Author: staff

Published on 06/04/2026 – 9:50 GMT+2 Spanish police have recovered a 17th-century manuscript that disappeared from Valencia’s College of the Major Art of Silk more than a century ago after discovering it for sale online for €71,900. The manuscript is a copy of ordinances signed in 1479 by Ferdinand the Catholic that elevated velvet-making from a trade to an art, granting the velvet-makers privileges and social recognition. Agents from the Heritage Group of the National Police Unit assigned to the Valencian Community found the document during routine monitoring of online sales of cultural goods, police said in a statement. The…

Welcome back for another round of recommendations. It’s a big week for new TV series, including HBO’s Euphoria and Disney +’s Testaments – but exhibitions on Francis Bacon and Veronica Ryan should, along with a revival of Pina Bausch’s ‘Kontakthof’, be enough to entice you outdoors. Finish scoffing those leftover Easter eggs, peel yourself from the sofa, and prepare to add the following to this week’s diary. Exhibitions Francis Bacon When: 11 April – 30 May 2026 Where: Gagosian (Paris, France) Francis Bacon’s unsettling portraits have inspired everyone from David Lynch to Damien Hirst – but it was Paris that…

Listen on Spotify Apple Music Amazon Music Sky News With one month to go until the local elections in England, Wales and Scotland – is the electoral map about to be redrawn? In his first major test since the general election, Sir Keir Starmer faces a major health check and verdict on his government and leadership. Could the results reshape his premiership? In this special episode, Sam and Anne are joined by elections analyst Professor Rob Ford to discuss the key battlegrounds across the country. • Can the SNP hold on for a fifth term at Holyrood?• Could Welsh Labour…

“Speak to Fendi. Speak to Louis Vuitton. Speak to Dior,” he said. “They’re all using fur, they’re all selling fur.” Like Moser, Oaten came to the sector from outside — a former Liberal Democrat MP, headhunted after leaving Westminster in 2010 to help modernize an industry he said he barely knew existed.  What he found surprised him. Not a cottage trade but a complex global supply chain, running from farms in Finland and Greece through processing workshops in Italy, auction houses in Helsinki, manufacturers in Hong Kong, and finally to boutiques in London, Paris and Rome. Younger buyers have been…

Published on 06/04/2026 – 8:00 GMT+2 EU member states’ defence research and development (R&D) amounted to €13 billion in 2024. Investments increased by an additional €4 billion in 2025, according to European Defence Agency estimates. The US and China still maintain a significant lead over Europe. In 2024, Washington invested €138 billion in defence innovation, while China’s estimated defence industry R&D reached €38 billion, with a focus on AI, hypersonic, and quantum technologies. The EU’s Programme for Agile and Rapid Defence Innovation (AGILE) supports “new defence players” to accelerate the development of new defence technologies. The plan allocates €115 million…

The country’s non-starting “autumn of reforms” has already turned into the “spring of reforms,” with concrete proposals on several fronts yet to be reported. The initials results, on long-term care, are expected soon, followed by those on health care funding. After that, plans to reform the pension system are expected by June, so legislation can be drafted and submitted to parliament before it breaks for summer recess in July. Normally, all this would be a tall order for the SPD. But “major reforms must take place,” Klingbeil admitted in a recent keynote speech, and they must lead to “lower taxes,…

According to Iványi, it was Orbán’s political maneuvering that drove them apart, as the pastor remained committed to progressive liberal values while Orbán moved to the right to consolidate political support. The moment their relationship broke down came during Orbán’s second premiership in 2010, when he asked Iványi to publicly endorse him and have their photo taken together. Iványi refused, as he supported an opposition party. “I was promised extra financial support for that photo,” he said. And when he refused, “I was told [Orbán] was absolutely offended by that.” From then on, Iványi’s Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship — a prominent…

Nielsen stressed both the symbolic and practical importance of the verdict. “This ruling demonstrates that no matter how the Kremlin may view these regions, they will not be considered part of Russia for everyday life, including sports, culture, or chess,” he said. “It was important to establish that Russia organizing chess in occupied territories was not ‘humanitarian,’ as FIDE President [Arkady] Dvorkovich once described it. Russia organizes chess systematically in occupied territory and uses it for propaganda,” Nielsen added. Ukraine’s Sports Minister Matvii Bidnyi pointed out that the ruling reinforces Ukraine’s territorial integrity in the sporting sphere and lays the…

Plus, it’s not just Congress and the White House involved in the budget conversation right now — everyone is still waiting to see if the Supreme Court weighs in on the legality of the so-called pocket rescissions that Trump employed last year to circumvent Congress and unilaterally cancel nearly $5 billion in foreign aid spending.“It’s hard enough to get 12 appropriations bills done and even harder when you’re not sure if the deal that you strike is even a deal,” said Joe Carlile, an associate director at OMB during the Biden administration and longtime House Appropriations aide who now runs…

Leo did not address any world leaders by name, but his remarks can be read as a rebuke to several. He spoke with sorrow about what he called the increasing globalization of indifference, in a nod to some of the final words of his predecessor, Pope Francis, who died almost a year ago. “We are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent,” Leo said. “Indifferent to the deaths of thousands of people. Indifferent to the repercussions of hatred and division that conflicts sow. Indifferent to the economic and social consequences they produce, which we all feel.”…