Kramatorsk, and the rest of the day

The news leading this edition came in the afternoon: a Russian attack on two buses in Kramatorsk, at least 33 dead and 18 wounded according to Ukrainian authorities. The governor of the Donetsk region described the target as chosen to concentrate the number of casualties. It is the heaviest toll of the last few hours on the eastern front, and we lead with it alone, without other accompanying coverage.

On the European front, two updates. Brussels has extended the national safeguard clause to energy security measures: for Italy this opens up fiscal space estimated at around 29 billion euros over the two-year period 2027-2028, to be divided between energy and defense. We note this with a caveat worth repeating: the news so far comes from a single source, with no independent confirmation available. Also on Brussels, the European Court of Auditors has raised its estimate of irregular spending in the 2025 budget from 3.6% to 3.8% — a worsening stated as such, not downplayed — while still confirming an overall true-and-fair assessment of the accounts. Here too, a single source.

In Italy, the storm over Rome produced over 120 fire department interventions and about a hundred by local police between Wednesday night and Thursday morning: no injuries reported so far, a tree fell on an empty car, disruptions on outlying road networks. We also update Health, with the WHO recommendation against anti-obesity drugs in children under 10 — an institutional position, not a summary of a specific study — and the return to Earth of the Crew-12 crew after nearly eight months in orbit, a multinational mission involving Nasa, Esa and Roscosmos.

On the economic front, a separate analysis on the banking shake-up: the stake in Generali attributable to Mediobanca is worth, at October 7 prices, about a third of the 31.4 billion euros offered by Intesa Sanpaolo for Monte dei Paschi. A piece on falling European stock markets was dropped during processing: the Economy and Markets section remains nonetheless covered by this analysis.

For the rest — Cinema & Entertainment, News, Culture, Italy, Sport — the 6:30 edition stands, published and available. This is today’s final edition: we return tomorrow morning at 6:30.