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Truck Driver Sentenced, Taxi Reform and St Peter's Basilica gets a café
A truck driver has been handed an 18-month driving ban and a €1,500 fine following a fatal accident on the A1 motorway in September 2023. He was also ordered to pay damages exceeding half a million euros.
The defendant had appeared in court on charges of manslaughter and involuntary bodily harm. The case relates to an incident on the A1 motorway in which the driver, travelling with the tipper body of his lorry raised, struck and tore down an overhead gantry. The structure subsequently collapsed onto the motorway, resulting in the death of one person.
Experts identified both a technical fault on the vehicle and driver negligence as contributing factors to the accident. According to the Luxemburger Wort, the National Roads Administration alone is claiming more than €500,000 in compensation for the destruction of the gantry and the associated repair works. In addition, procedural costs amount to over €36,000. Judges have requested a further expert assessment in relation to an additional compensation claim.
Also today
- Planned taxi reform, has drawn uncertainty from industry representatives, who argue it is unlikely to lower fares and could lead to reduced vehicle utilisation and more precarious self-employment.
- The whole terrace on top of St Peter’s Basilica will soon be open to the public, complete with a cafe, the Vatican has announced, as part of a plan to mark the 400th anniversary of the building’s completion.
- STATEC has modernised Luxembourg’s CPI basket in line with new Eurostat classifications to better reflect real household spending and improve EU-wide comparability.
- France’s government has accused the hard left of being partly responsible for the killing of far-right activist, Quentin Deranque last week, after he was attacked while protesting at a university in Lyon
- Rental prices have become a “catastrophy” for Luxembourg’s attractiveness, according to Jean-Paul Scheuren, Vice-President of the Luxembourg Real Estate Chamber, speaking on RTL Radio this morning.
- Iran said on Monday that the United States’s position on Iran’s nuclear programme “has moved towards a more realistic one”, a day ahead of a second round of US-Iranian talks in Geneva.
- The UK government has said that it would include AI chatbots in online safety laws, closing a loophole exposed after Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok was used to create sexualised deepfakes.
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Figure of the day
Diekirch celebrates 58th carnival cavalcade
- The 58th edition of Diekirch’s renowned cavalcade took place on Sunday, with 52 groups making their way through the town, often affectionately referred to as the “Donkey Town”. Since 1978, the event has been organised by the committee D’Eselen aus der Sauerstad Dikrich – the Donkeys of the Sûre city Diekirch – which continues to oversee the popular carnival parade in the brewery town.
This year marked the 58th time that the carnival floats and performers processed through Diekirch. Unlike previous years, the parade began earlier, starting at 2pm. A total of 52 groups, on foot and on floats, took part, with around 1,800 participants in the procession, while many more spectators lined the streets to watch and celebrate. Organising an event of this scale requires considerable effort. Each year, a budget of around €200,000 is needed to stage the cavalcade.
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