United Says 36,000 Workers Could be Furloughed: Live Updates

Brooks Brothers, the clothier best known for men’s wear that traces its roots back to 1818, filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, as the brand buckled under the pressure from the coronavirus pandemic following years of declining sales.

The company, founded and based in New York, filed for Chapter 11 restructuring proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Claudio del Vecchio, the Italian industrialist who bought the brand in 2001 and still owns the company, told The New York Times in a May interview that he would not rule out Chapter 11 as a possibility for the company.

Brooks Brothers said in an emailed statement that the filing would allow it to obtain additional financing and facilitate a sale to a new owner.

The bankruptcy represents the latest big retail casualty during the pandemic, which has caused widespread store closures and sales declines, and pushed major names like J.C. Penney, Neiman Marcus and J.Crew into Chapter 11 proceedings since May. All of the chains, including Brooks Brothers, plan to keep operating, though likely in a pared-back fashion.

Brooks Brothers, with its tony men’s wear, has been hit especially hard by the pandemic in an era of remote work and job interviews through Zoom, and the postponement of celebrations like weddings, bar mitzvahs, graduations and more.

The company, which is the oldest apparel brand in continuous operation in the United States, said on Wednesday that it had decided to close 51 U.S. stores of its roughly 250 locations in North America. Earlier this year, Brooks Brothers said it would close its three U.S. factories, which are in Queens, Haverhill, Mass., and Garland, N.C., spurring concern around the health and the future of the brand.

Brooks Brothers has a unique and rich connection to American heritage and culture. It has dressed all but four U.S. presidents and its overcoats have been worn for the inaugurations of Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump, among others. It has outfitted Clark Gable, Andy Warhol and Stephen Colbert, and even Ralph Lauren started out as a salesman at Brooks Brothers in New York. — Sapna Maheshwari and Vanessa Friedman

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on Wednesday released a list of lenders that have signed up for the central bank’s mid-size business lending program and are willing to make loans to new customers through the initiative.

Noticeably absent from the list are most of the nation’s biggest banks. Only Bank of America has so far agreed to participate and take on new clients, based on the Boston Fed’s map, while lenders like J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo are not listed.

The data released Wednesday was restricted to banks who are willing to lend to new customers. Most states have only a handful of open lenders, with seven listed in California and nine in New York, based on the Boston Fed’s release.

Banks can also participate in the program by making loans to existing clients. While thousands of banks are eligible to sign up, only about 300 had signed up to participate in total, Fed officials have previously said. The Fed has not released a full list of all banks participating in the program.

The Fed’s mid-size business lending program, called the “Main Street” program, opened for lender registration in June and became fully operational on Monday. While the Fed first said that it would set up a Main Street program in late March, it has never attempted to support mid-sized businesses before and Chair Jerome H. Powell has said that designing the program was a challenge. — Jeanna Smialek

Warren Buffett announced on Wednesday that he had donated $2.9 billion worth of stock to nonprofit groups, following through on his pledge to give away nearly all his fortune to philanthropic causes before he dies.

Mr. Buffett, 89, said in a statement that he had given shares in Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate that he has run for decades, to five organizations: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, the nonprofit named for his late wife; and three groups founded by his children.

It was his 15th annual donation since 2006. Over that time, he has gifted about $37 billion worth of Berkshire stock. The stock that Mr. Buffett still holds is worth around $67 billion.

That Mr. Buffett has given money to Mr. Gates is no surprise: The two are close friends, with Mr. Gates sitting on Berkshire’s board — and serving as a regular bridge partner to Mr. Buffett. Among the Gates Foundation’s philanthropic focuses is the coronavirus; it has poured money into development of Covid-19 vaccines and paid to help distribute them to poorer countries.

Mr. Buffett and Mr. Gates founded the Giving Pledge, a nonprofit that encourages fellow tycoons to promise to give away at least half of their wealth over their lifetimes. — Michael J. de la Merced

The U.K. government’s top financial official announced a host of tax and spending measures on Wednesday to preserve and create jobs in Britain as the country anticipates a wave of layoffs caused by the pandemic.

Rishi Sunak, chancellor of the Exchequer, unveiled to Parliament a 30 billion pound ($37.7 billion) proposal that included tax cuts, employment coaching and even a 50 percent discount for diners who go to restaurants and pubs.

“Despite the extraordinary support we’ve already provided, we face profound economic challenges,” Mr. Sunak said. “Taken together in just two months, our economy contracted by 25 percent, the same amount it grew in the previous 18 years.” With more job losses forecast, he added: “I will never accept unemployment as an unavoidable outcome.”

But he said Britain’s furlough program, which has paid up to 80 percent of the wages of 9.4 million workers since March, would end in October, as previously announced. Keeping it longer, he said, would provide “false hope” to workers. Instead, employers will receive £1,000 for each employee they bring back to work through January.

Among the initiatives Mr. Sunak introduced:

• £2 billion to pay the wages for up to six months for young people aged 16 to 24 offered new jobs.

• A temporary cut to Britain’s VAT, a type of sales tax, for the hospitality and tourism industries to 5 percent from 20 percent.

• An “Eat Out to Help Out” discount, cutting in half the cost of meals eaten in restaurants and pubs, up to £10 per person.

• A reduction in the stamp duty, which is a tax paid on home purchases.

• £3 billion targeted at creating green jobs by funding vouchers to pay for home insulation and making public buildings more energy efficient. — Eshe Nelson

Wall Street was unsteady for a second day, as investors considered the latest fiscal efforts to support economies and new friction between the United States and China.

The S&P 500 turned negative by mid-morning, after rising slightly in early trading. European indexes were lower. Asian markets ended the trading session mostly lower with the exception of China’s indexes, where positive gains reflected recent efforts by the government to encourage stock-buying.

The uncertainty in financial markets seemed to mirror the mixed signals in the global economy as it continues to endure the coronavirus pandemic. In Britain, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced further steps to support businesses, homeowners and young workers. Among the proposals were a fund to create six-month work placements for people aged 16 to 24 who are receiving welfare payments and are at risk of long-term unemployment, and a measure aimed at stimulating the real estate market by relieving sales taxes on property transfers.

Among the companies trading lower on Wednesday was HSBC, the London-based bank with a big presence in Hong Kong. Analysts said investors were concerned by reports by Bloomberg News that the Trump administration might restrict the ability of Hong Kong banks to buy U.S. dollars. The move, intended to undermine the Hong Kong dollar’s peg to the U.S. dollar, would be a way to punish China for tightening political freedoms in Hong Kong. HSBC shares traded in Hong Kong fell more than 4 percent.

Many countries have rushed out apps to trace and monitor the coronavirus this spring, only to scramble to address serious complaints that soon arose over extensive user data-mining or poor security practices.

Human rights groups and technologists have warned that the design of many apps put hundreds of millions of people at risk for stalking, fraud, identity theft or oppressive government tracking — and could undermine trust in public health efforts. The problems have emerged just as some countries are poised to deploy even more intrusive technologies, including asking hundreds of thousands of workers to wear virus-tracking wristbands around the clock.

In mid-June, after a barrage of criticism from privacy advocates, Britain abandoned the virus-tracing app it was developing and announced it was switching to software from Apple and Google that the companies have promoted as more “privacy-preserving.”

In May, after Amnesty International identified major security flaws with a mandatory virus exposure-alert app in Qatar, the government quickly released an update with new security features.

In fact, “the vast majority” of virus-tracing apps used by governments lack adequate security and “are easy for hackers” to attack, according to a recent software analysis by Guardsquare, a mobile app security company.

“It’s a cautionary tale for governments aggregating such an enormous amount of data,” said Claudio Guarnieri, the head of Amnesty International’s Security Lab who identified the problems with the Qatari app. — Natasha Singer

United Airlines said on Tuesday that it was cutting back on the August flight schedule it announced just last week because travel demand was sliding again as coronavirus cases surged across much of the country.

United management told employees this week that it expected to fly about 35 percent as many flights next month as it did last August, down from the 40 percent it announced a week ago, the airline said in a securities filing released after the market close.

The airline said its flight schedule for the rest of the year was likely to look much like its reconfigured August plan because the recovery would remain choppy. The airline does not expect demand to recover fully until a “widely accepted” treatment or vaccine for the virus is available. United had operated about 12 percent as many flights in June as it did last year and expects to operate about 25 percent as many flights in July compared with the same month last year.

Demand for flights started to fall as the recent increase in cases nationwide — and the associated travel and quarantine restrictions — made flying less appealing, United said. Bookings for upcoming flights at the airline’s Newark hub, for example, had started to recover in the first half of June only to reverse course after Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, said on June 24 they would require travelers visiting from states with rising infection rates to quarantine for 14 days.

The airline also said that it planned to send out legally required notices to workers by mid-July warning of possible layoffs once federal aid to the aviation industry expires at the end of September. Those affected could be notified as soon as next month, United said. — Niraj Chokshi

Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., will reopen on Saturday, and the Walt Disney Company has been posting marketing videos online to highlight the safety procedures it has designed to protect visitors and employees.

Some of the 1,000-plus responses to that particular video were supportive. Others were incredulous, with people using words like “irresponsible” and “disappointing.

The pandemic has devastated Disney’s businesses, and reopening its signature tourist attraction — with restricted capacity and government approval — is a major part of the company’s comeback attempt. But in doing so, Disney is stepping into a politicized debate surrounding the virus and efforts to keep people safe, where even the wearing of masks has become a point of bitter contention.

The Florida Department of Health reported more than 9,900 new Covid-19 infections on Wednesday. Those numbers are down from last week but still among the highest in the country, leading some to question whether Disney is being responsible in opening up Disney World.

“The world is changing around us, but we strongly believe that we can open safely and responsibly,” Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s theme park chairman, said in an interview. “For those that might have questions or concerns, when they see how we are operating and the aggressive protocols that we have put in place, they will understand. This is our new normal.” — Brooks Barnes