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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

The collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire has sparked a vast global investigation, with dozens of authorities circling the company as lawyers warn there could be 1mn creditors in its bankruptcy proceeding. FTX said in court filings it was in contact with US federal prosecutors, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Joe Biden criticised China’s “increasingly aggressive” actions towards Taiwan in his first in-person meeting as president with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, amid mounting tensions between the two powers. Following the meeting in Bali on Monday, the White House said Biden and Xi “spoke candidly” about a range of global issues, and that the US

Sam Bankman-Fried’s main international FTX exchange held just $900mn in easily sellable assets against $9bn of liabilities the day before it collapsed into bankruptcy, according to investment materials seen by the Financial Times. The largest portion of those liquid assets listed on a FTX international balance sheet dated Thursday was $470mn of Robinhood shares owned

FTX is investigating abnormal transactions as analysts said hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets had been withdrawn, in a fresh blow to creditors of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire following its collapse into bankruptcy. The company’s general counsel Ryne Miller said on Saturday that FTX was “investigating abnormalities with wallet movements related to consolidation of

US stocks roared ahead on Thursday in their strongest day in more than two and a half years, with investors emboldened by inflation data that showed decelerating increases in consumer prices and set the stage for a slower pace of interest rate rises by the Federal Reserve. Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index gained 5.5

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

The economy and inflation are among top issues in the midterm elections, and voters are expected to favour Republicans to improve the economy, according to recent polling data. And while those subjects are top of mind for many voters, issues such as abortion rights and threats to democracy are also driving Americans to the polls.

Jeremy Hunt is planning a stealth raid on inheritance tax in the Autumn Statement as part of the chancellor’s attempt to raise about £54bn through tax rises and spending cuts to fill a hole in the UK public finances. Government officials said Hunt was drawing up plans to extend a freeze in the inheritance tax

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

The Bank of England has signalled that borrowing costs will not rise as much as markets expect in the future, even as it imposed the biggest rate rise for three decades to combat soaring inflation. The BoE’s 0.75 percentage point increase to 3 per cent took interest rates to their highest point since 2008. But

Jay Powell warned US interest rates would peak at a higher level than expected even as he held out the possibility of the Federal Reserve slowing the pace of its campaign to tighten monetary policy. Speaking after the central bank increased its main interest rate by 0.75 percentage points for the fourth time in a

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

UK home secretary Suella Braverman was fighting for her political life on Monday as she was accused of breaking the law over the government’s treatment of asylum seekers. Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, was coming under increasing pressure to fire Braverman, who admitted earlier she had used her personal email seven times to handle documents

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva claimed a nail-biting victory in Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday, defeating incumbent rightwing leader Jair Bolsonaro by less than two percentage points and setting the stage for a return to leftwing governance in Latin America’s largest nation. The tight result tops off a dramatic comeback for the 77-year-old opposition leader,

Moscow has suspended its participation in a UN-backed deal with Kyiv that unblocked the movement of Ukrainian grain out of its southern ports, threatening to deepen the global food crisis. Russia linked its decision to pull out of the deal to an attack on Saturday on ships in the port of Sevastopol in the Crimean

Elon Musk has joined the elite club of social media barons after clinching a $44bn takeover of Twitter in the same week that investors wiped hundreds of billions of dollars from Big Tech valuations. Musk’s drawn-out acquisition of Twitter, which he launched in April but attempted to abort in July, has closed just as a

Elon Musk has closed his $44bn deal to take Twitter private, according to three people familiar with the matter, bringing an end to one of the most high-profile and dramatic buyout sagas in recent memory after months of legal wrangling between the world’s richest man and the social media platform. As the billionaire entrepreneur took