Donald Trump signed an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court. He accused the body—which issued an arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, in November—of “illegitimate and baseless actions” targeting America’s “close ally”. The order bars visas and blocks financial transactions of those probing Israel. The move came days after the American president pledged to “take over Gaza”.
A judge in America temporarily halted the Trump administration’s “buyout” programme, which the president hopes will lead to 200,000 federal-worker resignations. The stay is intended to give labour unions time to mount a legal challenge. Another judge blocked Elon Musk—Mr Trump’s shredder-in-chief—from accessing the Treasury’s payment system. The system doles out Medicare and social-security payments, among other things.
Amazon said it would invest around $100bn this year, primarily on its artificial-intelligence projects, mirroring a similar announcement by Alphabet earlier this week. The spending comes despite concerns among some investors that American AI firms might be outflanked by DeepSeek, a recently unveiled Chinese competitor. Amazon reported net income of $20bn for the last quarter, close to double last year’s figure.
Japan’s household spending rose by 2.7% year-on-year in December, the first increase in five months and the fastest since August 2022. One-off factors, such as cold weather that helped clothing sales, largely contributed. The Bank of Japan, which raised rates to 0.5% last month, is monitoring wages and consumption trends to decide when to make the next move.
Honeywell, one of the last remaining big industrial conglomerates in America, said it would break into three independent companies. The firm will split its aerospace and automation divisions and proceed with a plan to spin off its advanced materials business. In November Elliott Management, an activist investor, took a $5bn stake in Honeywell and called for the company to be broken up.
This January was the warmest on record, with global surface air temperatures reaching 13.23°C, which is 1.75°C above pre-industrial levels, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. The record heat defied expectations of a slowdown in global warming due to the cooling La Niña phenomenon. Scientists warned of a climate breakdown.
Mizuhara Ippei, the former interpreter of Ohtani Shohei, a baseball sensation, was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for crimes related to gambling. Last year, Mr Mizuhara was caught stealing around $17m from the Los Angeles Dodgers player’s bank account to appease his “voracious appetite” for sports betting. He must also pay around $18m in restitution.
Figure of the day: $180bn, the amount Meta, Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft spent on data-centre infrastructure last year. Read the full story.
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