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Washington is bracing for a day of difficult questions as Secretary of State Marco Rubio prepares to face Congress over the Iran war, just as fresh doubts emerge about the path to a lasting agreement with Tehran. At the same time, senators are demanding answers about a controversial $1.8 billion settlement fund, while Europe moves closer to a migration overhaul that could reshape asylum policy across the continent.

We'll also cover a deadly Russian attack on Ukraine, a major breakthrough in pancreatic cancer research, and why Wall Street is preparing for an unprecedented wave of AI public offerings.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to testify before Congress for the first time since the start of the Iran war, with lawmakers expected to press him on the conflict, the fragile ceasefire, and the administration's diplomatic strategy. The hearings are officially focused on the State Department's budget request, but Iran is likely to dominate the discussion. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}

Rubio has been one of the administration's most prominent defenders of its approach to the war and ongoing negotiations with Tehran. His appearance comes as questions persist about the conflict's costs, objectives, and the prospects for a lasting agreement.

Republican senators are pressing the Trump administration for more information about a proposed $1.8 billion settlement fund intended to compensate people who say they were improperly targeted by the federal government. The requests come as President Trump weighs the fund's future and lawmakers seek details about how the money would be distributed and who would qualify for payments.

The scrutiny highlights growing questions about the fund's structure, oversight, and potential legal implications. Congressional interest is likely to intensify as the administration decides whether to move forward with the proposal.

European Union negotiators moved ahead with a migration deal that would speed deportations and allow return centers outside the bloc. Governments backing the plan see it as a way to regain control over asylum systems under political pressure.

Rights groups warn that offshore processing could weaken protections for vulnerable migrants. Voters across Europe will feel the stakes through border policy, court fights, and rising debate over national identity.

A large-scale Russian drone and missile attack killed at least nine people and injured dozens across Ukraine, with strikes reported in Kyiv and several other regions. The assault came as fighting intensified despite ongoing diplomatic efforts, highlighting the continued vulnerability of civilian areas far from the front lines.

China criticized Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro after he accused Beijing of posing the greatest threat to peace in Southeast Asia, calling his comments ideological and confrontational. The exchange highlights worsening tensions between the two countries as disputes in the South China Sea continue to drive regional security concerns.

Hundreds marched to the gates of Laikipia Air Base in Nanyuki to oppose a US-built 50-bed Ebola quarantine facility designed to house American citizens evacuated from Congo, with Kenya's High Court having already suspended the project pending a legal challenge. Protesters cited fears of disease exposure for Kenyan workers on the base as the Ebola outbreak in northeastern Congo continues to spread.

Former Colorado clerk Tina Peters was released from prison after serving less than a quarter of her nine-year sentence for election system tampering tied to 2020 conspiracy theories. Her commutation has reignited the fight over executive clemency in cases involving election security breaches.

California held its jungle primary Tuesday to choose a successor to term-limited Governor Gavin Newsom, with 61 candidates on the ballot and leading Democrats — Katie Porter, Xavier Becerra, Antonio Villaraigosa — all competing for the same left-of-center voter pool. A fractured Democratic vote raises the remote but real possibility that two Republicans, including Trump-endorsed Steve Hilton, advance to November's general election.

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Iran's announcement that it was halting US ceasefire negotiations and clamping down on the Strait of Hormuz sent oil prices surging Tuesday, with WTI crude up more than 5% to $92 a barrel and Brent clearing $95. US equity benchmarks still managed fresh all-time highs, driven by AI-sector enthusiasm — a split that suggests markets view the Iran disruption as temporary and containable.

Standard Chartered's chief investment officer warned Tuesday that having Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX all file for IPOs in close succession would create an unusual liquidity challenge, forcing institutional investors to liquidate existing holdings to fund purchases. Alphabet separately announced plans to sell $80 billion in stock — including a $10 billion Berkshire Hathaway investment — to fund AI compute infrastructure, adding further supply pressure.

Asian markets opened Tuesday's session in the red after Iran reported halting US talks and squeezing the Strait of Hormuz, pulling the Nikkei 225, Kospi, and Hang Seng lower at the open. Brent crude near $95 added to regional anxiety about energy costs, creating a sharp divergence from Wall Street's record-setting overnight session.

A RAS-inhibitor called daraxonrasib nearly doubled median survival in previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer — extending it from 6.7 months to 13.2 months — in a landmark ASCO trial presented in Chicago on Monday and simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers say the drug's mechanism, targeting a mutated KRAS protein found in over 90% of pancreatic cancers, could also apply to lung, colon, and ovarian tumors where the same mutations appear.

A survey of 2,600 researchers published in Nature found that inadequate supervision ranks among the primary reasons early-career scientists leave academia, with nearly 40% reporting disorganized or uncommunicative supervisors and 45% saying their supervisor's attitude significantly affected their mental health. Eight percent of respondents had already left research entirely, and nearly half of that group cited bad supervisory experiences as a contributing factor.

A study with 2,520 participants validates the mathematics Richard Feynman scrawled on a napkin at a Thai restaurant in the late 1970s — his solution to the "explore vs. exploit" dilemma — that is, when to stop trying new dishes and just order the thing you know you like. Published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study confirms Feynman's formula predicts human decision-making behavior with surprising accuracy.

The Cleveland Browns traded two-time Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett to the Los Angeles Rams on Monday for pass rusher Jared Verse and first-round draft picks in 2027 and 2028. Cleveland's willingness to move its franchise cornerstone signals a full rebuild, while Los Angeles adds an elite edge rusher to a roster already constructed to compete.

The Philadelphia Eagles traded star receiver A.J. Brown to the New England Patriots for a 2028 first-round pick and a 2027 fifth-rounder, shedding Brown's $28.75 million salary while giving New England an immediate No. 1 receiver. Both Brown trades landed within 24 hours of each other, marking one of the more volatile offseason days in recent NFL memory.

The Carolina Hurricanes and Vegas Golden Knights will compete for the Stanley Cup, with goalie Frederik Andersen anchoring Carolina's run on a 1.41 goals-against average and .928 save percentage through 13 playoff games. Andersen, signed for just $2.5 million annually, has become the most cost-efficient goaltender in the postseason.

Former "60 Minutes" executive producer Bill Owens accepted a press freedom award Monday and publicly condemned CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss's overhaul of the show, alleging Weiss's editorial stance on Israel drove out staffers who felt they could no longer cover the Middle East conflict fairly. Weiss recently ousted Owens' successor Tanya Simon and correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, installing technology journalist Nick Bilton as executive producer.

The Hulu series "The Testaments" ended its run with its biggest reveal — protagonist Agnes learns her mother is June Osborne, the Mayday leader played by Elisabeth Moss in a guest appearance — landing the emotional payoff viewers had been building toward all season. Hulu has already greenlit Season 2, suggesting the conclusion was designed to open as much as it closed.

Olivia Rodrigo unveiled the full tracklist for "You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love," her third album due June 12 via Geffen Records, structured in two halves — "Girl So in Love" and "You Seem Pretty Sad." Rodrigo previewed the unreleased track "Begged" on SNL, seated on a swing that matched the album cover, marking her first new material outside the lead singles.

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What it is: Anthropic's confidential IPO filing Monday confirmed what markets had been pricing in for months: 2026 is the year the most powerful AI companies on earth start selling shares to the public. Anthropic, valued at $965 billion in its most recent funding round, joins a queue that includes OpenAI and SpaceX — three companies with a combined implied valuation that could exceed $3 trillion at IPO, dwarfing anything markets have absorbed from the technology sector before.

The detail: Anthropic's revenue run rate has grown from $10 billion to $47 billion in a single year — a pace that makes even dot-com-era growth look modest — fueled by explosive enterprise demand for its Claude models and compute infrastructure. Standard Chartered's CIO warned Tuesday that having all three mega-listings arrive in close succession poses a genuine challenge to market capital allocation, forcing institutional investors to liquidate existing positions to fund purchases, which could create downward pressure on the broader market at exactly the moment it is being asked to absorb record supply.

Why it matters: For ordinary investors, a $1 trillion debut means competing at the IPO window against sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, and every pension manager on earth simultaneously — a fight retail investors historically lose on price. Technology IPO history provides little reassurance: Meta, Alibaba, and Saudi Aramco all underperformed their debut valuations in subsequent years because the IPO price reflected peak euphoria rather than durable fundamentals, and Anthropic sustaining $47 billion in annualized revenue requires the enterprise AI market to continue growing at exactly the rate already priced into its valuation.

What to watch: A confidential S-1 typically precedes a public offering by several months, meaning Anthropic's formal debut is still a ways off. Watch whether the company prices shares conservatively to leave upside for new investors, or attempts to extract its full $965 billion valuation at day one — and whether the reception sets the terms for how OpenAI and SpaceX price their own offerings in the months that follow.

Sixty-one people are on today's California governor ballot, which is either a vibrant expression of participatory democracy or proof that California changed its constitution to allow the ballot itself to run for office.

Scientists confirmed this week that Richard Feynman solved the "when do you stop trying new things at a restaurant and just order the salmon again" problem in the late 1970s on a napkin, because apparently the man who cracked quantum electrodynamics could not sit through an indecisive dinner without doing something about it.

Fans of Chinese TV star Zhang Linghe shattered a shopping center's glass door trying to glimpse the actor, proving once again that structural engineering is no match for a sufficiently motivated crowd.

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—The Five Minute Daily Team