After a busy first half of the 2026 campaign, F1 drivers and teams are now enjoying a well-earned break. The perfect moment, then, to reflect on some of the hot topics from the year so far – take the Mercedes intra-team battle or Lewis Hamilton’s resurgence with Ferrari…
McLaren driver Lando Norris has expressed satisfaction over the level of performance he is delivering in 2026, believing he has driven “better than I probably did to this point last year”, when he was pushing for a maiden F1 world title.
A production company and filmmaker are suing Netflix for $105 million, alleging the streamer lost a stolen drive containing an unencrypted master copy of the unreleased Nicolas Cage film Fortitude, which they claim damage its exclusivity and market value. Netflix denied responsibility for the lost film but said it takes content security seriously and has offered to monitor piracy sites for unauthorized copies. CBS News reports: The complaint filed on Wednesday in California district court alleges that the film's associate producer, Daniel Haido, hand-delivered an unencrypted master copy of the film to Netflix so the company could screen it as a potential buyer. Haido verbally instructed the employee to delete the files after the screening, according to the suit. A little over a week after the screening, Netflix emailed the filmmakers to say the drive had been stolen, the plaintiffs allege. "Someone stole a good amount of drives from our office desks this past week," a Netflix executive wrote in the email, according to the suit.
The complaint notes the movie, entitled "Fortitude," took over seven years to make and cost $45 million. It tells the story of a secret mission called Operation Fortitude during World War II that was orchestrated to mislead the Nazis about the Allied invasion of Europe. The film stars Nicolas Cage as Dusko Popov, a real-life spy during World War II, as well as Sir Ben Kingsley and Ron Perlman.
The plaintiffs said studios will now be dissuaded from buying the rights to the movie, knowing that a version of it could be released by a third party for free. "The film's value depended in significant part on its exclusivity as an unreleased, first-to-market work," the complaint states. "By losing control of the film, Netflix destroyed that exclusivity and materially, if not completely, impaired the film's marketability."
The complaint notes the movie, entitled "Fortitude," took over seven years to make and cost $45 million. It tells the story of a secret mission called Operation Fortitude during World War II that was orchestrated to mislead the Nazis about the Allied invasion of Europe. The film stars Nicolas Cage as Dusko Popov, a real-life spy during World War II, as well as Sir Ben Kingsley and Ron Perlman.
The plaintiffs said studios will now be dissuaded from buying the rights to the movie, knowing that a version of it could be released by a third party for free. "The film's value depended in significant part on its exclusivity as an unreleased, first-to-market work," the complaint states. "By losing control of the film, Netflix destroyed that exclusivity and materially, if not completely, impaired the film's marketability."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
MÜNCHEN (ANP/RTR) - Het AI-muziekplatform Suno schendt copyrightregels van artiesten en moet daarom schadevergoedingen gaan betalen. Dat heeft een rechtbank in München vrijdag bepaald. Gebruikers van Suno kunnen op het AI-platform instructies invullen voor liedjes en krijgen dan een volledig uitgewerkt nummer terug.
Volgens de rechtbank heeft Suno echter niet het recht om muziek van artiesten te verwerken die zijn vertegenwoordigd door het Duitse staatslicentiebureau Gema. Het platform moet nu informatie geven over illegaal verkregen omzet door de schending van auteursrechten. De hoogte van de schadevergoeding moet nog worden bepaald. Het Amerikaanse Suno kan in beroep gaan tegen de uitspraak.
Vorig jaar trof Suno nog een schikking met muziekmaatschappij Warner Music Group in een auteursrechtenkwestie. Warner en andere grote platenlabels hadden Suno en zijn branchegenoot Udio aangeklaagd, omdat de start-ups auteursrechtelijk beschermd materiaal zouden hebben gebruikt in hun AI-platforms zonder compensatie voor de artiesten of bedrijven.
BRUSSEL (ANP) - Vanaf zondag gaan er nieuwe AI-regels gelden in de EU, waarbij AI-bedrijven verplicht zijn om expliciet te melden aan gebruikers dat ze gebruikmaken van AI. Zo moet bij afbeeldingen, video's of audio verplicht vermeld worden als ze zijn bewerkt of gegenereerd met AI. Die content moet een soort label krijgen, zodat het makkelijker wordt voor de autoriteiten om in kaart te brengen waar AI in het spel is geweest.
Ook moeten AI-chatbots verplicht melden aan gebruikers dat ze te maken hebben met een computergedreven programma, en niet met een mens.
De nieuwe regels zijn onderdeel van de AI-wet, die in 2024 is aangenomen. Met de nieuwe regels hoopt Brussel misleiding en manipulatie te verminderen en "mensen te helpen weloverwogen keuzes te maken", aldus de Europese Commissie. "Ze geven bedrijven ook duidelijkere verplichtingen en een praktische manier om aan te tonen dat ze aan de regels voldoen."
Grok
De EU-regels van de AI-wet worden stapsgewijs uitgerold. Zo is het sinds februari vorig jaar al onder de wet verboden voor AI-systemen om gebruikers te manipuleren of om misbruik te maken van hun kwetsbaarheden.
Vanaf december van dit jaar wordt het verboden voor AI om zonder toestemming afbeeldingen te manipuleren om mensen uit te kleden of om kinderporno te genereren. Dat besluit is een reactie op dergelijke beelden die werden gemaakt door Grok, de AI-chatbot van Elon Musk.
europeanspaceagency posted a photo:
This colourful radar image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission features New Orleans and the delta of the Mississippi River, one the largest rivers in North America.
The Mississippi River is one of the world’s major river systems in size, habitat diversity and biological productivity. It is a classic example of a meandering alluvial river with its loops and curls along its path. The nutrient-rich soil from sediment deposits carried by the Mississippi and its tributaries in the floodplain supports a variety of cropland.
The area pictured here shows the last segment of its 3766-km-long path, where the Mississippi passes through the city of New Orleans and empties into the Gulf of Mexico in a vast delta, known as the 'bird-foot' delta because of the shape created by the channels extending outward.
The size of the delta is due to sediment deposition over millions of years. The tonnes of sediment carried by the river system created the wetlands in southern Louisiana, which are home to many endangered species.
This image combines three radar acquisitions from Sentinel-1 taken two months apart from February to June 2026, with each image assigned to a different colour channel – red for February, green for April and blue for June. When overlapped, the bright resulting colours indicate changes on the ground that have occurred over time.
Water bodies, including the snaking Mississippi and the inland lakes, appear mostly black as smooth water surfaces reflect the radar signal away from the satellite. In the Gulf of Mexico, on the other hand, the mix of colours denotes changes on the surface, caused by wind or currents between each acquisition.
If we take a closer look, we can see ships in the gulf and on the Mississippi, as sparkling, multi-coloured dots, with the colour corresponding to the date of acquisition. Ships captured in February appear in red, those from April in green, and those from June in blue.
Shades of grey indicate areas with no or very little changes, such as the conurbation of New Orleans, which appears bright grey or white along the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain, the largest inland lake in the image. Visible as thin, straight lines, several bridges cross the lake, notably the Pontchartrain Causeway right at the centre, which is recognised as the world’s longest continuous bridge over water.
Patches of neon green, pink and reddish colours can be seen to the west and south of New Orleans, marking the areas where the landscape changed considerably between winter and summer. Green zones indicate vegetation that sprouted, grew densest or experienced higher moisture levels in April, while pink and reddish tones highlight regions where ground conditions or vegetation growth were strongest during February.
Such radar images are invaluable for agriculture and environmental monitoring, allowing scientists to track seasonal crop growth, soil moisture, and the health of wetlands. The latter are extremely important, particularly in low-lying coastal areas such as New Orleans, as they also help protect the mainland from severe weather threats.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2026), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Have you been following the big stories in football, boxing, athletics, horse racing, Gaelic games, golf and cycling?
Continue reading...About 20,000 unaccompanied minors will lose legal representation if the federal government ends a longstanding contract on Friday, kicking current problems into overdrive across US
Inside an immigration court in lower Manhattan, the faces of migrant children – some as young as three – have been beamed on to a video screen throughout the summer as they faced deportation hearings. Most appeared virtually. Some sat around desks in a classroom, others bounced on bunk beds or rocked in chairs inside small offices or storage closets.
Detained in nearby shelters for unaccompanied minors in New York, the vast majority did not have lawyers as they appeared before the court.
Continue reading...Trump’s campaign of repression echoes the red scare. But now the government has bigger ambitions and more powerful tools
There are many parallels between the first McCarthy era, roughly 1946 to 1956, and Trump’s campaign of political repression, his own updated McCarthyism.
Both regimes crafted a monster of quasi-facts and innuendo and fed it with fear: an enemy within, well-organized and financed, secretive and violent, allied with evil foreigners and bent on overthrowing capitalism, democracy, and Christian morality. Both used flagrantly unconstitutional means to cleanse the nation of the spectral menace.
Continue reading...Here are things that will – and will not – help us fight the threat of wildfires
I have spent much of my career studying boreal forests and I know fire is part of how they renew themselves. That knowledge did nothing for the lump in my throat last week as wildfires closed in on my community in northwestern Ontario.
Over 150 fires were burning in the region almost at once, displacing at least 1,800 people from more than a dozen communities, most of them Indigenous. Namaygoosisagagun First Nation burned to the ground, its residents narrowly escaping by boat.
Julee Boan is Partnerships Director, Global Northern Forests, International, at the National Resources Defense Council
Continue reading...Diaa al-Awadi claimed insulin was a fraud, smoking was safe and chemotherapy useless. But despite losing his medical licence and dying at early age, his reach continues to grow
It had been a struggle with conventional treatments. For Fatima Adel, a 50-year-old author living in Cairo’s upmarket Sheikh Zayed neighbourhood, the misdiagnoses and medical errors she had experienced had began to erode her confidence in doctors.
But when the videos of Diaa al-Awadi began circulating – an Egyptian doctor who spoke plainly, invoked the Qur’an, and told his audience that their bodies could heal themselves if they changed their diet – Adel, like tens of thousands of other Egyptians, listened.
Continue reading...Companies must ensure people know when they are interacting with artificially generated images, audio and text designed to look real
From apparently conspiring to steal elections to abusing staff or performing embarrassing dance moves, the last few years have seen plenty of fake content made about politicians intended to malign its targets and mislead the public.
Now EU rules aim to stem the flood of this deceptive content: starting from Sunday, artificially generated images, audio and text designed to look authentic must be labelled.
Continue reading...Some drowned and others caught up in crush, official says, as incident prompts criticism of Spain from France and Italy
At least 18 people have died trying to reach the Spanish enclave of Ceuta after around 49,000 migrants entered the tiny territory from Morocco in a matter of hours, triggering a political crisis for the Madrid government and unleashing a barrage of criticism from other EU countries.
The large influx of people arriving in Ceuta by swimming across from neighbouring Morocco or scaling the high border fence has caught the city of 85,000 off guard and resulted in what one local police association has called a “serious humanitarian crisis”.
Continue reading...Enclave has been a diplomatic flashpoint and is seen as a destination for people trying to reach Europe
Thousands of people have streamed into the tiny Spanish territory of Ceuta in north Africa from Morocco, with at least 18 dying in the attempt, prompting Spain to deploy its military to restore the border.
Videos and images from the frontier showed crowds of people, mainly Moroccans, walking around the breakwaters at an urban beach near a border checkpoint with Morocco on to local roads. The majority appeared to be young men, though there were also families with women and children.
Continue reading...VVD-politica Dilan Yeşilgöz heeft met afgrijzen gekeken naar de beelden vanuit Ceuta. Dat het anno 2026 nog steeds mogelijk is dat illegale migranten zomaar even dood menen te kunnen gaan voor ‘onze mooie kusten’ gaat er bij haar niet in. “We moeten het niet toestaan dat wanhopige vluchtelingen die hier niet horen besluiten om pal voor onze grenzen het leven te laten. Nu niet, morgen niet en in de toekomst niet. Voor sterven in ons blikveld moet geen plek zijn in de huidige maatschappij.”
Wat Yeşilgöz betreft gaan we zo hard mogelijk optreden tegen dit soort excessen. “De beelden spreken voor zich, ze gaan door merg en been. Al die mensen die een uitzichtloos bestaan proberen te ontvluchten en ons daarmee met gevaar voor eigen leven lastig vallen. Het is gewoonweg gruwelijk. Mijn medeleven gaat uit naar de Spaanse bevolking die dit moet meemaken. Er zijn nota bene kinderen die op het journaal zien hoe deze stervende mensen bijna hun land in zijn gekomen.”
Voor Nederland moeten de gebeurtenissen in Spanje een les zijn, vindt de huidige vice-premier. “Nu gebeurt het in Spanje, maar als we zoals nu alleen maar blijven toekijken, spoelen die mensen straks ook met hun gezicht naar de bodem aan onze kusten aan. Je moet er niet aan denken dat wij met die lijken opgezadeld zitten. Op dode vluchtelingen zitten wij in dit land niet te wachten. Stem daarom VVD!”
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P.S. de grote afwezige is Spotify, dat zijn Big Tech teringlijers maar uiteraard zijn we daarmee bezig.
Geopolitical tensions, regulatory pressure, and growing awareness of risk are prompting organizations to build sovereignty requirements into new technology projects from day one, according to Forrester. The research firm says organizations worldwide are specifying data residency and sovereign AI architecture requirements at the planning stage. European firms face greater pressure than their US peers because the region has fewer domestically developed hyperscale AI platforms. The analysis comes as the EU launches a tender to establish up to seven AI gigafactories across Europe, its latest attempt to strengthen the bloc's technological sovereignty. The projects will receive up to €10 billion in EU and national funding, with at least another €20 billion expected from private investors. Dario Maisto, principal analyst at Forrester, said sovereignty was fast becoming an imperative for tech buyers. "The organisations that succeed will treat sovereignty as an architectural principle from the start – establishing clear governance, maintaining control across the AI stack, and designing flexible operating models that can adapt to evolving regulatory and geopolitical conditions." Pressure is greatest in Europe, where US tech giants dominate the market and domestic hyperscale AI platforms are scarce. "Europe is becoming one of the most important testing grounds for sovereign AI," Maisto said. "Organisations increasingly want assurance that they maintain control over how AI systems are built, governed, and operated, while still benefiting from global innovation. The vendors that can deliver both trust and flexibility will be best positioned to win in the European market." Maisto said buyers were looking beyond data location to ask who manages encryption keys, who has operational access, where models are trained, and which laws apply. In June, the European Union introduced a Technological Sovereignty Package intended to strengthen its digital autonomy. Among the proposals was an auditable, four-level control system called Union Assurance Levels (UALs), based on an organization's degree of control over jurisdiction, data processing, supply chains, and security. "The introduction of UALs will likely cause confusion for providers and buyers, as it adds to an already crowded landscape of existing cloud sovereignty criteria," according to analyst Gartner. European providers account for only around 15 percent of the region's cloud infrastructure market, leaving the dominant US suppliers subject to American jurisdiction. Last year, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan lost access to his work-based Microsoft services after the US government imposed sanctions on him. Gartner forecasts that European spending on sovereign cloud infrastructure services will more than triple between 2025 and 2027 as geopolitical tensions drive investment in homegrown services. ®
Het aantal vrachtwagens dat over de Merwedebrug (A27) rijdt, is met zo'n 90 procent gedaald. Dat laat Rijkswaterstaat weten. Sinds 18 juli mogen er geen vrachtwagens en touringcars meer over de brug, omdat de brug niet veilig genoeg is voor zware voertuigen. Chauffeurs die wel over de brug rijden krijgen een boete.
