EUROPE

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The dark world of organized crime resurfaced in brutal fashion this week as Jean-Pierre Maldera, a notorious former mafia figure, was gunned down in broad daylight on a French motorway. Maldera, once a key player in the "Italo-Grenoblois" criminal syndicate, met his end in a hail of bullets, reportedly from military-grade weapons such as a Kalashnikov rifle.

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A massive 500-kilogram World War II bomb unearthed near tracks outside Paris brought travel to a standstill on Friday, impacting thousands of passengers and causing significant disruption at the Gare du Nord train station. The station, France's busiest railway terminus and a key international hub serving London and mainland Europe, saw all traffic halted as authorities worked to safely remove the device.

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Northvolt, a Swedish electric car battery maker once hailed as a cornerstone of Europe's efforts to rival Asia and the United States in battery cell production, has filed for bankruptcy in Sweden. The company, founded in 2016, struggled with debt, slow demand, and production delays, ultimately failing to secure the necessary financing to continue operations. The setback follows BMW's cancellation of a €2 billion ($2.2 billion) order in May 2024.

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Denmark's state-run postal service, PostNord, will end its 400-year-old letter delivery service at the end of 2025 due to a 90% drop in letter volumes since the start of the century. The company will begin removing Denmark's 1,500 post boxes from June.