I can't get over this number: in 2007, there were 360,000 newspaper jobs. Now, there are 80,000. "My local paper sucked!" Sure. What sucks even more? The void. "I get all my news from the Guardian!" No, the Guardian doesn't report on your town council, your school board, local cops.

The US President, which does not offer free healthcare to his own people, wants his own people to offer free healthcare… to Greenland… which already has free healthcare.

Maybe it is time for another brain scan for the US president.

Begin met iets dat gegarandeerd voldoening geeft en doe daar een half uur van. Dan naar de volgende. Het idee is om dopamine te genereren voor de volgende taak. Sterkte!

What he says.

Since Trump agreed to the higher number, White House aides and defense officials have run into logistical challenges surrounding where to put the money, because the amount is so large, the people said. The White House is more than two weeks behind its statutory deadline to send its budget proposal to Congress, in part because it is unclear how precisely to spend the additional $500 billion, according to the people familiar with the marter.

Trump is planning to boost the Pentagon’s already ginormous budget by $500 billion.

It’s such a massive increase that officials can’t even figure out how to spend it.

wapo.st/40sgBRz

And yet it’s even more dumb: Both hospital ships are in dry-dock in Alabama, so they won’t be arriving anytime soon.

This is a weird distraction from the Danes medically evacuating a sick US sailor from a US Navy nuclear sub yesterday 9 miles from Nuuk. What was a sub doing nine miles from Nuuk?

EXCLUSIVE: Donald Trump has repeatedly flipped on a U.K. plan to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands.

Behind the scenes, former British prime ministers Liz Truss and Boris Johnson have been lobbying to sway the U.S. president against the deal.

🔗 www.politico.eu/article/bori...

This is absolute gold

Tommy Robinson was barred from the US. Trump's border force has now let him in The far-right activist reportedly received a visa hours before his flight to DC

Instigator/agitator Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who prefers to be called Tommy Robinson, has finally received a visa for the US.
Bit of unrest in the UK about him obtaining a bigger podium/more money etc.
I only want to hear they're going to keep him, please.
inews.co.uk/news/tommy-r...

IOC-baas kijkt of FIFA-baas regels breekt met akkoord Vredesraad MILAAN (ANP/DPA) - Kirsty Coventry gaat onderzoeken of FIFA-voorzitter Gianni Infantino de regels heeft overtreden door een overeenkomst te sluiten met de nieuwe Vredesraad van de Amerikaanse presiden...

Tot zover de politieke onpartijdigheid van Fifa. Overigens heeft het IOC, waar Infantino uit hoofde van zijn functie ook lid van is, gisteren een onderzoek aangekondigd omdat zij (wel) hun regels daarover handhaven www.rtl.nl/nieuws/sport...

En ook geen mug te zien! Goeie klamboe!

Settings > Privacy and Security > Allow others to be notified of your posts.
Hoe dat in het Nederlands heet weet ik niet :)

Ik ben eruit: er mist een belletje op je profiel. Daarom kan ik alleen volgen maar niet de waarschuwingen aanzetten. Ik denk dat je het uit gezet hebt :)

The political effects of X's feed algorithm https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2 Received: 16 December 2024 Accepted: 4 January 2026 Published online: 18 February 2026 Open access • Check for updates Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right.

Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement.

This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.

Joy is coming

Het dunne stangetje bepaalt hoe ver de mond dicht mag...

Lijkt een ouderwetsche waterpomptang? Al lijken sommige delen eerder op bijv. een tuinschaar. De bovenkant van de mond is scherp en de onderkant een aambeeld om 'm op te vangen. Ook dat dunne stangetje is er om de bovenkant in de pas te houden. Maar ik zie geen snijkant?

We may not be at hybrid war with this American government but this American government is at hybrid war with us.

Bill Bramhall cartoon.

I’d say he’s sweating now

a cartoon of snoopy holding a red umbrella with the words stay dry below it ALT: a cartoon of snoopy holding a red umbrella with the words stay dry below it

Wow! The Uk is set for another month of rain!

Nah. That's new, not even news, and certainly not so unexpected that it warrants the title "Breaking".
"Just in" at the most

Scientists Discover How To “Switch Off” Cancer Genes for Good A new study shows that targeting key epigenetic proteins may permanently switch off cancer genes. Scientists at Monash University, working with Harvard University, report they have found a way to perm...

Oh, my goodness, this is a huge breakthrough in cancer research. This is another example of why it is crucially important to fund basic scientific research.
Scientists Discover How To “Switch Off” Cancer Genes for Good share.google/WFhMJP5m3AK4...

Andrew's completely broke which raises the possibility that a Norfolk duty solicitor is currently having the strangest day of his / her life.

Thank you Virginia.
Sadly no one really cares about the girls' destroyed lives, but nevertheless people are finally being held accountable for other issues with impunity

gradient.horse Draw a horse, watch it run!

Go draw a horse and watch it run - this is the kind of silliness the internet was originally made for
gradient.horse/
Do click the ? for further options

(via @Natasha_Jay@tech.lgbt on Mastodon)

There was a collective gasp all over the UK, no matter people's opinions

Robert Jenrick announces Reform UK will keep the OBR and Bank of England independence, with an emphasis on fiscal discipline, signified by restoring the two child benefit cap.

The speech is essentially the same as every Tory chancellor's conference speech in the last 10 years.

Not sure why Reform announcing they’ll scrap the Equality Act 2010 hasn’t provoked widespread alarm.
They want to torch our human rights framework AND repeal our right to protection from discrimination.
A smile and a shrug on BBC News.
What the hell?
FFS, media. Tell people what this really means.

listen to the Trumpian way that Farage tries to silence my tenacious colleague @annasophiegross.bsky.social

(who was politely asking a reasonable question)