In rooms across the world, government ministers and parliamentarians hold serious discussions about how to challenge the threats posed by big tech – particularly AI and social media.
These risks range from tackling misinformation and polarisation, to managing the economic challenges of AI job losses, to assessing whether AI poses an existential threat to humanity.
Usually, however, such discussions have not centred on what to do when the problem on social media is the President of the United States, steward of the world’s largest economy and commander-in-chief of its mightiest military.
A man’s body has been recovered, with two others still unaccounted for, after a fishing vessel went missing off the Outer Hebrides.
Everything we know so far
HM Coastguard have said they were made aware of the missing ship, which was sailing off Port Ness on the Isle of Lewis, at around 9.20pm on Tuesday.
- Police Scotland were notified at about 11.35pm. The force said three men were aboard.
- The body of one man has been recovered. The man’s family have been made aware and are being supported by officers.
Search under way
A Coastguard aeroplane, two helicopters, six rescue teams, two RNLI lifeboats, a local vessel and Police Scotland are involved in the search, which is being carried out amid a yellow weather warning for high winds in the region.
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Pope Leo diagnosed with lung cancer after surgery
Pope Leo XIV has been diagnosed with cancer following a “successful” operation to remove the lower lobe of his right lung, the Vatican has announced.
A common type of lung cancer
Doctors confirmed the diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, a common type of lung cancer, after pre-planned surgery at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital. Dr Luigi Carbone and Professor Stefano Margaritora said cancer had been suspected by pre-operative tests.
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What else do we know?
- The surgery lasted around 90 minutes and had no complications.
- Pope Leo had a “peaceful night” in hospital, where he is expected to remain for about a week.
- The 71-year-old pontiff cancelled all public events until 20 October to give him time to recover.
Hope for quick recovery
- The Vatican did not give more details of the operation, but Margaritora is an expert in robotic surgical techniques and Video-Assisted Thoracic Surgery (Vats).
- Using small incisions by endoscopic instruments equipped with a high-definition camera, Vats reduces surgical trauma and can result in faster recovery.
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Reactions from religious leaders and supporters
Archbishop Richard Moth, leader of the Catholics in England and Wales, said: “I have sent a message on behalf of all in the Catholic Church in England and Wales, assuring him [the Pope] of our prayers.”
- Large crowds gathered outside the hospital to wait for the Pope before his surgery. One well-wisher, Carla, told the BBC she was “taken aback” by the news, adding: “It turns out he’s vulnerable too.”
New dinosaur species discovered from ‘overlooked’ fossil
A new species of dinosaur has been identified from an “overlooked” fossil which was found on the Isle of Wight more than 100 years ago, researchers have said.
The history of the fossil
The fossil, which was a piece of the back of a skull, was originally found at the foot of a cliff on the south-west coast of the Isle of Wight by amateur palaeontologist Reginald Walter Tooley. It was procured by the Natural History Museum in 1924.
Dr Cassius Morrison of University College London said it was a “real mystery” why the fossil had been overlooked.
A megaraptoran
The new dinosaur, named Invictibellatrix amberina (with the former meaning “unconquered female warrior”), has and is about the size of a large tiger.
It is part of a group of agile, two-legged carnivores called . These were closely related to tyrannosaurus but had more slender heads and used their claws to attack prey rather than their jaws.
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A mysterious species
- Megaraptors are seen as the most mysterious of the large carnivorous dinosaurs, with few fossils found.
- Until this discovery, no megaraptorans had been found in Europe.
- Researchers suggest invictibellatrix would have been three to four meters long and just over a metre and a half tall.
- They also speculate it would likely have had feathers and 10-20cm long claws.
- Its diet is thought to have consisted of small dinosaurs, lizards and mammals.
Rules, London’s oldest restaurant, given to National Trust
The home of Rules, London’s oldest restaurant which has been there since 1798, has been donated to the National Trust.
The charity said the donation of the £11m site by J-P Mayhew, its owner of 40 years, would secure the future of a building where “kings dined and writers and politicians plotted”.
The freehold acquisition included visitor books, menus, caricatures, photographs, stained glass and signs. Annual rent from the restaurant business will also go into conservation work.
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Famous diners
Rules is no stranger to celebrity, having welcomed figures from and – who would rendezvous with his mistresses there – to and over the past two centuries.
The restaurant, located at 34-35 Maiden Lane in Covent Garden, central London, has outlasted empires and overcome challenges including the Blitz during the Second World War as well as plans for a dual carriageway.
A long future ahead
This place is an outstanding piece of living history… it has defied the odds to be standing here today, doors still open and treacle sponge still on the menu. Mr Mayhew’s extraordinary generosity, and the care he has poured into Rules over many decades, mean this beloved place has a future measured not in years but generations.
Hilary McGrady, director-general of the National Trust
‘Heartbreaking’ shot wins Wildlife Photographer of the Year
The winner has been crowned for the Natural History Museum’s annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, ahead of an exhibition of the photos opening to the public later in the week.
The title went to Federico Veronesi, from Italy, for his image, “The Aftermath”, showing an elephant lifting the body of her dead calf. The chair of the judging panel described it as an emotional “gut punch” and “heartbreakingly poignant”.
An elephant-themed image also triumphed in the ‘Animals in their Environment’ category with James Lewin’s shot, one of five British photographers to win a category.
Telling animals’ stories
The winning entry from Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year featured a dung beetle pushing its cargo, which judges praised for revealing “an entire story”.
Loren Elliott from the USA won the Photojournalist Story award with a shot of a coyote walking above the Bay of San Francisco.
Families forced to spend thousands on travel for sick kids
Children’s health specialists have recommended extra funding to help families get to hospitals for treatment, after one family spent £12,000 travelling to Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Travel costs burden families
Experts from the hospital, which sees around 81,500 children and young people a year, are calling for funding to cover travel costs for all children with serious illnesses.
Laura Grimwade, whose 12-year-old son Woody has a rare autoimmune disease, estimates her family will have spent £15,000 travelling to and from Plymouth to hospitals in London by the time he is 18.
She said a fund would make “such a difference”.
Scheme should be extended, say doctors
- The Government has already committed £10m of travel funding to families of children with cancer.
- Doctors say this is a good start but other families should not miss out.
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The shocking human cost of UK’s killer kitchens revealed
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors found hundreds of breaches of health and safety law at more than 160 firms, with workers exposed to “billowing” silica dust, and issued an immediate ban to 50 firms.
What is silicosis?
The threat posed by the man-made stone comes from so-called “dry cutting” whereby particles are emitted in a fine dust as slabs are cut.
Engineered stone often contains as much as 95 per cent silica quartz – far higher than natural stone such as granite (about 30 per cent).
When engineered quartz dust is inhaled, it lodges in the lungs, triggering an aggressive immune response from the body.
Over time, scar tissue forms and spreads, slowly killing the lung. Many sufferers of silicosis remain asymptomatic until it is too late.
Hundreds of breaches
Unannounced visits by the HSE to workshops producing kitchen counters made from in-demand quartz have revealed hundreds of breaches of regulations designed to protect workers from inhaling toxic dust responsible for silicosis, an incurable and often fatal lung condition.
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Cases of deadly lung disease could reach 1,000
Almost 60 stonemasons in the UK have so far been diagnosed with silicosis, with many falling ill or dying in their 20s, 30s and 40s.
Doctors believe the true number of silicosis cases is much higher and could reach as many as 1,000 people in a workforce of 7,000.
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The verdict from the HSE
Safety bosses said the inspection regime had revealed a “very mixed picture” of safety standards in the kitchen worktop industry.
Harvey Wild, HSE’s head of operations, said: “Where we’re finding things that are wrong, there isn’t just one thing wrong – there’s multiple things wrong. We’re taking a very strong enforcement line and people are getting multiple notices.”
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Amid a bizarre and extended flurry of posting through the night, after his flight to a midterms campaign rally in Alaska, Donald Trump posted a video compilation to his 13 million followers on Truth Social showing lions and tigers mauling people in or around their enclosures.
Among the grotesque posts was footage of William Chapman, a young British man, being mauled to death by a tiger after he jumped into its enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park last weekend.
In the video the animal, is seen pawing and biting the victim, though his death is not shown. The zoo had specifically requested that people not share the footage, out of respect for the dead man’s family. South Yorkshire Police said at the time: “We are aware of videos circulating online and we would encourage people not to share this distressing footage.”
Not that moral qualms have ever stopped the US President from doing exactly what he wants. Trump captioned his post: “Don’t ever mess with nature! President DJT.”
The White House’s official rapid response account even reposted the video on X.
Now, parents who just days ago lost their son – a man in his twenties who faced serious challenges from mental illness – face the repercussions of it having been shared with hundreds of millions of people across the planet by the most famous man in the world. They have been traumatised anew, for no discernible purpose.
Trying to find any kind of logic or reason in Trump’s social media output is an increasingly difficult task even for those of us who follow it closely – but his series of big cat posts eventually culminated in an AI slop video featuring himself.
That video showed Trump – an obese 80-year-old who increasingly walks with a pronounced shuffle – chasing down and playfully wrestling with a tiger, successfully besting it, then posing happily alongside a now similarly cheerful big cat. Perhaps, before he did this, Trump’s hardline defenders could have tried to argue he was trying to warn about the dangers of intruding upon wildlife.
Now, it is hard to avoid facing up to the reality that the President shared footage of a man’s death, against the express wishes of his grieving family, so he could use an AI slop video to suggest he could beat a tiger in a fight.
Some might argue that when compared with Trump’s many other shortcomings, this ranks relatively low down the list. It is arguably not even the worst thing the Trump family has done with regard to big cats, given that his sons have been photographed and filmed on trophy hunts – shooting and killing wildlife on safari in Africa.
But we do have to face the deep weirdness of the situation in which we find ourselves. The problems that cross the desk of the US President are nightmarishly difficult. The continued freedom of Ukraine, and the political stability of Europe, still relies upon US defence co-operation. Taiwan’s continued liberty is similarly US-dependent.
The global economy is reliant upon Trump finding a way out of the Iran conflict – but similarly, economies across the world could crash if the US deficit isn’t brought under control, or if the AI bubble is handled badly by the US government. He controls the fates of people well beyond the borders of the country he leads.
What, then, are we supposed to think when the President seems more preoccupied with sharing grisly videos showing people’s deaths, and when he seems unable to distinguish these from obvious AI fakes? What does it say about his ability to prioritise, handle complex information, and make challenging decisions, when he seems barely able to follow basic social media rules, or meet basic societal norms?
There is no dancing around it. The sitting President of the United States has shared a snuff video on social media, and he seems to have done it for little reason other than he found it interesting – or he saw an opportunity for self-aggrandisement. And across the world, we try to pretend that Trump is a normal political leader, or the same man in his second term as he was in his first.
There is no big political agenda at play here, no complex web of advisers. This is Trump unfiltered, flexing his id and his ego, and it is horrible to behold.
The final thought is maybe the most worrying: the midterm elections are less than three weeks away, and they will decide the course of the remainder of Trump’s second term. He and his party already look to be in deep trouble. He has every reason right now to be on his absolute best behaviour, to appeal to as many Americans as he possibly can.
That raises the question: what if this him on his best behaviour? The prospect of what he might be like when he will never again face the voters becomes an alarming one indeed.