Reuters Business News

The United States racked up a $744 billion budget deficit in the first half of fiscal 2020, up 8% from a year earlier, the Treasury said on Friday, ahead of an expected April spending explosion and withering of revenues amid the coronavirus pandemic.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is holding calls with airline CEOs throughout the day and could announce some details of a $32 billion payroll grant package later this afternoon, people briefed on the matter told Reuters.

The U.S. economy was on a strong footing before the coronavirus pandemic and Federal Reserve officials are working to help the economy rebound quickly once businesses that were shuttered because of the virus begin to reopen, two policymakers said Friday.

Boeing Co has hired investment banks Lazard and Evercore Inc to assess potential U.S. government assistance or private sector loans, a person briefed on the matter confirmed on Friday.

Coast-to-coast shutdowns of businesses and stay-at-home orders from the effort to contain the new coronavirus pandemic took their toll on U.S. consumer prices in March, sending them down by the most in five years.

Top oil nations pushed to finalise a deal on sweeping oil cuts at G20 talks on Friday to lift prices slammed by the coronavirus crisis with Russia and Saudi Arabia taking the lion's share and the United States showing unusual willingness to help out.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed a planned OPEC+ reduction of oil output, the Kremlin said.

The trillions of dollars in cash and loans unleashed by the Federal Reserve and U.S. political leaders in recent weeks is meant to build a financial bridge for the country to get beyond the coronavirus pandemic and restart the economy with little or no long-term damage.

A shocking 16.8 million people filed for U.S. unemployment benefits in the last three weeks as the country shut down to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, overwhelming state labor departments and creating a large backlog of pending applications.

The U.S. Justice Department and other federal agencies on Thursday called on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to revoke China Telecom (Americas) Corp's authorization to provide international telecommunications services to and from the United States.

Johnson & Johnson said on Friday it abandoned plans to buy Takeda Pharmaceutical’s surgical patch product TachoSil, citing regulatory issues.

The March U.S. budget deficit shrank to $119 billion from $147 billion a year earlier as receipts grew and calendar shifts reduced outlays, but the data reflect only a minimal impact from massive coronavirus rescue spending, the U.S. Treasury said on Friday.

Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google said on Friday that they will work together to create contact tracing technology that aims to slow the spread of the coronavirus by allowing users to opt into a system that catalogs other phones they have been near.

U.S. consumer prices fell by the most in more than five years in March and further decreases are likely as the novel coronavirus outbreak suppresses demand for some goods and services, offsetting price increases related to shortages resulting from disruptions to the supply chain.

President Donald Trump has "generously" agreed to cut American oil output by an additional 250,000 barrels per day to help Mexico contribute to global reductions, his Mexican counterpart said on Friday.

3M Co said it filed a lawsuit against Performance Supply LLC on Friday, alleging that the New Jersey-based company had posed as an authorized vendor of 3M-branded N95 respirators and offered millions of them for sale to New York City officials at prices as much as 600% over the list price.

Top oil nations were finalising a deal at G20 talks on Friday for big output cuts to lift prices slammed by the coronavirus crisis with Russia and Saudi Arabia taking a lion's share and signs the United States might take unprecedented moves to help.

Airbus has shelved plans to add a French assembly line for its A321neo just 10 weeks after the expansion was launched, as the coronavirus fallout spreads to its best-selling jetliner.

U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday about the coronavirus and energy markets, the White House said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, in a phone call on Friday, discussed a potential global deal on oil production cuts by the group known as OPEC+, the Kremlin said.