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SOLD! A mounted skeleton of Nanotyrannus, the dinosaur that spent decades being dismissed as a teenage T. rex, went for a colossal $47.3 million (£35.5m) at Sotheby’s in New York on Tuesday, the BBC reported.

The roughly 10-foot-tall skeleton, nicknamed Jodi, was expected to fetch at least $9 million. Instead six bidders slugged it out for 12 minutes. The buyer’s name hasn’t been disclosed.

That makes Jodi the second-most valuable dinosaur fossil ever sold, behind the T. rex Gus, which Sotheby’s sold for a record $50.1m in July, and ahead of the Stegosaurus Apex at $44.6m in 2024.

Sotheby’s calls it “exhibition-ready,” with about 191 fossil-bone elements and a “virtually complete skull,” and says it’s one of only three such skeletons known to science. It was found by rancher Jodi Pierson on her land in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation. Researchers only confirmed Nanotyrannus as its own genus last October.

Not everyone’s cheering. Edinburgh palaeontologist Steve Brusatte called it “harrowing” that it “could disappear into the vaults of a collector rather than displayed on a museum.” Portsmouth’s Megan Jacobs was calmer: “these things without a doubt will end up in a museum at some point.”

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: BBC News

FOLD UNDER PRESSURE! Apple has acknowledged that some of its brand-new iPhone Duo handsets are having screen problems, just days after its first-ever foldable went on sale, the BBC reported.

Apple said it was aware of “an issue impacting the inner display on a small number” of the phones and told affected users to contact it for a replacement. Photos online show lines across the inner screen. Some owners also posted cracks along the centre crease, and others reported a crunching noise when opening it.

How big is it? Nobody knows. Apple didn’t say how many devices are affected, and the BBC notes some images of faulty phones may have been made with AI. One owner, Justin Lokos, posted his broken Duo next to a new replacement and thanked an Apple store in New York.

This is Apple’s priciest iPhone ever: £1,999 ($2,668) to start in the UK and up to £3,199 fully loaded. Its 7.6-inch inner display folds on a central hinge, the same tricky engineering that bit Samsung’s first Galaxy Fold in 2019.

“With a further 28 markets launching on 30 October, it needs to clarify its warranty position quickly,” IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo said. Not the debut new CEO John Ternus wanted after promising the Duo would “redefine the experience of using a foldable phone.”

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: BBC News

THE LINES ARE OUT THE DOOR! Turnout in Israel’s election is running at its highest in more than four decades, in a vote many see as one of the most pivotal in the country’s history, the BBC reported.

Polling published Friday has incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu almost neck-and-neck with former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, who leads the newly formed Yashar Party and the so-called “change bloc” of parties united mainly by wanting Netanyahu out. That bloc includes former prime minister Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman and left-leaning ex-general Yair Golan.

The catch: neither bloc is projected to reach the 61 seats needed for a majority, so weeks or months of wrangling may follow. Many leading parties complained of alleged irregularities at polling stations Tuesday morning, but the Central Election Committee says there’s no evidence of systematic tampering.

An unprecedented 70,000 people have reportedly flown home from abroad to vote. Exit polls drop at 22:00 local time (20:00 GMT, 3pm CT), and many soldiers’ and reservists’ votes won’t start being counted until Wednesday, which could give a late boost to right-wing parties.

The nightmare scenario is deadlock. If nobody can form a government, new elections get called and Netanyahu stays on as interim prime minister. Israel held five elections between 2019 and 2022.

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: BBC News

ROUND THREE! Federal prosecutors have moved to charge former FBI director James Comey with leaking national defence information, according to a court filing, the BBC reported. It’s the third time the justice department has gone after the longtime Trump critic.

The three-page filing lists two counts with few details. Comey’s lawyers say the case stems from an alleged disclosure of classified information to the New York Times in October 2016, while he ran the FBI. He was charged in Washington DC through a criminal information, filed directly by a prosecutor, not an indictment approved by a grand jury.

Comey isn’t flinching. In a Substack video he called it an “appalling abuse” and said: “I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid of these people and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary.”

His lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, says two different teams of prosecutors looked at the same alleged disclosure during the first Trump administration, and “both times the Government determined that no charges should be brought against anyone.” A motion to dismiss is already filed. Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner told the BBC the case may have blown past the 10-year statute of limitations.

The scorecard: a September 2025 indictment for allegedly lying to Congress was dismissed that November. An April 2026 case over his “86 47” seashell Instagram post is still ongoing; he denies wrongdoing. And the new charges landed the same day a judge ruled the DOJ illegally fired his daughter, Maurene Comey.

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: BBC News, BBC News

ARE YOU MAXXING YET? Americans have gone all in, and Dictionary.com has made “maxxing” its 2026 Word of the Year, the BBC reported.

Short for maximising, the term “can be used on its own or added to the end of any word to convey you’re doing something to the fullest or optimizing it as much as possible,” the site said. Digital media used it nearly 19 times more in August 2026 than the 2025 monthly average.

Fitness influencers post about “proteinmaxxing” and “fibermaxxing.” Bedtime obsessives are “sleepmaxxing.” And the influencer Clavicular has racked up followers chronicling his extreme “looksmaxxing,” chasing set standards for jawlines, eyes and physique.

“Maxxing is the linguistic manifestation of a culture increasingly preoccupied with getting the most out of everything,” said Steve Johnson, director of lexicography for the Dictionary Media Group. Some people embrace it, some mock it, and some flip it to mean stepping back from the grind.

It beat out affordability, data centre, odyssey and “unc.” Past winners: “demure” two years ago, and “67” last year. And the BBC points out the original: in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme, Will Smith was already “chillin’ out, maxin’, relaxin’ all cool.”

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: BBC News

FIRED FOR HER LAST NAME? A JUDGE SAYS THAT DOESN’T FLY! The US justice department illegally fired Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI director James Comey, a federal judge ruled on Monday, the BBC reported.

Judge Jesse Furman ordered the Trump administration to reinstate her and give her back pay. He said the dismissal violated the US Constitution and her right to a fair legal process, noting the attorney general can fire federal prosecutors but only “in a particular manner and only for certain reasons.”

Comey lost her job as a federal prosecutor in New York in July 2025. She sued, arguing she was pushed out because of her father, a Trump critic, and her perceived politics. She said the only reason she was given was that it “came from Washington.” The justice department said in court filings the decision was made by former Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Furman said she “consistently received the highest accolades,” and her cases included Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Sean “Diddy” Combs. Back pay covers July to December 2025, when she took a new job.

The DOJ says it disagrees and “will appeal in due course.” Her lawyers called it a victory “to all civil servants, and to all fighting for the rule of law.”

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: BBC News

THE BIGGEST LISTING IN HISTORY COMES WITH A DOOMSDAY CLAUSE! AI firm Anthropic, owner of the Claude chatbot, has released the paperwork for its long-awaited US stock market debut, the BBC reported.

Buried in the risk factors: “Sufficiently advanced AI systems could, if not developed, deployed, and operated with appropriate safeguards, oversight, and security measures, pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity.” The filing also says that less than a year ago, a hacking group Anthropic believes was sponsored by China “manipulated” Claude to break into tech companies, banks, chemical makers and government agencies.

Now the money. Anthropic lost $80.7bn in the first half of this year, double its loss for all of 2025, on revenue of $16.2bn. Data centre leasing alone has cost $321.4bn so far this year. It’s also sitting on $131.6bn in cash, which the BBC says is more than Meta and Google combined.

It’s widely expected to debut at a valuation of $2 trillion or more, though no target share price has been set. Investors “will be paying for future dominance, not present-day economics,” Mergermarket’s Troy Hooper told the BBC.

The customer list is concentrated. About 250 big enterprise clients have each paid at least $10m in the past year, and just five account for a quarter of the business. Enterprise customers jumped from roughly 1,500 last year to almost 12,000 this year.

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: BBC News, BBC News

THE SPREAD STAYS BANNED! A convicted murderer serving life in Australia has lost his bid to overturn a ban on prisoners eating Vegemite, the BBC reported.

Andre McKechnie, 54, argued the ban in Victoria’s prisons, in place since 2006, denied him the right to “enjoy his culture as an Australian.” On Monday a Supreme Court judge rejected his appeal, saying his “cultural rights are limited primarily by the fact he has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment.”

Why ban a breakfast spread? Victorian authorities say inmates could use the strong-smelling paste to disguise contraband or brew alcohol. Corrections Victoria told the court the smell can even distract sniffer dogs hunting for drugs. McKechnie also claimed the ban broke rules requiring food that keeps inmates healthy, but the judge said that hadn’t been proven.

McKechnie got a life sentence for stabbing a property developer to death in Queensland in the 1990s, and was later transferred to Victoria. No luck there either: Vegemite is also banned in jails in Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania.

The salty yeast spread was invented in Melbourne more than a century ago and first hit shelves in 1923.

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: BBC News

NOBODY THOUGHT HE COULD DO IT! Brazil’s veteran left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva beat right-wing rival Flávio Bolsonaro by 4.4 million votes to win a fourth term, the BBC reported.

It was a dramatic turnaround: Lula lost the first round, then clawed back in just three weeks on the back of street demonstrations and a massive social media push. But Bolsonaro has told supporters in Brasília he will seek to have the election annulled.

The win bucks a regional trend. Argentina, Chile and Colombia all now have conservative leaders, and the BBC notes the Trump administration would have preferred a conservative running the country of 213 million people. Lula had warned the US not to interfere, insisting Brazil would “never fit into anyone’s backyard.”

The hangover starts now. More than 48% of voters chose Bolsonaro, his Liberal Party made the biggest gains, and Lula will face the most right-wing Congress of Brazil’s democratic era. Environmentalists cheered, after warning a Bolsonaro win could loosen protections for the Amazon.

The new term begins 5 January 2027. Lula will be 85 by the time it ends.

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: BBC News

THE KIDS WON! Serbia’s long-standing leader Aleksandar Vučić has admitted defeat to a student-led protest movement in snap parliamentary elections, the BBC reported.

“It is clear we have lost these elections,” the right-wing populist said as he conceded. With 96% of polling stations counted, Serbia’s election commission said the Student List had won 2.24 million votes to 1.67 million for his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). Preliminary figures put the students on 52.65% and the SNS on 39.2%.

The movement was formed less than two years ago after the collapse of a canopy in front of Novi Sad station killed 16 people, a disaster blamed on corruption and negligence. Vučić called the snap vote after two years of protests. The SNS has been in power since 2012, and Vučić and the party have repeatedly denied corruption.

Belgrade, Novi Sad and other cities erupted with dancing, chanting, honking and fireworks. “Serbia is free,” one student told the BBC. “It’s a miracle.” Lead candidate Ilija Srdanović said: “This will be a free state.”

The Student List has no obvious leaders and fielded doctors, actors, academics and sports figures for the 250-seat parliament. The EU’s enlargement commissioner Marta Kos said “the door to the EU is open,” while the Kremlin praised Vučić and reminded Belgrade that “it takes two to tango.” Next up: who becomes prime minister, with presidential elections due in December.

Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.

Sources: BBC News, BBC News analysis