Two explosions kill six personnel in Sevastopol; drone-hit Russian refinery shuts down as sanctions block repairs. What we know on day 1,634

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Self-doubt doesn’t respond to evidence, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Rather than disputing it, perhaps you could engage in a different way

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A close friend of mine is suffering with crippling self-doubt and it’s starting to take a strain on our relationship. We’ve been friends for eight years. She is such a bright, bubbly and charismatic person who has an infectious ability to make people laugh and feel welcome; but she also has a really low opinion of herself and, as her friend, I am the one who always gets the brunt of her negative self-talk. After every social event she will message me to ask if I think she has annoyed someone, or that she spoke too much, or that she embarrassed herself. In private conversations she is constantly putting herself down, calling herself fat, apologising for nothing and generally claiming she’s not good enough.

I love her and constantly reassure her that her thoughts have no grounding but, after years of this, I am tired. I’m starting to enjoy our time together less and less, as I never know what mood she will be in or what she will say about herself. I would hate to hear anyone else speak about her in the way she does. I especially hate it when she says these things about herself.

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Cernavoda shutdown poses immediate problems for Moldova, which relies on Romanian power ​to cover its own electricity shortages

Romania has been forced to shut down the last working ⁠reactor at its only nuclear plant after drought caused the Danube river to fall to record lows – a rare move that will immediately affect power supplies in neighbouring Moldova.

Drought and record-low water levels have deepened fears of an energy crisis across Europe, which is facing a new summer heatwave.

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Sophie Woods speaks about the challenges she overcame while completing the notorious Via Alpina across eight European countries

A couple of weeks into her record-breaking 2,000km run through Europe’s alps, Sophie Woods feared she might die. Woods and her photographer had just scaled a peak in Switzerland, when a severe thunderstorm engulfed them.

“The lightning was going off around us ... there was nowhere to shelter in place [and] all the rocks around us were conductive,” Woods tells the Guardian, from her home in Andorra, nearly two weeks after she became the fastest person ever to run the Via Alpina, a 2,000km network of alpine trails through eight countries.

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Greg Adams Photography posted a photo:

Steel Stacks, Bethlehem, PA

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

From a slide tray labeled "1955 trip"

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Microsoft has been steadily scaling back its China presence, closing at least 15 branch offices and joint ventures over the past five years as Beijing favors domestic software. U.S. export controls also make it harder to grow its cloud and AI businesses, leaving the market with relatively little economic upside. Reuters reports: Microsoft took a major hit from the erosion of trust between Washington and Beijing, the five people said. China has since 2017 pushed the use of domestic software, which Beijing sees as more secure and whose quality is increasingly competitive with Windows and Office. U.S. restrictions, including export controls on advanced technology, have meanwhile hindered efforts to scale Microsoft's lucrative AI and cloud businesses in China.

[...] Microsoft ultimately decided to remain because it had carved out a profitable business servicing Chinese companies like TikTok owner ByteDance, which need Western technology to manage overseas operations, according to three people familiar with the matter. The company also believed that it needed a presence to maintain access to China's world-class engineering talent, two of them said. Microsoft had also cultivated a relationship with the government that is among the deepest of any tech company, its former China head Alain Crozier told Reuters. "Because of the geopolitics ... some days it's a little bit harder, but we never had a crisis," he said.

A Microsoft spokesperson did not address questions about the firm's deliberations on its China business but said it operates in a regulatory "environment that applies to every international supplier" and that it remains committed to the Chinese market. The state of Microsoft's China business reflects market competition, regulatory demands and technological trends, the company said.

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Google has released Gemini 3.7 Flash just three weeks after 3.6 Flash, focusing on better coding, agentic workflows, and enterprise automation while temporarily cutting API prices in half through the end of 2026. VentureBeat reports: For enterprise developers, the more consequential story may be the combination of those intelligence gains with lower inference costs: through the end of 2026, Gemini 3.7 Flash costs $0.75 per million input tokens and $3.75 per million output tokens.

Starting Jan. 1, 2027, pricing rises to $1.50 per million input tokens and $7.50 per million output tokens. That means the current discount is temporary, but it gives teams deploying high-volume coding and business agents several months to evaluate whether Google's claimed reductions in retries and manual oversight translate into lower total operating costs. The launch also underscores Google's rapid iteration on its Flash line while its next flagship Pro model remains absent. [...]

Google describes Gemini 3.7 Flash as its "most intelligent workhorse model yet for coding and agents." The company says the model is better at adapting when it encounters roadblocks, clarifying intent when necessary and following instructions with greater fidelity. [...] Google's benchmarks show a large generational improvement in several software engineering tests. [...] Google's own results do not show 3.7 Flash universally displacing higher-priced competitors. They instead suggest a model that has become substantially more competitive in coding and agent workloads while occupying a lower price tier.

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WASHINGTON (ANP/RTR) - Het bestuur van het Kennedy Center in Washington heeft donderdag gestemd om de naam van president Donald Trump opnieuw op de gevel aan te brengen. Dat meldt het Democratische congreslid Joyce Beatty, die in het bestuur zit. Een rechter bepaalde eerder dat het cultuurcentrum niet zonder toestemming van het Congres kan worden hernoemd.

Volgens Beatty wil het bestuur op de gevel vermelden dat het John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is "gerestaureerd en gerenoveerd door president Donald J. Trump". Ook wil het bestuur het terrein President Donald J. Trump Plaza noemen.

Trump liet zijn naam in december aan de gevel toevoegen. Een rechter beval eind mei dat die moest worden verwijderd. Dat gebeurde in juni. Een hof van beroep wees vorige maand een verzoek af om de naam in afwachting van verdere juridische procedures te laten staan.

Het grotendeels door Trump benoemde bestuur stemde volgens Beatty ook om het centrum twee jaar te sluiten voor renovaties.