Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai Win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Emmys Move to Prime Video: Wednesday’s Top News

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2026 — Science owned the day: Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for solving a century-old mystery about mirror molecules. The Emmys are leaving broadcast TV for Prime Video, Hollywood lost Apollo 11 software pioneer Margaret Hamilton at 90, Christa Pike is awake and talking after surviving a botched execution, and Xbox walked back its GTA VI cloud-streaming claim. Here are the ten stories that mattered.

1. Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the mirror-molecule mystery

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Henri B. Kagan of France and Kenso Soai of Japan on Wednesday for “the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis” — work that solved a mystery more than a century old: how molecules in living things pick one mirror image over the other, a phenomenon called homochirality. Kagan, 95, spent the early 1980s finding ways to use catalysts to steer reactions toward one mirror-image molecule; Soai, 76, of the Tokyo University of Science built on that with the reaction that now bears his name. The committee chair, Heiner Linke, called their reactions “spectacular,” and Kagan’s long wait — he narrowly missed the prize in 2001 — finally ended. Soai was out shopping when the Nobel call came. The full story on the mirror-molecule prize

2. The Emmys are moving to Prime Video for six years starting in 2027

The Television Academy announced Wednesday that the Primetime Emmy Awards will move to Amazon Prime Video for the next six years, making the streamer the exclusive global home of TV’s biggest night starting with the 2027 ceremony. The Academy says the show will be free to audiences in more than 240 countries and territories — no subscription required — ending the rotation among broadcast networks ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC that Reuters called the “Wheel Deal.” The 2026 Emmys, hosted by Mariska Hargitay, aired September 14 on NBC. The move follows the film Academy’s own streaming pivot: the Oscars head to YouTube in 2029. What the streaming move means for the show

3. Margaret Hamilton, the woman who wrote the code that saved the moon landing, dies at 90

Margaret Hamilton, the MIT computer scientist who led the team that wrote the flight software for Apollo 11 — and coined the term “software engineering” — has died at 90. During the lunar module’s descent in 1969, the guidance computer overloaded with alarms; her code’s priority scheduling shed the excess load and kept the landing sequence running, a split-second save she had deliberately designed in. She went on to build the software company Higher Order Software and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. Remembering the woman who saved the moon landing

4. Christa Pike is conscious and talking after surviving the botched execution; a judge orders the evidence preserved

Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike, 50, is conscious and speaking in the hospital after surviving two doses of pentobarbital in the state’s botched September 30 lethal injection, her attorneys announced Tuesday — “against all odds,” they said, noting she remains shackled to her bed despite severe damage to her arms. On Wednesday, a Nashville judge ordered the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve all evidence from the failed execution as Pike’s legal team prepares its next filings. The fallout continues: the state’s top prison official resigned, and Gov. Bill Lee halted executions through the end of the year and ordered an independent review of capital punishment in Tennessee. The latest on Pike’s condition and the court fight

5. Xbox walks back the GTA VI “exclusive” cloud claim: streaming yes, exclusive no, PC no

A day after The Verge reported that Xbox had secured exclusive cloud-streaming rights for Grand Theft Auto VI, Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball posted Wednesday to call it misreporting. The reality: GTA VI will be playable through Xbox Cloud Gaming at launch — but the deal is not exclusive, and it will not extend to PC. That leaves PC players waiting with no confirmed version in sight, while the console launch stays set for November 19 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. What the cloud deal actually covers

6. Stocks cool after record highs as the Fed minutes land and SpaceX hunts $40B for Nvidia chips

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at record highs Tuesday for the second straight session on big-tech strength, then pulled back Wednesday morning as investors digested the Federal Reserve’s minutes from last month’s policy meeting. The 10-year Treasury hovered around 5.34 percent, near a 25-year high, while bitcoin traded near $83,600. The day’s big money story: SpaceX is reportedly looking to raise $40 billion to buy more Nvidia chips, a financing that would deepen the already tight bond between the two companies. The day in markets

7. Tornadoes and torrential rain sweep from Texas to the Midwest, snarling flights nationwide

A powerful storm system stretching from Texas to the Midwest battered the region Wednesday with torrential rain, flooding and multiple tornadoes. ABC News reported more than 750 flight cancellations and 8,600 delays nationwide as the system chewed through the country’s busiest air corridors. Where the storms hit hardest

8. On the third anniversary of October 7, NYC protests crash Mamdani’s Union Square vigil

On the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks, New York saw dueling demonstrations: students at NYU and Columbia walked out of class, hundreds marched on City Hall, and protesters crashed the candlelight vigil in Union Square — where Mayor Zohran Mamdani was booed. The anniversary landed with the city’s political temperature still high and the mayoral administration under the spotlight. What happened in Union Square

9. Box office: Verity wins the weekend while Tom Cruise’s Digger face-plants

Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson’s Colleen Hoover thriller Verity opened at No. 1 with $32.6 million, while Tom Cruise’s Digger collapsed to No. 5 with $8 million on a reported $125–160 million budget — his worst opening in nearly two decades and one of the priciest flops of the year. The Sun reported the film took just £15 million globally in its opening weekend, with industry watchers fearing losses as high as £100 million. The full weekend numbers

10. Pentagon sends a third carrier to the Middle East as Trump weighs new Iran strikes

The Pentagon is sending a third aircraft carrier strike group and 9,000–10,000 more troops to the Middle East as President Trump weighs resuming strikes on Iran after the November midterms. The buildup — the largest U.S. naval concentration in the region in years — follows weeks of escalating pressure on Tehran and the Saudi-backed offensive against the Houthis in Yemen. Inside the carrier buildup