LONDON Rebekah Brooks will return to her old job heading Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper division, the Financial Times reported, just over a year after being cleared of criminal charges in a phone-hacking scandal. Her return to News Corp could be as soon as... More »
LONDON/BOSTON Investors are being poorly served by a haphazard approach from fund managers to the growing threat of cyber crime damaging the companies in which they invest, with a lack of clarity from the businesses themselves compounding the problem. Banks ha... More »
NEW YORK British actor Clive Owen swaps Hollywood for the stage in “Old Times”, making his Broadway debut in a revival of Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter’s 1971 play. The “Children of Men” and “Closer” actor, who has London theater credits to his name, will appea... More »
LONDON The piano used to play the glissando that kicks off ABBA’s disco hit “Dancing Queen” will be one of the star attractions at a rock and pop auction at Sotheby’s next month where it is expected to sell for up to 800,000 pounds ($1.24 million). The instrum... More »
WARSAW U.S. media group Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI.N) bought nearly all remaining shares in Polish broadcaster TVN TVN.WA, planning to delist the company from the Warsaw bourse GPW.WA, a brokerage running the deal said on Thursday. SNI, which already ow... More »
LONDON Benedict Cumberbatch delivered a “Hamlet” for our time in London in a production that played to his strengths, dresses up Shakespeare for a younger crowd and had the British actor’s fans roaring in approval at the end. Ever since the 12-week run was ann... More »
LONDON Volatile global markets got some respite from the latest blood-letting on Tuesday as bargain hunters nudged up Asian and European stocks, though China, at the center of the rout, was smashed again. The dollar and oil prices saw their first rises in five... More »
SINGAPORE Crude oil markets recovered slightly on Tuesday after a 6 percent drop in the prior session, although prices held near 6-1/2-year lows as continued weakness in Chinese equities triggered fears of an economic tailspin in the region. While global marke... More »
British IndyCar driver Justin Wilson died on Monday after suffering a severe head injury during a wreck in the closing laps of a race the previous day at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania, IndyCar officials said. He was 37. Wilson, a former Formula One driver and... More »
United States captain Juli Inkster opted for both experience and a vocal locker room presence in announcing Paula Creamer and Brittany Lang on Monday as her two wildcard picks for this year’s Solheim Cup. Creamer, 29, will make her sixth appearance in the bien... More »
LOS ANGELES Country singer Luke Bryan held onto the top spot of the weekly U.S. Billboard 200 album chart on Monday, holding off Ed Sheeran and Dr Dre. “Kill The Lights,” the fifth studio album from Bryan, sold 83,000 albums, 114,000 songs and was streamed 6.8... More »
LONDON/LOS ANGELES One Direction member Niall Horan said Monday that the hugely successful British boy band will take a “well earned break” next year, but are not splitting up. Horan, 21, told his 23 million fans on Twitter that the group will continue to tour... More »
NEW YORK Scotland’s Calvin Harris on Monday topped a Forbes list of the world’s highest paid DJs, earning an estimated $66 million in an annual payday that surpassed “Hunger Games” actress Jennifer Lawrence and reflected the explosion of electronic dance music... More »
FREETOWN Sierra Leone released its last confirmed Ebola patient from hospital on Monday and began a 42-day countdown to being declared free of the virus, medical sources said. The world’s worst known Ebola epidemic has raged in West Africa for more than 18 mon... More »
LONDON British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca named Sean Bohen as its chief medical officer, in an appointment that it said could help accelerate the development of new oncology and immunology medicines. AstraZeneca, Britain’s second biggest drugmaker behi... More »
AUSTIN, Texas The sweeping archives of award-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro will be heading to a University of Texas research library, including a discarded opening chapter for his best-known book, “The Remains of the Day,” the university said. The novelist, ... More »
COPENHAGEN European Tour journeyman Andreas Harto stole the show at the Made In Denmark event by proposing to his girlfriend during the tournament in Farso on Friday. The Dane celebrated sinking a five-foot birdie putt at the par-three 16th by going down on on... More »
ROME The museums that house masterpieces such as Michelangelo’s David and Botticelli’s Venus will soon be run by foreign directors for the first time as Italy overhauls what a senior official called its “sclerotic” museum management. Following an international... More »
JOHANNESBURG South African mobile phone operator Vodacom is in talks with pay-TV giant Naspers to deliver movies and television programs to mobile devices, it said on Monday, part of a search for new sources of income from fast-growing data consumers. “We are ... More »
BERLIN/FRANKFURT European scientists have revised their plans for the comet lander Philae and are now focusing on getting images and drill samples if communications are restored. After coming to rest in the shadows when it landed on a comet in November, Philae... More »
News Corp (NWSA.O) reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit on Wednesday, helped by cost cuts in its news and information services business that includes Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal. Shares of the company, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, rose a... More »
NEW YORK Oil ended up on Wednesday as a weaker dollar and lower U.S. crude stockpiles provided a modest bounce off six-year lows hit the previous session, when worries about China’s plummeting currency and economic slowdown deflated prices. Concerns that U.S. ... More »
NEW YORK The U.S. dollar fell on Wednesday to its lowest in about a month against a basket of major currencies, on doubts over whether the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in September given China’s devaluation of the yuan. The euro hit its highe... More »
LONDON British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor said on Wednesday he would take legal action based on copyright concerns after noting a close similarity between a huge stainless-steel, globe-like sculpture in China and his “Cloud Gate” sculpture in Chicago. The sc... More »
BERLIN British artist and anti-surveillance activist James Bridle is illuminating Germany with artwork exploring the darkest state secrets, cover-ups and information blackouts. Bridle’s “The Glomar Response”, showing this month at the newly opened Nome gallery... More »
Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline temporarily closed a North Carolina factory on Tuesday after testing at a cooling tower found bacteria that causes deadly Legionnaire’s disease. The Legionella bacteria were discovered during routine inspections at the site in Zebulon... More »
Zach Johnson acknowledges that long, difficult Whistling Straits is not his favorite PGA Championship venue, but do not rule him out this week. He tied for third at the Wisconsin course in 2010 and returns on an emotional high as the current holder of the olde... More »
Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline closed its North Carolina factory on Tuesday after testing at a cooling tower found bacteria that causes deadly Legionnaire’s disease, a company spokeswoman said. The Legionella bacteria was discovered during routine inspections at th... More »
LONDON Tadpoles are contracting a new, highly infectious disease that may be threatening frog populations worldwide, British scientists have found. A parasitic disease caused by single-celled microbes known as “protists” was found in the livers of tadpole samp... More »
LONDON/SYDNEY Economic headwinds facing Chinese manufacturers intensified last month, with conditions deteriorating to their weakest level in two years, while euro zone factories largely shrugged off Greece’s brush with bankruptcy. July was a fraught month for... More »
KUALA LUMPUR The head of world athletics vigorously defended the IAAF’s anti-doping record on Monday, as global sporting bodies called for a thorough probe of the latest allegations to plunge international sport into crisis. Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper an... More »
HONG KONG HSBC Holdings (HSBA.L) beat expectations with a 10 percent rise in first-half profit on Monday, driven by a strong performance in Hong Kong, and said it had agreed the sale of its unprofitable Brazilian unit. It said it had agreed to sell Banco Brade... More »
LONDON The dollar fell against a basket of currencies on Monday, weighed down by below-par wage growth data late last week that clouded the outlook over when U.S. interest rates are likely to rise. U.S. short-dated yields fell and the dollar was sold on Friday... More »
SINGAPORE Oil extended losses to multi-month lows on Monday on worries of oversupply as OPEC pumped at record levels in July, while weak China data stoked concerns about slower growth at the world’s second largest oil consumer. Oil output by the Organization o... More »
KUALA LUMPUR The head of world athletics said on Monday that any suggestion his organization had been negligent in drug testing of athletes was “laughable”. “There are allegations made, no evidence,” IAAF president Lamine Diack told Reuters in the Malaysian ca... More »
SYDNEY Headwinds for the world’s second-biggest economy intensified at the start of the third quarter, with manufacturing conditions in China deteriorating to their worst in two years in July and triggering fresh slides in global commodity prices. Similar busi... More »
SAO PAULO HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA.L) agreed to sell its Brazilian unit to Banco Bradesco SA (BBDC4.SA) for $5.2 billion, retreating from the second-largest emerging market economy after years of disappointing performance. Europe’s No. 1 bank said in a statemen... More »
SEOUL South Korea’s Park In-bee had once hoped to win all the top tournaments in women’s golf before her career came to an end. After winning the British Open on Sunday, the 27-year-old now finds herself searching for new goals. Park’s three-shot win over comp... More »
KUALA LUMPUR Olympic chiefs must pump more content to mobile devices, and extend the allure of the Games outside its 17-day window to stay relevant to young people, marketing guru Martin Sorrell said on Sunday. “You need to evolve to new consumption behaviors ... More »
ROME Italian police stopped California rapper Snoop Dogg on Friday as he prepared to board a private plane bound for Britain with $422,000 in cash in his Louis Vuitton luggage, said an Italian lawyer representing the entertainer. In the European Union, the max... More »
LONDON/GENEVA The world is on the verge of being able to protect humans against Ebola, the World Health Organization said on Friday, as a trial in Guinea found a vaccine to have been 100 percent effective. Initial results from the trial, which tested Merck... More »
LONDON Best-selling boy band One Direction released a surprise first single as a foursome on Friday, two days after former member Zayn Malik announced a new record deal as solo artist. “Drag Me Down” follows November’s “Night Changes” and is the first single t... More »
BERLIN/FRANKFURT The comet lander Philae may be uncommunicative at the moment, but the pictures and measurements it took after it touched down on a comet in November have shown scientists that the comet is covered with coarse material, rather than dust, and is... More »
LOS ANGELES A large street mural painted on a derelict Detroit auto factory by elusive British artist Banksy is going up for auction in Beverly Hills and could fetch up to $400,000 dollars for a local non-profit group, Julien’s Auctions said on Wednesday. The ... More »
LONDON European pay-TV group Sky said on Wednesday it expects to perform strongly in its new financial year after better-than-expected 2014/15 profits prompted investors to rethink their growth forecasts for the newly-enlarged group. Sky, formed from the combi... More »
BERLIN The German government’s panel of independent economic advisers favors creating an insolvency mechanism for euro zone states and says countries should be able to leave the single currency as a last resort. The Greek crisis has called into question the fu... More »
TORONTO Cheating spouses website AshleyMadison.com, facing hackers’ threats to leak clients’ nude photos and sexual fantasies, said it is heartened by some initial public response that sees the site as a victim. The website’s Canadian parent, Avid Life Media, ... More »
LONDON European shares retreated on Tuesday from their six-week high in the previous session, with the healthcare leading the market lower after Novartis (NOVN.VX) reported quarterly incomes below analysts’ expectations. The STOXX Europe 600 Healthcare Index .... More »
LONDON Lloyds (LLOY.L) is due to set out its dividend plans next week, including how and when it might return surplus capital to shareholders, making the stock more attractive ahead of a planned sale of some of the government’s shares to retail investors, indu... More »
LONDON Britain’s government is asking some departments to prepare to cut day-to-day spending by as much as 40 percent by the 2019/20 tax year, in a major spending review launched by Conservative finance minister George Osborne on Tuesday. The finance ministry ... More »
ST ANDREWS, Scotland No one should be surprised if Zach Johnson goes on to win several more majors because, even though he is approaching 40, the new British Open champion is working harder than ever and is performing at his peak. The American waited a long ti... More »
BANGKOK/HONG KONG U.S. fund giant BlackRock Inc (BLK.N) has won a special new licence that will allow it to raise funds in China directly for the first time, a senior executive told Reuters, paving the way for the world’s largest money manager to expand in the... More »
MELBOURNE Australian tennis officials want to clear the air with Bernard Tomic and reinstate the country’s estranged number one into the Davis Cup team for the semi-final against Britain. The controversial world number 29 was booted off the team before the qua... More »
SEOUL South Korean tycoon Chung Mong-joon, one of the most influential figures in Asian soccer, said on Tuesday that leaving Sepp Blatter at the helm of FIFA until a new president is elected shows those in power at the scandal-hit governing body “have yet to c... More »
SYDNEY Masters and U.S. Open champion Jordan Spieth will return to Sydney in late November to defend his Australian Open title, organizers said on Tuesday. The 21-year-old American won the Stonehaven Cup by six shots last year and with his recent run of form i... More »
LONDON British publisher Pearson (PSON.L) is exploring the sale of its Financial Times newspaper after receiving interest from potential buyers, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. Pearson was sounding out possible bidders for... More »
SAN FRANCISCO/LONDON Scientists are about to embark on the biggest search yet for alien life, sweeping the skies for signals of civilizations beyond our solar system with $100 million from a Russian billionaire and the backing of physicist Stephen Hawking. Whe... More »
LONDON Buckingham Palace scolded Rupert Murdoch’s top-selling Sun tabloid on Saturday for publishing a previously unknown film from 1933 that appears to show Britain’s Queen Elizabeth performing a Nazi salute as a young girl. The black-and-white film from the ... More »
LOS ANGELES From his classic 1967 Los Angeles pool scene “A Bigger Splash” to his interpretations of Yorkshire forests, British artist David Hockney has always injected the world around him with a vibrant palette, most recently in a study of perspectives. “Dav... More »
LONDON Britain’s newly elected Conservative government signalled on Thursday it would cut back the BBC, the opening salvo in a battle over the future of the world’s biggest public service broadcaster. Any attempt to change the 92-year-old broadcaster provokes ... More »
LONDON Britain’s telecoms regulator is seriously considering a break up of dominant provider BT, after rivals accused it of abusing its market position and failing to invest in the broadband networks they rely on. Ofcom floated the idea of a forced separation ... More »
LONDON A quarter of dogs competing in the world’s biggest dog show are overweight, scientists said on Monday. An analysis of canines at Britain’s Crufts show – held annually since the reign of Queen Victoria – found 74 percent were in ideal condition but 26 pe... More »
VIENNA A senior Iranian negotiator voiced hope on Monday that a nuclear deal with six major powers would be completed but cautioned that there was work to be done and he could not promise the talks would finish by Tuesday night, Iranian media reported. “I cann... More »
TORONTO Canada’s Jennifer Abel and Mexico’s Ivan Garcia won gold medals in their diving events at the Pan American Games on Sunday to earn automatic qualifying spots for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Abel, who won a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics, led the w... More »
LONDON Britain’s government will ask the BBC’s competitors to scrutinize the broadcaster’s remit and scale, the government said on Sunday, after years of controversy over how it has been funded. The BBC [TBBC.UL], the world’s largest broadcaster, has long been... More »
PARIS An attempt by Airbus to make history by crossing the English Channel in an electric plane ended in wounded pride on Friday after a French pilot claimed to have beaten it by hours. In a further twist, a Slovenian businessman said he might have beaten both... More »
TORONTO BlackBerry Ltd (BB.TO), which has been coy about its ambitions to make a mainstream Android smartphone, fueled more speculation about its plans this week when it scooped up two Android-related domain names. Several blog posts in the last two days have ... More »
MILAN British mobile phone giant Vodafone has reached an agreement with Mediaset to offer pay-TV content of the Italian broadcaster to its customers in the southern European country, the two companies said in a joint statement on Thursday. The offer, which bun... More »
LONDON Andy Murray goes to the dogs, or more precisely the puppies, in a video released on Tuesday which shows him playing at Wimbledon with five cocker spaniels being trained to become sniffer dogs. The six-week-old puppies are being raised by the Metropolita... More »
SYDNEY Nick Kyrgios has accused Olympic great Dawn Fraser of being a “blatant racist” after she said tennis players should “go back to where their parents came from” if they did not set a better example to Australian youth. The former champion swimmer, after i... More »
ATHENS Euclid Tsakalotos, the mild-tempered professor who was appointed as Greece’s new finance minister on Monday, is a clear change in style from his combative predecessor Yanis Varoufakis. The 55-year-old Tsakalotos studied at prestigious private London sch... More »
MONTREUX, Switzerland Pop star Lady Gaga and crooner Tony Bennett brought a mix of Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra and even Edith Piaf to a sell-out crowd spanning generations at the Montreux Jazz Festival on Monday night. Legendary producer Quincy ... More »
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A new app designed to educate young people about female genital mutilation (FGM) was launched in Britain on Tuesday amid a government crackdown on people who take girls abroad to undergo the practice during the summer holi... More »
MUNICH/FRANKFURT German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 and German publishing house Axel Springer have reignited talks for a merger, seeking to consolidate their push into digital media, two sources familiar with the matter said on Monday. Axel Springer, the publis... More »
WASHINGTON AstraZeneca LP has agreed to pay $46.5 million and Cephalon Inc [TEVAE.UL] $7.5 million to resolve allegations that the two drug companies underpaid rebates owed under the Medicaid program, the U.S. Justice Department said on Monday. (Reporting by E... More »
LONDON After three hours and two minutes of combat, Novak Djokovic and Kevin Anderson were forced off court in the twilight with their last 16 clash tantalizingly poised at two sets all and their Wimbledon audience begging for more. The match was halted as dus... More »
LONDON It was a case of 7-7-7 for Roger Federer at Wimbledon on Monday as he fired down seven aces, won seven games on the trot and sat through a seven-minute injury timeout in an otherwise serene 6-2 6-2 6-3 win over Roberto Bautista Agut. The Spaniard became... More »
LONDON Holder and top seed Novak Djokovic suffered an almighty scare against South African giant Kevin Anderson before bad light halted play with the score tied at two sets all in their fourth round match at Wimbledon on Monday. The world number one lost the f... More »
LONDON Unbeaten British boxer Tyson Fury will get a shot at the world heavyweight title in October after agreeing terms for a meeting with champion Wladimir Klitschko. The 39-year-old Ukrainian’s WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO crowns will be on the line when the pair m... More »
AMSTERDAM The Netherlands’ prime minister, Mark Rutte, said on Monday that Greece will have to accept deep reforms if it wants to remain in the euro zone. In a debate in parliament in the wake of Greece’s “No” vote on the terms of a bailout package from its cr... More »
CHICAGO The Grateful Dead gave what they say will be their last group performance on Sunday, playing to some 70,000 singing, dancing and tearful fans in Chicago’s Soldier Field. The four surviving members of the band ended their 50-year-run this weekend with t... More »
ZURICH Tunisia has filed an objection to HSBC’s agreement to pay 40 million Swiss francs ($43 million) to settle a money laundering investigation at its Swiss private bank, a lawyer representing the North African country said on Monday. After four months of in... More »
LONDON The sun was out for double-Grammy-award-winning U.S. rapper Kendrick Lamar this weekend as he performed an energetic set of his hits to an enraptured young North London crowd. On stage at the Wireless festival on Saturday, less than a week after winnin... More »
ZURICH Tunisia has filed an objection to HSBC’s agreement to pay 40 million Swiss francs ($42.5 million) to settle a money laundering investigation at its Swiss private bank, Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported on Sunday. After four months of inquiries Ge... More »
LONDON British finance minister George Osborne plans to launch a 650 million pound raid on the BBC to help cover the country’s benefits bill, forcing the corporation to meet the cost of free television licences for the over-75s, the Sunday Times said. It quote... More »
LONDON A restored World War Two Spitfire which was shot down over northern France in 1940 is expected to raise about $3 million for charity when it goes up for auction in London next week. The wreckage of the Vickers Supermarine Spitfire Mk.1A was recovered in... More »
SAO PAULO Swiss lender UBS AG made a whistleblower deal with Brazilian authorities investigating the suspected rigging of Brazil’s currency market and will receive no punishment in the case, a local newspaper reported on Friday. The investigation, which involv... More »
LONDON The British Broadcasting Corporation will cut more than 1,000 jobs to cover a 150-million-pound gap in license fee income next financial year as millions of viewers turn off their televisions and watch programs on tablets and mobile phones. The BBC, the... More »
TOKYO Oil futures hovered below three-week lows on Tuesday as investors waited for developments in Greece following a bank shutdown, keeping them away from riskier assets and putting Brent crude on course for a second month of declines. Brent crude futures wer... More »
DUBAI Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, departed Tehran for Vienna with nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi and Hossein Fereydoon, a brother and close aide to President Hassan Rouhani, for nuclear talks, state news agency IRNA reported on Tuesday. Zari... More »
WASHINGTON More than half a billion years ago, a peculiar little creature with rows of spikes on its back and delicate, feather-like front limbs to strain bits of food from the water thrived in the primordial seas of what is now China. Scientists on Monday ann... More »
BRUSSELS The European Union reached a preliminary deal on Tuesday to scrap mobile roaming charges across the 28-country bloc by June 2017 as part of an overhaul of the continent’s telecoms market to boost growth and innovation. “Under the agreement, roaming su... More »
PARIS Chris Froome struggled for form, then crashed but the Briton looks ready just in time to compete for a second Tour de France title although micro managers Team Sky will struggle to control the race like they usually do. Froome, who claimed the 2013 Tour ... More »
PARIS Hot prospects Warren Barguil and Simon Yates have been tipped to win the Tour de France one day, yet neither is riding for a team from their home country as they learn the ropes abroad. France’s Barguil, 23, is with Dutch team Giant-Alpecin while Briton ... More »
LONDON Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams made strong cases for the less is more approach to Wimbledon build-ups with resounding victories at a sunny All England Club on Monday. Defending men’s champion Djokovic, who has been training in the south of France ra... More »
NEW YORK Aerialists descend in a giant chandelier and lift a guest back up with them, a showgirl leads an audience member back in time to a 1920s Parisian nightclub and actors single out guests for a mysterious experience yet to come. Immersive theater product... More »
CANNES (This version of the story corrects figures on Publicis contract wins, paragraph 13) The reluctance of big companies to spend at a time of lacklustre global growth and fewer major sporting events this year are dampening demand for advertising, said the ... More »
LONDON Harry Potter, the world’s most famous boy wizard, is set to make his debut on the London stage next year in a new play called the Cursed Child which has been created in collaboration with author J.K. Rowling. Rowling said on her Twitter feed that the ne... More »
