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China tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile in August that circled the globe before speeding towards its target, demonstrating an advanced space capability that caught US intelligence by surprise. Five people familiar with the test said the Chinese military launched a rocket that carried a hypersonic glide vehicle which flew through low-orbit space before cruising down towards its target.

Goldman Sachs reported a 60 per cent rise in quarterly profits, capping a week of bank earnings in which Wall Street firms reaped billions of dollars from a record burst of dealmaking. On Friday, Goldman reported third quarter group earnings per share of $14.93 on total net income of $5.4bn, up from $3.4bn a year

Japan’s new prime minister has pledged to move the country away from neoliberal fundamentalism as he lambasted his own party’s failure to deliver broad-based growth under the Abenomics programme that defined the economy for almost a decade. In his first interview with international media since taking over Japan’s leadership this month, Fumio Kishida told the

International bond sales by Chinese developers have all but halted as the crisis at China Evergrande stokes fears of defaults across the country’s property sector, throttling a crucial driver of Asia’s high-yield debt market. Just one developer has managed to tap overseas bond investors since Evergrande, the world’s most indebted real estate group, missed an

The EU will be making a “historic misjudgement” if it fails to agree to rewrite the Brexit deal that covers trading arrangements for Northern Ireland, the UK warned on Tuesday. In an uncompromising speech, UK Brexit minister Lord David Frost warned that “fractious” relations between the two sides would not find a new equilibrium unless

Henry Kravis and George Roberts, who made their first billions by striking deals that pulverised other people’s corporate empires, stepped down from KKR on Monday after nearly half a century in charge of one of the most formidable financial enterprises that Wall Street has ever known. Companies owned by KKR today employ far more people,

Holding a fistful of pungent beige pellets, Ed Towers warns that those averse to garlic should stand back. The scent hits anyone within a few feet of him but rather than seasoning for the dinner table, these small garlic-infused cylinders are being fed to dairy cows at the Brades family farm in the verdant hills

When the mayor and other dignitaries gathered a year ago to cut the ribbon on One Vanderbilt, one of Manhattan’s newest and most advanced office towers, the festivities were marred by a pandemic that has raised existential questions about the future of such buildings. Yet One Vanderbilt is now more than 90 per cent leased.

More than 130 countries have signed up to a ground-breaking global deal on corporate tax reform that the OECD hopes will eliminate tax havens while bringing in $150bn more a year from multinationals. The 136 nations also agreed to a two-year ban on imposing new taxes on tech groups such as Google and Amazon while

Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have reached an agreement to extend the US debt ceiling through to “early December”, in a stop-gap deal that will provide short-term relief to investors and executives who had fretted about the possibility of a US government default as soon as this month. “We have reached an agreement to

Republicans and Democrats in Congress opened the door to a temporary solution to America’s debt ceiling crisis on Wednesday, saying they would consider a stop-gap measure extending the country’s borrowing limit until December. The potential breakthrough came after Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican, offered to support a short-term extension of the nation’s debt limit

Damning testimony from a former Facebook employee has reignited bipartisan support for reining in the tech sector, with members of the US Congress vowing to tighten rules for big companies. Senior members of the Senate commerce committee said they were looking at a range of legislation to crack down on Facebook and other big Silicon

Oil prices jumped to the highest level in at least three years after Opec and its allies agreed to stick with existing oil production plans, resisting calls to help damp soaring global energy prices to protect the economic recovery. Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, rose 3 per cent on Monday to trade as high

Senior Democrats say they are willing to lower the $3.5tn cost of the spending measures in Joe Biden’s signature package to boost America’s social safety net, following days of infighting that has threatened to derail the president’s economic agenda. Party leaders have given members another month to come to an agreement over the package, which

Nancy Pelosi has given her warring party one more month to pass a $1.2tn infrastructure bill after the party failed to come to an agreement on Joe Biden’s spending plans despite a week of frantic negotiations on Capitol Hill. The Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives wrote to Democratic Congressional colleagues on Saturday morning

Joe Biden insisted Democrats would pass his ambitious domestic spending agenda despite interparty feuding that has stymied its passage, saying “we’re going to get this done” after a rare Capitol Hill visit to lobby lawmakers. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, was due to bring the US president’s $1.2tn infrastructure legislation

Nancy Pelosi appeared determined to press ahead with a make-or-break vote on Joe Biden’s $1.2tn bipartisan infrastructure bill in the US House of Representatives on Thursday, even as progressive lawmakers threatened to sink the flagship piece of the president’s legislative agenda. “We are proceeding in a very positive way to bring up the bill . . . in a

Democrats in Congress are scrambling to find a way to raise the US debt ceiling and avert what a chorus of executives and policymakers are warning would be a “catastrophic” default in less than three weeks. Republicans have repeatedly refused to support an increase in the country’s borrowing limit. On Tuesday the opposition party, led

Wall Street and European stock markets dropped sharply as fears of interest rate increases and stagflation upended a narrative of economic recovery and easy monetary policy that has supported asset prices for months. The blue-chip S&P 500 share index fell nearly 1.7 per cent while the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.5 per cent. Europe’s Stoxx

Two top Fed officials on Monday warned that failing to raise the US debt ceiling would have catastrophic consequences, hours before Republicans in the Senate were set to block a bill that would increase the borrowing limit and stave off a government shutdown. John Williams, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said

Germany’s two main parties are neck and neck after Sunday’s election, according to first exit polls from voting to determine who will succeed Angela Merkel as leader of Europe’s largest economy. An exit poll from public broadcaster ARD put both the left-of-centre Social Democrats and the centre-right CDU/CSU on 25 per cent, with the Greens

The number of Americans suffering serious adverse health effects after consuming ivermectin to treat Covid-19 has more than doubled since the anti-parasitic drug was falsely touted as a cure for the virus. The US Food and Drug Administration has received 49 reports of poisoning and other serious reactions linked to human consumption of ivermectin to

US prosecutors have reached an agreement with Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei and daughter of the Chinese tech giant’s founder, to resolve fraud charges against her. The details of the agreement are set to be announced in a court hearing in Brooklyn at 1pm, Eastern time, according to a letter from Nicole

To fund a $3.5tn social spending agenda, president Joe Biden has proposed more than a dozen changes to the US tax code, including aggressive tax increases on the wealthy and corporations that would reverse many of the cuts enacted under Donald Trump. Now it is up to Democrats in Congress to turn the president’s plans

Chinese markets fell on their first day of trading this week after a public holiday as concerns built in global markets over a possible default by property developer Evergrande on an international bond repayment. But the losses were not as heavy as feared after the real estate company, which has total liabilities of more than

Shares in Chinese and Hong Kong property groups fell to their lowest levels in half a decade as an escalating liquidity crisis at developer Evergrande showed signs of spreading beyond the sector. Evergrande, the world’s most indebted property developer, faces obligations of more than $300bn to creditors and other businesses and a crucial interest payment

The multibillion-pound business of buying and selling commercial aircraft was put on hold during the Covid-19 pandemic. But a rare public spat between Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary and Boeing over the Irish airline’s latest order of 737 Max 10 jets shows the high stakes game is sputtering back to life. It is also a sign

Advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration have begun debating whether to recommend authorising Pfizer’s application to offer widespread booster doses of its Covid-19 vaccine. Members of the regulator’s vaccine advisory committee are expected to vote at the end of Friday’s meeting on whether to endorse a third dose of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine. While

Washington has launched a new trilateral security partnership with London and Canberra which will support Australia’s plan to build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, a move that will strengthen the allies’ ability to counter China. The move is US president Joe Biden’s latest effort to bolster alliances amid increasing tensions with China over disputes ranging

Cryptocurrency hedge funds gained nearly 24 per cent in August as large price swings in digital asset prices helped them outperform investors in sleepy equities and currencies markets. The strong pace of gains means funds focused on bitcoin and other digital assets have returned 145 per cent this year, according to data from Eurekahedge. Crypto