De AI-gekte nadert een voorlopig hoogtepunt. SpaceX, het bedrijf waarin Elon Musk een groot deel van zijn bedrijven verzamelde, bracht woensdag het prospectus uit en zal in juni naar de beurs gaan. Het zal de grootste beursgang ooit zijn.

Gezondheidsinstanties pleiten voor krachtig overheidsbeleid om verschillen tussen bevolkingsgroepen door klimaatverandering niet verder te vergroten. De Gezondheidsraad en Wetenschappelijke Klimaatraad zien zonder groen beleid kans op ziekten oplopen. „Begin bij de minder welgestelde wijken.”

Hét drama van de afgelopen weken: de lijdensweg en het overlijden van bultrug Timmy voor de Duits-Deense kust. Toch is het verhaal van de walvis misschien nog niet klaar: het Natuurhistorisch Museum in Rotterdam zou het dier namelijk dolgraag opnemen in de collectie. Er is alleen één praktisch probleem, er is geen ruimte.

DEN HAAG (ANP) - De parlementaire enquêtecommissie corona heeft "een strijd moeten leveren" om documenten los te krijgen over de besluitvorming tijdens de coronapandemie. Dat heeft commissievoorzitter Daan de Kort (VVD) gezegd tijdens een persconferentie. De enquêtecommissie begint volgende week met haar openbare verhoren.

Er was volgens De Kort "een verschil van inzicht" met het kabinet over welke stukken "al dan niet gelakt" geleverd konden worden. De Raad van State kwam eraan te pas en stelde de enquêtecommissie "grotendeels" in het gelijk. De Kort is tevreden met wat de commissie uiteindelijk heeft ontvangen. Maar: "Je weet nooit wat je niet weet."

Naast het doorspitten van documenten heeft de enquêtecommissie gesprekken gevoerd met 81 betrokkenen, van wie er 47 zijn opgeroepen voor een openbaar verhoor. Dat is niet vrijblijvend; de genodigden zijn verplicht te komen en het verhoor wordt onder ede afgenomen.

PARIJS (ANP/AFP) - Roland Garros lijkt het prijzengeld dit jaar niet te verhogen, ondanks de onvrede bij tennissers over de verdeling van de toernooiopbrengsten. "We zullen niet toegeven", zei toernooidirecteur Amélie Mauresmo donderdag.

Onder spelers heerst al langer ontevredenheid over de inkomstenverdeling. Woensdag kondigde een groep tennissers aan komende vrijdag tijdens de persdag van Roland Garros de pers slechts vijftien minuten te woord te staan. Die tijd werd symbolisch gekozen, verwijzend naar de 15 procent van de totale inkomsten van de grandslamtoernooien die momenteel naar het prijzengeld voor spelers gaat.

Vrijdag staat er een gesprek gepland tussen de organisatie van het grandslamtoernooi en enkele vertegenwoordigers van de spelers.

"We nemen de uitspraken van de spelers doorgaans niet licht op", aldus Mauresmo. "Ik heb vertrouwen in de gesprekken die zullen plaatsvinden en in de gesprekken die al hebben plaatsgevonden", stelt ze.

Het hoofdtoernooi in Parijs begint komende zondag.

Every year, there are two major migration events. Birds, insects, fish, and other mammals head north in the spring to nest and breed and return south in the winter to feed and raise their young. Using BirdCast, a tool that’s active seasonally and allows anyone to see bird migration “heat maps” around the U.S., ornithologists tracked a record-breaking one billion birds migrating on a single October night in 2023 (last year, that number reached 1.2 billion). But on the night spanning October 4 to 5, something else really big happened: nearly 1,000 birds died in Chicago after hitting a single building.

McCormick Place Lakeside Center is situated along the Lake Michigan shoreline, set apart from many other buildings in a park-like space, and it has roughly enough windows to cover two football fields. As birds cruise along the shore, flitting over greenery, they sometimes mistake the reflections of nature in glass for the real thing. On the morning of October 5, hundreds of birds fell victim to architecture.

When artist and educator Holly Greenberg heard this news, she was stunned. No stranger to nature and long interested in sustainability and the environment, she was nevertheless totally unaware of the scale of bird collisions in the U.S. During a day out in a Chicagoland arboretum, during a sabbatical from her role as assistant professor at Syracuse University, she worked with a group to remove invasive buckthorn and make room for native trees. A fellow volunteer rued the sad irony of planting new bird habitat when the feathered creatures try to fly into their reflections in glass instead.

“That was the first time that I’d heard that these birds were crashing into windows in Chicago,” Greenberg says. When she later read about the mass collision at McCormick Place, she thought, “Oh man, something needs to be done.” That’s when the multi-year project Bird Collisions in the Anthropocene was born.

Greenberg launched the initiative in 2024 to not only raise awareness of the problem but also to educate people about preventing incidents. Using data from the Chicago Field Museum and with the help of its lead ornithologist Dave Willard, Greenberg landed on a specific number: 10,863. That’s how many were found dead after hitting Chicago buildings in 2023 alone.

It’s estimated that around one billion birds die in window collisions annually throughout North America. One of the organizations working to collect this data and—just as importantly—to protect, rescue, and advocate for avians is the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors (CBCM) program. Every morning, volunteers walk the streets of the city to count and collect fallen individuals, taking them to wildlife sanctuaries for treatment or rehabilitation where possible. Most, however, don’t survive the impact.

Paul Groleau, president of a company called Feather Friendly that makes bird-safe window treatments, suggests that many more die from window impacts than we realize. Greenberg hears people at her workshops say things like, “I heard a bird hit my window, but it flew off, so it’s fine.” Groleau, however, posits that about 60 percent of birds that are stunned do not survive. Their skulls are paper-thin, and if they don’t hemorrhage, they may sit under some shrubbery as they try to recover, which makes them more vulnerable as prey.

When the CBCM volunteers find dead specimens, they take them to the Field Museum, where the bodies become part of an archive Willard has overseen for decades. Many are preserved in the museum collection, each tagged and identified. At the very least, they are added to a carefully tended data set, which lists thousands upon thousands specifically killed by impacting windows at speed.

10,863 is the number Willard had recorded in 2023. Of course, the actual number of birds that collided with windows that year is exponentially higher, but the figure reflects the number that Willard and the CBCM volunteers found. And it’s the exact number that Greenberg is getting thousands of people to help recreate from fabric and glue. At the same time, she’s sharing knowledge about collisions with others through craft, science, advocacy, and social practice.

Starting with a small grant and a group of interns at Syracuse University, Bird Collisions in the Anthropocene began with the list of avians from the Field Museum, some basic crafting supplies, and photographs of individual birds so that makers could replicate the actual species. Eventually, Greenberg relocated to Evanston, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, and opened a studio where she hosts workshops and processes birds that are sent in from all over North America.

Workshops are facilitated across the U.S. and Canada, and so far, a total of more than 140 have been held. Materials can be downloaded from the website, and anyone can host a workshop. Popular locations include public libraries and schools. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which is behind the BirdCast tool, has even launched a pilot program to send hundreds of sew-a-bird kits to biology teachers in New York State in order to complete a core education requirement.

The hands-on, participatory, and very communal aspect of the bird workshops is fundamental to the project’s success. Greenberg opens her studio to the public on the first Saturday of every month as part of the Evanston Made program, and private gatherings can be organized, too. “People get into the flow, no one is touching their phone, and everyone is super concentrated,” Greenberg says. “They’re working with awkward materials, and it’s a mess, but it’s a good creative mindset.”

Studies have shown that hands-on or experiential learning is linked to greater knowledge retention, attentiveness, experimentation, and more. As people create their house sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, golden-crowned kinglets, and many more—and one’s level of technical skill is no matter—a sense of camaraderie builds around a common pursuit. Greenberg then provides resources about how to help prevent bird collisions, such as information about remediation technologies.

Businesses like Feather Friendly make products that can be applied directly to any window, most commonly in the form of small vinyl dots. It also offers Bird Divert, which uses clear dots that are actually hard for us to see, but due to the way birds’ vision works, the application helps them to differentiate between architecture and nature. Fritted glass is another method, which involves ceramic details baked right onto the surface of the glass.

Greenberg sees the artistic potential in the remedial window coverings, and she has previously invited artist Taro Takizawa to paint beautiful organic lines on the top windows of her Evanston studio. For a forthcoming social project this summer, Greenberg plans to install different types of remediation dots on the large storefront windows of the space, plus an installation by artist Alice Hargrave, who creates abstract works using the sound waves of bird calls.

While the official number of finished birds is currently at 3,451, Greenberg estimates there are at least 1,000 more awaiting tagging and entry into the project’s handwritten ledger, which is reminiscent of museum catalogues before computerized records came into widespread use. With the help of a team of interns, she labels each bird individually with its species name, its artist, and where it “flew” in from. And installation opportunities abound.

Eventually, the birds will create one giant “carpet” to illustrate not only the poignant and urgent reality of bird collision deaths, but the power of collective action. In the meantime, groups of the fabric critters go on view occasionally in other exhibitions. One of these is Chicago Architecture Center’s forthcoming show, Flyway City, which “aims to catalyze positive change on making cities safer and more welcoming for birds and diverse wildlife” by focusing on how architecture can help to protect avians from the get-go.

The exhibition is organized by Studio Gang, whose lead architect, Jeanne Gang, has also encouraged the city of Chicago to enact building codes that are more bird-friendly. While Evanston has an ordinance that requires bird-friendly building design, Chicago does not yet, although it’s been on the table many times. Greenberg hopes that continued advocacy and information-sharing empowers others to speak up, too, so that these types of changes will be seen in more communities all over North America.

Flyway City runs from June 11 to January 3, 2027, in Chicago. Keep updated about workshops and other ways to get involved by following Greenberg’s Instagram.

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 Around North America, Community Members Are Stitching Nearly 11,000 Birds appeared first on Colossal.

Late-night hosts spoke about the end of the iconic long-running show and Trump’s latest grift

Late-night hosts discussed the end of The Late Show and Stephen Colbert’s tenure as well as the latest product from Donald Trump.

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Péter Magyar’s draft amendment would prevent Viktor Orbán from returning to the role

• Europe live – latest updates

Hungary’s new government, led by Péter Magyar, has put forward a constitutional amendment that would limit prime ministers to a maximum of eight years in office, in effect barring Viktor Orbán from returning to the role.

The draft amendment was submitted on Wednesday, just over a week after the new government took office. It marked Magyar and his Tisza party’s first step in dismantling a constitution that was unilaterally rewritten and amended more than a dozen times as Orbán and his Fidesz party worked to turn Hungary into what they called a “petri dish for illiberalism”.

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God wat een maximaal gewelddadige soap. Gidi zei tegen Bob van Left Laser dat Palestijnse asielzoekers (door de Marechaussee, bij een asielstop) met "maximaal geweld" moesten worden tegengehouden aan de grens, toen werd IEDEREEN BOOS, kwamen er aangiften, waagde Gidi het ook nog eens om "omvolking" te zeggen, kwamen er ingezonden brieven van ongure types, komt er vanavond ook nog eens een DEBAT en vlak voor dat debat neemt Gidi de uitspraken TERUG. Er liggen 20 aangiften bij het OM en daarom wil Gidi er zo min mogelijk over zeggen, behalve dat hij het niet had moeten zeggen. Waarvan akte.

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