Morning Brief, Friday 3 July

Russia launched one of its heaviest barrages on Kyiv since the full-scale invasion began, firing 74 missiles and nearly 500 drones in an 11-hour assault that killed at least 21 civilians and wounded dozens more. Ukrainian officials said strikes hit 33 locations, including apartment blocks, while Moscow said the operation answered Ukraine’s long-range strikes on Russian oil infrastructure. Kyiv promised retaliation and again pressed allies for more air-defence systems and permission to make Patriot missiles at home.

Germany added a second uncomfortable layer to Europe’s war ledger. Federal prosecutors indicted Serhii K, a former Ukrainian officer, over the 2022 Nord Stream explosions and alleged for the first time that Ukrainian state bodies directed the sabotage. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv needed more detail before responding, but the charge lands awkwardly for Berlin, Ukraine’s second-largest military backer.

A new IISS report then filled in the grey zone around the war. It logged 144 suspicious drone sightings across 12 NATO states and Ireland over 18 months, with many over military installations, nuclear-linked sites, airports and critical infrastructure. Researchers linked the campaign to vessels in Russia’s shadow fleet, though Moscow denied waging sabotage in Europe and most governments have avoided direct public accusations.

The war is no longer confined to trenches and power plants; it now tests roofs, seabeds, harbours and the political patience of allies.

Southern France fought several fires as wind and heat turned campgrounds and pine forest into fuel. Near Canet-en-Roussillon, authorities evacuated about 3,000 people after flames destroyed 256 bungalows, burned vehicles and threatened a nautical industrial zone with flammable materials. A separate Aude-Hérault fire consumed about 900 hectares, while officials said France had already recorded 7,000 wildfires and 8,700 burned hectares this season.

Spain’s Aragón region faced the same arithmetic of heat and wind. The Leciñena blaze had burned roughly 2,800 to 3,200 hectares and remained out of control, while crews stabilised a smaller 40-hectare fire in La Fueva and let evacuees return. Officials want the larger fire contained before another heatwave arrives next week, a narrow window that says plenty about the new fire season.

Across the Atlantic, New York’s Central Park reached 100°F, tying a July 2 record from 1966, while heat-index forecasts reached as high as 115°F across parts of the East Coast. Energy Secretary Chris Wright ordered grid operators to require data centres to use backup generators, and Amtrak cut some Acela services as the holiday weekend approached.

Peru meanwhile declared a 60-day emergency in 796 districts, covering about 40% of the country, as El Niño rains threatened floods and landslides for more than 9.3 million people. The climate story is becoming less about single records and more about governments learning to run several emergencies at once.

Infineon opened a €5 billion chip plant in Dresden, the largest single investment in the German company’s history and a tidy symbol of Europe’s semiconductor ambitions. The Smart Power Fab will make 300-millimetre power chips for electric vehicles, renewable systems, AI data centres and industry, with €920 million in public support under the EU Chips Act. Brussels wants the EU share of global semiconductor production to rise from under 10% to 20% by 2030, a target that sounds less like industrial policy and more like insurance.

In Washington, OpenAI explored a different sort of bargain. The company has discussed giving the US government a 5% stake as it seeks political support for advanced AI releases, according to the Financial Times. Sam Altman’s broader idea would ask leading American AI firms to contribute equity to a public wealth vehicle, though investors and competition advocates already see the proposal as part civic dividend, part regulatory courtship.

The bill for the AI buildout also showed up in carbon accounts. Google reported total greenhouse-gas emissions up 82% since 2019, while Amazon’s rose 58%; both companies blamed, in part, the race to build data centres fast enough for AI demand. Renewable purchases still help, but electricity use, concrete, steel and cooling now outrun the sector’s cleaner-growth story.

AI is moving from the cloud into factories, grids and state balance-sheets, which means its winners will have to answer questions that software firms once managed to dodge.

In Venezuela, rescue teams pulled Hernán Alberto Gil alive from the rubble of the Galerías Playa Grande shopping centre eight days after two catastrophic earthquakes struck the northern coast. His security booth formed an air pocket under roughly 140 tonnes of concrete, and multinational crews worked through unstable debris for more than 100 hours before freeing him. Officials put the toll at 2,295 dead and more than 11,000 injured, with many still missing.

Thailand faced a quieter but devastating failure of supervision. Police said an 11-year-old boy with special needs took a pickup from his family home, drove about 10 kilometres and struck a column of Buddhist monks on pilgrimage in Mukdahan province. Eight monks died, 22 monks and one lay follower were injured, and investigators summoned the boy’s parents as they examined who bore responsibility for his care.

Ohio authorities uncovered another kind of disaster, hidden indoors. Officers found 16 children confined for years to a filthy room in Hamden, with faeces, garbage and severe medical neglect around them. Four relatives pleaded not guilty to 16 felony counts each of child endangerment, while seven children were taken to hospitals and one remained in critical condition.

These cases differ in cause, but not in lesson: safety systems fail first in the places no one inspects, then all at once in public.