Sunday 4 October: Kyiv bridges, Latvia vote, Brazil decides

World news (past 24 hours)

News

Russia hits a third bridge in Kyiv. Russian drones struck Kyiv's Northern Bridge over the Dnipro on Saturday morning, the third day in a row of attacks on the city's river crossings. Traffic over the bridge was halted after the road and trolleybus power lines were damaged. These are the first strikes of the war on Kyiv's Dnipro bridges, and they cut a key link between the two halves of the capital. (Bloomberg, Meduza, United24)

Huge housing march in Madrid. Crowds marched in Madrid and other Spanish cities on Saturday, a day after parliament voted down two government housing decrees. Organisers said about 500,000 people took part in Madrid; the authorities put it at about 70,000. The decrees would have banned evictions of vulnerable tenants until 2030. Protesters are now calling for a general strike. (Euronews, US News/Reuters)

French school protests keep growing. Student protests over teacher shortages and run-down school buildings disrupted hundreds of French schools again. Police have made around 2,000 arrests, and dozens of people, including about 40 head teachers, have been hurt. Counts of closed or disrupted schools differ: Anadolu reports 564, while other outlets give between 400 and more than 700. The Dutch foreign ministry has told Dutch people in France to stay away from the protests. (NBC News, Anadolu, NL Times)

Politics

Latvia's prime minister wins the election. Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs' United List won Saturday's general election with about 36.5 percent, based on a partial count. The populist Latvia First came second with about 13 percent. Kulbergs will still need coalition partners to govern. Security worries about Russia and the cost of living dominated the race. (Bloomberg, France 24, LSM)

Brazil ends a tight campaign. President Lula and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro held their final rallies on Saturday ahead of today's first-round vote. Polls show them close: AtlasIntel has Lula slightly ahead in round one, and a Quaest poll has them nearly tied in a runoff. Lula is running for a fourth term; Bolsonaro is the son of the former president. If no one gets more than half the vote, a runoff follows on 25 October. (Al Jazeera, Euronews, Rio Times)

Economy

G7 opens its oil reserves. G7 countries agreed to release up to 100 million barrels of crude and diesel over four months, with much of the diesel coming in the first 20 days. The move follows US pressure on Europe and a shortage linked to slow traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Analysts warn that crude from reserves does not turn into diesel at the pump right away. (Euronews, Washington Post, TIME)

US job growth stalls. The US economy added just 29,000 jobs in September, far below the 84,000 economists expected. Unemployment rose to 4.2 percent, and wages grew only 3 percent over the year, the slowest since 2021. Traders now expect the Fed to keep rates on hold later this month. (CNBC, Morningstar, T. Rowe Price)

Dutch news (past 24 hours)

News

No trains at Amsterdam Centraal. No trains ran to or from Amsterdam Centraal on Saturday, and fewer will run today and Monday. ProRail is widening platforms and stairs and enlarging a tunnel, because passenger numbers are set to rise from about 200,000 to 275,000 a day. International trains to Brussels, Paris, Berlin and London are also affected. (NL Times)

Fugitive "Bolle Jos" said to pump billions into Sierra Leone. Dutch drug fugitive Jos Leijdekkers allegedly pours billions in drug money into Sierra Leone each year, investing in mines and property. RTL reports he holds a diplomatic passport and has a child with the president's daughter. The EU has frozen 18 million euro in aid over the country's refusal to hand him over. Sierra Leone says the aid delay has other, procedural reasons. (NL Times, DutchNews, TimesLIVE)

Flink customers ignore hackers. Hackers who stole customer data from grocery service Flink asked each victim for about 12 euro in crypto, hoping for 200,000 euro in total. According to NOS, nobody paid. Privacy group Bits of Freedom warns the leak is still a real risk for vulnerable people, such as survivors of domestic violence. (NL Times)

Politics

Royal report: no extra reparations. A report ordered by King Willem-Alexander found the House of Orange-Nassau backed colonialism "with conviction", and kept about 576 million euro from the Dutch East Indies. Groups for descendants welcomed the report and asked for talks about redress. Prime Minister Jetten ruled out more reparations, pointing to 200 million euro set aside in 2023 for remembrance and education. The King called the findings painful and confronting. (NL Times, DutchNews, Curaçao Chronicle)

Box 3 U-turn shakes the VVD. After heavy criticism in parliament, Finance Minister Heinen said the cabinet will spare small savers in the new box 3 savings tax; the new threshold should be set around 12 October. Within the VVD, 78 members quit in two days while 21 joined. Party leader Yesilgöz spoke of dozens of new members; former VVD politician Fred Teeven said many people are leaving. (NOS, PropertyNL, DutchNews)

A Dutch tax on vapes. State Secretary Eerenberg is drafting a national excise tax on vapes, to start on 1 January 2029. He wants vaping to cost as much as smoking, to keep young people away from it. He admits people can dodge the tax by buying online or abroad, and will drop it if an EU-wide tax comes. (NL Times)

Economy

ABN Amro sees a cooler housing market. ABN Amro now expects house prices to rise 2.5 percent in 2027, down from 4 percent, with sales falling 5.5 percent. It raised its 2026 forecast to 3.8 percent. Groningen saw prices rise nearly 8 percent in the second quarter, against 0.8 percent in Amsterdam. The bank does not expect prices to fall. (NL Times)

Diesel cars barely sell. Diesel now costs about 2.77 euro a litre, more than petrol at 2.71. The number of diesel cars in the Netherlands has dropped from about 1.4 million ten years ago to about 560,000. A five-year-old diesel now keeps only 15 percent of its value, and dealers say the market has "imploded". (NOS)

Rivers too low to check. Rivers in the east of the country are so low that Rijkswaterstaat cannot measure depths for shipping, so skippers must judge the risk themselves. River freight fell 19 percent in August, and some ships face detours of up to 300 kilometres. Officials say rain is needed upstream, and the problem may last until the end of the year. (DutchNews)

AI news (past 24 hours)

OpenAI safety lead quits: "culture is broken". David Robinson, who led the safety reports for OpenAI's big launches, resigned and set out his reasons in The Atlantic. He wrote that AI labs should work more like nuclear plants, with layers of fail-safes, instead of by trial and error. He leaves days after OpenAI fired three safety researchers over the handling of confidential information. (TechCrunch, The Next Web)

Other big AI labs. Nothing of note.

White House sets up an AI task force. President Trump named Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton to lead a new "Super Intelligence Force", effectively as AI czar. The group has 120 days to report on AI risks and on how the government should respond to AI-related breaches and hacks. It follows a White House meeting with leaders from OpenAI, Anthropic and Nvidia. (CNBC, Yahoo/WSJ)

ShinyHunters hacker held in Jordan. A key member of the ShinyHunters hacking group, Saif al-Din Khader, known as "Rey", has been detained in Jordan, Reuters reports. Sources say he is helping the FBI find other members. The group claimed to have stolen data on every FBI employee; another alleged member was earlier detained in the Netherlands. (US News/Reuters, Hackread)

Also

Sport: India beat Pakistan for Asian Games gold. India won the men's cricket final at the Asian Games in Japan by 19 runs. India scored 211 for 6, led by Abhishek Sharma's 61 off 28 balls; Pakistan reached 192 for 6 despite 96 from Hasan Nawaz. Al Jazeera reports there were no handshakes and a delayed medal ceremony. (Al Jazeera, Olympics.com)

Nature: World Animal Day. Today is World Animal Day, known in the Netherlands as Dierendag. It falls on 4 October because that is the feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi, the saint linked with animals. The first one was held in Berlin in 1925, on 24 March, because the venue was booked for 4 October. (World Animal Day, Turpentine Creek)

On this day: Sputnik. On 4 October 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. It was a metal ball of 58 centimetres that went around the Earth every 96 minutes and sent out a beep that radio fans worldwide could hear. It started the space race and led to the creation of NASA. (Astronomy, APS)

Weather in Groningen. Mild and dry, from about 13 degrees in the early morning to 19 or 20 degrees in the afternoon, warmest around 4 pm. No rain is expected during the day. NL Times mentioned a chance of light showers in the north overnight, but the hourly forecast shows none. (Open-Meteo, NL Times)

On the agenda today

• Brazil votes for president, governors, Congress and state assemblies. (CFR)
• Latvia finishes counting its election votes. (LSM)
• Egypt hosts a summit with Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan in New Alamein, days after Eritrea cut ties with Ethiopia. (Rio Times)
• Amsterdam Centraal runs a reduced train service today and Monday. (NL Times)