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The UK government is preparing legislation that will give ministers sweeping powers to tear up the post-Brexit deal governing trade in Northern Ireland, risking a fresh confrontation with Brussels. Two people with knowledge of internal discussions said prime minister Boris Johnson and foreign secretary Liz Truss had in principle signed off on plans to put

US stock futures dropped and Treasuries extended their losses, following disappointing earnings from Netflix and further signs that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates aggressively to curb inflation. Contracts tracking Wall Street’s technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 index were down 1 per cent during the early European morning after Netflix said its decade-long run of subscriber

Netflix shares fell more than 20 per cent on Tuesday after it warned its decade-long run of subscriber growth had ended in the first quarter and admitted that it is becoming “harder to grow membership” in many markets. The streaming pioneer also warned that the number of subscribers would fall by another 2mn in the

Asda’s private equity co-owner has valued its stake in the grocer at almost 20 times the amount it paid last year, an exceptional paper return enabled by the extensive financial engineering used in the takeover. Marylebone-based fund TDR Capital and billionaire Blackburn-based brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa used an unusually small amount of their own

The twin perils of slowing growth and high inflation, or stagflation, will hit the global economy this year as Russia’s war against Ukraine exacerbates a slowdown in the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, according to Financial Times research. Mounting price pressures, slipping output expansion and sagging confidence will all pose a drag for most countries,

This year’s hawkish change in tack from central banks is close to ending the era of negative-yielding debt, shrinking the global tally of bonds with sub-zero yields by $11tn. Bond prices have tumbled this year as central banks move to end large-scale asset purchases and raise interest rates in their battle with soaring inflation, pushing

Twitter has launched a poison pill takeover defence to fend off a $43bn hostile bid from billionaire Tesla chief executive Elon Musk. In the first sign that the social media company plans to fight Musk’s bid, Twitter said on Friday that its board of directors had unanimously adopted a year-long shareholder rights plan to “enable

Elon Musk has made an offer to buy Twitter with a bid that values the company at $43.4bn, a move that could turn the Tesla chief executive into a social media mogul. Musk’s offer of $54.20 a share comes days after he took a 9 per cent stake in the company, becoming its largest shareholder

US president Joe Biden is expected to announce $800mn in additional military aid for Ukraine on Wednesday, including artillery and armoured vehicles, according to a person familiar with the matter. The assistance comes as Ukraine is bracing itself for a new and more brutal Russian offensive in the south-eastern Donbas region, after successfully forcing a

UK prime minister Boris Johnson, his wife Carrie Johnson and chancellor Rishi Sunak have been issued with fines as part of an investigation by the Metropolitan Police into breaches of Covid-19 rules in Downing Street and Whitehall during the pandemic. The force said on Tuesday that more than 50 fines had been issued. Downing Street

Signs that Russia is nearing a significant new offensive in eastern Ukraine mounted on Monday as US defence officials reported that troops withdrawn from Kyiv and the surrounding areas were being resupplied and reinforced by the Kremlin for redeployment in the Donbas region. Although Ukrainian officials have reported escalating Russian bombing in the region already

Emmanuel Macron and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen will face each other in the second and final stage of the French presidential election on April 24 after beating the other candidates in the first round of voting on Sunday, according to early estimates. Macron won 28.6 per cent and Le Pen 24.4 per cent

Italian prime minister Mario Draghi will visit Algeria on Monday to sign a new gas supply deal, as Rome strives to reduce its dependence on Russian fuel following the invasion of Ukraine. It is the latest in a series of moves made by European countries to secure alternative fuel sources as they seek to cut

Russian missiles on Friday hit a railway station in Kramatorsk, killing dozens in the town in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region as Moscow intensified its offensive in the east of the country. “Thousands of people were at the station during the missile strike, as residents of Donetsk province are being evacuated to safer regions of Ukraine,”

Nato member states have agreed to supply new types of advanced weaponry to Ukraine, alliance representatives have said, as Kyiv prepares for a fresh offensive by Russia in the country’s east. The pledge came after a plea from Ukraine’s foreign minister for western countries to move faster with fresh supplies or instead see “many people

The US has imposed its most severe level of sanctions on Sberbank, Russia’s largest financial institution, and Alfa-Bank, the country’s biggest private bank, escalating its economic punishment of Moscow in response to atrocities committed by Russian forces in Ukraine. The announcement on Wednesday of “full blocking sanctions”, which prevent the lenders from transacting with any

The EU has vowed to expand existing punitive measures against Russia in case of “further aggression” towards Ukraine as Joe Biden sought to deter Vladimir Putin from undertaking a military assault on the country. Ursula von der Leyen, the EU commission chief, told EU ambassadors on Tuesday the bloc would “respond appropriately to any further

New York will require all private sector workers in the city to be vaccinated against Covid-19, in what would be the strictest vaccine mandate to be imposed anywhere in the US. Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Monday the new rule would go into force on December 27 and would apply to all private companies

The US believes Russia is planning to invade Ukraine “as soon as early 2022” with an estimated 175,000 troops — in a sign of the escalating alarm in Washington about Moscow’s intentions towards its neighbour. A Biden administration official said on Friday night that Moscow’s plans “call for a military offensive against Ukraine as soon

Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-hailing group hit by Beijing’s regulatory crackdown on technology companies, said it would delist from the New York Stock Exchange in an acceleration of China’s decoupling from US capital markets. The company wrote on its official Weibo account on Friday that it would begin the process of delisting and prepare to