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Waterhuishouding in Nederland, Stompwijk.Vullen van de Driemanspolder, omdat het water daar anders te zoet wordt.
We need an enlightened US president to make the case for global AI regulation. Donald Trump is the exact opposite of what is needed
When I am woken by the sound of my dog whining, I understand that she is hungry and wants me to get up. When my alarm clock goes off, I don’t consider its needs. It is following an instruction to rouse me at a certain time but it doesn’t care if I stay in bed. It doesn’t try to get me up by other means. The dog, on the other hand, will go to plan B. She barks.
This capacity for autonomous action was once a difference between animals and machines. AI has blurred the line. Advanced models devise their own strategies to reach a goal. The task might be defined by a human master, but the machine weighs its options for delivery. It can make its own choices. Given rules, it can break them.
Continue reading...It looked like it was gone forever, but Jason Sudeikis’s hugely popular show returns with a premise that’s all twee nonsensicality. If you love messages of positivity and togetherness, you’ll be thrilled
Having transported a flailing AFC Richmond to the upper echelons of the Premier League with his wholesome, folksy and highly simile-reliant management style, the finale of Ted Lasso’s third season saw our titular coach return to the US to spend more time with his son in Kansas. At the time (2023), the general impression was that we were waving goodbye for good. But could this intensely American protagonist really do the most British thing of all and bow out at the height of his sitcom’s popularity? Nope. Last year it was announced that its star and co-creator Jason Sudeikis had caved to market forces and was reprising his colossally popular alter ego.
It was the logical thing to do: the 11-time Emmy-winning show was the most-watched streaming original of 2023. Not that logic features heavily in this fourth season. Before we discover how Ted has been lured back to south-west London, we find out what he’s been up to in the interim. Did he parlay his success into US soccer? Return triumphantly to college football? Sit back with his millions and rest on his laurels? Nope, nope and nope again. Instead, he’s working in his local supermarket, warmly greeting his customers by name, providing moral guidance to younger colleagues and generally radiating his trademark howdily-doodily energy. Why? Because he’s a good man without ego who loves to connect and make a positive difference in his community! This is Ted Lasso we’re talking about!
Ted Lasso is on Apple TV
Continue reading...Spanish full-back on moving on from the Emirates Stadium, his elation at his old club ending their title drought, and how Mikel Arteta has helped prolong his career
One day when he was 18 or 19, still near the start of his journey, Héctor Bellerín got a call from Mikel Arteta inviting him round. He remembers asking lunch or dinner but this was neither. “When I arrived that afternoon, he was sitting with a financial adviser and they started to ask: ‘How much do you spend on this?’ ‘How much do you spend on that?’. I was young, I’d just started to make money and spend money: on clothes, cars, the things we all do when you’re not really aware. I was pitching low. I felt embarrassed, ashamed, but I left with a lesson in humility and affection.
“Mikel was the first player who showed me that I was important to him, that I mattered. He demonstrates real care, if not through a hug. I said: ‘Thank you.’ He said: ‘If you do the same for a teammate one day I’m happy.’ The legacy he left is one I try to pass on so young players feel looked after and that’s an experience that defines Mikel very well.”
Continue reading...Plus: worst-ever penalty shoot outs, poachers turned gamekeepers … and footballers donating antiques?!
Mail us with your all of your questions and answers
“Malachi Fagan-Walcott’s final game of last season was for York City against Rochdale in the National League. His first competitive game of 2026-27 season was for Hearts against Sturm Graz in a Champions League qualifier. Has a player ever made a bigger leap in competitive levels between consecutive club games?” asks Tom Reed.
Does a jump from the Welsh League to the FA Cup count as a bigger leap? Probably not, but this was an FA Cup semi-final, rather than a Champions League qualifier, and it’s a cracking yarn regardless. “I’ll nominate Gary Plumley,” writes Russell Connor. “Gary made almost 200 appearances for Newport County in four separate spells over the course of a decade but by 1987 he had effectively retired and was running a wine bar while making occasional appearances for Ebbw Vale in the Welsh League.
Steve Baines, the only referee in the English professional leagues to have had significant experience as a player.
Dick Jol, who refereed the 2001 Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Valencia.
Ben Haverkort, who as a player received 73 yellow cards and six reds, many for verbally abusing referees.
Continue reading...Murphy is back on form with this gorgeously curated, shot and scored adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel – about a serial killer stalking privileged LA teenagers
The world can finally begin to hope again. It looks as though Ryan Murphy has pulled out of his dive and is beginning to find his glorious groove again. The uber-showrunner reached a nadir last year with All’s Fair, a legal drama that was so bad it was existentially awful, garnering a number of rare, zero-star reviews (including mine) and which has duly been commissioned for a second series.
But after All’s Fair came The Beauty. Which was chaotic and underdeveloped but fun. And then there was Love Story, about the short lives and love of JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette, which was pitch-perfect, properly good trash. And now there is The Shards, Murphy’s adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s 80s-set metafictional/autobiographical novel of the same name. I have not read the book. An enfant terrible’s reminiscences are too often simply terrible and I was exhausted by the very idea. But a TV version? Run through the Murphytron? That sounds like a very good idea – and so it has proved. Theirs is a marriage made in pop-culture heaven.
The Shards is on Disney+
Continue reading...World No 2 pulls out of ATP Masters 1000 event in Cincinnati
Spaniard has been sidelined since April with ongoing wrist injury
Carlos Alcaraz has pulled out of the Cincinnati Open due to an ongoing wrist injury, casting fresh doubts over the Spaniard’s fitness ahead of his US Open title defence this month.
The seven-times Grand Slam champion has been sidelined since withdrawing from the Barcelona Open second round in April but had been set to return at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Cincinnati, which he won last year.
Continue reading...CINCINNATI (ANP) - Tennisser Carlos Alcaraz heeft zich vanwege zijn polsblessure teruggetrokken van het masterstoernooi van Cincinnati, dat op 13 augustus begint. Dat meldt tennisorganisator ATP in de nacht van dinsdag op woensdag. Eerder leek de Spanjaard nog zijn rentree te zullen maken in Cincinnati, toen hij half juli op de deelnemerslijst verscheen.
De 23-jarige tennisser is sinds eind april geblesseerd. Daardoor miste hij Roland Garros en Wimbledon. Op de wereldranglijst staat hij nog altijd tweede. Begin dit jaar won hij de Australian Open, het enige grandslamtoernooi waaraan hij meedeed. Het is nog onzeker of Alcaraz op tijd fit is voor de laatste grandslam van het jaar. De US Open begint op 30 augustus.