Oil prices jumped more than 2 percent on Friday and settled at their highest levels since the end of April, as traders braced for a potential escalation in the Iran war after the U.S. midterm elections, with an attack on a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz highlighting supply risks. Brent crude futures for December, which expired on Friday, settled up $2.76, or 2.4 percent, at $117.64 a barrel, after touching a high of $118. The more active January contract gained $2.63 to $113.43. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures settled $2.12, or 2.08 percent, higher at $104.12. For the month, Brent finished 13.6 percent higher, while WTI rose 15.2 percent. "Traders will remain focused on oil flows out of the Middle East and the likely escalation by U.S. and allied forces," said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president of trading at BOK Financial. On Friday, a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz was hit by explosive devices attached by a small boat, said the UKMTO, the British maritime security service. It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack in the strait, the key sea outlet for Gul

NEW YORK — Witches, vampires and superheroes may never go out of style, but Americans are looking to everything from horror movie characters to squishy stress toys for Halloween costume inspiration this year, as internet trends shape their choices. Topping Google's 2026 Frightgeist list of trending Halloween costume searches is Buddy the Unicorn, the seemingly cheerful but sinister character from the horror movie "Buddy." In second place is NeeDoh, a line of colorful, squishy stress toys that have gained popularity on social media. Nikki, a character from the horror film "Obsession," ranks third. Other trending choices include Agamemnon from "The Odyssey," Lily Love Braids from the video game "Poppy Playtime" and Verity from "Minecraft," according to Google. The rankings reflect the biggest increases in online searches rather than the most popular costumes overall, highlighting how quickly movies, games and viral products can influence Halloween costume trends. Traditional favorites, however, remain popular, particularly among children. Witches, superheroes and princesses continue to fe

NEW YORK — Korea may have its bread pilgrimages, but Manhattan has taken the bakery craze to another level: $60 for a single loaf of rye bread. RYE by Martin Auer, an Austrian bakery that opened in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood in September, has quickly become one of the city's most talked-about new food destinations, drawing crowds and widespread media attention for its unusually expensive sourdough rye bread. The 3.3 pound (1.5 kilogram) loaf costs $60 (80,000 won), while customers can purchase half a loaf for $30 or a quarter for $15. Located on Lafayette Street, the bakery specializes in just one type of bread. Its minimalist interior looks more like a high-end retail showroom than a traditional bakery, with customers able to watch the bread-making process. The bread contains just three ingredients: organic rye flour, water and salt. According to the bakery, the dough undergoes a fermentation process lasting up to 24 hours, using a sourdough starter more than 50 years old. But the price has raised eyebrows, particularly because a comparable loaf from the same bakery sells for roughl

WASHINGTON — As early voting surges across the country, President Donald Trump is reshuffling his weekend schedule to rally Republicans in two states with critical Senate races, underscoring his party’s push to drive turnout ahead of Election Day. The Republican president will now visit Iowa and Kansas for back-to-back campaign rallies on Sunday, according to a person familiar with his plans who insisted on anonymity to discuss his schedule. Both rallies had previously been canceled. The last-minute reversal comes amid a nationwide surge in early voting. Nearly 10 million more Americans had cast ballots five days before Election Day than at the same point in 2022, according to an Associated Press analysis of voting data. The increases have been particularly pronounced in states with competitive Senate races, including Iowa and Kansas, where early voting is up roughly 30%. Democrats and Republicans each hope that rise favors them as they fight for control of Congress in an election that has turned largely on affordability issues and the president's unpopularity. At the start of the m

Meta Platforms has settled with a teen plaintiff who accused the company of designing Instagram and Facebook to be addictive, causing her mental health problems and disordered eating, attorneys for the plaintiff said on Friday. The settlement came after jury selection began on Wednesday for a trial that was slated to test the claims of two teens, identified as S.J. and K.D.B., against Meta and Snapchat parent Snap Inc. Meta had settled with S.J. days before the trial, so Friday's settlement with K.D.B. means the trial is expected to proceed against Snap only. “We remain committed to improving safety for kids on social media apps and holding tech companies accountable, and we are pleased to have brought this matter to a just resolution on behalf of our client,” Emily Jeffcott, an attorney for K.D.B., said in a statement. A spokesperson for Meta said settlements, dismissals and trials are part of the process of testing cases like this. "We will continue to defend ourselves in court, and we stand by our record," the spokesperson said, noting that Meta has been building safety tools for

PARIS — Shops and other businesses in Paris on Friday were boarding up windows amid fears of fresh street violence, as France braced for a third consecutive weekend of protests that coincide with Halloween celebrations. The demonstrations come in an increasingly febrile political climate, with presidential elections just six months away and far-right leader Marine Le Pen leading opinion polls. President Emmanuel Macron this week said it was "not normal" for France to be in such a state of "turmoil" so close to a presidential election. Around 70,000 security personnel will be deployed on Saturday, matching the number mobilised a week ago, as authorities sought to prevent a repeat of the October 17 unrest when thousands of businesses were damaged or looted. An aide to Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said street violence on a scale "comparable" to the unrest two weeks ago was expected, when images of clashes, looted shops and public buildings set ablaze were broadcast around the world. "There are concerns about acts of vandalism and attempted looting," the aide said. A police source pointed

WASHINGTON — Hanwha Defense USA (HDUSA), a subsidiary of South Korea's Hanwha Aerospace Co., has secured a $269 million contract to build a medium landing ship (LSM) for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, marking its first U.S. Navy shipbuilding contract, according to the company. The company said Thursday it was selected by U.S. maritime services firm Tote Services to build one LSM at Hanwha Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia, with options to construct three additional vessels. The selection was made through a competitive bidding process under Tote Services' vessel construction management program, which oversees shipbuilding contracts for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. "Since acquiring Philly Shipyard in 2024, Hanwha has made significant investments in its workforce and technology to pave the way to build ships for the U.S. Navy and other federal customers," HDUSA President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Michael Coulter said. Construction is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of 2027. Tote Services' $2.2 billion vessel construction manager contract supports the Navy and Marine Corp

NEW YORK — A sell-off for tech stocks is barreling into Friday and forcing the U.S. market down again, with Intel and Amazon helping to lead the way this time. The S&P 500 fell 1.6 percent and was on track to erase its gain for October, even though it set its all-time high during the month. The weakness for technology stocks dragged the Nasdaq composite down 2.5 percent, as of 11:48 a.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell a more modest 0.7 percent, or 380 points. Intel tumbled 28.6 percent and is flirting with its worst day since 1974, even though the chipmaker reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It gave a forecast for profit in the final three months of this year that fell far short of analysts’ expectations. CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the personal-computer industry continues to feel pressure, which hurts demand for Intel’s CPUs. Amazon fell 1.9 percent after reporting a weaker profit for the summer than analysts expected. Potentially more concerning for investors was Amazon’s reporting that it burned through $42.4 billion of cash

ATLANTA — The U.S. scrapped plans for a photo of top diplomats of the Group of 20 largest world economies on the opening day of talks Friday as several Europeans objected to being photographed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and threatened to walk out of the photo session. The cancellation of the photograph, a traditional opening event at such a diplomatic gathering, underscored the deep rifts in the G20 over global crises that threaten international security and trade. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio decided to cancel the photo after determining that the controversy would be a distraction, according to two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. The meeting in Atlanta, which will otherwise go ahead as planned, is meant to set the stage for a G20 leaders’ summit hosted by President Donald Trump at his Miami golf club in December. The cancellation has added to concerns about the poor prospects for the G20 diplomats to reach consensus on many of the most contentious issues they face. Among them are the Russia-Ukraine co

Hackers stole $6.3 billion from Binance in the world's biggest crypto heist, putting a spotlight on how cryptocurrency exchanges insure their digital assets against theft and cyberattacks. But insurance protection is far from uniform. Coverage depends on how assets are stored, how hackers gain access and the specific terms of the policy. Limited regulation and volatile crypto prices have long made insurers wary of the sector, despite growing demand for protection against digital asset theft and claims against company executives. While both crime and demand for protection have tracked cryptocurrencies' meteoric rise, underwriting such risks remains a niche business offered largely by specialist insurers in the Lloyd's market and in Bermuda. What is digital asset insurance? Digital asset insurance is a range of policies designed to protect cryptocurrency exchanges, custodians and other companies operating in the sector against financial losses arising from the theft of digital assets, cyberattacks, technology failures and other business risks. Unlike traditional insurance, these policies are

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has rescheduled weekend campaign rallies in a pair of critical Midwestern states that he had previously canceled, according to a person familiar with the plans. The Republican president will now visit Iowa and Kansas for back-to-back campaign rallies on Sunday, said the person, who insisted on anonymity to discuss his schedule. The scheduling whiplash underscored the chaotic and shifting nature of the final days of the midterm campaigns, in which Trump and Republicans are scrambling to retain their majorities in Congress in an election that has turned largely on affordability issues and the president's favorability. At the start of the month, Trump promised a marathon sprint of his signature rallies to shore up Republican candidates, and he has headlined 25 of them so far in October. The Republican National Committee initially said in canceling the rallies that Trump would do telerallies instead to reach more voters. But the person familiar with the latest plans said the Iowa and Kansas rallies have been rearranged to accommodate the new telerallies

More than $2 trillion in market value is set to be wiped from the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 this month, as Big Tech earnings intensified investor scrutiny of whether the billions being poured into artificial intelligence can generate returns quickly enough. The wipeout would amount to slightly more than SpaceX’s entire market value. The index has fallen over 5.8 percent so far in October as the AI trade ran into turbulence, with hyperscalers Meta Platforms, Alphabet and Amazon.com raising spending forecasts further as they race to expand AI infrastructure. The prospect of ever-bigger AI outlays has unnerved investors, particularly as rising borrowing costs threaten to make debt-funded investment more expensive and harder to justify. Here's a roundup of megacap earnings so far, with Apple set to report next week and AI bellwether Nvidia due mid-November. Tech wipeout Alphabet suffered its biggest one-day percentage drop on record on Thursday after disappointing results in the core business of search advertising and a massive acceleration in cash burn. Meta's plans for a record $97.5 billion f

VATICAN CITY — Leo XIV has become the first pope to vote in a U.S. general election, casting a mail-in ballot in a contest that will decide America's future as the Trump era slowly comes to an end. The Vatican confirmed Friday that the Chicago-born pontiff had submitted a mail-in ballot in Chicago ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, citing his long-standing belief in civic participation. Leo, formerly Robert Prevost, “has exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen” and has done so “whenever he was eligible to do so,” the Holy See press office said. The statement said he had also voted while living in Peru whenever he was eligible. Leo lived in Peru as a missionary priest and bishop for over 20 years. “The Holy Father expresses his belief in the right and the duty of citizens to participate in democratic processes,” it added. Leo holds U.S. and Peruvian citizenship, and is also the head of state of a foreign country, the Holy See. The city-state is an absolute monarchy with no political elections. U.S. federal law allows citizens living abroad, even those workin

"Whenever you talk to an employee in their 20s, it's probably best to assume the entire conversation is being recorded." It is a warning increasingly shared among Korean managers in their 40s and 50s as they try to make sense of a generation of young employees whose workplace habits can seem baffling — and sometimes unsettling — to their bosses. Some older managers see low loyalty to the company and a lack of respect for senior colleagues. Gen Z workers, however, see something very different: a desire for clear communication, boundaries between work and private life and relationships based less on hierarchy. From recording conversations with bosses and avoiding unnecessary apologies to skipping team lunches and continuing to use honorific speech even with close colleagues, young Koreans are quietly rewriting some of the unwritten rules that have long governed the country's offices. Why record a conversation with your boss? For some middle managers, discovering that a young employee is recording a conversation without saying anything can be uncomfortable. Some even wonder whether the em

"I think the fall is getting to me." That's what a friend told me on the phone recently. "You're middle-aged now, and suddenly you're getting the autumn blues?" I said jokingly. He laughed awkwardly, then began telling me about his life lately. Seeing the darkening sky on his way home from work drains his energy. Once home, he lies on the couch and does nothing. Even after sleeping in on weekends, he doesn't feel refreshed. And after dinner, he finds himself reaching for bread and snacks. As I listened, I began to wonder whether it was really something that could simply be blamed on the season. In Korea, the expression "gaeul tada," literally "to be affected by autumn," carries a certain romanticism. It describes that wistful feeling that arrives with falling leaves, when even a familiar song can unexpectedly stir the emotions. But persistent sadness and lethargy, along with losing interest in hobbies once enjoyed, are a long way from romantic autumn melancholy. According to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a "type of depression characterize

GWANGJU — The Kia Tigers rallied past the Samsung Lions 4-2 to stave off elimination in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) postseason Friday, taking advantage of subpar defense by their opponents to force a deciding game on the weekend. The Tigers turned a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the seventh inning in Game 4 before a sellout crowd of 18,900 at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field in the southwestern city of Gwangju. They scored all three runs in the inning after a fielding error by third baseman Kim Young-woong, with Han Jun-su delivering the tie-breaking hit as part of his two-RBI night. Closer Jeon Sang-hyun got the final six outs for the save. This best-of-five series is now tied at 2-2, and the final game is scheduled for 2 p.m. at Daegu Samsung Lions Park in the southeastern city of Daegu. The winner of that do-or-die game will advance to the Korean Series against the KT Wiz, starting Tuesday. The two starting pitchers, James Naile for the Tigers and Chris Paddack for the Lions, were going on three days' rest after they had both pitched in Monday's Game 1. After getti

Beijing — German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has urged Chinese leader Xi Jinping to seek a reduction in the high foreign trade deficit with his country during a meeting on Friday, the last day of his four-day state visit to China. "We want close trade and economic relations with one another. And in such a way that they bring sustainable benefits to both sides," Steinmeier said during a meeting in Beijing with Xi that prominently featured the issue of the deficit of almost €90 billion ($100 billion) last year. Germany and China have highly dynamic economic relations with each other, Steinmeier said. "With so much dynamism, it is natural that we have to review the framework conditions again and again." At an earlier meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang, Steinmeier had expressed confidence that the two countries can resolve any trade disagreements. A recent deal on limiting hybrid car exports to the European Union showed that even where things were difficult "there is a way to find solutions," Steinmeier said. "We are coming with the intention of maintaining and streng

INCHEON — South Korea and the United States have complementary strengths and are capable of driving "great" progress in the nuclear sector amid a heated global race to develop next-generation reactors, a U.S. State Department official said. Christopher Klein, the deputy assistant secretary for nuclear nonproliferation and commercial competitiveness at the U.S. Department of State, made the remarks in an exclusive interview with Yonhap News Agency on Wednesday, saying the global landscape has transitioned into a "nuclear renaissance." "We are countries that both have a lot of experience and expertise, and when we work together ... we can achieve great things," Klein said during the interview on the margins of the International Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Power held in Incheon, west of Seoul. The three-day event, organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was held in South Korea for the first time this year. Klein's comment comes amid growing attention to Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) — a new class of nuclear power plants -- as countries seek reliable, carbon-fre

A special counsel team on Friday asked the National Election Commission (NEC) to keep intact the 420 ballot boxes that drew no objections during its inspection at a Seoul handball arena, saying it may need to examine them again. The boxes had sat in the Olympic Park Handball Gymnasium in southeastern Seoul since the June 3 local elections. Special counsel Lee Tae-han's team carried them out Thursday after reviewing all 2.47 million ballots cast in the southeastern Songpa Ward. The team has been investigating unprecedented ballot shortages on Election Day that turned some voters away before they could cast their votes. The ballots were placed in 433 boxes, 420 of which were taken to an NEC storage facility in the capital area, according to the commission. Under the election law, they will be stored for the duration of the elected officials' terms. The team took the remaining 13 boxes and will inspect their content further based on objections raised by on-site observers. Some of them will be sent to the National Forensic Service for closer examination. The gymnasium served as a vote countin

Korean marine authorities have shifted from daily monitoring to responding to public sightings of Bukangi, a dusky shark named after the North Port waterway in which it was found, after monitoring teams failed to spot it for four consecutive days, officials said Friday. The shark had spent more than a month in an artificial waterway at Busan’s North Port Waterfront Park. The National Institute of Fisheries Science said it had suspended routine field monitoring around the port and assembled a standby team to investigate sightings reported by the public. With the shark roaming farther and spending longer underwater, tracking its movements had become increasingly difficult for the small monitoring team, the institute said. The roughly 3-meter-long female was first discovered in the park’s waterway on Sept. 18. Authorities made three attempts to guide it toward open water, concerned that the narrow channel was unsuitable for a prolonged stay. Following the third attempt on Oct. 21, Bukangi slipped through a barrier back into the waterway and continued circling near its entrance. Officials