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Tsutsuishima

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Ikaho Onsen, Gunma Japan

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Tsutsuishima

Hard times – and British-style pubs – are squeezing restaurant-bars that once thrived in cities everywhere. Can they innovate to keep pace with change?

From rowdy spit-and-sawdust joints to dimly lit high-end eateries, from chains equipped with tablets to family-run holes in the wall, Japan’s izakaya restaurant-bars are as varied as the cuisine they serve.

They are also a bellwether, reflecting strength and shifts in the wider economy. Now that economy is squeezing them harder than ever, pushing closures to record rates. The damage is spread unevenly: amid the struggles, some flourish, while a chain of unlikely alternatives expands.

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Football fans are celebrating the tournament coming to Guadalajara. But with a brutal crime syndicate holding sway there, what are the risks for fans – and the government?

Excitement is mounting in Mexico as the World Cup opens in Mexico City, then heads to the city of Guadalajara.

Mexican journalist Leon Krauze is a fan. He was there the last time the World Cup came to Mexico and will be watching again. The city of Guadalajara has a mythical footballing past: “Pele’s Brazil played there in 1970, then Zico and Socrates played there in 1986. There is a real football memory there, a love affair between Guadalajara and football in general, and I expect it to be a wonderful party.”

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A renowned academic, Wood was hit by a car as he was crossing a supermarket’s parking lot and later died of the injuries

Gordon S Wood, a Pulitzer prize-winning author and historian, was killed on Sunday when he was struck by a car in a supermarket parking lot in Rhode Island.

Wood, 92, won the Pulitzer in 1993 in the history category for The Radicalism of the American Revolution, a landmark tome that advanced the theory of the break with Britain being at least as much of an internal social and political transformation as a desire to be rid of colonial masters.

This story was amended on 8 June 2026 to correct the Pulitzer prize-winning book’s title to The Radicalism of the American Revolution.

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WELLINGTON (ANP) - Inwoners van huizen langs de kust ten zuiden van de Nieuw-Zeelandse hoofdstad Wellington zijn maandag opgeroepen te evacueren. Langs de kuststrook geldt een lokale noodtoestand vanwege metershoge golven.

De hoogste golf die dinsdagochtend (lokale tijd) werd gemeten, was 10,9 meter, meldde MetService, de Nieuw-Zeelandse evenknie van het KNMI. De burgemeester van Wellington, Andrew Little, riep inwoners op de evacuatiebevelen op te volgen, omdat hulpdiensten er later anders mogelijk niet in slagen het gebied te bereiken.

Het centrum van de Nieuw-Zeelandse hoofdstad ligt in een baai die grotendeels beschut is tegen de metershoge golven. Hoewel Wellington vaker getroffen wordt door stormachtig weer, zijn de verwachtingen voor dinsdag "van een andere orde", aldus MetService.

De veerdienst naar het Zuidereiland is stilgelegd door de storm en verschillende vluchten zijn geannuleerd. Een klein passagiersvliegtuig op de luchthaven van Wellington kantelde door de wind, meldt The New Zealand Herald. Daarbij vielen geen gewonden.

CHARKIV (ANP) - In de Oekraïense regio Charkiv, in het noordoosten van het land, zijn vier mensen om het leven gekomen en tien anderen gewond geraakt bij Russische aanvallen. De dodelijke slachtoffers vielen in de plaats Tsjoehoejiv, meldt gouverneur Oleh Synjehoebov op Telegram.

Door de aanvallen raakten volgens Synjehoebov meerdere appartementencomplexen en zeker achttien auto's beschadigd. Ook sneuvelden meerdere ruiten.

In provinciehoofdstad Charkiv raakten tien mensen gewond.

De aanvallen vonden plaats terwijl Volodymyr Zelensky vanuit Londen terugkeerde naar Kyiv. De Oekraïense president was in de Britse hoofdstad voor overleg met Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz en Keir Starmer. Op de agenda stonden onderhandelingen met Rusland.

NEW YORK (ANP) - Donald Trump is uitgejoeld en uitgefloten in Madison Square Garden, waar maandag de derde wedstrijd in de finale van de NBA plaatsvindt. Tijdens het volkslied salueerde de Amerikaanse president. Toen dat op grote schermen in het stadion getoond werd, klonk gedurende enkele seconden een fluitconcert.

Buiten het stadion in New York, waar de basketballers van de New York Knicks de San Antonio Spurs treffen, werd Trump bij aankomst ook al uitgefloten. "Ik zou willen dat hij hier niet was. Hij is geen echte fan. We hebben hier ons hele leven op gewacht en hij laat alles weer om hem draaien, zoals altijd", zei een fan die buiten stond te wachten tegen verslaggevers van Reuters.

De aanwezigheid van Trump zorgde ervoor dat fans lang moesten wachten voor ze naar binnen konden vanwege strenge veiligheidscontroles. Ook werden kijkfeesten buiten het stadion geannuleerd.

De New York Knicks leiden met 2-0 in de finale, die beslist wordt over maximaal zeven wedstrijden. De laatste keer dat de Knicks de titel wonnen was in 1973.

PYONGYANG (ANP) - De Chinese president Xi Jinping en de Noord-Koreaanse leider Kim Jong-un hebben maandag met elkaar afgesproken de banden verder aan te halen. De bilaterale relaties gaan volgens staatspersbureau KCNA "een nieuw hoofdstuk" tegemoet, met samenwerkingen in verschillende sectoren.

Xi is voor een tweedaags bezoek in Noord-Korea. Kim zei volgens KCNA tegen de Chinese president dat hij het één-China-principe steunt, wat betekent dat Taiwan deel is van China en niet onafhankelijk. China is al decennia de belangrijkste bondgenoot en handelspartner van Noord-Korea.

Of er door de twee leiders ook gesproken is over het Noord-Koreaanse kernprogramma is onduidelijk. De VS willen dat Noord-Korea zijn kernwapens opgeeft, maar experts denken dat China heeft geaccepteerd dat het buurland een kernmacht is geworden.

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OpenAI has confidentially filed for an IPO, "setting it up for what may be the most highly anticipated market debut in recent history and a massive payday for early investors," reports CNN. The decision follows recent IPO announcements from Anthropic and SpaceX. From the report: OpenAI said it has not decided on timing yet. And because the filing is confidential, it's not yet clear how many shares the company plans to sell or at what price. "It may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company," it said in a post on its newsroom page. But the company said the filing "gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best."

The transition to a public company will give Wall Street a window into OpenAI's finances as the company pours billions into AI infrastructure and computing resources. Investors dumped tech stocks last week as they questioned whether a recent run-up in those shares had gone too far. OpenAI was last valued at $852 billion after raising $122 billion in March, but it's faced pressure to demonstrate it can generate the cash to match that valuation.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Met de skyline van New York op de achtergrond, kan Oranje geen indruk maken in de laatste test voor het WK. Niet alleen het missen van kansen is een probleem. „Het is duidelijk dat we dingen moeten aanpassen.”

The winners of the 2025 Bram Stoker Awards. The Horror Writers Association announced the winners on June 6th, 2026 at StokerCon in Pittsburgh.

Nominees and winners: Superior Achievement in an Anthology Day, Julie C.; Bissett, Carina; and Gidney, Craig Laurance, eds. — Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology (Essential Dreams Press) Golden, Christopher and Keene, Brian, eds. — The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King's The Stand (Gallery Books) WINNER: Kulski, Kristy Park, ed. — Silk & Sinew: A Collection of Folk Horror from the Asian Diaspora (Bad Hand Books) Murray, Lee and Jeffery, Dave, eds. — This Way Lies Madness: Stories from the Edge of Darkness (Flame Tree Publishing) Ryan, Lindy and Wytovich, Stephanie M., eds. — HOWL: An Anthology of Werewolves from Women-in-Horror (Black Spot Books) Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection Chapman, Clay McLeod — Acquired Taste (Titan Books) Files, Gemma — Little Horn: Stories (Shortwave) WINNER: Langan, John — Lost in The Dark and Other Excursions (Word Horde) Piper, Hailey — Teenage Girls Can Be Demons (Titan Books) Tantlinger, Sara — Cyanide Constellations (Dark Matter INK) Superior Achievement in a First Novel Daly, Grace — The Scald-Crow (Creature Publishing) Karella, Bitter — Moonflow (Run For It) Pell, Tanya — Her Wicked Roots (Gallery Books) Steel, Hester — The Faceless Thing We Adore (Page Street Horror) Tennison, Kathryn — Molting (Uncomfortably Dark Horror) Viel, Neena — Listen to Your Sister (St. Martin's Griffin / Titan Books) WINNER: Wehunt, Michael — The October Film Haunt (St. Martin's Press) Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel Bunn, Cullen (writer) and Luckert, Danny (artist) – Jumpscare (Dark Horse Comics) King, Sandy (editor) – John Carpenter's Tales for a HalloweeNight, Volume 11 (Storm King Comics) Kraus, Daniel (writer) and Dani (artist) – Athanasia (VAULT Comics) WINNER: Mignola, Mike – Bowling With Corpses and Other Tales from Lands Unknown (Dark Horse Comics) Tynion IV, James (writer), Foxe, Steve (writer), and Kowalski, Piotr (artist) – Let This One Be a Devil – (Dark Horse Comics & Tiny Onion Studios) Superior Achievement in Long Fiction (tie) WINNER: Ballingrud, Nathan — Cathedral of the Drowned (Tor Nightfire / Titan Books) Ha, Thomas — "Uncertain Sons" (Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, Undertow Publications) Langan, Sarah — "Squid Teeth"(Reactor) Langan, Sarah — Pam Kowolski is a Monster! (Raw Dog Screaming Press) WINNER: Wise, A.C. — "Wolf Moon, Antler Moon" (Reactor) Superior Achievement in Long Non-Fiction Borwein, Naomi Simone, ed. — Global Indigenous Horror (University Press of Mississippi) Grafius, Brandon R. and Morehead, John W., eds. — The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Monsters (Oxford University Press) Hieber, Leanna Renee and Janes, Andrea — America's Most Gothic (Kensington Publishing) Scrivner, Coltan — Morbidly Curious: A Scientist Explains Why We Can't Look Away (Penguin Random House) WINNER: Spratford, Becky Siegel, ed. — Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction (Saga Press) Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel WINNER: Dawson, Delilah S. — Ride or Die (Delacorte Press) Kuyatt, Meg Eden — The Girl in the Walls (Scholastic Press) Malinenko, Ally — Broken Dolls (HarperCollins Children's Books) Oh, Ellen — The House Next Door (HarperCollins Children's Books) Russell, Ally — Mystery James Digs Her Own Grave (Delacorte Press) Superior Achievement in a Novel Hendrix, Grady — Witchcraft for Wayward Girls (Berkley) Hill, Joe — King Sorrow (William Morrow) WINNER: Jones, Stephen Graham — The Buffalo Hunter Hunter (Saga Press / Titan Books) Moreno-Garcia, Silvia — The Bewitching (Del Rey) Wagner, Wendy N. — Girl in the Creek (Tor Nightfire) Superior Achievement in Poetry (Collection and Long Form) WINNER: Addison, Linda D. and Hodge, Jamal — Everything Endless (Raw Dog Screaming Press) Gold, Maxwell I. — Songs of Enough: An Inferno All My Own (Hippocampus Press) Kearns, Shannon — The Uterus is an Impossible Forest (Raw Dog Screaming Press) Peebles, Cate — The Haunting (Tupelo Press) Raguso, MarieAnn C, PhD — Allegories of Beauty & Violence: a collection of Gothic Romance Poems (Analyze This) Superior Achievement in a Screenplay WINNER: Coogler, Ryan — Sinners (Warner Bros. / Domain / Proximity) Cregger, Zach — Weapons (New Line Cinema / Domain / Subconscious) Garland, Alex — 28 Years Later (Sony / Columbia Pictures / TSG Entertainment) Hancock, Drew — Companion (New Line Cinema / BoulderLight Pictures / Vertigo Entertainment) Philippou, Danny and Hinzman, Bill — Bring Her Back (Causeway Films / Salmira Productions / The South Australian Film Corporation) Superior Achievement in Short Fiction Daniels, L.E. — "Stomata" (Darkness Most Fowl, The Godmother of Horror Press) WINNER: Joseph, RJ – "Inheritance" (Full Throttle: A Dark Dozen Anthology, Uncomfortably Dark Publishing) Szczepaniak-Gillece, Jocelyn — "Saint Dymphna's School for Borderland Girls" (Weird Horror #10, Undertow Publications) Taborska, Anna — "[Ir]reversible" (Witches and Witchcraft: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Essays, Hippocampus Press) Wongsatayanont, Champ – "Autogas Ferryman" (Nightmare Magazine #156, Adamant Press) Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction Barb, Patrick — "Deathwish Wolf Man: The Tragic Hero at the Heart of the Universal Monster" (Interstellar Flight Magazine) (Interstellar Flight Press) WINNER: Due, Tananarive — "My Long Road to Horror" (Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction, Saga Press) Jones, Stephen Graham — "Why Horror" (Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction, Saga Press) Moshaty, Mo — "Haunted Thresholds: Liminal Horror and the Psychological Disintegration of Women from Post-Partum, Grief, Trauma and Religious Fanaticism" (Darkest Margins: 24 Essays on Liminality and Liminal Spaces in the Horror Genre) (1428 Publishing Ltd) Pelayo, Cynthia — "My Mother Was Margaret White" (Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction, Saga Press) Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel WINNER: Chapman, Clay McLeod – Shiny Happy People (Delacorte Press) Cheng, Linda —Beautiful Brutal Bodies (Roaring Brook Press) Chupeco, Rin — We're Not Safe Here (Sourcebooks) Rodriguez Wallach, Diana — The Silenced (Delacorte Press) Roux, Madeleine — A Girl Walks Into The Forest (Quill Tree Books) SPECIALTY AWARDS Specialty Press Award: Bad Hand Books Richard Laymon President's Award: Marc L. Abbott Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award: Sarah Read Mentor of the Year Award: Eric Guignard Lifetime Achievement Award Winners: Lisa Morton, Jonathan Maberry

OPINION The US government is reportedly weighing whether to take a financial stake in AI companies, which looks a bit like negotiating for a seat on the Titanic. Neither OpenAI nor Anthropic, the marquee brands in US AI, are profitable yet. While Anthropic may be nearer to that point if its accounting survives scrutiny, OpenAI's $1.4 trillion in financial commitments over the next eight years have been interpreted as a red flag for investors. This raises (at least) two questions: Should the US government be picking winners? And should the US government be picking losers? The first question appears already to have been decided. As noted by the US Council on Foreign Relations, since January 2025, the feds have invested $20.9 billion in sixteen deals that involve direct ownership. This represents a change from more hands-off financial arrangements involving grants, loans, and tax incentives. The Department of Commerce, for example, has taken a 10 percent stake in Intel, once a symbol of American technical prowess and now a national security backstop. The Development Finance Corporation had invested in minerals, energy, and infrastructure. And the Department of Defense has undertaken at least seven similar deals. Neoliberal US notions about competition and the separation of church, state, and private industry have succumbed to the new world disorder. When economists from Harvard and Yale looked at the issue in a 2021 paper titled "The Dance Between Government and Private Investors: Public Entrepreneurial Finance around the Globe," they were cautiously optimistic. Authors Jessica Bai (Harvard), Shai Bernstein (Harvard), Abhishek Dev (Yale) and Josh Lerner (Harvard) looked at 755 entrepreneurial finance policies in 66 countries during the period from 1995 to 2019. They concluded that "government funding programs are associated with subsequent increases in innovation," as measured by "top patents." They offered some caveats, such as the observation that "government programs frequently rely on private capital markets through capital matching requirements, where private capital groups are often allowed to invest in more preferential terms than the public funds." And they also noted that economists have long recommended government investment in response to market failures – areas where private funding has chosen not to invest, presumably due to the uncertainty of returns. A recent example of that would be the US Commerce Department's decision to invest $2 billion in quantum computing in exchange for a minority controlling stake in nine technology companies. Pure-play quantum computing companies like D-Wave, Quantinuum, IonQ, and Rigetti Computing are not making a profit. But concern that quantum computing might some day do meaningful computing not possible with classical computers is enough to keep the funds flowing for now. The US government's reported interest in AI companies might be interpreted in a similar light, as a bailout for companies that have committed to spend heavily on data centers before demand has been demonstrated and pricing has stabilized. With OpenAI and Anthropic preparing to go public, the White House would do better to wait before placing its bet. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is said to have pushed for federal investment last year but publicly repudiated the idea after CFO Sarah Friar suggested federal loan guarantees. If the feds were to buy into OpenAI, the deal might take the form of a public wealth fund – so the public would receive revenue from intellectual property that AI firms have captured and are reselling. US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) last week said he planned to introduce a bill called the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act. Funded by a one-time 50 percent tax paid in AI company stock, it would give the public a say in how AI is used and a portion of the revenue generated by AI companies (which, again, follows from the largely uncompensated capture of public content). Meanwhile, the White House last week issued an executive order directing "the national security enterprise to accelerate AI adoption to meet surging demand, adapt the best commercial and open-source technologies for mission use, assure that fielded systems are robust, steerable, controllable, and preserve clear lines of accountability under the Constitutional chain of command." And the order promises "new partnerships with willing private-sector companies to secure America’s cutting-edge AI against global threats." Buying into these companies doesn't make a lot of sense if they can deliver on their promises at a viable price. The market would ensure plenty of good options for federal procurement. But if leading AI models are priced like Claude Mythos, reported to run $25 per million input tokens and $125 per million output tokens, or about 5x Opus 4.8, there may be some concern that leading edge AI will be too costly for much of the market. Uber's $1,500 monthly token spending cap per employee AI tool suggests companies won't reward the AI industry for over-investing. If cutting-edge AI is going to be priced out of reach for most industries and if it really can accomplish things that lesser models cannot, the case for federal involvement gets stronger. It would be a shame if the feds rewarded OpenAI and its peers with taxpayer money because that would reward fiscal irresponsibility and hinder startups hoping to innovate. Worse still, it would commit funds prematurely and unnecessarily for some notional national security edge that's razor thin and is being dulled by evolving open weight models and foreign model providers. The jury is still out – there are at least 115 lawsuits against AI companies – on whether there's a broad, sustainable market for AI services outside of software development and perhaps a few other knowledge work markets. The government should wait for the courts, the public, and the market to weigh in before riding to the rescue. ®