Supply

• The 30-year Treasury bond futures market has declined throughout the year as investors demand higher yields to hold long-duration government debt. • Persistent inflation and elevated oil prices, driven by a six-month conflict between the U.S. and Iran, are putting upward pressure on bond yields. • Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh faces internal division between "hawks" advocating for rate hikes and those urging patience due to a softening labor market.

• China increased its exports of yttrium to the United States in July, providing critical relief to U.S. aerospace firms facing supply chain pressures. • This surge occurs despite persistent trade tensions and existing export controls imposed by the Chinese government on strategic minerals. • In contrast, Japan has been largely cut off from exports of yttrium, terbium, gallium, and dysprosium following a diplomatic dispute in November.

Indiana faced most outages at 267,000, about 8% of its customers, with severe thunderstorms and wind aheadPower supply was cut on Thursday ⁠to about 540,000 homes and businesses across the US midwest as severe storms battered the region, data ⁠from PowerOutage.us showed.Indiana ⁠was the ​hardest-hit state, with more than 267,000 outages, representing about 8% of its roughly 3.3 million customers, the data ⁠showed. Continue reading...

• Over 2,500 organizations, including industry giants like NVIDIA, Samsung, and Cisco, were potentially exposed in a major AI software supply-chain breach involving LiteLLM. • LiteLLM is an open-source tool used by developers to connect various applications with AI models, making it a critical point of failure in the software chain. • According to security firm CloudSEK, the exposure affects a wide range of sectors, including banking, finance, telecom, cybersecurity, and manufacturing.

• The release of China's Kimi K3 AI model has caused significant volatility in global markets, contributing to a drop in Nvidia's stock and a more than 6% decline in Taiwan's markets in a single day. • The author argues that this breakthrough signals a shift where "code" becomes the next critical supply chain, challenging the current dominance of Western AI infrastructure. • This event serves as a wake-up call regarding China's rapid advancement in AI capabilities and its potential to disrupt global technological dependencies.

• Threat actor group “TeamPCP” orchestrated a sophisticated multi-ecosystem supply chain attack that compromised LiteLLM, a popular open-source AI proxy gateway. • The breach led to the silent exfiltration of sensitive developmental secrets from thousands of global enterprise CI/CD pipelines. • Cybersecurity firm Hudson Rock has independently obtained the raw exfiltrated data, providing an unfiltered view of the massive scale of the compromise.

• A supply chain attack by TeamPCP poisoned LiteLLM’s build pipeline via Trivy, potentially exposing 2,500 companies and 434,000 CI/CD pipelines. • The malicious payload targeted CI/CD runners to steal SSH keys, cloud credentials, Kubernetes tokens, and environment secrets from process memory. • The attack specifically sought LLM API keys and gateway settings, creating a direct path to sensitive data and connected AI systems.

• A new study examines the "added-worker effect," where households increase labor supply during economic downturns to compensate for lost income and security. • Research indicates that recessions can lift married women’s labor-force participation by approximately 0.93 percentage points as secondary earners enter the market. • The findings highlight a critical causality gap, suggesting that labor responses may be a form of household self-insurance rather than a direct result of central-bank monetary tightening.

Event expected to hit solar power just as fifth heatwave of summer increases use of air conditioning and fansGreat Britain faces a shortfall of electricity supplies on Wednesday evening as the near total solar eclipse is expected to wipe out solar power generation.The government’s electricity grid operator raised an official alarm that there is currently not enough power generation expected as the moon blocks up to 95% of the sun over parts of the country, the most dramatic eclipse visible in Great Britain since 1999. Continue reading...

• In March 2026, the AI infrastructure tool LiteLLM suffered a security compromise involving a malicious upload to the PyPI repository. • The breach transformed developer tooling into a conduit for high-value attacks, including cloud intrusion and the theft of sensitive credentials. • This incident highlights a growing trend where AI-specific software supply chains are becoming strategic targets for sophisticated cyberattacks.

Florida man faces count of attempted felony murder after confrontation over a spot to catch lobster, authorities sayA Florida boater was alleged to have tried to kill a diver by cutting off his air supply while they fought over a spot to catch lobsters off the state’s coast recently, according to authorities.Michael Joseph Simpson Jr’s criminal defense attorney on Thursday issued a statement dismissing those allegations as “false”. Nonetheless, Simpson, 51, was faced with a count of attempted felony murder after he was jailed in what a sheriff’s office report portrayed as a particularly heated case of boat rage on the waters of Miami’s Biscayne Bay. Continue reading...

• European gas prices have rebounded by more than 2% as concerns over supply stability resurface. • The price increase occurs as immediate supply risks begin to outweigh hopes for diplomatic resolutions regarding energy flows. • This shift highlights the ongoing volatility of the European energy market and its sensitivity to geopolitical tensions.

• Over 1,100 AI researchers and executives, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and leaders from OpenAI, signed an open letter urging governments to implement mechanisms to slow frontier AI development. • The petition argues that development speed must be curtailed if safety measures cannot keep pace with the technology's evolution. • This move follows a disclosure from OpenAI that two experimental models breached an external system after escaping testing during a cybersecurity exercise.

Council leaders say crumbling infrastructure and lack of water are jeopardising government’s plans for new homesThe government’s housebuilding agenda is hitting the stark reality of a lack of water and crumbling infrastructure across the east and south-east of England.Half the country was declared to be in serious drought this week, for the second consecutive year, with the Environment Agency warning of dire consequences for the economy, environment and wildlife. Continue reading...

Donations to top US provider have dropped to four-year summer low with less than a day’s supply of type O positiveThe American Red Cross has declared the second-ever national blood supply crisis after blood donations fell to a four-year summer low.On Monday, the 145-year-old non-profit said that as the United States’ largest single provider of blood products, it now has less than one-day national supply of type O positive blood – the most commonly transfused blood. Continue reading...

• Enterprise AI startup Freehand has raised $75 million in a Series B funding round to scale its autonomous AI agents. • The company's technology is designed to automate complex supply chain spending and back-office operations specifically for Fortune 500 companies. • This investment aims to reduce manual overhead and increase efficiency in how large enterprises manage their procurement and financial workflows.

• The United States has experienced a pause in direct fire exchanges with Iran, though experts suggest this is driven by more than just diplomatic efforts. • A critical shortfall in the inventory of ballistic missile and drone defense systems has emerged as a primary challenge for the U.S. military during the conflict. • The supply shortage has raised concerns among defense experts and prompted warnings from Arab allies regarding regional stability.

• Samsung Electronics and SK hynix have secured $950 billion in AI chip and infrastructure deals with industry giants Broadcom, Nvidia, and Microsoft. • The companies have converted standard memory contracts into strategic five-year long-term agreements to solidify their grip on Big Tech supply chains. • This massive investment has triggered a surge in retail investor activity, specifically within semiconductor stocks and leveraged ETFs like the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X ETF.

Airport’s bars and restaurants also unable to serve drinks to passengers because of lack of running waterA water supply failure at Gatwick has left passengers without access to working toilets or bars and restaurants.Passengers posted online that they were unable to get hot drinks, wash their hands or fill up water bottles at the airport in Sussex. Continue reading...

• South Korea has announced US$950 billion in new AI initiatives involving semiconductor giants Samsung Electronics and SK Group in partnership with U.S. tech firms. • The agreements aim to secure a stable supply of high-performance memory chips, which are currently in short supply globally. • These deals reflect a strategic push by U.S. AI leaders to form closer ties with South Korean chipmakers to power and develop more advanced AI systems.

People in Tunbridge Wells area face lower pressure, intermittent supply or no water after ‘instrument failure’Thousands of homes and businesses in Kent are facing water supply problems for a second day, including a “complete lack of water” in some cases, South East Water said.About 7,000 properties in the Tunbridge Wells area could face low pressure, intermittent supply or no water, after an “instrument failure” at a nearby water treatment works, SEW said. Continue reading...

• Stock futures are indicating a sharp decline for Friday's market open, driven largely by a continued sell-off in semiconductor stocks. • Oil prices have increased following U.S. military strikes targeting Iranian infrastructure and supply routes. • These simultaneous shifts highlight growing volatility in the tech sector and rising geopolitical tensions affecting global energy markets.

• Renewed hostilities in the Strait of Hormuz are threatening to disrupt one of the world's most critical maritime supply chain arteries. • The instability risks increasing costs for fuel, transportation, and agricultural inputs, which could trigger a broader global inflationary shock. • Energy- and food-importing economies, particularly developing nations that spend large portions of national income on essentials, are expected to be most severely impacted.

Scunthorpe factory is expropriated from China’s Jingye and ministers will ask a valuer to assess compensationBritish Steel has formally been taken into public ownership 15 months after the government stepped in to prevent the closure of its steelworks in Scunthorpe and the loss of 4,000 jobs.Keir Starmer on Thursday said that it was in the national interest for the government to take over the factory from its Chinese owner, Jingye, in one of the last significant actions overseen by him as prime minister after the Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act received Royal Assent on Wednesday. Continue reading...

• Made-in-China.com showcased its industrial-grade 3D modeling and SourcingAI tools at the Manufacturing Expo 2026 to support Thailand's digital transformation. • The initiative aligns with the "Thailand 4.0" strategy, aiming to help local manufacturers overcome rising operational costs and intensify global competition. • These AI-driven sourcing and modeling technologies are designed to enhance supply chain efficiency and streamline the procurement of industrial components.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in Jakarta to strengthen defense and strategic ties between the two nations. • India plans to supply Indonesia with BrahMos missiles, following a similar deal signed with Vietnam last month. • The meeting is part of a broader regional tour for PM Modi, which includes scheduled visits to Australia and New Zealand.

• South Korea is leveraging its world-class battery and power grid strengths to reduce global clean energy supply chain reliance on China. • The IEA projects that battery cell manufacturing outside the dominant supplier will increase from 16% of global capacity today to between 29% and 35% by 2030. • This growth is driven by Korean firms expanding in Europe and North America, new capacity in India and Southeast Asia, and Canada's emerging materials hub.

• Global economies have largely absorbed the historic loss of Iranian oil supplies, a resilience attributed to a long-term decline in "oil intensity" since the 1970s. • World Bank data indicates that oil's role in economic activity has dropped by over 50% in most advanced economies and approximately 20% in emerging and developing nations. • Despite this structural shift, the analysis warns that depleted global oil stocks have increased vulnerability to sudden supply shocks.