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Imagine your child calling for money. Except its not them its an AI scam | James Wise

Fraudsters are being given more sophisticated ways to trick us into believing they are someone they are not

This year, I was sent a link to a video of myself, passionately explaining why I had invested into a new technology company. In the video I spoke enthusiastically about the great faith I had in the company’s leadership and encouraged others to try the service out. The problem was, I had never met the company nor used its product.

It looked and sounded like me, right down to the fading Mancunian accent. But it wasn’t. It was an AI-generated fake used in a business pitch and designed to wow me into investing in a company. Far from impressing me, it left me concerned about the myriad ways these new tools could be used for fraudulent purposes.

James Wise is a partner at the venture capital firm Balderton, and a trustee of the thinktank Demos

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So daytime naps can boost your brain power? No wonder Im a crossword genius | Tim Dowling

News that a quick siesta can improve cognitive function is little surprise to those who’ve seen the results of my 2pm doze

Some anecdotal evidence regarding daytime napping and brain health: last week, directly after lunch, I turned on the television to check the cricket before returning to work. When I woke up on the sofa 15 minutes later, the crossword puzzle in my lap was complete.

These findings are a little hard to quantify, because I slept through them. Perhaps I completed the puzzle just before I conked out. It’s possible, I suppose, that a mischievous person stole the crossword from my lap, filled it in and put it back. Of course I prefer the idea that I finished the crossword myself, while unconscious, because it reinforces my assertion that I’m getting things done even when my eyes are closed.

Tim Dowling is a regular Guardian contributor

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I’m a trans teen in Missouri. Why is the state trying to take away my healthcare? | Chelsea Freels

Gender-affirming care has helped many people like me. Yet earlier this year, the state of Missouri decided that transgender kids had too many rights

According to a Washington Post-KFF poll, only 43% of cisgender people (a person whose gender identity aligns with their assigned sex at birth) know a transgender person, so allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Chelsea Freels and I use she/her pronouns. I’m a transgender junior at Clayton high school in Missouri. I love learning about psychology, computer science, and political and queer theory. After the pandemic relinquished its grip enough to open schools, I joined and have helped lead the business and media side of Clayton high school’s first robotics team. (Go RoboHounds!)

Chelsea Freels is a transgender activist and a junior at Clayton high school

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The disturbing rise of Mizzy: this is what happens when culture values nothing but attention | Jason Okundaye

The 18-year-old former TikToker has been gaming a system created by his supposed elders and betters

When I first came across Mizzy, now infamous as the “TikTok Terror”, it was in videos of him being chased by security after breaking into Alton Towers or riding an electric bike into a Sainsbury’s. He seemed annoying in a “kids these days!” kind of way, and I didn’t think much of it. But fast-forward a few months and Mizzy’s videos – his real name is Bacari-Bronze O’Garro – went to a very dark place indeed. The 18-year-old has provoked outrage for his abhorrent TikTok videos, which have seen him abduct an elderly woman’s dog, attempt to leapfrog over an Orthodox Jewish man, enter a stranger’s home without permission, and walk up to young people at night and ask if they “want to die”. He has since apologised, but you can only imagine the shocking and disturbing effect this “content” must have had on those involved.

Looking back on it, it almost seems as if this escalation in videos was built into the system: illicit bike rides aren’t enough to sustain the internet’s attention, you have to up your prank game and really force people to watch. Now bewildered and angry people across Britain have been understandably left with a series of questions. Namely: who is Mizzy and what does he want?

Jason Okundaye is a London-based writer and researcher

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‘The end of peak television’: has the era of prestige TV just ground to a halt?

Many of the biggest shows are coming to an end, cancellations are through the roof and miniseries are on the rise. Are the days of the all-conquering television drama numbered?

Now that Succession has finally lived up to its writers’ most-loved phrase and decided to “fuck off” at the end of its fourth season, it leaves a big question for the TV world. It’s one befitting a show hinged on who was qualified to take over the Roy family business. So, who, or what, will succeed the biggest drama on TV?

For the past two and a half decades – the much-heralded prestige TV era – it has always seemed there is one series that reigns supreme at any given moment. There is no discernible science to the idea but whoever could gather the winning combination (or at least some components) of critical acclaim, big ratings, award show sweeps and, latterly, social media buzz, fits the bill. It’s those shows for which you dodge online spoilers, that you passionately recommend to anyone who will listen, whose characters loom large from billboards at the train station, and whose Emmy and Bafta wins feel like a lap of honour. They’re the shows you binge seven seasons of in a fortnight and instantly become an evangelist for. You’d call it water-cooler television if anyone worked in the office any more.

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De La Soul soundtracked my childhood – something my dad always understood | Emma Forrest

The brilliance of the band’s debut album got me through learning difficulties at school – and later, helped me articulate the impossible as an adult

In 1989, at the dawn of gangsta rap and its accompanying macho gun play, De La Soul rapper Trugoy chose a name that celebrates his love of yogurt, spelled backwards, and wore his sleeves pulled down over his hands. On their single The Magic Number, De La Soul namechecked Fred Astaire and the Dosey Doe. This was the hip-hop version of the Kinks singing “I’m not the world’s most physical guy” while surrounded by rockers like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

The cover of their debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, was fluorescent yellow and featured neon daisies and geometric haircuts. Between each flower are the heads of Posdnuos, Trugoy and the band’s third member, Maseo, together, but in a circle, like satellites orbiting one another.

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‘Children with ADHD are being failed’: parents share their experiences of an overwhelmed system

Since the pandemic there has been a steep rise in cases of ADHD among children. Here, experts discuss why, parents describe their struggles and campaigners say what needs to change

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that is shrouded in misunderstanding, uncertainty and controversy. There is, for example, no definitive agreement on how many people have the condition. In the UK, one survey has put the incident rate in childhood (five to 15 years old) at just over 2% (3.62% of boys and 0.85% of girls). ADHD support groups cite figures of 5%. One UK study found 11% with symptoms but 6.7% with disorder and impairment.

Even the name can be misleading. “We don’t have a deficit of attention,” says Henry Sheldon, co-founder of ADHD UK, a charity aimed at raising awareness of the disorder. “It’s a lack of control of attention. And people with predominant hyperactivity make up our smallest cohort.”

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In the targets of the junta: life and war inside rebel-held Myanmar

In Myanmar’s opposition controlled areas the risks of opposing the military leadership and the quiet hope that permeates daily life co-exist

On a busy strip in eastern Myanmar, restaurants with bomb shelters serve sizzling plates of beef washed down with Belgian beer and French wine. Teenagers mingle in snooker halls, women relax in beauty salons and revolutionaries get inked in tattoo parlours.

From dawn, steaming bowls of noodle soup are devoured in teashops and, come dusk, shaky bass echoes from a karaoke club. But unlike the country’s heartland, this settlement has one notable absence: military rule.

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Cristiano Ronaldo’s topsy-turvy Saudi sideshow upstaged by power of Nuno

Portuguese compatriots duel for honours in a patchy first season in the Middle East for the ex-Manchester United striker

When Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr announced the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo in late December, their Instagram following jumped from less than 1 million to almost 15 million. On the pitch, despite Ronaldo’s best efforts, the Riyadh club slipped from first when he arrived to finish second in May as Nuno Espírito Santo led Al-Ittihad to a first championship since 2009.

This move was always about much more than football but there was plenty of that to talk about. A first league title as a coach for the former Tottenham and Wolves manager means his Portuguese compatriot will have to wait until next season for the chance to add to the seven domestic championships won with Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus.

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All the rage: the rise of the menopause novel

Self-help shelves are filled with guides to surviving midlife, but where is the fiction? Lisa Allardice talks to Marian Keyes, Joanne Harris and others about ‘hot-flush lit’

Joanne Harris was rereading Carrie by Stephen King during lockdown when she got the inspiration for her new novel, Broken Light. The novelist had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and King’s horror story was all her “chemo-brain” could cope with, she says on a video call from her home in Yorkshire. The story of a girl who gets telekinetic powers at puberty, Carrie was a favourite for Harris growing up. “Of course it was!” she exclaims. “It’s all about the drama of adolescence and the horror of having a changing body that does unpredictable stuff.”

Reading it again in her 50s she was struck by the idea: “What if Carrie had lived and her powers had kicked in at menopause instead? Nobody wants to give superpowers to a teenager, because of course they’re going to burn everything down.” And so she created Bernie Moon, who in middle age discovers she is able to inhabit other people’s minds and set them on a different course – predatory men become a particular target. “It’s menopausal Carrie,” she says gleefully. She started writing when she was ill (the effects of chemotherapy “were like the menopause but worse,” she says) and didn’t stop. She got the all-clear this Christmas: “So I thought: ‘OK, I’m feeling good about this.’”

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