News

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

Ukraine’s finance minister has made an appeal for immediate financial support of tens of billions of dollars to plug a gaping fiscal deficit caused by the Russian invasion. Government spending exceeded revenues by about $2.7bn in March and Ukraine expects the gap to expand to $5bn-$7bn a month in April and May because of the

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

The UK and the EU have pledged more financial support to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia and rebuild after the conflict, as British prime minister Boris Johnson met Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. On a previously unannounced visit to the Ukrainian capital on Saturday, Johnson said Zelensky had achieved “the greatest feat of arms of

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 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

The US has identified its first reported case of Covid-19 caused by the Omicron variant, with health officials confirming that an individual in California had tested positive. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday that the variant was discovered in an individual who returned from South Africa on November 22, two days

The global risk from the new Omicron coronavirus variant is “very high”, the World Health Organization warned, as Japan moved to ban foreign visitors in an attempt to limit the spread of the heavily mutated strain. Outlining its preliminary findings on the strain first detected in southern Africa, the health body warned of its potentially

New cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant continued to be detected around the world on Sunday, as nations tried to delay a surge in infections by restricting travel and imposing new quarantine measures. Omicron first emerged earlier this month in southern Africa. The World Health Organization designated it a “variant of concern” on Friday, saying

The UK has reported its first cases of the new Omicron coronavirus mutation as the variant continues to spread in Europe and scientists race to assess the new level of risk. The UK health department said one case had been identified in Chelmsford and a second in Nottingham. They were linked and connected to travel

Two Deutsche Bahn employees alleged that some senior staff at the state-owned railway company misused corporate funds as part of widespread fraud at one of Europe’s largest infrastructure projects. While an investigation into the allegations was under way, one of the employees was fired. Fearing retaliation, the second whistleblower abruptly broke off contact with compliance

President Joe Biden has announced the release of oil from the US’s strategic stockpile in a bid to drive down petrol prices and snuff out a crude market rally that the White House has said poses a threat to the global economic recovery. The White House said on Tuesday the president was authorising the release

Joe Biden has nominated Jay Powell to serve a second term as chair of the Federal Reserve, opting for continuity at a delicate moment for the US economy as it grapples with persistently high inflation and a patchy labour market recovery. Lael Brainard, considered Powell’s fiercest competitor for the top job, was tapped for the

China’s hypersonic weapon test in July included a technological advance that enabled it to fire a missile as it approached its target travelling at least five times the speed of sound — a capability no country has previously demonstrated. Pentagon scientists were caught off guard by the advance, which allowed the hypersonic glide vehicle, a

UBS has proposed former Morgan Stanley president Colm Kelleher as its next chair, succeeding Axel Weber when he steps down next year after a decade overseeing the Swiss lender. The appointment of Kelleher, a 64-year-old Irishman who spent 30 years at the Wall Street bank, was announced on Saturday morning. UBS conducted a wide external