Kimi Antonelli took a huge step forward in the F1 title battle during the Canadian Grand Prix, as the Italian made it four Grand Prix wins on the bounce. While on the other side of the Mercedes garage, team mate George Russell lost crucial ground after a retirement.
SC-Wang(TY) has added a photo to the pool:
Tora-san's hometown - Shibamata!
Shibamata is the hometown of "Tora-san," the protagonist of the long-running Japanese film "It's Tough Being a Man." It retains the authentic Showa-era downtown charm and warm hospitality. Strolling from the station to the tourist attractions, you'll find nostalgic wooden buildings and traditional shops everywhere.
ASIA IN BRIEF Workers at Samsung Electronics may score bonuses of well over $100,000 after calling off a planned strike. Samsung’s profits recently shot into the stratosphere along with the price of memory and solid-state storage. Staff threatened to strike if the company did not share some of the largesse. Last-minute talks saw the National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) agree not to strike, after Samsung agreed to create a fund that will share profits with workers. A Bloomberg report suggests some workers could be in line for payments of $340,000 under the scheme. The Union is now running a vote on whether to approve the plan. Workers appear to have mixed feelings about the plan, as on Sunday the Union published a post in which it tries to justify the settlement as benefiting workers from all divisions of Samsung Electronics, and its plan to create a fund that would see all employees granted around $17,000. “Your anger must be directed not at us, but at the company,” wrote NSEU Acting Representative Woo Ha-kyung. “It must be directed at the company that is dividing us. I earnestly hope that workers will not thrust arrows of blame and criticism at other workers, but instead unite our strength to move forward.” Huawei claims it’s leapfrogged Moore’s Law Huawei on Monday proposed a new scaling law to replace Moore’s Law – which isn’t a law at all and postulates that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles about every two years. Speaking at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 2026 International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, the president of Huawei’s semiconductor division He Tingbo proposed the Tau (τ) Scaling Law. According to Huawei’s announcement, “This law proposes replacing geometric scaling with time (τ) scaling as a new guiding principle for the evolution of both semiconductors and electronic systems.” This “law” seems to be tangled up with a technology Huawei calls the “LogicFolding architecture” which apparently represents an alternative to traditional semiconductor design by “significantly shortening critical-path wiring, effectively reducing the resistive and capacitive load of signal propagation, and ultimately boosting transistor density and circuit performance.” Huawei will debut LogicFolding chips later this year and says “By 2031, the high-end chips Huawei designs based on the τ Scaling Law are expected to feature a transistor density that is equivalent to 1.4 nm processes.” If accurate, that would mean Huawei is five years away from a manufacturing process that will be comparable to the most advanced tech offered by the likes of TSMC and Intel. Chinese mobile phone plans now come with token allowances Some mobile phone subscriptions in China now include a quota of tokens to use on AI services. In the last ten days at least two Chinese telcos – China Telecom and Shanghai Telecom –launched plans that include a token allowance. State media hailed the plans as representing “a shift in how China's telecom sector hopes to profit from generative AI, as operators attempt to transform computing power and AI model access into a utility-like service resembling traditional mobile data packages.” Telcos around the world have historically struggled to create new revenue streams from technology innovations – Google, Meta, and Apple have scooped most of the profits flowing from mass adoption of smartphones, leaving carriers to operate low-margin connectivity services. APAC bit barn boom peaks in Australia, Malaysia Commercial real estate outfit CBRE last week reported that datacenter investment in the Asia Pacific region hit a record US$11.6 billion in 2025, much of it going on neoclouds. “For neocloud providers, access to power is increasingly outweighing traditional location advantages,” said Matt Madden, CBRE’s senior managing director for data center solutions in the region. “This is directing demand toward markets that can support high-density campuses at scale, particularly across India, Malaysia, and parts of Southeast Asia.” Malaysia’s Johor saw a 53 percent year-on-year increase in live capacity last year, ahead of 37 percent growth in the Australian city of Melbourne. “This underscores strong expansion momentum outside mature markets such as Singapore and Hong Kong SAR, with around 6-8 percent growth,” CBRE said. $11.5 billion is a tiny fraction of the giant sums Big Tech is spending on datacenters and infrastructure. Last year we spotted $142 billion of spending in Q3 alone. The world's most populous region clearly isn't getting much of that. In related news, IBM Cloud last week flicked the switch on a new region in the Indian city of Mumbai. Singtel ready to sling Optus Singtel last week published a filing [PDF] that declares it is open to offloading a substantial stake in its Australian telco operation, Optus. Readers may recall that Optus has a long history of trouble, including failing to notice a breakdown of its emergency calling service that is thought to have cost at least two lives, a massive outage, and a major data breach. Singtel hopes to court “potential Australian partners that align with its objectives of ensuring that Optus continues to be a strong alternative operator in the industry, providing a reliable and trusted critical service to all Australians. Singtel contemplates a like-minded long-term local partner owning a meaningful minority stake in Optus.” ®
In Kyiv, I found a mood of confidence. Ukrainians know that Russia is creaking and that Europe has their back
Discussions are said to be under way as to which former European heavyweights should represent the EU in any peace talks with Russia. Angela Merkel, Mario Draghi and Sauli Niinistö, the former president of Finland, are names that have cropped up as potential envoys. While meaningless in substance, because there is no negotiation in sight, the story points to a wider truth about the Ukraine war and Europe’s role.
Like other European conversations on Ukraine before it, this one has an abstract flavour. Europe planned, for instance, to send a “reassurance force” to Ukraine in the event of a Donald Trump-mediated ceasefire. A possible maritime initiative in the strait of Hormuz, should a deal be reached between the US, Israel and Iran, bringing the war there to a definitive end, is in the works. None of these plans have been implemented, because the scenarios on which they are based have not materialised. Likewise, there is no imminent negotiation with Russia that an envoy could be dispatched to. The war in Ukraine is raging on, as underlined by Russia’s bombardment of Kyiv at the weekend, which involved its hypersonic “Oreshnik” ballistic missile, capable of carrying nuclear warheads. And, as Lithuanians rushing to shelters after a drone alert remind us, a wider hybrid war between Russia and Europe is already under way.
Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist
Continue reading...From Drag Race to Eurovision to Strictly, La Voix is going stratospheric. And Chris Dennis, the man behind the crimson coiffure, is thrilled. He talks about his cruise ship highs, doing panto with Cilla – and starring in Annie
‘I’ve done more cruises than Jane McDonald,” says Chris Dennis with a hoot. About 130 in all, he reckons, which his agent said surpassed McDonald, the most famous cruise ship singer there is. You won’t find Dennis’s name on any billing, though, and most of the thousands of people who have seen him perform won’t know it either. But they will know his alter ego, La Voix, a “northern powerhouse” of show tunes, sharp quips and bright crimson coiffure. Perhaps you’ve seen her slaying the runway on RuPaul’s Drag Race, dancing a pasodoble to Beethoven’s Fifth on Strictly, or appearing as a “spokesqueen” on the recent Eurovision. And now she’s about to sashay into her first role in a musical – as Miss Hannigan in Annie.
La Voix is an amalgam of the women Dennis knew growing up in Stockton-on-Tees: quick wit, warm heart, belter of a voice, and always in possession of a sparkly top for a night out. After 17 years of Drag Race on TV, we’ve seen the vast range of what drag can be, from high fashion to political to performance art. But La Voix is classic old school light entertainment. Who, I ask Dennis, are your comic influences? “Ken Dodd,” he says without a beat. “The terrible jokes that just make you laugh. Bang, bang, bang, joke, joke, joke.” Barry Humphries’ Dame Edna and Paul O’Grady’s Lily Savage are big influences, too. And when TV’s Loose Women asked La Voix about dancing with Strictly partner Aljaž Škorjanec, her reply – “To be flung round the room by a muscular Slovenian, you’re not going to say no, are you?” – was pure Victoria Wood.
Continue reading...The great showman has spent the last 50 years on stage, followed by his adoring “fanilows” - but he’s not slowing down yet. Here, he talks about cancer, ridicule and roaring success
His name is Barry, he is a showman – as we all know. But late last year, after more than 50 years of constant performing, it began to look like the Manilow show was coming to an end. In December, the 82-year-old singer announced he was about to undergo surgery for lung cancer, and postponed his planned live shows. Thankfully, the cancer had not spread and the treatment was successful. But around the same time he released a new single, ominously titled Once Before I Go. The accompanying video showed him saying goodbye to his palatial quarters at the Las Vegas Westgate resort, where he has had a residency for the past eight years, and wistfully reminiscing over old costumes, intercut with footage of him in his 80s prime. It sure looked as if he was shutting up shop.
But no: “That was just an accident,” says Manilow of the video. Really? “Yeah, we didn’t do that on purpose.” The song was actually written in the early 80s by veteran songwriter Peter Allen, he explains, but he felt he was too young to sing it when he first heard it. “It’s a beautiful song and it’s got nothing to do with me. It’s saying goodbye to a romance, you know. But it just so happened that it sounds like I’m talking about myself.” Far from going anywhere, Manilow’s got a new album out next week, and a string of new tour dates lined up.
Continue reading...Bonolo Selelo and Tsholofelo Kumile are going to court for right to wed but face fierce opposition from church groups
Bonolo Selelo was at Botswana’s national museum for a Gaborone Pride event when she spotted Tsholofelo Kumile and was struck by her good looks. The two initiated a conversation and when Kumile expressed anxiety about what a tarot reading at the event might hold, Selelo thought nothing of offering her a hug. The reading turned out positive but Kumile claimed her hug anyway and they talked for hours.
That was 1 October 2023. Two months later, they moved in together. Then, on a hike during the Easter holidays in 2024, Selelo proposed to Kumile. A year later, they visited a local government office to register their intent to marry and were told it wasn’t legal.
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