News

Universal Music Group is in talks with big streaming platforms to overhaul the industry’s economics and direct more money towards artists, according to people familiar with the matter. The shake-up, which stands to revolutionise the way musicians make money, comes as the world’s largest music company is increasingly concerned about the proliferation of songs on

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Renault and Nissan reach a deal to save alliance’ Marc FilippinoGood morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, January 31st, and this is your FT News Briefing. [MUSIC PLAYING] Renault and Nissan have reached a deal to save their alliance. The International

Sportswear retailer JD Sports said it was the victim of a cyber attack that exposed the data of 10mn customers, in the latest of a spate of hacks on UK companies. The chain said on Monday that the attack involved “unauthorised access” to a system that contained “the name, billing address, delivery address, email address,

The writer is author of ‘How to Be a Better Leader’ and is a visiting professor at Bayes Business School, City, University of London We must stop meeting like this. By “this” I mean the catalogue of irritations which are all too familiar from working life: overlong, overcrowded, hijacked, unproductive meetings. No wonder some businesses,

Jerusalem was rocked on Saturday morning by the second shooting in less than 24 hours, following two days of spiralling violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Police said that a 13-year-old resident of East Jerusalem had shot a father and a son near the historic Old City, and that he had then been “neutralised

Of course I agree with Brendan Greeley that minting a trillion-dollar platinum coin is “silly” (The Long View, FT Weekend, January 21). But is not the existence of a debt ceiling — coming on top of normal restrictions on federal spending — also silly? Perhaps it will take an equally silly solution to solve the

In Spain’s southern Cataluña, Nuria Val is tending to her garden, a wiry patch of rock rose, subshrubs and grey-green deergrass. The shoots are young, almost imperceptible, but soon their leaves will create a “small forest” amid the olive groves. Val won’t need to water it – the rain can take care of that –

The coffin was made of black wenge, a hardwood known for its resilience. Its journey began 10 days before on a grey street in Brussels. It was carried through the Belgian capital to a ceremony at a 16th-century palace, then driven to the Congolese embassy, to a public square for a viewing and, finally, to

Having read the FT since the 1980s, I have the impression its defence of capitalism has weakened. It was therefore heartening to see Martin Wolf come out to defend, not only democracy, but also free-market capitalism (Life & Arts, January 21). He correctly lays bare two main pain factors that have weakened the system —

This week, an estimated 200mn unmarried Chinese returned home to celebrate the lunar new year, arriving at houses filled with the aromas of steaming dumplings and fish and greeted by relatives brimming with questions about when they plan to get married and start a family. The annual inquisition is such a predictable part of life

The US Treasury has formally designated Russia’s Wagner Group as a “significant transnational criminal organisation”, amid growing international pressure to crack down on the paramilitary group that has been one of the main players in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said it was placing sanctions on Wagner in addition

Jenny Johnson was at the movies with her kids when her phone rang. She stepped into a theatre lobby smelling like popcorn to answer the $4.5bn call. “What’s your final number,” said Nelson Peltz. The activist investor had a 10 per cent stake in Legg Mason, the asset manager that Johnson’s family firm Franklin Templeton

The world’s two largest container lines are ending an eight-year vessel-sharing agreement as the fierce shipping rivalry over transporting goods hots up. MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company and Maersk, the number one and two in the container shipping industry by volumes, said on Wednesday that they had agreed not to renew their alliance in 2025. When

I have a similar irritation to your letter-writer Michael Ayres (“Why the term Big Tech usually makes me cringe”, Letters, January 19), with the use of the term artificial intelligence. AI is not a “person”, it is not “artificial”, it is not “intelligent”, it is not “an AI” — as it is often referred to.

The US Federal Trade Commission wants to kill US non-compete clauses, which are highly unpopular with everyone. Well . . . almost everyone. Sure, the FTC’s examples are disturbing, as are many of the 4,700-something comment letters so far submitted on the topic: doctors and nurses forced to leave their communities to practice, for example, and security guards banned

US equities rallied on Monday, with investors increasingly confident the Federal Reserve will slow the pace of interest rate rises when it meets next week. Wall Street’s blue-chip S&P 500 gained 1.2 per cent, with all sectors except energy closing in positive territory. Advanced Micro Devices, Qualcomm and Nvidia advanced 9.2 per cent, 6.6 per

The European Council president has urged capitals to push forward with talks on using $300bn worth of confiscated Russian central bank assets for the reconstruction of Ukraine, as the scale of the destruction mounts in the war-torn country. Charles Michel, who represents the bloc’s 27 national leaders, said he wanted to explore the idea of

Labour on Sunday called for a probe into allegations that the BBC chair helped Boris Johnson secure a private loan shortly before the then UK prime minister recommended his appointment. Richard Sharp, the former Goldman Sachs partner who became BBC chair in 2021, has denied wrongdoing, saying he “simply connected” Johnson to the guarantor of

This is an audio transcript of the Payne’s Politics podcast episode: ‘What Keir Starmer did at Davos’ [MUSIC PLAYING] George ParkerThe global elite met in the Swiss Alps for the World Economic Forum this week, and there to deliver the message at Davos that Britain is open for business wasn’t the UK Prime Minister Rishi

The lessons to counter “overconfidence” in leaders listed by Ravi Gurumurthy (“A new year’s resolution for leaders: learn to love uncertainty”, Opinion, December 31) are all practical and indeed do-able. I see only one snag, and that rests on the missing word — “parliament”. The lessons appear to require reaching outside the tribe — which