U.S. artificial-intelligence startup Anthropic said three Chinese AI companies set up more than 24,000 fraudulent accounts with its Claude AI model to help their own systems catch up. From a report: The three companies -- DeepSeek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax -- prompted Claude more than 16 million times, siphoning information from Anthropic's system to train and improve their own products, Anthropic said in a blog post Monday.

Earlier this month, an Anthropic rival, OpenAI, sent a memo to House lawmakers accusing DeepSeek of using the same tactic, called distillation, to mimic OpenAI's products. Anthropic said distillation had legitimate uses -- companies use it to build smaller versions of their own products, for example -- but it could also be used to build competitive products "in a fraction of the time, and at a fraction of the cost." The scale of the different companies' distillation activity varied. DeepSeek engaged in 150,000 interactions with Claude, whereas Moonshot and MiniMax had more than 3.4 million and 13 million, respectively, Anthropic said.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: PayPal, the digital payments pioneer, is attracting takeover interest from potential buyers after a stock slide wiped out almost half of its value, according to people familiar with the matter.

The San Jose, California-based company has fielded meetings with banks amid unsolicited interest from suitors, the people said. At least one large rival is looking at the whole company, while some other suitors are only interested in certain PayPal assets, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.

Buyer interest in PayPal is still at a preliminary stage and may not lead to a transaction, the people cautioned. Founded in the late 1990s, PayPal was an early mover in the world of digital payments. But the company now finds itself in a rut with its customers increasingly turning to alternative ways to pay for things. PayPal's shares have fallen around 46% in New York trading over the last 12 months, giving the company a market value of about $38.4 billion.

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The first fiber-optic cable ever laid across an ocean -- TAT-8, a nearly 6,000-kilometer line between the United States, United Kingdom, and France that carried its first traffic on December 14, 1988 -- is now being pulled off the Atlantic seabed after more than two decades of sitting dormant, bound for recycling in South Africa.

Subsea Environmental Services, one of only three companies in the world whose entire business is cable recovery and recycling, began the operation last year using its new diesel-electric vessel, the MV Maasvliet, and had already brought 1,012 kilometers of the cable to the Portuguese port of Leixoes by August.

TAT-8, short for Trans-Atlantic Telephone 8, was built by AT&T, British Telecom, and France Telecom, and hit full capacity within just 18 months of going live. A fault too expensive to repair took it out of service in 2002. The recovered cable is being shipped to Mertech Marine in South Africa, where it will be broken down into steel, copper, and two types of polyethylene -- all commercially valuable, especially the high-quality copper at a time when the International Energy Agency projects global shortages within a decade.

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• Follow updates from Monday’s 8pm (GMT) kick-off

• Ten talking points from the weekend | Email Daniel

David Moyes makes three changes to the team that lost at home to Bournemouth: out goes the suspended Jake O’Brien, along with Vitaliy Mykolenko and Tyrique George, who drop to the bench; Michael Keane returns, along with Tim Iroegbunam and Harrison Armstrong. That means James Garner, formerly of United, and Jarrad Branthwaite will be at full-back.

Everton (4-3-3): Pickford; Garner, Tarkowski, Keane, Branthwaite; Gana, Iroegbunam, Dewsbury-Hall; Armstrong, Barry, Ndiaye. Subs: King, Patterson, McNeil, Beto, Mykolenko, George, Dibling, Coleman, Rohl.

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Valdo Calocane released in 2020 after mental health staff considered research on over-representation of young black men in detention

Mental health professionals decided not to detain the Nottingham triple killer Valdo Calocane despite a violent incident in 2020, after they considered research that addressed the over-representation of young black men in custody, a public inquiry has been told.

Calocane, who has paranoid schizophrenia, fatally stabbed 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, and 65-year-old Ian Coates, and severely injured three others on 13 June 2023.

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Deadliest start to a year in more than a decade, according to the International Organization for Migration

A least 606 people trying to reach Europe in search of refugee have been reported dead or missing in the Mediterranean since the beginning of 2026, marking the “deadliest start to a year” in more than a decade, the UN’s migration agency said on Monday.

The figure includes at least 30 people who are feared dead or missing after their boat capsized in severe weather off the coast of Greece on Saturday. Authorities rescued 20 people, including four minors, and recovered the bodies of three men and one woman, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said.

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Demonstrations spread to Tehran’s Al Zahra University one month after security crackdown left thousands dead

Students at universities in Iran have held a third consecutive day of protest just over a month after the violent suppression by security services of mass street demonstrations left thousands dead.

The protests came amid tensions between Iran and the US. Washington has built up military forces and pressure in the Middle East as it negotiates with Tehran – with the next round in Geneva on Thursday. Donald Trump has warned “really bad things will happen” if there is no deal.

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Despite relentless attrition at appalling human cost, the Kremlin has not achieved its goals. Maximum economic pressure can undermine its war aims

Four years after Vladimir Putin launched the biggest conflict on European soil since the second world war, the human cost of his revanchist ambition mounts ever higher. Across a 750-mile frontline in the east of Ukraine, Russian forces make minimal progress despite relentless attrition, advancing more slowly than troops during the battle of the Somme. In 2025, the estimated number of Russian casualties in “the meat grinder” was 415,000.

For Ukraine, the suffering will scar generations to come. Battlefield casualties are estimated to be about 600,000. Since the invasion, as many as 6 million people have been displaced inside the country and 4 million, mainly women and children, have left. Civilian deaths soared last year as Russia stepped up its bombing campaign of cities and infrastructure in an effort to break Ukrainians’ will.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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The arrest followed search warrants at two addresses in the Wiltshire and Camden areas, police said

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has been speaking about the Send reforms at an event in Peterborough.

This is what she said about the need for inclusion.

Inclusion is a choice. It is an educational choice, and it is also a political choice because we could duck this challenge, ignore the injustice of a postcode lottery in life chances putting off fixing the Send system yet again.

The system works well for some at least.

We welcome the scale of vision contained in the white paper which has the potential to create an education system that fully values children and young people with additional needs and their families.

We also welcome the commitment to retain statutory education, health and care plans (EHCPs) for children and young people whose needs cannot be met through this new model. We know that many parents will welcome the legal requirement for schools to create individual support plans (ISPs) for all children with Send.

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Streets empty as residents shield from chaos of retaliatory attacks after death of ‘El Mencho’ in federal raid

Mexico is on alert after cartel gunmen went on a violent rampage of revenge in response to federal forces killing their leader, a notorious mob boss known as “El Mencho”.

Authorities had attempted to capture Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes in the western state of Jalisco on Sunday but the raid led to a firefight that fatally wounded the infamous leader and killed six of his accomplices, according to officials.

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A new era of Formula 1 is already underway, so we've assessed how the 2026 regulation changes could impact the betting market.

2023 F2 champion Theo Pourchaire has joined the Silver Arrows' driver portfolio ahead of the 2026 season.

Speedy J

Randy Newman

David Bowie

Heather Nova

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

HILVERSUM (ANP) - De Nederlandse tv-kijker heeft de uitzendingen rond de Olympische Winterspelen van Milaan-Cortina 2026 goed weten te vinden. Dat meldt de NOS, waar het mondiale sportevenement de afgelopen weken te volgen was.

De NOS laat weten dat in totaal 12,3 miljoen Nederlanders naar de Olympische Spelen hebben gekeken. Dat getal is gebaseerd op metingen van het Nationaal Media Onderzoek (NMO), meldt een woordvoerder desgevraagd. De meest bekeken NOS-uitzending was met gemiddeld 4,1 miljoen kijkers de 1000 meter schaatsen bij de mannen op 11 februari. Gemiddeld keken er 1,2 miljoen mensen naar de live-sportuitzendingen van de NOS.

"Deze Winterspelen laten zien waartoe we als NOS in staat zijn: sterke programma's, hoogwaardige verslaggeving en vooral het samenbrengen van miljoenen Nederlanders", zegt Xander van der Wulp, hoofdredacteur NOS Sport. "Daarmee onderstrepen we opnieuw het grote belang van sportverslaggeving voor de publieke omroep."

Ex-CDA’er Mona Keijzer verlaat nu ook BBB, waarvoor ze in het kabinet-Schoof vicepremier was. Het ging al maanden steeds slechter tussen haar en partijleider Caroline van der Plas.