Plus, Ukrainian attacks on Wildberries strike at heart of Russia Inc.

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Daily Briefing

Daily Briefing

By Claire Beers

Hello. A Thai teen went on shooting rampage at home and school before shooting himself, Ukrainian attacks on Wildberries strike at the heart of Russia Inc, and Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan to sign joint defense deal.

Plus, a selection of our top photography from around the world this week.

Today's Top News

 

The wife of a teacher who was shot dead reacts at the Debsirin Nonthaburi School following the shooting. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

  • A Thai teenager killed several people and himself at a school outside Bangkok after fatally shooting his grandparents, police said, in the nation's worst mass killing since 2022.
  • Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan will sign a joint defense agreement, regional sources with direct knowledge of the matter said, at a time of regional turmoil with Gulf states coming under fire from Iran after it was attacked by the US and ⁠Israel.
  • Saudi Arabia expects imminent coordinated attacks from Iraqi militias north of the Gulf state and from Yemen's Houthis from the south under ‌the supervision of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a senior Saudi official said.
  • US President Donald Trump signed two executive orders in a new but narrower attempt to curtail birthright citizenship, once again challenging a provision of the US Constitution even though the Supreme Court rejected his previous effort. White House Correspondent Jacob Bogage has more on the Reuters World News podcast.
  • Ukrainians have adopted the term 'safari' to describe drones 'hunting down' civilians or vehicles in the street — as seen in a video showing a drone chasing down and wounding a vegetable seller in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson this week.
  • Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo have risen above 4,000 for the ‌first time in the current outbreak. The epidemic, the world's second-largest, has been described as the fastest-spreading on record.
  • Hundreds of thousands of people in southwestern Japan were ordered to evacuate and more than 500 flights were canceled on Friday as slow-moving ‌Typhoon Dolphin approached the region.
 

Business & Markets

 

Note: Frontline as of August 5, 2026 via the Institute for the Study of War and AEI Critical Threats Project.

Source: Strike locations confirmed by verified video and satellite imagery.

  • Since Ukraine began targeting Wildberries warehouses across Russia in a wave of near-nightly drone attacks, small ‌businesses have taken a massive dive.
  • The White House imposed a series of price floors and a 15% tariff on products made from polysilicon, the raw material used in semiconductors and solar panels, which is primarily produced by China.
  • A New Mexico state court ordered Meta to pay $567 million into a teen mental health fund and change how its platforms function for young users after finding the company is to blame for harming children's wellbeing.
  • Record temperatures across Europe are piling fresh pressure on food prices, supply chains and heavily indebted economies, creating another headache for financial markets already roiled by an Iran war-driven energy shock.
  • World food prices rose in July to their highest in ‌more than three years as adverse weather and war escalation in the Gulf and Black Sea supported ⁠crop markets, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization said.
  • Chinese technology giant Alibaba plans to ask major users of the next version of its Qwen open-source AI model for a share of revenue they make from the hotly anticipated offering, according to two people familiar with the company's plans.
  • Ransom-seeking hackers who use phone calls to compromise their victims targeted dozens of prominent US financial institutions and other businesses over the past month, according to Google and internet intelligence data reviewed by Reuters.
 

Trump's Iran dilemma: He's stuck in war with no exit in sight

 

People walk past an anti-US billboard on a street in Tehran, Iran. REUTERS/Majid Asgaripour/WANA

With President Donald Trump’s war against Iran now in its sixth month, this week's flurry of threats and diplomacy has underscored the ever-tighter bind he finds himself in as he tries to extricate the US from an unpopular conflict he originally claimed would last just weeks.

Trump is caught between an emerging interim deal being negotiated by Iran and Oman that would give Tehran control over the Strait of Hormuz it never possessed before the war, or following through on ‌his warnings of sharp escalation, risking a more prolonged crisis.

Read more