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Bloomberg Digital brands looked headed for a reckoning a year ago, with bloated valuations, rising advertising costs and ever more competition. Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit the US and gave a giant gift to brands that mainly sell directly through the web. With their brick-and-mortar competition shuttered and the virus raging, Americans flocked online and loaded up on home goods, ...

Bloomberg Urban Outfitters Inc plummeted after reporting a tough holiday quarter and a planned exit for the CEO of its namesake brand. The retailer said in a statement that Trish Donnelly, chief executive officer for the Urban Outfitters chain, will depart at the end of the month for a new opportunity. Sheila Harrington, who already runs the Free People brand, ...

Bloomberg The week before Joe Biden’s inauguration, downtown Washington looks like a city preparing for war. A huge swath of the city core is blocked off, patrolled by uniformed National Guard forces as part of a build-up not seen since the Civil War. And the US capital is getting even more fortified as federal, state and local officials brace for ...

Bloomberg Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni coasted to victory in elections that were marred by a clampdown on opposition campaigning, extending his 35-year rule. Museveni won 58.6% of votes cast on January 14, according to results released on Saturday by the Electoral Commission of Uganda on state television. Pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine, 38, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi and presented ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong’s government expressed its “utmost anger” towards a US decision to sanction six officials from the city and China, calling the move “insane, shameless and despicable.” The US is attempting to “intervene” in the internal affairs of China and Hong Kong, and “obstruct” their efforts to safeguard national security, the city’s government said in a statement on Saturday. ...

Bloomberg Australia joined allies including the US and the UK in raising concern about the use of products from China’s Xinjiang region in global supply chains. Local companies that source goods from the area need to properly check supply chain and suppliers, Foreign Minister Marise Payne was quoted as telling the Australian Financial Review in an interview. Governments are seeking ...

Bloomberg Germany’s dominant party voted for continuity by electing Armin Laschet as leader, opting for the candidate who most resembles outgoing chancellor, Angela Merkel, in policy and style. Laschet, head of the country’s most populous state, beat long-time Merkel critic Friedrich Merz in a runoff after Norbert Roettgen, chairman of foreign affairs committee in Bundestag, was eliminated in first round ...

Bloomberg Some of the world’s biggest banks are urging a US judge not to immediately terminate Libor after a group of borrowers filed suit claiming the benchmark was the work of a “price-fixing cartel.” Defendants in the case, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Credit Suisse Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG, said in a November filing that an injunction abruptly ...

Bloomberg Morgan Stanley strategists have dropped their expectations of near-term weakening in the dollar amid a regime shift in US rates propelled partly by prospects for meaningful fiscal expansion. “It’s no longer attractive to be positioned for a weaker dollar from here given the uncertainties around the fiscal policy outlook, the monetary policy outlook, and the growth and inflation outlook,” ...

Bloomberg The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is open to examining any proposal to set up a bad bank, Governor Shaktikanta Das said, days after the authority forecast a surge in soured assets. “If any proposal comes we are open to examining it and issuing the regulatory guidelines but it’s for the government and the private sector players to really ...