Nvidia reported stronger-than-expected earnings on Wednesday, possibly calming a jittery market. The figures came as investors appear increasingly anxious about both the demand for AI amid massive spending from tech giants, and how the tech’s widespread use could upend industries like software. Nvidia’s stock rose Wednesday in anticipation of a strong report; asset managers noted that the market’s response is unpredictable given investors’ nerves. The world’s most valuable company has seen 11 straight quarters of year-on-year revenue growth above 55%; analysts expect the streak to continue as tech giants plan to put up to $700 billion toward AI investment this year — a large chunk of which will go to Nvidia.

Germany’s chancellor called on China to correct the countries’ growing trade imbalance, as he walks a tightrope of strengthening diplomatic ties with Beijing while trying to manage its economic heft.

Friedrich Merz arrived in Beijing on Wednesday with “an outstretched hand and a list of complaints,” The New York Times wrote: Berlin is concerned about what it sees as an undervalued yuan, unfair subsidies, and overcapacity from Chinese exporters.

But reducing dependence on China is difficult for Germany, whose industries have invested massively in the Chinese market, analysts said. From Beijing’s perspective, “it’s Europe that should be making the concessions and seeking closer economic support from China because it’s in a weak position,” one expert said.

Iran threatened to escalate any conflict if the US attacked, ahead of nuclear talks in Geneva on Thursday.

Washington is ramping up pressure on Tehran, amassing aircraft and warships in the Middle East, and sanctioning more than 30 entities that support Iranian oil and weapons sales.

The US sees Thursday’s talks as a last-ditch attempt to find a diplomatic off-ramp; if unsuccessful, Trump is considering limited strikes, potentially followed by a larger attack aimed at regime change.

But Tehran hasn’t yet capitulated to US pressure, and if a nuclear deal isn’t reached, the regime would rather sustain a limited military attack and “emerge battered but defiant,” The Times of Israel’s founding editor wrote.

Harvard University’s former president Larry Summers will resign from the school over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, as the scandal increasingly ensnares figures in academia.

A Nobel Prize-winning scientist quit Columbia’s brain institute, and Bill Gates apologized to his foundation’s staff, over friendships with the sex offender.

Epstein courted celebrities, power brokers, and politicians, but newly released files reveal the extent of academics in his orbit.

Many said they only turned to Epstein for fund raising, underscoring the unsavory private sources schools sometimes solicit.

Epstein’s motivations for cultivating brilliant minds — he maintained a list of top scientists — aren’t clear, but he may have “sought to leverage academia’s reputation to clean up his own,” The New York Times wrote.

​​Japanese stocks jumped to a record high, as investors piled into tech stocks despite an ongoing trade row between Tokyo and Beijing.

Japan’s leading stock index has now outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 200% in the last 12 months, with investor sentiment rising since conservative Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi increased her party’s parliamentary seats in elections this month.

However, threats to the economy remain, both domestically and internationally. Inflation is still stubbornly above the Bank of Japan’s target rate. And China recently imposed export restrictions on dozens of Japanese entities, while the US Supreme Court’s decision to strike down President Donald Trump’s tariffs has sown confusion among Japanese exporters, Nikkei reported.

Western luxury brands cut their global sales forecasts for the year, driven largely by cooling Chinese demand.

Though the Chinese market has become one of the world’s largest for luxury goods, spending has cooled since the start of the decade, driven largely by a slowing real estate market. Meanwhile, China’s scant social spending has forced much of the country’s aging population to save, further hurting domestic consumption.

Though Chinese exports remain strong — it registered a record trade surplus last year — its shrinking domestic market is a concern, the International Monetary Fund said. If China is to meet its ambitious growth targets, Beijing will need to shift spending from industrial subsidies, which are creating deflationary pressures, to boosting the social safety net.

The director of the Louvre resigned in the wake of a $100 million jewel heist.

Laurence des Cars was appointed in 2021 and had planned an ambitious refurbishment of the world’s most-visited museum, but a series of mishaps even before the theft of several Napoleonic-era crown jewels undermined her position.

Among them was an apparent decade-long fraud involving bribes to museum employees, reusing tickets multiple times, and splitting up large groups.

The fraud, which may also have been in operation at the Palace of Versailles, cost the museum around $12 million. Nine suspects have now been arrested, including tour guides.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s purge of the country’s military may be more widespread than previously acknowledged, a new report suggested.

Xi is now believed to have ousted more than 100 officers since 2022, the report by MIT-affiliated researchers found, part of a campaign Xi says is needed to rid the armed forces of corruption. The yearslong push culminated last month with the country’s top-ranking general being placed under investigation, with the report calling the drive an “unprecedented purge of China’s military.”

The moves have consolidated Xi’s “absolute power,” giving him “primacy over the world’s second-most-powerful military,” The Wall Street Journal’s Lingling Wei wrote. However, experts say the purges raise questions about China’s readiness to go to war, including over Taiwan.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet with Caribbean leaders today, as Washington looks to expand its influence over the region.

The White House has flexed its muscles across the Caribbean in recent months, capturing the president of Venezuela, intensifying an embargo on Cuba, and striking alleged drug-trafficking vessels.

The moves are part of the so-called Donroe Doctrine, the Trump administration’s plan to counter rising competition from China in the Western Hemisphere. But some regional leaders fear Washington’s unpredictability is making it harder to govern. “Small states thrive under a situation where there are rules and where there are norms,” an expert told The Washington Post.

The US is slowing defense spending even as Europe accelerates its military outlays.

Washington remains the world’s largest military spender, at 36% of global spending last year, a new report found. But real-terms expenditure was down 7.1% in 2025. Meanwhile, Europe’s share rose from 17% in 2022 to 21% last year.

The US is keen to push more defensive responsibilities onto NATO allies, and for Europe, defense has turned from “a post-cold war choice back into a necessity,” the Financial Times argued, due to Russian aggression, Chinese military modernization, and tensions in the Middle East. Moscow’s own military surge appears to have cooled: After a 57% jump in spending between 2023 and 2024, it rose just 3% last year.

An AI-induced stock slide subsided on Tuesday as traders grew more confident that the tech can augment, rather than replace, traditional software businesses.

AI startup Anthropic — whose Claude tools sparked the rout earlier this month — announced partnerships with software firms on Tuesday, a message that amounted to: “We’re here to help, not hurt,” one analyst said.

The relief rally spurred some strategists to temper their expectations of a broad meltdown at the hands of AI, with a JPMorgan Chase expert arguing, “The catastrophizing seems overdone.”

But investors are so skittish that a recent viral blog post imagining a bleak AI future was enough to spark a selloff. The market is “looking for an excuse to fall,” a Financial Times columnist wrote.

US consumer confidence rebounded more than expected in February, new data showed Tuesday, though worsening sentiment around job prospects could signal turmoil ahead.

While Americans’ short-term expectations for incomes and businesses improved, the share of consumers that view jobs as “hard to get” hit a five-year high.

The economy has been growing and inflation has cooled, but a downbeat public has dented President Donald Trump’s narrative of an economic turnaround.

Trump will aim to sell Americans on his handling of the economy during his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, but it will be a tough task given that polling shows voters remain concerned about costs and are increasingly souring on the president’s performance.

The Pentagon gave Anthropic until Friday to provide the US military unrestricted access to its AI model or face penalties.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Tuesday following a weekslong feud between the American startup and US officials who want to deepen the integration of AI for military uses.

Anthropic already has a $200 million contract with the government, but wants carve-outs that prohibit its AI’s use for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons deployment, Semafor reported last week. Anthropic has taken a hard line on those issues compared to competitors including xAI and OpenAI. The Pentagon threatened to deem Anthropic a supply-chain risk if it doesn’t comply.

The Russia-Ukraine war is at the “beginning of the end,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Financial Times, as the conflict entered its fifth year Tuesday.

Through it, Ukraine has remained resilient, commentators said. Shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, many thought Kyiv could fall within days. But Ukrainian forces are showing they have “plenty of fight left,” The Wall Street Journal wrote.

Even as Russia intensifies attacks on Ukrainian power plants, “it’s clear that the most… prolonged military campaign against energy infrastructure in history has failed,” Semafor’s Kyiv-based energy editor wrote.

But the siege means “normal life has become untenable” in Ukraine, Russian American journalist M. Gessen wrote, and “whatever lies ahead feels as if it will last forever.”

The mysterious founder of Shein made a rare public appearance Tuesday to hail local government support that helped the Chinese fast-fashion giant grow into a global juggernaut.

Xu Yangtian’s speech was remarkable in part because of his incredibly low profile: Shein never made photos of him available, and even some of the company’s employees have reportedly struggled to identify him.

Xu’s remarks, which came as the EU is investigating Shein, also contrasted with the company’s yearslong efforts to distance itself from its Chinese roots and present as a Singapore-based e-commerce platform to attract global capital and avoid Western regulatory pressure. “So much for the past 2 years China-shedding,” one China business consultant wrote.

Mexico deployed thousands of troops across the country to quell violence sparked by the killing of its most-wanted cartel boss.

Authorities said dozens were killed in the aftermath of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes’ death on Sunday, with the cartel’s show of force leading to school and business closures across Mexico. While Washington celebrated his killing, some in Mexico fear it will unleash a wave of violence as the cartel’s factions fight for control.

Others have warned that Cervantes’ death will change little given the state’s weakness: “Can Mexico’s government win a lasting battle against cartels with formidable private armies… when it has one of the region’s most under-resourced states?” the editor in chief of Americas Quarterly asked.

Chad closed its border with Sudan, shutting a vital lane for thousands trying to escape the Sudanese civil war.

Chad said the border — across which more than a million Sudanese have fled their country — would be closed “until further notice” after the conflict neared its territory. While there have been numerous attempts to end hostilities in Sudan, the fighting rages on, creating one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, including the first declaration of famine anywhere in years.

Experts have warned that the war will continue so long as foreign powers — namely the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt — continue backing and funding the belligerents, including a paramilitary accused of perpetrating a genocide.

Panama seized two key ports run by a Hong Kong-based company, raising the stakes in a legal fight that has embroiled Beijing and Washington.

Port operator CK Hutchinson slammed the decision to grant the operating license to two European firms as “unlawful,” while authorities in Hong Kong lodged “stern protests” with Panama, underscoring the strategic importance of the sites.

Though CK Hutchinson has run the ports for almost three decades, Washington has recently pushed Panama to loosen Beijing’s influence over the canal, through which around 40% of US container traffic passes. The move is part of a wider push by the Trump administration to reassert US supremacy in Latin America after years during which the region grew closer to China.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrived in China, seeking to rebalance the two countries’ trade relationship.

Berlin was for years the driving force for closer EU relations with Beijing — as China took off economically, it was a huge market for Germany’s industrial exports. But that drive “appears to be a historic policy miscalculation,” Politico reported, comparable to Germany’s reliance on Russian energy, as China’s soaring industrial output floods markets and its dominance of raw-materials supply chains gives Beijing huge power over Germany’s factories.

Merz is under pressure from German industry leaders to take a harder line, but he is in a tough spot: US unpredictability means relying on Washington is unwise, leaving him little leverage over Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

China hit dozens of Japanese companies with export restrictions as tensions between the two countries escalated.

Beijing reacted angrily in November when new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi warned against Chinese aggression towards Taiwan, and China’s position has hardened since her landslide election victory this month. It curbed exports to 20 companies of rare-earth magnets and other minerals which it said have military applications, to slow what it called Japan’s “remilitarization.”

The companies do have defense divisions — carmaker Subaru, for instance, makes helicopters and military trucks — but “China’s measures could result in a blow to their civilian businesses,” the Financial Times reported, and force Tokyo to expand its supply chains to prevent further disruption.

FedEx sued the US government for reimbursement of cash it spent on President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The shipping giant’s lawsuit is the first filed by a major US company since the Supreme Court ruled Friday that the tariffs were illegal. The tariffs brought in an estimated $130 billion in revenue since they were imposed, and should other companies join FedEx — and win — it could be extremely costly for the administration; the decision followed a lawsuit by the retailer Costco and others claiming the levies were unlawful.

They’re not the only ones to spot an opportunity: 22 Senate Democrats called for the overturned import duties to be reimbursed to the public, with interest, in what Bloomberg called “a populist election-year campaign.”

US President Donald Trump will use today’s State of the Union to defend his stewardship of the economy, with many Americans souring on its outlook.

Despite economic indicators offering a buoyant picture, consumers remain pessimistic, with some chafing at cuts to insurance subsidies that have sent costs skyrocketing, while two of Trump’s signature policies — tariffs and immigration — have become major liabilities.

The negative vibes have dragged down Trump’s popularity figures to their lowest level on record. Foreign policy will likely take a prominent role also, with analysts looking for signals on where Trump’s campaign against Iran may go, though The Economist warned “viewers may end up more, not less, confused about where he is taking America.”

US and European stocks fell Monday as President Donald Trump’s new global tariff hike triggered a fresh wave of market turmoil.

“Uncertainty is back,” one banker told the Financial Times, noting that the risk of escalation between Washington and its trading partners is higher than it was a year ago.

The US Supreme Court’s ruling invalidating most of Trump’s tariffs — which he responded to by imposing a blanket 15% duty — threw global trade agreements into flux.

The European Parliament on Monday said it paused ratification of the US-EU pact. The feeling is reminiscent of early 2025, when Trump’s tariff policies “seemed to switch on a moment’s notice,” Reuters noted. For companies, “it’s impossible to plan,” EY-Parthenon’s chief economist said.

Ukraine’s economic reconstruction will cost about $588 billion over the next decade, according to new estimates released a day before the four-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Despite the considerable damage, which is most pronounced in the transportation, housing, and energy sectors, Ukraine’s economy has proven resilient.

GDP has increased every year since 2023, and the war has spurred technical innovation that has bolstered Ukraine’s manufacturing sector.

Domestic drone production in particular has been a boon for Kyiv’s efforts to more closely integrate into the EU’s industrial network.

While Russia’s economy hasn’t collapsed either, it has been split in two, The Bell wrote: Military-related sectors are flourishing, but those unrelated to the war are in decline thanks to sanctions and high borrowing costs.

British authorities arrested the country’s former US ambassador, Peter Mandelson, on Monday, as revelations from the Jeffrey Epstein files continue to reverberate globally.

Police are investigating whether Mandelson passed confidential government information to the sex offender. His detention came less than a week after former Prince Andrew was arrested on suspicion of misconduct. Australia’s leader backed removing Andrew from the line of royal succession.

The Epstein saga will remain in the headlines this week as Bill and Hillary Clinton testify to US lawmakers about their ties to the financier. Material consequences in the US have so far been confined to the private sector: Longevity influencer Peter Attia reportedly stepped down as a CBS News contributor over his relationship with Epstein.

OpenAI on Monday announced multiyear deals with four major consulting firms, part of the startup’s quest to get more businesses, not just individuals, to embrace its products.

The agreements with Accenture, Boston Consulting Group, Capgemini, and McKinsey amount to a bet that consultants can harness AI before it hollows out their core business.

Consulting firms invested billions with hopes to lead companies through the AI boom, but clients found many consultants lacked AI expertise themselves. Several consultancies now require AI proficiency for some hires, with a focus on exceeding what a client could generate using the tech themselves.

A recent study showed AI can’t yet do the work of a human consultant, but is on track to replace some tasks.

Aggressive holiday giveaway campaigns from China’s top AI companies appear to have paid off — at least in the short term.

The tech firms gave away cars, shopping vouchers, and even cash to increase AI app engagement around Lunar New Year. China’s ByteDance said it logged 1.9 billion interactions during a widely watched new year’s gala; at one point, it processed 63.3 billion tokens in a single minute, equivalent to about 47 billion English words. Alibaba said nearly 200 million orders were placed through its AI agent interface, including 55 million cups of milk tea.

“This is the commerce-as-interface thesis at scale,” a China tech analyst wrote, but it remains to be seen whether the holiday hype will create lasting consumer habits.

Investors called on Novo Nordisk to pivot to sectors beyond weight loss after disappointing trial results for a new drug saw the Danish pharmaceutical giant’s stock plummet.

The Ozempic maker established the modern market for GLP-1 weight loss drugs, but its next-generation treatment, CagriSema, underperformed compared to a similar offering from US-based Eli Lilly. One Deutsche Bank analyst called Novo’s new drug “obsolete,” a characterization that the company’s CEO rejected.

The question is now whether Novo veers into other fields like rare diseases and heart conditions. “Obesity and diabetes — it’s too risky to bet the entire company on these two franchises,” one investor said.

Mexican authorities killed the leader of the country’s most powerful cartel, responsible for exporting a large share of US-bound fentanyl.

The death of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” sparked violence in almost two-thirds of Mexico’s states, underscoring the widespread power of his Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum will be hoping his killing will alleviate pressure from Washington, which has threatened further tariffs if her government does not crack down on drug flows that kill tens of thousands of Americans each year.

Still, some experts in Mexico fear the cartel’s power will remain unchallenged: When previous kingpins have been caught or killed, drug production rarely dropped.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva accelerated his global diplomatic push, forging new trade agreements amid global upheaval.

Brasília and Delhi agreed to a mining pact following Lula’s visit to India last week, with both nations vowing to play a bigger role in rare earths production, an industry currently dominated by China.

South Korea’s president, meanwhile, hailed a “new leap” in ties with Brazil following a meeting with Lula in Seoul. Both leaders agreed to closer trade links, including in minerals too.

Brazil has been hit by some of Washington’s steepest tariffs, and even if those could be reduced after the US Supreme Court tariff ruling, Brasília is keen to ease its reliance on the world’s biggest economy.

Global CEOs faced a difficult choice following the court ruling canceling US President Donald Trump’s tariffs — whether to push for refunds on the duties, or avoid his wrath.

Major trade groups immediately called for companies to be handed back money as a result of last week’s Supreme Court decision, a figure that could amount to billions of dollars and which Trump himself has said could be tied up in litigation for years.

Justices gave no guidance on whether refunds should be issued. Several company bosses are taking time to digest the ruling’s full implications, many gaming out what Trump’s response might be: The president has already announced a blanket 15% global tariff under a different law.