Maybe Morocco are about to do it all again. They are into the last 16 after a match that lasted almost three hours, winning a strange and error-strewn shootout to tee up a meeting with Canada. Ismael Saibari converted the winning penalty after his team and the Netherlands had fluffed their lines repeatedly. Perhaps it was fitting that, after the teams had missed twice apiece, the goalkeeper Yassine Bounou made the save that allowed Saibari his moment. He stood tall to bat away Crysencio Summerville’s shot, recalling his two saves in the win against Spain at Qatar 2022.

Morocco had deserved to win against a negative Netherlands, even if they only earned extra time when the centre-back Issa Diop headed in. One wonders how Cody Gakpo, playing despite the announcement he and his partner had lost their unborn son, could process the turnaround. He seemed to have scored the winner with a hammered finish in the 72nd minute, the emotions taking hold afterwards. Gakpo was in tears after scoring, pointing to the sky and being comforted by Denzel Dumfries. Football can be intensely cruel but some things hold infinitely greater importance.

Continue reading...

Want to see some old wonders but don’t fancy forking out £33 for 40 minutes with a tapestry? Our critic celebrates the British treasures you can see all year round – from monstrous crypt carvings to the vaulting glory of our cathedrals

There’s a carved stone character grimacing furiously in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral and you can see why – a man is sitting on his head, legs apart, holding a fish and bowl in outstretched arms. Other figures perched atop slender stone columns include a creature with a serpent’s tail wrestling a dog-like monstrosity, a gryphon eating a siren, and a (now-detached) carving of a horned devil. All this nefariousness in the depths of England’s holiest shrine.

But then medieval British art is full of wonder, mystery and humour. It is also so abundant that it gets taken for granted. But now, after almost 1,000 years, it is about to have a moment. This week, the rush will begin to get £33 tickets to spend 40 minutes in the company of a medieval British artwork. The Bayeux Tapestry, a 70-metre embroidery depicting the Norman conquest of England in 1066, was almost certainly embroidered by Kent women to a commission by Bishop Odo of Bayeux in the 1070s.

Continue reading...

The country is dependent on the global giants that call Dublin home. Irish ministers can’t be trusted to chair vital European digital sovereignty talks

On the face of it, Ireland behaves like a good European by being a staunch advocate of human rights and a beacon of progressivism on the western edge of the continent. But there is one vital area in which its record is less than perfect – one that should cause concern when the Irish government takes over the rotating six-month presidency of the EU on 1 July. The EU’s tech and AI rulebook will be renegotiated during the same period, but the Irish state and economy have been captured by big tech. Ireland is so compromised that as president of the Council of the EU, it should recuse itself from all tech and digital sovereignty negotiations.

The last time Ireland held the EU presidency was in 2013, during negotiations on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A leaked Facebook memo describes a 2013 meeting where the company’s executives met Ireland’s then prime minister to complain about the proposed data privacy rules. They left understanding they had Enda Kenny’s assurance that Ireland would use its “significant influence” as EU Council president to deliver what Facebook called a “positive outcome”. The executives also attended “a dinner hosted by senior Irish politicians to work through the various ways that the Irish could be helpful”.

Johnny Ryan is director of Enforce, a unit of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties

Continue reading...

Trusted by millions, the finance expert has seen his name and face used to mis-sell a string of fake investments. And yet, he says, it would be ‘very simple’ for the government to stop them

This month, an email from a consumer landed in Martin Lewis’s inbox. It was from an elderly woman with a disability who had been scammed when she invested in a scheme purportedly endorsed by Lewis – and lost her life savings. “THEY ARE BASTARDS!” Lewis wrote at the top of his social media post about it. Even though the personal finance expert is a veteran campaigner against fraud, he says he had “tears running down my face”. He still sounds upset. “I felt a mixture of frustration, anger and sadness.” Not only for the plight of the woman, but for the “constant, ongoing deluge of shit from the scammers”.

Lewis never advertises anything. To hammer home the point, his social media profile picture has the words “I don’t do ads” tattooed on his forehead. But still, people fall victim to deepfake videos and frauds that appear to show him offering investments. The scale of harm is great enough that MoneySavingExpert (MSE), the company Lewis founded in 2003 and sold in 2012 for up to £87m – he is now its executive chair – has someone full-time handling these cases.

Continue reading...

Since 2017, Iason Gabriel has worked at the tech giant, trying to anticipate – and think through – the impact of AI. But as commercial and geopolitical pressures escalate, can ethicists make any difference?

In 2017, a 33-year-old political philosopher named Iason Gabriel was told by a friend that he ought to apply for a job at DeepMind, the London-based subsidiary of Google where much of its AI research was concentrated. The suggestion was not an obvious one.

Gabriel was a cheerful but intense junior academic with a passion for Vipassana meditation and what his brother calls “enthusiastic” rock climbing. The eldest son of a Greek management professor and a British documentary maker, Gabriel split his time between teaching and international development work. At the University of Oxford, where he was a fellow at St John’s College, Gabriel taught courses on political theory and wrote papers on the moral contortions of “yuppie ethics” and the ethical blind spots of effective altruism. When he wasn’t there, he did crisis work for the United Nations Development Programme in Sudan and Lebanon.

Continue reading...

Elf Lyons mixes humour and heartbreak, Frank Skinner works the crowd, Kristen Schaal returns with a secret – and one man sings the same song over and over again

No fringe festival has been complete in recent years without some oddball clown confection – usually animal-based – from the idiosyncratic Lyons. But this year’s offering promises something unusually personal, a reflection on a breakup she experienced while touring her last show.
Pleasance Courtyard, 5-31 August

Continue reading...

He and his wife opened first Les Mills gym in Auckland in 1968 and family later introduced workout programs including BodyPump taught worldwide

Les Mills, the New Zealand Olympian and former Auckland mayor whose name is synonymous with his global fitness chain, has died aged 91.

In a statement released on Monday, Phillip Mills said his father had achieved a huge amount in his life and the common thread throughout was his desire to help others.

Continue reading...

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

De Zwitserse voormalig schoonheidskoningin Beatrice Keul heeft in een nieuw interview Donald Trump ervan beschuldigd haar in 1993 in een suitesalon van het Plaza Hotel in New York te hebben aangerand tijdens een door hem gesponsorde missverkiezing. Volgens Keul zou Trump haar ongevraagd hebben betast, geprobeerd haar jurk op te tillen en haar tegen haar zin hebben gekust.

Na het incident zou Trump haar naar eigen zeggen hebben bedreigd en duidelijk hebben gemaakt dat ze moest zwijgen “anders konden er slechte dingen gebeuren”. Keul trad in 2024 voor het eerst met haar verhaal naar buiten en zegt sindsdien te maken te hebben met intimidatie en dreigberichten, waaronder AI‑gegenereerde berichten op haar telefoon.

Het nieuwe interview verschijnt op het Amerikaanse Substack-platform The PunchUp en sluit aan bij een reeks eerdere beschuldigingen van seksueel wangedrag tegen Trump door tientallen vrouwen sinds de jaren zeventig, die hij allemaal ontkent.

We praten meestal over pedofilie alsof het gaat om daden, maar in de praktijk begint het bij iets waar niemand voor kiest: een seksuele aantrekking tot kinderen. Wie zo’n aantrekking heeft, heeft daar niet om gevraagd en kan ze niet zomaar uitzetten. Je kunt je dus afvragen of het eerlijk is om iemand moreel te veroordelen voor iets wat hij niet zelf heeft gekozen.

Dat betekent níet dat de discussie daarmee ophoudt. Want vanaf het moment dat iemand weet dat hij pedofiele gevoelens heeft, begint een andere, veel zwaardere verantwoordelijkheid: nooit handelen naar die gevoelens, en alles doen om kinderen te beschermen. Dat kan betekenen: hulp zoeken, open zijn in een veilige therapeutische context, situaties vermijden waarin je alleen met kinderen bent, en strikt wegblijven van materiaal of online omgevingen die misbruik normaliseren.

Veel psychiaters en ethici maken daarom een scherp onderscheid tussen gevoel en gedrag. Het gevoel zelf is tragisch en problematisch, maar niet strafbaar; elke vorm van seksueel contact met minderjarigen is dat wél. Ook “voorbereidend” gedrag – zoals grooming of het verzamelen van kinderpornografisch materiaal – wordt in steeds meer landen apart bestraft. De morele verwijtbaarheid zit dus niet in het hebben van de gevoelens, maar in wat iemand doet of nalaat zodra hij weet dat hij een risico kan vormen.

Misschien is dat de eerlijkste manier om ernaar te kijken: niet wegkijken of romantiseren, maar erkennen dat sommige mensen een bijzonder zware morele plicht hebben. Niet omdat ze schuldig zijn aan hun gevoelens, maar omdat ze verantwoordelijk zijn voor het voorkomen van schade.

Vorig jaar wilde een Kamermeerderheid antifa als terrorisme bestempelen; nu ligt er een wetsvoorstel tegen ‘terrorismeverheerlijking’. De Verenigde Staten laten zien waar dat toe kan leiden: voor je het weet krijg je het stempel ‘antifa’ en ga je voor de rest van je leven de gevangenis in. Terwijl antifascisme juist een voorwaarde is voor de democratie.

Het Nederlands elftal en Marokko gaan naar strafschoppen, nadat het 1-1 bleef tijdens de verlenging in de zestiende finales van het wereldkampioenschap.

24 jaar geleden maakte fotograaf Patrick Post een iconische foto van André Hazes. Vandaag, op de dag dat Hazes 75 jaar zou zijn geworden, duikt die foto weer overal op.

Vandaag begint de dag landinwaarts nog met zon, maar vanuit het westen komt er steeds meer dikke bewolking de regio binnen, waardoor de zon vanmiddag nog maar af en toe te zien zal zijn. Het blijft wel overal droog. De middagtemperatuur komt uit op een aangename 22 graden.