Author: France 24

The 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico is on track to be the most expensive one ever for match-going fans. The cheapest general sale tickets for the final are four times as expensive as they were for the final in Qatar in 2022, and represent only a small proportion of total seats. We look at the reasons for this surge in prices. Also in this edition: solar power overtakes coal in the US, in spite of Donald Trump’s policies. 

The Pope visits Segrada Familia during his trip to Barcelona, the 2026 football World Cup kicks off in Mexico city, and the White House prepares for its first cage fight showdown. FRANCE 24 looks back at some of the week’s most striking images.

Iran’s ⁠top ​negotiator on Sunday questioned the United States willingness to fulfill its commitments after Israel ​attacked ⁠Beirut’s southern suburbs. In a post on X, Baqer Qalibaf referred to the ongoing peace negotiations between Tehran and Washington and warned that “if you lack the will and ability to fulfill your commitments, speaking of continuing the path is not possible”. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates.

Jalen Brunson scored 45 points as the New York Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 on Saturday to clinch their first NBA championship in 53 years. The Knicks sealed the best-of-seven NBA Finals 4-1, taking down French star Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs on their home court to capture their first title since 1973.

As the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off in Mexico this Thursday, we take a look at the tournament’s expected economic impact – both globally and on host countries. But the real winner, it seems, is FIFA, with record revenues forecast at $11 billion. Also in this edition, markets react to a fresh flare-up in violence in the Strait of Hormuz, and SpaceX faces a lawsuit from an environmental group ahead of its blockbuster market debut this Friday.

British artist David Hockney, who died at the age of 88 on Thursday, fell in love with the French countryside in the last few years of his life. He settled in Normandy in 2019, where he lived during the Covid-19 lockdown and was able to rededicate himself to nature over a year of solitude.

Israeli and Palestinian civil society groups appealed to the international community in France on Friday to keep pursuing a two-state solution, warning that the window for peace is narrowing. The call came as world powers gathered amid mounting concern over settlement expansion and violence in the occupied West Bank.

Team USA made a commanding statement in their World Cup campaign, defeating Paraguay 4-1 in their Group D opener at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. Despite a late Paraguayan rally, the co-hosts’ attacking prowess proved too much for La Albirroja, with Folarin Balogun scoring twice to set the tone.

Genie Godula is pleased to welcome Dr. Hypolite Muhindo Mavoko, M.D., Professor in the Department of Tropical Medicine at the University of Kinshasa. Dr. Mavoko offers a sobering analysis of the latest Ebola outbreak linked to the rare Bundibugyo strain in the eastern DR Congo. He places the crisis within a longer epidemiological history, reminding viewers that it was first identified in Uganda in 2007 before appearing in the DRC in 2012. He warns that “the body can still continue transmitting the disease” even after death, underscoring how burial practices may unintentionally accelerate contagion. Yet beyond the virology, he offers…

A senior figure in the Ukrainian defence industry has said that a test took place two years ago involving fully autonomous drones set to destroy anything in a given area, with confirmed casualties, according to a report in New Scientist. Speaking on FRANCE 24, Mariarosaria Taddeo, Professor of Digital Ethics and Defence Technologies at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, explains that these systems “are fully indiscriminate; whether the system sees a combatant, a child, an old person, it won’t be able or won’t be designed to discriminate, so civilians are going to be put in harm’s way”.