Author: staff
As Lyon and Orléans prepare for a weekend of demonstrations, shopkeepers are boarding up windows, removing valuable stock and reinforcing entrances. In Lyon, workers were filmed on Friday installing wooden panels and protective fencing outside City Hall, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Chamber of Commerce. Shops along Rue de la République were also being secured, with carpenters cutting boards and covering windows. The precautions reflect fears of possible violence and property damage, although no such incidents during the upcoming demonstrations have been confirmed. In Orléans, businesses along the planned protest route are also taking precautions ahead of a…
Earlier in the day, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced on X that at least one person had been killed and four others injured in a shooting in Trappes, a suburb west of Paris with a lower socioeconomic status and a large Muslim community. A 12-year-old was among those injured, the mayor of nearby town La Verrière told reporters. “The main focus will obviously be on identifying the perpetrator’s motives — what drove him to attempt to carry out a massacre … to target our communities,” Trappes Mayor Ali Rabeh said on French broadcaster BFM. “Our thoughts are with the…
Published on 23/10/2026 – 13:25 GMT+2•Updated 13:46 An explosion at a coal mine in northwestern Turkey killed at least two people and injured five others, two of whom are in serious condition. One other miner remains trapped, local media reported on Friday. The explosion at the mine in the town of Gelik was caused by a “firedamp,” or flammable gas, local authorities said. “Eight people were in the tunnel, seven were rescued. Unfortunately, two of our miners died after being taken to hospital,” said Zonguldak governor Osman Hacibektasoglu. Two of the rescued miners suffered burns and were in serious condition.…
The Hungarian government’s draft budget for 2027 and its medium-term deficit targets support its aim of meeting the conditions for joining the eurozone by 2030, Fitch Ratings said in an assessment published on Thursday. According to the 2027 draft budget presented by Prime Minister Péter Magyar on Monday, the government intends to cut the general government deficit to 4.9% of GDP, from the 7.5% expected for this year. The budget includes planned spending cuts worth 1.5% of GDP next year. On top of this, the expiry of temporary and one-off pre-election measures could save a further 1.4%. The budget also…
It’s not just restaurants that were crowned at the 2026 World Culinary Awards – airlines, airports and airport lounges also picked up gongs for feeding hungry travellers. Vietnam Airlines took the title of World’s Best Culinary Airline 2026, becoming the first Asian carrier to win the award. It beat fellow nominees including Emirates, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Air France, Cathay Pacific, and Turkish Airlines. Other aviation sector winners included London’s Heathrow Airport, Turkish Airlines’ international lounges, and Clubrooms at Gatwick South Terminal. What’s on the menu with Vietnam Airlines? Designed to “promote Vietnamese cuisine” to international travellers, the carrier’s in-flight…
U.S. platforms operate as entire ecosystems, offering all-encompassing solutions under a single contract. To do without them, “you need to start creating your own architecture and systems that need to speak to each other,” the registrar said. Financial autonomy was equally hard to achieve. The Court mapped all its suppliers’ transactions to ensure there was no U.S. nexus, meaning that no U.S. person, bank or currency is involved in a payment. “We made all of our staff members have European bank accounts. It was a very detailed process that we had to do, person by person, company by company, making…
With 412 million children living in extreme poverty, a global summit in Uzbekistan has called for greater investment in children’s healthcare, education and protection, alongside closer coordination between services that often operate separately. This was at the core of the Samarkand Declaration, adopted on Thursday at the end of a two-day gathering attended by representatives from more than 100 countries. The declaration calls for stronger social protection systems, nationally determined targets and regular reporting on the quality and effectiveness of services for children. According to UNICEF, two-thirds of the child-related UN Sustainable Development Goal indicators it monitors are off track,…
A tanker carrying Russian diesel is en route to New York after US President Donald Trump announced a deal with Moscow in early October, according to data from the maritime tracking firm Kpler. The Malta-flagged tanker Agioi Fanendes was located off Helsinki on Friday and was signalling “New York” as its destination via its AIS transponder. It loaded nearly 300,000 barrels of diesel at the Russian oil terminal of Primorsk, according to Kpler. Separate shipping data from LSEG put the cargo at 40,000 tonnes of ultra-low-sulphur diesel. It left Primorsk overnight on 22–23 October and is expected to arrive on…
A new YouGov survey of French teenagers and their parents has shed light on their differing experiences and attitudes to artificial intelligence, revealing that parents significantly underestimate their children’s use of AI and do not feel supported enough to help them understand how to use it appropriately. The survey found that while 40% of 11- to 12-year-olds report using general-purpose AI weekly, just 26% of parents realise their children are doing so — a glaring 14 percentage point gap. It also found that 42% of parents do not feel supported at all in helping their kids understand how to use…
Published on 23/10/2026 – 11:35 GMT+2•Updated 11:40 We’re in the final stretch, as Amazon MGM Studios are reportedly setting their final auditions for the casting of the new 007 this weekend and next week. According to various reports, the race to find the next James Bond actor is now down to the final three. Or four. One report from an industry insider revealed that the shortlist only has three names. “A few weeks ago, I was told that the race to become the next James Bond had narrowed to three names: Jacob Elordi, Jack Lowden and an undisclosed third actor,”…