Author: Perlina Rossi-Brown

President Trump announced that 25% tariffs will be imposed on all imports of aluminum and steel to the United States starting Monday.

“All steel coming into the United States will be subject to 25% tariffs,” Trump announced while aboard a flight to New Orleans to attend the Super Bowl. He then clarified to reporters on the presidential plane that these tariffs would also apply to aluminum.

These measures would significantly affect Canada, the primary supplier of steel and aluminum to the United States, as well as Brazil, Mexico, and South Korea.

During his first term, Donald Trump had already imposed 25% tariffs on steel and 10% on aluminum. He justified his decision by denouncing unfair competition from Asian and European countries.

Trump stated that he would announce “on Tuesday or Wednesday” the implementation of “reciprocal” tariffs. This strategy aims to impose taxes on foreign products in the same way that other countries tax American products.

“If they tax us at 130% and we don’t tax them, that will not stay the same […] They tax us, we tax them,” he added.

American President Donald Trump decided on Monday to suspend his 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico after a negotiation with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

“I just spoke with the President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum. It was a very friendly conversation during which she agreed to immediately provide 10,000 Mexican soldiers at the border separating Mexico and the United States,” Mr. Trump said on Truth Social.

This contingent of the Mexican National Guard aims to combat drug trafficking, particularly fentanyl, as well as illegal migrants. In return, the United States commits to preventing high-powered arms trafficking to Mexico, Mr. Sheinbaum announced on his X account.

The American president also stated that during this tariff freeze, negotiations will be conducted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, as well as high-level representatives from Mexico.

He added that he is “looking forward” to participating in these discussions with Ms. Sheinbaum to reach an agreement between the two countries.

The tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China were initially set to take effect on Tuesday. This measure targeting the three main trading partners of the United States had caused a shockwave in the North American economy.

However, the new agreement with Mexico allowed the stock market to recover.

A group of American investors, including the famous YouTuber Mr. Beast, has raised over $20 billion to purchase TikTok’s operations and assets in the United States, reports Jesse Tinley, the tech entrepreneur organizing the buyout.

The consortium has the backing of Mr. Beast (Jimmy Donaldson), who holds the most-followed account on YouTube, Mr. Tinsley stated in an interview with Bloomberg.

“Mr. Beast and his team are definitely supporting our group, but it’s not exclusive. We hope he can work with as many groups as possible [to acquire TikTok],” he added.

In addition to Mr. Tinley, founder of Employer.com, the consortium mainly includes CEOs of tech companies, such as David Baszucki, co-founder and CEO of Roblox Corp, as well as Nathan McCauley, co-founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital.

Mr. Tinsley stated to Bloomberg on January 29 that his group’s offer was “significantly higher” than that of a rival buyer. He may be referring to the Project Liberty offer, organized by former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Frank McCourt, and renowned investor from Shark Tank, Kevin O’Leary.

American President Donald Trump signed an order on January 20 to suspend for 75 days the enforcement of the law banning TikTok in the United States.

For several years, the U.S. government has viewed ByteDance as a national security threat due to its alleged sharing of American user data with the Chinese government.

For now, Mr. Tinsley stated that he has not received a direct response from ByteDance. “It’s radio silence on their side,” he said.

The success of the Chinese “chatbot” DeepSeek has shaken the artificial intelligence (AI) industry.

Its previously discreet CEO, Liang Wenfeng, is now seated alongside China’s political elite.

The launch of DeepSeek took place on January 20, the same day as Donald Trump’s inauguration. Its immediate success caused a significant drop in the stock prices of several American AI giants, such as OpenAI, Nvidia, Meta, and SoftBank.

The free chatbot has since become the most downloaded app on the App Store.

Now considered a national hero, Liang Wenfeng was received by Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang last week. He is the only AI leader who participated in the meeting with the country’s top officials. After sharing his vision regarding his area of expertise, they stated that Beijing “will focus on advancements in key technologies and cutting-edge technologies.”

The head of DeepSeek, a 40-year-old man according to Chinese media, sought neither glory nor fortune, according to his colleagues, but he always hoped to make an impact on the technology world, dominated by the United States. With the ambition to create human-level AI, Mr. Wenfeng shared his plans with colleagues early in his career but faced their skepticism, particularly reported by the Daily Mail.

Mr. Wenfeng holds a bachelor’s degree in electronic information engineering and a master’s degree in information and communication engineering from the prestigious Zhejiang University. After graduating, the engineer ventured into finance.

In 2015, he founded High-Flyer, a company that uses AI and algorithms to identify patterns likely to influence stock prices. The company became one of China’s leading hedge funds, which would have allowed him to accumulate wealth.

He then gathered his best employees and hired many recent graduates from top Chinese universities to create DeepSeek in 2023.

The world’s largest record label Universal Music Group (UMG) and the leader in music streaming Spotify have signed a long-term agreement. This will particularly impact the remuneration for recorded tracks and publishing rights.

The two giants of the music industry have promised that artists and consumers will benefit from new and scalable offers, new tiers of paid subscriptions, a bundled offering of musical and non-musical content, as well as a richer catalog of audio and visual content.

UMG, which represents established artists like Taylor Swift and U2, had already strengthened its partnership with Spotify last year by incorporating album premieres and music videos.

In recent years, the Spotify platform, which boasts over 640 million users, has offered audiobooks and podcasts in addition to its music offering. However, according to the specialized site Billboard, this bundled offering reduces the percentage of revenue paid to artists, as the total content is more extensive.

For this reason, last May, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC), an organization tasked with advocating for artists’ rights on streaming platforms, filed a complaint against Spotify with the Federal Trade Commission in the United States.

“Spotify maintains its bundled offering, but with this direct agreement [with UMG], it has evolved to take into account broader rights, including a different economic treatment for musical and non-musical content,” announced a spokesperson for Spotify on the site Music Business Worldwide.

Lucian Grainge, CEO of UMG, stated in a press release that this agreement illustrates his company’s “vision” for “streaming 2.0“. This is an approach aimed at prioritizing high-end subscriptions and product sales, rather than the number of streams.

According to data from Abacus Data, 33% of Canadians have a positive perception of Mark Carney, compared to 29% for Chrystia Freeland. This gap also widens among current supporters of the Canadian Liberal Party (PLC), with 64% having a favorable opinion of Carney, compared to 54% for Freeland.

The race now seems to be between these two candidates. However, Carney, former governor of the Bank of Canada, also enjoys greater support among Cabinet members compared to the former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.

The PLC appears to be benefiting from greater support from the electorate since its leadership race to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The latter announced on January 6 that he would resign once his successor is elected on March 9.

According to David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data, the Canadians’ desire for government change has “softened” since Justin Trudeau’s resignation and the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who threatens Canada with 25% tariffs.

Fewer people seem to believe it is time to change government and that there are good alternatives to the ruling liberals: this figure has dropped from 56% of respondents in the days following Ms. Freeland’s abrupt resignation in December, to 52% in the following weeks, and then to 49% today.

This data comes from the latest Abacus Data survey, a Canadian market research and public opinion firm, conducted between January 22 and 26 with 2,205 Canadians, as reported by CBC News.

If federal elections were held now, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party would lead the Liberal Party by 21 points. This represents a decrease of three points for the Conservatives and an increase of two points for the Liberals compared to Abacus data from January 14.

Research conducted by Washington University in St. Louis has revealed that certain weight management medications are linked to a 42% reduction in the risk of 42 diseases in people with diabetes.

Researchers analyzed data from 215,970 diabetics who received these medications in addition to standard treatments (hypoglycemics), and from 1,203,097 diabetics using only standard care.

Psychotic disorders, coagulation disorders, chronic kidney diseases, and bacterial infections are among the conditions for which the risk is reduced with the use of GLP-1RA, receptors found in weight loss medications such as Saxenda, Wegovy, and Mounjaro.

“We only studied diabetics, but there is no biological or clinical reason to think that the profiles of benefits and risks would be very different in non-diabetics,” said Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, co-author of the study.

Dr. Al-Aly emphasized that people without obesity would likely not benefit from the same advantages and that the risks associated with these medications should not be ignored.

Indeed, the study identified a 19% increase in the risk of 19 pathologies, including arthritic disorders (partly related to muscle mass loss), abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, low blood pressure, and kidney stones.

According to a survey by the World Economic Forum (WEF) conducted among a hundred large companies worldwide, 41% of them plan to reduce their workforce by 2030 due to the automation of certain tasks through artificial intelligence (AI).

This measure would primarily target jobs involving routine and repetitive tasks, such as postal service employees, graphic designers, executive secretaries, and customer service workers.

However, 77% of the companies surveyed in this research stated that they plan to train their current workers, between 2025 and 2030, in these new technologies, particularly generative AI, to promote optimal collaboration between humans and machines.

This rise of AI will also lead to hiring. Indeed, nearly 70% of the surveyed companies plan to hire workers with skills to create and improve AI tools. Additionally, 62% of them want to recruit more people with the necessary skills to work effectively with AI.

“Advancements in AI and renewable energy are reshaping the labor market, leading to an increase in demand for many technological or specialized positions, while causing a decline for others, such as graphic designers,” stated the WEF in a press release.

Instagram has announced the release of its new video editing app, Edits, while TikTok, its rival social network, faces uncertain days.

TikTok, CapCut, and other platforms owned by ByteDance were banned in the United States overnight from Saturday to Sunday. Then, a dozen hours later, TikTok restored its service in the U.S., citing support from the new President Trump.

“A lot is happening right now, but whatever happens, it’s our job to provide the best possible tools for creators,” said Instagram’s head, Adam Mosseri, on Threads.

Edits closely resembles CapCut, ByteDance’s video editing software. Among its features, the app will allow users to edit and share videos up to 10 minutes long and in 1080p resolution on Instagram. It will also offer generative captions and “overlay” effects, such as text, sound and voice effects, filters, and stickers.

For now, Edits is only available for pre-order on the Apple App Store. It will also be available soon on Android, Adam Mosseri assured. “In the meantime, we will work with a group of video creators to gather their feedback and improve the experience,” Instagram’s head specified.

Last spring, President Joe Biden signed a law requiring ByteDance, TikTok and CapCut’s Chinese parent company, to divest its platforms before January 19. For several years, the U.S. government has considered ByteDance a potential national security threat due to its alleged sharing of American user data with the Chinese government.

The official launch of  Flashes on the increasingly popular new social network Bluesky will take place in the coming weeks. Designed by independent Berlin developer Sebastian Vogelsang, Flashes offers a decentralized approach to photo sharing, providing an alternative to Instagram and other Meta-related apps.

Flashes will not offer all the same features as Instagram. For instance, to avoid content overload, user posts can contain up to four photos and videos of a maximum of one minute. Although the platform is free, a paid version is available, offering advanced features such as bookmarks, drafts, more detailed filtering options, and enhanced notifications.

Like Bluesky, Flashes operates with the Authenticated Transfer Protocol (AT), an encryption system that ensures data privacy by preventing third-party reading or modification. The application thus has the potential to meet the growing demand from internet users seeking alternatives to the social networks of web giants, often criticized for their toxicity, lack of security, or advertising overload.

Bluesky is often compared to X (formerly Twitter) due to its appearance and features. Thus, according to Sebastian Vogelsang, Flashes could attract new users who have not yet joined the platform because they have never considered themselves fans of X.