French cities are fighting the growing threat of diseases like dengue, chikungunya and Zika in mainland Europe by releasing millions of sterile male Asian tiger mosquitoes.

Terratis, a new company in the southern city of Montpellier, is breeding infertile males on an industrial scale as a long-term solution to the rapid spread of the disease-carrying insects.

The sterile males are bred at a factory in the southern city of Montpellier and then released in urban hot zones where the mosquitoes are most prevalent. After they have mated, females reproduce only empty eggs for the remainder of their lives.

“By using this technique, the mosquitoes will have no descendants and then, in theory, we can reduce the population with each generation,” said Clelia Oliva, the founder of Terratis.

“We are confident of being able to achieve a reduction of between 70 and 90 per cent in the towns in which we are releasing the sterile mosquitoes.”

The company, which started only two years ago, has experienced a dramatic surge in demand in the last few years as France tries to deal with the invasive species.

As Dr John Gibbs, who gave crucial evidence against Lucy Letby, suggests a retrial could be “the most appropriate thing for everyone”, the Mirror hears from Dr Susan Gilby, who successfully sued the Countess of Chester for unfair dismissal

On the morning of July 3, 2018, Lucy Letby was arrested at her Chester home on suspicion of eight counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder of vulnerable newborns.

Suspicions had been raised over the neonatal nurse as early as September 2015, when Countess of Chester Hospital staff began to notice a disturbing correlation between infant deaths and Letby’s shift patterns.

As the death toll rose, the connection became impossible to ignore. For months, dread filled the hospital corridors, but, as the Thirwall Inquiry would later determine, senior managers were slow to react, delaying urgent meetings for which medics pleaded.

Had Letby been removed from her duties in October 2015, when concerns were first raised, twin babies O and P may not have died in June 2016. It wasn’t until June 29, 2016, that Letby was finally removed from frontline duties.

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Mere weeks after Letby’s first arrest, Dr Susan Gilby joined the Countess of Chester as medical director and deputy chief executive. As Dr Gilby would later testify during the inquiry, having reviewed the June 2016 CQC report, she’d expected to “go into a high-performing organisation”.

Ahead of her start date, Dr Gilby was “brought up to speed” on some of the unfolding issues. She told the Mirror: “I was aware that there had been many unexplained and unexpected deaths and collapses on the unit in 2015/16, and I was aware that there were some relationship problems between the paediatrician consultants and the executive team, and that the chair was trying to improve relations between those two groups^.”

The Thirwall Inquiry would later refer to this division as a “gulf”. Consultants were forced to apologise to Letby, and management even threatened to report whistleblowers to the General Medical Council (GMC).

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Dr Gilby, appointed following the retirement of Mr Ian Harvey, was informed of Letby’s arrest shortly before the announcement. The staff reaction was unexpected. She recalled: “I thought I would find a team who were very distressed by this turn of events, as I said in my Thirwall statement^{. But in fact, I found that three weeks after the arrest, they were very entrenched in their view that nothing would come of this.”}

Considering why this might have been case, Dr Gilby reflected: “I’ve no idea why they thought that^{. It seemed that they’d just not been professionally curious enough about why babies were collapsing and dying unexpectedly and in an unexplained manner on their unit.}

“[…] If you have repeated cardiovascular collapses and death, and you can’t explain them, and they weren’t expected, that just doesn’t happen in clinical practice^.”

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Dr Gilby spent three hours, alongside Dr Brearey, analysing the timeline of each incident. She also read consultant questions submitted to Mr Chambers, telling the inquiry how she could “see the anguish coming off the page”, and how she’d noticed her predecessor’s “very defensive” response.

She continued: “It was important that I listened to the paediatricians and looked at all of the documents I had at my disposal myself, because I was being asked to deal with the paediatricians, and also to arrange the mediation. I met with Dr Brearey, and it was minutes into that conversation that I realised that the executive team had got this very wrong. I absolutely did expect at some point that there would be charges^{. I didn’t know when that would be.”}

It was, as Dr Gilby emphasised, a “complicated case”, with each incident requiring a separate investigation. Three days after her first arrest, Letby was released. She was rearrested and rereleased on June 10, 2019, at her parents’ Hereford home. The third time, on November 10, 2020, Letby was charged with eight counts of murder plus 10 counts of attempted murder, and denied bail.

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By this point, Dr Gilby explained, “virtually all of the previous senior leadership team had moved on”, but she was able to inform them “out of courtesy”. Dr Gilby said: “Those who were still in the organisation were devastated^{. There was nobody in the senior leadership team who believed that this was the wrong thing to happen.}

“They were distressed, and absolutely were looking at themselves in terms of, ‘Could we have known about this? ^{Should we have known, and did we actually know?’ There was also a lot of concern about supporting the staff who were witnesses, and who had to be interviewed multiple times by the police, and were now going to have to give evidence as witnesses in a criminal court.}

“There was a lot of horror for the parents in particular, and just wondering what they were going through^{. It’s unimaginable, really. There was nobody that I spoke to, including very senior people, board members, who felt that there was any issue with the charges that had been brought, other than could they have done something sooner to prevent this.”}

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Letby, now 36, was convicted of killing seven babies and attempting to murder seven more, and was given 15 whole-life orders. Since 2015-16, there has been just one death at the neonatal unit, in September 2019. For her colleagues, the long-term impact has been profound. Some have reported suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as severe depression and anxiety.

In December 2022, Dr Gilby resigned, filing a claim for constructive unfair dismissal, after she’d made allegations of bullying and harassment against the trust’s chairman, Ian Haythornthwaite. Dr Gilby told a tribunal how one Trust director, Ros Fallon, had taken her to the pub that October, telling her it was “time for you to go”, adding, “If you don’t agree to go, we will start a process against you.”

While Dr Gilby was offered a payoff to walk away, this was under the condition that she drop any allegations. Having previously raised concerns at work without issue, Dr Gilby told us: “It was a shock to me, to be honest, to find that in Chester there was not a history of openness when listening to people who were raising concerns^.

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“It was an even bigger shock to me when, as a chief executive who was medically qualified with a background of being a medical director in three organisations and a consultant in critical care and anesthesia, that when I raised concerns that the behaviors of the chair and others on the board were putting patients at risk and were putting staff, including myself, at risk, that… it wasn’t just that we weren’t listened to^{. I was asked to keep quiet and offered a bribe to do so.”}

Dr Gilby was awarded £1.4 million in damages after it was ruled she’d been wrongly dismissed, and Haythornthwaite resigned. Looking back at her time on the Countess, Dr Gilby’s thoughts remain with the families of the victims, some of whom have been left with lifelong injuries. The money, she notes, could have been better spent on patient care.

She remarked: “I really am concerned that in the higher echelons of the NHS, right at the very top, there isn’t necessarily always the openness and willingness to accept that there might be a problem that we would expect, and then that cascades its way down into some organisations.”

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This comes as Dr John Gibbs, one of three consultants whose evidence helped convict Letby, told The Sun he holds “a very small concern that there may not have been any deliberate harm done”, arguing that a retrial could be “the most appropriate thing for everyone”.

Regarding this suggested retrial, Dr Gilby commented: “The convictions are sound, in my view^{. There are other cases that she could have been convicted of. The appeal, she’s been convicted by two juries. The people who are best placed to investigate unexplained, unexpected deaths are the police, and they did that. The people who are best placed to present the evidence are the Prosecution Service, and the people best placed to make a judgment are the jury and the judge. And then the appeal court. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s what’s happened, and I’m not in a position, and neither is anybody else, to go behind that.”}

Do you have a story to share? Email me at julia.banim@reachplc.com

Even as the rollout of the 5G network continues around the world, the race to design and build the sixth generation of mobile infrastructure has begun.

The new, global 6G network represents a fundamental shift in what a mobile network is built to do. Where previous generations were designed primarily as pipelines for transporting data between devices, 6G’s ambition is to treat the network as an intelligent system.

This means it is designed to be “AI native”, with artificial intelligence at its core from the outset. An example is integrated sensing and communication: radio waves that also act like radar sensors, detecting movement without the need for cameras. Real-time data collection and connectivity will be another important application in the management of largely automated urban environments.

The problem is that someone has to create 6G first – and pick up the bill. And this next technological cycle is inheriting many unresolved issues from 5G, in a technology landscape fractured by geopolitical tensions and public scepticism.

The development of 6G relies on a global conversation shaped by institutions such as the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), a global collaboration of telecommunications standards organisations. Together, they have established the official 6G rollout plan, with the aim of creating the first technical standards by 2028. This would lay the groundwork for the release of the first 6G commercial networks around 2030.

As telecommunications shift from physical hardware to cloud software and AI, traditional mobile operators will find themselves reliant on the tech giants – in particular, massive cloud providers such as Amazon and Google – for storage capacity and data processing they cannot build themselves.

Yet this convergence raises some important questions. Can national infrastructure remain sovereign and secure when running on foreign cloud platforms? And how easily can governments cooperate across borders when the digital infrastructure underpinning their societies is controlled by a handful of private corporations?

A new 6G alliance

In late July, the US government announced a new 24-country 6G coalition, including the UK and 15 other European countries, India, Canada, Australia, Korea and Japan. Its stated purpose is to counteract the Chinese digital infrastructure industry under the banner of “6G leadership and security”.

This announcement takes the politics of 6G to a new geopolitical scale. This US-led bloc says it envisages 6G as the engine and heart of “technological competitiveness, economic prosperity and national security”.

The allies have only one real competitor, China, and one important lesson: not to repeat the strategic mistakes made during 5G’s development.

These were, primarily, the lack of a coordinated industrial policy, and underestimation of the complexity of the agreements that underpin this global network. Such missteps gave China a headstart on hardware, enabling its companies to dominate 5G patents and be the first to market a lot of 5G equipment.

The newly established 6G coalition has already set goals to solidify connections among governments, industry and academia within a few months. These links should evolve into a comprehensive strategy to support a secure global 6G network for the long term.

A key moment in this story will come in October 2027 – in Shanghai, China, of all places. At the ITU’s World Radiocommunication Conference 2027, governments will negotiate on how to allocate the multi-layered radio wave spectrum required for 6G. This should lay the foundations for infrastructure standardisation the following year.

But for the UK and Europe, this represents a serious dilemma. They do not possess the industrial scale to fully replace Chinese infrastructure. But they also fear escalating dependence on US big tech with the advent of 6G.

Europe’s dilemma

The EU’s flagship initiative Hexa-X and successor Hexa-X-II, funded by Nordic mobile giants Nokia and Ericsson, was conceived as a blueprint for a European 6G to tackle these issues. The primary aim is to produce technologies that can operate autonomously, outside both US and Chinese hardware and software.

In the UK, the recent dissolution of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and migration of the digital infrastructure portfolio to the new Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, created weeks of uncertainty across the UK tech sector. This came at a crucial time for determining what the future looks like for 6G research and development nationally.

Local UK mobile operators are still decommissioning legacy 2G and 3G infrastructure, and are close to decommissioning traditional telephone landlines. They are also striving to reap the benefits of the 5G network. It is not easy for the UK to assert leadership in mobile networks abroad while wrestling with all these issues at home.

Right now, the core values of the 6G technology that will define the next decade are already being decided. Future AI-native networks will come with a higher energy bill, so one key challenge is how to minimise energy consumption and maintain a path towards a sustainable technology.

Deploying new infrastructure also risks reigniting the intense public anxieties seen during the 5G rollout. Fears about electromagnetic radiation and surveillance quickly escalated into conspiracy theories linked to a history of health concerns about wireless technologies, and the tendency to exclude citizens from infrastructure design and deployment.

Getting 6G right demands a broader approach to building this new global network – as most participants agree. Including citizens in this process could be a powerful tool, demonstrating from the outset that infrastructure is never just a technical or engineering endeavour. It is also a political and social issue that will shape all our futures.

Former Manchester United star Alejandro Garnacho only joined Aston Villa from Chelsea in the summer but the forward could potentially be on the move once again, with clubs already eyeing him

Alejandro Garnacho is reportedly being monitored by Spanish clubs after a difficult start to life with Aston Villa. The former Manchester United man only joined the Midlands side on a season-long loan deal in the summer from Chelsea.

But Garnacho, 22, has been limited to just 31 minutes of action so far this season, and has not even come off the bench in any of Villa’s last three games.

His switch to Villa Park will become permanent for a fee of around £43million should certain conditions be met. But that already appears unlikely.

According to Mail Online, clubs in La Liga are watching Garnacho’s situation. The forward was actually born in Madrid and had a spell with Atletico Madrid’s academy before his switch to Manchester United.

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Asked recently what Garnacho needs to do to earn an opportunity with the club, Villa boss Unai Emery said: “Continue working. Work, work, train, work.

“When he can have minutes to play, try to play well. He is progressing, but we have players in front of him now. George Hemmings is playing fantastic. Alysson is also understanding things well and is giving us things I want. [Ibrahim] Mbaye also responded well.

“We want a competitive team and players to compete in the style we have. Garnacho is a little bit behind because of some circumstances we had in pre-season. It is time to be patient for the time he needs.”

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Having been left out of the latest Argentina squad, he will now join Villa on a mid-season training camp in Spain, where he will certainly hope to catch Emery’s eye.

Garnacho’s career has taken a sharp downturn over recent seasons. After scoring 26 goals in 144 appearances for Manchester United, he left the club in a £40m move to Premier League rivals Chelsea last summer.

He netted eight goals in 43 appearances for Chelsea across his debut campaign but just one of those came in the Premier League. New boss Xabi Alonso made it clear that he had little future at Stamford Bridge ahead of his move to Villa. Garnacho has just under six years remaining on his current contract at Stamford Bridge.

Villa have a just under three-week wait for their next Premier League game which is set to come against Brentford on October 10. They will then take on Fenerbahce in their first Champions League home game of the campaign.

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She spent three years and £50,000 fighting her local council for the right to walk through her own back gate. 

But after winning a legal battle against Derbyshire County Council over access to her home, Helene Ball now has a fresh fight on her hands after giant concrete ‘Lego’  blocks were dumped outside her property. 

The retired teacher, 81, accused the council of pettiness after it put the 2ft blocks along a narrow wall near her home after her legal victory. 

She first took action against the council after discovering one morning in April 2023 that a metal fence had been cemented over a 98cm gap in her rear garden wall.

The gap leads into an adjoining council-owned car park, but Mrs Ball, who has lived at the house in Matlock since 1967, said she and her family had used the route unopposed for more than 40 years.   

Mrs Ball argued that her continued access amounted to prescriptive rights to access the route and a judge later ruled in her favour – with the access now being added to the deed for the land.

The council was also ordered by the courts to pay Mrs Ball’s costs of around £50,000 and to ensure her pedestrian and vehicular access is not impeded again. 

But Mrs Ball was shocked to then discover 54 huge ‘Lego-style’ blocks placed outside her home.

The 2ft-high bricks line the narrow road behind her property and the grass verge alongside her garden wall.

The 54 concrete bricks line the street outside Mrs Ball’s home in Matlock, Derbyshire

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Derbyshire County Council admitted it had been ‘unreasonable’ to erect the original green fence at the centre of the dispute

Mrs Ball, who has two grown-up children and four grandchildren, said: ‘It’s just so petty of the council to do this after they lost the case, but they have been spiteful from the start.

‘The judge said I had a right of access by foot and by car to the rear of my house.

‘However, the council have made it impossible to drive a car up the road and turn round, it’s ridiculous.’

The fence panel was installed two weeks after the second anniversary of the death of Mrs Ball’s husband, Brian, and was viewed as a ‘completely unnecessary act of aggression’ by her family. 

The gap led to a car park which residents were allowed to use at weekend but it closed three years ago while the council tried to sell the land for houses.

The court ruling from Judge Robert Brown said legal representation from the council was ‘surprisingly combative’ given its ‘limited evidence’ and ‘unsubstantiated assertions’. 

Judge Brown found parts of the legal representation for the council ‘totally irrelevant’, ‘most unhelpful’ and even described the litigation as ‘pugnacious’.

Now, Mrs Ball is preparing for another legal battle to force the council to remove the blocks.

Her son David, 50, who has been carrying out legal work on behalf of his mother, said: ‘The council have not acted in the spirit of the law.

‘Our legal team are investigating whether the council are interfering with access to my mum’s home.

‘Basically my mum won her case but the council have made it impossible for her to use the access road which she has used since she moved here in the 1960s.’

The fence which started the three-year legal dispute about access

The 2ft-high bricks line the narrow road behind her property and the grass verge alongside her garden wall.

Derbyshire County Council admitted it had been ‘unreasonable’ to erect the original green fence at the centre of the dispute.

A spokesman said: ‘It would not be appropriate to comment further on matters that have been considered by the court other than that the council has a duty to safeguard its legal interests in public assets, including land that it owns and manages on behalf of residents.

‘Where issues arise concerning council-owned land or access rights, the council has a responsibility to consider the matter carefully and, where appropriate, defend any action.

‘Its actions are always guided by its statutory duties.’

The installation of the fence and legal challenge started under the previous Conservative-controlled councl, but the continuation and final tribunal court hearing took place under Reform UK control.

A woman and three children have died in a house fire on Merseyside.

Six fire engines were at the scene at the height of the blaze at the semi-detached property in Stone Square in Bootle, Sefton, at 03:45 BST.

Eight firefighters searched the house where they discovered four people in an upstairs bedroom who were showing no signs of life, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service said.

Another casualty, who was outside the property when crews arrived, was taken to hospital.

Officers from Merseyside Police are also at the scene and a joint investigation with the fire service into the cause of the blaze is under way.

The North West Ambulance Service’s hazardous area response team also attended the scene of the fire and confirmed the four fatalities.

Chief Fire Officer Nick Searle confirmed the “intense fire [had] spread very rapidly”.

The street was cordoned off by police and, earlier, fire officers could be seen knocking on neighbours’ doors.

One said: “I heard shouting in the early hours but I just thought someone was having an argument, then I came downstairs and saw all the fire engines.”

Another local resident, who did not want to be named, said: “We all came out on the front and we could see smoke coming over from the houses.

“The sirens woke me up and there were fire engines in the street.”

The fire service said the main blaze had been extinguished with crews damping down the area.

Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Tom Gordon joined fellow Liberal Democrat MPs Victoria Collins, Sarah Olney and Lisa Smart in urging the Prime Minister to fast-track the AI Bill promised in the 2024 King’s Speech and convene an emergency AI summit.

In a letter, the MPs said the government should build on the King’s previous warnings about the “existential” risks posed by AI if the technology falls into the wrong hands.

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“This technology isn’t going to wait for Whitehall’s usual timetable, and neither should we” (Image: Supplied)

Mr Gordon said: “Lib Dem colleagues are right to push for this, and I back them wholeheartedly.

“The government promised an AI Bill in the King’s Speech back in 2024. We’re still waiting.

“An Emergency AI Summit would force the pace. This technology isn’t going to wait for Whitehall’s usual timetable, and neither should we.

“I’d urge the Prime Minister to act on this without further delay.”

A government spokesperson said the UK recognised the need to ensure its approach keeps pace with “rapidly evolving” AI technology.

They said: “These risks cross borders, so we are working closely with the companies developing the most advanced systems, and with our allies and international partners.

“That includes building a rigorous, scientific understanding of the capabilities of the most advanced AI systems and the risks they pose through our AI Security Institute.”

‘The government must take action’

The AI Security Institute is a government research body responsible for evaluating safeguards for advanced AI models.

Concerns intensified after leaders of xAI, Anthropic and OpenAI called for greater global co-operation, including between the US and China, as well as independent oversight to ensure AI models remain aligned with human values and were kept under human control.

The MPs have called on the Prime Minister to fast-track an AI Bill promised in the King’s Speech in 2024 and convene an emergency AI summit in response to calls from AI leaders about the risks associated without regulation (Image: Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Liberal Democrat MP Victoria Collins said in the letter: “When the people building this technology, who have every commercial incentive to press ahead, tell us they are afraid of what they are building, the government must take action.”

They argued that the UK was in a “unique position” to bring together nations as a global technology leader and trusted international partner.

Mr Gordon said: “I’ve just spent months sitting on the Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry into AI regulation, hearing evidence on exactly this.

“The picture that emerged was stark: AI is already being used to profile people, screen job applications and scan people’s faces in public without consent – and when it goes wrong, people have no real way to challenge it or get redress.”

In response, a government spokesperson said: “We should not assume that the existing framework will always be sufficient as AI capabilities develop.

“Any future measures will be evidence-based and focused on whether they will make the British people safer, and as the AI Minister has set out: nothing is off the table.”

Subway’s first town centre store will finally open its doors this week, on Thursday, September 24, after months of work on the new unit.

The store has been fitted out at 43 Dalton Way, in the former Carver Residential estate agents.

Dalton Way in Newton Aycliffe where Subway is opening (Image: GOOGLE)

Work on the new Subway progressed in July, with electrical work completed and the unit being fitted out.

The Northern Echo previously reported the store was expected to open by the end of July, after plans initially targeted a May 2026 opening at the beginning.

Newton Aycliffe town-centre bosses confirmed the opening date on Facebook.

In its latest Facebook update, town-centre bosses wrote: “That unmistakable Subway smell…

“That’s right… The bread is baking, the toppings are waiting, and we’re getting very close!

“Subway Newton Aycliffe is nearly ready to open its doors!

“And because we know you’re curious (we are too), keep your eyes peeled tomorrow for a little sneak peek behind the scenes.

“We’ll be showing you what’s been going on behind the scenes as they get everything ready for opening day on Thursday!

“Not long now… the countdown is on.”

File image of a Subway (Image: UGC)

Subway is known for its made-to-order sandwiches, salads and freshly baked bread, with customers able to choose from a range of fillings and toppings.

The new store is the first Subway to open in Newton Aycliffe town centre.

Subway was founded in 1965 when 17-year-old Fred DeLuca teamed up with family friend Dr Peter Buck, who invested $1,000 to launch a submarine sandwich shop.

Before the Newton Aycliffe launch, the nearest Subway branches were in Darlington and Ferryhill.

A Co Down road has been closed in both directions following a suspected chemical leak.

Emergency services are currently at the scene on the Steps Road in Magheralin.

A PSNI spokesperson said: “The Steps Road in Magheralin is currently closed in both directions due to a suspected chemical leak. Please seek an alternative route for your journey at this time.”

The NIFRS said: “We are currently dealing with a hazardous incident involving gas on Steps Road, Magheralin, Lurgan. Local residents are advised to keep windows and doors closed and avoid the area.”

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“Whether you’re commuting, meeting friends or exploring the city, cycling is often one of the quickest, most convenient and most affordable ways to get around. By offering a 50 per cent discount on a Santander Cycles Monthly Pass, we’re making it even easier for more people to experience the benefits of cycling.