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Your editorial (8 February) is correct to highlight that a graduate levy by stealth is no way to fund the NHS and its potential consequences. This will include resident doctors, whose dissatisfaction with their pay and working conditions will be amplified by the chancellor’s statement that they now need to help pay for their own salaries.The anger that recent graduates feel will also be felt by their parents, many of whom benefited from free higher education and see as unfair the repayment/tax changes being imposed. The government should bear in mind the electoral near wipeout experienced by the Liberal Democrats…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldDonald Trump has threatened to block the opening of a new suspension bridge connecting the US and Canada, escalating tensions between the two neighbours following Ottawa’s threat to bring Chinese EV manufacturers into North America.The US president wrote on his Truth Social platform on Monday evening that the Gordie Howe International Bridge — which is set to open this year and connects the key auto hubs of Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario — had been built with “virtually no US…

Regarding your editorial (The Guardian view on high-street decline: a symbol of failure in a discontented nation, 3 February), saving high streets requires four things that the Treasury, the dead hand of government innovation, won’t like.First, it requires an overhaul of the business rates system, and second, a new tax for online business. Third, it requires compelling landlords to charge reasonable rents.Fourth, and finally, it requires local authorities the financial headroom to buy up vacant retail space. This ought to enable innovative community and business enterprises to flourish in what would otherwise be an overtaxed and overpriced rental market.None of…

The clearing of the decks continues apace at BP. The last chief executive, Murray Auchincloss, got the heave-ho in December. Last month brought news of hefty write-downs on the troublesome low-carbon energy assets in solar and biogas. Now comes an admission that the current debt-reduction measures aren’t enough to ease the strain on an over-extended balance sheet. Share buy-backs are being suspended.Buy-backs have become the essential symbol of financial virility in today’s oil industry. At the right price, they represent an efficient use of excess capital and are a way for managements to send obligatory signals about “financial discipline”, meaning…

When Lunos, an AI startup in New York City, was gearing up for launch, its founder and chief executive, Duncan Barrigan, and his team wanted to make a splash. So they shelled out $3,500 to do the unconventional: hire a horse and a cowboy to lasso the bull of Wall Street.On a sweltering evening in late September, the cowboy galloped toward the iconic sculpture in lower Manhattan. Wearing ranch gear and a western hat stamped with the Lunos logo, he lassoed the bull’s horns as invitees and curious passersby watched. He and the horse then circled the statue, handing out…

Online prediction market Kalshi hit a daily record on Super Bowl Sunday, surpassing $1bn in trading volume, the company announced on Tuesday.Kalshi’s CEO, Tarek Mansour, called it an “incredible weekend”, telling CNBC that “Kalshi was the biggest brand of the Super Bowl this year, without running a Super Bowl ad”.Kalshi trading volume during the game was up 2,700% year over year. More than $100m were bets on Bad Bunny’s opening song and $45m on which artists would perform with him on stage. In comparison, the platform saw $27m in total trading volume at last year’s Super Bowl.Prediction markets like Kalshi…

Nearly 55,000 children in England live with foster carers, and despite a recent fall in the number of children in care, pressure on the system remains intense. Rising costs and the growing role of private providers in residential care and foster placements have exposed deep weaknesses, yet reform has lagged behind the crisis in children’s homes. Only now have ministers set out plans to reshape fostering. The test is whether their plan fixes the system, or papers over its cracks.The main thrust of a new policy paper from the Department for Education is that more foster carers are needed to…

Downing Street is increasingly confident that Anas Sarwar’s call for Keir Starmer to stand down was not part of a coordinated plot by a leadership rival to bring down the prime minister, the Guardian understands.The Scottish Labour leader spoke to several cabinet ministers including Wes Streeting, as well as former deputy leader Angela Rayner, ahead of his explosive intervention on Monday, but sources said he had not revealed his plans.No 10 had been braced for further calls for Starmer to go, including from Eluned Morgan, Labour’s first minister in Wales, along with ministerial resignations in Westminster. They immediately acted to…

If the sentence handed to the media mogul Jimmy Lai was meant to surprise, it would have been shorter. Twenty years behind bars is not a burst of rage. It is a sentence designed to make repression routine in Hong Kong. The 78-year-old founder of the shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily is now likely to die in prison after being convicted of sedition. The court was telling Hongkongers what kind of place they now live in, and signalling to foreign governments what kind of relationship Beijing expects them to accept.China’s national security law, imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, was…

In a motion backed by MPs last week, the government agreed to publish all documents relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment as the UK’s ambassador to the US.The government agreed that sensitive documents would be referred to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC), a group of MPs which will have a role in deciding what will be published.One source said following Streeting’s move to publish messages himself, there was now concern that ministers could feel political pressure to publish messages that should instead be shared by the ISC.When Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds was asked if she would follow Streeting’s…