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I think I might have let out an audible groan in November when I saw Elon Musk proclaiming that his mission was to make Twitter “by far the most accurate source of information about the world”.  This is a man, after all, who has not in the past shown a particularly ardent commitment to the

Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer go head to head on Thursday in a big test at the ballot box, as voters across much of England go to the polls with more than 8,000 seats on 230 local councils up for grabs. The contest will be a barometer of public opinion ahead of an expected

The US Federal Trade Commission is seeking to ban Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, from monetising children’s data and further limit its use of facial recognition technology. The FTC’s proposal on Wednesday called for a blanket prohibition on Meta’s ability to commercialise data it collects from users aged 18 and under, including

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

The Federal Trade Commission is seeking to ban Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, from monetising children’s data and further limit its use of facial recognition technology. The FTC’s proposal on Wednesday called for a blanket prohibition on Meta’s ability to commercialise data it collects from users aged 18 or younger, including via

The second-biggest bank failure in the history of the United States presented a rare opportunity for JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon to claw back some ground in a business long ceded to rivals — wealth management. Already a dominant player in investment, retail and private banking for rich clients, JPMorgan has lagged behind in the

The Treasury department on Wednesday said it would repurchase US government debt next year for the first time in decades, in an effort to boost liquidity in the $23tn government bond market. The programme would allow the Treasury to buy back older bonds, that are typically harder to trade, from primary dealers — banks that

Russia accused Ukraine on Wednesday of attempting to assassinate President Vladimir Putin in a late-night drone attack on the Kremlin, vowing to take retaliatory action. According to a statement from Putin’s press service, two Ukrainian drones attacked and crashed into the Kremlin overnight but were shot down by Russia’s military and secret services, which it

UK executives should be paid more if the country wants to retain talent and deter companies from leaving the City of London, the head of the London Stock Exchange has said. Julia Hoggett said the UK needed a “constructive discussion” on the UK’s approach to executive pay as part of broader efforts to boost the

That sound is a “dirty great hoover . . . on full suction mode”. Lord Jonathan Hill, who two years ago began the process of reforming London’s listing regime with his eponymous review, was referring to the US Inflation Reduction Act sucking investment out of Europe. He may as well have been talking about London’s capital markets. The risk,

Dozens of explosions were reported in Ukraine and near Russian-occupied Crimea early on Wednesday, as both sides stepped up air attacks ahead of an expected counter-offensive by Kyiv to recapture lost territory. Much is riding on Ukraine’s long-anticipated counter-offensive more than a year into Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country. Military analysts say that it

Not one of Boris Johnson’s key team agreed on what Brexit was for. This is just the most glaring failure of an administration that may become the seminal case study on why governments fail. The scale of dysfunction is laid bare in Johnson at 10, a history which might alternatively be titled “How not to

A Russian spy network has acquired sensitive technology from EU companies to fuel Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine even after a US-led crackdown on the covert smuggling ring. The network — set up to procure goods ranging from microchips to ammunition — has managed to obtain machine tools from Germany and Finland despite US sanctions

The writer is a science commentator Whale poo is like environmental gold dust. It is rich in iron, phosphorus and nitrogen, among the nutrients that phytoplankton, the algae at the bottom of the marine food chain, need to grow. Phytoplankton produces more than half of the world’s oxygen and sucks as much carbon dioxide out

Three weeks after taking the reins of Carlyle Group, Harvey Schwartz was holding court on the unfolding banking turmoil during an appearance in front of the private equity firm’s top dealmakers. It was four days after Silicon Valley Bank had collapsed and the former Goldman Sachs president predicted the financial system was nowhere near a

The trio of bank failures since March has cast a pall over KPMG’s lucrative business as the largest auditor of the US banking sector. Questions over the quality of its work and independence have mounted in recent days, following the release of a Federal Reserve report into the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the

The Federal Reserve is set to deliver a quarter-point rate rise on Wednesday in what will be its 10th consecutive increase in just over a year, as pressure builds on the US central bank to call time on its aggressive monetary tightening campaign. At the end of its two-day gathering, the Federal Open Market Committee

Asian stocks declined while US futures steadied on Wednesday, as renewed fears about the health of regional banks in the US dented market sentiment ahead of a meeting of the Federal Reserve this week. South Korea’s Kospi declined 0.8 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 1.8 per cent and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell

The UK’s financial regulator is pursuing a deeper and faster overhaul of the stock market listing rules after a string of high-profile companies shunned the City in favour of New York, raising questions about London’s future. In a consultation document to be published on Wednesday, the Financial Conduct Authority will outline plans to scrap rules

Energy stocks tumbled on Tuesday, falling in tandem with oil prices in response to cooling demand for fuel in the US and China. Shares in large oil companies including Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil each lost more than 3.5 per cent, while Houston-based Halliburton fell by more than 8 per cent. ExxonMobil closed almost 4

The co-founders of Google DeepMind and LinkedIn have launched an artificial intelligence chatbot called Pi, adding to the flood of similar products rolled out publicly this year by the likes of OpenAI, Google and Snap. The first product from the year-old AI start-up behind Pi, Inflection AI, comes as the growing hype around generative AI