June 5, 2026 - Daily News Digest
On this day in 1968, just moments after his victory speech for the California presidential primary, US Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot by Sirhan Sirhan. His death came five years after the assassination of his brother.
QotD: "This war will end only when it ends in Lebanon as well," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Lebanese TV station Al Mayadeen late on Thursday.
US/LABOR – Jobs in hospitality and healthcare propelled hiring in May.
The U.S. labor market has climbed out of a rut.
The country added more jobs than expected in May, posting strong payroll gains for the third month in a row. Despite uncertainties around the Iran war, inflation, trade and artificial intelligence, the report suggests the U.S. labor market is steadily recovering from its weak patch last fall and winter.
The U.S. added 172,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department said Friday, beating expectations. That was far better than the 80,000 jobs that analysts polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected to see.
The unemployment rate stayed unchanged at 4.3% in May, in line with economists’ expectations.
“What we’re seeing here is the catch-up from last year where employers were on pause” due to trade policy uncertainties and federal-government cuts, said Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo. “Employers have a better sense of the growth backdrop.”
Heading into the summer months and the coming World Cup soccer tournament, a number of sectors posted outsize job gains. Leisure and hospitality added 70,000 new jobs. Local government hiring jumped, with 55,000 new jobs added.
The healthcare and social assistance sector also created 47,000 new jobs; and the construction sector posted modest job gains for the third month in a row.
US/IRAN/MIL – Iran declare support for Hezbollah with wider peace deal in doubt.
Iran has reaffirmed support for its Lebanese ally Hezbollah and demanded that Israel withdraw from southern Lebanon, underscoring complications facing an interim deal to end the broader conflict between the U.S. and Iran.
Tehran has made a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah a condition for any peace deal with Washington to resolve the regional war, now in its fourth month, and restart shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The latest round of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel erupted at the start of March, two days after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran. Hezbollah said its actions were in support of Tehran.
"This war will end only when it ends in Lebanon as well," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Lebanese TV station Al Mayadeen late on Thursday.
"The end of the war on Lebanon must be accompanied by the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they have occupied," he said.
The comments came after Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem rejected a U.S.-brokered pact between Israel and the Lebanese government to halt the fighting in Lebanon. The deal did not provide for an Israeli withdrawal and Hezbollah had not been party to the negotiations.
US/CONGRESS – US Senate passes $70 bn ICE funding; fails to ban Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization’ fund.
The U.S. Senate handed President Donald Trump a victory early Friday morning, passing a bill that would provide the Department of Homeland Security with an additional $70 billion for immigration enforcement and sending it to the House of Representatives for final consideration.
The Senate voted 52-47 to approve the legislation, with no support from Democrats and no provision to ban a $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund that could compensate Trump's political allies for allegations that the government mistreated them. One Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski, voted against the bill.
Senate Republican Leader John Thune said the fund was a "settled issue," citing acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's congressional testimony this week that the Department of Justice would not move forward with it, though Democrats have said his word was insufficient.
US/CUBA – US sanctions Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel in latest move to pressure island’s leadership.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-cuba-sanctions-diazcanel-1cd7096822e8397dbfeffaf8e70aa536
The United States imposed sanctions Thursday on Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, his wife and three other individuals, in the latest move by the Trump administration to pressure the island’s leadership that drew immediate condemnation from Havana.
Included in the sanctions are Alejandro Castro Espín, the sole son of former Cuban President Raúl Castro and Vilma Espín. He served as an adviser to Cuba’s Defense and National Security Commission and was present when Raúl Castro greeted then-U.S. President Barack Obama in Havana during a historic March 2016 meeting. Castro Espín’s son, Raúl Alejandro Castro Calis, also was listed.
The new penalties come as U.S. President Donald Trump has been threatening military action in Cuba since ousting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January and then ordering an energy blockade that choked off fuel shipments to Cuba. That has led to severe blackouts, food shortages and an economic collapse across the island.
UN – Five countries elected to UN Security Council; Germany misses out.
The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday elected Austria, Kyrgyzstan, Portugal, Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe to the 15-member U.N. Security Council for two-year terms starting on January 1, 2027.
Germany, which had lobbied hard for a seat, came third for the two places contested by the Western European and Others Group, with 104 votes, against 134 for Portugal and 131 for Austria.
The contest between the Philippines and Kyrgyzstan for the seat for the Asia-Pacific Group went to four rounds of voting, with Kyrgyzstan eventually achieving the necessary two-thirds majority and securing its first-ever Security Council seat by 142 votes to 49.
The Security Council is the only U.N. body that can make legally binding decisions such as imposing sanctions and authorizing use of force. It has five permanent veto-wielding members: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
CHINA/DPRK – China’s Xi to visit North Korea in push for deeper ties.
China said on Friday President Xi Jinping would visit North Korea on a two-day trip from June 8, his first in nearly seven years as Beijing looks to reassert ties with Pyongyang, its only formal treaty ally.
Xi will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and exchange views on bilateral relations and issues of common concern, China's foreign ministry said.
"Both sides will use the visit as an opportunity to promote greater development of China-North Korea relations in keeping with the times," spokesperson Mao Ning told a press briefing.
Beijing has worked to draw Pyongyang back into its fold after the COVID-19 pandemic froze exchanges and Kim deepened ties with Moscow by sending troops and weapons to support Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The two countries signed a cooperation and mutual assistance treaty 65 years ago, legally binding each to provide the other with military support if they came under attack.
"The message implicit from the Chinese side is ... we are still the principal actor when it comes to North Korea," said John Delury, a senior fellow of the Asia Society. "One of the audiences is Russia."
SOMALIA/SEC – Somalia government says it has restored order after fighting in the capital.
Somali security forces have restored order in two districts of the capital, the information ministry said on Friday, a day after government troops and militias allied with opposition politicians fired at each other, forcing some civilians to flee.
This week's violence flared up ahead of planned protests over President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's decision to remain in office after his term expired last month. The protests did not happen.
Parliament in March backed constitutional changes that potentially allowed Mohamud to extend his term by a year and push back an election.
"Opposition group militias have been disarmed and removed, and civilians have returned to their daily lives," the information ministry said in a statement.
Reuters could not reach opposition leaders for comment, and residents said the militias were not disarmed but rather stopped fighting after mediation involving clan elders.
On Thursday, former president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who was in power from 2009 to 2012, had said government forces had targeted his home and accused Mohamud's government of "illegally altering the constitution."
UKR/RUS/DRONE – Marine drone self-detonates in Romanian port after Ukraine says Russia jammed vessel.
A maritime drone self-detonated on Friday in Romania's Black Sea port of Constanta near an oil terminal, without causing casualties, as Ukraine accused Russia of jamming one of its vessels before it drifted into Romanian waters.
The explosion was the second major incident in a populated area in Romania on NATO's eastern flank in just a week as the spillover threat increases from the war in Ukraine, which has been fighting against a full-scale Russian invasion since 2022.
Ukraine's navy said one of its naval drones lost control while on a mission in the Black Sea, as a result of Russian electronic warfare, and drifted towards the coast.
It contacted the Romanian side to warn them and prevent casualties, it said.
The explosion took place a week after authorities said a Russian drone crashed into an apartment building in the southeastern Romanian city of Galati, near the border with Ukraine, injuring two people -- the first time in the war that a drone has struck a densely populated area in a NATO state.
After the latest incident, Russia's embassy in Romania said it was not involved and that the drone was not Russian.
MORE – Ukraine’s Zelensky proposes Putin meeting on ending war.
https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-zelenskyy-open-letter-putin-ceasefire/a-77427312
In an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was willing to meet face-to-face and end the Ukraine war "through direct engagement between us."
"Ukraine is ready for a full ceasefire for the duration of the negotiations," he added in the letter published on the Ukrainian presidency's website.
In one of the few times Zelenskyy has reached out directly to Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, the Ukrainian leader said Russians were getting tired of the conflict, and warned Ukraine would "continue fighting for its existence" if Putin did not "personally come to the conclusion that it is time to end this war."
Zelenskyy's letter comes as Putin on Thursday told the heads of international news agencies at a St. Petersburg economic conference that Russia still holds the upper hand in the war.
"Russian troops are advancing along the entire front," Putin said during his remarks.
"The offensive is ongoing on a daily basis," he said, while claiming that Russia has "full control" of the "Luhansk People's Republic" and controls over 85% of "Donetsk People's Republic," which are two eastern Ukrainian regions Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2022.
EU/BALKANS – EU to advance expansion plans at Balkans summit.
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-to-advance-expansion-plans-at-balkans-summit/a-77432224
The European Union is set to advance expansion plans at its annual EU-Western Balkans summit on Friday, with hosts Montenegro leading a list of six candidate countries.
EU expansion is seen by Brussels as a response to new geopolitical challenges including security and economic threats posed by Russia and China and an increasing ambivalence — bordering on hostility — towards the bloc from the United States.
The summit is the first to bring together EU leaders since the electoral defeat of Viktor Orban, Hungary's former Moscow-friendly prime minister who, during his 16-year tenure, flouted the EU's standards on democracy and the rule of law and forged close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other autocrats.
The gathering in the picturesque port of Tivat on Montenegro's Adriatic coast is being attended by European leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
They are joined by the heads of EU candidate countries including, in addition to hosts Montenegro: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Serbia.