Dr. Peter Hotez is siding with one of the nation’s top doctors following a showdown between Republican Sen. Rand Paul and Dr. Anthony Fauci on Capitol Hill over masks. “Dr. Fauci is absolutely right, Senator Paul is absolutely wrong, and that’s the way it’s been for the last 14 months,” Hotez said.Paul claimed that people are not at risk of Covid after they have recovered or have been vaccinated, and, therefore, do not need to wear masks. The Kentucky Senator also asserted that Fauci was wearing two masks simply for show.The White House chief medical advisor emphatically pushed back against Paul’s comments Thursday during a Senate hearing examining the nation’s coronavirus response efforts.″Can I just state for the record that masks are not theater,” Fauci said. “I totally disagree with you.”In a Thursday evening interview on “The News with Shepard Smith” Hotez noted that eventually “masks may need to come off,” but that it’s too soon and “we’re still trying to understand the full performance characteristics of the vaccines.””We’re only now getting a glimmer that it interrupts asymptomatic transmission,” Hotez said. The debate over masks comes as nearly half the country is experiencing a surge in Covid cases. Twenty-three states reported an increase in cases, as a seven-day average, over the past week, according to Johns Hopkins. Half a dozen states are also seeing hospitalizations trend higher, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, told host Shepard Smith that the spikes could be the result of highly transmissible new variants. “The key now is to vaccinate ahead of the variants as fast as we can,” Hotez said. More

Shelves where disinfectant wipes are usually displayed is nearly empty at a Target store on March 02, 2020 in Novato, California. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images Target is temporarily increasing employees’ wages by $2 an hour and giving bonuses of up to $1,500 to thousands of employees as the retailer experiences a surge in shopping […] More

Pedestrians walk past a Nordstrom Inc. store.Ben Nelms | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesThe department store chain Nordstrom said Wednesday it will debut its own Livestream Shopping channel, as part of its broader ambitions to delve into e-commerce livestreaming, which is already a huge phenomenon in Asia.Retailers such as Nordstrom are playing catch-up in the U.S. to a trend that has been rampant for years overseas, in large part thanks to early efforts by the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.Shoppable livestreams, akin to QVC, have struggled to take off with Americans. Experts say that’s partially because American consumers have been less receptive to the idea of buying goods via livestream and because the U.S. lacks so-called multichannel networks, or MCNs, that provide livestreaming services for businesses. MCNs are more common across China and can help brands grow an online audience.In the coming months, Nordstrom will host, among other things, a styling livestream on “how to wear Burberry runway looks,” a spring beauty trend happy hour, and a conversation with the British makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury, the company said. During each event, customers will be able to shop the fashion products mentioned that are available on Nordstrom’s website and participate in a live chatroom.”There’s so much opportunity for us to get closer to the customer,” Fanya Chandler, a senior vice president at Nordstrom, said in an interview. “We hope customers see this as an opportunity to seamlessly shop and participate in an informative and entertaining event.”Amazon was an early mover in livestreaming on its home turf. It debuted Amazon Live in early 2019 — as a sort of livestreamed home shopping network. Facebook, meantime, has made shopping a bigger focus on its namesake social media platform and on Instagram. TikTok has hosted shoppable livestream events with Walmart, where users can browse Walmart fashion featured by TikTok creators without having to leave the social media app. Beauty conglomerates Estee Lauder and L’Oreal have also used streams for some of their brands.”As more retailers and brands turn to this channel to stay competitive and win customers, the market will see significant growth,” said Deborah Weinswig, the founder and CEO of Coresight Research, in a report on the state of e-commerce livestreaming in America.Social media influencers in particular are expected to have a more significant impact on younger consumers’ shopping behaviors moving forward, Weinswig added.In China, livestreaming is estimated to have driven about $125 billion in sales in 2020, up from $63 billion in 2019, according to Coresight. In the U.S., the market was worth about $6 billion last year and could reach $11 billion in 2021, the firm said. It expects the U.S. e-commerce livestreaming market could eclipse $25 billion by 2023.For Nordstrom, the idea of launching a shoppable livestreaming channel hasn’t been brewing for long. The company decided late into this past holiday season to experiment in the space, drawing on China’s playbook, it said.”I’ve been watching what’s happening in China for a while now, and it’s exciting that you can get this connection with the consumer immediately,” Nordstrom’s Chandler said. “Quite frankly, Covid has really accelerated all of the things that we’ve wanted to do.”Nordstrom shares are up about 43% year to date. The company has a market cap of $7.05 billion, which is bigger than Macy’s but smaller than Kohl’s. More

Bristol Myers Squibb reported quarterly adjusted earnings that topped expectations and posted revenue in line with estimates.
But sales of the company’s popular blood cancer drug Revlimid plummeted due to generic competition. 
Bristol Myers will hold an earnings call with investors at 8 a.m. E.T. on Thursday. 

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

Bristol Myers Squibb on Thursday reported quarterly adjusted earnings that topped expectations and posted revenue in line with estimates, even as sales of the company’s popular blood cancer drug Revlimid plummeted due to generic competition. 
Bristol Myers, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, raked in $10.96 billion in revenue for the third quarter, down 2% from the same period last year. 

The drugmaker said that decline was due to lower sales of Revlimid, which generated $1.43 billion for the quarter. Bristol Myers has been under pressure to launch or acquire new drug products as Revlimid – and eventually, other top-selling treatments such as blood thinner Eliquis and cancer immunotherapy Opdivo – competes with cheaper generic versions. 
Revlimid sales, which fell 41% from the third quarter of 2022, also dropped due to an increase in patients receiving the drug at no cost through the company’s patient assistance foundation, Bristol Myers said. 
The company reported a net income of $1.93 billion, or 93 cents per share. That compares with a net income of $1.61 billion, or 75 cents per share, for the year-ago period. Excluding certain items, adjusted earnings per share were $2 for the period.
Here’s what Bristol Myers Squibb reported for the third quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv:

Earnings per share: $2 adjusted vs. $1.76 expected
Revenue: $10.96 billion vs. $10.96 billion expected

Shares of Bristol Myers fell nearly 5% in premarket trading Thursday. The stock is down more than 21% for the year through Wednesday’s close, putting the company’s market value at roughly $118 billion. 

The company narrowed its full-year adjusted earnings outlook to $7.50 to $7.65 per share, from a previous forecast of $7.35 to $7.65 a share. Bristol Myers also reiterated its full-year revenue guidance of a low single-digit percentage decline. 
Notably, the company hiked its full-year revenue projection for Revlimid to $6 billion from $5.5 billion in July, even as the drug sees falling sales.
Bristol Myers said both older and new drug products helped offset the lower sales of Revlimid for the third quarter.
Eliquis raked in $2.71 billion in sales for the quarter and Opdivo generated $2.28 billion, up 2% and 11% from the year-ago period, respectively. However, both drugs fell short of analyst estimates compiled by FactSet. 
Eliquis, which Bristol Myers shares with Pfizer, is among the first ten drugs selected to face price negotiations with the federal Medicare program. 
Meanwhile, a portfolio of several newer products booked $928 million in sales for the quarter, up 68% from the year-ago period. Bristol Myers said that growth was primarily driven by higher demand, including for prescription anemia medication Reblozyl, which generated $248 million in sales for the quarter. 
Skin cancer drug Opdualag also raked in $166 million in sales for the third quarter, which is up 98% from the same quarter a year ago. Those two drugs missed analyst sales estimates compiled by FactSet. 
Bristol Myers will hold an earnings call with investors at 8 a.m. E.T. on Thursday. 
During the call, executives will likely be asked about the company’s plan to acquire cancer drugmaker Mirati Therapeutics for up to $5.8 billion. More

Recent strikes by Hollywood talent and autoworkers are weighing on business travel demand, Delta Air Lines said.
The carrier has an outsized exposure to the automotive and entertainment industries.
Delta President Hauenstein noted that demand from technology and financial services customers posted double-digit growth during the third quarter.

A Delta Airlines passenger jet approaches to land at LAX during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 7, 2021.
Mike Blake | Reuters

Recent strikes by Hollywood talent and United Auto Workers union members are a “drag” on business travel demand, which is otherwise recovering, Delta Air Lines President Glen Hauenstein said Thursday.
Delta has an outsized exposure to the automotive and entertainment industries, with a more than 70% market share at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport and a nearly 20% share at Los Angeles International Airport, more than any other carrier, according to airport data.

The strikes have had “a not insignificant change in the business travel to and from Los Angeles as well as now the UAW strike, which curtailed a significant amount of the business in Detroit,” Hauenstein said on an earnings call Thursday. “We are probably the most impacted by those two sectors.”
The United Auto Workers’ targeted strikes, which began after major Detroit automakers and the union failed to reach labor deals before a September contract expiration, are entering their fourth week — and escalating.
Hollywood writers earlier this week ratified a new three-year contract after nearly 150 days of work stoppage that suspended significant film and TV production.
But Hollywood actors, represented by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, are still on strike. And late Wednesday, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents production studios like Disney, Universal, Netflix and others, said talks have been been suspended with the two sides far apart on a deal.
Delta’s Hauenstein noted that demand from technology and financial services customers posted double-digit growth in the third quarter, contributing to an overall rebound for business travel.

A company survey of corporate customers found that a majority expect their travel to stay the same or increase in the last three months of this year and into 2024, Hauenstein said.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is a member of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. More