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President Trump in UK for historic second state visit

BBC News

President Donald Trump has arrived in the UK for his historic second state visit, which will see a crowded mix of royal pageantry, trade talks and international politics. Before making the trip from the US on Air Force One, Trump sent positive signals, describing the visit as an honour and saying: My relationship is very good with the UK. They want to see if they can refine the trade deal a little bit I'm into helping them, said Trump, with a multi-billion US technology investment deal being announced as the president's visit got underway. But Trump said the main purpose of the visit was to see my friend King Charles: He represents the country so well, such an elegant gentleman. Landing at Stansted airport, President Trump received an official welcome from a line-up on the runway including Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. The president is spending the night in the US ambassador's residence, Winfield House, before a day of royal ceremony and lavish spectacle in Windsor Castle on Wednesday - with the president describing Windsor as the ultimate in settings.


AI could boost UK economy by 10% in five years, says Microsoft boss

BBC News

Microsoft says its new $30bn (£22bn) investment in the UK's AI sector - its largest outside of the US - should significantly boost Britain's economy in the next few years. Its package forms a major part of a £31billion agreement made between the UK government and various other US tech giants, including Nvidia and Google, to invest in British-based infrastructure to support AI technology, largely in the form of data centres. Microsoft will also now be involved in the creation of a powerful new supercomputer in Loughton, Essex. Speaking exclusively to the BBC Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told the BBC of the tech's potential impact on economic growth. It may happen faster, so our hope is not ten years but maybe five.


OpenAI Rolls Out Teen Safety Features Amid Growing Scrutiny

WIRED

CEO Sam Altman announced an age-prediction system and new parental controls in a blog post on Tuesday. OpenAI announced new teen safety features for ChatGPT on Tuesday as part of an ongoing effort to respond to concerns about how minors engage with chatbots . The company is building an age-prediction system that identifies if a user is under 18 years old and routes them to an " age-appropriate " system that blocks graphic sexual content. If the system detects that the user is considering suicide or self-harm, it will contact the user's parents. In cases of imminent danger, if a user's parents are unreachable, the system may contact the authorities.


Watch: The Sundance Kid's life in the spotlight

BBC News

Hollywood icon Robert Redford has died at the age of 89, his publicist has said. The actor was known for his roles in blockbuster movies such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and went on to win an Oscar for Ordinary People when he turned his hand to directing. David Sillito looks back at his life. 'No doubt' Russia will cross Nato border if Ukraine falls, former US VP says Former US Vice-President Mike Pence calls for security guarantees in Ukraine to help deliver "just and lasting peace". The US House Oversight Committee has released new surveillance footage recorded hours before the convicted paedophile's death.


AI will make the rich unfathomably richer. Is this really what we want? Dustin Guastella

The Guardian

'The ludicrous valuations of AI startups are predicated on the idea that this technology has the power to eliminate the very need for human labor.' 'The ludicrous valuations of AI startups are predicated on the idea that this technology has the power to eliminate the very need for human labor.' AI will make the rich unfathomably richer. Is this really what we want? The'knowledge economy' promised cultural and social growth. Instead, we got worsening inequality and division. R ecently, Palantir - a tech corporation that boasts no fewer than five billionaire executives - announced its Q2 earnings: over a billion dollars generated in a single quarter.


One Vigilante, 22 Cell Towers, and a World of Conspiracies

WIRED

As dawn spread over San Antonio on September 9, 2021, almond-colored smoke began to fill the sky above the city's Far West Side. The plumes were whorling off the top of a 132-foot-tall cell tower that overshadows an office park just north of SeaWorld. At a hotel a mile away, a paramedic snapped a photo of the spectacle and posted it to the r/sanantonio subreddit. "Cell tower on fire around 1604 and Culebra," he wrote. In typical Reddit fashion, the comments section piled up with corny jokes. "Blazing 5G speeds," quipped one user. "I hope no one inhales those fumes, the Covid transmission via 5G will be a lot more potent that way," wrote another, in a swipe at the conspiracy theorists who claim that radiation from 5G towers caused the Covid-19 pandemic. The wisecracks went on: "Can you hear me now?" "Great, some hero trying to save us from 5G." That self-styled hero was actually lurking in the comments. As he followed the thread on his phone, Sean Aaron Smith delighted in the sheer volume of attention the tower fire was receiving, even if most of it dripped with sarcasm. A lean, tattooed--and until recently, entirely apolitical--27-year-old, Smith had come to view 5G as the linchpin of a globalist plot to zombify humanity. To resist that supposed scheme, he'd spent the past five months setting Texas cell towers ablaze. Smith's crude and quixotic campaign against 5G was precisely the sort of security threat that was fast becoming one of the US government's top concerns in 2021.


Google announces 5bn AI investment in UK before Trump visit

The Guardian

Google predicted the investment would help to create 8,250 jobs annually at UK companies. Google predicted the investment would help to create 8,250 jobs annually at UK companies. Rachel Reeves says move is a'vote of confidence' in British economy as she prepares to open firm's first UK datacentre Google has said it will invest £5bn in the UK in the next two years to help meet growing demand for artificial intelligence services, in a boost for the government. The investment, which comes as Google opens its new datacentre in Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire, is expected to contribute to the creation of thousands of jobs, the US tech company said. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves - who is attempting to drive growth amid pressure over the lacklustre state of the UK economy - said the investment into research and development, capital expenditure and engineering was a "vote of confidence" in the UK economy.


Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, UN commission of inquiry says

BBC News

A United Nations commission of inquiry says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. A new report says there are reasonable grounds to conclude that four of the five genocidal acts defined under international law have been carried out since the start of the war with Hamas in 2023: killing members of a group, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to destroy the group, and preventing births. It cites statements by Israeli leaders, and the pattern of conduct by Israeli forces, as evidence of genocidal intent. Israel's foreign ministry said it categorically rejected the report, denouncing it as distorted and false. A spokesperson accused the three experts on the commission of serving as Hamas proxies and relying entirely on Hamas falsehoods, laundered and repeated by others that had already been thoroughly debunked.


To understand how AI will reconfigure humanity, try this German fairytale Clemens J Setz

The Guardian

The wish-fulfilling fish is among us The Fisherman and His Wife. The wish-fulfilling fish is among us The Fisherman and His Wife. Artificial intelligence will replace creativity with something closer to magical wishing. I n the German fairytale The Fisherman and His Wife, an old man one day catches a strange fish: a talking flounder. It turns out that an enchanted prince is trapped inside this fish and that it can therefore grant any wish.


Beaten and held in Russia for three years - but never charged with a crime

BBC News

Since his release from a Russian prison, Dmytro Khyliuk has barely been off the phone. The Ukrainian journalist was detained by Russian forces in the first days of their full-scale invasion. Three and a half years later he's been released in a prisoner swap, one of eight civilians freed in a surprise move. While Russia and Ukraine have swapped military prisoners of war before, it is very rare for Russia to release Ukrainian civilians. Dmytro has been catching up frantically on all he's missed.