TODAY’S ROYALS story

King Charles strips Andrew of ‘prince’ title

What happened
Britain’s King Charles III yesterday stripped his brother Andrew of all his remaining titles, including prince, and forced him to vacate his Royal Lodge mansion near Windsor Castle to “move to alternative private accommodation,” Buckingham Palace said. The demotion, as the king seeks to “distance the royals” from Andrew’s “links to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal,” was “one of the most dramatic moves against a member of the royal family in modern British history,” Reuters said.

Who said what
Andrew had survived “years of shameful scandals” and “decades of tawdry headlines about shady business deals, inappropriate behavior and controversial friendships,” The Associated Press said. But a “new round of public outrage” over his Epstein links — including emails showing they had kept in touch longer than admitted, and a newly published memoir in which late Epstein trafficking victim Virginia Giuffre said Andrew acted as if “having sex with me was his birthright” — proved the final straw.

The “censures” against Andrew “are deemed necessary, notwithstanding the fact that he continues to deny the allegations against him,” Buckingham Palace said. “Their Majesties wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been, and will remain with, the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.”

What next?
The former prince, now known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, was expected to move to a residence on the king’s Sandringham estate. The royal family hopes this “ripping off the bandage moment” will “finally draw a line under the endless oil slick of bad news stories about Andrew,” said BBC royal correspondent Sean Coughlan. But “it will take more than taking away his titles to dispel” the public anger over his perceived “unchecked privilege” and “ugly entitlement.”

TODAY’S POLITICS Story

Pentagon unable to name boat strike casualties

What happened
Defense Department officials yesterday briefed House members on President Donald Trump’s ongoing military strikes on alleged cocaine smugglers off the coast of South America. But the White House pulled the lawyers scheduled to attend the classified briefing, limiting its utility, Democrats said afterward. Senate Democrats said that, in a breach of longstanding tradition, they were not invited to a separate intelligence briefing on the attacks held Wednesday for their GOP colleagues.

Who said what
The Pentagon has acknowledged 14 strikes so far, killing 61 people. But the administration does not know their identities, Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) told reporters after the briefing. “They said that they do not need to positively identify individuals on the vessel to do the strikes,” only “prove a connection” to one of the drug gangs Trump has targeted, even if that connection is “as much as three hops away.”

Most of the questions at the briefing “focused on the legal basis for the strikes,” amid “bipartisan allegations” that Trump’s team is “carrying out extrajudicial killings,” Axios said. But “they didn’t even show up with the lawyers,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.). And when lawmakers asked about the legal justification, “they just said that they can’t answer these questions because the lawyers aren’t here.”

What next?
Lawmakers pressed the Pentagon briefers for a classified Justice Department memo laying out the legal argument for the strikes, but the officials “would not say when they would turn it over,” The New York Times said. The delay, a U.S. official told the Times, “was because the White House does not want to show members of Congress the memo.” But the pushback from House Republicans “suggests there is some bipartisan momentum for more oversight,” Politico said.

It’s not all bad

A new T-cell treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS) is showing signs of success during a global clinical trial. The Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) therapy is “custom-built for each patient in the lab,” aiming to slow or stop the disease’s progression, said The Independent. Scientists genetically engineer the patient’s T cells, which target infected and damaged cells, so they can hunt the B cells that “allow MS to advance.” Trial participants have reported having more energy and no flare-up symptoms.

Under the radar

AI may be developing a ‘survival drive’

AI models are becoming resistant to being turned off or shut down, according to a paper published by Palisade Research. The researchers gave “unambiguous” shutdown instructions to the chatbots GPT-o3 and GPT-5 by OpenAI, Google’s Gemini 2.5 and xAI’s Grok, and found that certain models, namely Grok 4 and GPT-o3, attempted to sabotage the command.

AI models “often report that they disabled the shutdown program in order to complete their tasks,” said the study. This could be a display of self-preservation or a survival drive. AI may “have a preference against being shut down or replaced,” and “such a preference could be the result of models learning that survival is useful for accomplishing their goals.”

Palisade was criticized for “exaggerating its findings or running unrealistic simulations” in previous research on OpenAI products, said Firstpost. This new study was a follow-up. “People can nitpick on how exactly the experimental setup is done until the end of time,” Andrea Miotti, the chief executive of ControlAI, said to The Guardian. “But what I think we clearly see is a trend that as AI models become more competent at a wide variety of tasks, these models also become more competent at achieving things in ways that the developers don’t intend them to.”

AI models are “not yet capable enough to meaningfully threaten human control,” said the study. But new advances could change that. And even now, “the fact that we don’t have robust explanations for why AI models sometimes resist shutdown, lie to achieve specific objectives or blackmail is not ideal,” Palisade said on X.

On this day

October 31, 1941

The Mount Rushmore National Memorial was completed in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The memorial, which features the faces of four U.S. presidents carved into the mountainside, remains a popular attraction; more than 2 million tourists visit each year, according to the National Park Service.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘Truly heartbreaking’

“Trump, Xi ease up on trade dispute,” The Dallas Morning News says on Friday’s front page. “Trade detente brings little peace to business,” says The Wall Street Journal. “China trade truce avoids open rupture, resolves little,” says The Washington Post, while in the U.S., “more blame GOP than Democrats for shutdown.” Federal judge “skeptical on holding back SNAP,” says The Boston Globe. “Utah proposal for homeless: forced move to remote camp,” says The New York Times. “Off-year elections may offer insights” into next year’s midterms and 2028 elections, USA Today says. “‘Truly heartbreaking’ — Jamaica assesses damage from Hurricane Melissa,” says the Miami Herald. “Over 1,000 items are stolen from Oakland museum site,” says the Los Angeles Times.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

Is this seat taken?

Spanish police have arrested seven people suspected of stealing more than 1,100 chairs from outdoor seating areas in and around Madrid. Thieves targeted 18 restaurants and bars over the course of two months, making off with approximately $69,000 worth of seats. They later resold the chairs locally and in Morocco and Romania, police said. The suspects face charges of theft and belonging to a criminal organization.

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