Politics

Despite a rebound in business survey hope, a number of consumer confidence measures have been tracking lower in recent months as Trumphoria fades. July's final UMich consumer confidence data confirms this trend printing at 93.4 - the lowest since Oct 2016. While current conditions rose to the highest since July 2005, the biggest driver of the overall decline was a tumble in the 'expectations' index.

Although a slight improvement on the early month preliminary print, the trend remains lower...

Pakistan plunged into political turmoil when its Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif resigned shortly after the Supreme Court ousted him from office on Friday following an investigation into allegations of corruption centering on undeclared offshore assets.  As Reuters notes, The court disqualified Sharif for not being “honest”, a requirement for lawmakers under Pakistan’s constitution, something the US sorely needs to amend as well. The court also ordered a corruption trial against Mr.

On Thursday, the U.S. government ordered family members of employees at its embassy in Venezuela to leave as the nation's political crisis deepened ahead of a controversial vote critics contend will end democracy in the oil-rich country. Similarly, Canada warned its nationals against non-essential travel to Venezuela and urged citizens already there to leave. As well as ordering relatives to leave, the U.S. State Department on Thursday also authorized the voluntary departure of any U.S.

Just hours after the Senate overwhelmingly voted to enforce further sanctions against (mostly) Russia, North Korea and Iran, while binding Trump from undoing any measures against Moscow without Congressional approval, in the process infuriating not only the Kremlin but America's European allies, with Brussels warning repeatedly it will have no choice but to respond in kind, on Friday morning Russia’s Foreign Ministry ordered the United States to cut its diplomatic staff to 455 by Sept.

In the end it was not meant to be: Senate Republicans failed, by a single vote, to pass a month-long effort to pass Republican healthcare legislation culminating with a vote on a "skinny" bill to repeal Obamacare thanks to a single decisive vote by Donald Trump's nemesis, John McCain.

In a devastating blow to President Trump and his healthcare agenda, Senate Republicans voted 49 to 51 to pass a slimmed down bill put forward as a last gasp effort to overhaul the US healthcare system, leaving the fate of Obamacare in the hands of Democrats and the general public.