The Democratic Republic of Congo says Apple is sourcing minerals from armed groups committing atrocities. Belgium has launched a criminal probe into the DRC’s allegation. Donald Trump is sworn in as US president. Davos leaders reject climate banking group. And Toyota struggles to jumpstart hydrogen car sales.

Belgium has started a criminal probe into allegations that Apple has knowingly sourced “blood minerals” from the Democratic Republic of Congo, in what lawyers for the central African country have called a “massive laundering and greenwashing operation”.

Local smartphone makers Vivo and Huawei leapfrogged Apple to become the top two sellers in the Chinese market last year, dealing a blow to the iPhone maker as it struggles to introduce AI features on the mainland and fight competition from domestic rivals.

The UK’s competition watchdog has launched an investigation into Apple and Google’s mobile platforms, just days after the government forced out its chair as part of a push to cut the regulatory burden on business.

The case, which was first launched in 2022, accuses Apple of abusing its market position by charging commissions up to 30% on App Store purchases.

Daniel Ek’s body-scanning start-up Neko Health has raised $260mn in new capital to fuel expansion of its clinics to the US, as the Spotify founder aims to build what he called the Apple of healthcare.

Today, analysts at Jefferies and Loop Capital each downgraded their ratings on Apple.

The European Commission is reevaluating its probes into companies including Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) and Alphabet's (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (GOOG) unit Google, the Financial Times reported.

Donald Trump unveils aggressive new policy measures at his inauguration. The Democratic Republic of Congo puts pressure on Apple over critical minerals. David Pilling Apple says it has undertaken all the steps that it can to ensure that the minerals do not come from these conflict mines. The allegation is that it can’t possibly know.

Brussels is reassessing its investigations of tech groups including Apple, Meta and Google, just as the US companies urge president-elect Donald Trump to intervene against what they characterise as overzealous EU enforcement.

Musk did not respond to a request for comment from the Financial Times. Apple is in the final stage of verifying its first “made in America” cutting-edge processing chips from Taiwan ...

Steven Cohen runs Point72 Asset Management, one of the most successful hedge funds in history as measured in net gains since inception. Apple stock returned 72% over the last two years, but those gains were driven entirely by valuation multiple expansion,