So far this year, the pandemic recovery limelight has been hogged by the US, and to some degree even the UK. But move over you two English-speaking economies! It might be time for the European tortoise to catch up with the hares. Purchasing managers surveys are probably the best real-time snapshots into to how an economy is faring. While reading ...

Bloomberg The Delta variant of Covid-19 is scything through aviation just as key markets were getting back on their feet. In the US, Southwest Airlines Co is blaming the Delta strain for a rash of cancelled bookings and a slowdown in demand that may push it and several others to quarterly losses. After leading the industry’s recovery for much of ...

Bloomberg US aviation regulators are opening a new review of Boeing Co after a survey of company engineers found a sizable percentage said they couldn’t raise safety concerns without interference. A survey conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) from May through July found that 35% of Boeing employees raised issues of conflicts of interest and a lack of independence, ...

Bloomberg Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit agreed to go public through a reverse merger with NextGen Acquisition Corp II that will value the satellite-launch company at $3.2 billion. Investors including Boeing Co and AE Industrial Partners committed $100 million to Virgin Orbit through a private investment in public equity, according to a statement. The merger is expected to provide the new ...

Bloomberg Best Buy Co rose after it raised its full-year sales outlook on continued strong demand for its gadgets and services. The key metric of US same-store sales rose 21% in the second quarter, the retailer reported in a statement. That’s above the 18.4% average estimate from analysts compiled by Bloomberg. It now sees companywide same-store sales growing in a ...

Bloomberg Walmart Inc will start delivering goods for other companies, a bet that its logistics prowess will let the world’s largest retailer broaden its business. The new service, dubbed Walmart GoLocal, will offer merchants ranging from local bakeries to national auto-supply stores deliveries across the US at what the company calls “competitive pricing.” The retailer already has some contracts with ...

Bloomberg President Joe Biden has decided to adhere to the deadline he set for evacuations from the Kabul airport, according to a senior administration official, leaving less than a week to fly out thousands of people from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The decision means that he rebuffed calls from the US’s closest allies to extend the Aug. 31 deadline during a virtual ...

Bloomberg Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has accepted the ruling party’s vice-presidential endorsement, solidifying his bid to stay in a top government post once his term ends next year. Duterte agreed to run due to “popular calls” within the PDP-Laban for him to seek the second-highest post, the party said in a statement on Tuesday. The ruling party, which will convene ...

Bloomberg Zambia’s new President Hakainde Hichilema pledged to rein in public debt and the budget deficit, while restoring the nation’s credibility following a default on its foreign loans. “Our focus over the next five years will be on restoring macroeconomic stability,” Hichilema said in his inauguration address in Lusaka, the capital, on Tuesday. “We will grow our economy so we ...

Bloomberg Bathabile Dlamini, a former South African social development minister and head of the ruling party’s powerful womens’ league, will be prosecuted for perjury in a move by prosecutors that will stoke political tension. The charges relate to her testimony at a Constitutional Court inquiry in 2018 into a crisis over welfare-grant payments where a judge ruled that she’d lied ...