Trucks are dousing capital’s roads with water and nurses are checking on vulnerable people as heat heads westwards
Seoul is bracing for its first ever “severe heatwave warning” on Tuesday, as South Korea reels from a deadly heatwave that has seen the country record its highest ever temperature.
The south-eastern city of Yangsan reached an all-time national record of 42.5C on Sunday afternoon – the highest temperature measured in 122 years of weather observations – and now the heat is shifting westwards, approaching the densely populated capital of more than 9 million people, which is forecast to hit 38C on Tuesday followed by three sweltering days of 37C.
Continue reading...Reform UK’s finances have come under scrutiny like never before. What do we know about the party’s funding – and why do so many awkward questions remain for Nigel Farage? Anna Isaac explains
For a while this year, it looked like nothing could stop Nigel Farage getting to Downing Street. Not the allegations of schoolboy racism, not the dodgy Cameo videos or even the £400,000 he trousered for advertising gold bullion.
But at the end of April, the Guardian’s City editor, Anna Isaac, delivered a game-changing scoop. That Farage had been given a £5m gift, as he termed it, from the cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harbourne.
Continue reading...Now UK envoy Valery Zaluzhnyi quoted as saying Ukraine can’t meet military standards needed to join alliance; Kyiv largely stalls Moscow’s advances, data suggests. What we know on day 1,623
Continue reading...OOSTRUM (ANP) - De natuurbrand bij Oostrum in Noord-Limburg is flink uitgebreid. Een gebied van in totaal 100 hectare is getroffen, meldt een woordvoerder van de veiligheidsregio Limburg-Noord. Maandagmiddag besloeg de brand nog 21 hectare.
AMSTERDAM (ANP) - Het aantal opgeleverde nieuwbouwwoningen zal dit en volgend jaar maar licht stijgen, verwacht ING Research. De woningbouw profiteert van het oplopende aantal bouwvergunningen, maar stikstofbeperkingen, personeelstekort, te weinig capaciteit op het volle stroomnet en hoge bouwkosten blijven de productie remmen.
Uit een nieuwe publicatie van de bank over de bouwsector komt naar voren dat in de eerste vier maanden van dit jaar 7 procent minder nieuwbouwwoningen zijn gerealiseerd dan in dezelfde periode vorig jaar. "Deze afname moet in de loop van 2026 eerst nog worden goedgemaakt", stelt de bank. ING Research verwacht daarom dat het aantal nieuwbouwwoningen in 2026 slechts licht stijgt naar ongeveer 71.000 en dat dit in 2027 verder toeneemt tot 74.000.
Tussen de vergunningverlening en het moment dat de nieuwe eigenaar de sleutel krijgt, zit vaak ruim twee jaar, zegt sectoreconoom bouw Maurice van Sante bij ING Research. "Bovendien blijft de capaciteit bij bouwbedrijven beperkt. Zij spreiden opdrachten over de tijd om pieken en dalen in het werk beheersbaar te houden."
In mei werd het hoogste maandelijkse aantal bouwvergunningen voor nieuwe woningen afgegeven sinds 2015. Maar dat leidt niet een-op-een tot meer nieuwbouwhuizen, aldus ING Research. Projecten kunnen vertraging oplopen als woningen nog moeten worden verkocht of als plannen worden aangepast en opnieuw moeten worden vergund.
Voor de gehele Nederlandse bouwproductie verwacht ING Research een stabilisatie in 2026 en een lichte groei in 2027 van 1 procent, dankzij de eerdere toename van het aantal bouwvergunningen. De infrasector blijft volgens de bank de sterkste deelsector. Sinds 2020 laat de productie in de infrasector hoge groeicijfers zien. Wel valt de productiestijging dit en volgend jaar naar verwachting een stuk lager uit.
China has changed its legal definition of semiconductors. The National Intellectual Property Administration yesterday issued an expert opinion on recent changes to the regulations governing intellectual property laws as applied to chips. That document, attributed to Guo He, from the School of Intellectual Property at the Renmin University of China, notes that laws in place around the world define integrated circuits as semiconductors. “Today, photonic integrated devices and quantum chip technology are developing rapidly, and optoelectronic chips are already widely used in some fields,” Guo observed, before noting that China’s new rules have replaced references to “semiconductor integrated circuit” with “integrated circuit.” Beijing made that change to include chips that include photonic and quantum elements. “On the surface, this seems insignificant, as various monolithic integrated circuits worldwide still require semiconductor materials as substrates,” Guo wrote, before arguing the significance of the change is that “it demonstrates China's attitude towards intellectual property legislation today: we are no longer conservatives in the intellectual property system.” That may be a little boastful, as the most current international agreement covering chip design is the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIP), which describes an integrated circuit as “a product … in which the elements, at least one of which is an active element, and some or all of the interconnections are integrally formed in and/or on a piece of material and which is intended to perform an electronic function.” The Register can imagine that definition extending to optical and quantum elements. The TRIP agreement’s provisions on semiconductors also protect the layout of chips – the proprietary arrangement of elements on a silicon die. That’s an important protection because it takes plenty of time and money to create a layout, and copying a layout is a chip design shortcut. The main purpose of China’s revised Regulation is to strengthen its own layout protection laws, and thanks to its new definition extend them to chips that include optical or quantum elements. Guo says China’s chipmakers need extra intellectual property protection, and that the changed Regulation will help to determine patents and settle disputes about the origin of chip designs. The changed laws therefore have “important practical significance for accelerating the construction of a strong intellectual property nation and meeting the needs of high-quality development.” That last phrase refers to the Chinese government’s policy of developing capabilities in all fields that an advanced nation requires to be globally competitive – including development and manufacturing of semiconductors in all forms. Several Chinese companies – among them Alibaba, Huawei, Cambricon and Loongson – have developed chips that compete strongly with products from US-based rivals. China wants its chipmakers to be strong, so defending them from domestic or foreign copycats makes sense. ®
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Thomas Hawk posted a photo:
photograph I acquired from a large archive of negatives from a San Francisco Bay based commercial photographer taken mostly in the 1960s to 1970s.
banzainetsurfer has added a photo to the pool:
The Toyama Glass Art Museum (富山市ガラス美術館, Toyama Glass Bijutsukan) in Toyama City showcases a large collection of glass art from around the world. The beautifully modern Kirari building that houses the museum was designed by world-renowned architect Kuma Kengo and also contains the city's public library.
The museum offers both permanent and temporary exhibitions. The permanent exhibitions are on the fourth and sixth floors whilst the temporary exhibitions are interspersed across multiple galleries on other floors. The permanent exhibition on the fourth floor showcases contemporary glass art by international artists procured by the museum over past decades, while the sixth floor hosts the "Glass Art Garden" exhibition, which boasts a collection of installations by Dale Chihuly.
Source: www.japan-guide.com/e/e7503.html
ajpscs has added a photo to the pool:
51st Edogawa Fireworks Festival
江戸川区花火大会 / 市川市民納涼花火大会
FIREWORKS
© ajpscs
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Earlier this summer, nearly 160,000 applicants took the entrance exam for UNAM, Mexico's largest university. For the first time, they did it completely remotely, using a "lockdown" browser and AI-powered webcam proctoring software, over several weeks from late May through early June. It was a disaster. When exam results came in, they bore little resemblance to past results, especially at the top. Between 2021 and 2025, 3.5 percent of test takers scored 100 or more on the 120-question UNAM test. This year, 16.3 percent did so. The story was even worse at the highest of the high end. Between 2021 and 2025, 0.9 percent of test takers scored 110 or more; this year, 5.5 percent did so.
The surge in top scores led to accusations of widespread cheating, and UNAM appointed a commission of experts to investigate the situation. The group was given the unwieldy name "la Comision Tecnica de Personas Expertas para la Revision del Proceso de Seleccion de Ingreso a Licenciatura para el Circlo Escolar 2026-2027/1," and it has just submitted its recommendations. The commission believes that the best path forward, given all the concerns, is to administer a "control exam" -- that is, applicants will have to sit for another test, and they will do so in person.
This control exam will apply not only to those who secured a spot at UNAM based on this year's test but also to everyone who would have been admitted based on minimum successful scores in their program of study since 2021. About 58,000 people could be affected, and places at UNAM will now depend on the results of the new test. (Details on the control exam should appear soon; classes are currently scheduled to begin on August 10, so everything will have to move quickly unless the school decides to delay classes.) According to Gaceta UNAM, the school's official news publication, the university rector has apologized to honest applicants, since they will now have to prepare for and take the test again despite doing nothing wrong. Still, the control exam is "necessary to give certainty and guarantee equity in access," the rector added.
The surge in top scores led to accusations of widespread cheating, and UNAM appointed a commission of experts to investigate the situation. The group was given the unwieldy name "la Comision Tecnica de Personas Expertas para la Revision del Proceso de Seleccion de Ingreso a Licenciatura para el Circlo Escolar 2026-2027/1," and it has just submitted its recommendations. The commission believes that the best path forward, given all the concerns, is to administer a "control exam" -- that is, applicants will have to sit for another test, and they will do so in person.
This control exam will apply not only to those who secured a spot at UNAM based on this year's test but also to everyone who would have been admitted based on minimum successful scores in their program of study since 2021. About 58,000 people could be affected, and places at UNAM will now depend on the results of the new test. (Details on the control exam should appear soon; classes are currently scheduled to begin on August 10, so everything will have to move quickly unless the school decides to delay classes.) According to Gaceta UNAM, the school's official news publication, the university rector has apologized to honest applicants, since they will now have to prepare for and take the test again despite doing nothing wrong. Still, the control exam is "necessary to give certainty and guarantee equity in access," the rector added.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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