| |  |  | The Reuters Daily Briefing | Monday, May 30, 2022 by Linda Noakes | Hello Here's what you need to know. Russia widens gas cuts to Europe, Canada introduces a law to freeze handgun sales, and Shanghai prepares to lift its lockdown | | | | | Today's biggest stories  An evacuation convoy travels from Russian troop-occupied Kupiansk town, along a damaged road, on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine, May 30, 2022. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado RUSSIA AND UKRAINE AT WAR Ukrainian forces were still holding out in Sievierodonetsk, resisting Russia's all-out assault to capture a bombed-out wasteland that Moscow has made the principal objective of its invasion in recent days.
Both sides said Russian forces now controlled between a third and half of the city. Russia's separatist proxies acknowledged that capturing it was taking longer than hoped, despite one of the biggest ground assaults of the war.
Russia widened its gas cuts to Europe with Gazprom turning off supply to top Dutch trader GasTerra, escalating the economic battle between Moscow and Brussels. The move comes a day after Denmark flagged a potential end to its Russian gas supply and the European Union's toughest measure yet against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, an agreement to halt sea-borne imports of its oil.
As volunteer fighters Oleksandr Zhuhan and Antonina Romanova pack for a return to active duty, they contemplate the unicorn insignia that gives their uniform a rare distinction - a symbol of their status as an LGBTQ couple who are Ukrainian soldiers. Members of Ukraine's LGBTQ community who sign up for the war have taken to sewing the image of the mythical beast into their standard-issue epaulettes.
Ukraine's destruction of Russian artillery systems and armoured vehicles with Turkish Bayraktar TB2 aerial drones has made "the whole world" a customer, according to its designer. Selcuk Bayraktar, who runs the Istanbul firm Baykar with his brother Haluk, said the drones had shown how technology was revolutionising modern warfare.
Here's what you need to know about the conflict right now
|  Women embrace as people gather at the memorial at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, May 30, 2022. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton AROUND THE WORLD
The grieving Texas town of Uvalde begins laying to rest the 21 school children and teachers who were killed in a mass shooting at an elementary school a week ago, with two funerals scheduled today for two 10-year-old girls.
Canada's government introduced legislation to implement a "national freeze" on the sale and purchase of handguns as part of a gun control package that would also limit magazine capacities and ban some toys that look like guns.
Authorities worked overnight to clear highways blocked by mudslides along Mexico's southern coast as Tropical Storm Agatha barrelled down on the country, bringing torrential rains and strong winds.
Shanghai authorities began dismantling fences around housing compounds and ripping police tape off public squares and buildings, to the relief of the city's 25 million residents, before a painful two-month lockdown is lifted at midnight.
Protesters in several cities in Iran chanted anti-government slogans overnight, including "death to Khamenei", over a deadly building collapse in the southwest of the country, videos posted on social media showed.
Australia's center-left Labor party has secured enough seats in the lower house of parliament to govern in its own right, the country's new prime minister said, letting it form government without the support of independents or minor parties.
When a desperate and bleeding 17-year-old girl walked into his rural health centre, Kenyan medic Ismail Mohammed Salim thought he was doing the right thing by helping her conclude an unwanted and dangerous pregnancy. Days later, both were in jail. We look at how the U.S. Supreme Court leak has stirred abortion passions in Africa.
| BUSINESS Euro zone inflation rose to yet another record high in May, challenging the European Central Bank view that gradual interest rate increases from July will be enough to tame stubbornly high price growth.
Billionaire activist Nelson Peltz will join the board of Unilever, the consumer goods giant said, heaping pressure on the maker of Dove soap and Hellman's mayonnaise as it reviews its strategy.
Credit Suisse is in the early stages of weighing options to bolster its capital after a string of losses has eroded its financial buffers, two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Selling shares to some of its major existing investors is the preferred option, but Switzerland's second-biggest bank has not ruled out tapping all shareholders.
If you assumed crypto was just a young person's game, think again. More people in the United States than ever before are turning to cryptocurrencies to help fund their retirement, it seems, even as the recent market carnage provides a stark reminder that this wild market is not for the faint-hearted.
Britain risks falling behind in the race to establish an electric car industry if it can't build more battery factories. Ambitious plans from automakers to ramp up production of battery-powered electric vehicles and a looming change in post-Brexit trading rules that will limit options to import cheap Asian batteries mean there is no time to waste.
Mexico's Cemex, one of the largest concrete producers globally, said it would fully operate a cement plant in the UK on a type of alternative fuel, as the company looks to greatly reduce its CO2 emissions. The plant is Cemex's first to fully operate on 'Climafuel', a mix of paper, cardboard, wood, carpet, textiles and plastics.
| | | | | | | | | | | Video of the day  Singapore's robot workforce plugs labor gaps After struggling with a decreasing workforce, businesses in Singapore have increasingly turned to deploying robots to help carry out a range of tasks, from surveying construction sites to scanning library bookshelves. | | | Thanks for spending part of your day with us. | | | | | |
