Damn dalmatian! Fury erupts after David Jones cancels Christmas window display to promote joy of … its loyalty program

Two weeks out from Christmas, the footpath outside Sydney’s flagship David Jones store would usually be packed with eager-eyed families lining up to view the retailer’s traditional festive window display.But on Friday morning, Elizabeth Street was mostly empty. An upset-looking child in a pram stared forlornly at a Valentino advertisement.Sydneysiders have come out swinging after the department store replaced its famous Christmas window display with a celebration of its new loyalty program and associated mascot, Domino the Dalmatian.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailA spokesperson said “We acknowledge that this year’s display has fallen short of expectations and has not reflected what many in the community were hoping for

EU’s 2035 petrol and diesel car ban will be watered down, says senior MEP

The EU’s outright ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035 is poised to be watered down, a senior European parliament politician has said.The decision, expected to be announced by the European Commission on Tuesday in Strasbourg, would be a divisive move, angering environmental campaigners who argue it would amount to the “gutting” of the EU’s flagship green deal.The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said on Friday he “supported” such a climbdown, having advocated strongly for changes to the rules on the end of the combustion engine for months.“The reality is that there will still be millions of combustion engine-based cars around the world in 2035, 2040 and 2050,” he said.Under the existing laws, approved two years ago, all cars coming on the market from 2035 have to be zero CO2 emissions, meaning the end of the road for hybrid vehicles as well as those running solely on fossil fuels

Disney wants you to AI-generate yourself into your favorite Marvel movie

Users of OpenAI’s video generation app will soon be able to see their own faces alongside characters from Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars and Disney’s animated films, according to a joint announcement from the startup and Disney on Thursday. Perhaps you, Lightning McQueen and Iron Man are all dancing together in the Mos Eisley Cantina.Sora is an app made by OpenAI, the firm behind ChatGPT, which allows users to generate videos of up to 20 seconds through short text prompts. The startup previously attempted to steer Sora’s output away from unlicensed copyrighted material, though with little success, which prompted threats of lawsuits by rights holders.Disney announced that it would invest $1bn in OpenAI and, under a three-year deal perhaps worth even more than that large sum, that it would license about 200 of its iconic characters – from R2-D2 to Stitch – for users to play with in OpenAI’s video generation app

Musk calls Doge only ‘somewhat successful’ and says he would not do it again

Elon Musk has said the aggressive federal job-cutting program he headed early in Donald Trump’s second term, known as the “department of government efficiency” (Doge), was only “a little bit successful” and he would not lead the project again.Musk said he wouldn’t want to repeat the exercise, talking on the podcast hosted by Katie Miller, a rightwing personality with a rising profile who was a Doge adviser and who is married to Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s hardline anti-immigration deputy chief of staff.Asked whether Doge had achieved what he’d hoped, Musk said: “We were a little bit successful. We were somewhat successful.”Doge created chaos and distress in the government machine in Washington DC, and by May more than 200,000 federal workers had been laid off and roughly 75,000 had accepted buyouts as a result of purges by Musk’s external team of often-young zealots

Global anti-doping chief admits drugs cheats in sport are escaping detection

One of the most senior figures in global anti-doping has warned that too many drug cheats in sport are evading detection – and criticised the current system as “ineffective”.David Howman, the former director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and the chair of the Athletics Integrity Unit, urged anti-doping bodies to be more ambitious in catching elite athletes again rather than focusing on compliance issues.In what was a clear criticism of Wada’s leadership, Howman also told them that the lack of success in catching cheats was harming the clean sport message.“Let’s be honest and pragmatic … intentional dopers at elite level are evading detection,” Howman told the Wada’s World Conference on Doping in Sport in South Korea. “We are not effective enough nowadays in catching cheats

Gloucester prop Afo Fasogbon: ‘I’m quite chilled off the pitch – until it’s time to go to work’

The 21-year-old came to rugby via an unusual route, but it is one that may soon see him in the England squadTo announce Afo Fasogbon as English rugby’s next big thing is not entirely accurate. He may be big – 6ft 4in tall and about 130kg (20st 6lb) – but as far as the internet is concerned he arrived some time ago. Video footage of the young Gloucester prop waving off the more experienced Ellis Genge after edging a scrummaging duel at Kingsholm last year went viral almost before Genge had reached the touchline.Should the 21-year-old make a strong impact off the bench against Munster in Cork on Saturday evening, however, he could soon be vying for even greater recognition. England are suddenly lighter in the tighthead department after Will Stuart’s unfortunate achilles injury, with Asher Opoku-Fordjour also out of action