What happened
Kemi Badenoch has condemned Reform UK’s “authoritarian” press bans, saying Nigel Farage shouldn’t be an MP if he “can’t handle difficult questions about his dodgy £5 million”. His party has refused accreditation for a number of reporters for its annual conference – which began yesterday in Birmingham – including the journalist who revealed the undeclared donation from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.

Who said what
Asked whether the Conservatives would ban reporters from their conference, the Tory leader replied “absolutely not”, adding that Conservatives believe in “a free press”. That might be “painful for us as politicians, but public scrutiny is part of the gig”.

Yet “Badenoch has not always been comfortable with press scrutiny herself”, said The Guardian. As a minister in the last government she was criticised for her “aggressive response to journalists reporting on her”.

Parties have “every right” to decide which journalists attend their conferences, wrote Michael Crick, author of an independent biography of Farage and one of the rejected applicants. “But to bar reporters who regularly embarrass them, or ask tough questions, looks thin-skinned, undemocratic and authoritarian.”

What next?
Reform’s conference ends tomorrow. The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner continues to investigate the £5 million donation. Farage maintains that there was no need to declare it.

What happened
Gloria Steinem, the renowned writer and second-wave feminist activist, has passed away at the age of 92. Born in 1934 in Ohio, she began her career as a journalist in New York City and co-founded Ms. magazine, one of the first publications dedicated to women’s issues. She rose to prominence in the 1970s as a campaigner for women’s reproductive rights and the legalisation of abortion. Steinem also advocated for the legalisation of same-sex marriage and protested against the death penalty.

Who said what
Steinem died “peacefully at her home in New York City” on Tuesday, her foundation said in a statement posted on Instagram. “Gloria’s near-century on Earth were years well-lived, and she continued working for equality until the very end.”

Her activism was “not without a backlash”, said the BBC, “from both men and women”. She was also criticised for an essay she wrote in 1977 on transgender people, but later “clarified her position”.

She was “one of the architects of the entire structure of women’s equality”, Hillary Clinton told “CBS Mornings”. But “she was at heart an optimist”.

What next?
Steinem’s memoir, “An Unexpected Life”, is due out on 22 September.

Scientists have been training promising new search-and-rescue recruits: cockroaches equipped with robotic hardware.

Biorobotics researchers from the University of Queensland and biomedical engineers at the University of New South Wales have been attaching cameras and tiny medical injectors to the insects in the hope that they could one day deliver emergency care to people stuck in hard-to-reach locations.

These paramedic cyborg cockroaches, dubbed Paraborgs, “could deliver supervised emergency care to people trapped in collapsed buildings, caves or other places too dangerous for rescuers to reach”, said a press release about the study published in the journal Advanced Science.

“A lot of people might not like the sight of a giant cockroach scurrying towards them,” said study co-author Hai Nhan Le. “But if you are trapped in rubble or stuck in a cave and need help, it could make a real difference between life and death.”

To create the cyborgs, scientists fitted North Queensland giant burrowing cockroaches (Macropanesthia rhinoceros), the “heaviest cockroach species in the world that ​measures up to 3.3 inches, with backpacks containing syringe cylinders and cameras”, said Reuters. They anaesthetise the insect so they are immobilised and can’t feel anything before implanting an electrode into them so they can use an electrical signal to activate their nervous system.

While the progress is promising, “one of the biggest engineering challenges was getting the cockroaches into the correct position for an injection”, according to Interesting Engineering. The good news is that the Paraborgs had a 95% success rate at performing close-range injections in proof-of-concept experiments.

“Ethical guidelines for invertebrate research are not yet standardised,” added the study. Still, the cockroaches were “provided with a suitable living environment” and “decent nutrition”.