Business News

The United Kingdom is looking closely at air bridges to enable some people to travel but airlines should not be using the government's job retention scheme as a way to cut jobs, a junior transport minister said on Wednesday.

* Coty up on potential collaboration with Kim Kardashian West

The GAVI vaccines alliance is to launch an Advance Market Commitment (AMC) for future COVID-19 vaccines which it says will help secure access to the new shots for poorer countries.

Top executives of the Detroit Three automakers and other major Michigan employers on Wednesday condemned racism and injustice in the United States following the death last week of an unarmed black man at the hands of Minneapolis police, carefully joining a charged national debate.

Brazil labour prosecutors said on Wednesday they have requested meatpacker JBS SA to close its plant in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul due to an outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

President Donald Trump's administration on Wednesday barred Chinese passenger carriers from flying to the United States starting on June 16 as it pressures Beijing to let U.S. air carriers resume flights amid simmering tensions between the world's two largest economies.

Global smartphone shipments will fall nearly 12% to 1.2 billion units in 2020, market research firm IDC said on Wednesday, citing lower consumer spending due to the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis.

Privately held U.S. agribusiness Cargill Inc said on Wednesday it will no longer be issuing public releases on quarterly earnings, halting the disclosures that the company has provided since 1996.

Canada will require most airport workers and flight crews to wear non-medical masks from June 4, but pilots will be exempt while they are on the flight deck, Transport Minister Marc Garneau said on Wednesday.

* ECB expected to expand bond buying on Thurs meeting (Updates to market close)

Warner Music Group Corp's stock popped 8% on its Nasdaq debut on Wednesday, after the world's third-largest recording label sold shares in its $1.9-billion initial public offering towards the higher end of its target.

* Coty up on potential collaboration with Kim Kardashian West

Walmart Inc said on Wednesday it shifted firearms and ammunition out of sales floors of some U.S. stores amid nationwide protests over the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of police last week.

Brazilian antitrust regulator CADE has rejected an appeal against an infrastructure sharing deal signed by two major telecoms in the country, Telefonica Brasil SA and TIM Participações SA, it said in a statement on Wednesday.

Hedge fund Citadel, whose flagship portfolio is posting double-digit gains this year, has hired for its investment teams even as many corporations cut staff after the coronavirus outbreak shuttered large parts of the U.S. economy.

LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault is exploring ways to reopen negotiations on the French luxury goods giant's $16.2 billion acquisition of U.S. jewelry chain Tiffany & Co, as U.S. social unrest and the coronavirus pandemic weigh on the retail sector, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

Brazilian bike-sharing company Tembici has raised $47 million in its second finance round to widely roll out electric bikes and expand services, betting that the coronavirus pandemic is likely to draw more people to commute by bike, it said on Wednesday.

Brazil this month will start testing an experimental vaccine against the novel coronavirus being developed by researchers at the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc, Brazil's health surveillance agency Anvisa and the Federal University of Sao Paulo (Unifesp) said.

HSBC's top executive in Asia has signed a petition backing China’s imposition of a national security law on Hong Kong, the bank confirmed on Wednesday, breaking years of political neutrality for the UK-based, Asia-focused lender.

* Reuters Live Markets blog on European and UK stock markets: