July 27 0800 UTC Brief

In the Middle East President Donald Trump has put planned U.S. strikes on Iran on hold after warnings from senior defense officials, while the Pentagon says the military is still fully equipped despite concerns about missile stockpiles. Separately, the U.S. and Iran have gone a third night without exchanging strikes, giving talks a little more room, which is not the same thing as peace, but it is at least a pause. Germany has also sharply increased arms export licences to Israel, with the latest approvals centered on a submarine project, marking a harder line in Berlin’s support for the country. In business and tech Google has unveiled its own naming system for cybercrime groups, moving away from the Microsoft-led effort to standardize threat actor labels. The company says the goal is to keep the system simpler and easier to map across different naming schemes. Meta now faces a sworn court filing setting out how it chose workers for layoffs after its May cuts. Former employees had raised concerns about possible bias, including against people on parental leave or company-sponsored visas, and the filing gives the clearest account yet of the company’s decision process. China’s largest memory chipmaker, CXMT, surged after beginning trading in Shanghai in one of mainland China’s biggest IPOs in recent years. In Africa Uganda has begun emergency food distributions in Karamoja after at least 19 deaths from hunger were reported. Months of drought and crop failures have left an estimated 1.5 million people facing acute food shortages and rising malnutrition. In sports Tadej Pogacar has won the Tour de France for a record-tying fifth time, matching four other riders on the all-time list. He also claimed his third straight Tour victory.