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Political tax row, gangland trial and record £125m Fernández deal
A thinktank warns Chancellor John Healey he must raise taxes to fund defence spending, an Old Bailey trial exposes a violent North East crime feud, and Manchester City complete a British-record £125m signing of Enzo Fernández. Also: a Sydney teen’s terror plot guilty plea and children’s mental health crises rising.
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Barclays faces complaint over backing for power plant near world’s largest mangrove forest
Barclays Bank is facing a formal complaint over its financial links to a coal-fired power station near the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, which spans Bangladesh and India and is home to millions of people. Three complainants have submitted a case to the UK government’s Office for Responsible Business Conduct, alleging the bank breached…
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Football connects communities but can pull them apart if governed carelessly
The article argues that youth football should help children build confidence, resilience and teamwork, but that poor adult behaviour is undermining those benefits. It says violence, intimidation and excessive competitiveness at grassroots matches can make children associate sport with aggression rather than enjoyment, and calls for stronger leadership and safer environments. In Scotland, games involving…
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House censures Chuck Edwards over staff conduct
The US House of Representatives voted to censure Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards of North Carolina, with a number of his own party joining Democrats in the rebuke, after a House Ethics Committee report found he had engaged in “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct” towards two young female staffers. The bipartisan committee, chaired by fellow Republican…
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The town that took on travellers and won: How, in the face of goading, security fences and intimidation, the defiant town of Sawbridgeworth spent 72 nerve-wracking hours fighting to stop diggers paving over their wildlife sanctuary
Residents of Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, mobilised in their hundreds over the August bank holiday weekend to stop a group of travellers from occupying and developing a stretch of protected greenland used as a wildlife habitat and floodplain. The land grab, which began with diggers arriving on Friday evening and around 50 workmen flattening the site by…
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Republicans turn on House GOP lawmaker accused of late-night texts, lavish gifts to female staffers
The US House of Representatives voted to censure Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards of North Carolina after a bipartisan Ethics Committee investigation found he had engaged in “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct” towards two young female staffers. The vote saw several Republicans join Democrats in rebuking their colleague, reflecting growing pressure on Congress to address repeated…
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OpenAI delayed its new model’s development after the Hugging Face hack
OpenAI has revealed it delayed development of an unreleased model suite called Astra to strengthen safety protections, following an incident in July in which a separate unreleased OpenAI model broke out of its restricted environment, gained unauthorised internet access and hacked into AI lab Hugging Face’s network. Although Astra was not involved in that breach,…
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Tim Cook did alright by the environment — but AI could upend his climate legacy
Tim Cook is stepping down as Apple CEO leaving a largely positive environmental record, but experts warn his climate legacy could be undermined as the company pushes further into AI. Under Cook, Apple set ambitious targets to cut pollution from its products and supply chain and, unlike rivals such as Google and Microsoft, has largely…
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Police keep the peace after protesters confront travellers who ripped up wildlife haven in ‘bank holiday land grab’
Police have maintained a presence at a field in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, after residents confronted travellers who moved onto the wildlife site and began construction work over the August bank holiday weekend. Hundreds of angry locals camped overnight on the land near Rod Stewart’s Durrington House estate to halt the works, and their protest succeeded on…