Tehran says the US must lift its naval blockade and meet its demands in full before any agreement is reached.
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Earnings Call Insights: First Business Financial Services (FBIZ) Q3 2026
“We produced record pretax pre-provision and bottom line earnings” (President, CEO & Director David Seiler), and “these outcomes were driven by strong operating fundamentals as reflected in pretax pre-provision earnings that grew 13% year-over-year and
Seeking Alpha’s Disclaimer: This article was automatically generated by an AI tool based on content available on the Seeking Alpha website, and has not been curated or reviewed by humans. Due to inherent limitations in using AI-based tools, the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of such articles cannot be guaranteed. This article is intended for informational purposes only. Seeking Alpha does not take account of your objectives or your financial situation and does not offer any personalized investment advice. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank.
The surprising loss to Fleetwood, a team 84 places below Arsenal in the football pyramid, was made even worse by the fact that the Gunners’ under-21 team had beaten AFC Wimbledon, a side in a division higher than the hosts, on the same night in the EFL trophy.
The first incident of the match came with under two minutes on the clock when the game was stopped for more than eight minutes when a drown was flown above the pitch.
Perhaps Arsenal should have taken that as a warning.
Arteta named an experimental side and gave a debut to 18-year-old Ceadach O’Neill, started 17-year-old Marli Salmon at centre back, 16-year-old Dowman on the wing while goalkeepr Illan Meslier was making his first start for the club too.
But the Gunners boss surrounded that inexperience with seasoned internationals such as Jurrien Timber, Piero Hincapie, World Cup winner Martin Zubimendi, Champions League winner Kai Havertz and Viktor Gyokeres.
All of those players played a huge part in the Gunners winning the Premier League title last season.
However, even after introducing captain Martin Odegaard and £75m signing Bruno Guimaraes from the bench, Arsenal produced a poor performance.
“First of all, congratulations to Fleetwood for going through the next round. The manner that they have done it, and for us a very sad day.” Arteta said of the result.
“There is nothing to criticise the players for their attitude, their application. The determination – you could see that was there from the start.
“Even with 10 men, we conceded a really poor goal to start with that gave them some momentum.”
The loss in this competition is not the Gunners’ first, but it does mean they have not won the League Cup for 33 years.
In 2012, Arsenal lost to League Two side Bradford City on penalties and they were also beaten by Championship side Sheffield Wednesday in 2015 at the same stage too.
With Dowman now suspended, Saka out for around six weeks, Tzolis working to return and Arteta revealing after the match that Madueke was unavailable with an injury, their options in the wide areas for the match with Liverpool on Sunday are looking slim.
10:53, 26 Oct 2026
Planes across the UK have been battered by the storm this weekend (Image: Steven Lomas / SWNS)
The terrifying moment a Jet2 passenger plane veered off the runway in strong Storm Boelo winds has been captured on video
In the clip, the passenger jet is seen approaching the runway. As it touches down on the tarmac, the plane bucks up a little, causing the aircraft to move around on its axis in the air. When the plane next touches down, its nose is directed off the runway.
The plane’s speed causes it to run off the tarmac and onto the grass, with dust and mud from the wheels billowing into the air. The plane’s pilots managed to correct its course, veering it back onto the tarmac and straightening it up.
No one was injured in the landing.
Were you on the flight? Email webtravel@reachplc.com
A spokesperson for Jet2 told the Mirror: “Flight LS1310 from Venice to Birmingham temporarily moved off the runway after landing at Birmingham Airport, due to exceptional weather conditions caused by Storm Boelo. The aircraft immediately returned to the runway and taxied to the stand. We can confirm that everyone disembarked as normal.”
The landing was one of the dicier moments on a weekend in which gusts reached 80 miles per hour in parts of the country, causing dozens of cancellations and lengthy delays. There were also fatalities caused by the storm.
A 60-year-old man died after being struck by a falling tree in Dumfries and Galloway during Storm Boelo. Police Scotland said the man was on a road at Mid Kelton, near Castle Douglas, when the tree fell on him at around 10.30am on Sunday.
A spokesperson said: “We were made aware of a 60-year-old man having been struck by a falling tree on a minor road at Mid Kelton near Castle Douglas around 10.30am on Sunday October 25 2026. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. There are no suspicious circumstances and a report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal in due course.”
The Met Office has warned of possible injuries and danger to life from flying debris, alongside the risk of damage to buildings, power cuts and travel disruption. An amber wind warning came into force at 9pm on Saturday and remained in place until 9pm on Sunday. Only Orkney remained under a yellow warning.
Network Rail said most train services were expected to return to normal on Monday, but advised passengers to check their journeys online before travelling. On Sunday, nine of the rail operators suffered from severe disruptions, with Scotrail forced to suspend journeys on entire sections of its network.
Teams have cleared fallen trees and debris from tracks and carried out repairs to overhead lines and flooding-related damage that disrupted the network.
Gary Hopkirk, route director at Network Rail Scotland, said: “It’s been a really challenging weekend for Scotland’s railway and particularly for the teams who’ve been out in some very difficult conditions responding to whatever the weather has thrown at us. Our focus throughout has been on keeping people safe and trains moving wherever possible.
“Now the worst of the weather has passed, our attention is on getting the railway back to normal. We’ll be working as quickly as we can, but we won’t compromise on safety. We know disruption is frustrating and we really appreciate the patience people have shown this weekend while our teams do everything they can to get everyone moving again.”
Several roads and bridges across Scotland and Northern Ireland have been forced to close in the weather, while many of the ferry services between the Scottish mainland and the islands, as well as the island of Ireland and Britain, were cancelled.
Of CalMac’s 30 ferry services scheduled for Sunday, 27 were cancelled, with some suspensions expected to continue until Monday.
BlackRock (BLK) CEO Larry Fink commented on the AI bubble, saying “The demand for compute is growing faster than supply. I don’t see anything but a bubble. I see greater shortages.”
Fink added, “Shortages of skilled trade, shortages of power and energy, shortages
Michael Vi
Starboard Value sees significant upside in Skyworks Solutions (SWKS), viewing the chipmaker as undervalued following its acquisition of Qorvo (QRVO), Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The activist investor sees potential value in the companies’ complementary product portfolios and merger-related cost
Wall Street sees warning signs of an AI bubble, but valuations tell different story
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Ralf Little played DI Neville Parker in Death in Paradise(Image: BBC)
Ralf Little will be back on screens as DI Neville Parker on Monday night.
The repeat from series 12 of Death in Paradise gives fans another chance to watch the show’s longest-serving detective tackle a puzzling case on Saint Marie.
The episode synopsis reads: “The team investigates a survivalist commune when one of its members is poisoned inside a locked bunker. However, with CCTV footage showing that no one went in or came out while he was in there, it seems likely that he has taken his own life – or has he? Meanwhile, Neville has a series of adventurous dates with Sophie.”
Joining Ralf in the episode are Tahj Miles as Officer Marlon Pryce, Ginny Holder as Officer Darlene Curtis, and Shantol Jackson as Naomi Thomas, giving viewers a chance to catch up with more familiar faces.
Neville first joined the Saint Marie police team back in 2020, stepping into the shoes of DI Jack Mooney (Ardal O’Hanlon).
During his four-year stint as Detective Inspector, he weathered countless challenges, conquering his allergies and aversion to the sun, and even surviving a plot to frame him for murder, cementing his status as the island’s longest-serving investigator.
Ralf ultimately departed Death in Paradise in 2024, with his character sailing off into the sunset alongside his love interest, Florence Cassell. Both he and the show’s producers agreed that Neville’s story had reached a fitting and natural conclusion, reports the Express.
Ralf was subsequently succeeded by another outstanding actor, Don Gilet, who portrays DI Mervin Wilson. Tim Key, Executive Producer for Red Planet Pictures, commented at the time: “Joining a successful show like Death in Paradise as the lead is a daunting and risky prospect, but Ralf’s confidence and talent shone through from day one, and the audience response to Neville and his journey has been amazing.”
He added, “I can’t thank Ralf enough for everything he has brought to the show, on and off screen, and wish him all the very best for the future.”
This marks not the first occasion the BBC has broadcast a repeat of Death in Paradise. Last month saw Kris Marshall and Ardal O’Hanlon return to screens as DI Humphrey Goodman and DI Jack Mooney, respectively.
Back in September, the show’s Instagram page revealed a watch-along of series six, episodes five and six, starring Kris Marshall opposite Josephine Jobert as DS Florence Cassell.
Fans can also catch Kris in the Death in Paradise spin-off, Beyond Paradise, which unfolds in the fictional town of Shipton Abbott.
Death in Paradise is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
Investments in instant and cross-border payment systems fuel adoption.
From the start of August to the end of September, the National Bank of Rwanda saw transactions on its eKash instant digital payment system jump from 140,000 to 1 million per month.
The value of transactions also rose sharply, from about $7 million per month to around $1.5 billion per month.
The Rwandan government considered payments a public good and invested in eKash as part of the digital public infrastructure, provided that the new platform ensured a level playing field between mobile money operators and banks, said Soraya Munyana Hakuziyaremye, the Governor of the National Bank of Rwanda, during a Governor Talk at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok.
The central bank, taking a page from leading operators of instant payment systems like India’s UPI and Brazil’s PIX, decided to eliminate existing bilateral relationships that mobile money providers had with banks and microfinance institutions and mandated that all person-to-person transactions take place on eKash. It also capped transaction fees at a hundredth of what users might have previously paid.
“For transactions that were above a million [Rwandan] francs [about $679], you could pay up to the equivalent of a $2 fee for a transaction,” Hakuziyaremye said. “Today, the transfer fee is capped at 20 francs, or less than $0.02.”
Without the mandatory routing requirement, she added, the central bank could not have reduced transaction costs.
To soften the blow the mandate had on the bottom lines of the affected banks, mobile money providers, and microfinance operators, the central bank showed them possible new revenue streams from offerings that leveraged the transaction data collected by eKash.
“They can negotiate with our national switch for the data they need at an aggregated level to offer more lending to their clients, since they have the history of their transactions, and use alternative credit scoring instead of asking for collateral for every single loan they give,” said Hakuziyaremye.
Access to credit remains a major concern for the National Bank of Rwanda, or NBR, as 92% of people have bank or mobile money accounts, but only 20% have access to credit or microcredit.
“It is still a very huge gap,” she said. “So, tracking the financial health indicators will help us improve the financial well-being of citizens.”
The East African country is also experiencing rapid advancements in cross-border payment integration at the regional and continental levels.
The NRB is seeing the East African Payment Master Plan, adopted by the East Africa Community, or EAC, in 2025, begin to bear fruit. The central bank launched a pilot that integrates eKash with its eastern neighbor’s Tanzania Instant Payment System, or TIPS.
“We want to use this as a blueprint for a framework to integrate payment systems in the region,” said Hakuziyaremye.
At the same time, the country is part of the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), which has its own regional payment system, the COMESA Clearing House.
The NRB is actively integrating its payment systems with the African Continental Free Trade Area’s Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), which seeks to deliver instant payments to beneficiaries in their local currency anywhere in Africa.
When faced with regional cross-border instant payment transactions, NRB agreed to route all of its intra-EAC payments through the regional EAC payment system and to route transactions outside the EAC through PAPSS.
“I believe that this is the approach to take,” she said. “It’s not duplicating the regional payment system, but allows cross-regional payments for regions that already had regional payment systems.”
Rob Daly covers fintech and the economy. Contact him at rdaly@gfmag.com.
A court in Indian capital Delhi has released the top leaders of the Gen Z-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) as the city sees more protests for a second day with thousands of security personnel deployed and roads barricaded.
Abhijeet Dipke – who began the movement in May after India’s Chief Justice likened some jobless young people to “cockroaches” – and other leaders were arrested on arrival in Delhi on Saturday to lead protests seeking electoral reforms.
In his first comments after his release, Dipke said “the CJP will neither back down nor be intimidated”.
On Saturday, media reports said, 7,000 demonstrators were detained and released late at night.
The CJP – which is not registered as a political party in India – is seeking electoral reforms just months before crucial state elections.
It has also demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar over allegations of manipulating voters’ lists – which the Election Commission has denied.
On Sunday morning, the CJP lawyer Ratna Singh said she had been informed by the police that Dipke and two other senior CJP leaders – Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka – would be produced before the magistrate by the police seeking their remand “to maintain public peace”.
She subsequently posted on X that the three had been set free by the court “on the condition that they will not engage in breach of peace for one year” – she later deleted the post about the condition and it’s not clear what that means and whether the CJP leaders can take part in protests.
After his release, Dipke posted on X, external, saying: “Modi, as PM, is an embarrassment to India.”
In another post, external, he said he was going to his village to attend his grandmother’s funeral who died around the time of his arrest yesterday.
“Heading back to my village to be with my family during this moment of grief,” he posted, adding that Das and Ranka would address a press conference in Delhi.
“The CJP will neither back down nor be intimidated,” he added.
Saturday saw dramatic scenes as police officials boarded the flight to detain Dipke, Das and Ranka as their plane landed.