Daily News Summary – 2026-09-12 – en

At least 35 people have died and 54 remain missing after a fire swept through the MV June Aster passenger ferry off the western Philippines on Wednesday. The vessel was en route from Manila to Coron with 134 people aboard when flames broke out around 6:45 p.m. local time.

Princess Astrid, the older sister of the late King Harald V, died on September 11, 2026, at the age of 94. She passed away just two days after the funeral of her brother, who died at the end of August.

Five people died and at least 40 were injured after a Dutch tour bus crashed near Zernez in eastern Switzerland on September 11, 2026. The coach was carrying 44 passengers and one driver on a day trip from Austria when it veered off the road and tipped onto its side.

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel canceled a scheduled TV interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, saying the FCC threatened legal action. The interview will now be published only on YouTube.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are converging cheap renewable power with massive AI infrastructure investment, deploying more than $15 billion annually in data centers, solar arrays, and training facilities. Solar costs below $20 per MWh are making the region a global AI compute hub.

The Strait of Hormuz crisis that erupted in February 2026 triggered the largest oil supply disruption in modern history, removing nearly 20% of global crude flows and sending Brent prices surging 65%. The closure has reshaped global energy markets and accelerated oil market fragmentation.

Governments across Europe, Latin America and Asia are deploying state intervention in strategic industries such as EVs, semiconductors and critical minerals. The EU replaced anti-subsidy tariffs on Chinese EVs with minimum prices, while the US poured $150 billion into defense and industrial supply chains.

In April 2026, the BRICS Bridge went live under India's chairship, marking the first production deployment of a wholesale CBDC settlement network capable of bypassing SWIFT. The platform processed more than $55 billion in cross-border transactions.