News

Aromas, objects and tastes operate as portals into a palimpsest of memories. When fine art and portrait photographer Mary McCartney first visited the Macallan estate on the river Spey in north-east Scotland in 2020, the peat and mineral smells, rare wildflowers and misty light transported her straight back to High Park Farm, her childhood home in Kintyre.

Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was held for five years by Hamas in Gaza before he was extracted in a 2011 prisoner swap. The price: more than 1,000 jailed Palestinians. Now Israel faces a hostage dilemma of a different magnitude. During Hamas’ surprise assault on southern Israel on Saturday, the militant group that runs the Gaza

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the World myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. The Israeli military said it bombed 200 targets in the Gaza Strip overnight as it prepares for an invasion of the enclave. In a national address yesterday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hamas had

While it’s true some fossil fuels — including coal — are still being used in India (“India’s green energy dream runs into coal reality”, September 26), the country is transitioning to lower carbon alternatives quickly — contrary to what your Big Read suggests — and it is in fact one of the best global examples

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The IMF faces arguably the greatest test of its legitimacy since it was forged almost 80 years ago. It has weathered multiple crises, from cold war politics to currency crashes. But today it needs to

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The number of pothole-related breakdowns in the UK has risen by a third over the past two years, the AA said, as it welcomed the government’s promise to spend £8bn fixing UK roads. While vehicles

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Global Economy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Marina Zucker-Marques and Ulrich Volz are from SOAS University of London and Kevin Gallagher is from the Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center. They are members of Debt Relief for a Green and Inclusive Economy

Polish opposition leader Donald Tusk last month offered to stop instructing his candidates to stay away from journalists from state-controlled outlets. It was a rare olive branch extended in a partisan media landscape reaching fever pitch ahead of elections on Sunday. But it quickly backfired. As Tusk was speaking, a journalist from TVP state television

This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to London Anglican churches in the City of London have found a novel way to get bottoms on pews: by converting their ecclesiastical spaces into coffee shops. The trend began a decade ago when St Mary Aldermary opened the Host Café at the entrance to its nave,

John Ralfe (“Peering at Eton’s £100mn bet”, FT Alphaville, FT.com, September 29) criticises Eton’s decision to borrow by assuming that the risk of investing in equities is the same over the long as it is over the short term. This is invalid if real equity returns are mean reverting. Mean reversion cannot be proved but

In suggesting that China could emulate South Korea’s path to economic prosperity, Martin Wolf’s column (“We should not call ‘peak China’ just yet”, Opinion, September 20) glosses over a number of key differences between the two economies that make a similar Chinese economic feat highly improbable. The most important difference is that South Korea did

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Global economic growth myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Momentum in advanced and emerging markets has slowed towards its weakest levels since the world emerged from the Covid-19 lockdowns, with the US standing as one of the few economic bright spots as rising

It’s one of those blue-sky days when the English countryside is not so much green and pleasant as indecently gorgeous. As we make our way through the Meon Valley, towering hedgerows shimmy by the sides of the roads; fields roll down to churches quaintly ding-donging; and coiffed sheep frolic as if on psychedelics. We turn

Labour activists partied into the early hours on Thursday night in Rutherglen on the southern outskirts of Glasgow, drinking cans of Tennent’s lager and singing “Things Can Only Get Better” — the unofficial theme tune to New Labour when it won its 1997 general election landslide. They were celebrating the seizure of the Rutherglen and

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. July was the world’s hottest month on record. Wildfires this summer destroyed a Hawaiian city and prompted evacuations in Canada, Greece, and Thailand. Floods devastated towns in Vermont in July and killed thousands of Libyans

In mid-May, Taylor Swift’s father Scott called up his friend Joe Kernen, a veteran CNBC anchor, with a dilemma. The first leg of his pop star daughter’s record-breaking 52-stop US “Eras” tour was in full swing, blazing a path towards a projected $1.5bn in global revenues, but Swift’s management was struggling to find a suitable

Wil­liam Cohan’s opin­ion piece (“Vigil­ance is needed on money mar­ket funds”, On Wall Street, Septem­ber 23) wor­ries that money mar­ket funds cur­rently offer high yields only in exchange for higher risk. And, he sug­gests, investors who have “swarmed” to money mar­ket funds don’t under­stand this. Really? Let’s check the facts. First, yields on money mar­ket

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Abcam has defended the handling of its proposed $5.7bn takeover by Danaher, insisting that the UK life sciences company rejected inadequate bids and pushed the US group to increase its offer. Alan Hirzel, chief executive

Receive free US House of Representatives updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest US House of Representatives news every morning. The clock is ticking for Republicans on Capitol Hill to elect a new leader, after the dramatic ouster of Kevin McCarthy this week left the House of Representatives without

Receive free US foreign policy updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest US foreign policy news every morning. Volodymyr Zelenskyy says there is no “expiration date” on Ukraine’s willingness to fight Russia. But it is becoming increasingly hard to ignore the potential shelf life of America’s support for his