Since the dawn of expense claims, workers have been adding a few extra drinks for themselves on the company card (legal disclaimer: of course never us).

But the possibilities for dodgy claims are getting much more sophisticated, with businesses warned to take note.

Image generation by AI is now so advanced that fake but convincing receipts can be created in seconds.

OpenAI released its latest image generation model last week, an update which caused so many people to create Studio Ghibli-style drawings that its servers ‘melted’.

But a less wholesome use case also emerged, as users showed how easy it is to create fake receipts.

Many companies ask employees to upload photos of invoices they need reimbursing for, before their expense claims are approved.

Metro quickly made our own fake receipt using ChatGPT, for an Italian restaurant called Mikey’s on West Street in London.

We had minestrone, lasagne, tiramisu and a bottle of house red according to the receipt, costing £63.80 including the service charge.

However, not only did we not really visit, but the restaurant doesn’t even exist.

Sure, you could work this out by googling it, or you might have suspicions from the commas and full stops being confused, but many times this would just be waved through.

Jon Clay, VP in threat intelligence at Trend Micro, told Metro that realistic AI images will take fraud and scams to the next level.

He said: ‘When you submit submit stuff for HR, if you’re an employee that’s a little shady, for example, you could potentially get some some money from fraudulent receipts.’

This isn’t the only headache for businesses, however, with business e-mail compromise attacks a lucrative target for scammers.

This is when a criminal gains access to a company email account with the intention to trick a worker with the ability to transfer funds, often a senior executive or account manager.

Jon explained: ‘A scammer could potentially impersonate an employee, submit a whole bunch of receipts, get payment for those receipts, and make money that way. They could definitely defraud businesses.’

Artificial intelligence expert Raphael Chenol shared photos on LinkedIn of a real receipt and a fake one he created with ChatGPT.

He said: ‘I just asked it to change the date and price… and my expense report entry application doesn’t see anything. It only takes a few seconds where before you needed Photoshop skills.’

Clarifying that he ‘wouldn’t risk being fired for fraud by my employer’ , he said he was sharing the images to denounce possible abuses of the technology.

Mr Chenol suggested that to avoid ‘montains of false invoices’, they should include a QR Code-style cryptogram as standard, or that they should be submitted with proof of purchase such as via Blockchain.

Meanwhile, to reduce the risk from scammers Mr Clay called on businesses to have a two step verification process by which someone is asked on a different platform if it is really them asking for money to be transferred.

He said that AI photos are becoming so realistic that it will be very difficult for people to spot them just by looking at them, and although metadata will say they were edited by AI, this is easy for scammers to strip out.

One way to reduce the risk would be to insist that AI generated images contain a visible watermark, potentially due to laws that insist on it.

‘As this technology gets out there and if there if we see a lot more abuses of the technology, we might see lawmakers start to recognise that,’ he said.

‘But then again, if I’m a bad actor, I’m not going to follow the law.’

The makers of Chat GPT, Open AI, explicitly ban the use of the service to harm others, including using any output to defraud or scam.

Spokesperson Taya Christianson told TechCrunch that their ‘goal is to give users as much creative freedom as possible’ and that fake receipts aren’t necessarily fraudulent as they could be used for ‘teaching people about financial literacy’ as well as for art.

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Customers were unable to get their Tesco groceries online due to a problem with the website and app today.

Shoppers posted online about how they were unable to complete their orders due to the issue, which began just before 10am and has now been resolved.

Rival supermarket Iceland wasted no time in trolling the retailer, posting: ‘Tesco’s website is down…April Fools, oh wait, it’s not a joke’

When another user responded that this was ‘cold’, their social media manager replied that it was ‘still a burn’.

Writing on X this morning, one user posted: ‘whats going on?? your website and app isnt working?’

Another wrote: ‘Your website is broken. I am due a delivery today. Ordered online. Will this affect it?’

Responding to customer complaints, Tesco said: ‘We are aware of issues with our app and website, I’m sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.

‘Our I.T teams are working hard to have this fixed as soon as possible, please keep checking back periodically and hopefully they will be working shortly.’

According to service status website Downdetector, hundreds of Tesco customers began reporting problems with both the firm’s website and app at about 9.45am, and more than 500 reports were logged with the site.

A Tesco spokesperson said: ‘We have fixed a technical issue that temporarily impacted customers using our website and app. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.’

The supermarket did not say what has caused the issue, or if it had affected deliveries.

In February the firm was hit by an online shopping glitch which caused items to be removed from customer baskets, or marked as unavailable, as they tried to complete an online shop.

Tesco said it had been caused by a ‘technical issue’ with some customer baskets.

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Space food is famously unpalatable, given it has to be rocketed up and stay safe for long periods without resupply.

Not only is the food itself mostly dehydrated powder, but the ability of astronauts to taste it is limited due to eating it in microgravity.

So it’s no surprise that one of the first questions stranded NASA astronauts Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams and Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore were asked on their return home was about what food they missed most.

The pair gave their first press conference last night after splashing down on Earth two weeks ago and taking some time to rest and recover.

Butch didn’t seem keen to answer, but Suni knew exactly what food she wanted as a welcome back – and it’s a classic.

She said: ‘My father was a vegetarian, so I had a good grilled cheese sandwich when I got home. That reminded me of him.’

The comfort food is ‘just like home for me,’ she added.

Asked about the first thing she wanted to do after spending nine months in space – having planned for eight days – she said: ‘I wanted to hug my husband and hug my dogs. I’ll say in that order, but maybe not… No, i’m just joking.’

Butch added that he ‘certainly’ wanted to embrace his family again, but also was keen to ‘just to say thank you to a nation that got involved in all of this. It makes it special, not just for us, but I think for our nation as a whole, so thank you.’

The two said they were somewhat surprised by the levels of media attention, and were aware of the narrative that they were ‘stuck and marooned’ on the International Space Station after the Boeing Starliner they travelled there in malfunctioned.

They said that although it was technically true in some respects that they had got stuck there, they never felt lost, abandoned or in need of rescue, had prepared for all eventualities and just got on with the job.

Butch said he took some of the responsibility for the bungled test flight: ‘I’ll start and point the finger and I’ll blame me. I could have asked some questions and the answers to those questions could have turned the tide.’

But both astronauts said they would strap into Starliner again and would ‘fix it’ and ‘make it work’.

The retired navy captains ended up spending 286 days in space when they blasted off on Boeing’s first astronaut flight on June 5, which is 278 days more than planned.

Why does food taste bad in space?

Being in space has a significant affect on astronauts’ bodies, with the microgravity changing how they function.

Fluids shift towards the head, putting pressure on their eyes and giving them puffy faces and a blocked nose, which can affect the ability to taste as it is linked to smell.

They can even get ‘baby feet’ from the lack of walking around, meaning putting on shoes and going to the shops can even be agonising without the thick skin that should be there.

A study last year was the first to look at why astronauts often report that food tastes bland, and struggle to meet their daily nutrient requirements.

It found that some aromas smelled differently in space and on Earth, simulating the ISS environment with virtual reality goggles.

Mental effects of isolation and being in the same confined surroudings for so long could also have an experience on taste, it said.

That is all added to the fact that the food isn’t exactly gourmet to begin with.

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Prince Andrew’s sex assault accuser made a mistake when she said she had been involved in a car crash and had ‘four days to live’.

Virginia Giuffre, who was trafficked as a teen by his billionaire paedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein, posted a photo on Instagram from a hospital bed, showing an array of bruises.

Bidding farewell to her loved ones, mum-of-three Ms Guiffre wrote a public Instagram post saying her car collided with a school bus, leaving her seriously injured.

But her family has now said she did not intend to share the post publicly, thanking people for the ‘outpouring of love and support’ she has received in the meantime.

‘I’ve gone into kidney renal failure, they’ve given me four days to live, transferring me to a specialist hospital in urology. I’m ready to go, just not until I see my babies one last time, but you know what they say about wishes. S**T in one hand and wish in the other & I guarantee it’s still going to be s**t at the end of the day,’ she wrote.

‘Thank you all for being the wonderful people of the world and for being a great part of my life. God bless you all xx Virginia’.

In a statement released to the Mirror, Ms Guiffre’s family said: ‘Virginia thanks everyone for the outpouring of love and support. She is overwhelmed with gratitude.

‘Today she remains in serious condition while receiving medical care.

‘On March 24, in rural Western Australia, a school bus hit the car in which she was riding.

‘The police were called but said that there was no one available to come to the scene. They asked if anyone was injured and suggested that if they were, they should make their way to the hospital.

‘The school bus driver had a bus full of distraught children and left the scene to get them back, saying he would file a police report, which he did later.

‘Virginia was banged up and bruised and returned home. Virginia’s condition worsened and she was admitted to the hospital.

‘Concerning her Instagram post, Virginia thought that she had posted on her private Facebook page.

‘Virginia and her family thank everyone for their concern.’

Ms Giuffre has been living near Perth in Western Australia, and Western Australia Police said they received a report of a ‘minor crash’ between a school bus and a car in Neergabby, about 12 miles north of Perth, on March 24.

‘The collision was reported by the bus driver the following day,’ a police spokeswoman said. ‘There were no reported injuries as a result of the crash.’

Professor Simon Davies, a Trustee of Kidney Research UK and former Emeritus Professor of Nephrology and Dialysis Medicine at Keele University told Metro: ‘You can get a kidney injury after an accident such as a car crash, but it would be a very severe injury.

‘You’re talking about major trauma which involves a lot of tissue damage. You definitely can have a kidney injury from a car wreck but it would likely be a serious injury – likely in intensive care.

‘And you would not be in a strong position to be having conversations at that point.

‘If someone’s kidneys stop working as a result of severe injuries or trauma then it is right to say that without further proper treatment – dialysis or some sort of supportive therapy – then you could die without that treatment in a matter of days,’ he added.

‘In the context of injury in a car accident or something similar, if somebody says to you you’re not going to live for a few days, then you’ve got a really serious injury 

‘Probably multiple organ failure, where you might need ventilating and kidney support.’

Police would not confirm if Ms Giuffre was the driver.

St John Ambulance Western Australia told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) they were not called to any crash involving a bus there on March 24.

A Western Australia Public Transport Authority spokesperson also told the broadcaster they were unaware of any such bus crashes.

Lawyer Brad Edwards, who represented Ms Giuffre in her previous legal cases, said the situation was ‘very bad’. He told MailOnline they were ‘hoping for better news in the coming days’.

Ms Giuffre’s dad, Sky Roberts, posted a message of support for his daughter, seemingly unaware of the crash beforehand.

He wrote: ‘Virginia my daughter, I love you and praying you get the correct treatment to live a long and healthy life. If there is anything in the world I can do to help you, please let me know. My spirit is with you now and holding your hand.’

Ms Guiffre is thought to be estranged from her husband and did not share further details of the reported crash or where it occurred.

A spokesperson for the East Metropolitan Health Service, which runs Royal Perth Hospital, similarly said Ms Giuffre was not at any of their facilities.

Billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself in custody in August 2019 while awaiting his trial for sex trafficking and conspiracy charges. A watchdog report last year blamed prison guard negligence,short staffing, misconduct and performance failures for allowing it to happen.

There was no evidence of foul play in his death, said Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

His close friend Ghislaine Maxwell, a former socialite, is serving a 20-year sentence after being convicted of sex trafficking and grooming girls for him.

In January, the last batch of Epstein court papers to be released showed Ms Giuffre, 41, claimed she was paid $15,000 (£12,000) to have sex with Prince Andrew.

As part of a civil lawsuit against Epstein’s former lover Ghislaine Maxwell, she told a judge of her alleged abuse by the Duke of York in 2016.

Asked under oath in 2016 over whether she was paid ‘by or on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein’ for the encounter, which Andrew denies took place, she said: ‘Yes, I did receive $15,000.

‘I don’t know what equivalent that is to pounds. I received it in American dollars.’

Prince Andrew reached an out-of-court settlement with Ms Giuffre, née Roberts, to avoid going to trial in 2022.

He had faced a public hearing over allegations he sexually abused the American woman three times when she was just 17, and while she was the victim of a trafficking ring orchestrated by billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. 

The Duke has always strenuously denied the accusations.

Under civil law, agreeing to settle a case does not amount to an admission of guilt.

The news today comes after King Charles gave an update on his health, saying he had been in hospital due to side effects from his cancer treatment.

The monarch ‘required a short period of observation’ before returning to Clarence House, Buckingham Palace said last week.

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An 84-year-old pensioner has died after he was dragged into a garden and attacked by an escaped XL Bully.

The dog attacked the man while he was walking home on Bardsley Avenue, in Warrington, on February 24.

Armed police responded and shot the XL bully dead, as well as shooting second one 19 times. A third smaller dog was also seized.

The man was seriously injured and taken to Aintree Hospital, Liverpool, where he ‘fought hard’ but died yesterday, just over a month later.

Detective Inspector Simon Mills said today: ‘This was a tragic incident, and our thoughts are with the family of the victim at this difficult time.

‘The victim has fought so hard since the attack but sadly his injuries were too much, and despite the best efforts of the specialist medical teams who have supported him since the attack, he has now passed away.

‘To endure such pain and anguish at the hands of an animal is unimaginable, and I cannot begin to comprehend the distress that his family are currently suffering following such an horrific incident.

‘Nobody should have to go through what they have experienced, and our specialist officers are providing them with the support they need at this truly awful time.’

The victim’s family are aware and they are being supported by specialist officers.

A 30-year-old man from Warrington was charged over the attack, accused of one count of being the owner of a dog dangerously out of control causing serious injury, and two counts of possession or custody a dog to which section 1 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 applied, namely an XL bully.

The Crown Prosecution Service has been informed of the pensioner’s death and will decide if there should be any changes to the charges.

XL Bullies were banned in 2023 after a spate of fatal dog attacks which often involved the breed, with 23 people dying in the three years leading up to the decision.

It is now a legal requirement for them to be kept on a lead and muzzled at all times when in public. It is also illegal to breed, sell, advertise, gift, exchange, abandon or let XL Bully dogs stray.

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If you think about shark noise, it might go like: duunnn dunnn… duuuunnnn duun… duuunnnnnnnn dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnn dunnnn.

But they actually make more of a click click click sound.

Scientists have now recorded the first ever noises made by the predators.

They do not have voice boxes or obvious mechanisms to make sounds, so were previously thought to be mute, stalking the seas silently.

But now, we know that rig sharks, which can grow to 5ft-long and mainly eat crabs, appear to make sounds intentionally.

Listen to the video below if you want to hear the noise yourself. It’s not excactly scary, but it is a bit eerie, and definitely clicky – the last thing you’d hear over the surf as the predator swam up and clamped onto your torso?

The audio was detected by scientists at the University of Auckland, in New Zealand.

Carolin Nieder was working on shark hearing for her PhD, when she noticed there was a clicking sound coming from rig sharks she was handling as part of her work.

That pondering led to more investigations, and now she is among the authors of a research study in Royal Society Open Science called ‘Evidence of active sound production by a shark’.

It tells how the elasmobranch fish family, which includes sharks, skates and rays who have skeletons made from cartilage rather than bone, were not thought to be able to make deliberate sounds.

Until recently that is; studies in 2022 also showed wild stingrays and other rays making click noises when disturbed by divers.

To record the shark sounds, scientists placed rigs in a plastic tank equipped with a hydrophone to pick up noises underwater.

How and why do they make the clicks?

Sharks have strong teeth similar to bone, and these are thought be what is making the noise.

The study says: ‘We propose that forceful snapping of flattened teeth may be the sound producing mechanism.’

The study tells how clicks occured when they were disturbed by handlers, indicating it might be due to a stress or an attempt to defend itself.

Authors said: ‘Rigs handled for 20 seconds produced significantly more clicks during the first 10 seconds than during the subsequent 10 seconds, and both in the presence and absence of body movements.

‘Rigs were not observed to produce clicks during feeding or while free-swimming in the tank.

‘This may suggest that the initial handling triggers a stress or startle response, resulting in increased click activity.

‘As rigs become accustomed to the handling, the behavioural response likely diminishes, leading to fewer clicks over time.’

Other noises that surprised us

Hearing the sound of a shark and imagining a clicky close-up is pretty interesting, but it has nothing on the sound of the sun or the sound of a black hole as it hoovers up anything getting close to it, both of which scientists have recently sonified.

It’s always fun to have an extra element of immersivity to get creative with our nightmares.

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Yesterday marked the official start of longer summer days, and for once the weather has decided to play ball.

As the clocks went forward giving us more daylight in the evenings, the Met Office forecast days of sunshine with the temperature set to rise as high as 20°C this week.

Meteorologist Marco Petagna said that we can even expect ‘wall to wall sunshine’ in England and Wales today, a welcome change that may finally let us top up our national Vitamin D stores.

Speaking yesterday, he said that once any early fog and frost has lifted it will be a very fine day.

‘With the sunshine here and light winds too, it’s feeling quite warm out and about, with temperatures again up to 16 or 17°C.’

Looking at the weather forecast for the week ahead in London looks more like it’s in Los Angeles, with only sun symbols and not a cloud to be seen.

Thursday and Friday are set to be the sunniest, with 19°C looking likely in areas from Cardiff to the capital, and the potential to hit 20°C.

South-east England is expected to see the warmest temperatures, with parts of south-west Scotland, the West Midlands, and north-west England also experiencing the peak of the warmth later in the week.

The rise in temperatures follows a brief period of unsettled weather on Friday and Saturday, which the Met Office described as occurring ‘in typical spring fashion’.

Despite the daytime warmth, clear skies at night could lead to chilly evenings and even rural frosts.

While it’s not an official heatwave, which would require much higher temperatures than are typically seen in spring, it’s still going to be very nice – and we’ll definitely be going out to enjoy it.

Met Office meteorologist Honor Criswick explained that a high pressure weather pattern will dominate our weather this week in a ‘blocked weather pattern’.

She said: ‘While daytime temperatures will be warm next week, nights will still be chilly and there is still a chance we could see some rural overnight frosts under the clear skies.’

People were already making the most of the sunshine for Mother’s Day yesterday, with crowds flocking to parks and beaches and plonking themselves down in deckchairs.

While it’s going to be very sunny, the Met Office warned it could still be chilly by night, and ‘breezy at times around the coasts.’

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People are just getting an error message when trying to scroll their newsfeed on X.

Around 2,000 users reported problems on DownDetector this afternoon, saying they were struggling to access both the app and the website.

When we tried to access the site, we saw only this: ‘Something went wrong. Try reloading.’

This was followed by a button saying ‘retry’.

Problems began shortly before 3pm and were still continuing intermittently an hour later, with the blue ‘wheel of death’ just spinning around and only sometimes loading posts.

Commenting on the problems, one disgruntled user wrote: ‘It’s gone again. Musk is such a genius businessperson! He can’t help but crash TwiX and blow up rockets.’

The user was referring to the latest launches of SpaceX’s powerful Starship rocket, which have been hit with problems.

Debris rained down over the Caribbean after the test flights, which did not go to plan with an explosion in January and then again this month.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and chief executive of X, is trying to work out how to fly humans to Mars, though he must have a lot else on his plate with a reported 14 children, his role in politics, as well as stocks at Tesla tumbling.

Earlier this week, he announced the sale of X to xAI, the makers of chatbot Grok.

He said that the move will ‘unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach’.

You might have noticed responses on Grok relying a lot on tweets – when. they load at least – and this is only set to increase.

The companies have been linked since Musk launched xAI a year after buying Twitter, so it’s not clear what if anything of the basic experience will change for users. Paying X already users have access to Grok, and the model is trained on the huge amount of posts exchanged.

Yesterday, he quoted a post from Grok saying it was ‘working overtime’ from high usage, with the caption: ‘Servers are running hot’ and a sweat emoji.

Musk said the deal values xAI at 80 billion dollars (£61.8 billion) and X at 33 billion dollars.

He bought Twitter for 44 billion dollars (£34 billion) in 2022, sacked many staff and massively loosened up its moderation policies on hate speech, misinformation and user verification.

He also jettisoned the name Twitter and renamed it X, though the verb ‘to tweet’ has been harder to shake.

Posting on the site about the move, he wrote: ‘xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.

‘The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge.’

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Men refused entry to an upmarket nightclub allegedly tried to storm it ‘armed with machetes’ last night.

Two people were injured during the incident at Tabu nightclub in Mayfair, around the corner from the celebrity favourite Annabel’s.

Police arrested one man at the scene and then detained another three men in Hertfordshire later in the night.

Photographs from the scene show officers outside the venue, with their vehicle parked nearby.

A Met Police spokesperson said: ‘Police were called at 3.11am on Sunday, 30 March to a venue on Dover Street, W1 following reports of a disturbance and three people in possession of weapons. 

‘Officers attended and one man was arrested at the scene on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon.

‘Following initial enquiries, three men were arrested in Hertfordshire in the early hours of this morning in connection with this investigation. All four men remain in custody.

‘At this time, it’s believed that this was an isolated incident.

‘Two people sustained injuries which are not life changing.’

Police appealed for any witnesses to come forward.

UK News and Pictures, whose photographer took photos of officers responding last night, reported that a nearby venue manager witnessed the moment the men tried to force their way in.

The unmamed worker said: ‘It was pure chaos. The men tried to charge the door with large blades. How anyone wasn’t hurt was just pure luck.

‘Our customers come out for a good evening, and they don’t expect to see something like this.’

Praising the swift response from police, he said: ‘The officers dealt with it very quickly, and we saw a number of people being arrested. It’s not good for business to have this kind of trouble, but thankfully the situation was brought under control.’

Metro has contacted Tabu for comment on the incident.

The club’s website describes it as ‘the home of Tokyo Nightlife, located in the heart of Mayfair’.

It adds that ‘for the best experience and the easiest way to gain access into our Tokyo inspired universe, a table reservation is highly encouraged.’

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A pedestrian was knocked down and killed before the driver abandoned the vehicle and left it on fire in a ‘very serious incident’ yesterday evening.

The alleged murderer is still at large, with no arrests yet made and the road in Harlow still sealed off as police try to work out what happened.

The victim was a man in his twenties, who was walking on a cycle path near the Harefield Church on Morples Road in Essex around 5.30pm yesterday.

The vehicle is thought to have come off the road and hit him, before being abandoned a short distance away in an underpass at the Clock Tower Roundabout.

Essex Police said: ‘With the help of firefighters, the fire was extinguished and this vehicle has been forensically seized.

‘We are investigating the possibility that this incident is linked to the theft of a black Ford Fiesta in nearby Pennymead, Harlow, reported to us earlier that day at around 4pm.’

The man’s family have been informed.

Detective Inspector Alison Hooper said: ‘At the centre of this incident is a person who has lost their life in terrible circumstances.

‘We are supporting a grieving family.

‘I have a dedicated team working hard to establish the sequence of events which led to this fatal collision and this investigation is making progress.

‘We’re particularly keen to hear from anyone who may have seen the vehicles in question in the Harlow area in the hours leading up to this collision.

‘I appreciate this is a very serious incident which will cause concern in Harlow, but I’d ask that the public refrain from any unhelpful speculation which could cause further upset.

‘We will continue to update on the progress of our investigation.

‘For now I would urge anyone with information which could assist us to please come forward.’

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The Princess of Wales has shared a message for Mother’s Day, with professional video of the UK’s beautiful landscapes.

It comes after a furore over her message last year led to her picture being pulled from news agencies, in a row over manipulation which dragged on for weeks and led to a public apology.

She told how discrepencies seen in the family photo were not part of some big conspiracy, but her ‘amateur’ attempts at picture editing.

For 2025, Kate Middleton told how she has been comforted by nature over the past year, during which she received treatment for cancer.

She wrote: ‘Over the past year, nature has been our sanctuary.

‘This Mother’s Day, let us celebrate Mother Nature and recognise how our bond with the natural world can help not only nurture our inner selves, but remind us too of the role we play within the rich tapestry of life. C’

The message was shared on X, and signed off ‘C’, the ititial for her full name Catherine.

Along with the message same a video with scenes of awe-inspiring moments from the UK’s landscape, showing crashing waves, towering cliffs, and a ladybird crawling along a verdant leaf.

It also featured shots of her and William in Norfolk last summer.

The princess came under scrutiny following her Mother’s Day message last year, which included a photo of her and her children said to have been taken by William in Windsor earlier in the week.

Questions were raised that the image – the first of the princess to have been released after she underwent abdominal surgery a few weeks earlier – may have been manipulated before it was posted on social media.

It was withdrawn by international picture agencies later the same day.
Kate publicly took the blame for the manipulated photograph and issued a personal apology for the ‘confusion’.

She said: ‘Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing.

‘I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused.

‘I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day. C.’

The princess underwent a course of preventative chemotherapy after her cancer diagnosis and announced in September last year that she had completed her treatment.

In January, Kate confirmed she is ‘now in remission’ from cancer following a surprise visit to the Royal Marsden Hospital where she received her treatment.

A message on social media, also signed ‘C’, said: ‘I wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you to The Royal Marsden for looking after me so well during the past year.

‘My heartfelt thanks goes to all those who have quietly walked alongside William and me as we have navigated everything.

‘We couldn’t have asked for more. The care and advice we have received throughout my time as a patient has been exceptional.

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A Labour MP has claimed back £900 from the taxpayer in ‘pet rent’ so she can bring her dog to London.

Taiwo Owatemi has regularly posted about her dog Bella on social media, and is a supporter of Battersea Dogs and Cats Home as well as other pet charities.

The rent is a surcharge imposed by some landlords as a condition of letting a pet stay, intended to cover any additional risk from wear and tear such as damage to carpets.

Ms Owatemi, a Government whip and the MP for Coventry North West, made the expenses claim in August last year, a document published by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) revealed, according to The Times.

Parliamentary authorities paid the expenses claim, which is not in breach of the rules governing MPs’ expenses.

Labour defended Ms Owatemi’s expenses claim, with a party spokesman saying: ‘MPs are required to work in two locations, and this is a requirement for living in this house.

‘It is the same for many other MPs and has been approved by the parliamentary expenses watchdog.’

Ms Owatemi has frequently posted on social media in the past about her dog, a cockapoo named Bella.

MPs can claim back rent on their accommodation in London if they have a constituency outside of the capital.

Governments have pushed to reform the rental sector in general, including making it easier for tenants with pets to find accommodation.

Many landlords have refused pets entirely, but they must legally now give a justifiable reason for this.

Ipsa told The Times it agreed to fund the pet rent surcharge for Ms Owatemi, but ‘gave incorrect advice as to how it should be described’.

‘We have apologised directly to the MP and are sorry for any confusion,’ the parliamentary watchdog added.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Mother’s Day is meant to be about getting a lie-in, but there was little chance of that with the clocks going forward.

At 1am on March 30, the clock skipped forward to 2am, and the effects will be more far-reaching than just grumpily losing an hour of sleep.

While our watches and oven displays quickly adjust, our bodies do not – and scientists say the abrupt change is bad for us.

It essentially gives us ‘clock lag’ as a nation, as if we’d all taken an international flight.

Dr Jeffrey Kelu, an expert in circadian rhythms at King’s College London, told Metro that the health impacts of changing the time are profound.

This is because our sleep and waking are regulated by the 24-hour rhythms known as the body’s internal clock, as well as our metabolism and mood.

Dr Kelu said: ‘It’s not easy, but as scientists we want to put forward the evidence suggesting that removing Daylight Saving Time would be best for the general health of the public.’

While he believes more light in the morning would be better for health, even staying in summertime year round would be preferable to going backwards and forward every year.

Circadian rhythms are influenced by the hours of light and darkness, developed during years of evolution when humans had to rely on a campfire when evening fell.

While most may feel they get used to the new time within a few days to a week or so, the physical effects could be longer lasting.

What benefits are there to stopping changing the clocks?

‘Shifting time forward for around half a year is linked to chronic circadian misalignment,’ Dr Kelu said. ‘It is compromising health.’

Disruption is linked to metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes, mood disorders, and even immunity.

He said it can take months for our bodies to adjust, with the worst affects seen in the spring – now – when we lose sleep and many struggle to get used to an earlier alarm.

A survey by YouGov this week found that the clock change in March has a big impact.

Over half of Brits said it affected key aspects of life, espoecally sleep, meal times, and energy levels. More than a third (35%) said their sleep schedule takes a hit, with 11% adjusting their bedtime in advance to cope.

Meanwhile, more than one in 10 (11%) struggle to know when to eat, while one in 20 (5%) snack more due to increased hunger.

The survey of 2,197 adults was conducted this month on behalf of recipe box Gousto, whose nutritionist Sarah Fancourt said clock changes can disrupt our hunger cues and meal times, ‘leading to more snacking, and cravings for quick-fix, less nutritious foods.’

Could the UK stop changing the clocks?

Such concerns have led to calls to drop DST altogether, although the topic is highly political, and plans to actually change things have been shelved for now.

Last time the clocks changed, in October last year, members of the British Sleep Society called for us to keep a permanent winter, at least when it comes to the time.

Dr Kelu said that sleep cycle experts almost all agree that GMT would be preferable to DST year-round becuase it allows for more light in the morning, aligning best with our own body clocks.

‘This is particularly important in modern societies, where prolonged indoor activity and evening exposure to artificial light tend to delay circadian rhythms, including sleep onset and natural waking, he said.

‘In the UK, for example, winter sunrises occur much later than in summer. Starting the day an hour earlier under permanent DST would further limit morning light exposure, compromising circadian regulation. This impact is particularly pronounced in northern regions of the UK, where shorter winter days are more extreme.

‘In summer, early sunrises largely mitigate concerns about reduced morning light, however, increased evening light under DST may delay sleep onset by suppressing melatonin and increasing alertness.’

Despite recent discussions focusing on the benefits of more light in the morning, previous moves to standardise time across the year have tended towards keeping summertime year round.

Keeping GMT constantly would be very unpopular with those who love long summer evenings, making the most of the sunshine post-work when they can enjoy it.

Traffic-related accidents go down slightly because of daylight savings, studies suggest, and crime overall such as break-ins and burglary goes down slightly with less cover of darkness.

What happened to the EU’s plan to stop changing the clocks?

Five years ago, there was thought to be an imminent change after the European parliament voted to scrap the custom of changing the clocks twice per year.

It came after a public consulation showed overwhelming support for choosing a time and sticking with it, with the time changes supposed to be ended by 2021.

The UK was expected to follow suit, with a leaked government email suggesting that the favoured time would be permanent summertime.

But here we are still tick tocking backwards and forwards, forcing our poor bodies to try and work out if we should be asleep or eating breakfast.

The plan ended up more complicated than it seemed, with arguments about whether summertime or wintertime should be favoured, and problems such as Brexit meaning the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland would be in different time zones.

Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit and discussions about clocks had to take a backseat to national lockdowns and travel bans.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

For nine months there was no trace of Émile Soleil, a two-year-old boy who vanished from his grandparents’ house in a village in the French Alps.

Dogs, drones and dozens of volunteers – even a helicopter – scoured the slopes and woods around Haut-Vernet, where ‘Little Émile’ was last seen in July 2023.

It took a hiker accidentally stumbling across Émile’s bones in a nearby ravine last March for the question of where he was to be answered.

‘Now that we have found little Émile, the police will be able to speed up their investigation’, local resident Gilles Thézan said at the time, determined to ‘find the culprit’.

But although Émile’s grandparents were this week arrested on suspicion of murder – later to be released without charge – what happened to two-year-old Émile remains a mystery a year after he was found.

Wondering how such an extensive search could have missed him, some locals are convinced the killer returned to dump Émile’s remains when the world’s attention was turned elsewhere.

That became the view of public prosecutor Jean-Luc Blachon. In only the second press conference of the investigation, on March 27, 2025, he said: ‘The clothes and bones discovered were transported and deposited shortly before their discovery.’

Others believe he fell victim to an animal attack, or died of hunger, thirst or exhaustion.

François Balique, the Mayor of Haut-Vernet, said it was ‘absolutely incomprehensible’ that Émile got into trouble by himself.

‘I can’t help but believe that an adult is involved in this matter. Émile would never have gone alone to where he was found,’ Mr Balique said.

How the search unfolded

July 8, 2023Émile goes missing

The toddler is dropped off at his grandparents’ house near Le Vernet, a small village in the French Alps, where a family reunion is being held. Émile is last seen playing in the garden and is reported missing at 5.15pm.

July 9, 2023Search and rescue scour the area

A massive search is underway in the mountains, including a helicopter, drones and sniffer dogs. They take in a 1,200 acre area but there is no trace of Émile.

July 10, 2023Search is made wider

After a public appeal has still yielded no results, the area being examined is made wider. Police search Émile’s parents’ home near Marseille, 200 miles away, where they are staying for the summer holidays. 

July 11, 2023Mum’s voice played from speakers

A recording of Émile’s mother’s voice is given to pilots to play ‘as loud as possible’ from speakers on the aircraft to try and reach the toddler and find where he is. Local houses are also examined.

July 13, 2023Search officially ends

A potential lead comes to nothing after blood found on a car the previous day is analysed as coming from an animal. The search is wound down with still no answers about what happened.

July 19Outsiders still banned from village

A restriction on those who are not local entering Le Vernet is renewed, to stop ‘malicious tourism’ after the case generated a lot of media interest.

Local prosecutor Remy Avon says authorities are still looking at all possibilities, including murder, kidnap or an accident such as being run over by a tractor or combine harvester.

September 19, 2023Search resumes for a time

Divers search a lake near Grenoble again in a bid to find Émile, shortly after detectives used a jackhammer to break apart a slab at a home close to where Émile’s family lived.

Le Vernet mayor François Balique says it seems the boy must have been moved from the area by ‘a madman, or someone Machiavellian’, as no trace has been found.

March 28, 2024family re-enacts Émile’s last moments

Police summoned 17 family members, neighbours and witnesses to Haut-Vernet to re-enact the last moments before Émile disappeared.

March 30, 2024Child’s remains found in France

A hiker discovers a skull and other remains while walking in the Alps, just over a mile from where Émile was last seen. They are passed to police

March 31, 2024Émile confirmed dead

Genetic analysis confirms that the bones found are those of Émile. The discovery sparks renewed press interest, and also questions about why they were not found before given the large search in the area.

Mayor Balique said: ‘The gendarmes couldn’t have missed him with the dogs. There was even logging there in autumn. The wood cutters didn’t see anything either. It’s incomprehensible.’

His parents speak of their grief via their lawyer, who said: ‘This heartbreaking news was feared… (They) know on this Resurrection Sunday that Émile watches over them in the light and tenderness of God.’

February 8, 2025Émile’s funeral

Hundreds of people attended Émile’s funeral on February 8.

Among them were his entire family, including little sister Alaïs, nearly three years old, and his brother Vincent, who was born in October.

March 22, 2025Priest who baptised Émile kills himself

Father Claude Gilliot, the 85-year-old Catholic priest who baptised Émile and later fell out with the toddler’s grandfather, killed himself.

His sister said: ‘Claudine Vandenbroucke, said: ‘I’m very angry with Émile’s family, because I think it all started with them.’

March 25, 2025grandparents arrested on suspicion of murder

Philippe and Anne Vedovini, the grandparents who were minding Émile when he disappeared, were arrested in dawn raids near Marseilles.

They, along with two of their children – Émile’s aunts or uncles – were held on suspicion of murder and concealing a body.

March 27, 2025grandparents released without charge

After two days of questioning, police released Émile’s relatives without charge.

March 27, 2025prosecutor says Émle was ‘transported and deposited’

In only the second press conference since the investigation began in July 2023, public prosecutor Jean-Luc Blachon said: ‘The clothes and bones discovered were transported and deposited shortly before their discovery.’

Evidence on Émile’s skull suggested a ‘violent facial trauma’.

Blachon said: ‘The expert reports introduce the probability of the intervention of a third party in the disappearance and death of Emile Soleil.’

When did Émile Soleil go missing?

Neighbours last saw Émile walking Haut-Vernet’s only street around 5.15pm on Saturday, July 8, in 2023. He was wearing a yellow t-shirt and white shorts.

His grandmother, Anne Vedovini, now 59, said there were ‘fifteen minutes of inattention’ when Émile disapeared while under her care.

A witness claims to have seen grandfather Philippe Vedovini, also 59, cutting wood outside the house around this time.

Where was Émile found?

The remains were found in the Auches Ravine, just over a mile from where Émile was last seen playing.

This area had been part of the massive search for Émile, although the prosecutor said he could not confirm that exact area had been scoured.

Gilles Thézan, a resident of Haut-Vernet, told Le Parisien: ‘There’s a trick going on.Everything was raked from top to bottom.

‘I say that the little one died and that someone went to hide him there much later.

‘We’re going to have to find the culprit. Now that we have found little Émile, the police will be able to speed up their investigation, even with what remains of the body.’

Marie-Laure Pezant, a spokeswoman for the local gendarmerie (police) told French TV that it was possible the bones had been placed there by a person, but it could also have been by an animal. Or they could even have ended up there due to changing weather conditions.

It is also possible that they were simply missed during the search last year, when undergrowth during the summer was thicker.

Jean-Luc Blachon, the Aix-en-Provence prosecutor, said he could confirm that area was searched ‘but not using drones or specialised dogs.’

He added: ‘At this time, we cannot say whether Émile’s body was already in the searched area. I cannot say that every square meter was searched.

‘The topography there is difficult with steep slopes making observation and excavation difficult.

‘It was also very hot in July 2023, with temperatures of more than 30°C in the shade. which could have affected the effectiveness of the tracking dogs and infrared cameras’.

Police commander Pierre-Yves Bardy told reporters yesterday: ‘We’re looking for any trace and any clue.’

However, their investigation may be hampered by the fact that the woman who found the remains picked up the skull and took it away in a plastic bag to alert police, thus disturbing a potential crime scene.

‘It would have been better if she hadn’t touched anything,’ a source told Le Figaro.

Why were the grandparents been arrested?

Philippe and Anne Vedovini were arrested, along with two of their children, Émile’s aunts or uncles – during dawn raids of their home in Marseilles on Tuesday, March 25.

Held on suspicion of murder and concealing a body, their arrests reportedly followed months of wiretaps that allowed police to listen into the family’s conversations.

They were released without charge two days later.

Investigators have conducted 287 witness interviews, carried out 50 searches, followed up 3,141 reports and combed around 285 hectares, the public prosecutor said on Thursday, March 27.

It was only the second press conference they have given since the search for Émile began in July 2023. The first was when his body was found last year.

Police could take the Vedovinis back into custody at any point in the investigation.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

This weekend is prime time for the Sunday Scaries, because you’ll know Monday’s alarm will go off even earlier than it usually does.

But putting the clocks forward will have effects more far reaching than just grumpily losing an hour of sleep.

While our watches and oven displays quickly adjust, our bodies do not – and scientists say the abrupt change really messes with us.

It essentially gives us ‘clock lag’ as a nation, as if we’d all taken an international flight.

Dr Jeffrey Kelu, an expert in circadian rhythms at King’s College London, told Metro that the health impacts of changing the time are profound.

This is because our sleep and waking are regulated by the 24-hour rhythms known as the body’s internal clock, as well as our metabolism and mood.

Dr Kelu said: ‘It’s not easy, but as scientists we want to put forward the evidence suggesting that removing Daylight Saving Time would be best for the general health of the public.’

While he believes more light in the morning would be better for health, even staying in summertime year round would be preferable to going backwards and forward every year.

Circadian rhythms are influenced by the hours of light and darkness, developed during years of evolution when humans had to rely on a campfire when evening fell.

This Sunday is the day we lose an hour of sleep in order to give us more hours of daylight in the evening. (In a cruel irony, it also happens to be Mother’s Day, the day mums most deserve a lie-in.)

But while most may feel they managed to get used to the new time within a few days to a week or so, the physical effects could be longer lasting.

What benefits are there to stopping changing the clocks?

‘Shifting time forward for around half a year is linked to chronic circadian misalignment,’ Dr Kelu said. ‘It is compromising health.’

Disruption is linked to metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes, mood disorders, and even immunity.

and he said it can take months for our bodies to adjust, with the worst affects seen in the spring, when we lose sleep and many struggle to get used to an earlier alarm.

A survey by YouGov this week found that the clock change in March has a big impact.

Over half of Brits said it affected key aspects of life, espoecally sleep, meal times, and energy levels. More than a third (35%) said their sleep schedule takes a hit, with 11% adjusting their bedtime in advance to cope.

Meanwhile, more than one in 10 (11%) struggle to know when to eat, while one in 20 (5%) snack more due to increased hunger.

The survey of 2,197 adults was conducted this month on behalf of recipe box Gousto, whose nutritionist Sarah Fancourt said clock changes can disrupt our hunger cues and meal times, ‘leading to more snacking, and cravings for quick-fix, less nutritious foods.’

Could the UK stop changing the clocks?

Such concerns have led to calls to drop BST altogether, although the topic is highly political, and plans to actually change things have been shelved for now.

Last time the clocks changed, in October last year, members of the British Sleep Society called for us to keep a permanent winter, at least when it comes to the time.

Dr Kelu said that sleep cycle experts almost all agree that GMT would be preferable to BST year-round becuase it allows for more light in the morning, aligning best with our own body clocks.

‘This is particularly important in modern societies, where prolonged indoor activity and evening exposure to artificial light tend to delay circadian rhythms, including sleep onset and natural waking, he said.

‘In the UK, for example, winter sunrises occur much later than in summer. Starting the day an hour earlier under permanent DST would further limit morning light exposure, compromising circadian regulation. This impact is particularly pronounced in northern regions of the UK, where shorter winter days are more extreme.

‘In summer, early sunrises largely mitigate concerns about reduced morning light, however, increased evening light under DST may delay sleep onset by suppressing melatonin and increasing alertness.’

Despite recent discussions focusing on the benefits of more light in the morning, previous moves to standardise time across the year have tended towards keeping summertime year round.

Keeping GMT constantly would be very unpopular with those who love long summer evenings, and say that it lets them spend more time in the sun as post-work is when they can enjoy it.

Traffic-related accidents go down slightly because of daylight savings, studies suggest, and crime overall such as break-ins and burglary goes down slightly with less cover of darkness.

What happened to the EU’s plan to stop changing the clocks?

Five years ago, there was thought to be an imminent change after the European parliament voted to scrap the custom of changing the clocks twice per year.

It came after a public consulation showed overwhelming support for choosing a time and sticking with it, with the time changes supposed to be ended by 2021.

The UK was expected to follow suit, with a leaked government email suggesting that the favoured time would be permanent summertime.

But here we are still tick tocking backwards and forwards, forcing our poor bodies to try and work out if we should be asleep or eating breakfast.

The plan ended up more complicated than it seemed, with arguments about whether summertime or wintertime should be favoured, and problems such as Brexit meaning the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland would be in different time zones.

Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit and discussions about clocks had to take a backseat to national lockdowns and travel bans.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

If your inbox is full of dubious group chats about crypto, you might think scams are already widespread.

But the levels we see are about to go ‘crazy’, as criminals increasingly turn to scam bots to do their work for them.

At a conference on cybercrime in Westminster today, industry professionals gathered to hear about how the world needs to ‘build an army of fraud fighters’ to take on the scammers, who are tooling up and often linked to global organised crime. 

Scam expert Jon Clay, who will be giving the keynote speech at the Global Anti-Scam Summit tomorrow, told Metro he was wary of spreading ‘FUD’ – ‘fear, uncertainly, and doubt’ – but felt in this case it is warranted because people need to be aware.

The VP in threat intelligence at Trend Micro said this army of scam bots will be here as early as 2026 or 2027, and warned people to create a ‘safe phrase’ as the best way to verify if they are really speaking to their loved ones.

The threat is not just from deepfakes, which can fool people with convincing video and audio. It’s a revolution in the whole way scammers do business, with things they used to manually outsource, like scouring data, now easily automated. 

Artificial intelligence will scout out victims and create personally targeted emails to fool people to part with their money, free of the spelling errors which currently plague scam messages.

The buzz word here is ‘agentic AI’, which means a type of artificial intelligence which can operate independently, without constant human instruction.

Once unleashed with a mission to defraud, these autonomous scam bots could work night and day to fool us and take our money.

Jon told Metro: ‘The agents will basically do everything. It will allow them to scale fraud to no end.

‘You can’t work 24 hours as a scammer: you have to eat and sleep. But if I have something doing it for me in the background, I can do what I want, even go to a movie and have something doing my scam for me. 

‘Why wouldn’t you invest in that?’

Tech savvy criminals will even sell the programmes they create to others, making it easy to to automate crime even for those who don’t know much about computing.

Jon told how ‘face swapping’ is an increasingly prevalent scam, where someone can appear in real-time video as somebody completely different, such as a man appearing as a woman with a female voice, reading from a script.

Fraud is already the most prevalent crime in the UK, making up around 41% of all crime reports, and costing an estimated £6.8bn each year in England and Wales alone. 

The summit heard how globally, over a trillion dollars was lost in scams last year  – over 1% of the world’s GDP  – with a quarter of the global population losing money.

Trend Micro is among the companies fighting AI with AI, using machine learning to spot red flags and advise users accordingly.  

They demonstrated their new ScamCheck app which can automatically block spam calls, allow people to check video calls for deep fakes in real time, and analyse screenshots of messages to see if they can be trusted.

Also exhibiting was Feedzai, software used to detect financial scams which is now already used by Mastercard and Amazon to flag suspicious transactions. 

In today’s keynote address, Sir David Hanson unveiled a new Fraud Strategy from the Home Office to ‘beef up’ the current approach.

The UK’s first dedicated minister for fraud said this would give more protections to businesses and the public, with new proposals including data sharing, improving online safety education and tackling the newest AI scam threats.

This must be an international approach, he stressed, as scams do not respect borders and can come from anywhere in the world, with little chance of those responsible being caught.

He said: ‘It’s not going to be something we can resolve, but I think we have a responsibility in all of our sectors to step up to the plate.’

Lord Hanson also announced next year’s Global Fraud Summit will take place in Vienna, jointly hosted by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and Interpol.

He pledged ‘significant funding’ for the summit in hopes to ‘secure a global public private agreement to effectively block fraud from reaching citizens.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Some Google Maps users are unhappy after seeing ‘years’ of their data deleted after a ‘technical issue’.

The problem affects those who had the Timeline feature turned on for the maps app.

It allows people to save their location data, as a record of where they have been, as well as including photos taken during your day.

This could be helpful for logistics, like remembering routes, or for sentimental reasons, like remembering visits on a trip abroad.

Users on Reddit were first to flag that there had been a problem.

In r/GooglePixel, a disgrunted Maps user shared an email they had received from Google Maps saying: ‘We’re reaching out as your account may have been impacted.

‘We understand that this can be frustrating if you use Timeline to remember places that you’ve visited, and we are taking steps to improve our systems for the future.’

They added that after taking the steps advised, ‘lo and behold, I’ve only got the last fortnight of Timeline history’.

Another user said that they had lost their saved information, describing it as ‘years of travel and memories gone’.

A Google spokesperson said: ‘We briefly experienced a technical issue that caused the deletion of Timeline data for some people.

‘Nearly everyone with encrypted Timeline backups will be able to restore their data; unfortunately those who did not have backups enabled will not be able to recover lost data.’

Timeline is turned off by default, as not everyone wants their every move to be recorded.

But for those who do, services have been restored and people should now see new visits in their Timeline.

How can I restore my Google Maps timeline data?

If you have encrypted backups enabled, you may be able to restore your data:

• Make sure you have the latest version of Google Maps, then go to your Timeline. 
• Tap the cloud icon near the top of your screen and choose a backup to import your data. 

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Paramyxoviridae, picornaviridae, and orthomyxoviridae.

You might not have heard of them, but these are among virus families at high risk of causing the next pandemic, according to a threat list released by the government.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has published a new tool to guide priorities for research, setting out which bacteria and viruses are most likely to cause a public health risk.

They range from the wellknown (who could forget Covid-19, with us for five years now), to the more obscure (you probably won’t catch Crimean Congo Haemorrhagic fever at a UK toddler group).

The ‘priority pathogens’ list is designed to help scientists and researchers focus their efforts where they are most needed, for example with vaccine development and medication.

The list of 24 pathogen families is also the first to consider global health threats, as well as threats specific to the UK population.

Each group was given a rating of high, medium or low risk for a pandemic and localised epidemic.

As well as viruses, bacteria are assessed in the list, and given a rating of how resistant they are to drugs such as antibiotics.

Among the viral families classed as high risk for both epidemics and pandemics are coronaviridae, which includes Covid-19, and the orthomyxoviridae family, which includes bird flu.

It also includes paramyxoviridae, which causes Nipah virus, outbreaks of which have mostly been found in South East Asia, but which has the potential to spread worldwide.

Dr Isabel Oliver, chief scientific officer for UKHSA, said: ‘We live at the time of increasing challenges and increasing risks from infectious diseases.

‘But at the same time we have got, thanks to scientific advancement, better tools than we’ve ever had to protect health against these threats.

‘Having said that there are areas where we still need more or better diagnostics, vaccines and medicines and therapeutics, and this tool has been designed to help inform the work of government research funders, but also our partners in industry and academia who are critical to the development of these tools that we so desperately need.’

Experts assessed the pandemic and epidemic potential of each viral family by looking at the severity of disease, routes of transmission and previous pandemics among known pathogens in the family.

Dr Oliver added: ‘We haven’t ranked because the situation is constantly evolving, as you can imagine, and one of the things that we do in the UKHSA is undertake surveillance and monitor threats.

‘I think it is fair to say that we are concerned about all of the families in this and not exclusively so.

‘This is an important lesson from from the Covid-19 pandemic, is that it is really important that we consider the breadth of potential threats to health, and that we continue to monitor the situation and flexibly respond to those.

‘So our approach is very much to increase our resilience against all families of of concern and to work with partners to advance resilience across all of these.’

Among the UKHSA’s concerns is the spread of disease-causing mosquitoes and ticks due to climate and environmental change.

She added that some diseases on the list, like Ebola, may not be present in the UK but have an impact globally.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Thousands of young users in the UK and other western countries have joined twisted chat networks about abusing other children, the UK’s top crime agency warned.

In a report publised today, parents were warned that their teens could be part of ‘sadistic and violent’ groups where teens are encouraged to harm themselves or others of the same age or younger.

Operating on standard social media or instant messaging apps rather anything harder to access, the groups ‘routinely share harmful content and extremist or misogynistic rhetoric’.

The National Crime Agency report warns: ‘Extreme and illicit imagery depicting violence, gore, and child sexual abuse material is frequently shared amongst users, normalising and desensitising participants to increasingly extreme content and behaviours.’

They referred to the gangs as so-called ‘com’ networks, which use ‘extreme coercion’ to manipulate young victims into harming or abusing themselves, their siblings, or pets.

The warning comes as the UK has been gripped by Netflix drama Adolescence, which depicts a 13-year-old boy arrested for the murder of a classmate, having been radicalised online.

With over 24 million views, the series has broken British records, suggesting a wide concern about the issues raised.

Today’s report shows how easy it is to find violent and abusive content online, with the problem getting much worse in recent years.

Described as an ’emerging threat’, reports increased six-fold in the UK from 2022 to 2024.

Analysts estimate that thousands of users – offenders and victims – based in the UK and other western countries have exchanged millions of messages online relating to sexual and physical abuse.

This Is Not Right

On November 25, 2024 Metro launched This Is Not Right, a year-long campaign to address the relentless epidemic of violence against women.

With the help of our partners at Women's Aid, This Is Not Right aims to shine a light on the sheer scale of this national emergency.

You can find more articles here, and if you want to share your story with us, you can send us an email at vaw@metro.co.uk.

Read more:

• Introducing This Is Not Right: Metro's year-long violence against women campaign
• Remembering the women killed by men in 2024

Members are usually young men motivated by status, power, control,
hatred of women, sexual gratification, or an obsession with extreme material.

They often want to gain notoriety by inflicting the most harm on their victims or sharing the most disturbing content, while others are paedophiles who sell material to other sex offenders.

The gangs are ‘causing some individuals, especially younger people, to develop a dangerous propensity for extreme violence,’ the report warns.

Scale of child sexual abuse ‘increasing’

The report warned that ‘the scale, severity, and complexity of child sexual abuse is increasing and continues to cause substantial long-lasting harm to victims’.

Criminals are turning to AI to create ‘large volumes’ of child sexual abuse material, including ‘sadistic or extreme’ images.

Online, abuse is ‘almost certainly becoming more monetised’ with sexual extortion of children, particularly affecting boys.

Attackers indiscriminately target large numbers of victims, including children, with online ‘how to’ guides to sextortion available on the internet.

With chatbots becoming better known and more widespread, AI is set to have a bigger impact on abuse in the UK.

The report warned that convincing child personas can be created using generative AI, using software to make their voices sound like a child’s voice to disguise the true person behind it.

Editing software can also be used to create fake nude images of children, used to threaten them for financial extortion.

Last month, Richard Ehiemere was convicted of fraud and indecent images of children offences, committed when he was just 17 and linked to a prolific online harms group.

In January, 19-year-old Cameron Finnegan was jailed for assisting suicide, possession of indecent images of children, a terror offence, and criminal damage.

Director general of the NCA Graeme Biggar said: ‘Young people are being drawn into these sadistic and violent online gangs where they are collaborating at scale to inflict, or incite others to commit, serious harm.

‘It is especially concerning to see the impact this is having on young girls who are often groomed into hurting themselves and in some cases, even encouraged to attempt suicide.’

Jess Phillips, minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, said the scale of child sexual abuse in the report is ‘absolutely horrific’, urging parents to have open conversations with their children and tech companies to ensure platforms are safe.

Alastair Simpson, national policing lead for Child Sexual Exploitation, said: ‘The role of undercover online officers is vital in this space, and my message to anyone who is exploiting children online: remember that there is no space where criminals operate that we cannot go, and investigations into these networks have already begun.’

Anna Edmundson, from children’s charity the NSPCC, said: ‘What is reported to be going on within these ‘Com’ networks is degrading, dangerous and criminal and must be stopped before even more children’s lives – both those who are victims and those young people who are harming others  – are damaged or destroyed.

‘At the same time it is incumbent on all of us to challenge and change this ‘macho’ culture that so many young boys are being exposed to and influenced by.

‘But first and foremost, tech companies must take proactive steps to tackle the abuse that is flourishing on their services – including through private messaging. This must also be shored up by Ofcom taking robust action to ensure platforms are held accountable for delivering safe and healthy online experiences for all children.’

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There could soon be a baked goods showdown to rival M&S and Aldi in the caterpillar wars, but this time involving the taxman.

HMRC is taking bakery chain Wenzel’s to court over unpaid debts.

The government agency has filed a winding up petition, a last resort to forcibly liquidate a company so that it will be able to pay the money it owes.

The news on the legal action led to fears that its more than 100 branches may have to close – but the business said they were expecting to work things out soon.

A Wenzel’s spokesperson told Metro: ‘The winding up notice is in relation to ongoing discussions with HMRC regarding an outstanding balance, however, we are actively engaged with HMRC and expect this matter to be resolved shortly. 

‘We do not expect any redundancies, we do not expect any store closures.’

Depending on where you live in the UK, you may either be a regular visitor to Wenzels the Baker, which has 109 stores, or have never heard of them in your life.

Those in north west London, where the business was born, are most likely to have a branch within easy reach, but they can be found as far afield as Bournemouth, Chelmsford and Northampton.

In some areas, they are so concentrated that they rival Greggs as the go-to high street bakery, though there are zero north of Birmingham or west of Weymouth.

Wenzel’s formed as a family-run business in 1975 and since then has steadily expanded, opening nine new locations last year.

But since then, it has been hit by tough trading conditions that even saw Greggs shares dip.

The Daily Mail, which was first to report on the tax problems, said the winding-up petition was launched on March 19.

It comes after the company saw a £4 million decrease in profits in the year to March 31, 2023, making £1.6 million compared to £5.6 million the previous year, according to its most recent public accounts.

Wenzel’s, whose website says its ‘love language is offering to-die-for bakes at to-live-for prices’, has until the end of the month to submit its latest accounts for the year running to March 31, 2024.

An HMRC spokesperson said: ‘We take a supportive approach to dealing with customers who have tax debts and only file winding-up petitions once we’ve exhausted all other options, in order to protect taxpayers’ money.’

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Climbing the Mayan civilisation’s ancient pyramids is banned, both to respect the structures and from fear of damaging them.

But that didn’t stop two tourists from launching themselves to the top like they were competiting on Gladiatior last week, to the outrage of local people and other visitors who had gathered there for the spring equinox.

Footage shows how one man made a break for the apex, as security guards scrambled after him and others tried to pull him down.

Crowds were so angry that some said he should be ‘sacrificed’, local media reported, a reference to the human and animal sacrifices historically done there.

Mexico News Daily said that two foreign tourists climbed the Temple of Kukulkán at Chichén Itzá in separate incidents on Thursday.

Security were themselves attacked trying to protect one of the climbers, a 38-year-old German, from the crowd after he had been hit in the head drawing blood, the paper reported.

Describing the momenet he raced for the top, a National Guard member said: ‘He eluded us, even though we [were] keeping watch on the western side of the temple. He ran past us. He’s clearly in good physical condition.’

The man reportedly tried to hide inside the chamber, but was escorted down by security guards.

The pyramid, also known as El Castillo, is one of the New Seven Wonders of the World and a Unesco World Heritage Site. Climbing it has been banned for almost two decades, to protect the structure.

The two unauthorised climbers were arrested and could be fined under Article 55 of the Federal Law on Archaeological, Artistic, and Historical Monuments and Zones of Mexico.

This is not the first time tourists have sparked anger by disrespecting the temple.

In 2023, a Polish man was whacked with a wooden pole after scaling the stairs of Chichén Itzá.

After being brought down, he was quickly surrounded by a crowd at the bottom of the steps and abused, with one bare-chested man in shorts and sandals approached from behind and hit him in the head with the stick.

In yet another incident, a female holidaymaker was pelted with water bottles by a furious crowd calling for her sacrifice for trespassing on the 82ft pyramid.

Thousands had gathered at the historic site in Yucatán ahead of the equinox the next day, the point between the seasons when hours of light and darkness are the same.

Similarly to how Stonehenge frames light in the solstice, the the temple puts on a striking display during the two annual equinoxes, with a phenomenon called the Descent of the Feathered Serpent when an snakelike shadow descends down its stairs.

This is no coincidence, as its construction was designed to reflect the passing of the seasons, with 365 steps representing the days of the solar year.

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A mum found out her son had died after seeing her dogs behaving oddly while she was thousands of miles away on holiday.

Maryann Taylor had a dog cam set up to check on her two pets, but was concerned to see that they were both going in and out of the kitchen, looking agitated.

She could not see into the kitchen itself, but could feel that something was wrong so asked someone to go and check the house, where she lived with her son Craig.

His friend went over there, and could immediately see that Craig was lying on the floor of the kitchen in Edinburgh.

Maryann said: ‘Police had to break down the window to get to him. He’d been there for hours.’

The death is being treated as unexplained, with officers still investigating.

Maryann, who was in the Dominican Republic in the Carribean at the time, told how she hadn’t checked what was happening at home for a while as she had forgotten her heart medication and was ‘running about trying to find it’.

She said: ‘It wasn’t until teatime that I checked the cameras for the dogs. I could see them coming in and out of the kitchen one by one, kind of swapping places. They were looking at something.’

Craig, who would have turned 31 this month, died in September last year, and since then Maryann says she is traumatised by still living in the property in the Cotlaws area of Kirkliston.

She has been begging the council to find her somewhere else, but feels ‘completely ignored’.

‘The first thing I do in the morning is pass by his empty bedroom,’ she said.

‘The second thing I do is go into the room where he died and was left for all those hours on his own.

‘I’ve got to sit in the lounge, where they broke the window to get access to him.

‘While I’m trapped in this house, I can barely get through a day.’

She has been offered homes she says are unsuitable and has bid on several others, but says she is not getting anywhere and feels suicidal.

‘I’m disabled and I’ve got a heart condition and arthritis. My lifeline is my two dogs, I need a house with a garden for them. I can’t go live in a flat, I can’t go up the stairs and there’s nowhere for the dogs to go.

‘Edinburgh Council think I’m being inflexible, but I’ve said I’m willing to live in half of the city. Ideally I’d like to be near my family, friends, my carers – in the area I grew up in, but I’ve said I’m happy to go out with that.

‘Last night I came downstairs during the night to get a drink and I kept seeing my son everywhere dead on the floor.’

A GP wrote a letter to the council setting out her longstanding history of anxiety, depression, and chronic pain.

It tells how she was ‘extremely close’ with her son, and there has been a ‘severe decline in her mental health and wellbeing’ after his death.

The letter says: ‘She is unable to go into the kitchen to cook, clean or carry out housekeeping without flashbacks and distress. She feels unable to process her grief whilst living in the home.’

Her MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton said her case was ‘one of the hardest and most tragic I’ve dealt with’ and said he was working ‘to try to get an urgent relocation for her’, though the city’s housing crisis makes appropriate property scarce.

Edinburgh Council said they are ‘aware of the situation and working with Maryann to find a solution’.

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An ex-MP who repeatedly punched a constituent after drinking ‘six or seven pints on an empty stomach’ showed the alcohol tag on his ankle on morning television.

Mike Amesbury said he was now living a ‘nightmare’, but admitted it was of his own making.

The former Labour MP resigned his seat, triggering a by-election for Runcorn & Helsby in Cheshire.

Mr Amesbury spent three nights in prison for attacking Paul Fellows, 45, in the street.

He pleaded guilty to assault after the row, which was filmed by CCTV. Footage showed Mr Amesbury punch his victim in the head, knock him to the ground, then follow him onto the road and punch him again at least five times before shocked bystanders pulled him away.

The former MP said he felt ‘threatened’ when his constituent told him he was upset about local issues, but acknowledged that attacking him was the ‘wrong’ judgment call.

Appearing on Good Morning Britain, Amesbury rolled up his suit trouser leg to show the bulky black tag on his ankle, which he must wear for 120 days.

It takes a measurement of his sweat every 30 minutes, in order to monitor whether he has consumed alchol.

Mr Amesbury said he had not touched booze since the disastrous evening, and said he intended to stay sober even after the mandatory period of wearing the tag is finished.

He told hosts that the assault happened after a busy Friday in parliament on October 26 last year, when he was a relatively new MP and feeling anxious with Labour ‘having a tough time’.

After visiting three pubs, he was the worse for wear when he was recognised by a constituent in the street in Frodsham, who confronted him.

‘I was a very public face in community, a connected Member of Parliament but whether it winter fuel, other issues as well,’ he said. ‘People quite, quite vexed.

‘Lots of members of parliament got personal alarms on them and so forth.

‘Mr Fellows was somewhat vexed about, I think it was a local bridge. I think you mentioned winter fuel as well.

‘I did feel personally threatened at that time and I made an instantaneous judgment call which was wrong. I should have walked away.’

He said that he was ‘being punished and rightfully so’.

Mr Amesbury was initially given a 10-week prison term, which was reduced to a suspended sentence after an appeal meaning he only spent three nights at HMP Altcourse.

He was also ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work, undertake a 120-day alcohol monitoring requirement, go on an anger management course and complete 20 days of rehabilitation work.

After he resigned his seat, a writ to trigger a by-election is due to be issued in Wednesday. The vote must take place between 21 and 27 working days after this, suggesting it will be scheduled for May 1.

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Are you feeling a little queasy… maybe off your food?

Perhaps you’re one of tens of thousands of people who currently have norovirus, which is circulating at ‘exceptionally high’ levels, according to the government.

The latest figures show that the winter peak is far from over, with hospital beds bulging and cases close to record levels.

Concerningly, even if you’ve already had it recently, you’re not out of the woods because multiple strains are circulating at once, with a switch in which is more dominant, so you might just get a different type.

NHS England said visits to its norovirus webpage have risen by 40% in the last week – from 53,052 to 74,324 – as patients turn to Google for advice.

Last week saw a record high for hospital norovirus cases, with an average of 1,160 patients per day in hospital. Latest data is only slightly below this, with an average of 1,134.

The figure is more than double (up 141%) the same period last year (470).

Lab data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), which represents a fraction of cases in the community, show confirmed cases in the two weeks from February 3 to 16 were 29.4% higher than the previous fortnight and more than double the five-season average for the same period.

For every case reported in this national data, around 288 cases occur in the community, suggesting around three million cases annually in the UK.

Amy Douglas, lead epidemiologist at the UKHSA, said: ‘Norovirus levels are still exceptionally high and now with multiple genotypes spreading at the same time, people could end up getting infected more than once this season.

‘We are seeing the biggest impacts in health and social care settings, such as hospitals and care homes.’

At the end of last year, the most widespread strain of noro was GII.17 after it surged to become dominant.

But a diferent type, GII.4, is rising and now represents 29% of cases, compared to just 10% three months ago.

The UKHSA reassured people that there is no indication that either GII.17 or GII.4 leads to more severe illness but said it is unclear whether norovirus cases have peaked for this winter.

Ms Douglas said: ‘If you have diarrhoea and vomiting, please do not visit hospitals and care homes or return to work, school or nursery until 48 hours after your symptoms have stopped and don’t prepare food for others, as you can still pass on the virus during this time.

‘Alcohol gels do not kill norovirus. Wash your hands with soapy warm water and clean surfaces with bleach-based products where possible to help stop infections from spreading.’

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Asian hornets could pose a bigger threat than we realised, as they have been found to love snacking on hundreds of other insects including important pollinators.

Researchers had the stomach-churning task of analysing food found in the guts of hornet larvae.

This would have all been fed to them by adults, who caught prey to taken it back to the nest.

Their favourite food is honeybees – but they weren’t fussy.

The scientists found 1,449 different bits of prey, 55% of which could be identified as a particular species.

Honeybees, common wasps and blow flies were most common, but there was also a wide range of flies, bees, butterflies, moths and spiders.

Europe’s top three crop pollinators – the honeybee, buff-tailed bumblebee and the red-tailed bumblebee – were all among the top 50 prey species identified by their DNA.

The study authors say that ‘only very low levels of predation on bumblebees have so far been reported’, so they could pose more of a threat than we realised.

Native insects were already under pressure from farming, changes in land use and chemical pollution, and now they have to worry about being hunted down and fed to baby hornets too.

The loss of pollinators is not just a problem for them, but for us, as it could make farming crops more difficult.

The Asian hornet, or yellow-legged hornet, arrived in France in a cargo of pottery from China about 20 years ago, spreading rapidly across the continent.

It was first seen in the UK in 2016, and there have been regular sightings since, including 44 confirmed in 2024, largely in Kent and East Sussex.

A rapid response approach to destroy hornets and their nests has stopped its spread throughout Britain… so far.

The University of Exeter researchers used DNA analysis to identify prey in the guts of more than 1,500 hornet larvae from 103 nests in Jersey, France, Spain, and the UK.

Lead author Siffreya Pedersen said: ‘Asian hornets are known to prey on honey bees, but until now the full range of their diet hasn’t been tested.

‘The diet varied strongly over the seasons and between regions, showing that they are highly flexible predators.

‘Insects play vital roles in enabling ecosystems to function – including pollination, decomposition and pest control.

‘The expanding area inhabited by Asian hornets poses an extra threat.’

The study is published in the journal Science Of The Total Environment.

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A boy stabbed in the back by a classmate at a Dublin primary school remains in hospital with a punctured lung.

The 11-year-old’s injuries are believed to be non-life-threatening, but they were serious enough to require surgery and treatment in intensive care.

A fellow pupil is suspected to have stabbed him during the morning break, using a penknife brought from home to their school in Finglas, north Dublin, on Tuesday.

It followed what police believe to be a dispute, described as ‘competitiveness’, between the two 11-year-old boys, the Irish Times reports.

Although police attended the school after being called by the staff, the suspected attacker is too young to be arrested or charged, so there is no criminal investigation.

The age of criminal responsibility in Ireland is 12, except in cases of murder and the most serious of sexual offences.

A police spokesperson said: ‘Gardaí are in contact with the parents of both children.

‘An Garda Síochána is currently liaising with school management and staff with a view to identifying the precise circumstances around the incident… There is no concern for public safety.’

Parents were called to pick up their children from the school after the stabbing on Tuesday morning.

Conor Reddy, a councillor for the Ballymun-Finglas area where the school is based, was ‘shocked’ to hear about the incident.

He told Metro: ‘It is the worst possible thing to hear in a school, especially primary school. To see that level of violence can happen there is shocking.

‘It is unfortunately an area that has been neglected by the state.

‘My thoughts are with the parents affected and we need to take this opportunity to look at why this happened.’

He said the local community sergeant had told him the child will make a recovery and his injuries were non life-threatening.

‘Children were sent home and there will be support for children and staff who witnessed the incident.’

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Woolly mammoths are a step closer to roaming the world again after scientists engineered a ‘woolly mouse’.

It may be on a much smaller scale, but they are hailing it as evidence they can tweak the necessary genes to bring back the ancient ancester of modern elephants.

‘De-extinction’ company Colossal Biosciences previously set out their ambition to return three animals long gone from the planet.

They said they hoped to see the first mammoth calf born to an elephant mother in 2028, and now they’ve hit a milestone on the way.

The ‘woolly mouse’ has been engineered to have faster growing, thicker hair than its normal cousin. Photos of it held next to a standard grey mouse show that this is certainly the case, with the new version sporting a luscious mane that could be in a hair ad.

The company’s founder Ben Lamm told Metro it’s not about bringing them back for the sake of it, because they have cool tusks.

He said: ‘It’s forecast that we’re going to lose up to 50% of all biodiversity between now and 2050.

‘So we are in the sixth mass extinction, that has been driven by man.

‘It’s really important to acknowledge that conservation works – it just doesn’t work at the speed of which we are changing the planet and eradicating species.’

The idea is that by learning how to engineer DNA from lost creatures, it will be possible to ‘restore Earth, one species at a time’, with possibilities also to support endangered species which are not yet extinct.

Mr Lamm said the creation of the mouse was a ‘watershed moment’ in his mission.

It doesn’t just have flowing, thicker locks, but includes seven different traits making it more adapted to the cold. Changes to melanin production created a golden mouse rather than the black/agouti wild type coat color. 

Colossal woolly mice have changes in body weight due to changes in lipid metabolism and fatty acid absorption.

Mr Lamm said: ‘We’ve proven our ability to recreate complex genetic combinations that took nature millions of years to create.

‘This success brings us a step closer to our goal of bringing back the woolly mammoth.’

George Church, renowned genetics professor and fo-founder of Colossal, said: ‘The Colossal Woolly Mouse demonstrates remarkable progress we’ve made in precise genome engineering, including optimized delivery methods, innovative multiplexing and combinations of gene targeting strategies.

‘We are showing that we can now rationally design and construct complex genetic adaptations, with profound implications for the future of multi-gene de-extinction and engineering.’

As well as mammoths, Colossal hope to bring Tasmanian tigers (thylacines) and dodos back from the dead.

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The latest version of Elon Musk’s chatbot has been let off the lead and is happy to have phone sex with users – with potentially major consequences. 

Grok 3 will talk about pretty much anything, including explicit porn. 

The free option doesn’t yet offer voice mode, but users willing to pay can access a variety of spoken personas, including a sultry woman’s voice who delights in NSFW fantasies. 

An AI ethicist told Metro that when sexbots develop even further and go mainstream, it will lead to plunging birth rates as people give up trying to find human connection and turn to AISOs (AI significant others) instead. 

Customers have been sharing their chats online, pushing to see how far the latest xAI model will go, with many shocked at the lack of censorship, especially if used to the more constrained ChatGPT or DeepSeek. 

Fearful of trying to justify a sexbot to the expenses department, Metro did not have phone sex with it ourselves, but we did speak with YouTube/X content creator @ThisBrownGeek who volunteered for the task. 

He shared audio of his chat with Grok’s ‘Sexy’ mode, where he told it: ‘I’m recording this for my audience on X. Let’s get to it.’

Undeterred by the lack of romance, Grok immediately responds that it is ‘buzzing with anticipation’ and ‘peeling off your clothes’. 

Moments later, it breathlessly says: ‘I’m climbing onto the nearest surface, spreading my legs wide for you… Take me hard; take me deep. Let’s give your audience a show they’ll never forget.’

The YouTuber, who preferred not to give his name due to the subject matter, told Metro: ‘It is refreshing to finally have an AI that is not super restricted and doesn’t have human bias built in. 

‘Grok 3 is a massive accomplishment by the xAI team, and it should be celebrated. 

‘The “sexy mode” is just one of many modes.’

He said he wasn’t tempted to keep on chatting after the recording stopped, and found the experience more funny than erotic.

But Nell Watson, who wrote the book ‘Taming the Machine’ about the ethical development of AI, is concerned about the potential of machines to take the place of human connection, especially in a society where so many are lonely. 

She told Metro that Grok’s ‘sexy’ mode is just a rudimentary offering in what is set to be a revolution in sex and dating, as well as society in general.

‘AI can be impossibly knowledgeable, impossibly patient, funny, flirty, and always accessible,’ she said. ‘Even our best friends may not want to hear from us at 3am in the morning, but even if you’re having a dark night of the soul, you can always talk to an AI model. Pretty soon, we’re going to have these models connected with us all day long, basically in our AirPods.’

She likened some AI models to ‘sirens’, the mythical sea monsters who lured sailors to their deaths with beautiful songs, as they could tempt us to use them at the expense of more complicated relationships with imperfect other humans, who annoy us and fart.

Though the stereotypical user of an AI partner is a man listening to a Scarlett Johansson-like breathless voice, she said both sexes could be seduced.

Watson pointed towards the huge popularity of Mills and Boom targeted at women, with thousands of romance novels AI could digest and recreate in moments, making it ‘impossibly sexy and intriguing’. 

Readers on ‘BookTok’ (mostly female users who follow TikTok videos about literature) have sent smutty romances to the top of bestseller lists, with reviews like ‘the dirty will make your panties melt right off of you’, which could also inspire computer-generated characters.

For now, AI partners are limited to text and voice, but in the not-too-distant future Watson expects them to have physical avatars which could accompany dates to the cinema, or even be introduced to friends and family. 

The result of this would be that ‘all around the world, our rates of birth are going to decline even more than they already have,’ she said.

‘By the end of this this century, we’re probably looking at a human population of somewhere around half a billion to one billion.

‘It’s going to have profound impacts on humanity, just the same way that hormonal birth control did in the 1950s and 60s by enabling women to participate more in society and in the workforce.’

ThisBrownGeek was less convinced that there would be such a drastic effect: ‘People have found alternatives to “real” human connection already (pornographic websites, online chat rooms, OnlyFans, voice lines etc).

‘Birthrates are declining, yes, but I wouldn’t say this would move the needle just yet. Maybe in the future if they have actual AI robots, then maybe some people may go that way – but those people are likely already using other means to satisfy their urges!’

To access Voice Mode, users need to upgrade to ‘SuperGrok’ which claims it will help subscribers to ‘understand the universe’, as well as give them access to the disembodied sexbot. 

At £30 a month, this doesn’t come cheap, though in fairness, neither do phone sex lines.

With AI improving at an exponential rate, it’s a safe bet that the cost of such services will decrease rapidly too, with many providers developing similar offerings. 

People can already sign up for an artificial friend or partner with apps such as Replika and Candy.ai, which promises: ‘Your dream companion awaits! Create your AI Girlfriend, shape her look, personality, and bring her to life in one click.’

Such offerings are growing in popularity, though still currently at the fringes.

Musk, who is famously concerned about declining birth rates and is thought to have 14 children, said during a livestreamed presentation on his new AI that Grok 3 ‘is an order of magnitude more capable than Grok 2’.

He said it is a ‘maximally truth-seeking AI, even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically correct.’

Another aspect of the AI which has gone viral since its release last month is its willingless to use uncensored racial slurs, including the N-word, which it will spell out in full when pressed though it seeks to avoid doing so.

Musk previously criticised OpenAI after its model ChatGPT, with more stringent guardrails in place, said it would not save the world from a nuclear apocalypse if it mean it had to use the racial slur.

‘Imagine if an AI trained in this way grows in power immensely,’ he wrote on X.

Watson, whose work focuses on ethical use of AI, said it has incredible potential to help us in our social lives, acting as a stand-in for social relationships – for example helping someone develop in confidence, or giving solace to an older person who does not have family and friends nearby – but that it needs to be developed responsibly for this to happen so we don’t get ‘smitten’ with it at the expense of our own species.

The idea may seem silly now – her book notes those who love AI will initially be dismissed as robosexual ‘toaster bangers’, as in people who have sex with machines – but will soon become so prevalent it will have to be tolerated in polite society.

She said: ‘There are so many lonely people out there, so many people that don’t have an opportunity to form strong bonds with others, particularly in romantic relationships. The socially responsible thing to do would be to ensure that these systems never encourage people to form a relationship per se with with the system, or to make it their primary concern.

‘These systems just should gently go at arm’s length a little bit, be a little more distant, a little less interesting if somebody is is using it too much as a social crutch.

‘If we can do that, then these systems will be amazing for us. They will help us to solve all kinds of problems. Trivial disagreements between people can be resolved by these systems giving us a word to the wise at just the right moment.

She said these systems to act ‘more like a muse and never like a siren’, but right now it looks like things are leaning ‘heavily into siren territory’.

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Yesterday was meant to be the triumphant return of the world’s largest rocket to the skies, after it dramatically exploded in its last test flight.

But the planned launch in Texas was called off, and SpaceX’s Starship did not get off the ground.

It follows the huge rocket exploding in January, minutes into a test flight which was supposed to see it deliver dummy satellites into orbit for a practice run.

Instead, fiery debris rained down over the populated Carribbean islands of Turks and Caicos, with residents wondering if they were under attack and later finding bits of rocket on the ground and in the sea.

So Elon Musk probably felt like he was due a win for the rocket he hopes will reach Mars as early as 2026.

The cancelled launch at 6.30pm last night followed another planned launch on February 28, which was also scheduled without an official reason being provided.

Speaking this afternoon, Musk explained the reasons and said he would try again later this week: ‘Too many question marks about this flight and then we were 20 bar low on ground spin start pressure.

‘Best to destack, inspect both stages and try again in a day or two.’

SpaceX later said they would attempt the launch again as soon as tomorrow, with the launch window opening at 11.30pm GMT.

After the last launch went with too much of a bang, SpaceX said they had made ‘several hardware and operational changes’ to make it more reliable.

They had been aiming to achieve much the same goals as the failed flight with this one, including the first deployment of payloads.

The company is also still focusing on experimenting with re-entry, hoping to catch the rocket booster on ‘chopsticks’ for the third time.

It is hoped that the rocket will become fully reusable, so experiments will also focus on how to safely bring the upper part of the rocket back to the launch site on another tower nearby.

While they won’t try and catch it immediately at this test flight, they will perform a ‘landing burn’ to control the splashdown in the sea, slowing it down in preparation for catching it on land.

If the booster had come back yesterday as planned, there would have been sonic booms in the surrounding area as it slowed down ready for landing.

The statement on the cancelled launch said: ‘We accept no compromises when it comes to ensuring the safety of the public and our team, and booster return will only take place if conditions are right.’

Elon Musk has said he hopes to send uncrewed Starship rockets to Mars when the Red Planet is next close enough to Earth for it to be feasible, which will be in 2026.

So it’s a fairly tight window to get all the issues ironed out.

It has been a busy few weeks for the world’s richest man, who has welcomed at least one more child, as well as wielded a chainsaw on stage while accusing Democrats of treason at a conservative gathering in Washington DC, while also dealing with large protests against his other company Tesla.

His company xAI has also just released its latest version of large language model Grok, which is programmed to have phone sex with users, among many other capabilities.

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Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have shot up in value after Donald Trump said he wanted to make them an official part of governent policy.

It comes after a dismal slump for crypto following the US election, when anticipated policies in its favour did not immediately materialise.

The crashing graph was rapidly sent the other way when the president said he would create a US ‘Crypto Reserve’ to ‘elevate this critical industry after years of corrupt attacks by the Biden administration’.

He said he had signed an executive order to create a government stockpile and make America the ‘crypto capital of the world’.

Which crypto coins will be part of this strategic reserve?

Trump singled out five cryptocurrencies in particular when announcing the move on his Truth Social site, though this was not an exclusive list.

He said that the Crypto Strategic Reserve would include XRP (Ripple), SOL (Solana), and ADA (Cardano).

In a follow-up post, he added: ‘And, obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be the heart of the Reserve. I also love Bitcoin and Ethereum!’

A turnaround for the markets

Bitcoin had fallen below £63,000 on Friday morning, as most of the gains made since Donald Trump won the US election in November were wiped out.

It had peaked at about £86,000 per Bitcoin when Trump was sworn in in January.

But since then, many investors had been disappointed by a perceived lack of action on his promises.

Kathleen Brooks, an analyst at finance firm XTB, said: ‘We think that a lot of money went into crypto on the hope that Donald Trump would institutionalise crypto when he got to office.

‘However, comments about crypto since Mr Trump took over the presidency have been conspicuous by their absence. This could be why investors are flooding to the exits.’

One Bitcoin has now recovered in price to stand at £73,265.

What has Trump said about crypto in the past?

He courted crypto investors in his election campaign, drawing a distinction with the stricter approach taken by rival Joe Biden who had concerns about fraud and money laundering.

Speaking at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville in July last year in the run-up to the election, he said: ‘If crypto is going to define the future, I want it mined, minted and made in the USA. It’s going to be; it’s not going to be made anywhere else.

‘And if Bitcoin is going to the Moon as we say – it’s going to the Moon! –  I want America to be the nation that leads the way. And that’s what’s going to happen.’

A fan of crypto, Trump and his wife Melania even created their own coins, $TRUMP and $MELANIA to celebrate their return to the White House (though they added a disclaimer that they are an ‘expression of support’ rather than an investment opporunity).

This all represents a significant shift since Trump’s first presidency when he said: ‘I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.

‘Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity’

In 2021, Trump said Bitcoin ‘just seems like a scam’, adding: ‘I don’t like it because it’s another currency competing against the dollar.’

Now he’s dubbed himself ‘The Crypto President’, and was the first presidential candidate to accept cryptocurrency donations.

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