Protests and rioting in France are showing signs of spreading across Europe, as authorities brace for a new round of demonstrations this weekend.
French officials, who reported quiet after imposing localized curfews, have pledged a massive police and military response. The Interior Ministry, in a note, asked jurisdictions to ban all demonstrations likely to “disturb public order” Saturday.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez reported that French police had arrested about 2,400 people during the protests that broke out Saturday in several cities, with business and municipal losses estimated in the tens of millions of euros from widespread looting and arson.
Investigations found that adult communist and pro-Palestinian activist groups amplified the weekend’s activities in France, building on school walkouts that started last month.
President Trump has announced a program to pay a 1% “commission” to anyone who finds fraudulent activity in government programs.
The president promises prosecutions for the fraudsters, penalties for state and local officials who allow fraud, and rewards for those who help investigators root it out.
Trump’s Justice Department has created an anti-fraud division that is pursuing criminal cases nationwide. The White House is also pushing for Congress to pass legislation creating a mandatory minimum sentence for fraudsters.
The polls say Democrats are headed for a wave in the midterm election. But worries about polls hang over races nationwide, including marquee Senate contests in Republican-leaning states like Ohio and Texas.
Pollsters have taken plenty of heat after several high-profile misses in recent cycles, and many analysts say the job is only getting harder. Fewer people pick up calls from unknown numbers, and response rates keep dropping. Meanwhile, campaigns are sifting through scattered streams of data to figure out who will actually show up on Election Day.
Artificial intelligence is apparently helping reverse decades of bureaucratic bloat at universities, where nonteaching staff have grown faster than the faculty and student bodies.
The nonprofit College and University Professional Association for Human Resources found colleges reported 6.6% fewer full-time staff and 23.9% fewer part-time staff in 2025 than the prior year.
Several academics say colleges struggling with reduced enrollment and federal funding cuts are eyeing smaller nonteaching workforces as AI automates research, event planning and donor relations tasks.
And finally … Brett Blackman is behind bars in federal prison in Miami after receiving a 19-year prison sentence.
Blackman was behind one of the largest telemedicine frauds ever prosecuted. He aimed to steal $1 billion from the government and succeeded in getting Medicare and other insurers to pay more than $450 million globally.
Prosecutors say he managed to rope nearly 350,000 people into his scheme. They were patients with government-backed healthcare, such as Medicare, and he convinced them to apply for things including orthotic braces or pain creams, even though they had no valid medical reason.
Find all of today’s front page stories here or on the Washington Times app, and find us wherever you get your podcasts — just search “Washington Times" on your favorite podcast platforms.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.