00:01The European Union has approved Paramount's $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.
00:08However, the approval came with certain conditions.
00:12Brussels said the deal is unlikely to harm competition in film production,
00:16but still the EU has certain concerns over the deal's impact on film distribution in Europe.
00:22Therefore, the Commission has said Paramount must agree to end its stake in United International Pictures
00:27in the European Economic Area.
00:30European regulators said Paramount must not for 10 years enter into any agreement with Universal
00:35to jointly distribute films in this area.
00:39The deal still faces legal hurdles in the United States
00:43after federal judge in California temporarily paused the merger this week.
00:47The planned merger has sparked significant opposition,
00:50with critics warning it could fundamentally reshape Hollywood.
00:53If completed, it would reduce the number of major US film studios to four.
01:04Wildfires continued to spread across parts of France, Spain and Italy on Wednesday,
01:09forcing thousands of people from their homes amid a heatwave.
01:12In Gironde in southwest France, over 10,000 people were evacuated overnight.
01:17More than 2,000 hectares in the region were scorched.
01:20As of Thursday morning, 500 firefighters were tackling the fire with aerial reinforcements on the way.
01:27In Bordeaux, two firefighters were killed while tackling a blaze.
01:32Meanwhile, in Italy, fires have broken out in Sicily.
01:36Thousands of emergency responders were mobilized to assist.
01:40According to local authorities, 300 of the island's 344 reported fires had been extinguished as of Wednesday.
01:47Also here, the blaze claimed the life of a firefighter who died responding to a fire in San Cataldo.
01:55And blazes continue to scorch Spain with a major wildfire declared to the southwest of Madrid.
02:01It comes after a devastating wildfire in the Guadalajara province had already burnt 32,000 hectares to the north of
02:09the Spanish capital.
02:15The European Union's Food Safety Agency has reduced the safe daily intake level of TFA, the so-called forever chemical,
02:24that is found widely in drinking water.
02:27The EFSA said the updated values were based on new evidence that showed TFA changes levels of a hormone produced
02:35by the thyroid gland that plays an important role in regulating the body, among other effects.
02:42TFA are used in a variety of products, from kitchenware and medical devices to defense and clean energy equipment.
02:50But their usage may carry risks to people and the environment, including wildlife.
02:56According to the EFSA, TFA can form when PFAS substances break down, including from certain active substances in pesticides.
03:05TFA can then end up in groundwater, soil and food crops, it says.
03:10EU members are required to monitor PFAS levels in drinking water, while other monitoring programs track PFAS levels in food.
03:24The European Union is preparing to accept new tariffs the United States is expected to impose in the coming days
03:31over forced labor, according to the European Commission.
03:35Despite considering the new duties unjustified, the Commission said its priority was to ensure tariffs on EU goods remain below
03:44the 15% cap agreed under the EU-US trade deal in July 2025.
03:50Meanwhile, the White House justified its actions by arguing that insufficient efforts to curb trade in goods produced using forced
03:59labor were harming US commercial interests.
04:02The current US tariff regime expires on Friday, and one US trade official said on Tuesday that the implementation of
04:10the forced labor duties was imminent.
04:12As part of its efforts to replace the current regime, the US Trade Department launched an investigation into forced labor
04:20in global supply chains, which is due to be concluded in the coming days.
04:24In early June, the Commission defended its regulations, saying it had strict rules against products made with forced labor.
04:32The Trump administration imposed 10% duties on its global trading partners last February, after a US Supreme Court ruling
04:40declared its 2025 tariffs illegal.
04:50It had been the scene of the spectacular theft of the crown jewels.
04:56The Apollo Gallery at the Lure Museum has reopened to the public, returning to its original function as a 17th
05:02century ceremonial gallery without display cases or jewels.
05:07The jewels that were not stolen during the heist will soon be displayed in another room designed as a windowless
05:14vault, said museum director Christophe Lerebold.
05:18In October 2025, a four-man gang broke into the Apollo Gallery using a cherry picker and stole eight jewels
05:26from the French crown in broad daylight.
05:29The heist exposed serious security flaws at the world's most visited museum, leading to the resignation of the then-president,
05:36Laurence Descartes.
05:39The loot from the heist, estimated at 88 million euros, remains untraceable to this day.
05:57France's Minister for Ecological Transition, Monique Barbu, will remain in her post despite her opposition to a bill allowing beharming
06:05pesticides to come back into use.
06:07She had submitted her resignation earlier on Wednesday, but President Emmanuel Macron rejected it.
06:13The minister will stay due to the urgency to address the consequences of climate change, her office said.
06:20On Tuesday, Parliament passed the government's Emergency Agriculture Bill on the conditional reintroduction of certain pesticides authorized in the European
06:28Union, but banned in France.
06:30The outgoing minister criticized the bill and said the reversal was one environmental setback to many.
06:37The law gives France's Health and Safety Agency the authority to conditionally authorize the use of acetamiprid and flupiradifuron.
06:46The bill's supporters said that sugar beet and hazelnut farmers need the insecticides, which have been forbidden in France since
06:542018 and 2019.
06:56Barbu noted that acetamiprid was banned using the scientific evidence available at the time.
07:02Last year, France passed another bill allowing use of the pesticide, but it was struck down after strong public protests.
07:32Another book has done that.
07:38This year, it did rain a lot during the winter, especially in the western parts, and this led to a
07:47sort of good greening towards right after the rains.
07:51But then what is sort of interesting here is that the spring has been anomalously dry as well as hard,
08:00and this sort of led to widespread drying of the vegetation in these parts.
08:07And this is why you see a lot of wild fires in these parts, and that is where the impacts
08:14of the droughts come from on this part of the continent.
08:43So, as we know, water is important for agriculture, and that means that food security is one of the major
08:54sectors that will be impacted by droughts.
08:58So, often in the aftermath of a drought, we see that, you know, often essential grain prices go up.
09:45It's completely self-dependent. You don't need any electricity there, so if there's,
09:50for example, in such a remote area that there isn't any electrical grids, you don't need
09:54it. You've got solar panels. You can just stand still if you want to get more solar
09:59area, push out these extra solar panels, and then you're just getting the extra energy
10:04to provide it, and then you can still drive away, especially in areas where, for example,
10:09fossil fuels might be a problem with their availability.
10:21We've got an X-ray over there so that we can scan, for example, five pages of tuberculosis,
10:27one of the leading diseases in Africa. We've got an ultrasound so that you can make ultrasounds
10:33of pregnant women, for example, and AED, so if you, for example, something happens to
10:39you, you need to get reanimated, then, of course, that can also happen, and so just a general
10:45EHBO kit.
10:46It is a country with a lot of real optical performance that I mentioned in the beginning.
11:04It will, can really contribute to the issue that many African countries have, is that the
11:09distance between very remote villages and healthcare facilities is really big. There's no, there's
11:17that is very expensive. Electricity networks are unreliable, so a really cool innovation,
11:23like the Stella Juva, can help us solve such big challenges in healthcare delivery.
11:27.
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