Six greats reads: a train ride to the future; searching for the ‘sky boys’ and wallaby hunting in the English countryside

1. ‘It’s going much too fast’: the inside story of the race to create the ultimate AI

In Silicon Valley, rival companies are spending trillions of dollars to reach a goal that could change humanity – or potentially destroy it. Robert Booth caught a morning train through the San Francisco outskirts to speak to those working at the cutting edge of this multi-trillion-dollar revolution, where some people worry that the push for AI is “all gas, no breaks”.

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2. ‘It was extremely pornographic’: Cara Hunter on the deepfake video that nearly ended her political career

The Irish politician was targeted in 2022, in the final weeks of her run for office. She has never found out who made the malicious deepfake, but knew immediately she had to try to stop this happening to other women. Anna Moore spoke to her for the first part of this powerful new series about the rise of deepfakes and their impact on the women affected by them.

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3. ‘It would take 11 seconds to hit the ground’: the roughneck daredevils who built the Empire State Building

They are some of the most famous images of the world’s most famous building. But who were the men in them? Catherine Slessor spoke to the author Glenn Kurtz, who has made it his mission to identify men like “The Sky Boy” who built the Empire State Building, and were captured in the photographs of Lewis W Hine.

Unlikely to be as historically beloved as the Empire State is JP Morgan’s new midtown neighbour, the new HQ of JP Morgan on Park Avenue, which boasts unusually tall floors and interior wind machine to flutter the stars-and-stripes flag in the lobby. Our architecture critic Oliver Wainwright reports on this “eco obscenity”.

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4. ‘It moved … it was hopping!’ One man’s search for a wild wallaby in the UK

Reports of escaped wallabies are on the rise in Britain, especially in southern England. But how easy is it to spot these strange and charismatic marsupials – and why would a quintessentially Australian creature settle here? Sam Wollaston donned his binoculars to see if he could spot one. And guess what …

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5. ‘I wish I could say I kept my cool’: my maddening experience with the NHS wheelchair service

Last year, Paul Sagar wrote a harrowing account of becoming paralysed in a climbing accident. For the Long Read this week he chronicled his struggles with England’s wheelchair services: “I did not yet know that local wheelchair services are a lottery, in which some of the most vulnerable people in society roll the dice. A lottery in which the taxpayer acts as permanent lender of last resort – while private companies profit.”

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6. ‘The Mamdani effect’: wealthy New Yorkers show renewed interest in Miami’s Billionaire’s Beach

A stretch of prime waterfront real estate in Miami, home to a mix of famous old art deco hotels such as the Delano and Raleigh, is where realtors and developers are beginning to see the first shoots of what they call the “Mamdani effect”: the predicted exodus of wealthy New Yorkers in the wake of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor. Richard Luscombe spoke to the real estate executives who are primed to cash in.

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