Evening Brief, Wednesday 24 June

The United States Senate passed a 50-48 war-powers resolution ordering President Donald Trump to remove American forces from hostilities against Iran unless Congress authorises them. Four Republicans joined almost every Democrat, while the House had already approved the measure 215-208, making it the first such bicameral rebuke under the 1973 War Powers Resolution. The White House says the vote does not bind the president, and allies of Donald Trump expect him to ignore it, but the politics have shifted now that only 24% of Americans in one poll say the war justified its cost.

Chuck Schumer attacked the war as confused and expensive.

“For years, Trump promised to put maximum pressure on Iran, but he ended up delivering maximum confusion, maximum chaos, maximum cost to the American people with his disastrous war.”

At sea, the ceasefire looks less settled. Kpler counted 36 raw-material carriers through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, while AXSMarine counted 42 commercial ships, roughly a third of the pre-war daily norm of 120 to 138. More than 1,000 vessels remain stuck in the Gulf, with Allianz estimating hulls and cargoes worth about $125bn, while Iran and Oman have opened talks on how the strait should be run after the 60-day no-fee period in the US-Iran memorandum expires. Castles rarely decide modern wars, but chokepoints do, and this one will measure whether a ceasefire can become something more useful than a pause.

Western Europe endured a brutal late-June heatwave that pushed France to its hottest day since records began nearly 80 years ago. Pissos reached 44.3C, France’s national thermal indicator hit 29.8C, and 58 departments went under red alert, while Britain issued only its second extreme heat-health warning and forecast temperatures near 38C in southern England. Germany warned that 35-41C heat could break June records, and Swiss rivers warmed to unusual levels.

• Spain, Andújar45
• France, Pissos44.3
• Germany forecast41
• Italy, Florence41
• UK forecast38

Spain also recorded 45C in Andújar and more than 100 weather stations at or above 40C, before Atlantic air began pushing temperatures down. Italy placed 16 cities under its highest alert, with Florence at 41C and northern Italy facing another peak, while emergency calls rose as older people collapsed or fainted in the heat.

The human toll has already grown. France reported dozens of deaths, including drownings by people seeking relief, while two children died in a hot car in Carpentras. Schools closed, trains slowed, Eurostar cancelled some London-Paris services, and museums and monuments shortened visiting hours as grids and staff struggled.

Britain’s Met Office warned that the danger reached beyond the frail.

“Red warnings are reserved for the most severe events and we're expecting severe and significant impacts from this heat wave, with health impacts likely for many, even beyond those who are normally more vulnerable to the heat.”

The lesson is not subtle: Europe built much of its daily life for a climate it no longer has.

Germany’s railways stopped nationwide on Tuesday evening after the GSM-R digital communication system failed. Deutsche Bahn held trains at stations because drivers could not make safety-critical calls, with municipal, regional, long-distance and S-Bahn services all affected. The halt lasted about two hours, but residual delays and cancellations ran into Wednesday, leaving passengers to discover that a single old communications layer can still immobilise a modern country.

Rail expert Frieder Kümmerer pointed to a software failure rather than a cyberattack.

“If a defective software update was the cause, that demonstrates errors in the processes. One sees management failure on many levels here.”

Aviation regulators delivered another reminder from the skies. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency ordered urgent inspections of 16 Airbus A380s after cracks appeared in wing mid spars, a load-bearing structure. Fifteen of the aircraft belong to Emirates and one to Qantas, with five Emirates jets requiring inspection before their next flight and the rest within 25 flight cycles. Airbus estimates checks and repairs could cost about €100m.

Britain’s rail investigators also reported that a driver passed a red signal before the Bedford collision that killed him and injured 162 people. The moving train braked nine seconds before impact and still hit the stationary service at 80 km/h, while investigators have not yet determined what warning the driver received. Modern transport sells speed and certainty; this week it has mostly advertised dependence on hidden systems that passengers never see until they fail.

The artificial-intelligence trade buckled first in Seoul and then on Wall Street. South Korea’s KOSPI plunged 10%, led by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, before rebounding sharply the next day. In America, the Philadelphia semiconductor index fell 7.9%, the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.2% and nearly $1tn in value disappeared, while Micron dropped 13% and Nvidia fell 4.1% below a $5tn market value.

Ross Mayfield described a trade vulnerable to the weight of its own popularity.

“The trade has been highly concentrated and flow-driven, which makes it vulnerable to relatively small shifts in sentiment. It doesn't appear to be closely tied to the fundamentals of the AI story, but rather to the heavy concentration and strong inflows into global tech over the past few months now starting to unwind.”

SK Hynix then filed for a Nasdaq ADR listing that could raise up to 45.45tn won, or $29.43bn, making it the largest ADR sale on record if priced at the top of the range. The money would fund a chip plant in Yongin, advanced packaging in Cheongju and EUV scanners, not shareholder payouts or debt reduction. The company dominates high-bandwidth memory with about 61% global share and has ridden demand from Nvidia and other AI customers.

Defence capital markets also stirred. KNDS plans to float 20% of its shares in Frankfurt and Paris, with France and Germany each retaining 40%, at a likely valuation around €15bn. Yet defence stocks fell on the same day, including a 12.3% drop for Rheinmetall after it lost a warship contract. The paradox is familiar: strategic industries need patient money, but public markets keep checking the price every second.