Plus, Lebanon announces partial ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
 

Daily Briefing

Daily Briefing

By Kate Turton

Hello. Lebanon announces a partial ceasefire, Russia launches a major air assault on key Ukrainian cities, and the UN warns of extreme heat risk from El Nino.

Plus, the lonely consumers in China fueling a $7.4 billion companionship economy.

Today's Top News

 

An Israeli military convoy manoeuvres in Lebanon, near the town of Metula located on the Israeli side of the border, June 1, 2026. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

Middle East

  • Lebanon announced a partial ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, but fighting in the south continues. Bureau Chief Maya Gebeily tells the Reuters World News podcast that there's confusion on the ground, with Israel, Hezbollah and the Lebanese government all announcing something different.
  • Meanwhile, Israel hailed the capture of the medieval Beaufort Castle as a strategic victory, even as it evoked the miseries of a previous occupation.

In other news

  • Russian drones and missiles pounded the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and other cities, killing at least 18 people and wounding more than 100, authorities said, following days of warnings about ‌Moscow's plans for a major assault. Follow live.
  • President Donald Trump's nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate victims of alleged government “weaponization" has been put on hold after the White House faced fierce opposition from Republicans in Congress.
  • California votes in a primary election that will choose two finalists for governor and Los Angeles mayor while also testing newly redrawn congressional lines that could tip the balance of power in the US House of Representatives.
  • The El Nino weather pattern is forming, and is expected to cause extreme weather around the world this year, the WMO said. Scientists say climate change will make its impact especially severe.
  • A Kenyan court temporarily blocked a proposed US Ebola quarantine facility that has triggered protests killing two ‌people. The proposed 50-bed unit on an air force base in central Kenya for Americans exposed to the virus in Democratic Republic of Congo or Uganda has angered many Kenyans. 
 

Business & Markets

 
  • European luxury brands have sharpened their focus on the United States, with a surge of store openings and fashion shows to lure a new crop of wealthy shoppers enriched by the AI and tech boom and offset weak consumer confidence in ‌the rest of the world.
  • AI giant Anthropic has confidentially filed for a US initial public offering, the company said, edging ahead of rival OpenAI in a closely watched race to reach public markets.
  • Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company has enough supply to accommodate robust growth in central processing units and graphics processing units as it ‌rides an AI boom.
  • Jeremy Grantham’s investment firm GMO made its name betting against the mania of the late 1990s and the mid-2000s housing boom. In this episode of The Big View podcast, he tells Peter Thal Larsen how artificial intelligence has forced Big Tech firms into a fight to the death.
  • The US fund management industry has thrown its weight behind a proposal to open up retirement plans to alternative assets like private credit and cryptocurrencies to direct a slice of the estimated $14.2 trillion now in ‌401(k) and other mass-market products into those vehicles.
 

From hiking to hotpot: Lonely consumers in China fuel a companionship economy

 

Customers dine at a restaurant in a shopping area of Beijing, China July 25, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo

On the stone steps leading up Mount Tai, one of China’s best-known peaks, hikers can book and ‌pay for "climbing buddies" to walk with them, carry bags and take photos for a few hundred yuan.

The increasingly popular service is part of a broader “companionship economy” emerging in China, which includes paid partners for running, sightseeing and even eating out at hotpot restaurants – a meal traditionally shared with friends.

While there is no official data about ⁠the size of the companion economy, estimates cited by state media said it was worth around $7.4 billion in 2025.

Read more
 

And Finally...

This illustration shows magnetic activity in an exoplanet that is a gas giant like Jupiter. Released on June 2, 2026. ESO/M. Kornmesser, L. Calcada/Handout via REUTERS

Based on the behavior of winds on seven large and hot gas exoplanets, astronomers have obtained the strongest evidence to date that planets beyond our solar system possess magnetic fields, like Earth and five other planets in our solar system.

The finding, based on observations by telescopes in Chile and Hawaii, deepens the ‌understanding of exoplanets by showing that at least some share an important characteristic present in all but two of the solar system's eight planets. A magnetic field is an invisible force field generated by the movement of electrically conducting material deep inside a planet - a molten metal core - combined with the planet's rotation.

Read more