Sometimes one is not enough – that’s the conclusion a growing number of people are drawing about their sources of income. In a trend known as income stacking, workers are increasingly “taking on multiple jobs to build financial security” through a “side hustle or freelance work on top of a full-time job, or several part-time roles”, said CNBC.

Why is income stacking becoming more popular?
A record high of 1.35 million adults in the UK had at least two jobs last year, according to the Office for National Statistics. “The rising cost of living is just one part of the picture,” said business media brand Fast Company. Younger people starting their careers are no longer “buying into what they see as a broken social contract, where a linear path up the career ladder is seen as the most reliable route to success and financial stability”. This generation is also plugged into social media, where freelance work is modelled “in the form of influencers, content creators and podcasters”.

What are the benefits?
As well as the extra money, income stacking provides a safety net in the event of job loss, with an alternative income source to fall back on. “Putting all your eggs in one corporate basket is risky business right now,” said The Independent. Some people are using their extra income to invest, save for retirement or pay off student loans. Juggling multiple jobs can also offer a shortcut to building skills and job experience, which can translate into further opportunities down the road.

Does it work for everyone?
“As the Middle East energy crisis continues and the cost of everything from food to fuel keeps rising, it’s unsurprising almost everyone is scrambling to earn extra cash to cushion the fall,” said The Independent. But workers have to be careful not to “breach an employer’s code of conduct” by taking on additional jobs. And not everyone has the time and energy for income stacking. There is a realistic danger of “hustle culture’s worst enemy: burnout”.

Controversy over whether a prize-winning short story was created using AI has “sparked a furore” in the literary world, said The Guardian. Jamie Nazir’s “The Serpent in the Grove” was named the winner in the Caribbean category of the Commonwealth Prize this month. But “a few syntactical tics” and “the verdict of an AI detection platform” has raised doubts that it was written entirely by Nazir – an accusation that the Trinidadian author reportedly denies.

Smelling a rat
The judging committee said the winning story is told in a “voice of restraint and quiet authority”, with “sublime” language that is “precise yet richly evocative”. But “literary sleuths smelled a rat”, said LitHub. “Off a hunch”, Ethan Mollick, a professor who studies AI, ran the story through Pangram, a program that claims to detect AI writing with 99% accuracy; the results came back with “100% red flags”.

Granta, the magazine that published the winning story, said it was investigating the allegations. The foundation that awarded the prize said all entrants were required to confirm that their submission was their own work and not created with AI assistance. 

Stemming the tide of AI slop
The accusation is “another episode” in an “ongoing, frenetic conversation” about “whether artists and creators are passing off AI-generated work as their own”, said The Guardian, and whether publishers “will be able to reliably catch them doing it”. Such episodes have “fuelled discourse around the telltale signs of AI writing”, including frequent use of specific words (for example, “delve”), a “profusion of em dashes” and a predilection for “vague, soft intensifiers” such as “quietly powerful” and “deeply transformative”.

Commonwealth Foundation director-general Razmi Farook has promoted an “ideal of placing complete trust in writers”, said Wired, but that may not “be enough to stem the tide of AI slop” in “everything from high literature to scientific research”. And the “biggest bummer is to come”, said LitHub. Although “winning a literary prize is one small step” for AI, it’s “sure to be catnip for the pushers touting the technology’s creative potential”.

Marco Rubio and his wife, Jeanette, pose in front of the Taj Mahal before concluding a four-day trip to India. The US secretary of state and Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks on energy, trade and defence in a bid to repair ties between their countries.

Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Pool / AFP / Getty Images

Avoiding crowds while still experiencing the best of a culturally dynamic city is a win-win. At these spots, you can enjoy more elbow room while seeing the sights, and more chances to connect with locals.

Chachapoyas, Peru
In the mountains of northern Peru sits Chachapoyas, a city named in honour of the civilisation that lived there from around AD800 to 1470. The Chachapoyas, or “Warriors of the Clouds”, built several important sites in the area, including Kuélap. This ancient fortress, built around AD500, comprises “towering defensive walls, over 420 circular dwellings and panoramic views”, said Time Out.

Matera, Italy
Known as the City of Stone, Matera offers visitors a glimpse of what life was like in this region some 10,000 years ago. Sassi di Matera (pictured above), a network of cave dwellings carved into limestone, is its centrepiece. The extraordinary Unesco World Heritage Site features more than 100 rupestrian churches.

Meknes, Morocco
For a “relaxed slice of authentic Moroccan life”, head to Meknes, said Lonely Planet. There’s plenty to do, starting with a trek to the “buzzy” Place El Hedim to see the Bab Mansour gate and wander through the Dar Jamai Museum housed in a 19th century palace.

Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka
More than 800 years ago, when Polonnaruwa was Sri Lanka’s capital, it was a “thriving” religious and commercial centre, said Lonely Planet. After a series of invasions and natural disasters, the city was abandoned, but the “glories of that age” remain. Polonnaruwa’s archaeological “treasures” include hundreds of temples, statues, tombs and stupas in a “compact core”.

Autistic people are enduring state-sanctioned torture in the UK. Yet we do nothing
Ian Birrell in The i Paper
It’s been 15 years since “the BBC ‘Panorama’ exposé of abuse at Winterbourne View”, a hospital where people with learning disabilities were “beaten, brutally restrained and bullied”, writes Ian Birrell. And “almost nothing has changed”. Hundreds of people with autism and learning disabilities are still “trapped in psychiatric hellholes”, as “revelations about abuse, regulatory failures, missed targets” and “ignored whistleblowers” pile up. Locking up vulnerable people because of “deficiencies in social care” is “medically and morally indefensible”.

The fun police are outlawing the art of harmless flirtation
Rowan Pelling in The Telegraph
I recently told a young man that he was “drop-dead gorgeous”, then “started fretting” that this “was some kind of mild sex crime”, writes Rowan Pelling. We’re “encouraged to feel hostile” to anyone using “courteous words to make others feel good”, and male “gallantry” has been “recast as creepiness”. But “if you haven’t had some experience of innocent compliments”, you can’t sort the “gallants” from the “wrong-uns”. Identifying “smooth-talking snakes is a life skill, as is learning how to receive a compliment gracefully”.

Loathed ‘Americanisms’ often have an origin closer to home
The Times editorial board
“To an ear trained on the King’s English, Americanisms often register with a clunk,” says The Times. “When did airline passengers begin to ‘deplane’?” And “what self-respecting adult” would “wear a ‘fanny pack’”? But some “of the most jarring Americanisms” were actually “entrenched on this island” first. Shakespeare habitually used verbs as nouns, and “fall” was an early English word for “spring”. “In berating our cousins on linguistic grounds, we Brits have gotten rather ahead of ourselves.”