Bloomberg Italy declared a state of emergency in five northern and central regions devastated by a recent drought, as a severe heat wave takes its toll on agriculture and threatens power supplies. High temperatures and exceptionally dry conditions have brought water levels in the Po, the country’s largest river, to its lowest in 70 years. Even amid a historically arid ...

  Bloomberg Hong Kong’s new leader, John Lee, declared the city must balance reducing travel inconvenience with limiting the spread of Covid-19, signaling a cautious virus approach. Lee said Tuesday that he’d asked Health Secretary Lo Chung-mau to assess the “evidence and statistics to see how we can, while on the one hand, contain the spread of the pandemic and, ...

  Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) is exploring ways to prevent banks from earning windfall profits from the subsidised lending program it launched during the pandemic, once it raises interest rates later this month, according to a report by the Financial Times. The ECB provided €2.2 trillion of subsidized loans to banks during the Covid-19 crisis to avoid a ...