A teacher’s private anxieties are subtly combined with political events in this Booker-listed tale set in coastal Massachusetts

Artie Dam is a much-loved history teacher from coastal Massachusetts famed for his white socks and old sneakers and who sees a growing hopelessness in his young students. Not only are they dispirited by the state of the world, but they also believe they won’t be able to achieve their professional dreams. Their feelings of dread and ennui are shared by Artie who is aghast at the imminent re-election of a cruel and divisive leader (who remains nameless).

Artie is also lonely in the company of his wife, Evie, a therapist who comes from a wealthy family and is dismissive of her “soft” spouse. Artie realises he doesn’t truly know Evie, and she doesn’t care to know him. He traces their loss of connection to their son Rob’s car accident a decade ago in which Rob survived but his girlfriend Heather was killed. Such is Artie’s desolation that he contemplates suicide, if only he can find a way of doing it discreetly. But something happens while he is sailing in his boat that changes his mind. Later, a revelation from his son further shifts his perspective on his relationships.

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Experts say findings mean breast screenings for cancer could also flag cardiovascular problems in women

Doctors have discovered a way to use routine mammograms that screen for breast cancer to spot heart disease, the world’s leading – and frequently underdiagnosed – cause of death in women.

Researchers analysed the scans using artificial intelligence and were able to successfully identify women with coronary heart disease, high blood pressure or who had suffered a stroke.

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The actor on which star he’d devour first on a lifeboat, why he prefers pigeons to dogs and how Trainspotting put the Scottish accent on the map

You’re stranded on a lifeboat with Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Peter Mullan, James Cosmo, Keith Allen and Irvine Welsh. Who do you eat first? DarkAnaemicI77
I suppose you have to think about who’s the healthiest and has looked after their body best. I reckon Ewan would be a wee bit too chewy, and Irvine a wee bit pickled. I’ll go for Kevin McKidd because he’s been out in LA for 20 years, eating good food.

Did you really not like Zippy the West Highland terrier who played Wee Jock in Hamish Macbeth? Campbell97

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Jacques Forestier/Boris Kusnezow
(Warner Classics)
The Canadian violinist’s album definitely does what it says on the tin: from Bartók to Ernst, there is a quiet and beguiling eloquence to his playing

Perhaps the most promising thing about this impressive debut album from Jacques Forestier, the young Canadian violinist who tied in first place at the 2024 Joseph Joachim Competition, is the way it lives up to its title.

There’s a swing to the way he and the pianist Boris Kusnezow play Bartók’s six Romanian Folk Dances that extends even into the quiet movements, which sound distant and beguiling. Wieniawski’s Polonaise de Concert comes across as a dance rather than just a flashy showpiece. Bach’s D minor Sarabande is framed by movements from Ysaÿe’s solo Sonatas. All have persuasive rhythmic poise.

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Paul Greengrass drama The Uprising was supposed to be a historical epic about the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 – but a strange new campaign has inserted a surprising figure

Nobody likes to have the full plot of a movie spoiled before they’ve even seen it. However, sometimes this can be taken to the extreme. Take the new Paul Greengrass movie, The Uprising, for example. It is two weeks away from release and, not only does nobody know the plot, but nobody seems to know what it is even about. Seriously, nobody at all. The film’s distributors just spent yesterday squabbling in public about whether Robin Hood was in it or not.

Here’s what we know so far. Initially, all the trailers and promotional materials made The Uprising look like a film about the Peasants’ Revolt that tore through England in 1381. And this was very exciting, since the revolt was a thrilling moment in history that has been bizarrely underserved by Hollywood over the years. Most excitingly of all, though, it sounded like it fit exactly into Greengrass’s wheelhouse; full of action and realism and political awareness.

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AI companies have promised us world-shifting technology. But there’s a cost: loud, unsightly datacentres that drain environmental resources. As the government pushes their rapid growth, can local communities do anything to push back? Madeleine Finlay speaks to the Guardian’s global technology reporter Aisha Down about the backlash to datacentres across the UK and around the world

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The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

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In a disrupted job market people are turning to heritage crafts such as bookbinding, metalwork and boatbuilding

It’s a bleak moment for young people entering the workforce for the first time. For decades, a university degree seemed to promise a stable career – but entry-level white-collar jobs across almost all sectors are being disrupted by AI. Budding accountants, software engineers and junior lawyers increasingly find themselves displaced by cheap automation.

Even creative fields are struggling against AI tech that can produce artwork, lengthy prose or complex design briefs in seconds.

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Na 38 jaar komt er een einde aan het illustere interviewprogramma Zomergasten. U schreef ons over de afleveringen die u het meest zijn bijgebleven.

Dit najaar presenteert het Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam een grote overzichtstentoonstelling van de Japanse kunstenaar Yayoi Kusama, die onlangs op 97-jarige leeftijd overleed. Het grootste werk daarin is een reusachtige ‘infinity mirror room’ met knalgele oktopusarmen. Met dit type spiegelkamers legde Kusama (onbedoeld) de basis voor moderne selfiemusea.

Nog altijd kunnen gamers in augustus op pelgrimstocht naar de grootste gamebeurs ter wereld in Keulen. De grote jongens ontbreken, maar zo erg worden ze niet meer gemist.

Na het nieuws over de dood van Dolly Parton snelde ik meteen naar wat ik nog steeds nostalgisch ‘mijn platenkast’ noem. Wat had ik eigenlijk van haar?

Veevoermultinational De Heus betaalt mee aan bijeenkomsten waarop boeren worden opgeroepen actie te voeren tegen de stikstofplannen van het kabinet. Minister Van Essen zegt in een reactie: „Het mede financieren van informatievonden waar onjuiste informatie wordt gedeeld draagt absoluut niet bij” aan een oplossing voor de stikstofproblemen.

Paul uit B&B Vol liefde heeft een vriendelijk gezicht en oogt met zijn dikke buik als een lieve knuffelbeer, maar dat was vroeger wel anders. Zijn dochter Laura deelt een foto van zo'n 20 jaar geleden, toen ze op vakantie waren op Corsica.

De Brabander, die nu een B&B in Spanje runt, was in die tijd een knappe man die heel wat kilootjes minder woog.

De 62-jarige Paul de Waal vertrok in 2021 met zijn vrouw Liesbeth en dochters naar de Costa Brava om een gastenverblijf te gaan runnen. Na een paar jaar al kwam hij er alleen voor te staan. Zijn vrouw overleed na een kort ziekbed. Ze liet wel een duidelijk boodschap achter: "Het is zoals het is en het zal nooit zo zijn zoals het was. Maar jullie leven gaat door, dus leef, geniet en heb lief. Wat wij samen deelden, draag dat bij je. Als herinnering aan mij."

In 2018 deed Paul samen met dochter Laura nog mee aan de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen in het Brabantse Putte. Toen heeft hij er eigenhandig voor gezorgd dat er geen azc in de gemeente kwam. Zo meelevend als hij overkomt in B&B Vol liefde is hij dus niet altijd.

Bron: Story

DEN HAAG (ANP) - NOC*NSF stelt geen aanvullende eisen meer voor golfers om zich te kwalificeren voor de Olympische Spelen van Los Angeles in 2028. De sportkoepel is van mening dat de internationale kwalificatiecriteria voor de Spelen voldoende aansluiten bij de Nederlandse prestatiedoelstelling.

Doordat er meer gedetailleerde data beschikbaar is, kan NOC*NSF per sport nauwkeuriger beoordelen welke criteria passen bij de prestatiedoelstelling. "De internationale eisen zijn in veel gevallen strenger en meer sturend geworden", zegt André Cats, directeur topsport van NOC*NSF. "We zijn beter in staat de verschillende criteria met elkaar te vergelijken en te matchen met het niveau van het deelnemersveld. De noodzaak voor nationale eisen is hierdoor in een aantal sporten afgenomen."

NOC*NSF en de Koninklijke Nederlandse Golf Federatie (NGF) hebben vastgesteld dat de internationale kwalificatiecriteria voor Los Angeles 2028 voldoende aansluiten bij de Nederlandse prestatiedoelstelling.

NEW YORK (ANP) - Nvidia behoorde donderdag tot de grote winnaars op de beurzen in New York na het openen van de boeken. Het aandeel werd zo'n 7 procent hoger gezet. Omdat de beurswaarde van Nvidia al boven de 5 biljoen dollar lag, betekent deze koersstijging dat er rond de 350 miljard dollar aan beurswaarde bij is gekomen.

Nvidia is momenteel het waardevolste beursgenoteerde bedrijf ter wereld. De grootste verkoper van chips voor kunstmatige intelligentie (AI) ter wereld boekte afgelopen kwartaal meer omzet en winst dan kenners hadden verwacht. Ook voor het huidige kwartaal en het volgende boekjaar rekent het bedrijf op een aanhoudende sterke groei dankzij de enorme investeringen van grote techbedrijven in datacenters voor AI-toepassingen.

Announcing upbeat financials and a new offering with AI posterchild Anthropic, Salesforce has begun to drip-feed plans for how it might get customers to spend more as they deploy AI. The CRM giant has been among the victims of the so-called SaaSpocalypse, which sees widespread business application software replaced or diminished by AI models which interact directly with business data. Flawed or not, the notion has tanked Salesforce’s share price by more than 20 percent this year, but its Q2 results, for the period ending July 31, caused some cheer, at least among shareholders. As well as trumpeting revenue of $11.3 billion, up 11 percent on a year ago and beating analysts' expectations, the CRM giant announced a new tie-in with AI model builder Anthropic. The two companies have teamed up to announce Claudeforce, which claims to bring Claude’s services together with Salesforce’s enterprise data, workflows, governance and business logic. It offers a Plugin with 37 prebuilt “sales skills” the companies say help sellers and agents automate sales pipelines for example. As well as using Claude for the UI, it can be embedded in Salesforce products AIforce, Headless 360, Data 360, Tableau, and Slack. Together with the financial results, the news caused a 12 percent jump in the company’s value. That’s all very well for investors, but customers will be asking whether it works and how much they pay for it. Both will depend on the implementation strategy, but Salesforce did offer some clues about its expectations while speaking to investment analysts. For a start, there are so many products which seem to overlap, customers may be forgiven for being a little confused. Co-CEO and founder Marc Benioff said products would use “not only Claudeforce, but a new version of Slack, as well as Coworker,” an AI powered assistant built in its Agentforce platform. That adds to the Headless 360, which allows customers to access all of their Salesforce data from Cursor, WhatsApp, ChatGPT, Claude, or a terminal. Slack is also being reworked as the UI for CRM and other applications through SlackBots, which can fetch and query data from a range of applications. Consumption-based How are users expected to pay for this menagerie of product types? Bundles is the answer. Robin Washington, Salesforce President and Chief Operating and Financial Officer, told investors, “bundles give our customers access to our innovation in real time.” Benioff said customers would have the option to pay by consumption, basic usage, or by outcome, such as a transaction outcome or a business outcome. “Customers want that kind of diversity in pricing, we have created a high level of flexibility, and that has really expanded our ability to sign very large transactions with our customers,” he said. Also underscoring this approach was the importance of consumption-based payment model Flex Credits in Salesforce's plans to get customers to adopt its various AI agent-led approaches to business processes. Miguel Milano, also President and Chief Operating Officer at Salesforce, told analysts: “When you look just at bookings — not just the cumulative annual recurring revenue — [they] grew triple-digit. We doubled year on year. Fifty percent of the bookings came from customers refilling the tank: they consume Flex Credits, they want more.” In October last year, Gartner warned users about the unplanned consumption of Flex Credits, alongside similar concepts in Microsoft and ServiceNow’s commercial portfolio. “These often require upfront usage commitments and can be credit-based, with rates that may change unilaterally by the vendor, exposing buyers to unexpected cost increases. While buyers may expect costs to decrease as usage scales, Gartner has seen no evidence of vendors lowering prices. Volume discounts must be negotiated upfront,” it said. The Register asked Salesforce to comment on Thursday Washington added that the company was “really comfortable with” the way it was working “through headless monetization.” “We ultimately think predictability and flexibility are what's important to customers. With our new platform, Agentforce, we are going to unlock the potential for knowledge workers in great ways. That's going to be pretty impressive. “That is an early stage for us relative to our installed base, or our opportunity to continue to upgrade our customers to those premium editions that give them instantaneous access to this innovation... We feel really comfortable with the monetization strategy that we have, and most importantly, the flexibility that we are giving our customers that allows us to capture that,” she said. Separately, Gartner has previously predicted that Salesforce’s all-you-can-eat model, the Agentic Enterprise License Agreement (AELA) announced last October, will not be available to all customers forever. Hannah Decker, Gartner director analyst for IT sourcing and procurement, told The Register in January it was critical that users understood the exit terms of AELAs before signing up for them. "Gartner believes that these are going to be converted into defined quantity contracts at the end of the agreement," she said. At the time, Salesforce denied that was the case. In a statement, Bill Patterson, Salesforce EVP, Corporate Strategy, said: "The claim that we are moving away from capped agreements is inaccurate. Renewals remain flexible, and because AI compute costs may actually shift over time, we focus on tailoring terms so each customer can get the maximum value from their usage.” ®

Pompoenkweker Jan Scheffe baalt stevig. Zijn grote kanshebber voor het NK Pompoenkweken is ingestort. En dat na maanden lang bloed, zweet en tranen om de pompoen te kweken en te verzorgen. Elke dag liters water sproeien, tenten bouwen en hopen dat hij groeit. "Gelukkig gebeurde het niet toen ik er op lag om hem te meten."

Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov said Russian troops are positioned just 4 kilometers from the eastern outskirts of Slovyansk.

Bij Wormerveer is een trein richting Zaandam en Amsterdam stilgezet na een melding over een vechtpartij. De oproerkraaier blijkt een 'man met een baard en petje' die mogelijk een mes bij zich zou hebben. "Hij maakt hierbij onder andere gebaren alsof hij de keel doorsnijdt", aldus De Orkaan. Er zijn inmiddels twee knakkers aangehouden. "De verdachten schreeuwden ‘Allahu akbar’." Volstrekt normaal. Over enkele ogenblikken rijdt de trein weer verder van station naar station en kunt u weer: DOORLOPEN MENSEN! NIKS AAN DE HAND! EENZAME WOLVEN! En tot de volgende keer maar weer.

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