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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

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

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

Liz Truss on Wednesday vowed to do “all that I can” to help households struggling with the cost of living crisis, in a change of tone that her Tory leadership rival Rishi Sunak described as a “major U-turn on the biggest issue facing the country”. The foreign secretary has said she favours tax cuts over

For months ministers have been insisting British households and businesses have no reason to fear the possibility of gas shortages or the lights going out this winter. But with most of the focus of the energy crisis so far on how consumers will cope with soaring energy bills, Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, has had

Federal prosecutors have charged an Iranian national with plotting to assassinate John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, on US soil. The US Department of Justice said it believed 45-year-old Shahram Poursafi, a member of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards who also goes by the name Mehdi Rezayi, had attempted to arrange a “murder for

The US consumer price index rose by 8.5 per cent year-on-year in July, a slower annual increase compared to June, as inflationary pressures eased on the back of lower petrol prices. CPI data released on Wednesday showed no increase between June and July, compared to a 1.3 per cent monthly increase recorded a month ago.

If only Britain had had a Conservative government for the past decade instead of the crypto-socialists who botched everything, including Brexit. Ever since his resignation last year, David Frost, Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, former cabinet minister, peer and latterly ferocious evangelist of the lost creed of true Toryism, has been compiling a charge sheet against

Perhaps we need a new rule. When a politician complains that regulators are being too slow, too cautious or a bit of a “dog in the manger” about overhauling insurance rules for the glorious benefit of Brexit Britain, they should be asked to explain the issues involved. Rather as political wannabes are regularly asked to

In the first lockdown, I became trapped. Inside my head. Stuck indoors, work was intense; so was home-schooling. Thoughts piled up, with no release. At the end of the working day, often late at night, I would take a short walk to clear my mind, keys clutched between my fingers in case of an attacker,

Asian equity markets fell on Wednesday as investors braced themselves for the latest US inflation data, which are expected to shape the pace of future monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index shed as much as 2.2 per cent, while China’s CSI 300 benchmark of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed stocks declined up

Most people driving through Napa County, California’s famed wine region, see only beauty. Steven Burgess sees something different. Spotting clumps of juniper along the edge of a multimillion dollar property, he calls out the combustible shrub’s local nickname: “green gasoline!” The 49-year-old volunteer firefighter and former vintner is giving the Financial Times a history tour,

Fourteen years ago, I told a well-informed friend that Barack Obama was considering picking Joe Biden as his running mate in the 2008 election. “You’ve got to be kidding,” came the riposte. “Biden is way past it.” Similar obituaries were being penned only two weeks ago as Biden’s poll numbers dropped below even Donald Trump’s

Donald Trump cried foul on Monday after FBI agents searched his residence at the Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, while his fellow Republicans have rushed to defend him as a victim of judicial persecution. The execution of a search warrant at the former president’s home has highlighted the extent of the legal troubles that have engulfed

The writer is UK economist at Morgan Stanley With inflation higher than it has been in decades, there is no shortage of critics of the Bank of England. Still, the bulk of the blame seems largely unfounded. The BoE has been criticised for being too slow to raise rates and doing too little since. But

Elon Musk has taken advantage of a recent rebound in Tesla’s stock price to sell $6.9bn worth of shares in the electric carmaker since the end of last week, according to a series of regulatory filings late on Tuesday. The sales are the first since the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive sold $8.5bn of stock