Author: staff

No party or coalition secured an absolute majority in the French National Assembly in the snap election held over the summer. France’s two-week-old government led by Prime Minister Michel Barnier survived a no-confidence vote on Tuesday.A total of 197 MPs voted in favour of this no-confidence motion, short of the 289 votes needed to achieve an absolute majority to topple the government.The no-confidence motion was deposited by a group of 192 lawmakers of the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition composed of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI), Socialists, Greens and Communists. Despite securing the most seats in the National Assembly…

BRUSSELS — Ahead of next month’s United Nations climate summit, the European Union is playing its cards close to its chest. The bloc’s finance ministers on Tuesday approved the 27 countries’ joint negotiating position regarding the central issue of the upcoming summit — funding for climate action — but did not reveal how much cash EU governments would be willing to put up. That’s a deliberate negotiating tactic, two European diplomats and one EU official confirmed, as the bloc — much like other developed countries — wants to make the precise amount of funding contingent on expanding the group of donors. “I don’t expect a…

From ice-cream sundae carts to mimosas and warm nuts, the perks of first class taste better when they’re free. Heading on your honeymoon or travelling for a big birthday? It may have crossed your mind to ask for a free flight upgrade.But could it really result in you sipping Champagne in a sky-high armchair or will you simply get an eye roll from the airline staff?Frequent flyers from Reddit’s travel community have weighed in on the topic, sharing real-life experiences and insights on how flight upgrades work. To back it up, Euronews Travel spoke to some of Europe’s biggest international airlines…

LONDON — And then there were three. Fresh from a thumping election defeat, Britain’s diminished band of Conservative MPs on Tuesday whittled down the list of people hoping to take them back to power to a final trio: James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, and Kemi Badenoch. Shadow Security Minister Tom Tugendhat bit the dust after winning the backing of just 20 of the 121 Tory MPs still standing in parliament. But the biggest shock of the day was the surge in momentum behind Cleverly, the former home secretary and foreign secretary once seen as a real outsider in the race who…

Residents of Grand Puy, France, voted to shutter the ski lift after a lack of snow and visitors made it unfeasible. As the weather cools down, many of us will be thinking of a trip to the slopes. However, thanks to the impact of climate change, more ski resorts are being forced to close for good. In the small Alpine resort of Grand Puy, in Seyne-les-Alpes, France, a ‘télésiège’ – or chairlift – has been ferrying skiers up to an altitude of 1,800m for some 65 years. Now, due to an increasingly frequent absence of snow and a lack of visitors, locals…

A Dutch museum has recovered one of its artworks that looks like two empty beer cans after a staff member accidentally threw it in the bin. One man’s art is another man’s trash… “This is rubbish.”Ever had that thought when gazing at a piece of modern art?Well, a staff member at a Dutch museum certainly did. It wasn’t an artistic appreciation, mind you. The worker just thought that the artwork was literally rubbish.Indeed, the Lisser Art Museum (LAM) in the town of Lisse, Netherlands, found an artwork that looks like a pair of empty beer cans in the bin after one…

Tough international sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine have led Moscow to turn to Pyongyang for military supplies and other help. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un sent a birthday message to Russian President Vladimir Putin, a gesture of friendship at a time when the two men’s governments were growing closer than ever.Addressing Putin as “my closest comrade”, Kim’s letter — released by the North Korean state news agency KCNA — offers him “sincere and warm congratulations” on his 72nd birthday.”You have made remarkable successes in the course of resolutely defending the sovereignty, security, development and interests of the country…

Some of the most iconic costumes and props from TV and cinema are set to go to auction in London next month. Propstore’s Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction will feature a Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet, Michael Keaton’s Batsuit and the Ghostface mask from Scream, among 1,800 lots. The London auction house will put nearly 2,000 items of film memorabilia under the hammer at Bafta, 195 Piccadilly on 14 and 15 November, with an online-only auction the following two days. It’s expected that some of the items will sell for figures in the hundreds of thousands, with the highest expected sale expected…

A new sanctions framework unveiled by the European Council focuses on individuals and entities who “undermine the EU’s values, security, and the integrity of its member states”. Brussels has presented a new framework for sanctions against Russia, focused on fake news, election destabilisation and cyberwarfare. The rules, agreed on Tuesday by the European Council, lets the EU target individuals and entities that work with Russia to undermine the values, security, independence and integrity of the EU and its member states.**The new framework focuses on those spreading coordinated disinformation, sabotaging EU critical infrastructure or instrumentalising migrants, according to a statement from…

The award is the second of six Nobel Prizes to be announced this week and next. Artificial intelligence pioneers John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics for discoveries that enabled machine learning with artificial neural networks and set the scene for today’s breakthroughs in AI.Hans Ellegren, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, awarded the prize Tuesday in Stockholm.Hopfield, who carries out research at Princeton University in the United States, is known for creating a network in 1982 that can retain and recreate patterns in images and other types of data by identifying…