Author: staff

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will to testify on Wednesday in a California social media trial that questions whether features on his company’s platforms harm children or foster addiction. Zuckerberg will testify in front of a jury and before bereaved parents of children who have taken their lives due to what they say is social media use. He has apologised to families at a United States Congress hearing whose lives had been upended by what they believe was social media use. Zuckerberg could face questions about Instagram’s algorithm and in-app features that the plaintiffs argue are engineered to keep young users…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly becoming part of the operational infrastructure within Uzbekistan’s tourism sector, as the country prepares to receive 12 million visitors in 2026, according to the target set by the Tourism Committee. Preliminary data from the National Statistics Committee indicate that Uzbekistan received 11.7 million foreign tourists during 2025. This growth in arrivals has been accompanied by a measurable expansion in accommodation capacity. Uzbekistan currently counts around 7,000 accommodation facilities, including more than 1,200 hotels, according to sector representatives. As supply increases, operators are turning to AI-based systems to manage occupancy, pricing and cost control. Rather than…

“We are back to where we were 10 years ago in terms of France’s attractiveness,” Kamel said while presenting the findings Wednesday. Only 17 percent of respondents said France had a positive economic outlook in the next two to three years, with the top concerns being the high cost of labor and complex French labor law and political instability, while 77 percent believe Macron won’t be able to deliver more reforms before his term ends next year. Since taking office in 2017, Macron, a former investment banker, worked hard to dispel France’s reputation as a stifled, overtaxed bureaucratic abyss by…

Carnival reached the Olympic mountain town of Cortina on Tuesday, bringing the season to a close in a burst of street theatre. Along the main street, the Italian troupe Silence Teatro performed for visitors, dressed in white with angel wings and painted faces. They paused near the Olympic Flame as tourists gathered to watch and take photos. The stop in Cortina d’Ampezzo offered a glimpse of a festival rooted in the Middle Ages and closely linked to Venice. Carnival ends on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday.

Real Madrid’s Champions League knockout play-off match at Benfica was halted for 10 minutes on Tuesday after forward Vinícius Júnior accused opponent Gianluca Prestianni of racially abusing him following his goal in the 1-0 win. The Brazilian had just scored a curling finish to put Madrid ahead in the 50th minute at the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon when he celebrated in front of Benfica supporters. He was shown a yellow card for excessive celebration and then confronted by Prestianni, who appeared to say something to him while covering his mouth with his shirt. Vinícius immediately ran to French referee…

Donald Trump sent U.K. officials into a tailspin last month when he fired off a social media post calling the Chagos Islands deal an “act of great stupidity” — despite previously backing the move. The U.S. president’s about-turn in support came as the U.K. backed Greenland amid Trump’s threats to seize the Danish territory at the beginning of the year. Following intense transatlantic diplomacy, Trump earlier this month accepted the deal struck as the “best” Prime Minister Keir Starmer can get. Senior opposition figures in the Conservative and Reform UK parties have been lobbying against the deal, which will cost…

Published on 18/02/2026 – 7:30 GMT+1 On 20 August 2025, International Criminal Court Justice Nicolas Guillou went from a respected judge to a pariah for American companies. That day, US President Donald Trump put him under US sanctions for authorising the issuance of an arrest warrant against Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and its Minister of Defence, Yoav Gallant, over their role in the destruction of the Gaza Strip. Since then, Guillou’s life has become a nightmare – and his experience illustrates just how dependent Europeans are on US services as transatlantic tensions rise. Gillou and his family are banned…

It’s an effort to reassure investors and businesses that Reform can be trusted with the British economy. It was only last month that his party leader, Nigel Farage, told the World Economic Forum in Davos he doesn’t like banks, would scrap interest payments lenders receive through the BoE’s quantitative easing program, and refused to rule out appointing his own governor to the central bank. Earlier this year Farage stated that he was giving “serious thought” to scrapping the OBR, which provides independent analysis of government spending plans. In November, Farage and his deputy Richard Tice U-turned on a plan to…

Good morning. I’m Mared Gwyn. Just in: The US ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder, has hailed State Secretary Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference as “positive” for the trans-Atlantic alliance, adding that it’s a “hallmark of a great diplomat” to be able to say the things the audience “wants and doesn’t want to hear.” Puzder also hailed European “progress” in aligning its approach to migration policy with the US’s, and defended Rubio’s call for more alignment between both blocs. He also suggested that the Trump administration has helped Europeans to stop hitting the snooze button and “wake…

The chancellor’s remarks are the most explicit public signal yet that Berlin could abandon the project if the core design dispute cannot be resolved. At the center of the disagreement is the aircraft itself. France wants a next-generation jet capable of carrying nuclear weapons and operating from aircraft carriers — capabilities Germany does not currently seek. “The French need a nuclear-capable and carrier-capable aircraft in the next generation. The Bundeswehr doesn’t need that for now,” Merz said. That divergence raises a structural question for the program on whether partners build one aircraft or separate versions, he added. “France wants to…