This is the Guardian.

In Norway, a woman's boyfriend forgets who she is overnight.

In Detroit, a man is arrested, but he was never at the crime scene.

In Spain, disturbing pictures of young girls have appeared, and no one knows who's behind them.

Something strange is happening.

A collision between people and artificial intelligence. Discover more in the Guardian series Black Box, chosen as one of Apple Podcasts' favorites of

2024 so far.

Listen to the whole series right now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi my name's David Wolf and I'm the editor of the Guardian Long Reed. Over August

we're going to be taking a break from our usual podcasting to highlight some of our favorite pieces of the year.

And this week I've chosen they were dying and they'd not had their money,

Britain's multi-billion pound equal pay scandal by Samira Shackle.

So over the past couple of years you might have noticed that city councils in Britain have started going bust.

And in February this year it was reported that nearly 1 in 10 English councils are expected to follow suit in the next year.

The reasons vary from council to council, though there are common threads, not least the years of cuts under the Conservatives.

In this piece, Simirashackle explores this huge national story through a very particular

and surprising lens, the Battle of Care Workers in Glasgow for Equal Pay.

Because at the heart of a number of Council's financial woes is the shocking fact that for decades

they were underpaying female workers, and now, thanks to the legal battle described in the article

they owe a staggering amount of money in compensation.

Birmingham City Council for instance has had to pay out more than 1 billion

pounds to female workers since 2012.

What I like about Samira's piece is that on the surface it's a story about pretty

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