An exhibition in Florence that pairs his giant canvases with Renaissance religious art brought me to the edge of tears. It is the perfect refuge from the infinite scroll

As an unbaptised agnostic raised with no religion, the closest I ever really come to a spiritual experience is when I’m standing in front of an artwork. Last week I went to Florence to do exactly that, drawn there not by Michelangelo’s David or Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, but by the works of Mark Rothko, that titan of US abstract expressionism whose work seems, on the surface at least, distinctly secular and un-Florentine. Yet seeing Renaissance art there had a profound impact on Rothko and his painting, as the exhibition Rothko in Florence makes strikingly explicit. Taking place at Palazzo Strozzi and two other satellite sites, it has been curated by his son, Christopher, and the author and independent curator Elena Geuna.

Is it embarrassing to admit that when confronted with the first large canvas I was drawn to I felt tearful? It was an emotion born of appreciation and astonishment but also – and this startled me – a feeling of gratitude. I felt profoundly lucky to be there, in front of this painting, not long after a time in my life where for various reasons I had been not been feeling all that fortunate at all. To have the chance to take in the paint on the monumental canvas, and absorb the ways the colours – purples, reds, oranges, yellows, blues – blend and in places seem to glow felt hugely significant to me personally. And then, as I continued to look – and as ever with Rothko – I stopped thinking about myself at all.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

Continue reading...

Gagik Tsarukyan hopes project will resonate with global movement that blends religious faith, nationalism and cultural conservatism

Behind the walls of a sprawling estate on the outskirts of Yerevan, six tigers prowl behind a fence, three lions pace their enclosures, and alligators bask in the afternoon heat.

Further into the compound, more animals appear. Beneath a gilded, hand-painted ceiling, a dining hall houses a taxidermy menagerie: white tigers reared on their hind legs, a stuffed eagle perched atop a table, bear and wolf pelts spread across the floor. All of these, the owner proudly said, had been shot by him.

Continue reading...

Two goals from Ueda, plus strikes by Kamada and Ito, sealed the fate of Tunisia and their new coach Hervé Renard

Perhaps the manager wasn’t the problem after all. Tunisia sacked Sabri Lamouchi after last week’s 5-1 defeat to Sweden, appointing Hervé Renard as their seventh manager since qualifying began. But it turned out a diffident side lacking defensive conviction is a diffident side lacking defensive conviction whoever has to do the press conferences. Tunisia were well beaten by a Japan side inspired by the centre-forward Ayase Ueda, who scored twice and led the line with intelligence and imagination.

Renard had just three days with his players since replacing Lamouchi. He performed heroics to win the Africa Cup of Nations with Zambia in 2012 and three years later became the first manager to win two Cups of Nations with different teams as he ended Côte d’Ivoire’s 23-year trophy drought.

Attempts to break into the mainstream of French football with Sochaux, Lille and the France women’s team have faltered and the 57-year-old seems to have accepted that his role now is with aspirant nations in Africa and the Middle East rather than at the apex of the European game. Renard still wears his trademark white shirt but whatever luck it may once have brought seems to have worn off. Not that this mess could, in any realistic sense, be blamed on Renard. He’s just the well-remunerated sap paid to try to explain how Tunisia are out of the World Cup already.

Continue reading...

Nog even en ze kunnen in het serene Zwitserland de komende twee maanden een potje lekker nucleair onderhandelen. JD Vance (en een zwangere Usha Vance) zijn inmiddels daar (voor maximaal 2 dagen), alsook de Iraanse onderhandelaar Ghalibaf. De delegatie van bemiddelaar Pakistan is vanochtend als laatste gearriveerd. Zo sereen als het in Zwitserland is, zo onrustig is het in Libanon. Hezbollah sloeg toe bij een post van het Israëlische leger in Kfar Tebnit. Daarbij zijn 13 IDF-soldaten gewond zijn geraakt en kwam 1 Israëli om het leven. Dit alles terwijl Vance zegt dat het er in Libanon juist wat rustiger aan toe gaat. De IDF kondigt ondertussen de dood aan van twee belangrijke figuren voor de financiën van Hamas en Islamic Jihad. Hoessein Qadra en Mohammed Farra zouden de overdracht van een half miljard Shekels aan de terreurgroepen hebben verzorgd en werden vorige week gedood bij Israëlische aanvallen in Gaza. Ook zegt het Israëlische leger dat het een in april gedode Al Jazeera-fotograaf heeft ontmaskerd als parttime sniper voor Hamas. Ze hebben het er druk mee. Het is ook ongezellig druk in de Straat van Hormuz, die gisteren gesloten werd verklaard door Iran en sindsdien ook daadwerkelijk dicht lijkt, op de radar althans. In hoeverre de zeestraat "toll free" gaat zijn bij vrede is ook nog de vraag: Trump beweert nu dat de VS mogelijk zelf tol gaat heffen. We houden vandaag een oog op Libanon en de open/gesloten/open/gesloten Straat. Live!

Update 09:08 - In Zwitserland gaan ze naast nucleair vergaderen ook spoedvergaderen over Libanon.

SocialSocial

Hezbollah, ook geen lieverdjes!

Social

Drip

Social

In January a college student posted a video showing him winning $100,000 on Polymarket — one of 145 that appeared to show bets adding up to almost $410,000, reports the Wall Street Journal. "But none of those bets were real."

Instead its creator was "one of dozens of mostly college-age creators Polymarket paid to film themselves making fake trades and sometimes scoring fake wins," the Journal reports, citing interviews with the creators an an analysis of more than 1,100 of their videos:

Polymarket built near-perfect copies of its website, then instructed creators to make simulated trades on those dummy sites and hide that they were being paid by Polymarket. To get the videos to go viral, Polymarket has recruited a social-media army to copy and re-post creators' footage. Though the New York-based company has been banned from offering its primary crypto platform in the U.S. since 2022, the social-media creators are paid to specifically target U.S. users, who can still access the site with a virtual private network...

Polymarket hired and worked closely with a marketing contractor to promote the site. In a message reviewed by the Journal, that contractor told its social-media army to repost content made by 10 Polymarket creators in particular... These creators didn't initially identify themselves as paid by Polymarket, although one offered a $20 bonus code in his social-media bio... The company instructed creators not to disclose they are paid, according to creators who have worked with the company. They said the pay often added up to $2,000 to $3,000 a month...

A handful of videos the Journal reviewed also contained short glimpses of URLs indicating the sites were test environments for Polymarket engineers... Creators said they send the finished videos to Polymarket for review. If a video isn't engaging enough, or if it bears obvious signs of being faked, Polymarket will ask for the videos to be reshot, the creators said... Polymarket sends creators bullet-point guidance on what to say, according to creators who have worked with the company and a recruiting website... Polymarket's viral clipping campaign racked up more than 140 million views on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, according to the analytics provider Tubular...

Internal materials show that Polymarket and Virality promote videos showing how easy it is to conduct insider trades on the platform. Polymarket has paid clippers to promote at least 19 videos discussing opportunities to use inside information or other tactics to manipulate markets.
America's advertising laws "require people who are paid to endorse a product to disclose their ties," the article notes, "although there is some gray area about what's permitted." (After the Journal's investigation, the creators started adding "@polymarket partner" to their bios, the article points out._ And when asked for a comment, Polymarket "said it plans to conduct a comprehensive audit of active promotional content."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Komen er excuses van de premier of niet? Dat is vandaag de grote vraag bij de onthulling van het Nationaal Moluks Monument in Rotterdam.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

ZÜRICH (ANP/RTR/AFP) - De Amerikaanse vicepresident JD Vance is in Zwitserland aangekomen voor wat naar eigen zeggen een tweedaags overleg met Iraanse functionarissen zal zijn. Vance en zijn vrouw landden op de luchtmachtbasis Emmen in Zwitserland, zo liet een woordvoerder van de vicepresident weten.

Voordat de vicepresident naar Zwitserland vertrok, zei hij tegen journalisten te hopen "vooruitgang" te boeken als het gaat om het stoppen van de aanvallen in Libanon en het Iraanse nucleaire programma. "Dat zijn volgens mij de twee grote zaken waar we ons op gaan richten", verklaarde hij.

Er hadden eigenlijk vrijdag al nieuwe gesprekken tussen de VS en Iran moeten beginnen in Zwitserland. Dat ging toen op het laatste moment niet door. Bronnen noemden als reden dat Iran zich had teruggetrokken uit onvrede over de situatie in Libanon. Daar voerde Israël op die dag weer zware aanvallen uit nadat er vier Israëlische militairen waren gedood.

Zeestraat weer gesloten

Later op vrijdag volgden berichten dat er een nieuw bestand was tussen Hezbollah en Israël, maar daarna laaide de strijd toch weer op. Beide partijen beschuldigen elkaar ervan zich niet aan de afspraken te houden. Iran voerde de druk vervolgens op door de sluiting aan te kondigen van de Straat van Hormuz, de zeestraat voor de Iraanse kust die erg belangrijk is voor de wereldeconomie.

Daarmee blijft de situatie in Libanon een struikelblok in het vredesproces tussen de VS en Iran. Israël geldt als een bondgenoot van de VS, de zwaarbewapende Hezbollahbeweging van Iran. Zo kon Libanon begin maart betrokken raken bij de oorlog van de VS en Israël tegen Iran. Hezbollah nam Israël onder vuur en dat land reageerde met eigen aanvallen.