Iran crackdown, NATO promises, Mamdani and vaccines
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Today, Europe placates Trump with NATO promises it can ill afford. What Mamdani's upset in the New York mayoral primary could mean for the midterms. And we look at how insurers are watching the first meeting of RFK Jr.'s newly reorganized CDC vaccine panel. It's Thursday, June 26th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday.

I'm Tara Oakes in Liverpool.

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First to the latest from Iran, where officials and activists say authorities are pivoting from a ceasefire with Israel to intensify an internal security crackdown across the country. Sources tell us that this includes mass arrests, executions and military deployments, particularly in the rest of Kurdish region.

Many of those arrested have been accused of spying for Israel. Iranian state media has reported that three were executed on Tuesday near the Turkish border. Iran's foreign and interior ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

US President Donald Trump says he'll likely seek a commitment from Iran to end its nuclear ambitions at talks between the two countries next week. He was speaking at a NATO summit, where leaders agreed to his long sought-after increase in defence spending. The commitment by European allies to reach 5% of GDP is seen as a win by the Trump administration.

As our European economics editor, Mark John, has reported, the details are a bit more nuanced. Yeah, so they're committing to 5% of GDP on defence spending, and that's going to get broken down into 3.5% of what's called core defence spending, which is troops and weapons, and 1.5% of what is termed defence-related spending. Now, that's where a lot of the detail lies in what you define as defence-related spending.

So for example, in France, there's a discussion as to whether you can include gendarmes, the policemen that you see on country lanes in France, whether or not they can be included in military expenditure, believe it or not.

In the hierarchy, they actually report into the Defence Ministry, but their budget at the moment is outside defence spending. Now, if you were to bring in items like that, you're making that target a lot easier. And the other thing we know is that the, should we say the deadlines for meeting these commitments, in some cases quite vague. So we're talking about years going through 2030, 2035. So essentially it's something that they will be meeting over the next decade.

So are these spending increases as meaningful as what the Trump administration is portraying? The reality is that the vast majority of European countries simply can't afford this. They have debt mountains already at around 80% of GDP. One notable exception is Germany, which after years of fiscal frugality has got pretty solid public finances. But for the rest of them,

This is going to squeeze their public finances in such a way that is politically untenable. We're talking about either very hefty tax hikes or cuts to spending that will be extremely unpopular with their voters. So these are, in many ways, cuts that are simply politically not doable. And while we're on NATO, we can't ignore the so-called 'daddy exchange'.

Here's Trump on Iran and Israel. And NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte adding his two cents.

In a later sit-down interview with Reuters, Reuter denied calling the US president "daddy."

Trump later said he appreciated the term of endearment.

And Jeff Bezos and his fiancée Lauren Sanchez have arrived in Venice for their wedding, kicking off three days of lavish VIP parties despite protests from locals. Summer is here. And on Wall Street, that means traders are nervous about market volatility. Carmel Crimmins has more. Trading volumes are usually lower during the height of summer. Investors take vacation like everyone else. But those low trading volumes can be dangerous.

They mean market moves can be more extreme. If there are less people in the market, then you may have to drop your price to find a buyer. There was a big market sell-off last August. And given the level of uncertainty around this year, with President Trump's trade war and tensions in the Middle East, big investors aren't taking any chances. They're buying equity put options as insurance. They pay out if stocks fall.

Speaking of summer, let's head to New York where temperatures have been high and political surprises have sparked heated debate. Progressive Democrats have been energized by Zoran Mamdani's unexpected victory over former Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary. But the surprise outcome has also generated excitement from a very different group of people: National Republicans.

Reporter Joey Axe is looking at how Mamdani's victory could shape future elections.

So firstly, Joey, what does Mamdani's win mean for the Democrats more widely? Well, it's true that Mamdani is a progressive, a democratic socialist. It's also the case that his candidacy represented a generational shift. He's only 33. And so he's quite youthful. And I think he ran a campaign that emphasized that. You know, he used a lot of viral videos. He went around, he talked to a lot of New Yorkers. He had an enormous amount of volunteers fanning out across the five boroughs.

And I think all of that helped convince a lot of New Yorkers that he could be a new generational voice for the party. And I think that's really important to emphasize, that this wasn't merely about political ideology. This was also about a shift between one generation of Democrats to the next. So what does this win mean for upcoming races?

I think it's fair to say that there are some national Democrats that are a bit uneasy about Mamdani's victory. Republicans have already made it clear that they're going to do everything they can to tie vulnerable Democrats in competitive races in the midterms next year to Mamdani. And so you can't really overstate the importance of those midterms. And I do think that there are some Democrats who are going to look at Mamdani, particularly if he wins in November, as a possible political liability.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Vaccine Advisory Committee is meeting this week, for the first time since Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired the entire body and appointed eight new members.

Caroline Huma is in New York. So the meetings this week have really scaled back in terms of their scope. They will look at some of the items that we were expecting that had been on the agenda for a while, including things like use of the RSV vaccine. So that's sort of one piece of the agenda. And another piece then is new, and that is adding discussions that are key for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,

such as looking at a preservative called thiamersal in flu shots and also looking at the MMRV vaccine, that is the mumps, measles, rubella and varicella vaccine in its use in children under four years of age. So what are the ramifications of the decisions this committee makes for Americans?

One thing to consider is how much the change in the makeup of this committee has begun to create confusion about what insurers will cover. It's unclear that they still have confidence in these decisions and that the committee makes because, for one thing, the committee is now only seven people. It was one.

just weeks ago, it was 17 people, and also because of the makeup of the committee. And so there is an idea now that insurers may turn to other groups, medical groups, perhaps a new project that's underway to create an independent vaccine advisory group, that these groups will make their own recommendations. And insurers may decide that they want to cover vaccines that are not on this ACIP recommendation list simply because

The point of vaccines is that they are life-saving and they can be cost-lowering. An RSV vaccine that keeps a baby or an older person out of the hospital is saving an insurer money. And so sources were telling our reporters that could be something that insurers decide to cover.

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium Wireless. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.

And for today's recommended read, a selection of Trump voters and where they stand five months into his second term.

Reuters has interviewed 20 men and women monthly since February about the president's changes from everything from U.S. trade policy to immigration enforcement. The bottom line? Most of them still back him, but not on everything. There's a link to the story in the pod description. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. And we'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.