World News

June 26 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a framework agreement on Friday between Israel and Lebanon after talks in Washington.

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis, Writing by Christian Martinez; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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By Andrew Hay

June 26 (Reuters) – A Utah judge on Friday found a prosecutor violated court rules with comments he made to a media outlet about the presumed guilt of Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

District Court Judge Tony Graf ordered measures to prevent the comments by Utah County prosecutor Christopher Ballard from tainting potential jurors should the case go to trial.

But Graf rejected a request by defense lawyers that he penalize the prosecution for Ballard’s comments by blocking them from seeking the death penalty for Robinson.

Ballard spoke to media outlets regarding speculation that test results of a bullet fragment recovered from Kirk’s body could exonerate Robinson. The test of the fragment gave “inconclusive” results that the bullet was fired from a rifle that Robinson’s DNA was allegedly found on.        

Graf ruled that Ballard was in “civil contempt” of court rules regarding communication with media when he told news site TMZ that, irrespective of the test results, prosecutors had ample evidence to prove Robinson was guilty.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Robinson should he be convicted of Kirk’s murder on September 10, 2025.

Robinson, 23, was studying to be an electrician at the time of ​the shooting. He is accused of firing a single round from a rooftop, striking ​Kirk as he debated with students at Utah Valley University in Orem.    

Kirk was credited with mobilizing young voters who helped President Donald Trump win the 2024 election. ​His assassination on stage ​in front of ⁠thousands of people was a shocking display of rising political violence in the U.S.

(Reporting by Andrew Hay in New Mexico; Editing by David Gregorio)

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By Kyu-seok Shim and Heejin Kim

SEOUL, June 26 (Reuters) – South Korea will rapidly expand its drone and counter-drone capabilities to counter North Korea, including by training 500,000 “drone warriors” and distributing tens of thousands of unmanned systems across frontline units, the Defence Ministry said on Friday.

The military also plans to produce 110,000 drones by 2029 for deployment across the army, navy, air force and marines, aiming to make drones a standard item for individual soldiers.

“Drones should no longer be equipment used by a limited number of units, but a universal combat tool,” Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back said in a briefing, adding they should be used by troops like a “second personal weapon.”

Ahn said Seoul would rely on 100% domestically produced components rather than Chinese parts in building the systems, in response to security concerns.

The announcement comes as both Koreas accelerate efforts to build drone capabilities, shaped by lessons from conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, where unmanned systems have emerged as game changers on the battlefield.

“Low-cost drones operated in large numbers are fundamentally changing the nature of warfare,” Ahn said, warning North Korea was also advancing unmanned systems, increasing threats to military and civilian facilities in the South.

South Korea’s plan includes expanding counter-drone systems such as laser and high-power microwave weapons, and shifting operations so each service can conduct surveillance and strike missions using drones rather than relying on a centralised command.

A senior defence official said the military would also move quickly to acquire more than 20,000 low-cost, expendable drones and introduce AI-based swarm systems and loitering munitions.

The ministry said it would revamp procurement rules to speed up adoption of civilian technology and position the military as a major buyer to help build a domestic drone ecosystem.

The expansion comes amid political sensitivity over drone operations under the previous administration. A South Korean court this month sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to 30 years in prison over a military drone incursion into North Korea that prosecutors said was aimed at justifying his 2024 martial law bid.

Current President Lee Jae Myung’s government dismantled the drone operations command in the fallout from those allegations, with the plans on Friday aiming to replace it with a new organisation focused on policy, capability development and support while leaving operations to individual military units.

South Korea also faces pressures from demographic decline, pushing the military to rely more on automation and unmanned systems to sustain combat capabilities.

(Reporting by Kyu-seok Shim and Heejin KimEditing by Ed Davies)

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un observed major weapons tests and called for the military’s “deadly and destructive offensive posture” to be bolstered, state media reported Friday, as South Korea announced it would drastically boost its drone warfare capabilities.

The development comes as tensions remain high on the Korean Peninsula, with Kim pushing to strengthen both nuclear and conventional military capabilities while refusing to return to talks with South Korea and the United States.

The tests watched by Kim on Thursday were meant to evaluate the power of a “special mission” warhead for a tactical ballistic missile, an upgraded multiple rocket launch system and the hit accuracy of shells with an extended firing range of a self-propelled gun-howitzer, the official Korean Central News Agency said.

KCNA cited Kim as saying results of the tests proved the technological progress achieved in a push to bring about a change in the fire posture on southern border areas, implying the tested weapons systems target sites in South Korea including U.S. military bases there.

Kim said North Korea’s self-defense policy includes an objective to strengthen “the deadly and destructive offensive posture to make no enemy dare to confront,” KCNA said. “To make the enemies feel constant uneasiness and fear is just an important aspect of the exercise of war deterrent.”

KCNA said the special mission warhead tested is aimed at “inflicting fatal damage on major targets including airfields, ports and power facilities of the enemy.”

Later Friday, South Korea’s Defense Ministry announced plans to beef up its drone forces, citing growing military threats by North Korea which allegedly received technology assistance from Russia. The plans include developing long-range exploding drones, acquiring more than 20,000 low-cost reconnaissance and attack drones and training the country’s entire 500,000 troops as “drone warriors.”

“North Korea is also currently receiving technology transfers from Russia, so there’s an urgent need for us to respond proactively to the changing nature of warfare and the evolving operational environment,” Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back told reporters.

Ahn said the plans reflect how low-cost loitering munitions like drones are becoming crucial in modern warfare, including in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that also involved thousands of North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian troops. Ahn said the South Korean military plans to have 500,000 “drone warriors” across the army, navy, air force and marines who operate drones “easily like personal firearms.”

North Korea has been focusing on enlarging its nuclear and missile arsenals since Kim’s high-stakes diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019. He’s later underscored the need to build sophisticated conventional weapons as well.

On Tuesday, North Korea commissioned the 5,000-ton destroyer that Kim touted as a symbol of the country’s growing naval and nuclear capabilities. The Choe Hyon is North Korea’s most advanced warship.

In response to Trump’s repeated outreach to restart diplomacy, Kim has suggested that talks can resume if the U.S. drops its demand for denuclearization of North Korea as a precondition of diplomacy. Kim has taken a harsher posture on South Korea, calling it his country’s “principal enemy” and building more military structures along the rivals’ heavily fortified border.

Kim has boosted his diplomatic footprint in past years by expanding ties with Russia with his support of its war against Ukraine. Earlier this month, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited North Korea for the first time in seven years for a meeting with Kim.

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JAKARTA, June 26 (Reuters) – Indonesia has charged 24 foreign nationals as criminal suspects in an illegal gold mining operation in the country’s Maluku region, its energy ministry said.

Here are the details:

• The suspects were allegedly building infrastructure for the illegal mines, including roads and processing facilities around the Gunung Botak area of Maluku, said energy ministry official Jeffri Huwae in a statement released late on Thursday.

• Violations of the law could carry maximum prison sentences of five years, the ministry added.

• The ministry did not give the nationalities of the suspects or the amount of gold produced. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• State news agency Antara reported last month that 24 Chinese nationals in Gunung Botak working under the sponsorship of local company PT Harmoni Alam Manise had been detained for questioning.

• The ministry said 12 of the foreign nationals are still at large and outside of Indonesia’s jurisdiction, with the other 12 already detained.

• Two other Indonesians were named as criminal suspects along with the foreign nationals, the ministry added.

• There have been illegal mining operations involving foreign nationals previously.

• Police in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua arrested four Chinese nationals in the Senggi district last year, Antara reported.

(Reporting by Stanley Widianto and Bernadette Christina; Editing by David Stanway)

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TAIPEI/TOKYO, June 26 (Reuters) – Japan evacuated more than 2 million people and issued flood and landslide warnings as Typhoon Mekkhala approached on Friday, while torrential rain from the storm as it passed neighbouring Taiwan shut down parts of the island, leaving around 6 million people off work or school.

Mekkhala, currently a tropical storm, is nearing southern Japan’s Ryukyu Islands after skirting Taiwan where it brought heavy rain to parts of the island, especially the southern regions of Kaohsiung, Tainan and Pingtung.

Heavy rain and strong winds also lashed areas of southern and western Japan, where authorities warned of landslides, flooding and swollen rivers, and ordered 2.2 million people to evacuate.

Japan has already cancelled more than 200 flights with dozens of train services suspended and many expressways closed, the land ministry said, as the country’s meteorological agency warned a stationary seasonal rain front, being fed with warm, moist air, was causing intense rainfall, particularly in western regions.

Toyota stopped operations at a factory in the southern region of Kyushu from Thursday afternoon into Friday’s first shift, with a decision for the second shift due later.

The governments of all three Taiwanese regions, meanwhile, ordered offices and schools closed on Friday. Severe flooding in Tainan shut down a section of the island’s main north-south railway line.

In the northern Taiwanese city of Hsinchu, home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, TSMC,  offices and schools closed from noon (0400 GMT).

TSMC said in a statement that it had taken measures across its Taiwan facilities to prepare for the rain, and its factories were operating normally.

Some 6 million people live in the four affected areas of Taiwan. In parts of largely rural Pingtung, almost a metre (3.2 ft) of rain has fallen since Thursday.

BARRIER LAKE RISK

In Taiwan, no casualties have been reported but authorities in Hualien county were evacuating nearly 200 residents from two townships downstream of a rapidly filling barrier lake in the mountains.

Barrier lakes are formed when rocks, landslides or other natural blockages create a dam across a river, normally in a valley, blocking and holding back water, and hindering or even preventing natural drainage.

Last year, 19 people died in a different part of Hualien when another barrier lake breached its banks during Super Typhoon Ragasa, unleashing a wall of water and mud into homes.

Rain is forecast to continue over Taiwan for at least the next week, though it will gradually ease.

Precipitation is not all bad news for Taiwan, which relies on the traditional summer and autumn typhoon season to fill its reservoirs after what are typically dry winters.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee in Taipei, Chang-Ran Kim and Kantaro Komiya in Tokyo; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Christopher Cushing and Kate Mayberry)

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MILAN (AP) — Luxury consumers are cautiously resuming purchases of apparel, handbags and cosmetics despite continued geopolitical uncertainty, fueling a likely return to modest growth in the sector this year, the Bain & Company consultancy said Thursday.

After two years of contraction, global sales of personal luxury goods are forecast to grow 2% to 4% in 2026, reaching 365 billion euros to 373 billion euros ($415 billion to $424 billion), up from 358 billion euros last year, Bain said in a semi-annual study. The recovery is expected to be led by the Americas, where some U.S. luxury brands posted first-quarter growth of as much as 15%.

“People are still alive and want to live their better lives,” said co-author Claudia D’Arpizio, a partner at Bain, considered the leading consultancy for luxury goods. “So there is this mega trend of looking for good quality of life, of improving their lives and finding the meaning and living the experiences that is stronger than the fear of the future.”

Following a consumer rebellion over steep price hikes, prices have stabilized with more entry-level offerings, and consumers are returning to the luxury arena, D’Arpizio said. She called it “a healthier situation vis-a-vis two years ago,” but added that brands will continue to have to fight to regain “customer love that has been a little bit broken in the previous years.”

The base-case scenario assumes Middle East conflicts stabilize, local spending helps to offset uneven tourist flows and demand in China gradually improves. Bain’s downside scenario calls for flat growth, while easing geopolitical tensions and accelerated growth in China could lift growth to as much as 6%.

U.S. shoppers were spending on everyday casualwear, jewelry and beauty products, with young consumers under 35 years old fueling sales.

China is forecast to return to growth, helped by online sales of ready-to-wear, while Europe is lagging due largely to a dip in tourism caused by geopolitical tensions. Even Dubai has seen locals return to stores.

“People want to live a normal life, that’s a stronger feeling,” D’Arpizio said.

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Senate Republicans who were berated by President Donald Trump over opposition to his war in Iran held a late-night vote Wednesday, rejecting a war powers resolution a day after a similar measure passed.

Trump lectured GOP senators face-to-face earlier in the day for allowing a vote to block his war in Iran on Tuesday, further escalating a feud that has diverted GOP efforts to focus on election-year affordability issues.

Heres’ the latest:

Senate Republicans who were berated by President Donald Trump over opposition to his war in Iran held a late-night vote Wednesday to try to appease him, rejecting a war powers resolution a day after a similar measure passed.

Trump harangued GOP senators face-to-face earlier in the day for allowing a vote to block his war in Iran on Tuesday, further escalating a feud that has diverted GOP efforts to focus on election-year affordability issues and brought much of the chamber’s business to a halt. He exchanged particularly harsh words with Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of four Republicans who had voted with Democrats on the measure.

Hours later, though, Cassidy was invited to receive a personal briefing on the war at the White House from Vice President JD Vance and envoy Steve Witkoff. Cassidy then returned to the Capitol to vote against a separate but nearly identical war powers resolution.

The Commerce Department said Thursday that consumer prices rose 4.1% in May from a year earlier, the largest annual increase since April 2023. On a monthly basis, inflation was 0.4% last month, matching April’s increase and down from 0.7% in March.

US economy expanded at solid 2.1% pace in January-March, government says, upgrading last estimate

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy expanded at a solid and unexpected 2.1% annual pace from January through March, the Commerce Department reported Thursday in its final estimate of first-quarter growth. The growth in gross domestic product — the nation’s output of goods and services — marked a rebound from a sluggish 0.5% in the last three months of 2025 when a 43-day federal government shutdown weighed on the economy. Thursday’s numbers marked an upgrade from of Commerce’s previous estimate of 1.6% first-quarter growth. Business investment surged, probably reflecting an investment boom in artificial intelligence. But consumer spending fell sharply from fourth-quarter 2025 and from Commerce’s previous estimate.

Key inflation gauge jumps to 3-year high in latest sign of affordability challenges

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge rose to a new three-year high in May as gas prices peaked. The increase was largely driven by more expensive gas, as well as pricier semiconductors and other computer equipment that are in high demand for the AI buildout. Some analysts predict a drop in gas prices with advances in dealing with Iran.

PHOTO – President Donald Trump waves after speaking at the opening of the Great American State Fair on the National Mall, Wednesday, June 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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LONDON (AP) — Much of western Europe has been baking under a “heat dome” this week, with temperatures soaring above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in many places.

The extreme conditions have come in June, earlier in the summer than is usual. Records are tumbling by day and by night. Add in the humidity and it’s more tropical than temperate.

The heat is coming up from north Africa and affecting Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the U.K. — most of them without widespread air conditioning and unused to such oppressive heat.

Conditions are expected to ease in coming days, though July and August, the traditional height of the European summer, are still to come.

Here are some standout numbers that illustrate the depth and breadth of the heat wave:

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The hottest temperature in France this week, recorded in the small southwestern town of Pissos on Wednesday.

The average temperature measured at 30 French weather stations by the Meteo France weather agency on Wednesday. The agency said it was the first time ever the average has been that high, making Wednesday the hottest day in France ever.

While the figure may seem low, it was measured day and night and shows this latest heat wave is much broader than others before. More than three-quarters of France have been placed under a red weather alert for the first time ever.

The temperature recorded in Somerset, southern England on Thursday, marking the hottest June day the country ever saw. Forecasters have extended its red alert for heat in much of central and southern England and Wales.

The German Weather Service says the temperature didn’t go below this figure in Bad Bergzabern, in Rhineland-Palatinate in the west of the country. That equals a record for the warmest night in Germany set in July 2019.

High humidity means that the heat has been lingering into the night for millions, providing little respite. In England, temperatures in Plymouth only dropped to 23.0 C (73.4 F), provisionally smashing another record.

That’s how many people have drowned in heat wave-related incidents in the past week in France, as people seek relief in rivers and other bodies of water despite authorities’ warnings about unsupervised swimming. Most of the drownings involved young people, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said on Tuesday.

The all-time record temperature recorded earlier this week in the Spanish village of Tama, known for its cooler weather and green landscape. The current bout of heat wave has affected Spain’s normally more temperate northern regions along the Atlantic coast.

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Pan Pylas in London, Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Geir Moulson in Berlin, James Ellingworth in Duesseldorf, Germany and Joseph Wilson in Barcelona contributed.

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BUDAPEST, June 25 (Reuters) – Two Hungarian rights groups have criticised a draft constitutional amendment by Prime Minister Peter Magyar’s government that proposes the removal of President Tamas Sulyok and the introduction of a term limit for members of parliament.

Magyar’s centre-right Tisza party, which ousted Viktor Orban’s nationalist government in April after 16 years, argues that Sulyok is a “puppet” of Orban, and that a 12-year term limit on lawmakers would promote broader representation.

Hungary’s president has only limited powers to veto legislation or have it reviewed.

Sulyok, who served for 10 years as a Constitutional Court judge, eight of them as its head, until parliament appointed him president in 2024, has said he has no political agenda and has merely provided necessary checks and balances.

Tisza’s supermajority in parliament enables it to modify the constitution and roll back changes by Orban that critics say have harmed ​democracy.

Prime Minister Magyar on Thursday dismissed the criticism, saying their legislative proposal was “fast, tight, self-limiting and precise,” and had all been known to people before.

Magyar also told a briefing that he has invited the president and experts of the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe panel, to Budapest next week to discuss the planned legislative changes.

The bill says its aim is to ensure “the preconditions for the restoration of constitutional democracy”. The planned constitutional amendment would end Sulyok’s term immediately, citing society’s “serious loss of confidence” in him.

The human rights campaign group Amnesty International Hungary said it believed Sulyok had become “unworthy of his office”. 

But its communication director, Aron Demeter, told the channel ATV late on Wednesday that impeachment would be a “better and fairer” process than removing the president with a constitutional amendment, and more in line with international standards.    

Political analyst Gabor Torok also criticised the plan to remove the head of state “with a one-sentence constitutional amendment”.

“Those who vote for this think … they can do anything with their qualified majority,” Torok wrote on Facebook.

The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union said setting a term limit for members of parliament was not an urgent issue, arguing that it should be decided within the framework of a thorough constitutional review. 

(Reporting by Anita Komuves; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Alexandra Hudson)

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