The content creators behind channels like Chloe VS History are using AI tools to ‘bring history to life in a really visceral way’

“I have just arrived in Tudor London, 1536,” a young woman in a green puffer jacket tells the camera. “I’m going to check in at my room in the inn, get into the market. Then, later I am meeting the actual king – yep, Henry VIII – in person.”

On YouTube and other social platforms, users are flocking to watch AI-generated “history influencers”, characters that vlog their travels to historical settings.

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From Paris to Mexico, Leonora Carrington’s extraordinary life is retold with intelligence and restraint, though not quite enough imagination

At the age of 20, debutante Leonora Carrington ran away from London to be an artist in Paris, living with the surrealist Max Ernst, who was married and more than twice her age. But you won’t notice the uncomfortable age gap in this biopic, in which Carrington is played by Olivia Vinall, who is in her late 30s and portrays the artist for a decade or so, from Paris until Carrington settled in Mexico in the 1940s. Vinall’s performance is pleasingly spiky, fierce and uncompromising, fit for a woman who did not seek anyone’s approval – and does some heavy lifting in this otherwise tepid film.

It’s adapted from a biographical novel by Elena Poniatowska. We meet Carrington arriving in Paris, where she discovers that the surrealists’ circle is another male-dominated world, with its own objectionable attitudes to women. Carrington, though, gives short shrift to men such as André Breton and Salvador Dalí, drivelling on about woman as the divine muse to be worshipped. The dialogue clunks along unconvincingly, such as one line spoken to Ernst (Alexander Scheer): “I don’t want to be your wife. I want to be your lover.” The pair move to southern France, where they seem to work productively – portrayed in slightly dull scenes – until the outbreak of the second world war in 1939, when Ernst, a German citizen, is imprisoned.

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Our cartoonist reflects on the Gunners ending their 22-year existential crisis to become English champions again

• Buy a Squires cartoon | David’s favourite works of 2025

• And his latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now

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Updates from the third day’s play at Roland Garros
Players tackle heat in test of endurance | Mail Daniel

Five games in a row for Walton, who takes the first set off Medvedev 6-2 in just half an hour. I wonder if the no 6 seed is following a kind of José Mourinho arc, where he over-indexes on the confrontational stuff that helped make him brilliant to the exclusion of the other stuff that was equally important, losing the run of himself in the process.

Elsewhere, Alexei Popyrin leads Zachary Svajda 6-3; Donna Vekic is up 5-2 on Alice Tubello; Tallon Griekspoor and Matteo Arnaldi are level at 3-3; with Marin Cilic and Moise Kouame also level, at 2-2. Or, put another way, or better matchups come later in the day.

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Broadcaster describes Robert Kenyon, who is standing in Makerfield byelection, as a misogynist and a ‘cowardly man’

• UK politics live – latest updates

Carol Vorderman has demanded an apology from the Reform UK candidate in the upcoming Makerfield byelection for “disgusting comments” he made about her on social media in the past.

The broadcaster and former Countdown numbers expert described Robert Kenyon, who Reform has backed to face Andy Burnham in next month’s vote, as a “cowardly man” for a series of offensive posts made by the Wigan councillor that have since been deleted, along with his account.

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Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff appeared on the VC podcast All-In last week to share his vision for the future of AI and software. Among the usual bonhomie – he skipped Trump's trip to China; he's not a Democrat or Republican, just "here to support the country" – he revealed the CRM giant he co-founded may spend circa $300 million with Anthropic in 2026 to harness its coding agents. "Everything's gonna be cheaper to make, it's more efficient," he told the show. "I can do things that I just could not do before. I can go faster than ever before. I can implement my software and sell it at the same time. I can break through obstacles that I've had because I have coding agents and humans working together." There are other consequences of this rush to the LLM-guzzling future. Despite its growth, Salesforce did not hire any more software engineers in 2025. It has also cut around 4,000 support staff, although it has been hiring elsewhere. So what's Salesforce doing with the money it's saving? It’s not going to the customer, it seems. In 2025, Benioff told investors he saw a "very high margin opportunity" in users adopting its AI agent platforms. Later, Miguel Milano, president and chief revenue officer, said he was happy to make a loss on a capped-price deal for AI agents in the short term, as the company had "20 years to monetize that customer." Gartner later warned Salesforce users that a capped enterprise agreement for its AI and data platforms may not be available when they come to renew, potentially meaning customers could struggle to predict costs and understand value. Salesforce responded: "The claim that we are moving away from capped agreements is inaccurate. Renewals remain flexible, and because AI compute costs may actually shift over time, we focus on tailoring terms so each customer can get the maximum value from their usage." Regardless of the commercials, Benioff argued on the All-In podcast that customers would welcome the business outcomes from adopting its AI agent-based CRM and sales platforms. "What I can do for our customers is unprecedented; it's impossible to describe what we're gonna be able to do for customers. It's gonna be awesome." Such confidence in AI coding agents' ability to help Salesforce build Salesforce raises the question of whether users could just get coding agents to build Salesforce, and cut out the middleman. The idea is the foundation of the so-called SaaS-pocalypse, exemplified by a market-rattling report from Citrini Research, which imagines the impact of LLM-based AI on the market for SaaS is such that by June 2028, US unemployment will hit 10 percent and former staffers at application vendors may have to work in other professions The sentiment was echoed in a Reddit discussion based on the All-In podcast. One participant claimed to know of people who have already vibe-coded CRM systems to avoid paying Salesforce. Even assuming that's viable, it wouldn't have the impact many expect. Users already have an alternative to paying big vendors. There have been FOSS alternatives to Microsoft's commercial bear traps office applications and PC operating systems for more than 20 years. The reason customers don't move off these products is that although software is expensive, and some vendors enjoy eye-watering margins, most organizations don't spend that much on software as a proportion of their revenue. IT spending is 3-10 percent of total revenue in most organizations. Most of that is salaries. Software is way down the list. It would be a brave CIO who was prepared to face the wrath of users by changing their work environment – users always hate change – for a mere fraction of a percent of company revenue. Add the cost of moving data and the difficulty of replicating security, and the threat to the big SaaS application vendors looks minimal. Some small, specialist tech companies might try it. And vibe coding might have value on the periphery, building extensions or interfaces for existing applications. But whether it actually offers customers value commensurate with application vendors' increased margins is another question. ®

Voordat hij premier werd, profileerde Mark Carney zich als voorvechter van klimaatmaatregelen. Maar nu Donald Trump Canada op de korrel heeft, wil Carney van zijn land een ‘energiesupermacht’ maken. Een criticus: „Je kunt klimaat en milieu niet opofferen om economische ontwikkeling te stimuleren. Maar dat is precies wat hij heeft gedaan.”

Zeker honderd jaar genoten Groningers van een „fantastische” drafbaan in het Stadspark. Tot die opeens werd gesloten door de gemeente. Om meer ruimte te bieden voor topevenementen, zo luidde het verhaal. Liefhebbers van de sport willen zich daar niet bij neerleggen en binden de strijd aan met de gemeente.

BUGGENHOUT (ANP) - Bij de aanrijding tussen een schoolbusje en een trein zijn in het Vlaamse Buggenhout vier doden gevallen, zegt minister Jean-Luc Crucke van Mobiliteit tegen RTL. Volgens hem zijn twee tieners, de chauffeur en de begeleider, door het ongeluk overleden.

Naar ongeval in België dat doet helaas doet denken aan het Stint-drama hier. Een busje voor speciaal (voornamelijk middelbaar) onderwijs met zeven leerlingen, een begeleider en een chauffeur is door een trein geschept bij Buggenhout. "Uit camerabeelden blijkt dat de overweg gesloten was, en de verkeerslichten op rood stonden." De machinist heeft de noodrem nog ingeschakeld, maar kon een botsing niet voorkomen. "Over de toestand van de slachtoffers is nog niet veel geweten. "Daar willen we nog niets over zeggen", zegt An Berger van de federale politie. "De familieleden worden eerst ingelicht, ze worden opgevangen op een school in de buurt." "Het busje reed voor een school van het buitengewoon onderwijs. Het gaat voornamelijk om middelbare schoolkinderen."" Maar bronnen bevestigen aan VRT meerdere doden, wat helaas niet zo onwaarschijnlijk is. Dit topic wordt geüpdatete.