Texas Early Voting Breaks Records, Salesforce Buys Braze for $5.66 Billion, and the BBC Closes Three Channels: Tuesday's Top News

Nightly Wrap · News

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2026

SpaceX turned its AI build-out into its biggest business, Netflix’s profit beat could not outrun a slower forecast, and Texas voters showed up early in record numbers. Salesforce wrote a $5.66 billion check, the BBC chose streaming over three broadcast channels, and Magic: The Gathering had the biggest quarter in its history. Here are the ten stories that mattered.

1. SpaceX revenue jumps 161 percent as its AI business overtakes Starlink

SpaceX reported third-quarter revenue of $14.58 billion on Tuesday, up 161 percent from a year earlier and well ahead of the roughly $12.72 billion analysts expected, Reuters reported. The company swung to a net profit of $4.4 billion from a $541 million loss in the second quarter, in its second earnings report since June’s initial public offering. The story inside the numbers is the changing of the guard: the Super Intelligence segment — AI computing, Grok and the Cursor acquisition — brought in $7.56 billion and passed the connectivity business for the first time, while Starlink-led connectivity added $5.25 billion, up 69 percent, on 13.6 million subscribers. SpaceX shares rose about 4 percent in after-hours trading, and Elon Musk told the earnings call that independent director committees at SpaceX and Tesla are discussing a possible merger of the two companies at shareholders’ request — an idea he said he supports, according to the New York Post.

2. Netflix profit beats, but a slower forecast sends the shares down

Netflix posted a stronger-than-expected third-quarter profit of $2.8 billion on Tuesday, with revenue up 11.8 percent, TheWrap reported — and investors sold anyway. The streamer projected fourth-quarter revenue growth of 11.5 percent, a slowdown from 17.6 percent in the same period a year ago, set full-year revenue at $51.1 billion, at the low end of its earlier guidance, and trimmed expected advertising sales to about $2.7 billion from $3 billion. Shares fell about 6 percent in after-hours trading. The report landed days after Netflix cut roughly 1,000 jobs — about 6 percent of its workforce, its largest layoff since 2022 — and replaced its content leadership. Our coverage of the Netflix leadership shakeup

3. Texas early voting opens with record first-day turnout in Dallas and Harris counties

Early voting for the November 3 midterms opened Monday with record first-day numbers in Texas’ two biggest urban counties. Dallas County recorded 76,069 voters on day one, passing the previous record of 60,573 set in 2020, according to county elections figures cited by Judge Clay Jenkins and reported by the Daily Caller, while Harris County processed more than 70,000 in-person voters by mid-afternoon — already past the 63,188 midterm record from 2018 — on its way past 100,000 for the day. On the campaign trail, Gov. Greg Abbott brought his “Let’s Roll” get-out-the-vote tour to Corpus Christi on Tuesday, urging supporters to download his Abbott Impact app and keep Texas red, the Caller-Times reported. Congressional control is on the ballot in two weeks, and both parties are reading the early lines.

4. Salesforce agrees to buy Braze for $5.66 billion

Salesforce said Tuesday it will acquire customer-engagement platform Braze in an all-cash deal valued at about $5.66 billion, Reuters reported. Braze shareholders will receive $47.50 a share — a premium of about 58 percent over Monday’s close — and Braze stock jumped 51.7 percent to $45.57 on the news, according to The Motley Fool. Braze’s real-time messaging tools, used by roughly 2,770 customers including Canva, Instacart and Venmo, are headed for Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud and its Agentforce AI platform. The deal, Salesforce’s largest of a busy acquisition year, is expected to close in its fiscal 2028, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.

5. More than 250,000 people flee renewed fighting in Yemen, the UN says

More than 250,000 people have fled renewed fighting in Yemen, the United Nations said Tuesday, with about half of the recently uprooted sheltering in Taiz — a southwestern city the UN says is encircled by Houthi fighters, with access “essentially blocked.” UNICEF’s representative in Yemen, Akhil Iyer, said sanitation services in Taiz have “come to a halt” for lack of diesel, and the World Food Programme says wheat flour stocks in affected districts are nearly exhausted, in a governorate where 10 of 16 districts already face emergency levels of hunger, UN News reported. UN human rights chief Volker Türk urged the Houthis to let aid in immediately. The clashes resumed last month, ending the relative calm that had held since the 2022 truce.

6. Taiwan says Chinese disinformation surged 48 percent ahead of local elections

China spread more than 2.5 million pieces of disputed or false online information targeting Taiwan in the first nine months of 2026, up about 48 percent from a year earlier, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau told lawmakers this week, Reuters reported. The bureau said the content — pushed through content farms, AI-generated videos, fake accounts and coordinated comment flooding — focused on energy, food security and defense policy and on specific candidates ahead of November’s elections for city mayors and county magistrates. Detected cyberattacks on Taiwanese government agencies averaged 2.58 million a day over the same period. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment; Beijing has previously denied interfering in Taiwanese elections.

7. BBC to close BBC Three, BBC Scotland and Radio 4 Extra in a $500 million savings drive

The BBC announced Tuesday that BBC Three, BBC Scotland and Radio 4 Extra will close as broadcast channels in spring 2027, with their programming moving to iPlayer and BBC Sounds, as the broadcaster works toward £500 million in savings. BBC News will cut just over 100 positions, saving about £5.5 million, with wider restructuring across the corporation expected to reach as many as 2,000 jobs, the Press Gazette reported. Director-General Matt Brittin said the BBC must “make every pound work harder for audiences.” Scotland’s culture minister, Mairi McAllan, called the BBC Scotland decision “wholly unacceptable.” It is the second time BBC Three has lost its linear channel; it returned to broadcast in 2022, six years after first moving online.

8. Magic: The Gathering passes $600 million in a quarter for the first time

Hasbro’s third quarter belonged to its wizards. Magic: The Gathering revenue rose 34 percent to $616.1 million — the first time the card game has cleared $600 million in a single quarter — powered by The Hobbit set, already the fourth-bestselling Magic set in history, and Reality Fracture, ICv2 reported. Hasbro’s overall revenue rose 15 percent to $1.595 billion, ahead of the $1.48 billion consensus, and adjusted earnings of $2.90 a share beat the $1.86 expected, with about $55 million in tariff refunds inside the results. The company raised its full-year outlook to 7 to 9 percent constant-currency revenue growth, and the stock gained more than 9 percent on the day.

9. With GTA VI a month out, scammers are selling fake early access for up to $1,000

The most anticipated game of the year is also the season’s biggest scam magnet. Security firm Kaspersky has found sites offering fake Grand Theft Auto VI preorders, beta access and downloads — one, CyberLeek, advertised the full game for $1,000 and a 24-hour trial for $100, in non-refundable cryptocurrency payments, Infobae reported via CryptoNews. Other pages imitate the PlayStation Store or push downloads that can carry malware and steal personal data. The real game launches November 19 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with no PC version announced — anything playable today is not it. Fans watching the calendar will also note October 22, the next date in Rockstar’s final-month rollout, GameRant reported.

10. A pregnancy reveal steals Dedication Night on 'Dancing with the Stars'

Tuesday’s “Dancing with the Stars” Dedication Night ended with the kind of moment live television is for. Tyler Cameron, dancing a contemporary routine with partner Sharna Burgess to Ed Sheeran’s “Supermarket Flowers” in honor of his late mother, Andrea, brought fiancée Tate Madden onto the floor and announced the couple are expecting their first child, USA TODAY reported. A confetti cannon supplied the gender reveal — pink, for a girl — as Cameron told the audience, “I get to be a girl dad. What a gift.” The couple posted afterward: “Baby Cameron coming 2027.” Nobody in the ballroom was counting scores.