EIA: U.S. April total oil demand 20.808 mln bpd, up 2.9% YoY (+595,000 bpd); March increase was 2.2%.

METI will provide ¥387.3 billion (approx 16.2 billion yuan) as 2026 fiscal-year development commission fees to a new SoftBank-led company, Noetra, to develop a domestic AI foundation model. The support targets physical-AI R&D that combines robotics and AI to strengthen Japan’s manufacturing competitiveness. Noetra, formed around SoftBank, NEC, Honda and Sony, will focus on high-level Japanese-language understanding and reasoning and on multimodal foundation models that recognise images, video, audio and physical space. The project has been selected for support by NEDO.

UK food inflation fell to a 15-month low, easing cost pressures and reducing the case for Bank of England tightening. Data on Tuesday showed UK food prices rose 2.4% YoY in early June, down from 2.7% the prior month, as fresh-food inflation eased; overall retail price growth remained 1.2% YoY. The British Retail Consortium said strong harvests and competition helped keep prices for summer items lower. Private and official indicators had shown inflation steadier than expected before a preliminary US‑Iran peace agreement pushed oil prices lower. Markets are no longer fully pricing Bank of England rate hikes this year; they had briefly priced three-to-four 25bp moves.