Ülle Madise is now backed by more than 60 MPs, but Prime Minister Kristen Michal (Reform) still believes TalTech rector Tiit Land will also enter Estonia's presidential race.

The future of Latvian airline airBaltic is in the hands of its creditors, Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs said. Potential strategic investors are waiting for airBaltic to become viable and profitable. Under the new business plan approved on Wednesday, the airline will fly to fewer destinations but with higher frequency.

Ülle Madise is now backed by more than 60 MPs, but Prime Minister Kristen Michal (Reform) still believes TalTech rector Tiit Land will also enter Estonia's presidential race.

Sixty-two MPs have signed in favor of Chancellor of Justice Ülle Madise as a candidate at next month's presidential elections, up from the 55 received as of yesterday.

Estonia's bear population has grown for two decades, and one wildlife expert warns that new, tighter hunting limits could increase the risk of conflicts with people.

Economy Minister Erkki Keldo declined to approve a draft bill aimed at curbing the use of nicotine products among young people as the proposed changes could have a significant impact on sellers and importers.

Birminghami kergejõustiku EMi viienda päeva hommiku pakub taas mõnusat elevust, sest rajale läheb kolm Eesti sportlast. Odaviskes jahib lõppvõistluse kohta Gedly Tugi, teivashüppes Henri Apri ja Robert Kompus. Postimees vahendab sündmusi otseblogis.

Venemaa rünnakutes hukkus Ukraina idaosas asuvas Kramatorski linnas vähemalt üks inimene ja veel 19 sai haavata, teatasid neljapäeval võimuesindajad, kelle informatsiooni vahendasid uudisteagentuurid AFP, Unian ja Ukrinform.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg, Dmitry Muratov says the Kremlin leader can only "destroy Ukraine, not conquer it", with the war now in its fifth year.

The Cernavodă plant, which produces 20% of Romania's electricity, is not expected to be restarted within the next 10 days.

After the PM announced a crackdown on subscription traps, readers share how they got into and out of unwanted plans.

Some traders are reeling from heavy losses after a brutal correction in South Korea's stock market.

A bipartisan House delegation met with top Vatican officials on Wednesday to discuss artificial intelligence during a visit that briefly included Pope Leo XIV, according to two people with knowledge of the trip granted anonymity to disclose details of the private meetings. The delegation’s visit, which has not been previously reported, included nine lawmakers and was coordinated by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the person said. Committee member Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) and California Rep. Ro Khanna, the panel’s top Democrat, led the trip. A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment. In an interview confirming the visit, Khanna said the topics of discussion included religious freedom, AI’s economic and geopolitical risks, as well as broader ethical and existential implications. It centered on two key principles: human dignity and equality. “Human dignity means that human beings need to be responsible for any key decisions involving health, involving finances, involving individual freedom, involving public services,” he said. The Silicon Valley Democrat said that in this context, equality means preventing automation from causing mass unemployment, and ensuring AI cannot be used to exclude people from social services. Khanna said it also means guarding against a concentration of power in which “a few billionaires can make decisions about data and algorithms.” The Vatican did not respond to a request for comment about the meeting. But Pope Leo has taken a special interest in the technology and used a May encyclical to call on countries to “safeguard humanity” as AI develops, warning that the technology could deepen inequality, fray the social fabric and erode moral responsibility if it doesn’t have ethical guardrails. Congress, meanwhile, has introduced dozens of AI bills and held several hearings, but has failed to agree on a comprehensive federal framework for governing the technology. The pope previously cast the global race to develop cutting-edge AI technology in stark terms. As the U.S., China and other powers compete for an edge, he warned against a “dehumanizing ambition to develop ever more powerful technologies or to secure control over them,” describing a contest between “opposing imperialisms” seeking either to preserve or seize technological supremacy. Khanna told POLITICO he plans to introduce legislation that would tax the use of autonomous AI agents to incentivize companies to hire human workers. The group also discussed AI’s implications for human mortality and the limits of human knowledge — boundaries some developers have long imagined technology might overcome by uploading human consciousness and accumulated wisdom to the cloud. Following the meetings, Khanna sent letters to top executives at OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, and Amazon, asking how they intend to align their technology with the tenets of human dignity and equality. An OpenAI spokesperson pointed POLITICO to prior policy documents outlining the AI company’s commitment to safety and to ensuring benefits from the technology are distributed equitably. The other companies did not respond to requests for comment. The lawmakers traveled to Berlin to discuss China’s rising global influence, before picking up on the topic during their Vatican visit and in meetings with Italian government officials a few days later. Alongside Khanna and Newhouse, Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), John Rutherford (R-Fla.), Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa), Shontel Brown (D-Ohio), Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) took part in the discussions, according to one of the people familiar with the trip. Spokespeople for the members did not respond to requests for comment.

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar on Thursday cast doubt on a deal struck by his predecessor that would see Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom expand Hungary’s nuclear power capacity. Weeks of extreme heat and drought have pushed the Danube River to record lows, slashing output at Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant — which normally supplies around a third of the country’s electricity — to little more than 10 percent. “These plans were accepted despite the fact that nuclear power plants that do not operate with a closed-circuit cooling system and are so exposed to the environment are no longer being built in the world,” said Magyar, per local media. Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachev wrote that the Russian state nuclear company was still on schedule with two new reactors at Paks despite Hungary’s change of government in April, which saw Magyar oust Russia-friendly incumbent Viktor Orbán. Concrete preparation for Unit 5 is more than 80 percent complete, he said, while work on Unit 6 is advancing and reactor components are already being manufactured. “We are ready for dialogue,” Likhachev said, adding that Rosatom had received no questions from Hungary’s new government. Magyar challenged that account hours later. Under the original contract, Paks II should have been operating by 2024, he told reporters in a press conference Thursday. Instead, Hungary has spent roughly 1,000 billion forints (€2.8 billion) on a site he described as little more than depots and “two large concrete pits.” “I don’t really see that they have adhered to the contract,” Magyar said. His government is now carrying out a full review of the project, including its financing and cooling arrangements. The review cuts at one of Orbán’s signature deals with Russia. Orbán struck the Paks II agreement in Moscow in 2014, handing Rosatom the two-reactor expansion backed by up to €10 billion in Russian state financing. Two years later, he called it the “deal of the century.” Those ties survived Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. As recently as March this year, Orbán’s foreign minister Péter Szijjártó admitted to discussing EU sanctions with senior Russian officials after leaked calls showed him boasting that a bank linked to Paks had been kept off a sanctions list. Downstream, Romania shut the second and last operating reactor at Cernavodă on Thursday after the Danube fell too low to supply its cooling pumps.

Norway’s FM Espen Barth Eide says the Iran war failed to achieve its initial aims and strengthened hardliners in Tehran.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz praised radical Hilltop Youth settlers for ‘holding onto’ Palestinian land.

Donald Tusk says it is first time ‘someone on the order of Russia’ has sought to attack US citizen in Nato countryA Russian plan to kill a Ukrainian American citizen in Warsaw was thwarted by Poland before it could be carried out, the Polish prime minister has said.Donald Tusk said it was the first time that “someone on the order of Russia” had sought to attack a US citizen on the territory of another Nato country. Continue reading...

A former UK government scientific adviser warned amid the ‘shattering’ heat that worse is still to comeMet Office has just offered an update on temperatures across the UK, with several stations already reporting temperatures above 30C – and it’s not even 11am.It’s 30.4C in Wych Cross, 30.3C in Charlwood, 30.2C at Kenly Airfield. Continue reading...

Three carriages on the Southern Rail service are flipped on to their side

Business columnist Pilita Clark and climate correspondent Attracta Mooney replied to reader questions