Lang geleden ontmoette ik op zakenreis een hele aardige ondernemer uit India. Bij de kennismaking wisselden wij zoals gebruikelijk visitekaartjes uit.
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Zijn stem werd bij toeval ontdekt, en leidde hem vervolgens naar de grootste internationale podia. Bas-bariton José van Dam was de grootste operazanger die België ooit gekend heeft. In Nederland zong hij maar weinig.
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De Amerikaanse ijshockeyvrouwen donderdagavond olympisch goud gewonnen na een zinderende finale tegen Canada.
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WilmerHale to conduct review following new revelations about Leon Botstein’s dealings with convicted sex offender
Bard College’s board of trustees has retained the outside law firm of WilmerHale to conduct an independent investigation into communications between Jeffrey Epstein and the college’s longtime president Leon Botstein.
WilmerHale’s will conduct an “independent review” of the “full scope of these communications”, financial contributions connected to Epstein, and any related matters, the board said in an announcement on Thursday evening.
Continue reading...Virginia governor is seen as a model for the party to win back power in midterm elections
Virginia’s governor Abigail Spanberger will deliver the Democratic response to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address next week, elevating a pragmatic voice whose affordability-focused gubernatorial campaign is seen as a model for the party to win back power in the November midterm elections.
The Democratic rebuttal will immediately follow Trump’s address to Congress on 24 February. Spanberger, a former undercover CIA officer who served three terms in Congress, became Virginia’s first female governor earlier this year, resoundingly winning an office previously held by a Republican. She won the race by a double-digit margin, campaigning on affordability and lowering costs for families.
Shrai Popat contributed reporting
Continue reading...Olympic champion breaks indoor 800m mark in France
Former record set 24 years ago on Hodgkinson’s birthday
Britain’s Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson obliterated the world indoor 800m record, which has stood since 2002, by nearly a second in a stunning performance in Liévin.
Hodgkinson had made no secret that she believed the record of 1min 55.82sec, set by Slovenia’s Jolanda Ceplak on the same day Hodgkinson was born – 3 March 2002 – was there for the taking after a prep race at the British championships last week.
Continue reading...Jeffrey Damnit says actor punched him and second man on Tuesday, calling both ‘faggot’ repeatedly
One of the men whom Shia LaBeouf allegedly battered and insulted with a homophobic slur on Mardi Gras morning in New Orleans on Tuesday, leading to his arrest, would like to see the actor face hate crime charges.
Jeffrey Damnit, who dresses in drag and was in makeup at the time of the encounter with LaBeouf, said on Thursday that the behavior attributed to the Transformers film franchise star was “a complete slap in the face to any alternative-culture person”.
Continue reading...Guardian review of US justice department files reveals Epstein interacted with six CBP officers. The officer investigated denied any knowledge of trafficking underage girls
Federal investigators examined Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship with a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer who worked at the St Thomas airport to which Epstein regularly flew on his private planes before traveling by boat or helicopter to his private island, newly released documents reveal.
As part of that investigation, which did not result in any charges, investigators also issued subpoenas related to three additional CBP officers working at the Cyril E King Airport (STT) on St Thomas, documents show. The Guardian also identified two other CBP officers on St Thomas and in Florida who were in contact with Epstein, based on emails and text messages between Epstein, his staff and the officers. It does not appear the FBI ever investigated those two officers.
Continue reading...
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Wall Street Journal: Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg faced a barrage of questions about his social-media company's efforts to secure ever more of its users' time and attention at a landmark trial in Los Angeles on Wednesday. In sworn testimony, Zuckerberg said Meta's growth targets reflect an aim to give users something useful, not addict them, and that the company doesn't seek to attract children as users. [...] Mark Lanier, a lawyer for the plaintiff, repeatedly asked Zuckerberg about internal company communications discussing targets for how much time users spend with Meta's products. Lanier showed an email from 2015 in which the CEO stated his goal for 2016 was to increase users' time spent by 12%. "We used to give teams goals on time spent and we don't do that anymore because I don't think that's the best way to do it," Zuckerberg said on the witness stand in sworn testimony.
Lanier also asked Zuckerberg about documents showing Meta employees were aware of children under 13 using Meta's apps. Zuckerberg said the company's policy was that children under 13 aren't allowed on the platform and that they are removed when identified. Lanier showed an internal Meta email from 2015 that estimated 4 million children under 13 were using Instagram. He estimated that figure would represent approximately 30% of all kids aged 10 to 12 in the U.S. In response to a question about his ownership stake in Meta, which amounts to roughly more than $200 billion, Zuckerberg said he has pledged to donate most of his money to charity. "The better that Meta does, the more money I will be able to invest in science research," he said.
[...] On the stand, Zuckerberg was also asked about his decision to continue to allow beauty filters on the apps after 18 experts said they were harmful to teenage girls. The company temporarily banned the filters on Instagram in 2019 and commissioned a panel of experts to review the feature. All 18 said they were damaging. Meta later lifted the ban but said it didn't create any filters of its own or recommend the filters to users on Instagram after that. "We shouldn't create that content ourselves and we shouldn't recommend it to people," Zuckerberg said. But at the same time, he continued, "I think oftentimes telling people that they can't express themselves like that is overbearing." He also argued that other experts had thought such bans were a suppression of free speech. By focusing on the design of Meta's apps rather than the content posted in them, the case seeks to get around longstanding legal doctrine that largely shields social-media companies from litigation. At times, the case has veered into questions of content, prompting Meta's lawyers to object.
Lanier also asked Zuckerberg about documents showing Meta employees were aware of children under 13 using Meta's apps. Zuckerberg said the company's policy was that children under 13 aren't allowed on the platform and that they are removed when identified. Lanier showed an internal Meta email from 2015 that estimated 4 million children under 13 were using Instagram. He estimated that figure would represent approximately 30% of all kids aged 10 to 12 in the U.S. In response to a question about his ownership stake in Meta, which amounts to roughly more than $200 billion, Zuckerberg said he has pledged to donate most of his money to charity. "The better that Meta does, the more money I will be able to invest in science research," he said.
[...] On the stand, Zuckerberg was also asked about his decision to continue to allow beauty filters on the apps after 18 experts said they were harmful to teenage girls. The company temporarily banned the filters on Instagram in 2019 and commissioned a panel of experts to review the feature. All 18 said they were damaging. Meta later lifted the ban but said it didn't create any filters of its own or recommend the filters to users on Instagram after that. "We shouldn't create that content ourselves and we shouldn't recommend it to people," Zuckerberg said. But at the same time, he continued, "I think oftentimes telling people that they can't express themselves like that is overbearing." He also argued that other experts had thought such bans were a suppression of free speech. By focusing on the design of Meta's apps rather than the content posted in them, the case seeks to get around longstanding legal doctrine that largely shields social-media companies from litigation. At times, the case has veered into questions of content, prompting Meta's lawyers to object.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The IRS's IT division has reportedly lost 40% of its staff and nearly 80% of its tech leadership amid a federal "efficiency" overhaul, the agency's CIO revealed yesterday. The Register reports: Kaschit Pandya detailed the extent of the tech reorganization during a panel at the Association of Government Accountants yesterday, describing it as the biggest in two decades. ... The IRS lost a quarter of its workforce overall in 2025. But the tech team was clearly affected more deeply. At the start of the year, the team encompassed around 8,500 employees.
As reported by Federal News Network (FNN), Pandya said: "Last year, we lost approximately 40 percent of the IT staff and nearly 80 percent of the execs." "So clearly there was an opportunity, and I thought the opportunity that we needed to really execute was reorganizing." That included breaking up silos within the organization, he said. "Everyone was operating in their own department or area."
It is not entirely clear where all those staff have gone. According to a report by the US Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the IT department had 8,504 workers as of October 2024. As of October 2025, it had 7,135. However, reports say that as part of the reorganization, 1,000 techies were detailed to work on delivering frontline services during the US tax season. According to FNN, those employees have questioned the wisdom of this move and its implementation.
As reported by Federal News Network (FNN), Pandya said: "Last year, we lost approximately 40 percent of the IT staff and nearly 80 percent of the execs." "So clearly there was an opportunity, and I thought the opportunity that we needed to really execute was reorganizing." That included breaking up silos within the organization, he said. "Everyone was operating in their own department or area."
It is not entirely clear where all those staff have gone. According to a report by the US Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the IT department had 8,504 workers as of October 2024. As of October 2025, it had 7,135. However, reports say that as part of the reorganization, 1,000 techies were detailed to work on delivering frontline services during the US tax season. According to FNN, those employees have questioned the wisdom of this move and its implementation.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A bare-bones Chinese app called "Are You Dead?" -- whose entire premise is that solo-living users tap daily to confirm they're still alive, triggering an alert to an emergency contact after two missed check-ins -- has rocketed to the top of China's app store charts and gone viral globally without spending a dime on advertising.
The app wasn't built for the elderly, as many assumed; its creators are Gen-Z developers who said they were inspired by the isolation of urban life in a country where one-person households are expected to hit 200 million by 2030. Its rise coincided with China's birth rate plunging to a record low. Beijing quietly removed the app from Chinese stores last month, and the developers are now crowdsourcing a new name on social media after their first rebrand attempt, "Demumu," failed to catch on.
The app wasn't built for the elderly, as many assumed; its creators are Gen-Z developers who said they were inspired by the isolation of urban life in a country where one-person households are expected to hit 200 million by 2030. Its rise coincided with China's birth rate plunging to a record low. Beijing quietly removed the app from Chinese stores last month, and the developers are now crowdsourcing a new name on social media after their first rebrand attempt, "Demumu," failed to catch on.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
$300 a month buys you a backdoor that looks like legit software
Researchers at Proofpoint late last month uncovered what they describe as a "weird twist" on the growing trend of criminals abusing remote monitoring and management software (RMM) as their preferred attack tools.…
The Trial of Gisèle Pelicot’s Rapists United France and Fractured Her Family. “‘Look at the Pelicot family.’ They had been ‘confronted with the impossible dilemma,’ he said. ‘How to make suffering coexist.’”
LIÉVIN (ANP) - De Britse atlete Keely Hodgkinson (23) heeft een wereldrecord gelopen op de 800 meter indoor. In het Franse Liévin liep ze naar een tijd van 1.54,87, bijna een seconde sneller dan het bijna 24 jaar oude wereldrecord van de Sloveense Jolanda Ceplak. Het record stond sinds 3 maart 2002, de geboortedag van Hodgkinson.
Hodgkinson werd in Parijs in 2024 olympisch kampioen in de buitenlucht op de 800 meter. In de hal in Liévin werd ze de eerste 200 meter op gang geholpen door een haas en finishte ze ruim voor haar concurrenten.
Van 20 tot 22 maart vinden in het Poolse Torun de wereldkampioenschappen indooratletiek plaats. Hodgkinson won nog nooit een wereldtitel.
GLASGOW (ANP) - Darter Gian van Veen heeft op de derde speeldag van de Premier League de finale verloren. In het Schotse Glasgow was Jonny Clayton uit Wales met 6 legs tegen 2 te sterk voor de Nederlander, die in januari verliezend finalist was op het WK darts.
Van Veen bereikte de finale door in de kwartfinale af te rekenen met Stephen Bunting (6-3) en in de halve finale Luke Humphries te verslaan (6-5). Zijn tegenstander Clayton won in zijn halve finale met 6-1 van wereldkampioen Luke Littler.
Michael van Gerwen was niet aanwezig omdat hij ziek was. De eerste twee speeldagen van de Premier League had hij nog de finale bereikt, op de openingsavond in Newcastle won hij die.
MILAAN (ANP) - Kunstrijdster Alysa Liu heeft namens de Verenigde Staten goud gewonnen op de individuele wedstrijd op de Olympische Spelen van Milaan en Cortina. De Japanse Kaori Sakamoto pakte het zilver, voor haar landgenote Ami Nakai.
Na de korte kür ging Nakai aan de leiding, voor Sakamoto en Liu. In de vrije kür legde Liu de lat hoog met een nagenoeg foutloze oefening. De regerend wereldkampioen kreeg een score van 150,20. Sakamoto maakte in haar kür, op muziek van Édith Piaf, een fout door een sprong te missen. De score van 147,67 kostte haar een kans op de titel, maar een plek op het podium was zeker. Alleen Nakai kon Liu nog van de titel afhouden. De 17-jarige Japanse leek goed met de druk om te kunnen gaan, maar de jury bleek kritisch op de uitvoering van haar oefening.
Het is het tweede goud voor Liu op de Winterspelen in Milaan, nadat ze ook al het teamevenement won met de Verenigde Staten.
"Tyler Perry is a lot of things," F.d. Signifier says on early in the recently released The Tyler Perry Video.
F.D. Signifier (previously) then gives a four hour history lesson about the complexities of black media in America. Also he builds a table. The table is probably a metaphor that is going somewhere, I'm not sure yet, it was released last night and I'm only part of the way through. If you're allergic to multi-hour media critique video essays, I'd recommend take a Claritin and watch anyways. (Also on Nebula, and yes this finally caused me to try out Nebula)
F.D. Signifier (previously) then gives a four hour history lesson about the complexities of black media in America. Also he builds a table. The table is probably a metaphor that is going somewhere, I'm not sure yet, it was released last night and I'm only part of the way through. If you're allergic to multi-hour media critique video essays, I'd recommend take a Claritin and watch anyways. (Also on Nebula, and yes this finally caused me to try out Nebula)