French prosecutors said on Wednesday they were investigating a junior minister in President Emmanuel Macron's government after two allegations of rape were brought against her.

French politics continues to dominate the papers as Emmanuel Macron desperately seeks an alliance to secure a parliamentary majority. The US Senate finds bipartisan support for new gun possession laws for the first time in 30 years. Organisers of the Miss France beauty pageant introduce radical new changes to shake up the contest. Finally, a man escapes his kidnappers by driving erratically on a highway in order to be stopped by authorities.

Noise rang out across Senegal's capital Dakar on Wednesday evening as people honked car horns and banged on pots and pans in an unusual form of protest organised by the political opposition ahead of legislative elections next month. Senegal's main opposition coalition, Yewwi Askan Wi, asked its supporters to come to their windows, balconies and doorways and clang lids together at 8pm to signal their anger over the disqualification of their candidates list in the upcoming poll.

Has the pandemic changed what tourists are looking for? In this edition we dive into the new trends and the impact of rising inflation, as well as how staff shortages could hamper the liftoff of the aviation sector. Plus we head to a theme park near Paris where attendance figures are booming after a rollercoaster two years.

The powerful tremor has killed more than 1,000 people, and the death toll is likely to rise manifold. People need aid urgently, but with the Taliban in power, international help for quake victims is a complicated affair.

In a major expansion of gun legislation, the Supreme Court has overturned a law in New York that restricted the carrying of concealed weapons in public. Hours later, senators passed a modest gun control bill.