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Southwest Airlines pilots’ union is calling a vote that would give it the power to call for a potential strike, weeks after the carrier’s holiday meltdown.
Southwest and its pilots association have been in negotiations for a new contract for years.
The vote would give the union the authority to call for a strike, though there are high hurdles to airline strikes.

A Southwest Airlines passenger jet lands at Chicago Midway International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, on December 28, 2022.
Kamil Krzaczynski | AFP | Getty Images

Southwest Airlines pilots’ union plans to hold a vote that could give it the power to call a potential strike, a move that comes weeks after the carrier’s holiday meltdown further strained ties with its workers’ unions.
Even if Southwest’s pilots vote in favor of giving the union authority to call a strike, it wouldn’t be immediate and it would require clearance from the federal National Mediation Board.

Southwest and the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association have been in negotiations for a new contract for years.
Union leaders have focused on better work rules and scheduling for Southwest workers. During the travel chaos last month, many pilots and flight attendants were stranded and had to wait on hold to reach schedulers or hotel services.
The union’s president, Casey Murray, said it was the first time it has held a strike authorization vote.
“This decision is not one based on emotion, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t angry,” Murray wrote Wednesday to pilots. He said the union is also negotiating “gratitude pay to compensate our Pilots who suffered through the meltdown.”
The strike vote will begin May 1, Murray said. Scheduling it for then means “we can best prepare for and give our customers time to book elsewhere so that they may have confidence in their summer vacations, honeymoons, and family outings,” he wrote to members.

“The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association’s call for an authorization vote does not affect Southwest’s operation or our ability to take care of our Customers,” Adam Carlisle, vice president of labor relations at Southwest, said in a statement. “We will continue to follow the process outlined in the Railway Labor Act and work under the assistance of the National Mediation Board toward reaching an agreement that rewards our Pilots and places them competitively in the industry.”
Southwest pilots’ union last year sought federal mediation in their labor talks. Carlisle said mediation was scheduled to resume Jan. 24.
Delta Air Lines pilots voted in October in favor of allowing the union to authorize a strike, though the union and company about a month later reached a preliminary deal for a new contract.
Labor negotiations are underway across the U.S. airline industry, with unions seeking higher pay and better working conditions after carriers’ attempt to quickly ramp up flying capacity as the Covid crisis eased strained staff and crews.
Southwest is scheduled to report quarterly results on Jan. 26, and executives are likely to face questions from analysts about potential labor deals and the impact of the thousands of holiday cancellations. The carrier has said the incident could have cost it more than $800 million.

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A shopper exits a Party City Holdco Inc. store in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2018. Party City Holdco released earnings figures on November 8.

Party City and some of its U.S. units have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as the retailer looks to restructure its debt and better compete for sales as consumers’ wallets get hit by inflation.
According to a filing, the company said it struck an agreement on Tuesday to reduce its debt.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

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“It’s going to be a miserable existence if we have worse and worse hurricanes, fires, droughts. It’s frightening,” Oliver Stone tells CNBC.
“We had the solution [nuclear power] … and the environmental movement, to be honest, just derailed it,” he says.
Stone’s documentary, “Nuclear Now,” adds to the ongoing debate and discussion about nuclear power and its role in the years ahead.

The environmental movement’s stance on nuclear power was “wrong” and derailed the sector’s development, according to the filmmaker Oliver Stone.
During an interview with CNBC’s Tania Bryer at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Stone — who’s made a new documentary called “Nuclear Now” — was asked where his passion to tackle the climate crisis came from.

“Passion comes from the fact that … it’s my children, hopefully grandchildren soon,” Stone, who was speaking to CNBC on Tuesday afternoon, replied.
“But what are they going to do? It’s going to be a miserable existence if we have worse and worse hurricanes, fires, droughts. It’s frightening.”
“We had the solution [nuclear power] … and the environmental movement, to be honest, just derailed it. I think the environmental movement did a lot of good, a lot of good … [I’m] not knocking it, but in this one major matter, it was wrong. It was wrong.”  
“And what they did was so destructive, because by now we would have 10,000 nuclear reactors built around the world and we would have set an example like France set for us, but no one … followed France, or Sweden for that matter.”

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France has been a major player in nuclear power for decades, while nuclear power accounts for roughly 30% of Sweden’s power supply, according to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority.

Stone’s documentary is based on “A Bright Future,” a book by Joshua S. Goldstein and Staffan A. Qvist.
The Academy Award winner, who has made statements deemed by many to be extremely controversial, is best known for films such as “Platoon”, “Born on the Fourth of July” and “Wall Street.”
His film on nuclear adds to the ongoing debate and discussion about nuclear power and its role in the years ahead.
The International Energy Agency states that “nuclear power has historically been one of the largest contributors of carbon-free electricity globally.”
It adds that “while it faces significant challenges in some countries, it has significant potential to contribute to power sector decarbonisation.”
Elsewhere, environmental organizations such as Greenpeace are critical. “Nuclear power is touted as a solution to our energy problems, but in reality it’s complex and hugely expensive to build,” its website states.
“It also creates huge amounts of hazardous waste,” Greenpeace says. “Renewable energy is cheaper and can be installed quickly. Together with battery storage, it can generate the power we need and slash our emissions.” More

Over 200 millionaires are calling on the elite attendees of this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos to “tackle extreme wealth” and “tax the ultra-rich” to help relieve the cost of living strain off ordinary households.  
“Tax the ultra rich and do it now,” an open letter urges.
“It’s simple, common-sense economics. It is an investment in our common good and a better future that we all deserve, and as millionaires we want to make that investment.”

Occupy Wall Street

Over 200 millionaires are urging the elite echelons in attendance at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos to “tackle extreme wealth” and “tax the ultra-rich” to help relieve the cost-of-living strain off ordinary households.  
The Patriotic Millionaires — self-described as “a group of high-net worth Americans who share a profound concern about the destabilizing level of inequality in America” — called for similar measures in their campaign last year.

“Tax the ultra rich and do it now,” the group asks in a new “Cost of Extreme Wealth” open letter on Wednesday, also endorsed by PMUK, Tax Me Now and Millionaires for Humanity. “It’s simple, common-sense economics. It is an investment in our common good and a better future that we all deserve, and as millionaires we want to make that investment,” it said.
The message warns of an “age of extremes” marked by rising poverty, wealth inequality, anti-democratic nationalism, depressed ecological conditions and dwindling opportunities for average workers to make a living wage.
The letter questions the mission of the World Economic Forum in absence of concrete measures:
“The current lack of action is gravely concerning. A meeting of the ‘global elite’ in Davos to discuss ‘Cooperation in a Fragmented World’ is pointless if you aren’t challenging the root cause of division. Defending democracy and building cooperation requires action to build fairer economies right now – it is not a problem that can be left for our children to fix.”
The campaign numbers 206 signatories from 12 countries, including Abigail Disney, an heiress to the multimedia entertainment empire, and actor Mark Ruffalo.

 “Extreme wealth is eating our world alive. It is undermining our democracies, destabilizing our economies, and destroying our climate,” Disney said. “But for all their talk about solving the world’s problems, the attendees of Davos refuse to discuss the only thing that can make a real impact — taxing the rich.”
She criticized, “I’ve been to Davos. I’ve sat in the same room with some of the richest and most powerful people in the world as they talk about how they can make a difference, so I can say this with firsthand experience – Davos is a farce. Until Davos attendees start talking about taxing the rich, the entire gathering will remain a very public example of how out of touch they really are.”
CNBC has reached out to the Davos World Economic Forum for comment.
A study produced by the Patriotic Millionaires finds that a progressive annual wealth tax — modeled at 2% on individuals worth $5 million, 3% on those with a net $50 million, and 5% on the ultra-rich with more than $1 billion — could have raised in excess of $1.7 trillion in 2022.
The world’s richest 1% have accrued nearly two-thirds of all new global wealth over the last two years, amassing $26 trillion out of $42 trillion created in that period, Oxfam found in a recent report.
Households around the world have been struggling to keep pace with surging costs in wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, tightening monetary policies and fuel price hikes stoked by sanctions against Russian energy supplies. Just one leader of the Group of Seven global economic — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz — was set to attend the Davos proceedings this week, as several of his counterparts battle the cost-of-living crisis. More

From catching Covid-19 to getting caught in a blizzard, traveling can be risky business these days.
But just how risky often depends on the destination — and how you define the risks.

Safest cities: people’s perceptions

A report published by the U.K.-based insurance company William Russell ranked the “safest cities in the world,” according to people’s perceptions.

On this list, which relied on perceived crime rates on the crowdsourced global database Numbeo, Asia and Europe dominated the rankings of “safest” cities.
Taiwan’s Taipei scored the highest, while Buenos Aires, Argentina, ranked the lowest (score: 36.7), according to the report.

Safest cities: health and politics

But the top five places for “health and safety” in Euromonitor International’s “Top 100 City Destinations Index 2022” are different.
That ranking, published in December, analyzed “political stability and social safety,” which includes the impact of Covid-19 (such as total cases, death and vaccination rates) as well as road injury accidents, government corruption and terrorism statistics.

Here, cities in the Middle East and Asia came out on top.

Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Doha, Qatar
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Singapore, Singapore

Paris topped market research company Euromonitor International’s “Top 100 City Destinations” for 2022, but the United Arab Emirates’ Sharjah, shown here, ranked highest in terms of health and safety.
Stefan Tomic | E+ | Getty Images

“The Middle East … takes the first four positions,” said Vitalij Vladykin, senior research manager at Euromonitor International, while “Singapore is ranked first in terms of the political stability category in 2019-2022.”
“Health and safety” is one of six factors used by Euromonitor International to compile its annual city destinations index.

Safest places: medical risks

A report by the travel security firm International SOS not only analyzes infectious disease risks, but also factors that can affect medical care, such as quality of specialist and emergency services, availability of medicines and language barriers.
Its Travel Risk Map 2023 shows that much of North America and Western Europe — as well as places like Turkey, Israel, Japan, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates — have “low” medical risks.

Medical risks by country.
International SOS

The map shows Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea and parts of Africa have “very high” medical risks, which International SOS defines as having “almost non-existent or severely overtaxed” health-care systems.  
The countries colored in purple have “significant variation” in medical risks, which can mean discrepancies in care levels between cities and rural areas, according to the report.
This map does not reflect the Covid-19 outbreak currently occurring in China, said Dr. Irene Lai, medical director at International SOS. Rather than showing specific disease outbreaks, the map focuses on “background” medical situations in countries around the world, she said.

Safest places: security risks

International SOS’s Travel Risk Map also assesses security risks, which include crime as well as political violence such as terrorism and war, social unrest and susceptibility to natural disasters, according to the company.
Sally Llewellyn, International SOS’ security director, said that some 25 spots around the world have “insignificant” security risks: American Samoa, Andorra, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Denmark, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Kiribati, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Marshall Islands, Monaco, Nauru, Norway, San Marino, Seychelles, Slovenia, Switzerland, Turks and Caicos, Tuvalu and Wallis and Futuna.

Some countries have varying risk levels within their borders. For example, the map shows most of Egypt has “high” security risks, but risks are lower in Cairo and areas east of the Nile River.
Mexico has a combination of “medium” and “high” risks on the map, while Thailand’s borders with Myanmar, Malaysia and Cambodia are deemed to be risker than the rest of the country, according to the map.
International SOS said security risks increased in several places this year, including Ukraine, Colombia and the Sahel.
The Sahel is a region in North Africa that includes portions of Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, Sudan and other countries. The region has a mix of “high” and “extreme” security risks, according to the map. More

General Motors’ first-ever “electrified” Corvette will be available later this year, starting at more than $104,000, the automaker said Tuesday.
The 2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray hybrid will be the quickest production version ever of the American sports car.
An all-electric Corvette is expected at some point, but GM has not announced timing for that version.

DETROIT – General Motors’ first-ever “electrified” Corvette will be available later this year starting at more than $104,000, the automaker said Tuesday.
The vehicle also will be all-wheel drive, another first for the quintessential American sports car.

The carmaker said the E-Ray, which GM first confirmed to CNBC last year, will be the quickest production Corvette ever. It will achieve 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds and a quarter mile in 10.5 seconds – similar to some supercars and the current Corvette Z06 track car.

2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray hybrid sports car

“It’s a testament to innovation that this car has represented throughout its 70-year legacy and certainly represents the future of what this car is capable to deliver going forward,” Scott Bell, vice president of Chevrolet, said during a briefing.
An all-electric Corvette is expected at some point, but GM has not announced timing for the EV version. The Detroit automaker has said it plans to exclusively offer all-electric vehicles by 2035.
The E-Ray’s hybrid system features an electric motor on the front axle that provides 160 additional horsepower and 125 pound-feet of torque. It provides a quicker takeoff than a traditional internal combustion engine.

2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray hybrid sports car

In total, GM said the E-Ray produces a combined 655 horsepower from both the electric motor and small-block V-8. It will be available as a coupe and convertible.

The E-Ray is expected to be the only hybrid in GM’s lineup when it arrives in dealer showrooms. GM discontinued hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, or PHEVs, over the years to exclusively focus on all-electric cars and trucks.
Officials said the E-Ray was developed before such plans, in conjunction with development of the eighth-generation Corvette, or C8, which debuted in July 2019. The car was the first Corvette to feature a midengine design instead of the engine being located in the front of the vehicle.

2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray hybrid sports car

The hybrid system was specifically designed for the eighth-generation Corvette, according to Harlan Charles, Chevrolet Corvette product marketing manager. The battery system is charged mostly via regenerative energy from coasting and braking, as well as during normal driving.
GM decided on a hybrid Corvette instead of a PHEV because it offered better overall performance for the car.
“The mission of this vehicle was performance, performance, performance,” said Mike Kociba, lead Corvette development engineer. “Every kilogram or pound had to earn its way in from a mass standpoint. … It hurt performance, plain and simple.”

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The E-Ray coupe will start at $104,295, followed by the convertible version at $111,295. The pricing is slightly lower than $106,695 Corvette Z06. Pricing includes mandatory destination and delivery fees.
GM revealed the E-Ray on the 70th anniversary of when the Detroit automaker unveiled the original concept car of the Corvette at the Motorama auto show in New York City.
The E-Ray is expected to be one of eight new or redesigned models for Chevrolet in 2023. Others include all-electric versions of the Silverado pickup, and Equinox and Blazer crossovers, as well as the gas-powered Colorado and Trax.

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Monday – Friday, 6:00 – 7:00 PM ET

It’s that time again! “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer rings the lightning round bell, which means he’s giving his answers to callers’ stock questions at rapid speed.

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Boston Properties Inc: “They are disciplined, they’ve got a good yield, and while I don’t endorse it myself … there’s a good thesis behind it.”

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Flex Ltd: “My belief is that it’s an inexpensive stock.”

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Jim Cramer’s Guide to Investing

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Monday – Friday, 6:00 – 7:00 PM ET

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday gave investors a list of stocks he believes fit Americans’ spending habits after navigating the Covid pandemic for the last three years.
“The biggest theme is the rise of this ‘life is too short’ mentality. People don’t want to waste their time anymore,” he said.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday gave investors a list of stocks he believes fit Americans’ spending habits after navigating the Covid pandemic for the last three years.
“The biggest theme is the rise of this ‘life is too short’ mentality. People don’t want to waste their time anymore,” he said.

More specifically, investors should eye travel, restaurant, live entertainment and gym stocks, according to Cramer.
Here are his picks:

Travel

Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and United Airlines

“Just be careful and stick to the ones with good execution, meaning stay away from Southwest Airlines – they’re ailing after a huge holiday service breakdown,” he said.

Marriott International

The stock is still cheap despite its run since the end of September, according to Cramer.

Hilton Worldwide

“I’ve been coming around in Hilton Worldwide, which is expected to have a phenomenal 23% earnings growth this year,” he said.

Airbnb
Cramer said that he expects Airbnb’s stock price to eventually reflect the company’s “terrific” business.
Hertz

The rental car company’s 2023 earnings estimates are too low, according to Cramer.

American Express

He said he’d be a buyer of the stock at its current level.

Restaurants

Darden Restaurants

Cramer said he likes that the company owns higher-end restaurants and has a portfolio that includes Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse and The Capital Grille.

Starbucks

The coffeemaker’s mission to become the place where people spend the most time outside of the home and office is compelling during the current era of hybrid work, he said.

Sysco

Buying shares of food suppliers is another way to play the restaurant industry, Cramer said.

Live entertainment

Live Nation Entertainment
The company is “growing like a weed,” he said.
Wynn Resorts and MGM Resorts

“I like them because they have exposure to both the U.S. and China,” Cramer said.

VICI Properties

He said that investors could also go with the casino real estate investment trust for a live entertainment play in their portfolios.

Bowlero

Cramer said that he likes the bowling center company as a more low-key option for investors.

Gyms

Planet Fitness and Xponential Fitness

“I like Planet Fitness, you know that, but you’ve got my blessing to speculate on Xponential Fitness …  which is a higher-risk, higher reward situation,” he said.

Disclaimer: Cramer’s Charitable Trust owns shares of Starbucks.

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