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‘That wasn’t my son’: Mother of Berlin Pride attacker confronts his turn to terror – POLITICO Skip to main content

Italy’s longest river, the Po, is running unusually low in Turin amid prolonged heat and a lack of rainfall. The Po crosses the city for around nine kilometres, but parts of its riverbed are now exposed, revealing rocks that would normally be underwater. The low water levels are also allowing algae and aquatic vegetation to spread along the riverbanks, while wildlife is being affected by the changing conditions. The Po is vital for agriculture and industry across northern Italy, making the falling water levels a growing concern for the region. To boost water levels, authorities asked hydropower operators to release…

Published on 12/08/2026 – 21:58 GMT+2•Updated 22:22 White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the youngest person to hold the role, will leave at the end of the month, US President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday. Leavitt, 28, the youngest ever US presidential top spokesperson, has been a fiercely loyal Trump defender, delivering fluent and aggressive performances at often combative press briefings. “Our wonderful White House Press Secretary, and one of my most trusted aides, Karoline Leavitt, will be departing her role at the end of the month so she can spend more time with her beautiful young children and family,”…

Published on 12/08/2026 – 10:07 GMT+2 Morocco’s National Human Rights Council (CNDH) has once again pointed the finger at Spain. In a preliminary report released on 8 August, the council accuses the Spanish security forces of having assaulted and ill-treated some of the migrants who entered Ceuta on 30 and 31 July, when around 80,000 people crossed the border in just 48 hours. According to the document, the Council’s monitoring team gathered testimonies from migrants who had already been returned to Morocco and who all reported assaults by Spanish officers, “especially in places beyond the reach of cameras”, in their…

Since it was built in the 10th century, the 28 towers and 1,200 metres of walls of the caliphate fortress of Gormaz, perched on a promontory overlooking the Castilian plateau, have witnessed six total solar eclipses. The one on 12 August 2026, the seventh, is for the first time drawing large numbers of domestic and international tourists who have travelled to Gormaz to observe this astronomical event, as the path of totality runs very close to the thousand-year-old monument. It is estimated that the first total solar eclipse visible over the Iberian Peninsula since 1912 could prompt between 400,000 and…

France’s presidential election is set for the spring of 2027, and it is already attracting instances of misinformation and alleged foreign interference that have since sparked criminal proceedings. Researchers from the bot-tracking network AntiBot4Navalny have detected a campaign linked to Matryoshka, a covert influence and disinformation operation aligned with Russia. At first, these posts focused on Gabriel Attal, the former prime minister of France who is running to succeed current president Emmanuel Macron. Attal filed a criminal complaint with French authorities “alleging foreign interference originating from Russian networks”, after fabricated videos impersonating French news outlets targeted him online. Fake videos…

Published on 12/08/2026 – 20:06 GMT+2 The organisers of the Eurovision Song Contest announced a rules change on Wednesday excluding any country in an armed conflict from hosting the competition. Eurovision is organised each year by the broadcaster from the country that won the previous edition and is a co-production of public broadcasters belonging to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Under the new rules, “the winning broadcaster will automatically be ineligible to host the Contest if an armed conflict, a sensitive geopolitical situation, or any other situation materially affects the security, safety or stability of their state or immediate region”,…

Despite this, Israel has come close to winning the 2025 and 2026 editions of the competition, garnering a strong public vote. Israel’s pubic broadcaster KAN has denied claims that results were unfairly influenced by mass voting campaigns. Eurovision is organized by the European Broadcasting Union, an alliance of 113 public service media organizations across 56 countries. Typically, the national broadcaster that wins the competition hosts the following edition in their home country. There have been some exceptions. When Ukraine won the 2022 contest, the organizers said the country could not host the following year’s contest due to Russia’s ongoing invasion…

Published on 12/08/2026 – 10:25 GMT+2•Updated 12:13 The European Union will provide €2.1 million to Colombia to support its most affected areas following a deadly earthquake that tore through the South American country on Sunday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in an online statement. “As search and rescue operations continue, the EU is supporting Colombia wherever possible,” she said in the statement posted on Tuesday. The funding will provide health, water, sanitation and hygiene material, as well as shelter, food, protection and cash assistance. The president of the EU executive added that Colombia has activated the bloc’s…

Published on 12/08/2026 – 16:50 GMT+2 Two of the most influential voices in energy markets set out opposing readings of the year on Wednesday. The IEA now expects the world to burn less oil in 2026 than it did in 2025, its first such call since Covid-19 ground the global economy to a near-halt, while OPEC still pencils in growth, leaving them more than two million barrels a day apart. The Paris-based IEA now expects global oil demand to fall by 1.6 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2026, a downgrade of 510,000 b/d from July. “The ongoing closure of…