US troops finish pulling out of Iraq
Today is Thursday, October 1, 2026
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- Good morning, and welcome to Hark News. Here's what the world got up to while you slept. First, the weather in New York. A high of 73 and a low of 63, with cloudy skies.
- US troops have finished pulling out of their bases in Iraq, shutting a multi-decade chapter that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and 4,500 Americans.
- President Trump hosted the big names of American AI at the White House and emerged with what he called a morally binding accord on super intelligence, which is also his new preferred name for the whole industry.
- At DevDay, OpenAI unveiled Dots: autonomous agents with their own cloud computers that keep working on your projects while you're not looking. It came bundled with a new model, GPT-6.1 Sol, and more than twenty other launches.
- Smart ring maker Oura postponed its listing a day before it was set to price, citing market uncertainty, even though the offering was reportedly oversubscribed about four times over.
- Reuters got its hands on Anthropic's IPO filing ahead of a planned November debut targeting a valuation above $2 trillion, and it reads like an unusual sales pitch.
- Municipal bonds are heading for their worst month in 40 years, with yields pushing the 30-year Treasury to levels not seen since 2002. Munis are down almost 5% this month, trading volume hit its highest since 1995, and consumer confidence sank to a 12-year low.
- A FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv plunged thousands of feet over Saudi Arabia after one pilot reportedly stabbed the other. Passengers and off-duty crew members wrestled control back, and Israeli officials are treating it as a possible terror attempt, with the attacker arrested in Saudi Arabia.
- An independent commission ruled that Manchester City committed serious breaches of Premier League financial rules across nine seasons, using what the league called sham commercial contracts to inflate revenue by roughly $1.2 billion.
- Citadel founder Ken Griffin made the largest individual donation in the history of American higher education: $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon. A billion goes to the Pittsburgh campus, and $2 billion funds a brand-new CMU Miami campus in Wynwood, aiming to open in 2028.
- The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to keep deporting migrants to countries that aren't their own, pausing a lower court block until arguments in December.
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told military leaders he'll cut 20% of general and admiral positions, doubling last year's target, alongside a freeze on new tenure appointments at service academies.
- One day after the White House photo op, the FTC launched an investigation into OpenAI, Anthropic and other AI firms over consumer risk, with civil investigative demands being drafted that could force executives to testify.
- August PCE prices rose a milder-than-expected 0.3%, cooling bets the Fed hikes again before the midterms, though overall inflation still runs 3.4% annually. That's some relief for Republicans facing voters angry about prices, with Alaska gas topping $10 a gallon and Trump privately weighing a diesel export ban.
- Before heading home to campaign, Senate Democrats blocked both a data center energy cost bill and a congressional stock trading ban, the latter failing 53 to 47 on procedure.
- Trump announced South Korea will invest $200 billion in the US under last year's trade pact, with $54 billion earmarked for the long-stalled Alaska LNG project, plus eight nuclear plants and a Texas power facility.
- International Intrigue says an 18-person South Korean patrol was walking last week barely 10 meters, about 30 feet, on their own side of the Military Demarcation Line when two blasts went off, wounding three soldiers, one of them losing a foot.
- John Ternus, Apple's chief executive, is almost exactly one month into the job and is already putting his own stamp on the company, per The Daily Upside.
- Goldman Sachs' board has reportedly been talking about David Solomon leaving the chief executive's job, with chief operating officer John Waldron moving up into the top seat somewhere between the end of next year and early 2028.
- With Joe Lombardo holding roughly even against Democratic attorney general Aaron Ford, 2028 hopefuls are pouring money into the state: Pritzker gave $400,000, Beshear's PAC $250,000, and Newsom, Moore, Shapiro and Booker are all fundraising.
- Audio obtained by the Times captured Texas Senate nominee Ken Paxton telling donors the Dallas midterm convention dropped everybody's numbers. His camp called the reporting manipulative nonsense and simultaneously announced a $20 million ad buy, with Paxton scheduled to campaign alongside Trump in Denton.
- Former special counsel Jack Smith testified he gathered proof beyond reasonable doubt that Trump committed serious crimes, and clashed repeatedly with Republicans. The viral moment came when Senator Eric Schmitt accused him of lying about an Atlanta Hawks game, only to apparently confuse the Hawks with the Iowa Hawkeyes.
- And before you go, a little extra from The New York Times. Bobby Pulido, a Texas Democrat running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, has an unusual qualification. What is it? Want the answer? Tap Sources on this story to see the full section.
- And that's your world for today. The full stories and the links are waiting in the app. Tap through, bookmark what matters, and share what's worth sharing. And if you want to see what stuck, take today's quiz in the app: five quick questions. And if Hark is making your mornings a little better, share it with a friend. It's the best way to help us grow. I'll see you again tomorrow morning. Until then, have a great day.