"Adventure before dementia" has added a photo to the pool:

Today's theme is 3-2-1, three photos which I have manipulated in some way or another. In this shot, a Corella comes in to land in my garden. Corellas are highly intelligent and noisy Cockatoos who my neighbours don't like, which is a shame because I welcome them to my garden. My neighbour turns his garden hose on them to chase them away, even when they are in my yard.

In the original photo the bird was lost in a busy background. The photo was a dud, but with a little magic I replaced the background with a neutral sky to rescue the photo.

WASHINGTON (ANP/RTR) - De Verenigde Staten hebben laten weten dat ze in contact staan ​​met de Venezolaanse autoriteiten na zware aardbevingen en dat ze hulp mobiliseren voor het Zuid-Amerikaanse land. "We staan ​​in contact met de autoriteiten en mobiliseren hulp", aldus onderminister van Buitenlandse Zaken Christopher Landau op X. Hij noemde de aardbevingen "verwoestend".

Woensdagmiddag (lokale tijd) troffen twee zware aardbevingen het gebied ten westen van de Venezolaanse hoofdstad Caracas. Daar stortten gebouwen in en kwamen mensen vast te zitten onder het puin. Wetenschappers waarschuwden voor mogelijk tienduizenden slachtoffers en grootschalige verwoestingen in het hele land.

De Amerikanen sturen onder meer "zoek- en reddingsteams, medische en humanitaire goederen en andere middelen tijdens de cruciale eerste dagen na deze tragische natuurramp", aldus het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken op X.

The irony of the superstar-heavy narrative is the way it embellishes rather than diminishes importance of the collective

“Cristiano Ronaldo’s record-equalling sixth World Cup got off to a disappointing start,” began the Reuters match report of Portugal’s 1-1 draw against the Democratic Republic of the Congo last week. And yes, OK: everyone knows how this game works and why everyone plays it. On one hand, perhaps the greatest sporting day in the history of the world’s 15th most populous country. On the other, 41-year-old man does not score. It’s no contest, really. Get those sweet keywords front and left. Harvest that delicious search traffic. Perhaps you even noticed how I just did exactly the same thing.

And yet something does feel qualitatively different this summer: a tectonic shift driven partly by events on the pitch and partly at the behest of the industry itself. This is a World Cup swimming in star names, and never have those star names been so unapologetically, unquestioningly invoked. France do not beat Iraq; instead Kylian Mbappé throws down the gauntlet to Erling Haaland, Harry Kane and the rest. According to Google, Miroslav Klose’s goals record has been searched more at this tournament than in the year he set it. At times the group phase has felt like an inconvenient distraction from the real business of the Golden Boot race. (Can Lionel Messi lift the one trophy he hasn’t won yet?)

Continue reading...

Some, like Luca Zidane, have been bamboozled and an academic paper bears out Joe Hart’s opinion about its movement

Poor old Luca Zidane. The Algeria goalkeeper has had a turbulent time. In two matches he has conceded five goals, and a pair of them – first from Lionel Messi, then, more embarrassing, from Jordan’s Nizar al-Rashdan – have gone through his fingers.

No doubt he has received messages of support from his father – at least he hasn’t butted anybody – but it is hardly the ideal performance on the world’s biggest stage. But Zidane is not alone. Senegal’s Édouard Mendy and Iraq’s Ahmed Basil have got their hands to shots, but been unable to stop them. Is something going on?

Continue reading...

More than 70,000 babies living in hot homes as climate change drives record temperatures

One in every six babies in England are living in overheated homes, causing sleep disruption and serious health risks, according to new analysis.

The National Housing Federation (NHF) and the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) found that more than 70,000 babies are living in overly hot homes as climate change drives record temperatures across the country.

Continue reading...

Our lovable yet unruly boxer Dusty forced me to wonder: if a dog has no morals, how do you teach it to be ‘good’?

When I carried my beautiful two-month-old puppy into our home for the first time, I couldn’t have imagined the scene six months later, as I led her through my local park experiencing such a toxic cocktail of emotions – guilt, regret, powerlessness – that I had tears in my eyes. It was a walk that many dog owners will recognise as having “gone badly”. My exuberant dog, Dusty, had approached another dog that did not wish to play with her. This shouldn’t have happened. I should have been able to call her back. Maybe I should have just kept her on the lead. Maybe I shouldn’t have got a dog in the first place.

Dusty started barking, jumping and circling the owner and her dog at high speed. “Do you want to have a dogfight?” the owner asked curtly, while I lunged around on the ground, all dignity jettisoned. “My dog just wants to play with yours,” I protested. “But mine doesn’t want to play,” she replied. “If you just let yours off the lead for a moment,” I countered, “I think mine would calm down. I promise you, she’s not aggressive.” Her reply: “So what do you call this?” Checkmate. As the seconds and then minutes passed, with Dusty still evading my reach, I began to wonder how long this might go on. Would the police have to be called?

Continue reading...

In a chilling new book, theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli says we’re back on the brink – and this time, leaders chronically lack the nous of Kennedy and Khrushchev. So why is he against rearming?

Should European members of Nato be rearming in the face of the Russian threat? And if not, I ask Carlo Rovelli, why not? The Italian theoretical physicist seems a good person to answer these questions since his timely new book, 85 Seconds to Midnight, is subtitled A Physicist’s Argument against Rearmament.

Rovelli, 70, brown eyed, genial, with enviably luxuriant grey locks, removes his glasses before answering. “The idea of the Russian military being a threat to Europe is ridiculous. Russia can’t even get to Kyiv! A few years ago, Russia had 4% of the world’s military spending and Nato had 40%.”

Continue reading...

The man who led Free France during Nazi occupation was single-minded to the point of obstinacy. But he believed in his own power to make history

How much of our political agency have we sacrificed on the altar of imagined constraints? That question has been troubling me since last week, when I stepped out of the glitteringly art deco Grand Rex cinema in Paris. I had just been to see part one of La Bataille de Gaulle, a two-part epic based on British historian Julian Jackson’s extraordinary biography of Charles de Gaulle. Both Jackson and the film, which focuses on the second world war, present the towering French general as a combination of stubbornness, arrogance and genius.

As a mid-ranking two-star general, De Gaulle had little inherent claim to be the face of France in exile. For four years after fleeing to London in June 1940, he imposed himself next to Churchill, and then Roosevelt. He bullied his way in to top-table discussions thanks to an ego the size of a nation state: a nation state he himself would embody fully. “I recreated France from nothing, from being a man alone in a foreign city,” De Gaulle wrote of his time in London. Immodest, yes, but also right.

Alexander Hurst writes for Guardian Europe from Paris. His memoir Generation Desperation is out now

Continue reading...

General Intuition wordt door een grote nieuwe investering gewaardeerd op 2,3 miljard dollar. De start-up bouwt modellen waarmee robots in de echte wereld leren bewegen. „Dit wordt de volgende generatie van AI.”