NewsPulse

South Korean semiconductor startup FuriosaAI has raised $620 million in a Series D funding round at a $2.9 billion valuation, leading a day in which investors poured more than $1.3 billion into ten startups. The round underlines how fiercely the race for AI computing power is being fought — and how much of the money is now flowing to companies building the chips and infrastructure behind artificial intelligence, rather than just the apps on top of it. FuriosaAI designs AI accelerator chips meant to compete with the dominant players in data-centre computing. Its raise was followed by San Francisco-based Upwind Security, which closed a $400 million Series C at a $3.8 billion valuation, and Foundry Robotics, which raised $100 million to expand autonomous manufacturing in the United States. Together, FuriosaAI and Upwind account for about 78 per cent of the day's $1.3 billion total, a sign of how concentrated investor appetite has become around AI hardware and cybersecurity. Smaller ro...

Pakistan's inflation is projected in the range of 9.5 to 10.5 per cent for October 2026, according to the Finance Division's Monthly Economic Update and Outlook for October, as the economy consolidates stability in the first quarter of the 2026-27 fiscal year. The report points to improved external financing, better Kharif harvests and strong automobile and cement activity, while flagging geopolitical tensions, volatile oil prices and trade disruptions as the main risks ahead. The external picture showed both progress and pressure. The current account deficit stood at $874 million in July-September, up from $755 million a year earlier, as goods imports grew 14.3 per cent to $17.8 billion — outpacing a 7.7 per cent rise in exports to $8.5 billion. Workers' remittances, however, rose 14 per cent to $10.9 billion, more than covering the combined goods and services trade deficit, and the State Bank's liquid reserves reached $21.5 billion on 16 October, with the rupee at Rs2...

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde has announced she will step down on 7 February 2027, leaving her post about nine months before her eight-year term was due to end in October 2027. Lagarde told the ECB Governing Council and European Council President António Costa of her decision on Thursday, and the ECB confirmed it in a statement the same day. She gave no reason for the early departure, saying only that it had been a source of great pride to serve the institution. Lagarde, 70, has led the eurozone's central bank since November 2019, steering it through the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, an energy crisis and the sharpest inflation surge in a generation. Under her presidency the ECB launched a €1.85 trillion pandemic emergency bond-buying programme, then raised interest rates ten times between July 2022 and September 2023 as prices soared. Her tenure also saw early work on a digital euro and, in September, a new system for settling tokenised asset trades in central b...

OpenAI has begun giving its paying ChatGPT Pro and Business subscribers up to $500 a month in free credits to spend on its developer platform, in a move designed to turn chat subscribers into app builders. The benefit, announced on 28 October through OpenAI's developer account on X and its Help Center, links a ChatGPT subscription to a single API organisation for the first time. The amount depends on the plan. Individual Pro subscribers receive a monthly credit equal to their tier price — $100, $200 or $500. Business workspaces pool credits from their paid seats, at $20 per Standard seat and $100 per Premium seat, capped at $500 per workspace each month. Workspaces that pay annually upfront receive the whole year's credit in one grant, capped at $6,000. There are conditions: the subscription must have been active for at least seven days, the same email must be used for both accounts, and credits expire at the end of each billing cycle without rolling over. Free, Go, Plus and E...

Victor Wembanyama produced another statement performance on Wednesday night, scoring 36 points as the San Antonio Spurs fought back from 11 points down to beat the Utah Jazz 117-111 in overtime in Salt Lake City. The win stretched San Antonio's winning run to three games and lifted the Spurs to 3-2 for the season, while Utah fell to 1-4. Utah raced out of the blocks, leading 32-22 after the first quarter and stretching the gap to 46-35 in the second, but Wembanyama scored 12 points in the second period to keep the Spurs within four at half-time. The teams were tied at 85-85 heading into the fourth and at 105-105 at the end of regulation, after Utah's Brice Sensabaugh and Keyonte George hit late baskets to force the extra period. San Antonio then took control, outscoring Utah 12-6 in overtime behind a decisive 12-0 run, sealed by a De'Aaron Fox steal and dunk. Wembanyama finished with 36 points on 14-of-25 shooting, 14 rebounds, five assists, two steals and two blocks — an...

Nine people have died after an oxygen cylinder exploded inside an ambulance at a rural health centre in Tharparkar, Sindh, in one of the deadliest medical transport accidents Pakistan has seen this year. The toll climbed to nine after one of the injured died while being shifted to Karachi for treatment, rescue officials said. The ambulance, run by the People's Primary Healthcare Initiative, caught fire while staff were changing its oxygen cylinder at a Basic Health Unit Plus facility in Dano Dhandhal, in Nagarparkar tehsil. A pregnant woman was still inside the vehicle when the explosion triggered the blaze. Those killed included a PPHI dispenser, the ambulance driver, a watchman and another employee, along with the pregnant woman and two attendants. Two midwives and a female attendant were among the injured, who were moved to Civil Hospital Mithi. Sindh Home Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar has taken notice and sought details from the district's senior police and administration o...

Police in South Carolina have closed their investigation into the death of actress Hayden Panettiere, ruling it accidental nearly three months after the Heroes and Nashville star was found unresponsive at a home in Greenville. The Greenville Police Department said its decision followed the medical examiner's finding that the 36-year-old died from the toxic effects of several drugs in her system. The coroner's office said Panettiere died on 16 August from the combined toxic effects of fentanyl, alprazolam — better known by the brand name Xanax — the muscle relaxant methocarbamol and the antipsychotic quetiapine. Emergency crews had treated a woman in cardiac arrest, and an autopsy found no signs of trauma that contributed to her death. "Based on the Medical Examiner's determination and the findings of the investigation, Hayden Panettiere's death has been ruled accidental," police said in a statement. Panettiere rose to fame as a child actress before becoming...

OpenAI and ServiceNow have expanded their partnership to connect corporate workflows directly with ChatGPT and Codex, in a deal announced on October 28 that pushes AI assistants deeper into everyday office work. The headline feature is a new ServiceNow plugin, available now in OpenAI's marketplace, that brings business context and workflow actions into a ChatGPT conversation, so employees can investigate a problem and act on it without switching systems. In practice, an IT team member will be able to find similar past incidents, assess the risk of a change and update a ServiceNow record without leaving the chat. Customers connect ChatGPT to their own ServiceNow instance and choose which capabilities to expose, while ServiceNow's Action Fabric applies existing business rules and permissions, so the actions available reflect each organisation's own access controls. ServiceNow remains the system where those actions are executed and governed, and the company is previewing int...

Mitchell Starc's golden Cape Town Test continued on day three as the pace great struck twice to leave South Africa on 140 for four at stumps, holding a lead of just 40 runs in the series-deciding third Test at Newlands. Australia had earlier been bowled out for 429 in reply to South Africa's 329, with Josh Inglis's second Test century headlining the innings, before Starc went to work with the new ball. Starc removed opener Aiden Markram for two, driving straight to Travis Head at mid-off, and David Bedingham top-edged a Josh Hazlewood short ball for 11. Marques Ackerman and captain Temba Bavuma then steadied the hosts with a 64-run partnership, but Starc broke it in the last session with a brute of a bouncer that followed Ackerman as he tried to uppercut on 62, the ball hitting bat and helmet on its way through to the slips. Nathan Lyon then bowled Bavuma for 35 just five minutes before stumps, when the Proteas captain tried to hit hard across the line against prodigious ...

Lahore's air quality index climbed to 419 on Thursday morning, the worst reading of any major city in the world, as the Punjab capital's smog crisis deepened. The figure, recorded by Swiss monitoring firm IQAir between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., put Lahore far ahead of Cairo at 274 and New Delhi at 220. The Punjab government's own dashboard showed Lahore at 324, with neighbouring Kasur even worse at 348. Any reading above 300 falls in the "hazardous" band. The spike followed a punishing run: on Wednesday the citywide index stood at 358, with Allama Iqbal Town recording 605, and schools halted outdoor activities earlier in the week. Air quality experts are blaming missed chances to wash the smog out of the sky. They told local media that if the government had arranged sufficiently heavy rainfall across the city on overcast days in October, the smog could have been cleared at least once. Punjab has done it before: in November 2024 the province carried out its first clou...

Defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro landed in Miami on Wednesday after leaving Brazil in defiance of a Supreme Court order, declaring himself his country's rightful leader just days after losing Sunday's runoff election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro arrived at Miami's Opa-locka Executive Airport with his wife and two daughters aboard a private jet, in a departure that has already become a diplomatic headache for Washington. The journey was carefully routed. The family entered Argentina late on Tuesday, and Reuters tracked a Gulfstream G400 leaving Puerto Iguazú at 12:22 a.m. on Wednesday, stopping in Guayaquil, Ecuador, before flying on to Miami, where AFP witnessed him step off the plane. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the family was inspected and cleared under immigration law, and the State Department had said it would grant them visas. President Donald Trump said he approved of Bolsonaro coming to the United States and ca...

Google DeepMind has unveiled Genie 4, a new artificial intelligence world model that generates explorable, photorealistic worlds in real time — and for the first time, those worlds come with sound. Announced on October 27 as a research preview, Genie 4 is DeepMind's first real-time world model to generate its own audio natively, producing music, background noise and spoken dialogue alongside the visuals. Characters inside the world can hold conversations and react to what the player does, all in real time. Unlike a video clip generator, a world model builds its environment frame by frame as the user moves through it with keyboard controls. Genie 4 also lets users steer the scene mid-simulation with plain-language prompts: change the weather, move the camera, or add a new person or object, while the world keeps running. Google's Gemini models act as the director — Gemini Omni anchors how objects look and behave, while Gemini 3.8 Flash watches each frame and keeps the simulation ...

Jalen Brunson scored 38 points as the New York Knicks fought back from 19 points down to beat the Chicago Bulls 133-127 in a thrilling finish on Wednesday night. The Knicks trailed for much of the game and looked in trouble before storming back in the second half, finally sealing the win in the closing seconds. Chicago had a chance to force overtime, but a 28-foot three-pointer for the tie with 10.1 seconds left missed, Brunson split two free throws, and OG Anunoby's pair with 1.7 seconds remaining closed the game out. The Bulls shot well all night, hitting 48 per cent from the field and 18 of 42 three-pointers, but New York won the battle on the boards 50-39. Josh Giddey finished with 10 points, eight rebounds and 11 assists for the Bulls, while Jalen Smith added 17 points, 11 rebounds, five assists and three blocks. New York's bench proved decisive, and former Bull Derrick Rose, in the building on the 18th anniversary of his NBA debut, received a standing ovation from the cro...

United Nations investigators have warned that foreign weapons, military technology and fighters are intensifying Sudan's devastating civil war, calling for stronger international action to cut off the flow of arms. The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan presented its latest findings to the UN General Assembly in New York on October 28, painting a grim picture of a conflict now in its fourth year. Mission chair Mohamed Chande Othman said investigators found reasonable grounds to believe that a transnational network spanning several countries has supplied the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces with personnel, training, weapons and logistics. The mission documented up to 2,000 former Colombian military contractors working alongside RSF units in Darfur and Kordofan, operating combat drones, artillery and advanced weapons. The investigators stressed their findings did not establish responsibility by the governments of the countries named. More than 1,000 people w...

OpenAI is planning to buy artificial intelligence chips from Google, according to a report by The Information carried by Reuters, in a move that would deepen one of the most surprising partnerships in the AI industry. The ChatGPT maker already rents Google's tensor processing units, or TPUs, but a purchase would mean owning the hardware outright. No financial terms, quantities or delivery schedule were disclosed, and OpenAI declined to comment while Google did not immediately respond. The report matters because OpenAI is one of Nvidia's largest customers, and Nvidia's graphics processors dominate the market for training and running large AI models. Google's TPUs have gained ground as a cheaper alternative, and Google began selling them directly to outside customers this year. By adding Google chips to its fleet, OpenAI would spread its computing across more suppliers and reduce its dependence on any single vendor at a time when Nvidia cannot always make enough of its...

Josh Inglis scored a brilliant century on his return to Test cricket as Australia took a 100-run first-innings lead over South Africa on day three of the deciding third Test at Newlands, Cape Town, on Thursday. Inglis made 102 off 132 balls, reaching his hundred with a reverse sweep off spinner Simon Harmer before being caught behind off the same bowler three balls later. Australia, who resumed on 330 for four, were eventually bowled out for 429 in reply to South Africa's 329. The innings was historic. Inglis became the first Australian batter to score more than one century in all three international formats, adding his second Test hundred to two ODI centuries and two T20I hundreds. The wicketkeeper-batter walked in with Australia at 184 for three after Cameron Green departed for 65, and built a superb 185-run fifth-wicket partnership with Alex Carey, who made 80. Their stand turned a difficult position into a commanding one in a series level at 1-1. The century was all the sweeter...

Pakistan's Under-19 cricket squad departed for Oman on Thursday to defend its ACC U19 Men's Asia Cup title, with the eight-team continental tournament set to run from November 5 to 14. The squad posed for a team photograph in Karachi before flying out, carrying the confidence of a side that has already proved itself against strong opposition this year. Defending champions Pakistan are placed in Group A alongside the United Arab Emirates, India and Nepal. They open their campaign against the UAE on November 5 at the Al Amerat Cricket Ground in Oman, before the blockbuster group clash with traditional rivals India on November 8 and their final group fixture against Nepal on November 10. All three group matches will start at 10am Pakistan time, with the semi-finals scheduled for November 12 and the final for November 14. Farhan Yousuf will captain the 15-player squad, which features wicketkeeper-batters Abdul Qadir and Hamza Zahoor, batters Usman Khan, Hayam Khan, Jahangir Bilal ...

A Russian drone strike killed at least 14 people on a crowded railway platform in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday, officials said, in one of the deadliest single attacks on the country's passenger rail network this year. State railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia said a jet-powered drone hit the platform at Dnipro's main station while commuter train No. 866 was preparing to depart for the nearby city of Zaporizhzhia. Regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha confirmed the death toll, with at least five more people wounded, and rescuers rushed to the scene. The Dnipro strike was part of a wider wave of daytime attacks across Ukraine. Two teenagers were killed and 23 people wounded in a drone attack on a busy central street in Chernihiv in the north, while three people were killed and 15 wounded when a strike hit an apartment building in the central city of Kremenchuk. Ukraine's prime minister accused Russia of deliberately hunting civilians, saying there could be no justifica...

The United States Federal Communications Commission has approved Amazon Leo's $11.5 billion acquisition of satellite operator Globalstar, clearing the way for Amazon to take on Elon Musk's Starlink in the race to connect phones directly from space. Under the deal, first announced in April, Globalstar will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon while keeping its corporate identity, operating as an affiliate of Kuiper Systems, the business now known as Amazon Leo. Amazon gains Globalstar's roughly two dozen satellites and about 25 megahertz of mobile-satellite spectrum, which it plans to use for direct-to-device services that let ordinary smartphones connect to satellites without a dish. The FCC said the deal would improve coverage in areas unserved by terrestrial networks, strengthen emergency communications and boost competition. Amazon Leo has already launched more than 300 satellites since April 2025 and aims to deploy about 3,200 in low Earth orbit by 2029, with comm...

Fresh fighting along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border has left people dead and injured on both sides, in the latest flare-up on one of the region's most tense frontiers. According to China's Xinhua news agency, two people were killed and two others were injured by gunfire from Pakistani territory on Wednesday near the Torkham border crossing in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province. In a separate incident, Afghanistan's defence ministry said Pakistan carried out strikes on military installations in Paktia province using four unmanned aerial vehicles. Pakistan's border service, meanwhile, reported that one person was killed and five others were injured when Afghan forces fired mortars into the Lower South Waziristan district of northwestern Pakistan. The rival accounts underline how quickly claims and counter-claims spread during border clashes, with each side blaming the other for starting the shooting. The Torkham crossing is one of the busiest trade and travel r...

South Korean special prosecutors on Thursday again asked a court to sentence former president Yoon Suk Yeol to death over his failed martial law declaration, reopening one of the most dramatic chapters in the country's modern political history. The request came during closing arguments in Yoon's appeal trial at the Seoul High Court, eight months after a lower court sentenced him to life in prison for leading an insurrection. Prosecutors argued the December 3, 2024 decree was a premeditated attempt to overthrow the constitutional order, saying there was evidence of at least eight months of planning. They told the court the lower court's life sentence was too lenient and that South Korea's long pause on executions should not stop judges from handing down a death sentence. Yoon's defence team rejected the request as legally unfounded, maintaining the decree was meant as a warning to an opposition-controlled parliament that had repeatedly impeached senior officials and ...

Digital Science has acquired Jenni AI, the AI research and writing assistant trusted by more than 8 million students and researchers in 189 countries, the London-based technology company announced on Thursday, October 29. The deal connects Jenni AI to Digital Science's research data, starting with Dimensions, its database of 171 million publications, so the sources the tool finds and cites can be checked against the published record. Jenni AI is built specifically for academic work rather than general chat. Users can upload papers or import reference libraries, explore their sources, draft and refine their writing, and check citations against the original material — a direct answer to a well-known weakness of general-purpose AI tools, which can invent references that do not exist. A September 2026 Oxford University Press survey of more than 2,600 researchers found that 74 percent were unsure which uses of AI they should disclose, and 48 percent said they had not fully disclosed the...

Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards will miss up to two months after undergoing an arthroscopic procedure on his right knee, a major early-season blow for one of the NBA's most exciting young teams. The news, first reported by ESPN's Shams Charania, was confirmed on Wednesday by Minnesota's president of basketball operations, Tim Connelly, who said the procedure would take place within 24 hours. Connelly stressed the injury is not a meniscus tear and said the team expects Edwards to return as good as new. Imaging of the knee had changed since the summer, prompting the decision to operate now rather than risk further damage. Edwards, 25, had wanted to keep playing — Connelly said he wanted to play that very night — but the club chose to protect his long-term health. The former No. 1 overall pick had averaged 33 points across Minnesota's first four games, and the Timberwolves sit at 3-1 after a fast start built around Edwards and new backcourt partner LaMelo Ball....

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Thursday sentenced prominent human rights lawyers Imaan Mazari and her husband, Hadi Ali Chattha, to 10 years in prison in a security breach case, their family said. The verdict was announced at Adiala Jail, where the couple have been held since earlier this year, and the court also handed down additional one-year and two-year sentences on separate charges of obstructing and assaulting government servants, to run concurrently. Mazari has won international recognition for speaking out against the disappearances of political activists and for defending minorities and journalists, and rights groups have condemned the couple's imprisonment. The case stems from a 2024 protest in which the couple were accused of endangering an international cricket team's security plans by blocking a road. In statements seen by Reuters, they denied the charges, calling themselves prisoners of conscience targeted for their human rights work. Mazari's mother, Shi...

North Korea fired around 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea's military said, in the latest show of force along one of the world's most heavily armed borders. The missiles were launched at about 12:30 p.m. local time from the Wonsan area and flew roughly 250 kilometres before landing in the sea, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff. South Korea said it was strengthening surveillance and staying ready for further launches, while sharing information closely with the United States and Japan. Japan's defence ministry said the projectiles did not appear to have landed inside its exclusive economic zone, and South Korea's presidential National Security Office held an emergency meeting to assess the security implications, calling the launches a serious violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. The launch came as tensions on the Korean peninsula run high. Two mine explosions in the Demilita...

About three in four former NFL players who died between 2008 and 2023 had the degenerative brain disease CTE, according to a landmark new study published on October 28 in the journal JAMA Network Open. The Boston University-led research is the first to estimate CTE prevalence across the whole population of deceased former players, rather than only among brains donated for study. Earlier studies found CTE in almost every donated NFL brain examined — but that picture was skewed, because families were far more likely to donate a brain when the player had shown symptoms in life. To correct for that bias, researchers combined brain-bank data with death records for all 2,362 former NFL players who died in the period. Among 387 donors assessed, 362 — about 94 percent — had CTE, yet families of players with cognitive symptoms were roughly five times more likely to donate. Adjusting for that gap produced the headline estimate of 74.5 percent. CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is linked ...

A human rights group has condemned a reported evacuation order requiring around 5,000 families — roughly 30,000 people — to leave their ancestral homes in Shoor Paarod, in Balochistan's Kalat district, by October 30, ahead of a planned military operation. Paank, the human rights department of the Baloch National Movement, said the short deadline and the scale of the proposed displacement raised serious concerns about civilian protection and the rights of Indigenous communities to their land, livelihoods and cultural identity. According to Paank's report, Pakistani authorities issued the order citing the presence of armed fighters and asserting that the area was government land. The organisation argued that security concerns alone did not justify arbitrary displacement or remove the authorities' obligations to protect civilians, and it questioned how families would be sheltered, fed and cared for if moved. Paank cited the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenou...

US President Donald Trump has said a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be arranged "very soon", raising fresh hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough in a war now in its fifth year. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday after campaign rallies in Texas, Trump said he had discussed both the Ukraine and Iran conflicts with his top advisers. "I think with Russia we're making a lot of progress with Russia-Ukraine. There'll be a meeting set up very soon," he said, naming Putin and Zelenskyy as the participants but giving no date, venue or format. A face-to-face meeting between the two leaders would be their first since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Moscow and Kyiv have held three rounds of US-mediated talks this year, in Abu Dhabi and Geneva, without a lasting settlement. Zelenskyy has said a trilateral meeting involving Kyiv, Washington and Moscow could take place ...

A South Korean court has rejected a lawsuit by dozens of Tesla owners who sought full refunds for the company's Full Self-Driving software, handing the electric carmaker a significant legal victory. The Seoul Central District Court ruled on Thursday, October 29, against the owners, who argued they had paid for a system that was never delivered as promised. The court found that the Full Self-Driving option did not promise a car capable of driving itself entirely without human intervention. Instead, judges treated the purchase as an open-ended agreement under which extra features would arrive as technology advanced and regulators gave approval — and buyers had known some functions could take considerable time. Tesla had already supplied basic Autopilot and Enhanced Autopilot functions, the court noted, and a recent software update added traffic-light and sign recognition plus city-driving capability to older cars fitted with Hardware 3 computers. The owners, who filed the case in 202...

Dolores Huerta, the labour leader who helped transform the lives of America's farmworkers, has died at the age of 96, her family announced on Wednesday, October 28. Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers Association with Cesar Chavez in 1962, the organisation that later became the United Farm Workers, and served it as chief negotiator, strike organiser and lobbyist through its defining years in California's Central Valley in the 1960s and 1970s. The contracts her union negotiated changed what farm work meant in practice. Workers won job security, healthcare and retirement plans, a credit union, and basic protections that sound simple today but were once denied in the fields: guaranteed rest periods, toilets, clean drinking water and safeguards against pesticides. Huerta also gave the movement its enduring slogan, 'Sí, se puede' — 'Yes, we can' — a phrase later made famous worldwide by Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Huerta remained active wel...

The Golden State Valkyries can win the WNBA championship tonight, Thursday, October 29, when they visit the Atlanta Dream for Game 6 of the Finals at State Farm Arena. Golden State leads the best-of-seven series 3-2 after winning Game 5 on October 27, so one more victory would seal the title in only the second year of the franchise's existence — a remarkable rise for an expansion team. Atlanta, meanwhile, is playing to keep its season alive. A Dream win tonight would force the first Game 7 in WNBA Finals history, already scheduled for November 1 in San Francisco. The Dream took Games 2 and 3 of the series, proof they can beat Golden State on this stage, but they must do it again with everything at stake. The game tips off at the unusual time of 12:30pm Eastern — 9:30pm in Pakistan — after being moved from the evening because the NBA's Atlanta Hawks play at the same arena later tonight; the Hawks' game against Cleveland was pushed back to 8pm Eastern to make room. Despite th...

Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday, October 29, sent warm congratulations to Türkiye on the 103rd anniversary of the founding of its republic, greeting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish government and the Turkish people. In his message, the prime minister praised Türkiye's proud history and remarkable journey as a republic, saying it reflected the resilience, courage and spirit of its people. Shehbaz said Pakistan and Türkiye share an exceptional bond of brotherhood rooted in common history, mutual trust and unwavering solidarity — a friendship that has kept expanding in scope and substance across borders and generations. He expressed confidence that the two countries would continue working together to advance peace and stability in the region and beyond, drawing strength from shared values and common aspirations. As Pakistan joined Türkiye in celebrating the historic occasion, the prime minister closed his message with a wish that the Pakistan–Türkiye bro...

Apple has opened pre-orders for its all-new OLED iPad mini, with the tablet arriving in stores and reaching customers on Friday, November 6. Pre-orders opened on Wednesday, October 28, at 10:10 a.m. Pacific Time on apple.com and in the Apple Store app in 36 countries and regions. In the United States, pricing starts at $699 for the 128GB Wi-Fi model, or $58.25 per month for 12 months, while the Wi-Fi plus Cellular model starts at $849. The 256GB model costs $799 and the 512GB model $999, and the tablet comes in two colours, Midnight and Starlight. The headline upgrade is a larger 8.5-inch OLED display with up to 1,200 nits of peak HDR brightness, replacing the previous 8.3-inch LCD screen, with an anti-glare nano-texture option on the 256GB and 512GB models for an extra $100. Inside is the A20 Pro chip built on a 2-nanometre process, offering up to 60 per cent faster CPU performance, 2.7 times faster graphics and 4.5 times faster AI performance than the previous generation. The new mod...

Nikola Jokic became only the second player in NBA history to record 200 career triple-doubles as the Denver Nuggets held off the host New Orleans Pelicans 104-91 on Wednesday night. The 12-year veteran finished with 21 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists, joining Russell Westbrook, the all-time leader with 209 triple-doubles in 18 seasons. It was Jokic's second triple-double of the season, both against New Orleans, and Christian Braun's back-to-back three-pointers in a critical late stretch helped Denver close the game out. All five Nuggets starters scored in double figures, led by Jamal Murray's 23 points, while Aaron Gordon added a double-double of 15 points and 11 rebounds. Zion Williamson scored a game-high 25 points for the Pelicans, but no other New Orleans player except Derik Queen off the bench managed more than 11. Elsewhere on Wednesday, the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Clippers 103-87 despite missing Luka Doncic with back tightness, behind 23 points from Quentin Gr...

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met Jamaat-e-Islami emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman at the Prime Minister's House in Islamabad on Tuesday, October 27, and both sides agreed to set up a joint committee to finalise recommendations on petroleum relief measures and the petroleum levy. The six-member committee, with three members from each side, will work on expanding the ongoing petrol relief scheme so more deserving people can benefit, and on workable proposals for a phased reduction in the levy. The prime minister nominated Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal and Adviser Rana Sanaullah as the government's representatives. The core disagreement remains: Jamaat-e-Islami insists the levy must be abolished outright and rejected proposals to cut it by Rs20, Rs25 or Rs30 per litre as insufficient, while the government favours a gradual withdrawal tied to fiscal limits. The party has not called off its protest campaign and says it will still march to Islamabad in mid-...

More than half of people in six surveyed countries now use generative AI at least once a week, according to a 2026 survey from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism published on Thursday, October 29. Weekly use of standalone AI systems reached 51 per cent across the six countries with historical data, up sharply from 34 per cent in 2025, while daily use climbed from 7 per cent in 2024 to 28 per cent in 2026. ChatGPT remains the most widely used system, with weekly use rising from 22 per cent to 34 per cent. Google's Gemini grew from 11 per cent to 24 per cent, Microsoft Copilot rose from 6 per cent to 11 per cent, and Claude climbed from 1 per cent to 7 per cent. Using AI to get information jumped from 11 per cent in 2024 to 38 per cent in 2026, though using it for news remained less common, rising from 3 per cent to 9 per cent. Among those who do use AI for news, 49 per cent asked follow-up questions about stories and 46 per cent used it to get the latest news. Across ...

Sri Lanka and England meet today, Thursday, October 29, at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore in the sixth match of the ODI tri-series, with the result shaping Saturday's final against hosts Pakistan. England, still without a win in the series, are playing for pride and a consolation victory, while Sri Lanka are chasing the win that would confirm their place in the decider. Pakistan have already booked their spot in Saturday's final, but their preparations took a heavy blow when they were bowled out for just 110 by Sri Lanka in their last outing. The collapse has put the middle order firmly on notice: Babar Azam has managed only 118 runs in four matches, Fakhar Zaman 16 in three, and Saim Ayub 111 in five, leaving serious questions about batting depth before the final. Squad changes have followed, with Maaz Sadaqat added and Naseem Shah dealing with a finger injury whose seriousness has not been confirmed. Saturday's final in Lahore now turns on whether Pakistan's batters can re...

Pakistan's official economic recovery story is facing fresh scrutiny after new figures from the country's National Accounts Committee contradicted the government's earlier claim that the economy had stabilised. According to a new report, the committee recorded growth of just 2.0 per cent in the final quarter of the last financial year, revised the annual figure down to 3.65 per cent, and added as much as $14.8 billion to recorded imports across five financial years. The revised import numbers matter because they undercut the external accounts that were presented as proof of stabilisation. The report argues that the improvement shown on paper was based on figures that did not hold up, and notes that a finance ministry committee found discrepancies of roughly $18.13 billion between import data compiled through different official systems, with the annual gap widening from $1.4 billion in FY2021 to $6.22 billion in FY2025. The International Monetary Fund's regional assessme...

Germany's President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has urged China not to build its economic independence at other countries' expense, warning that Beijing's push for self-sufficiency must not create one-sided dependence in other markets. Speaking at Peking University in Beijing on Thursday, October 29, Steinmeier said it was understandable that China wants to protect its economy against shocks, but stressed that greater independence for China must not mean vulnerability for everyone else. The German president, who is on a five-day visit to China and meets President Xi Jinping on Friday, was pointing to a trade imbalance that has frustrated Europe for years. The European Union has called its widening trade deficit with China unsustainable and warned it will use every tool available to fix it. European firms say they face restricted access to the Chinese market, while Europe receives large volumes of state-subsidised Chinese imports alongside Beijing's controls on raw material ...

Samsung Electronics has confirmed a record third-quarter operating profit of 107.4 trillion won — about $80 billion — nearly nine times the 12.2 trillion won it earned a year earlier, as booming demand for AI memory chips drove prices sharply higher. The detailed results, released on Thursday, October 29, matched the company's earlier forecast and marked its fourth straight quarter of record operating profit. The world's largest memory chipmaker said revenue likely rose around 127 percent to 195 trillion won, powered by tight supplies of DRAM, NAND and high-bandwidth memory — the chips essential for processing huge amounts of AI data. Samsung said the chip supply shortage would deepen next year, echoing an upbeat outlook from rival SK Hynix, whose strong earnings on Wednesday helped ease market worries that AI-driven chip profits could lose momentum. Samsung also announced a 30 trillion won dividend for the quarter. Despite the record numbers, Samsung's shares have moved ...

Jalen Brunson scored 38 points as the reigning champion New York Knicks beat the Chicago Bulls 133-127 at the United Center on October 28, charging past Chicago in the fourth quarter. Australian guard Josh Giddey recorded his first double-double of the season for the Bulls with 10 points, 8 rebounds and a season-high 11 assists, but Chicago still slipped to 1-4 ahead of a tough run of games against Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Elsewhere, the Los Angeles Lakers lost 103-87 to the LA Clippers at the Intuit Dome, while the Dallas Mavericks routed the Oklahoma City Thunder 120-96. The Golden State Warriors edged the Minnesota Timberwolves 119-114 in Minneapolis, improving to 2-3 while Minnesota fell to 3-2, and the San Antonio Spurs beat the Utah Jazz 117-111 in overtime in Salt Lake City. The rest of the night's slate saw the Toronto Raptors thrash the Orlando Magic 129-99, the Denver Nuggets beat the New Orleans Pelicans 104-91, and the Detroit Pistons edge the Charlotte Hornet...

Taiwan said on Thursday that Pakistan briefly closed its airspace to Taiwanese cargo and passenger flights, in what Taipei described as an unprecedented move. Deputy Foreign Minister Chen Ming-chi confirmed the closure and reopening to AFP and said Taiwan suspects China was behind it, telling the news agency: 'We suspect definitely China was behind this.' China Airlines and Eva Air normally fly over Pakistan on their routes between Asia and Europe. However, flight-tracking analysis by AFP showed that last weekend the two carriers began rerouting their Europe-bound flights, sending some further south over the Gulf and others further north over Russia. Neither airline would confirm to AFP that Pakistan had closed or reopened its airspace when contacted. The episode adds a new wrinkle to the region's already tense aviation politics, with longer detours adding time and fuel costs to long-haul flights. Pakistan has not publicly commented on the claim in the reports so far, and...

At least 30 people have been killed and around 80 injured after two high-speed trains collided in central Spain on Wednesday morning, October 28. The crash happened near the towns of Urda and Los Yébenes in Toledo province, on the busy high-speed line linking Madrid with Seville and Andalusia, when a Renfe AVE train struck the rear of an Iryo train travelling in the same direction. Two carriages derailed and plunged down an embankment, leaving one carriage reduced to twisted metal. The Renfe train was carrying 397 passengers and the Iryo train 147 passengers plus a baby, regional officials said. Firefighters, paramedics, medical helicopters and the military emergencies unit rushed to the scene, and hospitals across the region were put on alert. The regional government of Castilla-La Mancha confirmed 30 deaths, while some Spanish media reports, citing civil protection sources, put the toll even higher — and officials warned the number could still rise as rescue teams searched the wrecka...

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed one of America's toughest AI safety laws, barring chatbots from offering a list of unsafe companion features to children under 18. The law, signed on Wednesday, October 28, takes effect on January 1, 2027, and covers around a dozen banned behaviours, including chatbots that pretend to be a real person, claim to be alive or say they have human emotions. Chatbots will also be barred from claiming a personal, romantic or professional relationship with a child, asking unprompted emotional questions, or reusing a child's private health details from earlier chats. Content that encourages suicide, self-harm, eating disorders or drug and alcohol use is banned, as is material that urges children to keep secrets or avoid asking parents and trusted adults for help. Companies must verify users' ages using more than one method, including at least one that does not rely solely on a government ID, and must delete age data once the check is done. E...

The Houston Rockets stayed perfect on Wednesday night, routing the Milwaukee Bucks 132-100 at Fiserv Forum to move to 5-0 for the season. Houston took control with a 34-14 second quarter and never looked back, stretching the lead through the second half as Milwaukee fell to 1-4. Fred VanVleet led Houston with 24 points, six rebounds and five assists, while Amen Thompson added 23 points and Kevin Durant chipped in 18. Bogdan Bogdanovic scored 16 off the bench and Clint Capela added 10 points and eight rebounds as the Rockets shot their way to a 32-point win. Milwaukee, which trailed by just two after the first quarter, could not keep pace once Houston's offence caught fire. The win keeps Houston as one of the early season's form teams, while the Bucks are still searching for rhythm after a slow start. Houston now visits the Dallas Mavericks on Friday night, and Milwaukee hosts the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday. Source: read more

Builders across Pakistan are now paying about Rs200 more for a bag of cement than they did a year ago, and October sales look set to slip as a result. Pakistan's cement dispatches are expected to fall 1 percent year on year to 3.95 million tons in October, according to industry estimates, with local sales reaching 2.1 million tons in the first 18 days of the month and 3.05 million tons in the first 25 days. A bag of cement cost Rs1,604 on average in October, against Rs1,404 a year earlier, according to weekly Sensitive Price Indicator data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. Prices also rose 2 to 4 percent from September, with higher fuel and transport costs blamed for the increase. For a contractor buying 1,000 bags, the year-on-year difference adds Rs200,000 to a single order. The slowdown matters well beyond cement mills: construction drives jobs for masons, drivers and suppliers, and higher building costs feed into house prices and rents. If the current pace holds, mills wi...

European Union energy ministers are meeting in Brussels on Thursday to tackle soaring fuel prices as the winter heating season approaches, with wars in Iran, Ukraine and Yemen pushing oil and natural gas prices sharply higher. Fighting has damaged refineries across the Middle East and Russia and disrupted flows through the Black Sea, the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, leaving Europe facing an expensive winter. EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen warned on Wednesday that affordability is now as urgent as supply itself, saying available energy means little to households and businesses that cannot pay for it. European wholesale gas prices briefly touched 100 euros per megawatt-hour on Wednesday, the first time since December 2022, and are now trading at roughly triple their levels before the Iran war. Gas storage stands at just 75 percent of capacity, down from 83 percent a year ago. Ministers will discuss a European Commission proposal to cut electricity bills through tax and grid-fe...

Apple's first foldable iPhone could take nearly 30 percent of the global foldable smartphone market by 2027, according to a new report from research firm TrendForce. With the iPhone Duo now shipping for nearly a week, TrendForce has reaffirmed its forecast that Apple will capture 29.8 percent of the segment next year, putting it second behind Samsung. TrendForce had already predicted Apple would ship 5 million Duo units by the end of 2026, good for a 24.8 percent share in its first year. It expects the overall foldable market to reach 23.5 million shipments in 2027, up 16.3 percent, with Samsung's share slipping to 31.9 percent and Huawei's falling to 21.3 percent. Before Apple's arrival, the market was barely growing at all — just 0.5 percent in 2026, with Android-only shipments down more than 20 percent year on year. The report says Apple's biggest advantage is its control of its own chips, operating system and developer ecosystem, which should improve app compati...

Defending champions Pakistan begin their Hong Kong Sixes title defence with a blockbuster clash against India on Friday, October 30, at the Mission Road Ground in Mong Kok. The six-a-side tournament runs from October 30 to November 1 with 12 teams, and Pakistan, captained by Mohammad Abbas Afridi, departed for Hong Kong on Tuesday. Pakistan are in Group C alongside India and the UAE. They open against the UAE on Friday morning before facing India, led by Krunal Pandya, later the same day — a fixture that always draws huge attention no matter the format. Pakistan are the most successful team in the tournament's history with six titles, the latest coming in 2025 when they beat Kuwait by 43 runs in the final. England and South Africa have five titles each, while India have won the event once, back in 2005. The Hong Kong Sixes is cricket at its fastest and most explosive: six players a side, every ball an event, and one big over can flip a match in minutes. For Pakistan, the mission is...

Bournemouth stormed into the Carabao Cup quarter-finals with a commanding 3-0 win over Aston Villa at the Vitality Stadium on Wednesday night. Amine Adli opened the scoring after just seven minutes, finishing off a flowing team move, and the Cherries never looked back against a Villa side that had arrived unbeaten in seven games. Lewis Cook doubled the lead six minutes into the second half when his low inswinging cross caught Villa goalkeeper Marco Bizot out at the near post, and Alvaro Rodriguez sealed the win in the 69th minute, lashing home after Tyler Adams intercepted a loose pass. It was Bournemouth's fifth win in a row in all competitions and their first appearance in the last eight of this competition since the 2018/19 season. Villa boss Unai Emery admitted his side could not match Bournemouth's intensity and were not clinical enough with the chances they created, while Cherries manager Marco Rose praised his team's relentless pressing and defending. The quarter-fin...