Participants in Hungary’s 2026 PET Cup collected a record 18.9 tonnes of waste from the floodplains of the Bodrog and Tisza rivers. Organizers said the haul highlights the continued accumulation of waste in hard-to-reach floodplain areas.

A federal judge in Texas has permanently blocked enforcement of Senate Bill 12, ruling that the law restricting sexually explicit performances in the presence of minors violates the First Amendment. Attorney General and Republican Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton has vowed to appeal the decision.

Harry Potter author JK Rowling gave tribute to the recently passed away country music star Dolly Parton—just to have a pro-trans activist turn it into an attack on her.

Balázs Somogyi’s memoir recounts his life from the 1956 Revolution to decades of Hungarian–American community work, offering a personal account of history, identity, friendship and service to the Hungarian diaspora.

The fundraising campaign for Lindsay Clancy’s parents has reached over $1 million. Clancy is currently being tried for the murders of her three children in Massachusetts. GoFundMe, the site hosting the campaign, has banned the fundraisers for Kyle Rittenhouse and the Canadian truckers protesting pandemic restrictions in the past.

Budapest Zoo will reopen on Friday evening for the 15th Night of Zoos, offering animal demonstrations, feeding sessions, educational talks, stage performances and planetarium shows. Visitors will be able to attend programmes from 7pm until 11pm and remain in the zoo until midnight.

Budapest has drawn up plans to renovate Népliget, beginning with the construction of an irrigation system. Mayor Gergely Karácsony said the city was seeking the government’s cooperation in redeveloping the park.

‘The snivelling wokesters will work themselves into a lather over the name. A mature country does not run from its history. A serious country does not vandalize its memory to satisfy the latest fashion in whinger politics,’ Minister of Rail Winston Peters of New Zealand has stated about a new ferry connecting the North and South Islands of New Zealand being named after Captain Cook.

Mothers are declaring ‘Same, Lindsay’ in a bizarre TikTok trend, identifying with Lindsay Clancy’s descriptions of postpartum distress during her trial for killing her three children. The sympathy campaign, which has sparked harsh backlash from conservatives, has gone so far that one woman says she now asks dates whether Clancy should go to jail—and walks out immediately if they answer yes.

The European Network Remembrance and Solidarity is marking the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of All Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes with its 13th ‘Remember. August 23’ campaign. This year, the initiative tells the story of Dr Stefania Perzanowska, who saved prisoners’ lives by establishing a hospital inside the Majdanek concentration camp in 1943.

A dramatic police chase unfolded along the northern shore of Lake Balaton after a Mercedes driver refused to stop for police. Officers fired at the vehicle’s tyres, but the man continued fleeing, ramming several police cars before crashing into a utility pole in Balatonfüred, Hungary.

Nathan Cafnas, the self-described ‘race realist’ researcher who first published the accusations of plagiarism against Jason Arday, has been suspended from his position by Ghent University pending an investigation. He blames the decision on rector Petra De Sutter, who was also the first transgender minister to serve in a European Union country.

‘The actual data tell…that Muslim migrants are disproportionately represented in jihadi terrorism in Europe…Such an implication may be inconvenient for the defenders of open borders, who would prefer to talk about the menace of the far right, but it is nonetheless true.’

A former British police officer has been convicted of sharing a meme mocking Islam, reigniting debate over free speech and Britain’s blasphemy laws. The case has also drawn attention in the US, with Senator Ted Cruz condemning the conviction and declaring on X: ‘No meme is criminal. The UK has fallen.’

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Kristóf Milák led Hungary’s best night of the European Aquatics Championships on Thursday, first breaking the European record to win the 100m butterfly and then delivering a 46.29 anchor split in a historic 4x100m freestyle relay triumph. Hungary took its first European title in the event, already securing three gold medals during the tournament so far.

After winning 1–0 at home, Ferencváros travelled to Zabrze, Poland and got a hard-fought 1–1 tie against Górnik Zabrze. This means that they have advanced 2–1 on aggregate in the UEFA Europa League qualifying; and no matter what happens in the next round against the Turkish club Trabzonspor, they are guaranteed a spot at least in the UEFA Conference League in the fall.

Hubert Kós added the one major 200m backstroke title missing from his collection on Wednesday, winning European gold in Paris to become the reigning European, world and Olympic champion. One day before the final, he had come within 0.38 seconds of breaking Aaron Peirsol’s 2009 world record, prompting Michael Phelps to praise him online.

Nearly one-fifth of Hungary’s music royalty revenues could be at risk by 2028 because of the unregulated expansion of artificial intelligence, according to a new ProArt report. The organization estimates that cumulative losses between 2025 and 2028 could reach 12 billion forints.

Hungary will mark its 20 August national holiday with a three-day programme across Budapest, with events taking place at ten locations. This year’s fireworks display will last 10 minutes, shorter than usual, and the celebrations will cost 4 billion forints.

Seven-year-old William Evans has been found dead and bound in her mother’s home in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her mother and her two trans women lovers are now charged with the murder of the boy, along with child endangerment. According to the detective in charge of the case, the victim was likely tortured before his death.

The Labour government’s plans to distribute asylum seekers more evenly across the United Kingdom have sparked controversy after a former military base near the village of Piddington, home to just 400 people, was selected to house 1,250 migrants. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said wealthier communities must ‘play their part’, while residents fear the impact on their small village.