How the European story started with a toad

Leaders of the European Political Community — all European states with the exception of Russia and Belarus — are meeting in Moldova to discuss strategy over the conflict in neighboring Ukraine.

Hungary is scheduled to assume the rotating presidency of the European Union in 2024. However, members of the European Parliament are expressing skepticism about its worthiness for the post.

The European Political Community has met for its second summit in Moldova. There was a lot of support expressed for Ukraine, but no concrete decisions were made.

The US PGA Tour and European DP World Tour will merge with Saudi-funded LIV Golf after a two-year rift. LIV threatened to usurp the established series, which seem to have opted for consolidation over competition.

EU states have agreed long-stalled reforms to migration and asylum rules. Critics say Europe is shirking responsibility.

Back in the 1960s, the Soviets and Americans were racing to the Moon. Europe did not want to be a bystander in the space race and embarked on the Ariane programme in 1973. We take a look back at how the Europeans launched their space programme. Today, the Ariane-6 rocket's inaugural flight is running three years behind schedule. The European Space Agency hopes it can take off by the end of 2023.

Cormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who in prose both dense and brittle took readers from the southern Appalachians to the desert Southwest in such novels as “The Road,” “Blood Meridian” and “All the Pretty Horses,” died Tuesday. He was 89.

FIFA had been holding out for more money from several major European free-to-air broadcasters, threatening not to sell broadcast rights to the competition at all. The news comes just weeks before kickoff.

Several companies at the Paris Air Show are presenting advanced prototypes of air taxis that could offer an alternative means of inner city transport. One of them, German group Volocopter, is aiming to get its aircraft up and running for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Also in the show, we look ahead to the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact that's taking place in Paris later this week. World leaders will be convening to discuss changes to the global financial system in order to better respond to the climate emergency.

Vietnam's reputation as Asia's brightest investment hub is being called into question as its economic growth slows and industrial zones face power blackouts.

Fresh figures have shown the extent of the European Union's efforts to reduce its energy dependency on Russia, with Moscow accounting for just 3 percent of the bloc's oil imports in the first quarter of this year, compared to 26 percent during the same period in 2022. The EU has also moved away from Russian natural gas, relying more heavily on Norway, the UK and Algeria. This comes as the decline in Moscow's export revenues weakens its currency.

On July 12, the landmark Nature Restoration Law was adopted in a cliffhanger vote at the European Parliament. Our guest, prominent Finnish MEP Heidi Hautala – who's one the parliament's vice-presidents – says she is "relieved" that the EU parliament now has a position to negotiate with the member states. She applauds the law as "step towards combating climate change", and decries what she calls the use of "fake news and disinformation" by far-right as well as right-wing parties on the nature restoration issue.