What happened
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) group announced late last night that it would enter into a three-month humanitarian ceasefire, framing the move as a response to international diplomacy and “chiefly” to Donald Trump’s recent pledge to seek an end to the conflict. The declaration followed weeks of pressure from the US, UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia – known collectively as the Quad – who had earlier proposed a truce followed by negotiations.

Who said what
RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (pictured above) said he was ordering a halt to hostilities for three months and urged the Quad to push the Sudanese army “to engage with this step”. Army head General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan dismissed the Quad proposal as weakening his forces and said the Sudanese people would not accept “these rebels” as part of any future settlement. UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem bint Ebrahim Al Hashimy accused al-Burhan of “consistently obstructive behaviour” in refusing to back a ceasefire.

What next?
With famine spreading and both sides under US sanctions, pressure is likely to intensify on Sudan’s army to respond, although it “remains unclear if al-Burhan’s position has changed at all since Sunday”, said Al Jazeera, when he called the Quad-backed proposal the “worst yet”.

What happened
One of Britain’s biggest metal recycling businesses has filed for liquidation, leaving hundreds of workers at risk of redundancy. Unimetals Group, which operates 27 sites across the UK, purchased rival Sims Metals UK for £195 million last year, but reportedly failed to make at least one deferred payment as part of the transaction.

Who said what
“We recognise how distressing this news will be for everyone connected to Unimetals Recycling (UK) Ltd,” said the company in a statement, “particularly our employees who have worked tirelessly over the past year since we acquired it from Sims to try and turn this business around.”

Unimetals attempted to secure new financing while filing several notices of intention to appoint administrators, according to Insider Media. Several major steel and metals groups were approached over the past month, but the search for a buyer “failed to produce a deal”, said Sky News.

What next?
Professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal has been coordinating talks about Unimetals’ future. “We are working urgently to agree on a clear plan and timeline for what happens next,” said Unimetals.

The song “Walk My Walk” by country group Breaking Rust recently reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart. However, the raspy cowboy singing the tune is nothing but a series of code. Breaking Rust is a product of artificial intelligence and “Walk My Walk” is now the first AI-generated song to top this particular chart in US music history. The song’s success raises questions about the effect of AI slop on art and how its use will affect creatives everywhere.

AI music is “no longer a fantasy or niche curiosity”, said Billboard. It is “already beginning to have an impact” on music charts. Breaking Rust has amassed more than two million listeners on Spotify, with multiple songs that have been streamed in excess of one million times. The platform lists someone named Aubierre Rivaldo Taylor as the composer and lyricist of the group, though that name “appears connected only to Breaking Rust and a separate AI music project called Defbeatsai”, said the San Francisco Chronicle. Many question whether Taylor is a real person at all.

Even on the same chart, another AI-generated musician, Cain Walker, holds the third, ninth and 11th spots. Over the summer a number of songs by the indie band Velvet Sundown, another AI-generated group, surpassed one million streams on Spotify. As technology is advancing, much of the AI slop is “nearly indistinguishable from the real thing”, said country music platform Whiskey Riff. This “poses a risk to actual artists, songwriters and fans who value real art”. And the problem is only likely to get worse, especially given the sheer volume of output. The streaming platform Deezer receives more than 50,000 fully AI-generated tracks every day, according to a report by the company.