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  • 2 dead in Ukraine from Russian attacks, 4 more in Russian-held area hit by Ukrainian drones

    2 dead in Ukraine from Russian attacks, 4 more in Russian-held area hit by Ukrainian drones

    A new wave of reciprocal military strikes between Russia and Ukraine has left a growing number of civilian casualties, escalating tensions just days after a deadly Russian attack on Kyiv that claimed 10 lives. In the early hours of Sunday, Russian ballistic missiles targeted Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, triggering widespread blasts, blazing fires in residential areas, and leaving three civilians wounded, according to local officials.

    Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko confirmed that falling missile debris ignited a fire in a multi-story residential tower block located near the city’s historic central district. Debris also sparked secondary blazes at other locations across the capital, damaging private homes, parked vehicles, and public parking structures. Of the three wounded civilians, one required urgent inpatient hospital care, Klitschko added.

    The Sunday strikes align with pre-attack warnings issued by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy just two days prior. In his Friday evening address, Zelenskyy noted that Ukrainian intelligence assessments had detected Russian forces preparations for a large-scale missile offensive, with the attack expected to unfold within 48 hours of his warning. The Russian defense ministry has defended the operation, claiming all targeted sites were tied to Ukrainian military drone production operations.

    Beyond Kyiv, Russian attacks hit two other major Ukrainian cities on Sunday, leaving two additional civilians dead and multiple injured, including two children. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city located in the country’s northeast, a drone strike killed one civilian and wounded six others, Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov reported. In the southern frontline city of Zaporizhzhia, just 12.5 miles from active combat zones, a Russian glide bomb attack killed one man and wounded six more, Mayor Ivan Fedorov confirmed. Both cities have faced near-constant Russian bombardment in recent months, making civilian safety an ongoing crisis.

    In Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, Kremlin-appointed local officials claimed a Ukrainian drone strike in Horlivka killed four civilians. Russian-installed Horlivka Mayor Ivan Prikhodko stated the city came under sustained fire starting Sunday early morning. On the Russian side of the border, the Russian defense ministry reported that its air defense forces intercepted and destroyed 133 Ukrainian drones overnight across Russian territory, the Black Sea, and Crimea — the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia forcibly annexed in 2014 in a move widely unrecognized by the international community.

    The latest round of strikes comes amid a string of successful deep-strike drone operations by Ukraine inside Russian territory, which have slowed Russian military advances in eastern Ukraine and created widespread fuel shortages across Russia, increasing domestic political pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukraine’s drone campaign has specifically targeted Russian energy infrastructure, aiming to disrupt the flow of fuel and supplies to Russian frontline forces.

    This escalation is the latest in a growing cycle of tit-for-tat attacks that has dimmed hopes for diplomatic negotiations to end Russia’s more than four-year full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Just this past Friday, a major Russian strike targeting areas near Kyiv killed 10 civilians and wounded more than 100 others, marking one of the deadliest single attacks on the capital in recent months.

    Speaking on Sunday, Finnish President Alexander Stubb claimed that Ukraine’s military position is currently stronger than at any point since the full-scale invasion began in 2022. Following a call with Zelenskyy, Stubb emphasized the critical need for continued military and political support from Ukraine’s international partners to sustain Kyiv’s recent battlefield momentum. Stubb’s public statement on social media platform X explicitly referenced Kyiv’s successful recent drone campaign inside Russia.

  • Water outage at UK’s Gatwick airport leaves toilets out of order and restaurants closed

    Water outage at UK’s Gatwick airport leaves toilets out of order and restaurants closed

    On a Sunday travel day, a sudden power failure at a regional water treatment facility in southeast England triggered cascading disruptions that spilled over into one of the United Kingdom’s busiest international airports, Gatwick, leaving essential facilities nonfunctional and forcing food and beverage outlets to shut their doors.

    The power outage hit SES Water’s Bough Beech Water Treatment Works, which serves communities across Kent and East Sussex. The incident caused a widespread drop in water system pressure, leading to temporary service interruptions for hundreds of domestic customers in the two counties, as well as critical infrastructure connected to the regional network, including Gatwick Airport, located just south of central London.

    Within hours of the outage being reported, Gatwick Airport issued a public apology via the social media platform X to passengers traveling through both of its main terminals, acknowledging the significant inconvenience caused by the loss of water service. Airport officials noted that the facility had arranged to distribute bottled water to mitigate the impact of the outage, but that claim was immediately challenged by passengers on the ground.

    Paul Lee, one of the thousands of passengers passing through Gatwick that day, told reporters that he had received no official announcements about the water shutdown and had not witnessed any bottled water being distributed to travelers. “For people who need to access restrooms, this situation is absolutely unacceptable,” Lee said in an interview with the BBC. “I’m fortunate that my flight is departing soon, so this won’t affect me for long, but for passengers with connections or departures still hours away, this is going to create major problems.”

    Michael Dugher, a former British Member of Parliament, also documented the chaos on social media, noting that with all airport bars and restaurants closed due to the water outage, there was a severe shortage of available seating for waiting passengers. Many travelers were forced to sit directly on the terminal floor to wait out the disruption. Dugher called on Gatwick management to quickly reopen the closed dining and lounge spaces to ease the seating crunch and improve passenger comfort.

    As of Sunday afternoon, SES Water confirmed that crews were working around the clock to restore full power and water pressure to all affected areas, but did not issue an immediate timeline for when service would return to normal.

  • A forced-labor crackdown or an end-run around Congress? Dissecting Trump’s new tariffs

    A forced-labor crackdown or an end-run around Congress? Dissecting Trump’s new tariffs

    NEW YORK – In a controversial trade move that sidesteps congressional oversight, the Trump administration has rolled out new double-digit tariffs covering imports from more than 60 global economies, invoking a decades-old trade law that grants the executive branch broad authority to penalize nations deemed to engage in unfair, discriminatory trade practices. The new levies, announced in recent days and set to go into effect immediately, were timed to replace a temporary 10% global tariff regime that just expired. That temporary round of tariffs itself was a stopgap put in place after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an earlier broad global tariff plan in February.

    Critics of the new policy argue that the tariffs, framed as a crackdown on forced labor in global supply chains, have little connection to actual enforcement gaps overseas, and are instead simply a mechanism to maintain broad import tariffs after the previous temporary regime lapsed. The tariffs, set at either 10% or 12.5%, are applied to nations the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) claims lack or fail to effectively enforce their own bans on imports produced with forced labor. With the affected countries accounting for 99% of all U.S. imports, widespread pushback from trading partners arrived almost immediately, with many leaders calling the U.S. claims unfounded and arbitrary. Critics note that nations with vastly different forced labor compliance records were assigned the same uniform tariff rate, and that after a four-month investigation, USTR has released almost no detailed information explaining how it set the final tariff levels.

    The new tariffs are enacted under Section 301 of the 1974 U.S. Trade Act, the same legal authority former President Trump used during his first term to impose sweeping tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports amid a dispute over Chinese technology acquisition and industrial policy. The Biden administration has continued to use Section 301 powers to address other trade grievances, including what it calls unfair competitive practices in China’s shipbuilding sector.

    Barry Appleton, a law professor and co-director of New York Law School’s Center for International Law, explained that the core appeal of Section 301 for the executive branch is that it allows the creation of permanent tariffs without requiring congressional approval. “That’s what all of this is about. The president doesn’t want to knock on the front door of Congress, so he’s trying every side door and every unlatched window to get in,” Appleton said.

    While USTR says it completed a thorough review process, including consultations with all 60 investigated economies, two rounds of public hearings, and collection of more than 2,100 public comments from stakeholders, the agency has declined to share details of its bilateral engagements with affected nations, citing confidentiality rules. Trade experts point out that verifying whether a country has a forced labor import ban on the books is a straightforward process, but proving a nation is failing to enforce that ban is far more complex, and USTR has offered little concrete evidence to back up its findings.

    “There’s not a lot of hard evidence there,” said Scott Lincicome, vice president for general economics and trade policy at the Cato Institute, a libertarian Washington-based think tank. “It’s pretty laughable on its face to think that a country like the ones in Europe or in Norway or Switzerland aren’t doing enough to police forced labor.”

    Even for nations that do adopt and enforce the standards Washington is demanding, there is no clear path to have the tariffs lifted, according to Patrick Childress, a partner at international law firm Holland & Knight and a former U.S. trade official. Childress noted that nations must prove their compliance meets U.S. standards to win relief, a high bar that means no near-term tariff reductions are likely for most affected countries. “This suggests that no short-term path for countrywide relief from the new Section 301 tariffs will be available,” he said.

    Officials from affected nations have uniformly rejected the U.S. allegations. Brazil, which faces the higher 12.5% tariff rate, called the U.S. move “arbitrary and unjustified” in an official statement, accusing the U.S. of manipulating a critical human rights issue to penalize dozens of nations and the European Union. Australia, also assigned the 12.5% rate, pushed back as well. “We believe that amongst all of the countries in the world, Australia does take the issue of slavery, modern slavery, seriously, and will continue to do that,” Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell told reporters.

    The new tariffs have also sparked backlash from some U.S. domestic industries, thanks to targeted carve-outs that exclude certain nations from the levies. The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), which represents U.S. textile manufacturers, is protesting an exemption that waives the new tariffs for textile and apparel imports from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Malaysia, tied to those countries’ purchases of U.S. cotton and textiles. NCTO chief executive Kim Glas noted that the U.S. textile industry has been disproportionately harmed by forced labor competition, and the exemption undermines domestic producers. “No other industry has been more disadvantaged by forced labor than the U.S. textile industry, which employs 453,000 workers and has lost 41 plants over the past two plus years,” Glas said. “We remain strongly concerned that USTR’s textile mechanism will harm the very domestic manufacturers the administration seeks to help.”

    The debate over the new tariffs comes as existing U.S. forced labor import bans have repeatedly failed to block forced labor-produced goods from entering American markets. The U.S. currently has two core pieces of legislation addressing forced labor imports: The 1930 Tariff Act granted U.S. Customs and Border Protection authority to seize suspected shipments, but included a major loophole that allowed imports if domestic production could not meet consumer demand. That loophole was closed by the 2016 Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act. The 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act went further, blocking all imports from China’s Xinjiang region unless companies can prove their goods were produced without forced labor.

    Even with these rules on the books, forced labor-produced goods still regularly enter U.S. supply chains. A 2015 Associated Press investigation uncovered widespread slave labor in the Southeast Asian fishing industry, with the caught seafood ending up in U.S. supermarkets and pet food products. A 2020 AP investigation into the global palm oil industry, worth $65 billion worldwide, found systemic labor abuse among a workforce of millions of men, women and children across Asia, with palm oil from these operations entering the supply chains of major global consumer brands including Unilever, L’Oreal, Nestle and Procter & Gamble.

    Trade policy experts and business groups say a far more comprehensive approach is needed to effectively combat forced labor in global supply chains, rather than broad, blunt tariffs applied to nearly all U.S. imports. During recent congressional hearings on the new tariffs, Jonathan Gold, vice president of the National Retail Federation, who represented a cross-industry business coalition focused on forced labor policy, said effective enforcement requires clear, measurable standards for nations to meet, paired with U.S. support to help build effective enforcement capacity in developing economies. Kenya Davis, a partner at the Boies Schiller Flexner law firm, echoed that view, noting that an effective ban requires transparency around investigation processes, paired with targeted aid to help nations strengthen their own enforcement regimes.

  • What we know so far about the Berlin Pride ramming attack

    What we know so far about the Berlin Pride ramming attack

    On Saturday night, a devastating violent attack targeted the annual Christopher Street Day Pride celebration in Berlin, leaving one woman dead and 16 other attendees injured. The assault began when a driver deliberately steered a white vehicle into crowds gathered in Tiergarten Park, a sprawling green space adjacent to the iconic Brandenburg Gate where hundreds of thousands of people had assembled for the LGBTQ+ flagship event. Multiple witnesses also reported stabbings during the incident, adding to the chaos that unfolded shortly after 22:00 local time.

    Emergency response teams quickly moved in to secure the area, and event organizers immediately ordered a full evacuation of the park. Large event screens displayed the urgent evacuation notice to guide thousands of attendees away from the danger zone, and the entire celebration was formally canceled within minutes of the first emergency call to police.

    Roughly three hours after the attack, Berlin law enforcement confirmed the fatality and injury toll in an official statement. Not long after that confirmation, investigators located the suspect’s vehicle, which had crashed into a tree and was abandoned within the park boundaries. By 03:30 local time on Sunday, police announced via social media platform X that they had identified a person of interest linked to Islamist extremist circles. As of the latest updates, no arrest has been made, and investigators have not yet formally confirmed a definitive motive for the attack.

    Authorities have named the primary suspect as 21-year-old Abdul B., withholding his full surname in compliance with German privacy regulations that restrict the public naming of suspects before formal conviction. Police confirmed the suspect has known connections to Islamist extremist communities, and warned that he is believed to be armed and considered extremely dangerous. At the time of the attack, he was described as wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and white trousers. Investigators have also not ruled out the possibility of additional accomplices, noting that one or more people may have fled the suspect vehicle after the crash, expanding the scope of the investigation.

    The manhunt has grown into one of the largest recent law enforcement operations in the German capital, with search boundaries extended across the entire city. Thousands of police officers, including additional reinforcements drawn from neighboring German states, have been deployed to track down the suspect. Berlin Police have issued a public appeal for any witnesses or community members with relevant information to contact authorities immediately, while stressing that members of the public must not approach the suspect under any circumstances.

    The attack occurred along Ahornsteig, a tree-lined path that cuts across the forested sections of Tiergarten Park, along the final route of the annual Christopher Street Day parade. The parade, which draws hundreds of thousands of participants and spectators annually, had wound through central Berlin before moving through the park past the Victory Column monument, en route to its endpoint near the Brandenburg Gate.

  • Watch: At the scene of Berlin Pride attack as manhunt continues

    Watch: At the scene of Berlin Pride attack as manhunt continues

    Authorities in Germany have launched an extensive manhunt for a 21-year-old man identified as the prime suspect in an incident that unfolded at the Berlin Pride celebration, leaving event attendees and local residents on edge as search operations continue. Eyewitness footage captured the immediate aftermath of the incident at the annual LGBTQ+ gathering, which draws hundreds of thousands of participants and visitors to the German capital each year. Law enforcement officials confirmed that they have successfully named the person of interest in connection with the attack, but as of the latest update, the suspect remains at large. Search teams, including specialized tactical units and local police patrols, have been deployed across Berlin and surrounding regions to locate the individual, with authorities urging members of the public to remain vigilant and report any potential sightings that could aid the investigation. The incident has disrupted what is typically a joyous, inclusive celebration of LGBTQ+ rights, prompting increased security measures at public gatherings across the city in the wake of the attack. Local officials have emphasized their commitment to bringing the suspect to justice while reassuring the community that every possible resource is being dedicated to the ongoing search effort.

  • France battles fire ‘whirlwinds’ as another 55,000 evacuated

    France battles fire ‘whirlwinds’ as another 55,000 evacuated

    As extreme fire activity accelerates across Western Europe, a new wave of mass evacuation has been ordered in southwestern France, where the country’s decades-worst wildfire crisis continues to spiral out of control. On Friday, local authorities ordered 55,000 additional residents and visitors to leave six towns located south of Bordeaux in the Gironde region, marking one of the largest single evacuation phases of the ongoing disaster. The wildfire emergency that began spreading across the continent a week ago has hit France and Spain the hardest, with a cumulative total of more than 330,000 people displaced by fast-moving flames across both nations.

    For France, the current outbreak stands as one of the most devastating forest fire events since the conclusion of World War Two. So far, more than 42,000 hectares of forest and vegetation have burned in this active wave alone, and the total burnt area across the country has already hit 98,000 hectares since the start of 2026. Firefighting commanders on the ground say the unpredictable behavior of the flames has made containment efforts extremely difficult. “The fire has generated its own winds, even creating powerful whirlwinds,” explained Captain Nicolas Braz, a senior leader of the French firefighting response. “It is completely erratic and impossible to manage with standard tactics.”

    Unusually parched vegetation and sustained strong winds have created ideal conditions for the blaze to expand rapidly. The spread has forced the closure of a 60-kilometer stretch of the A63 motorway, a major transport route connecting France to northern Spain. French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez warned in an interview with La Tribune published Sunday that full containment will be a lengthy process, and that displaced residents will not be able to return to their homes until the fire is fully under control. In response to the escalating crisis, France has deployed military reinforcements to support frontline firefighters, with troops tasked with clearing dry brush and constructing strategic fire breaks to slow the spread of flames. President Emmanuel Macron has released a public statement affirming that the French state will support all affected communities, saying the nation will “rebuild” and that his administration will remain committed to the response effort “for as long as is needed.”

    The wildfire crisis is equally severe across the border in Spain, where fast-moving blazes continue to push deeper into populated regions. More than 90,000 people have already been evacuated from fire-prone areas surrounding Madrid and Ávila. Late Saturday, evacuation orders were issued for at least eight additional municipalities near Toledo, though the exact number of residents required to leave has not yet been confirmed by authorities. Forecasters are predicting another day of extreme conditions on Sunday, with high temperatures and very low humidity that will likely enable further rapid fire expansion.

    Isabel Díaz Ayuso, regional president of Madrid, called the current outbreak the “worst fire in the history of the region.” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has acknowledged that the country faces a prolonged period of challenge, saying “complex times ahead” for response and recovery. Tragically, the disaster has already claimed its first confirmed life: authorities in the València region announced Sunday that one man has died in a wildfire burning in the area.

  • Wildfires in France drive 250,000 people from their homes, creep toward wine city

    Wildfires in France drive 250,000 people from their homes, creep toward wine city

    LEGE-CAP FERRET, France — Uncontrolled wildfires tearing through southwestern France have triggered a sweeping new wave of evacuations, forcing 55,000 additional residents to flee their homes overnight Sunday. This new displacement pushes the total number of people evacuated from the Gironde region alone — the country’s renowned wine-producing area home to the historic city of Bordeaux — to 220,000, as fast-spreading flames draw steadily closer to the city’s urban core.

    Regional officials confirmed overnight evacuation orders for five more communities located southwest of Bordeaux, a centuries-old city celebrated globally for its wine industry and cultural heritage. According to an official statement, strong gusting winds amplified the blaze through the overnight hours, supercharging the spread of a fire that has burned without containment since the middle of last week.

    The prefect of Gironde also implemented a partial closure of a major highway running southwest out of Bordeaux, a key transport link for the region, to support emergency response efforts and keep residents out of harm’s way. Bordeaux’s mayor emphasized in a public update that the fire remains an immediate threat to the metropolitan area, with the closest edge of the blaze now sitting just 15 kilometers, or roughly 9 miles, from the city’s outer limits.

    A second large-scale wildfire, burning hundreds of kilometers south in France’s Landes region, has forced another 30,000 people to evacuate since the outbreak began earlier this week. When combined, the two French blazes have now displaced more than 250,000 people total. The crisis is not confined to France, either: neighboring Spain is also facing its own severe wildfire emergency, with authorities reporting that 70,000 people have been evacuated from areas west of Madrid this week as blazes spread across the region amid hot, dry conditions.

  • Authorities in Germany issue a wanted notice for suspect in Berlin Pride van ramming

    Authorities in Germany issue a wanted notice for suspect in Berlin Pride van ramming

    BERLIN – Less than 24 hours after a violent vehicle attack near Berlin’s annual LGBTQ+ Pride festival left one person dead and at least 16 others injured, German law enforcement officials launched a public manhunt Sunday for a fugitive suspect identified as 21-year-old Abdul B. In an official wanted notice published by state police and public prosecutors, authorities issued an urgent warning for residents to exercise extreme caution around the suspect, noting he is believed to be armed and should not be approached directly by members of the public.

    Investigators confirmed that the incident involved multiple layers of violence beyond the van ramming. A moving vehicle was used to strike multiple victims, after which at least one individual fled the scene. Initial investigations also uncovered evidence that several victims suffered stab wounds, adding to the complexity of the ongoing probe.

    Berlin police spokesperson Florian Nath told reporters that investigators have already established that the suspect has documented connections to Islamic extremist networks operating within the German capital. “The suspect is already known to our department. He is linked to Islamic circles based here in Berlin, and our search operations are being prioritized and carried out at maximum speed,” Nath stated in a press briefing.

    Despite early progress in identifying a person of interest, Nath added that key details surrounding the attack remain unconfirmed as of Sunday. “At this stage, we have no confirmed information about the suspect’s specific motives, the exact order of events that unfolded during the attack, or the full scope of his role in planning or carrying out this crime,” Nath said. Investigators are asking members of the public who may have information about Abdul B.’s current whereabouts to contact authorities immediately.

  • Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight

    Pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein – how Italian children became so overweight

    Seventeen-year-old Salvatore’s daily life is defined by the burden of his 170kg frame. Simple, routine tasks that most teenagers take for granted – from tying their own shoelaces to riding a scooter – have become overwhelming challenges. Even his Vespa cannot withstand his weight: its wheels have broken seven times in a single week. “He eats constantly,” explains his mother Anna, a quiet witness to her son’s struggle. Today, Salvatore is just one of thousands of Italian children and adolescents grappling with severe obesity, a public health crisis that has hit the country’s southern regions particularly hard. In some areas of Campania, more than 40% of eight- and nine-year-olds are classified as overweight, and Ponticelli, a small town on the outskirts of Naples, has gained a grim distinction as one of the global capitals of childhood obesity.

    This crisis marks a striking reversal for a country long celebrated as the birthplace and spiritual home of the world-renowned Mediterranean diet, held up for decades as a global blueprint for healthy eating. The diet, rich in leafy vegetables, legumes, extra-virgin olive oil, whole grains and fatty fish, rose to global prominence after 1950s research by American physiologist Ancel Keys and biochemist Margaret Keys, who linked the traditional eating habits of southern Italian communities to dramatically lower rates of heart disease. But according to public health experts, the Italy that inspired that landmark research no longer exists. “The traditional Mediterranean diet has been lost,” says Dr Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California. “Only 10% of Italians really follow it.” Dr Longo summarizes the modern Italian diet by its “five Ps”: pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein and pane (Italian for bread) – a far cry from the balanced, nutrient-dense eating patterns that made the country a global model for health.

    The shift away from traditional diet is visible everywhere across Italy: from supermarket shelves packed with ultra-processed snacks and sugary drinks to neighborhood pizzerias selling oversized slices topped with fried chips, processed sausages and other high-calorie fried add-ons. Pediatric obesity specialist Dr Roberto Berni Canani, based at Naples’ Federico II University, sees the life-altering consequences of this shift every single day. “I’ve treated children who are just two or three years old and already weigh 25kg,” he says. What alarms him most, he adds, is that most parents do not recognize their children’s unhealthy weight as a problem. Families usually visit his clinic for unrelated symptoms – persistent coughs, chronic stomach pain, recurring diarrhea – and rarely connect these issues to their child’s excess weight.

    Ten-year-old Francesca, who weighs 60kg, is a typical example. She came to Dr Berni Canani seeking care for a persistent cough and difficulty swallowing, which doctors suspect is caused by esophageal inflammation; her weight was never a concern for her family. Francesca describes her daily diet: bread and Nutella for breakfast, a chocolate-filled sponge cake for a mid-morning snack, pasta with lentils for lunch, and chicken for dinner – with no vegetables at all. “I put them in front of her, but she won’t touch them,” her mother Carmen explains. Even though Francesca participates in artistic gymnastics and Latin dance, her parents have never viewed her weight as a health risk. Dr Berni Canani explains that the issue is not any single meal, but the cumulative effect of constant small servings of calorie-dense food, excessive sugar, insufficient produce, and a widespread lack of awareness among families of how these habits add up over time. “These are good parents,” he says. “They simply don’t recognise the importance of diet quality and body weight.” By the time many families seek care, unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits are already deeply ingrained, shaped at home and reinforced by gaps in the school system.

    In much of Italy, encouraging consistent physical activity for children faces unexpected structural barriers. Many schools are housed in centuries-old historic palazzos that were never designed to accommodate modern physical education programs. At Naples’ Ugo Foscolo primary school, the school gym is so small it barely has enough space for a full class of children to move around freely. Teacher Francesca Pecce says she struggles to get parents to take childhood obesity seriously, in part because of deep-rooted cultural attitudes. “In Neapolitan culture, if a child is a little chubby with rosy cheeks, people often think they’re healthy,” she explains. Pecce believes schools can drive cultural change, particularly by teaching children healthy habits that they then bring home to their parents: “Sometimes it’s easier to educate the parents through their children than the other way around.”

    Regional authorities are now testing large-scale interventions to reverse the crisis. In Naples, secondary school students are participating in nutrition workshops run by the Valter Longo Foundation, part of a regional program that will reach more than 17,000 students across 25 schools, with added support for families to adjust eating habits at home. Not all young participants are convinced that education alone will shift behavior. Eighteen-year-old Ciro argues: “My classmates already know what’s healthy. They just don’t care.” Nineteen-year-old Carmen, however, says the workshops fill a critical gap, noting that temptation is everywhere, and even traditional Italian foods have become far less healthy: “When we go out for pizza, people don’t just order a Margherita. They put chips, sausages and fried food on top.” Compounding the issue is a longstanding cultural norm: Italian mothers and grandmothers have long expressed love through generous servings of food, creating a perfect storm of factors that drive excess weight gain.

    The World Health Organization classifies obesity as an “escalating global epidemic”: more than one billion people worldwide live with obesity today, and childhood obesity rates have quadrupled since 1990. In 2025, Italy made history as the first country to pass a national law formally recognizing obesity as a chronic, progressive, relapsing disease, framing it not as a simple failure of personal choice, but as a complex condition shaped by biology, environmental factors and social circumstances. Campania has become a testing ground for this new approach, rolling out a series of ambitious interventions, including a controversial trial of a “fast-mimicking diet” for overweight adolescents. Researchers are recruiting 300 participants for the trial, which puts subjects on a severely restricted 1,100-calorie diet on day one, followed by four days of just 770 calories per day, repeated every three months. The goal of the program is to trigger what researchers call a “metabolic reset” that rewires unhealthy eating patterns. Dr Longo, who has studied the effects of fasting for three decades, says: “Fasting, or controlled deprivation of food, is linked to a longer and healthier lifespan.” But the approach has divided medical experts. Dr Berni Canani argues that there is still too little clinical evidence supporting the safety and efficacy of fasting-mimicking diets for children to recommend them in national guidelines, and he warns that strict restrictions could carry serious psychological risks for adolescents, who are still developing a healthy relationship with food. “I fear that imposing food restrictions on teenagers could increase the risk of eating disorders, anorexia and body dysmorphia,” he says.

    Back at Betania Hospital in Ponticelli, Salvatore waits for a chance at life-changing bariatric surgery. Dr Sonja Chiappetta, who has treated severe obesity at the hospital for 15 years, says the patient demographic has shifted dramatically in just a decade: “Until recently, most of my patients were in their fifties. Now I see those same patients when they’re teenagers, as young as 16. They are getting younger, and it’s frightening.” The bariatric procedure Dr Chiappetta performs removes up to 90% of the stomach, limiting the amount of food patients can consume, and demand for the surgery has surged across southern Italy. For Salvatore, however, surgery is not yet possible: his weight is so excessive that the procedure would carry life-threatening risks. Instead, he is currently taking GLP-1 weight-loss injections to reduce his appetite and lower his weight enough to qualify for surgery. Salvatore hopes he will be able to have the operation this summer, allowing him to do something he has not done in years: wear a swimming suit in public without feeling crippling self-consciousness. His story is just one of thousands across Italy, where a generation of children is growing up increasingly disconnected from the Mediterranean diet legacy that once made the country a global model of health.

  • Several injured at Berlin Pride after reports vehicle drove into crowd, police say

    Several injured at Berlin Pride after reports vehicle drove into crowd, police say

    A violent and shocking incident has disrupted one of Europe’s most high-profile annual LGBTQ+ pride celebrations, leaving multiple people hurt and triggering a massive emergency response in central Berlin. According to local law enforcement officials, a vehicle drove into a crowd of attendees near Tiergarten Park on Saturday, where the conclusion of the city’s annual Christopher Street Day pride parade was scheduled to take place.

    Shortly after the first reports of the incident emerged, Berlin police confirmed that several people had sustained injuries, and that emergency medical teams were already on site providing immediate care to those affected. Photographic coverage from the scene shows a heavy deployment of first responders, with at least one injured individual transported from the area via ambulance on a stretcher. As of the latest update, authorities have not released a precise count of how many people were hurt in the event.

    In addition to emergency medical teams, a large contingent of police officers and fire department rescue units have been deployed to the incident zone. Law enforcement has launched an intensive manhunt for the suspect or suspects involved, and issued an urgent public appeal asking all civilians to avoid the Tiergarten Park area to allow first responders to operate unimpeded and support the ongoing investigation.

    Earlier the same day, the city had hosted the traditional Christopher Street Day parade, which drew huge crowds of participants and supporters marching through central Berlin before the event was set to wrap up with a series of evening gatherings near the park. Following the incident, event organizers and city authorities made the decision to cancel the remainder of the annual pride celebration out of caution and respect for those affected.