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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

Crypto ownership more than doubled in the UK last year, the Financial Conduct Authority said on Wednesday, as it announced an October start date for its clampdown on mis-selling in a sector often dubbed finance’s “Wild West”. Almost one in 10 people surveyed by the UK’s top financial regulator owned cryptocurrencies in 2022, more than

Golf’s US-based PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabia-backed breakaway league LIV have agreed to join forces, ending a long-running feud. The PGA Tour and Riyadh’s Public Investment Fund have agreed to create a jointly managed entity to house their commercial operations, and intend to cease their pending litigation. The European Tour has also signed up

Apple unveiled its long-awaited “mixed reality” headset on Monday, in its most anticipated hardware product launch since Steve Jobs revealed the iPad in 2010. The gadget, called Vision Pro, will be available “early next year”. It combines virtual reality with augmented reality, which overlays digital images on top of the real world. Apple said it

The Opec+ group was locked in talks over a further cut in oil supplies on Sunday as Saudi Arabia and its allies scrambled to prop up the price, but hesitation from weaker African members of the group raised the prospect that no deal may be reached. Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Opec’s

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday criticised China for conducting risky aerial intercepts over the South China Sea and warned that Washington would not be deterred by dangerous behaviour in the Indo-Pacific region. China was conducting “an alarming number of risky intercepts of US and allied aircraft flying lawfully in international airspace”, Austin said

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

Rishi Sunak’s government on Thursday refused to hand over Boris Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages to the official Covid public inquiry, instead launching a legal challenge to try to keep them secret. The move puts Sunak at loggerheads with the inquiry, headed by former judge Baroness Heather Hallett, and fuelled claims by opposition parties that he

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

Western countries are increasing pressure on Turkey to admit Sweden to Nato, as Stockholm makes a final push to overcome Ankara’s opposition to its membership. Ulf Kristersson, Sweden’s prime minister, writes in the Financial Times that a new anti-terror law entering force on Thursday delivers “on the last part” of an agreement to secure Ankara’s

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

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday was trying to contain a revolt from rightwing lawmakers opposed to his debt agreement with President Joe Biden, as both sides moved to sell their parties on a deal to prevent a looming US default. McCarthy defended the pact ahead of a high-stakes vote expected on Wednesday in

Stronger than expected US inflation and a bump in consumer spending have fuelled worldwide expectations that interest rates will go higher, as predictions about future monetary policy rapidly shift. The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation overshot expectations in April, data published on Friday showed, while US consumer spending rose last month and new orders

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

Ministers are considering a sweeping reform to the fund that protects savers in company pension plans that could turn it into a vehicle able to invest tens of billions of pounds in UK businesses. Proposals before ministers could see the government-backed Pension Protection Fund, which has £39bn in pension assets, given an extended remit to

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

The governor of the Bank of England has conceded there are “very big lessons to learn” in setting monetary policy after the central bank failed to forecast the recent rise and persistence of inflation. Along with other members of the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee, Andrew Bailey told the House of Commons Treasury select committee on

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

China said that US chipmaker Micron Technology’s products posed “serious network security risks” as it banned operators of key infrastructure from buying them, in its first big measure against an American semiconductor group. The Cyberspace Administration of China on Sunday announced that the company, which is the biggest US maker of memory chips, “posed significant