Israel has used AI systems in Gaza to flag potential targets and help prioritise operations.

The United States military reportedly used Anthropic's model, Claude, during its operation to abduct Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela.

And even after Anthropic got into difficulties with the US administration over exactly how AI should be used in war, the US military still apparently used Claude in its attack on Iran.

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It is highly possible, experts say, that the missiles flying over Tehran today are being targeted by systems powered by AI.

"AI is changing the nature of modern warfare in the 21st century. It is difficult to overstate the impact that it has and will have," says Craig Jones, a senior lecturer in political geography from Newcastle University.

"It is a potentially terrifying scenario."

Terrifying or not, it seems there's no going back. If you want a sense of the importance the US military places on AI, a good place to start is a memo sent by defence secretary Pete Hegseth, who styles himself Secretary of War, to all senior military leaders early this year.

"I direct the Department of War to accelerate America's Military AI Dominance by becoming an 'AI-first' warfighting force across all components, from front to back," Mr Hegseth wrote.

This is not an experiment, this is a command - to adopt AI quickly, and at scale.

Or as Hegseth puts it: "Speed Wins".

Yet the scenario in question is not the one that might first spring to mind.

Yes, autonomy is increasing in some areas. In Ukraine, for example, there are drones capable of continuing a mission even after losing contact with a human operator.

But we are not at the stage of autonomous killer robots stalking the battlefield.

"We're not in the Terminator era just yet," says David Leslie, professor of ethics, technology and society at Queen Mary University of London.

The systems in which AI is being embedded - known as "decision support systems" in military jargon - are advisers which flag targets, rank threats and suggest priorities.

AI systems can pull together satellite imagery, intercepted communications, logistics data and social media streams - thousands, even hundreds of thousands of inputs - and surface patterns far faster than any human team.

The idea is that they help cut through the fog of war, allowing commanders to focus resources where they matter most, while potentially being more accurate than tired, overwhelmed, stressed human soldiers.

This means they're not just a tool, says Dr Jones, but a new way of making decisions.

"AI, as we see in our own lives, is more like an infrastructure," he says. "It's built into the system."

"We have this ability to collect that surveillance that we've been doing for some years.

"But now AI gives a stability to act on that and to kill the leader of Iran and to take out serious adversaries and serious enemies and find them in improbable ways in which they may have not been found before."

'A very persuasive tool'

Professor Leslie agrees that the new systems are extremely capable from a military perspective.

"The race for speed is what's driving this uptake," he says. "Making decision-making cycles faster is what brings military advantage of lethality."

An important feature of decision support systems is that the AI doesn't press the button. A human does. That has been the central reassurance in debates about military AI. There is always "a human in the loop".

As OpenAI, the company which makes ChatGPT, put it after announcing a partnership to supply the Pentagon with AI: "We will have cleared forward-deployed OpenAI engineers helping the government, with cleared safety and alignment researchers in the loop."

OpenAI has also emphasised that it had secured agreement with the Pentagon that its technology would not be used in ways that cross three "red lines": mass domestic surveillance, direct autonomous weapons systems and high-stakes automated decisions.

But even with a human in the loop, a question remains.

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When you're fighting a war, can a human really check each decision from an AI? When time is compressed and information is incomplete, what does "human oversight" really mean?

"Humans are technically in the loop," says Dr Jones.

"That doesn't mean, in my opinion, that they are in the loop enough to have effective decision-making power and oversight of exactly what's happened. The AI… is a very persuasive tool to people that make decisions."

Or as Professor Leslie puts it: "We are really facing a potential scaled hazard of… rubber stamping, where because of the speed involved, you don't have active human, critical human engagement to assess the recommendations that are being put out by these systems."

And then there's the question of AI's own fallibility.

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Testing by Sky News found that neither Claude nor ChatGPT could tell how many legs a chicken had, if the chicken didn't look as it expected.

What's more, the AI insisted it was right, even when it was clearly wrong.

The example came from a paper which illustrated dozens of examples of similar failures. "It's not a one-off example of animal legs," said lead author Anh Vo.

"The problem is general across types of data and tasks," Vo added.

The reason is that AI doesn't really see the world in the human sense - they guess what's most probable based on past data.

Most of the time, that kind of statistical reasoning is astonishingly effective. The world is predictable enough that probabilities work.

But some environments are by their very nature unpredictable and high stakes.

We are testing the boundaries of this technology in the most unforgiving circumstances imaginable.

Even in the chaotic opening weeks of the Ukraine war in 2022, the gas price never doubled. But that is precisely what has happened to wholesale methane prices in the UK.

And since gas prices are arguably the single most important price in Britain - the lynchpin of our power network, determining prices for electricity, underpinning industrial production and the manufacture of chemicals, trickling indirectly into the price of food and other sundry items - this is of enormous consequence.

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The trigger for the sharp rise is the continued chaos in the Gulf, as oil and gas facilities come under bombardment from Iranian drones. No one seems to know how long this will last, but that is among the most important of all questions.

The longer it goes on, the higher gas prices are likely to climb. Although the speed of the rise in the past 48 hours is faster than any other comparable period in history, the absolute level of gas prices remains far lower than at the peaks in the Ukraine war in 2022. Then again, given that triggered an unprecedented energy price shock across Europe, not to mention a forced deindustrialisation of the continent that continues today, that is far from reassuring.

The longer it continues, the greater will be the impact on household bills in the UK, which have been fixed until June (and benefit from a £150 discount thanks to a measure in the last budget), but are due to reflect wholesale prices as of July.

All of which is why the events unfolding in Iran and its surroundings remain crucial for this country's economy.

Not that you'd guess much of this from the text of the Office for Budget Responsibility's latest big forecast. To judge from it, and Rachel Reeves's appearance in the House of Commons today, you might have assumed Britain has now vanquished the cost of living problems that beset it for the past four or five years. It paints a picture of inflation dropping down to 2% for an extended period.

But you have to flick all the way to page 109 of the spring forecast to find the most important datapoint of all. There, in table A.3, you will find the gas price expectations the OBR's latest forecasts were based on. They are more or less flat. Those, after all, were the prevailing expectations for energy prices when the report was finalised last week.

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But since then, well, as you know, gas prices have gone through the roof. So, essentially most of the key assumptions in the report about inflation are not worth the paper they're written on.

It is still way too early to pre-judge what this implies for the UK economy. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that gas prices come down in a few weeks. But by the same token it's also quite possible they go even higher. And if they do so, the implications for a Britain barely recovered from the last energy price shock are profound and somewhat grisly.

He was also disqualified from driving for 17 years.

The grime artist, whose real name is Justin Clarke-Samuel, failed to stop after his BMW struck 20-year-old Yubin Tamang last October.

Clarke-Samuel, 41, had pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving in Ilford, northeast London.

Mr Tamang, who had come to the UK from Nepal to study, died in hospital from his injuries two days after the crash.

Speaking after the sentencing, a spokesperson for Mr Tamang's parents said: "We speak today with hearts broken beyond repair.

"Our only child, a precious soul has been taken from us far too soon. He came to the UK to study and create a better life for himself and his family. Justin Clarke-Samuel has stolen our son's future and ours with it.

"We are relieved that Justin Clarke-Samuel pleaded guilty and that he has now been jailed, but we can never forgive him for what he has done."

The victim's mother, Sharmila Tamang, had earlier broken down in court, describing the "extreme pain" and "unimaginable sense of loss" of losing her only child.

Evidence showed that Clarke-Samuel, 41, was driving his BMW M5 at 74mph in a 30mph zone moments before he hit Mr Tamang as he crossed Redbridge Lane at 11.33pm on 18 October. Clarke-Samuel then failed to stop at the scene.

As the judge summarised the case, Clarke-Samuel, who was dressed all in black, sat in the dock with his eyes closed. He showed no emotion as the sentence was handed down.

He has been in custody since a preliminary appearance at Barkingside Magistrates' Court on 27 October.

Judge Mark Lucraft KC told Clarke-Samuel that CCTV footage showed a "quite appalling litany of incidents" leading up to the fatal collision which he described as "simply shocking".

After the crash, Clarke-Samuel had continued to drive for eight miles before going home and having six or seven shots of Ciroc vodka and a "cannabis cookie", the court heard.

When he was arrested several hours later, the BMW was found parked near his home, with significant damage including a smashed windscreen, extensive marks on the bonnet, damage to the front bumper and a missing wing mirror cover.

The court was told the defendant had claimed he had driven dangerously because he feared someone was following him, but no evidence of a pursuit was found on CCTV.

The judge noted Clarke-Samuel's "genuine remorse" and previous good work in the community, saying: "Your music has provided you with a following and a significant financial reward... I acknowledge that you have used that to good effect and done much to support many others."

He went on to say it was a "real shame" that "all that good work is marred by driving in drink and taking the life of another young man".

Ghetts describes his 'extreme regret, shame and remorse'

Speaking for the defence, Benjamin Aina KC, told the court that Clarke-Samuel had written a letter in which he expressed his remorse for his actions on that night.

Mr Aina said the father-of-two wanted to apologise to "the family of Mr Tamang, the community at large, to his own family, and to the court for his actions on that Saturday night of October last year".

Reading an extract from Clarke-Samuel's letter, Mr Aina said: "I write from a place of extreme regret, shame and remorse… I cannot express the enormous feeling of guilt and shame for the suffering I have caused."

The letter went on: "I want Mr Tamang's family to know that I am so truly sorry. I offer no excuses, and I have let my family and community down."

Erratic driving and a further collision

The court was shown CCTV footage of Clarke-Samuel driving erratically through the streets of London and showed the moment Mr Tamang was hit by the car.

Prosecutor Philip McGhee told the court Clarke-Samuel's vehicle had thrown Mr Tamang into the air before he crashed to the ground in the road.

Mr McGee said Mr Tamang was hit at 67mph, more than double the permitted maximum speed in that area.

The court was also told Clarke-Samuel had been involved in a collision with a Mercedes on the same night, and had narrowly avoided striking a cyclist.

In December, Clarke-Samuel admitted a charge of dangerous driving in Tavistock Place, in the Bloomsbury area of central London, and on other roads in Camden, Islington and Hackney ahead of the crash.

The court heard that Clarke-Samuel has 12 previous convictions for 27 offences, including robbery, aggravated vehicle taking and dangerous driving, dating back to 2000.

Speaking outside the court after the sentencing, Shani Taggart, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "Justin Clarke-Samuel knew he was in no fit state to drive and there was clear evidence of his excessive speed and disregard for road users as he drove incredibly dangerously across our city.

"After presenting this evidence, we secured guilty pleas to these two charges and today's sentence will see Clarke-Samuel face the consequences of his fatal decision to get behind the wheel of a car after drinking."

Detective Sergeant Faye Cook, who led the Met's investigation, said: "We hope today's sentencing brings some measure of comfort to Yubin's family, while also serving as a reminder to the public of the devastating consequences of dangerous driving."

Who is Ghetts?

The rapper and songwriter, a two-time Mercury Prize nominee, has collaborated on tracks with Skepta, Stormzy and Ed Sheeran, and performed at Glastonbury several times, including in 2024.

He won best male act at the 2021 MOBO Awards and received the MOBO pioneer award in 2024.

He also starred as a gang leader called Krazy in the Netflix sci-fi series Supacell about five black south Londoners who unexpectedly develop superpowers.

Benedetto "Nitto" Santapaola, who was one of the Cosa Nostra mafia's most powerful leaders, died at the age of 87 in a high-security jail in Milan.

Santapaola, known as "il cacciatore" (the hunter) or "il licantropo" (the werewolf), led the mafia in the eastern Sicilian city of Catania from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.

He was arrested in 1993 after 11 years on the run, but was accused of continuing to run the mafia from behind bars.

The 87-year-old was serving multiple life sentences for murder and other crimes when he died.

Murders and massacres

While leading the Cosa Nostra in Catania, Santapaola expanded the mafia's influence in controlling public contracts, extortion and drug trafficking.

He was often cited in investigations and trials related to a series of mafia massacres that plagued Italy in the 1980s and 1990s.

Among them were the 1992 murders of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two of Italy's most famous anti-mafia prosecutors. Santapaola was convicted as one of the instigators of the attacks, which also killed several protection officers and Mr Falcone's wife.

He was also convicted of ordering the murders of journalist Giuseppe Fava in 1984 and police inspector Giovanni Lizzio in 1992.

Mafia wars

Santapaola's mafia "family" was involved in violent and bloody feuds with rivals, like those against fellow mobster Alfio Ferlito in the 1980s and against the Cursoti, Cappello and Pillera clans in the early 1990s.

The latter mafia wars resulted in over 220 murders in the city of Catania and the wider province in two years.

Santapaola's wife, Carmela Minniti, was by his side when he was arrested in 1993. She was shot dead two years later by a former member of a rival mafia clan, who said he killed her for revenge to make Santapaola feel the same pain he had suffered.

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Santapaola's requests for house arrest or detention in a medical facility due to his health conditions, which included a serious form of diabetes, were repeatedly denied.

Prosecutors in Milan have ordered an autopsy, but Italian media reports he died of natural causes after being admitted to hospital in late February.

Colin Gray was found guilty of second-degree murder over the deaths of the two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, in the shootings at Apalachee High School in Winder, northeast Atlanta, in 2024.

He was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the killings of teachers Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53. Another teacher, and eight more students, were wounded in the mass shooting that Mr Gray's teenage son Colt has been accused of.

The teen's mother, Marcee Gray, had testified she had urged his father to take any guns and lock them inside his truck so their son, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, could not access them.

The couple had separated in the months leading up to the shooting.

Gray is one of a number of parents prosecuted after their children were accused in fatal shootings across the US.

Prosecutors said he gave his son access to a gun and ammunition "after receiving sufficient warning that Colt Gray would harm and endanger the bodily safety of another".

The father was also convicted of multiple counts of reckless conduct and cruelty to children. His son has been indicted on a total of 55 counts including murder.

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The teen has pleaded not guilty with a hearing scheduled for mid-March.

Investigators allege he carefully planned the attack on September 4, two years ago, at the school attended by 1,900 students.

He boarded a school bus with the semiautomatic, assault-style rifle in his book bag with the barrel sticking out and wrapped in poster board, they added.

After leaving his second-period class, he allegedly emerged from a bathroom with the weapon, and shot people in a classroom and hallways.

Colin Gray had given him the gun as a Christmas present and allowed his son to have access to it, despite his awareness that the boy's mental health had deteriorated, a prosecutor said.