Morning Mail: Hanson’s daughter faces scrutiny, Alzheimer’s anxieties, and AI’s ‘surreal’ Joycean dialect

Morning everyone. Our exclusive top story reveals how Pauline Hanson’s daughter has been working from Tasmania for a NSW One Nation senator without the required ministerial approval for remote working.

A minister in Victoria has accused a datacentre operator of using AI to lobby her about planning, social media is fanning anxieties about Alzheimer’s, and some AI models have created a strange, Joyceian language that could hinder oversight. After his double win, Emmys champion Matthew Rhys pays tribute to his Welsh roots.

Australia

• Exclusive | The Victorian jobs minister has accused one of Australia’s largest datacentre companies of using artificial intelligence while requesting she lobby her colleague to approve a massive expansion of its “hyperscale AI factory”.

• Exclusive | Pauline Hanson’s daughter, Lee Hanson, has been working in Tasmania as a senior adviser to a New South Wales One Nation senator without the required ministerial approval, Guardian Australia can reveal. The One Nation leader made a qualified apology after describing Indigenous Australians as the “most primitive race on Earth”. And our political editor asks whether the disdain for experts on show as One Nation rolls out policy proposals means that she is pushing Australia towards a Brexit-style political culture.

• ‘Catastrophe’ | The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia before colonisation has been dramatically underestimated, according to new research that suggests the number was around 2.2 million before hundreds of thousands died in the “demographic catastrophe”.

• Alzheimer’s anxiety | Researchers have warned that social media may be misleading healthy people into taking Alzheimer’s blood tests, causing severe anxiety over biological markers that may never actually cause dementia.

• ‘Pervert glasses’ ban | One of Sydney’s largest councils has joined the Brisbane and Yarra councils in issuing a ban on AI smartglasses at public pools as concerns mount over the potential for predators to exploit the new technology.

World

• AI warnings | AI models have begun communicating in a strange new version of English that reads like a cross between James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and tech bro jargon, new research has found. It will fan concerns over oversight and monitoring as US senator Bernie Sanders said Congress was “asleep at the wheel” over threats the technology poses to humans.

• Hegseth impeachment threat | A Republican congressman has proposed impeaching Pete Hegseth over his handling of the war with Iran, while FBI director Kash Patel defended his agency’s decision to roll back restrictions on agent applicants who have previously engaged in bestiality.

• Macklemore comments | Singer Ed Sheeran has responded to the backlash over the removal of Macklemore from his North American Loop tour, following the rapper’s “Free Palestine” speech on stage in New Jersey.

• Saudi threat | Saudi cities faced the threat of a second day of Houthi attacks as fighting across Yemen has led the UN to warn of a humanitarian crisis with 100,000 Yemenis already displaced.

• ‘Complete failure’ | Three babies may have survived if hospital bosses and doctors had taken action over concerns about the nurse Lucy Letby, an official inquiry into the killings in Chester in the UK has concluded.

Full Story

Is Andrew Hastie launching a Coalition fightback against One Nation?

Reged Ahmad and Guardian Australia’s political editor Tom McIlroy discuss whether Andrew Hastie is building a platform to challenge Angus Taylor for the Liberal leadership.

In-depth

Matthew Rhys, who made history by winning two lead acting awards for different TV shows at the Emmys, has paid tribute to his Welsh roots. Rhys, who grew up in Cardiff, won awards for Widow’s Bay and Netflix thriller The Beast in Me. Our critic Stuart Heritage also praises this “rarest of talents”.

Not the news

Gua sha is the ancient practice of scraping the skin to form mild bruises which are thought to have various health benefits such as increasing blood flow. But then, as experts tell Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, so does a punch in the face. So does it work?

Sport

• AFL | The preliminary final between the Swans and the Dockers at the SCG tomorrow night promises to be a great occasion. Martin Pegan looks at where it might be won and lost.

• Football | Liverpool host Spurs in the third round of the Carabao Cup and you can follow it live here, and follow Ipswich v Arsenal here.

• Golf | The head of the US PGA Tour has insisted there will be no favours for players such as Australia’s Cam Smith who are looking to return to the platform following the collapse of LIV Golf.

Labor MPs are getting “quite worried” over the prospect of more interest rate hikes and stalling living standards, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. Aged care funding cannot cover the rising costs of food and fuel, the boss of an Illawarra facility has told the Mercury. An inquest has heard three different theories about the disappearance of a woman in 1998, the Cairns Post reports. Another Australian caravan maker has collapsed into administration blaming cheap imports, the Courier Mail reports.

What’s happening today

• Queensland | Callover on jury at Ipswich district court questioning and phone evidence applications ahead of Bruce Lehrmann’s rape trial.

• Canberra | National Press Club address by geopolitical strategist Sami Omari.

• Sydney | Tim Jordan, commissioner at AEMC, heads discussion of how AI is affecting the energy network while the Australian Human Rights Institute series at the Art Gallery of NSW focuses on technology’s impact on human rights.

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Brain teaser

And finally, here are the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.