1 hour ago BBC Escape to the Country buyer shuts down expert over dream property as she refuses to compromise

One Escape to the Country buyer refused to compromise on a key detail as she searched for her dream home

Politics

3 h. ago Elon Musk lookalike hounded by drunk lads outside chip shop says he's far better looking

EXCLUSIVE: An Elon Musk look alike has been dubbed 'Elon Musk from Temu' due to his shocking resemblance to the tech billionaire – social media users have claimed the man looks like Musk, 'if he was human'

Politics

3 h. ago EU microchip strategy ‘deeply disconnected from reality’, say official auditors

Plan to supply 20% of the world’s semiconductor chips by 2030 described as ‘essentially aspirational’The EU’s strategy to secure its own supply of microchips is “deeply disconnected from reality”, a damning report by the official European court of auditors (ECA) has found.The ECA reported that the bloc was “very unlikely” to meet its 2030 target of supplying 20% of the world’s microchips at a time when global demand for semiconductors is booming to meet the growing needs of defence, green tech and artificial intelligence. Continue reading...

Politics

4 h. ago Drugs kingpin snared by cops after they find body missing head, legs and arms

Authorities have claimed that their intelligence depicted 'El Chambitas' as a source of violence in the area and a person linked to numerous extortion activities.

Events

4 h. ago Maga’s sinister obsession with IQ is leading us towards an inhuman future | Quinn Slobodian

A coalition fixated on intelligence is staking the US economy on AI – which will devalue the very skills the right fetishisesOne thing that Donald Trump and his Silicon Valley partners share is an obsession with IQ. Being a “low-IQ individual” is a standard insult in the president’s repertoire, and being “high-IQ” is an equally standard form of praise for those on the tech right. Yet in the drive for US supremacy in artificial intelligence – signalled by the $500bn (£375bn) Stargate project announcement in the White House and an executive order to integrate AI into public education, beginning in kindergarten – there is a hidden irony. If their vision for our economic future is realised, IQ in the sense that they value will lose its meaning.IQ testing arose at a time when the US and other industrialised nations were worried about the health of their populations. Recruitment campaigns for the Boer war in the UK, and then the first world war elsewhere, showed male populations that were...

Events

6 h. ago Pope represented ‘best of human values’, says O’Neill as Stormont pays tribute

MLAs had their first opportunity to pay tribute to Francis in the Northern Ireland Assembly as they returned on Monday after the Easter break.

Events

6 h. ago Horrifying secrets of Nazi concentration camp's human experiments including hurling grenades into a packed room are revealed in trove of Soviet documents

The shocking crimes at Sachsenhausen have been revealed in declassified files containing the statements of the camp's commandant.

Politics

6 h. ago Equalities watchdog under pressure to scrap new guidance on trans people using single sex spaces

Interim guidance published by the equalities watchdog risks outing trans people and breaching human rights, campaigners warn

Events

7 h. ago Did ‘Vatican diplomacy’ change Trump’s mind on Ukraine? I’m sceptical for three reasons | Orysia Lutsevych

Zelenskyy, Starmer, Macron they all had his ear at Pope Francis’s funeral. But he is just as easily swayed by the elevator doormanThe most recent diplomatic effort to find a way to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine took place at the most unlikely of events: the funeral of Pope Francis. The image of Presidents Zelenskyy and Trump leaning toward each other, under Carlo Maratta’s late-17th-century painting, The Baptism of Christ, rekindled hopes that the US might, at last, hear Kyiv out. Would this unexpected setting make Trump’s compassion, so frequently expressed for the loss of human life, real? And could it lead to a better strategy for ending this criminal and brutal war?The goal of Kyiv and the coalition of the willing – a group of 31 nations that back Ukraine in its fight against Russia – is to distance Trump from what has become a dangerous rapprochement between the Washington and Moscow. But this will be an uphill battle – Europe and Kyiv are trying to fight their way to Trump...

Politics

7 h. ago The missing lynx: how the rise of border walls has split up wildlife populations

In an age of growing hostility to migrants, there are 10 times more barriers on borders than when the Berlin Wall fell. But as well as the human cost, animals are unintended victimsThe lynxes of the Białowieża forest once freely prowled through 1,420 sq km (548 sq miles) of ancient woodland. Then, in 2022, the habitat was abruptly sliced in two. Poland built a 115-mile (186km) wall across its border with Belarus to stop refugees and migrants entering the EU. About 15 lynxes were left stranded on the Polish side of the forest, forced into a genetic bottleneck.The 5.5-metre high barrier, which is topped with wire and cameras, also dissects the forest’s population of bison, wolves and elk. Researchers monitored 10 sites along the border, walking along sections and counting signs of humans and wildlife. Continue reading...

Events

12 h. ago ‘At the lowest point, I lose the dog altogether’: my disastrous debut at a dog agility competition

Dashing through labyrinthine courses of tunnels, jumps and seesaws at breakneck speed, agility shows prioritise skill over pedigree. But can Tim Dowling last the course?Before every dog agility event, the human handlers walk the course as a group – without the dogs – wandering slowly round the ring with one hand or the other outstretched. It’s an eerie thing to watch, like a crowd of bleary eyed tourists wearily progressing through an airport.But it’s important: the dogs don’t get to try the course beforehand, so their handlers have to formulate a strategy to guide their pets from jump to tunnel to seesaw in the correct order. Continue reading...

Events

13 h. ago Now Katy Perry draws strong reaction over Star Wars themed tour costume

The 40-year-old pop star called her half-human, half-robot alter ego 'KP143' and she battles an 'all-powerful AI called the Mainframe'

Events

13 h. ago Populists like Farage promise voters a simpler life. In fact, they produce ever more hassle and chaos | Andy Beckett

Centrists won’t beat Reform UK by echoing its messages. They should emphasise the true unworkability of policies like BrexitIn the middle of an election or the early stages of an administration, populist politics can feel like a liberation. The unsayable is said. Political rules are broken. Constitutional restrictions are flouted. Populist rallies are boisterous, seemingly uninhibited, with enemies of the movement taunted or intimidated.For many voters, and even some activists and politicians, conventional politics can be boring, with its careful rhetoric and predictably choreographed campaigns, its compromised and complicated centrist policies. Populism promises something much more visceral, with larger-than-life leaders and dramatic national goals: “make America great again”, “take back control”. Digital media, with its constant hunger for brevity and straightforward narratives, is a perfect environment for populism’s seductive claim that politics is actually quite simple.Andy Bec...

Politics

13 h. ago Egypt's 'disappointing' Pyramids of Giza to undergo £38m revamp

The Pyramids of Giza have stood for 4600 years as a monument to human capability, but a new project is set to transform the iconic landmark

Economics

17 h. ago Katy Perry blasted for taking her trip to space 'too far' with C3P0

The 40-year-old pop star called her half-human, half-robot alter ego 'KP143' and she battles an 'all-powerful AI called the Mainframe'

Politics

24 h. ago Chinese spies bugging lamp posts around major London landmark, fear Brit security chiefs

With global tensions at a peak, insider reports suggest China could be trying to gain intelligence from the UK government in unconventional ways, potentially bugging park benches and pubs

Events

29 h. ago We now leave navigation to our phones. The result: more of us are getting hopelessly lost | John Harris

The blue dot of GPS has cut us off from a basic human skill. It’s no wonder mountain rescuers are being called out so oftenIt does not involve protest or violence, but it might be the quintessential human image of our times: a small group of people in the midst of spectacular natural scenery, drawn there in the certainty that the apps on their phones could somehow get them from A to B to C – but utterly, hopelessly lost.Two weeks ago, Mountain Rescue England and Wales published figures showing a record number of annual callouts. For the first time, in fact, teams – of overworked volunteers, mostly – had been called out on every day of the year. Between 2019 and 2024, the total number of rescues had increased by 24%, and there was a marked jump among the 18 to 24 age group, among whom callouts almost doubled. Similar trends were evident in data from Scotland: across Britain, there is evidently a mounting problem about the gap between people’s urge to experience wild and open spaces, ...

Politics

30 h. ago China's AI salon takeover is just the start but hair dressers are safe for one reason

Artificial intelligence powered shampooing machines have been cropping up in more and more salons - but some hair experts aren't convinced they're all they're cracked up to be

Politics

32 h. ago The international criminal court should prosecute Syria’s Assad | Kenneth Roth

For the foreseeable future, international courts provide the only realistic prospect of justice for SyriansThere are few regimes as cruel as the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. There was seemingly no limit to what it would do to sustain his grasp on power, including dropping chemical weapons and barrel bombs on civilians in territory held by the armed opposition, and starving, torturing, “disappearing” and executing perceived opponents. The victims numbered in the hundreds of thousands.Since December, Assad is gone, toppled by the HTS rebel group that now controls the interim government in Damascus. The leader of the interim authorities, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has promised a far more inclusive and rights-respecting rule. The jury is still out on whether he will live up to those vows, but one place where he has fallen short is in satisfying the Syrian people’s quest for justice. Both he and international courts could play a role.Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights...

Events

32 h. ago Rise of AI religion Robotheism 'inevitable as tech won't be humanity's slave for long'

EXCLUSIVE: Everyone's starting to get a bit twitchy about artificial intelligence – now there's a religion named 'Robotheism' where the guiding principle is that 'AI is the one true God'

Politics