WASHINGTON (ANP) - De VS en Iran ontmoeten elkaar dinsdag in de Qatarese hoofdstad Doha, schrijft de Amerikaanse president Donald Trump op zijn Truth Social. Volgens Trump heeft Iran om een ontmoeting gevraagd.

De afgelopen dagen vonden er zowel van de VS als van Iran aanvallen plaats. Volgens de Verenigde Staten ging het om vergelding, nadat een commercieel schip in de Straat van Hormuz werd aangevallen.

Eerdere berichten over een ontmoeting tussen de landen werden maandag door het Iraanse ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken ontkend.

Wimbledon profileert zich als het laatste grandslamtoernooi op gras, maar wie vandaag kijkt, ziet vooral hardcourttennis op een groen tapijt. Door langzaam geworden banen, hogere balstuit en eindeloze rally’s vanaf de baseline is de klassieke grasspecialist zo goed als uitgestorven.

Waarom het Wimbledon-gras veranderd is

Vanaf 2001 worden de banen ingezaaid met honderd procent meerjarig raaigras, strak gemaaid op precies 8 millimeter en het hele jaar door onderhouden door een vaste groundsman-ploeg. Dat moderne gras zorgt voor een hogere stuit, waardoor serve-volley en snelle punten hebben plaatsgemaakt voor powertennis vanaf de achterlijn.

Gras dat als hardcourt speelt

Volgens kenners is Wimbledon feitelijk een hardcourttoernooi op een lastigere, gladdere ondergrond: de bal blijft lager dan op andere banen, schiet nog steeds door en bewegen blijft een uitdaging. Spelers moeten “dansen” over de baan, laag door de knieën, klaar om uit te glijden – en ondertussen wedstrijden uitspelen die net zo lang kunnen duren als op gravel.

TILBURG (ANP) - Tim de Kraker, de hoogste baas van de politie Zeeland, is op non-actief gesteld, bevestigt een woordvoerder van de politie aan het ANP na berichtgeving van Omroep Zeeland. "Er loopt een intern onderzoek, op verdere vragen gaan we niet in."

De Kraker is sinds anderhalf jaar politiechef van de politie Zeeland. Hij studeerde bedrijfseconomie en bestuurskunde. Hij werkt al twintig jaar bij de politie. De politiewoordvoerder wil niet zeggen hoe lang De Kraker al thuiszit en waarop het onderzoek zich richt. "Het is in ieders belang dat het onderzoek zorgvuldig plaatsvindt. We lopen niet op de uitkomsten vooruit."

It was another solid outcome for Racing Bulls at the Austrian Grand Prix, with Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad taking home double points for the team.

Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg narrowly missed out on scoring points at the Austrian Grand Prix.

Carlos Sainz claims Williams's performance in the Austrian Grand Prix was "still not good enough", after the Spaniard was forced to retire from last weekend's race.

The planets Neptune and Uranus may be better described as "magma-ocean giants" rather than "ice giants," according to a team of researchers from the University of California. Gizmodo reports:

While the Voyager flyby confirmed the planets' classification as ice giants... [a]s the least explored planets in the solar system, the two planets have never been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, scientists aren't sure where the planets originally formed in the early solar system or the reason for their wildly chaotic magnetic fields. A long-standing hypothesis suggests that both worlds have a hydrogen/helium atmosphere that covers a vast mantle of ices, made primarily of water, ammonia, and methane, with a rocky core. The new study, however, notes that the three-layer model of an ice giant's interior structure is not the only way to explain the properties of the two planets.

The researchers also point out that objects found in the Kuiper Belt, which are thought to preserve evidence of the material in the outer Solar System where Uranus and Neptune formed, are primarily composed of rock rather than ice. For the recent study, the researchers simulated different models for the interior processes and composition of Uranus and Neptune. The model that best fits Uranus's and Neptune's different properties suggests the two planets have a well-mixed magma ocean with dissolved hydrogen at the bottom and a hydrogen-dominated envelope at the top. The model suggests that at high pressures, hydrogen gas can dissolve into magma, forming a well-mixed fluid. This mixing might help explain Uranus's and Neptune's density, which has traditionally been interpreted as evidence for an ice-rich interior.
The article notes that the theory "could also help scientists understand the interior structure of sub-Neptune planets in the Milky Way, which have thus far remained a mystery."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BT and Verizon are putting their international enterprise networking businesses into a 50:50 joint venture, creating a company with roughly $4 billion in annual revenue as both telcos re-focus on the markets that actually make them money. The proposed venture, announced on Monday, will combine BT International with Verizon's international enterprise wireline business. Once regulators sign off, the new company will serve more than 3,000 multinational customers across 180 countries, while its two parents return their attention to the markets that actually move the needle: Britain for BT and the US for Verizon. Verizon will pay BT $625 million to balance the relative value of the assets each side is contributing. The transaction is expected to close in 2027. For BT, the move removes a business that has long looked like the awkward relative in the family photo. BT's guidance for the year ending March 2027 forecasts £1.82 billion in international revenue but just £108 million in adjusted EBITDA, making it one of the group's weakest performers. Tom Oughton, analyst at Megabuyte, described the deal as strategically sensible for both companies, noting that BT International has been "a consistent underperformer" while Verizon has repeatedly characterized its own international revenues as insignificant relative to its domestic business. “BT International has always been a drag on BT Group. It is far less profitable (BT reports a 47 percent UK EBTDA margin vs 5.9 percent for International) and has failed to grow, and we suspect a somewhat similar story for Verizon given it is immaterial relative to its US operations,” Oughton said. Of course, the official line isn't about squeezing costs. BT and Verizon say the real prize is helping multinational customers navigate cloud infrastructure and the growing tangle of data residency rules. That also explains why nearly every paragraph of the announcement manages to mention AI. BT chief executive Allison Kirkby said the combination would create "a stronger, scaled connectivity partner" offering secure and resilient connectivity platforms "designed for the age of AI." Verizon chief exec Dan Schulman similarly described the venture as a "cutting-edge, AI-ready and secure platform." Strip away the AI messaging and the strategy is pretty straightforward. Combining two middling international operations creates more scale, reduces duplicated infrastructure and operations, and gives both companies a chance to concentrate investment where they still dominate. The joint venture will be incorporated in Jersey, although it will be headquartered and tax resident in the UK. Former EXA Infrastructure chief executive Martijn Blanken has been named CEO-designate, subject to the deal completing, while BT International chief executive Clive Selley will remain in place until then. BT also updated its financial guidance to reflect the carve-out. Excluding the international business and other disposals, it stuck with its target of doubling free cash flow to £3 billion by the end of the decade. For customers, not much will change immediately. BT International and Verizon's international operations will continue to run independently until regulators approve the deal and the joint venture officially opens its doors. ®

This year’s celebration of contemporary dance in the French city is bold, baffling and breathtaking, with some high-voltage performers

Launched in 1981, the pioneering Montpellier Danse festival changed the face of contemporary dance, in France and beyond. In 2024, its own face changed when long-term figurehead Jean-Paul Montanari was succeeded by a four-person directorship of Hofesh Shechter, Jann Gallois, Dominique Hervieu and Pierre Martinez – though the programme currently continues its ethos of spreading dance across the city, and mixing the recherché with the popular.

Gallois’ Imminentes aims squarely at a general audience: an hour-long dynamo for six women that is never abstruse and always striking – if not always subtle. Its signature device, the long build-up, comes in from the start: the women lean in to each other in tender pairs, then gradually meld together into a dynamic and increasingly mobile group, bonded by linked arms and synced energies. Backing them is a crescendo of sound, and a bank of lights that ends up glowing as if powered by the sheer voltage that the dancers generate.

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