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Ex-Post Office boss sought 'non-emotive words' for Horizon bugs, inquiry hears

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The former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells and other senior executives searched for “non-emotive” words...
The former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells and other senior executives searched for “non-emotive” words to describe computer bugs found in the company’s Horizon IT system in an “absolutely Orwellian” use of language, a public inquiry has heard.The inquiry is investigating why the Post Office hounded and p...
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Autism makes travel a challenge. Here’s how I learned to cope

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Wandering hand-in-hand through the medieval streets of Bologna, my boyfriend and I were in awe of...
Wandering hand-in-hand through the medieval streets of Bologna, my boyfriend and I were in awe of the sweeping porticoes and distinctive rust-red brickwork of the city. It was our first holiday together. We’d wanted to find somewhere beyond the obvious that would marry our respective interests in architecture and hi...
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The legalization of sports gambling in the US was a mistake

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On Wednesday, the NBA announced that Jontay Porter, a center for the Toronto Raptors, was banned...
On Wednesday, the NBA announced that Jontay Porter, a center for the Toronto Raptors, was banned from the league for life. An investigation found that the bench player disclosed confidential information to gamblers, exited a match early to influence an “over/under” wager on his stat line, and bet on games using a fr...
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Drug shortages, now normal in UK, made worse by Brexit, report warns

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Drug shortages are a “new normal” in the UK and are being exacerbated by Brexit, a...
Drug shortages are a “new normal” in the UK and are being exacerbated by Brexit, a report by the Nuffield Trust health thinktank has warned. A dramatic recent spike in the number of drugs that are unavailable has created serious problems for doctors, pharmacists, the NHS and patients, it found.The number of warnings...
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Louisiana's flagship university lets oil firms influence research – for a price

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For $5m, Louisiana’s flagship university will let an oil company weigh in on faculty research activities....
For $5m, Louisiana’s flagship university will let an oil company weigh in on faculty research activities. Or, for $100,000, a corporation can participate in a research study, with “robust” reviewing powers and access to all resulting intellectual property.Those are the conditions outlined in a boilerplate document t...
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The Game Boy at 35: a portal to other magical worlds

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On April 21, 1989, Nintendo released a chunky grey game-playing rectangle to stores in Japan. It’s...
On April 21, 1989, Nintendo released a chunky grey game-playing rectangle to stores in Japan. It’s fair to say that nobody expected much of it. Internally, at Nintendo’s Kyoto HQ, the portable console was reportedly not a well-loved project. But within two weeks, it had sold out its entire 300,000-unit initial run. ...
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Chinese students in US tell of 'chilling' interrogations and deportations

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Stopped at the border, interrogated on national security grounds, laptops and mobile phones checked, held for...
Stopped at the border, interrogated on national security grounds, laptops and mobile phones checked, held for several hours, plans for future research shattered.Many western scholars are nervous about travelling to China in the current political climate. But lately it is Chinese researchers working at US universitie...
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US House approves $61B in military aid for Ukraine after months of stalling

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After months of stalling, the US House of Representatives finally approved more than $61bn worth of...
After months of stalling, the US House of Representatives finally approved more than $61bn worth of military assistance to help Ukraine in its desperate defense against Russia, as well as billions for other allies including Israel and Taiwan.In a bipartisan vote, 210 Democrats and 101 Republicans joined to support U...
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Tesla recalls nearly 4k Cybertrucks over faulty accelerator pedal

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Elon Musk and X to fight Australian order to remove Sydney stabbing content

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Elon Musk and his social media company X have accused Australia’s eSafety commissioner of censorship and...
Elon Musk and his social media company X have accused Australia’s eSafety commissioner of censorship and say they will challenge in court an order to remove content on the site relating to Monday’s Sydney church stabbing.On Tuesday the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said that X and Meta were issued with a ...
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Fossils found in Somerset by girl, 11, 'may be of largest-ever marine reptile'

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Fossils discovered by an 11-year-old girl on a beach in Somerset may have come from the...
Fossils discovered by an 11-year-old girl on a beach in Somerset may have come from the largest marine reptile ever to have lived, according to experts.The fossils are thought to be from a type of ichthyosaur, a prehistoric marine reptile that lived in the time of dinosaurs. The newly discovered species is believed ...
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Thousands protest against Canary islands' 'unsustainable' tourism model

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Thousands of people will join protests across the Canary islands on Saturday to call for an...
Thousands of people will join protests across the Canary islands on Saturday to call for an urgent rethink of the Spanish archipelago’s tourism industry and a freeze on tourist numbers, arguing that the current, decades-old model has made life unaffordable and environmentally unsustainable for local people.The prote...
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UAW secures historic union election win at Tennessee Volkswagen plant

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Volkswagen workers at the carmaker’s Chattanooga plant in Tennessee have voted to unionize with the United...
Volkswagen workers at the carmaker’s Chattanooga plant in Tennessee have voted to unionize with the United Auto Workers, a historic victory for the union and the labor movement’s efforts to expand to the southern United States.The vote was the first union election to be held as part of the UAW’s ambitious organizing...
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Chinese hackers have infiltrated critical US infrastructure

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Chinese government-linked hackers have burrowed into US critical infrastructure and are waiting “for just the right...
Chinese government-linked hackers have burrowed into US critical infrastructure and are waiting “for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow”, the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, has warned.An ongoing Chinese hacking campaign known as Volt Typhoon has successfully gained access to numerous American c...
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Ocean spray emits more PFAS than industrial polluters, study finds

theguardian.com

Ocean waves crashing on the world’s shores emit more PFAS into the air than the world’s...
Ocean waves crashing on the world’s shores emit more PFAS into the air than the world’s industrial polluters, new research has found, raising concerns about environmental contamination and human exposure along coastlines.The study measured levels of PFAS released from the bubbles that burst when waves crash, sprayin...
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Undersea 'hybrid warfare' threatens security of 1B, NATO commander warns

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'Eat the future, pay with your face': my dystopian trip to an AI burger joint

theguardian.com

On 1 April, the same day California’s new $20 hourly minimum wage for fast-food workers went...
On 1 April, the same day California’s new $20 hourly minimum wage for fast-food workers went into effect, a new restaurant opened in north-east Los Angeles that was conspicuously light on human staff.CaliExpress by Flippy claims to be the world’s first fully autonomous restaurant, using a system of AI-powered robots...
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We found unhealthy pesticide levels in 20% of US produce

theguardian.com

When it comes to healthy eating, fruits and vegetables reign supreme. But along with all their...
When it comes to healthy eating, fruits and vegetables reign supreme. But along with all their vitamins, minerals and other nutrients can come something else: an unhealthy dose of dangerous pesticides.Though using chemicals to control bugs, fungi and weeds helps farmers grow the food we need, it’s been clear since a...
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Nestlé adds sugar to infant milk sold in poorer countries, report finds

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Chemist fired by ADA for not endorsing Splenda-filled salads to diabetics

theguardian.com

Elizabeth Hanna had a simple job: help people with diabetes figure out what to eat. Anyone...
Elizabeth Hanna had a simple job: help people with diabetes figure out what to eat. Anyone with common sense knows this should probably not entail foods that might increase people’s risk of getting diabetes. But that’s not necessarily the thinking at the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the world’s leading diabe...
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How cheap, outsourced labour in Africa is shaping AI English

theguardian.com

We’re witnessing the birth of AI-ese, and it’s not what anyone could have guessed. Let’s delve...
We’re witnessing the birth of AI-ese, and it’s not what anyone could have guessed. Let’s delve deeper.If you’ve spent enough time using AI assistants, you’ll have noticed a certain quality to the responses generated. Without a concerted effort to break the systems out of their default register, the text they spit ou...
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California cracks down on water pumping: 'The ground is collapsing'

theguardian.com

Even after two back-to-back wet years, California’s water wars are far from over. On Tuesday, state...
Even after two back-to-back wet years, California’s water wars are far from over. On Tuesday, state water officials took an unprecedented step to intervene in the destructive pumping of depleted groundwater in the state’s sprawling agricultural heartland.The decision puts a farming region known as the Tulare Lake gr...
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Post Office urged by external lawyers to 'suppress' key document, inquiry hears

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The Post Office was urged by its external law firm to “try and suppress” disclosure of...
The Post Office was urged by its external law firm to “try and suppress” disclosure of a key document for “as long as possible” as branch owner-operators tried to mount legal action against the state-owned postal company, a public inquiry has heard.Rodric Williams, a senior in-house lawyer at the Post Office, giving...
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Mentally stimulating work plays key role in staving off dementia, study finds

theguardian.com

If work is a constant flurry of mind-straining challenges, bursts of creativity and delicate negotiations to...
If work is a constant flurry of mind-straining challenges, bursts of creativity and delicate negotiations to keep the troops happy, consider yourself lucky.Researchers have found that the more people use their brains at work, the better they seem to be protected against thinking and memory problems that come with ol...
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