fortune--2020-04-01--Pentagon seeking 100,000 body bags for civilians in coronavirus crisis

Coronavirus in prison : 146,000 federal inmates will be locked in their cells for 14 days to slow spread

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The Pentagon is seeking to provide as many as 100,000 military-style body bags for potential civilian use as the U.S. warns that deaths could soar in the coming weeks from the coronavirus pandemic.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has requested 100,000 body bags, known as Human Remains Pouches, through an interagency group that directed it to the Defense Department. The Pentagon is looking into buying more bags and will draw some initially from a stockpile of 50,000 it maintains, according to two people familiar with the request.
The move is a somber counterpoint to the Pentagon’s highly-praised deployment of two hospital ships to New York and Los Angeles to help alleviate pressure on regional hospitals overburdened by the pandemic.
The Defense Logistics Agency’s Troop Support unit manages the Pentagon’s stockpile of the green nylon, 94-inch by 38-inch body bags that are typically distributed to war zones. The unit has been in contact with the current contractor to assess its manufacturing capabilities but hasn’t yet placed a formal order, according to one of the people.
As many as 200,000 Americans are projected to die in the U.S. coronavirus outbreak, a top White House official said Tuesday, even with another 30 days of the most stringent public health restrictions in place. Reviewing the projections, President Donald Trump warned Americans of a difficult period ahead.
“This is going to be a painful two weeks,” Trump said at the White House on Tuesday. “Our strength will be tested, our endurance will be tried.”
The government had not previously shared details on its projections for the spread of the virus, which has so far killed more than 4,400 people in the U.S. and infected more than 200,000.
The Defense Logistics Agency doesn’t yet have a specific delivery date request from FEMA but the agency wants them as soon as they are ready, and the Pentagon is close to agreement with its current contractor on the numbers and time lines, one of the people said.
A FEMA spokesman said the agency is making “prudent planning” for potential future needs, and that includes preparing for “mortuary contingencies” from U.S. states.
On Monday, the vice director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff outlined the general Pentagon-FEMA process that’s in place.
The Joint Staff is “in close partnership with them to identify what their needs are,” including “mission assignments” that came in Monday for prepackaged Meals Ready to Eat, and “other supplies,” Major General Jeff Taliaferro said.
The Joint Staff also received “a mission assignment from FEMA for a mortuary affairs support team for New York and we’re in the process of identifying” personnel, he added.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—China releases data on asymptomatic coronavirus cases—but doubts remain
—”It’ll never be fast enough”: 5 questions for a ventilator manufacturer
—Everything you need to know about furloughs—and what they mean for workers
—SBA small-business loans: 8 things to know about the Paycheck Protection Program
—The stock market had its worst quarter since 1987—and its worst Q1 ever
—How to job hunt during the coronavirus pandemic
—PODCAST: Two health care CEOs on why coronavirus tests and vaccines are the ammunition needed to fight COVID-19
—VIDEO: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
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fortune--2020-04-01--CEOs are taking pay cuts as furloughs and layoffs mount. Is it actually helping?

Disney. Dick’s Sporting Goods. Lyft. Marriott. Vice.
Chief executives across industries are cutting their pay—often to zero—as part of their strategy to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus crisis. Such moves are good optics, certainly, but what do they actually achieve in terms of helping their businesses?
According to Charles O’Reilly, a professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, one reason top executives are giving up their pay is to attempt to create a feeling of unity. “It sends a signal [to employees]: We care about you, we’re in this together, and we’re going to share the burden,” he says.
Indeed, the first CEOs to reduce their paychecks were in industries like hospitality and retail, which were most quickly forced to furlough or lay off workers because of the public health crisis. Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson suspended his salary—last reported at $1.3 million—for the rest of the year, and Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO Ed Stack will no longer receive his base salary of $1.1 million. Others were in industries whose workers are putting themselves at risk during the crisis; Lyft cofounders John Zimmer and Logan Green, for instance, said they would contribute their salaries to efforts to help drivers through the end of June. The early movers were quickly followed by execs in the media and entertainment industries, including Disney executive chairman Bob Iger slashing his salary to zero and CEO Bob Chapek taking a 50% pay cut to the $2.5 million he earns as his base salary. BuzzFeed, Canada Goose, Delta, Macy’s, United, and Yum Brands are more companies that have made the move.
Executives at companies with strong brand power in consumer-facing industries may be more likely to cut their pay during a crisis, according to Michael Useem, a professor of management at the Wharton School. Companies in labor-intensive industries, too, with more at risk in the case of layoffs, have more reason for executives to take swift action regarding their own salaries.
But the gesture is often symbolic; executive pay is largely made up of stock options, rather than the salary CEOs pull biweekly. Cutting pay doesn’t always have a significant impact on a company’s bottom line, although it can help if firms are severely cash-constrained. And if the pay cuts are also accompanied by layoffs—like Macy’s nationwide furloughs—any morale-boosting benefits can be “lost in the noise,” according to Jason Schloetzer, an associate professor of accounting at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.
During this particular crisis, some companies—like airlines—may have less altruistic motives for reducing executive compensation. “If we’re talking about a CEO in an industry qualifying for government stimulus, it puts a third motive in there. It’s window-dressing so they may look more acceptable in receiving stimulus aid,” Schloetzer says.
And Fortune 500 companies may be backed into a corner when it comes to this sort of conscious capitalism, after the unveiling of the Business Roundtable’s new priorities in August. In a highly publicized announcement, the CEOs of almost 200 of the country’s most prominent companies stated their commitment to their communities, customers, and employees, and to diversity and inclusion and the environment, instead of the traditional sole duty to stockholders. “Because of the Business Roundtable statement, there’s a greater effort to look like the soul of good citizenship,” Useem says.
Whether or not slashing executive pay—if not total executive compensation—ultimately helps firms weather this crisis, their actions may have long-term consequences. “People have long memories when it comes to what you did in a crisis,” Useem says. “Did you step forward, or did you refuse to help out?”
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—The USPS might have to shutter by June as the stimulus package provides no funding
—Everything you need to know about the coronavirus stimulus checks
—Everything you need to know about furloughs—and what they mean for workers
—Political activists make sure Americans register to vote—from a distance
—During the coronavirus crisis, equal pay is more important than ever
—The coronavirus fight could prove fatal to addressing climate change
—PODCAST: Two health care CEOs on why coronavirus tests and vaccines are the ammunition needed to fight COVID-19
—VIDEO: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business, delivered free to your inbox.


fortune--2020-04-01--Stocks tumble, bonds rise on economic shutdown concerns

U.S. stocks fell for the third time in four days as investors braced for a longer economic shutdown that’s likely to devastate corporate profits and dividends. The dollar rose with Treasuries.
The S&P 500 dropped the most in two weeks, with sentiment souring after U.S. officials gave sobering assessments of the coronavirus pandemic’s potential impact. President Donald Trump warned of a “painful” upcoming period for the country, while New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said a model showed the Covid-19 outbreak may not peak in the state until the end of April. Italy also said Wednesday it would extend its lockdown.
“Investor pessimism today is as bad as it has been,” said Dennis DeBusschere of Evercore ISI. “All estimates of when this will end are being pushed out, which means even harder hits to GDP/earnings.”
U.S. equities found no relief after enduring the worst quarter since 2008 as the pandemic shut down large swaths of the economy. Losses from the S&P 500’s February record reached 34% before an unprecedented government spending plan sparked a furious three-day rally of 18%. Since then, the index is down almost 5% as signs mount that the downturn will be longer than previously thought.
Banks suffered on speculation the largest will be forced to cut dividends after European lenders including HSBC Holdings Plc and Standard Chartered Plc halted payouts and share buybacks. The region’s Stoxx 600 index sank, even after the European Union unveiled plans to save jobs during the crisis. The euro extended its drop as manufacturing data from the single-currency region painted a bleak picture, with Italy’s purchasing managers’ index posting a record drop.
Investors disappointed with the loss of dividend income could spark a fresh wave of selling, knowing that analysts are dashing to update earnings forecasts to take into account the looming global recession and the slump in stock prices.
“Markets are looking at global equities in a new light, one with no buyback support and no dividends,” said Chris Weston, head of research at Pepperstone Financial Pty Ltd. The earnings season is likely to trigger a decline in consensus S&P 500 profit expectations which “are far too high relative to dividend futures,” he said.
Elsewhere, West Texas oil fluctuated around $20 a barrel after Trump’s pledge to meet with feuding producers Saudi Arabia and Russia to support the market failed to bolster prices substantially.
These are the main moves in markets:
Stocks
The S&P 500 Index fell 4.4% as of 4 p.m. New York time.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index decreased 2.9%.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 2%.
Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index increased 0.7%.
The euro fell 0.7% to $1.0949.
The British pound dropped 0.2% at $1.2393.
The Japanese yen rose 0.4% at 107.07 per dollar.
Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries dipped five basis points to 0.62%.
Germany’s 10-year yield fell three basis points to -0.48%.
Britain’s 10-year yield decreased five basis points to 0.31%.
Commodities
Gold rose 0.3% to $1,601 an ounce.
West Texas Intermediate crude rpse 2.2% at $20.93 a barrel.
More must-read finance coverage from Fortune:
—Everything you need to know about the coronavirus stimulus checks
—Social distancing creates $8 trillion in economic benefits, study says
—Everything you need to know about furloughs—and what they mean for workers
—The lessons learned from the past 3 bear markets
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: U.S. tax deadline moved from April 15 to July 15
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-04-01--Coronavirus in prison: 146,000 federal inmates will be locked in their cells for 14 days to slow spr

Coronavirus in prison: 146,000 federal inmates will be locked in their cells for 14 days to slow spread

CEOs are taking pay cuts as furloughs and layoffs mount .
Is it actually helping ?

Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.
The federal Bureau of Prisons is locking all its 146,000 inmates in their cells for the next two weeks in an unparalleled effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, as the focus shifts to a Louisiana compound, where two inmates have died and nearly 20 others remain hospitalized.
The compound, known as FCC Oakdale, has emerged as ground zero in the federal prison system’s struggle to contain coronavirus behind bars. The situation there is so dire that the local health department told the federal government there was no need to test inmates anymore for the coronavirus. Those showing symptoms should be presumed to have it.
On Wednesday, the agency confirmed thata second inmate at Oakdale, 43-year-old Nicholas Rodriquez, had died. Just days earlier, another man, serving a 27-year drug sentence, died at a hospital from the coronavirus. Officials said both men had serious, long-term underlying health conditions. They are the only deaths so far in federal prisons, but state and local lockups have seen deaths.
So far, 11 Oakdale inmates have tested positive, 19 others are in the hospital and suspected of having the disease, 32 are in isolation with symptoms and 82 have been quarantined because of possible exposure, according to local union president Ronald Morris.
In addition, 13 staff members have tested positive, one is hospitalized in an intensive care unit at a hospital in Alexandria, about 50 minutes away, and about 16 others are out of work awaiting test results.
“It is a mess here,” Morris said.
The Bureau of Prisons said the uptick is “consistent with the surge of positive cases in Louisiana” and because there were so many cases at the prison, local health officials have recommended not testing anyone else who shows COVID-19 symptoms and instead presume they are positive.
Louisiana has emerged as a hot spot for the virus, with the death toll at 273. The number of confirmed cases grew 23% overnight, topping 6,400, according to the latest figures. About 23% are hospitalized. Nationwide, there are more than 200,000 cases.
“What’s happening in Oakdale is a tragic and avoidable example of what happens when officials fail to heed the advice of public health experts who have warned from the beginning that prisons and jails would become dangerous breeding grounds for this disease,” said Katie Schwartzmann, legal director of the Louisiana American Civil Liberties Union. “This should be a wakeup call to state and local officials that this is an imminent threat to public health that must be addressed immediately.”
The situation at Oakdale is fueling fear among inmates and staff members in the rest of the Bureau of Prisons system that the virus could spread just as rapidly at any of the other 121 correctional facilities, though the rate of infection compared with outside prison is low. Health officials have been warning for more than a decade about the dangers of epidemics in jails and prisons, which are ideal environments for virus outbreaks.
For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.
On Wednesday, the Bureau of Prisons moved into a new phase of its coronavirus response plan: a nationwide lockdown. In an effort to slow the virus’ spread, officers will lock all inmates in their cells for 14 days. The agency said in a statement that “to the extent practicable” inmates should still have access to services like mental health treatment and education programs.
Even as officials shift their focus to trying to combat a potential coronavirus epidemic, officers are continuing to face challenges of managing inmates and struggling with severe staffing shortages. Earlier this week, an inmate walked away from a minimum-security federal prison camp in Three Rivers, Texas. He’s now wanted by the U.S. Marshals Service.
At Oakdale, some staff members are working 32 hours straight to fill the gaps, Morris said. The roster is being stretched even thinner because some officers have to be at the hospital to guard inmates under treatment.
The Bureau of Prisons said wardens could notify officials in Washington if they need additional staff members but the agency wouldn’t say whether that’s happened at Oakdale.
Correction officers, inmates and advocates at different prisons around the U.S. have raised alarms about what they say is an inadequate supply of personal protective equipment and basic pandemic needs, like soap and hand sanitizer.
In a statement to The Associated Press last week, Bureau of Prisons Director Michael Carvajal insisted that the agency had inventoried its cleaning, sanitation and medical supplies and there were “ample supplies on hand and ready to be distributed or moved to any facility as deemed necessary.” The agency had also ordered additional supplies, he said.
But Morris and others say there’s a clear disconnect between Carvajal’s insistence that the agency has enough personal protective gear in stock and the situation at the Louisiana prison complex.
Morris said poor planning left Oakdale with short supplies of things like N95 masks, gowns and face shields. Only after staffers kept pestering supervisors for gear did the prison order 10,000 N95 masks that are supposed to be delivered this week, he said. The prison is also running low on hand sanitizer, with management telling staff it’s having trouble finding some to purchase, he said.
At a prison camp in Pensacola, Florida, staff members went out and obtained their own masks to wear this week. But they were stopped and told by the warden that they couldn’t wear them because it could incite panic among inmates and fellow staff members, a person familiar with the matter told the AP.
The person was not permitted to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
The agency said whether officers could wear masks depends on several factors, including whether an institution has an active case and each employee’s job description.
More must-read politics coverage from Fortune:
—Coronavirus could put 47 million people out of work, says the Fed
—USPS warns might have to shutter because stimulus package provides no funding
—Political activists make sure Americans register to vote—from a distance
—Why cruise companies don’t qualify for coronavirus stimulus
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: U.S. tax deadline moved from April 15 to July 15
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fortune--2020-04-01--4 things to say if recruiters call you during the coronavirus pandemic

You might think that, with the economy at a virtual standstill and record numbers of layoffs, companies would be hitting the “pause” button on their efforts to fill job openings. That’s not as common as it may seem. Says Kathleen Duffy, CEO of the Duffy Group, a global recruiting firm, “We’re especially busy right now, trying to find the right hires for critical roles.”
With so many people now working from home, she adds, phone screening interviews are easier than usual, since potential candidates are free to discuss a new job opportunity without worrying that nearby colleagues will overhear the conversation.
Wherever you are the next time a headhunter reaches you, here are four essential questions to ask.
1. Can we set a time for me to call you back?
Besides being (probably) too swamped with work to focus on a job change right this minute, delaying the virtual meeting “gives you a chance to do your due diligence on the recruiter,” Duffy says. “This business, like any other, has its share of shady characters. You want to make sure you’re not dealing with one of them, particularly if you’ve never heard of them or their firm.”
A delay of a day or two gives you time to look the recruiter up, take a close look at his or her firm’s website, and find out as much as you can on social media, especially LinkedIn. Before you share any information (about your salary history, for instance) with this person, be as certain as possible that he or she is legit.
2. Do you have a signed, exclusive contract with this employer?
The answer to this one speaks volumes, if you understand a bit about how the recruiting business works. Often, companies trying to find as many candidates as possible for a given role will put out a request called a job order to lots of different headhunters.
What results is “a dogfight over you among several different recruiters,” explains Duffy. “You lose out in the end, because the employer finds it easier to avoid all that unpleasantness and just hire someone else.” By contrast, a recruiter with a contract “is most likely to be genuinely trying to find the best person for the job—they’re not just fishing.”
3. Where are you in the hiring process for this job?
A few related queries: “Has the job been open a long time? If so, why?” and “How many other candidates is the company considering for this opening, and where do I stand in relation to them?”
Let’s say, for example, that your skills and experience are a great fit for the job, but the recruiter mentions that the company’s ideal candidate is someone who also has an advanced degree you don’t possess. By knowing that upfront, “you’re less likely to be ‘ghosted,’” Duffy says. “And less likely to be shocked if the employer chooses a different candidate.”
4. Why should I take this job?
Let’s face it, changing jobs is risky. Even a terrific new role will require you to adapt to a different work culture, for instance, and start from scratch to build your in-house reputation. “These are legitimate concerns, so make the recruiter ‘sell’ you on the job,” says Duffy.
This sales pitch is what headhunters refer to as “the sizzle,” and it should include a strong element of how your precise accomplishments—and even your career progression so far, as evidenced by your LinkedIn profile—make you a great fit for the role. A recruiter who doesn’t bring up those things “hasn’t done their homework on you,” Duffy notes. If the sizzle doesn’t knock your socks off, proceed with extreme caution.
What if you hang up the phone and think of something you wish you’d said, or a question you wished you’d asked? It’s perfectly okay to call the recruiter back to talk about what’s on your mind. An example of a typical question that candidates often forget to pose at first: As far as you know, is there a chance that taking this job will require me to relocate, now or later?
“I hear horror stories from human resources managers about executives they’ve hired who have backed out of the new job at the very last minute,” says Duffy, “because their spouse or kids changed their mind about moving.” Enough said.
More must-read careers coverage from Fortune:
—4 ways to keep networking while social distancing
—17 companies that are hiring during the coronavirus crisis
—Why it’s important to know your communication style at work
—What is a 401(k)? And why do you need one?
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: Can you be a leader and an introvert?
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fortune--2020-04-01--After coronavirus, we need to rethink densely populated cities

For the better part of this millennium, the nation’s urban planning punditry has predicted that the future lay with its densest, largest, and most cosmopolitan cities. Yet even before the onslaught of COVID-19, demographic and economic forces were pointing in the exact opposite direction, as our biggest cities—New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago—all lost population in 2018, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The impact of the coronavirus pandemic may be too early to measure, but it’s clear that the great preponderance of cases, and deaths, are concentrated—at least as of now—in dense urban centers, most particularly Wuhan, Milan, Seattle, Madrid, and New York City. This crisis is the right moment for the world to reconsider the conventional wisdom that denser cities are better cities.
Sadly, many of the attractions that make places like New York so unique and appealing also make them more dangerous. Crowds, mass transit, clubs, and huge cultural venues create a perfect terroir for the spread of pathogens. In contrast, the rate of infection has been far lower in less urbanized states like Iowa or Oklahoma, which health professionals say benefit from less crowding and unwanted human contact.
The threat of pestilence has been prevalent throughout urban history. Cities, noted the historian William McNeill, are inherently “unhealthy places” when faced with fateful encounters with pathogens. Even in ancient Rome, Alexandria, and, later, the great cities of the Renaissance, plagues repeatedly devastated urban populations, particularly those most integrated into global trade.
And like their contemporary affluent counterparts in modern New York, the wealthy of these cities escaped to their country estates, hoping to wait out the worst. As for the hoi polloi, they simply got sick or died.
Ultimately cities have always managed to come back, as New York did after 9/11. But technology may change this. The city of the past was someplace you had to be if you wanted to play on the national, and even more so, global stage. But our increasingly networked economy enables companies and people to operate far from the traditional urban centers.
The digital economy has allowed many millennials and large companies to shift their home bases. As discussed in the Heartland Forward report I led, they are relocating to less expensive urban areas such as Dallas/Fort Worth, Nashville, Austin, Orlando, and Columbus.
Given this option, many workers, including the educated, may opt for less costly and tax-burdened places. If they have children, quality of public schools and public safety, now under assault in many big cities, also may matter. In any case, the house becomes not less important, as some urbanists suggest, but more so—not only as a safe haven but a place of work.
The biggest long-term threat to dense cities could prove to be the shift to online working. Even before the coronavirus outbreak, remote work has grown 173% over the past 15 years among non-self-employed workers, according to GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com. This is occurring when there’s declining transit ridership in most major metro areas, per a policy brief on the website I co-run, NewGeography.com.
Telecommuting creates the basis for a new kind of dispersed urban experience, what the late urban designer William Mitchell called “a city of bits.” This is a community held together not by physical proximity but cyberspace, connecting university campuses with farmsteads and bustling cities with small towns.
Rather than the Radiant City of glass towers looming over copious parks prophesied by Le Corbusier, we are likely to end up with urban centers more like Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City concept: vast expanses of low-lying private homes connected by both roads and the Internet. We may lose some of the excitement of our unscripted cities, but also create a way of life that is safer and happier.
Joel Kotkin is a presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, executive director of the Urban Reform Institute, and senior fellow at Heartland Forward. His next book, The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class, will be published in May.
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fortune--2020-04-01--Amazon’s coronavirus hiring boom has applicants packed into job fairs taking no special precautions

On March 18, a laid-off customer-service representative for one of the airline companies attended an Amazon.com Inc. employee orientation in Dallas. He found himself packed into a room with about 70 other applicants, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder to watch a PowerPoint presentation about what it’s like to work for the online retailer.
The man, who provided a smartphone photo to document his experience, said the event was exactly like one he attended last year for a seasonal holiday job with Amazon. In other words, there were no special precautions to keep attendees safe from the coronavirus. When the man raised concerns about the crowded conditions, he said an Amazon manager mocked him and a fellow recruit sneered.
“They made jokes and told me to leave if I was unhappy,” he said, adding that one manager said Amazon’s operations were exempt from the rules because the company is considered an essential service. “They didn’t care one tiny bit.” The former customer rep took the job but still worries about getting sick.
Amazon also ignored official social-distancing guidelines at mid-March events near Portland, Oregon, and in Kenosha, Wisconsin, according to two applicants. A fourth person who attended an Amazon job fair in West Jefferson, Ohio, said she was sent home and asked to return another day because the gathering was too crowded, suggesting precautionary measures are in place at least at some events or Amazon is changing its practices.
The absence of social distancing at Amazon hiring events recently made the rounds on social media. One user tweeted photos he said were taken at recent recruiting event in Los Angeles. Another complained on Twitter that the event she attended, where people were in close proximity on a line, wasn’t safe. She didn’t disclose the location. Bloomberg was unable to reach those people.
In an emailed statement, Amazon said it has updated its recruiting practices to avoid large crowds and keep applicants safe, but it declined to say precisely when it made the change.
“These situations occurred two weeks ago and we’ve since moved all new hire events and orientations to virtual platforms,” Amazon spokeswoman Lindsay Campbell said. “Any situation in which teams don’t follow social distancing guidelines are immediately investigated.”
In its initial rush to hire 100,000 people to meet surging demand from customers fearful of visiting physical stores, Amazon dusted off its holiday season recruiting playbook: holding events with lines snaking through hallways and crowds packed into meeting rooms to watch videos, submit identification and fill out paperwork. The practices violate official Covid-19 safety guidelines, which include avoiding large gatherings and maintaining at least six feet of distance from others.
Amazon is widely seen as an indispensable service amid the pandemic, providing such essentials as food, cleaning supplies and medicine. That hasn’t stopped critics from accusing the company of putting customers ahead of its warehouse workers. These employees aren’t simply handling essential goods but also processing returns and packing toys, clothes and cosmetics. As the outbreak spreads and more cases are confirmed among Amazon’s warehouse workforce, demonstrations and walkouts have erupted in the U.S. and Europe along with demands from lawmakers and regulators for the company to improve working conditions.
On Monday, workers staged a walkout at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse, where three more cases were reported Tuesday evening; they called for the facility to be shut down for cleaning. Hours later, workers at a Chicago depot picketed outside their facility. And in Romulus, outside Detroit, on Wednesday, a group of Amazon employees lined the sidewalk of their warehouse, complaining about a lack of transparency from management and beseeching Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos to shut it down.
Amazon has lauded the bravery of its workers delivering essentials during the crisis and said it’s protecting them through social distancing requirements and stepped-up cleaning.
With the economy imploding, many Americans are willing to toil at an Amazon warehouse. Almost 4 in 10 would have difficulty covering a sudden $400 emergency expense, according to a survey on economic health released in May by the Federal Reserve, highlighting the precarious financial condition of many hourly workers living paycheck to paycheck. A record-breaking 3.3 million people filed jobless claims in the week ending March 21, and experts say unemployment could top 30 percent, five points higher than the Great Depression’s jobless peak.
Amazon’s March 16 announcement that it would be hiring and boosting pay represents a lifeline to thousands of people who have lost their livelihoods in the travel, leisure and hospitality industries. “There are very few jobs right now, and millions of people are going to want them,” said Fred Goff, who runs Jobcase, a job search and networking site for hourly workers. “Amazon was ahead of the curve with $15 an hour and announced temporary raises. They’re not going to have a problem hiring people.”
Vancouver, Washington, resident Robin Guyton, 62, is among them. She had part-time jobs bringing developmentally disabled people on outings to shopping malls and bowling alleys, but her hours were sharply reduced since everyone has to stay home. Amazon beckoned with warehouse work that pays up to $20 an hour and health benefits. She attended a hiring event near Portlandin March and accepted a job offer that day.
“It’s a big company and in times like this, their services are more in demand, so there’s some job security,” she said. “This whole thing took the wind out of my sails, and I just need a job to pay the bills.”
Good pay, benefits and job security outweighed her alarm about the crowded job event, where she said people were packed side-by-side at tables to fill out online applications on shared computers that weren’t cleaned between uses.
“I was so stunned, but I was so desperate to get the job I just did what I could by staying as far away from people as I could,” she said.
Walmart Inc., Costco Wholesale Corp., Kroger Co. and CVS Health Corp. are all also ramping up recruitment to meet surging demand for essential supplies. Some have sped up hiring practices by offering virtual interviews and forgoing drug and background checks, reducing the need to pack people into big job fairs.
Walmart, which is hiring 150,000 people, compressed its hiring process from approximately two weeks to just 24 hours and is giving verbal offers by phone following online assessments. Other companies like Kroger use online platforms to check the identification of applicants so a bunch of new workers don’t have to attend big events to go through government-required ID verification, said Julie Pearl, co-founder of Tracker Corp., one of several companies that provide a remote ID checking service.
One speed bump for the companies hiring is a new stimulus package that includes enhanced unemployment benefits that could give some workers pause about taking grocery clerk, warehouse or delivery jobs that they think are too risky during the outbreak, said Gary Burtless, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution.
“There are a lot of people with low or average pay who will find that their income when they are laid off will rise, not fall, as a result of the special unemployment benefits,” he said.
Amazon could be taking steps to make some hiring events safer for applicants. One woman, who previously worked with people with disabilities, applied for an Amazon warehouse job and said she and about 20 other applicants were sent home from a hiring event in West Jefferson, Ohio, on March 21 because it was too crowded and asked to return another day.
She returned three days later to find a much smaller group of about 25 people and some seats were roped off. The orientation was shortened by two hours to limit time people spent near each other, said the woman, who was between jobs when she heard an advertisement that Amazon was hiring.
The warehouse manager where she works has been sending daily emails reminding employees of the importance of their jobs in keeping essential goods moving during the pandemic, she said, and hand sanitizer was available throughout the facility during her first week on the job.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—China releases data on asymptomatic coronavirus cases—but doubts remain
—”It’ll never be fast enough”: 5 questions for a ventilator manufacturer
—Everything you need to know about furloughs—and what they mean for workers
—SBA small-business loans: 8 things to know about the Paycheck Protection Program
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—VIDEO: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
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fortune--2020-04-01--For the self-employed, the coronavirus pandemic can be even more isolating

Hannah, a freelance marketer and publicist, usually works from home but has a couple meetings a week. That is, she used to have them. Now, with her clients’ budgets uncertain in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, even Zoom meetings are being postponed, and her work has suddenly moved solely to email interactions.
“We may be used to working from home and working alone, but this is on another level,” she says. “As someone I met on a Zoom networking event said, it’s business unusual. I think for many people the uncertainty of how long this will continue is the worst bit.”
Rebecca, a copywriter, has noticed the natural comparison between the self-employed and people with regular jobs. Her husband, now working from home, has a daily meeting with his team via Zoom and a pretty active WhatsApp chat going on. “Seeing the adapted office camaraderie firsthand has highlighted the fact that us freelancers don’t have that level of colleague connection.”
“Social connection boosts both our physical health and our mental health,” says Lee Chambers, an environmental psychologist. Although self-employed workers can have their families or partners at home, the lack of a corporate framework, plus the inability to spend periods of time outdoors and being on lockdown in a place designed for relaxation, “can leave these workers feeling like they have no one to express these anxieties to,” she says, affecting their well-being and mental health.
“If we don’t make a concerted effort to address this,” Chambers says, “it will become increasingly difficult to cope” with isolation, which in turn can cause stress, anxiety, and depression. So what to do?
Reach out to your friends
While it may seem counterintuitive since you can’t physically see them, this can be a great opportunity to grow and reinvest in your friendships. “Now is the perfect time to make your social connection a priority and build it into your working life,” says Chambers. Odds are all your friends, even those working in a team, are struggling to adjust to this new dynamic. They certainly miss having friends around. “Schedule a call with your close friends,” he suggests. “Be intentional with it, and book it in like a meeting. Talk to them about how they are feeling, and ask if there is anything you can do to help.”
Collaborate with other freelancers
Whether you join a Zoom group or find a freelance buddy to check in with every other day on how you’re doing, connecting with other freelancers can provide you a “team” of sorts. Chambers suggests keeping each other company while working on your goals and bouncing ideas off each other for work and your mental health during this time. Just as Rebecca sees her husband connecting with workers, it’s possible to create this environment with others.
Make sure you have a schedule
As hard as it is when you are stuck at home, outline what you’re going to do each day—and which friend you’re chatting with! Whether that means making your bed before you do anything else, outlining your tasks for the day, or taking a lunch break without your laptop before you, planning is important. Also, while it’s tempting to work from bed (who’s going to know, right?), don’t do it. Chambers advises getting dressed for work as if you were still going to a coworking space and incorporating working breaks into your day.
Define the end of your workday
Under normal circumstances, self-employed workers find it hard enough to end the day without someone telling them to sign off. Now, with literally nowhere to go, it feels almost impossible to walk away from the computer for the day. So Chambers suggests creating plans for the evening you can look forward to. “Maybe you can cook and create something delicious, make time to watch something from your favorite series, or put the kids to bed and read them a story,” he says. “Don’t forget to connect with the loved ones right there with you for the journey.”
Find a way to help others
Collectively we’re all struggling right now, so lending a helping hand (figuratively!) can help you connect with and help others. As Chambers says, “Maybe you can spare some groceries for your elderly neighbor. How about calling another freelancer you know and seeing if they are okay?” In this time of minimal communication, it’s more important than ever to pick up the phone and conduct meetings, interviews, or regular checkup calls. You can also offer a skill of yours for free for a good cause. “Don’t forget that whatever you are feeling, you are not alone, it’s part of a shared human experience many others will be feeling,” says Chambers.
Don’t be scared to ask for help
At the same time, don’t hesitate to ask for help yourself to get through this period of isolation. “During this time, when we are all coming together as a species to fight against a bigger challenge, we all become more helpful and compassionate toward others’ needs,” says Chambers. No one is alone in this, and you can always call someone other than your friends if you need to.
More must-read careers coverage from Fortune:
—4 ways to keep networking while social distancing
—17 companies that are hiring during the coronavirus crisis
—Why it’s important to know your communication style at work
—What is a 401(k)? And why do you need one?
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: Can you be a leader and an introvert?
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fortune--2020-04-01--WarnerMedia names former Hulu chief Jason Kilar CEO

Jason Kilar, the founding chief executive of Hulu and a former Amazon senior vice president, has been named CEO of WarnerMedia, the company announced Wednesday.
Kilar takes the reins of one of Hollywood’s largest film and television factories, putting in him charge of the Warner Bros. movie and TV studio, HBO, CNN and other cable networks. The appointment comes just as WarnerMedia, which is owned by AT&T, is preparing the launch of its own streaming service, HBO Max.
Kilar succeeds John Stankey, who was promoted to AT&T president and chief operating officer in September. Kilar, who will begin May 1, will report to Stankey. HBO Max is set to launch in May.
“Jason is a dynamic executive with the right skill set to lead WarnerMedia into the future,” Stankey said in a statement. “His experience in media and entertainment, direct-to-consumer video streaming and advertising is the perfect fit for WarnerMedia, and I am excited to have him lead the next chapter of WarnerMedia’s storied success.”
Kilar, 48, was Hulu’s chief from its inception in 2007 through 2013. After departing Hulu, he co-founded and was CEO of the streaming service Vessel for four years.
The choice of Kilar makes clear the priority of the new streaming service for AT&T. HBO Max will enter the increasingly crowded streaming marketplace to compete with Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Disney-Plus and the soon-to-launch platforms Peacock, from NBCUniversal, and Jeffrey Katzenberg’s short-form Quibi. WarnerMedia has said HBO Max will cost $14.99 a month, making it one of higher-priced streaming services.
“I’m so excited for the opportunity to lean into the future at WarnerMedia,” Kilar said. “Stories well told have always mattered, and they matter even more in this challenging time for the world. It will be a privilege to invent, create, and serve with so many talented people.”
Reporting to Kilar will be Warner Bros. chairman and chief executive Ann Sarnoff, head of news and sports Jeff Zucker and WarnerMedia Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt.
More must-read entertainment coverage from Fortune:
—As people stay home, interest in streaming services is surging. So is piracy.
—SiriusXM offers free access to all as coronavirus pandemic continues
—What to watch on Netflix while social distancing
—What to watch on Disney+ while social distancing
—What to watch on Amazon Prime while social distancing
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: One on one with Grace Potter
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-04-01--Should Apple be allowed to kill one of Android’s best weather apps?

Apple has acquired one of the top mobile weather apps, Dark Sky, sparking concern about the future of the well-liked service and raising questions among antitrust experts about big tech companies squashing competition.
For now, Apple is keeping the iOS version of Dark Sky available at its usual price of $4. But after announcing the deal on Monday, the tech giant removed the Android version from Google Play store and said service to existing Android customers would stop on July 1.
Also, immediately after the acquisition, Apple stopped offering rival weather apps on both iOS and Android new licenses to use Dark Sky’s meteorological data. Existing licensees, which include popular apps like Carrot Weather and Hello Weather, will be cut off at the end of next year.
The killing of the Android app brought complaints from its fans and also criticism from antitrust experts who said the move, along with the decision to cut off licensing of Dark Sky’s data, is an example of Apple eliminating competition among weather apps.
“Ugh,” was the first reaction from Stanford University law professor Mark Lemley, a noted antitrust scholar who has studied how large tech firms concentrate their power by buying up innovative startups.
“It’s worth asking whether there is any reason we should allow this merger,” Lemley adds. “True, it’s not the most important app in the world, but it seems to make consumers unambiguously worse off.”
Andrew Gavil, a Howard University law professor who has also worked for the Federal Trade Commission, adds, “Given what they’ve said they will do, it’s obviously anticompetitive.” Cutting off the Android app could be seen as a play to make iOS preferable to consumers, at least for weather app fans, he says. And cutting off access to the data licensing makes it harder for new weather apps to launch.
Apple, which did not disclose how much it paid for Dark Sky, did not respond to a request for comment about the changes.
Top tech companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook have been vacuuming up small app developers for many years, largely without much scrutiny beyond complaints from fans of the acquired software. Apps are often shut down, and features from the apps are sometimes integrated into the acquirer’s existing products. Apple bought a music streaming app called Swell in 2014, shuttered its app, and added features into its own Apple Music service, for example. Meanwhile, Microsoft plans to shut down acquired to-do list app Wunderlist later this year after buying it in 2015 and then creating its own to-do app.
On the other hand, sometimes the deals don’t spell doom for the acquired apps. Apple bought music app Shazam for $400 million in 2018 and still maintains both iOS and Android versions.
Dark Sky was a popular app in its category, according to data from mobile app tracking firm Sensor Tower. It is frequently the top-ranked paid weather app on iOS. Including all weather apps that charge in some form, Dark Sky ranked fifth on Android by revenue for the past year through February and 11th on iOS.
Small app and startup acquisitions have typically not received much scrutiny from antitrust regulators at the Federal Trade Commission or U.S. Justice Department.
With many other weather apps available to consumers, the Dark Sky acquisition probably isn’t significant enough on its own to draw serious review, Diana Moss, president of the American Antitrust Institute, says. And the concerning impact on the broader competition between mobile ecosystems hasn’t been a priority, she says.
“Enforcers have long focused their lens on narrow markets, often missing the forest for the trees, such as how acquisitions in large market ecosystems can help dominant firms leverage their market power from one market to another,” Moss says.
More must-read tech coverage from Fortune:
—How the coronavirus stimulus package would change gig worker benefits
—Inside the global push to 3D-print masks and ventilator parts
—Apple focuses on what’s next amid coronavirus outbreak
—A startup is building computer chips using human neurons
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: Best earbuds in 2020: Apple AirPods Pro Vs. Sony WF-1000XM3
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-04-01--The manufacturing sector  just notched its worst stretch since 2009

American manufacturing contracted in March at the same time public leaders are pushing the industry to ramp up and produce more in-demand health care products.
The Institute for Supply Management’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) came in at 49.1% in March, down from 50.1% in February. A PMI below 50% signals a contracting manufacturing sector.
Before the March contraction, U.S. manufacturing was already in a lull. In fact, March marked the sixth month of contraction over the past year—the sector’s worst stretch since 2009.
“The coronavirus pandemic and shocks in global energy markets have impacted all manufacturing sectors,” said Timothy Fiore, chair of the ISM’s Manufacturing Business Survey Committee, in its press release.
While manufacturers tied to the transportation equipment and petroleum sectors saw the steepest decrease, producers in the food and beverage sector actually saw an increase as shoppers rushed to stock up at supermarkets.
More must-read finance coverage from Fortune:
—Everything you need to know about the coronavirus stimulus checks
—Social distancing creates $8 trillion in economic benefits, study says
—Everything you need to know about furloughs—and what they mean for workers
—The lessons learned from the past three bear markets
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: The U.S. tax deadline was pushed from April 15 to July 15
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-04-01--New T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert on completed Sprint merger: ‘We have the potential to become number on

New T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert on completed Sprint merger: ‘We have the potential to become number one’

The confetti cannons will stay, so says new T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert on Wednesday, his first day as head of the newly gigantic wireless carrier.
A signature event accoutrement of his immediate predecessor, John Legere, the cannons have been the perfect metaphor for T-Mobile’s successful assault on the wireless industry over the past seven years. Now that T-Mobile has finally completed its $26 billion merger with Sprint, the assault will continue with even greater resources under Sievert.
And he’s talking a big game right out of the gate. “For me as a new leader, I intend to focus the energies of this incredible team—that’s already customer experience–obsessed—behind the goal of becoming America’s most-loved brand in the history of our space,” Sievert tells Fortune. “We have the potential to become No. 1, not just in market share but in customers’ hearts.”
Even with Sprint under its umbrella, the new T-Mobile trails rivals Verizon and AT&T in a few key metrics. Verizon had revenue of $132 billion last year and net income of almost $20 billion, while AT&T brought in $182 billion of revenue and $15 billion of profit. By contrast, T-Mobile and Sprint combined for almost $78 billion of revenue in calendar year 2019 and a profit of just $776 million. (T-Mobile made $3.5 billion, while Sprint lost $2.7 billion.)
Sievert, who has never gotten in a Twitter feud with President Donald Trump or attacked rivals with a string of expletives, as Legere has, will bring a different emphasis to T-Mobile’s corner office. Before joining Legere’s team in 2012 as chief marketing officer, Sievert was a senior marketing executive at AT&T Wireless and Microsoft. He became T-Mobile’s chief operating officer in 2015 and its president two years ago.
Expect a little more of a suburban dad vibe from Sievert, and less of the leather jackets and long hair that Legere brought to the role. “Every leader has to do it their own authentic way, and one of the things that has always been so effective for John is that he’s true to himself,” Sievert says. “You’ll see me emulate that by being true to myself.”
Still, with thousands of Sprint employees nervous about their new corporate owner, Sievert said he plans to follow Legere’s strategy of making frequent visits to offices, stores, and call centers around the country.
Of course, the novel coronavirus outbreak didn’t figure into T-Mobile’s extensive and lengthy planning process for integrating Sprint, so Sievert and his team are making adjustments on the fly. About 75% of the two carriers’ combined retail store network is currently closed, and many employees have been required to work from home. The network build-out has also slowed, if slightly. (Cell tower crews work outdoors in small groups, and can safely distance themselves as they continue expanding the network, T-Mobile’s president of technology Neville Ray says.)
“We’ve been planning this day for years, and we never imagined bringing it about under circumstances like this,” Sievert says.
T-Mobile has already said that the pandemic will have a material impact on its results, if short-lived. When the outbreak ends, the “new normal” may see many consumers opting to be more frugal, which could help T-Mobile compete against its more expensive rivals, Sievert notes.
“It might be a normal where more people have tighter budgets and tougher economic circumstances,” Sievert says. “If that’s the case, T-Mobile will be very, very well positioned to serve the public under circumstances like that.”
Currently, with tens of millions of Americans stuck at home, traffic on T-Mobile’s existing network has increased 8% to 10% overall, with voice call minutes increasing 25% and video messaging up 75%, Ray says. “The network’s doing very well,” he adds. Even before the Sprint merger closed, the Federal Communications Commission allowed T-Mobile to temporarily borrow some unused spectrum owned by others for the duration of the crisis.
As Ray and his teams start shifting Sprint’s spectrum over to T-Mobile’s network, customers of both carriers should notice better coverage and faster speeds. Sprint and T-Mobile have already promised to bring superfast 5G service to 97% of the U.S. population within three years and to 99% after six years. “We stand behind those promises 1,000%,” Ray says. Some of T-Mobile’s earliest 5G deployments aren’t much faster than 4G, but its new network will be eight times as fast or more, Ray says.
That will ultimately enable T-Mobile to debut a nationwide home Internet service over 5G to compete with the big cable and telecommunications companies that currently dominate that market.
“We see the potential to serve millions of customers and bring real competition for the first time to a marketplace that’s never really had serious competition,” Sievert says. “We know what it means to compete; we’re used to it. Some of these other guys, not so much.”
That sounds a lot like what his predecessor used to say about his wireless rivals—only without the f-bombs.
More must-read tech coverage from Fortune:
—How the coronavirus stimulus package would change gig worker benefits
—Inside the global push to 3D-print masks and ventilator parts
—Apple focuses on what’s next amid the coronavirus outbreak
—A startup is building computer chips using human neurons
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: Best earbuds in 2020: Apple AirPods Pro vs. the Sony WF-1000XM3
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-04-01--Wimbledon canceled for first time since World War II

For the first time since 1945, Wimbledon will take the year off.
The Grand Slam tournament was canceled Wednesday, joining the growing list of sporting events and leagues that have shut down temporarily because of the coronavirus pandemic. The first match was scheduled to begin on June 29.
“It is with great regret that the Main Board of the All England Club (AELTC) and the Committee of Management of The Championships have today decided that The Championships 2020 will be canceled due to public health concerns linked to the coronavirus epidemic,” said Wimbledon officials in a statement. “Following a series of detailed deliberations on all of the above, it is the Committee of Management’s view that cancellation of The Championships is the best decision in the interests of public health, and that being able to provide certainty by taking this decision now, rather than in several weeks, is important for everyone involved in tennis and The Championships.”
Officials considered postponing the tournament until later in the year, but ultimately decided it was not worth the risk. The 134th Championships will now be held from June 28 to July 11, 2021.
Wimbledon joins the NBA, Major League Baseball, and the 2020 Olympic Games on the list of sporting events and leagues that have been forced to cancel owing to the outbreak.
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—Everything you need to know about the coronavirus stimulus checks
—How small-business owners and the self-employed can take advantage of the coronavirus stimulus package
—The USPS warns it might have to shutter because the stimulus package provides no funding
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fortune--2020-04-01--The Coronavirus Economy: How my job as a winemaker has changed so far

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Brad Greatrix, the winemaker behind England’s award-winning Nyetimber sparkling wines, is frequently flying around the world to show his products to distributors, restaurants, wine shops, media, and consumers. At the winery, he’s on-site, pouring himself barrel samples to determine blends, riddling bottles of sparkling wine, and pruning vines with his team.
But with the outbreak of COVID-19, travel has stopped. Social-distancing orders have seriously affected the day-to-day operations of the winery in West Chiltington, England. His team has enacted social distancing in their 10 vineyard sites across the south of England, and office-based staff have gone remote as they work from home. Tastings are now virtual.
Fortune spoke with Greatrix for a new series, The Coronavirus Economy, to find out what it’s like to work in the wine industry—a business that involves hands in the field for production, manpower in the winery for tasks like bottlings, and tasting the physical product for promotion—amid the public health crisis, as well as his plans for the future, and to get a sense of how he is handling this news, both emotionally and financially. The following Q&A has been condensed and lightly edited.
What was it like to watch the story unfold from where you are?
I’m sure that medical specialists have been paying close attention to COVID-19 for quite some time now. But I think for a lot of people in the U.K. and elsewhere, COVID has been like approaching headlights on the highway. At first something far away and barely noticeable, and then a moment later right upon you.
How has it affected your day-to-day job, since so much of winemaking is hands-on? You can’t really harvest grapes from home.
In the vineyard and winery we’ve had to adapt to how we do tasks in order to respect distancing rules, to have people working farther apart. For example, when labeling bottles, a small team normally works closely together. We’ve had to spread out more, and less of our team work on that job at any one time.
At the moment we are preparing for bottling. Although this COVID situation hasn’t knocked us too much off course, we need to keep working hard and pushing ahead. Bottling is always an important task relating to quality for traditional-method sparkling wine like Nyetimber’s. However, this year there is a practical risk that, in the unlikely event of an enforced closure, we won’t get all of our wine bottled before harvest. Then the tanks won’t be empty in time to receive this year’s crop. That is a serious issue for the wine business because we only have one harvest per year.
Certain office-based tasks have been moved to home-working setups. But for the sales team, they rely on a lot of face-to-face communications and relationships, so we’re all adapting to the new, temporary reality.
Brad Greatrix at Nyetimber’s vineyards in southern England. Courtesy of Nyetimber Wine
That would be virtual tastings, right?
As with a lot of businesses, we are moving everything that we can to telephone or video calls. It’s amazing how quickly everyone has adapted to this, and it is becoming the new norm.
With me, you hosted a virtual wine tasting via Zoom, which I loved. Have you used the platform before?
Yes, Zoom, Skype, and FaceTime get a reasonable amount of use at Nyetimber because we have staff working in different parts of the country and also a few export managers overseas. Our meeting with you was the first time we had done a wine tasting like that. It certainly won’t be the last.
Has your open mindset—to switching to things like virtual tastings, even though it’s not the same as being there in person—set you up for success during a time of social distancing?
I hope so. It’s important that we all carry on with our work as much as possible, especially in these times of economic uncertainty. When aiming for the highest possible quality, winemaking is still a sensory process, requiring us to be on-site to check on the evolution of flavors and aromas and adapt accordingly. On the production side, I can’t see COVID-related technology adaptations changing how the wines are made in the long term.
But virtual tastings are a very interesting idea. I expect we’ll see more of those for media interviews, product launches, and sales calls [even beyond COVID-19 restrictions]. For a lot of business, there’s no substitute for face-to-face contact, and video calling provides the best possible means for that in these particular times.
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—How to get a refund on your Broadway tickets after the coronavirus shutdown
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—The coronavirus may not be all bad for tech. Consider these “stay at home” stocks
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fortune--2020-04-01--2020 U.S. Census response rate is far below 2010—here’s how to fix that

Americans aren’t filling out their 2020 Census questionnaires with any sense of urgency this year. Responses to the constitutionally mandated count of the country’s population are only at 36.2% as we go into Census Day—the questionnaire asks where you live on April 1, 2020, even if responses are collected before or after. A decade ago, more than half of the questionnaires had been completed.
The data, from the U.S. Census Bureau, could reflect any number of hesitations or distractions. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has many more focused on their lifestyle or finances than how federal funds will be distributed over the next 10 years. The talk of adding a question about citizenship has frightened and confused many immigrant communities even though the Trump administration was blocked from putting that question on the Census. And field operations have been suspended because of the outbreak.
The 2020 Census is important, though, as it will help determine how many congressional seats each state gets and the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal spending. It could also give the economy a much needed boost as the Census Bureau prepares to hire at least 600,000 temporary employees to assist with data collection.
Federal law mandates the Census Bureau send the count to the President by Dec. 31. And while some groups have suggested the deadline be pushed back given the circumstances so far this year, the Census Bureau has resisted that.
If you’ve not yet replied, you’ve still got time to ensure you’re counted. Here’s how best to do that:
Reply to the 2020 Census online
This is the first time all U.S. households have the chance to respond to the Census online. While that has raised security concerns, officials say they are taking extraordinary security steps to protect the integrity of the count.
Security’s one thing. Access is another, though. People who prefer Apple’s Safari browser have found themselves unable to complete the form online. The Census Bureau is suggesting people who experience problems try another browser.
Respond to the 2020 Census via phone
If you’re unable to access the site or prefer not to respond electronically, English-speaking users can call the Census Bureau to give their replies at 844-330-2020 from 7 a.m. ET until 2 a.m. ET. Sixteen other languages are supported at different numbers on the Census Bureau site.
Respond to the 2020 Census via mail
This one’s hit or miss. Some Census mailings included a written questionnaire, targeting those in areas where officials felt an online response was less likely.
If you didn’t get one, though, and haven’t responded, you could receive a written questionnaire later this month.
Wait for 2020 Census field workers (but there could be problems)
While the Census Bureau does plan to hire more than half a million people to assist with the count, that’s a quarter million less than in 2010. The ongoing coronavirus outbreak has thrown a wrench into the hiring process as well. During a press call last week, Census officials announced that they would suspend all onboarding of new employees until at least April 1, but that they were keeping their hiring website open and had received 2.8 million applications. The onboarding process is a lengthy one, though.
And while Census workers are considered essential employees, if the growing number of stay-at-home orders continues or is extended, citizens might be less likely to open the door to someone they don’t know as they practice social distancing.
More must-read politics coverage from Fortune:
—Coronavirus could put 47 million people out of work, says the Fed
—USPS warns might have to shutter because stimulus package provides no funding
—Political activists make sure Americans register to vote—from a distance
—Why cruise companies don’t qualify for coronavirus stimulus
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: U.S. tax deadline moved from April 15 to July 15
Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter.


fortune--2020-04-01--Coronavirus scammers are getting taken down by grassroots ‘hackers without borders’

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Ne’er-do-wells are using coronavirus chaos as a launchpad for cyberattacks, propaganda, and general bedlam.
Yesterday, I tuned into a virtual seminar on the subject hosted by Kathleen Carley, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. She has been tracking the flow of COVID-19-related misinformation (falsities) and disinformation (intentional falsities) online. Shortly after she began presenting her research into bot-boosted social media fakery on Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter, a “Zoombomber” interrupted the broadcast, scribbling all over her slides to make them unreadable.
Screenshot of a “Zoombombed” slide defaced during a presentation on coronavirus-related disinformation by a Carnegie Mellon professor
I have no idea whether the defacements were pure, sophomoric hijinx by a bored interloper, or whether they were something more insidious by a disinformation-peddling subject of Carley’s research. Either way, the moment drove home for me the lengths to which rogues will go to promote mayhem, even—and perhaps especially—during times of crisis.
Screenshot of another scribbled-over slide
Paladins are striking back at the scoundrels. I spoke to Marc Rogers, executive director of cybersecurity at Okta, a digital identity company, about a grassroots effort he’s helping to lead with peers at Microsoft, called the COVID-19 Cyber Threat Intelligence League. The group, which I like to think of as “hackers without borders,” is tracking hackers’ malicious activity and taking down at least two—though sometimes as many as 20—domains abused by phishing campaigns per day, he estimates.
“A group of us got together and realized that we probably have the largest infosec (information security) workforce sitting around not doing very much at the moment, and we could probably help,” says Rogers, who is also an organizer of Defcon, a major hacker conference. The league has grown to more than 800 members across 40 countries since its inception just a couple weeks ago, he says.
“I would love to see this type of thing, a groundswell of effort, be able to jump onto things when there are lot of scams going on, like with the U.S. census or the upcoming election, or any emerging crisis in the world,” says Beau Woods, a cyber safety innovation fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The initiative could potentially establish “confidence-building measures,” diplomatic tools for trust-building between nations that’s sorely needed in cyberspace, he says.
“I have a secret hope at the end of this that it will continue,” Rogers adds. “If we can keep going after the pandemic, it’s going to make the Internet a much safer place.”
We could use the help.
Robert Hackett
Twitter: @rhhackett
Email: robert.hackett@fortune.com
THREATS
Contact high. Researchers in Europe are exploring how to perform "contact tracing," identifying people might have been exposed to coronavirus infections, while complying with the region's strong data privacy laws, the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. Silicon Valley tech firm Palantir may be involved, Bloomberg reports. Authorities in Moscow unveiled an app to track people who have been ordered to stay at home because of the pandemic.
Zoom goes kaboom. Researchers are warning that Zoom video-conferencing calls are not as private as one might expect. The New York Attorney General is investigating claims that hackers may be able to take over people's Zoom webcams, among other issues. Another researcher found a zero-day vulnerability in Zoom software that allows hackers to steal people's Windows passwords. Meanwhile, Houseparty, a video chat app owned by Fortnite-maker Epic Games, is offering $1 million to anyone who comes forward with information about a "commercial smear campaign" designed to discredit the service by erroneously alleging that using it could lead to other services, like Netflix and Spotify, being hacked.
Please return your key card. Marriott can't seem to catch a break. While the hotel chain reels from the COVID-19 economic shutdown, it is also investigating a data breach it says exposed up to 5.2 million customers' personal information. The incident is said to have compromised people's names, addresses, birthday, email addresses, phone numbers, and loyalty reward program numbers. Apparently, an unauthorized person used the login credentials of two employees of a franchised hotel in Russia, the Wall Street Journal reports. This is the third data breach the company has disclosed in the past 18 months.
Good time to buy. Cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks has agreed to acquire CloudGenix, a software-based networking firm, for $420 million. This is the sixth company Palo Alto Networks has acquired since February 2019, a buyout streak that has cost the company more than $1.6 billion. CEO Nikesh Arora, an alum of Softbank and Google, says he will forgo a salary for the year amid coronavirus disruptions. He has also committed not to lay off any employees as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, he told CNBC.
Once quarantine is over, I'm splurging on a rocket tank.
ACCESS GRANTED
Bug bounty programs reward security researchers for finding flaws in tech companies' products. That may sound like a win-win situation for everyone involved, but, lately, some bounty hunters are finding themselves mummified by reams of red tape and non-disclosure agreements. One former executive of HackerOne, a popular bug bounty host, even coined a term for the superficiality of such programs: "security Botox." Fortune's David Z. Morris vents both sides' frustrations.
While bug bounties have become an increasingly popular part of companies’ cybersecurity toolkit in recent years, researchers have run into an array of problems with the way they are structured and managed. Critics say the programs, particularly those run with intermediaries like HackerOne and Bugcrowd, often limit the scope of researchers’ work and their ability to share findings. These shortcomings, they say, could ultimately leave important software more vulnerable to “black hats,” or malicious hackers.
...The leaders of bug bounty services counter that putting guardrails around bounty programs, at least temporarily, serves the larger goal of balancing white-hat ideals of total transparency with the needs of companies whose resources and reputations are on the line.
FORTUNE RECON
Xerox ends hostile HP Inc. bid, citing the coronavirus and market turmoil by Jonathan Vanian
Fitbit users are walking less as shelter-at-home orders take hold by David Z. Morris
LinkedIn tries to improve equality across its site by Jeremy Kahn
‘It’ll never be fast enough’: 5 questions for a ventilator manufacturer by Maria Aspan
Coronavirus fight could prove fatal for another global challenge: Addressing climate change by Katherine Dunn
ONE MORE THING
Pandemics and misinformation go hand in hand. During the Spanish Flu of 1918, American newspapers downplayed the outbreak—not unlike Bloomberg is now alleging of China. The New Republic digs up media coverage from the past to show this mishandling damaged the country's response. The story quotes John M. Barry in his history book, The Great Influenza, where he writes that "what officials and the press said bore no relationship to what people saw and touched and smelled and endured. People could not trust what they read."


fortune--2020-04-01--China intentionally under-reported total coronavirus cases and deaths, U.S. intelligence says

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China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, under-reporting both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease, the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House, according to three U.S. officials.
The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret, and they declined to detail its contents. But the thrust, they said, is that China’s public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete. Two of the officials said the report concludes that China’s numbers are fake.
The report was received by the White House last week, one of the officials said.
The outbreak began in China’s Hubei province in late 2019, but the country has publicly reported only about 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That compares to more than 189,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths in the U.S., which has the largest publicly reported outbreak in the world.
Communications staff at the White House and the Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
“The reality is that we could have been better off if China had been more forthcoming,” Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday on CNN. “What appears evident now is that long before the world learned in December that China was dealing with this, and maybe as much as a month earlier than that, that the outbreak was real in China.
While China eventually imposed a strict lockdown beyond those of less autocratic nations, there has been considerable skepticism toward China’s reported numbers, both outside and within the country. The Chinese government has repeatedly revised its methodology for counting cases, for weeks excluding people without symptoms entirely, and only on Tuesday added more than 1,500 asymptomatic cases to its total.
Stacks of thousands of urns outside funeral homes in Hubei province have driven public doubt in Beijing’s reporting.
Republican lawmakers in the U.S. have been particularly harsh about China’s role in the outbreak. Enhancing Beijing’s role in the pandemic could be politically helpful to President Donald Trump, who has sought to shift blame for the U.S. outbreak away from his administration’s delays in achieving widespread testing for the virus and mobilizing greater production of supplies such as face masks and hospital ventilators.
“The claim that the United States has more coronavirus deaths than China is false,” Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, said in a statement after Bloomberg News published its report. “Without commenting on any classified information, this much is painfully obvious: The Chinese Communist Party has lied, is lying, and will continue to lie about coronavirus to protect the regime.”
Deborah Birx, the State Department immunologist advising the White House on its response to the outbreak, said Tuesday that China’s public reporting influenced assumptions elsewhere in the world about the nature of the virus.
“The medical community made — interpreted the Chinese data as: This was serious, but smaller than anyone expected,” she said at a news conference on Tuesday. “Because I think probably we were missing a significant amount of the data, now that what we see happened to Italy and see what happened to Spain.”
China isn’t the only country with suspect public reporting. Western officials have pointed to Iran, Russia, Indonesia and especially North Korea, which has not reported a single case of the disease, as probable under-counts. Others including Saudi Arabia and Egypt may also be playing down their numbers.
U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has publicly urged China and other nations to be transparent about their outbreaks. He has repeatedly accused China of covering up the extent of the problem and being slow to share information, especially in the weeks after the virus first emerged, and blocking offers of help from American experts.
“This data set matters,” he said at a news conference in Washington on Tuesday. The development of medical therapies and public-health measures to combat the virus “so that we can save lives depends on the ability to have confidence and information about what has actually transpired,” he said.
“I would urge every nation: Do your best to collect the data. Do your best to share that information,” he said. “We’re doing that.”
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—Millions of Americans won’t be able to pay their bills this month. What financial experts advise
—”It’ll never be fast enough”: 5 questions for a ventilator manufacturer
—Everything you need to know about furloughs—and what they mean for workers
—SBA small-business loans: 8 things to know about the Paycheck Protection Program
—The stock market had its worst quarter since 1987—and its worst Q1 ever
—How to job hunt during the coronavirus pandemic
—PODCAST: Two health care CEOs on why coronavirus tests and vaccines are the ammunition needed to fight COVID-19
—VIDEO: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-04-01--Hollywood’s Pandemic Diaries: How execs and creatives are working, and coping, at home

There are few industries that rival Hollywood’s in rigor or relentlessness.
So how do those who work inside one of the world’s most lucrative and cutthroat businesses continue to thrive from home during a global pandemic? To find out, Fortune polled eight top creatives and executives via email about how they are coping, staying productive, and not losing hope (or too much sleep) after transitioning their hectic livelihoods to the home front.
These responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Whom did we talk to?
Helen Estabrook
Producer (TV: HBO’s Mrs. Fletcher, Hulu’s Casual; film: Tully, Whiplash)
Residence “A house in Los Angeles with my partner, [actor] Tommy Dewey.”
Liz Garbus
Filmmaker (Netflix’s Lost Girls, What Happened Miss Simone?), Story Syndicate
Residence “The wonderful borough of Brooklyn, with my two kids and husband, fellow Story Syndicate filmmaker Dan Cogan.”
Amy Israel
Executive Vice President, Scripted Programming, Showtime Networks (Billions, Black Monday)
Residence: “In a house in Silver Lake in Los Angeles with my husband, [producer/director] R.D. Robb, our two children, and our dog, Moxie.”
Lewis Kay
Publicist (Tiffany Haddish, Jack Black, Awkwafina), cofounder/CEO Kovert Creative
Residence “In Los Angeles in a house with my wife and two sons, 13 and 5.”
Frankie Shaw
Actor/writer/director/producer (Showtime’s SMILF, HBO’s Wifey by Judy Blume)
Residence “In a house in Los Angeles with my husband, writer Zach Strauss, 11-year-old son, Isaac, and dog, Ernie.”
Tim Simons
Actor (HBO’s Veep, Hulu’s Looking for Alaska) and writer
Residence “In Silver Lake in a house with my wife and two kids.”
J. Smith-Cameron
Actor (HBO’s Succession, SundanceTV’s Rectify)
Residence “New York City in a Manhattan apartment with my husband, [playwright/filmmaker] Kenneth Lonergan, our teenage daughter, Nellie, one dog, and one cat.”
Joanne Wiles
Literary and talent agent, ICM Partners (Mark Duplass, Paula Patton, Marc Maron)
Residence “In Los Angeles, in a house with my kids and a menagerie of animals.”
The most challenging part of being at home:
Smith-Cameron: “Cabin fever and feeling worried. As of now, we are still well. When I think of vulnerable people, I feel lucky. But none of us is safe. That’s haunting.”
Estabrook: “We aren’t sure when production [in Hollywood] resumes; it’s been hard to find motivation to start something from scratch. New ideas feel incredibly heavy at the moment.”
Garbus: “We’re lucky that our kids started online school immediately—we’ve been working while they’re occupied. The hardest things are the unknowns, my outrage at the federal mismanagement, and, wow, a lot of dishes.”
Kay: “Balancing working remotely with caring for kids. I also have a puppy, Annie, who likes to bark. Calls are trickier.”
Shaw: “Constantly thinking about my friend Sonya, who’s an ER doctor in New York. Global stress, suffering, fear, and loss. And my brother, who’s a chef in Hawaii with two young kids. Not sure how long he can survive. So, all of this.”
Simons: “It’s been incredibly hard to, all of a sudden, run a homeschool.”
Wiles: “Listening to CNN 24/7. And being a short-order cook for my kids.”
My new daily schedule:
Estabrook: “Still working on one—it’s been all over the place as meetings shifted to calls and videoconferences. The main goal has been limiting time on social media.”
Garbus: “Up at 7:30 a.m., breakfast. At 8:30 the kids go to ‘school,’ and I run/walk with our new puppy. I start work around 9:30; break for lunch with kids midday. Late afternoon/early evening, we do online workout videos, play games and with the dog; then dinner and relax before bed.”
Israel: “Waking up naturally at 5:00 a.m.—anxiety alarm clock! Read news, make coffee, meditate, and take the dog for a three-mile walk. Then a full work and school day. Nightly family dinners have been incredible — a throwback to my 1970s childhood in Brooklyn.”
Kay: “Getting up later than normal at eight, check Twitter, work, break with the boys, help with homework, Twitter, work, Twitter, lunch, work, PE, Twitter, and clean up before dinner.”
Frankie Shaw works alongside her son at home in Los Angeles. Courtesy Frankie Shaw
Shaw: “Up at five-ish, get my son up at 8:15, then eat/write/stress/eat/read the news. My husband has organized a daily Zoom meditation, which is nice. And sleep by 11 p.m.”
Simons: “I haven’t been staying up late; patience is a precious commodity. Being tired only robs you of it.”
Favorite meals or new cooking experiences:
Smith-Cameron: “There’s an Asian market near us, so every meal’s had a pan-Asian influence. Nellie and I are fans of The Great British Bake Off, so I also bought stuff to make the Victoria Sandwich Cake.”
Estabrook: “Nearly every recipe [New York Times food columnist] Alison Roman’s published.”
Garbus: “We made challah bread as a family!”
Israel: “A lot of fish and vegetables, and meals from one of our favorite restaurants, All Time in Los Feliz, to help support businesses during this difficult time.”
Shaw: “I basically wait around until the next time I can eat more boxed Annie’s mac-and-cheese.”
Simons: “I think we do a good job of teaching our kids the value of money, but it’s been helpful for them to see that food waste is also bad. Too often we’d pour out the last of a cup of milk, or a half-eaten dinner they didn’t like.”
Wiles: “Frozen foods…when you can get them! They’re like gold now.”
What I can (and can’t) do from home:
Smith-Cameron: “Production stopped on the indie I was filming, and Succession is suspended. No one knows when either will revive, but producers seem committed, so we’ll see.”
Estabrook: “Development—putting projects together, readying them for production—can still be done. What can’t are the social aspects of producing, like lunch meetings and figuring out ways to collaborate.”
Brooklyn resident and filmmaker Liz Garbus working at home with her new puppy. Courtesy Liz Garbus
Garbus: “I’ve been busy reading scripts and, since we’ve shifted to remote editing, reviewing cuts, and giving notes for upcoming series and films. If this all extends past the summer, it will be a real issue.”
Israel: “Watching cuts of Billions, reading scripts, meetings, and calls. Soon we’ll be taking virtual pitches to keep our pipeline robust.”
Kay: “Most of my job is calling, emailing, and texting; if Wi-Fi works, I can function. But I miss seeing my team; we get a lot done just being together.”
Shaw: “We’ve had some pitches get postponed, so writing is a welcome distraction right now.”
Simons: “Acting requires flying and being in large groups, so that isn’t happening. I’m lucky to also be a writer and am turning in drafts, while also running a fucking homeschool.”
Wiles: “I’m trying to keep clients’ movies together and break young talent, because now there’s time to do so.”
My go-to technology:
Estabrook: “Zoom. So much Zoom.”
Israel: “Zoom, also FaceTime, and I’ve found it heartening to have ‘virtual cocktails’ with friends.”
L.A. publicist Lewis Kay captured his son Andrew doing “preschool Zoom” while the former attempted to get his work done at home, too. Courtesy of Lewis Kay
Kay: “Sorry, Zoom, but we are a BlueJeans company. It’s been vital. Xbox, too, for keeping the boys entertained in between schoolwork.”
Wiles: “Zoom and TikTok.”
Something I’d been meaning to do for ages that I’m finally tackling:
Smith-Cameron: “Tidying my desk and closets—though you can’t really tell—and studying Italian in the half-assed way I always have.”
Estabrook: “Very slowly cleaning out my inbox.”
Israel: “Organizing my photo library in order to make photo books and home movies. Also, I’m planning to channel my best Marie Kondo and organize every corner of my house.”
Kay: “The first weekend, I cleaned out my garage. I don’t foresee another project like that.”
Wiles: “Still hoping to clean closets, organize, and repaint. I haven’t been too motivated on that front— yet. I’ve needed to acclimate to the new normal.”
“Succession” star J. Smith-Cameron (right) with her husband, Kenneth Lonergan (“Manchester by the Sea”), at the opening of “The Height of the Storm” in 2019. Bruce Glikas—WireImage?Getty Images
Favorite or most creative way to exercise:
Smith-Cameron: “This has been a trial. I try to walk outside, but it’s hard to maintain a six-foot distance from people. C’mon, New Yorkers!”
Estabrook: “A ridiculous number of indoor online workouts on YouTube.”
Garbus: “Our dog helps with fresh air and jogging. I’ve also subscribed to Obé [online]. You can do crunch classes, vinyasa flows, or restorative stretches.”
Israel: “I took a four-mile, six-feet-apart hike up past the Hollywood sign with my dog and two friends.”
Kay: “My oldest son has a daily PE requirement of 30 to 40 minutes. One day I had him bring full Sparkletts water bottles up and down the steps. I was like Mickey in Rocky, telling him what to do.”
Shaw: “The most I get is going from my bed to the TV room.”
Go-to screen-based entertainment:
Smith-Cameron: “The Leftovers—a curious choice for a dystopian time. Also, movies I missed during awards season.”
Estabrook: “The Criterion Channel and Tiger King on Netflix, which is delightfully bonkers.”
Israel: “Even though I work on the show…Black Monday. Ridiculously funny and relevant.”
Kay: “I loved Mythic Quest on Apple TV+.”
Shaw: “Schitt’s Creek.”
Simons: “Finally watching [Disney+’s ] The Mandalorian with the kids and old golf tournaments because there aren’t any sports on.”
Books or reading material:
Smith-Cameron: “A few books, that aren’t out yet, that I’m honored to have been asked to read by their authors.”
Estabrook: “Weather by Jenny Offill— as wonderful as I’d hoped.”
Shaw: “When Things Fall Apart [by Pema Chödrön], and [Srecko Horvat’s] The Radicality of Love.”
Wiles: “Fashion magazines, the Sunday Times, and Ronan Farrow’s Catch and Kill.”
Tim Simons at an HBO For Your Consideration event for “Veep” at the Landmark Theaters on Aug. 20, 2019 in Los Angeles. Jeff Kravitz‚FilmMagic, for HBO via Getty Images
A silver lining to all of this?
Smith-Cameron: “The gentleness of getting through the day and watching out for fellow humans.”
Garbus: “This time of togetherness will have a lasting impact on the kind of citizens my kids will become. Interdependence and social responsibility have never been clearer.”
Israel: “Beyond substantial positive effects on the environment, I’m grateful to have gotten off the fast train of modern life and be completely present for my family.”
Kay: “I don’t miss airports. And I like the air quality in L.A. and seeing my kids much more.”
Shaw: “Kindness. Connection. Bringing neighbors food. Dolphins in Italy. Mother Nature getting much needed R&R.”
Simons: “A societal shift toward acknowledging who really keeps our country going: teachers, grocery-store employees, doctors, and nurses.”
Wiles: “The world has been spinning too fast and off its axis for a while; a complete reset was inevitable. I’m hoping we learn how to show more kindness and respect.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Hollywood showrunners assist the assistants amid coronavirus pandemic
—The coronavirus pandemic is changing broadcast and streaming TV as we know it
—As the coronavirus forces people home, interest in streaming services is surging; so is piracy
—What to watch on Amazon Prime while social distancing
—MusiCares’s COVID-19 Relief Fund gets all-star help for donations, concerts
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business, delivered free to your inbox.


fortune--2020-04-01--Appeals court re-instates order to limit abortion access during coronavirus

A federal appeals court on Tuesday put on hold a victory for Texas abortion providers who are trying to stop the state from shuttering clinics during the coronavirus pandemic.
The order by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reflects the court battles still ahead for abortion providers across the U.S. during the outbreak, even after clinics in Texas, Ohio, and Alabama secured at least partial triumphs Monday.
In Texas, U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel of Austin had ruled the “Supreme Court has spoken clearly” on a woman’s right to abortion while blocking efforts by state Republican leaders to ban the procedure during the virus crisis. But that ruling is now on hold after the New Orleans appeals court said it needed more time to consider the case.
Governors across the country in recent weeks have issued executive orders halting nonessential medical surgeries to free up hospitals, and Republicans have said abortions should be included under those mandates. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Tuesday’s development “justly prioritizes supplies and personal protective equipment for the medical professionals in need.”
Lawsuits have also been filed in Iowa and Oklahoma after governors in those states similarly ordered a stop to non-emergency procedures and specifically included abortion among them.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—China releases data on asymptomatic coronavirus cases—but doubts remain
—”It’ll never be fast enough”: 5 questions for a ventilator manufacturer
—Everything you need to know about furloughs—and what they mean for workers
—SBA small-business loans: 8 things to know about the Paycheck Protection Program
—The stock market had its worst quarter since 1987—and its worst Q1 ever
—How to job hunt during the coronavirus pandemic
—PODCAST: Two health care CEOs on why coronavirus tests and vaccines are the ammunition needed to fight COVID-19
—VIDEO: World leaders and health experts on how to stop the spread of COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.