It is pretty common for an article that is written about breaking news like this to be heavily edited as time goes on. The last edit on the article is listed as occurring after I left my comment. I would bet the original headline was written in a rush and eventually one of the editors at Reuters had the same objection as I did and rewrote it with a less negative slant. In fact, the current headline is even more positive than the one I last saw and that currently appears on HN. They appended "despite progress" at the end.