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It’s 10 years since Brexit – and it’s also another one of those weeks in British politics … Guardian columnist Rafael Behr will be here at 5pm to answer your questions about Burnham, Starmer, Brexit and more.
Sign up here to join the discussion and post your questions
Welcome to our latest Q&A with a Guardian journalist. Raf will be joining us at 5pm. We have originally asked him to take questions about Brexit as we mark 10 years since the UK’s vote to leave the EU. But … you may well have questions about the last 48 hours as Andy Burnham looks certain to become the next prime minister.
In the meantime, though, Andrew Sparrow is covering another busy and dramatic day in Westminster on the politics live blog and here’s some more on the end of Keir Starmer’s premiership:
Continue reading...Three months after Bergen-Belsen was liberated, Britten and Yehudi Menuhin performed there. Survivor and cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was ‘transfixed’ – as she told the composer when they played together decades later
In 1945, the violinist Yehudi Menuhin was on a short tour of Germany, offering recitals to survivors of the concentration camps. On Friday 27 July 1945 he reached Bergen-Belsen, liberated three months earlier, and gave two concerts, in the cinema at the camp. The experience had a profound impact. “I shall not forget that afternoon as long as I live,” said Menuhin. “After Belsen, Yehudi was never the same again,” his sister Yaltah Menuhin reported. Anita Lasker, a survivor of Belsen, was present at one of those concerts. Nineteen years old, and a cellist, as a child she had been at Auschwitz, where she played in the women’s orchestra, under the direction of Alma Rosé, the niece of Gustav Mahler.
Lasker wrote to her cousin about the concert. “Who would ever have believed that Belsen Camp would hear Yehudi Menuhin playing? A wonderful evening”, which included “the Bach/Kreisler Prelude and Fugue, the Kreutzer Sonata, Mendelssohn’s Concerto, something by Debussy and several smaller, unfamiliar items”.
Continue reading...Decision comes after Aden Duale was held in contempt for ignoring previous high court ruling to stop work
Kenya’s health minister has told a court he has ordered a halt to preparations for a US-run Ebola quarantine facility, after being held in contempt for ignoring a previous stop-work order.
Many Kenyans strongly oppose the plan and deadly protests have erupted since the facility was announced in May for US citizens evacuated from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is grappling with a large-scale Ebola outbreak.
Continue reading...Reform leader says it is ‘purely private matter’ and it is not hypocritical to criticise Keir Starmer for receiving glasses
Nigel Farage has said his £5m gift from a crypto billionaire is “not any of your business” as it was given unconditionally to be spent on anything from Ferraris to gambling on horses.
The Reform UK leader bristled at questions about the £5m gift from the British Thai-based businessman Christopher Harborne in two radio interviews on Tuesday, saying it was “a purely private matter”.
Continue reading...From Gaza to the Peter Mandelson row, his abandoned pledges to the ‘island of strangers’ claim, Starmer’s time at No 10 was truly dismal
Good riddance, Keir Starmer. No sooner had the toppled prime minister wiped away his tears than the solemn guff began. The Labour leader is “principled” and “driven by a deep sense of public service and duty to this country”, said deputy prime minister David Lammy. He showed “the great dignity and integrity that is the mark of the man”, said energy secretary Ed Miliband. “A devoted and dedicated public servant” said home secretary Shabana Mahmood.
No. This was not a decent man defeated by circumstance, a man of duty and integrity who was simply in the wrong job, a principled leader undone by events. This was an unprincipled politician who abandoned promises with as much enthusiasm as he trousered freebies from rich donors.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...
WENEN (ANP) - Dione Housheer en Kelly Dulfer zijn gekozen in het team met de beste handbalsters van Europa. De Europese handbalfederatie presenteerde het sterrenteam als uitkomst van de verkiezing die werd gehouden na afloop van het Europese clubseizoen. Housheer en Dulfer zijn allebei internationals van Oranje en spelen bij de Hongaarse club Győri, die afgelopen seizoen de finale van de Champions League verloor van de Franse club Metz.
Housheer is uitgeroepen tot beste rechteropbouwer. Ze maakte dit seizoen 106 doelpunten in de Champions League voor haar club. Dulfer is gekozen tot beste verdediger. Angela Malestein, de international die uitkomt voor het Hongaarse Ferencváros, was genomineerd als rechterhoekspeelster, maar zij haalde het sterrenteam niet.
Uit de acht speelsters die het Europees team van het jaar vormen, wordt nog de beste speelster van Europa van het afgelopen seizoen gekozen. De bekendmaking is komende vrijdag tijdens de loting van de groepsfase van de Champions League.
Denk je bij krachttraining vooral aan gespierde armen, strakke benen of een sixpack? Dan is het tijd om dat beeld bij te stellen. Uit nieuw onderzoek blijkt namelijk dat een paar sessies met gewichten per week niet alleen goed zijn voor je uiterlijk, maar mogelijk ook voor je levensduur.
Onderzoekers analyseerden gegevens van bijna 150.000 Amerikaanse verpleegkundigen en zorgprofessionals die tot wel dertig jaar lang werden gevolgd. Om de paar jaar gaven deelnemers door hoeveel tijd ze besteedden aan krachttraining en aan activiteiten zoals wandelen, fietsen en zwemmen.
In die periode overleden bijna 36.000 deelnemers. Daardoor konden onderzoekers nauwkeurig bekijken of er een verband bestond tussen spierversterkende oefeningen en het risico op vroegtijdig overlijden.
De uitkomst was opvallend duidelijk: mensen die wekelijks tussen de 90 en 120 minuten aan krachttraining deden, hadden een 13 procent lager risico om vroegtijdig te overlijden dan mensen die helemaal geen gewichten optilden.
De grootste gezondheidswinst werd gezien bij twee veelvoorkomende doodsoorzaken. Het risico op overlijden door hart- en vaatziekten lag 19 procent lager. Voor neurologische aandoeningen, waaronder dementie, was dat zelfs 27 procent. Meer trainen bleek overigens niet automatisch beter. Na ongeveer twee uur krachttraining per week vlakte het voordeel af. Urenlang in het krachthonk hangen lijkt dus niet nodig.
De allerbeste resultaten werden gezien bij mensen die krachttraining combineerden met voldoende beweging. Wie daarnaast minstens 150 minuten per week matig intensief sportte of bewoog, zoals wandelen, hardlopen of fietsen, had uiteindelijk tot wel 45 procent minder kans op vroegtijdig overlijden.
Waarom hebben spieren zoveel invloed op onze gezondheid? Het antwoord zit in hun verrassend belangrijke rol in het lichaam.
Spieren zijn namelijk veel meer dan een motor waarmee je beweegt. Ze behoren tot de meest actieve weefsels van ons lichaam. Na een maaltijd nemen spieren het grootste deel van de glucose uit ons bloed op. Daardoor helpen ze de bloedsuikerspiegel stabiel te houden en verkleinen ze het risico op diabetes type 2, een belangrijke risicofactor voor hartziekten.
Daarnaast produceren spieren tijdens het bewegen zogenoemde myokines: stofjes die ontstekingen in het lichaam helpen remmen en communiceren met organen zoals de lever, bloedvaten, botten en zelfs de hersenen. Met andere woorden: elke keer dat je je spieren gebruikt, profiteert je hele lichaam mee.
Dat spierkracht een belangrijke voorspeller van gezondheid is, blijkt ook uit ander onderzoek. Zo wordt gripkracht – hoe hard je in iets kunt knijpen – steeds vaker gebruikt als gezondheidsmeter. In sommige studies voorspelde gripkracht zelfs beter wie een verhoogd risico liep op vroegtijdig overlijden dan de bloeddruk.
Sterkere spieren zorgen bovendien voor minder valpartijen, minder botbreuken en meer zelfstandigheid op latere leeftijd.
Bron: ScienceAlert
UTRECHT (ANP) - The Vegetarian Butcher Collective, het bedrijf achter Vivera en De Vegetarische Slager, heeft Rutger Rozendaal benoemd als nieuwe topman. Hij volgt William van Weede op.
Rozendaal was zeven jaar topman bij De Vegetarische Slager en bleef tijdens de samenvoeging met Vivera nauw betrokken. Nu gaat hij zich verder inzetten op internationale groei en ontwikkeling. "Mijn focus ligt op het verder uitbouwen van dat momentum, het versterken van onze merken."
Van Weede had als topman van Vivera de leiding gekregen bij de samenvoeging van de bedrijven in plantaardige vleesalternatieven. "Het afgelopen jaar hebben we iets bijzonders neergezet", zegt Van Weede. "Ik kijk met veel tevredenheid terug naar de samenwerking en het samenbrengen van de organisaties. Samen hebben we een sterke basis gelegd voor de toekomst." Nu de samenvoeging is afgerond, is het volgens hem tijd om zijn functie over te dragen.
The literature on harms to kids from online platforms is complex and nuanced, rife with people citing small, ambiguous studies as iron-clad evidence that kids are being destroyed by the internet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ype6c6DdHQY
It's a weird coalition of anti-Big Tech campaigners (who are rightly angry at the platforms' callous disregard for user welfare) and Heritage Foundation-backed culture warriors (who think that if their kids aren't exposed to LGBTQ content they won't come out as queer). While there's plenty these groups disagree about, they share one consensus: there should be a "minimum age" for certain kinds of internet use.
The problem is, there's no such thing as "age verification" for the internet. What we call "age verification" is actually mass surveillance, so invasive and pervasive that it makes the ad-tech industry's commercial surveillance look like some kind of cypherpunk darknet pirate utopia:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-think-of-the-cryptographers
"Age verification" means that everyone who does anything online will have to submit to fine-grained tracking and recording of all their online activities. This nightmare is the surveillance advertising industry's fondest dream, a world where it's literally illegal to avoid their tracking, all in the name of saving kids…from them!
So it's not just a weird alliance of anti-Big Tech crusaders and the conspiratorial right that's pushing for age verification – they are unwitting allies of the very tech industry they think they're fighting. Those tech industry insiders are fully aware that an "age verification" mandate is really a way for the government to teach every child how to use a VPN. They're also fully aware that the next move is to ban VPNs:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2217934/vpn-ban-table-july-labour
Tech bosses are the ones sitting on our shoulders saying, "Go ahead, swallow that fly – it'll be fine. And if you do have to swallow a spider afterward, well, that'll surely be the end of it":
https://pluralistic.net/2026/05/19/shes-dead-of-course/#consensus-hallucination
Behind them is a long line of caliper-wielding grifters who claim they can use your phone's camera to distinguish a child who is 17 years, 364 days old from an adult who's just turned 18:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/facial-age-estimation
It's beyond farce. After all, whatever harms you believe the internet is inflicting on kids – and there's absolutely some kids who are being harmed by their internet use – those harms all start with surveillance. Your kids can't be targeted by algorithms without the surveillance data that's being used to target them. They can't be funneled into pro-anorexia content or extreme misogyny forums without that funnel being primed by commercial spying.
Why do tech companies spy on your kids? The same reason your dog licks its balls: because they can, and no one stops them:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/03/10/ice-tech/#foreseeable-outcomes
America hasn't updated its consumer privacy laws since 1988 (when Congress banned the disclosure of your VHS rentals). The EU has the GDPR, but it also has Ireland, the country where all GDPR cases against Big Tech go to die, because any tax haven inevitably becomes a crime haven:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/10/31/losing-the-crypto-wars/#surveillance-monopolism
Other countries have privacy laws to varying degrees, but are grossly outmatched by US tech giants, who have fused with the Trump regime, to the extent that Trump will impose penalties on your country if you attempt to regulate his tech companies – he'll even have your top officials cut off from the internet in retaliation:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/04/digital-subjugation/#greenlands-next
Any attempt to save kids from online harms should start with saving kids from online surveillance, but that's the opposite of what we're doing today. After decades of failing to pass and enforce privacy controls for the internet, those same governments are breaking all land-speed records to pass "age verification" laws that make privacy illegal:
https://bsky.app/profile/rebeccawilliams.info/post/3moviqzdit22z
The fact that these bills have the firm backing of the tech industry's most controlling, most spying companies tells you everything you need to know about them:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260315022337/https://tboteproject.com/
Kids are being harmed by online spying, and so are the rest of us. Whether you think that the algorithm made Grampy go Qanon or you're suspicious that online surveillance data was used to deny you a loan, a job, or a lease, you should want privacy:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy
Online surveillance is being used to raise the prices you pay and lower the wages you're offered:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/06/empiricism-washing/#veena-dubal
And the same data that's being used to "verify age" today will be used by ICE tomorrow to figure out who to round up for a concentration camp:
https://www.wired.com/story/ice-asks-companies-about-ad-tech-and-big-data-tools/
You can't protect kids from online surveillance by spying on them. You just can't. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to get you to swallow a fly so they can sell you a spider, a bird, a cat, and an ICE chud in a gaiter, Oakleys and plate carrier (beneath which lurks a stick-and-poke Totenkopf tattoo).

Visa and Mastercard: The Original Gangsters of Electronic Collusion https://www.thesling.org/visa-and-mastercard-the-original-gangsters-of-electronic-collusion/
Has it happened yet? https://hasithappenedyet.org/
Platform-Controlled Search and Distortions in Attention Allocation https://tinbergen.nl/discussion-paper/6496/26-035-vii-platform-controlled-search-and-distortions-in-attention-allocation
#20yrsago Darwin’s tortoise dead at 176
https://web.archive.org/web/20060704143750/http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060623/od_afp/australiaanimal_060623102146;_ylt=Ave_b4Ps2r9TGXqs5nZIVIoFO7gF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGVna3NhBHNlYwNzc3JlbA–zoo
#15yrsago Major US ISPs set to limit repeat infringers with throttling, limiting access to 200 websites, and copyright reeducation school https://web.archive.org/web/20111105225114/http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20073522-261/exclusive-top-isps-poised-to-adopt-graduated-response-to-piracy/
#15yrsago Why fair use doesn’t work unless you’ve got a huge war-chest for paying lawyers https://waxy.org/2011/06/kind_of_screwed/
#15yrsago Model net neutrality rule for municipalities https://web.archive.org/web/20110626114610/http://envisionseattle.org/2011/06/model-net-neutrality-ordinance-for-seattle.html
#15yrsago Campus hookups: college sex isn’t new, but hookups are different https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/06/21/the-promise-and-perils-of-hook-up-culture/
#15yrsago A Brief History of the Corporation: understanding what an attention economy is and where it comes from https://ribbonfarm.com/2011/06/08/a-brief-history-of-the-corporation-1600-to-2100/
#15yrsago Eliza: what makes you think I’m a psychotherapeutic chatbot? https://www.filfre.net/2011/06/eliza-part-1/
#10yrsago Broken Windows policing is nonsense https://www.nyc.gov/assets/oignypd/downloads/pdf/Quality-of-Life-Report-2010-2015.pdf
#10yrsago How it feels to be under DDoS attack https://www.oreilly.com/radar/ddos-emotions/
#10yrsago 2016: the first presidential election in 50 years without Voting Rights Act protections https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/welcome-to-the-first-presidential-election-since-voting-rights-act-gutted-179737/3/
#10yrsago Google is restructuring to put machine learning at the core of all it does https://web.archive.org/web/20180530051703/https://www.wired.com/2016/06/how-google-is-remaking-itself-as-a-machine-learning-first-company/
#10yrsago Misconfigured database exposes sensitive data for 154 million US voters https://dailydot.com/politics/154-million-voter-files-exposed-l2
#10yrsago To understand the Trump campaign, study real-estate developer hustle https://web.archive.org/web/20161028030522/https://storify.com/KC_EDM/trump-is-running-his-campaign-like-a-real-estate-d
#10yrsago Writing the Other: intensely practical advice for representing other cultures in fiction https://memex.craphound.com/2016/06/23/writing-the-other-intensely-practical-advice-for-representing-other-cultures-in-fiction/
#1yrago The case for a Canadian wealth tax https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/23/billionaires-eh/#galen-weston-is-a-rat

Toronto: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (Osler Records/Type Books), Jun 23
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-launch-and-talk-tickets-1991501299998
NYC: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Jonathan Coulton (The Strand), Jun 24
https://www.strandbooks.com/cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai.html
Philadelphia: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with David Williams (Fitler Club/Philadelphia Citizen), Jun 25
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-book-event-tickets-1990110326559
Chicago: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Rick Perlstein (Exile in Bookville), Jun 26
https://exileinbookville.com/events/50628
London: Idler Festival, Jul 11
https://www.idler.co.uk/festival/
Edinburgh International Book Festival with Jimmy Wales, Aug 17
https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/events/the-front-list-cory-doctorow-and-jimmy-wales
Sydney: The Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Aug 23-24
https://festivalofdangerousideas.com/cory-doctorow/
Melbourne: Enshittification at the Wheeler Centre, Aug 25
https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/season-2026/cory-doctorow-enshittification
Brighton: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Carole Cadwalladr (Brighton Dome), Sep 8
https://brightondome.org/whats-on/LSC-cory-doctorow-the-reverse-centaurs-guide-to-life-after-ai/
London: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI with Riley Quinn (Foyle's Picadilly), Sep 9
https://www.foyles.co.uk/events/enshittification-cory-doctorow-riley-quinn
South Bend: An Evening With Cory Doctorow (Notre Dame), Oct 6
https://franco.nd.edu/events/2026/10/06/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow/
Reverse Centaur with Angie Coiro (Kepler's Books)
https://www.youtube.com/live/cWN6XBa73xA
How to Think About AI Before It’s Too Late (Galaxy Brain)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPQNPJ0CEPo
The future of world governance, with Kim Stanley Robinson (UN Independent Expert on International Order)
https://www.youtube.com/live/wJvBvYdaAMY
How to Think About Artificial Intelligence (KUER)
https://radiowest.kuer.org/show/radiowest/2026-06-16/cory-doctorow-on-how-to-think-about-artificial-intelligence
"Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
"Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).
"The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).
"The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).
"The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).
"Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.
"Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com
"Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026
"The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027
"Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, April 20, 2027
"The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027
Today's top sources:
Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Fourth draft completed. Submitted to editor.
"The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.
A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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anglo10 has added a photo to the pool:
Fable 5 is the supposed safe version of Anthropic’s Mythos Preview, with guardrails to ensure that it can’t be used to create cyberattacks.
Well, that restriction was bypassed within days.