F1.com’s Lawrence Barretto delves into the key talking points on Thursday at the Austrian Grand Prix.

King Charles’s property management firm rakes in £1.2bn as it continues to benefit from offshore windfarm boom

• King Charles’s tax bill: what did we learn and what is still in the dark?

King Charles’s property management company has made more than £1bn for the third consecutive year thanks to the boom in offshore windfarms paid for through energy bills.

The crown estate, the royals’ portfolio of land and property, reported £1.2bn in profit for the last financial year, almost three times the amount it made three years ago. Two-thirds came from the offshore wind industry.

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Sure, we all want love, but what lengths would you go to find it? Swedish animator Anna Mantzaris once again captures the gamut of human emotion in a stop-motion film that plunges headfirst into the pitiful and cringy. As its title suggests, “PLEASE” is about wanting and attempting to find love through increasingly unhinged acts of desperation and neediness. Mantzaris’ signature felt characters light fires for marriage proposals, sob in the chip aisle, and hug puppies while waiting for the train.

The writer and director tells Creative Boom that she got the idea for the short film during the early days of the pandemic, when most people were trapped at home. “We became more obsessed with our self-image because we saw ourselves on screens in Zoom calls all day. We spent a lot of time looking at ourselves while feeling disconnected from other people,” she says. “I wanted the characters to try to break out of this bubble, to reach out, to show their longing, but in a not-so-perfect way.”

“PLEASE” is the latest addition to Mantzaris’ growing collection of dark comedies, although this film also counts Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård, who just this year was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Sentimental Value, among its cast. Presented through a series of vignettes, the felted puppets weave in and out of the animation, and we witness their most heated and pathetic moments.

“I’m interested in the difference between what we show the world and what we actually feel,” she adds. “Presenting the ‘ugly’ feelings through the puppets makes us feel seen. They get to do it for us, so we feel we’re not alone.”

The short film is currently making the rounds on the festival circuit, although a wider release is in the works, too. Watch the trailer on YouTube, and find additional clips—including the dating profile of a particularly discouraged 21-year-old—on 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 ‘PLEASE’ Is Anna Mantzaris’ Unhinged Comedy About Desperately Wanting Love appeared first on Colossal.

AMSTERDAM (ANP) - De Amsterdamse veiligheidsregio adviseert organisatoren van evenementen in de regio om die vrijdag af te gelasten in verband met de verwachte extreme hitte. Dat meldt een woordvoerder namens de Veiligheidsregio Amsterdam-Amstelland, waaronder behalve Amsterdam ook Aalsmeer, Amstelveen, Diemen, Ouder-Amstel en Uithoorn vallen.

De woordvoerder laat weten dat vrijdag ongeveer zestig evenementen gepland staan, "die we vragen het dringende advies op te volgen". Die verantwoordelijkheid ligt uiteindelijk bij de organisatoren en bezoekers.

Vrijdag geldt in het grootste deel van het land code rood, omdat extreme hitte wordt verwacht. Donderdagavond zijn de verschillende hulpdiensten van de veiligheidsregio bij elkaar gekomen om de situatie te bespreken. Daaruit is het advies over evenementen gekomen, bedoeld om de hulpdiensten beschikbaar te houden en in verband met de veiligheid van de bezoekers.

Meer informatie over de zestig evenementen heeft de woordvoerder niet.

DEN HAAG (ANP) - De plannen voor het stikstofbeleid van landbouwminister Jaimi van Essen zijn donderdagavond nog niet rond, melden verschillende bronnen rondom de overleggen met het kabinet. Er wordt nog volop overlegd. Waar de heikele punten in die discussie zitten, is bij de ingewijden niet bekend.

Vrijdag moeten de stikstofplannen van de D66-minister besproken worden in de ministerraad. Daar zitten maatregelen in die grote impact gaan hebben op boerenbedrijven, natuur en het bedrijfsleven. Bronnen rondom de overleggen zien dat de laatste dagen nog veel is veranderd aan de plannen. Of het gaat om grote aanpassingen of bijvoorbeeld tekstuele wijzigingen, laten ingewijden in het midden.

Het pakket aan maatregelen moet zorgen voor fors minder stikstofuitstoot, zodat er weer makkelijker vergunningen verleend kunnen worden. Het kabinet wil onder andere zones rondom kwetsbare natuur waar veel minder stikstof kan worden uitgestoten en een maximumaantal koeien per hectare. Ook verkeer en industrie moeten stikstof verminderen.

Coalitiepartijen waren donderdagavond niet bereikbaar voor commentaar.

WASHINGTON (ANP/AFP) - De Verenigde Staten hebben Venezuela 150 miljoen dollar toegezegd nadat het land werd getroffen door twee zware aardbevingen. Zo'n 50 miljoen dollar moet naar organisaties gaan die al actief zijn in het land, en 100 miljoen naar een humanitair VN-fonds.

Volgens de recentste cijfers zijn er minstens 188 doden gevallen en liggen nog enkele honderden mensen onder het puin. Verschillende landen, waaronder Nederland, hebben al hulp toegezegd in de vorm van onder meer reddingsteams en hulpgoederen.

De band tussen de twee landen is de afgelopen tijd verbeterd, nadat de VS in januari president Nicolás Maduro meenamen voor berechting in New York. De VS zeggen nu samen te werken met de interim-overheid van Delcy Rodríguez.

NEW YORK (ANP) - De aandelenbeurzen in New York zijn donderdag met wisselende uitslagen gesloten. Apple verloor flink op Wall Street na de bekendmaking dat de verkoopprijzen van onder meer MacBooks en iPads worden verhoogd vanwege de sterk gestegen kosten voor geheugenchips. Chipbedrijf Micron Technology was juist een uitblinker dankzij goed ontvangen cijfers en vooruitzichten.

Apple zakte meer dan 6 procent. De prijsverhogingen zijn wereldwijd, maar gelden niet voor de iPhone, het belangrijkste product van Apple. Het techconcern zegt dat het nog nooit zo'n sterke prijsstijging van een component heeft gezien. Door de grote vraag naar geheugenchips voor AI-datacenters zijn er tekorten ontstaan en verhogen producenten hun prijzen.

De Dow-Jonesindex eindigde licht hoger op 51.920,62 punten. De brede S&P 500 was vlak op 7357,49 punten. De technologiegraadmeter Nasdaq daalde 0,5 procent tot 25.358,60 punten. Dat is de vierde verliesdag op rij voor de Nasdaq.

Micron

Van die enorme AI-chipvraag profiteren juist bedrijven als Micron Technology dat bijna 16 procent steeg. De chipfabrikant boekte in het afgelopen kwartaal een vijftien keer zo hoge winst als een jaar eerder. Ook kwam Micron met sterke verwachtingen voor de omzet in het lopende kwartaal. Andere chipbedrijven als Qualcomm, Lam Research en Applied Materials wonnen tot 13 procent. SanDisk sprong 22 procent omhoog.

Bio-Techne werd 20 procent duurder. De Amerikaanse leverancier van medische producten wordt voor 11,3 miljard dollar overgenomen door de Duitse farmaceut Merck. Het is de grootste overname voor Merck in meer dan tien jaar.

Lockheed Martin

De producent van levensmiddelen en specerijen McCormick klom 1,6 procent na bekendmaking van cijfers. McCormick neemt een groot deel van de voedingsdivisie van Unilever over in een deal ter waarde van 44,8 miljard dollar.

Lockheed Martin werd 2,7 procent hoger gezet door beleggers. Het defensieconcern heeft een contract ter waarde van maximaal 35 miljard dollar binnengehaald van het Amerikaanse ministerie van Defensie. Het bedrijf moet de productie van raketafweersystemen verviervoudigen.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Anthropic has accused the Chinese firm Alibaba of launching the largest attack yet attempting to clone Claude, as China races to match the capabilities of Anthropic's leading model following Mythos' release and subsequent restriction from foreign markets. Ars obtained a June 10 letter sent to Senators Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) one day ahead of a Senate committee hearing on "AI and the American Dream." In the letter, Anthropic shared "new, confidential evidence of the largest campaign to illicitly extract Claude's capabilities we have ever measured."

The attacks occurred between April 22 and June 5, when "operators afliated with Alibaba and Alibaba Qwen, Alibaba's AI lab" allegedly generated "more than 28.8 million exchanges with Claude through almost 25,000 fraudulent accounts," Anthropic said. Violating Claude's terms of service and access restrictions, this campaign "targeted some of Claude's most valuable capabilities, such as agentic reasoning, software engineering, and long-horizon tasks." According to Anthropic, Alibaba evaded detection by "using obfuscation techniques and proxy networks." As Chinese demand for reliable obfuscation techniques increases, Anthropic warned there's already "a growing circumvention economy" to fuel an ever-expanding web of future distillation attacks. [...]

"Alibaba is governed by an independent board, none of whom has any military affiliation," Alibaba said. "Its products and services are built for retail, logistics, and enterprise information technology -- not weapons, defense, or intelligence." Anthropic appears unconvinced, however, that Alibaba isn't working with the Chinese government. In the letter, Anthropic warned that without stronger interventions, these distillation attacks will "help China reach Mythos Preview-level capabilities sooner."

To keep the US ahead of China, Anthropic recommended that Congress pass legislation with three objectives. First, antitrust laws must be updated to allow AI firms to share information about evolving Chinese tactics to deter more threats. Second, the US needs more export controls on chips to hamstring Chinese access to advanced compute so that they simply can't train on US model outputs. That could make conducting distillation attacks pointless, Anthropic suggested. Finally, Congress should pass laws penalizing Chinese labs' "bad behavior" so that it's "more difficult and costly" to rely on distillation attacks to advance Chinese models. Penalties could include limiting Chinese firms from accessing US models or advanced US chips or from relying on data centers outside of China, Anthropic suggested.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Security firm Huntress allegedly has a turncoat insider leaking info to a ransomware operation, according to an ex-employee who took his grievances to social media after claiming the security shop tried to “silence” him with legal threats. And it all started with a Pinocchio GIF and clown emoji. Late last week, Huntress disclosed that it is among the “hundreds of Klue customers” compromised in the supply-chain attack, stating that “Huntress believes in radical transparency about security incidents, including when it affects our company.” Ben Folland, a former security operations analyst at Huntress who left the company in February, responded with a Pinocchio GIF and clown emoji - although, to be clear, his complaints about his former employer have nothing to do with the Klue incident. These stem from an earlier incident that Folland also detailed in a series of posts. According to Folland’s resignation letter, which he also shared on LinkedIn, he left the security firm for “personal reasons, and due to a conflict of interest,” with his last day of work being February 19. This conflict, Folland alleges, arose from his December discovery that “another Huntress employee passed communications from US law enforcement to a cybercriminal, DevMan, who is actively and publicly targeting my family and me.” DevMan is a ransomware operation that first emerged in April 2025 and uses modified DragonForce code. “Since December 2025, I believe Huntress has been actively trying to conceal a serious security incident from its partners, customers, and employees involving an insider who is still employed at the company,” Folland said in a LinkedIn post. The alleged insider was “caught by the FBI,” according to Folland, and continues to work as a Huntress employee. “The incident in question would cause significant reputational damage to Huntress and, in my view, continues to put clients at risk,” his LinkedIn post continued. “With an IPO on the horizon, it appears their priority was not transparency, but keeping this away from the press.” Folland also promised to publish, over the next two weeks, “evidence supporting the claims made in my resignation email,” such as communications with the FBI and those between the Huntress employee and DevMan, recorded phone calls, internal Huntress memos, and threats targeting Folland and his family. The Register reached out to Folland for more information and did not receive a response. “If you are an employee at a cybersecurity company, you should not be helping cybercriminals,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “You should not be informing them of active investigations. You should not be engaging in cybercriminal activity yourself.” We also contacted Huntress about Folland’s accusations, and CEO Kyle Hanslovan responded via a spokesperson. "A former employee raised concerns that a teammate exercised poor judgment in communicating with a cybercriminal,” Hanslovan said. “By nature of our work as security researchers, teammates occasionally need to communicate with possible cybercriminals to gather intel that ultimately supports our partners and customers,” he continued. “I appreciate the hell out of that former employee's concerns and we've taken them seriously every step of the way. I also have to make sure Huntress upholds its responsibility to protect the confidentiality of our teammates involved and the investigation underway.” Hanslovan also assured Huntress’ partners, customers, and employees that if he learns “new information that changes our assessment of the current situation, I will take quick and appropriate action.” In a more direct response on Reddit, Hanslovan said he “firmly disagree[s]” and doesn’t “understand Ben's accusations.” His company “strongly disagree[s] with this ‘insider’ narrative,” he wrote. “We sure af didn’t prioritize an IPO over the safety of our partners, customers, or team.” And about the FBI allegations: “Some aspects of this matter involve ongoing active coordination with law enforcement and legal proceedings that prevent us from providing a complete public account,” Hanslovan wrote. “We're not gonna litigate this on LinkedIn with Ben but will likely publish some form of official comms to make our stance clear for those needing something more than my reddit reply.”®