| |  |  | The Reuters Daily Briefing | Tuesday, June 29, 2021 by Linda Noakes | Hello Here's what you need to know. Hopes fade for scores missing under Florida condo rubble, a ceasefire in Ethiopia, and an old U.S. foe grows his political power in Iraq | | | | | Today's biggest stories  FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. President Donald Trump holds his first post-presidency campaign rally at the Lorain County Fairgrounds in Wellington, Ohio, June 26, 2021. REUTERS/Gaelen Morse U.S. New York prosecutors investigating former President Donald Trump's business practices are likely to issue one or more criminal indictments this week – but not against Trump himself, according to people involved in the case.
Search-and-rescue operations continue at the site of a partly collapsed Florida condominium complex where at least 11 people were killed, with another 150 missing and feared dead. Hopes are fading by the hour of pulling anyone else alive from the rubble.
President Joe Biden will visit Wisconsin today to drum up support for a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package hammered out by a bipartisan group of legislators but still in need of wide support in Congress to become reality.
New York will take Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and the nation's largest drug distributors to trial today, seeking to hold them liable for fueling an opioid crisis that has caused nearly half a million U.S. deaths over a decade.
The cities of Portland and Salem in Oregon, and Seattle in Washington set new temperature records as the Pacific Northwest baked under a heatwave that has shut down much of daily life for residents.
|  Members of Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces carry the mock coffins of fellow members, who were killed by U.S. air strikes on the Syria-Iraq border, during a symbolic funeral in Baghdad, June 29, 2021. REUTERS/Saba Kareem WORLD MIDDLE EAST
The political movement of nationalist Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has quietly come to dominate the apparatus of the Iraqi state. This could pose problems for the United States and Iran. Read our special report on the old U.S. foe growing his political power.
Biden's latest strikes against Iran-backed militia in Syria and Iraq are not the first nor likely the last of his young presidency. We take a look at how America's battles with Iran-backed militia are escalating again.
The U.N. investigator on human rights in Iran has called for an independent inquiry into allegations of state-ordered executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 and the role played by President-elect Ebrahim Raisi as Tehran deputy prosecutor.
AFRICA
The former rulers of Ethiopia's Tigray region said they were back in control of the regional capital Mekelle after nearly eight months of fighting, and the government which ousted them declared a unilateral ceasefire with immediate effect.
South Africa's highest court sentenced ex-president Jacob Zuma to 15 months in jail for failing to appear at a corruption inquiry, as Zuma appeared to run out of options in his battle to escape prosecution.
Demonstrators in the small southern African kingdom of eSwatini demanded reforms to its system of absolute monarchy, and security forces tried to repel them with gunfire and tear gas. Campaigners say King Mswati III has consistently evaded calls for meaningful reforms that would nudge eSwatini, which changed its name from Swaziland in 2018, in the direction of democracy.
CHINA
President Xi Jinping urged Chinese Communist Party members to remain loyal and continue to serve the people as he awarded a new medal of honour to 29 members as part of the ruling party's 100th anniversary celebrations.
An extravaganza of song, dance and theater credited the party with guiding China's rise into a great power over the past century.
Read how China's ruling party is censoring its past as the centenary nears, and see our photo essay from a scarred Hong Kong where "beautiful things are gone".
| | | | | | | Video of the day  Furloughed Londoner finds fortune in the Thames Confined to London by coronavirus lockdowns, Flora Blathwayt founded a business based on rubbish she retrieves from the muddy banks of the River Thames. | | | | And finally… When do electric vehicles become cleaner than gasoline cars?  You glide silently out of the Tesla showroom in your sleek new electric Model 3, satisfied you're looking great and doing your bit for the planet. But keep going - you'll have to drive another 13,500 miles before you're doing less harm to the environment than a gas-guzzling saloon. | | | Thanks for spending part of your day with us. | | | | | |
