The four-day Strand Festival opens in Zamárdi on Wednesday, featuring Hungarian and international performers, contemporary art exhibitions, theatre productions and gastronomic programmes. The festival will also mark 20 August with a large fireworks display over Lake Balaton.

The Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport was reportedly planning to add so-called ‘wudu’ Muslim foot wash stations to accommodate the religious minority’s practice. However, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas has threatened to revoke the airport’s state grants for religious discrimination and referred it for investigation to the US Department of Transportation, thus the plans were scrapped.

Apple has trained a large language model specifically for the Chinese market with support from Alibaba, according to three people familiar with the matter. The move marks a shift from the company’s previous reliance on third-party Chinese AI models.

A Berlin emergency nurse has described how treating members of Arab criminal clans can turn hospital wards into security operations, with police alerts, relatives flooding facilities and staff taking precautions against intimidation. His account comes as official figures show clan-related crime rising in Berlin, with 952 offences recorded across the city in 2025.

Hungarian telecommunications and technology group 4iG said it will cooperate with government investigations into its contracts involving the state. The company said its operations and transactions have complied with Hungarian and EU law.

Hungary’s government has ordered a full audit of the Hungary Helps Agency, with every contract and completed payment set to be reviewed as part of a wider reset of the country’s flagship humanitarian programme launched under Viktor Orbán. Deputy Foreign Minister György László Velkey said the agency would continue operating and that a public competition had been opened for the position of chief executive.

‘As geopolitical tensions continue to rise and the self-proclaimed 2027 deadline set by China to be ready and capable of invading Taiwan approaches, NATO nations now more than ever need to close the capability gaps in the Great White North.’

Between 100 and 200 mainly Moroccan illegal migrants have begun a hunger strike in Ceuta, demanding asylum, transfer to mainland Spain and ‘equal treatment’. The protest comes as hundreds of Moroccan applicants receive negative decisions, while the Spanish enclave’s mayor-president declares there will be ‘no regularization, no asylum and no transfer to the Peninsula’.

ELTE and the University of Szeged have been named Hungary’s top universities in the 2026 Academic Ranking of World Universities, both placing in the 501–600 range. Four Hungarian institutions made the world’s top 1,000, led globally by Harvard, Stanford, and MIT.

‘Meet your new neighbor, America,’ Alberta separatists declared as they promoted an October referendum that could set the province on a path towards a later independence vote. The oil-rich conservative stronghold is being branded the ‘Texas of the North’, while separatist groups increasingly cultivate links with the United States under Donald Trump.

Former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s father has offered a ‘large quantity of stone’ for emergency works at the Paks nuclear plant, joining a growing wave of corporate contributions from businessmen linked to the former Fidesz era. His offer follows pledges from Garancsi-, Szíjj- and Tiborcz-linked firms and others as Hungary races to stabilize Danube water levels and avoid the shutdown of the plant.

A Spanish F-18 fighter operating under NATO’s air policing mission shot down a drone after it had entered Romanian airspace, Romania’s Defence Ministry said. NATO officials said the drone appeared to be Russian, although its origin remains under investigation.

The Eurocentric right-wing X account has clipped a DW report about Berlin’s discounted ‘QueerCityPass’ for tourists. Does this mean that gay people actually get to travel cheaper than straight people in the German capital?

Greece’s hard-line ‘prison or return’ migration policy is beginning to show measurable results, with 599 migrants choosing voluntary return rather than risk imprisonment under the new illegal-stay regime. Total returns rose 20 per cent in the first half of 2026 and forced returns by 41 per cent, making Greece an early test case for the toughest version of the EU’s new Return Regulation.

Companies belonging to the Coca-Cola group have agreed to launch a nationwide campaign to improve consumer awareness of PET bottle recycling following a review by Hungary’s Economic Competition Office (GVH).

The Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have disrupted global oil markets, but China has weathered the shock better than expected. By reducing oil imports and promoting the yuan, Beijing may emerge with greater energy and financial independence, while using trade, lawfare, and economic policy to challenge U.S. dominance.

Twelve people were killed and dozens injured when a bus carrying Polish pilgrims crashed on Hungary’s M3 motorway early Sunday. Police suspect the driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel.

Hubert Kós closed the European Aquatics Championships with a third gold on Sunday, winning the 200m individual medley in a national-record 1:54.24. The 23-year-old had already taken gold in the 200m backstroke and 4x100m freestyle relay, helping Hungary finish fifth in the medal table with 17 medals, ahead of host nation France, despite being the smallest nation in the top five.

Right-wing journalist Nick Sherley and Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie have clashed on X over government spending and alleged daycare fraud. While Massie criticized Sherley for not targeting Republican leaders on the issue, the 24-year-old journalist fired back, highlighting the success of his investigations as opposed to Massie’s actions.

Budapest’s Festival of Folk Arts will mark its 40th edition with the United States as guest of honour, linking the four-day event at Buda Castle to celebrations of America’s 250th anniversary. Eighteen US artists will showcase traditional crafts, while visitors can help create a new tapestry inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s famous rattlesnake motif.

Europe’s tallest statue of the Virgin Mary was consecrated on Saturday in Konotopie, Poland, where around 2,000 worshippers gathered for the Feast of the Assumption. Privately funded by billionaire Roman Karkosik as a votive offering, the project arrives as Poland, a fundamentally deeply Christian country, wrestles with secularization and declining Catholic practice.

‘Because the politics of a non-sovereign country, per definitionem, functions differently from that of a sovereign one…a dependent state can never essentially become a true follower or replica of the great power.’

The Spanish Guardia Civil has confirmed that 15 rapes have been registered in Ceuta since the mass invasion from Morocco at the end of July, deepening concerns over security in the enclave. Two suspects who entered during the influx have already been detained in connection with the cases, while at least one has now been ordered expelled to Morocco.

Russia’s growing blockade of Ukrainian shipping in the Black Sea is threatening both Ukraine’s economy and global food security. With more than 90 per cent of Ukrainian agricultural exports passing through Black Sea ports, prolonged disruptions could cause farmers to struggle to find storage for their backed-up goods, break foreign contracts, and put pressure on global food markets.

‘If national continuity is sufficiently real to transmit liabilities from the past, it must also be sufficiently real to transmit assets and obligations into the future. Today’s Europeans did not build most of the cities they live in, create the legal systems they rely on, establish their borders or accumulate all the institutional and cultural capital they possess. They inherited them. Yet neither are they the final owners. Their children will inherit what remains.’

Former Cambridge professor Jason Arday has been found dead at 41, days after resigning amid a major plagiarism scandal and widening scrutiny of his academic record. Police are treating the death as unexpected but not suspicious, while people close to Arday said his mental health had deteriorated sharply under intense public criticism in the final days of his life.

Antal-Ferencz Ildikó spent three years in the USA with her family, where they soon became active members of the local Hungarian communities. The many personal encounters resulted in several interview books, the essence of which is a compilation featuring 45 portraits that covers not only the past and present of the Hungarian diaspora in the USA, but also helps predict its future.

Hungary has awarded three new hydrocarbon exploration concessions to state-owned MVM and energy giant MOL as Budapest seeks to strengthen domestic energy production and reduce reliance on foreign supplies. The winning companies will be able to explore for and produce oil and natural gas for at least 20 years.

This year’s Sziget Festival has attracted visitors from 112 countries across all six inhabited continents, with foreigners accounting for around half of the audience. The event has also drawn journalists from more than 40 countries and hundreds of international media outlets.

A Moroccan migrant who entered Ceuta during the mass invasion was reportedly arrested over the alleged street rape of a ‘young Moroccan woman’. While local media reports contradict one another over the case, a pattern of sexual violence is already clear in the Spanish enclave, with courts proceeding in at least six rape cases involving three Moroccan suspects and minor victims.