Author: BBC

Sean Dilley & Molly StazickerTransport correspondent & transport producerPAHeidi Alexander making a speech this week in front of a train carriage with the new GBR logoSouth Western Railway (SWR) has been renationalised, making it the first train company to transfer to public ownership under Labour.The first nationalised service, from Woking to Surbiton, departed on time at 05:36 on Sunday, though the ongoing journey to London Waterloo was on a rail replacement bus due to engineering work.The government called the move a “new dawn for rail” but held back from promising lower fares, focusing more on plans to improve services and…

Artificial intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic says testing of its new system revealed it is sometimes willing to pursue “extremely harmful actions” such as attempting to blackmail engineers who say they will remove it.The firm launched Claude Opus 4 on Thursday, saying it set “new standards for coding, advanced reasoning, and AI agents.”But in an accompanying report, it also acknowledged the AI model was capable of “extreme actions” if it thought its “self-preservation” was threatened.Such responses were “rare and difficult to elicit”, it wrote, but were “nonetheless more common than in earlier models.”Potentially troubling behaviour by AI models is not restricted…

Manish PandeyBBC NewsbeatReporting fromRadio 1’s Big Weekend in LiverpoolGetty ImagesEd Sheeran played at Big Weekend in 2022Ed Sheeran played a crowd-pleasing set with a surprise appearance at Radio 1’s Big Weekend.The Shape of You star performed on the New Music Stage on Saturday afternoon in Liverpool.Sheeran said he chose that stage because he’d “never played it before” and he felt the tent has “the best energy”.But there was disappointment for some fans with access having to be “temporarily paused” after reaching maximum capacity.Earlier, rumours of a “big name” guest circulated around Sefton Park, with Radio 1 then posting on their…

Specialist mental health crisis centres will be opened across England over the next decade in an attempt to reduce crowding in accident and emergency departments (A&E), the NHS has confirmed.Ten hospital trusts have been piloting new assessment centres to deal with people experiencing a mental health crisis.The aim is to get these patients to appropriate care in a calm environment, avoiding long waits in A&E. NHS England said the new units would reduce overcrowding in hospitals and relieve pressure on emergency services, including the police.But Andy Bell, the CEO of the Centre for Mental Health, said any new provision needed…

Catherine DoyleBBC News NIDeirdreDeirdre, from west Belfast, says food banks are “picking up the slack” for the governmentA single mother, from west Belfast, has said she doesn’t know how her “children would have been fed” without food banks.It comes after the anti-poverty charity Trussell Trust released annual figures showing a 71% increase in the number of emergency food parcels distributed in Northern Ireland in the past year compared to five years ago.The figures show that more than 77,000 parcels were provided by food banks to people “facing hunger” in Northern Ireland over the past year. The charity says it’s equivalent…

An Indian IT company is conducting an internal investigation to determine whether it was the gateway for the cyber-attack on Marks & Spencer, BBC News understands.Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has provided services to M&S for more than a decade.Earlier this week, M&S said the hackers who had brought huge disruption to the retailer had managed to gain access to their systems via a “third party” – a company working alongside it – rather than accessing those systems directly.M&S and TCS have both declined to comment.The FT, which first reported the story, cited people close to the investigation who said it…

Helen Bushby & Alex TaylorCulture reporterGetty ImagesA fan of Elden Ring attended last year’s Comic Con in New York dressed as the game’s Ranni the Witch Fans have reacted with a mixture of excitement and caution to the news that hit game Elden Ring is to be made into a live-action film.The epic dark fantasy game will be adapted by Alex Garland, who is known for movies like Ex Machina and Warfare, along with US entertainment company A24.”I am very excited,” said TikToker Blue Thunder, adding that he hopes it will stay faithful to the game. Grant Greenly added on…

Navtej Johal & Sophie WoodcockBBC News, NottinghamFamily handoutShelly Easom (pictured with her son Josef) said she felt “ashamed” after hearing that he had stabbed someone at a churchTwo men with paranoid schizophrenia stabbed members of the public in separate attacks weeks before Valdo Calocane’s killings in Nottingham – and all were under the care of the same NHS trust, the BBC has found.Josef Easom-Cooper and Junior Dietlin injured six men in the stabbings in Nottinghamshire in 2023.Within weeks, Calocane – who also has paranoid schizophrenia – stabbed to death Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates on 13 June 2023.Nottinghamshire…

American buyout firm RedBird has agreed a deal to take control of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph after a two-year ownership vacuum.RedBird Capital will buy the stake owned by Emirati royal Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Sultan al-Nahyan who had bankrolled an earlier bid.That bid was rejected by the previous government, which passed a law preventing foreign governments owning British newspapers or news magazines.The current proposed deal will need regulatory approval.Both Telegraph titles and the Spectator magazine were put up for auction by Lloyds Bank, who seized them from the Barclay family for non-payment of outstanding debts.In a bold but ultimately…

Joe FayTechnology ReporterGetty ImagesThe vigilance needed in the military can be an asset in cybersecurityLeading a foot patrol through an empty village in a conflict zone might seem a world away from working in a security operations centre (SOC) in a major enterprise.But, says former infantryman James Murphy, when you see a trashcan by the side of the road, and you know no-one is collecting rubbish that day: “The spider hairs on the back of your neck start tingling.”And that vigilance, says Mr Murphy, now director of veterans and families at the Forces Employment Charity, is precisely the sort of…