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Iran has said it will show “zero restraint” if its energy infrastructure is targeted again as Qatar revealed that almost a fifth of its liquefied natural gas export capacity had been knocked out in an Iranian strike that is likely to have a years-long impact.
The warning, delivered by the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, followed Israel’s attack on Iran’s massive South Pars gasfield – which it shares with Qatar – which triggered Iranian retaliatory strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas complex and other Gulf neighbours, sending stock markets tumbling globally and triggering sharp increases in gas prices.
Ras Laffan supplies about 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas. Israel also confirmed on Thursday that the Bazan Group refinery in Haifa had been hit and damaged in a claimed Iranian strike.
What did Araghchi say? In a post on X, he said: “Our response to Israel’s attack on our infrastructure employed FRACTION of our power. The ONLY reason for restraint was respect for requested de-escalation. ZERO restraint if our infrastructures are struck again.”
Heatwave scorching US west ‘virtually impossible’ without climate crisis, say scientists
The record-breaking heatwave scorching the US west this week would have been “virtually impossible” if not for the climate crisis, a team of scientists has determined.
Millions of Americans from the Pacific coast to the Rockies baked under unseasonably warm and even dangerous temperatures this week, with temperatures up to 30F (17C) above average for the time of year.
The climate crisis, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, has made this kind of heatwave four times more likely to occur over the last decade, according to a new rapid analysis released today.
What’s the forecast for next week? More heat is in store for the coming days. By the end of the week, 100 cities could set all-time temperature records for the month of March, with temperatures climbing as high as 30F (17C) above average for the time of year, the new analysis says.
Meta AI agent’s instruction causes large sensitive data leak to employees
An AI agent instructed an engineer to take actions that exposed a large amount of Meta’s sensitive data to some of its employees, in the latest example of AI causing upheaval in a large tech company.
The leak, which Meta confirmed, happened when an employee asked for guidance on an engineering problem on an internal forum. An AI agent responded with a solution, which the employee implemented – causing a large amount of sensitive user and company data to be exposed to its engineers for two hours.
“No user data was mishandled,” a Meta spokesperson said, and they emphasised that a human could also give erroneous advice.
Has this happened before? This breach is one of several recent high-profile incidents caused by the increasing use of AI agents within US tech companies. Last month, a report from the Financial Times said Amazon experienced at least two outages related to the deployment of its internal AI tools.
In other news …
A 23-year-old Los Angeles man who attended a recent immigration protest outside a federal building says he was blinded in one eye by a law enforcement projectile. Jesus Javier Gomez Islas says he sustained the injury at a 31 January demonstration outside the Metropolitan Detention Center.
ABC has decided to pull the new season of the hit dating franchise The Bachelorette after footage of its central star physically assaulting her former partner was leaked.
A 31-year-old Georgia woman has been charged with murder by police who say she took pills to induce an illegal abortion. If state prosecutors decide to move forward her case would be one of the first instances of a woman being charged since it passed a 2019 law banning most abortions.
Culture pick: Breakfast with Gosling, grilled by Spielberg, burned by Star Wars – Lord and Miller are cinema’s hottest duo
From directing The Lego Movie to becoming a single entity, Phil Lord and Chris Miller have had quite the ascent. Now, sending one of the globe’s best actors to his cosmic doom in Project Hail Mary, they’re aiming for the stars. It’s a winningly geeky sci-fi concoction that mixes together The Martian (another adaptation of an Andy Weir novel) with Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Don’t miss this: ‘Validation was an insatiable monster’ – Dave Grohl on Foo Fighters’ punk rock return and life after his infidelity
In his first newspaper interview after fathering a child outside his marriage, Grohl discusses his changed outlook, his grief for Taylor Hawkins, and for his mother, who died four months after his bandmate, and the 430 therapy sessions he’s had. “I think that for many reasons, I wound up in a place that I needed to stop and sit with myself and re-evaluate myself. It’s an ongoing process,” he says.”
… or this: The Oscars red carpet was in a skip. Then a woman took it home for her flat. What else could be repurposed?
A dumpster-diving TikToker struck gold the morning after the Academy Awards. While filming herself, Paige Thalia found a giant (and clean) skip filled with dozens of rolled-up pieces of carpet. “These are huge. Is it insane to take a huge piece?” she asked her viewers. But why are they binning carpets after one brief use?
Climate check: US states sue Trump EPA over decision to repeal bedrock climate finding
A coalition of 24 states, alongside a dozen cities and counties, has sued the Trump administration over its decision to revoke the bedrock scientific determination underpinning virtually all US climate regulations. The lawsuit says rescission of endangerment finding – which ruled greenhouse gases threaten public health – was illegal.
Last Thing: US startup advertises ‘AI bully’ role to test patience of leading chatbots
Imagine a day at work where your main task is to pick a fight with a computer. The job title alone raises an eyebrow: “AI bully”. But this is precisely what a California startup called Memvid is offering: $800 to spend eight hours testing the patience and memory of artificial intelligence.
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