International News

Bloomberg UK government borrowing climbed to a record 240.9 billion pounds ($323 billion) in the first eight months of the fiscal year, reflecting the damage inflicted on an economy now at risk of falling back into the recession. In November alone, spending exceeded tax revenue by 31.6 billion pounds ($42.45 billion) amid the escalating cost of supporting firms and households ...

Bloomberg Toyota Motor Corp. will halt production in the UK and France due to transport delays caused by a mutant strain of coronavirus spreading in the UK and that’s led several countries to close their borders with the nation. The border closures have “disrupted the transportation of parts,” Toyota spokeswoman Shino Yamada said in an emailed statement. Countries globally have ...

Bloomberg Swedish overall confidence levels ended a seven-month climb in December, as the Nordic region’s largest economy tightened curbs to battle a severe surge in Covid-19 infections. The overall economic tendency survey fell to 95.6, from a revised 97.2 in November, with the drop “largely a result of firms being less positive about the current situation,” the National Institute of ...

Bloomberg Small advertisers that rely on Facebook to spread marketing messages are up in arms over the social network’s automated ad systems, complaining that inflexible account blocking tools and a lack of customer assistance are hurting business. One digital marketer, Chris Raines, was setting up an advertising campaign on Facebook when his account abruptly stopped working. Raines uses his account ...

Bloomberg Intel Corp., the world’s largest chipmaker, said it’s investigating whether it was a victim of the SolarWinds Corp. hack that has roiled the US government and private sector. “We are still actively investigating, but we currently see no evidence or indication that our systems were affected,” the company said in an emailed statement. Separately, rival US chipmaker Nvidia Corp. ...

Bloomberg The $900 billion stimulus package agreed to by US lawmakers over the weekend could keep the economy from contracting again, but pandemic-related risks remain if activity doesn’t start to bounce back next year. The fiscal relief package includes $600 one-time checks to individuals, more funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and an extension of unemployment benefits through March, ...

Bloomberg Britain’s biggest port stopped all traffic heading to Europe, triggering delays to food supplies after the discovery of a new variant of the virus prompted a wave of countries to ban travel from the UK. The escalating crisis prompted Boris Johnson to convene a meeting of the government’s emergency committee in a bid to keep goods flowing. The concern ...

Bloomberg Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said German Chancellor Angela Merkel was “brilliant” for the way she resolved a dispute over the European Union’s $2.2 trillion budget and stimulus package, in an interview in Welt am Sonntag. Germany brokered the compromise that led Hungary and Poland to drop a threat to veto the plan, which would make payments to EU ...

Bloomberg Rent-A-Center Inc. is acquiring online lease-to-own provider Acima Holdings LLC in a cash-and-stock deal valued at more than $1.6 billion. The transaction will include $1.27 billion in cash and about 10.8 million shares of Rent-A-Center common stock currently valued at $377 million, the Plano, Texas-based company said. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2021. ...

Bloomberg Nokia Oyj said it expects margins for its networking business to be zero next year as it focuses on “regaining 5G leadership.” The company will develop its products for so-called Open RAN, a type of architecture that allows operators to use equipment from multiple vendors, and virtual RAN, which can be run as software on generic hardware, Nokia said ...