Independent newsroom

Monday, October 12, 2026

The File

Every claim traces to a primary source. Uncertainty is labeled. Corrections are public.

Edition

Monday, October 12, 2026

Monday edition

Nobel

Hall and Woodford win Nobel economics prize for work on smoothing booms and busts

Confirmed

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2026 to Robert E. Hall of Stanford University and Michael Woodford of Columbia University, “for microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilisation.” The economics prize is 12 million Swedish kronor, shared equally. In plain terms, the Academy says they rebuilt the models governments and central banks use when they cut rates or run a bigger deficit, grounding those models in how households and firms decide about saving and prices. The Academy says the work helps officials respond to shocks such as energy crises.

Full story and sources · 1 primary sources

Supreme Court

Government and Republican committees reply in Supreme Court fight over political-ad discounts; pause still in place

Confirmed

The Federal Communications Commission and two Republican party committees filed reply briefs on Sunday in their effort to keep a pause on a federal appeals court order. That order would force the commission to decide, within a short window, whether party committees may buy TV and radio ads at the cheap rate the law guarantees candidates. Four Democratic candidates — Sherrod Brown, Jon Ossoff, Roy Cooper, and Kristen McDonald Rivet — had answered on Saturday asking that the pause be lifted. Chief Justice John Roberts imposed the pause on Oct. 8. As of Monday morning the justices had not ruled. The applications are No. 26A476 and No. 26A477.

Sources · 6 listed

Justice

Colombian national arrested to face charges in multibillion-dollar Venezuela money-laundering cases

Confirmed

Alvaro Pulido Vargas, 62, a Colombian national also known as German Enrique Rubio Salas, was arrested and will make his first court appearance Tuesday afternoon in federal court in Miami. Prosecutors say he was charged in 2019 and again in 2021 in schemes that allegedly laundered more than $2 billion tied to bribery involving officials of Venezuela’s Maduro government. One case involves about $1.6 billion in food-and-medicine contracts. The other involves about $350 million and a co-defendant, Alex Nain Saab Moran. The charges are only allegations. He is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

Sources · 1 listed

NASA

Antarctic sea ice hit its third-smallest winter peak on record, NASA says

Confirmed

The sea ice around Antarctica reached its biggest size of the year on Sept. 14, but that peak was the third-smallest since satellites began tracking it in the late 1970s, NASA said Monday. At its height the ice covered about 6.79 million square miles (17.59 million square kilometers), by an estimate from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center. NASA says the ice “likely reached” that peak on Sept. 14, and that the figures can be revised. The smallest peak on record came in 2023.

Sources · 1 listed

Safety

Hurricane Simon has weakened to a Category 3 off west-central Mexico; the threat continues

Confirmed

Added 8:16 a.m. ET, Oct. 12

Hurricane Simon has weakened to a Category 3, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said early Monday. At 2 a.m. Mountain time the center was still offshore, about 50 miles southwest of Cabo Corrientes, with top winds near 115 mph. Dangerous winds and flooding rains continue along the coast of west-central Mexico. Forecasters expect the storm to move inland around midweek and to remain a hurricane until then.

Sources · 2 listed

Safety

United Nations update: more than 820 homes and 419 schools damaged in Panama's earthquake; no one reported missing

Confirmed

Added 8:15 a.m. ET, Oct. 12

A United Nations situation report on Sunday afternoon raised the damage count from Friday's earthquake in central Panama. Panama's National Civil Protection System reported more than 820 damaged homes, 27 minor injuries, and 29 affected health facilities. The Ministry of Education reports 419 affected schools. No one has been reported missing, and the new report does not list a death toll. Classes at public and private schools are cancelled nationwide on Monday.

Sources · 3 listed