Evening Briefing: Europe

Iran is keeping its nuclear ambitions more closely guarded than ever following last month’s attacks by Israel and the US. After cutting off International Atomic Energy Agency inspections last week, Iranian nuclear-safety regulators stopped taking calls from the UN watchdog, we’re told.

The IAEA’s Incident and Emergency Centre was activated June 13 and had been in continuous contact with counterparts in Iran. But info sharing has since tailed off — underscoring the degree to which Iran is using silence to obscure international understanding over the status of its nuclear program. During the Cold War, strategic ambiguity was key to nuclear brinkmanship. — Caroline Alexander

What You Need to Know Today

Europe’s heat wave is set to peak over the coming days, triggering red alerts and warnings for people to take precautions against the extreme conditions. Temperatures in Paris were set to climb as high as 41C (105.8F) today. London hit 34C, while 43C was forecast for parts of Spain. In Beja in Portugal, a June record of 46.6C was recorded in Evora on Sunday. The temperatures are due to a blast of Saharan air captured by a broad, long-lasting high-pressure system known as a heat dome.

The top of the Eiffel Tower will be shut to visitors over the next two days because of the heat. Photographer: LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP

The euro is on the verge of its longest winning streak against the dollar in more than two decades, gaining as much as 0.4% to $1.1829, its strongest level since September 2021. A higher close would extend its rally to a ninth straight day, the longest streak since 2004 and eclipsed only twice since the currency’s inception in 1999. But much of this momentum isn’t about Europe. The dollar’s structural decline has resumed as geopolitical risks fade and focus returns to the US economy and political backdrop.

Trump threatened to withdraw government subsidies from Elon Musk’s companies and said he would “have to take a look” at the billionaire’s immigration status after the Tesla chief executive officer ratcheted up his criticism of the president’s tax and spending bill. Tesla’s stock fell in early trading as it became clear that the rift between Trump and Musk that exploded into the public eye last month was revving up again.

Saudi Arabia is exporting crude at the fastest rate in over a year as the OPEC+ leader presses on with a strategy to recoup its share of global oil markets. The kingdom bolstered crude exports by 441,000 barrels a day, or about 7%, this month to 6.36 million a day, our preliminary analysis of tanker-tracking data shows. The surge comes as the OPEC+ alliance speeds up plans to revive production, offering relief for consumers.

More than two weeks after the deadly crash of an Air India plane that killed all but one of the 242 people on board, investigators and the airline are studying possible dual engine failure as a scenario that prevented the Boeing Co. 787 jet from staying airborne. Pilots from the airline reenacted the doomed aircraft’s parameters in a flight simulator, including with the landing gear deployed and the wing flaps retracted, and found those settings alone didn’t cause a crash, we’re told.

The crash site of Air India Ltd. Flight 171 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India Photographer: Siddharaj Solanki/Bloomberg

After the slowest first half for European IPOs in more than a decade, dealmakers are banking on several large transactions to reignite the market later this year. Initial public offerings in the region have raised roughly $5.52 billion so far in 2025, a 60% decline from a year ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Turmoil unleashed by Trump’s tariffs froze the market for weeks, and while some firms have since launched offerings, others deferred or canceled debuts.

US startup Whisker Labs collected detailed data from the day in April when Spain’s grid gave way, plunging the country and its neighbors into an hours-long blackout. The company is at the forefront of a burgeoning industry that’s deploying sensors, satellites and drones, and combining that data with artificial intelligence models, to better track the flow of electricity. This new guard can detect signs of danger hours before any other source, leaving many system operators and utilities trailing.