HOW do you best judge the success of an airline? One obvious way is to ask whether lots of people fly with it, and if it makes pots of money for shareholders. Judged on these metrics, few can quibble with the direction that British Airways is heading. Last year 42.1m people flew with the airline, […]
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JULY 4th is a day to celebrate American independence, first and foremost, but also to grill meat and swill beer. For American beer lovers in particular, the pint-glass runneth over in terms of choice. They had 5,000 breweries to pick from this year; 35 years ago there were under 100. Drinkers can enjoy time-honoured traditions, […]
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JUSTIN WILLIAMS takes off a virtual-reality (VR) headset and wobbles away from a demo area at E3, the world’s largest gaming convention, in Los Angeles. The bottoms of his feet and calves are “on fire,” he says. Mr Williams, a 32-year-old former marine, was playing “Sprint Vector”, a VR running game: players swing hand-held controllers […]
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THE European Commission celebrated 25 years of the EU’s internal aviation market in June. The liberalisation of European aviation, which allowed EU carriers to fly between any airport within the bloc, opened the skies to the masses. Greater choice of airlines has cut fares—by as much as 96% between Paris and Milan since 1992, for […]
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NIKLAS OSTBERG spent much of his youth as a competitive cross-country skier in Sweden. Then he ditched his skis for a less healthy cause. A decade ago he founded a firm that matched online pizza orders to restaurants. It grew into Delivery Hero, a Berlin-based service that last year dispatched nearly 200m takeaway dinners to […]
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OUTSIDE a squat grey building in Santa Monica, the California sun melts the tar. Inside, in a dark room roughly the size of a small shipping container, two men are exploring the world by means of virtual reality (VR). They squash spiders in an abandoned temple, hit a home run at Yankee Stadium and float […]
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HE WAS back in favour, or so it appeared. After spending several months under house arrest in late 2014, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, a Russian oligarch, relinquished control of Bashneft, a midsized oil firm, to the state. “If you like another company tomorrow and want to take it, you are welcome,” he told Vladimir Putin at the […]
Read moreThe US housing finance system continues to put taxpayers at risk in a market dominated by government-backed agencies, Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell said on Thursday, calling for further reform of an “unsustainable” situation. A decade after doubts about the creditworthiness of mortgage-backed securities helped trigger the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, systemic […]
Read moreThe number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose for a third straight week last week, likely as some automakers closed assembly plants for the annual summer retooling. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 248,000 for the week ended July 1, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Data […]
Read moreCurrency, United States Finance
President Donald Trump on Thursday explicitly endorsed NATO’s mutual defense clause after failing to do so during his previous European trip. Speaking in Warsaw, Poland, Trump defended his calls for allies in the 28-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization to pay more for their defense. He then endorsed Article 5, which ensures that allies will come […]
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