Life isn’t about finding perfect solutions but making difficult trade-offs. So it is with the contact-tracing apps that are proliferating faster than I can keep up with. In Germany’s newly launched “Corona App”, it has got several trade-offs wrong, and should have learned from the experience of nimbler countries like Singapore. The goal, of course, is the same for all ...

The Federal Reserve realises that it doesn’t have to buy US corporate bonds, right? I ask this question only somewhat in jest. In a surprise move, the central bank announced that it would start to buy individual company bonds under its $250 billion Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility, specifically by following a diversified index of US corporate bonds created expressly ...

Bloomberg United Airlines Holdings Inc is planning to raise $5 billion by borrowing against its frequent-flyer program, pioneering a new tool for US carriers to boost liquidity amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Barclays Plc and Morgan Stanley have committed to provide the financing and arrange syndication, United said in a statement. The deal, which is expected to ...

Bloomberg The US government will allow Chinese airlines four flights a week into its airports, an expansion following China’s announcement it would permit the same number of operations by the Americans. In the latest action, after weeks of diplomatic wrangling on passenger flights between the two nations, the Transportation Department issued an order that doubles the number of operations permitted ...

Bloomberg American Airlines Group Inc is in talks to raise new financing to help it weather the collapse in travel demand during the pandemic, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The company is working with Citigroup Inc on a potential junk bond offering that may be secured by collateral including airport slots and gates, said the people, who ...

Bloomberg The return of Boeing Co’s 737 Max to European skies is at risk of additional delays because US coronavirus travel restrictions have hindered planning for test flights by regulators from the continent. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will perform its flight tests on the grounded Boeing jet after the US Federal Aviation Administration conducts its own, said ...

Bloomberg The two largest mall landlords and Authentic Brands Group LLC are in talks to buy bankrupt department-store chain JC Penney Co, according to people familiar with the matter. Authentic Brands may team up with Simon Property Group and Brookfield Property Partners to acquire the retailer as part of its court reorganisation, said the people, who asked not to be ...

Bloomberg North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border, in an explosive rebuke to Seoul that appeared designed to draw maximum global attention with little immediate risk of war. The move represented North Korea’s most serious provocation in years and follows an escalating series of threats against South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s government. The ...

Bloomberg India says at least 20 of its soldiers have died in a “violent” clash with Chinese troops at a section along their unmarked border high in the Himalayas, in the first fatalities resulting from skirmishes in the region in four decades. There were “casualties on both sides,” Indian army spokesman Col Aman Anand said in New Delhi, adding that ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump said he plans to cut the number of US troops stationed in Germany to 25,000, until Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government increases defense spending. “Germany’s delinquent. They’ve been delinquent for years,” he told reporters at the White House in the first official confirmation of a move that was reported earlier this month. “They owe NATO billions of ...