Trump’s grocery photos haunt Republicans

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2026-08-15 13:03

Weekend Briefing

From Reuters Daily Briefing

By Robert MacMillan, Reuters.com Weekend Editor

Welcome to the horse latitudes of August. We’re watching Indonesia, where at least 38 people died following a severe earthquake. An ex-Cambridge professor accused of plagiarism was found dead. Luigi Mangione admitted killing health-insurance executive Brian Thompson.

Trump’s grocery photo op returns to haunt him

REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

Those prices are still high: The president in 2024 blamed Democrats for high prices. Two years later, they’re still rising despite his pledge to bring them down. As for gasoline prices, Trump told Americans they’ll have to deal with it as long as the U.S. pursues its conflict with Iran.
Oil: Two slicks appeared in Iranian waters as U.S. and Iranian attacks on tankers threaten to do environmental damage to the Gulf.

‘Very extreme’ wildfire conditions stretch across Europe

Engulfed: Fires destroyed homes in Croatia and in England and Wales, and hundreds of people were evacuated from a beach resort in northern Greece. More evacuations ensued in southwestern France and a German village near the Belgian border. Spain removed the bones of the first three kings of Aragón after a fire threatened the monastery where they were kept.
Exposure: The record-low levels of the Danube are exposing sunken German warships from World War Two in Serbia. Hungary planned to sink two barges to raise the river’s level so it could cool the Paks nuclear plant. The Rhine’s level fell to new lows, stranding cargo vessels.

US wants Netanyahu to condemn West Bank settler siege

Qusra: The militant settlers besieged Palestinians in their homes in the occupied West Bank after cutting off their water and electricity. Settlers near the village of Fasayil diverted water from Palestinian farmers’ fields and used it to make a swimming pool.
Gaza: Cancer patients are dying at two to three times the pace that they did at the start of the war, local doctors said. Israel blew up Gaza’s specialized cancer hospital last year, saying troops found a Hamas tunnel beneath it.

You need a telescope for this Anthropic IPO valuation

Exclusive: Anthropic is projecting 2028 revenue up to $200 billion, far above the $47 billion run rate that reflects its current pace of business. That’s a farther look into the future than investors normally would take. Our analysis shows that institutional investors pulled back from tech-market segments during the second quarter.
Another exclusive: Jane Street took a $15 billion hit in July from its exposure to AI-focused hedge fund Situational Awareness and other tech stocks that were battered in a market selloff. Read more about Leopold Aschenbrenner, whose AI investments helped vaporize all that money.

Spotify sees fake people

AI music: The online-music service said it will add “AI Persona” badges to musician profiles to tell listeners whether the artist behind the music is real.
Invisible fink: A Connecticut state judge said a plaintiff in a case before him included hidden text, written in tiny white type on a white background, meant to serve as instructions for any AI system reviewing the documents to help the plaintiff’s case.

Billionaires can’t resist a sports team

Jump shot: Joshua Kushner’s and Bob Iger’s purchase of the Los Angeles Lakers values the NBA team at $12.5 billion, a 25% jump in its valuation from a year ago. That deal and other recent sales leaves other team owners wondering what their franchises might be worth.
Shock the monkey: Organizers of the Badminton World Championships hired people who can imitate langur monkey calls to keep aggressive rhesus monkeys away from the venue in New Delhi. Also from India: The food-safety chief for the state of Maharashtra is cracking down on grocery giants like Swiggy after finding cockroach infestations and other nasty conditions at their warehouses.

Score another point for psychedelic medicine

Health: Definium Therapeutics’ LSD-based experimental pill significantly reduced anxiety symptoms in a late-stage study. The FTC opened an antitrust investigation into the company that runs the MyChart patient portal that I and 280 million of my fellow U.S. residents use to interact with our healthcare providers. My colleague Hani Richter reports on the financial reality of freezing your eggs.
Fixes: It’s going to take more than a pill for McDonald’s and other fast-food companies to figure out how to keep their customers satisfied now that cheap deals no longer do the trick. Silver Lake’s bid to buy Workday could make software stocks look good again.

Before I forget…

Turkey's parliament took a major step toward ending one of the world’s longest insurgencies.
The Taliban marked their fifth anniversary in power in Afghanistan, where crises are escalating and they know it. Life is particularly dire for Afghan women.
Investigators found bird remains in the engine of the Ryanair plane in which a passenger was partially sucked through a broken window.
Johannesburg residents, the ones who aren’t rich, at least, are dealing with dry taps as the city hemorrhages more than a third of its water supply every day.
Police ended a homicide investigation after a body found stuffed into a suitcase on the side of a road in Australia turned out to be a doll.
Taiwan’s parliament voted to hold three referendums, including one on caning criminals convicted of sex crimes and fraud.
A massive swarm of jellyfish returned to the Gravelines nuclear power plant in France after forcing it offline a year ago.

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