Some of its amateur matches pull in bigger crowds than European leagues but are more of a spectacle than a pathway to the professional game, say experts

Michael Owen, a man who once quipped he had never drunk tea or coffee, isn’t known for his adventurous palate. Safe to assume, then, that the former England striker was out of his comfort zone sipping Roxburgh rose juice and eating chilli-wrapped rice noodle rolls during his recent visit to south-west China’s Guizhou province.

The 2001 Ballon d’Or winner dusted off his boots for a match in Rongjiang county, the birthplace of viral amateur football league Cun Chao, also known as the Village Super League. Scoring twice in a 4-3 loss for local side Rongjiang Niubi, Owen endeared himself to the thousands in attendance, even if some weren’t familiar with the former Liverpool and Real Madrid player.

Continue reading...

Davinson Sánchez looked to the heavens. Cucho Hernández trudged back to his teammates. And by the end, the rest of the Colombian team were on the grass as Switzerland danced, nearly alone in a sea of yellow. Switzerland had prevailed on penalties, 4-3, bringing an emotional end to more than two hours of tense, tentative, and ludicrously goal-free football in the World Cup last 16.

Switzerland advance to the quarter-finals for the first time since 1954, when that stage was the first in the knockout round of a Swiss-hosted tournament featuring a total of 16 teams. They will face a tall task to better that result, facing Lionel Messi and Argentina in Kansas City in four days’ time.

Continue reading...

Sanders, one of Platner’s earliest and most influential backers, is latest to call on him to withdraw from Maine race

The progressive senator Bernie Sanders called on Graham Platner to withdraw from the US Senate race in Maine, citing “very serious allegations” of sexual assault, hours before the embattled nominee faced another claim of sexual misconduct.

While Platner has denied the new allegations, reported by Politico, and later by the Washington Post, the initial report prompted a wave of prominent Democrats to urge him to stand aside as the party’s nominee in the consequential Senate contest.

Continue reading...

The test, which is being trialled by two NHS trusts, could replace the transvaginal ultrasound scan in some cases

Thousands of women could be spared having a painful intrusive exam for suspected cancer thanks to a new AI-powered blood test being trialled by the NHS.

Around 90,000 postmenopausal women a year in England are referred by their GP to be investigated for possible womb cancer because they are bleeding a lot.

Continue reading...

Greg Adams Photography posted a photo:

Trolley Graveyard, Central Pennsylvania,

Samsung's chip division is projected to earn more in 2026 than it made across its previous 40 years in semiconductors, driven by soaring AI-fueled demand for memory and storage. The company's latest quarterly operating profit reportedly topped Nvidia's, making Samsung the world's most profitable tech company for the period. Tom's Hardware reports: Brokerage consensus puts Samsung's full-year 2026 operating profit near 300 trillion won ($196 billion), and its second-quarter figure at about 84.6 trillion won ($55.1 billion). Samsung easily beat the consensus with $58.5 billion when it posted preliminary results on July 7, overtaking Nvidia's most recent quarterly operating profit of $53.54 billion and becoming the most profitable technology company in the world for the period, on the back of AI-driven memory demand.

Samsung's DS division booked 53.7 trillion won ($35.1 billion) of the company's 57.2 trillion won in total operating profit during the first quarter of 2026, roughly 94% of the total, which is why the division's projection sits so close to Samsung's full-year consensus. "This year's profit will exceed the cumulative profit generated over the past 40 years since we entered the semiconductor business," Kim Yong-Kwan told staff, scoping the claim to the chip business rather than the wider conglomerate. Further reading: Samsung Chip Workers To Get $340,000 Average Bonus In AI Boom

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SOMA's cop supervisor takes a break from jailing drug addicts to ask a billionaire's nazi chatbot whether he can have a little genocide, as a treat:

Grok, what's the difference between right and wrong?

Last Sunday, San Francisco District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey relaxed after what was, for most, a fun-packed SF Pride by repeatedly prompting xAI chatbot Grok to provide justifications for the killings of civilians in Gaza by Israeli forces. [...]

In lieu of actually addressing his critics online, of which there were many in the replies, Dorsey only had eyes for Grok, a chatbot that is notorious for being programmed to push false narratives about politics, history, and everything else according to the very transparent whims of xAI's trillionaire backer, Elon Musk.

Matt, are you OK? I really mean that. I'm not trying to be funny. Frankly, I tried to write something satirical about what was happening -- tried to find a lighter way through this -- but the more I dug in, the more concerned I started to feel.

Only a year ago, some backend overcompensation by Grok's puppeteers resulted in the bot compulsively spitting out conspiracies about "white genocide" in South Africa, praising Adolf Hitler, and engaging in Holocaust denial. To that point, AI researchers have warned that AI boosters' framing of chatbots as objective and reliable could be weaponized to push propaganda and even encourage people to commit violence.

So of course, watching an elected official openly using it to confirm his very loaded questions about the correctness of killing civilians is unsettling -- even terrifying.

In his most recent dealings with Grok, the supervisor's behavior is giving off the sketch vibes of a person antagonizing those around him while not even looking at them. Instead, it's almost like he's staring off into space and talking to someone who isn't there.

As it stands today, X is a platform that actively facilitates the turning of brains into pudding. And if this were some rando in the city posting, it would be easy to dismiss them as another soul lost to AI obsession. But Dorsey represents a major and heavily populated slice of San Francisco, including Mid-Market, Mission Bay, SoMa, and other neighborhoods. Supervisors like him write legislation and have a profound impact on the lives of the people in their districts and the city at large.

If this is what he's doing publicly, what is he asking Grok in private?

Despite this, Matt remains only San Francisco's second-worst weird dude named Dorsey.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

When they weren't rolling through fireworks they were trapping people near the Golden Gate Bridge.

Waymos were a key reason for the traffic snarl in the Presidio after Saturday night's foggy fireworks display on the Golden Gate Bridge. Videos and social media posts from people stuck in traffic show Waymos locked in giant lines, randomly blocking the road, and stuck in a roundabout.

A number of Waymos had to be towed after they lost battery power; the vehicles that could hold a charge made errors on the road that backed traffic up for blocks, bystanders said.

Fellow drivers acted like, well, drivers. "We realized people were getting out of their cars, yelling and screaming at these Waymos because there were no drivers," Dave Guingona, who was stuck in Presidio traffic for two hours, told NBC News. [...]

In the Mission, meanwhile, one Waymo drove into an intersection despite a large lit firework sitting in the middle of the road. Video taken inside the car by passenger Rose Peterson shows the firework's sparks flashing all around them as the Waymo takes a lazy left turn. A second angle shows Peterson's Waymo tip the firework over, which then shoots projectiles at cars, homes, and bystanders on the sidewalk. [...]

A second Waymo that encountered a firework was a different story, though: A vehicle that drove into a firework near the 1200 block of Connecticut Street in Potrero caught on fire, Waymo said. The Waymo was unoccupied and there were no injuries; the vehicle had to be removed by the San Francisco Fire Department and other city authorities, according to Bonelli.

These incidents raise serious concerns about autonomous vehicles, especially those operating during unusual traffic patterns that may require real decision-making by drivers. "Human drivers don't just drive. They are the captain of the ship and anything that can happen to it," AV expert Phil Koopman told Gazetteer in 2024. "Well, if you put a computer in charge and it's not capable of doing anything other than navigating traffic, who's the real captain of the ship?"

The office of San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins did not respond by press time to Gazetteer's questions about legal mechanisms that might hold Waymo accountable when its operational failures, including parking and moving violations, lead to blocked roads and other forms of extended congestion. Jenkins recently attempted to prosecute seven members of the so-called "Golden Gate 26" who blocked the bridge in 2024 during a protest and were charged with felonies for false imprisonment (for keeping people stuck in traffic) and obstructing a thoroughfare.

Meanwhile, Mayor Daniel Lurie, who has been a major ally for Waymo in its San Francisco expansion, did not mention the company in his statement regarding the July 4 pileups.

Mirroring these videos that were posted on oligarch-controlled social media sites for posterity...

I have so many posts about Waymos on fire that it almost deserves its own tag:

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.

Zwitserland heeft in de nacht van de dinsdag op woensdag in een zeer matige wedstrijd Colombia verslagen na strafschoppen.

Weer voor Rotterdam ☁️ - 08-07-2026 01:15 CEST

In één oogopslag:
• 19.9°C · Bewolkt ☁️ | Min 20.0°C / Max 25.1°C

Verwachting voor vandaag:
• Min 20.0°C, Max 25.1°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1018.6 hPa ↗️ +1.9 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 18.7 km/u (5.2 m/s), richting: → 288°

Uurlijkse voorspelling voor de komende 12 uur:

• 02:00: 19.8°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 2%, 🧭 1016.7 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 10.8 km/u (3.0 m/s), richting: ↘ 307°
• 03:00: 19.7°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 2%, 🧭 1017.0 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 11.5 km/u (3.2 m/s), richting: ↘ 311°
• 04:00: 19.5°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 1%, 🧭 1017.1 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 10.8 km/u (3.0 m/s), richting: ↘ 314°
• 05:00: 19.3°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1017.1 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 10.1 km/u (2.8 m/s), richting: ↘ 309°
• 06:00: 19.3°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1017.5 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 10.1 km/u (2.8 m/s), richting: ↘ 300°
• 07:00: 19.6°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1017.9 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 10.1 km/u (2.8 m/s), richting: ↘ 319°
• 08:00: 19.9°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1018.1 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 11.2 km/u (3.1 m/s), richting: ↘ 316°
• 09:00: 20.4°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 1%, 🧭 1018.3 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 9.7 km/u (2.7 m/s), richting: ↘ 317°
• 10:00: 20.5°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 3%, 🧭 1018.5 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 10.1 km/u (2.8 m/s), richting: ↘ 309°
• 11:00: 20.8°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 4%, 🧭 1018.9 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 10.4 km/u (2.9 m/s), richting: ↘ 302°
• 12:00: 21.3°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 4%, 🧭 1019.1 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 11.2 km/u (3.1 m/s), richting: ↘ 317°
• 13:00: 21.9°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 4%, 🧭 1019.3 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 11.9 km/u (3.3 m/s), richting: ↘ 317°

Voorspelling voor de komende dagen:

• donderdag 09 juli: Min 19.3°C, Max 24.6°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 1%, 🧭 1018.8 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 13.7 km/u (3.8 m/s), richting: ↘ 328°
• vrijdag 10 juli: Min 17.9°C, Max 25.9°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1018.1 hPa ↘️ -0.7 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 14.8 km/u (4.1 m/s), richting: ↙ 41°
• zaterdag 11 juli: Min 17.8°C, Max 26.9°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1020.4 hPa ↗️ +2.3 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 12.7 km/u (3.5 m/s), richting: ↙ 56°
• zondag 12 juli: Min 16.5°C, Max 28.0°C (Zonnig) ☀️, 🧭 1023.1 hPa ↗️ +2.7 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 16.7 km/u (4.6 m/s), richting: ↙ 52°
• maandag 13 juli: Min 17.6°C, Max 27.4°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1022.2 hPa ↘️ -0.9 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 14.5 km/u (4.0 m/s), richting: ↙ 39°
• dinsdag 14 juli: Min 17.4°C, Max 26.6°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 1%, 🧭 1021.2 hPa ↘️ -1.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 13.5 km/u (3.8 m/s), richting: ↙ 49°

Details:
• 🌡️ Huidige temperatuur (om 01:15): 19.9°C (Bewolkt)
• 🤚 Gevoelstemperatuur: 19.6°C (-0.3°C)
• 💨 Windsnelheid: 10.4 km/u (2.9 m/s), richting: ↘ 306°
• 🌬️ Windstoten: 21.2 km/h (5.9 m/s)
• 💧 Luchtvochtigheid: 71%
• 🧭 Luchtdruk: 1016.7 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/3h
• 👁️ Zichtbaarheid: 19.3 km
• ☀️ UV-index: 0.0
• 🌅 Zonsopgang: 05:32 · 🌇 Zonsondergang: 22:01

Luchtkwaliteit:
• AQI: 30 🟢 (Goed)
• PM2.5: 7.3 μg/m³
• PM10: 11.1 μg/m³

Gegevens geleverd door Open-Meteo

#Rotterdam #Meteo #MeteoBot #MeteoNetherlands #OpenMeteo #FediMeteo