Trump tariff threats are bad, but the uncertainty they instil is much worse

Donald Trump’s latest tariff threat, in pursuit of his goal of seizing Greenland, is a political nightmare for European leaders, but it could create a severe economic headache too.As the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has repeatedly pointed out since Trump’s trade war began in earnest last year, whatever the ultimate level of tariffs, uncertainty takes its own toll.And as the IMF managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, put it in October, in the Trump era “uncertainty is the new normal”.Businesses tend to hold back from new investment when they are unsure what the policy landscape will eventually look like – as the UK learned to its cost during several years of Brexit wrangling after the 2016 referendum.And this latest threat comes just as businesses in the UK and the EU believed they could plan with certainty, after much-vaunted trade deals with the US were struck and signed with ceremony last summer

Why Rachel Reeves should give bankers more of the cold shoulder at Davos 2026 | Heather Stewart

Back-slapping bankers will be thick on the ground in the Swiss ski resort of Davos this week as Rachel Reeves flies in to mix with the global elite. But she might be wise to treat the finance bros with a certain froideur.That has not been Labour’s approach thus far: Reeves spared the banks from a windfall tax in her 26 November budget, and the UK’s regulators have just loosened capital rules for the first time since the financial crisis.Back in the summer, bank share prices ticked down after the Labour-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) recommended an £8bn levy on the windfall profits made as a result of quantitative easing (QE).Insiders at other thinktanks said at the time that it was made clear to them by the Treasury that publishing such forthright policy proposals was not a welcome contribution to the debate

‘We could hit a wall’: why trillions of dollars of risk is no guarantee of AI reward

Will the race to artificial general intelligence (AGI) lead us to a land of financial plenty – or will it end in a 2008-style bust? Trillions of dollars rest on the answer.The figures are staggering: an estimated $2.9tn (£2.2tn) being spent on datacentres, the central nervous systems of AI tools; the more than $4tn stock market capitalisation of Nvidia, the company that makes the chips powering cutting-edge AI systems; and the $100m signing-on bonuses offered by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta to top engineers at OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.These sky-high numbers are all propped up by investors who expect a return on their trillions

He called himself an ‘untouchable hacker god’. But who was behind the biggest crime Finland has ever known?

Tiina Parikka was half-naked when she read the email. It was a Saturday in late October 2020, and Parikka had spent the morning sorting out plans for distance learning after a Covid outbreak at the school where she was headteacher. She had taken a sauna at her flat in Vantaa, just outside Finland’s capital, Helsinki, and when she came into her bedroom to get dressed, she idly checked her phone. There was a message that began with Parikka’s name and her social security number – the unique code used to identify Finnish people when they access healthcare, education and banking. “I knew then that this is not a game,” she says

Bielle-Biarrey hat-trick fires holders Bordeaux to Champions Cup victory at Bristol

The odds on Bordeaux Bègles successfully defending their Champions Cup crown shortened considerably on a damp, grey Sunday lunchtime in Bristol. Good sides can adapt their game to suit awkward conditions and, for the second weekend in a row, French class outflanked English energy and optimism with a hat-trick of tries from the spectacularly prolific French winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey.The Bears, seeking to play billionaire rugby on a day crying out for more prudent housekeeping, made far too many unforced errors and duly paid the price against opponents who are now perfectly placed in this year’s tournament. They will have the luxury of playing all their subsequent knockout games either on French soil or, if they reach the final, just across the Spanish border in Bilbao, and at this rate it will require something special to prevent them claiming back-to-back titles.Even when their side are not quite at their best the sparkling Bielle‑Biarrey, along with the artful Matthieu Jalibert, give Bordeaux crucial extra stardust

Australian Open 2026: Sabalenka, Alcaraz and Raducanu in action on day one – as it happened

Righto, that’s us done for today. Thanks for your company and we’ll see you again tomorrow – but in the meantime, we’ve plenty else for you, in the shape of Wolves v Newcastle and Villa v Everton in the Prem, followed by Senegal v Morocco in the Afcon final, then Patriots v Texans in the NFL playoffs. Not bad, eh?But otherwise, peace out and see you tomorrow.So what’s going on tomorrow? In the day sesh, Arnaldi v Rublev looks decent, likewise Medvedev v De Jong, while Gauff faces Rakhimova and Anisimova meets Waltert, while Jacob Fearnley gets under way against Kamil Majchrzak.We’ll be with you for evening dig, featuring Yuan v Swiatek, Martinez v Djokovic, Vekic v Andreeva and Bellucci v Ruud