Plus, fighting between Cambodia and Thailand escalates.

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Daily Briefing

Daily Briefing

By Kate Turton

Hello. Fighting between Thailand and Cambodia spreads along their contested border, Trump's approval rating rises as Republicans back cost-of-living efforts, and the Warner Bros fight heats up with a $108 billion hostile bid from Paramount.

Plus, scientists observe the largest-known rotating structure in the cosmos.

 

Today's Top News

 

Trump attends a roundtable discussion on the day he announced an aid package for farmers, at the White House. December 8, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst 

United States

  • President Donald Trump's approval rating edged up to 41% in the past week as Republicans warmed to his handling of the cost of living, a sign the administration's new focus on affordability might be supporting his popularity, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
  • US lawmakers may withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's travel budget if he does not provide unedited videos of military strikes on boats in the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific, the latest effort to obtain more information about President Donald Trump's campaign against Venezuela.
  • The US Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in a Republican-led challenge to federal limits on spending by political parties in coordination with electoral candidates on grounds of free speech. John Kruzel is on the Reuters World News podcast with more on the Supreme Court.

In other news

  • Fighting between Cambodia and Thailand escalated along their contested border, as the Southeast Asian neighbours both said they would not back down in defending their sovereignty.
  • Australia is set to become the first country to implement a minimum age for social media use, with platforms like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube forced to block more than a million accounts, marking the beginning of an expected global wave of regulation.
  • Sri Lanka's fragile economic recovery will be delayed as Cyclone Ditwah's devastation of homes, roads and vital crops pushes more families into poverty, with officials warning the bill to rebuild could soar to $7 billion.
  • Czech President Petr Pavel appointed the billionaire leader of the populist ANO party, Andrej Babis, as prime minister in a ceremony shown live on television.
  • Lithuania's government declared a state of emergency over smuggler balloons originating in Belarus that have disrupted aviation, and asked parliament to allow the military to operate alongside police and border guards to increase security.
  • States in Africa's Sahel region have accused Nigeria of violating their airspace, saying one of its military transport planes landed in Burkina Faso without clearance. There was no immediate comment from Nigeria, which has sent planes and troops to help quell a coup in neighbouring Benin, a country that also borders Burkina Faso.
  • This year is set to be the world's second or third-warmest on record, potentially surpassed only by 2024'S record-breaking heat, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service said.
 

Business & Markets

 

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

  • Paramount Skydance launched a hostile bid worth $108.4 billion for Warner Bros Discovery, in a last-ditch effort to outbid Netflix and create a media powerhouse. Meanwhile, experts say Jared Kushner's role in the bid for Warner Bros raises ethical questions.
  • China's Premier Li Qiang urged trading partners to reject rising protectionism, a day after the world's second-largest economy posted a record $1 trillion trade surplus driven by a rush of exports to non-U.S. markets.
  • A new White House waiver for advanced semiconductor sales to China creates a conundrum for Beijing: do they keep trying to wean off American tech, or accept the olive branch from Trump and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang? Reuters' Amanda Cooper weighs up the options on today's Morning Bid podcast. 
  • Google faces an EU antitrust investigation into its use of publishers' online content and YouTube videos to train its artificial intelligence models. To learn more about the latest news in AI and tech, sign up for the Reuters Artificial Intelligencer newsletter.
  • Women with polycystic ovary syndrome are increasingly turning to blockbuster weight-loss drugs to manage the hormonal disorder's symptoms, according to an exclusive analysis of US patient records and interviews with obesity specialists and gynecologists.
  • The European Central Bank will propose simplifying rules on capital buffers required of banks, pruning some of the complex regulation put in place after the global financial crisis, two sources familiar with the proposals told Reuters.
 

'It's scary, but we live on': inside Ukraine’s besieged east

 

Servicemen of the 49th Separate Assault Battalion Carpathian Sich of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Kostiantynivka. December 7, 2025. REUTERS/Anatolii Stepanov

"Everything around us has been hit, it all burned up," he said. "It's scary, but we're living on - what can you do?"

These are the words of 65-year-old Volodymyr, who rarely emerges from the basement of his battle-scarred building in eastern Ukraine, as Russian forces press at the doorstep of his city of Kostiantynivka.

Residents like Volodymyr, who is staying behind to care for his ailing mother-in-law, are struggling to survive in bombed-out, shrapnel-ridden buildings as winter sets in.

Read more
 

And Finally...