BERLIN / AP Germany’s supreme court on Tuesday rejected a bid by lawmakers to outlaw a far-right party accused of promoting a racist and anti-Semitic agenda. Andreas Vosskuhle, chief justice of the Federal Constitutional Court, said that even though the party had unconstitutional goals, “there are currently no concrete indications … that its actions will lead to success.” The German …

  WASHINGTON / AP More than 40 House Democrats plan to boycott President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday, casting the Republican businessman as a threat to democracy. Reps. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Don Beyer of Virginia on Monday joined a growing list of lawmakers who will not attend Trump’s swearing-in at the US Capitol. The …

  In February 2015, economists at HSBC Holdings in London coined the terms “hard” and “soft” Brexit. The latter would maintain “much of the status quo” if the UK voted to quit the European Union; the former entailed “huge risk and would be operationally complicated.” Even just after the Brexit vote, you could be forgiven for seeing the hard option …