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Colisão entre motociclo e veículo ligeiro deixa um ferido grave em Brufe

10 October 2026 at 13:18
Foto: Bombeiros voluntários de Famalicão

Uma colisão entre um motociclo e um veículo ligeiro de passageiros provocou, ao final da manhã deste sábado, um ferido grave na Estrada Nacional 206, na localidade de Brufe.

Foto: Bombeiros voluntários de Famalicão

O alerta para o acidente foi dado pelas 11h07, mobilizando de imediato os meios de socorro para o local. A vítima grave foi assistida e estabilizada pelas equipas de emergência e transportada posteriormente para o Hospital de Famalicão. Segundo os Bombeiros Voluntários de Famalicão, os trabalhos de prestação de socorro envolveram o apoio direto da Viatura Médica de Emergência e Reanimação (VMER) e da Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR) de Famalicão, que tomou conta da ocorrência e procedeu ao controlo do trânsito na via.

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Por: Dino Frazão
Data: 10 de Outubro de 2026

O conteúdo Colisão entre motociclo e veículo ligeiro deixa um ferido grave em Brufe aparece primeiro em OS MONHACAS.

Fafe: Tribunal limita a uma hora emissão de música no campo de futebol do Cepanense

10 October 2026 at 11:42

O Tribunal da Relação de Guimarães suspendeu a emissão de música no campo de futebol da Associação Sociedade de Recreio Cepanense, em Cepães, Fafe, com exceção do período de uma hora antes de cada jogo que aí tenha lugar e ainda durante cerca de 10 minutos, na manhã do jogo, para testar o sistema de som, sempre com as colunas viradas para o interior do campo e na direção contrária à casa do cidadão que se queixou.

“Permitindo a Sociedade Recreativa, música antes, no intervalo e após os jogos, proveniente de colunas de som instaladas no exterior do campo de futebol que lhe pertence nos dias dos jogos que têm lugar nesse campo, que se encontra situado na proximidade da casa de António M., o que afeta o seu bem-estar e repouso, tanto mais que o mesmo sofre de diversas patologias, designadamente cardíacas, tal emissão de som viola os seus direitos de personalidade”, diz, o acórdão, proferido em setembro.

Os juízes desembargadores acentuam, ainda, que, “tem o Autor direito à suspensão parcial dessa emissão, limitando-se a mesma a uma hora de música antes do jogo, sempre com as colunas viradas para o campo e na direção contrária à da casa, pois tal será suficiente para dar publicidade à realização do jogo, no interesse da coletividade, sendo excessivo, tendo em conta o princípio da proporcionalidade, o pedido no sentido da total cessação do mencionado ruído”.

Padece de várias doenças

O cidadão, pedia, na ação, a título principal, a condenação à não emissão de som por parte da Associação proveniente de colunas de som instaladas no exterior ou qualquer outro bem similar em termos de sonoridade, nos dias de jogo, aos fins de semana, ou mesmo à semana, ou em qualquer outro evento desportivo ou não desportivo, organizado ou não, que ocorra no prédio onde se encontra o campo de jogos, o bar, e as bancadas, na sua sede”.

O pedido foi rejeitado pelo Tribunal de Fafe pelo que o cidadão recorreu para a Relação de Guimarães.

Na ação, António M. dizia que, antes, durante e após os jogos de futebol do campeonato distrital da 1ª Divisão da Associação de Futebol de Braga, “pessoas a mando do Cepanense, colocam música via telemóvel com saída em duas colunas de som, regularmente, sendo que os jogos têm normalmente o seu início pelas 15 horas”.

Salientou que tem 64 anos de idade, e está reformado por invalidez, padecendo de diversas doenças, cardíacas, renais e diabéticas.

O conteúdo Fafe: Tribunal limita a uma hora emissão de música no campo de futebol do Cepanense aparece primeiro em O MINHO.

Lagoa | Exposição Fotográfica ‘Parque Natural Marinho do Recife do Algarve – Pedra do Valado’

9 October 2026 at 19:23

O Auditório Carlos do Carmo, em Lagoa, recebe a Exposição Fotográfica Parque Natural Marinho do Recife do Algarve – Pedra do Valado, que ficará patente de 13 de outubro a 30 de novembro. A entrada é gratuita. A Pedra do Valado integra um dos maiores recifes rochosos costeiros de baixa profundidade em Portugal, estendendo-se ao […]

Municípios do Ave apoiam criação da Área Metropolitana do Minho

9 October 2026 at 15:22

O Conselho Intermunicipal da Comunidade Intermunicipal (CIM) do Ave aprovou, hoje, por unanimidade, uma proposta de compromisso que manifesta o apoio político dos municípios do Ave ao processo de criação da futura Área Metropolitana do Minho.

Em comunicado, a CIM do Ave explica que “o compromisso prevê a união de esforços e o desenvolvimento dos diálogos institucionais necessários à convergência estratégica, que permita aportar novas ferramentas e novas oportunidades de valorização de toda a região”.

A deliberação expressa ainda “a vontade de trabalhar em conjunto, ultrapassando fronteiras administrativas, para que o Minho tenha uma voz única, forte e representativa junto dos centros de decisão nacionais e europeus”.

Na fundamentação da proposta, o Conselho Intermunicipal sublinha a relevância económica e exportadora do Minho e defende que uma escala de cooperação mais ampla poderá contribuir para a modernização dos territórios e para a melhoria da qualidade de vida das populações.

A posição é assumida pelos oito municípios que integram a CIM do Ave: Cabeceiras de Basto, Fafe, Guimarães, Mondim de Basto, Póvoa de Lanhoso, Vieira do Minho, Vila Nova de Famalicão e Vizela.

A criação da Área Metropolitana do Minho foi oficialmente lançada a 21 de julho, pelos presidentes das câmaras de Braga e Guimarães.

A CIM do Cávado já tinha manifestado “apoio político inequívoco” à criação da Área Metropolitana do Minho.

O conteúdo Municípios do Ave apoiam criação da Área Metropolitana do Minho aparece primeiro em O MINHO.

Fafe promove iniciativas sobre saúde mental

8 October 2026 at 15:42

A Divisão de Coesão Social e do Grupo Municipal de Saúde Mental de Fafe divulgou hoje um programa para o mês de outubro com várias atividades de reforço da literacia em saúde mental.

São também objetivos deste programa a promoção da participação da comunidade e valorização do trabalho em rede com parceiros locais, destacando-se o Dia Mundial da Saúde Mental marcado para sábado, onde, ao longo do dia, estarão presentes diferentes entidades e projetos na Casa da Cultura e na Biblioteca Municipal de Fafe, procurando dar a conhecer o trabalho realizado durante o ano.

Fafe promove iniciativas sobre saúde mental
Fafe promove iniciativas sobre saúde mental 2

O Grupo Municipal de Saúde Mental de Fafe assinala este ano o seu terceiro ano de atividade.

O conteúdo Fafe promove iniciativas sobre saúde mental aparece primeiro em O MINHO.

Ovelhas e cabras ajudam a manter campos de golfe em Silves

By: Lusa
6 October 2026 at 10:24

O rebanho de André Gonçalves controla a vegetação no Amendoeira Golf Resort. A parceria reduz gastos de limpeza e dá ao pastor uma fonte gratuita de alimento.

O conteúdo Ovelhas e cabras ajudam a manter campos de golfe em Silves aparece primeiro em Barlavento.

ZFE : le 8 octobre, les députés revotent — et Lyon verbalise déjà à 68 euros

Rejeté à deux voix près en commission le 30 septembre, censuré une première fois par le Conseil constitutionnel, le dispositif des zones à faibles émissions continue de frapper les automobilistes. À Lyon, les contraventions de 68 euros pour une voiture et 135 euros pour un poids lourd ou un autocar sont effectives depuis le 1er juillet. Le 8 octobre, les députés examineront à nouveau une proposition de suppression. Liberté de circuler contre bureaucratie : la norme survit à ses propres désaveux.

ZFE : le 8 octobre, les députés revotent — et Lyon verbalise déjà à 68 euros
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ZFE : le 8 octobre, les députés revotent — et Lyon verbalise déjà à 68 euros

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Depuis le 1er juillet 2026, la Métropole de Lyon applique la verbalisation dans sa zone à faibles émissions. Les véhicules Crit’Air 3, 4, 5 et non classés risquent 68 euros d’amende forfaitaire pour une voiture particulière ou un utilitaire léger, et 135 euros pour un poids lourd ou un autocar, selon le code de la route. Une quarantaine d’agglomérations appliquent déjà une ZFE. En Île-de-France, les sanctions sont reportées au 1er janvier 2027.

ZFE : le 8 octobre, les députés revotent — et Lyon verbalise déjà à 68 euros
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Une norme qui survit à ses propres désaveux

Le 30 septembre, la commission du développement durable de l’Assemblée nationale a rejeté par 21 voix contre 19 la proposition de loi de Pierre Meurin visant à abroger les zones à faibles émissions-mobilité. Le texte sera néanmoins examiné dans l’hémicycle le 8 octobre, lors de la journée réservée au groupe RN.

Examen puis rejet de la proposition de loi visant à abroger les zones à faibles émissions-mobilités
Mercredi 30 septembre 2026 matin, la commission du développement durable a examiné puis rejeté la proposition de loi visant à abroger les zones à faibles émissions-mobilités.

Le dispositif avait déjà été adopté dans le cadre de la loi de simplification de la vie économique, avant d’être censuré le 21 mai 2026 par le Conseil constitutionnel, non sur le fond, mais parce que la disposition était dépourvue de lien suffisant avec le texte initial. La ZFE lyonnaise reste donc en vigueur.

ZFE : Le grand retour de manivelle des Sages, par Élise Rochefort
Ne dites plus « C’est la fin des Zones à Faibles Émissions ». Par une décision n°2026-903 DC rendue hier, le 21 mai 2026, le Conseil constitutionnel a purement et simplement torpillé l’article 37 de la loi de simplification de la vie économique. Le texte prévoyait l’abrogation

Le député RN Pierre Meurin affirme que les ZFE « excluent 15 millions de Français ». Ce chiffre relève de son argumentaire et doit être attribué comme tel. De son côté, le député LFI Sylvain Carrière a jugé les ZFE « profondément injustes », tandis que Vincent Thiébaut (Horizons) refuse une suppression sans développement préalable des transports collectifs.

ZFE : le 8 octobre, les députés revotent — et Lyon verbalise déjà à 68 euros
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À Lyon, la contestation devient une facture

Pendant que les parlementaires discutent, à Lyon, la verbalisation a commencé le 1er juillet : 68 euros pour une voiture, 135 euros pour un poids lourd ou un autocar. Le premier montant correspond à l'amende forfaitaire des contraventions de troisième classe. En Île-de-France, les sanctions sont repoussées au 1er janvier 2027. Le montant de la sanction dépend donc de l'adresse, et du calendrier que chaque exécutif local a choisi. Les contrôles sont actuellement effectués par les polices municipale et nationale.

Non, les ZFE ne sont pas imposées par l’Union Européenne
Par Elise Rochefort Les zones à faibles émissions (ZFE) sont régulièrement présentées comme une obligation venue de Bruxelles. La réalité juridique est différente. Aucun texte européen n’impose aux États ni aux villes de créer une ZFE. Ce que le droit de l’Union impose, ce sont des résultats : le

Le 2 octobre, Pierre Chasseray (40 millions d'automobilistes) et l'écrivain Alexandre Jardin ont écrit aux députés pour dénoncer un « système absurde, punitif et profondément injuste ». Ils promettent de publier le vote de chaque élu et de le faire connaître aux électeurs de sa circonscription. Au-delà des affrontements partisans, une question demeure : combien de temps une réglementation contestée jusque dans ses effets sociaux peut-elle continuer à s’imposer avant que le législateur ne tranche clairement ? Quel que soit le résultat du 8 octobre, les automobilistes resteront soumis à un calendrier qui leur échappe. Les élus locaux fixent les dates de sanction, le Parlement débat des principes. Entre les deux, la facture arrive à l'automobiliste.

ZFE : le 8 octobre, les députés revotent — et Lyon verbalise déjà à 68 euros
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Socialist Mayor Mamdani: Government’s Job Is to Deliver ‘Whatever You Need’ for a Dignified Life

By: SGT
6 October 2026 at 02:00
by Scott McClallen, Townhall: New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani claims that the American Dream is dead for many Americans. When talking to podcast host and comedian Theo Von, Mamdani compared achieving the American Dream to playing the lottery. Von said: “It used to feel like if you did enough work, you did this, and you did these […]

This Fossil Predates Dinosaurs by 300 Million Years — and Scientists Still Aren’t Sure What It Was

24 September 2026 at 17:06
Finding fossils usually means months of fieldwork, a hammer, and a lot of patience. In Finnmark, Norway’s northernmost region, it took none of that. According to the University of Cambridge, a cluster of rocks had broken loose from a cliff above a sheep field. When they split open on landing, they exposed a fossil of […]

« Axe arabo-hébreu-occidental »

15 September 2026 at 18:04
PNG - 7.3 kio

Dans les médias officiels iraniens tout comme dans la rhétorique gouvernementale, cette expression désigne l'ennemi du moment, à savoir la coalition formée par de nombreux pays occidentaux, dont les États-Unis, Israël et plusieurs régimes arabes, notamment les signataires des accords Abraham (Émirats arabes unis, Bahreïn, Maroc et Soudan), qui normalisent leurs relations avec Tel-Aviv. Cette expression avait déjà cours durant la guerre contre l'Irak (1980-1988), Bagdad étant alors soutenu par Washington et les monarchies du Golfe.

Voir en ligne : /mav/209/A/69927

O erro de beber café ao acordar e o motivo por que provoca cansaço à tarde

10 September 2026 at 10:52
O hábito de beber café ao acordar pode estar a causar o cansaço à tarde. Entenda o papel do cortisol e da adenosina e saiba quando tomar a primeira chávena. Beber café ao acordar é um erro biológico porque coincide com o pico natural de cortisol, a hormona responsável por manter o corpo desperto e […]

The Thief Who Wanted to Save the World

8 September 2026 at 11:00
illustration of city at night with two red silhouette figures and a van in the foreground

Matthew Wolfe | The Atavist Magazine | August 2026 | 2,275 words (8 minutes)

This is an excerpt from issue no. 179, “The Bleeding Hearts.”


On the evening of December 22, 2013, an armored van packed with cash made its rounds through the regal streets of Vienna. The city’s elegant Baroque buildings were trimmed with glinting strings of lights; Christmas markets sold spiced glühwein on cobbled squares. A little after midnight, as the festivities quieted, the van, operated by the security company Loomis, stopped at a walk-up ATM on a desolate stretch of storefronts. Two guards stepped out, entered a room-size vestibule behind the machine, and commenced replenishing the ATM with cash. A minute later, two figures wearing black balaclavas and carrying handguns emerged from the shadows and followed the guards inside.

The pair ordered the guards onto the ground and handcuffed them. After snatching the keys to the armored van, one of them unlocked the vehicle and began stuffing crisp bank notes into black duffel bags. The thieves then checked the street for witnesses and disappeared into the night with nearly three million euros.

The Atavist, our sister publication, publishes one deeply reported, elegantly designed story each month. Support The Atavist by becoming a member.

It was the largest armed robbery in Austrian history. The heist had been near perfectly executed, revealing intimate knowledge of Loomis’s anti-theft procedures—perfect, that is, except for one small oversight. The thieves didn’t realize that the ATM had a security camera that automatically took photos of the street whenever it was being restocked. The images were blurry, but they revealed that the perpetrator who climbed into the van was short enough to stand upright without hitting their head. Detectives decided that it was almost certainly a woman.

They soon homed in on a former Loomis employee, Tamara S., who, when she worked for the company, had scheduled the routes and was only five feet three inches tall. On the morning of January 10, 2014, federal police raided Tamara’s apartment and arrested her. Initially she denied any involvement in the robbery, but eventually she confessed. Investigators were stunned when she named her accomplice. The man she claimed had masterminded the job was one of their own: Gabriel E., a former officer in the city’s WEGA unit, the Viennese equivalent of SWAT.

The next day, a team that included some of Gabriel’s former colleagues raided his upscale apartment and placed him under arrest. Unlike Tamara, Gabriel confessed right away. When detectives asked why he had committed such an audacious crime, he replied that he hadn’t stolen the money for himself. He’d done it for the children of Africa; he planned to build an orphanage there.

It sounded absurd—the kind of desperate lie a thief might invent to deflect blame or ameliorate punishment—but it was very much the truth.

“Wouldn’t it be right,” Gabriel asked, “to steal something from a bank and give it to the poor?”

Austrians have a reputation, even among themselves, as scrupulous rule followers. In Vienna it’s rare to glimpse people jaywalking, and the city’s subway runs on an honor system. An Austrian friend suggested that this predilection had its roots in the country’s imperial past. From its power center in Austria, the Hapsburg monarchy ruled enormous portions of Europe for six centuries with the help of a dizzyingly complex bureaucracy. The compulsion to follow rules even a hundred years after the Hapsburgs lost power, my friend explained, was like the twitching of empire’s phantom limb. (Austria is also a very private country; the media don’t report the full names of people involved in criminal cases, a practice I’m abiding by too.)

As a police officer, Gabriel had been an enforcer of rules in a rule-bound society, making his crime all the more perplexing. His family told me that he was staunchly law-abiding, and had never incurred so much as a speeding ticket. In retrospect, however, they realized that there had been hints of where he was headed. He always loved to give things: presents to his three children, donations to charity, food to people begging in the street. After leaving the police force and starting a private-security business, he became wealthy, only to grow conspicuously ascetic, donating increasingly large amounts of money and possessions. By the time he was arrested, he’d sold his Audi and his Rolex, and he was down to almost his last suit. When police raided his home, they found bags filled with clothes purchased from H&M that Gabriel planned to give away.

*The Atavist is using pseudonyms for Gabriel’s family members.

Gabriel’s son Florian* recalled that the summer before the Loomis heist, his father had posed a curious hypothetical. “Wouldn’t it be right,” he asked, “to steal something from a bank and give it to the poor?” Florian, who was studying to become a police officer himself, disagreed, and his father dropped the issue.

Still, to idly philosophize about such a crime was one thing. To actually do it—to fashion oneself into a twenty-first-century Robin Hood—was another.

After his arrest, Gabriel was remanded to Vienna’s largest and most forbidding jail, Josefstadt. When I visited him there in 2014, I expected to encounter someone solemn and morally serious—a grim-faced saint. But when Gabriel entered the room, he radiated the warm excitement of a Labrador retriever. A tall, fit man of 50 with fetching salt-and-pepper stubble, Gabriel was wearing a cerulean-blue hoodie, clear-plastic-rimmed glasses, and a beaded necklace. He looked less like a former law enforcement officer than a hip Los Angeles dad. We sat down, and without hesitation Gabriel, still the inveterate benefactor, offered me exactly what I wanted: an explanation of how he’d gotten into this mess.

Gabriel’s childhood, he told me, had been shaped by “gruesomeness.” He was raised in Tyrol, Austria’s bucolic eastern province, by an alcoholic father given to punching his two sons. Gabriel and his elder brother eventually came under the care of their grandmother, who as punishment would regularly lock them in a darkened closet. “I had a very fucking childhood,” he told me in emphatic, accented English, omitting an adjective but still making the point. (After our first encounter, I would meet with Gabriel several times in the ensuing decade and communicate with him by letter, phone, and email.)

The two siblings both went into law enforcement, Gabriel in Vienna, where he hoped to help others in desperate situations, and his brother in the state police. Athletic and competitive, Gabriel quickly made the famed Wiener Einsatzgruppe Alarmabteilung (WEGA), the Vienna police department’s most expertly trained unit. Despite his severe upbringing, Gabriel was by nature cheerful. Every WEGA operation, as he saw it, was a new problem to be solved through hard work and an upbeat attitude.

One afternoon in 1994, Gabriel told me, his WEGA squad was tasked with busting up a drug deal in Vienna’s Fifteenth District, which at the time was the city’s seediest neighborhood. When the team moved to make an arrest, the seller, an African immigrant, bolted. Gabriel pursued him, shouting for the man to stop and firing his pistol in the air. As he closed in, the suspect turned and pulled out his own handgun. The two men exchanged fire, hitting each other in the thigh. Gabriel tackled the dealer and, following a short, bloody wrestling match, overpowered him. The pair shared an awkward ambulance ride to the hospital.

The shooting put Gabriel’s relentless positivity to the test. He endured months of physical therapy to regain the use of his leg. When he returned to work, he transitioned out of WEGA. After a brief, unhappy stint as a traffic cop, he left the force entirely. In 2001, he started his own private-security company, specializing in investigations of corporate theft. He gave it an English name: Service of Secrecy. The early years were lean as Gabriel struggled against larger competitors, but as word of his talents spread, the business thrived.

Gabriel occasionally found himself thinking about the man who’d shot him. He saw him only one additional time, in court, and knew little of his past—not even which country he was from. But at some point, Gabriel learned that the man was an asylum-seeker, as were so many African immigrants in Austria. They’d begun arriving in the country in the 1990s, fleeing civil wars and ailing economies. Gabriel wondered what the man’s life had been like back home, what he was running from.

In 2006, Gabriel told me, he had an opportunity to visit Africa himself; a client had recommended him to authorities in the Central African nation of Gabon, which was interested in creating its own version of WEGA. He told me he flew down for an interview with the defense minister, Ali Bongo, the son of the country’s notoriously corrupt authoritarian president, Omar Bongo, and was offered a lucrative multiyear consulting contract. Gabriel didn’t love the idea of working for a despot, but he had a family to support. And at the end of the day, someone was going to train the country’s police. Why not him? Gabriel accepted the job.

He commuted between Gabon and Austria every few weeks. During his trips to Gabon, he told me, he spent much of his time touring the countryside, where Bongo wanted to establish an array of military bases. The poverty Gabriel witnessed shocked him. By African standards Gabon was wealthy, mainly due to its coastal oil reserves. In the capital, Libreville, a former French colonial port, supermarkets stocked expensive Bordeaux and Roquefort cheese. But the wealth was unequally distributed. “People lived in huts without ANYTHING,” Gabriel wrote to me in 2015. “Yet merely one hundred meters further I could see pompous buildings with inconceivable luxury.” The experience, he added, “completely overwhelmed me.”

Gabriel began to feel guilty about the money he made, which had bought him a posh apartment and car. He responded to his unease with an energetic program of handouts. Gabriel had been raised Catholic and later joined a Pentecostal church. He told me that charity was an important part of his faith. He decided to give money to destitute Gabonese. There was no formal plan; when he encountered someone in need—particularly single mothers and people requiring medical care they couldn’t afford—he gave them whatever cash he had.

Back in Vienna, Gabriel’s family was growing. Following an amicable divorce, he had remained close with his first wife, Sabine, with whom he had two children, Julia and Florian. He remarried a woman who taught French—helpful for his work in Gabon, where French is the official language—and, in 2012, she gave birth to his third child. Domestic life was good. But the feeling that plagued Gabriel abroad persisted at home. Soon he began filling the trunk of his car with clothes, toys, appliances, and other items, then driving east to Romania, where he’d stop in poor villages and give it all away. Sometimes he took his two elder children, who by then were teenagers and growing concerned about Gabriel’s haphazard giving. (So was their mother.) But the donations, and the astonished smiles of the people who received them, never failed to make Gabriel happy. It felt more than good, he told me once. Then he paused, searching for the correct English word. “It was,” he said, “mandatory. My duty. My obligation.”

In 2009, Omar Bongo died, and his son left the ministry of defense to run for president. The new defense minister, Gabriel told me, declined to renew his contract. Although the lost income was regrettable, Gabriel was by then so consumed by his mission to help Gabon’s people that he didn’t mind. While making his ad hoc contributions to everyday Gabonese, Gabriel had begun to dream of something bigger—something that, to his mind, would be truly consequential.

His difficult upbringing had made him empathetic toward children in dire circumstances, particularly those without parents. He wanted to instill in a frightened child a durable sense of safety and security—a feeling that, growing up, he had been denied. Before leaving Gabon at the end of his consultancy, Gabriel began drawing up plans to build an orphanage there. It was to be a whole complex, in fact, where every child would have their own lodgings, painted in bright colors, and where all their needs would be met. He named the imagined community Blue Sky Village.

Back in Vienna, Gabriel began soliciting donations to make Blue Sky Village a reality. He estimated that he’d need nearly a million euros to begin the project, and he wrote dozens of letters to aid organizations and philanthropists requesting help in financing the plan. Soliciting charity, Gabriel found, was much tougher than handing it out. He received few responses. The people who did reply politely suggested that, given his lack of experience in the aid space, he donate to existing groups. But investigating corporate theft hadn’t done much for his faith in how companies managed their money. What’s more, Gabriel thought that a lot of groups wasted money on lavish fundraisers—the Viennese have a long tradition of philanthropic balls—rather than spending it on people in need. He grew angry when he thought about money being used for frivolities when children were starving and scared. “This makes me so… hateful,” he told me. The only way to know that orphans in Gabon were being saved, he thought, was to save them himself.

As he struggled to get his project off the ground, Gabriel received a call from an old WEGA colleague named Heinz, who was now working in security for Loomis. The company had suffered some recent employee thefts, and Heinz wanted Gabriel to help its Austrian branch sharpen its embezzlement protocols.

In a bleak irony, Heinz had been fired from the Viennese police in 2006, after he was accused of beating a Gambian immigrant resisting deportation. Gabriel told me that he’d heard about Heinz’s case in the media. Despite what Heinz had allegedly done, Gabriel found it easy to rationalize taking the Loomis job: The more money he earned, the more he could give away to those in need. He agreed to come on as a consultant, and the two men became friendly. Soon, Heinz introduced Gabriel to a Loomis employee named Tamara.

Who Can Solve Gerhard Berger’s Quiz?

31 August 2026 at 19:51

In the new print issue of Esses, a quarterly print magazine covering motorsports and the culture around it, Duncan Fyfe writes about the most bizarre Formula One video game ever made. Centered around Gerhard Berger, a former racing driver from Austria who competed in F1 from 1984 to 1997, Gerhard Berger’s Formula 1 Quiz is a quirky video game from 1993 that raises more questions than it asks. Fyfe digs into the mystery, investigating the quiz’s grammatically awkward questions and the game’s developer, Austria Soft, whose existence is questionable. (Esses subscription may be required—consider becoming a member.)

THE REAL QUIZ, it soon becomes clear, is not a test of one’s F1 knowledge, but figuring out what the game expects to hear. This only becomes more difficult, and even sinister. Question nine: FROM WHAT COUNTRY IS JEAN ALESI REALLY? The answer is not France, where Alesi was born and grew up, and under whose flag Alesi competed for over a decade. To progress in the quiz, the game forces one to submit that Alesi was born to Italian parents, and thus is “really” from Italy.

The game’s questions all have correct answers that cannot be submitted, and yet they are less difficult to answer than these ones: Who made this game? Why? And what was Gerhard Berger thinking?

Africa’s Wild Dogs Are the Most Hated Carnivores on the Continent. Here’s Why Some Conservationists Are Saving Them Anyway

28 August 2026 at 12:00

Apparently, African wild dogs enjoy knocking around balls of elephant dung like a football. It’s this playfulness that has endeared them to researchers—but, as Helen Sullivan points out, they have their work cut out for them trying to protect this persecuted big predator. Sullivan follows conservationists in southern Africa who are carefully managing tiny, isolated populations and attempting to introduce genetic diversity. The story of the three sisters who are flown over from Mozambique to be introduced to Waterberg—a South African municipality three hours from Johannesburg—is heart-wrenching. Yet in such a harsh environment, individual tragedies have to be endured while staying focused on the bigger picture: the fragile recovery of the species as a whole.

As we help Greyling and Hlako lift a crate off the pickup, a dusty paw flops out of one corner, and I think of something my uncle says: “You can smell the world in a dog’s paw.” Mooney and I back away, watching from inside a container as Hlako moves the car so that the overheating dog is in the shade. Though it is late afternoon, the temperature is still around 90 degrees. 

Hlako and Greyling release the dogs one at a time, opening the crate and waiting until a dog walks, then trots, out. The first is less sure on her feet, the second seems almost normal, until Mooney points out that she would have run much faster from the crate and people had she not still been a bit dozy. The sisters stand together in a grassy area, point their noses in the air, move their satellite-dish ears and lie down under a thorn tree; it has been a long day. 

Romania receives first €2.5 billion payment under SAFE defence instrument

28 August 2026 at 07:30

On 26 August, Romania received its first payment of €2.5 billion under the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defence instrument, representing 15% of its total allocation of €16.7 billion.

SAFE is a €150 billion financial instrument providing loans to member states. It primarily funds joint procurement of ammunition, missiles, air defence, and ground combat systems produced within the EU. It is part of the European Commission's ReArm Europe/Readiness 2030 plan, which aims to unlock over €800 billion in defence investment across the European Union.

The pre-financing will help Romania accelerate priority defence investments, strengthen resilience, and modernise its military capabilities in line with shared European goals. SAFE is designed to enable swift, co-ordinated action, improve the ability of European forces to work together, and strengthen Europe's defence industry, including through joint procurement and closer cross-border co-operation.

Defence and Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius (pictured) said: "Today's €2.5 billion payment to Romania under SAFE is a major milestone for European defence and a more sovereign Europe. This funding will strengthen Romania's defence capabilities and industrial base, while contributing to Europe's overall security. SAFE is a clear demonstration of our strong commitment to European security, and to the resilience and to defence of our Eastern Flank."

This payment follows the completion of all required procedural steps and reflects the EU's commitment to providing timely, practical support through SAFE. Further payments will follow, as agreed milestones and implementation are met.

The SAFE instrument is financed by EU borrowing on the financial markets. This enables competitively priced and attractively structured long-duration loans to requesting Member States. The terms of the SAFE loans benefit from the EU's strong credit rating.

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