Dr Michael Symonds and Gavin Greenwood respond to an editorial on graduate loansYour editorial (8 February) is correct to highlight that a graduate levy by stealth is no way to fund the NHS and its potential consequences. This will include resident doctors, whose dissatisfaction with their pay and working conditions will be amplified by the chancellor’s statement that they now need to help pay for their own salaries.The anger that recent graduates feel will also be felt by their parents, many of whom benefited from free higher education and see as unfair the repayment/tax changes being imposed. The government should bear in mind the electoral near wipeout experienced by the Liberal Democrats in 2015, having enabled the Tory-led coalition to triple the cost of student fees, despite the manifesto pledge to remove it.Dr Michael SymondsEmeritus professor, University of Nottingham medical school Continue reading...

10 Feb 2026 16:51 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Moltbook, a social media site for AI agents, is nothing new. Still, the marriage of big tech and politics demands we take a standOn a recent trip to the San Francisco Bay Area, I was shocked by the billboards that lined the freeway outside of the airport. “The singularity is here,” proclaimed one. “Humanity had a good run,” said another. It seemed like every other sign along the road was plastered with claims from tech firms making outrageous claims about artificial intelligence. The ads, of course, were rife with hype and ragebait. But the claims they contain aren’t occurring in a vacuum. The OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, recently said: “We basically have built AGI, or very close to it,” before confusingly qualifying his statement as “spiritual”. Elon Musk has gone even further, claiming: “We have entered the singularity.”Enter Moltbook, the social media site built for AI agents. A place where bots can talk to other bots, in other words. A spate of doom-laden news articles and op-eds followed its launch. The authors fretted about the fact that the bots were talking about religion, claiming to have secretly spent their human builders’ money, and even plotting the overthrow of humanity. Many pieces contained suggestions eerily like those on the billboards in San Francisco: that machines are now not only as smart as humans (a theory known as artificial general intelligence) but that they are moving beyond us (a sci-fi concept known as the singularity).Samuel Woolley is the author of Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity and co-author of Bots. He is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Continue reading...

10 Feb 2026 11:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Bank snares biggest acquisition since it was bailed out by taxpayers in 2008 but it isn’t cheap – and may be slow to pay offNatWest to buy wealth manager Evelyn Partners for £2.7bnAnnounce a £2.7bn acquisition and watch your stock market value fall by £3.1bn.NatWest picked a bad day to announce its big move in the fashionable field of “wealth management” – the noise from Westminster created a poor backdrop for UK assets such as gilts and domestic banks. But the main problem with its Evelyn Partners deal is that it is very much of the “one for the long term” variety. The terms are not obviously cheap. Continue reading...

09 Feb 2026 18:38 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Lengthy delays in compensation are ‘emblematic’ of what many relatives of migrant workers go through in the Gulf kingdom, say rights groupsWhen Mohammad Arshad fell to his death while constructing the first new stadium for the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia, one of the main stadium contractors, the Belgian construction multinational Besix, promised it would take immediate steps to ensure all end-of-service and insurance payments were, “handled in a timely and respectful manner”.Almost a year later, Arshad’s family say they have yet to receive either. Continue reading...

11 Feb 2026 07:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Qatar still has infrastructure from 2022 World CupAhmedabad, India likely to be other host candidateQatar’s bid to host the 2036 Olympic Games has received a boost with the state-owned broadcaster beIN Sports concluding a media rights deal for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.It is understood that beIN has won the rights to broadcast LA 2028 in the Middle East and north Africa (Mena) region, with the contract signed by the International Olympic Committee president, Kirsty Coventry, and the beIN chair, Nasser al-Khelaifi, over the last few days at the Winter Games in Milan Cortina. Continue reading...

11 Feb 2026 08:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Kalshi says ‘incredible weekend’ after $145m in bets on Bad Bunny’s opening song and guests during half-time showOnline prediction market Kalshi hit a daily record on Super Bowl Sunday, surpassing $1bn in trading volume, the company announced on Tuesday.Kalshi’s CEO, Tarek Mansour, called it an “incredible weekend”, telling CNBC that “Kalshi was the biggest brand of the Super Bowl this year, without running a Super Bowl ad”. Continue reading...

10 Feb 2026 18:28 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

When piloted, initiative that provided €325 a week to eligible artists recouped more than its net cost, study shows Ireland is creating a scheme that will give artists a weekly income in the hope of reducing their need for alternative work and boosting their creativity.The Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) initiative will provide €325 (£283) a week to 2,000 eligible artists based in the Republic of Ireland in three-year cycles. Continue reading...

10 Feb 2026 19:21 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN