Police to reassess Morgan McSweeney phone theft over address error
Police are revisiting a closed investigation into the theft of Morgan McSweeney’s phone after admitting they recorded the wrong address when he reported the crime,Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff told the Metropolitan police that his phone was stolen in central London when he was returning home from a restaurant on 20 October last year, the Times reported,The phone is thought to hold messages relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as British ambassador, which could be lost if the phone remains unfound,Earlier on Tuesday, the Met had said they were “too busy” to investigate the snatched phone,The WhatsApp messages of aides and ministers are due to be published in the next tranche of the Mandelson files and the prime minister is said to be braced for potential further resignations over their contents.
McSweeney resigned in February over his role in Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US,All senior ministers, civil servants and special advisers have been asked to have their phone messages examined, including those no longer in government such as McSweeney and the former communications director Matthew Doyle, as well as the former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner,But the theft of McSweeney’s work phone means his WhatsApp messages and texts to Mandelson cannot be examined,Thousands of documents in the second tranche of the Mandelson files – expected to include informal communications alongside formal messages like those in the first batch – are expected to be released after Easter,The releases were forced by a parliamentary motion passed by the Conservatives after Mandelson was sacked in September, nine months into his role as US ambassador, after new details emerged about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
The former Labour peer was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office after emails from the US Department of Justice’s Epstein files appeared to show he forwarded confidential information to Epstein while he was business secretary in Gordon Brown’s government,Mandelson has since been released from bail conditions while he remains under investigation, and denies any wrongdoing,His lawyers have said he does not intend to make any further statement at this time,The State of It, the Times’ political podcast, reported that McSweeney told police the phone was taken by a man wearing a balaclava on an electric bike,During the theft, first reported by the Sun on Sunday, the man is said to have grabbed the device out of McSweeney’s hand as he was responding to text messages before cycling away.
McSweeney gave chase but was unable to keep up.Initially, the Met said officers were “too busy” to speak to McSweeney directly.He was given a crime reference number and the case was closed.But on Tuesday evening, the force said that while responding to a recent media inquiry, it became aware that an incorrect address was recorded at the time of the initial call to police and it should have been noted as Belgrave Road in Westminster.Police said the error will now be amended and the force will reassess whether there is available evidence.
McSweeney reported the theft of his phone to No 10, the device was shut off remotely and he was given a new one with the same number the next day.A Met spokesperson said: “On Monday 20 October police received a report from a man in his 40s alleging that his phone had been snatched.“The incident was recorded as having taken place in Belgrave Street, E1.“A review of the allegation, including a consideration of whether there was available CCTV, did not identify any realistic lines of inquiry.The investigation was subsequently closed.
“In the course of responding to a recent media inquiry, we became aware that the address was entered incorrectly at the time of the initial call and should instead have been recorded as Belgrave Road, Pimlico,“Having identified this error, the report will be amended and the assessment of whether there is available evidence revisited,”
Matt Brittin: why the BBC’s new Doctor Who-loving boss may not have much time for sleep
In recent months, Matt Brittin, the Doctor Who-loving fitness fanatic and former Google executive, has made no secret of his desire to make the jump from big tech to the world of broadcasting.At the end of last year, he told an event filled with some of television’s most senior figures that he had wanted to break into their industry “for a very long time”.As the BBC’s new director general, Brittin has not only fulfilled that goal. He has parachuted into the British media’s most powerful – and treacherous – job.The 57-year-old may be a big believer in the transformative power of sleep – one of Brittin’s favourite books is Why We Sleep, by the neuroscientist, Matthew Walker – but his new job is guaranteed to ensure he has less of it
Meta ordered to pay $375m after being found liable in child exploitation case
A New Mexico jury on Tuesday ordered Meta to pay $375m in civil penalties after it found the company misled consumers about the safety of its platforms and enabled harm, including child sexual exploitation, against its users.The lawsuit – the first jury trial to find Meta liable for acts committed on its platform – was brought by the state’s attorney general office in December 2023.It followed a two-year Guardian investigation published in April of that year revealing how Facebook and Instagram had become marketplaces for child sex trafficking. That investigation was cited several times in the complaint.“The jury’s verdict is a historic victory for every child and family who has paid the price for Meta’s choice to put profits over kids’ safety,” said New Mexico’s attorney general, Raúl Torrez
OpenAI shutters AI video generator Sora in abrupt announcement
In an abrupt announcement on Tuesday, OpenAI said it was “saying goodbye” to its AI video generator Sora. The move comes just six months after the company’s splashy launch of a stand-alone app with which people could make and share hyper-realistic AI videos in a scrolling social feed.“To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you,” the company wrote in a post on X. “What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing.”OpenAI first made Sora publicly available in late 2024, but it wasn’t until the company launched Sora 2 and its stand-alone app last September that the video generator reached mainstream attention
Baltimore sues Elon Musk’s AI company over Grok’s fake nude images
The mayor and city council of Baltimore, Maryland, filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s xAI company on Tuesday, alleging that its Grok chatbot violated consumer protections by generating nonconsensual sexualized images.Baltimore’s lawsuit argues that xAI deceptively marketed Grok as a general-purpose AI assistant and X as a mainstream social media site, failing to disclose the risks, limitations and exposure to harm that come with using the platform and chatbot. The suit, filed in the circuit court for Baltimore city, argues that the court has jurisdiction over xAI given that the company advertises and operates in Baltimore.“Grok has flooded the feeds of Baltimore’s X users with NCII (non-consensual intimate imagery) and CSAM (child sexual abuse material),” the city’s complaint states. “Grok further exposed Baltimore residents to the risk that any photograph they uploaded – of themselves or of their children – could be ingested by Grok and transformed into sexually degrading deepfakes without their knowledge or consent”
Protect men and boys from manosphere influencers, Labour MPs tell Ofcom
Men and boys need as much protection as women and girls from harmful influencers and “the worst parts of the internet”, a group of MPs have told Ofcom as they called for the regulator to give specific guidance to online platforms.More than 60 Labour MPs have written to the Ofcom chief executive, Melanie Dawes, urging her to protect men and boys from “manosphere” influencers who may expose them to gambling, sextortion and violent pornography.The Online Safety Act forced Ofcom to give tech platforms guidance on how to tackle “harmful content and activity that disproportionately affects women and girls”, but MPs argued that men and boys are also targeted in specific ways.According to the Gambling Commission, 53% of 11- to 17-year-old boys see gambling adverts online each week, compared with 31% of their female peers, while 91% of sextortion victims are male, according to the Internet Watch Foundation.Alistair Strathern, the MP for Hitchin and a co-chair of the Labour group for men and boys, said the Louis Theroux documentary Inside the Manosphere was “another reminder of a particular way some of the worst of the internet can prey on young men and boys”
Divide between Silicon Valley and ordinary people grows ever larger
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery. This week in tech, we discuss a moment of divergence between Silicon Valley and everyday people; deep cuts at Meta to maximize spending on AI; writers caught using AI; and the frightening, fiery crashes of the Tesla Cybertruck.Nvidia hosted a conference last week where it emphasized AI agents – semi-autonomous chatbots that can perform digital tasks for you – as the next frontier in tech. The company announced a toolkit for agents, including NemoClaw, an AI agent software suite for businesses
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