"It's unfortunate that almost none of the people behind these accounts know very much about the ancient world."

Bret Devereaux "Why stone-faced fascists keep getting antiquity wrong" thebulwark.com

Homer is back in the discourse on account of Christopher Nolan's upcoming film, The Odyssey. The latest controversy began with Elon Musk, among others, protesting the supposed inaccuracy of casting Lupita Nyong'o as Helen, a fictional character, who among other fantastic elements is the daughter of the god Zeus and was laid as an egg by her human mother. On X, the debate has spiraled to include renewed criticism of Emily Wilson's 2017 translation of the Odyssey, attacked for being "ideological," which is to say that it attempted to more clearly portray the perspectives of the women in the narrative, as compared to earlier translations.

George Connor "Book review: The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate workingclassicists.com

Because the study of the ancient world is so associated with high-brow intellectualism, white supremacists trying to strengthen weak arguments and add substance to insubstantial positions turn to ancient sources. This elitist perception gives the discipline power for those who want to proclaim their erudition – a power that is the direct result of centuries of silencing contrary voices. As long as Classics remains "paywalled" by elite private institutions and marginalised in state education, it is perhaps inevitable the subject has become synonymous with privilege.

Tallulah Trezevant "The antiquity to alt-right pipeline" workingclassicists.com

The goal of my investigation was to explore how engaging with ancient history-related content as a hobby-historian impacted my user experience on Twitter, with particular attention to the posts placed on my timeline and accounts recommended to me to follow. If I did end up being exposed to alt-right content, which was not a guarantee when I began my project, I wished to understand the connection between contemporary extremist political movements and Greco-Roman aesthetics as well as the rhetorical tactics creators use to radicalize their audience.

HENGELO (ANP) - Femke Broeders-Bol bestempelt zichzelf voor de FBK Games in Hengelo niet als favoriet op haar nieuwe afstand, de 800 meter. Volgens de 26-jarige Amersfoortse is aansluiting met de wereldtop een kwestie van jaren. "De kans is heel groot dat ik dit jaar niet alles ga winnen", vertelt ze in een persbericht van de organisatie in aanloop naar de wedstrijd op 21 juni.

Broeders-Bol was de afgelopen jaren oppermachtig op de 400 meter horden. Op dat onderdeel werd ze twee keer wereldkampioen, twee keer Europees kampioen en veroverde ze twee keer olympisch brons.

"Alles is wennen", vertelt Broeders-Bol over haar nieuwe trainingen. "Ik moest mijn nieuwe pas vinden om efficiënter te gaan lopen." Ook voor komende zomer tempert ze de verwachtingen. "Ik wil proberen het niveau van de Diamond Leaguewedstrijden te halen. Roepen dat ik deze zomer Europees kampioen ga worden doe ik daarom niet, en dat is bovendien ook niet respectvol naar toppers als Keely Hodgkinson en Audrey Werro, die zich allang bewezen hebben op de 800 meter."

PARIJS (ANP/BLOOMBERG/AFP) - HSBC wordt in Frankrijk verdacht van hulp aan de voormalige gouverneur van de Libanese centrale bank bij het wegsluizen van geld, meldden Franse financieel aanklagers. Ze beschuldigen de Zwitserse divisie van de bank van witwassen en betrokkenheid bij omkoping en verduistering.

De zaak draait om vermeende hulp aan Riad Salameh, die dertig jaar aan het hoofd stond van de centrale bank van Libanon. Hij wordt verdacht van het verduisteren van tientallen miljoenen dollars in zijn tijd als centralebankgouverneur en staat in eigen land terecht. Tegen Salamehs broer loopt een Frans onderzoek.

HSBC ging niet inhoudelijk in op het nieuws. De van oorsprong Britse bank zei wel mee te werken met de onderzoekers. Dankzij een voorlopige tenlastelegging kunnen aanklagers hun onderzoek naar HSBC uitbreiden.

How many people actually heed the warnings about not feeding ducks waddling around public parks? If you’ve taken a flippant approach to these guidelines in the past, we recommend you watch AJ Jeffries’ new animation, “DUCKS.” What opens as an innocuous jaunt around a pond quickly turns into a dark comedy full of strange contortions and feathered villains sure to pop into your head the next time you throw a chunk of bread.

Jeffries is also behind this ridiculous story of a struggling horse, and you can find more of his work on Instagram, Vimeo, or Behance.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Don’t Feed the Ducks! A Zany Animation Predicts the Absurd Outcomes of Ignoring the Rules appeared first on Colossal.

Mother demands overhaul of maternity care after settling case over birth at Queen’s hospital in Romford in 2019

The family of a girl left brain-damaged at birth have agreed to accept £28m in damages after the NHS trust involved admitted that its mistakes led to the tragedy.

Barking, Havering and Redbridge university hospitals NHS trust failed to monitor the baby’s heart rate while her mother was in labour or ask an obstetrician to review the case, either of which might have led to the girl being born in a healthy condition.

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Exclusive: Greater Lincolnshire mayor walks out on cabinet minister after row over social media role in community tensions

Andrea Jenkyns walked out of a meeting with a cabinet minister and several other metropolitan mayors on Thursday after a heated discussion about the murder of Henry Nowak and the civil unrest that has followed.

The Reform mayor of Greater Lincolnshire walked out of the meeting with the communities secretary, Steve Reed, and other regional leaders after a row over the role social media has played in exacerbating community tensions.

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• Spaniard replaces Arne Slot and signs two-year deal

• Iraola worked with Richard Hughes at Bournemouth

Andoni Iraola has been appointed the new head coach of Liverpool on a two-year contract. The 43-year-old’s arrival was confirmed just six days after the sacking of Arne Slot.

Liverpool moved quickly to replace Slot with the former Bournemouth head coach after identifying him as the ideal candidate for their preferred playing style and with Milan, Bayer Leverkusen and Crystal Palace all vying for the Basque’s services. Other coaches were considered, including Stuttgart’s Sebastian Hoeness and Pierre Sage of Lens, but Iraola was always Liverpool’s favoured option and the only one spoken to about the vacancy.

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While he remains focused on his work with Haas, Ollie Bearman has admitted that joining Ferrari in the future is his target.

An immigrant rights and advocacy group has filed a lawsuit against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seeking records related to the agency’s use of Palantir tools. 404 Media first revealed a tool called ELITE and its links to Palantir in January, based in part on a leaked user guide for ELITE. ICE uses ELITE to find which neighborhoods to raid, according to testimony from an ICE official.

“The requested records include information of great national significance, and will detail the ways Defendants have made use of Palantir’s technology products to centralize, analyze, and visualize data around individuals residing in the United States and their social relationships to identify target individuals and communities in highly publicized immigration raids,” Just Futures Law wrote in its complaint filed on Thursday. 

The lawsuit follows a Just Futures Law Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking related documents. The lawsuit also targets the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Just Futures Law is seeking, among other things, unredacted copies of communications between ICE and Palantir discussing various tools and systems, including ImmigrationOS; communications between ICE and members of DOGE discussing the systems (DOGE was working on a “master database” to track immigrants, WIRED reported); memorandums of agreement and similar between ICE, DOGE, and other agencies; copies of the specific Palantir contracts; training material about ImmigrationOS; and presentations created by ICE discussing the systems.

As 404 Media reported, ELITE, or Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement, populates a map with potential deportation targets, and provides ICE users with a dossier on each person. It also provides a “confidence score” on that person’s current address. Other criteria available on the map include “Bios & IDs,” “Location,” “Operations,” and “Criminality.” 

404 Media purchased a transcript from a case in Oregon in which a deportation officer with ICE’s Fugitive Operations Unit, identified in the court records as JB, said ELITE is “basically a map of the United States. It’s kind of like Google Maps.”

JB said ELITE is what ICE uses to track the apparent density of people in a particular location. “You’re going to go to a more dense population rather than [...] like, if there’s one pin at a house and the likelihood of them actually living there is like 10 percent [...] you’re not going to go there,” he added.

Organizations and journalists sometimes file FOIA lawsuits as a way to force an agency to comply with their legal obligations to provide the requested records in a timely manner. 404 Media recently published records from our ongoing lawsuit against ICE regarding its $2 million spyware contract.

Opmerkelijk gekras van De Telegraaf in een column van Marianne Zwagerman vandaag. Vergelijk hieronder de versie die aanvankelijk online verscheen met de versie die nu online staat:

De oorspronkelijke versie

De versie nu

Dus gingen de machtige lobbyradaren draaien VERSUS Gingen daarom de machtige lobbyraderen draaien?

Die reiken diep tot in D66 VERSUS Reiken die tot diep in D66?

Twee jaar later ging Vera Bergkamp, het loopmeisje van Kaag, braaf aan de slag om samen met de ambtelijke top Arib kalt te stellen. Missie geslaagd VERSUS Ging twee jaar later Vera Bergkamp als loopmeisje van Kaag braaf aan de slag om samen met de ambtelijke top Arib kalt te stellen? Dan zou de missie geslaagd zijn.

Nu is er nogal wat te doen om de columnistiek en daar vinden ze bij De Telegraaf vast ook wel wat van. Maar hoe vrij zijn die columnisten van De Telegraaf eigenlijk? We stellen alleen maar vragen!