The government is preparing a series of measures including a social media ban for under-16s, the prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, said, promising to protect children from the digital wild west and hold tech companies responsible for hateful and harmful content. Sanchez said on Tuesday that urgent action was needed because social media was a failed state where laws are ignored and crimes are tolerated.
A Hungarian court has jailed a German anti-fascist activist for eight years for attacking participants at a far-right rally in Budapest. Maja T, 25, was sentenced on Wednesday after being convicted of involvement in violence ahead of the annual Day of Honour commemoration in Budapest. The event is one of the biggest neo-Nazi rallies in Europe. The defendant was accused of attempted aggravated bodily harm causing life-threatening injuries and assault committed as part of a criminal organisation.
On Wednesday (February 4, 2026), Maja T.*, an anti-fascist activist from the eastern German city of Jena (Thuringia), was found guilty by a court in Hungary of having attacked and seriously injured several suspected right-wing extremists in Budapest in February 2023. The attacks had apparently been directed at individuals thought to have participated in the annual "Day of Honor" rally of neo-Nazis from all over Europe, held in the Hungarian capital.
I woke up this morning in Ukraine to the familiar sound of air-raid alerts and the less familiar feeling that reality is being rewritten somewhere far away. Overnight, the New York Post reported that Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin had "kept his word" on a ceasefire. Yesterday, from the ground here in Ukraine, I wrote the complete opposite, and like Witkoff's recent comments to Trump, which only confirmed what I'd already reported, that claim feels completely detached from what people here are actually living through.
Italy has another path. It is older, quieter, and designed for people who can live on passive income rather than a job. It is the Elective Residence Visa, called residenza elettiva in Italian. As of February 2026, the rules still center on three pillars, stable non-employment income, suitable housing in Italy, and private health insurance. There is no work permitted on this status, not even remote work for a foreign company. For the right profile, that tradeoff is exactly the point.
The climax of the new 12-team competition, which will be held every two years and replaces traditional tours, will be held at Twickenham at the end of November with two matches on Friday, two on Saturday and two on Sunday. Six Nations form guide: how the 2026 contenders are shaping up The six Tests pit the sixth-place finisher in the northern hemisphere pool against the sixth in the southern hemisphere pool, the fifth against the fifth and so on, culminating in the first against the first.
X will not attend despite calls for it to face questioning about its AI tool Grok, which has been accused of generating images of sexual abuse, including that of children The Taoiseach has labelled the decision by X not to attend a communications committee hearing as as "concerning" and "disrespectful". Representatives from Meta, TikTok and Google are to appear in front of the Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport today.
Boss of national broadcaster says the pay cap will stay despite Claire Byrne's departure He does not believe the 'paperwork is that onerous' for staff following RTÉ's rules on external activities He says he disagrees with Claire Byrne's comments that there is a 'nervousness in RTÉ, editorially' He also says water has passed under the bridge with Ryan Tubridy and does not rule out his return
Musk's scathing attack on PM Pedro Sanchez comes after he announces strict new regulations for social media platforms. Tech billionaire and owner of X, Elon Musk, has dubbed socialist Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez a tyrant and traitor to the people of Spain for introducing new social media curbs for children under the age of 16. Musk's comments on Tuesday came in response to an announcement by the Spanish prime minister that Madrid would introduce new changes to the country's social media laws.
Named to be the European version of the US Green Card, the blue cards can be obtained in all EU countries, except in Denmark and Ireland, which have opted out. Blue Cards can be requested by non-EU citizens with a university degree or an equivalent qualification and who have a job offer and a salary meeting the threshold set by the EU country of expected residence.
After months of mounting pressure on independent media, academic institutions and NGOs, Serbia's ruling majority has turned its attention to the judiciary. In an expedited procedure, without public debate or consultations and bypassing established legislative standards, the Serbian parliament last week adopted a package of amendments to core judicial laws that critics say threatens the independence of the country's judiciary.
Brussels would be willing to discuss closer trade ties with the UK, including the possibility of cooperation on a customs union, a senior European commissioner has said, signalling the clearest openness yet from the EU to re-engage with Britain.Speaking to the BBC after high-level talks in London, Valdis Dombrovskis, the European Commissioner for Economy, said the EU was "ready to engage with an open mind" if the UK wanted to explore deeper economic alignment.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz embarked on a three-day trip to the Gulf region on Wednesday, where he is set to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The trip comes on the back of visits to Africa and Latin America at the end of last year and after a trip to India in January (see video), as Merz looks to strengthen Germany's partnerships with counties outside the European Union and NATO.
The MGA would like to remind consumers not to utilise services provided by an entity unless they have ascertained that the entity in question is authorised to provide such services by the MGA. The gaming regulatory framework obliges authorised persons to comply with strict legal requirements in the interest of consumers. The activities of unlicensed entities are unregulated and do not provide the necessary safeguards delineated by virtue of the framework, making transactions with such entities risky for consumers.
January 2027 will see the introduction of a new law in Sweden, which targets the location of a player using online gambling services. This will counteract a loophole, which it is believed is facilitating rapidly falling channelisation rates in the country. It will be supported by the Swedish Trade Association for Online Gambling, though warnings have been made about how it will have little impact if overregulation burdens current operators.
Sinn Féin is standing over comments by its finance spokesman, Pearse Doherty, linking the withdrawal of cost-of-living payments to Ireland's support for Ukraine, which have drawn sharp criticism.
Five Dublin criminals with over 120 previous convictions carried out a prolonged attack on a man by branding him with the word 'rat' using a hot-poker iron, waterboarding him, and running over him with an electric bike.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said there will be a "full review" of how electric bikes and e-scooters are regulated alongside a ban on scramblers in public parks and roads.
More than 1,000 residential buildings in Kyiv were without heating on Tuesday after a massive Russian air attack during one of the coldest nights of the winter, with temperatures in the capital falling to -20C. Overnight, the Kremlin fired 450 attack drones and more than 70 missiles across the country. The strikes caused damage in five Kyiv districts and injured at least nine people. Flames consumed an apartment on the upper floors of a Kyiv building.
It's anything but easy to keep guns, drones, and other equipment in the right conditions far above the Arctic Circle, where temperatures routinely drop below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and the heavy snow brings unwanted moisture that can cause jamming and other problems. NATO military personnel training in northern Finland told Business Insider during a visit to the region in late January that they can't afford to let their guns get too warm if they want them to work in this climate.
The announcement of a "Comprehensive Strategic Partnership" between Brussels and Hanoi last week places the EU side by side with China, the United States, and Russia as one of Vietnam's top-tier diplomatic relationships. Vietnamese President Luong Cuong described it as a "historical milestone underlining the great achievements that the two sides have made," during a meeting with the head of the European Council, Antonio Costa, in Hanoi.
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