Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Trump’s big gamble

Evening Briefing
Bloomberg

Hong Kong lawmakers warn that its status as an international financial center is in jeopardy after China announced dramatic plans to crush dissent by writing a new national security law into the city’s charter. Any attempt to impose authoritarian security laws now could reignite massive pro-democracy demonstrations that hammered the city’s economy last year and increased U.S.-China tensionsJosh Petri

Bloomberg is mapping the pandemic globally and across America. For the latest news, sign up for our Covid-19 podcast and daily newsletter.

Here are today’s top stories

President Donald Trump is gambling on a sudden U.S. recovery with both lives and livelihoods as he fights to win another term in office this fall, writes Peter Coy in Bloomberg Businessweek. It’s a familiar concept in game theory: if you’re behind and the stakes are high, bold moves make sense even if there’s only a small chance they will pay off. If the gamble fails, he’s no worse off because he was probably going to lose the election anyway. For Americans, the cost may be grave.

Trump’s push to reopen could cost tens of thousands more American lives on top of the 94,000 who have perished on his watch. It may also cost him votes. Most of those Americans lost to the virus might be alive today had shutdowns and social distancing begun two weeks earlier.

Millions more Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, indicating massive job losses are continuing two months after the pandemic started shuttering businesses. Initial jobless claims for regular state programs totaled 2.44 million in the week ended May 16. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday said Congress will likely need to pass more bailout legislation, though Republicans in the Senate oppose it.

The U.S. threw its weight behind one of the fastest-moving experimental solutions to the pandemic, pledging as much as $1.2 billion to AstraZeneca to help make the University of Oxford’s Covid vaccine.

A cluster of Covid-19 cases in China’s Rust Belt region has intensified worry over a second wave of infections. In the U.S., one-third of adults have delayed or avoided getting medical care during the outbreak, according to government estimates. A report from a London college estimates 4.1% of the U.S. population has been infected. There have now been over 5 million global cases of the virus, and 330,000 have died. Here's the latest.

U.S. retailers sparked a culture war last year when they asked workers to gently encourage gun-carrying customers to leave their firearms outside. The ill-defined policies put employees in a difficult, even dangerous position, thrusting them onto the front lines of a contentious national debate. Now it’s happening again. This time the issue is shoppers wearing masks inside grocery stores.

When the Fed needed Wall Street’s help with its pandemic rescue mission, it went straight to Larry Fink and BlackRock. Again.

What you’ll need to know tomorrow

What you’ll want to read tonight in Businessweek

Big Beer Will Need Years to Recover From Virus

The prospect of once-bustling pubs reopening as ghost towns is a major problem for brewing giants such as Anheuser-Busch InBev, Carlsberg, and Heineken. While Americans prefer to drink at home—carryout sales account for about four-fifths of U.S. consumption—restaurants, bars and cafes represent about half of brewers’ revenue in much of Europe. And the woes are compounded by the shutdown of soccer and other sports, as well as the cancellation of big events such as Oktoberfest.

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Powell walks the line

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Bloomberg Follow Us Get the newsletter Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who testified along with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at a virtual hearing of the Senate Banking Committee on

Sounding the alarm on stocks

Saturday, May 16, 2020

Bloomberg Follow Us Get the newsletter Some of Wall Street's biggest names are sounding the alarm on stocks, while Fed Chairman Jerome Powell highlighted unprecedented risks to the US economy and

‘Controlled’ infections

Friday, May 15, 2020

Bloomberg Follow Us Get the newsletter A group of US East Coast states is coordinating the opening of beaches for Memorial Day weekend. Italy had the fewest new coronavirus cases in four days while the

America’s looming summer

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Bloomberg Follow Us Get the newsletter Repeated warnings, including a particularly grim one Thursday on Capitol Hill, have fallen on deaf ears as US cities and states move to lift stay-at-home orders

Sweden’s deadly experiment

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Bloomberg Follow Us Get the newsletter Those who doubt the efficacy of shutdowns and mandated social distancing in slowing the spread of Covid-19 may want to look at the grim lesson learned by Sweden.

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