Business World

Editor’s note: This Future View is about taking time off college due to the disruption caused by Covid-19. Next week we’ll ask, “What’s one thing most of your peers fail to understand about police violence, the Black Lives Matter movement or the riots across America?” Students should click here to submit opinions of fewer than 250 words before June 9. The best responses will be published that night. ... Source link

Apple staff and customers, wearing facemasks to protect against the COVID-19 coronavirus, are seen on the shop premises in Beijing on February 22, 2020.Nicolas Asfouri | AFP | Getty ImagesApple has cut the prices of its latest iPhones in China ahead of a major online shopping festival as it looks to continue the momentum it has seen following the gradual resumption of the world's second-largest economy after the coronavirus lockdown. In China, Apple sells its products via various channels. On Alibaba-owned e-commerce site Tmall, Apple has an official store. JD.com is an official reseller of Apple products, though the U.S. company

The reopening of America was always going to be fraught, with competing fears of new virus outbreaks and economic meltdown. Now cities across the nation, from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles, are reeling from unrest that could worsen both. Violence erupted in dozens of cities following the death of George Floyd, a black Minneapolis man who died after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck for more than eight minutes. Some demonstrators broke off to rampage through shopping districts, including Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and Michigan Avenue in Chicago, and set fire to police

Jeffrey Reid has been earning a 10% premium on his wages working in a grocery store’s meat department in Silver Spring, Maryland, during the coronavirus pandemic. But Reid’s employer, Giant Food, plans to phase out that additional pay at the end of this week. Reid called it “absolutely absurd” for him and others to return to his normal pay rate just as the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 topped 100,000. “We don’t have a vaccine. They still don’t know how to treat this thing. We’ve still got a bunch of people walking around asymptomatic,” said Reid, 55. “So why are

President Trump on Friday issued his response to China’s assault on Hong Kong’s autonomy, and as a statement of solidarity it was welcome. The problem is that the punishment will fall mainly on the innocent people of Hong Kong rather than on the perpetrators in Beijing. A better idea would give Hong Kongers an escape route to America. China is replacing the “one country, two systems” form of governance it promised Hong Kong with “one country, one system,” Mr. Trump said in remarks at the White House. He’s right. Beijing... Source link

Sales associates at one of Alibaba-owned InTime's store display products for sale during a livestream.InTime | AlibabaInTime, one of China's largest department store operators that's owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba, turned to livestreaming and online sales during China's coronavirus lockdown, its CEO Chen Xiaodong told CNBC.The move helped the company significantly boost its digital revenue, he added, while pledging to continue opening more physical locations.The digital push underscores how InTime has been able to leverage the e-commerce might and logistics scale of Alibaba in order to survive the lockdown, which saw its 65 stores closed for a number of weeks. Alibaba acquired

Amazon’s possible acquisition of self-driving car startup Zoox would help the online retailing giant expand its burgeoning logistics-and-delivery network.  The price tag for the once-high-flying Zoox, as reported by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, would be below the $3.2 billion valuation the company received in its most recent funding round in 2018. Amazon and Zoox both declined to comment about any acquisition talks. Karl Iagnemma, CEO of a self-driving car joint venture between automaker Hyundai and vehicle component company Aptiv, says the discussion between Amazon and Zoox “speaks to the sustained interest in self-driving technology by major global players, full

BANGKOK (AP) — South America’s biggest airline sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Tuesday as it grapples with the sharp downturn in air travel sparked by the coronavirus pandemic. Latam Airlines said that it and several of its affiliated companies launched the reorganization effort in the United States in a bid to reduce its debt and find new financing sources. The bankruptcy filing underscores the severity of the financial challenges the travel industry faces as a result of the lockdowns, quarantines and other measures taken by governments the world over to stem the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. Passenger

The state lockdowns are starting to ease and the U.S. economy should slowly begin to recover. But it’s worth noting that the states opening most slowly are big states run by Democrats that represent something like a third of the U.S. economy. This means a slower recovery for those states and the U.S. It’s been nearly 10 weeks since the Democratic governors of California, New York, New Jersey and Illinois ordered all businesses in their states to shut down save those they deemed essential. Job losses in these states have been... Source link

Box from Empathy WinesEmpathy WinesConsumers have spent the past couple decades shifting their spending habits to the internet. Now, with local stores closed and millions of people social distancing, the web has become — by default — the place we shop.In a tweet last week that went viral, industry newsletter 2PM posted the words, "10 years vs. 8 weeks," followed by a chart showing that e-commerce penetration climbed to 27% from 16% in just eight weeks of quarantine. That was the same amount of market share growth it achieved over the prior decade.Amazon, unsurprisingly, has been the biggest single beneficiary, focusing on