If you haven’t seen this or heard about it (or even if you have), the full story of this McDonald’s mural is well worth your time. “Giving that talk…was one of the greatest moments of my life. Bar none.” (Don’t skip the video!)
Glimpse of sun after weeks of unrelenting rain marks end of longest sunless period in area since records began
Aberdeen has finally had some sunshine, for the first time in 21 days – marking the end of the longest sunless period in the area since Met Office records began in 1957.
Residents of the Granite city in north-east Scotland glimpsed the sun late on Thursday afternoon, with sunshine having been last recorded on 21 January.
Continue reading...Australia stands at a crossroads as it rolled out the red carpet for some, while greeting others with batons
Isaac Herzog’s visit to Australia was not a routine diplomatic engagement. It was an ethical and political test of the Australian state. At the very moment a red carpet was rolled out for a man accused of inciting genocide, peaceful Australian citizens were met with batons while exercising their democratic right to protest.
For me, this was never an abstract political debate. Before the visit, I pursued the legal channels that are meant to protect citizens and lodged a formal complaint with the Australian government about the role Herzog played in rhetoric and policies that contributed to the destruction of my family in Gaza. Seven of my relatives were killed. My father died because of a lack of medicine, food and water. My brother, his wife, their four children and her father were also killed. Their bodies remain buried beneath the rubble. Despite the seriousness of this complaint, I have received no response from the government.
Continue reading...Semi-final first leg: Atlético Madrid 4-0 Barcelona
E Garcia 6og, Griezmann 14, Lookman 33, Alvarez 45+2
You must always have faith, Diego Simeone had said and so it was. A biblical storm blew through the Metropolitano, leaving Barcelona torn to pieces and AtlĂ©tico Madrid closer to a first Copa del Rey final in 13 years than even he could ever have believed. Forty-five extraordinary minutes gave them a 4-0 lead to take to the second leg at Camp Nou in three weeks’ time. An own goal from Eric GarcĂa and three more, from Ademola Lookman, Antoine Griezmann and Julián Alvarez before the half-time whistle did the kind of damage that only a miracle can repair now.
Barcelona could not even begin to fix it here in a second half in which they had a goal ruled out after seven long minutes waiting on the VAR not bringing any more goals. They then had Eric GarcĂa sent off late on. It was a wonder they were still standing at all, given what had hit them from the very start.
Continue reading...Though Department of Homeland Security almost certain to shutter at midnight Friday, ICE to be largely unaffected
Democrats in the US Senate have blocked a funding package for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) amid ongoing fury over the Trump administration’s crackdown and the deaths of two people in Minneapolis.
Thursday’s vote means that the department is almost certain to shut down at midnight on Friday evening, affecting a range of services yet largely leaving the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) – the target of Democrats’ ire – unaffected because it is already the recipient of lavish federal funding.
Continue reading...Are you a good bot or a bad bot?
More than 30 malicious Chrome extensions installed by at least 260,000 users purport to be helpful AI assistants, but they steal users' API keys, email messages, and other personal data. Even worse: many of these are still available on the Chrome Web Store as of this writing.…
GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark may be a mouthfull, but it's certainly fast at 1,000 Tok/s running on Nvidia rival's CS3 accelerators
Nvidia and AMD can take a seat. On Thursday, OpenAI unveiled GPT-5.3-Codex-Spark, its first model that will run on Cerebras Systems' dinner-place-sized AI accelerators, which feature some of the world's fastest on-chip memory.…
WP Engine's third amended complaint against Automattic and WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg alleges that Mullenweg had plans to impose royalty fees on 10 hosting companies beyond WP Engine for their use of the WordPress trademark.
The amended filing, based on previously sealed information uncovered during discovery, also claims Mullenweg emailed a Stripe executive to pressure the payment processor into canceling WP Engine's contract after WP Engine sued Automattic in October 2024. Newfold, the parent company of Bluehost and HostGator, is already paying Automattic for trademark use, according to the complaint, and Automattic is in conversations with other hosts.
The filing challenges the 8% royalty rate as arbitrary, citing Mullenweg's comments at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 where he said the figure was based on what WP Engine "could afford to pay." Internal Automattic correspondence cited in the complaint includes Mullenweg describing his approach to WP Engine as "nuclear war" and warning that if the hosting company didn't comply, he would start stealing its customers.
The amended filing, based on previously sealed information uncovered during discovery, also claims Mullenweg emailed a Stripe executive to pressure the payment processor into canceling WP Engine's contract after WP Engine sued Automattic in October 2024. Newfold, the parent company of Bluehost and HostGator, is already paying Automattic for trademark use, according to the complaint, and Automattic is in conversations with other hosts.
The filing challenges the 8% royalty rate as arbitrary, citing Mullenweg's comments at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 where he said the figure was based on what WP Engine "could afford to pay." Internal Automattic correspondence cited in the complaint includes Mullenweg describing his approach to WP Engine as "nuclear war" and warning that if the hosting company didn't comply, he would start stealing its customers.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
MILAAN (ANP) - Shorttracker Jens van 't Wout voelde in de olympische finale "een soort paniek" bij William Dandjinou, zijn grote concurrent uit Canada. "Ik heb vaak een soort halve inhaalacties bij hem gedaan en dan werd het niets. Ik dacht nu: ik moet het gewoon proberen. Of ik haal hem in of ik eindig als laatste. Gelukkig pakte het goed uit", vertelde de 24-jarige Nederlander met de gouden medaille om zijn nek in de Milano Ice Skating Arena.
Van 't Wout is bij de mannen de eerste Nederlandse shorttracker die een individuele gouden medaille wint op de Olympische Spelen. Sjinkie Knegt zorgde in 2014 met brons bij de Spelen van Sotsji voor de eerste olympische medaille voor de Nederlandse shorttrackers. "Sjinkie had niet verwacht dat ik nu op het podium zou eindigen", wist Van 't Wout. "Ik kan zelf ook nog amper geloven dat ik nu op de hoogste trede sta. Ik riep na de finish alleen maar 'What the fuck!'. We hebben hier als team zo hard voor gewerkt."
MILAAN (ANP) - Xandra Velzeboer heeft op de Olympische Spelen in Milaan het moment zien uitkomen dat ze zich al zo vaak had voorgesteld. Het was nog mooier. "Dit is echt een droom die uitkomt", zei de 24-jarige shorttrackster nadat ze als eerste Nederlandse ooit de olympische titel op de 500 meter had veroverd. "Ik had dit al heel vaak gevisualiseerd."
"Ik ben heel blij dat het gelukt is", zei een stralende Velzeboer. "We zijn van ver gekomen na de mislukte mixed relay. We waren dinsdag heel teleurgesteld, maar het vertrouwen is nooit weggeweest. We reden ook zo hard in de B-finale, dat heeft ook veel bevestiging gegeven. Het veranderde niets aan mijn doel van vandaag. Ik wist dat ik het kon, maar dat ik zo hard zou rijden, had ik misschien niet verwacht."