OpenAI, UK sign new strategic partnership
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The Sun
21 minutes ago
- The Sun
Charming English town is getting new £42million train station that will reopen key link shut for over 60 years
A RURAL English town has been given the green light for a new £42million train station that will reopen a vital link. After more than 60 years without a railway station, Cullompton has been granted funding by the Department of Transport and HM Treasury. 2 2 The announcement is set to turbo-charge the economy of the Devon town and provide desperately needed transport links for locals and visitors. The funding will also help to support plans for a new station in Wellington. Cullompton station first opened in 1844 and closed in 1964. The reopening will be key to enabling the Culm Garden Village development, which will create around 5,000 homes. The new station will also be next to the motorway services at Junction 28 of the M5. Councillor Jacqi Hodgson, Devon County Council Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Biodiversity, said: 'Further investment in rail infrastructure in Devon is always welcome and this railway station for Cullompton is key to the town's economic growth and will help reduce carbon emissions in the county. "People need improved public transport options if they're going to be encouraged to change their travel habits. "Hopefully Cullompton could follow the success of Okehampton Station and the re-opening of the Dartmoor Line, which is a great example of what can be achieved given the necessary funding from government.' In April, a delegation of 30 people from the region travelled to London to hand-deliver powerful letters of support to rail minister Lord Hendy. Backed by a cross-party group of South West MPs and Wellington Town Council, the letters stressed how restoring rail links to both Okehampton and nearby Wellington could unlock major economic, social and environmental benefits. Lord Hendy said: 'The stations would contribute to sustainable development, connecting new residential areas with regional employment, education and healthcare opportunities. "The case for taking a combined approach presents significantly higher value for money compared with a stand-alone project in either area.' He added: 'Reopening Cullompton and Wellington stations would be a strategic investment aligning with the Government's goals to drive economic growth, reduce environmental impact and improve social mobility.' Economic growth Gideon Amos, who also backed the scheme, said: 'For the cost of around £42 million, £180 million of economic growth would go into the region — which I know the Government would want to see. 'Frankly, there is no other rail project in the south-west that is ready to go and could be built and completed in the next two years, as the project is so far advanced. 'In fact, had it not been for the review in July last year, the spades would be in the ground and the platforms under construction, because the contract was about to be let and the detailed design was almost finished.' And Labour MP Simon Lightwood added in the Commons: 'The strategic objectives are clear. "Enhancing public transport connectivity will support growth and productivity in Exeter, Taunton and Bridgwater, while also reducing road congestion, car dependency and carbon emissions. ' He continued: 'The stations would contribute to sustainable development, connecting new residential areas with regional employment, education and healthcare opportunities." This comes as satellite images of a new £15million train station at Okehampton were revealed. The station, which will be the newest addition to the Dartmoor Line, connecting West Devon, Torridge and North Cornwall with Exeter and beyond, will also benefit education and leisure services in the region. GWR Regional Growth Manager David Whiteway said the project would provide "valuable support for the community and local economies". Satellite images show the rapid development of the £15million scheme, which is being funded by the Department for Transport with contributions from Devon County Council and West Devon Borough Council. Since work began in January, major progress has been made to create the new station on the edge of Okehampton, two minutes from the A30. In March, 300 metres of the single-line track was moved 90cm north to allow a new platform to be built alongside it.
The Guardian
24 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Competition shows humans are still better than AI at coding
Computers have taken the crown in chess, Go and poker, but when it comes to competitive coding, humans still have the edge – just. Przemysław Dębiak, a Polish coder and mind sports champion, narrowly clinched a victory over OpenAI's entrant in the AtCoder World Tour Finals 2025 in Tokyo earlier this month. The elite coder, however, who goes by the online name Psyho, predicts he may be the last human to win the prestigious title given the incredible pace of technological progress. 'That's probable,' said Psyho, 41, who worked at OpenAI before retiring five years ago. 'I would prefer not, mostly because I like these competitions and knowing there's this magical entity that can do it better than me would be a little bit frustrating.' There is an irony, Psyho acknowledged, in the fact that coders have contributed to their own professional demise. 'Before the contest, I tweeted 'live by the sword, die by the sword',' he said. 'I helped developing AI and I would be the one who would be the loser of the match. Although I won, in the end, for now.' The AtCoder euristic division included 11 human participants invited on the basis of world rankings and a coding algorithm designed by OpenAI, which finished in second place, 9.5% behind Psyho's winning score. Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, tweeted his congratulations. The 10-hour contest involves solving a complex optimisation problem. A classic in the genre is the 'travelling salesman problem', where the salesman needs to figure out the shortest possible route between various cities, each visited once. These problems are simple to state, but finding an optimal solution is computationally very complex. So while ChatGPT is now routinely used to write boilerplate code, the AI's performance on an open-ended logic problem will be viewed as impressive. 'At the current state, humans – top humans, to be clear – are still much better at reasoning and solving complex problems,' said Psyho. But humans are 'bottlenecked' by how quickly they can type code, while an AI can try out lots of small adjustments very rapidly. 'The model is like cloning a single human multiple times and working in parallel,' he said. 'AI might not be the smartest right now but it's definitely the fastest. And sometimes multiplying a single average person many many times produces a better result than a single, special human being.' The result comes as major tech companies, including Meta and Microsoft, are turning to AI to write software code. The Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, said in May that AI could take 20% of white-collar jobs in the next one to five years. 'Every profession has this right now, more or less,' said Psyho. 'Some people have it coming right now – all of the white collar jobs. For manual jobs, robotics is lagging by several years.' Like many in the industry, Psyho is ambivalent about the potential impact of ever more powerful AI models. 'We have a tonne of issues,' he said. 'Disinformation, social impact, humans not having a purpose in life. Historically society moves at a very slow pace. Technological progress right now is moving at a faster and faster and faster pace.'
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
European leaders are disrupting Trump's golfing holiday at their peril
When president Donald Trump stepped off Air Force One on to Scottish soil, he had one thing on his mind. 'There's no place like Turnberry,' he told his travelling press pool beneath the wing of his presidential jet. His Ayrshire golf course, he continued, was 'the best … probably the best course in the world'. Minutes later, he climbed into the Beast – his armoured limousine - to travel 35 minutes along country lanes and through Scottish villages, lined with supporters, protesters, and the merely curious, to Turnberry. Mr Trump may be determined to have a break, but European leaders have other ideas. Willingly or otherwise, Mr Trump faces a string of meetings in the coming days as the Continent's power brokers sit down with the unpredictable president. For now, though, he is secure inside a ring of steel. The historic course, home to some of the most exciting Opens in history, has been locked down. It now sits inside an eight-foot fence, its fairways dotted with burly men in dark suits and earpieces. Snipers watch over the course from a watch tower. Police officers – some on quad bikes – patrol the famous course and the dunes that flank it. Mr Trump arrived with his golf clubs for four days at his two Scottish courses but without some of the trappings of a travelling American president. He travelled with a stripped-down retinue of aides. There was no chief of staff, director of communications, secretary of state or other cabinet ministers, who might be expected on an important foreign trip. His public weekend schedule showed no planned events. Instead, it was a chance to spend time at his golf course with his sons Eric, who manages the family businesses, and Don Jr. Officials insisted that this was a 'working trip' including a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer on Monday, although they were vague on agenda items. Yet all that changed shortly before Mr Trump flew out of Washington, when Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, announced on X that she would be meeting Mr Trump on Sunday as she closes in on a trade deal: Following a good call with @POTUS, we have agreed to meet in Scotland on Sunday to discuss transatlantic trade relations, and how we can keep them strong. — Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) July 25, 2025 EU members have drawn up a retaliatory hit list. The plan is to impose 30pc tariffs on bourbon whisky, yachts, soybeans and other American products if a deal cannot be reached by August 1 to lift US levies. Mrs von der Leyen had better tread carefully. A diplomat who has prepared ministers for meetings with Mr Trump said she was playing a high-risk game. 'Very dangerous,' they said. Mr Trump's chat with reporters at Glasgow Prestwick Airport showed a president relaxed and looking forward to four days of golf, but one who was quick to bristle when it came to policy and politics. Mr Trump left Washington bugged by the drip, drip, drip of headlines about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire paedophile who took his own life in a jail cell six years ago. He flashed irritation and lobbed sharp words at reporters who asked him how much he knew about the case on Friday, but relaxed as soon as he could talk about the love of his life: golf and the course at Turnberry. 'Sean Connery helped get me the permits,' he claimed after landing. 'If it weren't for Sean Connery, we wouldn't have those great courses.' There is a lesson for European leaders looking to muscle in on his tee times with their trade demands or for John Swinney, the Scottish First Minister, who is likely to tell Mr Trump that his tariffs are hurting the Scotch whisky industry. When the chat with reporters turned from golf to more substantial matters, he said he had a simple message for Europe. 'On immigration, you better get your act together,' he said in another flash of passion. 'You're not going to have Europe anymore... This immigration is killing Europe.' Anyone meeting with Mr Trump will remember the lessons of Volodymyr Zelensky's Oval Office row. The Ukrainian president was roundly chastised by Mr Trump and his vice president for daring to push back on the US position. And by hosting leaders at his Turnberry and Aberdeenshire courses, Mr Trump retains home advantage even while on foreign soil. Sir Keir may have got the memo. Mr Trump billed their meeting as little more than a chance to celebrate their recent trade deal. Although the Prime Minister does run the risk of upsetting Mr Trump over plans to raise the plight of civilians in Gaza, British officials played down the chances of any major diplomatic announcements. 'It's not like other meetings where we would go in with deliverables we planned to announce,' he said. On Saturday, all that was far from Mr Trump's mind. He spent the day golfing with son Eric, and his ambassador to London. The sound of Billy Joel's 'Uptown Girl' and 'Memories' from the musical Cats drifted out from the dunes on Saturday morning as Mr Trump's motorcade of golf buggies arrived at the fourth hole. Photographers huddled on a mound in the dunes, hoping to get a shot of the president on the course. Mr Trump, wearing a white USA cap and dressed in black, waved at the mound before teeing off in the direction of Turnberry lighthouse. Cheers from his baseball-cap-wearing entourage could be heard above the din of the speakers as the group wasted little time in rattling off their drives. A photographer camped in the dunes with a long lens later claimed to have witnessed the president cheat on the third fairway. He said Mr Trump had been handed a ball by a caddy, which he then dropped to the floor and pushed forward a little with an iron before taking a swing. The golf course has been surrounded by an eight-foot-high metal fence, while dozens of officers patrolled the entrances to the beach from Turnberry all the way down to Maidens, the next town along the coast. A temporary watchtower had been erected to monitor the Turnberry perimeter with a sniper rifle trained on the course below. A drone scanned from above, and police boats patrolled the coastal waters. Asked whether there would be a repeat of protesters taking to the beach in front of the golf club, an officer said the incident in 2018 had likely convinced the authorities to close off the entire beach to the public. Fears that the visit would be a magnet for protesters appeared unfounded. Matt Halliday, from Stranraer, said he had been driving around for two hours trying and failing to find protests to join. He said Mr Trump had 'stamped all over Scotland' with his grand golf resort plans, strong-arming local farmers and 'bullying' the council over wind farm plans. One of his signs bore a picture of the president with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. 'I think it is going to bring him down,' he said. However, supporters were easier to find than protesters. Two wearing red 'Make England Great Again' hats arrived shortly after the president had disappeared over the crest of a dune. 'We love Trump,' said Kay English, 37, wearing a face mask sporting the president's face. Tom English, a 38-year-old driver, said the pair had driven up from Liverpool last night to catch a glimpse of the president. 'We support Maga, Trump and what he is doing,' he told reporters, adding: 'I like the way he is, the way he speaks. It is comedy gold. 'He is putting the people first. He is trying to help the whole world to make peace - he is the president of peace.' Mr English said he would return on Sunday and hopefully get within 'shouting distance' to offer words of encouragement to the president and cheer on his cost-cutting Doge unit. He added: 'We love Doge, we are trying to get that here through Reform. There is so much being wasted.' Mr Trump has long blurred the line between family, business and public life. But any world leader intruding on his golfing getaway had better be ready for a possible sharp response.
