Feeling rusty? 🏅

Morning all. If you’re feeling rusty, you’re not the only one. Despite the Paris Olympics finishing less than six months ago, podium athletes are complaining that the LVMH designer medals, demonstrating their years of hard training, have already rusted and are further deteriorating.

LVMH has done the honourable thing by distancing themselves, stating that their jeweller, Chaumet, only designed the medals. La Monnaie has minted French coins since the ninth century and made the medals. La Monnaie blamed the EU ban on chromium trioxide which meant they had to change their anti-corrosion varnish.

MARKETS

Data: Google Finance, 5-day Market Close

Notable UK earnings this week: Shell PLC (SHEL), Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.), Airtel Africa (AAF), Rank Group (RNK).

Notable US earnings this week: Apple (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT), Meta (META), Tesla (TSLA).

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PROJECT WATCH

🏗️ Kaefer wins £95m Sellafield’s industrial services framework deal. Read more

☢️ Plutonium plant project to bring thousands of skilled jobs at Sellafield. Read more

🚢 Belfast Harbour set out five year plan to invest £313m in upgrades. Read more

ECONOMY & FINANCE

Govt borrowing hits four year highs
It seems the festive season was less about goodwill and more about borrowing plenty, as UK government borrowing surged to £17.8bn in December—above the City’s expectations. Local councils got a bit spend-happy, accounting for an extra £4.1bn in borrowing, while central government apparently stuck to their spendthrift New Year’s resolutions. The result? The highest December borrowing figure in four years. Call it splurge before the purge.

According to the Treasury’s crystal-ball gazers, the borrowing bill was a hefty quarter higher than anticipated, leaving economists reaching for their calculators. This isn’t just a bad hangover from November, where net borrowing hit £11.25bn—it’s a full-blown fiscal headache. The cost of public services, benefits, and debt interest continues to creep upwards, tightening Rachel Reeves’s financial wiggle room.

Reeves’s fiscal rule demands that day-to-day spending aligns with tax receipts, but with the Treasury ruling out more borrowing or tax hikes, spending cuts might be on the menu.

Sainsbury’s to cut jobs and cafes
It’s rough waters for J Sainsbury as it announces plans to cut 3,000 jobs, axe in-store cafés, and wave goodbye to a fifth of its senior management team. It seems the UK’s second-largest supermarket chain is serving redundancy notices instead of lattes, thanks in part to rising costs and the Labour government’s October Budget, which sent employers’ tax rates soaring like a well-dropped soufflé.

The move comes as retailers across Britain face an increasingly prickly economic environment. The national minimum wage is set to rise, and employers’ national insurance contributions are jumping 1.2 percentage points, pushing costs through the proverbial roof. Sainsbury’s alone is staring down a £140 million tax bill, proving that even the nation’s supermarket giants can’t escape the Chancellor’s shopping list.

POLITICS

Heathrow's third runway takeoff (despite turbulence ahead)
Rachel Reeves is circling the issue like a delayed flight over London, but the Chancellor has all but confirmed her support for a third runway at Heathrow. While she insists it’s “full collective ministerial responsibility” or bust, eco-warriors and sceptical colleagues alike are less than thrilled.

Reeves is banking on electric planes and streamlined landings to keep climate concerns grounded. But with opposition from Sadiq Khan and Labour’s own camp, this runway might still hit some political turbulence. Expect more noise than a red-eye over Richmond.

National Care Service nae more
The SNP’s National Care Service plans have officially been wheeled into the policy graveyard, but Maree Todd insists it’s not dead—just… "revised." The original bold vision has been reduced to a bill with a fraction of its initial ambition, swapping a national network for a non-statutory advisory board and a few popular reforms.

Critics are fuming over £30 million spent on what’s now a glorified to-do list. Still, there’s hope for small wins like “Anne’s Law,” but Scotland’s care sector revolution? That’s been delayed indefinitely—probably by the same planning system Reeves wants to streamline.

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ACROSS THE POND

Donald’s praise for Starmer
Former President Donald Trump has sketched a portrait of Sir Keir Starmer as an admirable figure, an interesting pivot given their political polarities. Trump and Starmer, it seems, are having quite the bromance despite the latter’s liberal leanings—a detail which Trump charmingly acknowledges are "a little bit different from me." Well, oil and vinegar make the tastiest dressing!

The two have a phone chat scheduled soon, with Trump applauding Starmer’s handling of his post thus far, noting he doesn’t share Sir Keir's ideology, but hey, who doesn't love a dash of difference in international relations? Flashback to their pre-inaugural tête-à-tête at Trump Tower—where Trump was likely eager to show off his New York digs. Whether his purported feelings are authentic, or the first part of his trade playbook, remains to be seen.

As cheerily as Trump praises Starmer, his mate Elon Musk is less enthused, persisting with calls for the UK Prime Minister’s replacement.

Breaking news: Elephants are not human
Do elephants have the right to trumpet their way out of a zoo? Not if you ask Colorado’s top court. The highest legal minds in the state ruled unanimously that our tusky friends are not humans and thus cannot petition for freedom—one court case that, unlike Dumbo's ears, will not fly.

Justice might be blind, but Colorado's Supreme Court didn't lose sight of its decision: Jambo, Kimba, LouLou, Lucky, and Missy, the zoo's elder states-elephants, will stick around at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. This verdict nods to a similar New York ruling that Happy the elephant must remain in the Bronx Zoo. Happy by name, but not by court's decree.

In a move that might make Dumbo's jaw drop, animal rights group Nonhuman Rights Project, attempted a legal leap by employing habeas corpus—a mechanism traditionally reserved for humans. Their argument? Elephants share significant cognitive traits with humans, like empathy and self-awareness. But, alas, nonhuman animals are excluded from these legal protections, even if they could remember what they went upstairs for.

TECH

Trump’s TikTok tug-of-war
TikTok’s ownership is back on the auction block, and President Trump is playing the auctioneer. After delaying a law that temporarily banned the app, Trump says he’s spoken to “many people” about potential buyers but firmly denies Oracle founder Larry Ellison is in the running—despite reports suggesting otherwise.

The latest whispers suggest Oracle and other investors are eyeing a deal to wrest TikTok from ByteDance, its Chinese owner, with a plan to minimize Chinese ownership while keeping control over algorithms and data firmly in U.S. hands. ByteDance reportedly values TikTok at a cool $200 billion, with players like Microsoft, Elon Musk, Perplexity AI, MrBeast and even ex-Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick expressing interest.

Congress, however, isn’t sold yet. While bipartisan legislation mandates a divestiture, whether lawmakers or Chinese regulators will green-light the deal remains up in the air. For now, the only certainty is that TikTok’s future hangs in political and financial limbo, with Trump hinting a decision could be 30 days away.

Stargate sparks debate at Davos
Move over sci-fi fans—Stargate is no wormhole to another galaxy but a jaw-dropping $500bn AI infrastructure project announced by OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle. Though not unveiled at Davos, the ambitious project dominated discussions among tech leaders at the World Economic Forum, where it was framed as a moonshot effort to cement U.S. dominance in the global AI race, particularly against China.

Stargate aims to build a vast computing infrastructure to power the next era of AI. However, scepticism looms, with only $30bn pledged so far, leaving the remaining $470bn a giant question mark.

Meanwhile, China’s DeepSeek, a rising AI lab, has taken a different tack. Operating under U.S. export restrictions on advanced chips, DeepSeek has focused on resource efficiency, recently releasing its open-source R1 model that rivals (and arguably beats) the best from OpenAI. The lab’s approach contrasts sharply with the closed, large-scale industrial model of Stargate.

WORLD

Belize’s banknote bye-byes
Belize is replacing Queen Elizabeth II’s image on its banknotes with national heroes as part of its decolonization efforts. From June, George Cadle Price, the first prime minister and “father of independence,” will appear on higher denominations, while Philip Goldson, a political trailblazer, will feature on others.

Reactions are mixed, with some questioning the need for change. However, many see it as a symbolic step toward full independence. Political scientist Dr. Dylan Vernon hailed it as “small but meaningful,” while urging broader constitutional reforms to further Belize’s decolonization journey.

Lukashenko, Belarus election
Belarusians are voting in an election set to extend Alexander Lukashenko’s 30-year rule, with four “opposition” candidates loyal to the president. Since 2020’s protests over alleged election fraud, Lukashenko has removed ballot box curtains, banned ballot photos, and silenced critics through imprisonment or exile.

Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called the election “a senseless farce,” echoing Western governments that have labelled it neither free nor fair. While Lukashenko has pardoned some political prisoners, critics see this as an attempt to ease sanctions while maintaining his authoritarian grip on Belarus.

There’s still tea in the pot...
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Cuppa Chat: Cheat Sheet

🎵🏆 Taylor Swift's "Lover: Live from Paris" hits No. 1 on Billboard's Top Album Sales chart, marking her record-breaking 15th album to achieve this feat.

🏏🇦🇺 England suffer a 72-run defeat against Australia in the Women's Ashes T20 match in Adelaide, bowled out for 90 runs.

👑📰 The Sun publisher has agreed to pay Prince Harry "substantial damages" and apologised for unlawful intrusion into his private life.

🏚️👻 Adele accused of hindering sale of £6m West Sussex mansion by describing it as "haunted" in a 2012 interview.

⚽💷 Chelsea signs USA defender Naomi Girma for a women's world record £900k, with a contract through 2029.

🚨🏛️ Thieves used explosives to steal Romanian prehistoric artefacts, including a 2,500-year-old gold helmet, from the Drents Museum in the Netherlands. Authorities are involving Interpol to recover the items.

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