US job gains since financial crisis wiped out. Switzerland faces sharpest economic contraction since 1974. UK and eurozone business activity hit by historic collapse this month as lockdowns choked Europe’s biggest economies.

In today’s news: UK warns it would be ‘irresponsible’ to discuss easing lockdown. Spain sets out plan to lift its own tough measures. Donald Trump signals a halt to his daily media briefings as US death toll accelerates.

New daily cases of Covid-19 around the globe rose by the lowest amount in 12 days as 73,858 diagnoses were confirmed on Sunday, bringing the total to 2.93m

Deaths in England and Wales are highest on record in mid-April while cases in the US surpass 1m

Eurozone GDP in historic fall, millions more Americans file for unemployment, Shell cuts dividend for first time since second world war and UK's AstraZeneca combines with Oxford on a potential vaccine

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The US private sector shed a record 20m jobs in April as coronavirus lockdowns and the resulting closure of non-essential businesses led to historic joblessness

Swiss company announces ‘challenging’ results a day after its chief executive quit

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

Pharma and chemicals group says it will ‘defend itself vigorously’ amid mounting cases

The Nobel laureate talks to Anjana Ahuja

Welcome to Due Diligence, the FT’s daily deals briefing

Concern over use of chemicals drives research into alternatives

German chemicals group faces surge in plaintiffs alleging cancer link to Roundup

Deal to create one of world’s biggest chemicals groups beset by management clashes

Welcome to Due Diligence, the FT’s daily deals briefing

US flavouring group seeks first-mover advantage with purchase of nutrition venture

Move boosts chemicals group’s growing sports investment portfolio

Cheap shale gas has fed an investment boom in products that often end up as waste. Has the petrochemicals industry miscalculated?

Mark Cutifani says polyhalite a ‘very differentiated’ product to potash

Rise in plaintiffs comes as German chemicals group reports 19% jump in sales

German chemicals group blames Brexit and trade tensions for earnings fall

Amid charges of greenwashing from activists, the private company is investing in football, cycling and other ventures

Zeitgold has raised a Series B round of $29.2 million (€27 million). Overall, the company has raised more than $54 million (€50 million). The company is building a software platform for small companies to automate bookkeeping as much as possible. Vintage Investment Partners is leading today’s round with existing investors Battery Ventures, HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, […]

Like other accelerators, Techstars, a network of more than 40 corporate and geographically targeted startup bootcamps, has had to bring its marquee demo day events online. Over the last two weeks of April, industry-focused accelerators working with startups building businesses around mobility technologies (broadly) and the future of the home joined programs in Abu Dhabi, […]

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 […]

Banked, a London-based fintech using open banking to enable account-to-account payments at checkout (and beyond), has raised £2.35 million in further seed funding. The round was led by Force Over Mass, with participation from previous investors Backed and Acrew Capital, along with a number of high-net-worth individuals, such as Paul Forster (co-founder of Indeed.com). It […]

Meet Kairn, a new startup coming out of stealth today with a sneak peek of what the company has been working on. As Wunderlist shuts down, Kairn wants to prove that there’s still room for an innovative task-management service. “We’re building a task manager that is smart and focused on capturing tasks,” co-founder and CEO […]

VC fund Runa Capital was launched with $135 million in 2010, and is perhaps best known for its investment into NGINX, which powers many web sites today. In more recent years it has participated or led investments into startups such as Zipdrug ($10.8 million); Rollbar this year ($11 million); and Monedo (for €20 million). HQ’d […]

Countingup, the business current account that “automates” your accounting, has raised £4 million in self-described bridge funding. Leading the round is ING Ventures, with co-investment from Triple Point, CVentures, and BiG Start Ventures. Founded by Tim Fouracre, who previously founded cloud accounting software Clear Books, and now boasting 20,000 business customers, Countingup’s long term vision […]

Deep Render, a London startup and spin-out of Imperial College that is applying machine learning to image compression, has raised £1.6 million in seed funding. Leading the round is Pentech, with participation from Speedinvest. Founded in mid-2017 by Arsalan Zafar and Chri Besenbruch, who met while studying Computer Science at Imperial College London, Deep Render […]

Cuckoo Internet is a new U.K. startup that aims to disrupt the U.K. broadband market. It has now raised £470,000 in seed funding, which includes funding from work.fund, a new Silicon Valley fund operator fund led by Bart Macdonald (Sapling founder). Other investors include Lorin van Nuland (early investor in Betterment), Edward Campbell-Harris (Bulb early […]

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Under lockdown, vulnerable families are imprisoned in a cage of terror, stress and abuse

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As US health workers suffer from inadequate protection, there are signs of a shifting world order