BUSINESS

Britain's annual inflation rate unexpectedly remained at 8.7 percent in May, official data showed Wednesday, piling pressure on the Bank of England and government to act over a cost-of-living crisis.

A reported increase in Muslim girls wearing the abaya dress at French schools has triggered a debate about their violation of the country's sacrosanct commitment to secularism in education.

The iconic Glastonbury Festival opens its doors on Wednesday, with 200,000 music fans set to descend on a farm in southwest England to see acts including Arctic Monkeys, Guns N'Roses and Elton John.

Former Australian leader Scott Morrison hid plans to ditch a French submarine contract for fear a furious Paris would find a way to "kill" his new deal with the United States and United Kingdom, he reveals in an upcoming book seen by AFP. The scandal, which saw Morrison work in secret with London and Washington to procure nuclear submarines before breaking the contract with Paris, highlighted the fragility of transatlantic trust, with ties still recovering from the 2021 revelation.

Asian markets mostly dipped Wednesday, following a downbeat lead from Wall Street as investors braced for Fed boss Jerome Powell's testimony to the US Congress.

Buried beneath the hype of the artificial intelligence revolution, big tech is quietly rolling out services for disabled people that it hopes will push a greater transformation for customers.

Voice actors around the globe are mobilizing against the unregulated use of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate and clone human voices that they fear poses a threat to their livelihoods.

With its innovative plotlines and steampunk airships, video game franchise Final Fantasy has delighted fans and critics for 35 years.

Rescuers trying to find the orca-sized submersible that vanished on its way to visit the wreck of the Titanic are facing a gargantuan task that will test the limits of technical know-how, experts say.

Musician-turned-designer Pharrell Williams took over the oldest bridge in Paris, packed it with celebrities and turned it into a pumping gospel nightclub as he made his historic debut for Louis Vuitton on Tuesday.

Deep-sea thrill-seeker Stockton Rush founded OceanGate in 2009 with the hopes of advancing submersible vehicle technology and taking travelers into the darkest depths of the ocean.

US President Joe Biden's son Hunter has reached a plea deal on minor tax and gun charges, concluding a five-year probe that involved persistent Republican allegations that major crimes were being covered up.

Rescue teams are scrambling to find five people on a tourist submersible that went missing near the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic on Sunday.

Australia captain Pat Cummins led his side to a dramatic two-wicket win over England in the first Test at Edgbaston on Tuesday.

While the fashion world braced for the celeb juggernaut of Pharrell Williams's first show in Paris on Tuesday, a young designer was making his own modest splash with a debut below his own home.

Barely making a buzz, a two-seat helicopter powered by an electric battery landed softly on the tarmac at the Paris Air Show after a 15-minute flight.

Turkish defence manufacturers are out in force at this week's Paris Air Show, the first in four years during which conflicts including Russia's invasion of Ukraine have spotlighted the country's now-coveted weapons.

More than a week into Ukraine's counter-offensive, Kyiv has reported modest gains, liberating eight settlements in the first cautious steps of a daunting fight back against entrenched Russian positions.

Four people were shot dead Tuesday near a settlement in the occupied West Bank, Israeli officials said, a day after an army raid left six Palestinians dead.

As he prepared the biggest fashion show of the year in Paris on Tuesday, musician-turned-designer Pharrell Williams told AFP he was conscious of the traumatic history behind black culture's ascent.

Online influencer Andrew Tate, his brother and two women were indicted in Romania on human trafficking and rape charges, prosecutors said Tuesday, six months after they were detained.

Searchers are scouring the North Atlantic for a missing submersible that had been due to visit the wreckage of the Titanic.

British aviation tycoon Hamish Harding, one of five people aboard a missing Titanic diving vessel, is no stranger to daredevil antics -- and has three Guinness world records to his name.

Rescue teams raced against time on Tuesday in their search for a tourist submersible that went missing near the wreck of the Titanic with five people on board.

Rather than celebrating finishing university, this summer Chinese graduates shared photos of themselves theatrically throwing their degrees into bins, underscoring the bleak outlook as youth unemployment sits at a record high.

Ahead of Bezos is chief technology officer and co-founder of software giant Oracle Larry Ellison with a net worth of $156.2 billion; LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault with a net worth of $229.7 billion; and Tesla and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk with a net worth of $236.9 billion, per Forbes' real-time billionaires' list.

Stocks in Hong Kong and Shanghai led losses across most of Asia on Tuesday as a smaller-than-forecast interest rate cut by China's central bank added to worries about the lack of action to kickstart the country's lumbering economic recovery.

Scientists have used stem cells to create structures that resemble human embryos in the lab, in a first that has prompted calls for stricter regulation in the rapidly advancing field.

China's central bank on Tuesday cut two benchmark interest rates, following several similar measures last week in a bid to counter the post-Covid growth slowdown in the world's second-largest economy.