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The lyrics may argue the dancefloor is dead, but this funny, wilfully plasticky new single isn’t the total about-turn from Brat that fans expected
Last month, Charli xcx began the media campaign for her seventh studio album by giving an interview to Vogue magazine. The ensuing feature caused an impressive degree of online consternation, not because the 33-year-old star had said anything particularly controversial, but because she had suggested that the follow-up to 2024’s Brat would sound markedly different to its predecessor. “If I’d made another album that felt more dance-leaning, it would have felt really hard, really sad,” she said, not unreasonably declining to chase Brat’s vast success by attempting to replicate it. (Although, in fairness, you could have probably worked that out from House, the noisy, experimental collaboration with John Cale she released at the end of last year as the first single from her soundtrack to Wuthering Heights.)
She also played the interviewer a track that contained both “heavily processed guitars” and the lyrics “I think the dancefloor is dead, so now we’re making rock music”: Vogue duly ran with the idea, trumpeting Charli xcx’s “rock reinvention” in both the headline and on its cover and other news outlets picked up on the story – “CHARLI XCX CONFIRMS ROCK ALBUM”. What one journalist tactfully called “heated discourse online from some fans and artists within the music industry” followed, eventually prompting the singer to respond, posting “a video of me making a song called Rock Music that is not actually rock music which is funny because I never said I was making a rock album”.
Continue reading...Former David Cameron adviser says a vote for him will make California ‘Califordable’ – not everyone is convinced
He “knows how to wind people up like Trump”, according to friends, and made his name in the UK with zany policy ideas including making the country sunnier using state-owned cloud busters.
Now the controversial strategist Steve Hilton, named the “pint-sized Rasputin” of Conservative politics, has become an unlikely frontrunner in the primary race for California governor.
Continue reading...Rumens, whose column ran for nearly 20 years and developed a loyal readership, died this week aged 81
Carol was an excellent commentator on poetry, shrewd and deep-thinking but able to express her thoughts in plain English rather than academic jargon. Her taste in poems was eclectic and very original; one didn’t always share it, but it was never predictable or dull. Sheenagh Pugh, Shetland
Continue reading...After months of protest, crackdown and war, on-the-ground reporting is more impossible than it has ever been. These challenges shape every aspect of how we report on what is happening in the country
Iran is among the world’s most repressive countries for press freedom. But in recent months, I have seen first-hand how the work of telling the truth has grown more fragile, more improvised, and more dangerous than ever.
We have been cut off from our sources. After the authorities imposed a nationwide communications blackout, the already fragile infrastructure of reporting has all but collapsed. Even when we can make contact, we are careful; a phone search at a checkpoint could put them in danger. We cannot cross-check events through local coverage or rely on familiar verification channels. Instead, we wait for the rare, precious moments when a reliable contact inside Iran manages to get online, navigating VPNs or risking Starlink, which the authorities have criminalised.
The Guardian is committed to helping journalists inside repressive regimes across the world to share their stories. As part of our annual support campaign promoting the defence of the free press please consider backing our work today – or consider backing another independent outlet whose work you value. We’re hoping to get 60,000 new supporters, or acts of support by 21 May.
Continue reading...Reform leader irritated when asked about money from Christopher Harborne on day of party’s election gains
Nigel Farage has repeatedly refused to answer questions about a personal gift of £5m he received from the billionaire Christopher Harborne, as the Reform UK leader sought on Friday to focus attention on the party’s election gains.
Farage was clearly irritated when asked on a number of occasions on Friday about the money, which the Guardian revealed he had received shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 general election and which was not declared.
Continue reading...The long-suffering saga has been kept alive this decade by TV alone – but even that will perish if the new movie fails to extend its universe
Star Wars has always been big on prophecy. Yoda peers into the future like Nostradamus with messed-up syntax, the Emperor cackles that everything is proceeding exactly as he has foreseen, Darth Vader breathes doom through the front grille of his shiny death helmet. And yet not even the most omniscient of Jedi could have predicted that the franchise responsible for practically inventing the modern Hollywood blockbuster would end up as a TV-centric operation with only occasional forays on to the big screen. Which is why it comes as a genuine shock to realise that, ahead of the release of new movie The Mandalorian and Grogu later this month, it has been more than six years since Star Wars last hit the multiplex.
Then again, perhaps the real humdinger is that it hasn’t been longer. The most recent Disney Star Wars film, JJ Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker, did not so much conclude the long-running space saga as destroy several decades of perfectly serviceable mythology and ruin all sense of congruence with previous films. It was frantic, weirdly apologetic (about previous instalment The Last Jedi) and overstuffed with dodgy fan service. It was essentially a $590m act of narrative panic.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world
Continue reading...SINZIG (ANP) - De Duitse politie is in Sinzig een bank binnengevallen na berichten dat daar een gijzeling gaande zou zijn. Twee opgesloten personen zijn ongedeerd aangetroffen, meldt de regionale omroep SWR. De dader of daders zijn niet gevonden.
DEN BOSCH (ANP) - Peter Gillis gaat in hoger beroep tegen de gevangenisstraf en de boete die hij donderdag kreeg opgelegd wegens belastingontduiking. Dat laat zijn advocaat vrijdag aan het ANP weten. De rechtbank in Den Bosch veroordeelde de realityster, bekend van de tv-serie Massa is Kassa, tot een celstraf van anderhalf jaar, waarvan zes maanden voorwaardelijk. Ook moeten de ondernemingen van Gillis boetes van in totaal ruim 1,3 miljoen euro betalen.
Gillis had volgens de rechters te laat aangifte van vennootschapsbelasting gedaan voor onder meer de Oostappen Groep in de jaren 2020 en 2021. Zijn advocaat toonde zich "teleurgesteld" en zei het vonnis te bestuderen, maar gaf al aan dat hoger beroep "in de rede" lag.
Vorig jaar kreeg Gillis ook al twaalf maanden cel opgelegd, waarvan zes voorwaardelijk, voor belastingfraude tussen 2014 en 2019. Tegen die uitspraak ging hij in hoger beroep. Donderdag kreeg Gillis ook te horen dat hij een taakstraf van zestig uur moet uitvoeren, vanwege mishandeling van zijn ex-partner Nicol Kremers. Het is nog niet bekend of Gillis ook in die zaak in beroep gaat.
DEN HAAG (ANP) - Asielminister Bart van den Brink wil de regels voor grenscontroles versoepelen. De Koninklijke Marechaussee gaat na september niet meer aan de grens controleren als het aan de CDA-minister ligt, maar gaat gebruikmaken van mobiele controles.
Volgens Van den Brink is dit een effectievere manier van controleren. "De marechaussee analyseert waar het best gecontroleerd kan worden en voertuigen worden uitgezocht op basis van inlichtingen en een risicoprofiel."
De huidige manier van controleren, aan de grens, wordt verlengd tot eind september. Die periode wil de CDA-minister gebruiken om de mobiele controles op te zetten. De controles aan Nederlandse en Duitse kant kregen veel kritiek van burgers en ondernemers in grensregio's.
De Nederlandse controles leidden van december 2024 tot en met afgelopen maart tot 270 aanhoudingen, bijvoorbeeld vanwege mensensmokkel of documentfraude. In diezelfde periode is aan zeshonderd vreemdelingen de toegang tot Nederland geweigerd.
Makkers wild geraas staken, het is vrijdag, de boel de boel, de baas naar huis, vandaag een keertje niet Samantha de draden laten zien in het serverhok wegens Eurosport achter de command-tab en dan mag er subito een glas Italiaans kantoorbier in. De Giro d'Italia, de meest romantische wielerkoers van allemaal, met die majestueuze roze trui en die prachtige vrouwen en het stof en het zweet en de kleine iele schrale mannetjes die heel veel of heel weinig doping gebruiken. En dat dan allemaal met de eerste etappes in Bulgarije, met voorsprong het goorste land van de EU, alleen getopt door Noord-Macedonië en dat is geeneens EU. Als u in Sofia op de Vitosha Boulevard staat en naar de Cherni Vrah kijkt lijkt het misschien nog wat, maar aan het einde van de avond staat u weer met de poten in de klei van de Fetish Striptease Club en daar lichten ze u op, pakken ze uw geld af, jagen ze op uw creditcard en krijgt u ruzie met de knuisten van de uitsmijters. Ga daar NOOIT heen, het is een rotclub vol dieven, moordenaars, oplichters en schooiers, nog corrupter dan Yordan Letchkov, en de danseressen zijn opdringerig en vervelend bovendien. Dat allemaal van horen zeggen uiteraard! Nu de eerste etappe van de Giro d'Italia, in Bulgarije dus, met finish in Burgas. Twee Nederlandse kanshebbers: Dylan Groenewegen en Casper van Uden, al zal Johnny Milan wel winnen. Proost.
Ze speelde klavier met Mozart, had beroemde kunstzinnige vrienden en componeerde zelf ook: dus waarom kennen we Marianna Martines niet? Sopraan Hetherington en het Orkest van de Achttiende Eeuw laten horen dat haar muziek het luisteren waard is.
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Voor haar derde album heeft Merol de damp van het maatschappelijk en persoonlijk slagveld geïnhaleerd, en teruggespuugd in twaalf lenige liedjes. Bij Seefeel glippen de klanken uit je oren zodra je ze probeert vast te houden en de mannen van ORBI zijn klassieke topmusici die écht geloofwaardig kunnen rocken.
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OPINION When President Donald Trump returned to power, he cast himself as the anti‑Biden on AI. First, he tore up Biden's Executive Order 14110, which had demanded "safe, secure, and trustworthy" AI. He then replaced it with his own "Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence" directive, ordering agencies to rescind or dilute rules seen as obstacles to innovation. In short, American AI vendors could do anything they wanted. That was then. This is now. While Trump has yet to issue a new AI Executive Order, we know his crew is forming an AI working group of tech execs and government officials to bring oversight to AI. Specifically, they're considering requiring all new "high‑risk" AI frontier models to undergo a formal government review before they can be used. That's going to go over well. What we do know is that National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett has said: "We're studying possibly an executive order to give a clear roadmap to everybody about how this is gonna go, and how future AIs that also potentially create vulnerabilities should go through a process so that they’re released into the wild after they've been proven safe – just like an FDA drug." Considering that people who ignore evidence now regulate healthcare in the United States, that doesn’t fill me with much confidence. Indeed, we now know the FDA blocked the publication of studies showing that COVID-19 and shingles vaccines were safe. Are these the kinds of people we want calling the shots on AI? Be that as it may, the Trump yes-men are framing this shift as a response to escalating cybersecurity and national‑security risks rather than as a broader embrace of EU‑style AI regulation. Yes, they're looking at Anthropic's Mythos and its potential use by hackers. At the same time, they emphasize that they want to avoid "onerous" controls on everyday AI applications. Frontier models that could supercharge cyberwarfare, bio‑threats, or other strategic dangers are another matter. That's quite a change from last summer when Trump babbled: "We have to grow that [AI] baby and let that baby thrive. We can't stop it. We can't stop it with politics. We can't stop it with foolish rules and even stupid rules." Now he seems to think rules would be a good thing. Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, has suggested that Trump is returning to Biden's policy. Just don't tell him that; he'll have a fit. While Trump and company are still contemplating exactly how they want to rule – sorry, regulate – AI, the Department of Commerce's Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) announced new agreements with Google DeepMind, Microsoft, and xAI. According to these new policy statements, CAISI will conduct pre-deployment evaluations and targeted research to better assess frontier AI capabilities and advance the state of AI security. CAISI director Chris Fall said: "Independent, rigorous measurement science is essential to understanding frontier AI and its national security implications." How to do this? Who will do this? What will it look like? Good question! Too bad we don’t have any answers yet. You may have noticed that Anthropic was not invited to this cozy policy get-together. Funny, that, since most observers think that Mythos was the model that broke the "do anything you want" AI camel's back in Trump's White House. That's because the months‑long feud between the administration and Anthropic is still simmering. Trump's team moved to block federal agencies from using the company's tools, and Anthropic is now challenging that policy in court. Recently, however, Trump's tone has softened. Trump told CNBC that Anthropic was "shaping up." If he can't get peace with Iran, maybe peace with Anthropic will please him. On the other hand, we also know that the Trumpies are considering forbidding companies from "interfering" with the government's use of AI models. You hear that, Anthropic? You will toe the line! Meanwhile, Gregory Falco, a Cornell assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, pointed out the obvious: "The federal government does not currently have the in-house technical expertise, infrastructure, or day-to-day insight needed to directly evaluate these systems on its own." Expertise is something Trump's cast of characters sorely lacks across any and all subjects. "At the same time," Falco continued, "a purely voluntary model of self-governance is not enough." After all, foxes are notorious guardians of chicken houses. What I think is going to happen is that AI vendors who play ball with Trump will end up "governing" AI alongside some Trump loyalists. It's going to be ugly. Some regulation is needed, but these are not the people who will do a good job of it. I won't be surprised if one of Trump's goals isn't so much to make AI safer as it is to ensure that the answers AI gives are the ones he and his regime want people to see. Today, for example, when I asked a variety of chatbots who lost the 2020 election, they all agreed Trump had lost. Funnily enough, when the Senate Judiciary Committee asked numerous Trump nominees for federal judgeships the same question, they universally refused to say he lost. For better or worse, most Americans don't pay attention to legal news. What they do, however, is ask AI chatbots for answers. Foolish of them, considering how inaccurate they can be, but there it is. If Trump's allowed to call the shots, I've little doubt that the approved bots will follow in the footsteps of his obedient judges and give the answers he wants and not the truth. ®
Meta has quietly pulled the plug on encrypted Instagram DMs, meaning private messages on one of the world’s biggest social networks are no longer especially private. The change took effect today, according to a revised Meta post first published in 2022. In a statement to The Register, Meta said the feature saw limited adoption and pointed users toward WhatsApp instead. "Very few people were opting in to end-to-end encrypted messaging in DMs, so we're removing this option from Instagram in the coming months," the spokesperson said. "Anyone who wants to keep messaging with end-to-end encryption can easily do that on WhatsApp." It’s quite the reversal for a corporation that spent years telling everyone that encryption was the future of online communications, even as governments pushed back against the company’s wider rollout plans. Much of that pressure centered on child protection. Campaigners and agencies, including the NSPCC UK’s National Crime Agency, argued wider encryption would make it harder to detect grooming, child abuse material, and other criminal activity taking place over private messaging services. Privacy advocates, however, say Meta has just blown a hole in one of the few genuinely private corners of the platform. The Center for Democracy & Technology said it had urged Meta to reverse the decision, alongside members of the Global Encryption Coalition Steering Committee. “Without default encryption, millions of Instagram users are left exposed to surveillance, interception, and misuse of their private communications,” the group said. “These risks fall hardest on people who rely on secure messaging for their safety, including journalists, human rights defenders, and survivors of abuse.” Swiss privacy outfit Proton also questioned what exactly happens to existing chats once encryption disappears. Because properly implemented E2EE prevents platforms from reading message contents, the company noted that Meta has not clarified whether previously encrypted conversations will remain inaccessible, get deleted, or become readable. “For Instagram, dropping E2EE is just an example of how little regard Meta has for the privacy and safety of its community,” Proton said in a blog post. Meta has become increasingly aggressive about monetizing and analyzing user interactions. Last year, the company confirmed that interactions with Meta AI tools, including those inside private conversations, could be used for ad targeting. The company has not publicly said whether ordinary Instagram messages could eventually feed into similar systems now that encryption is gone. ®
