Oil price drops below $90 a barrel after Iran says strait of Hormuz is open

Oil and gas prices fell sharply on Friday after Iran said the strait of Hormuz was open to commercial shipping, potentially clearing the way for tankers holding millions of barrels of oil and gas to reach the global market.Iran’s foreign minister said vessels would be free to transit the strait of Hormuz for the duration of the 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, which was struck on Thursday.Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell more than 10% to $88.8 a barrel. That is well below a peak of $119 last month, but still much higher than the $72 before the war

Oil tumbles 10% and stock markets rally as Iran declares strait of Hormuz ‘completely open’ – as it happened

The oil price is tumbling, after Iran announced that the strait of Hormuz is now open.Crude oil has plunged by 10% on hopes that energy supplies could resume after weeks of disruption.Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, posted on social media that the waterway is ‘completely open’, following the ceasefire agreed between Israel and Lebanon overnight.double quotation markIn line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire.Araghchi added that vessels must travel on the “coordinated route” previously announced by Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organisation

Finance leaders warn over Mythos as UK banks prepare to use powerful Anthropic AI tool

British banks will be given access in the next week to a powerful AI tool that was deemed too dangerous to be released to the public, as a series of senior finance figures warned over its impact.Anthropic, which has so far limited the release of the new model to a small clutch of primarily US businesses, including Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, said it would expand that to UK financial institutions.“That is in the very near term, in the next week,” Pip White, Anthropic’s head of UK, Ireland and northern Europe operations, said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “As you would expect, the engagement I have had from UK CEOs in the last week has been significant.”Anthropic, which is the company behind the Claude family of AI tools, has said that its latest model, Mythos, poses an unprecedented risk because of its ability to expose flaws in IT systems

US tech firms successfully lobbied EU to keep datacentre emissions secret

Microsoft and other US tech companies successfully lobbied the EU to hide the environmental toll of their datacentres, an investigation has found, with demands to block a database of green metrics from public view written almost word for word into EU rules.The secrecy provision, which the European Commission added to its proposal almost verbatim after industry lobbying in 2024, hinders scrutiny of the pollution that individual datacentres emit. It leaves researchers with just national-level summaries of their energy footprints.The rise of AI chatbots has spurred a boom in the construction of chip-filled warehouses with a hunger for power that is being met, in part, by burning fossil gas. Legal scholars warn the blanket confidentiality clause may fall foul of EU transparency rules and the Aarhus convention on public access to environmental information

O’Sullivan and Trump no-shows spoil mood before World Snooker Championship

Neither former world champion was at obligatory event as two British prospects look forward to moment in spotlightIf there were any doubt remaining that Ronnie O’Sullivan retains a gravitational pull on the world of snooker, few moments hammered home the point better than Friday’s launch of this year’s World Snooker Championship when the seven-time champion became the story without even being there.The first ball will not be potted in Sheffield until Saturday morning and the first headline has been generated by a player not in action until Tuesday. When the traditional photo of the world’s top 16 took place as usual outside the Crucible on Friday afternoon it did so without two of the sport’s biggest names in O’Sullivan and Judd Trump.Both were a no-show at the press event that the seeded players are contractually obliged to attend, with the reasons for their absence unclear. It could yet lead to disciplinary action from the authorities: not that either will be hit too hard financially

San Diego Padres reportedly set for MLB-record $3.9bn sale to Chelsea co-owner

The San Diego Padres are nearing a sale to a group led by José E Feliciano, co-founder of private equity firm Clearlake Capital and co-owner of Chelsea FC, and his wife, Kwanza Jones, for a Major League Baseball-record $3.9bn, according to multiple reports.The Wall Street Journal and the Athletic reported on Friday that the group was closing in on a deal. The sale requires approval by 75% of MLB’s 30 owners. The reported price would surpass the $2