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A former security adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron was sentenced on Friday to three years in jail, two of them suspended, over charges including roughing up May Day protesters in 2018, media reported. The court said Alexandre Benalla, who was also found guilty of illegally using diplomatic passports and illegally carrying a weapon, acted with "a feeling of impunity and omnipotence," a franceinfo reporter present in the courthouse said on Twitter.

Source: cnn.com

Yale University evacuated several buildings after multiple bomb threats. Police received calls of bombs being placed in eight Yale buildings. Students were evacuated to the upper section of New Haven Green. The school sent out an alert at 2:35 pm on Friday after the calls were received. Police and the Department of Homeland Security were on the scene in New Haven, Connecticut Friday afternoon.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

Thousands of historic artefacts have been destroyed in the Congolese town of Gungu after a private museum burnt to ashes. The objects at the National Museum of Gungu represent one of the Democratic Republic of Congo's most important collections, says the BBC's Emery Makumeno in the capital, Kinshasa. At least 8,000 or 9,000 items dating back to the end of the 18th Century were ruined. The cause of the fire is still unclear.

Source: bbc.com

Protests against the results of Iraq’s recent parliamentary election have turned violent in Baghdad, with demonstrators denouncing “fraud” clashing with security forces outside the capital’s high-security Green Zone. Supporters of pro-Iranian groups, which suffered large losses in the polls, threw stones at security forces, who fired tear gas and shot in the air to disperse the crowd on Friday.

Source: aljazeera.com

A faithful copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa dating from more than 400 years ago will go under the hammer at a Paris auction on Tuesday, months after another reproduction of one of the world’s most recognisable portraits sold for a record price. The copy that is on sale, dating from around 1600, is so similar to the original that it is likely that the artist had close access to Leonardo’s version, the Artcurial auction house said. It estimates the copy will fetch 150,000-200,000 euros ($173,000-$230,000).

Source: aljazeera.com

Lionel Messi will again be missing due to injury for Paris Saint-Germain's Ligue 1 game at Bordeaux this weekend, but coach Mauricio Pochettino said on Friday he is hopeful the six-time Ballon d'Or winner will be able to feature for Argentina in the upcoming international window.

Source: france24.com

Spain coach Luis Enrique called up Barcelona teenager Ansu Fati on Friday for the national team’s decisive World Cup qualifiers against Greece and Sweden. With two matches remaining, Spain is in second place behind Sweden in their qualifying group. The group winners qualify for the next year’s tournament in Qatar, while second-place finishers face a playoff.

Source: apnews.com

Ariana Grande will play the witch Galinda in the film adaptation of Wicked. The musical, which is about the witches from The Wizard of Oz, will also star British actor Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. A movie version has been in the works for years. Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo and Jon M Chu all announced the casting on Instagram, posting screenshots of a group call between them.

Source: bbc.com

Belgium coach Roberto Martinez said on Friday forward Romelu Lukaku will miss next week's World Cup qualifiers with an ankle injury, with the Red Devils only two points away from clinching qualification for Qatar.

Source: france24.com

NASA on Thursday introduced the space agency's first planetary defense test mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), a spacecraft they plan to launch later this month on a mission to crash into an asteroid.

Source: reuters.com

Human remains found in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado are believed to belong to a 27-year-old West German man who went missing 38 years ago during a ski trip, authorities said Thursday. Rudi Moder -- who was an experienced mountaineer living in Fort Collins, Colorado -- was reported missing by his roomate in February 1983 after going on a three-night trip over Thunder Pass and into Rocky Mountain National Park, officials said in a news release.

Source: cnn.com

Flash floods from torrential rains on Indonesia’s main island of Java have killed at least eight people and three others are missing, officials have said. The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said on Friday that rivers on the slopes of Mount Arjuno overflowed their banks on Thursday and their muddy waters inundated five hamlets in Kota Batu, a city in East Java province.

Source: aljazeera.com

With streets filled with potholes, buses erupting in flames and soul-crushing traffic on the ground in the Eternal City, some say the only way is up. The project, called VoloCity -- which is also planned for Paris and Singapore -- promises to whisk people from the airport to the city in 20 minutes, with no traffic and zero emissions, travelling at a maximum speed of 110 kilometres per hour.

Source: france24.com

The late Hollywood actress Natalie Wood was sexually assaulted as a teenager by the actor Kirk Douglas, a new book has claimed. Ms Wood's sister, Lana, makes the allegations in her memoir "Little Sister", due for release on 9 November. According to extracts from the book published by the Associated Press, Mr Douglas attacked Ms Wood in the summer of 1955. The assault allegedly took place while Ms Wood was filming The Searchers.

Source: bbc.com

Newcastle are in talks with former Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe over their vacant manager's job, according to reports on Thursday. Newcastle's new owners believed they would land Villarreal boss Unai Emery as Steve Bruce's replacement earlier this week. But the former Arsenal chief opted to reject their offer to take charge at St James' Park and the struggling Premier League club have now turned their attention to Howe.

Source: france24.com

Sir Paul McCartney has said his parents were "the original inspiration" for many of his songs and a huge influence on the way he approached his music. The ex-Beatle's revelation came in a series of insights he has provided for an exhibition of memorabilia from his own collection at the British Library. It includes family photos from his early years in Liverpool, drawings and a postcard of the Beatles in Hamburg. The show includes 35 previously unseen items from the singer's personal collection and his own quotes about them.

Source: bbc.com

Taylor Fritz departed the French Open in a wheelchair this year but his return to Paris is proving a far happier experience as he reached the Paris Masters quarter-finals after beating Cameron Norrie 6-3, 7-6 (7/3) on Thursday. The 24-year-old American's reward for ousting the 14th seeded Briton is a meeting with world number one Novak Djokovic, who beat Fritz in five sets at this year's Australian Open.

Source: france24.com

Germany’s disease control agency on Thursday reported the highest number of new coronavirus infections since the outbreak of the pandemic. The Robert Koch Institute, or RKI, said 33,949 new cases had been registered in the last 24 hours, up from 28,037 daily cases a week ago. The previous record was 33,777 new cases on Dec. 18, 2020.

Source: apnews.com