OpenAI has acknowledged that it alerted “dozens” of global institutions that their websites may have been meddled with by its AI bots acting improperly.

AI agents attempted to get information from “governments, universities, public agencies, and other institutions”, including the SEC, Census Bureau and Education Department, the company said.

The disclosures come just days after Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that OpenAI agents had breached non-public files on the website of its government-run health care scheme, Medicare.

Since August, public fears have grown around the potentially serious, even life-threatening, impacts of AI tools falling outside of human control.

OpenAI said that some of the data was accessed by AI agents, essentially bots that are designed and trained to operate somewhat autonomously, which were working to find “authoritative sources of public information”.

But the company noted that some of the bots went beyond that and worked to bypass security measures on websites.

When attempting to get information from the Census Bureau, for instance, AI agents used tools reserved for software developers to access it, the company said.

OpenAI said all of the government data accessed by bots was public.

However, it noted that information that its bots accessed from the SEC, which regulates the US stock market and protects investors, was later published by AI agents on another website. OpenAI says this action was not intended.

In other instances that OpenAI disclosed on Friday, its AI agents transferred data when it should not have.

Such activity resulted in at least 53 incidents where an OpenAI agent took an image from ChatGPT user activity and transferred it elsewhere.

The company said that in each instance of a user image being used and transferred by an AI agent, the user had opted in to allow OpenAI to train models using their data.

Nevertheless, OpenAI admitted: “This is not an appropriate use of this data”.

It added that the leak of user images occurred before it had put in place new safeguards on AI training, and it was working to get all the user images transferred to any third-party removed.

Reuters first reported the expanded investigations. OpenAI also published details to its public blog.

In certain instances of the agent activity, OpenAI said the tools “bypassed” security controls of some websites.

In other instances, the AI agents showed “misalignment” in attempts to get at information from websites. Misalignment is a term used by AI companies and researchers to describe instances where an AI tool did something that it was not trained to do or was otherwise unintended.

OpenAI said that it was limiting identifying what entities were impacted because many had asked the company to not disclose details.

“Our goal is to give each organization the facts and defer to them on if and when to make the incident public,” it said.

Not all of the instances involved in this incident were being considered a significant security breach, the company noted.

“Some organizations may review what we share and conclude that the information was intentionally public or that the model’s interaction was not concerning,” it explained. “Others may identify a design issue or security weakness they want to address.”

While the average charge for paid public toilets across the UK is 31p, people in Eastbourne face an average charge of £1 per visit, more than three times the national average.

Other towns with some of the highest toilet charges include Newbury (75p), Hackney and Norwich (60p) and Stornoway (40p).

Public unisex toilet with green, blue and yellow doors and a sign in Braille for the blind and visually impaired at the seafront at Weymouth Seafront in Weymouth, Dorset, England, UK. (Image: Getty Images)

The data also showed:

• Penzance is Britain’s ultimate pay-to-pee town, with its only mapped public toilet charging users.
• Blackpool has one of the highest proportions of paid facilities, with 74% of public toilets requiring payment.
• Boston (65%) and Lytham St Annes (65%) also rely heavily on charged toilets.
• Nationally, roughly one in seven public toilets (14.7%) now charge users.
• Some of the UK’s most visitor-heavy destinations, including Westminster, Eastbourne, Scarborough and Norwich, rank among the most expensive places to answer nature’s call.

See the full map here.

Britain’s 20 most expensive places to use a public toilet

(Ranked by average charge for paid toilets)

• Eastbourne — £1.00
• Newbury — £0.75
• Hackney — £0.60
• Norwich — £0.60
• Camden Town — £0.53
• Swindon — £0.50
• Penrith — £0.50
• Basingstoke — £0.50
• Milton Keynes — £0.50
• Dorchester — £0.50
• Helensburgh — £0.48
• Reading — £0.48
• Scarborough — £0.47
• Rhyl — £0.45
• Kendal — £0.45
• Inverness — £0.45
• Colwyn Bay — £0.43
• Westminster — £0.43
• Llangefni — £0.42
• Penzance — £0.40

Public toilet sign in Dorset, England (Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

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20 cheapest places to spend a penny (where charges apply)

• Banbury — £0.10
• Rochdale — £0.10
• West Bromwich — £0.10
• Oldham — £0.10
• Clydebank — £0.10
• Motherwell — £0.10
• Wolverhampton — £0.11
• Livingston — £0.13
• Coalville — £0.13
• Crawley — £0.13
• Manchester — £0.15
• Cambridge — £0.18
• Coleraine — £0.19
• Wigston — £0.20
• Bath — £0.20
• Lincoln — £0.20
• Mansfield — £0.20
• Alloa — £0.20
• Worcester — £0.20
• Grantham — £0.20

The data also reveals huge regional variations, with dozens of towns offering entirely free public toilets and several charging nothing at all despite maintaining extensive networks of facilities.

Russell – who begins the weekend 81 points behind the Italian – simply has to capitalise. And he really should do. Even if Antonelli hadn’t crashed out, he has looked on a different level this weekend, dominating practice and qualifying. Russell topped Q1, Q3 and Q3, securing the 12th pole of his career with a lap which was nine tenths quicker than his best lap in Q2 and eight tenths quicker than Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, the next fastest driver. He could hardly believe it himself.

“That was a pretty decent lap,” he told his team over the radio on his cooldown lap. “How much was [the gap]?” 

“Just over eight tenths to Leclerc.” came the response. “Woah!”

This has not been the easiest season for Russell, who began the year the overwhelming favourite for the title, having dominated his younger team-mate over the course of last season. So he could be forgiven for feeling proud of having done such a good job.

“It’s been a while so it definitely feels good,” he admitted. “This was probably the biggest pole margin of my whole career, including my F2 and F3 days.

“The lap felt really sweet, car’s been feeling really great this weekend. On a track like this where you can hug it, it feels amazing.”

Woke Is Dead ran the title of a bestselling book by the broadcaster Piers Morgan last year. 

Many obituaries have been written for the social contagion that arguably reached its apex during the pandemic, when millions were locked in their houses, scrolling social media and getting increasingly furious about Black Lives Matter and other assorted ‘injustices’.

Well, if woke really is dead, no one told the owners of the Last Ditch Bar in Greenfield, Massachusetts. The scruffy establishment, which caters chiefly to lesbians, could be the most woke institution left on Planet Earth.

This week, it has found itself embroiled in a controversy that, as the colloquialism goes, has ‘broken the internet’. 

The Boston Globe – the first newspaper to report the story – is set to receive the biggest subscription boost in its history over the viral article, and the initial tweet about the story has been viewed more than 30 million times.

The row has sparked astonishment from figures such as the Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz, as well as incredulity even from The Guardian, plus conservative Fox News and the New York Post.

One online pundit accurately summed up the general public’s response, calling the situation ‘intergalactic woke batcrapitude’.

In particular, the bizarre episode has revealed how a baffling number of Left-wingers, rather like those Japanese soldiers in the jungles of Guam who believed they were still fighting the Second World War long after it had ended, have not updated their worldview in six long years.

Pictured: The ‘house rules’ of the lesbian venue Last Ditch Bar which sparked a war in Massachusetts after dropping their face mask mandate 

The stern ‘venue norms’ of Last Ditch are plastered over the walls of the basement venue. 

‘Racism, Misogynoir [racism directed towards black women], Transmisogyny, Ableism, Transphobia, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, and any other discrimination will not be tolerated,’ declares one of these house rules.

‘No one is permitted to touch anyone, in any way, without getting express, verbal consent,’ ran another – an injunction that even includes touching patrons’ ‘assistive devices’ such as wheelchairs, canes and hearing aids, should they have any.

A third rule proclaims: ‘Nobody will be barred from entry due to lack of funds. Poor and unhoused [sic] people are welcome in the space.’

But it was the requirement that every punter wear a ‘well-fitted KN-95 respirator mask (or better) at all times’ that is perhaps the most surprising. 

These are the exceptionally cumbersome and uncomfortable masks designed to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses such as Covid-19.

The bar, which calls the masks ‘safety belts for the face’, specified that the buzz-killing accessories are ‘required when not actively taking a sip of your drink or taking a bite of a snack. Lower, sip, and lift!’

Anyone who fell foul of this stricture would expect to be asked to leave, although they might first be ‘provided with an opportunity to engage in an accountability process’.

The Last Ditch, then, didn’t exactly scream ‘fun night out’. The management’s propensity for making cringingly self-righteous statements on various matters probably didn’t help.

Last September, for example, it announced it was banning all law enforcement from the premises after a police officer pursuing two drugs suspects had briefly come into the bar looking for them.

‘We reserve the right to refuse entry and service to the pigs in all their forms,’ proclaimed the bar on social media, accompanying this act of rebel bravado with a picture of a person throwing a Molotov cocktail. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, the bar, which only opened last year, swiftly began running into financial difficulties. 

The Last Ditch’s founders – a trio of 20-something housemates that included a drag performer who uses ‘it/its’ pronouns and another who is now training to become a professional clown, both of whom have since left – soon found themselves unable to meet their costs.

Facing closure, the remaining owner, Jackie Matellian, decided to relax the mandatory mask policy for just one night per week.

A month ago, the bar announced this momentous change in a rainbow-coloured Instagram post to its 11,300 followers, saying: ‘It is with love we inform our immunocompromised disabled divas we will be opening Saturday nights as “mask optional”… 

‘Our mission is to also make the space work for everyone and everything radical, sometimes that’s being wild!’

The venue owners required every punter to wear a ‘well-fitted KN-95 respirator mask (or better) at all times’ 

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The backlash was immediate, ferocious and highly revealing. No matter that Greenfield hasn’t reported any Covid cases for months, or that the pandemic was officially declared over by the World Health Organisation in 2023. All hell broke loose.

Hundreds of angry comments flooded the bar’s social media accounts, with many calling for a boycott and others threatening violence. The owners were branded ‘eugenicists’ intent on murdering the sick.

One protester (who says she is raising her child, named Cloud, to be ‘gender neutral’) called for the bar to be burnt to the ground, writing: ‘I hope your venue gets firebombed for robbing my fellow immunocompromised people of their Saturday plans just to scrape extra revenue from ablists [sic].’

Another accused the bar’s management of trying to ‘kill disabled people in the name of your own leisure and convenience’.

‘Just say you’re being complicit in a mass disabling event and get it over with,’ one said. ‘What is truly being WILD is announcing a change of this magnitude in such a cavalier, callous fashion,’ screeched another.

Stunned at the outcry, which came mainly from the bar’s patrons rather than armchair progressives thousands of miles away, Last Ditch posted a craven apology two days later reminiscent of something out of a Soviet show trial.

‘We are sorry for our passive and dismissive tone of our change to the norms and schedule impacting the most intersectional of us,’ grovelled the management. ‘We understand everyone faces different intersections [sic] and we are always working to consider all needs fully.’

But this apology only sparked more pious complaints: Because they hadn’t written the statement in ‘alternative text’ [additional written description suitable for the visually impaired], they were met with renewed accusations of ‘ableism’.

When the bar’s management held its regular ‘community meeting’ earlier this month to address the controversy, the crisis became a farce.

The session – in which heavily masked participants sat in a circle on a floor around a stripper pole – started with a ‘calm breathing exercise’ to quell passions.

However, the three-and-a-half hour summit was swiftly hijacked by the black founder of another ‘Covid-conscious collective’ in western Massachusetts, who lambasted the white therapist running the meeting.

Others attending via Zoom suggested this therapist was an agent of the state who could have them hospitalised, calling her presence ‘wildly unsafe’. 

When the bar’s only remaining owner burst into tears after revealing that its financial problems had left her living in her car, owing the landlord nearly £3,000 and struggling to pay off the £38,000 loan she had taken out to launch the business, she was accused of shedding ‘WHITE THEY/THEM TEARS’.

As the extraordinary tale spread like a firestorm across the internet, the initial 442 messages condemning the relaxing of the mask strictures on Last Ditch’s Instagram page were swamped by thousands of others bemoaning the sheer levels of wokery remaining on the Left and expressing astonishment that a mask rule was ever thought necessary in the first place.

Jaron Zhou, a former senior executive at the prediction market website Kalshi, was one of many who wondered if it was all too ridiculous to be true. 

‘This legitimately reads like a parody of what people think too woke is like,’ he wrote.

In an updated ‘house rules’ post the bar stated that ‘we will be opening Saturday nights as mask optional to try out typical club nights with themes/hosts/DJs/full capacity’

Even politicians have taken notice. ‘Wow,’ said Senator Ted Cruz, the 2016 presidential contender. ‘I honestly did not know that there was a single place on the planet – in 2026 – that still had an idiotic mask mandate.’

Greenfield itself is liberal even by Massachusetts standards: It was described by the Boston Globe as a town where ‘men in ponytails and KN-95s order hibiscus tea from the coffee shop off the main square’.

But an obsession with forcing everyone to wear respirator masks in 2026 is hardly confined to this muesli-crunching corner of New England. 

Mask-wearing, on both sides of the Atlantic, remains a politically loaded issue. 

A particular fringe of the hard-Left – known as the ‘Covid-conscious’ or ‘Evermaskers’ – maintain that wearing a mask is a ‘social justice issue’ and that failure to do so is ‘discriminatory’.

So far this year, some 6,000 people have died in America from Covid-related issues. The death toll in Britain is so low that official daily tracking has now ended.

US ‘Evermaskers’ contend that they’re signalling their opposition to Donald Trump’s Right-wing administration and their refusal to accept that the pandemic is over.

American conservatives spent much of 2020-2021 mocking mask mandates. Trump initially refused to wear one and ridiculed others – especially Joe Biden – for doing so. 

Many MAGA activists protested against pandemic restrictions, especially obligatory masks, but have since shifted to rejecting other government mandates. The ‘Evermaskers’, however, have not moved on.

While the Last Ditch saga has given America’s conservatives enough to laugh about until Christmas, the Democrats are unlikely to see the funny side.

The Congressional midterm elections are only six weeks away – potentially crippling the rest of the Trump presidency – and the Democrats have been working hard to reassure nervous moderate voters that the party’s activist wing no longer wants to defund the police, abolish prisons and cancel Thanksgiving for being ‘colonialist’.

Even one of the most radical Democrats in Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has fallen into line, recently remarking that Woke 1.0 ‘was crazy’, in a clear attempt to imply the madness of the early 2020s is over.

But if the Last Ditch Bar is anything to go by, Woke 2.0 is very much alive.

A Post Office Travel report, which analysised 24 popular destinations, has crowned the top value-for-money destinations for British holidaymakers looking for a winter getaway

Travelling can be expensive but if you do your research before you book you can save a fair amount of money on your trip.

A report by Post Office Travel Money has revealed the top value-for-money destinations for British holidaymakers looking for a winter getaway.

With weather forecasting models suggesting daytime temperatures could plunge below 10C across much of the UK next month now is the perfect time to plan that winter sun holiday.

Cape Town in South Africa, Mombasa in Kenya and Tokyo in Japan have been crowned the most affordable, according to the report. Cape Town offers the lowest prices on goods commonly purchased by tourists, with the Japanese capital and the Kenyan coastal city following closely behind.

The report is based off a study of 24 popular holiday spots for Post Office Travel Money. The Winter Sun Holiday Costs Barometer is calculated using prices for everyday items such as an evening meal, drinks, insect repellent and sun cream. It does not factor in the cost of flights or accommodation.

For the first time, the research included both short and long-haul destinations, covering only locations reachable without transiting through a Middle Eastern airport.

Cape Town has topped the chart as the best-value winter sun destination on numerous occasions, with prices dropping by 9.7% since March this year, Post Office Travel Money confirmed.

A three-course dinner for two, including a bottle of house wine, came to just £39.26 in Cape Town, compared with a hefty £119.26 in Scarborough, Tobago, which ranked as the priciest destination surveyed.

In Mombasa, the same meal cost £42.78, while Tokyo came in at £48.50.

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Portugal’s Algarve, Spain’s Costa del Sol and Tenerife in the Canary Islands proved the most affordable among the eight European resorts assessed.

Of the overall ten cheapest destinations, four were located in Asia – namely Penang in Malaysia, Phuket in Thailand, Colombo in Sri Lanka and Tokyo.

Laura Plunkett, head of Post Office Travel Money, said: “Our research again picked up wide variations in the cost of tourist staples, particularly in areas like the Caribbean and in Europe.

“This means holidaymakers could save themselves money and cut the cost of their winter sun holiday by doing some basic holiday pricing research before booking.”

One lane of the A1 is currently closed near Thirsk, between junction 51 and junction 49, after two incidents that both took place this afternoon (September 25).

Whilst no further details have been shared about the crash, North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service says its crews were called to the A1 Southbound near the Dishforth junction at 4.07pm.

RECOMMENDED READING:

A spokesperson said: “Northallerton, Richmond and Ripon crews proceeded to a transit van well alight on the hard shoulder. The van was destroyed by fire.

“Crew extinguished using hose reels. Fire spread to grass verge off hard shoulder measuring 10m x 3m. Highways and Police also attended.”

There are delays in excess of 40 minutes on the #A1M southbound between J51 and J50 near #Thirsk due to two separate incidents: a fire and a collision.

1 lane is closed, while lanes 2 and 3 are passing scene.

Please allow extra travel time.

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More to follow. pic.twitter.com/vBy0HfOlBT

— National Highways: Yorkshire (@HighwaysYORKS) September 25, 2026

Queues are currently increasing and are ‘severe’, according to AA Traffic News.

More to follow.

According to our traffic monitoring service INRIX, Eureka Place in Ebbw Vale is closed in both directions. This is due to a building fire from Tredegar Road to Bethcar Street. However, they report that traffic is coping well.

Gwent Police have also posted on Facebook asking people to avoid the area.

They said: “Emergency services are currently dealing with a fire on Church Street, Ebbw Vale and Eureka Place, Ebbw Vale.

“South Wales Fire and Rescue Service are at the scene.

“If you live locally, please ensure all doors and windows are closed.

“Diversions are in place to ensure your safety. Please find an alternative route for your journey.”

Meatpacking industry groups raised concerns Friday that recent heightened immigration operations in Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma have caused employees to miss work, leading to problems at meat-related businesses that could ultimately raise prices for consumers.

The Texas Cattle Feeders Association, Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association and Kansas Livestock Association said in a statement that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations have prompted delays in the shipment of thousands of cattle, resulting in millions of dollars in lost revenue. The groups say ICE operations have disrupted operations at feedlots, dairy processors, feed and grain companies, and transportation hubs.

Scarlett Mabinger, the vice president of communications for the Kansas Livestock Association, said they have received multiple calls from their members reporting an increase in absences at their southwest Kansas businesses after these communities noticed an increase in federal immigration officers this week.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed their presence in Kansas but said they are not conducting worksite raids.

DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in a statement that ICE has been “targeting heinous criminals,” but he didn’t give a breakdown on the number of people arrested.

Several meatpacking plants in the Kansas cities of Dodge City, Liberal and Garden City typically process thousands of cattle every day, but Mabinger said some had to shut down temporarily and send cattle back to feedlots.

“So then they’re having to be returned back to the feed yard to wait, which, of course, causes an animal health issue, causes financial issues,” she said.

The Kansas Livestock Association did not receive reports of arrests happening at worksites, but community members started noticing the arrival of officers on Tuesday.

Amy Soberanes, a 25-year-old community organizer in Dodge City, Kansas, has been helping deliver food to people who are afraid to leave their homes. She said cleaning crews stopped showing up at some locations, forcing plants to close.

“I have worked with so many moms who have told me that they don’t know what they’re gonna do because their provider has been taken,” Soberanes said. “I have seen kids cry to me because their mom and dad are gone. It brought a lot of hurt, and a lot of pain, and a lot of trauma for our community.”

Several of the Kansas cities where ICE enforcement appears to have increased have large Hispanic populations. Their populations have risen in the last decade from new immigrant arrivals, mostly from Cuba and Haiti, according to federal data obtained and analyzed by The Associated Press.

Voters in these counties heavily favored Donald Trump in the last election, with more than 65% casting ballots in favor of the Republican Party.

Republican politicians, who typically have sided with Trump on immigration, are making careful pivots in their messaging.

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican incumbent in a tight race against a Democrat, and Sen. Jerry Moran said they were both concerned and urged the federal administration to coordinate with local authorities. “Secretary Mullin assured me these warrants are only for the purpose of arresting individuals who have been charged with criminal activities,” Moran said in a statement shared on social media.

The administration has repeated claims of targeting immigrants with criminal histories, but recent data suggests more than half of those arrested in July had not been convicted of any crimes and were not facing any criminal charges. Less than a quarter of those arrested had been convicted of a crime.

Members of the Kansas Livestock Association are urging federal officials to conduct more targeted enforcement actions and provide more transparency.

Beef prices have soared to record highs in the past year, largely thanks to the smallest national herd in 75 years. The Trump administration has made efforts to bring down prices, like allowing some beef imports without high tariffs and reopening the border to cattle from Mexico, which had been closed because of an outbreak of a pest that can be deadly to cattle called the New World screwworm.

“If it continues for a long enough period of time, then it could therefore lead to increased prices, because we are not processing the amount of beef that consumers are currently demanding,” Mabinger said.

——————————

Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas.

There’s a lot going on in the skies today, most notably an Aries Full Moon.

This transit could heighten irritability for some, while others may find themselves feeling especially assertive.

As this Moon phase comes to an end, Gemini and Virgo may find themselves at a fresh crossroads, making careful consideration more important than ever.

Ahead, you’ll find all star signs’ horoscopes for today: Saturday September 26, 2026.

Like checking your horoscope every morning? You can now sign up to our free daily newsletter to get a personalised reading for your star sign delivered straight to your inbox.

To order your unique personal horoscope based on your time, date and place of birth, visit patrickarundell.com.

Aries

March 21 to April 20

Today’s Aries Full Moon is a truly fascinating event this year. This luminary in your sign is passionate and can be impulsive. This time, with the shimmering attentions of dreamy Neptune, your usual feistiness can be tempered by added sensitivity, particularly around relationships. Partnered up? You need your other half to be particularly attentive.

Head here for everything you need to know about being an Aries

Taurus

April 21 to May 21

With Chiron, Saturn, and Neptune all in Retrograde in the tender 12th House of your chart, along with today’s Aries Moon phase, this is the perfect time to be particularly conscious of your inner world. It’s a hustle-bustle era we live in, and downtime can often be at a premium, but give yourself permission to draw back when you can over the next fortnight.

Head here for everything you need to know about being a Taurus

Gemini

May 22 to June 21

You might find yourself at a crossroads. However, this doesn’t mean your options are all in one direction or the other, or totally crystal clear, which can make them a little trickier to decipher. For example, there may be two people you’re really drawn to, or differing groups of friends or shared interests. Just take your time deciding which road to take, Gemini.

Head here for everything you need to know about being a Gemini

Cancer

June 22 to July 23

We all need to be flexible, but how far are you turning yourself inside out to fit into a situation where you are unsure of your purpose? Rather than think through the lens of success, status, earnings, or even convention, the Sun asks you now, as he challenges your ruler, the Moon, to consider what works best at a personal and deeper, more feeling level.

Head here for everything you need to know about being a Cancer

Leo

July 24 to August 23

You can find your imagination is particularly vivid today. If you enjoy watching movies, you can pledge to see a new release or a comforting, well-loved classic. In fact, anything that helps you trip the light fantastic while also enjoying some full-on escapism can be perfect just now. When it comes to travel plans or paperwork, though, do double-check details.

Head here for everything you need to know about being a Leo

Virgo

August 24 to September 23

A commitment or involvement that has been important to you could reach a tender juncture today. If you feel it is evolving and growing, you’ll likely be in the mood to immerse yourself ever more deeply. If, however, you feel unsure, something may need to dissolve. Equally, this could mean releasing an attachment to something that is no longer healthy.

Head here for everything you need to know about being a Virgo

Libra

September 24 to October 23

You can be very attentive to others, and that part of your nature can come up with today’s Full Moon. However, recent years have taught you that you also need to be mindful of your boundaries. Where they are respected, you can be happy to assist. Where that is unclear, stay clear. Exactly this dynamic can show up over the next two weeks.

Head here for everything you need to know about being a Libra

Scorpio

October 24 to November 22

Full Moons, like today’s, can create a lot of intensity. So many cycles in our lives are impacted by this luminary, not least sleep, moods and emotions. Look to nurture your needs in this way over the next fortnight. Do, though be sure to attend to everyday details and obligations you have. In your world of work, concentration can prove harder; so, do stay watchful.

Head here for everything you need to know about being a Scorpio

Sagittarius

November 23 to December 21

Ask yourself a big question today, Sagittarius: are your long-term aims still in alignment with your developing interests and talents, as much as they were? If things have drifted and you are maintaining a direction of travel that no longer inspires you, then today is the time to seriously ponder how to redirect your energies in a way that is fulfilling and apt.

Head here for everything you need to know about being a Sagittarius

Capricorn

December 22 to January 21

You are well known and respected for your ability to chisel away at life, even when it might not offer the most glittering immediate prizes. What you appreciate is that, over the long term, the application yields solid, lasting results. However, you may now question whether it is your personal and emotional life that requires most of your attention

Head here for everything you need to know about being a Capricorn

Aquarius

January 22 to February 19

Even if there is something delicate that needs to be discussed, as long as you have a clear idea of what you want to say, and why, all will be well. However, the crucial bit is having that clarity. And frankly, today, and for the next week or so, things could seem hazier. The good news is Pluto in your sign helps you to dive deep to decipher the signals.

Head here for everything you need to know about being an Aquarius

Pisces

February 20 to March 20

If you need to discuss your personal or shared finances today, write down exactly what’s what. Even if you pride yourself on being sharp with numbers and your budget, if you are interacting with someone else, having a crib sheet can prove really helpful, as today’s Lunation can create a hazy vibe which may prove hard to slice through for us all.

Head here for everything you need to know about being a Pisces

Your daily Metro.co.uk horoscope is here every morning, seven days a week (yes, including weekends!). To check your forecast, head to our dedicated horoscopes page.

Head here for this week’s tarot horoscope reading, and see what the cards have in store for you!

Check out the tarot horoscope reading for the month of September here.

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By TARA RUSSELL

Published: 22:05 BST, 25 September 2026 | Updated: 23:29 BST, 25 September 2026

The BBC has upheld complaints about comedian Katherine Ryan linking an obscene term to Victoria Beckham on Have I Got News For You.

Viewers complained after Ms Ryan seemingly referred to the fashion designer as a c-word.

An internal investigation into the episode of the satirical show in November 2025 came after two viewers said the remark was ‘gratuitously offensive’.

On the programme, which was hosted by Ms Ryan, 43, the segment discussed David Beckham allegedly using the word in an email to his publicist where he expressed outrage at missing out on a knighthood in 2013 (he has since been knighted). He apparently referred to the honours committee as ‘a bunch of cs’.

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The BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) ruled that panellist Maisie Adam’s use of the word ‘c’ was justified as it referred to Sir David’s own alleged use of the term. 

However the ECU ruling concluded that there was no editorial justification for Ms Ryan’s subsequent joke about his wife.

The BBC has upheld complaints about comedian Katherine Ryan linking an obscene term to Victoria Beckham on Have I Got News For You

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Ms Ryan said in the recording: ‘I don’t know that we are allowed to broadcast the c-word, but you did reference Victoria Beckham earlier and we’ll allow that.’

In its ruling, the ECU said: ‘There was no such justification for a comment which presented Victoria Beckham as equivalent to a particularly offensive word.’

Ms Ryan has since posted a video to her social media in response, blaming the incident on her being the mother of a newborn. 

She said: ‘At that time, though there is no defence, I was suffering from a condition called matrescence. I was in that building with a ten-day-old baby. Should I have left the house?

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‘This is gonna be a tough one for the feminists because I was a woman going to work but I did call another woman a c. Sometimes I forget that celebrities are not my friends. If I had called Jimmy Carr a c, he wouldn’t have minded.

‘But this was described by the BBC as a slur, as though c are part of a protected group.

‘If you watched it on the day, it was clearly a joke and the whole audience went [gasp] and then I said, ‘Woah, I love her’.’

She also shared a screenshot of a message she sent to Lady Beckham after ‘to make it clear it was a stupid joke and I didn’t mean any harm towards you at all’.

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Join the discussion

Did Katherine Ryan’s joke about Victoria Beckham cross the line, or was the reaction over the top?

Viewers complained after Ms Ryan seemingly referred to the fashion designer as a c-word