Deal’s architects say it will improve connectivity, choice and value, but consumers have heard that before

Nintendo super smashes it, Peloton powers ahead, Sonos Arc

Political sensitivities could be outweighed by workers’ construction expertise

Parka brand has no plans to change policy on down and says it is not bowing to pressure

Local news sites are experiencing a resurgence and streaming is more popular than ever

From business closures to movement restrictions, some countries’ policies show first signs of easing

Margin Call, the latest in a line of films on the crash of 2008, depicts a Wall Street investment bank’s last ditch attempts to save itself from impending disaster. Written and directed by first time feature director J.C.Chandor – and starring Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore and Jeremy Irons – The New Yorker called it “the best Wall Street movie ever made”. It’s been marketed as a thriller – but how do you create excitement when the action consists of men in suits peering at computer screens and talking on Blackberries? Does Margin Call have anything new to say on the much-debated causes of the collapse? Andrew Hill, FT management editor, puts these questions to Alex Preston, ex-City trader and author of This Bleeding City; Peter Aspden, FT arts writer; and Leo Robson, film and television critic. Produced by Griselda Murray Brown  

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As pop star Swift, 24, takes a stand against Spotify and dancer Guillem, 49, announces her retirement, Peter Aspden reflects on two very different divas  

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In lending one of its Parthenon sculptures to Russia, the British Museum has provoked Greece and exposed the hollowness of so-called ‘cultural diplomacy’  

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Middle-income countries plead for assistance as investors face pressure to negotiate

An attempt to solve Africa’s poverty riddle

Wales is getting it right on job creation if you ask me and Aston Martin

Commerce department investigation could lead to new tariffs on transformer parts

Proposed deal would create strong UK competitor to challenge BT

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Scientists co-operate on search for Covid-19 origins despite charges Beijing is withholding data

Filing opens door to potential sale of half of Virgin Group’s holding in space venture

Airline to axe up to 3,150 jobs and close London Gatwick operations as it scales back to save business

How Virgin Galactic might help the rest of the group escape the gravitational pull of coronavirus

Cyril Ramaphosa will be loath to take on the people who helped him to the ANC presidency

Regulatory action sought to prevent intervention from having unintended consequences

Those in pensions drawdown are at risk of  pound cost ravaging

UK lender is latest to warn coronavirus-induced economic disruption will hit its clients

The campaign has shone an unflattering light on the state of politics in America

The epidemic could weaken Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, feed conspiracy theories and lead to closed borders

Learning how to budget is a vital skill to master at the beginning of a career

Concerns over climate change led the chemicals veteran to dramatically transform Syngenta

AskRobin, an Estonia-founded fintech that operates a financial services marketplace for “underbanked” customers in Latin America, has picked up $1.7 million in funding. The seed round is backed by VC funds Change Ventures, Vereeni Early Stage Fund, BENE Asia Capital, and Lemonade Stand. In addition, a number of tech entrepreneurs from Estonia participated, such as […]

M&A activity has generally slowed down in the weeks since the novel coronavirus took a grip on the world, but there have been some pockets of activity in the tech industry when the price is right or when the divestment/acquisition just makes sense. The world of messaging brings us the latest development in that theme: SAP, […]

The regulators said “NO” when Telefonica tried to combine its O2 operations in the UK with rival carrier, Hutchison-owned Three, back in 2015. But Telefonica didn’t let go of the idea of divestment, and five years later, in the middle of a health pandemic with related threats of a global economic depression looming over us, […]

Suppliers that exploited cheaper labour hit by big wage bills for shuttered plants

Music streaming service Soundcloud is capitalizing on consumer demand for live entertainment amid the COVID-19 quarantine with the launch of its own slate of originally produced live programming. The company today announced its plans for a new Twitch channel where it will air live chat series and other panel conversations, plus music sets and shows […]

Tumblr is making a change to how it deals with hate speech on its blogging platform. The company announced today it will also remove the reblogs (repostings) from any blogs that were suspended for violating its policies around hate speech. Already, the company says it’s identified nearly 1,000 blogs that were banned for blatant violations […]

Xiaomi, Vivo, Samsung, Oppo and other smartphone companies have received approval from some state governments in India to partially resume manufacturing and assembling of devices amid the ongoing lockdown in the world’s second largest handset market that completely shut operations at these plants in late March. The companies said that they have secured permission to […]

Update: We mistakenly noted in an earlier version that Chaudhri had been a part of Microsoft’s Hololens team. The story has been updated to remove the reference.  In his two decades at Apple, Imran Chaudhri worked on many of the company’s most iconic product lines, including the iPhone, iPad and Mac. The designer left the […]

I see far more research articles than I could possibly write up. This column collects the most interesting of those papers and advances, along with notes on why they may prove important in the world of tech and startups. This week: one step closer to self-powered on-skin electronics; people dressed as car seats; how to […]

Xiaomi, Vivo, Samsung, Oppo and other smartphone companies have received approval from some state governments in India to partially resume manufacturing and assembling of devices amid the ongoing lockdown in the world’s second largest handset market that completely shut operations at these plants in late March. The companies said that they have secured permission to […]

E-commerce firms Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart, and ride-hailing giants Ola and Uber are partially resuming their services in India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government eased some restrictions late last week to revive economic activity that’s been stalled since the stringent stay-at-home orders were imposed across the nation in late March. The companies said in […]

As many Amazon workers called out sick for a May Day Strike, Tim Bray was spending his final day at the company. The VP and distinguished Engineer at Amazon Web Services announced today that May 1 was his final day with the retail giant, citing Amazon’s firings of vocally critical employees. Likely most notable for […]

Apple is providing a data set derived from aggregated, anonymized information taken from users of its Maps navigational app, the company announced today. The data is collected as a set of “Mobility Trends Reports,” which are updated daily and provide a look at the change in the number of routing requests made within the Maps […]

Update: We mistakenly noted in an earlier version that Chaudhri had been a part of Microsoft’s Hololens team. The story has been updated to remove the reference.  In his two decades at Apple, Imran Chaudhri worked on many of the company’s most iconic product lines, including the iPhone, iPad and Mac. The designer left the […]

Trust between the countries has deteriorated during the pandemic and is close to its lowest point since 1979

M&A activity has generally slowed down in the weeks since the novel coronavirus took a grip on the world, but there have been some pockets of activity in the tech industry when the price is right or when the divestment/acquisition just makes sense. The world of messaging brings us the latest development in that theme: SAP, […]

Japanese group joins other carmakers in restarting their manufacturing operations in Britain

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German supplier scraps outlook and warns smaller contractors could go out of business

Vericool, a Livermore, Calif.-based startup that’s replacing plastic coolers and packaging with plant-based products, has raised $19.1 million in a new round of financing. The company’s stated goal is to replace traditional packaging materials like polystyrene with plant-based insulating packaging materials. Its technology uses 100% recycled paper fibers and other plant-based materials, according to the […]

In a small suburb of Melbourne, two entrepreneurs are developing a technology that could mean big changes for the packaging industry. Stuart Gordon and Mark Appleford are the co-founders of Varden, a company that has developed a process to take the waste material from sugarcane and convert it into a paper-like packaging product with the […]

Michael Ovitz didn’t invent the idea of a talent agency, but one might argue that he perfected it. He founded the CAA in 1975, and grew it into the world’s leading talent agency, serving as chairman for 20 years. Now, Ovitz is investing in a brand new type of talent agency called Human Capital. Human […]