Ofcom concerned TikTok’s age verification is ineffective, leaving some exposed to posts on suicide, self-harm and pornography

TikTok is under formal investigation over concerns it has failed to protect children from harmful content, the UK’s online regulator, Ofcom, has announced.

The social media platform’s approach to checking the ages of users has sparked “particular concerns” at the watchdog, almost a year after measures to protect children from the worst of online content came into effect under the Online Safety Act.

Thalha Jubair, 20, and Owen Flowers, 19, sentenced to five and a half years each for cyber-attack that cost Transport for London £39m

The data of millions of commuters was stolen, Londoners were left out of pocket and 27,000 Transport for London staff were forced to reset their passwords.

Over four days in 2024 a pair of teenage hackers had London’s transport network at their mercy. Thalha Jubair and Owen Flowers had burrowed into the heart of Transport for London’s IT systems and held the “keys to the kingdom”.

All the young people the Guardian spoke to disagreed with aspects of the government’s proposed block

Sixteen- and 17-year-olds in Britain are to be encouraged to observe a midnight to 6am social media curfew but will be able to opt out by changing their account settings.

From next spring, they will be urged to refrain from using certain apps, with the block being switched on by default. But the curfew will not be mandatory and can be overridden.

EV owners were sent hefty PCNs but say some signs in private car parks fail to warn of fees to park and recharge car

Does refuelling your car class as parking? The answer appears to be yes if it’s an electric vehicle. Guardian Money has been contacted by several readers who were fined after charging their cars away from home.

The motorists report being caught out by signs that fail to make clear that charging points are subject to parking tariffs or to store opening times. Also, they have found some chargers being advertised as available for use when it would be a breach of the car park’s terms and conditions to use them.

Government to launch campaign to help people cope with events such as weather emergencies or cyber-attacks

The British public should begin taking “small but important steps” to secure and protect water, power supplies and basic phone signal in case of further severe weather emergencies, national crises or cyber-attacks, Downing Street has said.

Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, told MPs “the risks we face from climate change cannot be underestimated”, and warned of the “significant and prolonged disruption to essential services” extreme weather events could cause.

Lobby appeals to prospective PM’s reindustrialisation agenda as it pushes for Rosebank and Jackdaw approval

The UK’s North Sea oil industry has made a last-ditch attempt to curry favour with the Labour government by appealing to Andy Burnham’s reindustrialisation agenda just days before he is expected to become Britain’s next prime minister.

Industry lobbyists have written to more than 400 Labour MPs to call on the government’s new leaders to allow more oil and gas drilling in UK waters to support homegrown energy and show “a commitment to UK manufacturing, industrial capability and the skilled workforce that has powered the nation for generations”.

Prof Myles Allen, Stephanie Loo and Toby Lockwood, and Olivia Powis, respond to an article by George Monbiot about ‘the great carbon capture con’

George Monbiot suggests that we can solve climate change without carbon capture and storage (The great carbon capture con: behold the wasted billions Burnham could claw back, 8 July). Physics says otherwise. The world is going to generate more carbon dioxide than we can safely dump into the atmosphere, and we can’t rely on our stressed biosphere and oceans to mop up the excess. Stopping global warming will therefore require capturing and durably disposing of carbon dioxide on a huge scale, which right now means injecting it back underground.

Where George does make a good point is in questioning whether carbon dioxide disposal should for ever be paid for using public money. Why should private companies be allowed to make large profits taking carbon out of the ground while the taxpayer foots the bill to put it back? The obvious solution: require those who extract fossil fuels to pay for the disposal of the carbon dioxide their products generate. If the fraction they store rises to 100% by mid-century, fossil fuel use would cause no further warming thereafter.

Timing of Devon switchoff ‘could not be worse’, says board, as members face an estimated £2m in lost revenue

Britain’s biggest community solar project has been forced to shut for the duration of its first summer by the government’s energy system operator to avoid overloading the local grid with renewable energy.

The north Devon solar farm was ordered to shut weeks before record high temperatures across Europe led to power supply warnings, due to concerns that the large amount of rooftop solar in the area could destabilise the power grid by triggering a “thermal overload”.