World
First Lady Melania Trump will bring representatives of Russia and Ukraine together at the White House on Thursday and is due to speak about the ceasefire she secured in Oleshky, in the Kherson region. The White House says she opened the channel herself and that the truce covers one part of the front line only. The meeting happens while fighting continues elsewhere: Ukraine raised the death toll from a Russian guided-bomb attack on a school used as an aid centre in Komyshuvakha to 40, including four police officers. Officials from both delegations are expected to discuss further child reunifications and monitoring of the local truce, though diplomats caution that a regional ceasefire is far from a wider settlement.
The White House
Politics
President Donald Trump told reporters that the eight-month war with Iran hurt Republicans in the midterm elections, an admission that followed a similar post from Vice President JD Vance, and said he would make the same decision again. He rejected reports that he was considering replacing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and threatened to veto legislation passed by the new Democratic majority. Democrats won both chambers, with NBC News projecting at least 258 House seats and a Senate majority of at least 54. Senator Chuck Schumer said the party would focus on the cost of living, ending the war and holding the administration to account.
Associated Press
Business
CVS Health said it will separate its retail pharmacy chain from its insurance and pharmacy benefit businesses, reversing a strategy built over a decade of acquisitions and unwinding the logic of its $78 billion purchase of Aetna in 2018. The split is expected to be completed in the first half of 2028. David Joyner will lead the insurance and benefits company, which keeps the CVS Health name for now, while Prem Shah becomes chief executive of the pharmacy business. Lawmakers from both parties have questioned whether owning drugstores, a benefit manager and an insurer lets one company steer patients and pricing.
Reuters
Technology
Communities in ten states voted on 41 local measures dealing with data centers, and voters sided against the projects in all but one, according to Ballotpedia data analyzed by CNBC. The votes ranged from outright bans to caps on electricity use, with Ohio alone holding 21 measures. The issue moved races up and down the ballot: Sherrod Brown beat Senator Jon Husted in Ohio after calling him the face of data centers, and Gina Hinojosa unseated Texas Governor Greg Abbott. A CNBC voter poll found 56% of voters said data centers were a major factor in their decision.
CNBC
Science
Physicists at CERN's LHCb experiment have reported the first evidence of a decay that theory says occurs about once in every 10 billion beauty particles, after a search spanning more than four decades. The process, in which a neutral particle containing a beauty quark decays into two muons, reached a statistical significance of 3.2 sigma, short of the five sigma needed to claim a discovery. The measured rate agrees with the Standard Model. Researchers say rarer decays are more sensitive to unknown heavy particles, opening a route to probing distances of a zeptometre.
University of Manchester
Sports
Miami is No. 1 in the first College Football Playoff rankings of the 2026 season, ahead of Georgia, Utah and Indiana, while the 8-0 Hurricanes are followed by an unusual top five that puts two-loss Alabama at fifth. The order differs sharply from the AP poll, where Notre Dame is fourth but the committee placed the Irish 11th. Committee chair Hunter Yurachek pointed to Alabama's wins over Kentucky and South Carolina to explain the gap with Tennessee, which beat the Tide by 16 points. Boise State is 12th and would travel to Alabama if the season ended today.
Associated Press
Health
The World Health Organization says six proven climate and health measures could prevent nearly 1.6 million deaths a year and avoid 16.7 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually. The steps include heat-health warning systems, climate-resilient drinking water and sanitation, better hand hygiene, cleaner household cooking energy and more efficient fossil fuel pricing. WHO estimates the package could generate up to $5.4 trillion a year in fiscal benefits and nearly $4 trillion more from avoided illness and disaster costs. The report lands a week before COP31 opens in Antalya, Turkey.
AFP
Environment
The UN Environment Programme says a temporary breach of the 1.5C warming limit is now imminent and unavoidable after decades of insufficient action, and that the task is to limit the size and duration of the overshoot. Global emissions reached 58.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2025, roughly level with 2024. Even the lowest-overshoot pathway peaks at 1.7C to 1.8C mid-century and needs cuts of 18% by 2030 and 45% by 2035, while current pledges deliver only 5% to 8% by 2030. COP31 opens in Antalya on 9 November.
UNEP