The gender pay gap for full-time employees has continued to decline in the UK. It was 6.8% in April 2026, down from 7.2% in April 2025. This compares with 9.4% a decade ago and 16.4% 25 years ago.
Secondly, I asked Healey whether he sees the banks as making excessive profits, which would be the coherent justification for him to increase the surcharge on bank profits – as he is expected to do in the Budget next week.
He said: “You know the banks are the engine of investment in this country. The banks are doing well at the moment and that is good to see.
The riots in France and subsequent return to peace show that the road to civil war is paved with restored order, leaving a more combustible environment for the next crisis, say David Betz and Michael Rainsborough.
At least 10,561 gang members have been convicted by Salvadoran courts over the past four years since the start of the crackdown on gangs began in 2022, Attorney General Rodolfo Delgado detailed on Tuesday.
Nadav Cohen Tzemach was arrested in December 2025 but never charged after running over Palestinian with an ATV and firing a weapon in a Palestinian village
In this segment of Free Media, Reason Senior Editor Robby Soave and Daily Caller Editor in Chief Amber Duke discuss the ongoing violent protests in France.
If you enjoy Free Media, come watch Robby debate at our upcoming Reason Versus in D.C. Tickets are available here.
Enhanced security detail makes ex-PM's protection equivalent to that of defense minister; Yisrael Beytenu submits formal complaint after Liberman hit with death threats
French intelligence services have identified the far-left as having been at the forefront of the violence that occurred during the riots across the country on Saturday.
Diplomatic correspondent Lazar Berman on the prime minister's failure to clamp down on extremist settler violence in the West Bank and the dangers of indecisive military operations
Federal lawmaker Helen Haines 'alive and stable,' husband says; suspect makes first appearance in court; police yet to announce motive, believe it was a targeted attack
Italy’s response to a weekend of street violence has moved from emergency policing to tougher criminal law, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni seeking to reassert control after unrest in Milan and other northern cities
The government approved measures on Tuesday creating an offence of violent participation in demonstrations, extending preventive detention powers to teenagers aged 14–17 and making parents financially liable for damage caused by their children. The package also provides for 500 soldiers to support security operations in Milan through December.
The crackdown presents a defining challenge for a prime minister whose political identity rests heavily on law and order: demonstrating that stronger powers can prevent another eruption while addressing the conditions feeding public anger.
Milan’s damaged shopping streets have become the most visible symbol of that challenge. Weekend violence brought looting, fires and confrontations with police, exposing businesses and residents to disorder in Italy’s financial capital.
As EU Today reported in its earlier coverage of the unrest, police brought 271 people to headquarters following Sunday’s disturbances, including 220 minors. Thirty-two were formally arrested, a detail that matters when assessing the scale of alleged criminal involvement.
The prominence of teenagers has shaped the government’s response. According to the Associated Press, the decree makes prosecuting minors over 14 easier and includes plans to expand juvenile detention capacity and judicial resources. Parliament must convert the decree into law within 60 days.
For supporters, the argument is straightforward: shopkeepers should not have to absorb the cost of destruction, and officers need effective tools against groups exploiting demonstrations to commit offences.
Yet preventive detention raises a different question from punishment after conviction. Its credibility depends on clear evidence, consistent safeguards and meaningful scrutiny, particularly when those affected are children.
Making the distinction will help determine whether the package strengthens public confidence or deepens distrust among young people already alienated from political institutions.
The wider European debate offers a warning. In its earlier editorial, EU Global examined the tension between public-order legislation and the right to protest, arguing that governments risk restricting legitimate dissent when security powers expand too broadly. That commentary predates the Milan disturbances but addresses the central democratic question now confronting Italy.
Peaceful assembly and criminal violence require different responses. Protecting the former gives authorities greater legitimacy when confronting the latter; treating an entire demonstration as suspect risks weakening that distinction.
Meloni also faces a political vulnerability that additional arrests cannot automatically resolve. The Financial Times reported that the unrest involved teenagers mobilised through social media, many without political affiliations, against a background of economic stagnation and expensive living conditions.
Those circumstances complicate any attempt to explain the disorder through a single organisation, ideology or grievance. Online mobilisation can accelerate confrontation without producing leaders capable of negotiating an end to it.
For the government, this makes prevention as important as punishment. Better intelligence, timely deployment and coordination between national and municipal authorities will influence whether stronger legislation produces safer streets.
The same applies to the military presence. Soldiers can provide visible reassurance, but the political test will be whether residents and businesses experience sustained security once the immediate emergency passes.
Italy faces two connected tasks.
Establishing individual responsibility for destruction and restoring confidence that lawful political participation can deliver results will be the priorities if public respect for the law is to be maintained.
Meloni’s new measures offer a forceful immediate answer to the first. Their lasting success will depend on whether the government can make progress on the second, before another weekend of anger becomes another emergency requiring still tougher powers.
More than 1,200 Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist volunteers will stand outside polling sites in nine states to ease fears of intimidation and help defuse tensions
Court of appeal decision prevents woman from suing police and CPS for disclosing her address to violent ex-partner
The Labour MP Jess Phillips has said she hopes the UK’s highest court “sees sense” and overturns a ruling preventing a domestic abuse survivor from suing Sussex police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for disclosing her address to her violent ex-partner.
Phillips said that if the supreme court upheld the court of appeal’s decision when it hears the case on Wednesday and Thursday, it would prevent police from being held accountable for failures in cases of violence against women and girls.
Schools without heat but billions for war: Across Europe, young people have had enough. Amina Vandenheuvel, MP for the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB) and a member of its youth movement RedFox, joins Zoe Alexandra and Rania Khalek as a rebellion against austerity and war sweeps the continent, from student blockades in Belgium and France to strikes against the draft in Germany and housing encampments in Spain.
Vandenheuvel condemns the police repression of protesters, and explains why politicians keep the focus on property damage to discredit the movement – as the war on Iran and Europe’s rush to rearm for war with Russia push ordinary people to the brink. But she also argues anger alone isn’t enough: young people need political awareness, organization, and an anti-capitalist framework for building a different future – one built for the working class, not endless war and billionaire profiteering.
Watch full episodes of BT Live, join breakthroughnews.org as a member today! #breakthroughnews
Mississippi just said a cop was justified in killing 1-year-old Kohen Wiley, and that no one will be held accountable in the suspicious death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells.
Prince Williams, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation in North Carolina, and Jaden Foy, a student organizer at NC State, join Zoe Alexandra and Rania Khalek to explain why hundreds of HBCU students across five Southern states walked out of classes on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party to demand justice for Nolan, Kohen, and all the Black youth robbed of their futures by militarized police. Williams and Foy react to Monday’s ruling that the Senatobia police officer was “justified” in firing into the car where Kohen Wiley sat on his mother’s lap, while responding to a call over the suspected shoplifting of diapers at Walmart.
They draw a line from these deaths to Emmett Till and Mississippi’s long history of racist killings covered up as “accidents.” And they make the case for why the South needs a third reconstruction built by organizing – not just voting.
“Those in power are telling us that the murder of a 1-year-old isn’t criminal… What is criminal conduct in this country?” Watch full episodes of BT Live, join breakthroughnews.org as a member today! #breakthroughnews
The Italian prime minister sends more soldiers to Milan in anticipation of the protests scheduled for Oct. 24.
Through a video posted on Tuesday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced the promulgation of a decree aimed at cracking down on “juvenile gangs” and “violent street protests.” She authorized reinforcing with military personnel security forces in Milan.
“Five hundred more military personnel are arriving in Milan, until the end of the year alongside police and carabinieri. And to juvenile justice we are giving more magistrates and more places in centers, so that the certainty of punishment also applies to those who are 16 years old,” the far-right politician said.
Approved at a meeting of the Council of Ministers, the decree establishes that the soldiers will reinforce “Operation Safe Streets,” an initiative implemented in 2008 that keeps some 5,000 Army personnel deployed in numerous “hot spots” across the country.
Her decree will take effect immediately, will have a 60-day period to be ratified by the Italian Parliament, and includes the creation of the “crime of violent participation in a demonstration.”
Nuova giornata di guerriglia a Milano. Gruppo di incappucciati assalta negozi in via Torino. pic.twitter.com/BBI4x47NJH
The text reads, “Another day of guerrilla-style unrest in Milan. A group of hooded individuals attacks shops on Via Torino.”
“If during a march or a demonstration you join a group of 5 or more people, you start throwing stones, firecrackers, sticks, you endanger everyone’s safety, you risk up to 5 years in prison and up to 20,000 euros in fines,” Meloni said, and clarified that the decree introduces the principle that “the breaker pays, and if the breaker is a minor, his or her parents pay.”
Aggravating factors may be applied to this new crime if the person has their face covered or if someone has been injured. Biometric identification assisted by artificial intelligence is also authorized, explained the Italian outlet TG La 7.
In the criminal sphere, authorities will be able to immediately apply preventive detention to minors between 14 and 18 years old, and the police chief will be able to apply oral warnings and bans on gathering in public places to young people with a record of violent acts.
IL FUTURO È UNA SCELTA La vittoria al referendum sulla giustizia ha dimostrato che, insieme, possiamo fare la differenza. Oltre cento associazioni già aderiscono alla Via Maestra. Unisciti a noi.
LAVORO, PACE, AMBIENTE, WELFARE, COSTITUZIONE. INSIEME SULLA VIA MAESTRA.
“THE FUTURE IS A CHOICE. The victory in the referendum on justice has shown that, together, we can make a difference. More than a hundred associations have already joined “The Main Path.” Join us.
WORK, PEACE, ENVIRONMENT, WELL-BEING, CONSTITUTION. TOGETHER ON ‘THE MAIN PATH.’ The Constitution points to a clear way: a country founded on work, social justice, equality, and peace.
This way remains our ‘Main Path.’ Today, however, Italy is moving in the opposite direction. We choose a different path: the path of the Constitution. Hear from Francesca Cantagallo, of the ‘Knowledge Network’, and join us.
OCTOBER 17, ROME. National demonstration. The demonstration will begin at 1:30 PM. Participants will gather at Republic Square and, following a march, the event will conclude at People’s Square around 5:00 PM.”
Initially, Meloni’s decree also contemplated exceptionally assigning police functions to the military for three months, which would have allowed them to make arrests. This provision, however, was left out of the approved text.
Referring to the demonstrations of the past weekend, Meloni said that security forces had detained or identified 330 people, half of them of foreign origin, among whom are people born outside Italy and others born in the country but to foreign parents.
Meloni’s decision comes in response to the protests promoted for Saturday, Oct. 24 by the “October 17 Movement” (17M10), a youth protest group that emerged as a result of the recent clashes in downtown Milan and that has announced permanent mobilizations until the fall of the Meloni administration.
“We are the ones from the squares. Those who see the only violence in the police stick. The violent ones are you who have denied us the future. Now we take that future into our own hands. Violent is this system that kills us. Permanent mobilization every Saturday until this thieving government falls,” the 17M10 stated.
Deadly Haitian gangs over the weekend ambushed members of an international security force deployed in Haiti, kidnapping four Salvadoran Air Force members, authorities confirmed Monday.
“We call on members of Congress to demand the US government place sanctions on illegal Israeli settlers and the Israeli military,” said the Council on American-Islamic Relations and CAIR-Chicago.
Netanyahu cast doubt on accounts of Jewish attacks on diplomats, priests and journalists over the weekend. With the election a week away, coalition calculations are taking precedence
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