‘A world-class producer’: English wines toast record gold medal haul

Nurses’ union criticises ‘catastrophic system-wide failure’ in NHS as more under-18s getting stuck in emergency wardsChildren and young people in England having a mental health crisis are spending up to three days in an A&E unit before they get a bed in a specialist unit, NHS figures reveal.One children’s nurse who works in an emergency department said such long waits for under-18s who were in acute distress were “frankly barbaric” but “becoming far more normal”. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Employment tribunal claim says worker lost his job after distributing leaflets throughout London officeGoogle is facing a legal challenge from an AI engineer who claims he was unfairly dismissed after he protested against its work for the Israeli government, in the latest sign of growing concern about the social and ethical impacts of AI.The engineer distributed flyers around Google DeepMind’s London offices, which read “Google provides military AI to forces committing genocide” and asking colleagues: “Is your paycheck worth this?” He also emailed colleagues about Google’s 2025 decision to drop a promise not to pursue weapons that harm people and surveillance violating international norms and urged them to unionise. Continue reading...

The 18-year-old high school student reached the top of the world’s tallest mountain on her second attemptAn 18-year-old high school student from Melbourne became the youngest Australian to climb to the top of Mount Everest on Wednesday.According to her Garmin data and a post on Instagram, Bianca Adler reached the 8,849 metre summit at nearly 6.30am Melbourne time, and nearly 2.30am Nepal time, with her guides, Pemba and Ngdu. Continue reading...

Centre for London report finds levy on property wealth would free up homes, fund social housing and help renters save for depositsStamp duty should be scrapped and replaced with a new property wealth tax to fix London’s housing crisis, a leading thinktank has proposed.A report on the capital’s property market suggests an annual tax to replace the levy paid when buying a property and council tax would encourage downsizing and raise funds for social housing. It would also help renters to save a house deposit. Continue reading...

Union says emphasis on academic goals conflicts with proposed measures on special educational needs provisionChanges to special educational needs provision in England could be thwarted by “academic attainment at all costs” policies that prioritise exam results and punish inclusive schools, headteachers have said in response to a government consultation.The Association of School and College Leaders said the government’s emphasis on academic goals conflicted with its measures designed to help mainstream schools accommodate more children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send). Continue reading...

Keisha Lance Bottoms wins Democratic primary outright, while Republicans Burt Jones and Rick Jackson will face offThe Republican primary campaign for Georgia governor will go to a June runoff, with the lieutenant governor Burt Jones facing off against healthcare billionaire Rick Jackson – and locking out Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state and longtime political enemy of Donald Trump who was on track to finish a distant third.The Republican race to challenge the US senator Jon Ossoff remains similarly unresolved, while former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms won the Democratic primary for governor outright. Continue reading...

Researchers also question whether UK’s impartiality rules allow for proper scrutiny in era of multiparty politicsBroadcasters are letting down voters by relying on so-called vox pop interviews and failing to scrutinise political claims during election campaigns, according to researchers.The study by Cardiff University looked at how this year’s national elections in Wales and Scotland, alongside the local elections in England, were reported on UK-wide television news between 2 March and 6 May. Continue reading...

Millions of litres of sewage have been spilling into the capital city’s waters since February after the catastrophic failure of a Moa Point wastewater plantA fix to stop millions of litres of sewage continuing to pour into the waters off the coast of New Zealand’s capital, Wellington will be in place by November, officials have said, with full repairs at the cost of NZ$53.5m by late next year.More than 100 days since the catastrophic failure of the city’s wastewater treatment plant on 4 February, a mix of raw and partially screened human effluent is still being flushed directly into the Pacific Ocean. Continue reading...

Abrupt exit for charge d’affaires who stood in after Peter Mandelson’s removal as US ambassadorA diplomat in Washington who stood in as interim ambassador after the sacking of Peter Mandelson has abruptly left his post.In a brief statement, a Foreign Office spokesman said: “James Roscoe has left his post.” No further explanation was officially given on Tuesday night for the departure of Roscoe, who had served as deputy head of mission at the British embassy since 2022. Continue reading...

Tom Phillips on life in the country four months after the US abduction of the former president Nicolás Maduro“The last time I flew out of Venezuela was right at the start of August 2024, just after the disputed presidential election,” the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, tells Annie Kelly.“It was a moment of real turmoil. There was a huge wave of repression that was unfolding as Nicolás Maduro tried to silence any kind of dissent to his bogus claim to have won that election. Thousands were thrown in prison, many were going underground, and journalists were racing to get out of the country.” Continue reading...

At annual I/O conference, company debuts a product for everyday consumers to create autonomous AI agentsGoogle announced Tuesday that it would expand its search bar, the centerpiece of the most-visited website in the world, with a heavy dose of artificial intelligence. The tech giant is also trying its hand at hi-tech glasses again, more than a decade after wearers of its first eyewear were dubbed “glassholes” and laughed out of San Francisco.Google executives announced at the company’s annual conference for software developers, Google I/O, that its search box would accommodate longer and more specific queries than before – questions more like those people would ask one another than Search’s idiosyncratic syntax. The changes will direct users to engage directly with Google’s chatbot. The change to search is underpinned by the company’s new artificial intelligence model, Gemini 3.5, announced the same day. Continue reading...