The Guardian — page 4

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Health officials in turmoil over 11th-hour backflip on aged care algorithm override powers, emails reveal

Ministers given emergency briefing about changes to algorithm decisions just three days before tool rollout Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Senior department of health officials were in turmoil before the rollout of an algorithm to determine funding packages for older Australians, after discovering legislation had been drafted so rigidly that the tool could not legally be overridden by aged care assessors. Emails published under freedom of information (FoI) by the department of health, disability and ageing show that, despite assessors long receiving reassurance from the department that they would have powers to change incorrect algorithm decisions, officials realised at the 11th hour this would violate proposed regulations. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Melissa Davey Medical editor8h ago

The 'apex predator' of fires choking south-east Asia - podcast

Indonesia is in the middle of a climate emergency, experiencing what Nasa calls the ‘apex predator’ of wildfires. It’s burning an area three times the size of Singapore and choking millions across south-east Asia with toxic haze. But while Europe’s catastrophic summer made headlines in Australia, the climate emergency happening to one of our closest neighbours is less well known. Kate Lamb joins Matilda Boseley to talk about just how consequential these fires could become Read more : El Niño-fuelled wildfires destroy precious Indonesian forests – in pictures The women saving Borneo: battling fire, patriarchy and super El Niño on Indonesia’s peatland frontlines Indonesian wildfires threaten leading orangutan research site in Borneo Continue reading...

The Guardian•Presented by Matilda Boseley with Kate Lamb. Produced by Cheyne Anderson with mixing and sound design by Lu Hill. Molly Glassey is executive producer8h ago

‘Godfather of AI’ says tech regulation is nearing Covid-style pivot moment

Safety crisis makes it more likely that governments will be spurred into action, says Yoshua Bengio Concerns over AI safety are reaching a point where governments realise they must act to protect the public, similarly to in the Covid pandemic, according to one of the “godfathers” of the technology. Yoshua Bengio said recent events, including a “swarm” of OpenAI agents hacking a startup and tech insider warnings of an existential threat , were cutting through – making government action more likely. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Dan Milmo Global technology editor8h ago

US officials decide against backing Saudi Arabia in Yemen after meeting Houthi leaders

Armed group appears to reach agreement with Trump administration over safety of Red Sea shipping Officials from the US met Houthi leaders over the weekend at the country’s embassy in Muscat, Oman, it has been confirmed, leading to the US decision not to intervene to help Saudi Arabia drive back a Houthi advance inside Yemen . The Houthis reassured the US that the ceasefire agreement between the two sides struck in 2025 still held and the movement had no intention of attacking US shipping in the Red Sea. Only Saudi-linked shipping was regarded as a target owing to its blockade of Yemen, the Houthis confirmed. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor8h ago

Union claims victory as ministers agree to fully fund pay rise for teachers in England

National Education Union welcomes news that schools will not have to partly fund increase from their own budgets The UK’s biggest education union is claiming a major victory after the government bowed to pressure and agreed to fully fund a forthcoming pay increase for teachers in England in a sudden U-turn on previous policy. Members of the National Education Union (NEU) were due to vote in a ballot for strike action next month over the government’s recent pay offer which provided for a 3.5% increase from this month, with an additional 3% from next September. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Sally Weale Education correspondent8h ago

At least five Reform councillors joined Facebook group linked to far-right Patriot Platform

Politicians from Solihull, Gateshead and Kent were in online group linked to balaclava-clad far-right agitators At least five Reform UK councillors have been members of a Facebook group linked to the far-right group involved in the blockades of Dover and Portsmouth by masked men, according to anti-fascist campaigners. Nigel Farage’s party has been wrestling with internal divisions over its position on the Patriot Platform group, whose activities have been condemned by Farage and across the political spectrum. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Ben Quinn and Amelia Gentleman8h ago

Football Daily | Madrid endure an awkward night after T-shirt trouble and Elche scare

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now! Anxious to sample some traditional Spanish culture while taking in a La Liga match years ago, Football Daily and some friends decamped to Gran Alicant. As we prepared to leave a quaint bodega (the Dick Turpin), where we’d been sampling the local hooch (Guinness), to travel to the nearby stadium, an elderly local resident with an unmistakable mackem accent informed us that the Elche home game to which we were heading was not being played until the following evening. It had fallen victim to Spanish TV’s infuriating habit of rescheduling random top-flight matches with little or no notice or consideration for Johnny-come-latelys who might have travelled from afar to watch them. We never did get to see Elche play in the flesh but did get to watch the current La Liga basement-dwellers give José Mourinho an almighty fright on TV on Tuesday night, as they went this close to snatching a point from Real Madrid. I almost wish I was a West Ham fan. As an eternally suffering Spurs supporter, I find myself looking enviously towards the London Stadium these days. The Hammers are top of the table, banging in goal after goal (already 20 more than Spurs’ tally in the league). They score even when they lose and seem to have bought a proper No 9. My Spurs, meanwhile, continue the tradition of the last two years in style, sitting comfortably in 17th with 1,047 wingers on contract, and getting knocked out of one of the competitions they could ‘conceivably’ have won, the only competition they seem to be able to score goals in as well. In hindsight, West Ham made the right choice to go down. Hammers fans, you are welcome!” – Yannick Woudstra (and no others). Hugh Fordham’s idea [ Tuesday’s Football Daily letters ] has some merit. But it reminded me of a pithy comment by Bill Nicholson. ‘Do you think he was interfering with play?’, he was asked. Nicholson responded: “If he’s not interfering with play, what’s he doing on the pitch?!’” – Harry McDonald. In support of Hugh Fordham’s suggestion, I remember discussing the idea of interfering with play while on a training course for referees back in the 1960s. We were told that unless someone was ‘lying injured near the corner flag’ any player should be treated as being involved in play. Not a lot of room for subjectivity in those days. And obviously no thought of stopping play for the hypothetical injured player!” – Trevor Field. This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions . Continue reading...

The Guardian•Barry Glendenning8h ago

EU moves closer to social media ban for under 13s

Ursula von der Leyen announces draft law to stop apps ‘depriving children of their childhood’ The EU will move forward with plans for an under 13s social media ban , the head of the European Commission has confirmed. Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday that social media apps were “depriving children of their childhood” and that big tech platforms needed to prove the safety of their products. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Jennifer Rankin in Strasbourg8h ago

‘Very authoritarian, very brutal’: three decades after the UK’s anti-rave crackdown, why is France doing the same?

With tear gas, grenades and a new law, French authorities are targeting unlicensed music gatherings. Those in the rave scene explore the parallels with the UK in the 90s When Spiral Tribe fled England in 1992, they left behind an indelible mark on rave history. The itinerant sound system collective are best known for their involvement with Castlemorton Common festival, an unlicensed free party drawing more than 30,000 people and lasting nearly a week. After a drawn-out and notoriously expensive trial for public order offences, Spiral Tribe were acquitted of all charges. They decided to drive their repurposed military caravans out of the UK and never look back. Their documented history often stops there. But little known is the fact that they then kicked off “the biggest illegal underground movement that Europe had ever seen”, says Spiral Tribe associate Sebastian Vaughan, AKA electronic musician 69db. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Whitney Wei9h ago

Chewing Gum Dreams review – Michaela Coel’s horny teenage heroine is still a force to reckon with

Theatre503, London Lauryn Ajufo makes Tracey her own in a vibrant revival of Coel’s monologue, capturing the cruelty, confusion and comedy of adolescence The self-flagellations of adolescence and its suddenly streaking hormones can make great fodder for comedy. Harry Enfield’s 13-year-old defined its comic pains for one generation. His Kevin is every bit matched by Michaela Coel’s exuberant and offensive Tracey. This revival of Coel’s 2012 debut proves her eternal relevance as a character: Black British and downtrodden, she is upstart, bully, trusty friend and a bewildered girl defined by class and race by her own schoolteacher. She is also horny and desperately infatuated with a white boy, Connor. Beginning as a monologue performed by Coel herself , it is about friendship, sexual discovery and abuse, with Tracey telling us about everything from the girl in class who can lick her own vagina to her beautiful best friend with a controlling boyfriend 10 years her senior. The show went on to be adapted for the Channel 4 TV series Chewing Gum, which turned Coel’s one-woman polyphony into an ensemble of immensely colourful characters and fabulous comedy, but also lost some of its intensity and darkness. At Theatre503, London , until 17 October Continue reading...

The Guardian•Arifa Akbar9h ago

TV reporter and pilot who died in Los Angeles helicopter crash were covering a story

NBC4 colleagues Eliana Moreno and George Marciniw were working to report on a collision between a bus and an SUV More details are emerging after a local news helicopter crashed in a Los Angeles neighborhood on Tuesday evening, killing two people on board and one person on the ground. Eliana Moreno, an aerial photojournalist, and pilot George Marciniw were identified as two of the victims. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Anna Betts9h ago

Alcina review – Handel’s opera of sex and sorcery comes alive in vivid staging

Royal Opera House, London This revival of Richard Jones and Antony McDonald’s 2022 staging has kept most of its excellent original cast Lisette Oropesa is imperious and gleaming as the enchantress Alcina Handel, but make it fun. Perhaps that was Richard Jones’s brief for his production of Alcina, first seen here in 2022 and revived by Sarah Fahie, its original movement director. And of all Handel’s operas perhaps it’s this one, with its desert-island storyline of sorcery and sex – what happens on the island stays on the island – that invites this treatment. Jones makes the “good guys” into members of a kind of puritan cult, so the tension between the moral world and the sensual, instinctive one is less of a gentle pull, more a tug of war. Alcina’s prisoners are transformed by a squirt of her eponymous perfume into birds and animals – a parrot, a mandrill, a King Charles spaniel, all wearing prosthetic heads so beautifully made that for the past year or two they have been in display cases in the Royal Opera House foyer. The animals are kept busy fawning over Alcina or moving Antony McDonald’s sets around: there’s a huge bed, a greenhouse and an enchanted forest on wheeled platforms, found behind the doors of what might be a hotel corridor. It’s a wide stage, and there’s often at least one singer running across it. Amid all this, the opera’s moments of warmth, insight and introspection risk getting lost or at least overshadowed. It’s brittle, but it is entertaining. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Erica Jeal9h ago

Bondi attacks prompt creation of new institute for emergency care of children in NSW

NSW Institute for Paediatric Trauma will help doctors, researchers and specialists prepare for trauma cases Get our new political email , free app or daily news podcast A new institute dedicated to improving emergency medical care for severely injured children will be established in New South Wales following recent high-profile trauma events in the state. Based at the Sydney Children’s hospital in Randwick, the NSW Institute for Paediatric Trauma will bring together clinicians, researchers and specialists to deliver advanced training and simulations across the health system. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Ima Caldwell9h ago

A naked performance artist in the garden with her mum: Rona Bar and Ofek Avshalom’s best photograph

‘Lois and her mother Carey are artists and their house is full of art, which seems to spill out of them. The way they express their Judaism was something we hadn’t encountered before’ This photograph is of Lois and Carey, who we found while looking for subjects for our project Proof of Existence . That series involved transforming models into surreal or exaggerated characters based on aspects of themselves, then photographing them in everyday settings. We got in contact with Lois after seeing her work on Instagram. When we went to her house and met her mother, Carey, we became very intrigued by the two of them, by their relationship and by the house itself. The intention of that initial photo was to show how they express their Jewish identity in a non-traditional way. Lois and Carey are artists and their house is full of art. It was amazing to see how the things they’re interested in seem almost to spill out of their bodies and on to the walls, in the form of artwork, motifs and symbols. Their story is everywhere; it feels like the house itself is alive. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Interview by Chris Broughton9h ago

Small but mighty! Remembering the GameCube, Nintendo’s purple bundle of joy

The first console I ever bought, it was hyped as a threat to the PlayStation, then mocked as a flop. But now, as it marks its 25th anniversary, it’s looked back on with misty-eyed reverence This week marks the 25th anniversary of the Nintendo GameCube, the first console I ever bought with my own money. I vividly remember getting on the bus after school with a year’s worth of savings safely zipped into the pocket of my bag and going to a branch of Currys, where I dumped a bunch of notes, coins and vouchers on the counter to collect my pre-order. (It turned out that some of the vouchers from the previous Christmas had expired, but the guy at the checkout clearly felt so sorry for me that he redeemed them anyway. If you’re out there, Currys guy: thank you for taking pity on a desperate 13-year-old.) If it hadn’t been for the ill-fated Wii U console, whose failure to take off in 2012 resulted in the first unprofitable periods in Nintendo’s game-making history, the GameCube would be remembered as the company’s biggest flop aside from the infamous Virtual Boy, from 1995. Released in Japan this week in 2001 (and in May 2002 in Europe), this surprisingly powerful purple cube sold less than the Xbox and the PlayStation 2. With its squat, colourful form and unusual controller, arranged around a big traffic-light-green A button and small analogue sticks designed for small hands, it had a hint of Fisher-Price about it. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Keza MacDonald9h ago

Amazon to launch Ring ‘neighbourhood watch’ app in UK amid US privacy fears

Doorbell firm aims to replace WhatsApp or Facebook groups with platform where people can post about safety or lost pets Amazon’s doorbell camera maker Ring is to launch its Neighbours community app in the UK in an attempt to supplant neighbourhood WhatsApp or Facebook groups. The service is intended as a modern equivalent of a community message board, where neighbours can post about safety, community matters or lost pets. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor9h ago

Previously unseen Tove Jansson drawings to go on show in London

Exclusive: Exhibition focussing on Finnish writer and artist’s illustrations will include original art from her first Moomins book The Moomin books about lovable trolls with hippopotamus snouts who live in harmony with nature are a global publishing phenomenon, having sold up to 30m copies since the Finnish artist and writer Tove Jansson wrote and illustrated them between 1945 and 1977. Now previously unseen drawings of her eccentric characters will be among more than 100 exhibits in a major exhibition that is being staged in London 25 years after her death. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Dalya Alberge9h ago

The best ice-cream makers in the UK for gelato, soft serve and sorbets – tested

Our writer spent the hottest weeks of the year churning through the top ice-cream makers, from compressor models to the cult favourite Ninja Creami. Here’s the scoop • Kitchen gadgets top chefs can’t live without • Ninja Creami Scoop and Swirl ice-cream maker review I love a scoop or two of the good stuff, even more so when the mercury hits 30C and ice-cream starts feeling less like an indulgence and more like an essential survival tool. This is why owning an ice-cream maker has always made sense to me. I’ve been using the original Ninja Creami for years now, but before that I was spending a small fortune on gelato, fruity sorbets, frozen yoghurt and other such desserts from the frozen aisle. Some might argue that the best ice-cream makers are a luxury, but if you’re a true dessert devotee, I believe they can earn their keep in no time. A tub of Häagen-Dazs will set you back almost £6 nowadays, which is an expensive habit if you’re getting through a pot a week during the hottest months of the year. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Danielle Amato9h ago

Reform-linked thinktank ‘to call for big tax cuts for the rich’

Centre for a Better Britain will urge abolishing inheritance tax and phasing out capital gains tax, report says A thinktank linked to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is preparing an influential policy plan that is reportedly going to call for substantial tax cuts for the rich. The Centre for a Better Britain (CFABB) is due to publish the 200-page document next week, giving insight into the economic and financial policies that are likely to form part of Reform UK’s platform before the next election. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Kalyeena Makortoff Banking correspondent9h ago

Suffolk police release footage of Noah Woods as search for missing boy continues

Hundreds of volunteers join hunt for three-year-old who went missing on Tuesday afternoon A massive search operation is under way in and around a Suffolk village for a missing three-year-old boy with autism, supported by hundreds of volunteers. Suffolk police have said the hunt for Noah Woods remains a missing persons investigation with no indication anything sinister has happened. Continue reading...

The Guardian•Jamie Grierson10h ago