‘No more!!!’: Trump lashes out after US-Canada talks devolve into trade war
Posted on Sunday August 23, 2026

PM Mark Carney says ‘we got attacked’ as tariffs come into force on items from hockey sticks to tongue depressors

• The lesson from Canada’s collapsed trade talks with the US: negotiation may be futile

Donald Trump has hit back at Canada after a breakdown in negotiations plunged the two countries into a trade war.

In his first public comments since negotiations collapsed on Friday in Washington, the US president wrote on social media: “Canada wants the benefits of being a State, without being one!!!”

Read more...

CrossCountry cancels almost all rail services after power cut hits control centre
Posted on Sunday August 23, 2026

Transport secretary asks ‘publicly owned operators to lay on extra services where possible’

CrossCountry cancelled almost all of its train services in Great Britain on Sunday after a power cut in Birmingham hit its control centre.

Most services were cancelled until further notice, including routes from Glasgow to Edinburgh, Manchester to Birmingham, Cheltenham to Cardiff and Newcastle to Edinburgh.

Read more...

Former Abercrombie CEO mentally fit for sex-trafficking trial, judge says
Posted on Sunday August 23, 2026

Michael Jeffries is ruled mentally competent to stand trial after being hospitalized for months for dementia symptoms

The former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch has been ruled mentally competent to stand trial as he faces sex-trafficking charges after being hospitalized for months for dementia and Alzheimer’s symptoms.

Michael Jeffries, who is 82 and free on bond for now, is scheduled to be tried in late October, alongside two co-defendants: his partner Matthew Smith and staffer James Jacobson. A pretrial hearing was slated for Thursday.

Read more...

‘The line’s running half-empty’: Llanwern steelworks feels the heat from cheap steel imports
Posted on Sunday August 23, 2026

New quotas to protect UK firms and jobs appear to be having opposite effect in products such as galvanised steel

At Tata Steel’s factory in Llanwern, south Wales, production lines that should be running full-time are now falling quiet for parts of the day, with workers being put on to maintenance and cleaning work while machines sit idle.

There aren’t enough orders to keep them running all the time, the company says, because of a surge of cheap steel coming from Asian countries that is threatening the viability of several UK sites that make similar products, and risk hundreds of jobs.

Read more...

‘We are hitting a different chapter’: OpenAI leader warns of threat of ‘persistent’ AI cyber-attacks
Posted on Sunday August 23, 2026

Chris Lehane tells Guardian of need to implement new safety standards as critics say AI firms acting ‘recklessly’

A senior leader at OpenAI has said people should prepare to defend against “ongoing, persistent” cyber-attacks from AIs, as cutting-edge artificial intelligence models gain advanced capabilities to plan and launch offensives.

The leading AI company this week announced a pause in development of its most advanced internal models amid rising safety fears, and Chris Lehane, its chief global affairs officer, said: “We are hitting a different chapter, a different moment within AI, in terms of what the capabilities of this technology can do.”

Read more...

Hook, hold, harvest and hide: Meta’s alleged strategy laid out in first week of landmark trial
Posted on Saturday August 22, 2026

In trial that opened on Tuesday, California and 28 other states accused the company of designing addictive sites and violating laws protecting children’s privacy

Meta’s business can be boiled down to four words that begin with the letter H: hook, hold, harvest, hide, according to a lawyer who is prosecuting the world’s largest social media company.

The owner of Facebook and Instagram “hooks” in users, “holds” them on its platforms for as long as possible, “harvests” their data and then “hides” the truth from the public, she argued.

Read more...

Liverpool’s Szoboszlai spot on with late, late leveller to salvage point at Newcastle
Posted on Sunday August 23, 2026

Before kick-off a banner was raised in the Gallowgate End inscribed with a quotation from the late Kevin Keegan. “I want people to dream about their football,” it read. “We should all be dreamers at heart.”

Out on the pitch it swiftly became apparent that both Matthias Jaissle, Keegan’s latest successor in the Newcastle dugout, and Liverpool’s new manager Andoni Iraola are on individual missions to create forms of organised chaos capable of subjecting the best opponents to torrid nightmares.

Read more...

Frustrated Lewis Hamilton claims Ferrari strategy cost him F1 Dutch GP podium
Posted on Sunday August 23, 2026

• Briton says team too slow to pit Charles Leclerc

• ‘It’s something that we need to discuss offline’

Lewis Hamilton has told his Ferrari team that they must up their game if he is to remain in the Formula One world championship fight after the British driver was angry with strategy calls at the Dutch Grand Prix, comparing them unfavourably with the decisive way his former team ­Mercedes had acted.

The race was won by McLaren’s Lando Norris from Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli and George Russell. Hamilton was fourth but believed he might have had a shot of a podium had Ferrari moved Charles Leclerc aside sooner when Hamilton, on a different tyre strategy, was quicker than his teammate.

Read more...