Corporation was told of claims by Christopher Berry-Dee that he had clothing, which was lost while in its possession<ul><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/aug/15/christopher-berry-dee-bestselling-true-crime-author-investigation">Christopher Berry-Dee is the UK’s all-time bestselling true crime author. Is he also a violent abuser of women and children?</a></li></ul>The BBC was warned by two whistleblowers that a British true crime author was claiming to have obtained the missing clothes of a child murder victim that the broadcaster had lost.The Guardian has established that the office of the former head of the BBC and the corporation’s whistleblowing unit were both informed that Christopher Berry-Dee, the UK’s most successful true crime author, had told people he had obtained the clothes of Karen Hadaway, who was murdered in 1986. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/aug/15/bbc-was-warned-of-authors-claim-to-possess-missing-clothes-of-child-victim">Continue reading...</a>

Corporation was told of claims by Christopher Berry-Dee that he had clothing, which was lost while in its possession

BBC was warned of author’s claim to possess missing clothes of child murder victim

Network wants to serve Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr after president sues over January 6 documentaryThe BBC is trying to subpoena Donald Trump’s children as it builds its defense against the president’s defamation lawsuit centered on a documentary on the January 6 insurrection.In a motion filed on Friday, the BBC sought authorization to serve Trump’s two eldest children, Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, with subpoenas for testimony and their records on the events of 6 January 2021. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/aug/14/bbc-trump-children-subpoenas-lawsuit">Continue reading...</a>

Network wants to serve Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr after president sues over January 6 documentary

BBC seeks to subpoena Trump children and son-in-law over defamation lawsuit

Constitutional council says curbs infringe freedom of expression and privacy as president vows to rework legislationFrance’s top court has blocked a ban on social media access for under-15s, ruling that it infringed freedom of expression and privacy.The decision is a blow to President Emmanuel Macron as momentum builds around the world for Australian-style restrictions on children’s use of social media. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/14/french-court-blocks-macron-social-media-ban-under-15s">Continue reading...</a>

Constitutional council says curbs infringe freedom of expression and privacy as president vows to rework legislation

French court blocks Macron’s social media ban for under-15s

The Guardian’s deputy editor of social platforms on the demand from high-profile people and brands for help in harnessing the power of TikTokI didn’t want to work in social media. If you’d asked 15-year-old me my dream job, I might have said foreign correspondent, or maybe travel writer. So you can imagine my surprise to now find myself giving these very colleagues advice on how to get the best selfie angle or write the sharpest TikTok ‘hook’.But taking a job as the Guardian’s deputy editor of social platforms may prove to be one of my smartest career moves if the current job market is to be believed. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/aug/15/business-critical-why-even-andy-burnham-is-taking-his-social-media-game-seriously">Continue reading...</a>

The Guardian’s deputy editor of social platforms on the demand from high-profile people and brands for help in harnessing the power of TikTok

No 10’s ads for a TikTok team show why social media is a smart career move

Social media and Shazam-like birdsong apps drawing young people to hobby as they seek a gentler connection to the outside worldSorry Elon, but they’re not your kind of tweets. Social media users are flocking to TikTok to join a burgeoning trend for birding videos as the hobby attracts a younger demographic.With the internet ever more cluttered with polarising, shouty and AI content, evidence is emerging of Britons preferring a gentler, more melodic window on the world in the shape of footage of the nation’s feathered friends. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/15/gen-z-flocks-to-birdtok-as-birding-takes-flight-its-a-craving-for-something-real">Continue reading...</a>

Social media and Shazam-like birdsong apps drawing young people to hobby as they seek a gentler connection to the outside world

Gen Z flocks to BirdTok as birding takes flight: ‘It’s a craving for something real’

Randall Lane left his job last month after accepting money from founder of firm that does business with magazineThe top editor of Forbes left his job last month and was reportedly dismissed for accepting $6m from the founder of a firm that does business with the magazine.The New York Times reported this week that Randall Lane was paid by RJ Shook, whose company, Shook Research, worked with Forbes since 2016 to publish rankings of wealth advisers. The payment was made after Shook sold a majority stake in the company to a private equity firm a year ago. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/aug/13/forbes-editor-fired">Continue reading...</a>

Randall Lane left his job last month after accepting money from founder of firm that does business with magazine

Top Forbes editor reportedly fired after receiving $6m from business associate

What’s it like to live on the set of a soap opera? Or above Ted Lasso’s favourite pub? The residents of the homes made famous by hit TV shows tell allHalf the world recognises the apartment that Carrie Bradshaw lives in. Or the New Jersey mansion where Tony Soprano ate, slept and obsessed over the ducks in his swimming pool. In the 1990s, if you asked a good chunk of the global population where Will Smith lived, they would instantly picture a huge, white abode in Bel Air.For the real people who call those places home, this can be an issue. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/aug/14/famous-tv-show-homes-real-residents-ted-lasso-sopranos">Continue reading...</a>

What’s it like to live on the set of a soap opera? Or above Ted Lasso’s favourite pub? The residents of the homes made famous by hit TV shows tell all

‘We get 200 tourists a day’: when your house becomes a TV star

The late-night host’s recent stints on Days of Our Lives and General Hospital have brought viewers to a dwindling genreA man in a dark suit steps down from a helicopter into the aftermath of a warehouse shootout. Flanked by machine gun-toting members of his tactical team, he stalks through the carnage. Without breaking stride, he comes to a defeated fighter lying face down, reaching for a handgun, and shoots him at close range. The man stops in front of another fighter clinging to life, causing her to recoil in fear. “Everything’s gonna be OK,” John Oliver says, as the camera eases into focus for his closeup. “I’m here to help.”For the past two months, US daytime television watchers have been reduced to double takes and stitches as the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/series/john-oliver-recap">Last Week Tonight</a> host has embarked on a summer side quest to become a soap opera star. It began with a three-episode arc on <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://abc.com/show/dfb4bf14-9ed3-4a32-a3d6-128434d2e5e7">General Hospital</a> with Oliver making his grand entrance as Z, head of the deep state-coded World Security Bureau. And it continued this week with another three-episode arc on Days of Our Lives as Devlin St John, chief water inspector for the soap’s mythic town of Salem. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/aug/14/john-oliver-days-of-our-lives-general-hospital">Continue reading...</a>

The late-night host’s recent stints on Days of Our Lives and General Hospital have brought viewers to a dwindling genre

‘I’d like a dramatic closeup’: John Oliver takes over daytime TV with delightfully wooden soap opera roles

Actor who played Shirley Johnson in the sitcom Citizen Smith, and whose dozens of other roles included EastEnders, Doctor Who and The BillCheryl Hall, who has died aged 76, was an actor best known for her roles in 1970s sitcoms. As Shirley Johnson in Citizen Smith, she was the girlfriend of Wolfie, the would-be revolutionary leading the Tooting Popular Front with the battle cry “power to the people”.Wolfie Smith, played by Hall’s then husband, the actor Robert Lindsay, and his small “army” of self-styled urban guerrillas, are simply inept, concocting plans such as stealing a Scorpion tank in order to mount an attack on the House of Commons, only to discover that parliament is in recess. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/aug/14/cheryl-hall-obituary">Continue reading...</a>

Actor who played Shirley Johnson in the sitcom Citizen Smith, and whose dozens of other roles included EastEnders, Doctor Who and The Bill

Cheryl Hall obituary

There is dignity and tenderness to this drama based on the real story of the Sixties Scoop – the scandal of First Nations children who were forcibly taken from their parents and adopted by white familiesHere’s one you’ll like: a man comes home to find his wife handcuffed to the wall and his young children missing. They have been taken by child protection services due to the lack of a fridge in the house, which is treated as a sign of neglect. When he confronts law enforcement officials outside, they beat him to death. Decades later, one of the children, now adopted into a Jewish home in Montreal, goes looking for the family she lost, risking the collapse of her new life to do so. I never said it was a joke. Although it turns out there was a fridge, behind the house.Watching Little Bird (18 August, 9pm, Sky Atlantic), I was reminded that TV is capable of more than mere entertainment, something we lose sight of when we think of it as a purely profit-or loss-making enterprise. I felt the visceral anger and sadness of this story of a First Nations woman caught between cultures, robbed by forces beyond her control and stonewalled by the authorities. Set in Canada, the attitude, if not the events, feel shamefully familiar. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/aug/15/little-bird-canadian-drama-first-nations-children-sixties-scoop-adoptions">Continue reading...</a>

There is dignity and tenderness to this drama based on the real story of the Sixties Scoop – the scandal of First Nations children who were forcibly take...

Little Bird: this beautiful, moving Canadian drama will fill you with visceral anger

The press secretary’s communication style made her eminently qualified for a role in this administrationKaroline Leavitt, 28, is leaving her demanding job as Donald Trump’s press secretary <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/12/karoline-leavitt-resigns">to spend more time</a> with her two young children and her 60-year-old husband. According to a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/2087624257446572154?s=20">post</a> by Trump On Truth Social, Leavitt will be departing her role at the end of the month and will serve as one of Trump’s “top outside advisors”.In other words: the official version of events is that Leavitt is resigning on her own terms for family reasons and not because Trump’s approval ratings are at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker">record lows</a> and she’s a rat fleeing a sinking ship. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/14/karoline-leavitt-legacy-of-lies-trump-aide">Continue reading...</a>

The press secretary’s communication style made her eminently qualified for a role in this administration

Karoline Leavitt leaves behind a legacy of lies. What’s next for the Trump aide? | Arwa Mahdawi

In an unexpected twist, a Hollywood epic has contributed to Britain’s best-ever half-year in poetry salesIn a short story called Career Move, published in the New Yorker in 1992, Martin Amis imagined a world in which screenwriters wrote for little magazines and earned a pittance while poets were global superstars. Amis’s story, a wonderfully ironic inversion of the time-honoured norm, was surprisingly prescient: the film and TV industries have been struggling, with screenwriters facing <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://deadline.com/2026/08/tv-film-writing-jobs-decline-2025-wga-report-1237018792/%20whereas%20poets%20are%20now%20big%20business.">contracting outlets</a> for their creations, whereas poets are now <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/aug/07/its-not-just-homer-the-new-generation-of-poets-enjoying-epic-success">big business</a>.The Bookseller reported recently that poetry sales were at a <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.thebookseller.com/news/a-homer-run-poetry-poised-to-hit-its-all-time-uk-high">historic high</a>. Part of the increase can be attributed to Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey, which has made Homer hot: editions of The Odyssey and its prequel, The Iliad, have garnered almost £1m in book sales in the UK this year. (As well as valiantly trying to keep the ailing film industry afloat, Nolan has also created a craze for epic poetry.) But Nolan’s film does not solely account for the boom in poetry sales. Even without the Homer run, sales of poetry texts and anthologies were still up by 7.2% from what was historically already a very high base.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/tone/letters"> letters</a> section, please <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="mailto:guardian.letters@theguardian.com?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city/town/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.">click here</a>. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/14/the-guardian-view-on-booming-poetry-sales-homer-meet-the-instapoets">Continue reading...</a>

In an unexpected twist, a Hollywood epic has contributed to Britain’s best-ever half-year in poetry sales

The Guardian view on booming poetry sales: Homer, meet the Instapoets | Editorial

As ESPN cuts expert voices and rewards viral argument, fans who want to understand basketball are building a smarter conversation elsewhereAfter the Phoenix Suns dumped the Golden State Warriors out of last season’s play-in, Stephen A Smith settled behind the First Take desk to explain why Steve Kerr might have coached his last game. Midway through the burial, he <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://awfulannouncing.com/nba/stephen-a-smith-golden-state-warriors-playoffs-mistake.html">claimed</a> the Warriors hadn’t “been to the playoffs since that championship in 2022” – a four-year drought in his telling – before grumbling that Golden State could pay someone far less than $17m a year to miss the postseason.Cool. Except the drought never happened. Golden State reached the conference semi-finals in 2023 and again in 2025. ESPN anchor Shae Cornette, who had command of the basic facts, tried to smuggle that inconvenient reality into the discussion. It went nowhere. Apparently, nobody on an ESPN set is permitted to correct the franchise “star”. Only weeks earlier, Smith had been <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://nbcahof.org/stephen-a-smith/">inducted into the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame</a> for his work in media. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/aug/15/espn-layoffs-nba-coverage-hot-takes">Continue reading...</a>

As ESPN cuts expert voices and rewards viral argument, fans who want to understand basketball are building a smarter conversation elsewhere

As ESPN cuts familiar faces, its retreat from serious NBA coverage is complete

End of News Feed

The woman claimed that AI tools are "taking everyday life and turning it into child sexual abuse."

Woman claims her stepfather used Grok to transform childhood photo into explicit imagery

How will the watermarking actually work? Can it be hidden with editing? And how does this affect code?

Anthropic shares more details about how Claude’s new watermarks will work

AI coding startup Cursor is now officially a part of SpaceX.

SpaceX officially closes its Cursor acquisition

A guide on how to check if hackers have broken into your accounts on the most popular AI platforms.

How to tell if your AI platforms’ accounts have been hacked

Fusion startups have raised $7.1 billion to date, with the majority of it going to a handful of companies. 

Every fusion startup that has raised over $100M

PayPal is still reportedly negotiating a potential sale to Stripe and private equity firm Advent, as the fintech firm's new CEO attempts to turn the company around. 

PayPal is still reportedly negotiating a potential sale to Stripe and private equity firm Advent, as the fintech firm's new CEO attempts to turn the comp...

Talks to sell PayPal to Stripe and Advent are heating up

Aurora Innovation and Kodiak AI, two companies developing self-driving trucks, have received permits from the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

Self-driving trucks are officially testing on California highways

The AI opportunity is huge, but "it would also be a grave error in our minds to let excitement weaken our investment discipline," Kushner warns in his first-ever investment letter.

The AI opportunity is huge, but "it would also be a grave error in our minds to let excitement weaken our investment discipline," Kushner warns in his fi...

Thrive’s Joshua Kushner chides Silicon Valley VCs over AI euphoria

Over the last couple of weeks, hackers have targeted and broken into the systems of several water plants in the United States. Here’s what we know and don’t know about this wave of attacks allegedly carried out by the Iranian government.

Over the last couple of weeks, hackers have targeted and broken into the systems of several water plants in the United States. Here’s what we know and do...

What we know about the alleged Iranian hacks on US water utilities

Pocket users have until October 8, 2025, to export their saved articles and other items, including lists, archives, favorites, notes, and highlights.

Read-it-later app Pocket shut down — here are the best alternatives

Unforgetful, the latest app from longtime indie developer Marco Arment, is designed to make reminders harder to ignore — or accidentally dismiss.

Unforgetful is a new reminders app for people who can’t stop hitting snooze

Turning off this setting won't affect invisible benchmarks used to identify an AI generated file.

Google will now allow users to remove visible watermark from its AI generations

Meta released Glimmer this week, an open-weight AI&#160;model&#160;anyone can download and run on their own hardware&#160;— a contrast to&#160;Muse&#160;Spark, the company’s more powerful model that stays locked behind its own APIs. The release landed alongside&#160;a letter from Mark Zuckerberg&#160;arguing AI should be “for everyone” rather than controlled by a handful of labs, but as Equity’s [&#8230;]

Meta released Glimmer this week, an open-weight AI&#160;model&#160;anyone can download and run on their own hardware&#160;— a contrast to&#160;Muse&#160;...

Does Mark Zuckerberg really believe AI is ‘for everyone’?

Apple is asking a federal judge to allow it to charge commissions of up to 15% on purchases made through external links in iOS apps.

Apple proposes to take a 15% cut of purchases made outside the App Store

The idea that GPUs are poorly suited for agentic workflows may be a misconception, according to French startup Kog.

Kog is going deeper to squeeze more inference out of GPUs

Natural gas prices could triple in some parts of the U.S., which could saddle hyperscalers with massive bills to power their AI data centers.

Hyperscalers might regret embracing natural gas if new forecast proves correct

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts told TechCrunch that it will start disclosing how many times judges authorized the use of spyware to wiretap suspected criminals.

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts told TechCrunch that it will start disclosing how many times judges authorized the use of spyware to wiretap...

US courts will start publishing how often the government uses spyware

The partnership is expanding beyond the initial market of Zagreb, Croatia to four additional European cities. 

Uber and Pony.ai plan to bring 2,000 robotaxis to Europe

The plaintiffs say they invested nearly $1.2 million in the company, and are accusing Gomez of failing to build and market the startup. 

Investors sue Selena Gomez alleging fraud tied to her mental health startup

The surveillance company announced it's making a tool called "Audit Assistance" mandatory for all customers, claiming it's already helped catch abuse. But the company has yet to explain how the tool works in detail, raising questions about its effectiveness.

The surveillance company announced it's making a tool called "Audit Assistance" mandatory for all customers, claiming it's already helped catch abuse. Bu...

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