Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.
Trade war tensions are on the rise again, as relations between China and the US deteriorate.
“The U.S. government has unilaterally and repeatedly provoked new economic and trade frictions, exacerbating uncertainty and instability in bilateral economic and trade relations.”
Gov. Healey and the Milford community demand answers after ICE detains student Marcelo Gomes, with protests highlighting concerns over immigration enforcement.
Trial of Victorian woman, 50, who has pleaded not guilty to three charges of murder and one of attempted murder over a fatal 2023 beef wellington lunch, enters sixth week. Follow live
President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has said she expects “very good cooperation” to continue between the EU and Poland under the presidency of newly elected Karol Nawrocki.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, she said:
I’m confident that the EU will continue its very good cooperation with Poland. We are all stronger together in our community of peace, democracy, and values. So let us work to ensure the security and prosperity of our common home.
I congratulate Karol Nawrocki on his election as Polish President. I believe that under his leadership, Poland will continue to develop its democratic and pro-western orientation and that our countries will continue mutually beneficial cooperation.
The Egyptian national accused of blasting a group of Israeli hostage supporters with a homemade flamethrower and Molotov cocktails during a Colorado solidarity walk Sunday was in the United States illegally after his visa expired in March.
With tuition from West End pros, this week-long singing break in southern Spain hits all the right notes
‘Do you prefer alto or soprano?” asks Steve Moss, poised at his electric piano. My mind goes blank. I’m usually more of a pinot grigio girl, but that’s not the answer the former musical director of Les Misérables is looking for. Although I struggle to carry a tune in a bucket, I’m an enthusiastic karaoke singer, a big musical theatre fan and a shameless show-off, so Sing the Greatest Showman, a residential singing retreat in Spain, is right up my street.
Founded by Zane Rambaran, a veteran concert promoter with his roots in musical theatre, Sing Eat Retreat offers a choice of breaks here throughout the year (from Sing Les Mis to Sing Mamma Mia), with 30 hours of tuition by West End professionals. (In October, Sing The Sound of Music will be held in Salzburg too, with guests recording tracks in a studio and performing in the actual movie locations. I’ve already packed my dirndl.)
Sadiq Khan seeking ‘urgent review’ of decision to ban adverts from British Pregnancy Advisory Service
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has stepped in to reverse a ban on adverts on the London transport network calling for abortion to be decriminalised.
It is understood that the mayor is seeking an “urgent review” of a Transport for London (TfL) decision to ban the adverts from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (Bpas) charity on the grounds they may bring the Metropolitan police into disrepute.
You can read it from either end, and go round again, as memoir collides with invention in a brilliant interrogation of art, faith and relationships
From her debut, Nobody Is Ever Missing, to 2023’s Biography of X, Catherine Lacey’s work has tested the forms and fabric of the novel with brilliant unease. In The Möbius Book, her experiment crosses the blurred border of fiction into something else. Life writing, autofiction, memoir? Whatever you call it, The Möbius Book is deeply serious and engrossingly playful, and it lavishly rewards serious, playful attention.
A Möbius strip is a length of any material joined into a loop with a half twist. It’s an uncanny shape, common and obvious, easily created and yet awkward to describe geometrically. For literary purposes, a Möbius is interesting because there’s intricate structure and constraint but no ending. It goes around again, mirrored with a twist. Lacey’s book takes this literally, the text printed from both ends, with memoir and fiction joined in the middle. Twin stories experiment with plotlessness and irresolution, while remaining aware of the way fiction attaches itself to linear plot and reverts to romance and quest. Characters find and lose love, find and lose meaning.
Chloé Aïcha Boro’s watchful documentary charts the disharmony and legal wrangling caused by a dispute in her family over sacred burial land
Economic and financial woes cast a dark shadow over family bonds in Chloé Aïcha Boro’s contemplative, searching documentary. Returning to her Burkina Faso village after decades of living in France, Boro experiences an emotional paradox intimately known by all immigrants. Once-familiar places turn foreign, since the migrator has undergone huge internal changes of their own. And with the recent passing of her uncle Ousmane Coulibaly, the head of her extended Muslim family, Boro’s homecoming is marred by disharmony. Between Coulibaly’s brothers and his 19 children, warring interests over inherited land rage on.
The film returns time and again to a sacred courtyard where, for centuries, the umbilical cords of Coulibaly newborns have been buried to ensure their ascendence to heaven in the afterlife. More than a ritual, the tradition concretises the lineage of generations. But while religious rules automatically transfer Coulibaly’s claim to this land to his sons, some of the elders turn to secular laws for their bid. As the courts of Burkina Faso are based on the French colonial system, this clash is more than just a family squabble; it represents a disconnect between the past and the present of a nation.
Do sharks have best pals? Can cute-seeming animals be vicious? And does ancestry matter any more? The answers lie in this week’s finest listens
“Who really gives a shit about roots any more,” asks Dashon (Caleb McLaughlin), a Detroit teenager who, in this audio drama, is begrudgingly in Zimbabwe with his family. He is indifferent towards their African ancestry, leading to uncomfortable conversations about race, colonialism and privilege. That could be a provocative enough story, but the supernatural twists that follow really elevate this production. Hannah J Davies Audible, all episodes out now
U.S. lawmakers, Trump administration officials and Jewish groups were among those who condemned the terror attack in Boulder, calling it an "act of vile antisemitism."
Starmer claims to want integration. Yet denying people safety, belonging and the right to vote for a decade amounts to the exact opposite
There are many lies told by politicians when it comes to immigration in the UK, but none is bigger than the claim that it’s all too easy. Too easy to enter Britain; too easy to be given handouts; too easy to acquire citizenship. The UK is presented as an inert country, passively receiving future Britons that it does not charge, test or, indeed, invite. The government’s latest raft of policies to deal with the “failed experiment” of “open borders” is heavily influenced by this lie, as it is intended to make things harder for immigrants. One of those policies went broadly under the radar, a small technicality amid Keir Starmer’s unsettlingrhetoric, but it will have serious consequences.
That policy is extending the period you’re required to be settled in Britain before you can get permanent residency, and then citizenship, from five years to 10 years. As someone who became naturalised under the five-year route, my stomach sank when I saw the news.
An article from the Blue Labour campaign group, titled What is to be Done, calls for the government to legislate against diversity, equity and inclusion, echoing the rightwing backlash from Donald Trump and Nigel Farage.
May the sauce be with you for these two fusion dishes: one spicy and savoury, the other creamy, tangy and sweet
Anyone who’s spent time in Japan will know the hold that Kewpie roasted sesame dressing has on local palates. Creamy, slightly tangy, savoury, full of roasted flavours and a little sweet, it’s the ideal dressing for absolutely anything. It comes in squeezy bottles and is now widely available in larger supermarkets, but I’ve created my own version here in case you can’t find it. These lettuce cups make a fresh and crunchy snack that serves as a vessel for tender chicken and whatever herbs you have in the fridge. But first, a Japanified rendition of the Chinese dish mapo tofu, only more savoury and salty, and with a slightly thicker sauce. It’s a strong contender for weekly dinner rotations, depending on what you have in your fridge, of course.
Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly is warning that the Democratic-run state Legislature could rush through a series of bills to give convicts early parole and prevent law enforcement from keeping dangerous criminals off the streets.
The man "suffered serious bodily injury and resulting pain and suffering, disability, scarring, disfigurement, mental anguish, [and] loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life" from the 2021 mishap.
God’s Love We Deliver is kicking off a powerful, yearlong birthday celebration — continuing to nourish New York with the same heart and purpose that began in 1985.
They made music like sonic warfare, using steamhammers for drums and annoying anyone they could. As the band return, they relive the mayhem years – and their soundtrack spinoffs, from Attenborough to Chernobyl
Fifty years ago, Cabaret Voltaire shocked the people of Sheffield into revolt. A promoter screamed for the band to get off stage, while an audience baying for blood had to be held back with a clarinet being swung around for protection. All of which was taking place over the deafening recording of a looped steamhammer being used in place of a drummer, as a cacophony of strange, furious noises drove the crowd into a frenzy. “We turned up, made a complete racket, and then got attacked,” recalls Stephen Mallinder. “Yes, there was a bit of a riot, and I ended up in hospital, but it was great. That gig was the start of something because nothing like that had taken place in Sheffield before. It was ground zero.”
Mallinder and his Cabaret Voltaire co-founder Chris Watson are sitting together again in Sheffield, looking back on that lift-off moment ahead of a handful of shows to commemorate the milestone. “It is astonishing,” says Watson. “Half a century. It really makes you stop, think and realise the significance.” The death in 2021 of third founding member Richard H Kirk was a trigger for thinking about ending things with finality. “It’ll be nice if we can use these shows to remind people what we did,” says Mallinder. “To acknowledge the music, as well as get closure.”
During the decade-long conflicts, the major powers dithered as Serb militias carried out their brutal campaigns of ethnic cleansing. Guardian reporters became more passionate and more outspoken in their condemnation, attracting praise and criticism
At 22, the singer and reality TV star has lived most of her life in the limelight. What’s it like to be managed by your mother, run a billion-dollar business in your teens and be dismissed as ‘the lesbian’ by a Hollywood legend?
A week before JoJo Siwa entered the Celebrity Big Brother house, she had a presentiment about it. “Something feels different,” she told her mother (and manager) Jessalynn. “I don’t think I’m gonna win, but I think I’m gonna change.” Siwa’s initial hunch was that the transformation would be in her career, she says. “Little did I know it was going to change my personal life so much. By a landslide, it is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Siwa may be only 22, but it’s still quite the statement. As the breakout talent of the American reality TV series Dance Moms, she was arguably the biggest child star of the 2010s, at 11 years old instantly memorable for her larger-than-life personality and equally outsized hair bow. By the time she turned 15, in 2018, Siwa was a cross-platform tween sensation, with 5 million YouTube subscribers (now 12 million), a Nickelodeon deal, a burgeoning pop career and a staggeringly successful hair accessory business.
A human rights review of EU-Israel ties is under way. The results will be significant for both the war and Europe’s reputation
After many months of inaction and complicity in the face of Israel’s destruction of Gaza, Europe is finally beginning to stir. Tens of thousands of people killed and attacks on schools and hospitals had apparently not been enough. But, along with the blocking of humanitarian aid and open calls for ethnic cleansing, Israel’s actions finally became too severe to ignore, deny or justify. In recent weeks, a cascade of unusually strong statements, diplomatic rebukes and threats of sanctions has emerged from European capitals – each move amplifying the next, as if a long-dormant herd has suddenly jolted into motion.
Among these developments, the most significant may be the possible suspension of the EU-Israel association agreement, which grants Israel preferential access to the world’s largest single market. Last month, the Dutch foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, broke the EU’s silence with a letter demanding a formal review of Israel’s compliance with article 2 of the agreement, which requires it to “respect human rights”.
Martin Konečný runs the European Middle East Project (EuMEP), a Brussels-based NGO
Moira Donegan on the different groups of people who want the US population to produce more babies
Why is pro-natalism – the idea that society should focus on producing children – a growing movement in the US?
The Guardian US columnist Moira Donegan tells Helen Pidd: “This is not something that average people in the US are crying out for. People are having the number of children that they desire and think that they can support, right?
Spain’s recent blackout and AI datacentres’ energy needs are leading politicians to reach for the restart button
When millions of people across the Iberian peninsula were left without power last month the political fallout ignited debate over Europe’s renewable energy agenda, and fuelled the rising interest in nuclear power.
Europe’s largest power blackout in decades, still largely unexplained, has raised questions about whether renewable energy can be relied on to provide a stable source of clean energy. It has also fuelled a renewed interest in the global nuclear power renaissance already under way.
Jonathan Anderson has been a part of LVMH since 2013 when he was named designer of Loewe. Over 11 years Mr. Anderson transformed Loewe from largely irrelevant to one of the hottest brands in fashion, with annual revenues estimated at $2 billion.
Six people were hospitalized after a man used a “makeshift flamethrower” on a crowd in Boulder, Colo., honoring Israeli hostages in Gaza. The authorities are investigating the attack as an act of terrorism.
The United States allowed its rare earth metals industry to move to China and could now face severe economic disruption as China limits crucial supplies.
Workers in China at the Magnequench Company making magnetic powders and other products using rare earth metals in 2013. The company closed a plant in Indiana two decades ago.
Connexion
