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As it became clear this week that Mario Draghi would resign as Italian prime minister, the hashtag #poveraItalia — poor Italy — trended on social media. Why, anguished Italians were asking, are we discarding a statesman of rare quality when our often misgoverned country is most in need of wise, efficient and principled leadership? Why

Marivi Wright’s “vacation from hell” began when Air France’s computer systems went down and staff had to check in passengers on her flight from New York to Europe by hand. She missed two connecting flights as she flew through Paris to Spain to visit her 83-year-old mother, landing in Malaga 12 hours late. Her luggage

A clash over tax and economic policy has dominated the early tussles between former chancellor Rishi Sunak and foreign secretary Liz Truss in their bids to become Conservative leader and the next UK prime minister. As the second phase of the leadership contest got under way this week, with two candidates facing a vote by

Russia’s central bank has cut interest rates in a surprise move that it said was in response to a slowdown in inflation and an improved GDP forecast. The decision to cut rates to 8 per cent on Friday, from 9.5 per cent in June, suggests that the central bank believes Russia is weathering the storm

Volkswagen’s chief executive Herbert Diess, the architect of the German carmaker’s multibillion-euro push into electric vehicles, will leave the company within weeks after being forced out by union leaders. The 63-year-old, who took over in the years following the Dieselgate scandal, will be replaced by Porsche boss and former VW manager Oliver Blume from the

There is an irritating predictability to the way in which Elon Musk’s unsolicited bid for Twitter is unravelling. Some users might have been excited by the idea but tech commentators and investors in Twitter were sceptical from the start. Why wouldn’t they be? For the second time, Musk appeared to insert a 420 internet weed

The ancient Greeks pioneered a range of innovations to cool their houses during the summer, planting trees to provide natural shade and designing buildings to limit which spaces felt the full blast of the sun’s rays. Thousands of years later, their descendants are drawing upon the same kind of ideas to cool down the city

As a boy growing up in Southampton, Rishi Sunak helped his mother do the books in her pharmacy. That formative experience, coupled with his deep-rooted belief in a small state and his polished TV performances, should make him a dream candidate for the Conservatives. But the former chancellor is currently trailing Liz Truss among the

UK business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has indicated that Britain’s next prime minister will need to rule on Tata Group’s request for £1.5bn in government subsidies to safeguard the future of its Port Talbot steelworks. Kwarteng’s allies say the minister wants to help steelmakers including Tata, owner of the UK’s largest steelworks, to decarbonise the sector,

It’s such a well-known face, to anyone who grew up watching cultural television in Britain, and such a well-known voice to anyone who listens to BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time. And it’s a daunting prospect, to interview a man who has spent his working life over several decades interviewing many of the greatest cultural

The writer is a former chair of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and a senior fellow at the Center for Financial Stability US Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell has expressed deep admiration for Paul Volcker, his legendary predecessor who defeated the high inflation that plagued the US economy from 1965 to 1982. Then, as

Mykhailo Poperechnyuk was driving towards the town of Nikopol, in southern Ukraine, earlier this month when he saw a barrage of Russian rockets streaking across the night sky. The missiles were fired from what may be the most impregnable Russian positions along the entire front line: those around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant just 5km

Andrey Liscovich was at home in downtown San Francisco when he saw a tweet from the American politician Marco Rubio: “The #Russian invasion of #Ukraine is now underway.” He felt sick. The 37-year-old Ukrainian had spent most of the previous decade working far from his native country, including as chief executive officer of Uber Works,

The Howard family has been entwined with British power since before the days of Elizabeth I, so it was little surprise that Lord Greville Howard’s London townhouse was the base for the campaign to install Liz Truss as prime minister. But something was not right at Howard’s Georgian home on Lord North Street, near the

China’s middle-class consumers are fanning a new craze as they adapt to tougher economic times: a rush to buy soon-to-expire food and drink at deep discounts. According to public records, 119 businesses specialising in items approaching their expiry dates have been registered within the past 12 months, compared with 92 over the previous decade. Such

EDF is trying to alter a key subsidy contract to avoid missing out on billions of pounds in guaranteed revenue after the Covid-19 pandemic caused further delays to Hinkley Point C, the first new nuclear power station under construction in the UK in almost 30 years. The French utility is in negotiations with the British

The number of people paying for elective surgery and similar treatments in the UK has risen 39 per cent from pre-pandemic levels, driving growth in private healthcare, according to figures released on Friday. Private healthcare providers admitted 198,000 patients in the October to December quarter of 2021, returning to the level hit in the same

The owner of the UK’s largest steelworks, Tata Group, has threatened to shut down operations if the government does not agree in the next year to provide £1.5bn of subsidies to help it reduce carbon emissions. Tata Steel UK runs the Port Talbot plant and employs nearly 8,000 people across all its operations. As one

Autcraft, a Minecraft server for autistic children, was about to celebrate its ninth anniversary when the troll attacked. They sent explicit photos and abusive messages to the autistic children on Autcraft’s social network, wreaking so much havoc that founder Stuart Duncan was forced to shut down the site. Nearly a decade of community history was

One thing to start: Last week the Scoreboard team participated in a virtual event to discuss how long the boom in sports investing will last. Subscribers can watch a replay here exclusively here. Is women’s football the next big investment opportunity? That’s been on my mind ever since England’s Lionesses scored eight times against Norway,

In a more optimistic era, the overthrow by Sri Lankans of a feckless government they blamed for their country’s economic collapse might have been called a Velvet Revolution. It began last Saturday when tens of thousands descended on the largest city Colombo and poured into public buildings, including President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s official residence, amid chants