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British households are set for the steepest fall in living standards on record and the highest tax burden since the second world war after Jeremy Hunt laid out plans to cut public spending and raise revenue to fill a £55bn fiscal hole. The chancellor told a sombre House of Commons that a massive fiscal consolidation,

Jeremy Hunt, chancellor, will on Thursday seek to restore Britain’s tarnished economic reputation with a massive package of tax rises and spending cuts intended to repair the public finances and tame inflation. “We will face into the storm,” he will say. Hunt’s Autumn Statement will intensify the financial hardship facing millions of Britons and begin

Poland has convened emergency talks with its Nato allies after two Poles were killed by what Warsaw said was a strike by a “Russian-made missile” in the countryside near its border with Ukraine. US president Joe Biden said it was “unlikely” that the missile had been fired from Russia after he and other western leaders

World leaders will state that today’s era “must not be of war” at the G20 summit in Bali, according to a draft communiqué agreed by diplomats that also condemned threats of nuclear weapons use. The draft statement, seen by the Financial Times and confirmed by two delegations, said: “Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is planning a big package of spending cuts and tax increases in Thursday’s Autumn Statement after being warned that UK public borrowing will be about £70bn larger than expected. The Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that a worse economic outlook will raise government borrowing close to £100bn in 2026-27, according to an

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, the once high-flying cryptocurrency group, has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US, marking a stunning collapse of the $32bn empire built by the colourful 30-year-old entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried. The filing in Delaware federal court on Friday included the main FTX international exchange, a US crypto marketplace, Bankman-Fried’s proprietary trading group Alameda Research and

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