Latest Developments

Democrats oppose Trump officials’ effort to include crypto in 401(k) plans
Europe
The Guardian•6/2/2026

Democrats oppose Trump officials’ effort to include crypto in 401(k) plans

Democrat Bobby Scott, the ranking member of the House education and workforce committee. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenDemocrat Bobby Scott, the ranking member of the House education and workforce committee. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty ImagesUS newsDemocrats oppose Trump officials’ effort to include crypto in 401(k) plansChange backed by labor department would expose workers to greater financial risk, letter shared with Guardian says Congressional Democrats are strongly opposing a US Department of Labor proposal that would allow 401(k) investments to include cryptocurrency, private credit and private equity assets, arguing the change will expose workers to riskier and more complex investments. In a letter shared exclusively with the Guardian, Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren and House education and workforce committee ranking member Bobby Scott of Virginia, argued the rule would expose an estimated $14.2tn of 401(k) retirement savings to volatile assets and would probably not withstand a challenge in court. “This would strip long-held investor protections from retirement savers and encourage the use of more risky, complex, and expensive investments,” said the letter. “The proposed rule is harmful to American workers.” These high-risk assets can experience extreme volatility, the Democrats said, citing Trump’s memecoin, which soared to over $75 per token during Trump’s inauguration in January 2025 but has since dropped to $2 per token. The letter noted seniors in the US were already struggling financially, with more than 22.8% of seniors in the US living in poverty, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), compared with just 5.1% in Denmark, 5.8% in France, 12.6% in Germany and 14.8 % in Canada. The proposal could also expose workers to higher fees and erode their long-term returns. The Financial Industry Regulation Authority (Finra) cautions that crypto investments “have experienced higher levels of volatility relative to more traditional investment assets” and “the risk of losing all of your investment is significant”. The FBI reported cryptocurrency fraud complaints comprise some of the highest losses for Americans among cyber-enabled fraud, with over $11bn in losses reported in 2025. Consumer advocates argue the proposed rule only puts retirement savings accounts at higher risk while benefiting the crypto industry. “Opening 401ks to these products risks turning workers’ retirement savings into a Ponzi-like scheme that throws a lifeline to an industry scrambling for fresh cash,” Oscar Valdés Viera, a senior policy analyst at consumer advocacy group Americans for Financial Reform, said in a statement. Democrats flagged Trump’s ties to the crypto industry and the conflict of interest it could present to the proposal. Trump’s adult sons have been managing the family’s crypto business, which includes a new Trump-based digital currency, as he carries out his second term in the White House. The ventures in crypto have potentially raised as much as $5bn for the family after the launch of its digital currency in September, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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Investors and labels are buying into the growing South Asian music business in the U.S.
North America
CNBC•5/30/2026

Investors and labels are buying into the growing South Asian music business in the U.S.

When music executive Anjula Acharia began launching superstar actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas into Hollywood in the early 2000s, her label partner Jimmy Iovine — the name behind pop sensations such as Eminem and Lady Gaga — told her she was 20 years too early to bring South Asian talent to the U.S. Now, Acharia is the founder and CEO of 5 Junction, a joint label with Warner Music Group focused specifically on investing in South Asian artists in the U.S. "That sounded crazy, to think we were 20 years too early, but now, 20 years later, with the explosion of people like Diljit Dosanjh and Karan Aujla ... there's all these South Asian acts that are coming here and really selling out, particularly in the live arena," Acharia told CNBC. The South Asian music market in the U.S. has remained largely untapped, but as music becomes more globalized, as with the success of K-pop and Latin acts, South Asian talent is making a case to investors as the next big business opportunity, Acharia said. Global music revenues are reaching all-time highs, surpassing $30 billion in 2025, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Spotify said last year that streams of Indian artists in international markets grew more than 2,000% between 2019 and 2023, and nearly 50% of royalties from Indian artists on the platform in 2024 were from listeners outside India. With South Asia's growing population and diaspora, it's set to be one of the fastest-growing segments within global music, according to Acharia. "We're in a different time, and I think digitally things travel just so much faster," she said. "A lot of big hits were made with samples from Indian music, so it's been in the zeitgeist for a long time — it's just not been given a face." As more labels look to the subcontinent, Acharia said the business is currently in a stage of experimentation, figuring out what works and how the fan bases will evolve. Warner Music Group is the third-largest music label in the U.S., holding roughly 17% market share by distribution ownership as of the first quarter of 2026, according to Billboard. "I think the business proposition is this global Indian fandom," she said. "How do we galvanize this audience and this fandom, and how do we serve it?" 5 Junction represents top artists such as singer and songwriter Rhea Raj, who told CNBC she's seeing South Asian music become more mainstream in the U.S. "We're seeing more artists at bigger festivals and at award shows, and I think the best of it's yet to come," Raj said. Raj and her sister, Lara Raj, of the girl group Katseye, are two of many South Asian artists in the U.S. building out fan bases that span backgrounds and ethnicities.

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Post Office scandal victim dedicates OBE to 'sub-postmasters we have lost'
Europe
BBC Business•6/2/2026

Post Office scandal victim dedicates OBE to 'sub-postmasters we have lost'

Betty Brown, the oldest surviving victim of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, will receive an OBE at Windsor Castle today. Brown was one of hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly accused of stealing, and was forced out of her County Durham branch in 2003 - despite her and her late husband spending more than ÂŁ50,000 of their savings to make good on losses which didn't exist. The award "won't be a Betty Brown medal," the former sub-postmaster said, but will be for "all the sub postmasters that we have lost". The Horizon IT system was responsible for more than 900 sub-postmasters being wrongfully prosecuted because of it providing incorrect information. Thousands were forced to make up for the alleged losses at their branches across the UK. More than a billion pounds has been paid out in compensation to victims of the scandal, according to the government. Some shoppers have been trying to resell a new line of watches priced at ÂŁ335 each for up to ÂŁ16,000. BBC UK editor Ed Thomas confronts a shopkeeper secretly filmed selling cannabis and cocaine to one of our researchers. The BBC's Emma Simpson explains why fizzy drinks, salad and meat could be affected by the Gulf conflict. From fuel to mortgages, the BBC looks at how oil and gas prices could push up the cost of living. Emma Soames rejected Nigel Farage's statement that the currency change was "wokery". The Bank governor criticised emails between Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein during the financial crisis. In the lead up to the Chancellor delivering her Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility published their report early in error.

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AI giant Anthropic plans to sell shares in US as valuation nears $1tn
Europe
BBC Business•6/2/2026

AI giant Anthropic plans to sell shares in US as valuation nears $1tn

Artificial intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic has revealed its plans to go public in the US, a move which would allow people to buy and sell its shares on the stock market. The company behind chatbot Claude said on Monday it had filed paperwork with the US authorities in order to make an initial public offering (IPO) this year. Anthropic said the price and number of shares to be offered "have not yet been set". The firm's stock market plans, coming alongside those of Elon Musk's SpaceX, is set to show whether investor appetite matches the soaring valuations of AI companies. Anthropic, founded just five years ago, recently raised money from private investors that valued the company at more than $965bn (ÂŁ717bn), ahead of OpenAI's most recent valuation of $852bn. Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei created the firm after leaving OpenAI, where he had worked for several years, over disagreements with its chief executive Sam Altman. The two firms have since become fierce rivals in the AI world, developing similar technology and fighting for the attention and spending of users and corporate customers. Altman told CNBC on Monday that, while his company did intend to go public, it was in no rush to do so. Should OpenAI's listing happen, the US capital markets are poised to see an historic level of investment in just a handful of companies. SpaceX alone is expected to break stock market records with its target valuation, but the potential value of Anthropic and OpenAI are not far behind. Meanwhile, Google's owner Alphabet has revealed plans to raise $80bn to spend on AI. Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the announcement was "a clear sign that the AI arms race is moving into a more capital-hungry phase".

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Steph Curry signs with Chinese brand after Under Armour split
Europe
BBC Business•6/2/2026

Steph Curry signs with Chinese brand after Under Armour split

Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry says he has signed an endorsement deal with Chinese sportswear giant Li-Ning. The 38-year-old has been free to sign with a retail partner for his line of shoes and sports wear since ending a 12-year deal with US activewear firm Under Armour last year. Curry and Li-Ning will collaborate on new products and on plans to launch his signature chain of shops in the US and China. The value of the deal was not immediately disclosed. Signing Curry marks a major step in Li-Ning's push to become an international brand, alongside other Chinese sportswear labels like Anta. The partnership is a "landmark victory" for Li-Ning, showing that Chinese sportswear brands can compete with global giants like Nike and Adidas to sign top players, said Linda Yu from marketing agency Red Ant Asia. Endorsement deals are the "lifeline of sportswear brands" and a name like Steph Curry can help Li-Ning to establish itself in markets like the US, Yu said. In a video posted on his business website Thirty Ink, Curry said the partnership will help Li-Ning expand in the US. It has more than 7,000 shops across Asia. Li-Ning told the BBC it will work with Curry to promote sports culture as well as develop products across a range of categories, starting with golf and basketball. The deal is Curry's first collaboration with a Chinese brand. He partnered with Nike at the start of his career before moving to Under Armour. He joins a growing list of NBA stars that have signed with Chinese brands, including Dwayne Wade and Jimmy Butler with Li-Ning and Klay Thompson and Kyrie Irving, who are partnered with Anta. Anta, which used to make shoes for international brands, has led a global push by buying the rights to Western firms like Fila. This year, it also bought a key stake in Puma, pledging to help the firm grow in China. Many Western brands have been keen to gain a foothold in China, but face intense competition from local manufacturers offering cheaper goods. Demand in China has also slowed due to low domestic spending.

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How 'confused' AI rollout hurts firms and baffles staff
Europe
BBC Business•6/1/2026

How 'confused' AI rollout hurts firms and baffles staff

When AI engineer Malcolm was working at a data analysis firm, executives wanted to use generative AI to categorise the customer database into a range of personas. A traditional machine learning model would have been much more appropriate, he argued, producing consistent, repeatable results. And it would have been much cheaper. "They still went ahead with Gen AI," says Malcolm (we have not used his real name). That meant a process that was less accurate and much more expensive, but it also allowed the organisation to say they were embracing AI. Malcolm's experience will be familiar to staff at other companies. More bosses are embracing AI and insisting their staff use it. In February, global consultancy Accenture reportedly told staff that promotions to top roles would require "regular adoption of AI tooling" and it would be tracking their usage of the AI platform it has developed. And in May, rival firm KPMG said it had developed a dashboard to track whether its US employees' meet a 75% usage target for its AI tools. The company says this is part of "a holistic effort… to help people move up the AI maturity curve." Other organisations are taking a less targeted approach to implementing AI but nevertheless expect it to transform how their workforces spend their days. The UK government is banking on AI to help "rewire" the state and boost efficiency across Whitehall. However, research by the civil servant union, the FDA, shows that while civil servants were open to the idea of using AI to improve productivity, there's doubt that management can handle the transformation. Less than a third of civil servants had been consulted on how the technology could be rolled out, the union found, meaning "change is being done to workers, not with them".

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Anthropic confidentially files for initial public offering on US stock market
Europe
The Guardian•6/1/2026

Anthropic confidentially files for initial public offering on US stock market

Dario Amodei, chief executive officer of Anthropic, at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, India, on 19 February 2026. Photograph: Ruhani Kaur/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenDario Amodei, chief executive officer of Anthropic, at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, India, on 19 February 2026. Photograph: Ruhani Kaur/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesTechnologyAnthropic confidentially files for initial public offering on US stock marketFinancial stakes of AI race rise as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic are slated to go public this year Anthropic has filed confidentially for an initial public offering on the US stock market, the company announced on Monday. The AI firm makes the Claude chatbot, popular with software engineers and other business clients, and has seen a meteoric rise this year. The company did not disclose the valuation it will target on the stock market, nor did it make public other terms of the offering. The startup announced on Thursday that it had raised $65bn in funding to value the company at $965bn post-money. Anthropic was valued at $380bn in February. Anthropic’s filing continues the company’s banner year, as well as pre-empts its rival OpenAI, which is expected to imminently file for its own IPO. Anthropic’s latest valuation also meant that the company leapfrogged OpenAI to become the world’s most valuable startup. The filing underscores the rising financial stakes of AI race as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic are all slated to go public this year. SpaceX has filed for a stock market float at a valuation of about $1.75tn as it seeks $75bn in investment. Anthropic’s confidential filing will give regulators a period to look over the company’s financial disclosures before the AI firm’s investor prospectus becomes public. Filing confidentially has become common for major firms, with SpaceX approaching its IPO in the same manner. Anthropic announced the filing in a short, two-paragraph blogpost that did not give an exact timeline for the company to go public and did not reveal the number of shares that it would offer. “This gives us the option to go public after the SEC completes its review. The proposed initial public offering will depend on market conditions and other factors,” Anthropic said. Formerly considered a lesser player in the AI race, Anthropic’s rapid ascent over the previous year has placed the company neck-and-neck with OpenAI in terms of dominance over the industry. Much of its growth has taken place after the company’s release of its Claude chatbot’s advanced coding assistant products late last year. As Anthropic seeks to establish its market presence, it is also growing in cultural and political prominence as it pours money into political spending and advocacy programs. The firm spent $1.6m on lobbying efforts in the first quarter of 2026 alone, up from $360,000 during the same period the previous year. It is engaged in a high-profile lawsuit against Donald Trump’s administration over the use of its Claude AI by the Pentagon, which has designated the company a “supply chain risk”, blacklisting it from military work.

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60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley accuses Bari Weiss of ‘murdering’ show
Europe
The Guardian•6/1/2026

60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley accuses Bari Weiss of ‘murdering’ show

‘She’s murdering 60 Minutes,’ Scott Pelley said, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. Photograph: Michele Crowed/CBS via Getty ImagesView image in fullscreen‘She’s murdering 60 Minutes,’ Scott Pelley said, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. Photograph: Michele Crowed/CBS via Getty ImagesCBS60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley accuses Bari Weiss of ‘murdering’ showPelley reportedly rebuked CBS ousting show’s executive producer, executive editor and two top correspondents Scott Pelley, a veteran 60 Minutes correspondent, called out CBS News management in a heated meeting on Monday morning, attacking the network’s decision on Thursday to fire the show’s executive producer, executive editor, and two fellow correspondents, Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, as part of a broader overhaul of the show, sources tell the Guardian. During a meeting of the show’s staff and Nick Bilton, its newly appointed executive producer, along with the CBS News managing editor Charles Forelle, Pelley took direct aim at Bari Weiss, the network’s controversial editor-in-chief. “She’s murdering 60 Minutes,” Pelley said, according to sources with knowledge of the situation. “She does not love this place. She was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that.” Forelle accused Pelley of being rude, and Pelley countered by saying that the network had been rude by the way it treated Tanya Simon, the show’s executive producer who was fired on Thursday. 60 Minutes staff who were present for the meeting showed strong support for Pelley, giving him a standing ovation, sources said. A CBS News spokesperson declined comment on the meeting. A source with knowledge of the situation said that overtures have been made to Pelley, who is seen as an important part of the show. (Pelley has also been contacted for comment.) Still, the exchange on Monday raises questions about Pelley’s long-term future at the show. Last Wednesday, hours after Alfonsi announced that the network had opted not to renew her contract for the show’s 59th season, Pelley gave her a shoutout at the News & Documentary Emmy awards. “There have been many great 60 Minutes correspondents over the years. I see Sharyn Alfonsi in the audience,” he said. Pelley was also effusive in praising Santiago Campos, an 18-year-old high school senior who called out the network’s direction under Weiss, saying that it “stains the legacy of Mike Wallace”, the namesake of the award that Campos received. “I know that Mike Wallace is looking down on you with pride at this very moment,” Pelley said. On Wednesday, Alfonsi – who had reported a December 2025 segment about a notorious prison in El Salvador that got shelved by Weiss – released a blistering statement, saying: “The wall between editorial independence and corporate interest at CBS is being methodically torn down.” She added: “Journalists willing to challenge authority are being pushed aside in favor of those who will not. If this continues, the result will be a broadcast that looks like 60 Minutes but lacks the courage and character to produce journalism that matters.”

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Ex-Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell sounds alarm over political interference
Europe
The Guardian•6/1/2026

Ex-Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell sounds alarm over political interference

Jerome Powell in Boston, Massachusetts on Sunday. Photograph: Brian Snyder/ReutersView image in fullscreenJerome Powell in Boston, Massachusetts on Sunday. Photograph: Brian Snyder/ReutersJerome PowellEx-Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell sounds alarm over political interferencePowell says central bank has been facing ‘stress test’ under Trump, as supreme court weighs decision on Fed governor that president tried to fire Jerome Powell, the former chair of the Federal Reserve, has warned that a single act of political interference in monetary policy could permanently destroy public trust in the central bank. As Donald Trump’s administration continues to test the Fed’s longstanding independence, Powell said in a speech on Sunday night that the institution was in the midst of a “stress test”. Powell, who was accepting the 2026 John F Kennedy Profile in Courage award in Boston, stepped down as Fed chair last month, and was succeeded by Kevin Warsh, but remains on its board of governors. Legal protections insulating monetary policy from politics “have served the public well” across administrations of both parties, Powell argued in his acceptance speech. “If any administration finds a way to remove Fed officials over policy differences,” he added, “then future administrations will do so as well”. He spoke as the supreme court weighs a highly anticipated decision on the fate of the Fed governor Lisa Cook, whom Trump attempted to fire last August. Powell did not mention Trump, or Cook, by name. “The public would lose faith that the central bank will make decisions based only on what’s best for all Americans,” Powell said. “The Fed’s credibility would be lost.” The JFK Library Foundation’s award committee said it was honoring Powell for withstanding “years of personal attacks and threats from the highest levels of government”, noting that he “refused to let political forces dictate monetary policy”. Fed decisions were made “based only on our best economic analysis of what would most benefit the people we serve”, Powell said on Sunday. “We do not take into account the fortunes of any political party or politician.” Powell repeatedly defied the US president’s demands for drastic interest rate cuts. Trump’s subsequent attempt to exert greater control over the Fed set the stage for a constitutional showdown that has unsettled global markets for months. Last August Trump announced he was removing Cook, citing what he described as “deceitful and potentially criminal conduct” relating to mortgage transactions, marking the first time in the Fed’s history that a sitting president had attempted to remove a Fed governor. Cook denied any wrongdoing and refused to leave. A federal district judge blocked the firing in September, concluding that Cook’s alleged conduct could not constitute lawful “cause” for dismissal because it occurred before she took office. When the case reached the supreme court in January, both conservative and liberal justices signaled skepticism towards the administration’s position, indicating they were unlikely to grant its request to lift the injunction while litigation continued. A final ruling is expected before the court rises for summer, typically in late June.

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