The Sunday, June 28, 2026 Edition
This Week: U.S.-Iran strikes, Starmer's resignation, and the NBA draft
8 min read
Politics & WorldVenezuela Earthquake Kills 920, Leaves 51,000 Missing
Al Jazeera
Politics & WorldMamdani-Backed Candidates Sweep New York Democratic Primaries
Axios
Politics & WorldSupreme Court Expands Trump Deportation Powers in 6-3 Rulings
BBC World
Business & MarketsTech Stocks Post One of Worst Weeks as AI Costs Hit Consumers
MarketWatch
Sports, Entertainment & Culture
Wizards go with Dybantsa at No. 1. Washington kicked off a new era this week, selecting BYU's AJ Dybantsa with the top pick in the NBA Draft over Kansas' Darryn Peterson. The franchise is betting on the 19-year-old to help reverse its fortunes.
ESPN
Justin Bieber announces McKenna to the Leafs. The 2026 NHL Draft in Buffalo had a distinctly Canadian flavor: Toronto selected Penn State winger Gavin McKenna first overall, with the announcement delivered by hometown pop star Justin Bieber. Leafs fans had plenty to cheer about.
CBS Sports
Fever coach blasts refs over 'cheap shots' on Caitlin Clark. Indiana Fever head coach Stephanie White went public with her frustration this week after Clark left Wednesday's loss to the Phoenix Mercury with a back injury. White called out officials over what she described as two deliberate 'cheap shots,' including a fist to Clark's throat, with video going viral.
Bleacher Report
World Cup group stage wraps with Messi records and a Cinderella story. The FIFA World Cup 2026 group stage concluded this week, delivering two of its biggest stories: Cape Verde's stunning Cinderella run captured global attention, and Lionel Messi broke more tournament records. The knockout rounds now loom.
Bleacher Report
Clive Davis, the most powerful executive in music history, dies at 94. The industry lost a giant this week. Davis, who discovered or relaunched the careers of Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen, and Carlos Santana — among dozens of others — passed away at 94. He is remembered as an unmatched force in shaping popular music across six decades.
AP News
Hollywood's directors ratify a new four-year deal — no strike this time. The Directors Guild of America voted this week to ratify a four-year contract with studios and streamers, completing another round of guild agreements. The contrast with the bruising strikes of three years ago was stark: labor peace, for now, reigns in Hollywood.
Deadline
Science & Technology
Trump administration restricts OpenAI's newest model. OpenAI limited access to GPT-5.6 Sol this week at the White House's request. It was the first time a U.S. administration has directly intervened to restrict an AI model's public release.
AP News
IBM claims sub-1 nanometer chip milestone. IBM's new nanostack transistors could pack roughly 100 billion transistors onto a fingernail-sized chip. That could extend Moore's Law by a decade, with major gains in performance or energy efficiency.
Ars Technica
Vesuvius-charred Roman scrolls fully unrolled digitally. A Silicon Valley-backed team this week revealed a complete 2,000-year-old philosophical treatise on ethics and human nature, recovered from scrolls destroyed in the 79 C.E. eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
Scientific American
First nuclear clocks begin ticking. Two independent teams this week built functional nuclear clocks — which track time using atomic nuclei rather than electrons — potentially giving physicists a new tool to probe dark matter.
Smithsonian
Business & Markets
Alan Greenspan dies at 100. Greenspan led the Federal Reserve for 19 years under four presidents, famous for his deliberately opaque "Fedspeak." His legacy was complicated by the 2008 financial crisis.
CNBC Finance
New York City freezes rents for two years. The city's Rent Guidelines Board voted 7-1 this week to freeze rents on about one million regulated apartments, fulfilling a central campaign promise of Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Reuters
Oil prices erase all wartime gains. Tankers stranded in the Persian Gulf for months began moving through the Strait of Hormuz this week, easing supply concerns and pushing oil prices back to pre-conflict levels.
CNBC Top News
Trump blocks bipartisan housing bill. Congress passed a broad housing affordability package this week with bipartisan support, but Trump refused to sign it, demanding Congress first pass the SAVE Act.
AP News
Politics & World
Starmer resigns as UK prime minister. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Monday he is stepping down as Labour leader. He will leave office within weeks -- scarcely two years after winning a landslide election. He will be the UK's seventh prime minister in a decade.
NPR News
Congress passes first war powers rebuke. Both chambers approved a resolution directing President Trump to remove U.S. forces from hostilities with Iran. It was the first such bipartisan action since the War Powers Act passed in 1973. The measure is largely symbolic.
BBC World
Far-right candidate wins Colombia's presidency. Trump-endorsed lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella won Colombia's presidential runoff by a narrow margin. His left-wing opponent alleged vote count irregularities following the result.
The Guardian World
Millions lose food stamp benefits under Trump cuts. Trump administration rollbacks stripped millions of Americans of SNAP benefits, with Arizona reporting the steepest losses. Food banks and low-income families across the country said they are absorbing the strain.
Reuters
The FIFA World Cup 2026 knockout rounds get underway as the Round of 32 begins following the conclusion of the group stage this week.
Monday, June 29
Markets reopen after a week dominated by Fed-watching and trade policy developments; investors will parse any new signals from Kevin Warsh's Fed.
Monday, June 29
The NBA Draft's second round and post-draft free agency maneuvering will continue as teams react to this week's picks, headlined by Washington's selection of AJ Dybantsa.
Early week
WNBA action continues with Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever returning to the court; the league's officiating and player-safety debate will likely intensify after this week's controversy.
Week of June 29
Hollywood labor watchers will monitor whether the DGA's newly ratified four-year deal sets a template for any remaining guild negotiations in the industry.
Week of June 29
Rescue and recovery operations are expected to continue in Venezuela's La Guaira region following the earthquakes that left families searching for loved ones in the rubble this week.
Week of June 29
'Regime change but in a velvet glove': How Kevin Warsh has set out to remake the Fed
Kevin Warsh has moved quietly but decisively to reshape the Federal Reserve since taking the helm — this deep dive examines how he's restructuring the institution's culture, communication strategy, and policy framework in what insiders are calling 'regime change but in a velvet glove.'
CNBC
Xi Jinping has hosted more than a dozen leaders this year as 'middle powers' look beyond the US
As Washington's global standing shifts, Xi Jinping has hosted more than a dozen world leaders this year alone. This piece explores how 'middle powers' are hedging their bets and increasingly looking to Beijing — not Washington — for economic and diplomatic partnerships.
The Guardian
Despite state bans, abortions have almost doubled. The reason? Pills via telehealth
Four years after Dobbs, a striking data point has emerged: abortions in the United States have nearly doubled, driven almost entirely by the explosion of medication abortion via telehealth. This reported piece traces how patients, doctors, and advocacy groups have built a parallel system that state bans have struggled to contain.
NPR
In Memoriam: Alan Greenspan
A tribute to Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman whose 18-year tenure shaped the modern global economy. With Greenspan's passing, CFR reflects on his legacy, his philosophy of markets and regulation, and the debates his tenure still provokes among economists today.
Council on Foreign Relations
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.”
— Hunter S. Thompson
Get The Morning Brief free, every morning.
Everything you need. Nothing you don’t.