Politicians usually talk about belt tightening, or trimming spending with scissors

Popular streamer IShowSpeed – real name Darren Watkins – is playing next week’s Sidemen charity match, the YouTube group has confirmed, amid fears he would have to pull out to recover from a recent hospitalisation. Watkins, who has more than 20 million subscribers on YouTube, claimed he “almost died” when he suffered a sinus infection in July which caused “deadly” cluster headaches, sharing updates in which he could be seen with one eye closed and the other severely swollen. In a stream last month, Speed told viewers: “I literally had the worst-ever sinus infection. It got super, super bad, and the sinus infection was causing cluster headaches. “I went through so much. I’m still healing.” He added that doctors were telling him “a whole different story right now” about whether he would be well enough to take part in the football match, which takes place on Saturday at the London Stadium. Fears he would have to withdraw from the kickabout only intensified when the 18-year-old accidentally showed his penis on camera, and the Sidemen’s official Twitter/X account mysteriously deleted the tweet announcing him as a player. He was previously confirmed to play in the match after being challenged to do 20 keepie uppies by Sidemen member and rapper KSI, and succeeding. However, after the tweet was deleted, fellow Sidemen member Simon “Miniminter” Minter told fans on a stream that Speed was “still playing” the charity match, subject to medical checks. He said: “As long as he’s OK with the medical stuff he had before. He is still playing, yes. “The reason [the tweet] got deleted is because there was some question on whether he would be able to fly.” Now it seems Speed is all good with the “medical stuff”, as the Sidemen tweeted a video on Thursday adding: “It’s official, he’s back. Welcome back to the charity match [Speed].” Responding to the news, KSI – real name Olajide “JJ” Olatunji - begged the streamer not to “slide tackle me” because of his upcoming match against Tommy Fury in Manchester in October. KSI is joined in the Sidemen by Minter, Tobi “TBJZL” Brown, Harry “WroetoShaw” Lewis, Josh “Zerkaa” Bradley, Ethan “Behzinga” Payne and Vikram “Vikkstar123” Barn. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Young Burmese who once hoped for a freer country have now fled their homes in fear.

OpenAI researchers warned about a potentially dangerous artificial intelligence discovery ahead of CEO Sam Altman being ousted from the company, according to reports. Several staff members of the AI firm wrote a letter to the board of directors detailing the algorithm, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The disclosure was reportedly a key development in the build up to Mr Altman’s dismissal. Prior to his return late Tuesday, more than 700 employees had threatened to quit and join backer Microsoft in solidarity with their fired leader. The sources cited the letter as one factor among a longer list of grievances by the board leading to Altman’s firing, among which were concerns over commercialising advances before understanding the consequences. The staff who wrote the letter did not respond to requests for comment and Reuters was unable to review a copy of the letter. OpenAI declined to comment on the letter but acknowledged in an internal message to staffers a project called Q* and a letter to the board before the weekend’s events, one of the people said. An OpenAI spokesperson said that the message, sent by long-time executive Mira Murati, alerted staff to certain media stories without commenting on their accuracy. Some at OpenAI believe Q* (pronounced Q-Star) could be a breakthrough in the startup’s search for what’s known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), one of the people told Reuters. OpenAI defines AGI as autonomous systems that surpass humans in most economically valuable tasks. Given vast computing resources, the new model was able to solve certain mathematical problems, the person said on condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorised to speak on behalf of the company. Though only performing maths on the level of grade-school students, acing such tests made researchers very optimistic about Q*’s future success, the source said. Reuters could not independently verify the capabilities of Q* claimed by the researchers. Researchers consider maths to be a frontier of generative AI development. Currently, generative AI is good at writing and language translation by statistically predicting the next word, and answers to the same question can vary widely. But conquering the ability to do mathematics where there is only one right answer implies AI would have greater reasoning capabilities resembling human intelligence. This could be applied to novel scientific research, for instance, AI researchers believe. Unlike a calculator that can solve a limited number of operations, AGI can generalize, learn and comprehend. In their letter to the board, researchers flagged AI’s prowess and potential danger, the sources said without specifying the exact safety concerns noted in the letter. There has long been discussion among computer scientists about the danger posed by highly intelligent machines, for instance if they might decide that the destruction of humanity was in their interest. Researchers have also flagged work by an “AI scientist” team, the existence of which multiple sources confirmed. The group, formed by combining earlier “Code Gen” and “Math Gen” teams, was exploring how to optimise existing AI models to improve their reasoning and eventually perform scientific work, one of the people said. Altman led efforts to make ChatGPT one of the fastest growing software applications in history and drew investment – and computing resources – necessary from Microsoft to get closer to AGI. In addition to announcing a slew of new tools in a demonstration this month, Altman last week teased at a summit of world leaders in San Francisco that he believed major advances were in sight. “Four times now in the history of OpenAI, the most recent time was just in the last couple weeks, I’ve gotten to be in the room, when we sort of push the veil of ignorance back and the frontier of discovery forward, and getting to do that is the professional honor of a lifetime,” he said at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, a day before he was fired by OpenAI’s board. Additional reporting from agencies. Read More 10 ways AI will change the world – from curing cancer to wiping out humanity YouTube reveals bizarre AI music experiments AI-generated faces are starting to look more real than actual ones One of the world’s most hyped tech products just launched – and made a big mistake

There is some fascinating reporting from CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere about the increasing levels of angst top Democrats are expressing about President Joe Biden's reelection campaign.

Garon had plans to see Joe at an upcoming Jonas Brothers concert where he intended to give him a memento from the wedding

Being overweight as a young adult can increase the risk of developing 18 cancers – more than have been previously linked with the disease, researchers found. Previous studies have shown that people who are overweight or obese have a heightened risk of a number of different cancers including breast, bowel, kidney and pancreatic. Now excess weight has also been linked to leukaemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and among never-smokers, bladder and head and neck cancers in a large new study. The authors said these cancers have not previously been “considered as obesity-related cancers”. Our findings support public health strategies for cancer prevention focusing on preventing and reducing early overweight and obesity Study authors And that the impact of obesity on cancer is “likely underestimated”. The new study, published in Nature Communications, saw researchers examine data on more than 2.6 million Spanish adults aged 40 and under who were cancer-free in 2009. Researchers examined the body mass index (BMI) scores throughout the lifetime of people involved with the study, saying that previous research investigating the link between weight and cancer has used single BMI scores. The people in the study were tracked for nine years to see whether they developed cancer. Some 225,396 were diagnosed with cancer during the period studied. The Spanish researchers found that those who were overweight or obese in early adulthood – aged 40 and under – appeared to have an increased risk of cancer. Those who were overweight or obese for a longer period also appeared to have a higher risk. Our own evidence shows that maintaining a healthy weight throughout life is one of the most important things people can do to reduce their cancer risk, and early prevention in adulthood is key Dr Heinz Freisling, one of the study’s co-leaders Overall, some 18 cancers were linked to excess weight. The authors wrote: “This study shows that longer duration, greater degree, and younger age of onset of overweight and obesity during early adulthood are positively associated with risk of 18 cancers, including leukaemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and among never-smokers, head and neck, and bladder cancers which are not yet considered as obesity-related cancers in the literature. “Our findings seem to indicate that longer exposures to overweight and obesity (with or without accounting for the degree of overweight and obesity), as well as developing overweight and obesity at younger ages in early adulthood might increase cancer risk. “Our findings support public health strategies for cancer prevention focusing on preventing and reducing early overweight and obesity.” Dr Heinz Freisling, from the International Agency for Research on Cancer and one of the study’s co-leaders, said: “The results of our study support a re-evaluation of the cancer burden associated with overweight and obesity, which currently is likely underestimated.” Commenting on the study, Dr Panagiota Mitrou, director of research, policy and innovation at World Cancer Research Fund, said: “This large study has future public health implications since additional cancers, such as leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, have been shown to be linked with overweight and obesity. “Our own evidence shows that maintaining a healthy weight throughout life is one of the most important things people can do to reduce their cancer risk, and early prevention in adulthood is key.” Read More Study says drinking water from nearly half of US faucets contains potentially harmful chemicals Up to 10,000 Britons could take part in cancer vaccine trials People with signs of bowel cancer should be offered a £5 ‘poo test’ before invasive bowel investigations Nurture your health and wellbeing this season What diet drinks don’t have aspartame in them?

Rex Heuermann is currently held at the Suffolk County Sheriff's Office Riverhead facility after being charged with the deaths of three prostitutes

By Yantoultra Ngui SINGAPORE From India to Singapore, Asia is seeing a boom in private credit funds looking

Before he fled his home in northern Gaza, where intense fighting now rages between Israel and Hamas, Mahmud al-Masri had a grim job to do: bury his three brothers and their...

BERLIN The German economy stagnated in the second quarter compared to the previous three months, following a winter

With the Division Series round of the MLB playoffs beginning on Saturday, there are still some issues that every team will have to overcome to take the next step to the World Series.