’s new economic hot spots. “Data centers are the new railroad,” Stivers said. “Places they come to are going to thrive. Places that are absent of them are slowly going to shrink.” Asked who benefits, Stivers said, “We think it’s beneficial to everyone.” “There were about 100,000 jobs last year in Ohio, many of them construction jobs,” he said. “Ohio has seen $27 billion of capital investment in data centers — almost $10 billion of that in just the last year. Those are good jobs — an average salary of about $100,000 a year. They’re paying property taxes, payroll taxes. That’s real money for the state.” A 2026 Ohio Chamber Foundation study found the industry supported about 95,000 jobs and $26 billion in economic output in Ohio in 2024. People living near proposed sites tell a different story. Jenn Belt learned that a data center was proposed less than 2 miles from her Grove City home. “I went on a search for information and couldn’t find much, so I put it on the back burner,” Belt said. Then another post caught her eye, and she learned that township trustees had already placed a moratorium on data centers. When she asked one of the trustees whether it would help to get neighbors involved, she said, his answer was simple: “Let’s get loud.” That’s how Protect Grove City was born. The city passed its own one-year moratorium in June, days after a developer filed plans for a 300-acre complex. But Belt’s group wanted something more permanent: a charter amendment giving residents the final vote on large developments. The group quickly gathered more than 2,000 signatures, and Grove City voters will decide the measure Nov. 3. “This amendment isn’t designed to block data centers. It’s designed to simply let residents have a vote on whether or not they want it,” Belt said. “What this is really about is giving people a voice.” For many residents, water is the biggest concern. Stivers said new facilities are designed to limit it. “There are no new data centers being announced today with anything other than closed-loop or air-cooled systems,” he said. “We assume the worst-case usage, and it’s still only about 1% of the region’s overall water consumption.” The Environmental and Energy Study Institute estimates that a large, hyperscale data center can use up to 5 million gallons of water a day, about as much as a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people. Nationally, that is a small share of total water use, but researchers say the impact is concentrated locally, which is where residents’ worries are focused. Stivers said the bigger long-term problem is not water but power. “There are some issues we’re going to have to overcome, especially on electric generation and transmission — it’s the biggest single issue,” he said. “No residential customer or business should pay a higher bill as a result of a data center being here.” House Bill 15, a state law passed in 2025, lets data centers build their own power plants on-site. Approval for those plants goes through the state instead of local government, which speeds it up. Within a year, state regulators said, they had approved more new gas-fired generation than in the previous two decades combined. For Belt, that adds a new worry on top of the first one. “Communities end up not just with a data center, but also a natural gas facility or some other type of power generation plant next door,” she said. “That’s really what we were trying to avoid.” Even some Republican lawmakers are raising concerns. “We want to make certain that we win the AI race here in America, but we’ve got to do it the right way,” said U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio. “It’s absolutely the wrong way when you’re taking taxpayer dollars and raising electricity prices for Ohioans.” Belt said the issue has united her community in a way she didn’t expect. “Our movement is extremely nonpartisan,” she said. “We’re standing side-by-side, arms linked, with people who’ve probably always voted on opposite sides of the aisle. This issue is so unifying.” Stivers said state leaders are listening too. He pointed to legislation moving through the Statehouse that would limit how generous tax incentives for data centers can get. “We don’t want to give somebody such a rich deal that you won’t ever get paid back,” he said. “But it does make sense to incentivize them a little bit to come here.” Both sides agree that the industry isn’t slowing down. The open question is who gets to decide where it grows next. “If we could just pause the whole land grab — because they are moving so rapidly, rapid-fire — and make the right choices, not just for one city, but for the state in general,” Belt said. “That’s what we’re asking for.”

Study: Data Center Ban Would be Good for Ohio - Columbus Underground - Given the amount of data center construction already in Ohio, the best economic deal going forward would be to require all new ones to use 90% renewable energy, a new cost-benefit analysis has found. The next-best deal would be to ban new construction altogether, it said. Ohio has the fourth-most data centers of any state, and after being forced to provide $2.3 billion in subsidies via tax breaks, taxpayers are questioning whether they’re really a good thing.The centers have  more than doubled the state’s electricity consumption, they generate noise and air pollution, the AI they generate is causing serious social harms, leaders of the big AI companies warn of possible calamities, and they’ve predicted that their machines will take millions of Americans’ jobs.  With these concerns in the background, the Columbus firm Scioto Analysis undertook a straight dollars-and-cents look at future data center development in Ohio. The Buckeye State ranks only behind Virginia, Texas and California in the number of data centers. And the gargantuan facilities are poised to move into rural parts of Ohio and other Midwestern states in a big way. “About 87% of current data centers in the United States are in urban areas, while 67% of planned data centers across the country are in rural areas, driven by the land and power requirements of modern hyperscale facilities,” the Scioto Analysis report said. “Data centers in the Midwest are expected to grow by the highest percentage: a projected 64% increase compared to current data centers. As of 2026, 38% of Americans live within five miles of at least one operational data center.” One criticism of data center economics is that while they create initial construction jobs, once completed they only require a skeleton staff to make sure the machines keep running. The Scioto Analysis study credits data center development with 96,000 new jobs and $62 billion in social benefits to Ohio since 2013, but it also asks what new benefits they’ll create going forward. A big factor in that is the huge electricity drain they’ll create and the social cost of all the pollution it will generate, the study notes. “If every planned project comes online by 2028, the number of data centers in Ohio will increase by half, their annual energy draw will more than triple, and their annual carbon emissions will more than triple,” the cost-benefit analysis says. “In 2026, Ohio data centers use enough electricity to power 5.7 million homes, which is more than the 5.4 million homes in Ohio. By 2028, we predict they will use enough electricity to power about 3.5 times as many homes as there are in Ohio.” Rob Moore, the principal of Scioto Analysis, said it’s important not to forget about the cost a business enterprise imposes on third parties — such as that which pollution imposes on the public. “While data centers present a new category of high-intensity energy use in the state, they still present the same problems as transportation, manufacturing or power generation in general: emissions that are not priced will lead to local air-quality issues, lung and heart conditions and higher levels of carbon emissions,” Moore said in a text message. He and his team looked at five scenarios and ran 10,000 simulations of what would happen between 2027 and 2034 with different variables. The values the analysis arrived at are expressed in terms of “benefit-cost ratio.” Maintaining the status quo scored 1.04, meaning benefits only slightly outweighed costs. Benefit-cost ratios for the other scenarios, in descending order of public benefit:

• Data center generates its own power, 10% gas, 90% renewable — 2.9
• Ban on new data center construction — 2.7
• Data center generates its own power, 50% gas, 50% renewable — 2.5
• Data center generates its own power, 90% natural gas, 10% renewable — 2.2

In other words, according to the analysis, forcing renewables to be used to generate power and an outright ban on new data center constructions would be the biggest improvement over what we’re doing now. “A ban on construction produces a higher net present value and benefit-cost ratio than the status quo,” the report said. “This is because most employment benefits from existing data centers remain, while the cost of higher electricity prices to ratepayers falls. “A behind-the-meter requirement with 90% natural gas produces about the same net present value, but a lower benefit-cost ratio. A behind-the-meter requirement with 90% renewables produces both the highest net present value and the highest benefit-cost ratio.” The analysis came with an important caveat, however. If data centers produce more jobs than expected, a ban or a heavy renewable requirement won’t look so good. “Our results depend heavily on our employment assumptions,” it said. “If we are overestimating how much data centers raise employment and earnings, even a ban or a 90% renewables requirement could have a negative net present value. If we are underestimating these effects, every alternative looks much better. Across our other tests, the status quo is the alternative most likely to have costs that exceed its benefits.”

Inside Ohio's Revolt Against Data Centers  —A four-hour legislative committee hearing in June, punctuated by applause and anger, offered a window into the growing backlash against data centers.The prospect of unchecked development has galvanized a cross-section of Ohioans, urban and rural, Democrat and Republican, alarmed about the spread of the giant computing facilities. Residents are demanding that local governments impose bans and moratoria on data centers while gathering signatures for a statewide ballot measure that could go before voters in 2027.Leading the push is an eclectic group from rural Southern Ohio, including an outdoor-tourism guide, a lawyer and others who fear that the state’s data center boom is changing their communities faster than they can respond. “Especially on America’s 250th anniversary it’s your job to make sure there’s life for another 250,” Nikki Gerber, the tourism guide, said at the June 1 statehouse hearing. Data centers powered by fossil fuels are a rising source of planet-warming emissions. But for many opponents, the concerns are closer to home: they fear that data centers will change the look and feel of familiar landscapes and threaten local air and water.Resistance to data centers is spreading across the country, especially against the supersize complexes being built to support artificial intelligence. The issue is emerging as a focal point in the November midterm elections, with about 40 local ballot measures in seven states, according to Ballotpedia.Ohio has the most, with 21, including 10 communities set to vote next month on local restrictions on data centers: Conneaut, Defiance, Granville, Oregon, Pataskala, Piqua, Sunbury, Upper Sandusky, Trenton and Urbana. The Ohio campaign stands out because the Columbus region has become one of the nation’s data center development hot spots. If opponents prevail in Ohio, the outcome could reverberate beyond the state. But Gerber is not thinking about the national stakes. Her focus is the 1.3-gigawatt data center that Amazon Web Services wants to build about 15 miles from her campground. She’s worried about what the project could do to the area’s water levels and biodiversity.  Inside Climate News visited her business, Moondoggie Liveree, tucked into the woods near Ohio Brush Creek, which flows into the Ohio River in Adams County. Gerber’s office is an open-air shed left behind by a previous owner, with walls covered with knickknacks, bumper stickers and signs. Among the messages: “Watch! 4 Turtles! Caution!” The business rents campsites, canoes and kayaks, and assists hikers.“Everybody thinks Ohio’s flat,” she said. “But it’s not, and it’s a really, really special area out here.” Gerber is a local leader in promoting Adams County—one of Ohio’s poorest counties based on median household income—as a destination for outdoor tourism. She’s worried that the proposed data center could open the door to more projects, transforming the rustic landscape into an industrial zone. She bought her property after working for years as a medical assistant. During the offseason, she builds rental cabins around the region. After learning about the proposed Amazon data center early this year, she grew frustrated by what she saw as a lack of details from the local government. Adams County officials did not respond to requests for comment for this story.In neighboring Brown County, also one of the poorest counties in the state, attorney Austin Baurichter left his job at a law firm office in Cincinnati, partly because he didn’t want to work on behalf of data center developers. He opened his own practice and connected with Gerber and others looking for answers about the projects.They seem to have little in common. Gerber spends most of her day outdoors in flip-flops and shorts, while Baurichter is an early-career lawyer, usually dressed in a suit and tie. But they share a dedication to the cause.Gerber is “the living embodiment of the sparkle emoji,” Baurichter said, interviewed by phone from his home office. He praised her energy and optimism.The two are among the half-dozen people at the core of Conserve Ohio, the organization leading a statewide campaign for a data center moratorium.Baurichter has grown frustrated with local governments, which he says are becoming more hostile toward data center opponents. He argues that some officials “got bamboozled” by developers early on, sometimes signing nondisclosure agreements and supporting projects without understanding the ramifications.He approaches his activism with intensity, bringing his legal skills into the fight, filing public-records requests and questioning officials at public meetings.In late September, he was there when the Ohio General Assembly voted on a temporary pause in the state’s gasoline tax. Data center opponents, along with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, a former director of the state health department, urged lawmakers to pass a measure pausing data center development that day. Majority Republicans declined to take up the issue.Ohio political blogger D.J. Byrnes, who writes The Rooster newsletter about Ohio politics, captured video of Baurichter speaking on the sidelines with state Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney, a Cleveland-area Democrat. Baurichter admonished her for not doing more. “We would rather you fight for our honor than for scraps that are being offered by people who know what they’re offering [is] scraps,” he said. His conversations at the statehouse underscored his sense that leaders are not listening.“It’s exhausting, like throwing your energy down a black hole,” he said soon after. The Trump administration has a stake in Ohio’s data center debate because the federal government owns the land that would host the largest data center in the country, Ports Technology Campus near Piketon, which is not far from Adams and Brown counties.When fully built, the project would require 10,000 megawatts of electricity. A proposed natural-gas power plant would supply 9,200 megawatts, with an additional 800 megawatts that may come from other sources. The federal government is working with SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate, to develop the site, with OpenAI expected to be its primary user. Even though Ports Technology Campus is a short drive from where Gerber and Baurichter live, the project is almost too large for them to comprehend, and its federal ownership makes it difficult to challenge, they said. So far, the proposal has drawn little opposition in Pike County, which, like Adams and Brown counties, has struggled to attract jobs for decades.

Ohio data centers: How the $16 billion electricity-cost estimate was calculated - Cleveland.com — A new study estimates that data-center growth could add $16 billion in electricity costs across Ohio over the next eight years. That doesn’t mean Ohio households and businesses will see that amount added to their electric bills. Researchers at Scioto Analysis, a Columbus-based public policy research firm, based their estimate on a national study of how growing electricity demand could affect power costs. They applied one of its projected increases to Ohio electricity-sales data and extended that increase through 2034.

‘Just start shooting’: Death threats over data centers are tearing American towns apart --The handwritten warning was left at an Amazon data center construction site in suburban Virginia: A dozen pipe bombs scattered throughout the building would explode in the next half hour.  Officers rushed to the scene as workers dropped their tools and fled. Bomb-sniffing dogs prowled every corner of the site. That April 22 message in the city of Manassas, authorities soon confirmed, was an empty threat – the latest in a string this year that has rattled the state and communities across the nation.  As thousands of new data centers have been built to fuel the booming artificial intelligence industry, escalating public resentment against both the energy-sucking infrastructure and AI itself is roiling small towns and suburban communities from coast to coast, a CNN investigation has found. Police have been called into action to investigate dozens of threats to data centers, from bomb claims etched on bathroom walls to online incitements to “use bullets on city council members” to suggestions that protesters should “unalive” pro-development officials, according to a CNN review of more than 100 police reports filed since last year. Aside from rare cases like an Indianapolis council member whose home was sprayed with gunfire, those threats have rarely led to actual violence – but they’ve eaten up hundreds of hours of police time, alarmed workers and inflamed communities already on edge over the projects.That rising outrage has also inspired a growing police crackdown, including federal agencies tracking data center protests and local cops questioning vocal activists, and even filing criminal charges against critics that have later fallen apart in court. The police records as a whole paint a vivid picture of a national backlash against the rise of data centers and AI reaching a boiling point at a moment when the debate has become a key issue threading party lines ahead of the midterm elections. They also show growing concern among law enforcement agencies about extremist groups at opposite ends of the political spectrum hopping on the anti-data-center bandwagon.  “Anti-technology extremist narratives appeal to a broad array of ideological movements – including anarchists, environmental extremists, and white supremacists – creating a common target between otherwise opposing movements,” Colorado state officials warned in an April bulletin for police agencies. A similar California memo warned in June of “a broad range of threat actors… mobilized by AI-related grievances.”  Still, some people who have been charged with making threatening comments insist they’re not extremists and do not actually wish violence upon anyone. Rather, they say they were driven to take dramatic action by rising electricity bills, environmental worries or fears of AI.  But elected officials say the reports show how the battle over data centers and AI is entering dangerous territory, where they’re fearing for their lives just for doing their jobs. Minneapolis council member Michael Rainville was left pleading in an August letter to his constituents for a more peaceful dialogue over the issue. “Please stop the threats against me and my family,” he wrote. In early February, police in Troy, Illinois fielded multiple calls about ominous statements on a community Facebook page.At the time, the city had been debating whether to clear the way for a roughly 200-acre data center that backers said could create hundreds of jobs. Like similar proposals around America, the once-anodyne pitch had become hugely contentious.Views of data centers have soured significantly this year. Nearly nine in 10 Americans say they’re more concerned than excited about the rise of these facilities, a CNN poll conducted by SSRS found in September. Amid that debate, Troy officials confronted a tirade on Facebook: “My hypothesis is no one would want to be shot at so just start shooting the people involved and it’ll never be built,” Hinojosa, a 33-year-old lawn-care businessman, commented beneath a post about the proposed data center.  When a user asked if he was really suggesting violence, Hinojosa responded, “for sure,” screenshots of his posts show.  Later that day, officers knocked on his door. “You’re being placed under arrest for making terroristic threats,” an officer said.“I think people are taking things out of context,” Hinojosa told the authorities. “Over a misunderstanding you are literally going to ruin my life,” he said.   Hinojosa, who described himself in police recordings as a moderate Republican, now faces felony charges for intimidation and harassment through electronic communication. He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer declined comment, citing an upcoming trial. Hinojosa’s case is one of about 70 among the police reports CNN reviewed that include allegations of threats, intimidation or planned attacks – a collection showing a striking range of anger at AI infrastructure that at times has spilled into serious claims of potential violence. Dozens of additional police reports detail other security concerns, including scuffles at county meetings, calls for police patrols at local officials’ homes and confrontations with data center staff. Some even describe explicit calls for assassinations.  “Time to use bullets on city council members. Nothing is going to change until some of them are dead,” stated a post in August after officials green-lit site plans for a major data development in Westlake, Texas.“I’ll just shoot you in the face,” read another message described in a Salt Lake County, Utah case. In the Utah case, the alleged sender was charged in June with stalking and making multiple threats of violence along with other charges. His target, someone apparently linked to the project but not identified in court records, told police the ordeal led him to temporarily relocate his family and spend about $14,000 on home security. The case is pending. In Bell County, Texas, authorities arrested a man who allegedly threatened officials in an online screed that referenced the murder of a UnitedHealthcare CEO by Luigi Mangione. “We can always unalive them. Luigis Unite!” the comment stated beneath a post about local data center construction. His case is also ongoing. Other cases appear to have no suspects. That includes more than a dozen bomb threats at data center construction sites in multiple states including Iowa, Maryland, Utah and Virginia.In April, thousands of workers evacuated one of those sites in Eagle Mountain, Utah after someone wrote inside a portable toilet that a bomb had been set in a nearby building. One month later, authorities were called to the same site for the same reason and again found nothing, according to incident reports.  The messages are often simple. “Bomb a data center,” read graffiti found at a Maryland construction site in June. “The bomb is ticking you better find it,” read another found at a Virginia site. The sheriff’s office in Loudoun County, Virginia – dubbed the data center capital of the world – has received reports of at least nine such bomb threats in less than a year, records show. A representative for an electrician business even complained to deputies that the frequency of bomb scares angered his colleagues because they were losing wages with the regular closures. The flood of angry and at times frightening blowback to data centers has left police and lawmakers on edge around the country, CNN’s investigation found. Authorities have issued sweeping warnings of the potential for attacks, monitored activists and at times even arrested citizens for seemingly innocuous comments against data centers and those who support them. In June, US Capitol Police alerted law enforcement in an email about protests by Humans First, a group chaired by Amy Kremer, a conservative activist who helped organize the rally that preceded the January 6 Capitol riot. Kremer condemned the violence of the riot and was not accused of any criminal wrongdoing. The Capitol Police email in June noted her new group had coordinated “several demonstrations… targeting AI Data Centers.” Asked about that email, Kremer said, “That is unbelievable,” noting that her group is peaceful. “It is our right as Americans to protest, and we don’t condone violence. Kremer argued the real threats authorities should scrutinize are AI and the companies behind it. “We do not have to give Big Tech a blank check and let them cram their technology and their infrastructure down our throat,” she said. Separately, among the incident reports obtained by CNN are more than a dozen that describe situations with no specific calls for violence by suspects that still triggered investigations or arrests.Police in El Paso, Texas questioned at least three data center opponents, including a woman who wrote to the city council, “we need to clear you out lol.” She later told investigators she simply wanted the officials voted out of office. In another case, a special unit looked into a woman who called a city representative and left a voicemail saying, “I hope you rot in hell and die.” She told investigators she had been repeatedly denied the opportunity to speak to the official about a local data center.“She feels threatened because I said ‘I hope’ – that is ridiculous. I’m threatened by the data centers,” the woman told El Paso police officers, according to body camera video.In June, authorities charged multiple people in connection to an alleged plot to attack a UFC event at the White House. The mother of one of them told law enforcement the group held grievances including “data centers taking up all the water in communities,” and some of them also discussed attacking data centers in California, according to court records. Future attackers may not belong to any groups or even have exposure to the type of extremist content typically associated with threats, said Yannick Veilleux-Lepage, an associate professor at the Royal Military College of Canada who has studied AI-grievances and political violence. “You don’t need to be reading Ted Kaczynski to be radicalized against AI. You can simply listen to Sam Altman and Elon Musk talk for a couple minutes and that’s probably enough to radicalize some people,” Veilleux-Lepage said.

PJM plans to study SoftBank's Ohio AI project under state agreement approach -- The PJM Interconnection intends to assess SoftBank Group’s roughly 10-GW AI data center complex planned on federal land in Ohio, and the generation and transmission needed to serve it, under a “state agreement approach” framework, according to a study agreement filed Tuesday at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.The project, dubbed “Flagship,” was announced by the White House in mid-February as part of a $550 billion trade deal with Japan. It includes an estimated $33 billion for 9.2 GW in gas-fired generation for the project.  An AEP Ohio data center tariff will serve an initial 800-MW phase of the project, according to PJM. The PJM study agreement covers an additional 9.6 GW of load and 10.2 GW of new gas-fired generation to be built by SB Energy, a SoftBank company, in phases through 2032.  AEP Ohio plans to build three 765-kV transmission lines and related infrastructure to serve the project, according to PJM.  Most of the Flagship project being developed by SB Energy and other SoftBank affiliates would be built at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a former uranium enrichment facility in Pike County, Ohio. Some of the generation would be built about 30 miles away, according to PJM.   In its filing at FERC, PJM noted that the agency has encouraged grid operators to integrate their studies of load and generation. “The Study Agreement provides a means for PJM to undertake such an integrated evaluation in response to Ohio’s specific [State Agreement Approach] request while PJM continues development of a more formalized process to study requests of this nature,” the grid operator said. PJM’s SAA framework allows a state or group of states to ask the grid operator to study specific projects needed to meet state policies. Projects that are built under the framework are paid for by consumers within the state requesting the agreement. With the Flagship project, SB Energy intends to pay for any generation and transmission infrastructure that is built to serve the data centers. “Consistent with the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, SB Energy has committed to bringing new generation to support the project and paying for required power delivery infrastructure and network upgrades through arrangements designed to protect other customers from project-related costs,” PJM said. SB Energy’s commitments include infrastructure payment obligations that apply regardless of how much electricity the data center complex uses and making excess generation and transmission capacity available to the grid, PJM said. The specific cost allocation and cost recovery mechanisms remain subject to future Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and FERC proceedings, the grid operator said. In its study, PJM will assess whether the transmission facilities AEP Ohio identifed are sufficient to support the Flagship project and if additional infrastructure is needed, the grid operator said. “The studies will provide the technical basis for Ohio to determine whether to proceed, but they will not themselves select transmission projects or designated entities, establish cost allocations, or grant the Flagship Project transmission service or interconnection rights,” PJM said. While PJM conducts its grid reliability studies for the project, it said it intends to work with Ohio and other parties at the same time to develop a cost allocation methodology that would apply to any “state agreement public policy projects” that PUCO decides to sponsor. PJM asked FERC to “accept” the study agreement and make it retroactively effective on Sept. 25, 2026 — the date it was executed.

Tell the Ohio EPA: No air permit for Meta’s third polluting gas plant! – Save Ohio Parks - We are following four large combustion gas plants proposed and approved at the Ohio Power Siting Board to power the Meta Prometheus data center in New Albany.But there’s a second process – an application for an air permit at the Ohio EPA. This includes the opportunity to file a public comment – and if enough of us ask, to testify at a public hearing.  Right now the Ohio EPA is taking comments on Meta’s third gas plant called Socrates the Younger. Please go to the Ohio EPA Open Projects page and search for Permit # P0139969 to file a comment. Like the other Meta gas plants, Socrates the Younger is not using Best Available Technology. Instead it will use 20 simple cycle turbines, which are more polluting, along with four internal combustion engines – like a gas car engine only much larger.As a result, it could create a long list of pollutants including:

• 1,825,295 tons of greenhouse gas (CO2e)
• 148 tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx)
• 186 tons of carbon monoxide (CO)
• 147 tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2)
• 104 tons of particulate matter (PM)
• 101 tons of volatile organic chemicals (VOCs)

Incredibly, the draft permit excuses Meta from using Best Available Technology on the grounds each of the 20 simple cycle turbines and four reciprocating engines emits less than 10 tons per year of criteria pollutants.While that may be true, the facility as a whole emits 10 to 18 times more for each of these pollutants — and the permit is for the entire facility, not each individual gas turbine or gas engine. Please file a public comment asking the Ohio EPA to deny the air permit for Socrates the Younger and hold a public hearing. Go to the Ohio EPA Open Projects page and search for Permit # P0139969. Up to 11,500 children live in the project area, and they deserve clean air. The people of Appalachian Ohio deserve clean air and water free from fracking and frack waste injection wells. And our state parks and wildlife areas are supposed to be protected from oil and gas extraction. Children also deserve a climate-safe future, but the Ohio EPA doesn’t even consider the most prevalent pollutant from Socrates the Younger – over 1.8 million tons of greenhouse gas. Finally, please also ask for a public hearing. Socrates the Younger was approved at the Ohio Power Siting Board with no public notice or public hearing. Ohioans deserve a chance to tell the state how this gas plant will affect them. Please file a public comment asking the Ohio EPA to deny the air permit for Socrates the Younger and hold a public hearing. Go to the Ohio EPA Open Projects page and search for Permit # P0139969. Thanks so much for your advocacy on behalf of Ohioans and our natural world. You can use the information above to write your comment, or find a sample comment below.

SoftBank Ohio Gas Plants Get Express Lane Around PJM's Clogged Queue -- Marcellus Drilling News - Marcellus Drilling News - Last month we told you Ohio had asked PJM to dust off the "State Agreement Approach," a grid-planning tool invented for New Jersey's offshore wind, and use it instead for the $4.2 billion in power lines feeding the 10-gigawatt SoftBank data center and gas plant complex at Piketon (see Ohio Uses NJ Wind Tool to Fast-Track Piketon Gas/AI Power Lines). That request is now a signed deal. On Tuesday, PJM filed the executed study agreement with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Tucked inside are two new pieces of news: the project's gas plants get to skip PJM's notoriously clogged interconnection queue, and the full turbine list is out. Every one of the 77 turbines is a GE Vernova. Siemens is nowhere to be found.

MDN Exclusive: 7-Figure Utica Mineral Deal Covers 116 Wells -- Marcellus Drilling News - Here’s a story you won’t read anywhere else. Strata Petroleum, LLC buys oil and gas mineral rights, and it has quietly sold its mineral interests in 116 producing Ohio Utica wells to Dallas-based Rising Phoenix Royalties. The deal closed effective October 5. Strata managing partner Justin Wainwright reached out to MDN with the news. He won’t disclose the exact price, but he told us it was “well into 7 figures.” The wells are operated by two of the biggest names in the Ohio Utica, EOG Resources and Ascent Resources, and they’re spread across six of the play’s core counties. Strata says it isn’t leaving the region. It plans to keep buying minerals across Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.  Ascent Resources | Belmont County | Carroll County | Columbiana County | EOG Resources | Guernsey County | Harrison County | Jefferson County (OH) | Lease & Royalty Payments | M&A

Bristolville couple seeking reimbursement for gas line project - Terri and David Ratcliffe of Bristolville spent years figuring out how to get gas connected to their home. They were told by Northeast Ohio Gas that there were not enough customers in their area to warrant an extension, and the connection was possible, but they would have to fund it themselves. After the Ratcliffes spent $20,333 on the project, the company has marked areas they plan to extend the gas line that the Ratcliffes started. “Why are we footing the bill? But the bigger issue just is that had we never done this, and they needed to hook up to enhance their system, they would have had to go from up there at their expense,” said Terri Ratcliffe. The couple feels the company is benefiting from a project they started. Play Video. “'I’m going to guess somebody had to present to somebody some financial plan for the project, right? This is how much it's going to cost. This is what we're going to save. How did they account for this portion? Did they say, oh, well, the Ratcliffe project saved us $20,000,” Terri added. They were told the line extension is for "improving system reliability," not for other homes to tap into. “They're not extending it for other customers to tap in. They're extending it for system reliability, which, in our opinion, is actually worse. So we funded part of their project,” However, a neighbor said they were told they will be able to tap into the line. That same neighbor was quoted $15,000 for gas connection, and has not been given a timeline for, if they do choose to have gas connected, when that would be. The couple is frustrated with the lack of communication, they have been in contact with one representative who is unable to give them answers. They have been told someone will be reaching out to them, but that has not yet happened. They are asking for a full reimbursement from Northeast Ohio Gas.. Northeast Ohio Gas released the following statement: “The project design for the customer’s mainline extension on Corey Hunt Road referenced in your inquiry was requested in March 2023. The installation included approximately 1,600 feet of two-inch pipeline to bring natural gas service to the customers’ property. The work was completed in October 2023, and the customer paid the standard, and agreed-upon, charge for the requested extension, under terms established in accordance with the company’s PUCO-approved tariff. At the time of that 2023 extension, Northeast Ohio Natural Gas was not experiencing reliability issues in this area and had not planned the current system-reliability project. During the period of extreme cold in early 2026, this area of our system struggled to meet the service needs of local customers due to gas pressure. The line serving Housel Craft Road lost pressure, resulting in an outage affecting several customers near the end of the line. Gas pressure can decline near the end of a line, particularly during periods of extreme cold and high demand.

Ohio Woman Hits Gas Line in Minivan Crash, House Explodes on Police Bodycam 90 Minutes Later -A blue Honda Odyssey crossed a raised median, struck a road sign, and repeatedly traveled into opposing traffic before crashing into an Ohio home. Police say the impact severed a natural gas line. About 90 minutes later, the house exploded into a fireball. Three adults escaped the Middletown residence before the October 2 explosion, which was captured on police body-camera footage. Firefighters had already evacuated the house and a neighboring property when the blast tore through the structure. Destiny Rae Miller, 29, was arrested for operating a vehicle under the influence, driving under suspension, and failure to control. She told police she had consumed one mixed drink while watching football at a bar and could not remember what happened immediately before the crash. Middletown police and fire department reports detail the collision, the explosion, and the efforts to extinguish a fire fueled by the damaged gas line. Two brothers who lived in the home later told police they had lost everything. Embedded media follows; please allow a moment for it to load. Miller told Officer Marc Hunt she had been watching football at House of Brews on Central Avenue, where she consumed one mixed drink around 10:30 p.m. She said she later drove south on Breiel Boulevard, turned right onto Roosevelt Boulevard, and attempted to turn left onto East Street through a gap in the median. Surveillance footage collected from Donatos Pizza at 4303 Roosevelt Boulevard and a neighboring residence documented a different sequence. According to Hunt's report, Miller's blue 2007 Honda Odyssey turned left onto Roosevelt Boulevard into opposing traffic, left the roadway, crossed the median, and returned to the pavement. The minivan then crossed the median a second time, struck a one-way sign, continued into opposing traffic, and entered a yard before crashing into the house at a low rate of speed. Police arrived at 4214 Roosevelt Boulevard around 2:37 a.m. Hunt described a loud hissing sound and a strong odor of gas. The impact had torn away the home's gas meter, creating a substantial leak. Officers shut down Roosevelt Boulevard while firefighters evacuated three adults from the house and residents of the neighboring property at 4212 Roosevelt Boulevard. Crews maintained a safe distance while Duke Energy was called to shut off the gas. At approximately 4:03 a.m., the house exploded. Firefighters described a large fireball followed by an intense gas-fed fire. Crews advanced hose lines and requested additional engines and medical units as flames threatened the neighboring residence. Amy Fletcher, who lived next door, told WLWT, "I was just praying that the neighbors made it out and that everyone was okay." Emergency personnel transported Miller to Atrium Medical Center, where Hunt interviewed her after reading her Miranda rights. Miller repeatedly told the officer she had consumed only one mixed drink and said she could not remember anything after attempting the turn onto East Street. Hunt documented glassy, red eyes, thick-tongued speech, and a strong odor of alcohol. Miller agreed to a horizontal gaze nystagmus test, which examines involuntary eye movements that can indicate impairment. Before administering the test, Hunt asked whether Miller had struck her head or was experiencing discomfort following the crash. She denied both. The officer subsequently documented six clues during the examination, including involuntary eye movements in both eyes. When asked to provide a blood or urine sample for chemical testing, Miller refused and requested a lawyer. Hunt arrested her for OVI, and she was booked into Middletown City Jail at 6:07 a.m. She also faces driving under suspension and failure to control charges. Her arrest record lists a $10,000 bond with a 10-percent provision. As Miller was being taken to the hospital, firefighters at Roosevelt Boulevard were contending with a severely damaged house and a continuing supply of natural gas feeding the flames. The explosion damaged siding and broke a window at the neighboring residence. A section of the destroyed home's exterior wall also collapsed onto a vehicle parked next door. A Duke Energy representative searched for a gas shutoff on the property but could not locate one. With a utility excavation crew on its way, firefighters attempted to stop the flow themselves. A truck crew wearing full protective equipment approached the gas-fed fire carrying a Duke Energy shutoff tool. Other firefighters protected them with hose lines as they located the interior gas pipe and closed it. The gas-fed flames went out, leaving several hot spots. Because the explosion had made the building unstable, firefighters continued their operations from outside. Duke Energy's excavation crew later located and clamped the underground supply line. Firefighters applied foam to the remains of the house to prevent another fire. The department estimated $103,000 in structural damage and another $10,000 in lost contents. Three adults escaped the home without injury. Aurelio and David Jacobo, two brothers living in the house, told Middletown police they had lost everything. The fire also heavily damaged a red Toyota Tacoma and a white Honda van parked at the property. Both vehicles belonged to their sister, Sarai Jacobo, who was away serving in the military. Gerardo Flores, who said he had worked alongside the brothers for years, established a GoFundMe fundraiser with their sister, Sarai Jacobo Castillo. The brothers lost their work tools and life savings, which they had kept in cash inside the house. The fire department's report documents that firefighters later supervised the retrieval of some cash from the damaged structure and returned it to the occupants. All parties are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

Utica Shale Academy awarded funds to expand - - Efforts by Utica Shale Academy to prepare area youth for a variety of technical careers have received a major boost with the award of federal and state funds to expand its programs to Belmont, Harrison and Guernsey counties. The regional trade school has been awarded a $336,578 grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission and $451,212 in state education funds to replicate the model for career technical education it has established in Columbiana County. Superintendent Bill Watson said the funds will be awarded over a three-year period through the federal economic development agency's Prevention, Employability, Equity and Resilience Initiative. Officials with the Appalachian Regional Commission said the project will allow Utica Shale Academy to build on its demonstrated dropout recovery and workforce development model by integrating industry-recognized credential training with evidence-based substance use prevention, behavioral health services, career coaching, peer recovery support and wraparound services. Watson said the funding will allow the school to employ a workforce readiness specialist, drug prevention specialist and school-based therapist for up to 150 students who will pursue training for certification as an instrumentation and control electrical technician. He said the training has been recommended by members of the school's oil and gas advisory board and will be vital not only for that industry but also for others turning increasingly toward automation. Asked if other programs may be offered in the future, Watson said, "You have to crawl before you walk. Do we hope to grow? Absolutely." Utica Shale Academy currently provides instruction in welding, diesel mechanics and industrial maintenance as well as online instruction in core subjects to about 164 students in Columbiana, Jefferson, Carroll, Mahoning and Stark counties. Watson confirmed that just as the current school grew with support from the Southern Local School District, school officials in the grant's target area have been involved in plans for the expansion. He expressed thanks to the Ohio Mid-Eastern Governments Association and particularly to Vicki King-Maple, its executive director; and Ellie Dudding, regional development director for the agency; for assistance in attaining the grant. Watson was asked what gave Utica Shale Academy an edge in obtaining the highly sought regional development funds. He believes a major selling point was the school's timely and efficient use of a $2.3 million Appalachian Community Grant, through the office of Gov. Mike DeWine, to establish facilities for its workforce training programs. Watson added the success of its students also was an important factor. He noted that last year, the school's graduation rate was double the state's and its students' performance in core subjects fell one point below double the state's average while its graduates have earned more than 1,000 professional certifications since the school opened. "We have a track record and history of doing what we say we're going to do and doing it well," he said.

EMG Utica Midstream rating affirmed at BB- with stable outlook - EMG Utica Midstream Holdings keeps its BB- long-term issuer rating as stable cash distributions from its Utica Shale joint ventures continue to underpin its credit profile. The assessment also reflects expectations that leverage stays around 3.25x over the forecast period, even as the company remains exposed to concentrated customers and regional volumetric risk.  As reported by Fitch Ratings, the agency has affirmed EMG Utica Midstream Holdings, LLC's long-term issuer default rating at BB-, while also affirming its term loan at BB with a Recovery Rating of RR3 and maintaining a stable outlook.The rating action rests on Holdco's minority interests in two joint venture operating companies in the Utica Shale, which Fitch says provide stable monthly distributions backed by more than a decade of operating history. Fixed-fee contracts, CPI escalators and acreage dedications support revenue, while the pairing of dry-gas and rich-gas assets helps balance cash flow across commodity cycles.Fitch says the rich-gas joint venture has added capacity through a recent brownfield expansion, limiting the need for significant near-term capital spending on a new processing plant. The agency also views Holdco's cash flow protections positively because the ventures distribute available cash monthly after expenses and required reserves, and neither operating company carries debt.Holdco also retains board representation and consent rights over reserved matters at both ventures, including distribution policy changes, debt issuance above set thresholds and annual budgets. Fitch says those governance rights support adequate distributions for servicing Holdco debt despite its non-operator role and minority ownership position.Fitch says the company's small asset base leaves volumes exposed to producer development timing, shifts between dry-gas and rich-gas acreage and ethane recovery decisions. Even so, the agency views near-term risk as modest because production trends in the Utica Shale remain favorable and the two-venture portfolio provides some operational diversification.Customer and geographic concentration continue to weigh on the credit profile. Both joint ventures operate in Ohio's Utica region, while Ascent Resources is the main customer of the dry-gas venture and the largest customer of the rich-gas venture; the top three customers account for about 70% of the rich-gas venture's revenue.Fitch-calculated weighted average counterparty credit quality stands at BB-, with some improvement from stronger existing customers and new additions. Fitch expects Holdco's debt service coverage ratio to remain at or above 4.0x through the forecast period, supported by steady distributions, modest growth capital spending and an excess cash flow sweep triggered at 3.25x net leverage, though debt-funded bolt-on acquisitions could keep leverage elevated.

Infinity Natural Resources reports $64.4M derivative loss in Q3 2026 - Infinity Natural Resources, Inc. recorded a total derivative loss of approximately $64.4 million for the third quarter ended September 30, 2026, according to a company statement. The loss comprised $1.2 million in realized losses from settled derivative contracts tied to crude oil, natural gas, natural gas liquids, and regional basis differentials, along with $63.2 million in non-cash mark-to-market unrealized losses on open derivative positions. The unrealized losses reflect the revaluation of outstanding contracts using forward commodity price curves at the end of the reporting period and do not represent cash outflows. The company said the derivative contracts were entered into under a board-approved hedging strategy. As of September 30, 2026, Infinity's open oil (WTI) swap portfolio covering 3,395 thousand barrels had a fair value of negative $44.6 million, while oil collar contracts on 465 thousand barrels carried a fair value of negative $2.2 million. Natural gas swap contracts totaling 144.87 million MMBtu held a fair value of $36.8 million. Natural gas fixed-basis swaps on 14.67 million MMBtu showed a fair value of $9.5 million, while natural gas basis swaps on 76.26 million MMBtu carried a fair value of negative $7.9 million. NGL swap contracts covering 2,348 thousand barrels had a fair value of negative $14.8 million. The company noted that the third quarter financial and operating information is preliminary and unaudited, and final results will be reported in its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2026. Infinity is an independent energy company focused on hydrocarbon operations in the Appalachian Basin, including the Utica Shale in eastern Ohio and the Marcellus and Utica Shales in southwestern Pennsylvania. Overall Analyst Rating: SELL (= Flat)

CEO Zack Arnold: Infinity Planning on Growth Through 'Inventory Enhancement,' M&A --Brian Waizel, senior editor with Hart Energy, speaks with industry experts at Hart Energy's SUPER DUG 2026. From left: Zack Arnold, CEO, Infinity Natural Resources; Marshall Hunt, chief operating officer, Petro-Hunt. Earlier this year, Infinity Natural Resources closed on a $1.2 billion acquisition of Ohio Utica Shale assets from Antero Resources.

10 New Shale Well Permits Reported for PA-OH-WV Oct 5 – 11 --- Marcellus Drilling News - - The Marcellus/Utica region received 10 new drilling permits last week, October 5-11, down a big 19 from 29 permits issued two weeks earlier. Pennsylvania issued 7 of the new permits. Ohio issued 2 new permits. And West Virginia issued a single new permit. The drillers who received new permits last week were: Ascent Resources, EQT, PennEnergy Resources, and Range Resources.  Beaver County | Belmont County | Butler County | Marion County

SCOTUS to Decide What Pipelines Owe Landowners in Eminent Domain -- Marcellus Drilling News - Here’s a case that slipped under our radar, and it shouldn’t have. On Monday, Nov. 9, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Hoffmann v. WBI Energy Transmission, a fight between a group of North Dakota ranchers and an interstate pipeline company. The question sounds dry: when a pipeline company uses eminent domain to take land, does state law or federal law decide how much the landowner gets paid? However, the answer could put money in, or take money out of, the pockets of landowners in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Yesterday, the Court agreed to let the Trump administration take part in the argument, on the side of the pipeline company.

Shell Asks Court to Toss Big Green Cracker Suit: DEP Already Acted -- Marcellus Drilling News - Shell Chemical Appalachia wants a federal judge in Pittsburgh to throw out a lawsuit Philadelphia-based Big Green group Clean Air Council filed more than three years ago over air emissions at Shell’s ethane cracker plant in Monaca (Beaver County), PA. Shell’s main argument is simple: the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has already gone after Shell for the very same violations, not once but twice, collecting nearly $25 million in penalties and “community” payments. Federal law, says Shell, doesn’t let a private group pile on when the state is already on the case. Shell also argues the Council never showed that a single member was actually harmed. Shell filed its motion last Friday, Oct. 9, and the Council has agreed to pause the case while the judge decides.

Homer City Gas Plant Wastewater Permit Draws Fire at DEP Hearing -- Marcellus Drilling News - The Homer City Energy Campus in Indiana County, PA, will be one of the country’s largest natural gas-fired power plants under construction. It burns Marcellus gas, and it needs a lot of water to keep cool. On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) held a public hearing on a permit change that would let the plant send up to 6.8 million gallons a day of used cooling water into Blacklick Creek. All of the roughly a dozen speakers opposed it. DEP says it will decide before the current permit expires at the end of this year. Here’s what the opponents said, and what DEP’s own paperwork says, which is a different story.

DEP - Day 71: Violations Continue At John D. Branch Conventional Well Site For Failing To Have Adequate Spill Containment Around Tanks Holding 42,000 Gallons On Contaminated Water In Warren County  -On October 2, 2026, the Department of Environmental Protection did a follow-up inspection of the John D. Branch Brown 1 conventional gas wells site in Pleasant Township, Warren County and found the owner still fails to comply with secondary containment regulations around two storage tanks holding 42,000 gallons of contaminated water from conventional oil and gas wells.DEP issued the original violations for this infraction on July 23, 2026.  Read more here.The DEP’s July 23 report on the complaint inspection then said-- “The small upper containment directly around the stock tanks is constructed with a dirt and gravel base and walls, and includes a drain pipe that is directed into a second containment downslope of the upper containment.”The October 2 inspection report noted “some clay material was added” to containment around the tanks, “however the clay is mixed with gravel, is patchy and was inconsistently applied” and fails to meet the regulations. One photo with the inspection report also shows a drain pipe leading away from the secondary containment area. Previous violations were continued and a response was requested by October 27.  Click Here for the DEP inspection report + photos.

DEP - Day 1,916: Monitoring Of Casing/Cement Failure Continues At Expand Operating Lucarino Shale Gas Well Pad In Bradford County  - On October 6, 2026, the Department of Environmental Protection conducted an inspection of the Expand Operating LLC Lucarino 3H shale gas well in Wilmot Township, Bradford County to monitor casing/cementing failure.DEP originally discovered the casing/cementing failure in the 3H well and issued a violation on July 8, 2021 to the owner for failing to report a defective well.The well was drilled in October 2013.   Like many other shale gas wells with casing/cementing failures, DEP continues to regularly monitor these wells to see if there has been any change. Casing/cementing failures can lead to “communication” and contamination of other unconventional and conventional oil and gas wells and with private water supplies.As a result of this inspection, DEP continued the violation again. Click Here for the DEP inspection report.

DEP: Investigation Of A ‘Frac Hit’ Between 3 Seneca Resources Co Shale Gas Well Pads In Middlebury Twp., Tioga County Leads To Contaminated Water Spill  -Recent inspections of three Seneca Resource Co LL shale gas well pads in Middlebury Township, Tioga County by the Department of Environmental Protection found the close proximity of horizontal shale gas well drilling and fracking have apparently caused well “communication” (interference) issues.On October 6, 2026, DEP inspected the Seneca Resources Co LLC Bauer 849 shale gas well pad in response to a notification of three contaminated water spills.DEP found a fiber optic cable got stuck down a Bauer gas well during an investigation of a “frac hit’from a well originating at the nearby Taft shale gas well pad in the same township.The pad crew was attempting to remove a section of tubing being used to “fish” out the cable when a valve opened at the end of the tubing and released contaminated water onto the well pad causing two spill incidents.The third spill occurred after a decision was made to pump fluids down the well bore to “kill the well” after the apparent “frac hit.”   Click Here for the DEP inspection report + photos.   [Note: The Taft well pad is 713 days into the cleanup of a contaminated water release at the pad. Violations were issued on October 23, 2024 and continued since then. Read more here. [DEP also issued violations to a shale gas well at the Taft pad after evidence was found of continuing casing/cementing failures discovered on Nov. 13, 2024. Violations were issued and continued since then.  Read more here.]

DEP: Routine Inspection Finds Overflowing Contaminated Water Tank At Penn View Exploration Conventional Oil & Gas Well In Clearfield County - On October 7, 2026, the Department of Environmental Protection did a routine inspection of the Penn View Exploration Inc. Neff 4 conventional oil and gas well in Burnside Township, Clearfield County and found a contaminated water tank had overflowed.DEP found contaminated water had overtopped the tank and ran down the side of the tank and created a channel of erosion and oil-covered vegetation leading approximately 65 feet downhill. The dump line from the storage tank was also leaking. Field measures confirmed the soil was contaminated. The well owner said the well was shut in and cleanup of the spill will be started the following week. Multiple violations were issued and a response was requested by October 29. Click Here for the DEP inspection report + photos.

DEP: Ruptured Underground Gathering Line Releases Crude Oil Near Bull Run Resources Conventional Well In Warren County  -On October 9, 2026, the Department of Environmental Protection inspected an area near the Bull Run Resources LLC Petersen 416 conventional well in Pleasant Township, Warren County in response to a notification of a crude oil release.DEP found a ruptured underground gathering line released an unknown amount of crude oil to the ground that flowed over the surface and down a slope for about 190 feet and into a woods before ending up in a road ditch.It then continued another 50 feet to the main access road for the well.A cleanup crew was onsite that had installed several barriers to contain the crude oil flow in the ditch and was beginning to remove impacted soil to a dumpster staged at the site.Multiple violations were issued.  “Future inspections will be done to document the extent of the release and remediation of the site.”No written response was requested.Click Here for the DEP inspection report + photos.

DEP - Day 57: More Water Seeps Break Out From INR OPR LLC Cooper Shale Gas Well Pad Possibly Related To Broken Pad Drainage System In Indiana County, Site Of 336,000 Gallon Frack Water Spill – On October 13, 2026, DEP did a follow-up inspection of the INR OPR LLC Cooper shale gas well pad in Young Township, Indiana County and found new water seeps were coming out of the south slope of the well pad.On October 7, DEP found a series of water seeps coming out of the west slope of the well pad the inspector said were occurring due to “loose connections” in the pad’s water containment system.The system is designed to collect water from the pad and properly manage it before it is released anywhere.INR installed riprap around the seeps on the west slope and a sump for collecting the water that was being released.  Read more here. On October 13, the new seeps on the south slope of the well pad were not present in previous inspections. The inspector said the new seeps were “possibly part of the drain issue.” The reason the pad water containment system is important is on August 17, 2026, there was a spill of approximately 336,000 gallons of fracking flowback water onto the pad that flowed off the pad and contaminated about 5.6 acres of fields and woods, according to an INR report.  Read more here. It is not known whether the pad drainage system was broken then or functioning, or whether the large spill of contaminated water on the pad and recent rain brought the condition of the water containment system to light.The DEP inspection reports did not describe any efforts by INR to repair the pad water containment system or any direction from DEP to do repairs. Previous violations were continued. No response requested by the pad owner.Click Here for DEP inspection report + photos.

DEP - Day 82: McGuffie Oil Co Inc. Abandoned Conventional Gas Well Still Venting Gas, Creating A Hazard To Health, Safety In Allegheny County - On October 14, 2026, the Department of Environmental Protection did a follow-up inspection of the McGuffie Oil Co Inc. Sheridan 1 conventional gas well in Penn Hills Township, Allegheny County and found the well was still venting gas in a hazardous manner close to homes.DEP inspected the well on July 24, 2026 in response to a complaint by the Penn Hills Fire Marshal of leaking gas and issued multiple violations.The well owner failed to submit annual production and waste generation reports since 2004 and well integrity reports since 2013.In the October 14 inspection report, DEP said the “well remains in the same condition/configuration as the initial inspection” on July 24.There is no response from the well owner to the July 24 violations posted online.DEP continued the previous violations and added violations for abandoning and not plugging the well and failure to stop gas venting from the well. DEP requested a written response by October 30. Click Here for the DEP inspection report + photos.

Expand’s Susquehanna Week: Minor Pad Fire, New 4-Mile Water Line -- Marcellus Drilling News - Expand Energy’s operating arm made the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) news twice last week, both times in Susquehanna County. One item sounds scary but isn’t: A small “flash fire” inside a compressor building on a well pad, and the equipment put it out before firefighters arrived. The other is a new permit for a 4-mile temporary waterline that will carry fresh water to Expand’s Marcellus wells in Auburn Township. It’s the second such line DEP has OK’d in that township in a month. David Hess at PA Environment Digest Blog flagged both items. Here’s the scoop.

MSC to Allegheny Health Board: Your Own Data Says Shale Is Safe -- Marcellus Drilling News - Last Wednesday, MDN told you about the Allegheny County Board of Health’s latest move against shale drilling (see Antis Cheer as Allegheny Co. Moves to Pull Shale Air Exemptions). Right now, shale well pads in the county don’t need an air permit from the county health department because they’re exempt under Article 21, the county’s air pollution rules. In September, the board voted unanimously to have the health department study getting rid of that exemption. It turns out the industry saw this coming and tried to head it off. The Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC), the main trade group for Pennsylvania’s shale drillers, sent MDN copies of two letters MSC President Jim Welty sent the board before that vote, one dated Aug. 20 and the other Sept. 15. The letters accuse the board’s “Fracking Committee” of doing its work in the shadows. And they point to something the board seems to want everyone to forget: the county’s own data.

It’s Baaack: Bucks County Climate Lawsuit Gets Appeals Court Hearing -- Marcellus Drilling News - Remember Bucks County, PA’s “sneaky” lawsuit against Big Oil? The one a county judge tossed in May 2025 “with prejudice,” meaning don’t come back? Well, it’s back. Today (Oct. 14), Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court will hear Bucks County’s appeal, which asks the court to bring the dead case back to life. Lined up against the county is an impressive list of “friends of the court,” including Pennsylvania’s own Attorney General Dave Sunday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association, the Pennsylvania Chamber, and our friends at both PIOGA and the Marcellus Shale Coalition. All of them are telling the appeals court the same thing: leave it dead.

3rd Circuit Tosses Riverkeeper Challenge to Transco REA Permits -- Marcellus Drilling News -  The Delaware Riverkeeper Network and PennFuture fought for years for the right to challenge Transco’s Regional Energy Access (REA) pipeline permits before Pennsylvania’s Environmental Hearing Board (EHB). They got their wish. Then they lost at the EHB. And yesterday, they lost again in federal court. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit unanimously upheld the state Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) water permits for the Williams-owned pipeline expansion. The court said the groups never showed that the extra water testing they demanded would have changed a thing. Even better, the court handed down a ruling on Pennsylvania’s Environmental Rights Amendment that could make life a lot harder for anti-drillers going forward.

National Fuel announces plans to split into two publicly traded companies - National Fuel Gas Co. plans to separate its natural gas production and gathering operations into an independent, publicly traded company, creating two businesses with distinct growth strategies. The company announced Oct. 14 that its board of directors approved a plan to spin off its Integrated Upstream and Gathering business, known as IUG. The separation is expected to be completed in the second half of 2027, subject to regulatory filings, financing arrangements and other customary conditions. The transaction is intended to be tax-free for National Fuel and its shareholders for federal income tax purposes. Shareholders will receive shares in both companies, with National Fuel planning to distribute at least 80.1% of IUG's shares and retain an ownership stake of up to 19.9%. Following the separation, National Fuel will focus on its regulated natural gas utility, pipeline and storage operations across Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania. IUG will operate as an independent company focused on natural gas production and gathering in the Appalachian region. National Fuel President and CEO David P. Bauer said the company's integrated business model has provided financial and operational benefits over the years, including the ability to fund acquisitions and strategic investments. With the recent completion of its Ohio gas utility acquisition, Bauer said, the businesses have reached a scale that positions them to pursue growth opportunities independently. The separation is intended to give each company greater flexibility in allocating capital, pursuing growth and returning money to shareholders while preserving operational efficiencies and other benefits of the existing business relationships. After the separation, National Fuel expects to have nearly $5 billion in rate base, a measure of the utility assets on which it can earn an authorized return. Its natural gas utilities serve approximately 1.1 million customers across Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania. Its federally regulated pipeline and storage operations are expected to provide nearly 5 billion cubic feet per day of contracted natural gas transportation capacity and 77 billion cubic feet of fully contracted storage services. The company cited infrastructure modernization programs, increasing regional demand for natural gas, and the needs of data centers and power generation as factors supporting future investment in pipeline and storage infrastructure. The company also expects to maintain an investment-grade financial profile and said its current capital plans do not anticipate a need to raise additional equity capital over the next five years. It plans to maintain a capital return policy consistent with other utility companies. The independent IUG company will include approximately 1.2 million net acres in the Appalachian region and net natural gas production of approximately 1.1 billion cubic feet per day. Its wholly owned gathering assets transport most of its production, allowing the business to control costs and improve operating efficiency. IUG has approximately 5 trillion cubic feet of proved natural gas reserves and more than 25 years of development inventory, according to National Fuel. The company said IUG has improved capital efficiency by approximately 25% since shifting its development program to its Eastern Development Area in 2023. The improvements have allowed it to generate more production and free cash flow for each dollar invested. IUG is expected to retain its current leadership team, with Justin I. Loweth, president of Seneca Resources and NFG Midstream, becoming CEO of the new company. National Fuel said the separation is intended to give IUG greater flexibility to develop its drilling inventory, manage its capital investments and pursue targeted growth opportunities.

National Fuel Gas Plans 2027 Spinoff to Create Utility and Appalachian Gas Producer - National Fuel Gas NFG plans to separate its integrated upstream and gathering business into a standalone publicly traded company through a tax-free spinoff to shareholders, a transaction the company expects to complete in the second half of calendar 2027. President and Chief Executive Officer Dave Bauer said the separation will create two independent businesses: a fully rate-regulated National Fuel and a new Appalachian natural gas producer and gathering company referred to as IUG. Following the spinoff, existing National Fuel investors are expected to own shares in both companies on a pro rata basis. 3 Dividend Kings With Royally Good Upside The transaction remains subject to customary conditions, including the effectiveness of a Form 10 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission and completion of financing arrangements. National Fuel to Become Fully Regulated Business After the separation, National Fuel will operate as a 100% rate-regulated enterprise with approximately $5 billion of rate base, management said. Its utility operations will serve about 1.1 million customers in Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania, while its FERC-regulated pipeline and storage operations will provide nearly 5 billion cubic feet per day of gas transmission services and 77 Bcf of fully contracted storage capacity. The company expects long-term rate-base growth of 5% to 7% under its current capital-spending plans. Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer Tim Silverstein said National Fuel currently spends about $200 million annually across its New York and Pennsylvania utilities and expects annual investments to nearly double following the addition of its Ohio utility business. National Fuel also said it has 700,000 dekatherms per day of new pipeline capacity under contract, nearly 400,000 dekatherms per day of which is expected to enter service next month. Management cited demand from utilities, data center developers and power-generation facilities as drivers of recent pipeline expansion activity. Bauer said separating the businesses is expected to lower the regulated company’s cost of capital relative to the combined company. He said this could support modernization and expansion projects, affordability efforts and potential future merger-and-acquisition opportunities. The proposed IUG company will include Seneca Resources and NFG Midstream. It currently produces 1.1 Bcf per day of net natural gas and holds 5 trillion cubic feet of proved reserves across 1.2 million net acres in Pennsylvania, according to management. IUG’s acreage includes more than 300,000 acres in its Eastern Development Area, concentrated in Tioga and Lycoming counties, and more than 900,000 acres in its Western Development Area. Justin Loweth, president of Seneca Resources and National Fuel Gas Midstream, said much of the western acreage is owned in fee, meaning the company does not pay royalties and does not face drilling requirements to retain the land. Management said IUG has more than 25 years of prospective Marcellus and Utica drilling inventory at its current pace, with break-even prices below $2.25 per million British thermal units based on NYMEX pricing. The company also owns gathering infrastructure that transports most of its production, which it said supports a low-cost operating structure. Loweth said IUG has approximately 1 Bcf per day of firm transportation capacity to high-value markets and has contracted for another 0.5 Bcf per day expected to enter service over the next several years. The first portion of that capacity, the Tioga Pathway Project, is expected to be available next month. Loweth, who will become chief executive officer of IUG after the separation, said the standalone structure will provide greater flexibility to consider organic and inorganic growth opportunities. He pointed to IUG’s acreage position, production potential and subsurface knowledge in Tioga County as potential advantages. National Fuel intends to retain up to a 19.9% interest in IUG following the spinoff. Silverstein said the company expects to monetize that stake in a tax-efficient manner after the separation and use the proceeds to further strengthen National Fuel’s balance sheet. Management said National Fuel expects to generate free cash flow in most years and does not anticipate a need for incremental equity financing over the next five years. Silverstein said the company expects its credit rating, after monetizing the retained IUG stake, to be two to three notches higher than its current investment-grade rating. IUG is expected to begin with leverage slightly above one times and target a long-term leverage ratio at or below one times. Silverstein said management believes the new company could reach leverage below one times within one or two years after the separation, based on expected free cash flow generation and current natural-gas strip prices. National Fuel expects its dividend to be adjusted to a payout ratio in line with utility peers, while IUG expects to balance free cash flow among balance-sheet optimization, growth investment and share repurchases.

Marcellus-Fed Cove Point Back Online; LNG Feedgas Hits 6-Month High - Good news for Marcellus/Utica drillers and the landowners who collect royalty checks from them: Cove Point LNG, the export terminal in Maryland that runs on our gas, is back in business after its annual 23-day maintenance break. Add the return of a Freeport LNG train in Texas and a record run at the new Golden Pass LNG plant, and U.S. “feedgas” (the natural gas piped into LNG plants to be chilled into a liquid and shipped overseas) jumped to 19.7 Bcf/d on Tuesday, the highest level since April. That’s billion cubic feet per day, for those keeping score at home.

MXP Outage Splits Appalachian Natural Gas Prices, Exposes Winter Basis Risk - NGI chart compares Columbia Gas and Eastern Gas South spot basis prices with TCO MXPSEG natural gas throughput from September to October 2026. Columbia Gas Transmission’s (TCO) Mountaineer XPress (MXP) outage entered a third gas day Friday, splitting Appalachian prices. TCO declared force majeure Wednesday after detecting a leak near West Virginia’s Saunders Creek Regulator Station, cutting MXP segment capacity to zero and affecting an estimated 1.9 million Dth/d of firm service. NGI’s Entropic Analytics data show scheduled flows fell from 1.88 million Dth/d on Tuesday to zero on Thursday and Friday. For Friday gas, NGI’s Columbia Gas basis to Henry Hub strengthened 56.0 cents to minus $1.260/MMBtu, its tightest since the Sept. 25 MXP outage, while Eastern Gas South and Texas Eastern M-2 discounts widened 38.5 and 42.5 cents, respectively.

Mountaineer XPress Leak Sinks Appalachian Gas Price to $1.06 - -- Marcellus Drilling News - On Thursday, physical (spot) natural gas sold at Louisiana's Henry Hub (the national benchmark) went for $3.30 per MMBtu. On the same day, gas sold at Texas Eastern M-2, which is the main price point for gas produced in southwestern Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, went for $1.055. That's the same molecule of methane, and our version fetched about 32 cents on the dollar. Why? Because a pipeline carrying Appalachian gas out of the region sprang a leak again. Here's what happened, why it matters to your royalty check, and why there's some good news on the horizon.

W. Kentucky Pipeline Wins in Court, Escapes PSC; Farmers Dig In --- Marcellus Drilling News -  The long-stalled Pennyrile Energy Corridor, a 53-mile natural gas pipeline planned for western Kentucky, has racked up two big wins since we last checked in. In September, a Kentucky judge ruled that the agency building the pipeline can use eminent domain to get easements from landowners who won’t sign. State lawmakers also moved the project out from under the state’s utility regulator. But a few farmers along the route aren’t budging, and one calls the $4-per-foot offer for his land “ridiculous.”

Northeast Gas Demand Down as Prices Slump | RBN Energy - We are reaching the time of year when the Northeast typically starts getting chilly, but the weather has been mild so far in October. The already low Appalachian cash basis prices have plunged even lower in response. Full cash prices have been punishingly low for the production zone over the week ended October 13, averaging about 85 cents for EGS and 83 cents for TGP Z4 according to Bloomberg data — far below breakevens for even the most well-situated producer. Unlike the futures market, physical trading was closed for Monday’s Columbus Day holiday. That means that cash prices for five of the seven days last week were determined in trading on Friday for Saturday-through-Tuesday delivery. Overall Northeast demand averaged 13.7 Bcf/d during the week ended October 13, down 0.5 Bcf/d week on week. Regional demand, excluding LNG feedgas, was 13.5 Bcf/d, down 0.3 Bcf/d from last year and 0.5 Bcf/d lower than the 5-year average. Power demand decreased by 1 Bcf/d but Res/Comm demand grew by 0.2 Bcf/d and Industrial demand moved up by 0.1 Bcf/d. LNG feedgas at Cove Point made its return on Monday, completing a three-week maintenance outage. The facility goes down for a maintenance of similar length every year, but is back to normal as seen in the dark orange section of the graph above.

Plenty of Gas, Not Enough Pipe: New England January Gas Tops $20 -- Marcellus Drilling News - The rest of the country is heading into winter swimming in natural gas. Production is at record highs, storage is above average, and Henry Hub January futures are trading below $4. Yet traders are paying more than $20 per MMBtu for gas delivered into parts of New England in January. That’s more than five times the national benchmark. The problem isn’t a shortage of gas. It’s a shortage of pipe. New England sits just a few hundred miles from the Marcellus Shale, one of the most prolific gas fields on the planet, but more than a decade of blocked pipeline projects means it can’t get enough of our gas when the weather turns cold.

Power Burn Gains Materializing, but Is Data Center Demand? -  Data centers were supposed to be the next big thing for US domestic natural gas demand. So far, power burn data tells a more modest story, while states hosting the buildout are imposing new conditions on developers before much of the anticipated demand materializes. US natural gas power burn rose year/year in four regions through Oct. 14, 2026, led by Mountain at 11.5%, while Pacific fell 6.4%. At a Glance:
Lower 48 power burn up 1.3 Bcf/d
Mountain region power burn jumps 11%
Summer peak burn falls short of 2025

NGSA Winter Outlook: Cheaper Gas, Record Supply, Not Enough Pipes-  The Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA) released its 26th annual Winter Outlook yesterday, and the bottom line is music to the ears of anyone who pays a heating bill: NGSA sees “downward market pressure” on natural gas prices this winter compared to last. Henry Hub futures for November through March average $3.43 per MMBtu, down $1.08 (23.9%) from $4.51/MMBtu realized last winter. That’s less happy news for landowners hoping for fat royalty checks. But buried on page 5 of the report is a nugget every MDN reader should notice: last winter, while nearly every other U.S. shale basin grew, Marcellus and Utica production actually shrank. The reason? Pipes. Or rather, the lack of them.

FERC Proposes Dropping Air Modeling for Compressor Stations, LNG -- Marcellus Drilling News - The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Thursday took a chainsaw to one of the slowest, most litigated parts of its pipeline review process. In a 4-1 vote, FERC issued a draft policy statement saying it will no longer require pipeline and LNG companies to submit “air dispersion modeling” for new or expanded compressor stations and LNG terminals. Why should Marcellus/Utica folks care? Because nearly every project that moves more of our gas to market, such as Iroquois ExC and MVP Boost, involves building or beefing up compressor stations. Faster approvals mean more pipe, more takeaway capacity, and (eventually) better prices for drillers and royalty owners.

Gulf Coast Turns Down the Volume as U.S. Propane Stocks Roll Lower | RBN Energy -- The EIA reported a 1.5-MMbbl draw in total U.S. propane/propylene inventories for the week ended October 9, lowering stocks to 106.4 MMbbl (red line in the chart below). The draw was about twice the industry-expected draw of 730 Mbbl, ran counter to the average build of 324 Mbbl for the week, and extended the prior week's 1.8-MMbbl draw. Even so, stocks are 4 MMbbl, or 4%, above the same week in 2025 (blue line), 3.2 MMbbl, or 3%, above the five-year maximum, and 13.3 MMbbl, or 14%, above the five-year average (green line).The national totals mask a regional split (see the PADD charts below). PADD 3 (Gulf Coast) accounted for the entire draw, falling 1.9 MMbbl to 66.7 MMbbl, down 3.7 MMbbl from the record 70.4 MMbbl set in late September but still 28% above the five-year average. The more telling trend is in PADD 2 (Midwest). Stocks there peaked at 26.6 MMbbl on August 21 and have slipped about 1 MMbbl since, even as the five-year average climbed 2.9 MMbbl. As a result, Midwest stocks of 25.7 MMbbl are now 887 Mbbl, or 3%, below the five-year average, 5% below last year and just 1.1 MMbbl above the five-year minimum. PADD 1 (East Coast) stocks, at 8.3 MMbbl, are 7% below last year, while PADDs 4 and 5, at 5.6 MMbbl, sit in line with the five-year average. Combined, PADDs 1, 2, 4 and 5 hold 39.6 MMbbl, 1.8 MMbbl, or 4%, below the same week in 2025, leaving the national surplus concentrated on the Gulf Coast heading into the heating season.

Louisiana Natural Gas Premium Holds as Pipes Into Gillis Hub Near Capacity -The clock is ticking for US LNG developers planning the next wave of Gulf Coast terminals to secure firm natural gas transportation into southwest Louisiana as available capacity on existing and sanctioned pipelines serving the key Gillis hub runs thin.NGI chart compares daily natural gas prices at Transco Zones 2 and 3, Katy and Henry Hub from March to October 2026, showing Zone 3 price spikes.   At a Glance:
Transco eastbound flows near capacity
Transco Zone 3 premium averages 85.7 cents
Louisiana premium extends along forward curve

U.S. LNG Feedgas Begins to Climb | RBN Energy -  U.S. LNG feedgas demand moved higher last week as Freeport and Cove Point returned from maintenance and Golden Pass intake hit a record over the weekend. U.S. LNG feedgas averaged about 18.2 Bcf/d for the week ending October 11 (blue dotted line below), up 0.4 Bcf/d week-on-week.Freeport LNG Train 2 was down for maintenance from October 2-8, but the train has since restarted and feedgas has rebounded. Cove Point has been down for annual maintenance since Sept. 19 and returned to full operations on Monday, October 12.Intake at the commissioning Golden Pass terminal began the week below 300 MMcf/d but reached a record level over the weekend, with feedgas deliveries over 600 MMcf/d from Friday through Sunday. We expect U.S. feedgas to reach record levels this winter.

Cove Point, Freeport Restarts Push US LNG Feedgas Demand to 6-Month High - US LNG feedgas demand climbed to a six-month high Tuesday as Cove Point LNG came back from annual maintenance, Freeport LNG returned to a three-train pace and Golden Pass LNG posted its best five-day run since commissioning began.Entropic Analytics chart compares Lower 48 LNG feedgas deliveries in 2025 and 2026, showing higher US natural gas export demand in 2026. 
At a Glance:
Cove Point flows return after 23 days
Freeport back near 3-train rate
Golden Pass holds above 600 MMcf/d

FERC Moves Ahead With Blanket LNG Authorizations as Export Capacity Surges -The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Thursday proposed advancing blanket authorizations for certain activities at LNG projects in a bid to strengthen regulatory certainty and streamline permitting for the sector as US export capacity has grown significantly in recent years. NGI's LNG Export Flow Tracker shows US LNG feedgas deliveries reaching 18.72 million Dth on Oct. 15, 2026, with volumes at nine terminals.  At a Glance:

• Effort aimed at cutting red tape
• Routine upgrades could proceed automatically
• 3-tier authorization framework proposed

Golden Pass LNG Targets 2027 for 2 Trains as Feedgas Hits New High -Golden Pass LNG expects to bring its second and third liquefaction trains online in 2027, as natural gas deliveries to the Texas export terminal climbed to their highest levels since commissioning began earlier this year.  At a Glance:

• 2 remaining trains targeted for 2027
• Feedgas deliveries reach 643 MMcf/d
• LNG shipments accelerate since initial startup

Venture Global Eyes AI Data Centers in Expansion of Natural Gas Power Business -Venture Global has signed power agreements with GE Vernova and Baker Hughes Energy Services for up to 16 new power island units, each with 720 MW of capacity. At a Glance:

• Agreements could add up to 10 GW
• Existing gas-fired generation totals 4.5 GW
• BTM network independent of grid

Tribunal Says Venture Global Stiffed Galp on Calcasieu Pass LNG -  Finally, a little justice. An international arbitration panel ruled that Venture Global (VG) breached its contract with Portugal’s Galp by delaying the declaration of its Calcasieu Pass LNG export plant in Louisiana as “commercially operational.” That official start date, called COD (commercial operation date), is what triggers deliveries to long-term customers. For more than three years, VG shipped cargo after cargo of LNG from Calcasieu Pass, much of it sold on the sky-high spot market after Russia invaded Ukraine, all while insisting the plant was still in its “commissioning” (startup) phase. Galp, which signed up in 2018 to buy 1 million tonnes per year (MTPA) of LNG for 20 years, waited. Galp now joins BP as the second customer to beat VG in arbitration. The catch? Galp’s payday is capped at $170 million, and the check won’t be written until after a damages hearing in 2027 or 2028

Oracle’s Project Jupiter Awaits FERC Decision on Natural Gas Lateral  -  Oracle is pressing federal regulators to expedite approval of a natural gas pipeline that would serve its Project Jupiter data center in southern New Mexico, even as the state’s attorney general seeks a wider environmental review. At a Glance:

• Transwestern now targets Feb. 1, 2027 start
• Oracle weighs trucked CNG deliveries
• Contract starts at 7,000 Dth/d, filing shows

Gas Production High in the Permian and Poised for More Growth | RBN Energy -The Permian Basin rig count jumped up by 4 rigs last week and is at its highest level since June 2025. The strong rig count will set the basin up for additional gas production growth in the coming months. So far this year around 2.3 Bcf/d of new takeaway capacity has come online, and Blackcomb is expected to add an additional 2.5 Bcf/d of capacity by the end of the year. Permian production during the week ended October 12 averaged a record high 23.9 Bcf/d. Gas flows leaving the Permian Basin increased last week, led by a surge in westbound shipments, as shown in the chart above. Deliveries to the West averaged 2.5 Bcf/d, up 0.2 Bcf/d week-on-week, driven by increased volumes on El Paso Pipeline. Westbound flows remain below typical levels for this time of year but are much stronger than in recent weeks. Constraints on El Paso at the California border have limited deliveries to the West despite hot weather in California. Northbound flows averaged 2 Bcf/d, up 0.2 Bcf/d week-on-week, primarily supported by higher volumes on El Paso toward both the Midcontinent and San Juan. Eastbound flows held steady at 14.9 Bcf/d, with strong reported volumes on greenfield pipelines.

Why Mexico’s Natural Gas Demand Boom Matters for US Producers -Click here to tune into the latest episode of NGI’s Hub & Flow podcast featuring Esentia Energy CEO Daniel Bustos, who unpacks the state of Mexican natural gas dynamics and how the country’s supply-demand balance affects the United States and beyond.The cross-border natural gas trade between the United States and Mexico is firing on all cylinders, driven by surging power generation, industrial expansion and the hunt for reliable energy security. Despite near-term price volatility at the Waha header and evolving domestic policy under Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, pipeline flows from West Texas continue to set records as Mexican natural gas demand outpaces broader economic activity. At the same time, mounting geopolitical friction in the Middle East has upended the global LNG market, pushing prices higher amid tightening supply and rising geopolitical risks. The turmoil underscores the importance of reinforcing Mexico’s access to US natural gas for domestic use and west coast exports.

Europe to Delay Methane Rules in Win for US LNG Suppliers  -The European Commission (EC) has formally adopted a proposal to postpone by one year certain parts of its far-reaching methane regulations after concerns mounted over how the continent’s top suppliers would comply with them. EU natural gas storage was 73.9% full on Oct. 12, 2026, with 835.59 TWh in inventories, 168.6 TWh below the five-year average. At a Glance:

• 1-year delay formally proposed
• Top suppliers warned of compliance issues
• Scope of regulations remains unchanged

Europe Blinks: EU Delays Methane Rules on U.S. LNG Imports a Year -  Europe blinked. On Wednesday, the European Commission (the EU’s executive branch) proposed delaying its world-first methane rules for imported oil, natural gas, and coal by one year. The rules were set to kick in on January 1, 2027. Under the new proposal, they won’t start until 2028. That’s good news for U.S. LNG (liquefied natural gas) exporters, which supply more than half of Europe’s LNG, and, by extension, for the drillers and royalty owners whose gas feeds those export plants. Pressure came from France, the U.S., many EU countries, and the oil and gas industry. Big Green, as you’d expect, is having a meltdown. The delay still needs a thumbs-up from the European Parliament and EU member governments, and some want a longer, three-year pause.

EU Methane Rule Delay Buys Little Time, No Certainty for US LNG  -The European Commission’s (EC) proposal this week to delay onerous methane regulations facing the continent’s fossil fuel importers for a year is not enough time to address the complexities of the law and has created more uncertainty, said the head of a leading US LNG trade group. NGI bar chart compares European LNG imports by region of origin across two periods, highlighting differences in supply volumes. At a Glance:

• Little progress expected over next year
• Trade group urges 3-year delay
• Regulations complicating long-term deals

Iran War Escalation Threatens Global Market, Ups Demand for US LNG  --Renewed attacks on US allies and commercial shipping around the Strait of Hormuz this week are threatening global energy supplies anew, with Europe facing rising natural gas prices and a difficult race to replenish storage before winter as shipments from the Persian Gulf grow more tenuous.NGI map of Persian Gulf LNG import and export terminals in Qatar, UAE, Oman and Kuwait, highlighting the Strait of Hormuz shipping route. At a Glance:
War in Middle East intensifies
Persian Gulf energy risk rises
Demand for US LNG strengthens

Diesel prices hold high despite efforts to boost global supplies -Diesel prices remain stubbornly high as inventories sit near historically low levels, despite efforts to ease pressure on refined-fuel markets through emergency stock releases or the easing of restrictions on Russian exports. Wholesale diesel benchmarks in the U.S. and Europe have more than doubled year to date. New York Harbor distillate crack spreads, a key measure of U.S. diesel refining margins, are holding above $100 a barrel, while ICE gasoil crack spreads, the European equivalent, have retreated from recent highs but remain elevated at $78.77 a barrel. The problem isn’t simply expensive crude, but a shortage of refined products. U.S. distillate inventories—which include diesel and heating oil—stood at about 102.6 million barrels in the week ended Oct. 9, according to the Energy Information Administration, down 12% from a year earlier. The shortfall was even more pronounced on the East Coast, where inventories were more than 22% lower than a year earlier. Diesel is a major input for trucking, agriculture, construction and industrial activity, meaning elevated prices can feed into freight charges and the cost of moving goods. U.S. retail prices were about $6.33 a gallon on Friday, down from a record $6.53 last month but still 73% higher than a year ago. Russia, one of the world’s largest exporters of refined products, restricted diesel exports this year following Ukrainian attacks on its refineries—a response to Moscow’s continued strikes on Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure—while disruptions to key Middle East shipping routes have further tightened the market. U.S. refineries have boosted their diesel exports, but they are running near capacity and are unable to make up for more of the global shortfall. Meanwhile, record freight rates, longer voyages and rising geopolitical risks are driving up the cost of moving crude and refined products between regions, leaving Europe particularly vulnerable as it heads into winter with low petroleum-product and natural-gas inventories. Soaring freight costs are eroding refinery profitability in Europe and Asia, despite elevated diesel crack spreads. According to the International Energy Agency, higher crude delivery weighed on margins outside North America in September, raising the risk that some refiners could cut output and further deepen the global squeeze. Additional supplies or a potential relief of sanctions on Russia might lower some cost pressures, but can’t quickly make up for lost supply to damaged refineries, depleted stocks and disrupted trade routes, according to market watchers. “Policy intervention can provide temporary relief, but there is no silver bullet for diesel,” analysts at Bank of America said. U.S. President Trump’s deal with Russia to temporarily resume diesel exports is unlikely to provide significant price relief, according to energy analysts and traders, who say the volumes involved are too small to ease the global supply squeeze. Trump said Russia had agreed to lift a self-imposed export ban and ship hundreds of thousands of tons of diesel into global markets, with the U.S. suspending sanctions on Russian energy exports for about six months to facilitate the deliveries. But the shipments amount to just over 100,000 barrels a day in October and about 125,000 barrels a day in November, compared with roughly 800,000 barrels a day that Russia exported last year. “It won’t be enough to bring down the price of diesel dramatically,” said Michelle Brouhard, head of policy and geopolitical risk at Kpler. The data provider estimates that the global diesel market faces a supply deficit of about 1 million barrels a day. Any relief from resumed exports or a potential easing of sanctions will also depend on whether Russian refineries can increase output without remaining vulnerable to Ukrainian strikes. “If Russia could export diesel, it would export diesel,” Brouhard said. “They’re having a hard time getting enough diesel just for their domestic consumption.” Other policy measures offer little more than temporary relief. Europe’s planned release of over 20 million barrels of diesel from emergency stocks through the IEA will bring additional supply to the market in the near term, helping to ease market tightness. However, it also reduces the buffer against future disruptions. In the U.S., tax cuts and regulatory relief could ease the burden on consumers, but also sustain demand and prolong tight market conditions. Restricting distillate exports could help replenish domestic inventories, though it would shift the supply squeeze to trading partners in Europe and Latin America. Inventory draws are projected to accelerate in October as seasonal demand rises and refineries undergo routine maintenance. The approaching Northern Hemisphere winter leaves the market with little margin for error: until refining output recovers, inventories rebuild and shipping risks ease, efforts to lower diesel prices are likely to face significant limits. “A warmer-than-normal winter across Northwest Europe and the U.S. Northeast would clearly provide some relief, particularly if heating demand remains contained,” BofA analysts said. “But the market has increasingly little protection if the weather turns colder.”

Whitmer Declares Energy Emergency, Eases Diesel Rules For Farmers - Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of energy emergency on Oct. 12, citing disruptions to global oil markets from the war in Iran and what she said was the nation's largest year-over-year rise in average gasoline prices in Michigan. The order allows certain farm and logging vehicles to use dyed diesel on public roads. In her emergency order, Whitmer said that Michigan's farmers and loggers are facing record-high diesel prices, slim margins, and sharp market swings, with some costs passed on to consumers. "These industries already purchase and maintain substantial supplies of dyed diesel for off-road equipment. Therefore, granting eligible highway-licensed vehicles temporary access to this fuel would provide immediate relief," she wrote. Her order suspends specific provisions of the Motor Fuel Tax Act that normally bar such use of dyed diesel. Armed conflicts have tightened crude oil supply, driving up prices for both diesel and regular gasoline. The hostilities with Iran, which began at the end of February, have slowed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the point through which about 25 percent of the seaborne oil trade used to flow, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Shortly after the conflict started in March, diesel prices saw their biggest one-week jump on record. Global diesel markets could remain tight well into next year, with resulting high prices driving inflation and hurting economic growth, as conflicts curb output from the Middle East and Russia, the agency said on Oct. 14. Combined diesel export losses from the Middle East and Russia totaled 1.3 million barrels per day in September, the agency said. The average pump price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the United States was $4.33 per gallon as of Oct. 14, according to the American Automobile Association. Diesel is much higher, at about $6.30 per gallon, reaching a record high of $6.52 at the end of last month. The emergency order ends when the governor determines the shortage no longer exists, but no later than Dec. 31. Willful interference with the order is a misdemeanor. Whitmer noted she had issued an earlier order in April that suspended Reid vapor-pressure requirements in gasoline and temporarily lowered consumer prices. She wrote that the federal government created the problem and can fix it.

Port of Astoria signs 25-year, $1.8M loan for oil spill cleanup - On Tuesday, Oct. 6, Port of Astoria commissioners passed a motion to sign a 25-year, $1.8 million loan with Business Oregon to pay for the cleanup costs incurred after an oil spill at the port. The spill leaked over 11 tons of waste and 3,249 gallons of oily water into the slipway between Piers 2 and 3, according to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Starting on May 29, an underwater fuel line, about 12 inches in diameter and 50 feet in length, began leaking oil into the slipway between Piers 2 and 3. Soon, the port received a report from Da Yang, a seafood processor on Pier 2, that they had seen a “small amount” of oil near the pier, according to the port executive director, Will Isom. The report was investigated by port staff and quickly a response was organized, led by GrayMar Environmental Services. The spill had gotten larger and by June 1, members of the Coast Guard and Oregon DEQ were on the scene, finishing up the cleanup efforts. ’ The cleanup effort involved the deployment of over 3,000 feet of “absorbent and containment boom,” a floating barrier designed to corral oil spills. It also required a team of divers to go to the bottom of the slip to cut the remains of the broken pipe away and cap the ends of the line. Isom later said the cleanup was successful with no environmental remediation required by Oregon’s DEQ. The total cost of the cleanup came to about $2.1 million. Port Finance Director Melanie Howard said that insurance paid out $250,000, leaving them with a balance of $1.8 million with GrayMar. “The money would funnel directly to GrayMar,” said Howard. She said the commission’s approval was the final step in initiating the loan and beginning to pay off what was due for the clean up efforts. “The work was done, it was done well,” said commissioner Dirk Rohne. “The port has an obligation to pay the people.” The loan helps spread out the loss over several years, instead of creating a single massive financial impact. Rohne said the next step is to try to find government funding in the form of grants to hopefully recoup the costs.

Starting Here, Starting Now – ONEOK’s Denver Expansion Opens Door to Further Growth to the West | RBN Energy --ONEOK’s recently completed expansion of its Greater Denver refined products pipeline does more than just add 35 Mb/d of capacity to ship jet fuel to Denver International Airport. The midstream giant has larger ambitions for the 230-mile line that originates in Scott City, KS, as it also links Denver to Midcontinent and Gulf Coast supplies and could eventually carry up to 200 Mb/d of refined products. The project sits at the intersection of two increasingly important trends: Large, growing airports are becoming important anchors for new fuel infrastructure, while pipeline developers are looking for ways to push more barrels west into growing (and potentially tighter) markets in the Rockies and beyond. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at how ONEOK’s Denver project fits into both trends.First, some background: In July 2024, ONEOK announced its $480 million Denver Expansion project (green-striped line in Figure 1 below). The project extended the company's existing El Dorado-Denver Pipeline, part of its Midcontinent-to-Denver refined products system, from Scott City, KS, to Denver. It used 10- and 16-inch pipeline segments and added pump stations. Randy Lentz, ONEOK’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, said in the company’s Q2 2026 earnings call that it adds capacity in “one of the fastest-growing markets in our footprint and provides a new direct jet fuel connection to Denver International Airport.” The pipeline, which was completed in August and is fully contracted under long-term agreements, is designed with future growth opportunities in mind and can transport a variety of refined products — including jet fuel, gasoline, diesel and renewable fuels — to the Denver airport, which has an existing connection to ONEOK’s nearby Aurora fuel terminal. With the completion of the Denver Expansion project, ONEOK has strengthened a critical fuel corridor and expanded capacity to meet the Denver region's growing energy needs, the company said.ONEOK's Denver project also fits a broader trend in refined products infrastructure: growing airports are becoming important demand anchors for pipeline projects. Large airports offer concentrated, relatively steady jet fuel demand, which has risen with passenger traffic and flight activity. Denver International Airport is a good example. It handled a record 82.4 million passengers in 2025, about 19% more than in 2019, though traffic was essentially flat compared with 2024. It served 4.8 million international passengers and offers 236 nonstop destinations. By land area, it's North America's largest airport and the second-largest in the world. The airport is planning for 100 million passengers a year and says it could eventually top 120 million. Fuel trends point the same way. Denver International Airport’s FY2024 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report shows aviation fuel tax revenue of $33.4 million in 2024. Revenue dipped from 2023 as jet fuel prices fell, but the airport says gallons sold kept rising; it doesn't give the volumes. Looking ahead, RMI, a Colorado-based research non-profit, projects total fuel demand at DEN — the airport code for the Denver airport — of about 604 million gallons (MMgal/yr) by 2030, or roughly 39 Mb/d. RMI says the airport accounts for 54% of the Rocky Mountain region’s jet fuel demand. In January, DEN Fuel Co., the airlines' fuel consortium at the airport, cut the ribbon on two new 120-Mbbl jet fuel tanks, adding to the six 65-Mbbl tanks in the airport's original fuel farm. The new pipeline also diversifies Denver's fuel supply. Suncor's roughly 100-Mb/d Commerce City, CO, refinery provides about one-third of the airport’s jet fuel, leaving the airport vulnerable if the refinery is down for maintenance or has an outage. In May, a third-party power outage forced an unplanned shutdown at the refinery, the second electrical-related shutdown in a month. The airport reported no fuel-supply disruptions.Denver isn’t alone. Other major airports have added jet fuel storage or are anchoring new pipeline projects to support reliable supply. Flint Hills Resources is building the BATX Pipeline, a 20-mile, 10-inch line from Bastrop, TX, to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. It's about half built and should be running in 2027. It's expected to move more than 600,000 gallons of jet fuel a day (about 14 Mb/d). The airport currently needs about 700,000 gallons of jet fuel (about 17 Mb/d), nearly all of it delivered by truck.The airport connection is only half the story. The Denver Expansion project also fits into a broader reshuffling of U.S. refined product flows, with growing volumes moving west from the large refining centers in the Midcontinent (PADD 2) and Gulf Coast (PADD 3) into the Rockies (PADD 4) and, ultimately, the West Coast (PADD 5). The Denver line gives ONEOK an expandable route into that changing market, and the company sees the 35-Mb/d startup as just the beginning. Sheridan Swords, ONEOK Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, said in the company’s Q2 2026 earnings call that the new 16-inch line has “upwards of possibly 200 Mb/d of capacity” and is currently running 35 Mb/d today. “We’ve seen for a period of time that PADD 4 could need more volume going forward, and that could be supplied by this pipeline,” he said. That matters as California loses refining capacity (see It’s Time to Go) and other projects look to push Rockies barrels farther west (more on these below; also see One Thing Leads to Another). Swords pointed to “some talk of some projects getting into Salt Lake City,” and said ONEOK expects to play a part because it can get capacity there “the cheapest and the quickest, as we have set that pipeline up for expansions going forward.” If Rockies supply starts flowing west, ONEOK’s line is positioned to bring more Midcontinent barrels into the region to backfill. Swords said bringing the pipeline online was “very critical to us to … be able to supply that growing demand in PADD 4.” There are several projects moving refined products west, but each one is a different way of solving the same emerging imbalance. Together, they form a proposed set of east-to-west refined products corridors (see Figure 2 below) that would link Midcontinent and Gulf Coast refining capacity with demand centers in the Rockies and Southwest.

• Sun Belt Connector. ONEOK announced an open season for the project in September 2025. It’s a proposed 440-mile, 24-inch greenfield pipeline (orange-dashed line in Figure 2 above) from El Paso, TX, to Phoenix, AZ. It would tie into ONEOK's extensive pipeline network serving refineries in Texas and Oklahoma. Initial capacity would be 200 Mb/d, with startup targeted for 2029, but the project still needs more shipper support.
• Western Gateway. Phillips 66 and Kinder Morgan proposed Western Gateway in October 2025. It reached a final investment decision (FID) on August 11, with HF Sinclair joining as a 15% partner. The $5 billion, 1,300-mile system is designed to move 230 Mb/d of refined products from St. Louis and Gulf Coast origins to Phoenix and on into California, with access to Las Vegas through Kinder Morgan's CALNEV line. Its centerpiece is about 900 miles of new 20- and 24-inch pipe (yellow-dashed line) from Borger, TX, to Phoenix. The rest of the system uses existing infrastructure, including Kinder Morgan's SFPP East Line from El Paso to Phoenix and Tucson, and a reversed SFPP West Line that would move product from Phoenix into California. Startup is targeted for 2029.
• HF Sinclair. In October 2025, HF Sinclair said it was studying a multi-phase expansion of its refined products network across PADD 4 and into PADD 5. Phase 1 would expand the Pioneer Pipeline (green-dashed line) from the company's Sinclair, WY, refinery to Salt Lake City and debottleneck the UNEV Pipeline (purple line) from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas. Together, those steps would add about 35 Mb/d of Rockies supply into Nevada. The company now targets a 2029 startup and still expects to reach FID on Phase 1 by the end of 2026. Later phases could reverse and expand the Medicine Bow Pipeline (blue line) to run from Denver to Sinclair, further expand Pioneer and UNEV, and add a new lateral from Salt Lake City to Reno. A full buildout could deliver up to 150 Mb/d.

The Denver Expansion project does two jobs at once. It gives Denver International Airport a direct jet-fuel connection and an additional supply route. Over the longer term, it gives ONEOK an expandable path into PADD 4, where prices have been climbing relative to PADD 2. With the 35 Mb/d of capacity expandable to as much as 200 Mb/d, ONEOK has room to backfill more barrels from the Front Range/Denver market as Western markets tighten. That makes the project both a fix for today's airport supply and a foothold for the westward shift that's reshaping refined products flows.

How Will I Know – Will a Newly Sanctioned Pipeline Give the Bakken a Big Surplus of Gas Takeaway? | RBN Energy -The developer of a planned natural gas pipeline across North Dakota has reached a final investment decision (FID) after securing long-term, demand-side commitments for almost all its 1.4 Bcf/d of capacity. The question is, with crude oil-focused drilling activity in the Bakken flat despite elevated WTI prices, will WBI Energy’s roughly $3 billion Bakken East Pipeline leave the play with way too much gas takeaway space? In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss the pipeline project, the financial support the state of North Dakota is providing, and the conflicting forecasts for crude oil and associated gas production in the Bakken. Over the past 15 years we’ve written frequently about the ongoing need to build more midstream infrastructure to serve Bakken production. Crude oil gathering systems and takeaway pipelines. Crude-by-rail terminals. Gas gathering systems and gas processing plants. And, most recently, natural gas and NGL pipelines. Why? Because while Bakken oil production has been holding steady at about 1.2 MMb/d — well below the play’s 1.5-MMb/d peak in 2019 — a fast-rising gas-to-oil ratio (GOR) has increased the volumes of NGLs-rich associated gas being produced. (More on Bakken GORs and the play’s gas production outlook in a moment.) We covered the NGL-pipeline angle in July 2025’s Two Gunslingers. That same month we told the gas-pipeline story in Torn Between Two (Pipelines), which focused on competing proposals by WBI Energy (the Bakken East Pipeline) and a combo of Intensity Infrastructure Partners and Rainbow Energy Center (the Intensity Pipeline) to develop new gas takeaway capacity from the Bakken production region in western North Dakota to the Fargo area at the eastern edge of the state. In a twist we discussed in that blog, the North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC) — eager to encourage more in-state use of the Bakken’s gas bounty — undertook a competitive evaluation process to determine which pipeline proposal would receive up to $500 million in state support via a 10-year, $50 million/year commitment for about 150 MMcf/d of capacity on the new pipe.The three-member NDIC, comprised of the state’s governor, attorney general and agriculture commissioner, in August 2025 unanimously picked WBI Energy’s two-phase, 343-mile Bakken East proposal (dashed pink and red lines in Figure 1 below), citing the company’s experience in developing and operating gas pipelines and the financial strength of WBI’s corporate parent, Bismarck, ND-based MDU Resources, which also owns four electric and/or gas utilities from Minnesota to Washington state. In addition, the commission determined that WBI was more likely to secure the commercial commitments needed to make the project a “go.”WBI Energy held a binding open season for Bakken East in February and March; the response was strong, especially from power generators and industrial customers. The company also initiated the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) process — the pipeline needs FERC approval because it interconnects with the existing WBI Pipeline System (blue lines), which moves Bakken gas across state lines. [WBI is preparing its formal Section 7(c) application and expects the commission’s thumbs-up in 2028.]Finally, on September 30, MDU Resources’ board of directors announced that it had reached FID on WBI Energy’s Bakken East Pipeline, noting that while the facility would have an initial capacity of 1.4 Bcf/d, the project “is being designed with the flexibility to accommodate anticipated future growth.” MDU President and CEO Nicole Kivisto said the new pipeline “will serve the growing demand for natural gas transportation, enable production from the Bakken region to serve customers in central and eastern North Dakota, and further enhance the security and reliability of our existing pipeline system.”The 135-mile first phase of Bakken East will start in McKenzie County, the heart of the Bakken production area, and run to the Mercer County/Oliver County line near the center of North Dakota. That section’s pipe will have a diameter of 42 inches; 12 to 14 miles of laterals off the mainline will be 24 to 30 inches in diameter. WBI Energy expects to complete Phase 1 in late 2029. The pipe on the 208-mile second phase of the project, which will run from the Oliver County line to the Fargo area, will telescope down to 36 inches and then 30 inches; 7 to 9 miles of laterals off the Phase 2 mainline will be either 20- or 24-inch pipe. WBI expects to finish the second phase in late 2030.One more thing to note about Bakken East: Unlike the “supply-push” gas pipeline projects that dominated in the Bakken in the early years of the Shale Era, WBI Energy’s new pipeline is decidedly a “demand-pull” project — that is, the vast majority of the entities committing to take capacity on Bakken East are North Dakota gas customers/users and not Bakken gas producers. For example, a few days after WBI took FID on the new pipeline, Minnkota Power Cooperative, a generation and transmission co-op that provides power to 11 distribution co-ops in North Dakota and Minnesota, confirmed to a local newspaper that it plans to construct a $1 billion, 400-megawatt (MW) power plant in Cass County, ND — home to Fargo itself — and added that the project would not have been possible without Bakken East. Several local gas distribution utilities have also signed up for space on the new pipeline. But “how will I know” whether Bakken East will provide more incremental takeaway capacity than the Bakken will need? Forecasts of Bakken crude oil and gas production vary widely, with the North Dakota Pipeline Authority (NDPA) taking a more optimistic view and Novi Labs — an AI-driven analytics firm (and RBN’s corporate parent) — anticipating a likely decline in Bakken crude output and flat-at-best gas production in the play going forward. As shown in the upper graph in Figure 2 above, the NDPA sees the Bakken’s GOR (gray line) rising from the current 3.1 — that is, 3.1 Mcf of gas for every barrel of crude oil — to more than 4 by 2030 and 4.5 in the late 2030s. The agency’s “Base” case shows crude oil production staying close to flat through the mid-2030s and natural gas production (gray line to the right of dotted vertical line in lower graph) increasing to more than 4 Bcf/d in the early 2030s and approaching 5 Bcf/d in the late 2030s. Even NDPA’s “Low” case for gas production (red line in lower graph), based on a forecast of lower WTI prices and gradually declining oil output, has gas topping 4 Bcf/d in the early 2030s.In sharp contrast, Novi Labs sees Bakken crude oil production declining by 38% to 49% by 2035 if WTI prices stay rangebound between $50 and $90/bbl. Under that price-range scenario, Bakken gas production falls by 10% to 25% over the next nine years (purple, dark-blue, and gold lines in Figure 3 below). In Novi Labs’ view, Bakken gas production will rise only if WTI prices stay reliably in triple-digit territory — the green line shows gas output increasing to 4 Bcf/d in 2030 if WTI settles at $120/bbl. (Note: Novi Labs’ Bakken inventory models the Middle Bakken and Three Forks formations, where it sees most operators targeting their future development.)From Novi Labs’ perspective, the problem is that — based on its machine learning-based analysis of the Bakken’s underlying rock — many of the play’s best locations have already been drilled, and that producers could not economically justify developing most of the remaining locations unless WTI stays north of $90, $100 or even $110/bbl.If the NDPA’s forecast is closer to the mark, it seems likely that most of the gas takeaway pipelines out of the Bakken would stay full (or close to it) over the next few years, and that no additional gas pipelines beyond Bakken East would be needed unless WTI prices really took off. However, if Novi Labs has a better handle on what’s ahead, at least a few Bakken takeaway pipelines may experience declining volumes over time as Bakken East — newly committed to by power-generation and other downstream customers — remains closer to full.

U.S. methane emissions flatline, despite increases in oil and gas production - Methane emissions from the oil and gas sector held steady in the United States even as oil and gas production increased during a recent period of heightened regulations, according to new research from Johns Hopkins University. One reason: companies have built more infrastructure needed to better capture methane—a vital component of natural gas—and transport it for sale as fuel, providing a financial incentive to limit the amount escaping into the atmosphere. The study, published in Communications Earth & Environment, is part of an effort to determine whether federal greenhouse gas legislation and mandates have meaningfully decreased methane emissions. "This is a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that emissions have not markedly increased, as many scientists feared would happen after an enormous increase in natural gas production in the decades following the hydraulic fracturing boom," said senior researcher Scot Miller, an associate professor of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins University who studies greenhouse gases. "The bad news is that oil and gas production is still a large percentage of U.S. methane emissions, and we do not find any evidence that a flurry of federal legislation had an impact on emissions." Nearly 30 times more potent and with a shorter lifespan than carbon dioxide, methane is widely regarded as the second most important greenhouse gas to target for emissions monitoring and reduction, Miller said. In 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency restarted the process of developing rules to address methane emissions under the Clean Air Act. Congress later enacted the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which established fees for methane emissions from oil and gas facilities and allocated more than $1 billion in technical support to the oil and gas sector. While short-lived, the regulations were an unprecedented push toward reducing one of the major contributors to climate change, the researchers said. To assess the efficacy of the policies, the researchers combined satellite data with atmospheric modeling to estimate where emissions from the oil and gas sector occurred in the U.S. and how large they were for the years bookending the legislative activity: 2019–2024. The researchers used data from Europe's space-based TROPOMI instrument and GOSAT satellite, which observe the amount of methane in the air at many locations across the globe. Then, because methane can be blown around by wind and other elements, the researchers developed an algorithm that traced the gas in the atmosphere back to its sources on the ground. Total methane emissions from oil and gas activities for the contiguous U.S. remained between 9.3 teragrams and 10.4 Tg each year. Emissions decreased by 0.58 Tg from 2019–2023, but rose slightly from 2023–2024. However, the intensity of emissions—the amount of methane emissions relative to oil and gas production—decreased by about 11%, representing the continuation of a decades-long trend rather than a significant drop in emissions, the researchers said. "We don't see a detectable decrease in emissions after the Inflation Reduction Act," said Ao Chen, a Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins and first author of the paper. "Of course, there's no way to test the counterfactual. It's possible that without the Inflation Reduction Act, methane emissions would be much higher." The gradual decrease in emissions intensity may reflect better industry practices as methane transitioned from a side product of oil extraction to a valuable consumer product, the researchers said. When there is no pipeline to bring natural gas from the well to market, drilling companies have less incentive to prevent leaks and instead flare the gas to get rid of it. When pipeline infrastructure became available in regions like West Texas, that gas moved to market, and consumers began using it for heating, cooking, powering certain appliances and generating electricity. Evidence from other studies suggests that leaks decline when gas becomes a valuable commodity. Additionally, oil and gas companies have been updating and improving their infrastructure. "Better industry protocols and less flaring have likely helped gradually curb emissions intensity even as gas and oil production have increased," Miller said.

US Crude Oil Inventories See Massive Drop Off --   The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by a massive 11.12 million barrels in the week ending October 9. In the week prior, US crude oil inventories fell by 2.09 million barrels. Commercial crude oil inventories excluding the SPR have lost more than 51 million barrels over the last 26 weeks, but US crude inventories are at roughly the same level as they were at the beginning of the year, according to API data, kept in check in part thanks to draws from the SPR. For the week ending October 9, no barrels left the SPR to aid commercial inventories, keeping the total inventory held in the SPR at 283 million barrels—a level that is still 431 million barrels shy of maximum capacity. The generally accepted operational minimum for oil in the SPR is between 250-300 million barrels, below which the reserve may find it difficult to pump and process oil efficiently. US production for the week ending Oct 2 rose to 13.979 million bpd, up from 13.955 in the week prior, and up 350,000 bpd from a year earlier. At 4:39 pm ET on Wednesday, Brent crude was trading up on the day at $106.02 (-0.12%). Brent is trading up $5 per barrel from this time last week. WTI was trading up on the day by $0.93 per barrel (+0.98%) at $95.75, which is up nearly $6 per barrel since this time last week. Gasoline inventories rose by 1.1 million during the week ending October 7. In the week prior, gasoline inventories fell 1.37 million barrels. In the week prior, gasoline inventories were 6% below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data. Distillate inventories fell 1.5 million barrels after rising 461,000 barrels in the week prior. Distillate inventories were 12% below the five-year average heading into this reporting period, the latest EIA data shows. Cushing inventory—the inventory kept at the delivery hub for the WTI Crude futures contract—gained 1.823 million after gaining 866,000 barrels in the previous week.

The IEA wants to empty its oil reserves faster. A federal watchdog says the US isn’t ready for what comes next - Governments are tapping their emergency oil faster than ever, and the room to keep doing so is shrinking. On Oct. 7, member governments of the International Energy Agency backed speeding up the oil stock releases they pledged under the agency’s March 2026 Collective Action, aiming to finish them as soon as possible. They also agreed to prioritize diesel, given how tight that market has become. According to Reuters, JPMorgan analysts read the move as an acceleration of barrels already promised, not a fresh intervention.The March action was historic on its own. In response to the Iran war and the disruption of tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, IEA members agreed to make 400 million barrels of oil available to the market. It was only the sixth collective action since the agency’s founding in 1974, and by far the largest.Seven months later, the buffer is visibly thinner. IEA governments still hold roughly 1.1 billion barrels of publicly held emergency stocks, including more than 200 million barrels of diesel, the agency says. In March, that figure was more than 1.2 billion barrels. Including company inventories, Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser estimated this week that more than 1 billion barrels have been pulled from stockpiles worldwide.The IEA’s move followed an Oct. 2 videoconference of G7 leaders convened by French President Emmanuel Macron. In a joint statement, leaders said they had agreed on coordinated measures to “stabilize immediate energy supplies, shield households and businesses from price shocks.”The core of the plan is a coordinated release of 100 million barrels through the IEA over four months, with a large share of diesel front-loaded into the first 20 days. The G7 also pledged to stagger refinery maintenance so plants don’t go offline at the same time. Members said they would push refiners to run harder where feasible and encourage countries with significant refining capacity to boost diesel output. They also reaffirmed that they would not restrict energy exports among themselves.Diesel is the pressure point. Damage to refineries and disrupted shipping from the wars in Iran and Ukraine have pushed diesel to record highs in many markets, feeding directly into trucking, farming, and freight costs. On Sunday, IEA executive director Fatih Birol wrote to member governments ahead of the agency’s Oct. 15 governing board meeting. He urged all of them, including those that have already completed their pledged releases, to consider whether more diesel needs to come out of storage.In the U.S., the strain is showing in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Trump administration began a 172-million-barrel emergency release in March as its share of the IEA effort. The SPR has since fallen to about 284 million barrels, its lowest level since 1982, and is on track to drop to roughly 243 million once the final barrels are delivered. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has warned that drawing the reserve down too far could damage the salt caverns where the oil is stored. That is a sharp reversal from the administration’s earlier pledge to refill the SPR “right to the top.” - A report from the Government Accountability Office, published in May and released publicly in June, suggests the problems run deeper than inventory levels. GAO found that DOE has released more than 500 million barrels of crude from the SPR since 1985, more than half for emergencies such as wars. Nearly 70% of all releases occurred between 2014 and 2025. Before this year, the largest drawdown on record was the 180-million-barrel emergency sale in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine. That pace has collided with aging infrastructure. GAO found that investment in the reserve isn’t keeping up with its needs, leaving a growing maintenance backlog. DOE itself has warned that aging equipment will increasingly limit the SPR’s ability to carry out fill or drawdown orders.The bigger gap, GAO argues, is strategic. DOE hasn’t completed a long-term review of the SPR since 2016, and Congress has never set a target size.“Without an updated long-term plan or target size for the SPR, DOE and Congress are making operational and investment decisions amidst uncertainty about what the SPR is capable of at present, what it should be capable of in the future to meet changing U.S. needs and obligations, and what investments and other actions may be required to bridge any gaps,” the report states.GAO urged Congress to require DOE to complete long-term SPR plans on a set timeline. It also recommended that DOE reassess the technical criteria governing how fast the reserve can be drawn down and refilled. DOE concurred with the recommendations.Under IEA rules, member countries must hold oil stocks equivalent to at least 90 days of net imports. Net exporters are exempt. Governments have wide latitude in how they meet that obligation, using some mix of government-held reserves, dedicated stockholding agencies, and stocks that industry is required to keep.The harder question is how and when those stocks get rebuilt. The G7 asked the IEA to deliver a follow-up report within 20 days with recommendations to improve future responses, including how to replenish stocks. IEA governments will review the situation again at the Oct. 15 governing board meeting.Refilling won’t be cheap or quick. Analysts have noted that governments rebuilding their reserves after the war, possibly to levels above where they stood before it, would create a new layer of oil demand on top of normal consumption. That could keep prices elevated long after the shooting stops.For now, governments are leaning on a cushion they’ve already worn thin. As the IEA put it, it stands ready to release more “if and when required.” The question is how much is left to give.

Castles Made of (Oil) Sand – Cenovus/Athabasca Deal Extends Trend in Canada’s Booming Oil Sands | RBN Energy -Over the past 10-plus years, there’s been an extraordinary consolidation among producers in Alberta’s booming oil sands region, most of it tied to building inventory, increasing efficiency and maximizing free cash flow. Now, with Cenovus Energy’s planned multibillion-dollar acquisition of Athabasca Oil Corp., more than 90% of oil sands production — 93% to be exact — will be owned by only five companies: Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL), Suncor Energy, Cenovus, Imperial Oil, and ConocoPhillips. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss the recently announced deal and ask whether the golden era of M&A up north is finally petering out.Over the past few years, we’ve blogged frequently about the Pac Man-like phenomenon of extra-large North American oil and gas producers gobbling up large competitors and becoming ever-bigger in the process. This has been especially true in the Permian Basin, the U.S.’s premier hydrocarbon play — a classic example being Pioneer Natural Resources’ $7.6 billion acquisition of Parsley Energy and $6.4 billion purchase of DoublePoint Energy (both in 2021), which were followed by ExxonMobil’s record-breaking $64.5 billion acquisition of Pioneer itself three years later. Other Permian producers have opted for a “ground game” — that is, foregoing splashy, big-dollar deals in favor of dozens, or even hundreds, of smaller transactions to gain heft nibble by nibble instead of gulp by gulp. (Permian Resources is a case in point; it reportedly added 30,000 net acres last year through about 700 transactions!) Up in the Alberta oil sands, the consolidation among E&Ps we’ve all witnessed since the mid-2010s results from a combination of small, medium and large transactions — the last of these exemplified by Cenovus Energy’s October 5 announcement that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Athabasca Oil via a cash-and-stock deal valued at CAD$5.7 billion, or USD$4 billion.Before we get to the details of that transaction, though, let’s take a big-picture look at Alberta oil sands consolidation since 2015. Back then, when oil sands bitumen production from mining and thermal projects averaged less than 2.3 MMb/d, 30 producers held a working interest in one or more oil sands production areas, and the Top 5 — at that time (in order), Suncor, CNRL, Imperial Oil, ConocoPhillips and Shell — accounted for only 68% of production. Since then, through scores of transactions, more than 20 companies have exited the oil sands (see Figure 1 below) and five new players have joined the fray.Many that are left are minor players whose names most wouldn’t recognize, but several others are very well known, including:

• Shell, which owned 147 Mb/d of production in the oil sands in 2015, but sold the vast majority of its holdings there to CNRL in 2017 and turned over the rest to the same E&P in 2025. (Shell still holds 20% stakes in the Scotford Upgrader, which processes raw bitumen into synthetic crude oil, and in the Quest Carbon Capture & Storage Facility, as well as 100% of its adjacent Scotford refinery and associated petrochemical assets.)
• Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. (COS), with 111 Mb/d of 2015 production, was acquired by Suncor in 2016.
• Devon Energy, with 87 Mb/d of oil sands output 11 years ago, sold its assets there to CNRL in 2019.
• MEG Energy, with 80 Mb/d of oil sands production in 2015, was acquired by Cenovus in 2025. (More on that in a moment.)
• Chevron and Marathon Oil, each producing 48 Mb/d in the oil sands back in the day (from their 20% interests in the Athabasca Oil Sands Project, or AOSP), each sold their assets there — Marathon in 2017 and Chevron in 2024. (CNRL now owns 100% of AOSP’s bitumen production.)

Other well-known producers leaving the oil sands over the past 11 years include Equinor (assets sold to Athabasca Oil in 2016); Murphy Oil (sold its 5% Syncrude stake to Suncor in 2017); Husky Energy (acquired by Cenovus in 2021); BP — a minor non-operated player in the oil sands that got out in 2022 by turning over its assets to Cenovus and CNRL; and TotalEnergies, which exited in 2023 when it sold its half of Surmont to ConocoPhillips and its 31% stake in Fort Hills to Suncor. Figure 2 below shows the net result of all that change — that is, the 12 current/pro forma bitumen producers in the Alberta oil sands, with Cenovus’s and Athabasca Oil’s 2025 working interest bitumen production (596 Mb/d and 36 Mb/d, respectively) combined to reflect their planned combination. As you can see, Suncor leads the pack, with 948 Mb/d of bitumen production last year, followed by CNRL (911 Mb/d), Cenovus/Athabasca Oil (632 Mb/d), Imperial Oil/Exxon Mobil (550 Mb/d), and ConocoPhillips (146 Mb/d). Other significant players include China’s CNOOC (104 Mb/d) and Strathcona Resources (61 Mb/d), which began acquiring oil sands assets in 2019. [Strathcona also has significant steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) bitumen production in Saskatchewan.]  As you can see, all of the current Top 5 except ConocoPhillips have shown major gains in production since 2015, mostly via acquisitions but also through organic growth. Despite its total bitumen production not having changed much, ConocoPhillips has undertaken a drastic change in its oil sands portfolio, having sold 50% of Foster Creek and Christina Lake to Cenovus in 2017 and then in 2023 buying the other 50% of its Surmont project from TotalEnergies. Together, the five E&Ps accounted for 93% of 2025 Alberta oil sands bitumen production from mining and thermal projects, which exceeded 3.4 MMb/d; the same five accounted for only 68% of output 11 years ago. While the number of oil sands production owners dropped from 30 in 2015 to 12 following the Cenovus/Athabasca Oil deal, the number of operators will have more than halved, from 23 in 2015 to 11 following the deal.

USGS Finds 9 Tcf in Quebec Utica; New PQ Govt Will Keep It Buried -  The U.S. Geological Survey has put a number on the shale gas sitting under Quebec's St. Lawrence Lowlands: 9 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), technically recoverable, in the Canadian portion of the Utica Shale. That's real gas, in a province that imports every molecule it burns. Unfortunately, the USGS estimate landed just days before Quebec voters elected a new government that has no intention of letting anyone touch it. On Monday (Oct. 5), the Parti Québécois (PQ) won a minority government, the drilling-curious Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) was wiped out entirely, and the only party campaigning openly for Utica development, the Quebec Conservatives, finished third.

Record Tanker Rates Leave Heavy Crude Stranded in the Americas - The Middle East crisis has driven tanker rates to all-time highs and created a shortage of vessels. This oil logistics problem is now causing a ripple effect, tipping the heavy crude market in North and South America into oversupply—while Asia and Europe grapple with a shortage of heavy grades.Canada is producing over 5 million barrels of crude daily, most of it heavy crude. Some 4 million barrels daily of that goes south to U.S. refineries. Venezuelan production has also moved higher after the U.S. disposed of the country’s government and took control of the oil industry. According to Reuters, a lot of this heavy crude is stuck at home because of the record freight costs that have dampened appetite, pressuring prices in Canada, Colombia, and Ecuador. Venezuelan crude goes mostly to the U.S. Gulf Coast, so it is not as vulnerable to freight rate developments.Prices for Canadian, Colombia, and Ecuadorian heavy crude have all shed some $10 per barrel in recent weeks, the report said, citing Argus data. All the flagship grades are now trading at the lowest in six weeks, with Western Canadian Select reaching $74 per barrel last week, before rebounding to $79.50 at the time of writing.Ecuador’s flagship heavy crude grade, Oriente, has also recovered, after dropping to $76 per barrel last week, now trading at over 84 per barrel. Colombia’s Vasconia was the most expensive of the three last week, trading at $84 per barrel, and it has also probably gone up this week, as all oil gains on the flurry of tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz.These prices cited above seem quite enticing on a market where Russian Urals fetches close to $120 per barrel, and Iran Light sells for $104 per barrel, despite the U.S. Navy blockade. However, these prices exclude freight costs and insurance, and these have reached up to $40 per barrel of crude, at a time when heavy crude is in especially strong demand because of the global diesel crunch. Heavy crude yields more diesel than lighter grades, which is quite a hot topic right now.“You need a ship and the price of ships are going up, and the availability ships are going down,” TP ICAP analyst Scott Shelton told Reuters. Global tanker rates have soared this year due to Middle Eastern producers taking to ship-to-ship transfers outside the Strait of Hormuz. For this, they use shuttle tankers, including smaller carriers, to sneak the oil through Hormuz and then load it on supertankers in the Gulf of Oman. As a result, supertanker rates from the Gulf to Asia hit $1.4 million daily earlier this month.Shipping costs on the route from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Europe, meanwhile, have surged to $46 million in total, equal to $24.50 per barrel of crude. That compares to $6.5 million, or some $4 per barrel, before the war. The price is even higher on the route from the Americas to Asia, at over $80 million or $40 per barrel. It is little wonder why refiners in Europe and Asia are balking at the price and staying away from purchases. This combination of factors suggests that the diesel crunch is not about to go away anytime soon. With heavy crude barrels stuck in the Americas because of freight costs, and few alternative suppliers of the same scale as Canada, for example, the market imbalance appears set to stay for a while. As long as there are so many vessels tied up in ship-to-ship transfers, freight costs are unlikely to move down meaningfully enough to stimulate cross-Atlantic demand for more heavy crude.

Norway Expands European Natural Gas Supply as LNG Prices Jump Ahead of Winter - Norwegian natural gas exports to Europe are running ahead of last year’s pace heading into winter with the Nordic country’s largest oil and gas producer expanding its supply commitments with another five-year agreement covering nearly 1 Bcm annually. At a Glance:

• Norwegian pipeline exports exceed 2025 levels
• Equinor boosts Dutch natural gas commitments
• Offshore maintenance completed ahead of winter

Japan sending expert team to aid in Oriental Mindoro oil spill cleanup – The Japanese government is sending oil control experts from its coast guard to aid in Philippine efforts to respond to the oil spill in Oriental Mindoro. Japanese Ambassador Kazuhiko Koshikawa made the announcement on Wednesday, March 8, saying that experts arriving include those who specialize in oil removal and control.“We are one with you in these trying times,” Koshikawa said. Coastal communities are among those hardest hit by a February 28 oil spill, where a tanker carrying 800,000 liters of industrial oil capsized off the coast of Naujan.  Philippine authorities have since been racing to contain the damage that has so far affected 76 barangays in nine towns.The oil spill has put at risk more than 30 of Oriental Mindoro’s marine-protected areas, and also threatens other provinces, such as Antique in Western Visayas.The Department of Environment and Natural Resources raised concerns over the potential effects on protected areas, including the Verde Island Passage, a center of marine biodiversity.Residents also face health risks from exposure to the oil spill.On Wednesday, Koshikawa said members of Japan’s disaster relief expert team were already en route to the Philippines.The oil spill in Oriental Mindoro is the seventh in the Philippines since 1999.

Indonesia completes oil spill response Marpolex 2026 in N. Sulawesi - The Jakarta Post -Indonesia has completed on Monday a five-day joint oil spill response drill in North Sulawesi involving Japan and the Philippines, dubbed the Marine Pollution Exercise (Marpolex) 2026. “Marine pollution handling exercise Marpolex 206 was successfully carried out on Lembeh Strait in Bitung, North Sumatra,” Sea and Shipping Guard Unit (KPLP) acting director Triono said in Jakarta on Sunday, as quoted by antaranews.com. “The exercise covered three scenarios of oil spill response operation, fire fighting and search and rescue.” Triono said that a total of 21 ships from various agencies in Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan participated in the exercise to test their operational readiness, cooperation and joint response in facing marine pollution incident. The Philippine Coast Guard deployed two patrol vessels, the 86.3-meter BRP Gabriela Silang OPV-8301 and the 44.5-m BRP Tubbataha and the Japan Coast Guard deployed the 150-m PLH Shikishima. Meanwhile, Indonesia was represented KPLP, a unit of the Transportation Ministry’s Sea Transportation Directorate General. KPLP deployed the 61.8-m KN Sarotama P-112 patrol vessel as the command vessel. The exercise also involved other Indonesian related agencies and companies. General manager of state-owned port operator PT Pelindo regional 4 Bitung, Capt. James David Hukom, said the host Pelindo Belitung provided various equipment, such as 400 m of oil boom, oil suction skimmer, supporting ships and crew. “We want the world to see that a port in Eastern Indonesia has the capabilities to face emergency, fire, marine accident and oil spill,” he said on Sunday, as quoted by tribunnews.com. He added the capabilities were supported by Pelindo Emergency and Oil Spill Combat Team.

Damaged petroleum pipeline causes oil spill in central Syria | The Peninsula Qatar --Damascus: A petroleum products pipeline extending from Baniyas to Homs leaked on Thursday in Hadida area of Homs countryside, central Syria, causing a major gasoline spill and leading to the closure of Homs-Tartus road. A source at the Syrian Petroleum Company said technical teams isolated and secured the site by shutting the main valves upstream and downstream from the leak to contain the spill, adding that maintenance personnel, firefighting units, and excavation crews were immediately deployed. The source noted that technical operations to repair the damaged pipeline are underway, with response teams remaining on-site to monitor the situation and enforce safety and security protocols.

Oil prices today: Brent at $104.50 — Can Trump's 2.25 million barrel diesel deal offset Iran war risks? | Hindustan Times -- Oil prices slipped on Monday as markets weighed the possibility of more Russian diesel supplies. US President Donald Trump said Russia would supply additional diesel to the US and global markets. He also announced that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to stop attacks on each other's energy facilities. These developments raised hopes that fuel supplies could improve and ease some pressure on prices. Brent crude prices stood at $104.50 per barrel on Monday. Brent crude futures fell 22 cents, or 0.2%, to $104.50 per barrel by 0821 GMT. Meanwhile, US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell 40 cents, or 0.4%, to $91.45 per barrel. Both benchmarks had fallen by more than 1% earlier in the session. Trump's diesel deal could bring 2.25 million barrels of additional supplies to the market. On Friday, Trump said Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 metric tons of diesel, equivalent to around 2.25 million barrels, to the US and global markets. He added that more supplies would follow later, according to Reuters. Diesel prices fell sharply after Trump's announcement. ICE gasoil futures, a key European diesel price benchmark, dropped 4.6% to $1,415 per metric ton. The fall reflected expectations of additional diesel supplies reaching the market. However, analysts questioned whether the deal could quickly increase available supplies. PVM analyst Tamas Varga said the immediate impact of the deal was uncertain because Russia's refining capacity had been severely reduced. This could limit how much additional diesel the country can produce and deliver in the short term, as quoted by Reuters. Russia has also partially relaxed its diesel export restrictions. Moscow has allowed 500,000 metric tons of diesel, equivalent to around 3.7 million barrels, to enter the international market. Varga said this volume was roughly equal to one day of US diesel consumption and around 13% of global demand. Trump's energy ceasefire announcement has raised hopes of fewer attacks on energy infrastructure. On Sunday, Trump unexpectedly announced that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to stop attacking each other's energy facilities. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he was still waiting for details of the agreement, while Russia had not commented on the announcement, according to Reuters. The International Energy Agency has called for countries to review their diesel supplies. IEA chief Fatih Birol said all member countries should assess whether additional diesel releases were needed. He also urged countries that had not fully delivered their previously pledged supplies to speed up the remaining releases, with priority given to diesel. Despite the Russian supply deal, the Middle East conflict continues to keep Brent crude above $100 per barrel. Concerns about attacks on energy infrastructure and disruptions to oil shipments have supported prices. This means additional diesel supplies may ease some pressure on fuel markets without necessarily bringing down crude oil prices significantly. An attack claimed by Iran-aligned Houthis has added to regional security concerns. The Houthis claimed responsibility for a Saturday strike on Riyadh's international airport that killed 13 people and wounded more than 300. The incident added to concerns about the wider security situation in the Middle East. Attacks on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz are threatening the recovery in oil exports. More attacks on tankers travelling through the strategic waterway have been reported this month. These incidents could slow the recovery in Middle Eastern crude exports that was seen in September. Also read: Why have US bank stocks lost $270 billion in market value as rising interest rates threaten Wall Street’s profit boom? Two reported maritime incidents have added to concerns over oil shipments. A tanker was struck by a drone near Sohar in Oman, while another vessel was damaged while travelling through the Strait of Hormuz. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations reported the incidents, according to Reuters. Brent crude price forecast for 2026 Goldman Sachs has raised its forecast for Brent crude prices in December. The investment bank increased its December Brent forecast to $90 per barrel from $85 per barrel. It also estimated that the risk premium in oil prices was slightly above $20 per barrel. A risk premium is the extra amount traders pay because of concerns about possible supply disruptions. Goldman Sachs expects US crude prices to remain lower than Brent in the coming years. The bank forecast that WTI crude would average $81 per barrel in December 2026 and $73 per barrel in 2027. It attributed the unusually wide gap between WTI and Brent prices partly to high shipping costs for transporting US oil to Europe, as quoted by Reuters. Hurricane Isaias threatens oil production Hurricane Isaias has created another challenge for oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. Energy companies Shell, Chevron and BP were seeking to redeploy personnel and restore production at their offshore platforms after the hurricane made landfall early on Saturday. Any delays in restoring output could affect regional oil supplies. The key question is whether Russian diesel supplies can offset the risks from the Iran war and wider Middle East tensions. The additional diesel could help ease pressure on fuel supplies, particularly if more Russian exports reach international markets. However, the deal does not directly remove the risks to crude oil shipments from tanker attacks or disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz. With Brent still at $104.50 per barrel, Middle East tensions remain an important factor supporting oil prices.

Middle East tensions push global oil prices above $106 -- International oil prices climbed to nearly a two-week high on Monday as escalating tensions in the Middle East raised concerns about potential disruptions to global crude supplies. Brent crude futures rose by $1.24, or 1.2%, to $106.19 a barrel, reaching their highest level since September 29. At 11:24 GMT, US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures had gained $1.11, or 1.2%, to $92.96 a barrel. The increase came as renewed Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and attacks on tankers near the Strait of Hormuz heightened fears over the security of critical oil supply routes. Expectations of increased Russian diesel exports and a reported energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine have so far failed to ease market concerns. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for a Saturday attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Reports cited in the incident account said the attack killed 13 people and injured more than 300. A further attack on the airport on Sunday reportedly killed one person and injured 11 others. The repeated attacks have raised concerns about the security of critical infrastructure and energy supply networks across the Middle East. Market participants fear that a wider conflict could disrupt oil production, transportation and exports, adding further upward pressure on prices. Security concerns surrounding the Strait of Hormuz have added to the pressure on oil markets. Attacks on tankers operating in and around the strategic waterway have increased uncertainty over the movement of crude oil from the region. Around one-fifth of global oil consumption typically passes through the Strait of Hormuz, making it one of the world's most important energy shipping routes. A prolonged disruption to shipping through the strait could restrict supplies to international markets and push prices higher. US President Donald Trump has announced an arrangement for increased diesel supplies from Russia, alongside a reported agreement between Russia and Ukraine to halt attacks on energy infrastructure. The developments had raised expectations of improved fuel availability. However, escalating tensions in the Middle East and risks to tanker movements have overshadowed the potential relief from additional supplies. Market analysts say announcements of increased supply alone may not be enough to stabilise prices. A sustained improvement in regional security, safe passage for commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz and uninterrupted oil exports will be crucial to easing pressure on the market. Oil prices could remain elevated if tensions persist and concerns about supply disruptions continue.

Brent Jumps to 2-Week High amid Heightened Supply Risks  (DTN) -- Crude oil futures rose Monday morning after Houthi strikes on Saudi infrastructure over the weekend added to concerns over the stability and longevity of the current Middle Eastern oil supply recovery. By 8:45 a.m. EDT, ICE Brent for December delivery was up $2.08 to trade near $106.80 bbl, and NYMEX WTI for November delivery rose $1.91 to $93.76 bbl. Downstream, NYMEX RBOB for November delivery advanced $0.0357 to $3.3309 gallon, while front-month ULSD futures bucked the trend, retreating $0.0303 to $4.7081 gallon. The U.S. Dollar Index strengthened by 0.2 points to 102.22 against a basket of foreign currencies. Tehran-allied Houthis have since the start of the Saudi-backed offensive in Yemen, aimed at retaking areas near shipping chokepoints, ramped up strikes on Saudi infrastructure. On the weekend, they twice successfully struck the Riyadh international airport, raising concerns over the kingdom's apparent limited ability to defend vital infrastructure from drone and missile attacks. Last month, drones launched from Iraq damaged pumping stations along the East-West pipeline, leading to a two-week suspension of Saudi crude oil exports from the Red Sea. Geopolitical supply risks were also brewing elsewhere. Iran has markedly intensified attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, which this month have become a daily occurrence. Russia, meanwhile, continued to target energy infrastructure despite the U.S. President's proclamation of an "energy ceasefire," striking a Ukrainian natural gas production and storage facility in Kharkiv late Sunday. Following a phone call with his Russian counterpart, U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday demanded that Ukraine ceased attacks on Russian refineries. Kyiv has since refrained from attacking Russian energy infrastructure. Trump also announced the one-time purchase of some 3.75 million bbl of sanctioned Russian diesel to alleviate prices at the pump ahead of next month's midterm elections. Given that high prices are primarily the result of a global supply crunch and not a domestic one, and considering that this volume is equivalent to roughly one day of consumption or 17 hours of domestic production, market observers were skeptical that this temporary sanctions-waver will have a significant impact on prices.

Oil prices spike after Houthi attacks on Saudi airports - Oil prices rose Monday, after the Iranian-backed Houthis launched attacks on two airports in Saudi Arabia over the weekend.Brent Crude, the international benchmark, closed at nearly $106 per barrel as of late Monday afternoon, up roughly $1.20 from closing time Friday. The price of Brent Crude peaked at $107.33 earlier in the day.West Texas Intermediate Crude, the North American standard, reached $94.36 during Monday trading and closed at $93.16 per barrel.   The Houthis, a Yemen-based rebel group aligned with Iran, launched a string of attacks over the weekend on King Khalid International Airport and King Fahd International Airport, respectively located in Riyadh and Dammam, Saudi Arabia. The pair of attacks on King Khalid killed at least 13 people and injured at least 320 others, according to Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA). GACA noted Sunday it was assessing the damage of the attack on King Fahd International Airport, which resulted in injuries. President Trump said Saturday the U.S. “may” join Saudi Arabia in responding to the Houthis.“We will make a decision. We move very quickly,” Trump told reporters at the White House.Saudi forces, which the Obama administration and first Trump administration supplied with offensive weapons, have fought against the Houthis in Yemen for more than a decade.The Iranian proxy group has continued to launch strikes into the kingdom during the U.S.-Iran war. The latter conflict, in its eighth month, has led to oil price spikes stemming from the Islamic Republic’s restrictions on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.The shock to the energy industry has increased prices at the pump back home. As of Monday, a gallon of regular gas costs roughly $4.36 on average nationally, up about $1.28 from a year ago, according to data from AAA.A gallon of diesel fuel also costs around $2.60 more on average than it did a year ago, AAA reported.Trump on Friday announced a deal for Russia to supply diesel to the U.S. and global markets, in an attempt to lower prices ahead of the midterms.Under the deal, Russia will “immediately” supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel fuel to the marketplaces, before supplying another 500,000 tons next month, 1 million tons “immediately thereafter” and 3 million tons “within a short period of time,” depending on the condition of its diesel refineries, Trump wrote on Truth Social.But analysts cautioned the deal may not lower prices, with GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan saying Monday he was “skeptical” it will “deliver significant relief to the trucking industry and consumers who depend on diesel.”

Oil Market Climbs as Saudi and Hormuz Attacks Overshadow New Supply - The oil market on Monday rallied higher as attacks on Saudi Arabia overshadowed possible supply to the market after U.S. President Donald Trump announced new Russian diesel exports and a Russia-Ukraine energy ceasefire. The Iran-aligned Houthis claimed responsibility for a Saturday strike on Riyadh’s international airport that killed 13 people and wounded more than 300.  Also, more attacks on tankers sailing through the Strait of Hormuz have been reported. A tanker was struck by a drone in the vicinity of Oman’s Sohar, while another was damaged transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The crude market initially traded lower, posting a low of $89.61, on the news that Russia will supply more than 300,000 metric tons or 2.25 million barrels of diesel to U.S. and global markets, with more to come later. President Trump also unexpectedly announced on Sunday that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to an energy ceasefire. However, the oil market bounced off its low and retraced its losses and rallied over $2.20 to $94.06. The market later settled in a sideways trading range before it extended its gains ahead of the close and posted a high of $94.36. The November WTI contract settled up $1.89 at $93.74 and the December Brent contract settled up $1.93 at $106.65. The product markets ended the session lower, with the heating oil market settling down 1.52 cents at $4.7232 and the RB market settling down 35 points at $3.2917. Bloomberg reported that a diesel deal between the U.S. and Russia will not be enough to ease the global fuel market. It stated that Russia needs a lasting halt to energy strikes and weeks of refinery repairs before it can materially boost exports. However, it noted that even if all the volumes reach buyers by the end of the month, they will amount to less than 180,000 bpd, a mere fraction of what the nation used to export. Energy Aspects and Rystad Energy see Russia’s oil-processing at around 3.5 million to 4 million bpd, around 30% below seasonal norms. With several major diesel-producing plants halted or operating at reduced rates, a significant output decline is inevitable. It stated that even if a truce materializes, restoring diesel production will require several weeks of refinery repairs if the pace of recent works is any guide. Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said monthly diesel exports of 3 million tons will only be possible after December.Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, said Iran is still reviewing a U.S. response to its proposal regarding the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and will reply to Washington via intermediaries when the review is over.  Regarding the escalating conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthis, an Iranian ally, Iran’s Foreign Minister reiterated Iran’s openess to help resolve the crisis through dialogue.Saudi Aramco CEO, Amin Nasser, said the company was studying additional crude oil export routes and working to expand its overseas storage capacity, as global energy markets face disruptions stemming from ongoing conflicts in the region. Separately, Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, said the country’s ability to supply energy remains resilient amid major market security turmoil. He said Saudi Arabia is looking to expand its pipeline crude export capacity to as much as 10 million bpd by repurposing a domestic gas pipeline and investing in its existing East-West network. He said Saudi Arabia could add up to 1.2 million bpd of oil export capacity within seven to eight weeks by temporarily converting a gas pipeline for crude shipments.

Oil Prices Diverge As Traders Weigh Russian Diesel Relief Against Saudi Supply Risks -  Oil prices mostly declined Tuesday as traders continued to assess the risks to energy supplies from Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and the potential impact of a U.S. decision to ease restrictions on Russian diesel shipments. While Saudi Arabia has taken steps to restore crude flows, uncertainty remains over whether additional Russian supplies can meaningfully ease pressure on global fuel markets. President Donald Trump defended his administration’s decision to temporarily ease restrictions on Russian diesel supplies, despite criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers who said the move could weaken sanctions imposed over Russia’s war in Ukraine. In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump pointed to the European Union’s billions of dollars in Russian energy purchases and said his decision was in the interests of Americans. The agreement would allow Russia to supply diesel to U.S. and global markets for six months. Traders are watching the potential deal closely as they assess whether additional Russian supplies can ease pressure on fuel prices. A day earlier, on Monday, Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said the kingdom’s energy supply system remained resilient despite mounting security threats and market disruption. “Energy resilience is beyond barrels of spare capacity, of pipelines and gigawatts of generation,” the minister said at the WPC Energy Congress in Riyadh. The comments came after a series of attacks on Saudi Arabia, including strikes by Houthi militants targeting airports in Riyadh. Last month, Saudi Arabia restarted its East-West pipeline, with flows climbing above 80% of capacity, Bloomberg reported. State-run Saudi Aramco has also increased crude shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, helping push the kingdom’s total oil exports towards prewar levels in September, Bloomberg reported.

Oil Slides as OPEC Flags Saudi Supply Rebound, Weak Demand  -- Oil futures retreated Tuesday morning after a three-day rally that came on the back of escalating fighting in the Middle East. An OPEC report showing a larger-than-expected production rebound last month weighed on sentiment, as did the group's latest downward revision to 2026 oil demand growth estimates. By 9:30 a.m. EDT, ICE Brent for December delivery was down $1.52 to trade near $105.13 bbl, and NYMEX WTI for November delivery fell $0.97 to $92.77 bbl. Downstream, NYMEX RBOB for November delivery retreated $0.0734 to $3.2183 gallon, while front-month ULSD futures bucked the trend, advancing $0.0770 to $4.8002 gallon. The U.S. Dollar Index softened by 0.375 points to 102.0 against a basket of foreign currencies. According to the producer group's monthly oil market report published this morning, combined output from OPEC members, their partners, and the UAE, in September soared by 900,000 bpd month-on-month to 39.07 million bpd, the most since the beginning of the war in late February. The increase came as Iraqi crude production rebounded by nearly 400,000 bpd to more than 93% of pre-war levels, and as Saudi Arabian output recovered from a self-reported all-time low of 6.24 million bpd in August. OPEC+ crude oil production was still 3.69 million bpd, or 9%, below the pace in February, given that Iranian and Saudi output were lagging ante bellum levels by 1 and 2 million bpd, respectively. While most major forecasters see oil demand shrinking this year, OPEC has held on to, albeit increasingly tempered, growth expectations throughout the crisis. The fact that notoriously bullish OPEC analysts have in their most recent outlook slashed their 2026 oil demand growth forecast in half, now calling for a measly 180,000 bpd year-on-year increase in consumption, was the latest in a series of growing signs pointing to demand weakness. In the U.S., offshore operations have started to return from last week's brief Hurricane-induced shutdown that affected around 75% of output. As of Monday, some 30% of evacuated rigs were still idle. To make up for lost supply, the federal government last week authorized the release of up to 4 million bbl of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Latest Energy Information Administration (EIA) data showed that 283 million bbl were left in emergency stockpiles as of early October, the least since 1982. Market observers will be on the lookout for the American Petroleum Institute's weekly inventory estimates on tap later today, followed by EIA's weekly petroleum status report scheduled for release Wednesday.

Oil Market Rises on Growing Risks to Gulf Energy Infrastructure - The crude market on Tuesday continued on its upward trend as traders monitored the attacks on Saudi Arabia. Concerns over the vulnerability of Gulf energy infrastructure and shipping lanes remained in focus after Iran-aligned Houthis struck Riyadh’s international airport over the weekend and tanker attacks were reported near the Strait of Hormuz. The market was supported by news of an attack on the Yemen Oil Company in Sanaa. The reported attack came shortly after the Saudi-led coalition ordered the evacuation of the facility ahead of a military operation. The oil market traded to a low of $91.70 early in the morning before the market bounced off that level and never looked back. The market extended its gains to almost $1 as it traded to a high of $94.70 ahead of the close. The November WTI contract settled up 40 cents at $94.14. However, the December Brent contract settled down 96 cents at $105.69. The product markets settled in mixed territory, with the heating oil market settling up 21.12 cents at $4.9344 and the RB market settling down 4.16 cents at $3.2501. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries lowered its forecast for 2026 oil demand growth to 180,000 bpd from a previous forecast of 380,000 bpd, marking the sixth straight downward revision. However, OPEC raised its forecast for world oil demand growth in 2027 to 2.55 million bpd from a previous forecast of 2.36 million bpd, citing the need for the world to rebuild inventories that have been depleted by the Iran war. OPEC also reported an increase of 900,000 bpd in oil production by the wider OPEC+ producer group to 39.07 million bpd in September, led by Saudi Arabia. The top OPEC producer told OPEC that it pumped 8.372 million bpd of crude in September, up more than 2 million bpd from August. According to the Marine Minerals Administration, U.S. producers in the Gulf of Mexico shut in about 16.13% of the current daily oil production and 16.59% of the current daily natural gas production in response to Hurricane Isaias. It said personnel have been evacuated from five production platforms, representing 1.35% of the 371 manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. According to data from the Department of Energy, U.S. crude oil stocks in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve were unchanged at 283 million barrels last week, their lowest level since 1982. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed to make larger refiners blend more biofuels over the next two years, seeking to appeal to farm-state voters ahead of November’s congressional elections. The EPA proposed a rule to reallocate 100% of the renewable fuel volume obligations it waived for 29 small refineries announced at the end of August. The credits were waived for the 2025 compliance year. The EPA proposed two approaches and is seeking public comment. One would split the additional 2025 SRE volume evenly between the 2026 and 2027 compliance years, while the other would allocate all of it to 2027. According to Vortexa, the U.S. blockade has kept Iranian crude exports at zero in October, after declining in the second week of September. In September, oil ​flows from the Gulf excluding Iran increased to over 81% of pre-war levels in September, led by ‌a recovery in Saudi exports.

Iran deploys new tactics to target ships transiting Hormuz, oil rises -- Oil prices climbed on Wednesday after two vessels were struck in the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian officials told Reuters they were deploying new tactics to target ships, as Tehran seeks to keep oil prices high and influence the US midterm elections. Brent crude futures rose 34 cents, or 0.3%, to $106.03 a barrel by 0630 GMT, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures gained 28 cents, or 0.3%, to $94.42 a barrel. Both contracts had climbed more than $1 in early trade. READ: Iran’s IRGC hits 7 ‘violating’ oil tankers in Strait of Hormuz in 5 days The Iranian officials declined to provide details of the new strategy, but one said that Iran had started using different offensive tactics against vessels it considered in violation of its restrictions about 10 days ago, adding that this had led to an increase in attacks on such ships. A container ship and a tanker were hit by unknown projectiles within the Strait of Hormuz, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said on Tuesday. “The fact that Iranian officials are openly admitting to undermining US efforts to keep oil prices under control speaks volumes about the real intentions behind the so-called ‘peace talks,'” said Priyanka Sachdeva, head of market insights at Phillip Nova. “Iran is well aware of its geographical importance and the havoc higher oil prices can inflict on the global economy, and it may not shy away from using this leverage.” Elsewhere, the Iran-allied Houthis attacked an administrative building belonging to state-owned oil firm Saudi Aramco in the city of Dhahran, causing a limited fire, Saudi Arabia’s energy ministry said on Wednesday. The group has fired ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia over the past week in retaliation for the kingdom’s support of Yemeni government forces. Riyadh’s international airport has been hit four times, with a strike on Saturday killing 13 people. “Supply concern stemming from conflict between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia is driving prices higher,” said Hiroyuki Kikukawa, chief strategist at Nissan Securities Investment, a unit of Nissan Securities. “However, the expectation that increased Russian diesel exports will ease market tightness is likely to limit sharp price movement in either direction,” Kikukawa said, projecting WTI to trade between $90 and $100 a barrel. Last month, Saudi Arabia raised oil production despite disruptions to shipments caused by the US-Iran war. That led to a sharp production increase from OPEC+ — the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and partners including Russia — OPEC said on Tuesday. In Russia, the government said on Tuesday it did not see any direct link between peace talks with Ukraine and its deal to export diesel to the US. The comment came after Reuters reported that US envoys had told Ukrainian officials on Friday that the deal was part of an attempt to draw Russia back to negotiations for a peace settlement.  

Oil Mixed as IEA Warns of Prolonged Diesel Supply Shortage - Oil futures were mixed Wednesday morning as traders were assessing the latest escalation in hostilities in the Middle East as well as an International Energy Agency projection warning of a prolonged diesel shortage.By 09:20am EDT Wednesday, ICE Brent for December delivery was down $0.06 to trade near $105.63 barrels (bbl), while NYMEX WTI for November delivery rose $1.31 to $95.45 bbl.Downstream, NYMEX ULSD for November delivery retreated $0.0474 to $4.8870 gallon, and front-month RBOB futures fell $0.0282 to $3.2219 gallon.The U.S. dollar index jumped following this morning's higher-than-expected U.S. inflation reading, up 0.605 points to 102.585 against a basket of foreign currencies.Like OPEC's October report published Tuesday, IEA's 2026 demand outlook also grew more bearish, revising the expected oil demand decline for this year from 2.5 million bpd to 2.6 million bpd. Diesel demand, plagued by soaring prices and a worsening global economic outlook, is expected to account for a quarter of this drop.The loss in diesel supply, however, has dwarfed the substantial decline in demand, the Paris-based energy watchdog said, leading global inventories to deplete at a rapid clip. Given that this diesel supply imbalance is far from being rectified, IEA warned that global diesel markets may be heading into peak winter demand season without sufficient shock absorbers.The expected recovery in refinery runs over the next two months, even if it continues to accelerate, won't be enough to eliminate the supply shortage, meaning that inventories are bound to stay depleted until well into 2027, IEA said.Increasing Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, kept the spotlight on supply risks. While the latest wave has largely spared oil infrastructure, successful strikes on some of the country's best protected assets, like on the Riyadh international airport last Saturday, have highlighted the fragility of the ongoing oil supply recovery from the Middle East. On Wednesday, the Saudi energy ministry reported that one of Saudi Aramco's headquarter buildings was among the latest targets struck by the Tehran-allied Yemeni militia.

Oil prices gain on attacks in Saudi Arabia, Iran's new tactics to target tankers (Reuters) - Oil prices rose on Wednesday after the Houthis attacked Saudi ​Aramco's headquarters and Iran said it was deploying new tactics to target ships and keep oil prices high. Brent crude futures ‌settled up 37 cents, or 0.35%, at $106.06 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate crude gained 95 cents, or 1.01%, to $95.09, a three-week high. Attacks on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz and strikes between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-allied Houthis are driving up oil prices. "We're seeing a lot of fear trade today," Iranian officials declined to provide details of the new strategy to ​target ships, but one said Iran started using different offensive tactics about 10 days ago. Gulf oil flows excluding ⁠Iran surged in September to more than 81% of prewar levels, data showed, led by a recovery in Saudi exports. Iranian exports ​fell to zero owing to a US blockade. "More crude reaching international markets does not necessarily mean more oil is being produced," Saxo Bank analyst ​Ole Hansen said in a note. "Some of the recovery reflects a redistribution of available barrels, including volumes that would otherwise have supplied regional refineries." The Houthis attacked an administrative building belonging to state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco in the city of Dhahran, causing a limited fire, Saudi Arabia's energy ministry said.The group ​has fired ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia over the past week in what it says is retaliation for the kingdom's ​support of Yemeni government forces. Riyadh's international airport has been hit four times, with a strike on Saturday killing 13 people. Meanwhile, a container ship sank in waters south ‌of the ⁠Strait of Hormuz after hitting a naval mine and catching fire, Iran's Revolutionary Guards Navy said in a statement shared by state media on Wednesday. This was a day after the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said a container ship and a tanker were hit by unknown projectiles in the strait."The expectation that increased Russian diesel exports will ease market tightness is likely to limit sharp price movement in ​either direction," said Hiroyuki Kikukawa, chief ​strategist at Nissan Securities Investment.US ⁠President Donald Trump announced on Friday that Russia had agreed to supply diesel to global markets and his administration temporarily lifted US sanctions on Russian diesel that were designed to deprive Moscow of revenue for its war ​on Ukraine.Russia's crude oil production increased by 65,000 barrels per day in September to 8.43 million bpd ​but remained down 870,000 ⁠bpd year over year, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday.The IEA also said crude oil exports from Middle East Gulf producers rose by 4.4 million bpd in September to around 75% of prewar levels.

Oil prices drop 2% as US considers easing Russia tanker sanctions-  Oil prices declined by around 2% on Thursday 15 October following reports that the US is considering measures to relax restrictions on tankers associated with Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet”. By 07:29 GMT, Brent crude futures had dropped by $2.28, or 2.2%, to $103.78 a barrel (bbl), reported Reuters. Meanwhile, US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures had fallen by $1.34, or 1.4%, to $93.75/bbl. The fall reversed gains recorded in the previous session. Talks in Washington are reportedly focused on potentially permitting “legal oil” to be transported using vessels previously subject to sanctions, a US official stated. This comes just days after US President Donald Trump temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian diesel fuel in an effort to ease a global price surge. Despite the price drop, oil markets remained supported by ongoing security concerns in key shipping lanes and renewed military activity. Over the past 24 hours, two vessels, a container ship and a dry bulk carrier, sank near a strategic strait after separate projectile attacks, according to maritime officials. The region has seen a marked increase in incidents in the past ten days. Iran has separately announced plans to intensify strikes, citing the US blockade of Iranian ports and the imposition of stricter sanctions last month. Meanwhile, Ukraine has resumed strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, targeting a refinery in the Ryazan region. The latest attack followed criticism from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy about a “dangerous” withdrawal of US intelligence. In the US, market sources referencing American Petroleum Institute data reported a decline in crude oil and distillate inventories last week, with crude stocks down by 11.1 million barrels for the week ending 9 October. Elsewhere, Saudi Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran sustained significant fire damage in an attack on Tuesday, according to individuals with direct knowledge of the situation, reported Reuters. While operations have continued, some staff have been instructed to work remotely. Sources reported that the fire, which started on the ninth floor, affected several floors, including the offices of CEO Amin Nasser. Saudi Arabia’s Energy Ministry confirmed a limited fire at the site amid ongoing conflict involving Yemen’s Houthi group.

WTI Climbs Nearly 3% on Steep US Crude Stock Draw -- Crude oil futures were mixed for a third consecutive trading session on Thursday, as Brent crude futures edged lower after media reports suggested the Trump administration may be considering easing sanctions on shadow fleet vessels. Meanwhile, the U.S. crude benchmark WTI gained nearly 3%, tracking lower-than-expected federal data showing a steep decline in crude oil inventories during the previous week. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright at a conference earlier this week reportedly told participants that the administration was looking into easing the sanctions regime on Russian energy trade, specifically on the country's so-called shadow fleet, to combat record high tanker rates. Given that European shippers would continue to be barred by EU and UK sanctions from transporting Russian oil, a unilateral move by the United States is unlikely to have a significant impact on the market. On Thursday, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported U.S. commercial crude oil inventories dropped by 8.6 million bbl to 415.6 million bbl, after declining 3.2 million bbl the previous week. This was the steepest draw in over two months, according to the agency. Stocks were 8.2 million bbl, or 1.9%, below the 423.8 million bbl reported during the same week last year. Crude oil imports dropped by 791,000 bpd to 6.049 million bpd, while exports also fell by 195,000 bpd to 4.570 million bpd. However, the EIA's crude oil stocks figure was below the 11.12 million bbl draw reported by the American Petroleum Institute on Wednesday, Oct. 14, for the week ended Oct. 9, though it exceeded the 2.09 million bbl decline recorded the previous week. ICE Brent for December delivery edged down $0.34 to $105.72 bbl, while the front-month NYMEX WTI futures contract rose $2.57 to $97.66 bbl. Downstream, NYMEX ULSD for November delivery retreated by $0.1123 to $4.8151 gallon, and front-month RBOB futures contract dropped $0.0929 to $3.1666 gallon. The U.S. Dollar Index fell by 0.492 points to 101.85 against a basket of foreign currencies.

Currie Slams 'Vibe' Oil Contracts As Trump Admin Halts SPR Drains, IEA Urges Massive Reserve Release   - Oil prices are extending gains again this morning as traders weigh a weaker global demand outlook and signs of recovering Middle East crude supplies against persistent shipping risks around the Strait of Hormuz and escalating/spreading violence between the Houthis and Saudis. An overnight lull in prices (set with hopes for more reserve releases) was upset as Iran showed more clips of tankers/container ships under attack. The International Energy Agency said Wednesday that Gulf crude shipments rose by 4.4 million barrels a day to 13.9 million barrels a day in September, reaching more than 75% of prewar levels. Global oil supply increased by 2.5 million barrels a day to 102.3 million barrels a day, driven by Gulf producers. However, the recovery remains vulnerable to renewed attacks on energy infrastructure and shipping, the agency said. Given the massive crude draw reported by API (likely impacted by shut-ins from the first Atlantic hurricane of the year in the US Gulf), all eyes are on the (Columbus Day-delayed) official data... API:

• Crude -11.1mm
• Cushing +1.8mm
• Gasoline +1.1mm
• Distillates -1.5mm

DOE:

• Crude -8.56mm
• Cushing +1.86mm
• Gasoline +3.52mm
• Distillates -2.52mm

HUGE CAVEAT - the shut-ins in the Gulf make this very noisy: Confirming API's reporting, the official data showed a large crude draw last week (and another sizable draw in distillates inventories) while stocks at Cushing and overall Gasoline inventories saw builds... For the first time since the Iran war began, the Trump admin did not drain any reserves from the SPR... US Crude Production tumbled last week (shut-ins in the Gulf, so not comparable)... Total US Diesel stocks remain at seasonal record lows... WTI has surged up to $97.50 However, watching futures is misleading as Wall Street veteran Jeff Currie exclaimed this morning that the world’s most important oil benchmark has become little more than a “vibe contract", blunting its usefulness as a tool to manage price volatility. Brent’s disconnect from physical markets is creating “unpriceable risk,” deterring hedgers from using the contract to protect themselves, Currie said. “Everything associated with energy is going up but Brent,” Currie said Thursday in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “It is not connected to the real world anymore.” A hit to Brent’s integrity undermines the market’s ability to anticipate supply shocks with “profound consequences for the market and the rest of the world,” Currie said. The disconnect between paper and physical markets has frustrated traders since the Middle East conflict began, when crude struggled to top $100 despite historic supply shortages. In contrast, Dated Brent, the most important physical oil benchmark, has surged to near $130 a barrel. That dissonance has contributed to traders fleeing the market, with Brent open interest earlier this month hitting its lowest since March 2025 even as oil dominates headlines. Finally, Bloomberg reports that US officials attending an International Energy Agency meeting in Paris earlier today informally lobbied allies to commit an additional 100 million barrels from emergency oil inventories to supply global markets.  "While US officials attending an IEA gathering in Paris on Thursday have yet to table a proposal about what should be done, they have been informally lobbying for an extra commitment of at least 100 million barrels, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is not public." (BBG)

Oil Market Rallies as Saudi-Houthi Conflict Escalates - The oil market continued on its upward trend in light of a larger than expected draw in crude stocks and the escalating conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-backed Houthis. The crude market traded lower in overnight trading, posting a low of $93.58, on news that the U.S. was considering easing sanctions on some of Russia’s unregulated tankers, a move that could help lower freight rates and increase flexibility in diesel shipments. However, the market bounced off its low and never looked back. The market remained well supported by the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis. It extended its gains to over $3.20 to $98.32 on news that the Houthis fired missiles at the presidential palace complex in the city of Aden on Thursday. The November WTI contract settled up $2.88 at $97.97 and the December Brent contract settled down 14 cents at $105.92. Meanwhile, the product markets ended the session lower, with the heating oil market settling down 8.18 cents at $4.8456 and the RB market settling down 7.93 cents at $3.1802. The EIA reported that U.S. crude stocks and distillate inventories fell while gasoline inventories increased in the week ending October 9th. Crude inventories fell by 8.6 million barrels to 415.6 million barrels in light of Hurricane Isaias. Net US crude imports fell last week by 596,000 bpd. Crude stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma increased by 1.9 million barrels in the week. Refinery crude runs increased by 135,000 bpd. U.S. gasoline stocks increased by 3.5 million barrels in the week to 208.3 million barrels due to weaker demand.​ The International Energy Agency on Thursday agreed to release over 20 million barrels of diesel to the market as soon as possible and any oil remaining from a record emergency reserves release pledged in March to help supply and lower prices. The 32-nation IEA’s board met on Thursday to discuss the scale and timing of stock releases. The IEA said some members had already released more than they pledged in March and that others planned to do so. The IEA said about 330 million barrels have been released so far. Three trade sources said Saudi Aramco has approached traders this week offering additional spot crude oil cargoes for delivery into Europe in late October and into mid-November. Three trade sources said Saudi Aramco has approached traders this week offering additional spot crude oil cargoes for delivery into Europe in late October and into mid-November. According to EPA data, the U.S. generated 1.19 billion ethanol blending credits in September, down from 1.29 billion in August. It reported that biodiesel blending credits increased to 788 million from 716 million in August. The U.S. Climate Prediction Center forecast an 80% chance for at least a strong El Nino event to continue through the January-February-March 2027 season and favors an El Nino event of any strength to continue through the March-April-May period. It said the El Nino event continues to strengthen and an El Nino advisory remains in effect and is favored to continue through Spring 2027. The CPC’s temperature outlook for November-December-January favors above normal seasonal mean temperatures for Eastern Alaska, the northern tier and western third of the U.S., south Florida, the Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic regions. It said the highest odds of warmer than normal conditions are located over southeast Alaska, the upper Mississippi Valley and Great Lakes, while near normal seasonal average temperatures are favored for much of the southeast.

Crude oil price: Oil futures fall as IEA agrees to complete remaining oil releases - Crude oil futures traded lower on Friday after the International Energy Agency (IEA) agreed to take all necessary steps to complete the remaining release of around 100 million barrels of oil. At 10.03 am on Friday, December Brent oil futures were at $105.38, down by 0.51 per cent, and November crude oil futures on WTI (West Texas Intermediate) were at $97.33, down by 0.65 per cent. October crude oil futures were trading at ₹9220 on Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) during the initial hour of trading on Friday against the previous close of ₹9285, down by 0.60 per cent, and November futures were trading at ₹9122 against the previous close of ₹9177, down by 0.60 per cent. The Governing Board of IEA acknowledged that approximately 330 million barrels of oil have so far been released, and it agreed to take all necessary steps to complete the remaining releases of around 100 million barrels in a timely manner consistent with national circumstances. It agreed to accelerate the release of the remaining volumes, with specific plans already in place, including over 20 million barrels of diesel as soon as possible. IEA encouraged those members holding oil production and refining capacities to boost supply of crude and refined products, particularly diesel. It also underlined the importance of the free flow of energy trade. In their Commodities Feed for Friday, Warren Patterson, Head of Commodities Strategy of ING Think, and Ewa Manthey, Commodities Strategist, said oil remains well-supported. A pattern has set in: prices slide early in the session, then claw back most of those losses by the close. As a result, ICE Brent continues to comfortably trade above $100 a barrel. Uncertainty in West Asia and concerns over the sustainability of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz has the market pricing in a significant risk premium. The longer this pickup in flows continues, the more likely the market will start giving back some of this risk premium, they said. In order to see a full removal, there needs to be some kind of agreement between the US and Iran. This would provide the market with more confidence that stronger oil flows from the region will continue, they added. Meanwhile, petroleum status report released by the US EIA (Energy Information Administration) showed a sharp decline in the inventories for the week ending October 8. According to US EIA, commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 8.6 million barrels to 415.6 million barrels, 3 per cent below the five-year average, for the week ending October 8. Gasoline inventories increased 3.5 million barrels, 4 per cent below the five-year average. Distillate inventories decreased 2.5 million barrels, 12 per cent below the five-year average. Over the past four weeks, total products supplied in the US averaged 21.1 million barrels a day, up 2 per cent year over year. The four-week average for gasoline product supplied decreased 0.4 per cent year over year to 8.7 million barrels a day, while the four-week average for distillate product supplied decreased 0.2 per cent to 4 million barrels a day. The four-week average for jet fuel product supplied increased 2.3 per cent year over year. October zinc futures were trading at ₹418.20 on MCX during the initial hour of trading on Friday against the previous close of ₹414.60, up by 0.87 per cent. On the National Commodities and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX), October castor seed contracts were trading at ₹8000 in the initial hour of trading on Friday against the previous close of ₹8286, down by 3.45 per cent. November guargum futures were trading at ₹15849 on NCDEX in the initial hour of trading on Friday against the previous close of ₹15911, down by 0.39 per cent.

Oil Eyes Weekly Gain on Mideast Supply Risks, Stock Draws -- Oil futures edged lower Friday morning but were on track for a second consecutive weekly increase amid growing supply risks in Russia and the Middle East. In the U.S., crude inventories posted a steep decline following Hurricane-induced production shut-ins that coincided with the end of emergency oil stock releases. By 09:15am ET, ICE Brent for December delivery was down $0.15 to trade near $105.77 barrels(bbl) and NYMEX WTI for November delivery fell $0.32 to $97.65 bbl. Downstream, NYMEX ULSD for November delivery slid $0.0315 to $4.8141 gallon, and front-month RBOB futures retreated $0.0288 to $3.1514 gallon. The U.S. dollar index slipped for a second day, down 0.295 points to 101.57 against a basket of foreign currencies. U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data published Thursday showed commercial crude oil inventories fell by 8.6 million bbl last week after shrinking by 3.19 million bbl a week earlier. Compared to fuel stockpiles, which have rapidly dropped since the beginning of the U.S. war on Iran and continued to hover near seasonal record lows, commercial stocks of crude have during this time held up well, in no small part thanks to more than 132 million bbl of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve landing on the market between the end of March and early October. While in large part attributable to the temporary loss of offshore production, the second sizable weekly decline in a row also raised concerns over meeting continued unseasonably high domestic demand now that emergency stock releases have ended. According to EIA data, domestic refiners last week processed nearly 1.5 million bpd more crude oil than in the same reporting week last year. Over the past four weeks, domestic crude demand has been outpacing year-ago levels by more than 500,000 barrels per day(bpd). Supply woes were also fueled by Ukraine not only resuming strikes on Russian refineries after a short-lived break but also vowing to intensify these attacks. Kyiv at the end of last week halted these operations at the behest of U.S. President Donald Trump who had called for an "energy infrastructure ceasefire", but on Thursday abandoned this unilaterally declared and observed energy truce, striking one of Russia's largest refineries that accounts for nearly 5% of the country's crude oil demand. The week was also marked by events highlighting the fragile nature of the Middle Eastern crude oil supply recovery. Iran has greatly stepped-up attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, and Houthi rebels in Yemen have repeatedly targeted key Saudi Arabian infrastructure. In reaction, tanker rates have soared to record highs, and flows through the oil chokepoint have once again markedly slowed.

Oil touches $110 a barrel for first time since May on Middle East, Russia supply fears - (Reuters) - Brent touched $110 a barrel for the first time since May on Friday on worries that escalating ‌tensions in the Middle East could further tighten supplies, while investors assessed how much diesel Russia could supply to the global market. Brent crude futures settled $3.94, or 3.7%, higher at $109.86, the highest since May 19, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures closed $3.44, or 3.5%, higher at $101.41, the highest since September 17. So far this week, Brent has ​risen 4.9% and WTI 10.4%. "WTI and Brent reversed earlier losses as escalation fears resurfaced amid rumours of attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure," ​research and consultancy Energy Aspects said in a note. " Israeli reports suggest Iran may be preparing a pre-emptive strike following ⁠unusual military movements detected by Western intelligence. Although unverified, these developments reinforce our view that persistent escalation risks will keep flat prices supported," Energy ​Aspects added. A Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched towards the Red Sea city of Yanbu. The port is critical ​for Saudi Arabia's efforts to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and keep oil flowing to international markets. Initial reports indicated no damage to Yanbu's infrastructure, consultants Rapidan Energy Group said. Supply concerns also increased as attacks around the Strait of Hormuz surged over the past 10 days, with Iran saying it was stepping up strikes in response to the US ​blockade of its ports and tougher sanctions introduced last month. "Intensified Iranian attacks drove Gulf crude flows sharply lower," Kpler analysts said in a report ​on Thursday, adding that they expected a slower and more uneven recovery in Hormuz flows in the absence of a comprehensive political deal. Ukraine struck a ‌Russian oil ⁠refinery on Thursday after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy declared that Kyiv was abandoning a ceasefire covering energy sites announced by US President Donald Trump and criticized Trump's willingness to strike deals with Moscow. Russia's Ryazan oil refinery has suspended operations at a primary crude distillation unit following a drone attack in the region on Thursday, two industry sources told Reuters. "Conflict in the Middle East still keeps coming back and I think it's questionable how much diesel ​fuel Russia can actually deliver to ​the markets. Those two factors ⁠are just continuing to have traders be buyers," said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president of trading at BOK Financial. To boost supply, the International Energy Agency agreed on Thursday to release more than 20 million barrels of fuel to the ​market. The United States also issued a request for proposal for an exchange of up to 17 million ​barrels of crude ⁠oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the Department of Energy said on Friday. Washington previously agreed to loan 172 million barrels of oil from the SPR as part of a wider deal with about 30 countries in the International Energy Agency to release 400 million barrels from reserves around the world. Brent crude ⁠was little ​changed on Thursday, while WTI settled up more than 3% after news that the US ​was weighing plans to ease restrictions on the world’s "shadow fleet" of tankers and after a big US crude stock draw on hurricane production shut-ins.

Oil Prices Soar as Yemen's Houthis Strike Saudi Oil Co., Rival's Palace in Aden – The Helpers of God (Ansarullah) movement, which controls northern Yemen where some 80% of Yemenis live, is fighting on two fronts. The Helpers of God are led by members of the Houthi clan, and are sometimes called the Houthis. They are targeting Saudi Arabian targets on land and sea, and they are attempting to expand the territory under their control inside Yemen. Southern Yemen is vast and very thinly populated, and is the seat of the internationally recognized government of Yemen, under which probably only about a fifth of the population lives. Both fronts have been hot this midweek.On Tuesday, the Helpers of God, who control the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, targeted the ARAMCO headquarters in Dhahran, in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, with a ballistic missile. The Arabian American Oil Company or ARAMCO was founded as a joint US-Saudi venture in the late 1940s, but it was nationalized by Saudi Arabia in the 1970s. The missile struck its administrative building, setting fires, and destroyed the office of ARAMCO’s CEO. At $1.8 trillion, ARAMCO’s market capitalization outstrips ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell. Chasing its CEO out of his office is, let us say, a statement.The strike sent Britain’s Brent oil index above $107 a barrel, a high price at a time when President Trump is attempting to bring fuel costs down for his constituents on the eve of the U.S. midterms. Brent crude averaged about $64.54 a barrel last year at this time. That was before Netanyahu and Trump launched their war on Iran this year on February 28.The ability of the Houthis to strike ARAMCO, about 844 miles away from the Yemeni capital, shows their increasing reach throughout the Arabian Peninsula and up and down the Red Sea coast. The strike also points to failures in Saudi Arabia’s anti-missile defenses, which, however, were able to stop some strikes on the capital of Riyadh Tuesday night, even though they could not block the missile that hit Dhahran. It also points to the growing military-industrial complex in Sanaa, wherein former military engineers have used Iranian (and likely Chinese) templates to create ballistic and hypersonic missiles and effective long-distance drones. The Houthis are not significantly “Iran-backed,” being an indigenous Arab movement that would be there even if Iran did not exist. They do, however, benefit from their loose alliance with Iran, though there is no line of command and they act for their own reasons.Inside Yemen, two hot fronts are the southwestern city of Taiz, pop. 800,000 (think Seattle), and the southern port city of Aden, population 1.3 million (think San Diego). Both are Sunni, while the Helpers of God are led by Zaidi Shia. But the Zaidis get along pretty well with Sunnis, and, indeed, they couldn’t rule 80 percent of the population if many Sunni tribes had not allied with them.Taiz and Aden have resisted the Houthis, but Taiz may fall to the present Houthi campaign, in which the Helpers of God have swiftly taken 380 square miles, including the coastal city of Mocha, which gave its name to its renowned strain of coffee.

Another Tanker Catches Fire in Strait of Hormuz after Hitting Sea Mine - Tasnim News – A third oil tanker caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz after striking a sea mine while attempting to navigate an unauthorized route, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy announced. The IRGC Navy’s public relations office said on Sunday night that a shuttle-type oil tanker carrying 750,000 barrels of crude oil attempted to pass through an unauthorized route on Sunday afternoon, disregarding warnings and alerts issued by the force. The tanker struck a sea mine, triggering an explosion and a severe fire, the statement said. In a separate warning, the IRGC Navy announced that all vessels in the Strait of Hormuz that switch off their navigation and identification systems will be identified as hostile and dealt with firmly and decisively. Earlier on Saturday, the IRGC Navy reported that a supertanker carrying crude oil caught fire after striking a sea mine while attempting to leave the strategic waterway through an unauthorized route. The vessel had reportedly switched off its navigation and positioning systems before the incident and was engulfed in a massive fire visible to residents along the coast. The IRGC Navy has warned that oil tankers disregarding the security requirements and regulations governing the Strait of Hormuz will have to face the consequences.

Iran's IRGC Says It Struck Three Ships in the Strait of Hormuz Over Two Days -   -Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy said on Monday that its forces struck another oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz and said that it was the third ship it had hit in two days.  The UK Maritime Trade Operations said it recorded six separate attacks on Sunday alone, far more than the IRGC has taken credit for. It also recorded at least three attacks on October 9 and October 10.  Attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz have hit their highest since the US and Israel launched the war on February 28, and the amount of oil leaving the Persian Gulf through the strait has declined.  Footage released by the IRGC Navy (PressTV).The IRGC Navy released footage that it said showed the vessel that was hit on Monday. It said the ship was struck while attempting to exit the Strait of Hormuz despite warnings from the IRGC.  “Any cooperation by commercial vessels and oil tankers with the US terrorist, smuggling, aggressor, and plundering military in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf will face our decisive response,” The IRGC Navy said in a statement, according to Iran’s Press TV.  The US also bombed a ship in the region on October 10, with US Central Command announcing a strike on a cargo vessel that it said departed an Iranian port and attempted “to run” the US blockade. The strike marked the first known US bombing of a commercial ship in the region since early September, when it launched a series of strikes against Iranian oil tankers. All signs are pointing to another escalation in the war, as there’s been no sign of progress in the indirect negotiations between Washington and Tehran, and US media has been reporting that President Trump is considering launching a series of strikes against Iran either before or after the November 3 US midterm elections.

‘Step into the field and see for yourself’: IRGC hits back at US claims of Hormuz control - The Navy chief of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has hit back at claims by the United States that the Strait of Hormuz is open and under Washington’s control, urging the US forces to move closer if they want to realize who controls the strategic waterway. In his first televised interview aired on Tuesday, Rear Admiral Ali Ozmaei said Iran exercises “smart control” over the Strait of Hormuz and requires vessels seeking to pass through the route to obtain authorization. “Today, the Americans claim that the Strait of Hormuz is open and they control it, but this claim is far away from the realities on the ground,” he said. “If they want to know whether the Strait of Hormuz is open or closed, they should step into the field and see who is in control of it.” The IRGC Navy commander also slammed the US military presence in the region, noting that American forces and their seven fleets had effectively become “fuel smugglers.” He said the United States’ $13 billion aircraft carrier had been rendered ineffective and was operating like a runway positioned 700 to 800 kilometers from the Strait of Hormuz. “The carrier is vulnerable and does not dare approach the strait and come within range of our fighters,” Ozmaei said. He said the IRGC Navy controls the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, while the Islamic Republic of Iran Army Navy oversees the Sea of Oman. He added that a blockade was continuing beyond the Sea of Oman, in the Arabian Sea, where the Army Navy was also monitoring developments. Explaining Iran’s approach to maritime control, Ozmaei said vessels intending to transit the Strait must obtain permission from Iranian forces. Ships traveling to or from Iran are granted authorization according to the prevailing conditions to use the Iranian waterway. He said Iranian forces had taken firm action against vessels violating maritime restrictions, slamming the United States and its partners for maintaining a media blackout to prevent the international public from learning about the measures taken against those ships. “We had to release footage of one or two of these vessels in recent days to show the extent of the humiliation the United States has suffered,” he said, adding that Iran would continue to deal firmly with violations. The commander said regional security could be maintained without a US military presence, and that cooperation among neighboring countries could safeguard the region’s economic, political and military security. “We can establish security in the region in cooperation with our neighbors, and we do not need the Americans.” “If we work together, security can be ensured in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.”

Outsiders Have No Place in Persian Gulf, IRGC Chief Says - (Tasnim) – Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Ahmad Vahidi stressed that no extra-regional power has the right to threaten, establish a hegemonic presence, or interfere in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. In a message posted on his X account, Major General Vahidi emphasized that the security of the strategic waterway and the Persian Gulf must not be undermined by the presence or intervention of powers from outside the region. "No extra-regional power has the right to threaten, maintain a hegemonic presence, or interfere in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf," he stated. His remarks echoed a message issued by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei on August 30, in which the Leader urged Muslim nations and governments, particularly those in West Asia and along the Persian Gulf, to strengthen their unity against external threats. The Leader questioned whether outside powers would dare to covet the region’s lands and wealth if its nations and governments stand united under the banner of Islam, calling on Muslim rulers to identify their true enemies, understand their plots, and confront them.

Iran’s Navy deploys new units near Hormuz, warns ships against unauthorized transit --The Iranian Army’s Navy says it has deployed operational units in a new formation east of the Strait of Hormuz and across the Sea of Oman and the Arabian Sea, after identifying a tanker that sustained damage and caught fire. The Navy said on Tuesday that the tanker was detected by the surveillance teams around midday after it was damaged and caught fire while attempting to cross the restricted zone with its navigation systems switched off. The Navy said its operational units have been tasked with maintaining continuous, real-time surveillance of enemy activities and maritime traffic in the region. Iran’s Navy urged all vessels to strictly refrain from switching off their electronic equipment and to comply with international regulations. It also called on ships to coordinate their passage with the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran to ensure safe transit. In a statement on Monday, the public relations office of the Navy of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said commercial vessels and oil tankers cooperating with the “terrorist plunderers” of the United States in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf will face a decisive response. It also announced a third crude oil supertanker was struck and engulfed in flames in the Strait of Hormuz in the morning after ignoring warnings and switching off its navigation system. Iran has restricted transit through the Strait of Hormuz since the early days of the US-Israeli war of aggression that began on February 28 and came to a temporary halt under a ceasefire in early April amid the Islamic Republic’s brave resistance and successful retaliatory operations. Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has fallen sharply, with vessel movements dropping to single digits amid the ongoing war on Iran and the restrictions on shipping through the strategic waterway. Tehran has said it will not reopen the waterway until the United States meets its demands and takes steps to restore Iran’s trust.

Iran hits six oil tankers in single day -- Iran has intensified attacks on oil tankers crossing the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran’s forces struck six commercial vessels in and around the waterway on Sunday, a record in a single day, as part of its attempt to reassert control over the world’s most strategically important oil conduit. Alireza Ozmaei, the naval commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), warned that any vessel switching off its navigation and identification systems in the strait would be treated as “hostile” and dealt with “firmly and decisively”. Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, said the IRGC was striking vessels nightly. “We target five or six of these every night,” he told state TV. “Hormuz is under the control of the Islamic Republic.” He also claimed that the United States was using small craft to smuggle Iranian oil on to larger tankers out at sea. Late on Tuesday in Tehran, the Iranian army navy announced in a statement that a “violating oil tanker” had caught fire east of the Strait of Hormuz. A statement from the army navy said that it had monitored “a violating oil tanker which, after switching off its tracking systems and attempting to pass through the prohibited zone, was damaged and caught fire while transiting the area east of the Strait of Hormuz”. The maritime campaign is one front in a wider mobilisation with Iran reportedly bolstering its defences, rallying loyalists and threatening a broader, harsher response against the United States and its regional allies. It is preparing for possible American air strikes after the Nov 3 midterm elections, amid speculation that Donald Trump is reluctant to risk the political fallout from escalating the war before voters go to the polls. Satellite images analysed by the Institute for Science and International Security show earthen barriers thrown up around the Pickaxe Mountain and Natanz nuclear sites. The IRGC said three supertankers had been hit since Sunday. One, a shuttle tanker carrying 750,000 barrels of crude, reportedly ignored IRGC warnings and tried to pass by a route unauthorised by Iran. It then struck a sea mine and burst into flames, the forces said. A second hit a mine in the southern strait and a third, which had switched off its navigation system, caught fire after being struck on Monday morning. Footage posted by IRGC-affiliated media showed tankers ablaze in the Persian Gulf, with black smoke rising from their hulls. UK Maritime Trade Operations reported that at least three commercial vessels were hit in and around the strait over the weekend, including a tanker attempting to leave the waterway and a container ship entering it. On Tuesday night it said another container ship had subsequently been struck by an unknown projectile. A drone set fire to Petro Dolphin, the Emirati tanker, near Oman on Sunday, leaving two Indian sailors missing. Iran framed the blasts as the work of mines and its own response to intruders, while Washington said it was increasingly guiding tankers through the strait and that traffic is recovering. Both sides insist they control the waterway. Iranian officials portrayed the campaign as an act of self-defence. Kazem Gharibabadi, the deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, described the Strait of Hormuz as “a red line of national security and a defensive tool”. He argued that the restrictions on shipping were a response to American and Israeli attacks and that vessels had been able to pass freely before the war. Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, said security would not return “as long as America continues the naval and economic blockade of Iran”. In a jibe at Mr Trump over his reported deal to buy Russian diesel, he asked: “If Hormuz is open, why has the United States reached out to Russia for fuel?”

Iranian attacks sink two ships in Strait of Hormuz - The Washington Post - Two ships sank in the Strait of Hormuz this week after being hit by Iranian attacks amid an escalation in violence in the critical waterway.  A Singapore-registered container ship, the GFS Pride, was attacked while transiting the strait on Tuesday, according to a statement from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore. The vessel caught fire after the attack, the statement said, but all crew members were evacuated and no injuries were reported.

Another 'Violating' Oil Tanker Caught Fire East Of Hormuz Strait: Iran Navy - Iran's military has announced Thursday that it has disabled another 'trespassing' tanker in the Hormuz Strait area, which caught fire after possibly hitting a sea mine - or else coming under direct attack. "A few hours ago, the Iranian Navy's surveillance teams, while patrolling and controlling the eastern part of the Strait of Hormuz, identified a trespassing tanker that had caught fire in the restricted area," semi-official Fars newly reports. "This trespassing tanker was attempting to cross the restricted area in the Sea of ​​Oman by turning off its tracking systems," the report adds. Iran's Navy is again claiming, "The Islamic Republic of Iran's Navy announced that the Strait of Hormuz is under the full control and supervision of the brave men of this force and the IRGC Navy". Social media images are circulating which to show the alleged ship in question on fire. The month of October alone has seen something like 25 Iranian attacks on tankers and cargo ships in regional waters, including as a result of sea mine detonations. Last summer, the Trump administration was touting that the US Navy's mission there had successfully demined the Strait of Hormuz, but clearly Tehran is asserting and seeking to demonstrate this was not the case. On Wednesday a Singapore-flagged container ship completely sunk when it was hit by an unknown projectile the day prior while in the Strait of Hormuz, video as and Singaporean authorities have confirmed. All 21 crew members of GFS Pride were evacuated and with no injuries, with dramatic videos taken by the crew members going viral. Iranian Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, deputy coordinator of Iran’s army, has meanwhile issued yet another warning for ships seeking to transit Hormuz. He said that "without coordination [we] will see what happens to them." "We will confront enemy threats by relying on new equipment and the capabilities of our young people," he said according to Mehr news agency. "Iran can’t vote in the midterms, but it’s clearly trying to have a say."

Container ship sinks after hitting mine in Strait of Hormuz, Iran's Guards claim - A Singapore-flagged container ship has sunk near the Strait of Hormuz after being hit by a projectile, maritime security sources said on Wednesday. The GFS Pride, a small container vessel with capacity for 2,824 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), sank while sailing through the strait, sources told Reuters. Tehran said the boat had hit a naval mine. All 21 crew members were safely evacuated and no injuries were reported, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) following the incident, which comes after attacks around the waterway surged over the past 10 days. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Navy previously said the vessel, carrying more than 2,500 containers, attempted to transit an “unauthorised and dangerous” route, before catching fire after hitting the naval mine. "MPA is deeply concerned about the continued attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz," the Singapore authority said. "Such attacks are unprovoked, unjustifiable, and a breach of international law." The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) received a report of an incident where a container ship was struck by an unknown projectile - although it is currently unclear whether the two incidents are linked. In a statement, Iran’s Guards have warned local vessels and fishermen to take care. The vessel's United Arab Emirates-based manager GFS Ship Management FZE could not be immediately reached for comment. The loss of the GFS Pride marks the second vessel to sink since the US-Iran war began on February 28, according to data from UN shipping agency, the International Maritime Organization. In a separate incident, the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged Cape Dao was reported to be sinking close to the strait after being struck by a projectile on September 23, the sources added. "The Antigua & Barbuda flagged bulk carrier CAPE DAO, originally hit on the 23 September, is reported to be sinking after an unsuccessful rescue attempt," British maritime risk management group Vanguard said in a note on Wednesday. Earlier on Wednesday, Iranian news agency Tasnim reported that three fishermen were injured after a fishing boat was struck in an incident involving an unidentified drone near Sirik in southern Iran's Hormozgan province. It was described as an attack by a US drone, although Iranian authorities have not officially confirmed the circumstances of the incident or who was responsible.

 12 killed and over 300 hurt in latest attack on Riyadh airport, Saudi authorities say (AP) — The latest attack on the international airport in Saudi Arabia's capital of Riyadh killed 12 people and injured over 300 others, civil aviation authorities said early Sunday, with some in critical condition. A Saudi-led coalition blamed Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen. It was the deadliest attack in any Gulf Arab country since the start of the Iran war, whose fronts have expanded to include the recent surge in fighting between the Houthis and Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces. A missile struck a King Khalid International Airport complex housing terminals 3 and 4 for domestic flights, a regional official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media. The Saudi statement said the dead included four Saudi citizens as well as two Bangladeshi nationals, a Palestinian, a U.S. citizen, an Egyptian, a Jordanian, a Syrian and a Sudanese. It said the injured were being treated at several hospitals. Footage posted on social media following the attack and analyzed by The Associated Press shows emergency vehicles outside the airport. Saudi civil aviation authorities on Saturday said airport operations were suspended. The closure was later extended by 24 hours until 9 p.m. Sunday, according to the flight tracking platform Flightradar 24. The attack — the latest of several in the past week on the airport — is expected to increase Saudi pressure on allies including the United States to provide military support for the kingdom, which has seemingly tried to avoid all-out war with the Houthis. Shortly after the attack on Saturday afternoon, U.S. President Donald Trump said he was evaluating whether the U.S. should join Saudi strikes against the rebels. “We may. We’re going to look at it,” he said. “We just found out about the recent attack. So we’ll make a decision. We move very quickly.” Trump later Saturday said he planned to speak to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and said “what happened in Saudi Arabia is not acceptable.” Asked if the U.S. might get involved, Trump responded, “We’ll find out.” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged in a social media post that an American citizen had been killed in the attack, which he condemned. “These reprehensible attacks demonstrate a blatant disregard for innocent civilian life. They must stop now,” he said. The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis blamed them for the attack, calling it a “fully-fledged war crime” and vowing a firm response. The airport has no military facilities. There was no immediate statement from the rebels, who earlier Saturday accused Saudi Arabia of striking Sanaa International Airport in the Houthi-held Yemeni capital. The Houthis claimed attacks earlier in the week on King Khalid International Airport that killed three Saudis, including a pilot. The surge in attacks, including against other Saudi airports, military facilities and oil infrastructure, has come in the week since a Saudi-led coalition launched a major military offensive against the Houthis.

Ansar Allah Continues Attacks on Riyadh Airport After Strike Kills 13 Civilians - -Yemen’s Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, continued attacks against the King Khalid International Airport on Sunday, a day after one of its strikes on the facility killed 13 civilians.The Saudi aviation authority said that the 13 dead included four Saudis, two Bangladeshis, one American, one Egyptian, one Jordanian, one Syrian, one Palestinian, one Sudanese, and one Indian, and that another 309 people were injured in the attack. At least one person, a Pakistani, was killed and 11 were injured by attacks that hit the airport on Sunday, bringing the death toll over the two days of strikes to 14.  Ansar Allah military spokesman Yahya Saree announced a series of attacks on Saudi airports, including the strikes on King Khalid Airport. He didn’t address the civilian casualties, but renewed a warning against using Saudi airports and said Riyadh was to blame for any failed interceptions.  “The Yemeni Armed Forces reiterate their warning to all airlines, experts, employees, workers, and travelers against using Saudi airports and airspace, as they are vulnerable to targeting and constitute a theater of operations for our forces, with the exception of Mecca and Medina airports,” Saree wrote on Telegram.“They urge everyone to take our warnings seriously, and Saudi Arabia bears responsibility for any failed attempts to intercept them,” Saree added.Ansar Allah escalated strikes on Saudi airports after issuing a warning on October 5 that Saudi airspace would no longer be safe for civilian aircraft. The group is framing the policy as an “airport for an airport” since Saudi Arabia has repeatedly bombed Yemeni airports, including the July 13 strikes on the Sanaa International Airport, which reignited the war after a ceasefire between the two sides had held relatively well since 2022.“The Armed Forces affirm their commitment to implementing the declared equation: an airport for an airport, a blockade for a blockade, and escalation for escalation, until their objectives are achieved,” Saree said in his statement on Sunday.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday “strongly condemned” the Ansar Allah attack that killed 12 civilians and confirmed an American citizen was among those killed. The attack came as President Trump said he was considering launching direct airstrikes in Yemen, which would mark another major escalation of the war.A US-Ansar Allah ceasefire reached in May 2025 remains in effect, and an Ansar Allah official has warned that if the US breaks the truce, it would lead to attacks on US assets and the closure of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to US shipping.While the US isn’t launching direct strikes, it remains deeply involved in the war as it provides targeting and intelligence support and has resumed refueling Saudi warplanes. The Saudi air campaign has had a devastating impact on Yemeni civilians, with at least 66 killed by US-backed Saudi airstrikes in September.Saudi airstrikes continued to pound Yemen over the weekend, with Saree saying on Sunday that Saudi Arabia “launched 124 airstrikes in the past 24 hours, targeting the capital Sanaa and the governorates of Taiz, Marib, al-Jawf, Hajjah, Hodeidah, and Saada, bringing the total number of airstrikes since the beginning of the escalation against our country up to 2,058, committing massacres against our people, the majority of whose victims are women and children.”

As Houthis strike Riyadh, Saudi Arabia confronts the costs of US war on Iran -For weeks, Saudi Arabia has touted the presence of boldface-name business leaders, from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon to Blackrock’s Larry Fink, at lavish investment conferences in Riyadh that showcase Saudi Arabia’s economic potential, even amid regional war. But Houthi missile strikes at a passenger terminal at Riyadh’s international airport — which killed at least a dozen people, injured more than 300 and froze all flights — have cast a shadow over the business events later this month and raised broader questions about whether the country’s immediate security and economic interests are in conflict with Washington’s war aims in Iran and with Israel’s goals in a redrawn Middle East. The threat from Houthi strikes, now being felt directly by residents of the Saudi capital, is unlikely to dissipate until the U.S.-led war ends — a prospect that seems remote as Tehran refuses to bow to the Trump administration’s demands and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warns that Iran could mount attacks ahead of his country’s elections on Oct. 27. Particularly with President Donald Trump appearing reluctant to come to Saudi Arabia’s aid with U.S. air power, Riyadh could be forced to negotiate with the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen, which has only grown more powerful and resilient in 12 years of fighting. In striking a key airport used last year by 40 million passengers — including Saudi royals, business titans and Trump — the Houthis are using the same tactic as its allies in Tehran: targeting the economic pain points of a wealthier, more conventionally powerful adversary. “The Houthis’ ability to retaliate asymmetrically, in a way that hurts, puts the Saudi leadership in a quandary,” said Michael Ratney, a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia who served in the Biden administration. “On the one hand, they are trying to degrade the Houthis’ ability to strike Saudi infrastructure and even kill civilians with relative ease. On the other hand, they have this imperative to de-escalate and get society back to normal, so this conflict doesn’t become defining.” The question is, “can they degrade the Houthis, or do they need to find an exit ramp?” asked Ratney, who added that Saudi Arabia might eventually seek a truce with the Houthis, using a combination of diplomatic negotiations and financial incentives. On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi offered to mediate between the Saudis and Houthis, his office said in a statement. But Saudi Arabia will likely forgo the Iranian offer, Saudi analysts say, because Iran is seen as the primary backer of the Houthis in the conflict in Yemen, tying a resolution there to the wider dispute in the region. “Look at the [Houthi] ballistic missiles, look at the cruise missiles, these are all upgraded and manufactured in Iran,” said Salman al-Ansari, a political commentator and founder of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee, a pro-Saudi lobbying firm in Washington. “It’s clearer than ever that when it comes to the big decisions and the regional dynamics, the Houthis are taking instructions from the Iranians.” After striking oil wells and refineries crucial to the Saudi economy in response to Saudi airstrikes in recent weeks, the Houthis are threatening the very image of the kingdom — assiduously cultivated by its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS — as a stable investment destination for tomorrow’s industries: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, entertainment, real estate and beyond. The events of this weekend, analysts say, highlight the profound dilemma facing MBS, who must juggle immediate security imperatives and long-term economic interests. Even before the airport strikes, the Houthis, who have long fought Saudi Arabia and the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized Yemeni government at varied levels of intensity, began to inflict economic pain. Last month, fully abandoning a 2022 truce, the group seized the Yemeni coast along the Bab al-Mandab strait, effectively choking a key seaborne outlet for Saudi oil exports. Iranian-backed militias in Iraq launched concurrent drones that knocked Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline offline. At the time, Trump, who has been contending with high fuel prices ahead of November’s midterm elections, along with depleted munitions stocks, declined to intervene militarily to support MBS, saying the Houthis had promised to keep the Bab al-Mandab open to most sea traffic and would refrain from striking U.S. targets. Even after the Houthis hit Saudi refineries and airports in response to Saudi airstrikes, Trump appeared noncommittal. Speaking to reporters after the Riyadh airport bombing on Saturday, the president said he was weighing joining Saudi airstrikes against Houthi targets but the U.S. remained in “communication” with the militia. Trump carried out Operation Rough Rider, a campaign of strikes against targeting the Houthis, last year. But that was before the United States went to war with Iran. Ali Shihabi, a Saudi political analyst, said Saudi Arabia was aware of Trump’s reluctance to get involved in another front and described the Saudi requests for aid as limited. U.S. military radar and jets could identify and bomb launch sites used by the Houthis far faster than the Saudi Air Force, which has to receive U.S. intelligence before it can strike, Shihabi said. “American help would be very useful, but President Trump has domestic political considerations, which we understand,” Shihabi said. “The help Saudi would like to have in Yemen is very, very specific against missile launchers. It’s not an open air campaign.” Shihabi, who also serves as an advisory board member on Saudi Arabia’s NEOM megacity project, downplayed the economic repercussions of the Houthi strike on Saudi airports, arguing that Saudi air defenses can be redeployed to better defend civilian infrastructure. The most high-profile investment summit in Riyadh this month, the Future Investment Initiative, marketed as “Davos in the Desert,” said it would proceed on Oct. 26 as planned, with executives including Dimon of JPMorgan Chase still on the attendee list. Maha al-Saud, the forum’s chief executive, said in a statement that “comprehensive” security measures were being set up for Riyadh’s airports, hotels and conference venues. A splashy 10-week sports and entertainment festival called Riyadh Season will also begin next week as planned, with tennis matches featuring Novak Djokovic and concerts by Palestinian Lebanese singer Fadel Chaker, organizers say. But Italian Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin said he would not attend another major conference, the World Petroleum Congress, which began Sunday, but participate by video instead. The chief executives of ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, Shell and BP pulled out , the Financial Times reported. For Saudi Arabia’s economic transformation to succeed, it needs to welcome global talent, investment and tourists, but “you can’t do that when people can’t land in your country safely,”

Yemen’s Houthis are bringing their war to Saudi Arabia – and reframing the narrative of being an Iranian proxy - A deadly Houthi attack on Riyadh’s international airport has highlighted how the Yemeni group is reframing its perceived “Iran proxy” role and shifting its regional focus to its ongoing battle against Saudi Arabia. The Oct. 10 strike, in which 13 people were killed and hundreds injured, was the most violent episode on Saudi Arabian soil since the beginning of the war in Iran in February.It was followed by further – albeit less deadly – missile barrages in the days since. The violence, moreover, comes just as the kingdom is hosting a major conference for oil producers. As a longtime analyst of Yemeni politics, I see the latest attacks as another illustration of both the expanding regional stalemate across the Middle East and the need to understand how Yemen’s decade-long war is having effects far beyond its territory.  The Houthi movement first emerged as a militarized political actor in Yemen in 2004 and has been locked in a multiyear civil war against the internationally recognized, Saudi-backed central government. Currently, the Houthis control about a third of the territory and two-thirds of the population. They are undoubtedly Yemen’s most powerful armed force, despite lacking access to warplanes, and have developed an arsenal of long-range missiles and drones. All along, the Houthis have frequently been portrayed by their adversaries and many external observers as a proxy for Iran, the chief regional rival to Saudi Arabia. It’s true that the movement has long been broadly aligned with Tehran and frequently shared regional objections, even if the relationship is complex and varied. At the same time, the evolution of the Houthi movement remains intimately connected to Yemen’s domestic political context and to a historical feud specific to the country – something I and many other scholars have researched. What is particularly significant in the current context of an escalating fight with Saudi Arabia, however, is the way in which the Houthi leadership has sought to reframe its military engagement over the course of 2026 so that it does not appear to be directed by Iran.This shift is analytically important because it reveals how Houthi leaders understand the political effectiveness of particular narratives and how they seek to legitimize their actions. When the United States and Israel launched their attack on Iran on Feb. 28, many observers expected the Houthis to enter the conflict swiftly. Their previous intervention in the Red Sea – between November 2023 and May 2025 – in support of Palestinians after Israel’s war in Gaza had, to some extent, provided a blueprint for disrupting maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.The symbolic returns of their earlier campaign had been considerable. On the one hand, it demonstrated the Houthis’ willingness to act in support of Gaza at a time when many Arab governments were widely perceived as turning their backs on the plight of Palestinians. It also revealed the movement’s capacity to disrupt global supply chains and affect international trade far beyond Yemen. But the Houthis remained on the sidelines for several months after the initial U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. Their leaders appeared to disregard reports that Iranian decision-makers had called on them, in July 2026, to close the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb to maritime traffic.  Assuming that the Houthis would automatically act at Tehran’s command reflected a misreading of Yemeni history and of the identity markers that shape the movement’s political legitimacy. Acting in support of Palestinians could be framed for a domestic and regional audience as an expression of Arab solidarity. But acting on behalf of Iran, a non-Arab Persian country composed almost entirely of Twelver Shia Muslims, was considerably more difficult to rationalize in Arab Yemen where Twelver Shia Muslims are absent and Sunnis are the majority.  During the summer of 2026, an important episode went largely unnoticed in the Western media: the Houthis’ attempt to establish the reopening of Sanaa International Airport through the surprise departure of a Tehran-bound flight and its subsequent return.The airport, located in the Houthi-controlled capital, had been closed since late 2024 following Israeli strikes. Its continued closure meant that access to and exit from Houthi-controlled territory remained subject to restrictions imposed by the movement’s adversaries. These included the authorities controlling Aden, the interim capital of the internationally recognized government.From the Houthis’ perspective, their sovereignty consequently remained incomplete. The airport’s closure not only restricted civilian movement but also limited their ability to send supporters abroad for training and potentially to receive military equipment. On July 13, the Saudi military’s subsequent bombing of the Sanaa runway, as the incoming aircraft from Tehran approached, provided the movement an opportunity to reignite its confrontation with Riyadh.After more than three years of a de facto ceasefire and difficult negotiations, Riyadh appeared, as in its dealings with Iran, increasingly eager to extricate itself from the region’s protracted conflicts. Sensing an opening, the Houthi leadership responded by invoking a logic of tit-for-tat retaliation.  The Houthis’ tactics today are a kind of mirror to the 2015 launch of a Saudi-led bombing campaign and blockade of the Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen that has led to years of protracted civil war. The Houthis now claim the right to impose reciprocal restrictions on Saudi Arabia, particularly by targeting its ports and oil-exporting infrastructure.  The Houthis’ new tactic serves two purposes. First, it allows the Houthis to redirect responsibility for the economic and humanitarian crisis in and around Sanaa toward the Saudi-enforced blockade rather than their own governance failures, mismanagement and corruption. Second, it provides a rationale for escalating the conflict across the region.Previously, the Houthi military leadership had halted attacks on Israeli-linked shipping in the Red Sea following the formal Gaza ceasefire of October 2025, despite having repeatedly come under bombardment. It had likewise suspended attacks on American vessels following an agreement with the Trump administration in May 2025.These decisions demonstrated a degree of pragmatism beneath the movement’s inflammatory rhetoric. That pragmatism appeared to persist even as the Houthis resumed their regional military engagement, with American diplomats reportedly meeting Houthi representatives in Oman in September 2026.With Saudi Arabia, however, the Houthis felt less compunction. Riyadh was already facing repeated barrages of Iran missiles as a consequences of its alliance with the U.S. and facing an energy export squeeze. So with the Saudi airport incident, the Houthi leadership feels it has trapped Saudi Arabia, with consequences extending to the global economy.This retaliatory strategy was bolstered by successful Houthi moves in early September to establish a degree of control over the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb, one of the world’s most important maritime choke points. That gave the Houthis leverage over shipping crucial for Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea.Drones and ballistic missiles, as the attacks on the Riyadh airport illustrate, also give the movement the capacity to strike targets across much of Saudi Arabia.The targeting of civilian infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, particularly airports, illustrates the retaliatory logic the Houthis have invoked to justify their actions. It’s far from clear what the consequences of this increasingly aggressive Houthi campaign will be. The region seems poised for ongoing strife, and it’s an open question whether it will draw back in the likes of the U.S., which has been reluctant to return to full-scale regional conflict.

Saudi Airstrikes in Yemen's al-Jawf Province Kill Nine Civilians, Including Five Children -     Saudi airstrikes hit a government building and civilian homes in northern Yemen’s al-Jawf province on Monday, killing at least nine civilians, including five children, Yemeni media has reported. Citing the Health Ministry within the Ansar Allah-led Yemeni government, the SABA news agency reported that seven other people were injured in the attack and described the casualty figures as an initial toll. Footage from Al Masirah TV shows the aftermath of the strikes and some of the casualties, including children who were killed.  A man holding the body of a child killed by a Saudi strike in Yemen’s al-Jawf province on October 12, 2026 (screenshot of footage from Al Masirah TV)The Health Ministry said in a statement that the “direct targeting of government facilities and civilians constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and a crime added to the series of crimes committed by the Saudi-led coalition against the people of Yemen.”Other civilian casualties were reported in attacks in Yemen on Monday, including shelling by Saudi-backed forces that killed a child in Yemen’s southwestern Taiz province. On Sunday night, Saudi airstrikes hit residential areas in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, damaging homes and injuring civilians.The Saudi-led coalition was notorious for bombing civilians during the war in Yemen from 2015 to 2022, and the Saudi bombing campaign has followed the same pattern since Riyadh reignited the war by launching airstrikes against the Sanaa International Airport in July. The bombing campaign is backed by the US, which is providing intelligence and targeting data and has also resumed refueling Saudi warplanes.  According to the Yemen Data Project, at least 66 civilians were killed, and 90 were wounded by Saudi airstrikes in September, the heaviest month of Saudi airstrikes in the country since January 2022. The Health Ministry said Saturday that since September 3, when the war escalated following the start of an Ansar Allah ground offensive, 91 civilians have been killed and 168 have been injured.Ansar Allah’s attacks on Saudi airports have also inflicted civilian casualties, with at least 14 civilians killed by strikes on the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh in recent days.

Saudi Airstrikes Hit Girls' School and Health Center in Yemen, Killing Five Civilians: Yemeni Media -  Saudi airstrikes in Yemen’s southwestern Taiz province on Monday hit a girls’ school and a health center, killing at least five civilians, according to Yemeni media reports.  Yemen’s SABA news agency, citing a local source, reported that a child was among those killed and that 15 other civilians were wounded. The news agency also published photos said to show the aftermath of the attack. Saudi Arabia was notorious for bombing civilians during the war in Yemen from 2015 to 2022, and the current conflict, which was reignited by Saudi airstrikes on the Sanaa International Airport in July, has followed a similar pattern. Separate Saudi strikes in the northern al-Jawf province on Monday killed at least nine civilians, including five children.The Health Ministry within the Ansar Allah-led Yemeni government reported more civilian casualties on Tuesday, saying that at least two were killed by Saudi strikes on oil infrastructure in Hodeidah. On Monday, the ministry said that since September 3, when the war escalated following the start of an Ansar Allah ground offensive, Saudi strikes have killed at least 107 civilians and wounded 278.The Yemen Data Project, an independent organization, has reported a similar toll, saying in a report that at least 66 civilians were killed and 90 were wounded by Saudi strikes in the month of September. The bombing campaign is backed by the US, which is providing intelligence and targeting data and has also resumed refueling Saudi warplanes.  Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, has also killed civilians in its strikes on Saudi Arabia. At least 14 civilians were killed by weekend attacks on the King Khalid Airport in Riyadh.

Saudi Airstrikes in Yemen Killed at Least 66 Civilians and Wounded 90 in September - -  Saudi airstrikes in Yemen killed at least 66 civilians, including eight children, and wounded 90 throughout September, according to the Yemen Data Project (YDP), as the war has significantly escalated since it was reignited by Saudi airstrikes on the Sanaa International Airport in July.The deadliest single incident for civilians was the September 7 bombing of the Central Correction Prison in the northern al-Jawf province, where 35 civilians, including one child, were killed and seven were wounded when the facility was hit by a Saudi strike. Yemen’s Mine Action Center reported that its experts documented bomb fragments at the site and determined that the strike was carried out with a 2,000-pound US-made satellite-guided GBU-31 JDAM bomb. Other significant incidents in September include the September 27 bombing of a market in the southwestern Taiz province, which killed seven civilians and wounded 40, including five children. On September 22, a Saudi strike hit a civilian home in the Red Sea port city of Mocha, killing six civilians, including a woman and two children.The Saudi airstrikes are supported by the US, which is providing intelligence and targeting support. Amid the escalations in Yemen and the rapid gains by Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, the US has resumed refueling Saudi warplanes, which was previously suspended back in 2018 due to pressure from Congress, as the Saudi air campaign at the time was also taking an enormous toll on civilians.The YDP said September marked the highest rate of civilian casualties in Saudi airstrikes in Yemen since January 2022, when Saudi airstrikes killed at least 155 civilians. The single worst incident in that month was the bombing of a migrant detention facility in Yemen’s northern Saada province, which killed 91 civilians. That same facility was bombed by the US during President Trump’s bombing campaign against Ansar Allah last year, which killed 68 civilians, a massacre the Pentagon has acknowledged.

Iran Offers to Contribute to Saudi-Yemen Dialogue - (Tasnim) – Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi expressed Iran’s readiness to provide any assistance to help initiate dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Yemen and facilitate a political solution to the crisis. In a telephone conversation with his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan on Sunday evening, the two top diplomats discussed the latest developments in the region. Araqchi expressed concern over escalating tensions, stressing that insisting on a military approach and disregarding a political solution would further complicate the existing situation. He also emphasized that the ongoing crises in the region have no military solution, reiterating Iran’s readiness to provide any assistance to help launch dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Yemen and facilitate a political settlement.

Yemen slams Saudi strike on Sana’a oil facility as ‘clear war crime,’ vows ‘harsh and painful’ retaliation -Yemeni government spokesperson Omar Al-Bukhaiti has condemned a Saudi attack on an oil company facility in the Al-Subaha area west of the capital, Sanaa, denouncing it as a “clear war crime” and vowing a “harsh and painful response” to the assault. In a statement carried by the Yemen News Agency (Saba), Al-Bukhaiti said the US-backed Saudi enemy committed "a grave act of folly by targeting civilian facilities and infrastructure in the capital, Sanaa," emphasizing that such aggression would not go unanswered. The government spokesperson reassured the Yemeni people that authorities had taken all necessary measures to confront the attack and maintain stability. He confirmed that the targeted facility was empty at the time of the strike and that the supply of petroleum products remains stable and sufficient to meet citizens' needs for an extended period, urging the public to disregard false rumors regarding fuel shortages. The strike came shortly after the Saudi-led coalition issued a warning ordering civilians to evacuate the Al-Subaha area, which houses a station belonging to the Yemen Petroleum Company (YPC) and nearby storage areas. The Yemen Petroleum Company swiftly moved to reassure the public, stating that the Al-Subaha facilities contained no stock of petroleum products at the time of the attack and that the strike would not affect fuel stock or supply chains. The company confirmed that supplies for consumption are "available in safe facilities and locations, and in sufficient quantities" to meet demand for extended periods. The attack comes despite prior warnings from the Yemeni Armed Forces that any strike on Sanaa would trigger direct retaliation against the Saudi capital. Earlier on Tuesday, after the Saudi coalition announced its evacuation warning and threatened a "special operation" in Sanaa, Yemeni military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree issued a definitive red line: "The Yemeni armed forces warn the Saudi enemy that any attacks on the capital, Sana'a, will be met with a harsh and painful response in the Saudi enemy's capital, Riyadh." Saree also declared all Saudi Aramco oil facilities "legitimate targets," issuing urgent directives for employees, engineers, experts, and citizens near any Aramco installation to evacuate immediately. He further warned airlines, airports, travelers, and employees operating in previously designated target areas to stay away. Since 2015, the US-backed Saudi-led coalition has subjected Yemen to a brutal military aggression and a comprehensive land, air, and sea siege, triggering one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. In response, the Yemeni Armed Forces have developed advanced domestic drone and missile capabilities, repeatedly striking deep into Saudi territory—including critical Aramco installations—to force the lifting of the siege.

Houthis strike Aramco hours after Saudi-led coalition hits Sanaa oil site - Al Jazeera - The Houthis have targeted an administrative building belonging to Saudi Arabia’s Aramco in the eastern city of Dhahran, an official at the Ministry of Energy told the Saudi SPA news agency. Authorities ⁠responded to a fire caused by the attack on Tuesday, ⁠the ministry ⁠said in a statement. No injuries or fatalities were reported. The attack on the headquarters of Saudi’s national oil company came after Yemen’s Houthis warned all employees and civilians near Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities to evacuate, calling the sites “a legitimate target” earlier on Tuesday. The warning from the group’s spokesman, Yahya Saree, was prompted by an evacuation order from the Saudi-led coalition urging civilians to evacuate Yemeni Oil Company’s al-Sabah central station in the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa. Saree responded to the coalition’s evacuation order, warning that any strikes on Sanaa would meet a “harsh and painful” reprisal on the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh. Saudi Arabia also intercepted missiles launched by the Houthis towards Riyadh, SPA reported. Four ⁠people ⁠were injured and 15 homes were ⁠damaged by the debris from two intercepted missiles, said the Civil Defense spokesperson, according to SPA. Shortly after the Saudi-led coalition’s evacuation order, Al Jazeera’s team on the ground reported hearing explosions in Sanaa. Media outlets affiliated with the Houthis said air strikes by the Saudi-backed forces struck an oil facility in the al-Sabah area of the capital. Shortly after the warning, Saree said on Telegram that any Saudi attack on Sanaa would be met with a “firm and painful” response in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Houthi officials appeared to have anticipated the attack. The oil company said its storage facilities were empty and that a Saudi strike would not affect oil reserves or supplies for residents. Still, witnesses in the city said lines of cars formed at some gas stations amid fears of a shortage. “We heard the explosion upon Saudi Arabia targeting the Yemeni oil al-Sabah central station here in the capital Sanaa,” Al Jazeera correspondent Yousef Mawry said. Saudi Arabia also conducted two other air strike campaigns on the Ras Isa port, targeting Yemeni oil storage tanks and on an oil station in the Houthi-controlled Hodeidah province, according to Mawry. Saudi-led coalition spokesman Major General Turki al-Maliki accused the Houthis of using the facility and its underground fuel depots for their arsenal of missiles and drones. Following the reported explosions, Saree said Houthi fighters were confronting Saudi-backed forces in Sanaa. In a statement on X, Saree said the Houthis would target the sites that were ordered to be evacuated if the Saudi-led coalition proceeded with an attack on Sanaa. Civilians were told on Tuesday to evacuate the Aramco company headquarters in Dhahran, Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport and a refinery affiliated with Aramco in Riyadh.  An attack on Riyadh’s airport on Saturday left at least 13 people dead and more than 300 injured, rocking the world’s top crude oil exporter. Another person was killed, and 11 were wounded on Sunday after a projectile struck the airport in Riyadh.

Ansar Allah Warns More Attacks on Saudi Oil Facilities Are Coming After Strike Hits Aramco Headquarters - Yemen’s Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, warned on Wednesday that more attacks targeting Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities were coming following a strike that hit the headquarters of the Saudi state-owned oil giant Aramco in the eastern city of Dhahran.Yahya Saree, spokesman for the Ansar Allah-led Yemeni Armed Forces, said that attacks also targeted the King Khalid International Airport and an Aramco refinery in Riyadh. The Ansar Allah strikes came after Saudi warplanes bombed an oil depot on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, which Yemeni officials said was empty, and a fuel port on the Red Sea in Yemen’s Hodeidah province, where two civilians were killed.“The Yemeni Armed Forces affirm that their operations toward Saudi depths will continue in the coming days, targeting Saudi enemy airports and oil facilities, and their consequences will be severe for the enemy, by the permission and power of God,” Saree said in a statement on Telegram. Saree also renewed the evacuation warning for Saudi airports and said that Ansar Allah would continue its “siege for siege” policy against Saudi Arabia. The war was reignited in July when Saudi Arabia bombed Yemen’s Sanaa International Airport to enforce a long-standing blockade that was eased as a result of a 2022 ceasefire deal but never fully lifted.Saudi strikes continued to hit Yemen on Wednesday, and several civilian casualties were reported. Yemen’s SABA news agency reported that at least one woman was killed and four other civilians were wounded by Saudi airstrikes that hit the al-Shamayateen District in the southwestern Taiz Governorate.“Over the past 24 hours, Saudi warplanes launched 42 airstrikes and missile attacks targeting civilian areas in the capital, Sana’a, and the governorates of Taiz, Lahj, Marib, Amran, and Mayyun Island. These attacks were carried out using F-15 and Typhoon aircraft that took off from the Khamis Mushait and Taif airbases, with missile strikes originating from Najran,” Saree said in a separate statement. The Sanaa-based Yemeni Health Ministry said on Monday that since September 3, when the war escalated following the start of an Ansar Allah ground offensive, Saudi strikes have killed at least 107 civilians and wounded 278. The US is strongly backing the air campaign by providing intelligence support and refueling Saudi warplanes. Fighting also continues on the ground in Yemen as Ansar Allah is encircling the city of Taiz, which has long been a stronghold of Saudi-backed Yemeni forces. The ground fighting has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians, and the war casualties have overwhelmed hospitals in Taiz and other parts of Yemen.

Houthi Missile On Riyadh Wounds Residents, As IMF Chief Warns Of Spillover 'For Everybody, Everywhere'  Wednesday has witnessed another Houthi ballistic missile attack targeting Saudi Arabia's capital. The kingdom's civil defense spokesman has confirmed bystanders were injured when missile debris from an inbound rocket fell after it was intercepted over Riyadh. "The incident resulted in injury to an Arab resident and limited material damage to a residential building and a vehicle," stated the spokesman, as quoted by state SPA news agency. A later update included more casualties: "Saudi Arabia's civil defense agency said on Wednesday that four people – two women, a man and a child – were wounded by debris from two intercepted Houthi cruise missiles in the capital and that 15 homes were damaged." Saudi coalition spokesman Turki Al-Malki had separately written on X, "Interception and destruction of a ballistic missile launched by the terrorist Houthi militia towards Riyadh." AFP journalists had cited loud explosions heard in the capital at the time of the attack, with emergency messages issued by authorities warning people on cell phones of an "aerial threat" and urging them to take shelter. Saudi Arabia has faced widening Houthi strikes, which have now become daily since ramping up over the past week, in connection with the raging ground war in Yemen, focused on the Red Sea coast. Last weekend saw two unprecedented strikes on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh which killed 13 people and left hundreds injured. The head of the International Monetary Fund, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, warned that these worsening attacks on Saudi Arabia could impact people "everywhere". "The Saudi economy is important for the region and the world, and in that sense, these developments have potentially negative spillovers for everybody, everywhere," Georgieva stated at a news conference during the Annual Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank in Bangkok. One regional outlet has tallied that over a dozen countries have outright suspended flight services to Saudi Arabia, amid the Houthi 'war on the airports' - which has left major Saudi hubs shuttered for at least through the rest of this week: At least 17 airlines from 13 countries have suspended or canceled flights to Saudi Arabia as of 13 October following Yemeni strikes on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport. Close to 1,500 flight-cancellation listings were recorded across Saudi Arabia’s major airports on 11 and 12 October, according to Flightradar24 data reviewed by Gulf Business. Riyadh alone lost 98 percent of its scheduled traffic on Sunday, with 655 cancellations. Tuesday evening into the overnight hours also saw a rare Houthi attack on Saudi Aramco's administrative headquarters in the kingdom's east. It resulted in a "limited fire" - the company said.

Ansar Allah Strikes Headquarters of Saudi-Backed Yemeni Government in Aden - Ansar Allah launched an attack on Thursday targeting the headquarters of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government in Aden as the Yemen war continues to escalate. Officials within the Saudi-backed government said that the strike on the presidential palace killed five people and wounded 16, and that the casualties included security personnel and civilians who worked at the facility, while Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, said that it targeted the Saudi military.“The bombing of the Saudi enemy’s military operations headquarters in Aden comes within the framework of the declared equation of striking Saudi troop concentrations wherever they may be, and considering any Saudi enemy military presence a legitimate target for our forces wherever it may be,” Ansar Allah military spokesman Yahya Saree wrote on Telegram. A military source from the Ansar Allah-led Yemeni Armed Forces claimed to Yemen’s Saba news agency that “a number of Saudi officers were killed and wounded as a result of a strike that targeted their headquarters in Aden.”Shaya al-Zindani, the prime minister of the Saudi-backed government, was said to be at the palace at the time of the strike and was unharmed. The Riyadh-based Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), established by Saudi Arabia after Riyadh gave up its goal of reinstalling former President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi in Sanaa, appointed al-Zindani prime minister in January after Saudi Arabia clashed with the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council.Also on Thursday, Saree denied Saudi claims that Ansar Allah targeted Medina, the second holiest city in Islam. “The Yemeni Armed Forces confirm that they did not carry out any targeting operations towards Saudi territory today, and that the Saudi enemy’s claim of targeting Medina is a blatant and gross fabrication,” he said.Saudi airstrikes continued to hit northern Yemen, and fighting between Ansar Allah and Saudi-backed forces continued around the city of Taiz, which is under siege as Ansar Allah’s forces have it encircled.

Analysis-How are Yemen’s Houthis attacking Saudi Arabia so effectively? (Reuters) - Houthi militants who control northwestern Yemen have in the past week attacked Riyadh international airport and hit the headquarters of Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company, in air assaults that have laid bare Saudi Arabia's vulnerability to threats from its enemy next door. The attacks are shattering the illusion of Saudi Arabia as a safe international investment hub as it tries to attract foreign money and diversify away from oil. This nightmare scenario for a key US ally in the Gulf has been years in the making, weapons and regional experts say. They attribute Saudi Arabia's vulnerability to a perfect storm of factors that include Tehran helping the Houthis reach near self-sufficiency in producing and deploying advanced weapons, bolstering the ragtag Yemeni group, and the impact of the US war on Iran, which has depleted stocks of interceptors. Iran has been giving weapons, money and training to the Houthis, known formally as Ansar Allah, for more than a decade, although Tehran has officially denied arming the ​Houthis in violation of a ⁠UN arms embargo. While Iran has come under its own financial and military strains due to war and sanctions, the Houthis have learned – with Iranian help – how to assemble their own weapons, including drones and missiles, the experts interviewed by Reuters said. Iran's Revolutionary Guards and members of Iran's other ally, Lebanese Hezbollah, initially gave the Houthis knowledge of missile systems and their operation, said Andreas Krieg, senior security studies lecturer at King's College London. "Former Yemeni military engineers and a growing generation of locally trained specialists have helped institutionalise these capabilities," he said. "Tehran has not simply supplied the Houthis with weapons. It has helped create an indigenous military-industrial learning process that becomes progressively harder to dismantle, even if direct Iranian supply routes are disrupted." Iranian analysts said that the Houthis have in this way become one of the most cost-effective and valuable military proxies of Iran. "The Revolutionary Guards were forward-looking. They looked at what happened if the Houthis couldn't receive equipment or weapons directly (from Iran), or if these were seized by US-allied forces," said Hamid Nikou, a former political advisor to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Nikou said this strategy included teaching the Houthis how to assemble dual-use parts to make drones and even ballistic missiles. The Saudi-led military coalition fighting against the Houthis in Yemen says it has intercepted a number of missiles fired by the Houthis at Saudi cities, and that it has destroyed 127 Houthi weapons storage facilities and launch platforms. Coalition spokesperson Turki al-Maliki told a press conference the Houthis had acquired advanced military technology with the help of "regional actors," including ballistic missiles, drones and explosive-laden fast boats. A key strength of the Houthis in building their own weapons is that they don't rely solely on Iranian-made equipment or imports coming from Iran. The Conflict Armament Research organization said in a report this week that the Houthis were attempting to make advanced medium-range ballistic missiles using parts shipped from China, after Yemen's internationally recognised government seized one such shipment. "China has emerged as a particularly important commercial source, while Iran continues to provide specialised military technology, technical expertise and components that are difficult to obtain commercially," Krieg said. The Houthis have also experimented with artificial intelligence in efforts to improve their weapons' effectiveness. Anthropic said last month that "a cell of threat actors based in northern Yemen" had used its Claude AI assistant to help develop software for a guided rocket, a planned ballistic missile with a range of more than 2,000 km (1,240 miles) and a missile variant incorporating a hypersonic glide vehicle. While the Houthis have improved their weapons production, US allies in the region have seen their air defences stretched since the war that began when the US and Israel attacked Iran in late February. The United States has used large amounts of the missile interceptors it deploys in the region to protect its bases and its allies, which include Israel and Gulf countries, leaving some vulnerable, Saudi Arabia in particular. "Saudi Arabia, in terms of the sophistication of the military and the development of an integrated air defence network, is not really yet at the level of either Israel or Ukraine, and it just has a very tough job to do," said Farzan Sabet, a Middle East expert at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Saudi Arabia's sheer size makes defence against air attacks harder than defending Israel or a US base, he said.  The Houthis have learned from the increased levels of violence in the region in recent years, Sabet said. A Yemeni civil war, in which the Houthis battled Saudi-backed forces from 2014, settled into a shaky ceasefire in 2022. But after Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2023, which followed deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel, the Houthis began firing rockets at Israel and targeting shipping through the Red Sea. The fallout from the US-Iran war this year reignited the Yemeni civil war, by which time the Houthis had developed new capabilities. "They haven't been sitting still," Sabet said. "They were basically diversifying their supply chains... and as they gain operational experience, they're able to make those weapons more sophisticated."

Report: Netanyahu Seeking Saudi Approval To Join Yemen War Against Ansar Allah - --Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking approval from Saudi Arabia to join the war in Yemen against Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, Haaretz reported on Monday.  The report cited an unnamed diplomatic source who also said that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman opposed Israeli military involvement over concerns about likely domestic backlash.The source linked Netanyahu’s desire to get involved in the war to advancing a Saudi-Israel normalization agreement, though Saudi officials in recent years have maintained that the kingdom won’t normalize relations with Israel until there’s a path toward a Palestinian state. Israel’s intervention in the war would also serve Netanyahu’s electoral interests, as a regional escalation involving Israel could bolster his coalition’s chances of gaining enough seats in the Knesset to form a government. The Israeli elections are scheduled to take place on October 27.Israel has launched multiple bombing raids in Yemen in recent years as Ansar Allah imposed a Red Sea blockade on Israeli shipping and launched drone and missile attacks on Israeli territory in response to Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. Any more direct Israeli strikes on Yemen would likely trigger Ansar Allah attacks on Israeli territory.So far, President Trump has declined requests from MbS for the US to launch direct airstrikes against Ansar Allah, though the US is deeply involved in the war by providing intelligence and refueling Saudi warplanes to support the bombing campaign, which has killed a large number of Yemeni civilians.A US-Ansar Allah ceasefire reached in May 2025 remains in effect, and an Ansar Allah official has warned that if the US breaks the truce, it would lead to attacks on US assets and the closure of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to US shipping.

Israel Kills 15 Palestinians in Gaza Over Three Days as IDF Intensifies Strikes One Year After 'Ceasefire' Deal -   Israeli attacks have killed at least 15 Palestinians in Gaza over the past three days, according to numbers from Gaza’s Health Ministry, as the IDF has intensified its strikes on the besieged Palestinian territory one year after a ceasefire deal was signed.The Health Ministry said on Saturday that over the past 48-hour period, the IDF killed nine Palestinians and injured 65. On Sunday, the ministry said that it recorded the Israeli killing of six Palestinians and the injury of 28. Over those three days, two other Palestinians died of wounds sustained by previous Israeli attacks, meaning that 17 fatalities have been added to the ministry’s death toll. The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Sunday that a seven-year-old child, identified as Jihad al-Ghandour, died of wounds sustained by Israeli gunfire in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Saturday. A separate Israeli attack on Saturday killed an eight-year-old girl, Shahd Abdul-Razzaq al-Najjar. Israeli attacks also continued on Sunday, with at least four Palestinians killed by an airstrike west of Khan Younis, and eight Palestinians, including a pregnant woman, injured by IDF fire in separate attacks across the Strip.The US-backed Gaza ceasefire deal was signed on October 9, 2025, and was supposed to come into effect the following day. Despite Hamas fulfilling its end of the agreement by releasing the remaining Israeli captives and working to find the remains of deceased Israelis, Israel has constantly violated the deal with daily attacks and by taking more territory beyond the so-called yellow line.According to the Gaza Health Ministry’s latest numbers, since the deal was signed, the IDF has killed at least 1,488 Palestinians and wounded 5,254.Back in July, President Trump and the so-called Board of Peace announced that Hamas had agreed to a deal that would see the group give up its weapons, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the US-backed proposal, and the US continues to back Israel’s strikes in Gaza.

Israel Has Killed Over 1,500 Palestinians in Gaza Since Signing So-Called Ceasefire Deal - The Israeli military has now killed more than 1,500 Palestinians in Gaza since signing a so-called ceasefire deal just over one year ago in October 2025, according to numbers from Gaza’s Health Ministry, as it has continued constant violations of the agreement.The Health Ministry said on Wednesday that over the previous 24 hours, Israeli attacks killed two Palestinians and another died of wounds sustained in an earlier Israeli attack, bringing the post-ceasefire deal death toll to 1,501. Another 5,323 Palestinians have been wounded in that time.In that same period, seven IDF soldiers have been killed in Gaza, including one who was killed by other Israeli soldiers in a friendly-fire incident in February of this year, and two who were killed in September in the accidental explosion of an Israeli military drone. The other four died as a result of “combat” in southern Gaza in October 2025, when Hamas militants were trapped on the Israeli-occupied side of the Strip.Hamas has also not launched any rocket attacks on Israel and has agreed to a US-backed proposal that would see the group give up its weapons, but Israel rejected the potential deal. Despite President Trump calling for Israel to stop bombing Gaza because Hamas agreed to disarm, the US continues backing Israel’s daily attacks. Israeli attacks in Gaza continued on Wednesday, with a woman reported killed by an Israeli strike on an apartment building in Gaza City early in the morning. According to a report from Al Jazeera Arabic, the woman’s three-year-old daughter was with her at the time of the strike and was rescued by Palestinian journalist Ali al-Jafrawi.“I went up to the apartment, there were flames raging everywhere. I went in despite the fire and smoke and heard a child screaming from inside. I went in and found her, so I rescued her immediately. I carried her and handed the girl over to people to take her to the hospital,” al-Jafrawi told Al Jazeera. “I later learned that her name was Maryam Ahmed Ghanem and she was 3 years old. Her father was martyred at the beginning of the war, and her mother was killed in the bombing at dawn today, leaving her alone,” he added.

Israel Has Now Destroyed at Least 48 Southern Lebanese Villages - Since relatively early in the current Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, the IDF has made a priority of destroying Lebanese villages en masse. In late June, Defense Minister Israel Katz said that certain Lebanese villages would have to “disappear,” and over the course of the summer, that’s exactly what has happened. The latest analysis of satellite imagery by the New York Times shows that no less than 48 towns and villages within the “Yellow Line” zone established by Israel in the course of the March invasion have been more or less totally destroyed, with further destruction continuing every day. Katz had been bragging about this for months. Back at the end of July, he estimated 24 municipalities had been destroyed, amounting to some 15,000-20,000 homes. He bragged that Israel was no longer destroying “one house at a time,” but rather demolishing villages wholesale. Apparently that was accurate, because the number of municipalities that are now “disappeared” has roughly doubled since then, even though more than half a dozen US-brokered deals have been reached since then. With demolition continuing daily, that 48 number is liable to continue to grow. It’s not just towns and villages, either, as Israel has notoriously attacked and destroyed an enormous amount of farmland across the south, devastating the mostly agriculture-based economy and raising concerns from the UN that Lebanon could face food insecurity going forward. It’s harvest season for Lebanon’s olive groves, and that has put them in Israel’s crosshairs as well. Already some people have been killed in IDF attacks on the groves, and while the harvest continues, it continues under ongoing Israeli artillery fire. Attacks continued across southern Lebanon today, and Israeli artillery fire was reported against multiple villages, raising concerns that yet more Lebanese territory is about to face outright elimination through military force.

Hezbollah Confirms Explosives Seized at Lebanon Checkpoint Belonged to Them, Demands Their Return - Earlier this week, Lebanese officials seized a truckload of explosives in the northeastern Hermel region, leading to accusations from some of the officials of an impending Hezbollah assassination campaign involving bombs. On Thursday, Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah confirmed that the explosives belonged to the group, but insisted that there was no assassination program, and that the explosives were intended exclusively for the group’s militant faction to resist Israel’s ongoing invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon.Fadlallah called on the government to release the two men detained with the truck, and to return the explosives to the group, saying the contents of the truck “belong to the resistance.” He further accused the government of abandoning its responsibility to protect the country. Earlier this week another Hezbollah MP, Ibrahim al-Moussawi, had also rejected the allegation that the group was planning assassinations, while insisting that self-defense was the group’s natural right and similarly saying the government and military had failed to stop the invasion.The Lebanese government has been trying to ban Hezbollah’s militant wing outright, and impose a full monopoly on weaponry to the military. Hezbollah has rejected those disarmament calls, however, citing the ongoing threats of Israeli occupation as proof the organization needs to exist.Fadlallah claimed the allegations of assassination plots were meant to sow division and undermine Hezbollah’s position, saying the government’s moves against Hezbollah primarily served the interests of Israel and the US, not of Lebanon itself.

Zelensky Says He'll Hold Elections If Putin Agrees to a 60-Day Ceasefire - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that he would hold elections in Ukraine if Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to a 60-day ceasefire, comments that came after President Trump said Ukraine needed a new president to reach a deal with Russia.Zelensky’s term expired in May 2024, but he has remained in power because no elections have been held, and he has continued to reject the growing calls within Ukraine to hold a vote.Trump said on Saturday that he suggested Ukraine “get a new leader who can make a deal because he could have made many deals and for some reason he never does.”Responding to Trump, Zelensky said in an interview with ABC News that Trump should tell Putin to agree to a 60-day ceasefire. “So please tell Putin, give us two months, 60 days off. Total ceasefire, 60 days, and we will organize elections,” he said. “Of course, we will be ready for any choice of our people, exactly Ukrainian people.”Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials have justified not holding an election by pointing to Ukraine’s constitution, which prohibits elections during martial law, first declared after Russia’s invasion and extended since, though Zelensky suggested back in 2023 that he could hold one if the US and other Western countries paid for it. Zelensky also offered criticism of a deal Trump announced that would involve the US importing Russian diesel, calling it a “birthday gift” to Putin that would allow Russia to “kill us, kill our children.”Trump also lashed out at Zelensky on Saturday over Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil refineries, as he’s attempting to shift blame for the global energy crisis from the US war with Iran to the Russia-Ukraine war. However, it’s been widely reported that Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy infrastructure are supported by US intelligence.

Zelensky Says Ukraine's Backers Didn't Provide Early Warning on Russian Missile Launch for Second Night - - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday night that Ukraine’s Western backers didn’t provide an early warning for a Russian ballistic missile attack for the second night in a row.“A Russian ballistic missile attack on Kyiv. Once again, no early warning from our partners,” the Ukrainian leader wrote on X.Earlier in the day, other Ukrainian officials downplayed the lack of an early warning for a Russian ballistic missile attack that occurred on Monday night, saying that the US and other NATO countries have previously failed to detect Russian missiles launched. Colonel Yurii Ihnat, spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, said that the typical early warning for the October 12 strikes was delayed. “The intelligence data that everyone is talking about now varies. There is intelligence utilizing satellite communications that not only the US but also other NATO countries share with Ukraine,” he said. “There are moments when this information fails to arrive. This is not the first case… If there were certain technical issues this time, I believe the experts can sort it out. And we will resolve this problem together with our partners,” Inhat added.Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Zelensky, said it was not the first time Ukraine’s allies had failed to detect a ballistic missile launch from an S-400, a Russian air defense system that can also be used to strike ground targets. “There are certain nuances. It is not worth making conclusions prematurely,” he said in a Facebook post on Monday night. Zelensky’s comments have been tied to recent reporting that the US has been threatening to cut weapons shipments and intelligence to Ukraine if it doesn’t end attacks on Russian oil refineries, but Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that the US was still sharing intelligence, which was also reported by Ukrainian media. It doesn’t appear that Ukraine has targeted any oil refineries inside Russia over the past two days, even as its massive drone attacks inside Russia have continued. Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks, including the strikes on oil refineries, are known to be supported by US intelligence. Zelensky said in his post on Tuesday night that Russia struck a power plant in Kyiv and accused Moscow of violating an energy ceasefire announced by President Trump, though Moscow has declined to comment on Trump’s announcement and has said its discussions with the US on the issue are ongoing.

Musk Suggests Trump is Behind Internet Outage in Ukraine – (news video) Russia launched a new round of punishing attacks on Ukraine as vital internet service in the war-torn country is being restored, according to a Ukrainian defense ministry source speaking anonymously. Ukrainian officials say restrictions from Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite network had caused some drones to lose their connection while flying. Musk is pushing back and pointing a finger at President Donald Trump for the outage. NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez reports for TODAY.

Heavy Russian Strikes Kill Nine People Across Ukraine, Pound Power Plants -   Heavy Russian strikes pounded targets across Ukraine overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, killing at least nine people and leaving hundreds of thousands without power as attacks hit multiple power plants. Photos show that at least one residential building in Kyiv’s Desnianskyi district was hit during the barrage, where Ukrainian officials say at least two civilians were killed.The Russian Defense Ministry announced strikes on multiple power stations in Kyiv and Kharkiv, despite President Trump announcing several days ago that the two sides had reached an energy ceasefire, though both Russia and Ukraine made clear at the time that no such deal existed. Axios reported on October 11, citing a White House official, that the US proposal involved only halting attacks on oil refineries, not on power plants or electricity grids. The official also acknowledged that Russia had not agreed to the proposal.Ukraine appeared to have refrained from targeting Russian oil refineries for several days, though on Wednesday Alexander Novak, Russia’s deputy prime minister, accused Ukraine of attacking two refineries in Russia’s Saratov and Ryazan, allegations that Ukrainian officials denied. At least one civilian was killed in Russia’s Saratov region during the massive Ukrainian drone barrage. According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, a total of 902 Ukrainian drones were shot down over multiple Russian regions and the Black Sea during the massive Russian attack.According to Russia’s TASS news agency, 493 Ukrainian drones were launched toward the Moscow Oblast, one of the largest attacks on the region. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said that 180 drones were intercepted near Moscow while the rest were taken down at a further distance.

Ukraine Attacks Two More Refineries After Trump's Proclaimed 'Energy Ceasefire': Kremlin -The Kremlin on Wednesday indicated that work on the Trump-proposed energy truce with Ukraine is continuing, but in contradiction with recent Trump proclamations did not treat it as any kind of done deal currently in effect. President Trump in a late in the day Monday exchange with reporters said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin must come together to end the war. He told the press at the White House that there had been violations of his proposed "energy ceasefire" by both Ukraine and Russia. Trump had previously stated that the warring sides agreed to an energy ceasefire, which Zelensky has balked at, saying specifics of when such a ceasefire is supposed begin must be shared with him. That's when Trump claimed: "Well, they agreed. You know why? Because I said: 'you agree.' That's why. They agreed because I said they agreed." More evidence has emerged Wednesday that this supposed 'agreement' is still being violated almost on a daily basis. The Kremlin has announced two more oil refineries have just been attacked by Ukrainian drones: Russia Deputy PM Novak says Ukraine attacked two refineries in Russia today; Ukraine are not showing any signs of moving towards an "energy truce". TASS has identified these as the Saratov and Ryazan refineries. These refineries have been targeted previously in the war, with Saratov in particular having suffered a full shutdown from damage in September 2025, during which time it was repaired. State media has been circulating the fresh reports: Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has meanwhile issued a fresh press briefing wherein he said the government is committed to resolving the Ukraine conflict but that "The risk of sabotage by European countries does exist." Ironically Europe is currently accusing Moscow of doing just this. "The US, specifically its negotiators and President Trump, is making efforts to help steer the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis toward peace," Peskov stated. But then he lashed out at the EU and NATO, saying: "Europeans are taking a different approach: they are doing everything they can to ensure that this war continues." "There’s a lot of media hype around all of this right now, and much of it doesn’t correspond to reality; it’s pure fiction." He was further quoted as saying: Work on the possibility of an "energy ceasefire" is continuing. But he also conceded: "There are no agreed-upon meetings on the agenda." Peskov hinted at the usual backchannels, however: "This work is ongoing discreetly and it will continue discreetly," he added. As for Ukraine's Zelensky, his first reaction to Trump earlier declaring an 'energy ceasefire' was to say it was "news to me" - strongly suggesting no such thing is in place. Both sides have continued to send wave after wave of devastating drone waves against the other, including against energy infrastructure.

Black Sea Shipping Hit With Escalating Attacks - Drone attacks on commercial shipping in the Black Sea on Tuesday sank one ship and damaged another. The cargo ship Dignity, a Guinea-Bissau-flagged vessel, was sunk. The Ukrainian-operated coastal freighter Chelsea, a Malta-flagged vessel, was disabled. Both ships were attacked approximately 20 miles off the coast of Bulgaria.Officials in Bulgaria, which joined NATO in 2004, the EU in 2007 and the “Eurozone” this year, said five crew members were rescued from the Dignity, while 11 crew members remain missing as search efforts continue. All 15 crew members from the Chelsea were rescued, including 7 Ukrainian citizens.The attacks are the latest in a spiral of escalation that has been building since the summer. Last week, drones sank the Alfa Watan, a Togo-flagged cargo ship. All 10 of its crew members are missing and presumed dead. On Oct. 7, Bulgarian President Iliana Yotova blamed Russia for the deteriorating security conditions in the Black Sea but did not formally accuse it of sinking the Alfa Watan.On Tuesday, Bulgarian officials again refrained from blaming Russia for the attacks, but the Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev made a point of “summoning” the Russian Ambassador, Eleonora Mitrofanova, and telling her, “it makes no sense for Ukraine to destroy its own ships in the Black Sea, and the results of these strikes favor Russia’s interests.” Mitrofanova countered that a “third party” could have conducted Tuesday’s attacks.Ukraine, which is at war with Russia, has been willing to lay blame. Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Russia for sinking the Alfa Watan.On Tuesday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha directly blamed Russia for the attacks on the Dignity and Chelsea. In a post on X, he said:“Russia’s latest attack on commercial vessels near Bulgaria’s territorial waters, which injured Ukrainian and Azerbaijani citizens, once again demonstrates Moscow’s deliberate disregard for civilian lives and maritime security in the Black Sea. We urge our partners to step up pressure on Russia, strengthen sanctions, and take decisive action to hold it accountable and protect freedom of navigation. The Black Sea is a lifeline for global food security. Russia is attacking it to weaponize hunger and hold the world hostage. This must be met with strength.” It remains unclear whether Russia conducted these attacks, but both Russia and Ukraine have conducted confirmed attacks on each other’s interests in the Black Sea. Last week, Ukraine struck an oil tanker with drones off the Russian coast near Sochi. Fire raged and thick black smoke blanketed the resort city where Russia hosted the Olympic Winter Games in 2014.

NATO urged to act after Black Sea ships sunk in suspected Russian attack - Bulgaria has requested NATO help as it investigates the latest in a series of drone attacks on commercial shipping close to its Black Sea shoreline, which looks out onto a major battleground for Russian and Ukrainian unmanned vehicles. Drones struck two cargo ships near the NATO member’s coastline overnight, sinking one vessel, officials said on Tuesday. Officials said six crew members were rescued from the Guinea-Bissau-flagged HS Dignity, which sank about 17 miles east of Krapets, a village near Bulgaria’s border with Romania. Another 10 people are thought to be still missing. Another ship, identified as the Maltese-flagged Chelsea-3, broadcast a distress signal at 1:30 a.m. local time roughly 18 miles east of the seaside town of Byala, south of Krapets, officials said. Bulgarian lawmakers said the ship is owned by Ukraine and was carrying seven Ukrainian citizens and eight Azerbaijani nationals. Tracking data shows the Chelsea-3 left the northeastern Turkish city of Giresun on Saturday, bound for Moldova’s Giurgiulești port. The HS Dignity departed from Algeria on October 5 and was scheduled to arrive in Romania on Thursday. All crew members were rescued, and three drones were found either on the deck or onboard the Chelsea-3, authorities in Sofia said. Five crew members received medical treatment. The incidents come roughly a week after two merchant ships were attacked by aerial and seaborne drones in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone, one day after another drone attack sank a cargo vessel. “The repeated attacks on commercial vessels in the immediate vicinity of Bulgaria’s territorial waters are wholly unacceptable,” Bulgarian Foreign Minister Velislava Petrova said on Tuesday. Related video: Russia demands Ukraine stay out of NATO: Now all 32 NATO countries gather in Kyiv (Dagens.com US) Moscow and Ukraine have attacked one another’s grain and agricultural sites in and around the Black Sea, raising fears about food supplies far beyond the region because both countries are major grain exporters. Experts say Russia increased its strikes on grain-carrying ships around Ukrainian ports throughout the summer of 2026. Most of Ukraine’s grain exports leave the country through ports in the southern Odesa region. Ukraine, meanwhile, bombarded Russia’s Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk in mid-August, forcing Russia to redirect its grain exports. Roughly 40 percent of Russia’s grain exports pass through Novorossiysk. Both countries regularly use drones to carry out their assaults. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Russia of carrying out the attack and said Moscow had a “deliberate disregard for civilian lives and maritime security in the Black Sea.” “We urge our partners to step up pressure on Russia, strengthen sanctions, and take decisive action to hold it accountable and protect freedom of navigation,” the Ukrainian diplomat said. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev did not explicitly blame Moscow but said the incident “benefits the Russian Federation” and announced he would summon the Russian ambassador to Sofia.

London Police Chief: DEI Is An "Operational Necessity" | ZeroHedge - Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has accused critics of diversity, equity and inclusion policies of fuelling "toxicity" while launching a fresh recruitment drive focused on black and Asian applicants.Writing in The Guardian, Rowley declared that the force "cannot police London effectively if we fail to recruit from all of London" and that "effective policing depends upon inclusivity." He insisted an inclusive workforce "is not a public relations exercise" but something that "makes us better at protecting victims, catching criminals and preventing crime." The commissioner added that the Met has "no interest in the politics and ideologies of the culture wars" and that inclusion is "an operational necessity."