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Wall Street suffered the worst sell-off since the early days of the pandemic after official data showed US inflation increased unexpectedly in August, raising the spectre the Federal Reserve will need to act more aggressively to combat rising prices. The benchmark S&P 500 stock index tumbled 4.3 per cent, its worst day since June 2020

Ukraine still faces “a tough fight” after Russia gave up most of the territory it had taken near Kharkiv following a lightning counteroffensive that forced many of its retreating troops to leave the country, according to the Pentagon. A senior military official said on Monday that the Russian military “had largely ceded their gains” around

Ukraine needs to secure the vast territory it has recaptured from possible Russian counter-attack, the country’s defence minister has warned, as he said Kyiv’s lightning offensive had gone far “better than expected”. The attack has routed the Kremlin’s forces, led to the recapture of some 3,000 sq km of Ukrainian territory and prompted an unusual

Russia abandoned military strongholds in northeastern Ukraine on Saturday in an apparent rout of its front line positions, after Ukrainian forces pushed forward in a lightning advance that has left Moscow’s forces in disarray. Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had pulled back from the strategic city of Izyum, claiming it had decided to “regroup” and transfer

King Charles III addressed his nation for the first time on Friday, vowing to emulate his late mother Queen Elizabeth’s “life-long service” as Britain began a period of national mourning. The new monarch’s words came at the end of day of parliamentary tributes, gun salutes and raw emotion, as thousands of people gathered at the

Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-serving monarch, has died, leaving her people in mourning but reflecting on a life of duty in which she bound the country together through 70 years of momentous change. Her death, at the age of 96, was announced by Buckingham Palace at 6.30pm on Thursday. It marked a watershed moment in

The pound has fallen to its weakest levels since 1985, reflecting the daunting scale of the economic challenge new prime minister Liz Truss faces as she prepares to unveil an emergency energy package. Truss will on Thursday give details of the state intervention to shield households and companies from soaring energy bills. Government insiders said

Liz Truss has vowed Britain will “ride out the storm”, as the new UK prime minister began confronting an economic crisis with a massive energy bailout for families and businesses that could cost more than £150bn. Truss dodged torrential rain outside Downing Street to tell the country that she would create an “aspiration nation”, adding:

Liz Truss will enter Downing Street on Tuesday after a bruising battle to become the UK’s next prime minister and will finalise a two-year package of energy relief for households and business that could cost up to £100bn. The foreign secretary beat rival and former chancellor Rishi Sunak in a ballot of Conservative party members

Kwasi Kwarteng, who has been tipped as Britain’s next chancellor, has launched a pre-emptive bid to reassure markets that Liz Truss will not blow a hole in the public finances if, as widely expected, she is named as prime minister on Monday. Kwarteng writes in the Financial Times that although there will need to be

Sweden will give emergency liquidity support to electricity producers as its prime minister warned that Russia’s decision to halt gas deliveries to Europe could place its financial system under severe strain. Magdalena Andersson said on Saturday that the government would offer hundreds of billions of kroner in funding to electricity producers, who have seen the

Surging inflation, the rising cost of government debt and Liz Truss’s promises on tax cuts and defence spending will blow a £60bn hole in the public finances by the middle of the decade, according to Financial Times calculations. Although Truss, favourite to be named Britain’s next prime minister on Monday, has said she will stick

Starbucks has named the outgoing head of Reckitt Benckiser as its next chief executive, handing Laxman Narasimhan the task of executing a “reinvention” strategy designed by Howard Schultz since he returned in April to take charge of the coffee chain for the third time. The India-born, US-educated executive will join as “incoming CEO” on October

Sterling has recorded its steepest monthly decline against the dollar since the wake of the Brexit referendum against a backdrop of intensifying economic and political uncertainty. The pound fell 4.5 per cent in August to $1.16 in the biggest monthly drop since October 2016. Sterling also declined by almost 3 per cent against the euro.

Rishi Sunak, Tory leadership contender, has warned that it would be “complacent and irresponsible” to ignore the risk of markets losing confidence in the British economy, as wagers against UK government debt sent short-term borrowing costs in the gilt market soaring. In an interview with the Financial Times, Sunak said his leadership rival Liz Truss

The EU is preparing emergency measures to curb the price of electricity by separating it from the soaring cost of gas, as Shell warns the energy crisis could last for years, and utilities turn to the state for support. With member states stepping up pressure for action, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said

Central bankers face a more challenging economic landscape than they have experienced in decades and will find it harder to root out high inflation, top multilateral officials and monetary policymakers have warned. The world’s leading economic authorities this weekend sounded the alarm about the forces working against the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and other

The writer is chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think-tank Economic crises have phases you can almost feel. They ebb and they flow, as the nature and scale of the crisis, and our awareness of it, changes. Single events often crystallise a shift, forcing policymakers to wake up to the fact they are required to

The scale of the challenge facing the UK’s next prime minister was laid bare on Friday when the energy regulator said household power bills would surge 80 per cent with further rises expected next year. Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, the two candidates for the leadership of the Conservative party, will face a spiralling cost

Liz Truss is considering plans to trigger “Article 16” proceedings against the EU over the Northern Ireland protocol within days of entering Downing Street if she succeeds Boris Johnson as prime minister next month, according to several government insiders. The UK and Brussels are locked in a fractious legal stand-off over implementing the deal covering