Author: DW

The dual Hollywood strikes — writers’ and actors’ — threw a wrench into 2023’s movie schedule. Many of the biggest and most-anticipated films were delayed, postponed, or had their releases pushed to 2024. But the wait is nearly over. The film famine of 2023 is set to give way to a feast for cinema fans, with a year jam-packed with blockbusters and hotly-anticipated arthouse dramas. Here are some of the biggest, and best, films to watch out for in the coming year.  ‘Dune: Part 2’ The second half of Denis Villeneuve’s ambitious adaptation of the Frank Herbert sci-fi classic was one…

Robin Smiciklas is about to tee off. With his spikes dug into the fairway, he takes aim at the green. A brief moment of calm to collect himself. Then his left arm twitches. Once. Twice. Then even more violently a third time. Smiciklas just lets it happen. His concentration seems unbroken. Moments later, he sends the ball on its way down the fairway with a textbook drive. “It’s often the case that a few more tics just have to come out,” he tells DW. “It took me a few years to get to the point where neither that nor what…

A man has been discovered hidden in the landing gear compartment of a commercial aircraft that flew into Paris from Algeria. The man was found alive in the undercarriage bay during technical checks after the Air Algerie flight from Oran, Algeria, landed at Paris Orly airport on Thursday. An airport source told French news agency AFP that the man “was alive but in a life-threatening condition because of severe hypothermia” after the two-and-a-half-hour flight. He is believed to be in his 20s but had no ID on him, and was taken to a nearby hospital in a serious condition, the…

Signa Prime Selection AG, a key subsidiary of the now insolvent Austrian Signa Holding that owns prestigious real estate in Germany, filed for bankruptcy on Thursday. The company announced that it had filed for debtor-in-possession reorganization proceedings with the Vienna Commercial Court. It said the Signa Development Selection AG would follow suit on Friday. “The aim is the organized continuation of business operations within the framework of self-administration and the sustainable restructuring of the company,” the company said in a press release. The online sporting goods division Signa Sports United had already filed for insolvency in October, while Signa Holding itself and several smaller subsidiaries announced…

Mexico and the United States have agreed to strengthen efforts to regulate migration, officials said on Thursday. The two countries’ governments issued a joint statement after Mexican President Andres Lopez Obrador, received top US officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Security of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. Blinken’s visit came as the Republican Party, which holds a majority of seats in the lower house of Congress, demanded US President Joe Biden crack down on irregular migrants in return for approval for a Ukraine aid package. Obrador says US agrees to keep crossings open Mexico’s president told reporters that the US had…

A man was trapped inside his crashed pickup truck for six days, drinking rainwater to survive, before fisherman finally spotted and rescued him, Indiana police have said.The 27-year-old man had been pinned tightly inside his car beneath a highway bridge in northwest Indiana, and could not reach his phone. Two men scouting for fishing spots on Tuesday afternoon noticed the smashed up vehicle with its opened white airbag, and decided to investigate inside, police told reporters.”They touched the body, and the person turned their head and started talking to them. So, that got a little rise out of them,” Sergeant…

The Russian and the US space agencies have agreed to cooperate on jointly sending crews to the International Space Station (ISS) until at least 2025, according to the Russian agency, Roscosmos. The so-called cross-flights — which involve sending one US astronaut as part of the crew of a Russian spacecraft and one Russian cosmonaut as part of an American crew — were extended “to maintain the reliability of the ISS operation,” Roscosmos said. Rare US-Russian cooperation The space sector is one of the few areas remaining in which Moscow and Washington have continued to work together since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine…

Anton Bodner was relieved when it snowed heavily in Kitzbühel, Austria, just in time for the start of the ski season. “This has taken a lot of pressure off,” said the CEO of Bergbahn AG Kitzbühel, which operates 57 lifts around the small Austrian ski resort town. When there’s snow, the lifts transport about 1.5 million tourists each winter. “This year, nature gifted us this good start to the season,” said Bodner. “One which we haven’t had for a long time.” Despite the strong start of the ski season in Kitzbühel, the consequences of climate change are clear to see in…

Regardless of who is winning, losing or playing, the major narratives in German football are often attributed to Kopfsache – literally translated as a “mind matter.” About 5% of athletes in elite sports suffer from depression, roughly in line with the general population. German football is already extremely aware of mental illnesses like depression after the tragic death of Robert Enke in 2009, so how is the current sports psychology system in Germany faring? In September, Rene Paasch, one of Germany’s most prominent sports psychologists, suggested the role was in need of a “paradigm shift” because “outdated thought patterns and approaches” had left little room for…

Jacques Delors, a former head of the European Commission and key figure in the creation of the euro currency, died in his sleep in his Paris home at the age of 98, his family announced on Wednesday. Marked by World War II and its horrors, the generation Delors grew up in developed a creative, formative determination — a determination that drove Delors, as president of the European Commission from 1985 to 1995, to lay the foundations of the modern EU. Within half a year of taking office in January 1985, Delors presented his masterpiece, the White Paper on the Completion of…