“Hungary and Ukraine on Wednesday reached an agreement on the rights of Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarian minority, an issue that has long strained relations between the two countries. The deal will boost Ukraine’s longstanding bid to join the EU, with Budapest saying it would drop a veto by former Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Kyiv’s accession to the bloc if an agreement were reached. … The EU has now said it will move Ukraine, along with Moldova, to the next stage in their membership bids as it hailed the deal announced by [Hungarian Prime Minister Peter] Magyar.” (06/04/26)
“President Donald Trump marks the 500th day of his second term in the White House Thursday, but the milestone coincides with a poll showing his approval rating at a new low. The latest survey from The Economist and YouGov places Trump’s net approval rating at -25, down 1.1 points in a week, and reveals that only 35 percent of the American public approves of the job he is doing in the Oval Office, with a massive 60 percent disapproving and the remaining 5 percent unsure. The news magazine explains that the results make the president the most unpopular U.S. commander-in-chief since it began polling in 2009. … The survey finds that Trump is still most likely to receive support in red states that voted for him in 2024 but that dissatisfaction is now ‘widespread’ and is beginning to be expressed in locations he won two years ago.” (06/04/26)
“A performance artist in Hong Kong tried on Wednesday to honor the victims of Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown but was quickly stopped by police, the latest sign of the city’s shrinking freedom of expression. Sanmu Chen tried to tie a symbolic red thread to a street signpost in Causeway Bay, a busy shopping district close to a park that for decades hosted an annual candlelight vigil on June 4 to commemorate those who died in the crackdown that ended student-led protests in Beijing in 1989. Police officers stopped Chen and searched his bag before letting him go. Hong Kong was for decades the only place in China where a large-scale public commemoration of the crackdown was held. The massive annual vigils were banned in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and public acts to mark the Tiananmen Square killings have become increasingly sensitive in the city in recent years.” (06/04/26)
“A case of New World screwworm has been found in Texas six decades after the flesh-eating pest was largely eradicated in the United States, sparking an aggressive response amid fears about its potential impact on the livestock industry. The U.S. Agriculture Department confirmed the parasite was detected in the umbilical area of a 3-week-old calf in Zavala County. There have been no further cases detected, and efforts are underway to contain and eradicate it, the agency said in a statement Wednesday. New World screwworm is a parasitic fly that affects livestock, pets and wildlife, as well as people in rare cases. It lays eggs in open wounds or orifices, with the hatched maggots burrowing into and feeding on flesh. It’s typically found in South America and parts of the Caribbean but has moved north through Central America and Mexico since 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” (06/04/26)
“Senate Republicans voted on Thursday morning to defeat an amendment sponsored by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) to prohibit the Department of Justice from establishing a $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for MAGA allies, a proposal that acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told lawmakers this week the administration would abandon. Notably, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and John Husted (R-Ohio), who all face tough re-election races in November, voted for Schumer’s amendment. The proposal, which would have amended a $70 billion budget reconciliation package to fund immigration enforcement, still failed by a vote of 49 to 50.” (06/04/26)
“A Sherpa guide who went missing last week while descending Mount Everest with a client has been found alive, according to the crew that led the search for him. His survival amid treacherous conditions on the world’s tallest peak has been hailed as ‘a miracle’ by the mountaineering community in Nepal. Dawa Sherpa, 52, was located while crawling down to base camp and has since been reunited with his family, who said they had given up hope for his return. … Dawa was located by a cleaning crew Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above base camp, said Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions, which coordinated the search. He was quickly carried down to safety and given food and water. A rescue helicopter flew him to HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu, where his wife and daughter, who already had begun funeral rituals for him, were waiting.” (06/04/26)
“The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits increased more than expected last week, touching their highest level in four months, but the underlying trend remained consistent with a stable labor market. Economists shrugged off the rise in weekly jobless claims reported by the Labor Department on Thursday as volatility related to last Monday’s Memorial Day holiday. Claims tend to rise around public holidays. They said there were no signs yet the Middle East conflict was having a noticeable impact on the labor market, though uncertainty was growing.” (06/04/26)
“NASA has officially ended the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission, six months after it lost contact with the probe. MAVEN was the agency’s first program dedicated to studying the Martian atmosphere and its evolution. It launched in 2013 from Cape Canaveral and entered the Martian orbit nearly a year later in 2014. The probe’s primary science mission was scheduled to last one year, but it ended up spending more than 11 years in orbit, sending back data from Mars. NASA even used it as an antenna for the Mars 2020 mission, which brought the Perserance rover to the planet. The last time the agency heard from MAVEN was on December 6, 2025, before it suddenly lost signal after passing behind Mars.” (06/04/26)
“US President Donald Trump has hit back at lawmakers who voted to send him a rebuke over the war in Iran, labelling the group ‘unpatriotic.’ On Wednesday, the US House of Representatives passed a measure that seeks to halt Trump from taking further military action. In a post on Truth Social, the president wrote: ‘Yesterday, in a meaningless vote, the House voted, 4 bad Republicans and all of the Dumocrats, to limit my War Powers, right in the middle of my final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Who would do such an unpatriotic thing.'” (06/04/26)
“Blackstone is restricting withdrawals from its flagship Blackstone Private Credit (BCRED) fund following a spike in investor redemption requests. The asset management giant capped investor withdrawals from the $79 billion non-traded business development company at 5% of shares, after redemption requests hit 10%, or about $4.5 billion, during the second quarter.” (06/04/26)
