A 46-year-old man of Bangladeshi origin is accused of aggravated sexual violence against his minor daughter in Brescia province, Italy, after investigators say years of abuse left her pregnant before she turned 15.
According to Italian newspaper Giornale di Brescia, the preliminary hearing opened at the Palace of Justice in late September 2026. The defendant, held since February in Cremona prison’s section for those accused of sexual offenses, requested an abbreviated trial conditioned on a proposed compensation payment to the victim. That request is scheduled for discussion on Jan. 19. DNA tests and police interviews with the girl, assisted by social services, supplied further corroboration that the father had impregnated his daughter.
The case surfaced in early 2026 when the mother took the girl to the emergency room at Brescia’s Civil Hospital for severe abdominal pain. Doctors determined she was pregnant and notified police. Italian police arrested the father after initial checks. Italian newspaper Il Giornale described the allegations as prolonged abuse beginning when the girl was a child.
The paper stated that inside the hospital, she told staff that he “had forced her to undergo sexual acts since she was a child. First he would subjugate her, then he would move on to groping, finally he began full intercourse. It was precisely during one of these sexual relationships that she became pregnant.”
Laura D’Urbino, president of Brescia juvenile court, said the court becomes involved in such situations both because of the daughter’s age and because the pregnancy involves a close relative.
This is not the first serious case of sexual violence from a Bangladeshi man in the Italian city. A separate case in the Brescia-area from 2024 involved a different 29-year-old Bangladeshi man and a 10-year-old girl of sub-Saharan origin inside a reception center in Collio. He was sentenced to five years in prison, however, the victim was not his daughter.
Images of burning schools, buses, and vicious assaults, along with a report of attempted murder, have once again hit France this morning, Oct. 1, as high school blockades mark their second week across France. What began as protests demanding better conditions for students and teachers has devolved into violence at dozens of locations, concentrated at schools with large immigrant populations
This morning, Oct. 1, further clashes, burning buses, and arson attacks have been reported. French news outlet BFMTV is even speaking of murder attempts being carried out by certain students in one incident where the leadership team of one school in Marseille was doused in gasoline. In response, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is convening an interministerial emergency meeting at 1 p.m. to contain the crisis.
BREAKING: Migrant student youths have set fire to multiple buses and even fire trucks in the French city of Marseille as chaos spreads.
The Marseille transport authority, RTM, said several of its buses "were targeted near high schools in the north and east of Marseille,"… pic.twitter.com/hv8tilIB3B
In Marseille, the regional government said an “unacceptable line” had been crossed at Victor Hugo High School, where “the principal, the deputy principal, the general secretary and the team leader were assaulted and doused with gasoline,” according to the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, cited by BFMTV.
BFMTV also reported that a naval firefighters’ vehicle was looted and set on fire in the city. Viral videos also show a bus on fire with numerous Black and Arab youths pelting the bus with stones and dancing on its roof. The Marseille transport authority, RTM, said several of its buses “were targeted near high schools in the north and east of Marseille,” that “drivers had to leave their vehicles in a hurry, and one of them was assaulted.”
The transit authority condemned “these irresponsible acts.” ICI reported that two buses caught fire in northern Marseille and that two buses were damaged near Floride High School in the 14th arrondissement. A dumpster was also set alight outside Victor Hugo High School. Authorities said 40 high schools in the Bouches-du-Rhône department were affected Thursday, and 18 of them were fully blocked.
The regional authority said the violence was no longer a protest.
“Mortar fire at staff, vehicle fires, gates torn down, stoning and intolerable intrusions: this is not contestation, it is delinquency,” it said, according to ICI. “Those who burn our high schools are attacking the Republic.”
BREAKING: Nelson Mandela High School is currently on fire in the French city of Nantes.
Schools across France are being set on fire as student protests and blockades rage on.
In Nantes, the hall of Nelson-Mandela High School was destroyed by what deputy principal Gaëlle Cordier called a “deliberate” fire that spread to the façade before firefighters brought it under control, RTL and Ouest-France reported. The school was expected to stay closed for days, and RTL said the administration expected a closure of several weeks.
The Nelson Mandela High School of Nantes actually just had a major “eco-friendly inclusive” renovation. The building cost €77 million in taxpayer money. However, the all-wooden design, with the interior reportedly designed for “positive energy,” has now gone up in flames. It could cost tens of millions to rebuild.
Despite the threat to life and property, the far-left pro-migration party France Unbowed (LFI) has tried to bolster the student movement, which is now spiraling out of control.
BREAKING: Schools are burning across France as violent student blockades grow. The mayhem shows no sign of slowing down despite 625 arrests.
Oct. 1 Nelson-Mandela high school in Nantes burned, façade and hall destroyed. The school is expected to be closed for several… pic.twitter.com/v1fxbNuWfH
A fire at the private Talensac High School in the city center destroyed the entrance doors.
“The same wreckers everywhere. The same violence everywhere. The same political exploitation everywhere,” Christelle Morançais, president of the Pays de la Loire region, wrote. “No demand to satisfy, just the will to sow chaos and destroy everything. This is not the youth of France.”
Staff have also been repeatedly attacked in other schools by migrant students hunting in packs.
France in chaos: Youths are literally hunting teachers and school staff in packs.
A chemistry teacher was violently attacked and kicked in his back as rioters chase him at the César Baggio high school in Lille, France.
Elsewhere Thursday, the prefecture said the façade of Lumière High School in Lyon’s 8th arrondissement was set on fire, Actu Lyon reported. In Annecy, fires were set outside the Berthollet, Baudelaire and Sommeiller high schools. Firefighters said they were working to keep the flames from reaching the buildings.
The unrest built through the week. On Wednesday, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 356 high schools were disrupted, 625 people were arrested and 83 police officers and gendarmes were injured, in a tally he described as not yet final, Europe 1 reported. Education Minister Édouard Geffray said 119 students and staff had been injured since the blockades began, including 34 staff members. “That is unprecedented in the national education system,” he said.
In addition, the following cases have been reported:
In Wattrelos, in the Nord, a car was driven against the gates of the Émile-Zola middle-and-high school and set on fire Wednesday. The school was closed, and prosecutors opened an inquiry for arson, Le Figaro reported.
In Montpellier on Tuesday, a fire destroyed the caretaker’s lodge at a side entrance of Jean-Mermoz High School and the school was evacuated.
In Bordeaux on Wednesday, a bin fire outside Gustave-Eiffel High School spread to the façades of two houses across the street, and firework mortars were fired toward the school, ICI reported. Ten people were arrested in the Gironde for arson, damage and throwing projectiles.
At Paul-Éluard High School in Saint-Denis, outside Paris, a fire damaged the main gate. Île-de-France region president Valérie Pécresse said replacement, security and cleaning up would cost about €100,000, and put total damage at regional high schools near €1 million, including about 10 gates out of service.
Geffray also cited a teacher beaten in the Nord, a head teacher injured by a firework mortar in the Hauts-de-Seine, and another threatened with death in the Essonne.
As Remix News reported yesterday, Geffray said: “This violence is unspeakable.” However, despite his threats to launch legal proceedings against rioters, the violence has only grown far worse today, Oct. 1.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has called any escalation “irresponsible.” Nuñez has described some of the violence as closer to urban rioting than to a labor protest.
A regional German court sentenced a 29-year-old Syrian man to four years and 10 months in prison for attempted manslaughter after he stabbed a man in the neck during a dispute at a Cologne drug hotspot, slightly reducing an earlier five-year term after Germany’s highest criminal court ordered a resentencing.
The Cologne Regional Court imposed the penalty Friday following a brief retrial, the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger reported. The Federal Court of Justice had largely upheld the original findings but ruled that the first chamber had improperly double-counted an aggravating factor.
The stabbing occurred on April 27, 2025, at the Josef-Haubrich-Hof near Neumarkt, an area known for heroin and cocaine dealing. The defendant intervened in an argument within the drug scene and was struck during the altercation between the two men, possibly with brass knuckles. In anger, he then drew a folding knife and stabbed one of the men in the neck, severing his jugular vein, the court findings stated.
Blood sprayed from the stab wound immediately. The 47-year-old victim dragged himself to a stairwell in the Neumarkt passage and collapsed.
Prosecutors said in the first trial that the attacker recognized the victim would die without help but was indifferent to whether he survived.
The victim lost about 1.5 liters of blood, spent three days in a medically induced coma after emergency surgery at the university clinic, later suffered a pulmonary embolism, and continues to experience pain, shortness of breath, anxiety and sleep problems, the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger reported. A scar also remains on his neck.
The victim told the court he has been living on the street.
Defense lawyer Mario Geuenich described the convicted man as “peace-loving” but said that day he was “surely not in control of his senses” and that the act stemmed “from affective agitation.”
The defendant said, “I really regret it,” and told the court he had stopped using alcohol, drugs and methadone while in custody. He also told the court he wants to bring his wife and children from Syria to Germany and lead a normal life.
The victim addressed the defendant directly: “I forgive you. But my life is fucked up and shitty.” He added, “God bless you. I ask for a mild sentence,” and said, “God is his judge, not me.”
Presiding Judge Achim Hengstenberg replied, “But we still exist.”
Mitigating factors included the apology, expressed remorse and the victim’s forgiveness. Aggravating factors were the dangerous knife wound and the defendant’s prior convictions. The new sentence is two months shorter than the original. The victim’s lawyer, Eva Kuhn, said she was satisfied with the sentence and plans to seek compensation from the convicted Syrian.
A 93-year-old woman was found dead in her home Sunday after neighbors, with police discovering a 34-year-old Sudanese man naked and lying on her body when they entered after emergency calls from neighbors, prosecutors said. The man was placed under formal investigation Tuesday for murder preceded or followed by rape.
The victim, identified by French media as Marie-Louise and known to some neighbors as “Juliette,” had been bedridden for months after a stroke and could not move without help. She lived in the Minimes district, near the Cité Bourbaki housing complex.
Neighbors called police about 5 p.m. Sunday after hearing shouting, insults and sounds of blows coming from the house. Officers found the front door locked and entered through the rear. They reported blood on the floor and a mattress in a bedroom before finding the woman unclothed and motionless on the bathroom floor.
The suspect was also unclothed and appeared intoxicated, police and prosecutors said. Some reports stated they found the man either asleep or dazed on top of the woman’s body when they entered.
He resisted arrest and injured an officer, according to the Toulouse prosecutor’s office. A breathalyzer test later showed an alcohol level of 0.92 milligrams per liter.
Prosecutor David Charmatz said an autopsy found injuries suggestive of sexual violence, a rib fracture, a spinal fracture, facial bruises and traumatic injuries to the neck consistent with asphyxia. Further tests were ordered to confirm the findings and determine the exact cause of death.
The man was placed under formal investigation Tuesday for murder preceded or followed by rape. Prosecutors asked that he be held in pretrial detention. He had little to say in questioning, and a psychiatric evaluation was planned, according to local reports.
French outlets have given conflicting accounts of the suspect’s immigration status. Some early reports described him as a homeless man living in the country illegally. La Dépêche du Midi later reported that he was a Sudanese refugee with legal status and no criminal record. Investigators have not publicly said how he entered the home. Neighbors told local media the woman often left a door unlocked so caregivers and relatives could get in.
Residents described Marie-Louise as a familiar figure, with one neighbor stating she was “the little grandmother of the neighborhood.” People who knew her said neighbors routinely helped with daily tasks. Flowers were left outside the house as residents mourned.
The investigation is being handled by specialized police units in Toulouse. A judge is expected to decide on the next legal steps in the case as forensic and toxicology results come in.
The former prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, has denounced a new political offensive against his Fidesz political formation following the arrest and 30-day pretrial detention for Miklós Seszták, a lawmaker and former national development minister under Orbán.
A Budapest court on Wednesday ordered 30 days of pre-trial detention for Seszták following a corruption investigation that may just be beginning of a wave of prosecutions targeting the former Orbán government.
Orbán accused Magyar’s Tisza government of “neo-communist tactics.”
“The Tisza authoritarian rulers are raising taxes, fuel prices are soaring, and they are wrecking the Hungarian economy. Authoritarianism creates new victims every day. Today it’s them, tomorrow it’s you. They would rather stage political theatre than face reality. Our message to every Hungarian is this: the Tisza authoritarian rulers will not break our patriotic community. We will not let them. They cannot imprison half the country,” he continued.
Neo-communist tactics. The Tisza authoritarian rulers are raising taxes, fuel prices are soaring, and they are wrecking the Hungarian economy. Authoritarianism creates new victims every day. Today it’s them, tomorrow it’s you. They would rather stage political theatre than face reality. Our message to every Hungarian is this: the Tisza authoritarian rulers will not break our patriotic community. We will not let them. They cannot imprison half the country.
An investigating judge at the Buda Central District Court found sufficient grounds to suspect official bribery and other offenses and said detention was needed to protect the inquiry, the Budapest Metropolitan Court announced. The ruling is not final. Seszták’s lawyer filed an appeal, and the former minister has maintained his innocence.
The order came two days after parliament voted 139-0 to lift the immunity of Seszták and another Orbán-era minister, Balázs Hankó. Fidesz and its Christian Democratic People’s Party allies boycotted the session and called the proceedings political persecution.
Prosecutors and the newly created National Asset Recovery and Protection Office allege that between 2014 and 2018, Seszták accepted bribes totaling hundreds of millions to more than 11 billion forints (€30 million) from construction contractors tied to state bus company Volánbusz and other projects, together with a former state asset-management official. Seszták has called the accusations baseless.
Balázs Orbán, the former prime minister’s political director, compared the events to 1950s political prosecutions and to cases against conservative politicians in Poland.
“This is the political arbitrariness of the communist 1950s, unfolding in Hungary in real time. You can watch it live on @PM_ViktorOrban’s Facebook page: a former Hungarian minister is being arrested following a direct and public demand by Péter Magyar, the Hungarian Prime Minister backed by Brussels,” he wrote.
This is the political arbitrariness of the communist 1950s, unfolding in Hungary in real time. You can watch it live on @PM_ViktorOrban’s Facebook page: a former Hungarian minister is being arrested following a direct and public demand by Péter Magyar, the Hungarian Prime Minister backed by Brussels.
Magyar’s government rejected the accusations. Officials are attempting to present the probes as an effort to examine alleged corruption from Orbán’s 16 years in power. Magyar noted that a former minister had been placed in pretrial detention for the first time since 1990.
“This is the first time since 1990 that a former minister has been arrested. He is suspected of bribery,” wrote Magyar.
The court has placed @PM_ViktorOrban's former minister and current member of Parliament, Miklós Seszták, in pre-trial detention. This is the first time since 1990 that a former minister has been arrested. He is suspected of bribery involving 12 billion forints.
Fidesz vice president and MEP Kinga Gál called Sept. 28 “a dark day for Hungarian democracy” and accused Magyar of turning police and prosecutors against political rivals.
A dark day for Hungarian democracy. In another chapter in the political witch hunt against right-wing politicians, the Tisza majority in the Hungarian Parliament stripped MPs and former ministers Balázs Hankó and Miklós Seszták of their immunity.Balázs Hankó is the target of a politically fabricated case. We never thought we would see such times return to Hungary. Shameful. The Hungarian PM is pressuring police and prosecutors while building a new political police force to pursue his political opponents. He is trying to silence the opposition and dismantle the rule of law. We condemn it in the strongest terms.
MEP András László said the cases are based on the “political instructions” from the prime minister.
The era of political show trials are back! Today the authoritarian rule in Hungary reached a new low. The judiciary is acting on the PM's personal instructions.
Seszták was taken into custody Monday after walking into the Central Investigative Prosecutor’s Office, saying he intended to give a statement. The new Asset Recovery Office, which began operations Sept. 27, took over the case. His lawyer has argued that parts of the detention process were irregular.
Neither Seszták nor Hankó has been convicted, and both deny wrongdoing.
Across the West, native Europeans are dying out but rental prices continue to go up every year. While the left would like to point the finger at capitalists and greedy landlords, the primary factor driving the housing affordability crisis is mass immigration.
Berlin is a prime example of this trend, as German journalist and author Jens Winter pointed out on X using clear population and housing data.
“Rental prices on the market have more than doubled in Berlin since 2011—plenty of money for corporations. But where is the increased demand coming from? While the native population of the capital has declined by 260,000 since 2011, the number of foreigners and people with a migration background has risen by 650,000 over the same period. That means: Without migration, there would be less demand for housing in Berlin today than in 2011,” he wrote.
In a follow-up post, he wrote that the German “conservative” party is just as guilty as the left.
“The CDU-aligned real estate lobby is raking in big money with migration in Berlin. The Germans have a choice: dying out in the CDU’s multikulti capitalism or in the Left’s multikulti socialism. Understandable response: If we’re going to disappear anyway, why bust our asses for it?” he wrote.
Die CDU-nahe Immobilien-Lobby scheffelt mit Migration in Berlin mächtig Geld. Die Deutschen haben die Wahl: Aussterben im Multikulti-Kapitalismus der CDU oder im Multikulti-Sozialismus der Linken. Verständliche Antwort: Wenn schon verschwinden, warum dafür dann hart arbeiten? https://t.co/GPrTp62SXO
While the doubling of rents is real, there is a basic supply and demand reality that the left would like to deny. It is indeed true that predatory property owners, major institutional players, and money printing have played contributing roles to the housing crisis, but no matter how many greedy property owners are involved, if the population of a city falls, rental and housing prices are almost inevitably going to fall.
Mass immigration means that population numbers never fall. Any breathing space for German families to repopulate, have more children, and fill in the gaps left by older generations passing away is immediately filled by hundreds of thousands of foreigners.
The data shows that the population of native Germans fell by 260,000 people. In a system that rejects mass immigration and foreign real estate investors, this could have been a boon for birthrates and increasing home ownership. For one, Germans who already lived in Berlin, and those looking to move to Berlin, would have been more easily able to afford rents and housing due to less competition on the housing market. Secondly, more native Germans would have had a chance to start families — and those who already had families could have afforded an extra child or two — by securing affordable housing.
However, Germany does not reject mass immigration.
There is of course another solution, but it is far more complicated than simply allowing population levels to fall in a country that has never had so many people living in it. Instead of ending mass immigration, left-wing parties, along with the CDU, demand more housing is built.
However, there are myriad reasons why the required housing is not being built, including high construction and material costs, red tape, zoning, and a lack of skilled workers. The same parties have been making the same demands for years now, but construction cannot keep pace with demand in Berlin or other major cities across Germany.
The Left Party may promise to build more, but the reality is that it will not happen. Nothing the left offers will lead to the necessary building. Before Olaf Scholz of the far-left Social Democrats (SPD) won the chancellorship, he promised that his “goal” was to create 400,000 new apartments per year, which would include 100,000 units of social housing, saying, “That’s not witchcraft, we just have to want to do it.”
It never happened under Scholz and it won’t happen under a left-wing government in Berlin either.
Should more housing even be built?
As Western cities race to replace their native European populations, the question becomes whether life really becomes better in a crowded multicultural city when it means more traffic, longer waiting times at hospitals, crowded classrooms, and imported crime — just to name a few ills.
The newcomers also did not fix the skilled worker shortage that could potentially build all the homes and apartments politicians and lobbyists claim Europe needs. While a certain number of new houses and apartments always need to be built, the question then becomes should Western civilization really be involved in endless building to accommodate millions of foreigners.
On top of all of these questions, the buildings developers managed to build are now in fact uglier than ever, more expensive than ever, and are built more slowly than ever.
Winter’s X post is especially relevant given that the Left Party recently won a first place finish in Berlin elections, securing over 25 percent of the vote. Commentators and analysts have contributed the rise of the party in Germany’s capital due a variety of factors, but two major components are the party’s ability to secure the vote of German citizens with a migration background and young voters.
The second factor is Berlin’s housing crisis, which helped drive support from groups like non-voters, the young, and foreigners.
German taxpayer-funded Deutsche Welle, wrote: “That makes sense to 17-year-old Liska, who voted for the socialists: ‘The Left Party did appeal to me, especially because of the social issues — getting prices down, making rents more affordable.’ Rents in Berlin are indeed rising at a massive pace — by some 7% in the last two years alone — and first-time tenants are likely to be the hardest hit. Polls also showed that by far the biggest proportion of Berlin voters — 37% — thought that the Left Party was the most likely to create affordable housing.”
Again, the same story is taking place in the Netherlands, with the natural population increase for the Dutch at near zero or negative. Nevertheless, the population rose from about 16.8 million in 2013 to 18.1 million in 2025, with net migration accounting for virtually all of the recent increase.
It must also be remembered that just like in Germany, most of these migrants want to head to the major cities, such as Amsterdam.
Official housing-need forecasts in the Netherlands also attribute a large share of future extra demand, often 45 percent or more of the extra dwellings required, to population growth that is itself 95 percent migration-driven.
Great for landlords, bad for the citizens.
Of course, the Alternative for Germany has tried to tie the housing crisis to mass immigration, and they have successfully made this case to some extent.
WATCH: Mass immigration is fueling the West's housing crisis.
Here's how it's happening in Germany.
In a powerful speech in the German Bundestag, @AfD politician Carolin Bachmann slams the ruling government for allowing 2 million migrants into the country while families… pic.twitter.com/DMEqiV316S
The problem is that as more and more of the population becomes foreign, this argument holds less and less sway. Immigration may raise housing prices but if immigration brought a person to a country in the first place, and if more immigration might also enable more and more of their family members and fellow countrymen to arrive, then these voters have every incentive to keep immigration levels high regardless of housing costs.
Many of these migrants are not paying for rent anyway. There are millions of foreigners on social welfare, which means not only are they taking housing places of native Germans, but they are being paid to do it. They then often have far higher birthrates than native Germans, even with limited space, which entitles them to larger spaces.
The cycle is self-reinforcing and relentless. That means unless dramatic action is taken against mass immigration, housing and rental prices may never truly come down.
French police detained 440 people, most of them minors, on Tuesday as high school blockades that began last week around Paris spread nationwide and, in several cities, gave way to clashes, arson and vandalism.
Images and videos of the violence rapidly spread on social media, including harrowing videos of teachers and staff being hunted by students. One video of a school staff member from the Stéphane Hessel High School, who was attacked while trying to extinguish a dumpster fire.
JUST IN: A White male staff member at Stéphane Hessel High School is viciously attacked while trying to extinguish a dumpster fire.
The violent blockades at French schools coincide with nationwide public-sector union strikes that are paralyzing the country.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told BFMTV that about two-thirds of those detained were placed in police custody, mainly on suspicion of property damage or assaulting officers.
Forty-eight members of the security forces were injured, he said. “Violence is never legitimate. There is nothing that justifies violence,” Nuñez added, describing the police response as “extremely proportionate.”
Education Minister Édouard Geffray said at least 10 school employees were hurt and that the Education Ministry had counted 31 injured students and staff in all. Among the cases he cited were a teacher beaten in northern France, a principal struck by a firework mortar in Hauts-de-Seine, west of Paris, and another principal in Essonne who received a death threat.
“Legal proceedings have been initiated against these actions. This violence is unspeakable,” Geffray wrote on X.
Aujourd’hui, au moins 10 personnels de l’Éducation nationale et plusieurs élèves ont été blessés, notamment par des tirs de mortier.
Les premiers sont des fonctionnaires, qui servent l'intérêt général et le service public. Les seconds sont des élèves que nous avons tous les…
He said the right to demonstrate “cannot serve as an excuse for such actions” and warned that anyone who “legitimizes them or calls for the expansion of the blockades in this context puts our students and public sector employees in danger.”
The ministry stated that protests or disruptions affected 416 schools during the day — out of about 3,700 lycées nationwide. By evening, 338 sites were still affected, including 45 fully blocked and 46 facing attempted blockades.
The main high school union, the Union Syndicale Lycéenne, put the number of blockaded schools far higher, at about 400, and called students to join a nationwide public-sector strike already planned for Tuesday.
Arrivée de la manifestation sur la Place de la Nation à Paris.
The movement started last week in the Paris suburbs, with students citing teacher shortages, overcrowded classes, poorly maintained buildings, and sweltering classrooms during this year’s heat waves. On Monday, authorities reported 164 detentions and disruptions at 180 schools. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu called any further escalation “irresponsible,” while saying “the difficulties of high schools must be heard and addressed.”
Scenes in several cities went well beyond sit-ins. In Lille, masked youths set trash bins and bicycles alight outside Lycée César Baggio, smashed bus shelters and pulled down a traffic signal as police fired tear gas. Similar confrontations were reported in Nantes, where students stacked bins across the gates of Lycée Gabriel Guist’hau, and at Lycée Arago in Paris, where a small group faced a police line.
Officials said hydrochloric acid was thrown at officers in seven incidents.
Tuesday’s school unrest coincided with a one-day strike by civil servants, including teachers, firefighters and hospital staff, two days before Lecornu is due to present the draft 2027 budget.
Unions said they were fighting a proposed freeze in the public-sector pay index, the fourth in a row, and a broader €54 billion ($63 billion) savings plan as France’s debt and deficit remain under pressure.
Unions claimed hundreds of thousands marched nationwide against the pay freeze.
Education Minister Geffray has accused lawmakers from the hard-left France Unbowed party of encouraging students to expand the blockades. Party leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon called the teenagers “harmless” and denounced what he termed a “ferocious” crackdown with “an unmistakably racist undertone.”
Another round of blockades could come n Thursday, when the budget text is expected.
Last week, Russia recorded its highest estimated revenues from seaborne oil exports since the start of the war with Ukraine.
The main driver of this demand is the armed conflict and the resulting blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East. Due to supply problems, buyers are looking for additional sources of crude oil. This also applies to China which, although it has already secured reserves of the commodity, is also starting to increase purchases from the Russian Federation.
Russia’s record revenues from oil sales
Last week, Russia achieved record weekly revenues from seaborne oil exports since the beginning of the war. Oil companies there shipped about 3.99 million barrels of oil a day to foreign markets. Given the high prices, this significantly increased the value of Russian exports.
Bloomberg estimates that the total value of oil shipped from Russian ports last week was about $2.75 billion. That is about $180 million more than the previous week and the highest weekly figure since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Russian oil is now much more expensive than in previous months. As noted earlier, this is influenced by the situation in the global oil market, and in particular, the war in the Middle East. The price of Brent crude remained above $100 a barrel in September.
At the end of September, the price of this benchmark exceeded $103 per barrel. Earlier, prices rose further amid concerns about disruptions in oil supplies from the Middle East.
Average revenues for the last four weeks
The Kremlin has decided to limit fuel exports to support the domestic market. The ban on diesel exports by Russian producers has been extended until Sept. 30, and restrictions on the export of gasoline and some diesel fuels by other exporters remain in place for an extended period.
The UA News portal points out that an exceptional situation has arisen as a result, stating: “Russia cannot export as many petroleum products as before, but it has a surplus of crude oil that it cannot fully process domestically. Consequently, the oil surplus is diverted to the foreign market.”
This situation increases the volume of maritime exports. Russia’s current revenues have significantly exceeded the previous week’s value. To avoid drawing conclusions based on just one week, the agency also calculated average revenue over four weeks. This indicator is less susceptible to sharp short-term fluctuations in prices and volumes.
Over the past four weeks, the estimated average value of Russian oil exported by sea has been around $2.39 billion per week. That is about $290 million more than in the previous four-week period and the most since the second half of May.
Russia may continue to earn significant revenue from crude oil sales. As long as the price of Brent crude remains above $100 a barrel and Russian crude enjoys demand among buyers in Asia, Moscow can generate additional revenue, even despite operational problems at its own refineries.
This situation may change as supplies from the Middle East gradually resume. Reuters reported that exports from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates increased in September, and reconstruction of some infrastructure began after the attacks. This could ease pressure on the global market and affect the price of Russian oil, even if oil prices are expected to remain elevated throughout 2026 and 2027.
A 22-year-old Syrian man is accused of seriously assaulting several rail passengers in Cologne in June during a rampage attack. However, details have now emerged of just how serious this man’s criminal history is after a parliamentary request from politician Markus Wagner of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Currently, the Syrian remains in a psychiatric hospital while prosecutors investigate, but the man’s long history of criminal offenses is truly remarkable.
Federal police said the attacks began about 3:10 p.m. on June 21 at the Cologne-Trimbornstrasse stop. A police spokeswoman said a 22-year-old man “grabbed a traveler and tried to pull him toward the tracks.” Both fell to the ground. Bystanders pulled them apart, but the victim suffered bruises and abrasions.
Police told Westdeutscher Rundfunk that the witnesses “behaved correctly” by acting together and separating the attacker from the victim.
The suspect then boarded an S19 train toward Cologne Central Station, police said. Near the Cologne Messe/Deutz stop he suddenly punched two passengers in the face, according to witnesses and video.
At the main station, in a fast-food restaurant, he punched and kicked a 47-year-old man and continued striking him on the ground after federal officers arrived.
Officers managed to detain the man and later said he was under the influence of narcotics.
He was taken to a psychiatric facility. The Justice Ministry said he “is currently provisionally accommodated in a psychiatric hospital” under Section 126a of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a measure used when investigators believe a suspect may have acted without full criminal responsibility.
Cologne prosecutors are investigating, among other counts, intentional bodily harm, attempted dangerous bodily harm and attempted dangerous interference with rail traffic, the ministry said.
Asked what police already knew about the suspect, the government listed suspected prior offenses that had led to complaints or investigations: five thefts, one case of receiving stolen goods, one robbery, one insult, three threats, 11 assaults, 13 dangerous assaults, 11 narcotics violations, one rape allegation, one count of resisting officers, two property-damage cases and two fraud cases.
However, none of these arrests have resulted in convictions. The ministry stressed that police records “rest on suspicion” and “do not allow a conclusion on the correctness of the allegation.”
Regarding formal prior sentences, the government said the man’s Federal Central Register extract “shows solely sanctions under youth criminal law that are not entered in the certificate of good conduct.”
"Since the attack, he wakes up every night screaming."
An African migrant randomly attacked a 14-year-old German boy inside Freiburg’s central train station and tried to gouge out his eye.
The victim’s father, Roland H., also believes the attacker may have tried to carve a… pic.twitter.com/Go55W2g9KC
In other words, most of these offenses were either handled in juvenile court or were never formally tried in court due to the man’s psychological state. German youth-court measures often do not appear on the clearance certificate employers and agencies commonly request, meaning these criminal entries would not be available to potential employers.
Asked about citizenship, the ministry wrote that, “as far as known,” the suspect has Syrian nationality.
Notably, he has never been deported despite the trail of mayhem he has left behind him.
German authorities have frozen €5.9 million ($6.5 million) in assets of an operator of a fast-growing intensive-care nursing service. She is now in custody over allegations that the company billed public health insurers for services that were never fully provided or were performed by unqualified staff, causing an estimated €11 million in damage.
Zeynep C., 39, a Turkish national who rose from supermarket work to run White Angels Intensive Care, was arrested Sept. 17 during coordinated raids involving more than 200 officers from police, customs and financial crime units. The case is making major headlines, also in part due to the luxury lifestyle she was living.
Her 44-year-old German husband was also detained. Both remain in pretrial custody.
Thirteen people ages 20 to 54 — of Turkish, Moroccan, Egyptian and German nationality, some with dual citizenship — are also under investigation.
The Wuppertal public prosecutor’s office, which specializes in health-care billing fraud, said investigations began in December 2025 after anonymous tips. Over eight months, detectives examined a network of companies centered in the Düsseldorf and Mettmann area that provided outpatient intensive care, including home ventilation and palliative services, to severely ill patients.
Prosecutors allege the group billed statutory health insurers for intensive-care hours that were not delivered or were incomplete, and that some care was given by staff lacking the required qualifications.
“They must keep qualified personnel available around the clock for seriously ill patients. Those are considerable wage costs that an employer also has to bear,” Chief Prosecutor Wolf-Tilman Baumert told WDR. Using unqualified workers or billing for nonexistent care made “huge profits” possible, he said.
Company records reviewed by investigators showed explosive growth. After roughly eight months of operation under its current name, the service posted about €1 million in profit by the end of 2023. Profit rose to nearly €3 million in 2024, with €11 million in revenue projected for 2025 — a figure that now matches the estimated total loss to insurers. The firm, previously called CAN-Vefa GmbH, marketed itself as offering “culturally sensitive care” with a multilingual team.
During the searches of 31 homes, offices and practices across North Rhine-Westphalia and one site in Hesse, officers found a care-dependent child in a Düsseldorf apartment in “very poor health.” The child was taken by ambulance to a hospital for inpatient treatment; child-protection officials were notified. Authorities said any proven neglect of patients would be an aggravating factor in the case.
Seized items included several luxury vehicles registered as company cars — a Maybach, Mercedes-AMG models and a purple Lamborghini — plus €51,000 in cash, jewelry valued at €265,000, gold worth about €10,000, designer handbags and watches totaling more than €150,000. Mortgages totaling €3.3 million were placed on properties. At the couple’s home in Mettmann, police also recovered a loaded firearm, marijuana and anabolic steroids. A doctor’s stamp, which investigators believe used to forge prescriptions, was among the documents seized.
Zeynep C. had cultivated a public image of success. Photos circulated in German media showed her wearing Chanel-branded clothing and accessories alongside images of the seized Lamborghini being towed. Prosecutors are examining whether the luxury spending was financed by the alleged fraud.
The Düsseldorf-based nursing company itself has not been shut down and continues under a different manager, according to local reports. No charges have been filed yet, and the investigation is still underway.
Billing fraud of this scale, if proven as commercial and organized, can carry prison terms of up to 10 years under German law. If prosecutors discover children and other patients were left untreated or poorly treated due to fictional or inadequate care services, the length of potential prison sentences could expand significantly.
The Hungarian conservative media landscape is in the process of being bankrupted, gutted, or co-opted by the new Hungarian government under Péter Magyar. However, there remain a few holdouts, including Daniel Deme, who serves as the editor-in-chief of the English-language Hungarian news outlet Hungary Today as well as the German-language Ungarn Heute. Deme describes a “dire situation” brought on by a climate of fear, radical purges, mass layoffs, and little to no aid from key allies, including the Trump administration.
What is the current state of the Hungarian media landscape? How does it compare to the situation under the Orbán government?
Under the Orbán government, there were claims from the left that there were no media freedoms here, that journalists were persecuted. None of that was true. I’d say there was already a 60-to-40 split in the media landscape toward the left’s benefit at that time. But a difficult situation arose from the fact that Hungarian conservative right-wing media wasn’t independent enough, and that was really the case. It was very much talking to its own bubble.
I don’t think it was controlled by the government or presenting a government-controlled narrative. I think it was voluntary. But I think the culture of Hungarian conservative journalists was such that they wanted to stick to the central narrative, which was very close to the government.
On the other hand, you had foreign-funded left-wing media outlets. There were a few exceptions that survived commercially, but in very many cases they were funded by the Open Society Foundations and by the Norwegian Oil Fund. There’s a Norwegian radical-leftist sort of fund that is feeding the Hungarian liberal and woke environment, NGOs, and media outlets.
EXCLUSIVE: The Trump administration has largely abandoned Hungarian conservatives after Viktor Orbán’s loss, warns @daniel_deme_HU in an interview with @RMXnews.
“So, I think the State Department of the Trump administration is shooting itself in the foot by leaving this… pic.twitter.com/vOAE8iajro
And of course they were funded by European funds as well—awards, grants. So after the elections, the money that came from government advertising—by the way, they advertised in the left-wing media very heavily as well—just stopped immediately. And from week one, there was a purge of Hungarian right-wing media outlets. It wasn’t just the money that was taken away; the institutional standing was as well.
For example, the largest media conglomerate, Mediaworks, immediately started firing hundreds and hundreds of staff. What we haven’t even seen during communism: it wasn’t just that they removed the former Orbán government’s media managers from these public media outlets—they actually destroyed them. They shut them down.
And it was just outright scary, as if a foreign occupying force had arrived and shot our TV towers to pieces. One day we turned on our TVs and there was a blank screen. There was a black screen with an inscription that the “public media shouldn’t lie, and we are sorry that we lied for years, and this is going to change.” And that was it. That was it for weeks and weeks on end.
At the same time, it also happened with Radio Kossuth, a national institution. That’s a radio station that we used to listen to even during communism. And suddenly they switched it off. They just put some classical music on 24/7, and old people have complained to me that they used to turn it on in the morning and switch it off in the evening when they went to bed. It used to be part of their lives, and then there’s nothing. And now the only public television is completely turned into a Tisza Party mouthpiece.
There are a handful of surviving right-wing publications that, frankly, have not learned their lesson, in my opinion, about how to analyze Hungarian public and political life, and are very much continuing in the same line as before.
There are new shoots, I would say. It’s very hard to tell which ones are going to survive and which ones are not. And this is the situation when you realize one staggering fact: if you find yourself a media manager or an editor-in-chief, you start looking for funds and trying to survive, and you realize that there are no foundations, no grants for national, conservative, patriotic media in the world—anywhere.
Meanwhile there are dozens and dozens of rich funds for liberal, woke media that is spewing propaganda from Brussels or from the Democrats’ set of opinion-makers. So it’s amazing. There were two Hungarian foundations that sponsored some of the patriotic and conservative media in the country. They have both been shut down now and are now controlled by the Péter Magyar government.
So the situation is dire.
On the one hand, the conservative media has completely disappeared. We do not have a single conservative political daily on the newsstands now. Not a single one. Magyar Nemzet, which used to be everywhere, is now nowhere to be found. It has gone into weekly print production. And on the other hand, when you go onto social media and LinkedIn, you see ubiquitous adverts for left-wing journalists at left-wing outlets everywhere. They’re expanding. It’s like a golden age for them.
That’s a pretty dramatic transition. How many people would you estimate have now been laid off in the Hungarian media landscape since Tisza, since Magyar, won?
I would definitely estimate it near 1,000 people. And you have to understand that the Hungarian media landscape is fairly small, and these are almost exclusively members of either the public broadcasters or conservative media—almost exclusively. People have been fired in a completely absurd manner, without any justification, without any wrongdoing on their side. Not even only people who had been biased toward the Fidesz government. Even when they fired the managers of the public media, MTI, they found replacements, a couple of media managers well known in the business, and they were appointed.
One of them was supposed to be the manager of the news department at the Hungarian News Agency, and someone pointed out on social media—I think on Facebook—that yes, he had worked for the left, and he had also worked for right-wing media like Hír TV. Péter Magyar left a single comment on Facebook under one of these comments saying, “I don’t think so.”
The next day, the guy was called into the office of his boss and fired on the spot. When they found out that he had worked briefly at one of the conservative news TV stations, he was fired on the spot and removed. That’s all it takes today: just a short comment on Facebook from our new neo-Stalinist leader, Péter Magyar.
You said there’s not a single foundation in the entire world that supports conservative media in Europe. Liberal institutions outside Hungary were pretty active supporting numerous liberal and left-wing institutions, media outlets, and so on with money—taxpayer money from Europe and corporate money from various corporations, foundations, and so on. Now, where are the Americans? Where is the State Department? Where are the foundations? What is your opinion on this particular issue?
Well, on the one hand, the State Department launched in July a grant for free, sort of conservative institutions in Europe—$5 million, I think, for the entirety of Europe. And I think they have received more than 1,000 applications. Whoever I spoke to, from Italy to Poland, everyone was applying. We applied as well. But it’s a ridiculous amount. $5 million is basically the price of a single bomb in Iraq. So this was just a drop in the ocean.
And I have managed to speak to members of the American State Department—I do not want to describe any more closely who they were—and I basically just asked what they thought about this. And they said, “You’re on your own. You have to fight this fight from your own resources. We have to respect the will of the people.”
And this is very gentlemanly, you know. This is a very noble position from the State Department. They do not want to interfere in other people’s countries. But I have to add very quickly that this is not the way the Democrats see it, or money groups and oligarchs connected to the Democrats. The left does not have these sorts of scruples toward Europe and is continuing to fund the Hungarian far-left media and NGO networks. There’s a glut of funds for them. So I think the State Department of the Trump administration is shooting itself in the foot by leaving this space empty, leaving the Hungarian conservative network to wither. In four years, when they come back, where they used to have allies—honest allies and friends—where they used to have an infrastructure of pro-American political and economic circles, they will have nothing. They will only find NGO networks and political networks that are 100% allied either with the Democrats or with networks funded from the other side of the world, from the East.
I’ve tried to explain this to American diplomats and opinion-makers: there’s been a huge void created after the elections. This void is going to be filled very, very quickly. And if you do not move fast enough, you will find that others will recognize the potential in this network—and so they did. And I do not want to mention the names of the countries, but they are not the United States’ geopolitical allies, let’s say that.
What do you think the motive is from the State Department there? Is it that there are still a lot of left-wing holdouts in the State Department who are directing policy, or do you think this is the conservative mindset of letting the free market work? If the conservative outlets can generate ad revenue and play in this kind of private market, then those are the outlets that deserve to survive. And if they can’t, then they deserve to die.
I think there could be some of this, but the State Department is very well known to be the bastion of the Democrats in the international field. It is still completely dominated by left-wing activist foreign policy. You just have to look at U.S. embassies and their appointments from local talent, or the communications of some of their ambassadors.
We don’t even have an ambassador in Hungary, which kind of shows that our status is not as important for Washington as it probably used to be, or as it should be. You have to remember that Viktor Orbán stood up for Donald Trump in the darkest years and months of the lawfare, when he was being photographed in police stations, when he was getting his mugshot taken by police. Viktor Orbán was the only foreign leader who stood up and paid enormous political capital, invested a lot of political capital, into defending Donald Trump personally and stood by the Republicans in these dark periods.
With Hungarian conservatives face growing persecution, where is Donald Trump?
"You have to remember that Viktor Orbán stood up for Donald Trump in the darkest years of and months of the lawfare when he was being photographed in police stations, when he was getting his… https://t.co/Wtlujt32u2pic.twitter.com/HmHbkdVx9H
And yes, there was a lot of support from the United States before the elections, from JD Vance and Marco Rubio, even from Donald Trump himself. Not the support that we needed. What we needed, first of all, was a good look into the far-left financial networks that are tilting the Hungarian political sphere toward the left, toward Brussels, and toward the Democrats. And the other thing was action on the giant tech firms like Facebook, Google, etc., who are openly censoring Hungarian and European media content, influencers, etc. And they’re doing it so blatantly that we expected the new White House to crack down on this undemocratic, biased behavior. And this didn’t happen.
Do you feel that now that Orbán is out of power, the US is actually betraying the Hungarian conservatives?
I don’t think they’re betraying us explicitly. I think there is a recognition of the seriousness of the situation, but I haven’t heard a single word from Republican circles expressing dismay or concern about what is happening in Hungary, and there’s plenty to be concerned about regarding what has happened in the last four months.
What we’ve seen in Hungary being done by the Tisza government is unprecedented in Europe, even in left-wing countries, even in partial democracies like Germany. There’s persecution of right-wing influencers, etc. I’m not going to go into details, but the U.S. State Department is completely silent about this, and I would say now is about time to open their mouths and take a hard look at what’s going on in Hungary.
Orbán invited JD Vance at a sort of inopportune time for his own election campaign. This had already been after the bombing of Iran, and there was a pretty big energy price increase right before Orbán went to the polls. Some people even said that this may have contributed to a larger loss for Orbán in the end. What is your opinion?
Whether the visits by JD Vance or Marco Rubio helped or not, I think they didn’t sway Hungary either way. They were very much welcomed by the Hungarian conservative networks, and I don’t think any of the Tisza Party’s potential voters changed their minds about voting for Fidesz because they understood how important the support of the American administration is. It is very, very important, but they had their minds made up already, and I don’t think these high-level visits changed anything in any way.
You have to separate Fidesz’s campaign performance from what really happened, the result of the elections. There was such an incredibly violent, intensive, and aggressive communication campaign from Tisza’s international and domestic supporters that throughout my 25 years in communications I have not seen anything like this.
We had the Ukrainians close our oil pipeline, Brussels withheld the European funds from the Orbán government, the Polish secret services were spreading fake news about Viktor Orbán, the British intelligence services were fairly active in Hungary, and on Facebook and Google the salvos of thousands of comments in our comments sections and everywhere else were coming from bot farms and paid influencers. And it was just amazing. I don’t think any society could have resisted this intensity of disinformation and demagoguery that we saw in the elections.
Of course, the other side of the coin is that Fidesz had a terrible election campaign, and it’s kind of universally understood even among conservatives that they really messed up their election campaign, and everyone is paying a very high price for this.
Since the election, I’ve seen polling that shows Fidesz tanking even much further than their election results, and Tisza seems to be more popular than ever. This is about four months in now. What realistic chances do you see of the conservatives coming back to power, and how will the Hungarian media landscape—without a real conservative voice, or not much of one going forward—even present the conservative or right-wing viewpoint?
I think some of those polls are right, and maybe not to the extent that they are showing, but Tisza’s popularity has actually grown since the elections and Fidesz has fallen back. That’s partly because Viktor Orbán was such an incredibly dominant personality in Fidesz, and his removal from the political scene is a huge hit for Hungarian conservatives.
And his replacement, János Bóka, is a young and very well-informed and competent person, but I don’t think he’s a full replacement for Viktor Orbán, and some are skeptical about his charisma, etc.
Fidesz’s performance since the elections can only be described as sketchy, and we are expecting Fidesz to do much more than they are doing. And there’s, of course, the other right-wing party, Mi Hazánk, Our Homeland. They are to the right of Fidesz, and very brave and vocal, and they are organizing demonstrations and are very active in parliament as well. They are getting into debates with Péter Magyar, but when it comes to voting, they almost always vote with Tisza.
They even voted for the so-called Asset Recovery Office, which is an absolute betrayal not just of their voters, but of conservative Hungary as well. That’s just a huge misstep. So they are not to be relied on. I think the only solution we can hope for is the emergence of a new conservative party, but we do not even see the sign of anything happening yet, and it seems Hungarian conservative circles are still in shell shock post-election.
The popularity of French President Emmanuel Macron and his prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, has plummeted due to the ongoing fuel crisis, BFMTV reports, citing a poll conducted by Odoxa-Mascaret for the online broadcaster Public Sénat and regional media.
The French president’s approval rating has fallen to a historic low of just 18 percent. That is a decrease of as much as 7 percentage points from the end of June.
At the same time, support for the French prime minister fell by 8 percentage points. Currently, 24 percent of the French consider him a good head of government.
The poll shows that 75 percent of respondents in France believe the government’s announced expansion of assistance for frequent long-distance drivers is insufficient. Sixty-two percent argue that the government should allocate more resources to solve the problem, despite France’s budget deficit.
Le Pen wins the French presidential election
A poll conducted for radio station RTL shows that if Marine Le Pen faced Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the candidate of the far-left La France Insoumise party, in the second round of the French presidential election, she would receive 69 percent of the vote and Mélenchon 31 percent.
The poll shows that Le Pen is well poised to crush the far-left contender.
If Marine Le Pen faced Édouard Philippe, the candidate of the centre-right Horizons party, in the second round, she would receive 57 percent of the vote and Philippe 43 percent.
In both scenarios, Marine Le Pen’s lead is larger than in previous similar polls.
For a candidate that has been convicted and attacked for years by the French establishment media, Le Pen’s turnaround is incredible.
The study also shows that in the first round, under various candidate scenarios, Marine Le Pen would come first if the election were held now, with 35 to 36 percent of the vote.
The first round of the French presidential election will take place on April 18, 2027 and the second round on May 2. The election will end 12 days before the end of Emmanuel Macron’s second and final presidential term, which ends on May 14.
The RTL poll was conducted between September 22 and 24 among a sample of nearly 2,000 people .
A 93-year-old disabled woman, who neighbors described as “the little grandmother of the neighborhood,” was found dead inside her small house in Toulouse on Sunday afternoon. Inside the home, police arrested a naked Sudanese illegal migrant in his 30s, according to French media reports.
Neighbors in the Minimes district, behind the Cité Bourbaki housing complex, called police after hearing prolonged screams and insults coming from the house of the woman, identified by local media as Juliette.
Officers arrived about 5:00 p.m. Sunday and found her body inside. The Sudanese migrant was subsequently removed from the residence, with neighbors telling the press that he was naked and fighting with officers as they tried to restrain him.
One officer was injured in the shoulder, according to accounts given to La Dépêche du Midi and confirmed by the Toulouse prosecutor.
Toulouse prosecutor David Charmatz said the suspect was “in an altered state,” according to witnesses at the scene, and that police subdued him only with difficulty.
A homicide investigation was opened. Charmatz’s office sent a duty magistrate to the scene to oversee detectives and speak with family members who arrived later in the evening.
Police technicians and investigators from the organized and specialized crime division remained at the house for hours. Additional charges could be added as the inquiry proceeds, local reporting said. The precise cause and circumstances of the woman’s death had not been publicly detailed Monday.
Residents described Juliette as a longtime fixture of the street.
“She was the little grandmother of the neighborhood,” one neighbor told La Dépêche, still in shock.
A man in his 30s who lives next door said, “It’s awful. She saw me being born. We used to do her shopping.”
A frightened resident who called emergency services said the shouting “kept going” and that she did not immediately understand where it was coming from.
A 15-year-old Italian student named Matteo was attacked by eight teens with a migrant background outside his school in Cesena, in the province of Forlì-Cesena, Italy, according to a report from the Italian news outlet Fuori dal Coro. During the attack, Matteo suffered life-changing injuries from machete and knife blows that left him disfigured, required more than 100 stitches, and left him unable to realize his dream of becoming a pilot.
His mother has since appeared on national television, stating that her boy “is no longer the boy he was before.”
Matteo was living in the school’s boarding facility while attending the Technical Institute of Aeronautics in nearby Forlì. He was exercising with two friends when a group of eight minors, aged 15–17 at the time and all from the Cesena area, approached. They arrived on four mopeds or scooters, some wearing hoods or balaclavas.
8 youths with a foreign background attacked 15-year-old Italian boy Matteo with a machete and a knife outside his school in Cesena.
During the attack, Matteo suffered life-changing injuries that left him disfigured, requiring 100 stitches.
Two of them initially demanded payment of a €45 debt for hashish that a “young foreigner” in the group had sold him. Matteo refused, saying the product was of poor quality. The rest of the group then joined in what prosecutors described as a premeditated punitive expedition.
CCTV footage captured the assault, which lasted under 10 seconds and has since been replayed on Italian news networks.
The group surrounded Matteo, whose name has been changed to protect his identity. One attacker used a machete on his face and hands; others used a large knife, described in some reports as a kitchen knife, and a telescopic baton. Matteo tried to protect himself with his hands. The attackers then fled.
Matteo suffered permanent damage to three fingers on one hand. He also suffered a deep slash starting near the ear, crossing the left cheek, and reaching the neck. This required maxillofacial surgery and damaged the parotid gland, requiring repeated drainage at Bufalini Hospital in Cesena. During a Fuori dal Coro report, the network interviewed Matteo’s mother and reported that he received more than 100 stitches in total, with the attack resulting in permanent facial scarring.
Doctors noted that covering his face with his hand likely saved his life by preventing the blade from severing a major artery. However, he is no longer medically eligible to become a commercial pilot, the career he had been training for.
Despite the serious nature of the attack, the host of Fuori dal Coro said, “The incredible thing is that these eight defendants are free.”
Matteo’s mother replied, “Yes, the eight defendants are awaiting trial while remaining free.”
2 second-generation young immigrants use sledgehammers on in Torino, Italy.
The store owner, Emiliano, says he has been robbed many times before.
He warned that criminals are getting young and younger.
She said her son is trying to move forward, but “he is no longer the boy he was before. He still suffers major physical and psychological consequences. The wounds on his face and hand are visible and disabling. Beyond those, there are deeper wounds: his fear, the loss of his peace of mind, and the difficulty in trusting others. He had to rewrite his future, completely upending all of his plans.”
Matteo’s mother conveyed this story while footage of her son’s attack was looped in the background of their interview, highlighting the horror he experienced at the hands of the youths of foreign origin.
Given that the attack happened at the boarding school, it is presented as an illustration of a deteriorating security situation in schools across Italy and Europe amid mass immigration.
Matteo was forced to change schools and left the boarding facility after four years there. He also lost a school year because of treatment and recovery. Because of ongoing psychological issues caused by the attack, his family has paid for private psychological care and medical expenses.
Fuori dal Coro openly uses the term “maranza,” a slang label in Italy for a street style often associated with second-generation immigrant youth, who frequently have a North African background. These gang youths often have Italian citizenship but are linked to petty crime or more serious violence.
They have not been held in pre-trial detention and remain free while awaiting proceedings. Neither they nor their parents have contacted Matteo’s family or apologized.
Prosecutor Simone Purgato of the Bologna Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office charged them with aggravated serious injuries, permanent facial disfigurement, carrying weapons, private violence, attempted extortion, and related drug offenses.
The mother has described the lack of any remorse from the attackers or their families and the ongoing trauma for her, her son, and their family. She emphasized that they seek accountability rather than revenge. Local officials, including the mayor of Medicina, condemned the “cowardice of the pack.”
A French social media influencer known for her criticism of Islam and immigration said a cashier at a Carrefour supermarket called her a “dirty whore” and a “racist” while she was checking out, according to her account of the encounter.
Mila Orriols posted a video Friday of a tense exchange at a Carrefour City store on Rue de la République in central Lyon. In the footage, Orriols tells the employee that she does not bother people while she is at work and that she will speak to his supervisor. As she leaves, she says, “We get revenge every time. Good evening.”
French media that reviewed the video reported that the alleged slurs were not clearly audible, though the employee can be heard using the word “racist” during the confrontation, according to French news outlet LyonMag. Orriols said the employee recognized her before insulting her, at which time she began filming.
Remix News produced a video about the encounter with English subtitles, however, Orriols’ original video garnered over 9 million views on X.
A supermarket employee called French right-wing activist Mila a "dirty whore" and a "racist," while she was at the checkout, according to her account.
The incident happened at a Carrefour supermarket in Lyon.
The company has not publicly commented on whether it will discipline the employee. Carrefour did not immediately respond to inquiries from French news outlets.
Orriols first drew national attention in 2020, when she was 16, after posting videos criticizing Islam. She received tens of thousands of online death threats and hate messages, was forced to leave school and lived for a time under 24-hour police protection. Several people were later convicted in connection with the threats.
She has said she no longer wants constant police protection, arguing she would rather live freely even if it means a shorter life.
Orriols remains a polarizing figure in France and has faced her own legal proceedings over comments French courts have deemed racist. In December 2025, a Lyon court convicted her of a racist insult over a social media post.
Her post from 2024 on X read: “I’ve noticed that many people with a background of inbreeding have very small foreheads. A huge part of families from North Africa are inbred, and many of them have misshapen and quite ugly faces, as well as very small foreheads. This especially applies to the twisted immigrants who attack us on the street every day.”
She deleted the post 10 minutes after writing it, but someone took a screenshot and filed a complaint.
French feminist activist Mila is being prosecuted for "racist insults" for saying many North Africans are inbred and many have "quite ugly faces."
Her post from 2024 read: "I've noticed that many people with a background of inbreeding have very small foreheads. A huge part… pic.twitter.com/3ITmvabUlD
Following the trial, Mila remained defiant, stating that she regrets the form of her comments, but not their content. She also said that scientific studies support her claim that North Africans have high rates of inbreeding.
European governments are racing to blunt a fuel shock that even some analysts now refuse to forecast, as Brent crude holds near $100 a barrel and diesel prices climb across Europe.
The international oil market has been expensive for months. What has changed is the confidence of the people paid to explain it. JPMorgan told clients on Sept. 17 that, for the first time since fighting began around Iran about seven months earlier, its commodities team no longer has a baseline view of how the disruption ends.
“We simply don’t know how to model the endgame,” the bank’s analysts wrote, after several economic thresholds they once assumed would force a diplomatic off-ramp, including oil above $100 a barrel, had already been crossed.
The bank said a Brent price near $90 would have been consistent with known supply and demand in September. Futures instead traded around $100 and higher as traders priced the risk of further losses that no one can yet measure. By Monday, front-month Brent was still hovering near $99 a barrel.
Inventories are doing little to cushion the blow. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has said prices are likely to stay elevated until Middle East oil trade is restored and stocks can be rebuilt. The International Energy Agency’s September report put the scale of the drain in starker terms: observed global inventories fell another 95 million barrels in August, taking the cumulative draw since February to 507 million barrels, or about 2.8 million barrels a day. World oil supply is now projected to average 100.7 million barrels a day in 2026, down 5.7 million from a year earlier.
Diesel shortages are acute
In some countries, such as Hungary, there is a major imbalance in terms of available energy sources. Crude held in strategic storage remains ample, but diesel is quickly running out. Data from the Hungarian Hydrocarbon Stockpiling Association show gas oil stocks at 520.3 kilotons at the end of January and about 390 kilotons at the end of both July and August. That thinner diesel cushion matters in a country where more than 1.3 million passenger cars run on the fuel and the regional market is competing for the same scarce imports.
Pump prices have already moved. Official and commercial trackers put Hungarian diesel around 701 forints a liter in late September on some official series and closer to 730 forints on daily station averages — well above the roughly 593 forints recorded at the end of June. The original worry in Budapest was not whether prices would rise, but how quickly 800 forints would stop looking like a distant ceiling.
That speed is not a mystery to central bankers. Bank of Slovenia research covering euro-area data from 2005 through 2026 found that a 10% rise in Brent lifts pretax diesel and gasoline prices by about 6.5% and 6.2%, respectively, over the longer term. A large share of the increase shows up at stations within the first two weeks — faster than the physical chain of shipping, refining and wholesale delivery would suggest.
The European Central Bank has reached a similar conclusion and added an unwelcome twist: refinery margins can amplify the shock. During the spring spike, Brent briefly reached $138 a barrel while diesel at the refinery gate jumped to $197. ECB staff later estimated that refining margins were contributing about 41 euro cents a liter to euro-area retail diesel in mid-September, and they told reporters those diesel margins may not peak until October.
The way down is slower than the way up. Taxes, refining and transport costs, inventories, margins and local competition all delay relief when crude finally eases. That asymmetry is why governments are acting now, before higher fuel bills work through freight, food and services and lift broader inflation.
Europe-wide crisis
The policy dilemma is the same from Lisbon to Warsaw: protect households and trucking firms without writing a blank check for fossil-fuel consumption. Europe has answered with a patchwork rather than a single rule. Some governments cap retail prices. Others cut excise taxes, sometimes below the European Union minimum. A third group aims help at farmers, haulers and other heavy users. A few still let global prices hit consumers with no cushion at all. The result is that the same barrel of oil can produce pump prices that differ dramatically at the pump across Europe.
Here are just a few examples of what Europe looks like in this regard.
Austria has been running a mineral-oil tax cut of 1.9 euro cents a liter into the end of September.
Belgium has implemented an official price ceiling.
Croatia cut diesel excise duty by another 3 cents, taking it 10 cents below the EU floor; Zagreb says the average diesel price is 1.91 euros a liter instead of 2.26 euros without the intervention.
Cyprus is offering an 8.33-cent discount through Nov. 30.
Luxembourg is absorbing 5 cents of the pump price from July through December.
Malta is using direct state aid to keep prices below the euro-area average.
Portugal decided on Sept. 17 to recycle extra value-added tax receipts from more expensive fuel into tax relief worth about 1.3 billion euros through year-end.
Slovenia posted official maxima of 1.748 euros for gasoline and 2.012 euros for diesel in the week of Sept. 22-28.
Spain has kept an excise cut below the EU minimum through Sept. 30.
Italy reduced and capped diesel duty into early October.
Montenegro and Serbia combine retail caps with lower excise taxes.
Targeted aid is running in parallel
Greece extended a 10-cent-a-liter diesel subsidy into October and is preparing a heating-oil package.
France steered relief to agriculture, high-mileage workers and construction rather than a blanket cut.
Ireland is rebating duty for commercial haulers and bus operators.
Spain added a 402 million-euro program for truckers on top of its general tax reduction.
Italy is offering carriers a tax credit for earlier extra costs.
Larger packages are still moving through parliaments
Germany will cut energy tax by 14 cents a liter from Oct. 1 through year-end, about 17 cents once lower VAT is counted, in a 2.5 billion-euro package.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said drivers who depend on a car every day “are reaching their breaking point.”
Berlin is also talking with the oil industry about a temporary price cap modeled on Luxembourg or Belgium, aimed at Jan. 1, 2027.
The Czech government will restore a station-margin ceiling from Oct. 1, cut diesel duty to the EU minimum and cap retail margins at 2.50 koruna a liter.
Poland has floated a 60% levy on oil companies’ extra profits to finance about 4 billion zlotys of price relief, though the plan faces parliamentary and constitutional hurdles.
The International Energy Agency has described the response as global, not merely European. In a matter of months, the number of countries applying fuel subsidies rose from 16 to 38, and the number cutting energy taxes rose from 40 to 57. Pew Research Center, drawing on IEA tallies from mid-June, counted 113 countries that had taken at least one energy-cost measure after the Iran war, including tax changes in 55 countries and fuel subsidies in 32. The agency’s own warning is implicit in those numbers: governments are treating the symptom at the pump because they cannot reopen the Strait of Hormuz from a finance ministry or end the war in Ukraine.
A 2-year-old boy traveling with his mother toward the Canary Island of Lanzarote was allegedly thrown into the sea from a migrant boat because he would not stop crying, according to an official who oversees the island’s emergency response.
Enrique Espinosa, manager of the Security and Emergencies Consortium of Lanzarote’s island council, or Cabildo, recounted the episode on the Crónicas Radio program “A Buena Hora.”
He mentioned the case of the child when he was asked about a sexual assault of a woman during a boat crossing for which three men were arrested and sent to provisional prison.
According to Espinosa, the child’s case was among the “even more terrible” events emergency services have encountered.
“On a boat, they threw a 2-year-old boy who was crying with his mother into the water,” Espinosa said. He added that passengers’ accounts describe situations “bordering on a lack of humanity.”
However, the fate of the 2-year-old remains an open question. Espinosa did not say when the alleged incident occurred, whether the child was recovered or whether anyone has been arrested in connection with it. The radio program’s host did not ask any follow-up questions about the child.
Espinosa described a situation of growing pressure, stating: “Since June, arrivals have increased due to the Ceuta effect and there is less control on the Moroccan border.”
The remarks came after Spain’s National Police arrested three men, ages 21, 25 and 30, as the alleged perpetrators of a sexual assault during a Sept. 16 crossing bound for Lanzarote. The investigation also located a witness who was traveling on the same boat. The three suspects were later placed in provisional detention.
Police said the woman reported the assault after the vessel reached the port of Arrecife. Coast guard crews rescued 65 survivors from that crossing and recovered three bodies from the water.
The account of the child coincided with several days of heavy boat arrivals on Lanzarote. Espinosa said eight boats had reached the island in just two days, carrying more than 400 migrants, and that emergency workers had treated numerous people for dehydration, hypothermia and injuries from blows.
A 46-year-old Nigerian woman stabbed an Italian police officer in the chest and was charged with attempted mass killing after she opened three gas cylinders in her apartment in Verdello, Italy.
The woman also flooded the rooms fo the apartment building.
Officers responded around 1:15 p.m. Sept. 18 to reports of a dispute at a building on Via Adua that houses 12 mostly migrant families. Officers detected a strong smell of gas and found the third-floor apartment flooded, with broken glass and exposed electrical wires.
Inside, the woman was completely naked, in an agitated state, and shouting incoherent phrases. She grabbed a 24-centimeter kitchen knife from a sofa and lunged at a corporal after one officer slipped on the wet floor, striking him in the chest. The officer was unharmed because he was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Additional officers and emergency medical workers arrived, sedated the woman and took her to Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Bergamo. Tests showed she was positive for cannabis but found no psychiatric conditions. Doctors determined she suffered from acute substance intoxication.
Firefighters sealed the building and declared it unusable until it could be made safe due to the various exposed gas canisters.
When questioned, she said she opened an extra canister for cooking and kept a knife to “defend herself from black magic,” according to BergamoNews.
A tenant who entered the apartment after a power outage found the woman with a rope around her neck. The same tenant later said she attacked him with the knife, shouting, “I’ll kill everyone.”
An 18-year-old woman has been gang raped and beaten by up to ten different men, many of them with a Syrian background, in the Dutch city of Dordrecht. Although the rape occurred in May 2025, the suspects are only now being arrested. In response to the rape, political leader Geert Wilders wrote that the Netherlands also has Islamic grooming gangs and called for all the perpetrators to be removed from the country along with their families.
Six suspects have now been arrested, aged 20 to 23. During the incident, the girl, who lived in a residential group home, was driven to two different parking lots and raped by several men, some of whom filmed the assault and shared it on Snapchat. Police say the woman was humiliated and beaten.
“A bruise on the cheek, a tooth through the lip and a swelling on the knee,” described one source. “It is a very serious criminal offense where all boundaries have been crossed and the victim has been treated very disrespectfully. As if she were an object that everyone could use.”
The incident has already attracted attention from politicians in the Netherlands, including PVV leader Geert Wilders.
“Teen victim of gang rape by Syrians. Raped by ten boys at different parking lots. The Netherlands also has Islamic grooming gangs. The Netherlands needs an unprecedented cleanup. All that scum out. With their families. No mercy,” he wrote on X.
Tiener slachtoffer groepsverkrachting Syriërs. Verkracht door tien jongens op verschillende parkeerplaatsen.
Ook Nederland heeft islamitische grooming gangs. Nederland heeft een ongekend grote schoonmaak nodig. Al dat tuig eruit. Met hun familie.
The first introductory court hearing took place on Sept. 23, 2026. Only 23-year-old S.S., described by the prosecutor as having played a leading role, and identified in court reporting as Syrian-born, was required to appear. Of the other five suspects, two of them are S.S.’s brother and cousin, who were arrested that Wednesday morning.
The investigation by the Rotterdam police Sexual Offences Team is still open, and prosecutors believe as many as ten men were involved.
According to the prosecution, the young woman accepted a lift to a train station from three strangers but they never brought her there. She was taken first to one parking lot, where S.S. raped her, and then to a second parking lot where, prosecutors say other men also raped her.
The Public Prosecution Service also told the court that the suspects “discussed and coordinated their statements in detail.” Even so, the accounts given by S.S. diverge from those of the others. His lawyer said that was because he did not want to inform against his brother and cousin.
S.S. himself told the judges the girl got into the car of her own accord.
“We didn’t force her to do anything,” he told police.
He is requesting to be released while his court trial is pending.
“I don’t want to ruin my future. If I stay stuck, all I’m going to be in debt,” he said.
The court refused. Judges said the images, the statements, and conversations overheard by police were enough to keep him in custody for now. He is due back for another introductory hearing in early December.
Remarkably, there was already a case in 2025 involving gang rape in the Netherlands involving ten suspects and a 15-year-old girl, mostly Syrians. Geert Wilders had also called attention to the case, writing: “50 percent of all suspects of sexual offenses are of foreign origin. Only the PVV will throw that criminal scum out of the country and immediately implement an asylum stop.”
German police have arrested a 43-year-old Turkish man suspected of fatally stabbing his estranged wife, a 36-year-old mother of three, at a municipal refugee shelter in Coesfeld. The suspect was already on trial for rape and charged with other crimes.
Witnesses found the victim, Enda K., with stab wounds to her upper body in her room at the accommodation around 12:25 p.m. on Wednesday.
Rescue workers tried to revive her but could not save her life. She died at the scene.
The couple, both Turkish citizens but had been living separately, investigators stated. Police and prosecutors initially provided no information on the background of the attack or a possible motive.
“The children were luckily at school when it happened. This is so terrible. Enda was such a strong personality, a really nice woman. We are all shocked,” a roommate at the refugee shelter told Bild newspaper.
A tip from the public led officers to the suspect during the night in Münster, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) away. They arrested him around midnight. He did not initially comment on the allegations.
Bild also learned that the Turkish suspect had a prior conviction for aggravated assault and he also faces additioanl charges of trespassing, assault, and coercion.
In January 2026, he was also placed on trial for rape but the trial was terminated and moved to another court due to an expected higher sentencing. No court proceedings at this new court venue have taken place yet.
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