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John Textor was hailed as a saviour when he bought Brazilian football team Botafogo last year. “I go down to Rio and I’m treated like a king everywhere I go,” he said of his early days in charge. But after selling a player in January to Olympique Lyonnais, also owned by Textor’s Eagle Football, fans

The writer is a science commentator Large language models like ChatGPT are purveyors of plausibility. The chatbots, many based on so-called generative AI, are trained to respond to user questions by scraping the internet for relevant information and assembling coherent answers, churning out convincing student essays, authoritative legal documents and believable news stories. But, because

It has been a bad decade for those who believe corporate voting power and economic ownership should go hand in hand. After Google in 2004 and Facebook in 2012 decided that Silicon Valley couldn’t be restrained by public shareholders, the explosion of a tech sector fuelled by private capital meant that companies with dual-class share

The Russian rouble has fallen to its weakest level in 10 months, losing about 20 per cent of its value since the start of December, as western sanctions, Moscow’s waning energy revenues and high military spending exert pressure on the currency. With capital controls in place and foreign trading in the currency largely moribund, analysts

More than 340,000 Americans will see an increase in their monthly pay cheque tomorrow after Walmart, the biggest private-sector employer in the US, raised its minimum hourly wage to $14. The retailer’s move will in effect set a new floor for pay in many US states. On the other side of the Atlantic, as many

JPMorgan Chase is resisting attempts by lawyers to question Jamie Dimon under oath in litigation over the US bank’s decision to retain Jeffrey Epstein as a client for 15 years, although it has agreed for one of its longtime chief executive’s key lieutenants to be deposed. In documents filed to a New York court on

The government risks failing to meet its goal of decarbonising the UK’s power sector by 2035 because it lacks a clear and comprehensive delivery plan, the public spending watchdog warned on Wednesday. The National Audit Office said a focus on the energy crisis sparked by the Ukraine war meant ministers had made “little progress” on

The yield on the rate-sensitive two-year Treasury note hit a 16-year high on Tuesday as investors assessed data pointing to a resilient US economy despite high borrowing costs. The two-year yield reached 4.82 per cent, its highest point since July 2007, just months before the Great Recession began at the end of that year. The

Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata Motors is demanding more than £500mn of government aid for a new battery factory in Britain, in a decision set to be “pivotal” for the future of the UK car industry. People briefed on discussions say the Indian group is close to choosing between Spain and south-west England for its

When Rishi Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the Brexit deal that reset Britain’s broken relationship with the EU on Monday, it was the culmination of almost four months of diplomacy that began on the shores of the Red Sea and ended in the shadow of Windsor Castle. Von der Leyen, European Commission president,

The first anniversary of Russia’s assault on Ukraine has been greeted with soaring rhetoric. Notably, US president Joe Biden stated in Warsaw that “Our support for Ukraine will not waver, Nato will not be divided, and we will not tire. President Putin’s craven lust for land and power will fail. And the Ukrainian people’s love

A Regent’s Park mansion is on the market after a massive loan secured by its Saudi owners expired, putting the home in the hands of receivers and triggering what is likely to be London’s most expensive ever house sale. The Holme, set in four acres of Regent’s Park in central London, has already attracted interest

Germany’s transport minister has threatened to block a core part of the EU’s green agenda, saying Berlin would not support plans to effectively ban new cars with internal combustion engines from 2035 unless Brussels exempts vehicles running on synthetic fuels. Volker Wissing said the production of engines that use “climate-friendly” e-fuels, such as e-methane and

Electric-car maker Tesla will build a factory in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, ending doubts over whether the investment could be cancelled over conditions imposed by the government. Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced the new plant on Tuesday after conversations with Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, suggesting he had dropped earlier calls

The writer, a lawyer and commentator, is an FT contributing editor The legal and political framework for the Northern Ireland trade deal announced in Windsor by the UK and EU on Monday does not replace a blank slate. Instead, it fits into and recasts the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and the Northern Ireland protocol of the

Pimco has struck a multimillion-pound deal with landlord Derwent London to let office space in a newly developed block in central London, in a move that underscores companies’ desire for green, modern buildings as workers gradually return to the office. The international asset manager has agreed to pay £11mn in annual rent over a 15-year

Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal with the EU on Northern Ireland has buoyed sterling and the currency is likely set for further gains once the agreement receives parliamentary backing, investors say. Still, any rebound is likely to be limited by the UK’s gloomy economic outlook and resurgent inflation in Europe and the US, according to market

The writer was chief British negotiator in Northern Ireland from 1997-2007  Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of the Democratic Unionist party, now faces an invidious choice over the so-called “Windsor framework”, the deal to reset post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland. Is he going to channel the Ian Paisley who, as leader of the DUP, bellowed “Ulster

The ghost of Neil Woodford continues to haunt the fund management industry. His eponymous boutique came crashing down in 2019, leaving thousands of investors nursing losses. Most of them are still awaiting redress. At the heart of Woodford’s problem, aside from a degree of hubris, was his open-ended Equity Income fund’s exposure to illiquid assets.

Exactly when the tide turned, I don’t know. Perhaps a year ago, when Joe Biden in his State of the Union address said he would “fund the police”. Or last week, when Penguin bowed to pressure to keep Roald Dahl’s sometimes cruel work in print. Or the fall of Nicola Sturgeon over, among other things,

Inflation rebounded in France and Spain in February, sending European governments’ borrowing costs up as doubts increased over how quickly the European Central Bank will stop raising interest rates. French consumer prices rose 7.2 per cent in the year to February, driven to the highest rate since the euro was launched in 1999 by faster