There used to be hundreds of pie and mash shops in London. Now there are barely more than 30. Can social media attention and a push for protected status ensure their survival?

Outside it’s raining so hard that the sandwich board sign for BJ’s pie and mash (“All pies are made on the premises”) is folded up inside. The pavement along Barking Road in Plaistow is a blur through the front windows and deserted, and there are only two customers in the shop. Another sign – this one on the counter – says “CASH ONLY”.

Card machine companies often tell proprietor Nathan Jacobi that he’s missing out by not catering to customers who favour cashless transactions. “They’re the ones missing out,” he says. “Cos they ain’t getting pie and mash.”

Annual review highlights growing capabilities of AI models, while examining issues from cyber-attacks to job disruption

The International AI Safety report is an annual survey of technological progress and the risks it is creating across multiple areas, from deepfakes to the jobs market.

Commissioned at the 2023 global AI safety summit, it is chaired by the Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, who describes the “daunting challenges” posed by rapid developments in the field. The report is also guided by senior advisers, including Nobel laureates Geoffrey Hinton and Daron Acemoglu.

MoneySavingExpert founder has said changes that will lead to some graduates in England and Wales paying more are ‘not moral’

• Graduates in England and Wales: share your views on student loan repayments

A fairly technical-sounding change to student loans tucked away in last November’s budget has become the catalyst for an increasingly bad-tempered row pitting the UK consumer champion Martin Lewis against the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.

In one interview, Lewis – the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, who boasts a vast following – said he did not think the planned change to repayment terms “was a moral thing”.

A burgeoning set of Muslim creatives and intellectuals are thriving amid the backdrop of Zohran Mamdani’s rise. We ask 18 of them about this historic moment in New York City life

Against the backdrop of Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral rise is a dynamic scene of Muslim creatives and intellectuals who are helping usher in a new era for New York City. Their prominence represents a rebuke of the ugly Islamophobia that defined the period following 9/11, and is in many ways an outcrop of the mass movement for Palestinian rights forged over the last two years. We ask 18 Muslim New Yorkers to discuss their work and what this moment means.
How Muslim New Yorkers are changing the city’s cultural landscape

At first, Mike made Tamsin feel good about herself – and his love-bombing led her to leave her family and resign from her job. Soon she had lost her car, phone and all her money

Tamsin met Mike in the summer of 2022. He was a mechanic in a garage that she walked past twice each day between home and work. After a while, he’d call out “good morning” or “good evening” and she’d wave and smile back. Then the exchanges got a little longer. (“Hard day?” “Looking forward to dinner?”) Six months later, Mike and Tamsin exchanged numbers.

Within two years, her life was wrecked. She had left her marriage, lost her home, quit her job, and sold her car and her phone, spent all her savings and racked up tens of thousands in debt. (Under her current repayment plan, it will take another eight and a half years to pay back her creditors.) Tamsin’s story seems scarcely credible and she is mortified to have to tell it. She stumbles through, piles of notes on her lap and a support worker from Victim Support at her side. Every few minutes, she breaks off to say, “It sounds so stupid”, “I sound like an absolute nutter” or “Where was my head?” In truth, she spent two years in the company of a psychopath, a master manipulator. He is in prison now, serving a 22-year sentence, but not for romance fraud, or anything involving Tamsin. Her experience, police have told her, “would not stand up in court”.

Euphoric scenes are a snub to theocracy’s culture of piety, say analysts, and carry message of rebellion

Iranians killed in recent protests that rocked the country have been laid to rest in boisterous funerals featuring loud pop music and dancing, apparently intended to convey defiance to the ruling Islamic regime.

Instead of holding sombre traditional mourning ceremonies presided over by a Shia cleric, bereaved relatives are turning the burials into exultant celebrations of the lives of their loved ones in what analysts say is an intentional snub to the culture of piety demanded by Iran’s theocracy.

PM’s spokesperson says information should not have been available ‘to anyone who could potentially benefit from it financially’

The Department for Work and Pensions has named 12 disability experts with “lived experience of disability or long-term health conditions” who will sit on the steering group of the review looking at the future of the personal independence payment (Pip), a disability benefit. Stephen Timms, the minister leading the review, says:

Disabled people deserve a system that truly supports them to live with independence and dignity, and that fairly reflects the reality of their lives today.

That’s why we’re putting disabled people at the heart of this review – ensuring their voices shape the changes that will help them achieve better health, greater independence, and access to the right support when they need it.

* Could we see a crunch point as soon as tomorrow over Mandelson?

* Tories have an opposition day debate - could they force a vote on Mandelson vetting disclosure. Shadow cabinet sources tell me they’re thinking about it

Information Commissioner’s Office to investigate whether Elon Musk’s companies have complied with data protection law

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has opened formal investigations into X and xAI over whether Elon Musk’s companies have complied with data protection law after the Grok AI tool was used to generate sexual deepfake images without consent.

The ICO said the reports raised “serious concerns” under UK data protection laws, such as whether “appropriate safeguards were built into Grok’s design and deployment”.

Carlo Soracchi, who infiltrated anti-fascist group in early 2000s, accused of suggesting crime as he had ‘got nothing’

Three anti-fascist activists have accused an undercover police officer of attempting to incite them to firebomb a shop that was said to be a front for the far right, the spycops inquiry has heard.

The accusation has been levelled against Carlo Soracchi, an officer who spent six years infiltrating anti-fascist and leftwing groups. He has denied the claim.

Ending of New Start treaty will remove mutual limits on the world’s two biggest nuclear arsenals

The New Start treaty between the US and Russia will expire on Thursday, removing the last remaining mutual limits on the world’s two biggest nuclear arsenals.

The milestone will be a death knell for more than five decades of arms control at a time of surging global instability, contributing to a general collapse of the rules-based international order established after the second world war.