The newly published Ockenden Report identified “long-standing and deeply embedded systemic failures” at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust that resulted in the deaths or potentially avoidable harm of hundreds of mothers and babies. The Trust’s chair and CEO have issued an open letter in which they apologise “unreservedly to the women and families who have suffered harm, loss, trauma or distress while receiving care in our services”.

What does the Ockenden Report say?
Senior midwife Donna Ockenden heard from 2,500 families and more than 800 current and former members of staff at the trust. “She found that more than 500 babies and mothers might have avoided death or serious injury if their care had not been so abysmally inadequate”, said The Times health correspondent Poppy Koronka.

Ockenden uncovered a “toxic” and “bullying” environment on maternity wards, including labouring mothers-to-be being “coerced” into inductions or interventions, or told to stay at home “potentially longer than it was safe to do so”. Pregnant and labouring women repeatedly described feeling unheard, inadequately informed and unsupported.

She also found evidence of “recurring examples of failure to protect the dignity” of women and children who had died, with bodies left to decompose or “disposed of as clinical waste”.

How could this happen?
There appear to have been multiple failings, including inadequate monitoring of unwell babies, incorrect analyses of foetal heart monitoring, poor training, a lack of oversight, escalation procedures and a failure to recognise when babies were in distress during labour.

What can be done?
Ockenden has called for “immediate and essential” measures including urgent improvements to risk management and monitoring, communication and safe transfer of care. She also recommended strengthening neonatal care with better training on spotting the signs of serious illness, and improving post-death care and bereavement processes.

Health Secretary James Murray has apologised on behalf of the NHS, but indicated that the government might wait until the end of the year to develop any action plan. Urging ministers to act sooner, Ockenden said: “How much more harm may happen in this country? We don’t have the luxury of six months.”

For years, philosophy graduates have been the “butt of jokes about unemployable degrees”, said Thibault Spirlet in Business Insider. Now, they can earn six-figure salaries as the “world’s most powerful AI companies” try to “shape how machines think and behave”.

High-profile philosophers are already “embedded” in top AI firms, including Anthropic and Google DeepMind. OpenAI’s Sam Altman has claimed his company employed “hundreds of moral philosophers” when designing rules for ChatGPT.

‘AI constitutionalism’
Some “ancient” philosophical considerations are at the core of the contemporary tech industry, said The Economist. The idea of “Socratic ignorance” – that wisdom is realising the extent of what we do not know – is a major principle in AI development used to avoid “sycophancy”.

Philosophy is key to safety practices, too. Implementing the concept of “AI constitutionalism” – where legally or morally authoritative texts are used as “scaffolding” to direct the system – is intended to prevent “ominous behaviour” from the models.

Anthropic revealed earlier this year that its Claude constitution, nicknamed the “soul doc”, included sources as “diverse as Immanuel Kant, Apple’s terms of service and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, said The Economist. 

The influence goes both ways, said Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly on trend-tracking website Observer. The demands of the AI industry are reshaping the “long-standing” landscape of philosophical thought, as foundational questions regarding consciousness, morality, minds and computation take on a “new urgency”.

‘Ethics-washing’
The two disciplines of computer science and philosophy have “never been quite as entangled” nor as “fraught” as they are now, said Lila Shroff in The Atlantic. Some experts are concerned that “misaligned incentives” will encourage a “rush of low-quality work”.

There is also a “degree of suspicion” in the academic world that AI firms are engaging in “ethics-washing”, said Joel Khalili in Wired. Hiring philosophers to train systems shows that companies are “outwardly performing a commitment to AI safety”. Even if philosophers are given “free rein” in tech companies, ultimately, they are “accountable to investors and shareholders”. And “if a for-profit AI company signs your pay cheque, might that compromise your research?”

Mexico goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa is lifted by his teammates following their 3-0 victory over the Czech Republic at Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca. The 40-year-old got a standing ovation after coming on in the 78th minute as the first-ever goalie to play in six World Cups.

Carl De Souza / AFP / Getty Images

Wild swimming is an exhilarating experience but a lido offers “all the joy of an al fresco dip without quite so much wondering what might be brushing past your legs beneath the surface”, said Country Living. Here’s our pick of the best lido spots around the UK.

Tinside Lido and Devil’s Point, Devon
“A crown jewel in the UK’s lido line-up”, this grade II-listed saltwater lido is built in “fashionable Art Deco style” in a “prime” spot on the Plymouth seafront, said Freya Bromley in The Times. As an extra treat, swimmers can also go a little “wilder” at the nearby Devil’s Point tidal pool.

Parliament Hill Lido, London
The “sparkling blue water” at the Parliament Hill Lido (pictured above) is perhaps a more attractive alternative to the nearby Hampstead Heath ponds, said House & Garden. Built in the 1930s amid the boom in lido popularity, it features “lovely modernist” changing rooms.

Stonehaven Open Air Pool, Aberdeenshire
In Stonehaven, said BBC Countryfile, the lido is “at the heart of the community”, with an Olympic-size pool, children’s paddling pool, a café and classes during the summer months. The seawater is heated to a “cosy 29C, making it beautifully warm”, despite being the “most northerly outdoor pool in the British Isles”.

Ilkley Pool and Lido, West Yorkshire
Opened in 1935 to mark George V’s Silver Jubilee, this “wonderful” Yorkshire attraction takes you back in time, said Christopher Beanland in The Telegraph. The “curious mushroom-shaped pool is surrounded by mature woodlands and hills” that are just begging to be explored. 

Heatwave shows we are marinating in a crisis of our own making
Anjana Ahuja in the Financial Times
Climate change is firing “ever more frequent warning shots”, writes Anjana Ahuja. The Met Office, in a “terrifying fast-forward”, has projected a “plausible heatwave for 2056, based on 2.5C of global warming”, with “temperatures spiking at 45C in England”. Experts warn of “melting roads, failing power lines, wildfires, disrupted supply chains, empty reservoirs” and buildings “turning into ovens”. Meanwhile, I’m “keeping the curtains closed” and “wondering how we ever allowed empty streets” and “shuttered schools” to “become the new abnormal”.

Keir Starmer couldn’t beat the curse of Brexit – a politics poisoned by nationalism
Rafael Behr in The Guardian
Since Brexit, “the chalice of high office” in Britain “has been spiked with unusually fast-acting poison”, says Rafael Behr. The “grievances that mobilised the leave vote” were never “going to be satisfied” by leaving the EU, and “racial animus” has been used “to sustain the cause”. Keir Starmer didn’t have the “narrative proficiency” to fight this “normalisation of far-right rhetoric”. Andy Burnham will have to “drain the nationalist venom coursing through the body politic” to stay in power “long enough to achieve anything”.

Is the Princess of Wales watermaxxing?
Arabella Byrne in The Spectator
“Every so often”, writes Arabella Byrne, a royal stumbles upon a “PR masterstroke”. Coconut water, spotted in the Princess of Wales’ car, suggests she’s part of the online trend of “watermaxxing”. TikTok is “urging us to reach our water goals”, although if I slurped water all day, I’d “spend all my time on the loo”. There’s nothing new in thinking “we can enrich ourselves with something purer than food”. “Watermaxx as you will”, princess, but don’t stray “far from a lav”.