News

Since January 6 2021, Liz Cheney has been focused on a single goal: making sure Donald Trump never again occupies the Oval Office. On Thursday she came a step closer to achieving that ambition as she wrapped up the last in a series of live hearings investigating last year’s attack on the US Congress, and

Donald Trump ignored repeated pleas from his family and closest advisers to bring a stop to the January 6 riots and instead spent hours watching the violence unfold on Fox News, a congressional committee has heard. In the final session of a summer of hearings, the panel investigating the insurrection used a primetime broadcast on

China’s middle-class consumers are fanning a new craze as they adapt to tougher economic times: a rush to buy soon-to-expire food and drink at deep discounts. According to public records, 119 businesses specialising in items approaching their expiry dates have been registered within the past 12 months, compared with 92 over the previous decade. Such

EDF is trying to alter a key subsidy contract to avoid missing out on billions of pounds in guaranteed revenue after the Covid-19 pandemic caused further delays to Hinkley Point C, the first new nuclear power station under construction in the UK in almost 30 years. The French utility is in negotiations with the British

Mattel is stocking up in anticipation of higher demand for Jurassic World action figures and Hot Wheels cars this holiday season, citing a 20 per cent increase in second-quarter revenues as evidence that inflation has not deterred parents from spending on toys. The California-based company behind Barbie dolls and Thomas & Friends trains reported its

The owner of the UK’s largest steelworks, Tata Group, has threatened to shut down operations if the government does not agree in the next year to provide £1.5bn of subsidies to help it reduce carbon emissions. Tata Steel UK runs the Port Talbot plant and employs nearly 8,000 people across all its operations. As one

US prosecutors charged a former Coinbase employee and two associates with insider trading in the latest sign of how authorities are stepping up their enforcement of the digital asset industry. Ishan Wahi, 32, was charged by US federal prosecutors with sharing with his brother and friend tips on digital tokens that were due to be

Christine Lagarde proclaimed a “rather historical moment” on Thursday after the European Central Bank’s rate-setters unanimously agreed to create a bond-buying tool the ECB president hopes will stop higher interest rates from sparking a new eurozone debt meltdown. By giving itself the power to buy unlimited amounts of the bonds of any country that it

Everyone in the UK, it seems, is angry about their pay. Rail strikes are set to escalate over the summer. Bus drivers, refuse collectors and baggage handlers have staged walkouts across the country; more than 100,000 postal workers at the Royal Mail Group have voted to follow suit. In the public sector, unions representing teachers

Joe Biden has contracted Covid-19 and has started taking Pfizer’s antiviral pill to combat the disease, the White House announced. The 79-year-old US president tested positive on Thursday morning, according to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and will work from isolation until he tests negative. The White House said he is fully vaccinated with

The European Central Bank has raised interest rates by half a percentage point — its first increase for more than a decade — while pledging to prevent rising borrowing costs from sparking a eurozone debt crisis amid political turmoil in Italy. The ECB said in a press release after its governing council met in Frankfurt

Italian stocks and bonds sold off on Thursday after Prime Minister Mario Draghi resigned and the European Central Bank sharply raised interest rates in its effort to tame blistering inflation. The yield on Italy’s 10-year government bond jumped 0.24 percentage points to 3.6 per cent as Draghi’s national unity coalition unravelled and the ECB lifted

Britain needs new economic rules of thumb. The old norms and assumptions are not remotely adequate for a world with severe shocks to the supply of gas and other commodities, high inflation and extremely low rates of underlying productivity growth. In the past, the shortcuts most economists have used to describe a complex and dynamic

Foreign secretary Liz Truss on Thursday slammed Tory leadership rival Rishi Sunak as “the continuity economic policy candidate”, claiming he took the UK economy in the “wrong direction” when he was chancellor. In a sign of the gloves-off nature of the final contest to become leader of the Conservative party, Truss promised to hold an

This article is an online version of our Inside Politics newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter sent straight to your inbox every weekday. It took five ballots but she got there eventually: Liz Truss has secured the all-important second slot alongside Rishi Sunak. The two politicians are now gunning for support from Conservative

Italian prime minister Mario Draghi has resigned, ending a national unity government formed to tackle unpopular reforms and spelling trouble for Europe at a time of acute economic challenges. In a statement, President Sergio Mattarella’s office on Thursday said that Draghi would remain in charge of current affairs. Mattarella is now expected to dissolve parliament

The 350m Lotus Tower that looms over the skyline in Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo is one of the tallest buildings in South Asia. Funded by a Chinese state bank and designed to look like a giant lotus bud about to burst into flower, it was intended to be a metaphor for the flourishing of Sri

Years ago, after I received some negative feedback at work, my husband Laurence told me something that stuck with me: when we receive criticism, we go through three stages. The first, he said, with apologies for the language, is, “Fuck you.” The second is “I suck.” And the third is “Let’s make it better.” I

United Airlines reported its highest-ever second-quarter revenue and had its first profitable quarter since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the carrier said on Wednesday. The Chicago-based airline, the second largest in the US, reported net income of $329mn on operating revenue of $12.1bn. Revenue was up 6 per cent compared with the March to

Autcraft, a Minecraft server for autistic children, was about to celebrate its ninth anniversary when the troll attacked. They sent explicit photos and abusive messages to the autistic children on Autcraft’s social network, wreaking so much havoc that founder Stuart Duncan was forced to shut down the site. Nearly a decade of community history was