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The 10 most important things in the world right now

Hello! Here's what you need to know on Thursday.

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1. Another NSA contractor has been accused of stealing secrets. The FBI secretly arrested Booz Allen Hamilton contractor Harold Thomas Martin III, who may be linked to the high-profile leak of the agency's hacking tools.

2. Theranos has laid off 340 workers and is closing all its clinical labs. The move is intended to refocus Theranos away from doing clinical tests on blood samples and towards developing its miniLab medical data processing product.

Girls Class School Yemen
Girls attend a class in their school which was hit by Saudi-led air strikes last year, as schools open this week in Sanaa, the capital of war-torn Yemen October 5, 2016. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

3. Twitter will decide whether or not to sell by the end of October. Twitter has told potential acquirers it is seeking to conclude negotiations about selling itself by the time it reports third-quarter earnings on October 27.

4. The US is coming to a new realization about Syria that could change everything. US officials fear that the fall of Syria's largest city, Aleppo, to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could undermine Washington's counterterrorism goals in the country.

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5. Haiti has postponed presidential and legislative elections originally set for Sunday because of the havoc caused by Hurricane Matthew. The impoverished Caribbean nation's last elections in 2015 were canceled amid violence and massive fraud.

6. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services confirmed to lawmakers that Mylan, the drug company that makes EpiPen, has been overcharging the US government for the life-saving allergy medication.

7. Samsung bought a potential Siri-killer from the guys who originally created Siri. Viv Labs' personal digital assistant "Viv" is supposed to one-up Apple's famed Siri in smarts.

8. UK finance minister Philip Hammond plans to assure some of the top US banks that Britain is still the world's leading global finance hub despite its Brexit vote, on his first trip to Wall Street since being appointed in July.

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9. The EU's beefed-up version of its struggling border force goes into operation Thursday, as the squabbling bloc struggles to find a unified strategy to tackle its worst migration crisis since World War II.

10. China is now buying more companies than the US. China has overtaken the US in outbound mergers and acquisitions for the first time.

And finally ...

I've been traveling the world for 5 years, and here are the 7 best pieces of advice I can give you about money.

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