Investment or waste? How the M4 relief road plan for Newport sums up Wales’s economic quandary

It is afternoon rush hour on the M4 and drivers are yet again making slow progress around the city of Newport, often seen as the gateway to south Wales given its location between Cardiff and Bristol.Cars and lorries are stuck in gridlocked traffic in both directions on the approach to the Brynglas tunnels, where the road narrows to two lanes in each direction, while flashing lights warn motorists in Welsh and English of a ciw (queue).Traffic jams may be an everyday reality for commuters and businesses trying to move goods around, but they have also become a hotly debated topic before the Senedd elections on 7 May, in a vote predicted to bring sweeping political change to the principality, and send Labour into opposition for the first time since devolution in 1999.Congestion on this part of the M4 – the main route linking south Wales with England – has been complained about by businesses and commuters for decades, while a relief road around Newport has been proposed for almost as long. Motorists say tailbacks cost time and money, and make the country less attractive to potential investors

Trump may not be a fan of clean energy but Iran war is accelerating global shift from oil and gas | Heather Stewart

Operation Epic Fury has thus far achieved none of Donald Trump’s war aims, but it may well accelerate the global transition towards the clean energy he loves to hate.Last week brought the latest exchange of verbal blows in the standoff over the strait of Hormuz. Iran was “choking like a stuffed pig” on the oil it was unable to export because of the US blockade, Trump claimed.From Tehran, the supreme leader shot back that foreigners who “maliciously covet” the waterway “have no place there except at the bottom of its waters”. To the rest of the world, the exchange raised the spectre of a prolonged impasse

AI facial recognition oversight lagging far behind technology, watchdogs warn

Britain’s biometrics watchdogs have warned that national oversight of AI-powered face scanning to catch criminals is lagging far behind the technology’s rapid growth.With the Metropolitan police almost doubling the number of faces they scan in London over the past 12 months and a rising use of the technology by retailers in the UK, Prof William Webster, the biometrics commissioner for England and Wales, said the “slow pace of legislation was trying to catch up with the real world” and “the horse had gone before the cart”.Dr Brian Plastow, who holds the same role in Scotland, warned the technology was “nowhere near as effective as the police claim it is” and said there was a “patchwork legal framework” throughout the UK. He said in England and Wales, police were “really just marking their own homework”.The watchdogs said new laws were needed to govern when and how police forces used live facial recognition technology, with a new regulator to clamp down on misuse

Guilty until proven innocent: shoppers falsely identified by facial recognition system struggle to clear their names

When Ian Clayton, a retired health and safety professional from Chester, popped into Home Bargains one February lunchtime, he was suddenly approached by a stern-looking member of staff.“Excuse me, can you please put everything down and leave the shop now?” she said. Clayton recalled how he was stunned, and it was only as he was briskly walked past the tills towards the exit that he stopped to ask what he had done.“You’ve come up on our system called Facewatch as a shoplifter,” came the reply. “There’s a poster in the window

‘A missing generation’: why are there are no female head coaches in Women’s Six Nations?

A 10-point plan will be introduced by Premiership Women’s Rugby next season that aims to increase the number of female coaches at international level, with only one top-10 nation currently being led by a woman.The scheme aims to create a springboard for more women at the elite tier of the sport, where there is a glaring lack of diversity among top coaches. Whitney Hansen is in charge of New Zealand, but, Jo Yapp and Gaëlle Mignot stood down from their positions after last year’s Rugby World Cup, with the Wallaroos and France respectively.At the groundbreaking 2025 tournament there were three female head coaches, but there are none in the 2026 Women’s Six Nations. At PWR clubs all the head coaches are men, and of the 22 women coaching in the league, just six hold senior roles

Relay team grab bronze at worlds on another red letter day for Australian athletics

Australia secured a thrilling bronze and ran the sixth-fastest men’s 4x400m time in history at the World Athletics Relays in Botswana, on a day the country proved its pedigree in the team-based format.The team of Luke van Ratingen, Reece Holder, Thomas Reynolds and Aidan Murphy pushed home heroes Botswana and South Africa right to the line in a marvellous contest that was not settled until the final metres.Their time of 2:55.20 broke the Australian record they set in the preliminary round the previous day, and would have won gold at every Olympics apart from Paris 2024, when the United States held off Botswana.The time set by the United States’ 1993 world championship-winning team, anchored by Michael Johnson, remains one of athletics’ longest-standing marks