Plus, Israel pounds Gaza on anniversary of the Hamas attack.

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Daily Briefing

Daily Briefing

By Kate Turton

Hello. French election calls heap pressure on Macron, Israeli forces shell Gaza on war anniversary, and sources say Pentagon's Hegseth okays US Navy next-generation fighter.

Plus, a US visa is no longer a passport to love for Indians after H-1B squeeze.

 

Today's Top News

 

Smoke rises following explosions during the Israeli military offensive in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 6, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas 

War in Gaza

  • Israeli tanks, boats and jets pounded parts of Gaza, giving Palestinians no respite on the anniversary of the Hamas attack that led to two years of war and underlining the challenges at talks on Donald Trump's plan to halt the conflict.
  • Early in the Gaza war, Inas Abu Maamar was featured in a defining image after a Reuters photograph showed her stricken in a hospital morgue, cradling the shrouded body of her five-year-old niece. Israeli airstrikes and tank shells have killed many more of her close relatives since. 
  • The world came to know her as the little Israeli-American girl who lost her parents in Hamas' October 7 attack and was abducted by the militant group to Gaza. Two years on, with a new pink backpack, she's off to her first day of school.

In other news

  • France's President Emmanuel Macron faced pressure to hold a snap parliamentary election or even resign to end the political chaos that has forced the resignation of five prime ministers in less than two years. Elizabeth Pineau outlines the limited options for Macron as the political crisis deepens on today's Reuters World News podcast.
  • The state of Illinois and the city of Chicago sued President Donald Trump, seeking to block the deployment of federalized National Guard troops to Chicago, as hundreds of National Guard troops headed to the nation's third-largest city from Texas.
  • After months of delay, the Pentagon will select the defense company to design and build the Navy's next stealth fighter, a US official and two people familiar with the decision said, it will be a multibillion-dollar effort for a jet seen as central to US efforts to counter China.
  • The Supreme Court was set to hear a free speech challenge to a Colorado law banning psychotherapists from conducting "conversion therapy" that aims to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity.
  • US-based scientists John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for "experiments that revealed quantum physics in action," the award-giving body said.
  • Efforts to evacuate more than 200 trekkers still stranded near the eastern face of Mount Everest in Tibet are expected to wrap up, a source familiar with the situation said, after snowstorms tore across western China.
 

Business & Markets

 
  • Private credit for emerging markets — driven by investors' hunt for yields and saturation in developed Western markets — could grow exponentially, veteran investors told Reuters, providing tens of billions in funding as bilateral lending and foreign aid shrink.
  • For more on global markets, watch our daily rundown.
  • China is building oil reserve sites at a rapid clip as part of a campaign to boost crude stockpiles that increased in urgency after Russia's Ukraine invasion upended global energy flows and has accelerated this year, according to public data, traders and industry experts.
  • Wegovy-maker Novo Nordisk has laid off dozens of employees at the largest US manufacturing site for its blockbuster obesity and diabetes drugs, a Reuters review of LinkedIn posts showed, a signal of where it is making cuts in a major restructuring under new CEO Mike Doustdar.
  • Trump said that all medium and heavy-duty trucks imported into the US will face a 25% tariff rate starting November 1, a significant escalation of his effort to protect US companies from foreign competition.
  • Britain's biggest carmaker, Jaguar Land Rover said some factories would restart manufacturing after an almost six-week shutdown following a cyberattack, one of the country's most disruptive hacks.
 

US visa no longer a passport to love for Indians after Trump H-1B squeeze

 

Vanaja Rao, owner of a matchmaking agency, poses for a picture in front of her office, in Hyderabad, India, October 1, 2025. REUTERS/Almaas Masood

Tighter US immigration policies, particularly for the H-1B skilled-worker visa, are making families in India less inclined to marry their children to Indian citizens based in the United States for fear the potential partners might lose their job or immigration status, according to matchmakers, academics and prospective brides and grooms.

Read more
 

In Pics

Annual Feast of Saint Francis and Blessing of the Animals at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in the Manhattan borough of New York, October 5. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

Pet owners have their animals blessed every year on the day of Saint Francis of Assisi. Venerated in the Catholic and Anglican churches, Assis is the patron saint of animals.

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