Reuters World News - Christa Pike hearing, October 7 and mortgage rate spikes (Updated)
Episode Date: October 7, 2026Christa Pike's lawyers petition to save all evidence in her botched execution attempt. Riot police and protesters clash as a quarter of a million people join schools protests across France. Israel mar...ks three years since the October 7 Hamas attack. And US 30-year mortgage rates hit highest level since 2023. Podcasts, breaking news, and video analysis from the source. Download the Reuters app here. Listen to the Morning Bid podcast here. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter here. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast here. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Hi, I'm Kim Vinal in Wanganui, New Zealand.
And I'm Christopher Waljasper in Chicago.
It's Wednesday, October 7th.
Today, a Tennessee judge orders all evidence to be retained in the botched execution of Krista Pike.
Demonstrations across France as teachers and parents join high school students on the streets.
Israelis mark three years since the Hamas attack as Gaza lies in ruins.
And 30-year mortgage rates in the U.S. jump to the highest since 2023.
This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week.
The court will pin and grant its own order granting the moment the moment.
motion to preserve relevant evidence.
As a primary matter, we want all drugs, syringes, IV lines, tubing that are within the
state's possession needles.
Tennessee Chancellor's Court Judge Lichaea Miles, ordering the Tennessee Department of Corrections
to retain all evidence related to Krista Pike's botched execution last week.
Two injections of Pina Barbitol failed to kill her, leaving her unconscious and in critical condition.
Her lawyers say the execution drug seeped out of her veins and into her surrounding tissue,
leaving her with caustic burns on both of her arms.
She's now awake and speaking, but remains shackled to a hospital bed.
Her lawyers say she's the first person known to survive a completed execution attempt in the U.S.,
and they're calling it torture.
Our reporter, Steve Gorman, explains how Pike's lawyers are approaching this unprecedented case.
I suppose that if they could make a case in court that she was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment,
then they could use that perhaps as ammunition for a pleading to stay any further execution attempts
because that would be a violation of the Constitution, and they couldn't pretty.
proceed. But beside that, for now, the governor, Bill Lee, suspended or halted, paused
any further executions by the state of Tennessee through the remainder of this year.
What he said, it was a comprehensive inquiry to determine, get to the bottom of what went
long, what happened. And so it looks that no matter what happens in court, she's not in jeopardy
going back into the execution chamber any time for the rest of this year.
Riot police confront protesters in Paris, hitting them with batons and using tear gas
as protesters anger over France's ailing education system boils over.
A quarter of a million people joined in mostly peaceful demonstrations across the country,
with teachers, parents and activists joining high schoolers to demand better staffing levels,
functioning school buildings and more funding.
Even so, Prime Minister Sebastian Leconi says more than 200 students
and dozens of school staffers have been injured.
Reporter Juliet Jabiru spoke to us from a demonstration in Paris.
What has been really striking and what people, I mean,
especially rights groups and unions have complained about,
is the police response because we've seen a number,
potentially unprecedented number of arrests.
And there have also been like a few occurrences of police violence,
with investigations being opened into several cases
in different French towns.
In the north of France, a protester lost a hand.
I think he was just 15-year-old.
So these have shocked the opinion.
And at the same time, there's also questions about violence,
the fact that maybe the student protesters being met
by police has only increased the levels of violence.
So tension has really really...
has really risen and the government got kind of top like a huge crisis on its hand.
Three years ago today, Hamas launched an attack on Israel that became the deadliest day
in the country's history. Militans crossed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people
and taking 251 people hostage. From the resulting,
Israel-Ghasa war, more than 74,000 Palestinians were killed, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Jerusalem bureau chief, Rami Ayub, says the questions raised by October 7th about security,
leadership, and the future of the region are still far from settled.
The situation on the ground in Gaza is still catastrophic. There was a ceasefire that was struck
and broken by the Trump administration on October 10, 2025.
It was supposed to bring in a surge in humanitarian relief, was supposed to see the reconstruction of Gaza,
was supposed to see Hamas laid down its weapons in exchange for Israel withdrawing from its territory.
None of that has really happened.
Israeli troops are fully occupying about two-thirds of the territory, so quite a bit more than they were originally left in power of when the ceasefire was struck about a year ago.
and the 2 million population of Gaza is crammed into a third of the original territory with inadequate food and water and living in just very difficult conditions in makeshift tents and in the ruins of bombed out buildings.
The anniversary comes just 20 days ahead of Israel's elections, a vote that is viewed as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's long tenure.
Netanyahu ahead of the election has stepped up a military campaign that he and his government says is targeting Hamas militants who were involved in the October 7th attacks.
We've also seen a big number of civilians killed, including many children.
Netanyahu has highlighted that campaign ahead of an election where opinion polls one day show that he might stand a chance and other days show that he could very well lose.
The situation on the ground in Israel on October 7th is one of reflection.
It's one of mourning, but it's one still of frustrations with what many Israelis see as a lack of responsibility taken by Netanyahu and his government for the worst security failure in the country's modern history.
The interest rate on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has jumped to its highest in nearly three years.
The 30-year is the most common U.S. home loan and jumped to an average of 7.49% as of last week.
That's according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
The last time it was higher was November of 2023.
Cost of living is top of mind for Americans as they decide how to vote on November 3rd in midterm elections that will decide if Republicans keep control of Congress.
to Spain now where Maricarman Abascal, the 87-year-old woman whose eviction last month sparked massive housing protests, has died.
Her death comes as Spain's interim government has approved two housing decrees in an attempt to calm growing outrage over the housing crisis.
Trade unions have announced a general strike over housing for November 11th.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez noted Abascal's passing in a post on X.
He wrote,
A hug as well to all of us who are feeling this loss as our own today.
The 26 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has gone to French scientist Henri Kegon and Japanese chemist Kenzo Suai
for their work solving a century-old puzzle about mirror-image molecules.
Their work is critical for pharmaceutical manufacturing.
and is built on 19th century research by Louis Pasteur.
The importance of the work is illustrated by a 1960s tragedy,
when the sedative thalidomide caused birth defects in thousands of children.
The active substances mirror image was the cause.
At 95, Kagan is the third oldest Nobel laureate ever.
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