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Prosecutors' office says two museum workers, several tour guides and suspected mastermind among those detainedFrench police investigating a suspected €10m (£8.7m) ticket fraud scheme at the Louvre museum in Paris have detained nine people, including two members of staff.“Based on the information available to the museum, we suspect the existence of a network organising large-scale fraud,” a museum spokesperson told Agence France-Presse. Continue reading......

The final stretch of the JP Morgan Chase chief's career is a bumpy one, as Trump himself demands prosecutors investigate Epstein's ties to Dimon's bank Continue reading......

All stones in Cortina are made from granite found on tiny island in Firth of Clyde and crafted in East Ayrshire“It takes 60m years and about six hours to make a curling stone,” shouts Ricky English above the whine of the lathes. The operations manager at Kays Scotland is surrounded by wheels of ancient granite in varying states of refinement.It is a small business with a big responsibility: the only factory in the world to supply the Winter Olympics with curling stones. Competitors don't travel with their own stones, which weigh about 18kg each, and with 16 required for a game. Instead, this year, 132 stones were crafted in the East Ayrshire town of Mauchline and shipped to northern Italy. Continue reading......

SemiCab platform by Algorhythm, previously considered a 'penny stock', sparks 'category 5 paranoia' across sectorShares in trucking and logistics companies have plunged as the sector became the latest to be targeted by investors fearful that new artificial intelligence tools could slash demand.A new tool launched by Algorhythm, a former maker of in-car karaoke systems turned AI company with a market capitalisation of just $6m (£4.4m), sparked a sell-off on Thursday that made the logistics industry the latest victim of AI jitters that have already rocked listed companies operating in the software and real estate sectors. Continue reading......

Councillors vote for 3.99% council tax increase while mounting 'attack on the vulnerable', opposition saysReform UK's showcase council in Kent faces “extreme risk” and “instability”, opposition politicians have warned, after it passed its first budget.The party's councillors voted it through on Thursday night after their leaders announced a 3.99% council tax increase, one percentage point under the limit before a referendum is required, despite promising before their election win not to raise tax. Continue reading......

Thwaite given £6.6m pay package for 2025, while Goodwin received £7.7m when bank was known as RBSBusiness live – latest updatesThe NatWest boss Paul Thwaite has clinched the largest payout for a chief executive of the banking group since his disgraced predecessor Fred Goodwin took home £7.7m in the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis.Thwaite, who guided the once-bailed-out lender to full private ownership last year, was given a £6.6m pay package for 2025, with the boardroom lifting his overall pay by a third. Continue reading......

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial newsGood morning and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.Donald Trump is reportedly planning to scale back some of his trade tariffs on steel and aluminium goods.7am GMT: Earnings from NatWest, Capgemini10am GMT: Eurozone trade data1pm GMT: Moderna earnings1:30pm GMT: US inflation for JanuaryMunich security conference Continue reading......

Exclusive: in 2025 briefing to Wes Streeting, officials warned reputation of tech firm behind US ICE operations would hinder rollout of data system in UK Health officials fear Palantir's reputation will hinder the delivery of a “vital” £330m NHS contract, according to briefings seen by the Guardian, sparking fresh calls for the deal to be scrapped.In 2023, ministers selected Palantir, a US surveillance technology company that also works for the Israeli military and Donald Trump's ICE operation, to build an AI-enabled data platform to connect disparate health information across the NHS. Continue reading......

More than 500 deals now offer 95% loans as banks and building societies loosen their borrowing rulesWould-be first-time buyers have the biggest choice of low-deposit mortgages for at least 18 years, new data shows, suggesting that 2026 is looking positive for those trying to get a foot on the property ladder.In recent months many banks and building societies have been loosening their affordability rules or launching deals that let people borrow 95% of the property's value, and in some cases more than that. Continue reading......

City analysts say financial market investors will be worried if cost is deducted from budget surplusRachel Reeves is under pressure to reassure MPs over the state of the UK's public finances, amid concerns that the rising cost of special educational needs and disabilities (Send) could leave a significant hole in the government's financial buffer.Meg Hillier, the chair of the all-party House of Commons Treasury committee, said the chancellor should make clear her long-term plans for the £6bn-a-year Send bill as uncertainty grows over how it will be accounted for at the end of the decade. Continue reading......

Report by Tony Blair Institute urges government to drop some green policies amid criticism of decarbonisation goalTony Blair's thinktank has accused Ed Miliband of driving up energy prices in his push to make Britain's energy supply more environmentally friendly.The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) published a report on Friday criticising the government's green policies and urging the energy secretary to drop some of them altogether, including almost completely decarbonising the electricity system by 2030. Continue reading......

Rollback of government's ability to limit climate-heating pollution will make families 'sicker and less safe', environmental advocate saysUS politics live – latest updatesThe Trump administration has revoked the bedrock scientific determination that gives the government the ability to regulate climate-heating pollution. The move was described as a gift to “billionaire polluters” at the expense of Americans' health.The endangerment finding, which states that the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endangers public health and welfare, has since 2009 allowed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to limit heat-trapping pollution from vehicles, power plants and other industrial sources. Continue reading......

Emails show Kathy Ruemmler had close ties to convicted sexual abuser she called 'Uncle Jeffrey'Kathy Ruemmler, the top lawyer at Goldman Sachs and former White House counsel to Barack Obama, has announced her resignation in the wake of emails showing a close relationship between her and Jeffrey Epstein, whom she referred to as “Uncle Jeffrey”.Ruemmler said in a statement on Thursday that she would “step down as Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel of Goldman Sachs as of June 30, 2026”. Continue reading......

You have to be careful managing supplies – there is one delivery a yearThe first time anyone goes to the Antarctic is truly special. Just getting there is an adventure: it takes several planes, and about three to five days. Travelling there was a childhood dream of mine. I saw it as a way to test myself against something so much bigger. I nearly applied for a role at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) 30 years ago, but then my wife and I were expecting our first child. Instead, I've worked as a chef in Michelin-star restaurants in Paris and London, hotels in Kuala Lumpur and St Moritz, and even at a school in Oxfordshire.In 2016, I took a sabbatical and finally joined BAS as a chef for a summer. Five years later, I went back for the winter, and last year, I became the organisation's full-time catering manager. I felt ready for an adventure. Now I oversee the catering across BAS's five Antarctic stations: bases for the organisation's research and also where the staff liv...

Exclusive: Manufacturers tell European Commission proposed ban would cause unnecessary confusionMore than a dozen food companies have urged the European Commission not to ban the use of words such as “sausage” and “burger” for non-meat products.Companies including Linda McCarney Foods, Quorn and THIS have signed a joint letter calling on commissioners to “let common sense prevail” ahead of a debate on the proposed ban, which they say would cause “unnecessary confusion” for customers “without helping anyone”. Continue reading......

Maker of chatbot boasting coding ability said annualized revenue grew tenfold in each of past three years, to $14bnThe artificial intelligence company Anthropic said on Thursday it raised $30bn in its latest funding round that values the Claude maker and OpenAI rival at $380bn, underscoring the breakneck pace of AI investments.The round, led by the Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and hedge fund Coatue Management, is among the largest private fundraising deals on record and comes just five months after Anthropic closed its previous round at a $183bn valuation – meaning the company has more than doubled in value since September. Continue reading......

Ex-PM's thinktank urges more drilling and fewer renewables, ignoring evidence that clean energy is cheaper and better for billsA thinktank with close ties to Saudi Arabia and substantial funding from a Donald Trump ally needs to present a particularly robust analysis to earn the right to be listened to on the climate crisis. On that measure, Tony Blair's latest report fails on almost every point.The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) received money from the Saudi government, has advised the United Arab Emirates petrostate, and counts as a main donor Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, friend of Trump and advocate of AI. Continue reading......

Comments on the 'colonisation of the UK' by the co-owner of Manchester United were erroneous, crass and a gift to divisive forces in British societyIn 2020, the year Sir Jim Ratcliffe moved his huge fortune to Monaco, migrants in the United Kingdom made tax contributions estimated to be worth around £20bn. Sir Jim, by jetting off to a tax haven on the French Riviera, saved himself an estimated £4bn. It took some brass neck for the expat owner of Ineos and co-owner of Manchester United football club to lecture the country, using inflammatory and offensive language, on the perils of immigration.Where to begin? The statistics used by Sir Jim to back his claim that Britain was being “colonised” by migrants, in an interview with Sky News, were flatly wrong. They were also astonishingly crass, coming from a man who presides over a sporting institution famous for and proud of its global fanbase and international connections.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If yo...

Tax exile has already proven himself a terrible club owner; now his ill-informed diatribe about immigration has poured fuel on wider flamesWell I, for one, am shocked. Shocked to learn that a tax-exiled English expat who made his billions squeezing chemical plants doesn't have liberal, let alone accurate, views on immigration. Or at least, in public anyway.It seems highly likely Sir Jim Ratcliffe knew what he was doing in the course of his now semi-recanted Sky News interview. And it is above all vital that at least one part of his empire of influence – football, sport, Manchester United – rejects it, as the club have done to some extent in their statement. Continue reading......

Spending watchdog says state-owned bank exposed taxpayers to 'unacceptable risk' as cost spiral to £3bnAn attempt to modernise the state-owned savings bank NS&I has been a “full-spectrum disaster”, parliament's spending watchdog has concluded in a damning report.NS&I (National Savings & Investments), which runs a popular monthly cash-prize draw for premium bond holders, has been criticised by a committee of MPs for exposing the taxpayer to “unacceptable risk” owing to the spiralling costs of its £3bn modernisation programme. Continue reading......