FTSE 100 share index hits 9,000 points for the first time; UK government considers reforms to Isas and savings – business live

Newsflash: Britain’s blue-chip stock index has risen through the 9,000 point mark to hit a new record high.The FTSE 100 share index hit 9,016.98 points at the start of trading in London, up around 0.2% today, taking its gains during 2025 to over 10%.That’s a new intraday high for the “Footsie” (as it is known in City circles)

Thames Water boss warns of decade-long turnaround as losses hit £1.6bn

It will take at least a decade to turn troubled Thames Water around, the boss of the UK’s biggest water company said, as it slumped to a £1.6bn annual loss.The loss for the 12 months to 31 March comes after a profit of £154m the previous year, even though revenues climbed by 8.7% to £2.7bn

AI chatbot ‘MechaHitler’ could be making content considered violent extremism, expert witness tells X v eSafety case

The chatbot embedded in Elon Musk’s X that referred to itself as “MechaHitler” and made antisemitic comments last week could be considered terrorism or violent extremism content, an Australian tribunal has heard.But an expert witness for X has argued a large language model cannot be ascribed intent, only the user.xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence firm, last week apologised for the comments made by its Grok chatbot over a 16-hour period, which it attributed to “deprecated code” that made Grok susceptible to existing X user posts, “including when such posts contained extremist views”.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news emailThe outburst came into focus at an administrative review tribunal hearing on Tuesday where X is challenging a notice issued by the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, in March last year asking the platform to explain how it is taking action against terrorism and violent extremism (TVE) material.X’s expert witness, RMIT economics professor Chris Berg, provided evidence to the case that it was an error to assume a large language model can produce such content, because it is the intent of the user prompting the large language model that is critical in defining what can be considered terrorism and violent extremism content

xAI announces $200m US military deal after Grok chatbot had Nazi meltdown

The week after its Grok chatbot identified itself as “MechaHitler” and generated antisemitic posts, Elon Musk’s xAI firm announced a contract with the US Department of Defense worth nearly $200m. The deal is for developing and implementing artificial intelligence tools for the agency.The DoD on Monday also announced similar contracts with $200m ceilings with several other major US-based artificial intelligence developers, including Google, Anthropic and OpenAI. The agency is partnering with the General Services Administration to make these companies’ AI tools available for use throughout the federal government.“Leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our joint mission-essential tasks in our warfighting domain as well as intelligence, business, and enterprise information systems,” the US chief digital and AI officer Dr Doug Matty said in a statement

The Breakdown | Five areas where the Australia v Lions Test series will be won and lost

Selection It may sound obvious but both sides need their key chess pieces to be in the correct places. Neither team are due to declare their hands officially until Thursday but the Lions will be well aware of Joe Schmidt’s ability to produce a tactical surprise or two. The big name to look out from an Australian perspective will be Rob Valetini, such an important cog in the Wallaby pack but injured for the recent Fiji game. If Valetini is ruled out it will be a blow to home morale; the Wallabies are going to need their main men on the field. The Lions have had their own injury problems but their back-row and centre selections will be instructive

Rage against the machines: ignore the fury at Wimbledon, AI in sport works | Sean Ingle

We are all suckers for a good story. And there was certainly a cracking two‑parter at Wimbledon this year. First came the news that 300 line judges had been replaced by artificial intelligence robots. Then, a few days later, it turned out there were some embarrassing gremlins in the machine. Not since Roger Federer hung up his Wilson racket has there been a sweeter spot hit during the Wimbledon fortnight