Bloomberg Secretary of State Michael Pompeo delivered a tough warning about China in a speech to US governors, urging caution in business dealings as Beijing looks for ways to exploit US vulnerabilities and expands repression at home. He had a pointed message for certain US state pension funds that may be investing in ways that help China’s government crack down ...

Bloomberg Facebook Inc pledged to improve security protocols to resolve a lawsuit blaming the company for a 2018 data breach that exposed personal data of 29 million users. The company will check more frequently for suspicious patterns of user activity involving access tokens, the key cards that allow users to access their accounts, among other measures outlined in a proposal ...

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to announce a boost in infrastructure spending focused on northern England, seeking to make good on campaign pledges made before he led his Conservatives to a landslide victory in December’s general election. The programme will include 40 million pounds ($52 million) for 5G wireless networks in rural areas and investment in mass transit, ...

It’s State of the Union time, and one of the few bright spots — so it seems — is the US economy. We are at loggerheads with our traditional allies. The spreading coronavirus casts a cloud of dread. Meanwhile, the economy plods along at about a 2% annual growth rate. Though unspectacular, this has been steady enough to reduce the ...

Ryanair Holdings Plc has been given a telling off by the UK’s advertising watchdog for making “misleading” claims about its carbon emissions. Ads claiming Ryanair is “Europe’s… lowest emissions airline” must be withdrawn because the Irish carrier did not fully substantiate this and other environmental boasts, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found. As the climate crisis intensifies, Ryanair probably won’t ...

One big argument against Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to re-nationalise large chunks of the British economy was that it would prove eye-wateringly expensive. Yet one of the companies in the sights of the opposition Labour Party’s leader, Royal Mail Plc, is turning out to be anything but. The postal operator’s heavily shorted shares plunged 9% on February 6 to a fresh ...

Crude oil has had a grim start to the year, with prices hovering around $50 per barrel as China’s coronavirus epidemic shuts down swathes of the world’s second-largest economy. A rebound akin to the one that followed the end of the Sars outbreak is unlikely this time. Back in 2003, China was on a growth trajectory. The economy was also ...

Large infrastructure projects are almost always delivered late and massively over-budget. Then everyone forgets about the fuss and marvels at the achievement. Few people regret today that Britain and France built a rail tunnel under the English Channel, yet it cost a fortune and nearly caused the owner to collapse. One must be wary, then, of the often nimbyish opposition ...

The coronavirus outbreak in China is already threatening to undermine the global economy. It may soon create a similar shake-up in the drug industry. I’m not talking about pharmaceutical companies’ attempts to develop a vaccine, but about intellectual property. Chinese researchers have applied for a patent on an antiviral drug candidate called remdesevir owned by Gilead Sciences Inc. The drug ...

Modern living standards — indoor lighting, affordable food, heat in the winter, an internet connection — require energy. And every energy source has its drawbacks. It’s easy to point out the downsides of a given energy source and call for it to be banned. But if we’re not careful about weighing costs against benefits, we’re liable to end up with ...