36 m. ago ‘Tone deaf’: US tech company responsible for global IT outage to cut jobs and use AI

CrowdStrike CEO announces 5% of workforce to be slashed globally, citing artificial intelligence efficiencies created in the businessThe cybersecurity company that became a household name after causing a massive global IT outage last year has announced it will cut 5% of its workforce in part due to “AI efficiency”.In a note to staff earlier this week, released in stock market filings in the US, CrowdStrike’s chief executive, George Kurtz, announced that 500 positions, or 5% of its workforce, would be cut globally, citing AI efficiencies created in the business. Continue reading...

Politics

43 m. ago Derek McInnes to Hearts as next manager could change Lawrence Shankland plan as respect obvious for 'curly fries King'

McInnes signed and released Shankland for Aberdeen as a youngster but could try and prevent departure as Hearts boss

Society

47 m. ago Coventry vs Sunderland prediction: Sky Blues to take slender lead into second leg

Read the latest odds and tips ahead of Friday’s first leg in the play-off semi-finals

Politics

47 m. ago ‘Rethink it all!’ Why is one Danish school producing nearly every cool alt

Copenhagen’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory finds common ground between Ella Fitzgerald and Charli xcx – and its free-thinking alumni are thriving. We go on a tour to see what’s in the water there (aside from shipwrecks)Before she was getting DMs from Dua Lipa and minting K-pop hits, and long before yesterday’s surprise release of her sumptuous fourth album, Erika de Casier was a nervous student in her 20s debating what to wear on her first day.It was 2019, her debut album Essentials had come out that year and received critical acclaim. But at Copenhagen’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory (RMC), that was by the by. “In Denmark, it’s incorporated in our way of being: everybody is so humble,” says the Portuguese musician. “It wasn’t like I went to school and people were like ” She makes an exaggerated starstruck face. “That would be crazy. It was just, ‘Oh, congrats. I heard the new album. Sounds great.’” Continue reading...

Politics

50 m. ago Tom Pidcock reborn at Q36.5 and raring to unleash his talent on the Giro d’Italia

Pidcock’s bold move to leave Ineos Grenadiers now gives him the chance to be a team leader at a grand tour when the Giro d’Italia begins on Friday

Politics

61 m. ago What is the weather going to be like in Scotland today? Friday's forecast as more sunshine predicted in Glasgow and Edinburgh

Scotland has enjoyed glorious sunshine this week - and it’s only going to get better.

Politics

64 m. ago The beaches with the worst water quality in England revealed

A number of popular English holiday hotspots were found to have traces of faecal matter in their waters

Politics

71 m. ago Ange Postecoglou threatens to have last laugh as Tottenham reach Europa League final

BODO/GLIMT 0-2 TOTTENHAM (1-5): Spurs booked their ticket to Bilbao as goals from Dominic Solanke and Pedro Porro capped another professional European victory in Northern Norway

Sport

77 m. ago Farrell’s Lions squad has the flexibility and talent to be highly competitive | Robert Kitson

Australia is no country for old men so the exclusion of Owen Farrell and selection of Henry Pollock will help the causeAt long last, significant smoke has also emerged from the British & Irish Lions’ chimney. Maro Itoje will be leading a 38-strong squad to Australia and a couple of the names on the list would raise any cardinal’s eyebrows. Henry Pollock and Marcus Smith will be heading down under with their head coach, Andy Farrell, clearly keen to make an immediate impact next month.Farrell has chosen a hefty cohort of 15 Irishmen alongside 13 Englishmen, eight Scots and two Welsh representatives, but the inclusion of the 20-year-old Pollock sends a clear signal to Australia that the 2025 Lions will be neither geriatric pussycats nor obsessive slaves to conservatism. The squad should contain enough flexibility to cope with most eventualities and sufficient talent to be highly competitive. Continue reading...

Politics

77 m. ago Roméo Lavia is the ideal cog in Enzo Maresca’s machine – when he is fit

Chelsea are far better with Lavia – as they showed against Liverpool – but he is yet to complete a full game for the clubBy WhoScored“When he is fit, he is one of the best midfielders,” enthused Enzo Maresca after Chelsea’s 1-0 win over Everton a few weeks ago. His team had laboured to a narrow home win but the manager was full of praise for his young midfielder. Chelsea have paid huge transfer fees for midfielders in recent years, breaking the British transfer record to sign Enzo Fernández from Benfica for £107m and then upping the record to bring in Moisés Caicedo from Brighton, but Maresca knows his team is at its best when Roméo Lavia is available.Fernández and Caicedo have performed superbly in recent weeks as Chelsea have chased down a place in the Champions League. The Ecuadorian has done particularly well at right-back, having been moved out of midfield to accommodate Lavia in the starting XI. Caicedo has dropped into defence and operated as an inverted right-back, doing so ...

Economics

77 m. ago Manx Liberty’s wildcards deliver in style to regain British team chess crown

The Isle of Man team enlisted two young English stars to help regain the 4NCL title that they won in 2022 and 2023The Four Nations Chess League (4NCL) is a bedrock of British chess. Staged over 11 rounds and five weekends from October to May at ­Midlands hotels, with teams of eight in the top division and six in divisions two to four, it attracts players from club level to grandmaster, many of whom do not compete in any other national event. Its organisation, by the ­English Chess Federation chief executive, Mike Truran, and a ­hardworking team of arbiters, is consistently excellent.As expected, the 2024-25 season ended last Monday with a close 11th round match between the favourites and defending champions, Wood Green, and the winners for the two previous years, Manx Liberty. The outcome was a ­rarity. All eight games were drawn for a 4-4 scoreline, although most were hard fought and Manx missed a winning endgame chance. Continue reading...

Politics

77 m. ago Lido Pimienta: La Belleza review – Gregorian chant meets dembow rhythm in a work of remarkable depth

(Anti-)Inspired by the music of Luboš Fiser and Catholic requiem mass, the instrumentals are deft and surprising, but Pimienta’s captivating, flawless vocals steal the showFive years since her Grammy-nominated breakthrough record Miss Colombia, singer and producer Lido Pimienta has taken a radical shift in direction. On Miss Colombia, Pimienta combined sprightly electro pop with cumbia rhythms and soaring vocals to critique racism and misogyny – now, her fourth album La Belleza (The Beauty) is a nine-track orchestral suite touching on everything from Gregorian chant to strings-laden love songs and dembow rhythms.Inspired by Catholic requiem mass music and the luscious harpsichord folk of Czech composer Luboš Fiser’s score to 1970 film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett began writing and arranging for the 60-piece Medellín Philharmonic Orchestra during the Covid lockdowns. The result is a moving work of remarkable depth. Continue reading...

Politics

77 m. ago Sports quiz of the week: Leeds, Lions, Zhao Xintong, camogie and F1 winners

Have you been following the big stories in football, rugby, snooker, Formula One, cricket, golf, horse racing and GAA? Continue reading...

Politics

85 m. ago Fury vs Hanjalic: Fight time, undercard, latest odds, prediction, ring walks tonight

Tommy Fury resumes his stalled boxing career in Budapest this evening after an 18-month absence from the ring

Sport

92 m. ago King Charles echoes his grandfather’s historic VE Day speech as he marks 80th anniversary

King Charles III remembered Queen Elizabeth II's lively VE Day celebrations — including joining a conga line — in 1945 as he delivered a speech exactly 80 years after his grandfather's historic address.

Politics

95 m. ago China and Russia pledge to deepen ties as they criticise US on Victory Day

In joint statement, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin accuse ‘certain countries’ of trying to ‘tamper with the results of the victory of the second world war’ China and Russia pledged to further deepen their already “no limits” partnership in a joint statement published ahead of Russia’s military parade on Friday, as the two sides stressed the importance of maintaining the “correct view” of second world war history.In a lengthy statement published during Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow for the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war, which Russia celebrates on 9 May as Victory Day, Xi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin said “certain countries are attempting to tamper with the results of the victory of the second world war”. Continue reading...

Politics

99 m. ago There’s a tiny Italian village hidden away in Welsh woodland, and it's not what you think

The hidden gem, on the fringes of Corris, is dubbed the 'Little Italy' of southern Eryri and has been uncovered by volunteers who have been left astounded by the number of replica buildings nestled within a small woodland

Politics

1 hour ago Murderbot to Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story – the seven best shows to stream this week

Alexander Skarsgård leads a funny AI sci-fi comedy, while a new documentary fills in gaps about the shockingly grotesque crimes of the notorious couplePerfectly in tune with our current state of low-key but persistent AI panic, this sci-fi comedy stars Alexander Skarsgård as the titular, self-named security cyborg. Skarsgård’s bot has managed to hack itself, but having overridden its programming, it’s unsure of what to do with its freedom. After all, one false move and its semi-autonomous state will be revealed. The tone is wry rather than dystopian. Murderbot has been hired as security by a shambolic gaggle of space-travelling environmentalists – but while it does have the capacity to go on a killing spree, it really just wants to be left alone to watch soap operas and ponder its place in the universe. Dryly funny and existentially intriguing. Apple TV, from Friday 16 May Continue reading...

Events

1 hour ago ‘There’s a battle going on for the soul of America’: actor Lennie James on political turmoil, zombie terrors and being a black Brit in the US

As part of a Bafta TV special, the nominated actor and Walking Dead regular on bringing Bernardine Evaristo’s hit novel Mr Loverman to the small screen, and splitting his time between London and LAHe is almost 40 years into his career, but Lennie James is still keeping things fresh. The 59-year-old south Londoner has run the gauntlet of high-octane TV dramas, playing Morgan Jones for more than 10 years in the wildly successful apocalypse drama The Walking Dead and its spinoff, Fear the Walking Dead; bent copper DCI Tony Gates in Line of Duty; and the down-and-out philanderer Nelly Rowe in Sky’s Save Me. In person, though, James is the polar opposite of the characters he is best known for – considered, introspective and disarmingly earnest.Last year, he took on a radically different role, as Barrington (below) in the BBC adaptation of Bernardine Evaristo’s novel Mr Loverman, a closeted Windrush-generation Caribbean man in a secret relationship with his best friend. Quietly moving, it...

Events

1 hour ago Week in wildlife: A rare chameleon, friendly starlings and hot buffaloes

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world Continue reading...

Politics