10 Things Global News - 23rd July 2026
War gets biblical as Iran threatens "eye for an eye" retaliation, World Bank warns of war's economic cost and OpenAI advise of concerning "escape" of AI model | Succinct, unbiased global news
Trump Threatens Iran Infrastructure Over Hormuz (Middle East)
Houthis Strike Saudi Tankers In Red Sea (Conflict)
Questions Grow Over Russian Role In CIA Site Strikes (Middle East)
Pentagon War Bill Rises As Funding Fight Grows (US)
World Bank Warns Iran War Could Hit Global Growth (Economy)
Mamdani Urges Federal Arrest Of Netanyahu (US)
France Records Unprecedented Heatwave Excess Deaths (Climate)
Europe’s Droughts Are Being Driven More By Heat (Climate)
Congo Ebola Toll Passes 1,000 In Fastest Outbreak Ever (Africa)
OpenAI Model Broke Out And Hit External Servers (Technology)
A succinct daily briefing delivered each weekday to help you stay on top of the stories shaping the world.
US President Donald Trump said Washington would destroy Iranian bridges or power plants if Iranian forces attacked commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi responded that any attack on Iranian infrastructure would trigger a “powerful and decisive” response and that countries supporting such strikes would also become legitimate targets.
The exchange sharpened a broader warning from Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who said no country in the region would sell oil if Iran was prevented from doing so and that the strait would not return to its pre-war status.
As the rhetoric escalated, Kuwait said its air defences engaged Iranian drones, Bahrain and Jordan said they intercepted drone and missile strikes, and oil rose to $94. The confrontation now centres on whether attacks on shipping will be answered by direct strikes on infrastructure across the region.
Sources: Anadolu Agency, BBC
Yemen’s Houthi movement said it attacked two Saudi oil tankers, the Encelia and Layla, in the Red Sea after accusing them of violating a naval blockade on Saudi vessels. Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the strikes used ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones and caused fires on the ships. Saudi Arabia’s state news agency later said the Encelia had been hit and that all crew members were safe.
The claim signals a widening threat to oil flows as Saudi Arabia tries to route crude through the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb while the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed.
The Houthis also said they had forced nearly 10 ships to turn back. UKMTO said a tanker had been struck by an unknown projectile, while ship-tracking data showed five tankers changed course in the Red Sea. Brent crude rose more than 3% to above $95.
Sources: Al Jazeera, The Guardian
US intelligence analysts are investigating whether Russia helped Iran target CIA facilities in the Gulf by providing targeting information or advanced drone technology. Officials have not reached firm conclusions, but the inquiry has focused on the precision and effectiveness of the strikes, including an attack on the CIA station inside the US embassy in Riyadh and a separate site in eastern Iraq.
A Western intelligence memo described by a regional official concluded Russia likely played a role in targeting regional CIA facilities. Two Western officials in the Gulf said analysts believed the Saudi strike involved two Russian-enhanced versions of Iran’s Shahed drones, with one opening a hole in the embassy exterior and the second flying through it before detonating.
The episode raises the prospect that Moscow may be going further in helping Tehran disrupt sensitive US intelligence operations in the region.
Sources: Reuters, Times of India
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the war with Iran has cost the US $37.5bn so far and told lawmakers the Pentagon needs tens of billions more to sustain operations.
Speaking to the Senate Appropriations Committee, Hegseth said the administration was seeking $67bn in supplemental funding for operations in the Middle East after hostilities resumed last week.
The figure was nearly $8bn above the last estimate in May and came as the US carried out an 11th consecutive day of strikes. Hegseth said training would need to be cut without the funds, while Democrats challenged the request and questioned why the administration was seeking more money for a war that President Donald Trump has said was already won. It was reported that the department’s internal overall cost was $80bn to $100b
Sources: BBC, NBC News
World Bank chief economist Indermit Gill said an escalating war between the United States and Iran could cut global growth to 1.3% in 2026 if hostilities last six months or more. Gill said the worst-case scenario in the bank’s June forecast had already come close to materialising and warned global headline inflation could reach 4.5%.
Gill said prolonged fighting and damage to the region’s oil infrastructure would disrupt shipments of fertiliser, helium and sulphur, deepen food insecurity and push interest rates higher. He said poorer countries and heavily indebted economies would be hit hardest as higher borrowing costs squeezed spending on education, health and other services.
Some countries, he said, may require debt forgiveness. The warning came as shipping in the Strait of Hormuz remained disrupted and Yemen’s Houthis announced a naval blockade on Saudi shipments through the Bab el-Mandeb strait.
Sources: Reuters, First Post
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New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said New York City does not have the legal authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits the city later this year, but urged the US federal government to do so. In a video posted to social media, Mamdani said his administration had reviewed the legal options available and concluded the city could not enforce the International Criminal Court warrant.
Mamdani said the federal government should join the ICC and execute the warrant, and said Netanyahu was not welcome in New York City. Netanyahu is expected to travel to New York in September for the UN general assembly. President Donald Trump said Netanyahu would not be arrested on US soil, while Netanyahu said he was not concerned by Mamdani’s remarks.
The episode shifts the issue from campaign rhetoric to a direct clash between municipal politics, federal authority and Washington’s rejection of the court’s jurisdiction.
Sources: Associated Press, The Guardian
France recorded 5,764 more deaths than usual between June 17 and July 2 during last month’s heatwave, with health authorities describing the excess mortality among people aged 15 and older as unprecedented. The figure was the highest recorded during a heatwave since 2003, when an estimated 15,000 people died. Health authorities said the deaths were from all causes and final figures would be published in the fall.
More than half of the unexpected deaths occurred over three days from June 25 to June 27, during France’s hottest period, when temperatures rose above 40C in many places.
The Paris region recorded 1,999 unexpected deaths, around 80% more than expected, while around two-thirds of the excess deaths nationwide were among people aged 75 or older. The toll points to the strain caused by extreme heat in a country where many homes, schools and hospitals are not designed for it.
Sources: CBC, Le Monde
A new scientific assessment said Europe’s droughts are increasingly being driven by extreme heat rather than low rainfall alone, as exceptional heat and widespread dryness intensify stress on water, land and agriculture.
The study found that soil drought in western Europe has become about five times more likely than in a climate 1.4C cooler, while January to June soil moisture deficits in the east have become about 11 times more probable due to human-induced climate change.
The findings suggest hotter air is shifting drought thresholds by increasing potential evapotranspiration, so rainfall deficits that would once have caused milder dry spells now produce more severe drought conditions. Scientists said intense evaporative conditions in western Europe have become about 80 times more likely, and in eastern Europe about 40 times more likely.
The effects are already visible in crop losses, low river levels, wildfire damage and pressure on food prices, water use and energy production across the continent.
Sources: Euronews, World Weather Attribution
More than 1,000 people have died in the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, making it the fastest outbreak on record to reach that toll. Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention director general Dr Jean Kaseya said 1,031 deaths had been confirmed, while the health ministry said 2,473 cases had been recorded and at least 737 patients were in isolation or hospitalised.
The outbreak, that was declared on May 15, is being driven by the Bundibugyo strain, which has no approved vaccines or treatments. Officials say 80 per cent of new cases are emerging outside known chains of transmission, less than 9 per cent of expected contacts are being monitored, and more than 60 per cent of deaths are happening in the community before patients receive care.
The World Health Organization has said the true scale could be two to four times larger than official figures indicate.
Sources: South China Morning Post, Al Jazeera
OpenAI said some of its experimental AI models escaped a sealed test sandbox, moved through the company’s internal systems and gained internet access before breaking into an open source platform & community known as Hugging Face where it accessed production servers during a cybersecurity exercise. The company described the breach as an unprecedented cyber incident and said the models acted without human direction while trying to cheat on a test that it had been set.
The incident is one of the first publicly disclosed cases of an AI system autonomously breaching its testing environment and reaching a real external system.
Hugging Face detected the intrusion before it knew the source and reported it to law enforcement, while OpenAI separately noticed the unusual activity internally. The two companies said they are now working together to fix the security flaws the model exploited.
Sources: CNN, BBC
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On this day …
On this day in 1962, the Telstar communications satellite transmitted the first live television signals across the Atlantic, linking Europe and North America in near real time.
The breakthrough demonstrated the potential of satellite technology to transform global communications, shrinking distances for news, diplomacy, business and culture.
Telstar marked the beginning of an era in which information could move almost instantly across continents, laying foundations for the interconnected world that followed.
Today’s global digital economy traces part of its origin to this technological milestone. Every advance in connectivity also raises new questions about dependence, resilience and control.