WeekDay AM: 10 Things you need to know this morning
Early release, a healthy princess, and how AI is solving the 'cocktail party problem'

 
today's national story

Prison early release scheme begins

What happened 
Up to 1,750 prisoners have spent their last night in jail before being released today as part of the Ministry of Justice's emergency plan to ease overcrowding in jails.

Who said what
Keir Starmer has blamed overcrowding issues on the previous Conservative government's decision to not build any new prisons and says he has been "forced into" releasing prisoners early.

Charities and rehabilitation specialists have warned that a rushed release may unintentionally harm women and children, and undermine efforts to reform offenders' lives. A senior government source said yesterday that a high proportion of those released today would be domestic abusers. Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner, told The Times that victims were "paying the price" for Britain's overcrowded prisons.

What next? 
Prisoners who are being released will serve the rest of their sentences under the "strictest licensing conditions" and will be tagged, the government has said. But there are "serious concerns that many of those freed will reoffend shortly after release due to a lack of housing or rehabilitation programs", said Metro.

The "biggest concern" is where people are "going to stay that first night" because having accommodation is an integral part of stopping ex-offenders becoming homeless, Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons in England and Wales, told the BBC.

 
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today's royals story

Princess of Wales finishes cancer treatment

What happened
The Princess of Wales has announced with "relief" that she has completed her course of chemotherapy and is looking forward to returning to her public duties "when I can".

The princess revealed in March that she had been diagnosed with cancer following abdominal surgery in January and started a course of preventative chemotherapy at the end of February.

Who said what
In an emotional video message Catherine described the "stormy waters" of her experience of cancer as "complex, scary and unpredictable". She said this year had been "incredibly tough" and "that life as you know it can change in an instant".

What next?
The princess is hoping to attend the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday and is planning to host a Christmas carol concert at Westminster Abbey in December, said The Times. She has also started to work from home on projects, including her early years campaign.

 
 
Today's health story

NHS in decline, says report

What happened
NHS progress in key areas is going backwards for the first time in 50 years, according to a major government-commissioned report.

The report, which will be released on Thursday, will say that the progress made since the 1970s on deaths from heart disease and waiting times for treatment is now in reverse for the first time. It will also criticise long waits for children in A&E and the disruption of routine services during the pandemic.

Who said what
In an interview with the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Keir Starmer said the report showed that "the NHS is broken, but not beaten".

What next?
Health Secretary Wes Streeting is expected to "use the report as the foundation for his own blue-sky thinking on reform", said The Guardian. Last year Streeting said he believed the NHS required three "big shifts"; from sickness to prevention, from hospitals to GPs and community services, and from an "analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution".

 
 

It's not all bad

Dan Harris, a Peterborough father, has tattooed the alphabet on his arm to help him communicate with his non-speaking 10-year-old autistic son Joshie. Harris told the BBC the tattoo ensures communication when technology, like Joshie's iPad, which he uses to "talk", fails. Harris's campaign for non-verbal children has already gained global attention after the family secured funding for 100 communication boards in Peterborough. Harris and and his son continue to raise awareness for neurodiversity and are currently working with the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to make the capital an inclusive city.

 
 
under the radar

AI and the 'cocktail party problem'

People struggling to follow a conversation in noisy situations could soon be helped by artificial intelligence after a technological breakthrough that claims to have solved the "cocktail party problem".

The phenomenon describes how people can filter out background noises, such as the chatter of a party, to focus on one particular sound or speaker. Scientists have long puzzled over how the human brain is able to do this, leading Tech Crunch to call it "one of the greatest barriers to voice technologies reaching a level of understanding comparable to humans".

Voice technologies, added the website, are a growing market expected to reach $26.8 billion (£20.4 billion) by next year. But they are not being designed to confront the "messiness" or "cacophony" of real life, in particular the background and ambient noise that "muddies" the signals they receive. The only way to combat this, according to Tech Crunch, is to find a way to make voice tech as good as the human auditory system.

It is not only scientists who have been trying to combat background noise; a growing number of people are having problems with the cocktail party problem, reported the i news  site. In particular people born between 1997 and 2012, so-called Generation Z, are struggling to hear conversations when in noisy places, it added, citing a survey that found 11.5% of this group "always" experiences the condition, compared with only 8% of 25- to 34-year-olds and 7.4% of over-55s. The researchers believed a greater use of headphones by the younger respondents was the "key reason" for the difference.

The technology is now also being employed by the military and future uses could include smart speakers and hearing aid devices, added the BBC.

 
 
on this day

10 September 2008

Scientists at the Cern laboratory in Geneva flicked the switch on the Large Hadron Collider, successfully sending a beam of protons around the 17-mile-long tunnel in the search for answers to the mysteries of the universe. It was dubbed "history's biggest science experiment", but the LHC could be dwarfed by Cern's planned follow-up – the 56.5-mile-long Future Circular Collider. Unveiled in a feasibility study earlier this year, it would come with a $17 billion price tag.

 
 
Today's newspapers

"Out of darkness can come light", says The Mirror as the morning papers are dominated by a video from the Princess of Wales in which she revealed she had completed her chemotherapy. "Let that light shine bright", says the Daily Mail and the Daily Star says things are "smiles better". Meanwhile, the i paper leads on people in poverty, saying that 770,000 pensioners are set to lose winter fuel payments. The FT leads on a call for the EU to bring in a "new industrial strategy" to stop the bloc falling behind the US and China, in an "existential challenge".

See the newspaper front pages

 
 
tall tale

Sidelined by a sneeze

Bolton Wanderers striker Victor Adeboyejo had to sit out his team's Bristol Street Motors Trophy group game against Barrow after being injured by a "hefty sneeze". "Victor has been suffering with a nasty back injury and a sneeze set it off, believe it or not," manager Ian Evatt told The Bolton News. "Victor is a powerful boy and even his sneezes are powerful." The unfortunate sneeze didn't stop Bolton from winning 3-2.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Arion McNicoll, Elizabeth Carr-Ellis, Sorcha Bradley and Chas Newkey-Burden.

Image credits, from top: Ian Waldie / Getty Images; Will Warr / Kensington Palace / AFP via Getty Images; Christopher Furlong / Getty Images; Melpomene / Getty Images.