Until recently, it seemed like the contentious debate over lockdowns was over. By the end of May, many states were defying the warnings of public-health experts, reopening restaurants, retail and public spaces. The huge protests against police brutality and racism reinforced the notion that keeping Americans confined to their homes was a lost cause. Now, even San Francisco, one of ...

HSBC Holdings Plc had little choice. It’s a measure of how much the world has changed that the 35,000 job cuts it announced in February, a plan that looked like radical surgery at the time, are now almost certainly inadequate. The economic damage wreaked by Covid-19 and the political quagmire into which the bank has sunk over its support for ...

The European Union’s chief antitrust official, Margrethe Vestager, has made her name tackling big corporate fish in pretty unconventional ways. A ruling on Alphabet Inc’s Google, which came with a seven-figure fine, argued free services weren’t always good for the consumer, while those on Apple Inc and Starbucks Corp deemed that low taxes were illegal state aid (though some judges ...

What’s worse than two populous, nuclear-armed countries killing each other’s soldiers? Two populous, nuclear-armed countries letting their longer-term relationship wither. Fighting along the Chinese-Indian border on the Tibetan plateau hasn’t come out of the blue. Ties, never solid, are increasingly becoming a casualty of the way New Delhi is being drawn into the wider rivalry between Beijing and Washington. If ...

Bloomberg France is warning flag carrier Air France-KLM against making forced job cuts, with Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire saying such a move would constitute a “red line” the carrier shouldn’t cross after receiving a state bailout. “We spent money to save Air France,” he said on Thursday in a radio interview. “I am asking that there not be any ...

Bloomberg Qantas Airways Ltd cancelled most international flights until late October after the government said Australia’s borders are likely to remain closed until next year. The extended cancellation increases financial pressure on the airline, which is slowly adding back domestic services but has grounded dozens of aircraft and furloughed most of its employees. International flights were previously on hold until ...

Bloomberg The pilot of a helicopter carrying retired basketball star Kobe Bryant may have become disoriented in clouds as the craft abruptly turned and dove to the ground near Los Angeles earlier this year, killing all aboard, investigators said. A preliminary analysis of the final moments of the flight released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found the veteran ...

Bloomberg A Senate committee chairman sharply criticised the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for what he alleged were repeated failures to respond to a committee’s investigations, including into two crashes of Boeing Co’s 737 Max. Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican head of the Senate Commerce Committee, accused the FAA of delaying interviews with its employees and failing to turn ...

Bloomberg Target Corp is raising its minimum hourly wage to $15 at a time when its workers are grappling with the dual impact of the pandemic and protests for racial equality that began in the chain’s hometown. The cheap-chic retailer will move to $15 an hour on July 5, fulfilling a pledge it made three years ago and providing about ...

Bloomberg Tesco agreed to sell its business in Poland to Danish retailer Salling Group, as the UK’s largest supermarket operator focuses on its domestic market in a consumer landscape overturned by the coronavirus. The UK grocer said it expects proceeds of about 165 million pounds ($207 million) from the sale of 301 stores, as well as distribution centres and office ...