UK house prices rise in February as chancellor avoids ‘negative speculation’

House prices in the UK increased in February, avoiding a repeat of the “negative speculation” that depressed the market before last November’s budget, as Rachel Reeves prepares to present the spring forecast on Tuesday.The average price of a home rose to £273,176 last month, up by 0.3% from the month before, according to Nationwide, the UK’s biggest building society. It matched January’s monthly increase, and was above analysts’ forecasts of a 0.2% gain

What to do if your flight was cancelled due to the US-Israel war on Iran

Hundreds of thousands of passengers have been left stranded after the US-Israeli attack on Iran. Retaliatory strikes by Iran have led to airspace being closed across the Gulf and triggered the biggest disruption to global air travel since the Covid pandemic. If you are a UK holidaymaker struggling to get home or are booked to fly to an affected destination, here is a guide to your rights.Israel, Syria, Qatar, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain have shut their airspace and there are no flights over the United Arab Emirates.Emirates, the word’s largest international carrier, has suspended all flights to and from Dubai

OpenAI to work with Pentagon after Anthropic dropped by Trump over company’s ethics concerns

OpenAI said it had struck a deal with the Pentagon to supply AI to classified US military networks, hours after Donald Trump ordered the government to stop using the services of one of the company’s main competitors.Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, announced the move on Friday night. It came after an agreement between Anthropic, a rival AI company that runs the Claude system, and the Trump administration broke down after Anthropic sought assurances its technology would not be used for mass surveillance – nor for autonomous weapons systems that can kill people without human input.Announcing the deal, Altman insisted that OpenAI’s agreement with the government included assurances that it would not be used to those ends.“Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems,” Altman wrote on X

Suicide forum found to be in breach of Online Safety Act after failing to block UK users

A suicide forum linked to deaths in Britain has been ruled provisionally in breach of the Online Safety Act after it failed to properly block access to UK users when ordered to do so last year.Ofcom, the online regulator, said it could now apply to the courts to demand internet service providers block access to the site in the UK. This will depend on how the site, which also faces fines, responds over the next 10 days.Coroners had been raising concerns about the links between the forum and suicides in the UK since at least 2019, campaigners said. The family of 17-year-old Vlad Nikolin-Caisley, from Southampton, said he took his own life in 2024 after using the site, which Ofcom is not naming

Is 14 the magic number? Promoted trio make instant Super League impact

When the Super League fixtures were released late last year, it was hard not to be drawn to this weekend. Clearly the headline attraction was Leeds Rhinos and Hull KR squaring off in Las Vegas but there was also another game that carried immense intrigue.Super League’s decision last year to expand to 14 teams was met with scepticism, to say the least. The general feeling was that there simply was not enough quality in the Championship, and with Salford Red Devils going into liquidation due to financial problems, the notion of three second‑tier teams coming up at once did not exactly scream of excitement.Which is what made this first meeting between two of those sides one to watch

Andrew Dillon reveals AFL’s Olympic-sized ambitions for Brisbane 2032

On the eve of the 2026 season, the AFL boss, Andrew Dillon, has hinted at Olympic-sized plans for the AFL while emphasising Origin and Opening Round are here to stay.Dillon was in Sydney on Monday to promote the Opening Round which includes home games for all four NSW and Queensland clubs and just one match in Victoria, a format which he says has resulted in bumper crowds for round one.“What we’ve found in the last couple of years is that focus on NSW and Queensland is helping to grow awareness in NSW and Queensland and at the same time it hasn’t taken away from our round one,” Dillon said“The last two round ones have been the two highest attended rounds we’ve ever had of over 400,000 – last year 451,000 people attended, a record for round one.”But looking slightly beyond the impending season, Dillon revealed he has grand ambitions for getting Australian rules football on to the Brisbane 2032 Olympics stage.The AFL chief said he had spoken “at a high level” about bringing Australian rules to the Olympics with Brisbane 2032 boss, Andrew Liveris