Author: staff
The Parliament had agreed a position on the file but the Commission said in February that it planned to scrap its proposal to regulate the licensing of certain patents, arguing there was no “foreseeable agreement” with the Council, where negotiations had become drawn out. The Parliament’s legal affairs committee voted earlier this month to sue the Commission. President Roberta Metsola put the lawsuit to a final plenary confirmation amid pushback from a right-wing majority. The case can now move ahead to the EU’s top court in Luxembourg, which will have to decide whether the Commission was within its rights to…
Published on 25/11/2025 – 12:13 GMT+1 OpenAI is rolling out a ‘shopping research’ tool on ChatGPT to help users find products through a more guided process in time for the holiday season. The tool searches the internet and produces a personalised buyer’s guide to help people decide what to purchase. Shopping research works through conversation. Users describe what they want and can refine results by marking items as “Not interested” or “More like this”, with the agent adjusting suggestions in real time. The new feature comes as AI companies are betting that e-commerce will be a major application of AI.…
In a press release summarizing the judgment, the court added: “Member States are therefore required to recognize, for the purpose of the exercise of the rights conferred by EU law, the marital status lawfully acquired in another Member State.” Member countries “enjoy a margin of discretion to choose the procedures for recognizing such a marriage,” the court added. The court stressed, however, that its ruling does not oblige countries to introduce same-sex marriage under their domestic laws.
Published on 25/11/2025 – 11:13 GMT+1 The Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO), along with All Nippon Airways (ANA), is offering free domestic flights across the airline’s entire Japanese regional network to UK and European travellers. The initiative, which will run from 24 November to 31 January 2026, has been introduced to encourage visitors to travel to Japan’s lesser-known regions and ease pressure on crowded destinations like Kyoto and Tokyo. It is part of a “Stopover & Add-on Free Fare” offer, which will allow eligible economy passengers from the UK and Europe to book up to two free domestic flights on…
It’s just, “they want to be the ones setting those standards,” Chen said. The Trump administration pressured Brussels to tone down its tech regulation during heated trade talks this summer, POLITICO previously reported. That the EU followed through with scaling back its tech laws just as the U.S. is pressing the EU is bad optics, said Schaake, the former lawmaker. “The timing of the whole simplification [package] is very bad,” she said. She argued that it’s essential to deal with the unnecessary burden on companies, but issuing the digital omnibus after the U.S. pressure “looks like a response to that criticism.”…
Published on 25/11/2025 – 10:58 GMT+1 A town in Northern Ireland is set to change the name of a road honouring the UK’s disgraced ex-Prince Andrew, weeks after he was stripped of his royal titles over his ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Mid and East Antrim Council unanimously voted this week to rename Prince Andrew Way in the town of Carrickfergus, following King Charles III’s decision to remove his brother from public life last month due to the still-unravelling scandal. The 65-year-old former prince, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, has faced growing scrutiny in recent months…
By Euronews Published on 25/11/2025 – 11:07 GMT+1 •Updated 11:08 ADNOC has approved a $150 billion (€130bn) capital spending plan for 2026 to 2030, as UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan chaired the company’s annual board meeting at the Habshan complex in Abu Dhabi. The meeting was held inside ADNOC Gas’ main operations control room, underscoring the strategic importance of Habshan, which supplies around 60% of the UAE’s natural gas to power the country’s energy and industrial sectors. Board members confirmed a further expansion of the UAE’s hydrocarbon stores, with oil reserves rising to 120 billion barrels and natural…
Climate change is hitting mountain regions around the world “more intensely” than lowland areas, putting billions of people at risk. A major analysis from the University of Portsmouth has revealed how temperature, rainfall and snowfall patterns are shifting at an “accelerated rate” in regions such as the Rocky Mountains, the Alps, the Andes and the Tibetan Plateau. Not only does this threaten more than one billion people who currently depend on mountain snow and glaciers for water, but it also increases the risk of “devastating floods” and species loss. Climate change in the mountains Published in Nature, the study examines…
Published on 25/11/2025 – 9:28 GMT+1 Robots have been promising to help with household chores for years, but most still struggle with the simplest tasks. An American start-up now says its newest robot can finally handle the kind of jobs people do every day. California-based Sunday Robotics says it has produced a home robot in less than two years capable of carrying out routine household chores such as clearing a table and loading a dishwasher. In a video released by the company, the wheeled robot Memo is shown removing items from a dinner table and placing them inside a dishwasher.…
On the eve of the long-awaited budget, the rhetoric is ramping up and speculation across Westminster is wild – but has criticism of the chancellor been fair? Sam and Anne assess Rachel Reeves’s position, her pitch to Labour MPs as well as her potential smorgasbord of tax rises. Plus, the duo issue a warning about increased tariffs from China ahead of Christmas.