AstraZeneca, Whitehall, and a failed £450m deal for the next generation in vaccines. What went wrong?

When the pharma firm cancelled plans for a major expansion of its Merseyside plant last month, there was no shortage of questions – or blame – over responsibilityAt a tense meeting with senior civil servants on the afternoon of 29 January, the chair of AstraZeneca, Shaun Grady, pulled the plug on a planned £450m expansion of its childhood flu vaccine factory in Merseyside – bringing a year and a half of negotiations to an abrupt halt.The decision, announced publicly two days later, came just hours after the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, had singled out Britain’s biggest drugmaker as one of the country’s “great companies” in her long-awaited speech on kickstarting UK growth.If successful, the scheme would have transformed the site into a six-hectare research and manufacturing centre producing the next generation of vaccines – strengthening the UK’s pandemic readiness with the ability to make several at a time from start to finish.In July last year, AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soriot, had declared the project in the Liverpool suburb of Speke “absolutely ready to go”. So how did months of wrangling over a £90m state support offer made by the previous government collapse into recriminations?It is not the UK’s first big investment loss in this sector

Why does the US have it in for gig workers?

The US seems to have it in for gig workers and those who use them.California – the fifth-largest economy in the world – has significantly curtailed the ability of companies located there to hire independent contractors and freelancers in lieu of employees. The US Department of Labor has issued updated rules that address worker classifications, which have forced more companies to reclassify their independent contractors as employees in order to be in compliance. New rules from the Internal Revenue Service will now require payment-processing firms to provide additional reporting on the payments made on 1099 forms, the document commonly used to report a freelancer’s earnings.The most recent attack against gig workers comes from the IRS

AI is developing fast, but regulators must be faster | Letters

The recent open letter regarding AI consciousness on which you report (AI systems could be ‘caused to suffer’ if consciousness achieved, says research, 3 February) highlights a genuine moral problem: if we create conscious AI (whether deliberately or inadvertently) then we would have a duty not to cause it to suffer. What the letter fails to do, however, is to capture what a big “if” this is.Some promising theories of consciousness do indeed open the door to AI consciousness. But other equally promising theories suggest that being conscious requires being an organism. Although we can look for indicators of consciousness in AI, it is very difficult – perhaps impossible – to know whether an AI is actually conscious or merely presenting the outward signs of consciousness

How some objects can have a mind of their own | Brief letters

I have great empathy with Adrian Chiles’ protectiveness of inanimate objects (Why am I so sad about seeing a robot get beaten up?, 5 February), but these objects can exercise tyranny, so we should beware the jacket that won’t let you put it on, the paper serviette that it is impervious to fluid and, of course, any self-hiding object.Jonathan HauxwellCrosshills, North Yorkshire If President Trump thinks that it is reasonable to relocate 2 million people from the Gaza Strip in the interests of peace (Report, 6 February), presumably the same logic should apply to the 500,000 Jewish settlers illegally occupying lands in the Palestinian West Bank.Ian MartinFalmouth, Cornwall If Donald Trump Jr decided to eat the rare duck he’s alleged to have shot in the Venice lagoon (Report, 5 February), would he get the orange sauce from his dad?David ProtheroHarlington, Bedfordshire When did laundry become the word for getting clothes at home clean (Pass notes, 5 February)? I still do the washing.Janet MansfieldAspatria, Cumbria A case of cutting his nose off despite his face (Makeup artist tried to remove Adrien Brody’s nose by mistake on set of The Brutalist, 6 February).Steve BarnesLondon Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section

‘Almost Andy’: how one fan benefited most from the Chiefs’ winning run

For years, the Chiefs most recognizable fan operated in the shadows. A regular at games since 1983, Matt Black cheered on KC through very little thick and and a whole lot of thin, an era marked mostly by a series of sports tragedies overseen by then head coach Marty Schottenheimer. Then, on one ordinary day in 2018, Black decided to shave his customary goatee leaving behind a mustache. He gazed into his bathroom mirror, and suddenly it wasn’t Black, a professional opera singer by trade, looking back at him. Instead, it was Chiefs head coach Andy Reid

Sri Lanka v Australia: second men’s cricket Test, day three – as it happened

Here’s the report from day three:We’ll be back on Day 4, of course, to bring you whatever may come. Match report on its way too. Or if you want to read Barney hopping into England’s national vibe, here’s that.Until tomorrow.So an interesting day