Morning bird: Spain and Portugal are without electricity. In Canada, the liberals are heading for victory
Life has almost stopped in countries without electricity
Authorities in Spain and Portugal were trying to restore power supplies early Tuesday morning after a massive power outage that caused flights to be suspended, public transport to be paralysed, mobile communication to be disrupted and ATMs to be taken offline. Before dawn, electricity was gradually being restored in several regions of Spain and Portugal, which were recovering from a so far unexplained major power outage that turned airports and railway stations into campsites for stranded passengers.
At five in the morning, the Spanish electricity operator, Red Eléctrica, announced that it had managed to restore more than 92% of energy demand. On Monday night, many city dwellers, including the Spanish capital Madrid, went to sleep in total darkness. The usually lit towers of the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona became indistinguishable from the night sky. The streets remained deserted even in quarters where the lights came back on, as people stayed home after a day full of chaos, reported AP agency.
According to projections, liberals led by Carney will win in Canadian elections
According to Canadian media, the Canadian Liberal Party, led by Prime Minister Mark Carney, are on course to win the federal elections in the country, following a campaign overshadowed by constant provocations and tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump. Television networks such as CTV and CBC predicted that the liberals will gain enough seats to form their fourth consecutive government. As votes are still being counted, however, it is too early to say whether it will be a minority or majority government - to form a majority, a party needs 172 seats.
The sixty-year-old former central banker Carney has become the leader of the anti-Trump wave. Last month, he clearly won the battle for the leadership of his party after the former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigned. He won over the public as a leader against threats from the American president to annex the country as the "51st state", and made the defense of Canada a central part of his campaign, reported CNN.
Chinese dating online chats with thousands of followers facing a singles crisis
According to government data, the number of single people over 15 in China will reach a record high of 240 million in 2023. Faced with declining fertility and an aging population, the government encourages single people to get married and have more children. Last year, the State Council, the Chinese cabinet, ordered local governments to build various platforms for young people to have more dating opportunities.
One of the options is also online chats, where people communicate about everyday problems. Often, they have hundreds or even thousands of anonymous followers as these meetings happen on public chats. For those who want to get married, however, live streamed videos are an attractive alternative to traditional matchmaking methods, like marriage markets where families swap resumes and arrange dates for their single children, wrote AP agency.
