Starmer brings in Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman to ease pressure on him to resign
Posted on Saturday May 09, 2026

Brown to advise on global finance, while Harman will focus on social and economic improvements for women and girls

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Keir Starmer has brought in Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman as advisers in a move to ease the mounting pressure on the prime minister to resign after the disastrous election results for Labour.

Brown, the former prime minister and long-serving chancellor under Tony Blair, has been made Starmer’s envoy on global finance, with a brief to advise on financial partnerships to help with defence-related investments, particularly with Europe.

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Google developers significantly misstate carbon emissions of proposed UK datacentres
Posted on Saturday May 09, 2026

Emissions understated by factor of five in Essex plans for tech giant, while Greystoke’s Lincolnshire plans show similar error

Developers working for Google have significantly misstated how much carbon two proposed AI datacentres will contribute to the UK’s total emissions in planning documents reviewed by the Guardian.

The tech company wants to build two huge datacentres – one 52-hectare (130 acre) project in Thurrock and another at an airfield in North Weald, both in Essex. To do so, developers are required to submit planning documents calculating how much carbon these projects will emit as a proportion of the UK’s total carbon footprint.

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Tehran, Taiwan, trade … what are the hazards facing Trump on Xi summit tightrope?
Posted on Sunday May 10, 2026

US leader enters talks with superpower rival from vulnerable position, but will be hoping for economic wins amid turbulent backdrop

If all goes to plan over the next few days – and that is a big if – Donald Trump will arrive in Beijing on Wednesday for a highly anticipated summit with Xi Jinping, China’s leader.

The trip will mark the first time a US president has visited China in nearly a decade. The last visit was also made by Trump, during his first term, in 2017.

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Defence sovereignty: Europe races to build the low-cost weapons of future
Posted on Sunday May 10, 2026

With Trump wavering on Nato and war in Ukraine, Europe is scrambling to spend billions on weapons such as drones

In a small workshop in England’s East Midlands, engineers at the British startup Skycutter are designing weapons for Ukraine. A row of 3D printers make the fuselage for interceptor drones, while parts such as motors and navigation chips are slotted together by hand. The same process happens hundreds of thousands of times a month in partner Ukrainian factories.

The swarms of cheap, deadly and often autonomous drones deployed in that war have already changed combat completely. Troops far behind the frontline must move constantly to avoid attack from the air, travelling along netted tunnels and landscapes crisscrossed by fibre optic cables used to steer drones past radio jamming. Cities are terrorised by guided missiles that are cheaper and therefore more widely used than those that came before.

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Who is Louis Mosley, the man tasked with defending Palantir against its critics?
Posted on Saturday May 09, 2026

The company’s UK and Europe boss has become a lightning rod for the British public’s fear of a US tech takeover

The hall was packed with rightwing radicals when Louis Mosley heralded a coming revolution. Just as Oliver Cromwell – that “crusader for Christ and liberty” – routed King Charles I’s royalists, “a similar revolution is brewing today”, said the UK and Europe boss of Palantir. Globalism’s “twilight” was upon us, he said in a speech dotted with admiring mentions of the podcaster Joe Rogan and “Elon’s Doge”.

It was not a typical peroration for a big UK government contractor with more than £600m in deals with the NHS, the Ministry of Defence and police. But Palantir, the world’s most controversial tech company, is no typical contractor. In recent years it has gained firm footholds across Britain’s public sector while appalling critics with its leadership’s rightwing rhetoric and its work for the US and Israeli militaries and Donald Trump’s ICE immigration crackdown.

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UK schools should remove pupils’ online photos as AI blackmail threat grows, say experts
Posted on Thursday May 07, 2026

Criminals are manipulating pictures found on school websites and social media to create sexually explicit images

UK schools should remove pictures of pupils’ faces from their websites and social media accounts because blackmailers are using them to create sexually explicit images, experts have said.

Child safety experts and the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) warn that criminals are using AI to manipulate photos of children and then demand cash not to publish them.

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West Ham v Arsenal buildup, Mbappé ruled out of the clásico and more – matchday live
Posted on Sunday May 10, 2026

⚽ News, discussion and more before a huge day of action
⚽ Today’s fixtures | Tables | Follow on Bluesky | Email us

Elsewhere yesterday, Sunderland held Manchester United to a 0-0 draw at the Stadium of Light.

Arne Slot’s decision to bring off Rio Ngumoha for Alexander Isak against Chelsea was not well-received by fans, but the head coach insisted that he only did it because the 17-year-old winger had been suffering from cramp.

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England v New Zealand: first women’s cricket ODI – live
Posted on Sunday May 10, 2026

Over-by-over reports from the action at Durham
County cricket: day three – live | And mail James

1st over: New Zealand 6-0 (Bates 6, Plimmer 0) Lauren Bell has the ball in hand and she bowls England’s first ball in anger for 194 days. It is outside off stump and Suzie Bates picks up two runs with a guide through point. Could be a huge summer for Lauren Bell as she leads this England seam attack, she had a fantastic stint in the WPL with RCB and has really worked on her accuracy.

Ah, as I type that she serves up a full bunger on leg stump that Suzie Bates clips off her pads nonchalantly for four. Six off the first over, England buzz about in their new powder blue kit.

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