Youpe Last Week

Another week and another look at another week’s goings-on in Europe, or as Grandma Riva, born in Horodenka, Ukraine, circa 1888 — featured here holding a very young Jack Friedman after being called away from her weekly poker game — called it, “Youpe.”

The European Union may invoke a little-known blocking statute that would ban companies and banks from complying with sanctions imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump. The American administration has stepped up its campaign to break the Hague-based court by withdrawing from the Rome Statute that created it and urging its allies to do the same. In coordinated statements on X, meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa said, “The ICC helps deliver justice to the victims of some of the world’s most horrific crimes,” adding that “to carry out this essential work, its judges and officials must be able to act independently and without external pressure.” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called the ICC a “corrupt and fatally-politicised supranational court”. In the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex say they will return to Great Britain. A source close to the couple said the “stars had aligned” to make the move at this time. The couple had been living in California. A man armed with a sword injured several students in central Sweden. Portugal enacted a law banning face coverings in public spaces, which many contend targets Muslim women who wear full-face veils. Fines range from €150 to €3,000, with exemptions for health, professional, artistic or weather-related reasons, as well as in places of worship, diplomatic missions and on aircraft. “The face must be considered a central element of human identity and communication,” Portugal’s President António Jose Seguro said in a statement late Tuesday. The bill was sponsored by the far-right Chega party. A spokesperson for the green-led Livre party said it was an attempt to create “a ‘moral panic’ over a supposed Islamic invasion that the far right so often talks about.”