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A man was infected with the coronavirus after recovering from an initial bout in April in what scientists said was the first case showing re-infection may occur within a few months. In New Zealand, once the poster-child for how to handle a pandemic, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern extended a lockdown in Auckland, the nation’s largest city. Deaths worldwide surpassed 800,000 this weekend, with confirmed infections now totaling 23.5 million, though the real numbers on both counts are said to be much higher. Some 5.7 million infections are in the U.S., where 177,000 have died from the virus this year. Here is the latest. —David E. Rovella

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Here are today’s top stories

Several of Alibaba Group’s biggest investors have converted billions of dollars in U.S. shares for Hong Kong stock in part to avoid potential U.S. sanctions and de-listings of major Chinese technology companies. Meanwhile, money managers say this Asian country’s equities market is one of the best performers on the continent, and it isn’t done yet.

Some of the largest real estate investors, including Brookfield Property Partners, Starwood Capital Group, Colony Capital and Blackstone Group, are skipping payments on commercial mortgage-backed securities backed by hotels and malls.

Online video is becoming a serious business for some of America’s oldest and largest media companies. Walt Disney is leading the pack.

Protesters gather on Aug. 23 near the site of the Kenosha, Wisconsin, police shooting of an unarmed Black man. 

Photographer: WDJT-TV/WDJT-TV

Kenosha, Wisconsin, police shot an unarmed Black man seven times in the back at close range on Sunday. The victim’s lawyer said they shot the man in front of his children. Protests erupted and the governor called out the national guard, echoing a summer of nationwide demonstrations against American police killings of unarmed African Americans.

U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s 10-week tenure as head of the 500,000-employee federal agency was fraught from the start. The Republican megadonor was installed by an all-male, mostly white board of governors dominated by President Donald Trump’s appointees. He has cut overtime, services, mailboxes and sorting machines before an election in which all of them will arguably be needed most. He has repeatedly rejected calls that he undo his capacity reduction, despite lawsuits, probes, a growing public furor and now national protests. This weekend, members of the House, who passed a $25 billion aid package for the U.S. Postal Service Saturday, submitted data they say support widespread complaints that mail service has slowed ahead of an election that will include millions of mail-in ballots, and business and rural Americans are already suffering.

At first, Russian doctors wouldn’t let Alexei Navalny leave the country as he lay in a coma, denying he was poisoned as his aides suspected. But tests in Germany on the anti-corruption campaigner and chief political irritant to President Vladimir Putin show he was indeed poisoned, not unlike several other enemies of the Kremlin. Navalny may suffer long-term damage to his nervous system.

What’s Joe Weisenthal thinking about? The Bloomberg news director says that the S&P 500 has staged a V-shaped recovery while yields on U.S. Treasuries continue to grind lower. Sometimes, Joe says, you hear people talk about how the Treasury market is the “smart” market while stocks are depicted as the playground of Robinhood traders. And so you get people talking about how the two markets disagree, how depressed rates signal any rebound is a mirage. Joe opines, however, that the two aren’t in opposition at all. Whereas the S&P 500 is reflective of the perceived earnings potential of its companies, the Treasury market reflects the future path of Fed moves. The central bank has strongly signaled it likely won’t hike rates for awhile, thus not snuffing out a recovery at the first whiff of inflation. Investors are betting the Fed won’t prematurely slow things down, Joe says. So stocks keep climbing.  

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Diamond Prices Are Getting Cut by Covid-19

De Beers has finally decided to cut the price of its diamonds in a bid to spark sales since the pandemic paralyzed the industry. The world’s No. 1 producer of the sparkly stones told customers that it is cutting prices for larger diamonds Quicktakeby almost 10% starting this week.

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