Plus, US appeals court rejects Trump bid to oust Fed's Lisa Cook.

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Daily Briefing

Daily Briefing

By Kate Turton

Hello. Israel launches a huge ground assault in Gaza and Ukraine struggles to identify thousands of soldiers' remains. In the US, an appeals court rejects the bid to oust Lisa Cook and critics see Bondi's Justice Dept carrying out Trump's revenge tour. 

Plus, the soccer players taking olive oil shots to boost performance.

 

Today's Top News

 

Smoke rises from the Al-Ghefari tower after it was hit by Israeli air strikes. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

War in Gaza

  • Israel announced the start of its long-awaited ground operation into Gaza City, declaring "Gaza is burning". An Israeli military official said the Israeli Defence Forces had begun the main stage of their ground operation into Gaza City where Israel has ordered hundreds of thousands of residents to flee. Follow live.
  • A United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had incited these acts - accusations that Israel called scandalous.

United States

  • The trade school student suspected of assassinating right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah university is due in court to face formal charges, appearing by video feed from jail for his first public appearance since the shooting.
  • Roughly two out of three Americans believe that the harsh rhetoric used in talking about politics is encouraging violence, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in the days following the killing of Charlie Kirk.
  • During his four years between presidencies, President Donald Trump accused the Justice Department of unfairly targeting him and vowed revenge. His attorney general, Pam Bondi, is carrying out that directive, current and former department officials say, in ways that are breaking long-standing norms.

In other news

  • Ukraine is struggling to identify war dead amid large-scale body repatriations. In the past four months, over 7,000 mostly unidentified bodies arrived from Russia, bringing the total received to about 11,744. Officials estimate it could take up to 14 months to process current remains.
  • Malawi started voting in an election pitting President Lazarus Chakwera against his predecessor Peter Mutharika, with sky-high inflation and food prices at the top of voters' minds.
 

Business & Markets

 

Xargo and tankers ships sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar, located between the Musa mountain of Morocco and the coast of Spain, Southern Spain, June 4, 2024. REUTERS/Jon Nazca

  • The Trump administration is on a mission to weaken China's global network of ports and bring more strategic terminals under Western control, according to three sources familiar with the plan.
  • The US central bank opens a two-day policy meeting having skirted a first-ever effort by the US President to remove a sitting Fed governor, but still facing unprecedented pressure from the White House. Dan Burns tells the Reuters World News podcast this setback for the Trump administration means that the central bank's independence is intact, for now. 
  • US companies should be allowed to report earnings every six months instead of on a quarterly basis, Donald Trump said, announcing what could prove to be a major shift for corporate America. For more on markets, watch our daily rundown.
  • Eli Lilly's experimental weight-loss pill could be fast-tracked under a one- to two-month review process recently launched by the US Food and Drug Administration, several Wall Street analysts said.
  • China moved into the top 10 of the United Nations' annual ranking of most innovative countries for the first time, replacing Europe's largest economy, Germany, as firms in Beijing invest heavily in research and development.
  • New inventions often cause great excitement yet can take years to catch on. On The Big View podcast, Peter Thal Larsen talks to Carl Benedikt Frey of Oxford University about the erratic history of technology – and what it tells us about AI
 

How a Texas refinery turns Amazon-destroying cattle into "green” jet fuel 

 

Diamond Green Diesel, LLC, a joint venture between Valero Energy Corporation and Darling Ingredients Inc., in Port Arthur, Texas, July 30, 2025. REUTERS/Adrees Latif/File Photo

A Texas refinery that supplies green fuel to US airlines has been purchasing animal fat from cattle raised on illegally cleared lands in the Amazon rainforest, according to a Reuters review of government tracking data, interviews and eyewitness accounts.

Louisiana-based Diamond Green Diesel, a joint-venture between biofuels producer Darling Ingredients and petroleum refiner Valero Energy, has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into a refinery in Port Arthur, Texas that turns cattle fat - called tallow - into a cleaner alternative to petroleum-based jet fuel and diesel.

Read more
 

And Finally...

Olive oil is extracted from an early harvest of green olives, at the end of a milling process at an olive mill in Larnaca District, Cyprus September 9, 2025. REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou

Soccer players are lining up for a fiery kick - not on the pitch, but in the form of a searing shot of olive oil from Cyprus.

The peppery, throat-burning liquid is part of a performance revolution driven by a small plant in Cyprus that produces early-harvest olive oil packed with inflammation-busting polyphenols.