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Gardening is meant to be a relaxing pursuit, but after the death of his wife, Carl discovered the trials and tribulations that come hand in hand with curating nature.

This week, Jeffery Deaver answers our burning questions, what is he reading, what book would he take to a desert island, what gave him the reading bug, what left him cold?

Sara Lawrence reviews the best Debut novels out now.

We all know about their infamous feuds with Blur, the band and between themselves. But in his new book, John Robb lifts the lid on what it is really like being a Gallagher.

Anthony Cummins reviews the best Literary Fiction out now.

Barry Turner reviews the best Classic Crime out now.

Labour's civil war over welfare has been a slow-motion car crash which was visible from space for months.

Facing mounting competition from autonomous taxi services like Waymo, Uber is in early talks to help fund Travis Kalanick's potential acquisition of Pony.ai's U.S. subsidiary (source paywalled; alternative source). If completed, the deal would reunite Kalanick with Uber (now under CEO Dara Khosrowshahi) and position Pony.ai to operate independently of its Chinese parent amid rising U.S. regulatory pressures. The New York Times reports: The company, Pony.ai, was founded in Silicon Valley in 2016 but has its main presence in China, and has permits to operate robot taxis and trucks in the United States and China. The talks are preliminary, said the people, who were not authorized to speak about the confidential conversations. Mr. Kalanick will run Pony if the deal is completed, they said. It is unclear what role, if any, Uber would take in Pony as an investor. Financial details of the potential transaction could not be determined. Pony went public last year in the United States, raising $260 million in a share sale. Its market capitalization stands around $4.5 billion. If the deal goes through, Mr. Kalanick, 48, will remain in his day job running CloudKitchens, a virtual restaurant start-up that he founded after leaving Uber in 2017. He would also work more closely with Dara Khosrowshahi, who took over as Uber's chief executive after Mr. Kalanick's ouster. The discussions are the starkest sign yet that Uber is under pressure from Waymo, the driverless car unit spun out of Google, and other autonomous car services. When Mr. Kalanick was Uber's chief executive, the company tried developing autonomous vehicle technology. It then bought Otto, a self-driving trucking start-up run by Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer. Google later sued Mr. Levandowski for theft of trade secrets and sued Uber to bar it from using its self-driving technology. Under Mr. Khosrowshahi, Uber has taken a different tack to self-driving cars. The company has struck roughly 18 partnerships with autonomous vehicle companies like Wayve, May Mobility and WeRide to bring pilot programs for driverless car services into Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The goal, Mr. Khosrowshahi has said in podcast interviews, has been to put "as many cars on Uber's network as possible." He has maintained that while autonomous vehicles are growing steadily, ride-hailing networks will have both human and robot drivers for years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Never has a game celebrated the good ol' postie as Death Stranding 2 does.

Whether you're a footie fan or have an aspiring Lioness in your life, the UEFA Women's Euro 2025 giant, double-sided wallchart, in association with Pepsi, is the ultimate guide to the tournament.

President Donald Trump announced on he knows who is behind the leak of a classified intelligent assessment that cast doubts on the success of his Iran airstrikes.

About halfway through Murder Most Puzzling, actor Adam Best delivered what is surely the most whodunnit line ever: 'This is DI Hooper. A body has been found in the library.'

Good Heavens, it was Sir Keir Starmer ! The Prime Minister swaggered into the Commons at 11.30am. First time for over a fortnight. He was lucky a clerk didn't ask to check his security pass.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google's AI search features are killing traffic to publishers, so now the company is proposing a possible solution. On Thursday, the tech giant officially launched Offerwall, a new tool that allows publishers to generate revenue beyond the more traffic-dependent options, like ads. Offerwall lets publishers give their sites' readers a variety of ways to access their content, including through options like micropayments, taking surveys, watching ads, and more. In addition, Google says that publishers can add their own options to the Offerwall, like signing up for newsletters. The new feature is available for free in Google Ad Manager after earlier tests with 1,000 publishers that spanned over a year. While no broad case studies were shared, India's Sakal Media Group implemented Google Ad Manager's Offerwall feature and saw a 20% revenue boost and up to 2 million more impressions in three months. Overall, publishers testing Offerwall experienced an average 9% revenue lift, with some seeing between 5% and 15%.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The broadcaster announced Aluko's inclusion in a 'sensational presenting and punditry lineup' for next month's tournament, but Wright was not named in their team.

Closing arguments are set to begin today from the prosecution and the defense in Diddy's six week sex trafficking trial.

Last month, Ronaldo sparked rumours that he could leave the Riyadh-based outfit when he posted a cryptic social media message, which began with the words 'this chapter is over'.

Tom Brady was among the raft of celebrities arriving at Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez 's $20 million wedding on Thursday, but the NFL icon will not be seeking a romance of his own in the City of Love.

Michael Larabel writes via Phoronix: The upcoming Blender 5.0 3D modeling software application is introducing High Dynamic Range (HDR) display support on Linux when making use of Wayland -- no X11 support for HDR -- and Vulkan graphics accelerator. HDR support for Blender 5.0 on Linux is currently considered experimental. Enabling the HDR support on Linux for the Blender creator software requires having a High Dynamic Range display (of course) and be running on a Wayland desktop, enabling Vulkan API acceleration rather than OpenGL, and enabling the feature currently deemed experimental. Additional details can be found via this Blender DevTalk thread.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After news broke that Wintour, 75, is stepping down from one of her roles after 37 years, the fashion world was left trying to figure out who would be the next front row fixture.