Plus, plan for a truce extension in Iran awaits Trump's approval.

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Daily Briefing

Daily Briefing

By Kate Turton

Hello. The plan for a truce extension in Iran awaits Trump's approval,  China is building launch pads near its nuclear missile silos, and a Blue Origin rocket explodes on a launch pad.

Plus, Greenland’s independence champion despised Denmark. Trump changed his mind.

Today's Top News

 

People walk on the beach, with vessels in the Strait of Hormuz visible near the beach of Bandar Abbas, Iran, May 22, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA 

Middle East

  • The US and Iran reached an agreement to extend their ceasefire and lift restrictions on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, sources told Reuters, though US President Donald Trump has yet to approve ‌it and Iranian state media said it had not been finalized. Here's how close the US and Iran are towards ending the war.
  • Meanwhile, Trump finds himself in a bind as he seeks to end the war: he is under pressure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and get US gasoline prices down but faces a potential backlash from hawks in his own party over any concessions to Tehran.
  • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had directed Israel's military to take more of Gaza, initially by seizing 70% of the Palestinian territory, where the ‌population is already penned into a tiny strip of land along the coast.

In other news

  • China is building a vast military complex in a remote desert with a sprawling web of launch pads, bunkers and communication nodes, near the isolated nuclear silos that hold the country’s longest-range missiles. Special Correspondent Greg Torode has more on the Reuters World News podcast.
  • Huntington Beach, the right-leaning California city that banned the Pride flag from City Hall and elected a city council of MAGA supporters, is heavily favored to get a new Democratic congressman who is gay, progressive and an outspoken critic of Trump.
  • NATO member Romania said that a drone injured two people in a southeastern ‌city during an overnight Russian attack on neighboring Ukraine, the first time in the war that a drone had hit a densely populated area in Romania and caused injuries.
  • Eight years after ousting a corruption-mired, center-right government on the promise of cleaning up politics, Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is running out of road as graft accusations stack up against his party and family.
  • The World Health Organization recommended prioritizing three experimental treatments for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, including Mapp Biopharmaceutical's MBP134, Regeneron's maftivimab and Gilead's antiviral remdesivir.
 

Business & Markets

 
  • The Iran war rocked global bond markets again in May, sending yields to multi-decade highs as traders priced in central bank rate hikes - only for signs of progress in peace talks and weak economic data to bring them sharply lower again.
  • People inside and outside the Federal Reserve agree that rule changes easing how much cash banks need to keep on hand for emergencies could allow the central bank to further cut the size of its $6.7 trillion balance sheet but also harbor doubts holdings could be slashed by the degree new Chairman Kevin Warsh desires.
  • Anthropic said it has raised $65 billion at a post-money valuation of $965 billion, as it aims to bolster computing capacity to meet growing demand for chatbot Claude and ‌scale its products. The new valuation puts Anthropic ahead of OpenAI.
  • An uncrewed Blue Origin New Glenn rocket exploded on a Florida launchpad during a test, in a major setback for Jeff Bezos’ space ‌venture as it seeks to narrow the gap with Elon Musk's IPO-bound SpaceX.
  • Billions of dollars worth of gold is still being extracted illegally from Brazil's Amazon ‌rainforest, a study by nonprofit watchdog Greenpeace found, despite efforts by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to crack down on wildcat mining.
 

The Week Ahead

  • Arsenal's long road back to European soccer's top table reaches its defining night on Saturday as they face Paris St Germain in the Champions League final.
  • Abelardo De La Espriella, a lawyer and businessman with no political experience, is seeking to become Colombia's next president on Sunday.
  • Ethiopians will vote in parliamentary and regional elections on Monday that Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s party is expected to dominate.
  • On Tuesday, primary elections are held in in California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota.  
  • Here's your preview of the week ahead in financial markets.
 

Greenland’s independence champion despised Denmark. Trump changed his mind

 

REUTERS/Illustration/Catherine Tai. Source photos: Evan Vucci, Jim Urquhart and Stoyan Nenov

Aqqaluk Lynge helped build Greenland's modern independence movement. In the 1970s, he denounced Denmark as an exploitative colonial power and co-founded Inuit Ataqatigiit, one of the island's biggest pro-independence parties.

Now, after Donald Trump repeatedly demanded control of Greenland, Lynge has changed his mind. He told Reuters he believes Greenland must remain part of the Danish realm to protect itself from American aggression.

Read our special report