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Brigitte Bardot, 1960s French sex symbol turned animal rights activist, dies at 91 :: WRAL.com #Brigitte #Bardot #1960s #French #sex #symbol #turned #animal #rights #activist #dies #WRAL.com

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PARIS (AP) — Brigitte Bardot, the 1960s French sex symbol who became one of the 20th century’s greatest movie sirens and later an animal rights activist and far-right supporter, has died. She was 91 years old.

Bardot died on Sunday at her home in the south of France, according to Bruno Jacquelin of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Protection of Animals. Speaking to The Associated Press, he gave no cause of death and said no arrangements had been made for funeral or memorial services. She had been hospitalized last month.

Bardot became an international celebrity as a sexualized teenage wife in the 1956 film “And God Created Woman.” Directed by then-husband Roger Vadim, the film sparked a scandal with scenes of the leggy beauty dancing naked on tables.

At the height of a film career that spanned more than two dozen films and three marriages, Bardot came to symbolize a nation glowing with bourgeois respectability. Her tousled blond hair, voluptuous figure and irreverent pout made her one of France’s best-known stars, even as she battled depression.

Its appeal was such that in 1969, its features were chosen to serve as a model for “Marianne”, the national emblem of France and the official seal of Gaul. Bardot’s face has appeared on statues, postage stamps and coins.

“We mourn a legend,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in an X post.

Bardot’s second career as an animal rights activist was equally sensational. She traveled to the Arctic to denounce the killing of seal pups. She also condemned the use of animals in laboratory experiments and opposed Muslim slaughter rituals.

“Man is an insatiable predator,” Bardot told the Associated Press on his 73rd birthday in 2007. “I don’t care about my past glory. That means nothing in the face of an animal that is suffering, since it has no power, no words to defend itself.”

Her activism earned her the respect of her compatriots and, in 1985, she received the Legion of Honor, the highest national distinction.

Turn far right

Later, however, she fell out of public favor when her diatribes about animal protection took on a decidedly extremist tone. She has frequently decried the influx of immigrants into France, particularly Muslims.

She was convicted and fined five times by French courts for inciting racial hatred, in incidents inspired by her opposition to the Muslim practice of slaughtering sheep during annual religious festivals.

Bardot’s marriage in 1992 to her fourth husband Bernard d’Ormale, a former advisor to far-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, contributed to her political change. She described Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist with multiple racist beliefs, as a “charming and intelligent man.”

In 2012, she supported the presidential candidacy of Marine Le Pen, who now leads her father’s party, the National Rally. Le Pen paid tribute on Sunday to an “exceptional woman” who was “incredibly French”.

In 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Bardot said in an interview that most actors protesting sexual harassment in the film industry were “hypocrites” because many of them were “playing games” with producers to land roles.

She said she had never experienced sexual harassment and found it “charming to be told I was beautiful or that I had a nice little ass.”

A privileged but “difficult” education

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was born on September 28, 1934 to a rich industrialist. A shy child, she studied classical ballet and was discovered by a family friend who put her on the cover of Elle magazine at 14.

Bardot once described her childhood as “difficult” and said her father was a strict disciplinarian who sometimes punished her with a whip.

Vadim, a French film producer whom she married in 1952, saw her potential and wrote “And God Created Woman” to showcase her provocative sensuality, an explosive cocktail of childlike innocence and raw sexuality.

The film, which depicts Bardot as a teenager who marries to escape an orphanage and then sleeps with her brother-in-law, was a decisive influence on New Wave directors Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut and came to epitomize the hedonism and sexual freedom of the 1960s.

The film was a box office success and made Bardot a superstar. Her girlish pout, her thin waist and her generous bust were often more appreciated than her talent.

“It’s embarrassing to have done so badly,” Bardot said of his early films. “I suffered a lot at the beginning. I was really treated like someone less than nothing.”

Bardot’s unabashed, off-screen romance with co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant eradicated the boundaries between her public and private life and made her a paparazzi hotshot.

Bardot never adapted to being in the spotlight. She blamed constant media attention for the suicide attempt that followed 10 months after the birth of her only child, Nicolas. Photographers broke into her house two weeks before her due date to take a photo of her pregnant.

Nicolas’s father was Jacques Charrier, a French actor whom she married in 1959 but who never felt comfortable in his role as Monsieur Bardot. Bardot quickly abandoned her son to his father and later said she suffered from chronic depression and was not ready to take on her duties as a mother.

“At the time, I was looking for roots,” she said in an interview. “I had nothing to offer.”

In her 1996 autobiography “Initials BB,” she compared her pregnancy to “a tumor growing inside me” and described Charrier as “temperamental and abusive.”

Bardot married her third husband, West German millionaire playboy Gunther Sachs, in 1966, and they divorced three years later.

Among his films were “Un Parisien” (1957); “In Case of Misfortune”, in which she starred in 1958 with cinema legend Jean Gabin; “The Truth” (1960); “Private Life” (1962); “A Lovely Idiot” (1964); “Shalako” (1968); “Women” (1969); “The Bear and the Doll” (1970); “Boulevard du Rhum” (1971); and “Don Juan” (1973).

With the exception of Godard’s critically acclaimed 1963 “Contempt,” Bardot’s films were rarely complicated by plots. Often they were vehicles for displaying Bardot in skimpy dresses or frolicking naked in the sun.

“It was never a big passion of mine,” she said of filmmaking. “And it can sometimes be fatal. Marilyn (Monroe) perished because of it.”

Bardot retired to her Riviera villa in Saint-Tropez at the age of 39 in 1973 after “The Woman Grabber.” As fans brought flowers to her home on Sunday, the local administration of Saint-Tropez called for “respect for the privacy of her family and the serenity of the places where she lived.”

Middle-aged reinvention

She appeared a decade later with a new persona: an animal rights lobbyist, her face lined and her voice deep from years of heavy smoking. She abandoned her jet-setting life and sold movie memorabilia and jewelry to create a foundation devoted exclusively to preventing animal cruelty.

Depression dogged her at times, and she said she attempted suicide again on her 49th birthday.

His activism knew no boundaries. She urged South Korea to ban the sale of dog meat and once wrote to US President Bill Clinton asking why the US Navy had taken back two dolphins it had released into the wild.

She attacked centuries-old French and Italian sporting traditions, including the Palio, a free-range horse race, and campaigned for wolves, rabbits, kittens and doves.

“It’s true that sometimes I get carried away, but when I see how slowly things are moving… my distress takes over,” Bardot told the AP when asked about his beliefs in racial hatred and his opposition to Muslim ritual slaughter.

In 1997, several cities removed Bardot-inspired statues of Marianne after the actress expressed anti-immigration sentiment. Also that year, she received death threats after calling for a ban on the sale of horse meat.

Environmental activist Paul Watson, who was beaten in a protest against Canada’s seal hunt alongside Bardot in 1977 and campaigned with her for five decades, acknowledged that “many disagreed with Brigitte’s policies or with some of her views.”

“His allegiance was not to the human world,” he said. “The animals of this world have lost a wonderful friend today. »

Bardot once said she identified with the animals she was trying to save.

“I can understand the animals that are hunted, because of the way I was treated,” Bardot said. “What happened to me was inhumane. I was constantly surrounded by the world press.”

___

Elaine Ganley reported on this story before her retirement. Angela Charlton contributed to this report.



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MARKETS EUROPE/DAX is up slightly at target level #MARKETS #EUROPEDAX #slightly #target #level

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December 30, 2025

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DJ MARKETS EUROPA/DAX is up slightly from the target level

DOW JONES–European stock markets are higher Tuesday afternoon. There is little news and most investors are no longer active as the start of the year approaches. We cannot exclude the so-called “window dressing” of individual stocks, i.e. the targeted maintenance of prices in the portfolios of institutional investors. On some exchanges, trading is shortened only on Tuesdays. Trading in Germany and Austria ends at 2 p.m. THIS. While today is the last trading day of the year on some exchanges, shortened listings will take place on Wednesday in Lisbon, London, Madrid and Paris.

The DAX gained 0.5 percent to 24,476 points; the index is up 22 percent since the start of the year. The DAX can look back on an excellent year overall. “A closer look, however, shows that only the first half of the year was excellent for the DAX. The second half of the year was more of a sideways trend,” explains QC Partners. The MDAX is once again lagging and is up 19 percent year to date. The TecDAX has a meager yield of 5 percent. This continues the pattern of German blue-chip companies performing better in their international operations than German mid-sized companies. Whether this will change with Germany’s billion-dollar investment program remains to be seen.

The Euro-Stoxx-50 rose by 0.6 percent to 5,789 points. The majority of the year’s best-performing countries come from the South, where European economic growth was based last year. The Spanish stock market rose by 48 percent, while in Athens the index even rose by 50 percent.

On the foreign exchange market, the euro changes little, at $1.1769; During the year, the greenback lost a lot of value. This is unlikely to make it easier for European companies to sell more expensive products around the world due to the strength of the euro next year. Yields on the bond markets are up slightly. After the liquidation of the day before, precious metals are recovering. The price of gold rose 1.2 percent to $4,385, silver rose 3.8 percent to $74.90. Not surprisingly, European mining stocks were one of the day’s winners, rising 1.6 percent. Shares of silver producer Fresnillo rose 5.5 percent.

The geopolitical situation remains tense. US President Donald Trump has threatened Iran with a military strike if the country resumes its nuclear program. Meanwhile, Hamas was threatened with serious consequences if the terrorist organization did not lay down its arms. Finally, China is organizing one of the largest military exercises in recent years off the coast of Taiwan. This is likely a reaction to the recent announcement of US arms deliveries to the island nation.

Additionally, the United States recently carried out an attack on a port area in Venezuela where US President Trump said drugs were being loaded onto boats and smuggled across international waters, saying a “big explosion” had occurred. Oil prices are barely reacting to this news. Brent is up 0.4 percent.

Defense stocks are recovering after the selling pressures of the day before. There is still no sign of progress in peace or ceasefire negotiations in Ukraine. Rheinmetall gained 2.1 percent, Renk 2.5 percent and Hensoldt 0.9 percent.

Meanwhile, bank stocks continue to run. The sector can look forward to a good year in 2025 thanks to the rise in yields on the bond markets. Deutsche Bank gains 1.5 percent and Commerzbank 2.0 percent.

Chipmaker Infineon’s sales growth (+1.8%) is down, with only one sector seeing strong growth: semiconductors to power AI data centers. “We are seeing a strong increase in demand and many indicators suggest that this will continue in the coming years,” CEO Jochen Hanebeck told Handelsblatt. “We currently cannot deliver as much as customers order.” 

=== 
INDEX           zuletzt    +/- %  absolut +/- % YTD 
Euro-Stoxx-50      5.788,57    +0,6%   36,86   +17,4% 
Stoxx-50         4.918,84    +0,5%   25,52   +13,6% 
DAX           24.476,16    +0,5%   125,04   +22,3% 
MDAX          30.548,50    +0,3%   95,97   +18,4% 
TecDAX          3.613,61    +0,4%   13,79   +5,0% 
SDAX          17.094,60    +0,5%   78,05   +22,6% 
CAC           8.141,91    +0,4%   29,89   +9,8% 
SMI           13.259,65    +0,1%   19,06   +14,2% 
ATX           5.304,29    +1,1%   56,33   +43,2% 
 
DEVISEN          zuletzt    +/- %    0:00 Mo, 18:00  % YTD 
EUR/USD          1,1769    +0,0%   1,1767   1,1756  +13,7% 
EUR/JPY          183,56    -0,1%   183,67   183,59  +13,1% 
EUR/CHF          0,9286    -0,1%   0,9291   0,9287  -1,0% 
EUR/GBP          0,8715    -0,0%   0,8716   0,8712  +5,4% 
USD/JPY          155,94    -0,1%   156,03   156,12  -0,5% 
GBP/USD          1,3505    +0,0%   1,3502   1,3494  +7,9% 
USD/CNY          7,0292    -0,0%   7,0312   7,0324  -2,3% 
USD/CNH          6,9881    -0,2%   6,9987   7,0001  -4,5% 
AUS/USD          0,6701    +0,1%   0,6693   0,6690  +8,4% 
Bitcoin/USD       87.770,40    +0,6% 87.232,35 87.544,55  -7,3% 
 
ROHÖL           zuletzt VT-Settlem.   +/- %  +/- USD  % YTD 
WTI/Nymex          58,29    58,08   +0,4%    0,21  -20,9% 
Brent/ICE          62,12    61,94   +0,3%    0,18  -19,4% 
 
METALLE          zuletzt    Vortag   +/- %  +/- USD  % YTD 
Gold           4.384,52   4.330,40   +1,2%   54,12  +72,8% 
Silber           74,90    72,18   +3,8%    2,73 +173,6% 
Platin          1.854,76   1.791,70   +3,5%   63,06 +137,7% 
Kupfer            5,49     5,49     0%    0,00  +33,6% 
YTD bezogen auf Schlussstand des Vortags 
(Angaben ohne Gewähr) 
===

Contact the author: maerkte.de@dowjones.com

DJG/thl/ros

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 30, 2025 7:01 a.m. ET (12:01 p.m. GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.



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Nuggets’ Nikola Jokic prepares for MRI after injuring knee in Miami #Nuggets #Nikola #Jokic #prepares #MRI #injuring #knee #Miami

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December 30, 2025

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MIAMI — Nuggets star Nikola Jokic limped off the court at halftime of Denver’s 147-123 loss to the Miami Heat on Monday night after injuring his left knee about three seconds before intermission.

He was not on the field in the second half and will have an MRI on Tuesday.

“Immediately he knew something was wrong,” Nuggets coach David Adelman said after the game. “Hey, that’s part of the NBA. Anyone who gets hurt in this game, it’s a little heartbreaking, especially someone as special as him. We’ll know more tomorrow. We’ll move forward as a team. Obviously, right now, I’m more concerned about him as a person and the disappointment of going through something like this.”

Jokic was alone under the basket and appeared to step forward to help Denver’s Spencer Jones defend a drive by Miami’s Jaime Jaquez Jr. as time was about to expire in the second quarter. While reversing, Jones stepped on Jokic’s left foot and it appeared the center’s knee bent a bit.

Jokic collapsed on the court, grabbing his knee. He was helped to his feet, then made his way to the locker room under his own power but with a pronounced limp. He was evaluated by doctors Monday night before leaving the arena, and the Nuggets were scheduled to fly to Toronto on Tuesday for a game against the Raptors on Wednesday.

“It’s just part of this process,” Adelman said. “You don’t get definitive answers right after these things happen. I know he’s an extremely special player that people want updates on immediately; that makes perfect sense to me. But we will follow the process properly, for him and for our team.”

The Nuggets have faced major injury issues this season and were playing Monday without three potential contenders: Christian Braun (left ankle sprain), Aaron Gordon (right hamstring sprain) and Cameron Johnson (right knee injury management).

Denver has managed to fight its way through these injuries – thanks in large part to Jokic.

“The things he’s doing this year,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said before Monday’s game, “are really remarkable.”

Jokic had 21 points, 8 assists and 5 rebounds in the first half on Monday. If he sits out for any length of time, it will be a major blow to Denver and, in some ways, the entire NBA, given that he is one of the game’s superstars. Even a month’s absence would mean about 16 games, which could have a serious impact on Denver’s standing in a loaded Western Conference.

“Tonight my mind is going to wander,” Adelman said. “And there will be questions about what we should do in the future if he is out for a while or a long period of time.”

Jokic is a three-time MVP and was certainly early in the MVP conversation this season, having started Monday averaging 29.9 points, 12.4 rebounds and 11.1 assists – on track to average a triple-double for the second straight campaign.

“He’s not only a big part of what we do, but almost everything we do,” Nuggets guard Jamal Murray said. “We just want to see him healthy, and everyone here is ready to step up.”

Jokic has also been remarkably durable. He has missed 36 games over the past five seasons; the Nuggets went 13-23 during those absences. He played in all 32 games for Denver this season.

“I hope for the best,” Adelman said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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Russia accuses Ukraine of attacking Putin’s residence with drones; Kyiv denies allegations #Russia #accuses #Ukraine #attacking #Putins #residence #drones #Kyiv #denies #allegations

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December 30, 2025

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The conflict, which began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.





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Russia on Monday accused Ukraine of launching a large-scale drone attack on one of President Vladimir Putin’s residences in the Novgorod region, a claim kyiv dismissed as a “fabrication” intended to derail ongoing peace talks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine deployed 91 long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) overnight from Sunday to Monday. He claimed that all drones were intercepted and destroyed by Russian air defenses and that there were no casualties or damage. Lavrov called Ukraine’s actions “state terrorism” and warned that Russia would reconsider its negotiating position in the U.S.-led peace process.

Ukraine has strongly denied these allegations. President Volodymyr Zelensky called the claims “typical Russian lies” designed to justify further attacks on Ukraine and undermine peace efforts with the United States. “It is essential that the world does not remain silent now,” Zelensky said on X, calling for continued international support for the negotiations.

The accusation comes shortly after Zelensky met with US President Donald Trump in Florida to discuss a revised peace plan. Ukraine says it has accepted 90% of the US proposal, including post-war security guarantees, although territorial disputes remain unresolved.

Zelensky rejected the request

Speaking to Fox News, Zelensky said that while there is a “possibility of ending this war” by 2026, Ukraine still counts on support from the United States. He also expressed skepticism about Putin’s desire to seek peace.

The conflict, which began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has left much of the eastern Donbass region disputed. Russia controls around 75% of Donetsk and 99% of Luhansk, while Ukraine continues to resist Moscow’s advances.

As tensions rise, international attention is now focused on whether alleged attacks like the one on Putin’s residence further complicate the fragile peace process.



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