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Claude Mythos's apparent superhuman hacking abilities are alarming experts as the Trump administration remains blinded by hostilityIn June 2024, a cyber-attack on a pathology services company caused chaos across London's hospitals. More than 10,000 appointments were cancelled. Blood shortages followed and delays to blood tests led to a patient's death.Lethal cyber-attacks like this are thankfully rare. But a new AI release could change that – plunging us into a terrifying new world of chaos and disruption to the digital systems that we rely on.Shakeel Hashim is the editor of Transformer, a publication about the power and politics of transformative AI Continue reading......

Credit can be used to offset future bills as full-year losses at UK division widen to £41.3m and it adds 92 storesStarbucks's UK retail arm received a £13.7m corporation tax credit last year, even as its sales increased 6% and it added more than 90 stores.The credit, which can be used to offset future tax bills, comes after losses widened to £41.3m in the 12 months to the end of September – almost matching the £40m it paid in royalty and licence fees to its parent company. Continue reading......

Summer flights and holidays may also be at risk, says the Airports Council International European airports have said jet fuel shortages could hit the summer holiday season, if oil supplies do not start to flow through the strait of Hormuz within the next three weeks.Airports Council International (ACI) Europe wrote to Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the EU transport commissioner, saying the bloc is three weeks away from shortages. Continue reading......

Have you been affected by the recent rise in mortgage rates? What will this mean for you?The crisis in the Middle East is also being felt far beyond the region, with the conflict undermining broader business and consumer confidence.One aspect of this has been the impact on the UK mortgage market. Continue reading......

Andy Jassy tells shareholders that long-awaited rival to Elon Musk's Starlink is 'on the verge' of going live Business live – latest updatesAmazon has said its long-awaited satellite internet rival to Elon Musk's Starlink will finally go live in “mid-2026”.The chief executive, Andy Jassy, said in a letter to shareholders that the technology company was “on the verge of launching Amazon Leo” and had secured “revenue commitments from enterprises and governments” for the scheme. Continue reading......

Prices were up 3.3% over the year, adding to the unpredictability that first came with Trump's tariffs US inflation soared in March amid the US-Israel war with Iran, with prices up 0.9% compared to last month and 3.3% over the year, according to new data released Friday.The spike in the consumer price index (CPI), which measures the price of a basket of goods and services, is the largest in nearly two years and the first official measure of how the conflict has impacted US consumer prices, particularly as Iran blocked the strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world's oil and gas would typically pass through. Continue reading......

Labour's deals with private companies will ride roughshod over a wilderness so remote there are no people to defend itYes, the world is getting hotter, and yes, Britain should produce more renewable energy. But what should be the price of that principle?The Cambrian mountains in mid-Wales are the national park that never was. In the 1950s, when the official designations were declared, Wales was awarded Snowdonia, the Pembrokeshire coast and the Brecon Beacons. The Cambrians were larger and grander than the Beacons, but less accessible and therefore less important. Three parks were thought enough for Wales.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading......

Trump's missile-rattling isn't helping anyone. At least that makes it easier to explain the world to my kidWere you bullied as a child? If so, congratulations. You are probably pretty interesting, or maybe you have an extreme body odor problem. Either way, you were noticeable enough to warrant being picked on by someone with extreme self-loathing or an even worse body odor problem. That's the nature of bullying, though. The fact that you're a target at all is a sign that something about you is remarkable. Total feckless duds don't get bullied; they fade into the background, then become Democratic senators.The aim of the bully is to bring down someone they're threatened by, to assert their dominance over a person who reflects their insecurities back on them so that they might feel more powerful while applying a vicious wedgie. I wasn't bullied so much as teased verbally for being eccentric, biracial, vegetarian and not particularly tough. I also had a lisp thanks to having a gap in my front teeth fo...

Designer said to be considering options for his 40% stake in fashion house ahead of negotiations with bank lendersStefano Gabbana left his post as chair of Dolce & Gabbana at the start of this year, the design house he co-founded with his then partner, Domenico Dolce, in 1985 has said.The Italian luxury fashion house said Gabbana had tendered his resignation, effective as of 1 January, “as part of a natural evolution of its organisational structure and governance”. Continue reading......

Residents of Fleetwood say continuous foul smell from Transwaste site is making life hell and making them sickIn the week that many families took to the coast for the fresh sea air or the tang of fish and chips, visitors to one Lancashire resort inhaled a rather more unpleasant aroma.“Welcome to Fleetwood,” read the local newspaper headline. “The town that smells of bin juice.” Continue reading......

We should not be at the mercy of events abroad. That's why, from energy to defence to key social policies, we aim to remake our countryIsrael's attacks on Lebanon should not be happening, says Keir StarmerBritain has been buffeted by crises for nearly two decades now. And from the 2008 financial crash, through austerity, to Brexit, Covid, the Ukraine war and Liz Truss, the response from Westminster has always been the same. Manage the crisis, find a sticking plaster and then desperately try to reassert the status quo.This time, it will be different. The war in Iran must now become a line in the sand, because how we emerge from this crisis will define all of us for a generation. And instead of hoping to return to the world of 2008, we will forge a new path for Britain – one that strengthens our energy, our defence and our economic security in a new age. Because the reality is the world has changed: no longer do we live in the benign conditions found during the early part of this century. The world toda...

Reports say Fed chair Jerome Powell among attenders at meeting in Washington The US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, summoned major American bank chiefs to a meeting in Washington this week amid concerns over the cyber risks posed by Anthropic's latest AI model, according to reports.Bosses including the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, were said to have gathered at the Treasury headquarters for the meeting after the release of the Claude Mythos AI model that Anthropic says poses unprecedented cybersecurity risks. Continue reading......

PM appears to draw comparison between Russian and US leaders and calls for plan to restore shipping through strait of HormuzKeir Starmer has said he is “fed up” with the effect that Donald Trump's actions in the Middle East are having on the British public, while appearing to draw a comparison between the US president to Vladimir Putin.Speaking to ITV's Robert Peston on Thursday, the prime minister said: “I'm fed up with the fact that families across the country see their bills go up and down on energy, businesses' bills go up and down on energy because of the actions of Putin or Trump across the world.” Continue reading......

Every organisation needs guardrails that channel them away from human fallibility and collectively minimise the harm they can doFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe joke on the internet asks: “What are the seven most terrifying words in the English language?” The answer: “Ronan Farrow's been asking questions about you.”The investigative journalist has a piece in The New Yorker this week, where the subject of said inquiries is Sam Altman, the billionaire founder and CEO of OpenAI, the company that owns ChatGPT. Continue reading......

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial newsGood morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.There has been another small rise in the oil price this morning, as doubt lingers around the US-Iran ceasefire deal.There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz. That is not the agreement we have!I spoke with Bibi and he's going to low-key it. I just think we have to be sort of a little more low-key.Industries that are more tied to energy as an input, or with intermediate inputs that have a high energy content, are witnessing higher factory gate prices despite soft domestic demand and the ongoing slump in the property sector.Earlier industrial profit data point in the same direction, with energy-intensive and metal industries seei...

Experts warn lapse could sharply reduce reports of abuse, echoing a 58% drop during a similar legal gap in 2021Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxThe European parliament has blocked the extension of a law that permits big tech firms to scan for child sexual exploitation on their platforms, creating a legal gap that child safety experts say will lead to crimes going undetected.The law, which was a carve-out of the EU Privacy Act, was put in place in 2021 as a temporary measure allowing companies to use automated detection technologies to scan messages for harms, including child sexual abuse material (CSAM), grooming and sextortion. However, it expired on 3 April, and the EU parliament decided not to vote to extend it, amid privacy concerns from some lawmakers. Continue reading......

Texas city believes loose rules and low taxes will make the US's biggest banks come running – can it pull it off?As the warm sun rises over the Dallas skyline, SUVs and pickup trucks whiz past an unassuming construction site that is helping cement the city's Texas-sized financial ambitions.Nestled between towers claimed by Bank of America and JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs has cordoned off 800,000 sq ft for a new Dallas campus able to host more than 5,000 staff. But the $700m (£530m) project is more than a regional expansion plan by one of America's largest banks. It is another win for the lobbyists behind Dallas's “Y'all Street” – the Texan city's aggressive push to steal New York's financial crown. Continue reading......

Muse Spark was competitive with models from OpenAI, Google and Anthropic in language, but lagged in codingSign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxMeta on Wednesday unveiled Muse Spark, the first artificial intelligence model from a costly team it assembled last year to catch up with rivals in the AI race.US tech companies are under pressure to prove their huge AI outlays will pay off. The stakes are especially high for Meta after it hired Alex Wang, Scale AI CEO, last year in a $14.3bn deal and offered some engineers pay packages of hundreds of millions of dollars to staff a new “superintelligence” team, an attempt to propel itself back into the AI world's top ranks after a disappointing showing with its Llama 4 models early last year. Superintelligence refers to AI machines that could outthink humans. Muse Spark is the first in a new series of models, known internally as Avocado, from that team. Continue reading......

Ruth Tanner says Labour must cap the number of industrial units and put in place the building blocks for nature-friendly farming The government's intention to relax planning regulations to allow for more industrial chicken units is immensely shortsighted (UK looks to relax planning rules for factory farms after industry lobbying, 2 April).These proposals would effectively commit the UK to business as usual for chicken production, one of the least resilient and most cruel farming systems we have. It also shows a worrying lack of ambition for our upcoming UK food strategy and 25-year farming roadmap. Continue reading......

More is needed to tackle inequality and deprivation in Britain, but the importance of this week's step must be recognisedFairness was what the then chancellor George Osborne said he was aiming at when he introduced the two‑child benefit cap. Each child costs a family more, he argued, and yet only some consider the full costs when family planning. It was an ungenerous take, reducing the complex reasons why people might have larger families to poor choices and welfare incentivisation, and ignoring the impact of events beyond their control, such as illness. If Mr Osborne wanted to change behaviour, he failed: 11 years after the limit for child‑linked benefits was announced, poorer people haven't had fewer children, they have just suffered more. Above all, his policy punished children, who made no decision at all about the number of their siblings.This was the legacy: 350,000 children pushed into poverty and another 700,000 deeper into deprivation. Affected households were more likel...