Angela Merkel’s victory in Sunday’s election gives her a fourth term as Germany’s chancellor and should be seen as a remarkable achievement—one that few would have predicted back in 2015, when her popularity slumped during the worst of the refugee crisis. Merkel’s resilience, based on a careful blend of principle and pragmatism, deserves to be celebrated. To be sure, this ...

The European Commission tentatively opened the door to a plan by 10 member states, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain, to hit multinational tech companies with a turnover tax to compensate for their avoidance schemes. A new proposal presented by European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis allows for such stop-gap measures while it works with members states on a better, ...

Before Obamacare, state governments were the chief regulators of health insurance. Obamacare put the federal government in that role. The latest Republican health-care bill, sponsored by Senators Lindsey Graham, Bill Cassidy and others, would partially reverse that shift in authority. It would also give states the ability to allocate a lot of federal health-care dollars as they wish. The fact ...

What if your car could keep you out of an accident by knowing what was coming around the corner? No, I’m not just telling you what you already know about self-driving cars. Most of the self-driving prototypes we’re familiar with rely on sensors, which have limited range and can’t see past obstacles. That’s enough to prevent a lot of accidents—but ...

Bloomberg US stocks advanced as President Donald Trump prepares to lay out his tax-cut plan, while the dollar extended gains and bonds fell after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen boosted expectations for an interest-rate rise in December. The S&P 500 Index was near record levels in early trading. The Bloomberg dollar index headed for a six-week peak and Treasury yields ...

Reuters Shares of car insurance and rental companies rallied on the Saudi Arabian stock market on Wednesday after news that women would be allowed to drive, although the broader market was flat. Qatar’s stock market fell sharply, ending a six-day winning streak. Saudi King Salman issued a royal decree lifting the driving ban; it will be implemented by June 24, ...

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. was ordered by a Dallas jury to pay more than $4 billion in damages for mishandling the estate of a former American Airlines executive, but the verdict will probably be knocked down on appeal. Jo Hopper and two stepchildren won the probate court verdict over claims that JPMorgan mismanaged the administration of the estate of ...

Bloomberg The European Central Bank’s (ECB) 113 billion euro corporate bond portfolio, accumulated as it propped up the euro zone economy with monthly asset purchases, has swept up debt from companies based outside the currency area. Bonds issued by non euro area firms account for 71 — or 7 percent — of the 1,009 securities bought by the ECB since ...

Bloomberg Thailand’s central bank held its benchmark interest rate near a record low, spurning the government’s call for policy easing as it painted a brighter outlook for the economy. Thailand’s Finance Ministry has been stepping up pressure on the central bank to cut interest rates as the currency surges and as inflation remains subdued. Economic growth is lagging peers in ...

Bloomberg Barclays Plc’s investment-banking boss, Tim Throsby, says he plans to reignite “commercial zeal” within the firm’s worst-performing unit, ending five years of risk-averse retrenchment that’s left traders trailing U.S. rivals. When he arrived at Barclays from JPMorgan Chase & Co. in January, Throsby found it was “very clear” staff had lost “a suitable focus on opportunities to deploy risk,” ...