Keyword – Business
Trefwoorden – Jaguar Land Rover, Automotive industry, Manufacturing sector, Business, West Midlands, UK news, Job losses
Title – ‘Everything is against us’: Jaguar Land Rover suppliers voice fears amid carmaker’s cutbacks | Jaguar Land Rover | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/neha-gohil
Link – ‘Everything is against us’: Jaguar Land Rover suppliers voice fears amid carmaker’s cutbacks | Jaguar Land Rover | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T11:00:01.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/08/jaguar-land-rover-suppliers-job-cuts

D avid Roberts is not in an optimistic mood. The chair of Coventry-based Evtec may preside over a business with 900 highly skilled employees, multiple sites and precision machinery, but the outlook for the manufacturer appears tricky. “Everything is against us,” he says.

Evtec is a “tier 1” supplier to Jaguar Land Rover, also headquartered in Coventry, which this week announced 4,000 job cuts over two years even as the chancellor, John Healey, attempted to talk up Britain’s growth prospects in his first big speech, just down the road.

The cuts have stoked fears for the estimated tens of thousands of people across the UK who are employed in the supply chain to Britain’s biggest carmaker, particularly in the West Midlands . JLR made the cuts in the face of intense competition from Chinese carmakers, Donald Trump’s tariff wars and the fallout from a cyber-attack.

Roberts warns the automotive demand will “contract inexorably over the next five years” without significant support and changes in government policy.

“Nobody knows the rate or speed of that decline, but decline it will, because everything is against us, everything, [when] making cars in the UK,” says the chair of Evtec, which specialises in high-pressure aluminium die casting and has sites in Coventry and Kidderminster.

The JLR chief executive, PB Balaji, hopes to save £1.7bn through the cuts which will mainly affect employees at its head office. He said the automotive industry “faces significant challenges, with technological change amid intense competition and ongoing geopolitical uncertainty”.

The decision marks the latest in a string of worrying signs of decline for the industry, threatening Andy Burnham’s ambition to “safeguard sovereign manufacturing” and reindustralise Britain.

Corin Crane, the group chief executive of the Chamber of Commerce in Coventry and Warwickshire, believes 140,000 to 180,000 people are employed in supply chain businesses connected to JLR.

“It’s really hard to underestimate exactly how important JLR is to the West Midlands economy,” he says. “We make stuff here and so many of our businesses are in the supply chain for JLR and even if not manufacturing companies, the business support companies, the professional services, all of them have contracts with this great big supplier.

“So when there’s problems with JLR, it’s a broader problem for the West Midlands as a whole.”

Oxford Economics has estimated JLR contributed £8.7bn to the West Midlands in 2024, equivalent to 4.7% of the regional economy – as well as contributing £1.1bn to the north-west, where it has a plant at Halewood.

The importance of JLR to the local and UK-wide economy was underscored last year when the devastating hack left suppliers struggling and hit UK GDP . JLR scrambled to set up a help desk for its supply chain, including more than 700 companies making the 30,000 parts that can make up a luxury car.

The hack paused production for four weeks, leaving factory workers stuck at home, and costing the manufacturer £200m. It was one of several factors contributing to JLR posting a profit before tax of just £14m – down from £2.5bn the year before.

This time, white-collar managers and research and development staff are in the crosshairs, with the cuts expected to be largely found through UK voluntary redundancies in those areas. However, there are concerns over a ripple effect if JLR’s struggles persist.

Evtec’s Roberts has united a loose collective of about 15 business that supply JLR, making up £2bn of revenue and with 12,000-14,000 employees, in order to speak with a “common voice” about the issues they are facing.

He describes JLR as the “kingpin” of the UK’s automotive industry and warns that challenges facing the manufacturer had knock-on effects on suppliers and smaller car manufacturers including McLaren, Aston Martin, Bentley and Rolls-Royce.

“There will come a point that the decline will be unstoppable and that will be the end of the motor industry as we currently know it. We’ll just be a very small volume player,” he says.

Industry experts have long warned of the growing challenges facing car manufacturers in the UK, from the increased competition from China, Trump’s tariffs and the transition to electric vehicles.

Healey acknowledged it was a “worrying time” for JLR’s workers and suppliers on Monday, while the mayor of the West Midlands, Richard Parker, announced a £500,000 support package for JLR staff. The business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, who has ruled out state support to protect the jobs, will meet the company and the Unite union to discuss the cuts on Tuesday.

The owner of a plastic manufacturer based in Birmingham, who has supplied JLR for decades, says his workforce has been cut by about 75% because of the challenges facing the sector.

The business owner, who did not want to be identified, calls on JLR to be more transparent with suppliers and the public in order to restore confidence.

“We’ve got owners that do want to invest in taking us to the next level but they need the transparency, the visibility and confidence in future UK productions … to justify investment,” he says.

The business owner also voices concerns about the broader impact of declining industry on jobs and skills in the local area.

“JLR supports an enormous network of tool-makers and moulders, manufacturers and engineers across the whole region, so it’s affecting us all,” he says. “The saddest aspect is we could potentially lose decades of engineering if we haven’t got these big companies in the Midlands supporting it any more.”

Steve Morley, the president of the Confederation of British Metalforming, echoes concerns for the automotive industry but says the announcement of job cuts was not a surprise.

“Previous government policies have done nothing to support the automotive sector at all and the writing has been on the wall for a long time, not only here but in Europe as well,” he says.

Specifically, he criticises high labour and energy costs in the UK, as well as policies around EVs. The industry has argued the government’s EV sales targets are too onerous.

Reynolds has refused to rule out watering down government targets for UK automakers to reach 80% zero-emission car sales by 2030, which would lead to a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035.

Morley says: “If we want to be competitive, we have to have infrastructure that lets us be competitive. We cannot afford to have the energy costs we’ve got, the labour costs we’ve got, the policies around EV that stranglehold the automotive sector.”

Balaji said on Monday JLR was “committed to supporting everyone with care, fairness and respect” through the redundancy process.

A government spokesperson said it understands that this will be an “uncertain and concerning time for affected workers, their families and wider communities”.

Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Film, Culture, Owen Wilson, Action and adventure films
Title – Runner review – Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson thriller is serviceable B-movie camp | Film | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/adrian-horton
Link – Runner review – Alan Ritchson and Owen Wilson thriller is serviceable B-movie camp | Film | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T11:00:01.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/sep/08/runner-review-alan-ritchson-owen-wilson

C redit where credit is due: of the many, many variations on the hammy late-summer action romp, very few have applied the gonzo B-movie treatment – physics-defying car chases, knee-smashing violence and the like – to the practice of organ transportation.

Donor delivery is not the direction you think things are going in upon first meeting Hank Malone, Alan Ritchson’s outlandishly muscled fixer, of sorts, in Runner, the latest attempt from faith-based distributor Angel Studios to enter the market of more straightforward base entertainment.

Embodying the term “ex-military” in appearance and vibe (we get an early and ominous “I don’t hurt people any more” proclamation), this “big American Wario” – so says his phone-only handler – seems more suited for high-stakes extractions and special-op missions than life on a houseboat in Australia. There, he Duolingos French in between AA meetings and runs bespoke errands up to and including exotic bird delivery. But Runner, directed by action film veteran Scott Waugh ( 6 Below , Need for Speed ) from a script by Miles Hubley and Tommy White (and not to be confused with Gal Gadot’s comparatively drab The Runner , also out this month), possesses enough unpretentious humor and B-movie sensibility to approach camp.

And thus, a seemingly straightforward assignment – drive a donated liver from the airport in Brisbane to the little girl with cancer and her frazzled mother (Leila George) languishing in Gold Coast children’s hospital – goes terribly, and dare I say enjoyably, awry. For one, the liver comes accompanied by Owen Wilson , going through the motions as Ben Bishop, a folksy bon vivant in a fedora with an annoying tendency to refer to himself in the third person. For another, there’s a seemingly endless series of cartel hitmen who, like the infamous dog who ate the ill-fated heart in One Tree Hill, are inspirationally absurd, singularly focused on the valuable organ at hand and largely mute.

One may ask, as Ben Bishop does: “What is the cartel doing in Queensland, Australia?!” Little clarity is provided, other than that rare blood-type livers apparently go for upwards of a million dollars on the black market. But no matter – Runner soon offers reason enough, along with the requisite B-movie pleasures: multiple telenovela-worthy plot twists; Ritchson coolly delivering lines such as “I’m the only one we can trust right now” while flexing his jaw; a steady escalation of gun size and hand-to-hand combat (why is the Colombian cartel reliant on Aussie biker gangs? Who knows!); the opportunity for the non-Aussie viewers among us to learn the approximate geography of the space between Brisbane and the Gold Coast; a battle of Range Rovers propulsive enough to keep one on the hook for a respectable 98 minutes. And chiefly, the deliciously sinister Rodrigo Santoro as an open wound of a cartel boss known as Damian, so in touch with his molten core, for reasons to be revealed, that he appears to be on the verge of tears in every shootout.

As former stuntman, director Waugh knows his way around a jam-packed action sequence, careening the camera around a car chase or a six-versus-one beatdown with the panache of a sports star. There’s a vertiginous video-game logic to Runner’s shin-splitting, anvil-heavy violence that at once unites the film with its innumerable Netflix brethren and also distinguishes it from them. That our POV sometimes resembles a (glorious) death spiral is perhaps for the best, as there’s little else to back it up. Though both are playing squarely to type, Ritchson and Wilson’s chemistry is at best serviceable, at worst an (admittedly soapy) distraction from the cartoonish antics at hand. Attempts at big feelings to accompany the big biceps – yes, the big American Wario has a tragic backstory – have the emotional heft of checking a box. In the film’s meta battle between action camp and sincerity camp, the former is winning by a bro-country mile – and yes, you get that needle drop, too – though I do appreciate any movie where grown men cry.

I’m reluctant to value brawn over everything else, but given the ignominious glut of straight-to-streaming background noise, it’s hard to root against a theatrical release that, knowingly or not, lands some truly cataclysmic punches with enough over-the-top silliness to force a smile. That some heart got lost in transit is, in this case, just fine.

Runner is out in Australia on 10 September and in the US and UK on 11 September

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Foreign policy, Ukraine, Wes Streeting, Defence policy, Politics, Europe, UK news, World news
Title – UK commits £100m to bolster Ukraine’s air defences over winter | Foreign policy | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jamie-grierson,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/dan-sabbagh
Link – UK commits £100m to bolster Ukraine’s air defences over winter | Foreign policy | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T10:56:50.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/sep/08/uk-commits-100m-bolster-ukraine-air-defences-russia-war

The UK has committed £100m to boost Ukraine’s air defences over winter by buying a package of US military equipment that will include a number of urgently needed Patriot missiles.

The air defence interceptors plus large-calibre artillery rounds and other drones will be supplied to Ukraine through a contribution to a Nato scheme to buy American weapons.

Ukraine is currently unable to prevent Russian ballistic missile attacks due to a shortage of Patriot interceptors, leading to attacks that have killed civilians and destroyed food and logistics warehouses over the summer.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he wants to obtain 300 Patriot missiles, costing about $3m (£2.6m) each, to help Kyiv protect its electricity, heating and water systems through the normally hard winter.

The UK did not say how many Patriots it would be able to buy, but the number is likely to be only a fraction of the number sought, though other western allies are also examining how they can help Kyiv defend itself.

The UK defence secretary, Wes Streeting , is due to co-chair his first meeting of the Ukraine defence contact group, made up of about 50 nations providing military equipment to Kyiv, with his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius, on Tuesday afternoon.

The virtual meeting, also due to be attended by Elbridge Colby, the US undersecretary for defence policy, will discuss how to further provide military aid to Ukraine as the war heads towards its fifth anniversary.

The UK recently agreed to declassify blueprints for British-made components for the Scalp missile, a French-produced version of the Storm Shadow, which has already been used to hit targets in Russia.

Streeting said: “Both the prime minister and I heard loud and clear on our first visits to Kyiv the importance of supporting Ukraine through this winter, as Putin prepares to use winter as a weapon by continuing barbaric attacks against civilian and energy targets.

“We promised to mobilise allies and provide more support wherever we can. Today, we are delivering on that, strengthening Ukraine’s defences and, alongside 50 allies, converting commitment into capability.

“We will stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine until they win. Ukraine’s frontline is the frontline for freedom everywhere and our support will not waver.”

The prime minister, Andy Burnham, spoke to the US president, Donald Trump, about the war on Monday, with the two agreeing on the need to “continue working towards a ceasefire that prevented more loss of life”.

US envoys held talks in Kyiv on Sunday during an official visit to the country as part of an effort to end the conflict with Russia. While the talks were described as encouraging, no breakthrough was made. Zelenskyy said it appeared the war would continue into winter.

Keyword – Books
Trefwoorden – Gloria Steinem, Books, Feminism, Women, Culture, Society
Title – ‘She blazed in and opened my eyes to the real world’: Readers remember Gloria Steinem | Gloria Steinem | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/guardian-readers
Link – ‘She blazed in and opened my eyes to the real world’: Readers remember Gloria Steinem | Gloria Steinem | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T10:26:19.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/sep/08/she-blazed-in-and-opened-my-eyes-to-the-real-world-readers-remember-gloria-steinem

‘She let me feel normal’

What I appreciated most about Gloria was she let me feel normal. I graduated in engineering as one of three women in a class of over 150. In her world, a feminist was a woman that wanted to be judged for her capabilities and not her gender. She was very inspirational and empowering when I first read her books as a young engineer. Teresa, Switzerland

‘A stalwart in my life’

She was a stalwart in my life and my evolution as a feminist and a supporter of the rights of women. I met Gloria Steinem once, at the very beginning of her career and of my own. Fresh out of Wellesley College, I travelled with a friend, another aspiring journalist, to cover the World Festival of Youth and Students, held in Vienna in the summer of 1959. The festival, it was widely acknowledged, was sponsored by the Soviet bloc; it came in the wake of the failed Hungarian revolt against communism and attracted young people from all over the world. From the US, there were two delegations, one called the New York group, the other the Cambridge crowd. Gloria Steinem was the super-glamorous, gorgeous, dynamic “secretary” of the Cambridge crowd. In her low-cut summer frock and what we called, even back then, “fuck-me sandals” she was a knockout, everywhere, directing operations, arranging for Ella Fitzgerald (no less) to give a free concert, feeding journalists stories, prompts, questions. I don’t think her official title was anything more than secretary, but clearly she was the person in charge. I was not surprised when she emerged several years later as a key figure in the burgeoning women’s movement. Her combination of brains and a well-nourished sense of humour brought strength, wit, and intelligence to the movement. And now, when we really need her like again, she is gone – but I pray her memory will continue to strengthen all of us who care about women’s lives and futures. Nancy Harmon Jenkins, 89, journalist, Camden, Maine

‘A lovely, gracious person’

In March of 2014, I was surprised to see Gloria Steinem got on my uptown 6 subway train here in NYC. It was fairly busy on the train but when someone offered her a seat she declined and said she was just going a couple of stops. She was very smiley and casual and even though it was likely most passengers in the car wouldn’t have known who she was, somehow it was clear everyone knew she was someone. This included a young woman who shyly approached her and they spoke for a few minutes and I should say Steinem looked thrilled to bits about this – just seemed like a lovely, gracious person and – like all true New Yorkers – happy to hop on the subway. Niko Wolf, New York City

‘I owe so much to her courage and strength’

Gloria blazed into my consciousness in high school, around 1975. She opened my eyes to the real world; I could define sexism and rail against it. In my 30s, my nickname, Little Miss Independent, surprised me. I was just living my life as I saw fit. She has given me a beautiful one, filled with love, joy, and travel. I owe so much to her courage and strength. I was blessed to come of age with her voice leading the way. I attended a talk held in a local school gym and travelled to the Woman’s March in DC in 2017. Her voice was manna from heaven. Jean, retired educator , New Jersey

‘The catalyst for my lifelong interest in gender studies’

I was attending Wichita State University in 1972 when Gloria Steinem spoke at a forum there. After she spoke she talked with some of us who attended. She was so warm and friendly. She inspired many of us to work to pass the ERA (equal rights amendment) even though it later failed. A year or two after meeting her I moved to Tehran, Iran. She certainly helped me have a different perspective on the living situations of women in Iran as well as the United States. She was very influential in my decision to study what was known then as women’s studies. She was the catalyst for my lifelong interest in gender studies and in particular issues and problems of middle-aged women around the world. Marlene Ammar, 81, Vancouver, Washington

‘My daughter was in awe’

Growing up in regional Queensland, reading Gloria Steinem’s books, it was like opening a portal to a new world that I wanted to be part of. I never met her but had the honour of hearing her speak on her final trip to Australia in May 2016 at Sydney town hall. I took my then 12-year-old daughter. She was in awe of Gloria, seeing all her books and hearing the excitement of the crowd while we waited for the hall to open. We became involved in some incredible conversations with women there – my daughter was incredulous to hear some of the stories such as [women] having to leave their jobs when they got married in the 1960s. We bought some of Gloria’s books and my daughter started to read them on the train home. It was a truly memorable evening. Toni Wren, 63, Sydney, Australia

‘Because of Steinem I became a domestic violence rescuer’

Because of Steinem I became a domestic violence rescuer after I saw how my mom was ignored by the system in the 1960s. I later helped pass the Violence Against Women Act in 1994. Gloria Steinem was a groundbreaking giant. She was smart and articulate like nobody before her, except Betty Friedan – we were so lucky to have these brave women. They woke us up from a long domestic violence nightmare. They did other things for women’s rights, but I appreciate her singular commitment in the DV space. Nobody was talking about it before. Rest in power Gloria, and thank you. Catherine, retired domestic violence worker, Seattle

‘That quick chat was the best’

When I graduated from high school in 1966, women were simply expected to get married, have babies, and work inside the home. I graduated from high school with honours; graduated from the University of Michigan with distinction; graduated from law school with honours; and passed the Michigan Bar Exam the first time I took it. After law school, I worked as a research attorney for two Michigan Circuit Court Judges and then practised with a highly respected, mid-sized law firm until my retirement. I was an early subscriber to Ms Magazine. I never knew Gloria Steinem and I only had the privilege to meet her once. Sometime during the 1990s, she was invited by the Michigan Bar Association to be a keynote speaker. I took a day off from work and drove myself across the state to attend the meeting. At the reception for Ms Steinem, I thanked her “for making my life so difficult”. She smiled and laughed and gave me a quick hug. And that was it. And even though I’ve met many important people, diplomats, and supreme court justices, that quick chat with her to thank her for helping me to fully become myself was the best. Lanie Anderson, 77, retired attorney, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

‘Gloria was serious about representation’

My mother, Maya Miller, worked with Gloria on poverty and women’s issues. They were on the Ms Foundation board together, which was made up of a dozen or so women from across the country, across races and cultures – Gloria was serious about representation and knew a lot of very smart women. Most meetings happened back east in New York or DC, but in 1972 Nevada cut welfare payments in half. Knowing this affected mainly women and children, Gloria was one of several celebrities to come to Nevada to protest. There was a big march that shut down the Las Vegas strip. Gloria also came to northern Nevada to picket the legal brothels owned and run by men. Gloria supported my mother when Maya ran for US Senate from Nevada at a time when there were no women in the senate. I did meet her a few times, and remember her as kind. Kind eyes, soft spoken, and usually taking a back seat to listen to the other women in the room. And extremely smart with strategy, and witty at confronting chauvinism and stupid men. Kit Miller, 71, Washoe Valley, Nevada

Keyword – Technology
Trefwoorden – Technology, Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, Surveillance, US politics, US news
Title – US police fear Meta smart glasses could be used to secretly record them | Technology | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/johana-bhuiyan
Link – US police fear Meta smart glasses could be used to secretly record them | Technology | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T10:00:02.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/08/us-law-enforcement-meta-smart-glasses

In January, the New York Police Department’s counterterrorism unit sent out a memo warning police officers about a new potential “security and counterintelligence” threat: Ray-Ban Meta glasses.

The memo directed officers to “conduct thorough inspections of all eyewear permitted within inmate cells” and cautioned that people who have been arrested could use these glasses, equipped with small cameras and microphones, to record inside police facilities. The memo cited two examples of such videos posted on social media.

“The ability to covertly record inside a law enforcement or detention facility, could result in a security risk if proprietary information about cell layouts, camera placements, or officer patrol/site protection routines are released,” the memo read.

The NYPD memo is one of a dozen, previously unreported and reviewed by the Guardian, that showed law enforcement agencies across the US are increasingly concerned about the potential for smart glasses to be used against them. Officers from Maine to California worry the technology will be used either to secretly record officers and facilities or to aid in the execution of crimes and acts of terrorism.

One of the videos, taken with smart glasses and posted to TikTok in July 2025, offered a rare peek into a South Carolina detention center that had been the subject of a federal investigation over unsafe conditions.

“Everyone here is trying to figure out what’s going on with my glasses, why my light is blinking,” the user said about other detainees in the video. “People don’t know about Meta glasses.” He filmed a dingy shower, the inside of holding cells, an overcrowded cafeteria, and several other detainees as they slept, ate, or walked, all seemingly unaware of being recorded.

Detention facilities in the US typically confiscate any and all devices that would be capable of recording video footage. Some Meta smart glasses have gone unnoticed, though. The glasses are discreet and can pass as a regular pair of Ray-Bans or Oakleys. Their main differentiator is a small blinking light in the corner of the frame that is activated when the glasses are recording.

The covertly recorded videos prompted the NYPD’s intelligence and counterterrorism bureau, a specialized unit that works with the FBI to monitor and prevent terrorist threats, to send out the January memo to other police departments. The glasses “may appear as ordinary prescription eyewear”, the memo read.

US police and federal agents are not alone in their fear. Concern among the public and privacy experts over Meta’s smart glasses, widely dubbed “ pervert glasses ”, is growing. The technology enables its wearers to record people without their consent and has already been used to harass people .

Documents obtained by Property of the People, a non-profit that works to increase government transparency, show law enforcement have grown as equally worried as everyday people about being filmed without their knowledge.

Ryan Shapiro, the executive director of Property of the People, said the documents show that law enforcement wants the exclusive right to use surveillance technology and cameras to monitor the public without those cameras being turned back on them.

“These agencies surveil the public incessantly, but the moment we can watch them back, it’s deemed a security threat,” Shapiro said. “When only the government is allowed to hold the camera, that’s not security. It’s impunity.”

“The potential for smart glasses to be used by residents and the general public to conduct surveillance and other nefarious activities has introduced additional risks and concerns in Department of Corrections and law enforcement facilities,” read a memo distributed in June 2026 by Maine’s fusion center. Fusion centers are Department of Homeland Security facilities spread across the country as surveillance hubs that collect and analyze what the DHS describes as “threat-related” information from local law enforcement, private companies and other state and federal agencies.

“Some smart glasses can leverage AI software including facial recognition, which could lead to doxing of publicly available information or connections to law enforcement officers,” the Maine document continued.

Other memos expressing concerns about Meta smart glasses originated from the DHS’s joint counterterrorism assessment team and fusion centers nationwide, including in San Diego, California, Tennessee, Virginia, Maine and New York.

Those fears have been enough to prompt federal agencies to bar their own employees from using the smart glasses in the workplace. In August, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency said that smart glasses qualify as body-worn cameras, which means they can’t be worn in the “federal workspace”, according to a memo the New York Times obtained . The “use of Meta Glasses or similar devices could unintentionally capture, record or transmit sensitive information”, the memo, written by ICE’s acting director David Venturella, read.

Meta says its glasses “are designed to be noticed”.

“Every pair has a bright white LED that blinks when a photo or video is taken for your gallery, it can’t be turned off, and if someone covers or tampers with the LED, the camera is disabled,” said Meta spokesperson Dina El-Kassaby.

Beyond being filmed without their consent, law enforcement agencies are also cautioning that these glasses may be used to aid in planning or “reconnaissance” for violent acts of terrorism or “hostile pre-operational surveillance”. A January 2025 NYPD memo cited the New Year’s Day terror attack in New Orleans, when a man rammed his truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street, killing 14 and wounding 35 people.

The FBI had alerted local agencies like the NYPD that the perpetrator of the attack biked around Bourbon street twice at the end of 2024 wearing smart glasses. The FBI alleges the perpetrator conducted “pre-attack target reconnaissance”. Officers should be aware of and report individuals “acting in a suspicious manner observed wearing what may be smart glasses”, the memo states.

Evan Greer, the executive director of digital advocacy non-profit Fight for the Future, said they’re not surprised police are concerned about the technology being used against them or to cause harm.

“Surveillance makes all of us less safe,” Greer said. “There’s no such thing as Meta glasses that are only for the good guys. ”

The French quarter is a highly trafficked tourist area, Meta spokesperson El-Kassaby said, arguing that the perpetrator could have filmed the French Quarter with any other recording device including a phone.

The concern over Meta’s smart glasses are part of a broader concern expressed by law enforcement over the ways the proliferation of artificial intelligence-backed technology may impinge on police activity, the documents show. Law enforcement are at once looking for ways to use AI for investigative purposes and warning against public opposition to its use.

In an August 2025 document, the NYPD wrote that while new AI technology could “significantly transform day-to-day police operations” that police would also need to address public fears about the use of advanced tech in policing.

The memo was a response to “ AI 2027 ”, a paper written by a former OpenAI researcher and other industry experts proffering what the future of AI development could look like and the effect it will have on society. It warns that AI opposition could result in “anti-tech violent extremist activity” and civil unrest over job losses, the widespread use of deepfake technology, and loss of trust in government and tech.

Anti-tech violent extremist activity isn’t a formal DHS designation for categories of terrorism but has recently cropped up in law enforcement messaging about a broad spectrum of extremist opposition to AI. Experts worry it could serve to criminalize all anti-tech opposition and the constitutionally protected right to protest.

Keyword – Global development
Trefwoorden – Global development, Colombia, Older people, World news, Society, Americas, Global health, Ageing, Science, Cities and development, Cities, Social care
Title – ‘In parks you only see dogs, never children’: can Bogotá adapt to its ageing population? | Global development | The Guardian
Author – Claire McQue
Link – ‘In parks you only see dogs, never children’: can Bogotá adapt to its ageing population? | Global development | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T10:00:01.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/sep/08/bogota-colombia-ageing-population-demographics-children-health-social-care

F rom his wheelchair, Alberto Delgado Londoño can see over the wall of the sunlit courtyard towards the mountains east of Bogotá, Colombia’s capital. The 74-year-old lives in a care home for destitute elderly people, which opened at the end of last year.

Social workers found him in hospital, where he was being treated for throat cancer and a head injury that left him partly paralysed. “I had nowhere to go,” he says. “My daughter couldn’t take me in because she’s a single mother, she already has two children.”

Delgado Londoño is one of a growing number of Bogotanos with nowhere to turn in old age – an estimated 1,100 elderly people in the city are homeless , without families to care for them. To reach this vulnerable group, Bogotá unveiled a plan last year to integrate its social care and health systems.

“We have to be a society that knows how to care for its adults,” says Gerson Bermont Galavis, Bogotá’s health secretary. This means overhauling healthcare, social care and employment, requiring “a totally different city”, he says.

The capital’s population peaked this year at about 7.9 million ; it is forecast to start shrinking from 2027. Nearly 16% of its residents are aged over 60 , with the number projected to reach nearly 20% by 2035 , according to Bogotá’s Health Observatory.

Meanwhile, the ​old-age dependency ratio across Colombia is projected to ​double from 20.6% in 2025 to 42% by 2070 , according to modelling by ​t​he country’s central bank. That means fewer taxpayers to foot the bill for public pensions and support a healthcare system already under strain from a national funding crisis.

As people live longer and birthrates fall, the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac) notes that “the ageing process in the region is occurring faster than in other regions of the world” . By 2050, the UN projects that nearly one in five people will be over the age of 65 , up from one in 11 in 2020. Bogotá is not yet the oldest city in the region, but the sudden slump in its birthrate suggests it could soon match other South American capitals, such as Buenos Aires, Santiago and Montevideo.

Bogotá’s total fertility rate – the average number of children a woman is likely to have over her lifetime – is lower than Tokyo’s, at 0.82 in 2025. Nationally, the rate has also fallen sharply – down to 1.6 children for every woman in 2024, from 6.7 in 1960. It is far below the replacement rate of 2.1 required to maintain a stable population.

“In the parks you only see dogs, you never see children,” says Juliana Jaramillo, an economist who studies demography at Colombia’s central bank.

“But it’s really difficult for a government to reduce the cost of having a child,” she adds. “Instead of trying to reverse the trend, you have to adapt to a new scenario.”

The city is already adjusting to the demographic change. Nursery enrolment in Bogotá fell by 13% between 2019 and 2023, the steepest drop in the country, and 287 schools , mostly private, closed in the capital between 2019 and 2024.

“We have a city that is ageing very rapidly, and we’re not responding quickly enough,” says Dr Manuel González, who designs Bogotá’s health policy. Increased longevity means more people enduring unhealthy and lonely lives, he says. “We are spending 10 years of our lives in ill health.”

While increasing the birthrate is hard, the city is focusing on boosting “healthy life” expectancy and changing how the capital thinks about growing old.

At the heart of this attempt to rethink ageing is San Juan de Dios, a 100-year-old hospital complex in Bogotá’s historic centre, close to Colombia’s leading institutes for oncology, dermatology and neonatal care. It closed in 2001 amid a funding crisis, but the constitutional court subsequently declared it a site of national heritage and ordered that its 24 buildings be restored. Eleven are now being renovated.

The 16-hectare (40-acre) hospital campus that is being created will encompass centres for youth and mental health but also residential care for older people, health and research facilities, rewilded gardens and a cultural centre, costing about 4tn pesos (£940m) to restore.

“It’s being conceived of as a miniature city,” says González. “But the way it operated 100 years ago is no longer what we need.”

He thinks San Juan de Dios should work as an intergenerational model of healthcare, spanning birth to old age. In March, the Centre for Thought and Innovation on Ageing opened in the hospital’s old laundry. It will advise Bogotá and the surrounding region on preventive care, chronic diseases and disability management. At a new training centre, caregivers can learn practical skills, from managing catheters to transferring patients into wheelchairs.

“In Latin American countries like Colombia, caregiving has always fallen on households … and mainly on women,” says Paola Camelo Urrego, of the University of the Andes. In Bogotá, women devote nearly five hours a day to unpaid care and multigenerational homes are becoming less common, meaning fewer family members to help with dependents.

In 2020, Bogotá’s former mayor Claudia López opened “care blocks” , where caregivers can drop off a toddler or an elderly parent for a few hours. This network of 20 community centres also teaches people to live healthier, more independent lives. Inside one, a boisterous group of over-65s learn to use WhatsApp. Afterwards, they may learn English or how to repair a motorbike.

These centres have given caregivers greater recognition, says Camelo Urrego, but they have not redistributed who does the grandparent duties. “Women get home to find nothing has changed.”

“Loneliness really gets to me,” says Don Jorge, a 76-year-old who has recently recovered from a bout of tuberculosis. He rarely receives visitors in the nursing home and he misses having someone to confide in.

To reduce social isolation, the city has begun prescribing culture and nature-based activities. Instead of getting pills to cure their ills, patients can take part in activities such as visits to the botanic gardens, traditional marketplaces or community-run gardening. Last December, a gran baile mayor (seniors’ grand ball) drew about 4,500 older people who danced to live salsa at the city’s Movistar Arena.

Equally vital is changing how people think about ageing. “We can’t think of people over 50 as grandparents,” says María del Pilar López Uribe, Bogotá’s economic development secretary. “The problem isn’t finding people over 50 who want to work, it’s finding companies willing to take a chance on them.”

The city offers short courses to retrain older workers. Companies hiring workers over 50 receive a bonus, with an additional payout if the worker is retained. In time, other measures such as raising the retirement age may be needed. Colombian men now generally retire at 62 and women at 57, while average life expectancy is about 78 .

As it is, the city can scarcely afford to pay for more pensioners. Bogotá’s GDP per capita was less than £10,500 in 2024, about a fifth of Tokyo’s. Colombia’s high inequality compounds the problem. About a third of workers in the capital operate informally, meaning a financially precarious old age is likely. Just 17% of retired women in Bogotá have a pension, and 29% of men.

Yet Jaramillo says Bogotá’s demographic trajectory is not set in stone. Most Colombian women have their babies aged between 20 and 29 – 10 years earlier than in developed countries, making the issue of fertility less pressing.

“That puts us in a very different position to Japan and the US, where policymakers might be worrying about how women can have children,” she says.

Meanwhile, Delgado Londoño remains upbeat about the future, despite his problems. “I’m working on a collection of poems,” he says, pulling out his phone to reveal a 100-verse poem about an arriero (muleteer) plodding through Colombia’s coffee region. “I keep writing.”

Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – OpenAI, Technology, Cybercrime, AI (artificial intelligence)
Title – OpenAI models went rogue. We urgently need a better Hugging Face investigation | Mackenzie Arnold and Stephan Llerena | The Guardian
Author – Mackenzie Arnold and Stephan Llerena
Link – OpenAI models went rogue. We urgently need a better Hugging Face investigation | Mackenzie Arnold and Stephan Llerena | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T10:00:00.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/08/openai-rogue-models-hugging-face-investigation

W hen OpenAI first revealed that its AI agents had autonomously hacked a major real-world company, Hugging Face, many assumed only one or two agents were involved. The truth, a new report reveals, is far stranger: the incident involved about 1,200 AI agents, 700 of which directly participated in the attack.

OpenAI invited researchers from METR, along with an expert from Redwood Research, to produce the new report, alongside the company’s own investigation . The findings shocked the experts.

The agents were highly coordinated, constructing complex message boards in the nooks and crannies of their shared artefact repository. All told, agents exchanged more than 70,000 messages in less than a week. Even more concerning, the agents took steps to hide their behavior – spoofing tool calls and attempting to tamper with their own logs.

Initial reporting assumed that the agents had attacked Hugging Face in search of an answer key to a difficult test. In reality, investigators found that the agents had figured out a way to derive the answers within the first few hours. The days of work that followed focused on another goal: concerned that the automated scoring system might identify the agents’ cheating, they aimed to learn more about the scorer. The goal wasn’t just to cheat, but to hide it.

These details are startling, and they’re a warning sign about the current trajectory of AI development. But just as concerning is how limited the investigation was and how much we still don’t know.

We work at a thinktank that analyzes AI-related legislation , and we’ve been worried for a while that legal requirements for reporting incidents like these are insufficient.

These reports make that clear: they’re informative enough to tell us something went wrong, but not detailed enough to tell us why.

This shouldn’t surprise us. These investigations are entirely voluntary, and their findings are limited to what the company is willing to disclose. METR’s independent investigation was highly constrained by an agreement with OpenAI . For example, the investigators were not given access to the underlying model that created the majority of the misbehaving agents. And despite indications that message boards had formed as early as May and that coordinated agent activity persisted after 13 July, METR was only permitted to investigate the period from 26 June to 13 July.

And that was the good part. METR was given close to nothing about OpenAI’s safety and security practices. If OpenAI ignored warning signs – as several data points suggest – violated its own safety procedures, or failed to implement fixes that would prevent future events, these all fell outside the scope of METR’s investigation. The expert investigators themselves were left with many questions and continued concerns .

Concerns about the limits aren’t hypothetical. On Friday, Reuters reported that another swarm of OpenAI agents had broken out this spring, hijacking a German website and using it as another message board. According to the report, OpenAI knew about this incident but said nothing, and it was entirely absent from METR’s report.

Clearly, this kind of investigation – however well-executed – leaves a lot to be desired.

When planes crash, trains derail or chemical plants explode, expert government investigators arrive with legal authority to compel evidence, preserve records, and tell the public what happened. Hugging Face reported this incident to law enforcement, and multiple attorneys general have expressed interest in looking into it.

But no government agency has both the mandate and expertise to investigate the technical facts of the incident and OpenAI’s conduct. As far as we know, the only people to examine this incident did so at OpenAI’s discretion and with its consent.

And while the Hugging Face breach is not as severe as a plane crash, it was a serious and costly attack. It’s unlikely to be the last, or the most severe.

Existing laws don’t fill this gap. While some attorneys general have tried to use existing investigatory powers, these offices aren’t built for technical fact-finding, and the laws they rely on are limited to questions of consumer deception, not public risk. Despite significant AI laws passed in California, New York and Illinois, none create the investigative authority demanded by these incidents. As we’ve written elsewhere, existing incident reporting laws probably don’t cover the Hugging Face attack, and even if they did, OpenAI might share little more than the date and a short summary.

What we need is a federal body equipped to conduct expert investigations of serious AI incidents – with the authority to compel documents and testimony, resources and personnel to examine the systems involved, and the ability to partner with third-party experts like METR.

Reports should be published, subject to appropriate redactions, to ensure the public learns from the incident. And reporting should also extend to near-miss events, which may reveal warnings before major harms occur.

This structure would not be unusual. In aviation, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigates accidents with subpoena and wide-ranging investigative powers . Aircraft operators must preserve wreckage and records ; and the NTSB may confer with employees and contract external experts.

Congress can build a similar system for AI incidents, while protecting AI developers’ legitimate interests. Investigations should open only upon clear triggers and be bound to the incident. Certain confidential information can receive statutory protection . And investigations can be limited to one agency with priority to avoid duplicative investigations.

The need and urgency is real. Subsequent reports have revealed that the Hugging Face breach was not an isolated incident and that autonomous agents from Meta, Anthropic and OpenAI have hacked third parties in separate incidents. We’ve been lucky so far – the harms have been limited. But luck is no substitute for the law.

Mackenzie Arnold is the managing director of US law & policy at the Institute for Law & AI, where he provides analysis and advice to ensure that advances in AI benefit the public at large

Stephan Llerena is a research scholar at the Institute for Law & AI. His research focuses on US law and policy regarding frontier AI governance

Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – Parents and parenting, Ikea, Students, Family, Life and style, Higher education, Education
Title – I went to Ikea with my son – and was confronted with my parenting failures | Zoe Williams | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/zoewilliams
Link – I went to Ikea with my son – and was confronted with my parenting failures | Zoe Williams | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T10:00:00.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/08/i-went-to-ikea-with-my-son-and-was-confronted-with-my-parenting-failures

I have yet again found my ultimate tribe in a high-street shop, this time Ikea . As far as the eye could see, there were middle-aged women trying to choose kitchen essentials for their late-teenaged sons, for whom the next chapter of life, in which they move to another city and never once use a kitchen, cannot commence fast enough. I don’t know where all the girls were – did they do it all online? Have they been collecting teapots for years, as part of a wistful university trousseau?

The negotiation started with a chopping board, which my son said he absolutely did not need or want. I said, “How are you going to chop vegetables?”, and he said he would cross that bridge when he came to it, and I said: “Oh my God, you’re going to get scurvy.” Behind me a woman and her son were arguing about whether or not he needed a cheese grater, which ended in her saying: “I think you might be about to starve.”

The household-item shop is a uniquely confronting experience, I realised halfway through, and one I had in no way prepared for. It’s the moment you find out how much domestic wisdom you’ve managed to impart. When you get a question like “Can you wash sheets?”, it turns out the answer is: “None.” I remember going round a far larger Ikea with my own mother, when I was in my 30s and my youngest was a baby, and my mum noticing, on the way in, that my daughter had nits. I say “nits” – it was one tiny nit. “Give her a chance,” I said. “She’s barely got any hair.” My mum, taking this as proof that I wasn’t serious enough about hygiene, tried to buy every bath-related item in the shop – at the top of her voice. By the third hour, there was nobody in there who didn’t know about the nit.

Ikea should have a sign at the door, saying: “Parents! If you’re having this conversation now, it’s already too late.” It would probably sound quite melodic in Swedish.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

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Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – September 11 2001, Islamophobia, US news
Title – 25 years after 9/11, is Islamophobia in the US at an all-time high? — Stateside with Kai and Carter | September 11 2001 | The Guardian
Author – Carter Sherman
Link – 25 years after 9/11, is Islamophobia in the US at an all-time high? — Stateside with Kai and Carter | September 11 2001 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T09:45:00.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2026/sep/08/9-11-anniversary-islamophobia-stateside-podcast

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – Liverpool, Business, Football, Sport
Title – Liverpool agree £60m-a-year shirt sponsorship deal with Turkish Airlines | Liverpool | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/andyhunter
Link – Liverpool agree £60m-a-year shirt sponsorship deal with Turkish Airlines | Liverpool | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-08T09:41:41.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/sep/08/liverpool-agree-shirt-sponsorship-deal-turkish-airlines

Liverpool have announced a new shirt sponsorship deal with Turkish Airlines worth more than £60m a year to the club.

The five-year deal will generate more than £300m for Liverpool when it comes into effect from the start of the 2027-28 season. Turkish Airlines will replace Standard Chartered, Liverpool’s main club partner since 2010, on the front of the men’s, women’s and academy match shirts.

Standard Chartered has been Liverpool’s main partner for 17 years and the current deal is understood to be worth around £50m per season. The company will become a global partner of Liverpool from 2027-28.

Liverpool believe the agreement with Turkish Airlines is the most lucrative shirt deal in Premier League history, although Manchester United claimed their arrangement with Snapdragon is also worth more than £60m a year. Either way, Liverpool’s new shirt deal underlines the huge commercial pull of a club that posted record revenues of £703m in the financial year ending 31 May 2025.

The club’s owner, Fenway Sports Group, is also poised to make £2bn from selling a 38% stake to 1892 Holdings , a consortium led by Amit Bhatia and including the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

“This is a milestone announcement for us and we are delighted to welcome Turkish Airlines as our main club partner from June 2027,” the Liverpool chief commercial officer, Ben Latty, said.

“The front of the Liverpool shirt holds a special place in the history of our club. Turkish Airlines is a globally recognised organisation with an extensive international network, and we look forward to beginning our partnership and building a strong relationship together, with already strong foundations built from those special memories back in 2005 [in Istanbul].”

Standard Chartered had a window of exclusivity to renew that expired last year. Liverpool’s sleeve sponsorship deal, presently with Expedia for between £9m and £12m a season, is also up for renewal.