Nigel Farage urged to clarify ‘dependence’ on Cottrell, who also joined Reform leader in Abu Dhabi in December
Nigel Farage has been accompanied by his friend George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster, to numerous Reform events and fundraisers and a trip to Abu Dhabi, raising questions about the claim that he has no official role in the party.
Labour has called on Farage to clarify his “personal and financial dependence” on Cottrell, who has also been supporting his lifestyle through accommodation and security before the election.
Tuchel critical of ‘unreliable’ officiating against Mexico
Victory at the Azteca ‘fuels our belief we are here to stay’
Thomas Tuchel called the standard of refereeing at the World Cup unreliable and erratic as he insisted England are capable of going all the way following their dramatic 3-2 victory against Mexico.
Tuchel fumed after his side held on with 10 men at the Azteca stadium on Sunday night, saying that officials across the board have not been up to scratch at the finals tournament. The German, who was unhappy with Jarell Quansah being sent off for a bad tackle after a review following a recommendation by the video assistant referee, claimed that players do not know what to expect during games and he warned that teams are at risk of being knocked out because of poor refereeing decisions.
All the Golden Boot talk is currently of Mbappé and Messi, Haaland and Dembélé, Bellingham and Kane. In the meantime, Mikel Oyarzabal modestly goes about his business. Some pre-match reading courtesy of the Good Doctor.
Spain are in If It Ain’t Broke mode. No changes to their starting XI having swept aside Austria.
No 9 seed beats American 6-4, 7-6 (2) on Court One
Marta Kostyuk and Elise Mertens also in quarter-finals
The ninth seed, Linda Noskova, produced a composed display under pressure to end Madison Keys’s run here in straight sets, sealing a 6-4, 7-6 (2) victory on Court One to reach the quarter-finals of a grand slam for the second time.
Keys had arrived full of confidence after knocking out last year’s runner-up, Amanda Anisimova in the third round. A former Australian Open champion, Keys was bidding to reach the last eight for the third time in four years. Noskova was chasing her own breakthrough having battled through consecutive three-set matches to return to the fourth round.
Tropical storm causes extreme flooding in south of the country with heavy rainfall expected in coming days
A tropical storm has killed two people, caused dam breaches and forced tens of thousands to evacuate in southern China
Typhoon Maysak killed two people in Nanning, in China’s southern Guangxi province. Maysak – which lashed Vietnam and China’s southern island province of Hainan over the weekend – will dump the water it sucked up on its way across the South China Sea as it weakens and heads inland, meteorologists say.
Militant group’s statement makes no promise to disarm unilaterally as Israel and the US have demanded
Hamas has announced its intention to hand over governing authority in Gaza after two decades in power, and has invited a US-backed interim administration to take over the running of the Palestinian territory.
It was not immediately clear how far Monday’s announcement would go towards strengthening an only partially observed ceasefire in Gaza or improving conditions in the besieged coastal strip which is still in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.
GENÈVE (ANP/BLOOMBERG) - Klaus Schwab, de oprichter van het World Economic Forum (WEF), heeft in Genève aangifte gedaan nadat hij in zijn werkkamer thuis een afluisterapparaat had ontdekt. Het apparaat werd gevonden na een routinematige veiligheidscontrole in zijn privéwoning in Genève, vlak bij de locatie van het World Economic Forum.
Het apparaat is mogelijk in de afgelopen drie jaar geplaatst, staat in een verklaring van een woordvoerder van Schwab. Er is inmiddels een onderzoek gestart met als doel de verantwoordelijken voor de plaatsing op te sporen. Het is niet bekend tegen wie aangifte is gedaan.
Vorig jaar vertrok Schwab bij het WEF na beschuldigingen van wangedrag op de werkvloer en een conflict met de leiding. Schwab zou onder meer vrouwelijke medewerkers ongepast hebben behandeld. Ook zouden hij en zijn vrouw ongeautoriseerde uitgaven hebben gedaan. De organisatie achter de jaarlijkse topbijeenkomsten in Davos zei later geen bewijs gevonden te hebben van structureel wangedrag door Schwab.
De treinen tussen Rotterdam en onder meer Dordrecht, Breda en Zeeland rijden sinds vanochtend weer. Door een brand in een kabelgoot lag het treinverkeer ruim een week stil. Vandaag worden nog afrondende werkzaamheden uitgevoerd aan sporen langs Rotterdam Stadion, maar reizigers merken daar niets van.
De treinen tussen Rotterdam en onder meer Dordrecht, Breda en Zeeland gaan dinsdagochtend mogelijk weer rijden. Door een brand in een kabelgoot ligt het treinverkeer al ruim een week stil, maar het einde is in zicht. Let wel op: dinsdagochtend om 05:00 uur besluit ProRail definitief of het verkeer weer door kan en zo ja, over hoeveel sporen.
In Dutch Golden Age still-life painting, it’s not uncommon to be treated to tables laden with flowers and food such as fruits, game, and fish. These works were painstakingly rendered; one can practically smell the sea. But the flip side is the temporality of these items, as the painting preserves their freshness, but we know they will ultimately decay. This incorporation of memento mori was intentional, as the inevitability of death was something people meditated carefully on.
Flora and fauna in Dutch painting also demonstrate abundance and diversity, from myriad types of foods to hyperrealistic flower arrangements, such as those of Rachel Ruysch, that may have had folkloric hidden meanings. For artist Veks Van Hillik, tropes from these canvases find their way into surreal, eccentric paintings and murals that also nod contemporary concerns and humanity’s relationship to the natural world.
“There is also something almost systematic in the way humans tend to personify animals and project a certain form of anthropomorphism onto the stories we tell about them,” Van Hillik tells Colossal. “I enjoy playing with these unspoken codes inherited from fables and folk tales. And, whether intentionally or not, an ecological subtext—or at the very least a reflection on our ecosystems—often emerges in my work, something I like to preserve and contemplate.”
Fish emerged rather enigmatically as a central focus on Van Hillik’s work, partly because they were among the very first things he learned to draw as a child, when one of his older brothers taught him. “But the marine and aquatic world also offers an almost endless variety of forms, colors, and patterns,” he says. “Sometimes graceful, sometimes monstrous or grotesque, fish are almost always somewhat surreal.”
In his large-scale murals, and also increasingly in the studio, Van Hillik nods to the tones and settings of historical still life paintings, including sturdy surfaces, dark backgrounds, and architectural niches. Spilling from these are objects and animals we instantly recognize, such as birds, plants, and insects. But first impressions may be misleading, as upon closer inspection, a butterfly is missing its body, a nautilus balances on a bubble, and a heron’s beak transforms into a key.
Van Hillik is interested in weight and presence along with unusual relationships and hybrid creatures. Fish, in particular, are the kind of thing we eat regularly, and some of us may even cast a line for them from time to time, but they live in a world entirely different from ours. The earth’s aquatic expanses comprise a realm we are far from fully understanding; we’ve only mapped a little over a quarter of the entire sea floor, for example, and we really have no idea how many marine species there really are.
Along with what Van Hillik describes as their fascinating “peculiar sense of levitation,” fish are among some of his favorite animals to portray, representing both familiarity and mystery. Along with a range of other composite creatures, such as a tortoise shell-backed hare and a vivid, rather unsettlingly big-eyed goldfish with arms and legs, the artist leans into this sense of weightlessness and the uncanny, suspending plant stems, water droplets, and other objects in the air.
Van Hillik’s work was recently included in Common Waters at Arch Enemy Arts, where he is also slated for a solo show later this year. Follow updates on Instagram.
Redacteur zijn bij nu.nl. Lekker vroeg (09.30 ofzo) naar de Mediavaert, met al die andere bevlogen journalistiekers 'werken' in een 'organisatie' vol corporate kwark. Hele dag persbureaumeuk overpennen - zo'n hybride werkweek van een uurtje of 32 is potverdimme wel aanpoten in ruil voor Schaal 4 van de cao dagbladjournalisten! En wat was het vorige week warm he! Derhalve: langer vrij. RAGEBAIIIIIIIT! Een siësta. In Nederland is het gemiddeld zo'n 325 dagen per jaar koeler dan 25 graden en heus, in 30 graden valt ook nog wel te werken. Laten we een siësta invoeren, dan kunnen de katernen Media en Cultuur en Achterklap met de bleke snuit in de zon. In 'landen als Spanje en Italië' hebben bijna alle werknemers, en zeker iedereen in de grote stad, helemaal geen siësta, maar gewoon een uurtje lunchpauze. Maar hey, pomp er in ons koude kikkerlandje in godsnaam een siësta in, dan kunnen al die ambtenaren van ons iedere dag 6 uur uit het raam staren + 2 uur naar het plafond i.p.v. gewoon 8 uur uit het raam.
Australia plans to double fines for social media platforms that fail to keep under-16s off restricted services, after regulators found 70% of children with accounts remained active three months after the ban took effect. The government says the changes will also give the eSafety Commissioner more power to demand information from platforms and age-assurance providers as teens continue finding ways around the law. Euronews reports: The government said Sunday it would introduce draft legislation this week doubling the maximum penalty to 99 million Australian dollars (63 million euros) for platforms -- including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok -- that do not take reasonable steps to comply with the ban, which became law on 10 December. Communications Minister Anika Wells blamed the platforms directly. "We can all agree we would like the scheme to work better than it is currently, but that is on Big Tech taking the Mickey," she said, speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corp on Monday. Wells added that she had received monthly updates from the online safety regulator since March and "we are not seeing improvements."
The amendments would also expand the powers of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant to demand information and documents from platforms -- and from third parties such as age assurance technology providers -- to test claims made by companies about how under-16s continued to circumvent the ban. The government had initially reported more than 5 million children had accounts removed, deactivated or restricted after the legislation passed. But eSafety found in March that 70% of children who held accounts on restricted platforms on the day the ban took effect remained active on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.
Inman Grant said in April she was considering court action against those platforms and YouTube, alleging they were not taking reasonable steps to exclude children. She said she was satisfied with progress made by the remaining restricted platforms: X, Kick, Reddit, Threads and Twitch. Senior opposition lawmaker Jane Hume said her party would consider supporting the reforms, but pinned blame on the original legislation. "The legislation was clearly undercooked in the first place. The eSafety Commissioner wasn't given the powers to be able to pursue these Big Tech companies," she said.
