Daily Briefing

Japanese stocks race to a record peak, Israel hits Rafah in what residents called one of their worst nights yet, and we look at how life in Ukraine has been shattered by two years of war.

Plus, scientists discover the anatomy behind the songs of baleen whales.

By Edson Caldas

Today's Top News

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike. February 22, 2024. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustaf

Israeli bombs on Rafah flattened a mosque and destroyed homes in what residents called one of their worst nights yet, while the Hamas chief was in Cairo for talks Gazans hope could bring a truce in time to head off a full-blown assault on the city. Follow the latest coverage of the war.
Iran has provided Russia with a large number of powerful surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, six sources told Reuters, deepening the military cooperation between the two US-sanctioned countries. US National Security Correspondent Jonathan Landay weighs in on today's Reuters World News podcast.
Emergency departments at all but one of South Korea's biggest hospitals are on red alert as trainee doctors vowed to stay off the job in protest at government plans to increase medical school admissions to boost the healthcare sector. This piece explains why they are on strike over the medical school quotas.
Brazilian footballer Dani Alves was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman in a Barcelona nightclub in 2022. The top court in Spain's Catalonia region also ordered Alves, who had maintained throughout that the sex was consensual, to pay 150,000 euros to the victim.

US NEWS

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said she believed frozen embryos created through in-vitro fertilization were babies, in comments seen as backing a controversial ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court. For more news and analysis on the US elections, sign up to On the Campaign Trail.
A spacecraft built and flown by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines is sailing around the moon headed for an attempt at the first US touchdown on the lunar surface in more than half a century and the first ever entirely by the private sector.

Business & Markets

Japanese stocks raced to a record peak, breaking levels last seen in 1989 during the halcyon days of the bubble economy, as cheap valuations and corporate reforms lure foreign money looking for alternatives to battered Chinese markets. But like Japan itself, the Nikkei is very different from 34 years ago.
In more news from Japan, the country's efforts to rebuild its semiconductor industry are getting a shot in the arm as more and more Taiwanese chip companies expand there - not only to support a new TSMC plant but also excited about the Japanese sector's prospects.
No single stock has embodied the US market's AI fervor as much as Nvidia, leaving Wall Street tied to the fluctuations of its shares. The semiconductor company forecast fiscal first-quarter revenue above estimates after the market closed, in one of the most highly anticipated earnings releases in recent memory.
Social media platform Reddit has struck a deal with Google to make its content available for training the search engine giant's artificial intelligence models, three people familiar with the matter said. The contract is worth about $60 million per year, according to one of the sources.
Zara owner Inditex, the world's biggest listed fast-fashion company by sales, is expanding its low-priced Gen Z-focused brand Lefties to counter Chinese-founded rival Shein. The rapid growth of Shein is putting pressure on retailers like Inditex and Sweden's H&M to find ways to respond to its budget prices.

The war in Ukraine, two years on

Alona Onyshchuk, with her daughter Anhelina, visits her husband's grave at the Alley of Heroes at a cemetery in the village of Lozuvatka. REUTERS/Alina Smutko

Wives have become widows, parents long for captured sons, classrooms are empty and farmers can't find the hands to work the land. Unlikely friendships have formed; old ones have fallen apart. In Ukraine, signs are everywhere of a two-year-old war that has irrevocably changed the face of the country.

Here is how life in Ukraine has been shattered by two years of war.
We also have an explainer on why Ukraine's fate hinges on the West.

And Finally...

A southern right whale, known in Spanish as ballena franca austral. REUTERS/Maxi Jonas

It is one of Earth's most haunting sounds - the "singing" of baleen whales like the humpback, heard over vast distances in the watery realm. Now scientists have finally figured out how these filter-feeding marine mammals do it.

This is the anatomy behind the songs of baleen whales.

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