Gold and silver slide in ‘metals meltdown’; UK factory growth hits 17-month high – business live

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.Commodity, precious metals and crypto asset prices are all sliding today, as the record-breaking rally in gold and silver cools.Financial markets have begun the new week in a volatile mood, with analysts talking about a “metals meltdown” that is also rattling the equities markets.Gold is falling back after a months-long rally drove it to a series of record highs. It’s slumped by over 8% so far this session, down to $4,465 a ounce, having hit a record high of nearly $5,600/oz just last week

Plunge in price of gold and silver rattles global stock markets

Gold and silver prices have plunged, as a “meltdown” in the metals market deepened and rattled stock exchanges around the world.Gold prices tumbled by 8% to $4,465 an ounce on Monday, ending a run of record highs that took it to nearly $5,600 just last week, before recovering some ground. Silver fell by 7%, after a 30% slump on Friday.Both metals had hit successive highs in recent weeks, as investors sought safe haven assets amid rising geopolitical tensions and fears around the independence of the US Federal Reserve.Donald Trump triggered the sell-off on Friday, after he said he would nominate Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor and respected central banker, to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve

‘Marketplace for predators’: Meta faces jury trial over child exploitation claims

Meta’s second major trial of 2026 over alleged harms to children begins on Monday.The landmark jury trial in Santa Fe pits the New Mexico attorney general’s office against the social media giant. The state alleges that the company knowingly enabled predators to use Facebook and Instagram to exploit children.The trial will introduce evidence that Raúl Torrez, the state’s attorney general, believes shows how Meta’s social networks create dangerous environments for children, exposing them to sexual exploitation, solicitation, sextortion and human trafficking.The lawsuit states that Meta’s design choices and profit incentives prioritized engagement over child safety and that it failed to implement effective safeguards

Viral AI personal assistant seen as step change – but experts warn of risks

A new viral AI personal assistant will handle your email inbox, trade away your entire stock portfolio and text your wife “good morning” and “goodnight” on your behalf.OpenClaw, formerly known as Moltbot, and before that known as Clawdbot (until the AI firm Anthropic requested it rebrand due to similarities with its own product Claude), bills itself as “the AI that actually does things”: a personal assistant that takes instructions via messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Telegram.Developed last November, it now has nearly 600,000 downloads and has gone viral among a niche ecosystem of the AI obsessed who say it represents a step change in the capabilities of AI agents, or even an “AGI moment” – that is, a revelation of generally intelligent AI.“It only does exactly what you tell it to do and exactly what you give it access to,” said Ben Yorke, who works with the AI vibe trading platform Starchild and recently allowed the bot to delete, he claims, 75,000 of his old emails while he was in the shower. “But a lot of people, they’re exploring its capabilities

Alcaraz makes strong case for being the best young male player tennis has seen | Tumaini Carayol

There were many things that could have rushed into Carlos Alcaraz’s mind that followed his attainment of a goal he has chased his entire life, the career grand slam, achieved by defeating Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open.He could have thought about the immense hard work and discipline it took to achieve all of this, his comically large, tight-knit team and family that faithfully follows him around the world or even how close he came to losing his semi-final two days earlier.Instead, as Alcaraz navigated the long line of post-slam interviews for the seventh time, while tightly holding the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup, his thoughts cast back to … his haters: “I’m thinking about the people who said I wouldn’t make it, who thought I’d come here to Australia and not even make it past the quarter-finals,” he told Eurosport Spain.“That I’d come here to Australia and not play good tennis. Those who didn’t believe in me

The Joy of Six: incredible Winter Olympics moments

From a golden goal on ice, to Eve Muirhead’s redemption moment and more, here are half a dozen Winter Games classicsThe greatest show on Canadian ice, and it boiled down to overtime. For the Canada team, stacked with NHL talent, the pressure was immense; a loss in this high-profile final might have soured the entire 2010 Olympics. A rivalry with the USA that, on paper, has been largely one-sided – Canada’s men’s ice hockey dynasty has long reigned supreme – suddenly felt terrifyingly and gloriously level. The USA, refusing to be a footnote, had clawed back a 2-0 deficit in the men’s gold-medal game with Zach Parise snatching an equaliser in the dying seconds. Then, seven minutes into sudden-death overtime, the 22-year-old Sidney Crosby, a man built for the biggest moments, slipped the puck between Ryan Miller’s pads with a flick of his wrist