Euro-area inflation will sink below the 2% target in early 2025 — sooner than the European Central Bank

The top US financial regulators say they are stepping up scrutiny of how exposed banks are to commercial

Ukraine’s military has released a video of the burning wreckage of a Russian Mi-8 helicopter on the war’s southern frontline, saying the aircraft was shot down by paratroopers. “The Russian Mi-8 was shot down. Great work by the 25th Separate Airborne Brigade. It burns beautifully. Well done, warriors,” said Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, heading the Ukrainian armed ground forces on one of the southern Ukrainian fronts. A 12-second video of the helicopter engulfed in flames was shared by General Syrskyi on his official Telegram channel late on Sunday. The location and the time of the destruction of the Russian helicopter was not immediately clear. The Ukrainian armed forces have destroyed several of Russia’s fleet of Soviet-era Mi-8 attack helicopters during the course of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion. In August this year, a Russian Mi-8 helicopter was captured after landing in Ukraine’s Kharkiv oblast following what Kyiv described as a long-term operation by Ukrainian intelligence. It comes as fighting intensified over the weekend around the city of Avdiivka, in Ukraine’s Donbas, as well as in other sectors of the 1,000-km-long (600-mile) front. One top Ukrainian commander said clashes further north had “significantly worsened”, while another said Russian losses were mounting in the war’s southern sectors. “What is happening now along the entire length of the [line of] contact is called ‘an active defence’,” Mr Putin said. “And our troops are improving their position at almost the entire area. Quite a large area,” he said in video remarks posted to social media by a Kremlin journalist Pavel Zarubin. Mr Putin could be trying to temper expectations of significant Russian advances around Avdiivka, the US-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War said. “Putin’s characterisation of Russian offensive operations near Avdiivka as an ‘active defence,’ instead of ‘active combat operations’ as Russian UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzya claimed on 13 October, or discussing Russian operations as an ‘offensive’ as some milbloggers have, may be an attempt to temper expectations of significant Russian advances,” the ISW said in its latest assessment. It added that while Russian operations – including intensive artillery and airstrikes – are likely intended to degrade Ukrainian forces around Avdiivka, Russian forces are unlikely to make significant breakthroughs or cut off Ukrainian forces in the settlement in the near term, and potential advances at scale would likely require a significant and protracted commitment of personnel and materiel. Read More Ukraine-Russia war – live: Putin suffers serious losses in largest offensive in months Russian governor reported to police for speaking out over Putin’s ‘unnecessary’ war against Ukraine Putin's visit to Beijing underscores China’s economic and diplomatic support for Russia As the conflict in Israel rages on, the world must not forget about Ukraine

WeWork (WE) announced a new plan Friday to save its plummeting stock from getting kicked off the New York Stock Exchange, less than two weeks after telling investors it had doubts about its ability to stay in business.

Russia as a country has no place at the 2024 Paris Olympics and no Russian flag should be used at next year's Games, French President Emmanuel Macron said.

The Galapagos National Park said Tuesday that it had detected its first cases of avian flu on the remote islands, home to unique bird species that...

Bots are better and significantly faster than humans at cracking Captcha tests, according to a comprehensive new study that inspected the security system deployed in over 100 popular websites. Automated bots pose a significant threat to the internet because they can masquerade as legitimate human users and perform harmful operations like scraping content, creating accounts and posting fake comments or reviews, as well as consuming scarce resources. “If left unchecked, bots can perform these nefarious actions at scale,” warned scientists, including those from the University of California, Irvine. For over two decades, Captchas have been deployed as security checks by websites to block potentially harmful bots by presenting puzzles that are supposed to be straightforward for people to solve – but very difficult for computers. Earlier forms of Captcha, for instance, asked users to transcribe distorted text from an image, but with advances in computer vision and machine learning, bots soon caught up to recognise the text with near perfect accuracy. Engaged in an arms race with bots, Captchas have since evolved into an annoying presence on the internet, becoming increasingly more and more difficult to solve for both bots and humans. However, the new yet-to-be peer-reviewed research, posted in arXiv, finds bots are able to quickly crack Captcha tests with ease, suggesting global effort users put into cracking these puzzles every day may be more trouble than it’s worth. In the study, scientists assessed 200 of the most popular websites and found 120 still used Captcha. They took the help of 1,000 participants online from diverse backgrounds – varying in location, age, sex and educational level – to take 10 captcha tests on these sites and gauge their difficulty levels. Researchers found many bots described in scientific journals could beat humans at these tests in both speed and accuracy. Some captcha tests took human participants between nine and 15 seconds to solve, with an accuracy of about 50 to 84 per cent, while it took the bots less than a second to crack them, with up to near perfection. “The bots’ accuracy ranges from 85-100 per cent, with the majority above 96 per cent. This substantially exceeds the human accuracy range we observed (50-85 per cent),” scientists wrote in the study. They also found that the bots’ solving times are “significantly lower” or nearly the same as humans in almost all cases. Since current Captchas do not meet the required security goal of keeping bots away, researchers have called for better and more dynamic approaches to protect websites. Read More Shock for millions of voters as details exposed in hack – which went undetected for a year AI-driven cyberattack can now steal your passwords with near 100 per cent accuracy, study warns More than a million NHS patients’ details compromised after cyberattack ‘Billions’ of computers potentially affect by huge security vulnerability AI breakthrough could dramatically reduce planes’ global warming impact Earth hit by powerful ‘X-1’ solar flare, after fears of ‘cannibal’ blast

No. 1 Georgia, which is 5-0 after winning back-to-back national championships, will puts its top ranking on the line when it faces No. 20 Kentucky

Lions kick returner Mohamed Ibrahim was carted off the field after sustaining a hip injury in the third quarter of Detroit’s game against the Baltimore Ravens

Jude Bellingham has revealed David Beckham sent him a good luck message after joining Real Madrid. The 20-year-old has become just the seventh British player to join the Bernabeu club following his 103million euros (£88.5m) move from Borussia Dortmund last month, following in the footsteps of the likes of Beckham, Gareth Bale and Michael Owen. Beckham was perhaps the highest profile to make the switch to the Spanish capital following his 2003 move from Manchester United, which only heightened his global profile, and the former England captain recently got in touch with Bellingham. And the new Bernabeu star said he might tap into Beckham and other former players’ knowledge of playing at Madrid. “David Beckham messaged me briefly to wish me all the best,” Bellingham told the PA news agency. “It is one of those moves where everyone has their input from the outside so you do hear a lot of things and advice, I am quite good at filtering out the good from the bad, so far it has been really positive from ex-players. “I will try and take that on board and at some point maybe get in touch with them and see how they adapted to life in Spain.” One of the things Bellingham will be doing to adapt to his new lifestyle in Spain is to learn the language. The midfielder has started using a learning app, aiming to build on the vocabulary he got at school. “I have got it on my phone, I’ve got a good little streak going at the minute,” he added. “It’s nine days since I started taking it properly seriously. “It is one of those things where you hear it and you start to pick up little things and you see it on TV with interviews of other players, so it comes a bit more naturally than you think. “It is a lot easier than trying to learn German at least. I did Spanish at school up to year 9, obviously, in hindsight, I would have carried it on.” Bellingham is now an ambassador for McDonald’s Fun Football programme, the largest grassroots programme in the UK for 5-11 year olds, where 250,000 children have had access to free football in the last 12 months. He used to attend similar events but admits that it was not immediately obvious that he was destined for greater things. “For the first year or so of going to things like that I was more interested in British Bulldog and some of the fun games,” he said. “So for me it was a process of getting into the game, but it was made easy because there was no pressure on me. “For my parents that was the main thing, just getting that social aspect of it and something that is healthy and good for me.” :: Jude Bellingham was speaking at the largest ever McDonald’s Fun Football session to celebrate the landmark of over 250,000 children across the UK benefiting from access to free football this season. Sign up to a free session near you at www.mcdonalds.co.uk/football Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live On this day in 2009: Serena Williams reclaims Wimbledon title off sister Venus Roger Federer returns to Wimbledon for a celebration on an action-packed day two Stuart Broad thinks Pat Cummins will regret handling of Jonny Bairstow dismissal

Two members of Donald Trump’s staff moved boxes of documents just a day before the Department of Justice visited Mar-a-Lago, according to a report. The files were moved the day before FBI agents and a prosecutor visited the private club in Florida’s Palm Beach. The timing of the move is suspicious and a sign that obstruction may have taken place, according to The Washington Post. Mr Trump and his associates are alleged to have conducted a “dress rehearsal” for moving the sensitive files even before getting a subpoena in May last year. More follows...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom's recent trip to China was highlighted by a surprise meeting with leader Xi Jinping