Global markets struggle after tech sell-off and fears over Chinese economy

Global markets suffered another day of volatile trading after a tech sell-off that fuelled Wall Street’s worst day in a month and weak economic data from China showed an unprecedented slump in investment.The FTSE 100 fell by 1.1% in London, closing down about 100 points at 9,698, as bellwether banking stocks tumbled. Barclays, Lloyds and NatWest slumped between 2.7% and 3

China voices ‘extreme disappointment’ with Dutch minister at centre of car chip row

The Chinese government has expressed “extreme disappointment” with the Dutch minister at the heart of a row over chip supply to the car industry.A spokesperson for the ministry of commerce was responding to a Guardian interview with Vincent Karremans on Thursday in which the politician described the standoff between China and the European Union as a “wake-up call” for western leaders.The spokesperson said: “China has noted the recent remarks made by Dutch minister of economic affairs Karremans in media interviews. China expresses extreme disappointment and strong dissatisfaction with such remarks that confuse right and wrong, distort facts and persist in a single-minded course.“The profound lesson this semiconductor supply chain crisis has taught the world is that administrative measures should not be used to improperly interfere with corporate operations

Personal details of Tate galleries job applicants leaked online

Personal details submitted by applicants for a job at Tate art galleries have been leaked online, exposing their addresses, salaries and the phone numbers of their referees, the Guardian has learned.The records, running to hundreds of pages, appeared on a website unrelated to the government-sponsored organisation, which operates the Tate Modern and Tate Britain galleries in London, Tate St Ives in Cornwall and Tate Liverpool.The data includes details of applicants’ current employers and education, and relates to the Tate’s hunt for a website developer in October 2023. Information about 111 individuals is included. They are not named but their referees are, sometimes with mobile numbers and personal email addresses

AI firm claims it stopped Chinese state-sponsored cyber-attack campaign

A leading artificial intelligence company claims to have stopped a China-backed “cyber espionage” campaign that was able to infiltrate financial firms and government agencies with almost no human oversight.The US-based Anthropic said its coding tool, Claude Code, was “manipulated” by a Chinese state-sponsored group to attack 30 entities around the world in September, achieving a “handful of successful intrusions”.This was a “significant escalation” from previous AI-enabled attacks it monitored, it wrote in a blogpost on Thursday, because Claude acted largely independently: 80 to 90% of the operations involved in the attack were performed without a human in the loop.“The actor achieved what we believe is the first documented case of a cyber-attack largely executed without human intervention at scale,” it wrote.Anthropic did not clarify which financial institutions and government agencies had been targeted, or what exactly the hackers had achieved – although it did say they were able to access their targets’ internal data

Mark Wood available for Ashes opener after being cleared of hamstring injury

Mark Wood has been cleared to resume his Ashes preparations after a scan on his left hamstring, where he had reported some “stiffness” on Thursday, found no damage.“Following precautionary scans on Friday, England fast bowler Mark Wood has been cleared of any concerns regarding his left hamstring,” the England & Wales Cricket Board said in a statement. “Wood will continue to train as planned in the build-up to the first Test in Perth.”Sign up to The SpinSubscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week’s actionafter newsletter promotionThe 33-year-old is expected to sit out Saturday’s third and final day of the team’s solitary warm-up fixture, against the Lions at Lilac Hill on the outskirts of Perth, but will be available for selection when the first Test gets under way at Perth Stadium next Friday.The news will come as a huge relief to an England camp that has identified high-pace bowling as their most likely route to success in the Ashes, carefully nursing the injury-prone Wood and Jofra Archer through a succession of injuries and back to full fitness in time to join the squad in Australia

Felix Auger-Aliassime beats Alexander Zverev to reach ATP semi-finals – as it happened

The defending champion, Jannik Sinner, extended his winning streak at the ATP Finals with another victory over Ben Shelton. The Italian is yet to drop a set after three round-robin matches and his 6-3, 7-6 (3) win against Shelton made it 29 successes in a row on indoor hard courts.It was a familiar feeling for the American Shelton, who fell to 0-3 on his debut at the tournament having lost to Sinner for the eighth time in a row and fourth this year.“When you come here and win all three round-robin matches you have to play a very high level, some great tennis, which I’ve done,” said Sinner, who shrugged off the loss of a match point at 5-4 in the second set to dominate the tie-break, on Sky Sports.“I felt like serving, I’ve done very well in important moments, brought me to this point