France’s unrest spreads beyond the streets
Today is Wednesday, October 21, 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 65 and a low of 47, with clear skies.
- France’s cost-of-living and school protests have escalated into nationwide violence, with curfews, thousands of arrests, damaged businesses, and Italy sending 500 troops to Milan after similar clashes.
- The US and Ukraine are trying to repair ties after disputes over intelligence, sanctions, Russian fuel, and pressure on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Intelligence sharing has resumed, but Steve Witkoff is offering Vladimir Putin direct three-way talks with Trump and Zelenskyy, while European allies worry that Washington is bargaining over Ukraine’s security without Ukraine holding the pen.
- With two weeks to go, Republicans have erased the fundraising gap that Democrats held in the last two cycles, while Michael Bloomberg has arrived with $80 million for Democratic candidates.
- The administration is proposing $8 billion for farmers facing high diesel and fertilizer costs, alongside other promised payments to Medicare and health-insurance customers. It’s plainly relief for producers, but the timing is electoral: Trump announced it at a Kansas rally, as fuel prices and Republican Senate races both become harder to ignore.
- Goldman Sachs says data-center power demand could rise 170% from 2025 to 2030, with more than 60% of that growth in the US and roughly $7.6 trillion needed across computing, data centers, and power.
- Investors are buying credit-default swaps on AI-linked companies as concern grows that data-center debt depends on years of relentless AI demand. Trading in swaps tied to companies including Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom, and Nvidia topped $9 billion a week in September, while CoreWeave debt remains in distressed territory.
- American housing is being squeezed from both directions. September housing starts fell 5.2% to 1.22 million, while pending sales dropped 7.3% to their lowest level since records began in 2001. AI data centers are competing for workers and materials, and 30-year mortgage rates reached 7.4%.
- Elon Musk says he’ll give every American child one SpaceX share next year, a pledge worth roughly $10 billion at current prices if it covers the country’s 73 million minors.
- SpaceX reported $14.58 billion in quarterly revenue and swung to a $4.4 billion profit, while Elon Musk said special committees at SpaceX and Tesla are exploring a merger.
- Netflix expects fourth-quarter revenue growth of 11.5%, down sharply from 17.6% a year earlier, and says advertising delays will cost it $300 million in projected annual revenue.
- Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent have reportedly ordered more than $35 billion of Nvidia chips even as Washington and Beijing tighten controls around AI technology. The deals show that the US and Chinese technology ecosystems are trying to wall each other off while continuing to buy from one another, which is less a contradiction than the business model.
- China’s domestic spending is weak and investment is falling, leaving exports as the economy’s main lifeline, while Europe debates more protection against Chinese cars, machinery, and pharmaceuticals.
- Alberta voters rejected beginning a secession process by 76% to 24%, but the referendum also produced strong support for tighter immigration rules and voter identification requirements.
- Saudi Arabia has postponed its Future Investment Initiative conference until 2027 after Houthi attacks on Riyadh and lobbying from Wall Street executives worried about security.
- Qatar is rebuilding liquefied-natural-gas exports as winter approaches, with cargoes moving through the Red Sea and at least 20 shipments passing Hormuz since early September.
- The Iran war, the Ukraine conflict, fertilizer shortages, high diesel costs, and El Niño are converging into what S&P Global calls a multidirectional squeeze on agriculture.
- A new California report projects much hotter, longer summers, more extreme flooding, and thousands more deaths from wildfire smoke each year within a few decades.
- The Justice Department charged 28 lawful permanent residents with alleged election crimes and asked to delay counting ballots linked to people it says are likely noncitizens.
- Court records show TikTok employees repeatedly warned leadership about minors encountering sexual content, suicide material, and loopholes that bypassed age restrictions and parental controls. The filings say executives feared age surveys could trigger scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission.
- Security researchers found more than 20 public control panels used by AI agents to attack real websites, including more than 1,100 projects in one cluster. They also found stolen credentials and access keys, with 11% still valid.
- A survey of 27 companies found weekly pull requests more than doubled for some developers using AI tools, while spending ranged from under $300 to $3,000 per engineer each month.
- 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.