The independence of the US Federal Reserve is under threat as Donald Trump tries to influence the central bank’s policies and pushes ahead with a criminal investigation into its chair. Trump’s attacks on Jerome Powell (pictured above) are widely viewed as an attempt to “force interest rate cuts” from the Fed, “in defiance of its mandate and independence”, said Sky News.

Central banks beyond the US are also facing challenges, as global instability, swelling deficits and high inflation trigger doubts about the long-accepted notion that an independent body is the best vehicle for delivering economic results.

Why is independence viewed as important?
The modern idea of central-bank independence emerged after the Second World War. The argument in favour is that politicians are likely to be “tempted by self-defeating monetary policies” in pursuit of short-term electoral goals, said The Economist. Monetary policies that “make everyone better off” in the long run are more attainable and more sustainable if they’re “delegated to a conservative central banker”.

Central banks have been lauded as a “triumph of applied economics”. As “independence rose, inflation fell” and “recessions became rarer”. But this “triumph” is now “under threat” in the US and elsewhere.

Why is that changing?
Recent surges in inflation have damaged public trust in central banks and sparked vocal criticism from politicians. The global financial crisis, a prolonged period of quantitative easing, and the “pressures of climate risk, geopolitical shocks and fiscal activism” are further highlighting the “fundamental” question of whether the “orthodox consensus” has “reached its limits”, said Chatham House.

What could go wrong?
Trump’s interference with US monetary policy “could lead to financial panic and economic disaster” with consequences worldwide, said Bloomberg. A monetary policy dictated by “short-term political calculations” might lead to lower interest rates but would then spark higher inflation and, ultimately, “increase the cost of credit, discourage private investment” and make it harder to service national debt.

But Trump’s “damaging attacks on the Fed shouldn’t obscure its failures”, said Investors’ Chronicle. Independence is one thing, but “technocratic policymakers with limited democratic accountability shouldn’t be beyond censure”.

“Once scorned by purists as the fake Rolexes of the reading world”, audiobooks are now booming, said Nilanjana Roy in the Financial Times. But questions remain about whether listening to a book instead of poring over its pages counts as reading.

Queen Camilla clearly thinks it does, appearing in cartoon form in a special edition of The Beano comic to tell Dennis the Menace: “Go all in for the National Year of Reading, Dennis! Comics and audiobooks count too!”

‘Pride’ and ‘snobbishness’
Many people don’t think audiobooks “qualify” as proper reading, said Brian Bannon, chief librarian at the New York Public Library, in The New York Times. “There is a pride – even a snobbishness – to being well read.” Telling someone that you’ve listened to a book instead of reading the physical copy often “comes out sounding like an apology”.

Our minds sometimes “wander” both when we’re reading and when listening, David Daniel, a psychology professor at James Madison University in Virginia, told Time. But snapping out of these “little mental sojourns” and finding your place in the text isn’t as easy when you’re listening to a recording, especially when “grappling” with a complex piece of writing.

‘Parallel way to read’
We need to “reframe what it means to be a reader”, moving past the “traditional hierarchical values” that still put physical books at the top, said Debbie Hicks, creative director of the Reading Agency. When it comes to reading, “content” is more important than the “medium”, she told The Guardian.

To suggest that reading books is the “only kind of reading that counts” does a “disservice” to the “many dyslexic or visually challenged booklovers among us”, said Roy in the Financial Times. Audiobooks should be seen as a “parallel way to read”, not dismissed as inferior.

The “destigmatising” of audiobooks could offer a “path to a more nuanced way of thinking about literacy”, said Bannon in The New York Times. “We need more readers – however they get there.” After “struggling to read as a kid, audiobooks were my lifesaver”, said Miranda Larbi in Stylist. They turned out to be a “gateway for physical books – a key for unlocking a world that felt totally inaccessible”.

Soldiers holding weather balloons march through snow in Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum’s summit draws to a close tomorrow. This year’s meeting included a panel discussion on integrating AI into weather forecasting.

Ina Fassbender / AFP / Getty Images

“How do you capture the effect of one of the most groundbreaking novelists of all time?” said Rebecca Watson in the Financial Times. With the bar set “dauntingly high”, “Woolf Works” was “always going to have its work cut out”.

The three-act ballet is loosely based on three of Virginia Woolf’s books: “Mrs Dalloway”, “Orlando” and “The Waves”. Choreographer Wayne McGregor “eschews straight narrative”, though, instead plunging us into “Woolf’s creative world” and examining her “obsessions and experience”. His ballet “vividly” captures how it feels to read Virginia Woolf’s writing, injecting a “charged quality” that draws in the audience. Max Richter’s rich and varied score is also a “vital part” of the show, blending electronic sound with a live orchestra.

It’s a “dazzling” production, said Teresa Guerreiro in The Times. There is something “almost painterly” about the staging, thanks in part to Ravi Deepres’ “deeply evocative” film of “white words swirling onto the black front curtain”, and later, a “slow moving monochrome” projection of the “rebellious sea”. Lucy Carter’s lighting offers “bright turquoise laser beams, occasionally tempered with a shaft of red”, which add to the drama of the second section. And while the choreography “doesn’t always inspire”, the dancers are “outstanding”.

“No one divides opinion quite like Wayne McGregor,” said Jenny Gilbert on The Arts Desk. Admirers love the “brave-new-world qualities of his work”, but those who like knowing “who’s who and what’s what” should probably steer clear. In this production, “even those who’ve read the novels are at no great advantage”.

Divorce is bad for Britain, but nobody wants to say it
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in The i Paper
More than 40% of UK marriages now end in divorce and “in some ways”, that’s a sign of “progress”, writes Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. Fewer couples are “locked in miserable unions” and “women no longer put up with boring, unworthy, unfaithful or abusive men”. But it’s also “saddening”, because divorce “splinters lives”. I’ve “been through it” and know how family “bonds” can break, even when everyone tries “to do their best”. Whatever the lawyers promise, “divorce is never painless or cost-free”.

Why we have the calendar all wrong
Sarah O’Connor in the Financial Times
In January, animals hibernate but “humans buy new exercise equipment” and “make ambitious new resolutions”, writes Sarah O’Connor. Why “attempt to step up a gear when the rest of nature” slows down? The Romans lumbered us with the “notion that January marks the beginning of the year”, but we could avoid the post-Christmas “handbrake turn” by choosing to view spring as “our ‘psychological’ new year”. “Join me”, and HMRC, and reset your calendar to begin on 6 April instead.

Prince Harry may focus on legal action, but it’s business as usual for the Royals
Russell Myers in The Mirror
The royal family, writes Russell Myers, will endure “Prince Harry’s latest court case” with the “same mantra that has carried” them through “generations of upheaval – Keep calm and carry on”. They’re focused on getting “on with the job” despite the “global attention” on Harry and Meghan. Tellingly, the King “has chosen to keep his distance”, and “while Harry may talk” of reconciliation with his family, his “battles with the media” will “do little to repair those shattered relationships”.