Oil tumbles 10% and stock markets rally as Iran declares strait of Hormuz ‘completely open’ – as it happened

The oil price is tumbling, after Iran announced that the strait of Hormuz is now open.Crude oil has plunged by 10% on hopes that energy supplies could resume after weeks of disruption.Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, posted on social media that the waterway is ‘completely open’, following the ceasefire agreed between Israel and Lebanon overnight.double quotation markIn line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire.Araghchi added that vessels must travel on the “coordinated route” previously announced by Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organisation

Employees at first ever Starbucks store seek to unionize amid fight for contract

Workers at the historic first Starbucks store are seeking to unionize as the coffee retail giant and its union appear stalemated over their first contract.The first Starbucks store opened in 1971 in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, and the store serves as a tourist site in Seattle.Nailah Diaz, a Starbucks barista for about five years, three of those at Pike Place, said the Pike Place store can often have lines out the door, with waits up to two hours for tourists to come inside and look around.She said workers at Pike Place are tasked with greater customer service responsibilities and the significant tourist traffic can bring about issues with disruptive customers and safety.“I myself have experienced unfair treatment, favoritism, discrimination and harassment with little to no support from management, and for me, joining this fight is me making sure that no one else has to go through what I have,” said Diaz

Finance leaders warn over Mythos as UK banks prepare to use powerful Anthropic AI tool

British banks will be given access in the next week to a powerful AI tool that was deemed too dangerous to be released to the public, as a series of senior finance figures warned over its impact.Anthropic, which has so far limited the release of the new model to a small clutch of primarily US businesses, including Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, said it would expand that to UK financial institutions.“That is in the very near term, in the next week,” Pip White, Anthropic’s head of UK, Ireland and northern Europe operations, said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “As you would expect, the engagement I have had from UK CEOs in the last week has been significant.”Anthropic, which is the company behind the Claude family of AI tools, has said that its latest model, Mythos, poses an unprecedented risk because of its ability to expose flaws in IT systems

US tech firms successfully lobbied EU to keep datacentre emissions secret

Microsoft and other US tech companies successfully lobbied the EU to hide the environmental toll of their datacentres, an investigation has found, with demands to block a database of green metrics from public view written almost word for word into EU rules.The secrecy provision, which the European Commission added to its proposal almost verbatim after industry lobbying in 2024, hinders scrutiny of the pollution that individual datacentres emit. It leaves researchers with just national-level summaries of their energy footprints.The rise of AI chatbots has spurred a boom in the construction of chip-filled warehouses with a hunger for power that is being met, in part, by burning fossil gas. Legal scholars warn the blanket confidentiality clause may fall foul of EU transparency rules and the Aarhus convention on public access to environmental information

San Diego Padres reportedly set for MLB-record $3.9bn sale to Chelsea co-owner

The San Diego Padres are nearing a sale to a group led by José E Feliciano, co-founder of private equity firm Clearlake Capital and co-owner of Chelsea FC, and his wife, Kwanza Jones, for a Major League Baseball-record $3.9bn, according to multiple reports.The Wall Street Journal and the Athletic reported on Friday that the group was closing in on a deal. The sale requires approval by 75% of MLB’s 30 owners. The reported price would surpass the $2

Dan Skelton targets bogey track as rivals jockey for Scottish Grand National glory

Dan Skelton is already certain to be crowned the UK’s champion trainer over jumps for the first time this season, but still has a few remaining targets in the final days of what is already a record-breaking campaign.Skelton became the first trainer to reach £4m in prize money in a British jumps season less than a month ago, and will send five runners on the 320-mile trip to Ayr on Saturdaytoday as he looks to make a big dent in the £200,000 required to pass £5m.Nor has it escaped Skelton’s notice that his yard has sent out a winner at 39 of Britain’s 41 jumping tracks so far this season. The only gaps left to be filled are Perth and Plumpton – where the stable has somehow drawn a blank from 20 runners including several favourites – and both tracks stage meetings over the next few days. The yard has two runners in Sunday’s feature event at Plumpton, the Sussex Stayers’ Handicap Hurdle