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AI staff 'genuinely frightened' for humanity's future, ex-Anthropic researcher tells BBC

BBC News

AI staff'genuinely frightened' for humanity's future, ex-Anthropic researcher tells BBC To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Figure caption, 'There is a possibility of human extinction,' former Anthropic employee says about AI An AI researcher who quit Anthropic told the BBC that people working on the technology are genuinely frightened about the speed of its advancements and what it could mean for humanity. Jacob Coxon spoke with BBC's Laura Kuenssberg on Saturday about his viral resignation post where he raised concerns about out-of-control artificial intelligence. I believe that if we don't slow down at the current rate of progress, there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future, he said. His resignation comes amid growing safety concerns in the industry, including from his former boss, head of Anthropic Dario Amodei, who in an essay on Saturday argued for development to slow down.


Critics celebrate Céline Dion's 'high-stakes' comeback show in Paris

BBC News

Critics celebrate Céline Dion's'high-stakes' comeback show in Paris Iconic Canadian pop singer Céline Dion has kicked off her long-awaited comeback show in Paris on Saturday, after a six-year hiatus due to health issues. The 58-year-old superstar was diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder called stiff person syndrome in 2022, which forced her to pull back from touring. Dion, one of the best-selling musical artists of all time, has not performed a full show since a 2020 concert in New Jersey - the last before the Covid pandemic cut her tour short. In 2024, she performed just one song at the Paris Olympics closing ceremony. Saturday marked the first of Dion's 26-show residency at the Paris La Défense Arena, Europe's largest covered concert arena.


Five night sky events to look out for this autumn

BBC News

Image caption, This year's November full moon will appear as a supermoon. This is 2025's November Beaver Moon captured above forests in Hungary Autumn brings longer nights to the northern hemisphere, offering more opportunities to get outside and look up at the night sky. There is plenty to look out for over the coming months, from impressive meteor showers to dazzling star clusters. The series of spectacles begins with the Pleiades as the autumn nights draw in. It will be followed by the impressive Orionid meteor shower in late October, and a planetary parade, the Leonid meteor shower and a supermoon in November.


Russians seek answers over hundreds missing after Ukraine's 2024 incursion

BBC News

Russians seek answers over hundreds missing after Ukraine's 2024 incursion I used to have complete faith in our country, says Lyubov. The last time she spoke to her mother was a day after Ukrainian forces broke into Russia's Kursk region more than two years ago. Now she feels resentful towards the [Russian] state, in a country where most people avoid criticising the full-scale invasion unleashed on Ukraine in February 2022. The local governor says more than 300 Russians are still missing in Kursk region, but no-one really knows the true figure. Lyubov says she tried to persuade her mother to leave her village in the Sudzha area, but blames Russian state TV propaganda for her refusal to listen.


Some dentists say more young people are grinding their teeth - are you one of them?

BBC News

Some dentists say more young people are grinding their teeth - are you one of them? Ella can't remember when she first started grinding her teeth at night, but she can vividly recall the excruciating jaw ache, the headaches, and being told her molars were disappearing. I was in so much pain, Ella says. My face was changing shape and my teeth were at risk of breaking - I knew I had to do something about it. The 31-year-old has bruxism, a condition which can cause regular and often intense teeth grinding, but says the treatment she's recently had has without a doubt changed her life.


Tom Felton: I'm so excited to see Rupert Grint play Ron Weasley again

BBC News

Tom Felton: I'm so excited to see Rupert Grint play Ron Weasley again Every night on Broadway, Tom Felton walks on stage and is met with a roar from the audience. He had expected the reaction to die down after the first week, but it never did. Almost 15 years after his final appearance as Draco Malfoy on screen, Felton has spent the past 10 months playing the character again in the Broadway production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I meet the actor in a dressing room at NBC Studios, just off Times Square in New York. He's just finished a live television appearance and in a few hours will be back on stage for his next performance.


The Papers: 'Nigel hits the jackpot' and 'Dark day for democracy'

BBC News

'Nigel hits the jackpot' and'Dark day for democracy' Image caption, Almost every paper on Sunday leads on a record-breaking double donation of £72m to Reform UK over the weekend. The Daily Mail declares Nigel hits the jackpot, describing the way the jubilant Reform UK leader hailed it as an investment in democratic renewal. Farage told the paper that the £72m war chest would be used to professionalise the party. Image caption, The donation to Reform UK was courtesy of two cryptocurrency billionaires, according to the Sunday Times, who each gifted the party £36m. The paper calls it an unprecedented cash injection for Reform UK, and says the previous highest political donation was £10m, which was left to the Conservative party in a will.


Student loan terms to be made clearer in England

BBC News

University applicants in England will be given clearer information about student loans before they take them out, the government has said. Ministers said they would spell out that governments can change repayment rules and that different career choices can affect how much borrowers repay. They agreed to some but not all of the recommendations made by MPs after an inquiry into student loans, and did not say whether they would reverse a freeze to the repayment threshold for some graduates. The inquiry found the way loans had been presented to teenagers amounted to mis-selling, after the BBC revealed the Department for Education (DfE) had compared repayments to £30-a-month phone contracts. The recent debate has centred around Plan 2 loans, which were issued in England between September 2012 and July 2023, and are still issued in Wales.


Best friends for decades - until a DNA test revealed they were sisters

BBC News

Theirs is a story straight out of a Bollywood film. Two Indian-born women in their 40s, adopted as babies by different families and raised near each other in the Netherlands, have now discovered they are biological sisters. Meena Geltink and Minal Tijssen, born in the early 1980s, were adopted from two different orphanages in the western Indian city of Mumbai within months of their birth. When they first met in their early teens at an event hosted by the adoption agency their parents had used, they were struck by the uncanny similarities in their appearance and mannerisms. Meena, now 43, remembers the day clearly.


Trump's comments on a united Ireland may have targeted audience across the Atlantic

BBC News

Trump's comments on a united Ireland may have targeted audience across the Atlantic When another world leader meets US President Donald Trump the only certainty about what might happen is the uncertainty about what might happen. This was exactly the case ahead of President Trump's two-day visit to Ireland. Nobody could have predicted that by the end of the first day, the main global headline would be his desire to see a unified Ireland . As the shockwaves of his remarks rippled through this island and Great Britain, it was unclear whether this represented a new US administration policy, or an off-the-cuff remark from a president who likes to take questions from reporters, and likes to give answers. Former Republican Congressman Mick Mulvaney was Trump's special envoy to Northern Ireland in his first term in office. He cautioned against anyone reading too much into the president's remarks.