Playful American painter whose works were informed by her previous focus on ceramics and sculpture

Visitors to Mary Heilmann’s show at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2016 were offered the novel experience of looking at art while scooting about on wheeled wooden chairs. These, too, turned out to be artworks. One, Sunny Chair for the Whitechapel, had been made by Heilmann for the occasion. Rough-hewn from plywood, backed in nylon webbing and painted bright yellow, it seemed happily untidy; as an object, but also as a type. This was true of all the works in Looking at Pictures, and was intentional.

Heilmann, who has died aged 86, had an untidy past as a maker. It was while doing a BA at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1959-62), that she discovered ceramics, which were to occupy her first decade as an artist. The untidiness of her artistic history, however, was to be shaped by more than her choice of materials.

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• Maeve Plouffe says incident on Wednesday was ‘scary’

• Josh Tarling to ride in Vuelta in memory of brother Fin

The Australian rider Maeve Plouffe has said she was nearly hit by a non-race car during the opening stage of the Tour of Britain Women.

With cycling still coming to terms with the death at the Volta a Portugal of the 19-year-old British rider Finlay Tarling, killed last week in a collision with a vehicle that had entered the course, Plouffe said the incident occurred as she was chasing the peloton after a puncture on Wednesday.

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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are planning to return to live in Britain, six years after leaving for the US: a decision that was subject to intense media scrutiny. The couple and their two children are expected to relocate later in August to a non-royal residence. Nosheen Iqbal speaks to senior national news editor Aaron Sharp

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As yields are dragged higher in the UK, Europe and Japan, the impact for consumers and businesses will be far-reaching

• ‘Starve the beast’? The $40tn cost of Republicans’ false promises to cut spending

Government borrowing costs around the world have surged to the highest levels in decades amid growing fears over US bond market turmoil.

Anxiety about Donald Trump’s handling of the US economy, and concern that the US president’s war with Iran is driving up inflation, are causing a sell-off in the US bond market.

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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are planning to return to live in Britain, six years after leaving for the US: a decision that was subject to intense media scrutiny. The couple and their two children are expected to relocate later in August to a non-royal residence.

Nosheen Iqbal speaks to senior national editor Aaron Sharp – watch on YouTube

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Once upon a time, Windows Task Manager was a stone-cold killer. Optimized to within an inch of its life, it struck fear into errant processes. These days, Microsoft also wants it monitoring AI workloads. Task Manager has come a long way from the application Dave Plummer developed in the 1990s, inspired by what he called a "very Unixy impulse." This week, Microsoft highlighted its latest addition: deeper visibility into AI workloads. "Previously, the Processes tab didn't show per-process activity for the neural processing unit (NPU) or graphics processing unit (GPU) neural engine," Microsoft explained. Now it does, at least on supported newer devices. The Processes tab can show NPU use alongside CPU and GPU activity, while the Performance tab displays overall utilization. It is handy, although Task Manager appears to be spending ever more time monitoring tasks rather than managing them. That said, knowing which processes are using which hardware can help diagnose performance and power consumption problems, particularly on a battery-powered laptop. Microsoft was keen to point out the metrics that can be monitored. "As AI workloads become more common on Windows devices, visibility into NPU and GPU neural engine utilization can help you make better-informed decisions," the company said. "With the latest Task Manager improvements, you can monitor AI processing activity alongside CPU, memory, storage, and networking data from a familiar interface." Whether users want that degree of telemetry in Task Manager is another question. Finding a memory leak or killing a CPU hog fits its traditional remit; extended system analysis might be better left to Performance Monitor. Notepad was once a lightweight application focused on doing one thing well. It has since accumulated tweaks and enhancements before enduring the indignity of AI-powered text editing services. The same fate could await Task Manager. The additional metrics will undoubtedly be useful to developers. Whether they represent helpful visibility or another step toward feature bloat depends on whether Microsoft can add them without compromising the speed and simplicity that made Task Manager indispensable. ®

The US now accounts for 15 of the world's 20 largest hyperscale datacenter markets, with Northern Virginia alone hosting nearly 12 percent of global capacity. US locations have increased their dominance of the rankings as cloud infrastructure expands, according to Synergy Research. Since last year, Tokyo, Sydney, and South Carolina have dropped out of the top 20, replaced by Indiana, Tennessee, and China's Guangdong province. Of the remaining five markets, four are in Asia-Pacific, while Europe has just one: Dublin. Synergy attributes the US dominance to two factors: 62 percent of the world's hyperscale operators are headquartered there, including the four largest, and the country accounts for almost half of cloud revenue across several key segments. The US also has abundant land for enormous campuses such as Meta's Hyperion project in Richland Parish, Louisiana, which is expected to accommodate up to 5 GW of infrastructure. Hyperscale datacenters are vast facilities designed to support the computing requirements of major cloud and internet operators. Synergy's analysis covers the infrastructure of 21 such companies across cloud services, search, social media, ecommerce, and gaming. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have the broadest datacenter footprints and together account for 57 percent of global hyperscale capacity, according to Synergy. They are followed by Meta, Alibaba, Tencent, Oracle, Apple, ByteDance, and CoreWeave. A range of factors influence the choice of location for hyperscale infrastructure, says Synergy chief analyst John Dinsdale. These include proximity to customers; the availability and cost of real estate and power; networking infrastructure; local financial incentives; political stability; and exposure to natural hazards. "With the extremely rapid growth in demand for AI technology and infrastructure, availability of power has become an ever more critical criterion, as has the ability to overcome or work around local community objections to building large datacenters. These factors are heavily influencing the geographic distribution of future infrastructure developments," Dinsdale adds. According to the New York Times, Loudoun County in Northern Virginia is home to roughly 250 datacenters and expects to collect about $1.3 billion next year from taxes on the equipment inside them. Loudoun County may be an exception. A report earlier this year found that states were forgoing billions in revenue through incentives offered to datacenter operators, with Virginia's concessions estimated to cost it $1.94 billion. Northern Virginia does not feature as prominently in new development plans as it once did, according to Dinsdale. Meanwhile, operational hyperscale capacity in Texas has grown by 71 percent over the past year, compared with 36 percent worldwide. Synergy is tracking another 915 hyperscale facilities at various stages of planning, development, or fit-out, Dinsdale adds. ®

A young security researcher figured out a way to enroll a Linux device into Apple’s Find My network and read live location data from it. Find My is Apple’s app for, you guessed it, finding things – whether AirTags, iPads, or other supported devices and items. It also works for people. Families can track each other's whereabouts for safety reasons, and friends can tell when others are hanging out without them. In typical Apple fashion, though, the full Find My experience is limited to Apple hardware, like an iPhone or Mac. iBiz also offers Find Devices via the iCloud website, although it lacks Find My’s people-tracking feature for viewing locations others have shared with you. However, the 22-year-old researcher, who goes by “Zerotistic,” devised a way to enroll a Linux-based machine into the iNetwork, tricking Apple into sending the people-location data it exclusively reserves for Apple devices. It’s important to note, at this point, that this is not an exploit that allows anyone to arbitrarily retrieve any Apple user's location. It refers to registering a non-Apple device to the Find My network and retrieving the location data of people who had already chosen to share their locations with the Apple account owner. Retrieving people-location data requires Apple to trust that the machine you’re using belongs to its network and is capable of receiving the data, which is sent over Apple’s Push Notification service (APNs). The first step was tying the Linux machine to the researcher’s Apple account. Zerotistic obtained an identity delegate by going through Apple’s standard GrandSlam authentication protocol. In pursuit of an Apple Identity Services (IDS) device certificate, which links the intended device to an Apple Account, they then used that delegate to build a custom certificate signing request (CSR). Lots of trial and error later, Zerotistic discovered that the CSR had to use the PKCS#10 format and a 2048-bit RSA key signed using SHA-1, linking the Linux machine to their Apple account. They bundled this up into a compressed XML file and sent it to Apple’s authenticateDS profile-enrollment endpoint. The SHA-1 signature requirement and XML encoding were surprises. The researcher’s “best guess” is that the CSR had to conform to older standards because authenticateDS is a legacy endpoint. Apple signed the CSR, handing the Linux device the IDS certificate needed to register its public key to the researcher’s Apple account. The Linux device was registered at this point, but further work was needed to convince Apple that it was capable of running Find My. Zerotistic found that a Find My registration request required the device to subscribe to six different subservices, define the types of encryption it supported, and provide the public keys to support Apple’s device-to-device messaging format. It also had to be signed using an IDS certificate and an APNs certificate obtained during initial network setup. At this point, the researcher had enrolled the Linux machine in an Apple account and convinced Find My that it was capable of receiving location data via a persistent binary TLS connection to Apple’s private APNs servers. However, this registration did not automatically retrieve the location data of people who had previously shared their locations with Zerotistic, as a box-fresh Apple device would after setup. Issuing a SubscribeAndFetch request fixed this, prompting the device of the researcher’s friend to push an encrypted location key to the newly registered Linux device. The final challenge was reading the location data the Linux device fetched from Apple’s SearchParty service. Zerotistic was not simply using the GUI Find My app on Linux; they were receiving the encrypted data and had to figure out how to unpack the location message. This required a Linux script to unwrap Apple’s messaging envelope, extract the shared location key, and decrypt the Find My location data, which is comprised of coordinates, timestamps, and accuracy information. Once developed, the script could fetch and decode subsequent location reports for the existing location share. It took the researcher less than a week of tinkering to develop the Find My-busting technique, they said. The Register asked Apple if it was aware of the researcher’s work and if it had any plans to address the issue, but it did not immediately respond. ®

Spinnen, niet alleen de sport is stom, de dieren ook. Laat u nooit wijsmaken dat spinnen niks doen, want in Nederland hebben we sinds enige tijd de wolfspin. De onschuldige Truus is al aangevallen door de valse wolfspin en het zal niet bij Truus blijven. Kinderen, dieren, mensen, baby's, BMW-bestuurders, matchadrinkers, veganisten, rebellen, boeren, strijders, 9/11-ontkenners, Holocaustoverlevenden; uiteindelijk zal iedereen ten prooi vallen aan de machtige kaken van de valse wolfspin, een wolf in spinskleren. De valse wolfspin is de Hamas-activist onder de arachnida, hij heeft een hekel aan geluk, aan vreugde en met name dus aan kinderen, en hij vestigt zich het liefst rond de feestdagen tussen de cadeautjes bij Intertoys. Stamp ze plat!

Jacob Geller talks about playing flight simulator video games and waxes poetic about the mechanics involved.

Kai Bosworth on the US climate movement's retreat and future prospects.

In the United States, there is a pervasive sense that the once-ascendent climate movement is in disarray or has even disappeared. The prior decade saw the actions and ambitions of climate activism become household images, slogans, and policy goals. A few years later, as the second Trump administration guts environmental regulation, rejects proposed renewable energy projects, and accelerates the leasing of public lands for extraction, is there any "climate movement" to speak of? There's no need to write the litany of recent socio-ecological disasters that would seem to necessitate organized outrage – and yet, organized mobilization remains shockingly, despairingly absent. What was the climate movement, after all? What might explain its retreat? What new features might it exhibit upon re-emergence?

LUIK (ANP/BELGA/DPA) - De Belgische brandweer heeft een zeldzame korhoenhaan gered uit een gebied in de Hoge Venen dat volledig door de brand is verwoest. Dat heeft het kabinet van de gouverneur van Luik gemeld.

De brandweer heeft het dier gevangen en overgebracht naar een opvangcentrum voor vogels en wilde dieren. Het korhoen is een ernstig bedreigde vogelsoort. Via een herintroductieprogramma probeert men het dier al enkele jaren opnieuw een vaste plek te geven in de Belgische natuur, in het bijzonder in de Hoge Venen. Sinds tien jaar loopt er een project van de Universiteit van Luik, onder meer door vogels uit Zweden uit te zetten. Het korhoen werd zo het symbool van de Hoge Venen. Door de natuurbrand is het leefgebied van de populatie zwaar aangetast.

Volgens de omroep RTBF, die een medewerker van het project interviewde, droegen dertien korhoenders een gps-zender. Van de helft van hen ontbreekt momenteel ieder spoor.

De natuurbrand raakt wel steeds meer onder controle.

Een darmonderzoek staat bij weinig mensen bovenaan het lijstje van favoriete bezigheden. Maar als het aan Zuid-Koreaanse wetenschappers ligt, kan het opsporen van maag- en darmkanker in de toekomst misschien een stuk aangenamer. Een beetje speeksel uit je mond zou mogelijk al belangrijke aanwijzingen kunnen geven.

Onderzoekers van de Yonsei University ontdekten dat mensen met maag- of darmkanker een opvallende microbiële vingerafdruk hebben. Bacteriën die normaal gesproken vooral in de mond voorkomen, blijken bij kankerpatiënten vaker ook diep in het maag-darmkanaal terecht te komen.

Voor het onderzoek werden speeksel- en ontlastingsmonsters van 507 mensen onderzocht. Daaronder waren 77 patiënten met maagkanker en 86 met darmkanker. Ook deden gezonde mensen en patiënten met stofwisselingsziekten zoals diabetes type 2 en hoge bloeddruk mee.

Van mond naar darmen

De onderzoekers keken hoeveel dezelfde bacteriën bij één persoon zowel in de mond als in de ontlasting voorkwamen. Bij patiënten met maag- of darmkanker bleek die overlap duidelijk groter dan bij gezonde deelnemers.

Opvallend genoeg werd hetzelfde effect niet gevonden bij mensen met stofwisselingsproblemen. Dat wijst erop dat het verschijnsel mogelijk specifiekere informatie over kanker bevat.

Maar het interessantste kwam daarna. Met alleen informatie uit speekselmonsters konden computermodellen patiënten met kanker onderscheiden van gezonde proefpersonen. Voor darmkanker waren die resultaten volgens de onderzoekers zelfs nauwkeuriger dan sommige bestaande screeningsmethoden.

Geen gedoe meer met ontlasting?

Een veelgebruikte eerste test voor darmkanker zoekt naar onzichtbare hoeveelheden bloed in ontlasting. Handig, maar niet perfect. Niet iedere tumor of voorloper bloedt, terwijl bijvoorbeeld aambeien juist voor bloed kunnen zorgen zonder dat er kanker aanwezig is. Daardoor zijn zowel fout-negatieve als fout-positieve uitslagen mogelijk.

En praktisch gezien zullen veel mensen waarschijnlijk liever hun mond spoelen dan thuis een ontlastingsmonster verzamelen.

Toch kan de coloscopie nog niet de deur uit. De nieuwe methode bevindt zich nog in de onderzoeksfase en moet eerst bij veel meer mensen worden getest.

Ook weten wetenschappers nog niet waarom mondbacteriën vaker in de darmen van kankerpatiënten voorkomen. Dragen die bacteriën bij aan het ontstaan van kanker of zorgt de ziekte er juist voor dat ze zich gemakkelijker in de darm kunnen vestigen? Dat moet vervolgonderzoek uitwijzen. Maar als de resultaten standhouden, zou de mond in de toekomst zomaar een verrassend eenvoudige plek kunnen worden om naar darmkanker te zoeken.

Bron: Science Alert

ZANDVOORT (ANP) - Formule 1-coureur Liam Lawson is in de Dutch Grand Prix onverwacht de teamgenoot van Max Verstappen bij Red Bull. De Nieuw-Zeelander vervangt de Fransman Isack Hadjar, die een polsblessure heeft opgelopen tijdens een fitnesstraining.

Lawson rijdt dit seizoen voor Racing Bulls, het zusterteam van Red Bull. Hij draait best een goed seizoen, met twee zesde plaatsen als beste klasseringen. "Ik heb alle voorbereidingen getroffen die ik maar kon doen in korte tijd", zei hij op de mediadag op het circuit van Zandvoort. "Het zal zeker lastig worden, want het is een sprintweekend. Ik zal vrijdag veel moeten leren in de vrije training."

Het is de tweede keer dat Lawson in Zandvoort als vervanger rijdt. Drie jaar geleden mocht hij Daniel Ricciardo vervangen bij AlphaTauri. De Australiër had toevallig ook een polsblessure. Het seizoen daarop promoveerde Lawson naar Red Bull, maar na precies twee races was hij alweer teamgenoot af van Verstappen, omdat hij ondermaats presteerde. "Ik voel me nu veel comfortabeler in deze sport, maar het wordt zeker een uitdagend weekend."

BERN (ANP) - Zwitserland en China zijn het eens geworden over nieuwe handelsafspraken. De landen hebben afgesproken dat de Zwitserse export naar China vrijwel geheel is vrijgesteld van importheffingen, maakte de Zwitserse regering bekend.

De overeenkomst is volgens de landen een "optimalisatie" van een bestaand vrijhandelsverdrag uit 2014. Die schafte invoerheffingen af op bijna alle Chinese exporten naar Zwitserland. Voor bijna de helft van de Zwitserse export naar China bleven nog wel importheffingen gelden. De nieuwe afspraken moeten ervoor zorgen dat 99,8 procent van de huidige Zwitserse export naar het Aziatische land heffingsvrij zal zijn.

De landen verwachten de nieuwe afspraken voor het einde van dit jaar formeel te ondertekenen. Zwitserland en China praatten sinds september 2024 in vijf onderhandelingsrondes over nieuwe afspraken.

Marcin Budkowski prepares to embark on his first race weekend as Cadillac Team Principal after replacing Graeme Lowdon in the August break.

Yuki Tsunoda will return to his former team Racing Bulls at the Dutch Grand Prix, taking Liam Lawson’s seat for the weekend.

Twee woonboten hebben een illegale ligplek in de Lange Haven in Schiedam ingenomen. De bewoners zeggen geen andere keuze te hebben nu de gemeente de walstroom bij hun oude stek heeft afgesloten. "Ik blijf tot er een normale oplossing is", zegt eigenaar Jan van Rijsewijk.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo: