Tell us: has a chatbot helped you out of a difficult time in your life?

AI Chatbots are now a part of everyday life. ChatGPT surpassed 800 million weekly active users in late 2025. Some people are forming relationships with these chatbots, using them for companionship, mental health support, and even as therapists. Has a chatbot helped you get through a difficult period in life? If so, we’d like to hear about it.You can tell us how an AI chatbot has helped you get through a difficult period in life using this form

Starmer toughens rhetoric on Trump and decries pressure over Greenland

Keir Starmer has noticeably hardened his rhetoric towards Donald Trump, telling the Commons that the US president’s condemnation of the Chagos Islands deal with Mauritius was intended to weaken the UK’s resolve over Greenland.In a sometimes angry exchange with Kemi Badenoch at prime minister’s questions, Starmer denounced the Conservative leader’s use of Trump’s words to push back against the Chagos deal, saying the president had not been sincere in his objections.“President Trump deployed words on Chagos yesterday that were different to his previous words of welcome and support,” he said, adding that the US leader had used them “for the express purpose of putting pressure on me and Britain in relation to my values and principles, on the future of Greenland.“He wants me to yield on my position, and I’m not going to do so. Given that that was his express purpose, I’m surprised the leader of the opposition has jumped on the bandwagon

‘We played to 8,000 Mexicans who knew every word’: how the Whitest Boy Alive conquered the world

He lit up Europe with bands ranging from Peachfuzz to Kings of Convenience. But it was the Whitest Boy Alive that sent Erlend Øye stratospheric. As they return, the soft-singing, country-hopping sensation looks backIf you were to imagine the recent evolution of music in Europe as a series of scenes from a Where’s Wally?-style puzzle book, one bespectacled, lanky figure would pop up on almost every page. There he is in mid-90s London, handing out flyers for his first band Peachfuzz. Here he is in NME at the dawn of the new millennium, fronting folk duo Kings of Convenience and spearheading the new acoustic movement

Australian shares shoot up after Trump walks back tariff threat

Australian shares shot higher on Thursday to recoup part of their recent losses, after Donald Trump dropped a tariff threat used against European allies amid his pressure campaign to gain control of Greenland.The de-escalation fuelled a rally in global share markets that flowed into Australia, sending the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 briefly above the 8,860 point mark, before a slight easing.The US president’s retreat once again rewarded dip buyers, who have ridden the “Trump Always Chickens Out” (Taco) trade strategy that relies on the American leader backing down from tariff threats after declaring victory.Trump has said he has a “framework of a future deal” on Greenland, without elaborating.But, in an interview with Sky News on Wednesday, a member of Denmark’s parliament, Sascha Faxe, has suggested that the deal Donald Trump claims to have struck with Nato over Greenland is “not real”

OECD calls on Australia to raise GST and increase affordable housing amid budget deficit

The OECD has called on the government to broaden the GST, do more to reduce greenhouse emissions and adopt ambitious social housing targets as part of its annual economic survey of Australia.Ahead of Jim Chalmers’ fifth federal budget in May, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said Australia’s economy was “now normalising”, after struggling through a lengthy period of weak growth following the pandemic.Interest rate cuts and a rebound in households’ real disposable incomes would drive average economic growth up to “a little more than 2% over the coming years”, it said in the report.Sign up: AU Breaking News email“But longstanding challenges of slower productivity growth, high housing costs and high carbon emissions need to be addressed.”The OECD called out the damage from Australia’s increasingly unaffordable housing market and backed federal and state-level efforts to boost home supply by easing land restrictions and increasing density

Elon Musk floats idea of buying Ryanair after calling CEO ‘an idiot’

Elon Musk has floated the idea of buying the budget airline Ryanair, escalating his public spat with the Irish carrier’s boss, Michael O’Leary.The two outspoken businessmen have locked horns since last week, when O’Leary was asked whether he would follow Lufthansa and British Airways in installing Musk’s Starlink satellite internet technology on his fleet of 650 aircraft.The Ryanair chief executive rejected the idea, saying that adding antennas to the jets would result in “2% fuel drag”, adding an extra $200m-$250m to its $5bn (£3.71bn) annual kerosene bill.Musk said that interpretation was “misinformed” in a post on his X platform, prompting a tit-for-tat exchange of insults, with each calling the other an “idiot” and then the Tesla and SpaceX CEO saying O’Leary should be fired