Julian Assange agrees to plead guilty to one charge of violating US espionage law, bringing a 14-year legal saga to an end. Elsewhere, Donald Trump is handed a plan to halt US military aid to Kyiv unless it talks peace with Moscow, and Israel court ends draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Plus, a special report on Apple supplier Foxconn rejecting married women from jobs at its iPhone assembly plant in southern India.
Today's Top News
Assange boards a plane at a location given as London, in this still image from video released June 25, 2024. @wikileaks via X/Handout via REUTERS
Free speech organizations welcomed the news but said the case had still set a bad precedent by punishing Assange for this long. His wife Stella said she was "elated" and it was "incredible" her husband was set to be freed.
War in Ukraine
Two key advisers to Donald Trump have presented him with a plan to end the Ukraine war if he wins the election - that involves telling Ukraine it will only get US weapons if it enters into peace talks. Gram Slattery discusses the plan on Reuters World News podcast.
Western supplies of artillery shells, slowed by months of political wrangling in Washington, have started to reach Ukrainian units, relieving pressure on forces outnumbered by the Russians. Meanwhile, the EU is set to open membership talks with Ukraine.
Iranians choose a president on Friday in a tightly controlled election following Ebrahim Raisi's death in a helicopter crash, with the outcome expected to influence the succession to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's top decision-maker. Meet the candidates.
Business & Markets
Morning Bid: Nvidia has recoiled by almost 20% since last Thursday's record high - lopping more than $430 billion off its market value in the process. The artificial intelligence champion chip behemoth remains up almost 140% for the year to date.
Novo Nordisk said its popular weight-loss drug Wegovy has been approved in China, paving the way for sales in the world's second-largest economy. The company said in March that it would initially target Chinese patients willing to pay out-of-pocket for the drug.
China's Premier Li Qiang used his address at a World Economic Forum meeting in Dalian to hit back at accusations from the US and EU that Chinese firms benefit from unfair subsidies and are poised to flood their markets with cheap green technologies.
EU antitrust regulators charged Microsoft with illegally bundling its chat and video app Teams with its Office product and say that recent moves by the US tech giant to unbundle the package were insufficient and more needed to be done.
FTX will ask a judge to allow customers of the bankrupt crypto exchange to vote on a liquidation plan that would pay them back in cash, over the objections of some customers who have demanded higher repayments.
The Bank of Japan is dropping signals its quantitative tightening plan in July could be bigger than markets think, and may even be accompanied by an interest rate hike, as it steps up a steady retreat from its still-huge monetary stimulus.
A Reuters Special Report
Job aspirants talk with a hiring agent outside the Foxconn iPhone plant in Sriperumbudur, in Tamil Nadu state, in April. REUTERS/Palani Kumar
Foxconn, a major manufacturer of Apple devices, has been excluding female candidates from assembly jobs at its flagship Indian smartphone plant because they are married. Both companies' codes of conduct state that workers shouldn't be discriminated against on the basis of marital status.
The world is racing to meet a goal to protect wildlife. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril
Setting aside an additional 1.2% of the world's land as nature preserves would prevent the majority of plant and animal extinctions, according to a study. It aimed to identify the highest value areas in hope that they be included in protection plans.
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