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Ministers are drawing up plans to stop family members from joining overseas master’s students at British universities, as Rishi Sunak braces himself for figures showing record net migration to the UK. The Conservatives promised at the 2019 general election that “overall numbers will come down” but official data due this month is expected to instead

Donald Trump has been found liable for the sexual abuse of a journalist in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s, in a significant legal defeat for the former US president as he mounts a third bid for the White House. A nine-person jury deliberated for just a few hours before unanimously finding Trump liable

Britain’s privatised water and sewage companies paid £1.4bn in dividends in 2022, up from £540mn the previous year, despite rising household bills and a wave of public criticism over sewage outflows. The figures, based on a Financial Times analysis of the 10 largest water and sewage companies’ accounts, are higher than headline dividends in the year to

US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has warned of a “constitutional crisis” that risks economic and financial catastrophe if Congress does not raise the federal debt limit, with the government in danger of running out of cash in the absence of new borrowing capacity. The White House and Republican lawmakers are in a stalemate over lifting

Crowds were gathering on London’s Mall on Saturday morning ahead of the coronation of King Charles III, heralding a day of ancient ceremony and military spectacle that will draw on a millennium of British history. Global leaders and foreign royalty will attend the event at Westminster Abbey — scene of royal coronations since William the

The UK’s opposition Labour and Liberal Democrat parties expressed optimism early on Friday that they were making significant gains as votes began to be counted after local elections in many parts of England. Both parties argued that their performances positioned them well for the forthcoming nationwide general election. Labour’s shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, told

The European Central Bank has raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point — less than previous increases — in a sign that eurozone borrowing costs may soon reach their peak. The ECB’s decision on Thursday, which mirrors the US Federal Reserve’s quarter-point rate rise the previous day, takes the benchmark deposit rate

The UK competition watchdog is launching a review of the artificial intelligence market, including the models behind popular chatbots such as ChatGPT, as the industry comes increasingly into global regulators’ crosshairs. Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the UK Competition and Markets Authority, said the watchdog would examine so-called foundation models — such as the software

Shares in online learning service Chegg have plummeted by almost half after it became one of the first companies to admit that artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT had affected its finances. The news sent ripples through the sector, with shares in London-listed Pearson falling more than 13.8 per cent on Tuesday. Shares in US-listed education companies

JPMorgan Chase will acquire most of First Republic, the embattled California lender that US government officials had been racing to save for much of the past week. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and California regulators, which announced the deal early on Monday morning, said they were simultaneously closing the bank and selling off all $93.5bn

At least three large banks have submitted bids to buy all or part of First Republic, the embattled California lender that US regulators have been racing to save this weekend. Among those that have put in offers are JPMorgan Chase, PNC and Citizens, according to three sources with knowledge of the situation. JPMorgan, which led

The US government has asked JPMorgan, PNC and several other financial groups to bid for all or part of First Republic, as US regulators try to determine how much it would cost taxpayers to take over the embattled California lender. Over the past 24 hours, it has become clear to both First Republic and the

Silicon Valley Bank’s failure last month stemmed from weakened regulations during the Trump administration and mis-steps by internal supervisors who were too slow to correct management blunders, the US Federal Reserve said in a scathing review of the lender’s implosion. The long-awaited report, released on Friday, had harsh words for the California bank’s management but

The UK government is set to abandon its controversial plan to review or scrap all EU-era law by the end of 2023, in a move which has sparked fury among Tory Eurosceptics. Kemi Badenoch, business secretary, told Tory Brexiters this week that the majority of almost 4,000 pieces of retained EU law would remain on

The UK competition regulator has blocked Microsoft’s $75bn acquisition of the Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard, in a possibly fatal blow to the software giant’s biggest-ever deal. The Competition & Markets Authority said on Wednesday it believed the company would be commercially motivated to make Activision’s games exclusive to its own cloud gaming service.

Shares of First Republic continued to plunge on Tuesday as regulators in Washington and financiers on Wall Street scrambled to come up with a plan to stabilise the ailing bank. The California-based lender’s stock price, which is down by more than 90 per cent this year, fell by a further 40 per cent, a day

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has admitted that UK business taxes are too high but insisted the best way to lower them would be to expand the economy. Hunt defended the decision to increase corporation tax to 25 per cent in the last Budget, arguing that lowering the burden previously had not yielded the hoped-for increase in

European governments have reacted with anger and dismay to comments by a Chinese diplomat questioning the legal status of former Soviet states and Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, who regained their independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, have said they will summon Chinese diplomats on Monday to complain about

A lobbying firm is launching a one-year business engagement operation ahead of the next general election in what is likely to be one of multiple attempts to exploit the vacuum left by the crisis at the CBI. WPI Strategy, a public affairs group behind the imminent launch of “BizUK”, insisted that it was not trying

China is building sophisticated cyber weapons to “seize control” of enemy satellites, rendering them useless for data signals or surveillance during wartime, according to a leaked US intelligence report. The US assesses that China’s push to develop capabilities to “deny, exploit or hijack” enemy satellites is a core part of its goal to control information,

Google plans to introduce generative artificial intelligence into its advertising business over the coming months, as big tech groups rush to incorporate the groundbreaking technology into their products. According to an internal presentation to advertisers seen by the Financial Times, the Alphabet-owned company intends to begin using the AI to create novel advertisements based on