Karlsruhe / AFP Germany’s top court on Wednesday heard complaints from some 200,000 citizens and campaigners who want to stop a planned EU-Canada free trade agreement set to be signed later this month. They are asking the Constitutional Court to prevent the government from endorsing the so-called CETA accord at a gathering of EU ministers next week, arguing that ...

  Bloomberg BMW AG expects sales of its electrified cars to surge in the next decade as the technology hits the mainstream, putting it in a race against Tesla and Mercedes-Benz. Plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars across the BMW and Mini brands could account for between 15 percent and 25 percent of sales in about 10 years, BMW Chief Executive ...

  Watching Donald Trump skulking behind Hillary Clinton on the debate stage Sunday night, muttering about locking her up if he wins, was a reminder that we are drifting toward a kind of bullyboy-world, where power is everything. You see this coarsening climate of relations around the globe, in the debasement of the norms that make civilized life possible. Dictators ...

  Race is perhaps the worst idea ever to come out of science. Scientists were responsible for officially dividing human beings into Europeans, Africans, Asians and Native Americans and promoting these groups as sub-species or separate species altogether. That happened back in the 18th century, but the division lends the feel of scientific legitimacy to the prejudice that haunts the ...

  You’d think managing Britain’s exit from the European Union would be enough to keep Theresa May busy. But it seems the U.K.’s prime minister wants to design a whole new kind of conservatism as well — one that works not just for Britain’s frequent-flyer elite but also, as she puts it, for “the whole nation.” Whether her ideas are ...

  In 2014, JP Morgan — the biggest US bank by assets — was targeted by cyber criminals. Even though no cash could be siphoned off, the attack left names, addresses and crucial information of its 76 million customers exposed. Alarmed over the incident, the bank is now pumping $600 million into cybersecurity. Similarly, Deutsche Bank has announced that it ...

  Deutsche Bank is in trouble. It’s embroiled in talks with the U.S. Justice Department to negotiate down a $14 billion fine for mortgage-market naughtiness. Its share price has halved in the past year. It was granted special treatment in July’s stress tests, according to the Financial Times. And in the European money market, its funding costs are almost twice ...

  On the Saturday after the Friday when Donald Trump’s icky, sexual-assaulty chat with Billy Bush was revealed to the world, venture capitalist Fred Wilson had this to say: Fred Wilson @fredwilson Last night was Twitter at its finest. Anyone who says it is past its prime, irrelevant, and failing is out of their mind. Twitter: Fred Wilson on Twitter ...

  Vox tech writer Timothy B. Lee used to be one of the most ardent techno-optimists. But he’s had a bit of a conversion, of late, and is now on the side of those who think tech progress is slowing. Maybe it was the economist Robert Gordon who convinced him, or maybe years of observing the tech world changed his ...

  Hong Kong / AFP Asian markets retreated on Wednesday on fears about an expected US interest rate rise this year, while the pound recovered after suffering a series of losses fuelled by worries over Britain’s EU exit. Samsung Electronics suffered another bout of selling in the morning after announcing on Tuesday it would scrap the troubled flagship Galaxy Note ...