European banks appear to be having a bit of a moment, but investors shouldn’t get over-excited by a string of forecast-beating profits this week. There is little common in many of the good-news stories: BNP Paribas SA of France, NatWest Group Plc and Standard Chartered of the UK, and BBVA of Spain all turned out strong second-quarter numbers, following better ...

McDonald’s Corp has just raised the price of a cheeseburger in its UK restaurants for the first time in 14 years, by a supersized 20% to £1.19 ($1.43) from 99p. Something must be done. The rising cost of a beef patty is symptomatic of the surge in prices that should prompt the Bank of England (BOE) to hike its official ...

  There’s a perfectly good reason to break open the secrets of social-media giants. Over the past decade, governments have watched helplessly as their democratic processes were disrupted by misinformation and hate speech on sites like Meta Platforms Inc’s Facebook, Alphabet Inc’s YouTube and Twitter Inc. Now some governments are gearing up for a comeuppance. In the next two years, ...