Russia's Kirov region governor Sokolov said on social media on the 24th that Ukrainian forces struck a factory in the region, killing 6 and wounding 26.

Analyst Rick says NVIDIA is functioning as a "quasi-central bank" for the AI era: it cannot issue currency or set rates, but it is reshaping allocation of the scarcest capital input—GPUs—and accelerating financialization of the AI industry. The industry is shifting toward an infrastructure financing model: financing to buy GPUs → GPU leasing produces cash flows → cash supports further financing → more GPU purchases, creating a self-reinforcing capital flywheel. GPUs are acquiring infrastructure-asset characteristics—long-duration cash flows, collateral value and securitization potential—which helps explain NVIDIA’s continued lock-up of HBM, advanced packaging and supply capacity. Cloud giants (Microsoft, Google, Meta, Amazon) are expanding capex and using orders, prepayments and deals to ease upstream financing; NeoCloud, HBM vendors and advanced-packaging firms are raising debt and signing long-term contracts; private credit, infrastructure funds and sovereign wealth funds are moving into AI data-center investment. Market implications: sustained, large-scale capital demand may keep long-term funding costs elevated even if short-term policy rates fall; long-duration capital will flow not only to GPUs but to data centers, power, fiber, cooling, HBM and packaging. Financing costs are likely to bifurcate—lower for AI firms with predictable cash flows, relatively higher for traditional sectors—raising the risk of widening credit spreads.

The EU said it has taken note of the final remedial measures the US announced under its Section 301 investigation. The EU's tariff commitments became effective on July 1, 2026, and the bloc says it has fulfilled its obligations under the agreement.