MPs announce inquiry into work of Office for Budget Responsibility

MPs have launched an inquiry into the role and performance of the Office for Budget Responsibility.The all-party Commons Treasury committee will spend until the end of next month investigating the independent agency’s forecasting performance and impartiality. The panel will consider whether reforms are needed 15 years after the OBR was set up by George Osborne when he was Tory chancellor.MPs on the committee are understood to be concerned after a row broke out between the OBR and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, over budget briefings.Richard Hughes, the OBR’s then boss, complained to senior Treasury officials in the run-up to the budget about a flurry of leaks he said had spread “misconceptions” about the agency’s forecasts

Drax plans to convert part of its North Yorkshire power plant into datacentre

Drax has revealed plans to convert part of its power plant in North Yorkshire into a datacentre as soon as 2027 in response to the increase in demand for AI capability.The FTSE 250 company behind Britain’s biggest power plant told investors on Thursday that it had applied for planning permission to build a 100-megawatt datacentre at its site near Selby.The centre is expected to use the land, cooling systems and transformers that were once dedicated to the power plant’s coal generation before Drax converted its generators to burn imported wood pellets.The first datacentre to be built on its site will draw electricity from the UK’s national electricity grid, but in future there could be potential to use electricity from the Drax plant.The company set out the plans to safeguard demand for its electricity in its latest trading update, weeks after the government signalled that it would curb the amount of electricity it would subsidise from 2026

Elon Musk teams with El Salvador to bring Grok chatbot to public schools

Elon Musk is partnering with the government of El Salvador to bring his artificial intelligence company’s chatbot, Grok, to more than 1 million students across the country, according to a Thursday announcement by xAI. Over the next two years, the plan is to “deploy” the chatbot to more than 5,000 public schools in an “AI-powered education program”.xAI’s Grok is more known for referring to itself as “MechaHitler” and espousing far-right conspiracy theories than it is for public education. Over the past year, the chatbot has spewed various antisemitic content, decried “white genocide” and claimed Donald Trump won the 2020 election.Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s president, is now entrusting the chatbot to create curricula in classrooms across the country

Disney wants you to AI-generate yourself into your favorite Marvel movie

Users of OpenAI’s video generation app will soon be able to see their own faces alongside characters from Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars and Disney’s animated films, according to a joint announcement from the startup and Disney on Thursday. Perhaps you, Lightning McQueen and Iron Man are all dancing together in the Mos Eisley Cantina.Sora is an app made by OpenAI, the firm behind ChatGPT, which allows users to generate videos of up to 20 seconds through short text prompts. The startup previously attempted to steer Sora’s output away from unlicensed copyrighted material, though with little success, which prompted threats of lawsuits by rights holders.Disney announced that it would invest $1bn in OpenAI and, under a three-year deal perhaps worth even more than that large sum, that it would license about 200 of its iconic characters – from R2-D2 to Stitch – for users to play with in OpenAI’s video generation app

Littler lights up Ally Pally opening night as prize money raises stakes

The PDC world darts championship is back, but could the new £1m winners’ cheque make this show too big?A team of assistant referees walks into the Twelve Pins in Finsbury Park carrying linesmen’s flags and whistles. It’s 3pm on a Thursday, you think, they’ve probably just been reffing a local game. Then, you think, there isn’t a football pitch around here. And why haven’t they changed and showered? Then more referees walk in, more linesmen, one of them in a comedy wig. And eventually the penny drops

Leinster’s Leo Cullen will use lessons learned at Leicester in bid to tame Tigers

Leicester v Leinster fixtures have become common recently – the fifth since 2022 takes place on Friday night – but the history between the sides runs far deeper. Leo Cullen, head coach of the Dublin-based province, spent a couple of seasons at Welford Road in the mid-2000s, winning the Premiership in 2006-07 and losing a Heineken Cup final against Wasps in the same season.Since 2022 the former second‑row has overseen four Champions Cup victories against his former club, including two in 2023-24. Three and a half years ago, there was a masterful quarter-final dismantling of what was then Steve Borthwick’s side. Leinster will now shoot for a hat-trick of Welford Road victories this decade, and the presence of the New Zealand international Rieko Ioane, on full debut, is sure to help