Edition

Thursday, October 29, 2026

Thursday edition

Rates

Fed holds its rate range as two officials dissent

Confirmed

Two Federal Reserve officials voted on Wednesday to raise the rate banks charge one another overnight, and the other ten voted to hold it. The Federal Open Market Committee kept the target range for the federal funds rate at 3-3/4 to 4 percent.¹

Full story and sources · 5 primary sources

Labs

Google says Gemini 4 Carbon goes to cyber defenders first

Partially confirmed

Google on Wednesday announced Gemini 4 Carbon, which it calls its strongest model, and said most people cannot use it yet. A subset of what the company calls cyber defenders, people who defend computer systems, get it first. Koray Kavukcuoglu, a senior vice president at Google DeepMind, wrote the post.¹

Sources · 1 listed

Trade

President directs talks on imports of robots and factory machines

Confirmed

President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday signed a proclamation that orders talks with trading partners over imports of robotics and industrial machinery, and it does not set a tariff. It tells the secretary of commerce and the U.S. trade representative to pursue agreements and to update the president within 180 days.¹

Sources · 2 listed

Products

Apple says its new MacBook Pro is the first touchscreen Mac

Partially confirmed

Apple said on Wednesday that a new MacBook Pro is the first Mac with a touchscreen. Pre-orders opened that day, and Apple said customers can receive the laptop beginning Friday, November 6.¹

Sources · 1 listed

Labs

Anthropic says it is giving free Claude credits to science groups

Partially confirmed

Anthropic said on Wednesday it is giving free Claude credits to scientific groups through its AI for Science program. Claude is the company's AI assistant. The credits are use of that system that the groups do not pay for, on Anthropic's account.¹

Sources · 1 listed

Forensics

Forensic face examiners leaned on ears, NIST researcher says

Partially confirmed

Forensic face examiners were more accurate when they could see only the ears than when they could see almost any other single part of the face, Carina Hahn, a NIST researcher, wrote on Wednesday.¹

Sources · 1 listed

Partnerships

OpenAI says a ServiceNow partnership is widening

Partially confirmed

OpenAI's news feed said on Wednesday that the company and ServiceNow are expanding a partnership so OpenAI's models and agents go into ServiceNow, and ServiceNow's workflows go into ChatGPT and Codex.¹

Sources · 2 listed

Safety

Ebola passes 10,000 confirmed cases as Africa's health chief says, 'We are not winning'

Partially confirmed

Updated 7:32 a.m. ET, Oct. 29

"We are not winning so far," Jean Kaseya, the director general of Africa's disease agency, Africa CDC, told more than 40 African health ministers on Wednesday, as the Ebola outbreak passed 10,000 confirmed cases. The agency counts 10,172 cases and 4,932 deaths.¹ ²

Sources · 4 listed

Safety

Arnab's rain floods villages in Odisha as the storm fades inland

Confirmed

Updated 7:32 a.m. ET, Oct. 29

More than 2,000 people are stranded by floods across two districts of southern Odisha, and the state is arranging a Coast Guard helicopter to reach them. The storm that brought the rain, Cyclone Arnab, has faded to a depression, the weakest stage India tracks as a storm, over central Chhattisgarh and neighboring Odisha.¹ ²

Sources · 4 listed

Desk note

The Federal Reserve held the federal funds target range at 3-3/4 to 4 percent on Wednesday, by a 10-2 vote. Lisa D. Cook and Beth M. Hammack preferred a quarter-point increase. Google announced Gemini 4 Carbon and said the public does not get it this week. The president signed a proclamation that starts talks on robotics and machinery imports and does not set a duty rate in the text this desk read. Apple said a new MacBook Pro is the first Mac with a touchscreen. Crime had no judgment or charging document this desk could open. No fight result was posted. Safety stories stay with that desk. Gross domestic product and Personal Income and Outlays remain scheduled for 8:30 a.m. today, after this edition. Skipped: California mail ballots, CourtListener had no Oct. 28 order and an opinion search for the quoted warning returned nothing; the Alexander brothers, the USAO page did not load and CourtListener had no sentencing opinion; the Tennessee escape, the corrections page's Oct. 28 item is a Halloween program and the Morley release is still Oct. 26; a Bundy DNA finding, nothing on the Utah public-safety news page; a DHS employee-list hack, the DHS news page returned 403; peptides, the HHS news page returned 403; a dwarf planet, no discovering-team paper or Minor Planet Center notice was opened; a Savannah River fire, the site articles address returned 404; Oleshky, the White House page is still dated Oct. 23 and still says the pause will begin Oct. 29; a UN crimes-against-humanity finding, the human-rights page returned 403; a Cuban diplomat, the State Department press page did not show an expulsion release; DEI, the Oct. 28 fact sheet recites older orders and does not announce a new action; the Cook inquiry, the order is dated Oct. 7 and the rate statement does not mention it; OpenAI's essay, the article returned a Cloudflare block and the feed line is a teaser; an emergency-alert test, the FCC page returned 403; gasoline, the energy table's latest U.S. column is still Oct. 26 at $4.269; workers' share, the productivity release returned 403; World Series, WNBA, and other sports outside televised MMA, out of scope.