Raphael Stevens

In this articleRCLRoyal Caribbean International said Tuesday that it will require all guests over the age of 16 traveling from U.S. ports, except those in Florida, to be fully vaccinated.Travelers aboard ships leaving from Florida ports are strongly recommended to be fully vaccinated but not required to be. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order preventing businesses from asking customers whether they have been vaccinated for Covid-19 or not, preventing the cruise industry from mandating proof of vaccination.However, the company said Tuesday that passengers leaving from Florida ports from Aug. 1 to Dec. 31 who are not vaccinated will be required to have travel insurance. The policies must cover all unvaccinated guests over the age of 12 with at least $25,000 per person in medical expense coverage and $50,000 per person for quarantine and medical evacuation related to a positive Covid-19 test result. The guests will also be required to pay for Covid-19 testing.On Aug. 1, the vaccination requirement takes effect for travelers over age 12.The company said any travelers who aren’t yet eligible for vaccines will have to show a negative Covid test result and follow certain health protocols.Six simulation cruises were approved Tuesday to sail later this summer by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those voyages, which test safety protocols before passengers are allowed on board, will leave from ports in Florida, New Jersey, Texas and Washington in July and August.Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas received a conditional sailing certificate from the CDC, which allows it to start sailing Friday. The ship completed its simulation cruise on June 20 from Port Miami.The cruise industry is among the last to return to pre-pandemic operations. The CDC allowed cruises to return this year with strict health protocols and requirements in place to prevent outbreaks on board the ships after there were several outbreaks aboard ships last year.Royal Caribbean said its guest surveys signal that 90% of all its guests will be fully vaccinated.The company’s new vaccine policy comes days after two unvaccinated guests under the age of 16 tested positive for Covid-19 on the cruise operator’s Adventure of the Seas ship.Weeks earlier, two guests aboard Royal Caribbean’s Celebrity Millennium cruise tested positive and the company’s Odyssey of the Seas was delayed from sailing after eight members of its crew tested positive.Cruise line stocks have been rising after suffering a huge hit during the pandemic. Shares of Royal Caribbean Cruises are up more than 11% this year, putting its market cap at just over $21 billion. More

In this article8TI-FFFGMFord started resuming vehicle production in the U.S. on May 18, 2020 with new coronavirus safety protocols such as health assessments, personal protective equipment and facility modifications to increase social distancing.FordDETROIT — Leaders of the Detroit automakers and the United Auto Workers union have agreed to make face masks optional for employees who are fully vaccinated against Covid -19.Workers for the companies, including non-salaried employees, won’t have to show proof of vaccination, according to officials with the UAW and General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler).The Tuesday announcement comes after a task force between the companies and the union reviewed medical experts’ reports, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards on how to safely work through the pandemic.The UAW and automakers last month lifted some Covid-19 protocols but not the masks, which have been a major complaint of plant employees, many of whom do physical work in hot environments.”While the UAW and the companies continue following the protocols that have kept our workplaces safe, we know that one of the best ways to fight this virus is by getting vaccinated,” the UAW said in a statement. “The Task Force continues to encourage everyone to roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated against COVID-19 so that we can protect our sisters and brothers and their families.”The UAW declined to release an estimate of how many of its roughly 153,000 members with the Detroit automakers have been vaccinated. More

SpaceX was seconds away from launching its 20th mission of this year Tuesday when the countdown was halted due to an aircraft entering the launch range, delaying the mission by at least a day.Elon Musk took to Twitter to voice his frustration about the delay, reiterating prior criticisms he has made about regulations around the business of launching rockets.”An aircraft entered the ‘keep out zone’, which is unreasonably gigantic,” Musk wrote in a tweet.”There is simply no way that humanity can become a spacefaring civilization without major regulatory reform. The current regulatory system is broken,” he added.Musk has ratcheted up his criticism of launch regulations this year, with SpaceX firing off Falcon 9 rockets at a blistering pace – with launches going up an average of every nine days – and also flying multiple development tests of its Starship prototype rockets. After a Starship test was delayed in January, Musk similarly criticized the Federal Aviation Administration for how it handles launch regulations.”Unlike its aircraft division, which is fine, the FAA space division has a fundamentally broken regulatory structure,” Musk wrote then. “Their rules are meant for a handful of expendable launches per year from a few government facilities. Under those rules, humanity will never get to Mars.”The FAA has internally pushed back on SpaceX, after the company violated its launch license with the authorized test flight of Starship prototype SN8 in December. Since then, the FAA says SpaceX has “modified their procedures effectively” and earlier this month testified before Congress about efforts to streamline launch regulations and rules.Although he’s publicly criticized regulators, Musk has also stated that “99.9% of the time, I agree with regulators!””On rare occasions, we disagree. This is almost always due to new technologies that past regulations didn’t anticipate,” Musk said in April.Become a smarter investor with CNBC Pro.Get stock picks, analyst calls, exclusive interviews and access to CNBC TV. Sign up to start a free trial today. More

SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk at the Kennedy Space CenterPaul Hennessy | SOPA Images | Getty ImagesElon Musk on Tuesday said SpaceX’s satellite internet network Starlink “recently” passed near 70,000 active users and expects fast-paced growth in the year ahead.”We are on our way to having a few hundred thousand users, possibly over 500,000 users within 12 months,” Musk said, speaking virtually at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain.Starlink is the company’s capital-intensive project to build an interconnected internet network with thousands of satellites, known in the space industry as a constellation, designed to deliver high-speed internet to consumers anywhere on the planet. SpaceX first rolled out the service with a beta program for select consumers for $99 a month, and in the past year has sought regulatory approval to test the network inflight and expand the service to large moving vehicles, like ships and trucks.It’s now the world’s largest satellite constellation, with more than 1,500 Starlink satellites launched to orbit to date.SpaceX last month touted that Starlink has received more than 500,000 orders and deposits so far to date, although those may not materialize into users. Starlink’s user base has grown, from about 10,000 users in February to Musk saying that this month it passed “the strategically notable number of 69,420 active users.”The low altitude of SpaceX’s satellites decreases the latency in its service compared to traditional satellite services, which Musk emphasized. Latency is the amount of delay in an internet network, defining how much time it takes a signal to travel back and forth from a destination. Latency and download speeds are key measures for an internet service provider.”The latency for the Starlink system is similar to latency for ground-based fiber and 5G, so we’re expecting to get latency down under 20 milliseconds,” Musk said.The company is “losing money” on the satellite antennas that it provides to customers, Musk said, as the hardware costs near $1,300 each but SpaceX charges users $499.”We’re working on a next generation terminal that provides the same level of capability, roughly same level capability, but costs a lot less,” Musk said.As company leadership has previously stated, Musk estimated Starlink may cost SpaceX between $5 billion and $10 billion to become fully operational and then as much as $20 billion to $30 billion in investment over the long term. But SpaceX believes it can tap an even larger market, estimating Starlink could bring in as much as $30 billion a year – or about 10 times the annual revenue of its rocket launching business.Starlink is “operational now in about 12 countries, and more are being added every month,” Musk noted.”We have two quite significant partnerships with major country [telecommunications companies], that I’d like to be able to announce now but obviously we defer to our partners to make any announcement,” Musk said. “And we are in discussions with a number of other [telecommunications companies] to provide Starlink access.”Musk also said SpaceX is getting closer to launching next-generation versions of its Starlink satellites.”We’re getting close to launching satellite 1.5, which has laser inter-satellite links, and that’ll be used especially for continuous connectivity over the Arctic and Antarctic regions,” Musk said. “Next year we’ll start launching version two of our satellite, which will be significantly more capable.”Become a smarter investor with CNBC Pro.Get stock picks, analyst calls, exclusive interviews and access to CNBC TV. Sign up to start a free trial today. More

In this articleLUVA Southwest Airlines flight logo is seen as the plane taxis to a gate at Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma, New York on March 25, 2021.Steve Pfost | Newsday | Getty ImagesSouthwest Airlines is urging employees to pick up shifts by offering higher overtime pay in early July to help it avoid flight disruptions during what’s expected to be a surge in Independence Day weekend travel, according to internal company memos reviewed by CNBC.The Dallas-based airline has had to cancel hundreds of flights and delay others this month due to a combination of bad weather and a technical problem.The push to staff up quickly shows how airlines are struggling to respond to a surge in air travel after a slump in demand during the coronavirus pandemic. U.S. airlines accepted $54 billion in federal aid in exchange for not furloughing workers. But thousands of employees at Southwest and other airlines took buyouts or leaves of absence at the urging of company executives.”We have heard from many of you who are frustrated with our network reliability and irregular operations created by summer storms across many parts of the country,” Alan Kasher, Southwest’s executive vice president of daily operations, wrote in staff note posted Monday, entitled “We Need Your Help This Holiday Travel Week.””To address the situation for the short term, we will be incentivizing our Ops Employees during this busy holiday travel week by increasing overtime pay from July 1 through July 7,” he said.Southwest flight attendants will get double pay for picking up open shifts over that period, Sonya Lacore, Southwest’s vice president of inflight operations, wrote to in a separate memo to employees Monday.Southwest is also offering double pay to ground and cargo operations employees, spokesman Brian Parrish said.”We are delighted to welcome more travelers over the holiday period, and the Southwest Team looks forward to delivering our Southwest Hospitality to returning Customers,” he said in statement.The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association told its members on Monday that it failed to reach an incentive agreement with the company for the carrier’s aviators to pick up more flying.”It has been clear (since spring!) that our operation was on track for a brutal summer caused by overselling a schedule that they absolutely cannot fill,” Swapa told members.Southwest offered double pay for pilots who pick up those shifts, which the union said was “inadequate and that they would ultimately be paying the same double time costs given the current state of the operation.”The carrier currently has 500 first officers on voluntary leave, airline spokesman Parrish said. More

In this articleMRNAA health care worker prepares a dose of the Moderna Inc. Covid-19 vaccine at the Pacheco vaccination center in Brussels, Belgium, on Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2021.Geert Vanden Wijngaert | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesModerna said Tuesday its Covid-19 vaccine showed promise in a lab setting against coronavirus variants, including the highly contagious delta variant first identified in India.The two-dose mRNA vaccine produced neutralizing antibodies against delta as well as beta and eta, variants first found in South Africa and Nigeria, respectively, according to Moderna.The company said the results were based on the blood serum of eight participants one week after they received the second dose of the vaccine. The data hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed. The results, while promising, may not reflect how the vaccines actually perform in real-world scenarios against the variants.Shares of Moderna jumped more than 6% in intraday trading after it announced the lab results.”We remain committed to studying emerging variants, generating data and sharing it as it becomes available,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a press release. “These new data are encouraging and reinforce our belief that the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine should remain protective against newly detected variants.”Moderna’s update comes days after World Health Organization officials urged fully vaccinated people to continue to wear masks, social distance and practice other pandemic safety measures as delta spreads rapidly across the globe.CNBC Health & Science Read CNBC’s latest global coverage of the Covid pandemic:Moderna says Covid vaccine shows promise in a lab setting against variants, including delta These groups look to be most at risk from the Covid delta variant right now Australia’s Perth city locks down in stepped up fight against delta variant Vaccines work against Covid — but not enough people are getting the shots, U.S. doctor saysIt also comes the same day Moderna said its vaccine was authorized for use in India, where the delta variant is thought to be behind the large outbreak there.Delta, now in at least 92 countries, including the United States, is expected to become the dominant variant of the disease worldwide. In the U.S., the prevalence of the strain is doubling about every two weeks.WHO officials said Friday they are asking fully vaccinated people to continue to “play it safe” because a large portion of the world remains unvaccinated and highly contagious variants, like delta, are spreading in many countries, spurring outbreaks.The comments were a departure from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has said fully vaccinated Americans can go maskless in most settings.”People cannot feel safe just because they had the two doses. They still need to protect themselves,” Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products, said during a news briefing.Authorized vaccines from Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson have demonstrated to be highly effective in preventing Covid, especially against severe disease and death.Some variants, including delta, have shown to make the vaccines slightly less effective and WHO officials said they worry vaccinated individuals could become part of transmission chains.CNBC Health & Science Read CNBC’s latest global coverage of the Covid pandemic:Moderna says Covid vaccine shows promise in a lab setting against variants, including delta These groups look to be most at risk from the Covid delta variant right now Australia’s Perth city locks down in stepped up fight against delta variant Vaccines work against Covid — but not enough people are getting the shots, U.S. doctor saysThe Wall Street Journal reported Friday that about half of adults infected in an outbreak of the delta variant in Israel were fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine, prompting the government there to reimpose an indoor mask requirement and other measures.In the U.S., President Joe Biden warned that unvaccinated people are especially at risk of becoming infected with delta.He said Covid deaths nationwide will continue to rise due to the spread of the “dangerous” variant, calling it a “serious concern.””Six hundred thousand-plus Americans have died, and with this delta variant you know there’s going to be others as well. You know it’s going to happen. We’ve got to get young people vaccinated,” Biden said Thursday at a community center in Raleigh, North Carolina. More

Institutional investors rushing in to buy properties is not a main reason for the ultra-hot U.S. housing market, Coldwell Banker CEO Ryan Gorman told CNBC on Tuesday.In an interview on “The Exchange,” the real estate executive acknowledged the potential for institutional buyers to add further pressure on prices, as they look for potential hedges against inflation, for example.”Today, though, it’s a very, very small percentage of the overall market,” said Gorman, whose company, Coldwell Banker, is part of Realogy Holdings Corp. “Yes, cash offers are very high, but the vast majority of cash offers — even in multiple-offer situations — are coming from individuals who are looking to occupy the home and own the home just as they would any other.”In the first quarter, investor home purchases rose on a year-over-year basis for the first time since the start of the Covid pandemic, according to a May report from real estate brokerage Redfin.Gorman said he expects institutional investors to remain attracted to residential real estate, including both multi-family and single-family rentals.”In terms of impact on the overall market, though, we’re talking about percentage points — low single digits at this point, with some markets trending a little bit higher than that,” Gorman said. It is “something to watch, but not as concerning as it might sound.”The housing market has been one of the strongest pieces of the U.S. economy during the pandemic, sparked by a number of factors, including affordable financing, a desire for more space, and increased geographic flexibility thanks to remote work.That influx of demand, coupled with a lack of houses for sale, has caused prices to rocket higher. In April, home prices posted an annual gain of 14.6%, which is up from 13.3% in the prior month, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index.Some people have worried the housing market is getting too hot, potentially creating yet another bubble as prices move to higher and higher levels.Gorman said the U.S. simply needs more homes to be on the market, because the fundamental factors influencing would-be buyers are likely to stick around.”Additional inventory is the solution to all that ails us at this moment,” Gorman said. New home construction is “way behind where we need it to be,” he said. “Despite high builder confidence, it’s going to continue to lag. We’re missing 4 [million] to 6 million homes that we need today.” More