Opposition challenger Péter Magyar is ahead in the polls on a promise of hope. Orbán is betting on fear of war to stay in power

After 16 years of uninterrupted power, Viktor Orbán is facing his biggest electoral challenge. For years Hungary’s prime minister has spun weak policy performance as success. The rise of a rival, Péter Magyar, and the opposition Tisza party has exposed the limits of that strategy.

The economy is stagnating, despite repeated promises of a long-awaited takeoff. Over the past decade and a half, Hungary has slipped from being one of central and eastern Europe’s strongest performers to one of its weakest. Public services, from healthcare to transport, are widely seen as neglected, and Policy Solutions surveys show that voters have noticed. Hungary is not alone in facing a cost of living crisis, but comparisons offer little consolation to voters who were assured that Orbán’s model would deliver exceptional results.

András Bíró-Nagy is a senior research fellow at the ELTE Centre for Social Sciences in Budapest and director of Policy Solutions. He is the author of The Path of Hungary’s EU Membership

Continue reading...

Self-reliance is often encouraged over asking others for help in the modern world. But doing everything yourself can be a sign that you are scared of intimacy

When a relative was seriously ill and in intensive care for more than a month, Cianne Jones stepped in. “I took it upon myself to be that person in the hospital every single day – chasing doctors, taking notes, making sure I understood why they were doing things.” It was so stressful, she says, that at one point her hair started falling out, but she ploughed on.

It was Jones’s therapist who gently questioned whether she was going to ask for help. Jones laughs. “The hair falling out didn’t suggest to me that I needed help, it was somebody else looking in and saying that.” She has a large, close family who would have helped immediately – and did, once Jones asked – it’s just that it didn’t occur to her to ask. “I had taken that role on: ‘I’m just going to get everything done.’ I just took off, and that was it.”

Continue reading...

• Australian hits out at online trolls who have targeted her appearance

• Former prodigy to call time on professional career at end of 2026

Australia’s Destanee Aiava has announced her plans to retire from professional tennis in a scathing and expletive-laden statement on social media.

The 25-year-old hit out at a tennis culture she said was “racist, misogynistic, homophobic and hostile to anyone who doesn’t fit the mould”, as she revealed plans to call time on her playing career at the end of 2026.

Continue reading...

banzainetsurfer has added a photo to the pool:

Kawagoe City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan

banzainetsurfer has added a photo to the pool:

Kawagoe City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan

DanÅke Carlsson has added a photo to the pool:

kasa51 has added a photo to the pool:

DanÅke Carlsson posted a photo:

Vanillasludge posted a photo:

Suwako

Vanillasludge posted a photo:

Suwako

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Poetin heeft niet veel tijd meer, zei Volodymyr Zelensky in München, en hij bedoelde meer dan alleen leeftijd of gezondheid. De uitspraak valt samen met het raadselachtige verdwijnen van de Russische president uit de openbaarheid en een nieuwe, door de VS gestelde deadline om de oorlog nog vóór de zomer te beëindigen.[

Zelensky’s boodschap: tijd werkt tegen Poetin Tijdens de Münchense Veiligheidsconferentie grapte Zelensky dat hij jonger is dan de 73‑jarige Poetin, om daaraan toe te voegen: “Hij heeft niet veel tijd.” De zaal lachte, maar Zelensky benadrukte dat de opmerking serieus was: volgens hem kan Poetin “niet leven zonder oorlog” en is hij een “slaaf van de oorlog”, terwijl de Russische economie en het regime steeds afhankelijker worden van permanente mobilisatie en onderdrukking. Er zijn ook steeds meer aanwijzingen dat de Russiche elite genoeg heeft van hem van en van geldverslindende oolrog

Verdwenen leider, groeiende speculatie

De timing van Zelensky’s woorden is niet toevallig: Poetin is al meer dan een week niet in het openbaar gezien, terwijl Russische staatsmedia vooral met vooraf opgenomen beelden werken. Eerder voedden soortgelijke verdwijningen al geruchten over geheime medische behandelingen, aangewakkerd door beelden waarop zijn handen opgezwollen lijken en hij zenuwachtig zijn vingers beweegt. Het Kremlin ontkent hardnekkig dat er gezondheidsproblemen zijn, maar kan de speculatie nauwelijks nog wegmasseren.

Een waarschuwing aan Moskou én Washington Zelensky’s “tijd”-frame is ook een politiek signaal richting Washington en Europa. De regering‑Trump heeft opnieuw een harde deadline gezet: uiterlijk in juni moet er een vredesakkoord liggen, anders dreigt extra druk op zowel Kyiv als Moskou. Door te zeggen dat Poetin weinig tijd heeft, suggereert Zelensky dat niet Oekraïne, maar het Kremlin onder tijdsdruk staat – geopolitiek, economisch én in de persoon van de president zelf. Tegelijk probeert hij zijn westerse bondgenoten duidelijk te maken dat snelle concessies aan Rusland slechts een adempauze zouden kopen voor een leider die volgens hem alleen door oorlog aan de macht kan blijven.

Semibreve is an exploratory electronic music and digital art festival taking place in Braga, Portugal. Since 2011 Semibreve has consistently presented a forward-thinking programme featuring some of the most revered electronic music and cross-disciplinary work by artists from around the world, as well as maintaining an active role in the promotion of the digital arts in Portugal. Semibreve prides itself on curating a carefully-considered programme that is challenging and accessible. Semibreve's emphasis on its stunning site-specific locations and world-class venues, together with a shared ethos centred around inclusiveness and community, by promoting a diverse programme at an affordable ticket price, has brought about sold-out events and well-deserved international acclaim.

Na een reeks aanslagen met explosieven sloot de gemeente Amsterdam vier vestigingen van restaurantketen De Pizzabakkers.

"ChatGPT is getting more social," reports PC Magazine, "with a new feature that allows you to sync your contacts to see if any of your friends are using the chatbot or any other OpenAI product..."


It's "completely optional," [OpenAI] says. However, even if you don't opt in, anyone with your number who syncs their contacts are giving OpenAI your digits. "OpenAI may process your phone number if someone you know has your phone number saved in their device's address book and chooses to upload their contacts," the company says...

But why would you follow someone on ChatGPT? It lines up with reports, dating back to April, that OpenAI is building a social network. We haven't seen much since then, save for the Sora generative video app, which exists outside of ChatGPT and is more of a novelty. Contact sharing might be the first step toward a much bigger evolution for the world's most popular chatbot.
ChatGPT also supports group chats that let up to 20 people discuss and research something using the chatbot. Contact syncing could make it easier to invite people to these chats...

[OpenAI] claims it will not store the full data that might appear in your contact list, such as names or email addresses — just phone numbers. However, the company does store the phone numbers in its servers in a coded (or hashed) format. You can also revoke access in your device's settings. 09

Read more of this story at Slashdot.