Category: Semafor

A Russian drone strike killed at least 14 Ukrainians at a Dnipro train station Thursday, while a US-brokered localized ceasefire in an occupied city held for a third day, highlighting Washington’s uneven progress in ending the nearly five-year war. Both Kyiv and Moscow praised US first lady Melania Trump for ...

The first million barrels of oil to emerge from this year’s US-Venezuela deal arrived in Texas this week — cargo that Trump described as a “gift” delivered for free — but elections in both countries could put the deal’s future at risk. For North American Blue Energy Partners, an oil ...

Qatar Investment Authority is sticking to its commitment to invest $500 billion in the US over the next decade, a target it should achieve even if the fund needs to draw on its reserves to support Qatar’s economy. Mohammed Saif Al-Sowaidi’s mandate, when he was appointed as CEO, included preparing ...

Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power and Washington DC-based investment firm EIG will commit $4 billion to launch Plenum Power to invest in US power projects, aiming to capitalize on demand from data centers and electrification. The move marks ACWA’s first expansion into the US, having already built projects across 16 countries ...

Health officials from 45 African countries met Wednesday to coordinate a continent-wide response to an Ebola outbreak that has killed nearly 5,000 people in DR Congo and spread to Kenya and Nigeria, as an assessment presented at the meeting showed only three of 31 countries evaluated were adequately prepared to ...

by Julie Orringer. The New Yorker named this novel — about a man who discovers a manuscript secretly written by his wife, who has early-onset Alzheimer’s — one of the best books of 2026. The “kaleidoscopic” work, its reviewer writes, “examines justice, truth, fate, and freedom.” Buy Luna, Phoenix, Queen ...

Growing voter disillusionment with AI is driving a regulatory push in the US ahead of midterm elections, though the White House has so far shown little interest. Polling shared first with Semafor found voters preferred “reasonable” safeguards, even if such rules hurt US competitiveness. The Trump administration has so far ...

The US and Gulf states launched a renewed diplomatic effort to ward off a resumption of conflict with Iran, though officials cautioned that the push remained fraught with challenges. The US vice president reportedly wrote to the head of Iran’s top security body to restart truce talks, Gulf states are ...

Volkswagen reported a bigger-than-expected third-quarter loss, the latest major legacy automaker to be hammered by competition with Chinese rivals both at home and abroad. The disappointing results — its worst in a decade — come after fellow German carmaking giants Mercedes-Benz and BMW cut their earnings outlooks on worsening consumption ...

The European Central Bank announced on Wednesday that President Christine Lagarde will step down from the job in February, eight months before her tenure was set to end, formalizing a move that had been rumored since the beginning of this year. The decision sets up a leadership contest at the ...