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José Morón wrote that the ATP rule on bathroom breaks, modified in 2024, set a maximum of three minutes from the time the player entered the bathroom, with an additional two minutes to change clothes. According to Morón, Bergs took nine and a half minutes after the first set and did not receive any warning. The author questioned what the rule was for if the chair umpires did not enforce it. #Tenis #ATP #ReglasDeJuego (translated)

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

Aisling Gallagher, a seemingly super healthy young woman, experienced alarming bowel symptoms that ultimately led to a diagnosis of stage-two rectal cancer at age 28, prompting her to raise awareness about the importance of early detection and recognizing warning signs in one's health. #BowelCancerAwareness #EarlyDetection #CancerSurvivor

The author said Hungary’s experience served as a warning to other countries, arguing that a radical shift after a moderate campaign and the exclusion of political opponents had occurred, or could occur, in the United States, Israel, Germany and Poland. https://t.co/LNIPZyrXN7 #politics #democracy #Europe #HU #US #IL #DE #PL

The author said they had canceled a long-awaited trip to the US, including Nashville and NYC, after receiving multiple warnings over the previous seven days. They did not specify what the warnings concerned, saying they felt no further explanation was needed. #viajes #Nashville #NYC #US

The author titled the entry "The Plague in Russia" and wrote that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was urging citizens of the United States staying in Russia to leave the country and advised against traveling to Russia. He pointed to the message "Health Alert – U.S. Embassy Moscow, Russia" dated October 6, 2026. https://t.co/8AOwneaQt0 #Rosja #zdrowie #warning #RU #US (translated)

Africa Daily Report — 7 October 2026 Key developments reported during the previous 24 hours. 1. KENYA — FIRST CONFIRMED EBOLA CASE AND DEATH Importance: 10/10 — Critical Kenya confirmed its first imported Ebola case after a Kenyan man who had been living in the Democratic Republic of Congo died in Nairobi. Health authorities identified 28 close contacts, including relatives and healthcare workers, and were tracing 23 fellow passengers and four crew members from his flight from Uganda. Contacts are to remain isolated for 21 days. The case represents a significant geographic expansion of the DRC outbreak, which has exceeded 8,000 confirmed cases and 4,000 deaths. Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/kenya-confirms-first-ebola-case-imported-congo-patient-has-died-2026-10-06/ 2. SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA — WORLD BANK RAISES 2026 GROWTH FORECAST TO 4.3% Importance: 9/10 — Very High The World Bank raised its 2026 Sub-Saharan Africa growth forecast to 4.3%, from 4.1% in its April projection, saying growth forecasts had been upgraded for nearly three-quarters of countries in the region. It nevertheless warned that per-capita income growth remains much weaker and that debt burdens, high energy prices, climate shocks and global uncertainty continue to constrain poverty reduction. The Bank also urged African governments to accelerate practical adoption of artificial intelligence, including shared infrastructure and stronger data frameworks. Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/world-bank-raises-africas-2026-growth-forecast-urges-ai-investments-2026-10-06/ 3. NIGERIA — AIR FORCE CONFIRMS 25 DEAD IN ONDO PLANE CRASH Importance: 9/10 — Very High The Nigerian Air Force clarified that 25 people — 20 passengers and five crew — were aboard the ATR-42 that crashed near Igbokoda in Ondo State, correcting an earlier figure of 32. There were no survivors. President Bola Tinubu declared three days of national mourning and ordered an investigation into the cause. The aircraft had been flying a routine mission to Lagos. Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/10/06/nigeria-plane-crash-ondo-air-force/8d3f597e-c16a-11f1-8170-681419af1cc9_story.html 4. SENEGAL — SCHOOL YEAR POSTPONED AFTER DEADLY FLOODING Importance: 8/10 — High Senegal postponed the nationwide start of primary and secondary school from Wednesday until Monday following several days of torrential rain and flooding. Parts of Dakar and other regions were inundated, roads were disrupted and deaths were reported. The delay is intended to allow schools to be cleaned, disinfected and restored. The flooding comes only weeks before Dakar is due to host the 2026 Summer Youth Olympics beginning October 31. Source: https://punchng.com/senegal-postpones-new-school-year-over-flooding-heavy-rain/ 5. NAMIBIA — EU SUSPENDS FRESH MEAT IMPORTS AFTER FOOT-AND-MOUTH OUTBREAK Importance: 9/10 — Very High The European Union temporarily suspended imports of fresh cattle, sheep and goat meat from Namibia following a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in the country's main commercial livestock zone. The disease had spread to 11 farms after being detected in southern Namibia. The economic exposure is substantial: the EU accounts for more than 80% of Namibia's beef exports, and the suspension could affect thousands of jobs linked to the European export chain. Source: https://southernafricantimes.com/eu-suspends-some-namibian-beef-imports-after-foot-and-mouth-disease-outbreak/ 6. SOUTH AFRICA — CENTRAL BANK WARNS OF SECOND-ROUND INFLATION RISKS Importance: 8/10 — High The South African Reserve Bank warned that the risk of second-round inflation effects is increasing, with sustained high oil prices and uncertainty surrounding El Niño complicating the inflation outlook. The warning follows signs of weakening private-sector activity and highlights the increasingly difficult trade-off facing monetary policymakers between inflation control and economic growth. Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africa-central-bank-says-second-round-inflation-risks-rise-2026-10-06/ 7. ETHIOPIA — FIGHTING IN TIGRAY CONTINUES TO RAISE REGIONAL-WAR RISK Airstrikes and artillery fire continued in northern Ethiopia after federal forces regained Mekelle. Aid sources reported at least 17 deaths northwest of the Tigrayan capital. Ethiopia has accused Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of supporting the Tigrayan-led armed opposition; those governments deny the allegations. Ethiopia and Eritrea have already severed diplomatic ties, while regional governments are increasing diplomatic and security coordination. The African Union and international partners continue to call for restraint and dialogue. Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/airstrikes-artillery-hit-north-ethiopia-after-tigray-capitals-fall-aid-sources-2026-10-05/ 8. SUDAN — UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL EXTENDS FACT-FINDING MISSION The UN Human Rights Council extended the mandate of its independent fact-finding mission on Sudan for another year, with 28 members voting in favour, 10 against and nine abstaining. The resolution called for an immediate ceasefire and cooperation with investigators examining alleged violations by parties to the conflict. Sudanese authorities have opposed the mission, arguing that existing UN mechanisms are sufficient. Source: https://www.blacknews.uk/un-human-rights-council-extends-mandate-of-sudan-fact-finding-mission 9. DR CONGO — AU MEDIATORS MEET AFC/M23 LEADERS IN GOMA An African Union mediation delegation including former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta, former Botswana president Mokgweetsi Masisi and former Ethiopian president Sahle-Work Zewde met AFC/M23 representatives in rebel-controlled Goma. Discussions focused on the eastern DRC peace process and efforts to coordinate the Doha and Washington diplomatic tracks. The visit is notable because it brought senior AU facilitators directly into talks with the rebel leadership in territory under AFC/M23 control. Source: https://bytewire.news/au-mediation-delegation-meets-afc-m23-leaders-in-goma/ 10. GHANA — FITCH SOLUTIONS SEES INFLATION RISING SHARPLY IN 2027 Importance: 7/10 — High Fitch Solutions forecasts Ghana's annual average inflation rising from about 4.7% in 2026 to 11.3% in 2027. It cites fading exchange-rate support, stronger money-supply growth, possible fiscal loosening, higher food costs linked to El Niño and energy-price risks. Fitch expects the Bank of Ghana could respond with renewed monetary tightening if inflation moves above 10% during 2027. Source: https://businesspostonline.com/2026/10/06/fitch-solutions-sees-inflation-rising-to-11-3-next-year/ #Africa #AfricaNews #TopNewsOfAfrica #Kenya #Ebola #EbolaOutbreak #DRC #PublicHealth #SubSaharanAfrica #WorldBank #AfricanEconomy #EconomicGrowth #AIInvestment #Nigeria #NigerianAirForce #OndoState #PlaneCrash #BolaTinubu #Senegal #Dakar #Floods #ClimateRisk #YouthOlympics #Namibia #FootAndMouthDisease #BeefExports #EuropeanUnion #SouthAfrica #SARB #Inflation #OilPrices #Ethiopia #Tigray #Mekelle #Eritrea #HornOfAfrica #Sudan #UNHRC #HumanRights #FactFindingMission #AfricanUnion #M23 #Goma #PeaceProcess #Ghana #FitchSolutions #GhanaInflation #AfricanSecurity #AfricanPolitics #AfricanBusiness #AfricanEconomy #wrldorg