Google puts users at risk by downplaying health disclaimers under AI Overviews

Exclusive: Google fails to include safety warnings when users are first presented with AI-generated medical advice

Google is putting people at risk of harm by downplaying safety warnings that its AI-generated medical advice may be wrong.

When answering queries about sensitive topics such as health, the company says its AI Overviews, which appear above search results, prompt users to seek professional help, rather than relying solely on its summaries. “AI Overviews will inform people when it’s important to seek out expert advice or to verify the information presented,” Google has said.

Published: February 16, 2026, 7:30 am

‘It’s the most urgent public health issue’: Dr Rangan Chatterjee on screen time, mental health – and banning social media until 18

The hit podcaster, author and former GP says a failure to regulate big tech is ‘failing a generation of children’. He explains why he quit the NHS and why he wants a ban on screen-based homework

A 16-year-old boy and his mum went to see their GP, Dr Rangan Chatterjee, on a busy Monday afternoon. That weekend, the boy had been at A&E after an attempt at self-harm, and in his notes the hospital doctor had recommended the teenager be prescribed antidepressants. “I thought: ‘Wait a minute, I can’t just start a 16-year-old on antidepressants,’” says Chatterjee. He wanted to understand what was going on in the boy’s life.

They talked for a while, and Chatterjee asked him about his screen use, which turned out to be high. “I said: ‘I think your screen use, particularly in the evenings, might be impacting your mental wellbeing.’” Chatterjee helped the boy and his mother set up a routine where digital devices and social media went off an hour before bed, gradually extending the screen-free period over six weeks. After two months, he says the boy stopped needing to see him. A few months after that, his mother wrote Chatterjee a note to say her son had been transformed – he was engaging with his friends and trying new activities. He was, she said, like a different boy from the one who had ended up in hospital.

Published: February 16, 2026, 5:00 am

New rules on social media could target ‘doomscrolling’ and ban for under-16s, Starmer says – UK politics live

Prime minister says outcomes of consultation on social media ban should be implemented quickly as technology minister says Australia-style ban is not inevitable

In his Q&A with journalists, Keir Starmer was also asked to respond to a report by the BBC’s James Landale saying he is looking at plans to raise defence spending to 3% of GDP by the end of this parliament. In the past Starmer has just said that he would like to do this at some point in the next parliament.

In his reply, Starmer said that at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend he was arguing that the UK, and Europe as a whole, needs to “step up”.

We want a just and lasting peace, but that will not extinguish the Russian threat, and we need to be alert to that, because that’s going to affect every single person in this room, every single person in this country, so we need to step up.

That means, on defence spending, we need to go faster.

Published: February 16, 2026, 12:05 pm

TikTok creator ByteDance vows to curb AI video tool after Disney threat

Videos created by new Seedance 2.0 generator go viral, including one of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting

• Business live – latest updates

ByteDance, the Chinese technology company behind TikTok, has said it will restrain its AI video-making tool, after threats of legal action from Disney and a backlash from other media businesses, according to reports.

The AI video generator Seedance 2.0, released last week, has spooked Hollywood as users create realistic clips of movie stars and superheroes with just a short text prompt.

Published: February 16, 2026, 8:25 am

Starmer to extend online safety rules to AI chatbots after Grok scandal

Starmer to announce ‘crackdown on vile illegal content created by AI’ after scandal involving Elon Musk’s Grok tool

Makers of AI chatbots that put children at risk will face massive fines or even see their services blocked in the UK under law changes to be announced by Keir Starmer on Monday.

Emboldened by Elon Musk’s X stopping its Grok AI tool from creating sexualised images of real people in the UK after public outrage last month, ministers are planning a “crackdown on vile illegal content created by AI”.

Published: February 15, 2026, 10:30 pm

What technology takes from us – and how to take it back – podcast

Decisions outsourced, chatbots for friends, the natural world an afterthought: Silicon Valley is giving us life void of connection. There is a way out – but it’s going to take collective effort

By Rebecca Solnit. Read by Laurel Lefkow

Published: February 16, 2026, 5:00 am

No swiping involved: the AI dating apps promising to find your soulmate

Agentic AI apps first interview you and then give you limited matches selected for ‘similarity and reciprocity of personality’

Dating apps exploit you, dating profiles lie to you, and sex is basically something old people used to do. You might as well consider it: can AI help you find love?

For a handful of tech entrepreneurs and a few brave Londoners, the answer is “maybe”.

Published: February 15, 2026, 7:00 am

Why did I get a £100 parking fine when charging my electric car?

The charger firm claimed the site operated 24 hours a day, but the parking operator had different ideas

I charged my electric car at the 24-hour Mer EV charging station in my local B&Q car park.

I then received a £100 parking charge notice (PCN) from the car park operator, Ocean Parking. It said no parking is allowed on the site between 9pm and 6am.

Published: February 16, 2026, 7:00 am

‘This shouldn’t be normal’: developers speak out about bigotry on Steam, the world’s biggest PC gaming storefront

Multiple game creators describe ineffective moderation on the platform, resulting in unchecked hatred in forums and targeted campaigns of negative ‘anti-woke’ reviews

For years, the gaming storefront Steam has let abuse and bigotry pass through its moderation, according to players and developers who use it. The platform is now host to reams of content that violate its own guidelines.

According to developers who spoke with the Guardian, abuse – particularly directed towards transgender creators – is a fact of life on the platform. “Everyone is at one another’s throats all the time in reviews, discussions, forums, anywhere you can possibly find it on Steam,” says content creator and Steam curator Bri “BlondePizza” Moore. “It ensures no one is safe on the platform; developers and consumers alike.”

Published: February 16, 2026, 10:00 am

Intermittent fasting no better than typical weight loss diets, study finds

Researchers say limited eating approaches such as 5:2 diet not a ‘miracle solution’ amid surge in their popularity

Intermittent fasting is no better for shedding the pounds than conventional diets and is barely more effective than doing nothing, according to a major review of the scientific evidence.

Researchers analysed data from 22 global studies and found people who are overweight or living with obesity lost as much weight by following traditional dietary advice as when they tried fasting regimes such as the 5:2 diet popularised by the late Michael Mosley.

Published: February 16, 2026, 1:00 am

‘We almost lost you in the night’ - the life-threatening rise of measles in the UK

It is one of the most infectious diseases around, and can cause blindness and hearing loss – and can also be fatal. Why are cases now soaring and what can be done about it?

Saijal Ladd’s week in hospital remains a blur. The very worst days still feel like a fog, punctuated by two nightmarish memories. First, attempting to speak to a consultant to discuss if she should be rushed to ICU, but being unable to form words through her breathlessness. And later, a family member’s exhausted face mouthing: “We almost lost you in the night.”

The 53-year-old had called an ambulance when what she had assumed was flu became so severe she could barely walk, and she experienced diarrhoea and violent vomiting. It wasn’t flu. In fact, Ladd had caught measles.

Published: February 15, 2026, 2:00 pm

Weight-loss race: how switch from injections to pills is expanding big pharma’s hopes

Tablets could make treatment more mainstream, with sector predicted to be worth $200bn by end of the decade

“I just felt slow: I want to be able to do anything my kids want to do and not have weight be a factor. Even a ride or a water park – things have weight limits,” says Melody Ewert, 44, from Minnesota.

Ewert has just switched from Eli Lilly’s Zepbound weekly injection to Novo Nordisk’s new daily Wegovy pill. Analysts believe the arrival of easy-to-take tablets could push weight-loss treatments further into the mainstream in a year that has been described as “pivotal” for the booming anti-obesity market. The new pills, like the jabs, mimic the gut hormone GLP-1 that regulates appetite.

Published: February 15, 2026, 12:00 pm

These cuts to physics research will be a disaster for UK scientists – and for our standing in the world | Jon Butterworth

If plans by the UK’s science funding body go ahead, we won’t be able to benefit from Britain’s membership of Cern and other large international projects

Alarm bells are ringing in the UK research community. Physics departments may close and researchers leave the UK. What is happening and why?

The alarm comes from changes in the way taxpayers’ money is invested by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which recently published its plan on how to disburse £38.6bn of public research and development funding over the next four years. Change is always unsettling, and as the UKRI’s chief executive, Ian Chapman, says, there will always be those who lose out when change happens. Difficult choices must be made.

Jon Butterworth is professor of physics at University College London, and a member of the ATLAS Collaboration at Cern

Published: February 16, 2026, 10:00 am

Are we hard-wired for infidelity?

Monogamy may be held up as an ideal, but evolution has other ideas

Most of us know people in committed relationships, even lifelong marriages. And we also know stories about relationship transgressions, of partnerships tested or broken by infidelity.

As an evolutionary biologist who studies sex and relationships, I’m fascinated by these two truths. We humans make romantic commitments to each other – and some also break those commitments by cheating.

Published: February 15, 2026, 12:00 pm