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Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s Rajat Patidar lifts the trophy as he celebrates with teammates after winning the Indian Premier League. (Reuters) Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 75 and inspired bowling led Royal Challengers Bengaluru to their second straight Indian Premier League title with a five-wicket win over Gujarat Titans on Sunday. Bengaluru restricted Gujarat to 155-8, a total they chased down with 12 balls to spare after Kohli reached his fifth half-century of the season in a lopsided final in Ahmedabad. Kohli sealed victory with a six to cap a magnificent 42-ball innings featuring nine fours and three sixes, then pointed to the stands as Bengaluru players sprinted out to celebrate. Bengaluru, led by Rajat Patidar, and Kohli have been on a roll since they won their first IPL crown at the 18th attempt last year. They finished top of the 10-team table after this season’s league stage. “Stuff you dream of. Thought of this moment many times, wanting to hit the winning run,” said the 37-year-old Kohli, who was named player of the match. “Felt really relaxed coming in. The team we have gives confidence to see any kind of situation through. Knew exactly what to do in the chase. Such is the demand (with) super young players pushing you to up the ante.” Kohli added: “We knew what kind of ability we have in the group. And we just said one thing, ‘If we stick to our cricket, if we execute our plans, we are the best team in the competition.'” Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s Virat Kohli…
Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk celebrates after winning against Poland’s Iga Swiatek at the French Open in Paris. (AFP) Four-time French Open champion Iga Swiatek exited Roland Garros on Sunday as the top seeds continued to fall at the start of the second week, while Alexander Zverev booked his spot in the quarter-finals.The Polish third seed endured a miserable 25th birthday as she went down 7-5, 6-1 to Madrid Open winner Marta Kostyuk.Since winning Roland Garros in her second appearance at the tournament in 2020, Swiatek had never gone more than two years without hoisting aloft the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen, but after Aryna Sabalenka ended her bid to win a fourth consecutive French Open in the semi-finals last year, she has lost her unbeatable status on clay.Indeed since last winning in Paris in 2024, Swiatek has only lifted three titles in the two subsequent seasons. “I feel, like, for sure I lost today because Marta used the opportunity, and I was super tense,” she said.”It is harder a bit to handle stress for me in, like, (the) last year. So I feel like today I felt off, you know, and I did mistakes that I didn’t want to do, and I wanted to play safe, but the ball flew everywhere. Suddenly these feelings came back, and I tried to work on it with my dialogue inside, but it was tough today. Yeah, so it all kind of went drastically down, and I played worse and worse.”After breaking Kostyuk in the first set to edge 4-3 ahead, Swiatek’s serve totally deserted her and she failed to hold again as the Ukrainian hit back to claim the opener and then raced through the second frame.For Kostyuk, reaching a first quarter-final at Roland Garros was just the latest high mark in a fine clay-court season, in which she claimed the 250-level event in Rouen, as well as a first WTA 1000 title in the Spanish capital.Elina Svitolina next stands between her compatriot and the last four after she fought back to beat Swiss 11th seed Belinda Bencic 4-6, 6-4, 6-0.The seventh seed has reached the quarter-finals at the French Open on five previous occasions but has failed to ever go beyond that mark.After winning a first WTA 1000 title in eight years earlier in May at the Italian Open, Svitolina’s last-eight encounter with Kostyuk will pit against each other the two winners of the main warm-up events to Roland Garros.”It’s exciting. Definitely she’s been playing really well,” Svitolina said of Kostyuk, who is on a 15-match win streak on the red dirt. “I feel like it’s going to be an exciting battle for Ukraine, as well, you know, that there will be one Ukrainian in the semis. Yeah, I think it’s really cool.” Germany’s Alexander Zverev plays a forehand return during…
beIN MEDIA GROUP (‘beIN’), the global sports, entertainment and media conglomerate, won two prestigious broadcast industry accolades at the annual Asia-Pacific Broadcasting+ Awards in Singapore. Taking home the top prize in the ‘Digital Transformation – Qatar’ and ‘IP Broadcast Solutions – Qatar’ categories, the awards recognised beIN’s innovative on-screen graphics system and digital integration solutions. First held in 2023, the annual Asia-Pacific Broadcasting+ Awards recognise excellence and innovation across the broadcasting industry. Organised by Asia-Pacific Broadcasting+, a leading industry platform covering broadcasting and multimedia since 1983,this year’s ceremony brought together industry leaders at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. The ‘Digital Transformation – Qatar’ category recognised beIN’s L-Shape system, which provides automated on-air graphics and is used to display real-time sports information powered by OPTA data feeds. Developed in-house by beIN’s Brand Directorate, the system also supports the promotion of content across beIN channels, including sports and non-sports content, ensuring dynamic, accurate, and consistent on-screen communications. Meanwhile, the ‘IP Broadcast Solutions – Qatar’ award celebrated beIN’s fully automated content generation system for social media.Previously, designers relied on traditional design platforms such as Adobe software to manually create images and enter data. With Digital Automated Tools, the entire process – design, data integration, and content generation – is automated, with OPTA data feeding directly into the system to produce multiple post adaptations without requiring any human interaction. Mohammed Al Bader, Managing Director of beIN Channels – MENA, said: “This recognition is a powerful affirmation of beIN’s commitment to engineering-led innovation and broadcast excellence. Our team works tirelessly to break down traditional silos between our linear and digital offerings to enable a better, more informative storytelling experience for our viewers. These two awards reflect the dedication and ingenuity of our teams, who continue to push the boundaries of what modern broadcasting can achieve. Now more than ever, beIN remains focused on building future-ready systems that deliver premium content to our audiences, ensuring they can access our unprecedented portfolio of sports and entertainment content anytime, anywhere, and on any screen.” This recognition comes at a time when momentum is building around beIN’s coverage of this summer’s FIFA World Cup 2026 on its flagship beIN SPORTS channels and OTT platforms, beIN CONNECT and TOD by beIN. The network will broadcast all 104 matches live and exclusive across the MENA region during the five-week tournament, between 11 June and 19 July. Source link
Kuwaiti Army’s air defences engaged with hostiles drones and missiles early Monday.The loud explosions heard in some parts of the country resulted from mid-air interceptions, the Army’s General Staff said in a statement carried by Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).It urged everyone to abide by the safety instructions issued by the competent authorities. Source link
Bengaluru, who ended a 17-season drought by winning their maiden IPL title last year, carried that momentum into this season and chased down 156 with ease…
More than 200 people were injured and one person died in Paris following Paris Saint-Germain’s second consecutive Champions League win, the interior ministry said on Sunday, reviving France’s heated debate about street violence. A day after PSG beat Arsenal in a nail-biting Budapest penalty shootout, cementing their place on the throne of European football, fans were taking to the Champ de Mars open space near the Eiffel Tower to hail the players staging a victory parade on Sunday afternoon. But, as last year, the celebrations were partly overshadowed by hefty street violence in the night after the game in which 57 police were injured in Paris and over 400 people taken into custody, a few of them outside the capital, authorities said. Some storefronts in Paris were destroyed while rioters also torched cars and stands of rental bikes, police said.There was some vandalism against public buildings in provincial towns such as Orleans, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said.Police were not specifically targeted in most places, but one police station in central Paris was the site of brief clashes on Saturday evening, Paris police said.One young man died following a motorcycle accident amid the unrest, the Paris public prosecutor’s office said.Nunez, a former Paris police chief, oversaw a huge security operation involving over 20,000 officers, and said the violence had been systematically addressed: “The situation was, overall, under control.”Politicians from the far-right National Rally, leading in opinion polls ahead of next year’s presidential election, seized on the occasion to reiterate calls for firmer law-and-order policies.”Only in France does a victory of a football club trigger riots,” said Marine Le Pen, the movement’s leader.But others highlighted deep social divides as the cause of repeated violence and unrest, saying that those who had wreaked the most havoc were not representative of football fan culture.”France is living under strain. Society is becoming increasingly brutal. We are a pressure cooker ready to explode anytime,” said Raphael Glucksmann, who is mulling standing in the presidential election on a centre-left ticket.Last year, similarly chaotic celebrations following PSG’s first Champions League title led to two deaths. (reporting by Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Kevin Liffey)Paris, France, May 31, 2026 (AFP) -French authorities announced Sunday that 780 people were arrested across the country when overnight celebrations of Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League victory over Arsenal were marred by violent clashes, and a road accident that killed a young man.Thousands of people poured into the streets of Paris for the match and to revel in PSG’s triumph in the final held in the Hungarian capital Budapest late Saturday.But some mobs clashed with police, around 22,000 of whom were deployed across France after unrest last year when PSG also won the competition.Highlighting an increased use of fireworks directed at law enforcement, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said in a press briefing 57 security forces were injured and that there had been “219 participants injured in France, including eight seriously”.The Paris public prosecutor’s office announced the death of a young man in his twenties after he crashed head-on into concrete blocks on a Paris ring road exit ramp on his motocross bike.Another young man was seriously injured in a knife attack in Paris allegedly over a robbery, the prosecutor’s office added.Nunez said a small number of thefts and lootings had taken place in around fifteen cities across the country and incidents of violence were recorded in 71 municipalities.The 780 arrests was a 32 percent increase compared to the celebrations of PSG’s Champions League win last year, the minister noted.- Victory parade -Around 100,000 people are expected to gather for a parade including the players on Sunday afternoon on the Champs-de-Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower, before being received at the Elysee Palace by President Emmanuel Macron.Nunez promised “a strong law enforcement response” during the players’ return celebrations and fines for “obstructing traffic” in the event of any intrusion onto the Paris ring road.The district mayor of Paris’s 8th arrondissement — home to the famed Champs-Elysees where 20,000 people converged after PSG’s victory — called for “zero gatherings” on the iconic avenue as the only way to avoid further violence.On Saturday night, the “Champs-Elysees avenue and its surroundings ceased to be a place of celebration and became an arena of urban guerrilla warfare”, the town hall said in a statement.”Since it has become impossible to celebrate a match without descending into riots, the only common sense response is a new doctrine: ‘zero gatherings’,” it demanded.Nunez dismissed the idea saying it would “tie up almost half of the security deployment”. Nearly 6,000 police and gendarmes have been deployed for security during the celebrations on Sunday.sm-hdu/sw/ Source link
Protesters walk down O’Connell Street in central Dublin at the head of a protest to demand justice following the death of Democratic Republic of the Congo…
Team Aprilia Racing’s Marco Bezzecchi celebrates on the podium with the trophy after winning the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello circuit, in Mugello, near Florence, on…
Wary of being vulnerable to the whims of foreign governments, the European Union is preparing far-reaching new moves to ditch American digital companies and Chinese chips in favour of European alternatives.The EU's technological sovereignty package is among many measures taken by Brussels to slash dependence on foreign firms and boost local manufacturing — but risks opening up a new front in transatlantic tensions.The hotly awaited package of new rules on chips, cloud computing and AI will be presented on Wednesday as part of the EU's effort to ‘reclaim its place in the global race for geoeconomic power’, a draft strategy document seen by AFP said.Of particular concern is how much the European Union relies on US cloud providers, which account for around 70 % of Europe's market.Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, Europeans worry that critical digital infrastructure could be brought to a halt by an American ‘kill switch’ if tensions ever reached fever pitch.Top EU officials don't directly name their target as the US, but American tech dominates, from cloud computing to social media to e-commerce.’We need to develop our own capacities. We cannot allow someone trying to influence our own decisions, our own values, our own well-functioning economy and services,’ EU competition tsar Teresa Ribera said this month.EU officials often point to Washington's sanctions against International Criminal Court judges — imposed by Trump in February 2025 — to illustrate the grip of US firms. Judge Nicolas Guillou has described how he lost access to his Visa card since it is an American system.But US envoy to the EU Andrew Puzder has warned against any protectionist moves, while American companies have urged Europe not to keep them out.’Europe will not be able to pull itself into the AI economy by bringing other people down,’ Puzder told AFP last month when asked about the plans.Wednesday's package will include:— the ‘Cloud and AI Development Act’, aimed at speeding up the deployment of data centre infrastructure— a ‘Chips Act’ proposal to reinforce the security of supply for semi-conductors by reducing dependence on foreign providers— a push for public authorities to use more open-source software solutions as a way to gain greater control and flexibility and avoid being locked in.EU lawmaker Oliver Schenk told AFP the package was ‘not about opposing our trading partners or closing markets’, but said: ‘Europe must avoid becoming structurally dependent on any single external actor’ for AI, cloud and chips.The draft strategy, which could still change before the announcement, said governments would be expected to conduct ‘sovereignty risk assessments’ for cloud and AI to ‘improve resilience’ and spot European alternatives.’Europe must ensure that public investments in AI and cloud infrastructure strengthen European innovation capacity, resilience and security,’ Schenk said.According to a second draft document on chips, the commission wants the power to intervene in the event of a crisis by forcing ‘manufacturers to prioritise orders for crisis-critical products, overriding existing contracts’.It also proposes common purchasing, which means the EU would act as ‘a central buyer for multiple member states facing severe shortages’.Aaron Cooper of tech industry group Business Software Alliance sought to offer reassurances to Europeans who fear any US administration could act to hurt the bloc at times of tension, following past frictions, including over tariffs.’There is no such thing as a kill switch,’ Cooper told AFP, adding companies ‘want to comply with laws wherever they're doing business’.American tech companies have been keen to shift the focus of the debate, insisting Europeans would be in charge of their data while using US services.’Digital sovereignty is about control, not just borders,’ said Ana Paula Assis, chair for IBM Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, adding that the company helps its clients ‘maintain authority over their entire IT estate’.The EU says the package will drive innovation and help Europe catch up with the US and China in the AI race.But Ben Brake, director general of DOT Europe, whose members include Amazon and Apple, said ‘retaliating against US corporations in response to trade disputes will neither drive innovation nor strengthen Europe's competitiveness’. Source link
Photo taken on May 29, 2026 shows Aranka Szavuly, the former vice-chairman of the trade union committee of the state television station MTVA in a public…