Dow Jones Industrial Average posts best day since early February as hopes of Middle East de-escalation lift markets – as it happened

Wall Street has joined the global relief rally after Donald Trump postponed attacks on Iran’s power plants, sending a surge of optimism though trading floors.In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average has jumped by 2% or 928 points to 46,505 points.Construction equipment firm Caterpillar (+4.4%), manufacturing conglomerate 3M (+3.7%) and DIY chain Home Depot (+3

The UK sleepwalked into this energy price shock | Nils Pratley

“Because of the choices we made before the conflict in the Middle East began, we are better prepared for a more volatile world”, the chief secretary to the Treasury, James Murray, claimed last week. That statement – surprise, surprise – failed to calm the bond vigilantes who had pushed the yield on 10-year government debt to a punishing 5% before Monday’s modest retreat.Murray seemed to be referring to tax increases and the chancellor’s decision to shift £150 of green levies from energy bills into general taxation. Count those if you wish but, come on, they are minor entries. The UK’s vulnerability to energy price shocks flows from bigger forces, such as our large and growing dependency on imports

MPs urge UK government to halt contract giving Palantir FCA data access

MPs have urged the government to halt its latest contract with Palantir after the Guardian revealed that the US spy-tech company is to gain access to a trove of highly sensitive UK financial regulation data.The Financial Conduct Authority, the watchdog for thousands of financial bodies from banks to hedge funds, has hired Palantir to apply its AI systems to two years’ worth of internal intelligence data to help it tackle financial crime.But the Liberal Democrats on Monday called for a government investigation into the contract, which the party said could be “a huge error of judgment”, while the Green party said it should be blocked over Palantir’s links to Donald Trump.Questioned on whether the UK was becoming “dangerously overreliant” on US tech companies including Palantir, Keir Starmer told parliament he would prefer to have more domestic capability but added: “I don’t think we’re overreliant.”Palantir was founded by the Trump-backing billionaire Peter Thiel and it supports the US and Israeli militaries and the ICE immigration crackdown

AI boom risks widening wealth divide, says BlackRock’s Larry Fink

The boom in artificial intelligence risks widening inequality, with only a handful of companies and investors likely to reap its financial rewards, the BlackRock chief executive, Larry Fink, has said.The boss of the $14tn (£10.4tn) asset manager used his annual letter to investors on Monday to highlight potential hazards around the exponential growth in AI, which has attracted rapid investment and become, he said, “central to strategic competition” between global powers such as the US and China.“The massive wealth created over the past several generations flowed mostly to people who already owned financial assets,” Fink said. “And now AI threatens to repeat that pattern at an even larger scale

Victoria Mboko and Mirra Andreeva lead new generation of friendly rivals

Victoria Mboko and Mirra Andreeva, the two highest-ranked teenagers in the world, prepared for their marquee Miami Open fourth-round match in an unusual manner. Aside from being the two protagonists of the freshest rivalry in women’s tennis, they are also great friends, and so they spent the afternoon before their big match against each other competing on the same side of the net in doubles.This was an opportunity to giggle, relax and enjoy themselves on one of the smaller courts in Miami, but Mboko and Andreeva are ranked No 9 and No 10 in the world for a reason. Two fiercely competitive beings determined to win every time on the court, they fought desperately and emerged with an impressive result. After trailing 0-5 against the eighth seeds, Demi Schuurs and Ellen Perez, in the opening set and facing eight set points scattered across the set, they somehow emerged from the match with a straight-sets win

ECB has taken a risk keeping McCullum and Key – who must now placate the public | Ali Martin

Having endorsed Brendon McCullum’s continuation as men’s head coach after an Ashes defeat riddled with self‑owns and kept Rob Key above him as team director, the England and Wales Cricket Board could in one sense be viewed as having taken the path of least resistance.McCullum’s contract runs to the end of 2027 and it would cost a pretty penny to cut him loose. The players enjoy the pair’s methods and tend to call the shots in the modern era. There may not be an all-format candidate for head coach out there. Besides, look over there: the Hundred returns in July, ready to overload your eyeballs with multicoloured content