Headlines

The European Central Bank shouldn’t hurry into cutting rates further, given that inflation in the eurozone has reached its target level, the president of Germany’s Bundesbank said Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported. “We should continue to make decisions on a meeting-by-meeting basis depending on the data and not rush into anything,” Joachim Nagel said in a speech in Frankfurt. The ECB earlier this month lowered its key interest rate to 2% from 2.25%, its eighth cut since June 2024.

The European Union’s executive arm proposed a sweeping ban on imports of Russian oil and gas by the end of 2027, a major step in the bloc’s efforts to sever its energy ties with Moscow, the Wall Street Journal reported. “Russia has repeatedly attempted to blackmail us by weaponizing its energy supplies,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday.

Just three years ago, Bowling Green, Ky., was celebrating the largest industrial investment ever made in the city, a new sprawling electric-vehicle battery factory that would create 2,000 jobs. Today, the building is there. The jobs aren’t, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The Chinese-owned company behind the factory quietly stopped working on the $2 billion plant last September, according to current and former employees. Now there is just a massive metal shell of a building with no interior equipment.

Two decades ago, China shocked the United States with its ability to make and ship things fast and inexpensively on a scale never before seen, the New York Times reported. The resulting surge of exports reshaped America’s economy and its politics. Today, a new China shock is cascading across the globe from Indonesia to Germany to Brazil. As President Trump’s tariffs start to shut China out of the U.S., its biggest market, Chinese factories are sending their toys, cars and shoes to other countries at a pace that is reshaping economies and geopolitics.

In their fourth day of fighting, with no end in sight, ripples from the Israeli-Iranian conflict are beginning to rock global supply chains, Bloomberg News reported. Some oil tanker owners and managers have paused offering their vessels for Middle Eastern routes as they assess the risks, fueling concerns over export flows from the region. The stability of shipping in and around the Middle East will be closely watched by markets in coming weeks.

A consortium led by U.S. investment firm RedBird Capital Partners has agreed to buy the publisher of Britain’s 170-year-old Daily Telegraph newspaper for about 500 million pounds ($674 million), the two sides said Friday, the Associated Press reported. Redbird said it has reached an agreement in principle to become controlling owner of the Telegraph Media Group, ending a lengthy takeover saga for the conservative-leaning newspaper.

The Bank of Japan on Tuesday left its policy settings unchanged amid ongoing trade uncertainty and announced that it would slow the pace of its bond-buying reduction after April 2026, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Japanese central bank held its policy rate steady at 0.5%, where it has remained since its last hike in January. BOJ Gov. Kazuo Ueda has said the bank will continue to consider further interest rate increases, depending on economic conditions.

The consumer landscape in China was very different in the 1990s, when Häagen-Dazs and Starbucks ventured in with premium products that were alien to most people, Bloomberg reported. They made huge inroads nonetheless, opening outlets at breakneck pace and raking in revenue. But times are changing, and they, like many other Western brands, are reassessing their approach to the world’s second-biggest economy, including possibly selling their businesses. General Mills, which owns Häagen-Dazs, is working on a potential sale of its more than 250 stores in China. Starbucks Corp.

A record share of the world’s central banks plans to accumulate more gold over the next 12 months, drawn by bullion’s performance during times of crisis and protection against inflation, Bloomberg reported. In a survey of 72 monetary authorities, 43% said they expected their gold reserves to increase, up from 29% a year earlier and the highest figure in eight years of data collected by the World Gold Council and YouGov. None anticipated a decline. Central banks have been one of the most important drivers of a long-running gold rally that has seen prices double since late-2022.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert J. Faris has ordered Imperial Pacific International to show cause why its chapter 11 bankruptcy case should not be dismissed or converted to chapter 7, Marianas Variety reported. Judge Faris wants IPI to provide proof that it has renewed or replaced its recently expired liability insurance policy by June 19. If not, he said the court will enter an order dismissing IPI’s case without further notice or hearing. IPI operated a casino on Saipan for four years until the COVID-19 pandemic forced its closure in March 2020.