Author: staff
NEW DELHI — French President Emmanuel Macron said the country’s political extremes must “put their houses in order” after the killing of a far-right activist over the weekend. “There is no space in France for movements that adopt or legitimize violence,” Macron told reporters during a trip to India. The activist, 23-year-old Quentin Deranque, died after receiving blows to the head during a fight outside a conference featuring left-wing MEP Rima Hassan at a university in Lyon, France’s third-largest city. This story is being updated.
By Romain Goguelin with AFP Published on 19/02/2026 – 13:04 GMT+1 Météo-France maintained red alerts for flooding in four departments in southwestern France on Wednesday as Storm Pedro brought further heavy rain to already saturated ground. Gironde, Lot-et-Garonne, Maine-et-Loire and Charente-Maritime remained on the highest alert level. Around 20 other departments along the Atlantic coast were under orange alert for wind, waves and storm surge flooding. France’s national flood monitoring service reported soil moisture had reached its highest level since records began in 1959. The country has experienced 35 consecutive days of rain, the longest uninterrupted period on record. Around 1,700 people have…
World and technology leaders are gathering in India for the annual global AI summit, which aims to establish a unified framework for artificial intelligence (AI) governance and international cooperation. But given that last year’s AI summit in Paris highlighted fragmentation amongst countries in how the technology should be regulated to keep the technology safe, it is unclear what, if anything, will be pledged. Here is what world and tech leaders have said so far at the AI Impact summit in New Delhi. Emmanuel Macron: Protecting against ‘Digital abuse’ The French President vowed to protect children from “digital abuse” during France’s…
Published on 19/02/2026 – 12:03 GMT+1 The White House has made its feelings perfectly clear regarding Bruce Springsteen, calling one of the world’s best-selling artists a “loser” in a raging new statement. The veteran rocker, a longtime critic of Donald Trump and his administration, recently announced the US leg of his upcoming and politically charged tour, ‘The Land Of Hopes And Dreams’, which launches in Minneapolis on 31 March. Springsteen will play 19 arena shows, with the first few dates landing in cities heavily targeted by ICE: Minneapolis is followed by Portland (3 April) and Los Angeles (7 & 9…
Ministers had already put the British Indian Ocean Territory (Sovereignty and Constitutional Arrangements) Bill on hold at the 11th-hour last month after the president called the deal — which Britain believed it had squared with Washington — an “act of GREAT STUPIDITY.” They feared a Conservative “wrecking” amendment could succeed amid intense lobbying to overturn the agreement. The deal, which gives Mauritius control of former British imperial possession, was intended to shore up the use of a U.S.-U.K. military base on Diego Garcia through a lease agreement, while shielding the U.K. from international legal action over the islands’ fate. The…
North Korea staged a display of multiple rocket launchers outside the Workers’ Party congress venue in Pyongyang, state media said. Leader Kim Jong Un attended the event on Wednesday and was shown standing beside one of the vehicles as it drove around the site in Pyongyang. KCNA said Kim told officials the congress would outline plans to strengthen self-reliant defence capabilities. State television also showed Kim breaking ground on a new housing project in the capital. The images have not been independently verified.
LONDON — British royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, the BBC reported Thursday. The former prince has faced multiple allegations over his links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He has denied any wrongdoing. “As part of the investigation, we have today (19/2) arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk,” a statement from Thames Valley Police said. “The man remains in police custody at this time.” British police do not routinely name those arrested as…
Homeownership was once the defining milestone for any working adult with a stable income. But soaring property and energy prices, job volatility and freedom of movement are slowly shifting the paradigm in Europe. Homeownership rates are declining in nearly half of the countries surveyed by real estate agency Re/Max Europe in its annual European Housing Trend report. The number of people owning their own house is down 2% in the UK, France, Germany, Romania and the Czech Republic; 3% in Croatia and Hungary; 1% in Greece; and a steep 9% in Turkey. Whether the slide continues remains to be seen,…
Updated: 19/02/2026 – 11:08 GMT+1 Catch up with the most important stories from around Europe and beyond this February 18th, 2026 – latest news, breaking news, World, Business, Entertainment, Politics, Culture, Travel. … More
Rock band U2 have surprise released a “defiant”, politically-charged EP titled ‘Days Of Ash’. The new release features six tracks which the band have described as a response to current events. As per a press release, four of the five tracks “are about individuals – a mother, a father, a teenage girl – whose lives were brutally cut short. A soldier who’d rather be singing but is ready to die for the freedom of his country.” The opening track, ‘American Obituary’, references the tragedy that unfolded in Minnesota on 7 January, when Renee Good was fatally shot by a United…