Hello from the FT newsroom, where the trade war remains the big story. Yesterday, Donald Trump said he would impose an additional 25 per cent tariff on imports from India due to its purchases of Russian oil. The extra duties will take India’s overall tariff rate to 50 per cent when — or if — they take effect in three weeks’ time. 

It’s not clear whether Trump has, for some strange reason, turned against India, or is simply using it as collateral damage to put pressure on Russia. Tomorrow is the deadline for Moscow to agree a ceasefire in Ukraine or face tougher sanctions.

The deepening rift between the world’s two largest democracies has wider ramifications, warns our US national editor Edward Luce. Trump, he says, is upending America’s most important China play in the last quarter of a century: aiding the emergence of a strong and counterbalancing India. 

That’s a problem for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who thought he had a good relationship with Trump. After years of his country bingeing on cheap Russian crude, re-engineering the energy supply mix of the world’s third-biggest oil importer is geopolitically — and practically — difficult.

1. Last August, an Iranian nuclear scientist landed at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport with four employees he claimed were from his small Tehran-based consulting firm. But it was a cover story. The Iranians had flown to Russia on diplomatic service passports, some issued on the same day just weeks before they arrived. What were they doing in Russia? An FT investigation finds out.

2. FT analysis has revealed that a wave of company directors has left the UK since Sir Keir Starmer’s government abolished favourable tax treatment for non-domiciled residents and raised other duties on the wealthy last October. Here is where they are ending up. 

3. For tech investors, 2025 began with a panic. A hyper-efficient new artificial intelligence model from Chinese developer DeepSeek made Wall Street question whether tech companies were overspending on huge new data centres. Six months later, those worries look like a blip. Go inside the relentless race for AI capacity with this visual piece. 

4. Six months ago, Elon Musk dismantled the US Agency for International Development, the main conduit for American overseas assistance. The move has stranded millions of patients and shattered life-saving programmes around the world. Our reporter examines the fallout from Eswatini, Africa’s only absolute monarchy. (Free to read)

5. At a time when many countries are struggling with economic growth, maximising the power of the brain could help move the dial. After all, until AI is actually able to make discoveries, it is only human intervention that will create new knowledge and push humanity forwards. (Free to read) 

6. Since its release by Microsoft in the 1990s, Comic Sans has divided opinion. An entire movement even sprung up, bent on its destruction. The hapless font, beloved by schools around the world, can jar in more formal settings. But love it or hate it, Comic Sans is here to stay.

Thanks for reading,

Roula