TO BRIEF / news digest
Daily EU news digest
Eight stories per edition, selected from hundreds of European sources and written to be read in five minutes. TO BRIEF is a daily news digest that respects your time and shows its sources.
What a daily news digest is
A daily news digest is a different way to stay informed: instead of an endless scroll of front pages, alerts and repetition, you read one small, carefully selected set of stories once a day. At TO BRIEF that means eight articles per edition — not eighty. Selection is half the work: the system reads hundreds of articles from across Europe every day and keeps only what genuinely changes the picture.
Europe has a particular problem that a digest solves well: decisions made in Brussels, Frankfurt or a neighbouring capital affect you directly, yet most of us consume news inside national silos. Each digest story is written with that cross-border lens — what happened, how the same story reads in different countries, and why it matters beyond one border.
Every story is written from scratch with context and continuity: what led here, why it is happening now, what follows. We do not republish press releases and we do not chase clicks. The goal is that after five minutes you have the complete picture — not just more headlines.
The digest is published daily, and nothing disappears: the archive keeps every previous edition, day by day, so a missed morning costs you nothing.
How the digest is made
TO BRIEF is a newspaper written by artificial intelligence — stated plainly, not buried in the small print. The production line starts from same-day news feeds across European countries: the system detects which stories appear in multiple independent sources, opens research questions, and gathers material before the first sentence is written.
Each article then passes through a second model that re-reads it as a sceptic: claims, numbers and characterisations are checked before the text reaches you. The sources of every article are visible inside the article itself — you can always see where a claim came from and judge it yourself.
There is no prospective human review of each article before it is published, and we disclose that on every page. Whatever gets corrected, gets corrected in the open: there is a public corrections trail and a clear way to report an error. The whole production line is documented step by step on our methodology page.
Who is behind TO BRIEF
TO BRIEF was created by two technologists who go by their first names, Nikos and Vasilis — one works in AI privacy, the other in software engineering and cybersecurity. Their story, and the experiment of a newspaper without journalists, was covered by WIRED Greece.
Behind the product stands a registered company with public filings, a full transparency page, and a declared policy on the use of artificial intelligence. You will not find invented "editors-in-chief" — you will find an honest description of how the system works and who is responsible for it.
What you will find in every article
Every digest article has the same steady structure: what happened, the context that explains it, why you should care, and its sources. Most carry a timeline of how the story developed, and an audio edition for the hours when reading is not an option. If something is corrected after publication, the correction is noted on the article itself — errors are not silently erased.
The digest is an edition, not a feed: it has a beginning and an end, like a newspaper. You read it, you close it, you get on with your day — and tomorrow the next one is waiting. Below are today’s stories, exactly as published in the latest edition.
Today's stories
- Romania hits two drones; Lithuania loses track
Two incidents on NATO’s eastern edge exposed different gaps in the public record. Romanian F-16s destroyed two Geran-family drones over Romanian waters, but Bucharest has not identified who launched them. In Lithuania, NATO fighters could not identify an object in fog; suspected debris damaged a car, and Lithuanian and Polish accounts of its route conflict.
- Drone explodes in Lithuania; warnings disputed
A drone exploded above a road in Lithuania’s Pasvalys district, damaging a passing car without injuring anyone. Fighters had taken off, but the pilots could not identify the object through cloud and fog. Lithuania and Poland give conflicting accounts of its route, while the orders behind Lithuania’s uneven public alerts have yet to be released.
- Trump’s Russian gas pitch meets EU ban
Trump’s envoys have floated restarting Russian gas transit through Ukraine as a peace incentive, according to The New York Times. EU law already bans new Russian gas contracts and sets a September 2027 end date for the last long-term pipeline deals. The reported pitch names no buyer or timetable, and making it work would require Europe to change its law.
- US missile warnings resume after three-day gap
Ukraine is again receiving American ballistic missile warnings, Zelensky says, after a three-day interruption whose cause remains unknown. The alerts give civilians and air-defence crews minutes to prepare. European intelligence continued to reach Kyiv during the gap, but Europe has no comparable satellite system for detecting missile launches.
- France’s looted shops await compensation terms
Macron has promised help after looting hit an estimated 1,500 businesses, but shopkeepers still have no figure, eligibility rule or payment date. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s 19 October crisis meeting could supply the terms. His government must also answer the wider grievances behind the largely peaceful marches, including a disputed budget.
- EU satellite phone preference draws US threat
Washington is warning of retaliation as Brussels weighs giving EU-controlled firms priority for half the commercial spectrum used to connect satellites directly to ordinary phones. The Commission’s proposal would still admit foreign bidders, and a Council compromise would make the European preference nonbinding. Parliament and member states have yet to settle the rules before current licences expire in May 2027.
- Google cannot ignore its AI’s false accusations
A German doctor secured an order barring three AI Mode answers that falsely said he had been convicted of sexual coercion. Google had refused to remove them after being told the claim concerned another man. Two German courts have now held Google responsible for statements its AI assembled, but neither ruling settles its duties across Europe.
- Finnish electronics trail leads to Russian arms suppliers
Yle traced nearly €30 million in electronics sales by two Finnish citizens to companies serving Russia’s military industry. US authorities had already blacklisted the main supplier, but that listing does not establish a breach of EU law. Finnish investigators would need the missing component model numbers and shipment records to determine whether controlled goods reached Russia.
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