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  • Poland’s biggest opposition party faces split over tensions about its direction

    Poland’s biggest opposition party faces split over tensions about its direction

    WARSAW, Poland – A deep ideological and leadership rift has thrown Poland’s largest opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS), into open crisis, with party chairman Jarosław Kaczyński confirming Friday that over 30 sitting parliamentary lawmakers have effectively severed their ties to the conservative nationalist group. The split, which has been months in the making, comes as the party braces for a critical national election next year and faces growing pressure from far-right competitors seeking to erode its voter base.

    Law and Justice governed Poland for eight consecutive years from 2015 to 2023, when it was ousted from power by a centrist-liberal coalition led by current Prime Minister Donald Tusk. During its time in office, the party drew widespread international and domestic criticism for overhauling the country’s judicial system – a process that involved packing higher courts with party loyalists and launching disciplinary proceedings against judges who opposed the reforms. Since taking office, Tusk’s administration has made rolling back these judicial changes a top policy priority, but its efforts have been repeatedly blocked by two consecutive Polish presidents who maintain close alignment with Law and Justice.

    The internal friction within the party has intensified in recent months, pitting long-time party leader Kaczyński against former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who held the nation’s top executive office from 2017 until the 2023 election defeat. Morawiecki leads a relatively moderate faction within the hardline conservative party, and in April he launched a new policy-focused association called Development Plus, a move that sparked deep suspicion among Kaczyński’s loyalist wing, which viewed the group as a launching pad for a leadership challenge.

    Party leadership set a firm deadline of Thursday night for all PiS lawmakers to pledge they would cut ties to any external political associations like Development Plus. A last-minute meeting between Kaczyński and Morawiecki held Thursday failed to bridge their differences, setting the stage for this week’s split.

    On Friday, Kaczyński announced the outcome of the deadline, confirming that more than 30 lawmakers had effectively resigned from PiS membership, according to Poland’s national news agency PAP. The party’s political committee is scheduled to hold a formal meeting Tuesday to officially recognize the departures.

    But the two sides have already offered conflicting accounts of the situation. Piotr Müller, a Law and Justice member of the European Parliament and a vocal Morawiecki supporter, disputed the leadership’s claims in a post on X, writing that no PiS members affiliated with Development Plus have formally resigned from the main party.

    Morawiecki himself offered a muted statement Friday, telling reporters that he and his association’s members have not yet held discussions about forming an entirely new political party. “We have to discuss all plans for the future,” he told PAP, leaving the ultimate outcome of the rift unresolved.

    At present, Law and Justice holds 186 of the 460 total seats in the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament. A permanent split that removes more than 30 lawmakers would drastically reshape the country’s opposition landscape ahead of next year’s election, creating uncertainty for both the Tusk government and Poland’s broader political trajectory.

  • Pompeii archaeologists reconstruct frescoed ceiling of a banquet hall, with more fragments to come

    Pompeii archaeologists reconstruct frescoed ceiling of a banquet hall, with more fragments to come

    ROME – One of the world’s most iconic archaeological sites, the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, has revealed a remarkable new cultural artifact: a partially reconstructed vaulted ceiling covered in intricate frescoes, decorated with vivid depictions of figures from classical Greek mythology. Pompeii, famously frozen in time when Mount Vesuvius erupted catastrophically in 79 AD, has yielded countless treasures over centuries of excavation, and this new discovery adds another extraordinary layer to our understanding of daily life in the ancient city. The finished partial reconstruction was presented to the public this Thursday, marking the conclusion of an international workshop focused on cutting-edge new findings and modern restoration practices at the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Drawing more than 2.5 million visitors annually, Pompeii remains Italy’s one of the most popular tourist destinations, making new archaeological developments there closely watched by both the global heritage community and cultural travel sectors. Officials from the Pompeii Archaeological Park announced further details of the project in an official statement released Friday. According to park authorities, the restored ceiling is thought to have originally decorated a large banquet hall on the upper floor of a residential villa, which also included an adjacent commercial bakery on the premises. Unlike traditional static restoration methods, the project team employed a groundbreaking modular approach to reconstruct the curved vault. Experts first built a custom curved supporting structure that matches the original curvature of the ancient ceiling, then fitted all recovered and restored fresco fragments into their correct positions on the frame to recreate the original layout. A key advantage of this innovative system is its flexibility: as additional fresco fragments are uncovered in future excavations and undergo restoration, they can be seamlessly added to the existing reconstruction, gradually completing the full artwork over time. Following careful analysis of the recovered imagery, archaeologists have confirmed that the central narrative theme of the ceiling frescoes centers on the mythic pairing of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, celebration and feasting, and Ariadne, the Cretan princess famous for her role in the myth of the Minotaur. The union of Dionysus and Ariadne is one of the most enduring and widely depicted myths in classical Greco-Roman art, making it a fitting decorative theme for a space used for grand social banquets in ancient Pompeii. This project not only preserves a fragile piece of ancient art for future study but also demonstrates how modern innovative techniques are transforming the way archaeologists recover and display artifacts from this unique site.

  • Man City and Spain midfielder Rodri to have back surgery after winning the World Cup

    Man City and Spain midfielder Rodri to have back surgery after winning the World Cup

    In his first official public appearance as Manchester City’s newly appointed head coach, Enzo Maresca has delivered two key updates for the Premier League giants: confirming star midfielder Rodri will undergo urgent back surgery next week, and quelling widespread transfer speculation by reaffirming the Ballon d’Or winner remains part of the club’s long-term plans.

    The announcement of Rodri’s upcoming procedure caps a turbulent 12 months for the Spanish international, who already navigated an ACL injury in 2024 that disrupted his entire club campaign. Despite the fitness setback, Rodri emerged as a driving force behind Spain’s 2024 World Cup triumph, cementing his status as one of the most influential midfielders in global football. Maresca declined to specify a timeline for Rodri’s recovery from his latest back issue, but made clear the club has no intention of allowing their talisman to leave.

    “Big players always attract speculation, that’s just part of the game, and I’m not concerned about it,” Maresca told reporters on Friday. “After winning the World Cup, of course every top club will be linked to one of the best players in the world. Any manager would jump at the chance to sign Rodri, he’s a generational talent. But right now, the focus is on his surgery scheduled for Monday. He needs time to rest, recover, and heal properly. When he’s ready, he’ll be back with this squad.”

    Maresca’s introductory press conference came just weeks after the departure of Pep Guardiola, the iconic manager who stepped down at the end of the 2023-24 season after an unprecedented eight-year reign of success at the Etihad Stadium. Across his tenure at City, Guardiola claimed 17 major honours, including six Premier League titles and the club’s first-ever Champions League crown in 2023. With 35 major trophies collected across stints at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and City, Guardiola is widely regarded as one of the greatest managers in football history.

    For 46-year-old Maresca, taking the helm at City marks a homecoming rather than an entirely new chapter. The Italian coach previously cut his teeth at the club as an academy coach during the 2020-21 season, before stepping up to serve as Guardiola’s assistant for the 2022-23 campaign – the historic treble-winning season where City claimed the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup. After two recent senior management spells at Leicester City and Chelsea, Maresca said returning to City felt like coming full circle.

    “It is an absolute privilege to be asked to lead this club,” Maresca said. “I’ve said many times before that Pep is the best manager of the last 20 to 25 years, and stepping into his role is a huge challenge – but it’s one I embrace wholeheartedly. I think the club chose me because my tactical philosophy aligns closely with the foundations built here. We want to keep playing aggressive, possession-based football that imposes our will on opponents. At the end of the day, that’s what matters: winning matches and continuing this club’s incredible run of success.”

  • New UK leader Andy Burnham caps a busy first week with a part-time office move to Manchester

    New UK leader Andy Burnham caps a busy first week with a part-time office move to Manchester

    Just days after stepping through the doors of 10 Downing Street as Britain’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham is already moving at a breakneck pace to deliver on his campaign promises and set a starkly different tone from his ousted predecessor Keir Starmer. Since his Monday arrival at Downing Street, the new Labour Party leader has crisscrossed four regions of the United Kingdom, held introductory calls with more than a dozen global heads of state, and rolled out a series of small but symbolically charged economic policy tweaks to signal his government’s priorities. These early actions include a temporary tax cut for residential electricity bills, a £2 ($2.70) price cap on single bus fares across the country, and a targeted tax break for public houses, a staple of British community life.

  • Ten killed in Russian attack on Kyiv as Ukraine targets Wildberries

    Ten killed in Russian attack on Kyiv as Ukraine targets Wildberries

    The ongoing full-scale conflict between Russia and Ukraine has entered a new phase of intensified cross-border targeting, with a wave of coordinated strikes over a 24-hour period leaving dozens dead on both sides and triggering an unprecedented security response from a NATO member state.

    Russia launched a series of overnight and daytime attacks across Ukraine on Friday, killing at least 16 civilians and military personnel. The deadliest single incident was a ballistic missile strike on an outdoor training ground just outside Kyiv, where a public exhibition of Ukrainian defense industry technologies was being held. According to Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuri Ihnat, Russia fired three ballistic missiles at the site, and only one was successfully intercepted by Ukrainian air defense systems.

    Initial official updates from Kyiv put the death toll from this strike at 10, with approximately 100 people injured. Emergency response teams have been working around the clock to clear rubble and search for survivors. Among the intended targets of the strike were two high-profile Ukrainian figures connected to the national military: Serhiy Beskrestnov, a Defense Ministry advisor widely known by the alias “Flash”, and Lyuba Shypovych, who leads development of military technologies for Ukraine’s armed forces. Both confirmed their safety via social media shortly after the attack.

    This strike marks at least the third time that a public defense industry exhibition has been targeted by Russian strikes since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. The incident has sparked significant domestic controversy in Ukraine, as public reports indicate the event was openly advertised and widely publicized despite ongoing conflict risks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered a full official investigation into the incident, while the country’s prosecutor general has launched a probe to determine who authorized the public event and what safety protocols were in place to protect attendees.

    A separate Russian strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk killed five additional people overnight, bringing the total Russian-caused death toll across Ukraine to 16 in the 24-hour period.

    In reciprocal cross-border attacks, Ukraine launched strikes deep into Russian territory that left six dead and 26 injured near Kirov, a city located more than 600 miles behind Russia’s frontline combat positions. Zelensky confirmed that the Kirov strike targeted a key military production facility that supplies critical components for Russian aircraft and missile systems used to attack Ukrainian territory.

    Ukrainian forces also carried out the third strike in six days against warehouses operated by Wildberries, Russia’s largest domestic online retailer. The latest attack hit a distribution center near Saint Petersburg, triggering massive fires that spread across the facility. In the first wave of Wildberries strikes over the previous weekend, two warehouses were hit: one in Elektrostal, east of Moscow, and another in Kotovsk, roughly 250 miles from the Ukrainian border. Eight nightshift workers were killed in those initial attacks, dozens more were injured, and an estimated $1 billion worth of stored goods were destroyed. The repeated strikes have hit the bottom lines of thousands of small and medium-sized Russian businesses that rely on Wildberries for e-commerce distribution.

    Ukrainian officials have confirmed a shift in their long-range strike strategy: after months of targeting Russian energy infrastructure including oil depots and refineries, Kyiv is now prioritizing attacks on Russian logistics hubs that support military procurement and frontline supply lines. Publicly available screenshots of Wildberries’ website taken hours after the latest strike show the retailer continues to list body armor and other military-related equipment for sale to Russian buyers.

    Beyond the territory of Russia and Ukraine, the conflict spilled over into NATO member state Romania on Friday. Romanian President Nicusor Dan confirmed that a Romanian Air Force F-16 fighter jet intercepted and shot down a Russian drone that had breached the country’s sovereign airspace. Romanian authorities had earlier issued public security alerts across multiple eastern and southeastern counties ahead of the interception, marking one of the most direct military encounters between NATO and Russian forces since the full-scale invasion began.

  • Singer Chris Brown pleads guilty over bottle attack at a London nightclub

    Singer Chris Brown pleads guilty over bottle attack at a London nightclub

    LONDON — Grammy-winning American R&B star Chris Brown has entered a guilty plea to a charge of affray in connection with a violent 2023 altercation at an exclusive London nightclub, resolving a high-profile legal case that had been set to go to trial next month. The 37-year-old singer made the unexpected change of plea during a hearing at London’s Southwark Crown Court on Friday, bringing an early end to legal proceedings that stretched more than two years from the date of the incident. The altercation, which took place in February 2023 at the upscale Tape nightclub in London’s Mayfair district, saw Brown strike music producer Abraham Diaw in the head with a glass bottle amid a crowded venue. Prosecutors had initially brought far more severe charges against Brown, including assault, attempted grievous bodily harm, and possession of an offensive weapon. In exchange for Brown’s guilty plea to the lesser affray charge, prosecutors agreed to dismiss all three more serious counts. Brown’s co-defendant, Omololu Akinlolu — a long-time friend and vocal coach who works with the singer — also pleaded guilty to the same affray charge at the hearing. The pair had been scheduled to face a full jury trial starting in October. Prosecutors noted that the entire confrontation was captured on the nightclub’s internal surveillance footage, recorded in front of dozens of other patrons on the night of the incident. The official statement of the affray charge outlines that both Brown and Akinlolu engaged in, or threatened, unlawful violence against other people at the venue, and that their combined conduct would have caused any reasonably composed person present at the scene to fear for their personal safety. Following the guilty plea hearing, senior Crown Prosecution Service lawyer Claire Campbell emphasized the severity of the incident. “This was a vicious and unprovoked attack by Brown and Akinlolu in a crowded nightclub where Brown used a glass bottle as a weapon to strike the victim’s head twice,” Campbell said. She added that public violence of this nature has no place in the UK, and reaffirmed that the prosecution service would work closely with police and other criminal justice partners to pursue such cases regardless of a defendant’s profile, stressing that “no one is above the law.” After the fight unfolded in 2023, Brown left the United Kingdom. He was not taken into custody until May 2025, when he was arrested at a Manchester hotel after arriving in the city to prepare for a scheduled European tour. Following his 2025 arrest, Brown was granted bail set at 5 million British pounds, equal to roughly $6.7 million. The terms of that bail allowed him to continue touring across Europe and North America through the summer of 2025. After Friday’s plea hearing, Brown was released on bail once again, with sentencing for the affray charge scheduled for October 26. The charge carries a maximum penalty of three years’ imprisonment. Outside the courthouse after the hearing, Brown — dressed in a tan suit, gold-rimmed sunglasses, and a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap — stopped to sign autographs for waiting fans before departing. Brown first rose to mainstream fame as a teenage artist in 2005, and has since become one of the most commercially successful R&B artists of his generation. He earned his first Grammy Award for Best R&B Album in 2011 for his project *F.A.M.E.*, and picked up a second Grammy in the same category earlier this year for his 2024 *11:11 (Deluxe)* release. This guilty plea marks the latest entry in a long string of legal troubles for the singer, dating back to a 2009 felony assault conviction for attacking his then-girlfriend, pop star Rihanna, just hours before the pair were scheduled to perform at the Grammy Awards that year.

  • Police ‘intercept car with bomb on way to attack in NI’

    Police ‘intercept car with bomb on way to attack in NI’

    In a major counter-terrorism operation along the Irish border, Ireland’s national police force, Gardaí, has intercepted a vehicle carrying a fully assembled explosive device that authorities believe was en route to an attack in Northern Ireland. The interception unfolded shortly after 3 p.m. local time on Wednesday, when officers pulled the car over along the N2 highway in the vicinity of Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, a region that sits just kilometers from the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

    Following the stop, two suspects were taken into police custody. The vehicle’s driver, a woman in her 20s, was arrested immediately during the Wednesday afternoon operation, while a second suspect, a man in his 40s, was apprehended later in connection with the plot. Law enforcement officials confirmed the operation was explicitly targeted at curbing dissident republican activity, a long-running source of regional security tensions in the border area.

    Irish national public broadcaster RTÉ cited official sources confirming the explosive discovered in the vehicle was fully completed and primed for an imminent attack. After the vehicle was stopped, Gardaí called in the Irish Defence Forces’ Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team to conduct a full examination of the device and the vehicle. In an official public statement released Wednesday, Gardaí declined to share details of the EOD team’s findings, noting that the outcome of the examination is being withheld for operational security purposes. The incident comes amid ongoing security cooperation between Irish and Northern Irish law enforcement to disrupt planned attacks by dissident groups that oppose the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of conflict in the region.

  • Deposed Turkish opposition leader forms ‘New Party’ to challenge Erdogan

    Deposed Turkish opposition leader forms ‘New Party’ to challenge Erdogan

    In a major political shakeup rocking Turkey’s opposition landscape, former chair of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Ozgur Ozel formally launched a new political bloc Friday, officially registering the self-named “New Party” with Turkey’s Interior Ministry just moments after he and 90 fellow CHP legislators resigned from the decades-old party. The long-awaited formation of the new opposition force comes months after a court ruling removed Ozel from his CHP leadership post, a decision that has deepened divisions in Turkish politics and spurred mass protests in support of the ousted leader.

    The sequence of events that led to this split traces back to May 2024, when an appeals court annulled the results of a 2023 CHP party congress that had appointed Ozel as the party’s new chair. Citing unproven claims of voting irregularities, the court reinstated 77-year-old Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who led the CHP for 13 years. Many political analysts broadly characterize Kilicdaroglu’s tenure as marked by ineffective opposition to long-serving President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Ozel’s removal from the CHP leadership sparked immediate widespread outrage among the party’s base, with supporters dismissing the court order as a politically motivated maneuver designed to weaken Turkey’s fragmented opposition ahead of key political contests.

    In a social media video posted to X following the formal registration, Ozel signed the document formalizing his exit from Turkey’s oldest established political party and offered a hopeful message for the new movement: “May it be auspicious for our homeland, our nation, and our party.”

    Supporters of Ozel frame his ouster as one piece of a broader two-year crackdown on CHP officials across the country. During that period, hundreds of elected mayors and municipal leaders from CHP-run local governments have been detained as part of criminal investigations, most centered on allegations of corruption. Among the most high-profile detentions is Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular former mayor of Istanbul who was widely viewed as the strongest single challenger to Erdogan. Imamoglu, who remains a CHP member, has been imprisoned since March 2023 and faces charges that could carry decades of prison time if he is convicted. As of Friday, there was no official confirmation on whether Imamoglu would leave the CHP to join Ozel’s new bloc.

    The Erdogan administration has repeatedly pushed back against claims of political interference in the justice system, insisting that Turkey’s courts operate independently and free from government pressure.

    Notably, Ozel led the CHP to one of its most significant electoral gains in recent years during the 2024 municipal elections, where the party delivered a major rebuke to Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Despite that success, Ozel was unable to reverse the court’s annulment of his leadership win, and split from the party after Kilicdaroglu refused repeated calls to hold a new leadership vote to resolve the internal crisis.

    With 91 legislators holding seats in Turkey’s 600-seat national parliament, the New Party is on track to displace the CHP as Turkey’s official main opposition bloc. Following the mass defection, the remaining CHP caucus holds just 44 parliamentary seats. Erdogan’s AKP, an Islam-oriented conservative party that has held power for more than two decades, retains a 277-seat majority in the legislature.

  • EU finds TikTok violates its digital rule book by failing to protect privacy of minors

    EU finds TikTok violates its digital rule book by failing to protect privacy of minors

    BRUSSELS – In another high-stakes regulatory move targeting major global social media platforms, the European Commission announced Friday that it has concluded TikTok failed to put sufficient safeguards in place to protect children’s privacy rights on its platform. Specifically, the Commission found that the platform’s existing settings allowed adult users to access the personal accounts of underage users without proper restrictions.

    This gap in privacy protections does not merely violate regional digital rules — it creates serious tangible risks for young users, EU regulators emphasized. The open accessibility of minor accounts exposes children to a range of harms, including cyberbullying, unsolicited contact from strangers, and potential predatory behavior.

    Friday’s announcement is the latest in a string of aggressive enforcement actions against large technology companies led by Brussels, which has emerged as a global trailblazer in strict oversight of tech industry giants. Over recent years, the EU has advanced sweeping regulatory actions against other major players including Meta and Apple, setting a benchmark for digital governance that many other regions have since followed.

    Under the EU’s regulatory process, TikTok now has the opportunity to mount a formal defense and submit a formal response to the Commission’s findings. If regulators remain unsatisfied with the Chinese-owned company’s corrective plans or response, they can issue a formal non-compliance ruling, which opens the door to financial penalties that could reach as high as 6% of TikTok’s total global annual revenue.

    This is not the first time the EU has ruled against TikTok this year. Back in February, the bloc’s regulators found that the platform violated another key provision of its digital rulebook by designing its user experience to encourage compulsive overuse. Features including infinite scroll and automatic content playback were flagged for their addictive design, which regulators concluded poses measurable risks to the physical and mental well-being of all users, with minors facing the greatest harm.

  • Watch: Wildfires rage across France and Spain

    Watch: Wildfires rage across France and Spain

    Southern Europe is grappling with an escalating climate-driven disaster as intense, fast-spreading wildfires rage across large swathes of France and Spain, forcing mass evacuations of popular tourist destinations and pushing authorities to enact sweeping emergency measures. In France, the worst-hit regions have seen flames devour thousands of hectares of forest and brushland, pushing emergency responders to their limits. Local French officials have issued mandatory evacuation orders for communities in the country’s iconic Mediterranean coastal tourist hubs, areas that draw millions of visitors each summer. With dry, windy conditions amplifying the spread of the blazes, thousands of residents and vacationers have been forced to flee their accommodations and homes with little advance notice.

    Across the border in Spain, the scale of the wildfire crisis has prompted the national government to elevate the response to a full state of national emergency. The blazes, fanned by record-breaking heatwaves and prolonged drought that have parched vegetation across the Iberian Peninsula, have scorched vast areas of rural and protected natural land, destroyed critical infrastructure, and threatened populated regions. The declaration of national emergency unlocks additional federal resources, including additional firefighting personnel, military support, and emergency funding, to help local regions contain the outbreaks and support affected communities. Satellite imagery from recent days shows massive plumes of smoke drifting across the Mediterranean, a visible reminder of how widespread the disaster has become. Climate scientists have repeatedly warned that rising global temperatures are increasing the frequency and severity of extreme wildfire events across the Mediterranean basin, turning what was once a seasonal risk into a growing annual catastrophe for the region.