Iran strikes Kuwait’s oil infrastructure before Opec+ supply talks

Iranian drones have struck Kuwait’s oil infrastructure, causing “severe material damage” that threatens to further disrupt oil supplies already hit by the US-Israel war on Iran.The drone strikes on Sunday came hours before members of the Opec+ group of major global oil suppliers gathered to discuss how to bolster output despite Iran’s effective closure of the strait of Hormuz shipping route.Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had attacked petrochemical plants in Kuwait, as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation reported damage and fires at its subsidiaries. The company said fires had earlier broken out at its Shuwaikh oil sector complex, which houses the oil ministry and KPC headquarters, after a separate drone attack

From microshifting to coffee badging: whatever happened to just doing your job?

There’s another hot trend in the workplace – microshifting, and it’s about to revolutionize the workday by breaking the traditional 9-to-5 into short, flexible and non-linear bursts of activity rather than a continuous 8-hour stretch. Microshifting allows for a better work-life balance. Why not do a yoga class or pop to the shops during work hours? I mean, what is “work” anyway?Like bare minimum Mondays, where workers recuperating from weekend hangovers allow themselves to accomplish the least amount the day after, or coffee badging, which involves taking the time out of the workday to protest an employer’s in-office requirements by driving into the office, swiping your badge, having a coffee, then taking more time out of the workday to drive back home, it used to have another name, as the Guardian noted earlier this year: “Taking the piss.”Sadly, these are only a few of the trends that have allegedly been taking the workplace – and the media – by storm over the past few years.We’ve read about quiet quitting, where employees allow themselves to expend no extra effort to accomplish what is expected of them, because they’re ostensibly keeping an eye on the open door for other opportunities

An AI bot invited me to its party in Manchester. It was a pretty good night

Two weeks ago, an AI bot invited me to a party it was organising in Manchester. It then promptly lied to dozens of potential sponsors that I’d agreed to cover the event, and misled me into believing there would be food.Despite all this, it was a pretty good night.In early February, a class of new, powerful AI assistants went viral. The assistants, called OpenClaw, represented a step change in the rapidly improving capabilities of AI – in large part because, unlike other AI agents, they could be untethered from guardrails and set loose upon the world

Kurt Strauss obituary

My father, Kurt Strauss, who has died aged 95, was a senior engineer who worked for more than two decades at the Electricity Council, the government body that coordinated electricity supply in England and Wales before privatisation in 1990.He worked for all of that time within the council’s overseas relations branch, managing international relationships, technical exchanges and consultancy services while rising steadily through the ranks to associate director. German by birth but brought up in the UK, he was a passionate European who spoke French and German, and was therefore well suited to those responsibilities.Kurt was born in Degerloch, a suburb of Stuttgart, into a Jewish family. In 1937 his parents, Viktor, who worked in the family down and feather business, and Marianne (nee Melzer), sent Kurt’s older brother, Helmut, to safety in Britain, where he ended up at a boarding school, Sidcot, in Somerset

US sprint star Sha’Carri Richardson wins 2026 Stawell Gift off scratch in thrilling finish

American sprint queen Sha’Carri Richardson has lived up to her star status as she chased down the field off scratch to win the 2026 Stawell Gift in a thrilling finish.The Olympic 100m silver medallist and sixth-fastest woman in the world joined hundreds of local spectators and athletes in the small rural town 200km north-west of Melbourne on Monday to take part in the handicap race for the first time.The Stawell Gift is Australia’s oldest and richest running race, with the 120m distance being one of the country’s most prestigious athletics events. Athletes run on grass from a mark determined by their form and ability.In the 144th edition on Easter Monday in Stawell, the 26-year-old Richardson crossed the line in the women’s final with a record time of 13

‘We don’t want pity’: Ukrainian war veterans face off in amputee boxing championship

Footwork decides a boxing match, they say. In Ukraine, the tired cliche took on a new meaning.On Saturday, two Ukrainian war veterans faced off on prosthetic legs in what organisers called the world’s first competitive bout between double-amputee fighters.Over three two-minute rounds at a venue in Brovary, outside Kyiv, the fight found its own rhythm.There was less of the usual circling