Snoop Dogg Joins Olympic Torch Relay in Italy; Severe Weather Hits Portugal; and More
Gallarate, Italy – Rapper Snoop Dogg surprised onlookers in Gallarate, near Milan, Italy, on February 4, 2026, by joining the Olympic torch relay. Dressed in the official white kit, Snoop Dogg emerged from the crowd and carried the flame from Via Pegoraro to Piazza Libertà, waving at students and dancing along the route, according to Euronews. Snoop Dogg, already a familiar face from the Paris 2024 Olympics, is part of NBC's Olympic team for Milano Cortina 2026.
Meanwhile, severe weather caused flooding, power outages, and road closures across Portugal on Wednesday, February 4, 2026, Euronews reported. Storm Leonardo swept across the country, battering the coast with strong winds. In Alcácer do Sal, hours of heavy rain caused the River Sado to overflow, submerging low-lying streets and cutting off roads. Weather alerts remained in place across Setúbal district, where rising Tagus waters forced the closure of riverside paths in Vila Franca de Xira. Civil Protection warned residents not to park near flood-prone areas due to saturated ground. Powerful gusts and waves reaching 11 meters added to the disruption along the coast.
In other news, The Verge reported on February 4, 2026, that the Department of Homeland Security zeroed in on the Twin Cities in Minnesota in late 2025, supposedly in response to fraud allegations made by a right-wing influencer. According to Gaby Del Valle, a policy reporter at The Verge, thousands of immigrants have been swept up by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in the months since. In January alone, two individuals were detained. One man spent 10 hours in a freezing federal building while his friends and family feared for the worst.
European security officials believe two Russian space vehicles have intercepted the communications of at least a dozen key satellites over the continent, Ars Technica reported. These interceptions, which have not been previously reported, risk compromising sensitive information transmitted by the satellites and could allow Moscow to manipulate their trajectories or even crash them. Russian space vehicles have shadowed European satellites more intensively over the past three years, at a time of high tension between the Kremlin and the West following Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket program, now a decade and a half old, continues to be expensive and slow, according to Ars Technica. The massive rocket and its ground systems have cost US taxpayers in excess of 30 billion to date. The space agency rolled the Space Launch System out of its hangar in March 2022 for wet dress rehearsal attempts.
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