Who Crystal Palace will face in Conference League semi-finals as opponents confirmed
The Eagles are now just 120 minutes away from a European final Source link
All posts tagged: Opponents
Hungary’s Lessons for Trump’s Opponents
To the outside world, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán began his rule as a pariah—an obstreperous, often lone dissenter from European Union policies, especially over migration. Then he became a prophet to new-style “national conservatives”—the anti-immigration, anti-elite right-wing movement that has reshaped the politics of the West. After resoundingly losing national elections held on April 12, Orbán has become a parable for how populism can be defeated. His political demise was hardly inevitable. It had to be shrewdly engineered by politicians and voters who put aside their ideological differences to defeat him. In politics, there is no natural law of self-correction. From 2010 until now, Orbán and his Fidesz party transformed Hungary into a new kind of state, which he proudly proclaimed as an “illiberal democracy.” He and his allies rewrote the constitution to entrench his power, centralizing control over civil society and countervailing institutions such as courts and universities. Péter Magyar, the presumptive next prime minister, triumphed against a tilted electoral system—gerrymandered districts, government influence over traditional media and even over the country’s billboards—designed …
Crying during a conflict damages your opponent’s reputation at a cost to your own
In interpersonal conflicts, staying calm tends to protect your reputation, while crying damages the reputation of your opponent alongside your own. This points to a social tradeoff where keeping your cool helps you look good, but shedding tears is more effective if you want to make the other person look bad. These findings were recently published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior. Conflict between people is a naturally emotional process. When humans face disputes with colleagues, friends, or romantic partners, they often express sadness or anger to navigate the situation. While past scientific work has focused on how expressing emotions affects the person showing them, less is known about how these emotional responses impact the other person involved in the dispute. Scientists wanted to examine the reputational consequences of remaining calm compared to expressing active emotions like crying or yelling. They aimed to understand whether different emotional responses create different social tradeoffs for both the person expressing the emotion and the person receiving it. “Current emotion research focuses extensively on expressive emotions i.e. crying …
an opponent’s suffering triggers a spontaneous smile
People naturally experience a quiet sense of joy when witnessing a disliked rival suffer a sudden misfortune. A recent psychological experiment confirms that individuals spontaneously smile when watching an aggressive opponent experience physical pain, provided the observer feels personally provoked. These physical facial reactions, documented in a study published in Cognition and Emotion, reveal that perceiving someone as a wrongdoer acts as a primary trigger for feelings of dark satisfaction. Psychologists use the German term schadenfreude to describe the distinct pleasure derived from another person’s misery. People typically experience this emotion when they believe the suffering individual deserves a harsh punishment. It frequently surfaces during competitive situations, such as watching a rival athletic team lose a championship game. It also appears regularly in interpersonal conflicts when someone feels deeply wronged by an acquaintance. Witnessing a transgressor suffer can help restore a sense of justice or alleviate a feeling of personal inferiority. Research shows that expressing schadenfreude decreases the social dominance of the resented individual. This reaction rebalances the power dynamics between two people. When individuals …
The dominant basketball program in a conference is leaving. So why aren’t its opponents celebrating?
The men’s basketball team at Gonzaga was doomed — or so the coach of the small, Jesuit university would lament. Dan Monson chuckles now at the memory. In the early 1990s, he was a young Gonzaga assistant who would listen as his boss, Dan Fitzgerald, the Bulldogs coach who died in 2010, would lay out to Monson and Mark Few, another assistant, all the reasons why success in Spokane, Washington, seemed Sisyphean. Convincing recruits to play at the school’s remote campus? Brutally difficult in a conference where Gonzaga’s rivals played in cities like San Diego, San Francisco, Portland and Los Angeles. The weather? Icy. Gonzaga’s tradition? Outside of alumnus John Stockton, almost nonexistent. “And he was right at the time,” Monson recalled recently. “He’d tell Mark and I all the time that Gonzaga is the worst job in the West Coast Conference.” Such a notion seems absurd now. Gonzaga guard Jalen Warley in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Portland, Ore.Craig Mitchelldyer / AP This week, Gonzaga played in its 27th consecutive NCAA …
Americans are now diagnosing their political opponents instead of understanding them
Psychological interpretation of political disagreement is replacing reasoned debate, leading to a culture of avoidance and echo chambers, and ultimately hindering democracy. Source link
Google finds that AI agents learn to cooperate when trained against unpredictable opponents
Training standard AI models against a diverse pool of opponents — rather than building complex hardcoded coordination rules — is enough to produce cooperative multi-agent systems that adapt to each other on the fly. That’s the finding from Google’s Paradigms of Intelligence team, which argues the approach offers a scalable and computationally efficient blueprint for enterprise multi-agent deployments without requiring specialized scaffolding. The technique works by training an LLM agent via decentralized reinforcement learning against a mixed pool of opponents — some actively learning, some static and rule-based. Instead of hardcoded rules, the agent uses in-context learning to read each interaction and adapt its behavior in real time. Why multi-agent systems keep fighting each other The AI landscape is rapidly shifting away from isolated systems toward a fleet of agents that must negotiate, collaborate, and operate in shared spaces simultaneously. In multi-agent systems, the success of a task depends on the interactions and behaviors of multiple entities as opposed to a single agent. The central friction in these multi-agent systems is that their interactions frequently …
Bank of France chief’s surprise exit stokes suspicion among Macron’s opponents – POLITICO
Villeroy explained that he had been approached to take over the presidency of the Fondation Apprentis d’Auteuil, a Catholic charity that helps young people from difficult social backgrounds to get into the job market. He said he had taken his decision “in complete personal independence” and added that there would be enough time between now and June to organize a smooth succession. An influential voice on the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, Villeroy is currently serving his second six-year term as governor. He has been at the head of France’s central bank for nearly 11 years and “has been a solid, well-respected governor,” according to Véron. Quick and fulsome praise Villeroy’s colleagues were quick to heap praise on the outgoing governor. “The [ECB’s]Governing Council has benefited enormously from the realism combined with strong European convictions and vision that he always brings to the table,” Lagarde said in a statement, paying tribute to his “friendly, wide-ranging, team-oriented, good-humored and consistently well-articulated contributions.” “His deep engagement with the European cause, tied to his sincere love for France …
EU-Mercosur trade pact agreed: Is it the end for opponents of the deal? – Talking Europe
To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. Accept Manage my choices One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Try again TALKING EUROPE © FRANCE 24 Issued on: 16/01/2026 – 17:27Modified: 16/01/2026 – 17:30 12:43 min From the show Reading time 1 min A majority of EU member states have voted in favour of a landmark free trade deal with Latin American countries. The Mercosur agreement has been 25 years in the making, and its supporters are adamant that it will assert Europe’s geostrategic position and benefit consumers. But despite the green light from the EU Council, Mercosur continues to face opposition from countries such as France, as well as from many farmers in the EU. Meanwhile, the European Parliament still has to have its final say. We discuss the deal with two MEPs. Programme prepared by Isabelle Romero, Perrine Desplats and Oihana Almandoz Europe Rendezvous © FRANCE 24 …
Top-Ranked Arizona Manhandling Opponents During Undefeated Start
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Arizona has become the bully on the block. A program known for its free-flowing offense and efficiency, the top-ranked Wildcats have added a dose of bulk to beat teams down during their undefeated start to the season. “You can sometimes wear people down with your speed, just getting the ball up and down the court and guys get tired, but they have a unique ability with their roster to wear teams down inside with their size,” Arizona State coach Bobby Hurley said after the Sun Devils’ 89-82 loss to Arizona on Wednesday night. “The size and physicality of their front line is different than anything we’ve seen this season.” It’s not just the front line. The Wildcats (17-0, 4-0 Big 12) are big everywhere and it’s helped them to the program’s best start since opening 21-0 in 2013-14 while remaining one of three Division I teams still undefeated. The Wildcats are still wildly efficient, No. 4 in the KenPom offensive ratings while averaging 91.1 points and 19.2 assists per game. What …