Authorities say they arrested an 18-year-old who was planning a shooting attack at the Mall of America

FBI officials stopped a potential terrorist attack on the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, authorities announced Wednesday. An 18-year-old was arrested on one count of obtaining a firearm to carry out an act of terrorism.

Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud had been investigated over the last nearly two years by the FBI. He was arrested Tuesday in a public park after he paid $600 to an undercover FBI employee posing as a member of the Islamic State for an AK-47 and 200 rounds of ammunition, according to the criminal complaint.

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Bernadette Greene-Placentia says she is sharing her story in order to fight for victims of sexual assault

This article contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault.

A congressional candidate in Arizona says she was attacked and raped in August while trying to repair one of her damaged campaign signs.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organizations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

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Verdict has been a long time coming and the Southampton head coach has recaptured hearts and minds at St Mary’s

“Hi Tonda, are you a cheat?” That simple, succinct, question cut to the heart of a matter that has vexed the Football Association all summer. It was posed by the Northern Echo’s Dominic Shaw after Southampton overcame Middlesbrough in the second leg of May’s Championship playoff semi‑final and proved the cue for Tonda Eckert to walk out of his press conference at St Mary’s.

Although Southampton’s manager subsequently admitted to authorising spying on opponents, England’s football authorities struggled to decide what punishment best fitted an act some regard as heinous but which others fail to take seriously. Now, in autumn, we finally have an FA verdict, with Eckert given a six-week ban suspended until the end of the 2027-28 season, a £28,000 fine and a reprimand.

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RIYAD (ANP/AFP) - De Saudische autoriteiten zeggen dat er drie mensen zijn omgekomen bij luchtaanvallen op internationale vliegvelden. Onder meer de luchthaven van de hoofdstad Riyad is geraakt. De Jemenitische Houthi's hebben de aanvallen opgeëist.

Op het vliegveld van Abha, in het zuidwesten van Saudi-Arabië, werden een Egyptenaar en een Algerijn gedood. In Riyad ging het om een Soedanese burger. In totaal raakten 36 mensen gewond bij aanvallen.

De door Saudi-Arabië geleide militaire coalitie die de regering in Jemen steunt, zegt het lanceerplatform te hebben vernietigd dat de Houthi's zouden hebben gebruikt om raketten af te vuren op Riyad.

De gevechten in Jemen zijn sinds juli weer opgelaaid, na een aanval op een vliegveld van de Houthi's. Die groepering gaf Saudi-Arabië daarvan de schuld, maar dat land ontkende. Daarna namen de Houthi's veel gebied in rond de Rode Zee. Vorige week kondigde het regeringsleger een tegenoffensief aan en claimde het succes.

ARNHEM (ANP) - NOC*NSF zal geen bestuurlijke afvaardiging naar de komende Jeugd Olympische Spelen van Dakar in Senegal sturen. Dat maakte de sportkoepel woensdag bekend op de eigen website. NOC*NSF noemt als redenen het feit dat Rusland onder eigen vlag deelneemt, de Senegalese wetgeving op het gebied van lhbtiq+-rechten en de hoge kosten.

"De Jeugd Olympische Spelen zijn het eerste olympische evenement waar Rusland weer onder eigen vlag deelneemt, waardoor de Nederlandse bestuurlijke vertegenwoordigers sowieso al niet aanwezig zouden zijn bij de ceremoniële momenten", schrijft de sportkoepel.

Er waren in maart ook geen Nederlandse officials bij bijeenkomsten op de Paralympische Spelen in Milaan en Cortina d'Ampezzo, waar de Russische of Belarussische vlag zichtbaar was of waar het volkslied van een van beide landen klonk. De Paralympische Spelen zijn officieel geen onderdeel van de Olympische Spelen.

Rechten

De sportkoepel stelt ook dat "de Senegalese wetgeving op het gebied van lhbtiq+-rechten niet overeenstemt met de uitgangspunten van NOC*NSF". "Overigens spelen ook de hoge kosten een rol; de aanwezigheid van voldoende professionele begeleiders voor de sporters heeft prioriteit."

De Nederlandse sporters werden woensdag gepresenteerd op Papendal. Voor Nederland komen bokser Liz Thijssen, breaker David Kitoyan, handboogschutter Frederique Meijerse, skateboarder Tijmen Overbeek en het beachvolleybalduo Jara Both en Matilda de Groot in actie in Senegal.

De Jeugdspelen van Dakar zijn van 31 oktober tot en met 13 november. Het is de eerste keer dat een olympisch sportevenement op Afrikaanse bodem wordt georganiseerd.

ATHENE (ANP/AFP) - De Amerikaanse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Marco Rubio heeft Europa tijdens een toespraak in Athene opgeroepen om uit zijn "lange sluimerstand" te ontwaken en zichzelf te herpakken. Volgens hem staat de westerse beschaving op dit moment op een keerpunt tussen "nationale macht" en verval.

"Wij geloven dat Europa uit zijn lange sluimer kan ontwaken en het vuur kan laten herleven dat hier millennia geleden werd aangestoken", zei Rubio op een heuvel tegenover de Akropolis. "Overal op dit continent zijn we getuige van wat hopelijk het begin is van een generatiewisseling." Hij verwees onder meer naar de verhoogde defensie-uitgaven bij NAVO-landen.

Rubio greep de locatie van zijn toespraak aan om een verband te leggen met beschavingen uit de oudheid. Volgens hem begrepen de oude Grieken ook al "dat macht niet alleen betekent dat je over de middelen beschikt om jezelf te verdedigen, maar ook dat je geloofwaardig overkomt door te laten zien dat je bereid bent die middelen in te zetten".

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have plugged an agentic AI platform into an X-ray nanoprobe beamline, creating a system that can get a closer look at areas researchers ask it to focus on. Argonne reported the success of an experimental run of the agentic microscope this week, with the device initially tested on its ability to locate the interface between two regions on an integrated circuit device, and all by just telling the microscope what they wanted it to determine using natural language. “Microelectronics was simply the example used to showcase the technology,” Argonne computational scientist Mathew Cherukara said of the project. “The real achievement is developing a next‑generation, AI‑enhanced microscope that can benefit many scientific fields.” The microscope itself is part of Argonne’s 26-ID hard X-ray nanoprobe beamline, which uses a tightly focused X-ray beam to perform nanoscale imaging and measurements of target samples. Such devices are considered a prime use case for scientific applications of AI because they produce a massive amount of data that can take human researchers considerable time to comb through thanks to their use of a technique known as ptychography. The method collects multiple diffraction patterns as X-rays interact with a sample, with modern X-ray experiments capable of generating millions of images in just a few hours of beam time. Conventional ptychographic reconstruction and analysis can take hours or days, whereas Argonne says its AI system can reconstruct images in real time as the data arrives. Argonne’s X-ray nanoprobe beamline is the sort of scientific facility the Trump administration is looking to boost with AI through its Genesis Mission. Launched by President Trump in November 2025 and led by the Department of Energy, Genesis aims to find ways to use AI in scientific research, including the Synergistic Neutron and Photon Science - Intelligence (SYNAPS-I) project that Argonne is undertaking in partnership with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which is leading the effort. Brookhaven National Laboratory, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are also participating in the project. The inclusion of agentic AI in the Argonne X-ray microscope is actually the second phase of the project; the first was simply to see if, as mentioned above, AI could be used to reduce ptychographic image processing time. That was a success, as the lab reported in April, and phase two’s addition of natural language agentic AI appears to have been a win as well. “Combined, these SYNAPS-I advances lay the groundwork for self-driving microscopes, closed-loop experimentation and automated defect-detection tools that promise to accelerate discovery across fields ranging from semiconductor manufacturing to advanced materials and national user facilities,” Cherukara said of the project’s work thus far. In addition to the speed at which the new machine can process data, the conversational AI added in phase two gives researchers the ability to just ask the microscope to examine an area of interest rather than having to figure out how to aim the beam themselves. The AI can not only handle data collection and processing, but also analyze the results itself and flag additional areas of interest, which it can then further investigate on its own. Tao Zhou, a scientist at Argonne, said in a video from the lab that the new, chattier version of the microscope could open up advanced scientific research to researchers who could benefit from X-ray nanoprobe beamline science but don’t know how to operate a complicated instrument like the one at his lab. “This can be a game changer for a lot of users,” Zhou said. “This kind of interactive chat interface allows them to do their scientific research, get excellent data, without having to spend too much time to learn about the beamline components.” “This will help us attract a lot of new users,” Zhou added. Just be sure not to mention toast. ®

Look out, Intel! Microsoft released its first Surface notebook powered by Nvidia's RTX Spark system-on-chip (SoC) during an event in San Francisco on Wednesday. The Surface Laptop Ultra is one of several new Copilot+ PCs powered by the N1X chip that Microsoft says is aimed at "builders," which are available for preorder starting today and expected to begin shipping next week. The machine is arguably the vehicle for a slew of new AI features including hybrid compute functionality that dynamically routes workloads to on-device or cloud models depending on factors like connectivity, privacy, cost, and complexity. The aluminum clad system largely keeps with Microsoft's existing design ethos. It features a high-res, 15-inch mini-LED display capable of reaching a peak brightness of 2,000 nits in Microsoft's signature 3:2 aspect ratio, a standard ten-keyless keyboard layout, haptic trackpad, and a slew of ports including one you won't find on a MacBook Pro. Connectivity includes three USB-C ports, including one equipped with magnets for MagSafe-like connectivity, full-size HDMI, an SD card reader, and a solitary USB-A port because after more than a decade still can't shake the aging connector. But arguably the notebook's most interesting feature is the inclusion of Nvidia's RTX Spark N1X SoC. As we reported earlier this year, these aren't exactly new chips. The N1X is based heavily on Nvidia's now year-old GB10 platform, with a few CPU and GPU cores fused off on lower end models to meet pricing. This tells us that the Surface Laptop Ultra should ship with either an 18- or 20-core CPU designed by MediaTek and Arm and an Nvidia Blackwell-based RTX GPU with between 5,120 and 6,144 cores. In terms of memory, Microsoft says the notebook can be equipped with up to 128 GB of memory, enough to serve large language models up to 284 billion parameters in size, if you can live with just 1.6 bits of precision. As we've previously covered, the GPU is a pretty potent one with a peak theoretical throughput of 1 petaFLOPS at 4-bit precision, not that you're likely ever to see that in many real world workloads. Nvidia's marketing team is leaning on support for 2:4 sparsity to hit that target, so it can theoretically achieve that figure. Unfortunately, almost none of the AI inference workloads anyone cares about these days actually take advantage of the functionality. As a result, the chip's peak performance is actually closer to 500 teraFLOPS, which still gives it an edge over competing chips like AMD's Strix and Gorgon Halo processors. Local AI inference, as we mentioned earlier, is a major selling point for this class of hardware, though Microsoft was also keen to highlight the GPU's capabilities for more traditional creative and gaming workloads, claiming 60 FPS in the latest Gears of War release. We suspect that Nvidia's DLSS AI upscaling tech is probably doing the heavy lifting here. In order to keep the system from overheating, Microsoft says that the Surface Laptop Ultra features a beefed up cooling system with 2.5x more capacity than past Surface notebooks. From the renders we've seen, the extra cooling comes courtesy of a big fat vapor chamber. The Surface is expected to begin shipping next week at a starting price of $2,599 for the poverty-spec gray variant with the lower-end 18-core N1X, 24 GB of unified memory, and 512 GB user serviceable SSD. Jumping up to the 20-core chip, 128 GB of memory, and 1 TB of storage will set you back $5,899, and assuming memory prices haven't gone up even more by then. Alongside the Surface Laptop Ultra, Microsoft also announced a mini PC style development kit based on the N1X priced at $5,999. While by no means cheap, it's still cheaper than the similarly specced DGX Spark, which now retails for $6,950, albeit with 4TB of storage rather than 2TB. The DGX Spark also runs a lightly modified version of Ubuntu, which might be worth the premium for some. If your heart is set on a high-memory config and you don't want to wait for the Surface Laptop Ultra to come back in stock, Lenovo, Asus, Dell, MSI, and HP all are launching similarly specced systems over the next week or so. And if Nvidia isn't your style, it's worth mentioning that AMD has its own AI-tuned chips, which now support up to 192 GB of unified memory, and we strongly suspect will support many of the same hybrid AI features rolling out to Windows 11 over the next few months. ®

Laika is the stop-motion animation studio that made Coraline & Kubo and the Two Strings. Their newest film, Wildwood, looks pretty incredible; have a look at the trailer.

Creative Boom recently highlighted some of the process behind the film, which is heavily dependent on physical sets and puppets.

The man tasked with putting the show together was art director Matthew Maldonado, having spent five years designing and building Wildwood’s sets. So I asked him the million dollar question: how much of Wildwood is physical and how much is digital?

Matthew’s response is simple. “Every single thing was made by hand, truly,” he stresses. “And every single thing that we built was either shot in camera or referenced by our effects department. We’ve got some really wide, expansive locations and there’s some digital aspect to all of that. But if it wasn’t on camera, on stage, it’s a scanned asset or a reference asset, specifically made by the artisans in the art department.”

“The show” referenced in the quote above is Wildwood: The Exhibition, due to open soon at the Design Museum in London.

(via justin lind)

Tags: Laika Studios · movies · stop motion · trailers · video · Wildwood

The History of the Devil, Paul Carus

East of Eden, Valerio Geraci

His stint behind bars offers a window onto the country’s wartime soul.

Wij van de GeenStijl redactie maken onszelf weleens wijs dat deze site om ons draait. Dat is natuurlijk onzin. Wee wee wee punt GeenStijl punt en el draait om u, de klikker, de lezer, en in sommige gevallen: de reaguurder. De roze onderbuik van ieder topic die het tot de Dikke van Dale schopte en al meer dan twintig (TWIN-TIG!) jaren lang in toom werd gehouden door een moderatieteam onder leiding van Onze OpperMod G-Unite, kortweg GU, de grote scherprechter die bepaalde of uw reactie wel of niet binnen de HUISREGELS valt. 

Maar nu niet meer. GU schijnt namelijk ook nog zoiets te hebben als een leven, en in dat leven is, door minder leuke én juist hele leuke omstandigheden, geen plaats meer voor GeenStijl. Dat betekent dat hij al een tijdje gestopt is met modden (vrees niet, Lady Di en de rest houden u nog steeds in de gaten) en hoewel hij eigenlijk met stille trom wilde vertrekken, hebben wij besloten hem nog één keer in de welverdiende zon te zetten. 

Want ga er maar aan staan. Miljoenen al dan niet op een zolderkamer bij elkaar getijpte hersenspinsels van Jan en alleman beoordelen, dag in, dag uit, week in, week uit, en in de weekenden ook nog eens. Een kloteklus, maar wel een kloteklus die door GU met hart en ziel werd uitgevoerd. Niemand kon zo nonchalant door alle reacties scrollen terwijl er een paar meter verder keiharde metal uit concertboxen knalde als GU. Niemand kon zo rustig en soeverein permabans uitdelen, en ze ook weer opheffen als daar op een nette en inhoudelijke manier gevraagd werd, als GU. Niemand kon zo subtiel redacteuren op spel/taal/inhoudsfouten wijzen als GU. En niemand was, nee is, zo'n fijne collega die altijd & overal voor ons klaarstond als GU. Godspeed makker. We gaan je missen. Bedankt voor alles wat je voor ons gedaan hebt.

Groet GU met een kroontje

Peter Kernwein posted a photo:

Peter Kernwein posted a photo:

Peter Kernwein posted a photo:

Peter Kernwein posted a photo:

Peter Kernwein posted a photo: