September 2026
All columns and Brief analyses.
10 results
A bomb strikes the Dera Ismail Khan checkpoint
A vehicle carrying explosives hit a checkpoint in Pakistan’s Dera Ismail Khan district on Saturday. Local police and rescuers reported deaths and injuries, but the published casualty counts and descriptions of those killed differ. The attack struck a post used by police and customs staff in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province bordering Afghanistan.
A vent microbe grew at pH 11 in an Enceladus brine
Methanothermococcus okinawensis, a methane-producing microbe that lives at hydrothermal vents of the Okinawa Trough, grew at a pH as high as 11 in salty, alkaline water built to imitate the ocean of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The experiment lasted days. According to David Rothery of the Open University, one more obstacle to microbial life there looks lower; life there remains a separate question.
Anthropic commits 11.6 billion dollars to Akamai over 7 years
Anthropic has committed 11.6 billion dollars over seven years to the infrastructure of the cloud-services company Akamai, an average of more than 1.6 billion dollars a year. TechCrunch calls the deal a bet on CPUs. With the potential stake Akamai is giving Anthropic, the commitment could grow toward about 20 billion dollars. Akamai shares surged after the agreement.
Apax nears a deal for Warburg Pincus’s Odido stake after IPO delay
The joint owners of Dutch operator Odido may part ways: the Financial Times says Apax is nearing an agreement to acquire Warburg Pincus’s holding. The companies already hold Odido together; the possible purchase would change that joint ownership after an Amsterdam listing was postponed in February. A company valuation of about €6.5 billion has been reported, but no stake transfer or agreed terms have been announced.
Appeals court lets Pentagon keep Anthropic on its supply-chain risk list
A three-judge DC Circuit panel ruled 2-1 on 25 September that the Defense Department can keep its supply-chain risk designation for Anthropic under section 4713. The majority tied the decision to Claude's encoded limits on lethal autonomous warfare and domestic mass surveillance. A California court previously found a parallel designation unlawful under a different provision, section 3252; the new appeal ruling concerns the separate Pentagon action.
AWC approves conditional transfer of four hotels and The Empire office to AWR
Asset World Corp's board approved a conditional plan to transfer five Thai properties to the AWR trust: four hotels and The Empire office project. The proposed transfer has a combined minimum price of 48,449 million baht. Further conditions and approvals still apply, so the board decision has not completed the deal. The company also agreed to subscribe for up to 28% of the trust's units.
Brazil launches Desenrola 3.0 with government purchases of household debt
Brazil launched Desenrola 3.0 with a new route for reducing overdue household debt: the government can buy portfolios from lenders at auction and pass the purchase discount to borrowers. It has allocated 15 billion reais to the program. Officials aim to buy about 150 billion reais in face-value debts for roughly a tenth of that amount and reach up to 15 million people. The auction is planned for November, after the October elections.
Brazil's mid-September inflation climbed to 4.47% as electricity costs rose
Brazil's mid-September consumer prices rose 0.70% after a 0.40% fall in the previous period, taking annual inflation to 4.47%. The monthly reading exceeded the 0.53% Reuters poll median. Housing costs rose 2.07%, chiefly as an Itaipu electricity-bill rebate ended. The annual rate remains within the central bank's target band, while the faster monthly rise follows last week's quarter-point cut in the Selic rate.
Caracas talks move toward a new Supreme Court nominations panel
Venezuela’s interim government and opposition agreed in a second round of talks to move ahead with a panel for selecting candidates for the Supreme Court of Justice. The step concerns who will assess prospective judges, a key part of the promised judicial overhaul. No election date or completed appointment of judges emerged from the agreement.
Chinese models reach a majority of tokens on OpenRouter
On OpenRouter, Chinese models processed between 57% and 67% of OpenRouter traffic during the week beginning 14 September. The February range was 6% to 13%. Vercel separately reported a rise to 55 percent of its model use in August from 11 percent in January. These platform figures show a shift in developer use, while spending remains weighted toward high-end models from US labs. The platforms do not measure all AI activity.