​De nieuwe stikstofplannen van minister van Landbouw Jaimi van Essen hebben een online cultheld van hem gemaakt: in enkele uren kreeg hij er 5 miljoen volgers bij.

De 34-jarige Van Essen wil de rekenkundige ondergrens verhogen naar een halve mol stikstofdioxide per hectare, terwijl tegelijkertijd een stikstofplafond wordt ingevoerd door middel van dierrechten. Het kanaal NPO Politiek riep mensen op Van Essen te gaan volgen op sociale media, en daar werd massaal gehoor aan gegeven.

Van Essen prijst in een reactie het hele team dat aan de stikstofplannen heeft gewerkt.

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Midfielder says it is important the European champions have ‘humility’ after disappointing draw against debutants

The mourning after isn’t always easy, Mikel Merino says – and yes that is mourning with a “u”. “No one died, it’s not a mourning exactly, but at times defeats can feel like that,” the Arsenal midfielder admitted and, although it wasn’t actually a defeat at all, this was one of those times. A 0-0 draw against Cape Verde in their World Cup opener was not the way Spain dreamed it; now, Merino insisted as the selección returned to their Tennessee training camp six long days before they get the chance to make amends, they must deal with it. Each in their own way, but as a family.

There they faced a Spanish inquisition too, which was why Merino – the only player not out on the pitch at 11am the morning after a damaging, unexpected draw in Atlanta – was the player chosen to appear in the press room. Seven long desks full of journalists faced him to go with all the noise outside. All part of the game, he called it. “If there’s one thing that’s not good for us, it is for there to be panic,” he said. So here he was, 30 minutes of questions managed with clarity and conviction, offering insight and inspiration. Remember 2010 when Spain lost their first game and won the World Cup? Merino does. He had just turned 14.

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Federal Tort Claims Act, over which DoJ has total discretion, provides workaround to Trump’s $1.8bn slush fund

January 6 defendants who assaulted police officers are pursuing legal claims for millions in compensation from the Trump administration using an obscure federal process with minimal oversight, but which offers the Trump administration a way to compensate those responsible for violence even after scrapping its “anti-weaponization fund”.

The defendants are pursuing their claims using the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which allows individuals wronged by the government to file claims for monetary damages. The justice department has complete and unchecked discretion over whether to settle the claims, giving the Trump administration a powerful vehicle to reward those responsible for violence on January 6. The claims would be paid out from the judgment fund, a perpetual appropriation allowed for by Congress and the same pot of money Trump’s $1.8bn slush fund was going to draw from. All of the defendants seeking compensation received a pardon from Trump.

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A character bearing that name appears in a remarkable number of chatbot-generated stories. He could be a messenger from the future – or a warning that generative AI is in danger of ‘model collapse’

Ever heard of a shadowy figure called Elias Thorne? If you haven’t, try asking an AI chatbot to tell you a story.

In recent months, tech types and researchers have noticed a weird phenomenon: when prompted to tell a story, numerous popular LLMs, including ChatGPT and Claude, will spit out a tale featuring this mysterious Elias figure.

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In his directorial debut Maddie’s Secret, Early plays a food influencer with bulimia in a wild flip on the modern melodrama

They don’t make film heroines quite like Maddie Ralph any more. As the creation of comedian and actor John Early, the titular character of Maddie’s Secret is a bright-eyed ingenue who greets the day like the sun came out just for her, no matter that she’s trudging to her job as a dishwasher. Like the leading ladies of ’50s Women’s Pictures, she longs for something more than the hand she has been dealt: in her case, to share her gooey, crispy and umami-packed culinary creations with the world as a food influencer.

Early’s character is a loveable striver that you want to see win, even as an eating disorder threatens to get in the way of her dream. “I wanted to make a character that people feel very endeared to and protective of,” says Early a few weeks before the US release of Maddie’s Secret, his directorial debut. “There’s something moving to me about people thinking of Maddie as not me and as this other being.” At recent festival screenings, fans reacted to the character with the primal displays of affection you would normally expect at a Barefoot Contessa book signing. “People are like, Aw MADDIEEEEEE!” smiles Early.

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A second helping of the English-language adaptation of Mercedes Ron’s trilogy sustains little chemistry between its supposedly besotted lead characters

Here is Amazon Prime’s sequel to its hit My Fault: London. If you’re new to the franchise back-story, it started with a bestselling trilogy of romance novels by Spanish author Mercedes Ron (who self-published the first one). It’s a tale of the forbidden love between step-siblings Noah and her smouldering bad boy step-brother Nick. The books have been adapted into a trilogy of Spanish-language films, the second of which is remade here with absolutely no sense of fun or humour. A couple of its good-looking actors give performances with frozen, startled expressions, like they’ve been kidnapped from the set of an advert for luxury five-star holidays.

It picks up from the previous movie, with Noah (Asha Banks) and Nick (Matthew Broome) now in a full-blown relationship. Nick insists on keeping it a secret from their parents, who were recently married; he’s worried what his overbearing billionaire dad (Ray Fearon) will say if he finds out. Noah reluctantly agrees, and leaves home to study at Oxford, where she meets nice, sensible second-year student Michael (Joel Nankervis). “We’re just friends,” Noah says. Nick has turned his back on illegal drag-racing and is working for his dad, alongside posh blond tech start-up founder Sophia (Louisa Binder). “Just colleagues,” insists Nick.

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Unrestrained development of unsafe AI systems is leading to intolerable risks

• Stuart Russell is a computer scientist known for his contributions to AI and a new Guardian US columnist

The AI company Anthropic has been making major headlines recently. Its trillion-dollar IPO plan and its blood feud with secretary of defense Pete Hegseth have attracted much attention, but two other events may be even more consequential.

In early June, the company posted an article describing early signs of recursive self-improvement (RSI), a process in which an AI system devises ways to increase its own intelligence, leading to a greater ability to improve itself, and so on.

Stuart Russell is a distinguished professor of computer science at University of California, Berkeley, the president of the International Association for Safe and Ethical Artificial Intelligence and a Guardian US columnist

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Nearly every indicator of climate change is flashing red. But we still hold the tools available to bring the planet back into balance

The ocean is running a fever. In 2025, the number of days of marine heatwaves – prolonged spells when the sea turns abnormally, dangerously warm – was more than triple what it was in the early 1990s.

These are not abstract statistics. A severe and persistent marine heatwave bleaches coral reefs, strips away the kelp forests that shelter young fish, empties fishing grounds and – if occurring frequently – can tip whole ecosystems past the point of recovery.

Karina Von Schuckmann is an IGCC author and senior adviser of Mercator Ocean International

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Dave's Garage: Hidden Code: How Slot Machines Actually Work - The Computer Inside - the tightly regulated world of slot machine software logic, and the ways (in terms of game design) casinos push their edge as far as possible.