The Guardian

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‘In parks you only see dogs, never children’: can Bogotá adapt to its ageing population?

With a lower fertility rate than Tokyo and the number of pensioners rapidly rising, Colombia’s capital is being forced to change the way it thinks about growing old

From his wheelchair, Alberto Delgado Londoño can see over the wall of the sunlit courtyard towards the mountains east of Bogotá, Colombia’s capital. The 74-year-old lives in a care home for destitute elderly people, which opened at the end of last year.

Social workers found him in hospital, where he was being treated for throat cancer and a head injury that left him partly paralysed. “I had nowhere to go,” he says. “My daughter couldn’t take me in because she’s a single mother, she already has two children.”

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Skyscrapers and smokestacks: the grittier side of Georgia O’Keeffe

Beyond her famed paintings of flowers and landscapes, the American artist created stunning studies of urban architecture

Georgia O’Keeffe is celebrated for her ethereal depictions of flowers, sunlight, landscapes and animal bones, their gracefully swooping forms dripping with organic curves and seemingly on the verge of melting before our eyes. Such an approach would seem to be quite at odds with the firm, straight lines of farmhouses and barns, to say nothing of the electrified skyscrapers of New York City – and yet that is exactly what is centered in the Detroit Institute of Arts’s new show Georgia O’Keeffe: Architecture.

“I wanted to tell a new story about an artist who is so familiar,” said Dia curator Ben Coleman, who oversaw this collection of close to 40 works from the famed artist. “We can take a fresh look at works that O’Keeffe always considered essential and celebrate them in the way she wanted to.”

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OpenAI models went rogue. We urgently need a better ‘hugging face’ investigation | Mackenzie Arnold and Stephan Llerena

The breach won’t be the last – or the most dangerous – of its kind. We need an agency capable of full investigations into AI incidents

When OpenAI first revealed that its AI agents had autonomously hacked a major real-world company, Hugging Face, many assumed only one or two agents were involved. The truth, a new report reveals, is far stranger: the incident involved about 1,200 AI agents, 700 of which directly participated in the attack.

OpenAI invited researchers from METR, along with an expert from Redwood Research, to produce the new report, alongside the company’s own investigation. The findings shocked the experts.

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I went to Ikea with my son – and was confronted with my parenting failures | Zoe Williams

The pre-university shop is the moment you find out how much domestic wisdom you’ve managed to impart. In my case, none

I have yet again found my ultimate tribe in a high-street shop, this time Ikea. As far as the eye could see, there were middle-aged women trying to choose kitchen essentials for their late-teenaged sons, for whom the next chapter of life, in which they move to another city and never once use a kitchen, cannot commence fast enough. I don’t know where all the girls were – did they do it all online? Have they been collecting teapots for years, as part of a wistful university trousseau?

The negotiation started with a chopping board, which my son said he absolutely did not need or want. I said, “How are you going to chop vegetables?”, and he said he would cross that bridge when he came to it, and I said: “Oh my God, you’re going to get scurvy.” Behind me a woman and her son were arguing about whether or not he needed a cheese grater, which ended in her saying: “I think you might be about to starve.”

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25 years after 9/11, is Islamophobia in the US at an all-time high? — Stateside with Kai and Carter

In the hours after the 9/11 attacks, the journalist Rozina Ali remembers her parents telling her that as Muslims, they would now be under suspicion. It took years for Ali to understand what they meant. She talks to Carter Sherman about this journey and how it led her to write about the history of Islamophobia in the US. Ali explores how attacks on Muslims by successive administrations since 9/11 cemented Islamophobia in all areas of American life, and she explains why she believes these prejudices are more pervasive now than ever.

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Liverpool agree £60m-a-year shirt sponsorship deal with Turkish Airlines

  • Turkish Airlines to replace Standard Chartered from 2027

  • Deal may be most lucrative in Premier League history

Liverpool have announced a new shirt sponsorship deal with Turkish Airlines worth in excess of £60m a year to the club.

The five-year deal will generate more than £300m for Liverpool when it comes into effect from the start of the 2027-28 season. Turkish Airlines will replace Standard Chartered, Liverpool’s main club partner since 2010, on the front of the men’s, women’s and academy match shirts. Standard Chartered have been Liverpool’s main partner for 17 years and their current deal is understood to be worth around £50m per season. The company will become a global partner of Liverpool from 2027-28.

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Extreemrechtse oud-generaal Roberto Vannacci daagt de Italiaanse premier Meloni uit. Hij wil ‘vrede’ met Rusland en ‘remigratie’

De radicaal-rechtse Giorgia Meloni leidt sinds vorige week de langstzittende regering in naoorlogs Italië. Ze wordt uitgedaagd door een nog radicalere generaal, die zondag de zege van de AfD in Duitsland vierde. Politiek Italië vraagt zich af: is Roberto Vannacci een pion van Poetin?

Schreeuwend of als een functioneringsgesprek – vijftig manieren om je geliefde te dumpen

Dick was onhandig met de kettingzaag dus hij mocht vertrekken uit ‘B&B Vol Liefde’. De versmade liefdeskandidaat was het er niet mee eens: „Ik denk niet dat houtzagen een breekpunt moet zijn in echte liefde.”

The Register

Biting the hand that feeds IT — Enterprise Technology News and Analysis

Whitehall's latest plan to get things done: Less Whitehall

The UK government has considered the evidence and concluded that it spends far too much time considering the evidence. In a letter sent to all ministers on Monday, Chancellor John Healey, First Secretary of State Louise Haigh, and Attorney General Ellie Reeves said "consultation culture" had become an "industry of dither and delay" and told departments that the default should be to make a decision and get on with it. The ministers argued that formal consultations too often fail to reach those with the most relevant perspectives and can drag policies towards a "lowest common denominator outcome." The proposed cure is fewer formal consultations. These should generally take place only when legally required, when not holding one would be "conspicuously unfair," or when ministers decide there is a good reason to seek outside input that way. Previous promises to consult aren't necessarily safe either. Departments have been told to consider each case afresh rather than assume that past consultations or commitments require another. The government also wants to start removing what it says are thousands of unnecessary consultation and reporting requirements from the statute book. Its starting position is that these requirements should be repealed and retained "only by exception," with departments asked to look for opportunities to bin them through legislation already in the works. This is separate from Whitehall's other effort to wean itself off consultants, although the timing invites comparison. The government promised in 2024 to tighten controls on consultancy spending and deliver annual savings of £1.2 billion by 2026. As The Register reported in July, that didn't stop the Home Office from awarding Deloitte and PA Consulting contracts worth up to £200 million and £150 million respectively for data and analytics services. The National Audit Office also warned last year that the Treasury lacked comprehensive data on consultancy spending, while Parliament's Public Accounts Committee said in March that departments weren't complying with Cabinet Office controls designed to rein it in. Consultations aren't consultancies, of course. One involves asking interested parties what they think before making policy; the other can involve paying them rather a lot of money for their advice. Whitehall appears keen to cut down on both. The new drive doesn't stop at consultation. Ministers are also being encouraged to accept a higher risk of legal challenge when pushing ahead with policy. The letter says that where there is a "tenable legal argument," ministers can choose to proceed even when government lawyers assess the legal risk as high. Guidance for government lawyers is due to be updated this week to make that explicit. Judicial review is getting attention too. The government wants to extend reforms limiting challenges to nationally significant infrastructure projects beyond energy schemes to transport, water, and other major developments. Having identified consultation, legal caution, and judicial review as obstacles, Whitehall will now begin the traditionally straightforward business of changing Whitehall. ®

Welkom in het tijdperk van niet-lezen. En Nederlandse tieners lopen voorop! - De Correspondent

Wereldwijd zijn 15-jarigen opnieuw minder goed gaan lezen, blijkt uit het vandaag verschenen PISA-onderzoek. En in Nederland lezen tieners nog net iets slechter. Was het ‘geletterde’ tijdperk een korte zeldzaamheid in de menselijke geschiedenis?