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Minister Hermans has announced that the 13-week ultrasound for pregnant women will be abolished as of January 1, 2028, because the benefits of the ultrasound do not outweigh the disadvantages and it can cause unnecessary anxiety. #13wekenecho #zwangerschap #gezondheidszorg (translated)

The SWAT team like descent on Rep Omar's home weeks before an election, after JD Vance declared an intention to investigate her for some crime, any crime, echoes decades of misuses of law enforcement power for political purposes, starting with J Edgar Hoover's deportation of political opponents.

LETTERE MERIDIANE — “TEATRO-EDICOLA” OF SAN SEVERO CONQUERS THE WORLD SOURCE: https://www.letteremeridiane.org/2026/10/il-teatro-edicola-di-san-severo-conquista-il-mondo/?fbclid=IwY2xjawU4oqFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBwZG9mAXNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR5rVEwYs6UUXg7v-P0SyIQ_DRb_F6ZiY58OcseYoV4J7atcTiERnhWaqKM2pw_aem_Njle1jq1XLzHr93KLBUcVA After “Broadway World”, the “Los Angeles Journal”, “The Psychologist (British Psychological Association)” and Hollywood Beat Magazine, its “academic consecration” has now arrived courtesy of Stanford University. As I have already emphasised in my article on the revival of the GIO Festival in Foggia, celebrated by BroadwayWorld for the world stage premiere of the Giordano’s opera Marina (1888), the province of Foggia has long ceased to be peripheral. It happens when it finds an idea that shifts the coordinates: well, in San Severo, 40 kilometres from Foggia, it has happened again. Only this time an orchestra was not needed; six chairs were enough. The celebrated Teatro-Edicola of San Severo artistic director Francesco Gravino of the theatre company Foyer ’97 has been featured in the academic journal “Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR)” as an academic case study. The news, relayed on 19 September 2026 by ANSA Nazionale, looked like a misprint. Then it became clear that it was not. SSIR, an award-winning publication covering multisectoral solutions to global problems, included the project in its Dispatches section with the reportage “The Six-Seat Revolution”. It is the inverse trajectory to that of the GIO Festival: not a forgotten opera returning to a grand historic Italian horseshoe theatre, but an entire theatre reborn inside a disused place, forgotten by man. There are moments when past and future intertwine to create something visionary, innovative, artistically “revolutionary”: San Severo experienced one of those moments on the morning of 27 March 2026, during World Theatre Day, when the shutter of a newsstand closed for six years in Via Matteo Tondi was reopened “not to sell newspapers, but to offer stirring stories”, to quote Gravino’s motto. The idea of the visionary Francesco Gravino, artistic director, stage director and actor of the San Severo company Foyer ’97, active for at least 30 years in Capitanata, centred on the kiosk, hexagonal in metal and glass, granted free of charge by its owner Pino Frau, by now an urban relic created by the publishing crisis of the early 2000s: today in Italy active newsstands have fallen from about 35,000 in 2005 to about 20,000 in 2024, a decline of 42.8%. Gravino and eleven other actors restructured it in two weeks of work, without institutional funding, and transformed it into what is now under examination by the London commission of Guinness World Records as the “world’s smallest theatre”. The formula is deliberately austere: six spectators at a time outside, actors inside at less than a metre’s distance, 15-minute performances, continuous rotation from 11:00 to 20:45, texts ranging from Goldoni to Chekhov, from Ibsen to Dacia Maraini. On the door a QR code with an original theatrical warning: “Warning! This QR code transforms passers-by into actors. Scan only if ready.” The numbers immediately showed that it was no boutade: more than 60 people in a single afternoon, three inaugural days that sold out. But above all a positive echo that went beyond the borders of San Severo. “Broadway World” (just as in the previous case of the GIO Festival), the world’s most influential theatre criticism outlet with over 5.5 million monthly views, devoted exclusive coverage to it on 27 April 2026: “An Abandoned Italian Newsstand Just Became the World’s Smallest Theatre”. Not a mere listing, but an analysis: “There is no foyer, there is no balcony, there is no grid. There is barely a wing. What there is is something almost unrecognisable as an evening at the theatre, and for that very reason it is all the more powerful.” “Broadway World” captured Gravino’s manifesto idea: “This is a theatre of proximity. In an era of digital distance, we are putting human contact back at the centre,” framing it as “More than a clever exercise in site-specific theatre. It is a reappropriation.” All of this, in a Mezzogiorno of Italy often narrated only in terms of organised crime and marginalisation. To that seal of approval was added another, even more disorienting for a newsstand in San Severo: the “Los Angeles Journal”, one of the most influential publications on the West Coast for the performing arts. On 12 May 2026, it headlined thus: “San Severo’s Teatro-Edicola as an Innovative Model for Los Angeles Theaters?” opening as follows: “In a city in southern Italy that Hollywood has never heard of, a theatre director has just built the smallest stage in the world: six seats, fifteen minutes, zero distance. Los Angeles should pay attention.” The “Los Angeles Journal” does not indulge in folklore, but places the kiosk in Via Matteo Tondi alongside the prestigious 1,600-seat Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, the Pantages of Broadway in Hollywood, the 99-seat plan of Rogue Machine, the Odyssey, the Victory Theatre and the Hollywood Fringe. It even recalls Ethan Marks’s Electrical Box Theatre, a veritable electrical box lined with red velvet in downtown Los Angeles, to argue that Gravino has taken to the extreme the question Los Angeles has been asking itself for decades: How small can a stage become before it ceases to be a stage? And it recognizes the San Severo urban model: almost zero cost, two weeks of work and six chairs, in return for immediate provincial, regional and national media coverage, recognition by the San Severo’s Municipal Administration, and a format exportable anywhere. Then, the third American piece came from “Hollywood Beat Magazine” on 20 April 2026: Six seats. Fifteen minutes. One actor. No stage. The magazine recounts the kiosk in Via Tondi left disused for almost six years, the contemporary six-seat cultural outpost, placing Francesco Gravino in a distinguished genealogy: Richard Schechner and environmental theatre, Jerzy Grotowski and poor theatre, Nicolas Bourriaud and relational aesthetics. But it closes with pragmatism: it is not a thesis, it is fixing a street corner, that is, repairing an urban street corner by asking not how large a theatre can become, but how small it must become again to recover its original power. And finally, the celebrated London-based “The Psychologist”, the journal of the “British Psychological Society (BPS)”, the oldest psychological society in the world, transformed the Teatro-Edicola into a scientific case study: on 30 July 2026 it published “The world’s smallest theatre — and Psychologists’ next act”, starting from the same detail, the morning of 27 March when the metal shutter of the hexagonal kiosk in Via Tondi reopened after six years, six people inside, an actor at less than a metre’s distance beginning Chekhov. It describes the formula: six spectators, 15 minutes, 11 actors over 10 hours, from Goldoni to Euripides, inside a kiosk where the fourth wall does not break because architecturally it never existed. But the BPS goes a step further: it cites the 2025 studies by Damien Gabriel in IBRO Neuroscience Reports, that live performance generates measurably stronger emotional and physiological activation than video, and introduces Edward Hall’s proxemics: below one metre is intimate space, reserved for doctors, close friends, lovers. In that one-square-metre space, the actor’s breath is audible, micro-expressions legible, the self-other boundary becomes permeable. The Teatro-Edicola “does not make theatre better, it makes it inevitable”. And it is here that one understands why Stanford is studying it as an academic case study in social innovation, not as a case of artistic originality. In Italy, meanwhile, the national media circuit had already picked up the phenomenon: RaiNews — TG2 Storie brought it to RaiDue at midnight on 19 April. RTL 102.5 devoted space to the format conceived by Gravino and developed by Foyer ’97 in the heart of San Severo in Via Tondi, defining it as a permanent micro-stage capable of bringing theatre into public space. ANSA.it, Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, La Repubblica, TG2000, Radio Capital, Swiss RSI, ANSA Brazil and many others followed. And for the record: Fiorello praised it in La Pennicanza as an artistic case inspired by his Edicola Fiore, and Biagio Antonacci, on his tour in the Augustan amphitheatre of Lucera, made a “fact-finding” stop at the Teatro-Edicola singing the celebrated and nostalgic Iris in front of an audience certainly larger than the “six seats”. Francesco Gravino’s theatre company Foyer ’97 was not born yesterday: behind it lie the Teatro-Cantina of 2016, the underground theatre, and in 2011 a performance on the bell tower of a church in the centre of San Severo at 45 metres high. The Teatro-Edicola completes, in Gravino’s words, “the entire vertical extension of theatre: underground, street level, rooftop”. And it is preparing for its thirtieth anniversary in 2027 aiming to purchase the kiosk to make it permanent, exporting the “San Severo Model” to Rome, Lucca, and to the festivals of Santarcangelo and Todi. As with the GIO Festival, someone might dare to claim that it is merely a stunt, but when BroadwayWorld places you alongside the Los Angeles Opera House, the “Los Angeles Journa”l proposes you as a model for Hollywood, “Hollywood Beat Magazine” reads you through Grotowski and the “British Psychological Society” uses you to explain mirror neurones, it is no longer a stunt but an excellent artistic and academic positioning. To those who still whisper that Foggia and Capitanata are provincial, the answer is now written on two opposite and complementary fronts: on 5 June in Foggia a 138-year-old opera found the stage again at the Giordano ending up on BroadwayWorld; on 27 March in San Severo a 4-square-metre kiosk invented a stage that did not exist, ending up at Stanford, in Los Angeles, in Hollywood and in London. The periphery, when it has a precise idea, becomes the centre. Even with six chairs. Luciano Magaldi Sardella

We started with only 30 people. The engineers earned twice as much as I did, and when we took a taxi instead of the bus, we had to justify it," recalls his wife Stella Li, vice president of the Chinese group and the face of the brand internationally, in Les Echos. #BYD #VoitureÉlectrique #MondialAutomobile (translated)

Jonas Zuschke accused TV2 Echo of manipulation and propaganda. He wrote that the media continued to portray the demonstrators as school students protesting against poor conditions at schools, and claimed that the coverage did not reflect reality. He also criticized the journalist's final question about what could make the viewer go out onto the streets, calling it extremely inappropriate. Zuschke urged people to share the post. #TV2Echo #Manipulation #Propaganda (translated)

Clément Molin stated that Donald Trump's announcement regarding the purchase of diesel from Russia revealed the failure of his administration's foreign policy. He wrote that, despite his promises, Trump had not ended any wars, except for those that were already over, and that the war against Iran had failed, particularly politically, damaging the image of the United States and the global economy. Molin also claimed that Trump had repeatedly failed in Ukraine and that the United States had lost a significant part of its influence there. According to him, Trump’s actions towards Canada and Greenland had brought Europeans closer together, while his pivot to Asia had not materialized: it had discontented most of America’s allies in the region and he had been humiliated by China. He also presented the abandonment of Middle Eastern allies as a sign that the United States was no longer seen as a reliable partner by many of their allies. Domestically, Molin considered Trump weakened, believing that he had not improved the daily lives of the Americans who voted for him, particularly due to the war against Iran. He finally wrote that the purchase of diesel from Russia served Vladimir Putin's interests, while adding that Trump might not receive the promised stocks due to Ukrainian strikes and that the operation would have little effect on the global economy. #PolitiqueÉtrangère #Trump #Russie (translated)

Russy Millán recalled that prosecutor Laborde had said that the investigations against Nicolás Petro for money laundering had led to other inquiries about people close to him. Millán suggested that this could have been the reason why Camargo removed Laborde from office and stated that Verónica should be among those investigated. #NicolásPetro #LavadoDeActivos #Investigación (translated)

FRENCHRAPUS reported that Victor Wembanyama had shown his support for Bally Bagayoko, whom he called the "mayor of the century." Bagayoko had thanked the basketball player and called on artists, athletes, and influencers to use their visibility to serve the youth. Wembanyama replied that there was no need for thanks and referred to him as a good guy. #NBA #VictorWembanyama #Soutien (translated)

SHADES wrote that Victor Wembanyama had expressed his support for Bally Bagayoko, who praised the player's stance in favor of the mobilized youth. Bagayoko had thanked Wembanyama and called on artists, athletes, and influencers to use their visibility to support this mobilization. Wembanyama responded to him in a familiar tone that it was no big deal and that he was a good person. #VictorWembanyama #BallyBagayoko #Jeunesse (translated)

An organization supported by the UN, Tech Against Terrorism, reveals that no AI model failing an independent security test should be offered, emphasizing that many current models lack sufficient protections against requests for assistance in terrorist operations. #IntelligenceArtificielle #Sécurité #Terrorisme (translated)

Actu Foot reported that José Mourinho wanted the Bernabéu to support Kylian Mbappé rather than follow a cause he deemed "orchestrated by journalists." Mourinho believed that the whistles against the striker were part of the objectives of some, and he called on the public to exercise discernment. He added that a Real Madrid player who failed to meet their sporting or civic obligations would not be left on the bench but would stay at home. According to him, Mbappé would play the next day because he was certain that he had not failed to meet his obligations. https://t.co/lNHsuhcrZT #Mbappé #RealMadrid #Football (translated)

The message claimed that the mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, had personally contacted Donald Trump to ask him to end ICE operations in the city, to no avail. It described this episode as a new crisis surrounding immigration, approaching the U.S. elections on November 3. #Immigration #Trump #Elections2024 #US (translated)