The Curtain Official

  For the third consecutive day, hoax bomb threats have disrupted air travel across Europe, with 18 more flights affected on Thursday as authorities warn of a coordinated campaign to sow panic and chaos. The threats, which have targeted airports in multiple countries, have forced planes to divert, delayed hundreds of flights, and led to the evacuation of terminals. Officials say the threats appear to be part of a coordinated campaign, with similar messages sent to airports in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom. “We are dealing with a deliberate attempt to disrupt European air travel and create fear among the public,” said a spokesperson for the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. “These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a pattern.” Police have arrested several people in connection with the threats, but the source of the campaign remains unclear. Some officials have suggested that a foreign state actor could be behind the disruption. Airlines have ur...

  Paraguay's President Santiago Peña was impeached and placed under house arrest on Thursday after a corruption scandal involving a failed bank, in a political crisis that has gripped the South American country for weeks. The Chamber of Deputies voted 59–12 to impeach Peña, who was immediately suspended from office. The Senate then voted 34–4 to remove him permanently. Peña was then ordered to remain under house arrest while he is investigated. The crisis centers on the collapse of Banco Continental, which has been accused of falsifying its accounts and lending money to companies controlled by the family of former President Horacio Cartes, Peña's political patron. The bank's collapse cost Paraguayan taxpayers billions of dollars and exposed a network of corruption at the highest levels of government, according to prosecutors. A judge ordered Peña's house arrest after prosecutors accused him of accepting bribes in exchange for protecting the bank from regulators. Peña ha...

  The United Nations' human rights office has warned that Israeli forces in Gaza are continuing to displace Palestinians and that their actions "continue to raise concerns of ethnic cleansing", a year after a ceasefire was supposed to have taken hold. In a statement issued on Friday, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said Palestinians were being repeatedly displaced into an ever-shrinking fraction of the besieged enclave, as the Israeli military pushes its deployment line — known as the "Yellow Line" — further westward. According to the OHCHR, Israeli forces "appear to treat the yellow line as a kill zone", preventing Palestinians from returning to what remains of their homes on the other side, while destroying remaining civilian infrastructure and attacking displacement sites. The agency documented the westward expansion of the Israeli military over the past two weeks, triggering new displacement in Shujayea i...

  Russian forces launched a missile attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Saturday, hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that every power plant in the country has now been damaged by Russian strikes. Debris from the attack damaged a residential building, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, who wrote on Telegram that explosions were heard in the Kyiv suburbs and that the enemy was "hitting infrastructure with ballistic missiles". Officials continued to warn residents of further strikes hours later. The attack is the latest in a sustained campaign against Ukraine's energy system as winter approaches. Zelenskyy told participants at the Ibero-American Summit on Thursday that "every power plant in Ukraine has suffered from Russian attacks in one way or another", adding that Moscow was using Shahed drones and missiles to strike even the energy equipment that the country's nuclear power plants depend on. Ukraine's air force said Russia laun...

  President Donald Trump has replaced his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, with longtime adviser Stephen Miller, in the first major shake-up of his administration since Republicans lost control of both houses of Congress in Tuesday's midterm elections. Trump announced the change on Friday on Truth Social, saying Miller would take over the post on Monday, November 9. Wiles, the first woman ever to serve as White House chief of staff, will move to the Trump Political Operation. The departure had been building for barely a day. Wiles submitted her resignation on Thursday evening, hours after the scale of the Republican defeat became clear. Democrats flipped at least seven Senate seats and retook the House, ending two years of unified Republican rule in Washington. Trump had publicly dismissed speculation about Wiles leaving as recently as October, saying she would remain in the job "for a long time". She was also his longest-serving chief of staff, a role that has consumed five ...

  London — The Bank of England raised its key interest rate to 4% on Thursday, the first rate rise in three years, and told households that borrowing costs are likely to stay at that level until early next year as inflation heads towards 5%. The nine-member Monetary Policy Committee split six to three, with the majority voting to raise Bank Rate from 3.75% — a decision that came despite a separate vote to pause the sale of government bonds and against the government's explicit opposition. The hike ends a year of steady rate cuts that began in August 2025, when Bank Rate stood at 5%. The Bank cut six times in fourteen months, including four cuts this year alone, taking rates to 3.75% in September. Thursday's rise marks the first increase in the rate since August 2023. The immediate cause is the Budget. The Bank's November Monetary Policy Report, published alongside the rate decision, says Rachel Reeves' Budget raised the forecast for inflation by about 0.3 percentage poi...

New York — The artificial intelligence trade suffered its worst day in 18 months on Thursday as the Nasdaq Composite plunged 5.52% to 24,315, wiping more than $2 trillion from the index and dragging global markets down with it. The sell-off, triggered by the Democrats' sweep of the US midterm elections, hit the companies building AI infrastructure hardest and left the Nasdaq in correction territory, more than 10% below the record it set only a month ago. The scale of the rout was stark. The Nasdaq's fall was its largest one-day percentage drop since the April 2025 tariff sell-off, and by midday Fortune counted more than $3 trillion of market value gone from the index. The S&P 500 fell 4.36% to 7,353.73 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1,833 points, or 3.44%, to 51,523, more than erasing Wednesday's 1,570-point gain. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, a basket of 30 chip companies, plunged about 12%, its second-largest one-day fall on record. Nvidia, the comp...

Former Hollywood star turned social media influencer Russell Brand was convicted of the rape and sexual assault of two former girlfriends in the late 1990s. A jury at Southwark Crown Court on Friday cleared him of two further rape charges, the verdict ending a trial expected to reshape perceptions of one of Britain's most controversial public figures. The court heard that Brand, then a rising radio and television presenter, carried out the assaults after meeting the women in West London. The first victim, a former model, alleged that he struck her with a belt, pushed her against a wall and raped her in a flat in 1997. A second woman, who had dated Brand briefly, told the jury that he sexually assaulted her during a confrontation in his car. Both women described the impact of the attacks in emotional testimony, with one saying he had "ruined" her life and left her with post-traumatic stress disorder. The jury convicted Brand on two counts — a count of oral rape and a coun...

The Democratic Party swept to control of both chambers of Congress in Tuesday's midterm elections, ending two years of unified Republican rule and forcing President Donald Trump into divided government for the final two years of his presidency. The scale of the victory stunned even optimistic Democrats: the party flipped at least seven Senate seats and gained at least 40 seats in the House of Representatives, winning in Republican strongholds where such victories had seemed unthinkable only weeks ago. CBS News projected the House for Democrats late on Tuesday night and the Senate shortly afterwards; the Associated Press called the Senate after Democrat Josh Turek defeated Republican Ashley Hinson in Iowa, and the House early on Wednesday. The Senate map told the story of the night. In Texas, Democrat James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton to flip a seat blue for the first time since 1988. In Kansas, Adam Hamilton became the first Democrat elected to the Senate from the stat...

Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Friday that he has commuted the death sentences of all 548 people on California's death row, emptying the largest death row in the United States in the single largest act of clemency in American history. The commutations, which take effect immediately, convert every death sentence in the state to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Newsom said the decision was driven by the system's failures: racial disparities in sentencing, the exoneration of innocent people, and the decades that condemned prisoners typically spend awaiting execution. California has not executed anyone since 2006, and Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions shortly after taking office in 2019. But the sentences remained on the books, and the state's death row continued to grow. Friday's order, signed at a ceremony in Sacramento, ends that limbo. 'The death penalty is not a deterrent, it is not applied fairly, and it is not who we are as a state...

New Zealanders head to the polls on Saturday in an election that has become one of the closest in the country's modern history, with the centre-left Labour Party and the centre-right National Party running neck and neck in the final polls and a tiny centrist party, The Opportunities Party (TOP), emerging as the likely kingmaker. The final round of national polling put Labour on 36.4% and National on 36.1%, a gap smaller than the margin of error and a remarkable turnaround for a Labour Party that was written off after its defeat in the last election. The Greens were on 11.2%, ACT on 7.8% and New Zealand First on 5.6%. It is TOP, though, on 4.9%, that could decide the outcome. The party, founded by economist Gareth Morgan and now led by former public servant Anna Bremner, is projected to win two or three seats — enough to give either major party a working majority, but not enough to govern alone. Bremner has refused to say which side she would support, telling reporters this week ...

  Cristiano Ronaldo announced on Friday that he is retiring from international football, bringing the curtain down on a Portugal career that began in 2003 and rewrote the record books. The numbers alone tell the story of an era. Ronaldo made 226 appearances for Portugal, scoring 143 goals — more than any man in international football history. He captained his country to the European Championship in 2016 and the inaugural Nations League title in 2019, and he played at six European Championships and six World Cups, the first man to reach both milestones. Yet the ending, when it came, was quieter than the career. Portugal were beaten 3–1 by Spain in a World Cup qualifier in Lisbon on Thursday, and Ronaldo, who was replaced in the 82nd minute by Gonçalo Ramos, walked off to a standing ovation and stayed on the bench as the final whistle sounded. That contrast — between a career defined by comebacks and an ending that felt like acceptance — is what will linger. Ronaldo had been adama...

Israel's election commission has certified the results of the country's general election, confirming a hung parliament with no party or bloc able to form a majority government. The results, announced on Wednesday, show that the right-wing Likud party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, won the most seats, with 32, followed by the centrist Yesh Atid party, led by Yair Lapid, with 24. The far-right Religious Zionism party won 14 seats, while the left-wing Meretz party failed to win any seats. The certified results mean that President Isaac Herzog will now begin consultations with the leaders of all the parties elected to the Knesset, in order to determine who should be given the mandate to form a government. The president will meet with the party leaders over the coming days, and he is expected to announce his decision next week. The leader who is given the mandate will have 28 days to form a government, with a possible extension of 14 days. The election was the fifth in less than fou...

North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea on Wednesday, in a move that has been condemned by the international community. The missiles were launched from the country's east coast and flew for around 600 kilometres before landing in the sea. The launch comes just days after the United States accused North Korea of stealing $6bn from the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, in what would be the largest cryptocurrency heist in history. The United States has said that North Korea's Lazarus Group, a state-sponsored hacking group, was responsible for the theft of $6bn from Binance in 2022. The group is believed to have stolen the funds by hacking into the exchange's systems and transferring the money to wallets controlled by the North Korean government. The United States has imposed sanctions on the group and on individuals linked to it, and it has called on other countries to do the same. North Korea has denied the allegations, calling them a fabrication. The missile ...

Kyiv is facing one of its worst nights of the war as a fresh wave of Russian attacks on the power grid leaves homes without electricity and water, and residents of the capital are running out of time to prepare for the cold. The blackouts have hit more than half of the city, with officials saying it will take weeks to repair the damage. As winter sets in, the city's residents are preparing for the worst — and the death toll continues to rise. Overnight, Moscow launched one of its biggest attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure in months, with waves of drones and missiles striking power stations and substations across the country. The attacks have left more than half of Kyiv's districts without electricity, and the city's water supply has been disrupted. Officials say it will take weeks to repair the damage, and the city's residents are bracing for a long winter. The attacks come as the death toll from a Russian missile strike on a village in Zaporizhzhia regio...

Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong has been jailed for a further ten years, in a sentence that will keep one of the city's best-known dissidents behind bars until 2036. Wong, 29, pleaded guilty in a new case under the national security law after spending almost five years in detention awaiting trial. He had already been serving a separate sentence for subversion. Under Hong Kong's national security law, he could have faced life imprisonment; the court handed down ten years on Wednesday. The sentence has provoked an immediate international response. The British government condemned the conviction, describing it as the latest instance of the dismantling of freedom in Hong Kong, and the foreign secretary demanded Wong's immediate release. The European Union said the case exemplified China's systematic abuse of the national security law. The United States has said that the ten-year term exposes Beijing's claim that its security crackdown will stop. Several E...

A day after Democrats swept both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, the scale of the Republican defeat was still coming into focus — and the blame game inside the party had already begun. By Wednesday morning, network tallies put Democrats near 54 seats in the Senate and past the 218-seat line in the House, after flipping at least 27 House seats while Republicans flipped none, according to The Washington Post, with more than 60 House races still uncalled. The Associated Press put Democrats at 228 House seats won, with leads in another 34. The results end two years of unified Republican control of Washington and hand Democrats the subpoena power, committee chairs and confirmation leverage that will shape the final two years of President Donald Trump's second term. The sharpest split opened between Mr Trump and his own vice-president. JD Vance wrote on social media that the war with Iran was the reason for the defeat. "The reason we lost is the war," he posted...

  Cyclone Murasu has begun making landfall on India's eastern coast, bringing winds of up to 105 km/h (65 mph) and heavy rain to the state of Andhra Pradesh, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The storm, the strongest to hit the region this season, made landfall near the town of Chirala in the Bapatla district on Sunday evening, local time, after forming in the Bay of Bengal and intensifying as it approached the coast. At least two people were killed and several others injured in the storm's initial impact, according to local media reports, although the full extent of the damage was not yet known on Monday morning. Murasu — a name given by India in the World Meteorological Organization's naming system for the North Indian Ocean — was classified as a "severe cyclonic storm" by the IMD, with sustained winds of 90–100 km/h gusting to 110 km/h at the time of landfall. The storm brought heavy rain to coastal districts, with the IMD warning of ...

  Indirect talks between the United States and Iran ended in Doha on Monday without a deal, Iranian officials said, but a further meeting remained possible after Washington circulated a draft proposal and Tehran said it was waiting for a response. The two sides have now met twice in recent weeks after a year in which the United States bombed Iranian nuclear sites and Iran responded by attacking a US air base in Qatar, and in which President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened further military action if Iran did not agree to a nuclear deal. The Doha round was due to take place over several days, but ended after roughly two hours of indirect talks, according to Iranian media. The shape of the negotiations was unusual. Mr Trump had given Iran a 10–15 day deadline to strike a deal before he would decide on military action, and Mr Witkoff and Mr Kushner arrived in Doha on Sunday carrying what Reuters described as a draft proposal, with the expectation that Tehran would respond by Wednesd...

  Overnight into Monday, 2 November, attackers remotely changed the settings on refrigeration controls at supermarkets across Europe, warming fridges and freezers and forcing stores to throw away chilled and frozen food. The attacks hit at least seven countries — Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, the Netherlands, Ireland, Estonia and Finland, with further cases reported in Portugal and Italy — and echoed a similar attack three weeks earlier in which hackers seized control of cooling units at hundreds of French supermarkets. No chain reported more than several dozen affected stores, and the disruption, while widespread, remained limited store by store. But the pattern — the same kind of equipment, the same remote tampering, on the same continent, within weeks — has turned what might have looked like isolated faults into a European investigation, and a warning about how much of the food chain now depends on devices connected to the internet. In Belgium, attackers switched cooling units in...

  Russian aerial bombs struck a school being used to distribute humanitarian aid in south-eastern Ukraine on Monday, killing at least 26 people, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the country's emergency services. The attack hit the village of Komyshuvakha in the Zaporizhzhia region, about 35 kilometres east of the city of Zaporizhzhia and roughly a dozen kilometres from the front line, where residents had gathered for the weekly Monday distribution of food and other supplies. Five people were injured and taken to hospital, including two rescue workers. With rescue teams still searching the rubble into Monday night and dozens initially reported missing, officials warned the toll could rise further. Russia had not publicly commented on the strike in the reporting available on Monday. The sequence described by Ukrainian officials was a strike in two waves. Mr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address that Russian forces first dropped aerial bombs on the school...