Spring forecast: Rachel Reeves to insist government has ‘right economic plan’, as Middle East crisis threatens inflation spike – live updates

Good morning.“Events, dear boy, events”. Rachel Reeves may have the (probably apocryphal, oft-quoted) wisdom of Harold Macmillan in mind today, as she responds to the latest official assessment of the UK economy.The Office for Budget Responsibility’s new Spring Forecast could, in happier times, have brought the chancellor good news this afternoon.Economists predict they will show that the UK is still keeping within the OBR’s fiscal forecasts – helped by a record budget surplus in January – and that inflation is heading down towards target

US markets see-saw as investors keep close eye on Iran war

US stocks see-sawed on Monday as investors tried to keep abreast of the news on the first day of trading since the US and Israel attacks on Iran began.After dipping down over 1% across the board, the major indexes recovered most of their losses even after global markets saw heftier drops earlier in the day. At Monday’s closing, the Dow was down 0.15%, while the S&P 500 was 0.04% up

Iran war heralds era of AI-powered bombing quicker than ‘speed of thought’

The use of AI tools to enable attacks on Iran heralds a new era of bombing quicker than “the speed of thought”, experts have said, amid fears human ­decision-makers could be sidelined.Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, was reportedly used by the US military in the barrage of strikes as the technology “shortens the kill chain” – meaning the process of target identification through to legal approval and strike launch.The US and Israel, which previously used AI to identify targets in Gaza, launched almost 900 strikes on Iranian targets in the first 12 hours alone, during which Israeli missiles killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Academics studying the field say AI is collapsing the planning time required for complex strikes – a phenomenon known as “decision compression”, which some fear could result in human military and legal experts merely rubber-stamping automated strike plans.In 2024 the San Francisco-based Anthropic deployed its model across the US Department of War and other national security agencies to speed up war planning

Anthropic’s AI model Claude gets popularity boost after US military feud

The AI model Claude has surged in popularity after being blacklisted by the Pentagon last week over ethics concerns.Claude climbed to the No 1 spot on Apple’s chart of top free apps on Saturday in the US – dethroning OpenAI’s ChatGPT, just one day after the Pentagon tapped OpenAI to supply AI to classified military networks. The bot’s app climbed the iPhone app charts in the UK but did not beat out ChatGPT. Claude also raced up the Android charts in the US and UK, though ChatGPT reigned supreme, according to data from Sensor Tower.Claude and other apps by the startup Anthropic suffered outages early Monday amid what the company described as “unprecedented demand for Claude” over the last week

Luke Kornet says Atlanta Hawks’ theme night with strip club Magic City objectifies women

San Antonio Spurs center Luke Kornet has called on the Atlanta Hawks to abandon their collaboration with a famous strip club.Magic City is an Atlanta institution and been mentioned in a string of hip-hop records, as well as hosting rappers such as Drake, Lil Yachty, Migos, Jack Harlow and Future. It is also popular with athletes: past visitors have included Michael Jordan, while MLS’s Atlanta United celebrated their title at the club in 2018. The club gained widespread attention in 2020 when the Los Angeles Clippers’ Lou Williams visited the club after leaving the NBA’s quarantine bubble during the Covid pandemic.The Hawks recently announced a theme night with Magic City for their game against Orlando Magic on 16 March

Hilary Knight won Olympic ice hockey gold with torn MCL: ‘I’m not walking around the best’

Hilary Knight revealed on Monday that she led the US women’s ice hockey team to gold at last month’s Olympics while suffering from a torn medial collateral ligament (MCL) in one of her knees.“I’m not walking around the best, and I’m missing a few games for the [PWHL’s] Seattle Torrent,” Knight said on CBS Mornings. “To be able to play through injury was definitely a mental sort of gymnastic challenge for myself and also physical, but we’ve got some amazing support staff that did their best to get me out there and perform at my best – as best as I could.”The 36-year-old tied the final against Canada with just over two minutes left in regulation before Megan Keller’s goal clinched gold for the US in overtime. Knight, teammate Kendall Coyne Schofield and Canada’s Erin Ambrose were all put on long-term injured reserve by their respective PWHL teams when they returned from Milan