World
Who is Roberta Metsola, the EU Parliament chief eyeing re-election?
Metsola’s re-election bid is expected to draw consensus from across the parliament’s often-fractious political divides.
As the newly-elected European Parliament gathers in Strasbourg for its inaugural sitting on Tuesday, its first task will be to elect its president.
That vote is looking unlikely to be contentious, with current president Roberta Metsola set to cruise through to a second term unchallenged.
Although the Left has fielded a challenger candidate, Spain’s Irene Montero, her bid is merely symbolic and will not obstruct the incumbent’s path to re-election.
That’s because Metsola has managed to draw consensus from across the parliament’s fractious political divides at a time when ideological rifts seem deeper than ever in the parliament’s hemicycle. It means she’s tipped to comfortably secure the needed absolute majority of ballots cast.
A Conservative Christian-democrat belonging to the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), Metsola is credited with steering the parliament through one of the most tumultuous periods in its 70-year history – including the eruption of war on Europe’s doorstep and the most explosive corruption scandal to ever hit the institution.
Several parliamentary sources told Euronews that her performance over the past two years has seen her brush off initial qualms about her candidature, which were mainly centred around her anti-abortion views.
“At the beginning of her term, I was sceptical because of her stance against abortion rights. I was afraid we would have a very Conservative lady in the presidency,” a Green MEP re-elected to the chamber in June’s European election said.
“But she has proven to be a well-intentioned president, with an impressive attention to detail,” the MEP added.
“She has managed to make parliament more visible and stronger during her last mandate,” another MEP from the Green group added. “She is a great ambassador for the European Parliament in the world.”
“Metsola is the right person to lead this parliament,” a Socialist lawmaker said.
Ursula von der Leyen’s re-election as president of the EU’s powerful executive – to be decided in a vote on Thursday – is meanwhile looking much more shaky, prompting some to question whether Metsola herself would be a more palatable candidate for the role.
A spokesperson for the Left group conceded that despite fielding its own candidate, it was not whipping its members to vote against Metsola – as it will do in the case of von der Leyen – adding that some members could support Metsola because of her strong tenure.
A presidency of firsts
In 2022, Metsola became the youngest person to preside over the European Parliament at the age of 43, when she took over following former president David Sassoli’s death. She was also the first Maltese to take the parliament’s helm, and the first woman in two decades.
Since then, her time in office has been marked by many firsts. In April 2022, she became the first EU leader to visit Kyiv after Russia launched its illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Other historic milestones during her time in office have been tougher to grapple with.
In December 2022, she became the first president to participate in a police raid on a fellow lawmaker when she accompanied officers to the home of Socialist MEP Marc Tarabella as part of the so-called Qatargate corruption probe that has since become one of the most sordid stains on the parliament’s reputation.
In response to allegations Qatari, Moroccan and Mauritanian officials had paid elected lawmakers to influence EU legislation, Metsola said that the European Parliament had come “under attack.” “Enemies of democracy” had “weaponized” Members of the European Parliament, she said.
Metsola, who has made fighting corruption and upholding the rule of law a core tenet of her political career, has since vowed to futureproof her institution against corruption with a raft of reforms designed to ramp up transparency and ethics rules.
But for some lawmakers, the reforms steered by the president have simply not been sufficient.
“We welcome that she has followed many of our calls in the wake of Qatargate, but there is still much to be done in the Parliament on transparency, accountability, and preventing undue influence. We hope to see further action from her in this mandate,” a spokesperson for the Green group said.
A bulwark against the far right
Lawmakers are also satisfied with the way Metsola has defended mainstream political forces against the surge of the far right, by sanctioning radical right-wing lawmakers prone to disrupting the parliament’s plenary session.
Ahead of June’s European elections, Metsola criss-crossed the continent in a bid to encourage voters to cast their ballots while promoting the achievements of the bloc, calling on voters to put their trust in pro-European parties in the centre-ground in a bid to fend off rising populist forces.
In contrast, her counterpart in the EU’s executive, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, was slated for her open overtures to the hard-right grouping of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the run-up to July’s election.
It sparked outrage among her traditional allies. While she has since rowed back on her suggestions she would integrate parts of the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) in a future coalition, left-leaning lawmakers are still nervous her EPP party could be lured to rely on right-wing votes to push through legislation in the upcoming term.
“Von der Leyen has promised there will be no structured alliances with the ECR and the far-right, but it’s for me still not 100% clear what this means,” an MEP for the Greens group said, adding that Metsola’s conduct rejecting far-right populists has been more clear-cut.
Breaking the glass ceiling
A source close to Metsola from the EPP described her as one of many “powerful women” that have led Europe in recent decades, alongside Angela Merkel and Ursula von der Leyen.
Metsola has always tirelessly encouraged women and girls to break the glass ceiling in politics, and has championed equal rights across sectors.
But despite her steadfast support for women’s rights, she also has a track record of voting against abortion rights.
Several left-leaning and centrist lawmakers cited these ideologies as the only drawback in her re-election bid. But since assuming the presidency of the European Parliament, she has vowed to respect the hemicycle’s majority opinion on abortion, putting her own personal stance to one side.
Even for lawmakers that have constantly fought for abortion rights – including with a resolution in April calling to include the right in the EU Fundamental Rights Charter – Metsola has done enough to assure that she will not assert her own views on abortion as part of her role as president.
World
Sporticast 510: The Sordid Saga of a Legends’s Former Mansion
On the latest Sporticast episode, hosts Scott Soshnick and Eben Novy-Williams discuss some of the biggest sports business stories of the week, including the latest in a strange sports real estate story.
In 2012, Michael Jordan listed his Bulls-era mansion outside Chicago for about $29 million, or $41 million in today’s dollars. It took more than a decade and multiple price drops for the home to sell, which it did late last year for $9.5 million. The buyer, a partner in a local real estate firm, has since tried multiple ways to monetize the property. Initially he tried to sell timeshares for $1 million each, but that plan was thwarted by the local town council. He’s back in front of that same council this week, seeking approvals related to his next plan: to build a “multi-sensory experience focused entirely on personal transformation.” The tourist attraction would require the use of a parking lot on an adjacent nature preserve.
Next the hosts discuss major upset in college sports. Nebraska’s women’s volleyball team, the top seed in this year’s NCAA tournament, was upset by Texas A&M in the quarterfinals. Riding a wave of volleyball commercial growth, the Huskers spent more on the sport than any other public school in the country, according to numbers from Sportico‘s college finance database. The team reported $2.57 million in ticket sales during the 2023-24 school year, the third highest total for any women’s team at any public school in the country, trailing only Iowa and UConn women’s basketball.
They close by taking about the Big 12‘s proposed private equity plan. A few days after Big 12 member Utah laid out its own on-campus capital ambitions, Sportico reported that the Big 12 is in talks to set up what essentially amounts to a credit facility for its members via a potential partnership with RedBird Capital-backed Collegiate Athletic Solutions.
(You can subscribe to Sporticast through Apple, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts.)
World
Bystanders seen confronting Australian gunman during ISIS-inspired deadly rampage
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Bystanders were seen on video confronting a gunman before his ISIS-inspired deadly mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, could begin.
Despite their efforts to disarm him, the gunman eventually overpowered the two bystanders and killed them, according to authorities.
The bystanders were later identified as Boris and Sofia Gurman, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The outlet reported that the Gurmans were walking by as they saw the assailant exiting a vehicle. Though Boris had the upper hand for a moment after picking up the shooter’s rifle, the attacker allegedly picked up another rifle during the confrontation and fatally shot the couple, making them the first victims of the massacre.
“We are heartbroken by the sudden and senseless loss of our beloved Boris and Sofia Gurman,” the family said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. “While nothing can lessen the pain of losing Boris and Sofia, we feel an overwhelming sense of pride in their bravery and selflessness.”
RABBI KILLED IN SYDNEY HANUKKAH ATTACK HAD WARNED AUSTRALIAN PM ABOUT RISING ANTISEMITISM
Bystanders were seen confronting one of the gunmen behind the deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Australia’s Bondi Beach. (Jenny/Reuters)
In the video, obtained and verified by Reuters, an eyewitness replaying the dashcam footage recalls how the incident unfolded.
“You see the shooter here — he fired shots from here, shooting from here. And then look, this guy went and tackled him (shooter), knocking him to the ground. At that point, he had already grabbed the gun,” the witness, who was speaking in Mandarin, said in the video, according to a Reuters translation.
Authorities have identified the shooters as a father, 50, and a son, 24. The father was killed at the scene, while the son was shot by police and taken to the hospital in critical condition. Australian authorities also said that the shooters had improvised explosives and homemade ISIS flags in their vehicle.
On Sunday, the pair opened fire on families celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people and leaving more than two dozen injured. The Australian government is investigating the incident as a terror attack targeting the Jewish community.
GAL GADOT, ASHTON KUTCHER CONDEMN ANTISEMITIC TERROR ATTACK AT BONDI BEACH HANUKKAH EVENT
Police teams take security measures at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, on Sunday after a terrorist attack targeting the Jewish community during the first night of Hanukkah. ( Claudio Galdames A/Anadolu via Getty Images)
During the deadly rampage, another bystander, Ahmed al Ahmed, an Australian immigrant, wrestled a gun away from one of the shooters. His attorney said that Ahmed does not regret intervening, despite being “riddled with bullets” and in intense pain.
“He doesn’t regret what he did. He said he’d do it again. But the pain has started to take a toll on him,” Ahmed’s attorney, Sam Issa, told The Sydney Morning Herald. “He’s not well at all. He’s riddled with bullets. Our hero is struggling at the moment.”
The outlet reported that Ahmed has undergone his first round of surgery and that Issa fears the hero bystander may lose his left arm.
“He’s a lot worse than expected. When you think of a bullet in the arm, you don’t think of serious injuries, but he has lost a lot of blood,” Issa said.
President Donald Trump praised Ahmed for his actions, calling him “a very, very brave person” and saying that he has “great respect” for him.
People attend a floral memorial in honor of the victims of a mass shooting that targeted a Hanukkah celebration on Sunday, at Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 16, 2025. (Flavio Brancaleone/Reuters)
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The Bondi Beach attack is the worst mass shooting Australia has seen since the country implemented sweeping reforms after a shooter killed 35 people in Port Arthur, Tasmania, in 1996. Following the Bondi Beach attack, Australian leaders have vowed to strengthen the country’s already restrictive gun laws.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced several proposed actions, including limiting the number of guns one can possess.
“The government is prepared to take whatever action is necessary. Included in that is the need for tougher gun laws,” he said after meeting with his National Cabinet.
Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano, Bradford Betz and Alex Nitzberg contributed to this report.
World
Venezuelan opposition leader Machado injured on covert Nobel Prize trip
President Maduro’s rival was hurt as she sped on a boat through choppy waters in secret escape from hiding to reach Oslo ceremony.
Published On 16 Dec 2025
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was injured as she made a clandestine dash to collect her Nobel Peace Prize last week, her spokesperson has said.
Claudia Macero said late on Monday that the right-wing opposition figure fractured a vertebra during a choppy boat ride that had formed part of a risky cloak-and-dagger journey to reach the Norwegian capital, Oslo, for the Nobel award ceremony.
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Machado has been in hiding since she was banned from running in Venezuela’s July 24 presidential election, fearing that her life is under threat from long-time Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
“The vertebra fracture is confirmed,” Macero told the AFP news agency, adding that no further details would be released beyond what had been reported in the Norwegian daily Aftonbladet.
The newspaper had earlier reported that the 58-year-old Machado sustained the fracture while crossing the sea in a small fishing boat battered by high waves.
The opposition leader was examined by doctors at Oslo University Hospital during her time in the city.
Dangerous dash
Media reports in the United States said Machado’s escape last week involved wearing a disguise, including a wig, and travelling from a small Venezuelan fishing village on a wooden boat to the island of Curacao, before boarding a private plane to Norway.
Machado has said she feared for her life during the voyage, which saw US forces situated in the Caribbean alerted to avoid a strike on the vessel.
Several similar boats have been attacked in recent months in a campaign that the Trump administration asserts is a bid to avert drug smuggling into the US.
Maduro has accused Washington of seeking to engineer regime change in the hope of seizing Venezuela’s large oil reserves.
The leader of the opposition Vente Venezuela party was attempting to reach the ceremony at which she was due to be presented with the Nobel Peace Prize.
She was announced the winner of the prestigious award in October, with the selection committee praising her role in the country’s opposition movement and her “steadfast” support for democracy.
‘Broken soul’
Despite her speedy trip, Machado failed to reach Oslo in time for the ceremony. Her daughter received the award on her behalf and delivered a speech that slammed Maduro and warned of the need to fight for democracy.
Hours after the ceremony, early on Thursday morning, Machado greeted supporters from an Oslo hotel balcony in what was her first public appearance in a year.
Despite the fracture, she climbed over a barrier to greet supporters outside the hotel, AFP reported.
Machado said authorities in Venezuela would have attempted everything possible to prevent her journey to Norway.
Appearing set to challenge Maduro in the vote, the opposition leader was barred from running in the country’s presidential election in July last year.
She then announced that she would be going into hiding within Venezuela due to fear for her life while Maduro is in power.
The Venezuelan president commented dismissively on the reports of Machado’s injury on television on Monday.
Machado “says she has a broken vertebra”, he said. “What’s broken is her brain and her soul because she’s a demon – she hates Venezuela.”
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