World
Israelis are waiting for about 500,000 absentee ballots to be counted after an election that left neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's allies nor the parties seeking to replace him with a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. Likud took the most votes of any single list but has accused Arab-led parties of stealing the election, a claim the election committee has played down. Arab-led lists had a strong night and the Joint List said it was open to political cooperation. Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu's chief rival, called for a government that serves all citizens. Israel's president is expected to task one candidate with forming a government next week, with another election possible early next year.
AP / Taipei Times
Politics
The US midterm campaign enters its last weekend before the November 3 vote, with Democrats holding a nine-point lead in national polling and Republicans defending narrow majorities in Congress. An Ipsos analysis put Democrats at 53 percent and Republicans at 44 percent among voters. Fox News Power Rankings forecast that Democrats retake the House, while calling the Senate a toss-up at 48 Democratic seats, 47 Republican and five undecided. Early in-person voting in Georgia closes on Friday. President Donald Trump campaigned in Ohio, South Carolina and Texas this week, while former president Barack Obama rallied in Georgia, attacking the Iran war, fuel prices, tariffs and immigration enforcement.
The Independent / CNN / Forbes
Business
Microsoft and Alphabet both reported strong cloud growth for the latest quarter, but investors reacted in opposite directions to the cost of building AI infrastructure. Microsoft posted fiscal first-quarter revenue of $92.3 billion, up 19 percent, with Azure growing 48 percent and Microsoft Cloud at $63.9 billion. Capital spending reached $39.4 billion, below the roughly $50 billion analysts expected, and management guided full-year capital expenditure to about $175 billion. Alphabet reported revenue of $127.6 billion, up 25 percent, with Google Cloud up 103 percent to $30.7 billion and capital spending of $51.4 billion, yet its shares fell as software and cybersecurity stocks sank.
Company results / AI Weekly
Technology
Meta's updated Commercial Terms take effect on 30 October and authorise automated scrapers and crawlers against websites tied to any business account on its platforms. The Register first reported the change on 16 October, when the wording named AI training among the permitted uses. After criticism, Meta removed the explicit training reference and said the terms apply to its ads and business products. Business accounts have no opt-out from the scraping provision, which has alarmed news publishers, who argue the terms let Meta avoid licensing fees for journalism used to train models. Meta has not said whether content gathered this way will be used for training.
The Register / TechCrunch
Science
A single fossil tooth found in northern Israel has let researchers reconstruct a lush landscape from nearly 700,000 years ago, when straight-tusked elephants and early humans shared the Jordan Rift Valley. The molar and tusk fragments came from Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, south of the Hula Valley, together with basalt handaxes and cleavers of the Acheulian stone-tool tradition. The animal was Palaeoloxodon antiquus, one of the largest land mammals of the Pleistocene. The study, published in Quaternary Science Reviews and led by Hannah Farrell of Haifa University, describes forests, rivers and wetlands, and suggests that reliable water and vegetation shaped how early humans moved between continents.
Tel-Hai University / ScienceDaily
Sports
Houston improved to 5-0 with a 132-100 win over Milwaukee, the Rockets' most lopsided result of the young season. Jalen Brunson scored 38 points and OG Anunoby added 23 as New York beat Chicago 133-127 for a second straight win. Evan Mobley posted 24 points and 12 rebounds in Cleveland's 121-111 victory over Washington, and Philadelphia beat Indiana 114-109 behind 27 points from Tyrese Maxey and a 21-point, 11-rebound double-double from Joel Embiid. The results leave Houston as one of the unbeaten teams in the early Western Conference table while Milwaukee and Indiana search for consistency.
NBA / PlainTextSports
Health
A study of 12,772 adults in Brazil found that people who consumed the most low- and no-calorie sweeteners had a 62 percent faster decline in memory and thinking skills over about eight years, roughly 1.6 additional years of brain aging. Six of seven sweeteners examined were linked to faster cognitive decline, with the association strongest among people with diabetes. The work, published in Neurology, followed participants whose average age was 52 at the start and used dietary questionnaires to estimate intake of aspartame, saccharin, acesulfame-K, erythritol, xylitol, sorbitol and tagatose. The authors stress the finding shows association, not causation.
American Academy of Neurology
Environment
A UN report released in Yerevan on 29 October finds that 252 million hectares of ecosystems across 149 countries are being restored, an area the size of Argentina or Algeria, creating more than one million green jobs. It is the largest documented restoration effort to date, but the pace must roughly triple to reach the one billion hectares countries have promised by 2030. Most of the work, 232 million hectares, is on land, against 11 million in inland waters and 5.7 million in marine and coastal areas. The report, Nature's comeback, was produced by UNEP, FAO and the Convention on Biological Diversity secretariat.
UNEP / Straits Times