Raphael Stevens

Jenna Owens, a former Amazon and Google executive, was named chief operating officer of GameStop in March.
Shares of GameStop closed at $183.51 per share on Friday. The stock has traded as high as $483 per share this year after dipping below $18 in January.

A person walks past a GameStop in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., January 29, 2021.
Carlo Allegri | Reuters

One of the GameStop’s newly hired top executives stepped down this week as the video game retailer continues its digital transition.
Chief operating officer Jenna Owens has departed her role at GameStop, the company announced in a regulatory filing on Friday. Owens, a former Amazon and Google executive, was named to the role in March.

GameStop made a wave of management changes earlier this year as Chewy co-founder Ryan Cohen gained power at the company and the stock soared, kicking off the meme frenzy that is still rippling through Wall Street. Cohen, now the company’s chairman, has replaced key executives as part of a move to remake GameStop as a digital and e-commerce company, though few details about the plan have been shared.

The company said in the filing that Owens’ duties will be taken on by other members of the management team. Owens will receive six months of her base pay and the rest of her signing bonus as part of the agreement, the filing said.
Shares of GameStop closed $183.51 per share on Friday. The stock has traded as high as $483 per share this year after dipping below $18 in January.
The GameStop saga sparked Congressional hearings and an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC said in a report earlier this month that methods to encourage and gamify trading by retail investors likely contributed to the frenzy but stopped short of blaming any individual company or policy.

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Royal Caribbean CEO Richard Fain told CNBC that his company hasn’t suffered much from U.S. staffing challenges because the cruise line leans on a global talent pool.
“We’ve had no difficulty recruiting and … I think it’s because we’re just seen as such an attractive job for people all over the world,” Fain said on “The Exchange.”
Shares of Royal Caribbean are down slightly Friday afternoon after the company missed Wall Street expectations in its quarterly results.

Royal Caribbean CEO Richard Fain told CNBC on Friday that his company hasn’t suffered much from U.S. staffing challenges because the cruise line leans on a global talent pool.
In an interview on “The Exchange,” Fain said jobs at Royal Caribbean are “so desirable” to overseas workers that recruitment is easy, at a time when other companies in the hospitality-related industries have struggled to fill open roles.

“We really had essentially no problem in attracting … talent,” Fain said. “The people that provide service are what makes the company so successful. They are the ones that the guests love.”
“We’ve had no difficulty recruiting and … I think it’s because we’re just seen as such an attractive job for people all over the world,” he said.
The cruise industry was brought to a halt by the Covid pandemic, forcing Royal Caribbean and rival operators to turn to the debt market to stay afloat. In its third-quarter earnings release earlier Friday, Royal Caribbean reported having $19.88 billion in long-term debt.
However, Fain said the company is “in the process of reducing” its debt load and has recently cut part of its more expensive debt with a goal to eliminate all pandemic-associated debt within the next two years.
Royal Caribbean resumed sailings from U.S. ports this summer after a prolonged Covid pause. “Bookings this year continued to be weak,” Fain acknowledged, adding they will be stronger around the holidays later this year, as is typical.

“But next year the bookings are remarkably strong,” Fain said.
Shares of Royal Caribbean are basically flat Friday afternoon after the company missed Wall Street expectations in its quarterly results.

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The FDA on Friday authorized the use of Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.
The move will make the shots available to 28 million kids in the U.S.
The CDC must sign off before shots can be distributed.

Jamie Blank (L) holds her son, Ari Blank’s hand as he receives the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine from healthcare worker Jen Feinberg (R) at the Jewish Federation/JARC’s offices in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan on May 13, 2021.
Jeff Kowalsky | AFP | Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday authorized the use of Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, a move that will make the shots available to 28 million kids in the U.S.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must sign off before shots can be distributed. It’s scheduled an advisory committee meeting to review the pediatric doses next week and is expected to swiftly clear them for public distribution immediately thereafter.

“As a mother and a physician, I know that parents, caregivers, school staff, and children have been waiting for today’s authorization. Vaccinating younger children against COVID-19 will bring us closer to returning to a sense of normalcy,” acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said in a statement.
The FDA clearance – which was expected – came after the agency’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to back a smaller dose of the Pfizer vaccine for young children.
The company said its low-dose vaccine for kids, which is a third of the dosage given to adults, is more than 90% effective in preventing symptomatic infection. It also said the shots were well tolerated in young children, producing side effects comparable with those seen in a study of people ages 16 to 25.
Many parents say they are anxious to get their kids vaccinated with schools now open across the U.S. and the delta variant of the coronavirus driving a surge in children’s cases.

CNBC Health & Science

As of Oct. 21, nearly 6.3 million children have tested positive for Covid since the onset of the pandemic, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, though health experts say the number is likely much higher. Covid-19 is the eighth-highest killer of kids ages 5 to 11 over the past year, a CDC official told the FDA committee Tuesday.

As of Oct. 17, 691 deaths from Covid have been reported in the U.S. in kids under age 18, with 146 deaths in the 5 through 11 years age group, the FDA said Friday.
The number of kids deaths from Covid is at a similar level “that has prompted immunization against meningitis and other diseases of children,” Dr. Ofer Levy, a voting member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel, told CNBC. “And moreover, it’s likely that the vaccine will help reduce the risk of transmission from children to older individuals.”
The Biden administration has said it’s already procured enough doses doses to vaccinate all 28 million 5- to 11-year-olds in the U.S., and said it is ready to roll out the first 15 million shots the first week after it’s approved.
Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine regulator, said the U.S. is likely “a few more months off” before vaccines are authorized for kids under age 5.
“As we get down to younger children, the benefit/risk gets to be even more of a careful consideration because the youngest children are affected the least directly in terms of severe Covid-19,” he told reporters during a briefing late Friday.FDA scientists have noted the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis but said the benefits of the shots, including preventing severe disease, hospitalization and death, would generally outweigh the risk of the rare inflammatory heart conditions.
Some FDA committee members said Tuesday that vaccinating younger age groups would help the U.S. move toward Covid’s “endemic” phase, where the virus is still circulating but at lower levels than it is now.
There have been more than 2,000 Covid-related school closures nationwide since August, affecting more than 1 million children and 68,000 teachers, CDC official Dr. Fiona Havers said Tuesday, citing Google News data.
Other committee members noted there are unknowns, such as the rate of myocarditis in young kids, but still emphasized that the benefits of the shots outweighed the risks.
One member wondered whether they should issue a recommendation only for at-risk children. Studies have shown otherwise healthy kids are less likely to experience symptoms from the disease even though they get infected at similar rates as adults.
A CDC analysis identified underlying medical conditions – such as obesity, chronic lung disease and neurological disorders – as risk factors for severe disease in kids. The most common underlying medical condition was lung disease, primarily asthma, the agency said.
CNBC’s Robert Towey contributed to this report.
Correction: This story is updated to reflect Pfizer’s vaccine was found to be more than 90% effective at preventing symptomatic infections.

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For some critics, Chloe Zhao’s direction coupled with a “refreshingly diverse” cast is enough to make “Eternals” stand out from other entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Others are less convinced, disappointed that film ultimately slips back into Marvel’s traditional formula.
Currently, the film holds a 62% “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 107 reviews. This percentage could change over the next week as more reviews are added to the site.

(L-R) Lauren Ridloff, Don Lee, Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Salma Hayek, Gemma Chan, Lia McHugh and Brian Tyree Henry star in Marvel’s “Eternals.”

An ambitious and unique film, “Eternals” might be one of the most divisive installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The Disney film, which introduces nearly a dozen new major characters into the canon, has received predominantly positive reviews ahead of its release next week. However, its attempts to build lore, flesh out its main heroes and connect back to previous films in the series, leaves the film feeling overstuffed, critics say.

Directed by Academy Award winner Chloe Zhao, “Eternals” introduces 10 members of a race of immortal beings who have spent 7,000 years on Earth defending it from beasts known as Deviants.
In present day, these beings are scattered in different regions, with Sirse (Gemma Chan) working as a museum curator in London. She has carried on a love affair across the centuries with Ikaris (Richard Madden), but is currently involved with a human named Dane (Kit Harington).
Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) is a popular Bollywood star, Gilgamesh (Don Lee) is a strong-man living in isolation in the Australian outback and Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) is a living in suburban Chicago with his husband and son.
Sprite (Lia McHugh) appears as an androgynous preteen with the ability to create illusions and Druig (Barry Keoghan) has distanced himself from the rest of the group because he disagrees with how they’ve interacted with mankind over the centuries.
The other Eternals include Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), who is deaf and possesses super speed; Thena (Angelina Jolie), a fierce warrior who is struggling with a mental condition that comes from having too many memories; and Ajak (Salma Hayek), the leader of the group, who is guarding a secret about why the team was sent to Earth in the first place.

“Their free-flowing, all-for-one unity extends, in spirit, to the diversity of the characters, which is something the film presents with a no-big-deal effrontery that makes them a winning prototype of a more dynamically inclusive superhero world,” wrote Owen Gleiberman in his review of the film for Variety. “Four of the Eternals are white, three are Asian, two are Black, and one is Latina. One is gay, one is deaf, and one is an androgynous tween who never grows up.”
For some critics, Zhao’s direction coupled with a “refreshingly diverse” cast is enough to make “Eternals” stand out from other entries in the MCU. Others are less convinced, disappointed that film ultimately slips back into Marvel’s traditional formula.
“You walk out in the depressing realization that you’ve just seen one of the more interesting movies Marvel will ever make, and hopefully the least interesting one Chloe Zhao will ever make,” wrote Justin Chang in his review for The Los Angeles Times.
Currently, the film holds a 62% “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 107 reviews. This percentage could change over the next week as more reviews are added to the site.
Here’s what critics thought of Marvel’s “Eternals” ahead of its Nov. 5 theatrical release:

Esther Zuckerman, Thrillist

“Marvel has gotten the reputation for hiring fantastic filmmakers and flattening their styles, and while ‘Eternals’ certainly doesn’t play like anything else Zhao has done, it also doesn’t mute her vision,” wrote Esther Zuckerman in her review of the film for Thrillist.
“Amid all the magic and skin-tight costumes, Zhao has made a movie that’s both humane and earthy, but also wonderfully weird, one where the internal debates between superhumans are more interesting than the punches they throw,” she said.
Zuckerman noted that film is a bit messy and packed to the brim with plot points that bog down and overcomplicate the overall narrative.
“‘Eternals,’ of course, is part of a bigger plan, as evidenced by the much-discussed post-credits scenes that were not shown during the New York screening I attended, but immediately spoiled by some in Los Angeles,” she added. “It’s a movie that’s best when it’s floating in a more primordial space, disconnected from what came before.”
Read the full review from Thrillist.

Kumail Nanjiani stars as Kingo in Marvel’s “Eternals.”

John Nugent, Empire

“Eternals” is storytelling on an “epic scale,” wrote John Nugent in Empire’s review of the film.
The film spans from 5,000 BC to present day, relying heavily on flashbacks to explain what the Eternals have been up to for more than 7,000 years.
“Playing on such a colossal stage, it’s inevitably challenging to keep the focus at the (super)human level,” he wrote. “Zhao takes her time introducing everyone properly, devoting much of the runtime (at 157 minutes, this is the MCU’s second-longest film after ‘Endgame’) to getting the team of ten back together, after centuries apart.”
“It’s undeniably refreshing to see such a mix in the line-up — these ancient immortals talk in Irish brogues or American Sign Language without ever feeling the need to address it — but some characters leave more of an impression than others,” Nugent added.
He pointed to Nanjiani as a standout in the film, but noted that other characters like Sersi and Ikaris are saddled with generic dialogue and “smothering earnestness.”
Read the full review from Empire.

Mick LaSalle, Datebook

Much of Marvel’s latest film revolves around Sersi traveling the globe to collect her colleagues and convince them to join her to save the planet, Mick LaSalle explained in his review for Datebook.
“Some do, some don’t,” he wrote. “Some have to be talked into it. Some really don’t care either way. ‘Eternals’ is like a movie about a horse race that concentrates all its attention on characters that neither own a horse nor like to gamble.”
“It takes a special kind of movie anti-magic to make an entire audience indifferent to the potential destruction of Earth and every living thing on it,” LaSalle wrote. “‘Eternals’ manages it.”
Read the full review from Datebook.

Richard Madden and Gemma Chan star in Marvel’s “Eternals.”

Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post

“Seriously, what a snooze,” Johnny Oleksinski wrote in his review for the New York Post. “Fresh off of winning the Best Director Oscar for ‘Nomadland,’ Chloe Zhao has upchucked one of the MCU’s worst movies in ages.
“Angelina Jolie’s Thena has the personality of a bar of soap and an accent that suggests her semester abroad in London was the best four months of her life,” he wrote.
“All the characters are similarly bland,” he said, criticizing the superhero team for being generic and not well fleshed out. While each member of the Eternals has a special power, they do share similar abilities like super strength, invulnerability, accelerated healing and flight.
“Yet here you go, ticket buyers — another far worse, uniformed collective of super-beings with conspicuously similar powers and a vague, grandiose mission to save humanity,” Oleksinski wrote. “Well, where were our amazing protectors when several hundred innocent people walked into a lousy, two-hour, 37-minute movie Monday night?”
Read the full review from the New York Post.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Rotten Tomatoes.

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The AFL-CIO and about two dozen other labor unions spoke with White House officials at the OMB on Oct. 18 to discuss President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate.
The Service Employees International Union, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and AFL-CIO asked for additional measures to protect workers against Covid.
Unions representing other workers were also on the call.

President Joe Biden looks on as AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler speaks during an event in honor of labor unions on September 8, 2021 in the East Room of the White House at Washington, DC.
Oliver Contreras | AP

Some of the nation’s largest labor unions are pushing the Biden administration to expand its vaccine mandate for private companies to include additional protections for workers, including mask requirements and other safety measures to minimize the spread of Covid-19.
The AFL-CIO and about two dozen other major unions representing teachers, service employees, meat processing plant, auto and steel workers spoke with the Biden administration on its proposed safety rule in an Oct. 18 teleconference call with White House officials from the Office of Management and Budget.

“We stressed the importance of mitigation measures,” Rebecca Reindel, who represented the AFL-CIO on the call, told CNBC. “We really need to be getting ahead of the transmission piece of the virus. It takes a while to get vaccinated — we need protections in the meantime,” Reindel said.
Three of the biggest labor groups, specifically the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, told CNBC they asked the administration to expand employee protections, requiring employers to improve ventilation and enforce mask rules and social distancing. Reindel said companies should also be required to conduct a risk assessment, in consultation with labor, to determine which combination of mitigation measures are needed to best protect their employees in the workplace.
President Joe Biden directed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration under the Labor Department to write a rule requiring private companies with 100 or more employees to ensure they are all vaccinated or tested weekly for Covid-19.
OMB and Labor Department officials have held dozens of calls and meetings with industry lobbyists over the past two weeks as the OMB reviews the mandate, OMB records show. The vaccine and weekly testing requirements will go into effect soon after the OMB completes its review.
The AFL-CIO has called for sweeping measures to protect workers from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. However, OSHA, which polices workplace safety, hasn’t yet issued any broad-based Covid safety rules.

Instead, OSHA issued requirements over the summer limited to health-care workers. Most health-care providers had to develop plans to mitigate the risk of Covid, ensure employees wear masks indoors, keep people 6 feet apart when indoors, install barriers at work stations when employees aren’t 6 feet apart, and ensure proper ventilation — among a number of other requirements.

CNBC Health & Science

The AFL-CIO and the United Food and Commercial Workers took the Biden administration to court, arguing that the OSHA standard “fails to protect employees outside the healthcare industry who face a similar grave danger from occupational exposure to COVID-19.” The unions specifically cited meatpacking, groceries, transportation and corrections as industries where workers need the Labor Department to issue an enforceable safety standard for Covid.
The unions and Labor Department filed a joint motion in September to put the case on pause until the Biden administration’s vaccination and weekly testing mandate is issued. The parties are required by the court to issue a joint status report on Monday.
“The harsh reality is that current COVID safety guidelines are simply not enough and have left millions of essential workers to fend for themselves,” Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers, said in August after OSHA issued voluntary guidance recommending masks for vaccinated employees working in areas where transmission was high. “What we need now is a clear enforceable COVID workplace safety standard that will protect America’s essential workers still on the frontlines of this deadly pandemic.”
Perrone said his union is now waiting to see whether mitigation measures are included in the vaccine and testing mandate. “If we still have concerns, we will move forward,” he said, referring to the court case. The group represents 1.3 million employees across the grocery, retail, meatpacking, food processing, cannabis, chemical and distillery industries, including workers at Tysons Food, Kroger, Macy’s, Cargill and Pfizer. People in those industries are largely considered essential front-line workers by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The UFCW warned in an August letter to the Labor Department that vaccination – while important – does not eliminate the danger posed by Covid to workers as the highly transmissible delta variant spreads, the efficacy of vaccines wanes over time and new mutations of the virus emerge.
The AFL-CIO, in a May report, found 1,833 Covid outbreaks, nearly 90,000 infections and 378 deaths in the meatpacking, food processing and farming industries from the beginning of the pandemic in April 2020 through this April. A report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis found that infections among meatpacking workers were nearly three times higher than previously reported.
“There are going to be certain people who are not going to take [the vaccine] and get tested, and then if you don’t have mitigation measures in place, like masks, you’re sort of defeating your purpose,” Perrone told CNBC.
The Service Employees International Union asked the Biden administration in September to expand the vaccine mandate to include additional protections. The union represents 2 million workers in essential services such as janitors, health and other occupations.

“Layered mitigation measures, including but not limited to masking and distancing, as well as quarantine after exposure or positive tests remain necessary to protect against outbreaks,” Leslie Frane, the union’s executive vice president, wrote in a September letter to OSHA head James Frederick.
The SEIU and UFCW have also called for paid leave for workers to get vaccinated and recover from the shot, paid leave for workers to quarantine and recover from the virus, and free Covid tests for workers with testing options at the worksite. The Biden administration said in September that it will also require businesses with more than 100 employees to provide paid time off for vaccination and recovery.
The United Auto Workers declined to specifically comment on whether it wants the vaccine and testing mandate to include Covid mitigation measures. The big three automakers have already implemented extensive safety protocols against Covid. While it supports vaccination generally, the union opposes requiring them as part of a federal or employer mandate. The union will review the vaccine and testing mandate when it is published, UAW spokesman Brian Rothenberg told CNBC.
“We’re waiting for the standards because we have over 700 contracts and we’re going to have to go through them and see how they impact our contracts,” he said.

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The National Labor Relations Board sided with workers seeking to unionize at three Starbucks stores in Buffalo, New York.
The ruling will allow for three separate votes at Buffalo stores. Starbucks filed to expand the vote to all 20 stores in the market.
If workers vote in favor of organizing, it will mark the first successful attempt at unionization at the coffee giant and could stand to make waves in the industry.

A worker stands inside Starbucks in midtown during the coronavirus pandemic on May 20, 2020 in New York City.
Noam Galai | Getty Images

Starbucks workers, hoping to organize a union at three Buffalo, New York, cafes, scored a victory Thursday, even as the company faced pushback from investors over plans to raise wages next year.
On Thursday, the National Labor Relations Board sided with workers, who were looking to hold a vote to organize at three specific locations. Starbucks had been hoping to open voting to the entire Buffalo market in a single ballot. The decision means three separate unit elections will take place at the stores, with mail-in ballots due on Dec. 8, and a vote count on Dec. 9. More than 100 workers are eligible to vote.

If workers vote in favor of organizing, it will mark the first successful attempt at unionization for the coffee giant in the U.S. and could make waves in the industry.
Starbucks Workers United, the group organizing the vote, cheered the decision.
“Partners won. With this decision, the partners in Buffalo have the ability to win the very first union Starbucks store in the U.S.,” said Richard Bensinger, organizing director, in a statement to CNBC.

The NLRB decision came the same day Starbucks told investors that fiscal 2022 earnings would be lower than analysts were predicting. The company blamed both the ongoing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as rising costs, which include wages.
On Wednesday, Starbucks announced it would be raising pay for workers based on market and tenure. By summer 2022, its pay floor will be $15 an hour, with an average hourly wage of $17 an hour, up from the current average of $14.

Starbucks shares tumbled more than 7% Friday as investors reacted to the slower profit growth ahead.
Restaurants have been raising wages in recent months, in an attempt to woo workers back to the industry. A labor shortage has reduced sales, as restaurants have had cut back on hours and scale back service. Meanwhile, workers are flexing their newfound clout, and there has been a pick up in labor union activity.
Bensigner said the pay bump is a positive for workers, but the movement is about more than money.
“I think they underestimate why people organize a union — not like people have a price in their head. It isn’t one issue or money. Simply if we have a real partnership, why don’t we have a union?” he said.
Starbucks is known for calling its employees “partners” and touting that it has among the most progressive benefits in the fast food and restaurant space. It has been encouraging workers not to vote to unionize over the last few months. Executives including Rossann Williams, executive vice president of North Americas, and Howard Schultz, its former CEO, went to Buffalo to hold listening sessions with workers in September.
In a statement Thursday, Starbucks said it was reviewing the NLRB ruling and evaluating its options.
“We remain focused on supporting our partners as well as maintaining open, transparent and direct conversations throughout the process,” the company said.
In an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Friday, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said the company disagrees with the decision.
“We’re going to continue to do what we’ve always done, which is serve our partners,” he said. “We know that success is best when shared, and you know, certainly we’re going to stay focused on creating a great experience for them. And we’ll see how this unfolds. We don’t think it is in partners’ best interest to put a third party in between that relationship that we’ve always shared that is grounded in our mission, our values and the culture that that created this great company.”
Workers involved in the effort to unionize said working conditions at the Starbucks cafes worsened during the pandemic and they are looking for a more equitable partnership with the company.
Last month, the company sent a letter to Buffalo workers that said Starbucks was taking action to bring store operations back up to its standards, including bringing in help with staffing and repairing store issues quickly.
“Ask us anything – we’re all here to help,” said Allyson Peck, Starbucks regional vice president, Northeast region, in the note to the Buffalo employees. “You have the right to work directly with Starbucks – and if you don’t want to give up that right, you should vote’ no.”
The votes will be counted in December, and whatever the outcome may be, there’s likely going to be several years of activity that could include legal challenges or back and forth in the bargaining process, according to Michael Saltsman, managing director of the Employment Policies Institute. And taking this to scale could be challenging across both the company and the industry.
“I don’t necessarily think what is happening in Buffalo is indicative of a broader trend interest of organizing in the hospitality industry,” Saltsman said. “I think we’ve seen elsewhere that restaurant employees have not shown a lot of interest in the value proposition that unions are offering.”
He pointed to the Service Employees International Union’s push for higher wages, which has now been normalized, but has not led to more workers unionizing.
Casey Moore, a pro-union Starbucks Barista of five months, said she and workers feel confident they’ll have the first unionized store in Buffalo once the votes are counted.
“I’m not going to lie and say Starbucks’ [anti-union] campaign is having no impact … but momentum has only grown, and we are still very confident we will see the first unionized store in the U.S.,” Moore said.

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