ZZZ Obamacare 03 Headlines

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A new propaganda campaign by Russia is claiming that coronavirus was created by the Deep State to hinder the chances of President Donald Trump to be re-elected. It is not surprising that Russia continues its efforts to spread propaganda and meddle into US elections via social media. In the United States, the “deep state” is a conspiracy theory which suggests that collusion and cronyism exist within the US political system and constitute a hidden government within the legitimately elected government.
At the same time, the Kremlin is also trying to aid China in using diversion tactics about who is to blame for the coronavirus spread around the world….
Russia is basing the latest propaganda on an article published by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Chairman of the Children’s Health Defense entitled “Gates’ Globalist Vaccine Agenda: A Win-Win for Pharma and Mandatory Vaccination.” The article was released on the April 9th.

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Alphabet Inc’s Google said on Thursday all advertisers would have to complete a verification process before buying ad space on its platform, starting this summer, in a bid to make its ad practices more transparent.

Advertisers will need to submit personal identification and business incorporation documents that prove who they are and the country in which they operate in, the company said in a blog post.

Google until now required identity verification only for political advertisers running election ads on its platform.

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Apple Inc. and Google said they are putting stronger privacy protections in their upcoming contact-tracing tool for Covid-19 and that an early version will launch for developers next week.

The companies said the system’s tracking keys – a string of characters linked to a user’s device – will be generated in more random ways, and that Bluetooth data will now be encrypted, making it more difficult for individuals to be identified by hackers. Apps using the tool will also now limit the recording of the time people are exposed to an infected person to a maximum of 30 minutes.

The companies said they made these changes after discussions with governments and public health app developers. The technology has been criticised for potentially sharing too much private health information, while France has asked Apple to relax some privacy protections.
The system, unveiled two weeks ago, will add technology to the iOS and Android operating systems that alerts users if they have come into contact with a person with Covid-19. The companies are now calling the technology Exposure Notification, a term they said more accurately describes the functionality.

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Netflix picked up nearly 16 million global subscribers during the first three months of the year, helping cement its status as one of the world’s most essential services in times of isolation or crisis.
The quarter spanned the beginning of stay-at-home orders in the U.S. and around the world, a response to the coronavirus pandemic that apparently led millions to latch onto Netflix for entertainment and comfort when most had nowhere to be but home.
Netflix more than doubled the quarterly growth it predicted in January, well before the COVID-19 outbreak began to shut down many major economies. It was the biggest three-month gain in the 13-year history of Netflix’s streaming service.

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That pay package seemed hard to top, but when Pichai took over the rest of Alphabet GOOG, +0.23% GOOGL, +0.42% late last year, he received even more.
Google’s parent company disclosed Friday afternoon that Pichai’s total compensation for 2019 topped $280 million thanks to stock awards tied to his promotion to chief executive of the entire company. According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Pichai’s base salary was raised from $650,000 to $2 million along with the promotion, and he was awarded two stock packages that vest over time — valued roughly at a combined $150 million — and another that is valued at about $120 million and pays out based on how Alphabet’s stock performs in comparison with the S&P 100.
That would easily be the highest annual executive compensation tracked by Equilar in recent years, except for one large exception in 2018. Tesla Inc. TSLA, +2.76% CEO Elon Musk’s compensation that year was valued at about $2.3 billion, thanks to a stock grant that was entirely based on future performance. The value of stock awards is counted in a lump sum when they are awarded, instead of as the shares vest or are granted in other ways.

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When the new European Commission took office last fall, its leaders quickly identified the pursuit of digital, or technological, ‘sovereignty’ as a principal ambition. President Ursula von der Leyen asserted in her Political Guidelines for the next five years that “it is not too late to achieve technological sovereignty” in areas including algorithms, blockchain, and quantum computing. Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Thierry Breton similarly supported a Euro-centric technology agenda, insisting that “this is not a protectionist concept, it is simply about having European technological alternatives in vital areas where we are currently dependent.”
Fast-forward six months into the age of COVID-19, and these sovereigntist goals have taken on new resonance. A serious debate is beginning in Brussels on lessening European dependence on foreign suppliers, principally in China, for medical equipment, supplies, and pharmaceuticals. Rethinking global supply chains for health care goods could easily reinforce the nascent EU questioning of globalization in digital services.
At the same time, European governments have embraced global digital services as never before in their efforts to understand and overcome the virus. Normally stern data protection authorities across the Union have readily invoked emergency provisions in privacy laws in order to enable enhanced analysis of sensitive personal health data, but without abandoning core protections. Data scientists in Europe are scrambling to devise techniques for using location data to trace infected persons’ social contacts—a potentially crucial step in the continent’s gradual emergence from severe economic and social restrictions. Meanwhile, misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19 has flourished in the current anxious climate, with the European Commission once again insisting that internet platforms step up their policing efforts.

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Mortgages backed by Ginnie Mae showed the largest growth (2.37%) from the prior week and the largest overall share in forbearance by investor type (8.26%).
Depository servicers – at 6.57% – surpassed independent mortgage bank (IMB) servicers (5.69%) for the highest share of loans in forbearance.
“With over 22 million Americans filing for unemployment over the past month, homeowners are contacting their mortgage servicers seeking relief, leading to a sharp increase in the share of loans in forbearance across all loan types,” says Mike Fratantoni, senior vice president and chief economist for the MBA, in a statement. “Mortgage servicers continue to receive a very high level of forbearance requests, but volumes were down somewhat compared to the prior week.

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“While dealing with a COVID-19 pandemic, we are also on the brink of a hunger pandemic,” David Beasley told the council. “There is also a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of COVID-19 than from the virus itself.”
“There are no famines yet,” Beasley said. “But I must warn you that if we don’t prepare and act now — to secure access, avoid funding shortfalls and disruptions to trade — we could be facing multiple famines of biblical proportions within a short few months.”

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President Donald Trump announced what he described as a “temporary suspension of immigration into the United States.” But an executive order he is expected to sign Wednesday to implement the change would bar only those seeking permanent residency, not temporary workers.
“I will be signing my Executive Order prohibiting immigration into our Country today,” Trump tweeted Wednesday.
The president said Tuesday he would put a 60-day pause on the issuance of green cards in an effort to limit competition for jobs in a U.S. economy wrecked by the coronavirus. The order would include “certain exemptions,” he said, but he declined to outlined them, noting the order was still being crafted.

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Hundreds of Amazon warehouse staffers are staying home on Tuesday in protest of their work conditions during the coronavirus pandemic, according to labor groups.
Some 300 workers across more than 40 Amazon facilities in California, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and New York, among other states, signed a pledge to not work on Tuesday, Zachary Lerner, a labor organizer with New York Communities for Change, one of the groups spearheading the movement, told The Post. The workers will take unpaid time off, alerting Amazon via the company’s app, Lerner added.
Amazon disputed the figures.
“Reports of employee participation in today’s event organized by labor unions are grossly exaggerated. What’s true is that masks, temperature checks, hand sanitizer, increased time off, increased pay, and more are standard across our network because we care deeply about the health and safety of our employees,” said Amazon spokesperson Rachael Lighty.
Protesting employees are demanding that Amazon, which only began providing its warehouse staffers face masks in April, close their warehouses for a thorough cleaning and give workers paid time off during the closures, among other safety protocols they say are lacking in the sprawling facilities.

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United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) has a new leader. The company announced on Friday that it named Carol Tome as CEO, replacing the current occupant of that office, David Abney. The change is effective June 1.
Tome is a member of the logistics-giant’s board of directors and no stranger to the functioning of large companies that are also top stocks in the market. Previously, she was CFO and executive vice president of Home Depot, holding the former post for 18 years. She’s been a UPS board member since 2003.
She’ll have her work cut out for her, as the fortunes of logistics are tied directly to the health of the economy. And the global economy is bound to be rocked from the effects of the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19.
Abney, who also serves as the chairman of the logistics-giant’s board, will continue as CEO until Sept. 30. At that point, he will be replaced by the lead independent board member William Johnson. Abney will vacate the position at that time but stay on until the end of this year with the company as a special consultant. He’ll then retire.

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As researchers test to see whether experimental plasma transfusions from recovered COVID-19 patients can help those who’ve contracted the coronavirus, Microsoft is launching a “plasmabot” to help make it easier for potential donors.
The Redmond, Wa.-based tech giant, which is part of the CoVIg-19 Plasma Alliance, is providing the technology behind the website and the bot itself to look for plasma donors.
“The sooner recovered COVID-19 patients donate convalescent plasma, the sooner the Alliance may be able to start manufacturing a potential therapy and begin clinical trials,” the Alliance wrote in a statement. “These trials will determine if this therapy could treat patients who are at risk for serious complications from COVID-19.”

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YouTube has promised to ramp up its fight against hate and harassment: The Google-owned video service announced changes to its harassment policy Wednesday, which include a ban on implicit threats of violence and insults that target someone for their race, gender expression or sexual orientation.
“We will not tolerate harassment,” said YouTube’s global head of trust and safety Matt Halprin in a blog post. “Harassment hurts our community by making people less inclined to share their opinions and engage with each other.”
YouTube has long had a policy to remove videos that contain explicit threats of violence. Under its new harassment policy, the service aims to also take down videos that simulate violence against an individual, or that suggest that violence may happen. “No individual should be subject to harassment that suggests violence,” Halprin said.

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More than a dozen publicly traded companies with revenue of more than $100 million, including Shake Shack Inc., Potbelly Corp. and a Tex-Mex restaurant chain with more than 10,000 employees, received loans through a massive relief program aimed at small businesses.
With a $349 billion lending package for small business owners now exhausted, a review of regulatory filings shows that restaurant chains and companies in industries ranging from mining to manufacturing to cruise travel received large amounts, while much smaller businesses like neighborhood eateries and hair salons were locked out.
The disclosures could fuel calls for Congress to provide another round of funding to keep thousands of mom-and-pop firms afloat amid state lockdowns. Negotiations to replenish the tapped-out fund hit a stalemate last week, with Republicans calling for adding more money and Democrats also demanding changes to ensure smaller firms get loans, plus more funding for state and local governments and hospitals.

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WarnerMedia owner AT&T is canceling planned stock buybacks to maintain its financial flexibility amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The telecommunications giant, led by chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson, earlier this month unveiled an accelerated share repurchase agreement with Morgan Stanley to buy back $4 billion of its stock during the second quarter.
“While our business continues to operate effectively during the COVID-19 global pandemic, we have decided at this time to cancel this accelerated share repurchase agreement and any other repurchases to maintain flexibility and focus on continued investment in serving our customers, taking care of our employees and enhancing our network, including nationwide 5G,” the company said in a regulatory filing on Friday. “These continued investments will help ensure the company is well positioned when the pandemic passes and economies begin to recover.”

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Google wants to substantially limit the information a key auditor of YouTube can share about the risks of advertising on the video service, according to people familiar with the situation, highlighting tensions between the tech giant and Madison Avenue.
The auditor, New York-based OpenSlate, is refusing to sign a contract that would prevent it from reporting to clients when ads have run in videos with sensitive subject matter, including hate speech, adult content, children’s content, profanity, violence and illegal substances.

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Factories in China, struggling to reopen after the coronavirus shut down the economy, face a new threat from U.S. anti-disease controls that might disrupt the flow of microchips and other components they need.
The shock threatens to set back the ruling Communist Party’s efforts to revive the world’s second-largest economy after it declared victory over the outbreak. It would add to pressures on global business activity as Western countries close workplaces, limit travel and tell consumers to stay home.
Chinese manufacturers assemble more than 80% of smartphones for Apple, Samsung and other brands, half of the world’s personal computers and a big share of home appliances and other goods. But they need U.S. processor chips and other high-value components.
It isn’t clear how U.S. anti-coronavirus curbs might affect trade. Controls so far apply to travelers, not goods. American factories are operating, but the National Federation of Independent Business says 39% of 300 companies it surveyed already were suffering supply disruptions.

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Across the country, hotel and restaurant companies of all sizes are tapping into the “Paycheck Protection Program,” the $350 billion fund that Congress set up specifically for small businesses as part of an overall $2.2 trillion economic rescue plan.
Midsized and large hoteliers and restaurateurs are qualifying for the potentially forgivable loans — more than one, in many cases ? under special rules written into the program at the request of industry lobbyists, who argued that hospitality businesses have been uniquely devastated by coast-to-coast travel bans, shutdowns and shelter-in-place orders.
And now — as congressional leaders negotiate another spending bill that would add $250 billion or more into the PPP program — hotels and restaurants are pressing lawmakers to loosen the rules around how they are supposed to spend that money.
They have asked to spend less of their PPP loan proceeds on wages for workers and more on other expenses, such as mortgage principal or franchise fees that get paid to larger companies like Marriott International Inc. and McDonald’s Corp. They want to wait longer before they must rehire employees who have already been furloughed or laid off.

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Earlier this week, Allahpundit wrote about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s strategy of developing a “Trump-proof” strategy for reopening businesses in his state without letting the President take credit for it or Cuomo taking the blame over a longer shutdown and/or a resurgence of the virus, depending on how it plays out. As part of this strategy, Cuomo has hired the consultant firm McKinsey & Company to help him develop the plan…..
….. when China launched its One Belt, One Road initiative several years ago (later rebranded as the Belt Road Initiative, or BRI), the New York Times reported that it was McKinsey that was selected to promote their efforts globally. They “sprang into action,” producing numerous reports that were widely cited in Chinese state-owned media, talking up the program in glowing terms. But the BRI was yet another far-reaching effort to expand China’s tendrils into governments and private businesses around the globe, locking down their control of the global supply chain even further. It’s a plan that Foreign Policy magazine once described as “One Belt, One Road, One Big Mistake.”
….. Even here in the United States and in other parts of the world, McKinsey’s favored strategies involved promoting “unbundling.” They advised large corporations regarding the wisdom of offshoring both their employment and supply chain strategies, with a particular emphasis on sending everything to China. Their clients in these efforts included IBM and General Motors, both of which became famous for outsourcing jobs and supply chain sources.

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Yellowstone National Park is done capturing wild bison for the year after rounding up almost 550 of the wild animals and sending most to slaughter as part of a population control program, park officials said.
The culling is carried out under a legal agreement between federal and state officials aimed at preventing the spread of an animal disease to cattle.
In addition to those captured, about 270 bison have been killed by Native American tribal hunters as the hulking beasts migrated outside the park to graze at lower elevations in Montana, according to figures released Friday.

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The Michigan Conservative Coalition has organized what they are calling a “stay-in-car” protest of Governor Whitmer’s executive order which calls for social distancing.
“Our Governor and her allies are infecting ALL of us with their radical, progressive agenda. There is NO reasoned and public plan to promote our overall physical and economic health! Dope stores? Open. Abortion clinics? Open. Churches? Shut down. Local businesses? Going broke!,” said the Michigan Conservative Coalition.

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But analysts say China’s singular lending practices leave many developing countries increasingly vulnerable in the current environment.
Kiel cites eerie similarities with the 1970s debt crisis that devastated many of the same vulnerable countries in Latin America and Africa for over a decade.
“It is stunning that almost all of these characteristics apply to the ongoing Chinese overseas lending boom,” the institute said, citing weak oversight and limited transparency. “The two lending booms can largely be seen as ‘twins’.”
Among the more at-risk countries, analysts say, are commodity-dependent Angola, Ecuador, Niger and Venezuela; smaller Asian economies such as Laos, Cambodia and the Kyrgyz Republic; and countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.

Excerpt:A San Francisco-based civil liberties group has filed a federal lawsuit against Riverside County and other entities statewide over barring religious gatherings in the name of coronavirus mitigation.The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Riverside on Monday, seeks an injunction against measures that reflect a “gross abuse of power” that have been invoked in the name of public protection amid the coronavirus emergency, according to the complaint.“It is the court’s duty to defend these constitutional principles (of freedom of religion, speech and assembly) by safeguarding the many rights and liberties of Californians, that the defendants so brazenly violate,” the lawsuit states.The lawsuit brought by the Center for American Liberty directly challenges Gov. Gavin Newsom’s March 19 executive order on stay-at-home requirements, as well as Riverside County Public Health Officer Dr. Cameron Kaiser’s April 6 amendment to his previous directives, which specified fines for gatherings of any size beyond the home, while continuing carve-out exemptions for designated operations, such as childcare facilities. The order expires on April 30.

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Needham analysts said companies including ResMed, Hillrom and Inogen may benefit from the policy shift, given non-invasive ventilators could have faced reimbursement cuts as steep as 50% or more.

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Amazon has fired two employees who criticized warehouse working conditions in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
YOYOYOYO
I work at an Amazon warehouse. I accepted the opportunity to work there. I was not forced. Upon entering the building, our temperature is taken and we are given masks to wear. I believe they are doing what is conceivably possible with regard to social distancing. Those employees who are concerned about their health are free to resign at any time.
piersquare
Just because they criticized the way their employer is handling a situation does not mean that is the reason they were fired. I have fired many people who criticized the way we have handled certain situations but they were not fired because they expressed their criticism. Usually, their frustration over whatever situation they are in contributes to them doing something stupid, or against policy, and that is why they get fired.
Justa
Meanwhile, the other 749,998 Amazon employees complied with company policy.
Amazon (like most other businesses) specifically told employees they were NOT to speak to the media about company policies OF ANY TYPE, AT ANY TIME. This was true of Covid-19 or any other company policy. Clearly laid out in the employee handbook is also the part about violation of the policy being a fireable offense.

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French companies in the automotive, aerospace and steel sectors are ready to return to work and assure “impeccable, sanitary conditions”, the country’s metals lobby on Sunday, and called on the government to spell out the country’s plans.

President Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to address the nation regarding the new coronavirus situation on Monday evening.

He is expected to extend a national lockdown put in place to contain the spread of the new coronavirus for a second time, beyond April 15.

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According to the Motion Picture Association of America, Splash is rated PG. According to Disney+, Splash is rated PG-13. In almost every case, studios work hard to bring down a movie’s ratings. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie studio willfully (and seemingly unilaterally) slap a higher rating on a film that it has been given by the MPAA.
That doesn’t mean that Disney has added more sexuality to Splash, the 1984 romantic comedy about a guy (Tom Hanks) who falls in love with an actual mermaid (Daryl Hannah). Quite the contrary. As observed by Allison Pregler on Twitter — and confirmed by me with my own eyes on my own Disney+ account — Disney has added extra CGI hair to Hannah’s character in a key scene in order to remove any inkling that she might be naked onscreen……
Even though it’s only (technically) rated PG, Splash was actually Disney’s first movie ever released through its Touchstone Pictures label, which was explicitly created for films from Disney that were deemed to adult for the traditional, family-friendly Walt Disney Studios banner. Why, then, is it on Disney+, which is specifically intended for that same family audience? Why not put it on Hulu, the Disney-controlled streaming site that has much more adult content? I don’t know. All I know is that censored Splash footage is wild. Really, really wild.

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Congressional insider trading is both a legal and political question. Congress in 2012 passed the STOCK Act, clarifying that when members of Congress receive confidential nonpublic information that could affect the price of a stock, they are treated as if they were company insiders. That’s important, because insider-trading laws generally only ban people from trading on company secrets if they work for the company or have a relationship that causes them to owe a legal duty to it.
While the SEC is typically hesitant to admit it, a random bystander on the street who accidentally overhears a CEO spilling inside information and buys or sells stock as a result is probably not breaking the law. Those in Congress, however, frequently learn market-moving information because they work in government, rather than the companies that information pertains to.
The STOCK Act aimed to close that perceived loophole by declaring that members of Congress have their own duty not to trade on what they learn. It requires regular disclosure of stock transactions to let outside watchdogs police potential violations.

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Vermont dairy farms have dumped more than 60,000 gallons of milk since the beginning of April, as state and federal measures to curb the spread of the new coronavirus continue to wreak havoc on the dairy industry.
Forced closures of schools and restaurants across the region, combined with limits in supermarkets on how much milk customers can purchase at one time, have lead to an oversupply of milk in Vermont. Farmers have dumped nine loads, or roughly 63,000 gallons, to since April 1, according to the Vermont Agency of Agriculture.
“It’s plenty of milk, but it isn’t huge yet,” Diane Bothfeld, director of dairy policy at the Agency of Agriculture, told Senate lawmakers Thursday.
“But that is the first eight days, so that’s like a load a day so far,” she said. “It’s certainly a concern area.”

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To further protect state residents, Beshear said any person who is caught participating in a mass gathering during the weekend will be ordered to quarantine for 14 days by their local health department.
License plates at churches with in-person gatherings will be recorded and sent to health departments for enforcement, the governor said.
“This is the only way we can make sure that your decision doesn’t kill someone else,” Beshear said.

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OPEC, Russia and other allies outlined plans on Thursday (April 9) to cut their oil output by more than a fifth and said they expected the United States and other producers to join in their effort to prop up prices hammered by the coronavirus crisis.
But the group, known as OPEC+, said a final agreement was dependent on Mexico signing up to the pact after it balked at the production cuts it was asked to make. Discussions among top global energy ministers will resume on Friday (April 10).
The planned output curbs by OPEC+ amount to 10 million barrels per day (bpd) or 10 per cent of global supplies, with another 5 million bpd expected to come from other nations to help deal with the deepest oil crisis in decades.

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A partisan fight over voting in Wisconsin was the first issue linked to the coronavirus to make it to the Supreme Court. Efforts to limit abortion during the pandemic could eventually land in the justices’ hands. Disputes over guns and religious freedom also are popping up around the country.
The virus outbreak has put much of American life on hold, but the nation’s culture wars seem immune from the pandemic.
And in a country deeply divided over politics, some liberals are accusing conservatives of using this crisis to advance long-held goals, especially in the areas of access to abortion and the ballot box. Conservatives have complained about restrictions on church services and gun shops.
“We see the right as being very opportunistic to advance their agenda,” said Marge Baker, executive vice president of the liberal People for the American Way.

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Banks are scrambling to process a growing backlog of applications for the U.S. program designed to funnel at least $350 billion in relief to small businesses struggling during the coronavirus pandemic.
Massive demand for the program in its first week has been met with several time-consuming bottlenecks at lenders and with the Small Business Administration portal the companies use to get loans approved.
The two biggest U.S. banks, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, had a combined 625,000 in requests for $80 billion in loans as of Tuesday. But only a small fraction of that has actually been paid out so far, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
“We’ve clearly got a logistical issue, which is how do we get through this mountain of applications?” said Patrick Ryan, CEO of First Bank, a New Jersey community lender.

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Germany’s challenge in 2020 is to define a third space for itself and for Europe in the face of this growing U.S.-China discord. But the Merkel government’s reluctance to antagonize Beijing risks undermining the EU’s push for a common policy toward China and perpetuating a situation where member states look out for their own interests, often to the detriment of a common European front. A desire to minimize the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic across Europe is likely to reinforce the temptation to keep Beijing close.

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The Federal Reserve on Monday moved to bolster a new small-business lending program by allowing banks to turn those loans over to the U.S. central bank for cash, easing concerns among banks about getting stuck holding the low interest loans.
The Fed said it would announce details later this week of a new term financing arrangement for loans made under what is known as the Payroll Protection Program, part of the federal response to the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic…..
The Payroll Protection Program is one of the key measures adopted as part of a more than $2 trillion effort to offset the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis, which has forced large portions of the U.S. economy to shutter. It dedicates $350 billion for loans so small businesses can keep paying workers and meet basic expenses like rent.

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Online grocery is booming as people look for ways to practice social distancing and avoid long waits at the grocery store. Sales volume tripled year over year in March, according to two separate reports from Rakuten Intelligence and NetElixir. NetElixir expects sales to increase 2.5 times year over year in April as the U.S. continues to stay at home.
Importantly, online grocery shoppers could become habituated, leading to a permanent increase in online grocery shopping. Even if e-commerce penetration of grocery retail improves by 2 percentage points this year, that’s $20 billion in revenue up for grabs, as eMarketer points out. While eMarketer hasn’t updated its forecast for online grocery sales, a $20 billion increase is not out of the question.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has taken an all-hands-on-deck approach across public, academic and private sectors to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. The new program is designed to expedite the development of potentially safe and effective life-saving treatments.
The program, known as the Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program (CTAP), is using every tool at the agency’s disposal to bring new therapies to sick patients as quickly as possible, while at the same time supporting research to further evaluate whether these medical countermeasures are safe and effective for treating patients infected with this novel virus.
The FDA is announcing a new, comprehensive public-private approach to bring coronavirus treatments to market as fast as possible,” said HHS Secretary Alex Azar.
“As part of this new program, the FDA is cutting red tape, redeploying staff and working day and night to review requests from companies, scientists and doctors who are working toward therapies. We are grateful to the men and women of the FDA who have been working in concert with industry and other parts of HHS to support potential coronavirus treatments for weeks now.
Each day, President Trump’s all-of-America approach is making progress and providing new hope in our fight against the coronavirus.”

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Two insurers — Allstate and American Family Insurance — announced Monday they will give back about $800 million to their auto insurance customers because people are driving far less during the coronavirus crisis.
Allstate (ALL) said it will refund about 15% of premiums paid by its customers in April and May, which comes to a total of about $600 million.
“Given an unprecedented decline in driving, customers will receive a Shelter-in-Place Payback,” said Allstate CEO Tom Wilson “This is fair because less driving means fewer accidents.”

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*Activist Leslie Mac is taking aim at Shaun King by accusing the journalist of fraud — again.
Mac, co-founder the Ferguson Response Network and co-creator the Safety Pin Box subscription service, took to Twitter to warn people not to contribute to King’s coronavirus-related fundraiser — the C19 Help Squad.
“I knew he couldn’t resist jumping in to capitalize on this crisis,” Mac wrote. “Don’t let him.”
“You’re an opportunistic predator, and you should be ashamed of yourself,” wrote one user who said they “possibly” have coronavirus, per the Daily Dot “You are better supporting better groups,” wrote journalist Ernest Owens.

If you’re eagerly waiting for a new guitar amp or a barbeque grill, chances are that you might have to wait for a little longer for your order to arrive. According to a report from Recode, Amazon is pushing Prime delivery dates of ‘non-essential’ items in the US due to the coronavirus pandemic well past the usual day or two.
The development was confirmed by the company after several sellers and buyers posted on social media that shipping dates for their orders have been postponed. Most deliveries for Prime subscribers generally arrive within a day or two in the US. However, given the current situation, many items are showing a delivery date from five days to up to a month after your order is placed.

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Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman had to cancel a starry Hollywood party for their short-video platform because of the virus. But Quibi is still going live.

They had to cancel the premiere party. But Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman have stuck with the April 6 start date of Quibi, the short-form video app for smartphones that they hope will attract millions of subscribers.

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The federal government is facing backlash for teaming up with U.S. tech giant Amazon.com Inc. to distribute personal protective equipment across the country.
Critics of the partnership announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today say turning to Amazon is problematic because it ignores the handful of Canadian-owned delivery brands that could do the job.
They also say the Seattle-based company has been facing complaints from a Brampton, Ont. warehouse workers group that claims Amazon has not been properly protecting workers from COVID-19.
The group, Warehouse Workers Centre, recently started a petition claiming Amazon is refusing to give workers paid leave, is not telling staff what it will do if facilities are contaminated and is not practicing physical distancing properly.

Investors betting on declines in United States stocks saw big profits in the last month, as equities crashed while the global spread of coronavirus darkened economic prospects and net increases in short selling imply no turnaround in bearish sentiment.
Short sellers borrow shares and sell them in the hope of buying them back at a cheaper price and pocketing the difference.
US shorts saw a one-month paper profit of US$343.67 billion (S$498.18 billion) from the S&P 500 and Nasdaq’s Feb 19 peaks through to March 19, according to the latest data from financial technology and analytics firm S3 Partners, which measures bets against US stocks and American Depository receipts.

Deep recessions and the cost of bolstering health care systems and bailing out firms is sending debt levels soaring from Italy to India, where ratings are already on the low rungs of investment grade.
S&P Global’s mass scalping of oil producers last week has left Colombia just one notch from junk and Mexico, with its $130 billion bond market, just two cuts away.
“This a very expensive fiscal exercise,” fund manager Eaton Vance’s head of country research Marshall Stocker, said of the epidemic. “In every way it is going to challenge debt ratings.”
Becoming a ‘fallen angel’ — as a downgrade to junk is known in rating agency parlance — can set off a wave of problems.

Bank of America customers trying to apply for their piece of the $350 billion small business bailout were appalled to learn the bank was restricting loans to businesses who’d borrowed previously – despite claiming otherwise.
Outraged customers discovered on Friday that the massive financial institution is unilaterally denying loans through the Paycheck Protection Program – the small business bailout passed as part of last month’s coronavirus economic stimulus – to any business that hasn’t borrowed from Bank of America previously.
While the bank’s CEO Brian Moynihan told CNBC it was merely prioritizing existing business loan customers, the policy posted on its website contradicted that claim, revealing that a prerequisite for applying to the scheme was a “small business lending relationship, inclusive of credit card,” that existed prior to February 15. Bank of America was the first of the ‘big banks’ to begin accepting applications – and, as of Friday morning, the only one, though the program’s website was supposed to go live at midnight on Thursday.

A large corporate bailout coupled with inadequate small business loans will likely give the biggest firms an even greater advantage in post-virus America. America’s small businesses may not survive the economic shutdown enacted by federal, state and local governments to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Shares of automakers Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) and General Motors (NYSE: GM), as well as those of online car-shopping service TrueCar (NASDAQ: TRUE), were all falling on Wednesday after some automakers reported dismal U.S. sales results for the month of March.
Here’s where these three stocks stood as of 2:30 p.m. EDT, relative to Tuesday’s closing prices:
• Ford was down about 7.6%
• General Motors was down about 6.9%
• TrueCar was down about 9.9%