Technology funded by the Welsh Government is helping Welsh speakers at risk of losing their voice due to medical reasons such as Motor Neurone Disease or throat cancer to continue to communicate in Welsh.
The Lleisiwr programme allows people to bank their voice and creates a personal synthetic voice for them.
The programme is funded through the Welsh language technology action and was developed by Canolfan Bedwyr in Bangor University.

Wednesday's budget announcement included £20.4 billion of funding for research and development for the next year.
The money will fully fund the UK’s association with Horizon Europe, providing scientists and innovators access to the world’s largest collaborative funding scheme, with over £80 billion available for cutting-edge projects under the EU scheme.
At the same time, DSIT’s R&D budget has increased to £13.9 billion, and core research funding has also been increased to a record £6.1 billion.

Leeds City Council has partnered with charge point operator Believ to rollout a series of EV charge points across the district.

David Goldstone has been appointed chair of the Office for Value for Money.
In his new role, Goldstone will advise the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Chief Secretary to the Treasury on decisions for the multi-year Spending Review

The Chancellor has delivered Labour’s first budget in 14 years.
Rachel Reeves has promised to rebuild Britain and fix the economy.
The Budget aims to fix the NHS and rebuild Britain, while at the same time, ensuring that working people don’t pay higher taxes from their payslips.
It is hoped that the plans outlined in the budget will boost public investment by over £100 billion over the next five years.
As promised there is no increase in National Insurance, VAT, or Income Tax on working people.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has convened an emergency roundtable with the minister for homelessness and rough sleeping, Rushanara Ali MP, boroughs and leaders from the NHS, local government, homelessness charities and former rough sleepers to officially launch a call for evidence that will inform his plan of action on rough sleeping in London.
The plan of action, which is due to be launched next year aims to establish a shared mission for ending rough sleeping, including the scale of funding required and the best mechanisms for achieving this ambition by 2030.

The UK and Scottish Governments have joined forces to improve the planning process for new clean energy infrastructure in Scotland.
A consultation has been launched on proposed changes which are planned to make the system for considering large energy projects in Scotland more efficient, while also ensuring that affected communities can have their say on proposals at the right time in the process.

The Regulator of Social Housing has published statistics about the social housing sector, which include stock ownership and rents as of 31 March 2024.
The data shows that the sector provides around 4.5 million homes across England, with a net increase of nearly 43,000 social homes since 2023.
There are approximately 24,800 more Affordable Rent homes and 17,300 more low cost home ownership homes. There was also an increase of 700 social rent homes.

The government has announced an investment of £1 billion to cap bus fares at £3.
Under plans made by the previous government, funding for the current bus fare cap was due to expire at the end of 2024. Previously fares were capped at £2.
It is hoped the cap will keep bus travel affordable while ensuring the cap is fair to taxpayers.
According to the government no bus fare will exceed £3 and routes where fares are less than £3 will only be allowed to increase by inflation in the normal way.