Opalite video reunites host and guests including Domhnall Gleeson and Lewis Capaldi from Swift’s October chatshow appearance
Graham Norton’s chatshow has long been an object of fascination for American stars, wowed by its combined star wattage, glasses of wine and Norton’s own quick-witted, lightly saucy repartee – and Taylor Swift has now taken that fandom to another level.
Norton has been cast in the music video for Opalite, the second single from her album The Life of a Showgirl to receive music video treatment after The Fate of Ophelia. Not only Norton, in fact, but the stars from the guest lineup who sat alongside Swift when she appeared in October 2025: actors Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith, and fellow chart-topping musician Lewis Capaldi.
Continue reading...The job is not done yet, far from it. But on a rainswept evening in West Yorkshire, the collective response from everyone associated with Leeds United for each of their goals left you in no doubt that this had the whiff of a season-defining night.
With Leeds and Nottingham Forest sitting an advantageous but not decisive six points above the relegation zone before kick-off, and 18th-placed West Ham United away to Burnley on Saturday, it felt like both these famous old clubs knew victory here could dramatically shape the remaining three months of the campaign.
Continue reading...A stunning curtain-raiser was a fitting celebration of the host country and the Games – with wider messages never far from the surface
This was an opening ceremony for the ages: effortlessly chic, bewitching and divine. Milan simultaneously delivered a three-hour love letter to Italy, and a plea for hope and harmony in a fractious world.
But not everyone in the 60,000 crowd at San Siro was listening. As the United States team, led by the speedskater Erin Jackson, made its way across the stadium it was loudly applauded. But then the TV cameras panned to the US vice-president, JD Vance, and his wife, Usha, and the cheers turned to loud boos.
Continue reading...Video deleted by White House breaks through numbness barrier and raises further questions about fitness for office
It is a singular if highly dubious distinction of Donald Trump’s pungent contribution to the political discourse to have essentially bankrupted the English language’s capacity for outrage.
So unremitting and extreme have been the avalanche of affronts since Trump descended the golden escalator in Trump Tower in 2015 to declare his presidential candidacy that even his most ardent critics have become desensitized, leading to a level of shock fatigue.
Continue reading...
This is a video of advice for squid fishing in Puget Sound.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Salesforce is essentially shutting down Heroku as an evolving product, moving the cloud platform that helped define modern app deployment to a "sustaining engineering model" focused entirely on stability, security and support.
Existing customers on credit card billing see no changes to pricing or service, but enterprise contracts are no longer available to new buyers. Salesforce said it is redirecting engineering investment toward enterprise AI.
Existing customers on credit card billing see no changes to pricing or service, but enterprise contracts are no longer available to new buyers. Salesforce said it is redirecting engineering investment toward enterprise AI.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Marketing stunt backfires with creators
The first rule of AI-generated job loss is you don't talk about AI-generated job loss ... if you're the company that caused it. Higgsfield.ai, a startup offering AI video creation tools, recently generated outrage when it claimed it had caused artists to hit the unemployment line.…
How Edo (Tokyo) transformed from a city on the brink of ecological collapse 400 years ago to “one of the most sustainable and efficient cities in history”.
💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
MILAAN (ANP) - Vicepresident JD Vance van de Verenigde Staten is bij de openingsceremonie van de Winterspelen in stadion San Siro in Milaan met boegeroep ontvangen. Bij de entree van de grote equipe uit de Verenigde Staten met vlaggendrager Erin Jackson, de olympisch schaatskampioene op de 500 meter, kwam hij in beeld. Daarop was boegeroep en gefluit te horen.
Vance is als gast aanwezig bij de openingsceremonie. De Amerikaanse president Donald Trump is niet in Milaan.
Er is in Italië veel kritiek en protest op de aanwezigheid van de Amerikaanse immigratiedienst ICE bij de Olympische Spelen. De immigratiedienst is volgens de Amerikaanse regering in Italië als onderdeel van de beveiliging van de Amerikaanse delegatie. Dat leidde tot onrust omdat ICE in eigen land hardhandig te werk gaat bij het arresteren van migranten en het onderdrukken van protesten. In de staat Minnesota zijn daarbij twee mensen gedood.
MILAAN (ANP) - Shorttracker Jens van 't Wout heeft vrijdag in Milaan de Nederlandse vlag stadion San Siro binnengedragen tijdens de openingsceremonie van de Olympische Spelen. Tegelijkertijd deed skeletonster Kimberley Bos dat in Cortina d'Ampezzo, dat de 25e editie van de Winterspelen samen met Milaan organiseert.
Van 't Wout werd geflankeerd door acht shorttrackploeggenoten: zijn broer Melle van 't Wout, Xandra Velzeboer, Zoë Florence Deltrap, Michelle Velzeboer, Friso Emons, Itzhak de Laat, Teun Boer en Selma Poutsma. Ook langebaanschaatsers Sebas Diniz, Antoinette Rijpma-de Jong, Jenning de Boo, Kjeld Nuis en Anna Boersma en kunstrijders Michel Tsiba en Daria Danilova liepen mee. Het stadion was redelijk gevuld, maar zat lang niet vol.
Bos kreeg bij de ceremonie in de bergen in Cortina d'Ampezzo gezelschap van bobsleeërs Jelen Franjic, Janko Franjic, Timme Koster, Dave Wesselink en Stephan Huis in 't Veld. In Livigno volgden snowboarders Melissa Peperkamp, Romy van Vreden, Michelle Dekker en Glenn de Blois de opening.
26 van de 39 Nederlandse atleten deden mee. De langebaanschaatsers die zaterdag, zondag en maandag in actie komen, onder wie Joy Beune, Jutta Leerdam en Suzanne Schulting, bleven achter in het olympisch dorp. De openingsceremonie, waarbij de sporters lange tijd op hun benen moeten staan bij lage temperaturen, zit wat NOC*NSF en de begeleiders van TeamNL betreft te kort op hun wedstrijd.
Naast de meervoudige vlaggenparade wordt ook de olympische vlam op twee plekken ontstoken. In Milaan gebeurt dit bij de Arco della Pace. In Cortina d'Ampezzo staat de vlam op Piazza Dibona.
NEW YORK (ANP) - De Dow-Jonesindex is voor het eerst door de grens van 50.000 punten gegaan en daar ook boven geëindigd. Andere beursgraadmeters in New York hebben vrijdag de handelsweek ook positief afgesloten. Chipbedrijven klommen op de beurs na aangekondigde investeringen in AI-datacentra door Amazon en Google-moederbedrijf Alphabet.
Webwinkel en cloudaanbieder Amazon profiteerde zelf niet van de aankondiging dat het de investeringen in AI-infrastructuur flink opvoert. De kapitaaluitgaven kunnen dit jaar oplopen tot 200 miljard dollar. Amazon daalde 5,6 procent.
De Dow-Jonesindex eindigde de dag 2,5 procent hoger op 50.115,67 punten. De S&P 500 steeg bijna 2 procent tot 6932,30 punten, de sterkste stijging sinds mei. Techgraadmeter Nasdaq won 2,2 procent tot 23.031,21 punten, na drie dagen van verlies.
De geopolitieke turbulentie in de wereld is duidelijk merkbaar tijdens de landenoptocht van de openingsceremonie.
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Ze stonden even in de catacomben van San Siro te wachten, maar na een klein uur kwam ook de Nederlandse delegatie het stadion binnen.
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Excelsior heeft goede zaken gedaan in Breda. Nadat de thuisploeg na amper een kwartier voetballen al met tien man kwam te staan, had Excelsior geen kind aan NAC Breda. Door doelpunten van Emil Hansson en Irakli Yegoian in de eerste helft werd het 0-2.
Mauricio Peña, the company's Chief Safety Officer, confirmed under questioning that the Google subsidiary employs human operators abroad [...]
"They provide guidance. They do not remotely drive the vehicles," Peña told the Senate committee. "The Waymo vehicle is always in charge of the dynamic driving tasks, so that is just one additional input."
When pressed on how many operators are located outside the United States, Peña said he did not have the breakdown available, escalating frustration from senators.
"It just seems kind of curious that you don't know that answer," one senator responded, before asking in which countries the operators are located.
"The Philippines," Peña replied. [...]
"Having people overseas influencing American vehicles is a safety issue," the senator said. "The information the operators receive could be out of date. It could introduce tremendous cybersecurity vulnerabilities. We don't know if these people have US driver's licenses." [...]
"It's one thing when a taxi is replaced by an Uber or a Lyft. It's another thing when the jobs just go completely overseas," the senator added.
But hey, at least these jobs aren't being stolen by immigrants!
The insistence on personifying their products eg "the waymo asks for help", "the human recommends" is such a conspicuous odd contortion that it's almost certain there are legal + business imperatives behind it that they don't talk about and won't until a regulator forces them to. [...]
They want to pay remote drivers from whatever country is currently cheapest, none of whom will have US state drivers' licenses. claiming that they're "advising, not driving" is the linchpin of their argument that that's not as illegal and dangerous as it clearly is. they're constructing legal fortifications before the deaths and lawsuits rise.
Let's not forget that these companies are still immune from prosecution when one of their remotely-operated drones commits a moving violation, up to and including a killing. And that Waymo's owner Google have stated in court filings that it is good for business if their competitors' cars kill more people.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously. 