Tag: financial times

With its decisions on Donald Trump’s financial records on Thursday, the Supreme Court sounded a note it has played more than once this term: it would not simply dance to the president’s tune. The US high court’s rulings in two cases concerning records held by Mr Trump’s accountant and bankers dismissed arguments that he was...

Students and teachers around the world have attacked the International Baccalaureate after receiving grades awarded using a system introduced because of disruption from the coronavirus pandemic. Schools this week demanded explanations from the foundation that administers the IB, with thousands of the 170,000 students who entered saying they had received marks below their expected grades...

An explosion at the heart of Iran’s nuclear programme in the dead of night. An obscure group called the Cheetahs of the Homeland takes credit for it. Then there are fires and gas leaks at key infrastructure around the country. In recent days, speculation has flourished about what exactly happened at Natanz, an assembly plant...

It has become the preferred mode of transport and the pastime of choice for millions of people in the coronavirus era. But the cycling revolution has been stopped in its tracks — by a worldwide shortage of bikes. Many stores around the world have been selling out as soon as new bikes are delivered, leaving shop...

Gilead Sciences revealed more trial data on Friday showing its experimental Covid-19 drug significantly reduced the risk of death, an early sign that the antiviral treatment may go beyond just speeding up recovery.  The California-based biotech group said its remdesivir treatment showed a 62 per cent reduction in the risk of death compared with standard...

Ivory Coast’s October presidential race has been thrown open by the sudden death this week of the prime minister, the chosen successor of the west African country’s president. Amadou Gon Coulibaly, who was 61, died suddenly after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, sparking speculation about whether president Alassane Ouattara, who had anointed him the ruling...

It was early 2018 when Jan Marsalek, the young chief operating officer of German fintech champion Wirecard, held a meeting in his palatial home in Munich to talk about a new special project he was interested in: recruiting 15,000 Libyan militiamen.  Mr Marsalek has now vanished in the wake of Wirecard’s implosion. An international warrant...

Disease has often stricken Brazilian leaders. In 1919, the Spanish flu killed president-elect Francisco de Paula Rodrigues Alves. Fernando Collor de Mello was impeached in 1992 after the country was struck by cholera. Dilma Rousseff met the same fate in 2016 in the midst of the Zika epidemic. Now Covid-19 has infected President Jair Bolsonaro....

Chinese equities have enjoyed their best week in five years as legions of the country’s retail investors rushed to participate in a booming stock market. A gauge of the country’s 300 biggest Shanghai and Shenzhen-listed stocks, which saw a run of eight consecutive days of increases end on Friday, is up 16 per cent so...

When California governor Gavin Newsom issued the first US statewide stay-at-home order, on March 19, it was hailed as a bold but necessary step to contain coronavirus. Mr Newsom, a Democrat, told citizens to “recognise reality” and warned that more than half of California’s 40m residents could be infected within eight weeks unless serious measures...

I hear Anthony Fauci before I see him. Out of view of our video call, he asks his tech assistant: “Have you wiped down the table?” The assistant, who has already sprayed down the 79-year-old’s chair, hurries to disinfect the desk. The top adviser on the White House’s coronavirus task force cannot afford to fall...

Hong Kong has closed schools and tightened social-distancing requirements after a resurgence in locally infected coronavirus cases in the Asian financial hub. Secondary and primary schools as well as kindergartens would be suspended starting on Monday, said Kevin Yeung, education secretary. The decision was taken “in view of the exponential growth of confirmed Covid-19 local...

The picture was taken on a sunny day in 1968 in the playground at Gospel Oak primary school in north London. I am sitting cross-legged in the front row, wearing a pink and orange flowery mini dress. There are 35 of us and, with the exception of the girl sitting a few along from me...

Australia has been hit by a phenomenon not seen there for nearly thirty years: recession. The pandemic is to blame but fraying relations with China threaten to make the downturn considerably worse. This week, Australia warned against travel to Hong Kong and suspended its extradition treaty with the territory, sparking a swift rebuke from China. Bumper sales...

Ford is facing potential parts shortages from suppliers in northern Mexico as the pandemic throttles production, threatening the ability of US factories to keep manufacturing vehicles. The governor of the state of Chihuahua, an important region supplying the US automotive industry, has barred employers from operating with more than half their workforce in an attempt...

Dave Zhang did not expect to hit the jackpot when he entered a housing lottery to purchase a new two-bedroom flat in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing. But he won a draw that attracted 10,000 buyers for 150 units in a city centre development for Rmb31,000 ($4,400) per square metre, about three-quarters of what...

Testing has stalled in the US even as infections touch new highs Peter Wells in New York and Emma Boyde in Hong Kong Testing has stalled in the US even as the US caseload is reaching new highs and the death rate has begun to rise again for the first time since early June, according...

The body of his son was barely cold when the ­grieving father was threatened by men from the funeral company. Inside the mortuary of an austere hospital in Lamezia Terme, a city in ­southern Italy, the dead were not left in peace. Each corpse was now a highly prized commodity, worth ­thousands of euros to...

Nick Andersen packed up his life in Charleston, South Carolina, and headed south for a new job and a new start. On March 1, he signed a one-year lease on an apartment in Miami. Within two weeks of taking up his position at a financial software company, he was working from home. A month later,...

France has decided that the restoration of Notre-Dame after a devastating fire last year will stick closely to the cathedral’s original design, rejecting proposals to add a modern architectural flourish to the destroyed spire. Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, made the final decision on Thursday after a meeting with the country’s chief architect for historic monuments,...