‘By the end of the day we’re just knackered’: business booms for UK’s south Asian jewellers as gold prices soar

“With everything that’s going on in the economy and Donald Trump banging his chest against the world, we’re finding there’s no trust in the banks because we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Sandeep Kanda says.Kanda is the owner of Sunny Jewellers, situated along a stretch of Leicester known as the Golden Mile, and is a beneficiary of consumers seeking alternative investments amid the uncertainty.The business is among a dozen or so south Asian jewellers in the area that have been facing relentless demand for gold since the precious metal began soaring in value at the end of last year.“By the end of the day we’re just knackered,” Kanda says. “We are seeing a lot of people buying and selling

March cut to UK interest rates more likely after inflation drops to 10-month low; London house prices fall – as it happened

Many economists are predicting the Bank of England will cut interest rates in March, after seeing inflation fall to 3% this morning.The money markets now indicate there’s an 86% chance of a rate cut in March (taking Bank rate down from 3.75% to 3.5%), at next month’s meeting.That’s up from 77% last night, and 65% a week ago

Zuckerberg grilled in landmark social media trial over teen mental health

The Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, testified at a landmark trial of social media companies on Wednesday. Plaintiffs’ lawyers grilled Zuckerberg about internal complaints that not enough was being done to verify whether children under 13 were using the platform.Zuckerberg claimed Meta had improved in identifying underage users but also said: “I always wish that we could have gotten there sooner.”Zuckerberg also said some users lie about their age when joining Instagram and that the company removes those it identifies as underage. The plaintiffs’ lawyers hit back at those claims: “You expect a nine-year-old to read all of the fine print? That’s your basis for swearing under oath that children under 13 are not allowed?” After repeated questioning about age verification, Zuckerberg said: “I don’t see why this is so complicated

Stone, parchment or laser-written glass? Scientists find new way to preserve data

Some cultures used stone, others used parchment. Some even, for a time, used floppy disks. Now scientists have come up with a new way to keep archived data safe that, they say, could endure for millennia: laser-writing in glass.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link

Mikaela Shiffrin overcame grief, crashes and her own self-doubt to win slalom gold again

The greatest American skier of all time won her first Olympic medal in 2014. The 12 years in between have been marked by brutal ups and downsA lot can happen in 12 years. If you’re Mikaela Shiffrin, as a teenager you can become the youngest ever person to win the Olympic slalom, stack a couple more medals at the next Olympics, become the most successful World Cup skier of all time with a record 108 victories, go 10 more Olympic races in a row over three Winter Games without reaching the podium, overcome the two biggest crashes of your career and subsequent battles with self-doubt and post-traumatic stress disorder and eroding trust in your own skiing, and then bring it all back home with a second Olympic slalom gold.You can also lose your dad.Shiffrin, considered by many the greatest alpine skier in history, saw her incandescent career come full circle on Wednesday beneath the jagged limestone peaks above Cortina d’Ampezzo, winning her signature race by 1

‘Princess Anne thought I was Joe Marler’: Heyes mixed up in case of mistaken identity

Anyone who tuned in to the celebrity version of The Traitors last year will be familiar with the former England rugby player Joe Marler. With the exception, it turns out, of Princess Anne who was involved in a case of mistaken identity during the Calcutta Cup pre-match formalities at Murrayfield last Saturday.Clearly unaware Marler had retired from rugby 15 months ago, the Princess Royal stopped for a chat with her new favourite prop while being introduced to the England team in her role as patron of Scottish Rugby. She even confided how amusing she had found him on Celebrity Traitors, which would have been fine had the player in front of her been Marler rather than another bearded English front-rower, Joe Heyes.“She thought I was Joe Marler which was … quite upsetting,” said Heyes