Author: staff
Three has always been the number associated with ‘charm’, but for Bartłomiej “Foka” Kubkowski’s, it was five, as that is how many attempts it took to swim across the Baltic Sea. On Sunday at around 8 pm local time, the swimmer came ashore at Dziwnów beach in Poland, which was a condition for completing the challenge. In total, he swam 160 km in 55 hours. His feat helped the Cancer Fighters Foundation raise nearly 850,000 zlotys (€197,421) for the fight against cancer, and the fundraising campaign is still ongoing. Several previous attempts to swim across the Baltic Sea ended for…
Qatar says efforts to reach a “short term resolution” between the United States and Iran that would prevent further escalation and restart direct talks are at an advanced stage, with draft language circulating between the two sides through regional mediators. Foreign ministry spokesperson Dr Majed Al Ansari said on Tuesday that Qatar was working with Oman and Pakistan to exchange ideas and proposals between Washington and Tehran and that “the whole region is now working together” by exchanging ideas, to avoid any further escalation and find a resolution. “Our focus right now is avoiding escalation, reopening the strait and reopening…
Published on 04/08/2026 – 8:54 GMT+2 Box office update: It’s official – Spider-Man has overlapped all the Avengers. The new Spider-Man film, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, has broken the Avengers: Endgame record for the biggest North American opening weekend with $360 million in ticket sales from theaters in the US and Canada, according to Sony Pictures. Previously, numbers showed that Tom Holland’s fourth solo adventure as Marvel’s famous webslinger just barely missed the 2019 Endgame record of $357 million. Its box office takings of $335m are now projected at a record-setting $360m, making it the biggest debut in box office…
By Manuel Ribeiro  & euronews Published on 04/08/2026 – 9:40 GMT+2•Updated 13:45 Russia’s state news agency reports that Russian forces have shot down a ‘rare’ Portuguese-made drone operated by the Ukrainian army. The Tekever AR3 was brought down by a Russian anti-drone battalion in the border region of Bryansk, the unit’s commander told TASS. “An enemy reconnaissance drone entered our sector. We were surprised because we had never seen anything like it. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) had a different structure at the tail and on the wings. When we reached the crash site, we found it was a Portuguese reconnaissance drone.…
Published on 04/08/2026 – 11:21 GMT+2 The guessing games are over soon… Following the news that the casting for the new James Bond was in its final stage, with director Denis Villeneuve and producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman having reportedly notified actors for the final round of August auditions, Pascal has revealed that we will soon get to know the identity of the next 007. During an interview for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which she also produced, Pascal told Deadline that “the end of the year is a good bet” when it comes to the timing of the announcement.…
PARIS — A group affiliated with Russia’s intelligence agency launched a disinformation campaign against center-left MEP and likely presidential candidate in next year’s French election, Raphaël Glucksmann, he claimed in a post on X on Tuesday. Glucksmann, who is expected to announce whether he will run for president in the coming weeks, said he had been informed by the French Secretariat-General for National Defence and Security of a “Russian operation” that was “directly controlled by the [Russian] GRU.” Former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, who is a confirmed presidential candidate, was also reportedly targeted by a Russian disinformation campaign last week.…
Morocco had previously warned Spain that a recent Spanish court ruling that migrants arriving by sea would not face immediate removal was going to create “a problem,” a senior Moroccan official said. Last week, at least 50,000 people, mostly Moroccans, entered the Spanish exclave of Ceuta, on foot or by swimming from the nearby city of Fnideq. This unprecedented influx quickly overwhelmed the Spanish exclave in North Africa, before leading to thousands of returns to Morocco. Spain’s Supreme Court ruled on 8 July that migrants arriving by sea should not be returned as quickly as others and Madrid has blamed…
Porto Germeno has woken to the sight of burned homes and blackened cars after another fast-moving wildfire swept through the area west of Athens. Residents are beginning to assess the damage while firefighters continue to tackle flames across Greece. Former Villia mayor Konstantinos Makrynoris described the past few days as “absolutely unacceptable”, reflecting growing frustration over the scale of the destruction. The fires mark a second straight week of major wildfires in Greece. Hundreds of firefighters remain deployed as strong winds and dry conditions make containment difficult. At least five people have died during the past two weeks, underlining the…
Near the point where La Rioja, Navarre, Zaragoza and Soria meet, on the banks of the Alhama and standing since the 12th century, is the Monastery of Santa María la Real de Fitero. This Cistercian Romanesque gem, founded by the warrior monk Raimundo de Fitero, was robbed in 2010, when six hermitages, two churches and the monastery itself in the Comunidad Foral of Navarre had part of their artistic heritage stolen. Sixteen years on, a joint operation by the National Police and Catalonia’s Mossos d’Esquadra has succeeded in recovering a carved, gilded and polychrome wooden relief depicting Saint Bonaventure. The…
Published on 04/08/2026 – 11:25 GMT+2 Three lions at a Tokyo zoo have died from suspected heatstroke and others are under treatment, a spokesperson said on Tuesday, with the big cats struggling with high humidity. Japan sweltered through its hottest summer on record last year and parts of the country have hit 40C in recent weeks, qualifying for the new designation “cruelly hot day,” with thousands of people hospitalised. Ten of the 16 lions in Tama Zoological Park have suffered symptoms such as “loss of appetite and decreased activity” since mid-July, and three lionesses died, the zoo said in a…