In using a subheading “Rising star Dvornikov tasked to repeat Syria success in south-eastern assault” on the story about Alexander Dvornikov, Russia’s new commander, surely your editors were on autopilot, under the sway of some malign robotic influence? For no one but a monster or the lackey of a tyrant could present anything to do
Amazon-owned Twitch has moved to ban several accounts on the livestreaming platform after research detailed how pro-Kremlin propaganda had spread on the network. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Twitch said it would move to “prohibit harmful misinformation actors from using our service”. But a report from the Tech Transparency Project detailed multiple accounts pushing pro-Kremlin
Boris Johnson suffered a fresh blow over the “partygate” scandal on Wednesday when his justice minister quit over “repeated rule-breaking and breaches of the criminal law” in Downing Street. Lord David Wolfson said he could not remain a minister following the revelations about Number 10 parties held during coronavirus lockdowns. Wolfson’s resignation came as senior
Amazon is adding a 5 per cent surcharge to its delivery fees in response to rising fuel costs and inflation, the company told its third-party sellers on Wednesday. The fee, which takes effect April 28, will be applied to US sellers using Amazon’s logistics network to deliver products, known as Fulfillment By Amazon. It is
Bank of England regulators have warned lenders about “gaming the rules” with capital arbitrage transactions via their pension schemes, a move largely directed at Barclays, which has used such deals to boost its capital level. On Wednesday, the Prudential Regulation Authority released a strongly-worded statement criticising the use of “deficit reduction transactions with their defined-benefit
A US judge has allowed a case to proceed against UK traders accused of causing an unprecedented crash in oil futures markets after ruling that text messages between the group were sufficient to point towards a potential conspiracy. The proposed class-action lawsuit centres around trading on April 20 2020, when the price of benchmark West
New York City was already on edge about rising gun violence, lawlessness and hate crimes. Then came Tuesday’s attack on a Brooklyn subway, in which a masked suspect detonated two smoke grenades and shot 10 people during the morning rush hour. On Wednesday, police arrested Frank James, a 62-year-old man who had earlier been named
Wall Street’s biggest banks prospered during the pandemic. But JPMorgan’s first-quarter results suggest disappointment is in store for investors hoping higher US interest rates can keep the good times going. JPMorgan set the tone for the US bank earnings reporting a 42 per cent drop in first quarter net income on Wednesday. For America’s largest
The UK government has announced a £2.6bn fund to replace EU development financing post-Brexit but attracted immediate criticism from Welsh and Scottish leaders for failing to match previous levels of EU funding. Michael Gove, levelling-up secretary, said the new Shared Prosperity Fund would “help spread opportunity and level up the country” and made good on
Microsoft was once the primary target of Big Tech antitrust cases, narrowly avoiding having to split into two companies at the end of the 1990s when it was taken to court for making it difficult for customers to uninstall Internet Explorer in favour of other browsers. The company eventually settled with the US Department of
This article picked by a teacher with suggested questions is part of the Financial Times free schools access programme. Details/registration here. Specification: AQA Physical Geography 3.1.6 Ecosystems under stress This article is about Costa Rica. It looks at the issues of sustainability and ecosystems under pressure due to economic development, particularly with relationship to housing development,
Stellantis shareholders have rejected a proposed €19mn pay package for the carmaker’s chief executive Carlos Tavares and remuneration for other managers after an outcry from a minority investor and some French unions over excessive payouts. Just over 52 per cent of investors voted against the remuneration report of the world’s fourth biggest carmaker at an
One oddity of the Ukrainian war has been watching far-right leaders such as Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini and Nigel Farage scramble back from their adoration of Vladimir Putin, while their far-left peers tone down the excoriations of Nato. It must have felt similar watching Hitler’s appeasers reinvent themselves in autumn 1939. Today’s far right
Private equity billionaire and co-owner of the Boston Celtics basketball team Stephen Pagliuca has revealed that Larry Tanenbaum, chair of the National Basketball Association, is among the list of heavyweight backers of his bid to buy Chelsea. The consortium led by the co-chair of Bain Capital, a US private equity firm with $160bn of assets
More than 250 people have been killed in severe flooding in South Africa, officials said on Wednesday, a day after heavy rains swept away roads and houses and disrupted shipping from the continent’s biggest port. The death toll in the floods in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa’s second-most populous province, makes it one of the worst
Cyber warfare follows on the heels of conventional weaponry, a fact not lost on Ukraine’s neighbouring governments and corporates. Globally, more is being spent on cyber security, according to an update from Darktrace on Wednesday. Yet investors marked its shares down 10 per cent. This is at odds with the way Moscow’s invasion of Kyiv
Half a century ago, Bobby Fischer captured Boris Spassky’s world title in Reykjavik and sparked a global chess boom. A galaxy of English talent, led by Nigel Short and Michael Adams, surged to No 2 behind the former Soviet Union. England’s Fischer generation are now in their fifties and sixties, while Adams, 50, leads a
Chess 2477 It’s mate in six at most by 1…Qxf1+! 2 Kxf1 d2+ 3 Kg2 Bc6+ 4 Qd5 Bxd5+ 5 e4 Bxe4+ 6 Kg1 d1=Q mate. Chess 2476 1 b4! Kxc4 2 Nf4! g6/g5 3 Rc7 mate. Chess 2475 1…Nxc3?? 2 Qxe6+! fxe6 3 Bg6 mate. An elegant double bishop mate. Chess 2474 1 Qxa3+ Ra4
American Vintage wool hoodie, €195. Prada wool trousers, £1,400, and jacquard knitted shorts, £1,250. Comme des Garçons Play x Converse cotton Chuck ’70 sneakers, £130. Neckpiece, stylist’s own Furniture throughout, Memphis Milano. Ettore Sottsass metal Treetops floor lamp, 1981, €2,590 Hermès perforated technical-cotton canvas Quadrige shirt, €1,530. Isabel Marant cotton Carello trousers, £325. Edhèn raffia and brass Brera shoes, €450. Etro leather and cabochon-stone
In a mountainous part of central Bosnia-Herzegovina, the town of Konjic has a long history of decorative woodcarving. “At one point there were 36 woodcarving workshops,” says Orhan Niksic, a former senior economist with the World Bank, whose great-grandfather founded a workshop in Konjic in the late 1800s. “By 2014, we were the only ones