• Paris erupted as protests turned to riots and masked looters ransacked stores on Saturday.
• Small business owners took stock of what they'd lost on Sunday.
• "When I got back, they'd taken everything," one store owner told Business Insider.

"When I got back, they'd taken everything."

That's what one shopkeeper in Paris told me as she cleared debris from her store after major cost-of-living protests turned violent across parts of France.

Chaotic scenes unfolded on Saturday as rioters clashed with police and set vehicles and trash bins alight before masked marchers began to ransack businesses, including in the trendy Marais shopping district.

After hundreds of arrests and a tense, momentary calm on Sunday morning, more violence broke out Sunday evening as black-clad rioters dragged debris into streets and set it aflame.

Employees at a boutique fashion brand working in the area as the riots unfolded told me the situation felt "dystopian," and that at one point tear gas began seeping into the store. That apparently was not enough to put some shoppers off, however, as some continued to browse, they said.

They added that there was a heavy police presence on the street throughout Saturday, and that although they had hired extra security, they eventually decided to close early as the violence intensified.

Cycling through the city on Sunday, I followed what felt like a path of destruction that steadily ramped up as I neared the Place de République, where the city's 3rd, 10th, and 11th arrondissements meet — the scene of some of Saturday's most serious violence.

I stopped at several stores along the way to photograph the damage and speak with shop workers about their experiences.

A store owner at a gold-buying shop whose front window had been smashed told me she was forced to close up early on Saturday.

"I got a call. It was my neighbor, who was working next door at the restaurant. He'd made a video showing a group of young people," she said, adding that they forced the door open and "smashed everything up."

"They stole things," she said. "When I got back, they'd taken everything."

Later, I stopped outside a ransacked Nicolas wine store, one of the country's most prominent wine retail brands. The storefront was agape, the entrance and both display windows smashed, revealing shelves picked clean. Empty Champagne boxes and glass littered the floor.

Among the other businesses targeted by looters and damaged in the violence across Paris on Saturday were major supermarket chains, tech stores, bars, and vape shops.

Alexandre Bompard, the CEO of the Carrefour Group, one of France's biggest supermarket chains, said the cost of repairs to damaged stores would run well over $11 million. He said the destruction would lead to "considerable human and economic consequences," as franchise partners would be forced to reduce the hours of dozens of employees.

On the other side of Paris, the situation was calmer on Saturday. Outside my apartment in Montmartre, for example, life ticked along as usual, terraces full of weekend revelers and a Saturday buzz in the air.

A bartender at a popular Irish pub along the boulevard — a few doors down from the Moulin Rouge — said it had been a particularly busy evening and that she had seen no trouble, adding that people were on the whole "very polite."

By Sunday morning, however, many other Parisians were greeted by smashed storefronts and ATMs, broken glass, litter-filled streets, and burned-out cars as they emerged into a chilly, blue-skied morning.

And there were signs the city had begun to recover. Workers were already making repairs to an employment agency that had been broken into, and volunteers swept the streets.

As Paris tries to get back on its feet, Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said that local businesses would receive government help. He said he had requested the creation of an "emergency task force to support shopkeepers" with insurance and administrative procedures.

"You bring Paris to life every day. Today, it's Paris's turn to stand by your side," he said.

The buzzy new A24 film “You Can See Everything” is a one-of-a-kind documentary. It features a psychic clash between two masters of deception with distinct skill sets. In one corner is Nathan Fielder, a comic and creator of a number of popular shows, including “Nathan for You” and “The Rehearsal,” which bizarrely blend fiction and reality and involve manipulating strangers. In the other corner is Elizabeth Holmes, the notorious once-billionaire founder of Theranos who was convicted of defrauding investors in one of the biggest business scams of the 21st century.

The premise of the film is that Holmes invites Fielder — who directed the film alongside Lance Oppenheim — to spend enormous amounts of time with her and her family 34 days in 2023 before she begins an 11-year prison sentence for committing fraud. She says her goal is to prove her innocence through transparency. “I know I didn’t commit a crime,” she tells Fielder. And she intends to prove that, somehow, by allowing a camera crew to surveil her life in a rented home in Southern California for about a month.

The entire arrangement is hilarious and absurd on its face — why would Holmes invite Fielder of all people into her life in an effort to clear her name? Why would showing her behavior in this contrived reality TV-like setup be effective at countering the stigma of her crimes? And what could Fielder unearth about Holmes that the public might not know?

The central source of tension driving the film is captured in its ultra-viral teaser showing Fielder and Holmes sizing each other up with their faces just inches apart, prompting the viewer to ask: Who is getting played here?

“You Can See Everything” is a movie about how hard it is to ascertain the truth, the limits of perception and the unknowability of other humans. It serves as a highly entertaining and at times trippy comment on the way people cynically use narrative as power in post-truth, huckster-ruled America. It’s also at times rather shallow, closer to a cheap trick than a provocation about the elusive nature of truth.

The first part of the movie is all about Fielder spending time with Holmes and her fiancé, Billy Evans, along with their two babies. Holmes and Evans’ bid for “radical transparency” involves extended scenes of mundane daily life — eating, childcare, walking on the beach. In what appears to be a demonstration of just how open they’re willing to be, Holmes breastfeeds in front of Fielder and the camera crew; in another scene, Evans showers in front of the camera — with nothing left to the imagination. Yet at the same time, both of them are constantly evasive when answering questions, using “I don’t know” to respond to questions that they clearly know the answers to, or asking for straightforward questions to be rephrased in order to buy time for new evasions.

The film further embraces the paradox of the whole “transparency” setup by letting us observe and listen in on Holmes and her (unnervingly controlling) partner’s attempts to co-direct the documentary, and to put on a show of trying to woo investors for an improbable successor company to Theranos. Altogether, it’s a compelling mix of stagecraft and manufactured reality. And it only gets weirder as the movie progresses.

The part of the movie that’s unsatisfying is Fielder’s fixation on getting Holmes to admit to understanding what she did wrong. Holmes resolutely insists that she not only doesn’t think she did anything wrong, but that she has never lied in her adult life. Equally striking is that she claims to not even understand why people believe she lied about what her infamous Theranos blood testing machine — which never fulfilled the advertising that said it could conduct hundreds of diagnostic tests with just a few drops of blood — could do.

The focal point is the ambiguity of her meaning when she says she really believed the machine was capable of doing things it had not yet demonstrated the capacity to do. Fielder seems to entertain the idea that this may be a communication problem that originates in Holmes’ mind. He shows her a video of Abbott and Costello’s famous “Who’s on first” comedy routine to illustrate how people can talk past each other by perceiving the same words differently, and she claims to have no comprehension of it. Evans insists this is proof that she just “thinks differently.”

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Aaron Sorkin on his new movie ‘The Social Reckoning’ and the impact of Facebook October 9, 2026 / 12:05

The implied meaning of Fielder’s inquiry appears to be that we cannot know what Holmes truly believes, and thus we cannot rule out a kind of psychological innocence surrounding her intent.

While Fielder is also hard to read, it does seem that he takes her denialism seriously — and in A24’s press notes he admits, “When I watch the footage back I see myself genuinely conflicted and struggling to make sense of these moments and what was happening.” But the only reason the question appears meaty for the audience is because the filmmakers have deliberately narrowed the information we can use to bear upon this question. Many people who watch this movie will not be familiar with the details of the Theranos fraud case, or may have forgotten them. But reportage and the legal proceedings against her demonstrate unequivocally that this isn’t all just a big misunderstanding about the meaning of a couple of words.

Trial evidence and investigative media reports showed that Holmes knew her machine was not producing accurate or reliable results and that she covertly used traditional machines to produce results her machine could not — and passed off many of those results as her own machine’s performance. To woo investors, she falsely claimed that the technology was used on the battlefield in Afghanistan. She admitted in court that she personally affixed the logos of big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer to reports that would falsely indicate that those companies had endorsed Theranos’ technology. She has admitted that her company advertised her blood diagnostics machine as being able to do more than 200 tests — while it could only do 12. Not only did Holmes rob investors of huge sums of money, she also gave tens of thousands of patients incorrect diagnostic tests that had dangerous real-life consequences for them.

In other words, Holmes’ intent isn’t that complicated a question, and she isn’t merely misunderstood. She is without question a full-on scammer.

To me, her wide-eyed denials and incomprehensible tentativeness in this movie are an obvious and ludicrously ham-fisted attempt to lie once more, to win back public opinion. In addition to sapping her arc of its suspense, it also then pushes the audience in a strange direction. The narrative of Holmes as an oddball idealist who might just be misunderstood is an essential part of the movie’s engine — which mostly points to her troublingly domineering partner as the real villain of the story.

But two things can be true at once: She’s deceptive, and her partner is also a bad guy. Yet I suspect the narrative of the movie is likely to be received as quasi-exculpatory of Holmes in the eyes of some audience members.

Some might say that Fielder deliberately allowed Holmes to work her “magic” on the public. But magic doesn’t work when you can see the mechanics of the trick.

Whether wittingly or not, the way Fielder tries to make Holmes more mysterious than she is also reminds me of a broader social problem we have in American life: our struggle to tackle how flagrant lying has become a norm in politics and our information environment. Many political observers — including me, at times — are vexed by the question of politicians’ intent when they spread false information, use language that insinuates an incitement to violence or bigotry, or defend modern day genocide. This process often involves giving bad actors the benefit of the doubt as we weigh their subsequent denials. Some of that problem simply can’t be solved, because stated intent, in the abstract, is irrefutable. But a part of the solution is often watching what people do — instead of what they say.

The post What you can’t see in ‘You Can See Everything’ appeared first on MS NOW.

Development by UK firm Nscale heralded by ministers as largest of its kind in country loses anchor tenant

The development of a huge AI datacentre hailed by the UK government has received a fresh setback after Microsoft pulled out of the project over concerns about power supplies.

The development by the British company Nscale, heralded by ministers as the country’s largest AI datacentre when it was announced in 2025, was planned to open at Loughton in Essex next year.

The Bank of Punjab (BOP) marked the financial close of a PKR 17 billion Syndicated Islamic Project Finance Facility for Novacare Hospitals (Private) Limited at a signing ceremony bringing together the project’s sponsors, management and participating financial institutions.

The facility will support the development of a 250-bed tertiary care hospital and a feeder clinic in Islamabad. Novacare Hospitals (Private) Limited is Pakistan’s first and only hospital to be affiliated with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. With sponsors contributing PKR 11.5 billion in equity, the total project cost is approximately PKR 28.5 billion.

The transaction represents Pakistan’s first greenfield hospital financed under a Syndicated Islamic Project Finance Facility, establishing a precedent for mobilising long-term financing for healthcare infrastructure.

BOP arranged and structured the facility as Intercreditor Agent and acted as Joint Mandated Lead Advisor & Arranger alongside United Bank Limited and Habib Bank Limited, with Pak China Investment Company Limited as Co-Arranger., PAIR Investment Company Limited and Pak Libya Holding Company Limited participated as syndicate financiers. BOP’s financing commitment of PKR 5.8 billion reflects its confidence in the project and its importance to Pakistan’s healthcare sector.

Mr. Hans Kedzierski, CEO of Novacare Hospitals (Private) Limited, thanked the participating institutions for their support and shared Novacare’s vision of delivering international standards of healthcare in Pakistan, with patient care and empathy at the heart of its mission.

Speaking at the ceremony, Mr. Zafar Masud, President & CEO of The Bank of Punjab, said: “Healthcare touches every one of us. At some point, we have needed care for ourselves or someone we love, and we understand the difference that a good hospital and a skilled doctor can make. That is why Novacare has always meant more to us than a financing transaction. It is an investment in the care, dignity and wellbeing of the people this hospital will serve.”

Commenting on the financing, he added: “Bringing this project to financial close required conviction from the sponsors and close collaboration among all six participating institutions. Together, we have established a financing framework that we hope will make it easier for future healthcare projects in Pakistan to access long-term capital. If the next hospital finds its path to financing easier because of what we have achieved here, that will be a lasting contribution.”

Mr. Masud congratulated Novacare’s sponsors, Board and management, and acknowledged the contribution of the participating institutions, advisers, legal counsel and BOP’s Investment Banking and Project Finance teams.

“Financial close is an important milestone, but the real achievement will be the day the hospital opens its doors to patients. We look forward to supporting Novacare through construction and commissioning, and to seeing this vision become a place of healing and hope,” he said.

The transaction underscores BOP’s commitment to financing projects that strengthen essential infrastructure and deliver lasting economic and social benefits.

The post The Bank of Punjab Leads Structuring of PKR 17 Billion Islamic Project Finance Facility for Novacare Hospital Islamabad appeared first on Daily Pakistan English News.

Honda CD 70 continues to remain among the top-selling bikes despite its high price, but masses apparently prefer fuel efficiency, durability, affordable maintenance, and strong resale value.

However, with motorcycle prices remaining high with no major upgrade, buying a Honda CD 70 outright can be difficult for people managing tight budgets. For such buyers, installment plans offer an alternative, allowing them to spread the cost over several months rather than paying the full amount at once.

Honda CD 70 2027 Installment Plans

Customers can pay Rs53,300 per month for three months or Rs26,650 per month for six months, with both options advertised at zero markup. Those who prefer smaller monthly payments can consider longer repayment periods, although these plans may cost more overall.

12-month plan comes with a monthly installment of Rs16,523, while the payments fall to Rs9,861 for 24 months and Rs7,640 for 36 months. The lowest advertised monthly payment is Rs6,529 under the 48-month plan.

CD 70 is listed at Rs159,900, keeping it within reach of some buyers while remaining a considerable expense for others. Despite the price, the motorcycle continues to attract customers who value its established reputation and relatively straightforward maintenance.

Its popularity also benefits from the widespread availability of spare parts and mechanics familiar with the model. These practical advantages, along with its resale value, help explain why the CD 70 remains a familiar sight on Pakistan’s roads.

Atlas Honda remains a major player in Pakistan’s motorcycle market, with demand supported by its well-established commuter models. The company’s overall sales performance reflects the continued importance of motorcycles for everyday transportation in the country.

CD 70 remains one of its best-known models, particularly among buyers looking for a simple motorcycle for daily use. However, company-wide sales figures should not be confused with CD 70-specific sales, as a separate breakdown is needed to determine the exact number of units sold.

Honda CG 125 2027 Model New Price and Installment Plans

The post Honda CD 70 2027 Installments Plans with Monthly Payments starting at Rs6,500 appeared first on Daily Pakistan English News.

BALOCHISTAN – Thousands of containers sit stranded, and hundreds of trucks remain stuck, and traders face mounting uncertainty after Pakistan abruptly suspended cross-border trade with Iran.

The sudden suspension of cross-border trade with Iran triggered major disruption for businesses, leaving trail of containers stranded at Gabd-Rimdan crossing and raising fears of losses worth billions of rupees, as a wave of kidnappings intensifies security concerns in Balochistan.

The closure of the Taftan and 250 commercial border crossings between Iran and Pakistan has reportedly left thousands of trucks carrying fresh fruit and onions stranded on both sides of the border, causing significant financial losses for traders in both countries
1/ https://t.co/YYBcWv6FDV

— Lal Wazir journalist in PAK -AFG (@LalWazir19) October 18, 2026

Businesses say lack of advance notice compounded the crisis, with shipments delayed and payments already transferred to Iranian counterparts. Authorities called the shutdown a temporary security measure, but the absence of a confirmed reopening date has left the trading community facing mounting uncertainty.

Quetta Chamber of Commerce and Industry members raised questions over carrying goods stranded at Gabd-Rimdan alone. He warned that suspension could inflict losses worth billions of rupees on traders and businesses dependent on cross-border commerce.

A customs clearing agent at Gabd-Rimdan, speaking on condition of anonymity, reported that around 65 containers cleared through his services remained stranded. He also raised concerns over incoming trucks carrying fresh food supplies from Sindh and Punjab, warning that additional shipments could become trapped if the restrictions continued.

The financial consequences could extend beyond transportation delays. According to the agent, Pakistani traders had already paid their Iranian counterparts for goods, exposing businesses to further losses as deliveries remain on hold.

Counterterrorism

The suspension was confirmed by Chagai Deputy Commissioner Bakhtiar Ismail in a post on social media platform X. He said the decision was taken for security reasons and was intended to improve border management in support of counterterrorism operations.

Balochistan government has also defended the move, citing the need to strengthen border controls, prevent smuggling and improve administrative arrangements.

Shahid Rind, the provincial government’s spokesperson and an aide to the chief minister, said the temporary closure was necessary to address security concerns on both sides of the frontier.

The trade suspension comes amid a series of serious security incidents in the province.

On Friday, at least 20 police constables were abducted by unidentified armed men in Mastung district. According to a senior provincial official who spoke to Arab News, the personnel were returning from a police recruitment centre in Kalat when armed men intercepted their passenger van in a mountainous area of Mastung.

In a separate incident a day earlier, Asad Ullah Kakar, commissioner of Balochistan’s Rakhshan Division, was abducted while travelling from Quetta through Kharan district.

Iran suspends Exports to Pakistan amid Banking Restrictions

The post Over 2,000 Containers stranded as Pakistan shuts Iran Border amid ‘Security Fears’ appeared first on Daily Pakistan English News.

For more than three decades, Michael Gove has been a leading figure in British Conservatism. As a journalist, government minister and now editor of the Tory bible the Spectator, he has helped shape the right even as it has moved further rightwards. In the latest episode of Radical Thinking, Gove joins Aditya Chakrabortty to discuss the future of the right, his record on Brexit and austerity, and the Spectator’s position on Islam

Watch the full episode with Michael Gove here.

Aditya’s suggested reading:

To read the fruits of Michael Gove’s dalliance with the Marxism Today gang, look up his essay in a 1998 collection called The Moderniser’s Dilemma: Radical Politics in the Age of Blair

For a slalom ride through Michael Gove’s years in power, read The Demented Dalek by the historian Richard J Evans in the London Review of Books

To learn more on what’s become of the British right, there’s a Guardian column by Aditya

Phil Burton-Cartledge analyses in depth why the most successful political party is now failing in his book The Party’s Over: The Rise and Fall of the Conservatives from Thatcher to Sunak

Phil also writes a very good blog on British politics, which keeps a close eye on how each party is trying to marshall a coalition of voters. Here he is on Kemi Badenoch

Geoffrey Wheatcroft does an entertaining short narrative in Bloody Panico!:

or, Whatever Happened to The Tory Party

For more on the economics of the Cameron years, this paper is acute on how the Tories failed to move the UK away from being a country of renters towards a country of makers. Two of its authors will join us for a podcast later in the series.

And if you want to read how Brexit may have cost the UK 8% of GDP, there’s this paper based on data from the Bank of England

Finally, on the Spectator, read Nesrine Malik’s recent Guardian column

Why has Britain’s oldest political magazine become such a rabid cheerleader for Islamophobia?

For more than three decades, Michael Gove has been a leading figure in British Conservatism. As a journalist, government minister and now editor of the Tory bible the Spectator, he has helped shape the right even as it has moved further rightwards. In the latest episode of Radical Thinking, Gove joins Aditya Chakrabortty to discuss the future of the right, his record on Brexit and austerity, and the Spectator’s position on Islam

Watch the full episode with Michael Gove here.

Aditya’s suggested reading:

To read the fruits of Michael Gove’s dalliance with the Marxism Today gang, look up his essay in a 1998 collection called The Moderniser’s Dilemma: Radical Politics in the Age of Blair

For a slalom ride through Michael Gove’s years in power, read The Demented Dalek by the historian Richard J Evans in the London Review of Books

To learn more on what’s become of the British right, there’s a Guardian column by Aditya

Phil Burton-Cartledge analyses in depth why the most successful political party is now failing in his book The Party’s Over: The Rise and Fall of the Conservatives from Thatcher to Sunak

Phil also writes a very good blog on British politics, which keeps a close eye on how each party is trying to marshall a coalition of voters. Here he is on Kemi Badenoch

Geoffrey Wheatcroft does an entertaining short narrative in Bloody Panico!:

or, Whatever Happened to The Tory Party

For more on the economics of the Cameron years, this paper is acute on how the Tories failed to move the UK away from being a country of renters towards a country of makers. Two of its authors will join us for a podcast later in the series.

And if you want to read how Brexit may have cost the UK 8% of GDP, there’s this paper based on data from the Bank of England

Finally, on the Spectator, read Nesrine Malik’s recent Guardian column

Why has Britain’s oldest political magazine become such a rabid cheerleader for Islamophobia?

Magazine group points to restructuring bill but says it ‘remains profitable in the UK for another year’

Profits at Condé Nast’s UK arm slumped by more than a third last year, according to figures published shortly after the billionaire family that owns the luxury magazine group and titles from Vogue to GQ ruled out a sale.

The publisher, which enjoyed a bumper 2024 after booking £64m in proceeds from the sale of its UK headquarters Vogue House in London, saw pre-tax profits excluding exceptional items tumble 36% from £28m that year to nearly £18m last year.