TODAY’S MARKETS story

Gold tops $4K per ounce, signaling financial unease

What happened
Gold prices rose above $4,000 per troy ounce for the first time yesterday, as investors rush to invest in safe assets amid financial and geopolitical tumult. Interest in gold and other precious metals “typically spikes when investors become anxious,” The Associated Press said, and gold has jumped more than 50% this year while silver futures are “up nearly 60%.”

Who said what
Gold’s sharp rise echoes a similar surge that occurred in 1979 amid a period of “high inflation, a depreciating dollar and a geopolitical crisis in the Middle East,” said The New York Times. “This time around,” The Wall Street Journal said, investors are worried that President Donald Trump’s trade war and other policies will “upend the postwar economic order underpinned by the U.S. dollar.”

This “modern-day gold rush has driven many Americans to sell off old jewelry to be melted down” for cash, and others to Costco to buy gold bars, the Journal said, and the “higher prices have been a boon to gold-mining companies.” That mining “frenzy” has also “resulted in health and environmental consequences,” the AP said, as “illegal gold mining” uses a lot of mercury.

What next?
Some analysts caution that “gold’s multiyear-runs higher have consistently been followed by dramatic busts,” while others predict this rally will be “long lasting,” the Journal said. “Gold will fall at some point,” precious metal dealer Gregor Gregerson told the BBC, “but I believe given the economic environment, it’s on an upward trend for at least five years.”

TODAY’S INTERNATIONAL Story

Israel intercepts 2nd Gaza aid flotilla in a week

What happened
Israel said its military this morning intercepted a flotilla of nine boats bound for Gaza with 145 activists aboard along with medical and food aid. Organizers of this latest attempt to break Israel’s 18-year naval blockade of Gaza called the detentions in international waters “arbitrary and unlawful.” The interception came three days into high-stakes Israeli-Hamas peace talks in Egypt, and a week after Israel commandeered a 42-boat convoy headed to Gaza.

Who said what
“Another futile attempt to breach the legal naval blockade and enter a combat zone ended in nothing,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on social media today. Last week’s interception of the larger flotilla “drew widespread condemnation and sparked large protests in several major cities and a one-day strike across Italy,” The Associated Press said. Israel has already deported most of the 479 lawmakers and activists aboard, including Greta Thunberg, and some “described mistreatment at the hands of Israeli guards, claims that Israel denies.”

The aid flotillas aim to deliver much-needed supplies to Gaza or at least draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in the embattled Palestinian enclave. Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry says “at least 460 Palestinians have died from the effects of malnutrition since the start of the war,” the BBC said.

What next?
The newly seized activists, doctors, politicians and Turkish lawmakers are “safe and in good health,” the Israeli government said, and are “expected to be deported promptly.” President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner are en route to join the Egypt peace talks today, and as “architects” of Trump’s 20-point peace plan, officials told The New York Times, their presence should “signal progress.”

It’s not all bad

Nearly two dozen incarcerated women graduated last week after earning their degrees through California State University Los Angeles’ Prison Graduation Initiative. This is the first cohort of women to complete the program, which involves taking in-prison classes for a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies. Billie Jean King delivered the commencement address in a ceremony at the California Institution for Women. One graduate told ABC 7 she is “beyond grateful” for her education and the opportunities it will bring.

Under the radar

Nepal chooses toddler as its new ‘living goddess’

“She was just my daughter yesterday, but today she is a goddess.” So said the father of Aryatara Shakya, the 2-year-old who has been proclaimed Nepal’s new “living goddess.” The toddler was installed as the latest Kumari at a temple palace in Kathmandu last week during the country’s most significant Hindu festival, Dashain.

Revered by both Hindus and Buddhists in Nepal, the Kumari is an embodiment of the divine female energy. Typically chosen when she is between ages 2 and 4, the Kumari must meet strict physical criteria, including “unblemished skin, hair, eyes and teeth,” said The Associated Press.

The chosen girls spend most of their childhood sequestered within the temple, although traditions have evolved to include some private tutoring. Beyond the temple walls, their feet are not allowed to touch the ground — during festivals, the Kumari is “wheeled around on a chariot pulled by devotees.”

A Kumari becomes mortal again when the girl reaches puberty, and former goddesses “often face difficulties adjusting to normal life,” said DW. In her 1990s memoir “From Goddess to Mortal,” ex-Kumari Rashmila Shakya described her lack of education and struggle to reintegrate into society.

“The Kumari is forced to give up her childhood,” said one of Nepal’s leading human rights lawyers, Sapana Pradhan-Malla. “She has to be a goddess instead.” Nepal is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, she noted, which makes it clear that “you can’t exploit children in the name of culture.”

On this day

October 8, 2001

President George W. Bush established the White House Office of Homeland Security, which was expanded by congressional legislation into the Department of Homeland Security a year later. DHS is the most recently created Cabinet-level agency. It was founded in response to terrorism threats, but the Trump administration has vastly and controversially expanded its role in immigration enforcement.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘Worlds shattered’

“On Oct. 7, Israel remembers,” The Boston Globe says on Wednesday’s front page. “Two years later, worlds shattered in Israel, Gaza,” the Los Angeles Times says. In the U.S., “justices are skeptical of bans on LGBTQ ‘conversion therapy,’” The Wall Street Journal says. “Texas National Guard arrives,” the Chicago Tribune says. Those “boots on the ground” are at a “facility in far southwest suburban Elwood,” the Chicago Sun-Times says. “ICE detention oversight office closed during shutdown,” says The Washington Post. “Back pay not assured for federal employees,” according to “new White House memo,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says. “Trump’s tariffs may fuel ’26 midterms,” says USA Today.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

He’ll be back?

A rare black swan nicknamed Mr. Terminator has been evicted from Stratford-Upon-Avon after attacking the English town’s beloved white swans. Swan warden Cyril Bennis said Mr. Terminator initially impressed locals and tourists alike, becoming “more popular than William Shakespeare himself,” but things took a dark turn when he tried to drown several of the white swans. Bennis removed Mr. Terminator from the water — his chest is still “a little bit sore” from the experience — and relocated him further north.

Morning Report was written and edited by Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Harriet Marsden, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Kari Wilkin, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.