While US tech giants fall over themselves trying to snap up TikTok’s American business, there’s a large slice of the global short-video service that seems to be forgotten. Ever the deal hound, SoftBank Group Corp’s Masayoshi Son seems to have dug up what could be the smartest move he’ll make this year. Already an investor in TikTok parent ByteDance, SoftBank ...

Finding a vaccine against Covid-19 that works and can be distributed widely enough to help stop the pandemic is a global priority. Given the urgency, governments are doing all they can to fund research and incentivise firms to ramp up trials — pre-ordering doses, lowering regulatory barriers to market and granting manufacturers immunity from costly future injury-related lawsuits. But when ...

Government programs to blunt the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic will make the federal budget deficit much wider in 2020 than at any point in the last 75 years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s new forecasts, predict that the deficit will be over $3.3 trillion this year, or 16% of annual economic output. Measured as a share of GDP, ...

Bloomberg Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd will eliminate 1,150 more jobs to preserve its rescue funding as demand for long-distance flights remains depressed and Britain winds down its worker furlough program. The cuts take the number of posts lost since the start of the Covid-19 crisis to 4,700, or about 45% of the workforce. Hundreds of cabin crew will also be ...

Bloomberg United Airlines Holdings Inc is boosting its schedule in October, including expanding flights to Hawaii, as it seeks to make the most of higher demand for leisure destinations during the pandemic. The carrier will fly 40% of its schedule from a year earlier. The plan represents a slight increase from September, when United flew 34% of its year-earlier roster. ...

Bloomberg Neiman Marcus Group won court permission to leave behind the debts and drama that pushed it into bankruptcy, just a day after its harshest critic was arrested on federal charges stemming from the case. A bankruptcy judge in Houston approved a plan that hands ownership to creditors in return for forgiving about $4 billion of Neiman’s $5.5 billion in ...

Bloomberg The airline industry can’t afford to wait for a vaccine. That’s the message from the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) chief medical adviser, David Powell. On top of face masks, regular hand washing and sanitising of high-touch surfaces, carriers should work with regulators to introduce reliable coronavirus testing systems for passengers before they board in order to get people ...

Bloomberg Investors searching for any hints that a retail recovery is underway got a glimmer of hope, with struggling department-store operator Macy’s Inc inching back to normalcy. The department store chain is still losing money as sales remain well below pre-pandemic levels, but CEO Jeff Gennette said demand is picking up across all of its brands. Its adjusted net loss ...

Bloomberg Arla Foods amba, one of Europe’s top milk producers, reported a 34% jump in profit in the first half of the year as consumers stockpiled products including butter in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic sparked increased dairy consumption in homes, which helped offset declines in the food service sector, according to Arla’s chief executive officer, Peder ...

Bloomberg Peter Strzok, the former FBI agent who started the 2016 probe into Russian election interference, says President Donald Trump remains a “clear and present danger” to US national security after being compromised by personal and financial dealings with Russia. In a new book, “Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J Trump,” Strzok says that senior FBI officials were ...