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2 hours ago
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AI’s worst disasters will arrive unannounced | Letters
Dr Simon Nieder on the global efforts needed to curb the threats posed by AI. Plus letters from Dr Anthony Harris and David KylerTimothy Garton Ash is right that serious artificial intelligence risks demand international action, but “AI Hiroshima” may be the wrong picture (Would even an AI disaster on the scale of Hiroshima be enough to make humankind protect itself? I fear not, 22 August). Hiroshima was not technology going rogue. Human beings designed the bomb, authorised its use and dropped it. The technology worked much as intended.AI may one day behave in ways we cannot control, but many of the gravest harms could happen without any dramatic moment when “the AI takes over”. AI might help design a pathogen, find a vulnerability in critical infrastructure or improve a weapons system while people still decide what happens next. Other harms may build almost invisibly through thousands of ordinary decisions – more autonomy here, one safeguard removed there, another consequential task handed over because the system has worked well so far. By the time the danger is obvious, the important decisions may already have been made. Continue reading...
The Guardian
2 hours ago
Why solar bonds are a bright idea | Letter
A financial model that could cut the cost of installing solar panels for many homeowners is welcomed by Alexis AbramsonThe UK proposal to use “solar bonds” to make rooftop solar more affordable is a smart solution to a fundamental problem: the rising cost of capital (Cut cost of loans for solar panels on UK homes, ministers urged, 21 August).A household that can pay for solar upfront saves money from day one. For everyone else, high-interest financing can consume much of those savings and ultimately deter people from installing the technology. A solar bond structure changes that equation: investors receive a modest, guaranteed return, and homeowners get access to cheaper capital. Because the loan is attached to the property rather than the individual, there’s no issue if the person moves. Continue reading...
The Guardian
2 hours ago
The datacenter backlash is bringing the entire political spectrum together – against Big Tech billionaires
The movement against datacenters is uniting Americans because they perfectly illustrate how a few individuals hold all the power to control decisions that impact our livesBryce Gustafson has been knocking on doors in Indiana for more than a decade. The lead organizer with Citizens Action Coalition (CAC), a consumer and environmental organization, he usually encounters a mix of reactions when he’s out canvassing; whatever issue he’s talking about, there’s always at least a few people on the other side. But at a recent festival in the rural town of Monrovia, Indiana, he was struck by an unusual spirit of unity.He was there about a proposed datacenter, a 550-acre (222-hectare) Google project in this small town of 1,600 people. “I had 50 people I talked to,” Gustafson told me. “Nobody wanted that datacenter in their community. And at least a half a dozen people came up to me to say, ‘Hey, I voted for Trump. What the heck’s he doing, supporting these things?’” Continue reading...
The Guardian
2 hours ago
Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez defends ‘endless’ benefits of her oil deal with Trump
Deal that will reportedly see US take control of 65bn barrels of Venezuelan oil has provoked outrage in her countryVenezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has defended her government’s highly controversial energy deal with Donald Trump, insisting the South American country will maintain ownership and sovereignty over its massive oil reserves.Rodríguez, who assumed power in January after Trump ordered the abduction of the president, Nicolás Maduro, took to the airwaves on Saturday to push back against criticism of what the US president has called “the biggest oil deal in world history”. Continue reading...
The Guardian
3 hours ago
Nurture not nature? How young women can learn to better wield economic power | Heather Stewart
Project in Zambia shows how teaching young women to negotiate better can have a long-term impact on their prospectsWomen making their way in patriarchal societies down the ages have always had to wield their meagre economic power deftly. New evidence from a fascinating research project in Zambia suggests that’s a skill that can be learned.A team of female US academics have been gathering data for more than a decade, which shows that teaching young women to negotiate better can have a long-term impact on their prospects. Continue reading...
The Guardian
3 hours ago
Recruiter places ‘phoenix’ firm into liquidation just months after repurchase erased millions in debt
New company reportedly quickly fell behind with promised repayments to administratorA recruitment executive who was allowed to buy back the assets of his bust company in instalments, despite it accumulating almost £3m of debt, has placed his new business into liquidation after falling behind with promised payments to the administrator.The news is the latest event to raise questions about the practice of “phoenixism”, accounting’s controversial art of liquidating companies to allow directors to return with a new entity, free of debts. Continue reading...
The Guardian
3 hours ago
Big business has shown small firms what to do – and what not to do – with AI | Gene Marks
Small business owners have watched large companies fumble – and sometimes succeed – with AI, and then use what worksOne thing I’ve learned about corporate America is that what it succeeds at ultimately trickles down to benefit small businesses. Bleeding-edge technologies such as the internet, mobile transactions and the cloud were first perfected by large organizations – government and corporations – and now they’re available to the masses at a much lower cost and with better reliability.The good news is that it’s also the same for what they fail at. Continue reading...
The Guardian
4 hours ago
‘Without us, no wheel would turn’: the unsung heroes keeping England’s transport moving
On shift, but out of sight – from ‘that person with the table tennis bats’ on the airport tarmac to remote signallers managing rail trafficNot many people get to park their car here – bang in the middle of Heathrow airport, on the taxiway just a stretch of grass away from where a line of passenger planes is coming in to land.It’s close enough to see the shimmering air and smoke as nose tyres hit the tarmac. “An A380 will put down as much rubber as a car’s entire tyre,” Jack Quantick-Thorne says. He knows – part of his job is to ensure the runway team scrapes it off and patches things up overnight. And it is all recycled, he adds. Continue reading...
The Guardian
5 hours ago
Hospitality boom and $100 chicken nuggets: how the US Open became obscenely expensive
Record crowds, premium seats and an unchecked resale market are transforming the self-styled people’s slam – and leaving ordinary fans fighting to get through the gatesIt takes a truly exceptional affordability crisis to put Bill Ackman and Zohran Mamdani on the same side of the barricade. Yet this month the billionaire hedge fund manager and New York’s democratic socialist mayor found common cause over an unlikely grievance: the cost of getting into the US Open.Ackman took objection to the cost of a grounds pass listed for $363. Mamdani responded to the broader uproar by securing 1,000 tickets for New York residents at $100 apiece, prompting more than 336,000 people to apply for them. Somewhere between the two sits the uneasy economics of the modern US Open, where a $65 ticket with no guaranteed seat on any court can fetch more than five times that amount on the tournament’s resale marketplace. Continue reading...
The Guardian
6 hours ago
‘It’s therapy by stealth’: the adult fans helping Lego build its billions in sales
A growing number of people are rediscovering their love of plastic bricks in later life and boosting the Danish company’s bottom lineIn a cosy cafe in Kingston upon Thames on the outskirts of London, nine people gather in the early evening to drink and talk. To the casual observer it may look like a book club, but when the friends reach into their bags it’s not paperbacks they produce – but packs of Lego.Geoff Lay, who organised the gathering, worked in software development before recently starting Noble Brick, a Lego-focused events organisation. Continue reading...
The Guardian
7 hours ago
Could this policy fix the care system and slash student debt at the same time?
Andy Burnham is in need of radical proposals. A ‘care first’ year in exchange for 50% off fees could be just what he needsThe UK’s social care sector is in crisis. Costs are spiralling, with many local councils forced to dedicate the vast majority of their budgets to it. At the same time, more and more families are seeing their savings disappear into the black hole of nursing home fees. With an ageing population, the problem is set to get worse.In only his second week as prime minister, Andy Burnham pledged to succeed where so many of his predecessors have failed: by fixing Britain’s social care system. And yet, as parliament returns from recess, the new-ish administration is still worryingly unclear about how it will do this. Despite Burnham declaring that care workers should enjoy better compensation, we don’t know how he plans to pay for any of it – not least because he has kept Starmer’s campaign pledge to not raise income tax, VAT or national insurance. At the moment, it looks as though it will be impossible to square the circle. Continue reading...
The Guardian
7 hours ago
Cities are the big winners in Burnham’s devolution drive. But what happens to the rest of England? | John Harris
Labour has promised a ‘fundamental rewiring’ of power. But some areas are years into their devolution journey while others scramble to get startedApart from the joyous hyperactivity that comes with suddenly making it to No 10, there are good reasons why Andy Burnham seems to be a prime minister in a hurry. If he decides that his first term is going to run to its maximum length, he has three years, which is a maddening time-frame: too long for him to just tinker here and there, set out his long-term vision and then ask the electorate for permission to do more, but probably too short to start and finish many of his key projects. His chosen solution, it seems, is a mixture of the strategies he would use for each approach, which includes running at some issues at breakneck pace.So it is with his specialist subject: devolution for England. The huge changes now afoot actually began under Keir Starmer, with the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act passed earlier this year. Areas that previously had two tiers of local government will see them replaced with new unitary councils. But the most historic move centres on regional mayors – what the government calls “strategic authorities” – and a shift that the Whitehall PR machine is hyping up as a “fundamental rewiring of the way our country works, surrendering power that for too long has been held in Westminster and Whitehall”. In principle, this is unquestionably worth celebrating. But it also gives rise to a whole range of increasingly urgent and awkward questions.John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
The Guardian
7 hours ago
UK asks banks for feelgood stories about keeping out dirty money
City firms tapped for case studies to try to convince global watchdog that London has cleaned up its actThe government is asking bankers and lawyers to provide feelgood stories about how they blocked dirty money from entering the UK, as ministers try to prove the UK’s money-laundering controls are working.The Treasury’s call for evidence is meant to illustrate that the UK has upped its game when it comes to preventing financial crime, particularly since its last dismal assessment by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) global crime watchdog in 2018, which fuelled allegations that London had become a hub for “dirty money”. Continue reading...
The Guardian
7 hours ago
Women in UK arts feel they do not have equal opportunities for roles, says report
Exclusive: Research says sector is fixated with young talent, with most women experiencing unconscious bias or sexismWomen working in the arts believe they do not have equal opportunities for roles, especially as they get older, according to a report saying that the industry is fixated with “young and emerging” talent.Nearly all (95%) women working in the arts thought gender inequality persisted, while three-quarters (75%) reported experiencing unconscious bias or sexism, according to a survey of 76 arts professionals. More than two-thirds (69%) felt that age negatively affected their career success – a figure that rose to 100% among those working in artistic rather than managerial roles. Continue reading...
The Guardian
9 hours ago
Pet owners at risk of being ripped off by private equity firms as vet ownership rules change
Critics say changes by CMA will allow multinationals to obscure their ownership of vet practicesPet owners have been warned that they could be unknowingly ripped off by private equity firms who have bought local vet clinics, after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) removed requirements for multinational companies to disclose which practices they own.The CMA recently ran an investigation into the monopolisation of vet practices, and found that the lack of competition and transparency of ownership had led to high prices and a lack of information for customers. Pet owners were often unaware their local vet practice could be owned by an international private equity company. Continue reading...
The Guardian
10 hours ago
Trump’s ‘economic D-day’ against Iran risks driving the stakes even higher | Sina Toossi
As with its approach to Hormuz, the US has mistaken applying pressure for an actual strategy. But Tehran has chips of its own to playDonald Trump has found a new way to promise victory over Iran. After months of war have failed to force Iran’s capitulation or collapse, his administration has unveiled what the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, calls Operation Economic Outcast: an effort to cut it off from what remains of the global economy and threaten foreign governments, banks and companies with sanctions if they continue doing business with Tehran.There is no question that Iran is vulnerable. Its economy has been battered by years of sanctions, war and a months-long US naval blockade. Iranian officials acknowledge that oil exports and access to foreign currency have been severely constrained. Ordinary Iranians are already enduring high inflation, currency depreciation and worsening living standards. Further economic strangulation will inflict significant additional hardship.Sina Toossi is a senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy, where his work focuses on US-Iran relations, US policy toward the Middle East and nuclear issues Continue reading...
The Guardian
11 hours ago
New payment set up? Get in touch! The bank scam where your ‘bank’ is the scammer
Impersonation scams – where callers or texts claim to be from trusted entities such as banks, HMRC or even the police – are rife … and growing‘I’ve £80k in the account, here’s my pin’: turning the tables on scammersYour phone pings and it’s a message from your bank about a new payment being set up on your account. If you do not recognise the transaction, it says, you should get in touch. There’s a number for you to call.The person on the other end of the line tells you that your account has been compromised by scammers. They need details from you so they can help protect your money. Before you know it, they are giving you details of a safe account to transfer your savings to, or asking you to hand over your debit card so it can be replaced. Continue reading...
The Guardian
11 hours ago
South West Water has worst environmental record in England, analysis shows
Exclusive: Friends of the Earth finds greatest sewage discharge in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset‘Tiny bit of rain and the sewage comes’: Brighton swimmers vent fury at sea pollutionSouth West Water is doing more harm to the environment than any other water company in England, according to new analysis, with more sewage discharged in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset than anywhere else.Friends of the Earth analysed water companies’ environmental performance in six categories: sewage spills, water quality at bathing sites, pollution incidents or warnings at bathing sites, severity of sewage pollution at bathing sites, the percentage of rivers rated below the standard for good ecological health, and the affordability of bills. Continue reading...
The Guardian
12 hours ago
On long road back from Brexit, north-east’s recovery rides on survival of Nissan’s ‘shining star’ plant
Operating at only half its capacity, Japanese carmaker’s Sunderland factory seeks deal with China’s Chery as it battles Brexit threatsIn a factory in Gateshead, engineers carefully wind metal wires around iron cores to go in electric motors. Here, workers produce a smaller “pancake motor”, which generates higher torque than conventional versions for supercars or construction equipment.These workers form part of north-east England’s automotive industry, which has experienced a long line of political disruptions, from Margaret Thatcher’s efforts to attract international investment, through Brexit and now Andy Burnham’s reindustrialisation strategy. Continue reading...
The Guardian
12 hours ago
Arms and the £5m man: Farage megadonor Christopher Harborne’s military empire
Reform UK denies donor and crypto-billionaire’s global interests in arms and military could present a conflict of interest over its defence spending policyAs he struggles with questions about the millions he has received from the billionaire Christopher Harborne, Nigel Farage has made no secret of his enthusiastic support for the industry that made part of his benefactor’s fortune – cryptocurrency. The Reform UK leader even urged the governor of the Bank of England to drop a crypto policy that may be costly for Harborne.But another element of Harborne’s business interests could prove still more consequential if it shapes Farage’s positions. There appears to be no precedent for a major UK donor who is so entwined with the military. Continue reading...
The Guardian
13 hours ago
‘You’re at war when you get attacked’: Mark Carney shows combative nature in face-off with Trump
The Canadian PM is one of the few world leaders to stand up to the US president. Former colleagues say they are not surprisedMark Carney stood before a walnut-veneered lectern, his face drawn tight, as he announced that talks with Canada’s biggest trading partner had collapsed. “Last spring, I warned that America is trying to break us so that they can own us,” he said. “And I promised: that will never, ever happen. We are keeping that promise.”For years, the former central bank governor had worked hard to calm markets. Now, he was asking Canadians to accept uncertainty and confrontation. Continue reading...
The Guardian
13 hours ago
‘It gives Shein’: how did polyester become the world’s most-hated material?
Due to its ubiquity in fast fashion, gen Z are pushing back against the synthetic material and using it as an insultIn 2015, Kate Moss called an easyJet pilot a “basic bitch” and a catchy new insult meaning obvious and uncool hit the mainstream. Had it happened in 2026, Moss might have used the word “polyester”, reportedly gen Z’s new favorite diss, levied at cheap-looking videos on TikTok, and sometimes at other users’ taste.But its use as a figurative insult also echoes a literal backlash against polyester, now the most-produced synthetic fibre on the planet. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
‘If it’s made in the US, I don’t buy it’: Canadians on boycotting Trump’s America
Avoiding US goods and services – from tech to whisky to air travel – has forced many to find a new way of livingFor William McDonald, 38, a diesel mechanic from Thunder Bay, Ontario, “Canadian is always the first choice,” even if it means his weekly bills are higher.“As soon as Trump started putting those tariffs on in February [last year], I started boycotting US goods,” he said. “Avoiding American products has driven my costs up, and I’m still happy to do it. Continue reading...
The Guardian
1 day ago
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