While a breakthrough doesn’t appear imminent in Washington’s debt-ceiling standoff, there is increasing chatter about what could go into a bipartisan deal that ends the stalemate and avoids a market-shaking default. “The centerpiece of an obvious deal would be a two-year cap on discretionary spending, somewhere in between the president’s 6% proposed increase and the…
GoPro Inc. is reducing prices that were raised earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, after the action-camera company announced that revenue declined nearly 20% in the first three months of the year. GoPro GPRO announced that it will return to prepandemic pricing structures on its lineup of cameras, slicing $50 to $100 off most models. For…
Gilead Sciences Inc. on Thursday cut one of its profit forecasts and reported first-quarter profit that missed expectations, with weaker demand for its COVID-19 drug weighing on results. The company reported first-quarter net income of $985 million, or 80 cents a share, compared with $12 million, or two cents a share, in the same quarter…
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking Joe Biden and the White House to make a travel exception for tennis star Novak Djokovic and let him into the U.S. to participate in the Miami Open, which goes from March 19 through April 2. “It’s time to put pandemic politics aside and give the American people what…
After the COVID-19 pandemic brought widespread disruption to the travel industry, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. says its affluent target customers are opening their wallets for travel now and in the future. The cruise operator reported a wider-than-expected fourth-quarter loss before market open Tuesday, although revenue was higher than forecast. Norwegian’s NCLH, -11.45% stock tumbled…
In the latest sign that the coronavirus pandemic is not yet over, the World Health Organization said this week that a panel of experts is reviewing whether COVID vaccines need to be updated. The WHO panel, which is called the Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition, outlined the process in commentary in the journal…
I have genuine respect for Walt Disney DIS, -1.25% CEO Bob Iger and JPMorgan Chase JPM, -0.06% CEO Jamie Dimon, but I think they are flat-out wrong to insist that workers return to the office full time. This is bad for employees, and it’s bad for business. Companies thrive on trust and understanding. Edicts to…
The national and public-health emergencies addressing COVID-19 are slated to end on May 11, and the move will have financial implications for Americans as they continue to cope with the virus in their daily lives. The emergency declarations, first enacted in early 2020 as the pandemic took hold, triggered a range of government responses meant…
The omicron subvariant that became dominant in the U.S. several weeks ago continued to extend its lead over other variants in the latest week, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data that was updated on Friday. XBB.1.5, the omicron sublineage that first emerged in small numbers in October, accounted for 66.4% of cases…
Oh, the humanity. The owner of the world’s largest blimp company has been sentenced to 5½ years in prison for stealing nearly $8 million in COVID-19 aid, which, according to prosecutors, he used to buy a private island and a luxury ski resort, among other real-estate investments Patrick Parker Walsh, 42, of Williston, Fla., submitted…
How long are those at-home COVID tests good for, anyway? That’s a question likely to be on many people’s minds now that President Joe Biden is planning to end the country’s COVID-19 emergency status on May 11, which means that many Americans may no longer get their COVID tests for free. Those who may have…
President Joe Biden will end the twin national emergencies for addressing COVID-19 on May 11, as most of the world gets closer to normalcy nearly three years after the emergencies were first declared, the Associated Press reported. The move would formally overturn the federal response to the virus and change it to one where COVID is…
The coronavirus pandemic is still a global health emergency, according to the World Health Organization, but an advisory panel has determined that it may be nearing an inflection point where higher levels of immunity will lead to fewer deaths. That was the message Monday from WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the agency’s annual executive…
A few days into the first Lunar New Year holiday since the lifting of pandemic restrictions in China, Chinese consumers are eager to travel but are also wary as a major COVID wave sweeps the nation, MarketWatch’s Tanner Brown reported. The 15-day festival is considered the world’s largest annual migration, during which students and workers…
Birthrates in the United States have been declining since the Great Recession, and many expected that COVID-19 might accelerate this decline. And, indeed, birthrates early in the pandemic did drop substantially. However, when the economy swiftly recovered from COVID, birthrates ticked up in 2021, the first increase since 2014 (see Figure 1). The question is…
The XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant has a growth advantage over other circulating subvariants of the virus that causes COVID-19, and early data suggest it also has a greater ability to evade immunity than previous ones, according to the World Health Organization. In its weekly epidemiological update, the agency said the immune-escape data is based on preliminary…
China stopped issuing visas for visitors from Japan and South Korea on Tuesday in apparent retaliation for COVID-testing measures imposed on travelers from China, the Associated Press reported. China had warned it would take action against countries that mandate testing for its citizens, who are now free to travel after the government lifted strict restrictions on…
Americans can still order more free COVID-19 test kits from the federal government. The Biden administration is mailing out four more rapid at-home COVID tests per household. You can order them online via the United States Postal Service at special.usps.com/testkits or by calling 1-800-232-0233. You can also visit covid.gov/tests to request the free testing kits — it’s…
From Cisco to Amazon, Salesforce, HP, Roku, Beyond Meat, Meta and Twitter, big names across a number of sectors have announced major layoffs in recent months. Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO, +3.07% has begun previously announced layoffs, cutting nearly 700 jobs in Silicon Valley in December, according to filings with the state of California in January….
The COVID-19 variant XBB.1.5, a highly transmissible subvariant of omicron, has rapidly become one of the most dominant strains of the virus in the U.S. In the first week of January, XBB.1.5 made up an estimated 27.6% of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S., according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…