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The increasingly heated debates about the pros and cons of developing AI continue...

There is little more tiresome to me than people who sneer at pop fans and the money they spend on concert tickets. Oh, £100 is ridiculous, is it? Oh, it’s just a load of people watching the gig through their phones, is it? Oh, £45 on a limited-edition T-shirt that marks the most significant night of your life is a waste of money, is it? Oh, you can go and see a local band who are just as good in a pub for £15, can you? Spare me. How very joyless your life must be if you have never deeply loved an artist, never made the pilgrimage to see them, never trembled as you behold them in flesh and bone, never had your soul restored by their music and the communion with thousands of other people who feel exactly as you do, never stood close to the front and for a fleeting moment felt them lock eyes only with you. That is why Harry Styles fans have travelled from all over the world to see him perform at Madison Square Garden. He is currently in the middle of a record-breaking 30-night residency at the arena in New York City, his only stop in the United States (or Canada) on his seven-city Together, Together world tour, whose European dates were also exclusive residencies: 10 nights in Amsterdam and 12 nights at Wembley Stadium . The justification for this style of tour – whose other stops are Sao Paolo, Mexico City, Sydney and Melbourne – was to allow Styles to “stay in my life while I’m doing it. And therefore I think it allows me to take care of myself better, which I think makes me b

Police are likely to examine the mobile phones of Reform figures as part of an investigation into allegations the party broke the law on foreign donations, The i Paper has been told. Bob Posner, a former chief executive of the electoral watchdog, said officers could even raid the party’s headquarters to “seize documents and computers”. The Metropolitan Police are investigating Reform after an undercover film by Channel 4 and the investigative outfit Verbatim appeared to show senior party figures welcoming foreign donations. The allegations have become part of Scotland Yard’s wider investigation into other donations to the party. Foreign political donations are banned in the UK, and it is illegal to conceal that funds have come from an impermissible source. Reform deny any wrongdoing, as does Farage, who has said he “frankly wasn’t listening” during a conversation with his aide Dan Jukes and an undercover reporter discussing an apparent scheme to funnel foreign money to the party. Posner was chief executive of the Electoral Commission between 2019 and 2022 and is now a consultant at the law firm Bates Wells, which specialises in electoral law. “[The police] will liaise closely with the Electoral Commission,” he told The i Paper , explaining that detectives were unlikely to share details of the investigation but may consult the watchdog on points of law. “I would expect that they [the police] will interview, probably under caution, a number of people. Perhaps some not under cau

She emerged like a mythical wonder at 5.58pm. Surrounded by cliffs densely spotted with houses painted in pastel and earthy shades and crowned by thick puffs of white cloud, the lake’s mystique created a mini wave of excitement. Passengers politely jostled for space in the aisles’ pull-down windows that were a welcome quirk of decades-old carriages. The train passed a yellow-lemon bell tower and wide, red-roofed buildings before one corner of Lake Como came into full view. We were just a few minutes’ drive north from a stop at Como San Giovanni station, and only an hour and a quarter into a so-far surprisingly smooth journey. There were more striking views ahead, despite 11 of my 19-plus hours on the inaugural European Sleeper train between Milan and Brussels being completed in darkness. The train passes Lake Como, with a stop at Como San Giovanni station (Photo: imageBROKER/Getty) It’s a route of around 720 miles and includes six stops, plus Milan and Brussels, with three more to be added later this year, including two in the Netherlands. Como (with high-speed trains to Italian cities, including Venice), Lugano (for the lake), Göschenen (for skiing in Andermatt), Arth Goldau (for Lake Lucerne), Cologne and connections from Milan Porta Garibaldi (high-speed to Bologna, Florence, Rome and Naples) will draw passengers, as well as Milan itself. Sleeper tickets start from €69.99 (£60) one-way for a berth in a six-person couchette, without a mattress (which is offered in “comfort

“What a job he did tonight,” President Donald Trump beamed at his deputy, JD Vance. The Republican convention in Dallas was meant to focus attention on the midterm elections, but turned out to be a warm-up for Vance’s presumptive coronation as the 2028 GOP presidential nominee. The final day of the gathering was all about Vance. He told party activists at a closed-door breakfast meeting that his morning began with a 6am phone from the boss. “JD are you awake?” Trump had asked, before going on to sketch out the themes of the day to his underling. The audio of that meeting, leaked to several US publications, showed Vance got the message. “We’ve got to nationalise this election, we’ve got to talk about all the crazy things Democrats are doing,” he said, according to Politico . The morning audience rewarded him with chants of “48, 48”. If Vance succeeds Trump he will be the 48th US president. That night, the Vice-President was on his feet in front of a pumped-up crowd at the American Airlines Center , basking once again in cheers of “JD” and “48”. Dressed in the same blue suit and red tie as Trump, he looked slimmer, slicker and sleeker – ready and willing to inherit the Maga mantle. The Democrats were the “party of hatred”, Vance said, warming to his theme. “They’re the party that despises America and the people who built it.” The Republicans in contrast, were the party of faith and family. “Stay the hell away from our kids,” he threatened Democrats. It’s not too soon to discuss

Angela Rayner privately opposed China’s controversial plans for a new “mega embassy” in London, The i Paper has been told. The Housing Secretary believed the project posed serious security risks, and would be damaging to Britain’s interests, according to Whitehall insiders. Critics of Beijing’s vast new embassy have long argued that its size and location near the City’s financial infrastructure could increase espionage and security risks. They also raised concerns that it will be used to monitor Chinese dissidents in the UK. While serving as Sir Keir Starmer’s Housing Secretary and deputy prime minister, Rayner spent months considering whether to approve the vast diplomatic compound at Royal Mint Court, near the Tower of London. She left office before her successor, Steve Reed, approved the project in January this year. Although her private concerns did not affect Reed’s decision, they shed light on the unease among senior Labour figures over China’s growing influence in the UK. Senior Whitehall sources with knowledge of the discussions said Rayner had been reluctant to give the project the go-ahead. “She didn’t want to do it. She thought it would be too damaging and risky,” a source told The i Paper . Sir Ken McCallum, the director-general of MI5, said any national security risk posed by the new embassy could not be wholly eliminated, but that an “expert, professional and proportionate” package of mitigating measures had been put in place to allow the development to proceed.

Not a single water company was able to provide evidence that they had issued fines for breaches of hosepipe bans affecting millions of customers over the past decade, The i Paper can reveal. As the UK is engulfed by record-breaking heat and droughts – water companies are increasingly resorting to bans on non-essential water use to manage scarce supplies, threatening fines of up to £1,000 for rule-breakers. More than 20 million people were banned from using hosepipes for watering their gardens, cars or washing windows this summer, the UK’s hottest ever. But despite hosepipe bans often causing neighbourly tensions to rise, those breaking the rules appear to have avoided any sanctions. Of the six water companies that had hosepipe bans between 2015 and last year, The i Paper can reveal four did not issue a single fine for rule-breakers. The other two companies refused to say whether they had levied penalties – meaning none of the six was able to disclose issuing a single fine. Cath Jones, head of household relationship management at the Consumer Council for Water (CCW), said fines “should always be a last resort”. But she added: “We know hosepipe restrictions can be inconvenient and will frustrate some customers, but water companies have a responsibility to act when sustained hot weather and high demand place an unsustainable strain on water supplies. “Research shows the vast majority of people agree hosepipe restrictions are a fair and effective step to protect supplies and most

When Ed Miliband stood up on Tuesday in the House of Commons to sanction Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements , the Foreign Secretary marked an historic shift in tone and foreign policy. In a remarkable ratcheting up of diplomatic language, he accused Israel of turning a blind eye to the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians by settlers, while also accusing them of terrorism. The dramatic change in foreign policy had only been six weeks in the planning. The i Paper spoke to dozens of officials, granting them anonymity to speak freely in order to write an account of warp-speed diplomacy across continents as most people were enjoying a summer holiday, while also showing the surprising role of First Lady Melania Trump . Trump might have been expected to back Israel and condemn Miliband. The president is not afraid to publicly chastise global leaders, as Sir Keir Starmer learnt to his cost in his dying days as prime minister. In the end, the president’s response was muted. Concerns in London over Washington’s response were not out of place. US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee , told the BBC on the morning of the announcement that the US was minded to invoke “sanctions, repercussions or retaliations” towards the UK, although he couldn’t articulate what they would look like and hadn’t spoken to Trump. Huckabee views modern Israel through a framework of Christian Zionism; God gave the land to the Jewish people through a biblical covenant with Abraham. Congressman Randy Fine later

One Sunday morning, Claire Baker was having an unusually successful time with the crossword in iweekend . It was the August bank holiday and she and her boyfriend, Chris Roberts, both long-time readers of The i Paper from Cardiff , had come away for a spa break in Nantwich, Cheshire. What Baker didn’t know was that this Jumbo General Knowledge Crossword, printed across the country, was in fact a marriage proposal that Chris had spent months secretly plotting with The i Paper and its puzzle setter. Answer after answer came peculiarly easily to Claire: the name of one of her favourite songs (Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You”); her profession (occupational therapy); one of her favourite films ( The Jungle Book ); even Cinderford, the small Gloucestershire town where she had grown up. In fact, it was all so coincidental that she turned to Chris and said: “We should keep this paper.” Claire had no idea quite how right she was – but was still yet to realise why. Chris and Claire had first met eight years earlier on a night out at Cardiff University Students’ Union, where they “got chatting and never stopped chatting since”. After they moved in together in 2021, Chris, a doctor, began sharing with his partner his love of puzzles as a way to unwind. “I grew up with parents who loved puzzles,” he says. “They were always doing the crossword, and over time I got into doing it with them. So when I started buying the paper – I’ve been reading The i Paper since I was 18

The Republicans are facing a monumental task as they try to keep control of Congress – and as Donald Trump places himself squarely at the forefront of the party’s election campaign. The scale of the challenge was especially clear this week, when Trump made a trademark almost two-hour speech at the party’s mid-term convention in Dallas . Yet, while Trump’s approval ratings may be sagging – now consistently below 40 per cent – given his enviable record of defying political gravity, he may still be the best hope Republicans have for keeping control of the House of Representatives and Senate . (At least, that’s what the Trump White House is trying to sell: that the more voters see of the President, the more votes Republicans will attract.) The President’s war with Iran is deeply unpopular – having sent oil prices back above $100 a barrel again – and his love of tariffs is fuelling higher inflation, hurting voters’ wallets, but in public at least, few Republican lawmakers dare break with him. In all ways that really matter, today’s Republican Party is Donald Trump. Republicans on the ballot this November are defined by him. At the convention in Dallas, his image was plastered all over the convention hall, just as it is on key federal buildings across Washington, DC. Republicans running for office are in a bind – many will feel they can’t win without him, might not win with him, but what other options do they have? The former reality TV star’s takeover of their party is so complete

HS2 is spending at least £40m filling in holes and closing down sites on the former route to Manchester – despite Andy Burnham’s pledge to bring it back, The i Paper can reveal. Around £1bn had already been spent buying properties and land and carrying out preliminary work on Phase 2 of the project north of Birmingham when it was cancelled by former Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in October 2023. The Government initially said it would lift the safeguarding of land and start selling homes back, but this was paused due to pressure from political leaders including Burnham who hoped to see the project resurrected. But The i Paper can reveal remediation work has now quietly resumed which will undo much of the work that was carried out between 2021 and 2023. This includes capping around 500 boreholes drilled into the ground between Birmingham and Manchester, as well as returning land and paying out compensation to landowners and property owners. The Department for Transport said the work is expected to cost around £40m. However, the return of HS2 contractors to several sites north of Birmingham has left local residents “confused” and suspicious that contractors are undoing work that will only have to be repeated if a rail line is revived. Labour’s rail strategy ‘forced Whitehall to act’ A Whitehall source told The i Paper the Government felt it had to give the green light to a ‘targeted decommissioning programme’ of work following the unveiling of Labour’s rail strategy in January

There was no shortage of issues that Robert F Kennedy Jr could have chosen to talk about in front of the somewhat thin Texas crowd assembled for the inaugural Republican Party midterm conference – now known as ‘Trumpapalooza’ . That he used his speech to accuse the Biden administration of turning the US federal government “into the biggest child trafficking operation in world history” speaks volumes of the moment we’re in, and the sinister impact that Donald Trump has had on US – and indeed world – politics. RFK Jr, as he’s almost always known, had sought the Democratic nomination for president for 2024, trading off his family name: he’s the son of assassinated Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy and the nephew of assassinated president John F Kennedy. When that failed, he briefly ran as an independent – promising to Make America Healthy Again – before rallying behind Trump, reportedly in exchange for the role he now holds : America’s Health and Human Services Secretary. On Thursday, he said that under the Biden administration his department had become “a collaborator in child trafficking for sex and for slavery”. “We have ended that,” he added, for good measure. It was perhaps the most eye-catching claim during the two-day event, which also featured Trump promising a $5,000 “dividend” for every American if Republicans kept control of Congress in the midterms. At present, the US is battling numerous health crises. Maternal morbidity has risen dramatically after