All posts tagged: Guardian

Guardian source messaging tech bringing in ‘much higher quality’ of tips

Guardian source messaging tech bringing in ‘much higher quality’ of tips

Published by Sam Flores

Screenshots from The Guardian’s secure messaging platform on its app The Guardian says it is bringing in a “much higher quality” of tips from sources since its new secure messaging technology launched last year. Secure Messaging, which rolled out in June, uses espionage-style techniques to conceal and encrypt messaging sent by sources to journalists within The Guardian app. Only the relevant journalists have the decryption key to view the messages before they disappear after 14 days. And because the app is constantly sending signals from every phone on which it has been downloaded, sources have better cover than most other encrypted services. Secure Messaging has just been named a finalist for best new digital product in the International News Media Association’s Global Media Awards. Luke Hoyland, who leads The Guardian’s investigations and reporting developer teams, told Press Gazette the impact of the product has been “beyond our expectations”. Hoyland said the ratio of tips received to stories is now “profoundly different”. He said: “We’ve had so many stories come from this platform, lots of top …

Best Kids’ Bikes (2026): Woom, Prevelo, Guardian, and More

Best Kids’ Bikes (2026): Woom, Prevelo, Guardian, and More

Published by skeptic

Compare Top Kids Bike Brands Honorable Mentions Photograph: Adrienne So Linus Roadster for $349: We tried the 20-inch Roadster and it’s a little kids’ bike, with coaster brakes and no gears. The reach is also a little far for a 7-year-old. However, it is a beautiful bike, with an aluminum alloy frame and gorgeous, vegan leather handlebar grips and seat. You also get a bell and a kickstand. ByK E-450 for $191: This first pedal bike has an alloy frame that puts its weight at an insanely light 18 pounds. It’s also cheap for everything you get—a big saddle, a bell, and both coaster brakes and hand brakes. Best Accessories Getting the bike is the first step. Here are a few bike accessories my children use every day. For more accessories, check out our roundups to the Best Bike Helmets and Best Bike Lights. Photograph: Michael Venutolo-Mantovani Nüdl Unicorn Helmet with Mips for $60: Nüdl helmets come outfitted with Mips, which is an in-helmet system that protects against rotational impact and reduces the risk of …

Guardian to appeal ruling which said ‘alt right’ description is defamatory

Guardian to appeal ruling which said ‘alt right’ description is defamatory

Published by Sam Flores

Book by Andy Ngo who is suing Guardian News and Media. Picture: Shutterstock/Dylanhatfield.com Guardian News and Media has been granted permission to appeal a pre-trial libel judgment that found it was defamatory to call an influencer an “‘alt-right agitator”. The Court of Appeal found it was “properly arguable” that attributing “far-right” beliefs to Andy Ngo “would not have a substantial adverse effect” on the way he would be treated by “right-thinking people. Ngo, an American influencer who lives in London, is suing GNM over a phrase in a brief music review published in The Observer and on The Guardian website in March last year, shortly before Tortoise Media took ownership of the Sunday title. The review of the Mumford and Sons album Rushmere said: “In the wake of the 2021 exit of banjo player (and son and co-founder of GB News) Winston Marshall, Mumford and Sons have reverted to a trio for their fifth album. “Marshall’s departure followed an outcry after he praised ‘alt-right’ agitator Andy Ngo. Yet listening to Rushmere, one wonders whether the world …

Survivor of financial abuse invited to advise ministers after Guardian report | Money

Survivor of financial abuse invited to advise ministers after Guardian report | Money

Published by Sam Flores

A woman who was nearly killed by her abusive husband has been invited to advise the government on measures to support victims of financial abuse after the Guardian highlighted her story last weekend. Francesca Onody was left homeless and penniless when her husband doused their cottage with petrol while she and her two children were inside. Her husband, Malcolm Baker, died when the property exploded. She discovered that Baker had cancelled the couple’s insurance policies and emptied their business bank accounts after she began divorce proceedings following years of abuse. She was not named in his will and faced repossession by their mortgage lender. The repossession order was halted after the Guardian intervened. Lucy Rigby, the City minister and economic secretary to the Treasury, contacted Onody after reading about her ordeal. “I was moved to tears,” Rigby said. “Francesca’s case is a truly shocking example of economic abuse and demonstrates just how devastating the impact can be.” Lucy Rigby described Francesca Onody’s case as a ‘truly shocking example of economic abuse’. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian …

The Guardian view on heavy rain: England’s flood defences are not strong enough | Editorial

The Guardian view on heavy rain: England’s flood defences are not strong enough | Editorial

Published by Jenni Sidey

With flood warnings still in place across south-west England and Wales on Monday, followed by another fortnight of wet weather forecasts, the sodden ground across swathes of the UK is not likely to dry up any time soon. Reports that Aberdonians have not seen so much as a sliver of sun since 21 January prompted an outburst of stoicism on BBC radio, with one resident commenting: “You have to get on with it, brighter days are coming”. Before then, however, north-east Scotland is braced for more heavy rain. For farmers and businesses in the affected areas, the impact goes far beyond inconvenience. Marketing consultant Sam Kirby told the Guardian that she had to work from a car park in Cornwall following Storm Goretti, because her broadband wasn’t working. And Goretti was the first of three January storms. In Somerset, where more than 600 homes were flooded in 2014, emergency pumps have been added to the permanent ones stationed at Northmoor, in an attempt to keep water at bay. But some spoke of “a losing battle” in the …

What we’re reading: George Saunders, Erin Somers and Guardian readers on the books they enjoyed in January | Books

What we’re reading: George Saunders, Erin Somers and Guardian readers on the books they enjoyed in January | Books

Published by Sam Flores

George Saunders, author Lately I’ve been going back to read some classic works that I had, in my zany life-arc, missed, in the (selfish) hope of opening up new frequencies in my work. So: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (the zaniness seems to lack agenda and yet still says something big and political); then on to Speak, Memory by Nabokov, newly reminded that language alone (dense, beautiful) can power the reader along; and, coming soon, The Power Broker by Robert A Caro – a real ambition-inspirer, I’m imagining, in its scale and daring. Vigil by George Saunders is published by Bloomsbury. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. Matt, Guardian reader Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections is the rare novel that manages to be both a state-of-the-nation epic and an exquisitely painful family row. This particular family is so meticulously observed that reading about them feels less like fiction and more like overhearing neighbours arguing through a thin wall. Franzen’s great trick is …

Guardian of the Film Academy’s Treasures Talks Museum and Collection

Guardian of the Film Academy’s Treasures Talks Museum and Collection

Published by Daniella Wilson

On Jan. 13, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that Amy Homma, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ director and president, will henceforth also oversee the Academy Collection, which includes some 52 million film-related items held within the Margaret Herrick Library and the Academy Film Archive, ranging from an original script of Citizen Kane to a pair of the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. It’s all part of an effort to better organizationally link all aspects of the Academy’s history and preservation efforts, the Academy says. Homma, a 41-year-old wife and mother of two, was born in Chicago to a Jewish mother and a Japanese father. Her dad, who owned a landscape architecture company that sometimes worked on local film productions, once brought his daughter to the set of Uncle Buck to meet John Candy. But where she most enjoyed spending time was at the city’s arts and culture institutions. She went on to get her B.A. in art history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her M.A. in teaching …

What we’re reading: Alan Hollinghurst, Samantha Harvey and Guardian readers on the books they enjoyed in December | Books

What we’re reading: Alan Hollinghurst, Samantha Harvey and Guardian readers on the books they enjoyed in December | Books

Published by Sam Flores

Tomasz, Guardian reader Ever since my father presented me with a copy of The Unicorn, beautifully translated into my mother tongue, I have been an ardent admirer of Iris Murdoch’s. I went on to read all of her novels, plays and poetry with great enthusiasm. Before Christmas, I returned to her penultimate novel, The Green Knight, having remembered very little of it. Yet from the very first page, I was reminded why I have always loved her work so deeply: the prose is rich, precise, disciplined and meticulously detailed; the many characters are so vividly rendered that none appears two-dimensional; each experiences and processes reality in a way that feels distinct and unmistakably individual; and the pacing of events feels perfectly judged. Although the novel is threaded with philosophical reflections on goodness and love, these never feel laboured or artificially imposed. Rather, they emerge naturally as an integral part of the novel’s dense and intricate tapestry. Alan Hollinghurst, author I’ve spent a month reading two poets whose work has been part of my life for …

Nature boys and girls – here’s your chance to get published in the Guardian | Wildlife

Nature boys and girls – here’s your chance to get published in the Guardian | Wildlife

Published by Sam Flores

Once again, the Young Country Diary series is open for submissions! Every three months we ask you to send us an article written by a child aged 8-14. The article needs to be about a recent encounter they’ve had with nature – whether it’s a whether it’s a winter flower, something lurking in a pond or a fascinating bug. Crucially, it doesn’t matter if the child is a nature expert or not – we are especially keen to reach teachers who might like to get their class outside and noticing nature. Note that any child who has their article published will be paid! The deadline for winter submissions is noon on Monday 2 February. Of all the entries, four will be chosen to be published in the newspaper and online – two in January and two in February. If you don’t get selected this time then don’t be disheartened, the submission form will reopen again in early March, for articles about spring. Note that any early birds who submit a piece before the 16th stand …