- Hezbollah battles troops on border as Israel pounds Lebanon
- Alcaraz, Sinner breeze into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Bagnaia wins Japan MotoGP sprint to cut Martin's lead
- Alcaraz breezes into third round of Shanghai Masters
- Gaza cultural heritage brought to light in Geneva
- 'Bullet for democracy': Trump returns to site of rally shooting
- Italy targets climate activists in 'anti-Gandhi' demo clampdown
- South Korean cult-horror series 'Hellbound' returns at BIFF
- Nepalis fear more floods as climate change melts glaciers
- Honduras arrests environmentalist's alleged murderer
- Padres pitcher Musgrove needs elbow surgery
- Supreme Court lets stand rules to curb mercury, methane emissions
- Boston beat Denver in NBA exhibition season opener, but Jokic says omens are good
- Chagos diaspora angry at lack of input on islands' fate
- Biden says 'not confident' of peaceful US election
- US trade chief defends tariff hikes when paired with investment
- Lukaku stars as Napoli beat Como to hold Serie A top spot
- Ohtani set for MLB playoff debut as Dodgers face Padres
- Pogba's drug ban cut to 18 months from four years
- Devine leads New Zealand to big win over India in Women's T20 World Cup
- Bosnia floods kill 16 people
- EU court blocks French ban on vegetable 'steak' labelling
- Prosecutors seek dismissal of rape charges against French rugby players
- Meta AI turns pictures into videos with sound
- Bolivia's Morales says claims he raped a minor are a 'lie'
- MLB Reds hire two-time champion Francona as manager
- Daniel Maldini receives first Italy call-up for Nations League
- US dockworkers return to ports after three-day strike
- Ancelotti points finger at Madrid's 'lack of intensity'
- Haiti reeling after 70 killed in gang attack
- Five Czech kids in hospital over TikTok 'piercing challenge'
- What happens next in Iran-Israel conflict?
- Country star Garth Brooks denies rape accusations
- Stubbs hits maiden century as South Africa make 343-4 against Ireland
- DR Congo to begin mpox vaccination campaign Saturday in east
- Odegaard injury has forced Arsenal to be 'different', says Arteta
- Ratcliffe refuses to guarantee Ten Hag's Man Utd future
- Meta must limit data use for targeted ads: EU court
- Mauritius to hold legislative election on November 10
- Britain qualify for America's Cup final after 60-year wait
- IMF asks Sri Lanka to protect hard-won gains
- Morata returns to Spain Nations League squad after injury
- Irish regulator to probe Ryanair use of facial recognition
- Public allowed to see video evidence in France mass rape trial
- US hiring soars past expectations in sign of resilient market
- Under-fire Ten Hag 'together' with Man Utd hierarchy
- Guardiola talks of Man City love affair as financial hearing rumbles on
- De Bruyne out of Belgium Nations League squad
- Japanese trainer Yahagi hopes Shin Emperor achieves 50-year-old Arc dream
- UK's Starmer hails 'landmark' carbon capture funding
In Ukraine's Lviv, war reaches even children's books
In the basement of the bookshop she manages in western Ukraine, Romana Yaremyn shows hundreds of books stacked half way to the ceiling after they were evacuated from the country's war-torn east.
Packed together in white parcels, the titles rescued from Kharkiv fill up what was once the children's reading room.
They are just a fraction of those at the shop's publishing house in the eastern city under Russian fire, she said.
"Our warehouse workers tried to at least evacuate some of the books. They loaded up a truck and all this was delivered through a postal company," said the 27-year-old, dressed in a yellow hoodie.
They started with these, their most recent and most popular publications, many of which are children's books.
The western city of Lviv has remained relatively sheltered from war since Russia invaded two months ago, with the exception of deadly air strikes near the railway last week.
Hundreds of thousands of people, mainly women and children, have fled to or through the country's cultural capital since the fighting erupted.
"I don't know how my colleagues in Kharkiv have stayed there," Yaremyn said.
"Those who fled and stayed with me said they felt that they wanted to level the city to the ground."
- Authors in the army -
Yaremyn said the bookshop swiftly reopened a day after the invasion, providing shelter in the basement when the air raid sirens went off, and holding reading sessions there with displaced children.
During the first wave of arrivals, parents who had left home with next to nothing flooded in seeking fairy tales to keep their children distracted in the bunkers.
A few parents bought "Polinka", the story of a girl and her grandfather, published just before the invasion and written by a man who is now on the front.
"He wanted to leave something behind for his grandchild," she said.
From the shelves in the adult section, Yaremyn pulled out a collection of essays on Ukrainian women forgotten by history. Its writer too is now fighting the Russians, she said.
"A lot of our authors are in the army now," she said.
- 'Kids want to read' -
As sirens wail across Lviv to signal the end of a morning air raid alarm, baristas return to their coffee shops to fire up their espresso machines until the next warning.
The sun pours down from a blue sky, and a young man and woman press their heads together seated on a terrasse.
The city's numerous bookshops are open for business.
In a pedestrian tunnel under a road in the city centre, several tiny stalls sell translations of foreign classics like George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" or even manga titles.
Near the Royal Arsenal museum, a pigeon sits on the head of a tall muscular statue of Ivan Fyodorov, a 16th-century printer from Moscow buried in Lviv.
At his feet, when it does not rain and there are no sirens, a few second-hand booksellers wait for customers.
Dressed in a light blue coat and woolly hat, Iryna, 48, sat near rows of literature and history books for sale or rent.
Rentals for a small fee used to be popular with the older generation, she said.
Iryna, who did not give her second name, said she stopped working for more than a month after war broke out.
When she returned to the cobbled square in early April, many parents from the east came looking for books for their children.
"I gave them a lot, because kids want to read," she said.
X.Brito--PC