Your morning briefing, the business news you need in just 15 minutes

On today's podcast:

(1) German Chancellor Friedrich Merz says a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russia’s Vladimir Putin  is unlikely to materialize, even though it was touted earlier by President Donald Trump.

(2) European powers referred Iran to the United Nations to face the re-imposition of tough international sanctions after the Islamic Republic failed to comply with demands to negotiate with the US and allow nuclear inspectors to resume their work.

(3)  Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller again called for lower interest rates, saying he would support a quarter-percentage point reduction in September and anticipates additional cuts over the next three to six months.

(4) A solid economic reading drove stocks to fresh all-time highs, but Wall Street traders refrained from making big moves before inflation data that could bring more clues on the pace of Federal Reserve rate cuts. Short-dated Treasury yields rose. The dollar fell.

(5) Lobbyists are lining up to attend Reform UK’s annual conference next week in a sign corporate Britain is increasingly taking Nigel Farage’s outfit seriously as an electoral force.

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