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For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Banks suffered another poor session on Friday as Deutsche Bank became the latest financial firm to start putting traders on edge. Europe’s biggest markets all dropped in value as uncertainty once again rippled through. It came after particular worries about Deutsche Bank caused shares to drop by more than 14% before midday on Friday and credit default swaps – which are used by Deutsche’s bondholders as insurance should it fail – soared. Shares in the company reduced their losses slightly as investors suggested another Credit Suisse scenario was not of the horizon, but sentiment remained dented. Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said: “It looks like the banking crisis isn’t solved. Recommended Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide … [Read more...] about Banks drag European markets lower amid Deutsche Bank woes

Secretive talks in the waning days of a campaign. Furtive phone calls. Ardent public denials. American history is full of October surprises — late revelations, sometimes engineered by an opponent, that shock the trajectory of a presidential election and that candidates dread. In 1880, a forged letter ostensibly written by James A. Garfield claimed he wanted more immigration from China, a position so unpopular it nearly cost him the election. Weeks before the 1940 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s press secretary kneed a Black police officer in the groin, just as the president was trying to woo skeptical Black voters. (Roosevelt’s response made history: He appointed the first Black general and created the Tuskegee Airmen.) But the scandal that has ensnared Donald J. Trump, the paying of hush money to a pornographic film star in 2016 , is in a rare class: an attempt not to bring to light an election-altering event, but to suppress one. The payoff to Stormy Daniels that has a … [Read more...] about Donald Trump, and the Sordid Tradition of Suppressing October Surprises

In lucrative paid speeches that Hillary Clinton delivered to elite financial firms but refused to disclose to the public, she displayed an easy comfort with titans of business, embraced unfettered international trade and praised a budget-balancing plan that would have required cuts to Social Security, according to documents posted online Friday by WikiLeaks. The tone and language of the excerpts clash with the fiery liberal approach she used later in her bitter primary battle with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and could have undermined her candidacy had they become public. Mrs. Clinton comes across less as a firebrand than as a technocrat at home with her powerful audience, willing to be critical of large financial institutions but more inclined to view them as partners in restoring the country’s economic health. In the excerpts from her paid speeches to financial institutions and corporate audiences, Mrs. Clinton said she dreamed of “open trade and open borders” throughout … [Read more...] about Leaked Speech Excerpts Show a Hillary Clinton at Ease With Wall Street

Nine in 10 foodbanks fear running out of supplies to hand to hungry families, a heartbreaking study revealed tonight. Seventy per cent of outlets said they were “extremely” or “very concerned” about their “ability to continue to support” those in need amid the cost-of-living crisis. Another 23% who responded to the SurveyMonkey study for the BanktheFood network were “somewhat concerned”. Some 97% of foodbanks which answered the poll reported surges in demand over the past 12 months as the living standards disaster crisis gripped Britain. The biggest increase was seen among working families with children aged under 12, with 26% of foodbanks reporting rises in demand from these households. The next biggest was from households with children under 12, in a home where no-one worked. Read More Foodbanks are struggling to keep up with demand ( Image: Getty Images) Three per cent of foodbanks said the biggest increase came from “working people in public services such … [Read more...] about Foodbanks fear they will run out of supplies for hungry families as crisis bites

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email The reaction to some of his pledges was “a sharp intake of breath ”, Keir Starmer said on Thursday. He welcomed that because “nobody can doubt the scale of our ambition, nor its urgency”. I fear he may be misinterpreting the responses. People are not saying to him, “That will be really difficult, but we admire your determination to push the system.” They are saying, “Are you out of your mind?” In his speech in Stoke , the Labour leader started to put numerical targets on some of his promises on crime. Two in particular were striking. He promised to halve knife crime, and to halve violence against women and girls. Everyone should want these things, but how do you change human behaviour on this scale? Starmer said about knife crime: “We know so much of this is about prevention, about pulling young boys back … [Read more...] about Keir Starmer’s impossible promises are harder to believe than Rishi Sunak’s

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Pack away the sidewalk tables and flip-flops; break out the boots and shovels. Nature was showing its fickle side on Wednesday, with blizzard conditions, heavy snow and frigid air pounding parts of the Rockies and the Plains, just a day after the weather was sunny and idyllic. Schools and highways were shut down, hundreds of flights were canceled, and some communities braced for floods. The storm, caused by a low-pressure system moving east from the Pacific Ocean, dropped temperatures by up to 50 degrees in places like Denver, where it was sunny and in the mid-70s on Tuesday but reached the mid-20s by Wednesday night. The low-pressure system was affecting areas from Colorado to Michigan, with heavy snow and thunderstorms, and even down into Texas, where dry conditions and high winds led to wildfire warnings. While the whipsawing forecasts drew groans, they did not come as much of a surprise to those familiar with springtime in the Plains and the Rockies. … [Read more...] about Blizzard Hits Central U.S. a Day After States Bask in Spring Sunshine

The Mexican president wanted cherry trees. It was 1930, and President Pascual Ortiz Rubio had seen them lining the streets of Washington and desired the same beautiful spectacle for his country’s capital. To try to fulfill the leader’s request, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs tapped Tatsugoro Matsumoto, a Japanese immigrant who tended the gardens of Chapultepec, then the presidential residence in Mexico City. But winters in the capital were not cold enough for the cherries to fully blossom, the expert gardener said. The president wouldn’t get his hanami, the flower-contemplation ritual the Japanese celebrate every spring. At least not a pink one. If cherries were not suitable for the Mexican capital, another tree with colorful flowers might do the trick: jacarandas. Mr. Matsumoto had already advised another president to plant jacarandas in the city. But those were the post-revolutionary years when there were few government resources to spend on … [Read more...] about ‘Merchant of Landscapes’: The Lasting Footprint of a Japanese Gardener in Mexico