29 October 2026
The Bureau of Economic Analysis has put out its advance estimate of United States output for the third quarter of 2026.
Real gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 3.4 per cent in that quarter.
In the second quarter of 2026 the rate had been 2.2 per cent.
The agency credits the pick-up to higher investment, consumer spending and government spending.
Private inventories and equipment, led by information processing equipment, carried much of the investment gain.
Exports fell, led by petroleum and related products, which pulled the figure down.
An advance estimate is the first of three readings and is revised as fuller data arrive.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis is part of the United States Department of Commerce.
Real GDP, Q3 2026:
3.4 percent
Real GDP, Q2 2026:
2.2 percent
Why it matters for exams: The Bureau of Economic Analysis, the department it sits under and the meaning of an advance GDP estimate are repeat economy questions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
BEA Bureau of Economic Analysis — The US agency in the Department of Commerce that produces the national accounts, including GDP.
28 October 2026
NASA says its Lucy spacecraft has entered the region of the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, the first mission ever to do so.
Lucy was launched on 16 October 2021 and has travelled more than 2.2 billion miles to get there.
The Trojans are two swarms of small bodies that share Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, one ahead of the planet and one behind.
Scientists treat them as leftovers from the era when the planets formed, so they hold clues to the early solar system.
Lucy's first Trojan encounter is with the asteroid Eurybates, set for 11 August 2027.
Polymele follows in September 2027, Leucus in April 2028 and Orus in November 2028.
After a gravity assist at Earth in 2030, the spacecraft is to reach the binary pair Patroclus and Menoetius in March 2033.
NASA reports the spacecraft is working as expected as it prepares for the Eurybates flyby.
Distance travelled:
more than 2.2 billion miles
First Trojan encounter:
Eurybates
Binary pair target:
Patroclus and Menoetius
Why it matters for exams: Lucy is the first mission to the Jupiter Trojans, and its first target Eurybates and the binary pair Patroclus and Menoetius are the names an examiner can ask.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Trojan asteroids Jupiter Trojan asteroids — Small bodies that share Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, in swarms leading and trailing the planet.
28 October 2026
The President of the United States has issued a proclamation adjusting imports of robotics and industrial machinery, together with their parts and components.
It rests on Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the law that lets the United States restrict imports on national security grounds.
The Secretary of Commerce found that these goods come in on terms that threaten to impair national security, and the President agreed.
The finding says domestic output does not meet national security needs and that foreign equipment can carry cybersecurity risk, since such systems handle sensitive data.
Robotics and machinery support defence production and all 16 critical infrastructure sectors.
Instead of fixing duties now, the proclamation directs the Secretary of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative to pursue talks with trading partners.
Tariffs, quotas, fees and an investment incentive programme are left open for later.
A progress report is due within 180 days.
Legal authority:
Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962
Progress report due:
180 days
Critical infrastructure sectors served:
16
Why it matters for exams: Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the Secretary of Commerce's role and the United States Trade Representative are the durable facts here.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
USTR United States Trade Representative — The executive office that negotiates American trade agreements and handles trade disputes.
22 October 2026
The President of the United States has signed Executive Order 14438, titled Decreasing Housing Costs for the American People.
The Task Force on Manufactured Housing Innovation it sets up has two co-chairs: the Housing and Urban Development Secretary and the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
The Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce and Veterans Affairs are also members, and recommendations are due within 180 days.
The task force is to suggest ways to speed up approvals and permits for factory-built housing.
The order also lets the Federal Housing Finance Agency direct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to run a pilot that uses automated valuation models to find borrowers who may cancel mortgage insurance.
A title acceptance pilot may be widened nationwide, letting the two enterprises accept an automated title review in place of a lender's title insurance policy on eligible refinances.
The Director is asked to consider raising the present 80 per cent loan-to-value limit, with any savings passed on to borrowers.
The Agriculture and Veterans Affairs Secretaries are to cut interest rates on the single-family loans they make directly.
Order number:
Executive Order 14438
Task force recommendations due:
180 days
Loan-to-value limit under review:
80 percent
Why it matters for exams: The names Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Finance Agency and HUD, and the new Task Force on Manufactured Housing Innovation, are the durable facts.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
FHFA Federal Housing Finance Agency — The United States regulator of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks.
19 October 2026
Executive Order 14437, Advancing Women's Health to Improve Outcomes in All Phases of Life, has been signed in the United States.
It tells the Health and Human Services Secretary, working through the head of the National Institutes of Health, to set up a Women's Health Division within 90 days.
The new division is to sit inside an appropriate institute or centre and work with the existing NIH Office of Research on Women's Health.
Its work includes funding replication studies on understudied conditions, speeding up diagnosis, and getting more women and girls into clinical trials.
Grant recipients are to be held to account for treating sex as a biological variable.
The order also creates a White House Women's Health Task Force, co-chaired by the Health and Human Services Secretary and the Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff.
Its members include the heads of the FDA, the CDC, the NIH, ARPA-H and CMS, among others.
The conditions named for more research include cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, endometriosis, fibroids, infertility, maternal health and menopause.
Order number:
Executive Order 14437
Deadline for the Division:
90 days
Why it matters for exams: The new Women's Health Division at NIH, the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health and the White House Women's Health Task Force are the durable names here.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
NIH National Institutes of Health — The main medical research agency of the United States, under the Department of Health and Human Services.
16 October 2026
Executive Order 14436 carries out the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, called the Graham Act.
The order records that the Act was signed into law on September 18, 2026 and is codified at 22 U.S.C. 10802.
Duties on goods from Russia rise by 500 per cent ad valorem.
Goods from the five largest importers of Russian crude oil and natural gas face a 100 per cent rise on new purchases.
The same 100 per cent rise applies to the five top facilitators of evasion of sanctions on Russian oil.
Authority under the Act goes to the Secretaries of State, the Treasury and Energy and to the Trade Representative.
In the same order the President waives those duties and a list of the Act's sanctions sections until further action is decided.
Order number:
Executive Order 14436
Duty increase on Russian goods:
500 percent ad valorem
Codified at:
22 U.S.C. 10802
Why it matters for exams: The name of the Act, its short name the Graham Act, and the 500 per cent duty on Russian goods are the durable facts an examiner can use.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
ad valorem ad valorem duty — A customs duty charged as a percentage of the value of the goods, not per unit of weight or number.
Background
The new Women's Health Division ordered in the United States is to be built inside the National Institutes of Health, so the agency itself is the thing to know.
The National Institutes of Health, usually written NIH, is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
It is the country's main public funder and performer of medical research.
NIH states its purpose as seeking fundamental knowledge about the nature and behaviour of living systems.
It then applies that knowledge to improve health, lengthen life and cut illness and disability.
The agency traces its beginning to a one-room Laboratory of Hygiene set up in 1887.
Its work is organised through institutes and centres, each covering a disease area or a stage of life.
Among its existing units is the Office of Research on Women's Health, with which the new division is to work.
Parent department:
Department of Health and Human Services
Origin:
a one-room Laboratory of Hygiene
Why it matters for exams: NIH's full form, the department it belongs to and its origin as a one-room Laboratory of Hygiene are the facts papers ask.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
HHS Department of Health and Human Services — The United States department responsible for public health, which the NIH, the FDA and the CDC come under.
Background
Kilauea, which has just produced episode 55 of its Halemaumau eruption, stands inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, so the park itself is worth knowing.
The National Park Service says the park takes in the summits of two volcanoes, Kilauea and Mauna Loa.
It calls them two of the world's most active volcanoes.
The park lies in the state of Hawaii, with its postal address at Hawaii National Park.
Its land rises from sea level to 13,680 feet, so a visitor crosses several climate zones in one park.
That range of height and rainfall is why the park holds so many kinds of plants and animals.
The park is a designated International Biosphere Reserve.
It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Volcano summits in the park:
Kilauea and Mauna Loa
Highest elevation:
13,680 feet
Why it matters for exams: Kilauea and Mauna Loa inside one park, and the park's World Heritage and Biosphere Reserve status, are standard geography answers.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
NPS National Park Service — The United States agency that manages national parks, monuments and historic sites.