| |  |  | The Reuters Daily Briefing | Monday, July 4, 2022 by Linda Noakes | Hello Here's what you need to know. Russia claims a major victory in Ukraine, a glacier collapse in the Alps kills at least six, and Bezos goes into battle with Biden again.
Plus, see our exclusive interview with Pope Francis on resignation rumors, the U.S. abortion rights ruling, and a possible trip to Moscow | | | | | Today's biggest stories  Smoke rises after shelling in Donetsk, Ukraine, July 4, 2022. REUTERS/Kazbek Basayev RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
Russian forces in Ukraine will focus on trying to seize all of the Donetsk region, having forced Ukrainian troops to withdraw from the last major city under their control in the neighboring Luhansk region, the governor of Luhansk said.
After abandoning an assault on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, during the early weeks of the war, Russia concentrated its military operation on the industrial Donbas heartland that comprises the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, where Moscow-backed separatist proxies have been fighting Ukraine since 2014.
Western envoys in China criticized Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, with the U.S. ambassador saying China should not spread Russian "propaganda", in an unusual public forum in a country that has declined to condemn Moscow's attack.
The president of Belarus -- Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin's closest ally -- said his ex-Soviet state stood fully behind Russia in its military drive in Ukraine as part of its longstanding commitment to a "union state" with Moscow.
Turkey has halted a Russian-flagged cargo ship off its Black Sea coast and is investigating a Ukrainian claim that it was carrying stolen grain, a senior Turkish official said.
Here's what you need to know about the conflict right now
|  Punta Rocca summit is seen after parts of the Marmolada glacier collapsed in the Italian Alps amid record temperatures, July 4, 2022. REUTERS/Borut Zivulovic
WORLD
Helicopter crews and drones searched for around 15 people missing in the Italian Alps after part of a mountain glacier collapsed, killing at least six people and injuring eight.
A shooting in a Copenhagen shopping mall which left three people dead and several wounded could not be viewed as an "act of terror" based on current evidence, Danish police said.
Fresh evacuation orders were issued for tens of thousands of Sydney residents after relentless rains triggered floods for the third time this year in some low-lying suburbs. We explain why Australia is battling floods again.
A hacker has claimed to have procured a trove of personal information from the Shanghai police on one billion Chinese citizens, which tech experts say, if true, would be one of the biggest data breaches in history.
A U.N.-appointed mission to Libya said there are "probable mass graves" yet to be investigated, possibly as many as 100, in a town where hundreds of bodies have already been found and it urged Tripoli to continue searching. The report details how a militia run by seven brothers executed and imprisoned hundreds of people between 2016-2020
U.S.
DeShanna Neal's 7-year-old son stopped standing for the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag in school, questioning whether the United States of America really stood for, as the pledge says, 'liberty and justice for all'. As much of the nation takes a day off for backyard barbecues, Main Street parades and fireworks displays, some Americans see democracy in peril and others see it as ascendant.
The congressional panel investigating last year's attack on the U.S. Capitol by Donald Trump's supporters could make multiple referrals to the Justice Department seeking criminal charges against the former president, its vice chair Liz Cheney said.
The latest front in the U.S. war over abortion was waged last week during an idyllic summer evening on Michigan's lakeshore. Outside a park where kids ate waffle cones and hundreds of people listened to a concert in the band shell, volunteers collected signatures in support of placing a measure on the November ballot that would amend the state's constitution to safeguard abortion rights.
Video released yesterday showed eight police officers in Akron, Ohio, were involved in a shooting that killed an unarmed Black man whose body was found with some 60 gunshot wounds after he fled a traffic stop last week.
Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos renewed his spat with the White House over the weekend, as the world's third-richest person criticized President Joe Biden for calling on companies running gasoline stations to lower their prices.
|  Travelers wait at baggage claim in Copenhagen Airport Kastrup, July 3, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly BUSINESS Wage talks between Scandinavian airline SAS and its pilots collapsed, SAS' chief executive told reporters, triggering a strike that will paralyze large parts of the embattled carrier's operations.
Top European hotel chains are hiring workers without experience or even a resume as executives admit years of underpaying staff have come back to bite, leaving them unable to meet post-pandemic travel demand.
Investor morale in the euro zone fell this month to its lowest level since May 2020, pointing to an "inevitable" recession in the 19-country currency bloc, a survey showed.
The German government wants to enshrine possible rescue measures for energy companies such as Uniper in its energy security law and may end up acquiring a stake in the company as a last resort, sources told Reuters.
From a $360 million project to expand Zambia's international airport in Lusaka to a $1.4 billion city port in Sri Lanka's capital of Colombo, China is the missing piece in the puzzle of a number of debt talks under way in developing markets. We look at how China casts a giant shadow over emerging nations' chase for debt relief.
Chinese property developer Shimao Group has missed the interest and principal payment of a $1 billion offshore bond due on Sunday, in the latest blow to China’s embattled property market.
| | | | | | | | | | | Video of the day  Yemen's mountain of trash piles on the country's woes A colossal pile of rubbish, which includes dangerous untreated medical waste, just outside Yemen's capital poses a threat to the environment and water supplies. | | | Thanks for spending part of your day with us. | | | | | |
