Labour and Lib Dem MPs demand ‘shameful’ Palantir NHS contract be scrapped

MPs have queued up to demand the government scraps its £330m NHS contract with the spy-tech company Palantir, calling it “dreadful” and “shameful” in a debate on Thursday, after which the government said it was “no fan” of the US company’s politics.Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs led the calls for Palantir, which also works for Donald Trump’s ICE immigration crackdown and the Israeli military, to be removed as a supplier to the NHS federated data platform (FDP), with one Labour backbencher, Samantha Niblett, questioning whether it could be “trusted as a custodian of the intimate health records of tens of millions of British citizens”.The Lib Dem MP Luke Taylor, who called the deal “shameful”, said: “Palantir and Peter Thiel must have their hands ripped off of our NHS before it is too late.”Thiel, a Trump-supporting tech billionaire, founded the company and has previously said that democracy and freedom are incompatible.In response to the MPs who spoke in a Westminster Hall debate, the government confirmed it would consider whether to continue with the deal when a break clause is due in spring 2027, although £210m of the £330m has already been spent

Man used AI to make false statements to shut down London nightclub, police say

A businessman has pleaded guilty to making false statements in order to shut down a nightclub, which police believe were generated using AI.A Metropolitan police source said the use of AI to generate letters by complainants who do not exist is a growing issue.Aldo d’Aponte, 47, the CEO of Arbitrage Group Properties, pleaded guilty to writing two letters, supposedly by his neighbours, objecting to the reopening of Heaven nightclub, which temporarily closed after a rape allegation against one of its security guards.D’Aponte was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £85 costs and a £26 victim surcharge.Heaven, an LGBTQ nightclub in central London had its licence suspended in November 2024 after a 19-year-old woman accused a bouncer of rape

NAACP lawsuit accuses Elon Musk’s xAI of polluting Black neighborhoods near Memphis

A new lawsuit accuses Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company of illegally spewing toxic pollutants into residential neighborhoods on the border of Tennessee and Mississippi.The suit, filed on Tuesday in Mississippi federal court, alleges xAI is violating the Clean Air Act due to emissions from its makeshift power plant in Southaven, Mississippi, which powers its datacenter there. The NAACP, represented by the environmental groups Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice, says xAI has been polluting areas with homes, schools and churches, including in historically Black communities, by using dozens of methane gas generators without permits.The organization is seeking to force the company to stop operating its unpermitted turbines in Southaven.“A data center should not be a potential death sentence for a community’s health,” Abre’ Conner, the director of environmental and climate justice for the NAACP, said in a statement

Fisa surveillance vote sparks fierce debate as Congress splits on warrantless monitoring

A controversial law that grants the US government sweeping powers for warrantless surveillance is set to expire next week. Replacing it has inspired fierce debate within the White House and Congress, including a scheduled vote cancelled the day of.A coalition of progressive Democrats and far-right Republicans is pushing for reform of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa), but they face strong bipartisan opposition from lawmakers advocating for an 18-month renewal with no changes, in line with Donald Trump’s demands. House GOP leaders delayed a procedural vote on a clean extension of Section 702 on Wednesday, after the chamber’s rules committee approved the measure on Tuesday night. Republican leadership was expected to bring the measure to the floor on Wednesday but canceled the scheduled vote, amid dissent from privacy advocates in their own party

Snap Inc blames AI as it lays off 1,000 workers

Snapchat’s parent company plans to lay off 16% of its employees, around 1,000 people, citing “rapid advancements in artificial intelligence”, the social media company told staff on Wednesday in an internal memo. The staff reduction is part of a wave of tech industry layoffs in the past year, with many firms blaming AI for the cuts.Snap Inc’s layoffs follow demands last month from Irenic Capital Management, an activist investor whose portfolio manager wrote a letter to the Snap Inc CEO, Evan Spiegel, calling on him to reduce costs and headcount while criticizing the company’s current strategy. In Spiegel’s memo to staff, he claimed that the layoffs would move Snap towards profitability and suggested that artificial intelligence could fill the lack of human labor.“While these changes are necessary to realize Snap’s long-term potential, we believe that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers,” Spiegel wrote

Amazon enters agreements for nine Australian renewable projects to power datacentres

Amazon has entered power agreements with nine new renewable projects in New South Wales and Victoria, as the technology company seeks to source renewable power for its datacentre operations in Australia.The nine deals, including one windfarm and 10 solar and battery projects, will take the amount of renewable energy Amazon is sourcing in Australia from 430MW to nearly 1GW.The power purchase agreements are contracts between energy providers and datacentre operators to meet the expected demands of their centres. Amazon has entered into agreements for more than 20 projects in Australia as it aims to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040.These include power from Victoria’s Golden Plains 2, the largest windfarm in Australia, which began operating in 2024