FRANKFURT

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on the last day of trading for the year on Dec. 31, 2024 in New York City.

Despite political upheavals, stock markets and bitcoin smashed records in 2024, fuelled by investor enthusiasm for Artificial Intelligence (AI), falling interest rates, and hopes of tax cuts.

Many Bulgarians are making their way back home for the holidays, with a significant portion of them coming from Germany. According to data from the online travel agency eSky.bg, Bulgarians returning for Christmas mostly travel from Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy, with large communities also coming from the United Kingdom and Spain.

Although Greeks, like the rest of Europeans, have shortened their vacation days, they now seize every opportunity for short escapes both within and beyond the borders.

Bulgaria is nearing the fulfillment of its last nominal criterion for joining the eurozone, with expectations set for mid-January.

Hello, holidays and vacations are arriving with good weather, a bit of chill, and some snow, normal for the season. We hear about upcoming natural disasters almost every other day, but thankfully we don’t see them materializing. On the contrary, roads and shops are jam-packed, and hotel and airline bookings, both domestic and international, are nearly sold out.

When the hammer fell at Christie's in Manhattan on May 15, 1990, a Vincent van Gogh painting, "Portrait of Dr Gachet," set the record at the time for the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction, going to a Japanese paper magnate for $82.5 million.

The inscription inside a 3rd century AD silver amulet found in Frankfurt changes what we have known so far about the spread of Christianity in northern Europe.

The find, measuring just a few centimetres in size, was discovered during a 2017-2018 excavation in a grave of a man aged 25-35. The tomb was on the outskirts of the present-day city and dates to around 230 to 270 AD.

For the first time, Paris and Berlin will be connected today by a direct high-speed rail link, a bet towards a rail Europe over airline competition.

Petros Panagiotidis is strengthening its presence in the container ship sector. More specifically, Nasdaq-listed US-based Castor Maritime Inc, through its Cyprus-based subsidiary, has agreed with MPC Münchmeyer Petersen & Co.

The European Central Bank is expected to cut interest rates again this week amid a darkening outlook, with political turbulence in the eurozone's two biggest economies adding to the troubled picture.

It would be the ECB's third straight reduction as it increasingly focuses on spurring lending to boost consumer spending and business investment in the 20 countries that use the euro.