Bloomberg Russian President Vladimir Putin got a taste of public anger at his plans to increase the pension age as voters turned on the ruling party in regional elections and hundreds were arrested at protests against the reform. United Russia’s candidates for governor in four regions, mostly in the country’s east, were forced into runoffs after failing to win majorities ...

Bloomberg For President Donald Trump, the nightmare scenario if Democrats win control of the US House would be the death of his legislative agenda, aggressive investigations of his inner circle, and potential impeachment. For Democratic leaders, the vision they’re presenting is far tamer: a limited three-prong agenda of healthcare legislation aimed at cutting costs and drug prices, an infrastructure spending ...

Bloomberg Sweden may face weeks or even months of political gridlock after an inconclusive election result left the biggest Scandinavian economy without a clear candidate to form a government. Neither the Social Democrat-led coalition of Prime Minister Stefan Lofven nor the opposition Alliance bloc won enough votes to form majority governments, as a nationalist group that has talked of dragging ...

Bloomberg Libyan security forces overcame gunmen who attacked the state oil company’s headquarters as militias and government-backed forces clashed in the North African country’s capital. “A number of blasts” rocked National Oil Corp. headquarters in Tripoli, and several people were killed and injured, NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla told Libya Channel TV after he was evacuated from the building. Some of ...

This is indeed ‘Crazytown,’ as a quote from Bob Woodward’s new book describes it, and we are watching a ‘nervous breakdown.’ The problem is that it afflicts the country as a whole, and not just our narcissistic chief executive. President Trump has drawn America with him into ‘the devil’s workshop,’ as Woodward quotes former White House chief of staff Reince ...

Talk about an unexpected US jobs day for bond traders. Some strategists were priming their audience for disappointment, noting that August jobs data has missed forecasts almost every year over the past two decades. That didn’t happen this time around: Nonfarm payrolls rose 201,000 last month, beating the 190,000 median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg and crushing the even ...

Elon Musk brought Tesla Inc. into this world, and he seems determined to take it out. The billionaire’s latest self-destructive act was an appearance last night on the podcast of comedian Joe Rogan, where, among other things, Musk confirmed Bob Dylan’s thesis that “everybody must get stoned.” It’s the latest in a long chain of Musk stunts, which Liam Denning ...

There are already 170,000 small, unmanned aerial vehicles licensed in the US, and the Federal Aviation Administration predicts another half-million more of them to be airborne by 2022. Drones are everywhere, doing all sorts of things, including delivering hamburgers and pizzas. They’re taking group photos and scouting properties. They’re also competing, and the competition is serious. Lockheed Martin Corp. has ...

The sight of a flooded Kansai International Airport and 3,000 stranded people after Typhoon Jebi slammed into southern Japan should be a warning to the world’s infrastructure investors. Airports have been a highly rated asset class over the past decade. The combined market capitalization of the companies that run the terminals in Paris, Shanghai, Sydney, Frankfurt, Copenhagen and Thailand has ...

The logjam in insurance M&A has broken. French mutual Covea Group is attempting an ambitious 8.3 billion-euro ($9.6 billion) takeover of reinsurer Scor SE, run by charismatic veteran chairman Denis Kessler. Securing an agreement for the mooted deal doesn’t look easy. The timing of the approach makes sense. After Axa SA’s deal for XL Group Ltd. at the beginning of ...