Author: Press Room

Last Friday’s power outage in Heathrow Airport disrupted vacations across the world, causing countless thousands of travelers to miss prepaid reservations and forgo long-anticipated adventures.Among them were Sheila Addison, a therapist from Seattle, who missed out on a four-day whisky-tasting in the Scottish Highlands, forfeiting a $500 nonrefundable hotel room and a rare break from her work routine; Zachary Wang and friends from Brown University, who lost $260 in “Les Misérables” tickets, $180 from an Airbnb reservation and two days of spring break in London; and Steve Wehr of Hyde Park, N.Y., who missed two days in Jordan — including…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The Chinese owner of British Steel has rejected a £500mn lifeline offer from the UK government, raising fears about thousands of jobs at the steelmaker. A letter sent by the government to Jingye on Monday had offered the money to sustain the business and help it switch to greener production, following almost two years of rescue talks between UK officials and the company.However, Jingye sent a letter to the government on Wednesday in which it turned down the approach, according to people…

A Webb County, Texas grand jury has indicted a man nearly a decade after he allegedly attempted to sexually assault the mother of nine children and killed her as she was walking home from work.Using advanced forensic methods, investigators with the Texas Rangers and Laredo Police Department identified 42-year-old Sergio Mendez as the culprit who allegedly killed 33-year-old Janette Escamilla Jaramillo of Laredo, Texas, in 2016.The Texas Rangers said in a press release that on May 18, 2016, Jaramillo left work to go home at about midnight, though she never made it to her destination.Jaramillo’s body was discovered under a…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Wall Street bankers are getting jam tomorrow, and jam yesterday, but not much jam today. Jefferies Financial Group confirmed on Wednesday what most executives and investors already sensed: the profit picnic they expected this year was taking longer than anticipated.Jefferies is an oddity among financial firms. Its fiscal year starts on December 1, so its quarterly earnings appear a month before rivals, which generally begin their year in January instead. Since Jefferies chief Rich Handler is among Wall Street’s longest-tenured CEOs, such…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order that he said imposes 25 per cent tariffs on the auto industry, saying the duty would go on all vehicles made outside the U.S. starting April 2. The announcement is the latest in a set of tariffs that Trump has vowed against various countries since taking office, but the auto-specific duties have been floated by the president for weeks.“This is the beginning of Liberation Day in America,” Trump said. “Before I was elected, we were losing all of our plants that were being built in Mexico and Canada and other places. Now,…

Queenslanders are in for another week of rain, with falls of up to 200mm expected amid warnings heavy rain could lead to flash flooding.A severe weather warning has been issued for those in the Maranoa and Warrego as well as parts of the Central Highlands and Coalfields, Central West and Channel Country forecast districts.Heavy rainfall is set to continue over the southern interior on Thursday before moving further south and east.“Heavy rainfall which may lead to flash flooding is likely to continue through the warning area during the rest of today, with a general southward trend of the heaviest falls,”…

Newly released Signal texts showed what was at stakeMore messages were released yesterday from a Signal group chat between President Trump’s top security officials laying out plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen. The Atlantic — whose editor in chief had been inadvertently added to the group, and who first wrote about the leak on Monday — published a fuller transcript. The leaked chat led to mounting calls by Democrats for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to step down, saying he had behaved recklessly and could have endangered American troops. Hegseth revealed the precise timing of the strikes on Houthi targets.Tulsi…

Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed on Wednesday that he took part in the group chat on the Signal app earlier this month among top United States officials ahead of American airstrikes in Yemen and said that someone had made a “big mistake” by adding a journalist to the group.Mr. Rubio’s remarks were the most candid yet made by a cabinet member — and by a participant in the Signal group — on the presence of Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, in the chat. Democratic lawmakers and some Republican ones have said that his addition, as…

The U.S. military has conducted strikes against Houthi militia targets in Yemen daily since March 15, but the Pentagon has not provided details about the attacks since March 17, when it said more than 30 Houthi targets had been hit on the first day.The military’s Central Command posts images on social media of jets conducting missions against the Houthis, an Iranian-backed group, but it has refused to disclose how many targets have been struck so far or to identify the several Houthi commanders it says it has killed.The strikes in Yemen are at the center of a debacle involving Defense…

The NFL offseason is well underway, and while the upcoming NFL Draft will shake things up even more, there has been no shortage of roster-altering moves. The biggest, of course, have come at quarterback. We’re still waiting for one big domino (Aaron Rodgers) to fall, but we’ve already seen huge shifts in the QB landscape. No. 1, of course, was the Seattle Seahawks trading Geno Smith to the Las Vegas Raiders before signing former Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold to be their new signal caller.How did those moves, and all of the others made so far this offseason, affect their…