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The French government will spend 12 billion euros ($12 billion) to help small and mid-sized companies that are struggling to pay soaring energy bills. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said that the government will rely on three new mechanisms to help businesses, local authorities and associations, and to simplify access to aid. About 7 billion euros of the total cost will ...

European ministers pulled off what one diplomat called a miracle in July when they took just six days to agree to slash gas demand. Ever since, the bloc’s timelines have been slipping, and it now looks unlikely key new measures will be in place for winter. Ministers set another new deadline, and now aim to clinch a deal on the ...

Michael R. Bloomberg The crisis in US K-12 public education continues to deepen, and decisions by many colleges and universities to abandon SAT and ACT scores are making it worse. Instead of demanding more accountability from high schools, colleges are expecting less. In the latest dismal signs for students, scores on the ACT college entrance exam have fallen to the ...

Unilever Plc raised its sales forecast for this year after pushing through the biggest increase in prices in its history amid rampant inflation. The maker of Knorr stock cubes now expects sales this fiscal year to increase more than 8%, up from a prior range of 4.5% to 6.5%, after reporting a better than expected third quarter. However, the group ...

Southwest Airlines Co. reported a third-quarter profit greater than Wall Street expected as business sales strengthened, even as the carrier warned that cost pressures will extend into next year. Adjusted earnings were 50 cents a share in the period, the company said in a statement, compared with the 44-cent average from analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Revenue of $6.22 billion ...

President Joe Biden said China’s leader had expressed worries about the US strengthening its domestic production of semiconductor chips as his administration moves to reduce reliance on Asian suppliers and restrict Chinese access to chipmaking technology. “I’ve heard from Xi Jinping that he’s a little concerned about that,” Biden said Thursday in Syracuse, New York, as he delivered a speech ...

Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan started a protest march to the nation’s capital Islamabad in the latest attempt to press the government to call for early elections, while hitting back at the military’s spy chief. Khan launched the protest that he calls a march for “real freedom” standing on top of a makeshift caravan in a convoy of vehicles ...

President Vladimir Putin lashed out at the US and Europe over his war in Ukraine, heaped praise on Saudi Arabia and reiterated support for China’s claim to Taiwan as he sought to cast Russia as a champion of conservative values against Western liberalism. He accused the US and its allies of seeking global domination by pouring weapons into Ukraine to ...

The yuan leaped over the Australian, Canadian and Swiss currencies to become the fifth most traded currency in the world, according to the Bank for International Settlements’ Triennial Central Bank Survey. The Chinese currency was involved in 7% of all trades in 2022, compared with 4% three years ago, Basel-based BIS said in a report. Meanwhile, total daily trades rise ...

Lloyds Banking Group Plc missed estimates in the third quarter after the lender took charges for bad loans as it warned of a darkening outlook for the UK economy. Pretax profit falls more than expected to £1.5 billion ($1.7 billion) after the bank took its biggest charge since the Covid-19 pandemic to cover loans that could default. The £668 million ...