De verhouding tussen landelijke en lokale overheden was, als het om financiën ging, de afgelopen jaren stroef.

Deze maand moet het kabinet eindelijk met Tata Steel tot een deal komen over de vergroening van de staalfabriek in IJmuiden. De deal moet ook leiden tot gezondheidswinst voor omwonenden. Maar de twijfel groeit of overheid en bedrijf er wel uitkomen. Deze acht dilemma’s spelen nog.

In een interview op de Sierra Leonese televisie zei minister David van Weel van Justitie de druk op Sierra Leone te blijven opvoeren om een uitlevering van de drugscrimineel, die zich in het land ophoudt, voor elkaar te krijgen. ,,Onprofessioneel en smakeloos”, aldus de eerste minister van het land.

Wat jarenlang sciencefiction was, is nu gebeurd: deze zomer spanden agents van OpenAI samen om hun menselijke makers te misleiden. Experts, AI-bedrijven en politici reageren geschokt op nieuwe zorgelijke details. Er dreigt een „catastrofaal en onomkeerbaar verlies van controle”, volgens OpenAI zelf.

Kleine bierbrouwerijen betalen nu minder accijns dan grote brouwerijen. Het kabinet wil deze compensatiemaatregel schrappen, zou blijken uit de uitgelekte Miljoenennota. Dat heeft gevolgen voor de brouwers, die dan niet meer kunnen concurreren met merken als Swinckels of Heineken.

Het kabinet geeft uitvoering aan de afspraak uit het coalitieakkoord om in de komende jaren véél meer aan Defensie uit te geven.

In New York en op vele andere plekken in de Verenigde Staten zijn vrijdagochtend lokale tijd de aanslagen van 9/11 van vijfentwintig jaar geleden herdacht.

Het klinkt hoopvol, maar weinig Tweede Kamerleden zullen het heel serieus nemen: volgens het kabinet-Jetten is er de komende jaren fors minder geld nodig voor asiel en migratie.

Keeping people in charge means little if supercomputers determine the evidence, choices and time on which their decisions depend

If there were a 10% chance that AI could wipe out humanity, no responsible government would leave its development to companies racing to build it. Yet until recently, that seemed to be the case. The warning was all the more ominous because it was made by a researcher at Anthropic, the trillion-dollar AI company behind the Claude chatbot. The dangers of AI-enabled pandemics or attacks on nuclear systems are real. Countries need not agree on democracy or trade policy to accept this.

The US and China will hold, reportedly, their first bilateral AI-safety talks before a planned White House summit between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Despite their tech rivalry, neither Washington nor Beijing can make the most advanced AI safe on their own. A US-China settlement won’t be able to say how AI works everywhere. Countries deploying AI must help write the global rulebook. The odds on an extinction event are shortening. This week Anthropic said that it identified five cases in which attempts were made using its models to support biological weapons development. It banned the accounts. In one case, a platform sent requests rejected by Claude to a rival with weaker safeguards. AI safety, clearly, cannot be that of the least responsible model.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Continue reading...

Audacious robberies are a staple of popular culture. But for museums, crimes like this week’s theft of two Renoirs are an existential threat

Marc Allégret’s 1956 comedy Plucking the Daisy stars a young Brigitte Bardot as a first-time author who breaks into the Balzac house museum in Paris under the mistaken impression that her brother lives there. The plot revolves around her unwitting theft of an extremely rare book – and performance of a striptease in a desperate effort to raise the cash to buy it back.

Seventy years on, the lax security that could make such a sequence of events even vaguely plausible is no longer a joke. Museums across the world are scrambling to react to a spate of thefts that has left them in a state of shock. Last year’s break-in at the Louvre, by a gang who gained access using a furniture lift and took €88m (£76m) worth of French crown jewels, is thought by experts to have inspired copycat crimes. While French police believe that they have caught the culprits, treasures including a tiara have not been found.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Continue reading...

• Pinarello Q36.5 rider Dunbar wins stage by 14 seconds

• Mas maintains his 1min 37sec cushion in red jersey race

Irishman Eddie Dunbar secured a stunning last-ditch victory on stage 19 of the Vuelta a España as Spaniard Enric Mas maintained his overall lead with only one mountain stage remaining before Sunday’s finale.

The 30-year-old caught and passed Colombian Santiago Buitrago with just 300 metres left of the mountainous 210km slog from Vélez-Málaga to Peñas Blancas.

Continue reading...

Many are rooting for vocal critic Catherine Connolly to let rip in Dublin meeting, but others hope she holds back

Ireland’s president, Catherine Connolly, has called Donald Trump abhorrent and an abuser of power. In his sole previous comment on Connolly, the US president seemed to think she was a man. Now that they are about to meet, Ireland is holding its breath.

Trump is to fly into Dublin on Saturday morning for a two-day visit centred on golf but, before making it to his beloved greens, protocol obliges him to meet a woman who has given every impression of loathing him.

Continue reading...

Less than 48 hours after announcing he was forcibly placed on a leave of absence by the Automattic board on Wednesday, Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg posted in a company-wide Slack channel claiming that he’s back “in control” of the company. 

According to Slack screenshots viewed by 404 Media, late Thursday evening Mullenweg posted “Don’t call it a comeback” and linked to LL Cool J’s music video for “Mama Said Knock You Out.” Mullenweg’s Slack profile picture currently shows him wearing a pirate hat and eyepatch.

TechCrunch first reported Mullenweg’s comments about being back in control. 

“Happy to announce the board is back in agreement, and I'm in control of Automattic,” Mullenweg wrote in the company-wide Announcements channel on Slack. “A lot happened in the past 48 hours that we need to sort out, and I hope much of it was a misunderstanding, because I have huge respect and regard for those involved.”

Mark Davies, Automattic’s CFO who was set to act as interim CEO according to a statement from Automattic, had his Slack account deactivated as of at least Friday, sources told 404 Media and TechCrunch similarly reported. Davies, Mullenweg, and Automattic did not respond to 404 Media’s requests for comment for this story. Techcrunch reported that Mullenweg told them a blog post is forthcoming.

On Friday morning, Mullenweg published a blog post on his personal website, titled “Major Life Announcement.” In it he announced he’s buying a tugboat. “Anybody who’s founded a company and had to find good stewards knows that no one will love a thing quite like the original owner, but sometimes you can find the perfect person to carry the torch.” he wrote in the blog. He did not address the confusion surrounding his status at Automattic. 

In the last two years, workers at the company have described chaotic, destabilizing leadership from Mullenweg, including layoffs, cultish loyalty checks, rage-quitting of community projects, petty trolling, and watermarking messages to try to track people leaking information to the press. 

The Automattic board hasn’t communicated anything to employees beyond what they posted in Slack on Wednesday, sources told 404 Media. 

Mullenweg wrote on Wednesday that the Automattic board “conspired” against him to vote him out behind his back. 

Feyenoord ging met 5-1 onderuit bij FC Barcelona, maar deed het bij vlagen zeker niet onaardig. Spelers en trainer spraken na afloop over leren en groeien van zo’n avond, maar hoe vertaalt Feyenoord die lessen naar wedstrijden waarin het zelf de baas moet zijn?

Als enige gemeente in onze regio heeft Papendrecht nog altijd geen nieuw gemeentebestuur. Maar haast bij de vorming van een nieuwe coalitie “is niet zo belangrijk”, vindt burgemeester Margreet van Driel.

A late 90s guide to Super Metroid was written in monospaced type, fully justified with no double spaces or hyphens. “I just chose words carefully so that everything lined up on the right hand side.”

BRUSSEL (ANP/AFP) - Het Europese luchtruim was tijdens de zomervakantieperiode drukker dan ooit. Dat meldt de Europese luchtverkeersleidingsdienst Eurocontrol. Dit ondanks de verstoringen in het luchtverkeer vanwege de aanhoudende onrust in het Midden-Oosten.

Volgens de organisatie waren er gemiddeld 35.959 vluchten per dag in de periode van 1 juni tot en met 31 augustus, een stijging van 2,4 procent ten opzichte van dezelfde periode in 2025. Op vrijdag 10 juli was er een recordaantal van 37.640 vluchten.

Volgens Eurocontrol heeft het conflict in het Midden-Oosten invloed gehad op het toeristenseizoen, maar leidde de situatie er ook toe dat veel Europeanen binnen hun eigen continent op vakantie gingen. Dat werd als een veilige optie beschouwd.

Op tijd

Ondanks de drukte was het aantal vluchten dat op tijd kwam hoger dan in de zomer van 2025. In totaal kwam 72,6 procent van de vluchten op tijd aan, 1,2 procentpunt hoger dan in dezelfde periode vorig jaar.

Schiphol zei begin juli dat het deze zomervakantie ruim 12,7 miljoen reizigers verwacht, wat iets meer is dan vorig jaar. Per dag zou het volgens de luchthaven gaan om gemiddeld ongeveer 219.000 reizigers die vertrekken, aankomen of overstappen.

ELCAN KE-7A has added a photo to the pool:

2026年7月26日に開催された第58回豊田おいでんまつり花火大会より、磯谷煙火店によるメロディー花火「千夜一夜物語」。”One Thousand and One Nights” by Isogai enkaten from 58th Toyota Oiden Matsuri Fireworks Festival on July 26, 2026.