• American still preparing for Milano Cortina Games

• ‘Thank you for the love and support I have received’

Lindsey Vonn sat out a World Cup super-G race Saturday after crashing and injuring her left knee a day earlier, but remains on track for the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, her coach revealed.

“No, she is not racing today but preparing for Cortina as usual,” Chris Knight, Vonn’s personal head coach, said in a text message. Vonn then posted on Instagram: “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to race today. Thank you for all of the love and support I have received. Means the world to me. Doing my best right now …”

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First lady’s big-screen documentary premieres with criticisms over $28m payday and questions over relevancy

Donald and Melania Trump were walking a charcoal-coloured carpet beneath a stark black-and-white “MELANIA” backdrop. “Do you believe you’d be the man you are today if you hadn’t met your wife?” a reporter asked the US president.

Trump smiled and said: “He’s asking me a very dangerous question!” He went on to praise his wife without answering. When the reporter put the same question to Melania, she ventured: “Well, we will all be in different places, I guess.” With a nervous laugh, she turned to look at Trump and asked, “Right?”

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Hundreds of parents, teens and school districts have claimed social media is intentionally addictive and harmful

Social media companies will have to answer to a jury – for the first time – for allegations that their products are intentionally addictive and harmful to young users’ mental health. Hundreds of parents, teens and school districts sued Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube, leading to a series of landmark trials that began this week. Jury selection in the first case started on Tuesday in Los Angeles court.

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg is among the big tech CEOs who are expected to testify. Both sides are likely to bring in experts to hash out the science behind alleged addiction to social media.

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Gabrielle Goliath says Gayton McKenzie violating freedom of expression after ‘highly divisive’ artwork Elergy banned from SA pavilion

A South African artist is suing the arts minister after he blocked her from representing the country at the Venice Biennale, having called her work addressing Israel’s killing of Palestinians in Gaza “highly divisive”.

Gabrielle Goliath filed the lawsuit last week, with Ingrid Masondo, who would have curated the pavilion, and the studio manager, James Macdonald. It accuses Gayton McKenzie of acting unlawfully and violating the right to freedom of expression and demands the high court reinstates her participation by 18 February, the deadline for confirming installations with biennale organisers.

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Sanae Takaichi may seemingly have old-fashioned values, but it’s her economic offering that has captured young people’s imaginations

Japan has rarely seen a prime minister as bold or as social media-savvy as Sanae Takaichi, the country’s first female leader.

Where previous prime ministers have gone viral for unflattering moments, such as the spectacle of one scoffing an onigiri in one messy gulp or another caught dozing off in the parliament during a key vote, Takaichi is being read by supporters as a symbol of a different era of leadership – one they feel Japan has lacked in recent years.

Karin Kaneko is a freelance journalist and a former reporter for the Japan Times

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The comedian on getting sacked from TK Maxx, looking permanently hungover, and his 90s crush

Born in London, Seann Walsh, 40, began doing standup in 2006. He was on Strictly Come Dancing in 2018 and I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! in 2022. His podcast is Class Clown and he co-hosts Oh My Dog! (with Jack Dee) and What’s Upset You Now? His tour, This Is Torture, starts on 13 February. He lives in London with his partner and two children.

What is your earliest memory?
My dad had loads of friends round, all smoking heroin and singing me Happy Birthday. I was three or four.

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The 38-year-old master perfectly understands the measure of the challenge against the young pretender

Novak Djokovic had barely even begun to digest the madness of one of his great late-career victories, still fighting back tears on Rod Laver Arena, when he was asked by his on-court interviewer to cast his mind ahead to the final.

After his monumental five-set Australian Open semi-final win over Jannik Sinner, where he matched the quality, intensity and athleticism of one of the two commanding players in men’s tennis, he was immediately reminded that Carlos Alcaraz, the other dominant player, was next: “I just hope that I’ll have enough gas to stay toe to toe with him,” said Djokovic. “That’s my desire, then let the gods decide the winner.”

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The US Department of Justice released more than three million pages of files on Friday

Jeffrey Epstein sent thousands of pounds in bank transfers after his release from prison in 2009 to Peter Mandelson’s husband, according to emails published by the US Department of Justice on Friday.

The latest documents raise fresh questions about Epstein’s relationship with Mandelson, who was sacked as the UK’s ambassador to Washington when details of his support for the disgraced financier emerged in September.

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SANTA CLARA (ANP/RTR) - De megadeal die het Amerikaanse chipbedrijf Nvidia en het bedrijf achter de populaire chatbot ChatGPT, OpenAI, in september hadden gesloten is vastgelopen. Dit zeggen ingewijden tegen zakenkrant The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Sommige mensen binnen het chipbedrijf zouden twijfelen over het plan om tot 100 miljard dollar te investeren in OpenAI.

Volgens de bronnen heeft Nvidia-topman Jensen Huang in besloten kring de kans afgezwakt dat de deal wordt afgerond. Ook heeft hij tegenover branchegenoten benadrukt dat de overeenkomst niet-bindend en niet definitief is. Wel zouden de bedrijven nauw blijven samenwerken. De recentste besprekingen hierover zouden gaan over een aandeleninvestering van tientallen miljarden dollars als onderdeel van de huidige financieringsronde van OpenAI.

De bronnen melden ook dat Huang kritiek heeft geuit op een gebrek aan discipline in de zakelijke aanpak van OpenAI en bezorgdheid heeft getoond over de concurrentie van onder meer Google.

WASHINGTON (ANP) - Elon Musk zegt opnieuw de uitnodigingen te hebben afgewezen om een eiland van zedendelinquent Jeffrey Epstein te bezoeken. Vrijdag meldde CNN op basis van nieuwe vrijgegeven documenten dat de miljardair en topman van Tesla via e-mail een trip probeerde te regelen, al bleef onduidelijk of Musk het eiland daadwerkelijk heeft bezocht.

"Ik had heel weinig contact met Epstein en heb herhaaldelijk uitnodigingen afgewezen om naar zijn eiland te gaan of met zijn 'Lolita Express' te vliegen", stelt hij zaterdag in een reactie op een gebruiker van zijn socialemediaplatform X. Hij zegt dat hij zich er goed van bewust is dat "sommige e-mailcorrespondentie met hem verkeerd geïnterpreteerd kan worden en door tegenstanders gebruikt zou kunnen worden om mijn naam te besmeuren". Eerder zei Musk ook al dat hij een uitnodiging had geweigerd.

Verder meldt hij het belangrijk te vinden "dat we op zijn minst proberen degenen te vervolgen die ernstige misdaden met Epstein hebben gepleegd".

I can't believe this exists. Someone did a 15 minute documentary on Whale, one of my favorite 90s bands. They only had two albums but I have 14 CDs by them, which might be their entire output. So Pixies influenced! So sleazy! (Their grungey-slow-grind cover of Darling Nikki is just... *chef's kiss*.) Tricky co-wrote/produced half their first album, before Maxinquaye.

I finally got to see them live in 1998 opening for Tricky on the Angels with Dirty Faces tour at The Fillmore, and they killed it, and then I saw them again headlining the following night at Bimbo's, and nobody came, and they were clearly angry about that and kinda jerky. I forgave them and loved them anyway.

Eye 842. Eye 842.

peaceful-jp-scenery has added a photo to the pool:

Kamikochi, Kappa Bridge
上高地・河童橋

Kappa Bridge and monkeys. The monkeys in Kamikochi are used to people.

河童橋とお猿さん。上高地のお猿さんは人に慣れています。

Matsumoto city, Nagano pref, Japan

etsu2 has added a photo to the pool:

The Takase River (高瀬川, Takase-gawa) is a canal in excavated in the early Edo period in the city of Kyoto, Japan to transport various goods and resources. It made a great contribution to the development of the city and economic growth at that time. It was used for water transport between Kyoto and Fushimi for about 300 years from its excavation until 1920.

peaceful-jp-scenery posted a photo:

Kamikochi, Kappa Bridge
上高地・河童橋

Kappa Bridge and monkeys. The monkeys in Kamikochi are used to people.

河童橋とお猿さん。上高地のお猿さんは人に慣れています。

Matsumoto city, Nagano pref, Japan

Vanillasludge posted a photo:

Many European CSPs are being cut loose, sources say, forcing customer transitions

exclusive  Broadcom this week brought the hammer down on the Advantage Partner Program for VMware Cloud Service Providers (VCSPs) – and the clock is now ticking for any third parties working to close sales.…

In Dalen (gemeente Coevorden, provincie Drenthe) is vogelgriep vastgesteld op een leghennenbedrijf. Om verspreiding van het virus te voorkomen, heeft het ministerie van Landbouw, Visserij, Voedselzekerheid en Natuur (LVVN) besloten de circa 15.000 kippen op de locatie te laten ruimen door de Nederlandse Voedsel- en Warenautoriteit (NVWA).

Op de hoofdrijbaan van de A15 van Europoort naar Rotterdam is bij Rotterdam-Charlois een containervrachtwagen geschaard. Door het ongeluk is de weg dicht.