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The US has widened its productivity lead over Europe, sparking fears in the EU that it faces a “competitiveness crisis” as policymakers call for greater public and private investment. New data released on Friday showed eurozone productivity fell 1.2 per cent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, while in the US it rose

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Central banks myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Top central bankers in Europe and the US have moved closer to declaring victory over the biggest inflation surge for a generation, with new data giving policymakers confidence they can cut rates by the summer.

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Jeremy Hunt has wound down a scheme that delivered an extra £200mn a year for social housing in England, in a controversial move that will further squeeze the finances of cash-strapped local councils. The chancellor’s

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The Federal Reserve is “not far” from having the confidence to start cutting interest rates, its chair Jay Powell has said, bolstering hopes that the central bank will lower borrowing costs in the coming months.

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Nationwide Building Society has reached a preliminary agreement to buy Virgin Money in a £2.9bn deal that would bolster its ability to challenge the UK’s big four banks. Nationwide is offering a total of 220p

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt claimed that Britain’s economy has “turned the corner”, as his pre-election Budget put a £10bn personal tax cut at the heart of the Conservatives’ bid to overturn Labour’s polling lead and

Live Opinion3/6/2024, 9:51:25 AM Stephen Bush At the Autumn Statement last year, Jeremy Hunt used most of his “headroom” to introduce a series of genuine “pro-growth” measures: making “full expensing” permanent (a big tax break for companies), increasing the government’s spending on computing power to develop artificial intelligence and further fleshing out its £2.5bn national

Welcome to the Financial Times’s live coverage of Super Tuesday, perhaps one of the busiest days of the US presidential election calendar. Fifteen US states head to the polls, potentially shedding more light on who the Republican and Democratic parties will pick as their nominee for president. Stay with us through the day for updates

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Singapore’s Temasek Holdings is holding talks about investing in OpenAI, a deal that would mark the first time a state-backed group has funded the ChatGPT maker. Senior executives at Temasek, one of the world’s biggest

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Jeremy Hunt will on Wednesday give motorists a £5bn pre-election tax break in the Budget, as hopes rise among Tory MPs that the chancellor has mustered enough money to fund a surprise 2p income tax

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Brussels has fined Apple €1.8bn for stifling competition from rival music streaming services, the first time the iPhone maker has been punished for breaching EU law. Margrethe Vestager, the bloc’s competition chief, said that for

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will use the Budget on Wednesday to cut personal taxes, as he scrapes together the money needed to fund a package intended to lift Conservative MPs’ spirits ahead of the general election.

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the UK tax myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has warned ahead of Wednesday’s Budget that there is “a long path” ahead to cut Britain’s tax burden, as he admitted that recent official fiscal forecasts had made his task harder. Hunt,

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Israel has “basically signed on” to a six-week ceasefire that would be used to facilitate a second round of swaps of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, a senior US administration official said. Several hurdles remain

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Joe Biden rebuked Israel on Friday, saying it had “no excuses” for not letting more aid into Gaza as he announced the US will soon begin airdropping food into the enclave. Biden’s announcement and criticism

It was dark when roughly 30 trucks of food reached an Israeli checkpoint on Al Rashid Street in Gaza City, a stretch of Mediterranean road dotted just four months ago with hotels, wedding halls and ice cream stands. But around 4am on February 29, videos shared by Palestinians show, it was a dystopian landscape —

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. George Galloway has won a divisive by-election contest in Rochdale with the firebrand politician threatening to inflame tensions in the UK parliament over Israel’s offensive in Gaza. Galloway won 12,335 votes on a 37.6 per

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Dozens of people were killed in northern Gaza on Thursday after the Israeli military opened fire on Palestinians rushing towards trucks carrying food but said some had died in a crush to reach the supplies.

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the UK financial regulation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. The UK’s top financial regulator is resisting Jeremy Hunt’s effort to make pension funds reveal more about their investments, setting the scene for a clash with the Treasury ahead of next week’s Budget. The

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the UK tax myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Jeremy Hunt has drawn up emergency Budget plans to scrap or scale back Britain’s “non-dom” tax rules, in the event that he needs to raise billions of pounds to fund mass-market pre-election tax cuts. The

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the War in Ukraine myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Ursula von der Leyen said windfall profits from Russian frozen assets should be used to buy weapons for Ukraine as discussions intensified between European allies about how to continue supporting the war-torn country. “It