Iran Strikes Kuwait as Middle East Escalates; Coupang Incheon Warehouse Fire

Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook and added a cloud computer feature that writes and runs code from user files. Available to AI Ultra and Workspace enterprise subscribers; 30M users and 600K orgs use it.

Bloomberg reported Google's Gemini 3.5 Pro has been delayed for months due to coding benchmark failures and complex internal approvals. Alphabet shares fell more than 4% after the report.

Google launched AI Mode integrations with Instacart, Canva, and YouTube Music in the US, allowing users to complete purchases, designs, and playlists without leaving the search page.

Anthropic announced Fable 5 will be included in Max and Team Premium plans from July 20, within 50% of usage limits. Access had been repeatedly blocked due to export controls before permanent inclusion was confirmed.

San Francisco DA David Chiu demanded Apple and Google remove 13 AI deepfake nudify apps within 28 days, saying both companies had been profiting from apps they knew violated California law.

Apple sent letters to approximately 40 former employees now at OpenAI, demanding they preserve documents and communications and meet with company lawyers. The action is tied to Apple's trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI.

Meta hired Dave Brown, a senior VP who spent ~20 years at AWS, to lead a 'Meta Compute' initiative offering excess AI compute resources to outside companies.

Enterprise AI platform Fireworks AI closed a $1.5B Series D led by Atreides Management, Index Ventures, and TCV, reaching a $17.5B valuation. The company serves Uber and Shopify with custom AI model training and serving infrastructure.

AI drug discovery startup Chai Discovery raised a $400M Series C led by Index Ventures, with Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins participating. The company was valued at $3.8B.

General-purpose robotics company Walden Robotics raised $300M led by Toyota and Deviation Capital, exiting stealth. The company develops robots for manufacturing and logistics and was valued at $1.1B.

Stripe and private equity firm Advent International are jointly exploring a $53B acquisition offer for PayPal, Crunchbase News reported.

AI semiconductor stocks sold off on July 17, pulling the Nasdaq down 1.40% to 25,520.24. The S&P 500 fell 1.01% to 7,457.69, the Dow slid 0.77% to 52,146.42, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 1.63%.

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs took in $75.67M and ethereum ETFs $105.4M in the week of July 11-17. BlackRock's IBIT reached $60.3B in cumulative net inflows.

Visa launched the Visa Stablecoin Platform (VSP), offering financial institutions, fintechs, and crypto firms an integrated tool for minting, transferring, storing, and redeeming stablecoins. Initial supported asset is Open USD (OUSD).

U.S. forces struck bridges, tunnels, and military logistics infrastructure near Iran's Bandar Abbas for a seventh consecutive day. Iran's health ministry confirmed at least 50 killed and more than 500 injured since July 6.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps struck U.S. military bases in Kuwait (Arifjan and Ali Al Salem) with drones and hit Kuwait's desalination and oil facilities. Kuwait's airport suspended operations.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio convened a ministerial-level conference with 66 nations at the State Department on July 16, framing far-left terrorism as a blind spot in international security.

Japan's upper house passed an imperial succession law revision on July 17 to secure the supply of male imperial family members, while continuing to bar women from the throne. Polls show 60-90% of respondents support a female emperor.

ShinyHunters claimed to have compromised Abbott's Microsoft Entra SSO account via vishing, alleging theft of 30M personal records, 1M Social Security numbers, and 22M patient records. Abbott confirmed unauthorized access to some systems in its oncology diagnostics division.

Microsoft reported a surge in ACR Stealer campaigns using ClickFix, WebDAV, and MSHTA since late April. The malware harvests browser credentials, auth tokens, and OneDrive/SharePoint documents from enterprise targets.

Public proof-of-concept exploits for CVE-2026-63030 and CVE-2026-60137 were posted to GitHub, and watchTowr detected early signs of in-the-wild exploitation. Affected versions are WordPress 6.9.0-6.9.4 and 7.0.0-7.0.1.

Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1 lifted off from Sriharikota on July 18 and reached a 450km low Earth orbit. The four-stage small rocket carries up to 350kg, making India the third country with private orbital launch capability.

CERN's Large Hadron Collider confirmed the first experimental observation of diffusion wakes in ultra-hot quark-gluon plasma during lead-nucleus collisions. The phenomenon was theorized over 20 years ago; findings are accepted in Physical Review Letters.

ESA's Mars Express orbiter released new images of unusual wave-shaped dunes on the Martian surface with a metallic appearance. Scientists plan to use the imagery to study Mars' wind erosion and landform formation processes.

The FDA approved Merck's enlicitide (Lipfendra) on July 17 as the first once-daily oral PCSK9 inhibitor for adults with hypercholesterolemia. Phase 3 trials showed a 56-59% LDL-C reduction vs. placebo; all prior PCSK9 inhibitors required injection.

Eli Lilly announced on July 16 an agreement to acquire Ataibeckley at $6.75 per share for a total of $2.8B. Lilly's lead pipeline asset BPL-003 (a mebufotenin analog) is in Phase 3 for treatment-resistant depression.

Novartis' iptacopan (Fabhalta) received traditional FDA approval on July 16 for slowing kidney function decline in primary IgA nephropathy. As the first and only complement inhibitor for the indication, Phase 3 data showed 48% slower decline vs. placebo at 24 months.

Biogen presented Phase 2 CELIA data for diranersen (BIIB080) at AAIC 2026. All dose groups reduced CSF total tau by 50-65%, and the 60mg group showed slowed cognitive decline at 18 months. Biogen decided to advance to Phase 3.

At EWC 2026 in Paris, Karmine Corp defeated T1 2-1 in the League of Legends semifinals to advance to the final. T1 will play in the third-place match.

Dplus KIA defeated defending champion Gen.G 2-1 in the EWC 2026 LoL semifinals. Smash recorded KDA 11/0/9 and 90.9% kill participation in Game 3 to secure the win.

Park Eun-bin and Yang Se-jong star in the 12-episode occult romance drama 'Spooky in Love,' which debuted simultaneously on tvN and Netflix on July 18. A chaebol heiress who sees ghosts and a prosecutor investigate an unsolved murder.

DealSite Korea analysis showed Samsung's MX (mobile) division could post an operating loss of 364B-729B KRW in Q2 2026. RAM cost as a share of an $800 smartphone rose from 14% to 23%, with NAND reaching 15%.

India's smartphone shipments fell 10% year-over-year in Q2 2026, the steepest decline in six years, according to Counterpoint Research. Sub-15,000-rupee devices plunged 45%; only Samsung grew, up 2%.

Leaked specs for the Pixel 11a (codename Formosan) show a Tensor G6 chip, MediaTek M90 modem, 6.3-inch AMOLED display (peak 3,350 nits), 8GB RAM, and a 4,870mAh battery.

Under its revised carbon market, the EU will require international flights departing within 5,000km to pay CO2 emission costs starting 2029 when flying into the EU.

India launched its first hydrogen-powered train built with domestic technology. The train consists of two hydrogen-powered cars and eight passenger cars and is set to operate in Haryana state.

Attorneys general from 8 U.S. states filed notices of intent to sue the Trump administration for paying energy companies approximately $2B to abandon offshore wind projects.

Ocean Winds received Scottish ministerial consent to build the Caledonia offshore wind farm in the Moray Firth, comprising 155 turbines for a total capacity of 2GW.

Volkswagen unveiled the MEB+-based compact electric SUV ID.Cross with three powertrain options (85/99/155kW) and 37kWh or 52kWh batteries. All models include an 11kW bidirectional AC charger as standard. German starting price is under 28,000 euros.

U.S. DC fast charger count has more than doubled since 2023's ~32,000 units, and the Paren reliability index has improved from 85 to the mid-90s percent, according to TechCrunch.

Tesla Korea will convert FSD sales from a one-time 9,043,000 KRW payment to a 150,000 KRW/month subscription starting August 10. Tesla U.S. already switched to a $99/month subscription in February.

MOIA launched an autonomous shared-ride service in Hamburg as part of Germany's federally funded ALIKE project. On the same day, UNECE approved the world's first international safety standard permitting fully autonomous driving systems.

A fire broke out on the 6th floor of Coupang's Incheon logistics center No. 32 at 6:54 AM on July 18, spreading to the 7th floor. 121 people self-evacuated and one firefighter was injured. The fire agency issued a national mobilization order at 3:15 PM.

The National Retail Federation's July 1-8 survey forecasts K-12 back-to-school spending at a record $43.2B. Including college spending, total is projected at $103.5B—the first time it has exceeded $100B.

U.S. retail and food service sales totaled $768.6B in June, up 0.2% from May and 6.7% from a year earlier, per the Census Bureau. Discretionary categories underperformed while essential spending patterns intensified.

Anaconda acquired Kilo Code, an open-source agentic engineering platform used by 3M developers in VS Code and JetBrains. The acquisition targets integration of AI workloads from development through production.

Google Cloud integrated Parallel Web Systems as a native web grounding partner in the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform. Agents can cite real-time search results; available via Google Cloud Marketplace.

Databricks released Apache Spark 4.2, improving agentic AI workloads and real-time streaming performance. Agents can consume new data and trigger pipelines for low-latency downstream analytics.

Nebius (Nasdaq: NBIS) announced a model in which partners own and operate data centers while Nebius provides the software stack and handles customer sales. The structure scales global AI compute without Nebius owning the hardware.

Korea's Real Estate Board reported Hwaseong's Dongtan district posted a 0.73% weekly gain as of July 13—the highest in the nation for three consecutive weeks. Seoul held at +0.30% for a second straight week.

Colliers data showed Seoul office average vacancy rose 1.7pp to 4.9% in Q2 2026, while average nominal rent exceeded 40,335 KRW/sqm. Total Q2 office transaction volume was approximately 4.2 trillion KRW.

Real Estate R114 reported 8,905 units across 12 projects launching in the fourth week of July, with 6,017 general-public units—the most in any single week this month. First-round subscriptions for Uiwang SK View and Osan Heritage Xi open July 21.

Hyundai Motor's union intensified its strike on July 18, demanding AI-related employment protections, a 149,600 KRW monthly wage increase, and performance pay equal to 30% of net profit. Management urged an early settlement.

The Hyundai Motor union announced additional partial strikes of 4 hours per shift for three days from July 20 to 22, doubling the intensity of the 2-hour partial strikes held July 13-15.

A National Pension Research Institute survey found mid-to-late career Korean workers retire at an average of 52.9 years but want to work until 73.4 years, leaving a roughly 20-year income gap.

A fire broke out at Coupang's Incheon logistics center at 6:54 AM July 18, requiring 219 firefighters and 79 pieces of equipment. 121 self-evacuated; one firefighter was injured. President Lee Jae-myung ordered authorities to minimize damage. Coupang issued a public apology.

Samsung Electronics will hold Galaxy Unpacked in London on July 22. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Z Flip 8 will debut alongside Galaxy Glasses, the company's first Android XR-based smart glasses, in two designs with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster.

Naver's Smart Place 'accept foreigner bookings' toggle—which actually blocks overseas-issued cards—drew controversy as discriminatory. Naver said it plans to rename the setting to 'global booking settings.'

Kakao Mobility and Kia signed a strategic agreement to jointly develop and supply purpose-built vehicles (PBV) for autonomous driving services. Kia will supply development kits this year, with joint development of robotaxi and unmanned shuttle PBVs to follow.