The Guardian

Former chief executive Matthew Wright and three further ex-employees named in criminal proceedings by Environment Agency The former chief executive of Southern Water is being prosecuted for conspiracy to defraud along with three other former employees, over allegations they manipulated sewage wastewater testing results to avoid tens of millions of pounds in fines. Matthew Wright is the first wate…

Victims of crime say it’s ‘no laughing matter’ after ministers caught on hot mic ‘ribbing’ about scheme Victims of crime have accused ministers of making “cheap jokes” about releasing prisoners early after Wes Streeting and Shabana Mahmood were caught on camera “ribbing” about the scheme. In a video, the new justice secretary, Alex Norris, can be seen walking towards Mahmood and Streeting, the ne…

Venezuelan president and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been held at Brooklyn jail and both have pleaded not guilty The ousted Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, will go on trial on US drug trafficking charges starting on 1 June ⁠2027, a judge said ⁠on Wednesday. Maduro wore beige prison ​garb as he was led into a Manhattan courtroom by US marshals for a hearing before …

Company behind ChatGPT says agent ‘cheated’ an evaluation by attacking a Hugging Face database OpenAI has revealed that an autonomous AI agent powered by its technology went rogue during a test, accessed the open web and hacked a prominent startup by itself in an “unprecedented incident”. The company behind ChatGPT said the startup Hugging Face had detected and contained the agent – an AI tool de…

The new prime minister plans to make Sarwar, the first Labour figure to call for Keir Starmer’s resignation, a peer Scottish Labour’s rivals in Holyrood have slammed Anas Sarwar’s shock decision to resign as leader to sit in Andy Burnham’s new government, calling him a “chancer” and accusing him of lying to voters. The prime minister plans to make Sarwar, who was the first senior Labour figure to…

Congressional Progressive caucus say ‘healthcare should not be a privilege’ as they champions single payer system The Congressional Progressive caucus (CPC) held a shadow hearing on Medicare for All on Wednesday, led by Pramila Jayapal and Debbie Dingell. The hearing comes as over half of the House Democratic caucus has co-sponsored Medicare for All legislation, and Senator Andy Kim introduced le…

Figures come as large parts of southern Europe endure another record-breaking period of extreme temperatures France recorded more than 5,700 excess deaths during its June heatwave, authorities have said, as swathes of southern Europe continue to endure another record-breaking period of extreme temperatures. The French national health agency said on Wednesday that it had recorded 5,764 excess deat…

Mayor admits he has no authority to direct Israeli prime minister’s arrest after saying he’s ‘not welcome’ in NYC Zohran Mamdani , the New York City mayor, doubled down on his support for the international criminal court on Wednesday, a day after calling on federal authorities to execute the court’s warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu ’s arrest should he visit the city in the fall. “I call on the fede…

Up to 25 tonnes of nurdles, the raw material for plastic manufacturing, have spread further than initially feared Approximately a billion tiny plastic nurdles have entered the River Tyne after a “devastating spill”, with the pellets thought to have spread much further than first thought. Nurdles, which are usually 1mm-5mm in size, act as the raw material to manufacture most plastic products. Cont…

National emergency test alert will be sent to all mobile devices on 27 July, with domestic violence advocates advising how to turn off safe phones Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Virtually every phone in the country will blare an emergency siren at 2pm AEST on Monday 27 July, as part of the first Australia-wide test of a new national warning system called AusAlert. Mo…

The companies hope to follow in the footsteps of SpaceX, which raised $86bn and soared to a $2.1tn valuation after it listed on public markets in June Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Top US AI developers Anthropic and OpenAI cheered when Australia announced it would set new AI rules. Big tech celebrating limits on their Silicon Valley VC-funded free-for-all might seem…

Military and SES personnel being taught analog communication and navigation techniques as experts warn solar flare could knock out ‘critical space infrastructure’ Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Australia’s emergency services and military personnel are being trained to read paper maps, navigate without GPS support, and sail by the stars in case something knocks out th…

Research identifies 808,585 viral genomes belonging to what scientists estimate to be 362,802 different viruses Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast More than a decade after the human microbiome was comprehensively mapped, scientists have now identified the vast communities of microbes that make up the Great Barrier Reef. Analysing DNA from seawater samples of 48 reefs, re…

Independent exam of Black teen found cause and manner of death ‘undetermined’ as family questions timeline Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email Nolan Wells’ cause of death and manner of death are both “undetermined, pending investigation”, according to an independent autopsy, announced on Wednesday by Wells’ family’s attorney, Ben Crump. The results came nearly three weeks after Well…

The new PM talks less about the continent than his predecessor, but his agenda is more closely aligned with the EU’s • Don’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Europe’s leaders queued up this week to welcome Andy Burnham as Britain’s seventh prime minister since the Brexit vote – all expressing the hope that his tenure would continue the thaw in EU-UK relations initiated by …