News

Bob Iger, who served as Disney chief executive for 15 years, has stunned Hollywood by returning to replace his successor Bob Chapek after a rocky tenure that lasted just 33 months. Iger, who handpicked Chapek as his successor only to see the relationship quickly sour, will serve another two years in the job that made

The UN climate summit has agreed to establish a historic fund to pay for climate-related damage in poorer countries after working beyond sunrise in Egypt on Sunday, but backed down on greater cuts to greenhouse gas emissions and an end to fossil fuel use. Almost 200 countries at the summit achieved a breakthrough for a

UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt confronted a backlash from Tory MPs angry at a new era of high taxation even as the IMF hailed his efforts to restore the country’s fiscal credibility. On a day that two leading think-tanks said that high taxes had arrived for good and that wages were set for their most prolonged

British households are set for the steepest fall in living standards on record and the highest tax burden since the second world war after Jeremy Hunt laid out plans to cut public spending and raise revenue to fill a £55bn fiscal hole. The chancellor told a sombre House of Commons that a massive fiscal consolidation,

Jeremy Hunt, chancellor, will on Thursday seek to restore Britain’s tarnished economic reputation with a £54bn package of spending cuts and tax rises intended to repair the public finances and tame inflation. “We will face into the storm,” he will say. Hunt’s Autumn Statement will intensify the financial hardship facing millions of Britons and begin

The UK’s rate of inflation hit a fresh 41-year high in October, accelerating to 11.1 per cent on the back of rising energy and food prices. The Office for National Statistics said the rate rose from 10.1 per cent in September, putting inflation at its highest level since October 1981. Economists polled by Reuters had

World leaders will state that today’s era “must not be of war” and will condemn threats to use nuclear weapons at the G20 summit in Bali, reflecting rising global anxiety around Russia’s war against Ukraine. A draft communiqué agreed by diplomats, seen by the Financial Times and confirmed by two delegations, said: “Most members strongly

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is planning a big package of spending cuts and tax increases in Thursday’s Autumn Statement after being warned that UK public borrowing will be about £70bn larger than expected. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that a worse economic outlook will raise government borrowing close to £100bn in 2026-27, according to an

Democrats will retain a majority in the US Senate in a big boost to Joe Biden’s presidency after Catherine Cortez Masto won re-election in Nevada. According to the Associated Press, Cortez Masto is projected to win her contest against Republican candidate Adam Laxalt, in one of the most competitive races of the midterm elections. Cortez

FTX has said it is investigating abnormal transactions as analysts said hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crytpo assets were withdrawn as the exchange declared bankruptcy. The potential hack is the latest blow for FTX, the cryptocurrency empire once valued at $32bn and controlled by 30-year-old entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried, which filed for bankruptcy protection

The Bahamas securities regulator has frozen the assets of part of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire and moved to appoint a liquidator for one of his entities, as the entrepreneur raced to raise as much as $8bn to save FTX. The Securities Commission of The Bahamas took the action on Thursday against FTX Digital Markets, the

Binance will abandon its deal to rescue Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX cryptocurrency exchange, citing concerns about its business practices and investigations by US financial regulators. The move comes a day after Binance, one of the world’s largest crypto trading venues, tentatively agreed to buy FTX after it suffered a liquidity crunch. “As a result of corporate

Democrats put up an unexpectedly strong fight as results rolled in from US midterm elections that will decide which party controls Congress, even as Republicans led by governor Ron DeSantis notched up a string of convincing victories in Florida. The early tallies from the midterm elections on Tuesday showed many battleground races across the country

A plan by ministers to review or repeal all EU laws on the UK statute book by the end of 2023 has suffered another setback after the discovery of 1,400 additional pieces of legislation. Rishi Sunak has started backing away from his ambitious proposals to scrub Britain’s statute book of unwanted EU laws, by abandoning

The US is working on a plan to harness cash from the world’s largest companies to help developing countries cut their use of fossil fuels, an idea it aims to unveil at the UN climate summit this week. US president Joe Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry is trying to marshal support from other governments, companies

US oil producers have raked in more than $200bn in profits since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as they cash in on a period of geopolitical turmoil that has shaken up the global energy market and sent prices soaring. Aggregate net income for publicly listed oil and gas companies operating in the US came to $200.24bn

Elon Musk has begun to slash Twitter’s 7,500-strong workforce as the social media platform’s new billionaire owner warned of a “massive drop in revenue” following his contentious $44bn buyout of the group. As Musk embarks on the cost-cutting cull, he claimed on Friday that Twitter “has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist

Banks and building societies will cut the costs of UK fixed-rate mortgages after financial markets pared back their expectations of future rises in the Bank of England’s main interest rate, brokers and lenders have predicted. Mortgage brokers said the current high costs of fixed rates were set when markets had expected aggressive future rises in

Elon Musk has drawn up plans to fire as much as half of Twitter’s 7,500-strong workforce, according to people familiar with the matter, in a major cost-cutting overhaul that could come by the end of the week. The billionaire is looking to cut around 3,700 jobs at Twitter after his $44bn buyout of the social

Israel’s former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in pole position to emerge victorious from Tuesday’s parliamentary elections, according to exit polls that put his rightwing bloc on course for a razor-thin majority. Polls by Israel’s three main television channels, released after voting closed, forecast that a bloc combining Netanyahu’s Likud party, the extreme-right Religious Zionism

Banks that lent $12.7bn to Elon Musk for his $44bn Twitter takeover are preparing to hold the debt until early next year as they wait for the billionaire to unveil a clearer business plan they can market to investors, according to three people with knowledge of the plans. Barring an unexpected rally in credit markets