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
- Eslováquia trava lista negra russa
Os embaixadores da UE não chegaram a acordo sobre o alargamento do ciclo de renovação da lista negra, deixando proibições de viagem e congelamentos de bens vulneráveis antes do prazo de 15 de setembro. Os diplomatas voltarão a tentar em 9 de setembro, enquanto Bratislava procura ainda retirar nomes não divulgados da lista e conserva a vantagem negocial que resulta da exigência de unanimidade a cada seis meses.
- Hungria trava negociações de Kyiv
Kyiv passou o crivo técnico da UE, mas Budapeste recusou dar a aprovação política unânime necessária para abrir dois grandes blocos negociais. A Hungria quer progressos visíveis nos direitos das minorias antes de as conversações avançarem, deixando os outros 26 governos sem forma legal de contornar o veto e em suspenso o alinhamento da Ucrânia nas regras de comércio, fiscalidade, trabalho e alfândegas.
- Meridiam enfrenta teste das tarifas
A maioria privada reforçou o atractivo do interconector de €1.9 billion junto dos credores, mas o financiamento continua dependente das receitas reguladas e da contribuição de Chipre. A consulta do regulador grego encerra em 11 September, enquanto permanecem por resolver a due diligence do EIB, o compromisso cipriota de €125 million e os trabalhos de prospecção em águas contestadas.
- Roménia defende lei de integridade
A Comissão Europeia incluiu a polémica emenda Fritz na avaliação do último pagamento do fundo de recuperação à Roménia. Bucareste terá de explicar se afastar titulares de cargos públicos por decisões emitidas antes de a lei entrar em vigor é previsível e proporcional; o valor de €770 million citado no debate cobre toda a última tranche de subvenções e não está ligado apenas a esta cláusula.
- Contrato de 70 milhões derruba Pevkur
O ministro da Defesa da Estónia demitiu-se depois de uma encomenda de munições por entregar ter exposto falhas de supervisão no reforço militar do país. Os auditores também não conseguiram verificar 1,2 mil milhões de euros em saldos de inventário, enquanto quase todos os 72,1 milhões de euros em adiantamentos analisados a fornecedores foram questionados, numa altura em que Tallinn começa a receber até 2,34 mil milhões de euros através do programa europeu de defesa SAFE.
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