AFP USA

A second suspect in the alleged kidnapping and torture of an Italian bitcoin investor in New York surrendered on Tuesday, authorities said.Police on Friday arrested John Woeltz, 37, of Kentucky, on suspicion of brazenly kidnapping and torturing an Italian cryptocurrency entrepreneur for weeks in a luxury Manhattan townhouse in order to extort his bitcoin password.New York City Police Chief Jessica Tisch said on Fox 5 that the second suspect in the case, William Duplessie, was also taken into custody Tuesday morning.”We do have someone that we were looking for, Mr Duplessie, in custody. As of this morning, 7:45, he turned himself in at our 13th precinct,” Tisch said.”We know he is going to be charged with Mr Woeltz with kidnapping and false imprisonment of an associate in Soho,” said. Duplessie, who according to US media is 33 and comes from Miami, Florida, surrendered to police clad in black pants and a white shirt, photos from the scene showed.The name of the alleged victim has not been published, but US media reports identified him as Italian bitcoin entrepreneur Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan. According to reports, Carturan arrived in New York from Italy on May 6 and went Woeltz’s home.There, Woeltz, described by the New York Post as “Kentucky’s crypto boss,” and Duplessie confiscated the victim’s electronic devices and passport, and demanded access to his bitcoin accounts, according to police.After the victim refused, the two men tortured him for two weeks, tying his wrists, hitting him with a rifle, pointing a gun at his face, threatening to throw him off the roof of the five-story building and promising to kill his family members, media reports said.Several details of the story remain murky, including exactly why the victim had agreed to come to the townhouse in an upscale SoHo neighborhood, and whether he revealed anything of use to the kidnappers.

SpaceX is set Tuesday for the next test flight of its Starship megarocket — the linchpin of founder Elon Musk’s Mars ambitions — after the vessel’s last two outings ended in fiery explosions.A launch window opens at 6:30 pm (2330 GMT) from the company’s Starbase facility near a southern Texas village that recently voted to become a city, also called Starbase.Standing 403 feet (123 meters) tall, Starship is the largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built, and it carries Musk’s hopes of making humanity a multi-planetary species.NASA is also counting on a variant of Starship to serve as the crew lander for Artemis 3, the mission to return Americans to the Moon.But the last two tests ended with the upper stages erupting into fiery cascades that sent debris raining down over Caribbean islands and disrupting flights — piling more pressure onto SpaceX to get it right this time.Dozens of spectators awaited the launch Tuesday from Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island, to see if SpaceX will pull off its aims this time.Australian Piers Dawson, 50, says he’s “obsessed” with the launch and made it a destination on his family vacation — his first trip to the United States with his wife and teenager.”I’m just expecting a successful launch. Obviously, that’s very exciting,” Dawson said, adding “I brought my 15-year-old son, took him out of school to bring him here.”- The stakes of space -The company is betting that its aggressive testing approach, which helped it become the dominant force in commercial spaceflight, will once again pay off. Still, it acknowledged in a statement that progress “won’t always come in leaps.”According to the Wall Street Journal, SpaceX is shifting personnel and resources to the Starship program in a push to have the vehicle ready for a Mars mission as soon as next year.On the bright side, SpaceX has now demonstrated three times that it can catch the Super Heavy first stage booster in the giant robotic arms of its launch tower — a daring feat of engineering that it says is key to making the system rapidly reusable and reducing costs.It will be reusing a Super Heavy booster for the first time on this ninth flight. In order to stress-test it, the base will not attempt a catch this time, opting instead for a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.Similar to previous missions, the upper stage will attempt to fly halfway around the globe and splash down in the Indian Ocean. For the first time, SpaceX will also aim to deploy a payload: mock-ups of its Starlink internet satellites, which are expected to burn up in the atmosphere.In issuing its launch approval, the Federal Aviation Administration said it had nearly doubled the airspace closure zone to 1,600 nautical miles east of the launch site. It is coordinating with authorities in the UK, the British-controlled Turks and Caicos Islands, the Bahamas, Mexico, and Cuba.The FAA also recently approved an increase in annual launches from five to 25 — stating the increased frequency would not adversely impact the environment and overruling objections from conservation groups who warned the expansion could endanger sea turtles and shorebirds.

A former assistant of Sean Combs testified Tuesday that the music mogul often threatened and once kidnapped her in a jealous rage related to his ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura.The assistant, Capricorn Clark, was speaking to jurors on the stand in the federal trial of the once-famed rapper, producer and entrepreneur widely known as “Diddy,” who faces racketeering and sex trafficking charges that could put him in prison for life.Clark said he arrived at her door early one morning in December 2011, having learned that Ventura was seeing the rapper Kid Cudi.Combs had a gun and demanded Clark get dressed and come with him. “We’re going to kill” Kid Cudi — whose real name is Scott Mescudi — she recalled Combs saying, referring to the rapper who testified last week in the high-profile criminal proceedings in Manhattan.The alleged incident is core to government prosecutors’ case that Combs, once one of the music industry’s most powerful figures, was the kingpin of a criminal conspiracy ring that wielded its power including with arson, kidnapping and bribery.Clark’s version of events corroborrated accounts from Mescudi and Ventura. Shortly after the chaotic series of events in December, in January 2012 Mescudi testified that his car was set aflame — an act Ventura said Combs had threatened.- Threats, lie-detector test -Clark is the highest-profile employee thus far to testify in the trial against her former boss.She described rising through the ranks in Combs’s business empire, working as his personal assistant before assuming top roles at his fashion brand, Sean John.Clark repeatedly shed tears on the stand, describing having herself received death threats from Combs, including when he insisted she help him evade police investigation over the incident connected to Mescudi.She described a moment early in her career when she says she underwent a harrowing five-day long lie detector test after Combs suspected she had stolen diamond jewelry.The defense sought to poke holes in her chronology of events as well as her credibility as an employee who continued to go back to work for Combs despite having experienced what she described as disturbing labor abuse.Clark said that aside from one year when she worked at Jive Records before returning to work for Combs, she found it impossible to find employment elsewhere.She said he made clear “that I would never work again,” Clark said. “That he would make me kill myself.”Clark said her work for Combs was complicated: at times it was an inspiring “form of business school,” but was undergirded by threats and fear.She described witnessing Combs beat and kick Ventura amid the Mescudi love triangle.”Each kick she would crouch more and more into the fetal position,” Clark said.Earlier in the trial, Ventura gave hours of testimony about incidents of alleged abuse. She alleged Combs flew into a violent rage after he learned of her romance with Mescudi, lunging at her with a wine corkscrew. He allegedly threatened to make public sexually explicit footage of her, after she says he coerced her into filmed “freak-off” sex marathons with male prostitutes for years.Jurors were shown a message from Ventura to Clark in which the former described that threat.But some of the messaging was mixed: Clark at points appeared critical of Ventura’s skills, talent and work ethic.She also sobbed as she said Ventura played a role in her firing, “wanting her gone” in the love triangle’s aftermath — but then, she said Ventura was partially responsible for getting Clark a new job years later.The government next plans to call a police officer and arson investigator, both from Los Angeles. Stylist Deonte Nash and an alleged victim who was also one of Combs’s former employees are also expected.Now in its third week of testimony, the trial is expected to last well into the summer.

The crowd, some with signature red hats bearing US President Donald Trump’s name, cheered when the man on the stage asked if they were happy that America was becoming great again.But instead of somewhere in the United States, this scene was playing out in an arena in a southern Polish city, complete with a dusting of red or blue “Make Poland Great Again” hats.Hundreds had come for the first Polish edition of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a US convention that has been around for decades and has become a celebration of Trump.The event in Rzeszow is a sharp signal of the hold the US leader’s particular brand of conservatism has in Poland, which is days from picking a new president from a field that includes a big Trump fan. That candidate — nationalist historian Karol Nawrocki — was endorsed by a special guest at Tuesday’s conference: US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, who said: “He needs to be the next president of Poland.””We need you to elect the right leader. You will be the leaders that will turn Europe back to conservative values,” the Trump ally told the crowd in Rzeszow.”If you elect a leader that will work with President Donald J. Trump, the Polish people will have an ally strong that will ensure that you will be able to fight off enemies that do not share your values,” Noem said.”You will have strong borders. And protect your communities. And keep them safe… You will continue to have a US presence here. A military presence… And you will have equipment that is American made,” she added. Nawrocki, who got a standing ovation at the conference, is a Trump fan and met the US leader at the White House earlier this month. He claimed Trump told him: “You will win”. Poland’s run-off election on Sunday is shaping up to be a very tight one in the polarised country of 38 million people, as the latest opinion surveys have the candidates tied.Nawrocki, who is backed by Poland’s right-wing main opposition party Law and Justice (PiS), will face off against pro-EU Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, the candidate of the ruling centrists led by former EU chief Donald Tusk.- ‘American style: loud and big’ -The event in Rzeszow, which was organised with Poland’s right-wing TV Republika, was held in a region populated by conservative voters.”Are you happy that America is getting closer to being great again? Did the re-election of Donald Trump bring you joy, make you happy?” CPAC organiser Matt Schlapp asked the crowd, which responded with applause.”We thank you for your courage to be in this room, to stand with us as we fight a most venomous enemy,” the chairman of the American Conservative Union said, decrying the “globalists” who he said threatened tenets like family, rule of law and freedom of religion.Vendors sold trucker hats with the slogan “Make Poland Great Again”, CPAC Poland mugs and books including one by Nawrocki. While most of the Rzeszow crowd was in suits and ties — there were exceptions like Anna Maria Ziolkiewicz, who came dressed in Poland’s national red-and-white colours with a Nawrocki election button on her lapel.”I’m a patriotic, religious person with right-wing views, so this event is right up my alley… There’s a positive atmosphere,” the 61-year-old accountant and history buff from the central city of Lodz told AFP.She praised Trump as “a wonderful man with character, brave and strong” — though cautioned that he did not quite understand the danger posed by Russia.Ziolkiewicz believes Poland should be closer to the United States than to the European Union as “the US has never double-crossed us, never deceived us”, while she said countries like France and Britain failed to help Poland at the start of World War II.Krzysztof Pietrzyk, a 43-year-old entrepreneur from nearby Lublin, regretted that the atmosphere at Tuesday’s event was “a little bit too quiet”. “I was hoping to have here more American style: loud and big,” he said, recalling how tech billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk brandished a chainsaw on stage at this year’s CPAC event near Washington. Donning a well-worn “Make Poland Great Again” hat, unemployed engineer Zenon Fabianowicz said he covered more than 700 kilometres (over 400 miles) from the western village of Krzeszyce to attend.Poland is a “pro-American society. We have a lot in common with the United States. And I think Trump also has a fondness for Poland,” the 62-year-old said. “It’s the first time CPAC is happening in Poland and I couldn’t miss the opportunity.”

US President Donald Trump warned Vladimir Putin Tuesday that he was “playing with fire,” in a fresh jab at his Russian counterpart as he weighs new sanctions against Moscow over the war in Ukraine.Trump’s latest broadside showed his frustration with stalled peace talks, and comes two days after he called the Kremlin leader “absolutely CRAZY” following a record Russian drone attack on Ukraine.”What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!” Trump said on his Truth Social network.Trump did not specify what the “really bad” things were, or make any specific threats. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment by AFP.But the Wall Street Journal and CNN both reported that Trump was now considering fresh sanctions against Russia as early as this week, while stressing that he could still change his mind.He told reporters on Sunday he was “absolutely” considering increasing sanctions on Moscow.His predecessor Joe Biden imposed sweeping sanctions after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but Trump has so far avoided what he says could be “devastating” sanctions on Russian banks.Trump’s recent rebukes mark a major change from his previous attitude towards Putin, whom he often speaks of with admiration and has previously held off criticizing.The Republican tycoon promised during the 2024 election campaign to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours and said his friendship with Putin from his first term would help seal a deal.Trump has however expressed increasing frustration with Moscow’s position in deadlocked truce negotiations with Kyiv.- ‘Game over’ -That frustration boiled over at the weekend when Russia launched a record drone barrage at Ukraine, killing at least 13 people.”I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Sunday night.Trump however also criticized Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky — with whom he had a stunning Oval Office row in February — saying on Sunday that he was “doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does.”Russia’s attacks have continued despite a phone call between Trump and Putin eight days ago in which the US leader said the Russian president had agreed to “immediately” start ceasefire talks.Moscow on Tuesday accused Kyiv of trying to “disrupt” peace efforts and said its aerial assaults on Ukraine in recent days were a “response” to escalating Ukrainian drone strikes on its own civilians.US lawmakers have also stepped up calls for sanctions.Veteran Republican Senator Chuck Grassley said on X that it was “time for sanctions” that were strong enough for Putin to know it was “game over.”Two other senators, Republican Lindsay Graham and Democrat Richard Blumenthal, also called for heavy “secondary” sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil, gas and raw materials.Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg meanwhile told Fox News Tuesday that the US president’s “frustration is understandable” after the recent Russian attacks.Kellogg added that he expected the next peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, if they happen, to take place in Geneva after Moscow rejected the Vatican as a venue.After that the aim would be to “get the President, President Putin and President Zelensky together and hammer this thing out,” he added.

The US will no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines for children and healthy pregnant women, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday, calling it a “common sense” decision grounded in sound science.The change follows last week’s announcement by Food and Drug Administration officials that they would limit approval of Covid shots — a critical tool in ending the pandemic — to adults aged 65 and older, as well as younger individuals with underlying health conditions.Trump administration officials have framed the shift as bringing the US into closer alignment with countries like Britain, Germany and France where annual boosters are recommended only for the elderly and immunocompromised.But it comes as Kennedy — who has long promoted misinformation about vaccines in general and the Covid shots in particular — pushes to overhaul federal public health policy. “I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that as of today, the Covid vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recommended immunization schedule,” he said in a video posted to X.FDA officials also said vaccine manufacturers will need to conduct new clinical trials — including comparisons against a saline placebo — if they wish to retain approval for use in healthy people under 65.These recent changes have drawn criticism.Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University, told AFP last week that while the new approach matched that taken by other countries, “I do think, however, that the initial Covid-19 vaccine series should be part of routine childhood immunization.”Paul Offit, a top vaccine expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, warned the change could restrict access for people who still want boosters, particularly under the US’s privatized health care system, where insurers may decline coverage.The reversal on pregnant women marks a major departure from previous CDC guidance.As of Tuesday morning, the agency’s website — which had yet to reflect Kennedy’s announcement — still stated that pregnant women are among people for whom it is “especially important” to receive the vaccine. “If you are pregnant or were recently pregnant, you are more likely to get very sick from COVID-19 compared to those who are not pregnant,” it says.

King Charles III stressed Canada’s proud independence on Tuesday as he delivered a major speech to open parliament in Ottawa set against US President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to take over the country.”Democracy, pluralism, the rule of law, self-determination, and freedom are values which Canadians hold dear, and ones which the Government is determined to protect,” Charles said, adding Canada was facing a “critical moment.”Prime Minister Mark Carney invited the 76-year-old British monarch — who is the Canadian head of state — to the capital, accompanied by Queen Camilla.King Charles’s “speech from the throne” was the first by a monarch in nearly half a century.The king has never publicly commented on Trump’s repeated talk of making Canada the 51st US state, but his language was closely watched for any reference.Although the speech was read by the king as if his own words, it was in fact written by the prime minister’s office to set out the government’s priorities to “build Canada strong” and how it aims to achieve them.Trump has also ripped up the world trade order and launched tariff wars against friends and foes alike, particularly targeting Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth.”The system of open global trade that, while not perfect, has helped to deliver prosperity for Canadians for decades, is changing. Canada’s relationships with partners are also changing,” Charles said, in cautious words.”We must be clear-eyed: the world is a more dangerous and uncertain place than at any point since the Second World War. Canada is facing challenges that are unprecedented in our lifetimes.”The so-called throne speech was delivered in the Senate — a former railway station that has been converted while parliament undergoes major renovations.In diplomatic language, the speech was a reaffirmation of Canada’s sovereignty, which Trump has threatened repeatedly.Carney, a technocrat with no prior political experience, has vowed to oversee the biggest transformation of Canada’s economy since the end of the Second World War to enable it to “stand up” to Trump.Thousands gathered along a parade route early Tuesday morning for a chance to see their monarch. The atmosphere was festive with people waving Canadian flags.Kirsten Hanson, 44, said she welcomes the king’s show of support amid the pressure coming from Canada’s southern neighbor.”I think if there’s anything that he can do to demonstrate Canada’s sovereignty I think that that’s fantastic,” she told AFP.”Nobody wants to be absorbed into the US,” she said.”Elbows up,” said Marion Hand, 88, who travelled from Mississauga, Ontario for the event, in reference to Carney’s battle cry in the face of Trump’s annexation threats.

The US government intends to cancel all remaining financial contracts with Harvard, a senior official said Tuesday, in President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to force the prestigious university to submit to unprecedented oversight.The administration “will send a letter to federal agencies today asking them to identify any contracts with Harvard, and whether they can be canceled or redirected elsewhere,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.The ending of contracts — estimated by US media to be worth $100 million — would mark the severance of business ties between the government and an institution that is both the country’s oldest university and a global research powerhouse.Amid a broad push to amass power in the White House, Trump has singled out Harvard for particularly fierce punishment.His administration accuses the Cambridge, Massachusetts university of permitting anti-Semitism and pervasive liberal bias.Harvard has rejected orders to allow a series of extraordinary measures, including an audit of political leanings on campus and a ban on students deemed to be “hostile to the American values.”In the last few weeks, the elite educational bastion has seen billions of dollars in federal grants frozen and an attempt — paused last Friday by a court ruling — to end its ability to host foreign students.The university is fighting back, arguing that the Trump attacks are unconstitutional and would cripple its ability to function.- Trump’s ‘unconstitutional’ actions -On Monday, Trump vowed he would prevail in the increasingly public struggle.In a social media post he claimed that foreign students at Harvard included “radicalized lunatics, troublemakers.”Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem revoked Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign nationals, throwing the future of thousands of students and the lucrative income stream they provide into doubt.She had threatened last month to block international students at the school unless it turned over records on visa holders’ “illegal and violent activities.”But a judge quickly suspended the move after the university sued to “stop the government’s arbitrary, capricious, unlawful, and unconstitutional action.”There will be an injunction hearing on Thursday, a court filing showed.Harvard President Alan Garber said in a statement that the attempted foreign students ban “imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.”In addition to undermining the independence of storied US universities — which attract top students from around the world and produce much of the country’s lucrative scientific research — Trump has sought to dismantle the government’s traditional soft power tools, including humanitarian aid and the Voice of America radio network.

When Sarah Lezito began messing around with motorbikes at 13 she never dreamed that one day she would become the stunt double of some of Hollywood’s biggest stars.The French winemaker’s daughter has stood in for Scarlett Johansson — twice — on “Avengers 2” and “Black Widow” and appeared in a dozen films including “The Batman”.The 32-year-old is one of a very rare breed of motorcycle stuntwomen, with a massive social media following that helped bring her from the vineyards of France’s Champagne region to Hollywood.AFP caught up with her on her own personal training track amid the otherwise tranquil vineyards near Epernay, the Champagne capital in northeast France.Barely astride her red chrome Kawasaki, she was off down the track performing stunts with disconcerting dexterity, her long brown hair trailing out of her helmet in the wind. “This is kind of my temple,” she said after performing a series of gravity-defying tricks including standing with both feet on top of her 200-kilo (440-pound) machine and then flipping herself onto the handlebars.”People think I’m working, but it mostly allows me to release all the pressure,” said Lezito, whose lucky charm — a plastic beaded bracelet — is wrapped around the throttle of her bike. – ‘Doing wheelies in a field’ – The woman now popularly known as the “world stunt champion” (although there is no recognised world championship) began her acrobatics career young on the family holding near Epernay.”I fell into stunts by watching videos,” she told AFP. “No one in my family was in the motor sports world. My father only had an agricultural quad, not at all made for sports, but I started trying to do wheelies with it in a field.”Then she began posting her stunt videos on YouTube.But she seemed destined to follow her family into wine and viticulture until she posted a video of a medley of tricks one day in March 2013 called “One out of Billion Girls”.”It was thanks to this video that they noticed me,” she said.The “they” being the team from the Hollywood blockbuster “Avengers 2”. A few months later, she abandoned her winemaking studies to fly to South Korea to perform Johansson’s stunts in the movie. Because she “adapted quickly” to stunt work, Lezito decided to go professional, appearing in several major movies, including “Inferno”, “Millennium” and “The Batman” with Zoe Kravitz. “I met all the actresses I’ve doubled for,” she said. – 30 million followers – She has had her moments on some of the movies, although she insists she has never felt fear on those she does “at home” for social media.”I had to ride through flames for ‘Bad Girl’, a film which was never released. On paper, it was very simple, but I didn’t have a helmet,” she recalled. And in the summer of 2023 while filming David Fincher’s “The Killer” in Paris, starring Michael Fassbender, Lezito had a severe fall.”I flew off the motorcycle, I wasn’t going very fast but fast enough to land on my head and the helmet cracked.”She ended up in the emergency room with a head injury. It “made her think”, she told AFP, and she “decided to take a break” and put her Hollywood career on hold.Lezito now devotes herself to her social media channels, posting videos of her stunts to her more than 30 million followers — including 9.5 million on Instagram, some two million more than MotoGP star Marc Marquez. Her garage doubles as a studio, with her YouTube trophies and gifts from her fans displayed on the walls. But it is also where she gets her hands dirty repairing her fleet of roughly 10 motorcycles. “As long as I enjoy sitting on the motorcycle, I’ll keep doing this,” she said.

Sales of cars made by Elon Musk’s Tesla slumped by more than half in April as Chinese electric carmakers saw their share surge, the continent’s manufacturing association said Tuesday.While sales of electric cars rose overall in the 27 European Union nations, Tesla’s share fell dramatically amid the spotlight on Musk’s work with US President Donald Trump and the US company’s ageing range.The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) said Tesla sales in April fell to 5,475 cars, down 52.6 percent from the same month last year.In the first four months of 2025, Tesla sales have fallen 46.1 percent against the same period last year to 41,677 cars.Once the standout leader in electric car sales, Tesla was overtaken in April by 10 rivals including Volkswagen, BMW, Renault and Chinese automaker BYD, according to JATO Dynamics consultants. Tesla announced in April that its worldwide sales in the first quarter had fallen 13 percent, increasing pressure on Musk, though the company partly blamed lost production amid an upgrade to its Model Y standard-bearer.Musk has since announced he will reduce his work helping Trump slash US government spending and last week said that Tesla sales were “doing well”.- Hybrid leaders -Skoda’s new Elroq led electric car sales while Tesla’s Model Y, the former frontrunner, came ninth.Sales of electric cars overall rose 26.4 percent from last year to take a 15.3 percent share of the market in April, according to the ACEA.The rise is uneven across Europe as different governments and manufacturers give different incentives to buy electric. Germany, Belgium, Italy and Spain have seen a major rise while electric car sales in France have fallen.”The share of battery-electric vehicles is slowly getting momentum, but growth remains incremental and uneven across EU countries,” said Sigrid de Vries, ACEA’s director general.”In order for battery-electric vehicles to become a mainstream choice, it is essential that governments continue to implement the necessary enabling conditions, such as purchase and fiscal incentives, recharging infrastructure and electricity prices.”The sustained popularity of hybrid vehicles among consumers also shows the merit of keeping a technology-neutral approach,” she added.Sales of hybrid cars with a small electric battery still dominate the European market, rising 20.8 percent since the start of the year, while petrol-only cars have fallen 20.6 percent over the same time.The Volkswagen group remains the top brand in Europe, with sales up 2.9 percent in April.But Chinese brands were a major factor in the popularity of electric and hybrid cars, according to JATO and have 7.9 percent of the European market.The BYD, MG, Xpeng and Leapmotor brands saw sales rise 59 percent over the year in electric and hybrid sales, while other manufacturers put on 26 percent.JATO expert Felipe Munoz said it remains to be seen whether the European Union imposes tariffs on Chinese hybrid cars as it has for electric vehicles.