LEGE-CAP FERRET, France — France dispatched a military cargo plane to douse wildfires with tons of flame retardant on Saturday, while organizers shortened the final stage of the Tour de France to redirect security personnel toward the blazes, as wildfires across France and Spain forced more than 250,000 people from their homes this week.

The fires, among the most severe to strike southern Europe this summer, have displaced roughly 70,000 people in central Spain alone. One person has died so far: a man in the municipality of Manises, part of Spain’s wildfire-hit Valencia region, according to a statement from local officials.

A giant aircraft joins the fight in France

In southwestern France, an A400M military transport plane specially converted for firefighting swept low over drought-stricken woodland, trailing a long plume of ochre-colored retardant as ground crews battled flames authorities feared could reach the wine-producing city of Bordeaux. The aircraft joined at least 18 other water- and retardant-dropping planes and helicopters working in rotation through smoke-filled skies over the Gironde region, according to French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez.

The scale of the response prompted race organizers and the Paris police department to shorten Sunday’s 21st and final stage of the Tour de France, France’s marquee annual sporting event. Rather than starting from Thoiry, west of Paris, as originally planned, riders will race a circuit inside the capital covering 89 kilometers, cut by roughly a third from the previously scheduled 133-kilometer route. Organizers said part of the race’s security detail would instead reinforce emergency response efforts in the fire-affected areas, describing the change as one of several “exceptional measures made necessary by the situation.”

Shifting winds threaten Bordeaux

Nunez said winds were expected to shift from west to east on Saturday afternoon, potentially pushing flames closer to Bordeaux. Fire crews and authorities responded by digging containment trenches, applying retardant and taking other measures to slow the fire’s advance. Nunez predicted a “long and very difficult” fight ahead, noting the blaze remained about 30 kilometers west of the city, though it had lost some intensity overnight.

The regional prefect overseeing Gironde said the fire had grown into “a firestorm” on Friday after igniting earlier in the week, adding that it “remains dangerous” even as firefighters made incremental progress. French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu called the fires unprecedented, saying the Gironde blaze had grown so intense by Friday that it began generating its own wind patterns. The government mobilized soldiers to support fire crews and rushed 1.5 million face masks into the region to protect residents and responders from choking smoke.

Authorities ordered evacuations for people caught between the fire and Bordeaux, including residents in parts of the city’s western suburbs and surrounding towns and villages. Alerts instructing people to leave were sent directly to residents’ mobile phones, according to Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas, who said the fire had already destroyed approximately 140 homes in the region.

In Bordeaux itself, officials opened an exhibition center to shelter evacuees, offering food and temporary housing, with the city’s mayor saying the facility could accommodate as many as 10,000 people if needed. The city’s airport remained open, though its bus and tram services were suspended.

Spain faces its own fast-moving crisis

West of Madrid, Spanish authorities deployed 2,600 firefighters, police officers and other emergency personnel to battle two separate blazes, supported by 19 water-dropping aircraft and helicopters. Firefighters described the fires as moving too fast and violently to confront directly.

Among the hardest-hit communities was El Tiemblo, where flames tore through a historic chestnut grove and left residents scrambling to protect their town. “We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Javier Organista, a resident of El Tiemblo. “When we saw the flames coming into our town, surrounding us, leaving us with practically no way out, all the neighbors joined together to try to stop its advance.” Reflecting on the damage, he added simply, “It’s just really sad.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, visiting a command post west of Madrid on Saturday, said improving weather conditions offered “a window of opportunity” for crews to gain control of the fires. Officials in Madrid’s regional government said the blazes had already begun decreasing in intensity as winds and temperatures eased somewhat over the weekend.

Sánchez noted that wildfires have already burned roughly 130,000 hectares of forest in Spain so far this year, well above the country’s annual average of about 100,000 hectares over the past decade.

Climate change fuels a dangerous pattern

Officials and fire crews across both countries pointed to an unusually early and intense series of heat waves this year as a key driver behind the fires’ speed and severity. Successive record-breaking temperatures have dried out forests and scrubland across the region, turning them into tinderboxes vulnerable to rapid ignition and spread.

In France, 1,400 firefighters were deployed to the Gironde blaze, with hundreds more sent to a separate wildfire farther south in the Landes region. Authorities said dozens of firefighters had suffered injuries amid chaotic evacuation scenes, with police going door to door urging residents to leave and some people fleeing coastal tourist towns by boat as flames approached.

International support mobilizes

Several other European nations have stepped in to help contain the fires. Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Slovakia, Germany and Switzerland have either sent or pledged to deploy water-dropping aircraft and helicopters to reinforce firefighting efforts in both France and Spain.

With winds shifting and weather conditions offering only a narrow opening for progress, officials in both countries cautioned that the fight was far from over, even as crews pressed to take advantage of any lull before conditions could worsen again.

Labour would be the largest party in the House of Commons but fall 117 seats short of an overall majority if a general election were held now, according to a seat projection published by UK Polling Report, as Prime Minister Andy Burnham ruled out going to the country before 2029.

The projection puts Labour on 209 MPs, 202 fewer than the 411 the party won at the 2024 general election, and short of the 326 seats needed to command a majority.

Reform UK would come second on 149 seats, with the Conservatives on 133 and the Liberal Democrats on 72. The SNP would take 44 seats, the Greens seven and Plaid Cymru four.

The seat numbers are drawn from an average of opinion polls that puts Reform on just under 25 per cent, Labour on 22 per cent and the Conservatives on 20 per cent.

Reform therefore leads on votes but trails on seats. UK Polling Report’s analysis attributes that to the first-past-the-post system, which rewards Labour for a wider geographical spread of support.

Burnham, who entered Downing Street on 20 July as Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade, was asked about the polling in an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.

He ruled out an early contest. “There is no general election,” he said. “And the thing I would say to you is 20 million people voted for a manifesto. We’re in a parliamentary democracy, so that is what people voted for, and I will honour that manifesto.”

Pressed on whether that was a firm commitment, he said: “Well I’m going to rule it out. There’s no early general election. I don’t think people want it.

“The opinion polls might say some people do, some people don’t. I just think what I most need to do is get Britain focused on getting the country back where it should be, getting it working.”

The findings come less than a week into Burnham’s premiership. He became Labour leader on 17 July following Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation, and was appointed prime minister the following Monday.

Burnham has said he will honour Labour’s 2024 manifesto commitments not to raise VAT, income tax or national insurance. “I stick by the manifesto and the promises that it made,” he said before taking office. “So, let me be absolutely clear about that, but there is some room within that manifesto for movement on tax.”

He has since removed VAT from electricity bills, a measure most businesses do not qualify for.

Reform’s standing in the polls has already prompted calls for closer examination of its economic programme by companies. Liam Byrne, the Labour chairman of the Commons business and trade select committee, said in December that businesses were right to be worried about Reform UK.

“If Reform is set to become the predominant party of the right, then businesses absolutely are going to need to understand where they’re coming from,” Byrne said. “Particularly when the economic evidence says that populist, interventionist administrations are pretty catastrophic for the economy.”

Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice has rejected that characterisation, saying both Labour and the Conservatives had “wrecked the public finances” and that his party would cut spending, borrowing costs and regulation before cutting taxes.

A general election is not due until 2029. Burnham’s first Budget is due in the autumn.

Paul Jones

Harvard alumni and former New York Times journalist. Editor of Business Matters for over 15 years, the UKs largest business magazine. I am also head of Capital Business Media’s automotive division working for clients such as Red Bull Racing, Honda, Aston Martin and Infiniti.

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YouTube has tightened the rules governing which creators can earn advertising revenue from artificial intelligence-generated videos, moving to strip monetization from channels that mass-produce low-quality AI content, use manipulative tactics to boost views, or deploy AI avatars to dispense advice in sensitive fields such as medicine, law and finance.

The revised guidelines, updates to the company’s YouTube Partner Program policies, took effect July 16 and were confirmed this week by outlets tracking the platform’s ongoing effort to curb what YouTube and much of the industry have taken to calling “AI slop” — low-effort, formulaic content produced at scale with minimal human involvement.

Three categories now off-limits for ad revenue

YouTube outlined three specific types of content that will no longer qualify for advertising payouts. The first covers videos that are mechanically mass-produced with little substantive variation between uploads, whether generated using AI tools or computer-generated imagery. The second targets content designed primarily to provoke a strong emotional reaction or shock value in order to drive views, including staged rescue or crisis videos, regardless of whether AI was used to create them. The third category applies to channels using AI-generated avatars modeled on real people to offer guidance on financial investments, medical diagnoses or legal matters, areas where YouTube has said the risk of misleading viewers is especially high.

Matt Halprin, YouTube’s head of trust and safety, said the company’s underlying concern is less about the use of AI itself and more about how that technology is being deployed. “While AI tools can assist creators in producing high-quality content, we will apply strict criteria to channels that rely on automated systems to churn out content lacking narrative structure and human creativity,” Halprin said.

Building on a policy shift from last year

The latest changes build on a foundation YouTube laid roughly a year earlier. In July 2025, the platform renamed its long-standing “duplicate content” policy to “mass-produced content,” a shift aimed at capturing a broader range of formulaic AI-assisted videos beyond simple copy-paste duplication. That earlier revision established the groundwork for restricting monetization on channels built around repetitive templates, recycled clips or scripts read verbatim from other sources.

According to reporting on the policy’s rollout, YouTube’s enforcement typically follows a graduated approach for channels flagged under the mass-produced or repetitive content rules, beginning with a warning before escalating to a temporary suspension and, eventually, permanent removal from the Partner Program for repeat violations. Channels affected by enforcement decisions are generally given a window to appeal, with the platform recommending appeals include a short video demonstrating genuine human creative involvement in the disputed content, rather than relying solely on a written explanation.

A platform-wide quality concern

YouTube’s push against AI slop follows growing internal and public concern about the volume of low-effort automated content flooding the platform’s recommendation systems. Earlier this year, the company removed a wave of channels from the Partner Program in a single enforcement action, targeting accounts that had collectively built enormous audiences and generated substantial advertising income through formulaic, templated video production rather than original creative work.

The stakes tied to content quality are also financial for YouTube itself. The platform generated $9.88 billion in advertising revenue during the first quarter of 2026, according to Alphabet’s earnings report, an increase of nearly 11% year-over-year but a figure that fell short of Wall Street’s expectations. Maintaining advertiser confidence in the quality of content surrounding their ads has become an increasingly central part of YouTube’s strategy as competition for ad dollars across video platforms intensifies.

AI use itself remains permitted

YouTube has been careful to frame the updated rules as targeting a narrower category of behavior rather than restricting AI-assisted content broadly. Halprin has said the company recognizes that AI tools can meaningfully expand what individual creators are able to produce, provided the resulting videos retain a genuine creative and narrative contribution from the person behind the channel. The distinction YouTube is attempting to draw, according to Halprin, is between creators using AI to enhance original work and operators using automation to generate large volumes of near-identical videos purely to capture advertising revenue.

Under the current framework, AI-generated or AI-assisted videos remain eligible for monetization so long as they offer original value to viewers, are not repetitive or templated, and are properly labeled when required. YouTube has also implemented disclosure requirements for altered or synthetic content, requiring creators to flag AI involvement through settings in YouTube Studio in certain circumstances.

Industry reaction and what comes next

The policy update has drawn attention across the creator economy, given how significantly automated AI production tools have lowered the barrier to launching new monetized channels in recent years. Industry estimates cited in coverage of the shift suggest a substantial share of newly monetized YouTube channels now operate without an on-camera host, relying instead on AI-generated narration, imagery or avatars — a trend the platform’s updated guidelines appear directly aimed at reshaping.

For creators and channel operators who have built businesses around high-volume automated content production, the revised rules are likely to force a reassessment of how they use AI tools going forward. YouTube has signaled it intends to continue refining its enforcement approach as AI production tools evolve, positioning the update as an ongoing effort rather than a one-time policy change.

The company has not indicated whether further revisions are planned in the near term, but its repeated policy updates over the past year suggest the platform intends to keep adjusting its monetization standards as the volume and sophistication of AI-generated video content continues to grow across the industry.

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The Culture Ministry has chosen 76 cultural treasures in Thailand to enhance tourism and support local economies through the “Unseen Thai Thai” program, including destinations, festivals, and community experiences.

Key Points

• The Culture Ministry has chosen 76 cultural treasures through the “Unseen Thai Thai” program to boost cultural tourism and local economies via the “ROOT to RICH” concept. This includes 60 destinations and 16 festivals, showcasing diverse cultural sites like ancient rock paintings and unique community traditions.
• Selected attractions range from the 3,000-year-old Pha Daeng rock paintings in Kanchanaburi to Krabi’s batik heritage. The ministry aims to enhance these cultural sites and festivals, promote them digitally, and develop tourism routes linking various provinces.
• Local community participation, including cultural entrepreneurs and folk artists, is encouraged to transform cultural heritage into sustainable economic opportunities. Full details and an official guidebook can be accessed online for travelers and researchers interested in Thailand’s rich cultural heritage.

The Culture Ministry has selected 76 cultural treasures from across Thailand under its “Unseen Thai Thai” program to promote cultural tourism and create new economic opportunities for local communities through the “ROOT to RICH” concept. 

Culture Minister Sabeeda Thaised said the selections include 60 cultural tourism destinations and 16 festivals, traditions, and community lifestyle experiences. They range from the 3,000-year-old Pha Daeng rock paintings in Kanchanaburi and the Pha Phueng Stone Forest in Kalasin to the laterite temple in Kamphaeng Phet, Krabi’s batik heritage, and the Fire Polo tradition in Chaiyaphum. 

The ministry plans to upgrade selected attractions and festivals, expand digital promotion, develop cultural tourism routes linking destinations within and between provinces, and encourage participation by local communities, cultural entrepreneurs, folk artists, and the private sector. The campaign seeks to turn cultural heritage into long-term economic opportunities while supporting local economies.

The complete list of the 76 selected cultural attractions and the official “Unseen Thai Thai” guidebook are available online at https://online.fliphtml5.com/bookcase/sqrxv/. The publication features each province’s selected cultural attraction or tradition, providing an information resource for travelers, researchers, and anyone interested in Thailand’s cultural heritage.

Source : Culture Ministry Unveils 76 Unseen Thai Treasures

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