Raphael Stevens

A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-73V jet departs Midway International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, on April 6, 2021.Kamil Krzaczynski | AFP | Getty ImagesAirlines spent much of the last year worrying about having too many employees after travel demand plummeted. Now they’re trying to avoid the opposite problem as customers return and the Covid pandemic’s impact starts to abate.Southwest Airlines is the latest airline to address that issue and is planning to resume hiring flight attendants in the coming weeks, according to note to cabin crews, which was seen by CNBC. A Southwest spokesman said it was too early to determine how many flight attendants it will need.Rivals including American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines have recently announced they plan to resume hiring pilots this year, in hopes they will be able to cater to a rise in travel demand in the coming years, while hundreds of aviators near the federally mandated retirement age of 65.Dallas-based Southwest recently said it planned to recall flight attendants who took temporary leave, at the company’s urging, next month.”In order to support future operational needs, all Flight Attendants have been recalled to work effective June 1, and we will need to hire Flight Attendants in the immediate future,” said the staff note.Southwest has begun reaching out to candidates who had conditional job offers when the pandemic froze hiring last year.”We are happy to share that the majority of these candidates are still interested in joining our Inflight Family, and this helps us start to rebuild a pool of candidates,” said the memo.The airline is also hiring a few ramp agents and other ground workers. More

In this articleTRVAIGAAs U.S. businesses bring workers back to the office, big insurers like Chubb, AIG and Travelers are bracing for an onslaught of claims related to employment and labor lawsuits.Covid-related litigation and complaints have steadily risen throughout the pandemic, with California and New Jersey, seeing the most filings, according to Jackson Lewis, an employment and labor law firm that tracks these numbers.Experts say it’s likely to increase as courts wade through a backlog of cases and government agencies deal with pent-up claims.”The employment practices liability carriers are very mindful of the additional claims activity that hasn’t yet materialized,” said Kelly Thoerig, a U.S. employment practices liability coverage leader at consulting firm Marsh McLennan.Employers are walking a tightrope in organizing a return to work, fraught with liability and risk, she said.Three key things employers must consider in order to protect against litigation:Who returns to work?Management needs to evaluate whether they’re discriminating against protected classes of employees when they make decisions about who to bring back to the office first.”Who did you let go? Who did you send home?” she said, running through a list of critical questions. “Who is first in line to be allowed to come back? Or who are you requiring to come back?”Ensuring a safe workplaceWhen employees come back, companies need to make sure it’s a safe environment. That raises additional questions about whether workers should wear masks, or if a company should require a Covd-19 vaccination.Although it’s legal for employers to mandate vaccines for workers, it may not be advisable, Thoerig said. This is partly because of “downstream liability if an individual were to have a serious reaction to or complication as a result of the vaccine,” she said.On the other hand, some employees or customers may demand businesses require vaccines.”This provides employers with different but very real business and legal concerns: Are they doing enough to keep their employees and customers safe?”said Frank Alvarez, co-leader of Jackson Lewis’ disability, leave and health management practice. “Are they managing privacy concerns, employee medical choice and the countervailing employee relations issues between those who are vaccinated and those who are not?”Thoerig said she urges her clients to use incentives to coax resistant employees to get the vaccine.For example, Wynn Resorts demands weekly Covid-19 tests with negative results for its workers who have not been inoculated. This gives an employee an incentive to get a shot.Requests for accommodationThe U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data shows an uptick in disability discrimination claims filed with the agency traduring the pandemic.Insurer Travelers said it suspects accommodation conflicts are driving the increase. For example, if an employee asks for the ability to continue to work from home because he has a condition that puts him at a heightened risk if he contracts Covid-19. If the request is denied, the employee may sue for the accommodation.This situation could also arise if an employee says she can’t take the vaccine because of an allergy. If the employer mandates it anyway, she may say her employer discriminated against her because of it.”The notion that certain individuals or classes of people or even individual employees are being favored or disfavored over others, immediately should raise should raise concerns,” Thoerig said.As employees are called back into the office in greater numbers, they may also have a strong argument, Thoerig said.”We’ve effectively done our job from our home office, from our basement, for the last 12 to 14 months. And why is that not a reasonable accommodation when I’ve been just as productive as I have from home?” she said.Thoerig has told clients to be as flexible as they can be in granting requests for accommodations.”Employers are trying very hard to juggle all of these considerations,” Alvarez said. “The business community has never really faced a situation where the law is so uncoordinated and provides such little guidance on potential legal exposures.” More

National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Nancy Messonnier speaks during a press conference today at the Department of Health and Human Services on the coordinated public health response to the 2019 coronavirus (2019-nCoV), January 28, 2020 in Washington, DC.Samuel CorumDr. Nancy Messonnier, the health expert who was among the first to sound alarms about the threat posed to the U.S. by the coronavirus, is resigning from her role at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the agency’s director confirmed Friday.Messonnier “leaves behind a strong force of leadership and courage in all that she’s done,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a press briefing. “I want to wish her the best in her future endeavors.”Walensky did not address a reporter’s question asking why Messonnier was recently reassigned from her role leading the CDC’s Covid vaccine task force.Messonnier, who had served as director of the agency’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases since 2016, will resign from the agency effective May 14, multiple outlets reported Friday.She will take on a new role as executive director for pandemic and public health systems at the Skoll Foundation, a California-based organization, she reportedly told colleagues in an email.Walensky received Messonnier’s resignation Friday morning, CDC spokesman Jason McDonald told CNBC.The resignation was first reported by The Washington Post.In early 2020, when fewer than 100 Covid cases had been reported in the U.S., Messonnier urged the nation to start preparing for a massive outbreak that would drastically affect normal life.”I understand this whole situation may seem overwhelming and that disruption to everyday life may be severe. But these are things that people need to start thinking about now,” Messonnier said in February 2020.Messonnier’s stark warnings contrasted sharply with then-President Donald Trump’s messaging at the same time, prompting him to threaten to fire her, outlets have reported.The former president had incorrectly tried to assure the nation that the small number of U.S. Covid cases “within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero” and will disappear “like a miracle.”More than 32,606,724 Covid infections have been reported in the U.S., and at least 580,076 people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. More

The widespread use of drones in Iraq and Afghanistan by the United States to target and kill insurgents jump-started a new chapter in the history of conflict. These high-flying and remotely piloted aircraft could engage targets with impunity while the operators were safely working in a ground control station. Keeping the crews out of danger also made the drones politically cheap to use over dangerous skies. Now more and more countries, such as China and Turkey, are gaining this military capability for their own purposes.”At the moment, we’ve seen over 100 states worldwide using military drones, and that number is growing significantly,” said Wim Zwijnenburg, project leader, Humanitarian Disarmament at Dutch peace organization PAX. “We have over 20 states that are using armed drones in conflicts or outside of armed conflicts.”Although larger and more complex drones, such as the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, are more capable, they are not cheap to develop or operate, which is why smaller drones are becoming more ubiquitous in conflict zones.Limiting the proliferation of these smaller drones, and the ability to weaponize them, is a regulatory nightmare for government agencies around the world. “Drones are just model airplanes with great sensors on them. And all of these are dual use and have been used in the civilian realm,” said Ulrike Franke, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “And in fact, drones have risen enormously in the civilian realm over the last five to 10 years. And so controlling their export is really difficult.”Watch the video above to find out why demand is surging beyond the U.S. in the multibillion-dollar armed drone market. More

In this articleAMCThe AMC Empire 25 near Times Square is open as New York City’s cinemas reopen for the first time in a year following the coronavirus shutdown, on March 5, 2021.Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty ImagesTo the world, Adam Aron is the CEO of AMC Entertainment, but to millions of the movie theater operator’s investors, he’s “Silverback.”While AMC is still losing money, Aron was upbeat during Thursday’s earnings call, thanking millions of Redditors and Robinhood traders who boosted the company’s stock earlier this year.AMC said it had 3.2 million individual shareholders as of March 11, who own about 80% of the 450 million shares outstanding. Many of them were inspired by the r/wallstreetbets Reddit page to purchase the stock. The forum selected several companies that were being shorted by large hedge fund groups and decided to take action.On Jan. 27, AMC’s stock exploded overnight, rising to under $20 a share from $5 the previous trading day. The surge allowed AMC to lighten its debt load by around $600 million. The stock currently trades above $9 a share. On Friday, shares were trading up about 6%.”These individual investors likely own a majority of our shares,” Aron said during Thursday’s call. “They own AMC. We work for them. I work for them.”While AMC’s new investors are rallying around the stock, Wall Street analysts are a bit more bearish when it comes to the company’s performance. And while Aron has embraced them, the analysts are fending off harsh comments on Twitter and angry phone calls to their offices. What Wall Street seesAt present, the average target price from those that cover the industry is $4.44, according to FactSet. Eric Handler, an analyst at MKM Partners, most recently set his price target for the stock at $1.The target is based on an analysis of the company’s capital structure and its significant debt load of more than $5 billion. It also has $450 million in deferred rent payments.In order for AMC to justify its current stock price, its adjusted EBITDA would need to exceed its all-time high by 16%, Handler wrote in a note to investors. Or be 60% greater than his current estimate for 2022.As its theaters reopen, revenue is starting to flow again. In the first quarter, AMC posted $148.3 million in revenue, down 84.2% from the same period a year ago. Its net loss shrunk to $567.2 million, or $1.42 per share in the quarter, from a loss of $2.18 billion, or $20.88 per share, a year earlier.The theater chain has been able to quickly raise capital in recent months, with Aron touting that AMC had ended the first quarter with $1 billion in liquidity, the most it’s ever had in its 100-year history. With this cash in hand, AMC says it can stay afloat through 2022.There is increased optimism from analysts about the movie theater industry, particularly as vaccination rates increase and Covid cases decrease. However, many agree that it could take years for AMC to repay its debt and even longer until it is able to revisit its growth strategy.And then there is its new pool of investors.Rise of the Apes”We expect continued volatility in shares of AMC, as well as trading momentum unrelated to AMC’s fundamentals,” Wedbush analyst Alicia Reese wrote in a research note a week before AMC posted its earnings. “As such, we do not recommend buying shares of AMC here.”Analysts told CNBC that the meme stock frenzy, even if well-intentioned, showcases a lack of knowledge of how financial markets work. The investing, they say, is based on emotion.These new investors, many of which only purchased the stock in recent months, call themselves “apes.” The name derives from an internet meme based on the movie “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” in which the main character, a chimpanzee named Caesar, communicates the phrase “apes together strong” using American sign language.The phrase has been adopted by retail investors who are bullish on heavily shorted stocks like GameStop or AMC. The idea being that if the “apes” are united, they can outlast those that are short on the stock.”Adam [Aron] was very complimentary of the individual retail investors,” Handler said, in an interview. “They clearly support him. And put their money where their mouths are … the stock is where it is right now because of those retail investors.”As a token of appreciation, Aron said that he and AMC would each make a $50,000 donation to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, a conservation fund dedicated to protecting endangered mountain gorillas. This is the first time the company has donated to this organization and it’s a clear nod to these new investors.AMC delayed its annual shareholders meeting more than a month in order to give these investors an opportunity to attend the event and “make their important voices heard,” Aron said.”Just go on Twitter, just go on Reddit, just go on YouTube, read what these people write,” he said. “They love AMC. And these are not people who are just going to be investors in AMC. These are going to be customers of AMC who come to our theaters and enjoy watching movies at our theaters as paying guests.”Because of these new investors, Aron said the company will shift how it disseminates information to its shareholders.”Before when I wanted to talk to the company’s ownership, I could fly to Beijing and I could sit down with three or four people and they have 75% of the votes,” he said. “It’s going to be a little different now … so you’re going to see a lot more outreach to literally millions of investors in our company and it’s going to be quite public.””I’ve started tweeting again,” he said. More

In this articlePFE22UA-DEVials of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at the Sun City Anthem Community Center vaccination site in Henderson, Nevada, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021.Roger Kisby | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesPfizer and partner BioNTech said they have started the process of seeking full approval for their Covid vaccine for use in people 16 and older in the U.S., making the companies the first in the nation to file for full regulatory approval.The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization of their Covid vaccine in late December. Since then, Pfizer has distributed 170 million doses in the U.S., with the goal of delivering 300 million doses by the end of July.”We are proud of the tremendous progress we’ve made since December in delivering vaccines to millions of Americans, in collaboration with the U.S. Government,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement. “We look forward to working with the FDA to complete this rolling submission and support their review, with the goal of securing full regulatory approval of the vaccine in the coming months.”CNBC Health & Science Read CNBC’s latest coverage of the Covid pandemic:Pfizer and BioNTech begin the process of seeking full U.S. approval for their Covid vaccineCovid vaccine makers’ shares seesaw after Biden administration says it will back patent waivers Global Covid death toll more than double official estimates, says IHME Shares of Pfizer were down nearly 1% in premarket trading Friday, while BioNTech’s stock was down more than 1%. Covid vaccine makers’ shares tanked after the Biden administration said earlier this week that it would back waiving patent protections for Covid vaccines, citing the global health crisis.Pfizer will have to demonstrate that it can reliably produce the vaccines to win full clearance. If approved, the companies could market their shots directly to consumers and possibly change the pricing of the doses. It also allows the shot to stay on the market once the pandemic is over and the U.S. is no longer considered in an “emergency.”It usually takes the FDA about a year or longer to determine whether a drug is safe and effective for use in the general public. Due to the once-in-a-century pandemic, which has killed nearly 600,000 people in the United States, the FDA permitted the use of the shots under an Emergency Use Authorization.The authorization grants conditional approval based on two months of data. It’s not the same as a Biologic License Application, which requires six months of data and secures full approval. The companies are seeking approval based on a “rolling submission,” which expedites the review process by allowing the FDA to review new data as the company gets it.Rival Moderna said Thursday it plans to initiate a rolling submission to the FDA for its vaccine this month.”The BLA submission is an important cornerstone of achieving long-term herd immunity and containing COVID-19 in the future,” Dr. Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of Germany-based BioNTech, said in a statement. “We are pleased to work with U.S. regulators to seek approval of our COVID-19 vaccine based on our pivotal Phase 3 trial and follow-up data.”Early data collected from 12,000 vaccinated people ages 16 and up in that phase three trial showed its shots were 91.3% effective against getting the disease at up to six months after the second dose and 95.3% effective against severe Covid as defined by the FDA, the companies said April 1. The data also demonstrated “a favorable safety and tolerability profile,” they said at the time.White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN on April 28 that U.S. regulators would work “as expeditiously as possible” once the companies submit their applications for full approval.”When you’re getting a formal approval you have to have a certain amount of time just observing predominantly the safety, and obviously the safety looks really, really good in well over 140 million people having been vaccinated with at least a single dose,” he told CNN. “I hope they do it quickly, because .. people when they hear it’s still emergency use, they still have a little concern about how far you can go with it.”The companies are awaiting FDA emergency authorization to use their vaccine in kids ages 12 to 15 and said they intend to apply for a full license once they have six months of data.They said in late March that the vaccine was found to be 100% effective in a clinical trial of more than 2,000 adolescents. They also said the vaccine elicited a “robust” antibody response in the children, exceeding those in an earlier trial of older teens and young adults. Side effects were generally consistent with those seen in adults, they added. More