Aug 1, 2026, 08:30 AM UTC

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky highlighted the human toll of recent Russian missile attacks on Lviv, sharing images of a family killed in the strikes and stating that US defense officials should examine the damage. The bombardment resulted in at least eight fatalities across Ukraine and prompted Poland to issue a formal protest after a Russian missile briefly violated Polish airspace.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump signaled caution regarding plans to grant Ukraine licenses for local Patriot missile system manufacturing, noting that his administration must carefully evaluate defense technology transfers. Separately, reports emerged from Ukrainian prisoner-of-war camps where captured African nationals, including men from Uganda and Sierra Leone, described being misled into signing Russian military contracts before being sent to the front lines.

Sources: Corriere della Sera

Emergency crews across Europe and Asia are managing recovery efforts following several severe disasters.

In southern Europe, major wildfires forced over 300,000 people to evacuate across Spain and southwestern France. As fires reached the suburbs of Bordeaux, French officials distributed 1.5 million FFP2 masks. In Spain, blazes threatened the Madrid region, prompting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to emphasize life safety as the top priority.

In Messina, Italy, rescue personnel are searching for seven missing people following a structural collapse triggered by an explosion in the Pistunina area, which hospitalized three others.

In Japan, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake in Kumamoto prefecture left 13 people dead and displaced more than 9,000. Emergency responders are searching a collapsed shopping center in Kashima where an explosion trapped multiple visitors.

Sources: Corriere della Sera, Il Messaggero.

Artificial intelligence companies are increasingly acquiring millions of physical books to train their generative AI models. While tech firms previously relied on digital copies—sometimes facing legal challenges and allegations regarding pirated material—the industry focus has noticeably shifted toward physical printed media. Digitizing these hard copies typically involves unbinding or destroying the printed volumes so that individual pages can be rapidly scanned and converted into data for model training. This trend reflects growing efforts by AI developers to secure massive text datasets while navigating ongoing copyright disputes over digital content scraping.

Sources: Iltalehti.

NASA is preparing to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope ahead of its original schedule. Unlike previous flagship space observatories such as the James Webb Space Telescope, which experienced years of delays before its late 2021 liftoff, the Roman mission is targeting a launch as early as August 30.

Initial projections had established a deadline of May 2027 for the mission's launch. The observatory is designed to research dark energy, survey exoplanets, and study cosmic structure. Provided that final preparations proceed smoothly and weather conditions remain favorable, the upcoming launch marks a rare instance of a major space project moving ahead of its official timeline.

Sources: Der Standard

A rental advertisement offering a seven-square-metre property in the historic centre of Modena for €330 per month has drawn sharp criticism from the local tenants' union, Sunia-Cgil. The listing described the space, which lacks gas service, as a fully furnished unit containing living, cooking, and sleeping quarters within the seven-square-metre footprint.

Union representatives highlighted the case as an extreme example of deteriorating quality and rising costs in the Italian rental market, calling it a negative record for modern housing conditions in the city.

Sources: Corriere della Sera