Bloomberg The UK economy looks to have finished 2016 on a high. That’s according to the latest Bloomberg News survey of economists, which predicts 0.5 percent growth in the fourth quarter. That would follow expansion of 0.6 percent in both the third and second quarters. The Office for National Statistics will publish the data on Jan. 26 in London. ...

  Bloomberg California’s utilities are asking for more than $1 billion to spend on electric car-charging stations that will help the state meet its goal of getting 1.5 million zero-emissions vehicles on the road by 2025. Edison International’s Southern California Edison utility asked state regulators for permission to collect $570 million from customers over five years to pay for, among ...

  WASHINGTON / AP Pledging emphatically to empower America’s “forgotten men and women,” Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States on Friday, taking command of a riven nation facing an unpredictable era under his assertive but untested leadership. Under cloudy, threatening skies at the West Front of the US Capitol, Trump painted a bleak picture ...

  PESHAWAR / AP A bomb exploded Saturday in a market in a northwest tribal region that borders Afghanistan, killing 20 people and wounding at least 50, officials said. Dr Sabir Hussain at the main hospital in Parachinar, the capital of Pakistan’s Kurram tribal region, said two wounded victims died during treatment, raising the death toll. Shahid Khan, an assistant tribal ...

  BEIJING / AP At least two people were killed and 10 others are missing after a hotel in central China was buried in a landslide, the local government reported on Saturday. Crews were working to dig out those trapped in the Mirage Hotel that was struck by the disaster around 7:30 p.m. on Friday, the government of Nanzhang county in ...

  BANJUL / AP As Gambia’s defeated authoritarian ruler prepares to leave the country, human rights activists demand that he be held accountable for alleged abuses. Yahya Jammeh announced early Saturday he will cede power, after hours of last-ditch talks with regional leaders and the threat that a regional military force would forcibly remove him. No date has been set for ...

  BEIJING / AP People in Beijing expressed doubts on Saturday about President Donald Trump’s ability to steer the US economy and manage China-American relations, underscoring concerns over trade, Taiwan and other issues. While Trump didn’t mention China in his inaugural address on Friday, he referred often to the country during the campaign and upended diplomatic protocol after the election by ...

  KOBLENZ / AP French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen declared on Saturday that 2017 will be the “year of the awakening of the people of continental Europe” as she joined fellow nationalist leaders in Germany at the beginning of a year of high-stakes national elections. Le Pen was joined by the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, Matteo Salvini of Italy’s Northern League ...

  ISTANBUL / AP Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has started campaigning for constitutional reforms that would greatly expand the powers of his office, hours after a vote in parliament cleared the way for a national referendum on the issue. Speaking in Istanbul on Saturday, he hailed the assembly’s early-morning decision and said “God willing the people will give the true ...

  Bloomberg The US defense agency that helped invent the Internet is now looking at blockchain, the database technology behind the digital currency bitcoin, to help protect the networks its research made possible. The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, an R&D arm of the military, has funded several startups and technology companies, such as Guardtime Federal LLC, while others including ...