US trade deficit jumps

The US trade gap with the rest of the world jumped to a 10-year high of $621bn last year. Our regular economic commentator, Susan Schmidt, Head of US Equities at Aviva Investors, assesses how big a blow the widening trade gap is for President Trump. The extradition case of Meng Wanzhou - Chief Financial Officer of the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, and daughter of the company founder - continues to be a stop-start affair. We get the latest from North America Tech Reporter, Dave Lee. Plus, Charles Scharf - CEO of the US financial giant BNY Mellon - has banned from June the kind of flexible arrangements that allow staff to work from home. That's prompted, inevitably, a landmark legal challenge from disgruntled employees. Lucy Tobin broke the story in the Evening Standard here in London. Also in the programme, we have a report from New Zealand, asking what Brexit Britain can learn from the country's experience when the UK joined the forerunner to the European Union in the 1970s. As millions of Christians around the world prepare to give up something they normally enjoy for Lent, Ruth Valerio of the Christian charity Tearfund explains why they would like people to consider abandoning a piece of plastic. Plus, investment bank Goldman Sachs has said its staff can now dress casually if they want to. Texas etiquette expert Diane Gottsman gives us her reaction.

(Picture: A Chinese container terminal. Picture credit: Reuters.)