MADRID (ANP/AFP/RTR) - Zo'n 4 miljoen Spanjaarden hebben woensdag het werk neergelegd in de eerste landelijke staking sinds 2012, melden de vakbonden. De protestdag is met name gericht op de woningcrisis in het land. Dat is een van de belangrijkste thema's bij de campagne voor de parlementsverkiezingen van eind deze maand.

De grootste vakbonden van Spanje hebben zich aangesloten bij de staking, net als de huurdersbonden die boos zijn over stijgende prijzen en uithuiszettingen. In Madrid werd in de avond om die reden een mars gehouden met tienduizenden mensen.

Volgens de vakbonden was de stakingsdag een succes, al verschilde het wel sterk per regio hoeveel arbeiders er aan meededen. Werkgeversbonden stellen dat de dag ze is meegevallen.

De woningnood leidt al maanden tot protesten in Spanje en was ook de reden dat premier Pedro Sánchez vervroegde verkiezingen heeft uitgeschreven. Het was hem en zijn minderheidscoalitie niet gelukt om maatregelen tegen de crisis door het parlement te loodsen.

WARSCHAU (ANP/RTR) - In de Poolse hoofdstad Warschau zijn tienduizenden mensen de straat opgegaan voor de jaarlijkse nationalistische mars rond Onafhankelijkheidsdag. Op die dag wordt gevierd dat Polen zijn soevereiniteit terugwon in 1918, na meer dan honderd jaar gebukt te zijn gegaan onder onder meer Duitse en Russische overheersing.

De mars, waarbij ook de Poolse president Karol Nawrocki aanwezig was, werd in het verleden aangegrepen door rechtsnationalisten om extremistische standpunten ten gehore te brengen. De krant Rzeczpospolita meldt dat ook dit jaar gemaskerde mannen een smet hebben achtergelaten op de viering, door banners te tonen met daarop de tekst 'Make Europe White Again'. Op beelden bij datzelfde medium is te zien hoe de gigantische stoet, op sommige plekken voorzien van lichtfakkels, richting het nationale stadion in Warschau trekt.

Waar de organisatoren het aantal aanwezigen schatten op een half miljoen, spreken de lokale autoriteiten van circa 250.000 aanwezigen.

De mis van paus Leo in Argentinië heeft volgens de autoriteiten meer dan 3 miljoen mensen getrokken. Het is daarmee de grootste menigte die Leo heeft toegesproken sinds hij vorig jaar mei aantrad als paus.

Eerder meldden de autoriteiten nog dat er ruim 2 miljoen toeschouwers waren bij de mis in Luján, net buiten Buenos Aires. Daarmee zou het een kleinere bijeenkomst zijn geweest dan die in Buenos Aires eerder deze week. Daar waren 2,5 miljoen mensen op afgekomen.

"Argentinië, bedankt dat jullie mij met open armen hebben ontvangen", zei Leo tijdens zijn laatste evenement in het land. De Amerikaanse paus reist nu door naar Peru, het land waar hij lang werkte en zelfs de nationaliteit van heeft gekregen.

After Peta’s call ‘to reject mischaracterisations of chickens’, I wonder what they would make of Polish representations of polecats and Croatian cuckoos

Chickens don’t have it easy. On top of living largely crap, short lives, they endure the ignominy of collectively being a byword for cowardice. The campaign group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) has written to the Oxford English Dictionary asking for this definition of “chicken” to be changed. Naturally enough, there are those who have been unafraid to holler “Woke nonsense!” as loud as cocks crowing.

For my part, I think Peta is right to stick up for chickens, but I’m not sure removing a definition – assuming definition-removal is a thing – would make any difference. Chicken, in this sense, is in common use as an adjective, a verb and a noun. It’s got deep roots that are going to take some shifting. And any such move could open up a right can of worms (sorry, worms). What about the vulture, rat, shark and sloth lobbies? Not to mention pigs, snakes, weasels, donkeys, sheep, dogs, parrots and all manner of creatures with whom we share this beleaguered planet.

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• Former Jets and Bills coach turned himself in

• Ryan faces six misdemeanor charges over incident

• Two pedestrians allegedly struck in Nashville

ESPN analyst and former NFL coach Rex Ryan turned himself in to police on Wednesday after allegedly hitting two pedestrians with his car in Nashville and leaving the scene.

Nashville police said on Wednesday that the pedestrians had the right of way while crossing a main street in the city’s downtown last week when Ryan allegedly turned at a red light and drove over their feet.

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He has survived blame for the US midterms disaster and dodged an impeachment vote, but it will be one battle after another now – and he can’t win them all

Like the brief, wondrous cycle of the mayfly, we may come to look back on the career of Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defence who cheekily rebranded himself secretary of war, as the defining appointment of the Trump era: that is, one in which extraordinary power was handed to a man of cartoonish inappropriateness and which, despite this week’s shelved attempt to impeach him, may still turn out to have been luminously short-lived. In January, the Democrats will assume a majority in both chambers and are likely to have another crack at impeaching Hegseth. In the meantime, we can only look on and wonder at his meaning.

It is quite something, in the context of Trump cabinet appointments that have included Robert F Kennedy Jr and Kristi Noem, to be the most glaringly underqualified person in the West Wing, but since being sworn in almost two years ago, Hegseth has comfortably seen off any rivals to his crown. This week, eight articles of impeachment, or “high crimes and misdemeanours” as the official rubric has it, were levied against him by Thomas Massie, an outgoing Republican congressman from Kentucky, who accused Hegseth of illegal acts including violating the constitution by conducting an unauthorised war with Iran and effecting regime change in Venezuela.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Amazon's Ring is going deeper into surveillance with an indoor drone for home monitoring and an autonomous robot designed to patrol businesses. The company on Tuesday unveiled the $250 Ring Drone Cam, a security camera that can fly from room to room, including upstairs, as well as capture footage during the day or at night. When an alarm or sensor on windows, doors and home security devices is triggered, the textbook-sized drone travels a preset path to investigate suspicious activity. Users can also deploy the drone at any time, the company said.

[...] The company on Tuesday also debuted the $1,000 Ring Rover Cam. The device repurposes Amazon's Astro home robot, which had a short life as a business device and has seen few upgrades since its 2021 debut, for companies to use to patrol offices, warehouses and other workspaces. Ring said it "leveraged the best of Astro" to build the Ring Rover Cam, which it describes as a "purpose-built security robot." Similar to the Astro, the device is a display mounted on a two-wheeled base with an extendable periscope camera. It also features a "built-in siren," two-way audio and a "light tower" that shines onto the ceiling to help users keep track of its whereabouts. The Ring Drone Cam ships in the U.S. on Jan. 27, while the Ring Rover Cam will begin shipping to users on Dec. 16.

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Datacenter power consumption in the US is growing roughly ten times faster than grid capacity, meaning facilities may soon need to find a large chunk of their own electricity from other sources. Surging demand for AI infrastructure is driving a wave of new server farms across America, but it is exposing long-term underinvestment in the grid networks required to deliver power where it's needed. Insurance broker Howden calculates that datacenters would need to source up to 58 percent of their power off the grid by 2030 just to keep their share of grid capacity from growing. Gartner warned in June that the energy consumed by AI datacenters is on track to grow 26 percent this year, and grid supply may be unable to keep pace with demand by the end of this decade. Howden's analysis of data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) and S&P Global found that since the year 2000, power being fed to data campuses has risen 19 percent a year on average, while the electricity grid expanded capacity by just 2 percent per annum over the same period. Datacenters' share of US grid capacity was circa five percent in 2025, up from 0.1 percent in 2000 – a 50-fold increase. Management consultancy Bain & Company issued a report two years ago warning that energy companies must switch gear and invest in building out grid capacity faster, as energy draw by server farms is expected to more than double by 2030. This doesn't mean that datacenters are in danger of eating all of America's electricity, at least not in the immediate future. The graph makes it appear that the two lines are about to cross, but the chart uses different scales: 1,400 gigawatts on the left axis for grid capacity, versus just 80 on the right for datacenters. Keeping datacenters at five percent of grid capacity requires 110 gigawatts of behind-the-meter capacity by 2030, Howden estimates – an expansion it considers unlikely. Instead, it expects a combination of greater reliance on the grid, slower development at power-constrained sites, and alternative supplies. For the largest, most power-constrained projects, Howden warns that grid delays of two to six years could mean $800 million to $2.4 billion in forgone revenue. "Power availability is becoming one of the defining challenges of the datacenter boom," says Howden head of Natural Resources Stuart Adam. "As demand for AI infrastructure accelerates, developers are increasingly looking beyond traditional grid connections to secure the electricity they need." Howden's business is insurance, and so Adam also notes that on-site generation introduces new operational and financial exposures, as operators take greater responsibility for their power infrastructure. ®

Een nieuwe keurmerk-keurmerk moet consumenten duidelijk maken hoe betrouwbaar een keurmerk is. Dat maakt de Rijksoverheid bekend. Het nieuwe keurmerk voor keurmerken krijgt straks één, twee of drie sterren op basis van betrouwbaarheid. “De invoering moet consumenten meer zekerheid bieden”, zegt woordvoerder Elsbeth Kriert. “Wie straks een product koopt met een Beter Leven-keurmerk, kan aan het keurmerk-keurmerk zien of dat eerste keurmerk daadwerkelijk te vertrouwen is. Het Beter Leven-keurmerk krijgt bijvoorbeeld een-ster, zodat je weet dat je eigenlijk helemaal niks weet over hoe goed het leven was dat het dier heeft geleefd.” Het keurmerk-keurmerk is vanaf volgende week te zien op verpakkingen, maar het zal niet op iedere verpakking te zien zijn. “Keurmerken mogen zelf beslissen of ze willen dat er keurmerk-keurmerk-keurmerk op de verpakking te zien zal zijn.”