A major power outage struck southeastern France on Saturday morning, threatening to jeopardize the Cannes Film Festival’s closing celebrations, including the much-anticipated Palme d’Or ceremony.

Police said they have opened an investigation into possible arson.

Power was restored hours before the ceremony, around 3 p.m. local time, as music began blasting again from beachfront speakers. The end of the blackout was greeted with loud cheers from locals.

CAUSE OF MASSIVE EUROPEAN POWER OUTAGE UNCLEAR AS FULL SERVICE RETURNS

Earlier, about 160,000 households in the Alpes-Maritimes department lost electricity after a high-voltage line fell Saturday morning, electricity network operator RTE said on X. The outage came hours after a fire at an electrical substation near Cannes overnight had already weakened the grid.

“We are looking into the likelihood of a fire being started deliberately,” said a police spokesperson for the French national gendarmerie.

In a statement, Laurent Hottiaux, the prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes department, condemned “serious acts of damage to electrical infrastructure[s].”

PUERTO RICO HIT WITH MASSIVE ISLAND-WIDE BLACKOUT AHEAD OF EASTER WEEKEND

Employees stand outside a shop during an electricity outage in Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 24, 2025.  (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

“All resources are mobilized to identify, track down, arrest and bring to justice the perpetrators of these acts,” said Hottiaux.

Cannes Film Festival organizers confirmed the outage affected the early activities of Saturday and said the Palais des Festivals — the Croisette’s main venue — had switched to an independent power supply.

“All scheduled events and screenings, including the Closing Ceremony, will proceed as planned and under normal conditions,” the statement said. “At this stage, the cause of the outage has not yet been identified. Restoration efforts are underway.”

Traffic lights are switched off during an electricity outage in Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly) (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

Traffic lights in parts of Cannes and the surrounding city of Antibes stopped working after 10 a.m., leading to traffic jams and confusion in city centers. Most shops along the Croisette remained closed, and local food kiosks were only accepting cash. Train service in Cannes was also disrupted.

Screenings at the Cineum, one of the festival’s satellite venues, were briefly suspended, the festival added.

The Palme d’Or — the festival’s most prestigious prize — was set to be awarded Saturday night, with top contenders including Joachim Trier’s family drama “Sentimental Value,” Jafar Panahi’s revenge thriller “It Was Just an Accident,” Kleber Mendonça Filho’s political thriller “The Secret Agent,” and Óliver Laxe’s desert road trip “Sirât.”

Hundreds of residents remain in evacuation centres, with 52 rescues made overnight despite conditions easing.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced the start of a cleanup operation in eastern Australia after record-breaking floods killed five people and stranded tens of thousands of people.

Damage assessments are under way for the coastal region of New South Wales in the east, where at least 10,000 properties are thought to have been damaged, the state’s emergency services agency said on Saturday.

Conditions have eased since Friday after days of relentless rain isolated towns, swept away livestock and destroyed homes, the agency added.

“We’re continuing to work closely across federal, state and local governments to make sure Australians get the support they need now and through recovery,” Albanese posted on X.

Despite improving conditions, hundreds of residents remain in evacuation centres with 52 rescues made overnight, State Emergency Services commissioner Mike Wassing said.

The death toll from flooding rose to five after a man in his 80s was found at a flooded property about 50km (32 miles) from Taree, one of the worst-hit towns, police said.

It’s “awful to hear the news of more loss of life”, Albanese said after being forced to cancel his trip to Taree on Friday due to floodwaters.

At their worst, the flooding isolated about 50,000 people and submerged roads in the country’s most populous state.

Coastal areas were left littered with debris and dead animals after a powerful storm system dumped months’ worth of rain in three days.

Train services, including airport services, were affected by flooded tracks. Sydney airport shut two of its three runways for an hour on Friday morning, delaying flights.

Australia has suffered a series of extreme weather events in recent years, which experts have attributed to climate change.

Frequent flooding has caused widespread devastation in the country since early 2021, following droughts and bushfires at the end of the last decade.

The Detroit Pistons won a playoff game this season for the first time since 2008, back when Antonio McDyess led the team in scoring against Kevin Garnett’s Boston Celtics. While the Pistons posted their best attendance numbers in 16 years amid a dramatic business turnaround, the franchise isn’t the only party to benefit financially.

Point guard Cade Cunningham was rewarded with a 2025 All-NBA Third-Team honor Friday, which comes with a $45 million pay raise.

The No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft signed a rookie contract extension last summer that was due to be worth at least 25% of the salary cap (five years, $224 million), with the potential to increase to 30% of the cap (five years, $269 million) if he made an All-NBA team this year.

This type of deal structure dates to the 2011 collective bargaining agreement (CBA), and specifically the “Derrick Rose Rule” (officially named the “5th year, 30% max criteria”). The clause allows a player to re-sign with his current team to earn a salary greater than the typical maximum starting in his fifth season if at least one among a list of criteria is met. One of those criteria is being named to an All-NBA team in the most recent season.

Another way to ink that bonus is to win Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY), which was done by Cleveland Cavaliers forward Evan Mobley, who was selected two picks after Cunningham in 2021. Mobley was also named to an All-NBA team, but he had already locked up his money by winning DPOY.

Bonuses like these are always good for players, but not necessarily so for teams. Cleveland, which is already due to pay the luxury tax next season, might be forced to lose a role player such as Sam Merrill or Ty Jerome after allocating additional millions of dollars to Mobley. Detroit, on the other hand, with at least $10 million in cap space according to Spotrac, is probably happy to pay its franchise player what he’s worth.

Cunningham averaged career highs across the board, with 26.1 points per game (ninth in NBA), 9.1 assists per game (fourth in NBA) and 6.1 rebounds per game. He was also a finalist for Most Improved Player award, which does not carry any financial weight.

Perhaps more impressive than Cunningham’s individual numbers was his impact on the team. The Pistons went 44-38 in the regular season, an improvement of 29 wins over last season and the sixth-largest single-season increase ever. The five teams with bigger turnarounds did so by adding the following players by trade, free agency, or the draft: Garnett, Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Steve Nash and Larry Bird. The 2025 Pistons, on the other hand, added Tobias Harris and Malik Beasley—two well-traveled veterans who have never made an All-Star or All-NBA squad.

Cunningham earned his bag, but some players with money on the line did not. The Memphis Grizzlies’ Jaren Jackson Jr., for instance, did not make an All-NBA team this season, which would have made him eligible for a five-year “supermax” extension worth roughly $345 million. Typically, players cannot sign deals worth more than 30% of the cap until the start of their 10th season, but All-NBA status allows players to secure a salary worth 35% of the cap before their eighth or ninth season.

Jackson Jr.’s snub also puts the Grizzlies in a pickle. They can now only offer him a typical “veteran extension” instead of a max contract this summer, meaning their All-Star big man may choose to become an unrestricted free agent in 2026 and try to get a bigger paycheck at that point.

ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst, along with many other voters, has been transparent about the fact that, in the case of a tie, he’ll vote for a player who’s eligible for a raise. “Evan Mobley and Jaren Jackson are both guys who, if they make All-NBA, they get the bonus,” Windhorst said on The Bill Simmons Podcast in April. “I have a rule that if you’re close [and there’s money at stake], I put you on. I did this with Jaylen Brown two years ago.”

The initial idea behind the system in place was to reward the league’s extraordinary young players with higher wages. The problematic effect is that the votes of 100 potentially biased members of the media can cause significant salary changes for a few players every season.

Ultimately, though, the players agreed to this status quo when they signed the CBA, and a better alternative isn’t clear.

“The players don’t trust the owners. The owners don’t trust the players. The players can’t be trusted to pick the other players. The fans can’t be trusted at all,” Windhorst said. “So is the media perfect? Hell no. But we’re the best of the options.”

(This story has been updated in the sixth paragraph to correct Detroit’s available salary cap space number.)