Three-quarters of all responses were machine-generated in failed attempt to stop bill from passing into law, research finds

AI bots flooded a government consultation with tens of thousands of fake responses in a failed attempt to stop the UK’s ban on disposable vapes.

Three-quarters of all the responses to the 2023 consultation on the tobacco and vapes bill were machine-generated, in what is thought to be the first coordinated attempt to use AI to derail health policymaking in the UK.

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Online hate is spilling into the real world, AFP warns

AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett began her late-night appearance at the Senate estimates hearing noting “a heaviness that hangs across Australia” after the alleged attack on independent MP Helen Haines.

Lone actors are being motivated by a convergence of personal grievances, mental health vulnerabilities and ideological concerns …

What helped keep us safe in recent times, such as our geography, analogue systems and far away criminals, has been impacted by fully integrated technology, social media and artificial intelligence.

We hear about the devastating impacts of racism from communities every day. But many experiences go unreported or uncounted, and our systems often do not capture the full picture.

This is not about collecting more data to prove racism exists. We already know it does. It is about making inequality visible, holding institutions to account and giving communities greater agency over their data to drive real change.

• Azucena "Suzy" Reyes went to the ER several times for nausea and stomach pain.
• After months of back and forth, she finally learned she had a mass in her large intestine.
• Despite first being told she was 'too young' for colon cancer, she was diagnosed at stage 3B.

No matter how healthy she tried to eat or how often she ran 4 miles at her community college, Azucena "Suzy" Reyes felt bloated in her stomach.

"I looked like I was pregnant," Reyes, who's 43 and based in Alvin, Texas, told Business Insider. At 32, she was studying to be a certified nurse assistant while running a construction company with her husband and raising their four children together.

Then, her symptoms got worse. She was frequently exhausted, which she attributed to working out and being busy. She started getting fevers and feeling intense nausea. There was also her severe stomach pain.

"I really thought it was an ovary that had burst because it was that painful," she said.

Between August and October in 2015, Reyes went to the ER four times, originally diagnosed with inflammation in her intestines. When she finally saw a GI doctor in October, she was sent to the ER a fifth time, where she had emergency surgery and learned she had stage 3 colon cancer.

"I was scared because I did not know anything about colon cancer," Reyes said. "It was very, very dramatic to me because I didn't want my children to go through the fear of thinking that I was going to die."

She was told she likely didn't have cancer because of her age and race

After the ER staff looked at her vitals, Reyes was first diagnosed with colitis and enteritis, inflammation of the small and large intestines, as well as a microperforation. She was sent home with antibiotics. When the pain didn't go away, she returned to the ER and was put on a PICC line to administer medication and kept in the hospital for three weeks. Around the same time, Reyes tried to book a GI appointment and was put on a waitlist until early October.

When the PICC line was removed, the nausea came back. The next two ER visits didn't yield more answers. By the time she finally saw her GI, she couldn't keep still long enough because she kept throwing up.

Within hours, Reyes and her husband went to the ER a fifth time, where an ultrasound revealed a tumor that had completely obstructed her transverse colon, the longest part of her large intestine, and made it difficult for her to keep food down. The next morning, she had emergency surgery to remove it.

At first, Reyes said, the surgeon told her not to worry about the tumor. He told her she was very young, and that colon cancer wasn't as common in Hispanic populations and people under 60.

But a week later, she learned she had stage 3B colon cancer. "I was scared, but then relieved at the same time," Reyes said. "For three months, I was suffering, and I didn't know why."

Worried about worrying her family

The original plan was to hide her diagnosis and treatment from her family, especially her four kids, ranging in ages from 4 to 16 at the time. The doctor said she would likely only need two or three rounds of chemotherapy. Reyes and her husband wanted to leave their children with her mother and say they were going on a long couple's trip for about a month.

Once she met with her oncologist and learned that the cancer had grown through her muscular wall and into her lymph nodes, she learned she would need 12 rounds of chemotherapy — about six months of treatment. It would be impossible to keep a secret. "I just didn't want anybody to suffer, like my children and my parents," Reyes said.

Reyes experienced side effects from the chemo, such as nausea, fatigue, and weight gain. "I was literally swollen," she said. "It's like they pumped air into me."

All the while, she avoided looking up colon cancer or trying to research her prognosis online — something she said helped her maintain a "peace of mind" throughout treatment.

She now advocates for cancer awareness in Spanish-speaking communities

As of October 2026, Reyes has been cancer-free for over a decade. She says she continues to receive annual follow-ups, including colonoscopies, blood work, and CT scans.

Some of her treatment side effects haven't gone away. "The neuropathy in my feet, arms, fingers — it just feels like needles poking them," she said.

After she was diagnosed, she urged her brother, who was 42 and a few years below the recommended screening age of 45, to get a colonoscopy. After some resistance, he agreed — and learned he had colon cancer as well. After surgery to remove his tumor, he's been cancer-free for 4 years, she said.

Looking back, Reyes said she had wanted more guidance from other people who had colon cancer. She remembered posting about her experience on social media, but "nobody ever reached out to me and said, 'Hey, I'm an advocate for colon cancer. I'm here,'" she said. "I wish I would've had that."

Reyes is now involved with the Colorectal Cancer Alliance's Never Too Young Taskforce, as well as a few other groups. She also tries to focus on helping the Spanish-speaking community. "There are so many people that come out to us, me and my husband, and they're like, 'Thank y'all for doing this,'" she said.

Four public access defibrillators were delivered to the municipalities of Nicosia, Strovolos and Latsia-Yeri by the Rotary Club, as the HeartSafe Cyprus initiative was officially launched on Tuesday.

Rotary Club president Michalis Kyprianou said the initiative rests on the principle that “every human life has the same value”.

The head of the WHO office in Cyprus, Dr Irshad Shaikh, said the project was “about empowering people with the confidence, knowledge and skills to save lives”.

The WHO says cardiovascular diseases kill about 10,000 people every day in its European region and account for 42.5 per cent of all deaths there.

Polys Polykarpou, head of resuscitation services at the health ministry, said success would be judged by the number of people ready to act as well as the number of devices installed.

The programme forms part of the EU Safe Hearts Plan, which provides for more than 20 new defibrillators a year in Cyprus over five years.

Investigation recommends government changes legislation so staff assessing people for home support packages can correct the outcome

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The Greens leader, David Shoebridge, has used a scathing report from the commonwealth ombudsman to press the government to use the last two sitting weeks of parliament to restore human override to its “unfair” aged care assessment tool.

The 104-page ombudsman report, published on Monday, recommends the government change legislation so that aged care workers assessing older Australians for home support packages can amend the outcome when the algorithm-driven assessment tool makes an incorrect decision on funding.

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• I dreamed of being a mother for a long time; it is what I wanted most in this world.
• I have two beautiful children, and I think the world of them. They are my greatest joy.
• They are also my biggest burden, and that's never going to change.

My children bring me more joy than anything else. It's not an exaggeration when I say that I would do anything to make them happy.

Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming a mother. I played with baby dolls and treated them as though they were real. My dream was never to have a big, fancy job or travel the world. I wanted to be a mom.

That dream came true in 2018, when my daughter was born. Five years later, my son came into the world, and my heart grew in ways I hadn't known were possible. My children are my greatest blessing, the loves of my life, and the source of a happiness I had imagined since childhood.

They are also my biggest burden.

Two truths can exist

I know my words might sound harsh. How can the people you love most in the world also be a burden? Before you judge, let me explain.

I am happily married and have been for going on 10 years. I have a thriving business, I have friends and hobbies, and we travel quite a bit as a family. I have many things in my life to be grateful for.

But none of those things bring me the kind of happiness, pure joy, and love that my children do.

But along with that kind of love comes something else. A burden, if you will. As long as I am a mother, I will worry about my children. It doesn't matter how old they get or how far away they go. They will always be a part of me, and a part of my mind will always be occupied by them.

My feelings will evolve

The worries will change, of course. Today, I might worry that they will fall at the park, come home crying about a bad grade, or have a fight with a friend.

Tomorrow, I may worry about whether they can find a job, if they are happy in their relationships, or whether they are struggling under the weight of life.

The older they get, the more I will have to accept that there are parts of their lives I cannot see, decisions I cannot make for them, and difficulties I cannot always help them overcome.

That is the hardest part. I can love them, guide them, support them, and do everything in my power to protect them. But I cannot guarantee that they will always be happy. I cannot shield them from every disappointment or make sure that life will be kind to them.

This is the burden I am talking about. Not my children themselves, but the weight of loving them so deeply that their happiness and well-being will always matter to me.

This is a feeling I can't turn off

I will never stop thinking about my children. In that sense, motherhood is a mental burden. It is the constant awareness of someone else's well-being, the knowledge that there will always be someone to worry about, even when there is nothing immediately wrong.

Sometimes, I think about the freedom of having a mind that belongs entirely to you. To be able to sit quietly, enjoy a moment, or make plans without a part of your mind wandering toward the people you love and wondering whether they are OK.

If I had only myself to worry about, I would surely still have problems, fears, and anxieties. Life would not suddenly become easy. But there is a difference between worrying about yourself and worrying about someone else, especially someone you brought into this world.

There is no real escape from this responsibility. I can be on holiday, enjoying a beautiful day, or sitting quietly with nothing pressing to do, and still find my thoughts returning to my children. The responsibility does not disappear just because, in that moment, there is nothing I need to do.

I chose this and have no regrets

Motherhood takes away a certain kind of freedom, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I wouldn't give up the joy, the love, or the privilege of watching them grow just to reclaim that part of myself that existed before I became a mother.

But I can acknowledge that something has changed. Becoming a mother has meant that I will never again experience life in quite the same way. My heart is no longer concerned only with my own happiness. It is tied to two other people, and it will remain so for the rest of my life until the day I take my final breath.

Maybe this is what it means to be a mother: to carry a love so great that it brings you your greatest happiness, and your greatest worry, all at once.

• Viaano Spruyt first became a caregiver as a teenager when his father fell ill.
• After his father died, he moved to Australia to study and build a life there.
• Three years later, he returned home to be closer to family after his mother's health scare.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Viaano Spruyt, 29, founder of Huddle, an AI-powered social network for fandoms. He is based in Singapore. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I first became a caregiver when I was a teenager.

My dad had an incurable respiratory disease, and he was on an oxygen tank every day. He would get breathless after walking for just a few minutes and needed help with day-to-day living.

Back then, my mom was the sole breadwinner for the family, and my sister was too young to grasp what was going on.

As the oldest child and only son, I took responsibility for his daily care. I fed him his meals and brought him to appointments at hospitals around Singapore.

He passed away when I was 19. Several years later, when I was 22, I moved to the Gold Coast in Australia on a scholarship. I earned my bachelor's in psychology, the first step toward my ambition to become a clinical psychologist.

Over the next three years, I built a real life in Australia.

I had assimilated into the culture, was in a serious relationship, and was set to pursue a master's degree. I was also in the process of applying for permanent residency.

My family was always in the back of my mind. Still, I wanted to experience life outside Singapore, and I was in the midst of building the future I thought I would have.

The call that changed everything

Then one day, I was reminded what it meant to be so far from home.

My mom was walking to catch a bus to work when her knees suddenly gave way. She kept calling me for help, but I'd missed her calls.

Unable to walk, she ended up sitting alone, crying for hours. A kind stranger eventually called for help, and she was taken to a local hospital. She was wheelchair-bound for the next few weeks. Later, she told me she wished I'd been there.

My mom is now 61 and has advanced osteoarthritis in both knees, with severe cartilage loss, meniscus damage, and joint degeneration.

When I asked why she had called me rather than my younger sister, my mom said she didn't want to distract my sister from her final exams and internship. Still, I was the first person she thought to call for help, even from thousands of miles away.

That was the exact moment I knew I had to come home.

Seeing what happened to my mom brought me back to when my dad was ill. I didn't want to be on the other side of the world when my mom was dealing with a health issue.

It wasn't just my mom. My grandparents, now in their 80s, were also getting older, and I realized my family needed me.

I came home and started over

After my mom's incident, I gave up the plans I'd made in Australia and moved back to Singapore in 2022. That was probably the hardest decision I have ever made in my life.

My Australian girlfriend moved to Singapore for a few months to see if we could build a life here instead. But things didn't work out, and we eventually ended the relationship.

Since coming back, I haven't had much of a social life.

I ended up starting Huddle, an AI-powered social network for fandoms, with my cofounder, Fabian. Starting a company was not the path I had spent my life working toward, but it became another passion.

At this stage, my life is very much centered on work and my family, with whom I live. I choose to have no other commitments outside those two things, which gives me some room to respond when my family needs support.

I make sure my mom gets the care she needs. I take her to the hospital and arrange her treatments. I do the same for my grandparents.

When I returned, my younger sister had just started university. I wanted her to focus on her studies, so I took on more of the day-to-day care for our family.

Once my mom is doing better, I hope to move to the US to grow my company with my cofounder, while my sister and I share responsibility for supporting her.

Coming back meant starting over in a lot of ways. However, I would make that decision again and again for my mom. Always.

Patients diagnosed with progressive dementia may know exactly how much deterioration they are willing to endure. They can articulate their wishes, discuss alternatives, and put their instructions in writing. Should losing the ability to repeat those instructions invalidate them?

Canada is preparing to address that question. On October 23, its Justice Department announced planned rules that would allow adults diagnosed with an incurable illness expected to destroy their decision-making capacity to consent in advance to assisted suicide (or, as Canada calls it, medical assistance in dying (MAID)). Ministers will discuss the proposal on October 27, but it must pass both houses of Parliament and receive formal approval from Canada's governor general before becoming law. Parliamentary committees can hear testimony and consider amendments along the way. The announcement promises safeguards but offers few details. Those details will determine how well the proposal respects patients' choices.

A free society recognizes individuals as sovereign over their own bodies provided they respect the rights of others. That freedom includes deciding how much suffering they are willing to endure. A competent adult's decision deserves respect even when physicians, relatives, or public officials would choose differently.

Competent adults should be free to choose clinician-assisted suicide or clinician-administered euthanasia, provided they give fully informed, voluntary consent and those assisting them do so willingly. That freedom should include planning for the loss of decision-making capacity. A patient's loss of decision-making capacity should not automatically grant the government authority to override instructions given while the patient was competent.

Physician-assisted deaths are now authorized in 13 states and Washington, D.C. Twelve states and the district enacted laws; Montana permits it under a state Supreme Court ruling. American statutes generally follow the Oregon model: Patients must have decision-making capacity, have a terminal illness expected to cause death within six months, and self-administer the medication.

These restrictions exclude people who suffer greatly but cannot meet the government's timetable or physically perform the final act. Progressive dementia creates another barrier. By the time patients reach the condition they hoped to avoid, they may no longer qualify.

In 1999, Michigan convicted Jack Kevorkian of second-degree murder after he administered lethal drugs to Thomas Youk, a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ("Lou Gehrig's disease") who had consented to the procedure. As I wrote in Reason, patients' bodily autonomy includes the freedom to request a willing physician's assistance in ending their lives. Requiring patients to administer the medication themselves denies that choice to people whose illnesses have stripped them of the physical ability to act. Dementia raises a further question: whether an informed decision can survive the loss of the capacity to express it.

Other countries give patients more latitude. At least a dozen countries permit some form of assisted dying, though their rules vary considerably. Canada does not require a terminal prognosis. In the Netherlands, euthanasia is permitted for unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement, subject to statutory safeguards.

Some countries also recognize advance requests, though under different conditions. In the Netherlands, a written advance request can replace an oral request once a patient loses the ability to express a choice, including in advanced dementia. The remaining legal requirements, including unbearable suffering without prospect of improvement, still apply.

Belgium permits advance requests more narrowly, only when a patient becomes irreversibly unconscious. Patients who lose decision-making capacity due to dementia while remaining conscious cannot obtain euthanasia under an earlier directive.

Respecting a patient's earlier wishes raises difficult questions. How clearly must patients describe the circumstances in which they want assistance? Who determines whether those circumstances have arrived? What happens if a patient who can no longer understand the directive resists the procedure or appears content with life?

Legal scholars, working with clinicians and patients, must help lawmakers answer these questions. Finding the right answers is difficult, but the obstacles are not insurmountable. Lawmakers must develop careful safeguards that respect patients' choices rather than impose a blanket refusal to honor decisions made while patients were competent.

Patients already use advance directives to refuse life-sustaining treatment after losing decision-making capacity. Authorizing someone to administer life-ending medication requires additional legal consideration. But the principle of planning ahead deserves the same respect: People should have a meaningful say over what happens to their bodies when illness prevents them from speaking for themselves.

The law has a legitimate role in protecting patients from coercion, fraud, and life-ending procedures they never consented to. Before another person intentionally helps end a patient's life, the law must require reliable evidence that the patient gave informed, voluntary consent and that the applicable conditions were met. Neither a relative's preferences nor a clinician's assessment of whether a life remains worth living can substitute for the patient's decision.

Participation must also remain voluntary. Clinicians and private institutions should be free to decline participation on moral, ethical, or professional grounds. Respect for autonomy extends to all involved.

Oversight should focus on compliance with the law. An independent body could audit cases retrospectively, publish anonymized findings, and refer credible violations to investigators. It should not require patients to obtain bureaucratic approval for individual decisions, nor should it have the authority to rewrite eligibility standards.

Eligibility should hinge on a serious, incurable condition causing enduring, intolerable suffering and on reliable evidence of informed, voluntary consent. A six-month prognosis gives the government too much power over how long patients must endure suffering they consider intolerable.

Canada's proposal deserves careful examination once its details are available. A law that honors clear advance instructions while protecting patients against violations of those instructions would expand their control over the course of an incurable illness. A law that allows others to substitute their preferences would undermine the autonomy it purports to protect.

Dementia can rob people of their memories, judgment, and ability to communicate. The government should not use those losses to erase choices they freely made while competent. Patients who leave clear, informed instructions deserve laws that let willing clinicians honor them. Their bodies belong to them, even when they can no longer say so.

The post Canada Wants To Let Dementia Patients Consent to Euthanasia in Advance appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Nearly 30 million Americans are on GLP-1 drugs

• I thought being a good mother meant being fair and treating all of my kids the same way.
• But each of my six kids has different personalities and abilities and needs their own set of rules.
• It can be hard for my kids at times, but I am no longer compelled to make everything even.

For years, I thought being a good mother meant being a fair mother. And being fair, I assumed, meant treating all of my children exactly the same.

With six kids, this seemed especially important. I didn't want anyone keeping score — or, more accurately, I didn't want to give them anything to keep score about. If one child had a certain bedtime at 9:00 p.m., surely the next one should, too. Chores should be divided equally. Consequences should be consistent. Privileges should come at the same ages.

Equal meant fair. Except it didn't.

My thinking evolved

The longer I parented, the harder it became to ignore what was right in front of me: I wasn't raising six versions of the same child. I was raising six completely different people.

One of my children thrives when given independence. Give them a responsibility and some space, and they'll usually rise to the occasion. Another needs more structure, more reminders, and more check-ins. That doesn't make one child more responsible or the other less capable. They simply need different things from me.

The same is true of privileges. I used to think that if one child earned a later curfew at a certain age, every child should automatically receive the same privilege when they reached that age. Now I understand that age isn't the only factor. Trust is built through choices. A child who has consistently demonstrated responsibility may be ready for freedom that a sibling at the same age isn't ready for yet.

Sometimes, I feel guilty

My decisions can be hard to explain when the inevitable "But they got to!" comes flying across the room. And sometimes, if I'm being truthful, the difference has nothing to do with the children at all. My youngest gets more bedtime stories than my oldest did.

That realization could easily become another entry on the endless list of things mothers feel guilty about. But my oldest didn't have the same mother my youngest has. Back then, I was younger, less experienced, and more concerned with getting everything right. I rushed through routines because there was always something else that needed to be done.

Six children later, I understand how quickly those routines disappear. I linger a little longer now.

That doesn't mean I loved my older children less. It means motherhood has changed me. The mother raising my youngest has learned things the mother raising my oldest hadn't learned yet.

I know this is the right way for me to parent

For a while, parenting my children differently felt like admitting I was inconsistent. Now I see it as evidence that I'm paying attention. My 8-year-old, who has always been an early riser, requires more sleep than some of his siblings, so he is the first to go to bed, while his younger siblings stay up a little later. It is unusual from the outside looking in, but it is what best meets his needs.

Fairness doesn't always mean equal chores, identical consequences, or the same privileges at the same ages. Sometimes fairness means giving more guidance to the child who needs it and more independence to the one who is ready for it. It means recognizing that one child may need encouragement while another needs accountability.

My children still notice the differences, of course. They are children. Keeping track of who got what seems practically written into the sibling job description. But I no longer feel compelled to make everything even.

My job isn't to make sure all six of my children receive exactly the same childhood; It's to know each of them well enough to give them the childhood they need. After years of trying so hard to be equal, I've finally realized that might be the fairest thing I can do. I won't always get it right. I'm still learning these six very different people as they grow and change—and trying to grow and change with them. Maybe good parenting was never about getting everything exactly right. Maybe it's simply about paying attention, loving them well, and doing the best I can with the mother I am today.