UK airlines given green light to cancel or consolidate flights to conserve jet fuel

UK airlines will be able to cancel or consolidate flights this summer to conserve jet fuel as the war in the Middle East continues to disrupt supplies.The measures are being taken to avoid major disruption as Britons jet off on their summer holidays. Airlines are looking carefully at their timetables to see which flights can be cancelled in advance and cause the least delays.New legislation would allow for actions such as consolidating schedules on routes where there are multiple flights to the same place on the same day, which could be put in place to stop last-minute cancellations, the government announced on Sunday.The changes will allow airlines to give back a limited proportion of their allocated takeoff and landing slots without losing the right to operate them the following season

Dynamic pay on platforms such as Uber should be banned, says TUC

The practice of using “dynamic pricing” to set pay on gig economy platforms including Uber should be banned because it leaves workers at the mercy of shadowy algorithms with no certainty over their earnings, trade union leaders have urged.In a report exposing the human cost of the gig economy practice, the Trades Union Congress said pay was becoming decoupled from time, skill or effort. Instead, work had become a speculative practice with the rewards determined by an algorithmic process with little transparency.Under dynamic pricing, computer-driven algorithms set variable prices on a gig economy platform for customers and rates of commission for workers to match real-time supply and demand in a market.However, union leaders say the practice replaces fixed rates or transparent tariffs with opaque, constantly shifting pricing mechanisms, where the data used to determine the rewards and decision-making process are largely obscured

How does live facial recognition work and how many UK police forces use it?

The Labour government thinks facial recognition technology is “the biggest breakthrough for catching criminals since DNA matching”. It wants all police forces to use it and recently announced 40 new vans rigged with live facial recognition cameras to be deployed in town centres across England and Wales.Supporters say it streamlines police work and catches criminals. Opponents fear it violates civil liberties and can be biased against minorities.The simplest systems check faces captured on CCTV, mobile phones, dashcams, social media and doorbell cameras against mugshots held on the police national database

UK ‘invention agency’ grants £50m of public money to US tech and venture capital firms

Britain’s “invention agency” has pledged £50m of UK taxpayer money to US tech companies and venture capital projects.Dreamed up by Dominic Cummings to fund “crazy” ideas, the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) is meant to “restore Britain’s place as a scientific superpower”.But a joint investigation by the Guardian and Democracy for Sale, an investigative website, has established that more than an eighth of the agency’s £400m in research and development funding over the past two years has gone to 14 US tech companies and venture capital groups, in some cases, with no clear return for the UK or Aria.One of these companies, Rain Neuromorphics, is also backed by the OpenAI chief executive, Sam Altman, and was reported to be near collapse last year, shortly after winning Aria money. It did not respond to a request for comment; two of its founders appear to have left the company

Leading tennis players including Djokovic and Sabalenka unhappy with French Open prize money

A group of the world’s top 20 male and female players, including Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff, have released a joint statement expressing their disappointment at the level of prize money on offer at the French Open later this month.The top players have been in dispute with all four grand slams for more than a year, as they feel they are given an insufficient share of each tournament’s increasing revenues, while they are also calling for enhanced welfare and pension provisions and a greater say in determining the schedule.The French Open last month announced a 9.5% increase in the prize money at Roland Garros to €61.7m (£52

Kimi Antonelli is Italian ‘superstar’ like Jannik Sinner, says Mercedes’ Toto Wolff

The Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, has praised the victory by his driver Kimi Antonelli at the Miami Grand Prix as his best yet and said that the 19-year-old’s astounding start to the season has put him in the same category as the Italian superstar tennis player and Wimbledon champion, Jannik Sinner.Antonelli won in Florida after a tight battle with the McLaren of Lando Norris who chased him to the flag but could not get past. The victory is his third in a row and ensures the Italian now leads the world championship from his Mercedes teammate, George Russell, by 20 points, in only his second season in F1.Wolff was relishing having such a young charger with so much potential in the Mercedes stable. “It seems like a lot of the speed has always been there, everything is chipping away at the finer details,” he said