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Canada heeft de onderhandelingen met de Verenigde Staten over de importtarieven opgeschort. Volgens premier Mark Carney is onvoldoende vooruitgang geboekt om de Canadese belangen te dienen.
Een vertegenwoordiger van de regering-Trump zegt dat het enige doel van de VS is banen en toeleveringsketens veilig te stellen en de productie terug te halen naar de VS.
De Verenigde Staten hanteren vanaf zaterdag een invoerbelasting van 50 procent voor Canadese producten als wijn, hockeysticks en cement. Premier Carney belooft dat Canada de Amerikaanse tarieven "dollar voor dollar" zal beantwoorden.
As fitness-conscious consumers turn away from processed foods, the industry is scrambling for new ideas, including nutrient-rich lollies and protein-packed tubs. Will they take the fun out of this summer treat?
Last month I stood in the biggest ice-cream factory in Britain and watched a 5-metre Viennetta mint-flavoured ice-cream cake get made. The factory – which is owned by the Magnum Ice Cream Company and produces nine different brands of ice-cream – is based in an enormous building in Gloucester, where the air is thick with the scent of custard. I walked past the Twister and Solero sections on my way in, through clouds of tangy fruit, before arriving at the Viennetta assembly line, where everything smelled minty fresh. A Viennetta is built on a conveyor belt by a fully automated system, and watching it take shape was oddly hypnotic. Every few inches a nozzle attached to the belt squirted out a frilly layer of mint ice-cream, then another nozzle smoothed a flat layer of vanilla on top of that, then came a squirt of chocolate sauce, and it was back to frilly mint again. On and on it went, layer upon layer, popping out finished Viennettas at the end of the line at a rate of 200 cakes every 60 seconds.
A slop bucket full of Viennetta overrun stood at the side of the conveyer belt and I fought a strong urge to squelch my fingers into it. Later, the factory operations manager allowed me to push my whole hand into the slop bucket up to the wrist and then lick my hand at a sink, before washing it and resuming the tour.
Continue reading...Rich, velvety nuts are offset by zippy, seasonal berries in a cake for all occasions
Most cakes I can take or leave, but I never regret a slice of almond cake. The density! The chewy crumb! The way it romances butter and other flavours! The ultimate almond cake, in the Sodha house, at least, is Claudia Roden’s orange and almond cake, which is made religiously for special occasions (of which there are many from December to March), but I wanted a more seasonal cake for a good friend’s August birthday. Blackberries are perfect (not least because we’re drowning in them right now), because they provide an excellent, zippy contrast to the almond’s velvety nature.
Continue reading...The weather is unrelentingly glorious, the views are amazing, but I cling to the freelancer’s habit of never quite admitting I’m on holiday
In the summer of 1995, I went on a family holiday to Portugal. On the first day I got a call from a UK magazine, asking if I would be interested in interviewing Meg Ryan, in three days’ time. I looked out to the pool, where my wife and my mother-in-law were pushing my infant son across the water in an inflatable ring.
“Sure,” I said. I broke the news, packed my things, flew to London and, the next day, to LA.
Continue reading...Susan, 74, a retired careers adviser, meets Pete, 72, a retired Methodist minister
What were you hoping for?
A relaxed, friendly lunch with good and fun conversation.
Social media platforms face public ire after fatal crash involving teenagers filming themselves driving on wrong side
Videos often begin with the camera panning across a glowing dashboard as a gloved hand starts the ignition. The camera turns to show figures with masked faces in the rear seat, who are also filming, and swivels back to show the windscreen. Beyond it, a dark cityscape.
The engine throbs, headlights puncture the night and the journey begins, first down a suburban road, then a motorway. The speedometer shows acceleration, the needle juddering as the car gathers velocity.
Continue reading...UK anthology inspired by question: ‘Where are our black and Asian nature writers?’ has boosted interest in genre
A new movement of eco poets from black and brown communities in the UK is challenging the canon of nature poetry against the backdrop of the climate and biodiversity crisis.
Mona Arshi, who co-edited the first UK collection of eco poetry from African, Asian and Caribbean diaspora voices, was inspired to put the anthology together after asking in a social media post that went viral: “Where are all our black and Asian nature writers?”
It’s time to write about daffodils
again.
The Sussexes are returning to the UK with significantly reduced media deals in an industry where fame alone can no longer guarantee success
Having settled in California in the aftermath of their dramatic decoupling from the royal family in 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced a partnership that appeared to set a clear destination for their new lives outside the House of Windsor.
With every global media stable clamouring for their signature, the couple revealed a deal with Netflix reportedly worth $100m. The ambitions were lofty and broad, including scripted and unscripted projects, shows for all ages and documentaries.
Continue reading...It’s clear here in Silicon Valley that AI is advancing faster than humans’ ability to control it. That means even sober prophecies seem optimistic
Here in Silicon Valley, the experts think that within the next couple of years we’ll see an extraordinary takeoff for artificial intelligence. “Welcome to the foothills of the singularity,” as a Stanford University friend greeted me. More prosaically, the imminent breakthrough is described as “recursive self-improvement” – the point at which AI itself trains each successive model of AI, resulting in an exponential development to something which, in many significant respects, is more intelligent than us humans.
As Robert Wright puts it in his book The God Test: “Never before has the near-term future … held such a wide array of not-implausible paths for humankind that would be so wildly transformative.” But will this be heaven or hell? Heaven, says Elon Musk, who predicts “an age of amazing abundance” – although he also sees a 10-20% chance of killer robots murdering us all. Hell is more likely according to Geoffrey Hinton, one of the intellectual founding fathers of AI. “My intuition is, we’re toast,” he told an interviewer in 2023. And talking to Sebastian Mallaby, author of The Infinity Machine, a book about the quest for superintelligence, Hinton estimates p(doom) – the probability of human extinction – at 50%, “because I haven’t got a clue how to estimate the real number”. “As soon as evolution [of AI] kicks in, we’re fucked,” he adds cheerfully. But whether it’s God or Godzilla, artificial superintelligence is just around the corner.
Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Mark Carney accuses Washington of ‘unfair’ last-minute changes to deal, as US and Canada fail to reach agreement after three-day extension of talks
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney has promised to match US tariffs “dollar for dollar”, after the two sides failed to agree a trade deal by the deadline of midnight on Friday.
Canadian officials had worked hard in good faith but “last-minute changes in the US proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal”, Carney said in a statement.
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