Honda reaches $85M settlement over airbags

Honda has reached an $85 million settlement with multiple states over allegations that it hid safety failures in the airbags of certain Honda and Acura vehicles sold in the U.S.

The settlement ties up an investigation into Honda’s alleged failure to inform regulators and consumers of issues related to the significant risk of rupture in the frontal airbag systems installed in certain cars, which could cause metal fragments to fly into the passenger compartments.

The systems were designed and made by Takata Corp. Problems with Takata’s products touched off the largest string of automotive recalls in U.S. history with around 50 million inflators recalled.

American Airlines will lay off thousands without more fed aid

American Airlines said Tuesday it will cut more than 40,000 jobs, including 19,000 through furloughs and layoffs, in October as it struggles with a sharp downturn in travel because of the pandemic.

American executives said the furloughs can only be avoided if the federal government gives airlines another $25 billion to help them cover labor costs for six more months.

The airline said 23,500 employees have accepted buyouts, retired early or taken long-term leaves of absence, but that was not enough to avoid involuntary cuts. The furloughs of union workers and layoffs of management staff announced Tuesday will fall heaviest on flight attendants, with 8,100 being terminated in October.

National home sales climb even higher than expected

Sales of new homes jumped again in July, rising 13.9% as the housing market continues to gain traction following a spring downturn caused by pandemic-related lockdowns.

The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that July’s gain propelled sales of new homes to a seasonallyadjusted annual rate of 901,000, the most since 2006. That’s a far bigger number than analysts had expected and follows big increases in May and June. The government report has a high margin of error, so the July figures could be revised in the coming months.

The recent sales gains followed a steep dropoff in March and April as much of the country stayed home due to government restrictions intended to slow the spread of coronavirus.

Drop in German economy not quite as bad as first reported

The German economy, Europe’s biggest, shrank by slightly less than originally estimated during the second quarter, the country’s official statistics agency said Tuesday — though the 9.7% drop was still easily the worst on record.

The Federal Statistical Office revised the quarter-on-quarter contraction from the 10.1% it initially reported at the end of July.

Despite the revision, it remained by far the steepest drop in the 50 years that quarterly GDP figures have been recorded — easily beating a 4.7% decline in the first quarter of 2009, during the global financial crisis.

The German decline was one of the less drastic second-quarter contractions among Europe’s major economies during the wide-ranging coronavirus lockdowns in the spring. France, Italy, Spain and Britain all saw double-digit drops.

120 million jobs lost globally due to plummeting tourism

The global tourism industry has been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, with $320 billion lost in exports in the first five months of the year and more than 120 million jobs at risk, the U.N. chief said Tuesday.

Secretary-general Antonio Guterres said in a policy briefing and video address that tourism is the third-largest export sector of the global economy, behind fuels and chemicals, and in 2019 it accounted for 7% of global trade.

“It employs 1 in every 10 people on Earth and provides livelihoods to hundreds of millions more,” he said.

In the first five months of 2020, because of the pandemic, international tourist arrivals decreased by more than half and earnings plummeted, the U.N. chief said.

From wire reports