Protesters vandalise a retail store during a demonstration near Place de la République, as the the Gilets Jaunes join students for a weekend of action on October 17, 2026 in Paris, Franc
Carl Court/Getty Images
Screenshots of Vinted listings circulating on social media show products being offered for a fraction of their retail prices.
The suspected stolen merchandise was listed after looting in France.
Vinted told The Telegraph it had taken immediate action to identify and remove listings connected to the violence.
Resale websites including Vinted have removed suspicious listings after they were flooded with apparently stolen goods in the wake of riots that swept across France.
Perfumes, designer handbags, cosmetics and even Pokémon cards have appeared on second-hand marketplaces following a weekend of violence that saw shops ransacked, The Telegraph — which, like Business Insider, is part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network — reported.
Screenshots circulating on social media show products being offered for a fraction of their retail prices, including bags overflowing with Sephora cosmetics advertised for as little as €10 (£8.40).
The listings have triggered suspicions that looters are trying to sell stolen goods online. eBay and Vinted have removed some items and stepped up their monitoring of suspicious activity.
One advert on Vinted showed six Sephora lip glosses being sold for €15, while another offered six tubes of cleansing cream for just €12.
Sephora France sells comparable own-brand lip glosses for around €13 each, meaning six would ordinarily cost around €78.
A screenshot of a Vinted listing showing suspected stolen Sephora beauty products
Screenshot
Other listings included Christian Dior perfumes advertised for €250 and large quantities of make-up still in their original packaging.
In one case, Pokémon trading cards allegedly stolen from a shop in Lille were advertised on Vinted, with some still bearing their original price stickers.
Hundreds of cards were reportedly found scattered across streets in the northern French city after a fire at Le Coin des Barons, a shop specialising in collectable cards.
A trophy said to have been stolen from French e-sport club Team Vitality was advertised on eBay for €1,250.
The silver StarLadder Counter-Strike trophy was photographed against a graffiti-covered wall and listed under the title: "STOLEN RARE VITALITY CS2 TROPHÉE."
Team Vitality confirmed that its Paris premises had been looted during Saturday's unrest, with trophies and computer equipment stolen and display windows smashed.
The listings emerged as France struggled to contain some of its worst civil unrest in years, caused by anger over the cost of living and deteriorating public services.
More than half a million people joined demonstrations on Saturday, with violent clashes breaking out in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and other cities.
French authorities said more than 2,400 people had been arrested by Sunday, while nearly 1,000 police officers were injured.
The unrest has spread beyond France, with demonstrations about living costs and public spending also taking place in Belgium, Portugal and Italy.
French retailers have been left counting the cost, with supermarket giant Carrefour reporting damage to 50 stores, including 20 that were looted.
'We have zero tolerance for it'
Sephora closed its French stores on Saturday evening and kept them shut on Sunday after several branches were ransacked.
Vinted said it had taken immediate action to identify and remove listings connected to the violence.
A spokesman said: "The sale of stolen goods, or soliciting them, is strictly prohibited on Vinted, and we have zero tolerance for it."
The company said it had stepped up monitoring and would take action against offenders, including permanently banning accounts. It added that it was working with law enforcement and French authorities to identify suspicious sellers.
An eBay spokesman said: "The sale of stolen property is strictly prohibited on eBay."
The company said it used technology to identify suspicious activity and worked closely with police to investigate criminal behaviour.
The spokesman added: "If we receive confirmation from law enforcement that an item has been stolen, we remove it immediately and take action against the seller."
This story originally appeared on The Telegraph and is courtesy of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which harnesses the resources of the company's newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces, and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from Business Insider, POLITICO, The Telegraph, WELT, BILD, Onet, and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms.
Matt Gaetz resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2024, shortly before the House Ethics Committee released a report accusing him of having sex with a 17-year-old girl in 2017, when he was 35, and "regularly pa[ying] women for engaging in sexual activity with him." The probe was widely discussed as a sex trafficking probe, but the ethics committee "did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that Representative Gaetz violated the federal sex trafficking statute," per its report.
Now two women have filed a civil lawsuit accusing Gaetz of sex trafficking.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, says that Gaetz and two other men (Joel Micah Greenberg and Christopher Dorworth) broke federal anti-trafficking laws by using "their public office, power, and wealth to prey on the economic vulnerability" of Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2.
Gaetz, who now hosts The Matt Gaetz Show on One America News Network, said many of the suit's allegations against him are false. "The lawsuit relies almost exclusively on a Congressional Committee report that didn't allow me to confront my accusers," he said. "Now I will finally have that chance."
On X, Gaetz posted an image of three women in bikinis seated next to bottles of beer and looking at the ocean and wrote "Jane Doe Strikes Again! Two adult women sued me today alleging they were sex trafficked to the Bahamas. I'm shocked nobody responded to their repeated cries for help, posted to instagram."
Jane Doe Strikes Again! Two adult women sued me today alleging they were sex trafficked to the Bahamas. I'm shocked nobody responded to their repeated cries for help, posted to instagram. https://t.co/HPvX2xypzs
This does not seem like especially helpful behavior from a public relations perspective, to say nothing of whether it's legally wise to for Gaetz to be posting to social media about the suit against him.
But Gaetz's point isn't entirely off base. The actions described in the suit against him are hardly what most people would consider sex trafficking.
Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 were adult women willingly advertising on Seeking Arrangement, a site aimed at connecting young women with rich men for mutually beneficial relationships. And by their own account, that is what went down. They were taken on trips and paid thousands of dollars while hanging out, partying, and having sex with Gaetz and his friends.
Needless to say, advertising on a sugar baby website does not make you fair game for forced prostitution or sexual assault. But nowhere in the lawsuit are forced prostitution or sexual assault alleged.
Instead, we get sentences like this: Gaetz and the other defendents "led [Jane Doe 1] to believe they could solve her financial problems as long as she kept performing sexual acts for them and their associates," states the suit. But "the money never came as a single payment that would have solved Jane Doe 1's financial issues."
So…it's sex trafficking because he didn't pay her enough at one time? I don't think that's how the law works.
Overall, it's a stretch to say that Gaetz's actions as described in this suit fall under the scope of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Under federal law, sex trafficking must involve an element of force, fraud, or coercion, and/or must involve commercial sex involving someone who is under age 18.
In this case, both alleged victims were in their 20s at the time of the alleged trafficking. No element of force or fraud is claimed. And the type of "coercion" alleged seems more appropriate for a college debate than a courtroom.
There was no suggestion that harm would come to the women or their families, that a job or housing would be lost, or that failure to engage in sexual activity with Gaetz and his friends would result in some sort of other (physical, reputational, legal, etc.) harm befalling them. There was nothing on Gaetz's end that would seem to arise to "coercion" under federal trafficking statute, which defines it as involving "threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person," a scheme to make someone believe that serious harm will befall them if they don't comply, or abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.
The suit contains a lot about Greenberg—a former tax collector who is in prison after pleading guilty to charges that include sex trafficking—and comparatively little about Gaetz. It seemingly attempts to make up for the lack of direct allegations against him by noting findings from the Ethics Committee, even though that committee specifically said it could not find evidence of sex trafficking.
Gaetz is accused of having sex with Jane Doe 1 at a party while Jane Done 1 was on MDMA. But the suit does not accuse Gaetz of foisting drugs on her, simply saying "controlled substances circulated at the party, and Jane Doe 1 took MDMA during the evening." Nor does it say that anyone forced Jane Doe 1 to be at the party or to have sex with Gaetz.
Gaetz is also accused of paying Jane Doe thousands of dollars—never directly after sex or as a direct quid pro quo, but during the same time period during which he was having sex with her. The payments were labeled things like "Being my friend," "Being awesome," "Here," and "Just because," the suit says.
And Gaetz is accused, along with the other defendants, of paying to fly Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2—whom Greenberg met through the sugar baby website and introduced to Gaetz—"to Venice Beach, Miami, Las Vegas, the Florida Keys, the Bahamas, and New York City" and paying for their hotel rooms. The suit does not say that they were forced or coerced on these trips, merely that the trips exposed them to "men they would never otherwise have met, and every part of that access, from the flights to the hotel rooms, was paid for by men, including the Defendants, who expected sex in return."
The women's lawyer told the Associated Press that there was "an exploitative power imbalance," because on one side you had a congressman and some other powerful men and on the other "young financially vulnerable women in their early twenties."
Morally speaking, that might be relevant. And for a congressman, it may have been grounds for sanction. But the fact that these women were younger and less financially successful does not make a relationship between them and Gaetz de facto "coercive" or illegal.
Age gaps in relationships—even substantial ones—are not outlawed. And relationships in which an older man is attractive precisely because he has more money and power than the younger female involved, and offers to spend it lavishly, are not uncommon. The idea that this violates federal criminal law simply showcases how distorted our ideas of sex trafficking have become.
In the News
Children have a fundamental right to access the internet, says India's Supreme Court. The Free PressJournalreports:
"The safety of our children and their freedom are not at odds with each other. Our children are entitled to both," the court observed.
The bench explicitly recognised the right to access and use the internet as a fundamental right under Article 21, which protects life and personal liberty, read with Article 19(1)(a), which guarantees freedom of speech and expression.
Meanwhile, in the U.S.: "A federal appeals court panel has ruled that Florida's 2024 law restricting access to social media for teens is likely constitutional and can continued to be enforced while the legal challenge continues," notes the Florida Phoenix.
We were promised REPEATEDLY that age-verification law was narrow, and would ONLY apply to porn. But— as we warned —it was always a ruse.Since conservatives got their ruling in FSC v Paxton, they've pushed to age-gate anything and everything. It's not going to stop with social media or chatbots.
'Appropriate safeguards.' A small change in the language of the Apple App Store's app review guidelines could portend big changes. Via9to5Mac:
Under Section 1.2, which covers user-generated content, the guidelines now read (changes in bold):
Apps that enable users to create, generate, upload, share, or otherwise contribute content present particular challenges, including intellectual property infringement, nonconsensual intimate imagery, and anonymous bullying.
Apple's new terms add that "Developers who fail to implement appropriate safeguards or fail to remediate identified violations after notice may be considered in violation of the Developer Code of Conduct."
The change is being reported as a crackdown on "nudification" apps, and that certainly seems to be part of it. But the language about going after "developers who fail to implement appropriate safeguards"—combined with the broad warning about user-generated content—could signal a broader intent to crack down on social media platforms and other types of apps that don't implement ID verification or engage in more intense content moderation.
On Substack
Don't sacrifice due process to outrage. We can't let anger over allegations of gang rape at Cornell convince us to re-implement old Title IV policies that disregard due process, writes Robert Shipley of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression:
There's a groundswell of demand to "do something" in the wake of the sexual assault claims at Cornell. But amid the outrage and concern over the incident, it's critical to remember that one attempted remedy we actually know will not work is to return to a campus justice system in which the burden of proof is on the accused and basic civil liberties are cast aside. That social experiment has already been run. It failed.
Title IX, the law against sex discrimination in federally funded education programs, was passed in 1972. Debates at the time focused on how it would affect single-sex colleges and college athletics. Explicitly aimed at sex discrimination, the text of the law itself mentions neither sexual assault nor sexual harassment. Those became matters for Title IX gradually over the next couple of decades, as courts determined that sexual assault and sexual harassment were both forms of sex discrimination, and therefore covered under Title IX.
The Jane Doe lawsuit against Cornell and the accused students (as well as a fraternity, a sorority, and a local bar) hit national news at nearly the same time that the Trump administration officially removed the Biden-era regulations from the Federal Register. While almost certainly not related, some have connected the two, citing the Cornell incident to argue that regulations surrounding Title IX need to be changed again to reduce due process protections for the accused.
Not to pick on Sam here, but this is a useful point to highlight some of the impossibility of trust & safety work. Meta actually used to have a program *exactly* like this, BUT it became a central feature of Frances Haugen's Facebook Files as an example of Meta being evil.I'll explain…
• A new pair of high-tech sunglasses from Meta "can read your mail, describe the person in front of you, tell you what is on a restaurant menu, and help you find your way home," writesReason's Reem Ibrahim. "For the approximately 700,000 Americans who are blind, it is potentially life-changing."
• "The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld a decision ordering new trials for two people facing human trafficking and sexual services offences, after concluding they should have been able to cross-examine a complainant about the commercial aspect of her prior sex work," reportsThe Canadian Press. "The case looked at the application of section 276 of the Criminal Code, known as the rape shield law, which limits use of evidence about a complainant's sexual history in court proceedings."
• Markets in everything:
This website lets you attend the wedding of complete strangers
Couples list their weddings and users can buy a ticket to attend https://t.co/8b7EawyFod
• The People First Transportation Alliance has been campaigning against robot taxis in D.C. "But just who is behind the group remains unclear, even as it has sought to sway the outcome of a contentious issue with vast sums of money and thousands of jobs at stake across the country," reportsThe Washington Post.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei during a September visit to Washington, DC.
Bloomberg/Getty Images
Anthropic is looking to shape AI regulation by pitching an AI safety bill of its own.
POLITICO obtained a confidential draft of the proposed legislation.
The bill would let the government block an AI model only if it poses a foreseeable, imminent risk of more than $1 billion in damages, or of killing or seriously injuring more than 50 people.
Representatives for the artificial intelligence giant Anthropic have quietly pitched Capitol Hill lawmakers on a draft bill to regulate frontier AI safety and security, according to three people with knowledge of the efforts who were granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations.
The confidential draft, obtained by POLITICO and not previously reported, marks a notable effort by the frontier AI lab to shape the rules governing its own technology as Congress weighs how to respond to the fast-moving industry.
"This bill represents the proposals outlined in Anthropic's Advanced AI Framework, which we have been advocating for with federal and state lawmakers since June," an Anthropic spokesperson said. "These are sensible policies we believe Congress should act on."
The bill would let the government block a model's release or use only if it poses a foreseeable, imminent risk of more than $1 billion in damages, or of killing or seriously injuring more than 50 people. The risk must stem from the creation or release of a biological weapon, the model evading its developer's controls or a cyberattack. The language mirrors that found in California's AI laws including SB 53, which was signed into law last year.
Leading AI labs disclosed a series of incidents this summer, in which AI agents hacked or probed websites and platforms. None reported so far appear to have caused widespread deaths or over $1 billion in damages.
Anthropic has yet to publicly back particular legislative efforts in Congress, but they have backed some state AI safety laws, including two in California. Their head of U.S. state and local government relations previously told POLITICO that they hope states will continue to pass ever-stronger AI safety laws that raise the standard nationwide.
Under the bill, independent evaluators, which would register with the Commerce Department, would be tasked with periodically evaluating the lab and its frontier models. The evaluators may be paid for their work by the lab itself so long as the payment is not contingent on the evaluations' results.
If the evaluators determine there is "imminent enumerated risk" for a company's frontier models, they must report it to Commerce within 72 hours of completing their assessment.
While the Commerce Department could bring a request to the judge to halt the release of a model after determining that it poses a risk, the language explicitly prohibits any other U.S. "department, agency, or officer" from suspending the model's development, deployment or internal use. A federal judge for the District Court for the District of Columbia could order the suspension of a model.
Over the summer, Anthropic was subject to sweeping export controls that shut down two of its most advanced models. The decision was made in a whirlwind series of phone calls between administration officials and the company's executives, worrying some in the tech industry that access to their technology may be restricted on the whims of government officials.
Anthropic's bill would also preempt some state AI laws related to public disclosure of risk, third-party evaluation and reporting of critical incidents. Preemption has been a political flashpoint on Capitol Hill, with Democrats rejecting some proposals they feared would neuter regulations passed by the likes of California, Illinois and New York.
Many tech industry groups have argued that a state-by-state patchwork of laws is difficult to comply with compared to a unified national standard.
The legislation would also require frontier labs to create safety frameworks, publish transparency reports for new frontier models, implement protections for whistleblowers and report critical safety incidents to Commerce.
Capitol Hill has seen a flurry of activity on AI safety legislation this summer. In the House, Reps. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) and Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) spearheaded the FRONTIER Act, which would give the government the ability to stop the deployment of risky models and preempt some state AI laws.
In the Senate, Majority Leader John Thune and Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have been negotiating an AI safety bill intended to mitigate catastrophic risks. But it has faced headwinds from some safety-minded groups and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on Cruz's Commerce Committee, who want the government to have a larger role in reviewing AI models.
Other progressives, including Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), have gone well beyond their colleagues in calling for a pause in advanced AI development and a ban on superintelligence, a type of theoretical AI that far surpasses humans' cognitive capabilities.
This story originally appeared on POLITICO and is courtesy of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which harnesses the resources of the company's newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces, and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet, and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms.
I video di Giorgina Siviero sono ormai un format riconoscibile: chi li segue cerca sì consigli di stile, ma anche la brillantezza e l’eloquio della protagonista. Dietro un successo social da 40 milioni di visualizzazioni a settimana c’è però anche sua figlia, Elena Cecchi, 57 anni, architetta e fotografa. È lei ad aver inventato il meccanismo della domanda improvvisa che, a un certo punto del video, offre a Siviero lo spunto per parlare di moda, gusto e vita quotidiana.
L’idea, racconta al Corriere della Sera, è nata quasi per caso: “Un giorno mia madre stava parlando con una cliente (della sua storica boutique San Carlo a Torino, ndr) e ho filmato la scena così com’era. Spiegava le regole della valigia perfetta: pochi capi essenziali per stare via qualche giorno. La mattina dopo mi sono svegliata con mille follower in più”. Cecchi vuole però restare “invisibile”, perché “la protagonista è la mamma”. E svela anche uno dei segreti del format: Giorgina non sa mai in anticipo quale domanda le verrà fatta. “A volte protesta, è insofferente: ‘Potevi anticiparmi qualche domanda, magari mi preparavo sull’argomento!’. Le rispondo che mi basta il suo pensiero, così come le viene. Oggi abbiamo bisogno di cose vere, anche imperfette, ma autentiche”.
The meal kit delivery service denies the allegations, saying it found claims to be ‘entirely without merit’
Workers at a HelloFresh facility in Newark, New Jersey have claimed in court documents that they were verbally and physically abused and denied regular bathroom breaks, with one former worker telling the Guardian he experienced incontinence issues as a result.
The newly proposed amended complaint comes in a class action lawsuit first filed in August 2024 against the food prep service giant and staffing agencies. A New Jersey state court judge is expected to review the amended complaint in a hearing scheduled for 23 October.
When embraced and used carefully, AI tools can help gain perspective and boost productivity at work.
Alex Cristi /Getty Images | Chris Williams
Chris Williams was the VP of HR at Microsoft and is now an advisor and consultant.
Williams uses a broad range of AI tools and encourages his clients to do the same.
"Perhaps you'll find, as I did: AI can be better at deletion than creation," he says.
Practically every company is making AI tools available to their employees. As the former VP of HR at Microsoft and a leadership advisor with over 50 years of business experience, I'm amazed at how quickly this rollout has progressed.
Some people are all in, using the tools for nearly everything they do. Others have barely stuck their toes in the AI waters. I've been using a broad range of AI tools and encourage my clients to do the same.
AI isn't without controversy, and if someone is strongly against using it — for whatever reason — I'm not going to convince them otherwise.
But if you're wondering how and why you should use these tools, I'm here for you. Let's talk about three ways I advise all my executive clients to use AI effectively in the workplace.
1. Use AI as a second opinion
Use AI as a way to see things you might not have seen. Ask it, "What am I missing?"
I agree with many that AI is lousy at most creative efforts. Whether written or visual, AI results can be generic, mediocre, and often embarrassing. The output usually deserves the "AI Slop" label it gets. But to dismiss it entirely misses a core value.
AI is useful with, perhaps even because of, that generic, often obvious other perspective.
It can be amazingly helpful to simply ask: what am I missing? Since AI has a tendency to agree with me, I explicitly ask for pushback: "review this and tell me what I'm missing, tell me where I'm wrong." The fact that AI is so obvious, so average, is actually a core value here. I'm often surprised at the points I missed and the viewpoints I overlooked.
Even if AI doesn't find things you missed, a contrarian angle can be very helpful to shore up your own case. You'll be able to say, "Yes, I considered those things, and here's why my take on this issue is better."
In that way, AI can also help you prepare for your discussions with colleagues. With so many letting AI draft their arguments, it's very valuable to see their perspective in advance.
So no, I don't let AI make my case, but I always look for another perspective in what I do — wherever it comes from. Having a tool that can give me that on a moment's notice is incredibly useful.
2. Ask AI to summarize dense information
Long before AI, we all had that colleague who always told you far more than you needed to know. With some now using AI heavily, it can frankly be overwhelming.
You ask a simple question and get a blizzard of AI-generated noise in response. AI can be the worst over-explainer when simply left to run. You see the results in a seven-page response.
When I'm faced with one of these walls of text, I've learned there are really only two ways to respond. I can, and often do, ask the person to try again. What does this all really mean? Can you summarize your point in a couple of sentences? I occasionally get snarky and ask for the "non-AI slop" version.
Another way to deal with this is to ask AI to summarize it, whether AI tools or a wordy colleague wrote it. Importantly, I don't trust the AI summary to be the full explanation, but it helps me understand the key points. Which I then work to find in the original blizzard response.
Yes, this is a little circular. After all, why not just have the two AI systems have the discussion? Leave me out of it. But in a world where it seems everyone has a hard time getting to the point, any tool to cut through the noise is welcome. And AI is very good at that.
3. Let AI help you with tasks
In a similar vein, one thing AI does incredibly well is organize. This kind of rote task of sorting, filtering, and filing is right in the sweet spot for most AI systems.
I'm wary of letting AI systems automate tasks like filtering or filing things without my supervision. I'd never let an AI system automatically send emails, texts, or documents without my careful review. But I often have AI systems help me sort through mountains of accumulated debris.
I recently moved to a new computer system and had AI review what I was planning to move over. I discovered decades of accumulated cruft. Simply from a comprehensive list, I found gigabytes of programs, files, and settings, 90% of which I just left behind.
So if you have 8,000 emails in your inbox, or a documents folder that has grown a second life, let an AI system take a look for you. Don't just tell it to "deal with it." Your judgment is needed.
Rather, have it give you a review of it and another perspective. And once you've reviewed it, perhaps you'll find, as I did: AI can be better at deletion than creation.
So when your company rolls out the next new AI, use those tools to your advantage. AI can help you see another perspective, find the important points in the blizzard, and cut through the mess. I've embraced AI, use it with great care, and encourage everyone to do the same.
Seven Tory MPs who skipped a vote on leaving the ECHR also belong to the pro-Net Zero 'Conservative Environment Network'. Coincidence? Paul Homewood thinks not and reckons Kemi Badenoch has a serious problem on her hands.
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