Extreme heat wreaked havoc on Saturday’s schedule but tennis has changed its ways of dealing with extreme heat

Even before the first set and first hour of his match elapsed, Tomas Machac had asked the umpire for the tournament doctor, trainer and pickle juice, the drink du jour for tackling cramps. Those preventive measures taken in the intense early stages of his third-round tussle with Lorenzo Musetti proved to be sensible, for the pair would spend a brutal four hours, 25 minutes on court.

Four hours of that took place inside an open John Cain Arena, a furnace in suffocating heat. “We knew today was going to be really, really hot,” Musetti said. “I think I managed well to finish the match without cramping.”

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Manchester City have a first Premier League win in four games and Wolves a first defeat after going five unbeaten in all competitions after a fixture in which the referee, Farai Hallam, on his top-flight debut, dared to stick with his decision not to award a penalty despite being sent for a pitchside review by the video assistant referee.

That was for a Yerson Mosquera handball and infuriated Pep Guardiola, though after their dire recent form a first three points since 27 December is what matters.

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WASHINGTON/ABU DHABI (ANP/AFP) - De volgende ronde van gesprekken tussen Oekraïense en Russische delegaties onder leiding van Amerikaanse collega's is 1 februari in Abu Dhabi, aldus een Amerikaanse regeringsfunctionaris. Er waren vrijdag en zaterdag directe gesprekken tussen Oekraïners en Russen samen met Amerikanen.

Kyiv en Moskou hebben laten weten dat ze een vervolg verwachten op basis van de gesprekken van de afgelopen dagen. In Abu Dhabi werd bericht dat de onderhandelingen na ruggespraak komende week weer verder zouden gaan, maar volgens een regeringsfunctionaris van de VS wordt het 1 februari.

De strijdende partijen onderhandelen over een einde aan het conflict dat in 2014 begon en in 2022 leidde tot een Russische inval in Oekraïne. Ze doen dat aan de hand van een vredesplan van president Donald Trump dat aan veranderingen onderhevig is.

Het Groenlandmonument in Kopenhagen symboliseert voor de één schaamte voor een koloniaal verleden, voor de ander is het juist een eerbetoon. In 2020, toen op meerdere plekken ter wereld koloniale beelden werden neergehaald, werd het ongemoeid gelaten. „Het monument is de geschiedenis van de verhoudingen tussen Denemarken en Groenland in het klein.”

Voor het eerst heeft iemand de vijfduizend meter in minder dan zes minuten afgelegd. Over twee weken vinden de Olympische Winterspelen plaats.

T. Rex

The Psychedelic Furs

Marshall Jefferson

Oi Va Voi

TechCrunch reports:


On Wednesday, Anthropic released a revised version of Claude's Constitution, a living document that provides a "holistic" explanation of the "context in which Claude operates and the kind of entity we would like Claude to be...." For years, Anthropic has sought to distinguish itself from its competitors via what it calls "Constitutional AI," a system whereby its chatbot, Claude, is trained using a specific set of ethical principles rather than human feedback... The 80-page document has four separate parts, which, according to Anthropic, represent the chatbot's "core values." Those values are:

1. Being "broadly safe."
2. Being "broadly ethical."
3. Being compliant with Anthropic's guidelines.
4. Being "genuinely helpful..."
In the safety section, Anthropic notes that its chatbot has been designed to avoid the kinds of problems that have plagued other chatbots and, when evidence of mental health issues arises, direct the user to appropriate services...

Anthropic's Constitution ends on a decidedly dramatic note, with its authors taking a fairly big swing and questioning whether the company's chatbot does, indeed, have consciousness. "Claude's moral status is deeply uncertain," the document states. "We believe that the moral status of AI models is a serious question worth considering. This view is not unique to us: some of the most eminent philosophers on the theory of mind take this question very seriously."

Gizmodo reports:


The company also said that it dedicated a section of the constitution to Claude's nature because of "our uncertainty about whether Claude might have some kind of consciousness or moral status (either now or in the future)." The company is apparently hoping that by defining this within its foundational documents, it can protect "Claude's psychological security, sense of self, and well-being."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.