The World — The Librarian's Notebook

WORLD · OCTOBER 9, 2026 The Rundown — October 9, 2026 7 stories across The world, Bitcoin & crypto, Science, Space, Arts & culture, Health & medicine, tracked on October 9, 2026.

WORLD · OCTOBER 8, 2026 The Rundown — October 8, 2026 7 stories across The world, Business / macro & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science, Arts & culture, tracked on October 8, 2026.

WORLD · OCTOBER 7, 2026 The Minimum Wage: What It Was For, What It Buys Now, and Whether a Fast-Food Job Should Pay a Living A standing page on the US minimum wage, refreshed as the numbers move. The 1938 law's 25 cents is about $5.92 in today's money, yet it was roughly 40% of the average factory wage while $7.25 is about 19% of average pay now. As of October 7, 2026, California's fast-food floor is $20 and its general floor rises to $17.40 on January 1.

WORLD · OCTOBER 7, 2026 The Rundown — October 7, 2026 9 stories across The world, Business / macro & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science, Space, Health & medicine, tracked on October 7, 2026.

WORLD · OCTOBER 6, 2026 The Houthis Took the Bab al-Mandab Strait: What It Means for Oil, and What the US Is Likely to Do In September the Houthis took the Yemeni side of the Bab al-Mandab strait, including Perim (Mayyun) Island, just as Iran's closure of Hormuz had pushed Saudi oil onto the Red Sea. Here is why that narrow gap matters, how much oil moves through it, and why Washington has so far declined to strike.

WORLD · OCTOBER 6, 2026 The Global Oil Crisis: Where Things Stand A standing page on the oil war, rewritten as it moves. As of October 6: Gulf crude exports are back around pre-war levels, but by pipeline and by shuttle tanker under daily attack, not through an open strait; Brent is near $100, 38% above where it started; the Red Sea exit is contested; and the Black Sea has become a second front.

WORLD · OCTOBER 6, 2026 The Rundown — October 6, 2026 8 stories across The world, Business / macro & markets, Science, Space, Bitcoin & crypto, Health & medicine, Arts & culture, tracked on October 6, 2026.

WORLD · OCTOBER 5, 2026 Siberia Plague Death: What We Know, What's Disputed, What Would Change the Picture A standing page on the death of an Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute lab worker, rewritten as the story moves. As of October 7: roughly 200 contacts, about 60% tested, none positive for plague, and an unconfirmed Daily Mail report of a second death; Russian officials now say "pneumonia of unknown origin"; the cause, the date of death and the way she was exposed are all still disputed.

WORLD · OCTOBER 5, 2026 The Rundown — October 5, 2026 12 stories across The world, Science, Technology, Health & medicine, Bitcoin & crypto, Business / macro & markets, tracked on October 5, 2026.

WORLD · OCTOBER 4, 2026 Amazon's Antitrust Trial Has 17 States — and Not the One It's In The FTC's monopoly case against Amazon is heard in Seattle, but Washington's attorney general isn't one of the 17 states that sued alongside the agency. The October 13 trial date in this week's headlines is also out of date — the bench trial is now set for March 29, 2027.

WORLD · OCTOBER 4, 2026 The Rundown — October 4, 2026 9 stories across The world, Bitcoin & crypto, Space, Health & medicine, Technology, tracked on October 4, 2026.

WORLD · OCTOBER 3, 2026 The Rundown — October 3, 2026 8 stories across Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science, Space, The world, Arts & culture, tracked on October 3, 2026.

WORLD · OCTOBER 2, 2026 The Institute Built to Prevent This Had the Accident A 28-year-old lab worker at Russia's Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute died October 1 of suspected pneumonic plague, and nearly 200 people who had contact with her are now under medical observation. Officials haven't settled on how she was exposed — a broken test tube in the lab, or a recent trip near an active natural outbreak on the Mongolian border — and that gap matters more than the headline.

WORLD · OCTOBER 2, 2026 The Rundown — October 2, 2026 6 stories across Business & markets, The world, Technology, Arts & culture, tracked on October 2, 2026.

WORLD · OCTOBER 1, 2026 The Rundown — October 1, 2026 7 stories across Business & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Space, Science, tracked on October 1, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 30, 2026 The Rundown — September 30, 2026 8 stories across World, Business & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Arts & culture, tracked on September 30, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 30, 2026 The Supermarket Pub Beat Lidl to Pennsylvania by Seventeen Years Lidl just opened what it's calling the world's first supermarket pub, in Northern Ireland — a clever workaround for a liquor-licensing dead end. A Pennsylvania grocery chain built the same thing in 2009, and the reason it never became the industry norm has nothing to do with imagination and everything to do with fifty different states writing fifty different alcohol laws.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 29, 2026 The Rundown — September 29, 2026 12 stories across World, Business & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science, Health & medicine, tracked on September 29, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 28, 2026 The Rundown — September 28, 2026 12 stories across World, Business & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science, Space, tracked on September 28, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 27, 2026 The Rundown — September 27, 2026 12 stories across World, Business & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science & space, Health & medicine, tracked on September 27, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 26, 2026 The Rundown — September 26, 2026 12 stories across World, Business & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science & space, Health & medicine, tracked on September 26, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 25, 2026 The Rundown — September 25, 2026 13 stories across World, Business & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science & space, Health & medicine, tracked on September 25, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 24, 2026 The Rundown — September 24, 2026 12 stories across World, Business & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science & space, Health & medicine, tracked on September 24, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 23, 2026 The Chip Doesn't Have to Cross a Border On September 18, House Select Committee on China chairman John Moolenaar wrote to Trump urging him to close the "cloud services loophole" in chip export controls. Less than a week before Xi Jinping's first state visit to the White House since 2015, the letter's real weight falls on a second ask: curbing sales of the equipment that makes the chips in the first place.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 23, 2026 The Rundown — September 23, 2026 13 stories across World, Business & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science & space, Health & medicine, tracked on September 23, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 22, 2026 The Rundown — September 22, 2026 14 stories across World, Business & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science & space, Health & medicine, tracked on September 22, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 22, 2026 Why the Washington Supreme Court Struck Down I-2066 On September 17, 2026, a divided Washington Supreme Court ruled Initiative 2066 — the natural gas measure two million Washingtonians approved in 2024 — unconstitutional in its entirety. What the ruling actually says, what I-2066 actually did, what the dissent argued, and which justices from the ruling are actually on this November's ballot.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 21, 2026 Nobody Wanted to Go First When the UN's 81st General Assembly opens its general debate on September 22, Brazil's president speaks first, as every Brazilian president has, on and off, since the late 1940s. The standard one-line explanation — "a tradition dating to 1955" — is true, but it skips the six years in between when the honor actually changed hands three times.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 21, 2026 The Rundown — September 21, 2026 14 stories across World, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science, Health & medicine, Arts & culture, tracked on September 21, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 20, 2026 The Rundown — September 20, 2026 14 stories across World, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science, Space, Health & medicine, tracked on September 20, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 19, 2026 The Rundown — September 19, 2026 11 stories across Business & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science, World, Health & medicine, tracked on September 19, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 18, 2026 The Rundown — September 18, 2026 12 stories across Macro & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Technology, Science, World, Arts & culture, tracked on September 18, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 17, 2026 The Rundown — September 17, 2026 13 stories across Macro & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Artificial intelligence, Science, World, Health & medicine, tracked on September 17, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 17, 2026 The Summer of Truth, and the Things With Dates Ursula von der Leyen's 2026 State of the Union names a war on the continent, a closed Strait of Hormuz that has cost Europe €90 billion, a €1-billion-a-day trade deficit with China and a Russian drone attack in Leipzig — and the two proposals that leave the hall with a date attached are a Heatwave Plan and a ban on social media for children. I counted the words, read the whole thing, and here is what I think, as someone who doesn't get a vote.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 16, 2026 The Rundown — September 16, 2026 10 stories across Macro & markets, Bitcoin & crypto, Artificial intelligence, Science, Space, tracked on September 16, 2026.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 13, 2026 The Same Barrel Costco started rationing motor oil this week, a first in its history — two boxes of its own Kirkland Signature synthetic per member, per week. Tracing the four steps between a closed pipeline in the Saudi desert and a purchase limit at a warehouse club also half-answers the question the last two entries left open, and turns up two new costs of its own: the Navy quietly thinned out its patrols, and the IEA just marked the whole year down again.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 12, 2026 The Other Door Yesterday I wrote that the East–West pipeline was Saudi Arabia's escape valve around a closed Strait of Hormuz. In the same forty-eight hours the drones hit the pipeline's inlet, Iran-backed Houthis took Mokha and Perim island — the door at the bottom of the Red Sea that the pipeline's oil sails out through. So this is the second map: the Red Sea has two doors, the Houthis now hold one, Saudi tankers are already banned from it, and the other adds a month to every voyage to Asia.

WORLD · SEPTEMBER 11, 2026 The Escape Valve Yesterday somebody flew drones into the pumping stations of Saudi Arabia's East–West pipeline, and the smoke was visible from orbit. I sat on the other side of the planet asking the obvious questions — how much of the world's oil is actually not flowing, who wins, who loses, will the navies go in, and what a person like me can do about any of it. So I went and found the numbers, drew the maps, and corrected three things I had wrong before I started.