State election officials said they reviewed 185 records homeland security sent them and confirmed they were US citizens

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wrongly identified 185 people on Nevada’s voter rolls as non-citizens, state officials said this week, escalating concerns over the shoddy methodology the government is using to raise fear about non-citizen voting ahead of the midterm elections.

In July, Donald Trump gave a speech saying DHS had found a combined 278,000 non-citizens on the rolls in Nevada, California, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Follow-up letters to each of those states weakened the claim, saying there only could be as many as 278,000 non-citizens on the rolls, including up to 15,903 in Nevada.

In August, DHS officials told staffers in the Nevada secretary of state’s office that they had reviewed the numbers and confirmed only 185 were non-citizens. DHS officials said they still needed to review more than 14,000 records.

But on Wednesday, Nevada election officials said they had reviewed the 185 records DHS sent them and confirmed they were US citizens. “As for the 185 individuals, our records indicate that they were citizens. You have provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise,” Greg Ott, a deputy attorney general, wrote to DHS this week in an email obtained by the Guardian through a public records request. The message was first reported by the New York Times and Nevada Independent.

In a statement on Friday, a DHS spokesperson did not address whether the department still believed the 185 were non-citizens. The spokesperson said the agency “is providing a service to the citizens of Nevada”.

“The list of 185 were simply a subset of individuals that had gone through a rigorous manual review process at that time of the call. The list shared with Nevada last month also included 6,218 individuals with the highest number of matching attributes to an alien in DHS records,” the spokesperson said.

In his email, Ott lamented DHS had not been transparent about the methodology DHS had used to flag alleged non-citizens nor had it shared adequate information. When Nevada officials requested DHS provide the first name, last name, address, and any other data point DHS officials matched, the department said they were only going to provide the voter ID number.

In Nevada, a voter registration number can belong to multiple people, he wrote. Each of Nevada’s counties used to maintain their own registration system, but Nevada recently transitioned to a single statewide voter registration system and gave voters new state voter identification numbers. “As a result, the same number may appear at different points in time in connection with different voter records,” he wrote.

“The number also doesn’t tell us whether an individual was born in the United States, naturalized, derived citizenship through a parent, or holds any particular immigration status. Election records commonly reflect the information supplied during registration,” he added. “For example, if someone registered to vote in 1970, the registration record may be incomplete; the name, address, and date of birth may be incomplete, changed, entered differently, or shared by more than one person. A number that matches a voter record thus establishes only that a number exists in, or once existed in, a voter registration system.”

The news outlet Votebeat also reported earlier this month that election officials in Pennsylvania have also pushed DHS for information on its basis for claiming there were as many as 14,576 non-citizens on its rolls. In an August letter obtained by Votebeat, Al Schmidt, Pennsylvania’s top election official, said DHS representatives had indicated they did not have “high confidence” in that number.

• US voting rights
• The fight to vote
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• US midterm elections 2026
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Investigation determined Dale Caldwell violated state ethics rules and engaged in harassing behavior

Dale Caldwell, the lieutenant governor of New Jersey, resigned from his position on Friday, after the release of a report accusing him of sexually harassing a female staffer, among other ethics violations.

New Jersey’s governor, Mikie Sherrill, announced on Friday afternoon that Caldwell had submitted his resignation to her earlier in the day.

The decision by Caldwell, 66, came one day after Sherrill called on him to step down after an investigation determined he violated state ethics rules and engaged in behavior that constituted sexual harassment.

The 61-page report said it found credible evidence that Caldwell made romantic advances toward a female staffer’s friend, tried to secure a promotion for his girlfriend and gave tickets to personal guests without reimbursement.

The New Jersey Globe was the first to report on Caldwell’s resignation.

Thomas Calcagni, a lawyer for Caldwell, said in a statement they would “continue to forcefully challenge the report”.

“Dr Caldwell’s resignation, submitted to put an end to the targeted campaign to discredit his character, does not in any way diminish our outrage concerning the investigative process and its specious findings,” Calcagni said. “Counsel is fully exploring all legal remedies to ensure a true, balanced, and unbiased record.”

Sherrill, a Democrat, said she would appoint the state’s acting comptroller, Shirley Emehelu, as the acting lieutenant governor.

“We can no longer tolerate the culture of silence, sweeping things under the rug or kicking cans down the road,” Sherrill said Friday at press conference in Trenton, the state capital. “New Jerseyans deserve fairness and they deserve accountability.”

The change-up comes just weeks before midterm elections, which the lieutenant governor is responsible for overseeing.

The New Jersey governor initiated an investigation into Caldwell in May after receiving an anonymous letter that accused him of “bringing uninvited female guests to events while traveling using taxpayer funds” and “hitting on women at functions”.

Ultimately, investigators concluded that aspects of the allegations were credible.

In one instance, investigators said Caldwell made a romantic advance toward a female staffer’s friend and then made a “derogatory or demeaning reference” about women after his advances were rebuffed.

Caldwell allegedly told the staffer that women like them were ambitious and successful and needed a man in a position to help them, “but you young women are looking for young sperm”.

Investigators also found that Caldwell advocated for the promotion of his girlfriend, a state employee, to a “senior leadership position”. Caldwell acknowledged that he did not disclose the nature of his relationship with the state employee until he was confronted.

Caldwell had pushed for his girlfriend’s promotion, even after being informed he was under investigation. Ultimately, she did not get the promotion and no longer works in state government.

Credible evidence also determined Caldwell brought at least three personal guests, including his girlfriend, to ticketed events, in his capacity as lieutenant governor, without advance authorization or payment.

After Sherrill announced the report’s findings and called for Caldwell to resign, it was unclear whether or not he would step down.

As lieutenant governor, Caldwell was also serving as New Jersey’s secretary of state, who is the chief elections officer.

With just 39 days until the midterm elections, Sherrill said she was tapping Emehelu to ensure “all eligible New Jerseyans can make their voices heard”.

“Shirley is a veteran of the US Department of Justice and the New Jersey attorney general’s office. She has the judgment to run these elections and the strength to stand up to Trump’s attacks on voting,” Sherrill added.

Sherrill has 45 days to name a permanent replacement for Caldwell.

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Masoud Pezeshkian says Tehran is ‘ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations but without the language of force’ Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, turned the tables on Donald Trump, describing America as the true bully and terrorist in the Middle East while also insisting that Iran had always shown a commitment to the negotiating table. In a defiant speech to the UN general assembly in New York, his first since the US and Israel launched an all-out war on Iran, Pezeshkian repeatedly vowed that Tehran would never bend the knee to America. Continue reading...

Masoud Pezeshkian says Tehran is ‘ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations but without the language of force’

Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, turned the tables on Donald Trump, describing America as the true bully and terrorist in the Middle East while also insisting that Iran had always shown a commitment to the negotiating table.

But he balanced defiance with a willingness to talk, saying: “It must be understood by President Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations but without the language of force.”

On Tuesday, the US president had told the UN he was weighing whether to “annihilate” Iran, but went on to hail renewed talks between Tehran and Washington’s negotiators.

A surprise three-hour meeting between Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and the US special envoy Steve Witkoff on the sidelines of the assembly the same day was regarded as constructive by both sides. It was the first such meeting since June, but did not stop the US delegation from walking out at the start of Pezeshkian’s speech.

Follow the day’s news live - Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Dan Tehan says fuel excise cut when oil price high a ‘sensible’ plan Dan Tehan , the shadow minister for energy, said Gallagher’s criticism of the Coalition’s fuel plan wasn’t fair. [What] I would say to Anthony Albanese and the Labor party is get out amongst the people and see what’s happening in your electorates because people are hurting because of cost of living … We have the discipline to be able to do the policy work to make sure we can offset policies like this so it won’t be inflationary and it will provide much needed relief to people, and they need it now. Obviously we’ve helped when the war started with some changes to the fuel excise but we’ve shifted, and [are] including in the budget, to providing more permanent cost of living arrangements, including through the tax system, to make sure that that ongoing cost-of-living help is there permanently, not just in these one-off arrangements, which, when we’ve got higher inflation, could be difficult in the economy. Our decisions have been built and baked into the budget to make sure that that cost-of-living help is permanent. You know, the sooner this war in the Middle East stops, the better. Continue reading...

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NSW domestic violence rental reforms in effect from today

Rental reforms which make it easier for victim-survivors of domestic violence to leave a rental property in NSW are in effect from today, the state government says.

Under the changes, victim-survivors no longer need to notify people they share a lease with they are leaving a rental property, cannot be held responsible for damage caused by domestic and family violence, and must be asked for permission to publish images of the property that show their belongings. The government says victim-survivors have now have broader rights to change locks without landlord consent.

The NSW fair trading minister, Anoulack Chanthivong , said the reforms “deliver on the Minns Labor government’s promise to make renting fairer by replacing unsafe, outdated laws with practical, compassionate protections which put victim-survivors first”.

During debate on the laws, which passed last year, the cross bench and domestic violence advocates raised concerns that last-minute changes to laws on pets in rentals, making it easier for landlords to prevent pets, would make it harder for DV victim-survivors who want to find a safe place to go with their animals.

Domestic Violence NSW Deputy CEO, Pia Birac , has said today’s changes “remove some of the practical barriers that can make it harder for women to leave violence and rebuild their lives”.

Embattled Friedrich Merz faces nervous wait while far-right Alternative für Deutschland party targets further gains Voters in two German states are going to the polls with the political future of the embattled chancellor, Friedrich Merz, hanging in the balance and an emboldened far right targeting further gains. Coming two weeks after a seismic election in Saxony-Anhalt in which the anti-immigration, pro-Kremlin Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) scored its highest ever result in a regional poll, the nativist party is expected to drain support again from Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Continue reading...

Embattled Friedrich Merz faces nervous wait while far-right Alternative für Deutschland party targets further gains

Voters in two German states are going to the polls with the political future of the embattled chancellor, Friedrich Merz, hanging in the balance and an emboldened far right targeting further gains.

Just how brutal the outcome is could affect Merz’s ability to hang on as leader after only 16 months in power, possibly setting wheels in motion for his replacement or even snap elections – currently regarded as unlikely but not ruled out.

About 2.5 million people are eligible to vote in the capital Berlin and nearly 1.3 million in the Baltic coast state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Polling booths open at 8am local time on Sunday and will close at 6pm, when Merz and his allies will be watching exit polls on tenterhooks.

The luckless chancellor has resisted calls to quit and vowed to fight for a signature package of economic and social welfare changes he argues are crucial to Germany’s future.

Follow live updates - Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast The prime minister has been asked if Australia has any plans to join the EU, after the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney , welcomed the offer of Canada becoming the EU’s first associate member. Anthony Albanese says “we’re a long way from Europe, of course”, but after it is pointed out that Canada is too, he says: Our relations, of course, are also in areas that Canada doesn’t have. So Asean, for example, and the centrality of Asean in our region is important. The Pacific Island Forum, where I was just a couple of weeks ago, is very important as well. Our priority when it comes to Europe and our engagement with the EU is, of course, Australia-EU free trade agreement. It was never going to be perfect, but in the legislation that we passed just in the last sitting fortnight, I can tell you … that already the eSafety Commissioner has used that strengthening of the laws to require some of the social media organisations to provide information to it, so they’ve already been compelled. Continue reading...

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Angus Taylor vows ‘one of the biggest cuts to immigration in Australian history’

The federal opposition leader, Angus Taylor , has vowed to deliver one of the biggest immigration cuts in Australia history and called Labor “socialist in all but name” in a bid to rally the party faithful, six months out from the New South Wales election.

In a wide-ranging address to the NSW Liberal party state council in Sydney on Saturday, Taylor admitted the previous coalition government had its shortcomings, but said Labor was “utterly failing the nation”.

For the past four years, we’ve had a government in Canberra which is socialist in all but name.

Taylor said it was “divisive” for Labor politicians to “stand in front of three different flags instead of our one national flag”, referring to press conferences where leaders would deliver speeches with the Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander flags alongside the national flag behind them.

After Labor unveiled its new immigration plan, which includes transforming a former quarantine facility into a new detention centre, and preventing international students from bringing their family members to Australia, Taylor offered to go further.

Leader says party ‘won’t give up the fight’ to defeat ‘nasty populism’ in first-day speech to delegates The Liberal Democrats’ leader, Sir Ed Davey, took aim at Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Elon Musk on the first day of his party’s annual conference, saying that they “won’t give up the fight” to defeat “nasty populism” and the far-right party’s “£72m arsenal of hate and lies”. Speaking from the main stage at Brighton Centre, Davey called on the assembled delegates not to be deterred in the face of Reform’s hope “that the anger and the hatred and the lies will grind us down until eventually we just give up”, and praised earlier speakers for showing “why we care and why we fight”. Continue reading...

Leader says party ‘won’t give up the fight’ to defeat ‘nasty populism’ in first-day speech to delegates

The Liberal Democrats’ leader, Sir Ed Davey, took aim at Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Elon Musk on the first day of his party’s annual conference, saying that they “won’t give up the fight” to defeat “nasty populism” and the far-right party’s “£72m arsenal of hate and lies”.

He contrasted this with Reform, which “care about their own bank balance and they fight because two crypto billionaires gave them 72m quid”.

Davey, who entered conference season having to address frustrations over his leadership expressed by some Lib Dem MPs , also used the speech to recall his early political life as a student campaigning successfully for his university college to boycott Barclays, due to its investments in apartheid-era South Africa.

He spoke of his “visceral shock [and] overwhelming anger at seeing human beings treating other human beings with total contempt” and drew parallels between that experience and the need to not look away “when we see human dignity under attack”.

Davey said: “Today – we are back. Fighting again the fight that fired me up at university. The fight to end injustices. In our country and around the world. The fight to defeat the nasty populism of Trump, Le Pen, the AfD and the rest.

Exclusive: Leader understood to have wanted to concentrate on Holborn and St Pancras campaign in London but executive committee voted against plan Zack Polanski requested that the Greens’ ruling executive committee postpone the party’s imminent annual conference so they could focus on the Holborn and St Pancras byelection but was refused. While party officials say the formal request came from staffers worried about diluting resources by staging a conference a week before Polanski tries to win Keir Starmer’s former Commons seat, the Guardian understands the party leader wanted this to happen. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Leader understood to have wanted to concentrate on Holborn and St Pancras campaign in London but executive committee voted against plan

Zack Polanski requested that the Greens’ ruling executive committee postpone the party’s imminent annual conference so they could focus on the Holborn and St Pancras byelection but was refused.

In the end, the executive committee of the Greens in England and Wales, which has about 25 voting members including Polanski, voted against the plan on Thursday.

The party expects about 3,000 people to attend what would be its biggest gathering, beginning in Brighton on 2 October.

Calling off the event at such short notice would have cost the party a significant sum given it has rented a conference venue, and risked annoying members who have taken time off work and booked travel and hotels.

Campaigning or control of Congress is expected to ramp up as some states open early voting - Sign up for the US Breaking News email Shapiro and Newsom aren’t the only governors making moves on AI lately. Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, announced at a news conference today plans for tighter rules on data center development in order to address transparency, energy use and environmental concerns. And Nevada’s governor, Joe Lombardo, a Republican, signed an executive order aimed at tackling similar issues. Continue reading...

Campaigning or control of Congress is expected to ramp up as some states open early voting

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Early voting begins in midterms as cost of living and Iran war loom large

Good morning, and welcome to our US politics live blog. The midterm elections are less than two months away, but some states begin early voting today, marking the start of a crucial stretch of campaigning for control of Congress.

Virginia begins early in-person voting, while voters in Minnesota, Idaho and South Dakota can cast absentee ballots in person, as the campaign turns increasingly on the cost of living and the continuing war in Iran.

High gas prices and low approval ratings are adding to the challenges facing president Donald Trump as Republicans head into the 3 November elections with their control of the House and Senate at risk. In its analysis of the US economy, the Wall Street Journal reports that mortgage rates are nearing 7%, consumer prices rose 3.4% in the year to August and gas prices are close to their highest levels since 2022.

“We are seeing what happens when a president launches a war of choice without anticipating the unintended consequences,” Aaron David Miller, a former adviser on Middle East policy to Republican and Democratic administrations, told Reuters.

Trump will take his case to the UN on Tuesday, where he is likely to present the Iran war as a victory despite having initially promised the military campaign would be over within weeks. The conflict has instead entered its seventh month, with Iran still able to disrupt regional shipping and the war putting further pressure on global energy prices.

- ‘Campus Collection’ aimed to mark 1893 club founding - Range pulled from website two hours after launch Oxford United have abandoned a new range of American style-sportswear after it inadvertently referenced the tragedy of September 11. The League One club launched its new ‘Campus Collection’ on Friday morning and had removed it from sale by lunchtime, after clothing designs were revealed to bear the slogan ‘United 93’. The U’s immediately published an apology that admitted to a lack of understanding of “the historical context and associations” related to the branding and made “sincere apologies for this error and any offence caused.” Continue reading...

- ‘Campus Collection’ aimed to mark 1893 club founding

- Range pulled from website two hours after launch

“Inspired by the style and culture of American sports”, the Campus Collection was originally trailed for launch by the club on 11 September of this year, the 25th anniversary of the atrocity that killed nearly 3,000 people. Concerns over sensitivity saw the launch then delayed, but when the online collection was finally made available for sale on Friday, images showed models wearing an NFL-style shirt with ‘United 93’ on the chest, in recognition of Oxford being founded in 1893.

United 93 was one of four domestic passenger jets seized by Al-Qaida terrorists on 11 September, 2001. A mutiny by passengers prevented hijackers from using the plane to destroy a government building in Washington DC, and it ultimately crashed into a field, killing all 44 people on board. A film titled ‘United 93’ was also made about the tragedy.

Follow the day’s news live - Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Barnaby Joyce says Labor is copying and pasting One Nation’s homework because the measures we know so far around blocking the families of international students and preventing visa hopping have some similarity to what Pauline Hanson is suggesting. Speaking to the Today show a little earlier, Joyce says Burke’s last minute cancellation at the press club was “the greatest no-show since Amelia Earhart”. [Burke] can’t possibly be about to announce One Nation’s policy. I mean, Tony’s a great guy, right? I like Tony, but honestly, he was the greatest no-show since Amelia Earhart when he didn’t turn up to the Press Club … What I’ve heard thus far is that it’s an exact replication, but not to the extent of what One Nation is doing. I will be watching this with absolute fascination and some trepidation, and I’ll be waiting for Jim Chalmers to explain his new budget. I was on polling booths with my colleagues like Sally Sitou . I was out there in Reid with her in those last weeks of the campaign, standing there for hours at a time. She would be surrounded by men a foot taller than her, stopping her physically talking to or giving information to voters. I would think secretly paying known rightwing figures to disrupt events and pretend that they are just disgruntled citizens having their say is certainly immoral, if it’s not illegal. Continue reading...

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Burke rubbishes ‘absurd’ claims of ‘mass migration’ in Australia

Tony Burke starts his address trying to dispel some of the most “absurd” claims in the migration debate – starting with the claim that Australia is a nation of “mass migration”.

Burke tells the National Press Club that there’s one simple fact to counter that:

Before the pandemic, the intergenerational report had the projections for where Australia’s population would be by 2030–31. When we get to that point, we’ll be 700,000 people smaller than what had been projected before the pandemic.

He then takes aim at claims that backpacker and Palm scheme visas don’t form part of the net migration number – most of them do. He said last year backpackers made up 48,000 of the net overseas migration figure.

There’s almost an approach, sort of the Nom version of nimbyism – I won’t try to invent the ‘nombyism’ word. It’s a concept where people say they want immigration numbers to go down, but they don’t want to mention this visa class and they immediately want to rule out all the ones that they would rely on.

Attorney general says president ‘should communicate his concerns with the supreme court’ after Trump said justices ‘really let our country down’ - Sign up for US Breaking News emails Kash Patel , the FBI director, is now testifying before lawmakers on the Senate judiciary committee. A reminder that the last time he appeared before Congress was in May, when he sparred with senators on the appropriations committee and denied – under oath – allegations of excessive drinking and unexplained absences on the job, dismissing them as “baseless” during a fiery congressional hearing. Today’s hearing is also expected to be full of heated exchanges. “Mr Patel is the least qualified and most partisan FBI director in our nation’s history,” said Senator Dick Durbin, the judiciary committee’s top Democrat. “The bureau has been reshaped as a political weapon against President Trump’s political enemies and a shield to protect the president and his MAGA loyalists, not the American people.” Continue reading...

Attorney general says president ‘should communicate his concerns with the supreme court’ after Trump said justices ‘really let our country down’

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Donald Trump today blasted the supreme court’s ruling which blocked his long-sought executive order which curbs mail-in voting. The president called mail-in voting – which he has used on several occasions to cast a ballot – “a laughing stock” across the world. He has routinely claimed, without evidence, that the voting method is prone to fraud. “The Supreme Court has really let our Country down! Certain Justices are petrified of these crazed and depraved Democrats, and are totally unable to show the courage necessary to save our America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. The president suggested that the justices he nominated for the bench – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – are not “the people I interviewed to serve” but “merely a shell of their original selves”.

Todd Blanche, the attorney general, defended the president’s earlier criticism of the justices on the bench who ruled to block his order. “He [Trump] is very frustrated,” Blanche said at a White House press conference. “He has every right, and indeed he should communicate his concerns with the supreme court whenever he has them. This isn’t the first time that he’s done it, and it won’t be the last.”

Blanche also dismissed calls to investigate the contributions of a Russian oligarch, who is close to Putin, and who helped pay for Donald Trump Jr’s wedding in May . “The president doesn’t know who this person is. I think other members of the family don’t know who this person is. The president’s son has said that he’s a very close friend,” the attorney general told reporters. “When you say, ‘am I investigating?’ Am I investigating what? And when you say this person is a friend of Putin, I don’t even know if that’s true or not.”

However, Democrats on the House oversight committee have started to investigate possible ties between the Trump administration and Kremlev. Congressman Robert Garcia, the panel’s top Democrat, has asked Susie Wiles – the White House chief of staff, to provide documents, records and communications between the White House and Trump Jr about Kremlev, among other requests. More here

Bernie Sanders , the independent senator from Vermont, said that Congress has “been asleep at the wheel” when it comes to AI regulation. Sanders decried the speed of the technology’s evolution at the Pro-Human Assembly in Washington today. The senator has proposed bicameral legislation with congressman Greg Casar to permanently ban the development of artificial superintelligence, and said that the pledges this week from leading AI company CEOs for the industry to “slow down” are encouraging but ultimately not enough. “When the future of humanity is at stake, we need binding international safety rules, not voluntary standards from the industry,” Sanders added.

A federal judge has ruled that Donald Trump’s name must stay off the facade of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, blocking an effort by the center’s Trump-appointed board to restore his name to the building. The judge also said the board cannot proceed with plans to rename ​the campus where it sits the “President Donald J. Trump ‌Plaza”. Earlier, the board voted to immediately close the institution citing safety and financial concerns.

Firm publishes AI guidelines with Microsoft AI CEO saying: ‘AI must be subordinate and always in service of people’ Microsoft published a provisional “code of conduct” Monday to apply to the training of new artificial intelligence models, taking a step towards limiting the capabilities of the company’s AI as anxiety rises over the prospect that technology companies could lose control of AI products. Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, published the code on social media early Monday, writing: “AI must be subordinate and always in service of people. Continue reading...

Firm publishes AI guidelines with Microsoft AI CEO saying: ‘AI must be subordinate and always in service of people’

Microsoft published a provisional “code of conduct” Monday to apply to the training of new artificial intelligence models, taking a step towards limiting the capabilities of the company’s AI as anxiety rises over the prospect that technology companies could lose control of AI products.

“The fears about possible loss of control are real,” he wrote.

A parallel post on the company’s website said : “The purpose of technology is to serve humanity and accelerate human flourishing. Any technology that doesn’t achieve that is a failure, and it should be rejected. That is the starting point of our approach at Microsoft AI, where we’re building towards Humanist AI, one that is subordinate, aligned, and contained.”

Under the code of conduct, Microsoft’s AI models must not consider requests related to weapons development, produce violent or sexually explicit content or help with the procurement of dangerous substances. AI models also should not be built to imitate consciousness and shouldn’t be entitled to rights.

President hits out after Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX leaders back call to limit ‘reckless’ development - Business news – live updates AI-linked stocks tumbled on Monday after the bosses of Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX called for a slowdown in AI “reckless” development , citing fears the technology could soon run out of control. Shares in the semiconductor designer Nvidia – the world’s most valuable company – were down 3% by early afternoon in New York, while Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) slumped 4.4% and Micron Technology and Sandisk shares slumped by 5%. Continue reading...

President hits out after Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX leaders back call to limit ‘reckless’ development

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The sell-off comes after the chief executive of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, appealed at the weekend for the AI industry to “slow down”.

However, Donald Trump dismissed calls to increase controls on AI as a “sick conspiracy”.

In a social media post on Monday, the president wrote: “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the USA has that, in spades!”

More than 100 others on board were evacuated from the Virgo ⁠Transport 8 ship, including one who died Indonesian rescuers were searching on Sunday for 140 people from a ⁠passenger ship that was earlier reported missing in the Java Sea ​after 103 others were evacuated, ‌one of whom ‌died, a search and rescue agency official said. A passenger ship carrying more than 240 people was reported missing after losing contact during bad weather in the Java Sea early on Sunday, the country’s ⁠search and rescue agency said. Continue reading...

More than 100 others on board were evacuated from the Virgo ⁠Transport 8 ship, including one who died

Indonesian rescuers were searching on Sunday for 140 people from a ⁠passenger ship that was earlier reported missing in the Java Sea ​after 103 others were evacuated, ‌one of whom ‌died, a search and rescue agency official said.

The Virgo ⁠Transport 8 ship set sail ​on Saturday from ‌the East Java ‌city of Surabaya to the South ‌Kalimantan city of Banjarmasin before losing contact.

I Putu Sudayana, the head of the agency’s Banjarmasin office, ​said in a video statement that 103 people had been evacuated using different ships and some of them would be taken to an East Java port.

Rescuers launched a search, deploying a ⁠team, ships and a helicopter toward the passenger vessel’s last ​known position, ​he said, without stating what happened ​to the ship.

Exclusive: strategic rethink urges progressive activists to respectfully steer one-on-one conversations with One Nation supporters towards economic concerns - Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast The message from strategists was blunt: do not, however tempting, personally attack Pauline Hanson or call her a racist. The request has been made to progressive campaigners and unionists who have been asked to start one-on-one conversations with One Nation supporters before the Victorian election in November. Continue reading...

Exclusive: strategic rethink urges progressive activists to respectfully steer one-on-one conversations with One Nation supporters towards economic concerns

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It is also indicative of a strategic rethink in response to One Nation’s sustained surge in public support and the party’s recent wins in state and federal byelections and in South Australia .

Separate training sessions run by the peak body for unions in Victoria, the Trades Hall Council, and the progressive campaign group GetUp, have warned members they may be inadvertently pushing people to One Nation by not respectfully engaging with their legitimate economic concerns.

Molar from large mammal that once lived in North America is in ‘immaculate condition’ after discovery in Bay Area A 10,000 year-old tooth in remarkable condition from an ancient Pacific mastodon, a large mammal that once inhabited North America, was recently discovered by a California scientist. Brigid Lynch, a geomorphologist, was working at a preserve in San Mateo county, when she stumbled across a peculiar rock. Continue reading...

Molar from large mammal that once lived in North America is in ‘immaculate condition’ after discovery in Bay Area

A 10,000 year-old tooth in remarkable condition from an ancient Pacific mastodon, a large mammal that once inhabited North America, was recently discovered by a California scientist.

Paleontologists later confirmed it was not a stone, but an adult Pacific mastodon molar, according to a Wednesday news release from the Midpeninsula regional open space district (Midpen).

“The tooth itself is in immaculate condition. It’s the most complete mastodon molar from our area, and the most spectacular mastodon molar that I’ve ever seen. I had chills and shivers up and down my spine,” said paleontologist Wayne Thompson in a statement. “It’s another puzzle in the Ice Age saga that we can put into place.”

The pacific mastodon, related to modern-day elephants, were most prominent in the American west including what is now California , Oregon, the northern Rocky Mountain region and parts of Mexico. The herbivore mammal, which dates back about 2.5m years ago in North America, went extinct more than 10,000 years ago due to the climate crisis’s effects on their habitat coupled with overhunting from humans.

Sales of beans, lentils and soya bean derivatives on rise while Britons buy less real and fake meat British shoppers are munching more beans, lentils, tofu and tempeh – while cutting back on both real and plant-based fake meat – to save money and improve their diet. The amount of beans, pulses and soya bean derivatives sold in the UK increased by 7.3% in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period last year, led by a surge in cheap dried lentils, an analysis has found. Continue reading...

Sales of beans, lentils and soya bean derivatives on rise while Britons buy less real and fake meat

British shoppers are munching more beans, lentils, tofu and tempeh – while cutting back on both real and plant-based fake meat – to save money and improve their diet.

That was led by a 23% surge for cheap dried lentils, according to data from the market research firm NielsenIQ evaluated by the climate advocacy group Madre Brava.

Shoppers turned to more upmarket legumes , including organic and jarred varieties, with sales of canned and jarred butter beans up by 30.3%.

That growth was partly driven by new products and brands – such as the Bold Bean Co, Navarrico and Marks & Spencer’s own-label – as well as recipes going viral on social media.

Two 17-year-olds accused of subjecting teenage girl to hours-long sexual assault granted bail Two boys allegedly invited to join a “degrading” and “humiliating” gang rape in Sydney have been granted bail. The pair are among three-17-year-olds accused of subjecting a teenage girl to an hours-long sexual assault on the night of 16 August. Continue reading...

Two 17-year-olds accused of subjecting teenage girl to hours-long sexual assault granted bail

Two boys allegedly invited to join a “degrading” and “humiliating” gang rape in Sydney have been granted bail.

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The alleged instigator, a private school boy charged with 11 offences, allegedly took the girl to a football game and drinks before taking her to a home when she felt sick.

He is accused of raping her before a text message was sent to a friend, a children’s court was told on Friday.

Flash flooding and mudslides in Ishikawa and Toyama prefectures, while convective storms hit western Europe Following an “unprecedented” deluge in Chiba in mid-August, Japan has had more extreme rainfall in recent days. Moisture from the Sea of Japan brought relentless heavy rain to the prefectures of Ishikawa and Toyama on Thursday. In Himi, Toyama, 361.5mm of rain fell in 24 hours, equivalent to half the average annual rainfall in London and Paris. As a result of the downpours, several rivers burst their banks, leading to flash floods and mudslides with trees felled and buildings damaged. Japan’s Meteorological Agency issued its highest-level rain warning within the two prefectures earlier in the week as well as landslide warnings, leading to the evacuation of hundreds of thousands from the region. Models on Thursday indicated there could be a further 200mm of rain just south of this region as it continues to come in from the west. Continue reading...

Flash flooding and mudslides in Ishikawa and Toyama prefectures, while convective storms hit western Europe

Following an “unprecedented” deluge in Chiba in mid-August, Japan has had more extreme rainfall in recent days. Moisture from the Sea of Japan brought relentless heavy rain to the prefectures of Ishikawa and Toyama on Thursday. In Himi, Toyama, 361.5mm of rain fell in 24 hours, equivalent to half the average annual rainfall in London and Paris. As a result of the downpours, several rivers burst their banks, leading to flash floods and mudslides with trees felled and buildings damaged.

Two days earlier, Typhoon Saudel had passed through the prefectures of Kagoshima and Okinawa Island, south-west of the mainland, bringing winds of 100mph (160km/h) and extreme rainfall. In the Amami region, 230mm rain fell in a day. The storm was forecast to move into south-east China by the end of the week, with much weaker winds.

While the warm ocean waters surrounding Japan often contribute to increased typhoon activity at this time of year, this year’s developing El Niño could explain why so many storms have approached the island nation and why there have been so many extreme rain events.