Bloomberg This is the year when the biggest political and economic conundrum to face the UK in modern times will be solved, further complicated or even abandoned in all but name. Within 10 months, the British government and European Union aim to have an agreement on their divorce and at least the outline of their future trading relationship. They have ...

Bloomberg Germany’s unemployment rate fell to a record low as the number of people out of work slid for a sixth month, reflecting a boom in Europe’s largest economy that could push up wages and inflation. The jobless rate was 5.5 percent in December, and the previous month’s rate was revised down to the same level, the Federal Labor Agency ...

Bloomberg Wall Street doesn’t think corporate America will have a hard time coming up with those employee bonuses that were promised after taxes were slashed. The December passage of the tax overhaul package and West Texas Intermediate crude’s breach of $60 a barrel have propelled the S&P 500 three-month earnings estimate revision ratio to its highest level since 2011, according ...

Bloomberg The UK’s thrifty health authority has cleared its most expensive medicine ever—a $700,000 GlaxoSmithKline Plc treatment for an illness known as “bubble-boy disease.” But the overall cost to the country’s medical system won’t be as eye-popping as the price suggests. Glaxo, Britain’s biggest drugmaker, said it has treated four patients with Strimvelis since it was approved by the European ...

RAMALLAH / Reuters Palestinians condemned as blackmail on Wednesday US President Donald Trump’s threat to withhold future aid payments over what he called the Palestinians’ unwillingness to talk peace with Israel. Trump drew praise from a cabinet minister in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government but a warning from a former Israeli peace negotiator of the dangers in cutting ...

Bloomberg North Korea contacted authorities in Seoul over a hotline for the first time in about two years, paving the way for a thaw during the Winter Olympics despite US President Donald Trump’s fresh taunts at Kim Jong Un. Officials from both countries spoke several times on Wednesday to conduct technical checks before agreeing to stop for the day, according ...

WASHINGTON / AGENCIES US President Donald Trump has signaled support for anti-government protests in Iran, but in two weeks he faces a decision on US policy towards the Islamic Republic that suddenly seems riskier than it did a week ago. The six days of demonstrations in several Iranian cities began over economic conditions, and Trump must decide by mid-January whether ...

AMMAN / Reuters The Syrian army backed by Russian jets escalated bombing of the last rebel bastion on the eastern outskirts of Damascus as they prepared to break a siege of an army base encircled by opposition forces, residents and witnesses said on Wednesday. They said the army was amassing elite forces to prepare for a major assault on the ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump is hardening his demands for a deal to protect young undocumented immigrants from deportation, a dispute with congressional Democrats that hangs over talks this week to avoid a government shutdown. Any deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, must also forbid immigrants from sponsoring family members to join them in the US, ...

Today’s political discord is less durable and dangerous than a consensus, one that unites the political class more than ideology divides it. The consensus is that, year in and year out, in good times and bad, Americans should be given substantially more government goods and services than they should be asked to pay for. Lamentations about the paucity of bipartisanship ...