fortune--2020-03-13--A state of emergency

A state of emergency

This is the web version of Brainstorm Health Daily, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top health care news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Happy Friday, readers.
It’s a bit strange to type that out given the anxieties facing our nation right now. Just an hour ago, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency over the coronavirus outbreak.
This was, almost certainly, inevitable. As Fortune CEO Alan Murray pointed out in this morning’s CEO Daily newsletter, we ourselves are experimenting with a work-from-home policy in order to minimize transmission of this virus and the disease it causes, COVID-19.
It’s natural to feel anxious in such times, especially when events cascade so rapidly. An ever-escalating narrative and large-scale disruptions to our personal lives are never fun, and they’ll have an outsize effect on the most vulnerable in our society. Not everybody has the luxury of working from home or social distancing.
But it’s also important to not succumb to complete gloom and doom. While the United States has been slow to respond to this outbreak, private firms are stepping up through telecommuting policies, conference cancelations, and even developing new diagnostics to test for coronavirus.
Stay healthy. Do right by each other with responsible action. And try your very best to stop touching your face.
Have a wonderful weekend, all.
Sy Mukherjee
sayak.mukherjee@fortune.com
@the_sy_guy
DIGITAL HEALTH
Apple may be working on a workout app. CNBC reports that Apple is working on a fitness and workout video application codenamed, err, "Seymour." This could be used on a variety of Apple devices including the Apple Watch and iPhone to guide users through their workout regimens, and as readers know, Apple isn't exactly shy about expanding its reach into the digital health space. (CNBC)
INDICATIONS
Trump administration proposes capping insulin costs. The Trump administration has proposed a new program that would set a ceiling on the cost of insulin for certain Medicare patients. The cap would be set at $35 per month for qualifying individuals, a move that could potentially affect millions of elderly people across the country. However, this would be a pilot program—and a voluntary one at that, which drug makers would need to get on board with. (New York Times)
How Roche's coronavirus test sped its way to FDA approval. I spoke with several Roche spokespeople and executives today about the company's new coronavirus test, which is now the first commercial test of its kind for COVID-19. Just how did Roche get a diagnostic on the market (admittedly, under emergency use authorization), in less than two months? You can find out right over here. (Fortune)
THE BIG PICTURE
What does an emergency declaration do? As I mentioned above, President Trump declared a national emergency at the White House today. But what does that mean? It's more of a technical term than it is an incitement to panic (although it obviously underscores how serious the situation is). The topline: This move will free up some $50 billion for state and local governments to respond to the outbreak. (Fortune)
REQUIRED READING
5 great weekend reads to help calm your anxious brain, by Polina Marinova
Coronavirus has already dented Gap sales by $100 million, by Phil Wahba
How to take over for a hands off boss, by Jennifer Mizgata
Sign up for other Fortune newsletters.


fortune--2020-03-13--Movie theaters stay open nationwide—for now

Google is developing a coronavirus testing website for the U.S .

Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.
Movie theaters have long acted as a refuge in times of war and recession. Its screens have flickered virtually unabated for the last century. But the coronavirus presents a rare case and an acute crisis for a medium already under threat by the advent of streaming services.
With few exceptions, movie theaters across North America are remaining open while Broadway theaters, sports arenas and museums close their doors to help curtail the spread of the coronavirus.
While Hollywood studios have canceled most upcoming films, this weekend is going forward with a slate of new releases and holdovers. The largest chains, AMC, Regal and Cinemark, are all operating, though some theaters are taking extra precautions.
To counter the spread of the coronavirus, the Alamo Drafthouse is instituting “seat separation” policies, along with extra cleaning of theaters in between showing. The theater chain is requesting each group of moviegoers leave empty seats to their sides, a measure also enacted by Northern Ireland’s largest exhibitor, Omniplex. The World Health Organization has suggested maintaining a meter (or about three feet) distance between people.
Theaters are also adjusting to bans on large gatherings, in some cases closing bigger theaters or limiting the number of maximum ticket buyers per screen. AMC, the country’s largest chain, on Friday said it would fill its theaters no more than 50% beginning Saturday and until the end of April to help facilitate social distancing. AMC will no longer sell more than 250 tickets for a showing.
The bans against large crowds vary across the country and are rapidly changing, forcing different strategies for movie theaters in various parts of the country. California’s ban prohibits more than 250 people in a single space. New York’s limits gatherings to 500. Ohio puts its number at 100 people. More states are likely to enact further bans in the near future, as governments work to constrict transmission of the virus.
Just where cinemas fit into the growing retreat isn’t as clear as some other cases. Movie theaters can be IMAX screens that accommodate masses or art-house theaters that aren’t larger than a restaurant. In New York, movie theaters at Lincoln Center, MoMA and Jacob Burns Film Center in Westchester have shuttered. But theaters around even outbreak hotspots like Seattle, Washington, and New Rochelle, New York, have continued to operate, including a Regal theater in New Rochelle.
In many parts of the world, cinemas have already shuttered. China, the world’s second largest movie market, closed its theaters more than a month ago. More recently, Italy, India, Greece, Poland, Lebanon and Kuwait have followed suit. On Friday, Europe extended the cinema shutdown in most theaters in Spain and Germany, as well as those in Denmark and Norway.
In recent days, the major studios have reshuffled the releases of most March and April releases, including “No Time to Die,” “Mulan,” “A Quiet Place Part II” and even some summer releases like the “Fast and Furious” installment “F9.”
But this weekend’s movies were undeterred, including the newly releases “Bloodshot,” the Sony Pictures’ Vin Diesel comic-book adaptation; Lionsgate’s Christian romance “I Still Believe”; and the Blumhouse horror satire “The Hunt.” Marketing budgets often exceed productions expenses for today’s movies. Once a film’s promotion budget is spent, turning back is costly.
“If you’re asking me if I had a crystal ball, is now a good time to release a movie? The answer is no,” said “The Hunt” produced Jason Blum in an interview last week. “But there’s no way to reverse it because you’ve spent the media and you’ve got to go forward.”
And moviegoers are still showing up, albeit in smaller numbers. Last weekend’s domestic box office, while below expectations, was up slightly from the weekend before. This weekend is sure to be a different story, following the widespread closures across public life and the growing understanding of the pandemic’s threat.
Still, several hundred thousand Americans went to the movies on Thursday. The Pixar release “Onward” led all films with $1.9 million Thursday in North American theaters; “Bloodshot” opened with $1.2 million in Thursday shows; “The Invisible Man” made $1.1 million.
Following this weekend, though, theaters — should they remain open — may be starved for films to play. The only wide release still on the schedule in the next several weeks is “Trolls Worldwide Tour” on April 10, Easter weekend. Those moves came along with the halting of most live-action productions and theme parks.
Jeff Bock, senior media analyst for Exhibitor Relations, grants that the large chains have a difficult decision given the varying levels of coronavirus fears across the U.S. But he suspects theaters will close after the weekend.
“It pretty much sends the message: Hollywood is closing down,” said Bock, citing the erased release calendar. “The writing is on the wall. And it couldn’t come at a worse time for the industry. It’s already in a battle for eyeballs with the streaming services. For the foreseeable future, streaming will be king.”
Most chains have sought to assure moviegoers that their theaters, seats and concession areas are being thoroughly and frequently cleaned. Cineplex, Canada’s largest chain, said it was using enhanced cleaning methods. In an earnings report Thursday, Mooky Greidinger, the chief executive of Cineworld, Regal’s corporate owner, said the virus had not affected its business “to a material degree.”
“I am of course conscious of the possibility that events could develop adversely very quickly and change this position in the short term,” said Greidinger, “but I remain confident that the crisis will ultimately pass and that the cinema exhibition industry will continue to play a major role in providing fun, laughter, happiness and joy to millions of dedicated movie fans, just as it has for over a century.”
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The World Health Organization urges people to wash hands frequently and thoroughly, and to maintain social distancing.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How to get a refund on your Broadway tickets after coronavirus shut down
—ECB’s Lagarde to coronavirus-ravaged Italy: You’re pretty much on your own
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How luxury designers in Italy’s fashion heartland are facing coronavirus
—Amazon tells employees to work from home if they can. Warehouse workers can’t
—Why Dollar General thinks coronavirus can help business
—Coronavirus may not be all bad for tech. Consider the “stay at home” stocks
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-13--How Roche’s new coronavirus test sped its way to FDA authorization

Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.
Private firms are stepping up to fill a hole in coronavirus testing that federal authorities, to date, have been unable to fill. And Roche’s diagnostics arm claimed one of the most significant advances this week.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) late Thursday announced a pair of new measures meant to spur coronavirus testing in the U.S.—an important public health response which has suffered from a series of manufacturing, regulatory, and political setbacks.
Both of the FDA’s actions are “emergency use authorizations” (EUA) of COVID-19 diagnostic tests, one developed by New York state and the other by the drug giant Roche. Such an authorization means that certain labs beyond official public health laboratories can conduct such tests.
But what makes Roche’s advance so striking is that it is, per the FDA, the “first commercially distributed diagnostic test to receive an EUA during the COVID-19 outbreak.”
“To expedite access to this test, FDA did not object to Roche pre-positioning its test so that labs could be ready to initiate testing immediately upon authorization of the EUA,” the agency wrote in a statement. “Because of that pre-positioning, laboratories can immediately run tests on Roche’s high-volume platform, which will greatly increase national testing capacity.”
Multiple Roche spokespeople told Fortune that they expect this specific diagnostic could fuel 400,000 tests per week—and that they could start being deployed within 24 hours.
Unlike with public health laboratories, which largely conduct CDC-cleared tests, Roche’s commercial test can be used with dozens of other labs across the country. These are a mixture of 32 regional laboratories and so-called “reference laboratories”—facilities which can receive a biological specimen from a different lab to conduct a specialized test.
This, according to Roche, is what could fuel a dramatic increase in testing. “We’re being very strategic about where we’re deploying the test,” a Roche spokesperson told Fortune. “We’re working very closely with the CDC to prioritize labs that have the broadest geographic reach.”
Roche’s test has also advanced on a dramatically fast timeline. “We started to work on developing the test in February,” said Paul Brown, global head of Roche’s molecular department arm and chief of Roche Molecular Solutions. Brown said developing and getting regulatory approval for a new diagnostic usually takes 12 to 18 months, but Roche was able to pull it off in about six weeks.
How? The government was keen to move quickly since it has a dearth of testing options. But Roche’s specific expertise set is also a major component.
“We’re the pioneers behind something called PCR chain technology,” said Brown, referring to a type of biotech that can sniff out various viruses. “We’d been watching what’s been going on and accelerated our organization over here. We kind of put the process on steroids.”
Roche focused on bolstering the company’s manufacturing processes to ensure a mass amount of tests could be created. This additional diagnostic is added to machines already in labs.
With the new test, a patient could theoretically go to a hospital, have nasal and oral swabs collected, and then have those samples shipped over to an affiliated laboratory that can conduct the test.
When it comes to pricing, the situation is far more complicated. Roche declined to comment on the record about how much its test might cost a patient, noting that would depend on what a specific laboratory might charge and the level of health insurance someone has. Roche also declined to comment on exactly which labs are included in the partnership, and how much the company charges labs for the test.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How coronavirus is affecting the global concert industry
—Politicians around the world are going into quarantine
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How Europe is adapting to the coronavirus outbreak
—What Xi Jinping’s visit to Wuhan says about China’s coronavirus recovery
—Conferences go online amid coronavirus fears—minus the hallway schmoozing
—Coronavirus may not be all bad for tech. Consider the “stay at home” stocks
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-13--Exclusive: 1 in 3 Americans were already stocking up on supplies before coronavirus was ruled a pand

Exclusive: 1 in 3 Americans were already stocking up on supplies before coronavirus was ruled a pandemic

Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.
Supermarkets across the country are reporting long lines as Americans rush to stock up on everything from toilet paper to frozen food to medicine following the World Health Organization ruling coronavirus a pandemic on Wednesday and closures of everything from professional sports leagues to some K-12 school systems.
But some shoppers were already stocking up before this rush. A total of 34% of Americans were purchasing slightly more (18%) or significantly more (16%) last week as a result of coronavirus fears, according to a survey conducted by Civis Analytics, a Chicago-based data science software firm. The survey was conducted among 1,951 Americans between March 4 to 6 and shared exclusively with Fortune.
And last week many Americans were already finding some common household supplies out-of-stock. The products that shoppers reported being out-of-stock include hand sanitizer (20%), bottled water (15%), mask/filtering respirator (13%), and antiseptic wipes (12%).
While industries like airlines and cruise lines are already seeing negative impacts from the virus, supermarket chains could actually see a short-term boost. Last week, Costco attributed a February sales boost to Coronavirus-concerned shoppers.
The survey was weighted to match the U.S. adult population on age, education, ethnicity, gender, and race. Civis plans to repeat the survey weekly, with the next poll being released next week.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Is this your first stock market crash? Some advice for young investors
—Here are two of the biggest losers from the Saudi Arabia oil price war
—Why investors suddenly turned on pot stocks
—Here are some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—Why it’s so hard to find the next Warby Parker
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-03-13--Trump declares national emergency, announces public-private partnership to expand coronavirus testin

Trump declares national emergency, announces public-private partnership to expand coronavirus testing

Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.
President Donald Trump announced Friday that he is declaring the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency, as Washington struggles with providing Americans with relief and officials race to slow the spread of the outbreak.
Speaking from the Rose Garden, Trump said, “I am officially declaring a national emergency.” He said it would free up as much as $50 billion for state and local governments to respond to the outbreak. Trump also waived interest on federally held student loans and moved to prop up energy markets, by directing the Department of Energy to buy oil to fill the strategic petroleum reserve “’right up to the top.”
Trump said he was also giving Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar emergency authorities to waive federal regulations and laws to give doctors and hospitals “flexibility” in treating patients.
“Through a very collective action and shared sacrifice, national determination, we will overcome the threat of the virus,” Trump said.
He also announced a new public-private partnership to expand coronavirus testing capabilities, as his administration has come under fire for being too slow in making the test available. Trump said, “I don’t take responsibility at all” for the slow roll-out of testing.
The partnership will include drive-thru testing in some locations and an online portal to screen those seeking to get tested.
Still, Trump said that officials don’t want people taking the test unless they have certain symptoms. “It’s totally unnecessary,” Trump said. He added, “This will pass.”
Trump said the White House and Congress have yet to agree on a broader aid package, claiming that he doesn’t believe House Democrats are “giving enough.” Lawmakers are preparing to vote on their own measure Friday.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday the House would approve its coronavirus aid package, imploring the Trump administration and congressional Republicans to “put families first” by backing the effort to provide Americans with relief.
The House Democratic leader spoke from the speaker’s balcony at the Capitol ahead of Trump’s news conference at the White House, as the power centers of Washington were shuttered to visitors.
“Our nation, our great nation has faced crisis before,” Pelosi said. “And every time, thanks to the courage and optimism of the American people, we have prevailed. Now, working together, we will once again prevail.”
Trump has not yet publicly backed the package, making its outcome uncertain in Congress.
Central to the package is free testing for the virus and guaranteed sick pay for workers who are taking time away from jobs, along with an infusion of dollars to handle unemployment benefits and boost food programs for children, families and seniors.
Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, whom Trump tapped to negotiate for the administration, have engaged in around-the-clock negotiations.
But Republican leaders in Congress slowed the deal, wanting assurances that Trump would publicly support the agreement before signing off on it ahead of any vote, according to a top congressional aide unauthorized to discuss the private talks and speaking on condition of anonymity.
GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, huddled with Mnuchin and Trump at the White House earlier Friday.
“We can only defeat this outbreak if we have an accurate determination of its scale and scope, so that we can pursue the precise science-based response that is necessary to put families first,” Pelosi said.
The White House is under enormous pressure, dealing with the crisis on multiple fronts as it encroached ever closer on the president.
The virus has swept in alarming ways across American life, sending the financial markets into a dangerous slide and shuttering schools and sporting events and limiting everyday interactions in communities across the country.
The administration’s federal task force managing the crisis was working furiously to break a bottleneck in the nation’s ability to test for the new virus, and weighing what sort of emergency powers Trump would need to invoke to provide needed aid to overwhelmed state and local governments.
And a personal health scare intensified as White House officials worked to determine the level of exposure by the president and senior aides to several foreign officials who have since tested positive for the virus.
Trump said he was gratified that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro tested negative for the virus, after the pair sat next to each other for an extended period of time last weekend. A senior aide to Bolsonaro tested positive. “We have no symptoms whatsoever,” said Trump, who has not gotten tested for the virus or taken steps to self-isolate.
In one welcome announcement, the administration said Friday it was awarding $1.3 million to two companies trying to develop rapid COVID-19 tests that could detect within an hour whether a person is positive for the new coronavirus.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.
The vast majority of people recover. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to be over it.
Earlier Friday, Mnuchin sounded an optimistic note. “I think we’re very close to getting this done,” he said in an appearance on CNBC.
On the COVID-19 illness, Mnuchin cautioned that “people should understand the numbers are going to go up before they go down.”
Pelosi and Mnuchin continued their constant cross-town phone calls throughout a tense morning of negotiations to firm up and salvage the emerging deal that has widespread support from Democrats and some in the business community seeking certainty.
Providing sick pay for workers is a crucial element of federal efforts to stop the rapid spread of the infection. Officials warn that the nation’s healthcare system could quickly become overwhelmed with gravely sick patients, as suddenly happened in Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by the virus.
The ability to ensure paychecks will keep flowing — for people who stay home as a preventative measure or because they’re feeling ill or caring for others — can help assure Americans they will not fall into financial hardship.
“We’re in an emergency, and we’re trying to respond as fast as we can,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., as lawmakers filed in and out of Pelosi’s office on Friday.
The potential deal between Congress and the White House would cap a tumultuous week in which Washington strained for a comprehensive response to an outbreak that is testing the nation’s political, financial and health care systems.
Trump has struggled to show he’s on top of the crisis, after giving conflicting descriptions of what the U.S. is doing to combat the virus.
The House aid package builds on an emergency $8.3 billion measure approved last week.
Pelosi promised a third coronavirus package will follow soon, though the House is leaving Washington on Friday for a previously scheduled recess. That measure will include more aggressive steps to boost the U.S. economy, which economists fear has already slipped into recession.
But there’s little appetite within either party for Trump’s proposal to suspend collection of the 6.2% Social Security payroll tax. States are already clamoring for fiscal relief from Washington as the virus threatens their budgets.
The coronavirus crisis also got personal for Trump and some members of Congress.
The president, his daughter Ivanka, Attorney General WIlliam Barr and lawmakers are among those who have been in contact with others who have now tested positive for the coronavirus.
Australian Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, now in isolation at a hospital after testing positive for the coronavirus, had returned to Sydney from Washington, where he met Barr and Ivanka Trump last week.
White House officials have not responded to questions about whether the administration officials intend to be tested or self-quarantine.
Barr, meanwhile, was staying home Friday, though he “felt great and wasn’t showing any symptoms,” according to his spokeswoman Kerri Kupec. She said the CDC did not recommend testing at this point.
In addition, just days after meeting Trump and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort, the communications chief for Brazil’s president, Fábio Wajngarten, tested positive for coronavirus. Scott said he was isolating himself. Trump, 73, said he was not concerned.
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was also at Trump’s club on the weekend, joined a growing list of lawmakers who have chosen to isolate themselves as a precaution. He announced Friday that he also met with the Australian official who has now tested positive. And GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who had previously isolated himself after a potential exposure at a conservative conference in Washington, said Friday he met with a Spanish official and is now self-quarantining.
Lawmakers from both parties expressed alarm at the U.S. response, and especially over how few patients have been tested.
“We’re basically, in my opinion, flying blind,” said Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health, in several television interviews Friday, said more tests would be available over the next week, but that officials should not wait before trying to mitigate the virus’ effects.
“We will have considerably more testing in the future, but you don’t wait for testing,” Fauci said on ”CBS This Morning.” He said school closings and similar measures are “generally an appropriate approach.”
“We’re at a critical point now as we seek to blunt the rise in cases to make sure it’s a hill, not a mountain,” Fauci said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How to get a refund on your Broadway tickets after coronavirus shut down
—ECB’s Lagarde to coronavirus-ravaged Italy: You’re pretty much on your own
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How luxury designers in Italy’s fashion heartland are facing coronavirus
—Amazon tells employees to work from home if they can. Warehouse workers can’t
—Why Dollar General thinks coronavirus can help business
—Coronavirus may not be all bad for tech. Consider the “stay at home” stocks
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-13--Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson are here to save us all

This is the web version of raceAhead, Fortune’s daily newsletter on race, culture, and inclusive leadership. To get it delivered daily to your inbox, sign up here.
Medicaid is further restricted during the coronavirus pandemic, chaos in San Francisco’s immigration court, and Pete Buttigieg brings joy as a late night guest host.
But first, here’s your week in review in Haiku.
Australia saved the
world! Sweet Rita Wilson and
her husband, now in
isolation, thanks
to a simple test. Think: How
many fans would have
been felled by their hugs
and loving high fives? Wouldn’t you
take a selfie with
Mr. Rogers if
you could? The fame they wear so
lightly, now is lethal.
Instead, let love go
viral! But from a distance—
like Tom and Rita.
Have a happy and hygienic weekend in your neighborhoods! Keep calm and wash on.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On Point
The Trump administration is blocking states from using Medicaid for their pandemic responses Even on good days, Medicaid is a lifeline for the poor and very sick, so in troubling times, loosening certain rules and restrictions gives states some of their best options to help deliver care to people who need it most. The administration’s refusal to do so prevents states from reigning in the pandemic in a number of ways: By signing up poor patients, bringing in more providers, setting up emergency clinics, or testing homeless populations. “If they wanted to do it, they could do it,” Cindy Mann tells the New York Times. Mann oversaw the Medicaid program in the Obama administration and helped coordinate the response to the H1N1 crisis in 2009.
Los Angeles Times
Pinterest is doing a very good job This is what you get when you search for coronavirus on their platform: “Pins about this topic often violate our Community Guidelines, which prohibit harmful medical misinformation. Because of this, we've limited search results to Pins from internationally-recognized health organizations. If you're looking for medical advice, please contact a healthcare provider.”
Pinterest
Indigenous communities without clean water are at disproportionate risk for the coronavirus Reporting on conditions in Indigenous communities in Canada, many of which are in remote regions, leaders report that the lack of clean water and access to health care facilities are making it impossible to take measure to stop the spread of COVID-19. It’s a recipe for disaster. “We can’t tell people to wash their hands if they don’t have clean drinking water,” says Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler. “We can’t tell them to go see a health professional or nurse when we don’t have that in our nursing stations. We have very limited capacity with equipment.”
Vice
Inside San Francisco’s chaotic immigration court It is one of the busiest immigration courts in the country, and is sagging under the weight of new regulations, inadequate technology, and the desperation of an increasing backlog of cases. There were a record 443,000 new cases in fiscal year 2019, largely due to an increase in asylum-seekers. Fortune was on-hand the week of February 10, and has turned in a grim tick-tock of justice under the most difficult of circumstances. “Immigration law is incredibly complex, to the point that even judges and government attorneys often do not fully understand it,” one attorney said. “It takes years to grasp, and to make someone go through immigration court proceedings without a legal representative is totally unfair. There is no due process.” Please read and share.
Fortune
On Background
The inside story of the “flatten the curve” graphic The #FlattenTheCurve graphic has become the defining image of the coronavirus pandemic, a simple way to explain how small steps like hand-washing and self-isolation will slow new infections and lighten the load on the health care system. Mark Wilson tracked down its source. “With roots that trace as far back as a 2007 paper published by the CDC, the core scheme of Flatten the Curve is an idea that’s been repeatedly remixed by health experts to reach its final, clearest form, proposed by New Zealand epidemiologist Siouxsie Wiles and drawn by illustrator Toby Morris,” he says. But now, with 4.5 million social media impressions and counting, it’s become the literal poster child for design impact. “This is my favorite dataviz about the coronavirus,” says Mauro Martino, founder of the Visual A.I. Lab at IBM research. “The message is altruistic: we must help sick people who need to be hospitalized.”
Fast Company
Pete Buttigieg had a blast guest hosting for Jimmy Kimmel First of all, he was really good at it. But the real gift was his guest, the great Sir Patrick Stewart, known to many as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Like many lifelong Star Trek fans, I am deeply committed to the canon, but I may have found my rival in Mayor Pete. Enjoy this brief clip of their conversation, and Buttigieg’s unalloyed delight at the gift Stewart brings him. A balm in troubled times. Engage.
Jimmy Kimmel Live on YouTube
We are just a small part of a big, beautiful universe What if the mantra of business and tech was not to move fast and break things, but to slow down and understand them? This is one of the underlying themes of "To Scale: The Solar System," a beautiful seven-minute video shot by filmmakers Wylie Overstreet and Alex Gorosh. “Every single picture we ever see of the solar system is not to scale,” begins Overstreet. If you plotted our sun and neighboring planets on a piece of paper, like most school kids do, you wouldn’t be able to see anything at all: The heavenly bodies would be microscopic. Instead, every photo, every image, every rendering is not only wrong, it gives us an oversized idea of our own place in galaxy. If you held up a blue marble and called it Earth, you’d need seven miles of empty land to draw an accurate representation of the solar system—which is exactly what they did in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. In a delicious irony, it’s the home of the annual Silicon Valley fixation known as the Burning Man festival. Enjoy the big picture.
To Scale: The Solar System
Tamara El-Waylly produces raceAhead and manages the op-ed program.
Quote
“Star Trek is my statement to the world… [it] is more than just my political philosophy, my racial philosophy, my overview on life and the human condition.”
—Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, in The Kelvin Timeline of Star Trek: Essays on J.J. Abrams' Final Frontier.


fortune--2020-03-13--Apple’s big WWDC developers conference moves online due to coronavirus

Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.
In a major departure due to the coronavirus outbreak, Apple plans to hold its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) online instead of hosting an event with tens of thousands of attendees.
The iPhone maker said Friday that its conference will begin sometime in June and that it would release more details about the event later.
“The current health situation has required that we create a new WWDC 2020 format,” Phil Schiller, Apple’s marketing chief, said in a statement.
Apple’s developer conference, held last year in San Jose, Calif., is one of the tech industry’s most anticipated events, at which the tech giant debuts new software updates for its lineup of products including the iPhone, Mac computers, and iPad. Although it has been mainly an in-person event, the keynote presentations have been webcast in recent years.
Several other big tech companies like Facebook and Google have cancelled their developer conferences this this spring because of the coronavirus. In February, for instance, Facebook said it would shift its F8 developer conference, attended by thousands, to be live streamed and also create smaller local events.
Earlier this week, two people who attended the recent RSA security conference held in late February tested positive for the coronavirus, Bloomberg News reported.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Google Doodle celebrates International Women’s Day
—Growing coronavirus threat weighs on Apple
—When will PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X debut?
—NASA hiring new astronauts for the first time in four years
—WATCH: Best earbuds in 2020: Apple AirPods Pro Vs. Sony WF-1000XM3
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fortune--2020-03-13--The stock market is usually a poor predictor of recessions—but this time it’s right

As an MBA student at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business in the 1970s, I frequently heard finance professor James H. Lorie extoll the wisdom of his U of C colleague and idol, the legendary monetarist Milton Friedman. On one occasion, Lorie, a raconteur who talked in short, staccato bursts, recalled a session where a panel of professors were grilling a PhD student on a draft of his thesis. The doctoral candidate was presenting a model for forecasting U.S. economic growth that depended heavily on how stock prices performed in the prior months. “Then, this little man with no hair poses a pointed question,” recalled Lorie. “Milton Friedman asked, ‘How are this model’s predictions for next year’s GDP number better than taking the last five years of growth, and dividing by five?'”
In effect, Friedman was declaring that the fickle equity markets are worthless, or nearly so, as a predictor of booms and busts. History confirms that stocks make the wrong call on future recessions almost as often as they prove a bellwether. But in this coronavirus-driven selloff that’s already infecting the economy’s fundamentals with brutal contagion to come, the stock market is getting it right.
The 20%-plus fall in the S&P from its mid-February peak through March 11, marking the first bear market since the depths of the Great Recession 12 long years ago, is casting stocks as a prognosticator par excellence, a farsighted barometer for where the economy is heading. Chris Brightman, chief investment officer of Research Affiliates, a firm that oversees strategies for over $150 billion in mutual funds and ETFs, notes that we’re in a rare period where equities are pointing the same way as all the other capital market indicators, in this case universally downwards, as shown by collapsing oil prices, all-time low 10-year treasury yields, and ballooning credit spreads.
So the stock market is looking like a mighty reliable gauge for a change. And it’s auguring that a recession is getting a lot more likely. “The markets are sending us strong and consistent signals that slowing growth over the coming months is a near certainty, and that the probability of recession has spiked up,” Brightman told Fortune. All of the economists whom I interviewed for this story shared his prognosis. “The probability that the stock market is forecasting a recession is higher than usual,” says Jared Franz, an economist at Capital Group, the giant fund manager. “We’re getting closer to the recessionary tipping point.” Economists Mark Zandi at Moody’s Analytics and Gus Faucher of PNC now reckon that the odds of recession have risen sharply in the last three weeks in concert with the big selloff, to around 50-50. As recently as January, Faucher put the chances we’d encounter the “R” word this year at just 20%.
That top economists view the market’s meltdown as a harbinger for a melting economy is unusual indeed. Over the past 80 years, stock prices have proven a poor guide for things to come. Since 1937, the U.S. has suffered thirteen recessions, the first starting in 1937, and the last commencing in late 2007. A recession is defined as a GDP decline for two consecutive quarters, as measured by the National Bureau of Economic Research. On average, those thirteen recessions lasted 10 months, and shaved an average 3.6 points from national income.
In six cases, the S&P 500 index increased over the six months prior to the onset of the recession. In only one instance did the S&P drop more than 10% in the half-year before the downturn, falling 11.1% ahead of the dotcom retreat starting in March of 2001. The other six declines averaged just 3.5%. In the six months before the dawn of the Great Recession that would sink GDP by a disastrous 4.3% and stocks by almost half, the S&P 500 shed a paltry 3.2%.
Given that big cap stocks have cratered by 20%, it’s logical to study how often a decline of that magnitude has presaged a recession. In the past 83 years, the S&P has fallen 20% or more in a six month period on 11 occasions. In five cases, those big drops didn’t foreshadow a recession, the declines of 1940, 1941, 1946, 1962, and 1987. By the way, the biggest slide between the end of the Great Recession in June of 2009 and today’s rout was a fall of around 13.5% in late 2018 triggered by the Fed’s rate hikes.
While stocks do a poor job anticipating recessions, they tend to fall sharply during the slump. The S&P slid 40% in the 1937-38 contraction, 37% in the Great Recession, 23% in the OPEC oil tremor from late 1973 to early 1975, and 13.4% in the dotcom pounding. (Two of those 20%-plus drops actually occurred during, not before the dotcom recession.) But in six of the thirteen recessions, shares rose. For example, the S&P increased by 20% during the downturn that lasted from July of 1953 to May of 1954. That demonstrates why it’s so hard to predict how equities will fare in the course of recession, if indeed we get one. Judging from the past, if a big selloff strikes prior to the onset of an economic downturn, and the hit is relatively mild, markets anticipate the companies will perform well in the future, and stocks can advance even while GDP is shrinking.
I spoke to Milton Friedman many times before his death in 2006, during the years he’d moved on to the Hoover Institution. I’d leave messages for the great man with his assistant, and later get a return call from an operator inquiring, “Will you accept the charges from Milton?” Friedman quipped one time, “I was most amused by the operator calling me Milton.” I never asked him about how reliably the stock market forecasts recessions. I didn’t have to. I already knew his stance from Professor Lorie’s anecdote.
And as usual, he was right.
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—Is this your first stock market crash? Some advice for young investors
—Here are two of the biggest losers from the Saudi Arabia oil price war
—Why investors suddenly turned on pot stocks
—Here are some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—Why it’s so hard to find the next Warby Parker
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fortune--2020-03-13--Louisiana elections chief asks to postpone April 4 primary due to coronavirus

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Louisiana’s chief elections officer asked the governor on Friday to postpone the state’s April presidential primary election for two months because of the new coronavirus, as the number of residents who tested positive continued to grow.
Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin started the process for delaying the April 4 primary with an emergency certification to Gov. John Bel Edwards. Ardoin asked for a new June 20 primary date. Edwards was expected to agree to the request, making Louisiana the first state to push back its election because of the virus.
Early voting in Louisiana’s election was scheduled to start in a week. But with a large number of elderly poll workers and worldwide concerns about people gathering in groups, Ardoin’s office said it didn’t feel comfortable continuing with the election plans.
As of Friday, the number of residents testing positive in the state had jumped to 33, centered largely in the New Orleans area, according to the state health department’s latest figures. The positive tests are awaiting confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Edwards planned to meet Friday afternoon with New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell.
The number of parishes with infected residents has grown to eight, with most of those in the New Orleans area, but one case has been identified in northwest Louisiana, in Caddo Parish.
For most people, the virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. Most people recover within weeks.
Edwards has declared a public health emergency. State prisons have suspended visitation for 30 days, and hospitals and nursing homes are limiting visitor access, in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus to vulnerable populations.
Events around Louisiana, like around the country, were being canceled. The Southern University System joined the Louisiana State University System and several New Orleans universities in starting to move all of its classes online. The Louisiana Legislature, only one week into its three-month session, began working on contingency plans for must-pass bills, such as the budget — in case lawmakers decide to shut down work early.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Bloomberg, Sanders, and Warren want to use post offices as banks
—Politics with your coffee? These cafés are taking sides
—Are we undergoing an industrial revolution or a phase change?
—How the 2020 election could influence your personal finances
—WATCH: What happens to leftover campaign funds once a candidate drops out?
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fortune--2020-03-13--Gap Inc pegs coronavirus losses at $100 million and counting

Stay in the know on how the coronavirus outbreak is impacting the global business economy with our daily newsletter Outbreak.
It hasn’t taken long for some retailers to feel the bite from the coronavirus outbreak.
Gap Inc said late Thursday that it has already lost about $100 million in sales in the first fiscal quarter of 2020, which started in early February. And that’s just sales lost in markets like China—which only generates 3% of its total sales—Japan, and Europe.
The company, whose brands include The Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy and Athleta, said it could not yet quantify the hit to its business in North America. That’s by far its largest market with about 88% of its sales and where the coronavirus outbreak is only just beginning, meaning the financial impact is likely to grow much larger. (The U.S. will reportedly declare a state of emergency on Friday.)
Gap Inc gave a 2020 sales forecast but cautioned investors that it doesn’t include any possible effect from the outbreak globally beyond that initial $100 million hit.
“Due to the evolving coronavirus situation, we are facing a period of uncertainty regarding the potential impact on both our supply chain and customer demand,” said Sonia Syngal, the incoming CEO of Gap Inc who currently heads Old Navy, by far the company’s biggest brand.
The company, whose Gap and Banana Republic brands have been in decline for years, already expects sales to shrink by a low single digit percentage in 2020. Gap Inc had revenue of $16.4 billion in 2019.
So the pandemic could be devastating to those already vulnerable brands. And it will complicate things for Syngal, who takes the helm on March 23. Gap’s interim CEO, Bob Fisher, a son of the company’s founders, said as much on a call with investors, noting the possibility of a “meaningful deterioration” in business or disruption to its supply chain.
On that front, the impact so far has been manageable, according to the company. Gap Inc currently gets 16% of what it sells from China, down from 21% last year. The company also sources from various Southeast Asian and Central American countries.
Many retailers have been trying to reduce their reliance on China in recent years, with that trend accelerating in 2019 because of tariffs imposed by the U.S. Best Buy, for example, is looking to lower Chinese sourcing to 40% from 60% last year, while Abercrombie & Fitch said last week that 22% of what it sold in 2019 was China-made, down from 42% a year earlier.
Gap Inc is one of the first major retailers to give any numeric estimate of the outbreak’s impact on business. Adidas said on Thursday it expected a $500 million reduction to its 2020 profit. Some like Target, Walmart, and Best Buy have only said they are monitoring the situation. Others like Costco and Dollar General have said there could be some lift to sales as consumers stock up on essentials.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How to get a refund on your Broadway tickets after coronavirus shut down
—ECB’s Lagarde to coronavirus-ravaged Italy: You’re pretty much on your own
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How luxury designers in Italy’s fashion heartland are facing coronavirus
—Amazon tells employees to work from home if they can. Warehouse workers can’t
—Why Dollar General thinks coronavirus can help business
—Coronavirus may not be all bad for tech. Consider the “stay at home” stocks
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-13--The Points Guy on why now might be the best time to buy plane tickets even amid coronavirus

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Let’s be clear: Unless it’s absolutely necessary, you’re probably not getting on an airplane anytime soon. The reach of the new coronavirus, a.k.a. the COVID-19 virus, is expanding by the minute, not only infecting people—more than 133,000 worldwide, at the time of this writing—but also affecting the way we travel, with some countries on lockdown (Italy), others not accepting those with foreign passports (India), and President Trump suspending travel from Europe, with the exception of the United Kingdom, to the U.S. for 30 days.
That said, if you’re willing to bet that—like every pandemic to date—this, too, shall pass, then it’s a great time to book future travel. Airline stocks are down, many of the flights that are in the air are close to empty, and mileage redemption deals abound.
Below, Brian Kelly, founder and CEO of The Points Guy, an online how-to guide for maximizing airline miles and credit card points, shares his advice for availing yourself of deals now in hopes of kicking back, sans face mask and hand sanitizer, in the months ahead. “As much as I want to be on the front lines saying it’s fine to travel, right now, it’s not ideal,” says Kelly. “I think things will start rebounding over the summer.”
Look for airline mileage redemption deals
“There has, frankly, never been a better time to redeem miles at the low ‘saver’ level,” says Kelly. “If you’ve got miles, and you’ve been dreaming of going to Australia, now is the time to go the website of your carrier of choice and look for deals. It’s just like the stock market—when there’s fear, that’s the best time to get in. You can even book 11 months in advance. For January and February 2021, we’re seeing a lot of availability on routes where it’s normally tough to get award tickets: New York to Singapore, for example.”
Nick Ewen, a senior editor at The Points Guy, also notes that some airlines that are typically stingy with their business-class awards, like United, are opening up historic amounts of inventory. Take United’s nonstop flights from Chicago-O’Hare to Frankfurt, Germany, in July and August: 50 of the 62 days have business-class awards for up to eight passengers, which, he says, “is unheard of—especially during what is typically peak summer travel season.”
Check your status
If you have elite status, book an award ticket now and worry about whether you have to change or cancel later.“With elite status, it’s max $150 if you decide to cancel and want to reinstate your miles,” Kelly explains. “I’m executive platinum with American Airlines, and if you have that status, they’ll let you change or cancel for free.”
If you’re booking domestic travel, consider Southwest
“Even before coronavirus, they let you change and cancel for free,” Kelly says. “That policy is why Southwest shines. Southwest and Delta have been the most generous so far, in terms of changing or canceling flights you’ve already booked.”
Keep your eye on the prize
If the price of a ticket you previously booked has dramatically dropped, call the airline, you might get a credit or a voucher. “It depends on the airline and how much the fare has dropped,” says Kelly. “With Southwest Airlines, if the fare drops, you can always call back and re-ticket for no charge and get a credit for the difference. For international travel, most airlines charge a change fee of around $300, so if the price of your fare dropped $500, it might make sense. It’s got to be a substantial drop to make it worthwhile. If what was a $600 ticket is now $150, call the airline. You’re not going to get a refund, but they’ll re-ticket you at the lower price and give you a voucher for the price difference minus the change fee.”
If you have to travel now, it’s not doomsday
“The No. 1 thing to do is limit your close contact with other people,” says Kelly. “If you have miles, upgrade to sit in a seat that will have you around fewer people—think about the difference between a first-class suite with a closable door and a middle seat in economy. We have a writer who just flew first class on Japan Airlines from Tokyo to New York, and he was the only person in the cabin. On routes like JFK to LAX, where it’s usually impossible to get a free upgrade, cabins are wide open, so if you have status, you may not even have to use miles to get more space. Whatever cabin you’re in, a window seat is better than an aisle, in terms of virus transmission.”
Call a hotel and name your price
“Hotels are hurting, which is a shame, but it means that consumers have more power than ever,” Kelly says. “In New York, the Hyatt Union Square is usually $450 on a good night—I know someone staying there right now for $150 per night. You can always call a hotel, ask to speak to the general manager, and say, ‘Look, I have 20 different options of places to stay, can you make me a deal I can’t refuse?’ If you see a cheap, nonrefundable rate online, call the hotel and ask for that rate with a 24-hour cancellation policy. You’ve got the power. No matter what, 2020 is going to be the year of travel deals. For those who have health and an appetite for risk, there are upsides to be had.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—How coronavirus is affecting the global concert industry
—Coronavirus is mutating: Chinese scientists find second strain
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How Europe is adapting to the coronavirus outbreak
—China’s box office was supposed to surpass North America’s this year
—Growing coronavirus threat weighs on Apple
—Nearly half of American travelers are reconsidering their international trips due to coronavirus
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fortune--2020-03-13--Coronavirus catch-up: Masters canceled, a faster test, and a China update

The news surrounding the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is coming at a breathtaking pace. And even the most avid newshounds are having a hard time keeping up.
President Donald Trump will address the nation at 3 p.m. ET today to address efforts to contain the virus and, reportedly, declare a national emergency. That will certainly impact Wall Street in some fashion.
As markets fluctuate like an out-of-control roller coaster and major tournaments and gatherings are canceled, postponed or thrown into limbo, it’s causing anxieties to flare and work habits to shift. Staying informed can help ease those to some degree. Here’s the latest on the pandemic and its impact on both businesses and nations.
U.S. gives ’emergency’ authorization to new Roche coronavirus test that’s 10 times faster
Roche Holding AG said it won emergency approval from the U.S. government for a highly automated coronavirus test, potentially speeding up the ability to test patients by a factor of 10.
Read more
The Masters Golf Tournament suspended
Fred Ridley, chairman of Augusta National Golf Club, announced Friday that the tournament is being postponed indefinitely, saying “Unfortunately, the ever-increasing risks associated with the widespread Coronavirus COVID-19 have led us to a decision that undoubtedly will be disappointing to many, although I am confident is appropriate under these unique circumstances.”
The Masters was set to begin April 9.
Read more
China’s number of daily new coronavirus infections has fallen into the single digits
New infections of the coronavirus in China dropped to single digits for the first time since the country began reporting daily numbers in mid-January.
As of March 12, China has eight new cases and seven additional deaths, said the National Health Commission on Friday. The dramatic plunge to a single-digit increase—from the height of nearly 15,000 cases added in one day on Feb. 13—is another sign that viral outbreak has come under control at its epicenter for now, despite accelerating its spread in Europe and the U.S.
Read more
Inside the White House meeting that led Trump to make his Oval Office coronavirus speech
Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office Wednesday before the biggest speech of his presidency, listening to his aides argue about whether barring Europeans from traveling to the U.S. would trigger a global depression.
The medical experts on his team were adamant: The best way to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus was to buy time by keeping Europeans out, they said, with the hope the virus may naturally ebb in the warmer weather, according to people familiar with the deliberations. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Larry Kudlow, the president’s top economic adviser, pushed back strongly, saying the economic cost would be steep.
Read more
Gauze, test kits, viral drugs: As coronavirus ravages markets, it also mints billionaires
The COVID-19 wealth boom has spread across Asia, from producers of rapid-test kits to vaccine developers. It also has reached the West, boosting shares of San Francisco-based Vir Biotechnology Inc., which is collaborating with the National Institutes of Health on coronavirus research.
The rise of these stocks may be a sign that investors desperate to find a bright spot in a gloomy global economy see no end in sight for the pandemic, with sustained demand for products used in fighting or treating the outbreak.
Read more
Trump administration awarding two companies $1.3M for fast COVID-19 tests
President Donald Trump’s administration announced Friday it is awarding $1.3 million to two companies trying to develop rapid COVID-19 tests that could detect whether a person is positive for the new coronavirus within an hour.
The Department of Health and Human Services said it is awarding $679,000 to DiaSorin Molecular, of Cypress, California, and $598,000 to QIAGEN, of Germantown, Maryland, to accelerate development of their tests.
Read more
Alex Jones must stop selling fake coronavirus cures, orders New York Attorney General
New York’s attorney general is demanding that conspiracy monger Alex Jones stop hawking phony coronavirus treatments.
Attorney General Letita James’ office sent a cease-and-desist letter Thursday saying it’s “extremely concerned” by Jones’ claims that toothpaste, dietary supplements, creams, and other products sold on his website can prevent and cure the disease, known as COVID-19.
Read more
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How to get a refund on your Broadway tickets after coronavirus shut down
—ECB’s Lagarde to coronavirus-ravaged Italy: You’re pretty much on your own
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How luxury designers in Italy’s fashion heartland are facing coronavirus
—Amazon tells employees to work from home if they can. Warehouse workers can’t
—Why Dollar General thinks coronavirus can help business
—Coronavirus may not be all bad for tech. Consider the “stay at home” stocks
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-13--Trump expected to declare national emergency over coronavirus. Watch live

Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.
Update: Trump has declared a national emergency to bolster funding to combat the coronavirus outbreak. The previous story is below.
President Donald Trump plans to declare a national emergency on Friday over the coronavirus outbreak, invoking the Stafford Act to open the door to more federal aid for states and municipalities, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Trump is under increasing pressure to act as governors and mayors nationwide step up actions to mitigate the spread, closing schools and canceling public events. The president said he will hold a news conference at 3 p.m. E. T. in Washington. You can watch Trump speak via this live stream.
The move would allow the government to martial additional resources to combat the virus, and also marks a symbolic turning point for the president, who has repeatedly compared the coronavirus to the seasonal flu and insisted that his administration had the outbreak under control.
U.S. stocks pared gains on the news, with the S&P 500 Index up about 2% at 11:30 a.m. in New York. The decree comes at the end of a week of wild swings in U.S. equities, with Friday’s advance following Thursday’s worst-since-1987 rout.
Senate Democrats have urged Trump to invoke the Stafford Act and other disaster declaration requests they say would free up more than $42 billion in funding for states available in the Disaster Relief Fund.
An emergency declaration would allow a state to request a 75% federal cost-share for expenses that include emergency workers, medical tests, medical supplies, vaccinations, security for medical facilities, and more, according to a letter Democrats sent the president earlier this week.
Only a few emergency declarations for public health threats have been made since the 1960s, and only two have targeted disease outbreaks, when President Bill Clinton in 2000 declared emergencies in New York and New Jersey in response to the West Nile Virus.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How to get a refund on your Broadway tickets after coronavirus shut down
—ECB’s Lagarde to coronavirus-ravaged Italy: You’re pretty much on your own
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How luxury designers in Italy’s fashion heartland are facing coronavirus
—Amazon tells employees to work from home if they can. Warehouse workers can’t
—Why Dollar General thinks coronavirus can help business
—Coronavirus may not be all bad for tech. Consider the “stay at home” stocks
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-13--5 things the global president of Keds shoes always packs when traveling

Keds global president Gillian Meek plans a pilgrimage of sorts, every year to Beaver Creek, Colo., an upscale mountain village known for its world-class skiing and breathtaking views. When Meek was a teenager, the annual trip proved an opportunity for this avid skier to explore some of the U.S.’s most scenic slopes, like Bald Eagle, a ski run with nearly 2,000 vertical feet, and Stone Creek Chutes, a slope affectionately nicknamed by some thrill-seekers as “Oh Dear Lord Steep” for its two-story plunges.
“Years ago, it was a ‘Gillian trip’ going to Beaver Creek,” recalls Meek, who has two young children. “Now I take my kids. I’m passing on the passion of skiing to my children, so we go as a family. And it is truly all about skiing and relaxing. You get to the top of the mountain, you look around, and you realize it’s all in perspective.”
Meek likely needs that sort of big-picture perspective to run Keds, the iconic 104-year-old sneaker business, whose shoes have been worn by everyone from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Katharine Hepburn, and Paul Newman to Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift. At least 25% of her role involves traveling the world for Keds, visiting countries such as Vietnam and China, where Keds sneakers are manufactured, to states along the West Coast to keep tabs on trends percolating in today’s so-called sneaker culture. That includes a push by some younger brands toward sustainability, by means of conserving water and recycling materials such as used plastic bottles in the making of their own sneakers.
“It’s interesting and just really relevant: How do you build sustainability into a product?” Meek says. “It’s not just sneakers; some really interesting disruptive brands are coming to the market with a reverence around, ‘We’re making a product that’s better for the environment.’ I think that’s awesome.”
Here in her own words, are the five things Keds’ global president never travels without:
“I’ll be honest: I don’t get the chance to read a lot,” Meek concedes. “I rarely have the chance to read at home because home time is precious time, so I’m trying really hard. My resolution this year is to read more, and when I travel, that’s a good chance to catch up. Right now, I’m reading a book called Untangled, which my brother sent to me. He doesn’t have any daughters, but I have one. The book is really called Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions Into Adulthood. In other words: how not to get freaked out about being the mom of a teenage kid!” Suggested retail price: $13
“I’m probably like everybody else in the world,” Meek quips. “From phone calls I have to take, to working out, having AirPods is great for those things, and I’m also not disturbing anybody else. I have the AirPods Pro so I can cancel out everybody else’s noise, which is delightful when there’s extra noise that you’re not interested in hearing.” SRP: $249
“I carry a S’well water bottle everywhere I go,” Meek adds. “I have multiple S’well water bottles by my bed, and I try really hard to carry them through the airport, although I get busted every time with airport security for still having water in them when I put them through the scanner. The guard always makes me empty them out!” SRP: $35
“Hmm, how do I describe it? It’s a moisturizing lip balm, but it can be used for anything—it’s an all-purpose balm,” explains Meek. “It can also be hand cream. It comes in eight super-fun flavors like Cherry or Birthday, but it’s very practical. I’m working on Birthday right now, which has glitter, so it’s a little extra fun.” SRP: $12
“This is totally self-serving, but I almost always travel with our Champion sneaker, because it’s really lightweight, easy to pack, and it goes with everything,” Meek says. “They’re comfortable and very low-profile. They look great with everything from shorts—which is what I happen to be wearing—to a dress. I typically pack the white ones, but they come in a wide range of colors, so depending on whatever trip I’m packing for, I can pack whatever works.” SRP: $45
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—The most essential travel apps you need to know about
—One of Bordeaux’s most revered estates is launching a new high-end wine in Napa
—Inside a sleep and wellness hotel that rents out minimalist “cocoons”
—Behind the scenes of the Dalai Lama’s early history with the CIA
—WATCH: Can San Francisco Be Saved?
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fortune--2020-03-13--What to watch in theaters or stream at home this weekend

Whether you’re standing in the theater lobby or curled up in bed, deciding what to watch next is often the most difficult part of any pop-culture junkie’s day. And with dozens of films in theaters on any given weekend, plus virtually endless layers of streaming purgatory to sort through in search of your next binge-watch, there’s more out there—and tougher decisions to make—than ever.
Fortune‘s here to help you navigate the week’s latest offerings, boiling all the entertainment out there down into three distinct recommendations: should you see it, stream it, or skip it? Find out below.
SEE IT: ‘Bloodshot’ (In theaters)
Vin Diesel is a movie star too incalculably massive for the meager blockbuster vehicles that seek so foolishly to contain him.
In the Fast and Furious movies, he’s evolved from boosting electronics on the streets of Los Angeles to deadlifting 3,000-pound supercars. The xXx movies, which opened in a place of high-octane absurdity, have similarly added more implausible feats of extreme athleticism for Diesel’s hero to pull off with each passing entry; they kickstarted the last one by having him leap from a satellite tower with skis attached to his feet, after which point he lands flawlessly and proceed to ski a jungle.
One has to credit Bloodshot, his latest franchise effort (bringing him to a potentially unrivaled five, if you count his voice role as a monosyllabic tree-thing in the Marvel movies), for acknowledging that Diesel exerts the kind of gravitational pull typically reserved only for black holes and planetary bodies. He will never play a convincing weakling, nor can you imagine him backing down from a single, solitary fight; with a voice like a cement truck and biceps the menace of sleeves worldwide, Diesel is about as believably immortal an action star as we have. All of this makes him exceptionally great casting for Bloodshot, whose titular hero suggests a comic-book update of Universal Soldier. Diesel’s unsubtly named Ray Garrison is an ace military operative, the best in his field, who always gets the bad guy and returns to romance his loving wife (Talulah Riley)—that is, until work follows him home and a sneering baddie (Toby Kebbell, who really hasn’t thought this through) rather brutally puts an end to his marital bliss.
Waking up in a laboratory run by a doctor (Guy Pearce) with a robotic arm, Ray soon finds that, for a man of his legendary abilities, death was a less-than-permanent state. He’s been rebuilt using nanotechnology, made faster and stronger than ever with the help of microscopic nanites in his bloodstream that give him the ability to instantly regenerate, even after his body sustains catastrophic damage. As the doc explains, he’s been rescued from the morgue to join a group of similarly bionic super-soldiers, including Sam Heughan as a paraplegic outfitted with steel, razor-blade legs and Eiza Gonzalez as a Marine diver engineered to breathe through a vent in her clavicle.
But as Bloodshot soon reveals, this isn’t the story of a team coming together you might expect. As Ray pursues the man he believes is responsible for killing his wife, the story (scripted by the unlikely duo of Truth or Dare‘s Jeff Wadlow and Arrival‘s Eric Heisserer) twists with surprising cleverness into a maze of augmented realities and implanted memories, with Ray coming to question the nature of his new existence.
Bloodshot is very much Diesel’s RoboCop, concerned with bodily autonomy and what few forms of freedom can remain to the individual in a world governed by shadowy corporations and massive technological oversight. It’s also a massively silly popcorn flick in which Diesel’s superhero-in-the-making lands punches that break buildings and lays waste to armies of unfortunate mercenaries, nary a recognizable human emotion flickering across his granite features. The film can be summed up by its best sequence, a face-off in a darkened highway tunnel that’s lit by crimson flares and awash in flour (from an overturned truck) that falls heavy like January snow. Ray strides authoritatively through the chaos, scowling, motor-driven and nigh invincible as bullets rip ineffectually past and through him. It’s categorically cool to watch, deeply clichéd, and exactly the kind of giddy action-movie moment that’s kept Diesel’s career fueled thus far.
STREAM IT: ‘Stargirl’ (Disney+)
Stargirl is aptly named. At its center is the young actress Grace VanderWaal, whose irresistibly high-wattage smile and melodic abilities are the only special effect this coming-of-age story needs to radiate with a kindness and light that couldn’t be more welcome right now.
Her Susan “Stargirl” Caraway, a new arrival at Mica High School, wears rainbow-colored outfits, strums a ukulele, and vibrates with an infectious warmth that soon endears her to classmates, including young Leo (Graham Verchere). Stargirl’s a breath of fresh air, a break from small-town monotony, but she’s more than that a true original, out to brighten the world around her by being her most authentic and colorful self. VanderWaal captures the character’s innate sweetness with a charm that, almost magically, never veers into cloying sentimentality.
To Leo, who’s mourning the loss of his father and surviving high school by laying low, Stargirl’s a revelation—especially when she takes an interest in him, serenading him on his birthday in the cafeteria. The two grow close, and Leo bears witness to a kind of spell Stargirl casts on the school, especially at football games, where she brightens the cheer section and lifts the team’s spirits with sprightly, angelic renditions of songs like the Beach Boys’ “Be True to Your School” and The Go-Go’s “We Got the Beat.”
The film adaptation of Jerry Spinelli’s two-decade-old children’s novel was cowritten and directed by Julia Hart, whose debut Fast Color was the best superhero movie you didn’t see last year. Here, her triumph is partly visual, in the naked adoration with which she captures the sun-baked Arizona setting and makes maroon and gold pop off the screen at those football match scenes and elsewhere. But it’s also in the deceptively simple ways she centers these characters, letting their interactions—curious, open, warm, with the stirrings of young romance—play out with a tentative, soft-spoken languor that rings true.
SKIP: ‘The Hunt’ (In theaters)
However improbably, there existed a few weeks last summer when The Hunt was the biggest movie in the world, courtesy of our reliably incensed tweeter-in-chief.
When trailers for the Blumhouse horror-satire first began making the rounds, they teed up something like The Purge crossed with The Most Dangerous Game, a genre thriller in which the rich hunted the poor for sport on a cordoned-off reservation. Only, The Hunt added a hot-button political dimension to all its us-versus-them bloodletting; in addition to being divided by social standing, the hunters and the hunted were seen to be split along partisan lines, with “elites” bearing arms against “deplorables” on the lam.
The outrage was explosive, with Fox News claiming the film (which had not yet been screened) advocated violence against Trump supporters and the president himself weighing in to decry what he saw as Hollywood stirring up chaos and engaging in racist rhetoric. (That the one-percenters hunting for sport were quite obviously the bad guys was one detail swiftly lost amid the punditry.) The release was postponed, with some fearing the film would sit on a shelf forever, until Universal and Blumhouse reoriented to embrace the controversy, teasing a “film they don’t want you to see” and plotting out a new date in March.
So, as The Hunt finally hits theaters, it’s fair to say that it’s carrying with it a significant amount of baggage—as well as to note any exploitation filmmakers worth their salt would be delighted by this series of events. But as far as provocations go, the biggest problem with The Hunt—irony of ironies—turns out to be that it’s a pretty empty one, far from the inflammatory work of agitprop neo-cons assumed it would be and even further from the biting class satire the rest of us had hoped for.
Instead, director Craig Zobel—along with writers Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse—has delivered a political satire that’s full of contempt for both sides but conspicuously absent any ideological convictions of its own. Chalk that up to a script that would rather leer at our current social predicaments than engage with them critically (i.e. in the way of all worthy satire).
Through the elites, white guilt is at least recognized as the cancer it is and shown metastasized; the only time these NPR-donating, lily-white wokesters lay down their guns is to chide each other on being politically incorrect and to hand-wring about whether it’s more problematic to include a person of color in their hunt, or exclude them for not being white. And on the “deplorables'” side, characters gleefully tout QAnon-style conspiracy theories and downplay talk of global warming; those not cast as trailer trash are at least dinged for being woefully uneducated. But as these groups go to war, with a better-than-this Betty Gilpin caught in the middle as our audience surrogate (an eminently likable cross between Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry and Uma Thurman’s The Bride), one wishes The Hunt seemed less self-satisfied with taking cheap shots.
One comparison point is Joker, notably another film accused before its release of inspiring violence through depicting it. As with when it was said then, such accusations are baseless, reductive, and ultimately harmful to the cinema’s artistic health; no piece of media can or should be held wholly responsible for the actions of those who consume it. What Joker and The Hunt do have in common, however, is a baseline cowardice, a desire to be all things to all people, to appeal to the very people it purports to critique, that deflates any tangible point the film might’ve made. Caricature is the name of the game here, and it’s played at such a deafening volume that there’s little chance any of the film’s intended targets will see themselves in the characters. What’s left is consequently pointless, a film claiming to speak to our current moment without saying much of anything, that delivers slaps on the wrist where it feints at drawing blood. In that, it admittedly does make for a pretty fascinating facsimile for being on social media these days, surrounded by snark and fury signifying nothing. A sharp-witted political satire, it is not. But call it Twitter eggs-ploitation cinema, and you’re getting more in range.
The best of the rest:
In limited release, Never Rarely Sometimes Always shines a light on the issue of abortion in America by centering the story of one teenager’s journey from Pennsylvania to New York, where she hopes to obtain one. Made with compassion and grace by writer-director Eliza Hittman, it’s an important film most through that narrow focus, which unwaveringly foregrounds the perspective of young Autumn (first-time actor Sidney Flanigan) as she and her cousin encounter all kinds of obstacles, structural and specific, en route to the clinic. A message movie, this is not; Hittman’s too smart to preach, and she’s sensitive to the ways in which silence is often the only language left for women soldiering on against systems designed to attack their voices and volition. Never Rarely Sometimes Always feels uniquely of this political moment, gently but no less devastatingly articulate about the ways all of us are complicit in upholding practices and mentalities that harm the most vulnerable among us.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Don Cheadle on Black Monday, Wall Street in the Trump era, and hope about the climate change fight
—How Netflix’s Lost Girls upends the conventions of serial killer movies
—Heartbroken SXSW filmmakers look for alternatives after coronavirus cancellation
—Diao Yinan discusses The Wild Goose Lake, his Chinese motorcycle noir
—How coronavirus is affecting the global concert industry, including SXSW and Coachella
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fortune--2020-03-13--The Masters Golf Tournament suspended due to coronavirus

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Add The Masters to the long list of professional sporting events that are being postponed or cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Fred Ridley, chairman of Augusta National Golf Club, announced Friday that the tournament is being postponed indefinitely. The Masters was set to begin April 9.
“On Wednesday, March 4, we issued a memo stating that our plans to host the Masters Tournament, the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals had not changed,” said Ridley in a statement. “Unfortunately, the ever-increasing risks associated with the widespread Coronavirus COVID-19 have led us to a decision that undoubtedly will be disappointing to many, although I am confident is appropriate under these unique circumstances.”
The postponement of The Masters follows news that the NBA, NHL, and Major League Baseball have all postponed their seasons, as the coronavirus continues to spread. Many eyes, at this point, are on the Olympics, which are currently still slated to take place this summer.
Officials at the sporting leagues and The Masters say they’re taking the drastic actions as a safety precaution for fans and athletes.
“Ultimately, the health and well-being of everyone associated with these events and the citizens of the Augusta community led us to this decision,” said Ridley. “We hope this postponement puts us in the best position to safely host the Masters Tournament and our amateur events at some later date.”
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How coronavirus is affecting the global concert industry
—Politicians around the world are going into quarantine
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How Europe is adapting to the coronavirus outbreak
—What Xi Jinping’s visit to Wuhan says about China’s coronavirus recovery
—Conferences go online amid coronavirus fears—minus the hallway schmoozing
—Coronavirus may not be all bad for tech. Consider the “stay at home” stocks
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-03-13--Dormant PayPal Credit accounts are coming back to haunt users—and hurt their credit scores

Broadcast engineer Mike Fitzpatrick has been saving up and watching his credit score closely in preparation to build an addition onto his Massachusetts home. Despite his vigilance, he was surprised to find a 20 point decline in his credit score when he checked his account on the Credit Karma app in February.
He found a new addition to his credit report labeled “SYNCB/PPC.” A Google search revealed it stood for Synchrony Bank and PayPal Credit.
This came as a shock. He had been using a PayPal Credit account since 2013, when the service was still named Bill Me Later. He signed up for the service specifically because it didn’t report to any credit bureaus.
“I used it mainly for airline tickets so I could do the higher-value airline tickets on a non-interest account that didn’t count towards anything,” he said.
It didn’t count toward anything, that is, until this past October, when Synchrony began reporting PayPal Credit to credit bureaus. Fitzpatrick does not recall any communication from PayPal or Synchrony alerting him to this change.
He’s not alone. Dozens of posts on Reddit, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) consumer complaint database, and other sites were filled with similar accounts of PayPal Credit popping up on credit reports and causing scores to change.
Some posters said they didn’t know their PayPal Credit accounts existed at all, causing considerable confusion when they began to be reported. Others were alerted about their accounts, both known and unknown, when they were closed in a typical sweep of inactive credit lines.
“It appears numerous other Paypal [sic] customers are being confronted with this issue of having some account related to Paypal in their name closed despite not recognizing the account or having any knowledge of ever having opened a credit account under Paypal,” one complaint reads. “This has resulted in a lowered credit score for myself and others, and it’s hard to tell the scale that this has happened at.”
Caitlyn Rose, a Los Angeles–based model and entrepreneur, took angrily to Twitter and Instagram, writing “@PayPal just randomly closed an account I never authorized to open and it dinged my credit.”
Rose said the closure knocked her credit score down 39 points. When she called PayPal Credit, she was forwarded to Synchrony; they told her they’d open an investigation for fraud. She said this suspended her entire PayPal account, including noncredit services, for months, which she uses regularly for business transactions. She said she doesn’t remember any communication from Synchrony or PayPal about the PayPal Credit account in her name.
These issues stem from a series of changes PayPal made starting in July 2018, when the company switched credit issuers. Before that, when PayPal partnered with Comenity Bank to issue credit, neither company reported to any credit bureaus. But when Synchrony, PayPal’s new partner, took over, it began reporting things like late payments and account closures to credit bureaus.
According to Lisa Lanspery, Synchrony’s senior vice president of corporate communications and public relations, a letter and email went out in April 2019 telling PayPal Credit account holders that this change in hands would lead to a change in credit reporting starting in October. But many account holders—like Fitzpatrick and Rose—say they never received those letters.
“PayPal takes the financial health and protection of customers seriously, and PayPal Credit customers were clearly notified of credit bureau reporting in the change in terms that became effective in April 2019,” said Darrell Esch, the senior vice president for PayPal Credit, in a statement.
Lanspery said a hard inquiry, credit limit and balance, full age of the account, highest balance achieved, and payment history since June 2019 are now reported by Synchrony on behalf of PayPal Credit to TransUnion, Equifax, Experian, and Innovis.
The CFPB case
PayPal is an online payment processing platform with 305 million active users—counting customers of PayPal, Venmo, or other services in its portfolio—who send, receive, and hold funds in 25 currencies worldwide.
PayPal’s main product is a digital alternative to things like checks and money orders, enabling users to transfer money electronically. It began issuing credit lines in 2008, when it acquired Bill Me Later, which was renamed PayPal Credit in 2014. The credit lines can be used to pay for transactions on PayPal’s platform immediately or over time with deferred interest.
In May 2015, the CFPB brought a case against PayPal Credit, alleging PayPal used deceptive practices to essentially automatically sign up users for credit accounts and have them pay for transactions with PayPal Credit when they signed up for regular accounts. Rose now suspects this is how her account was opened.
PayPal ended up settling without confirming or denying the tactics described. The company was ordered to pay $15 million in redress to affected consumers and $10 million to the CFPB’s civil penalty fund, and a spokesperson from PayPal said the penalty was completed. It also had to create and adhere to a compliance plan that changed the processes by which customers signed up for, were billed, and paid for PayPal Credit.
Josh Criscoe, head of financial communications at PayPal, maintains that processes were changed to ensure that any new account holders were aware of their open account by increasing disclosures and alerts on the platform.
“I can assure you there’s nothing nefarious going on here in terms of people signing up for accounts without them knowing,” he said of current practices.
While the CFPB settlement required PayPal to “reimburse consumers who were mistakenly enrolled in PayPal Credit,” there were still users who were unaware they had accounts until a few months ago. And if they don’t check their credit reports regularly, some may still have no idea.
How this is affecting credit scores
To calculate credit scores, credit bureaus take many factors into account, including the number of credit lines open and closed, average age of open credit accounts, total amount of credit available, delinquencies (a failure to make a bill payment on time), and the number of hard inquiries (a note that a financial institution pulled your credit report while making a lending decision) on a credit report.
By adding just one more line of credit, like PayPal Credit did to the reports of users, a consumer’s average age of accounts, total credit available, and number of hard inquiries change, thus altering their credit score. And when late payments or closed accounts are added to the mix, scores can really plummet, affecting a myriad of things like your ability to get a loan or be approved to rent a new apartment.
Chad Harris, a PayPal Credit user and self-professed personal-finance connoisseur in Minneapolis, said he was lucky that PayPal Credit’s addition to his report didn’t dock his credit score noticeably.
“If you were a younger person with a very short credit history, very low credit availability, and all of the sudden have this happen with your credit report, unbeknownst to you, like it did with us, that could move your score 50 to 100 points,” he said. “And if your score moves at the worst possible time, and you’re at the bank trying to get a loan or something, that could be very, very bad.”
Next steps
After a few months, Rose received an email telling her that there was no evidence of fraud, and that she had access to her PayPal account again to conduct business. But she never got any answers.
“So the account I never knew was open—never knew existed—closed, which docked my credit. And then I tried to figure out how that could be if this account didn’t exist, and rather than them addressing that, they just said, ‘Nope, it did exist. End of story,’” Rose said. “And I’m not going to fight these guys over literally zero dollars, but something fishy happened.”
Users in this situation looking to remedy their issues with PayPal Credit can take two approaches, according to Bola Sokunbi, CEO and founder of Clever Girl Finance.
“You’re either pursuing financial wellness to build wealth or you’re pursuing a good credit score to buy something,” she said.
If you’re looking to build wealth, Sokunbi said you should close the account to eliminate the temptation to use that credit. But if you are worried about your credit score generally, or as you prepare to make a large purchase like a house, you should leave it open. Your credit may have dipped momentarily from this new reporting addition, but it will come back up in a matter of weeks or months, according to Sokunbi.
Fitzpatrick said he decided to keep his PayPal Credit account open but wanted to immediately pay off any purchases made using the service. This, he said, will help his credit score by keeping his total credit availability higher and total credit utilization lower as he prepares to apply for a loan to build an addition onto his house.
Harris said he chose to close his PayPal Credit account to be rid of the extraneous account that he didn’t want to keep track of. To do so, he simply had to call PayPal Credit’s customer service line. There is currently no way to close a PayPal Credit account online or in the app. Some credit card companies allow you to cancel via an online chat with a representative, but many require a phone call like PayPal does.
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—Is this your first stock market crash? Some advice for young investors
—Here are two of the biggest losers from the Saudi Arabia oil price war
—Why investors suddenly turned on pot stocks
—Here are some of the most extreme ways companies are combating the coronavirus
—Why it’s so hard to find the next Warby Parker
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fortune--2020-03-13--These female founders are trailblazers in their industries

As part of our celebration of Women’s History Month, Fortune talked to a range of female founders whose companies all have something in common: a mission to help women.
Molly Hayward is the founder and chief brand officer of Cora, which makes organic tampons and pads. Hayward was inspired to start the company after learning about how periods stopped girls from attending school in some parts of the world. For every order it sells, Cora now provides menstrual products to girls in need. “Every ‘no’ was just the motivation to keep going,” Hayward says of building the company.
Amy Nelson is the founder and CEO of The Riveter, a co-working company. She founded the brand after a 10-year career as a corporate lawyer, compelled to change her career path when she became pregnant with her first child. “I started looking around me and looking above to see where moms showed up in corporate America. And what I saw was that there weren’t many,” Nelson says.
The Riveter now makes a point to bring men into the conversation about gender equity in American workplaces because “we don’t think you can change corporate America or the startup landscape for women unless you include men in the effort.”
Ankiti Bose is the co-founder and CEO of Zilingo, a technology and commerce platform for the fashion industry. Bose points out that the fashion industry, outside of design and retail workers, is largely male-dominated. Despite those obstacles, women in the fashion industry—serving a largely female customer base—can break through. “The first thing that’s super important is to be undeniably good at your work,” Bose says of how to succeed.
In the nonprofit world, Anne Moses is another founder whose organization serves women. A decade ago, Moses launched Ignite, which trains young women to be political leaders and run for office. “It feels like there’s the potential for a generational shift in leadership,” Moses says.
Watch more Fortune Trailblazer interviews here.


fortune--2020-03-13--Alex Jones must stop selling fake coronavirus cures, orders New York Attorney General

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New York’s attorney general is demanding that conspiracy monger Alex Jones stop hawking phony coronavirus treatments.
Attorney General Letita James’ office sent a cease-and-desist letter Thursday saying it’s “extremely concerned” by Jones’ claims that toothpaste, dietary supplements, creams, and other products sold on his website can prevent and cure the disease, known as COVID-19.
Jones, known for pushing conspiracy theories about school shootings and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, touted the products on his radio show last week, according to the letter.
No treatments or vaccines have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health says there is no scientific evidence to suggest alternative remedies can prevent or cure the illness.
“As the coronavirus continues to pose serious risks to public health, Alex Jones has spewed outright lies and has profited off of New Yorkers’ anxieties,” said James, a Democrat.
An email seeking comment was sent to a media mailbox on Jones’ website, InfoWars.com. The 46-year-old was arrested on Tuesday on a charge of driving while intoxicated.
The cease-and-desist letter to Jones was the fourth that James’ office has issued this week regarding fake coronavirus products. One ordered televangelist Jim Bakker to stop selling a purported coronavirus cure. The state of Missouri sued Bakker this week over the sales.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—How coronavirus is affecting the global concert industry
—Politicians around the world are going into quarantine
—Some of the most extreme ways companies are combating coronavirus
—How Europe is adapting to the coronavirus outbreak
—What Xi Jinping’s visit to Wuhan says about China’s coronavirus recovery
—Conferences go online amid coronavirus fears—minus the hallway schmoozing
—Coronavirus may not be all bad for tech. Consider the “stay at home” stocks
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on global business.