News

Good morning. Interest rates are going up, the Bank of England has revised its inflation forecasts and NHS waiting lists are at a record high. This is the boring-but-important political story: for all Rishi Sunak is an undoubted asset to the Conservative party, for all he has turned chaos into order, disarray into competence and

The US has accused South Africa of supplying arms to Russia in a covert naval operation, escalating a foreign policy crisis for President Cyril Ramaphosa over the country’s ties to the Kremlin and position on the Ukraine war. Reuben Brigety, US ambassador to South Africa, told local media on Thursday that the US believed weapons

In a laboratory in College Station, Texas, in 1990, six lab rats pressed levers and lapped at tubes as root beer and tonic water were released. They were participating in the quest for an elusive quarry: the Giffen good. Robert Giffen was born in Lanarkshire in 1837, the year of Queen Victoria’s accession. He would

European stocks rose at the open on Thursday, buoyed by an overnight rally on Wall Street, as traders awaited an expected interest rate rise from the Bank of England. Europe’s region-wide Stoxx 600 gained 0.6 per cent, recovering from two consecutive days of losses, while France’s Cac index rose 0.9 per cent. Indices were tracking

Good morning. One of the sillier pledges made in recent times was Rishi Sunak’s commitment to repeal or replace all retained EU law (Reul) by the end of the year. That pledge was never going to be carried out, and it was always going to be a tricky political assignment for whichever Tory minister was

One in five UK companies fell victim to fraud between 2018 and 2020 but the majority did not report it to the police, according to an extensive government survey of thousands of businesses. The report by the Home Office, which was written in 2020 but published only last week, examined incidents of fraud experienced by

Brussels has backtracked on plans to ban asset managers and insurers from paying financial advisers for recommending their investment products, bowing to intense industry lobbying and in spite of warnings from consumer groups. An analysis by the European Commission last year concluded that an EU-wide full ban on incentive payments made by investment product manufacturers

Another consequence of what Pilita Clark calls the “touchscreen takeover” (“Push-buttons are coming back, hurrah!”, Opinion, May 8) is the extent to which it has robbed us of hand skills, motor skills and muscle strength. Our eyes work more than our hands so in future we’re going to need more eye specialists and physiotherapists. Aisha

Good morning. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is in Kyiv today to meet president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as Ukraine joins the bloc in celebrating Europe Day. Today, our correspondents covering the European parliament preview a crucial vote on methane emissions in Strasbourg. And our Milan correspondent explains why Italy thinks its food sector is under attack.

US regional banks rallied further in pre-market trading on Monday as concerns over their health eased, with the momentum also underpinning gains for stocks in Europe and Asia. Futures tracking the US S&P 500 were trading 0.2 per cent higher while those following the Nasdaq were flat as investors grew more optimistic over the battered

Explosions shattered the glass windows of Sally Abdel Mahmoud’s home in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. Her car was hit by shrapnel, and a shell landed on the house next door. “My youngest son screamed that ‘we will all die’ every time we heard an explosion,” said Abdel Mahmoud, who fled the war-torn country to Egypt

US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has warned of a “constitutional crisis” that risks economic and financial catastrophe if Congress does not raise the federal debt limit, with the government in danger of running out of cash in the absence of new borrowing capacity. The White House and Republican lawmakers are in a stalemate over lifting

It did not matter to climate change activists that Citigroup and Bank of America held their annual shareholder meetings online this year. Protesters showed up at the banks’ offices anyway to rail against fossil fuel lending. Extinction Rebellion demonstrated outside Citigroup’s headquarters in Tribeca in New York in late April. And at the same time,

Tim Harford’s “The perilous elitism at the heart of economics” (FT Magazine, Life & Arts, April 15) correctly highlights how economics, my own area of specialisation, is elitist to a fault. His assessment largely coincides with my impression, both personal and from the data. I’d also point out that a lack of economists with more

Two Russian theatre workers — a director and playwright — have been arrested in Moscow, the first time since the Soviet era that a high-profile criminal case has been opened over the contents of a theatre play. Director Evgeniya Berkovich was brought to a Russian courtroom in handcuffs on Friday, accused of “justifying terrorism” in

Saturday’s coronation of King Charles III will be the most public display in seven decades of the curious relationship in the UK between England’s established church and the hereditary monarchy. The King will be accompanied to and from the ceremony by thousands of military personnel, a reminder that Britain’s constitutional monarch remains head of state.

A confrontation broke out in Los Angeles this week as 11,500 writers for film and television went on strike. Screenwriters know all about confrontations: they are the second acts of three-act dramas, when the main characters face a crisis that only gets resolved at the end. “You put them in the worst possible position they

Every April, as university graduates enter Japan’s workforce and log into the IT networks of Japanese businesses for the first time, the government runs a campaign pushing everyone to create a strong password. But, in 2022, a global survey by cyber security group NordPass found that Japan’s favourite password remained “123456”, which is hackable in

The Bank of England wants to cut penalties for errant companies and individuals by as much as half in an effort to incentivise earlier co-operation with probes into wrongdoing at banks, insurers and other financial services firms it oversees. The proposal, by the central bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority, for an early settlement discount of up to

Vodafone and CK Hutchison are close to agreeing a £15bn combination of their UK telecoms businesses that would create the country’s biggest mobile operator, with 28mn customers, three people close to the matter said. The deal is expected to be unveiled this month following the appointment of insider Margherita Della Valle as Vodafone chief executive