Lula's historic comeback

Plus, how purchases of sanctioned Iranian jet fuel were disguised.

Go beyond the headlines with Reuters on the stories shaping the day. Subscribe for $1/week. Daily Briefing Daily Briefing By Kate Turton Hello. Flavio Bolsonaro refuses to recognize Brazilian president Lula's historic win, Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado returns home, and US political candidates tailor messages for AI models used by voters. Plus, how purchases of sanctioned Iranian jet fuel were disguised by Myanmar. Today's Top News   Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva after his victory in the presidential runoff election, Sao Paulo, Brazil. REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva defied oddsmakers, electoral gravity and decades of precedent to defeat Flavio Bolsonaro in Brazil’s presidential election. Correspondent Oliver Griffin joins the Reuters World News podcast from Sao Paulo to explain why Lula could struggle to govern in his fourth term. The result sets up a test ‌for financial markets, with investors expecting recent bets on a change of government to unwind in a volatile week ahead. In other news Serbia woke to a new era after a student-backed protest movement unseated longtime leader Aleksandar Vucic in a historic landslide election that sparked nationwide celebrations, although few had an idea of how they would govern. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long looked on course to lose power in Israel's election, but the race has narrowed as the vote approaches and his rivals have no clear path to power. Here are the leading candidates in Israel's election. Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was greeted by tens of thousands of cheering supporters as she made her way by car to Caracas, after she arrived home following several failed return attempts which have strained her ties with US President Donald Trump's administration. US political candidates have been engineering their campaign messages to appeal to the AI chatbots that more voters have been using to answer questions about issues, and documents seen by Reuters have revealed some of their strategies. Japanese prosecutors have indicted a US Marine on charges of robbery and murder of a Japanese woman in ‌the country's southernmost prefecture of Okinawa, Japanese media reported. Top officials from Mecca Pact countries Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan are to meet Iran's leaders in Tehran in their first high-level contact since the kingdom became a pressure point in ‌the wider Iran conflict. Business & Markets   The US economy is undergoing profound change, though it is unclear how much of the transformation stems from President Trump's policies and how much from the rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies. Federal Reserve policymakers have telegraphed they will not raise US short-term borrowing costs again this week, but with inflation concerns still front and center, investors believe a rate-hike pause will not last for long. Despite some progress in streamlining Britain's complex planning system, hopes for a quick pickup in housebuilding and infrastructure - which could accelerate the broader economy - are being thwarted in part by the rising costs of construction. Swiss drugmaker Roche said its experimental lung cancer drug divarasib reduced the risk of death by 44% compared ‌with existing treatments in a phase III study. How purchases of sanctioned Iranian jet fuel were disguised by Myanmar    Vessels in the Strait of Hormuz near the beach of Bandar Abbas, Iran. Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA/via WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS In December 2025, the US-sanctioned tanker Reef arrived in Myanmar waters with some 113,000 barrels of fuel backed by sham paperwork. Myanmar-based energy broker Dynamic Wave ordered the shipment, agreeing in a sales contract inked with Thailand’s Tawan-Oil Trading to supposedly take delivery of a similar amount of South African diesel. But the $15.8 million agreement, which Reuters viewed, was a charade: there was no such trade between South Africa and ‌Myanmar in 2025, according to data from the United Nations and Vortexa, a shipping and energy data provider. In reality, Reef carried jet fuel from Iran to Myanmar, according to records of fuel shipments to Myanmar, as well as satellite images and analysis by SynMax Intelligence, which tracked the tanker’s journey from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas to Southeast Asia. Read our exclusive And Finally... The painting "Iris, 1924-1925" by French painter Claude Monet ahead of the auction at Sotheby's auction house in Paris. REUTERS/Abdul Saboor Claude Monet's "Iris" was sold for €50 million ($56.05 million), becoming the ‌most expensive work of art sold at auction in France, Sotheby's said. The painting, completed toward the end of Monet's life, ⁠attracted frantic bidding with six people battling it out for 45 minutes for the piece, before the final two continued to scrabble for a further 20 minutes. 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   © 2026 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved. 3 Times Square, New York, NY 10036

Inside the US-Starlink relationship

Plus, a deal brokered by Melania Trump

Stay informed with Reuters. Subscribe for $1/week. Weekend Briefing Weekend Briefing From Reuters Daily Briefing   By Robert MacMillan, Reuters.com Weekend Editor Thanks very much for reading the Weekend Briefing. France’s interior minister urged police to be “hyper-reactive” as new protests begin. Gunmen killed 8 people and wounded 40 in an attack on a church in Jordan. And Donald Trump is putting the body into the body politic. Inside the US-Starlink relationship   REUTERS/Sam Wolfe Not the first time: The Biden and Trump administrations asked SpaceX several times to turn its Starlink service off or on in various countries, sources tell our reporters. In the most recent known case, Ukraine found its service throttled as it fought Russia. Ukraine’s defense minister says its speeds have returned to normal. Humanitarian corridor: The White House credited Melania Trump with brokering a ceasefire in the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky while Volodymyr Zelenskiy said peace negotiators would meet next month for new talks. Russian diesel is coming to America In the flow: A tanker is carrying 40,000 metric tons of diesel to the USA from the Baltic port of Primorsk. Trump hopes that cheaper diesel will lead to more votes for Republicans in the midterm congressional elections. We report on heating oil’s emergence as a hurdle to the party’s Senate candidates. American opinion: Midterm voters tend to choose their candidates more on economic issues than on world affairs, but as our reporter Matt Spetalnick explains, Trump’s tariffs and his campaign against Iran are turning foreign policy into a domestic issue. And while I’m on the topic of elections, Trump wants a Senate victory in Alaska – or else. What’s in your emergency kit? Take another look: Britain advised the public to keep three days of emergency supplies at home, including bottled water and non-perishable food. The exposure this week of the PHP software glitch and a summer of heat, drought and wildfires should make this need clearer than ever, the government said. And act: Our reporter A.J. Vincens offers some steps that you can use to stay safe online, even when problems like the PHP vulnerability surface. American spirits Liquor and weapons: The Supreme Court will decide on the legality of a federal law ban on the home distillation of alcoholic spirits that was enacted in 1868 to crack down on tax evasion. Northrop Grumman and RTX raised their annual profit forecasts thanks to demand from military programs. AI and outsourcing: A cybersecurity researcher spent a few weeks watching as a Chinese-speaking hacker broke into websites belonging to more than 100 companies, including the farm-equipment maker Deere. Here’s the interesting part: the hacker did almost none of the work – AI agents did. Don’t sit so close to me Flight plan: US airlines are getting better financial results from charging higher fares instead of slashing prices to fill empty seats. Could this mean that we won’t have to hear the phrase “it’s a very full flight today” when we’re boarding? Pay up: European airfares will see their biggest increase in history next year, Ryanair’s chief executive said. Michael O’Leary puts it down to the cost of jet fuel and fewer available seats as a result of bankruptcies and takeovers. Before I forget… It started with a love affair and ended with the arrest of a Romanian on charges of spying for Ukraine. But it wasn’t an arrest at all. Fire engulfed the former Nazi guest house near Berchtesgaden known as the Eagle’s Nest. Kamta Prasad would like to vote in India’s elections. Now all he has to do is convince the government that he’s not dead. Brazilians choose between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro in Sunday’s presidential runoff. Lula is catching up with a nation of online voters with the acquisition of his first mobile phone at the age of 81. Critics say the Czech ruling coalition’s changes to public media funding could weaken journalistic independence. A TV reporter helped rescue a man after floodwaters in Australia engulfed his car. The video is crazy. The latest mission to find the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s plane in the South Pacific turned up nothing more than a cluster of washed-up trees.   Sponsors are not involved in the creation of newsletters or other Reuters news content. Advertise in this newsletter or on Reuters' website   Weekend Briefing is sent once 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   © 2026 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved. 3 Times Square, New York, NY 10036