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Bloomberg Bed Bath & Beyond Inc’s shares plunged after higher shipping and e-commerce costs eroded profitability in the fourth quarter, tarnishing the results as the home-furnishings retailer reported a stronger-than-expected same-store sales gain. The increase in online sales and freight expenses led to higher costs for the company, contributing to a gross margin of 31.5%, which was below the estimate ...

Bloomberg President Joe Biden welcomed Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to the White House for conversations centred on a growing concern for both leaders: what to do about China. Suga said he and Biden agreed to pursue collaboration on climate change, Covid-19 and the global shortage of semiconductors. But China’s increasingly assertive role in the region loomed large in the ...

Bloomberg Eritrea agreed to start pulling its troops from Ethiopia’s Tigray region, making its first public admission to having troops in the neighboring country, in a letter to the United Nations Security Council. The development follows comments by UN aid chief Mark Lowcock to the Security Council asserting that there was no proof Eritrean forces were withdrawing. “Eritrea and Ethiopia ...

Bloomberg President Joe Biden will keep the historically low refugee cap set by former President Donald Trump for now, going back on a plan to accept many more refugees this year. The president instead signed new order intended to accelerate processing of refugees. The order reallocates slots to make them more readily available to people living in Africa and the ...

Bloomberg Justin Trudeau’s special immigration initiative for Hong Kong residents received more applications than expected in its first three weeks, according to a spokesperson for Canada’s immigration minister. From February 8 to 28, 524 people applied for a three-year open work permit designed for young, educated individuals from the former British colony. It also expedites their eligibility to apply for ...

Bloomberg The Philippines is bracing for destructive winds and intense rains as Typhoon Surigae rapidly intensifies. The typhoon locally known as Bising is moving west northwest over the Philippine sea, packing maximum winds of 175 kilometres (109 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 215 kilometres per hour, the weather bureau said on Saturday. Flooding and rain-induced landslides may ...

Bloomberg The US government piled trillions of dollars of emergency funds into Americans’ accounts during the pandemic. That’s boosting the bottom lines of the banks that store their cash. Lending giants reported blockbuster profits this week, in part because stimulus payments have helped consumers bounce back from the Covid-19 crisis and prevented more severe economic damage. The emergency funds helped ...

Bloomberg Morgan Stanley surprised investors with a $911 million loss tied to the collapse of Archegos Capital Management, staining what was otherwise a record quarter for revenue and profit. “The current quarter includes a loss of $644 million related to a credit event for a single prime brokerage client, and $267 million of subsequent trading losses through the end of ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Thailand has responded to the US decision to keep the nation on watch for currency manipulation by asserting it has stepped into the market only to curb volatility in the baht. The central bank is committed to exchange-rate flexibility, with “interventions limited only to curbing excessive volatility and rapid movements of the baht on both sides,” ...

Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG was sued by a small pension fund that alleges the bank misled investors and let “high-risk clients” including Greensill Capital and Archegos Capital Management take on too much leverage, in one of the first lawsuits since the twin debacles. The Michigan pension fund, City of St. Clair Shores Police & Fire Retirement System, filed the ...