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GuardianOct 2Preview

I travelled all over the country on a €63 monthly rail pass: readers favourite holidays in Germany

From cycling in Berlin and the Black Forest to world-class cocktail bars in Cologne and magical North Sea beaches, readers share their travel tips• Tell us about a sunny autumn break – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucherIn an often overlooked corner of Germany, near the Dutch border, Münster is an absolute gem. Covered porticos will convince you you’re in northern Italy, gothic churches will remind you you’re in Mitteleuropa and the buns from Zeit für Brot will insist you’re in heaven. Nature-lovers can take in the Botanical Gardens and relax by the Münstersche Aa river. Those of a historical bent can peek into the room where the Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648 and mull the report card of nation states in the nearly 400 years since. But really, it’s a great place just to drop-anchor and lose a few days.Jeremy Continue reading...

Guardian readersGermany holidaysCity breaks

GuardianOct 2Preview

‘No one disrespects Our Lady’: fears for Brazil’s patron saint grip country ahead of election

Speculation that Flávio Bolsonaro will try to strip Our Lady of Aparecida of position could become deciding factor in run-up to SundayA row of Biblical proportions has erupted in the run-up to Brazil’s presidential election, with the country’s patron saint, Our Lady of Aparecida, emerging as an unlikely kingmaker in the deadlocked race.Ahead of Sunday’s vote, the two frontrunners – the leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his far-right challenger, Flávio Bolsonaro – are level in the polls. Continue reading...

Tom Phillips in Rio de JaneiroBrazilAmericas

Al JazeeraOct 2Preview

Row between Ukraine, South Korea mounts over North Korean POWs

South Korea’s ⁠President accused Ukraine of ⁠undermining him by disclosing POW transfer deal

News

GuardianOct 2Preview

We don’t need to panic about AI. We need to hold its creators accountable when things go wrong | John Quiggin

If a chatbot prompt like ‘find Australian medicine statistics’ results in a website breach, the responsibility does not lie with a piece of codeThe recent panic about a breach of Medicare computer security by an “AI agent” contrasts sharply with other recent cases such as the Telstra and Optus outages that left many Australians unable to reach Triple Zero. In those cases, no one blamed the computers involved. The mistakes were clearly sheeted home to the corporations that operated them.This wasn’t always the case. When the term “artificial intelligence” was coined some 70 years ago, the first mainframe computers (absurdly primitive by modern standards) were viewed with the same awe and concern as the AI agents of the present day. There were even “algorithms” (though the term wasn’t used in that way at the time) that were supposed to pick ideal dating matches. Continue reading...

John QuigginAI (artificial intelligence)Technology

NYTOct 2Preview

Chi Phi Members Accused in Cornell Sex Assault Lawsuit Give Varying Accounts of Night

Their accounts, detailed in hundreds of pages of investigative files obtained by The New York Times, were disjointed and sometimes contradictory. All the men denied any wrongdoing.

Maia Coleman, Claire Fahy and Michael C. BenderSex CrimesFraternities and Sororities

GuardianOct 1Preview

Hay Fever review – Richard E Grant and Christine Baranski host Coward’s country house shenanigans

Wyndham’s theatre, London Grant brings shock-haired vigour as a vain novelist forced to welcome his boho children’s surprise guests in comedy of clipped social embarrassmentHay Fever, now one of Noël Coward’s best-known and most-performed works, hasn’t always been a smash hit. British critics who found its West End debut in 1925 amusing enough nevertheless noted its lack of plot, and the first Broadway production was a flop. A critic for Vogue called it “funny in places”, which sounds like the kind of stinging putdown you’d expect from the playwright’s own hand.A century of performances have proved the play’s lasting power, but its comic effect has always lain less in the words as written than their delivery – it is, after all, about a family that is “artificial to the point of lunacy”. At their centre is diva Judith Bliss, who has retired from the stage to take up the role of country ho

Emma JohnTheatreNoel Coward

NPROct 1Preview

Passengers recount chaos on Tel Aviv flight. And, FBI probes employee-data hack

What we know so far about the tense moments aboard a Tel Aviv-bound flight. And, the FBI investigates a cyberattack involving sensitive employee data.(Image credit: Erik Marmor)

Brittney Melton

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