FED SAYS SOME SUPERVISION OF BANKS WILL BE SUSPENDED

WASHINGTON» The Federal Reserve announced that it will suspend some of its bank supervisory activities to give banks more leeway in dealing with financially strapped customers.

The Fed said it will cease nearly all examinations for banks with less than $100 billion in total assets, except for those reviews “critical to safety and soundness or consumer protection.” For larger banks above that threshold, the Fed will postpone most of its examinations, based on how burdensome the scrutiny would be for each bank.

Tuesday’s announcement followed earlier efforts by the Fed and other banking regulators to lighten regulatory oversight during the viral outbreak.

Key medical glove factories cutting staff 50% because of virus. Malaysia’s medical glove factories, which make most of the world’s critical hand protection, are operating at half capacity just when they’re most needed, The Associated Press has learned.

Health care workers snap gloves on as the first line of protection against catching COVID-19 from patients, and they’re crucial to protecting patients, as well. But medical-grade glove supplies are running low globally — even as more feverish, sweating and coughing patients arrive in hospitals each day.

Malaysia is by far the world’s largest medical gloves supplier, producing as many as three out of four gloves on market.

Ford helping GE make ventilators, 3M manufacture respirators. Ford Motor Co. is throwing its design and production prowess behind two other manufacturers’ efforts to build more ventilators and respirators for health care workers and first responders.

The automaker will work with 3M Co. to accelerate production of the respirators and have United Auto Workers members assemble more than 100,000 plastic face shields per week, according to a news release issued Tuesday. Ford also will help General Electric Co.’s health care unit boost output of ventilators that hospitals desperately need for coronavirus patients.

“We’re going as fast as we can,” Bill Ford, the automaker’s executive chairman and a great-grandson of Henry Ford, said on NBC’s “Today” show. “Nobody’s talked about the financial implications of this because this is a national emergency, and we’ll sort all that out later.”