ANKARA (ANP) - De voorlopige overeenkomst die de Verenigde Staten en Iran hadden gesloten is "voorbij", zegt president Donald Trump. Het is volgens hem "tijdverspilling" om met dat "stelletje leugenaars" te praten. Trump reageerde boos op de nieuwe vijandelijkheden tussen de beide landen. De VS voerden luchtaanvallen uit nadat Iran volgens de VS schepen in de Straat van Hormuz had bestookt.

UTRECHT (ANP) - Kinderen van 4 tot en met 11 jaar reizen vanaf volgend jaar onder begeleiding gratis met het openbaar vervoer in heel Nederland. Dat meldt DOVA, een samenwerkingsverband van provincies en regio's die hierover gaan. De organisatie maakt daarnaast bekend dat een landelijke korting voor alle mensen vanaf 65 jaar en ouder in bus, tram en metro stopt op 1 januari volgend jaar.

Gratis reizen voor kinderen geldt nu al in de trein en in sommige regio's en wordt met dit besluit uitgebreid naar alle bussen, trams en metro's. Volgens het samenwerkingsverband ontstaat daarmee "één duidelijke en herkenbare regeling voor kinderen in het hele openbaar vervoer".

DEN HAAG (ANP) - Cabaretier Harrie Jekkers krijgt een eigen miniatuurbeeld in de Haagse miniatuurstad Madurodam. Dat heeft het management van Jekkers bevestigd na berichtgeving van Omroep West. Het exemplaar geldt als eerbetoon voor de 75-jarige zanger, die dit weekend definitief afscheid neemt van het podium in de Koninklijke Schouwburg in Den Haag.

Tijdens zijn een na laatste show, die zaterdag plaatsvindt, krijgt Jekkers het standbeeldje overhandigd door onder anderen beeldmaker Mitchell Duivesteijn. Het kunstwerk wordt vervolgens geplaatst op het Harrie Jekkersplein in Madurodam, waar het vanaf 12 juli te zien is. Op die middag geeft de Haagse komiek zijn allerlaatste voorstelling.

Jekkers werd geboren in de Schilderswijk in Den Haag en schreef onder meer het beroemde nummer Oh, oh, Den Haag uit 1982 en zong het onder de naam Harry Klorkestein. Ook was hij jarenlang de zanger van de band Klein Orkest. Daarnaast maakte hij tien theaterprogramma's waarmee hij volle zalen trok. In september vorig jaar kondigde de artiest aan dat hij zou stoppen met optreden.

What Should I Be Today? is an original art toy-inspired character illustration series. Marco appears in different costumes based on animals and symbolic themes, with each illustration designed to showcase a unique personality through playful situations and storytelling.

A campaign group has written to the UK health minister to force him to clarify data used by the government in Parliament to justify its controversial £330 million investment in a data-sharing system supported by Palantir. The Register understands that the UK's regulator for the use of statistics in the public sector is assessing how the government is using data to justify its use of Palantir technology. The move follows an investigation challenging claims by NHS England that as of June, 139 trusts used the Federated Data Platform (FDP), with 137 reporting benefits. An Inpatient Care Coordination Solution (CCS) tool based on the FDP had resulted in 111,589 additional patients undergoing procedures in operating theatres, it said. However, a Freedom of Information request from campaign group Foxglove later found that nearly a third of NHS trusts using Palantir's health data platform were performing fewer patient procedures than before it went live. Foxglove also said Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust accounted for 84 percent of the reported fall in outpatient waiting lists, while only 16 trusts were using the tool provided by the US firm. Writing to James Murray, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Foxglove noted that NHS England had said in documentation that it was inappropriate to "draw conclusions about cause and effect as other variables have not been controlled for" in its published FDP data. Foxglove said: "The claim that Palantir's FDP has delivered a large number of additional operations has been widely repeated." In June, health minister Preet Kaur Gill said in a written response to Parliament: "Since March 2024, more than 100,000 additional patients have been supported to undergo procedures in theatres partly by increasing theatre utilisation." The minister made a similar claim to the Health Select Committee later that month, and at no point did she mention NHS England's admission that this claim cannot be substantiated, Foxglove pointed out. Writing for Foxglove, advocacy director Donald Campbell asked why a "clarification had not been made to Parliament or in other public ministerial statements." The Office for Statistics Regulation, the regulatory arm of the UK Statistics Authority, said it was assessing the information around NHS England's claims about the FDP's performance. In a statement to the Health Service Journal, an NHS England spokesperson said: "We have received correspondence from the Office for Statistics Regulation and will be responding in due course. "The published benefits have always been a comparison of performance before and after the adoption of the NHS federated data platform, and we regularly review the published information and provide updates where needed." The UK government said the £330 million FDP was vital to improving NHS productivity and recovering from the long waiting lists for elective care caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Palantir's work with the NHS began began with a £1 deal in 2020, which later led to a total of £60 million in contracts awarded without competition during the pandemic. In April, the government confirmed it was reviewing the use of a break clause in the current contract to end work with Palantir in February next year. However, then-junior health minister Zubir Ahmed defended the program, saying: "The NHS England Programme Team work with trusts and integrated care boards to understand their plans to maximize the benefits of the NHS FDP." In June, a cross-party committee of MPs said the government should ditch Palantir from its FDP contract because of vendor lock-in and the need to develop sovereign technology. ®

AI continues to evolve at pace. The novelty of generative models producing their own content is already giving way to the buzz around agentic systems that can set goals autonomously and execute multi-step workflows without human involvement. Each staging post on AI's journey raises the bar for compute resources and demands more powerful processing. But in the headlong dash towards newer and more specialized architectures, and amid the fuss that greets each silicon innovation, the industry is overlooking something important: beyond a certain scale, AI's biggest challenge is not compute but data storage. AI's trajectory towards human-like reasoning is driving exponential growth in data volume. Better AI needs better data in ever-increasing quantities, which raises the question of what to do with all that information. Picturing today's AI datacenters as giant compute systems is only half right. They are also data storage systems. The principal battleground in the AI arms race lies just as much at the storage layer as in chip development. The focus on compute capabilities alone in AI discourse is a legacy of the technology's origins, argues Nicolas Frapard, senior manager and regional lead, EMEAI at WD (also known as Western Digital). "Early on, AI's challenge was simply to make models work reliably and at scale," he points out. "That naturally put the spotlight on GPUs, accelerators, interconnect bandwidth, and overall compute density. Questions centered on how quickly models could be trained, how large they could become, and how efficiently clusters could scale. In that context, compute became a clear and measurable indicator of progress." Sustained, large-scale deployment expands the focus to the management and housing of information resources. The profit and loss implications of AI also change with scale: "As AI adoption expands to billions of interactions, data growth becomes structural rather than incidental," believes Frapard. "That has direct economic consequences. While compute tends to become more efficient over successive generations, data volumes continue to expand, driving sustained storage demand." Total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) increasingly depend on how well organizations store and manage large-scale data estates. At exabyte scale, even small inefficiencies become magnified, which makes a lifecycle-driven approach to storage essential. Getting back to a balanced approach Those exploring AI-friendly storage strategies will have to grapple with a common myth. In recent years, IT decision-makers have been drip-fed the idea that storage tiers are irrelevant, and that hybrid architectures spreading data across different media according to need are redundant. For enterprises operating at scale, HDDs remain the backbone of storage architecture, providing the only viable way to store vast and growing datasets economically. Despite persistent narratives around all-flash environments, disk continues to underpin majority of enterprise data. But just as with the debate over compute versus storage, economics poses awkward questions once teams reach a certain scale of deployment. On a properly measured cost-per-terabyte basis, flash can clock in at up to 20 times more expensive than HDD. This does not negate the value of flash, but reinforces its role as one component within a broader architecture. The cost gap between flash and HDD was once expected to narrow until it would threaten the logic of disk drives. That never happened . In fact the gap has widened. Flash doesn't look set to become applicable across the board in any foreseeable timeframe . "The 'flash everywhere' approach emerged for similar reasons as the compute-centric view – at small scale when performance was the primary concern and data volumes were manageable, it was a good choice," explains Frapard. Flash offers low latency and high throughput, both critical for latency-sensitive workloads such as real-time inference. In early architectures, these requirements were often generalized across the entire system. But scale and maturity change the calculus. "At production scale, only a small proportion of data requires high-speed access," he points out. "The majority, such as logs, historical outputs, and training artifacts, should be stored reliably, accessed predictably, and retained economically over long periods. This is where HDDs becomes essential." High-performance storage such as flash has its place in any tiered arrangement. It sits close to compute, but the bulk of data is best housed in capacity-optimized HDD layers, where cost efficiency, density, durability, and energy consumption become the deciding factors. AI that delivers any meaningful return on investment requires a strategy that recognizes this and aligns storage technologies with data lifecycles, rather than applying a single performance standard across all data regardless of cost. Striking that balance reconciles scalability with long-term sustainability. HDD solutions optimized for the age of AI Data storage veteran WD has repositioned itself to help guide IT decision makers through this AI data conversation. Roughly 90 percent of its revenue now comes from AI and cloud. WD's latest storage roadmap reinvents the hard drive for AI needs. It has already produced a new generation of storage technologies spanning scalable capacity, performance optimizations, and power efficiency innovations. It also offers a API that will help accelerate platform storage deployment with cost-effective economics. "WD's position is rooted in a simple but important principle," explains Frapard: "At scale, AI is fundamentally a data system, and high-capacity HDD storage is what enables it to function sustainably and economically. Our strength lies in supporting that foundation across different tiers, particularly where scale and economics intersect." WD's portfolio, spanning high-capacity, energy-efficient drives as well as performance-oriented solutions, is designed with hyperscale and cloud use cases in mind. It focuses on balancing density, durability, and cost efficiency for large-scale AI workloads. The vendor's mission centers on enabling a system-level approach in which data can move between tiers, be retained economically, and remain accessible for ongoing use. "Ultimately, the long-term success of AI will not be defined solely by peak compute performance, but by how effectively organizations can manage and build value from their data over time," concludes Frapard, "That is the layer where WD is focused." Looking to the future At scale, IT decision-makers must prioritize data management rather than fixating on how much compute they need to deploy. Getting this balance right determines whether AI delivers sustained business value or drains resources for no obvious return. This is the central AI challenge for enterprises, and equally for emerging AI scalers such as neoclouds, sovereign clouds, and AI labs. All must control their data storage now or face bottlenecks, economic shortfalls, and failed AI initiatives further down the line. Hyperscalers and large cloud datacenters operating mixed-fleet storage architectures are already demonstrating the way forward. These systems incorporate enough flash to drive performance-sensitive workloads, combined with high-capacity HDD storage to support the vast amount of data that underpins AI systems at scale. The winners have figured out that IT infrastructure at scale is a nuanced, multi-tiered matter. The prize for getting this balance right goes beyond keeping a lid on accumulated data. It is the chance to lift the whole organization to a new level. "The real opportunity lies not simply in governing data, but in building systems where data remains accessible, reusable, and economically viable over time," explains Frapard. "When this is achieved, data becomes a strategic asset rather than an operational burden." AI systems, he says, improve through iteration when supported by the right data strategy. The ability to retain and reintroduce historical data enables continuous refinement, richer context, and better outcomes. Over time, this creates a compounding effect that can set organizations apart competitively. "However, this depends on architecture," he says. "If storage becomes constrained – either economically or operationally – organizations are forced into trade-offs about what to retain or discard. Those decisions directly impact the effectiveness of AI systems." The organizations that lead, he concludes, will be those that design their infrastructure with data longevity in mind, enabling them to build knowledge progressively rather than losing their critical institutional data over time . Sponsored by WD.

Gianni Infantino heeft gereageerd op Argentinië-Egypte (3-2), een wedstrijd met een afgekeurde goal voor Egypte, een penalty voor Argentinië, een rode kaart voor Egypte en de VAR die niet ging kijken naar een mogelijke overtreding voorafgaand aan het winnende doelpunt. Hoewel er veel gesproken wordt over de al dan niet partijdige arbitrage dit WK, bezweert de FIFA-voorzitter maar alvast dat er van politieke inmenging ditmaal geen sprake is. “Om alle geruchten voor te zijn: Javier Milei heeft me niet gebeld voor deze wedstrijd hoor, deze krijgen ze gewoon van het huis.”

Infantino vindt het “vervelend” dat er, sinds het telefoontje van Donald Trump over de schorsing van Folarin Balogun, wordt geïnsinueerd dat hij nu door allerlei wereldleiders gebeld zou worden over het verloop van het WK. “Helemaal niks van waar. Dat zijn allemaal wilde complottheorieën, daar moet je niet naar luisteren. Het is niet zo dat we onder druk gezet worden om Argentinië en Messi ver te laten komen dit WK. Als het wel gebeurt, dan moet je weten: dat hebben we helemaal zelf besloten.”

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Stiekeme corruptie is toch te verkiezen boven openlijke corruptie. Dat blijkt in de huidige tijd.

"Het zijn opmerkelijke conclusies", zegt deskundige Bert Bokhoven. "We voelen van nature allemaal weerzin tegen schimmige achterkamertjes en vriendjespolitiek. Maar als het schaamteloos in het volle licht gebeurt is het toch nog minder goed te pruimen. Terwijl je zou zeggen dat je dan in ieder geval weet waar je aan toe bent."

Bokhoven vermoedt dat hoop een rol speelt. "Als het stiekem plaatsvindt, kun je nog tegen beter weten in hopen dat het bestraft zou worden áls het bekend werd. Nu zien we dat het in het geheel geen gevolgen heeft. Dat maakt ons moedeloos."

Als de conclusies niet bevallen, is Bokhoven bereid ze voor de juiste prijs aan te passen.

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Officials said drones targeted industrial facilities, while unverified reports claimed multiple oil refineries were damaged across Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his military struck oil refineries in the Saratov region and republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan.

wing of kaz has added a photo to the pool:

福岡県田川市、三井寺（平等寺） / Mitsui-ji (Byōdō-ji), Tagawa City, Fukuoka Prefecture

There are far better ways to tackle climate breakdown, but successive governments have chosen to listen to the fossil fuel companies instead

The new prime minister will be looking for money? Well, here’s £21.7bn lying on the ground. The government could cancel its deranged, disastrous carbon capture and storage (CCS) programme at no cost to public welfare: in fact, it would greatly reduce the harm we will suffer.

Sorry, did I say £21.7bn? That’s the figure the government has been putting in its press releases for spending on this programme between now and 2050. But this covers only the first phase of the project. The climate experts Dr Andrew Boswell and Simon Oldridge worked through the data produced by the government’s Climate Change Committee, which was scattered across different spreadsheets, and discovered that the projected cost of the full CCS programme between now and 2050 is £264bn.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

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The chills are genuinely spooky in this haunted-house tale about contemporary precarity – a debut that speaks to our times

There are, MR James tells us, five conditions that must be met for a perfect ghost story: the pretence of truth, a “pleasing terror”, no explanation of the machinery, no gratuitous horror, and that the story belong to the writer’s (and reader’s) “own day”. In Lauren Mooney’s sharply observed debut novel, Danielle lives a precarious existence as a PA at a dilettante arts charity called Hodgepodge (strapline: “for ideas”). She types emails, makes tea and increasingly finds herself running personal errands for her monstrous boss Jeannie. Jeannie seems to see no difference between working for the charity, and working for her.

After a horrible breakup, Danielle finds herself unexpectedly homeless. With no savings, no bank of Mum and Dad, and no room left in her overdraft, she winds up staying alone in Jeannie’s ancestral home, a rambling pile in the middle of nowhere. “We could do with somebody to take care of the place,” Jeannie says, as Danielle bursts into uncharacteristic tears. “You’d be doing us a huge favour.”

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Hackney-based visual arts charity Autograph has received the entire photographic estate of Jamaican-British photographer Armet Francis – a major gift that brings more than 70,000 images into their permanent photography collection

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The first two Wallace and Gromit films see the pair blasting off for the moon in search of cheese, and trying to foil a heist by Feathers McGraw

Each heralded by composer Julian Nott’s wonderful and unmistakable brass-band march theme, the first two of Nick Park’s Wallace and Gromit films are now rereleased in cinemas; they are simply great family entertainment.

A Grand Day Out (★★★★★) from 1989 is a terrifically funny sci-fi adventure which gives us a hilarious teatime shot of inventor Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis) and his faithful canine companion and helpmeet Gromit sitting placidly side by side in armchairs and in a front parlour that was surely very old-fashioned even in 1989. It was only on watching this again that I realised who they reminded me of: David Hockney’s mum and dad in his famous portrait My Parents.

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Over president Maduro wordt in Venezuela nauwelijks meer gesproken, een half jaar na zijn ontvoering door de Verenigde Staten. Inwoners hopen dat er nu echt een transitie komt. „We willen hier geen Trump. We willen eerlijke en vrije verkiezingen.”

Foto: Maurice de Hond bij een andere belangrijke ondervragingscommissie

Schakelen we LIVE over naar Den Haag voor de parlementaire enquêtecommissie COJONA (†) waar het nu echt lachen wordt. De 'critici'. Dready dansmarieke en allround vervelende kerel Wimpie Engel smeeeeeekt om na 500 verloren rechtszaken serieus genomen te worden, maar Willem is gek, dus die wordt natuurlijk genegeerd. Wél welkom de enige echte Peilkoning en Dogfather Maurice de Hond, die al snel stelde dat het virus zich verspreidde via aerosolen en daarbij hamerde op ventileren, mondkapjes, ventileren en ventileren. Het RIVM wist niks maar dacht het allemaal beter te weten: we waren erg druk met het wassen van onze handjes, we moesten alleen in de auto met een mondkapje achter het stuur en als we een bekende tegenkwamen mochten we 'm van Mark Rutte een ongemakkelijk elleboogje geven, hi hi, ha ha. Alle critici werden door de Markjes en Hugootjes (die echt he-le-maal niks kan) weggezet als wappie, zoals Willem de Wappie inderdaad een wappie is maar Maurice de Hond en Mona Keijzer géén wappies zijn. Keijzer, die als stas Klimaat en EZ werd ONTSLAGEN vanwege kritiek op het coronatoegangsbewijs, komt vanmiddag aan de beurt. PAPIERE BITTE! Wat een tijd was het. Na de klik.