A senior Vatican official has publicly acknowledged that the newly revealed lung cancer diagnosis of Pope Leo XIV has upended expectations surrounding the pontiff’s long-term tenure, marking a notable shift for the Roman Catholic Church just months into his leadership. Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister who has held the role since 2014, shared candid insights in an exclusive pre-recorded interview with the BBC, set to air this weekend on BBC Radio 4’s *The Sunday Programme*. The 71-year-old Pope underwent a scheduled procedure on Tuesday afternoon at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital to remove a lower lobe of his right lung, after doctors detected a suspicious nodule during routine screening. The surgery was confirmed by the Vatican to be fully successful with no reported complications, and a post-operative pathology examination confirmed the growth was lung adenocarcinoma.
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Pope pictured for first time since surgery and cancer diagnosis
Nearly three days after undergoing a successful lung cancer surgery at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, the first official images of Pope Leo XIV have been released by the Vatican, offering the public a first look at the 71-year-old pontiff following his procedure. In the photographs shared Friday, the Chicago-born Pope is seen standing behind a temporary altar on the hospital’s 10th floor, clad in a green liturgical robe, as he celebrated Mass alongside the facility’s medical and nursing teams.
During the service, the pontiff personally thanked the hospital staff for their dedicated care throughout his treatment, the Vatican press office confirmed in an official statement. Clinical updates from his medical team released the same day indicate the Pope’s recovery is progressing far better than initial projections. Testing has documented consistent, steady improvement in his overall health, and follow-up chest X-rays confirm the operated lung is healing well.
The radical surgery, performed Tuesday afternoon, removed the entire lower lobe of Pope Leo XIV’s right lung — a step clinicians took to ensure all cancerous tissue was fully extracted. Per the Vatican’s initial post-operative updates, the pontiff woke from anesthesia without complications, spent a restful, peaceful night in his hospital room after a short observation period, and has not experienced any adverse events in the days since the procedure.
Weeks before the operation, during his weekly Sunday address to crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo XIV publicly announced his upcoming surgery. He told attendees that clinicians had detected an early-stage, well-contained nodule on his lung during routine testing, and medical providers had recommended surgical removal as the best course of care. While lung nodules are extremely common and often non-cancerous, post-operative pathological analysis confirmed the nodule was malignant, matching findings from pre-operative diagnostic testing. The pontiff received a formal diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma. Notably, the Vatican has emphasized that Pope Leo XIV showed no symptoms of lung disease or cancer before the nodule was identified during screening.
Per current recovery projections, the pontiff will remain under observation and care at Gemelli Hospital for approximately one more week to continue his recovery before any plans for discharge are finalized.
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Norwegian teen ‘hitman’ detained for UK murder plot
A cross-border counter-terrorism operation has stopped a planned assassination on UK soil, resulting in a 19-year-old Norwegian man being handed a 20-year detention sentence for his role as a hired hitman for an Iran-linked international organised crime syndicate.
Johannes Natland, who turned 18 just weeks before crossing into the UK, was taken into custody in March 2025 at the Briar Court Hotel in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. Court records show that when law enforcement officers breached his hotel room door, Natland defiantly mimed a shooting gesture toward officers with his bare hands before being restrained and handcuffed. A search of his room uncovered two fully functional firearms and 19 live rounds of ammunition, all pre-staged for the planned killing.
The case has pulled back the curtain on the growing dangerous trend of “violence-as-a-service” (VaaS), a business model pioneered by the Foxtrot Network — the Swedish organised crime group that recruited Natland, which Western authorities have confirmed maintains deep ties to the Iranian regime. Both the United Kingdom and United States have already imposed formal sanctions on the network for its criminal activities linked to the Iranian government.
Details of the plot laid out in court reveal how the network deliberately targets vulnerable young people to carry out contract killings, keeping its own leadership at arm’s length from the violence. Natland’s path to recruitment began years earlier: a once-promising young footballer growing up in Stavanger, Norway’s oil hub, he developed a daily drug addiction by age 18, dropped out of school, and suffered drug-induced psychosis that left him paranoid and institutionalized in a psychiatric unit. He later met his recruiter, a fellow teen going by the username “UnknownHustler”, while staying in a group home for at-risk youth, and was drawn into the Foxtrot Network’s scheme.
He entered the UK on March 17, 2025, via Manchester Airport using an emergency passport. Following step-by-step guidance sent through encrypted videos on the Signal messaging app, he traveled to Huddersfield, where the network had pre-hidden the weapons, a stolen vehicle, and a cash payment for the job.
The plot was disrupted only by a lucky break in the investigation: Norwegian law enforcement arrested Natland’s recruiter on unrelated charges and discovered explicit messages detailing the UK assassination plot on the teen’s phone. That discovery triggered a urgent multinational race against time to locate Natland before he could reach his still-unidentified target.
“There was pressure because he’d come into the country, and we knew his intention was to carry out a murder on UK soil,” explained Commander Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London. “We had to move at pace and we intervened really quickly, and just before he sort of moved towards committing that murder.” To date, investigators have not been able to confirm who the intended victim was.
At Friday’s sentencing hearing at Woolwich Crown Court, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb emphasized the ruthless structure of the criminal network behind the plot: “The Foxtrot Network is an organised crime group which has developed an arm’s-length method of recruiting young people to carry out violent crimes. You were recruited to travel to England to kill an unidentified target.”
Natland had already admitted to illegal possession of firearms and ammunition, and a jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict on the charge of conspiracy to murder. His defense barrister Paul Hynes KC told the court that Natland’s severe mental illness, which was worsened — and likely caused — by his long-term drug abuse, severely impaired his ability to make rational decisions. Europol has repeatedly warned that the VaaS model used by the Foxtrot Network is a fast-growing threat across Europe, as criminal groups exploit vulnerable young people to carry out targeted violence while insulating their own leadership from prosecution.
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Daniel Kinahan’s lawyers to apply for bail in due course, court hears
Ireland’s Special Criminal Court has confirmed that a formal bail application will be submitted on behalf of high-profile alleged organised crime figure Daniel Kinahan in the coming weeks, with the request to be lodged through Dublin’s High Court.
Kinahan’s solicitor, Darragh Mackin of Belfast-based Phoenix Law, made the confirmation during a court appearance on Monday, outlining next steps for the defence team as the case progresses. The 46-year-old Kinahan faces a single charge of directing the activities of a transnational criminal organisation between October 2015 and April 2017, a charge he denies.
Mackin told the court that the defence legal team is currently moving forward on two key preparatory fronts: first, it is sourcing a qualified independent digital forensics expert to conduct a full review of all digital evidence held by the prosecution; second, it is seeking full disclosure of details from previous international investigations into Kinahan that ended in his acquittal.
Representing the Director of Public Prosecutions, the prosecuting barrister told the court that the case against Kinahan rests on what he described as an exceptionally complex factual matrix. He noted that the extradition of Kinahan from Dubai earlier this year was supported by an 189-page detailed statement of facts laying out the prosecution’s core allegations.
Following Monday’s hearing, Kinahan was remanded in custody, with his next in-person court appearance scheduled for December 21. The prosecution confirmed that the full book of evidence, which compiles all materials and witness statements the prosecution will rely on at trial, is on track to be finalized and served by that date. This marked Kinahan’s third appearance before the Special Criminal Court, and only the second time he has appeared in person at the Dublin venue. Observers at the hearing reported that Kinahan was dressed in a neat grey suit, paired with a black shirt and dark-framed glasses.
Kinahan’s path to trial in Ireland began in April 2024, when he was arrested by law enforcement authorities in the United Arab Emirates following a coordinated extradition request from Irish authorities. He was ultimately handed over to Irish officials on August 9, and flown back to Dublin on the Irish government’s official jet to face the charge against him.
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The vanishing world of India’s street magicians
### Fading Magic: The Slow Death of India’s Traditional Street Performance Tradition
In a cramped, modest home in Delhi, 55-year-old Ishamuddin Khan, one of India’s most celebrated street magicians, still can pull off the legendary illusion that made him an international name: making a rope appear to levitate and rise skyward. For decades, he has toured the world performing this trick, once dismissed as nothing more than myth, and keeps mementos of his fame—yellowed newspaper clippings and faded photographs—in his home. Today, however, the days of packed public performances are long behind him, and he spends more time reminiscing about his glory days than practicing his craft.
“Street magic is dying a slow death. It is on a ventilator,” Khan observes, a bleak assessment that mirrors a widespread crisis across India’s community of traditional street performers. For generations, magicians, jugglers, puppeteers, and acrobats earned their living drawing crowds in busy public squares and marketplaces. But shifting cultural trends, evolving entertainment habits, and growing regulatory restrictions have gutted their audiences, pushing countless artists to abandon their ancestral crafts entirely.
Khan hails from the Madari community, a ethnic and cultural group with a centuries-long lineage of public performance rooted in Indian folklore and mythology. While there are no official government counts of remaining Madari performers, community records indicate roughly 400 Madari families still reside in Delhi, with hundreds more scattered across Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Telangana. As historian Ashok Mathur explains, the performance skills of the Madari people have been passed down orally through family lines for countless generations—a tradition that is now at risk of breaking.
Like his ancestors before him, Khan learned the art of magic from his father and uncles, giving his first public performance at just 12 years old. By his early 20s, he had mastered the iconic Indian rope trick, an illusion long written off as an impossible myth: the trick involves making a rope rise vertically into open air, after which a young boy climbs the suspended rope before disappearing. After six years of relentless practice, Khan debuted the trick publicly in 1995 near Delhi’s iconic Qutub Minar monument. Two years later, he performed it for a crowd of 30,000 on a Karnataka beach, a performance that caught the attention of international media and opened doors for performance tours across the UK, France, Germany, and Japan.
Khan had hoped his newfound fame would shine a lasting spotlight on India’s endangered traditional performing arts, and for a brief period it did. But public interest quickly waned, and as opportunities for public performance dried up, even skilled magicians with generations of family training found it nearly impossible to make a sustainable living. One of those who left the craft is 40-year-old Imam Khan, who now earns roughly 200 rupees ($2 USD) a day collecting recyclable waste from Delhi’s streets near a large municipal dump.
Industry analysts and cultural researchers point to multiple interconnected factors driving the decline of street performance, with the changing nature of public spaces at the top of the list. Anurupa Roy, founder of the Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust, explains that many public spaces have become increasingly restricted: closed municipal parks and gated residential communities that bar outside visitors have eliminated many of the most popular performance spots for street artists. Researcher and performer Komita Dhanda adds that heightened security measures in dense urban centers have also crowded out performance opportunities, noting that even well-established street theatre groups like Jana Natya Manch, where she works, regularly face bureaucratic barriers to staging public shows.
Compounding the issue of limited space is the lack of a clear national regulatory framework for busking in India. Unlike the United Kingdom, which has a standardized federal system for street performance, India leaves regulation of public performance up to individual states. Performers must navigate a patchwork of inconsistent local rules around public order, noise pollution, obstruction of public land, and anti-begging laws—since the line between voluntary donations for performance and public begging is often left undefined. As lawyer Kaushik Mitra notes, this legal ambiguity means street performers regularly face penalties and crackdowns from police and municipal authorities.
The global COVID-19 pandemic delivered a final, devastating blow to an already struggling industry. When India implemented national lockdowns in 2020, all public performances came to an abrupt halt. Many out-of-work performers returned to their rural home villages, and large numbers never came back to urban centers to resume their craft. “We saw a sharp decline in public performances after this period,” Dhanda says. “The brunt was especially harsh for street magicians and performers, many of whom did not return to cities.”
For the performers who did stay and continue their trade, challenges have only grown worse. Forty-two-year-old Shahim Khan still performs on Delhi’s streets, sometimes bringing his 12-year-old daughter Alia along with him. But where he once could stage four or five shows a day in busy central areas and earn 1,000 to 1,200 rupees, he is now confined to out-of-the-way industrial parks, barely managing two shows a day for just 200 to 400 rupees in earnings.
The rise of short-form digital entertainment has also eaten into the audience for traditional street performance, as modern audiences increasingly turn to social media and streaming platforms for leisure. Dhanda notes that shifting cultural tastes have also changed what India showcases to the world, with decades-old international fascination for iconic tricks like the Indian rope trick having faded almost entirely.
For Ishamuddin Khan, the loss is far more than economic—he fears that a centuries-old cultural tradition will disappear entirely if no new generation takes up the craft. “A trick can survive only if someone learns it,” he says. His own son Altamash performed alongside him as a teenager, but has now left the craft to work decorating parties with balloons. Years without consistent practice have eroded his skills, and he admits he is slowly forgetting the tricks his father taught him. Altamash says he always knew he would never match his father’s fame, but never imagined that street performance would become an unviable profession entirely. “I knew I may not achieve the fame my father has, but I did not think there would come a time when performing would not remain an option,” he says.
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The young women guiding tourists through India’s night sky
Perched 4,500 meters above sea level in the frigid high Himalayan desert of India’s Ladakh region, the remote village of Hanle settles into deep stillness long before most towns hit the 10 p.m. mark. On cold, windy nights when temperatures plummet well below freezing, locals and visitors alike shrug off thick jackets and woolen layers, and step outside instead of turning in for the night. Above them stretches one of the clearest, darkest night skies on Earth — a natural treasure that has transformed this once-isolated community and opened new doors for four young local women.
Hanle’s unique geography made it a standout for astronomical research long before it became a tourism hotspot. Its high altitude, dry atmosphere, extreme remoteness, and near-total lack of light pollution create ideal stargazing conditions for roughly 260 nights each year. It is already home to the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO), one of the highest operating astronomical research facilities in the world, run by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics. In 2022, the village earned a new distinction: it became India’s first official Dark Sky Reserve, a designation created to protect its pristine night skies from artificial light encroachment and cement its reputation as a world-class stargazing destination.
The designation triggered an explosive boom in astronomy tourism. Government data shows annual visitor numbers have jumped tenfold in just five years, rising from roughly 3,000 visitors five years ago to nearly 30,000 in the 2024-25 travel season. This surge brought not just more foot traffic, but new economic opportunities for local residents — including four women in their late 20s, who have become Hanle’s first official astro-ambassadors.
In 2022, the Ladakh regional administration partnered with the IAO to host a 15-day intensive training program for 24 young people from Hanle and surrounding villages, teaching participants how to identify celestial bodies, navigate the night sky, operate professional-grade telescopes, and capture stunning photos of the Milky Way on mobile devices. Palzes Angmo, Tsering Dolker, Tsering Yangdol, and Padma Chamchot were among the program’s first trainees, a role that none of them had ever imagined for themselves growing up.
“Growing up here, the sky was always twinkling like this — it was just an ordinary part of life,” Dolker explains. Like most local women, the four spent their days managing household chores and supporting their family-run homestays, the backbone of Hanle’s small tourism sector, where most visitors stay since the village has no large hotels or resorts. When they first handled professional astronomy equipment, they were nervous they would damage the expensive gear. Over the past four years, though, they have grown into skilled, confident guides.
Each night, their work begins around 9 p.m. After finishing dinner and household tasks, they set up telescopes, calibrate the instruments to target the Moon, planets, and prominent constellations visible that night, and meet groups of visitors eager to see the sky. Using laser pointers, they trace out constellations for the naked eye, point out the Moon’s craggy craters, Saturn’s iconic rings, and Vega, the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere’s night sky. At 11 p.m. sharp, the entire village switches off all non-essential lights, plunging Hanle into total darkness to reveal the full, brilliant glow of the Milky Way for visitors, who often scramble to capture the perfect photo. The astro-ambassadors even help visitors adjust their phone camera settings to get the best shot, a service that almost always leads to a long queue of people waiting for their turn.
By day, their routine returns to the familiar: cooking meals for homestay guests, cleaning rooms, and managing household work. While their families’ homestays remain the primary household income, the women earn roughly 25,000 rupees ($260) per month from their stargazing sessions, charging 200 rupees per guest. The income dips during the harsh, frigid winter when almost no tourists visit, but it has already given them a level of financial independence they did not have before. “We can save our own money and spend it on what we want, even new phones,” Chamchot says. Beyond the financial gains, the role has transformed their confidence: before, they say, they never would have imagined themselves guiding groups of visitors from across the country and around the world.
For all the benefits the tourism boom has brought to Hanle, it also carries growing risks that threaten the very resource that draws visitors. As visitor numbers surge, driven in part by viral social media posts and Hanle’s location on the popular route to Umling La, one of the world’s highest motorable mountain passes, the village is seeing more construction, more vehicle traffic, and more artificial light — all of which erode the dark skies that make Hanle unique. Longtime residents like Dhuntup Chamchot, Padma’s 70-year-old father, say the sky is already dimmer than it was when he was young, when clear nights were so dark villagers would often sleep outdoors under the open sky.
Sonam Jorphail, senior engineer and head of outreach at the IAO, notes that tourism has brought much-needed jobs and development to Hanle, but careful growth management is critical to protect the dark sky reserve. He adds that the local astro-ambassadors fill a unique and important role, bridging the gap between professional astronomers and the general public, both visitors and locals.
For the four women themselves, the stars have become the foundation of the future they want to build right here in Hanle. They have even started introducing their own families to stargazing through the telescope, and now their relatives ask where the telescopes are if the women take a single day off. They have no interest in leaving the village they grew up in; instead, they hope to get advanced astronomy training and access to better equipment to improve the experience for future visitors. Four years ago, a telescope was an unfamiliar, intimidating tool. Today, it is the key to the independent, meaningful life they have built under the stars.
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Veteran BBC Africa correspondent Mark Doyle dies
Mark Doyle, the pioneering British journalist whose groundbreaking on-the-ground reporting of African conflicts through the 1990s and 2000s cemented his reputation as one of the most respected foreign correspondents of his generation, has passed away following a brief illness.
Doyle’s journalistic career was deeply rooted in the African continent, where he lived for years before officially joining the BBC’s global news team in 1986. Just seven years later, he was appointed the broadcaster’s East Africa correspondent, and it was his courageous coverage of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that first catapulted him to industry-wide acclaim, setting a new standard for frontline war reporting.
In 1997, Doyle shifted his base to become West Africa correspondent, a post he held through 2002. During this tenure, he documented the extreme violence of Sierra Leone’s civil war and the chaotic aftermath of armed conflict in Liberia, bringing unseen human suffering and political upheaval to global audiences.
In the wake of Doyle’s death, BBC Foreign Editor Paul Danahar paid tribute to the reporter, describing him as a “legendary figure” who stood out as a “brilliant, brave, empathetic reporter” whose work left an indelible mark on the organization and the broader industry.
Years before his passing, colleagues already celebrated Doyle’s legacy ahead of his retirement from the public broadcaster in 2015, when a tribute article featured reflections from those who had worked alongside him. Fellow veteran BBC Africa correspondent Fergal Keane recalled their shared time covering the Rwandan genocide in 1994, noting that Doyle remained in the crisis zone longer than any other international reporter. “Those who were in that awful place at that awful time will know what Mark Doyle gave for the cause of truth and for the BBC,” Keane said.
The same tribute also included praise from Sir David Richards, who led British military intervention efforts to end Sierra Leone’s civil war in 2000. Richards emphasized that Doyle’s unflinching on-the-ground reporting was critical to persuading the UK government that a forceful intervention was necessary. “Hence the saving of thousands of Sierra Leonean lives that would otherwise have been at huge risk,” he explained.
Doyle’s work earned widespread recognition beyond the BBC, including a first-place win at the 2004 UN Correspondents Association/UN Foundation Awards for his incisive coverage of post-conflict Liberia. After decades of frontline reporting, he rose to the role of BBC World Affairs correspondent before retiring from the broadcaster in 2015.
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Aztec document goes on display in Mexico after 186 years abroad
For the first time in nearly two centuries, one of the most significant surviving accounts of Aztec civilization will be accessible to the Mexican public, as a rare 16th-century pictorial manuscript makes its long-awaited return to Mexican soil this week. The Codex Azcatitlán, a handcrafted document that chronicles the full trajectory of Aztec history—from the founding of their great capital Tenochtitlán to their brutal resistance against Spanish conquistadors—will open to visitors at Mexico City’s iconic National Museum of Anthropology starting Thursday, following an unprecedented cultural exchange agreement between Paris and Mexico City.
Thought to have been created just years after Hernán Cortés and his invading force arrived in the region that now makes up central Mexico, the codex stands out among surviving pre- and early post-colonial Mesoamerican manuscripts for its unfiltered indigenous perspective. Told entirely through symbolic pictograms that follow traditional Aztec artistic conventions, it preserves a nuanced, insider account of one of the most consequential turning points in American history, including vivid depictions of the 1521 siege of Tenochtitlán that ended Aztec sovereignty. Scholars have long regarded it as one of the most valuable primary sources for understanding pre-colonial Aztec life and the immediate aftermath of the Spanish invasion.
The document has not been seen in public in Mexico for 186 years, and has resided in Paris’s Bibliothèque Nationale de France since 1898, after being removed from the country decades earlier amid widespread looting of indigenous cultural artifacts by European colonizers. Its temporary homecoming comes as part of a planned cultural partnership to mark the 200th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and Mexico, a deal personally negotiated by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and French President Emmanuel Macron during Macron’s official visit to Mexico last year. In a reciprocal arrangement, Mexico will send another irreplaceable Aztec manuscript, the Codex Boturini, to France for public display. Where Codex Azcatitlán documents the fall of the Aztec empire, Codex Boturini traces the centuries-long migration of the Aztec (also called Mexica) people from their mythic ancestral homeland to the shores of Lake Texcoco, where they founded Tenochtitlán, the precursor to modern Mexico City.
The temporary exchange marks a small but meaningful milestone for Mexico’s long-running campaign to repatriate thousands of indigenous cultural artifacts removed from the country during the colonial era. According to Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the country successfully secured the return of more than 2,000 stolen cultural objects from institutions around the world just last year, as global institutions face growing pressure to return artifacts taken through colonial exploitation. While Codex Azcatitlán will only remain in Mexico on a temporary loan, cultural heritage advocates say the display marks an important step forward in recognizing Mexico’s claim to its indigenous history and making irreplaceable cultural heritage accessible to the communities from which it originated.
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US dictionary adds 1,400 words, including neckbeard, trash panda and cuffing season
As one of the most authoritative and longest-running dictionary publishers in the United States, Merriam-Webster has just unveiled its latest round of updates, adding 1,400 fresh words and meanings to its catalog that capture how language evolves alongside modern life, pop culture, technology, and societal shifts. Among the most eye-catching new entries is “trash panda” — the affectionate, viral nickname for raccoons that emerged from online communities, inspired by the animals’ well-known habit of foraging for food in human household trash and their passing resemblance to small pandas.
The publisher explained in an official blog post that every new entry included in this update has been tracked and vetted over years of widespread use across different contexts, making these additions more than just new spellings — they are a snapshot of how people communicate and what matters to them in the current era.
The new entries span a wide range of categories, from food and culture to technology, internet slang, and social trends. Food-related terms figure prominently in this update, reflecting growing global culinary exchange and changing eating habits. These include “superfood”, the widely used term for nutrient-dense foods linked to health benefits; “bao”, the fluffy, stuffed steamed bun that has grown popular far beyond its East Asian origins; “cake pop”, the handheld portable treat that combines cake and icing on a lollipop stick; and “chili crisp”, the spicy, crunchy oil-based condiment packed with fried peppers, garlic, and shallots that has become a pantry staple for many home cooks.
Internet and pop culture slang also makes up a large share of the new additions, capturing decades of viral trends and shared online experiences. Long-time internet users will recognize “Rickroll”, the iconic prank that tricks people into clicking a link leading to Rick Astley’s 1987 hit *Never Gonna Give You Up*. Other widely recognizable terms added include “glow-up”, meaning a dramatic positive transformation in one’s appearance or confidence; “looksmaxxing”, the practice of making intentional changes to maximize one’s physical attractiveness; “meme coin”, the cryptocurrency created as a joke or viral trend rather than as a serious financial investment; and “the Mandela effect”, the widely shared phenomenon where large groups of people collectively hold the same false memory of a past event or detail.
Terms describing common social and emotional experiences also earned a spot in the dictionary: “cuffing season”, the annual trend of single people seeking a steady romantic partner to spend the colder fall and winter months with; “Sunday scaries”, the anxiety or unease many people feel as the weekend ends and the work week approaches; “parasocial”, describing the one-sided emotional bond audiences form with public figures, influencers, or celebrities; “whack-a-mole”, which now also describes the frustrating pattern of solving one problem only for an identical new issue to pop up immediately elsewhere; and “crashout”, a term referring to a sudden emotional breakdown, a dramatic defeat, or an abrupt collapse of a situation.
Technology has also left its mark on this update, with “vibe coding” joining the dictionary — defined as the practice of using artificial intelligence tools to generate full blocks of computer code based on informal user prompts. Other notable entries include “Uncanny valley”, the unsettling feeling people get when viewing an artificial creation (such as a robot or CGI character) that is almost indistinguishable from a real human but has subtle off qualities; “neckbeard”, a term that refers both to a specific style of beard covering the chin and neck and is often used as a disparaging label for misogynistic, socially awkward online hobbyists; “California sober”, a distinctly American term describing the practice of abstaining from hard drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine while continuing to use marijuana and/or alcohol; “yacht rock”, the mellow soft rock music genre that originated in Southern California in the 1970s; “shapewear”, tight-fitting clothing designed to smooth and contour the body’s silhouette.
Following this update, Merriam-Webster is preparing to announce its annual Word of the Year in the coming months. Last year’s pick, “slop”, was selected after its definition was expanded to encompass low-quality digital content mass-produced using artificial intelligence, a reflection of growing conversations around AI-generated media today.
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Five minutes to steal a Renoir: Why museum thefts are becoming bolder across Europe
A bold new theft of four Pierre-Auguste Renoir paintings from the Musee Renoir in southern France has underscored a fast-growing crisis: an escalating wave of audacious museum burglaries across the continent, fueled by copycat criminals inspired by last October’s high-profile heist at Paris’s Louvre. The Renoir theft, carried out when intruders cut through a perimeter fence using an electric knife and hacksaw, was pulled off in less than five minutes, with two of the stolen works quickly recovered after being abandoned in the museum’s grounds. The remaining two pieces, worth millions of euros collectively, remain at large as investigators continue their search.
The brazen nature of this latest robbery comes as no surprise to industry experts and law enforcement. Just one month before the Renoir heist, European policing agency Europol issued a formal warning that museum thefts across the continent were growing more aggressive and frequent. Days before the Cagnes-sur-Mer break-in, veteran art detective Arthur Brand, who helped recover a stolen Van Gogh painting in 2023, told the BBC that a wave of new high-profile burglaries would likely follow the 2025 Louvre heist, where thieves made off with 88 million euros worth of untraceable jewels that have never been recovered. “If you can hit the Louvre, thieves around the world see that, and they start asking why they can’t hit smaller local institutions holding high-value items,” Brand explained.
Data shows that the upward trend in museum theft began roughly two years ago, according to Europol. Since the Louvre robbery, thieves have targeted a string of cultural institutions across Europe: they stole coins from a smaller French museum within hours of the Louvre break-in, took a diamond necklace from Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts (MAK), made off with Bronze Age artifacts from a Spanish collection, and burglarized two separate Italian museums for valuable art pieces. ARCA, the Association for Research into Crimes against Art, reports that recorded museum thefts in France spiked sharply in 2024, with a slight further increase in 2025.
Experts largely agree that most of these post-Louvre robberies are copycat crimes, driven by a combination of systemic vulnerabilities in many museum institutions and shifting criminal priorities that make cultural institutions far more attractive targets than heavily secured banks or jewelry stores. Unlike banks, which are protected by cutting-edge security systems and hold limited physical cash these days, most museums are housed in historic, heritage-listed buildings that are difficult to retrofit with modern security infrastructure. Many museum directors also face chronic underfunding, choosing to allocate limited budgets to new exhibitions rather than costly security upgrades, and the open, public nature of museum spaces allows criminals to scout targets easily under the guise of ordinary visitors.
“Museums cannot be fortresses,” explained MAK director Lilli Hollein, whose institution was burgled earlier this year. “We exist to be open to the public, but we are now facing entirely new threats that demand updated security standards.”
Europol’s latest report notes that the nature of these museum heists has shifted dramatically in recent years. Where historic thefts relied on deception and stealth, modern burglaries increasingly use brute force: criminals now regularly carry power tools, sledgehammers, crowbars, and even explosives to break through barriers and access high-value targets in minutes, long before police can respond. The Louvre thieves, for example, used a mechanical lift to reach an upper floor, cut through reinforced glass with power tools, threatened on-site guards, and seized the jewels before law enforcement could arrive.
What thieves target is also changing. While fine art like Renoir paintings is still occasionally stolen, criminals increasingly prioritize small, portable, easily fenced items: precious metals that can be melted down to erase any trace, loose gemstones that can be resold individually, and high-demand cultural artifacts like Chinese porcelain that have a ready black market. Renoir paintings are particularly difficult to sell on the black market, which leads Brand to predict the two remaining stolen works will likely eventually be recovered – a fortunate exception to the broader trend. Art recovery firm Art Recovery International estimates that only 5 to 10 percent of all stolen cultural property is ever recovered, making thefts from small regional museums like the Musee Renoir uniquely devastating.
In response to the rising threat, many museums have begun implementing new security measures, even as funding remains a major barrier for smaller regional institutions. After its post-Louvre burglary, the Maison des Lumières in Langres launched a government-ordered security audit, and has already added enhanced video surveillance, with larger structural upgrades in development. MAK has overhauled its security protocols, adding metal detectors at entry, requiring all bags to be stored in lockers, and increasing the number of on-site security guards to deter copycat attacks.
Security experts emphasize that the core goal of museum security is not to make theft impossible, but to slow intruders down enough for police to arrive. “Security is all about buying time,” explained Ibrahim Bulut, a museum security expert and member of the International Committee for Museum Security board. “The objective is to make a burglary difficult, noisy, detectable, and above all time-consuming – because the truth is, any institution can be targeted, but delaying thieves is the key to stopping them.” Low-cost measures like training guards to spot and confront potential scouts can be just as effective as expensive high-tech systems, Bulut notes, though many institutions have begun investing in advanced tools like vibration-detection systems that can alert security to intruders cutting or drilling through walls. A handful of countries, including Sweden, have seen major museum thefts decline over the past decade, though the rise in illicit trafficking of smaller cultural artifacts remains a persistent threat even there.
For small regional museums holding nationally significant collections, the challenge of funding these upgrades remains acute. “A small city can be entrusted with collections of global importance, but it will never have the same budget as a major Paris institution,” explained Théo Caviezel, mayor of Langres. The debate now centers on how European cultural institutions can balance the core mission of public access with the urgent need to protect irreplaceable cultural heritage from a growing wave of organized theft. Critics also note that many high-value treasures held in European museums have colonial origins, raising ethical questions about efforts to recover stolen artifacts that were originally taken through imperial force, though defenders argue these pieces remain part of global cultural heritage that must be preserved for public access.