Politics

From collapsed EU-UK trade talks and ECB rate decisions to South China Sea tensions and a breakout Irish film at Cannes, July 25th is already packed. Here’s your complete morning briefing.

France faces a knife-edge no-confidence vote, the ECJ hits Hungary with a €215 million fine, and a new US tariff on European EVs is sending shockwaves through markets. Here’s everything you need to know this July 24th, 2026.

Zelensky is scrambling to contain the political fallout from his unexplained removal of Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, as protests grow and parliamentary allies demand answers. The crisis marks one of the sharpest domestic challenges of his wartime presidency.

From a tense EU emergency summit in Brussels to record-breaking temperatures scorching southern Spain, Thursday morning brings a packed slate of major stories. Here’s everything you need to know before the day gets away from you.

A US appeals court has rejected Joe Biden’s bid to block the release of recorded interviews made with his memoir ghostwriter, with the ruling temporarily suspended until August 3. The split decision puts Biden’s legal team under intense pressure to mount a last-minute Supreme Court appeal.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed ‘stringent punishment’ for those behind India’s exam paper leak scandal as youth-led Cockroach Janta Party protests intensified across New Delhi. The growing movement has become one of the biggest tests of Modi’s newly secured third term in office.

Ukraine’s new army chief Mykhailo Drapaty won cautious public support on Wednesday, but protests demanding the return of fired defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov show no sign of fading. The demonstrations are the largest war-related unrest Ukraine has seen since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

France’s National Assembly has voted 234 to 19 to ban children under 15 from social media, making it the first EU country to pass such legislation. Tech platforms now face a tight deadline to implement age verification or risk fines tied to their global revenues.

Protesters are back on Delhi’s streets just hours after police wounded at least 60 people in one of the capital’s most violent crackdowns in recent memory. The movement, now widely known as the ‘cockroach’ protest, shows no sign of dying.

Andy Burnham has chaired his first cabinet meeting, declaring he’ll lead a ‘cost-of-living government’ and defending an energy VAT cut announced just 24 hours into the job. But critics are already asking how he plans to pay for it.