On May 9 1921, George V held a state dinner for Crown Prince Hirohito at Buckingham Palace — the first time a Japanese heir-apparent had “ever left his native shores”, according to the king’s toast. Consommé à l’Impérial and lamb chops à l’Orientale were on the menu, and the programme of music for that day

Preserved Egg roams Shanghai’s empty streets with a megaphone strapped to its back. The robot dog is about the size of a terrier and barks orders to residents: stay inside, wash your hands, check your temperature. On some nights, when city officials have ordered mandatory midnight Covid testing, Preserved Egg – the name is reference

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. In a country besieged by war, Ukrainian politicians continued to meet in their parliamentary building, despite the clear threat of attack from Russian troops. Ukrainian MP Dmytro Natalukha shares his experiences of keeping parliament running while

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. US president Joe Biden announced yesterday he would send $800mn in additional military aid to Ukraine, the FT’s John Paul Rathbone outlines Russia’s changing military strategy, and our US financial commentator, Robert Armstrong, unpacks the debate

I am an 81-year-old widow. I own a flat in central London which is my second home. I inherited the flat from my husband who died last year, and there are no capital gains tax issues. On average, I stay in the flat two to three nights a month, and my three adult children, friends

The writer is co-founder of footwear brand Sante + Wade It was a standard cardboard box, taped up on all sides, and I tore it open with glee. I knew what was inside, after all I had designed it. But when I spied the contents, my excitement turned to dismay. The item in the box

Sajid Javid’s right to the “non-dom” status he held before entering parliament has been questioned by tax experts, who said the fact the UK health secretary was an international banker and his father was born in Pakistan would not be enough to entitle him to the perk. Javid, who was briefly chancellor just over two

Jay Newman was a senior portfolio manager at Elliott Management, and is the author of Undermoney, a thriller about the illicit money that courses through the global economy. In 1965, Ralph Nader wrote Unsafe at Any Speed, exposing a car industry that systematically stifled safety features. Over the past two decades, the industry that peddles

Norman’s Café in Archway, north London, is a modern take on a national institution: the great British greasy spoon. There are Formica tables and red gingham curtains. A chequered lino floor. A photo on the wall of Bobby Moore lifting the World Cup and blackboards with loads of things for under a tenner, including my

Although John C Mowinckel (Letters, April 12) questions the exact origins of the UK’s non-dom tax status, it is now widely known that its origins lie in the country’s colonial past. Less well known is that another quirk of our fiscal regime has a similar history — the tax-free pension lump sum. Expatriate members of

In using a subheading “Rising star Dvornikov tasked to repeat Syria success in south-eastern assault” on the story about Alexander Dvornikov, Russia’s new commander, surely your editors were on autopilot, under the sway of some malign robotic influence? For no one but a monster or the lackey of a tyrant could present anything to do

Amazon-owned Twitch has moved to ban several accounts on the livestreaming platform after research detailed how pro-Kremlin propaganda had spread on the network. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Twitch said it would move to “prohibit harmful misinformation actors from using our service”. But a report from the Tech Transparency Project detailed multiple accounts pushing pro-Kremlin

Boris Johnson suffered a fresh blow over the “partygate” scandal on Wednesday when his justice minister quit over “repeated rule-breaking and breaches of the criminal law” in Downing Street. Lord David Wolfson said he could not remain a minister following the revelations about Number 10 parties held during coronavirus lockdowns. Wolfson’s resignation came as senior

Amazon is adding a 5 per cent surcharge to its delivery fees in response to rising fuel costs and inflation, the company told its third-party sellers on Wednesday. The fee, which takes effect April 28, will be applied to US sellers using Amazon’s logistics network to deliver products, known as Fulfillment By Amazon. It is

Bank of England regulators have warned lenders about “gaming the rules” with capital arbitrage transactions via their pension schemes, a move largely directed at Barclays, which has used such deals to boost its capital level. On Wednesday, the Prudential Regulation Authority released a strongly-worded statement criticising the use of “deficit reduction transactions with their defined-benefit

A US judge has allowed a case to proceed against UK traders accused of causing an unprecedented crash in oil futures markets after ruling that text messages between the group were sufficient to point towards a potential conspiracy. The proposed class-action lawsuit centres around trading on April 20 2020, when the price of benchmark West

New York City was already on edge about rising gun violence, lawlessness and hate crimes. Then came Tuesday’s attack on a Brooklyn subway, in which a masked suspect detonated two smoke grenades and shot 10 people during the morning rush hour. On Wednesday, police arrested Frank James, a 62-year-old man who had earlier been named

Wall Street’s biggest banks prospered during the pandemic. But JPMorgan’s first-quarter results suggest disappointment is in store for investors hoping higher US interest rates can keep the good times going. JPMorgan set the tone for the US bank earnings reporting a 42 per cent drop in first quarter net income on Wednesday. For America’s largest

The UK government has announced a £2.6bn fund to replace EU development financing post-Brexit but attracted immediate criticism from Welsh and Scottish leaders for failing to match previous levels of EU funding. Michael Gove, levelling-up secretary, said the new Shared Prosperity Fund would “help spread opportunity and level up the country” and made good on

Microsoft was once the primary target of Big Tech antitrust cases, narrowly avoiding having to split into two companies at the end of the 1990s when it was taken to court for making it difficult for customers to uninstall Internet Explorer in favour of other browsers. The company eventually settled with the US Department of