The Oranje bus had better get a move on. A comfortable victory over Tunisia after being sent on their way by a record-equalling 12th own goal of the tournament and further strikes from Brian Brobbey and Jan Paul van Hecke sealed top spot in Group F for the Netherlands ahead of Japan.
Their prize is avoiding a meeting with Brazil in the last 32, with Ronald Koeman’s side now set for a mouthwatering showdown with Morocco in Monterrey instead. Having arrived in southern Texas almost a month ago and already taken in games in Dallas, Houston and Kansas City, the specially converted bus that has become a fixture at recent major tournaments now faces a journey of more than 1,000 miles before Monday’s game in northern Mexico.
Continue reading...‘It’s all just rendered useless’, Something For Kate’s Paul Dempsey says as AI scrapes millions of songs to learn how to make music
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Paul Dempsey and Bernard Fanning are among big-name Australian musicians upset that their original songs have been found in datasets used to train artificial intelligence.
A dataset search tool recently created by US publication The Atlantic reveals millions of creative works have been scraped from the internet to train the disruptive technology.
Continue reading...⚽️ Kick-off time: 7pm local/10pm EDT/3pm BST/12pm AEST
⚽️ Third-place table | Player guide | Tables | And mail Beau
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Mary Waltz writes:
I am so happy and proud of the USMNT performance so far. It has been so much better than I expected. I understand why Poch is doing the believe routine. But really folks, Spain, France, Argentina even Portugal and England are a step above us in quality. We would probably have to beat at least 2 of those team to win the trophy. I just can’t see it.
Continue reading...⚽️ Kick-off time: 7pm local/12pm AEST/3am BST/10pm EDT
⚽️ Third-place table | Player guide | Tables | Mail Jonathan
⚽️ Follow live coverage of Turkey v USA as it happens
Jonathan Liew considers the impact of this World Cup being the most individual > collective in tournament history.
… 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...Proposal to introduce one-time tax of 5% will go to voters in November after backers decline to withdraw measure
California voters will get to decide in November whether billionaires should pay a one-time 5% tax, after a deadline passed on Thursday for its backers to withdraw the measure.
The so-called billionaire tax is among the highest-profile ballot efforts in the US this year taking aim at rising wealth disparities, and is set to be one of the state’s most contentious ballot initiatives. It has already spurred tech moguls to pour millions of dollars into attempts to stop the proposal.
Continue reading...Vice-president declares admiration for 37th president and claims Nixon and Trump are targeted by ‘deep state’ forces
JD Vance does not think the era-defining Watergate scandal would have lasted more than a single news cycle in today’s fragmented, hyper-partisan political environment – and certainly would not have led to a president’s downfall.
Speaking at the Richard Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda, California, on Thursday to promote his new book, Communion, Vance discussed his spiritual journey from atheist to Catholic convert before declaring his admiration for the 37th president.
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