Author: BBC

Helen Drew & Jess WarrenBBC NewsBBCTower Hamlets Council estimates the grant will help about 7,000 students About 7,000 families in east London are set to benefit from a council’s universal school uniform grant.The £150 will be available to children who are entering their first year of primary or secondary school, if their families have a household income of £50,350 or less.Lutfur Rahman, mayor of Tower Hamlets, said it would “go some way” to support children in the borough, while Mohi, a local parent, said school uniform costs were a “matter of worry” for himself and his family.It comes as the…

Two humanoid robots traded punches while fans watched on, in a competition held in Hangzhou, China, on Sunday.The fight was part of the China Media Group World Robot Competition and featured robots developed by Unitree Robotics.The event included both fighting demonstrations and matches, marking a world-first combat sports event featuring humanoid robots.

Paul GlynnCulture reporterWatch: A look back at Alan Yentob’s colourful, creative careerAlan Yentob, the long-serving BBC arts broadcaster and documentary-maker, has died aged 78.Yentob profiled and interviewed a wide range of important cultural and creative figures over the years, including David Bowie, Charles Saatchi, Maya Angelou and Grayson Perry, for TV series such as Omnibus, Arena and Imagine.He also served as controller of BBC One and Two, and the organisation’s creative director and head of music and arts during a long and varied career.Paying tribute to her late husband, Philippa Walker described Yentob as “curious, funny, annoying, late and creative…

Elin AlexanderBBC Wales NewsBBCMarianne Barry, 29, believes there is a lack of understanding about PMDDIf 29-year-old Marianne Barry doesn’t take the contraceptive pill each day, she could have symptoms of severe anxiety or even suicidal thoughts.Marianne has pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), a condition which affects as many as 8% of women and causes intense emotional and physical symptoms in the days leading up to menstruation – with an average wait time for a diagnosis of around 12 years.Contraceptive medication remains the primary course of treatment for women living with PMDD, but for women who wish to become pregnant this poses…

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…