Hello, you're listening to the free edition of the world in brief from The Economist.

As a reminder, if you subscribe to The Economist, you'll get access to a deeper look at the day ahead, updated three times a day.

If you're already an Economist subscriber, visit

economist.com slash espresso or visit our espresso app to start listening. Here's today's

free edition.

This is the world in brief from The Economist.

Our top stories.

American stocks tumbled on Thursday following damp earning reports from Microsoft and META earlier in the week. The SMP 500 slid by 1.9% while the

tech-heavy NASDAQ was down 2.8%, their largest daily declines since the start of September.

Meanwhile, Amazon reported higher third quarter earnings and revenue than analysts expected, sending

its stocks up during after-hours trading.

Najib Mikarty, Lebanon's caretaker, Prime Minister, said he was cautiously optimistic about

a ceasefire in the country.

Israeli officials met their American counterparts to discuss the possibility of a truce. Earlier, Hamas rejected an American and

Qatari proposal for a pause in the fighting in Gaza. The UN on Thursday warned of their,

quote, worst-case scenario of famine in the strip.

OpenAI launched a new search tool, posing a challenge to Google. ChatGPT search will use artificial

intelligence to answer users' questions with up-to-date information linking to relevant

web sources. Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, OpenAI, a startup, has surged to the forefront

of development in generative AI. Shares in Alphabet, Google's parent company, fell slightly on the news.

Around 8,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent to Russia's Kursk region, close to the border with

Ukraine, said Anthony Blinken, America's Secretary of State. These troops have been trained by Russia and are expected to be deployed into combat in the coming days, he added.

...