Bloomberg India will extend its nationwide lockdown by two weeks from May 4 but will ease restrictions in some areas to revive economic activity that’s been stalled since the stringent stay-at-home orders were put in place across the country on March 25. Movement between states won’t be allowed during the lockdown, although authorities will partially relax measures in areas where ...

Bloomberg Italy’s prime minister apologised for delays in aid payments to jobless workers, underscoring the pitfalls for political leaders who are warily reopening Europe for business. As governments enter the next phase of dealing with the coronavirus, European policy makers are increasingly focusing on the risk of a second wave of a pandemic blamed for some 235,000 deaths worldwide. Giuseppe ...

Bloomberg The Trump administration has barred Anthony Fauci, the scientist who’s leading the US response to the coronavirus pandemic, from testifying before a congressional hearing next Wednesday. Fauci had been sought as a witness for a House Appropriations Committee subcommittee that was looking into the US response to the pandemic, according to Evan Hollander, a committee spokesman. “We have been ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump is escalating efforts to pin blame on China for unleashing a pandemic that has killed more than 60,000 Americans and is exploring ways to hold Beijing accountable, though his options are limited because of the potential economic consequences. Trump and his aides sharpened their criticism of Beijing, demanding answers about the virus’s origin and hinting at ...

Watching General Mark A Milley, the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, on stage at the White House, he looks uncomfortable. And that’s as it should be. Milley’s job is to provide sound military advice to the president. But at a deeper level, his responsibility is to safeguard the independence and integrity of the armed forces. The last thing ...

The big Covid-19 news was a promising result from a new study of remdesivir, an anti-viral produced by Gilead Sciences. But lost in all the discussion of how well the drug works — an earlier study found it wasn’t helpful — was a tragic failure: Gilead missed its one shot at getting vital information on specifically which patients the drug ...

It’s been a week of milestones for Exxon Mobil Corp, and not in a good way. The oil major froze its dividend for the first time in 13 years and then, on May 1, announced its first quarterly loss in decades. Covid-19 plays a big part, obviously, but Exxon’s strategy is the big problem, particularly on its home turf. As ...

President Donald Trump recently announced an executive order “temporarily suspending immigration to the United States.” It turns out that the new restrictions are narrower than this might suggest — which is a good thing. Immigration policy needs short-term adjustments and cries out for long-term reform, but broad or indefinite clampdowns certainly aren’t the answer. The president was describing the order ...

The timing is certainly awkward. The year 2020 was supposed to be the moment for Germany to show leadership, as it takes over, on July 1, the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, analogous to an upper house in the EU’s legislature. But now a virus has come along and thrown the world and the EU into ...

Sentient humans like to benchmark their successes and failures. So it’s understandable that in trying to put the coronavirus’s toll in perspective, some Americans have fastened their eyes on one particular grim milestone: The 58,300+ deaths in the US from Covid-19 over the last three months have now surpassed US casualties from the Vietnam War (58,220 deaths recorded from 1956 ...