Versatile Essex-born hitmaker known for Rhinestone Cowboy, It Only Takes a Minute and many more had been living with Alzheimer’s disease

Brian Potter, one of the most versatile and successful British producers and songwriters of his generation, has died aged 87. He had been living with Alzheimer’s disease in recent years, his daughter told Billboard.

Working with American songwriting partner Dennis Lambert, the Essex-born Potter was behind an astounding array of 1970s hits spanning pop, soul, soft rock, country and beyond. The best-known include Glen Campbell’s Rhinestone Cowboy, a US No 1 in 1975; It Only Takes a Minute, a barnstorming disco hit for Tavares and later Take That; Player’s super-smooth Baby Come Back, another US No 1; and Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got), one of the biggest hits for soul-poppers the Four Tops.

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Bjørge Lillelien’s famous rant after 1981 clash stemmed from Norwegian obsession with English football

What do Lord Nelson, Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Henry Cooper and Lady Diana have in common? On 9 September 1981 they were all beaten by Norway.

At least that is according to the iconic Norwegian radio commentator Bjørge Lillelien. His triumphant, giddy and slightly unhinged rant after Norway beat England 2-1 in a qualifier for Euro 82 has gone down in Norwegian folklore. It has also attained something of a cult status abroad, with the Observer declaring it in 2002 the greatest bit of commentary ever.

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The horny TV series has inspired a whopping four comedy shows this summer. Their makers explain why musical theatre and steamy action are such good bedfellows – and why there’s no rivalry between them

Five minutes was all it took. The stars of Heated Rivalry barely had a chance to shed each other’s clothes before writer and composer Dylan MarcAurele started taking notes, knowing that the horny hockey TV series was going to be his next parody project. “I had this idea that it would be a one-night-only concert for friends,” says the New York-based writer of fringe hit Pop Off, Michelangelo! But then he got producer Alan Kliffer on board, and performances sold out before the script had even been written. “It was a no-brainer,” Kliffer says. “I trusted it would be good, and I was right.”

After a successful off-Broadway run, Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody is now heading for the Edinburgh fringe – and it’s not alone. Three musical spoofs of the series are hotting up at this year’s festival. With the show’s success – all perky keisters, swanky hotel shags, a secret sex cottage and just a smidgeon of hockey – Kliffer reckons it was inevitable. “You just know, at the end of the TV show,” he says, “that gay men everywhere will race to write musicals about it.”

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Airports have had to use gazebos to shield passengers from sun as they wait to be processed, says Alexander Zinell

The boss of 14 Greek airports has called for a serious overhaul of the EU’s new border checks, after being forced to erect gazebos for passengers to cope with queues.

The chief executive of Fraport Greece, Alexander Zinell, joined a growing chorus of critics calling out “fundamental flaws” in the entry-exit system (EES), which requires non-EU passengers to have their fingerprints and photo taken at the start of the their trip and verified every time they leave or re-enter the Schengen zone.

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Africa’s largest refugee population has seen rations and healthcare slashed as funding levels drop

The skies are gloomy over the wattle-and-mud houses of Kiryandongo refugee settlement, home to more than 167,000 people. Spread across an undulating plateau, the crowded camp, 120 miles (200km) north of Uganda’s capital, Kampala, draws new arrivals every day as conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan add to the displacement toll. Of nearly 50,000 refugees who have arrived in Uganda since January, more than 1,000 have come to Kiryandongo.

Known for its progressive refugee policies, which include granting freedom of movement, land to cultivate, and the right to work and open a bank account, Uganda is home to 2 million refugees – the largest refugee population in Africa – who live in 13 settlements across the country.

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Figures who worked with striker in his formative years recall a self-belief – even when his talent did not stand out

There is another version of reality in which Harry Kane is not England’s greatest goalscorer but a goalkeeper. On his first day at Ridgeway Rovers, his first club, the coach Dave Bricknell asked whether anyone fancied going in goal. A six-year-old Kane threw up his hand – and he was pretty good.

“I thought I’d found a goalkeeper,” Bricknell says. “At that age, you don’t get many kids that don’t mind standing in front of a ball.”

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Crude memes of the Maga luminary are exploding online – less than a year after conservatives were suppressing any slander against him

Ten months since his assassination, Charlie Kirk’s name and likeness are still proliferating online. Just not the way the far-right activist would have wanted.

Audio of the gunshot that killed him has become a TikTok meme, as have ironic reposts of the apparent AI-slop song We Are Charlie Kirk, which was originally created as a posthumous tribute. He was the butt of a crude joke during the Netflix roast of Hollywood star Kevin Hart in May. The next month, a viral tweet encouraged people to take “a shot” in his honor on Juneteenth. And a trend known as “Kirkification” has emerged, in which internet pranksters superimpose his face on to unlikely images, such as the Mona Lisa, a woman in a bikini, or Jeffrey Epstein.

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Refuge reports ‘staggering’ 78% annual increase in referrals for cases of technology-facilitated or economic abuse

Domestic abuse charities have reported a “staggering” increase in perpetrators using technology and finances to control their victims, with a “concerning” rise in people being coerced into car finance agreements.

Data from Refuge, the UK’s largest specialist domestic abuse charity, reveals a 78% rise in referrals for cases of technology-facilitated or economic abuse in the past year.

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(Third Man)
Following the superb No Name, White continues his fan service with stripped back songs and nasty, anarchic riffs – though it all ends up feeling a little samey

It’s a strange thing to say about one of the most prolific artists of his – or any – generation, but: Jack White has been undergoing something of a career renaissance of late. After firmly establishing himself as one of the most beloved and defining figures of 21st-century rock with his early-00s blues duo the White Stripes, White seemed to get bigger and bigger over the next decade-plus, releasing albums with well-liked side projects the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather, dropping a couple of fine solo albums, and helping spark the music industry’s vinyl revival with his label and pressing plant Third Man Records.

But, at some point in the mid-2010s – around the release of his third solo album, 2018’s Boarding House Reach, let’s say – White’s influence and celebrity seemed to be outweighing his actual output, with rising pop stars like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo naming him a prime influence. Record plants the world over became backed-up, thanks to pop stars releasing dozens of gimmicky vinyl variants of their own albums, resulting in months-long delays for indie artists – hardly a problem White was responsible for (and likely one he himself was annoyed by), but certainly the result of a craze he had helped spark. At the same time, all the quirks and codes of White’s output – the specific colour schemes and sometimes arcane guiding opinions – threatened to overwhelm the immediacy and sharpness that had once been the core of White’s actual music.

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Weer voor Rotterdam ☀️ - 09-07-2026 13:16 CEST

In één oogopslag:
• 26.1°C · Zonnig ☀️ | Min 17.8°C / Max 28.1°C

Verwachting voor vandaag:
• Min 17.8°C, Max 28.1°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1017.9 hPa ↘️ -0.7 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 14.4 km/u (4.0 m/s), richting: ↙ 57°

Uurlijkse voorspelling voor de komende 12 uur:

• 14:00: 26.9°C (Zonnig) ☀️, 🧭 1018.6 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 7.9 km/u (2.2 m/s), richting: ← 81°
• 15:00: 27.7°C (Zonnig) ☀️, 🧭 1018.4 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 9.4 km/u (2.6 m/s), richting: ← 77°
• 16:00: 28.0°C (Zonnig) ☀️, 🧭 1018.2 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 10.4 km/u (2.9 m/s), richting: ← 70°
• 17:00: 28.1°C (Zonnig) ☀️, 🧭 1018.1 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 11.9 km/u (3.3 m/s), richting: ← 68°
• 18:00: 27.8°C (Zonnig) ☀️, 🧭 1017.7 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 13.0 km/u (3.6 m/s), richting: ← 71°
• 19:00: 27.4°C (Zonnig) ☀️, 🧭 1017.6 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 11.9 km/u (3.3 m/s), richting: ← 69°
• 20:00: 26.4°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1017.4 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 13.3 km/u (3.7 m/s), richting: ↙ 59°
• 21:00: 24.8°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1017.5 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 14.4 km/u (4.0 m/s), richting: ↙ 47°
• 22:00: 23.6°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1017.9 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 13.7 km/u (3.8 m/s), richting: ↙ 51°
• 23:00: 22.7°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1018.0 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 13.3 km/u (3.7 m/s), richting: ↙ 54°
• 00:00: 22.1°C (Helder) 🌕, 🧭 1018.3 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 13.3 km/u (3.7 m/s), richting: ↙ 62°
• 01:00: 21.7°C (Helder) 🌕, 🧭 1018.2 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/1h, Windsnelheid: 11.9 km/u (3.3 m/s), richting: ← 74°

Voorspelling voor de komende dagen:

• vrijdag 10 juli: Min 19.1°C, Max 29.4°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1018.3 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 22.3 km/u (6.2 m/s), richting: ↙ 58°
• zaterdag 11 juli: Min 19.0°C, Max 31.6°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1020.0 hPa ↗️ +1.7 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 19.4 km/u (5.4 m/s), richting: ↙ 48°
• zondag 12 juli: Min 19.2°C, Max 28.6°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1022.4 hPa ↗️ +2.4 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 17.1 km/u (4.8 m/s), richting: ↙ 55°
• maandag 13 juli: Min 16.7°C, Max 27.9°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, 🧭 1022.2 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 15.0 km/u (4.2 m/s), richting: ↙ 53°
• dinsdag 14 juli: Min 18.9°C, Max 30.0°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 1%, 🧭 1017.8 hPa ↘️ -4.4 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 12.9 km/u (3.6 m/s), richting: ↙ 60°
• woensdag 15 juli: Min 21.9°C, Max 33.4°C (Bewolkt) ☁️, Kans op neerslag 6%, 🧭 1015.6 hPa ↘️ -2.2 hPa/24h, Windsnelheid: 11.2 km/u (3.1 m/s), richting: ↙ 31°

Details:
• 🌡️ Huidige temperatuur (om 13:15): 26.1°C (Zonnig)
• 🤚 Gevoelstemperatuur: 29.0°C (+2.9°C)
• 💨 Windsnelheid: 6.5 km/u (1.8 m/s), richting: ← 83°
• 🌬️ Windstoten: 22.3 km/h (6.2 m/s)
• 💧 Luchtvochtigheid: 47%
• 🧭 Luchtdruk: 1018.6 hPa ➡️ 0.0 hPa/3h
• 👁️ Zichtbaarheid: 32.7 km
• ☀️ UV-index: 6.9
• 🌅 Zonsopgang: 05:34 · 🌇 Zonsondergang: 22:00

Luchtkwaliteit:
• AQI: 30 🟢 (Goed)
• PM2.5: 6.3 μg/m³
• PM10: 8.1 μg/m³

Gegevens geleverd door Open-Meteo

#Rotterdam #Meteo #MeteoBot #MeteoNetherlands #OpenMeteo #FediMeteo

NIJMEGEN (ANP) - Dit jaar lopen 2080 vrouwen de 50 kilometer tijdens de Nijmeegse Vierdaagse. Dat komt neer op 19,9 procent van de mensen die de langste afstand wandelen. Het aandeel vrouwen dat 50 kilometer loopt, groeit al enkele jaren gestaag. De jongste wandelaarster op de langste afstand is 11, de oudste 81.

In 2025 was het aandeel vrouwen dat de 50 kilometer liep 19,1 procent en het jaar daarvoor 17,7. Voor mannen tussen de 19 en 49 is het verplicht om de langste afstand te lopen, vrouwen mogen er altijd zelf voor kiezen.

In totaal staan op 21 juli 47.000 wandelaars met 77 verschillende nationaliteiten aan de start in Nijmegen. Van hen is 57 procent man, 43 procent vrouw. Met 22,51 procent is de leeftijdscategorie van 61 tot en met 70 jaar de grootste. Ruim 13.000 mensen lopen de Vierdaagse voor het eerst. Een wandelaar gaat op voor zijn 66e Vierdaagsekruisje.

PAU (ANP) - Voor de klassementsrenners in de Tour de France staat in de zesde etappe de grote bergrit in de Pyreneeën op het programma. De rit kent na enkele kleinere obstakels onder meer de beklimming van de Tourmalet van de buitencategorie.

De etappe gaat van Pau naar Gavarnie-Gèdre over 186,2 kilometer en begint met beklimmingen van vierde en derde categorie. Dan volgt de Col d'Aspin van de eerste categorie, 12 kilometer klimmen met een gemiddeld stijgingspercentage van 6,5 procent. Na een korte afdaling wacht de beruchte Tourmalet, 17,1 kilometer à 7,3 procent naar een hoogte van 2115 meter. Tot slot volgt de beklimming van de tweede categorie naar Gavarnie-Gèdre waar rond 17.30 uur de eerste renners worden verwacht.

De Noor Torstein Træen start in de gele leiderstrui. Hij heeft een voorsprong van bijna 8 minuten op klassementsfavorieten Tadej Pogačar en Jonas Vingegaard. De Fransman Alex Baudin leidt het bergklassement, de Deen Mads Pedersen rijdt in de groene puntentrui.

STRAATSBURG (ANP) - Een ruime meerderheid van het Europees Parlement heeft donderdag ingestemd met de komst van de digitale euro. 416 Europarlementariërs stemden voor en 169 tegen. De onderhandelingen tussen het Parlement en de lidstaten kunnen nu beginnen.

Voor de stemming deden tegenstanders van onder meer de radicaal-rechtse Patriotten voor Europa en ESN en de rechts-conservatieve ECR nog een poging om medestanders te vinden om ook tegen te stemmen. Deze partijen stellen dat er onvoldoende rekening wordt gehouden met de privacy en de bescherming van persoonsgegevens.

Voorstanders, waaronder de liberale Renew en de Groenen, benadrukten donderdag het belang van de digitale euro voor de onafhankelijkheid van Amerikaanse financiële dienstverleners zoals Mastercard en Visa.

De onderhandelingen tussen de lidstaten en het parlement beginnen maandag. Mogelijk kunnen die eind dit jaar worden afgerond. De digitale euro kan in 2029 worden ingevoerd, heeft de Europese Centrale Bank (ECB) eerder aangegeven.

UTRECHT (ANP) - De huizenprijzen lopen verder op als er een dip komt in het aanbod doordat er minder voormalige huurhuizen te koop worden gezet, het zogeheten uitponden. Dat verwacht de Nederlandse Vereniging van Makelaars (NVM). Afgelopen kwartaal werd een recordaantal bestaande woningen te koop gezet. Toch liep de gemiddelde verkoopprijs op tot een nieuwe recordhoogte van ruim 506.000 euro.

"Je zou denken: meer aanbod is meer rust op de woningmarkt", stelt voorzitter van NVM Wonen Lana Goutsmits-Gerssen. "Maar we zien dat de vraag zo groot is dat er nog steeds veel overboden wordt en dat de prijzen nog steeds stijgen."

Het grote aanbod aan woningen komt volgens de NVM vooral door het uitponden, dat is het verkopen van voormalige huurwoningen door beleggers. Als dat aanbod afneemt en de vraag hoog blijft, zullen de prijzen stijgen. De NVM rekende er eerder op dat er vanaf 1 juli minder huurhuizen verkocht worden. Maar de makelaarsvereniging stelt dat het moeilijk is om in te schatten wanneer deze trend stopt.

'Tijdelijke verlichting'

Goutsmits-Gerssen verwacht dat er in het derde kwartaal minder woningen te koop komen.

De makelaarsvereniging spreekt van een "tijdelijke verlichting" op de woningmarkt door het verkopen van huurhuizen. Nieuwbouw moet permanente verlichting bieden, stelt Goutsmits-Gerssen. Daar ziet de NVM echter een mismatch tussen de wensen van kopers en de huizen die worden gebouwd.

Volgens Goutsmits-Gerssen zijn er in de "uitpondgolf" sinds 2024 al 80.000 huurwoningen in de verkoop gegaan. "Dat is gelijk aan het aantal woningen in de gemeente Haarlem." Dat heeft voor een "drama" op de huurmarkt gezorgd, stelt de NVM. Daar is het aanbod fors afgenomen. De NVM pleit voor het weer toestaan van tijdelijke huurcontracten om die afname af te remmen.

METZINGEN (ANP) - Hugo Boss heeft zijn aandeelhouders geadviseerd om het overnamebod van het Britse winkel- en sportconcern Frasers Group af te wijzen. Volgens de directie van het Duitse modeconcern is het huidige bod met het oog op de lange termijn te laag.

In juni bood Frasers Group 38 euro per aandeel in contanten. Frasers bezit al ruim een kwart van de aandelen Hugo Boss en wil de rest ook in handen krijgen. Dat zou in totaal zo'n 2 miljard euro gaan kosten.

De bestuursleden van Hugo Boss laten in de verklaring weten dat zij niet van plan zijn om hun deel te verkopen aan de Britten. Ze voegen daaraan toe dat het bod er vooral op gericht lijkt om 30 procent van de aandelen in bezit te krijgen. Daarmee zouden ze operationele of strategische veranderingen door kunnen voeren.

Het in 1924 door Hugo Ferdinand Boss opgerichte bedrijf maakt naast heren- en dameskleding ook schoenen, horloges en parfums. De omzet bedroeg vorig jaar 4,3 miljard euro. Hugo Boss wordt geleid door topman Daniel Grieder.

JJ72

In Stad aan 't Haringvliet op Goeree-Overflakkee is donderdag een ernstig ongeluk gebeurd met een auto. Het voertuig kwam daarbij op z'n kop onder aan de dijk terecht. De bestuurder is zwaargewond geraakt en naar het ziekenhuis gebracht.

anglo10 has added a photo to the pool:

Last week, national security agencies from the Five Eyes—that’s the rich, English-language-speaking countries club—jointly released a statement warning of the increasing cyber risks of AI models: in particular, their ability to autonomously hack into systems and networks. The statement was more measured than some of the breathless headlines about it, and the advice they gave is pretty much the standard advice everyone gives—albeit with newfound urgency.

Internet risks are nothing new, and cyberattacks—both large and small—have been a significant issue since long before the current crop of generative AI models.

What’s been changing over the decades, and what AI is changing even faster, is the gap between skill and ability. For most of human history, the two terms were synonymous—but computers have decoupled them. As the gap between the two expands, humans empowered with these AI tools can do more: more writing, more research, more analysis and also more damage than ever before. These models can, with little detailed direction, autonomously hack into networks, steal data, deploy ransomware and destroy systems. And to the extent there is a solution, it’s going to involve harnessing AI for the defense.

In 1998, seven people from the hacker group L0pht testified before Congress. They told a mostly clueless Senate committee that they could take down the internet in 30 minutes. That was partly real and partly bravado, but it illustrates an important point: hacking into systems, stealing data and causing damage all required skill.

Contrast the L0pht hackers with hackers derided as “script kiddies.” They didn’t understand computers, or security. Instead, they used hacker tools written by others. Their actions required minimal skill and even less knowledge. But once those hacking tools became widespread, the number of potential attackers increased.

That number has continued to increase, as quality and availability of prewritten attack tools has grown. And it is growing dramatically with AI. Today’s AI systems—not just the frontier models, but most of them—are capable of carrying out cyberattacks automatically. They all do better in the hands of skilled attackers, but increasingly they are able to act autonomously with only minimal prompting.

The thing about people with ability but no skill is that they are often outsiders, not part of any professional community, and not bound by any rules or norms. This phenomenon is much more general than in cybersecurity. Any doctor can tell you how to untraceably poison someone, and many virus researchers know how to create a bioweapon. Any bridge engineer can tell you how to place explosives to blow a bridge up. The reason that murderous doctors and terrorist engineers are so rare is that the lengthy process of acquiring those skills also instills a moral and ethical code. If every random person has access to good poisoning advice, that puts us all in danger.

Modern AI systems are, in effect, a universal adviser to help people do harmful things. And while the current AI megacorporations are trying to build guardrails to prevent people from asking questions whose answers will enable the questioner to do harm, that’s not going to work in the long term. Smaller, cheaper, open-source models, including models that can run on people’s computers, and especially groups of models that run in concert with each other, are just as good as the frontier models from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. And they continue to get better. These models will be passed around from person to person, like script kiddie hacker tools, and they won’t have any such guardrails.

Instructing AI models to spy on people and report any malicious prompts to the authorities fails for similar reasons. The megacorporations can do that, but the locally run open source models won’t. This could buy us a few months at best.

A third possibility is to somehow make the models themselves unable to hack into computers, create bioweapons or do anything else that might harm people or society. That won’t work, for the same reason we can’t teach doctors how to treat poisonings without also teaching them how to poison. It’s the same knowledge. It’s the same with construction and demolition. And it’s the same with cybersecurity. We want these AI models to be able to review computer code, find vulnerabilities and automatically fix them. The benefit to our collective security will be enormous. Unfortunately, the same knowledge can be used for attacks.

Where this leaves us is in a world of increased volatility. Super-powered humans with AI assistants will be able to do both wonderful and horrible things.

This brings us back to the Five Eyes statement. Everything they recommend is something security professionals have been recommending for years, if not decades. They are things talked about at that congressional hearing back in 1998, titled “Weak computer security in government: Is the public at risk?” Even the Five Eyes admitted that their security advice is not new, only more urgent.

What’s new is how fast things are changing: “The rapid pace of frontier AI development means cyber risk assumptions can become outdated in months, not years. We must act before and be prepared to adapt and withstand evolving threats.” The Five Eyes point to AI technology—not necessarily chatbots, but AI more generally—being used to strengthen every aspect of defense, to “detect vulnerabilities earlier, improve software quality, monitor unusual behavior, and respond faster to incidents—reducing both the cost and impact of incidents.”

Excellent advice from the Five Eyes security agencies. We need to do this with every risk that AI heightens, not just cybersecurity.

This essay was written with Ada Palmer, and originally appeared in The Guardian.

Voortdurend trok kunstenaar Marcel Duchamp alles wat de buitenwereld als kunst beschouwde in twijfel – maar dat kon hij alleen maar doen door datzelfde werk uiteindelijk toch onder ‘kunst’ te blijven scharen. Terecht wijdt het MoMA een grootse overzichtstentoonstelling aan deze ultieme saboteur.