Bloomberg Pier 1 Imports Inc said it would seek bankruptcy court approval to wind down its retail operations after the coronavirus pandemic made it difficult for the US retailer to find a buyer. The company said in a statement on Tuesday it intends to sell its inventory and remaining assets, including its intellectual property and e-commerce business, through the court-supervised ...

Bloomberg US President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw altogether from the World Health Organization (WHO), a move that would leave Chinese leader Xi Jinping as the most prominent voice leading the global fight against the pandemic. In a four-page letter detailing his grievances with the WHO, Trump called on the group to “demonstrate independence from China,” renewing a complaint that ...

Bloomberg The US Supreme Court ruled in favour of the victims of the 1998 terror bombings of US embassies in Africa that killed more than 200 people and injured thousands more. The ruling leaves Sudan exposed to a $10.2 billion judgment delivered by a federal court in 2012, which was partially overturned on appeal. The 2014 appellate ruling determined that ...

Bloomberg The biggest cyclonic storm over the Bay of Bengal in about two decades has slightly weakened before hitting the coasts of India and Bangladesh on Wednesday, with authorities making preparations to evacuate more than 5 million people to safer places. Cyclone Amphan, equivalent of a category 4 hurricane at present, was expected to have a sustained wind speed of ...

Bloomberg The number of acutely food insecure people in East Africa and the Horn of Africa is likely to increase to between 34 million and 43 million from May through July due to the socio-economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the World Food Programme. “The most vulnerable and at risk are poor, urban communities living hand-to-mouth in informal ...

Bloomberg Mumbai, India’s financial hub and the epicenter of the nation’s coronavirus outbreak, is converting several of its iconic structures into quarantine facilities as it races to prepare for a predicted peaking of infections this month. From a new hospital being built just a short stroll away from the US Consulate building and the India offices of Citigroup Inc to ...

Bloomberg Carnival Corp. was cut to junk by Moody’s Investors Service amid a prolonged suspension of the cruise company’s operations because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Moody’s assigned the company a Ba1 rating, the highest junk grade, and lowered its rating on Carnival’s senior unsecured notes by one notch to the same level. It said in a statement Monday that Carnival’s ...

Bloomberg Coronavirus-fractured supply chains are providing a wake-up call to British business and leaders with just seven months to go before Brexit triggers the biggest shakeup of trading relationships in a generation. Eighty-two percent of small- and medium-sized manufacturers say the pandemic has affected their supply chains. That’s according to a survey of more than 600 English firms by the ...

Bloomberg Leaders need to do more to secure a quick and sustainable recovery for the global economy, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). In a survey of almost 350 risk professionals, the Geneva-based group said that two-thirds identified a drawn-out downturn as the greatest risk now facing the world over the coming year and a half. The pandemic has ...

Bloomberg While uncertainty abounds in economic forecasting, US unemployment will likely stay “severely” elevated well into next year, according to a report by two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. The jobless rate has already climbed to historic levels in just two months following the onset of the coronavirus-induced economic lockdown. A return to low unemployment will ...