Burned to death in their cars

Reuters Weekend Briefing <dailybriefing@thomsonreuters.com>
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2026-07-11 13:00

Weekend Briefing

From Reuters Daily Briefing

By Robert MacMillan, Reuters.com Weekend Editor

Welcome to the Weekend Briefing. Our On Assignment podcast shows how we documented the war damage to treasured Iranian cultural sites. City Memo takes us to Starbase, Elon Musk’s “Gateway to Mars.” And would you spend all your money on a vacation? Readers respond.

Burned to death in their cars

REUTERS/Jon Nazca

Spain: Panicked people in rural Andalusian villages went against the advice of local mayors and police and fled directly into the path of flames from a mountain wildfire. Four people died in one car while eight others were found in the fire’s path after apparently abandoning their vehicles and trying to escape on foot.
China: Typhoon Bavi is churning toward Wenzhou, prompting the evacuation of more than 1.8 million people. A zoo in southwestern China locked lions, bears and wolves in their cages to prevent them from escaping as deadly flooding triggered by Typhoon Maysak swept through the region.

Iran’s leader remains unseen, and it’s becoming a liability

Mojtaba Khamenei: The son of and successor to Iran’s assassinated supreme leader remains out of sight after sources said he was injured in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes. Ordinary Iranians are noticing. President Trump declared the ceasefire over and demanded that Iran arrange safe passage for ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Renewed fighting is pushing U.S. gasoline prices higher.
Gaza: Mohammad al-Waheidi set up screenings for people in the shattered enclave to watch the World Cup match between Egypt and Argentina. Then an Israeli airstrike killed him as he rode in a taxi.. Three other people, including two siblings aged 8 and 10, also died in the attack.

Trump fires election commission members

‘Thank you for your service’: The White House spent months looking for ways to bypass a federal election agency and use emergency powers to force changes to voting machines before Trump simply fired its leaders. Six Democrats are trying to fill the hole that Graham Platner blew into the center of their campaign to beat Republican Susan Collins in this year’s midterms. Where is Mitch McConnell?
Daylight Saving Time again: The House of Representatives may vote next week on a bill to make the time change permanent. The proposal would allow states to opt out. If it passes, the Senate would have to take up the measure again.

Ukraine faces a long wait for Patriot missiles

The pledge: Trump promised Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Ukraine could produce the air-defense missiles, but experts say that it will take at least a year to start producing them. Patriots are the only weapon in Ukraine’s arsenal that can stop Russian ballistic missiles.
Shot in the head: A Ukrainian court is holding two men accused of killing a woman suspected of carrying out a bomb attack in Monaco that wounded a Ukrainian businessman. One of the men is a serving officer in Kyiv’s military intelligence unit. Another is a former law-enforcement officer.

Space holds the mysteries, Earth holds the money

SpaceX: Elon Musk pitched the vision of a future in which space powers artificial intelligence, but Wall Street analysts say the company’s near-term value remains tethered to Earth where it is building the infrastructure that underpins the AI boom.
SK Hynix: The South Korean chipmaker’s U.S.-listed shares rose 14% in their Nasdaq debut, showing that investor enthusiasm for chip stocks remains high as the rise of artificial intelligence prompts billions of dollars of corporate capital spending. Its CEO told us he expects the global memory business to experience its worst-ever supply shortage in 2027.

Apple sues OpenAI, two former employees

Trade secrets: Apple accused OpenAI tried to acquire and exploit confidential information through former employees and others means. Analysts think OpenAI is working on a phone or some other device.
That’s not your song: A federal judge dismissed a Florida woman’s lawsuit that accused Taylor Swift of plagiarizing phrases from her poems.

Before I forget…

A passenger was partially sucked through a dislodged window on a Ryanair flight shortly after it took off from Thessaloniki.
A Miami-based businessman wanted in Albania for allegedly laundering drug money is suspected of faking the deeds to land that Jared Kushner wants to use to build a multi-billion-dollar resort.
A bottled-water business owner and his wife were detained over an alleged plot to assassinate top members of the Trinidad and Tobago government, including the prime minister.
A young Black man traveled to a Mississippi island with three white friends over the July 4 weekend. His body was found on July 6. His mother is pleading for information.
Police arrested dozens of people for violence and vandalism during protests over the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in the Indian state of West Bengal.
An opposition politician in Georgia received a 13-year prison sentence after his conviction on a terrorism charge for trying to set fire to a court building in Tbilisi.
The Normans are returning to Britain, courtesy of the Bayeux Tapestry, which is visiting after a nearly 1,000-year absence.

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