First meeting of new parliament, right overtakes left on political donations, cinemas get strong ticket sales and more news from Norway this Wednesday.
Norway’s new parliament to meet for first time
The new Norwegian parliament, including members elected for the first time in last month’s parliamentary election, gathers for its first session of the new year today.
The red-green pirates or left ‘bloc’ won a majority of the 169 seats in parliament, and Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre’s minority Labour government subsequently continued in office.
The average age of the current group of lawmakers is 45, and 100 of the 169 are men.
Rise in fatal traffic accidents last month
September saw a total of nine fatal road traffic accidents, with 11 lives lost as a result. The preliminary figures come from the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.
The number of deaths is six higher than in September 2024, meaning an increase of over 100 percent. The fatalities included two people riding light motorbikes, one cyclist and one pedestrian.
So far this year, 89 people in Norway have lost their lives in traffic accidents. That is 15 more than at the same point in 2024.
The Vestland and Innlandet counties account for the largest share of September’s accidents and both had more fatalities than last year, but capital Oslo also saw its highest figure for the month in a decade, news agency NTB writes.
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Right bloc parties overtake left on donations
The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) has donated more than 256 million kroner since 2014 to Labour, SV, Centre and Red parties – which form the left-wing ‘bloc’ in Norwegian politics.
But this year saw the right-wing bloc receive more in overall donations for the first time, according to figures from the website partifinansiering.no reported by newspaper Klassekampen.
Labour was the largest recipient with nearly 189 million kroner donated to Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre’s party, followed by SV with just under 38 million, the Centre Party with just over 27 million, and Red with 2.2 million kroner.
The left bloc received more than 158 million kroner from 2020-2021, while the right received just under 75 million. But the right overtook the left in the most recent period, 2024-2025, with 143 million versus 133 million kroner.
Cinema attendances up in September
Norwegian film buffs were out in force last month with 765,069 cinema tickets sold, nearly 300,000 more than the previous September, broadcaster NRK writes.
The trend gives “every reason to be optimistic” about the final quarter for cinema businesses, Espen Lundberg Pedersen of industry group Film & Kino told NRK.
Pedersen said there’s a good chance 2024 sales will be exceeded by the end of this year.
“A Minecraft Movie” was the highest-selling film in cinemas in the first nine months of 2025.