Pentagon approves first US military firing squad execution since WWII; Texas proceeds with lethal injection

The Pentagon announced that Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan — who killed 13 people in 2009 — will be executed by firing squad in December, the first military execution by that method since World War II. The decision came days after Christa Pike survived a botched lethal injection in Tennessee; her lawyers say she was nearly taken off life support before waking, and a judge has ordered all execution evidence preserved. Texas meanwhile proceeded with the lethal injection of Jamaal Howard, 46, the first inmate executed in the US since Pike’s failed procedure.

Russia dismisses second plague case as ‘false information’; WHO demands transparency; Trump to call Putin

Russia denied reports of a second suspected pneumonic plague case linked to the Siberian research institute where a 28-year-old lab worker recently died, calling them “false information” — even as the WHO said it has not received enough information from Russian authorities to make a full risk assessment. The dead scientist’s mother told media the disease did not escape from a test tube. The US embassy in Moscow has advised Americans to leave Russia, Mongolia has ordered health surveillance at its Russian border, and Trump said he would speak directly with Putin about the incident.

Flávio Bolsonaro vows to ‘re-democratise’ Brazil; thousands march in Rio against ‘the son’

Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the disgraced former president, has vowed to “re-democratise” Brazil ahead of the October 25 runoff against Lula — language opponents say mirrors the elder Bolsonaro’s playbook. Thousands took to the streets of Rio under the banner “No to the father, no to the son.” Climate campaigners are alarmed: Lula’s success in curbing Amazon deforestation has not translated into votes, and a Bolsonaro presidency could reverse those gains entirely.

UK’s East Jerusalem consulate rebranded as ‘mission’ as Israel’s closure deadline expires

The UK consulate general in East Jerusalem had its signage removed as Israel’s 30-day expulsion deadline passed, but Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said the building would not close — it will continue as a “UK mission,” remaining independent and serving Palestinians. The standoff follows UK sanctions on illegal Israeli settlements. Most UK staff are being withdrawn while Miliband insists “vital services” will remain.

BBC investigation: US and Lebanon are sheltering Syrian general linked to Austin Tice’s abduction

A BBC investigation found that Bassam al-Hassan, a Syrian general with alleged links to the 2012 disappearance of US journalist Austin Tice, is being actively sheltered by both Lebanon and the United States in exchange for intelligence cooperation. Tice has been missing for 14 years; the findings suggest the US has quietly deprioritised accountability in his case in favour of intelligence access.

Maricarmen, 87, whose eviction symbolised Spain’s housing crisis, dies in hospital

María del Carmen Abascal, forcibly carried out on a stretcher from her Madrid home of over 70 years in September, has died. Her eviction became a national flashpoint, triggering protests across Spain and a political crisis over soaring rents. Hundreds gathered outside parliament following her death, demanding government action.

France bans stun grenades against student protesters after teenage boy’s hand blown off

The French government suspended the use of stun grenades after a teenage boy had his hand blown off during school blockades. The protests, now in their second week, stem from crumbling school buildings, teacher shortages, and a broader sense that the education system has been left to decay. Several rights groups had already complained of disproportionate force against minors.

China opens military base in Laos with attack jets — first mainland South-east Asia foothold

Satellite images show attack jets stationed at a new Chinese military facility in Laos that opened last week, giving Beijing’s air force its first permanent presence on the South-east Asian mainland. Officially a “support and training centre” and “not directed at any third party,” the deployment is viewed with considerable concern by regional governments given tensions across the Indo-Pacific.

Russia’s winter energy campaign begins ten days earlier than last year

The Oct. 7 strikes on Pryluky and Kyiv (see leader) come as Russia’s winter energy campaign has formally begun — starting Sept. 29–30, ten days earlier than in 2025 — with ballistic missiles and drones targeting energy infrastructure across the country.

Hybrid front: Russia sabotages Danish defence firms, armed provocateurs breach Latvia from Belarus, Poland closes drone probe

Denmark’s intelligence service said Russia has shifted to direct sabotage operations against Danish companies supplying Ukraine, after broader disruption efforts failed to reduce Western military support. Armed masked individuals crossed from Belarus into Latvia on multiple occasions, threatening Latvian border soldiers and stealing surveillance cameras. And Polish prosecutors closed their investigation into the large-scale Russian drone incursion of September 2025 without identifying those responsible; some of the drones contained Polish SIM cards, suggesting supply-chain infiltration.

NATO Military Committee in Kyiv; EU commits €1.2B for drones; Drapatyi drafts a ‘grand strategy’

Committee Chair Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone met Commander-in-Chief Gen. Drapatyi, who is simultaneously drafting a new “grand strategy” for the war as Ukrainian forces become more agile under his command. In parallel, the EU committed €1.2 billion for Ukrainian drones and missiles, and bipartisan US senators are pressing the Trump administration to accelerate Russia sanctions on oil trade and the military-industrial complex.

Ukraine establishes sustained drone presence over Crimea; Seshcha airfield struck

For the first time in 12 years of occupation, Ukraine maintains a steady presence in the skies over Crimea — the “Magyar’s Birds” Brigade flew over 7,000 missions over the peninsula this summer as part of an ongoing “Crimean Operation.” Ukrainian forces also struck Seshcha airfield in Bryansk Oblast, where Russia bases its strategic An-124 and Il-76 transport aircraft.

Forsvarsbudsjett til 191,7 mrd. – men Forsvaret feiler på to av tre beredskapsmål

Forsvarsbudsjettet øker med 6,5 milliarder til 191,7 milliarder kroner i 2027, inkludert 100 millioner til et nasjonalt droneprogram og stor satsing på E-tjenesten for å overvåke russisk ubåtaktivitet. Til tross for økningen feiler Forsvaret for andre år på rad på to av sine tre hovedmål for stridsklarhet. Det settes ikke av midler til nye politihelikoptre til tross for Stortingets vedtak. I Finnmark beskyldes regjeringen for tomme ord om sivil beredskap, og tidligere hærsjef Robert Mood hevder Ap driver talltriksing for å blidgjøre Trump.

Jernbane og togkaos: Kutt, ERTMS-omstart og sjefsavgang på dagen

Regjeringen starter bare to nye veiprosjekter i 2027 og varsler full gjennomgang av ERTMS-strategien etter kostnadssprekker og forsinkelser – noe som kan bety at nye jernbanestrekninger bygges uten det europeiske signalsystemet. Kritikere mener kuttene i jernbanevedlikehold «kaster bensin på bålet» etter langvarig underinvestering. Onsdag ble Norske Togs administrerende direktør Øystein Risan avskjediget på dagen av styret; finansdirektør Linda Marie Venbakken overtar.

Elbilfordeler kuttes – bilforhandlere melder om nytt Klondike-rush

Regjeringen reduserer elbilfordelene fra nyttår samtidig som drivstoffavgiftene senkes noe – MDG frykter fossil-boom. Bilforhandlerne rigger seg allerede for rekordrushet: Drammen Havn venter ny importrekord, og forhandlerne tilbyr «momsgaranti» til kjøpere som handler nå. Regjeringen senker også boliginvesteringsanslagene etter tidligere lovnader om byggboom.

Posten redusert til én leveringsdag i uken – Fagforbundet advarer om 2000 jobber

Regjeringen foreslår at brevombæring reduseres fra tre til én dag i uken. Fagforbundet frykter at 2000 av 3000 postbud mister jobben, og kaller det den «største masseoppsigelsen i moderne tid». Kuttet er den enkeltposten i budsjettet som får sterkest reaksjon på r/norge.

DNB kutter 400 årsverk med KI som begrunnelse – mens 1200 søker på to butikkjobber

Norges største bank varsler nedbemanning av 400 stillinger med kunstig intelligens som hovedbegrunnelse. Finansforbundet reagerer på at fristen de ansatte har fått er altfor kort, og kaller meldingen dramatisk. Samtidig vekker en r/norge-tråd om 1200 søkere til to butikkstillinger – én heltid, én 40 prosent – stor gjenklang, og en annen tråd rammer det inn som et strukturelt problem: fabrikken automatiserer og sier opp folk, men ingen kjøper produktet når arbeiderne er arbeidsledige. Trådene leser samme uro fra ulike vinkler.

Økokrim: Kriminelle nettverk etablerer seg i norsk næringsliv og forsvar

Økokrims trusselvurdering for 2026 slår fast at kriminelle nettverk i større grad enn før har etablert seg i legale norske næringer og beveger seg dit kontrollen er svakest. Hemmeligholdet i forsvarssektoren løftes frem som særlig bekymringsfullt – Økokrim mener det øker korrupsjonsrisikoen. Kriminelle er mer involvert i hvitvasking og infiltrasjon enn tidligere, og Økokrim forventer infiltrasjon i flere sektorer – også offentlig sektor – i årene fremover.

KI-boom finansieres med gjeld – amerikanske renter på 24-årstopp

KI-utbyggingen er i ferd med å gå fra egenkapitalfinansiering til gjeldsfinansiering, og det bekymrer investorene. Den amerikanske tiårsrenten nådde onsdag sitt høyeste nivå siden 2002, og Wall Street falt. Hedgefond-milliardær Ray Dalio advarer om at AI-boblen nærmer seg bristepunktet, og at renteoppgangen kan utløse kollaps. Til tross for dette er Nvidia nær sin første markedsverdi på 6000 milliarder dollar, og Samsung Electronics ligger an til sitt fjerde rekordkvartal på rad.

Datasenter-strid: Teknologirådet kritisert for «skremselsrapport» mens fransk KI-selskap satser 11 mrd. dollar i Finland

Debatten om Norges datasenter-strategi tilspisset seg etter at Teknologirådet la frem en rapport som anbefaler ny kurs – prompte kalt «skremselsrapport» av Abelia og Norsk datasenterindustri. Samtidig annonserer det franske KI-selskapet Sesterce 11 milliarder dollar i et nytt datasenter i Finland, og ASP Data Center vurderer Oslo-børsnotering med 100 millioner dollar i ny kapital. I statsbudsjettet forsvinner bredbåndstilskuddet til distrikts-Norge helt, noe Nordland fylkeskommune anslår vil koste dem 300–400 millioner.

Tre år siden 7. oktober: Delt markering i Oslo, Netanyahu-spørsmålet ubesvart

Tirsdag 7. oktober var treårsdagen for Hamas’ massakre i Israel, der 1200 mennesker ble drept. I Oslo delte demonstranter Jernbanetorget i to – pro-Palestina/Iran på den ene siden, pro-Israel på den andre. NRK publiserte et større arbeid om foreldrene som mistet barn ved Nova-festivalen i Reim, og om det politiske spørsmålet som fortsatt splitter Israel: hva visste Netanyahu, og hvorfor klarte han ikke å avverge angrepet?

FrP på 35 prosent – beste måling på 20 år – mens SV nærmer seg sperregrensen og Høyre når historisk bunn

En InFact-måling for Nettavisen gir FrP 35,1 prosent, opp 11,3 poeng siden fjorårets valg – partiets sterkeste resultat på to tiår. Én av fire tidligere Høyre-velgere har gått til Listhaug. Høyre ligger på 11,9 prosent (dårligst siden 2006), SV har kollapset til 3,6 prosent, godt under sperregrensen, og Rødt er oppe i 8,4. Hadde tallene holdt seg, ville Listhaug blitt statsminister. Målingen har 2907 respondenter fra tidlig oktober.

Over én million millionærer i Norge

SSB-tall publisert med statsbudsjettet viser at 1 054 134 nordmenn over 17 år har skattepliktig nettoformue over én million kroner – omtrent én av fire voksne. Av disse har 369 000 over tre millioner. Det er 46 000 flere enn i 2023. r/norges reaksjon: «Aldri følt meg så fattig etter å ha lest dette.»

23 critical internet projects, 11 of them maintained by one or two people

A data visualization surveying 23 foundational software projects (OpenSSL, zlib, SQLite, the timezone database, libxml2, and others) finds that 11 have only one or two active maintainers. The concrete examples are sobering: libxml2 was unmaintained for 85 days in 2025 (5.6 billion devices affected), the xz backdoor was a targeted attack on a single-maintainer project, and the timezone database is largely Paul Eggert. SQLite, zlib, and the timezone database receive no tracked public funding despite underpinning virtually everything.

curl 8.23.0 fixes 22 vulnerabilities including one HIGH — ships October 14

Daniel Stenberg has announced that curl 8.23.0, releasing in the European morning of October 14, patches 22 security vulnerabilities. One carries HIGH severity — only the second such rating since 2021. CVE details are embargoed until release; distribution maintainers received advance notice. If you ship or depend on curl, mark October 14 for patching.

Claude Haiku 5.5: 75% price cut, computer use goes from 16% to 72%

Anthropic released Haiku 5.5 at $0.10/M input (down from $1.00/M) and $0.50/M output (down from $5.00/M) for contexts under 100k tokens. Benchmark improvements are stark: OSWorld computer use jumps from 15.7% to 72.4%, Terminal-Bench agentic coding from 0% to 39.2%. The model adds adjustable effort for cost/quality tradeoffs. Separately, Sonnet 5.5 cache read prices were cut 50%, reducing typical agentic task costs by about 20%, and monthly API credits ($100–$500) were introduced for Max and Team subscribers.

GPT-6 and Intelligent UI roll out to all ChatGPT users

OpenAI has brought GPT-6 to all 1.2 billion weekly ChatGPT users (previously paid-only), bundled with Intelligent UI: the model now generates fully interactive interface components in response to queries rather than plain text or images. Demonstrations show tabbed explorers, annotated diagrams, and structured breakdowns users can click through. The implications for how LLMs are surfaced to end users — less chat, more dynamic render — are worth watching.

The Mathocalypse: Aaronson on what AI solving 372 open problems actually means

Scott Aaronson’s response to the OpenAI/Lean math results is worth reading independently of the original announcement. He argues the solutions are genuinely real — dismissing the “that’s not true mathematics” skeptics — and frames the event as civilization-scale, comparing mathematicians to “hunter-gatherers finding a resort built beside their rainforest.” Two things stand out: cryptography was conspicuously absent from the 372 solved problems, and he argues the work of humans decoding and understanding AI-generated proofs is itself genuine mathematical labour. He ends on an alignment note, pushing for international agreement before recursive self-improvement.

A fitting companion: Wikipedia now has an article on “Cleo,” the Math Stack Exchange user who in 2013–2014 posted closed-form solutions to ten notoriously difficult integrals — always without proofs, always correct — and vanished. The community spent years working out derivations Cleo never provided.

Taiwan’s internet depends almost entirely on submarine cables — and they break constantly

A report from the Open Culture Foundation maps Taiwan’s internet fragility: over 99% of international traffic flows through submarine cables, damaged 5.1 times per year versus a global average of 0.1–0.2. The December 2025 earthquake damaged six international cables simultaneously, nearly halving capacity. Of commonly used Taiwanese sites, 39.3% are fully foreign-hosted and would fail immediately during a disconnection; 49.6% are cloud-dependent with hidden foreign control planes. Satellite backup capacity is roughly 10,000x below cable capacity, and repairs average 32 days internationally and 110 days for outlying island cables. The report recommends strengthening local nodes of Google, Cloudflare and Amazon, reducing foreign dependencies in critical services, and establishing disconnection drills.

Zeroization: memory wiping can create more copies of secrets than it erases

Frank Denis walks through the counterintuitive ways “secure memory wiping” goes wrong in practice: compilers optimise away memset() since the variable is never read again; volatile stores write wrong addresses, leaving the actual secret in registers; hidden wipe implementations force the caller to create new stack copies that outlast the wipe; and compiler spill slots generate additional uncleared copies. Registers carrying secrets survive all of it. The post argues for inspecting actual compiled output and questioning whether small locals need wiping at all before reaching for a “secure_zero” function.

How Victorian machinists bootstrapped precision from nothing

A historical deep-dive into the self-reinforcing cycle that gave the Industrial Revolution its dimensional accuracy. Wilkinson’s two-ended boring mill (1775) was accurate enough to seal Watt’s steam cylinders. The three-plate method created perfectly flat surfaces without a reference flat — three rough plates compared against each other until all three agreed. Maudslay bootstrapped the first precise lead screw from geometry alone, then averaged errors from two guide screws to improve it. His bench micrometer detected thousandths of an inch; Whitworth’s later machine achieved millionths — a thousand-fold gain in fifty years. Each tool made the next tool possible.

First thorium nuclear clocks begin ticking in Vienna and Beijing

Labs in Vienna and Beijing have independently achieved the first working nuclear clocks based on the thorium-229 isomeric transition. Unlike atomic clocks, which track electron transitions, nuclear clocks use transitions inside the nucleus — orders of magnitude more stable and less susceptible to environmental interference. Thorium-229 has been the target for decades because it happens to have a nuclear transition at a laser-accessible frequency. The milestone opens a path toward a new generation of timekeeping and tests of fundamental physics.

JPEG XL ships in Chrome 155 with a Rust decoder

Chrome 155, released October 6, adds JPEG XL decoding. JXL offers 30–50% better compression than JPEG, native HDR, lossless JPEG transcoding, and higher bit depths. Chrome’s implementation uses jxl-rs, a Rust decoder, specifically to avoid the memory-safety vulnerabilities that have plagued C++ image decoders inside the renderer process. Browser support is now Chrome + Safari; Firefox is the remaining gap for full web deployment.

Photocraft: clean-room Photoshop reimplementation in pure Rust, 307/309 PSD compatibility

storytold has released Photocraft, an open-source, clean-room reimplementation of Photoshop in pure Rust. It already covers 34 tools, the full layer/mask/blending system, 16 adjustment layers, smart objects, and renders 307 of 309 test PSDs identically to the original. It’s early alpha and not a daily-driver replacement, but the architectural ambition is real — the same team is building a parallel suite (VectorCraft, FilmCraft, LightCraft, DesignCraft, PdfCraft). Worth following as a test of whether the Adobe Creative Suite can be systematically reimplemented in safe, open code.

NixOS Zokor upgrade breaks Intel graphics on some laptops

Users upgrading from Yarara to Zokor are reporting Intel GPU regressions: very slow rendering, absent animations, and a broken desktop experience. The issue appears after bumping flake inputs and running nixos-rebuild — reverting the kernel or mesa version resolves it in reported cases. Worth holding off on the Zokor bump on Intel graphics machines until the thread lands on a confirmed fix.

Quickshell momentum: Waybar, Rofi and SwayNC replaced wholesale, as impasto 0.5 and Modesty ship

Multiple independent Hyprland setups this week are replacing the traditional Waybar + Rofi + SwayNC stack with pure Quickshell desktops, wiring launchers, notification centres, bars, overview screens and lock screens into a single QML-based layer. A frosted-glass overview redesign is in development as a Quickshell fork. Two releases underline the pattern: impasto 0.5 adds synchronized lyrics on the desktop, in the island and on the lock screen, a one-click VM launcher from the bar, and scrolling layout modes. Modesty, a Quickshell “dynamic island,” is now open source under GPL-3.0 with three expandable pills (media with album art, calendar, control centre), mic/camera activity indicators, drag-and-drop, and “Luma” local AI search with PDF preview. Quickshell is becoming the standard integration layer for custom Hyprland desktops.

hyprvim / Oasis Dots 1.0: vim modes and which-key for the entire Hyprland desktop

hyprvim brings full Vim modal editing to Hyprland itself — NORMAL/INSERT/VISUAL/COMMAND modes, hjkl navigation, operators with text objects, count support (5j, 3dw), named registers, and search. A which-key HUD renders available bindings as you enter each submap. It uses Hyprland’s native Lua plugin system, with optional Quickshell integration for the HUD. The goal: mouse completely optional across the whole desktop.

HyprCapture adds scrolling screenshot via scroll wheel

HyprCapture, a Hyprland-exclusive screenshot tool with compositor plugin integration, now supports scrolling screenshots: select a region, scroll down slowly, and it samples stable frames and stitches them into one long image (capped at 200 frames / 64 MP). It also handles occluded and off-screen window capture, video recording via GPU Screen Recorder, annotations, and transparent output with shadow removal — things generic screenshot tools can’t do without compositor access.

Home Assistant 2026.10: vector maps, trigger ID UI, one-click MCP server setup

The October release ships a full map redesign on OpenStreetMap vector tiles with redesigned person/device markers and activity history overlays. Automation trigger IDs now have a proper UI — check the triggers you want in a condition and HA generates the IDs. New integrations include SolarEdge Modbus (platinum tier), Threema messaging, and Willow plant sensors (15 total). AI integration gains one-click MCP server setup. Nabu Casa Cloud is being renamed “Home Assistant Link” by end of year.

Pwn2Own 2025 writeup: unauthenticated RCE on Home Assistant via SSDP + go2rtc — now patched

A detailed exploit writeup is public now that patches have landed. The chain: a crafted SSDP NOTIFY packet from the LAN exploits a localhost URL bypass in async_upnp_client (“127.0.00.1” with an extra zero passed substring validation) to make HA fetch a go2rtc endpoint; go2rtc’s ONVIF handler then passed the attacker-supplied stream URI to exec.Command() via the echo: scheme, running arbitrary shell commands as root. No authentication required, LAN access only. Patched in async_upnp_client v0.47.1 (proper IP parsing) and go2rtc v1.9.12 (URI allowlisting + auth).

Yolo keypad: HA calendar guest access via ESPHome + Thread, no holes in the wall

A membrane keypad on an ESP32-C6 running ESPHome communicates over Thread rather than WiFi, sending typed codes via webhook to Home Assistant, which checks them against calendar events — guests scheduled in the calendar get a working code during their event window. The build runs on 3M tape with no new wiring. Thread via ESP32-C6 is the interesting part: mesh coverage without a dedicated hub, and none of the Wi-Fi reliability issues common with outdoor ESP devices.

tunnl.gg: stable public URL behind CGNAT using only SSH -R and systemd

tunnl.gg is a minimal SSH reverse tunnel service that solves the CGNAT problem without installing any agent. You run ssh -R to a public server, which gives you a fixed memorable subdomain. The repo includes a complete systemd unit running as an unprivileged user with CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE only, handling reconnects across Wi-Fi drops and reboots. Self-hostable; the server component is included.

SilverBullet: self-hosted Obsidian alternative with built-in Lua scripting

SilverBullet is a self-hosted markdown knowledge base where notes live as plain files on disk. The differentiator over Obsidian is Space Lua — a scripting layer built into the app that lets you run database-like queries directly inside pages, assign tasks with @mentions, and automate note transforms. Self-hosts as a single container (MIT licensed); notes remain accessible via any text editor outside the app.

Wallpaper daemons: shiftpaper 0.4 adds slideshows to AI-depth parallax; xwww forks swww with JS scenes and palette sync

shiftpaper runs any image through a monocular depth model (MoGe-2 in v0.4) and renders a wgpu/Vulkan parallax effect that shifts wallpaper layers with cursor position; 0.4 adds slideshow mode with transitions, better multi-monitor support, and cleaner depth maps. xwww is a new Wayland wallpaper daemon forked from swww with JavaScript-powered procedurally animated “scenes,” palette-aware recoloring when you switch colour schemes, 30 transition effects, and animated APNG support. Works on Hyprland, Sway, niri, River and Wayfire; requires Rust 1.89+.