European Union

Former US President Donald Trump has appeared in court in Washington. At his third trial he is charged with attempting to falsify the 2020 election results and for his role in the storming of the Capitol on 6 January 2021. The media agree: much is at stake in this trial - not just for Trump but for the US as a nation.

In a week-long experiment, the German discount supermarket chain Penny is charging its customers "real prices" for food. These factor in the environmental costs in production. Nine products will be affected, making them for the most part twice as expensive as before. Commentators discuss how much sense it makes to suddenly charge six euros instead of three for sausages.

Thousands of people across Bulgaria have protested against violence against women. The demonstrations were triggered by a brutal attack on an 18-year-old girl and the mild sentence handed down to her aggressor. Although she had been cruelly abused by her ex-partner, a court classified the act as "slight bodily harm" and released the perpetrator.

Niger's junta revoked a raft of military cooperation agreements with France on Thursday (3 August) - a decision that could drastically reshape a fight against Islamist insurgents in the region after the ouster of President Mohamed Bazoum last week.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday (3 August) decried "revolting" practices exposed during an audit of Ukraine's military recruitment centres and pledged to fix the system by placing in charge people who understood the meaning of war.

One of the biggest crowds ever seen in Portugal mobbed Pope Francis as he rode in an open vehicle to a rally where he told young Catholics from all over the world to beware the false happiness lurking in social media.

Humanitarian operations to rescue migrants attempting the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea do not encourage further crossings, a modelling study said on Thursday (3 August).

The EU on Thursday (3 August) banned drone sales to Belarus and added prominent state TV presenters to its sanctions list over Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Minsk's crackdown on opposition.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on Thursday (3 August) called for a "credible" probe into a migrant shipwreck off Greece in June in which hundreds died, saying that contrasting accounts by the Greek coastguard and survivors "were extremely concerning".

The European Court of Human Rights has refused to help a persecuted religious minority awaiting deportation from the EU-funded Edirne centre in Turkey where rights abuses have been documented.

German economy and climate minister Robert Habeck has expressed reservations regarding an EU-wide ban of “forever chemicals” (PFAS), despite the fact that it was first proposed by his own government, alongside other EU countries.