A signed summary of BBC Newsline.

One in six young people will not be in education, employment or training within five years unless urgent action is taken, a major review has warned. The education, health and welfare systems are no longer fit for purpose in preparing young people for adult life, said its author former minister Alan Milburn. We are at risk of a lost generation, he warned, with the number of 16 to 24-year-olds out of work, education or training set to rise to 1.25 million by 2031. The first rung of the career ladder has thinned and that for too many young people it is now simply out of reach, Milburn is set to say in a speech later. That places them in a hopeless catch-22 where employers ask for work experience but the opportunities for young people to gain it have narrowed or gone, he will say.

The danger is no longer just misinformation. Thanks to AI, it's now possible to manufacture fake realities at scale. Deepfake videos, cloned voices, and bogus news stories are dissolving the line between what's real and what's not faster than society can adapt.

When China's leader Xi Jinping hosts his American counterpart in Beijing this week, Donald Trump will be reminded of his last visit in 2017 - he was wooed hard, complete with dinner inside the Forbidden City, an honour no US president before him had received. This week's reception promises to be just as grand, including a stop inside Zhongnanhai, the rarefied compound where China's top leadership lives and works. The agenda too will be just as thorny, with Iran being a new source of tension, alongside trade, technology and Taiwan. But a lot has changed as Trump returns to a stronger and far more assertive China. Now well into an unprecedented third term, an ambitious Xi has been pushing forward with plans for new productive forces with heavy investments in renewable energy, robotics and artificial intelligence.

'There is no guaranteed outcome with any job,' said Shola West, 25, a media consultant. Working for yourself at least allows you some control over your fate. 'There is no guaranteed outcome with any job,' said Shola West, 25, a media consultant. Working for yourself at least allows you some control over your fate. Facing AI and a tough job market, gen Z turns to entrepreneurship: 'I have to prove myself' When Ashley Terrell graduated from the University of Hawaii in 2024, she planned to find a job in marketing, maybe for a tech company.

McDonald's boss on abuse claims: 'I don't want to talk about the past' The boss of McDonald's UK and Ireland has said she doesn't want to talk about the past when asked about allegations of abuse at the fast-food chain. Lauren Schultz told the BBC what had happened in recent years was unacceptable but said we have drawn a line under it. A BBC investigation in 2023 heard from more than 100 McDonald's workers in the UK claiming they faced a toxic culture of sexual assault, harassment, racism, and bullying. Last year, staff said they still faced sexual abuse and harassment. The UK equality watchdog agreed tougher measures with the company to protect staff in November, including new sexual harassment training.

Computer says no. Are AI interviews making it harder to get a job? It's brutal, says Bhuvana Chilukuri - a third-year business student who has applied for more than 100 jobs and has been rejected for every one. There are moments where I applied and I got a rejection less than two minutes later, which is really horrible, says the 20-year-old. She is convinced that very few, if any, of her applications are ever seen by a human as firms are increasingly using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to hire new staff. The first step is AI screening your CV.

'I've applied for 500 jobs in two months since graduating' You have to work 10 times harder to work for a role that 10 years ago you could have got very easily straight out of university, says 22-year-old business management graduate Charlotte Briggs. Within two months she had applied for 500 roles. It's quite upsetting because I've worked really hard for the last three years to achieve a 2:1 just to be rejected for not having experience. Although her job search sounds extreme, it may not be that unusual. According to latest ONS figures, 22.5% of people aged 16 to 24 cannot find work, putting London as the UK region with the second highest rate of youth unemployment.

'The search is soul-destroying': Young jobseekers on the struggle to find work Young people are bearing the brunt of the UK's weak labour market, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Some 16.1% of people aged 16 to 24 are not able to find work, compared to a national unemployment figure of 5.1%. That does not include young people who are out of work but not looking for a job, due to ill health or who are still studying. Businesses, particularly in sectors that traditionally gave young people their first jobs, like retail and hospitality, say higher costs are leading them to cut staff or not take on new hires, which often hits young workers the hardest. But graduate-level roles are also proving harder to land.

Prime minister says action will be taken on young people's social media access in'months, not years' What social media restrictions has Keir Starmer announced? Keir Starmer has pledged action on young people's access to social media in "months, not years", while saying this did not necessarily mean a complete ban on access for under-16s. Speaking at an event in London after the government promised to extend the crackdown to AI chatbots that place children at risk, Starmer said the issue was nuanced and that a ban was not definite, noting concerns from charities such as the NSPCC. "I think this is such an important issue that we need to go into it with a ban as a possibility," he told a community hub in Putney, saying he would "definitely want to look at the evidence" gathered during a three-month consultation. He added: "There are powerful arguments on both sides. Some people simply say just get all under-16s off social media, and that's the end of it. NSPCC, obviously an organisation very concerned with children's protection, says no, it'll push children to even darker places. "Others - I was with young people this morning, 15-and 16-year-olds who are actually going to be affected by this - they said to me, look we get our news from social media, we don't read the papers, and therefore you'll stop us accessing the news.