Washington gives Tehran a day to speak; Gaza's ceasefire keeps expanding Israel's map
Washington has given Iran until Saturday to declare the Strait of Hormuz open. Senior US officials told reporters Friday they are growing pessimistic a nuclear deal can be salvaged through talks at all, and one official said Tehran must publicly vow to stop shooting at ships or face unspecified cons…
Israel now controls close to 70% of Gaza, nine months into a ceasefire that began with it holding half. The expansion has come in increments too small to individually justify headlines but large enough, cumulatively, to redraw the map the ceasefire was meant to freeze; three hospital workers were in…
Ukraine has forced a halt to tanker traffic through the Sea of Azov. Kyiv's strikes on Russian energy sites — oil terminals and tankers at sea — have degraded Moscow's refining capacity to the point that Russia's domestic gasoline supply can no longer meet demand, according to the Institute for the …
The Federal Reserve told Congress inflation has "stepped up further this spring," running at roughly double its 2% target as of May. Its first monetary policy report under chairman Kevin Warsh blames tariffs, war-driven energy costs, and the AI investment boom in the same breath — three forces the F…
Beijing is pushing a counter-narrative that Europe's competitiveness crisis, not Chinese overcapacity, is driving the export surge. The argument, laid out by Chinese experts tracked by MERICS, is aimed at the EU before Brussels can lock in a coordinated response — a daily goods trade deficit with Ch…
SK Hynix listed on Nasdaq Friday at a trillion-dollar market cap, seven times oversubscribed. The $26.5bn US listing is being called the last major IPO supply event of 2026 unless a hyperscaler surprises the market, and its chairman told CNBC "demand is enormous" from the same customers — Nvidia, Ap…
OpenAI's GPT-5.6 family clears federal testing for public release Thursday. The Trump administration lifted the restrictions that had held the model back, according to Axios reporting relayed by Bankinfosecurity, even as those same restrictions on the most advanced US models are pushing enterprise b…
Congress's housing bill became law at midnight Friday without Trump's signature. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, the largest housing-affordability package in decades, passed both chambers with bipartisan votes; Trump withheld his signature because Congress declined to first pass his voter-ID b…
Trump fired every member of the Election Assistance Commission this week. The bipartisan federal body had resisted his push to require documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration; its removal leaves the agency leaderless ahead of the midterms, according to reporting from the New York Tim…
A wildfire in southern Spain has killed at least 12 people with 23 still missing. Fast-moving flames driven by soaring temperatures overwhelmed firefighters battling one of the country's deadliest fires on record, according to Spanish authorities cited by wire services Saturday. The fire broke out t…
China's Yuanjiwei launched an 8-inch 2D chip line, skipping EUV lithography entirely. Nexchip, the country's eighth-largest chipmaker, also debuted on the Hong Kong exchange Friday. The common thread across all three is financing, not just engineering — each is a bet that capital markets, not just l…
A UK Labour front-runner is criticizing Israel over Gaza days before he may become prime minister. Andy Burnham, positioned to succeed Keir Starmer after his resignation last month, apologized for his party's past handling of the issue, prompting UK Jewish groups to voice concern about where that po…
Wall Street keeps buying AI winners even as oil markets stay jittery over Iran. US stocks ticked higher Friday on renewed appetite for AI-linked names, while crude drifted as strained flows through the Strait of Hormuz and the fresh US-Iran exchange kept traders on edge rather than panicked. The spl…
News publishers are asking a federal judge to sanction OpenAI over withheld evidence. The New York Times, Daily News and other outlets allege in a Thursday filing that OpenAI "chose obstruction" over releasing datasets and ChatGPT logs central to the copyright trial over how the company and Microsof…
North Carolina became the latest state to regulate crypto ATMs rather than ban them outright. Governor Josh Stein signed House Bill 920, capping kiosk fees at 12% of a transaction — down from the 20-30% many operators currently charge — and mandating fraud warnings and 30-day refunds for scam victim…
Spain beat Belgium to reach the World Cup semi-finals, and Madrid erupted. Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois was forced off in tears for Belgium during the match, casting doubt over his international future, while the streets around the capital filled with celebrating fans. The win lands the s…
Canada added a net 18,200 jobs in June, beating forecasts and pushing unemployment down to 6.5%. The gains were concentrated in part-time work tied to World Cup hosting in Toronto and Vancouver, with accommodation, food services and wholesale trade doing most of the hiring. The Bank of Canada meets …
Puerto Rico's top court revived core claims in a lawsuit against Bad Bunny. The island's supreme court dismissed time-barred allegations but let stand central claims that the reggaetón star used an ex-partner's vocal tag without permission, keeping the case alive after an earlier dismissal attempt. …
Researchers have virtually unwrapped a Herculaneum scroll to reveal 1.5 metres of continuous Greek text. The breakthrough, announced in June, recovered 20 columns from one scroll and more than 70 from another held at Oxford's Bodleian Library — including a previously unknown Epicurean philosophical …