Pope Leo meets Trump foe Bad Bunny
Puerto Rican rapper has become a symbol of cultural resistance to US president
FirstFT: KMT leader urges US and China not to treat Taiwan as ‘pawn’
Also in today’s newsletter: Apollo hunts for a Japanese life insurer, and Chinese exports climb
US launches strikes on Iran after downing of American helicopter
Washington says attack is ‘proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression’
Oil slides as US official says Hormuz transits are ‘meaningfully’ climbing
Energy secretary Chris Wright cautions that flows through the strait will take months to fully recover
Apollo hunts for Japanese life insurer to boost growth
US asset manager may face regulatory hurdles amid preference for domestic players
GM bets on homegrown battery tech to challenge Chinese dominance
US carmakers pivot to energy storage batteries for AI as they seek to counter weak electric vehicle sales
Taiwan’s opposition leader tells US and China not to use her country as ‘pawn’
KMT chair calls for more dialogue between Taipei and Beijing in FT interview ahead of her visit to Washington
Transcript: Why are investors so jumpy?
Robert Armstrong speaks to Daire MacFadden
Nasdaq slips in volatile trading as 2026 high-flyers pull back
Losses for AI-linked stocks overshadow gains across rest of market
Why are investors so jumpy?
What’s driving market volatility?
The hard truths about England’s receding coastline
The entire shoreline cannot be protected from erosion, but the state can mitigate future fallout
Do black holes do more than devour matter?
The supermassive one at the centre of our galaxy is surprisingly windy — spitting material out as well as taking it in
Starmer to tell ministers to quit if they back Burnham
Supporters of Greater Manchester mayor say he already has enough MPs to launch a leadership challenge
GSK’s $10.6bn cancer deal will lead to more
Making additional moves would be in keeping with pharma group’s strategy of building its pipeline as fast as possible
Space strawberry grower grows share count before strawberries
Extract on space, repent at leisure
The Fed is going to have to rethink its global role
Stabilising the finances of another country is a foreign policy decision as well as an economic one
The truth is absurdly out there in Spielberg’s alien romp Disclosure Day
Emily Blunt steadies the ship alongside Josh O’Connor in a careening film of little grey men and vast conspiracies
The Vivisectors — campus novel meets omen of environmental doom
An untameable garden lays siege to an unnamed university town in Missouri Williams’s disquieting apocalyptic fable
Maureen Lipman gives a tour-de-force performance — but Allegra hits the wrong note
The actor plays an elderly eccentric in this awkwardly pitched musical about ageing at London’s Richmond Theatre
Pentagon restores Alibaba, Baidu and BYD to Chinese military groups blacklist
Three companies reinstated as US national security risk after sudden removal in February
Boots in talks over $10bn sale as owners look to ditch IPO plan
Weston family and Australian group Sigma Healthcare both interested in buying UK pharmacy chain
Brussels orders Meta to open WhatsApp to rival AI agents
Emergency measures signal EU efforts to intervene over rapidly developing market for autonomous agents
GSK to buy US cancer biotech Nuvalent for $10.6bn
New chief Luke Miels makes his mark at GSK with one of UK drugmakers’ biggest deals
Lessons from Germany’s (entirely predictable) UN Security Council defeat
In a world of aggressive great powers, middle powers must learn to forge alliances