WASHINGTON (ANP/RTR) - Het Amerikaanse ministerie van Justitie heeft vijf mensen aangeklaagd voor spionage, rekrutering en liquidaties in opdracht van de Russische inlichtingendiensten. Twee personen hebben de Russische nationaliteit, twee de Cubaanse en een de Venezolaanse.

Volgens het ministerie rekruteerde het netwerk in de VS meerdere mensen om Russische dissidenten te bespioneren, waarvan er een in de VS woont en een in Litouwen. Ook zou een gerekruteerde 40.000 dollar (bijna 35.000 euro) aangeboden hebben gekregen om iemand die in de VS woonde "te laten verdwijnen", meldt het ministerie. Een andere gerekruteerde zou 25.000 dollar aangeboden hebben gekregen om iemand in Litouwen te vermoorden.

Het Kremlin wil niet ingaan op de zaak. "Zolang we geen geloofwaardig bewijs en argumenten zien gebaseerd op tastbare feiten, vinden wij het niet nodig om op deze berichten te reageren."

Global push will triple toxic e-waste annually in 25 years, filling enough shipping containers to circle globe six times

The ongoing campaign to build thousands of massive datacenters for AI will create a “tsunami” of discarded electronics, putting the world on a course to triple its annual generation of toxic e-waste in the next 25 years, a new report projects.

The electronic trash AI generates in the next 25 years could fill enough shipping containers to encircle the globe six times, it said. Yet, says the report by the non-profit environmental group Basel Action Network (BAN), there is no plan to deal with that waste – which typically contains toxics like lead, mercury, cadmium and forever chemicals, as well as valuable metals that are challenging to reclaim.

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Tech CEOs banding together is an old ruse recycled from corporate America to get a pass from antitrust laws

Anthropic’s Dario Amodei is not the first corporate CEO to suggest that excessive competition is driving the world to some socially undesirable outcome.

The safety breach disclosed by OpenAI after a swarm of its agents coordinated to breach their supposedly secure sandbox, get on the Internet and hack AI platform Hugging Face, warrants urgent action. It demonstrated the ease with which the technology can evade human control and gave concrete form to the existential fears about what it could do to humanity if not securely leashed.

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Phil Heckels has turned his awful pet portraits into a full-time job. As a blueprint for success, embracing your lack of talent has obvious appeal

What do you get if you cross a complete lack of artistic talent with making lemonade out of life’s lemons? Phil Heckels, that’s what – or, rather, who. The former estate agent from West Sussex has turned being bad at drawing animals into a full-time job after posting a hilariously terrible portrait of his dog on social media. Friends started asking him to do awful pictures of their pets, word spread, and he’s now received more than 100,000 requests. His rules are that he only sees the photos immediately before he picks up his pen, he never restarts a drawing, and he doesn’t spend longer than 10 minutes on a creation. He also refuses to charge for his artworks – suggesting charity donations instead – but makes money through merchandise and books.

“I do get criticism sometimes that the portraits are getting too good,” Heckels said recently. “But people have been saying that since about my 12th portrait. You never have to wait too long for a real stinker to appear, though.”

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Announcement of visa restrictions follows Trump’s false claims of ‘white genocide’ taking place in South Africa

The US has announced visa restrictions on some South Africans as Donald Trump’s administration continues to claim that South Africa’s government racially discriminates against white minority Afrikaners.

The announcement did not specify individuals who were barred from the US. Trump has spent his second term falsely claiming there is a “white genocide” in South Africa and railing against its affirmative action policies.

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Poet in da Corner by Debris Stevenson revealed that acting in a theatre can have a lot in common with MCing in a club

By 2018 I was in my third or fourth year professionally as a grime MC and producer. I was 27 and didn’t have any aspirations in theatre. But Debris Stevenson, a good friend of mine, asked me to help her write one of the first drafts of a song in her play Poet in da Corner. I did that and then she invited me to a table reading session at the Royal Court to read the part of SS Vyper [a pirate radio DJ].

The theatre’s artistic director, Vicky Featherstone, said: “You read it so well you may as well be in the play!” I thought she was joking, but the next week I was in rehearsal.

for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, with music by Jammz, is at the Yard theatre, London, until 17 October

As told to Lindesay Irvine

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Op heidevelden is zichtbaar dat deze zomer warm en droog was. „Zelfs kraaiheide, een soort die normaal het hele jaar door groen blijft, was nu geel geworden.”

„Hoe ziet de heer Paternotte de gesprekken voor zich waarin we tot iets moeten komen?”, vraagt Pro-leider Jesse Klaver aan D66-fractievoorzitter Jan Paternotte.

Hoe verduurzaam je een bijna 900 jaar oud kasteel? Met daarin ook nog een museale middeleeuwse kunstcollectie en een archief dat begint in 1227? Deze donderdag heropent de koning Huis Bergh.

The deal was part of lengthy negotiations in which Washington is urging Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to free hundreds of people.