Four people were injured on Saturday at a Christmas fair in the Ukrainian city of Lviv as several booths caught fire. A Lviv city council official confirmed via social networks that two people were seriously burnt and one received fragment wounds. According to the statement on the council's website, the investigation team considers misuse of gas cylinders at site the main reason of the accident. Local police said criminal investigation was launched against one of the businessmen, who is charged with a breach of safety requirements.

The Central Bureau of Police Investigations broke up a gang of pimps last weekend in Kraków. Four people, including one married couple were running brothels in the city. Four brothels were closed and sixteen people were arrested in total. The four main suspects are believed to have run and taken part in organised crime group that profited from prostitution.

After 11 months of 2018 the Polish budget is still having a surplus and it's even bigger than in October, said the Minister of Finance, Teresa Czerwińska. According to the latest estimates, October was closed with a 6,5-billion-zlotys surplus. Good information also from the labour market as wages in Poland have strongly upped. The average age of cars registered in Poland is about 13 years. Business news from Poland with Mateusz Walczak.

On Thursday onet.pl portal wrote that "thousands of SKOK Wołomin credit union haven't been paying off their loans. Among those people was Piotr Kaczorek". According to onet.pl, in 2013 Kaczorek borrowed 160,000 zlotys from the credit union. Currently, his debts are said to have amounted up to 200,000 zlotys. That wouldn't be anything extraordinary except that Piotr Kaczorek is working for the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) and has been appearing in media providing information about ongoing investigations. According to Civic Platform's MP Robert Kropiwnicki, the CBA should be taken off the SKOK Wołomin case and a parliamentary commission should be summoned to investigate the scandal. The CBA has temporarily suspended Piotr Kaczorek and informed that an investigation has been launched "in order to thoroughly examine the information regarding Mr Kaczorek's debt".

They save human lives on a daily basis. This time they set out to save a dog. The Mountain Volunteer Search and Rescue (GOPR) was called in by two back-country skiers whose dog got very weak in the higher mountains. Thankfully, a very difficult rescue mission ended well and the tourists with their dog are safe and sound.

Thousands of Hungarians protested in Budapest on Friday at a 'peace march' staged by spoof political party, the Two-Tailed Dog Party (MKKP) "to support government policies, Christmas and snowfall" -- the latest in a string of demonstrations stoked by controversial legal reforms.

In recent days, in many regions of Poland the levels of suspended particles in the air were extremely high. The worst levels were in the southern and central regions of the country. The worst air quality was registered in Nowy Sącz, Żywiec, Rybnik and Łódź. Kraków has also been suffering for several weeks. Experts from the Polish Smog Alarm filled us in on the details.

An incredibly dangerous manouver on Polish road number 7. Despite approaching a continuous line and a turn, a truck driver decided to start to overtake several other vehicles. As soon as he drove in to the oncoming traffic lane, another car appeared in front of him. That too wasn't enough danger for the driver and he continued to overtake the remaining cars. After a few seconds he overtook another truck, when another truck appeared in the oncoming lane. The vehicles barely fit on the road and a tragedy was a mere centimetres away.

Pope Francis on Friday urged predator priests who have sexually abused minors to turn themselves in, making one of his strongest comments ever on the crisis sweeping the Roman Catholic Church.

Law and Justice senator Grzegorz Bierecki says he will file a lawsuit against "Gazeta Wyborcza" daily which wrote that the senator's two foundations unsuccesfully attempted to open deposits in Getin Noble Bank, when the prosecutor's office was already investigating siphoning money from SKOK Wołomin credit union. Senator Bierecki declares that he had no idea about such attempts, as he was only a founder of the organisations and wasn't managing them.

Not only employees of the judicial system are asking for raises, as teachers are also requesting 1,000 zlotys more. Many of them went on sick leaves in protest against low wages. The employers are sending requests to the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) for controls of sick leaves of some teachers. It's our duty to respond to each of the notifications, says the ZUS spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz.

It only took ten seconds to complete a controlled demolition of four concrete silos in Wrocław. The structures were one of the most characteristic sights in the city and were built in the 1960s. The biggest of the four was 38 meters tall. Seventeen kilograms of explosives were used for the demolition. Now a new housing development will be built on the site.

We're implementing mechanism that will allow us to keep energy prices at the current levels, there will be no increases in energy prices, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced on Friday.

A methane explosion killed 12 Poles and one Czech at an eastern Czech coal mine, the OKD mining company said on Friday, in the worst disaster of this kind in almost three decades.

The Polish Teachers' Union has announced a countrywide protest of educators. The unionists are demanding a 1000 zloty payrise for teachers. They are also critical of the new system of work that was introduced on the 1st of September. At the meeting of the board of the Polish Teachers' Union, its leader Sławomir Broniarz announced a protest. "We support the teachers who for their own good, as well the good of their students have been taking doctors' leave of absence. We're convinced that the status quo cannot continue," said Mr Broniarz.

There will be no increases in the price of electricity and several ministers are working on this, said the Polish PM. The opposition is asking how the higher prices will suddenly disappear. The minister of energy has reassured yet again that electricity costs won't go up and Poles will not be affected. He stressed that he had earmarked 5 billion zlotys to tackle this problem, thanks to the EU Commission's positive decision regarding using old certificates for emissions.

British Prime Minister Theresa May told Polish citizens in the UK: "You can stay and we want you stay" on Thursday, adding that securing rights of Polish and other EU citizens was a priority in the Brexit negotiations.

In some places in Poland, people are breathing air that's... not even meant for breathing. In just the last few days, in Kraków, air pollution has been exceeded by 7 times the norm. What's even worse, looking from the point of view of European standards, it was exceed by up 1400 percent. That's really taking toll on local residents. In the capital city of Warsaw, the situation isn't any better.

The Ministry of Justice has reached an agreement with trade unions regarding raises for the employees of the courts. Before Christmas, all of them shall each receive a 1000 zloty gross bonus regardless of their function. However, the employees of courts in Kraków, Słupsk and Gdynia rejected the terms of the agreement. The deal was signed by the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Justice Michał Wójcik and representatives of 6 trade unions.

The Warsaw city council restored on Thursday the 98-percent discount for transformation of perpetual usufruct into ownership of properties. An extraordinary session, held without a debate, was called on a request by Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski who decided to backtrack on lowering of discounts.

The European Commission wants U.S. visa waivers for 5 European Union countries whose citizens still require visas to travel across the Atlantic: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania. The EU executive announced on Wednesday further diplomatic action in that regard.

Zdzisław Sokal in longer president's representative to the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF). President Andrzej Duda made the decision to entrust his position to Cezary Kochalski. Mr Sokal will remain in the KNF as the President of the Bank Guarantee Fund. He was one of the people discussed in the tapes of the so-called KNF scandal. The Chancellery of the President of Poland has said that the change was ordered on Zdzisław Sokal's personal request.

Week-long protests in Budapest have forged fragmented opposition parties into a rare coalition against Viktor Orban, drawing young Hungarians into the streets to demonstrate against what they see as his increasingly authoritarian rule.

A dozen or so closed pre-schools, cancelled trial exams in a few primary schools and classes cancelled until until the end week a few other. On Monday a nationwide teachers' strike began. In most schools classess are taking place as planned, but in singular cases nearly all teachers are on sick leaves. Teachers, just like the police or court employees, in this form of protest demand raises.

As of Monday, it is legal to buy medical marijuana in Poland. The medicine is available in a dried form and is imported from Canada. The law allowing the distribution of medical marijuana in Poland came into force in the beginning of November last year. This means that the process of implementing it to the Polish pharmacies took over 400 days. Scientists still cannot agree on the list of diseases it helps to cure, however, there is no doubt that the drug helps to relieve pain, reduces the number of seizures in patients with epilepsy and may may have positive impact on people suffering from depression.

We will support this alternative for Poland with utmost certainty, the Deputy U.S. Secretary of State John Sullivan said on Wednesday in Warsaw, referring to the Baltic Pipe pipeline project co-created by Poland.

The United Nations General Assembly formally approved a deal on Wednesday aimed at boosting global cooperation to tackle rising migration, but the United States, Israel, Hungary, Czech Republic and Poland voted against the voluntary pact.

The International Monetary Fund approved a new $3.9 billion stand-by aid agreement for Ukraine on Tuesday, intended to help the country maintain stability and the trust of investors as it heads into a choppy election period.

The number of journalists killed around the world in reprisal for their work nearly doubled in 2018 to at least 34 people, reflecting an increase in deliberate attacks on journalists in Afghanistan, according to a report released on Wednesday.

Poland should present a report until the 17th of January regarding the implementation of the ECJ's ruling, informed the deputy chief of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis. Until that date, the Commission will present its assessment of the amendment to the Supreme Court law, he added.