Happy Thursday, and welcome to your wrap of the latest political and business headlines from overnight.
In breaking news, right-wing influencer and Donald Trump ally Charlie Kirk has died after being shot at a campus event in Utah earlier this morning, the BBC reported.
Trump announced his death on social media. “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” he wrote.
Kirk is a commentator and podcast host with millions of followers and is often credited with helping to grow conservatism’s popularity among America’s youth.
The 31-year-old was the founder of Turning Point USA, a non-profit organisation that seeks to spread conservative ideas to students on US campuses.
Kirk was hosting a public Turning Point event at Utah Valley University when he was shot once in the neck.
Meanwhile, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the country is closer to military conflict “than at any time since the Second World War” as Warsaw and NATO allies deliberate their response to an incursion into Polish airspace by Russian drones, The Guardian reported.
Polish and NATO air defences shot down at least three drones early on Wednesday (local time) as Russia’s attack on Ukraine spread into the country. It marks Poland as the first NATO member to fire during the Ukraine war.
Tusk said there had been at least 19 violations of Polish airspace, with some entering from Belarusian territory. Four airports were closed.
Donald Tusk. (Source: Wikimedia Commons.)
On social media, Donald Trump posted: “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!”
The US ambassador to Nato, Matthew Whitaker, reiterated support for Warsaw. “We stand by our Nato allies in the face of these airspace violations and will defend every inch of Nato territory,” he wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement it had “no intentions to engage any targets on the territory of Poland”.
Moving to the Middle East, Israeli airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels have killed at least 35 people and wounded more than 130 others, Associated Press reported, citing figures from the Houthi-run health ministry.
Most of those killed were in the capital, Sanaa, where a military headquarters and fuel stations were among the sites hit.
Israel’s strike comes just days after the Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched a drone attack that struck an Israeli airport.
Al Jazeera reported a statement from Israel’s military confirming the attack, saying it struck military targets belonging to the “Houthi terrorist regime”.
But according to the Houthi-run Al Masirah TV, the raids targeted a medical facility for the health sector in southwest Sanaa and the local government compound in al-Hazm.
In business news, shares in tech company Oracle have surged about 43% to a record high after it showcased its rise as a major AI cloud provider, Reuters reported.
The share price spike saw the net wealth of Oracle’s co-founder and chair, Larry Ellison, who owns 41% of the company, eclipse US$392b, making him the richest person in the world, just ahead of Elon Musk.
The company unveiled four multibillion-dollar contracts earlier this week, led by companies such as OpenAI and xAI, to aggressively secure the massive computing capacity needed to stay ahead in the AI race.
The stock was last up 35.8%, rising to a record high of US$345.69, setting the company up for its biggest one-day jump since 1992.
Larry Ellison.
Staying with business, Swedish buy-now, pay-later company Klarna had a stellar debut on the New York Stock Exchange as its shares popped 30% to open at US$52, CNBC reported.
The company priced its shares at US$40, raising US$1.37b. The offering valued Klarna at about US$15b.
The IPO is the latest in a growing list of high-profile tech floats this year.
“To me, it really is just is a milestone,” Klarna’s co-founder and chief executive, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, told CNBC in an interview. “It’s a little bit like a wedding. You prepare so much, and you plan for it, and it’s a big party. But in the end – marriage goes on.”
Finally, this morning, wholesale prices unexpectedly rose in the United States, strengthening the case for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates next week, CNBC reported.
The producer price index, which measures price input across a broad range of goods and services, fell 0.1% for August, after a downwardly revised 0.7% increase in July. The latest reading was well below estimates for a 0.3% rise.
Stock market futures gained on the release of the data, which comes a week before the Federal Open Market Committee meets to review interest rates.
“There is almost nothing to stop an interest rate cut from coming now,” Fwdbonds chief economist Chris Rupkey said.
