The use of synthetic data is a cost‑effective way to teach AI about human responses. But can it help eliminate bias and make self‑driving cars safer?

You’re at the wheel of your car but you’re exhausted. Your shoulders start to sag, your neck begins to droop, your eyelids slide down. As your head pitches forward, you swerve off the road and speed through a field, crashing into a tree.

But what if your car’s monitoring system recognised the tell-tale signs of drowsiness and prompted you to pull off the road and park instead? The European Commission has legislated that from this year, new vehicles be fitted with systems to catch distracted and sleepy drivers to help avert accidents. Now a number of startups are training artificial intelligence systems to recognise the giveaways in our facial expressions and body language.

Digital asset slides to lowest level since November 2020 as rate rises increase pressure on markets

The price of bitcoin has fallen below $20,000 (£16,400) amid deepening turmoil in the cryptocurrency market.

The cornerstone digital asset slipped to levels not seen since December 2020 on Saturday morning, at one point going under $19,000 before recovering to about $19,160, according to CoinDesk.

Sister-in-law hid one dedicated to Gauguin because of ‘anger at the French artist’s attacks on his former friend’

Shortly before Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear and had a breakdown after quarrelling with his fellow artist, Paul Gauguin, in the French city of Arles in 1888, he created a pair of extraordinary paintings. One, Gauguin’s Chair, depicts a couple of books and a lit candle discarded on an ornate armchair. The other, Van Gogh’s Chair, shows a tobacco pipe and pouch on a rustic wooden chair and is instantly recognisable as one of the most famous paintings in the world.

Now, the mystery of how the diptych of paintings came to be split up – and why the picture of Gauguin’s chair was kept in the family collection while Van Gogh’s Chair was sold off – has finally been solved.

Petrol, accommodation and food prices are rising at home and abroad. We compare the cost of three destinations

Rising costs for accommodation, travel and eating out mean a UK holiday is no longer the bargain break it was – but has the balance shifted in favour of going abroad? Research by Guardian Money suggests that for some British holidaymakers, taking a trip overseas will not come at a premium.

Our snapshot of holidays in the UK, France and Spain found that for a family travelling from London, a trip across the Channel could come in at less than a break in Devon. Flying to Spain would cost considerably more but the promise of better weather will be worth the money for some.

The author on her close friend Toni Morrison, her fear of rodents and a 24-hour flight without smoking

Born in New Jersey, Fran Lebowitz, 71, had a column in Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine in the 1970s. Her first book, a collection of essays entitled Metropolitan Life, became a bestseller, as did her second, Social Studies. In 2021, her documentary series Pretend It’s a City premiered on Netflix and was nominated for an Emmy. She lives in New York City and brings her show An Evening with Fran Lebowitz to the UK later this month.

When were you happiest?The moment I realised I knew how to read. I was five.

The former president used donations to a nonexistent legal defense fund for his hotels and the January 6 Ellipse rally

At 8.38pm on 4 November 2020, the day after America had gone to the polls to elect its next president, Donald Trump sent out a message to hundreds of thousands of his supporters from the email address contact@victory.donaldtrump.com.

By then it was already clear that not only was victory eluding Trump, but that he was heading towards defeat. A couple of hours earlier, Associated Press had called Michigan and Wisconsin for Joe Biden, putting the Democratic candidate just six electoral college votes away from the White House.

The 10-day search in the Amazon for Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and journalist Dom Phillips came to an end on Wednesday. Their deaths have horrified Brazil and underline the dangers faced by those defending the country's environment and Indigenous communities. Jonathan Watts, the Guardian's global environment editor and Phillips's friend, provides insight into their lives, their work and their legacy

More than 40 years since they were last on tour, Abba have returned as digital avatars. Is Abba Voyage, which debuted in London last month, the future of concerts?

The Abba digital avatars, or Abbatars, as they’ve been nicknamed, on stage in the Abba Arena are designed to transport the audience back to the group’s 1970s heyday.

Hannah Moore speaks to producers of the show, Ludvig Andersson and Svana Gisla, about what it takes to make a virtual show, and persuading Benny and Björn to shave off their beards. The production cost £140m, but Gisla says the show was never about making the money back. “We will never recoup – don’t tell the investors,” she jokes. “It was always to create something that’s never been done before.”

Brazilian police have arrested two men in connection with the alleged murder of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira. The pair went missing on an expedition in the Javari region

Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira set off into the forest on 2 June for what was supposed to be a four-day trip. Phillips, who was a frequent contributor to the Guardian, was there to research a book he was writing, How to Save the Amazon. But by Sunday 5 June, they had not returned.

They had worked together before. In 2018, the photographer Gary Calton went with Phillips and Pereira on an expedition. At the time, Pereira was an official at the Brazilian government’s Indigenous agency Funai. He was tracking the movements of an uncontacted tribe from afar to ensure they remained protected. Pereira worked to help Indigenous communities protect their land – which is under constant threat from illegal fishing, miners and drug traffickers.

With no restrictions in place and a successful vaccine rollout in the UK, it is tempting to think that the threat to health from coronavirus is passing. But millions are struggling with long Covid, says Linda Geddes

There are early signs the UK may be at the start of a new wave of Covid infections as new variants and subvariants begin taking hold in a population at risk of waning immunity.

For many people it will mean a bout of illness that can last a couple of weeks, but for others it could be the start of a cluster of syndromes known as long Covid. As the Guardian science correspondent Linda Geddes tells Hannah Moore, at least 2 million Britons are struggling with long Covid, and the NHS’s response, according to the Royal College of Nursing, is “woefully inadequate”.

Igor Volobuyev joined a legion of Russians hoping to defeat their homeland and maybe topple Putin

Russia-Ukraine war: all the latest developments

Walking around Kyiv in his new Ukrainian military attire, Igor Volobuyev felt as if he finally fulfilled his purpose.

For weeks after leaving Russia for Ukraine, the former vice-president of Gazprombank spent his days trying to convince officials to provide him with Ukrainian documents and allow him to sign up for military service to fight against a country where he had spent most of his adult life.

The UK government hopes a little-known legal principle will overturn parts of the post-Brexit agreement

In justifying its attempt to unilaterally overturn parts of the post-Brexit agreement with the EU, the UK government has invoked a little-known legal principle known as the “doctrine of necessity”. The loophole is allowed by the UN’s International Law Commission to be used by a state facing “grave and imminent peril”.

But the government’s ex-legal adviser Jonathan Jones said the EU would find the use of the doctrine “completely unpersuasive”.

Despite run-ins with the authorities Kirill Serebrennikov stayed put – until the invasion of Ukraine

On a sunny Friday evening in Amsterdam, Kirill Serebrennikov was feeling some pre-premiere nerves as guests started to arrive at the Dutch National Opera.

“Of course it’s different. Everything is different when you do it in person,” the celebrated Russian stage and screen director said in an interview an hour before the first performance of Der Freischütz.