America’s botched response to the coronavirus pandemic is a warning that, unless our broken political and administrative systems are fixed, the country could experience a similar breakdown in future national crises, such as a massive cyberattack. This stark message was contained in a little-noticed white paper recently released by the bipartisan Cyberspace Solarium Commission, titled “Cybersecurity Lessons from the Pandemic.” ...

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on statehood for Washington, DC They’re doing this, as is clearly allowed by the Constitution, as simple legislation: The bill would shrink the constitutionally mandated federal district to include just the federal government buildings and monuments, while putting all the district’s residents into the 51st state. It’s a good idea. While it ...

There’s a new bad idea doing the rounds in Europe. Many governments are convinced that a reduction in value-added tax will help relaunch their economies. Some, including Germany, have already wielded the ax. Others, such as Italy and the UK, are taking this option seriously. But the benefits of cutting VAT are limited, and the costs are large. As with ...

Is the global monetary order ready for another reboot? In the 1960s, Japan and Europe exported their way to post-World War II prosperity under the fixed exchange rates of the Bretton Woods agreement. The US went off the gold standard in 1971, but the established way of doing things didn’t collapse. Thirty years later, China essayed the role of being ...

Bloomberg Ryanair Holdings Plc dismissed the UK’s plan to relax quarantine requirements for people arriving from France, Greece and Spain as “more idiotic rubbish” and called for the restrictions to be scrapped entirely. The government plans next week to publish a full list of the countries with which it will establish so-called air bridges — exempting incoming travelers from self-isolating ...

Bloomberg British Airways, a unit of International Consolidated Airlines Group, will cut 350 pilots and put another 300 in a “pool” for re-hire when needed as part of a deal reached with cockpit crew, The Sun reported. Most of the pilots facing compulsory redundancies worked from Gatwick airport in London, according to the report, which didn’t say where the information ...

Bloomberg Delta Air Lines Inc will inform almost 2,600 pilots about a possible furlough while encouraging a total of 7,900 eligible aviators to accept an early retirement package, according to a memo sent to staff. “Even with the increased travel demand we’ve seen in recent weeks, we expect revenue to be at only 25% of what it was last summer ...

Bloomberg American Airlines Group Inc said it would sell flights to capacity starting from July 1, abandoning caps on passenger loads that were designed to promote social distancing amid the coronavirus pandemic. Customers still will be notified when they’re booked on crowded flights and can move their reservations at no cost, the airline said in a statement. Starting from June ...

Bloomberg Nike Inc is cutting jobs as the world’s largest athletic brand refocuses on selling directly to consumers, pushing further away from a traditional retail channel that’s been ravaged by the pandemic. CEO John Donahoe, a longtime Silicon Valley executive who took the helm at Nike in January, announced a new phase in its e-commerce push called the Consumer Direct ...

Bloomberg Hindustan Unilever Ltd’s decision to rename its melanin-suppressing face cream, Fair & Lovely, will probably need a large media campaign to win over consumers which poses short-term risk to its margin in that particular segment, according to Jefferies India Pvt. The product, which earns more than $500 million in annual revenue for Unilever Plc from India alone, will be ...