The UK government has backtracked on its position on copyright and AI, stating it must take time to "get this right".

Its original position - allowing AI companies to use copyrighted works to train their models with an opt-out option - received major backlash from the likes of Sir Elton John and Dua Lipa.

"We have listened," Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said on Wednesday, saying the government no longer favours that approach.

However, the government's position is now unclear, saying it "no longer has a preferred option" for what to do next.

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It is attempting to balance the interests of the two sectors by giving creatives control of how their work is used, while recognising AI models need to be trained on work such as writing, music and video.

In a report (open pdf) published on Wednesday, the government said there was "no consensus on how these objectives should be achieved".

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Mandy Hill, president of the Publishers Association, said the backtrack was a victory "over the self-interest of a handful of large corporations".

However, Hill said the government has not entirely ruled out allowing tech companies to use copyrighted content to train AI models without a license.

"The existing law is clear," she added. "Copyright material cannot be used for AI development and training without permission."

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Nigel Farage's far-right Reform UK is the most supported party amongst gay and bisexual men in the UK, a new poll has found.

Dog owners face unlimited fines and could see their pets taken away under new laws designed to better protect farm animals from attacks in England and Wales.

GB News is facing a backlash after a commentator on one of its shows suggested there is “a genocide happening” against white people in England and that immigrants could “turn” on the white population.

The Hong Kong democracy campaigner and British citizen was sentenced to 20 years in prison last month under a security law imposed by China.

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In a video address to the Society of Editors conference on Tuesday, Mr Lai’s son Sebastien Lai said: “Recently, we have received some very distressing news about his health.

“The deterioration of his health over the last five years has been heart-breaking to watch.”

Sebastien Lai said his father has remained “stoic”, but said a 20-year sentence at 78 years old is a “death sentence”.

“When they announced this 20-year sentence, which to all intents and purposes is a life sentence, a death sentence,” he said.

“He (Jimmy Lai) was stoic, he was at peace, and he even managed to smile to the judges to tell them that though they have captured his body and they have shackled his body, they have not shackled his spirits.”

Jimmy Lai, who founded the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, which criticised the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing, was arrested in August 2020.

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Sebastien Lai asked conference attendees to sign a letter calling for his father’s release.

“His story is a reminder of the responsibility that a journalist has to both his colleagues, but also to the people, that he tells the truth to,” the Hong Kong businessman’s son said.

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UK foreign aid helped to develop Chinese fossil fuel extraction in a region where the oil sector is associated with forced labour risks, a new investigation has found.

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The UK funded the regional government in Xinjiang, China to develop carbon capture technology during the height of its mass internment of Uyghur Muslims, a new investigation has revealed.

The investigation was conducted by Land and Climate Review [...] uncovered data from deleted UK government webpages that show quarterly Foreign Office payments between 2016-2018 “to support the Xinjiang Autonomous Region Development and Reform Commission to systematically assess and identify regional Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) development opportunities, and build capacity for CCUS development in Xinjiang”.

CCUS is a technology designed to reduce pollution from power plants. It uses chemical filters to remove carbon dioxide gas from smokestack emissions. Xinjiang is a major fossil-fuel region for China, containing approximately a third of the country’s onshore oil and gas reserves.

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Laura Murphy, whose research into Uyghur abuses led to a Chinese intimidation campaign now being investigated by counter-terrorism police in the UK, said that the internment of Uyghurs “really ramped up” in 2016. “For the years between at least 2016 and 2020, there was a system of mass internment and arbitrary detention that affected upwards of a million people in the Uyghur region.”

The academic at Sheffield Hallam University said the UK government “absolutely should have known” about this before the aid scheme ended in March 2018.

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Labour transfer schemes – where Uyghurs from rural villages in Xinjiang were forcibly relocated to work across China – were headed by Xinjiang’s Development and Reform Commission as it was receiving UK funding to develop its energy sector. China denies such practices occur.

Zumretay Arkin, Vice President of the World Uyghur Congress, described the investigation findings as “deeply alarming”. She said “the Xinjiang Development and Reform Commission played a central role in the policies that enabled the mass transfer of Uyghur labour. Any cooperation with regional authorities should have been subject to the highest level of scrutiny.”

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Regulator nudges broadband market, hopes competition will turn up in 2031

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper's statement on Lebanon managed to avoid basically the entire context of the new Israeli invasion

• MoD splurged £1.5bn on doomed drone programme
• Israel’s largest arms firm now benefitting from that deal
• Dozens of drone components sent from UK to Israel last year
• Those parts should be re-exported but are remaining in Israel
• Airfield in illegally occupied territory likely being used to test the drones R* evelations suggest UK drone exports to Israel unlawful

At 52 weeks, the UK offers one of the longest statutory maternity leave allowances in Europe, but it’s one of the worst paid

This report sets out to examine the relationship between armed violence, international arms transfers and forced migration to the United Kingdom, drawing on original testimony from asylum seekers who fled conflict in Ethiopia, Sudan and Afghanistan. By combining investigative analysis of UK arms export licensing with detailed personal accounts of persecution, displacement and irregular journeys to Britain, it situates individual experiences within a wider political economy of war, aid retrenchment and defence expansion. While it does not claim direct causation between specific UK-manufactured weapons and particular attacks, it documents the structural overlap between states receiving British military exports and the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, alongside the humanitarian consequences that drive flight. The report argues that debates on asylum and small boat crossings cannot be disentangled from the global systems of conflict, arms supply and geopolitical alignment in which the UK is materially and diplomatically implicated.

The assault, which was filmed and has been described as "sickening" by Avon and Somerset Police, is thought to be linked to a recent "school wars" trend on social media.

Five teenagers who were arrested in connection with the incident, which happened on Wednesday 4 March, have been released on bail.

The girl's dad, who we are calling Phil to protect the identity of the family, told the BBC she feels "let down" that witnesses did not intervene.

A carpenter and father of a toddler has called on the government to give self-employed men paid paternity leave.

The UK-first trial gave 99 care leavers a one-off £2,000 cash lump sum to see if it prevented them from falling into homelessness