Nou nou nou mensen wat was het bij de APB vandaag genieten voor de échte politieke fijnproever, die snapt dat de Tweede Kamer bedoeld is om debatten te voeren die zo ingewikkeld zijn dat geen enkele normale burger ze meer snapt en we afhankelijk zijn van onafhankelijke debatexperts die toevallig voor D66 in de gemeenteraad zitten om ze in NRC Handelsblad te duiden. Die echte fijnproever, we bedoelen eigenlijk Arjan Noorlander, de Elodie Verweij van Nieuwsuur, zag namelijk dat Joost Eerdmans zijn onderhandelingspositie een beetje weggaf omdat hij dus akkoord lijkt met het per begroting beoordelen van de kabinetsplannen in plaats van het maken van één grote begrotingsdeal, terwijl Jesse Klaver juist geen begrotingen gaat goedkeuren als er een deal over de Spreidingswet met JA21 komt dus nou ja, misschien valt het kabinet wel. Als dat gebeurt, dán mag u ons wakker maken, maar dat gaat vandaag niet gebeuren en ook morgen niet, want als we van deze minderheidscoalitie één ding hebben geleerd, dan is het wel dat alles zo traag als dikke stront gaat. Net als deze APB trouwens, want we krijgen nog Bontenbal, Dekker (wie? Dekker! Van FvD!), Van Baarle, Stoffer, Teunissen, Bikker, Dijk, Vermeer, Struijs, Dassen, Markuszower en Keijzer. Bier d'r bij maar, veel bier, en chips en nootjes, zolang het nog mag van Jan Paternotte. Proost.

Prettige presentatie van Iris uit Baantjer overigens

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Bericht uit de tijd dat de treinen nog gewoon niet op tijd reden maar dan wel zónder sabotage: afgelopen Keti Koti was het raak op het Haagse station Moerwijk waar twee fatbikers over het perron sjeesden terwijl je dus niet over het perron mag sjezen met een fatbike. Een treinconducteur zou geen goede treinconducteur zijn als hij de fatbikers daar niet op zou aanspreken. Dat deed de goede treinconducteur dan ook, wat hem een klap in het gezicht door een van de fatbikers opleverde. Terwijl het zo simpel is: als je met een fatbike wil reizen, dan moet je trappen, niet slaan. Of je koopt gewoon een treinkaartje voor dat onding. Had ie, naast zelfbeheersing, ook al niet. Derhalve: ZoekZoek.

Van hoge energieprijzen zijn Nederlanders voorlopig niet af. In 2031 betalen ze jaarlijks zo’n 120 euro meer. Dat komt niet door geopolitieke onrust, maar door investeringen in het stroomnet en ‘groene’ plannen.

Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag en Utrecht vragen minister Sophie Hermans (Volksgezondheid, VVD) onder meer om toestemming te geven voor een pilot met het verstrekken van dexamfetamine aan dakloze mensen.

Heather Nova

Tom Waits

“Figures show Japan is now home to 107,677 centenarians, the highest number in the world, of whom 88% are women. The oldest woman is Kishimoto Fuyo, a 114-year-old from Kyoto City and the oldest man is Kato Hikaru, a 112-year-old from Kumamoto.”

Een jong kalfje is woensdagavond in de sloot beland bij een kinderboerderij in Spijkenisse. Hulpdiensten brachten het dier in veiligheid.

Ooit werden aan de Piekstraat in Rotterdam-Zuid stoomboten, oorlogsschepen en jaloezieën gemaakt. Nog langer geleden stond er een galg en een pesthuis, dat nooit werd gebruikt. Nu presenteren op deze historische plek architecten, stedenbouwkundigen en kunstenaars hun visie op de toekomst van de wijk Feijenoord en de stad Rotterdam, tijdens de twaalfde editie van de Internationale Architectuur Biënnale in Rotterdam (IABR).

Ursula von der Leyen has opened door for Canada to become associate member to deepen links in ‘openly hostile world’

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has been advocating closer alignment with “middle powers” since January in the face of recklessness in Washington.

But what should worry another middle power, the UK, is that it was Brussels that came up with Wednesday’s big reveal in Strasbourg.

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Barclays Center, Brooklyn

The tireless star brings her latest, somewhat over-explained album to the stage for a dazzling and euphoric show

For more than a year now, I have often returned, when seeking a bar for which to measure true pop transcendence, to the memory of Charli xcx taking the Other Stage at Glastonbury: the unofficial headliner, a year out from her culture-shifting opus Brat, commanded a dizzying 60,000 people with an imperious “don’t fucking play with me” and the stunning brute force of a performer at peak power. It was surreal, as a longtime fan, to witness an artist who was as recently as 2022 playing to cult followings in 2,000-cap venues convert thousands more in real time, to see years of hard-earned pop instincts and artistry collide with the zeitgeist in a career-defining, you-had-to-be-there achievement.

But life goes on, of course, and Charli, like the rest of us who surfed the high of Brat summer 2024, found herself on an inevitable comedown. A lesser artist may have confronted the question of what comes next with blunt commercial logic – more, again – but Charli, a self-professed workaholic and tireless interrogator of one’s own image, proved to be creatively restless, if scattered. A cinephile rebrand, three films at Sundance, an Instagram-dominating celebrity wedding, a defanged satire of her own sudden ubiquity, a windswept soundtrack that more or less saved the otherwise dreadful Wuthering Heights – all suggested a self-aware ambivalence with mainstream success that threatened to corrode all that came after. With the release this July of Music, Fashion, Film, her eighth studio album, I worried that she had succumbed to a seemingly manic drive to stay visible. The album, a deceptively vulnerable and winking pivot to rock that was either self-aggrandizing pastiche or genius, depending on what angle/substance/context you beheld it, did not seem to stand up the scrutiny and over-explanation of relentless celebrity promotion.

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Mark Rutte asked UK and Europe to ‘provide the hard power Nato needs’ in face of geopolitical uncertainty

Nato needs “more UK and more Europe in the alliance” to deal with the most dangerous security environment faced by the west in a generation, the secretary general of the 32-country military alliance said this afternoon on a visit to the UK.

Mark Rutte praised Britain for promising to increase defence spending in line with US demands after a meeting with prime minister Andy Burnham – but argued that the military and financial effort must continue into the future.

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Fed committee votes unanimously to raise interest rate by a quarter-percentage point to a range of 3.75% to 4%

• Federal Reserve raises interest rates – live

The US Federal Reserve voted to raise interest rates on Wednesday for the first time since 2023 as the central bank continues to fight to tamp down inflation.

The Fed’s open market committee voted unanimously to raise its benchmark interest rate by a quarter-percentage point to a range of 3.75% to 4%. This is the first time the Fed has raised rates since July 2023 and potentially sets Kevin Warsh, the current Fed chair, on a collision course with Donald Trump.

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⚽ Live updates from four third-round matches
⚽ Manchester United shocked as JJ Gabriel asks to leave
⚽ Get in touch! Email Will with any thoughts

Poor Joshua Zirkzee cannot get a game in the Carabao Cup. I am not sure he will get many minutes in the months to come.

Max Dowman continues to be good. Mikel Merino can similarities to a certain Lamine Yamal, which is high praise.

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⚽ Live updates from the 8pm BST kick-offs
⚽ Xhaka promises ‘fire’ | Live scoreboard
⚽ Get in touch! Email Niall with any thoughts

Four changes from Sunderland’s narrow defeat to Arsenal at the weekend: Ballard, Brobbey, Angulo and Meunier drop to the bench, with Alderete, Hume, Isidor and Fofana coming in.

Sunderland (4-2-3-1) Roefs; Mukiele, Danso, Alderete, Mandava; Xhaka (c), Sadiki; Hume, Le Fée, Fofana; Isidor.
Subs: Moore, Ballard, Methalie, Brobbey, Angulo, Rigg, Meunier, O’Nien, Ahoka, Jones, Tutierov, Proctor.

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Toronto film festival: Director Guy Nattiv draws on personal experience for an 80s-set tale of a woman abandoning her family for a creepy commune

We remain fascinated and horrified by the hows and whys of cult narratives, how someone could be so seduced by something so unknown and why they would then risk everything for it. Oscar-winning writer-director Guy Nattiv has been personally affected by these questions for most of his life, his grandmother joining a cult when he was a child and never coming back.

His attempt to try to understand who she was and why she acted in such a way has led to unsettling drama The Liberation, a fictionalised tale that acts as a form of therapy for him and a mostly successful antidote to more sensationalist cult stories for us. Enough Netflix docuseries and schlocky horror movies have given us a more extreme and often violent idea of how cults infect and destroy vulnerable people but Nattiv opts for a more thoughtful slow-burn. He’s recruited a suitably thoughtful actor in Carrie Coon, no stranger to this particular psychology having broken out in The Leftovers, one of the more intelligent cult dramas in recent years.

The Liberation is screening at the Toronto film festival and will be released later this year

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There's a new kind of agent coming to ChatGPT ads, and this one wants your money. OpenAI has begun testing Sponsored Agents, advertiser-backed bots that try to sell you things as part of a custom conversation. OpenAI said in a Wednesday announcement that Sponsored Agents were now being tested with select US advertisers already using its platform to put sponsored content in front of ChatGPT users. Despite the “agent” label, however, it seems from OpenAI’s description of the new feature that it’s more like a typical sponsored content chatbot that appears unasked on websites, bombarding users with the opportunity to ask a virtual customer service agent what product is right for them. In this case, the customer service agent lives right in ChatGPT instead of users having to go to an advertiser’s actual website to learn more - you wouldn’t want those humans navigating away until the last possible minute, after all. “After seeing a relevant ad, a user can choose to start a clearly labeled conversation with a business-sponsored agent in ChatGPT,” the announcement explains. “The user can explain what matters to them, ask follow-up questions, and follow a link to the business’s website when they’re ready to take the next step.” As an example, a brief video included with the announcement shows a user asking for a recipe and instead being told they shouldn’t worry about trying to plan their meals before being shunted into an ad for a subscription meal kit. The sponsored agent from the meal kit company in the ad simply provided options on which of its kits was the fastest to prepare for a weeknight meal. “For businesses, it’s an opportunity to help interested customers explore their offerings through a personalized conversation,” OpenAI added. In other words, this is pretty much exactly like the chatbots you see on company websites, only run by OpenAI and embedded in its products instead. Yo dawg, we heard you liked AI ads … OpenAI mentioned a couple of other new AI advertising tools alongside the sponsored agents, one of which is sure to make the ads you see in your slop-filled ChatGPT responses even sloppier. “Advertisers can now use simple, natural-language prompts to create, update, and analyze campaigns directly in ChatGPT with the Ads Manager plugin,” the company said. In other words, why even have an advertising professional create the campaigns you cram into ChatGPT when ChatGPT can do it for you? “When drafting an ad, advertisers can now receive suggested copy and imagery based on their landing page and campaign objective,” OpenAI added. Perfect: Slop ads served in slop responses. What more could you ask for? HubSpot users and Shopify merchants are also getting new ChatGPT ads connections, the company said, enabling more businesses to cram more ads in front of more ChatGPT users, we suppose. “These launches reflect how we’re building an advertising platform with AI at its center,” OpenAI said. We get the internet we deserve, and it looks like it’s going to be one with ever more sloppy, artificial content crammed wherever advertisers can find a space. ®