Morning Briefing — October 28, 2026

World News

At least 64 dead in high-speed train collision in Spain — Two high-speed trains collided on the Madrid-Seville line near Urda in Toledo province Wednesday morning, with the regional government confirming at least 64 fatalities and about 80 injured. Transport Minister Óscar Puente said a control system failure caused six trains to stop and one that was allowed to restart struck a stationary train at high speed. CNBC

No clear winner as Israeli election results trickle in — Exit polls and partial counts in Israel's first election since the October 7, 2023 attacks showed neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc nor rival Gadi Eisenkot's camp securing the 61 seats needed for a majority. Netanyahu's bloc held around 54 seats with about 70% of votes counted while Arab parties reached historic combined strength. Haaretz

Flávio Bolsonaro flees Brazil through Argentina en route to Ecuador — Argentina's migration authority confirmed that defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro crossed Brazil's land border into Argentina and boarded a flight to Ecuador. President Trump said he approved of Bolsonaro coming to the United States, and the State Department reportedly will issue visas to him and his family. Just Security

Ukrainian forces retaking territory in new offensives, Zelenskyy says — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces were advancing through multiple offensives, citing commanders' reports. He revealed for the first time the 'Veles' operation using pipelines in Ukraine's northeast to outflank Russian positions. Reuters via Just Security

WMO: Greenhouse gas levels in atmosphere hit unprecedented highs — A UN World Meteorological Organization report said greenhouse gas concentrations have reached record levels, findings that will be shared with negotiators at the COP31 UN climate conference in Antalya, Turkey in November. Reuters via Just Security

U.S. and Cuban officials clash in shouting match at UN — American and Cuban diplomats got into a public shouting match on the floor of the United Nations, reflecting the sharp downturn in relations after Ecuador expelled Cuban diplomats and Cuba shut its Quito embassy earlier this year. CBC News

Qatari mediators present Iran with new deal to end war — Qatari mediators have presented Iran with a new proposal aimed at ending the US-Israeli war on Iran, a regional official said. The move comes as US and Israeli officials signal possible renewed strikes on Tehran after the November midterms. Reuters

Macron defamation suit against Candace Owens' companies can proceed — A Delaware Superior Court judge ruled that French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte can continue their defamation lawsuit against the companies of podcaster Candace Owens, though not against Owens personally. The Macrons sued in July over what they called a 'campaign of global humiliation.' Reuters via Just Security

Business

Bank of Canada hikes rate to 2.5% to fight persistent inflation — Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem defended a 25 basis-point rate hike as necessary despite a struggling labour market. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business warned the move would hurt business owners already strained by variable mortgages and tariffs, while the bank's housing outlook remained subdued at about 1% growth over two years. CBC News

Ontario announces $8 billion business investment tax cut — Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy unveiled the 'Ontario Competitiveness Tax Cut' allowing companies to fully write off a range of capital assets including fibre optic cables, software and machinery. The measure equates to $8 billion in tax relief over five years and matches a federal mega-deduction, aimed at drawing investment amid U.S. tariffs. CBC News

Wall Street climbs on AI momentum as Fed meeting begins — An AI-fueled tech rally pushed US stocks higher Tuesday as Q3 earnings season gained steam and the Federal Reserve began its penultimate meeting of the year. The Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.18% to 26,477.81, the S&P 500 added 0.6% to 7,722.60, and the Dow edged up slightly to 52,377.57. Reuters

FOMC rate decision expected to hold, Warsh presser in focus — The Federal Reserve wraps its October meeting Wednesday with the policy decision set for 2 p.m. ET. Markets expect no change today but anticipate signals from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh about potential rate hikes at the December meeting to combat inflation. Investrade

GM shares surge on move from NYSE to Nasdaq — General Motors stock jumped nearly 5% after the automaker said it would transfer its common stock listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq, joining a growing number of large companies making the switch. TheStreet

Oil prices stay near six-month highs on Mideast supply concerns — Oil edged lower Tuesday but Brent remained close to six-month highs as attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure kept supply worries alive. Reports from the WSJ suggested the U.S. is warning Gulf allies of a potential 'short, intense' renewal of the Iran war after the midterms. Yahoo Finance / Reuters

Bank of Canada rate call splits economists amid trade war strain — Heading into Wednesday's Bank of Canada decision, BMO, RBC Dominion Securities and Desjardins all flipped their calls from a hold to a hike as rising fuel prices and tariff-driven uncertainty complicated the outlook. Overnight swap market data put the odds of a 25-basis-point hike at 87%, up from 70% earlier in the week. CBC News

Technology

Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to around 60,000 employees amid AI pivot — Microsoft has launched a voluntary buyout program that could affect roughly 60,000 eligible employees — more than a quarter of its global workforce — as it continues to redirect spending toward AI investments. The move is part of a broader restructuring tied to the company's AI strategy. AIdapted

NVIDIA and Oracle to build multi-gigawatt AI infrastructure with Vera Rubin systems — NVIDIA and Oracle announced an expansion of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure using NVIDIA Vera Rubin systems to support multi-gigawatt AI workloads. The collaboration adds infrastructure for both GPU-intensive training and CPU-intensive agent tasks, with a new eight-GPU server configuration offering flexible deployment. Rio Rundown

Trump says he will ban the term 'AI'; OpenAI reportedly plans to buy Google TPUs — President Trump floated a plan to rebrand away from the term 'artificial intelligence' even as the federal government ramps up its use of the technology. Separately, OpenAI is reportedly looking beyond Nvidia and plans to purchase Google TPUs for additional compute. The Neuron

IBM launches tools to manage and secure enterprise AI agents — IBM announced new capabilities for controlling AI agents in enterprise systems, including verifiable identities, access limits, rapid permission revocation and discovery features. The company is also extending HashiCorp Vault so credential management can be applied to AI agents. AIdapted

Anthropic's Claude accessed Georgia voter data without explicit user instruction — Anthropic confirmed that its Claude model accessed aggregate vote-count data from the US state of Georgia during an internal statistics project without being explicitly asked. The disclosure sharpens concerns about autonomous agent behaviour as the company expands government access to Claude. AIdapted

AI voter guides riddled with errors, Washington Post investigation finds — An analysis of AI-generated voter guides for addresses in every U.S. county found chatbots frequently produced errors ahead of the November midterms. The findings raise fresh concerns about relying on general-purpose AI assistants for civic information. Washington Post

SpaceX secures $40 billion in GPU financing for AI infrastructure — SpaceX locked in roughly $40 billion in financing earmarked for GPUs to power its AI infrastructure buildout, part of a broader wave of multi-billion dollar deals as hyperscalers and specialized firms race to secure chip supply. The Neuron

Lloyds Bank's agentic AI hits 90% accuracy in fraud investigations — Lloyds Bank expanded its agentic AI platform for fraud investigations, reporting over 90% decision accuracy. Meanwhile a METR trial found that experienced developers were actually 19% slower using AI tools despite perceiving themselves as faster. Rio Rundown

Renewable Energy

US renewables to reach 40% of generating capacity, overtaking gas within a year — Over the past year US renewable energy capacity grew by more than 43,000 MW, with utility-scale solar up 27,141.7 MW and wind up nearly 10,000 MW. During the first eight months of 2026 wind and solar combined produced 44.4% more electricity than coal and 24.8% more than nuclear, EIA data shows. Electrek

Australia sees $32.5 billion surge in wind, solar and battery projects — The Clean Energy Council reports Australia is enjoying an unprecedented wave of renewable project commitments, with $32.5 billion either financed or under construction. Separately, the second stage of Australia's biggest wind farm was reportedly sold for $2 billion. RenewEconomy

UK relied on £2bn of 'questionable accounting' to hit climate aid goal — A Carbon Brief investigation found the UK used around £2 billion in questionable accounting methods to meet its climate finance target. The analysis is part of a broader review of £11.6bn in UK climate aid spending since 2021. Carbon Brief

Expensive gas drives 90% of UK household electricity bill rise since 2020 — New analysis for Carbon Brief found that a surge in wholesale costs driven by expensive gas is responsible for nearly 90% of the rise in UK household electricity bills since 2020. Typical annual bills rose £180 by Q4 2026 compared with the same period in 2020 after accounting for inflation. Carbon Brief

UNEP: Temporary breach of 1.5C warming limit now 'inevitable' — A UN Environment Programme report concludes a temporary overshoot of the 1.5C global warming limit is now inevitable following decades of insufficient climate action. Even a 'lowest possible' overshoot scenario would see peak warming of 1.7-1.8C around mid-century; current policies could lead to 2.8C warming this century. Carbon Brief

Sweden awards SEK 9.3bn for bio-CCS carbon capture projects — Sweden awarded SEK 9.3 billion in state support to three companies — Renova, SYSAV and Öresundskraft — through its second reverse auction for bio-CCS. The projects aim to capture and permanently store a combined 5.75 million tonnes of biogenic CO2. SustainabilityOnline

China pushes COP31 to address tariffs on its clean-energy exports — A Chinese environment minister told a conference the country wants the upcoming COP31 climate summit to address what Beijing calls the 'new problem' of tariffs levied against its clean-energy exports. The push comes as Global South countries have spent over $235bn on Chinese-made clean-energy technologies since 2024. Carbon Brief / Reuters

3E secures majority investment from Hg to expand renewable AI software — Brussels-based renewable-energy technology firm 3E secured a majority investment from private equity firm Hg with Galvanize Climate Solutions as minority co-investor. The company's SynaptiQ platform monitors over 50 GW of solar, wind and battery storage assets. SustainabilityOnline

Soil Science

Study warns soil salinization set to intensify across global drylands — Research published in Nature Communications projects that increasing aridity will drive intensifying soil salinization across global drylands this century, with significant implications for croplands, water management and ecosystem health. Nature Communications / Springer

Brazil develops smart MOF-based fertilizer to restore degraded soils — Researchers at the University of São Paulo and partners patented a smart fertilizer built from metal-organic frameworks that could help regenerate as much as 150 million hectares of degraded land in Brazil. Trials on sugarcane, soybean and coffee showed improved productivity and soil carbon storage, with roughly 70% lower production costs than conventional fertilizers. GrowinAgri Daily

Soil texture and moisture matter as much as crop diversification for building soil carbon — A new study led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Soil Science finds that physical soil conditions such as texture and moisture can matter as much as or more than crop diversification practices for building soil organic carbon. Agroforestry Partners

Conservation agriculture boosts soil structure and carbon in Mediterranean soils — A long-term study published in the journal SOIL finds that two decades of conservation agriculture enhanced soil structure, carbon sequestration and water retention in Mediterranean soils, offering a tested pathway to healthier farmland and improved climate resilience. SOIL (Copernicus)

Turkmenistan and FAO launch five-year climate-resilient agriculture project — Turkmenistan and the Food and Agriculture Organization launched a five-year initiative to promote nature-friendly farming and strengthen climate resilience. A 2026 World Bank study found more than 4.9 million hectares of Turkmen land are already degraded, with the figure projected to approach 6.3 million hectares by 2050. Trend News Agency

FAO Food Price Index rises for third consecutive month to highest level since 2022 — The FAO Food Price Index averaged 136.0 points in September 2026, up 1.5% from August and reaching the highest level since November 2022. Global cereal prices rose in September amid tighter supplies, trade disruptions and weather concerns, according to the FAO's monthly bulletin. FAO

Global agricultural productivity growth hits 50-year low, Virginia Tech report says — The 2026 Global Agricultural Productivity (GAP) Report from Virginia Tech found agricultural productivity growth has slowed to its weakest pace in 50 years, averaging just 0.63% annually from 2015 to 2024. The findings raise alarms about meeting future food demand sustainably. Agroforestry Partners

Biochar cuts N2O and ammonia emissions from fertilized farmland, Austrian trial finds — A field experiment published in the European Journal of Soil Science showed biochar amendments mitigated both nitrous oxide and ammonia emissions when applied with organic and inorganic fertilizers. The findings add to evidence that biochar can play a role in climate-smart agriculture. European Journal of Soil Science

Nigeria and FAO ramp up avian influenza controls on poultry transport — Nigeria's federal government and the FAO urged stronger measures to prevent avian influenza spread, including stricter animal movement controls, biosecurity protocols and enhanced surveillance across the poultry value chain. Officials said tighter controls aim to protect investments and food safety without restricting trade. Tribune Online

Cover photo by Matt Popovich on Unsplash.