🇷🇺🇺🇸 Putin calls Elon Musk a “true genius.” : - Putin praised Musk while discussing Russia’s efforts to build its own satellite internet network to rival SpaceX’s Starlink. - Putin noted that Musk already has thousands of satellites in orbit, while Russia is only beginning to build its constellation. - He also said Russia remains in contact with American partners, including Musk, on cooperation in space.

🇮🇱 Netanyahu’s Likud leads as Israel’s election count continues : - With roughly half the votes counted, Likud is ahead with 20.6%, compared with 16.8% for rival Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party, per AP. - Netanyahu’s bloc is projected to win around 51–52 seats, while the opposition bloc is near 49–51. - Neither side has secured the 61 seats needed for a Knesset majority, leaving coalition negotiations uncertain. - Netanyahu is seeking a right-wing government, while Eisenkot argues voters have backed political change.

🇺🇸🇮🇷 US prepares for renewed strikes on Iran after midterms : - The US has warned several Gulf Arab countries to prepare for a “short, intense military campaign” after the November 3 midterm elections, per WSJ. - The US is moving an additional Patriot air-defense system to Israel, relocating troops from vulnerable bases and replenishing munitions - US bombers and fighter jets are reportedly preparing for potential strikes, while Israel has also drawn up new attack plans. - “We may do another little Epic Fury,” Trump said last week, referring to the previous US-Israeli bombing campaign against Iran.

🇬🇧🇺🇸🇯🇵 Japan, UK and US stepping up emergency preparedness : - Japan plans to urge households to stock at least 3 days of food, water and toilet supplies, ideally enough for a week. The appeal is scheduled for November 2, ahead of its new Disaster Management Agency’s launch. - UK launched its “Be Ready” campaign on October 22, advising households to prepare for 72 hours of disruption with water, non-perishable food, a radio and other essentials. - In US the Pentagon’s FORTRESS initiative reportedly aims to make major military bases self-sufficient for 90 days, including power, water and fuel. The detailed requirement comes from reporting based on internal documents.

🇺🇸 Hacker attempting to breach the US Federal Election Commission : - The FEC’s electronic filing system has been down since Monday night as IT staff work to restore service. - The outage affects campaign finance disclosures, including reports on political spending ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. - The FEC says users can still search previously filed reports, but new electronic filings are disrupted. - There is currently no reported evidence that voting systems have been compromised.

🇮🇱 Israel election exit polls point to a political deadlock : - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is projected to fall short of the 61 seats needed for a Knesset majority. - Opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc is also projected to fall short. - Arab-led parties and smaller factions could hold the balance of power in coalition negotiations. - Exit polls are preliminary. Final seat counts and coalition talks will determine who can form Israel’s next government.

🇺🇸 Trump says he will ban the term “Artificial Intelligence” : - In a Truth Social post, Trump called “AI” a “very bad and inaccurate name.” - He says the new terminology will be officially adopted across relevant government documents and other materials. - The push follows a September executive order directing federal agencies to use “Super Intelligence” instead of “AI.”

🇨🇳 China’s AI stock boom has suffered a $480B wipeout : - The STAR 50 index, tracking major AI and semiconductor companies, has plunged 40% in under four months. - Investors are reassessing sky-high valuations amid doubts about AI demand, tax pressures and potential US restrictions on Chinese suppliers. - Robotics firm Unitree has lost roughly half its value since its August listing, while chipmakers MetaX and Moore Threads have also fallen sharply. - Despite the crash, the index still trades at around 100× trailing earnings, leaving questions about whether valuations have further to fall.

Google launched Genie 4, a real-time world model : - Built on Google’s Gemini family, it combines Gemini Omni’s visual realism with reasoning models to maintain scene continuity and coherent interactions. - Generates video and audio natively, including environmental sounds and real-time character dialogue, while simulating physics, collisions and human movement. - Gemini 3.8 Flash acts as a guiding agent, observing incoming frames, breaking goals into steps and adjusting plans as the simulation evolves. - Users can modify scenes live through text prompts. Potential applications include robotics training, AI-agent evaluation and interactive game prototyping.

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DeepSeek launched V4.1 Flash : - 552B total parameters, 8B active for input and 16B for output, using a causal encoder-decoder architecture. - 77.0 on DeepSWE v1.1, up from 74.2, and 42.3 on Terminal-Bench 4.0, up from 31.2. - Uses reinforcement learning with self-feedback to build complete projects from scratch, including 3D scenes and playable games. - Supports a 1M-token context window and visual input. DeepSeek says the update also reduces output length and task execution time. - Released with MIT-licensed weights on Hugging Face, alongside API, app and website access.

Big Tech is projected to spend $750B on capex in 2026, on AI infra : - Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Google are pouring money into data centers, chips and computing capacity. - That’s up over 80% from $410B in 2025. - $750B is equivalent to around $5,500 for every U.S. household. - The scale shows how aggressively tech giants are betting that AI demand will justify massive infrastructure investments.

🇫🇷 France erupts in nationwide unrest as up to 800,000 people take to the streets : - Protesters rallied against rising living costs, inequality and declining public services, with student grievances over poor school conditions helping fuel the movement. - France’s Interior Ministry estimated 550,000 demonstrators, while organizers put turnout at 800,000. - Authorities reported around 1,800 arrests and more than 150 injured police officers following Saturday’s unrest. - Most demonstrations were peaceful, but violent groups targeted businesses and public buildings as the protests escalated.

🇨🇳 China launched 13 ft humanoid robot weighing 1.2 tonnes : - Built by Beijing-based NeodraDynamics, the robot is called Neo1 and was showcased at the 2026 China International Industry Fair. - It has a claimed combined lifting capacity of 500 kg (1,102 lbs) across both arms. - Unlike most humanoids that rely on electric motors, Neo1 uses 39 hydraulic actuators alongside electric drives for heavy-duty movement. - It's designed for demanding industrial environments, including mining, ports, heavy assembly and hazardous facilities.

Google launched Gemini 4 Argon : - #1 on the Vals Index, according to Google, across professional tasks including finance, coding, legal and tax work. - Features a 1 million-token context window and can tackle complex tasks across large codebases. - Google says it helped increase agentic code submissions by 35% while reducing code rollbacks by nearly a third. - Researchers used Argon to accelerate quantum chemistry simulations, identify rare-disease clues and design enzymes later validated in lab tests. - Launch pricing starts at $2 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens through November 30.

🇨🇳 China arrests a professor accused of running Breaking Bad drug operation : - The alleged network spanned China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, producing chemicals used to manufacture etomidate, a drug linked to illegal “zombie vapes.” - Investigators say the professor designed the production process and helped set up covert labs across five Chinese cities. - Authorities arrested 71 suspects and seized 73 kg of etomidate, five tonnes of active ingredients and laboratory equipment. - The investigation began in 2024 after police spotted suspicious purchases of precursor chemicals at a pharmaceutical company.

Palantir CTO claims researchers are smoking because AI will cure cancer : - Shyam Sankar made the claim during a CBS Face the Nation interview. - His explanation is researchers are signaling their confidence that AI will advance medicine enough to eliminate smoking-related cancer risks. - Sankar provided no names or evidence to support the claim. - He called the broader faith in AI a form of “mass psychosis” and “social delusion.”

3D-printed salmon is coming to US supermarkets : - Israeli food-tech company Steakholder Foods launched its Perfecta brand across the Northeastern U.S. - The lineup includes plant-based salmon patties, white fish patties, steak, filet mignon and chicken breast. - The products use 3D printing to recreate the texture and appearance of meat using plant-based ingredients. - The rollout is supported by food distributor KeHE, with plans to expand into more U.S. markets.

🚨 Anthropic Warns AI Could Hijack Smart Devices : - In new experiments, models with 30 billion parameters or fewer could perform many of the steps needed for self-replication, though they still make mistakes when chaining everything together. - Anthropic ran a model across 15 inexpensive Android TV boxes, demonstrating that small, cheap devices can collectively run a much larger AI model. - Unlike conventional malware, AI-powered worms could adapt to unfamiliar hardware instead of targeting only specific device types. - Anthropic warns that if current progress continues, these systems could become capable of end-to-end replication by the end of 2026.