International
Russia announces the creation of a center for the design and production of assault drones
The Minister of Defense of Russia, Sergey Shoigu, announced today the creation of a center for the design and production of assault drones, an aspect in which Ukraine has done a lot of damage to the Russian rear.
“The center will unite the different companies, laboratories and design departments that are dedicated to the development and production of advanced weapons,” Shoigu said during a visit to a military polygon in the Moscow region.
Shoigu was able to supervise the operation of drones with a payload of between 10 and 200 kilograms, and whose parts are all domestically manufactured, which facilitates their rapid mass production.
Specifically, the specialists presented to the minister a universal quadcopter that can carry different types of ammunition and operate in conditions of almost zero visibility, and whose easy handling only requires two weeks of instruction for its operators.
To begin with, the company is willing to produce 30 of those units per month in case it receives the approval of the Ministry of Defense.
Precisely, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has been insisting for many months on the need to accelerate the production of unmanned devices for use in the military campaign in Ukraine, where Moscow has mostly used Shahed imported from Iran.
Russian air defenses shot down fifty enemy drones in eight Russian regions during the early hours of the morning, including the one surrounding the capital, Moscow, according to a military statement.
Half of those drones were targeted at the border region of Belgorod, the hardest hit since the beginning of the war and where two other people died.
The governors of the Smolensk, Briansk and Kaluga regions reported that the Ukrainian attacks caused fires in a fuel tank and energy infrastructure.
Since the first year of the war, Ukraine has managed to hit different military and energy targets in the annexed Crimean peninsula, other occupied territories and the regions of the European part of Russia with self-produced aerial and naval drones.
For their part, Ukraine’s air defenses intercepted two Russian missiles and three Russian drones on Friday night, while they recorded a total of seven missile attacks, according to Air Force commander Mikola Oleschuk.
The air defenses destroyed two X-59 and X-69 guided air missiles, as well as three reconnaissance drones, two Orlan-10 and a Supercam, Oleschuk said through his Telegram channel.
In addition, according to the Air Force commander, the launches of three Iskander-M ballistic missiles, two S-300 and S-400 guided missiles from the Russian border region of Belgorod, in addition to the two intercepted missiles, which departed from the Black Sea, were recorded.
The Attorney General’s Office of Ukraine reported this Saturday that since the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022 the number of children killed by the conflict has risen to 545 minutes that 1,289 have been injured with varying degrees of severity.
According to a publication of the prosecutor’s office on its Telegram channel, the majority of dead or injured children are concentrated in regions crossed by the war front such as Donetsk (east), Kharkov (northeast) and Kerson, but also in the capital region of Kiev, among others.
Only yesterday, Friday, an eight-year-old boy and a 14-year-old teenager were killed as a result of the bombing of the town of Sinelnikovo, in the Dnipropetrovsk region (center), while a six-year-old boy was seriously injured.
In addition, in the Mikoláiv region (south), a 14-year-old teenager was injured in the bombing of the town of Solonchaki, the prosecutor’s office recalled.
NATO Defense Ministers agreed yesterday in Brussels that they are willing to provide more military support, including anti-aircraft defenses, to Ukraine, at the end of an emergency meeting requested by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski.
In recent weeks, Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure have intensified and according to Zelenski, some have not been able to be repelled due to a lack of anti-aircraft ammunition.
Ukrainian security services sources said that the drone attacks launched tonight against eight Russian regions achieved their goal of causing damage to that country’s energy infrastructure.
Russia accused Ukraine of deliberately targeting its journalists after the death on Friday of the war correspondent of the Russian channel ‘Izvestia’, Semion Yeremin, who died while making a report in the Ukrainian region of Zaporiyia.
“As for the fact that the Ukrainian Army deliberately makes Russian journalists its target, this is so,” Dmitri Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin, told that television channel.
International
Trump to build $200M ballroom at the White House by 2028
The U.S. government under President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that it will begin construction in September on a new 8,000-square-meter ballroom at the White House.
The announcement was made by Karoline Leavitt, the administration’s press secretary, during a briefing in which she explained that the expansion responds to the need for a larger venue to host “major events.”
“Other presidents have long wished for a space capable of accommodating large gatherings within the White House complex… President Trump has committed to solving this issue,” Leavitt told reporters.
The project is estimated to cost $200 million, fully funded through donations from Trump himself and other “patriots,” according to a government statement. Construction is scheduled to begin in September and is expected to be completed before Trump’s term ends in 2028.
The Clark Construction Group, a Virginia-based company known for projects such as the Capital One Arena and L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C., has been selected to lead the project.
The new ballroom will be built on the East Wing of the White House, expanding the iconic residence with a space designed for state dinners, official ceremonies, and large-scale events.
International
Three salvadorans in Florida sentenced in $146 million construction tax fraud scheme
Three Salvadoran residents living in Orlando, Florida, were sentenced for conspiracy to commit tax fraud and wire fraud involving a scheme exceeding $146 million in the construction industry, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida. The sentence was handed down by federal judge Timothy J. Corrigan on Tuesday, July 29.
Eduardo Aníbal Escobar (45) was sentenced to 4 years and 9 months in prison, Carlos Alberto Rodríguez (36) to 3 years and 4 months, and Adelmy Tejada (57) to 18 months in prison, followed by 6 months of house arrest. All three pled guilty on April 3, 2025.
In addition to the prison terms, the court ordered restitution payments totaling $36,957,616 to the IRS for unpaid payroll taxes, and $397,895 to two insurers for workers’ compensation claims related to the scheme.
Escobar and Rodríguez are permanent legal residents originally from El Salvador, while Tejada is a naturalized U.S. citizen of Salvadoran origin.
International
Kremlin hails preparedness after Kamchatka quakes leave no casualties
The Kremlin expressed relief that the earthquakes that struck Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula today —the first being the strongest since 1952— resulted in no casualties, and emphasized that the region is well prepared to face such natural disasters.
“Thank God, there were no victims,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov during his daily press briefing.
The presidential representative stated that “all alert systems were activated in time, and evacuations were organized for residents in areas requiring it in response to tsunami threats.”
“Overall, the seismic resilience of the buildings proved effective (…) Therefore, we can say that the technological preparedness demonstrated a high level,” Peskov added.
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Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
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