Bloomberg Blue Bell Creameries Inc, a Texas-based ice cream maker, agreed to plead guilty and pay $19.35 million in fines for shipping frozen treats tainted with listeria in 2015 and deliberately failing to disclose the contamination to the public, the US Department of Justice said. The company’s former president, Paul Kruse, was charged with seven felony counts related to the …

Bloomberg High-end cookware chain Sur La Table Inc is preparing for a potential bankruptcy filing after the pandemic forced it to close stores and cancel cooking classes, according to people familiar with the matter. The chain, with about 125 stores, is also pursuing a sale, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the process isn’t public. For …

Muscat / WAM Mohammed Sultan Al Suwaidi, UAE Ambassador to Oman, hailed relations between the UAE and Oman as historic and based on family ties, lineage, and common history. In a statement to the Oman News Agency, Al Suwaidi said these ties were ”eternal” and ”growing steadily.” According to Al Suwaidi, the two countries maintain regular coordination in many trade …

Bloomberg Few have a better watchtower over oil demand than Joe Gorder, chief executive officer of major US refiner Valero Energy Corp. But this week Gorder didn’t even need his business insight to know that fuel consumption was starting to recover in America. He only needed to look at the streets of San Antonio, the Texas city where he’s based, …

ADEN / WAM The Emirates Red Crescent (ERC) has continued its Ramadan Mir campaign, with a daily average of 3,770 meals distributed across four Yemen governorates. According to the UAE aid authority, the four governorates include Hadramaut, Shabwa, Hodeidah, and Taiz. Some 7,000 iftar meals were distributed across districts in each of the Hadramaut and Hodeidah governorates, while Shabwa saw …

Bloomberg Exxon Mobil Corp posted its first loss in at least three decades and Chevron Corp. slashed $2 billion off its spending plan, the latest concrete signs of the financial devastation the coronavirus pandemic will inflict on the oil giants for months, if not years, to come. Exxon reported a $610 million loss on May 01, the oil giant’s first …

Bloomberg Mexico’s Centro Nacional de Control de Energia (Cenace), which oversees the electrical system, indefinitely suspended critical tests for new clean-energy projects as the nation grapples with the spread of the coronavirus. Preoperative tests of intermittent power plants would be suspended along with other measures to increase the reliability of the national electrical system, Cenace said. Tests that haven’t yet …

Bloomberg President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at securing the nation’s electricity system from foreign adversaries, a move that could restrict certain overseas companies from exporting products to the US. The order, which doesn’t name any specific countries or companies, blocks US purchases of certain power-system equipment from entities deemed a risk to national security. It empowers …

Bloomberg Russia slightly increased its crude oil and condensate production in April ahead of the biggest-ever output cuts under the new Opec+ deal. The country’s producers pumped 46.45 million tons of oil last month, Interfax reported, citing preliminary data for April from the Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK unit. The figure, which may be rounded, equates to about 11.349 million barrels a …

Bloomberg Once again, when stocks rally, it’s Europe that’s left behind. With the S&P 500 about 30% above its March lows, the Stoxx 600 index has lagged behind with a 21% bounce, despite having fallen more than the US in the global selloff sparked by the coronavirus pandemic. The reason? For starters, there’s the market’s makeup: Europe has a large …