Goldman Sachs to drop race, gender and LGBTQ+ criteria from board evaluations

Goldman Sachs is removing race, gender and other diversity-related considerations when evaluating prospective candidates for its executive board after pressure from an activist shareholder group to remove the criteria.The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a small Goldman shareholder, quietly submitted a request to the company last September asking the bank to eliminate its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) board criteria.According to a Wall Street Journal report, Goldman recently informed the group that it plans to remove the DEI criteria, and the two parties signed an agreement under which the NLPC would withdraw its proposal.Goldman’s board is expected to approve the changes this month, people familiar with the matter told the Journal.Currently, the board’s governance committee evaluates qualified candidates based primarily on four factors

UK interest rate cut likely in March as unemployment rate rises; youth joblessness to ‘increase significantly’ in coming months – as it happened

The chances of a cut to UK interest rates next month have risen, following this morning’s data showing a rise in unemployment and a slowdown in wage growth.The City money markets now indicate there’s a near-75% chance that the Bank of England lowers interest rates to 3.5% at its next meeting, in March, up from 69% last night.Investors now fully expect two rate cuts by Christmas, which would bring Bank Rate down to 3.25%

AI’s workplace revolution is here – and anxiety is rising with it

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, The Guardian’s US tech editor, writing to you while cheering on Team USA in the Winter Olympics.Throughout 2026, The Guardian will publish a series of stories about how artificial intelligence is affecting modern labor. We’re calling it Reworked: A series about what’s at stake as AI disrupts our jobs.Our first story published this morning

Claims that AI can help fix climate dismissed as greenwashing

Tech companies are conflating traditional artificial intelligence with generative AI when claiming the energy-hungry technology could help avert climate breakdown, according to a report.Most claims that AI can help avert climate breakdown refer to machine learning and not the energy-hungry chatbots and image generation tools driving the sector’s explosive growth of gas-guzzling datacentres, the analysis of 154 statements found.The research, commissioned by nonprofits including Beyond Fossil Fuels and Climate Action Against Disinformation, did not find a single example where popular tools such as Google’s Gemini or Microsoft’s Copilot were leading to a “material, verifiable, and substantial” reduction in planet-heating emissions.Ketan Joshi, an energy analyst and author of the report, said the industry’s tactics were “diversionary” and relied on tried and tested methods that amount to “greenwashing”.He likened it to fossil fuel companies advertising their modest investments in solar panels and overstating the potential of carbon capture

Winter Olympics 2026: women’s figure skating, crunch Canada v GB men’s curling and more – live

Forehand is into gold! Forget silver! It’s a 98.25. Nose butter triple 21 with safety grab, perfect rotations, perfect landing. “Oh my god!” yells Forehand at the bottom of the run, hands on his head, and that’s before the score comes out. He knew it was good, but did he know it was that good?Frostad has one more jump to snatch what was his gold back…Three out of three jumps for Matej Svancer

Tiger Woods weighs offer to captain 2027 US Ryder Cup team

Tiger Woods has confirmed he has been asked to captain the US team at Ryder Cup next year. Woods, who has not played competitively since the 2024 Open Championship, has also semi-remarkably left the door open to teeing up in the Masters this year.With the US still reeling from defeat by Europe at Bethpage in September, thoughts have turned towards attempts to reclaim the Ryder Cup in Ireland. Woods is the PGA of America’s first choice as captain. The 50-year-old will determine whether he believes he can commit sufficiently to the role