The Handover
Monday 12 October 2026
The day in 7 stories, as Asia signs off and New York wakes up.
Science
International timekeepers vote to abolish leap second, change to take effect in 2027
BIPM delegates near Versailles will vote this week on ending the leap second, used since 1972 to align atomic clocks with Earth’s rotation. It would be replaced by a leap hour, likely centuries from now.
Geopolitics
Yandex suspends Vladimir data centre after third drone strike in a week
Ukrainian drones damaged a Yandex data centre in Vladimir on Sunday, forcing a complete shutdown after the third strike on its facilities this week. Internet infrastructure is now a wartime target.
Geopolitics
PM Burnham confirms Russia interfered in Brexit, warns France and Germany
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said intelligence advisers confirmed Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum. He warned that similar disinformation campaigns are targeting voters in France and Germany.
Crypto
XRP Ledger defends emergency patch for bug that could mint unlimited XRP
XRP Ledger developers issued an emergency patch for a bug that could create XRP beyond its fixed supply, bypassing the usual two-week validator vote. They said waiting would have left the network exposed.
AI
Anthropic's AI scanner finds thousands of bugs, but only a fraction are patched
Anthropic’s Claude-powered OSS Scanner found more than 29,000 candidate vulnerabilities in widely used open-source software in six months, but only 516 were patched. Human review and remediation have not kept pace.
Startups
Efferon's pediatric sepsis device, a first for children, now in use across 30 countries
Efferon says Efferon NEO, the first multimodal blood purification device engineered for pediatric sepsis, is used in intensive care units across 30 countries. It received a CE mark in April.
Australia
Melbourne imam named by UAE in hijack probe vows to 'fast from talking'
Melbourne imam Abu Hamza said he would “fast from talking” after UAE authorities linked his Broadmeadows mosque to an accused flydubai hijacker. He did not address claims that the suspect was radicalised there.
The Handover is the day in a handful of stories, weekday evenings at 8pm your time, and a thread on X at 7am in New York and in London. Get it by email or push from your account, or subscribe by email.
Also posted as a thread on X: @zotpaper.