Bloomberg The Trump administration extended the date that companies can return loans from a popular coronavirus relief program without paying a penalty by one week to May 14. The US Treasury Department and Small Business Administration (SBA) had set May 7 as the date for firms that had improperly taken loans from the Paycheck Protection Program to repay them, but ...

Bloomberg Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is examining ways to move millions of workers off government support and back into their jobs as the UK leaves its lockdown. In March, as the UK went into lockdown to slow the spread of coronavirus, Sunak announced a furlough program where workers received 80% of their wage to stay home. It’s now ...

Bloomberg Illinois delayed the planned auction of $1.2 billion of short-term debt as it faces record-high penalties to borrow on Wall Street because of the deep financial hit the state is being dealt by the coronavirus shutdown. The worst-rated state had planned to sell about $1.2 billion of short-term tax-exempt general-obligation debt on Wednesday, its first borrowing during the pandemic, ...

Bloomberg China fired back at US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, saying he has no evidence to back up claims that the virus that causes Covid-19 escaped from a lab in the central city of Wuhan. The US attacks on China were part of an election year strategy by President Donald Trump’s Republican Party ahead of this year’s election, Chinese ...

Bloomberg US President Donald Trump supports Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin’s proposal to hold a summit of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the American ambassador to Moscow said in an interview with a Russian news service. Trump sent a message recently to President Putin describing the initiative as a “good idea,” the Interfax news service cited ...

Bloomberg Italy’s Giuseppe Conte is insisting that he’ll serve out his full term as premier as tensions within his ruling coalition build up amid a struggle to restart the crippled economy. The current government is certain to reach the end of its term in 2023, Conte told newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano in an interview published on Wednesday. “The forces of ...

Bloomberg Hungary should no longer be considered a democracy after an unprecedented consolidation of power by the European Union member’s leader, according to an annual survey of countries that once lay behind the Iron Curtain. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s dismantling of checks and balances over the past decade, including a decision to indefinitely rule by decree triggered by the coronavirus ...

Bloomberg Taiwan urged the World Health Organization (WHO) to allow it to rejoin a key global health assembly later this month despite objections from China, as Taipei pushes for more inclusion in international bodies. Taiwan needs a seat at the WHO’s annual decision-making meeting, the World Health Assembly (WHA), on May 18 to allow it access to firsthand information about ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he will lay out the next steps in his UK government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak on Sunday, and some changes to the nationwide lockdown are likely to take effect the following day. As part of its plans to exit the lockdown, the government has already said it will roll out a mass program ...

The most important trait of any Covid-19 contact-tracing app is that people actually use it. Without widespread adoption, we may all be locked down for a lot longer. Just how widespread? In the UK, at least 80% of smartphone users, covering 56% of the total population, will need to use the app to be effective in tracing contacts with those ...