UK inflation rises unexpectedly to 3.6% driven by food and fuel prices

UK inflation unexpectedly rose in June driven by fuel and food prices, according to official figures, underscoring the challenge facing the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.The Office for National Statistics said the consumer prices index rose by 3.6% last month, up from a reading of 3.4% in May. City economists had forecast an unchanged reading

As Optus Sport closes, subscription refunds are on their way – by cheque

Optus Sport customers who paid an annual fee for the service will receive a refund when it shuts down next month – but only by cheque in some cases.Optus announced on 30 June its sport streaming service would close on 1 August, after it transferred the rights to broadcast the Premier League, FA Cup and other competitions to Nine Entertainment and Stan.In an email to customers on Monday – seen by Guardian Australia – Optus said eligible customers would need to provide their postal and email address by 29 August to get a refund on the unused portion of their $199 annual subscription.“We can only issue your refund via a cheque,” the email said.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news emailA spokesperson for Optus said a “subset group” of customers had been told their refund would be issued via cheque

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

Elmo’s X account posts racist and antisemitic messages after being hacked

Hackers gained access to the X account of the puppet Elmo over the weekend and used it to post racist and antisemitic threats as well as make profane references to Jeffrey Epstein. Sesame Workshop was still trying to regain full control on Monday over the red character’s account.“Elmo’s X account was compromised by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts. We are working to restore full control of the account,” a Sesame Workshop spokesperson said on Monday. Sesame Workshop is the non-profit behind Sesame Street and Elmo

Tara Moore, former British No 1 in doubles, handed four-year doping ban

The British tennis player Tara Moore, who was previously cleared of an anti-doping rule violation, has been handed a four-year ban after the court of arbitration for sport upheld an appeal filed by the International Tennis Integrity Agency.Moore, Britain’s former No 1-ranked doubles player, was provisionally suspended in June 2022 owing to the presence of prohibited anabolic steroids nandrolone and boldenone in a blood sample.The player said she had never knowingly taken a banned substance in her career and an independent tribunal determined that contaminated meat consumed by her in the days before sample collection was the source of the prohibited substance.Moore lost 19 months in the process before she was cleared of the rule violation, but Cas upheld the ITIA’s appeal against the first instance “no fault or negligence” ruling with respect to nandrolone.In a statement, Cas said: “After reviewing the scientific and legal evidence, the majority of the Cas panel considered that the player did not succeed in proving that the concentration of nandrolone in her sample was consistent with the ingestion of contaminated meat

Tour de France’s phoney war gets dose of reality as Pogacar v Vingegaard hits the mountains | William Fotheringham

There is always a sense of phoney war in the run-in to the Tour de France’s first stage in the high mountains, and at least one debate of the opening 10 days of this year’s race fits that context to a T. Has Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike team at times been towing the bunch deliberately in order to ensure that Tadej Pogacar retains the yellow jersey? It’s a gloriously arcane question, the kind that only comes up in the Tour’s opening phase, but it distracts from a point that could be key in the next 10 days: how the two teams manage the race will probably be decisive.Firstly, a brief explainer. The received wisdom in cycling lore is that holding the yellow jersey early in a Grand Tour can be as much a curse as a blessing, because the daily media and podium duties cut into recovery time. Hence the thinking goes that Visma might have been chasing down the odd move purposely to keep Pogacar in the maillot jaune, so that he will be answering media questions and hanging about waiting to go on the podium, while Vingegaard has his feet up