In the headlines
Three men have been arrested in connection with the shooting of a top Northern Ireland policeman in Omagh last night, which investigators think may have been a targeted attack by dissident republicans. Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell is in a critical but stable condition in hospital. Thousands of asylum seekers will have their applications fast-tracked under new plans to deal with the 166,000-person waiting list. About 12,000 claimants, all from war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Syria, will be assessed via a 10-page questionnaire rather than an interview. Robots will cut time wasted on household chores by 39% “within a decade”, according to researchers in Britain and Japan, by fully automating everyday tasks like ordering groceries and feeding pets. “If robots will take our jobs”, say the tech boffins, they can at least “also take out the trash for us”.