European Central Bank Governing Council member Peter Kazimir said investor wagers on reductions in borrowing costs before mid-2024

Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, Courteney Cox, David Schwimmer, and Lisa Kudrow are set to release a joint statement following the death of their “brother” Matthew Perry, sources have revealed. The Friends protagonists are said to be “reeling” after news broke early on Sunday that Perry had died, aged 54, in a suspected drowing at his LA home. “The cast is reeling from the loss of their brother, because that’s what Matty was — their brother,” an industry source told Page Six. “It’s just devastating.” They added: “The entire cast are close, they will be devastated, because they were together through the best of times and worst of times. “And when Matty was sick, they protected him, they looked him after him fiercely.” The iconic sit-com, which ran for 10 seasons, propelled the six main cast members to international stardom, but the success was bitter-sweet for Perry. The American-Canadian actor, whose portrayal of the lovably sarcastic Chandler Bing transformed him into a comedy icon, battled addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs for decades, including during his time on the career-defining show. In his 2022 memoir, ‘Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing’, Perry opened up about his internal conflicts while filming Friends, writing: “I loved my co-actors. I loved the scripts. I loved everything about the show but I was struggling with my addictions which only added to my sense of shame. “I felt like I was gonna die if the live audience didn’t laugh, and that’s not healthy for sure. But I could sometimes say a line and the audience wouldn’t laugh and I would sweat and sometimes go into convulsions. “If I didn’t get the laugh I was supposed to get I would freak out. I felt that every single night. This pressure left me in a bad place. I also knew of the six people making that show, only one of them was sick.” He also recounted how Aniston once confronted him on set. “I know you’re drinking – we can smell it,” he recalled her telling him, admitting that the plural “we” hit him “like a sledgehammer.” Elsewhere, Kudrow wrote the foreword to the autobiography, describing Perry as “whip-smart, charming, sweet, sensitive, very reasonable, and rational.” She added: “That guy, with everything he was battling, was still there.” The 54-year-old was clearly beloved by members of the wider cast, with Maggie Wheeler and Morgan Fairchild among the first celebrity voices to share their devastation at his passing. Wheeler, who played Perry’s on-off girlfriend Janice Hosenstein during the early series of the TV show and often appeared to perform her catchphrase “Oh! My! God!”, paid tribute to Perry on Instagram. Meanwhile, Fairchild, who played Perry’s on-screen mother and erotic novel writer Nora Bing, said on Twitter/X: Hank Azaria appeared in several episodes of the sitcom, playing Phoebe Buffay’s love interest David, and said that Perry was like a “brother” to him. In a video posted to his Instagram, he said: “Matthew was the first friend I made in Los Angeles when I moved there. I was 21 he was 16. “We did a pilot together … we became really good friends and we were really more like brothers for a long time. “We drank a lot together, we laughed a lot together. We were there for each other in the early days of our career and he was to me, as funny as he was on Friends and he was and other things too, in person he was just the funniest man ever. “And every night, he was like a genius, he would start to weave comedy threads together, just hanging out – little joke here, joke there, joke here, joke there – and then by the end of the night he would weave them all together in this crescendo of hilarity.” In a joint statement, Friends co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane, along with executive producer Kevin Bright, described their own heartbreak. “We are shocked and deeply, deeply saddened by our beloved friend Matthew’s passing,” they said. “We will always cherish the joy, the light, the blinding intelligence he brought to every moment – not just to his work, but in life as well. “He was always the funniest person in the room. More than that, he was the sweetest, with a giving and selfless heart.” They added: “This truly is The One Where Our Hearts Are Broken.” Meanwhile, Perry’s family released their own statement to US publication People, saying: “We are heartbroken by the tragic loss of our beloved son and brother. “Matthew brought so much joy to the world, both as an actor and a friend.” They added: “You all meant so much to him and we appreciate the tremendous outpouring of love." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

Spanish inflation accelerated for a fourth month, hitting the highest level since April and supporting calls to prolong

The Swiss National Bank is cutting the amount of money commercial lenders can get by parking funds at

Russia and Ukraine were locked in a serious stalemate in Moscow’s continuing invasion of the country and needed to sit down for peace talks, Belarusian president and Vladimir Putin’s close ally Alexander Lukashenko said. “There are enough problems on both sides and in general the situation is now seriously stalemate: no one can do anything and substantively strengthen or advance their position,” Mr Lukashenko said. “They’re there head-to-head, to the death, entrenched. People are dying,” he said over the weekend. This marks the first time the Belarusian president has come forward seeking truce in the conflict and called for a “stop” command. "We need to sit down at the negotiating table and come to an agreement," Mr Lukashenko said in a question and answer video posted on the website of the Belarusian state news agency BelTA. "As I once said: no preconditions are needed. The main thing is that the ‘stop’ command is given," he said. A geographically closer nation to Russia, Belarus’s territory was used as a launch pad for the Russian preident’s full-scale invasion in February last year. He is also the only international leader to have frequently met Mr Putin since the conflict engulfed Ukraine. He said that Ukraine’s demands for Russia to quit its territory needs to be resolved at the negotiating table so that “nobody dies”. In June this year, Mr Lukashenko said his country had started taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, some of which he said were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Mr Lukashenko has relied on Russian subsidies and political support to rule the ex-Soviet nation with an iron hand for nearly three decades. In what is a purported exchange for the strategic ties between Belarus and Russia, he allowed the Kremlin to use Belarusian territory to send troops into Ukraine in February 2022 at the start of the invasion. Russia deployed forces to Belarusian territory under the pretext of military drills and then sent them rolling into Ukraine as part of the invasion that began last year. Mr Lukashenko also publicly supported what Mr Putin calls a “special military operation” inside Ukraine, alleging at a meeting with Mr Putin in early March that Ukraine planned to attack Belarus and that Moscow’s offensive prevented that. He said he brought a map to show the Russian president from where the alleged attack was supposed to take place, but offered no other evidence to back the claim. The vast war frontline in Ukraine has moved little in the past year despite Kyiv’s gruelling months-long offensive. Major military warfare is concentrated in eastern and southern Ukraine’s pockets. Ukraine has continuously rejected the proposal of peace talks and imposed pre-conditions that Russia withdraws every single of its military personnel from Ukrainian soil without keeping the territory from where Russian troops fire missiles. Ukraine said it will not rest until it ejected every last Russian soldier from its territory. It said the invasion was an imperial-style land grab by Russia, the world’s biggest nuclear power. American president Joe Biden said last year that a direct confrontation between Nato and Russia would mean the Third World War. On Saturday, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said his 10-point peace plan, which includes calls for the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, is the only way to end the war. Read More Russia-Ukraine war: Putin ally Lukashenko warns of ‘serious stalemate’ Crowd storms Russian airport in search of Jewish passengers from Israel flight If Putin dies, this is what would happen in Russia Crowd storms Russian airport in search of Jewish passengers from Israel flight If Putin dies, this is what would happen in Russia Ukraine bombards Russia with drones as Putin suffers losses in fight for Avdiivka

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Authorities say a former Jehovah’s Witness has been detained on suspicion of setting off an explosive device that killed three people and wounded 50 others at a denomination gathering in southern India

Jessica Tarlov joined Bill Maher to discuss the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and shed light on the rise of the supposed pro-Hamas support among youths

Cornell University administrators have dispatched campus police to a Jewish center after threatening statements against Jewish students appeared on a discussion board

Tyrell Stephen Phillips was arrested and charged with second-degree murder for his role in the fatal shootings