Category: 3. Business

HOUSTON (Reuters) -Brent and U.S. crude futures fell more than $2 a barrel, or over 3%, on Friday as confidence grew the Gaza peace agreement between Israel and Hamas was taking hold.

Brent crude futures were down $2.16, or 3.31%, at $63.06 a barrel at 10:37 a.m. CDT (1537 GMT), the lowest since early June.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was down $2.15, or 3.45%, to $59.40, the lowest since early May.

“President Trump’s ceasefire announcement immediately took the premium out of the price of oil, not only because of Israel and Hamas but also the reduction of a risk that Iranian proxies would continue to attack oil vessels in the Red Sea and other places,” said Phil Flynn, senior analyst with the Price Futures Group.

CEASEFIRE AGREEMENT

Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas signed a ceasefire agreement on Thursday in the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s initiative to end the war in Gaza.

Under the deal, which Israel’s government ratified on Friday, fighting will cease, Israel will partially withdraw from Gaza, and Hamas will free all remaining hostages it captured in the attack that precipitated the war, in exchange for hundreds of prisoners held by Israel.

Numerous vessels have been attacked by the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen since 2023, targeting ships they deem linked to Israel in what they described as solidarity with Palestinians over the war in Gaza.

The Gaza ceasefire deal means the focus can move back to the impending oil surplus, as OPEC proceeds with the unwinding of production cuts, said Daniel Hynes, an analyst at ANZ.

A smaller-than-expected November hike in output agreed by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies (OPEC+) on Sunday eased some of those oversupply concerns.

“Markets’ expectations for a sharp ramp-up in crude supply have not manifested themselves in substantially lower prices,” BMI analysts said in a note on Friday.

Investors are also worried that a prolonged U.S. government shutdown could dampen the American economy and hurt oil demand in the world’s largest crude consumer.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba in Houston, Anna Hirtenstein in London; Additional reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Mark Potter, Nia Williams and Andrea Ricci)

The Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS is pleased to announce that the ALS Residence Initiative (ALSRI) was awarded the 2025 Gupta Family Endowed Prize for Innovation in ALS Care. Merit Cudkowicz, MD, MSC, Director of the Healey & AMG Center for ALS, presented the prize to Steve Saling, CEO of ALSRI, and Barry Berman, CEO of Chelsea Jewish Lifecare, at the 24th Annual NEALS Consortium Meeting.

The Gupta Family Endowed Prize is a global prize awarded to a nominated team who has developed promising new approaches to improving care for people with ALS. The goal of this prize is to encourage idea sharing, innovation, and forward thinking on scalable ongoing projects that have directly improved ALS patient care.

The selection committee awarded the 2025 Gupta Family Endowed Prize to the ALSRI because of their work in creating the first fully accessible, tech-enabled ALS residence model. This innovation demonstrates ALSRI’s commitment to initiating ground-breaking new approaches that lead to exceptional care for individuals living with ALS.

In partnership with Chelsea Jewish Lifecare, ALSRI designed and built the award-winning Leonard Florence Center for Living (LFCL), containing the Steve Saling ALS Residence. Saling envisioned building a place where people with ALS could live safely with autonomy and real quality of life. The residence features private suites, a deli, a café, landscaped outdoor areas, and most critically, cutting-edge environmental control systems. Using eye-tracking and other assistive technology, residents can independently open doors, control lighting, communicate, and even drive their wheelchairs – all without needing physical movement. Steve’s motto is, “Until medicine proves otherwise, technology IS the cure,” and the ALSRI has transformed lives with technology.

“While we honor and respect the incredible research to treat and cure ALS being done across the country and the world, the ALS Residences at the Leonard Florence Center for Living have set out to demonstrate that until medicine proves otherwise, technology and compassionate skilled care are the cure,” says Steve. “Thank you to the Gupta family, the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Mass General, and the Northeast ALS Consortium for recognizing our efforts.”

“The ALSRI has already made a significant impact on the ALS community and will continue to do so by expanding their model to other cities across the country,” says Dr. Cudkowicz. “We are proud to award the ALSRI with this prize and look forward to seeing them continue to pioneer new approaches. I am grateful to the Gupta family for supporting this work.”

To learn more about the Gupta Family Prize and previous winners, please visit this page. For more information about the Sean M. Healey and AMG Center for ALS, please visit our website.

Background on ALS

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is the most prevalent adult-onset progressive motor neuron disease, affecting approximately 30,000 people in the U.S. and an estimated 500,000 people worldwide. ALS causes the progressive degeneration of motor neurons, resulting in muscle weakness and atrophy. There is an urgent need to understand the biology of ALS and to develop effective therapies.

About the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Mass General

At the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Mass General, we are committed to bringing together a global network of scientists, physicians, nurses, foundations, federal agencies, and people living with ALS, their loved ones, and caregivers to accelerate the pace of ALS therapy discovery and development.

Launched in November 2018, the Healey & AMG Center, under the leadership of Merit Cudkowicz, MD and a Science Advisory Council of international experts, is reimagining how to develop and test the most promising therapies to treat the disease, identify cures and ultimately prevent it.

With many clinical trials and lab-based research studies in progress right now, we are ushering in a new phase of ALS treatment and care. Together, we will find the cures.

LONDON, Oct 10 (Reuters) – The Gates Foundation and the Pan American Health Organization are both working on ways to make weight-loss drugs like Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro more accessible in lower-income countries, the global health groups told Reuters.

In separate interviews, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and PAHO director Dr Jarbas Barbosa said for the first time that their organizations were each seeking strategies to remedy the unequal availability of the highly effective but expensive treatments.

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In response to a question about the treatments, Gates said his Foundation would take any drug that was effective in high-income countries “and figure out how to make it super, super cheap so that it can get to everyone in the world”.

LOW-COST COPIES

The brand-name weight-loss drugs are primarily sold in wealthier countries, where prescriptions cost hundreds of dollars per month.

The Gates Foundation could also potentially support clinical trials to test how these medicines affect different populations and provide the data needed to broaden access, Gates said.

Obesity’s role in chronic illness has created a new urgency around addressing rising global rates, although it is still not the biggest problem facing most of the countries where the Foundation operates, Gates said.

The World Health Organization estimates that the economic costs of overweight and obesity will reach $3 trillion by 2030 if nothing is done to contain it.

Its Americas arm, PAHO, manages a fund that helps push down medicine prices by guaranteeing bulk orders on behalf of its 35 member states.

Using the fund, which is financed by the member states, is an option for weight-loss drugs, Barbosa told Reuters. He said it could also help manufacturers clear regulatory requirements rather than applying in each country for approval.

“We are starting the conversation,” he said, adding that PAHO is developing recommendations for how best to use the drugs and plans to speak to Novo, Lilly and generic drugmakers within the next couple of weeks.

“We are deeply committed to serving patients around the world,” the Danish company said.

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Across sub-Saharan Africa, a quiet revolution is underway. Equipped with smartphones and empowered by broadband connectivity, millions of micro-entrepreneurs are transforming how goods and services are produced and sold in local economies. This isn’t only a tech trend, but a paradigm shift in the economic fabric of the region, which boasts the highest rate of entrepreneurship in the world, with over 22% of working-age Africans launching new ventures. These agile businesses, rooted in socioeconomic adaptation and innovation, are increasingly powered by digital tools that enable mobile payments, online marketplaces, and real-time customer engagement. Mobile internet penetration in Africa has tripled over the past decade, now reaching over 527 million subscribers. With smartphone adoption projected to hit 88% by 2030 and more users accessing the web via mobile devices, digital platforms are rapidly becoming the backbone of economic inclusion. But what factors drive this digital adoption by micro-entrepreneurs? And how does it shape productivity, growth, and policy design? Understanding these forces is not just an academic exercise. It is essential for crafting public economic policies and private sector-led growth-enhancing measures that unlock inclusive, robust, and sustainable development across Africa.

Key example: Digital adoption in agrifood systems

Digital technology is reshaping micro-entrepreneurship across Africa’s agrifood systems, particularly in informal markets where traditional infrastructure remains limited. As mobile broadband expands and smartphone access deepens, digital platforms are emerging as critical tools for trade while themselves being accelerated by growing African trade. This mutually reinforcing cycle leads to job creation and financial inclusion, thereby bridging the formal-informal divide and boosting productivity and output growth. This transformation is particularly apparent in agricultural value chains, where small-scale intermediaries, often women, play a vital role in linking producers to consumers.

A recent study we conducted in Benin highlights these dynamics. In a country where grains and legumes account for 90% of food consumption, food intermediation remains predominantly a women-led subsistence activity. Using data from Bohicon and Ouando, two semi-rural markets in the country, our research shows that 80% of food traders are women, 60% manage teams of six or more workers, and 90% have over a decade of trading experience. This underscores the maturity and economic significance of these informal micro-enterprises. Although most of these micro-entrepreneurs (52%) have no formal education, the sector is rapidly adapting to digitalization, with mobile broadband penetration rising from under 2% to 42% in just ten years.

Nearly half (49%) of surveyed micro-entrepreneurs have adopted digital technologies to trade their products, reshaping how these informal businesses operate. These adopters tend to be more educated than their peers, conduct larger and more frequent transactions, and are embedded in digitally active networks, suggesting that proximity to other users reinforces adoption through network effects. Yet the promise of digital technology adoption comes with notable constraints: 54% of surveyed adopters face connection costs at or above 20% of the national minimum monthly wage, while 45% blame poor internet quality as a major barrier to efficient business operations. These frictions highlight the need for tailored infrastructure and affordability solutions to ensure that digital transformation reaches its full potential among Africa’s micro-entrepreneurs. Our analysis suggests that digital adoption translates into greater productivity: Adopters outperform their peers based on a range of productivity measures. They also report a 50% increase in both trading frequency and volume, indicating that digital tools are not just modern conveniences, but powerful catalysts for scaling informal enterprises and unlocking latent economic potential.

This sectoral case, among others, illustrates how digital adoption among micro-entrepreneurs is not only accelerating but also redefining the contours of economic participation, especially for women in informal agrifood systems. It also underscores the catalytic role of digitalization in improving food security.

Inclusive digital adoption goes beyond expanding infrastructure

The adoption of digital technologies among micro-entrepreneurs is not random. It reflects deeper patterns of socioeconomic access and network exposure. Our study reveals that younger, wealthier, and more educated individuals are significantly more likely to integrate digital tools into their business practices. Proximity to other digital users also reinforces adoption, suggesting that peer influence and community-level networks play a crucial role in shaping tech-savviness and digital behavior.

These findings carry important implications for digital inclusion strategies across Africa. First, they underscore the need to address structural inequalities in education and income that stifle digital opportunities. Without well-calibrated and targeted interventions, digital transformation could exacerbate existing divides between more advantaged entrepreneurs and those left behind in low-resource settings.

Second, the power of network effects points to the value of localized digital ecosystems. Policies that support digital hubs, peer learning, and community-based training can amplify adoption by leveraging social proximity and trust. Beyond focusing exclusively on individual capacity-building, policymakers could consider how to productively activate collective digital readiness, especially in a continent historically known for a high degree of communality.

Finally, our finding that the variables of gender, experience, or formal business affiliations do not have a significant effect on level of digital adoption suggests that traditional segmentation may miss key levers of digital transformation in the African context. Digital adoption appears to be less about identity or tenure, and more about access, exposure, and perceived utility. This calls for flexible, tailored, and context-sensitive approaches that prioritize connectivity, affordability, and relevance over rigid gender or social network targeting.

In sum, fostering inclusive digital adoption requires more than expanding digital infrastructure. It calls for a nuanced understanding of who adopts, why, and under what conditions they do. Digital adoption in Benin’s agrifood systems offers valuable insights for designing more effective and equitable digital policies across the continent.

Policy pathways to accelerate digital adoption among micro-entrepreneurs

Unlocking the full potential of digital technologies for micro-entrepreneurs in Africa requires a multi-pronged policy approach that addresses both infrastructure and financial constraints. Evidence from our Benin study underscores the importance of well-thought out and targeted interventions to enhance digital uptake and economic performance among micro-entrepreneurs, especially in informal markets.

First, improving the quality of mobile broadband emerges as a high-impact lever. Our structural model simulations reveal that upgrading internet reliability and speed yields the most significant gains in both adoption rates and productivity. This finding points to the need for sustained and cost-effective investments in digital infrastructure, particularly in semi-rural and underserved areas, where poor connectivity continues to hinder business operations.

Second, while reducing the cost of mobile broadband access has a positive effect, its impact is more modest when broadband connection quality remains low. This suggests that affordability policies must be coupled with service quality improvements to be fully effective. Governments and telecom providers can explore tiered pricing models, public-private partnerships, or intra-platform competition to lower entry barriers without compromising service standards.

Third, easing credit constraints is essential for enabling micro-entrepreneurs to invest in digital tools and scale their operations. Many informal micro-enterprises lack access to formal finance, limiting their ability to purchase smartphones, pay for data plans, or adopt productivity-enhancing digital platforms. Expanding access to microfinance, mobile money, and alternative credit scoring mechanisms, especially those leveraging transactional and utility data, can help bridge this gap.

Together, these findings highlight the need for integrated digital inclusion strategies that combine infrastructure upgrades, affordability measures, and financial empowerment. By aligning these efforts with the lived realities of micro-entrepreneurs, many of whom are women operating in mature but underserved sectors, policymakers can foster a more inclusive and resilient digital economy, and in turn, lift productivity, output, employment, and livelihoods across Africa.

Nexans, a global leader in the design and manufacturing of cable systems and energy solutions, today announced the successful conclusion of its 2025 Innovation Summit in Toronto. The event brought together global leaders from energy, policy, finance, and technology to address one of the defining challenges of our time: how to expand and modernize transmission infrastructure to meet surging electricity demand in the era of AI, electrified transport, and digital growth.

The Summit, themed “A New Era of Electrification,” underscored a powerful message: transmission is no longer a technical afterthought – it is the strategic lever of global electrification.

In brief 

• The UK lacks overarching deepfake legislation, leaving victims facing a complex patchwork of existing laws including intellectual property (IP), data protection, defamation and malicious falsehood.  
• While the Government has recently introduced criminal sanctions for sharing non-consensual intimate deepfakes (via the Online Safety Act 2023), and provisions criminalising their creation (in the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, not yet in force), significant gaps remain. 
• Detection and enforcement present substantial challenges for individuals, with perpetrators often difficult to identify and frequently based overseas, beyond UK regulatory reach, whilst platforms are often slow to remove deepfake content. 
• The Government’s current consultation on AI and copyright may include consideration of whether more controls should be given to performers over the use of their likenesses and performances.  
• The EU AI Act meanwhile includes transparency requirements for deepfakes including machine-readable marking and disclosure obligations, though practical implementation challenges remain. 

The use of AI tools is proliferating and becoming mainstream. Allied to fast-moving developments in the technology, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish AI-generated content – including deepfakes (i.e. images, video or audio intended to impersonate an individual’s likeness or voice) – from human-generated and authentic content. Deepfake technology isn’t, in itself, particularly new, but the ease and scale with which deepfakes can now be produced and disseminated, without easy detection or challenge, has led to urgent calls for a review of regulation in this area. 

‘Digital replicas’ (a more benign expression for ‘deepfakes’) can, of course, be created for positive uses. The technology has been used to de-age the actor Harrison Ford in the movie Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and to reanimate deceased actors (such as Carrie Fisher) on screen. But, when digital replicas are made without consent, they can be put to more nefarious uses. Ofcom summarised these risks well in a recent study when it noted that deepfakes can be used to “demean, defraud and disinform“. Many famous people have been the subject of deepfakes, from Taylor Swift through to Stephen Fry and the financial journalist Martin Lewis, but the problem also impacts non-celebrities, and sometimes in devastating ways.   

No overarching regulatory framework 

The problem for those impacted is that there is no overarching law regulating deepfakes in the UK. Instead, there is a patchwork of existing laws (for example, IP, data protection, defamation, malicious falsehood) alongside existing laws that meet particular harms (such as the use of deepfakes in fraudulent activity). Importantly, current regulatory focus is on the creation and dissemination of non-consensual intimate images in the form of deepfakes, where the Government has taken a number of steps to introduce criminal sanctions, with more developments to come shortly. These developments have been hard fought for, and greatly welcomed by campaigners, but there are still gaps in the legislation, for example, there is nothing yet to address “nudifying” or “undressing” apps, which remove clothing from images.  

Difficulties in detection and enforcement 

In addition to the overly complex nature of the current regulatory framework, those impacted by deepfakes face the additional difficulty of tracking down those who create or disseminate such images. Even if they can be identified, the perpetrators are often based overseas and out of reach of the UK regulatory authorities. While contractual protections may assist for some individuals (for example, performers, who may wish to contract against having their performance used to train an AI model), there is no one size fits all approach to this enforcement question. Accordingly, in addition to enhanced regulation, many are looking to the role of the AI model developers and the large tech platforms (including social media) in detecting and expeditiously removing such content, enforcing their terms of use, and, where possible, preventing such content being generated in the first place. But our experience has been that the platforms are often slow to react, which can be detrimental where content can go viral rapidly online. 

Potential claims against deepfakes 

There are some potential claims that an individual might make in relation to the use of their likeness (image or voice) in a deepfake, some of which are currently less relevant to non-celebrities, but where we may see calls to broaden out the protection available. 

Intellectual property rights  

In the UK, there are certain forms of IP rights that might be available to provide protection for an individual’s likeness. However, there is no form of personality right or image right in the UK (unlike in some other countries).  Potential IP rights that might arise include: 

• Copyright: while there is no copyright in an individual’s voice or image, there is likely to be copyright in a photograph or video of an individual, or in a sound recording of their voice. If those copyright works are reproduced without the copyright owner’s consent (e.g. during the training of an AI model), arguments of copyright infringement may arise. However, the difficulty here is that often the individual who is the subject of e.g. the photograph is not the copyright owner of that photograph. Individuals may also find that any relevant copyright works have been licensed to AI model developers to train their models. 

  Separately, performers have certain rights in their performances (there is no requirement to be a celebrity to rely upon these rights), as well as certain moral rights (though in practice moral rights are often waived by performers). While these rights may be relied upon to tackle unauthorised uses of a performance, the performers’ union, Equity, has called on the government to strengthen performers’ rights to encourage licensing and prevent unauthorised AI-related uses. In particular, Equity is lobbying for increased transparency measures and additional rights, including in relation to performance synthesisation, image rights and unwaivable moral rights. It is also concerned about the terms of contracts used by production companies for training AI models/generating digital replicas, citing the example of a performer whose likeness was used as a ‘performance avatar’ and who later discovered it being used to promote the Venezuelan government. 

  Copyright may, however, have a greater role to play in relation to deepfakes going forward. The Danish government is considering using copyright law to regulate deepfakes by making unauthorised sharing of AI-generated deepfakes illegal, including in relation to deepfakes of non-celebrities. Individuals would be able to demand removal of the images, as well as compensation, and the right would last for up to 50 years after their death. Meanwhile, the central proposal of the US Copyright Office’s report on Digital Replicas is a new federal law to deal with unauthorised digital replicas (again, which would be available for all individuals, not just celebrities), on the grounds that existing laws in the US do not provide sufficient legal redress. A number of US sates have also proposed such laws. 

  In the UK, the Government is currently conducting a consultation process in relation to AI and copyright. While the consultation does not formally consult on specific proposals on digital replicas and personality rights, the Government has said that it is keen to hear views on the topic. This could include whether the current legal framework provides sufficient control to performers over the use of their likenesses/performances (perhaps involving consideration of whether performers should be able to opt their performances out of being used to train AI models). 
   

• Trade marks and passing off: Celebrities, such as Rihanna and former motor racing driver Eddie Irvine, have had some success in bringing passing off proceedings for the use of their image to advertise a product, on the grounds that this amounts to a false endorsement. While such claims may assist in similar situations involving deepfakes of celebrities, it will be much more difficult for a non-celebrity to get such a claim off the ground. 

Data protection  

Information which “relates to” an identified or identifiable individual is their “personal data”, and will, as a general principle, mean that the data subject has rights arising, and those who process the personal data have obligations imposed on them. “Inaccurate” data is still personal data, and, by extension, there is certainly a strong argument that a deepfake of an identifiable individual will also be their personal data. This means that affected individuals potentially have the right to request erasure, or to bring complaints or claims, under the UK GDPR. 

Defamation 

A deepfake could give rise to a claim in defamation if it contains false and defamatory information and causes the subject serious reputational harm. Consider a politician who becomes the subject of a fake video where they admit to wrongdoing. The merits will depend on multiple factors including the meaning, nature and extent of publication of the deepfake, and the evidence of reputational harm. There may also be problems locating and identifying the source of the deepfake/its author, problems establishing the liability of any platform hosting the deepfake, and jurisdictional hurdles if they/the platform are based outside of the UK.  

Breach of privacy and/or confidence  

Where a deepfake contains true but private and/or confidential information, the subject may be able to bring a claim for misuse of private information and/or breach of confidence if they did not consent to the information being used and shared in this way. What constitutes “private information” is not defined in law, but it is established that it includes information such as: medical information, details of a person’s sexuality and sex life, and details of their home or family life. 

Non-consensual intimate image deepfakes 

The UK Government has recently introduced various pieces of legislation aimed at criminalising conduct around non-consensual intimate deepfakes. As of 31 January 2024, legislation brought in by the Online Safety Act 2023 and inserted into the Sexual Offences Act 2003 criminalises the sharing, or threatening to share, of intimate deepfakes without consent. In addition, the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 which has recently received Royal Assent, contains provisions criminalising the creation, and requesting of the creation, of intimate deepfakes without consent (note that these provisions are not yet in force, although their enactment is eagerly awaited).  

Wider regulatory responses 

The EU’s AI Act is a wide-ranging piece of legislation regulating the development and deployment of AI, including generative AI. One of the bedrocks of ensuring trustworthiness and integrity of AI systems is a robust framework of transparency requirements which enables people to know when they are interacting with or are exposed to AI systems and their outputs (including deepfakes or other manipulated content). In that context, the EU AI Act contains a number of transparency requirements, including in relation to deepfakes, which will start to apply from 2 August 2026. 

The European Commission has recently published a consultation on the AI Act’s transparency requirements. The responses to its consultation will inform the drafting of Commission guidelines and a Code of Practice on the detection and labelling of artificially generated or manipulated content.  

Specifically, in relation to deepfakes and other generated content, Article 50 of the EU AI Act requires: 

• Providers of AI systems that directly interact with individuals to ensure they are informed they are interacting with an AI system and not a human (unless this is obvious to a reasonably well-informed, observant and circumspect individual in the circumstances and context of use). For example, the Archival Producers Alliance has published guidance on best practices for the use of Generative AI in Documentaries which include providing visual vocabulary that alerts the audience to GenAI use, such as a unique frame around the material, change of aspect ratio etc. 
• Providers of AI systems to facilitate detection and identification of AI-generated or manipulated content by marking such content in a machine-readable manner and enabling related detection mechanisms (e.g. metadata identification, cryptographic techniques and watermarking). 
• Deployers of AI systems generating or manipulating deepfake content to provide information about the origin of the content. However, where the content forms part of an evidently artistic, creative, satirical, fictional or analogous work or programme, these obligations are limited to disclosing the existence of the generated or manipulated content in an appropriate manner that does not hamper the display or enjoyment of the work.  

Of course, the position in relation to transparency and labelling of AI content is not straightforward, both legally and practically. Many organisations, for example, have partnered with the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) to add labels to AI-generated content (e.g. LinkedIn). These tags are automatically added based on embedded code data in the images, as identified by the C2PA process. However, this may easily be circumvented by stripping the metadata from digital files. It must therefore be anticipated that the discussions around the proposed Code of Practice will lead to a range of (potentially conflicting) viewpoints that may require compromises to be reached in certain areas.  

Practical steps 

While a number of legal measures are available for individuals who find that their likeness or voice has been used in a deepfake (as well as preventative measures to protect against creation in the first place), the framework for taking action remains a complex one, and so we would recommend anyone impacted to seek specialist legal advice. Those needing support with non-consensual intimate image deepfakes can contact services such as the Revenge Porn Helpline, who provide free assistance with the removal of intimate imagine including deepfakes shared without consent from the internet. The Police also have published guidance on reporting potential criminal offences involving deepfakes.   

If you would like to discuss issues relating to deepfakes, including how to take action to protect against digital replicas being created and shared, please get in touch with a member of the team.  

A City Transformed into a Drift Arena

The 2025 RoDrift Championship came to a spectacular close with its fifth and final stage in the heart of Ploiești, Romania. For two days, the city center transformed into a motorsport arena, with roaring engines, tire smoke, and the unmistakable energy of country’s top drifting series.

Garrett Rewards the 2025 Champions

Garrett Motion was proud to celebrate the success of this season’s champions, presenting a performance turbocharger to each winner across three classes:

• Roman Zelinskyi – 508 points – Pro
• Mazur Efim – 345 points – Semi-Pro
• Poteica Răzvan Flavian – 489 points – Street Open

Their consistency and skill over five demanding events earned each of them a top podium place — along with a Garrett turbo to boost them to even greater performances in 2026.

Cătălin Trifan Shows His Strength

Garrett’s sponsored driver, Cătălin Trifan from Team 3Fun Performance, also made his mark this season, finishing 6th overall in the PRO category. Behind the wheel of his G45 G-Series turbocharged BMW e46 N62B44, delivering over 1200 HP, Trifan showcased determination and fighting spirit throughout the championship. His runs combined precision and raw power, earning respect from fans and fellow competitors alike.

An Electric Atmosphere in the City Center

Unlike previous rounds in Bucharest drift events—where heavy rains and scorching heat challenged drivers —this time the conditions were perfect for the grand finale. With the streets of Ploiești filled with the smell of burning rubber, clouds of smoke, and engines echoing between buildings, the atmosphere was charged with excitement. Drift fever took hold, celebrating just how far RoDrift has come in raising the profile of motorsport in Romania.

Looking Ahead to 2026

As the 2025 season wraps up, Garrett is proud to have been part of the journey, powering champions, supporting rising talent, and sharing our passion for performance. The countdown to next season has already begun — so stay tuned to our newsletter and to RoDrift to see what’s coming next.

An investigation is under way after a Ryanair flight battling with high wind speeds during storm Amy last week landed at Manchester airport with just six minutes of fuel left in its tanks.

The pilots had been taking passengers from Pisa in Italy to Prestwick in Scotland on Friday evening, but wind speeds of up to 100mph meant they were unable to land.

After three failed attempts to touch down, the pilots of Ryanair flight FR3418 issued a mayday emergency call and raced to Manchester, where the weather was calmer.

The Boeing 737-800 had just 220kg of fuel left in its tanks when it finally landed, according to a picture of what appears to be a handwritten technical log. Pilots who examined the picture said this would be enough for just five or six minutes of flying.

Analysis of the log suggests the plane left Pisa with reserve fuel, as commercial flights are required to do.

A spokesperson for the airline said: “Ryanair reported this to the relevant authorities on Friday [3 October]. As this is now subject of an ongoing investigation, which we are co-operating fully with, we are unable to comment.”

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch confirmed on Thursday it had opened an investigation after being notified by Ryanair.

A spokesperson said: “The AAIB has commenced an investigation into a serious incident involving an aircraft which was diverted from Prestwick to Manchester Airport on Friday 3 October. AAIB inspectors have begun making inquiries and gathering evidence.”

The Boeing 737-800 can carry up to 189 passengers. One person on board recounted what is thought to have been a two-hour attempt to make a safe landing, saying the plane made two attempts to land at Prestwick, before heading for Edinburgh and finally Manchester.

“Everyone was calm until the descent; we were being buffeted around a lot and jumping. There were a few worried people on the second descent as we could feel the plane was struggling,” Alexander Marchi told the Ayr Advertiser.

“Then the pilot surprised us by saying he was going to attempt Edinburgh. This was just as bad, though, as the second time at Prestwick.

“There was turbulence over the Firth of Forth and then as we approached the airport, as we were very close to landing, again we had to pull up sharply.”

The passengers were taken from Manchester to Prestwick, arriving 10 hours later than the scheduled arrival time of 6pm on Friday.

One pilot who reviewed the log said: “Just imagine that whenever you land with less than 2T (2,000kg) of fuel left you start paying close attention to the situation. Less than 1.5T you are sweating. But this is as close to a fatal accident as possible.”

AUSTIN, Texas – October 9, 2025 – CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) today announced it has been recognized as a Visionary in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM). We believe this recognition demonstrates CrowdStrike’s expertise in reimagining SIEM with AI, real-time data, and a unified platform approach.

Falcon® Next-Gen SIEM is driving adoption of the Falcon® platform as the operating system of cybersecurity. Organizations are leveraging its native, hyper-scalable data foundation to solve their most complex security and IT problems, replacing legacy SIEMs that are plagued by poor data ingestion and limited retention, complex workflows, delayed searches, and high costs. By unifying native Falcon and third-party data with AI-driven automation and real-time intelligence, Falcon Next-Gen SIEM unlocks new capabilities, cost efficiencies, and agentic speed, reducing complexity while delivering the scale and responsiveness modern defenders require.

“Legacy SIEM has failed to keep pace with evolving threats and the scale of enterprise data,” said Ajit Sancheti, general manager, Falcon Next-Gen SIEM, CrowdStrike. “Falcon Next-Gen SIEM is the engine of the agentic SOC, delivering the automation, speed, and control to transform SOC operations. Combined with our acquisition of Onum and relentless AI innovation, Falcon Next-Gen SIEM sets a new standard for how data drives modern security.”

Innovation Driving the Agentic SOC

The addition of Onum’s real-time streaming technology supercharges Falcon Next-Gen SIEM, eliminating data migration friction and the need for third-party tools. By bringing AI-powered detections directly to third-party data sources through in-pipeline analysis, Onum reduces data storage costs by up to 50 percent while delivering 70 percent faster incident response with 40 percent less ingestion overhead. And with enriched, real-time streams directly to AI agents, Onum immediately boosts the efficacy of Falcon agentic innovations and customers’ wider ecosystem.

As part of its Agentic Security Workforce announced at Fal.Con 2025 in September, CrowdStrike unveiled new mission-ready agents within Falcon Next-Gen SIEM that will  automate high-friction tasks so humans can focus on strategy, judgment, and commanding outcomes. These agents perform search analysis, correlation rule generation, data transformation, and workflow generation. With Onum and continuous AI innovation, Falcon Next-Gen SIEM sets a new standard for what organizations expect from their SIEM.

To learn more about CrowdStrike’s recognition in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), please read our blog.

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About CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD), a global cybersecurity leader, has redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced cloud-native platform for protecting critical areas of enterprise risk – endpoints and cloud workloads, identity and data.

Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud and world-class AI, the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform leverages real-time indicators of attack, threat intelligence, evolving adversary tradecraft and enriched telemetry from across the enterprise to deliver hyper-accurate detections, automated protection and remediation, elite threat hunting and prioritized observability of vulnerabilities.

Purpose-built in the cloud with a single lightweight-agent architecture, the Falcon platform delivers rapid and scalable deployment, superior protection and performance, reduced complexity and immediate time-to-value.

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Media Contact

Jake Schuster

CrowdStrike Corporate Communications

press@crowdstrike.com