South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster signed the ESG Pension Protection Act — which requires the state pension fund’s decisions be based on maximizing returns — in a ceremony at the governor’s office. The bill, H.3690, was officially signed by the Republican governor on Feb. 5 and went into effect on Feb. 9. The bill directs
Exceptions for manual trades and limited trading activity are crucial if the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s amendments to Rule G-14, its controversial move to a one-minute reporting standard from the current fifteen minute window, is adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission. That’s according to comments submitted to the SEC, which ranged from cautious acceptance
Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition activist who has been the most prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin’s regime for much of the past decade, has died in a remote Arctic penal colony aged 47, according to prison authorities. A firebrand campaigner for what he called the “beautiful Russia of the future”, Navalny’s detailed investigations exposing
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Sir Adrian Montague has quit as chair of Thames Water’s parent company after less than a year, as the utility faces a regulatory investigation over its decision to pay shareholders a dividend. Montague, an experienced
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez | Getty Images While both renters and homeowners are beginning to take climate hazards into consideration, affordability continues to drive moving trends. Between 2021 and 2022, about 1.2 million more homeowners and renters moved out of than moved into U.S. cities with high risk of poor air quality, according to a new
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Egypt is building a walled enclosure along its border with Gaza, according to satellite images and activists, as Israel warned it would expand its offensive into the city of Rafah where 1.5mn displaced Palestinians have
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Next week will mark the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 2022. Although Russia has signally failed to achieve its war aims in Ukraine, the international security situation looks increasingly
California lawmakers are lining up statewide bond proposals ahead of the presidential election in November. The latest is a $1 billion bond measure introduced by Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, D-Los Angeles, in Assembly Bill 2208 to build out the ports to support offshore wind projects to generate electricity. Others include broad $16 billion climate bond
Moody’s Investors Service’s recent decision to stop endorsing U.S. public finance credit ratings for use in the European Union and the United Kingdom will trigger market volatility, negatively impact infrastructure needs, and reduce foreign investors’ presence in the muni market, market participants said. Due to Moody’s decision, EU/UK investors may be forced to sell their
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Since Reform UK relaunched in late 2020, the party has underperformed when put to the test in by-elections. But this week the populist threat on Rishi Sunak’s right flank showed it could meaningfully chip away
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. An ex-Goldman Sachs analyst who obtained sensitive information about deals the investment bank was advising on and used it to trade stocks has been handed a prison sentence of almost two years. Mohammed Zina was
Arriving weary and hungry from the bullet train in Hiroshima one night last spring, I trod the natural path by heading to a 7-Eleven convenience store for a can of beer, an onigiri rice ball and some fried chicken. In Japan’s cities, no matter the hour, one is never far from a bright haven of
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the War in Ukraine myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. The writer is an FT contributing editor, chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia, and fellow at IWM Vienna Uncertainty may reign in the world today, but we can be sure that the
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died in a maximum-security prison in the country’s far north, Russia’s prison service has said. Navalny, 47 — President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent opponent and a fierce critic of
Investors are piling into stocks of European luxury goods and other sectors with exposure to China, believing they offer a safer way to profit from a possible recovery in the world’s second-largest economy than investing directly in its ailing stock market. The Stoxx Luxury 10 index — whose constituents derive around 26 per cent of
New assessments of Russia’s military capabilities and its threats to Nato’s security have led to a rising drumbeat of warnings from western governments and pressure to invest more heavily in defence. “We are living in truly dangerous times [and] at a point when large-scale conflict is more likely than it has been in recent history,”
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. When Thomas Suozzi won New York’s third congressional district in Tuesday’s special election, it was just the latest in a wave of impressive results for Democrats in off-cycle ballots. Averaged across the 57 contested elections
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. On average, women are paid less than men. And I’ll let you into a secret of the sisterhood: they don’t like it. Policymakers around the world have seized on a supposedly simple solution, which is
As shoppers were hitting the high street in the weeks leading up to Christmas last year, private equity firm Aurelius was eyeing a bargain of its own. The London-based fund manager announced in mid-November that it had scooped up British ethical beauty brand The Body Shop, buying it from Brazilian cosmetics conglomerate Natura in a
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak suffered a severe blow on Friday as the Labour party won the formerly safe Conservative seat of Kingswood, in what the opposition party hopes is a harbinger of victory at the
Brussels should incentivise Europe’s defence industry to increase production and promote consolidation, the president of the European Commission has said, as she warned the “world has got rougher”. Ursula von der Leyen said the commission was developing its defence industry strategy informed by the experience of using taxpayer cash to boost the production of Covid-19