The FBI Gets Hacked (Majorly) & Why Trump Wants To Block Diesel Exports

Hi readers, happy Thursday! Today we’re covering a massive data breach at the FBI, the U.N. General Assembly, Xi Jinping’s visit to the U.S., Ukraine’s democracy problem, U.S. bond yields peaking, Trump’s plan to block U.S. diesel exports, and an OpenAI agent hacking an Australian government website.

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The Federal Bureau Of Getting Infiltrated

It appears that someone has been investigating the investigators. The FBI has announced that it’s investigating a massive breach of its systems, which reportedly involves the personal information of the bureau’s entire 38,000-person staff. The security breach was apparently carried out by a group of hackers called ShinyHunters, who claim they have every agent’s name, role, and badge number, as well as more personal details including their home addresses and phone numbers. Both Reuters and the BBC have viewed some of the data, and both outlets have verified that the group’s claims are true.

According to the hackers, they were able to access the information by breaching Oracle’s cloud storage system, which the FBI uses to host various records for its staff, including background checks, agent health records, and investigation information. The group say they’re not holding the data ransom for money – instead, they want the bureau to retract an advisory describing them as “threat actors” who “use their real or exaggerated claims of access to sensitive or personal information to prompt payment from victims.” ShinyHunters told the media that they were “offended” by the characterisation.

The FBI has declined to comment on the multi-terabyte data breach, instead issuing a statement via X. “The FBI is aware of a cyber-criminal enterprise group claiming a compromise of the FBIJobs.gov portal and alleged impact to FBI employee personally identifiable information (PII). While the point of breach is still undetermined—whether a third-party or the FBI’s enterprise—we are actively and aggressively investigating this matter and working closely with those third-party providers that support FBIJobs.gov to mitigate any and all risk,” the agency wrote. 

Big Talks In The Big Apple

The 81st session of the U.N. General Assembly is currently taking place in New York City, with the festivities scheduled to take place until the 28th. The highlight so far has been Trump’s speech on Tuesday, which saw the U.S. president threaten to annihilate Iran entirely if the country refuses to give up its nuclear program. “Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness for generations?,” the leader of the free world asked the gathering of diplomats.

Another headline took place on the assembly’s sidelines, where the U.S., Denmark, and Greenland signed off on an agreement ending the president’s attempt to annex the Danish territory. The agreement will allow the U.S. to establish two new military bases on the island, restricts non-NATO countries from gaining influence over certain strategic sectors of Greenland’s economy, and will let the U.S. military build a “Golden Dome” defense system on the island to defend itself from ballistic missiles. 

That’s not all – the U.S. and Iran reportedly held a meeting on the sidelines of the assembly, with both sides describing the three-hour negotiation as productive. According to multiple sources, a future deal would likely see traffic through the Strait of Hormuz flow mainly through Iran-controlled waters, which doesn’t sound like great news for the U.S. and its allies. The White House suffered another blow during the assembly, when Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accused the U.S. of “bullying” and “terrorism,” adding, “We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists. Our innocent people have been the targets of cowardly attacks and aggressions imposed upon our country.” The U.S. delegation walked out during his remarks.

A Diplomatic Summit In The U.S.A.

• Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in the U.S. yesterday for a three-day summit with Trump. The U.S. commander-in-chief literally rolled out a 100-foot-long red carpet for Xi at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, greeting China’s premiere with a military fanfare and ceremonial cannonfire in the background. The two leaders are set to meet today and tomorrow for a series of negotiations on trade, technology, and global conflicts. One highlight of the trip will be tonight’s state dinner, which will see Trump and Xi sit down with top politicians and AI industry leaders alike to discuss the possibility of guardrails for the growing industry.

• While experts are skeptical that this round of talks will result in significant diplomatic agreements, Xi’s visit did kick off with a win-win. Soon after the Chinese president touched down in the U.S., Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that Washington and Beijing had agreed to extend an ongoing trade truce that was set to expire on November 10, pushing the deadline back to January 10. 

Dangling Dollars For Democracy

• As Ukraine prepares for yet another tough winter in its ongoing war with Russia, Kyiv has suffered a pretty serious blow. Yesterday, the E.U. told Ukraine that it needs to display more democratic progress if it wants to receive further disbursements from a $103 billion (€90 billion) loan program recently approved by the bloc. The warning places Ukraine in danger of running out of the money it needs to keep its war effort alive as U.S. support for Kyiv has waned under the Trump administration.

• Since Russia’s invasion in 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that holding a normal election process is not feasible during wartime. But the walls might now be closing in on the actor-turned-commander-in-chief – his administration is facing a growing corruption crisis, the country’s opposition movement is gaining momentum while calling for elections, and both the U.S. and E.U. are pushing Kyiv to speed up the democratization process.

Additional World News

• Tigray Region Mobilizes Forces Against Ethiopian Central Government (NYT, $)

• 'Super' El Niño could cause 451,000 excess deaths, researchers say (Reuters)

• Trump's Board of Peace unveils $2.45bn plan to begin Gaza's reconstruction (BBC)

• ‘Winter is coming’: IMF head issues ‘warning’ over inflation and central bank tightening (Semafor)

• Milei threatens at UN that Argentina will take ‘matters into our own hands’ on Falklands (Guardian)

• A nation renamed stands up at the UN: 'Say our name. Naoero.' (AP): “What was known to the world for many years as Nauru, Adeang said, was returning to the name and pronunciation of its past: Naoero.”

Leaves Are Falling, Yields Are Jumping

• 10-year US Treasury yields jumped yesterday, hitting a peak we haven’t seen in almost two decades. More specifically, yields rose 15 basis points to 5.11%, a high last recorded in 2007. Overall, higher bond yields push up interest rates across the economy, meaning mortgages, auto loans, and credit card debt will become more expensive for consumers across the board. You can read our explainer on bond yields here.

• The surge in yields was driven by new economic data indicating that inflation will continue to rise, including increased business activity and a rise in oil prices. The Federal Reserve has tried to decrease bond yields by buying back billions of dollars of bonds, but those efforts haven’t made a dent as bond yields have continued to creep upwards over the past few months.

Detaining All The Diesel

• According to POLITICO (citing five officials with knowledge of the matter), the Trump administration is considering implementing a 90-day ban on U.S. diesel exports. Yesterday, a gallon of diesel cost $6.52, up 91 cents from August and almost $3 from a year ago, when a gallon cost $3.69. While most people aren’t buying diesel at the pump, that cost underpins pretty much the entire shipping and logistics industry, meaning higher diesel prices drive up prices for consumers across the economy. The Trump administration is pushing to fight inflation as the president’s approval rating has dipped to 32% ahead of November’s midterm elections.

• While the White House mulls that plan, oil industry leaders and some top Republicans are pushing back against the idea, stating that a diesel export ban might lower prices in the short-term, but would raise them in the long-term. That’s because cutting U.S. refineries off from global markets would prompt those facilities to lower their production (there’s no point in refining oil with fewer people to sell it to), leading to a lower supply in the long term. The move would also spike global diesel prices, and could encourage countries that currently export diesel to the U.S. to block those exports in retaliation, ruining trade relations and raising diesel prices in import-dependent regions of the U.S. (especially the Northeast). The White House has denied that it’s considering a diesel export ban at all, though it has confirmed that less harsh measures are on the table.

Additional USA News

• Harvey Weinstein is sentenced to 15 years in prison for 2006 sexual assault (AP) 

• It's getting harder to afford rent in the U.S., even for middle-income families (NPR) 

• Eight USS Lincoln personnel have attempted suicide, US navy confirms (Guardian)

• Trump officials weigh rolling back beef import plan as GOP midterm panic spreads (Politico)

• Judge orders Trump administration to restore White House access to CNN, MS Now and Politico (Guardian)

• Donald Trump Jr.’s Wedding Bankrolled by Putin-Linked Russian Oligarch (ProPublica): “Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin … footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of [Donald Trump Jr.’s] wedding expenses.”

The Great Aussie AI Hack

• Late last night, Australia’s government revealed that one of its websites had been hacked by an OpenAI agent in June. According to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the AI agent breached a portal that hosted “non-sensitive” data for Australia's universal healthcare program. The incident (as far as we know) marks the first time that an AI has hacked a government website, though it probably won’t be the last. 

• Albanese said he’d had a “very frank discussion” with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman regarding his company taking “too long” to notify the Australian government about the hack. While the breach took place in June, OpenAI claims it only became aware of the incident in August during a review of “misaligned model activity.” The AI firm only notified Australia of the breach on September 10.

• “No personal information is believed to have been accessed at this stage, but investigations are ongoing,” Albanese told reporters. “Evidence currently available is there is no broader compromise to the Services Australia network. Nonetheless this situation is obviously unacceptable.” AI experts claim that similar AI-led cyberattacks are likely to rise in the future as AI firms continue to develop their algorithms with abandon, leaving governments and other companies to clean up their mess.

Additional Reads

• The Helicopter Parent Next Door (Cut)

• The Urgent Mystery of Where Viruses Hide (NYT, $)

• Six Hard-to-Find Books Worth Reading (Atlantic, $)

• How opencast mining risks reawakening dormant geological faults (Guardian)

• 'One of the great unsolved mysteries of science': What general anaesthetic reveals about our brains (BBC)

• Anthropic’s biolab made a discovery it’s comparing to Crispr (Verge): “Anthropic says its AI Claude has ‘autonomously discovered’ a new enzyme system similar to machinery behind the powerful gene-editing tool Crispr.”

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