Independent newsroom

Friday, October 16, 2026

The File

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

Edition

Friday, October 16, 2026

Friday edition

Prices

Wholesale prices jumped 1.3 percent in September

Confirmed

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said wholesale prices for goods and services ready for sale rose 1.3 percent in September, after 0.5 percent in August. That is the largest monthly jump since March 2022. Over the last 12 months those prices were up 6.3 percent, the fastest 12-month pace since December 2022. Goods rose 2.6 percent. Energy, up 10.8 percent, accounted for more than 80 percent of the goods increase. Gasoline rose 20.3 percent and accounted for half of it.

Full story and sources · 2 primary sources

Sales

Shoppers spent $745 billion in September, up 0.8 percent

Confirmed

The Census Bureau said shops, online sellers, and restaurants took in $745.0 billion in September, up 0.8 percent from August and 6.3 percent from a year earlier. The monthly figure comes with a margin of plus or minus 0.4 percent. Gasoline stations rose 6.4 percent in the month. Restaurants and bars rose 1.1 percent. These sales are not adjusted for higher prices.

Sources · 1 listed

Southern District of New York

777 Partners founder pleads guilty in a fraud above $500 million

Confirmed

Joshua Wander, founder and former chief executive of the Miami firm 777 Partners, pleaded guilty on Thursday to

and . He agreed to give up at least $500 million. Judge J. Paul Oetken will sentence him on March 1, 2027. The U.S. Attorney’s Office says he admitted a scheme that took more than $500 million from lenders and investors.

Sources · 3 listed

OpenAI

OpenAI posts a system card for GPT-Live-1.1

Confirmed

OpenAI on Thursday published a system card for GPT-Live-1.1 and a smaller sibling it calls Quip. These are voice models that can listen and talk at the same time. The company says GPT-Live-1.1 is now the default voice for paying Plus subscribers and above, including in Codex and Dots, and that Quip is the default for other people. It is not a new flagship text model. The safety scores are OpenAI’s.

Sources · 2 listed

State Department

State Department sanctions Cuba’s BICSA bank

Confirmed

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that the United States is sanctioning Banco Internacional de Comercio, S.A., a Cuban state bank known as BICSA. He cited

, for operating in Cuba’s financial services sector. The department says the bank has served Iran’s Karafarin Bank since at least 2022. Property of the designated bank that touches the United States is blocked.

Sources · 2 listed

NASA

SpaceX cargo ship docks at the space station

Confirmed

A SpaceX Dragon cargo ship docked at the International Space Station at 10:27 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, NASA said. It carried more than 6,300 pounds of food, supplies, and equipment for the Expedition 75 crew, including the last set of roll-out solar arrays the station is due to receive. An earlier NASA plan had put docking at about 11:00 a.m. The blog’s time is 10:27.

Sources · 1 listed

Anthropic

Anthropic gives outside testers employee-like access

Confirmed

Anthropic said Thursday it has brought in six people from METR, a nonprofit that tests frontier models, and given them access close to what its own risk staff have. METR is to publish what it finds. Anthropic said it cannot veto publication, but it can require cuts of customer data, privileged legal material, and model-architecture details. The company also named SecureBio, Accenture, and Faculty as evaluators, and said talks with others, including Hugging Face, are early.

Sources · 1 listed

Google

Google says a quantum trick cut errors about 40-fold

Confirmed

Google said Thursday that a method called magic state cultivation works on its Willow quantum processor and cut errors about 40 times compared with states made the old way. The company said the special states it produced were correct 99.99 percent of the time, and that the result is published in Science. Those figures are Google’s. This desk did not open the journal article.

Sources · 1 listed

Justice Department

Russian man extradited from Sweden on export charges

Confirmed

The Justice Department said Thursday that Alexander Suvorov, a 52-year-old Russian national, was extradited from Sweden and is due in court in Albany today. A complaint accuses him of running a network that bought U.S. electronic parts through a Hong Kong company and sent them to Russia. The charges are allegations. He is presumed innocent.

Sources · 1 listed

White House

President signs three bills, on tribal water, seafood, and retirement stock

Confirmed

The White House said the President on Thursday signed three bills.

changes the Crow Tribe’s 2010 water settlement so reservation water projects in Montana can be finished with more flexibility. tells the Commerce Department to build a standard chemical test for which country seafood came from. defines “adequate consideration” when a retirement plan deals in certain stock of a closely held company.

Sources · 1 listed

NASA

NASA says the Artemis II heat shield did its job

Confirmed

NASA said Thursday that more analysis of the Orion heat shield from Artemis II shows it performed as expected. The agency said the spacecraft hit 39 times the speed of sound on the way home, the outside of the shield went above 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the four astronauts’ cabin stayed in the mid-70s. Artemis II was the first time astronauts flew on Orion.

Sources · 1 listed

Inventories

Business stockpiles rose 0.4 percent in August

Confirmed

The Census Bureau said businesses held $2,818.8 billion of goods at the end of August, up 0.4 percent from July. Sales of those goods were $2,123.5 billion, up 1.1 percent. The ratio of stockpiles to sales was 1.33, down from 1.40 a year earlier. The figures are not adjusted for prices.

Sources · 1 listed

OpenAI

OpenAI offers university labs free seats on a life-sciences tool

Confirmed

OpenAI said Thursday that eligible university labs in the United States can apply for up to 30 seats, at no charge for up to a year, on a plan that includes its life-sciences model GPT-Rosalind. The model is not new. Getting it still requires a separate approval. The programming interface is not included.

Sources · 1 listed

Central District of California

Orange County fund chief sentenced to 33 months

Confirmed

Marco Giovanni Santarelli, founder of Norada Capital Management in Laguna Niguel, was sentenced Thursday to 33 months in federal prison. Judge Fred W. Slaughter also ordered him to pay $63,165,357 in restitution. He had pleaded guilty in October 2025 to

. The office says more than 400 investors lost about $63 million on promissory notes.

Sources · 1 listed

Southern District of Florida

Miami dealer sentenced to 46 months over forged Warhols

Confirmed

Leslie Roberts, 62, who ran Miami Fine Art Gallery in Coconut Grove, was sentenced Thursday to 46 months in federal prison. Judge Roy K. Altman imposed the term after Roberts pleaded guilty to

. The office says he sold forged Andy Warhol works with fake invoices, fake authentication papers, and counterfeit stamps.

Sources · 1 listed

NASA

NASA restates Japan’s Mars-moons launch for Monday

Confirmed

NASA said Thursday that Japan’s mission to the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos is still aimed at a launch Monday at 3:41 p.m. Eastern, from Tanegashima. The spacecraft is supposed to bring a sample of Phobos home. NASA is contributing an instrument, a sampling demonstration, and communications support. The launch has not happened.

Sources · 1 listed

PFL

PFL Chicago 2 is tonight, Carmouche and Bishop for a title

Confirmed

Professional Fighters League holds Chicago 2 tonight at Wintrust Arena. The main card is listed at 11:00 p.m. Eastern. Liz Carmouche and Jena Bishop meet for the women’s flyweight world title. The early card is listed at 6:00 p.m. Eastern. No result is in this paper. The event has not been fought.

Sources · 1 listed

Safety

Trudy is now a major hurricane, and Mexico has posted a hurricane watch and tropical storm warnings ahead of a close pass this weekend

Confirmed

Added 7:36 a.m. ET, Oct. 16

Trudy grew into a major hurricane overnight. At 3 a.m. Central on Friday it was about 250 miles southwest of Acapulco with top winds near 120 mph — Category 3 — the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, up from about 75 mph in Thursday’s story. Mexico now has a hurricane watch from north of Punta San Telmo to Cabo Corrientes and a tropical storm warning from Manzanillo south to Zihuatanejo. More strengthening is expected, and the center forecasts a pass near the coast Saturday night into Sunday, with rain that could cause deadly floods and mudslides.

Sources · 3 listed

Safety

Guam and Rota are now under a typhoon warning as Tropical Storm Champi strengthens; the forecast takes it close to or over Guam on Sunday morning

Confirmed

Added 7:35 a.m. ET, Oct. 16

The National Weather Service office on Guam has raised a Typhoon Warning for Guam and Rota: typhoon winds of 74 mph or more are expected by Sunday morning, with tropical-storm winds arriving Saturday night. Tinian and Saipan are under a Tropical Storm Warning and a Typhoon Watch. At 7 p.m. Chamorro Standard Time on Friday, Champi was a tropical storm about 510 miles east-southeast of Guam with winds near 60 mph, moving west at 13 mph, and forecasters say it could become a typhoon Saturday morning. Guam’s governor raised the island to Condition of Readiness 2 at 1 p.m. Friday.

Sources · 4 listed

Safety

Record rain floods Istanbul: three people are dead and several missing, officials say, and more rain is forecast

Confirmed

Added 7:34 a.m. ET, Oct. 16

Istanbul got its heaviest rain since Turkey’s weather service began measuring there in 1942, the Istanbul Governor’s Office said Thursday: 261 millimeters, about 10 inches, in the Beykoz district. Three people died and four were missing when the office issued its statement. Rescuers pulled 2,722 people out of floodwaters with boats and other vehicles. Schools across the city are closed Friday, and Governor Davut Gül said the rain would go on for three more days.

Sources · 3 listed

Safety

Smoke from fires in Indonesia pushes Singapore’s air into the “very unhealthy” range, and the region’s haze may not ease soon

Confirmed

Added 7:33 a.m. ET, Oct. 16

Smoke from fires in Indonesia has pushed Singapore’s air into the “very unhealthy” range in three of its five regions. At 7 p.m. Singapore time on Friday (7 a.m. Eastern), the 24-hour air-quality index read 225 in the central region and just over 200 in the east and west, government data show; the very unhealthy band starts at 201. Singapore’s National Environment Agency says air in Peninsular Malaysia is also unhealthy to very unhealthy, and parts of Borneo and Sumatra reach hazardous. It warns of a continued risk of severe haze where the dry weather holds.

Sources · 3 listed