Bloomberg Foreign workers in Singapore know they are currently safer in the city-state than elsewhere including their own countries, a minister said, even as a massive coronavirus outbreak among that community shines a spotlight on cramped and oft-unsanitary lodging provided for the low-wage employees. The workers from overseas are “appreciative” of efforts that range from relieving overcrowding in current facilities, ...

Long before today’s coronavirus lockdown provided occasions for the vice that the phrase denotes, “binge watching” had entered Americans’ lexicon. Few, however, speak of binge reading. To understand why this is regrettable, mute Netflix long enough to read Adam Garfinkle’s “The Erosion of Deep Literacy” in National Affairs. He believes that because of the displacement of reading by digital, usually ...

The latest round of hype on Covid-19 drugs began when Stat News reported on a leaked video discussion about Gilead Sciences Inc’s remdesivir. A Chicago doctor who had tested it on severely ill patients suggested it was working — that most of those who were given the medicine recovered and were discharged. The market is reacting as if the drug ...

A New York Times article published earlier this month proclaimed that, according to scientists, “never before have so many of the world’s researchers focussed so urgently on a single topic.” It went on to describe the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine and drugs for treating it, involving global collaborations of medical researchers. Epidemiologists are also labouring tirelessly to save ...

President Trump’s decision to include his signature on stimulus checks has struck many as unseemly, even unconstitutional. From the perspective of US history, it could have been worse. If not for a colourful little episode during the Civil War, Trump may have had the leeway to go bigger, putting himself on actual money. But he can’t — thanks to a ...

Now that Bernie Sanders has dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed presumptive candidate Joe Biden, it’s worth considering just how profoundly Sanders seems to have shifted the policy landscape. Despite the rise of inequality and other long-term economic problems, a majority of Democrats probably felt too comfortable with the current system to embrace revolutionary change. Although the Sanders ...

The US government’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) provides forgivable loans to small businesses, mainly to pay their employees during the current sudden stop. News that it has run out of money is more than a big setback to the well-being of the economy. It’s also a serious health obstruction and, unlike many related concerns, one that can and should be ...

A series of dispatches from America in the age of Covid-19. The hunt for a roll of toilet paper: It’s now one of those shared experiences in American life we will all one day tell our grandchildren about, just before they infect us with some new virus. None of the delivery services here in Berkeley, California, even pretend that they ...

Bloomberg Bankers are increasingly reluctant to give commodity traders in Asia the credit they need to survive as the lenders grow ever more fearful about the risk of a catastrophic default. Their anxiety has reached new heights in recent days as fabled Singapore oil trader Hin Leong Trading (Pte.) Ltd. struggles to repay debts said to amount to almost $4 ...

Bloomberg Middle Eastern stocks rose on Sunday following a rally in emerging-market assets at the end of last week as the US outlined steps to reopen its coronavirus-shuttered economy. Dubai’s DFM General Index climbed 2.6% as of 10:07 am local time, while gauges in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait advanced as much as 1.5%. MSCI Inc.’s index of developing-nation stocks strengthened ...