FBI Director James Comey is an institution man. So it must be especially painful to him that he is single-handedly undermining faith not only in the institution he leads, but in the propriety of a presidential election. Comey has been balancing the interests of those institutions, the FBI and the election, for months. In July, when he held a ...

  After winning the parliamentary confidence vote on Saturday, Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy tweeted, “We have a lot of work to do.” The premier realizes that the road ahead for him is fraught with formidable challenges. Rajoy was sworn in on Monday. He will name a new Cabinet on Thursday. The first thing that Rajoy has to do is ...

  Leave it to a couple of Mexican cement and metals companies to expose Donald Trump’s calumnies about the relatively buoyant American economy, its resurgent workers and the advantages of free trade. Trump overwhelmed 16 rivals in the Republican presidential primaries by vowing to build a wall across the southern border and scored his best debating points against Hillary Clinton ...

  Airbnb Inc. is all about progress and efficiency and win-win economic outcomes, right? Underused real estate is transformed into lodging for visitors. The owners of the real estate gain, the visitors gain, the local economy gains and Airbnb’s shareholders gain. Sure, hotel owners and employees have some reason to gripe as they lose business to largely unregulated competitors. But ...

  Bloomberg The growing list of OPEC members seeking exemptions from a planned supply cut has investors seeing future price drops. Money managers increased bets on lower West Texas Intermediate oil for the first time in five weeks as Iraq joined Iran, Nigeria and Libya in seeking to be excluded from OPEC’s first agreement to reduce output in eight years. ...

  Reuters Iraq published data showing a rare level of detail for its oil production and exports, a week after inviting energy reporters to Baghdad to make a case that the country is pumping more crude than analysts and OPEC acknowledge. The country’s state oil marketing agency released a statement showing September production figures for each of the 26 fields ...

  Bloomberg Egypt’s new wheat inspection program was met by relief from traders, who said the system will likely be easier to navigate and may lead to lower prices. The General Organization for Export and Import Control, or GOEIC, will be the sole state body responsible for wheat inspections at shipping and arrival ports, replacing government inspectors. The new system ...

  Reuters Saudi Arabia’s capital markets regulator approved rules for exchange-listed real estate funds on Sunday, as part of efforts to ramp up investment in the kingdom’s housing market. The kingdom requires private money to help finance construction of around 1.5 million homes planned over the next seven or eight years. In a bid to ease a shortage of affordable ...

  TEL AVIV / Reuters Egypt cancelled its three and nine month treasury bill auction on Sunday, data from the central bank showed, confounding market expectations of a steep hike in benchmark interest rates. Neither the bank nor the Finance Ministry gave any reason for the cancellation but bankers said banks had asked for yields the government found too high. ...

  Bloomberg Japan’s three biggest shippers agreed to combine their container operations to create the world’s sixth-largest box carrier, as the industry steps up consolidation this year amid a global turmoil in the sea-cargo business. Nippon Yusen KK, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd. and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd., which are predicting operating losses this year, will create a company that will ...