Microsoft's Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is moving to a weekly release cycle, as well as joining Google in encouraging agentic AI development without manual approval with a new Autopilot feature.…
A Swiss canton has suspended its pilot of electronic voting after failing to count 2,048 votes cast in national referendums held on March 8.…
Dutch police have arrested a 17-year-old boy who detectives suspect was responsible for 16 bank card frauds across the Netherlands.…
Broadband subscribers in Scotland suffer the most outages in the UK, according to Broadband Genie, with customers of BT typically experiencing the fewest.…
De Partij tegen de Burger gaat Nederland dorp voor dorp opheffen. Want als er één schandvlek in dit gezapige landje is die onmiddellijk opgeheven kan worden, dan is het dit treurige gehucht.
Abonneer je op ons YouTube-kanaal.
Hundreds of papers relating to his appointment as ambassador to the US to be put into public domain today
As reported by Nadeem Badshah this morning, the documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US expected to be released today will include a due diligence report by the Cabinet Office, which is believed to be two pages long.
It is likely to raise questions about Keir Starmer’s judgment, with sources saying it had warned the prime minister of the serious “reputational risk” of going ahead with Mandelson’s appointment in December 2024 given his links with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
He has said, as you know that it is a little bit – it does fall into the category of too little too late, but I think they have a good, solid relationship, and hopefully they’ll be able to repair it. I go by what the president says, and the president says continuously that everybody is entitled to their point of view. But I think sometimes we detect that there’s not that feeling of gratitude.
I think the president’s position is that we do plenty for Europe, plenty for the UK, in the area of trade, in the area of defence, in the area of the support we give to Nato. And I think sometimes the response back, the reciprocity back, is a little bit lacking. I would leave it at that, OK?
Continue reading...Shawn Harris to face Clay Fuller in special election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress
Donald Trump will make the next stops on his affordability tour on Wednesday. He’ll start the day in Washington, before travelling to Cincinnati, Ohio for a site visit of a pharmaceutical company. Then he’ll deliver remarks in Hebron, Kentucky at a packaging facility.
We can certainly expect more from Trump about his administration’s aims to lower the cost of prescription drug prices. And we’ll be listening out for more about the ongoing US-Israel war on Iran, and escalating gas prices for every day Americans.
Continue reading...Recent attack on plants led to fears of escalating strikes, but Iran knows drought has left it equally vulnerable
In 1983, the CIA determined that the most crucial commodity in the Gulf was its desalinated potable water.
Although the loss of a single plant could be handled, “successful attacks on several plants in the most dependent countries could generate a national crisis that could lead to panic flights from the country and civil unrest”. And the greatest threat to the region’s water supply? “Iran.”
Continue reading...August festival presents largest-ever jazz programme alongside full-scale operas and Scottish folk music
This year’s Edinburgh international festival will showcase American art that celebrates the creativity and energy of the US, while also exposing its cruelty and hypocrisy, its director has said.
Nicola Benedetti, the Grammy-award winning violinist now presenting her fourth festival, said Donald Trump’s explosive second term as president made that quest more important than ever.
Continue reading...Since the US has no federal mandate for hearing aid coverage, I found myself in a quandary – I couldn’t communicate with the hearing or the deaf
At the end of my second American Sign Language (ASL) class, during which I had fingerspelled my name Deborah as “F-E-B-O-R-A-H”, I thought it prudent to type a question into my Notes app rather than trying to fingerspell it. “How do I sign, ‘I’m hearing impaired?’” I wrote, showing the typed sentence to my teacher, Courtney Rodriguez. Then I pointed to one of my hearing aids.
Sixty percent of ASL, Courtney had just taught us, consists of non-manual markers, meaning most of the communication in ASL comes from facial expressions. Puffed cheeks, for example, indicates something big. Pursed lips means small. From the puffed cheeks and pained look on my deaf teacher’s face, I could sense I had hit a big nerve.
Continue reading...First-leg scorer senses self-belief to reach last eight
‘In the Champions League we have hit our top form’
Harvey Barnes believes Newcastle are primed for historic success against Barcelona after showing they are more than capable of living with them in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie.
Barnes’s 86th-minute goal for 1-0 at St James’ Park on Tuesday was cancelled out by Lamine Yamal’s penalty with the last kick of stoppage time. But Newcastle will travel to the Camp Nou for next Wednesday’s return with confidence, Barnes’s assertion that they were the better team brooking little argument and reflecting the mood inside their dressing room.
Continue reading...I used to hide away in all-black sport-core until I allowed myself to wear space-age silver dresses or a large-collared, lemony faux-fur coat
Maybe adolescence wasn’t the ideal time to receive my mother’s advice to wear an array of colours. What better way to express how you feel on any given day, and convey that mood to the world, she would say. It was important to the eye, to the soul.
It really isn’t the best advice to give any teenager, especially a sulky one who’s hoping to disappear in baggy, all-black sport-core. I’d cringe when she would try to push big, loud colours on me on shopping trips, talking in what I thought was mumbo jumbo about mood-lifting lilacs, energising reds and skin-warming oranges.
Continue reading...ROTTERDAM (ANP) - De rechtbank in Rotterdam heeft de 66-jarige Abderrahim El M. uit Rotterdam veroordeeld tot 20 maanden gevangenisstraf voor het meenemen van staatsgeheime informatie naar huis. De verdachte werkte bij de Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid (NCTV). De rechtbank sprak hem vrij van het lekken van de informatie aan de Marokkaanse geheime dienst.
Het Openbaar Ministerie eiste in februari een gevangenisstraf van twaalf jaar tegen de Rotterdammer. El M. werkte jarenlang als analist voor terrorismebestrijder NCTV.
DEN HAAG (ANP) - D66 deelt de zorgen van veel oppositiepartijen over de gevolgen van de voorgenomen bezuinigingen op de sociale zekerheid voor met name gehandicapten en chronisch zieken. De partij werd daar hard op aangevallen in een Kamerdebat over de begroting van het ministerie van Sociale Zaken.
"Ik verdedig natuurlijk het regeerakkoord zoals het er ligt", zei Tweede Kamerlid Stephan Neijenhuis. Maar: "Er moet nog een hoop gebeuren in de invulling om te zorgen dat iedereen het mee kan maken". Hij wil naar eigen zeggen voorkomen dat kwetsbare mensen "door het ijs zakken".
Hoe hij zelf denkt te voorkomen dat mensen die blijvend arbeidsongeschikt zijn er hard op achteruitgaan, maakte Neijenhuis tot frustratie van de oppositie niet duidelijk. Hij zei alleen dat hij daarover "zonder taboes" met het kabinet en andere partijen in gesprek wil.
"Een bizarre vertoning", schamperde SP-leider Jimmy Dijk. Hij ziet in het coalitieakkoord een bewuste keuze, ook van D66, om "fors te korten" op de arbeidsongeschiktheidsuitkering (WIA).