Bloomberg Ovo Energy Ltd plans to cut 2,600 staff as customers use digital tools to contact the energy supplier, cutting the need for people. Since its acquisition of SSE Energy Services last year, Ovo has been planning the integration of the two businesses which “would have always required difficult changes,” the company said. The impact of the coronavirus has accelerated ...

Bloomberg Spain’s government is seeking to pass a law setting its climate targets as part of a drive to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. A bill was set to be sent by the government to parliament on Tuesday aims to reduce Spain’s greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2030, relative to 1990 levels, according to copies of the bill distributed ...

The fast pace at which various laboratories are working on vaccines against Covid-19 carries both promise and peril. On May 18, Moderna Therapeutics Inc announced the first reported data from human trials, and they are positive. That’s good news, and it arrived sooner than expected. But the parts of the project that lie ahead will be harder to accomplish with ...

Rival soccer teams in Germany’s Bundesliga clash in an empty stadium, Italians meet for socially distant restaurant dining and tourists are visiting the Acropolis again. Things are reopening in Europe. Not so much in Britain. Here, the lifting of restrictions has been a source of bitter controversy, confusion and nervousness. Britons may be pouring into parks and hitting the roads ...

The Federal Reserve’s stated mandate is to “promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long term interest rates.” The first part is obviously a disaster right now, with more than 36 million Americans filing initial jobless claims in the past eight weeks, bringing US unemployment to levels not seen since the Great Depression. The last objective ...

It’s been an uncomfortably swift rise to the top of the coronavirus tables for President Vladimir Putin. From only a handful of Covid-19 cases in early March, Russia now has more than 290,000 of them and a rate of new infections that puts it second only to the US — a country with more than twice as many people. Few ...

Bloomberg From luxury boutiques to mom and pop stores, Hong Kong’s retailers are hurting. Unless landlords can offer more relief, one in four could disappear by December if sales don’t improve, putting an end to the city’s reputation as a shopping hotspot. That’s the gloomy prediction of Hong Kong Retail Management Association Chairman Annie Yau Tse, who says the rent ...

Bloomberg Qantas Airways Ltd said putting extra space between passengers on planes could lead to a big increase in airfares and discourage people from flying. “Social distancing on an aircraft isn’t practical,” Qantas Chief Executive Officer Alan Joyce said in a briefing with reporters on Tuesday. If implemented, it could mean there would only be 22 people on a 128-seat ...

Bloomberg Argentina’s discount airline Flybondi is planning to redouble its bet on domestic service once the toughest travel ban in the Americas is lifted. The company will focus on local flights as long as demand for international travel remains tenuous because of the coronavirus pandemic, said Chief Commercial Officer Mauricio Sana in an interview. Flights to Brazil, the hardest-hit country ...

Bloomberg JC Penney Co, the department-store chain that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, said it will close about 29% of its stores. The retailer will reduce its store count to about 604, down from the 846 it currently has across the US, according to a company filing. In fiscal 2019, those locations brought in $9.2 billion in net ...