French Bakeries Struggle as Iran War Spikes Oil Prices: ‘It’s Catastrophic’

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As the lights of their small bakery flicker on in the early morning darkness, Kevin and Sandrine Luce’s oven is already cranked up to 270 degrees Celsius (518 degrees Fahrenheit) to give their latest batch of baguettes a crunchy crust.

When the couple first fired up the oven in their store in Saint-Just-en-Chaussée, a small town about 90 kilometers (55 miles) north of Paris, in March, they paid 2,230 euros ($2,540) for 2,000 liters (528 gallons) of the heating oil that it burns. Last week, they spent almost the same amount on just 1,200 liters (317 gallons).

Fuel prices that have spiked since the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28 are dealing a hard blow to the couple and other small businesses across Europe.

“Originally, it was a good deal, because initially, a fuel-heated oven is more economical than an electric one,” Kevin Luce said. “That is until the price (of fuel) increased by 50%. So, yes, now it’s not a good deal.”

The Luces aren’t alone. There are more than 34,000 bakers across France churning out around 6 billion baguettes each year, according to the national federation of bakeries and patisseries, which says that about one quarter of them use oil- or gas-fired ovens. (Read more from “French Bakeries Struggle as Iran War Spikes Oil Prices: ‘It’s Catastrophic’” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Iran Ready for ‘Doomsday War’ after Trump Rejects Cease-Fire Proposal — but Still Wants Peace: Tehran Negotiator

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Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi insisted that his country is fully prepared for a “doomsday war” with the US, but claimed the regime prefers peace.

“We stand firm in the face of any aggression against us, even when it comes to a doomsday war,” Araghchi told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “At the same time, we are ready for diplomacy.”

Araghchi pointed to Iran’s seven-day cease-fire proposal as a “very reasonable plan on the table,” despite President Trump’s decision to reject that overture.

The proposal purportedly entailed the US unfreezing some $12 billion in frozen Iranian assets, ending the blockade, and easing sanctions in exchange for a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump argued that the proposal wasn’t acceptable, and top administration officials contended that it asked the US to make too many concessions up front. (Read more from “Iran Ready for ‘Doomsday War’ after Trump Rejects Cease-Fire Proposal — but Still Wants Peace: Tehran Negotiator” HERE)

Round 2 of NYC’s Nor’easter Hits After Tree Falls on Two Young Kids and Leaves Surreal Scenes

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The nor’easter took the Big Apple by storm — again.

A 1-year-old boy and 7-year-old girl were among four people hurt by a falling tree in Brooklyn, it surfaced Sunday — as round two of the region’s deadly weekend storm battered the city.

The wet-and-wild storm sent hapless ocean fish swimming through driveways and hungry seagulls diving for dinner in city streets — while prompting a waterlogged NYPD cop to deem it the worst flooding in his Queens neighborhood since 2012’s Hurricane Sandy.

“I mean, there’s horseshoe crabs all the way here up to Broad Channel Drive,” said rubber-boot-wearing off-duty Officer Matt Langdon, 48, standing in the water pooled outside his Beach 84th Street house.

“I moved here to Far Rockaway when I was 10, and this is the worst it’s been since Sandy.”

“Our crawl space is flooded up to the joists,” the cop told The Post on Sunday. “At its highest, it was coming up to my thigh, it was 2-and-a-half-feet deep at my house. My kids are stuck in the house.” (Read more from “Round 2 of NYC’s Nor’easter Hits After Tree Falls on Two Young Kids and Leaves Surreal Scenes” HERE)

Finland and Sweden Scramble Fighter Jets Together Against Russia in Historic First

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Finnish and Swedish fighter jets scrambled for the first time on Sept. 24 to intercept supersonic Russian military aircraft flying over the Gulf of Finland, marking a major milestone in Nordic defense cooperation amid heightened tensions with Moscow.

The mission also came one day before Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed European warnings about the threat from Moscow in the region and mocked Estonia’s new defense minister over the Baltic state’s preparations for a potential Russian attack.

Finnish F/A-18 Hornets and Swedish JAS 39 Gripens were scrambled after Russian aircraft were detected in the international airspace, according to the Swedish Armed Forces.

The Russian formation included a Tu-134 transport plane, a high-altitude, supersonic MiG-31 interceptor designed to detect and engage long-range threats; and Su-30 multirole fighter jets which are designed for air-to-air and air-to-ground combat.

“This is what close cooperation looks like in practice,” Maj. Gen. Jonas Wikman, commander of the Swedish Air Force, said in a statement following the joint operation. (Read more from “Finland and Sweden Scramble Fighter Jets Together Against Russia in Historic First” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

Pope Leo Takes On Assisted Death, Secularism, Education In Blunt Message To French Establishment

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Pope Leo XIV has used his apostolic visit to France, running from September 25-28, 2026 to discuss abortion, euthanasia, surrogacy and the place of Catholic schools in a once staunchly Catholic, but not officially secular country.

The pope’s trip is unfolding amid French President Emmanuel Macron’s progressive government which enshrined abortion in the Constitution in 2024 and recently passed legislation legalizing assisted death. Pope Leo addressed some of the underlying questions on these issues while invoking Catholic teaching.

While at the Elysee Palace in Paris Friday, the American pope, whose grandmother was French, delivered his speech in the country’s native tongue. He remarked that modern society often expects science to eliminate or alleviate every form of suffering, a hope that “often brings the risk of self-delusion.”

When science and technology lack deeper wisdom, he said, they can offer “immediate solutions that apparently address people’s wishes and their pain” yet fail to serve the greater good. He then voiced specific concern about trends that turn scientific advances into profit-driven enterprises, citing genetic manipulation, surrogacy, the trade in human organs and “the possibility of arranging one’s own death.”

The Pope noted that mutual respect and the protection of every human life remain duties binding on all. Later, at UNESCO headquarters, he reinforced the point by stating that “the human person is someone who is conceived and born.” (Read more from “Pope Leo Takes On Assisted Death, Secularism, Education In Blunt Message To French Establishment” HERE)

Mojtaba Khamenei had to be ‘Pulled from the Rubble’ of Hospital after US Strikes Nearly Killed Him a Second Time: Report

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. . .Mojtaba Khamenei was rushed to a Tehran hospital after the February strikes targeting his father nearly killed him, only to be “pulled from the rubble” again after the United States and Israel bombed the medical center, an Iranian cleric revealed in an interview with Qatari television this week.

After obliterating Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s Tehran compound — which killed the 86-year-old supreme leader and dozens of his top leaders — the allies also reportedly bombed three different hospitals in Tehran on Feb. 28 to launch the war.

The younger Khamenei, 56, was pulled from underneath the rubble of one of the hospitals, before going vanishing to an unknown location — and has not been seen in public or his voice heard since.

“Even after he had been wounded and taken to the hospital, three hospitals in Tehran were bombed,” Mohsen Heydari, a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, told Qatari television network Al Araby Thursday.

“Mojtaba Khamenei was in the third hospital and was pulled from the rubble.” (Read more from “Mojtaba Khamenei had to be ‘Pulled from the Rubble’ of Hospital after US Strikes Nearly Killed Him a Second Time: Report” HERE)

A Google Employee Said He Quit Because He’s Worried about Superintelligent AI

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A Google employee said he resigned from the company, citing the pursuit of powerful artificial intelligence as “inherently irresponsible.”

Robert O’Callahan, who worked at Google DeepMind, wrote in an X post that his team was developing chips to make AI faster and cheaper and that he believed AI was already “progressing too fast.”

He shared a resignation letter on his personal blog that he said he sent to colleagues on Friday, in which he wrote that he couldn’t “turn a blind eye” to the impact of his work because it “would not be a Jesus-following thing to do.” He describes himself as a Christian in his blog’s bio.

“This has not been an easy decision. I love my colleagues and my work environment, and being paid handsomely to solve fun puzzles has been amazing,” he wrote. “But my team’s goal is ultimately to make AI much cheaper and lower-latency, and I don’t think that’s good for people right now: I firmly believe AI progress is currently far too rapid (and I have doubts about the destination too).”

Business Insider could not establish how long O’Callahan, who says he is based in New Zealand, worked for Google. Approached for comment, O’Callahan referred Business Insider to the blog post. Google declined to comment.

O’Callahan joins a string of employees from AI companies who have either quit over safety concerns or sounded the alarm from within. (Read more from “A Google Employee Said He Quit Because He’s Worried about Superintelligent AI” HERE)

The Surprising Way Girls and Boys Behave Differently just Hours After Birth

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It’s an age-old question: How much of the differences between the way men and women behave are a result of nature, and how much is nurture?

A new study could shed more light on this. It shows different behavior between newborn boys and girls could appear just hours after birth.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge believe forces at work before birth — like sex hormone levels, might play a role, or even that the changes are a result of a slightly faster cognitive development in newborn girls.

They showed newborns — only about 33 hours old — two videos. One was a human face, the other, an animated Newton’s cradle (swinging metallic spheres).

Both sexes spent slightly longer looking at the face than at the Newton’s cradle. But researchers found that girls spent proportionally more of their looking time on the face than boys did. (Read more from “The Surprising Way Girls and Boys Behave Differently just Hours After Birth” HERE)

UN adds Over 60 Companies to Israel Blacklist

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The United Nations’ human rights office added 61 companies to a blacklist of businesses with activities in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, in an annual report released on Friday.

The Database of Business Enterprises now holds details on 214 companies, based in 11 countries, including major operations like Motorola, along with travel apps such as Airbnb, Booking.com and Tripadvisor. Five entities were removed since last year’s publication.

The blacklist is issued by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

It was created in 2020 under a UN Human Rights Council resolution mandate during the tenure of Michelle Bachelet, who dropped out of the race for UN secretary-general on Sept. 19, 2026, after the former Chilean president received the support of only one of the 15 UN Security Council members.

“This is a distorted mechanism—created by a deeply flawed body with an automatic majority against Israel. It was established solely to persecute the Jewish state, with no equivalent anywhere else in the world,” the Israeli mission to the UN in Geneva said in a statement. (Read more from “UN adds Over 60 Companies to Israel Blacklist” HERE)

Trump And Xi Found One Thing In Common On AI

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President Donald Trump’s biggest takeaway on artificial intelligence from his meeting with Chinese leadership was a new name for the technology.

Chinese President Xi Jinping “seemed to like” renaming artificial intelligence to “Super Intelligence” during the leaders’ Thursday summit at the White House, where they discussed the technology, the president said in a Friday Truth Social post. State Department staff were instructed to use the new term after Trump announced the change on Tuesday at the United Nations General Assembly, the Hill reported.

“Very productive meeting with President Xi for both the U.S.A. and China. Tremendous things will be happening,” the president said in a Friday morning Truth Social post. “Like almost everyone else, he seemed to like calling the poorly and inaccurately named Artificial Intelligence to a far more accurate and important name, SUPER INTELLIGENCE. That would be ‘SUPER!’ Everyone last night agreed, also.”

However, Xi did not use the term “Super Intelligence” when he spoke about the technology on Thursday.“We have both the capability and responsibility to develop and manage AI for good, and ensure that the development of AI is always under human control and serves the well-being of the people,” Xi said, according to the Hill. (Read more from “Trump And Xi Found One Thing In Common On AI” HERE)