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The Venezuelan poster-boy conductor is due to become artistic and music director of the New York Philharmonic in eight months’ time. The position has the highest profile of any US orchestral position. Dudamel, who turns 45 this month, has held close links with successive governments in Caracas. Today, United States forces swooped to capture the corrupt Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, with whom Dudamel has had an on-off and latterly on again relationship. Dudamel led European tours of the regime’s showcase El Sistema orchestra in 2025. He has maintained that his loyalty is to the Sistema organisation and not to its...

PARIS (AP) – Three men will stand trial next year after a silver steward employed at the official residence of the French president was arrested this week for the theft of items of silverware and table service worth thousands of euros, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. The Élysée Palace’s head steward reported the disappearance, with the estimated loss ranging between 15,000 and 40,000 euros (($17,500-$47,000). The Sèvres Manufactory – which supplied most of the furnishings – identified several of the missing items on online auction websites. Questioning of Élysée staff led investigators to suspect one of the silver stewards, whose...

Tens of thousands rallied in Paris on Saturday to show support for Palestinians in Gaza, as protesters accused Israel of violating a fragile US-brokered ceasefire and demanded tougher international action amid soaring death tolls and ongoing restrictions on aid. Gaza’s health ministry, run by Hamas, said Saturday that more than 70,000 people have been killed since the war began. “Gaza, Gaza, Paris is with you.” Marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, tens of thousands of people, according to organizers, marched in Paris on Saturday to show support for Palestinians in Gaza, devastated by more than two...

Our biggest flashmob ever.. Together with Violin Phonix we gathered 100 musicians to perform a new orchestral version of Carol of the Bells for the inauguration of the Christmas Lights of the Comité du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in the heart of Paris, with the amazing sound of Devialet!

Embedded video linked to X Pro-Palestinian protesters attempted to firebomb a concert by the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra in Paris on Thursday night. During the performance, which was held at the prestigious Philharmonic Hall in Paris, dozens of protesters broke into the hall, chanted anti-Israel slogans and lit flares. The music was stopped and the musicians began to leave the stage. A post published by the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University read: "Pro-Palestinian protesters firebombed a concert and the musicians were removed from the stage. After the matter was resolved, the they were brought back on stage to...

If you’ve been watching the non-technology news for the last couple of weeks… well first of all, I’m sorry. But you might have noticed that one of the most brazen robberies in recent memory happened at the legendary Louvre museum in Paris, where thieves made off with centuries-old crown jewels that have yet to be recovered. According to a security investigation, the password for video surveillance system was “Louvre,” which is basically one step above “password.” Maybe this was less a jewel heist for the ages and more of a Hackers cosplay attempt. Safe, non-guessable passwords are kind of a...

The two Michigan men charged with plotting an ISIS-inspired terror attack had been scouting LGBTQ-friendly bars in a Detroit suburb and talked of copying the 2015 Paris attacks that killed 130 people, according to a 72-page criminal complaint unsealed in federal court Monday. The document names Mohmed Ali, of Dearborn, and Majed Mahmoud as conspiring to unleash a mass shooting attack on Halloween night — a fiendish plot the suspects codenamed “pumpkin,” according to prosecutors. Investigators tracked the men via their phone movements, which saw them travel to an area of Ferndale known for its bars and restaurants, many of...

A 38-year-old woman has been charged with complicity in organised theft and criminal conspiracy with a view to committing a crime. Separately, a man, aged 37, was charged with theft and criminal conspiracy. Both denied any involvement.Two men who had previously been arrested were already charged with theft and criminal conspiracy after officials said they had "partially recognised" their involvement in the heist...Four men carried out the lightning-quick daylight theft.Two of the alleged thieves -- who had been arrested earlier -- later admitted their involvement...The magistrate later ruled that the woman -- who has not been named -- must stay...

Two men who allegedly stole $100 million worth of France’s crown jewels during a daring daytime heist at the Louvre Museum were arrested on Saturday night — as one suspect was captured trying to flee the country. One of the suspects, who has not been identified, was busted as he was boarding a flight bound for Algeria at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris newspaper Le Parisien reported. The men, from Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburb north of Paris, were detained by police as part of the investigation of “organized gang robbery” and “conspiracy to commit a crime.” Police were tipped off on...

PARIS, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Suspects have been arrested over the brazen jewellery heist at the Louvre, just as one of them was about to fly out of France, the Paris prosecutor said on Sunday.

Europe’s inability and unwillingness to protect its incorporeal cultural cornerstones has now extended to its tangible cultural icons.I write from a quiet, mountainous part of Central Europe. The scenery is idyllic, and the fall air is crisp. But much as the case has been in my other recent trips to the European continent, the sights I see and the conversations I hear are all underscored by a similar haunting concern: Will there even be a Europe, in any cognizable sense of the term, a century from now?All across the continent, fertility rates have plummeted, and the Christianity that defined the...

Is he even real? The internet had many questions after a photo began to circulate.It was, in nearly every way, an ordinary photo distributed by The Associated Press to news media outlets. It showed three policemen leaning against a silver car parked in the courtyard of the Louvre Museum in Paris just hours after the brazen theft of a collection of French crown jewels on Sunday.But then there was the dapper man standing jauntily on the right side of the photo.The officers, the A.P. caption said, were there to block the entrance to the museum. But the man, dressed in...

A Chinese woman has been arrested and charged over the theft of gold from the Natural History Museum in Paris, in one of several recent high-profile break-ins targeting French cultural institutions, a prosecutor said Tuesday. The theft — by what the museum's director at the time said was an "extremely professional team" — took place on Sept. 16, a little over a month before an audacious jewelry heist at the world-famous Louvre museum on Sunday. A 24-year-old Chinese woman was arrested in Barcelona on Sept. 30 over the Natural History Museum break-in and theft of gold worth more than $1...

PARIS — Following Sunday's theft of artifacts valued at $102 million, the Louvre updated its security system to include a second generation indoor Ring camera. "It automatically records when it detects motion and I can access all the footage from the app. It's a huge step forward for our security," said Louvre President-Director Gerard des Carre. "It's so cool." At the time of the theft, the Louvre had relied on an old lock from the 1700s and a French bulldog named Terry for security. Sadly, it didn't have a Ring camera, which experts believe would have prevented the theft...

The Louvre failed to spot a gang of thieves early enough to stop the theft of €88m (£76m) worth of French crown jewels, the museum's director has revealed. Laurence des Cars, speaking publicly for the first time since the heist on Sunday, told French senators that CCTV around the Louvre's perimeter was weak and "aging". The only camera monitoring the exterior wall of the Louvre where they broke in was pointing away from the first-floor balcony that led to Gallery of Apollo housing the jewels, she said. "We failed these jewels," she said, adding that no-one was protected from...

History has been made! Over the weekend, a crew of thieves rolled up to the famous Paris museum IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, used a crane to get inside, used chainsaws to cut through protective cases, and stole nine priceless treasures. One, the gold crown of Empress Eugénie seen in the video below, was discarded and found later by police. To make matters worse, it's not even the only heist from a major Paris museum that's made headlines this week. A Chinese woman has been charged with stealing gold nuggets on September 16th from the city's National Museum of Natural History. That...

One of Europe’s crown jewels, a centuries-old relic of irreplaceable artistic and historical import, has fallen into the hands of vandals intent on abusing it for their own selfish gain. I’m not talking about the heist at the Louvre over the weekend, in which thieves broke into the most famous art museum in the world and stole nine items from a collection of priceless treasures that once belonged to French royals of no less significance than Napoleon Bonaparte. I’m talking about the plunder of Canterbury Cathedral, in which a church founded by St. Augustine of Canterbury and famed as the...

It took only a few minutes for thieves to execute a brazen daylight heist at the famed Louvre Museum in Paris on Sunday morning, coming away with jewels of “inestimable value” that had once belonged to Napoleon and his empresses.The Louvre, which is the world's most visited museum with 8.7 million visitors in 2024 alone, was closed for the day as police investigated how the robbers were able to carry out the most high-profile theft in modern French history."The theft committed at the Louvre is an attack on a heritage that we cherish because it is our History," President Emmanuel...

The blame game and finger pointing following Sunday’s heist at the Louvre Museum kicked off almost as quickly as the seven-minute robbery itself. France’s far right was quick to assign fault to President Emmanuel Macron and his allies for the brazen, broad-daylight theft of the French crown jewels, accusing them of being soft on crime and failing to sufficiently protect the nation’s heritage. MEP Marion Maréchal proposed eliminating the €200 cultural vouchers offered to French high school students, a measure put in place under Macron, and redirecting those funds toward protecting France’s “national treasures.” She later called France the “laughingstock...

Authorities say the Empress Eugénie Brooch was among the stolen itemsIt is the most spectacular robbery at the Louvre museum since the Mona Lisa disappeared in 1911.And it poses serious questions about levels of security covering French artworks, at a time when they are increasingly being targeted by criminal gangs.According to France's new interior minister Laurent Nuñez, the gang that broke into the Apollo Gallery on Sunday morning was clearly professional.They knew what they wanted, had evidently "cased the joint" in advance, had a brazenly simple but effective modus operandi, and needed no more than seven minutes to take their...