Wednesday 7 October: Black Sea drones, French school strike

World news (past 24 hours)

News

Drones sink a cargo ship off Bulgaria. Sea and air drones hit two merchant ships in Bulgaria's economic zone in the Black Sea early on Tuesday. The Alfa Watan sank and its crew is missing; all 18 crew of the second ship, the Able, were rescued. It is the first such attack inside the waters of a NATO member, and Bulgaria called an emergency government meeting. Who sent the drones is not yet confirmed, though some sources quoted by Bulgarian media say they were Russian. (Euronews, Kyiv Post)

Ukraine sends 650 drones at Moscow. Moscow's mayor said more than 650 Ukrainian drones flew toward the capital region overnight into Tuesday, and most were shot down. Two people were killed, nine were hurt and dozens of homes were damaged. A fuel depot caught fire and about 200 flights were delayed or cancelled at Moscow airports. It is one of the biggest drone attacks on the Russian capital in the war. (Yahoo News/Reuters, The Defense Watch)

Houthis strike Saudi airports. Yemen's Houthi rebels fired missiles and drones at Saudi airports, including Jazan and Najran, and later Riyadh and Abha. Saudi Arabia said three people were wounded in the first attacks, and flights in Riyadh were put on hold for hours. The Saudi-led coalition says it hit a launch site in Sanaa in return. The Houthis claim dozens of Saudi soldiers were killed, but that has not been confirmed. (Al Jazeera, The National)

Politics

France shuts high school classes as student protests grow. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu suspended high school classes across France for the rest of the week. Hundreds of thousands of students, parents and teachers marched in the third national day of protest over poor school conditions. A student union said 2,000 high schools were at a standstill, and police used tear gas at blockades. The government is calling for a national dialogue; protesters want more teachers and better school days. (Al Jazeera, CBS News)

Former German spy chief arrested. Police arrested August Hanning, head of Germany's foreign intelligence service BND from 1998 to 2005, at his home near Münster. Prosecutors suspect him of espionage and attempted treason. His former chief of staff was also arrested and is suspected of passing him hundreds of secret documents for money over more than ten years. Der Spiegel reports a possible link to Azerbaijan; prosecutors have not named a country but say Russia is not involved. (Haaretz, i24NEWS)

Economy

Paramount completes Warner Bros takeover. Paramount closed its 110 billion dollar purchase of Warner Bros Discovery. The new company is called Skydance and joins CBS, CNN, HBO Max, Harry Potter and DC under one roof. It is led by David Ellison. To win approval, it promised to make 30 films a year for two years and keep both Los Angeles studio lots open. (CBS News, NBC News)

Stocks hit records while bond yields stay high. The S&P 500 rose 0.7 percent to its first record close since August, and the Nasdaq gained 1.1 percent. Chip makers like Nvidia led the rally. At the same time, the 10-year US Treasury yield is near 5.3 percent, its highest level since 2002, which keeps loans and mortgages expensive. Investors are betting on strong AI profits despite costly borrowing. (TheStreet, CNBC)

Dutch news (past 24 hours)

News

Unrest goes on in Hoogeveen. Police arrested six more young people in the centre of Hoogeveen on Tuesday evening, after eight arrests the night before. For days, groups of minors on fatbikes have intimidated people and thrown fireworks at passers-by. The town already added cameras and a ban on gathering. Police remain present in large numbers. (NOS, RTV Drenthe)

IND must handle 140,000 Ukrainian asylum requests. After a ruling by the EU Court of Justice, the Dutch immigration service must assess more than 140,000 asylum requests from Ukrainians that were put on hold. The court said countries cannot automatically freeze such requests just because people have temporary protection. The minister says this puts extra pressure on the system and wants to deal first with new arrivals and the existing waiting list. (NOS, TPO)

Parliament wants 130,000 citizen reservists. A majority in the Tweede Kamer backed a CDA motion to train 130,000 civilians within four years to help emergency services in a crisis. They would support with technical work, logistics and security, mainly in the first three days of a disaster. The idea comes from the group BurgerReserve, which trained about a thousand people this year. Parliament asks the cabinet to offer Defence training grounds for free. (NOS, Hofstad Radio)

Politics

Senate debates the government's plans. The Eerste Kamer held its yearly general debate on the 2027 budget, from the morning until past midnight. Party leaders gave their views on the plans and could file motions; the prime minister defended the cabinet. The minority cabinet has a weak position in the Senate. Its three parties have still not agreed on the new box 3 tax or how to pay for it. (Eerste Kamer, NOS)

Coalition split over "paper gifts". The coalition is divided on how to close a gap of several billion euro during the move to a new tax on wealth gains from 2028. D66, CDA and ChristenUnie want to limit "paper gifts", a way for parents to cut inheritance tax. The VVD refuses and instead wants a lower box 2 rate. Earlier plans to raise money were rejected by parliament. (NOS, Dagelijkse Standaard)

Nothing else of note.

Economy

AEX sets another record. The Amsterdam AEX index closed 0.4 percent higher at 1,128 points on Tuesday, a new all-time closing high. During the day it nearly touched 1,136 points before giving back part of the gain. It follows a record close on Monday, in line with records on Wall Street. (De Aandeelhouder, RD/ANP)

Nothing else of note.

AI news (past 24 hours)

OpenAI adds hidden watermarks to ChatGPT text in the EU. OpenAI is adding an invisible watermark to text from ChatGPT and Codex for users in the EU. The system, called textGrain, slightly steers word choice so a detector can later spot AI text. It is meant to meet the EU AI Act, which requires AI output to be machine-detectable. OpenAI admits the mark gets weaker when words are swapped: replacing one in four words drops detection to 17 percent. (OpenAI, Interesting Engineering)

Mistral launches Large 4. French lab Mistral released Mistral Large 4, a model with one trillion parameters that uses 49 billion at a time. It handles text and images and was trained on about 4,000 Nvidia chips in Mistral's own European data centres. It is in preview through Mistral's API now, with the open weights due on 27 October. Mistral says it is the strongest open model outside China. (Mistral, The Next Web)

Asos customers get a "hacked" alert. App users of fashion retailer Asos received a push message from hackers claiming they had broken into the company's Snowflake data. Asos says names and contact details may have been seen, but not card details or passwords. Snowflake says it has no evidence its own platform was breached. The Asos share fell more than 10 percent. (Infosecurity Magazine, Computer Weekly)

UK regulator investigates Instagram Instants. Ofcom opened an investigation into whether Meta checked the risks of Instagram Instants, a feature for photos that vanish after viewing, before launching it in May. The probe looks at risks of illegal content and harm to children. Meta says it did a risk analysis and briefed Ofcom. Fines can reach 10 percent of worldwide revenue. (Yahoo News, City AM)

Also

Sport: Kane equals England record. Harry Kane scored twice and set up a goal as England beat the Czech Republic 3-0 at Wembley in the Nations League. It was his 125th cap, equal to Peter Shilton's record. Spain won 2-1 in Croatia with two goals from substitute Mikel Merino and lead the group with four wins. (Sky Sports, Flashscore)

Nature: migration season. October is the peak of autumn bird migration over the Netherlands. Birds from northern and eastern Europe arrive; some stay for winter and others fly on south. In one Euro Birdwatch weekend, counters in the Netherlands logged more than 566,000 birds of 208 species, with starlings the most common. (BNNVARA Vroege Vogels, Sovon)

On this day: 7 October 1492. A month after leaving the Canary Islands, Christopher Columbus changed course to follow a large flock of birds. Five days later his crew sighted land in what is now the Bahamas. (NBC News, Wikipedia)

Weather in Groningen. Fog this morning, with a yellow warning for dense fog in parts of the country. Then sunny spells and dry, with a high around 21 to 22 degrees. Clouds build in the evening and rain arrives from the southwest late in the evening and tonight, with a low near 12 degrees and a stronger northwest wind. (KNMI, Weeronline)

On the agenda today

• Nobel Prize in Chemistry is announced in Stockholm, at 11:45 at the earliest. (Nobel Prize)
• Tweede Kamer: committee debate on Groningen recovery (13:00 to 17:00), a debate on the law against drunk driving, and evening debates on asylum policy and housing for Ukrainians. (Tweede Kamer)
• France: high school classes stay suspended for the rest of the week. (Al Jazeera)