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Liz Truss, the Tory leadership frontrunner, is a strong communicator, gutsy and could prove to be an economic “nightmare” for Labour, according to some of the opposition party’s leading strategists. Allies of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer have also been impressed by the way the foreign secretary has grown into the contest to succeed outgoing

Since Covid-19 took its first English life in March 2020, the country has recorded around 120,000 more deaths than would have been expected over the same months of three typical, non-pandemic years. This is a huge number but one that, for the first year of the pandemic, was relatively straightforward to explain. A novel and

Maybe Rupert Murdoch and AT&T knew what they were doing all along. In recent years both have curtailed their Hollywood ambitions. The pair sold entertainment assets to buyers keen to do battle in the content streaming wars. So far this year, Fox and AT&T shares have held up versus declining market indices. Other media titans

European electricity prices have soared to new records as the prolonged heatwave disrupted power markets that were already under strain from Russia’s cuts to the continent’s gas supplies. German baseload power for delivery next year, the benchmark European price, was up more than 5 per cent on Thursday at a record €455 per megawatt hour.

Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has sent a strong warning to the UK’s next prime minister not to interfere politically in the regulation of the City of London, saying it would hit the country’s competitiveness. The two Tory leadership contenders, foreign secretary Liz Truss and former chancellor Rishi Sunak, want to allow ministers to

Consumers have soured on stuff. For nearly two years, the pandemic supercharged online purchases of everything from home office equipment and furniture to cooking gear and gardening tools. The surging demand for goods exacerbated supply chain woes and sent prices skyrocketing, even as lockdowns strangled spending on travel and entertainment. But now western economies are

Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said he backed the idea of a new gas pipeline linking Portugal and Spain to central Europe via France, saying it would vastly improve Europe’s energy security. Speaking on Thursday at his first summer press conference, Scholz said he had discussed the idea with the leaders of Spain, Portugal and France

A few years ago, we were told that self-driving cars were just around the corner and would soon be pulling up at the kerbside. Then, when the fiendish complexities of developing and deploying the technology became clearer, we discovered they were stuck in heavy traffic many blocks away. But it would be wrong to conclude

Soaring oil use for power generation in Europe and the Middle East will boost crude consumption for the rest of the year, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday, as it increased its global demand forecast despite signs of a wider economic slowdown. Paris-based IEA, which is primarily funded by OECD members, said record European

The writer is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Russian diplomat The Russian Embassy in the UK sparked outrage and fierce criticism recently when it tweeted that prisoners of war from Ukraine’s Azov battalion, who had defended the city of Mariupol right up until the bitter end, deserved

US petrol prices have dropped below $4 a gallon for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as fears of a looming recession put the brakes on soaring fuel markets, tempering rampant inflation. The average price of a gallon of gasoline tumbled to $3.99 on Thursday, according to motoring group AAA. That leaves the

Asian shares rallied and European stocks ticked higher after data showed that inflation in the US had steadied, boosting investors’ hopes that the Federal Reserve will soften its approach to tackling rising prices. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 gained 0.4 per cent at the open, while the FTSE 100 slipped 0.2 per cent and Germany’s

Manrika Khaira regularly broadcasts live on TikTok to her following of more than half a million people. She uses the social media platform to demonstrate how she gets ready in cheerful tutorial-style videos, while marketing cheap or discounted beauty products. In one livestream, testing out some heated hair crimpers sent to her, she realises her

The last time I was truly, painfully, bored, in the way that I remember from childhood — watching the minutes tick by as if they were hours; desperately craving stimuli other than the contemptible ones on offer; feeling an increasing urge to somehow vent the frustration physically, vocally, or preferably both — was almost exactly

How much could your household finances be squeezed in the next few years? The answer could well come down to the size of your mortgage. If you’ve borrowed a lot of money to buy your dream home, rising interest rates have the potential to curb the spending power of the middle classes much more than

A top Federal Reserve official has warned it is far too early for the US central bank to “declare victory” in its fight against elevated inflation after new data showed a reprieve in consumer price pressures. In an interview with the Financial Times, Mary Daly, president of the San Francisco branch of the Fed, did

The thick plumes of black smoke that swirled over an air base in Crimea sent scores of sun-seekers running from the Russia-occupied peninsula, clogging traffic on the highway leading to the only bridge to their homeland. Ukrainian officials retweeted the videos of panicked Russian tourists racing for the exits. One assessed that nine Russian fighter

Perched on the side of the bridge connecting the island of Palm Beach to the Florida mainland, a day after Donald Trump’s nearby Mar-a-Lago resort was searched by the FBI, Mary Ann Robinson held a White Claw alcoholic drink in one hand and railed against federal law enforcement. “When they raided our president[’s home], I

Walt Disney defied concerns about a slowdown in the streaming industry by adding 14.4mn new subscribers to its Disney Plus service in the third quarter, pushing its total number of paying streaming customers to 221mn — slightly ahead of Netflix. But Disney reduced its long-term guidance for its total number of Disney Plus subscribers due

Donald Trump refused to answer questions at a deposition in a New York state probe into his businesses on Wednesday, invoking his constitutional right against self-incrimination amid deepening legal woes. Trump said in a statement that the “current administration and many prosecutors across the country have lost all moral and ethical bounds of decency”, leaving

Britain’s electricity generators will face pressure from ministers to invest their “extraordinary profits” in new green energy projects, rather than paying out the windfall to shareholders. Some have made huge profits from surging electricity prices that have risen in line with the soaring cost of gas, even if the power they produce comes from renewables