Author: DW

Alessandro “Alex” Zanardi, a decorated Italian race driver and later para-cyclist, has died suddenly at the age of 59, his family said in a statement on Saturday.  “Alex fell asleep peacefully, surrounded by the affection of his loved ones,” the statement said. The family didn’t go into details on the cause of death, but the double amputee suffered severe cranial injuries in a road accident when riding his handbike in Siena in northern Italy in 2020.  Zanardi won six Paralympic medals and continued to race cars even after losing his legs Image: Mauro Ujetto/NurPhoto/picture alliance Who was Alex Zanardi?  Zanardi was…

Actors created with artificial intelligence will not be eligible for an Oscar, said the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday introducing new rules for the awards. The governing body of the Oscar Awards clarified that acting performances and screenplays must be created by humans, while allowing the use of artificial intelligence tools. The new rules primarily concern: AI-created actors Screenplays written using AI International films category Multiple nominations for actors in the same category Actors created using AI Under the updated guidelines, only roles “demonstrably performed by humans with their consent” will be eligible for acting awards,…

“We’ve been preparing for exactly this moment,” German-Venezuelan businessman Thilo Schmitz tells DW. “I’m certain that we’ll do very good business over the next five years,” the 59-year-old Caracas-born entreprenur predicts. By “this moment” he means the Venezuela’s reopening after years of decline. Venezuela has been changing rapidly since United States special forces abductedVenezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3. Although interim President Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s former deputy, continues to handle official business, Schmitz is convinced the US is pulling the strings. “On an economic level, the Americans are calling all the shots,” Schmitz said.Venezuelan acting president Delcy Rodriguez recently met US Interior…

Strolling out to Notorious B.I.G.’s Hypnotize for his matches, Hossein Vafaei looks right at home on snooker’s biggest stage.  It’s been a long time coming.  For years, diplomatic red tape stalled his career, but he’s now making up for lost time at the age of 31.  At the 2026 World Snooker Championship in Sheffield, England, he became the first Iranian to reach the quarterfinals of the sport’s top tournament, stunning world No.1 Judd Trump along the way before bowing out on Wednesday.  “I wasn’t nervous, I enjoyed every moment. I was born for these kinds of situations,” he said.  “I’m looking forward…

Germany’s flagship carrier Lufthansa said on Friday it had found an Oscar statuette belonging to Pavel Talankin, the Russian director who won best documentary this year for “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” which had been lost while he flew with the airline from New York to Frankfurt on Thursday. Lufthansa offered its “regret” over the incident, saying it had embarked on an internal search “with the utmost care and urgency” to recover the Oscar. Hours later, the airline issued a new statement saying that “we can confirm that the Oscar statuette is now in our care in Frankfurt” and it was going to…

“The catalyst was about mid-2024,” said Stephanie Wilks-Wiffen from eToro, an online broker. That was when she read the annual Boring Money report, which showed that the gender investment gap had widened in the United Kingdom, with men making up almost 60% of investors. That inspired eToro to start developing its Loud Investing campaign, which aims to educate and empower women to invest. Launched in October 2025, it isn’t the only initiative targeting women investors, by far. Wilks-Wiffen has noticed a rise in female-led initiatives over the past six to 12 months across the industry. Online brokers are launching new brand campaigns, producing “female…

It’s one of the first warm days of the year. The first harbingers of spring are cautiously poking their heads out of the ground, the cappuccino in the street cafe tastes of new beginnings. Winter seems to be over. Everything seems easier — if only it weren’t for that one feeling that seems to plague many people (at least in the German-speaking countries) every year: spring fatigue. In German, spring fatigue is known as Frühjahrsmüdigkeit. But — and this may be good news for some — researchers from the University of Basel and the University Hospital of Bern in Switzerland say…

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), confirmed on Thursday that it will be cutting funding for its breakaway LIV Golf tour at the end of the current golf season, citing a change in investment strategy and “current macro dynamics” amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The PIF launched LIV Golf in 2022 as a rival to the established US PGA Tour, which has organized professional golf across North America since 1968. It followed similar billion-dollar Saudi sports investments across Formula 1, boxing, snooker, tennis, e-sports and football, with PIF purchasing a majority stake in Premier…

While they’re not representative, comments like these have been increasingly popping up on DW’s social media accounts when the posts concern the United States: “Should we really be interested in what’s happening in the US? (…) Please, DW, stop fixating on everything American,” or “It might be worth mentioning that Europeans — and actually, the whole world — are currently suffering from ‘America fatigue.'” Long seen as land of promise For decades, the US and the American Way of Life held a special promise for young people around the world. Take Germany as an example: After the end of World…

The dramatic rise in energy prices in the wake of the Iran war has led to calls for the European Union to introduce a so-called windfall tax on oil and gas companies, to use some of their profits to help governments fund relief schemes. Earlier this month, the finance and economy ministers of Austria, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain wrote a joint letter to EU Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, asking for such a levy. They wrote that it would “send a clear message that those who profit from the consequences of the ​war must do their…