ZZZ Obamacare 03 Headlines

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At Reuters, reporting by Krystal Hu and Jeffrey Dastin found that Amazon and Jeff Bezos went to a Chinese technology company on the United States’ national security blacklist for its thermal camera needs — to monitor Amazon warehouse workers for fever, a sign of COVID-19.
Amazon is buying thermal cameras and other surveillance equipment from a variety of vendors, and one of them is Zhejiang Dahua Technology.
Dahua was blacklisted by U.S. over allegations it helped China detain and monitor Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, “three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.”

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The US economy is likely to see an “unprecedented” drop in growth in the second quarter, but Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday the central bank is committed to supporting its recovery.
The Fed is “committed to using our full range of tools to support the economy… to assure that that recovery, when it comes, will be as robust as possible,” Powell said in a press conference concluding the bank’s two-day policy meeting.
He noted that Congress has moved quickly to provide support for businesses and households but said, “It may well be the case that the economy will need more support from all of us, if the recovery is to be a robust one.”

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Alphabet Inc. executives are prioritizing share repurchases instead of continuing to spend on new employees and business development during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Wall Street is rewarding Google’s parent company.
Alphabet reported worse-than-expected first-quarter earnings Tuesday, with ad sales dropping more than 10% in March as shelter-in-place orders due to the coronavirus began to take effect in the U.S. and around the world. The second quarter could be just as bad, or even worse, but the company is making a lot of cost cuts to help withstand the downturn.
“As of today, we anticipate that the second quarter will be a difficult one for our advertising business,” Alphabet GOOG, +8.73% GOOGL, +8.89% Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat told analysts on the company’s conference call. “As we move beyond the crisis, and the global economy normalizes, this should be reflected in our advertising revenues. But it would be premature to comment on timing given all the variables here.”

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Ford Motor Co. posted a $2 billion first-quarter net loss, blaming nearly all of it on the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
The automaker said Tuesday that its revenue from January through March fell nearly 15% to $34.3 billion as most of its factories were shut down for the final week of the quarter.
Excluding one-time items the company lost 23 cents per share. That was worse than Wall Street estimates of an 8-cent-per-share loss, according to FactSet.
Chief Financial Officer Tim Stone told reporters Thursday that the company had about $35 billion in cash as of April 24, enough to sustain operations through the end of the year even if U.S. factories aren’t restarted.

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San Francisco: Google may be developing its own processor for future versions of its Pixel smartphones and the later versions of the chip could even power Chromebooks, said a media report.

Google’s own chip could power Pixel smartphones as soon as next year, said the report by Axios this week.

The move could be a blow to Qualcomm which supplies the main processor on Pixel phones.

But it may help Pixel phones better compete with iPhones which are powered by chips designed by Apple.

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, is defending himself after a speech outside the Supreme Court Wednesday that Republicans, and Chief Justice John Roberts, thought crossed a line and implied a threat of violence against the conservative justices on the court.
In the fiery speech, Schumer said two Supreme Court justices would “pay the price” for their decision in an abortion case.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, attacked Schumer on the Senate floor for his threatening statements.
“If any American had these words shouted at them from a sidewalk outside their office, they would hear these threats as personal,” McConnell said.
President Donald Trump also took a swing a Schumer, tweeting that he “must pay a severe price for this.”
“Schumer has brought great danger to the steps of the United States Supreme Court!” another one of Trump’s tweets read.
Roberts fired back at Schumer, saying, “…threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate ─ they’re dangerous.”

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CVS Health announced Monday that pharmacies will be expanding their coronavirus testing capabilities and will be offering self-swab COVID-19 testing kits, according to a news release.
In addition to the large-scale test sites the company has been operating since March, CVS Health will utilize its expansive community presence to bring testing closer to home while maintaining strict safety standards, company officials said.
“Our industry has been united by the unique role we can play in addressing the pandemic and protecting people’s health,” said Larry J. Merlo, President and CEO of CVS Health. “We all share the same goal, and that’s dramatically increasing the frequency and efficiency of testing so we can slow the spread of the virus and start to responsibly reopen the economy when experts tell us it’s safe.”