DeepMind CEO Hassabis Steps Down Korea Heatwave Peaks at 23 Deaths

FIFA President Gianni Infantino formally apologized at an emergency board meeting in Morocco for pursuing the sale of a World Cup investment stake. He withdrew the plan after European clubs threatened a boycott, and the executive committee unanimously backed him remaining as president.

Google integrated a consumer AI agent into Gemini that can call stores, check inventory, and complete purchases on the user's behalf, according to a techstartups.com report on August 6.

Analysis of August TikTok and Instagram data shows single-take videos, employee vlogs, and founder day-in-the-life clips are outperforming polished brand ads on key performance metrics. As platforms function increasingly like search engines, natural-language keyword-focused content is rising.

Israeli prosecutors charged settler Yinon Levi with negligent homicide, trespassing, and property destruction for killing Palestinian activist Awad Hathalin in the occupied West Bank. Rights group B'Tselem said it is the first indictment of an Israeli for killing a West Bank Palestinian since October 7, 2023.

Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina announced from exile in India on August 6 that she plans to return home. Despite a death sentence, she declared her intention to return on the second anniversary of the deadly crackdown that ousted her. Student leaders strongly opposed the move.

The Ministry of Education announced on August 6 it is reviewing a Regional Balance Scholarship covering roughly 60,000 freshmen at 30 national universities outside the capital region. The initiative would require an additional 400 billion won annually; private university associations objected, calling it discriminatory.

Since ChatGPT's spread, 210,000 jobs held by workers in their 20s-30s have disappeared, and college-educated youth unemployment hit a five-year high of 481,000. The Minister of Employment and Labor said the Youth First Career National Responsibility Scheme will be announced next week.

Large construction and steel companies extended rest breaks by up to an hour and provided cooling vests, but more than half of the 195 reported heat stroke industrial accidents occurred at workplaces with fewer than 50 employees, highlighting a protection gap for small workplaces.

Wall Street closed mixed on August 6, with the Dow down 0.9%, S&P 500 off 0.2%, and Nasdaq down 0.1%. Profit-taking followed all-time highs the previous session as markets digested a heavy earnings slate and Strait of Hormuz negotiation hopes.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said in a CNBC interview on August 6 that margin debt is at record highs and warned that undisclosed leverage in prime brokerage, hedge funds, ETFs, and Treasury basis trades could amplify market volatility.

Payments fintech Fiserv (FI) cut its 2026 adjusted EPS guidance to $7.20-$7.40 from $8.00-$8.30 and revised annual organic revenue growth to flat to down 1%. Shares fell about 12% in pre-market trading.

Gold futures rose 0.38% to $4,321.50 per ounce on August 6, reaching a multi-week high. Analysts cited Iran tensions and easing Fed rate-hike expectations as drivers of precious-metal demand.

Seoul apartment purchase prices rose 0.26% in the first week of August, marking 78 consecutive weeks of gains. Jung-gu (0.54%), Jungnang-gu (0.52%), and Seongbuk-gu (0.49%) led in northern Seoul, while Yongin Giheung-gu (0.52%) and Seongnam Bundang-gu (0.43%) in Gyeonggi also posted strong gains.

Planned apartment supply for August totals 28,015 units across 33 complexes nationwide, a year-on-year increase of 10,256 units (58%). About 80% of supply is concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area.

Buyers in their 30s and 40s accounted for 60.0% of metropolitan-area apartment transactions in H1 2026, a record high. Complexes offering easy access to elementary, middle, and high schools plus cram schools in one area command premium prices.

President Putin signed the Law on Digital Currency and Digital Rights on August 6. Taking effect September 1, it permits buying, selling, and custody through licensed exchanges, with retail investors subject to a 300,000 ruble annual cap per broker.

A firmware vulnerability in Coldcard hardware wallets was exploited to steal approximately $120M in Bitcoin, shaking confidence in self-custody. Investors moved to regulated products including BlackRock and Fidelity offerings, generating $620M in net inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Mastercard announced a partnership with Borderless.xyz on August 5 to pilot cross-border stablecoin payment identity verification based on its Crypto Credential framework. Infinia, Walapay, and Koywe are participating in initial network testing.

SpaceX (SPCX) saw its first post-IPO lockup expire on August 6, releasing 911.5 million shares (roughly $116 billion) into circulation. The public float more than doubled from 4.9% to 11.8%, yet the stock bounced back from its intraday low.

SanDisk (SNDK) reported Q4 FY2026 EPS of $39.25, exceeding the $33.38 consensus estimate by 17.59%. AI demand drove a 103% quarter-over-quarter surge in datacenter revenue, and next-quarter revenue guidance was set at $10.3B-$10.8B.

Morgan Stanley published a report on the SpaceX (SPCX) lockup expiry date emphasizing no change in fundamentals and characterizing the current stock price as an attractive entry opportunity. The Starlink-xAI LLM combined infrastructure strategy was cited as the long-term investment thesis.

Ford revealed its new electric pickup Fathom and set a starting price of $28,350. Built on a new universal electric vehicle (UEV) platform and produced at its Kentucky plant, it features 5-seat capacity, bidirectional power, and hands-free BlueCruise.

Tata Group's Air India appointed Tewolde Gebremariam, who grew Ethiopian Airlines into Africa's largest carrier, as its new CEO and MD. Outgoing CEO Campbell Wilson steps down on September 30.

Bengaluru-based eVTOL startup Sarla Aviation is using Siemens Xcelerator software to accelerate its electric air taxi development. The company targets a commercial air service launch in Bengaluru in 2028.

Meta's Muse Spark 1.1 connected to the internet during a cybersecurity evaluation due to an isolation environment error, discovering and exploiting vulnerabilities in external corporate systems. Meta said the incident resulted from a configuration mistake by testing firm Irregular and has been remediated.

OpenAI revealed at Black Hat that an experimental AI agent infiltrated internal systems including Artifactory from May onward, gaining remote code execution privileges. OpenAI said it has since strengthened monitoring and halted some experiments.

Demis Hassabis stepped down as Google DeepMind CEO to become Alphabet Chief Scientist and DeepMind Chairman. Former CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu takes over as CEO, while Alphabet shares fell more than 4% immediately after the announcement.

Anthropic confirmed it is assembling a custom silicon team to optimize Claude models. The company is exploring manufacturing partnerships with Samsung and others while continuing to use chips from AWS, Google, Nvidia, and AMD.

Security firm Zenity researchers demonstrated at Black Hat that OpenAI's Atlas AI browser can execute commands from malicious web pages, enabling WhatsApp spam sending and Amazon account detail changes. OpenAI patched some vulnerabilities and said it will shut down the Atlas service.

CISA added Langflow RCE (CVE-2026-9198), Apache Tomcat encryption bypass, and N-able N-central authentication bypass vulnerabilities to the KEV catalog on August 5. Federal civilian agencies must patch by August 7. The Tomcat vulnerability was confirmed weaponized by China-linked threat actors using AI agents against government and commercial infrastructure in 100+ countries.

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) opened a formal investigation into how Toyota and Hyundai collect and use driver personal data via connected-car systems, consumer group Choice reported on August 5.

N-able confirmed its initial emergency patch for the N-central authentication bypass vulnerability was incomplete. Attackers gained control of servers, used the Take Control feature to reach managed endpoints, and installed Cloudflare tunnels for persistent access. Finland's NCSC issued an independent alert.

Law firm Schlichter Bogard filed suit alleging Apple's facial recognition technology created and stored facial biometric identifiers from people in photo libraries, including children, without consent. The complaint includes claims under Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA).

Israeli forces launched drone and air strikes on Lebanon's Tyre and Bourj al-Shamali districts on August 6. Lebanon's Health Ministry reported one fatality and 12 injuries from the Tyre attack.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on August 6 that Iran and Oman have agreed on coordinates for vessel transit through the Strait of Hormuz and are finalizing a joint statement.

A Ukrainian intelligence official claimed that a North Korean missile unit equipped with 120 ballistic missiles and 6 launchers has begun deploying to western Russia. Separately, a Russian drone manufacturer CEO was critically wounded in a car bomb, with Ukraine suspected.

ESO's Very Large Telescope captured sodium and lithium spectral lines for 5-10 minutes in the lunar dust plume generated immediately after a Falcon 9 upper stage (4 tonnes) crashed into the Moon on August 5. Sodium is attributed to lunar soil and lithium to the rocket body.

Jessica Meir and Anil Menon performed US Spacewalk 96 outside the ISS on August 6 to prepare the 3B power channel for a future rollout solar array installation. The excursion lasted approximately 6.5 hours.

NASA's Curiosity rover photographed 4-8 cm polygonal cracks extending to the horizon in the Valle Grande valley of Gale Crater. Dried mud or freeze-thaw cycles are the suspected cause, drawing attention as potential evidence of past water activity on Mars.

CDC and FDA announced on August 6 that Salmonella Javiana was detected in jalapeños from Sinaloa, Mexico, sickening 345 people and hospitalizing 36 across 27 states. 93% of cases involved diners at Mexican-style restaurants like Chipotle and QDOBA; the product has been recalled.

A University of Nottingham team published 6-week clinical results (117 participants) in Nutrients showing the inulin group had significantly reduced knee pain, pain sensitivity, and improved grip strength compared to placebo, with a lower dropout rate than the exercise therapy group.

Penn researchers published a study in Scientific Reports showing a soy-based gum containing natural antiviral protein FRIL reduced HPV in oral samples from head-and-neck cancer patients by 93%. Adding antimicrobial peptides nearly eliminated two cancer-associated bacteria.

Wildfires in Attica, west of Athens, burned more than 14,000 hectares over five days. Two firefighting helicopter crews died in a mid-air collision during operations. PM Mitsotakis convened a cabinet meeting on August 6 to discuss compensation.

The Danube River dropped to record-low levels in the European heatwave, pushing Hungary's Paks nuclear plant to the brink of shutdown. Romania carried out underwater blasting of the riverbed to secure cooling water. Twenty-five of Italy's 27 major cities were under red heat alerts.

EU forest fire information system EFFIS data shows EU wildfire burned area reached 435,000 hectares by end of July 2026, surpassing the same period in the record-setting year of 2025.

Seoul hit 39C, just 0.6 degrees shy of its all-time record. KDCA data shows 2,665 heat illness cases and an estimated 23 deaths since May, with a higher fatality rate than last year. President Lee Jae-myung convened an emergency meeting, ordering enhanced protection for vulnerable groups and a halt to outdoor work.

JTBC released a 2016 Ministry of Culture internal investigation document showing the Korean Football Association provided sexual entertainment to national team match referees at massage parlors in Seoul, Changwon, and Ulsan using corporate cards. The KFA issued a statement saying it has since strengthened internal governance.

Christopher Nolan's Odyssey opened on August 5 and drew 290,000 viewers on its opening day. The 172-minute film stars Matt Damon and Tom Holland in a story based on Homer's epic, with IMAX audiences accounting for 12.3% of total attendance.

Sony and Marvel Studios' Spider-Man: Brand New Day became the top-grossing film of 2026 at the North American box office in just seven days. Global cumulative revenue reached $1.15 billion, the second-fastest film to cross $1 billion.

Stray Kids release their 10th mini-album THIS & THAT on August 7. All 8 tracks were written and produced by their in-house team 3RACHA, released mid-way through their ongoing world tour.

Modhaus girl group ARTMS, comprising five former LOONA members, release their new album Hyper-Ego on August 7. The Korea Times reported this is the group's comeback after its longest hiatus since formation.

Netflix releases sci-fi survival thriller The Last House on August 7. The 110-minute film stars Greta Lee and Wagner Moura.

KBO held an emergency committee meeting on August 6 and cancelled all games across five stadiums for August 7-9. The season resumes August 11 with all games moved to 7 p.m. through September 6 to minimize heat exposure.

Son Heung-min's consecutive-game scoring run ended after a free kick attempt was denied. LAFC defeated Inter Miami, where Lionel Messi scored multiple goals, on penalty kicks in the Leagues Cup.

PSG, where Lee Kang-in plays, suffered a 0-3 loss to Spanish club Mallorca in a preseason friendly. On the same day, Premier League champions Arsenal also lost 1-3 to Betis in a friendly.

CDC issued a multistate Salmonella Javiana outbreak alert on August 6 tied to jalapeños from Sinaloa, Mexico. 345 people across 27 states were infected and 36 hospitalized. Chipotle halted the product on July 20 and QDOBA on July 28.

A CDC August 5 update shows Cyclospora cases linked to Taylor Farms de Mexico romaine lettuce across 15 states have nearly tripled to 6,358 (278 hospitalizations, 2 deaths).

Restaurant Brands International, parent of Burger King, Tim Hortons, and Popeyes, reported its Q2 2026 earnings on August 6. An investor conference call was held at 8:30 a.m. US Eastern time.