Telegram in the dock
Pavel Durov, the Telegram boss has spent five days in police custody following his arrest on Saturday at an airport near Paris. He has been granted bail on condition he pays 5 million euros ($5.6 million), reports twice a week to police and does not leave French territory.
Since Durov was held over the weekend the repercussions have come thick and fast.
The Paris prosecutor's office launched an investigation on July 8 based on 12 alleged offences that include organised fraud, complicity in enabling illegal transactions on an online platform, complicity in disseminating underage pornographic material and a refusal to communicate documents requested by the judiciary.
The formal investigation approved on Wednesday, said he was suspected of complicity in running an online platform that allows illicit transactions, images of child sex abuse and drug trafficking. He is also being investigated for alleged money laundering and the refusal to cooperate with judicial authorities.
Relations between Paris and Moscow have hit an all-time low, says Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov. French President Emmanuel Macron has dismissed Moscow's accusations, saying politics is at work.
Labour's crony (clothes) crisis
If the late singer Johnny Cash was the man in black, then Keir Starmer was the leader in navy who won the 2024 UK election. I don't know if Waheed Alli ever encountered Cash during his long television career but he can certainly lay claim to the creation of Mr Starmer as Mr Navy.
Alli is thought to have taken on the discreet role of image adviser before the election. It’s noticeable how Mr Starmer’s appearance and dress sense changed.
Once, he wore dull suits and boring spectacles; now his jackets are unstructured, he likes to be seen in casual clothes and his glasses are more youthful. He’s less a stuffy, analytical lawyer, and more an edgy, sharper manager.
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Alli is credited by those around the Prime Minister as being a key figure in Labour's transition into the government.
Mr Starmer addressed a row over Alli's temporary Downing St pass this summer, saying on Tuesday that it was attack politics from the defeated Conservatives. “I’m not really going to take lectures on this from the people who dragged our country so far down in the last few years,” he said.
It should come as no shock that Alli was awarded a No 10 security clearance.
Paralympic inspiration
In a swimming pool in an eastern suburb of Paris, Marie-Louise Mangho-Kuete, 49, practises floating on her stomach without touching her trainer. There's hope that in a few months, she'll manage to float alone.
Ms Mangho-Kuete, who contracted polio as a child in her native Cameroon, has worked for the past 10 years on conquering her fears after several bad experiences in sports.
Like many involved in supporting people with disabilities, she is inspired by the Paris Paralympic Games, which start on Wednesday.
“As a child at school, it was written in my report that I was unfit for sports,” she told The National. “When society considers us unfit, we integrate that idea and think that sport isn't meant for us.”
Many hope that sports will become more accessible for people with physical disabilities in France thanks to the Paralympic Games, running from August 28 to September 8 in Paris, more than two weeks after the Olympics.
Declan McVeigh reminds us that disabled athletes are sportsmen and women whose will to win is no less than that of able-bodied competitors. Sadly, it’s a lesson that has taken the world some time to learn.
As about 4,500 athletes from 180 National Paralympic Committees – including a Refugee Paralympic Team – assemble in Paris, Paralympic sports will be beamed into homes around the world.