China’s economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter but official data revealed a recent contraction in consumer activity as lockdown measures to counter the spread of Covid-19 weighed on the country’s outlook. China’s gross domestic product rose 4.8 per cent compared with the same period a year earlier, after expanding by 4 per

Companies owned by rightwing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones have filed for bankruptcy after being hit by defamation lawsuits over Jones’s claims that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax. Three companies, including Jones’s InfoWars media outlet, filed for Chapter 11 protection in Southern Texas on Sunday. InfoWars, which has been widely criticised for promoting

Officials in Lviv said seven people were killed in Russian missile strikes on the city in western Ukraine on Monday as Moscow’s brutal siege of Mariupol in the country’s south-east appeared to be entering its final stages. Andriy Sadovyy, Lviv’s mayor, reported “five targeted missile strikes” on the city, a haven for people fleeing violence in

A defiant Boris Johnson will on Tuesday face MPs for the first time since being fined over the “partygate” affair, with allies privately criticising the Metropolitan Police’s handling of the issue. The UK prime minister will apologise to MPs but will insist that he was not aware he was breaking his own Covid-19 lockdown rules;

Mexico’s opposition politicians have denied the country’s nationalist president the two-thirds majority he needed to change the constitution and implement a radical energy reform bill. The reform, which would have guaranteed state electricity group CFE 54 per cent of the market, spooked the private sector, opposition and the US government. Critics argued that it was

US stocks and bonds fluctuated on Monday morning as investors look ahead to a busy week of corporate earnings and speeches from Federal Reserve officials that may give further guidance on how aggressively policymakers will raise interest rates this year. The S&P 500 swung between gains and losses in thin trading as markets reopened from

Riley Studio organic-cotton Ochre Stripe shirt, £160 TAG Heuer Monaco Gulf Special Edition watch, £5,850 JW Anderson fringe-detail camisole dress, £790 Artisanne hand-woven grass Large Storage Basket, £115, conranshop.co.uk Loewe mohair and wool Stripe blanket, £825 Aliita gold and enamel Nadadora Rayada necklace, €350 Frantoio Muraglia ceramic Jeroboam jar, €119 Gucci poly-mix Vintage Chevron Web sablé dress, £1,800,

Chinese immigration consultants say inquiries from wealthy individuals trying to leave the country have surged following the lockdown of Shanghai, underscoring the mounting frustration with Beijing’s zero-Covid strategy. Calls about emigration have risen sharply this month, according to more than a dozen consultancies, following an outbreak of the Omicron coronavirus variant that led authorities to

China is America’s nemesis when it comes to economic espionage. About 80 per cent of all economic espionage prosecutions brought by the US Department of Justice allege conduct that would benefit the Chinese state. One 2017 estimate put the cost to the US of stolen trade secrets, pirated software and counterfeiting by China at between

Pay for FTSE 100 chief executives bounced back to pre-pandemic levels after increasing by a third in 2021, as some sectors experienced a post-Covid boom and companies measured performance against conservative targets. An analysis by PwC of the first 50 FTSE 100 companies to publish their 2021 remuneration reports — based on financial years ending

“I’m trying to be nice but sometimes it comes out horrible,” says movie producer Cameron O’Neill at one point in Chivalry, offering a crisp encapsulation of this lively comedy about Hollywood’s hopelessly maladroit efforts to adjust to a post-#MeToo world. The new Channel 4 series is something of a high-wire act. A comedy set against

Economists’ definitions of so-called safe assets — those that serve as a bolt hole for nervous money in crises — are often devoid of political content. This omission is historically under-informed. Safe assets, like reserve currencies and financial centres, have largely lost their pre-eminent status thanks to war. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine serves as a

Janet Yellen, the US Treasury secretary, did something important and, for the most part, underreported last week. She relinked trade to values. In an address at the Atlantic Council in Washington, the secretary called for a new Bretton Woods framework and a revamp of the IMF and World Bank institutions, both of which are holding

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. Many people with lingering symptoms of Covid-19 struggle to work or have been forced to leave the workforce entirely. Plus, the FT’s capital markets correspondent, Robert Smith, talks about the lessons learned from the collapse of

Last week everyone’s fave attention-junkie technology impresario launched a $43bn hostile offer for Twitter. It has raised Questions, to put it mildly. Apart from the company likely not wanting to sell at just $54.20 per share, a big challenge to Elon Musk’s bid is that the company is not exactly the profit machine that debt

This is an audio transcript of the FT Tech Tonic podcast episode: US-China Tech Race: Shock and Awe Demetri SevastopuloI mean, I have to be very careful and kind of not get into sourcing at all, but I can just say that I had a tip that China had done something incredible and that it

The author’s latest book is ‘Lift As You Climb: Women and the Art of Ambition’ At a conference in central London recently, I finished giving a talk and watched the audience stream out of the room, faster, it seemed to me, than in pre-pandemic times. Couldn’t wait to get away from me? Probably. Or just

A vessel docked at a jetty on Louisiana’s coast is claiming its cargo of liquefied natural gas. Ice forms on a pipe as chilled fuel extracted from fields as far away as Texas or Pennsylvania is sent into the tanker’s insulated hold for shipment overseas. Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass export terminal is one of seven

This week’s problem I have a manager who does not support my professional development. I asked other senior managers for feedback and based on what they told me, I have spent my own time and money on professional training and activities to improve my soft skills. When my manager heard about this, she started giving

To step inside Carmen Haid’s Marrakech home is to be immersed in a sunset palette of Sahara brown, ochre and burnt red – the same tones that define so much of the ancient city’s architecture. Haid, who embarked on a career in fashion and worked alongside Yves Saint Laurent in the 1990s handling his PR,

Susie Boyt was spot on in her excellent piece “A love letter to The Wolseley” (Life & Arts, April 9). John Betjeman, poet Laureate and saviour of Holy Trinity Sloane Square, famously noted that when the end of the world came he wanted to be in the haberdashery department of a certain iconic department store