Bloomberg Passengers on airplanes, buses and railroads in the US will have to keep wearing masks to guard against the spread of Covid-19 as federal officials extended a mandate that was set to expire within days through the busy summer travel season. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced it was extending the mandate through September 13. The move is in ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc will supplant Walmart Inc as the biggest US retailer by 2025, according to a new report, suggesting the e-commerce giant has too much momentum for Walmart to stop despite big investments in its own e-commerce offerings. By 2025, US shoppers will buy $632 billion worth of products at Amazon and retail afflilites including Whole Foods Market, surpassing ...

Bloomberg Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd said places tipped to be on a UK list of destinations set to reopen from mid-May could bring back a significant portion of its pre-coronavirus business, shrinking losses this year. The US, Israel and the Caribbean accounted for 80% of Virgin Atlantic’s 2019 network and could all feature on the list set to be revealed ...

Bloomberg North Korea is pushing back at President Joe Biden’s comment labeling the country a serious threat, and issued new warnings to South Korea for not stopping activists from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border. Biden’s comment on North Korea was “intolerable,” Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the Asian country’s Department of US Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, said ...

Bloomberg China has sent its Shandong aircraft carrier for military training in the South China Sea and plans to continue similar exercises, the state-owned Global Times said. The training conducted by the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Shandong aircraft carrier task group is “a routine exercise,” the paper said on Twitter, citing a PLA Navy spokesperson. It didn’t give exact timings ...

Bloomberg Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party is trailing in a key state election that is seen as a test of his popularity and an indication of whether the backlash over his government’s mishandling of the country’s Covid-19 emergency will hurt him at the ballot box. In West Bengal, incumbent Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s All India Trinamool Congress was ahead ...

Bloomberg Germany’s Greens have cemented a robust advantage in the early stages of the election campaign, boosting their chances of capturing the chancellery in September and pushing through a heavily environmentalist reform agenda. Bolstered by a youthful image and strong climate credentials, the Greens surged into the lead past Angela Merkel’s center-right bloc in three separate polls in the past ...

Bloomberg Malaysia and Singapore said they will allow travel between the two countries on compassionate grounds or for family emergencies from May 17. The visits would be for death and critical illness reasons, the two sides said in a joint statement after a two-day visit by Malaysia Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein to the city-state. The countries agreed on procedures and ...

Bloomberg Canada’s economy continued its run of surprising strength at the start of the year, validating expectations that activity will soon return to pre-pandemic levels. Gross domestic product grew (GDP) 0.4% in February, Statistics Canada reported in Ottawa. A preliminary estimate shows momentum kept up in March with output expanding 0.9%, which would be the 11th-straight monthly gain in the GDP. ...

Bloomberg The US economy probably notched up another bumper month of hiring in April, tallying with other reports that suggest growth momentum is building in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. Payrolls may have risen by 978,000, according to median estimate of economists, above the 916,000 gain in March, while unemployment is seen falling below 6%. The Labour Department report ...