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Bloomberg The US government shutdown has entered a second day. It’s likely to last at least until late in the week, and maybe into January, as the White House and Democrats remain at an impasse over President Donald Trump’s demand for billions of dollars in border wall funding. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate would adjourn for regular ...

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s allies are plotting to keep her in Downing Street for at least another two years, the Sunday Times reported, citing a senior cabinet minister it didn’t name. The plans being floated would see May hang on to power until the autumn of 2021 when she would hand over to a new Conservative leader, according ...

Bloomberg Protests led by the grassroots Yellow Vest movement abated across France on December 22, a signal that a call to mobilise for a sixth straight weekend failed to maintain the momentum. An estimated 23,800 protested nationwide, down from 33,500 at the same time a week ago, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported, citing the interior ministry. Authorities stopped 109 people ...

Bloomberg A new legal filing appears to ask the US Supreme Court to intervene for the first time in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 election. The document, which is under seal, stems from a December 18 federal appeals court ruling that required an unidentified company, owned by an unidentified foreign country, to turn over information to a ...

“You’re the top! You’re an Arrow collar. You’re the top! You’re a Coolidge dollar. You’re the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire, You’re Mussolini, You’re Mrs. Sweeny, You’re Camember.” A version of “You’re the Top,” Cole Porter (1934) In the early 1930s, when Benito Mussolini was one of the world’s most admired political figures, Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed in ...

It was one year ago that Bitcoin reached an intraday peak of almost $20,000. Since then, it’s been all downhill. The market value of all cryptocurrency assets have fallen to about $100 billion from about $800 billion at the start of the year. That looks bad, but if you look at the market’s fundamentals, 2018 gets a B+ grade. To ...

When you’re trying to build that tech dream, reality can really suck. Ofo Inc. founder Dai Wei apparently just discovered this, and the results were displeasing. His bike-rental company has immense cash flow problems and he’d even considered applying for bankruptcy, the Financial Times reported, citing a letter to employees. “For the whole of this year we’ve borne immense cash ...

Resisting unusual pressure from both politicians and notable market participants, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues on the Open Market Committee raised interest rates by 25 basis points and slowed the path for future hikes by less than markets hoped. In doing so, the central bank reaffirmed that its focus remains firmly domestic and economic. But markets’ reaction ...

What a difference two decades makes. In 1997, China’s gross domestic product (GDP) was about 11% of the US’. By 2017, it was up to 63%. But this overstates the difference in living standards between the two countries, since prices are generally lower in China. In purchasing-power-parity terms, China’s economy became the world’s largest in about 2013: So which country’s ...

There has been a ton written over the past few months — some but far from all of it inspired by Amazon.com Inc.’s “second headquarters” search — about the diverging economic fortunes of America’s metropolitan areas. A lot of it has been very interesting and informative. Taken as a whole, though, it can be pretty confusing. Are we, for example, ...