After ‘distressing incidents’, watchdog says content from user-made bots would be covered by UK Online Safety Act

Ofcom has warned tech firms that content from chatbots impersonating real and fictional people could fall foul of the UK’s new digital laws.

The communications regulator issued the guidance after it emerged that users on the Character.AI platform had created avatars mimicking the deceased British teenagers Brianna Ghey and Molly Russell.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie . In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org , or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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‘Shifts in production’ expected if baseline tariffs on imported goods are imposed to benefit US auto manufacturing

In 1964 the new US president was angry about European trade. Specifically about chickens. In response to Europe’s poultry trade barriers, Lyndon B Johnson imposed a 25% tariff on light trucks.

That “chicken tax” is still in place 60 years later. The rules have contributed to the Ford’s F-Series pickup truck’s unbroken 42-year run as the bestselling vehicle in the US, and have locked European manufacturers out of a hugely profitable market for two generations. The chicken tax could also serve as a model for Donald Trump’s second term in the White House.

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‘Looming catastrophe’ will ‘dwarf anything we have seen so far’ in Gaza since 7 October 2023, famine review committee says

There is a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of the northern Gaza Strip, a committee of global food security experts warned on Friday, as Israel claims to be pursuing a military offensive against Palestinian militant group Hamas in the area.

“Immediate action, within days not weeks, is required from all actors who are directly taking part in the conflict, or have influence on its conduct, to avert and alleviate this catastrophic situation,” the independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said in a rare alert.

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Donald Trump has triumphed again, and collective amnesia means any lessons Democrats and Republicans may learn from Trump 2.0, they will also forget; influencers have declared the trend for ‘duck lips’ over and many people are seeking to reverse their cosmetic treatment – often with painful and disfiguring results; and ‘Lies, manipulation and fear’ – writer Lucille Howe recounts how she lost her husband to fake news and flat-Earthers. Would their relationship survive?

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Prolific actor with more than 200 film and TV credits, including Final Destination, The Rock, The Crow and Platoon, died at home after a long illness

Tony Todd, the actor who played the titular killer in classic horror film Candyman, as well as appearing in Final Destination, The Rock and Platoon, has died aged 69.

Todd died on Wednesday at home in Los Angeles after a long illness, his wife, Fatima, confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter on Friday.

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Trump has promised to turn back migrants at the southern border, but US law generally prohibits active-duty troops from being deployed for law enforcement purposes

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Five people wounded on Friday in stabbings in Chinatown and police suspect other stabbings on Thursday are linked

Seattle police have arrested a man following a two-day spate of random stabbings that injured 10 people, including five on Friday, authorities said.

Police made an arrest following a series of attacks on Friday and said it is “plausible they are connected” to several other stabbings that unfolded on Thursday, Eric Barden, the city’s deputy police chief, told reporters at the scene.

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Each spring about 20m shearwaters fly 15,000km to Australia from the northern hemisphere. This year, beachgoers have been finding many emaciated carcasses

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Thousands of short-tailed shearwaters are washing up dead on Australian east coast beaches and researchers are uncertain of the cause and scale of these seabird “wrecks”.

Each spring about 20m shearwaters, also called yula or muttonbirds, fly 15,000km back to southern Australia from the northern hemisphere. Since late October, dead shearwaters have been turning up on beaches in south-east Queensland, followed by similar reports in New South Wales and Victoria in recent weeks.

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Two men had also planned to go to Texas and kill asylum seekers as well as border agents who would try to stop them

Two men who co-founded a militia group have been convicted of attempting to murder federal agents ahead of a trip to Texas where they intended to shoot people attempting to cross the US-Mexico border.

Jonathan S O’Dell, 34, of Warsaw, Missouri, and Bryan C Perry, 39, of Clarksville, Tennessee, also planned to shoot any federal agents who tried to stop them as they targeted migrants, according to the prosecution.

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