Author: France 24

Both Meta Platforms and Microsoft shared their latest quarterly results on Wednesday and showed they are still planning on sustained spending on artificial intelligence. Similarly, Telsa posted a drop in annual revenue for the first time in its history and announced a shift away from electric vehicles and towards AI and robotics. Meanwhile, hardware providers like Samsung Electronics are fuelling the boom in AI, and reaping the benefits.

This week on Paris des Arts, singer Faudel makes his long-awaited comeback. Once crowned the “little prince of Raï”, the Algerian folk icon returns to the spotlight with his nostalgic 2000s tour “I Gotta Feeling”. He also takes us inside “Tenter l’art pour soigner” at the Arab World Institute – an exhibition exploring art as healing through archives and ceramics from an Algerian hospital that broke with colonial psychiatry in the late 1960s.

The Syrian government ⁠and US-backed Kurdish forces have declared an integration deal.The agreement comes after government forces captured swathes of northern and eastern Syria from the Kurds this month, forcing them to retreat into a shrinking enclave. Under the agreement, ​forces will withdraw from the front lines, ‌government units will deploy ‍to the centres of Hasakahand Qamishli, and local security forces ‍will be merged.

Olympique Lyonnais clinched top spot in the Europa League with a 4-2 home win over PAOK on Thursday, while AS Roma squeezed into eighth and direct qualification for the last 16. Lyon recovered from an early goal and a red card to PAOK, while Roma endured a nervy night after Gianluca Mancini was sent off early.

A Buddhist monk influencer has amassed millions of followers on social media, sharing spiritual guidance videos and selling e-books on healing. The catch is, he’s AI-generated. Vedika Bahl explains in Truth or Fake.

Nearly 1.5 million kilometres of submarine cables criss-cross the globe. The infrastructure is key for both national security and economic stability. But an uptick in disruptions – notably in the Baltic Sea – has focused attention on the need to safeguard these networks. While many of the outages appear accidental, some can be attributed to sabotage by state-sponsored actors. 

As protests over the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents sweep the US, the outrage has spilled into the cultural world – reaching the red carpets of the Sundance Film Festival and igniting fierce criticism of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement policies. At Sundance, stars including Natalie Portman and Elijah Wood donned “ICE OUT” pins and joined calls for justice following the deaths of Pretti and Renee Good at the hands of ICE and Border Patrol agents.

For Gazans, the Rafah border crossing to Egypt is their gateway to the world. But since Israel seized it in May 2024, it has been largely shut. Now, as part of the second phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire plan, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the crossing will reopen soon, raising hopes for thousands of war-wounded Palestinians seeking medical care abroad, and for tens of thousands of people outside Gaza seeking to return home.

The final day of the Champions League kicks off on Wednesday, with 18 games taking place simultaneously. Paris Saint-Germain are currently in sixth place, while Newcastle are in seventh. 

The US Federal Reserve has defied pressure from President Donald Trump, by holding interest rates steady. The policy announcement was partly overshadowed by ongoing tensions with the administration. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell – who is facing a criminal probe he describes as politically motivated – insisted the central bank would maintain its independence. Also in the show – the US dollar slides to its lowest level in four years, and Paris Fashion Week deals with the rise of ultra fast fashion.