Author: Press Room

This article is an on-site version of our Unhedged newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every weekday. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here, or explore all FT newslettersGood morning. Tired of uncertainty? Too bad: the Trump administration backtracked again on its tariffs on Canada and Mexico, giving a one-month reprieve to all goods compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the successor to Nafta that President Trump negotiated in 2020. All together now: No! One! Knows! Anything! Email us: robert.armstrong@ft.com and aiden.reiter@ft.com. Trump’s sensitivity to marketsOne of the standard clichés of Trump administration analysis is…

Dubai’s property market is racing towards a record bull run, with the Middle Eastern commercial hub’s buoyant economy and swelling population fuelling the longest price rally since the eve of the 2008 financial crash.Properties in Dubai sold for an average of Dh1,750 ($476.50) per square foot last month, according to data provider Reidin, a surge of 75 per cent from February 2021. Some question how long the meteoric price rises can continue in a city that has experienced two boom-bust cycles since its property market opened up in 2003.The 50-month rally is hurtling towards the 57-month record that ended with…

The Ebola outbreak in Uganda has worsened significantly, and the country’s ability to contain the spread has been severely weakened by the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign assistance, American officials said this week.The officials, representing a variety of health and security agencies, made the assessment during a meeting with U.S. Embassy staff in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, on Wednesday. An audio recording of the session was obtained by The New York Times.There have been two more deaths, the mother and newborn sibling of a 4-year-old who died last week, an American official said. The mother and sibling died earlier than…

Betty Bonney was already a veteran big-band vocalist at 17 when she joined Les Brown and His Orchestra in 1941 — in time to sing the praises of the New York Yankees star Joe DiMaggio as he was racking up his major-league-record 56-game hitting streak.While performing that summer at a club in Armonk, N.Y., in Westchester County, the band “got caught up in the streak,” Mr. Brown told Newsday in 1990, and “would announce it from the bandstand every night if Joe had gotten another hit, or if he was coming to bat late in the game still without a…

While Meghan Markle has been promoting her new Netflix show, “With Love, Meghan,” it appears that some viewers have no love for her.On Thursday, Markle appeared on Drew Barrymore’s talk show to discuss the lifestyle series, and to some, the interview wasn’t easy to watch.Towards the beginning of Markle’s segment, Barrymore discussed her interview style, which has been described as very touchy: “I like to connect… I’m such a warm person, and I love affection.”MEGHAN MARKLE IN ‘DIRE’ SITUATION AMID REBRAND RIDICULE: EXPERT Drew Barrymore admitted that she likes “to connect” with people during her interview with Meghan Markle. (“The…

LONDON: The United States is planning to charge fees for docking at US ports on any ship that is part of a fleet that includes Chinese-built or Chinese-flagged vessels and will push allies to act similarly or face retaliation, a draft executive order stated. The administration of US President Donald Trump is drafting the executive order in a bid to resuscitate domestic shipbuilding and weaken China’s grip on the global shipping industry. Addressing China’s growing dominance of the seas and diminishing US naval readiness is a rare point of consensus between US Republican and Democratic lawmakers. Chinese shipbuilders account for more…

Cryptocurrency falls as much as 6 percent as lack of plans for government purchases disappoints investors.United States President Donald Trump’s executive order to establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve and a stockpile of other digital assets has failed to impress crypto markets, with Bitcoin’s value plummeting following the announcement. Bitcoin fell as much as 6 percent following Trump’s order on Thursday, which did not include plans for the government to actively buy Bitcoin. After dropping as low as $84,900, the cryptocurrency was trading at about $87,700 as of 05:00 GMT. In a statement announcing the order, Trump’s crypto tsar David Sacks…

A number of immigration judges have accepted government payout offers to leave, a union official said on Thursday, further depleting an overwhelmed system that President Trump had promised to fortify.A total of 85 employees, including 18 judges, at the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review accepted the government’s deferred resignation offer or early retirement. The Trump administration previously fired 29 others from that office, according to the union official, including the office’s top leaders. About 40 of the more than 700 immigration judges in place when Mr. Trump took office have now been fired or agreed to leave.The judges,…

President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to create a national stockpile of Bitcoin and other digital currencies, an adviser said, an audacious idea that has been widely criticized as a scheme to enrich crypto investors.The basis of the stockpile will be a stash of Bitcoin, estimated to be worth as much as $17 billion, that the United States has seized in legal cases over the years, according to a summary of the order posted on social media by David Sacks, the White House’s crypto and A.I. policy czar.The order also calls for federal agencies to develop “budget-neutral strategies”…

Let’s buck the trend, a local marine biologist suggested.In 2018, as the Maldives, a nation of nearly 1,200 islands in the Arabian Sea, continued its transformation into a luxury tourist destination, the country’s handbook for resort developers called sea grass meadows in the country’s shallow lagoons “aesthetically unappealing,” suggesting that it was “very important from the tourist perspective that the growth of sea grasses is eliminated.” Resorts on the islands were known to smother their meadows with sprawling sheets of plastic laid across the ocean floor in order to offer visitors aquamarine waters with endless sandy bottoms. Never mind that…