TEHERAN (ANP) - Iraanse media spreken tegen dat de Straat van Hormuz volledig wordt heropend als onderdeel van het aangekondigde vredesakkoord met de Verenigde Staten. Volgens Al Jazeera noemt staatspersbureau Fars die bewering van de Amerikaanse president Donald Trump "ver van de realiteit".

Volgens Fars blijkt uit de tekst dat Iran de zeestraat ook na een akkoord blijft beheren. Teheran zou ermee hebben ingestemd dat het aantal passerende schepen terugkeert naar het niveau van voor de oorlog, maar volgens Fars betekent dat niet dat er weer vrije doorvaart is.

Het beheer van de zeestraat blijft volgens het persbureau "uitsluitend" in handen van Iran. Dat geldt ook voor routes, tijdstippen, de wijze van doorvaart en vergunningen.

WASHINGTON (ANP) - Rond het Witte Huis in Washington is een grote politiemacht op de been na meldingen van schoten. Journalisten op het terrein kregen opdracht dekking te zoeken en werden naar de persruimte gebracht. Het Witte Huis is volgens hen op slot gegaan.

Een journaliste meldt op X dat ze tijdens opnames op het gazon aan de noordzijde van het Witte Huis meerdere schoten hoorde. Volgens haar klonk het alsof tientallen schoten werden gelost.

Over mogelijke slachtoffers of de aanleiding voor het incident is nog niets bekend.

KINSHASA (ANP) - Het dodental door de ebola-uitbraak in de Democratische Republiek Congo (DRC) is opgelopen tot 204. Dat heeft het Congolese ministerie van Volksgezondheid bekendgemaakt. In drie provincies zijn 867 vermoedelijke besmettingen geregistreerd.

De Wereldgezondheidsorganisatie WHO riep de uitbraak van de zeer besmettelijke ziekte al uit tot internationale noodsituatie. De uitbraak concentreert zich in het oosten van Congo, waar veel geweld is. Volgens de Afrikaanse gezondheidsdienst Africa CDC lopen tien andere landen risico, mede door de vele verplaatsingen van mensen en de onveiligheid in de regio.

Ook in buurland Oeganda zijn nieuwe besmettingen vastgesteld. Daarmee staat het aantal bevestigde gevallen daar op vijf. Eén patiënt in Oeganda is overleden.

Het Rode Kruis meldde dat drie Congolese vrijwilligers in de provincie Ituri zijn overleden nadat ze vermoedelijk ebola hadden opgelopen bij humanitair werk.

kiri-fuda has added a photo to the pool:

on the water photography has added a photo to the pool:

This facility was originally built and famously known as the Kumamoto-Kita Police Station. The Kusabacho building (now the Central Police Station) is globally celebrated for its striking modern design. Designed by the legendary architect Kazuo Shinohara and completed in 1990 under the "Kumamoto Art Polis" initiative, it is often called the "glass police station". The front facade is wrapped entirely in reflective half-mirror glass, utilizing a distinct steel-frame design expanding outward on the upper floors to house a custom martial arts hall.

0zufan has added a photo to the pool:

Leicaflex SL2
Summicron-r 50mm f/2
Kodak Ultramax 400

A series of shots taken on our flight home from Japan.

April 2026

"The numbers show that layoffs in the U.S. are roughly at or below levels from before the pandemic," reports the Washington Post, "although they are higher than in 2022 when businesses snapped up workers as the economy roared back to life...

"A different measure that accounts for the growing U.S. workforce shows that layoffs affected about 1.2% of employed people in March, a number that has been steady for years outside of the pandemic..."

In the technology industry, where Meta and other companies are regularly announcing job cuts, the layoff picture is complex. There has been a marked increase in layoffs in recent months in what the Labor Department calls the information industry, which includes employment of software developers and other tech workers. But Matthew Martin, senior U.S. economist at the research and consulting firm Oxford Economics, noted that hiring has also increased in that category, which includes media and entertainment. The combination of hiring minus layoffs in the information industry is effectively a wash, Martin said. Layoffs at Big Tech companies like Meta and other high-profile employers don't necessarily reflect what is happening in the country, Martin said, and draw far more attention than what may be slow and steady workforce growth. "There's a lot more headlines about job cuts than there are [about] expansion plans by businesses," he said.

In his view, technology companies may be pushing out some workers and replacing them with people who have different skills as they respond to the demands of AI. It's true that businesses in some industries are devoting enormous sums of money and attention to AI. It's changing how some people work and a minority of American businesses are rolling out AI tools. But it's also become a trend for bosses to blame layoffs on the productive capabilities of AI and its ability to replace workers, even when job cuts may have little to do with the technology. Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, has taken note of the pattern that he and others call "AI washing," essentially a high-tech form of whitewashing... "You know something is happening all the time when they have a word for it," said Gautam Mukunda, who teaches leadership at the Yale School of Management...

AI-related employment changes are tiny so far, said Nathan Goldschlag, director of research at the Economic Innovation Group, a Washington think tank. He pointed to a recently published analysis of Census Bureau surveys, which found more than 95 percent of businesses that use AI said it hasn't changed their staff sizes — and AI-related employment increases were more common than decreases.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Noel Leon recovered from contact in the F2 Sprint to secure his maiden win.

Film about a couple on trial for child abuse isn’t a patch on the director’s previous Palme winner, while other disappointing films seemed to grab the jury’s attention

These were the prizes for a Cannes under pressure. The Hollywood A-listers and big-hitters were A-listing and big-hitting at home this year. And what about the international heavyweights from Europe and Asia that highbrow festivaliers are always saying are loads better than the Americans anyway? Well, many of those only showed up in the physical sense. For me, most of the films from the accepted laureates and auteurs were very moderate, and I have to confess being sceptical about this year’s Palme d’Or, Fjord, by Romanian film-maker Cristian Mungiu (who won the Palme nearly 20 years ago with his searing abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days).

Fjord is, in fact, a perfect example of an established European star director using a big Hollywood name: Sebastian Stan, playing a grumpy and religious Romanian IT engineer, his hair shaved into dull male pattern baldness for the part, and photographed largely in austere longshot.

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De Gouden Palm ging dit jaar naar Cristian Mungiu’s ‘Fjord’, een drama over een waardenbotsing tussen conservatieve, orthodoxe Roemenen en het progressieve Noorwegen waar ze wonen. Mungiu is slechts de tiende regisseur die twee Palmen won.