Russia’s Ministry of Health on Saturday approved a flu drug for use in fighting coronavirus after officials said preliminary testing showed hospitalized patients who took the pills recovered more quickly.

The drug, known as favipiravir, had produced promising results against coronavirus in early testing in Russia. Its approval makes it among the first in a global race to find effective treatments and eventually a vaccine for the virus.

Wegmans became one of the country’s most famous grocery store chains by lavishly pampering its customers with cooking demonstrations, restaurants and movie nights. Now every customer is a potential risk.

The shift required by the age of Covid-19 represents an existential challenge to the 104-year-old family-owned company as it upends a shopping experience that made it a household name across the U.S. Northeast.

The...

To reach Saturday’s astronaut liftoff, Elon Musk and his engineering team overcame a string of failures and swift design changes that generated years of skepticism inside NASA, their biggest customer.

During the roller-coaster program to replace NASA’s geriatric space shuttles, SpaceX endured several setbacks, from catastrophic engine failures and malfunctioning parachutes to safety concerns about fueling boosters on the ground for the first time with astronauts on board. When he took over as head of the National Aeronautics...

When Twitter Inc. earlier this month announced a new fact-checking tool, it was billed largely as a measure to combat false information about coronavirus. Two weeks later, the company deployed that tool in one of the biggest actions in its history: squaring off with President Trump.

Since Tuesday, the platform has taken several actions on messages from Mr. Trump as well as a post from the official White House account, marking some as breaking the company’s rules and adding a fact-check label to two about mail-in ballots. In...

If your local movie theater succumbs to the coronavirus crisis, the coming attraction might be a bulldozer.

The theater industry was struggling before the pandemic with high fixed costs, mounting debt and stagnating attendance as in-home streaming options proliferated. But the lockdown has added to those pressures by halting incoming revenue for months and creating uncertainty over when, and if, customers will feel comfortable returning to cinemas.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and NASA blasted two astronauts into orbit, marking the first human launch from U.S. soil in nearly a decade and a new partnership between industry and government aimed at revitalizing the country’s space ambitions.

Saturday’s successful blastoff—from the same launchpad at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center that sent Apollo crews to the moon during the height of the Cold War—sought to highlight American persistence and scientific know-how even as the U.S. continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic....

The dozens of Chick-fil-A Nuggets, Taco Bell At-Home Taco Bars and buckets of KFC chicken that Audrey Simes ordered recently have something in common: The meals are big enough to yield leftovers for her family of eight.

“It’s a huge, huge help to have that extra food on hand,” Ms. Simes said.

She is working from her home in suburban Denver,...

Companies have a new question for employees: Any plans this weekend?

As U.S. states reopen, sending residents back to work as well as social life, employers are urging workers to be cautious when they are off duty, and at least one local official has begun advising employers to ask staffers about activities in their off hours. Some companies are concerned that the many safeguards put in place at work to limit the spread of the coronavirus—from policies requiring masks on the job to separated desks—could be undone if workers...

American shale drillers helped turn the U.S. into the world’s top oil producer, topping 13 million barrels a day earlier this year. It likely will be years—if ever—before they reach such heights again.

That is the growing view among top oil and natural-gas executives and experts, who say the coronavirus pandemic is going to thin the ranks of shale companies and leave survivors that are smaller, leaner and less able to pursue growth at any cost.

Jim McKelvey and his former intern Jack Dorsey got the idea for financial-technology company Square Inc. the last time a global crisis sent the economy into a nosedive.

It was 2009, and Mr. McKelvey—a glassblower, computer scientist and serial entrepreneur—had lost a sale of one of his artworks because he couldn’t accept American Express cards. Though neither he nor Mr. Dorsey, now CEO of Square and Twitter Inc., knew much about the world of credit-card transactions, his frustration inspired the creation of Square’s signature...

Here’s a stark example of how the global coronavirus pandemic affects America’s tech giants, versus how it affects pretty much everyone else.

On May 12, Alphabet Inc. subsidiary Waymo announced it had scored an additional $750 million to make self-driving cars a commercial reality, bringing its total external fundraising to $3 billion inside two months. Then, on the 18th, The Wall Street Journal reported that Uber Technologies Inc. is cutting $1 billion in fixed costs. This included laying off roughly a quarter of its workforce...

Putting a computer in the cab of a big rig was a radical step back in 1988.

Trucking companies since then have added as many as 10 separate devices into vehicles, tracking everything from location to the time drivers spend behind the wheel and how often they pump the brakes.

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration has updated guidelines for forgiving federally backed loans to help small businesses survive the coronavirus outbreak—but they don’t address some stickier issues plaguing lenders and borrowers.

The new rules, released by the Treasury Department and Small Business Administration late Friday, warned businesses and lenders that it may review Paycheck Protection Program loans “of any size at any time in SBA’s discretion,” signaling an intention to closely monitor how businesses spend funds from...

The world’s chief executives are grappling with how to navigate a deadly disease, government-ordered shutdowns and an economic meltdown. All of their struggles are a little different, but they have adopted some common coping techniques.

CEOs tell me they talk daily with mentors, board members and top lieutenants about lessons learned. Many have taken pay cuts, signalling they can share the pain. Several are planning for life after Covid-19.

Stores and schools closed. Families sheltered at home. But the coronavirus pandemic didn’t stop Americans from buying more Crocs.

The foam plastic footwear, known for being easy on the feet if less so on the eyes, is one of the few major retail brands to navigate the Covid-19 era successfully. For some, Crocs are the perfect shoes to wear when no one can see you wear them. For others, a pair of the colorful clogs is a fashion statement.

Young Americans are having little luck finding summer jobs.

Coronavirus outbreaks throughout the country have dried up many of the traditional opportunities that high school and college-age students rely on each summer. Junior workers seeking seasonal employment are striking out so much that the April unemployment rate for teens aged 16 to 19 hit 32%, marking a high not seen since at least 1948, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As more teens hit the job market in June and July, when school is generally out, that...

With the scheduled launch of two NASA astronauts into orbit Wednesday, SpaceX aims to propel the U.S. into a historic new era of commercially led space exploration.

No company has flown commercially developed hardware carrying humans and rendezvoused with the international space station. If successful, it would be a resounding achievement for Space Exploration Technologies Corp.; its billionaire founder, Elon Musk; and a milestone for NASA.

Many pre-pandemic activities seem exotic now: cramming myself onto a bus, sweating in a packed spin class, splitting an entree at a restaurant, dancing shoulder-to-shoulder at a large, joyous wedding reception. For the foreseeable future, these rituals are no more, and it isn’t clear when and if they’ll return, even as things begin to reopen.

What is certain is that the coronavirus crisis not only changed our economy and the way we work, travel and learn—it changed us.

The alliance of Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co. is set to disclose billions of dollars in cost cuts this week and Nissan is looking to slash capacity by an additional million vehicles, according to people familiar with the plans.

The moves will complete the undoing of the growth strategy pushed by Carlos Ghosn, former leader of both companies.

The...

American shale drillers helped turn the U.S. into the world’s top oil producer, topping 13 million barrels a day earlier this year. It likely will be years—if ever—before they reach such heights again.

That is the growing view among top oil and natural-gas executives and experts, who say the coronavirus pandemic is going to thin the ranks of shale companies and leave survivors that are smaller, leaner and less able to pursue growth at any cost.

A coronavirus-triggered rush for infrared cameras that identify people with elevated skin temperature is causing makers of the devices to beef up supply chains and re-examine their product lineups to meet the increasing requests coming from different businesses.

The first wave of demand came in part from factories and health-care companies, camera makers say, but it has since expanded as companies and governments reimagine entertainment, athletics, transportation and education under the coronavirus.

Harley-Davidson Inc. is reopening its factories this week at lower production rates and sending dealers a narrower range of motorcycles, steering away from more expansive plans to stop a yearslong sales slide.

Milwaukee-based Harley’s U.S. assembly plants and most of its dealers closed in March as part of a nationwide effort to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. As many of the company’s 698 U.S. dealers were making plans to reopen, Harley’s director of product sales, Beth Truett, told them in a memo earlier this month...

Home Depot Inc. reported an 11% decline in quarterly earnings as costs from boosting workers’ pay and benefits during the coronavirus pandemic offset higher sales from locked-down customers doing more projects around the house.

Home Depot was among a small group of retailers whose stores have remained open as much of the country was forced to shut down. That led to higher sales, driven in part by strong growth online, but also increased expenses as the company took steps to support its employees.