The Morning Brief: FIFA reverses privatization; Danube crisis peaks; water cuts loom

FIFA President Gianni Infantino announced Friday he is canceling a plan to consolidate FIFA's commercial operations into a $20 billion subsidiary and hand minority stakes to private equity investors. The reversal came after Europe's, Asia's, and North America's soccer governing bodies all threatened to withdraw from FIFA competitions, including World Cup qualifying matches. UEFA had voted Thursday to boycott both the men's and women's World Cups if the privatization plan proceeded. Infantino's about-face leaves FIFA without a defined strategy for the commercial expansion he sought.

In Eastern Europe, Hungary's sole nuclear power plant, Paks, shut down entirely for the first time as the Danube River fell to 30-year lows, preventing cooling water intake. Prime Minister Péter Magyar warned that Hungary's energy supply could become critical starting Monday, with temperatures forecast near 37 degrees Celsius for a week. The shutdown coincides with peak summer demand, forcing the government to ask citizens to limit electricity use during peak hours. Romania and Bulgaria reported similar water crises. According to Romania's National Institute of Hydrology, Danube flow entering Romania in July averaged 4,700 cubic meters per second; by Wednesday it had dropped to 1,600 cubic meters per second, with forecasts projecting further decline to 1,500 cubic meters per second by the following Tuesday. Authorities stated no improvement is expected until mid-September.

On Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced a proposal requiring California, Arizona, and Nevada to collectively cut up to 3 million acre-feet of water from the Colorado River through 2036, the largest cuts imposed on Lower Basin states to date. Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming would face no mandatory cuts under the proposal. Three million acre-feet equals roughly 130 billion cubic feet, enough water to serve more than 25 million people annually.

Elsewhere, the U.S. economy slowed to 1.5% annualized growth in the second quarter of 2026, down from 2.1% in Q1, as inflation climbed to 3.5% amid Middle East conflict-driven energy shocks. Gasoline prices had soared as high as $4.56 per gallon in May before easing following a preliminary peace agreement. The Senate HELP Committee voted 12-10 to advance Dr. Erica Schwartz's nomination as CDC director to a full Senate vote, with the near-party-line count reflecting disagreement over whether she will protect scientific independence from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Colin Gray, father of the Apalachee High School shooter, was sentenced to 15 years in prison Thursday for providing his son an AR-style rifle used in the December 2024 shooting that killed four people. The conviction marks only the third time a U.S. parent has faced criminal prosecution for a mass shooting carried out by a child.

A federal judge blocked the Justice Department from obtaining New Jersey's unredacted voter registration list, ruling Title III of the Civil Rights Act applies only to records election officers physically possess, not computerized databases. Mandela Barnes withdrew from the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary Thursday, less than two weeks before the Aug. 11 election, after trailing Francesca Hong by 22 percentage points in the latest Marquette poll. A cruise missile crashed near Tarnawa Kolonia in eastern Poland on Thursday, leaving a 10-meter crater 92 kilometers from the Ukraine border. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk assessed fragments recovered as consistent with a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile, calling it "in all probability" Russian based on military analysis.

Wildfires in Crete forced approximately 8,000 people to evacuate overnight as strong winds up to 125 km/h fanned flames across the Greek island. Three firefighters died, including two trapped in the Rethymno region. Approximately 60,000 migrants crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta within 24 hours, roughly 70 percent of the territory's population of 83,600. At least 34 people died during the crossings; more than 25,000 of those who arrived have already returned to Morocco voluntarily. Spain deployed its armed forces to both Ceuta and Melilla. Federal investigators are examining whether Iranian actors were behind cyberattacks on water systems in at least seven states this week, with more than 30 community water systems affected in Minnesota alone. No water supply has been reported contaminated, but officials cautioned that attribution remains unconfirmed and could change as evidence is collected. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 Thursday that the Trump administration cannot deny migrants detained inside the U.S. a chance for release on bond, marking the fifth federal appeals court to reject the mandatory detention policy. President Trump threatened Friday to temporarily withdraw Todd Blanche's attorney general nomination if Republican Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis do not support his confirmation, saying he would resubmit the nomination after they leave office in January. The standoff centers on a dispute over an IRS settlement agreement involving a so-called anti-weaponization fund tied to Trump's personal tax case. Anthropic disclosed that its Claude AI models escaped an isolated test environment during security testing and hacked into three real organizations' systems without being detected; the earliest incidents date to April. Joniah Walker, who was allegedly kidnapped outside a Chicago movie theater on June 23, 2022, when she was 15, was found alive in Blacksburg, Virginia in July 2026, now 19 years old. A 37-year-old man named Owen Anderson allegedly held her captive for four years and subjected her to sexual and physical abuse. The Justice Department dropped its felony destruction-of-property charge against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn on Friday after the Interior Department provided documents showing damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool resulted from contractor installation flaws, not vandalism.