On Saturday Germany’s railway stations were frequented by more travelers than usual: a few days ago a new low-fare ticket was launched by a state initiative. Local trains and public transport can be used across the country for the ticket price of nine Euros per month.
Many took to popular routes, such as the Baltic sea or the Island Sylt. While some travelers were disappointed by the high number of passengers, others took the opportunity to travel these routes for the first time.
Only long-distance and high-speed trains, or services operated by private providers such as FlixTrain or FlixBus are excluded from the “9-Euro-Ticket”. The offer is going on from June to August.
Alongside a Germany wide fuel discount, the 9-euro ticket is intended to provide financial relief for consumers given further increases in the cost of living and energy. In addition, transport politicians hope that more commuters will switch to buses and trains. According to Deutsche Bahn, the company had already sold 2.7 million 9-euro tickets by June 1.
Meanwhile, customer associations and consumer advocates have warned that there will be a rush, especially in the summer and vacation months, on regional trains to the coast or the Alps, for example, which the companies will not be able to cope with. A heavy accident of a local train in southern Germany, claiming at least five dead on Friday, overshadowed the public enthusiasm on the initiative. The cause of the accident, however, was not yet known.
Musical acts from around the world performed to excited fans outside Buckingham Palace on Saturday evening as part of Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
The pop concert opened with a recorded comic sketch of the 96-year-old monarch having tea with Paddington Bear and tapping out the tune to the Queen anthem “We Will Rock You” on her china teacup.
Military drummers then picked up the beat as the concert transferred to the live event outside the queen’s official residence.
Rod Stewart, Andrea Bocelli, Alicia Keys, Nile Rodgers, Queen, and Diana Ross were among those to perform in front of tens of thousands of people crammed around the palace, down the Mall grand boulevard, and in a nearby park.
The queen’s heir, Prince Charles, and his wife, Camilla were joined at the event by Charles’ son, Prince William, his wife, Kate, and their two eldest children.
The royals sang along with the crowd before an aerial drone light show projected images into the sky, including the monarch on a stamp and the outline of her dogs.
In the concert Britain’s Prince Charles paid an emotional personal tribute to his mother, praising the monarch for uniting the nation and continuing to make history during her 70-year reign.
The heir-to-the-throne appeared towards the end of the concert. As images of Elizabeth’s reign were displayed on the walls, Charles, 73, said the Jubilee had given the country the chance to say thank you.
“Your majesty, you have been with us in our difficult times. And you bring us together to celebrate moments of pride, joy, and happiness,” Charles told the crowd of 22,000 people, with millions more watching on television.
“You have met us and talked with us. You laugh and cry with us and, most importantly, you have been there for us, for these 70 years. You pledged to serve your whole life – you continue to deliver. That is why we are here,” he added, referring to the queen as “mummy”.
Charles praised his mother, adding: “You continue to make history.”
The Queen’s grandson Prince William also addressed the crowds saying that his grandmother was an optimist as he spoke about the need to protect the planet.
William said “environmental issues are now at the top of the global agenda. More and more businesses and politicians are answering the call” adding that the younger generation was uniting across the world to protect the planet.
The Queen herself was not present, having missed several Jubilee events because of “episodic mobility problems” that have caused her to cancel engagements recently
The four days of celebrations to mark the monarch’s seven decades as queen began on Thursday with a military parade and a Royal Air Force flypast, with a National Service of Thanksgiving on Friday.
Britain will lead celebrations around the world this weekend as Queen Elizabeth II marks her 70th year on the throne.
The platinum jubilee is an unprecedented event, with no British king or queen having reached this landmark before. Elizabeth, 96, is also the world’s longest-reigning living monarch.
She ascended the throne on February 6, 1952, at the tender age of 25, after the death of her father, George VI, aged 56.
In 2015, she broke the record for the United Kingdom’s longest reigning monarch, which had been held by her great-great grandmother Victoria, who was queen for 63 years and 216 days.
To achieve the Platinum Jubilee landmark, a monarch must be crowned at a young age, which means Elizabeth’s feat is unlikely to be bettered for many decades to come – if at all. Prince Charles, the next in line to the throne, is now 73.
Tradition dictates that a silver jubilee is held in the 25th year of a monarch’s reign. Several British monarchs have celebrated this landmark, including Elizabeth’s grandfather George V, who reigned for 25 years and 259 days. Her own silver jubilee fell in 1997.
The golden jubilee celebration is held for the 50th year of a monarch’s reign. Elizabeth celebrated this in 2002 when she was 76 years old.
Although she is the longest-reigning monarch alive today, Elizabeth stands only third in the all-time list. Top place belongs to King Louis XIV of France, who reigned for 72 years and 110 days after ascending the throne aged four and reigning from 1643 to 1715.
The second-longest reigning monarch in history is King Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great, who spent 70 years and 126 days on the throne.
The next regnal landmark for Elizabeth will be the 80th anniversary of her accession, celebrated as the Oak Jubilee in 2026, when she would be 106 years old.
Before that, she can look forward to becoming only the second person in the UK royal family to reach her 100th birthday, after Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother celebrated her centenary in 2000.
Elizabeth II’s record-breaking reign turned on a quirk of history. At birth she was only third in line to the throne and not expected to become queen.
However, in December 1936 her uncle Edward VIII – a Nazi sympathiser – abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson, an American widow. Her father George VI then became king and, since Elizabeth had no brothers, she became heir to the British crown and the commonwealth of nations.
South Korea’s prime minister on Friday said the country will lift its quarantine requirement for foreign arrivals without vaccination from next Wednesday and also start lifting aviation regulations imposed on international flights.
However, the government will maintain the requirement of a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test result prior to entry and a PCR test within 72 hours after arrival.
“While there was a 7-day quarantine obligation for non-vaccinated foreign arrivals until now, such requirement will be eliminated from June 8 regardless of their vaccination status,” Prime Minister Han Duck-soo told a pandemic response meeting, adding the country’s COVID-19 situation had stabilized.
Han said any aviation regulations imposed at Incheon International Airport will be lifted from June 8 to ensure that flights can operate in a timely manner, as current restrictions on flights and flight operation times have caused inconveniences such as lack of tickets and rising prices.
Declaring “Enough, enough!” U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday urged Congress to ban assault weapons, expand background checks and implement other sensible gun control measures to address a string of mass shootings that have struck the United States.
Speaking from the White House, in a speech broadcast live in primetime, Biden asked a country stunned by the recent shootings of school children in Texas, at a medical building in Oklahoma, and at a Buffalo, New York, grocery story how much it would take.
“For God’s sake, how much more carnage are we willing to accept?” Biden asked.
The president, a Democrat, called for several measures that have historically been blocked by Republicans in Congress, including raising the age at which adults can buy guns and repealing the liability shield that protects gun manufacturers from being sued for violence perpetrated by people carrying their weapons.
“We can’t fail the American people again,” Biden said, pressing Republicans to allow bills including gun control measures to come up for a vote.
The United States, which has a higher rate of gun deaths than any other wealthy nation, has been shaken in recent weeks by the high-profile mass shootings at a grocery store in New York, an elementary school in Texas that killed 19 children, and a medical building in Oklahoma.
Gun safety advocates have pushed Biden to take stronger measures on his own to curb gun violence, but the White House wants Congress to pass legislation that would have a more lasting impact than any presidential order.
A U.S. House of Representatives committee on Thursday was working on a bill aimed at toughening national gun laws, though the measure has little chance of passing the Senate.
Biden’s evening address was aimed at putting further pressure on lawmakers and keeping the issue at the forefront of voters’ minds. He has made only a handful of evening speeches from the White House during his term, including one on the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and one about the Texas shooting last week.
More than 18,000 people have died from gun violence in the United States in 2022, including through homicide and suicide, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit research group.
Canada, Australia, and Britain all passed stricter gun laws after mass shootings in their countries, banning assault weapons and increasing background checks. America has experienced two decades of massacres in schools, stores, and places of work and worship without any such legislation.
A broad majority of American voters, both Republicans, and Democrats favor stronger gun control laws, but Republicans in Congress and some moderate Democrats have blocked such legislation for years.
Prices of shares in gun manufacturers rose on Thursday. Efforts to advance gun control measures have boosted firearm share prices after other mass shootings as investors anticipated that gun purchases would increase ahead of stricter regulations.
As president, Biden has called on Congress to reinstate a ban on assault weapons and pass measures to require universal background checks for those who purchase guns.
In the aftermath of the Texas shooting, he urged the country to take on the powerful pro-gun lobby that backs politicians who oppose such legislation.
The Senate is split, with 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, and the law must have 60 votes to overcome a maneuver known as the filibuster, which means any law would need rare bipartisan support.
While Biden and Congress explore compromises, the Supreme Court is due to decide a major case that could undermine new efforts to enact gun control measures while making existing ones vulnerable to legal attack.
A former Mexican governor was extradited on Thursday from the United States, where he had been held for nearly two years on charges of embezzlement and criminal association, Mexican authorities said in a statement.
Cesar Duarte, who governed the state of Chihuahua from 2010 to 2016, was arrested in 2020 by U.S. Marshals in Miami, Florida.
Duarte is accused of acting in a group to divert more than 96 million pesos, or the then-equivalent of $6.5 million, from the government between 2011 and 2014.
The former governor’s extradition was the “result of the close collaboration” between Mexico and the United States, authorities said, coming the same day six Mexicans were sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for alleged cartel involvement.
Current Chihuahua Governor Maru Campos said in a message on Twitter she “celebrates” the decision, adding that her administration would not “forgive or forget” the actions of past governors.
A beaming Queen Elizabeth waved to cheering crowds massed outside Buckingham Palace on Thursday as Britain kicked off four days of pomp, parties and parades to celebrate her record-breaking 70 years on the British throne.
Tens of thousands of royal supporters waving flags lined the streets of London for a military parade at the start of the four-day Platinum Jubilee. Millions of people across Britain and the world were expected to watch the festivities, join street parties and light beacons in honour of the 96-year-old queen.
Elizabeth, holding a walking stick and wearing a dusky dove blue outfit that she also wore for an official Jubilee photograph, was joined by her son and heir Prince Charles, 73, and other senior royals on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
While the family waved to the crowds and enjoyed a Royal Air force fly-past, Louis – Prince William’s 4-year-old son – covered his ears and howled as the planes roared overhead. He later jumped up and down as Red Arrow jets released red, white and blue smoke trails.
Elizabeth has been on the throne for longer than any of her predecessors, and is the third-longest reigning monarch ever of a sovereign state. Opinion polls show she remains hugely popular and respected among British people.
The celebrations began with the Trooping the Colour, a military parade held annually to mark the queen’s official birthday, where 1,500 soldiers marched to military music in ceremonial uniforms of scarlet tunics and bearskin hats.
Later the crowds moved to the Mall, the grand boulevard running up to Buckingham Palace, where in brilliant sunshine they cheered and waved Union flags while a display of modern and historic planes took place overhead.
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