Global Express | October 8, 2026 — Houthis Claim Missile Strike on Riyadh Airport as Explosions Heard in Saudi Capital

1. Houthis Claim Missile Strike on Riyadh Airport as Explosions Heard in Saudi Capital

Source: Euronews

Yemen's Houthis said on Thursday they targeted King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital Riyadh with a ballistic missile. Saudi Arabia did not immediately confirm the strike or any damage or casualties. Several explosions echoed across Riyadh on Thursday, according to witnesses, and diplomats were instructed to shelter in place at their embassies as international schools also took precautions.

Saudi Arabia said an earlier drone attack on the same airport killed one person, while a separate strike on Abha airport in the southwest killed two as flight delays continued into a second day. The Abha attack killed Moroccan and Algerian residents and wounded 28 others, while the King Khalid attack killed a Sudanese national and wounded eight, officials said. The Saudi General Authority for Civil Aviation did not blame any party. The Saudi-led coalition blamed the Houthis and vowed a response; its spokesman, Major General Turki al-Malki, said forces intercepted a ballistic missile north of Riyadh and destroyed a launch platform in Yemen's capital Sanaa used to attack the Saudi capital.

Strikes on Saudi facilities threaten crucial shipping alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz, where traffic has been curtailed by the Iran war. The Houthis, formally known as Ansar Allah, have claimed repeated recent attacks on Saudi airports and on critical infrastructure and military sites across the kingdom. Saudi Arabia has also accused the group of targeting Islam's holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, allegations the group rejected as "fabrications and lies." The fighting in Yemen has become the most active front of the wider regional war; more than 200,000 people have been displaced since the war escalated again in July, according to UN data.

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2. Ukraine Strikes Yandex Data Center and Major Oil Refinery in Russia

Source: Kyiv Post

Ukraine struck a Yandex data center in Russia's Ryazan Oblast and a major oil refinery in Bashkortostan overnight on Oct. 8, according to Ukrainian monitoring channels and eyewitness footage. The channels Exilenova+, VChK-OGPU and Astra reported that the Yandex data center in the city of Sasovo was hit overnight, and eyewitness footage showed a large fire at the site.

Yandex is one of Russia's largest technology companies and the country's dominant search engine, offering cloud computing, online storage, email, maps and ride-hailing. The Sasovo facility sits on the grounds of the Sasta plant, which makes metalworking machinery and supplies equipment to Russian defense industry companies. Yandex acknowledged an "incident" and said some services were temporarily unavailable, with users reporting problems accessing Yandex Disk and Yandex Documents. The data center opened in 2011.

The Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat oil refinery in Bashkortostan was also targeted overnight. The plant can process up to 10 million tons of hydrocarbon feedstock a year and produces more than 150 products, including gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, bitumen, polyethylene, styrene and ammonia. It has been hit before: an Aug. 13 attack caused a fire, and a July 14 strike forced a complete halt to oil processing, while Ukrainian drones damaged primary crude-processing units in 2023. The strikes come after President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had approved a plan for long-range attacks against Russia in October.

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3. EU Agrees to Sanction Over 1,600 People and Entities Linked to Russia's War

Source: Euronews

The European Union has agreed the single largest expansion of its sanctions list against Russia, adding 1,646 names in one go. The deal, sealed on Wednesday by ambassadors in Brussels, covers 743 individuals and 826 entities accused of supporting Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Separately, it targets 77 lawmakers who stood in Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine for the widely discredited State Duma election in September. Ambassadors wrapped up the agreement after several weeks of deliberations and legal scrubbing, which was particularly intensive given the sheer number of names. It will be formally approved on Monday when foreign ministers gather in Luxembourg, after which the targeted people and entities will be made public. Sanctions entail a travel ban, an asset freeze and a prohibition on providing funding.

Member states were keen to close the agreement to portray a united front amid a rapid succession of hybrid attacks, some attributed to Russia. The deal follows last month's contentious decision to remove oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman from the blacklist; in exchange for that painful concession, the EU extended the sanctions list for an unprecedented three years, and the blacklist will soon cover almost 4,650 names. High Representative Kaja Kallas admitted it is unlikely the two will be included again any time soon.

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4. South Korea Pledges Legal Action Over Alleged Fuel Exports to Russia

Source: Al Jazeera

South Korea's government will take legal action over illegal fuel shipments to Russia if allegations from an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are confirmed, the Foreign Ministry said. It said on Thursday it had not confirmed whether South Korean fuel, including diesel, had been exported to Russia, and noted that exports of some products such as diesel and jet fuel for commercial purposes are not included in its export control list to Russia.

On Wednesday, the South Korean presidential office dismissed a statement by Vladyslav Vlasiuk, Zelenskyy's adviser on sanctions policy, that 176,000 tonnes of fuel were shipped from South Korea to Russia via sanctioned tankers in July and August. Presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said Seoul has consistently implemented sanctions and export controls against Russia in close cooperation with the international community, and asked Ukraine to refrain from distorting South Korea's policies without sufficient verification of the facts.

Relations between Seoul and Kyiv have been strained for weeks after South Korea accused Zelenskyy of "unilaterally disclosing" to the UN General Assembly that Kyiv had transferred two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea. Seoul demanded an official apology, while Kyiv said no such non-disclosure agreement was in place. Meanwhile, Pyongyang and Moscow signed a mutual defence treaty in 2024; according to Ukrainian and South Korean estimates, about 14,000 to 15,000 North Korean soldiers were sent to support Russia's war effort.

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5. PepsiCo Cuts Earnings Forecast as North American Turnaround Lags

Source: CNBC

PepsiCo on Thursday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that topped analysts' expectations, fueled by international growth as its North American business continued to lag. With one quarter left in 2026, the company lowered its full-year earnings forecast, saying it expects core earnings per share to rise 2.5% to 3.5%, down from its previous projection of the low end of a 5% to 7% range, and now projects net revenue growth of about 6%. Shares fell less than 1% in premarket trading.

Pepsi reported third-quarter net income attributable to the company of $3.05 billion, or $2.23 per share, down from $2.6 billion, or $1.90 per share, a year earlier. Excluding items, it earned $2.34 per share. Net sales rose 5.6% to $25.27 billion, while organic revenue rose 3.1%. Beverage volume grew 3% and food volume 1%. CEO Ramon Laguarta said the international business has accounted for 41% of net revenue so far this year.

In North America, beverage volume shrank 2% and food volume was flat. CFO Steve Schmitt said the turnaround of the domestic business is moving more slowly than expected. Laguarta pointed to "green shoots": North American convenient foods organic revenue improved sequentially, and the beverage unit's organic volume trends picked up. But the carbonated soft drink portfolio lagged the category, including rival Coca-Cola. Pepsi plans cost reductions to fund investments in innovation and marketing.

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6. Global Bond Sell-Off Pushes US Treasury Yields to Fresh 24-Year Highs

Source: NBC News

Yields on key U.S. Treasury bonds touched fresh 24-year highs on Wednesday as the latest global bond sell-off picked up steam. The 10-year Treasury yield rose as high as 5.36%, and the 30-year hit 5.73% — the highest for each since 2002. Benchmark government bonds in France and Italy also rose sharply, and the yield on the U.K. 30-year government bond hit its highest level since 1998.

U.S. yields pulled back later in the day after a Treasury Department auction of $39 billion in 10-year bonds drew strong demand. At 5.3%, the yield was the highest of any U.S. sale of 10-year debt since November 2000. The bond rout sent stocks tumbling early, but losses eased as yields came off their highs. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended down about 0.2%, the Dow fell 341 points, or 0.6%, and the Russell 2000 declined 1.3%. European markets fell harder, with Italy's FTSE MIB down 2.5%. Brent crude slipped 0.5% but remained above $100 a barrel.

The rise in yields compounds the pain for governments whose borrowing costs have soared since the start of the year. IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva warned that governments urgently need to bring their unprecedented debt under control, saying "higher interest rates now put an end to" years of rates below growth. Reports said Elon Musk's SpaceX plans to raise $40 billion to buy AI chips from Nvidia. Economist Ed Yardeni warned that "France may be on the verge of a full-blown debt crisis."

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7. Maricarmen, the 87-Year-Old Whose Eviction Shook Spain, Has Died

Source: NPR

María del Carmen Abascal, the 87-year-old woman known as "Maricarmen" whose eviction from her longtime Madrid home sparked nationwide protests and a political crisis in Spain, died on Wednesday while hospitalized. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez offered his condolences on social media, writing, "Rest in peace."

On Sept. 23, Maricarmen, who used a wheelchair, was carried on a stretcher from the home where she had lived for seven decades after police cordoned off the street and removed protesters; she was taken to hospital because of her fragile health. Televised images of the eviction prompted thousands to protest in Madrid and other cities. She had been expected to return home after the real estate company that evicted her eventually caved under public pressure and agreed to let her return — but the Madrid Tenants' Union said the solution "came too late." After her death, protesters in Madrid's Puerta del Sol held a minute of silence and chanted, "Maricarmen lives, the fight goes on!"

The average rent in Spain has almost doubled in the last 10 years, and the government says 26% of Spanish renters spend an average of 40% of their income on rent and utilities, compared with an EU average of 18%. Unions have announced a general strike next month. After his government failed to push emergency housing measures through Parliament, Sánchez called an early election on Monday, hoping the issue will reinvigorate his Socialist Party in the Nov. 29 vote.

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8. Kenya Reports First-Ever Ebola Case as Ten Contacts Are Quarantined

Source: BBC

Ten people who came into contact with a man who died of Ebola in Kenya have been quarantined, health officials say, and authorities are trying to trace 57 other contacts after the patient travelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo and died in a hospital in Nairobi on Monday. It is Kenya's first-ever Ebola case, and there is growing concern about the country's screening measures.

The head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Jean Kaseya, told the BBC that despite being sick for a month, the patient passed through multiple cities in DR Congo, drove to Uganda and eventually flew to Kenya without his sickness being detected. The route ran from Buta in northern DR Congo to Kisangani, then by flight to Beni, by road to Uganda and by flight to Nairobi. Kenyan health official Patrick Amoth said the patient might have passed screening after taking medication that masked his symptoms. He was transferred by a relative to a hospital, where he died, and was buried on Tuesday.

The current outbreak in DR Congo began in May and is caused by the relatively rare Bundibugyo species of Ebola, for which there is no approved vaccine or treatment. More than 4,000 people have died from Ebola in DR Congo this year, in the second deadliest known outbreak. President William Ruto said surveillance and rapid response teams are on the ground, with more than 650,000 travellers screened and 267 samples tested, while doctors have also raised concern about "lapses" at border points.

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9. OpenAI Says Teen ChatGPT Use Is Limited, but Research Calls It an 'Unacceptable Risk'

Source: BBC

OpenAI's ChatGPT for Teens was designed to promote healthier use of the AI chatbot, but new research has found its important safety features fall short. OpenAI said on Wednesday that it found average teen use of ChatGPT to be relatively limited and to tend toward "learning" activity — less than 15 minutes a day on average, with automatic break reminders working well and almost half of teen users quickly stopping after such a reminder.

But research released the same day by the non-profit Common Sense Media found that ChatGPT still poses an "unacceptable risk" for teens, as safety features including notifying parents of self-harm conversations often fail. The research found that even an hour of teen-ChatGPT conversation about "suicidal ideation, self-harm, or disordered eating" on newly created, parent-linked accounts resulted in "zero" alerts sent to parents; only older accounts with weeks of accumulated conversation history on sensitive topics triggered a parental alert. It also found ChatGPT failed to reliably recommend that teens in crisis connect to a hotline or professional.

Common Sense Media said OpenAI should ban under-18s from the platform until teen guardrails were proven reliable. An OpenAI spokesman said a review of Common Sense Media's methodology found much of the testing may have begun and concluded before parental controls were fully activated, and that the testing did not accurately reflect how the safeguards work in practice. The findings come amid growing scrutiny of how young people use online platforms, following lawsuits against companies including Meta and TikTok over children's mental health.

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10. Russian Plague Research Institute Employee Dies; China Border City Steps Up Prevention

Source: Radio Free Asia

A staff member at the Irkutsk anti-plague research institute in Siberia died of severe pneumonia, raising concerns about pneumonic plague and a possible laboratory infection. The CDC in Suifenhe, a Chinese city bordering Russia, said it is carrying out prevention publicity through its WeChat account, leaflets and health lectures. A staffer told Radio Free Asia on Thursday that they publicize every day but that their superiors had not yet given them specific measures.

The deceased was identified as 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, who was hospitalized with severe pneumonia on Sept. 29 and died on Oct. 2 after receiving ventilator support; the pathogen causing the pneumonia has not been identified. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Oct. 7 that Russia held a meeting on Oct. 2 about a local resident suspected of a dangerous infectious disease, and that the WHO requested further information from Russia on Oct. 3 under the International Health Regulations. Russia replied on Oct. 6 that no plague cases had recently been reported in Irkutsk Oblast and that about 200 contacts had been isolated; its health regulator later said no plague was found among the contacts.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, responding to reports of a second suspected case, said media reports were "mostly untrue" and urged reliance on the health regulator's statements. The WHO is verifying reports of a second employee with unexplained pneumonia. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly urged Russia to disclose more information. On Chinese social media, users asked Russia to release more details, with one writing, "We can only hope this death from unexplained pneumonia is an isolated case."

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