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Swimmer Archie Goodburn thanks prime minister as brain cancer review announced
To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Figure caption, Archie Goodburn said he'couldn't ask for much more' at this stage of his cancer research plea Swimmer Archie Goodburn has been successful in his efforts to improve brain cancer care for patients as the UK government announce new measures. The Scottish athlete, who was diagnosed with three inoperable brain tumours two years ago, met Prime Minister Andy Burnham after making a tearful TV appeal for more investment to be put into brain cancer research. After the meeting, Burnham announced a new national brain cancer clinical lead and promised a review of brain cancer progress and action to get patients treatment sooner. Goodburn, 25, thanked the prime minister and said all three of his requests have been promised to some extent but fleshing out needs to be done on the details.
Burnham rules out coalition with Greens after 'Zionism is racism' motion
Burnham rules out coalition with Greens after'Zionism is racism' motion To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. Figure caption, Burnham condemns Green Party's'antisemitic' Zionism declaration Andy Burnham has said he will not support his party forming a partnership with the Green Party as long as it maintains a policy of defining Zionism as a form of racism. Speaking in the House of Commons, the prime minister said the motion, backed by Green members at its party conference earlier this month, was wrong and antisemitic and Labour would have nothing to do with it. The motion said Zionism was an ideology supporting an ethnonationalist Jewish state in historic Palestine to the exclusion and/ or domination of the non-Jewish population. It was criticised by Jewish groups, as well as four Green MPs and two former leaders, one of whom said it was dangerous and divisive.
Burnham careful before Zelensky meeting but promises Ukraine won't leave 'empty handed'
Burnham careful before Zelensky meeting but promises Ukraine won't leave'empty handed' President Volodymyr Zelensky's visit to London follows a well-trodden diplomatic path in a war now in its fifth year. For months, US President Donald Trump had been a largely benign presence in the conflict, promising Ukraine greater access to American air defence technology and threatening more sanctions on Russia. Then last week Trump carried out an abrupt U-turn, lifting sanctions on Russian diesel and calling for Zelensky to be replaced. Once again Ukraine's leader got on his plane to shore up support among European allies. Burnham says he wants to'repair bridges' between Ukraine and US Starlink restrictions affecting Ukraine's front line operations, Kyiv says Russia's offensive ability is broken, Kyiv's former top general tells BBC For the prime minister there was the tricky but now familiar diplomatic task of needing to show solidarity with Zelensky without appearing to criticise Trump. Burnham's answer was to say and announce as much as he could without exposing himself to questions from journalists asking about Trump's latest betrayal of Kyiv.
Ship sinks in new drone attack off Bulgaria, PM summons Russian ambassador
Image caption, Five crew members on the Ukrainian-registered merchant ship suffered minor injuries in Tuesday's attacks A merchant ship has sunk after drones hit two vessels off Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, Prime Minister Rumen Radev has said. He indicated Russia was suspected of the attacks and that he had called in its ambassador. One of the ships went down 17 nautical miles (31km) east of Krapets and one crew member was saved, he said. The other, Ukrainian-owned vessel was hit by three drones 18 nautical miles from the town of Byala and all 15 crew were rescued, he added. The drone attacks come a week after two other commercial ships were hit by sea and aerial drones in Bulgaria's exclusive economic zone.
Cut screen time in classrooms to avoid long-term health issues, government urged
The amount of time children in England spend on screens at school could be harming their physical and developmental health, a group of more than 150 clinicians has warned. GPs, paediatricians and other specialists said in an open letter to Education Secretary Lucy Powell and Health Secretary Yvette Cooper that tablets and laptops are being used without a full understanding of their long-term health impacts, including on eye health. The clinicians said they are prescribing glasses, hearing aids and speech therapy to children for a problem that is unintentionally being made worse in our schools. The government said it was consulting on screen time guidance for children aged five to 18 but that technology could be a powerful learning tool if used properly. The group of clinicians said nearly one million children are using screens in most lessons, despite studies suggesting a rise in short-sightedness.
Russia's offensive ability is broken, Kyiv's former top general tells BBC
Russia's offensive ability is broken, Kyiv's former top general tells BBC Ukraine has stabilised the front line and broken Russia's ability to advance by killing so many of its men, Ukraine's former commander-in-chief has claimed in an interview with the BBC. Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi made the comments in an exclusive interview, his first since he was dramatically forced from his post in the summer. He addressed his sacking, disagreeing with his critics who declared him too old school to command Ukraine's new, technologically advanced forces. He also pushed back against allegations made by soldiers who previously served under him, who told the BBC they were ordered to remain at their positions even when they were almost surrounded by Russians, leading to high losses. Syrskyi said that Moscow's overall losses in the war were six times higher than Ukraine's.
Bumble shares soar after report dating firm in 1bn takeover talks
Shares in dating app company Bumble soared by almost 50% on Monday after a report that it is in advanced talks to be bought for around $1bn (£757m). Technology holding company Ithaca could announce a deal to buy the Texas-based firm as early as this week, according to the Wall Street Journal. The jump in Bumble's shares pushed its stock market valuation to over $580m but that is still far below a peak of more than $14bn it reached after listing on the Nasdaq in 2021 . Bumble is one of the world's most downloaded dating apps, operating in a crowded market where growth has slowed. The BBC has contacted Bumble and Ithaca for comment.
Deepfake review – ingenious interview with a PM who dances around every issue
An interrogater tries to get to the bottom of a surreal scandal while green screen actors meddle with the story in Jess and Morgs' inventive production W hat audiences remember most from a political interview, a voiceover tells the prime minister (Kennedy Muntanga) as he prepares to face his TV interrogator (Rebecca Bassett-Graham, coiffed à la Emily Maitlis), is less the words themselves than the tone of voice and the tenor of the body. Muntanga is on point, then: his arms sweep, his fingers beetle and his hands spread out, as if he were wordlessly fielding fly-by questions and offering open statements. This setup lands right in the zone for creative duo Jess and Morgs (Jessica Wright and Morgann Runacre-Temple), whose turf is a congenial mix of choreography, film and theatre. In Deepfake, along with writer Jeff James, they explore the various unravellings of an encounter in which the interviewer tries to find the truth behind a surreal - but maybe real? - story in which the PM was seen variously spattered with yellow paint, with his flies undone, and partaking in a ritual involving a deer's head. The content of these scenarios perhaps matters less than the ingenious manner of their staging (props to the design team too), which deploys green screen, live relay and other film and stage effects to storify the interview with simulated settings, duplicates of the figure of the PM, selective perspectives and closeups of the central encounter.
New UK agency will tackle 'information warfare' from likes of Russia, Burnham says
New UK agency will tackle'information warfare' from likes of Russia, Burnham says PM aims to'stem poisonous tide' of disinformation and deepfakes with National Centre for Information Defence Security chiefs will set up a new national centre to tackle disinformation and deepfakes from hostile states such as Russia, Andy Burnham has announced, saying the government had a duty to "stem the poisonous tide" from damaging British interests. The National Centre for Information Defence will "detect, attribute and disrupt" information attacks by foreign powers, many of which are enabled by AI, bringing together the intelligence agencies, law enforcement and social media companies. It will be tasked with making sure the UK has the defensive capability necessary to combat information warfare and build national resilience by helping communities to identify and combat disinformation, preventing a "distorted and untrue" narrative about the UK. Burnham said the country would have to go into the next decade "eyes wide open" about "insidious" campaigns, many of which had been orchestrated by Russia, which "twisted" what people at home felt about their own country and community. In eye-catching remarks, the prime minister suggested that Britons who were struggling with the cost of living and young people not in education, training or employment may be particularly susceptible to foreign influence online, underlining how inequality further undermined society.