Bloomberg Western Europe’s electric-vehicle sales pulled ahead of China’s last month after countries including Germany and France boosted government subsidies to stimulate demand that had been decimated by the pandemic. The roughly 500,000 plug-in hybrid and battery-electric vehicles registered in Europe during the first seven months of the year exceeded China’s sales by about 14,000 units, according to a report …

Bloomberg At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, contact tracing was considered the best hope for getting people back to offices and schools safely without a vaccine. The tech industry was optimistic that apps would provide a faster, more effective alternative to the usual painstaking human process of calling and interviewing the networks of infected people to figure out possible …

Bloomberg Oil climbed to near a five-month high after an industry report pointed to a third straight weekly drop in American crude stockpiles. Futures in New York rose past $42 a barrel after losing 0.8% Tuesday. The American Petroleum Institute reported inventories fell by 4.01 million barrels last week. The improving picture in the US overshadowed lingering concerns about the …