Patrick Wintour reports from the funeral of Ali Khamenei as the Iranian regime puts on a show of confidence and resilience.

Iran is holding a multi-day funeral for its former supreme leader Ali Khamenei in a show of defiance and resilience after its war with the US and Israel. Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, is there. “I’m just one dot on those numbers you’re seeing from helicopters. When I was in the mosque yesterday, it was absolutely rammed, packed, and people couldn’t get into the mosque. There were clearly more than 50,000, 60,000 there.”

Khamenei had ruled for 36 years until he was killed in the first day of airstrikes in February. After such a shocking start to the war, it seemed as though Iran was facing an existential threat. Instead, explains Robert Malley, a US special envoy for Iran during Joe Biden’s presidency, the ceasefire deal being negotiated is in Tehran’s favour.

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Doom developer id Software is reportedly laying off about half its staff as part of Microsoft's broader Xbox cuts. The reported layoffs potentially affects around 90 employees. Engadget reports: While neither Microsoft nor id Software have formally acknowledged the layoffs, one former member of the studio's staff, Michael Maynard, has echoed the 50 percent figure on LinkedIn. According to at least one of Game Developer's sources, that could translate to around 90 job cuts, though it's so far unclear what departments at id Software have been hit hardest.

[...] Bloomberg reported yesterday that as part of the "reset" at Xbox, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of id Software, will be focusing on its biggest franchises -- like The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Wolfenstein and Doom -- going forward. It's possible that motivated the cuts to id Software, but the developer at least outwardly appears to be already heavily focused on Doom. The studio launched Doom: The Dark Ages in 2025 and an expansion to the game on July 7, 2026. Whatever the reason, the cuts at Xbox aren't over: While Microsoft eliminated 1,600 roles alongside the announcement that Xbox is restructuring, it still plans to lay off another 1,600 employees over the coming months.

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Microsoft will turn on Windows settings backup and restore by default for eligible Windows 11 business devices outside the EU, starting with Windows 11 26H2. The Register reports:
Now dubbed "Windows settings backup and restore," the service backs up a device's settings and a list of installed Microsoft Store apps, which can then be restored to a new device. Microsoft gave a use case for the technology: "Imagine a lost laptop, a hardware refresh, or an unexpected reset. These are some of the moments when your users need backup most. And that's rarely when anyone wants to discover that backup was never turned on."

However, some organizations might not want it on. Perhaps those with strict privacy or data sovereignty requirements, or those regulated by the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA), for whom the default-on behavior won't apply. Windows 11 25H2 and earlier are also excluded, as is any device with a backup policy that explicitly disables the setting. Everything else running Windows 11 26H1 will get switched on after a feature update, and the same applies to 26H2, currently with Windows Insiders in the Experimental channel.

Administrators might reasonably be wary of this being opt-out rather than opt-in. Backups are useful, but Microsoft is clear that this is not a comprehensive backup solution, calling it only "one step in a broader Windows resiliency effort." The implications still need consideration. An opt-out setting that quietly ships settings data off-device is exactly the sort of thing that adds to administrators' workloads rather than lightening them.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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