A viral image of an old couple in their underwear after apparently being mugged and stripped of their clothes in Paris has been confirmed as being created using AI.
This article covers world events on Monday (Australia time). For Tuesday’s live updates, click here.
The image, which claimed to be taken on October 17 amid violent protests and lootings across France, was widely shared on social media.
France was reeling Sunday from widespread damage during protests the day before that left a historic town hall torched and led to more than 2000 arrests, piling pressure on President Emmanuel Macron six months before elections to replace him.
It came as France’s interior minister admitted police “lost control” of protests across the nation over the weekend, as mayors demand to know why looters were left to ransack their streets.
Laurent Nunez admitted there was a “lack of anticipation” ahead of the weekend’s violence and offered his resignation to President Emmanuel Macron, saying he “felt responsible for everything that happened”.
US President Donald Trump has blamed lax immigration policies for unrest during violent protests in France over the weekend and urged the country to “close your borders”.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk has promised American children a slice of his space empire, pledging a stock giveaway potentially worth more than $15 billion in Aussie dollars.
“Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America. This will be the first of many,” the world’s first trillionaire posted on X on Monday.
Read on for more updates from Monday
AI image enrages France
A viral image of an old couple in their underwear after apparently being mugged and stripped of their clothes in Paris has been confirmed as being created using AI.
The image, which claimed to be taken on October 17 amid violent protests and lootings across France, was widely shared on social media.
However, French website Liberation, confirmed that the image had either been altered or generated by AI.
Musk promises SpaceX share for every American child
Elon Musk has promised American children a slice of his space empire, pledging a stock giveaway potentially worth more than $15 billion in Aussie dollars.
“Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America. This will be the first of many,” the world’s first trillionaire posted on X on Monday.
Using an estimated 72 million children under 18, Friday’s closing share price and that day’s exchange rate, the pledge would be worth roughly $15.1 billion, or about about $210 per child.
Musk’s post does not explain who would qualify, or how the shares would be distributed.
If he follows through, it would mark one of the biggest wealth transfers by a single individual in history.
The keyword here is “if”.
BBC mocked for calling clearly violent protests 'peaceful'
Britain’s public broadcaster the BBC has been mocked for calling clearly violent protests in France ‘mostly peaceful’, while airing footage of masked looters torching cars.
The British national broadcaster’s Paris correspondent, James Waterhouse, was reporting on the French protests Monday after a weekend of chaos that saw more than 2,400 people arrested across the country.
“In Paris and beyond, half a million people had filled cities across France to protest over the future of their country,” Waterhouse said.
“They were mostly peaceful, but as we saw in the capital, in the wings were those who wanted to take advantage of the disorder.”
“If it were not for social media, we would have no idea what is going on in France. The BBC are still claiming it is ‘mostly peaceful’ …” one X user wrote.
“Mostly peaceful protests is how the BBC described the unrest in France. Another narrative to gaslight millions,” wrote another.
Curfews in France after weekend unrest
French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has given local mayors powers to impose curfews to tackle as a way of tackling unrest after a weekend of violence.
Lecornu said on Monday that a state of emergency could be imposed “if necessary” while adding that curfews were a better solution to the crisis over violent protests.
“I am absolutely determined to restore order,” Lecornu said after a crisis meeting.
“A state of emergency is still a very serious measure, including in terms of its implementation.
“So if it is necessary, of course we could do it. As things stand,however, the issue of curfews, and the implementation of those curfews, seems better suited to the situation we may be facing.”
It is not clear which towns will impose curfews.
Kim 'in coma after suffering brain bleed' - reports
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is in a coma after suffering a brain haemorrhage, according to wild internet claims.
Social media users claim the tyrant was rushed to a Chinese hospital for urgent treatment following the severe bleed.
It is said he was taken out of the country due to the poor medical facilities in Pyongyang.
According to online speculation, Kim was taken to the Peking Union Medical College in Beijing where he underwent emergency treatment.
He was last seen touring a defence museum at an undisclosed location in Pyongyang on October 11.
'Lost control': France minister's damning admission
France’s interior minister has admitted police “lost control” of protests in some cities, as mayors demand to know why looters were left to ransack their streets.
Laurent Nunez admitted there was a “lack of anticipation” ahead of the weekend’s violence and offered his resignation to President Emmanuel Macron, saying he “felt responsible for everything that happened”.
Authorities reported another 350 arrests in Paris on Sunday and into early Monday as the police crackdown expands outwards.
The admission comes as the mayors of Paris, Marseille and Lyon demand an independent inquiry into the police response.
In a joint article for the Liberation publication, Emmanuel Gregoire, Benoit Payan and Grégory Doucet said “entire sections” of their cities had been left unprotected.
They questioned why looting on Saturday “sometimes lasted for more than 30 minutes” without police intervention.
The mayors requested a meeting with Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, funding to repair damaged facilities and dialogue with protesting high school students.
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin also acknowledged failings, arguing security services were better equipped to confront terrorism and organised crime than threats from the far-left.
“We need to know what went wrong,” he told France 2.
“Clearly, it is not tackling the far-left effectively,” he said.
Trump's latest Russia-Iran warning
Iran has dared Donald Trump to launch another attack, warning Washington it has unfinished business of its own after months of debilitating stalemate over the Strait of Hormuz.
“Want to try your luck again? Be our guest. But be careful; we have unfinished jobs too,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X on Sunday.
The taunt is one of hundreds to come from senior Iranian officials this year. But this one comes at a time where the stakes are a little higher.
Trump’s threat of further military action while endorsing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for re-election has lit a new fire under Iranian powerbrokers.
Trump has meanwhile offered a revealing explanation for his softer approach to Moscow in recent weeks, hinting that Russia could be doing considerably more to help Iran.
Defending his decision to hold off on further Russian sanctions while pursuing Ukraine peace negotiations, Trump claimed Moscow was providing Tehran little assistance compared with what it could offer.
“I want to keep it that way, and will, unless stupid people get in the way,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Moscow and Tehran hardly need an introduction. Their 20-year strategic partnership, signed in January 2025, provides for intelligence exchanges, joint military exercises and cooperation across defence, energy and trade.
The US Treasury’s March assessment also says Iran supplied Russia with drones and drone technology, while Moscow offered support for Iranian weapons, intelligence and cyber capabilities.
There is, however, no automatic obligation for Russia to fight on Iran’s behalf. Their treaty requires either country to withhold assistance from an aggressor attacking the other, without promising to enter the conflict itself.
'Absurd': Bernie goes all-out against AI CEOs
Bernie Sanders has accused the billionaires driving the artificial intelligence race of pursuing a future in which humans are replaced, warning humanity cannot leave its fate to the people funding the experiment.
The 2016 presidential candidate stressed that his latest video address would be a heavy one, warning viewers of our current “absurdity” before opening up an eight minute monologue that sounded eerily like something you’d hear from a dystopian sci-fi film.
The video immediately struck a chord with over 80,000 likes and 22,000 shares within a few hours of uploading.
“Are you ready for a discussion about something that is truly crazy?” the US senator began.
“The future of humanity cannot be left in the hands of a handful of big tech oligarchs who are obsessed with money and power.
Safety campaigners and critics of concentrated tech power have been raising these concerns for years. The Future of Life Institute’s widely publicised 2023 appeal for an AI pause explicitly warned against leaving decisions about humanity’s future to unelected technology leaders.
“Should human beings remain in control of planet Earth? Or should we be replaced as the dominant species?” Sanders put to his viewers.
“As insane as these questions may sound, and as obvious as the answers may seem, big tech oligarchs who are funding the artificial intelligence revolution have responded in ways that should scare the hell out of all of us.”
Sanders argued that the ambitions being discussed in Silicon Valley extend far beyond producing useful software.
“In Silicon Valley, some of the richest people on Earth believe that they have the power to create a superior species,” he said.
“Got it? A new species superior to the human race.”
He singled out OpenAI chief Sam Altman’s essay The Merge, which describes merging humans and machines as “probably our best-case scenario”.
Altman also discusses humans becoming a “biological bootloader for digital intelligence” before they “fade into an evolutionary tree branch”. The essay argues for humans and AI being on the same team, rather than competing for dominance. Safety campaigner Roman Yampolskiy has long warned against the pursuit of superintelligence, stressing that no human system could theoretically contain something with that much intellectual horsepower.
“In other words, what Altman is saying is that we either face human extinction or merge with the machines,” Sanders said.
He connected those ideas to transhumanism — the controversial belief that technology could allow people to move beyond humanity’s existing biological limits.
“If these were the fantasies of teenage boys obsessed with science fiction, we could laugh them off,” he said.
“They are not.
“These are the foundational beliefs of some of the most powerful people in the world, who are mobilising trillions of dollars to turn them into reality.”
His objection, like several other AI critics, centres on who gets to make that decision, and whose interests they serve.
“Humanity must not allow a handful of multibillionaires to recklessly attempt to replace us,” he said.
Sanders has proposed legislation seeking to ban artificial superintelligence and pause advanced AI development until a proposed federal regulator establishes safeguards.
“The American people and people throughout the world must determine that future,” he said.
“Human beings, not machines, must come first.”
Trump slams Ukraine again
Donald Trump has lashed out at Ukraine and its leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the under siege nation launched a major drone strike on neighbouring Russia overnight.
Russian authorities claimed to have shot down more than 1000 dones sent across its borders but Ukraine managed to successfully hit an oil facility in St Petersburg.
It came after US President Mr Trump, who recently announced a shock diesel deal with Russia, had called attacks on oil sites a “disgrace”.
He vented his fury on Truth Social on Monday, AEDT, saying such attacks endangered the global oil supply chain and could drive Russia from the negotiating table.
He even claimed his Ukrainian counterpart “doesn’t want this war to end”.
“Farmers, ranchers, and businesses of all kinds are suffering greatly from this, but Russia is, nevertheless, sending, at a low price, millions of barrels of diesel to the World,” he wrote.
“Zelenskyy doesn’t care, and frankly, with all of the money that Europe is famously giving him, and that Crooked Joe Biden gave him in the past, he doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did.
“He could have made a better deal two years ago than he can now. His country is in shambles, a large portion of his land is lost, his oceans and seas are gone, and his male population is low, wounded, and/or dead. I WANT THIS WAR END!”
Sacked Trump press sec wanted disastrous interview
Donald Trump’s short-lived White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia pushed for the disastrous Fox News interviews that led to her sacking after just five days in the role.
Ms Zacharia made two appearances on the news channel last week in what the New York Post reports were attempts to redeem her widely mocked first briefing to the press pack.
But the trainwreck chats with Sean Hannity on Thursday night and “Fox & Friends” on Friday morning have been credited with sealing her fate.
In the interview on Hannity, she appeared to say there had not been enough time to ready herself before the press conference on Tuesday – coming just “eight hours” into the job.
The Post reports text messages obtained by the newspaper showed Ms Zacharia told staffers she would “like to do news hits morning and evening”.
It apparently contradicts reports in Politico that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wilkes may have “sanctioned” a hit on Ms Zacharia by orchestrating the interviews for her.
The White House has denied the latter theory.
Former press secretary and Fox News commentator Kayleigh McEnany believed Ms Zacharia was not given enough time to prepare for the high-stakes role.
“You want to give grace to anyone who takes on that role … How is she doing this 24 hours in? I had about two weeks to prepare and to get thoughts together and to talk to various cabinet administration officials,” she said over the weekend.
“That was pretty much doomed from the start to roll out to the press.”