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Rishi Sunak has finally approved Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list, which includes appointments for Tory MPs and a senior official who worked in Downing Street during the partygate scandal. The former prime minister nominated several senior Conservative MPs who are his allies. Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conor Burns, and Simon Clarke were knighted, while Priti Patel and

Donald Trump said on Thursday evening that he had been indicted on federal charges in connection with classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, the latest legal woe to hit the former US president as he mounts another White House run. “The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been

Adobe’s chief executive has argued that a regulatory environment that prevents tech acquisitions will lead to less investment in start-ups, in a stark warning to competition authorities investigating the company’s proposed $20bn takeover of design software company Figma. Shantanu Narayen told the Financial Times antitrust watchdogs should “worry about” how their decisions on dealmaking “enable

UK hopes of securing a quick deal to deepen digital trade ties with the US have run into the diplomatic sands amid growing resistance to such pacts in Washington, technology industry insiders have warned. The sector’s frustrations emerged as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak landed in Washington for a meeting with President Joe Biden at which

The Kakhovka dam spanning the Dnipro river in southern Ukraine was blown up on Tuesday, flooding swaths of territory ahead of an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive and threatening crucial water supplies to a nuclear plant. Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the attack, which Kyiv warned would have “catastrophic consequences” and affect dozens of settlements,

Some US banks are preparing to sell off property loans at a discount even when borrowers are up to date on repayments, a sign of their determination to reduce exposure to the teetering commercial real estate market. The willingness of some lenders to take losses on so-called performing real estate loans follows multiple warnings that

China has warned western militaries to stay out of waters and airspace near its borders if they want to avoid dangerous run-ins with the People’s Liberation Army, putting on display the growing risks of unintended conflict as geopolitical competition grows. The blunt message from General Li Shangfu, China’s new defence minister, followed a near collision

CIA director Bill Burns travelled to China last month, a clandestine visit by one of President Joe Biden’s most trusted officials that signals how concerned the White House had become about deteriorating relations between Beijing and Washington. Five people familiar with the situation said Burns, a former top diplomat who is frequently entrusted with delicate

The US Senate has approved a fiscal deal between the White House and congressional Republicans, ending a weeks-long political stand-off over the debt ceiling that risked triggering an unprecedented default in the world’s largest economy. Lawmakers in the upper chamber passed the bill with overwhelming bipartisan support on Thursday evening, with 63 senators backing the

A bill to raise the debt ceiling cleared a significant hurdle on Wednesday afternoon, after Democratic lawmakers supported Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and allowed the bipartisan deal to advance to a full vote. In order to see off a rebellion from members from his own party, McCarthy was forced to rely on

The CBI will recruit a new president as part of a governance overhaul unveiled by the scandal-hit UK business lobby group as it battles for survival ahead of a crunch members’ meeting next week. The stricken organisation said external consultants had found that blanket portrayals of its culture as “toxic” following allegations of sexual harassment

Labour is drawing up plans that would force landowners to sell plots for a fraction of their potential market price in an effort to cut home-building costs in England, according to party officials. Lisa Nandy, shadow levelling-up secretary, intends to reform how land is valued when acquired by councils through “compulsory purchase orders” (CPOs), if

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was leading rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in Sunday’s pivotal run-off election, according to early returns published by state media, placing him on course to extend his rule into a third decade. Erdoğan had secured about 53 per cent of the vote, compared with 48 per cent for Kılıçdaroğlu, according to calculations

US president Joe Biden has struck a deal with Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker, that would avert a debt default looming in early June and bring relief to the global economy and financial markets. Biden and McCarthy reached the in-principle agreement on Saturday following days of tense, round-the-clock negotiations between the White House and

Jeremy Hunt has backed further interest rate rises to bring prices under control as figures showed only Argentina and South Sudan experienced bigger increases in underlying inflation last month. The UK chancellor signalled his support for Bank of England rate increases after a week when core inflation, which excludes energy and food, hit its highest

Credit Suisse has been ordered by a Singaporean judge to pay $926mn to former Georgian prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, a final blow to the bank before UBS is expected to complete its takeover as soon as next week. Ivanishvili, who is Georgia’s richest man, had already won a case against the Swiss bank in Bermuda

Net immigration to the UK rose to a record high of 606,000 in 2022, driven by rising numbers of people from outside the EU, including from Ukraine and Hong Kong. The figures fell short of estimates of about 700,000 but remain far above the Conservative government’s 2010 pledge to reduce net immigration to the “tens

UK inflation dropped to 8.7 per cent in April, a smaller fall than the Bank of England expected, raising pressure on the central bank to keep increasing interest rates.  The figure will come as a blow to ministers and the central bank because the fall in consumer price inflation from 10.1 per cent in March

Labour is ready to force pension funds to invest in a proposed £50bn “future growth fund”, as the party aims to boost the amount of capital available for fast-growing UK companies. Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor, said she did not believe Labour would need to mandate retirement schemes to invest in the new fund because of

Profits at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and a clutch of other western banks in China fell sharply last year, as Covid-19 lockdowns and geopolitical tensions thwarted hopes that their operations in the country might finally start to be lucrative. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and HSBC reported losses in their China-based units in 2022

Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has “set back” China’s ambitions to invade Taiwan, former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said. In a wide-ranging interview at the FT Weekend festival in Washington on Saturday, the one-time Democratic presidential candidate, who served as America’s top diplomat under Barack Obama, offered stark assessments on Russia’s invasion of