Bloomberg The global economic slowdown is causing the biggest drop in food prices since 2015 as demand shrinks for everything from dairy to sugar. The FAO Food Price Index, a global gauge of prices, dropped 4.3% in March, the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organisation said. That’s the steepest decline since August 2015. Food costs fell as government restrictions on ...

Bloomberg UK house prices were climbing at the fastest pace in more than two years before the coronavirus pandemic almost brought the market to a standstill, according to Nationwide Building Society. Values rose 3% from a year earlier in March, and gained 0.8% from February alone, the mortgage lender said. The sample period excludes recent disruption caused by UK’s restrict- ...

Bloomberg The number of Spaniards filing for jobless claims surged in March, the latest example of how the coronavirus pandemic is upending people’s livelihoods around the world. The increase in jobless hits particularly hard in Spain, where the unemployment rate is already 13.8%, among the highest in the developed world. The Labour Ministry said claims rose by 302,265 people in ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump said he doesn’t support mail-in voting as a way to limit the spread of the coronavirus, arguing that sending ballots increases the likelihood of fraud. “I think a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I think people should vote with voter ID. I think voter ID is very ...

Bloomberg Spain reported an increase in cases from the coronavirus outbreak, surpassing the number in Italy to remain at the epicenter of the outbreak in Europe. The number of confirmed cases increased by 7,026 to 124,736, from 117,710 a day earlier, according to Health Ministry data. In Italy, total cases stood at 119,827. In what could be a sign of ...

Bloomberg Peru’s Congress approved a bill to let workers withdraw as much as 25% of their pension savings to soften the blow of the coronavirus pandemic, casting aside warnings the measure will spook investors and push up borrowing costs. Lawmakers voted 107-4 in favor of the bill, according to a video broadcast on state television. The pensions proposal from the ...

Bloomberg Britain’s opposition Labour Party, still reeling from its worst electoral defeat in 85 years, elected Keir Starmer as leader, putting a moderate lawyer with an eye for detail in charge as Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s handling of the coronavirus comes under fire. Starmer, who served as Labour’s Brexit spokesman under ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn, beat Corbyn-loyalist Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa ...

Bloomberg Venezuelan families made destitute by Colombia’s coronavirus lockdown are walking a thousand miles or more across the Andes to get home. Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela might be undergoing one of the deepest economic slumps in modern history, but it’s still preferable to sleeping in a park in Medellin, or under a bridge in Bogota, which are now the alternatives for ...

Bloomberg The Trump administration won the dismissal of a lawsuit claiming it violated federal record-keeping requirements by conducting off-the-books diplomacy with Ukrainian officials — the same conduct at the centre of the president’s impeachment. US District Judge James E Boasberg threw out the suit, saying the alleged actions by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and President Donald Trump’s personal attorney ...

Bloomberg Apple Inc’s most important manufacturing partner has reassured investors it can still get the latest 5G-enabled iPhones ready for an autumn launch despite global Covid-19 upheaval. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, which makes most of the world’s iPhones, told investors it’s lost time to travel restrictions and other disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But with months to go ...