Bloomberg Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a frosty response to comic Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s landslide election as Ukraine’s new president, with the Kremlin saying it was “premature” to offer congratulations on his victory. “Moscow respects the choice of the Ukrainian people, especially since this choice is very obvious,” though it’s too soon to consider possibilities for Putin and Zelenskiy to work ...

Bloomberg A government-backed candidate scored a razor-edge victory in the first round of North Macedonia’s presidential election and will advance to a runoff against an opposition figure who opposes the deal that opened the way to western integration. Stevo Pendarovski, the coordinator for the country’s accession talks to NATO, won 42.8 percent in the vote, according to the Electoral Commission, ...

Bloomberg Donald Trump returned from a long Easter weekend in Florida to a new political landscape, one where his administration is at last freed from Robert Mueller’s pursuit yet laid bare in all its dysfunction by the special counsel’s report. Trump arrived to his Mar-a-Lago resort with the swagger of a conquering hero, after Mueller reiterated that he had found ...

President Donald Trump’s conduct in office has been diminishing the moral capital of the United States for more than two years. The report by special counsel Robert Mueller puts a little of that capital back in the bank. Mueller’s 448-page account is an affirmation that the rule of law still exists in America, despite Trump’s rants and rages against his ...

Bank of America Corp. (BofA) didn’t sugarcoat the path forward for investors when describing its first-quarter results. Yes, the bank generated a record profit, thanks to net interest income (NII) at its consumer unit. But Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan and Chief Financial Officer Paul Donofrio didn’t hide the fact that the pace of growth in NII was bound to ...

I hope T-mobile didn’t already order a bunch of magenta T-shirts to hand out to the Sprint team. Their merger may be a no-go. The Justice Department told T-Mobile US Inc. and Sprint Corp. earlier this month that it’s unlikely to approve their deal as it’s currently structured, according to a Wall Street Journal report. It’s especially bad news for ...

We all know Italy’s next crisis is coming, it’s merely a question of when. The country’s budget deficit is slipping out of control and Brussels will at some point have to address the increasingly likely breach of its fiscal rules (even if the EU is turning a blind eye while this month’s European parliamentary elections are taking place). The bond ...

The slowing of the Chinese economy, along with growing evidence of European growth under pressure, cast a big cloud of uncertainty over the global economy coming into 2019. Data released last week provided further support for the notion of short-term stabilization in China, but there isn’t yet a convincing longer-term case for higher growth, or for a less uncertain road ...

If the fire at Notre Dame cathedral had happened 20 or 50 years ago, France’s luxury fashion houses would surely have rushed to support its reconstruction as quickly as they did in 2019. There is no doubting the sincerity of LVMH, Kering SA and their founding families, who led the way with donations after the devastation. The city of Paris, ...

The oral arguments the Supreme Court will hear will be more decorous than the gusts of judicial testiness that blew the case up to the nation’s highest tribunal. The case, which raises arcane questions of administrative law but could have widely radiating political and policy consequences, comes from the Enlightenment mentality of the nation’s Founders, and involves this question: Does ...