June 22 2000 UTC Brief

In U.S. news Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is set to give House Republicans a classified briefing on Pentagon funding goals as President Trump presses Congress to approve a $350 billion reconciliation package for the military. In a separate case, a federal judge blocked the administration’s plan to build a centralized database combining Social Security numbers, citizenship status, and other sensitive data, saying officials had haphazardly repurposed private information from millions of people. The FAA is also investigating a near miss at Boston Logan, where a Delta jet aborted its landing after an American Airlines plane took off from an intersecting runway. In tech and security Europe is moving early to set cybersecurity and privacy rules for 6G, even though the technology is still years from commercial use. Separately, researchers and Fortinet say the FortiBleed campaign that exposed tens of thousands of firewall and VPN credentials does not appear to have relied on a zero-day exploit, more the old-fashioned mix of leaked passwords and weak defenses. In Europe Belgium has issued visas to a Taliban delegation ahead of EU migration talks, the first time the bloc would host Taliban representatives since they returned to power in Afghanistan. In the UK, the Met Office has issued a rare red extreme heat warning, with temperatures in parts of southern Britain and the Midlands forecast to approach 40C, a potential June record. Former DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has been found guilty of rape and other sex offences against two women, in cases stretching back decades. In Canada A gunman in Montreal killed a police officer and a civilian before police shot him dead on a residential street. Quebec police say three people were killed in total, including the officer, and have released few other details. In the Middle East An explosion at Qatar’s largest natural gas plant killed at least 13 people and injured about 66 others, according to the interior ministry. Authorities have not said what caused the blast. On the Greenland front A senior American official has defended the idea of annexing Greenland by linking it to a struggling U.S. seafood chain’s shrimp promotion, which is one way to make a diplomatic crisis sound like a failed lunch special. The remarks have deepened tensions with NATO allies and rattled European capitals.