The world, briefly

US envoy Jared Kushner met Hamas leaders in Egypt on Sunday and then Netanyahu for four hours on Monday, after which the Israeli premier announced two joint working groups.

According to the statement from Netanyahu's office, one group will handle the disarmament and demilitarisation of the Strip — which Israel and the Board of Peace say must be completed before any reconstruction — and a second will address drinking water, sanitation and public health; the handover of weapons would take place under the supervision of a US general. Kushner told Fox News the process could start within 30 days, with weapons removed and tunnels sealed over the following 60-90 days, while Netanyahu repeated his refusal to withdraw troops before disarmament is complete; the 15-point roadmap therefore remains unapproved by Israel. After the Egypt meeting, also attended by Tony Blair, Nickolay Mladenov and officials from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, Hamas asked mediators to "compel" Israel to accept the plan; Israel votes on 27 October.

Incumbent president Hakainde Hichilema won Zambia's August 13 election with about 60% of the vote according to official results, avoiding a runoff; challenger Brian Mundubile alleges irregularities.

The count moved from 58.87% with 135 of 226 constituencies reported to about 62% with 71% counted, settling near 60% against Mundubile's 38%; he says results forms may have been altered and has called for an independent investigation, while the president's spokesperson rejects the claims. The vote was marked by the arrest of eleven people, including opposition figures, on election night, the death of a 57-year-old polling agent attacked outside Lusaka, and a suspension of counting for several hours; the European Union observation mission spoke of an uneven playing field. The election was read as a verdict on the economic record of Hichilema's first term after the debt restructuring: the World Bank says more than 70% of Zambia's 22 million people live on less than $3 a day.

Russia's Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal by Yabloko, the only registered party running on an anti-war platform, upholding the cancellation of its federal candidate list for September's Duma elections.

On 10 August the court had sided with the nationalist party Rodina, which accused Yabloko of copyright violations in its campaign material and of receiving foreign funding; the party rejects the allegations. The ruling removes it from the federal list ballot, which assigns 225 of the Duma's 450 seats proportionally to parties above 5%, while its candidates can still run in single-member constituencies. Dozens of people were detained outside the courthouse — source figures range from at least 35 to more than 85 — and party chair Nikolai Rybakov said further appeals would follow, including to the Constitutional Court.

Lula, 80, opened his campaign for the 4 October presidential election on Sunday at a stadium in São Bernardo do Campo; Flávio Bolsonaro started at Copacabana.

A Nexus poll commissioned by BTG Pactual puts Lula at 41% and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (Liberal Party) at 36% in the first round, with Ronaldo Caiado at 5%, Renan Santos at 4% and Romeu Zema at 4%; reported runoff figures differ, 47% to 44% according to one source and 46% to 45% according to another, both within the two-point margin of error. Any runoff would be held on 25 October. The Superior Electoral Court has also admitted a complaint by the Novo party accusing Lula of early campaigning over a publicly funded Rio carnival parade dedicated to him; the president has five days to respond.

Trump called the joint defence agreement signed in Mecca on 7 August by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan a "big, bold and important first step".

The agreement, signed by Mohammed bin Salman, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Shehbaz Sharif, states that an armed attack on any one of the three countries counts as an attack on all; Islamabad says it is defensive in nature and open to other states in the region. Turkey's defence ministry announced political and military mechanisms and defence-industry cooperation, and Ankara expects Egypt to join, though Cairo has not commented. Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif thanked Trump; India said on 11 August it is assessing the implications for its own national security.

Eight Muslim-majority countries, Türkiye among them, issued a joint statement condemning Israel's rejection of the US road map for Gaza.

The statement comes as US envoy Jared Kushner is in Israel. The material does not specify the other seven signatories, nor which parts of the plan Israel rejected; the two outlets reporting it, one Israeli and one Turkish, describe its content in similar terms.

US envoy Jared Kushner told Fox News that talks between Washington and parts of the Iranian government are probably more robust than ever, but that no understanding has been reached.

Kushner, the president's son-in-law, said on Monday that Trump "doesn't want to rush into a deal" and will be "very patient," relying on economic pressure rather than military action: in his account the blockade has left Iran's economy far worse off. He added that a deal is possible if Tehran gives up its ability to build a nuclear weapon. Iran's Revolutionary Guards, however, had denied conducting backchannel talks with the United States.

Human rights groups have confirmed between 78 and 100 releases of political detainees in Venezuela since 14 August, fewer than the 131 announced by the government.

Foro Penal published a list on Monday of 78 people released from prisons in Miranda state and from military facilities such as Ramo Verde, with detentions dating from 2018 to 2025; the group Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón verified 83 and counts 448 people still held for political reasons, 408 men and 40 women. The Unitary Democratic Platform, led by María Corina Machado, puts the figure at 100. Several of those freed told reporters they must report periodically to courts and are barred from leaving the country; the government denies holding political prisoners and says those jailed face ordinary criminal charges.

A court in the Pskov region sentenced Lev Shlosberg, deputy chairman of the liberal Yabloko party, to 11 years and one month in a penal colony over his statements on the war in Ukraine.

He was accused of "discrediting" the armed forces and spreading "false information" about the military; prosecutors had sought 12 years and one month. Shlosberg pleaded not guilty, called the trial political and repeated his call for a ceasefire; according to the Moscow Times the sentence partly absorbs an earlier conviction of 420 hours of community service for breaching the "foreign agent" law. The ruling follows the Supreme Court's 10 August decision barring Yabloko from next month's parliamentary election; Amnesty International calls it retaliation for exercising freedom of expression.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas announced for autumn the most far-reaching Russia sanctions listings since the start of the war, which would raise the number of sanctioned Russian entities by a third.

In an interview with a German newspaper, Kallas said the measures adopted so far have deprived Russia's war machine of more than €1 trillion and that pressure must keep growing until Moscow ends the war. Since the full-scale invasion began in 2022 the bloc has adopted 21 sanctions packages, the latest in July with curbs on the banking sector and cryptocurrency networks. Kallas gave no timing or details for the new proposal, which has yet to be adopted.

Zambia's government announced the arrest of 11 people, including senior opposition figures, over an alleged armed insurrection plot; candidate Brian Mundubile rejects the accusations.

The arrests took place on the night between Thursday and Friday, right after the presidential vote, and some occurred at Mundubile's home in Lusaka. According to senior government official Patrick Kangwa, those detained held military weapons and ammunition and were linked to foreign nationals and illegal training camps; they include a spokesperson for Mundubile and Patrick Mwansa, husband of Tasila Lungu, daughter of former president Edgar Lungu. Mundubile told the BBC the accusations are "total fabrications" and that during the raid soldiers fired, wounding former minister Mutotwe Kafwaya, whose whereabouts he says are unknown; counting is not over and partial results put incumbent president Hakainde Hichilema ahead.

The US president said on Monday that the North Korean leader had replied to his messages seeking renewed dialogue and that the exchanges are "very positive", giving no details.

Trump added that Kim "has always treated me with great respect" and that the two understand each other; the White House and North Korea's UN mission did not immediately comment and Pyongyang has not publicly confirmed. The remarks came a day after he ordered the Pentagon to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea. The two men met three times between 2018 and 2019 before talks on North Korea's nuclear programme broke down; analysts quoted by the sources expect Pyongyang to bide its time before responding.

Likud's roughly 140,000 registered members voted Monday to choose the party's Knesset candidates ahead of Israel's October 27 general election.

Polling ran from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; sources differ on turnout, one putting it at 53.5% and another describing it as low. After a central committee decision, Benjamin Netanyahu can reserve eight slots among the list's first 30 — a change some in the party contest as reducing members' say, while other officials argue the rest of the list is still chosen by the vote. Cited polls give Likud 22-24 seats against its current 32, leaving dozens of ministers and lawmakers at risk; an August 11 Agam Labs survey found 54.9% of Likud voters want a more centrist government, against about a third of party members.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on 17 August puts Donald Trump's job approval at 33% and disapproval at 64%.

The figure is down from 35% in a poll taken earlier in August and matches the low of his previous term, reached in December 2017; the online survey covered 1,166 US adults with a margin of error of 3 percentage points. Some 80% of respondents (87% of Democrats and 71% of Republicans) think US involvement in Iran will go on for an extended period, while 16% expect it to end within a few weeks and only one in five say the war has been worth it. On the economy 38% prefer the Democratic approach against 35% for the Republican one; on immigration Republicans still lead 40 to 38, after a 26-point advantage in January 2025. The midterm elections are set for 3 November.

Donald Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping will arrive on 24 September and that he would like to host three thousand people, but cannot.

Trump spoke during an Oval Office event for Ryder Williams, the 16-year-old lifeguard who saved a ten-year-old boy from the sea in California. Referring to the ballroom whose project a court has blocked, the president added that "the White House was falling apart". The material does not specify the agenda for the meeting with Xi.

In a phone call with Donald Trump, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged that talks with Iran continue and offered Ankara's support for peace efforts.

According to the Turkish presidency, which released the account on Tuesday 18 August, the two also discussed bilateral ties, Gaza and the defence pact signed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which Erdogan called a sign of regional stability. Erdogan told Trump that Israeli attacks on Palestinians had increased just as the second phase of the US peace plan for Gaza was due to take effect. The call follows a senior Iranian official's statement on Monday that Tehran would shift to a "fully offensive" military posture, while efforts to resume oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remain stalled; the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Bamako appeals court sentenced radio host Mohamed Youssouf Bathily and influencer Rokia Doumbia to ten years in prison, three of them suspended.

The two, known as "Ras Bath" and "Rose, la vie chère", were convicted of "criminal conspiracy" and "undermining the credit of the state"; the case centred on Doumbia's appearance on two radio shows hosted by Bathily, who has been detained for three years. The defence calls the charges non-existent and the ruling political: lawyer Mohamed Ali Bathily, the defendant's father, is weighing an appeal. Le Monde and RFI place the verdict within a tightening crackdown on voices critical of General Assimi Goïta's junta; the prosecutor had sought conviction arguing the defendant should be kept away from radio and social media.

Former prime minister Kim Min-seok won the leadership of the Democratic Party with 54.08% at the Daejeon convention, defeating outgoing leader Jung Chung-rae, who took 45.92%.

None of the three candidates cleared 50% in the first round: the outcome was decided by ranked-choice voting, used for the first time, redistributing the second preferences of eliminated candidate Song Young-gil. It was also the first race under a one-person, one-vote system, weighting delegate and dues-paying member ballots at 70% and a public opinion poll at 30%. Kim, an ally of President Lee Jae Myung, will lead the party - which holds 161 of 300 seats - into the 2028 parliamentary elections, though three members close to Jung won seats on the supreme council.

Three weeks before the September 6 state election in Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD is polling above 40%, ahead of the CDU, which currently holds the state premiership.

AfD lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund could become the party's first state premier in Germany. A Spiegel cover calling him "the most dangerous man in Germany" drew criticism, including from commentators who argue the label only makes him more appealing to voters; at a party event in Klötze, Siegmund referred to it mockingly.

US Attorney General Todd Blanche has refused to commit to keeping the Justice Department separate from the White House.

According to the two outlets reporting it, Blanche avoided stating that the department would be "independent" of the executive branch. The available material does not specify where the question was put or the attorney general's exact wording, and reports no response from the White House or the department. Both sources share a similar editorial leaning, so the account cannot be compared with differing readings.

Turkish diplomatic sources say Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi discussed on Monday the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the ceasefire.

The same sources say the two reviewed ongoing negotiations on the waterway and on the continuation of the Iran-US truce. Also on Monday, Fidan reportedly held separate calls with Kurdistan Regional Government President Nechirvan Barzani and Prime Minister Masrour Barzani. One of the two outlets reports that a senior Revolutionary Guards commander said Iran could shift to an offensive posture if talks remain stalled; that account is not confirmed by the other source.

The US Justice Department finalised a rule on Monday allowing people stripped of the right to own firearms over criminal convictions to apply to have it restored.

Applications will go through an online portal and be assessed case by case, weighing the applicant's record and reputation; officials say those convicted of violent crimes, registered sex offenders and people living in the country illegally will be denied «absent extraordinary circumstances». Since 1992 Congress has effectively barred the federal ATF from processing such petitions, and the new rule — presented by Attorney General Todd Blanche as protecting public safety while offering a «real path» to restoration — works around that block. Kris Brown, president of Brady, which advocates stronger gun laws, says the group is still reviewing the text and criticises the administration's record on the issue.

Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott announced a halt to all construction activity in Texas's Big Bend National Park, pending his own on-the-ground evaluation.

The $1.7 billion project involves vehicle barriers, patrol roads, lighting and detection technology; bulldozers broke ground in early August after the administration waived dozens of environmental laws. Opposition crosses party lines: all 14 Texas border county judges and five West Texas sheriffs have called for alternative approaches, and lawsuits have been filed, including one by the Center for Biological Diversity challenging the constitutionality of the waivers. Scott said he would hear local officials and residents in the coming days; it is unclear whether the pause will become permanent.

French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin announced he will not run for president and will instead support former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe.

In an interview published on Monday 17 August by La Voix du Nord, Darmanin said he had decided "not to add division" and called Philippe the best placed candidate, urging others to do the same. The announcement comes ahead of his 30 August political rentrée in Tourcoing, which the Horizons candidate will attend; within the government Philippe already had the backing of spokeswoman Maud Bregon and junior minister Mathieu Lefèvre. Philippe, a declared candidate since 2024, leads polls among the centrist bloc ahead of Gabriel Attal, while Modem leader François Bayrou has called for a primary of "all reformist democrats".

The State Department said Monday that the United States remains open to talks with North Korea "without preconditions," a day after Trump's announcement on joint drills.

A spokesperson, answering questions from the Yonhap news agency, pointed to no concrete steps to restart diplomacy and no appointment of a new special representative for North Korea: "We have no personnel announcements to make at this time." The senior post dedicated to Pyongyang has been vacant since Jung Pak left in July 2024; the special representative role was previously held by Stephen Biegun (August 2018-January 2021) and Sung Kim (May 2021-November 2023). During his first term Trump met Kim Jong-un three times: Singapore in June 2018, Hanoi in February 2019 and Panmunjom in June 2019.

Rustamas Liubajevas has stepped down as head of Lithuania's border guard service after questions over how the agency handled and reported an assault on officers at the Belarusian border.

Interior Minister Martynas Katelynas announced the resignation on Monday, saying it was Liubajevas's own decision — he had led the service since 2019 — and that a deputy will take over on an interim basis. The incident dates to 26 July near Kapčiamiestis, where four officers were watching a tunnel dug under the border: later reporting said around twenty people attacked the officers and, according to a trade union representative, one of them was dragged towards the Belarusian side before breaking free. At the time only the discovery of the tunnel was made public; a disciplinary inquiry and a pre-trial criminal investigation are now under way.

Reform UK announced that, if it wins the 2029 general election, it would bar foreign nationals from accessing most public benefits in the United Kingdom.

The plan, presented at a press conference by Robert Jenrick, a former Conservative minister now economy spokesman for Nigel Farage's party, would also strip benefit entitlement from EU citizens holding Settled Status, granted to millions of residents before Brexit; Jenrick said he was ready to reopen post-Brexit agreements with Brussels. Reform says the measure would save 21 billion pounds a year once fully in place. The governing Labour party replies that "the vast majority" of immigrants are already excluded from the benefits system, while the Conservatives called it "improvised".

Turkish President Erdogan said joining the European Union is no longer a priority for Ankara.

The two outlets reporting the statement do not specify the occasion on which it was made, nor do they mention any formal step by Ankara regarding its candidacy, which is not described as withdrawn. No reaction from EU institutions appears in the material. It remains unclear whether the statement will be followed by concrete decisions on the negotiating track.

Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs has asked Brussels for €7 billion to cover the military and economic costs of confronting Moscow.

In an interview with Politico, Kulbergs said the money should come from the EU's next seven-year budget through a new Competitiveness Fund, on top of other funds earmarked for the country, and would cover almost half of the €15.1 billion in defence spending Riga projects for the period. For the 2028-2034 budget the Commission has proposed a €125.2 billion pot for security, defence industry and space, but it is designed to fund projects across the bloc rather than a pre-agreed allocation to Latvia, and the whole budget is still being negotiated between governments and the European Parliament. The demand comes ahead of the 3 October election, with parties arguing that Riga should be compensated in exchange for backing sanctions on Russia.

Khartoum and Riyadh have announced the creation of a supreme strategic coordination council intended to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries.

The two outlets reporting the news, one Sudanese and one Saudi close to Gulf institutions, agree on the body's creation. The available material does not specify the council's membership, its remit or any timetable for its work.

Min Aung Hlaing left for Russia on Monday, his first official visit to the country since becoming Myanmar's president in April, state media reported.

It is the fifth foreign destination for the military leader after India, China, Laos and, earlier this month, Thailand; as junta chief he had already visited Russia four times, most recently in March 2025 for talks with Putin. The trip includes a Myanmar-Russia business forum and the chief minister of Tanintharyi region, home to the Dawei special economic zone covered by a February 2025 investment memorandum for a port and an oil refinery; in 2025 the two countries also agreed to build a small nuclear power plant. Min Aung Hlaing is under a range of Western sanctions, while Moscow has expanded defence ties through training, scholarships and arms sales.

The Australian government has introduced a bill creating a single register through which people can opt out of online betting advertising, funded by a levy on wagering companies.

The register, outlined in parliament by Communications Minister Anika Wells, would be established and run by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, replacing the separate opt-out options currently offered service by service. The package also restricts betting inducements, inducement-based direct marketing and certain commission-based referral arrangements; according to the Sydney Morning Herald, the advertising start time moves from 6am to 5am, with a cap of three ads per hour. In a Senate inquiry report, the Coalition, the Greens and independent David Pocock pointed to "deficiencies" in the legislation, while some MPs had called for an opt-in model or a full ban on online advertising; the government is aiming for passage this week.

Russia's foreign ministry has summoned Japanese ambassador Akira Muto, expected on Tuesday, after Tokyo criticised Vladimir Putin's visit to the southern Kuril Islands.

Putin travelled on Thursday 13 August to Iturup, the largest of the four islands Japan claims as the Northern Territories and seized by the Red Army in 1945; according to Infobae it was the first time a Russian president had set foot on the archipelago. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the trip unacceptable and Tokyo had already summoned Russia's ambassador, while Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Japanese officials had "crossed the line of decency"; spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Muto, initially unavailable for reasons of health or scheduling, would attend on Tuesday. The two countries have never signed a peace treaty, and ties have deteriorated since 2022, with Japan joining G7 sanctions on Moscow.

US District Judge Theodore Chuang sided with Maryland, ruling unlawful both the shift of the FBI's planned headquarters to Washington's Reagan Building and the diversion of funds appropriated by Congress.

In a 47-page opinion the judge called the administration's move to cancel the 2023 plan — which placed the new headquarters in Greenbelt, Maryland — and to divert more than $323 million appropriated by Congress 'arbitrary and capricious' and not in accordance with law. In July 2025 FBI Director Kash Patel announced the shift to the Reagan Building, describing it as the most cost-effective option; Maryland sued in November. State Attorney General Anthony Brown says the path back to Greenbelt is now clear; the FBI did not respond to a request for comment. The bureau has been housed in the J. Edgar Hoover Building since 1975, plagued by structural problems for the past two decades.

Peru's cabinet chief Luis Galarreta has proposed to the Chamber of Deputies that he present and debate the government's general policy on 20 August at 10 a.m.

According to El Comercio, Galarreta sent the request to Chamber president Óscar Reto citing article 130 of the constitution, amended by Law 31988 published on 20 March 2024: under the reform, in force since the 2026 general elections, the cabinet no longer has to seek a confidence vote for investiture, though it retains the option of requesting one at any time on specific policies. It is the first such appearance before the new bicameral Congress and concerns the administration of President Keiko Fujimori. The Chamber's constituency week is set for 24-28 August.

The head of Brazil's Superior Electoral Court, Kassio Nunes Marques, defended the security of electronic voting machines before foreign diplomats, warning about risks from artificial intelligence in campaigns.

Sources differ on attendance: 86 ambassadors according to one outlet, diplomats from 91 countries according to the other; the UN resident coordinator and the European Union charge d'affaires also attended. Nunes Marques said the court can tally more than 150 million votes within hours and announced a plan for responsible use of AI in the 2026 vote, including a monitoring room with social platforms on election weekends. The full bench has yet to rule on whether video and audio imitating a person are lawful: article 9C of this year's campaign resolution bans deepfakes even with the consent of the person depicted; candidate registration closed on Saturday 15 August with the lowest number since 2006.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung's approval rating fell to a new low of 43%, according to a Realmeter poll, its fifth consecutive weekly decline.

The survey of 2,511 voters, conducted from Monday to Friday last week for a local newspaper, shows a 0.3 percentage point drop from the previous week, while negative assessments rose 1.1 points to 54.1%. The sharpest fall was among voters in their 60s (-6.1 points, to 43.1%), while support among voters in their 20s rose 3.1 points to 31%. Realmeter attributed the trend to dissatisfaction with recent revisions to property tax rules and other housing policies; the stated margin of error is ±2 points at a 95% confidence level.

Pablo Marçal, ruled ineligible, obtained a provisional court decision on Saturday 15 August allowing him to join the PRTB party and request registration as a presidential candidate.

The ruling can still be appealed; Marçal had been found ineligible for abuse of economic and political power in his São Paulo mayoral campaign, where electoral courts said he offered videos in exchange for backing city council candidates at 5,000 reais, booked as campaign donations. Renan Santos, presidential candidate for Missão, argues Marçal's entry is meant to benefit Flávio Bolsonaro, for whom he says Marçal worked as a marketing consultant; the influencer pushed back. On Monday 17 August in Belo Horizonte, Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) announced the backing of Flávio Roscoe and Cleitinho Azevedo in Minas Gerais and said he would govern with fiscal balance.

UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan hosted Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tariq in Abu Dhabi for talks on regional and international developments.

The meeting, reported on 17 August 2026, was announced in a post by the Omani royal household on X describing it as a private visit; the topics are given only generically as "developments in regional and international affairs", with no specifics. Middle East Eye places the talks after US President Donald Trump's repeated threats to bomb Oman while Muscat finalises a deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The same news cluster also mentions talks between the foreign ministers of Egypt and Kuwait, but no content on those is available.

Relatives of Aria Kasaei and Elahe Naghilou, arrested in Tehran on 19 July during a meeting with two French embassy representatives, are asking Paris to intervene.

According to a statement by relatives released on Sunday 16 August, the two designers — aged 46 and 36 — were working on the visual identity of Villa Zadig, an artistic residency programme run by the French embassy's cultural service, and the meeting was held at Kasaei's home; the families say the detainees have no effective access to an independent lawyer and are asking French authorities to clarify what happened. Iran's intelligence ministry said on 15 August that the arrests were part of a case of French "infiltration" and "interference", describing the meeting as a "secret appointment". The two diplomats had been briefly detained and, according to Iran's foreign ministry on 17 August, are no longer allowed back into the country; French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot had earlier denounced "an extremely serious act of intimidation" by Iranian security services, saying one diplomat had been "manhandled". France's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to AFP.

Ronaldo Caiado, the PSD candidate for Brazil's presidency, criticised the launch of the reciprocity law against US tariffs, calling it a risk to relations with Washington.

Brazil's government notified the United States on Thursday the 13th that it was starting the procedure set out in the reciprocity law; in this first phase Brasília is requesting diplomatic consultations before any measures are applied. Speaking in São Paulo on Monday, Caiado argued that the foreign ministry has become an "ideological arm" of the government and named former WTO director-general Roberto Azevêdo as his foreign minister should he win. He also proposed classifying the Comando Vermelho and the PCC as domestic terrorism, saying Brazil would not need other countries' support to handle its own security.

Xi Jinping led a ceremony on Monday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, before thousands of officials, marking the centenary of the birth of former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who died in 2022 aged 96.

In a roughly 40-minute speech Xi described what happened in China in the spring and summer of 1989 as "a serious political storm," praising Jiang, then party secretary in Shanghai, for implementing the Central Committee's decisions and maintaining stability in the city; weeks after the military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests, in which accounts say hundreds or thousands died, Jiang was chosen to lead the party. The ceremony, hosted by Premier Li Qiang, was attended by the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee and several retired leaders, while former president Hu Jintao was absent; a large portrait of Jiang was displayed above the rostrum, a practice reserved for deceased leaders such as Mao and Deng. It comes a year before the 21st Party Congress due next autumn and days after the death of former premier Zhu Rongji.

A Likud campaign billboard put up in Tel Aviv shows New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani next to Mojtaba Khamenei, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Naim Qassem.

The poster carries the slogan "They want Netanyahu to lose. Don't let them win"; the Israeli prime minister reposted the image on his social media accounts. Some outlets described the four as "enemies of Israel", while the billboard's text only says they want Netanyahu to lose the election. The move follows Mamdani's statements calling Netanyahu a "war criminal" who "belongs in The Hague" and urging US federal authorities to enforce the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in November 2024, charges Netanyahu rejects; the Knesset was dissolved in July and elections are due in October.

According to a Financial Times poll, a majority of US voters say their situation has worsened under Donald Trump's presidency.

The available material reports only the poll's headline result, with no percentages, sample size or fieldwork dates. These are respondents' perceptions of their own situation, not an economic measurement.

The White House confirmed that Donald Trump voted by mail in Florida's Republican primary, a method the president has for years described as open to fraud.

Palm Beach County voting records cited by Politico show the ballot was requested in late July and returned on 13 August, while other outlets say it was received on the 14th; the New York Times writes that it could not consult the records online because the president's file is marked protected from disclosure. Spokeswoman Olivia Wales called the story "a non-story", noting that the SAVE America Act backed by Trump allows exceptions for illness, disability, military service and travel. In March the president signed an executive order restricting mail-in voting: in June federal judge Indira Talwani ruled it did not apply in more than twenty Democratic-led states, and the administration has asked the Supreme Court to intervene ahead of the 3 November midterms.

Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella handed out footballs bearing his campaign slogan while visiting earthquake-hit areas, drawing criticism from residents and the opposition.

Sources place the scene in different towns: El Universal reports Sunday's visit to Buenaventura, in Valle del Cauca, while La Jornada describes a stop in Quibdó, Chocó. In videos circulating online the balls carry the president's campaign slogan; one resident questioned the cost while hospitals and schools remain out of service, and former president Gustavo Petro wrote that a humanitarian emergency had been confused with a football match. The government says it sent more than 260 kilos of medicines and medical supplies to Buenaventura; sources put the toll from the 10 August earthquake at between about 290 and 304 dead, with more than 4,000 injured.

In Tuesday's Democratic primaries in Florida, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the only white candidate among five, is running in a district redrawn by Republicans.

Wasserman Schultz, 59, is seeking a 12th term by moving into a Broward County seat that has elected Black members of Congress since 1992; she is by far the best-funded candidate and Florida rules do not require a majority to win a primary. Two rivals, former Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and organiser Elijah Manley, accuse her of erasing Black representation, while she says she has represented wide parts of the county over three decades. The new map pushed by Governor Ron DeSantis aims to cut southeast Florida's Democratic seats from five to three.

According to a report released Monday by the advocacy group Public Citizen, 57 members of the Trump administration are worth at least $100 million.

The count includes 17 ambassadors and 40 senior executive-branch posts, among them eight of the 23 Cabinet members: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Education Secretary Linda McMahon, both billionaires, Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, Small Business Administration head Kelly Loeffler, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and envoy Steve Witkoff. The same report says the administrations of George W. Bush and Joe Biden each included five such officials and Barack Obama's three; the list excludes Trump, whose net worth Forbes estimates at more than $6 billion, and Elon Musk. Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert argues that such a concentration of wealth in government creates misplaced incentives; the president has repeatedly defended the choice as recognition of business leaders' competence.

In an interview with Libération, ecological transition minister Monique Barbut said Jean-Luc Mélenchon is the one who most integrates climate into his economic and social proposals.

Barbut, who added that the France insoumise leader "is not my cup of tea", credited Renaissance candidate Gabriel Attal with "some interesting proposals" on water. In July she announced her resignation over the agricultural emergency law and then stayed on after obtaining "guarantees"; she now lists three priorities - adaptation, forests and environmental health - and wants the cadmium limit in phosphate fertilisers cut to 20 mg/kg by 2030, from 90 mg/kg today, whereas the agriculture ministry in May floated 40 mg/kg by 2030 and 20 mg/kg by 2038. She did not join Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu's trip to the Gironde on Monday 17 August; by October she must present him new measures to speed up the national adaptation plan.

The US House Ethics Committee announced on Monday an investigation into California Democratic Rep. Jimmy Gomez over alleged sexual misconduct involving a House staffer.

The statement signed by chairman Michael Guest and ranking member Mark DeSaulnier notes that opening the inquiry does not in itself indicate a violation occurred. Gomez, 51, who represents part of Los Angeles and is married, acknowledged "personal mistakes" outside his marriage but says his actions were consensual and broke neither the law nor House rules, and pledged to cooperate. Rules adopted in 2018 bar members from sexual relations with their own aides and from "unwelcome sexual advances or conduct" toward other House employees.

British Labour MP Bayo Alaba has been suspended after questions emerged over the repayment of a Covid-era "bounceback" loan.

The two outlets reporting the story refer respectively to "questions" and "concerns" about the loan, but the available material does not specify the amount, the dates or who initiated the checks. It is not stated whether any proceedings are under way beyond the suspension, and no response from the MP appears in the material.

Colombian Housing Minister Jaime Andres Beltran has come under criticism after photos emerged of him on holiday in Santa Marta while the country deals with the aftermath of the earthquake.

The August 10 quake, magnitude 7.4 and the strongest in Colombia in nearly half a century, killed close to 300 people in the west of the country and destroyed some 27,000 homes, leaving many survivors sleeping outdoors. It struck three days after President Abelardo de la Espriella took office. The left-wing opposition said it would file a no-confidence motion against the minister for taking leave at such a critical time.

Norway's royal household announced on Monday that the 89-year-old monarch had been hospitalised for fluid retention linked to his treatment for haemolytic anaemia.

The king, treated in recent weeks with cortisone, will be on sick leave for two weeks, during which 53-year-old Crown Prince Haakon will act as regent; the palace did not say how long the hospital stay will last. Harald has been on the throne since January 1991 and has repeatedly ruled out abdicating, while cutting back public engagements. In February he was hospitalised in Tenerife with an infection and dehydration, and in 2024 he was fitted with a pacemaker after falling ill in Malaysia.

Donald Trump posted on Truth Social a ten-second AI-generated video showing him with George Washington inside the future White House ballroom.

The clip came with a message in which Trump thanks Washington "for some of your brilliant ideas" on the project. According to The Independent the works, whose cost has risen from an initial estimate of $200 million to about $400 million that Trump says will be covered by private donations, are on hold after a federal appeals court in Washington ruled that substantial changes to the White House are for Congress to authorise. The administration has filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court, which must decide by 21 August, while courts have allowed construction of the underground bunker to continue, described by officials as necessary for security.

In the Oval Office Donald Trump repeatedly told CNN correspondent Kristen Holmes to be quiet; the White House's Rapid Response 47 account then attacked her on X.

Monday's event was meant to honour a 16-year-old lifeguard who had rescued a 10-year-old boy, but the president took questions on other topics: Holmes asked for a reaction to Democratic senator Jon Ossoff's remarks about executive assistant Natalie Harp and later about contacts with Kim Jong-un and the scaling back of exercises with South Korea. Trump called her a "loud, boisterous person" and "fake news", while the White House account called her question "disgusting and inhumane". CNN replied that personal attacks on journalists are "beneath the office" and inconsistent with the principles of a free press.

Lee Jae Myung will meet Wednesday at Cheong Wa Dae with newly elected Democratic Party chair Kim Min-seok and two lawmakers who ran against him.

Reps. Jung Chung-rae and Song Young-gil will also attend. Presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said the dinner is meant to strengthen cooperation among the party, the government and the presidential office on the economy and livelihoods, and to promote party unity. It comes two days after Monday's convention, which Kim won with 54.08% against Jung's 45.92%.

Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa praised businessman Wicknell Chivayo for his charitable giving while speaking at an apostolic sect national event in Harare.

Mnangagwa urged him to keep giving, saying "the more you give, the more you receive." Chivayo holds no public office but is known for handing out vehicles and cash and for a lifestyle that includes buying a private jet; the outlets say the source of his wealth has been questioned, and the president has previously invited anyone with evidence of illegal activity to go to the anti-corruption commission or the police. Both sources carry the same account, and characterisations of the businessman are attributed to the outlets, not independently verified.

Indonesia marked the 81st anniversary of its independence with a flag-hoisting ceremony at Merdeka Palace in Jakarta, led by President Prabowo Subianto and attended by foreign diplomats.

The ambassadors of the Netherlands, Pakistan and Egypt and Japan's charge d'affaires offered congratulations and pledged to strengthen bilateral ties; Egyptian ambassador Yasser Hassan Farag Elshemy recalled that Cairo was the first country to recognise Indonesian independence in 1945. The ceremony included a reenactment of the Proclamation of Independence. The remarks were released by the Indonesian presidential secretariat, an official source.

Donald Trump avoided answering a question about his relationship with aide Natalie Harp, who has drawn attention since the president's July plane switch in Ankara.

Harp joined the staff in 2022 after a stint hosting a show on One America News; US media report she handles part of the president's Truth Social posting and prints out articles and posts for him to read, earning her the nickname 'human printer'. On 8 July, after the NATO summit, she was among the few aides who boarded a military plane with Trump in Ankara over a suspected Iranian plot against the president, while others stayed on the Air Force One used as a decoy. On Sunday Democratic senator Jon Ossoff mentioned her at a rally while attacking Trump; her estranged brother has told tabloids the relationship is 'unhealthy'. Sources give Harp's age as either 34 or 35.

Events in Mexico marked the centenary of Fidel Castro's birth: a Movimiento Antorchista conference in Tecomatlán and a tribute in Mexico City's Zócalo.

The conference "100 years with Fidel Castro" was held on 13 August at the theatre in Tecomatlán, in the state of Puebla, before 2,500 attendees, with Iranian ambassador Abolfazl Pasandideh and representatives of the Russian and Chinese embassies present. The movement's leader, Aquiles Córdova Morán, argued that the Cuban guerrilla campaign succeeded thanks to support from the population and the Cuban Communist Party. La Jornada also reports a collection drive and a tribute in Mexico City's Zócalo, with no further details in the available material.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš apologised on Sunday for picking flowers in a protected area on Mount Lysá hora, saying he would pay a fine if required.

In a video posted on Facebook, Babiš is seen on Saturday's hike carrying a small bunch of flowers, later laid at a monument on the 1,324-metre summit, the highest point of the Moravian-Silesian Beskids, in memory of a late colleague from his ANO movement; two ministers, party figures and supporters joined him. An environmental expert at an organisation overseen by the Czech Environment Ministry, quoted anonymously by the outlet iDNES, said the two species picked — narrow-leaved willowherb and Fuchs' ragwort — are entirely common and that punishment is unlikely.

The 60-day deadline set by the ceasefire agreed in June between the United States and Iran expired Monday with no deal; the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively closed.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said the nuclear negotiations "never began" and that the 60-day period is no longer relevant; Trump repeated that his goal remains preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and said he does not want to extend the truce, while mentioning an unofficial channel of contact. The agreement allowed for the deadline to be extended, and sources describe its expiry as largely symbolic because both sides already treat the deal as dead. The conflict, which began with the Israeli and US strikes in late February, is in its sixth month; before the war a fifth of the world's oil passed through Hormuz.

In a Fox News interview, Donald Trump threatened to bomb Oman if it gets in the way of a deal on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The remarks come as the ceasefire between the United States and Iran expires along with the 60-day negotiating window, with no extension announced. Tehran said on Monday it was close to a joint statement with Muscat on a plan to manage ship traffic through the Strait; on 8 August Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had described an arrangement without US involvement, and it is unclear whether the plan meets Washington's demands. Trump repeated that Iran cannot obtain nuclear weapons; a senior Iranian official told Reuters the country would shift to an offensive posture and escalate if diplomacy fails.

A Spanish F-18 flying NATO's air policing mission shot down a drone over Romania that the alliance command says appears to be Russian, during a night of mutual attacks that left at least twelve dead.

The aircraft, which entered from the direction of Moldova, was intercepted near Galați by a fighter scrambled from the Constanța base; two days earlier a similar drone had been downed over Latvia. Russia's defence ministry cited about 1,500 drones launched at national territory and 205 destroyed overnight, while another account attributes 822 interceptions to it: the figures diverge. Targets hit in Russia included two logistics hubs of the e-commerce group Wildberries, with six deaths in the Belgorod region according to the acting governor; in Ukraine strikes strains Kyiv, Kryvyi Rih and Odesa. EU high representative Kaja Kallas announced for the autumn the broadest sanctions list against Moscow since the war began.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced joint military operations against criminal groups in Colombia, Guatemala and Honduras; Guatemala denies having reached any such agreement.

Speaking during a military drill in Panama, Hegseth said land operations would have the same effect as the boat strikes: over the past year the United States has carried out more than 60 strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing over 200 people, without releasing evidence that those targeted were traffickers and amid questions about the strikes' legality. Ecuador began similar joint missions in March; in Colombia, where President Abelardo de la Espriella took office this month, Hegseth raised the prospect of US forces joining strikes against the ELN, saying de la Espriella himself had requested greater US involvement. The administration has designated 20 Latin American criminal groups as foreign terrorist organizations; scholars quoted by the agencies warn of the risk of civilian casualties and of a backlash against Washington.

According to a CNN report, Ukraine has almost exhausted its stock of Patriot interceptor missiles, while the co-production licence promised by Donald Trump remains uncertain.

CNN, the first broadcaster granted access to a Patriot battery on Ukrainian soil, describes a launcher with empty tubes: accounts of the last firing differ, ten weeks according to the broadcaster, six according to the chief engineer interviewed. The Foreign Policy Research Institute estimates 225 interceptors a day were used in the first four days of the war with Iran, against the 620 Lockheed Martin produced in all of 2025; in January the Pentagon signed a seven-year deal to reach 2,000 units a year by 2030. July was the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since May 2022, with 437 killed according to the figures reported; Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are holding back on the co-production deal announced by Trump at the NATO summit in Ankara, while Kyiv says an agreement has been reached.

Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed at least eleven people, including three children, in attacks described as the deadliest in recent weeks.

Lebanon's Health Ministry, cited by an Iranian state outlet, puts the toll at 4,346 dead and more than 12,300 wounded since 2 March; other sources report over 4,000 deaths in the same period. The US-brokered framework agreed on 26 June remains stalled: the seventh round of talks in Rome ended this month without a breakthrough, and Hezbollah rejects its terms, according to the same Iranian source. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun says Beirut will not back away from the framework and is counting on Washington's seriousness in implementing it, while the US points to fresh Israel-Lebanon talks next month.

Iranian and Arab officials told the Wall Street Journal that Tehran's hard-line leadership is preparing for a longer and wider military confrontation with the United States.

According to the report, hard-liners see the memorandum of understanding signed in mid-June as a way for Washington to ease pressure on the global economy and buy time. Measures described include giving the Revolutionary Guards greater control over the regular army, raising missile and drone output, deploying missiles and launchers facing the Red Sea, and passing intelligence to militias in Yemen; Arab officials also report threats against Gulf states' energy facilities. The account rests on unnamed sources and is not independently confirmed in the available material.

The Houthis said on Monday they had fired ballistic missiles at a Saudi military ship and four escort vessels in the Red Sea, off the Yemeni port of Mocha.

The group's military spokesman, Yahya Saree, described the strikes as "direct and precise"; Saudi authorities did not confirm the claim, while the armed forces of Yemen's internationally recognised government said the targeted vessel was a commercial ship that had been out of service since last year. Mocha lies near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key link between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden; in July the Houthis announced a naval blockade against Saudi vessels in response to what they call a siege of Yemen, an accusation Riyadh denies. Crew members were killed in an attack on a cargo ship in the strait last week: sources differ on the toll, four according to Yemen's transport ministry, at least six according to other accounts attributed to the Yemeni government.

Two explosive-laden drones struck overnight the private office of Kurdish prime minister Masrour Barzani and the home of the region's intelligence chief, causing no casualties.

The Kurdistan counter-terrorism directorate says two Hadid-110 drones were launched from across the Iranian border at the Pirmam district in Erbil province; Barzani called it a "dangerous escalation" and the directorate deemed the attack "totally unacceptable". There was no immediate claim of responsibility and Tehran described the operation as "suspicious". One source alone reports this would be the first known direct attack on regional government buildings since the war began, as US troops have started leaving the area ahead of the 30 September deadline agreed with Baghdad.

UN human rights chief Volker Türk called on all parties to halt any action that risks plunging Yemen back into full-scale conflict.

The UN human rights office says at least seven civilians have been killed and ten wounded since 6 August in Houthi attacks on government-held areas, while two civilians were reported injured in Houthi-held areas in late July; its spokesperson cites at least 17 civilian casualties overall since 6 August. Cited incidents include the 9 August attacks on the port of Mokha, which killed three port workers and injured four, and an 11 August attack on a cargo ship in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait that killed four crew members. According to a military source, the Houthis earlier this month carried out their deadliest attacks in years, killing 58 government troops mainly in Marib province; Türk notes at least 18 million Yemenis are already food insecure.

In a Fox News interview, US President Donald Trump said it "would be better if the Israelis did not strike Gaza," arguing that Hamas has agreed to lay down its weapons.

Trump said the United States has "our own relationship with Hamas" and that the group is "handing over its weapons." These are the US president's own statements: the available material contains no independent confirmation that any handover has actually begun, and disarmament remains under negotiation.

According to the Yemeni army, the Houthis fired five ballistic missiles toward Bab al-Mandab; further missile and drone attacks hit Marib and Mokha.

The launches were reportedly aimed at a military airport near the strait, off Yemen's coast. Explosions in residential areas and civilian casualties are reported in Marib, and damage in Mokha; the Houthis claim the attacks. Government forces are said to have in turn hit Houthi positions in al-Jawf: no overall toll is given, and the available information comes from regional media without independent verification.

Iranian army commander Amir Hatami announced a reward of $30,000 for every US soldier killed or captured and handed over, double if the person responsible is a woman.

Hatami, quoted by the Irna agency, gave no details on how or when such captures or killings would occur; no US ground forces are known to have been deployed in Iran, apart from an April mission to recover a downed pilot. The general called Trump's announcement about annexing the Strait of Hormuz a "grave error", saying his later description of it as a "joke" does not lessen its seriousness, and said Tehran is already enforcing its decision to bar US forces from the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz. Parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohamed Baqer Qalibaf claims Iran won the war that began on 28 February because Washington and Israel failed to achieve regime change.

Israel's national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in a podcast that Israel should carry out targeted killings in Gaza, hitting '30 or 40' people every night.

The remarks, which surfaced on Sunday, were made on the podcast of former hostage Rom Braslavski: Ben-Gvir said those targeted should not only be people posing an immediate threat, adding 'they are not even people', and argued for mass emigration of Palestinians and Israeli settlements throughout the Strip. The minister has no authority over the military and cannot order strikes, but he oversees the police and the prison service; Israeli elections are set for 27 October. According to Gaza's health ministry, Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,250 people since the October truce took effect; Israel denies committing genocide.

Russia struck the Ukrainian ports of Odesa, on the Black Sea, and Izmail, on the Danube, overnight: the local governor reported four people injured and a civilian vessel damaged.

Ukrainian authorities said fires caused by the attack in the Izmail district had been extinguished; Odesa's governor said a Togo-flagged civilian vessel was damaged. Russia's Defence Ministry claims it hit a berthing terminal for vessels carrying military cargo in Izmail, along with hangars holding Western equipment and naval drone depots, and in Odesa a patrol boat, a missile boat and fuel storage tanks, plus a logistics hub of Ukraine's largest private courier; news agencies note these assertions could not be verified. Izmail, near the Romanian border, hosts Ukraine's largest Danube port.

Six people were killed and four wounded, including a 14-year-old, in the village of Koloskovo, according to the acting governor of Russia's Belgorod region.

Acting governor Alexander Shuvaev said the strike damaged a structure and a vehicle in Koloskovo, in the Valuysky district; sources differ on the distance from the Ukrainian border, giving between 15 and 24 kilometres, and a local Telegram channel says the strike occurred on the evening of 16 August. Russian authorities also reported a woman killed by drones in the Astrakhan region and say they intercepted 205 Ukrainian drones overnight, a day after mutual strikes killed 19 people in both countries. According to a United Nations tally, 437 civilians were killed in Ukraine in July, the highest monthly toll since May 2022; Russian authorities counted 79 on their own territory.

The UN says 350 aid workers were killed in 2025, 186 of them in Gaza and 71 in Sudan, out of 907 killed, wounded or kidnapped.

The figures, released by OCHA for World Humanitarian Day and attributed to the research group Humanitarian Outcomes, are slightly below the 377 killed in 2024; since the start of 2026 another 82 have been killed, 97 wounded and 39 kidnapped. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher says more than a thousand aid workers have been killed in three years, calls the toll unacceptable and urges states to enforce international humanitarian law and impose consequences on those who breach it. OCHA points to the spread of cheap armed drones: in Sudan, according to the UN, they caused 80% of civilian deaths in the first four months of 2026.

According to Palestinian sources, settlers and Israeli soldiers attacked localities around Ramallah and Bethlehem on Monday, and Israeli forces entered the grounds of a hospital in Bethlehem.

The cited sources report an attack on the locality of al-Mazra'a al-Sharqiya, east of Ramallah, and the setting up of a new outpost on land belonging to Nahalin, west of Bethlehem; the Palestinian health ministry says the hospital raid frightened patients and visitors. The Palestinian agency Wafa reports 18 arrests across the West Bank - 5 in al-Mughayyir, 11 in Beit Imrin and Kafr Qallil in the Nablus governorate, 2 in the Hebron area - while the Israeli army said it had detained Palestinians and searched 100 buildings in Qabatiya. The European Union spokesperson in the West Bank, Shadi Othman, called settler violence in Qusra and elsewhere "absolutely unacceptable", warning it could lead to a wider escalation; the available account comes from Palestinian sources and the Israeli army, without independent verification.

Russia's embassy in London warned on 17 August that Britain would pay a "price" after reports that British-made drones had been used to strike Russian territory.

The reaction follows a Sunday Times report that drones made by two British companies were used by Kyiv against military and industrial targets deep inside Russia: one firm is said to be a BAE Systems subsidiary, while the second was not identified for security reasons. In its statement the embassy accuses London of becoming an "accomplice and co-perpetrator" of the attacks and of "deliberately" opting for escalation; Britain's defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Since February 2022 the UK has committed about £25 billion in support for Ukraine, including £16 billion in military aid.

An unidentified aerial object entered Moldovan airspace on 17 August and exploded near Talmaza, setting grass on fire without causing casualties.

The defence ministry says the object was detected at 17:37 heading towards Cuciurgan-Tiraspol and vanished from radar in the Ștefan Vodă district; airspace in the "Centre" sector was closed for about fifteen minutes and police explosives experts must examine the debris to establish what the device was. Authorities did not identify the object's origin; Ukrainian Telegram channels claim it was the Russian drone-missile "Bandarol", passing some 35 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. The foreign ministry condemned the violation of sovereignty; President Maia Sandu said some drones enter by accident and others are deliberately sent, placing responsibility on Russia, after similar incidents on 9 and 10 August.

Fighting broke out on Monday in Baidoa, capital of Somalia's South West State, between federal troops and forces loyal to ousted regional leader Laftagareen; residents and MSF report deaths and injuries.

The federal government says the attack began around 5 a.m. with explosive-laden vehicles and support from al-Shabaab fighters, and claims nearly 30 attackers were killed; a spokesperson for Laftagareen instead said his forces had taken parts of the city, though witnesses cited by AFP say those forces later withdrew and federal troops regained control. A shopkeeper told Reuters at least two civilians were killed in their homes by stray bullets; neither account can be independently verified. Baidoa has more than a million residents and hosts hundreds of thousands of displaced people: according to a July MSF survey, one in four children at displacement sites there is severely malnourished.

Tehran says three Su-24 pilots shot down on 2 March are alive and held in Qatar; the Qatari government categorically denies detaining them.

The claim is contained in a letter from Gen. Seyed Mohammad Bagherzadeh, who heads Iran's committee searching for missing personnel, addressed to the International Committee of the Red Cross and published by Iranian media: the three are named as Javad Salehi, Abdolmajid Dashtian and Omran Behraveshian, while a fourth pilot, Majid Kazemi, is said to have died. Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari rejected the statements, recalling that in early March Doha announced it had shot down two Su-24 bombers after a violation of its airspace, and added that Qatar returned the remains of one pilot and in April invited an Iranian team, receiving no reply. Bagherzadeh asks the Red Cross to meet the pilots, check their condition and help secure their release; until now Tehran had described their fate as unknown.

A Greek-flagged oil tanker was attacked in the Black Sea after loading Russian crude at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal near Novorossiysk, according to Bloomberg.

The Suezmax-class Skiros was reportedly hit on Sunday not far from the terminal; the Athens-based company listed as its manager says no one was injured and there was no pollution, and declined further comment. According to Bloomberg it is the first strike on a vessel calling at the CPC terminal after a break of almost three weeks: the terminal mainly handles Kazakh crude and has recently accounted for nearly 2% of global oil supply. In early August, a US official said, Kyiv undertook through American mediation not to hit CPC infrastructure or non-Russian ships bound for the terminal, provided they were not carrying Russian cargo.

ArcelorMittal said two of its employees were killed in a missile strike on one of the group's facilities in Ukraine.

The account comes from the company's own confirmation, reported by two outlets: one describes it as a missile strike on a facility in Ukraine, the other as a Russian attack. The available material does not specify the location, the date, the extent of damage to the plant, or the roles of the two workers.

Louai Abu Ridi, a Palestinian-American, returned on Monday to his house in Qusra, near Nablus, which Israeli settlers have been besieging for more than a week.

According to the family's account, settlers have surrounded three houses, kept residents trapped inside and effectively blocked supplies; his brother Qusai, stuck in the house, shared videos showing settlers on quad bikes outside the building while Israeli forces were stationed nearby. Landing at Ben Gurion airport, Abu Ridi said he was "terrified" at the prospect of spending the night there and asked the US embassy for protection, criticising the Israeli military's failure to remove a handful of settlers. On Thursday US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee wrote on X that the actions of those behind what he called an act of terror meant to intimidate the family were "disgusting".

Organizers of the Spasskaya Tower international military music festival called off the edition scheduled for August 21-30 four days before its start, postponing it to 2027.

The festival, first held in 2006 on Poklonnaya Hill and staged on Red Square since 2007, had been canceled only once before, in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic; on Telegram the organizers cited "circumstances beyond their control" without further explanation. According to Politico Europe the move comes amid an increase in drone attacks on the capital: more than 600 drones were reportedly directed at Moscow and the surrounding region overnight, causing fires, one death and damage to logistics warehouses according to Russian media. A Russia Day gala concert on Red Square was also canceled in June, and the May 9 parade was held on a reduced scale, without heavy military equipment.

Trump vowed on Friday to step up economic pressure on Tehran; Treasury Secretary Bessent spoke of measures "never seen" before, possibly as early as next week.

Washington has not said what the measures will involve. OFAC data show more than 1,000 people, vessels and aircraft sanctioned since the start of Trump's second term; recent steps targeted Iran's shadow oil fleet, shipping insurers and digital exchanges, freezing an estimated $500 billion in Iran-linked cryptocurrency. China buys more than 80% of Iran's seaborne crude, according to 2025 Kpler data, and the experts quoted point to Chinese independent refineries as a possible target for secondary sanctions. Domestically, Iran's Statistical Centre reported 66% annual inflation in July and consumer prices 87.9% higher year on year, with food at 128%; Iranian officials speaking anonymously say they fear renewed unrest.

US tariffs of up to 50% on about $20 billion of imports from Canada take effect on Wednesday at 00:01, with negotiators still far apart.

The three orders signed on 20 July invoke Section 338 of the 1930 Tariff Act, which sources say has never been used this way, and cover wine, furniture, dairy, cement, clothing, fishing rods and hockey equipment, even for goods covered by the USMCA: about 5.2% of the $383 billion the US imported from Canada in 2025, according to the US Census Bureau. Minister Dominic LeBlanc told an advisory committee on Friday that the two countries remain far from a draft agreement; in the background is Trump's decision not to renew the treaty automatically for sixteen years, subjecting it to annual reviews instead. Canadian business groups warn that lumber, wine and small exporting firms are the most exposed.

China's industrial output grew 4.5% year on year in July and retail sales 0.6%, both below expectations, while fixed-asset investment kept contracting.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, industrial output slowed from June's 5.3% and retail sales from 1%; the analyst forecasts cited differ (1.3% or 1.5% for sales, 4.8% or 5% for output). Fixed-asset investment fell 6.7% in the first seven months after -5.7% in the first half, with property down 19.2%; car sales dropped 17%, while telecom equipment (+20.4%) and food (+5.3%) rose. Some sources link part of the industrial slowdown to July's extreme weather, with three typhoons making landfall, and note pressure on Beijing to act in support of domestic demand.

Iranian officials speaking anonymously to Reuters say the leadership fears further US economic measures would deepen the domestic crisis and reignite mass protests.

According to Iran's Statistical Centre, annual inflation reached 66% in July, consumer prices were 87.9% higher than a year earlier and food prices 128% higher. The country is in the sixth month of a war that began on 28 February with US and Israeli strikes that damaged factories, power plants and transport networks; Trump said on Friday he would hit Iran economically and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke of measures «never seen» as early as next week, without specifying them. A former reformist official points to last week's appointment of Hossein Taeb to head the Basij militia as a sign of the authorities' concern about a possible return of unrest.

Andrei Klepach, chief economist since 2014 at Russia's state development bank VEB, was removed after the publication of a speech criticising the wartime economy.

In the speech, delivered in May to the Nikitsky Club and reported by Russian media only last week, Klepach said Russia is falling behind China and the United States and in some respects Ukraine, that it will not win "the competition in a war of attrition", and that a social crisis could arrive when nobody expects it, with a reference to the February 1917 revolution. VEB confirmed the replacement without giving reasons, while the independent outlet The Bell, citing sources, attributes it to a Kremlin order. According to figures cited by the sources, Russia's budget deficit reached 5,870 billion roubles in the first four months of 2026, above the 3,790 billion target set for the whole year; Putin maintains the economy remains stable.

Japanese government bond yields have risen to their highest level since 1996, driven by expectations of a rate hike and concerns over public finances.

Bloomberg links the rise to bets on a Bank of Japan rate increase and to concerns about public finances; Handelsblatt places yields at their highest since 1996. The available material does not specify which maturities reached that level or the size of the move. Both outlets in this group are business-financial publications.

Japan's economy grew 0.3% quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter, or 1.1% annualised, less than the 2% analysts had forecast.

Capital investment fell and private consumption was flat, while nominal government spending rose 5.4% year-on-year, the largest increase since 2021; first-quarter annualised growth had been 1.9%. Economist Taro Kimura of Bloomberg Economics said the figures weaken the case for a Bank of Japan rate rise in September, which markets had begun to price in. Taro Saito of the NLI Research Institute attributed part of the growth to falling imports, particularly of oil, because of transit difficulties in the Strait of Hormuz.

Canada's annual inflation rate rose to 3% in July from 2.8% in June, driven according to the statistics agency by gasoline prices, up 25.7% year on year.

Statistics Canada attributes the fuel pressure to the Middle East conflict, including the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the partial closure of Red Sea shipping routes in late July; tourism and air-travel costs also weighed, which analysts link to spending around the World Cup co-hosted by Canada. The figure comes with 50% tariffs threatened by US President Donald Trump still pending from Wednesday 19 August: Prime Minister Mark Carney called the talks "intense and delicate" and said he expects to speak with Trump this week. TD economist Leslie Preston said the data will not push the Bank of Canada to raise rates, given the trade uncertainty.

Researchers at the European Central Bank warn that a sudden collapse in AI-linked stock valuations in the United States would spread to Europe through savers' exposure via ETFs.

According to the analysis, equity valuations are at record highs and the concern is a sudden correction in the shares of the so-called AI "Magnificent Seven". The channel of contagion identified is European savers' indirect exposure through ETFs: "A crisis in the United States would sweep over Europe too", reads the document cited by the sources. This is a risk assessment drawn up in Frankfurt, not the announcement of an expected event.

Industry experts say farmers who grow more than half of Nigeria's cocoa beans risk failing to comply with the EU anti-deforestation law taking effect at the end of December.

West Africa grows about 70% of the world's cocoa beans and ships roughly two-thirds of them to the EU, which according to Nigerian exporter Sunbeth Global buys 60% of the world's cocoa; Nigeria, the fourth-largest producer, has some 300,000 mostly small-scale farmers. The rule, already delayed twice, requires importers to trace raw materials back to the plot where they were grown: in Ivory Coast, a study published in May by the non-profit Trase found only about half the cocoa can be traced. Sunbeth Global says it spent three years mapping 124,000 hectares covering about 60,000 tonnes at a cost of US$30 to US$70 per tonne, while consultant Nicko Debenham estimates the shortage of compliant supply in the EU could last about two years.

The Trump administration has acquired stakes in dozens of private companies without going through Congress, including nearly 10% of Intel in exchange for about $9 billion.

According to the report, a list of 30 investments compiled by Tad DeHaven of the CATO Institute also includes smaller stakes in mineral, quantum computing and semiconductor firms, partly funded with money Congress earmarked in the CHIPS Act as subsidies. The administration says these are minority stakes and that it is not interfering in the market; DeHaven counters that the government now has a financial incentive to privilege the companies it owns over existing and potential competitors. In February Trump directed Treasury Secretary Bessent and Commerce Secretary Lutnick to explore a US sovereign wealth fund, a plan the article says has not progressed.

According to Le Figaro and Les Echos, France's economy ministry is examining savings options on tax breaks and pensions for the 2027 budget, aimed mainly at "well-off" households.

Both outlets write that budget officials are sending initial options to the prime minister ahead of arbitration at Matignon, and that the government — having twice missed the official timetable — would aim to present the text slightly before the 6 October deadline. According to a report by four economists cited by Le Figaro, on unchanged policies debt interest costs could reach 89 billion euros as early as 2027, more than the annual national education budget. The measures have not been officially announced and the available sources share a single editorial orientation.

Paramount Skydance has asked a judge to require a $1.88 billion bond from the twelve states and the writers' union challenging its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

The $110 billion deal is on hold after lawsuits from twelve states and the Writers Guild of America, which call it anticompetitive; trial is set for early March 2027 and a hearing on the request was scheduled for Wednesday. From 1 October the company must pay Warner shareholders a "ticking fee" of about $7 million a day, an estimated $1.3 billion by the end of the trial, which Paramount says would be unrecoverable. The office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta responded that the company knew the risks, and an M&A lawyer interviewed by Business Insider called it "very unlikely" that the judge will grant the request; the deal has already been cleared by the US Justice Department and the European Commission.

In an SEC filing on Friday, Nvidia disclosed it holds nearly 123 million SpaceX shares, worth about $21 billion at the end of June.

After SpaceX shares fell following the June initial public offering, the holding would now be worth about $17 billion. According to Ars Technica the stake stems from Nvidia's investment in xAI, completed in January shortly before Musk combined the AI lab with SpaceX. In the same quarter Intesa Sanpaolo is also reported to hold SpaceX shares worth nearly $1 billion.

New home prices in China fell at a faster pace, damping expectations of a property market rebound, according to two business outlets.

Both outlets attribute the deterioration mainly to a stalling recovery in smaller cities. The available material does not provide the percentage changes or the reference period for the data.

Eight men boarded and took control of a cargo ship near Marraye, Somalia; the crew is reported safe for now.

The alert was issued on Monday 17 August by UK Maritime Trade Operations and the EU's Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean (MSCIO), neither of which named the vessel; UKMTO urged other ships to transit with caution. According to both sources, Somali piracy — largely suppressed after its 2011 peak thanks to international naval deployments — has picked up again this year: three tankers carrying oil and fertiliser seized in April and May, plus a chemical tanker taken in Yemeni waters in July, are still being held off the Somali coast. Both outlets link the growing risk to shipping avoiding the Strait of Hormuz and to Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.

The International Monetary Fund is sending a team to Senegal from 19 August to 1 September to discuss policies and reforms tied to a possible new loan.

The IMF announced the two-week visit on Monday; a source familiar with the talks, cited by Reuters, sees it as a sign of progress towards a new lending arrangement, with more technical discussions. The previous programme was frozen after the newly elected government disclosed in 2024 a far larger debt pile than previously reported; last week the minister-delegate for budget travelled to China, the country's largest bilateral creditor. The Fund also plans a mission to Uganda next month to negotiate a new programme.

Tim Cook hands over the role of Apple chief executive to John Ternus on 1 September and stays with the company as chairman of the board.

Cook, 65, has led Apple since 2011: during his tenure annual revenue nearly quadrupled to $416 billion, services passed $100 billion and market capitalisation rose from about $300 billion to almost $4.5 trillion. In a CBS interview recorded at a Texas manufacturing plant, Cook avoided saying when most devices would be made in the United States, citing iPhone cover glass from Kentucky, the system-on-a-chip for "many" iPhones from Arizona, components from 24 factories across 12 states and 450,000 jobs the company says it supports among suppliers and partners. As board chairman he is expected to handle dialogue with governments in particular; for Ternus, 51, the first test will be the September iPhone launch.

Britain's rail regulator, the ORR, has approved Virgin Trains to run up to twenty daily return services through the Channel Tunnel from 2030.

The agreement runs from 1 October 2030 to 31 December 2040 and covers the HS1 high-speed line between London St Pancras and the tunnel; Virgin aims to serve Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, routes where Eurostar has held the passenger monopoly since the tunnel opened in 1994. The ORR notes that Virgin still has to procure rolling stock, secure access to mainland European networks and obtain safety approvals from UK and EU authorities; the company says it plans to order 12 Alstom trains, invest £700m and create about 400 UK jobs. Italy's Trenitalia France is also planning services on the route from 2029, having signed for 19 Hitachi Rail high-speed trains.

Alibaba has agreed to sell its entire stake in gaming studio Lingxi Games to private equity firm Trustar Capital; the financial terms were not disclosed.

The deal was announced Monday in an internal letter signed by Lingxi CEO Zhou Bingshu; figures differ, with a source cited by Reuters putting the proceeds above $2 billion while Bloomberg values the studio at no less than $1.5 billion, and none of the companies commented. The sale takes Alibaba out of in-house game development and fits its focus on e-commerce, cloud and artificial intelligence, for which the group had committed at least 380 billion yuan (around $53 billion) over three years, a figure CEO Eddie Wu has said will be exceeded. Zhou and his management team stay on to run the studio, known for the mobile strategy title 'Three Kingdoms: Strategy Edition'; Alibaba had previously sold its stakes in Sun Art and Intime for a combined $2.6 billion.

According to financial media, Greece plans to repay about €13 billion of debt ahead of schedule during 2026.

It would not be the first such operation: the outlets describe it as another early repayment following those made in previous years. The available material does not indicate which creditors are involved or the precise payment schedule.

The dollar fell against the euro and the Swiss franc on Monday, with the euro touching a two-month high near $1.1578 as markets trimmed bets on a Federal Reserve rate increase.

The CME FedWatch tool puts the odds of a hike at the Fed's September meeting at 30.6%, down from 52.2% a week earlier, after US retail sales fell in July for the first time in nine months, alongside job losses and mild inflation readings. The dollar lost 0.34% against the franc to 0.81085 and the yen traded around 159.49, while the dollar index was flat at 99.60. Investors are awaiting next week's Jackson Hole symposium.

Spain's public administration ministry is working with the regions on measures against the abuse of temporary contracts, narrowing the problem to fewer than 200,000 workers.

According to El País, roughly one in three public employees in Spain is on a temporary contract: out of more than 900,000 workers without a permanent post, the analysis by the ministry headed by Óscar López identifies fewer than 200,000 who have been in that situation for over three years. Spain has already been reprimanded by the European Commission and the EU Court of Justice and still has several open disputes with Brussels on the issue.

Old-age pensions in Italy have overtaken early retirement pensions: the shift began in 2024 and grew over the following two years, according to Repubblica.

The paper attributes the drop in early exits to measures taken by the Meloni government, which it says have scrapped, tightened or reshaped almost all flexible retirement channels, pushing retirements to the 67-year threshold; women and public-sector employees are said to be the hardest hit. The government had pledged to abolish the Fornero pension law. The available material does not give the underlying figures.

Stellantis announced a recall of 955,000 vehicles worldwide: a fault in the radio system software can prevent the rear-view camera from working properly.

The recall covers 848,000 vehicles in the United States, including the Chrysler Pacifica, Pacifica Plug-in Hybrid and Voyager, the Dodge Charger and several Jeep and Ram models from the 2026 and 2027 model years, plus about 107,000 more in Canada, Mexico and other markets. The carmaker says it is not aware of any crashes or injuries linked to the issue and will push a remote software update, flagged via a notification on the vehicle's screen; in the meantime it tells drivers to use their mirrors when reversing. US rules have required rear-view cameras on all light vehicles since 2018.

US group Madison Air will buy Germany's ebm-papst, a maker of fans and airflow technologies, in a deal valued at $5.4 billion.

The two sources name the buyer slightly differently, as Madison Air and as Madison Air Solutions. The available material covers only the announcement of the deal and does not specify a closing timeline, financing terms or the regulatory approvals required.

Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, doubled its net profit in 2025 on rising revenue, according to its own annual report.

The figure comes from the fund's own published accounts: a primary source, not an independent verification. The available material gives neither absolute amounts nor which activities drove the revenue increase.

US defence group L3Harris has removed its chief executive following an investigation into his conduct, according to reports from two business outlets.

The available sources link the departure to an investigation into compliance with the company's code of conduct, but do not specify what behaviour was at issue or who takes over the group. The material consists only of headlines from two business and centre-right outlets, with no verifiable detail on timing or corporate consequences.

EU business registrations fell 0.5% in the second quarter of 2026 compared with the previous quarter, while bankruptcies rose 5.7%, according to Eurostat data.

Registrations fell in five of the eight business sectors covered: industry recorded the largest drop (-3.6%), followed by accommodation and food services (-3.4%) and education and social services (-3.2%). Information and communication rose sharply (+8.8%) and construction gained 1.0%, while financial services were flat. In Latvia new registrations fell 3.4% quarter-on-quarter, while bankruptcies were down 1.7%.

Chelsea chairman Todd Boehly and director Mark Walter are in talks to sell their shares to majority owner Clearlake Capital, according to multiple sources cited by the press.

Clearlake holds about 61.5% of the club, while Boehly and Walter own 12.8% each, as does Swiss businessman Hansjörg Wyss, whose position remains unclear; the reported valuation exceeds £5bn, around £640m per stake, and a deal would take Clearlake above 86% of the shares. Walter last week sold the Los Angeles Lakers for $12.5bn and is the subject of investigations by US federal prosecutors and the SEC into companies in his group. The consortium bought the club from Roman Abramovich in 2022 for a figure sources put at between £2.3bn and £2.5bn; Chelsea and representatives of the parties declined to comment.

The Export-Import Bank of Korea will provide Glencore with one billion dollars in exchange for a stable copper supply to Korean companies over the loan period.

The bank announced the deal on Monday: the money will fund general corporate operations at the Swiss group, which runs copper, zinc and nickel mines and smelters and trades more than 60 commodities. Korea Eximbank said Glencore's diversified network of mines and trading partners, including in Chile and Peru, could provide alternative supplies if production is disrupted. The bank frames the arrangement as an economic security measure for South Korea, which relies heavily on imports of a metal in demand from artificial intelligence, renewables and power grids.

Mark Walter is selling his majority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers to Joshua Kushner and Robert Iger for about $12.5 billion, little more than a year after acquiring it.

Walter took majority control in June 2025 at a $10 billion valuation after years as a minority shareholder; the new price of about $12.5 billion (roughly €10.8 billion) is, according to the paper, the highest ever paid for a sports franchise. The same source reports the offer arrived quickly and without a contest among rival bidders. Joshua Kushner is the brother of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law; Iger formerly ran Disney. In his farewell statement Walter gave no financial reason for the sale.

The gauge of New York State manufacturing activity posted its biggest expansion since the end of 2021, while stock markets opened the week lower.

The reading covers New York State alone and is compiled monthly from manufacturers in the area. The available material gives neither the index value nor the comparison with analysts' expectations; both outlets reporting it are business newspapers.

First HoldCo chairman Femi Otedola bought 147.7 million shares in the Nigerian financial group for 20.7 billion naira, lifting his stake to 27.49%.

The deal, at 140 naira per share, was carried out through Calvados Global Services and brings his total holding to 12.05 billion shares, worth about 1,650 billion naira at the 136.90 share price recorded on 17 August. It is his second purchase in August after 138 million shares for 18.1 billion, while in late July he bought 1.78 billion shares for about 222.2 billion; one of the two outlets puts his disclosed 2026 purchases at roughly 412 billion naira and reports that Otedola aims to go beyond 51% of the company. The two sources date the transaction differently: Monday according to one, 14 August according to the other.

South Korea's Kospi opened 2% higher on Tuesday and was up 2.39% at 7,144.85 as of 9:15 a.m., driven by chipmakers.

The rise comes despite an overnight fall on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones lost 0.51% and the Nasdaq 0.32%: according to the sources' account, elevated oil prices stoked inflation concerns while prospects for a deal with Iran dimmed after US President Donald Trump said he was not interested in extending the expiring agreement. In Seoul, Samsung Electronics gained 3.64%, SK hynix 6.38% and shipping firm HMM 9.41%, while Hyundai Motor fell 0.77% and Hanwha Aerospace 0.26%. The won traded at 1,412.95 to the dollar, up 2.65 won from the previous close.

Nestlé plans to develop new food products aimed at people taking weight-loss drugs.

The available material is limited to the announcement and does not specify which product lines are planned, on what timeline, or in which markets. No investment figures or sales data linked to the initiative are given.

African bakeries, researchers and food manufacturers are turning cassava, millet, sorghum and teff into gluten-free products for domestic markets and export.

According to Fortune Business Insights data cited in the article, the global gluten-free bakery market was worth about $2.6 billion last year and could reach $7.38 billion by 2034, with Europe and North America still dominant. At the University of Pretoria, PhD researcher Daddy Kgonothi has filed a patent application for a modified marama bean protein concentrate, currently at prototype stage, designed to replicate the structure gluten gives to bread. A Nairobi nutritionist quoted in the piece notes that there is no medical reason to cut out gluten for those who tolerate it.

Chinese restaurant brands, from coffee chains to hotpot, are moving into the burger market long dominated by McDonald's, KFC and Burger King.

According to the outlets, the growth reflects broader shifts in consumption: smaller households and economic uncertainty are pushing diners towards cheaper, easily portable meals. The burger, previously a niche Western product, is becoming one of the most contested segments of China's restaurant market, with new brands seeking a share.

The first production unit of the Ferrari Luce fetched $40 million at an RM Sotheby's charity auction in California, a record for a new car.

The sale, during Monterey Car Week, beats the previous record set in 2025 by a bespoke Daytona SP3 that went for $26 million; the BBC says the price is more than 35 times the model's usual cost, with this car featuring a white finish and custom wheels and brakes. Sotheby's says all proceeds go to the Ferrari Foundation's educational programmes and did not name the buyer. The Luce, the marque's first battery-powered model and a five-seater, drew criticism at its May launch from figures including Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and former chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo; a Financial Times report says the company has nonetheless met this year's sales target thanks to demand from China.

Zimbabwean police raised the toll to 92 on Monday 17 August for the state-run ferry that capsized on Lake Kariba on 11 August; 77 people had been rescued.

The toll rose from 84 to 92 after eight more bodies were recovered. The vessel, run by the state agency RIDA and certified for 90 passengers, was carrying 114 adults, five crew members and an unspecified number of children according to authorities, though estimates of the total on board diverge, reaching 153 or more than 160; police say 18 of the dead were children, the youngest one year old. An investigation has been opened, early findings point to overloading, and local media report the boat had been in service for 41 years; Transport Minister Felix Mhona visited the site and the government announced the ferry would be replaced.

The U.S. Justice Department's inspector general announced Monday a review of the practice under which the DEA let fentanyl shipments reach the streets to build larger cases.

The review, announced by Inspector General Don Berthiaume, sworn in Friday, covers department policies and wiretap cases over the past two years and could establish whether the tactic was used in other cities. It follows an Associated Press investigation, published less than two months ago, reporting that DEA agents in New Mexico monitored but did not seize major shipments between 2023 and 2025, including a 74,000-pill delivery at an Albuquerque mobile home park documented in an internal report. Whistleblower agent David Howell says authorities endangered the public; DEA Administrator Terry Cole had requested a narrower outside inquiry, saying it did not reflect a lack of confidence in his staff. The DEA did not immediately comment.

An explosion at a private school in Kabul's Dasht-e Barchi district injured dozens of people on Monday afternoon, most of them female pupils who were leaving the building.

Broadcaster ToloNews, citing a security source, reports at least 52 injured, while the newspaper Hasht-e Subh had counted around thirty; the blast, which occurred between 4:30 and 5 p.m. local time at the Shama-e Hidayat school, is attributed by a police spokesman to a hand grenade, and according to Ariana News the device was in a student's hands. Taliban authorities have not commented, Al Jazeera says it could not verify the reports, and it is unclear whether anyone was killed. Dasht-e Barchi is home mainly to the Shia Hazara minority and has repeatedly been targeted by attacks attributed to the Islamic State group, including on schools; Afghanistan also remains littered with unexploded ordnance. No claim of responsibility so far.

The US Supreme Court on Monday declined, without explanation, to reconsider Donald Trump's appeal against the $5 million civil verdict won by E. Jean Carroll.

In 2023 a New York jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming the former columnist, without upholding her rape claim; after the court's first refusal in June, Carroll collected about $5.63 million in principal and interest. Still pending before the justices is the appeal against a second defamation verdict of $83.3 million, in which Trump's lawyers invoke presidential immunity for statements he made in 2019. Trump denies any wrongdoing and his legal team calls the case a fabrication against him; Carroll's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, says the verdict is now final and can no longer be challenged.

A bus carrying Polish pilgrims left the M3 motorway in Hungary and overturned in a ditch, killing twelve people and seriously injuring at least ten.

The crash happened around 1 a.m. on Sunday near Mezokeresztes, about 140 kilometres east of Budapest; 57 passengers and two drivers were on board, all Polish citizens according to Warsaw's foreign ministry, returning from a pilgrimage in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Hungary's disaster management agency said several passengers were trapped under the overturned vehicle. Police say the driver likely fell asleep and has been taken into custody; Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar said at least ten people were seriously injured.

Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto ruled out any sign of Russian involvement in the 13 August explosion at the KNDS Ammo Italy munitions plant in Colleferro, near Rome.

According to Repubblica, prosecutors in Velletri are checking possible links with a munitions site that blew up in Bulgaria on 10 August; forensic police took material samples, including explosive gelatine, and are examining CCTV footage and phone-cell data because a fire preceded the blast. The same paper reports that networks of automated Russian accounts celebrated the event on social media. Azione leader Carlo Calenda is asking the government to report to parliament on a possible hybrid attack, the parliamentary intelligence committee Copasir is in contact with Italy's agencies, and Colleferro mayor Giulio Calamita says he leans towards an accident.

At least seven people died and 19 were injured Monday in a crush at the Ashok Dham temple in Lakhisarai district, in India's Bihar state.

Death tolls differ: most outlets report seven dead, one agency six, while two outlets combine the crush with a hotel fire in eastern India for a total of 14 deaths. Official accounts of the cause also diverge: a police officer cites an electric pole falling and triggering panic, the district magistrate a barricade giving way under the crowd's pressure; an investigation is under way. Devotees had gathered for the third Monday of the month of Shravan, with estimates of tens of thousands present; Bihar Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary announced 400,000 rupees ($4,180) for each victim's family.

New York judge Gregory Carro cancelled the start of the state murder trial, set for 8 September, pending a ruling on the defence's double jeopardy claim.

The order gives the Manhattan district attorney until 9 October to respond to the dismissal motion and sets a hearing for 10 December. Mangione, 28, pleaded guilty in federal court on Friday to two stalking counts, admitting he shot UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson in Manhattan on 4 December 2024; federal sentencing is due on 18 December, with prosecutors saying they will seek life while guidelines call for 24 to 30 years. District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office said it will fight efforts to end the state case, where Mangione pleaded not guilty and faces 25 years to life.

On the evening of 15 August three panels of the San Gregorio Polyptych and a double-sided panel by Antonello da Messina were taken from the Accascina regional museum in Messina.

According to investigators' reconstruction there were at least four thieves, who got in by forcing the rear railings between 8 and 9 pm, while the Vara procession was taking place in the city; two of the five panels of the polyptych, dated 1473, were left on a low wall outside and reported to emergency services by passers-by around 9 pm. The small double-sided panel showing the Madonna and Child and Christ in Pity, dated to the late 1460s, was pulled from an armoured case. Four attendants were on duty at the museum and told police they noticed nothing; Sicilian regional president Renato Schifani says the alarm and video surveillance worked properly and has ordered an internal inspection, while Messina prosecutors are reviewing camera footage.

A Boeing 787 bound for Hanoi with 250 passengers overran the runway at Munich airport on Saturday and lifted off from the grass, with no injuries.

During take-off the tail struck the ground, damaging the lower fuselage, the tyres and the lighting beyond the roughly 4,000-metre runway; a specialist platform reports the brakes on the right side were activated about 200 metres before the runway's end. The crew reported a drop in tyre pressure, dumped about 60 tonnes of fuel over the Munich area and returned after a flight put by the sources at between an hour and a half and nearly two hours. Germany's federal air accident investigation office is investigating and the cause is unclear; an aviation expert told the German press agency that without the pilots pulling the aircraft up the outcome could have been a fireball with hundreds of deaths.

Police in St. Petersburg detained a 41-year-old man accused of transferring 900 rubles to an organisation designated "extremist" in Russia.

The interior ministry describes him only as a citizen of a European country and does not name the organisation; Russian exile outlets say he is a German national and that the sum, slightly over nine euros at current rates, went to Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, labelled "extremist" since 2021 and "terrorist" since 2025. A search of his flat seized a laptop and a mobile device; according to Fontanka he runs a fitness studio and lived in Germany for several years. On August 12 police detained Igor Zaytsev, 58, in a similar case over 3,500 rubles, and a court ordered him held in pretrial detention; Mediazona counts at least 225 criminal cases opened across Russia by April 2026 over donations to the foundation.

Five boys aged between 14 and 16 died on the night between Saturday and Sunday in a head-on collision on a motorway in County Kildare, near Dublin.

They were travelling at high speed in a stolen BMW on the wrong side of the road; in the other car three young women and a seven-year-old child were seriously injured. Police were not in pursuit at the time of the crash and suspect a link to a social media trend in which wrong-way driving is filmed: police chief Justin Kelly called it irresponsible behaviour sometimes carried out just to get likes online. According to Irish media some of the boys belonged to the so-called "Lucky Dip" gang and investigators are checking a possible link to burglaries committed before the crash; earlier in August nine young men were injured in another head-on collision on a Dublin motorway.

The NAACP announced on Monday that it is joining the lawyers for the family of Nolan Wells, an 18-year-old Black teenager found dead on 6 July on a Mississippi island.

The body was found at the north-western end of Horn Island, a barrier island off the Gulf coast, after the teenager went missing during a Fourth of July weekend trip with three white friends from Ocean Springs. The Jackson County Sheriff's Office, which is leading the investigation, says the case remains open and has released no conclusions; an independent autopsy commissioned by the family found the manner of death undetermined. Last week the Congressional Black Caucus wrote to Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel asking for an independent federal review; family lawyer Ben Crump has pointed to discrepancies in accounts of Wells's final hours, including his phone being found with one of the friends.

A Moscow military court sentenced Mikhail Polyakov, a former FSB colonel who ran Telegram channels, to eleven years in a penal colony for extorting the IT company LANIT.

Prosecutors say Polyakov posted negative material on channels including Kremlyovskaya Prachka and Nezygar and demanded money in exchange for a "block" on such coverage: sources differ on the amount, put at between 42.5 and 50 million rubles, sought between November 2020 and July 2023, while he was still serving in the FSB. The sentence also includes an 800,000-ruble fine, the loss of his rank of retired colonel and a two-and-a-half-year ban on administering online resources; co-defendants Alexander Sanin, a businessman, and Denis Savinsky, a translator, received nine and eight years. None of those convicted admitted guilt; the main channel, which had more than 260,000 subscribers when he was detained in July 2023, has not been updated since August of that year.

A Moscow court sentenced Sergei Petrov, founder of the Rolf dealership network and a former Duma lawmaker, to nine years in absentia, finding him guilty of moving 4 billion rubles abroad.

The sentence also includes a fine of 800,000 rubles (about $9,400). Prosecutors say that in 2014 Petrov and others used a forged agreement to have Rolf buy shares in Rolf Estate at an inflated price, moving roughly 4 billion rubles ($47 million) to the Cyprus-registered firm Panabel Limited; former chief executive Tatyana Lukovetskaya and Georgiy Kafkalia each received 8.5 years in absentia. Petrov, who lives in Austria, denies the charges and links the case, opened in 2019, to an attempted takeover of the company and to his opposition to the Kremlin; in December 2023 Putin signed the decree that brought Rolf under state control.

Four people were killed and two wounded in a shooting on Sunday evening in Isla Cristina, Huelva province, when two hooded men on a motorcycle opened fire on a group.

According to the Guardia Civil's initial account the attack took place at 10 p.m. in the working-class El Rocío district; the victims are a 39-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant, the child she was carrying, her 62-year-old mother and a 16-year-old boy who investigators found was unconnected to the feud, while an 18-year-old is in very serious condition and a man suffered light injuries. The attackers set the motorcycle on fire in a pine grove near the Giralda campsite before fleeing; investigators have seized camera footage and stepped up checks in the town. Huelva deputy prefect María José Rico spoke of a possible settling of scores between clans without ruling out other lines of inquiry: the Guardia Civil says the two women killed are the mother-in-law and sister of a man with a criminal record known as 'El Baba', alleged author of a September 2024 shooting in Huelva that left one dead and two wounded.

The trial of Duane "Keffe D" Davis, 63, accused of orchestrating the drive-by shooting that killed rapper Tupac Shakur on 7 September 1996, opened in Las Vegas on Monday.

Prosecutors say Davis, then leader of the South Side Compton Crips, ordered the killing and supplied the gun in retaliation for the beating of his nephew Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson hours earlier, after Mike Tyson's fight at the MGM Grand. Davis has pleaded not guilty and faces life without parole; he has been in custody since 2023. The investigation stalled for decades and was revived after Davis published his memoirs in 2019, recounting that he was in the car and handed a pistol to those in the back seat, an account he later retracted, attributing it to a ghostwriter; his lawyers say there is no evidence he ordered the murder. Proceedings are expected to last about a month and are unlikely to establish who fired: everyone else in the car has since died. Stepbrother Mopreme Shakur told the BBC he does not expect the trial to bring justice.

The Bas-Rhin prefecture has confirmed that for about three weeks medical helicopters have not landed at night at Strasbourg's Hautepierre hospital, because of drones flying to the nearby prison.

According to the prefecture, quoted on Monday 17 August, the drones are said to be making illegal deliveries to inmates of the Strasbourg-Elsau prison; prosecutor Clarisse Taron said an investigation into the overflights is under way. The Grand-Est regional health agency says emergency care has not been interrupted: some patients are flown to another suitable landing site and then transferred by road. According to Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace, between 15% and 20% of missions by the Dragon 67 medical helicopter are at night and four flights out of five go to Hautepierre; drone pilots flying over prisons face one year in jail and a 75,000-euro fine.

Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes authorised Jair Bolsonaro to leave house arrest for dental treatment, but refused to let it take place at the clinic of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro's wife.

Under the ruling, the appointment must take place "for security reasons" at the medical centre of the Federal District military police, with the date and time kept confidential and arranged between the defence and the deputy head of the custody unit, since "there is no urgent situation." The decision does not make clear whether Fernanda Bolsonaro may still treat the former president at that facility; her practice is in Brasília's Lago Sul district. Bolsonaro is under humanitarian house arrest, serving a 27-year, three-month sentence handed down by the Supreme Court's First Panel for leading an attempted coup; Flávio Bolsonaro is a presidential candidate.

At the Massachusetts trial over the killing of her three children, Lindsay Clancy's mother told the court about her daughter's mental deterioration in the preceding months.

Clancy, 36, a former labor and delivery nurse, is accused of killing her three children, aged 5, 3 and 8 months, on 24 January 2023 in Duxbury, and has pleaded not guilty; her lawyers do not dispute that she caused the deaths but argue she had postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder and was overmedicated, while prosecutors say the killings were planned. On 17 August, in the fourth week of the Plymouth trial, the prosecution rested after several dozen witnesses and the defense called her mother, Paula Musgrove, who recounted a December 2022 conversation in which her daughter said she had thoughts of harming the children. Under cross-examination Musgrove said she had no concerns about the children's safety and had not considered having her daughter committed.

An ultralight aircraft carrying two people, which had taken off from Capo d'Orlando bound for Sibari, is missing off the Tyrrhenian coast of Cosenza, near Fuscaldo.

Fire brigade teams from the Cosenza command began searching at 21.05 the previous day, after relatives raised the alarm and triggered the prefecture's missing-persons plan; operations are concentrated between Fuscaldo and Falconara Albanese, and according to ANSA's headline the two missing people are lawyers. Drones and an Air Force search-and-rescue helicopter are being used; the last phone contact was picked up by a cell tower in the Sannati area of Fuscaldo. The search has so far produced no results and is continuing.

A private helicopter crashed on Monday shortly after take-off on the Greek island of Sifnos, killing the pilot and the two passengers on board.

Greek fire brigade officials confirmed the three deaths; the alarm was raised at 18:17 and rescue teams were dispatched from Sifnos and Syros. According to Sky TG24 the aircraft was a chartered Bell operated by Bellavia Aviation Services, carrying a couple in addition to the pilot. The cause is unknown; footage broadcast by local media shows the burning wreckage on an arid hillside on the island, which has about 2,600 permanent residents.

Latvia's State Security Service has asked prosecutors to charge a non-citizen resident who voiced support on TikTok for separating Daugavpils from Latvia.

The VDD says the person regularly posted content backing the city's separation and the creation of a new republic, spreading it across several accounts; the profile that first published those posts was removed at the service's request. The alleged offence falls under Section 81, paragraph 1 of Latvia's Criminal Law, covering the dissemination of materials containing public calls to act against the country's territorial integrity by means not provided for in the Constitution; the suspect was detained on 12 May and remains in custody. Around 159,000 people in Latvia hold "non-citizen" status, with residency and state protection but no voting rights.

From Wednesday the Victorian Court of Appeal will spend two days hearing Erin Patterson's application to challenge her convictions for three murders committed with poisonous mushrooms.

Patterson, 51, was sentenced to life imprisonment in September 2025 over the deaths of her parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson, both 70, and Heather Wilkinson, 66, after a beef Wellington lunch containing death cap mushrooms served in July 2023 in Leongatha, as well as for the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, who survived. The sentence sets a 33-year non-parole period, with a concurrent 25 years for the attempted murder; prosecutors call that "manifestly inadequate" and are appealing for life without parole or a longer non-parole term. The seven grounds filed by the defence concern, among other things, the admissibility of phone location data and social media messages, a five-day cross-examination, and the fact that jurors stayed in the same hotel as the lead detective and two members of the prosecution team; Patterson, who has always denied acting deliberately, will appear by video link from prison.

Four people were killed and seven injured on Sunday on the BR-163 highway at Bandeirantes, Brazil, in a five-vehicle collision followed by a fire.

According to the federal highway police and the civil police, a car crossed into the opposite lane and hit an articulated lorry, which then struck a petrol tanker, causing an explosion and a fire that also spread to roadside vegetation; three of the victims were travelling in the same car. The case was registered as negligent homicide and negligent injury while driving, and the road reopened overnight into Monday. On Monday afternoon a separate collision between two heavy vehicles, which caught fire, blocked the BR-364 at Itapuã do Oeste in Rondônia, where the highway police reported deaths at the scene.

Cagliari's 20-year-old striker Yael Trepy is in intensive care in Sassari after nearly drowning on Sunday in the pool of a villa on the Costa Smeralda.

According to accounts in the press the accident happened around 6 pm on Sunday in Porto Cervo: the player, who reportedly cannot swim, is said to have ended up in the deeper part of the pool; he was intubated and airlifted to the Santissima Annunziata hospital. A chest CT scan showed large amounts of fluid in his lungs and doctors are keeping him in an induced coma under constant monitoring. The club, which confirms he is in intensive care, says it is in contact with the hospital and the family; Trepy, who is French, made his Serie A debut last season and started on Friday in the Italian Cup match against Arezzo.

A 42-year-old hiker was found dead overnight on Piz Starlex in South Tyrol; rescuers believe he was struck by lightning while descending.

The man, a local resident, last made phone contact around 1pm from the 3,075-metre summit above Taufers in the Münstertal valley; Adnkronos reports a storm was approaching at that moment. When he had not returned shortly after 10pm, the provincial emergency centre launched a search, and the body was located at 11.44pm using a drone in rough terrain at about 2,600 metres near trail number 4. Around 40 rescuers took part, from the Taufers and Prad alpine rescue teams, the Guardia di Finanza in Schlanders and the volunteer fire brigade.

Pennsylvania's attorney general on Monday charged fourteen people, thirteen of them current or former Penn State students, over a cocaine trafficking operation centred on two off-campus fraternity houses.

According to Attorney General Dave Sunday, between 2023 and 2024 large quantities of cocaine were brought from Philadelphia and New York to State College, then cut and packaged at the Delta Upsilon and Sigma Chi fraternity houses and sold mainly to other students; investigators name Agostino Abbatiello, 24, and Thomas Robinson, 23, as the ringleaders. Sunday says that for some pledges cutting and bagging the drug was part of their initiation, and that the fourteenth defendant, Paul Robinson, 59, the father of a student, hid drugs and cash in a safe and obstructed the investigation. All the accused were arraigned on Monday morning except Abbatiello, for whom an arrest warrant was issued; the university has placed Delta Upsilon on interim suspension and says Sigma Chi is not a recognised organisation.

Paraguayan authorities seized and handed over to Brazil a luxury jet linked to a Brazilian former banker held on fraud charges, according to Brazilian media reports.

The available material is limited to the two outlets' headlines: one reports the aircraft's seizure in Paraguay citing the Brazilian press, the other its handover to Brazil. The banker's name, the date of the operation and the aircraft's value are not given, and it is unclear which judicial case it relates to.

A US tourist died after being struck by lightning on Sunday while in an off-limits area of Mount Etna, in Sicily.

Sources give his age as either 29 or 30; rescuers found him in cardiac arrest around 8 p.m. local time — according to firefighters in the Valle del Bove, closed to the public — and he was declared dead on arrival at Cannizzaro hospital in Catania. The volcano is in a phase of intense activity: authorities have widened access restrictions, and Italy's civil protection agency warns that volcanic activity combined with sudden weather changes at altitude makes conditions hazardous. Ash has caused hundreds of cancellations at Catania airport over more than ten days, with limits on arrivals until Tuesday afternoon; Etna draws about 1.5 million visitors a year.

Trustees are opposing any use of the family trust by Nick Reiner, accused of killing his parents, to pay for his defence, citing California's "slayer statute".

Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Singer Reiner, 70, were found stabbed to death on December 14, 2025 at their home in Brentwood, Los Angeles; their 32-year-old son was arrested hours later, indicted by a grand jury on July 20 and has pleaded not guilty. The trust is valued at between $1.5 million and $1.63 million depending on the source, with an age-30 share put at between $558,000 and $585,000; a lawyer handling the defendant's probate interests said $200,000 has already been spent. Judge Ruben Garcia issued no ruling and set a new hearing for October 23; the charges carry special-circumstance allegations of multiple murder and lying in wait, which CBC reports could open the door to the death penalty, a decision prosecutors have not yet made.

A 33-centimetre maintenance light was left inside the wing of a Qantas Airbus A380 for two days, including a Sydney-Dallas round trip.

According to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's final report, the light was left behind after work on the air conditioning system in Sydney on 7 January; the aircraft flew to Dallas-Fort Worth and back before staff noticed it was missing. The ATSB attributes the case to a breakdown in tool accountability processes and notes that foreign objects pose a significant risk, although the wing was not damaged. Qantas says it has strengthened its procedures, adding a mandatory pre-clearance check, after a similar case in December 2023 when a 1.25-metre tool was left in an engine.

The court of first instance in Marrakech sentenced Soukaina Janah, known as "Soukaina Glamour", to ten months in prison, a 500-dirham fine and a three-year ban from appearing on social media.

According to local media cited by the sources, the ruling was handed down on Monday and is final; the fine is worth about 45 euros. Janah had been detained the previous Wednesday at Casablanca's Mohammed V international airport as she was about to leave Morocco on an international flight, after security services detected the circulation on one of her digital platforms of videos deemed contrary to public decency. It is not her first conviction: in February 2020 the same court sentenced her to two years in prison as part of a case involving a network that spread images and audio recordings of artists and public figures without their consent.

Workers on a renovation job found 49 gold bars and hundreds of gold coins inside a cellar wall in Dendermonde, Belgium, worth an estimated €9 million.

The gold was in a bag inside the wall, uncovered while digging to lay pipes; the workers noticed after a drill bit got stuck in one of the bars. Police secured the find and are investigating only whether it is linked to criminal activity: the building belongs to the social services organisation CAW Oost-Vlaanderen and previously belonged to the Van Assche family. A week after the discovery, claims are arriving from around the world, including from someone who says he hid the gold in a past life; police chief Patrick Feys stresses that ownership is a civil matter and refers claimants to notaries and lawyers. Under Belgian law anyone claiming ownership has five years to prove it, failing which the find is split between the finders and the owner of the property.

In Neuenburg am Rhein, Baden-Württemberg, four passers-by who had formed a human chain to save a 58-year-old caught in a whirlpool were themselves dragged by the current.

According to police the man, in difficulty while swimming in the Rhine on Saturday, repeatedly risked going under; some of the improvised rescuers freed themselves, the others were pulled out by the fire brigade, which deployed three vehicles and a boat alongside two ambulances, an emergency doctor and a helicopter. All five were exhausted but unhurt. Police advise calling the emergency number first and only then helping without putting oneself at risk; according to the DLRG lifesaving association about 400 people drown in Germany each year.

A holidaymaker found an urn containing human ashes, marked with the name of a German crematorium, on the beach at Marina di Chieuti in Puglia; the carabinieri seized it.

According to authorities cited by both outlets, the ashes are those of an 80-year-old Italian man who had lived in Germany for a long time and was cremated there. The woman found the urn on Sunday on a quiet stretch of shore and alerted a beach bar 400 metres away; its operator contacted mayor Diego Iacono, who called the carabinieri. Investigators are weighing two scenarios: a sea burial in the Adriatic whose urn was carried ashore by currents, or deliberate abandonment on the beach; the mayor did not say where in Germany the cremation took place.

At the SADC summit in Durban, South Africa's president called for joint regional action on migration after protests that led more than 176,000 foreign nationals to leave the country.

According to an AFP tally based on figures from the African governments involved, more than 176,000 people have left in recent weeks — some of their own accord, others deported or repatriated through state schemes — after weeks of protests by groups demanding undocumented foreign nationals leave by 30 June; most were citizens of Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. South African police say at least four migrants were killed in the violence, while some foreign governments put the toll higher; Ghana and Nigeria have criticised the handling of the protests. About 300 demonstrators marched to the summit venue on Monday; South Africa, which took over SADC's rotating chair, is now calling for an Africa-wide conference on migration.

More than two dozen Texas families, represented by the ACLU and other groups, asked the Supreme Court to strike down the law requiring the Ten Commandments in public classrooms.

The petition seeks to overturn an April ruling in which the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law 9-8; the measure, signed by Governor Greg Abbott, took effect last September. It requires display of a state-selected version drawn from the King James Bible, but only where posters are donated; the families' lawyers argue it breaches First Amendment church-state separation, while the appeals court wrote that no child is made to recite or affirm the Commandments. Similar laws passed in Louisiana in 2024, then Arkansas and Alabama.

August 15 marked five years since the fall of Kabul: according to UNESCO, more than 2.2 million Afghan girls remain shut out of secondary school.

Since 2021 the Taliban have issued hundreds of decrees and directives, many of them aimed at women and girls according to UN monitoring: a ban on schooling beyond sixth grade (March 2022), expulsion from universities (December 2022), closure of medical and midwifery institutes (December 2024) and of beauty salons (July 2023, with an estimated 60,000 jobs lost). The UN human rights office reports that in January the reduced salaries paid to women civil servants also stopped, with their employment formally terminated; UN experts and several governments use the term "gender apartheid". Taliban officials repeat that women's rights are protected under sharia; spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond to Radio Azadi's requests for comment.

The president of the autonomous city of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, gave the Spanish government thirty days to resolve the migration crisis, threatening to turn to the country's highest courts.

Vivas, a Popular Party politician who has led the enclave for 25 years, on Monday denounced Madrid's "almost absolute passivity" after the mass entry of migrants from Morocco in late July, put by RFI at around 70,000 people in a city of 85,000 residents. Estimates of how many migrants remain diverge: about 5,000 according to the central government, between 8,000 and 12,000 according to Ceuta's government, including some 1,500 unaccompanied minors. The Sánchez government announced the immediate activation of 1,500 new reception places in four temporary centres; Vivas opposes using the port and city-centre buildings and implicitly accused the executive of wanting to cede the enclave's sovereignty to Morocco, a claim not confirmed by other sources.

Myanmar's foreign ministry says it has verified 308,797 displaced people in camps in Bangladesh as former residents of Rakhine State, but ties repatriation to improved security there.

According to the ministry statement, the verification covers 828,824 names submitted by Dhaka as of 31 July 2026: 113,507 people could not be confirmed and 4,241 are accused by Myanmar authorities of involvement in terrorist activities. The military-backed government says repatriation is strictly a bilateral matter with Bangladesh and notes that the 2018 and 2019 arrangements produced no returnees; the army is fighting the Arakan Army in Rakhine State. The UN estimates more than 700,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in 2017 after a crackdown by Myanmar security forces; Myanmar has also agreed to take back 5,000 asylum seekers from Malaysia, which said the process would not go ahead if lives were at risk.

Italy's interior ministry is demanding some form of compensation from Germany before negotiating the return of asylum seekers Berlin wants to transfer, citing landings by German NGO rescue ships.

According to Italian interior ministry figures, since October 2022 German organisations' ships have landed about 22,500 of the 42,300 migrants brought to Italy by NGO vessels, plus a further 4,500 carried by groups from other European countries sailing under the German flag; Italian NGOs landed about 4,700 and Spanish ones just over 5,600 through July 2026. The newspaper Domani notes that such compensation is not among the forms of solidarity foreseen by the new EU asylum and migration regulation, in force since 12 June 2026 in place of Dublin III; Eurostat data show Italy received 24,000 transfer requests from other EU states in 2025. Berlin plans to send back three applicants by midweek and Roman sources have signalled they would be returned straight from the arrival airport, while ministers Piantedosi and Dobrindt seek an agreement and checks on ships and flights from Spain continue, pending an Italian foreign intelligence assessment on arrivals in Ceuta.

Iran's parliament approved on 16 August the outline of a bill setting six months to two years in prison for interviews with US or Israeli media outlets.

The measure passed with 183 votes in the 290-seat assembly and also covers sending photos, videos, audio or data to foreign outlets; contact with other foreign media would require prior notice to the Intelligence Ministry, which along with the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence arm would investigate violations. Other approved provisions set five to ten years in prison for organisers of courses deemed incompatible with Iranian culture, six months to two years for unauthorised academic collaboration with foreign institutions, and a lifetime ban on directing films, music or books judged contrary to Islamic culture; a single source also reports penalties of up to thirty years for political initiatives directed by foreign intelligence services. The bill still has to be voted on article by article and cleared by the Guardian Council; in August 2026 photojournalist Yalda Moaiery was sentenced to 15 years, partly over interviews and photos supplied to organisations linked to the United States and Israel.

Starting tomorrow, the cemetery in Ceuta will bury the first 35 bodies of the 83 victims recorded on the Spanish side of the 30 July swimming crossing.

Most of the bodies have gone unclaimed: only three families have requested repatriation, and the other headstones will carry a number. According to NGOs, counting the Moroccan side as well, the crossing's victims number more than 140. Il Manifesto also reports 18 bodies recovered in the Mediterranean in a single day and blames the European Union's deterrence and externalisation policies for the deaths, while rescue work is largely left to non-governmental organisations.

A planning document published Friday shows ICE intends to subsidise liability insurance for state and local officers deputised to carry out immigration arrests.

Officers would buy coverage of up to $500,000 in personal liability, which typically pays legal fees, settlements and judgments, and would be reimbursed up to $250 a year, roughly the expected cost of the policy; a contractor would hire the insurance vendor and process reimbursements. Nearly 1,600 agencies in 32 states take part in the task force model created under section 287(g), and arrests through such programmes rose from an average of 250 a month in 2024 to about 3,000 a month in the first two months of 2026. David Bier of the Cato Institute argues the plan further shields officers from personal accountability; ICE did not comment and has asked industry for feedback by Thursday, while the timeline and cost remain unclear.

The FBI receives more than 5,000 reports a year of missing or murdered Indigenous women in the United States, but the real figure remains unknown because complete data is lacking.

In early April 2026 the FBI launched its fourth Operation Not Forgotten campaign, focused on unsolved violence cases in Native territories, with attention to women and children. According to the Urban Indian Health Institute, in Washington state Native people are under 2% of residents but 5% of unsolved cases; a Wyoming report counts 710 Indigenous people who went missing between 2011 and 2020, 85% of them minors. In Canada, between 2009 and 2021, the homicide rate for First Nations, Métis and Inuit women and girls is estimated at six times that of the rest of the population; documentary maker Sabrina Van Tassel argues these cases receive far less media attention than those with white victims.

A petition with more than 33,000 signatures asks Prime Minister Andy Burnham for a public inquiry into the press's role in the death of Jason Arday, found dead in London on Friday.

Arday, 41, appointed a Cambridge sociology professor in 2023 and described as the university's youngest-ever black professor, resigned on 5 August after plagiarism allegations raised in July by academic Nathan Cofnas, which he disputed; police are not treating the death as suspicious. Vigils were held on Monday in Cambridge and at Trafalgar Square, while a fundraiser for his family passed £146,000; signature counts cited by sources range from 31,000 to more than 33,000. Chancellor Chris Smith condemned what he called a racist feeding frenzy, and the university, which had opened an investigation into how the appointment was made, is itself under pressure over its handling of the case.

The UK government will scrap the time restrictions on disabled people's free bus passes in England from 1 April 2027, backed by £60m in funding.

The pass is currently valid on weekdays only between 9.30am and 11pm, with some councils paying for free travel outside those hours; the government says about a million people could benefit from the change, which must be approved by parliament. Of the £60m, £40m comes from the Department for Work and Pensions and £20m from the Department for Transport; government sources say the funding has no set end date. Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who introduced the measure as mayor of Greater Manchester, presents it as part of his cost-of-living package, while a Conservative spokesman argues it is merely a shuffling of existing departmental budgets.

A Massachusetts anti-hunger advocate has begun an open-ended fast to protest cuts to the SNAP food assistance programme.

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, more than 5.3 million people have lost SNAP benefits since the sweeping changes made by Donald Trump's 2025 tax and spending law; in Massachusetts enrolment is down by nearly 182,000 people, including almost 65,000 children. Wills-O'Gilvie, who directs the Springfield Food Policy Council and the group Gardening the Community and was appointed last year by Healey to a state anti-hunger task force, is consuming only water, electrolytes and glucose pills and says people are losing benefits because they cannot reach caseworkers. The state agency reports a 9% rise in daily calls, with 47% unable to connect against about 37% before, and says it has hired 118 new caseworkers since the start of the year.

The NGO Emergency's ship Life Support rescued 50 migrants in international waters of the Libyan SAR zone on Monday morning; seven people on the wooden boat had died during the crossing.

According to the NGO, the survivors are 45 men and 5 women, including 29 unaccompanied minors, who left Zuwara at dawn on August 16 and come from Somalia and Egypt. Nine people had been pulled from the hold and carried onto the deck by other passengers: seven could not be saved, two are in critical condition from suffocation, and the crew requested an urgent medical evacuation. The mission head says a Libyan patrol boat stayed to watch the operation; Italian authorities assigned the port of Bari.

Ghana has taken the lead in demanding formal apologies, debt relief and compensation from the countries and institutions that profited from transatlantic slavery.

In March the UN passed a Ghana-tabled resolution describing slavery as "the greatest crime against humanity"; the United States voted against and every European nation abstained. A summit in Accra in June with delegates from around 80 countries concluded that recompense was long overdue; Foreign Minister Samuel Okuzeto Ablakwa is calling for educational grants, venture capital for young African entrepreneurs and health research, as well as debt cancellation. The UK continues to reject paying reparations; in July the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, visited Cape Coast Castle, one of the British-run coastal forts where enslaved people were held.

About 300 anti-migrant protesters marched near the Durban conference centre hosting the SADC summit, demanding that regional leaders take back their own citizens.

The march, organised by the "March and March" movement, drew far fewer people than expected and took place under a heavy security presence, with mounted police, motorcycles, drones and helicopters. Estimates from recent weeks say about 176,000 foreign nationals, mostly from Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique, have returned home after months of tensions over irregular immigration. The issue, initially not on the agenda, became central to the talks: South Africa, which took over the rotating SADC chair, has called for a pan-African conference on migration.

Moroccan authorities detained at least 111 people, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, around Fnideq, where police used tear gas to disperse groups gathered near the border.

The detentions come roughly two weeks after some 78,000 migrants reached the Spanish enclave by sea within a matter of hours; according to the city's mayor about 100 people died and the vast majority of those who arrived have since returned to Morocco. Morocco and Spain have deployed thousands of security personnel, drones, boats and barriers along the border; concern over renewed mass arrivals has also fuelled tensions among European countries.

More than ten million civilian-owned guns circulate in Thailand, four million of them unlicensed, with gun deaths estimated at between 2,000 and 3,000 a year.

Three days after a school shooting in which a 14-year-old killed eight people before shooting himself, using a gun legally owned by his grandfather, a 71-year-old former politician in the same province, Chalong Riewrang, fired at the car of local administration chief Thongchai Yenprasert, who later died of his wounds; Chalong says he opened fire because the driver had also drawn a gun, while police say the two guns found in the car were not in a state to be fired. Thai police keep no tally of their own for gun deaths; in Britain, with a similar population, the figure is under 50 a year. Buying a gun requires successive permits, but the possession permit is valid for the holder's lifetime and there is no mental health screening or check on how weapons are stored.

Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport has dropped plans for wudu stations after Texas Governor Greg Abbott threatened to revoke state funding for the hub.

Abbott ordered a review of state grants to DFW and to Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport, where ablution facilities and a prayer room already exist, and wrote to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the FAA seeking federal scrutiny, arguing the facilities single out one religious group in breach of the First Amendment and the Texas constitution. The airport said it accelerated its review because of "elevated public interest" and concluded the project would not deliver the anticipated operational benefits. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called it an anti-Muslim political stunt and noted the washing stations would have been open to anyone; rights advocates say religious accommodations at publicly owned facilities do not violate the law.

South Korea's Coast Guard said 31 Chinese nationals have been apprehended since September 2019 after arriving by sea in Taean County, on the Yellow Sea.

The cases involve seven separate incidents; the Coast Guard says 25 of the 31 had previously stayed or worked in the country and had been deported for immigration violations, then tried to return by sea for lack of legal channels. The most recent case was on 25 May, when Chinese dissident Dong Guangping, 68, was intercepted off the Gyeokryeolbi Islands; in an incident last year eight people crossed the Yellow Sea in a 4.3-metre boat and received suspended sentences. Illegal entry carries up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 30 million won ($21,200), and authorities offer rewards of up to 10 million won for useful tips.

Women's Minister Judith Marín told a Senate committee that Chile's government is not stating a position today on the bill to regulate altruistic surrogacy.

The bill, a parliamentary initiative still in its first constitutional stage, would set out who may use the practice, the requirements for the gestating woman, the content of the agreement between the parties and the obligations of health centres, and rules out payment. Marín said the arguments for regulating it must be examined in depth and that Chile should not remove protections already in the Civil Code, citing articles 183 and 2450 under which the human body and filiation cannot be the object of a contract. She also cited the July 2025 report by UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls Reem Alsalem, which concluded the practice exploits women and children, stressing this was not the government's own opinion.

For a second consecutive day, street vendors from Mexico City's Alameda Central blocked the junction of Avenida Juárez and Eje Central to protest the city government's new trading rules.

The city's Interior Secretariat says it has offered seven pitches to the Mazahua traders' organisation and five to the Margarita García group, both of which are asking for thirty each; it says more than 190 vendors used to set up in the area, cut to 70 the previous day. The new rules allow trading from Thursday to Sunday with three compulsory rest days; the park was later left clear of stalls, while vendors say they have been offered no relocation alternative.

Nine years after the attacks of 17 August 2017, Barcelona commemorated the 16 victims with a ceremony in Plaça Sant Jaume, moved there because of works on the Ramblas.

As in previous years, injured survivors and relatives of the dead were placed in the front row; the ceremony, hosted by writer Fatima Saheb, ended with a minute of silence, a piece of music and the reading of a poem. In the same square the pro-independence platform "17-A Exigim responsabilitats" demanded clarity on alleged links between Spain's intelligence service and the imam of Ripoll, Abdelbaki Es Satty, and on any state responsibility. Afterwards there were moments of tension between Vox lawmaker Joan Garriga and protesters, with Catalan police stepping in to escort him out.

A study by the German insurers' association presented in Berlin on Monday finds that 55% of drivers say they have to "let off steam immediately" when other road users annoy them.

Compared with the survey three years earlier, the share admitting to tailgating vehicles they consider too slow rises from 36% to 47%, while among cyclists 43% say they sometimes force their right of way and 48% admit overtaking cars on the left or weaving through traffic, up by 15 and 14 points respectively according to the study. Some 58% of respondents feel safe on German roads (56% three years ago) and 74% support a zero-alcohol limit for all drivers, against 68% before. One driver in four occasionally writes messages at the wheel and among 18-to-35-year-olds 63% use their phone while driving; researcher Kirstin Zeidler links the increase to the harsh tone online and to smartphone use.

A 55.6-metre statue of Our Lady of Mercy, the tallest in Europe, was unveiled on 15 August at Konotopie, a village in central Poland.

The concrete monument includes a 15-metre crown-shaped pedestal, took 18 months to build to a design by sculptor Adam Jakub Matejkowski, and reportedly cost around 100 million zloty (€23.2 million), paid for by Roman and Grażyna Karkosik. Former president Lech Wałęsa attended the consecration, led by Krzysztof Wętkowski, bishop of Włocławek; the village, whose population is given as between 130 and 150 depending on the source, hopes to become a pilgrimage site. It remains shorter than the world's tallest Marian monument, the Tower of Peace in Batangas City, the Philippines, which reaches 98 metres including its base.

About 150 corgis from nine countries gathered on Saturday at Vilnius's Vingis Park for speed races, barking contests and a costume parade.

It was the first edition with dogs arriving from the United States, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom, alongside entrants from Poland and neighbouring countries. Organiser Edvinas Miškas says 75 of the dogs were first-timers and six had taken part in all five editions. The programme also included a beginners' agility area and one-on-one races.

One week after the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck western Colombia, the government counts 289 dead, 4,187 injured and 143 missing, as search efforts give way to reconstruction.

The August 10 quake, centred on San José del Palmar, affected 15 of the country's 32 provinces: 26,945 homes destroyed and 127,557 damaged, plus 285 health facilities and 2,838 school buildings; rescuers say 354 people were saved, and at some buildings in Cali the search has been suspended. Figures on the missing diverge: the government lists 143, while the citizen-run platform Colombia Te Busca counts more than 3,000. In Venezuela the official toll from the June 24 double earthquake has risen to 6,438 dead, 137 more than a week earlier, with 335 homes handed over out of 59,109 dwellings inspected.

The official death toll from the two earthquakes that struck Venezuela's coast on 24 June has risen to 6,438, up from 6,301 reported last week.

The new figure was announced on Monday by parliament speaker Jorge Rodríguez; nearly two months on, relatives and rescuers are still searching the rubble for the missing. The two quakes, of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5, brought down at least 190 buildings and affected at least 60,000 homes, 24,000 of them left uninhabitable. Thousands remain in temporary camps: heavy rain destroyed some tents in Caracas over the weekend, and of the 4,000 homes promised by interim President Delcy Rodríguez's government by the end of the year, 335 have been delivered.

Saturday morning's magnitude 7.7 quake in eastern Indonesia killed 53 people and injured more than a hundred; nearly 13,000 displaced people are waiting for aid.

Injury figures differ between sources: more than a hundred according to some, 135 according to others, which also report 5,000 evacuated. Displaced people have camped in schools, police stations and government offices, many left outdoors; rescue officials say no one is reported missing. The Indonesian air force announced 13 tonnes of aid airlifted by two Hercules and a Boeing, while further quakes of magnitude 5.6 and 5.7 were recorded around Flores and east of Labuan Bajo, with no tsunami warning issued. The disaster coincided with Independence Day celebrations.

The water level of Lake Powell, the second-largest US reservoir, has fallen to a record low, a week after Lake Mead hit its own historic low.

According to Bureau of Reclamation data the level dropped on Saturday to 3,519.91 feet (1,072.9 metres), just below the April 2023 record and more than 6 metres lower than at the start of the year; AFP instead reports 3,519.80 feet on Sunday. The reservoir is now about 9 metres above the level at which turbines would stop generating hydroelectric power, and federal officials warned in April that a "major intervention" would be needed to avoid reaching that threshold by year's end. The Colorado River supplies more than 40 million people across seven states: in July the federal agency proposed a ten-year plan with water cuts of up to 3.7 billion cubic metres a year through 2036 for California, Arizona and Nevada, and Arizona has already set aside funds for possible litigation.

Lala battered Hawaii without making landfall, sweeping about 100 homes off their foundations on the Big Island and leaving more than 200,000 customers without power.

Governor Josh Green said no one is believed to have died in the homes that washed away and that it is unclear whether a fatal car crash on Saturday in the South Point area was storm related; at least three hospitals were running on generators and some roads and small bridges were damaged. Downgraded to a tropical storm on Sunday, the system dropped nearly a metre of rain in places and produced gusts of up to 161 km/h on Mauna Kea; Honolulu's fire department logged more than 600 weather-related responses, including 147 for downed trees. US forecasters expect Lala could become a hurricane again this week as it moves west of the island chain.

A landslide triggered by torrential rain hit a residential building in Geoje, southern South Korea, killing one person and injuring several others.

Geoje recorded 124.5 mm of rain in one hour, the highest since city records began in 1972, and 805.7 mm between Saturday and 8am Monday, while Tongyeong received 671.9 mm. Sources differ on the number of injured, given as between two and four; about 390 people were evacuated, 3,580 homes lost power and twelve schools and kindergartens were flooded. The same weather has hit other parts of East Asia: in Manila the government suspended public work and asked schools to move online after weeks of monsoon rain that civil defence says has killed at least 23 people and affected 5 million.

Sunday's rains flooded districts in southern Lima and President Keiko Fujimori announced a state of emergency for several districts and regions.

In Villa El Salvador, Villa María del Triunfo, San Juan de Miraflores and Chorrillos, water mixed with sewage reached 1.20 metres in places; authorities' first counts report more than 300 people affected, over 50 families displaced and 62 homes damaged, with no deaths. In-person classes were suspended and at least 15 schools are in critical condition; the emergency also covers Tumbes, Piura, Lambayeque, La Libertad, Áncash, Ica, Moquegua and Arequipa. The Enfen body forecasts a strong to extraordinary El Niño through February or March; Economy Minister Elmer Cuba, who had played down the flooding, later apologised.

The 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification opened Monday in Ulaanbaatar and runs until 28 August.

The convention, signed at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit alongside those on climate and biodiversity, commits its 197 parties to sustainable land management; according to UN figures about 40% of land, and a quarter of arable land, is now degraded. This session gives a central role to rangelands and pastoralism, presented as a tool for preserving soils. Specialists quoted by the sources point to effects already visible in Latin America: less water and food available, greater fire risk and population displacement, compounded by phenomena such as El Niño.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu was met with jeers on Monday in Le Porge, in the Gironde, where he announced €12 million for the burned areas.

The late-July fire southwest of Bordeaux burned through 42,000 hectares; in Le Porge, a village of 3,500 people, 183 homes were destroyed. Lecornu said the money, earmarked for the Gironde and the Landes, is available immediately for rehousing and reconstruction, promised building permits within a month and the cancellation of social contributions for the roughly 13,000 affected businesses, with three months of support. A residents' collective with 750 members is preparing a lawsuit against the state, which it accuses of underinvesting in water-bombing aircraft and fire prevention; the prime minister promised "full transparency" about the emergency response and warned against "conspiracy theories" circulating on social media.

The fire in the High Fens nature reserve, the largest ever recorded in Belgium, halted a short distance from the German border with help from rain, but has not been declared contained.

The blaze broke out on Friday from causes still unknown, into which local prosecutors have opened an investigation, and has burned peatland and pine forest over an area put at between 2,700 and 3,000 hectares, more than double the 2011 fire. About 600 residents were evacuated in Waimes, Sourbrodt and Butgenbach, while in the German town of Monschau a few dozen people were moved out; so far no casualties or damaged homes have been reported. Around 500 firefighters are deployed, with helicopters and water bombers brought in through the EU civil protection mechanism from the Czech Republic, Sweden and the Netherlands; the Belgian weather agency forecasts 5 to 9 millimetres of rain over the area.

Two people died in two fires that broke out almost simultaneously on Sunday afternoon on the island of Salamina, west of Athens, where hundreds of residents and visitors were evacuated by sea.

The first fire was reported at 14:40 local time in the Peristeria area, where the two bodies were found — according to the mayor those of a couple; the second began about twenty minutes later in the eastern area of Selinia, with strong winds speeding its spread. Evacuation figures differ across sources, from about 500 to more than 600 people; at least ten suffered burns or smoke inhalation symptoms and five were taken to a local health facility. By Monday both fires were reported under control, with around 260 firefighters still working on remaining hotspots; the causes are not known.

Politicians from Germany's Christian Democratic bloc reject a proposal by SPD-led ministries to write climate adaptation and heat protection into the constitution as a joint federal-state task.

Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) told the dpa agency that the proposal runs directly counter to the goal of cutting red tape, since whoever builds a school or a hospital is already responsible for heat protection. Nabu, Deutsche Umwelthilfe and Greenpeace back the constitutional change, while DGB trade union deputy head Stefan Körzell called for a heat summit involving social partners and civil society. After the heatwave and drought the national weather service forecasts rain, thunderstorms and local downpours with highs falling to 20-26 degrees; 1,800 people were moved to safety from a forest fire in Hürtgenwald, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lake Constance is at its lowest level this year, and the farmers' association fears crop losses up to total failures.

The southwest monsoon will bring more rain to Luzon and the Visayas on Tuesday, August 18, after flash floods hit Metro Manila on Monday.

The Pagasa weather bureau forecasts 100-200 millimetres of rain on Tuesday for Benguet, La Union, Pangasinan, Zambales, Bataan, Cavite, Batangas and Occidental Mindoro, and 50-100 millimetres for Metro Manila and ten other provinces. The Marikina River, which reached 16.9 metres on Monday (second alarm, with preemptive evacuation advised), was back to 14.8 metres at 5:58 am Tuesday; La Mesa Dam stood at 79.69 metres, above its 79.50 critical level but below spilling level. A low pressure area 1,115 kilometres east of northern Luzon has a high chance of becoming a tropical depression within 24 hours, to be named Neneng, and is projected to head for Taiwan.

Record heat and drought led the Champagne Committee to bring the official start of the harvest forward to 12 August, the earliest since records began in the early twentieth century.

In 2025 picking started on 20 August; this year the official dates are staggered between 8 and 22 August depending on village and grape variety, with waivers allowing some plots in the Aube to start on 6 August. The Champagne Committee says about 30% of this year's crop was lost to spring frost and some bunches weigh up to 30% less because of drought; agroclimatologist Serge Zaka says French harvest dates have moved forward by roughly 21 days over fifty years. Producers are drawing on reserve wines to offset lower yields, while houses such as Taittinger and Pommery have invested in southern England; winemaker Denis Velut expects champagne to become heavier and higher in alcohol.

US researcher Zeke Hausfather says in an interview that the El Niño phenomenon will bring a large jump in global temperatures, breaking existing records.

Hausfather also says the phenomenon will offer a preview of the future climate. In Brazil, according to business press, power utilities are preparing for a "Super El Niño" and weighing long-term measures against extreme weather. The available material does not specify the timing or expected intensity of the event.

Italy's civil protection agency issued a yellow alert for storms and flooding risk across nearly all regions, as the anticyclone weakens and temperatures begin to fall.

According to forecasts cited by Repubblica, highs will return to around 35C during the week after weeks of anomalies of 5-6 degrees above average in some areas; Repubblica also reports that two people were killed by lightning on the same day. iLMeteo forecaster Federico Brescia expects showers moving south on Tuesday 18 and, from Thursday 20 August, a more organised system arriving from the north-west, with possible severe thunderstorms and hail and a sharper temperature drop in the north and along the Tyrrhenian regions.

After a meeting at the municipal operations centre in Popoli Terme on the fires burning on the Morrone, Marsilio called for national assets to be sent and firebreaks to be built.

According to Marsilio, most of the fires currently burning in Abruzzo were deliberately set: this is his assessment, not an established judicial finding. The available material does not state how much land has burned, nor whether there have been injuries or evacuations.

Local authorities in Japan's Chiba prefecture are removing vehicles abandoned after the record rainfall that hit the area.

The two news organisations reporting the story do not say how many vehicles have been removed or which municipalities are involved. The available material indicates only that the operation follows the rain disaster.

Congo's national public health institute reports 2,325 deaths and 4,945 confirmed cases: the current outbreak has passed the 2018-2020 epidemic, until now the country's deadliest.

Declared on 15 May, it is the country's 17th outbreak and is caused by the Bundibugyo species, for which no vaccines or treatments are approved; 101 new cases were recorded in the previous 24 hours, and the toll has passed the 2,299 deaths of 2018-2020. The case fatality ratio has risen from about 20% in early June to 46%: according to the experts quoted, including a Médecins Sans Frontières staffer, this does not indicate a more aggressive virus but late detection and gaps in surveillance and access to care. Only West Africa's 2014-2016 outbreak was larger (28,616 cases and 11,310 deaths, per the WHO); in Uganda the outbreak was declared over last month with 20 cases and two deaths.

According to CDC data released Monday, US kindergarten vaccination coverage fell 0.1% in the 2025-2026 school year while exemptions rose to a record 4.2%.

Coverage ranges from 92% for the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine to 92.4% for MMR and polio, below the 95% threshold the CDC cites for containing outbreaks; exemptions rose from 3.6% to 4.2% (about 155,000 children), increasing in 41 states and Washington, D.C., with 24 states above 5%, and roughly 280,000 children lack documentation of the two-dose measles series. Rates vary widely by state, from 98.9% in West Virginia to 75.2% in Idaho, while 2,566 measles cases have been confirmed this year, the highest number since 1991. Last week President Trump signed an executive order calling for the childhood schedule to be cut to 11 immunizations and the MMR shot split into three separate visits; an analyst quoted in the material expects any resulting policy changes to be challenged in court.

A study led by Stanford University estimates that with 1.5C of warming, 22% of people over 60 will each year face at least a month of heat beyond what the body can tolerate.

The research, published in a Lancet-group journal, draws on recent experiments with people over 60, whereas the thresholds used until now came from young adults, who sweat more and have stronger hearts. Under 3C of warming, the model projects that in the worst-affected regions — South Asia and the Gulf — older people would face dangerous heat day and night for three consecutive months a year, with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Niger among the countries most at risk. The authors call for emissions cuts, heat plans that prioritise older people and wider access to air conditioning and cooling facilities, and warn the trend could drive internal displacement and migration.

AstraZeneca announced it is ending the phase 3 trial of volrustomig plus chemotherapy in lung cancer, after an independent committee judged a survival benefit unlikely.

The decision, disclosed by the company itself, follows a planned data review by the Independent Data Monitoring Committee, which compared the combination with an existing treatment; volrustomig trials continue in cervical cancer, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and mesothelioma. In the same announcement the group reported a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival with Enhertu in non-small cell lung cancer and results supporting Tagrisso combined with Orpathys; the shares rose as much as 2%. In July the company had already stopped a trial of the cardiovascular drug Wainua; lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death, accounting for about 23% of such deaths.

A team at Shenzhen University says it has developed a deep-learning model able to flag depression risk up to four years before symptoms appear.

The study, published this month in Science Advances, draws on data from the European Imagen project, which since 2007 has followed adolescents in France, Germany, Britain and Ireland with assessments at ages 16, 19 and 23 using MRI scans, blood tests and questionnaires. According to the authors, participants whose brains were less able to distinguish angry, happy and neutral faces, and who tended to read others as hostile, were significantly more likely to develop depressive and anxiety symptoms as adults. Lead researcher Lu Han describes it as a computational marker usable for early diagnosis and prevention; the available material contains no independent verification of the model.

Two Latin American outlets report research suggesting educational video games can reduce depressive symptoms in adolescents.

The available material reports only the general finding and does not say who conducted the study, how many adolescents took part, what method was used or where it was published. The two sources describe the result slightly differently: one refers to a possible effective solution against adolescent depression, the other to a reduction in depressive symptoms.

The Reggio Emilia health authority has diagnosed a dengue case in Castellarano in a person who had returned from an endemic area, now hospitalised, and activated the extraordinary disinfestation protocol.

The regional arbovirus plan calls for adulticide treatment of public areas at dawn for three consecutive days, door-to-door work in private areas with adulticides and larvicides and removal of larval breeding sites, plus larvicide treatment of public drains. The health authority says there are no other suspected cases and no health alert; dengue is transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito, not from person to person.

A Chile-led research team has mapped the genome of a plant that grows in Antarctica, presenting it as a step towards climate-resilient crops.

The available material does not name the species studied, the institutions involved or where the work was published. The link to agriculture remains, for now, a prospect stated by the researchers: no applications already tested on cultivated plants are described.

Astronomers have identified 22 arc-shaped gas clumps in the Helix Nebula's outer halo, showing stellar debris as it merges into the interstellar medium.

The Helix Nebula lies 650 light-years away in Aquarius and is the remnant of a sun-like star that became a red giant and then a white dwarf; the bright ring's outer edge spans 5.7 light-years. The finding, led by Yale's Pieter van Dokkum, came by chance while calibrating MOTHRA, an instrument at Chile's El Sauce Observatory that will eventually carry 1,140 telephoto lenses. Imad Pasha of the Dragonfly Focused Research Organization says the bow shocks change sharply with distance from the central star: large and sharply defined near the centre, smaller and more fragmented further out. Scientists estimate the Sun will exhaust its core hydrogen in about 5 billion years and follow a similar path.

New data from the Hubble Space Telescope show evidence of a dwarf galaxy merging with the young Milky Way in the earliest phases of its evolution.

According to NASA, which released the results, the finding extends knowledge of our galaxy's history 1.8 billion years farther back in time. The Milky Way grew to its current size in part by absorbing smaller galaxies; the study has been published in a scientific journal.

The Pentagon has released new material on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), including an infrared observation from 2024 made public on 8 May 2026.

The released imagery includes an object described as "football-shaped", captured in 2024 by an infrared sensor on a US military platform. Mike Gold, who served in 2022-2023 on NASA's independent UAP study team and now heads Redwire Space, says the agency is contributing archive material that was already publicly available. Readings diverge: one of the outlets in the group argues the documents weaken the claim that Washington is hiding evidence of extraterrestrial life.

A man and his 11-year-old son, on holiday on the New Jersey shore, pulled a fossilised megalodon tooth from a rock jetty.

The two outlets place the find at different points on the coast: Cape May in one account, Sea Isle City on 11 August in the other. Authentication is also credited to different bodies, the Cape May Whale Watch and Research Center in one case and the New Jersey State Museum in the other, where Dana Ehret described the tooth as in unusually good condition for New Jersey, which lacks sediments of the right age near the surface; the family was told it would be the sixth recorded on the state's beaches. Reported estimates for the species' extinction range from 3.58 to about 4 million years ago.

According to the specialist outlet The Information, Tesla is preparing to launch the Cybercab, its self-driving vehicle without a steering wheel, in August, starting with rides for employees.

The report originates with The Information and was picked up by Reuters and Valor Economico, both crediting that same source: no direct company confirmation appears in the available material. Starting with employee-only rides points to an internal trial rather than a service open to the public; no cities, fares or regulatory approvals are specified.

Cambodian painter Bou Meng, one of the very few prisoners to leave the Khmer Rouge detention centre S-21 alive, died on Friday at the age of 85.

Arrested in 1977 on accusations of spying for the United States, he was spared because he could paint and was put to work producing portraits of Pol Pot; his wife and two children died under the regime, which is estimated to have caused 1.7 million deaths between 1975 and 1979. More than 14,000 people passed through the centre, now the Tuol Sleng genocide museum, and almost all were later killed; Bou Meng testified in 2009 before the UN-backed tribunal against the prison's former commandant Duch, sentenced to 35 years in 2010 and to life imprisonment in 2012. Accounts of the cause of death differ: the tribunal cited age-related illness, the museum complications from a stroke suffered this year.

Publisher Olivier Nora announced on Monday 17 August the launch of Olivier Nora Éditions, which will put out between thirty and fifty titles a year starting in October 2026.

Editis, France's second-largest publishing group, takes a minority stake and provides distribution through its Interforum subsidiary plus commercial and administrative services; its main shareholder is Daniel Kretinsky. The first two titles, co-published with Plon, will be Bernard-Henri Lévy's "Mémoires provisoires" and Delphine Horvilleur's "Sermons sous les décombres". Nora headed Grasset for twenty-six years before being dismissed from the Hachette group imprint, whose main shareholder is Vincent Bolloré; sources date the dismissal differently (April or June 2026), and many authors protested, demanding a "conscience clause".

Russian promoter Say Agency has announced two concerts by U.S. rapper Ye at St. Petersburg's Gazprom Arena on October 10 and 11; tickets are already on sale.

The venue holds about 80,000 people; prices range from 9,000 rubles (about $105) to 160,000 rubles ($1,880) for VIP boxes, with floor tickets at 25,000 rubles. The Telegram channel Mash says the contract has already been signed and paid; Say Agency's chief executive called an error the clause, circulated online, allowing the artist to be replaced without refunds. Ye has never performed in Russia: in April he was barred from entering the United Kingdom over his antisemitic remarks, and several European shows were canceled.

The Sony Pictures film has passed two billion dollars in global box office, only the eighth title in cinema history to reach that mark.

Over the past weekend it took another 70 million dollars in the United States and Canada, reaching 785.8 million domestically; according to one outlet's account it is the second-best third weekend ever. Sources differ on how long it took to reach two billion, giving either 17 or about 18 days; only 'Avengers: Endgame' was faster, taking 11 days in 2019. It is the fourth solo film starring Tom Holland, alongside Zendaya, Sadie Sink and Mark Ruffalo, and follows 'Supergirl' and 'Masters of the Universe', which failed to recoup their production costs in theaters.

US actress Hayden Panettiere, known for the series "Heroes" and "Nashville", has died at 36; the news was confirmed by a representative to ABC News.

The cause of death has not been disclosed; according to sources cited by the media she died on Sunday, four days before her birthday — she was born on 21 August 1989. Her father, Skip Panettiere, described her in a statement as "an incredible light". Panettiere began as a child actor in soap operas, appeared in "Scream 4" and "Scream VI" and was twice nominated for a Golden Globe for "Nashville"; she recently published the memoir "This Is Me. A Reckoning". She leaves a daughter born in 2014 from her relationship with former boxer Wladimir Klitschko.

More than a thousand people attended the funeral service for Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler at Swansea Minster, in Wales, on Monday 17 August.

The singer, born Gaynor Hopkins in Skewen in 1951 and known for "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Holding Out for a Hero", died aged 75 on 8 July in a hospital in Faro, southern Portugal, after emergency surgery in May and a period in an induced coma. Her white coffin, covered in roses and lilies, was etched with a hand holding a microphone and a treble clef; the service, which was live-streamed, featured "If I Sing You a Love Song", "It's a Heartache" and a male voice choir rendition of "Total Eclipse of the Heart". When she fell ill she was about to begin a European tour in Malta marking 50 years since the release of "Lost in France".

Brendan O'Carroll, 70, has cancelled the recordings of the sitcom's 2026 Christmas and New Year specials after a CT scan found two fractures in his jaw.

In a statement the actor and writer says the operation is immediate and recovery will take a few months; the "Mrs Brown's Boys D'Panto?" shows planned this year in Dublin and Killarney are also postponed. He says he is working with MCD Productions to reschedule them for 2027 and has spoken to the BBC about bringing the series back on screen the same year.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer told Deadline that talks with Johnny Depp are under way for a sixth film in the series and that a screenplay is being written.

In 2022, during the defamation trial against his former wife Amber Heard, Depp said under oath that Disney had dropped him from the series and that he would not play Sparrow again. The franchise, which began in 2003, has grossed more than $4.5bn in total; the most recent instalment, released in 2017, took almost $800m. In November Depp opens in UK and US cinemas in "Ebenezer", directed by Ti West, playing Scrooge.

The world premiere of Elfriede Jelinek's play on financial crime, directed by Nicolas Stemann, closed on Sunday evening at the Salzburg Festival after nearly four hours.

According to Der Standard the show drew a standing ovation and the text is a kind of sequel to 2009's "Die Kontrakte des Kaufmanns", drawing on cases such as the René Benko affair and Bank Burgenland. The two available reviews, both from centre-left newspapers, judge the staging differently: the Süddeutsche describes it as a theatre happening "without fury".

The actors from Sam Mendes's four Beatles biopics were filmed recreating the Abbey Road album cover on the pedestrian crossing outside the London studios.

The video circulating on social media shows Harris Dickinson (John Lennon), Barry Keoghan (Ringo Starr), Paul Mescal (Paul McCartney) and Joseph Quinn (George Harrison) crossing the road in the same order as the original photograph, taken by Iain Macmillan on 8 August 1969. The project, announced by Mendes in February 2024 and distributed by Sony Pictures, comprises four separate films, each told from the perspective of one band member, due out in April 2028 with the approval of McCartney and Starr and the Lennon and Harrison estates. The cast also includes Saoirse Ronan as Linda McCartney, James Norton as Brian Epstein, Lucy Boynton as Jane Asher and Anna Sawai as Yoko Ono.

Animated film "Niu Lai", released in China on August 5 with no promotion, has passed 11.4 million yuan after going viral for its poor quality.

In its first ten days the film had taken 7,705 yuan (about $1,140), according to tracking site Maoyan; it runs 86 minutes and was made by a mother and son, Sun Lifang and Xin Yumeng, with no trailer or official posters. Many social media users cite it as proof of hand-made work rather than AI-generated content, and cinemas have added screenings to meet demand. A commentary in the state-owned Beijing News warned that cinemas risk losing viewers' trust if they lower their standards.

K-pop group Stray Kids reached number one on the Billboard 200 with their new EP 'This & That', their ninth chart-topping album.

According to the chart preview Billboard published on Sunday (U.S. time), the group now has the second-most number-one albums by a group in Billboard 200 history, behind the Beatles and tied with the Rolling Stones. 'This & That' is the band's 10th EP and contains eight tracks, all produced by its in-house team 3Racha, made up of members Bang Chan, Changbin and Han.

Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez have revealed, in a Vogue feature, details of the wedding held on 11 August in the living room of their home in Cascais, Portugal.

Only the couple's five children and the officiant attended the ceremony, which was kept private until the couple's own announcement; the outfits were by Gucci, the brand in whose store the two met ten years earlier, and the photographs are by Juergen Teller. According to the feature, Georgina Rodríguez wore a Chopard necklace from the Garden of Kalahari collection set with a 50-carat diamond, and immediately after the ceremony the couple received a blessing at the Fátima sanctuary. Rodríguez said she chose an intimate ceremony and announced that in the future they will hold a larger celebration with relatives and friends.

The prequel series to 'Friday the 13th', with Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees, arrives in October with eight 60-minute episodes.

Sources give different dates and platforms: 15 October on Peacock according to Variety, 16 October on Universal+ for Latin America according to El Comercio. Created and written by Brad Caleb Kane and produced by A24, the show covers Pamela Voorhees' life before the events of the 1980 original; the cast also includes William Catlett, Devin Kessler, Cameron Scoggins and Gwendolyn Sundstrom. In an interview Cardellini said the longer format leaves room for story and that some very gory scenes were shot with practical effects.

Queen Rania of Jordan released on Monday the first pictures of her twin granddaughters, Talia and Rania, born on 14 August, on Instagram.

The babies are the daughters of Princess Iman, 29, the second child of King Abdullah II, and Jameel Alexander Thermiotis, a Greek-Venezuelan businessman she married in March 2023; they have an older sister, Amina, born on 16 February 2025. The birth was announced on 14 August on the Royal Hashemite Court's website, though the family had not previously disclosed that Iman was expecting twins. Under Article 28 of Jordan's constitution the throne passes through the male line, so the princess's three daughters are not in the line of succession.

FIFA confirmed that its working relationship with chief operating officer Kevin Lamour ended on 17 August 2026, weeks after his public criticism of president Gianni Infantino.

In late July Lamour, at FIFA since November 2024 and the body's number three, wrote that staff had been "deceived" over the plan to create a roughly $20 billion company for FIFA's competitions, including the men's, women's and club World Cups, selling up to 20% to private investors, calling it "the project of one person". The plan was dropped on 1 August after opposition from several confederations; UEFA still threatens a boycott of FIFA tournaments. Secretary general Mattias Grafström told staff and Council members the two sides had agreed to part ways; the federation thanked Lamour for his two years of service and made no further comment. Infantino is seeking re-election in the March vote.

Human rights organisation FairSquare has filed a complaint with FIFA's governance committee arguing that Gianni Infantino has already served the three terms allowed under the body's statutes.

In 2022 the FIFA Council unanimously ruled that the 2016-2019 period, which began after Sepp Blatter's resignation, does not count as a term; FairSquare director Nicholas McGeehan says that reading breaches the rules and that the reasoning was never made public. The letter, drafted with former governance committee head Miguel Maduro, comes ahead of the congress set for Morocco on 18 March, where Infantino is expected to seek re-election for the 2027-31 cycle. UEFA, the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF have called for a review of his conduct after a proposed $20-billion subsidiary; FIFA did not respond to a request for comment.

The Scottish football association said it will not vote for Gianni Infantino's re-election as FIFA president, citing a lack of transparency and aligning itself with UEFA's position.

The move follows those of the English, Welsh and Republic of Ireland associations and stems from the later-abandoned plan for a FIFA Forward Enterprise company that would have managed the commercial and ticketing rights of all FIFA competitions, with 21% earmarked for a private investor; UEFA, Concacaf and the AFC accused Infantino of acting through "deception" in an open letter. The group FairSquare has written to FIFA's governance, audit and compliance committee asking that he be ruled ineligible, arguing a fourth term would breach the statutory limit of three terms and twelve years, circumvented in 2022 by discounting the 2016-2019 period. The Scottish association's president, Mike Mulraney, chairs FIFA's finance committee; nominations close on 18 November and the vote is due in early 2027.

Five Buss siblings voted to sell the family's remaining 17.8% stake in the Los Angeles Lakers to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger; Jeanie Buss is contesting the vote through her lawyer.

In a statement the family said it had decided to sell the remaining Buss Family Trust shares to the Iger group at the same $12.5 billion valuation Mark Walter agreed to last week, invoking a tag-along provision included in the June 2025 sale to Walter. According to a letter from lawyer Adam Streisand obtained by ESPN, a 2017 court ruling bars any sale without the approval of co-trustees Jeanie, Janie and Joey Buss, and the co-trustees are bound to keep at least 15% so that Jeanie remains controlling owner, a role set to run through 2030. If the sale goes through, Jeanie Buss would no longer hold the stake required to stay the team's governor; a spokesperson for Kushner and Iger declined to comment.

At the athletics Europeans in Birmingham and the swimming Europeans in Paris, both ending Sunday, Italian athletes won 65 medals in all, 23 of them gold.

In athletics Italy topped the medal table; in swimming it finished second behind Great Britain while winning more total medals than any other country. Athletics golds went to Nadia Battocletti in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres, Leonardo Fabbri in the shot put, Gianmarco Tamberi in the high jump, the men's 4x400 relay, Massimo Stano and Sofia Fiorini in the marathon race walk, Larissa Iapichino in the long jump and Dariya Derkach and Andy Díaz Hernández in the triple jump; Marcell Jacobs was injured in the 100 metres final. Il Post describes the championships as the season's main event, also with a view to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics; Italian federation president Stefano Mei called it "the strongest team ever".

LIV Golf has cancelled the team championship set for 27-30 August in Michigan and will decide the title this week in Indianapolis.

The final event, at The Club at Chatham Hills in Indianapolis, begins Thursday with a $20 million purse and $4 million to the winner; Michigan ticket holders will be refunded. Saudi Arabia's PIF, which sources say has invested more than $5 billion since 2022, decided this would be the last year of funding (sources give the decision as March or April). CEO Scott O'Neil says the tour will be rebuilt from 2027 with an unnamed lead investor and players as equity owners; Jon Rahm has already secured a third straight individual title, earning $6 million against $18 million in each of the previous two years.

Cameroon beat Malawi 3-0 in the final played in Morocco on 16 August, taking their first continental women's title after three lost finals.

Marie Ngah Manga headed the opener in the 21st minute and added the third, reaching five goals in the tournament, while Naomi Eto scored the second. Malawi were making their debut in the competition: ranked 153rd in the world, they entered after the tournament was expanded from 12 to 16 teams, while Cameroon, who had not qualified on the pitch, were invited on ranking. Both finalists, along with Morocco and Algeria, qualified for next year's Women's World Cup in Brazil; the tournament began on 26 July and Nigeria remain the record holders with ten titles.

Danish rider Jonas Vingegaard will not race again in 2026: his Visma-Lease a Bike team says he is still affected by the collarbone fracture sustained in a crash at the Tour de France.

The crash came on stage 15 of this year's Tour, when the 29-year-old's front wheel slid out on a tight bend coming off a roundabout; the injury required surgery and ended his bid for a third win in the French race. He will therefore also miss September's road world championships in Canada. Vingegaard said the start of his training has been delayed and that the focus is now on the 2027 season, whose goals he will discuss with the team in the coming weeks; he won the Giro d'Italia earlier this year.

The German team finished the European athletics championships in Birmingham with six golds, ten silvers and five bronzes, its best haul in 28 years.

Two years ago the German federation's team had its worst European showing, eleven medals (one gold, three silvers, seven bronzes). In Birmingham the winners included decathlete Leo Neugebauer, javelin thrower Julian Weber, steeplechasers Gesa Krause and Frederik Ruppert and marathon runner Amanal Petros, while Owen Ansah took gold in the 200 metres and bronze in the 100. Javelin thrower Julia Ulbricht, silver with 61.53 metres, said she funds herself after being dropped from the national squad following an injury: that throw puts her back within the selection standard.

The NBA says an ESPN report claiming its investigation found no proof the Los Angeles Clippers circumvented the salary cap for Kawhi Leonard contains "numerous and significant inaccuracies".

League spokesperson Mike Bass said the NBA declined to cooperate with the article and that the findings will be made clear once the investigation ends, without specifying which parts it disputes. The inquiry, opened in September after a report by journalist Pablo Torre, concerns a $28m endorsement deal with Aspiration, a green-banking firm partly funded by owner Steve Ballmer that later went bankrupt; the club and Ballmer deny wrongdoing and say introducing players to team partners is ordinary practice. A deal agreed in principle for the Toronto Raptors to re-sign Leonard is on hold pending the outcome; training camps open on 29 September.

Slovenian rider Primoz Roglic will take part in the Vuelta a Espana despite having been hit by a vehicle, Spanish and Slovenian sources report.

The available material is limited to confirmation that he will ride: neither the date and circumstances of the incident nor any physical consequences for the rider are given. No details on his race programme or team statements are provided.

Spanish midfielder Rodri landed in Barcelona on Monday to complete his transfer from Manchester City, on a four-season contract running to June 2030.

Reported figures diverge: some sources cite €60 million fixed plus add-ons up to about €75 million, others a deal worth around €75 million or roughly £65 million. Rodri, 30, the 2024 Ballon d'Or winner, leaves City after seven seasons and captained Spain to the World Cup title, where he was named player of the tournament; at the airport he said playing for Barcelona "is a dream" and that he is targeting the Champions League. The official announcement and presentation were expected on Tuesday, after a medical and the signing.

From this season the Premier League will for the first time allow on-field conversations between referees and players, captured by referee-worn cameras, to be broadcast.

The RefCam system, made permanent last season, will expand from 20 to about 45 televised matches; audio will be aired by Sky Sports and TNT Sports for one or two incidents in each of the 38 match rounds, within near-instant replays rather than live. Incidents referred to the VAR are excluded, because the laws of the game set by IFAB do not allow it. According to the Guardian, the Premier League and refereeing body Pro Ref are lobbying IFAB to relax the ban on live audio; the trial will not feature on the opening weekend.

Tommy John, the MLB pitcher with 288 wins and the first athlete to undergo elbow ligament reconstruction, died on Saturday at 83 at his home in Florida.

Born on 22 May 1943 in Terre Haute, Indiana, he debuted with Cleveland in 1963 and threw his last pitch for the New York Yankees in 1989, aged 46: 26 seasons, a 288-231 record, a 3.34 ERA and four All-Star selections. On 17 July 1974 he suffered a complete tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow, and on 25 September Dodgers physician Frank Jobe performed a four-hour operation using a tendon from his right forearm, putting his chances of pitching again at one in 100. He missed all of 1975 and returned in 1976: 164 of his wins came after the surgery.

India's Ayush Shetty, ranked 22nd in the world, beat defending champion Shi Yuqi in the first round of the badminton world championships in New Delhi.

Shetty, 21 and 1.95 metres tall, won 21-14, 13-21, 21-19 in 73 minutes on his world championships debut, holding on in the decider after his opponent came back from 5-16. Shi, 30, had won the previous edition in Paris and credited the home crowd for the outcome, adding that "even a world number one can make mistakes". On the same day South Korea's An Se-young, returning from a foot problem, beat Kaloyana Nalbantova 21-14, 21-13, and PV Sindhu beat Sophia Noble 21-7, 21-11, as Indian players went five for five.

Jannik Sinner returned to Turin's JMedical for checks and treatment on his right knee and trained at the Sporting club, with a view to playing the US Open.

The world number one skipped the Cincinnati Masters 1000 because of the knee problem and has not picked up a racket for about two weeks; further tests are planned. The New York tournament runs from 30 August to 13 September and, Il Giornale reports, no official confirmation of his entry has come yet; the same outlet says Carlos Alcaraz, sidelined with a wrist problem, is also in doubt.

In an interview with Vogue magazine, 41-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo said the current season will probably be his last as a professional footballer.

The Portugal forward plays for Al-Nassr on a contract signed in December 2022 and running to the end of the 2026-27 season, his 25th as a professional; he said he wants to "leave a spectacular legacy" and has already mapped out his future, between travel and padel. He has scored 976 career goals according to unofficial figures, won five Ballon d'Or awards and five Champions League titles, and his 28 league goals helped Al-Nassr win the Saudi title in May. Days earlier Lionel Messi, 39, also said he is unsure how much longer he will keep playing.

Lens beat Paris Saint-Germain in the Trophée des Champions, the French Super Cup, taking the trophy.

The match traditionally pits the league winners against the domestic cup holders. The available material does not give the final score or the goalscorers.

Manchester City are in advanced talks with Lille over Morocco midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi, whom the French club values at 100 million euros (£85.6m), according to the BBC.

The English club wants to complete the deal this week after agreeing to sell Rodri to Barcelona and, according to the BBC, has not given up on Chelsea's Enzo Fernandez, though Chelsea expect to keep the Argentine for the rest of the season; both signings would make three costly midfield additions after Elliot Anderson's arrival from Nottingham Forest. Bouaddi, 18, has made 88 appearances for Lille since his debut in October 2023, three days after his 16th birthday, and started five of Morocco's six matches on their run to the World Cup quarter-finals. The transfer window closes on 1 September.

A two-run homer by Munetaka Murakami in the seventh inning gave the Chicago White Sox a 7-5 win over the Detroit Tigers.

It is Murakami's 28th home run of the season, moving him ahead of Shohei Ohtani (27 in 525 plate appearances against his 383) among Japanese players in MLB. The win completes a three-game sweep and stretches Chicago's American League Central lead over Detroit to five and a half games. Murakami joined the White Sox from the Yakult Swallows on a two-year, $34 million contract. One of the two articles states it was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence.

Ipswich Town have signed Paraguayan winger Julio Enciso, 22, and Ivorian midfielder Abdoul Ouattara, 20, from Strasbourg, both on five-year contracts.

The combined fee for the two transfers could reach £47.3m, according to reported figures. Both players previously worked in France with Ipswich manager Gary O'Neil: Enciso, after three years at Brighton, spent the second half of the 2024-25 season on loan at Portman Road, while Ouattara made 45 appearances in the French top flight. Since promotion the club has spent £150m on twelve major signings and begins its Premier League campaign at home to Sunderland on 22 August.

Coventry City have signed Nigeria striker Taiwo Awoniyi, 29, from Nottingham Forest for £9m, days before their return to the Premier League.

Awoniyi joined Forest from Union Berlin in 2022 for £17.2m, a club record at the time, and scored 23 goals in 103 games; last season he started three matches, scoring four goals in 17 appearances, and was left out of the Europa League squad. In May 2025 he was placed in an induced coma after rupturing an intestine in a collision with a post against Leicester. Coventry are back in the top flight after 25 years and open away to champions Arsenal on Friday.

Rain made the tuff track in Piazza del Campo unusable and Siena's council postponed the Assunta race for the second time running, now set for Tuesday 18 August.

The decision was signalled by hoisting the green flag from the windows of the Palazzo Pubblico, after the first delay decided on Sunday 16 August. For the Assunta race a two-day postponement had not happened since 18 August 1976, while the last double postponement of any Palio dates to July 2024; one source counts five rain postponements in the past three years. If conditions allow, the schedule stays unchanged, with the historic procession entering at 4.50pm and the horses coming out at 7pm; ten of the seventeen contrade are racing.

South Korean midfielder Lee Kang-in was presented on Monday in Madrid as Atletico's new player, receiving the club's number 7 shirt.

Lee, 25, signed a five-year deal at the end of July after three seasons at Paris Saint-Germain; he came through in Spain with Valencia and Mallorca. The number 7 was previously worn by Antoine Griezmann; the player said he aims to contribute to the team rather than dwell on the shirt number. Atletico, fourth in last season's Liga and a Champions League semi-finalist, open their campaign on Wednesday against Malaga at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano.

Mali won its tenth title at the women's Under-18 Afrobasket, while Senegal's Code Mbengue was named to the All-Star Five of the men's tournament.

The two continental youth tournaments closed with these results, reported respectively by a Malian and a Senegalese outlet. The available material contains only the headlines: the final score, the opposing team, the venue and the dates of the games are not given.

Spain's Rafael Jodar knocked out Chile's Alejandro Tabilo 6-2, 6-1 in one hour and fifteen minutes in the third round of the Cincinnati Masters 1000.

Jodar, 19 and ranked 11th in the world, won 74% of points on his serve and 53% on return, breaking five of his opponent's eight service games and finishing with 26 winners and 17 unforced errors against Tabilo's 9 winners and 27 errors. Sources differ on the Chilean's ranking, listing him as either world number 29 or number 22. Jodar next faces Italy's Flavio Cobolli, ranked 10th; he could meet Tabilo again in the Davis Cup tie between Chile and Spain in Santiago on 19 and 20 September.

Guadalajara won 1-0 away at Santos Laguna in the fourth round of Mexico's Apertura 2026, with a penalty converted by Ricardo Marin in the 75th minute.

The penalty, awarded in the 72nd minute after a VAR review of a foul by Felipe Sanchez on Santiago Sandoval, followed two Santos shots that hit the woodwork and were kept out with the help of Chivas goalkeeper Raul Rangel. Chivas move to seven points and eighth place, while Santos remain 17th without a point. In the same round, Tijuana's Xolos beat Cruz Azul 2-1 with goals from Gilberto Mora and Ignacio Rivero, rising to second.

According to club sources, Manchester United will not sell captain Bruno Fernandes at any price before next month's transfer deadline.

Galatasaray, Juventus and AC Milan are said to have weighed a move for the 31-year-old Portugal midfielder, with the Turkish club preparing an offer reaching €50 million (£42.7m), but the same sources say no formal bids have arrived. Fernandes has one year left on his deal plus an option for another season, no extension has been agreed and a £57m release clause has expired; last summer the club left it to him to decide on an offer from Al-Hilal. He recorded 21 assists last season, a Premier League record.

The league said its own security staff should not have asked several fans to cover shirts carrying messages about transgender athletes during the Atlanta Dream-Indiana Fever game.

One account says at least three fans were involved: two wearing shirts backing the restriction of women's sports to those assigned female at birth, and one wearing a shirt in support of transgender people; the other outlet reports the case of a mother and her 17-year-old daughter, who say they were threatened with ejection. The Atlanta Dream said none of its staff took part in the decision, which was made by league security. Less than three weeks earlier, a Seattle Storm minority co-owner was fined and banned from five home games after confronting two fans with similar material.

Aryna Sabalenka won her match at the Cincinnati tournament, closing it out only on the sixth match point she had available.

The available material does not name the opponent, the score, or the round in which the match was played. The only element reported by the two outlets is that the player needed six match points to seal the win.

An Amazon Prime documentary series on Pep Guardiola's final two years at Manchester City shows the manager addressing his squad after captain Kyle Walker asked to leave the club.

In the released scenes Guardiola tells his players he is "so sad" about the episode and that a captain "cannot behave" that way, though it is not clear which behaviour he means; another sequence captures an argument between the two after the December 2024 defeat at Anfield. Walker, signed from Tottenham in 2017 for £50m, left City on loan to AC Milan in January 2025 after 316 appearances and six Premier League titles. The series, directed by Kevin Macdonald, also recounts that after four consecutive defeats in 2024 Guardiola told the club "maybe it's over", before signing his contract extension in November.

Real Madrid has announced the move of Jacobo Ortega, a young centre forward at the Spanish club, to Strasbourg.

The available sources report only the agreement between the two clubs, without giving a fee, the structure of the transfer or the length of the contract.

Brent closed above $90 a barrel on Monday, its first such close since late July, after Trump cast doubt on a new agreement with Iran.

Sources differ on the close: Brent between $90.87 and $91.10 (gains reported between 2.65% and 2.91%) and WTI between $84.25 and $84.50; Folha calls it the first close above $90 since July 29, when the barrel ended at $90.74. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains sharply reduced — three ships on Sunday and ten on Saturday according to MarineTraffic data cited by NBC, against roughly 130 a day before the war — while US Energy Secretary Chris Wright says military escorts allow eight to nine million barrels a day to get out. US gasoline averages $4.06 a gallon, 36% above the level at the start of the conflict on February 28; on Monday the 30-year Treasury yield rose above 5.3%, the highest since June 2007, and the S&P 500 fell 0.5%.

The plan to ship Iraqi crude to the Syrian Mediterranean coast, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, would need at least four years and $15 billion, according to sources cited by Reuters.

That is twice the timeline given by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who said the strait would become "irrelevant" within two years and that more than 50-70% of exports would move through pipelines. Feasibility is being assessed by a consortium including Chevron; ConocoPhillips and Qatar's UCC Holding joined a deal signed in June. The old Kirkuk-Banias line has been out of use for decades and new infrastructure will be required; Syrian Petroleum Company CEO Youssef Qablawi spoke of "three years at most" for two pipelines carrying 1.5-2 million barrels a day.

As of 31 July, data centres had filed 529 requests to connect to Italy's transmission grid, totalling 95.86 GW, against roughly 0.6 GW currently installed.

The 2035 demand estimates cited in the article range from 2.3 to 4.6 GW, and 80% of the requests are concentrated in the north-west. According to sources close to the file quoted by the paper, the law requires a minimum connection offer to any applicant, and deposits of a few thousand euros are enough to book capacity that is later resold on the secondary market, creating "paper projects". On the regulatory side, Article 8 of decree-law 21/2026, folded into the "decreto Bollette", centralises a single ten-month procedure at the environment ministry, while Lombardy's regional law no. 11 of 3 June 2026 imposes planning constraints on plants above 5 MW; the ministry says the connections section of the energy decree, cleared by Arera on 6 August, is close to completion.

Brazil's president called the hydrocarbons detected by Petrobras 175 kilometres off the Amazon coast a 'passport to the future', in an area contested by environmental groups.

Petrobras announced on Friday it had detected oil in deep water in the so-called Equatorial Margin, off the state of Amapá, after a five-year process to obtain an environmental permit. Company chief Magda Chambriard says another 15 to 20 days of drilling are needed to measure the find and further studies to determine whether it is commercially viable, though she says there are grounds to be 'extremely optimistic'. Suely Araujo, of the Climate Observatory, argues that Indigenous peoples were not consulted and that the calculations on the consequences of a possible oil spill contain errors. Lula, 80, says he supports phasing out fossil fuels but considers oil revenues necessary; he is running in October for a fourth non-consecutive term.

The US diesel crack, a gauge of refining profitability, hit an all-time high of $102.20 a barrel on Monday.

The spread between US diesel futures and WTI crude futures was trading at $99.82, up 2.4% from Friday, after intraday records in five of the last six sessions; the rise is attributed to supply disruptions linked to the wars in Iran and Ukraine, coinciding with peak agricultural consumption. The International Energy Agency reported that global refinery crude throughput averaged 80.9 million barrels a day in July, about 5 million less than a year earlier. The immediate hit falls on farmers running tractors and harvesters, but diesel also feeds into transport, manufacturing and, in some regions, power generation.

Between January and June China curtailed up to 360 TWh of solar and wind generation, 49% more than a year earlier.

The figures come from a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor: the authors say the unused clean electricity would have covered all of China's demand growth in the first half of 2026, allowing coal-fired generation to fall. The report blames grid constraints and the expansion of coal capacity, which lowers plant utilisation. Wood Mackenzie forecasts average curtailment rates above 5% in seven provinces for wind and twenty-one for solar over the next ten years; the agency headline places China within a wider trend of grids hitting their limits.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on Aug. 17 called for Russia's state nuclear group Rosatom to be included in the European Union's forthcoming sanctions package.

The call follows a Politico investigation into the El Dabaa plant in Egypt: cited documents raise concerns over concrete work quality, delays and management problems, and an Egyptian agency alleges "deliberate negligence" and violations of nuclear safety culture; no nuclear material has yet been introduced at the site. Rosatom says none of the allegations have been confirmed within the contractual, technical and oversight procedures set out for the project. EU sanctions require unanimity among the 27 member states and no agreement has been reached so far: Ukraine sanctioned Rosatom in February 2023, while the company is building reactors in Hungary and Turkey's Akkuyu plant; Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys has repeatedly proposed listing it.

Chevron has announced a discovery of oil and gas condensate with the 105-4X exploration well in Block 0, in the Lower Congo Basin offshore Angola.

According to the company's press release the well encountered more than 2,000 feet of hydrocarbons and over 300 feet of net pay in the Pinda reservoir, whose quality it described as "excellent"; no estimate of recoverable resources or output has been disclosed. Block 0 is operated by Chevron subsidiary Cabinda Gulf Oil Company with a 39.2% stake, alongside state-owned Sonangol E&P (41%), TotalEnergies (10%) and Azule Energy, the BP-Eni joint venture (9.8%). Chevron is assessing whether to tie the well into existing facilities rather than develop it as a standalone project; Angolan output, which fell below one million barrels per day last year, has stabilised at around 1.1 million.

Donald Trump said he instructed Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth to "substantially" reduce joint exercises with South Korea, citing their cost and the hostile signal they send to Pyongyang.

In his Truth Social post Trump cited his "very good relationship" with Kim Jong Un and said it was too late to cancel the already scheduled drill. South Korea's defence ministry replied that the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise is proceeding as planned and declined to comment: sources put its length at ten or eleven days, with about 18,000 South Korean troops taking part alongside the roughly 28,500 US soldiers stationed in the country. Last Wednesday North Korea carried out a ballistic missile test, its first since June, read by analysts and military officials as a protest against the drills; Trump added that he had asked President Lee Jae Myung to join US efforts to denuclearise Iran and was turned down.

President Lai Ching-te announced a 2027 defence budget of NT$1,122.5 billion (about $35.2 billion), more than 3% of GDP.

It is the first time the annual and special budgets combined exceed NT$1 trillion; Lai described defence spending as a way to "invest in peace" and preserve stability in the Strait. Under US pressure the government has pledged to reach 5% of GDP by 2030, while Beijing has allocated 1,909.6 billion yuan ($276.8 billion, about +7%) for its own defence. The plan now goes to parliament, controlled by the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People's Party, which on Friday approved the 2026 budget nearly eight months late and trimmed it by about 1.6%.

The Pentagon awarded Raytheon a seven-year, $22.9 billion contract to raise annual Tomahawk missile output to more than 1,000 units.

The RTX unit currently makes 60 missiles a year; the announcement firms up a framework agreement signed in February, following the same multi-year approach used this month to speed up production of Patriot and THAAD interceptor parts. Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said the deal will accelerate deliveries. It comes amid debate over US munitions stocks after the conflict with Iran: a CSIS analysis estimates that Patriot and THAAD interceptor stockpiles — more than 2,300 and more than 450 respectively before the conflict began in late February — have been roughly halved, while Trump and Pentagon chief Hegseth have denied any shortage.

According to interviews with strategists and officers, the United States and Europe lack detailed plans for a near-simultaneous Russian attack in Eastern Europe and a Chinese move against Taiwan.

Florence Gaub, head of the research division at the NATO Defense College in Rome, says this is "the scenario we're currently not ready for" and that the planning gap is known but unfilled. Retired admiral Mark Montgomery says the last war game on a two-front conflict was about fifteen years ago and that every metric has worsened since. The account comes from a single centre-left outlet, picked up by a Romanian site.

Japanese group Rakuten is helping German firm Helsing close a deal to supply strike drones to Japan's Ground Self-Defense Forces, according to a company spokesperson.

The Ground Self-Defense Forces are field-testing the HX-2 drone until the end of September; Helsing says it reached an "initial agreement" with the Japanese government earlier this year through an unnamed local brokerage partner. Rakuten, which has limited defense experience, says it wants to help startups overcome procurement barriers and had previously arranged a demonstration by Ukrainian firm Swarmer for a Japanese military unit. Rising military spending and Japan's easing of arms-export rules have drawn interest from foreign firms; Helsing, founded in Munich in 2021, raised $1.8 billion in July.

India on Monday signed a $203 million contract with US firm General Atomics to lease two MQ-9B Sea Guardian drones for its navy for 30 months.

The defence ministry put the value at Rs 1,943 crore. The lease is a stop-gap pending delivery of the 31 drones agreed under the $3.5 billion intergovernmental deal signed on 15 October 2024, which assigns 15 MQ-9B SeaGuardians to the navy and eight SkyGuardians each to the army and air force. According to the ministry's statement the aircraft will provide persistent surveillance and reconnaissance over the Indian Ocean; the available coverage rests on that official release.

An Indian Army contingent has left for Thailand, where the 15th edition of the MAITREE joint exercise with the Royal Thai Army runs from 18 to 31 August.

According to India's Defence Ministry, each side is fielding 85 personnel: the Indian contingent drawn mainly from the 9 Gorkha Rifles, the Thai one from the 3rd Battalion, 25th Infantry Brigade, 5th Division. The company-level training covers joint counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations in jungle and semi-urban terrain under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, with field exercises, lectures, demonstrations and a final validation drill. Instituted in 2006, the exercise is being held at Vibhavadi Rangsit Camp in Surat Thani; the previous edition took place at Umroi, Meghalaya, in September 2025.

Mexico's National Autonomous University summoned 53,568 applicants to the Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City for an in-person control exam.

The test runs in three shifts over three days and covers 91% of those summoned, after more than 4,000 candidates already sat it in León, Oaxaca and Tijuana; the university deployed 300 officials, 150 supervisors and over 5,000 tablets. It follows irregularities detected in the online admission test administered by the firm Territorium Life: during the first Mexico City shift the university logged 16 technical faults and reported two attempted cheating cases in Tijuana and León, while some applicants told newspapers about poor internet connections and harder questions. As of Friday more than 12,000 of those summoned had not downloaded their appointment.

Colombian singer Shakira announced in Quibdó that she will rebuild the Universidad Tecnológica del Chocó and, with US philanthropist Howard Buffett, ten new schools in the department.

At the singer's initiative, Global Citizen and Live Nation will each contribute $500,000, a total of one million dollars for schools destroyed by the 10 August earthquake; Shakira called on the governments of Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom, the private sector and other foundations to join in. Sources report at least 13 dead in Chocó, thousands displaced and hundreds of buildings damaged or destroyed; the national toll given is 304 dead, 4,147 injured and 194 missing. The Quibdó visit included the Colegio Tecnológico Industrial Carrasquilla, the department's largest school, where the singer and Buffett met governor Nubia Carolina Córdoba-Curi.

A study involving more than 700 secondary school students found that girls get lower marks than their male peers when learning about artificial intelligence.

The researchers examined which factors shape the learning of this tool and attribute the gap in performance to cultural factors, extending the gender gap to artificial intelligence skills, which are presented as increasingly necessary at school and at work. The available material does not specify the country, the period or the methodology of the research.

Three water main breaks in little more than 48 hours around the mid-August holiday left Pesaro without running water; Mayor Andrea Biancani apologised while denying direct responsibility.

The city says 10,000 bottles were handed out in three days, 150 vulnerable households reached and 20 tourist facilities supplied; Montelabbate, Tavullia, Cartoceto and Mombaroccio were also affected, with operator Marche Multiservizi partly blaming the summer drought. Biancani is asking for the city's reservoirs to be doubled and says that of the 50 million euros needed to modernise the main serving seven municipalities, 22 million have been secured, while the Green party Europa Verde demands the resignation of sole director Mauro Tiviroli and offers legal support for a class action. Tourism operators are reported to be considering compensation claims; the trade body Confartigianato calls for long-term planning on water supply.

Anthropic announced that text produced by its Claude model will carry a watermark detectable only with the matching cryptographic key, to comply with EU rules on transparency of AI-generated content.

The company says the system adds no characters, tokens or hidden content: it adjusts the probabilities with which the model picks between similar-meaning words, using a statistical technique derived from Google DeepMind's SynthID-Text, and works at the model level, so it applies to Claude.ai, the API, Claude Code and enterprise deployments. Anthropic maintains that meaning, readability and quality are unaffected; tech blogger John Gruber argues the constraint pushes the model toward worse word choices, while Steven Murdoch, a computer science professor at University College London, expects "no noticeable difference" because randomness is already intrinsic to language models. The requirement applies to all AI companies operating in the EU and takes effect in December.

Google won a $10 million bid for the internal data and custom software of airline Spirit Airlines, according to bankruptcy court filings.

In the Chapter 11 auction the AI training startup Mercor had bid $7.5 million: according to the filings Google opened at $5 million, Mercor countered at $5.2 million and said it would go to $7 million if it could take the raw data and anonymise it itself. A Google spokesperson says the purchase excludes customer records and credit card information and that the material can help improve its products and AI models; that account comes from the company itself. Spirit Airlines, which went under this year, declined to comment beyond the court filings.

France's Ministry of the Economy and Finance disclosed that a cyberattack on the public finances directorate's systems extracted data on 678,000 individuals and businesses.

According to the ministry the extracted data include reference taxable income, family quotient and withholding tax rate, plus company names and SIREN numbers for businesses and cadastral data on addresses and property sizes; the administration says login credentials and online accounts were not compromised. Access was reportedly cut off in late June during a routine check, but the theft only surfaced on 12 August, when a user going by "ZeroBytes" offered the database for sale on a forum and also claimed access to the land registry portal — figures and scope of that claim remain the author's own assertions. The Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation handled by the anti-cybercrime unit, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has called a meeting on the digital security of state institutions, and those affected will be contacted individually by email or letter.

Two cyberattacks have hit part of the Berlin state administration and Upper Austria's chamber of labour; in both cases the extent of the data compromised remains unknown.

Berlin's Senate Chancellery says the attack was detected during forensic examinations and affects the departments for urban development, building and housing and for mobility, transport, environment and climate, both isolated from the state network on Friday as a precaution; the state criminal police, the public prosecutor's office and the federal cybersecurity agency BSI are involved, and a crisis unit led by the state's information security commissioner has been set up. It is unclear whether the affected departments can work and whether data was exfiltrated, with the Senate withholding further details for investigative reasons. Upper Austria's chamber of labour says on its website that the attackers gained access to data and that, because they deliberately covered their tracks, it cannot currently determine the extent or which members' personal data are involved.

The personal mobile numbers of Defence Secretary Wes Streeting and two other UK cabinet ministers were found published online alongside their names, according to press reports.

Besides Streeting, the numbers belonged to Justice Secretary Alex Norris and Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant; the reference to Streeting's number has since been removed and officials are said to be working to take down the other two. The discovery follows Prime Minister Andy Burnham exchanging messages with someone impersonating White House chief of staff Susie Wiles: a person briefed on the exchange describes "a few messages" "of no significance", Downing Street declines to comment citing national security, and a US official denies Wiles's devices were hacked. A UK government spokesperson says "robust procedures" are in place to protect sensitive information; Rusi researcher Prerana Joshi warns that exposed numbers can be spoofed and used to call others.

According to Politico, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham exchanged several messages with someone impersonating Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff.

Politico cites four officials speaking anonymously: Burnham grew suspicious and reported the contact to security authorities, and the British embassy in Washington raised the matter with the White House. Downing Street says it does not comment on national security matters, while a person familiar with the exchange said the messages, sent after Burnham took office on 20 July, were of no significance; their content and exact date are not known. Last year the Wall Street Journal reported that contacts on Wiles's personal phone had been hacked and that senators, governors and business executives had received messages and calls in her name, prompting a US federal investigation.

SafePal, a cryptocurrency hardware wallet maker, says a breach exposed order information for about 39,798 customers, data now offered for sale on a cybercrime forum.

According to the company's security advisory, the only primary source for the details, affected orders were placed between 2 March 2025 and 11 April 2026, exposing names, email and shipping addresses, phone numbers and purchase information; SafePal says seed phrases, private keys, passwords, bank and payment card data were not exposed and that it found no evidence of access to wallets or funds. The stated cause is an authorization flaw in the order-tracking function of a plug-in, found in July during a review of the order-processing system and since fixed; customers were notified by email on 16 August and an online tool was launched to check individual orders. One of the two outlets notes it has not independently verified that the forum seller actually holds the data.

OpenAI has signed a 20-year lease for a data centre in Ohio with up to 8 gigawatts of capacity, backed by a financing commitment from Nvidia of up to $105 billion.

The deal, disclosed on Monday through a regulatory filing and blog posts by the companies involved, covers a site built on a former uranium enrichment plant: 4.25 gigawatts in the first phase plus an option for a further 3.75, running exclusively on Nvidia chips. The owner is SB Energy, a SoftBank subsidiary, which together with the Japanese group will invest more than $4 billion in local energy infrastructure and at least 10 GW of new generation; Nvidia is putting $1.5 billion into SB Energy and, according to the Wall Street Journal's account, is backing not the rent payments but the residual value of the first-phase facilities. OpenAI estimates 35,000 temporary construction jobs over six years and 2,500 permanent ones, and is committing $40 million to local initiatives; the first capacity is due online in 2028, while the Wall Street Journal puts the off-balance-sheet AI commitments of nine tech companies at around $3 trillion.

SoftBank has put $200 million into a Series A round for Swiss company Gravis Robotics, which builds AI models for construction machinery, at a $1 billion post-money valuation.

The company spun out of ETH Zurich in 2022 and last year raised $23 million from IQ Capital, Armada Investment Group, Zacua Ventures and Holcim. Its software ranges from an operator copilot, with real-time 3D guidance and hazard detection, up to full autonomy, and can be retrofitted onto existing machines; the company says it works with brands including Caterpillar, Hitachi and Volvo and delivers up to a 30% jobsite productivity gain, a figure not independently verified. In the first six months of 2026 European robotics startups raised €2.67 billion, more than the €2.28 billion of the previous two years combined.

Unitree has unveiled Superman, a humanoid robot the company says reaches 12.66 metres per second and jumps over two metres from standing, days before its Shanghai listing.

The performance figures come from the manufacturer and have not been independently verified: Unitree says it developed the model in just over three months and that it beats human records for running speed and standing jump, citing Usain Bolt's 12.42 metres per second peak in his 2009 100-metre world record. The company lists on Shanghai's STAR Market on Wednesday after an IPO that raised 6.1 billion yuan and was more than 8,000 times oversubscribed by retail investors, and says it had produced and delivered about 18,000 bipedal humanoid robots as of July. Unitree adds that the robot is still a work in progress.

A trial opens Tuesday, 18 August, in federal court in Oakland, where California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey accuse Meta of designing Facebook and Instagram to make minors dependent on them.

The states are seeking up to $1.4 trillion in penalties and damages plus product changes, and also allege the collection of data on children under 13 without parental consent, in breach of the federal children's privacy law; the suit was filed three years ago by dozens of states, with proceedings for the other 25 expected later. Meta rejects the accusations and says the evidence will show its commitment to supporting young people. According to the sources, the company has already lost two similar cases this year: a California jury held it and Google responsible for a young woman's anxiety and depression, awarding $6 million in total, while in New Mexico it was fined $375 million plus a further order to pay $567 million into a fund for young people.

A State Department draft letter seen by Reuters warns partner countries that joining China's AI initiative would exclude them from the US-led coalition.

The undated text is addressed to the 35 signatories of a US AI statement signed in June and says "to be part of everything is to be part of nothing"; it is unclear when it will be sent or whether it will be amended. It concerns Pax Silica, a Trump administration initiative on critical minerals, semiconductors and AI models joined by about two dozen countries including Japan, Australia and South Korea, and — according to one source — Italy since late July 2026; Kazakhstan is so far the only country to have also signed the rival organisation launched by Xi Jinping in July. The State Department declined to comment on "purportedly leaked internal documents"; China's embassy in Washington says politicising technology and trade serves no one.

The Federal Communications Commission added "advanced robotic devices" to its list of equipment banned on national security grounds, shutting new foreign models out of the US market.

To qualify, a robot must be assembled in the United States with at least 65% of components by value made domestically, rising to 75% in 2029; the ban covers humanoids, quadrupeds, robot vacuums and lawn mowers, while devices already on sale and units imported for product development remain allowed. The rule names no country but is widely read as aimed at China. US startup founders quoted by a technology outlet say they do not know how to meet the requirements without China's electronics supply chain and are calling for incentives to build domestic manufacturing.

Trump Media is selling access, for up to $100,000 a month, to Trump's Truth Social posts milliseconds before the public; two organizations have filed suit.

The service, called Truth API, launched on August 1 and targets financial firms, mainly high-frequency trading funds: the company says more than ten clients have subscribed, and the Wall Street Journal reports a $60,000 monthly rate for multi-year contracts. On August 12 The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation filed a complaint in a federal court in New York, arguing that selling priority access to announcements of public importance violates the Constitution. In the second quarter of 2026 Trump Media & Technology Group posted losses of $238.1 million, against $20 million in the same period a year earlier.

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance gave Russia's Investigative Committee the account history of Yuri Belenky, now facing trial over donations to Ukraine's army, according to Department One and Reuters.

Belenky, 49, a Russian citizen with a Bulgarian residence permit who has lived in Bulgaria since 2015, was detained at Sheremetyevo airport in September 2025 and charged with financing terrorism over six cryptocurrency transfers (742.26 USDT, more than 60,000 rubles) between January 2023 and March 2024 to an address published by blogger Arkady Babchenko. The file the exchange sent in October 2025 contained scans of his passport and residence permit, photos, account balances, P2P trades and a login history with devices and geolocation; after it arrived the indictment grew to fifteen transfers. Binance says it withdrew from Russia in 2023 and does not disclose third-party data without a legal basis, while Department One argues the transfer without a mutual legal assistance request breaches at least five GDPR articles; Belenky is in pretrial detention awaiting trial.

The US Justice Department has opened an inquiry into venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz over the board seats it holds at portfolio companies, according to two news outlets.

One of the two reports specifies that the inquiry is an antitrust matter and names Databricks and Fivetran as the companies involved; the other refers generally to the firm's board directors. The available material contains no comment from the Justice Department or from Andreessen Horowitz, and no formal charges are indicated.

Discord suspended livestreams and video sharing in Brazil on Monday, complying with an order from the national data protection authority issued after the suicide of a 13-year-old girl.

The ANPD ordered the suspension on 12 August, citing "robust evidence" that the company had not taken reasonable steps to prevent risks to children and teenagers; the block covers only video features — text messages and audio calls remain available — and stays in force until the platform shows it has adopted adequate technical, security and governance measures. Police say a 13-year-old girl in the country's centre-west was induced in July to self-harm and take her own life during a 45-minute livestream; five teenagers were arrested and, according to some of the sources, an adult as well. Discord said it was "disappointed", rejected the agency's characterisation, and stated that its own alert systems interrupted the broadcast and that the private community involved was removed.

ByteDance and the Motion Picture Association signed a memorandum of understanding on 17 August to strengthen copyright safeguards in the Chinese company's video and image generation models.

The deal covers the Seedance (video) and Seedream (image) models and, according to the association's press release, all ByteDance AI models, including those used on TikTok, TikTok USDS Joint Venture, CapCut and Dreamina. It follows the cease-and-desist letter the MPA — whose members include Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery — sent in February, when studios complained the tools could generate copyrighted characters and celebrity likenesses without authorisation; ByteDance says newer versions of the models include stronger protections. The announcement comes from the two parties, not from independent verification; financial terms were not disclosed, and the studios remain in litigation against Midjourney.

Apple will change the prompt in which iOS asks whether to allow tracking of activity across third-party apps and sites, for users located in the European Union.

According to the reports, the word "tracking" will disappear from the screen, the two buttons will become "Allow" on top and "Forbid" below, developers will be able to ask again after a year and will get more space to explain what personalised advertising means for them. Apple says it worked with Germany's Bundeskartellamt, other European competition authorities and the EU Commission to settle the various proceedings together; the German regulator, which in February 2025 preliminarily found a possible abuse because the requirements applied only to third-party apps, now describes the prompts as neutral in content, language and appearance. Over the same feature the French authority imposed a €150 million fine in March 2025 and the Italian one €98.6 million in December; the changes will come first in most European countries, with a different timetable for Poland.

Ireland's police force has opened a public consultation on a draft code of practice for real-time access to CCTV systems run by third parties, with submissions due by 14 September.

The systems in question are CCTV networks operated by organisations or individuals that feed live footage to the police. The legal framework is the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) Act 2023, which requires a dedicated code of practice setting out how they operate. A Garda spokesperson said the spread of CCTV in the country has increased demand for access to third-party systems to tackle drug-related crime, vehicle and property theft and public order offences; Deputy Commissioner Paul Cleary says such feeds are of great value in preventing and prosecuting offences. Relevant government departments will also take part in the consultation.

The Italian government is keeping its Schengen suspension towards Spain in force, formally until 31 August, without setting a date for reopening the borders.

Foreign Minister Tajani said the decision depends on how the situation in Ceuta develops, which in his view remains "very worrying". Interior Minister Piantedosi told a parliamentary hearing on 15 August that the temporary reinstatement of checks at internal air and sea borders is not a hostile act towards Spain. The Interior Ministry reported three arrests and 21 refusals of entry from the checks; Madrid, which suspended Schengen with Rome on 8 August, says it has since screened 4,646 travellers.

Parliament reconvenes on 9 September with the electoral law reform in Senate committees and, in the autumn, a vote on Rai governance.

Committee amendments are due by 1 September, the text goes to the Senate floor from the 9th with a final vote by the 15th; the stated goal is to finish with a third reading in the Chamber by the end of the month. The sticking point inside the centre-right is preferential voting: the outline deal reached in early August must become a single joint amendment and, according to both outlets, a confidence vote in the Chamber is not ruled out, where a secret ballot had already cost the majority the numbers at first reading. The autumn agenda also includes the Rai governance reform and transposition of the Media Freedom Act, with Forza Italia sticking to Simona Agnes for the broadcaster's presidency, a name the opposition objects to.

Attilio Fontana says there is unease inside the League and, asked about Matteo Salvini stepping back, replies that «nothing is ruled out», according to statements reported by two newspapers.

Corriere della Sera reports his words directly, including the line about the party leader stepping back; Avvenire's headline says Fontana is «putting Salvini under supervision» and attributes to him the judgement that the party has collapsed and needs a change of course. The available material is limited to headlines and does not make clear in what forum or on what timetable the leadership question would be addressed. Both outlets reporting the story are centre or centre-right.

Italy's PD and Spain's PSOE have written to the president of the Party of European Socialists to challenge Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen's alignment with Giorgia Meloni over Ceuta.

The letter, signed by PD foreign affairs chief Peppe Provenzano and European Parliament vice-president Javi López (PSOE), is addressed to Stefan Löfven and asks that the case be put on the agenda of the next meeting of European socialists. It calls it "unacceptable" that a member of the same political family coordinated its stance with Italy's decision to suspend Schengen, which the two signatories describe as propaganda since, they say, there is no freedom of movement from Ceuta into the EU. Provenzano and López also argue that irregular arrivals in Europe are down about 40% since the start of the year.

Giuseppe Tango, president of Italy's national magistrates' association, called the October 2025 ovation for Sigfrido Ranucci a gesture of solidarity, while saying comparisons with Falcone and Borsellino are wrong.

Interviewed on Rai's Tg1, Tango said the applause at the association's assembly on 25 October 2025 came days after the bomb attack outside the journalist's home, and recalled the cross-party expressions of solidarity at the time, including from the prime minister. On the post in which the Report host likened his own case to that of the two murdered magistrates, he said they are figures "beyond anyone's reach" and that using them in polemics is always wrong. The controversy reopened after Valter Lavitola said he had ordered the attack; Tango urged that investigators be given time and calm, stressing that the inquiry is ongoing and many elements remain unclear.

Natalia Ceccarelli, an appeals court judge in Naples who left the ANM, accuses the judges' association of using Sigfrido Ranucci as a symbol during the referendum campaign and demands it now distance itself.

Rimini prosecutor Stefano Celli, of Magistratura democratica, had defended inviting Ranucci to the ANM assembly, saying that if it helped the No vote in the referendum, «so much the better»; Ceccarelli calls this «pure Machiavellianism». She also claims the attack reported by the journalist was staged and organised by a friend of his: this is her account, and she herself notes the investigation is not closed, with a suspect awaited from Africa and further questioning, and that Ranucci remains the injured party. Both outlets carrying the interview are centre-right leaning.

Senate President Ignazio La Russa says the centre-right will beat the left at the next elections "regardless of Vannacci", urging caution about opinion polls.

La Russa spoke on 16 August 2026 in Ragalna, in the province of Catania, at Fratelli d'Italia's summer event series 'Bar Italia'. He argued it was not the centre-right that excluded General Roberto Vannacci: in his account the former Lega deputy leader chose to leave the coalition and set up his own party, voting with the left on several occasions. Il Fatto Quotidiano links the remarks to rising poll numbers for Vannacci's party, Futuro Nazionale.

Some Democratic Party figures had denounced fascist writings and symbols on the Collodi primary school in Pisa; they were markings left by workers for the building's thermal insulation.

Antonio Mazzeo, deputy speaker of Tuscany's regional council, had called it a "very serious and intolerable act" after reports from some parents, while senator Ylenia Zambito referred to the country's fascist past. According to the published accounts, the wording about the insulation strip and the arrows marked the parts of the building affected by the works; Mazzeo acknowledged the mistake and city councillor Enrico Bruni deleted his post. The story is carried only by right-leaning outlets, partly in opinion pieces.

According to press reports, the German government would consider selling UniCredit its 12.7% stake in Commerzbank, but only after the two banks agree on a common strategy.

The report is attributed to Bloomberg and was picked up by the German financial press; government spokesman Sebastian Hille called it a speculative question the chancellery will not comment on, noting that talks are for the two banks' boards, and neither Commerzbank nor UniCredit issued official statements. German financial sources cited by news agencies say this is not a substantive shift: an agreement between the two banks has always been the precondition, no deadlines are set, and the authorisation process leaves several months for talks. The clash remains between chief executive Andrea Orcel, who called Commerzbank's past performance "consistently below average" and its international network oversized, and chief executive Bettina Orlopp, who said she was indignant and defends her own strategy.

According to an analysis by the Cna, in 2025 expected working life in Italy stands at 33 years, the second lowest figure in the European Union after Romania.

The EU average is 37.5 years: 40.2 in Germany, 37.5 in France, 36.8 in Spain and 44 in the Netherlands. For Italian women the figure is just 28.4 years against a European average of 35.4, with a gender gap of 8.9 years, the widest in the Union, and a female employment rate of 58%. The Cna notes that the indicator estimates the years a 15-year-old can expect to spend in the labour force, either employed or unemployed, and attributes Italy's result mainly to young people entering late, discontinuous careers and low female participation; since 2015 the gap with the EU has widened from 4.2 to 4.5 years.

Around Ferrara, heat, hailstorms and saltwater intrusion have wrecked the tomato harvest: some fields have been abandoned and growers say seasonal labour has been halved.

According to the local daily, tomatoes cover about 9,000 of the 30,000 hectares farmed in Emilia-Romagna, with Ferrara second behind Piacenza. Michele Mangolini, head of the Casa Mesola cooperative, says 380 of his more than 500 hectares were destroyed by hail and that saltwater intrusion, reaching 30 kilometres from the river mouth, at times made irrigation impossible; pumpkins, watermelons and carrots were also hit. Gianluca Vertuani, of Confagricoltura's horticulture section, estimates up to 8,000 euros per hectare already spent before harvest and believes a significant share of the acreage is uninsured; how much can still be picked, and the impact on processing plants, remains unclear.

After a nearly three-hour meeting at Rebibbia prison, lawyer Arturo Cola says Valter Lavitola is remorseful and claims the attack on Report host Sigfrido Ranucci was his own initiative.

On 12 August Lavitola admitted ordering the device that exploded on 16 October outside the journalist's home; investigating judge Iole Moricca rejected a request for house arrest. According to the lawyer, a meeting took place on 7 September 2025 at which Lavitola warned Ranucci of the risk of attacks, and there was no prior agreement: these are defence claims, not investigators' findings, and prosecutors remain sceptical about the stated motive. Lavitola will make spontaneous statements to the review court, expected next week; lawyers for the four people arrested on 30 June have asked to be questioned by the prosecutor.

Tania Terrin, 39, was found dead in her home in Camponogara, near Venice; her former partner Dino Keber, 43, was found hanged at his home in Dolo.

According to investigators' initial reconstruction the woman was suffocated on the evening of 15 August; the two bodies were found late on 16 August and autopsy results are awaited. Terrin had reported Keber to police in April after an assault, and in June the Venice police chief issued a formal warning against him; her mother said the family went to the Carabinieri seven or eight times. Police are giving few details while the Carabinieri reconstruct what happened.

A prison officer fired three shots in the emergency room in Prato, wounding in the leg a 22-year-old Moroccan man who was trying to get away; he is under investigation for attempted murder.

The 22-year-old had been stopped on 16 August outside Prato's Dogaia prison while, investigators say, throwing five packages containing 600 grams of hashish and two mobile phones over the wall; four people were arrested, including an inmate said to have collected them. Injured in a fall, he was taken to the Santo Stefano hospital, where shortly after 4.30 pm he allegedly tried to flee again: prosecutors say video footage shows the three shots were fired towards him, while the officer's lawyer argues his conduct was justified and asks that a new security decree be applied. The emergency room was temporarily closed and some ambulances diverted to Florence and Pistoia; Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini voiced support for the officer.

Michela Rubiu has died at Cagliari's Brotzu hospital 25 days after being shot in the head in the bar at Solanas; her husband also confessed to a second killing.

The shooting took place at dawn on 23 July in the bar run by the couple; Alessandro Pintus then went to the carabinieri station saying he had shot his wife and killed Andrea, 42, was arrested and confirmed his account before the investigating judge. Sources differ on the ages of those involved — Rubiu is given as 39 or 47, Pintus as 39 or 46 — and on who Andrea was, the woman's brother according to some accounts, the husband's according to others. The motive is still unclear; according to one account, the charge over the shooting, so far attempted murder, will have to be updated after her death.

A tourist was struck by a small boat carrying 14 migrants off Su Giudeu beach at Chia, in the province of Cagliari, and taken to hospital in serious condition.

The incident happened on the afternoon of Sunday 16 August; sources differ on the girl's age, giving either 17 or 18. She suffered multiple fractures and nearly drowned and is being treated at Cagliari's Brotzu hospital, where her condition is described as stable. According to the Carabinieri the fibreglass boat, powered by an 85-horsepower outboard, carried on towards Tuerredda beach, where the 14 Algerian men were stopped; a 28-year-old Algerian believed to have been at the helm was arrested on charges of aiding illegal immigration and causing injury and taken to Uta prison, presumed innocent unless convicted.

A 24-year-old man died at Rome's Casilino hospital after being wounded in the abdomen in the courtyard of a public housing block on viale Giorgio Morandi, in Tor Sapienza.

The alert came at around 3pm on Monday from a friend of the victim, identified as Raymond Asosa Agheyisi. Accounts differ: some outlets report a gunshot, others say it is not yet clear whether the wound was caused by a firearm or a blade. Rome prosecutors are not ruling out a motive linked to drug dealing, while the mobile squad looks for witnesses and for the attacker, who has not been identified.

Nicola Maggiotto, 21, from Asolo, is in a medically induced coma at Hospital del Mar after being struck on the back of the head on 12 August outside a venue at Port Fòrum.

His father, who travelled to Catalonia, says the young man's condition is stable and that sedation may be reduced to assess possible damage; another member of the group of nine young people from the Treviso area suffered a cheekbone injury. The emergency call came at 10.25pm on 12 August reporting a brawl at Sant Adrià de Besòs; the Mossos d'Esquadra are investigating the motive and reviewing footage from the Sea Sea Beach club and the surrounding area, releasing no details on the sequence of events or the nationalities involved. A friend who was present says the larger group changed its attitude on realising they were Italians, but rules out political motives; investigators have not confirmed this account.

Francesco Mazzocchi, 33, died on via della Malpensata in San Colombano al Lambro, near Milan, crushed by the tractor that overturned while he was harvesting grapes.

The accident happened shortly after 10 a.m. on a hillside plot, in front of his younger brother, who was taking part in the harvest; Lombardy's emergency service dispatched an ambulance, a medical car and a helicopter under top-priority code, but his injuries proved fatal. A year ago Mazzocchi had taken over the farm and started «Fratelli Mazzocchi» with his brother, focused on organic wines. Carabinieri, firefighters and health-authority technicians are reconstructing how and why the tractor overturned, which is not yet established.

According to ANSA, a 19-year-old student reported being raped behind a nightclub on Milan's corso Como during the night of 15-16 August.

Carabinieri, working with prosecutor Silvia Peru, are looking for a man of about 40 filmed by cameras inside the club and on nearby streets; the woman told investigators she feared a passer-by had recorded the scene on his phone. In a separate case, a 26-year-old Italian citizen of foreign origin has been under house arrest since 14 August for an assault on a student on 2 August in viale Liguria, reconstructed from metro and bus route 47 footage.

A 76-year-old man died on 14 August during an endoscopic lung procedure at Genoa's Villa Scassi hospital; prosecutors have opened a file.

According to a preliminary reconstruction, a blood vessel was damaged during the procedure: vascular surgeons reportedly intervened to stop the bleeding and the patient, given a transfusion and moved to intensive care, died shortly afterwards. The ward's anaesthetists reported the case to the judicial authorities; prosecutor Paola Calleri is coordinating the inquiry, the clinical records have been ordered seized and an autopsy will be assigned in the coming hours. The metropolitan hospital authority says it is at the disposal of the competent authorities; in early August a 60-year-old woman died at the San Martino hospital during a lung biopsy.

A 28-year-old from Turin was detained in Genoa after setting fire on 16 August to his parents' flat in Pino Torinese following an argument.

The fire also spread to the flat below: a couple was taken to hospital for mild smoke inhalation and firefighters declared the building uninhabitable. He was detained on a charge of causing a massacre; according to Il Fatto Quotidiano the charge was later reduced to arson, and an initial account links the argument to his parents' refusal to give him money for drugs, though the sequence of events has yet to be established. He is being held in Marassi prison.

A 56-year-old woman was taken to Palermo's Civico hospital under red code after the balcony she was standing on collapsed in via Paolo Emiliani Giudici.

According to the news agencies the woman, born in Hungary and living in Palermo, was hanging out laundry when the balcony gave way; the street is a short distance from the central station. The balcony, ANSA reports, was already in poor condition and had been wrapped in green netting. Firefighters and police went to the scene: the causes of the collapse are being investigated.

A 16-year-old is in intensive care at the Alessandria hospital after a head-on collision between his motorcycle and a car on the road linking the Asti districts of Valgera and Valmaggiore.

The crash happened yesterday and involved a Citroen and a KTM 125 travelling in opposite directions; after the impact the car caught fire and the motorcycle was thrown clear. The teenager was airlifted to hospital, while the car's driver, a 55-year-old woman, was taken to the Cardinal Massaia emergency room in Asti with minor injuries and was not admitted; both live in the city. Local police carried out measurements at the scene, and the cause of the collision has not yet been established.

Two men aged 29 and 25 have been detained in Florence over the snatch theft of a Patek Philippe worth about 55,000 euros taken from an Italian tourist in Portofino.

According to the Carabinieri, the theft took place on the evening of Monday 10 August and was reconstructed using CCTV footage, which identified the car used to leave the town, rented in Florence. The two were traced the following afternoon as they returned the vehicle: one was still wearing the watch. Officers cite among the evidence foreign documents deemed of doubtful authenticity and the absence of a fixed address; a judge upheld the detentions and ordered custody in prison, and the watch was recovered.

Ulderico Puppo, 76, died at San Martino hospital after being hit by a car on via Murcarolo in the Quinto district of Genoa.

Taken to hospital in critical condition, the man died of his injuries. According to the local police accident unit, he was crossing at a marked crosswalk when he was struck; the driver was an 87-year-old woman accompanied by her carer. She is to be placed under investigation for vehicular homicide.

Franco Alessandro Fabiano died in hospital after falling from a scooter on the evening of 14 August on Milan's Bacula overpass; no other vehicles appear to have been involved.

The crash happened around 10.30 p.m. between viale Monte Ceneri and piazzale Lugano: according to local police findings the Kymco Agility 125 hit the guardrail and the man slid along the road surface; he died shortly before 11.30 p.m. at San Carlo hospital. The scooter had been reported stolen that afternoon and investigators have yet to establish whether Fabiano took it. A video filmed by a resident shows some cars driving around the body and continuing on, without the footage showing whether they called emergency services; at that hour the overpass was closed to traffic, open only from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

A young woman from Caserta lost consciousness in the water on 15 August at Piana di Sant'Agostino beach in Gaeta and was resuscitated by two off-duty officers.

The first to intervene was Nicola Scala, a prison officer based at the Santa Maria Capua Vetere jail who was on the beach with his family, together with a colleague from the Afragola police station; they cleared her airway before doctors who were on the beach took over and performed cardiac massage. The woman was airlifted to Santa Maria Goretti hospital in Latina; her condition is not specified in the reports. The prison officers' union Sappe praised the intervention.

A woman drove the wrong way up the Empoli Ovest exit ramp on the Florence-Pisa-Livorno road; a truck driver stopped to alert her to the mistake and nobody was injured.

Seeing the car coming towards him, the truck driver stopped and used his vehicle to shield the car while the driver turned back into the correct lane, preventing other vehicles from entering the exit. The scene was recorded by the truck's dashcam and shared on a Facebook page for truckers; according to the account reported, the woman took the wrong direction by mistake.

Ultra-Orthodox protesters gathered outside a cafe in central Jerusalem because it was open on Shabbat, meeting a counter-protest by secular Israelis.

The cafe sits close to an ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood; on Shabbat observant Jews refrain from work, technology and handling money. An ultra-Orthodox protester quoted in the report argues that asking for the cafe to close is not disrespect but a matter of faith, while an activist from the Pink Front movement claims everyone's freedom to spend the sabbath as they wish. The episode comes two months before Israel's parliamentary elections, set for 27 October.

Swimmer Manuel Bortuzzo said on social media that his wheelchair was handed back to him broken and unusable when he landed in Rome on his way home from Africa.

Bortuzzo was returning from a trip to Zanzibar and Tanzania with his partner Serena Padovano; some outlets identify the carrier as Ethiopian Airlines. He posted photos and videos of the damaged chair and wrote that wheelchairs "are our legs, our freedom", adding that unlike people who own only one he can quickly find an alternative, and said many others had reported similar experiences. Bortuzzo has been paraplegic since February 2019, when he was shot in the back during a shooting in Rome's Axa district. No response from the airline appears in the available material.

A young girl found a handwritten letter dated 3 July 1997 among the rocks at Seccheto, on the southern coast of the island of Elba, containing a farewell between two friends.

The letter is signed by a girl named Rebecca and addressed to a friend identified only as "MG": it announces a move to "Hais, in Kansas" and recalls shared memories, from days by the sea to Christmas Eve dinners. It spread quickly on a Facebook group for island regulars; the identities of the two girls are unknown.

Etna's eruptive activity and falling ash led Catania airport to cap arrivals at ten planes an hour until noon on 18 August.

Airport operator Sac extended the closure of airspace sector B1, with no restrictions on departures. The INGV Etna Observatory recorded on Monday morning the opening of an effusive vent in the Valle del Bove between 2,200 and 2,350 metres, feeding a lava flow that later stopped; by evening the lava field was cooling, with one vent still active at 1,900 metres, while the eruptive plume from the Voragine crater reached about 6,000 metres and drifted south-east. Ash fell on Valverde, Viagrande, San Gregorio, San Giovanni la Punta and parts of Catania; according to Sac, more than 600 flights were cancelled between 6 and 12 August, 36% of roughly 1,974 scheduled, with tourism damage estimated at 24 million euros.

Italy's Puglia region has authorised the capture of the animal that injured three children in Noicattaro, near Bari, on 4 and 15 August, after a new sighting in Cellamare.

The order was signed by regional president Antonio Decaro in agreement with the environmental institute Ispra and will be carried out by a team of experts; tests are under way to establish whether the animal is a wolf or a wolf-dog hybrid. The prefecture says camera traps, drones, night-vision devices and thermal cameras are being used, with stepped-up patrols by local police, Carabinieri, animal-welfare wardens and civil protection volunteers. The mayoral order closing Noicattaro's municipal park and green areas at night will be extended for another seven days.

Greenpeace has created a giant message on a fire-scarred hillside at Conwy, in Wales, addressed to British Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

According to images released by the NGO, the land-art piece reads "Our house is on fire, Andy" and depicts Burnham pouring oil and gas onto the flames. In South Wales about 200 British soldiers have been deployed at the request of the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service, which is tackling ten major fires, providing logistical, operational and planning support. Last week, in Stourbridge near Birmingham, the prime minister said the UK must confront climate change and speed up the transition to clean energy.

On 17 August firefighters tackled several blazes: scrubland at Civitella di Romagna, a quarry at Agugliano and woodland at Mornese.

At Civitella di Romagna (Forlì-Cesena) operations began at 10 a.m. in the Montevecchio area. At Agugliano, in the province of Ancona, machinery used to process aggregates caught fire in a quarry at Piane di Camerata: the flames were put out with a turntable ladder and clean-up work is under way. At Mornese (Alessandria) fire returned in the evening in the Roverno area, on the same day the emergency was declared over for the 2 and 8 August blazes, which according to the civil protection authority had burned 233 hectares of woodland.

A violent storm triggered a landslide in the Orobie Alps that reached Rogolo, in Valtellina: two homes were evacuated as a precaution and four people are staying with relatives.

The slide broke away at 1,100 metres and funnelled into the bed of the San Giorgio stream, reaching provincial road 30 and two houses on via Roma near the bridge; no injuries or property damage have been reported so far. Mayor Roberta Dugoni alerted the fire service, which sent two crews from Morbegno and Sondrio, and had people staying in high-altitude huts brought down as a precaution: the emergency could last several days. In the Marche region, alpine rescuers recovered two 21-year-old hikers from Rome stranded by the storm at Fonte della Trocca, in the municipality of Fiastra (Macerata).

After the birth of a girl who is not the biological daughter of the couple who had her, four couples are asking Naples' San Paolo hospital where their frozen embryos are.

The girl was born on 3 June 2025 after in vitro fertilisation: doubts arose from her blood type and a DNA test confirmed them. The parents, a 41-year-old man and a 36-year-old woman, filed a complaint in July 2025 and prosecutors in Naples opened a case for negligent injury, with NAS health police checks at the assisted reproduction centre; of their five frozen embryos, they are now asking about the remaining four. The local health authority ASL Napoli 1 says it is an injured party and denies any embryo swap, pointing instead to an error in the implantation procedure; two of the four couples say two and three embryos respectively are missing, and a civil judge is expected to rule in September.

Italy's Veneto region presented in Belluno a pilot scheme to recruit nurses from abroad, with a first phase focused on southern Brazil and Argentina.

According to the account, regional decision number 3 of 10 April 2026 assigns the project to the Ulss 1 Dolomiti health authority and sets out two channels: hiring already-trained professionals under national rules on the temporary practice of health professions and subsequent recognition of qualifications, and integrated university programmes with the University of Padua and possible foreign universities. The choice of the two countries is explained by the presence of Veneto and Belluno communities and of already active associative networks; regional councillor Gino Gerosa also cited the Feltre campus of the nursing degree course and projects on housing. Recruitment is to be accompanied by language training, clinical and organisational support and mentoring, with attention to the effects on staff already in service.

Italy's Health Ministry has issued a precautionary recall of a 180-gram batch of "Lingue di Pane" breadsticks after a sewing needle was found inside.

The recall covers only batch number 30.11.26, with a best-before date of 30 November 2026, made at the Giovanni Cane Srl plant in Alessandria and sold under the Pan dei Massi - Forneria Piemontese brand. The notice appears on the ministry's safety-alerts portal: buyers are told not to eat the product and to return it to the store.

The daily Il Tempo published what it presents as the pay and expenses of Rai3's programme Report; the programme's staff call the figures false and announce lawsuits against the paper.

According to the paper, the programme paid out 2,206,083 euros in the 2022-2023 season, 2,524,200 in 2023-2024 and 2,909,316 in 2024-2025, with eleven of thirty journalists regularly above 100,000 euros a year and some cases reaching 300,000. The staff reply that the sums are not individual salaries but the total cost of producing each report, note that most journalists work as self-employed contractors and pay travel and editing costs themselves, and put the cost at about 150,000 euros per episode. Sigfrido Ranucci calls the leak of an internal document serious and says he will complain to Rai's ethics committee; Brothers of Italy lawmakers are filing parliamentary questions and want answers in the broadcasting oversight committee, while a Rai board member, the journalists' union and the journalists' association ask how the data left the company.

Maria Falcone called "unworthy" a quip by Il Fatto Quotidiano editor Marco Travaglio linking her brother Giovanni to the Andreotti government; Antimafia committee chair Colosimo is demanding an apology.

In his column "Ma mi faccia il piacere", Travaglio was replying to a 14 August article in Il Foglio in which Luciano Violante, Pietro Grasso and Giuseppe Ayala wrote that "Falcone would not have dined with Lavitola", commenting: "He only worked in Giulio Andreotti's government." The judge's sister replied on social media that Giovanni "worked for the Italian state", recalling that in 1991 he took up the post of director general for criminal affairs at the justice ministry, helping create the DNA, DDA and DIA anti-mafia bodies. The row stems from the Ranucci case: the Report presenter had compared his own situation to Moro, Piersanti Mattarella, Falcone and Borsellino; alongside Chiara Colosimo, Forza Italia MP Rita Dalla Chiesa also sided with Maria Falcone.

Maurizio Giammusso, a journalist with the ANSA news agency as well as an author and screenwriter, died on Monday at Capalbio after collapsing while swimming; he was 74.

Born in Rome on 17 October 1951, he worked at the agency until 2010 and was one of the central figures of its culture and entertainment desk. He is survived by his wife Anna and his daughter Daniela.

The singer replied on Facebook to a user who accused him of informing on his drug suppliers in 1984, and said he had handed the case to his lawyers.

The user, saying he was in prison at the same time, asked the singer why he had "turned informer". Vasco Rossi replied that the account is false: he says he was reported by someone who told the prosecutor he had sold him 30 grams of cocaine, and that he spent five days in solitary confinement and 22 days in detention in total before it was established he had nothing to do with the dealers' group. In an Instagram story he said he had forwarded the comment to his lawyers over defamation and would give any damages to people unjustly suffering in prison; according to Il Resto del Carlino the complaint has been entrusted to lawyer Guido Magnisi.

Radio presenter Rossella Diaco died on 17 August at the age of 65 after an illness; the news was announced by her daughter and in a statement from Rai.

She joined Rai in 1983 after starting out in private radio, worked for Rai International from 1998 to 2011 and at the Cciss traffic service, then moved to Isoradio, the channel aimed at motorway travellers, where she was one of the best-known voices. On 27 July she wrote on Facebook that she was in hospital and that her treatment had not worked. The funeral will be held on Wednesday at 10.30 in Rome, at the Sacri Cuori di Gesù e Maria parish; sources differ on her birthplace, given as Toronto by some and as Gagliato, in the province of Catanzaro, by others.

Singer Noemi returned to the stage in Bisacquino, near Palermo, arriving on crutches and performing seated after her fall from the stage at San Salvo Marina.

The fall, during a concert at San Salvo Marina in the province of Chieti, led to a hospital stay and forced her to reschedule her summer dates. From the stage she said she had come back earlier than planned: "I should have taken a few more weeks, but I thought it would be nicer to recover together." The tour continues with a date in Grisì, near Monreale, and ten more stops by the end of August, followed by two theatre shows: 14 December at the Arcimboldi in Milan and 22 December at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome.

The fourth Varzi Festival, in the Oltrepò Pavese area, will take place from 2 to 6 September in the G. Azzaretti Auditorium, a cultural hub built with recovery-plan funds.

Admission is free while seats last, and the line-up includes concerts by Marina Rei and I Solisti di Pavia, a show by Enrico Bertolino, a talk with Marco Lodola, film screenings and a book presentation. The festival began in 2023 under the Culture Ministry's recovery-plan call on the attractiveness of small towns and is run by the VarziArte association with backing from the Fondazione Monte di Lombardia, the Lombardy region and the municipality of Varzi; organisers say earlier editions drew more than four thousand attendances.

The CONI sport prosecutor's office has asked the FIGC federal prosecutor to check whether Giovanni Malagò was properly registered when he filed his candidacy for the presidency.

The 15 July document, signed by prosecutor general Ugo Taucer and published by La Stampa, cites the "failure to file objective records" on the registration, a requirement under article 29(1) of the federal statute, and asks federal prosecutor Giuseppe Chinè to check. Malagò was elected on 22 June with 69% of the vote against 29% for Giancarlo Abete; according to the FIGC he "was deemed eligible by the offices", but the form reportedly does not appear in the federal S400 registry. According to the account reported, any irregularity in his election could also affect the appointment of Roberto Mancini as national team coach.

Former rally driver Alex Fiorio has died at 61 after stomach cancer, which he had spoken about on social media in recent months; the Italian Automobile Club announced the death.

Born in Turin on 10 March 1965 and the son of Cesare Fiorio, he came to rallying after a start in skiing, winning Italian downhill and giant slalom titles at 17. In 1987 he took the Group N world title at the 1000 Lakes Rally in a Jolly Club Lancia Delta with co-driver Gigi Pirollo, and in 1989 finished second in the world drivers' championship behind Miki Biasion, with nine career podiums. After retiring he was team manager of Honda Benetton Playlife in the 125 class in 2000, winning the constructors' title, and of BMW Cibiemme from 2001 to 2004; he also created the Fiorio Cup, now in its fifth edition.

Bologna announced the permanent transfer of Colombian defender Jhon Lucumí to Juventus, after 152 official appearances and one Italian Cup win with the club.

The club statement gives no figures: press reports put the deal at around 20 million euros plus bonuses, with a share owed to Genk, after a 28-million release clause expired and no English clubs came forward. Lucumí, who scored 2 goals and provided 4 assists for Bologna, leaves a defence that will now be built around Heggem. In the same transfer window Bologna sold Santi Castro to Roma, while Freuler left for Olympiakos after failing to agree terms on a new contract.

Milan have reportedly reached an agreement with Strasbourg for 22-year-old Belgian winger Diego Moreira, according to press reports not officially confirmed by the clubs.

Reported figures differ: some sources cite 45 million euros plus bonuses, based on L'Equipe, others a total deal of around 50 million with 35 million fixed, 10 million in bonuses and 10% of any future resale going to the French club. The contract would run five years; last season Moreira recorded 5 goals and 9 assists in 42 appearances, having joined Strasbourg from Chelsea in 2024 for about 8.5 million. Together with the sales of Ouattara and Enciso to Ipswich, the money would fund Strasbourg's own signings.

Gymnast Manila Esposito, floor-exercise gold and two silvers at the European championships in Zagreb, responded to social media comments criticising her physique.

Speaking to ANSA, the athlete, who turns twenty on 2 November, said she preferred to reply through her results and is comfortable with her body, adding that such comments can deeply hurt more sensitive people and rejecting the idea of a single model of physique. The messages appeared under a video posted by the Italian Gymnastics Federation; its president Andrea Facci said he waited until the end of the championships to speak out and called for ways to stop anonymous abusers. Esposito, from Boscotrecase, took silver on beam and in the team all-around and has 13 European medals in her career.

Filippo Galli, head of Milan's youth academy from 2009 to 2018, published a reply on his own website to Paolo Maldini's criticism of how young footballers are trained.

After his brief spell as technical director of the Italian football federation, Maldini told Corriere della Sera that Italy no longer produces talented players and that in Milan's youth teams "all anyone talks about is tactics". Galli argues that in those years the work was designed with Università Cattolica and the Agostino Gemelli psychology school around attacking play and the players' right to make mistakes, and that "technique resides within tactics"; in his view Maldini was referring instead to defensive "tacticism", widespread in Italian youth sectors but not, he says, in Milan's at the time. In his reply Galli also states that Maldini never closely followed the youth academy.

José Mourinho appeared on the bench with a black eye; according to sports media the bruise was caused by an incident during a training session.

The available material does not clarify the date or the match, nor the circumstances of the incident or any consequences for the coach. The two outlets that covered it attribute the bruise to a training-ground incident.

A labour judge in Macerata ruled that the 2023 revocation of a managerial post was unlawful and ordered the Macerata health authority to compensate the former manager.

According to the health authority's 14 August decision, it must pay 23,857 euros for loss of earnings plus interest and revaluation, and 4,216 euros in legal costs; on top of that come 7,706 euros in fees for the lawyer it appointed, for a total the paper puts at just under 40,000 euros. The judge also found unlawful the authority's failure to respond to the claimant's request to open the conciliation procedure set out in the Asur rules. The case dates back to 2023, when the head of what was then Asur's Area Vasta 3 revoked the post of the employee, identified in the document only by her initials.

On 15 August, Carabinieri seized 35 kilos of mutton lacking traceability documentation at a business in Ussita, inside the Sibillini national park.

The inspection, part of extra checks ordered for the mid-August holiday, was carried out by the Visso and Ussita stations together with the animal-origin food hygiene service of Macerata's health authority. The owners, a man and a woman both aged 41, were fined 12,000 euros for breaching food-chain transparency rules; the meat, intended to be served to customers, was placed under administrative seizure.

The hamlet of Isola, in San Severino Marche, held the first edition of "Isola in festa", a two-day celebration for Saint Lawrence backed by the town council.

The programme included a briscola card tournament and a Mass led by Father Luciano Genga, guardian of the San Pacifico sanctuary, attended by mayor Rosa Piermattei and council chair Sandro Granata. The mayor was shown the wooden statue of Saint Lawrence kept in the hamlet's church, carved by sculptor Domenico Poloni, born in Isola and long resident in Capannori, near Lucca. The organisers, who closed with an evening of dancing, hope the event becomes a regular fixture.

Heavy storms in the Macerata area triggered around thirty fire-brigade callouts for fallen trees and branches; Montecassiano opened its emergency operations centre and two hikers were rescued at Fiastra.

The change in weather, preceded by a yellow storm alert after days of heat, brought intense rain inland: 43.6 millimetres in an hour at Appignano and 42.2 at Montefano, nearly 25 millimetres in a quarter of an hour at Ascoli Piceno, with hail at Servigliano in the Fermo area. Callouts were concentrated between Civitanova, Porto Recanati, Treia, Pollenza and Tolentino; in Montecassiano mayor Barbara Vecchi reported branches down on several municipal roads and problems on provincial roads 76 and 77 bis and on the SS 77 Dir. At Fiastra, in the Fonte della Trocca area, two Marche alpine and cave rescue teams working with firefighters brought two 21-year-olds from Rome to safety unharmed; municipal crews remain at work monitoring the situation.

Painter Ivo Batocco, 82, died at his home in Cingoli, where he had been ill for some time; the funeral is set for Wednesday 19 August in Santa Maria Nuova.

Born in Cingoli on 3 May 1944, raised in Santa Maria Nuova and trained in the Capuchin friaries of Jesi and Fermo, he worked for many years in Cattolica from 1975 before returning to Cingoli in 1994; in 2000 he personally handed John Paul II a portrait of the pontiff, which remained in the papal apartment until the pope's death. His works are held at the Italian Embassy in Luxembourg, the Abbaye de Neumünster, the Bertrange and Hesperange galleries, the Franciscan Curia General in Rome and Cingoli town hall; in 1995 he was made an honorary citizen of Hesperange and he devoted a body of work to Italian emigration. His body lies in his Cingoli studio from noon on Tuesday 18 August, with the funeral on Wednesday at 4.30 pm in the church of Collina; an exhibition planned in Cingoli for 29 August has been cancelled. Mayor Michele Vittori called it "an irreparable loss" for art and for the community.

The "Beniamino Gigli" municipal music school in Recanati hosted the final stage of the eighth Conero International Piano Festival from 1 to 9 August, with 34 students from several continents.

The festival is run jointly by the Recanati school and IPPA - International Piano Professionals Association, which is led by University of Kansas faculty and has divisions in the United States, Canada, South America, China, Indonesia, Europe and Australia. The programme included masterclasses, chamber-music workshops and lectures, with concerts at the World Poetry Centre auditorium, an open-air performance in the courtyard of Palazzo Venieri and three closing orchestral concerts conducted by Lorenzo Di Bella in the town hall's main hall. Counting students, teachers and family members, the school reports more than 60 visitors in town; the event, backed by the municipality, continues year-round with a competition stage at the University of Kansas.

Women's volleyball side CBF Balducci HR Macerata gathered on Monday 17 August at the Fontescodella arena for the training camp opening its 2026/27 season in the top-flight LVF A1 Fineco.

It will be the club's third appearance in Italy's top division. Ten of the 13 first-team players attended, joined by youth players Serena Frenquelli and Viola Garbuglia; three were absent on national-team duty — Beatrice Gardini with Italy's Seniores B side, Bianca Farriol with Argentina and Mikaela Stoyanova with Bulgaria. After fitness and medical tests and a first weights session, the first ball training is set for Tuesday 18 August under head coach Valerio Lionetti, who says the goal is to hold on to top-level status.

In the latest Censis rankings, the University of Macerata's three-year degree in education sciences places second in Italy within its disciplinary group.

The single-cycle master's in primary education, which qualifies graduates to teach in nursery and primary schools, ranks among the top five nationally. The department of education, cultural heritage and tourism sciences is also launching a new three-year degree in sport and physical activity for inclusion, covering subjects from physiology and anatomy to special-needs education and sports management, aimed at people with disabilities and special educational needs.

The Cozoma consortium has suspended slaughtering services at the Villa Potenza abattoir in Macerata "until further notice", with the halt effective from 12 August.

Livestock farmers found the gate shut on returning from the mid-August break; local press accounts attribute the closure to persistent losses and the failure of expected upgrade funding to arrive, after the city council approved an emergency 25,000-euro contribution in the spring. The council, which bought the site at a May auction for 400,000 euros after the provisional 395,000-euro award to businessman Ilario Marcolini was revoked — he has filed a complaint with prosecutors alleging bid rigging — has issued a notice for a concession of at least six years with a one-off 75,000-euro contribution. The 40-day deadline for expressions of interest pushes the process to at least mid-September, while the service stays suspended.

After sightings of wolves on the outskirts and in some hamlets, the municipality of San Severino Marche has issued behavioural guidance to residents.

Residents reported sightings in the Madonna dei Lumi, San Paolo and Ponte Sant'Antonio areas. The municipal guidance asks people not to leave food or scraps outdoors, to follow door-to-door collection times for organic waste, not to leave pet bowls outside at night, to keep pets and livestock in stables, pens or proper fencing and dogs on a leash, and to avoid walking alone at dawn, dusk or night in outlying areas. If someone meets a wolf, the town advises not running and backing away slowly, making noise or clapping if the animal stays, not chasing it for photos or videos and never approaching cubs; sightings should be reported to the forestry carabinieri, local police, the maintenance office on-call line (3332952381) and the Ast veterinary service (3397507476).

A 76-year-old man from Mogliano was resuscitated on the beach at Civitanova after being taken ill in the water and is in intensive care.

The alarm was raised in the afternoon, around 3 p.m., in front of the La Contessa beach club on the central seafront: a boy saw the man face down in the water and called for help. Lifeguards Cristian Piermattei and Giorgio Ercolani brought him ashore, where resuscitation was carried out with a defibrillator alongside three doctors who were on the beach, before ambulance crews, carabinieri and an air ambulance arrived. The two outlets differ on his condition: one reports he is in stable condition in intensive care at the Civitanova Alta hospital, the other describes his condition as very serious. Shortly before 7 p.m., also in Civitanova but on the northern seafront, a young man fainted on the sand and was taken to hospital; his condition later improved.

Macerata city council has approved a €41,731 variation to the extraordinary maintenance works on via Natali, in the Sforzacosta district.

The project is worth €450,000, funded by a loan from Cassa depositi e prestiti, and was awarded on 8 June to Crescimbeni Carlo srl of Grottaccia di Cingoli with a 17.6% discount (over €80,000) and 48 days to complete, later extended by 20 days under a 15 July decision. According to the council decision, the variation, equal to 14.4% of the contract value, is needed to mill one lane more deeply and to extend the binder layer to improve rainwater run-off, and is covered by the savings from the tender discount without extra cost to the project. The works were a point of contention in the municipal election campaign, when they had not yet started a year after the design was approved.

The municipality of Morrovalle has completed the restoration of its town walls, a 425,000-euro project backed by a contribution from the Marche Region.

The works covered the north-west and south-east stretches of the walls, the Porta delle Fonti and adjoining areas, consolidating the most deteriorated masonry with the "scuci-cuci" technique, joint repointing and hydro-sandblasting, and also rebuilding the car park and pavement along provincial road 10 and restoring buildings historically incorporated into the walls. The regional funding came through a call for the restoration and enhancement of historic walls; the project manager is engineer Lucia Ilari, working with surveyor Lorenzo Marsili. The municipality says the work also addresses the effects of earthquakes and hydrogeological instability; mayor Andrea Staffolani and town-centre councillor Mauro Baldassarri present it as a driver for tourism in the village, which holds the Orange Flag label.

Emilio Bartolini, 83, the long-time owner of the La Contessa beach club in Civitanova, has died at the Torrette hospital in Ancona, where he had been admitted a few days earlier.

Bartolini took over the venue from his mother — one of the first to open on the seafront in the late 1800s — pairing its restaurant with beach service of loungers and umbrellas. In recent years the business has been run by his wife Wilma Mazzante and son Carlo; he also leaves sons Alessandro and Luigi. Marco Scarpetta, deputy head of Civitanova's beach operators, called him one of the town's historic beach club owners. The funeral is set for Wednesday at 8.45am in the church of San Pietro in Civitanova.