Bloomberg Italy is being dragged deeper into a recession after the coronavirus outbreak that’s crippling its northern regions forced the government to ban movement inside the country and shutter almost all industrial production. The impact of virus on the economy will be strong even as measures by the European Central Bank and European governments help limit the intensity and length ...

Bloomberg Royal Philips NV is ramping up production of ventilators to double output within the next eight weeks and is targeting a four-fold increase by the third quarter to meet demand from hospitals overwhelmed by patients suffering from severe forms of Covid-19. The most-needed products are vital sign monitors, portable ventilators and medical equipment to treat a range of respiratory ...

Bloomberg The Russian military ended war games near its western borders as the country ramps up preventative measures to slow the spread of coronavirus (Covid-19). “It’s obvious that all of this is connected with preventive measures,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call on Monday. “It’s linked to the situation around the general fight against coronavirus.” The ...

Bloomberg Secretary of State Michael Pompeo ventured abroad for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic hit the US in full force, making a surprise visit to Afghanistan’s capital on Monday as part of a bid to inject new momentum into an already faltering peace process with the Taliban. Pompeo was expected to meet with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in ...

Bloomberg China’s ambassador to the US reaffirmed his opposition to promoting theories that the virus that causes Covid-19 originated in an American military lab, in an unusual break with the country’s foreign ministry. Chinese Ambassador Cui Tiankai said in an interview with “Axios on HBO” that he stood by his Febraury 9 statement that it would be “crazy” to spread ...

Bloomberg Joe Biden pushed back on suggestions that the November election could be postponed amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying on March 22 it’s important that voting continues as it has during other crises in American history. “We have to let the electoral process run. We ought to be able to preserve our health and our democracy at the same time,” ...

Bloomberg Boris Johnson warned Britons they face “tougher measures” including a potential full lockdown if they continue to ignore calls to stop social gatherings, as his government asks Parliament to grant sweeping powers to tackle the accelerating coronavirus outbreak. With the UK’s weekend newspapers full of reports about people meeting in parks and traveling to coastal towns, the prime minister ...

“Worrying,” wrote Lewis Thomas, “is the most natural and spontaneous of all human functions.” Thomas — physician, philosopher, essayist, administrator (dean of the Yale and New York University medical schools, head of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center) — thought we worry too much about our health, as though a human being is “a teetering, fallible contraption, always needing watching and ...

A diamond is forever and so, perhaps, is Bernard Arnault’s interest in Tiffany & Co. Investors have been having some doubts that the chairman and founder of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA would deliver on his $16 billion takeover of the storied jeweller. But right now, Arnault is behaving like a classic luxury buyer. The bid for Tiffany is ...

It would be charitable to describe the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic as sloppy and uncoordinated. Thankfully, there is a model for an epic national comeback. It dates back to the weeks following the attack on Pearl Harbor in late 1941, when President Roosevelt created the War Production Board, one of the most dynamic public-private partnerships in history. ...