Morning Briefing — June 26, 2026

Morning Briefing — June 26, 2026

World News

Iran strikes commercial vessel in Strait of Hormuz amid debate over transit tolls — Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck a cargo ship near Oman on Thursday, complicating ongoing US-Iran negotiations and forcing a United Nations agency to pause an evacuation effort. The attack comes as Tehran debates imposing tolls on shipping through the strategic waterway. CBS News

Rubio warns Iranian Hormuz tolls would spread 'like a contagion' — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrapped up a Gulf tour aimed at building regional support for the US-Iran interim deal, warning that allowing tolls on international waterways near territorial waters would set a dangerous global precedent. He said Gulf states unanimously oppose any Iranian transit fees. Al Jazeera

Deadly Venezuela earthquakes prompt US aid response — Two major earthquakes struck Venezuela, with President Trump describing 'a devastating number of deaths' as rescue teams searched the rubble. Geo-technical experts noted the rarity of back-to-back seismic events of this magnitude. Fox News

Europe heatwave breaks records, kills dozens across continent — Western Europe is enduring a record-setting heatwave with France recording its hottest day since records began at 44.3°C in Pissos and the UK logging a June record of 36.1°C. The conditions, driven by an Omega block weather pattern, have closed schools, slowed trains and forced farmers to harvest grain at night. RTÉ

Supreme Court hands Trump two major immigration victories — The US Supreme Court ruled that migrants turned away at the border cannot apply for asylum and blocked TPS recipients from judicial relief in two consequential decisions. One ruling lifts deportation restrictions for thousands of Haitian and Syrian immigrants. Fox News

Carney says Canada will hit 4% of GDP on defence by 2029 — Prime Minister Mark Carney described a lengthy call with President Trump covering NATO, Iran, Middle East security and Arctic defence. Carney predicted Canada would reach 4% of GDP spending on defence by 2029, ahead of NATO's planned review. CBC News

UN chief lays out clean-energy blueprint at London Climate Action Week — Secretary-General António Guterres called on major AI firms to disclose the carbon, water and land footprint of their data centres and to power them with renewables by 2030. He outlined seven steps for breaking from fossil fuels, including reaching net zero by 2050 and ensuring a just transition. UN News

Business

Volkswagen reportedly eyes cutting 100,000 jobs and closing plants — Reports suggest Germany's VW is considering job cuts of up to 100,000 and plant closures as European automakers grapple with slowing global auto demand and the EV transition. The move would mark one of the largest restructurings in the industry. Bloomberg

Kia defies global auto slowdown as conflict lifts EV and hybrid demand — Kia is outperforming peers as the Iran conflict drives consumers toward more fuel-efficient electrified vehicles. The Korean automaker is gaining share in EVs and hybrids while traditional combustion sales slip. Bloomberg

Europe's heatwave is biting into household paychecks — Extreme heat and drought have cut average household incomes across Europe, with new research warning millions are at risk of poverty. Productivity losses across construction, farming and outdoor labour are mounting as the continent endures its worst recorded heat wave. Bloomberg

OpenAI and Broadcom unveil LLM-optimized inference chip — OpenAI announced a partnership with Broadcom to roll out a custom inference chip designed specifically for large language model workloads. The deal extends the AI race into bespoke silicon as compute costs surge. OpenAI

Microsoft raises 2026 AI capex to $190B amid component price surge — Microsoft now expects 2026 capital expenditure to reach $190 billion, with $25 billion of the increase driven by surging memory and storage component prices tied to AI demand. Despite $97 billion in recent spending, AI services have generated $37 billion in annual recurring revenue, sustaining Wall Street ROI debates. Dentro AI News

Carney says Canada will work with US and Mexico to modernize CUSMA — Prime Minister Mark Carney signalled Canada will engage the United States and Mexico to update the trilateral CUSMA trade pact, as tariff frictions weigh on North American supply chains. The move comes amid renewed US tariff threats on Canadian goods. BNN Bloomberg

Weak monsoon emerges as India's next economic worry — After absorbing the shock of higher oil prices linked to Middle East conflict, India faces a new threat from a weakening monsoon that could hit agricultural output, rural incomes and inflation. Economists warn the dual shocks may drag on growth. Bloomberg

Technology

Nobel laureate John Jumper joins Anthropic from Google DeepMind — AlphaFold co-creator and 2024 Nobel Prize winner John Jumper has left Google DeepMind after nine years to join Anthropic. The high-profile move comes in the same week as another senior departure, signalling intensifying talent wars at the AI frontier. AIToolsRecap

Anthropic closes funding round at $965B valuation, files for IPO — Anthropic announced the closing of a financing round at a $965 billion valuation, surpassing OpenAI, and confidentially filed for an IPO. The maker of Claude Code has zoomed ahead in the AI coding tools market. CNBC

Reid Hoffman calls xAI 'a complete train wreck,' sees room for both OpenAI and Anthropic — LinkedIn co-founder and investor Reid Hoffman dismissed SpaceX's $60B Cursor acquisition as evidence of weakness rather than AI capability, and panned xAI after all 11 original cofounders departed by May 2026. He argued the AI market is not zero-sum and both OpenAI and Anthropic can thrive in distinct lanes. Fortune

Amazon custom silicon hits $20B annual run rate — Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company's custom chips business — spanning Graviton, Trainium and Nitro — has crossed a $20 billion annual run rate, making it one of the top three datacenter chip businesses globally. The unit is growing more than 100% year-over-year with major commitments from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and Uber. Dentro AI News

SpaceX S-1 reveals xAI $2.4B Q1 loss and $1.25B/month Anthropic compute deal — SpaceX's IPO filing disclosed that xAI lost $2.4 billion in Q1 2026 while spending $7.7 billion on capex, and that SpaceX is renting 300 megawatts of compute capacity to Anthropic for $1.25 billion per month through May 2029. The filing also confirmed plans for AI compute satellites by 2028. Dentro AI News

Anthropic launches Claude Corps fellowship and expands Project Glasswing — Anthropic introduced Claude Corps, a national fellowship for early-career people focused on extending AI benefits to communities across America, and is extending Project Glasswing to roughly 150 new organisations in more than 15 countries. The moves come alongside a Claude Opus upgrade for coding and agentic tasks. Anthropic

GPT-5 helps immunologist solve a 3-year-old research mystery — OpenAI highlighted how immunologist Derya Unutmaz used GPT-5 to crack a research problem he had been stuck on for three years. The case study underlines growing claims about AI's role in accelerating scientific discovery. OpenAI

Renewable Energy

UK EV sales overtake petrol cars for the first time — In the 12 months to May 2026, UK consumers bought 516,490 new battery EVs against 504,010 new petrol cars — the first time pure electric overtook petrol in the country. EV sales grew 34% year-on-year in May while petrol fell 14%, according to Carbon Brief's analysis of ACEA data. Carbon Brief

China's 15th five-year plan targets 30% clean power by 2030 — China released its 15th five-year plan for a 'new-type energy system,' setting a target for clean energy to reach 30% of power generation by 2030, up from about 22% today. The plan envisions wind and solar as the 'mainstay' of the power mix and a grid upgraded to accommodate 900GW of distributed energy. Carbon Brief

UK grid issues fresh supply warning as heatwave tests network — The UK's electricity system operator issued another supply warning as record June heat drove cooling demand and reduced thermal plant efficiency. The alert comes as France's nuclear fleet cut output by about 7% due to limited cooling water availability. Bloomberg

UN chief: AI firms must come clean on data-centre footprints, run on renewables by 2030 — Speaking at London Climate Action Week, António Guterres called on every major AI company to measure and publicly disclose the carbon, water and land footprint of its data centres, and to power them with renewable energy by 2030. He noted AI data centres already use more electricity than most nations. UN News

Guest post: How US renewable-energy growth persists despite federal policy uncertainty — Despite rollbacks under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the second US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, US wind and solar deployment continues to expand, driven by state policies, falling costs and corporate demand. Analysts argue clean energy momentum is now structural. Carbon Brief

Clean energy pushes fossil-fuel power into reverse for first time — Ember's annual review found that renewables overtook coal as the world's largest electricity source in 2025, with solar generation growing a record 636 TWh and wind and solar together meeting 99% of demand growth. Fossil-fuel generation fell 0.2%, marking the first structural decline driven by clean power rather than crisis. Carbon Brief

Belgium hits €1/kWh power price record as heatwave maxes out grid — Belgian electricity prices breached €1 per kWh at sunset on 24 June as conventional power stations ran flat-out to meet air-conditioning demand. The price spike underscores how heatwaves are stressing European power markets even as renewables grow. Wikipedia (2026 European heatwaves)

Soil Science

Livestock heat deaths in transit doubled in UK's record-hot 2025 summer — Carbon Brief analysis of UK Food Standards Agency data showed 6,595 animals died from heat stress en route to abattoirs between June and August 2025, roughly double the prior year. The Met Office estimates human-caused climate change made the heat 70 times more likely, exposing fragilities in food and farming supply chains. Carbon Brief

Heat stress costs UK farming £205m a year, could hit £2.3bn in extreme years — Research cited in the Climate Change Committee's latest adaptation report estimates heat stress already causes £205 million in annual losses across wheat, barley, oats, dairy cattle, free-range hens and lambs in the UK. In an extreme scenario in the 2030s, losses could reach £2.3 billion. ECIU

French farmers shift to night harvesting to escape extreme heat — A French agricultural cooperative said farmers across the country are introducing night shifts to harvest grain, both to protect workers from afternoon highs above 40°C and to reduce fire risk in dry fields. Hundreds of thousands of poultry birds have died on farms in Brittany and Pays de la Loire. RTÉ

FAO: Soil compaction is a major and growing driver of land degradation worldwide — The FAO Global Soil Partnership flagged soil compaction as a rising threat to land productivity ahead of the International Symposium on Soil Compaction in Aarhus, Denmark in September. The body warns that declining soil health undermines productivity, food security and farm economics globally. FAO

New review strengthens evidence for regenerative agriculture's soil-carbon gains — A major review of hundreds of studies finds that practices rebuilding soil organic carbon consistently support stronger soil function, though gains vary widely by climate and soil type. The evidence is reshaping policy debates on carbon markets and long-term soil incentives. Regenerative Agriculture Summit

Editorial: Regenerative agriculture for soil health, GHG mitigation and climate action — A Frontiers in Environmental Science editorial synthesises 27 contributions showing soil health functions as the central driver of regenerative agriculture outcomes, linking carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling and biodiversity. The authors argue regenerative agriculture should be treated as a soil-plant-climate nexus rather than a piecemeal toolkit. Frontiers in Environmental Science

FAO and Quebec deepen partnership on climate-smart food systems — FAO North America Director Jocelyn Brown Hall travelled to Quebec to strengthen partnerships on sustainable agriculture, youth engagement and resilient food systems. The visit highlights the province's leadership on climate-smart farming as global food security pressures mount. FAO

Soil upgrade cuts locust damage and doubles yields in Senegal trial — Scientists working with farmers in Senegal showed that improving soil health can dramatically reduce locust damage, with enriched soils doubling yields in trials. The work points to soil management as a frontline defence against pest outbreaks that threaten food supplies. ScienceDaily

Cover photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash.