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Jeff Koons Strikes to Tempo Gallery

Jeff Koons Moves to Pace Gallery

To restart management and consolidate the management of his sales, mega-artist Jeff Koons is moving from two mega-galleries to one.

The Pace Gallery announced on Monday that it will exclusively represent Jeff Koons worldwide.

“He is one of the great living artists who have changed the way we view our culture and each other,” said Marc Glimcher, CEO and President of Pace, in a telephone interview.

“Having committed ourselves to sculpture for 60 years,” added Glimcher, “we believe we can add something to the next phase of Jeff’s career.”

Pace’s first collaboration with Koons will be an exhibition of a single sculpture in the gallery space in Palo Alto, California in 2022, followed by a major New York exhibition of new work in 2023.

“I’ve always liked the idea of ​​having more of a home gallery that when people are interested in work they know right away where to go,” Koons said over the phone.

Koons’ stainless steel “Rabbit” (1986) sold for $ 91.1 million in 2019, earning him the highest auction price for a living artist. But otherwise, its prices have generally fallen and its work has been divisive for a long time, leading to criticism of the product.

“Certain mythologies can be created around your work,” Koons said. “Some of these mythologies were incorrect.”

He said he was keen to “see the work in a new light,” adding, “I’m just trying to do the best work possible. That’s all I can do. “

Koons said he informed Larry Gagosian and David Zwirner of his decision in personal letters sent on Friday.

When asked about his reaction, Gagosian said in a text message: “It seems to be a good fit.”

Zwirner said in a statement: “We have always respected Jeff’s freedom; He really is a free agent. Working with him was an immense privilege. We wish everyone success in Jeff’s next chapter. “

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U.S. to share 60 million AstraZeneca doses with different international locations

U.S. to share 60 million AstraZeneca doses with other countries

A vial containing the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is seen with syringes in the hospital of the Military Institute of Medicine in Warsaw, Poland on March 25, 2021.

Jaap Arriens | NurPhoto | Getty Images

The United States will share 60 million doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine with other countries as coronavirus cases continue to rise worldwide, a senior US official said Monday.

Andy Slavitt, a senior advisor to President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 response team, said the U.S. government will share the AstraZeneca footage as it becomes available. The Food and Drug Administration has not yet approved the vaccine for use in the United States

The US will not distribute doses of the vaccine unless it meets FDA expectations for “product quality,” senior government officials told reporters during a news conference Monday.

The government believes the US could release 10 million doses of the vaccine “in the coming weeks” pending FDA approval, an official said. Another 50 million doses could be distributed in May and June, the official said.

“As part of the US strategy of being prepared for a number of scenarios, the US has already made some AstraZeneca cans,” the official said. “Given the strong portfolio of vaccines that the US already has, as mentioned earlier, and the fact that the AstraZeneca vaccine is not approved for use in the US, we don’t need to use AstraZeneca vaccine here for the next several months . “

The move comes as state and local health officials say supplies of Covid vaccines are starting to outperform demand in some regions of the United States

More than 139 million Americans, or 42.2% of the total US population, have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Around 94.7 million people, or 28.5% of the population, are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

According to CDC data, the rate of Covid vaccinations in the US fell over the weekend. The 7-day average of shots administered daily fell to 2.8 million on Sunday, the lowest level since late March.

U.S. health officials say the nation doesn’t need the AstraZeneca vaccine to meet its goal of having enough doses for all adults in the U.S. by the end of May.

Biden previously said he expected the US to share its surplus of vaccine doses with other countries. China and Russia have also shared vaccines with other countries.

A day earlier, the Biden government announced that it would immediately provide the raw materials needed to manufacture coronavirus vaccines in India as the country works to counter an increase in Covid-19 infections.

Over the past seven days, India has reported an average of 321,000 new Covid-19 cases per day, according to Johns Hopkins University, a 50% increase from a week. The country has an average of 2,300 Covid deaths per day, according to Hopkins data. Media reports indicate that the official number is underestimated.

Cases are also increasing worldwide. The World Health Organization said earlier this month the number of new Covid-19 cases per week has nearly doubled in the past two months, which has brought global infections to their pandemic peak.

The WHO has urged wealthier nations like the US to donate vaccines to poorer or developing countries.

– CNBC’s Nate Rattner and Amanda Macias contributed to this report.

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You Nonetheless Have Time to Ask Faculties for Extra Monetary Support

You Still Have Time to Ask Colleges for More Financial Aid

DeRionne Pollard, president of Montgomery College, a three-campus community college in Maryland, said using the SwiftStudent tool was invisible to grant officials, but helped the students create a clear, comprehensive appeal.

“It enables and empowers students to stand up for themselves,” said Dr. Pollard.

In a survey last fall, college financial aid advisors reported a “remarkable” increase in requests for professional assessment reviews, according to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. The group will conduct another survey next month to update their results.

Here are some questions and answers about financial support:

I am confused by my letters of help. How can I ensure that I am comparing offers correctly?

Colleges are encouraged to use standard auxiliary letter formats and avoid jargon, but not all do. Be careful to distinguish between “gift” aid such as grants and scholarships that do not have to be repaid and loans that do. Subtract the gift aid from the college’s cost of attendance – the total cost of tuition, housing, meals, books, and supplies – to get a net price. Do this for each school before considering how much of the cost you can recover from savings and income, and how much you would have to borrow to cover any deficits.

U.Aspire, a nonprofit committed to helping students afford college with less debt, has created a free online expense calculator that applicants can use to compare “apples to apples” offers of help. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also offers an online bid comparison tool and the Institute for College Access & Success has a leaflet.

And remember: you are under no obligation to borrow all or any of the loans included in your auxiliary letter, said Jessica Thompson, vice president at the institute. On the other hand, some colleges may not include the maximum federal student loan amount to which you are eligible. So if you think you may need to borrow more, give the financial help office a call to discuss your situation, she said.

What documents do I need to file an appeal?

Colleges differ in how they rate an appeal. But collect anything that indicates reduced hours or wages, such as letters from employers, pay slips or unemployment records, and medical bills to represent your case, Ms. Warick said.

Can I make a deposit in more than one college?

Colleges disapprove of this practice because you ultimately won’t be able to attend more than one college. If you make two deposits, another student – one on the waiting list or a late applicant – will not be offered a place, Hawkins said. It also affects less affluent applicants who may not be able to afford more than a security deposit. Therefore, members of the admissions advisory association advise against it, he said.

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Biden administration set to loosen up outside masks steering

Biden administration set to relax outdoor mask guidance

People wear face masks in Central Park on April 10, 2021 in New York City.

Noam Galai | Getty Images

WASHINGTON – The Biden government is scheduled to relax federal guidelines for wearing masks outdoors earlier this week, a source familiar with the plans told NBC News.

The announcement, which may come as early as Tuesday, could include separate recommendations for those fully vaccinated and those who have not received the coronavirus vaccine, added the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The administration is finalizing the guidelines, NBC reported.

Over the weekend, the White House Chief Medical Officer, Dr. However, Anthony Fauci, suggesting the new mask tour was imminent, also warned Americans should adhere to public health measures until the CDC does an assessment.

“What I think you’re going to hear, what the country is about to hear is updated guidelines from the CDC,” Fauci told ABC’s Sunday program “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”. “The CDC is a science-based organization. You don’t want to make guidelines unless you look at the data and the data back it up.”

“But if you look around in the common sense situation, the risk is very small, especially if you are vaccinated,” he said.

The CDC’s current guidance states, “Masks may not be required when you are alone outside of others or with people who live in your household.”

“However, some areas may have mask mandates when you are in public. So please check the rules in your area (such as your city, county, or state). Also, check for federal mask mandates where you are apply, “adds the agency.

A New York City waiter wears a face mask in a restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on November 10, 2020.

Noam Galai | Getty Images

Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Toronto, said he supported the expected guidance from the CDC. He added that further research shows that very few Covid-19 infections occur outdoors.

But masks should still be prescribed indoors until most of the US population is vaccinated and it is difficult for the virus to spread from one person to another.

“It’s been over a year. We have a very good understanding of who gets infected and how they get infected,” he told CNBC in a telephone interview. “I think it’s fair to say you don’t have to wear a mask outside unless you can’t maintain 2 meters or 6 feet of social distance.”

“Masking outdoors probably doesn’t provide any additional protection,” he added.

On Monday, Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC that he believed outdoor mask mandates were no longer necessary as the US vaccinated more people.

More than 42% of the US population have received at least one dose of vaccine, according to CDC data, including 28.5% who were fully vaccinated.

“People could choose to wear a mask if they want. I think there shouldn’t be any requirement that they wear masks outdoors,” the former commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration said on Squawk Box.

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Second Cryptocurrency Platform in Turkey Shuts Down: Dwell Updates

Outside a cryptocurrency exchange in Istanbul. Dozens of online cryptocurrency trading platforms have sprung up in Turkey in recent years, and the business is little regulated.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Chris Mcgrath/Getty Images

Turkish authorities arrested four employees of a cryptocurrency trading platform on suspicion of fraud after customer accounts were frozen, authorities said, the second collapse of a digital currency firm in Turkey within a week.

The collapse of Vebitcoin, one of dozens of cryptocurrency trading platforms that have sprung up in Turkey in recent years, came after the Thodex trading platform shut down last week, more than 60 of its employees were arrested, and its chief executive left the country.

Vebitcoin was a relatively small operation and the losses from it are unlikely to be big, said Turan Sert, who advises BlockchainIST, a cryptocurrency research center affiliated with Bahcesehir University in Istanbul.

Ilker Bas, the chief executive of Vebitcoin, told police after his arrest that the platform has 90,000 registered users and had a trading volume of 600 million lira to 800 million lira, or $72 million to $96 million, per month, the private news agency Demiroren reported. Customer losses are probably much smaller, because the same assets are typically traded repeatedly during the course of a month.

“Due to the recent developments in the crypto money industry, our transactions have become much more intense than expected,” Vebitcoin said on its website. “We have decided to cease our activities in order to fulfill all regulations and claims.”

Cryptocurrency trading is little regulated in Turkey, and the number of platforms has proliferated because of the relatively low cost of setting up. Off-the-shelf trading software costs around $100,000, said Mr. Sert, who also advises Paribu, one of the largest cryptocurrency trading platforms.

Mr. Sert estimated that there were more than 90 platforms, mostly “very small mom-and-pop shops.”

The phenomenon is by no means limited to Turkey. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Dogecoin have attracted the attention of serious investors and become a hot topic on Wall Street. Coinbase, a U.S.-based cryptocurrency trading platform, sold shares to the public for the first time this month and is valued by the stock market at $58 billion. Regulators in the United States and other countries have struggled to keep up with the fast growth of digital money.

The Turkish Central Bank barred the use of cryptocurrencies for purchases this month, citing their riskiness and popularity with criminals, and signaled that more regulation of the sector is coming. The prospect of greater scrutiny could be prompting some platforms to shut down, Mr. Sert said.

Customers of Thodex may have lost $2 billion, a lawyer for the firm’s clients said last week, but Mr. Sert said that figure probably referred to the site’s trading volume and greatly overstated the potential losses. Many platforms exaggerate their trading volume to attract customers, he said.

The total losses to cryptocurrency investors, while devastating to some individuals, are not large enough to push Turkey’s already shaky economy into crisis, Mr. Sert said.

“I don’t think this will create any instability in the system,” he said.

The gap between executive compensation and average worker pay has been growing for decades. Chief executives of big companies now make, on average, 320 times as much as their typical worker, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In 1989, that ratio was 61 to 1.

The pandemic compounded these disparities, as hundreds of companies awarded their leaders pay packages worth significantly more than most Americans will make in their entire lives, David Gelles reports for The New York Times.

In the course of his reporting, corporate public relations teams employed various tactics to justify their bosses’ big paydays:

  • A Hilton spokesman stressed that the figure in its latest proxy filing did not represent take-home pay for Chris Nassetta, because the company restructured several stock awards. “Said directly, Chris did not take home $55.9 million in 2020,” the spokesman said. “Chris’s actual pay was closer to $20.1 million.” Hilton lost $720 million last year.

  • Boeing wanted to make clear how much money Dave Calhoun “voluntarily elected to forgo to support the company through the Covid-19 pandemic” — some $3.6 million, according to a spokesman. Nonetheless, Mr. Calhoun was awarded $21.1 million last year, while Boeing lost $12 billion.

  • Starbucks, which awarded Kevin Johnson $14.7 million, was among many companies making the case that their chief executive was essential to future success. “Continuity in Kevin’s role is particularly vital to Starbucks at this time,” said Mary Dillon, a member of the compensation committee. The company made a $930 million profit in its latest fiscal year, down three-quarters from the previous year.

Technical glitches marred the Small Business Association’s first attempt at accepting applications for the grant program.Credit…Zack Wittman for The New York Times

Music club operators, theater owners and others in the live-event market have been waiting nearly four months for a $16 billion federal grant fund for their industry to start taking applications. Their hopes were briefly raised two weeks ago when the program’s application website opened, then dashed as a technical malfunction prevented the site from accepting any applications.

Now, the Small Business Administration, the federal agency that runs the program, plans to try again on Monday at noon — but only after one last round of confusion and frustration.

Late Thursday, the agency announced that it would reopen its application system for the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant on Saturday. After heavy pushback from angry applicants — especially Jewish business owners who do not use electronics on Saturdays in observation of the Sabbath — the agency changed course Friday night and rescheduled the reopening for Monday.

“We understand the challenges a weekend opening would bring, and to ensure the greatest number of businesses can apply for these funds, we decided to reschedule,” the agency said in a statement. “We remain committed to delivering economic aid to this hard-hit sector quickly and efficiently.”

The money will be awarded on a first-come-first-served basis and is widely expected to run out fast. That means many applicants will feel pressure to submit paperwork as soon as the application system opens — even if it is at an inconvenient time.

Applicants were generally relieved by the shift to Monday, but annoyed by the whiplash.

“It’s been a mess on so many levels. I feel like they’re torturing us,” said Dani Zoldan, the owner of Stand Up NY, a comedy club in Manhattan. Mr. Zoldan is Jewish and had been vocal on Twitter about the obstacles of a Saturday start.

The National Independent Venue Association, an industry group that lobbied for the relief fund, said it endorsed the decision to postpone the start.

“While we’re all anxious to apply as soon as possible, we support the S.B.A.’s decision to reopen the portal Monday and encourage a fair and equitable process for all,” said Audrey Fix Schaefer, a spokeswoman for the group. “The S.B.A. has responded to our desperate need and we’re grateful for that.”

The Small Business Administration is also preparing to open a second grant program, the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which is a $28.6 billion support fund for bars, restaurants and food trucks. That program is planning a seven-day test to help the agency avoid the kind of technical problems that plagued the venue program.

A Meituan delivery worker in Shanghai. Last year the firm made more than 27 million food-delivery transactions per day.Credit…Aly Song/Reuters

China’s fast-moving campaign to rein in its internet giants is continuing apace with an antitrust investigation into Meituan, a leading food-delivery app.

The investigation, which the country’s market regulator announced with a terse, one-line statement on Monday, focuses on reports that the company blocked restaurants and other merchants on its platform from selling on rival food-delivery sites.

Earlier this month, the regulator imposed a record $2.8 billion fine on the e-commerce titan Alibaba for exclusivity requirements of this sort. In a statement on Chinese social media, Meituan said that it would cooperate with the authorities and that its operations were continuing as usual.

Meituan is a powerhouse in China. It made more than 27 million food-delivery transactions a day last year and reported around $18 billion in revenue, making it larger than Uber by sales. Meituan’s main rival in takeout delivery in China is Ele.me, a service owned by Alibaba.

Alibaba has been an early major target in China’s efforts to curb what officials describe as unfair competitive practices in the internet industry. But Beijing has made clear that it will be keeping a much closer eye on all of the sector’s biggest and richest companies.

Meituan was one of 34 Chinese internet firms that were summoned to meet with the antitrust authority this month. The following day, the regulator began publishing on its website statements from the companies, Meituan included, in which they vowed to obey laws and regulations.

Bodies awaiting cremation on Friday in East Delhi.Credit…Atul Loke for The New York Times

NEW DELHI — With a devastating second wave of Covid-19 sweeping across India and lifesaving supplemental oxygen in short supply, India’s government on Sunday said it had ordered Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to take down dozens of social media posts critical of its handling of the pandemic.

The order was aimed at roughly 100 posts that included critiques from opposition politicians and calls for Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, to resign. The government said that the posts could incite panic, used images out of context and could hinder its response to the pandemic.

The companies complied with the requests for now, in part by making the posts invisible to those using the sites inside India. In the past, the companies have reposted some content after determining that it didn’t break the law.

The takedown orders come as India’s public health crisis spirals into a political one, and set the stage for a widening struggle between American social media platforms and Mr. Modi’s government over who decides what can be said online.

On Monday, the country reported almost 353,000 new infections and 2,812 deaths, marking the fifth consecutive day it set a world record in daily infection statistics, though experts warn that the true numbers are probably much higher. The country now accounts for almost half of all new cases globally. Its health system appears to be teetering. Hospitals across the country have scrambled to get enough oxygen for patients.

In New Delhi, the capital, hospitals this weekend turned away patients after running out of oxygen and beds. Last week, at least 22 patients were killed in a hospital in the city of Nashik, after a leak cut off their oxygen supplies.

Online photos of bodies on plywood hospital beds and the countless fires of overworked crematories have gone viral. Desperate patients and their families have pleaded online for help from the government, horrifying an international audience.

Mr. Modi has been under attack for ignoring the advice of experts about the risks of loosening restrictions, after he held large political rallies with little regard for social distancing. Some of the content now offline in India highlighted that contradiction, using lurid images to contrast Mr. Modi’s rallies with the flames of funeral pyres.

People waiting to get vaccinated in New Orleans this month.Credit…Emily Kask for The New York Times

More than five million Americans, or nearly 8 percent of those who got a first shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, have missed their second doses, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is more than double the rate among people who got inoculated in the first several weeks of the nationwide vaccination campaign.

Even as the country wrestles with the problem of millions of people who are wary about getting vaccinated at all, local health officials are confronting a new challenge of ensuring that those who do get inoculated are doing so fully, Rebecca Robbins reports for The New York Times.

The reasons that people are missing their second shots vary. In interviews, some said they feared the side effects, including flulike symptoms, which were more common and stronger after the second dose. Others said they felt that they were sufficiently protected with a single shot.

Those attitudes were expected, but another hurdle has been surprisingly prevalent. A number of vaccine providers have canceled second-dose appointments because they ran out of supply or didn’t have the right brand in stock.

Walgreens, one of the biggest vaccine providers, sent some people who got a first shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine to get their second doses at pharmacies that had only the other vaccine on hand.

Several Walgreens customers said in interviews that they scrambled, in some cases with help from pharmacy staff members, to find somewhere to get the correct second dose. Others, presumably, simply gave up.

A makeshift ward for Covid-19 patients in Delhi. The rollout of vaccinations has been uneven around the world, allowing the disease to run rampant in some countries.Credit…Atul Loke for The New York Times

  • U.S. stocks were expected to fall on Monday with oil prices amid a surge in coronavirus cases, led by the outbreak in India. More the one billion vaccinations have been administered globally, but the uneven rollout has allowed the virus to continue spreading rapidly in some countries. And so, the daily average number of cases globally has reached a new high.

  • Futures on West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark, fell 1.8 percent to $61 a barrel. The S&P 500 index was set to open 0.3 percent lower when trading begins, after falling 0.3 percent last week.

  • European stocks are mixed and the benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 index was little changed.

  • Still, stocks remained close to recent record highs, and on Monday, yields on U.S. Treasury bonds rose. The yield on 10-year notes climbed 3 basis points to 1.59 percent. Later this week, the Federal Reserve will announce its latest monetary policy decisions, but forecasters aren’t expecting a change. Policymakers have promised to telegraph any pull back in monetary stimulus well in advance.

  • Late last week, stocks on Wall Street rebounded from the news that the Biden administration was considering raising taxes on the wealthy, including nearly doubling the capital gains tax.

  • “With a lot of good news already priced into markets, stocks could be vulnerable to negative surprises, whether from growth disappointments, higher inflation, or policy missteps,” strategists at UBS Global Wealth Management wrote in a note.

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Tesla experiences earnings this afternoon. Merchants share whether or not it is a purchase

Tesla reports earnings this afternoon. Traders share whether it's a buy

Tesla has had a wild week.

The automaker is under investigation in the United States after a fatal accident in Texas and criticized in China after a woman protested at a major auto show.

Morgan Stanley is sticking to the stock. Analyst Adam Jonas raised his target price to $ 900, which is an upward trend of 23%. The stock closed at $ 729.40 on Friday.

All of this came before the Monday afternoon win. Analysts expect a profit of 75 cents per share for the quarter ending in March compared to 25 cents in the previous year. according to FactSet. Revenue is said to have increased 75% to $ 10.48 billion.

Danielle Shay, director of options at Simpler Trading, says recent bad news surrounding the company has kept the stock under wraps.

“That actually puts it in a great position if you look at the earnings report. If you look at the way Tesla did on earnings – yes, last quarter they pulled out after earnings, but that was it Tesla had previously made a higher profit after doubling its share price throughout the quarter, “Shay told CNBC’s” Trading Nation “on Friday.

History should repeat itself this quarter, she predicts.

“It’s a great place to sell put credit spreads either at-the-money or out-of-the-money to really take advantage of this high implied volatility on all the Tesla news, and I’m looking for a stock that can trade higher according to the report “said Shay.

Even if things don’t go that way, Shay is still bullish on the stock. She says that every withdrawal is an opportunity to buy on weakness.

Craig Johnson, Chief Marketing Technician at Piper Sandler, is also a Tesla fan on his way to profit.

“The stock is still down 20% from its highs … [but] We broke the uptrend support line and in my view this is a stock to buy on the way to profit. If you look back at the quarterly profit deductions, you can see that this stock has bottomed out 70% of the time. “

Tesla’s parabolic spike in 2020 has resulted in medium growth this year. The stock gained 3% in 2021, trailing the S&P 500’s 11% gain

Disclaimer of liability

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To Be Tracked or Not? Apple Is Now Giving Us the Selection.

To Be Tracked or Not? Apple Is Now Giving Us the Choice.

Given a choice, would any of us want to be followed online to see more relevant digital ads?

We’ll find out in a moment.

On Monday, Apple plans to release iOS 14.5, one of the most anticipated software updates for iPhones and iPads in years. It includes a new privacy tool called App Tracking Transparency that gives us more control over how our data is shared.

Here’s how it works: when an app wants to track our activities in order to share information with third parties such as advertisers, a window will appear on our Apple device asking for our permission. If we say no, the app will have to stop monitoring and sharing our data.

A pop-up window might sound like a little design tweak, but it has caused an uproar in the online advertising industry. Above all, Facebook has gone on the warpath. Last year the social network launched a website and ran full-page ads in newspapers denouncing Apple’s privacy policy as harmful to small businesses.

A big motivator, of course, was that the privacy settings could affect Facebook’s own business. If we don’t let Facebook follow us, it will be more difficult for the company to see what we are shopping for or what we are doing in other apps, making it more difficult for brands to target us with ads (Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook) Executive, has denied his company’s business is being affected by Apple’s policies.)

“This is a big step in the right direction, if only because it makes Facebook work up a sweat,” said Gennie Gebhart, director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit.

But she added, “A big question is, will it work?”

Ms. Gebhart and other privacy professionals said Apple’s new feature may not be enough to end dodgy tracking on iPhones. It could just make developers and ad tech firms find loopholes so they can keep tracking people in different ways, she and others said.

I’ve been testing early versions of iOS 14.5 for about two months to get used to the new privacy controls and other new features. Few developers have tested the pop-up with the public, so my understanding of how well the privacy feature works has been limited.

However, I’ve found that iOS 14.5 has other important new features as well. One of them is the ability to use Siri to work with a music player other than Apple Music like Spotify. That’s a big deal: in the past, you could only ask Siri to play songs through Apple Music, so the voice assistant wasn’t that useful for those who preferred other music services.

Here’s what you need to know about Apple’s new software:

It’s important to understand how tracking works in apps.

For example, let’s say you’re using a shopping app looking for a blender. You look at a Brand X mixer and close the app. Later on, ads for this mixer will be shown on other mobile apps like Facebook and Instagram.

Here’s what happened: The shopping app hired an ad tech company to embed trackers into the app. These trackers checked information on your device to identify you. If you’ve opened other apps that work with the same ad tech company, those apps were able to identify you and serve you ads for Brand X’s mixer.

With Apple’s new data protection feature, you can decide if this should happen. Now when you open some apps, a pop-up window will appear: “Allow [App Name] to track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites? “You can choose between ‘Don’t track the app’ or ‘Allow’.

Let us help you protect your digital life

If we select “Don’t Track App”, two things happen. The first is that Apple is preventing the app from using an Apple device identifier, a random sequence of letters and numbers assigned to our iPhones that is used to track our activity across apps and websites. The second is that we are telling the app developer that, by and large, we do not want our information to be tracked and in any way shared with anyone.

That seems easy. But # 2 is where things get a little complicated too.

Ad tech companies already have many ways to follow us beyond Apple’s device identifier. For example, advertisers can use a method called fingerprinting. This involves looking at seemingly innocuous features of your device – like screen resolution, operating system version and model – and combining them to determine your identity and track you across different apps.

According to data protection researchers, it is difficult for Apple to block all tracking and fingerprints taking place on iPhones. This would require knowing or predicting any new tracking method that an ad tech company is developing.

“From a tech point of view, there’s not much you can do” to stop such tracking, said Mike Audi, founder of Tiki, an app that lets you see what other apps are doing with your data.

However, the change in data protection is still significant, as we are expressly asked for consent. If we tell apps that we don’t want to be tracked and continue to do so, Apple can ban the perpetrators from the App Store.

The pop-up window also makes it easier for people to discover privacy controls, said Stephanie Nguyen, a researcher who has studied user experience design and privacy. In the past, iPhone owners could prevent advertisers from tracking them, but the tools to do that were buried in settings that most people didn’t look at.

“The option was available before, but really, wasn’t it?” Ms. Nguyen said. “It’s a big change – making it visible.”

Starting this week, all apps with tracking behavior must include the App Tracking Transparency pop-up in their next software updates. That means we’ll likely see a small number of apps asking for permission to track us initially, with the number increasing over time as more apps are updated.

Apple’s new software also includes two other interesting new features: the ability to play audio with Siri using a third-party app like Spotify, and the option to quickly unlock an iPhone while wearing a mask.

For many, these will feel long overdue. Siri has generally only worked with Apple Music for music playback since 2015. This is annoying and inconvenient for those who want to use the voice assistant to play songs with other music apps. The change comes because the antitrust investigation decides whether Apple suppresses competition by giving preference to its own apps.

You don’t need to change any settings for Siri to work with other audio services. If you usually listen to music using a third-party app like Spotify, over time Siri will simply find that you prefer that app and act accordingly. (Audio app developers need to program their apps to support Siri. If they haven’t already, this won’t work.) So if you always use Spotify to play music, you can say, “Hey Siri, play the Beatles ”to play a Beatles playlist on Spotify.

The other new feature helps in solving a pandemic problem. For more than a year now, wearing a mask has been especially annoying for owners of newer iPhones with face scanners to unlock the device. That’s because the iPhone camera couldn’t see our covered cups. Apple’s iOS 14.5 finally offers a mechanism to unlock the phone while in a masked state, although it does require wearing an Apple Watch.

Here’s how it works: when you scan your face and the phone finds that it can’t recognize you because your mouth and nose are blocked, it will check that your Apple Watch is unlocked and nearby. The Apple Watch practically acts as proof that you are the one trying to unlock your phone.

For this to work, update the software on your iPhone and Apple Watch and open the Settings app on your iPhone. Scroll down to “Face ID & Passcode”. Go to “Unlock with Apple Watch” in this menu and enable the option to unlock with your Apple Watch if the image scanner detects your face with a mask.

The next time you’re at the grocery store and look at your phone, your watch will vibrate once and unlock your phone. Sweet relief.

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UAE may keep on UK’s journey purple listing indefinitely, stoking confusion

UAE could stay on UK's travel red list indefinitely, stoking confusion

Dubai is known for its modern architecture, including the Burj Khalifa, which is almost twice as tall as the Empire State Building at 2,700 feet.

Fraser Hall | The image database | Getty Images

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The United Arab Emirates’ potentially indeterminate status on the UK’s “Red List” for travel has created anger and confusion, made more uncertain by recent statements from the UK government.

UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps pointed out that due to its status as an international transport hub, the UAE could remain on the UK red list despite falling infection trends and the world’s second fastest vaccination campaign.

“We are not restricting the UAE due to the coronavirus level in the UAE,” Shapps said at an aviation event on Wednesday. “The problem is that of transit.”

The comments were sharply criticized by Emirates President Tim Clark: “It makes no sense to keep us on the ‘Red List’ for transit reasons, as (passengers) can easily pass through other hubs,” he said at a recent online event. “It puts our operations in the UK at risk for Emirates. It’s a shame if they keep us on the red list.”

Inclusion on the UK Red List comes at a high price and has real ramifications for the 120,000 Britons living in the Gulf State and their families. Anyone entering the UK from a Red List country must be quarantined in a government approved hotel and pay their own room and board expenses for 10 days at a cost of £ 1,750 (US $ 2,428) per person.

“When someone asks me about my home, I cry,” said a British national who works in Dubai and has not seen her family in the UK since mid-2020.

“The ambiguity is unbearable,” said the source, who asked not to be identified due to job restrictions. “It is much easier to find and maintain a balance in your life when you have a plan in place. Changing positions in the UK makes this impossible and is so detrimental to people’s wellbeing.”

People are waiting for their turn to be vaccinated against the coronavirus on February 3, 2021 at a vaccination center at the Dubai International Financial Center in the Gulf emirate of Dubai. The UAE has administered more than a quarter of at least three million doses to its population.

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The UK’s red list, banning air travel or imposing costly quarantine on arrival, currently lists 40 high-risk countries considered too dangerous to travel, including India, where new infections have skyrocketed to over 300,000 cases per day are.

The UAE remains on the list, although infection rates drop to around 2,000 cases per day. Abu Dhabi has now put Great Britain on its own “green” list of travel destinations.

CNBC has asked the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth Office for comment.

Growing support

A petition to remove the UAE from the UK Red List had received over 8,500 signatures on April 26, amid growing frustration over travel restrictions and quarantine costs on one of the world’s busiest air routes.

“I want the government to remove the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from the red list by the summer so that travelers can visit the safe country without being quarantined in a hotel on their return,” wrote petitioner Mikael Aziz.

The UK government must respond if the petition receives 10,000 or more signatures.

“You need to rethink Dubai’s red list. Most of the UK citizens who work there are fully vaccinated and should be allowed to travel to the UK. You could have a PCR test before and when you arrive.” Twitter user @ DawnWilson2606 tweeted to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Any decision to remove the UAE from the Red List is made even more difficult by the different restrictions between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The UAE’s most populous emirates have enforced separate access, travel, testing, and quarantine rules since the pandemic began – despite being less than a two-hour drive away from each other.

Removal of the red list “as soon as it is feasible”

Amid criticism and confusion over recent travel restrictions, there are indications that the 10 million desert sheikh dome, which is predominantly overseas, could still be removed from the red list.

“We are working very closely with the UAE authorities to ensure that we can remove the UAE from the red list as soon as possible,” said Simon Penney, British Consul General in Dubai and Trade Commissioner in the Middle East. Penney’s comments came on April 21st, the same day as Shapp’s suggestion that the UAE could remain on the red list.

The UK government is expected to review its ban on non-essential international travel from May 17th. However, it is unclear which targets will receive approval.

Commuters cross London Bridge at sunrise on March 1, 2021 in London, England.

Hollie Adams | Getty Images

“It is too early today to say which countries are on the green list and which are not, and we have to wait until early May before we have any further clarification,” said Penney during an interview with a radio station in Dubai

“The decisions made are driven by data and science. The keys to this are the launch of the vaccine, the number of daily cases and the prevalence of harmful variants,” he added.

The UK Foreign Office said it “advises against all travel across the UAE based on the current COVID-19 risk assessment. The UAE outperforms most of the developed world in vaccine adoption by almost 40% of the population are fully vaccinated.

“Visitors who have been to the United Arab Emirates or have traveled through the United Arab Emirates in the past 10 days are not allowed in,” said an April 25 report.

“A travel corridor worth reopening”

“The positions of the countries on each other’s lists need not be reciprocal,” Rob Willock, director of the Economist Corporate Network advisory service, told CNBC on Sunday.

“Given that the UAE and the UK are second and third in the global vaccination league, and more than half of their populations have had at least one vaccine, one would imagine this is a travel corridor well worth it to be reopened. “

The UK, one of Dubai’s biggest tourist sources and a key itinerary for Emirates, removed the United Arab Emirates from its “safe travel corridor” in January as falls in Dubai skyrocketed after an influx of British travelers in November and December.

The UAE reported just over 2,000 new infections on Saturday. The country has so far given 9.9 million doses of vaccine.

US travel warnings

It is not just Britain that is holding back on opening up. The US added more than 100 countries to its Level 4: Do Not Travel list last week, including Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

“Things change, and they will change over time,” IATA director general Willie Walsh told CNBC when asked if the State Department misunderstood the advice.

Certain countries on the American list also have their own restrictions on travel by foreigners, while others allow entry by air with proof of vaccination and a negative Covid test or other criteria.

“We’re not suggesting that you lift all restrictions now,” said Walsh. “We urge governments to come up with a plan that will give an indication of when they believe international air travel will start and how international air travel should work when things start moving again.”

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Business

Is an Activist’s Dear Home Information? Fb Alone Decides.

Is an Activist’s Pricey House News? Facebook Alone Decides.

The Post’s editors wrote that Facebook and other social media companies “claim to be” neutral “and that they are not making editorial decisions to ward off cynical regulations or legal responsibilities that jeopardize their profits. But they act as publishers – only very bad ones. “

Updated

April 25, 2021, 5:35 p.m. ET

Of course you need one to know one. The Post, always a mix of strong local news, big gossip and conservative politics, is currently bidding for the title of the worst newspaper in America. It has published a number of scary stories about Covid vaccines, the culmination of which was a headline linking vaccines to herpes, part of a broader effort to expand its digital reach. Great stuff if your looking for traffic in anti-vax telegram groups. The piece about the Black Lives Matter activist that blocked Facebook was pretty weak too. Without evidence, she assumed that her fortune had gone bad and mostly just scoffed at how “the self-described Marxist bought a house for $ 1.4 million last month.”

But then you probably hated a story about someone you didn’t like buying an expensive house. For example, when Lachlan Murdoch, the co-chair of the Post’s parent company, bought the most expensive house in Los Angeles, it received wide and occasionally derisive coverage. Maybe Mr. Murdoch didn’t know he could have the stories deleted from Facebook.

Facebook does not maintain a central register of news articles being deleted for these reasons, although the service also blocked a Daily Mail article about the Black Lives Matter activist’s real estate. And it doesn’t keep track of how many news articles it blocked, though it regularly deletes offensive posts from individuals, including photos of the home of Fox News star Tucker Carlson, a Facebook employee said.

The conflict between Facebook and The Post really showed – and what surprised me – that the platform doesn’t postpone news organizations at all when it comes to judging news. A decision by the Post or the New York Times that someone’s personal assets are current will not affect the company’s opaque enforcement mechanisms. Nor did Facebook’s attorney say that there is a nebulous and reasonable human judgment that the country has found nervous over the past year, and that a black activist’s concern for her own safety was warranted. (The activist did not respond to my request, but mentioned in an Instagram post the coverage of her personal finances “doxxing” and a “tactic of terror”.)

The whole point of the Facebook bureaucracy is to replace human judgment with some kind of strict corporate law. “The policy in this case prioritizes security and privacy, and that enforcement shows how difficult these tradeoffs can be,” said Tucker Bounds, vice president of communications for the company. “To understand if our guidelines are in place, we refer the guidelines to the Oversight Board.”

The board is a promising type of supercourt that has not yet established a meaningful policy. So this rule could change at some point. (Let your stories be erased while you can!)

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Business

Pandemic booms and busts will make outcomes troublesome to gauge

Pandemic booms and busts will make results difficult to gauge

A shopper walks past shelves in a paper product aisle of a store in Burbank, California on November 19, 2020.

Robyn Beck | AFP | Getty Images

In a typical profitable season, the rules of the game for investors can be relatively simple: rising profits and strong year-on-year sales growth signal success.

This formula won’t work in the quarters to come.

Some companies, including Walmart and Dollar General, have started making challenging year-over-year comparisons. That means sales growth and ecommerce gains can look disappointing compared to the rising numbers during the height of the pandemic. Others, like clothing retailers like Macy’s and Kohl’s, major airlines like Delta Air Lines, and hotel chains like Wyndham, are facing growth that will look stunning compared to a time when malls were closed and nearing the bottom.

Due to the pandemic, investors will again be navigating in uncharted waters. You need to work out the importance of companies’ quarterly performance, as the way people lived, worked and spent a year ago skewed the numbers. And they need to filter out factors that reflect unusual times rather than sustained demand, such as shopping sprees fueled by stimulus checks and a reopening economy.

“Welcome to the upside-down world,” said Jharonne Martis, director of consumer research at Refinitiv. “We’ve never had a comparable time. What’s good doesn’t mean it’s good. And what’s negative could actually mean they are.” [the companies] well done.”

Customers shop in the meat department of the Kroger Marketplace in Versailles, Kentucky, USA on Tuesday, November 24th, 2020.

Scotty Perry | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Different approaches

Investors are excited to see how companies do on the rebound. The question is: compared to what?

Some pandemic beneficiaries like Dollar General and Kroger share a new metric: a two-year stack that ties comparable sales for the past year and this year. Comparable sales, also known as sales in the same store, are an industry term that measures year-on-year growth, with the exception of locations that are newly opened or renovated.

Dollar General, for example, saw above-average sales growth in the same store during the pandemic, but expects some of that to fade as consumers become more free to spend their dollars. For example, some shoppers went into stores and refilled larger baskets because they were stopping for safety reasons or because the competitors were temporarily closed.

CFO John Garratt said during a profit call that the discounter expects sales in the same store to decline 4% to 6% year over year. In two years, however, the same performance looks better: Dollar General expects sales in the same store to grow by around 10% to 12% over two years.

The airlines took a different approach and, depending on the data point, provided a mix of 2019 and 2020 comparisons in the results reports. Delta Air Lines attributed its approach to “the drastic and unprecedented impact of the pandemic”.

“Comparing our results from 2021 to 2019 will provide an understanding of the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the progress of our recovery,” the airline said.

The pandemic ravaged the travel industry perhaps more than any other, and US airlines combined lost more than $ 35 billion in 2020. The number of passengers dropped more than 60% to about 370 million people, the lowest number since 1984, and the airlines reduced flight operations In Response.

Demand for air travel has rebounded from the depths of the pandemic as more people are vaccinated, governments lift travel restrictions and open more tourist attractions, but it is still far from pre-pandemic levels as people continue to be largely on business and long haul forego international travel.

The Transportation Security Administration examined an average of 1.4 million people from April through Wednesday. That’s more than 13 times the 103,000 people screened a year ago when the US first closed, but it’s a 35% decrease over the same period in 2019.

Savanthi Syth, an airline analyst at Raymond James, said she’s comparing results and projections with 2019 but will use year-on-year comparisons next year. In a research report, she said comparing this year to 2019 “gives you an idea of ​​how 2021 compares to” normal “”.

Coca-Cola and CarMax have also compared their numbers with pre-pandemic numbers. Coke, in its call for a profit this week, stressed that global case volume fell back to 2019 levels in March, although aggregate demand in the first quarter was still below pre-health crisis levels as Europe and North America rebounded.

Bill Nash‌‍, CEO of CarMax, said the used car dealer’s “very volatile year” reflected government restrictions, not consumer demand. Because of this, on a earnings call earlier this month, he said 2019 was a better reference point.

For example, he said, CarMax’s California locations lagged significantly behind the rest of the company as the state’s demand for lower occupancy restricted customer pedestrian traffic – and ultimately revenue.

“Smooth”

When companies excavated from the global financial crisis in 2010, there were unusually high growth rates, said John Butters, senior earnings analyst at FactSet. Just like then, investors need to “keep the growth rate in context”.

“The result is improving, but you are comparing it to a very weak base and so some of those numbers are much larger than we normally see,” he said.

After the pandemic, however, there will be different groups: companies that are booming from extremely weak sales and companies that have slowed or worsened sales growth as the pandemic tailwind wears off, and possibly a third group: companies that have the Maintain momentum.

Martis from Refinitiv pointed out two examples that capture this “wrong” dynamic. Delta’s revenue growth rate is expected to more than quadruple year over year in the second quarter of fiscal year, according to Refinitiv. However, estimated revenue for the quarter is $ 6.22 billion – less than half of the $ 12.54 billion reported in the same quarter of 2019 before the pandemic.

On the other hand, Walmart’s revenue growth rate is expected to decline 2.2% year over year in the first quarter of fiscal year – a decline that usually indicates weakness and is cause for concern. However, the estimated revenue of $ 131.66 billion is likely to be higher than the pre-pandemic revenue of $ 123.93 billion in the same quarter of 2019.

Even so, Refinitiv doesn’t plan to use two-year stacks, Martis said.

“It masks the dramatic changes we see in percentage changes. It smooths them out,” she said. “But it really doesn’t compare to the old days.”

Martis and Butters both said their financial data firms would instead try to explain what the numbers mean – and how to jump or drop off sharply with a grain of salt.

She said she saw 2021 as a year of transition. She anticipates consumption patterns to evolve rather than snap back as people gradually start receiving vaccines, becoming comfortable in changing rooms again, or realizing the need to buy new pairs of shoes or work clothes. It could be early next year for companies and investors to see more predictable patterns, she said.

“2021 is almost like pressing a reset button,” she said.

“Your worst enemy”

For many, the worst pandemic comparisons won’t begin until the second quarter, said Matt Miskin, co-chief investment strategist at John Hancock Investment Management. Only a week or two of home behavior were recorded in the first calendar quarter.

First, he said, the comparisons will make some companies that have seen a sharp downtrend during the pandemic look good – only to potentially bite them when spending patterns turn into some sort of normal. For home based businesses, this will come first. It could kick in again for those experiencing a shopping spree in 2021 that will cool off in 2022.

“The comps will go from your best friend to your worst enemy,” he said.

Other data points will also be meaningful, said Martis of Refinitiv. Among them, she said, is e-commerce growth. She will see retailers cling to recent profits. She said she’ll also watch companies’ margins to see how much money everyone can make. This will show whether discounts were needed to move goods and whether retailers learned to juggle brick and mortar and online stores efficiently.

Forecasts are back

Butters of FactSet said it would help if many companies returned to forecasting – something that was largely discontinued last year. The analysts’ guidelines and estimates provide helpful benchmarks, and it remains a positive sign if companies can outperform these benchmarks.

Even more than in the past, assessing a company’s strengths or weaknesses will be “a very company-specific task,” said Zack Fadem, senior equity analyst at Wells Fargo. The background for the industry is different, he said. Some companies are in hot sectors – like home improvement retailers – who will continue to benefit from the real estate market even as the pandemic-induced “nesting” subsides. For these, he said, the “wall of concern” could be postponed until next year for comparable numbers.

Also, consumer spending could rise across the board if Americans put money they put in savings or received from the government. He said if the overall pie is growing, it’s important to compare a company to its competitors and see if its market share grows or shrinks.

“With the benefits of incentives and heavy consumers, you have to comb through other sounds to see if business has gotten better or worse,” he said.

– CNBC’s Leslie Josephs contributed to this story. Nate Rattner contributed to the data visualization.