Ian Arnot obituary

My friend and former colleague Ian Arnot, who has died of cancer aged 45, was an LQBTQ+ activist, charity leader and fellow of the Chartered Institute of PR (CIPR). He was also a longstanding non-executive director in the charitable sector in Edinburgh, and served as BT’s head of corporate communications from 2020 to 2025.Ian became well known in media and political circles in Scotland and London during his 24-year career with BT Group. He was appointed a chartered fellow of CIPR in 2023, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the institute and the profession, and was elected vice-chair of CIPR Scotland in 2025. He was about to start a new role with the IHG hotel group at the time of his terminal diagnosis, which he bore with typical resilience, courage and hope

Iran war pushes oil price above $90 threatening rise in global inflation

The Iran conflict has driven the oil price past $90 a barrel to its highest weekly gains since the Covid-19 pandemic six years ago, threatening a fresh rise in global inflation.Reports that Kuwait had begun cutting production of oil at some fields after running out of space to store it drove the cost of a barrel of Brent crude to as high as $91.89 at one point on Friday – its highest since April 2024 and up from about $72.50 just before war broke out.The price of the international benchmark has surged by more than 25% since the US-Israel attack on Iran last weekend, its biggest weekly jump since the week to 3 April 2020

The Guardian view on AI in war: the Iran conflict shows that the paradigm shift has already begun

“Never in the future will we move as slow as we are moving now,” the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, warned this week, addressing the urgent need to shape the use of artificial intelligence. The speed of technological development – as well as geopolitical turbulence – is collapsing the distinction between theoretical arguments and real world events. A political row over the US military’s AI capabilities coincides with its unprecedented use in the Iran crisis.The AI company Anthropic insisted that it could not remove safeguards preventing the Department of Defense from using its technology for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons. The Pentagon said it had no interest in such uses – but that such decisions should not be made by companies

Ben Affleck sells his AI postproduction startup to Netflix

Ben Affleck has sold his artificial intelligence company to Netflix in a surprise deal, saying he had been driven to embrace a technology that had initially “really scared” him.Netflix has acquired the postproduction startup InterPositive from the Oscar-winning actor, director, producer and screenwriter for an undisclosed sum.Affleck had kept InterPositive below the radar and had previously played down AI’s creative abilities. This year, he told the podcaster Joe Rogan he did not think the technology would be able to “write anything meaningful” or make films “from whole cloth”.However, in a video announcing the transaction, the Good Will Hunting and Gone Girl actor said he had moved from being scared of AI’s potential impact when he first encountered the technology to viewing it as a “really meaningful innovation”

Ireland v Wales: Six Nations rugby union – live

Brendan Fanning has been assessing Wales’s chances in this here fixtureGet in touch, why don’t you?I look forward to receiving your views on the action and more besides on the email. Keep them coming.Team news.Andy Farrell makes five changes to the team that humped England. In the backs, Jacob Stockdale comes in on the wing for the injured James Lowe

‘I believe I can do it’: George Russell favourite for F1 title as new era begins

With the long and increasingly febrile buildup almost at an end, Formula One is finally ready to go racing into the sport’s new era. Whether it will prove a success is one of many questions that will be answered at the season-opener in Melbourne this weekend, as will the most pressing concern: which team and driver enter this brave new world on top of the pile?In the paddock at Albert Park this week, teams and drivers increasingly had an air of the stony-faced stare-down of a cold war summit amid caginess about their prospects. No one wanted to give anything away nor make predictions.None of which has done anything to temper the palpable sense of excitement and anticipation in Melbourne, where the city is abuzz in the Victoria sunshine as fans flock to Albert Park. The genteel signs encouraging players to replace their divots on the park’s golf course, across which one of the many huge, vibrant fan areas sits, are dwarfed by huge banners of drivers, stages with bands and DJs around which fans congregate to eat and drink