PARIS: The 2024 French Grand Prix was MotoGP’s highest attended grand prix ever with 297,471 present at Le Mans on Sunday, the motorcycle racing organisation said on Monday. The French GP, which was MotoGP’s 1000th Grand Prix, broke its own record attendance of 278,805 set last year as Jorge Martin won his second race of the season. “After Le Mans …

Lamenting that players of Pakistan’s national hockey team were working as drivers to make ends meet, captain Ammad Shakeel Butt on Monday called for the restoration of hockey departments to provide reliable income streams to athletes. Former prime minister Imran Khan had instructed the management of the Pakistan Hockey Federation in 2020 to make structural changes in its set-up, reduce the number …

RIYADH: Tyson Fury’s father appeared to headbutt a member of Oleksandr Usyk’s entourage on Monday in a bloody clash at a media day for Saturday’s undisputed world heavyweight title fight in Saudi Arabia. John Fury, with a cut on his forehead and blood streaks on his face, confirmed to Sky Sports television his involvement in an incident at the event in Riyadh …

PARIS: Paris St-Germain were left stunned after they were beaten 3-1 by Toulouse on Sunday, with the newly-crowned champions slumping to only their second Ligue 1 defeat this season. Luis Enrique’s side struggled for form after their midweek Champions League semi-final loss to Borussia Dortmund and remain on 70 points from 32 games, six clear of second-placed AS Monaco with …

SAN FRANCISCO: OpenAI on Monday released a higher performing and more efficient version of the artificial intelligence technology that underpins its popular generative tool ChatGPT, making it free to all users. The update to OpenAI’s flagship product landed a day before Google is expected to make its own announcements about Gemini, the search engine giant’s own AI tool competing with …

DUBLIN: Intent was on show when Pakistan thrashed Ireland in the second Twenty20 International on Sunday after a stunning loss in the opening fixture of the three-match series. To seal the series, as well as to inject much-needed momentum to their upcoming T20 World Cup campaign, Pakistan captain Babar Azam and his charges will have to repeat a similar approach in the …

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday suspended two senior officers of Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco) over their alleged negligence and failure in ensuring transparency in wheat purchase. Presiding over a high-level meeting to review the demand and supply and procurement of wheat by the federal government, the PM ordered the suspension of Passco’s managing director and general …

KARACHI: The influential sugar industry is attempting to align baga­sse prices, a residue of sugarcane, with coal prices in order to increase them by five to eight times the prevailing value, sources said on Monday.” Bagasse is used as biofuel at the industrial level. Due to the increasing high cost of thermal energy and significant taxes on it, various options …

ISLAMABAD: Thanks to a significant drop in the international market, petrol and high-speed diesel (HSD) prices are expected to decrease by about Rs15 and Rs9 per litre on May 15 despite increased import premiums. Informed sources said the prices of petrol and HSD had declined in the international market by about $8.7 and $4.3 per barrel, respectively, in the last …

Pakistan will privatise all state-owned enterprises, with the exception of strategic entities, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced on Tuesday, broadening its initial plans to take only loss-making state firms private. The announcement came after PM Shehbaz headed a meeting on the privatisation process of loss-making state enterprises, according to a statement from his office. According to state-run Radio Pakistan, the premier …