Flagship

Trump unveils immigration ban

President Donald Trump signed an order banning nationals of 12 countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East, from entering the US, and imposed heavy restrictions on citizens of a further seven nations. A similar policy in Trump’s first term targeted migrants from mostly Muslim countries, but hit legal roadblocks; the new approach, which the White House said was driven by national security, is more robust, experts told The New York Times. Trump said Sunday’s attack by an Egyptian man in Colorado underscored the “extreme dangers” of foreign nationals, although Egypt was not on the list of banned countries. A broader immigration crackdown has also swept up elite American universities: Trump on Wednesday suspended visas for those studying at Harvard.

Merz to meet with Trump

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will today push for reduced American tariffs in his first meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC. Merz will also highlight his country’s increased defense spending and press for stronger American support for Ukraine, hoping to leverage what has so far been a positive, if distant, relationship: The two former businessmen text each other and are on a first-name basis, Handelsblatt noted. The visit is crucial for Merz — Germany’s huge manufacturing and carmaking sectors are particularly vulnerable to Trump’s steel and auto tariffs — but he also has cards to play, The Wall Street Journal said, and is expected to argue that Washington needs Europe in order to present a unified front against China.

ECB’s future direction in question

The European Central Bank is widely expected to lower interest rates today, as questions surround both its future policy direction and its leadership. The likely quarter-percentage-point cut comes in response to slowing eurozone inflation, in part owing to US trade restrictions, but analysts are divided on whether the central bank will further reduce borrowing costs. Equally intriguing is the future of its boss: ECB chief Christine Lagarde has discussed cutting her term short in order to replace Klaus Schwab as the head of the World Economic Forum, WEF’s founder told the Financial Times last week. “Any move by Lagarde to accelerate her departure… could trigger a succession race,” the FT noted.

EU greenlights Bulgaria joining euro

The European Union gave Bulgaria the green light to join the euro, but political ructions in Sofia threaten to torpedo its accession. The European Commission and European Central Bank’s approval for Bulgaria to become the 21st country to join the common currency marks a significant step for the Balkan nation, which joined the EU in 2007 and has pegged its lev currency to the euro since 1999. Yet domestic enthusiasm for the euro has waned, with half of Bulgarians now skeptical of the currency union and far-right parties demanding a delay or dismissal of the plans. “For Bulgaria, the main hurdle is not the economic criteria, but the political dynamics… of whether or not to join,” Eurointelligence said.

Brazil courts EU trade

The presidents of Brazil and France are expected to discuss a once-moribund trade deal in Paris today, efforts that have gained renewed vigor since Washington unleashed its tariff war. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva hopes to win his French counterpart’s backing for a free trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur, the South American bloc. France previously opposed the deal but has since softened its stance, one of several countries to shift its trade priorities as a result of rising US protectionism. Brazil, Latin America’s biggest economy, has so far emerged as one of the rare winners in the tariff wars, with China, the US, and European nations all vying for its vast commodities reserves.

US vetoes Israel vote

The US vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. All 14 other members backed the measure, but the US voted against, saying that the wording did not condemn Hamas. US-Israel relations have cooled in recent months — President Donald Trump did not visit the country during his recent Middle East tour, and his relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is tense, with disagreements including over the best way to deal with Iran. But Washington remains firmly behind Israel on the war, to the frustration of the UN: Its humanitarian chief said the scenes of people being “shot, wounded or killed in Gaza while simply trying to eat” were “horrifying.”

DRC bans Kabila reporting

The Democratic Republic of Congo banned reporting on former President Joseph Kabila, whose clandestine return to the country last month triggered fears that he may join a rebel alliance. Kinshasa is prosecuting Kabila over his alleged links to the Rwanda-backed M23 militia that has taken control of stretches of the mineral-rich eastern DRC, as it seeks to maintain its fragile grip on power after an April ceasefire tamped down the rebels’ recent offensive. It remains unclear whether Kabila — who was last week seen in a city captured by the M23 — has returned to the country to join the rebellion, the BBC reported. The years-long civil war has forced millions from their homes, with 1.2 million displaced so far this year.

Semafor’s Ben Smith and Max Tani will be in Cannes to cover media and marketing’s biggest annual gathering, where many of the most powerful people in media come to make deals, rub shoulders, win awards, and sip Aperol spritzes on the Côte d’Azur.

Starting June 16, they’ll deliver news, scoops, and insights on the year ahead in media — with all its deal-making, gossip, and pretentious grandeur, from one of the industry’s true epicenters.

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China’s AI agent progress

Chinese tech firms are making strides in the race to build autonomous artificial intelligence agents. Most people’s experience of AI is via chatbots, which can answer questions or search for links but have little power to carry out tasks. But the next stage involves AIs which can perform specific actions, whether booking airline tickets or designing software, when instructed. Chinese firms are closing the gap on their US rivals with more independent agents, Rest of World reported: Alibaba’s Quark model, intended to perform medical diagnostic tasks, became China’s most-downloaded AI app in April, while Manus, made by the startup Butterfly, showed “the promise and appeal” of the technology, according to Bloomberg, including planning travel itineraries and ordering birthday gifts.

Switch 2’s huge debut

Nintendo’s hotly anticipated Switch 2 looks likely to sell out. Stores saw long lines for midnight openings to buy the successor to its wildly successful 2017 model, and pre-orders have been so strong that Nintendo apologized for making too few, and required fans to have 50 hours of Switch gameplay to register. Switch was the third-biggest selling console ever in an industry that is double the size of the film and music sectors combined, but analysts raised concerns that lower consumer spending and US tariffs would hit the Switch 2’s sales. So far there is no sign of that. Switch 2 is an “upgrade” and its flagship Mario Kart World is “brilliant,” The Guardian reported, although little is “actually new.”

NASA prepares for space death

NASA is preparing for its first death in space. No US astronaut has ever perished in space — the only fatalities have come within the Earth’s atmosphere, “under gravity, oxygen, and a clear national jurisdiction,” a forensic pathologist wrote in Scientific American. Three Soviet crewmen asphyxiated in 1971, but were not discovered until their spacecraft’s return. Missions are getting longer, however, and the average age of astronauts is now around 50, compared with 40 during the Apollo missions. Logistical and regulatory questions around what happens when a crewmember dies in space remain unanswered. NASA took the first body bag to the International Space Station in 2012, ahead of the inevitability that “sooner or later someone won’t come home.”

• NATO defense ministers meet in Brussels.
• Burundi holds parliamentary and local elections.
• Brazil’s Christ the Redeemer statue will be lit up in green as part of events for World Environment Day.

The rise in adult Catholic baptisms in France this year compared with 2024, a figure that reflects the church’s surging popularity across the West. In the US, the share of Gen Z who identify as Catholic jumped to 21% in 2023 from 15% the year before, and could rise further after the election of the first American pope. Although young congregants have also flocked to other religions, Catholicism may be providing a stronger draw because of its aesthetics, which have translated well into online culture, an expert argued. “Catholics have turned out to be surprisingly good at using the internet to evangelize,” a former editor of the Catholic Herald told The Free Press.

Let All That We Imagine Be the Light by Garbage. It may surprise readers of a certain age that the 1990s Scottish alt-rockers Garbage are still going — they might remember Only Happy When it Rains and Stupid Girl. But this is their eighth studio album, and while they never achieved the success of their similarly goth-inspired rivals The Smashing Pumpkins, they have “kept on keeping on,” Pitchfork notes. LATWIBTL is not their finest work, but it still “summons the churn of yore,” and fans will happily settle for it until the next album. Listen to Let All That We Imagine Be the Light on Spotify.

Senate Republicans have a new headache as they wrangle President Donald Trump’s megabill toward a final vote: Panic on Wall Street over its proposed new retaliatory tax on certain foreign investments in the US, Semafor’s Burgess Everett and Eleanor Mueller reported.

“In terms of implementation, I’m going to have to get more comfortable with it,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who serves on the tax-writing Finance Committee, told Semafor. “Going into it in its current form, I’m not comfortable,” Tillis added, citing the possible chill on foreign companies’ investment in the US.