Europe placates Trump

By rahmat hidayat

Thursday, June 26, 2025

Global news you can trust.

Download the Reuters App.

Daily Briefing

By Kate Turton

Hello. This week's NATO summit ended with Europe making pledges it can ill afford, Iranian authorities are pivoting from a ceasefire with Israel to intensify an internal security crackdown, and Chinese automakers make a play for Africa.

Plus, the Webb telescope discovers an alien planet.

Today's Top News

Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in the Gerald W. Lynch Theater in New York City, June 12, 2025. Vincent Alban/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

United States

Self-described democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani's unexpected upset in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary exhilarated progressive activists. But the surprise outcome also generated excitement from a very different group of people: national Republicans.
Several Republican senators pushed back on the Trump administration's proposed cuts to American public media stations and foreign aid, a sign the request to cancel $9.4 billion of funding could be blocked by the upper chamber.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s newly reconstituted vaccine advisory panel will look at the schedule of childhood and adolescent immunizations as well as older vaccines. US Healthcare and Pharma Editor Caroline Humer tells the Reuters World News podcast that the reorganization could upend vaccine policy and also calls into question insurance coverage for shots.

In other news

In their rush to retain Trump's support for NATO, the alliance's European members have promised to more than double the amount of wealth they set aside for military spending. The snag is that most can ill-afford to spend 5% of output on defense.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to lead his party into the next general election and rejected suggestions he was failing to listen to the concerns of his party, as he faces a growing rebellion from lawmakers over welfare reform.
Iranian authorities are pivoting from a ceasefire with Israel to intensify an internal security crackdown across the country with mass arrests, executions and military deployments, particularly in the restive Kurdish region, officials and activists said.
Israeli gunfire and airstrikes killed at least 21 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, local health authorities said, as mediators reached out to Israel and Hamas to seek a resumption of ceasefire talks to end the war.
Efforts are underway to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the Air India plane crash this month that killed 260 people, and identify contributing factors. This as flying anxiety peaks in India after the fatal crash.

Business & Markets

Onlookers watch during the launch of Chery's new range of cars at Montecasino in Johannesburg, South Africa, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

Chinese automakers are pushing to unlock Africa's underdeveloped potential, with a focus on electric and hybrid vehicles, as restrictions on exports to the US and Europe send them on a global quest for new markets.
A first public test of robotaxis by Tesla in Austin, Texas led to multiple traffic problems and driving issues, videos from company-selected riders showed over the first few days. For more on the industry, sign up to the Auto File newsletter.
A federal judge ruled for Meta against a group of authors who had argued that its use of their books without permission to train its artificial intelligence system infringed their copyrights.
Two Dutch consumer groups are seeking affected customers for a legal claim against Booking.com, one of the world's largest online travel agencies, over what they described as inflated hotel prices since 2013.
The dollar sank to a three-year low while world stocks notched their second record high in three days as a report that Trump was planning to choose the next Federal Reserve chief early fuelled fresh bets on US rate cuts. For more, watch our daily rundown on financial markets.
CoreWeave, Circle Internet Group and Chime Financial all enjoyed dizzying success after their stock market debuts. In this Viewsroom podcast, Breakingviews columnists explain why investors are scrambling to own these companies and how scarcity may be adding to their allure.

Hungary's LGBTQ+ community reels under Orban's new laws, Pride ban

Vivien "Vivi" Winkler and Laura "Lau" Toth at the afterparty of the Pride Month opening event in Budapest, Hungary, June 7, 2025. REUTERS/Marton Monus

Lau and Vivi, a young lesbian couple in Hungary, often hold hands walking through Budapest's streets. However, Lau has started to have troubling second thoughts about this show of affection since the government ramped up its anti-LGBTQ+ campaign.

Right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who casts himself as a defender of what he calls Christian values from Western liberalism and whose supporters are mostly rural conservatives, has passed several laws affecting the lives of Hungary's LGBTQ+ community over the past decade.

Read our photo essay

And Finally...

The young gas giant planet is about the same mass as Saturn. Reuters/Am Lagrange et al/JWST/ESO

In addition to providing a trove of information about the early universe, the James Webb Space Telescope since its 2021 launch has obtained valuable data on various already-known planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets. Now, for the first time, Webb has discovered an exoplanet not previously known.

Read more

Sponsors are not involved in the creation of newsletters or other Reuters news content. Advertise in this newsletter or on Reuters' website

Reuters Daily Briefing is sent 5 days a week. Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also
sign up here.

Want to stop receiving this email? Unsubscribe here. To manage which newsletters you're signed up for, click here.

This email includes limited tracking for Reuters to understand whether you've engaged with its contents. For more information on how we process your personal information and your rights, please see our Privacy Statement.

Terms & Conditions