The European Commission has fined AliExpress €550 million ($629 million) for breaking the EU’s Digital Services Act — the largest penalty handed out under that law so far. The Alibaba-owned marketplace didn’t do enough to stop illegal, unsafe and counterfeit products from spreading across its platform, regulators said, and the company now has three months … Read more
Why is Volkswagen cutting so many jobs? The surface answer is the one in every headline: Chinese electric-vehicle rivals are eating Volkswagen’s market share, tariffs are squeezing margins, and Europe is stuck with roughly 500,000 vehicles a year of unused factory capacity. The deeper answer is less comfortable for Germany: for two decades, German automakers … Read more
Why is the stock market down today? The honest answer keeps changing shape. On Monday, July 13, it was Iran and a chip-stock meltdown. By Thursday, July 16, Iran had faded into the background and a single word from an earnings call — “capex” — was doing most of the damage. This page tracks the … Read more
In February, the Supreme Court demolished the legal foundation of Donald Trump’s signature economic policy, ruling that emergency powers do not let a president impose tariffs. Four months later, the tariffs are still here — the revenue, by the Treasury’s account, essentially unchanged — and the administration is methodically rebuilding the entire system on different … Read more
US inflation hit 4.2% in May — the highest reading since April 2023 — and President Trump’s response has been consistent: the number is the war, and the war is about to end. After canceling the June 11 strikes and declaring a deal with Iran imminent, he argued that recent figures point to an even … Read more
For a brief moment at the end of 2025, it looked like Germany’s inflation problem was finally behind it. In December 2025, the country’s consumer price index fell to 1.8% — below the European Central Bank’s symbolic 2% target for the first time in years. Economists breathed a cautious sigh of relief. Bundesbank officials spoke … Read more
On January 3, 2026, a US Special Operations team captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. Among the 30 members of his security detail killed in the operation were Cuban personnel. Within 72 hours, the Venezuela Cuba oil deal — the most consequential energy arrangement in the Western Hemisphere for a quarter century — was … Read more
Gas prices have become one of the most talked-about economic topics in recent years. Whether you’re commuting to work, planning a road trip, or simply pulling into a gas station, the pain of high fuel prices is hard to ignore. With the national average for regular gasoline climbing sharply in 2025 and surging even higher … Read more
Flowing through the heart of Berlin for approximately 46 kilometres within the city’s boundaries, the River Spree is far more than a geographical feature. It is a living witness to the entire history of the German capital. Every bend in the river carries the memory of centuries: from medieval Slavic settlements and the grandeur of … Read more
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has announced its departure from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the broader OPEC+ alliance, effective May 1, 2026, after nearly 60 years of membership since joining in 1967. This move represents a significant blow to the oil cartel, particularly its de facto leader Saudi Arabia, and … Read more