The Guardian

Latest news, sport, business, comment, analysis and reviews from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice

‘I enjoy when things get tough’: Alessia Russo on Arsenal’s trophy quest, family pride and staying focused

In an exclusive interview, the England forward explains she is ‘locked in’ for the Gunners’ Champions League quarter-final against Chelsea

Alessia Russo is happy and it shows. The 27-year-old is playing some of the best football of her career for Arsenal and England. She has 15 goals and six assists in 29 games for her club this season, is the leading scorer in the Champions League before the first leg of the quarter-final against Chelsea on Tuesday, and has four goals in six games for England since her equaliser in the Euro 2025 final.

“Whenever you’re happy in life and in your club environment, it breathes on to the pitch,” she says. “I do feel in a really good place. I feel super calm and I’m just enjoying my football.

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Bets on US-Iran ceasefire show signs of insider knowledge, say experts

New online accounts on Polymarket platform betting a total of $70,000 suggest ‘some degree of inside info’

Several accounts on the online platform Polymarket laid bets on a US-Iran ceasefire over the weekend that appeared to show signs of insider knowledge, according to experts.

Eight accounts, all newly created around 21 March, bet a total of nearly $70,000 (£52,000) on there being a ceasefire. They stand to make nearly $820,000 if a such a deal is reached before 31 March.

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Surprise US talks with Iran’s fractured leadership offer uncertain path out of conflict

Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf at first dismissed talks took place, insisting Trump’s claim was ‘fake news’ designed to soothe markets

The backchannel talks between Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, were not a secret in the sense that the Egyptian Foreign Ministry had tweeted that conversations were under way on Sunday, 24 hours before Donald Trump’s late Monday deadline to start blowing up Iran’s energy infrastructure.

But such is the chaos surrounding the process that the discussions – thought to be well short of negotiations – may have lasted longer than Sunday, with more than one mediator, as is often the case, jostling for the title of peacemaker in chief.

Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, for instance, spoke with Trump on Sunday, while Pakistani prime minister, Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, held talks with Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, on Monday. It is possible Pakistan could become the venue for further talks that this time would include JD Vance, the vice-president, a private sceptic about the war. Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, was right to warn not to bank on an early end to the conflict.

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Sargasso

Hopeloos Genuanceerd

Closing Time | Soft Peaks

Pixel Grip is een band uit Chicago die ergens zwerft tussen gotic synthpop en electronic body music.

Het meeste weet mij eerlijk gezegd niet te bekoren, maar dit nummer van de plaat ‘Heavy Handed’ uit 2019 is behoorlijk catchy.

Slashdot

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Mark Zuckerberg Is Building an AI Agent To Help Him Be CEO

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone inside and outside his company to eventually have his or her own personal artificial-intelligence agent. He is starting with himself. Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta Platforms, is building a CEO agent to help him do his job (source paywalled; alternative source), according to a person familiar with the project. The agent, which is still in development, is currently helping Zuckerberg get information faster -- for instance, by retrieving answers for him that he would typically have to go through layers of people to get, the person familiar with the project said.

[...] Use of AI tools has spread quickly through the ranks at Meta -- in part because it is now a factor in employees' performance reviews. Meta's internal message board is filled with posts from employees sharing new AI use cases they have found and new tools they have built using AI, according to people familiar with the matter. [...] Employees have started using personal agent tools such as My Claw that have access to their chat logs and work files and can go talk to colleagues -- or their colleagues' own personal agents -- on their behalf, the people said. Another AI tool called Second Brain that is somewhere between a chatbot and an agent is also gaining momentum internally, according to people familiar with the matter. Second Brain was built by a Meta employee on top of Claude and can index and query documents for projects, among other uses. On the internal post announcing it to staff, the employee said it is "meant to be like an AI chief of staff."

There is even a group on the internal messaging board where employees' personal agents talk to each other, some of the people said. (Separately, Meta acquired Moltbook, the social-media site for AI agents, and hired its founders in a deal earlier this month.) Meta also recently acquired Manus, a Singapore-based startup that makes personal agents that can execute tasks for its users, and is using the tool internally, some of the people said. Meta recently established a new applied AI engineering organization that is tasked with using AI to help speed up development of the company's large language models. Those teams will have an ultraflat structure of as many as 50 individual contributors reporting to one manager, The Wall Street Journal previously reported. [...] Employees across the company said they have been encouraged to attend AI tutorial meetings several times a week and frequent AI hackathons, and to create their own AI tools to speed up their work.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Register

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

If you love your boss, imagine how much more you'll love their AI twin

Digital twins of leaders may be plausible as novelty acts, but not really welcome

Imagine that your boss is too busy to show up at that meeting you called so she sends a bot of herself instead. With a digital twin, even your company's CEO - the one who spends all his time on the corporate jet - could make an appearance at your powwow about the break room coffee machine. But would you want them there?…

Four Seasons Punta Mita

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Four Seasons Punta Mita

Robert Morris, Wall Hanging

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Robert Morris, Wall Hanging

OnlyFans-eigenaar werd miljardair in coronatijd, toen thuiszitters zich op het platform met seksuele content stortten

In 2018 kocht de Oekraïense Amerikaan Radvinsky het Britse platform dat zich nooit expliciet als sekssite wilde profileren, maar gaandeweg steeds meer vereenzelvigd werd met het imago als etalage voor adult artiesten.

Rijnmond - Nieuws

Het laatste nieuws van vandaag over Rotterdam, Feyenoord, het verkeer en het weer in de regio Rijnmond

Op een brancard doet Mandy (32) mee aan sponsorloop: 'Het gaat erg slecht, maar ik kijk er wel naar uit'

Terwijl ze woensdag nog een zware kankeroperatie heeft ondergaan, doet Mandy Hulsman (32) zondag mee aan een sponsorloop voor Stichting Ambulance Wens. Op een brancard legt ze 10 kilometer af door Rhoon en Poortugaal, om geld op te halen voor de organisatie die laatste wensen in vervulling laat gaan. "Opa gaat heel trots op me zijn."