Wednesday newspaper round-up: UK inflation, net zero, Crispin Odey

(Sharecast News) - UK inflation could end the year higher than previously expected at 3% because of the US-Israel war in Iran, the government's economics watchdog has said. David Miles, a senior figure at the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), said inflation could end the year a percentage point higher than expected before the war, because of the energy price shock triggered by the crisis in the Middle East. - Guardian Achieving the UK's net zero target by 2050 will cost less than a single oil shock and bring health and economic benefits while insulating the country against future costs, the government's climate advisers have forecast. Eliminating the UK's reliance on fossil fuels by adopting renewable energy and green technologies, such as electric vehicles and heat pumps, would be the best and most cost-effective option for the future economy, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) found. - Guardian

Crispin Odey, a hedge fund boss, was a "sex pest" who found it "hard to control himself" around women, a court has heard. Lawyers for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said to a tribunal that the former boss of Mr Odey's eponymous hedge fund told the regulator he had a "real problem" with his attitude to women. - Telegraph

Mark Zuckerberg's Meta has acquired a social network for AI bots in a bet on a future in which robotic "agents" carry out work on humans' behalf. The tech giant behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp has bought Moltbook, a message board in which humans are banned from posting but thousands of bots discuss philosophy, religion and sci-fi. - Telegraph

The chief executive of Nvidia has emphasised that artificial intelligence will create jobs, as technology companies become increasingly concerned about a public backlash over fears of job losses. In a blog post, Jensen Huang argued that AI is "essential infrastructure, like electricity and the internet" that will require trillions of dollars of spending to build. - The Times