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Yellen Pushes for World Minimal Tax Fee on Corporations: Dwell Updates

Janet L. Yellen made the case for a global minimum tax during a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

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Credit…Andrew Harnik/Associated Press

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen made the case on Monday for a global minimum tax, kicking off the Biden administration’s effort to help raise revenue in the United States and prevent companies from shifting profits overseas to evade taxes.

Ms. Yellen, in a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, called for global coordination on an international tax rate that would apply to multinational corporations regardless of where they locate their headquarters. Such a global tax could help prevent the type of “race to the bottom” that has been underway, Ms. Yellen said, referring to countries trying to outdo one another by lowering tax rates in order to attract business.

Her remarks came as the White House and Democrats in Congress begin looking for ways to pay for President Biden’s sweeping infrastructure plan to rebuild America’s roads, bridges, water systems and electric grid.

“Competitiveness is about more than how U.S.-headquartered companies fare against other companies in global merger and acquisition bids,” Ms. Yellen said. “It is about making sure that governments have stable tax systems that raise sufficient revenue to invest in essential public goods and respond to crises, and that all citizens fairly share the burden of financing government.”

The speech represented Ms. Yellen’s most extensive comments since taking over as Treasury secretary, and she underscored the scope of the challenge ahead.

“Over the last four years, we have seen firsthand what happens when America steps back from the global stage,” Ms. Yellen said. “America first must never mean America alone.”

Ms. Yellen also highlighted her priorities of combating climate change and reducing global poverty and underscored the importance of the United States helping to lead the world out of the crisis caused by the pandemic. Ms. Yellen called on countries not to pull back on fiscal support too soon and warned of growing global imbalances if some countries do withdraw before the crisis is over.

In a sharp break with the administration of former President Donald J. Trump, Ms. Yellen emphasized the importance of the United States working closely with its allies, noting that the fortunes of countries around the world are intertwined.

Overhauling the international tax system is a big part of that. Corporate tax rates have been falling around the world in recent years. Under the Trump administration, the rate in the United States was cut from 35 percent to 21 percent. Mr. Biden wants to raise that rate to 28 percent and increase the international minimum tax rate that American companies pay on their foreign profits to 21 percent.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in coordination with the United States, has been working to develop a new international tax architecture that would include a global minimum tax rate for multinational corporations as part of its effort to curtail profit shifting and tax base erosion.

Ms. Yellen said she is working with her counterparts in the Group of 20 advanced nations on changes to the global tax system that will help prevent businesses from shifting profits to low-tax jurisdictions.

“President Biden’s proposals announced last week call for bold domestic action, including to raise the U.S. minimum tax rate, and renewed international engagement, recognizing that it is important to work with other countries to end the pressures of tax competition and corporate tax base erosion,” Ms. Yellen said. “We are working with G20 nations to agree to a global minimum corporate tax rate that can stop the race to the bottom.”

Norwegian Cruise Line outlined a plan on Monday to start cruises in July.Credit…Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued long-awaited technical guidance for cruise lines on Friday, bringing them one step closer to sailing again in United States waters.

While some cruise lines operating in Europe have been requiring all passengers to be vaccinated, the C.D.C. did not go that far. Vaccination will be critical in the safe resumption of cruising, the agency said, and it recommended that all eligible port personnel, crew and passengers get a Covid-19 vaccine as soon as one becomes available to them.

By making vaccinations a recommendation instead of a requirement, the C.D.C. has avoided conflict with Florida, one of the cruise industry’s biggest bases of operations, which has banned businesses from requiring customers to show proof of vaccinations.

Cruise ships in the U.S. have been docked for over a year because of the pandemic and can only restart operations by following the C.D.C.’s Framework for Conditional Sailing Order, issued in October to ensure that cruise ships build the onboard infrastructure needed to mitigate the risks of the coronavirus.

The technical instructions will allow cruise lines to prepare their ships for simulation voyages, designed to test health and safety protocols and operational procedures with volunteers before sailing with paying passengers.

The new recommendations include increasing from weekly to daily the reporting of Covid-19 cases, implementing routine testing of all crew based on a ship’s Covid-19 status and making contractual arrangements with medical facilities on shore for passengers who may fall ill during a voyage.

Once cruise lines have prepared their ships, they must give 30 days notice to the C.D.C. before starting test cruises and will have to apply for a conditional sailing certificate 60 days before a planned regular voyage.

Norwegian Cruise Line, one of the industry’s biggest operators, submitted a letter to the C.D.C. on Monday outlining its plan to resume cruises from U.S. ports in July, which included mandatory vaccination of all guests and crew. The company said that its vaccination requirement and multilayered health and safety protocols exceeded the agency’s Conditional Sailing Order requirements.

Some big employers are making plans to call employees back to the office, but others are waiting.Credit…Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times

At one point the target was the start of 2021. Then it was bumped to July. Now September is the new goal that many companies have marked on the calendar for bringing back office workers who have been working remotely for the past year.

Maybe. Companies are wary of setting hard deadlines, recent reporting by The New York Times found. Some corporations are reopening offices in the spring, while many are saying they will remain flexible, will stage returns over several months and will allow some workers to continue to work from home for a few days a week or more. As nerve-racking as it was for people last year to be abruptly torn from their desks, many people find the prospect of returning distressing.

Here is what some of the country’s biggest companies are telling workers.

Ford, which has more than 30,000 employees in the United States working remotely because of the pandemic, said in March that it would transition to a “flexible hybrid work model.” The company plans to let people stay home for focused work and come into the office for activities that require teamwork. The new protocol will start in July, when the company, which has its main campus in Dearborn, Mich., expects to gradually start bringing more employees back.

IBM, which employs about 346,000 people, hasn’t set a strict timeline for when its U.S. workers will return to the office. It expects about 80 percent of its employees to work with some combination of remote and office schedules, depending largely on role.

The bank, which has more than 20,000 office employees in New York City, has told employees that the five-day office workweek is a relic. It is considering a rotational work model, meaning employees would switch between working remotely and in the office.

The consulting firm formerly known as PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has about 284,000 employees, is set to open one office in each of its major cities in May and all of its offices in September. Even when the offices are formally reopened, PwC will allow some workers, depending on their job, to work remotely at least part time.

Most of Walmart’s 1.5 million employees work at the retail giant’s stores, and a vast number have continued to go into work throughout the pandemic. It said on March 12 that it would start bringing workers back at its Bentonville, Ark., office campus no earlier than July. Its global technology employees will continue to work virtually “for the long-term.”

At Wells Fargo, 60,000 employees worked at bank branches and other facilities during the pandemic, but 200,000 more worked remotely. The company told its staff in a memo last month that it had set a Sept. 6 return-to-office target and was “optimistic” that conditions surrounding Covid-19 vaccinations and case levels would allow it to keep it.

Ed Bastian, the chief executive of Delta Air Lines, abandoned all pretense of neutrality last week about the Georgia voting law. “The entire rationale for this bill was based on a lie,” he told employees.Credit…Etienne Laurent/EPA, via Shutterstock

Corporations have increasingly taken social and political stands, often spurred by the policies of former President Donald J. Trump. But the fight over voting laws, like the one recently passed in Georgia that restricts ballot access in several ways, has again thrust big businesses into partisan politics, pulled by Democrats focused on social justice and Republicans who have proven willing to punish those that cross them.

It presents a “head-spinning new landscape for big companies,” The New York Times’s David Gelles writes.

In Georgia, Delta tried to stay out of the fight at first. The airline is the state’s largest employer, and civil rights activists reached out to the company in February, flagging what they saw as problematic provisions in the Georgia voting law. The next month, Delta’s lobbyists pushed state lawmakers to remove some of the provisions, although Ed Bastian, the carrier’s chief executive, spoke out only in general terms until the bill was passed.

Then a group of more than 70 Black executives published a letter decrying the law and others like it in the works. The former American Express chief executive Kenneth Chenault, who is Black, spoke at length with Mr. Bastian. Mr. Bastian wrote a strongly worded memo that was sent to staff members the next morning, expressing “crystal clear” opposition to the law, which he said was “based on a lie.” Coca-Cola’s James Quincey quickly followed. The companies subsequently faced more criticism from Republican leaders than did other big Atlanta employers, like Home Depot and UPS, that stuck to less-specific statements about voting rights.

More fallout from the Georgia law:

  • Major League Baseball cited its opposition to “restrictions to the ballot box” as the reason for moving its All-Star Game out of Atlanta. Moving the game could cost Georgia over $100 million in tourism revenue, prompting the state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, to decry the move as a surrender to liberal activists.

  • Stacey Abrams, the prominent Georgia Democrat and voting rights activist, said she was “disappointed” by M.L.B.’s move and worried about the economic hit, but supported the league’s overall stance. The producer and actor Tyler Perry also fretted about collateral damage from boycotts even as he protested the law.

  • Trying to avoid a repeat in Texas, American Airlines and Dell have objected to a proposal that would restrict measures designed to make voting easier in the state. The statements were more forceful than Coke and Delta had initially been in Georgia. “To make American’s stance clear: We are strongly opposed to this bill and others like it,” the airline said.

By: Ella Koeze·Data delayed at least 15 minutes·Source: FactSet

Wall Street began the week on an upswing on Monday, climbing further into record territory, led by gains in travel and tourism stocks.

The S&P 500 climbed more than 1 percent, as did the Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq composite.

Norwegian Cruise Line jumped 8 percent after it submitted a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday outlining its plan to resume cruises from U.S. ports in July. Other cruise operators were also higher. The C.D.C. on Friday issued technical guidance for how cruises may resume.

Also sharply higher were shares of MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment and United Airlines.

Tesla jumped more than 6 percent in the wake of its report on Friday that it more than doubled the number of cars it delivered in the first quarter from the prior year. The electric carmaker sold 184,8000 vehicles in the first three months of the year, up from 88,500 a year ago. It produced 180,338 vehicles, compared with 102,672 in the first quarter of 2020.

Investors have heard a drumbeat of good economic news in recent days, and Monday was also the first chance stock investors on Wall Street had to react to employment figures released on Friday, as markets were closed that day for Good Friday. The Labor Department said that U.S. employers added 916,000 jobs in March, the biggest jump since August, with hiring in the hospitality, retailing and transportation sectors all rising.

On Monday, the Institute for Supply Management said economic activity in the services sector grew in March for the 10th month in a row.

Although a recent sharp rise in coronavirus cases does add a dose of uncertainty to the picture, few economists expect the impact of a new Covid-19 surge to be as severe as it was last year, thanks in large part to the rapid growth of vaccinations.

In other markets, yields on 10-year Treasury notes, which have been on an upward trajectory since October, have stabilized over the last few days. On Monday the yield was steady at 1.72 percent.

Oil prices fell. West Texas Intermediate dropped more than 3 percent to below $60 a barrel. Traders have been adjusting their positions since last Thursday’s decision by OPEC and its allies to slowly relax curbs on output. Those controls were put in place in response to the sharp decline in oil demand during the pandemic.

Stock markets were closed for holidays in China, Hong Kong and much of Europe. The Nikkei index in Japan rose 0.8 percent, to its highest level since mid-March, and the Kospi index in South Korea gained 0.3 percent.

Shaundell Newsome of Small Business for America’s Future said changes were needed throughout the banking industry to improve outcomes for Black owners.Credit…Bridget Bennett for The New York Times

The government’s central small business relief effort, the Paycheck Protection Program, has made $734 billion in forgivable loans to nearly seven million businesses. But minority-owned businesses were disproportionately underserved by the program, a New York Times analysis found.

“The focus at the outset was on speed, and it came at the expense of equity,” said Ashley Harrington, the federal advocacy director at the Center for Responsible Lending.

The aid program’s rules were mostly written on the fly, and reaching harder-to-serve businesses was an afterthought. Structural barriers and complicated, shifting requirements contributed to a skewed outcome, The New York Times’s Stacy Cowley reports.

In the program’s final weeks — it is scheduled to stop taking applications on May 31 — President Biden’s administration has tried to alter its trajectory with rule changes intended to funnel more money toward businesses led by women and minorities. But those revisions have run into their own obstacles, including the speed with which they were rushed through. Lenders, caught off guard, have struggled to carry them out.

“Historically, access to capital has been the leading concern of women- and minority-owned businesses to survive, and during this pandemic it has been no different,” Jenell Ross, who owns an auto dealership, told a House committee.

The United States is particularly important to the world economy because it has long spent more than it sells.Credit…Scott McIntyre for The New York Times

The United States and its record-setting stimulus spending could help haul a weakened Europe and struggling developing countries out of their own economic morass.

American buyers are spurring demand for German cars, Australian wine, Mexican auto parts and French fashions. And many Americans have spent their stimulus checks on video game consoles, exercise bicycles or other products made in China.

The United States’ comparatively fast recovery involved a little bit of luck — new variants of the virus have just begun to push domestic infections higher — and a large policy response, including more than $5 trillion in debt-fueled pandemic relief, The New York Times’s Jeanna Smialek and Jack Ewing report.

“When the U.S. economy is strong, that strength tends to support global activity as well,” said Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve.

But some hazards lurk. The slow pace of the European Union’s vaccination campaign will probably hurt its economy. Poorer and smaller countries, facing severely limited vaccine supplies and fewer resources to support government spending, are likely to struggle to stage an economic turnaround even if the U.S. recovery increases demand for their exports.

Chocolate is Britain’s second-largest food and drink export, after whiskey.Credit…Tom Jamieson for The New York Times

Small British chocolate makers emphasizing ethically sourced ingredients and bespoke batches became big sellers in Europe in recent years but have been nearly impossible to find there since January, David Segal reports for The New York Times.

“We have customers complain to us all the time, ‘Why can’t I buy my favorite British chocolate?’” said Hishem Ferjani, the founder of Choco Dealer in Bonn, Germany, which supplies grocery stores and sells through its own website. “We have store owners with empty shelves.”

“We have to explain, it’s not our fault, it’s not the fault of the producer. It’s Brexit,” he said.

Chocolate is Britain’s No. 2 food and drink export, after whiskey, according to the Food and Drink Federation. Chocolate exports to all countries hit $1.1 billion last year, and Europe accounts for about 70 percent of those sales. In January, exports of British chocolate to Europe fell 68 percent compared with the same period the year before.

The trade deal struck late last year with the European Union has not saved British companies from a maddening, unpredictable array of time-consuming, morale-sapping procedures and from stacks of paperwork that have turned exporting to the E.U. into a sort of black-box mystery. Goods go in and there is no telling when they will come out.

The Supreme Court in Washington.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

Around 50 groups have filed amicus briefs in a coming Supreme Court case pitting charities against the state of California in a fight over donation disclosures. A new brief from 15 Democratic senators explained how untraceable donations, or “dark money,” make their way into politics through social welfare charities. The senators warned that siding with the charities will increase the political influence of wealthy individuals and corporations, the DealBook newsletter reports.

The case was brought by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a “social welfare” nonprofit affiliated with the Koch network, against the state, which requires charities to privately disclose major donors in tax documents. The foundation says that anonymity is protected by the First Amendment and that disclosure could expose donors to threats. An appeals court sided with California, however, and the foundation wants the justices to reverse the ruling.

The Capitol riot on Jan. 6 put a spotlight on corporations’ direct and indirect political donations; justices agreed on Jan. 8 to hear the case and arguments will take place later this month.

Business interests want to create a “broad expansion of dark money rights,” the senators’ brief stated, referring to untraceable donations that are often routed via nonprofit groups. The court case is an influence campaign disguised as a technical legal fight, the senators said. The Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers are among the trade groups supporting the foundation’s demand for anonymity.

Anonymous donors work like covert intelligence operations, the senators wrote. The donors give millions annually to charities that spend it in an effort to influence politics and policy. The senators pointed to congressional appropriations rules blocking disclosure efforts by the I.R.S. and S.E.C. over the past decade as evidence that the groups have swayed lawmakers behind the scenes. They also cite the number of amicus briefs filed as evidence of this issue’s significance, noting that briefs are an element of the business lobby’s influence campaigns.

The federal government is siding with California, more or less, telling the justices in a brief that the charities’ constitutional claim is wrong but that the case should be sent back to the lower courts for more analysis.

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Inventory Market Right this moment: Dwell Updates on Jobs and Shopper Spending

An expanded measure of the jobless rate that adjusts for misclassified workers and those on the sidelines shows that the “real” rate was around 9.1 percent in March.

Here’s what you need to know:

The U.S. jobs rebound picked up steam last month, fueled by the accelerating pace of vaccinations and a new injection of federal aid.

Employers added 916,000 jobs in March, up from 416,000 in February and the most since August, the Labor Department said Friday. The leisure and hospitality sector led the way, adding 280,000 jobs as Americans returned to restaurants and resorts in greater numbers. Construction firms added 110,000 jobs as the housing market stayed strong and activity resumed following winter storms in February.

The unemployment rate fell to 6 percent, down from 6.2 percent in February.

“March’s jobs report is the most optimistic report since the pandemic began,” said Daniel Zhao, senior economist of the career site Glassdoor. “It’s not the largest gain in payrolls since the pandemic began, but it’s the first where it seems like the finish line is in sight.”

The report came one year after the pandemic ripped a hole in the American labor market. The U.S. economy lost 1.7 million jobs in March 2020 and more than 20 million in April, when the unemployment rate peaked at nearly 15 percent.

The job market bounced back quickly at first, but progress began to slow as virus cases surged and states reimposed restrictions on businesses. Over the winter, the recovery stalled out, with employers cutting more than 300,000 jobs in December.

Economists said the latest data marked a turning point. Last month was the third straight month of accelerating hiring, and even bigger gains are likely in the months ahead. The March data was collected early in the month, before most states broadened vaccine access and before most Americans began receiving $1,400 checks from the federal government as part of the most recent relief package.

“The tide is turning,” said Michelle Meyer, chief U.S. economist for Bank of America. The report, she said, “reaffirms this idea that the economy is accelerating meaningfully in the spring.”

The United States still has 8.4 million fewer jobs than it did before the pandemic. Even if employers kept hiring at the pace they did in March, it would take months to fill the gap. More than four million people have been out of work for more than six months, a number that continued rising in March.

And the virus remains a risk. Coronavirus cases are rising again in much of the country as states have begun easing restrictions. If that trend turns into a full-blown new wave of infections, it could force some states to backpedal, impeding the recovery.

But few economists expect a repeat of the winter, when a spike in Covid-19 cases pushed the recovery into reverse. More than a quarter of U.S. adults have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and more than two million people a day are being inoculated. That should allow economic activity to continue to rebound.

“This time is different, and that’s because of vaccines,” said Julia Pollak, a labor economist at the job site ZipRecruiter. “It’s real this time.”

Credit…Charles Krupa/Associated Press

The labor market is healing, pushing the unemployment rate steadily lower. But alternative measures of the job market show more weakness remaining than the most frequently cited data might suggest.

When the pandemic hit the economy, two big issues began to mess with the unemployment rate. A big chunk of people were classified as “employed but not at work” when they should have been counted as laid off. And many people dropped out of the labor market altogether. Since the unemployment rate only counts people who are actively applying to jobs, that means a lot of would-be workers were suddenly left out.

The jobless rate fell to 6 percent in March from a high of 14.8 percent in April, but that overstates the labor market’s healing. An expanded measure that adjusts for misclassified workers and those on the sidelines — using a methodology that closely tracks a gauge Federal Reserve officials often reference — shows that the “real” unemployment rate was around 9.1 percent in March.

To be sure, that expanded measure is down sharply from a peak of nearly 24 percent last April. But it shows the extent of the damage yet to be repaired since the pandemic shuttered broad parts of the economy in 2020.

Fed officials, who are tasked with returning the labor market to maximum employment, are keeping a close eye on broad measures of slack as they try to assess how far the job market remains from full strength. Another point they often raise is that total employment in the economy remains well below its prepandemic level — as of March, 8.4 million jobs were missing compared with February 2020.

“It’s just a lot of people who need to get back to work and it’s not going to happen overnight, it’s going to take some time,” Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, said at a news conference last month.

The stronger-than-expected job gains in March were also surprisingly broad-based.

Forecasters had expected the lifting of restrictions in Texas and other states to lead to a surge in hiring at restaurants, hotels and related businesses. They were right: The leisure and hospitality sector added 280,000 jobs.

But hiring was also strong in other industries. Retailers and wholesalers added more than 20,000 jobs apiece. Manufacturers added 53,000. Construction businesses added 110,000 as activity resumed after winter storms hit the South in February. Public and private education added a combined 190,000 jobs as schools reopened across the country.

Diane Swonk, chief economist at the accounting firm Grant Thornton, said the widespread gains showed that the recovery was being driven by more than just the reopening of previously shuttered businesses. Government aid has given Americans money to spend, and the confidence to spend it.

Businesses, too, appear to be growing more confident. Many of the jobs added in January and February were temporary positions, but in March, temporary staffing levels were essentially flat, indicating companies were filling permanent positions instead.

“That’s also a sign of optimism that the rebound we’re seeing will be sustained,” Ms. Swonk said.

Amy Glaser, senior vice president at the staffing firm Adecco, said that in recent weeks, a growing share of her clients had been looking for permanent employees, or converting temporary hires into permanent ones.

“Our conversations have really shifted even over the last six weeks,” she said. “We spent the last year doing a lot of worst-case-scenario planning with our clients, and now the conversation is the opposite — how do we capture the rebound to make the most effective use of it?”

The Saudi oil minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, is arguably the most powerful individual in the oil business. Credit…Ahmed Yosri/Reuters

For months, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, arguably the most powerful individual in the oil business, has urged his fellow producers to keep a tight rein on output, fearing additional crude could flood the world’s markets and cause prices to drop. At the same time, some producers, notably Russia, have been chafing to open the spigot a bit more.

On Thursday, the prince seemed to relent, as the group called OPEC Plus — the members of Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies like Russia — agreed to modest output increases over the next three months.

Analysts said the prince, who is the chair of OPEC Plus, appeared to be calculating that by appeasing other producers who want to produce more oil, he can remain in control over the longer term.

The prince repeated his go-slow message on Thursday, arguing that the global economic recovery from the pandemic remained fragile, and so his willingness to sign off on an increase came as something of a surprise. But the decision seemed to be an acknowledgment of the diversity of opinions within OPEC Plus, and that he must take the views of other key producers like Russia and the United Arab Emirates into account to maintain leadership and to keep them from going their own way.

“It is not my decision, it is everybody’s decision,” he said at a news conference after Thursday’s OPEC Plus meeting.

So far traders have signaled their approval by pushing up prices in what had been a weak market. On Friday, Brent crude, the international benchmark was up about 3.4 percent to $64.86 a barrel.

Under the deal agreed to on Thursday, OPEC Plus will gradually increase production by 350,000 barrels a day in May and June and 441,000 barrels a day in July. Over the same period, the Saudis will also relax the one million barrels a day they have been voluntarily keeping off the market, bringing the total increase to about 2.1 million barrels a day by July.

The plan “points to a still cautious and orderly ramp-up from OPEC Plus, still allowing for a tight oil market,” rather than a flood, analysts at Goldman Sachs wrote in a note to clients on Thursday.

OPEC Plus also retain the option of adjusting output at monthly meetings. Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter, can also take unilateral decisions to trim supplies.

This ability to quickly backtrack “provides the prince with comfort that he is exercising a fairly low-risk option,” Helima Croft, a strategist at RBC Capital Markets, wrote in a note to clients.

Unemployment rates for Black, Hispanic, Asian and white men

Unemployment rates for Black, Hispanic, Asian and white women

As the labor market heals at different paces for different demographic groups, women — who had been hit especially hard early in the downturn — are staging a particularly strong rebound.

Unemployment for women spiked at the onset of the pandemic, jumping to 16.1 percent in April, and their labor force participation dropped sharply. Now, their labor market experiences are improving along both dimensions: The unemployment rate for women fell to 5.9 percent in March, lower than that for men, and the share of women either working or looking for work nudged higher.

Women had been hit hard economically by pandemic shutdowns both because they work more often in jobs that were lost amid local lockdowns — from teaching to restaurant serving — and because they have shouldered a heavy share of caregiving responsibilities as day care centers and schools closed. Now, as state and local economies reopen, those trends are reversing.

“You open schools, and imagine what happens — women return to the work force,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist for the accounting firm Grant Thornton.

Other demographic groups that had borne much of the pandemic’s fallout remain far behind, however. Unemployment rates are falling across racial and ethnic groups, but the rate for Black workers stood at 9.6 percent last month. That figure is far higher than the 5.4 percent for white workers, and it is falling much more slowly.

The uneven healing has been a focal point for the Federal Reserve, which is focused on how far the job market has to go to get back to full strength.

“The K-shaped labor market recovery remains uneven across racial groups, industries, and wage levels,” Lael Brainard, a Fed governor, said during a recent speech — referring to the divergence in economic fates between those doing fine and those doing poorly, which looks like a “K” when drawn on a graph. “We are far from our broad-based and inclusive maximum-employment goal.”

Ben Casselman contributed reporting.

Shoppers at a Bed, Bath & Beyond last month. With the vaccine rollout accelerating, economists expect Americans to start spending again.Credit…Mark Lennihan/Associated Press

Economists think the big job gains reported on Friday are just the beginning. One reason: Americans have plenty of cash, and they are ready to spend it.

U.S. households had $2.4 trillion in savings in February, $1 trillion more than a year earlier. And that was before the latest wave of $1,400 relief checks started going out in March.

The primary factor holding back spending has been the pandemic, which has prevented people from spending on restaurant meals, vacations and concert tickets. But with the vaccine rollout accelerating, that could soon change.

About 35 percent of Americans plan to spend more on travel over the next 12 months than they do in a typical year, according to a survey conducted last month for The New York Times by the online research firm SurveyMonkey. About 28 percent plan to spend more than usual at restaurants. And over all, close to 70 percent of adults plan to spend more than usual in at least one category, at least if the health situation allows.

“They have the money in the bank, they’re ready to spend it, but what was holding them back was not having a comfort about being able to go out,” said Jay Bryson, chief economist for Wells Fargo. “We’re getting into a critical mass of people that are feeling comfortable beginning to go out again.”

But there are signs that Americans remain cautious. The survey was conducted in mid-March, just as the Treasury was preparing to send the $1,400 checks to millions of households. More than half the survey respondents who expected to receive checks said they planned to save most of the money or pay down debt. One-third said they would use it for immediate needs like food or rent. Only 10 percent said they planned to spend most of the money on discretionary items.

And while many Americans may be dreaming up ways to spend the money they saved during the pandemic, those hardest hit by the crisis are still trying to regain their financial footing. Among the unemployed, 62 percent said they planned to use their stimulus check to meet immediate needs, compared with 29 percent of the employed. Only 3 percent of the unemployed said they planned to use their stimulus checks on discretionary purchases.

A Tesla showroom in Beijing. A lot of  recent growth for the the electric-car maker has been in China.Credit…Tingshu Wang/Reuters

Tesla said on Friday that it more than doubled the number of cars it delivered in the first quarter, bouncing back after the pandemic slowed sales in the same period a year ago.

The electric carmaker said it sold 184,8000 vehicles in the first three months of the year, up from 88,500 a year ago. It produced 180,338 vehicles, compared with 102,672 in the first quarter of 2020.

The company’s sales numbers, which cover the entire world, come a day after General Motors and Ford Motor reported that their U.S. sales were up modestly. Tesla does not break out its sales by region and a lot of its recent growth has been in China, where electric cars make up a much larger share of the auto market than in the United States.

Tesla was helped by the arrival of the Model Y, a roomier version of its Model 3 sedan. Those two cars accounted for almost all of its deliveries in the first quarter. It reported just 2,020 deliveries of its high-end cars — the Model S luxury sedan and the Model X sport-utility vehicle.

Tesla has halted production of the Model S and Model X while preparing its plant in Fremont, Calif., to build updated versions of the cars. The company said in a statement that it was “in the early stages of ramping production” of the new models, which generate much more profit than the Model 3 and Model Y.

The first-quarter sales numbers could lift Tesla shares, which have lost more than a quarter of their value since January when they hit a high of about $900. The impact won’t be known until next week, however, because the stock market is closed in observance of Good Friday. On Thursday, Tesla’s stock fell about 1 percent, closing at $661.75.

Analysts were surprised by the jump in sales. Most had been expecting deliveries of about 172,000 vehicles.

“The company yet again defied the skeptics and bears,” Dan Ives, a Wedbush analyst, said in a report. “It’s been a brutal sell-off for Tesla and EVs, but we believe that will now be in the rear view mirror.”

Mannequins at a Brooks Brothers warehouse in Enfield, Conn.Credit…Amr Alfiky/The New York Times

In the fallout of Brooks Brothers’ bankruptcy filing and sale last year, the retailer abandoned a warehouse in Connecticut full of junk — mannequins, sewing machines and a whole section of Christmas trees.

Ever since, the couple that owns the warehouse, Chip and Rosanna LaBonte, has been scrambling to figure out how to get rid of it all.

Junk removal companies have told them it will cost at least $240,000 to clear the space, which Brooks Brothers had rented through November, Sapna Maheshwari and Vanessa Friedman report for The New York Times. In order to pay the bill, the LaBontes are going to have to sell their home.

Credit…Amr Alfiky/The New York Times

Brooks Brothers, which was founded in 1818 and is the oldest continuously operated apparel brand in the United States, began renting the warehouse in Enfield in 2011, most recently at a rate of roughly $20,000 a month.

The couple bought the warehouse in 2010. They said that it was their first foray into commercial real estate and that they worked on residential projects before that. They have other tenants and a self-storage section, but are frustrated about the mess and the fact they can’t use the space for anything else until it is cleared.

The couple’s plight illustrates the far-reaching consequences of retail bankruptcies, which cascaded during the pandemic and affected everyone from factory workers to executives. Smaller vendors and landlords have often been left holding the short end of the stick during lengthy byzantine bankruptcy proceedings, particularly with limits on what they can spend on legal bills compared with larger corporations. And once bankrupt brands are sold, people like the LaBontes are typically left in the dust.

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Business

Jobless Claims Tick Up, Exhibiting a Lengthy Highway to Restoration: Stay Updates

The Forecast Salon in Birmingham, Ala. A pickup in business activity nationwide has fed hopes that workers’ prospects are improving. 

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Wes Frazer for The New York Times

A year after they first rocketed upward, jobless claims may finally be returning to earth.

More than 714,000 people filed for state unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. That was up slightly from the week before, but still among the lowest weekly totals since the pandemic began.

In addition, 237,000 people filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federal program that covers people who don’t qualify for state benefits programs. That number, too, has been falling.

Jobless claims remain high by historical standards, and are far above the norm before the pandemic, when around 200,000 people a week were filing for benefits. Applications have improved only gradually — even after the recent declines, the weekly figure is modestly below where it was last fall.

But economists are optimistic that further improvement is ahead as the vaccine rollout accelerates and more states lift restrictions on business activity. Fewer companies are laying off workers, and hiring has picked up, meaning that people who lose their jobs are more likely to find new ones quickly.

“We could actually finally see the jobless claims numbers come down because there’s enough job creation to offset the layoffs,” said Julia Pollak, a labor economist at the job site ZipRecruiter.

But Ms. Pollak cautioned that benefits applications would not return to normal overnight. Even as many companies resume normal operations, others are discovering that the pandemic has permanently disrupted their business model.

“There are still a lot of business closures and a lot of layoffs that have yet to happen,” she said. “The repercussions of this pandemic are still rippling through this economy.”

Shoppers in Berlin’s Alexanderplatz. Germany and other countries have cut their value-added taxes to encourage consumer spending.Credit…Lena Mucha for The New York Times

The European Central Bank’s chief economist argued on Thursday that fears of a big rise in inflation are overblown, a sign that the people who control interest rates in the eurozone are likely to keep them very low for some time to come.

The comments — by Philip Lane, an influential member of the central bank’s Governing Council whose job includes briefing other members on the economic outlook — are an attempt to calm bond investors who are nervous that the end of the pandemic will lead to high inflation.

Fueling their fears, inflation in the eurozone rose to an annual rate of 1.3 percent in March from 0.9 percent in February, according to official data released on Wednesday, the fastest increase in prices in more than a year.

Market-based interest rates have been rising because investors worry that President Biden’s $2 trillion stimulus program will provoke a broad increase in prices for years to come. The interest rates that prevail on bond markets ripple through the financial system and can make mortgages and other types of borrowing more expensive, creating a drag on economic growth.

Despite big monthly swings in inflation during the last year, the average had been remarkably stable at an annual rate of about 1 percent, Mr. Lane wrote in a blog post on the central bank’s website on Thursday. That is well below the European Central Bank’s target of 2 percent.

“The volatility in inflation over 2020 and 2021 can be attributed to a host of temporary factors that should not affect medium-term inflation dynamics,” Mr. Lane wrote.

That is another way of saying that the European Central Bank is not going to panic about short-lived fluctuations in inflation and put the brakes on the eurozone economy anytime soon.

On the contrary, Mr. Lane’s analysis suggests that the European Central Bank will continue trying to push inflation toward the 2 percent target. In March, the central bank said it would increase its purchases of government and corporate bonds to try to keep a lid on market-based interest rates.

Mr. Lane said it was no surprise to see “considerable volatility in inflation during the pandemic period.” He attributed the ups and downs to quirky factors that are not likely to recur.

Germany and some other countries cut their value-added taxes to encourage consumer spending, then raised them again later. The price of fuel fluctuated wildly. People spent almost nothing on travel, but increased spending on home exercise equipment or products that they needed to work from home. That affected the way inflation is calculated and made the annual rate look higher, Mr. Lane said.

“The medium-term outlook for inflation remains subdued,” he wrote, “and closing the gap to our inflation aim will set the agenda for the Governing Council in the coming years.”

Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi oil minister, has argued that increasing oil output too fast would be risky.Credit…via Reuters

OPEC and its allies, including Russia, are meeting by videoconference Thursday to discuss whether to ease production curbs on oil as countries around the world try to expand from pandemic lockdowns.

Analysts say recent events will support the views of Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi oil minister, who has argued for caution in increasing supply, noting the risks of swamping the market. But other outcomes are possible at the meeting of the group known as OPEC Plus, including modest increases and even cuts in oil production,

France’s reimposition of a national lockdown, announced Wednesday, underlines persistent doubts about the pace of recovery from the pandemic, as have rising case numbers in the United States.

After modest increases when the Suez Canal was recently blocked by a cargo ship, oil prices were rising again on Thursday, with Brent crude, the global benchmark, more than 1 percent higher, to more than $63 a barrel.

“All signs seemingly point to the group maintaining current production levels,” Helima Croft, head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, an investment bank, wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday.

Yet pressure may also come to increase supply. Members of the OPEC Plus group are withholding an estimated eight million barrels of a day, or about 9 percent of current global consumption. As the global economy recovers, it will become increasingly difficult for the Saudis to persuade others to restrain supplies.

By: Ella Koeze·Data delayed at least 15 minutes·Source: FactSet

Wall Street’s rally continued on Thursday as tech shares extended their gains. Shares in Europe and Asia were also higher, as traders focused on optimism about the economic recovery.

The S&P 500 rose 0.8 percent in early trading, on track for a record close, while the Nasdaq composite gained 1.8 percent.

Bond yields pulled further back from their recent 14-month high. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell to 1.69 percent.

Adding to the optimism about the economy, a measure of manufacturing activity rose to its highest since 1983, the Institute for Supply Management said.

New data released on Thursday showed a slight rise in claims for unemployment benefits, though the data from the week before showed claims at the lowest since the start of the pandemic. On Friday, the Labor Department will publish its monthly jobs report for March.

  • On Wednesday, President Biden laid out a $2 trillion infrastructure plan, which included money for a range of activities, including repairing roads and bridges, building affordable housing and caregiving facilities, and expanding access to broadband. It would be paid for by an increase in corporate taxes, undoing some of the cut by his predecessor, President Donald J. Trump.

  • The infrastructure plan also includes spending about $50 billion on the semiconductor industry, where a global shortage in chips has disrupted car manufacturing. Shares in Micron Technology, an Idaho-based chip maker, rose nearly 5 percent in premarket trading.

  • The plan includes $174 billion to encourage the manufacture and purchase of electric vehicles. Tesla shares rose 2.4 percent in early trading and ChargePoint Holdings, which has a large network of electric-vehicle charing stations, rose as much as 14 percent, adding to a 19 percent increase on Wednesday.

  • Most European stock indexes were higher even as more lockdowns were announced in the region. In France, restrictions have been expanded to more regions and schools will close for several weeks. In Italy, business closures will extend until the end of April. But a series of reports published on Thursday showed manufacturing activity picking up in Europe.

  • Oil prices rose ahead of a meeting between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, at which they are set to decide production quotas for May. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, climbed 2.7 percent to just above $60 a barrel.

  • QuantumScape, a California-based start-up working on a technology that could make batteries cheaper, said it had reached a technical requirement that would clear the way for a $100 million investment by Volkswagen. QuantumScape’s shares jumped 16 percent in early trading.

  • On Friday, markets will be closed in the United States, Europe and some other countries for Good Friday.

The occupancy rate in nursing homes in the fourth quarter of 2020 was down 11 percentage points from the first quarter, but there are hurdles to staying out of facilities.Credit…Amr Alfiky/The New York Times

The pandemic has intensified a spotlight on long-running questions about how communities can do a better job supporting seniors who need care but want to live outside a nursing home.

The coronavirus had taken the lives of 181,000 people in U.S. nursing homes, assisted living and other long-term care facilities through last weekend, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation — 33 percent of the national toll.

The occupancy rate in nursing homes in the fourth quarter of 2020 was 75 percent, down 11 percentage points from the first quarter, according to the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care, a research group. The shift may not be permanent, but this much is clear: As the aging of the nation accelerates, most communities need to do much more to become age-friendly, said Jennifer Molinsky, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard.

“It’s about all the services that people can access, whether that’s the accessibility and affordability of housing, or transportation and supports that can be delivered in the home,” she said.

But there are hurdles for those who wish to stay out of a facility, Mark Miller reports for The New York Times:

  • A major shortage of age-friendly housing in the United States will present problems for seniors who wish to stay in their homes. By 2034, 34 percent of households will be headed by someone over 65, according to the Harvard center. Yet in 2011, just 3.5 percent of homes had single-floor living, no-step entry and extra-wide halls and doors for wheelchair access, according to Harvard’s latest estimates.

  • Medicare does not pay for most long-term care services, regardless of where they happen; reimbursement is limited to a person’s first 100 days in a skilled nursing facility. Medicaid, which covers only people with very low incomes, has long been the nation’s largest funder of long-term care. From its inception, the program was required to cover care in nursing facilities but not at home or in a community setting. “There’s a bias toward institutions,” said Judith Solomon, a senior fellow specializing in health at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Adam Bouhmad, second from right, has helped low-income families in Baltimore get affordable internet service through his Waves project.Credit…Jared Soares for The New York Times

A year after the pandemic turned the nation’s digital divide into an education emergency, President Biden is making affordable broadband a top priority, comparing it to the effort to spread electricity across the country. His $2 trillion infrastructure plan, announced on Wednesday, includes $100 billion to extend fast internet access to every home.

The money is meant to improve the economy by enabling all Americans to work, get medical care and take classes from wherever they live. Although the government has spent billions on the digital divide in the past, the efforts have failed to close it partly because people in different areas have different problems. Affordability is the main culprit in urban and suburban areas. In many rural areas, internet service isn’t available at all because of the high costs of installation.

“We’ll make sure every single American has access to high-quality, affordable, high speed internet,” Mr. Biden said in a speech on Wednesday. “And when I say affordable, I mean it. Americans pay too much for internet. We will drive down the price for families who have service now.”

Longtime advocates of universal broadband say the plan, which requires congressional approval, may finally come close to fixing the digital divide, a stubborn problem first identified and named by regulators during the Clinton administration. The plight of unconnected students during the pandemic added urgency.

“This is a vision document that says every American needs access and should have access to affordable broadband,” said Blair Levin, who directed the 2010 National Broadband Plan at the Federal Communications Commission. “And I haven’t heard that before from a White House to date.”

Some advocates for expanded broadband access cautioned that Mr. Biden’s plan might not entirely solve the divide between the digital haves and have-nots.

The plan promises to give priority to municipal and nonprofit broadband providers but would still rely on private companies to install cables and erect cell towers to far reaches of the country. One concern is that the companies won’t consider the effort worth their time, even with all the money earmarked for those projects. During the electrification boom of the 1920s, private providers were reluctant to install poles and string lines hundreds of miles into sparsely populated areas.

Taxpayers who received unemployment benefits last year — but who filed their federal tax returns before a new tax break became available — could receive an automatic refund as early as May, the Internal Revenue Service said on Wednesday.

The latest pandemic relief legislation — signed into law on March 11, in the thick of tax season — made the first $10,200 of unemployment benefits tax-free in 2020 for people with modified adjusted incomes of less than $150,000. (Married taxpayers filing jointly can exclude up to $20,400.)

But some Americans had already filed their tax returns by March and have been waiting for official agency guidance. Millions of U.S. workers filed for unemployment last year, but the I.R.S. said it was still determining how many workers affected by the tax change had already filed their tax returns.

On Wednesday, the I.R.S. confirmed that it would automatically recalculate the correct amount of benefits subject to taxation — and any overpayment will be refunded or applied to any other outstanding taxes owed. The first refunds are expected to be issued in May and will continue into the summer.

The I.R.S. said it would begin processing the simpler returns first, or those eligible for up to $10,200 in excluded benefits, and then would turn to returns for joint filers and others with more complex returns.

There is no need for those affected to file an amended return unless the calculations make the taxpayer newly eligible for additional federal credits and deductions not already included on the original tax return, the agency said. Those taxpayers may want to review their state tax returns as well, the I.R.S. said.

People who still haven’t filed and expect to do so electronically can simply answer the questions asked by their online tax preparer, which will factor in the new tax break when they file. The agency provided an updated worksheet and additional guidance in March for taxpayers that prefer paper.

Microsoft’s HoloLens headsets, demonstrated above in 2017, will equip soldiers with night vision, thermal vision and audio communication.Credit…Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

Microsoft said Wednesday that it would begin producing more than 120,000 augmented reality headsets for Army soldiers under a contract that could be worth up to $21.9 billion.

The HoloLens headsets use a technology called the Integrated Visual Augmentation System, which will equip soldiers wearing them with night vision, thermal vision and audio communication. The devices also have sensors that help soldiers target opponents in battle.

The deal is likely to create waves inside Microsoft, where some employees have objected to working with the Pentagon. Employees at other big tech companies, like Google, have also rejected what they say is the weaponization of their technology.

But Microsoft has long courted Defense Department work, including a $10 billion contract to build a cloud-computing system. Amazon had been seen as a front-runner to win the contract, but the Defense Department chose Microsoft.

Amazon claimed that President Donald J. Trump had interfered in the process because of his feud with Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive and the owner of The Washington Post. A legal fight over the contract is still active.

Soldiers have tested the Microsoft headsets for two years, the company said. The Army said the devices would be used in combat and training.

Microsoft said its testing of the headsets had helped the Defense Department’s “efforts to modernize the U.S. military by taking advantage of advanced technology and new innovations not available to military.”

The devices will “provide the improved situational awareness, target engagement and informed decision-making necessary” to overcome current and future adversaries, the Army said in a news release.

In 2018, Microsoft won a $480 million bid to make prototypes of the headsets. The Army said Wednesday that the new contract to produce them on a larger scale was for five years, with the option to add up to five more years.

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Entertainment

Vail Pageant to Return This Summer time With Stay Performances

Vail Festival to Return This Summer With Live Performances

Calvin Royal III will be the artist in residence at this year’s Vail Dance Festival, which was announced on Wednesday. Royal, a lead dancer for the American Ballet Theater, was announced as artist in residence last year but didn’t take his appointment when the pandemic forced the festival to cancel live performances and show work online.

This year’s festival will take place from July 30th to August 30th. 9, will take place completely outdoors in Gerald R. Ford’s amphitheater and comply with current Covid protocols, said Damian Woetzel, the festival’s artistic director, in an email.

Royal will appear in new plays by Jamar Roberts, the choreographer based at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. and Tiler Peck (to a score commissioned by Caroline Shaw, the festival’s composer in residence). He will also play Merce Cunningham’s role in a production of Cunningham’s “Rebus”.

In addition, Royal will appear in UpClose – a rehearsal-style performance that demonstrates a stylistic range of works – starring Isabella Boylston, director of the ballet theater, Unity Phelan of the New York Ballet, and ex-Cunningham dancer Melissa Toogood.

“I started working with Calvin as a young dancer and I am honored to continue with him as he both extends his reach and refines his highly personal voice,” said Woetzel.

Other new works shown at the festival include a collaboration between Lil Buck and Lauren Lovette; a piece by New York City Ballet-based choreographer Justin Peck on a score commissioned by Shaw; and new works by Michelle Dorrance, Cleo Parker Robinson and James Whiteside.

Vail has long mixed and mixed ballet, street, contemporary and tap dance artists on often unusual assignments and collaborations. This year’s guest artists include Herman Cornejo, Robert Fairchild, Joseph Gordon, Maria Kowroski, Roman Mejia, Ron Myles and Dario Natarelli.

Companies visiting include City Ballet’s touring troupe, Moves, the Philadelphia contemporary ballet company, BalletX and Cleo Parker Robinson Dance, who are showcasing a new work by Robinson to celebrate their company’s 50th anniversary.

Woetzel, who has run the festival since 2007, said that while the past year has been difficult, he is proud of a fund created to help artists and staff from previous seasons. “After the profound experience we’ve all shared, there will be an explosion of energy and appreciation for what we can do together when we gather again in the Rockies,” he said.

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Business

Enterprise Teams Push Again on Tax Enhance in Biden Plan: Stay Updates

Miami’s Signature Bridge under construction earlier this month. President Biden is expected to propose a $2 trillion package of infrastructure spending.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Business groups and large corporations reacted negatively on Wednesday to President Biden’s expected proposal to fund his $2 trillion package of infrastructure spending with a substantial increase in corporate taxes.

The scale of the infrastructure program — the details of which Mr. Biden is expected to unveil later on Wednesday — is so big that is that it would require 15 years of higher taxes on corporations to pay for eight years of spending. The plans include raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from 21 percent. The corporate tax rate had been cut from 35 percent under former President Donald J. Trump.

The Business Roundtable said it supported infrastructure investment, calling it “essential to economic growth” and important “to ensure a rapid economic recovery” — but rejected corporate tax increases as a way to pay for it.

“Business Roundtable strongly opposes corporate tax increases” to pay for infrastructure investment, the group’s chief executive, Joshua Bolten, said in a statement. “Policymakers should avoid creating new barriers to job creation and economic growth, particularly during the recovery.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce echoed Business Roundtable’s view. “We strongly oppose the general tax increases proposed by the administration, which will slow the economic recovery and make the U.S. less competitive globally — the exact opposite of the goals of the infrastructure plan,” the chamber’s chief policy officer, Neil Bradley, said in a statement.

Automakers embraced Mr. Biden’s bet to increase the use of electric cars. The plan proposes spending $174 billion to encourage the manufacture and purchase of electric vehicles by granting tax credits and other incentives to companies that make electric vehicle batteries in the United States instead of China.

“Customers want connected and increasingly electric vehicles, and we need to work together to build the infrastructure to help this transformation,” Jim Farley, the chief executive of Ford Motor, said in a statement. “Ford supports the administration’s efforts to advance a broad infrastructure plan that prioritizes a more sustainable, connected and autonomous future — including an integrated charging network and supportive supply chain, built on a foundation of safe roads and bridges for our customers.”

“With vaccinations becoming more widespread and confidence in travel rising, we’re ready to help customers reclaim their lives,” the chief executive of Delta Air Lines said.Credit…Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Delta Air Lines said Wednesday that it would sell middle seats on flights starting May 1, more than a year after it decided to leave them empty to promote distancing. Other airlines had blocked middle seats early in the pandemic, but Delta held out the longest by several months and is the last of the four big U.S. airlines to get rid of the policy.

The company’s chief executive, Ed Bastian, said that a survey of those who flew Delta in 2019 found that nearly 65 percent expected to have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine by May 1, which gave the airline “the assurance to offer customers the ability to choose any seat on our aircraft.”

Delta started blocking middle seat bookings in April 2020 and said that it continued the policy to give passengers peace of mind.

“During the past year, we transformed our service to ensure their health, safety, convenience and comfort during their travels,” Mr. Bastian said in a statement. “Now, with vaccinations becoming more widespread and confidence in travel rising, we’re ready to help customers reclaim their lives.”

Air travel has started to recover meaningfully in recent weeks, with ticket sales rising and as well over one million people per day have been screened at airport checkpoints since mid-March, according to the Transportation Security Administration. More than 1.5 million people were screened on Sunday, the busiest day at airports since the pandemic began. Air travel is still down about 40 percent from 2019.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend against travel, even for those who have been vaccinated. This week, its director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, warned of “impending doom” from a potential fourth wave of the pandemic if Americans move too quickly to disregard the advice of public health officials.

Delta also said on Wednesday that it would give customers more time to use expiring travel credits. All new tickets purchased in 2021 and credits set to expire this year will now expire at the end of 2022.

Starting April 14, the airline plans to bring back soft drinks, cocktails and snacks on flights within the United States and to nearby international destinations. In June, it plans to start offering hot food in premium classes on some coast-to-coast flights. Delta also announced changes that will make it easier for members of its loyalty program to earn points this year.

Deliveroo is now in 12 countries and has over 100,000 riders.Credit…Toby Melville/Reuters

Deliveroo, the British food delivery service, dropped as much as 30 percent in its first minutes of trading on Wednesday, a gloomy public debut for the company that was promoted as a post-Brexit win for London’s financial markets.

The company had set its initial public offering price at 3.90 pounds a share, valuing Deliveroo at £7.6 billion or $10.4 billion. But it opened at £3.31, 15 percent lower, and kept falling. By early afternoon, shares had recovered slightly, trading at about £2.86, 27 percent lower.

The offering has been troubled by major investors planning to sit out the I.P.O. amid concerns about shareholder voting rights and Deliveroo rider pay. Deliveroo, trading under the ticker “ROO,” sold just under 385 million shares, raising £1.5 billion.

The business model of Deliveroo and other gig economy companies is increasingly under threat in Europe as legal challenges mount. Two weeks ago, Uber reclassified more than 70,000 drivers in Britain as workers who will receive a minimum wage, vacation pay and access to a pension plan, after a Supreme Court ruling. Analysts said the move could set a precedent for other companies and increase costs.

Deliveroo, which is based in London and was founded in 2013, is now in 12 countries and has more than 100,000 riders, recognizable on the streets by their teal jackets and food bags. Last year, Amazon became its biggest shareholder.

Demand for Deliveroo’s services could soon diminish, as pandemic restrictions in its largest market, Britain, begin to ease. In a few weeks, restaurants will reopen for outdoor dining. Last year, Deliveroo said, it lost £226.4 million even as its revenue jumped more than 50 percent to nearly £1.2 billion.

Last week, a joint investigation by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism was published based on invoices of hundreds of Deliveroo riders. It found that a third of the riders made less than £8.72 an hour, the national minimum wage for people over 25.

Deliveroo dismissed the report, calling the union a “fringe organization” that didn’t represent a significant number of Deliveroo riders. The company said that riders were paid for each delivery and earn “£13 per hour on average at our busiest times.”

On Monday, shares traded hands in a period called conditional dealing open to investors allocated shares in the initial offering. The stock is expected to be fully listed on the London Stock Exchange next Wednesday and can be traded without restrictions from then.

Last week, Ed Bastian, the chief executive of Delta, said he thought Georgia’s voting law had been improved, but on Wednesday he sounded a very different note.Credit…Etienne Laurent/EPA, via Shutterstock

The chief executive of Delta, Ed Bastian, sent a letter on Wednesday to employees expressing regret for the company’s muted opposition to a restrictive voting law passed last week by the Georgia legislature.

“I need to make it crystal clear that the final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values,” he wrote in an internal memo that was reviewed by The New York Times.

Mr. Bastian’s position is a stark reversal from last week. As Republican lawmakers in Georgia rushed to pass the new law, Delta, along with other big companies headquartered in Atlanta, came under pressure from activists to publicly and directly oppose the effort. Activists called for boycotts, and protested at the Delta terminal at the Atlanta airport.

Instead, Delta chose to offer general statements in support of voting rights, and work behind the scenes to try and remove some of the most onerous provisions as the new law came together. After the law was passed on Thursday, Mr. Bastian said he believed it had been improved and included several useful changes that make voting more secure.

But on Wednesday, after dozens of prominent Black executives called on corporate America to become more engaged in the issue, Mr. Bastian reversed course.

“After having time to now fully understand all that is in the bill, coupled with discussions with leaders and employees in the Black community, it’s evident that the bill includes provisions that will make it harder for many underrepresented voters, particularly Black voters, to exercise their constitutional right to elect their representatives,” he said. “That is wrong.”

Mr. Bastian went further, saying that the entire premise of the new law — and dozens of similar bills being advanced in other states around the country — was based on false pretenses.

“The entire rationale for this bill was based on a lie: that there was widespread voter fraud in Georgia in the 2020 elections,” Mr. Bastian said. “This is simply not true. Unfortunately, that excuse is being used in states across the nation that are attempting to pass similar legislation to restrict voting rights.”

Also on Wednesday, Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, issued a statement on LinkedIn saying the company was concerned about the wave of new restrictive voting laws. “BlackRock is concerned about efforts that could limit access to the ballot for anyone,” Mr. Fink said. “Voting should be easy and accessible for ALL eligible voters.”

Kenneth Chenault, left, a former chief executive of American Express, and Kenneth Frazier, the chief executive of Merck, organized a letter signed by 72 Black business leaders.Credit…Left, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images; right, Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Seventy-two Black executives signed a letter calling on companies to fight a wave of voting-rights bills similar to the one that was passed in Georgia being advanced by Republicans in at least 43 states.

The effort was led by Kenneth Chenault, a former chief executive of American Express, and Kenneth Frazier, the chief executive of Merck, Andrew Ross Sorkin and David Gelles report for The New York Times.

The signers included Roger Ferguson Jr., the chief executive of TIAA; Mellody Hobson and John Rogers Jr., the co-chief executives of Ariel Investments; Robert F. Smith, the chief executive of Vista Equity Partners; and Raymond McGuire, a former Citigroup executive who is running for mayor of New York. The group of leaders, with support from the Black Economic Alliance, bought a full-page ad in the Wednesday print edition of The New York Times.

“The Georgia legislature was the first one,” Mr. Frazier said. “If corporate America doesn’t stand up, we’ll get these laws passed in many places in this country.”

Last year, the Human Rights Campaign began persuading companies to sign on to a pledge that states their “clear opposition to harmful legislation aimed at restricting the access of L.G.B.T.Q. people in society.” Dozens of major companies, including AT&T, Facebook, Nike and Pfizer, signed on.

To Mr. Chenault, the contrast between the business community’s response to that issue and to voting restrictions that disproportionately harm Black voters was telling.

“You had 60 major companies — Amazon, Google, American Airlines — that signed on to the statement that states a very clear opposition to harmful legislation aimed at restricting the access of L.G.B.T.Q. people in society,” he said. “So, you know, it is bizarre that we don’t have companies standing up to this.”

“This is not new,” Mr. Chenault added. “When it comes to race, there’s differential treatment. That’s the reality.”

A Huawei store in Beijing. The United States has placed strict controls on Huawei’s ability to buy and make computer chips.Credit…Greg Baker/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Chinese tech behemoth Huawei reported sharply slower growth in sales last year, which the company blamed on American sanctions that have both hobbled its ability to produce smartphones and left those handsets unable to run popular Google apps and services, limiting their appeal to many buyers.

Huawei said on Wednesday that global revenue was around $137 billion in 2020, 3.8 percent higher than the year before. The company’s sales growth in 2019 was 19.1 percent.

Over the past two years, Washington has placed strict controls on Huawei’s ability to buy and make computer chips and other essential components. United States officials have expressed concern that the Chinese government could use Huawei or its products for espionage and sabotage. The company has denied that it is a security threat.

In recent months, Huawei has continued to release new handset models. But sales have suffered, including in its home market. Worldwide, shipments of Huawei phones fell by 22 percent between 2019 and 2020, according to the research firm Canalys, making the company the world’s third largest smartphone vendor last year. In 2019, it was No. 2, behind Samsung.

Huawei remained top dog last year in telecom network equipment, according to the consultancy Dell’Oro Group, even as Britain and other governments blocked Huawei from building their nations’ 5G infrastructure.

Announcing the company’s financial results on Wednesday, Ken Hu, one of its deputy chairmen, said that despite the challenges, Huawei was not changing the broad direction of its business. Another Huawei executive recently revealed on social media that the company was offering an artificial intelligence product for pig farms, which some people took as a sign that Huawei was diversifying to survive.

Mr. Hu took note of the news reports about Huawei’s pig-farming product but said it was “not true” that the company was making any major shifts. “Huawei’s business direction is still focused on technology infrastructure,” he said.

Apple led the $50 million funding round in UnitedMasters, which allows musicians keep ownership of their master recordings.Credit…Kathy Willens/Associated Press

Apple is investing in UnitedMasters, a music distribution company that lets musicians bypass traditional record labels.

Artists who distribute through UnitedMasters keep ownership of their master recordings and pay either a yearly fee or 10 percent of their royalties.

Apple led the $50 million funding round, announced on Wednesday, which values UnitedMasters at $350 million, the DealBook newsletter reports. Existing investors, including Alphabet and Andreessen Horowitz, also participated in the funding.

Musicians are increasingly taking ownership of their work. Taylor Swift, most famously, and Anita Baker, most recently, have publicized their fights with labels over their master recordings. Artists once needed the heft of major publishing labels — which typically demand ownership of master recordings — to build a fan base. But with social media, labels no longer play as significant a gatekeeping role. UnitedMasters has partnerships with the N.B.A., ESPN, TikTok and Twitch, deals that reflect the new ways that people discover music.

“Technology, no doubt, has transformed music for consumers,” said Steve Stoute, the former major label executive who founded UnitedMasters. “Now it’s time for technology to change the economics for the artists.” The deal with UnitedMasters is about “empowering creators,” Eddy Cue, Apple’s head of internet software and services, said.

As streaming services, including Apple’s, compete for subscribers, they are cutting more favorable deals with the artists who attract users to platforms. Spotify announced an initiative called “Loud and Clear” this week to detail how it pays musicians following public pressure.

An H&M store in Beijing. The retailer’s chief executive, Helena Helmersson, said H&M had a “long-term commitment” to China.Credit…Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

More than a week after the Swedish retailer H&M came under fire in China for a months-old statement expressing concern over reports of Uyghur forced labor in the region of Xinjiang, a major source of cotton, the company published a statement saying it hoped to regain the trust of customers in China.

In recent days, H&M and other Western clothing brands including Nike and Burberry that expressed concerns over reports coming out of Xinjiang have faced an outcry on Chinese social media, including calls for a boycott endorsed by President Xi Jinping’s government. The brands’ local celebrity partners have terminated their contracts, Chinese landlords have shuttered stores and their products have been removed from major e-commerce platforms.

Caught between calls for patriotism among Chinese consumers and campaigns for conscientious sourcing of cotton in the West, some other companies, including Inditex, the owner of the fast-fashion giant Zara, quietly removed statements on forced labor from their websites.

On Wednesday, H&M, the world’s second-largest fashion retailer by sales after Inditex, published a response to the controversy as part of its first quarter 2021 earnings report.

Not that it said much. There were no explicit references to cotton, Xinjiang or forced labor. However, the statement said that H&M wanted to be “a responsible buyer, in China and elsewhere” and was “actively working on next steps with regards to material sourcing.”

“We are dedicated to regaining the trust and confidence of our customers, colleagues, and business partners in China,” it said.

During the earnings conference call, the chief executive, Helena Helmersson, noted the company’s “long-term commitment to the country” and how Chinese suppliers, which were “at the forefront of innovation and technology,” would continue to “play an important role in further developing the entire industry.”

“We are working together with our colleagues in China to do everything we can to manage the current challenges and find a way forward, ” she said.

Executives on the call did not comment on the impact of the controversy on sales, except to state that around 20 stores in China were currently closed.

H&M’s earnings report, which covered a period before the recent outcry in China, reflected diminished profit for a retailer still dealing with pandemic lockdowns. Net sales in the three months through February fell 21 percent compared with the same quarter a year ago, with more than 1,800 stores temporarily closed.

Stocks on Wall Street rose as investors waited for President Biden to lay out plans for a $2 trillion package of infrastructure spending on Wednesday, which he is expected to propose funding with an increase in corporate taxes.

The S&P 500 index opened with a gain of about 0.3 percent, while the Nasdaq composite climbed about 0.7 percent. Bonds fell with the yield on 10-year Treasury notes at 1.72 percent. On Tuesday, the 10-year yield climbed as high 1.77 percent, a level not seen since January 2020.

Prospects of a strong economic recovery in the United States, supported by large amounts of fiscal spending and the vaccine rollout, have pushed bond yields higher. Economic growth and higher inflation have made bonds less appealing as investors adjust their expectations for how much longer the Federal Reserve will need to keep its easy-money policies.

  • European stock indexes were mixed. The Stoxx Europe 600 index rose slightly, while the FTSE 100 index in Britain dropped about 0.3 percent.

  • H&M shares fell 3 percent in Stockholm after the clothing retailer reported a drop in sales in its quarterly earnings and said it was “dedicated to regaining the trust and confidence” of its Chinese customers and partners. Recently, H&M and other brands have been caught up in calls for a boycott in China after they expressed concerns about forced labor in the region of Xinjiang, a major source of cotton. H&M’s shares have dropped 10 percent in the past two weeks.

  • Deliveroo shares dropped 25 percent below their I.P.O. price on their first morning of trading in London. The food delivery company’s public debut has been marred by concerns about low pay for its riders and lack of profits, and major investors sat out the offering.

  • Apple rose 1 percent after Huawei, the Chinese tech company, said sales of its smartphones and other products were hit by American sanctions. Last year, its global revenue rose 3.8 percent compared with a 16 percent increase in 2019.

The Ever Given cargo ship was stuck in the Suez Canal nearly a week.Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The traffic jam at the Suez Canal will soon ease, but behemoth container ships like the one that blocked that crucial passageway for almost a week aren’t going anywhere.

Global supply chains were already under pressure when the Ever Given, a ship longer than the Empire State Building and capable of carrying 20,000 containers, wedged itself between the banks of the Suez Canal last week. It was freed on Monday, but left behind “disruptions and backlogs in global shipping that could take weeks, possibly months, to unravel,” according to A.P. Moller-Maersk, the world’s largest shipping company.

The crisis was short, but it was also years in the making, reports Niraj Chokshi for The New York Times.

For decades, shipping lines have been making bigger and bigger vessels, driven by an expanding global appetite for electronics, clothes, toys and other goods. The growth in ship size, which sped up in recent years, often made economic sense: Bigger vessels are generally cheaper to build and operate on a per-container basis. But the largest ships can come with their own set of problems, not only for the canals and ports that have to handle them, but for the companies that build them.

“They did what they thought was most efficient for themselves — make the ships big — and they didn’t pay much attention at all to the rest of the world,” said Marc Levinson, an economist and author of “Outside the Box,” a history of globalization. “But it turns out that these really big ships are not as efficient as the shipping lines had imagined.”

Despite the risks they pose, however, massive vessels still dominate global shipping. According to Alphaliner, a data firm, the global fleet of container ships includes 133 of the largest ship type — those that can carry 18,000 to 24,000 containers. Another 53 are on order.

A.P. Moller-Maersk said it was premature to blame Ever Given’s size for what happened in the Suez. Ultra-large ships “have existed for many years and have sailed through the Suez Canal without issues,” Palle Brodsgaard Laursen, the company’s chief technical officer, said in a statement on Tuesday.

  • Some of the most vulnerable Americans still haven’t received their stimulus checks, but millions of them who receive federal benefits should get their payments next week, according to the Internal Revenue Service. People who receive benefits from Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, the Railroad Retirement Board and Veterans Affairs — but do not file tax returns because they don’t meet the income thresholds — were among those who faced delays. But most of them, with the exception of those receiving benefits from Veterans Affairs, could have their payments arrive by direct deposit on April 7.

  • About a million student loan borrowers who were left out of earlier relief efforts are getting a reprieve — but only if they defaulted on their loans. The Education Department said on Tuesday that it would temporarily stop collecting on defaulted loans that were made through the Family Federal Education Loans program and were privately held. The change, however, still leaves millions of other borrowers in that program responsible for payments while the bulk of the country’s student loan borrowers have had theirs paused.

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Business

Counting of Ballots Begins in Amazon Union Vote: Reside Updates

The Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Charity Rachelle for The New York Times

The counting of votes that will determine whether to a union can form at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., begins Tuesday. But the results of the union election, one of the most consequential in recent memory, may not be known until later this week or early next week because the vote can often involve a painstaking process that will be closely scrutinized by representatives from the union and Amazon.

The ballots, which were mailed out to workers in early February, must be signed and had to be received by the National Labor Relations Board at its Birmingham office by the end of Monday.

First, a staff member at the labor board will read the names of the workers, without opening an inner envelope with the actual ballot. Representatives from the union and Amazon will be on a private video conference. As each name is read, they will check the workers’ names against a staff list, and if either side contests whether that worker was eligible to vote, that ballot will be set aside. A representative from each side is also expected to be there in person to observe the process.

After the two sides have had the opportunity to make their objections about eligibility, the N.L.R.B. will begin counting the uncontested ballots. After every 100 votes, the labor board will count those ballots again until all the votes are counted. This portion will be open to reporters on a video conference line.

A finding of more contested ballots than uncontested is likely to set off legal arguments by the Retail Warehouse and Department Store union, which has led the organizing drive, and Amazon over the eligibility of each contested ballot. Each side has about a week to make its case before N.L.R.B. certifies the vote.

Either side can contest whether the vote was conducted fairly. The union, for instance, could argue that the company took steps to improperly sway the vote, by potentially making workers fearful of reprisal if they supported organizing.

If the union prevails, workers fear that the company may shut down the warehouse. Amazon has backed away from locations that brought it headaches before.

But the company has committed more than $360 million in leases and equipment for the Bessemer warehouse, and shutting down the vote of a large Black work force could publicly backfire, said Marc Wulfraat, a logistics consultant who closely tracks the company.

A worker inspecting disposable gloves at a Top Glove factory near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in August.Credit…Mohd Rasfan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

United States Customs and Border Protection has ordered port officials to seize disposable gloves made by the world’s largest rubber glove maker, a Malaysian company that the agency says uses forced labor in its factories.

Customs and Border Protection said in a statement on Monday that it had “sufficient information to believe” that the company, Top Glove, “uses forced labor in the production of disposable gloves.”

Last July, the agency issued an import ban on products from two Top Glove subsidiaries because they were suspected of using forced labor. On Monday, it said it had determined that rubber gloves produced by the company with forced, convict or indentured labor “are being, or are likely to be, imported into the United States.”

Based on that determination, the agency said in a notice, it had authorized U.S. port directors to seize the gloves and start forfeiture proceedings unless importers can produce evidence showing that the gloves were not produced with prohibited labor.

The notice was the result of a monthslong investigation “aimed at preventing goods made by modern slavery from entering U.S. commerce,” Troy Miller, the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said in a statement.

The agency, he said, “will not tolerate foreign companies’ exploitation of vulnerable workers to sell cheap, unethically made goods to American consumers.” He added that the agency had “taken steps to ensure” that the enforcement action would not significantly affect total imports of disposable gloves into the United States.

After the import ban on Top Glove subsidiaries last summer, officials at the company said they were upgrading their worker dormitories and paying restitution to affected workers.

The company said in a statement on Tuesday that it was in touch with the U.S. agency and hoped to “resolve any ongoing areas of concern immediately.”

Top Glove also said it had engaged a independent labor consultancy from Britain since last July. That consultancy, Impactt Limited, said in a statement this month that its latest investigations had not turned up any “systemic forced labor” among the company’s direct employees.

But Andy Hall, a labor rights campaigner based in Nepal, said on Tuesday that Top Glove “remains an unethical company whose factories and supply chain continue to utilize forced labor,” and one that prioritizes profits and production efficiency over its workers’ basic rights.

Mr. Hall said he welcomed the Customs and Border Protection notice, and that the next step would be holding the company’s owners and investors to account.

Top Glove controls roughly a quarter of the global rubber glove market and has 21,000 employees. Many of them come from some of Asia’s poorest countries — including Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal — and live and work in crowded conditions.

The company has enjoyed record profits during the pandemic, even though thousands of its low-paid workers in Malaysia suffered from a large coronavirus outbreak last year.

Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks goes up for a shot against Ben Simmons and Danny Green of the Philadelphia 76ers. Sports fans can buy, sell and collect digital “moments” on N.B.A. Top Shot.Credit…Matt Slocum/Associated Press

Dapper Labs, the blockchain company that has pushed digital collectibles known as NFTs, for nonfungible tokens, said on Tuesday that it had raised $305 million in new funding.

The company, which has a partnership with the National Basketball Association, created an online marketplace called N.B.A. Top Shot in October where sports fans can buy, sell and collect digital “moments” — essentially, video clips of basketball players. But unlike most basketball highlights that can be found on YouTube or ESPN, these moments are on a blockchain, a digital ledger that records cryptocurrency transactions, which makes it possible for fans to buy, collect and exchange them like trading cards.

Top Shot has exploded in popularity, part of a larger frenzy for cryptocurrencies and NFTs that has driven up the value of Bitcoin and led to head-turning bids for digital artwork. There have been more than three million Top Shot transactions, Dapper Labs said, generating $500 million in sales. The company makes money through the sale of the digital moments and also collects a cut whenever a moment is resold.

The new funding values Dapper Labs, which is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, at $2.6 billion. It is the biggest financing for the company, which had previously raised $52.5 million.

Investors in the new funding include the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, the hedge fund Coatue Management and former and current N.B.A. stars including Michael Jordan, Kevin Durant, Kyle Lowry and Klay Thompson, as well as celebrities like Will Smith and Ashton Kutcher.

Roham Gharegozlou, the Dapper Labs founder and chief executive — who also created the 2017 blockchain game CryptoKitties — said Top Shot had “catalyzed” the excitement surrounding NFTs.

“I think N.B.A. Top Shot is proving that these platforms are ready for prime time,” he said.

Mr. Gharegozlou said the new funding would go toward partnerships with other sports leagues like the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the mixed martial arts organization. He said the company would also hire more employees and fund NFT ventures made by other start-ups.

The Obama administration had said that a design “concept” featuring Harriet Tubman on the face of the $20 bill would be unveiled by 2020.Credit…Harvey B. Lindsley/Library of Congress, via Associated Press

On the first day of the Biden presidency, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said that the Treasury Department was “taking steps to resume efforts” to put the abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. “It’s important that our money reflects the history and diversity of our country,” Ms. Psaki said.

But it will probably be years before we see the Underground Railroad conductor gracing U.S. currency, the DealBook newsletter reports.

The reason? The deadline for printing a new version of the $20 bill is 2030. It was set by an anti-counterfeiting committee in 2013, two years before Tubman won a campaign to replace President Andrew Jackson on the bill.

“The primary reason currency is redesigned is for security against counterfeiting,” Lydia Washington, a representative for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, told DealBook. “The redesign timeline is driven by security feature development.”

The Obama administration said that a design “concept” would be unveiled by 2020, to coincide with the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Extensive redesign work was reportedly done, but in 2019, President Donald J. Trump’s Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said the project would be delayed until at least 2026. (Insiders said they had always doubted that the 2020 deadline could be met).

It turns out that the complex design and testing process for currency cannot be hurried. “No final images have been selected,” Ms. Washington said. The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The container ship Ever Given was refloated on Monday, unblocking the Suez Canal. Oil prices fell as ship traffic on the waterway resumed.Credit…Mahmoud Khaled/Getty Images

  • Wall Street opened lower on Tuesday, as bond yields jumped higher.

  • The S&P 500 was down 0.3 percent in morning trading, and the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite declined 0.7 percent.

  • In bond markets, attention was returning to the pace of the economic recovery in the United States as more details of President Biden’s clean energy and infrastructure spending plans emerged, including a huge expansion of offshore wind energy along the East Coast. A $3 trillion economic package is in the works, on the heels of the $1.9 trillion economic recovery bill.

  • Bond prices dropped, sending yields on 10-year bonds sharply higher. The yield on U.S. Treasury notes rose 5 basis points, or 0.05 percentage point, to 1.76 percent, the highest since January 2020. Faster economic growth is likely to lead to higher prices, which reduces the appeal of bonds.

  • Most European stock indexes rose, with the Stoxx Europe 600 up 0.5 percent. Data published on Tuesday showed an increase in inflation in Spain and Germany, while an index of economic confidence for the eurozone in March was at its highest level since before the pandemic.

  • Oil prices fell. Futures of West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark, fell 1.5 percent to $60.61 a barrel. With the Suez Canal now unblocked, focus shifted to the meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies beginning Thursday to decide on production quotas for May. In early March, OPEC decided to keep the tighter quotas the same for April.

  • “Much as the Suez Canal is seeing traffic return progressively to normal, it seems that bond markets are returning to pricing the economic recovery,” analysts at ING wrote, referring to the rise in bond yields. They also warned that traders and investors settling positions for the end of the first quarter would affect market prices this week.

  • Shares in the Swiss bank Credit Suisse and the Japanese bank Nomura extended their deep declines slightly from Monday, when the banks said they faced losses as they tried to exit positions tied to an American hedge fund, Archegos.

  • The British pound rose 0.2 percent against the euro to the strongest level in 13 months as England’s lockdown restrictions were eased slightly on Monday.

A mobile touch screen doubles as a digital whiteboard while a cellphone on a tripod makes a recording that can be used later in a presentation.Credit…John Muggenborg for The New York Times

As company heads are once again planning for a return to the office, it is not only safety measures but also the new work arrangements that are driving discussions about the post-pandemic workplace. More than 80 percent of companies are embracing a hybrid model whereby employees will be in the office three days a week, according to a new survey by KayoCloud, a real estate technology platform.

Workplaces are being reimagined for activities benefiting from face-to-face interaction, including collaboration on projects, Jane Margolies reports for The New York Times.

Common areas will be increased and equipped with furniture that can be moved as needs change. Steelcase and Knoll, suppliers of office furniture, report strong interest in mobile tables, carts and partitions.

As the amount of space devoted to gathering expands, the fate of one’s own personal turf at the office — a desk decorated with family photos, a couple of file cabinets — hangs in the balance. In some cases, personal desks are being replaced with “hoteling” workstations, also called hot desks, which can be used by whoever needs a place to touch down for a day.

Conference rooms, too, are getting a reboot. Companies are puzzling over how to give remote workers the same ability to participate as those who are physically present. There are even early discussions about using artificial intelligence to conjure up holographic representations of employees who are off-site but could still take a seat at the table. And digital whiteboards are likely to become more popular, so workers at home can see what’s being written in real time.

Kroger requires employees and customers to wear masks.Credit…Eze Amos for The New York Times

Retail and fast-food workers feel newly vulnerable in states like Mississippi and Texas, where governments have removed mask mandates before a majority of people have been vaccinated and while troubling new variants of the coronavirus are appearing.

It feels like a return to the early days of the pandemic, when businesses said customers must wear masks but there was no legal requirement and numerous shoppers simply refused, Sapna Maheshwari reports for The New York Times. Many workers say that their stores do not enforce the requirement, and that if they do approach customers, they risk verbal or physical altercations.

For many people who work in retail, especially grocery stores and big-box chains, the repeals of the mask mandates are another example of how little protection and appreciation they have received during the pandemic. They were praised as essential workers, but that rarely translated into extra pay on top of their low wages. Grocery employees were not initially given priority for vaccinations in most states, even as health experts cautioned the public to limit time in grocery stores because of the risk posed by new coronavirus variants. (Texas opened availability to everyone 16 and older on Monday.)

The differing state and business mandates have some workers worried about more confrontations. Refusing service to people without masks, or asking them to leave, has led to incidents in the past year like a cashier’s being punched in the face, a Target employee getting his arm broken and the fatal shooting of a Family Dollar security guard.

Emily Francois, a sales associate at a Walmart in Port Arthur, Texas, said that customers had been ignoring signs to wear masks and that Walmart had not been enforcing the policy.

“I see customers coming in without a mask and they’re coughing, sneezing, they’re not covering their mouths,” said Ms. Francois, who has worked at Walmart for 14 years and is a member of United for Respect, an advocacy group. “Customers coming in the store without masks make us feel like we aren’t worthy, we aren’t safe.”

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Business

Fallout From Hedge Fund’s Defaults Spreads By Markets: Dwell Updates

A Credit Suisse branch in Basel, Switzerland. After the bank warned of significant losses on Monday, its shares fell 14 percent.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters

The fallout from a series of defaults at a New York hedge fund reverberated through markets for a second day on Monday, as global banks tried to size up their exposure to one firm’s string of bad bets.

Shares in Credit Suisse, the Swiss bank, dropped 14 percent on Monday and the Japanese bank Nomura closed 16 percent lower, after the banks said they could face significant losses because of defaults by an American investment firm.

U.S. stocks fell on Monday, with the S&P 500 opening 0.2 percent weaker. European stock indexes were mixed but an index of European banks was 0.6 percent lower.

Neither Credit Suisse nor Nomura named the investment firm whose default could lead to big losses, but Bloomberg identified it as Archegos Capital Management, a New York-based family office that manages the wealth of Bill Hwang, a former hedge fund manager at Tiger Asia Management who was found guilty of wire fraud in 2012.

Investment banks that provided services to Archegos, such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, dumped huge quantities of stocks including ViacomCBS and Chinese tech companies on Friday.

Archegos was forced into the stock sales, worth about $20 billion, after bets the fund made moved the wrong way, Bloomberg reported. Shares in ViacomCBS, one of Archegos’s positions, dropped 23 percent on Wednesday last week. On Friday, the share price plummeted a further 27 percent as the investment banks liquidated positions. ViacomCBS shares fell about 3 percent in early trading on Monday.

Shares in Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley opened about 2-3 percent lower on Monday. Shares in Deutsche Bank fell more than 3 percent, after it was said to also have some exposure to Archegos.

Credit Suisse has already been roiled this month by the collapse of Greensill Capital, a London-based financial firm it sold funds for, and to whom it extended loans of $140 million. The Swiss bank told investors it would probably report some losses on the loan.

“A significant U.S.-based hedge fund defaulted on margin calls made last week by Credit Suisse and certain other banks,” the Swiss bank said on Monday. It did not yet know the exact size of the loss from exiting its positions but “it could be highly significant and material to our first quarter results,” the statement said.

  • Oil prices bounced around on Monday following news about the fate of the container ship that had been blocking the Suez Canal for nearly week. The ship was finally freed on Monday, raising the prospect that trade flows would be restored, but authorities said more work was needed before maritime traffic could restart.

  • Yields on 10-year Treasury notes fell 2 basis points, or 0.02 percentage point, to 1.65 percent.

Bill Hwang, right, with his lawyer in 2012. Archegos Capital Management manages the personal fortune of the former hedge fund mogul.Credit…Emile Wamsteker/Bloomberg

The fallout from risky investments made by Archegos Capital Management continued to spread through the global markets on Monday, and it could spur more attention from regulators on the murky world of swaps and investor borrowing, the DealBook newsletter reports.

But how did one firm’s bad bets cascade to become a multibillion-dollar fire sale of stocks by banks around the world? Here’s what we know so far:

Archegos manages the personal fortune of the former hedge fund mogul Bill Hwang, who won Wall Street’s business despite having pleaded guilty to insider trading years ago. It amassed huge positions in media giants like ViacomCBS and in several Chinese tech companies — largely with borrowed money.

The Archegos strategy included using swaps, contracts that gave Mr. Hwang financial exposure to companies’ shares while hiding both his identity and how big his positions really were. (It is also becoming increasingly apparent that several Wall Street banks lent Archegos money without knowing that others were doing the same thing for the same trades.)

Trouble for Mr. Hwang, and his banks, arose when the prices of those stocks started to fall. That prompted some of his lenders to demand cash to cover his bets. When they began to question his ability to do so, some of them, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, seized some of his holdings and kicked off the sale $20 billion worth in huge block trades.

That forced selling led to even bigger drops in the prices of those stocks, starting a vicious circle.

Goldman Sachs has told investors that its potential losses are “immaterial,” having covered its exposure, but other investment banks faced a reckoning:

  • Credit Suisse told investors that a “U.S.-based hedge fund” had defaulted on its margin calls, which could lead to losses that were “highly significant and material to our first-quarter results.”

  • Nomura said that one of its U.S. arms could suffer “a significant loss” because of the forced sales.

One person who is surely paying attention is Gary Gensler: President Biden’s pick to lead the S.E.C. has been an advocate for market transparency, having argued that unregulated dark pools could cause a broader risk to the U.S. economy.

Southwest Airlines, the largest buyer of Boeing’s 737 Max jet, said that it had ordered a total of the planes over the next decade.Credit…Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Southwest Airlines is doubling down on Boeing’s troubled 737 Max jet, adding 100 new orders for the plane just months after regulators began allowing it to fly again.

The airline, already the largest customer of the Max, said on Monday that it had ordered a total of 349 Max jets over the next decade. Southwest, which resumed flights aboard the Max this month, also said it had more than doubled the number of planes it had options to buy, to 270.

“Southwest Airlines has been operating the Boeing 737 series for nearly 50 years, and the aircraft has made significant contributions to our unparalleled success,” Gary Kelly, Southwest’s chief executive, said in a statement. “Today’s commitment to the 737 Max solidifies our continued appreciation for the aircraft.”

Regulators around the world grounded the Max, which is quieter and more fuel-efficient than its predecessors, in March 2019 following fatal crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia that killed 346 people. The Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ban on the plane in November, requiring various changes and upgrades. It was soon followed by other aviation regulators and the plane has been used on thousands of flights since.

The expanded Southwest order comes as more passengers start flying again. More than 1.5 million people were screened at airport security checkpoints on Sunday, according to the Transportation Security Administration, the most since the coronavirus pandemic began. Still, that was about 37 percent fewer people than the agency had screened on the same day in 2019.

Southwest did not say how much it will pay for its new Max order. The airline is spending more than $10 billion in new and existing airplane orders. The airline expects to receive 28 Max planes this year and at least 30 each year after through 2025.

By acquiring Houghton Mifflin, HarperCollins, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, will be better able to compete as publishing has come to be dominated by the biggest players.Credit…Richard Drew/Associated Press

HarperCollins, one of the five largest publishing companies in the United States, has made a deal to acquire Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books and Media, the trade publishing division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for $349 million.

The acquisition will help HarperCollins expand its catalog of backlist titles at a moment of growing consolidation in the book business. Houghton Mifflin publishes perennial sellers by well-known authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien, George Orwell, Philip Roth and Lois Lowry, as well as children’s classics and best-selling cookbooks and lifestyle guides.

News of the sale was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

By acquiring Houghton Mifflin, HarperCollins, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, will be better able to compete as publishing has come to be dominated by the biggest players.

The book business has been transformed by consolidation in the past decade, with the merger of Penguin and Random House in 2013, News Corp’s purchase of the romance publisher Harlequin, and Hachette Book Group’s acquisition of Perseus Books. Last fall, ViacomCBS agreed to sell Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House for more than $2 billion, in a deal that has drawn scrutiny from antitrust regulators and has raised concerns among booksellers, authors and agents.

Book sales across the industry have remained strong during the pandemic, but Houghton Mifflin saw its revenue fall sharply last year because of a steep drop in sales in its education division. Its revenue fell by more than 46 percent in the nine months that ended on Sept. 30 of last year, compared with the same period in 2019. The company put its trade publishing division up for sale last fall, as it aims to focus on its core business of K-12 educational publishing, and to pay down its debt.

“There is incredible demand for our expertise as schools across the country plan for post-pandemic learning and recovery,” Houghton Mifflin’s president and chief executive, Jack Lynch, said in a news release. “This is an inflection moment for K-12 education in our country and for HMH as a trusted partner to schools and teachers in advancing learning for every student.”

Tankers and freight ships near the entrance of the Suez Canal.Credit…Ahmed Hasan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Oil prices fell on Monday as word spread that the giant cargo ship blocking the Suez Canal had been set free, raising hopes that hundreds of vessels, many carrying oil and petroleum products, could soon proceed through the critical waterway.

Oil prices had swirled earlier in the day, as prospects of an end to the logjam brightened, and then dimmed. But following the announcement that the containership Ever Given had been freed, the price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell about 2.5 percent, to $63.90 a barrel.

Since the vessel got stuck early last week, tankers have been lining up at the entrances to the canal waiting to deliver their cargoes to Europe and Asia.

The Suez Canal is a crucial choke point for oil shipping, but so far the impact on the oil market of this major interruption of trade flows has been relatively muted. Though prices jumped after shipping on the canal was halted, oil prices still remain below their nearly two-year highs of about $70 a barrel reached earlier this month.

Traders are now expected to focus on broader threats to the oil market, including whether the imposition of new lockdowns in Europe may hold back the recovery of oil demand from the pandemic.

From a global perspective, oil supplies are considered adequate, and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and other producers, the group known as OPEC Plus, are withholding an estimated eight million barrels a day, or about 9 percent of current consumption, from the market. Officials from OPEC Plus are expected to meet by video conference on Thursday to discuss whether to ease output cuts.

Goldman Sachs’s headquarters in New York. A group of investors is suing the Wall Street bank over claims of fraud. Credit…Johannes Eisele/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday from Goldman Sachs and pension funds over a claim that the Wall Street giant misled investors about its work selling complex debt investments in the prelude to the 2008 financial crisis.

In its latest brief, Goldman makes an interesting argument, the DealBook newsletter reports: Investors shouldn’t rely on statements such as “honesty is at the heart of our business” or “our clients’ interests always come first” that appear in Securities and Exchange Commission filings and annual reports.

The case is a test of shareholders’ ability to sue over claims of investment fraud. The pension funds sought to sue as a class over Goldman’s statements, saying they belied those statements of honesty, and lower courts agreed to let them proceed. Goldman has argued that the investors are engaged in “guerrilla warfare” and aren’t providing “serious legal arguments,” relying on support from the federal government instead.

However, the Biden administration isn’t taking sides, technically. It will argue as a “friend of the court” on Monday that “meritorious private securities-fraud suits” are “an essential complement” to enforcing securities laws.

“I expect the court to be troubled by the claim that companies cannot be held accountable for saying that clients come first and then acting otherwise,” Robert Jackson Jr., who served on the S.E.C. from 2018 to 2020 and is now an N.Y.U. law professor, told DealBook.

The justices probably won’t agree with the claim that making a company “mean what it says” will lead to a tsunami of meritless lawsuits,” he added. Regardless, Goldman is right that the stakes are high, because the case is likely to decide whether shareholders can “hold corporate insiders accountable when they tell investors one thing and do another,” Mr. Jackson said.

President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela promoted an unproven remedy for Covid-19 on Facebook, which prompted the company to freeze his page. Credit…Manaure Quintero/Reuters

The Facebook page of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, was frozen for “repeated” violations of its misinformation policies, including a post about an unproven remedy for Covid-19, the company said on Sunday, the latest example of the social media giant cracking down on political figures who violate its content policies.

Mr. Maduro’s Facebook page will be frozen for 30 days in a “read-only” mode, the company said, “due to repeated violations of our rules.”

“We removed a video posted to President Nicolas Maduro’s Page for violating our policies against misinformation about Covid-19 that is likely to put people at risk for harm,” a Facebook spokesman said. “We follow guidance from the W.H.O. that says there is currently no medication to cure the virus.” The spokesman was referring to the World Health Organization.

Facebook’s move came after Mr. Maduro posted a video on his page that promoted Carvativir, a drug derived from thyme. He said in January that the medicine was a “miracle,” but did not provide evidence of its effectiveness — and declined to release the name of the “brilliant Venezuelan mind” that created the drug. In the video, Mr. Maduro falsely claimed that Carvativir can be used preventively and therapeutically against the coronavirus.

In the past, Facebook has been criticized for its inaction against political figures who test the boundaries of the company’s content policies by spreading misinformation. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive of Facebook, has said he does not want to be the “arbiter of truth” in public discourse.

But in recent months, Facebook has cracked down on certain types of misinformation across the network. The company has banned posts containing false or misleading information regarding the coronavirus, and has shown willingness to take action against some political figures. And in the past, it has removed at least one post by Jair Bolsonaro, the president of Brazil, for false coronavirus remedy claims regarding the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.

In January, after insurgents stormed the United States Capitol, President Donald J. Trump’s account was banned indefinitely for inciting his supporters to violent action using the social network.

In response to his account restriction, Mr. Maduro has said Facebook is practicing a form of “digital totalitarianism,” according to Reuters, which first reported Mr. Maduro’s suspension.

Mr. Maduro said on Twitter on Sunday that he would continue to broadcast his regular coronavirus briefing from his other digital accounts, including Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. And to circumvent his suspension, he said he would use the Facebook account belonging to his wife, Cilia Flores, to broadcast Covid-19 information. Facebook would not comment on whether it would suspend Ms. Flores’s account.

A rally on Friday in support of the Amazon workers outside the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union’s building in Birmingham, Ala.Credit…Charity Rachelle for The New York Times

One of the most closely watched union elections in recent history is wrapping up on Monday, one that could alter the shape of the labor movement and one of America’s largest employers.

Almost 6,000 workers at an Amazon warehouse near Birmingham, Ala., one of the company’s largest, are eligible to vote in this election. After years of fierce resistance from the company, they could form the first union at an Amazon operation in the United States.

The outcome of the vote may not be known for days, but the union drive has already succeeded in roiling the world’s biggest e-commerce company and spotlighting complaints about its labor practices, The New York Times’s Karen Weise and Michael Corkery write. If the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union succeeds, it would be a huge victory for the labor movement, whose membership has declined for decades. A victory would also give it a foothold inside one of the country’s largest private employers. The company now has 950,000 workers in the United States, after adding more than 400,000 in the last year alone.

If the union loses, particularly by a large margin, Amazon will have turned the tide on a unionization drive that seemed to have many winds at its back. A loss could force labor organizers to rethink their overall strategy and give Amazon confidence that its approach is working.

Hansjörg Wyss, the former chief executive of the medical device manufacturer Synthes, said he had agreed to join a bid for Tribune Publishing.Credit…Ruben Sprich/Reuters

A Swiss billionaire who has donated hundreds of millions to environmental causes is a surprise new player in the bidding for Tribune Publishing, the major newspaper chain that until recently seemed destined to end up in the hands of a New York hedge fund.

Hansjörg Wyss (pronounced Hans-yorg Vees), the former chief executive of the medical device manufacturer Synthes, said he had agreed to join with the Maryland hotelier Stewart W. Bainum Jr. in a bid for Tribune, an offer that could upend Alden Global Capital’s plan to take full ownership of the company, Marc Tracy of The New York Times writes.

Mr. Wyss, who has given away some of his fortune to help preserve wildlife habitats in Wyoming, Montana and Maine, said he was motivated to join the Tribune bid by his belief in the need for a robust press. “I have an opportunity to do 500 times more than what I’m doing now,” he said.

Alden, which already owns roughly 32 percent of Tribune Publishing shares, is known for drastically cutting costs at the newspapers it controls through its MediaNews Group subsidiary. Last month, the hedge fund reached an agreement with Tribune, whose papers include The Daily News, The Baltimore Sun and The Chicago Tribune, to buy the rest of the company’s shares.

The sale of Tribune, which the newspaper company hopes to conclude by July, requires regulatory approval and yes votes from company shareholders representing two-thirds of the non-Alden stock.

“We are in a hyper-growth industry,” said Dhivya Suryadevara, Stripe’s chief financial officer.Credit…Richard Drew/Associated Press

Thousands of financial technology start-ups are riding an investor frenzy driven by a growing realization that the industry is ripe for a tech makeover, writes Erin Griffith of The New York Times.

When the pandemic forced businesses to speed up their usage of digital tools, including e-commerce and online banking, the demand for what is known as fintech exploded.

Now start-ups with names like Blend, Brex and Dave that provide decidedly unglamorous banking, lending and payment processing offerings are hot tickets. That was punctuated this month when Stripe, a payments company, raised $600 million in a financing that valued it at $95 billion, the highest ever for a private start-up in the United States.

Financial technology companies are also making a splash on the stock market. On Tuesday, Robinhood, a stock trading app popular with young adults, filed for an initial public offering. And Coinbase, a cryptocurrency start-up, is scheduled to go public in the next few weeks in what could be a $100 billion listing.

In total, venture capital investors poured $44.4 billion into financial technology start-ups last year, up from $1.1 billion in 2009, according to PitchBook, which tracks private financing. Many investors are now making bold predictions that these start-ups will upend big banks, established credit card providers — and in some cases, the entire financial system.

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Stay Updates on Enterprise Information, Shares, Bonds and Oil

The company recently launched Paramount+ to compete against the likes of Netflix, Disney+ and others.

Here’s what you need to know:

Tens of millions of lower-income Americans are still waiting for their stimulus checks, but there’s been some progress toward getting them paid.

People who receive benefits from Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, the Railroad Retirement Board and Veterans Affairs — while also not having to file tax returns because they don’t meet the income thresholds — have faced delays because the Internal Revenue Service didn’t have the proper payment files to process their stimulus checks.

Now the I.R.S. has all of the necessary files in hand, but it’s still not clear how long it will take for payments to be processed. The I.R.S. did not immediately comment on Friday.

Democratic leaders from the House Ways and Means Committee and other congressional subcommittees had sent a letter to the Social Security Administration and the I.R.S. on Monday, urging the quick transmission of the files. By Wednesday, the lawmakers’ request became an ultimatum: They demanded that the files for 30 million unpaid beneficiaries be sent by Thursday.

The Social Security Administration delivered its files to the I.R.S. on Thursday, according to a statement from the Ways and Means committee. (Veterans Affairs said it delivered its files on Tuesday; the Railroad Retirement Board delivered its files on Monday.)

The Social Security Administration notified congressional leaders that it had transmitted the necessary data to the I.R.S. at 8:48 a.m. Thursday.

Members of the committee blamed the delay on the Social Security Administration’s commissioner, Andrew Saul, who was appointed by President Trump. But the agency said it had been unable to act immediately because Congress hadn’t directly given it the money to do the work.

AARP also sent letters to both the Social Security Administration and I.R.S. on Thursday, urging them both to provide clear information on when beneficiaries could expect their payments.

Many federal beneficiaries who filed 2019 or 2020 returns — or who used the tool for non-filers on the I.R.S. website to update their information — have already received their payments.

So far, the I.R.S. has delivered roughly 127 million payments in two batches, totaling $325 billion.

Credit…Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

Shares of ViacomCBS, the media goliath led by Shari Redstone, took a nosedive this week, with the company losing more than half of its market value in just four days.

Thes stock was as high as $100 on Monday. By the close of trading on Friday it had fallen to just over $48, a drop of more than 51 percent in less than a week.

There’s no better way to say it: The company’s stock tanked.

What happened? Several things all at once. First, it is worth noting that ViacomCBS had actually been on a bit of a tear up until this week’s meltdown, rising nearly tenfold in the past 12 months. About a year ago, it was trading at around $12 per share.

That rally came as the company, like the rest of the media industry, had made a move toward streaming. It recently launched Paramount+ to compete against the likes of Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max and others. The service tapped ViacomCBS’s vast archive of content from the CBS broadcast network, Paramount Film Studios and several cable channels, including Nickelodeon and MTV.

That shift matters because ViacomCBS has been hit hard by an overall decline in cable viewership. The company’s pretax profits have fallen nearly 17 percent from two years ago, and its debt has topped more than $21 billion.

But the stock rose so much that Robert M. Bakish, ViacomCBS’s chief executive, decided to take advantage of the boon by offering new shares to raise as much as $3 billion. The underwriters who managed the sale priced the offering at around $85 per share earlier this week, a discount to where it had been trading on Monday.

You could say it backfired. When a company issues new stock, it normally dilutes the value of current shareholders, so some drop in price is expected. But a few days after the offering, one of Wall Street’s most influential research firms, MoffettNathanson, published a report that questioned the company’s value and downgraded the stock to a “sell.” The stock should really only be worth $55, MoffettNathanson said. That started the nosedive.

“We never, ever thought we would see Viacom trading close to $100 per share,” read the report, which was written by Michael Nathanson, a co-founder of the firm. “Obviously, neither did ViacomCBS’s management,” it continued, citing the new stock offering.

Streaming is still a money-losing enterprise, and that means the old line media companies must still endure more losses over more years before they can return to profitability.

In the case of ViacomCBS, it seemed to hasten the cord-cutting when it signed a new licensing agreement with the NFL that will cost the company more than $2 billion a year through 2033. As part of the agreement, ViacomCBS also plans to stream the games on Paramount+, which is much cheaper than a cable bundle.

As the games, considered premium programming, shifts to streaming, “the industry runs the risk of both higher cord-cutting and greater viewer erosion,” Mr. Nathanson wrote.

On Friday, an analyst with Wells Fargo also downgraded the stock, slashing the bank’s price target to $59.

But the market decided it wasn’t even worth that much. It closed on Friday barely a quarter above 48 bucks.

Google’s offices in London.Credit…Ben Quinton for The New York Times

The Biden administration is keeping on the table the threat of tariffs on Austria, India, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom over their taxes on digital commerce as negotiations over a global tax agreement proceed.

The office of the United States Trade Representative said on Friday that those countries continue to be “subject to action” because they discriminated against American technology companies with their digital services taxes. Those taxes, which are levied against the digital services that tech companies like Amazon and Google provide — even if they have no physical presence in those nations — have become a huge global issue with which regulators are wrestling.

The United States has until June to decide whether to move forward or delay retaliatory tariffs under the terms of an investigation that began last year under the Trump administration.

“The United States is committed to working with its trading partners to resolve its concerns with digital services taxes and to addressing broader issues of international taxation,” said Katherine Tai, the newly confirmed United States Trade Representative. “The United States remains committed to reaching an international consensus through the O.E.C.D. process on international tax issues.”

U.S.T.R. will release a list of products from those countries that could face tariffs, and it will hold hearings in May about the investigations. Senior administration officials said on Friday that the step is procedural and not intended to provoke America’s trade partners. However, the administration wants to keep its options open to make sure that the negotiations continue to move forward productively.

In January, before President Biden took office, U.S.T.R. suspended tariffs that were about to be imposed on French imports while the other investigations proceeded.

U.S.T.R. said that the Biden administration is ending its investigations into Brazil, the Czech Republic, the European Union and Indonesia because the digital services taxes that they were considering have not been adopted. U.S.T.R. could still initiate new investigations if those countries decided to proceed.

The Biden administration has said it plans to take a much more deliberative approach to trade policy than the previous administration, and it is conducting a broad review of the tariffs that President Donald J. Trump levied on China and other countries. Administration officials have signaled a desire to adopt a more conciliatory approach to trade with American allies, like Europe.

Earlier this month, the United States and European Union agreed to temporarily suspend tariffs levied on billions of dollars of each others’ aircraft, wine, food and other products as both sides try to find a negotiated settlement to a long-running dispute over the two leading airplane manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus.

Last year, the Trump administration paused the international digital tax talks taking place through the O.E.C.D. so that countries could focus on the pandemic.

The Treasury Department will assume a leading role in the talks this year. In February, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen signaled that the United States could be more flexible in the negotiations when she told the Group of 20 finance ministers that it was no longer calling for a contentious “safe harbor” plan that would have essentially given American companies the ability to opt out of some of the taxes.

Negotiations are expected to continue at international economic forums this summer, and officials have said that the United States’ new position has given the talks renewed momentum.

In the case of The New Yorker Union, negotiations with Condé Nast have dragged out for more than two years. Credit…Amy Lombard for The New York Times

Union workers at The New Yorker, Pitchfork and Ars Technica said Friday they had voted to authorize a strike as tensions over contract negotiations with Condé Nast, the owner of the publications, continued to escalate.

In a joint statement, the unions for the three publications said the vote, which received 98 percent support from members, meant workers would be ready to walk off the job if talks over collective bargaining agreements continued to devolve. At The New Yorker, the unionized staff includes fact checkers and web producers but not staff writers, while most editors and writers at Pitchfork and Ars Technica are members.

The unions, which are affiliated with the NewsGuild of New York, which also represents employees at The New York Times, have been separately working toward first-time contracts with Condé Nast. In the case of The New Yorker Union, negotiations have dragged out for more than two years.

The core of their demands, the unions said, were fair contracts that included wage minimums in line with industry standards, clear paths for professional development, concrete commitments to diversity and inclusion, and work-life balance. They said in the statement that Condé Nast had “not negotiated in good faith.”

“Condé Nast has long profited off the exploitation of its workers, but that exploitation ends now,” the statement said.

A Condé Nast spokesman said management had already reached agreements on a range of issues with The New Yorker, Pitchfork and Ars Technica unions over the course of negotiations.

“On wages and economics, management has proposed giving raises to everyone in these bargaining units; increasing minimum salaries for entry-level employees by nearly 20 percent; and providing guaranteed annual raises for all members, among other enhancements,” the spokesman said in a statement.

He added: “All of this has been accomplished in just two rounds of bargaining, as we first received the unions’ economic proposals at the end of last year. We look forward to seeing this process through at the bargaining table.”

The labor disputes at Condé Nast have spilled into the public arena a number of times. In January, union members at The New Yorker, including fact checkers and web producers, stopped work for a day in protest over pay. Last year, two high-profile speakers at The New Yorker Festival — Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — vowed not to cross a picket line in solidarity with unionized workers.

The NewsGuild of New York said it would hold a rally for fair contracts on Saturday at Condé Nast’s offices in downtown Manhattan.

A sign at facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Ca.Credit…Jim Wilson/The New York Times

Facebook said on Friday that it would bring employees back into its California offices beginning in May, one of the first large tech companies to lay out a plan for workers to physically return to offices.

The social network said employees would begin working in its San Francisco Bay Area offices — including its headquarters in Menlo Park, as well as those in Fremont, Sunnyvale and downtown San Francisco — starting on May 10 and on a rolling basis thereafter. The offices would be at 10 percent capacity, the company said, as long as national health data continued to improve.

“The health and safety of our employees and neighbors in the community is our top priority and we’re taking a measured approach to reopening offices,” said Chloe Meyere, a Facebook spokeswoman. She said Facebook would require regular weekly testing for on-site workers, as well as physical distancing and mask wearing indoors.

The San Francisco Chronicle earlier reported on Facebook’s back-to-office plans.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has been a vocal proponent of remote work since the pandemic began. Last May, Mr. Zuckerberg said he would allow some employees to work from home permanently, though they would face salary reductions if they moved to different parts of the country.

For now, Facebook has given employees the option to work from home until July 2, after which any employee who was not hired as a full-time remote worker can continue to work from home until their office is operating at 50 percent capacity. The latest health data, Facebook said, suggested that it would be able to reopen its largest offices at 50 percent capacity after Sept. 7.

Those who were designated as full-time remote workers can continue to work remotely, the company said.

Other office reopenings will be on a case-by-case basis, as Facebook continues to study regional data provided by the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies.

“We will continue to work with experts to ensure our return to office plans prioritize everyone’s health and safety,” Ms. Meyere said.

Martin Winterkorn, left, answering questions at the 2011 Detroit auto show. Mr. Winterkorn is facing criminal charges tied to the Volkswagen emissions scandal.Credit…Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

Volkswagen said on Friday that it would seek financial compensation from its former chief executive and the former head of the Audi division, accusing them of failing to act after learning that diesel vehicles sold in the United States were fitted with illegal emissions-cheating software.

The decision by the German carmaker’s supervisory board marks a turnabout. Volkswagen had been reluctant to publicly accuse former top managers of complicity in the emissions fraud, which has cost Volkswagen tens of billions of euros in fines, settlements and legal fees.

At the same time, the supervisory board said it found “no breaches of duty” by other executives who were members of Volkswagen’s management board in September 2015, when the scandal came to light.

That group includes Herbert Diess, now the chief executive of Volkswagen, who had joined the company two months earlier from BMW. Hans Dieter Pötsch, now chairman of the supervisory board, was chief financial officer and a member of the Volkswagen management board at the time, a position he had held for more than a decade.

Volkswagen’s supervisory board said that in a statement on Friday that a law firm hired to review evidence in the case found that Martin Winterkorn, the former chief executive, failed “to comprehensively and promptly clarify the circumstances behind the use of unlawful software functions” after learning about the misconduct in July 2015.

Mr. Winterkorn, who resigned shortly after the emissions fraud became public, also failed to ensure that questions by U.S. authorities “were answered truthfully, completely and without delay,” the supervisory board said. Shareholders suffered damages as a result, the board said, although it did not say how much money the company will try to recover.

Mr. Winterkorn’s lawyers said in a statement Friday that he denied the accusations and had done everything possible “to avoid or minimize damage” to Volkswagen.

The Volkswagen board said it also concluded that Rupert Stadler, former chief executive of the Audi luxury car division, was negligent because he failed to investigate the use of illegal software in diesel vehicles sold in the European Union.

Mr. Winterkorn and Mr. Stadler face criminal charges in Germany that revolve around the same circumstances. Mr. Winterkorn’s trial was scheduled to begin in April, but judges in the case postponed it this week until September, citing the pandemic.

Mr. Stadler has been on trial in Munich since last year on charges that, even after the wrongdoing came to light, he allowed Audi to continue selling cars that were programmed to recognize when an official emissions test was underway and dial up emissions controls to make the car appear compliant. The cars were not capable of consistently meeting pollution standards.

Mr. Stadler’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the past, Mr. Stadler has denied wrongdoing.

Personal spending declined in February, but a fresh round of federal relief payments is expected to produce a renewed surge this month.Credit…Laura Moss for The New York Times

Personal income and spending dipped last month as the effects of stimulus checks faded following a big jump in January, but both are expected to rebound as another round of federal payments arrived in March.

The government reported on Friday that personal income fell 7.1 percent in February from the previous month, while consumption dropped by 1 percent. Powered by $600 checks to most Americans from a December relief bill, income in January leapt by 10.1 percent, while consumption rose by 3.4 percent, a figure revised Friday from the originally reported 2.4 percent.

Despite the drop last month, a big pickup is expected in March with the arrival of $1,400 payments to most Americans from the $1.9 trillion relief package signed into law this month.

In the months ahead, most economists expect consumers to return in greater numbers to stores, restaurants and other gathering places as vaccination efforts gather speed and consumers put the stimulus money and lockdown-accumulated savings to work.

“In February, households were waiting for the bigger stimulus check coming in March and there will be a surge in consumer spending, particularly on services,” said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services in Pittsburgh.

All of the drop in spending last month was for goods, Mr. Faucher noted, as consumers pulled back on buying big-ticket items like automobiles and appliances. Services should benefit in the coming months, he added, as people have more opportunities to go out and life increasingly returns to normal more than one year after the pandemic hit.

“Consumer spending will be very strong for the remainder of this year and into 2022,” Mr. Faucher added. “There’s a lot of money saved up.”

In another sign of optimism, the University of Michigan reported Friday that its index of consumer sentiment rose to the highest level since the pandemic began.

Economists have improved their forecasts for U.S. economic growth, with Bank of America foreseeing a 7 percent increase this year in gross domestic product.

By: Ella Koeze·Data delayed at least 15 minutes·Source: FactSet

Stocks rose on Friday, along with government bond yields, amid a bout of optimism about the economic recovery.

The gains came a day after President Biden said he wanted the United States to administer 200 million vaccines by his 100th day in office, on April 30, a target the country is already on track to meet. The Federal Reserve vice chair, Richard Clarida, pushed back on concerns that the government’s spending plans would fuel higher sustained inflation.

In a victory for financial institutions, the central bank said that pandemic-era rules that restricted share buybacks and dividend payouts by banks would end midway through 2021 for most firms. On the economic front, gross domestic product data for the fourth quarter was also revised slightly higher on Thursday.

  • The S&P 500 index rose 1.7 percent, ending the week with a 1.6 percent gain. Bank stocks fared better than the broad market, with the KBW Bank index up 2 percent.

  • The Stoxx 600 Europe rose 0.9 percent, logging a fourth consecutive week of gains.

  • The yield on 10-year Treasury notes rose to 1.67 percent.

  • Shares of ViacomCBS plunged 27 percent on Friday, bringing the stock’s losses for the week to 50 percent. The decline followed Viacom’s announcement that it plans to raise $3 billion by selling stock and put some of those funds toward building its streaming offering.

  • Personal income and spending in the United States dipped last month as the effects of stimulus checks faded following a big jump in January, but both are expected to rebound as another round of federal payments arrived in March.

  • Retail sales in Britain rose 2.1 percent in February, rebounding from a slump of 8.2 percent the month before, when the country entered a third national lockdown.

  • A survey of German business expectations rose to the highest level in nearly three years.

  • Oil prices rose with futures of Brent crude, the global benchmark, climbing 3.9 percent to $64.34 a barrel.

Garments stored at a ThredUp sorting facility in Phoenix. The thrift-store start-up priced its stock at $14 a share, raising $168 million.Credit…Matt York/Associated Press

The thrift-store start-up ThredUp on Friday will become the latest clothing resale website to become publicly traded, a move that seeks to take advantage of a growing interest in secondhand retailers among young shoppers.

The company sold 12 million shares for $14 each in its initial public offering, raising $168 million and valuing the business at $1.3 billion.

Founded in Oakland in 2009, ThredUp built its inventory by sending prepaid packages, or “clean out kits,” to sellers, who fill the bags with used clothes and accessories and mail them back.

The website joins Poshmark, which went public in January, and The RealReal, which went public in 2019, on the Nasdaq stock market.

The three companies are all leaders in secondhand shopping, but they take different approaches to resale. The RealReal consigns high-end brands exclusively. Poshmark allows sellers to directly list their items. ThredUp has formed partnerships with brands including Gap, Walmart and Macy’s, helping these large retailers incorporate resale into their stores and e-commerce platforms.

All three emphasize the environmental benefits of resale — but ThredUp more so than its competitors. The company refers to itself as a “force for good” and has criticized the fashion industry’s carbon footprint, including by writing open letters to luxury brands like Burberry that have burned their unsold inventory.

James Reinhart, the chief executive and a co-founder of ThredUp, said Thursday that the company was “ushering in a more circular future for fashion by helping new waves of consumers, brands and retailers take steps toward sustainability.”

With the retail analytics firm GlobalData, ThredUp also publishes a widely cited annual “Resale Report,” which tracks growth of the secondhand market. By the end of 2021, the market value of online resale is estimated to grow to $12 billion, up from $7 billion in 2019, according to the last year’s report.

Much of that growth has been attributed to Generation Z’s preference for online shopping and passion for sustainability. ThredUp’s revenue was $186 million in 2020 (up from $163.8 million in 2019). It posted a net loss of $47.9 million last year.

Still, the company was not immune to retail’s upheaval during the pandemic, as detailed in a March filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Average monthly orders have now returned to prepandemic levels, ThredUp said, but the company has not “seen sustained growth” in the time since.

VideoCinemagraphCreditCredit…By Ben Denzer

In today’s On Tech newsletter, Shira Ovide writes that people are buying digital items like a tweet and a meme for bonkers amounts of money. But we need to take a step back.

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Disinformation Listening to with Fb, Google and Twitter: Stay Updates

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Folgendes müssen Sie wissen:

Mark Zuckerberg von Facebook, Jack Dorsey von Twitter und Sundar Pichai von Google treten bei einer Anhörung auf darüber, wie sich Desinformation auf ihren Plattformen ausbreitet. Die Anhörung wird von zwei Unterausschüssen des größeren Energie- und Handelsausschusses des Hauses abgehalten, die sich mit Technologiefragen befassen.

VideoMark Zuckerberg von Facebook, Sundar Pichai von Google und Jack Dorsey von Twitter sagen vor dem Kongress aus der Ferne über “Fehlinformationen und Desinformation, die Online-Plattformen plagen” aus.AnerkennungAnerkennung…Poolfoto von Greg NashDie Capitol-Unruhen Anerkennung…Energie- und Handelsausschuss über YouTube

Demokratische Gesetzgeber beschuldigten die Geschäftsführer, Geld verdient zu haben, indem sie zuließen, dass Desinformation online grassierte, was ihre wachsende Frustration über die Verbreitung von Extremismus, Verschwörungstheorien und Unwahrheiten online nach dem Aufstand vom 6. Januar im Kapitol widerspiegelte.

Ihre Kommentare eröffneten die erste Anhörung seit der Amtseinführung von Präsident Biden mit Mark Zuckerberg von Facebook, Sundar Pichai von Google und Jack Dorsey von Twitter. Sie waren ein Signal dafür, dass die Überprüfung der Geschäftspraktiken im Silicon Valley mit den Demokraten im Weißen Haus und der Führung beider Kongresskammern nicht nachlassen und sich möglicherweise sogar intensivieren wird.

Der Gesetzgeber äußerte sich besorgt darüber, dass die Plattformen einen finanziellen Anreiz hatten, die Nutzer zu binden, indem sie ihnen brutale oder spaltende Inhalte zuführten, was die Verbreitung von Fehlinformationen, Verschwörungen und extremen Botschaften anheizte.

„Sie erwecken definitiv den Eindruck, dass Sie nicht glauben, dass Sie diese Fehlinformationen und diesen Extremismus in irgendeiner Weise aktiv fördern, und dem stimme ich überhaupt nicht zu. Sie sind keine passiven Zuschauer “, sagte der Vertreter Frank Pallone, der Demokrat aus New Jersey, der den Vorsitz im Energie- und Handelsausschuss führt. “Du verdienst Geld.”

Der Januar-Aufstand machte das Thema Desinformation für viele Gesetzgeber sehr persönlich. Einige Teilnehmer wurden mit Online-Verschwörungen wie QAnon in Verbindung gebracht, die die Plattformen in den letzten Monaten versucht haben einzudämmen.

Der Vertreter Mike Doyle, ein Demokrat aus Pennsylvania, drängte die Führungskräfte darauf, ob ihre Plattformen für die Verbreitung von Desinformationen im Zusammenhang mit dem Wahlergebnis 2020 verantwortlich seien, was den Aufruhr anheizte.

“Wie ist es möglich, dass Sie nicht zumindest zugeben, dass Facebook eine führende Rolle bei der Rekrutierung, Planung und Durchführung des Angriffs auf das Kapitol gespielt hat?” er fragte Herrn Zuckerberg.

“Ich denke, dass die Verantwortung hier bei den Menschen liegt, die Maßnahmen ergriffen haben, um das Gesetz zu brechen und den Aufstand zu führen”, sagte Zuckerberg und fügte hinzu, dass die Menschen, die die Fehlinformationen verbreiteten, ebenfalls Verantwortung trugen.

“Aber Ihre Plattformen haben das aufgeladen”, sagte Mr. Doyle.

Der Gesetzgeber argumentierte, dass die Plattformen auch Fehlinformationen über die Coronavirus-Pandemie ermöglicht hätten.

Die wachsende Frustration des Gesetzgebers kommt, wenn er überlegt, ob die Geschäftsmodelle der Plattformen strenger reguliert werden sollen. Einige haben vorgeschlagen, ein gesetzliches Schutzschild zu ändern, das Websites vor Rechtsstreitigkeiten über von ihren Benutzern veröffentlichte Inhalte schützt, und argumentiert, dass es den Unternehmen ermöglicht, bei der Überwachung ihrer Produkte fahrlässig davonzukommen.

Der Vertreter Jan Schakowsky, Demokrat von Illinois, sagte am Donnerstag, dass die Führungskräfte wegnehmen sollten, dass “die Selbstregulierung am Ende ihres Weges angelangt ist”.

Vertreter Bob Latta, Republikaner von Ohio, beschuldigte die Plattformen einer Anerkennung…Energie- und Handelsausschuss über YouTube

Republikanische Gesetzgeber kamen in die Anhörung, um über die Unruhen im Capitol am 6. Januar zu dämpfen, aber ihr Animus konzentrierte sich auf die Entscheidungen der Plattformen, rechte Persönlichkeiten, einschließlich des ehemaligen Präsidenten Donald J. Trump, wegen Anstiftung zu Gewalt zu verbieten.

Die Entscheidung, Herrn Trump, viele seiner Mitarbeiter und andere Konservative zu verbieten, sei eine liberale Voreingenommenheit und Zensur.

“Wir alle sind uns der zunehmenden Zensur konservativer Stimmen durch Big Tech und ihres Engagements für die radikale progressive Agenda bewusst”, sagte Bob Latta, der ranghöchste Republikaner des Unterausschusses für Kommunikation und Technologie des Hauses.

Nach den Unruhen im Capitol wurden Mr. Trump und einige seiner Top-Helfer vorübergehend oder auf unbestimmte Zeit auf wichtigen Social-Media-Websites verboten.

Es wird erwartet, dass die Kommentare von Herrn Latta von vielen Republikanern in der Anhörung wiederholt werden. Sie sagen, die Plattformen seien zu Gatekeepern von Informationen geworden, und sie beschuldigen die Unternehmen, konservative Ansichten zu unterdrücken. Die Behauptungen wurden von Wissenschaftlern konsequent widerlegt.

Herr Latta ging auf das gesetzliche Schutzschild ein, das als Section 230 des Communications Decency Act bekannt ist, und ob die großen Technologieunternehmen den behördlichen Schutz verdienen.

“Section 230 bietet Ihnen den Haftungsschutz für Entscheidungen zur Moderation von Inhalten, die nach Treu und Glauben getroffen wurden”, sagte Latta. Aber er sagte, die Unternehmen scheinen ihre Moderationsbefugnisse genutzt zu haben, um Standpunkte zu zensieren, mit denen die Unternehmen nicht einverstanden sind. “Ich finde das sehr besorgniserregend.”

Von den Geschäftsführern von Facebook, Alphabet und Twitter wird erwartet, dass sie auf beiden Seiten des Ganges vor schwierigen Fragen des Gesetzgebers stehen. Demokraten haben sich auf Desinformation konzentriert, insbesondere nach dem Aufstand im Kapitol. Die Republikaner haben die Unternehmen bereits nach ihren Entscheidungen befragt, konservative Persönlichkeiten und Geschichten von ihren Plattformen zu entfernen.

Reporter der New York Times haben viele der Beispiele behandelt, die auftauchen könnten. Hier sind die Fakten, die Sie über sie wissen sollten:

Nachdem sein Sohn 2016 in Israel von einem Mitglied der militanten Gruppe Hamas erstochen worden war, entschied Stuart Force, dass Facebook teilweise für den Tod verantwortlich war, da die Algorithmen, die das soziale Netzwerk antreiben, dazu beitrugen, den Inhalt der Hamas zu verbreiten. Er verklagte zusammen mit Verwandten anderer Terroropfer das Unternehmen und argumentierte, dass seine Algorithmen die Verbrechen unterstützten, indem sie regelmäßig Posten verstärkten, die zu Terroranschlägen ermutigten. Argumente über die Leistungsfähigkeit der Algorithmen haben in Washington nachhallt.

Section 230 des Communications Decency Act hat Facebook, YouTube, Twitter und unzähligen anderen Internetunternehmen zum Gedeihen verholfen. Der Haftungsschutz von Section 230 erstreckt sich jedoch auch auf Randwebsites, die für ihre Hassreden, antisemitischen Inhalte und rassistischen Tropen bekannt sind. Als die Prüfung großer Technologieunternehmen in Washington in Bezug auf eine Vielzahl von Themen, einschließlich des Umgangs mit der Verbreitung von Desinformation oder Hassreden der Polizei, intensiviert wurde, wurde Section 230 erneut in den Fokus gerückt.

Nachdem Facebook den politischen Diskurs rund um den Globus entflammt hat, versucht es, die Temperatur zu senken. Das soziale Netzwerk begann, seinen Algorithmus zu ändern, um den politischen Inhalt in den Newsfeeds der Benutzer zu reduzieren. Facebook gab eine Vorschau auf die Änderung Anfang dieses Jahres, als Mark Zuckerberg, der Geschäftsführer, sagte, das Unternehmen experimentiere mit Möglichkeiten, um spaltende politische Debatten unter den Nutzern einzudämmen. “Eines der wichtigsten Rückmeldungen, die wir derzeit von unserer Community hören, ist, dass die Menschen nicht wollen, dass Politik und Kämpfe ihre Erfahrungen mit unseren Diensten übernehmen”, sagte er.

Als das Wahlkollegium die Wahl von Joseph R. Biden Jr. bestätigte, ließen die Fehlinformationen über Wahlbetrug nach. Aber Händler von Online-Lügen haben Lügen über die Covid-19-Impfstoffe verbreitet. Die Republikanerin Marjorie Taylor Greene, eine Republikanerin aus Georgia, sowie rechtsextreme Websites wie ZeroHedge haben begonnen, falsche Impfstoffberichte zu veröffentlichen, sagten Forscher. Ihre Bemühungen wurden durch ein robustes Netzwerk von Anti-Impf-Aktivisten wie Robert F. Kennedy Jr. auf Plattformen wie Facebook, YouTube und Twitter verstärkt.

Am Ende taten zwei Milliardäre aus Kalifornien das, was Legionen von Politikern, Staatsanwälten und Maklern jahrelang versucht hatten und versäumten: Sie zogen Präsident Trump den Stecker. Journalisten und Historiker werden Jahre damit verbringen, den improvisatorischen Charakter der Verbote auszupacken und zu untersuchen, warum sie angekommen sind, als Herr Trump seine Macht verlor und die Demokraten bereit waren, die Kontrolle über den Kongress und das Weiße Haus zu übernehmen. Die Verbote haben auch eine seit Jahren schwelende Debatte um freie Meinungsäußerung angeheizt.

Geschäftsführer von Google, Apple, Amazon und Facebook sagen im Juli aus. Mark Zuckerberg von Facebook hat sechs Mal auf dem Capitol Hill ausgesagt.Anerkennung…Poolfoto von Mandel Ngan

Im Herbst 2017, als der Kongress Google, Facebook und Twitter aufforderte, über ihre Rolle bei der Einmischung Russlands in die Präsidentschaftswahlen 2016 auszusagen, schickten die Unternehmen ihre Geschäftsführer nicht – wie vom Gesetzgeber gefordert – und riefen stattdessen ihre Anwälte dazu auf Stelle dich dem Feuer.

Während der Anhörungen beschwerten sich die Politiker darüber, dass die General Counsel Fragen dazu beantworteten, ob die Unternehmen dazu beigetragen hätten, den demokratischen Prozess zu untergraben, anstatt “die Top-Leute, die tatsächlich die Entscheidungen treffen”, wie Senator Angus King, ein unabhängiger von Maine, es ausdrückte .

Es war klar, dass Capitol Hill sein Pfund CEO-Fleisch haben wollte und dass es nicht lange funktionieren würde, sich hinter den Anwälten zu verstecken. Diese anfängliche Besorgnis darüber, wie die Häuptlinge des Silicon Valley mit dem Grillen von Gesetzgebern umgehen würden, ist keine Sorge mehr. Nach einer Reihe von virtuellen und persönlichen Anhörungen in den letzten Jahren hatten die Führungskräfte viel Übung.

Seit 2018 hat Sundar Pichai, der Geschäftsführer von Google, drei Mal ausgesagt. Jack Dorsey, der Geschäftsführer von Twitter, hat vier Auftritte absolviert, und Mark Zuckerberg, der Chef von Facebook, hat sechs Mal ausgesagt.

Und wenn die drei Männer am Donnerstag erneut befragt werden, werden sie dies jetzt als erfahrene Veteranen tun, um die bösartigsten Angriffe abzulenken und dann zu ihren sorgfältig geübten Gesprächsthemen umzuleiten.

Im Allgemeinen neigt Herr Pichai dazu, bei den schärfsten Stößen des Gesetzgebers höflich und schnell anderer Meinung zu sein – beispielsweise als Herr Pichai letztes Jahr gefragt wurde, warum Google Inhalte von ehrlichen Unternehmen stiehlt -, aber keine Harfe darauf. Wenn ein Politiker versucht, ihn auf ein bestimmtes Thema festzulegen, stützt er sich häufig auf eine bekannte Verzögerungstaktik: Meine Mitarbeiter werden sich bei Ihnen melden.

Herr Pichai ist kein dynamischer Technologieführer mit Personenkult wie Steve Jobs oder Elon Musk, aber sein zurückhaltendes Auftreten und seine Ernsthaftigkeit eignen sich gut für das Rampenlicht des Kongresses.

Herr Zuckerberg hat sich im Laufe der Zeit auch mit den Anhörungen wohler gefühlt und betont, was das Unternehmen zur Bekämpfung von Fehlinformationen unternimmt. Bei seinem ersten Auftritt im Jahr 2018 war Herr Zuckerberg zerknirscht und versprach, es besser zu machen, wenn er die Benutzerdaten nicht schützt und russische Einmischung in Wahlen verhindert.

Seitdem hat er die Botschaft verbreitet, dass Facebook eine Plattform für immer ist, und dabei sorgfältig die Schritte dargelegt, die das Unternehmen unternimmt, um Desinformation online auszumerzen.

Da die Sitzungen während der Pandemie virtuell verlaufen sind, haben Mr. Dorseys Auftritte, die sich über eine Laptop-Kamera gebeugt haben, im Vergleich zu den schwach beleuchteten neutralen Kulissen für die Google- und Facebook-Chefs einen ganz anderen Zoom-Charakter.

Herr Dorsey neigt dazu, extrem ruhig zu bleiben – fast zenartig -, wenn er mit aggressiven Fragen gedrängt wird, und beschäftigt sich häufig mit technischen Fragen, die selten ein Follow-up verbieten.

VideoCinemagraphAnerkennungAnerkennung…Von Sean Dong

Im heutigen On Tech-Newsletter erklärt Shira Ovide, dass die Debatte in Abschnitt 230 unser Unbehagen über die Macht von Big Tech und unseren Wunsch widerspiegelt, jemanden zur Rechenschaft zu ziehen.

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As we speak’s Enterprise Information: Reside Updates on United Airways and Unemployment Claims

An outdoor seating area at a Bronx restaurant. The hospitality industry has been hit especially hard by job losses during the pandemic.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Michael Young for The New York Times

While vaccination efforts have gathered speed and restrictions on activities have receded in many states, the job market is showing signs of life.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell last week to 657,000, a decrease of 100,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. It was the lowest weekly level of initial state claims since the pandemic upended the economy a year ago.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, new state claims totaled 684,000.

In addition, there were 242,000 new claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federal program covering freelancers, part-timers and others who do not routinely qualify for state benefits, a decrease of 43,000.

Unemployment claims have been at historically high levels for the past year, partly because some workers have been laid off more than once. Much of the drop last week was accounted for by a decline in new claims in Ohio and Illinois, but economists said the overall trend was encouraging.

“This is definitely a positive signal and a move in the right direction,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics. “We would expect to see further improvements as vaccines roll out and restrictions are lifted.”

Between the state and federal programs, the total number of new jobless claims was just under 900,000 after being stuck above one million a week.

Although the pace of vaccinations, as well as passage of a $1.9 trillion relief package this month, has lifted economists’ expectations for growth, the labor market has lagged behind other measures of recovery.

Still, the easing of restrictions on indoor dining areas, health clubs, movie theaters and other gathering places offers hope for the millions of workers who were let go in the last 12 months. And the $1,400 checks going to most Americans as part of the relief bill should help spending perk up in the weeks ahead.

Diane Swonk, chief economist at the accounting firm Grant Thornton, said she hoped for consistent employment gains but her optimism was tempered by concern about the longer-term displacement of workers by the pandemic.

“The numbers are encouraging, but no one is jumping the gun and hiring up for what looks to be a boom this spring and summer,” she said. “There is a reluctance to get ahead of activity.”

“We’ve passed the point where you can just flip a switch and the lights come back on,” she added. “We need to see a sustained increase in hiring, which I think we will see, but the concern is that it won’t be so robust. It takes longer to ramp up than it does to shut down.”

Most of United’s new flights will connect cities in the Midwest to tourist destinations.Credit…Sebastian Hidalgo for The New York Times

United Airlines plans to add more than two dozen new flights starting Memorial Day weekend, the latest sign that demand for leisure travel is picking up as the national vaccination rate moves higher.

Most of the new flights will connect cities in the Midwest to tourist destinations, such as Charleston, Hilton Head and Myrtle Beach in South Carolina; Portland, Maine; Savannah, Ga.; and Pensacola, Fla. United also said it planned to offer more flights to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and South America in May than it did during the same month in 2019.

The airline has seen ticket sales rise in recent weeks, according to Ankit Gupta, United’s vice president of domestic network planning and scheduling. Customers are booking tickets further out, too, he said, suggesting growing confidence in travel.

“Over the past 12 months, this is the first time we are really feeling more bullish,” Mr. Gupta said.

Airports have been consistently busier in recent weeks than at any point since the coronavirus pandemic brought travel to a standstill a year ago. Well over one million people were screened at airport security checkpoints each day over the past two weeks, according to the Transportation Security Administration, although the number of screenings is down more than 40 percent compared with the same period in 2019.

Most of the new United flights will be offered between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend aboard the airline’s regional jets, which have 50 seats. The airline said it would also add new flights between Houston and Kalispell, Mont.; Washington and Bozeman, Mont.; Chicago and Nantucket, Mass.; and Orange County, Calif., and Honolulu.

All told, United said it planned to operate about 58 percent as many domestic flights this May as it did in May 2019 and 46 percent as many international flights. Most of the demand for international travel has been focused on warm beach destinations that have less-stringent travel restrictions.

“That is one of the strongest demand regions in the world right now,” Mr. Gupta said. “A lot of the leisure traffic has sort of shifted to those places and it’s actually seen a boom in bookings.”

Delta Air Lines issued a similar update last week, announcing more than 20 nonstop summer flights to mountain, beach and vacation destinations. Both airlines have said in recent weeks that they have made substantial progress toward reducing how much money they are losing every day.

“Institutions that focus on diversity and do it well are the successful institutions in our society,” said Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair.Credit…Mandel Ngan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, said on Thursday that the central bank was trying to make its economic employee base more racially diverse and he was not satisfied with its progress toward that goal so far.

“It’s very frustrating, because we have had for many years a strong focus on recruiting a more diverse cadre of economists,” Mr. Powell said while speaking on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” after being asked about a New York Times story on the Fed’s lack of Black economists. “We’re not at all satisfied with the results.”

Only two of the 417 economists, or 0.5 percent, at the Fed’s board in Washington were Black, according to data the Fed provided to The Times earlier this year. By comparison, Black people make up 13 percent of the country’s population and 3 to 4 percent of the U.S. citizens and permanent residents who graduate as Ph.D. economists each year.

Across the entire Fed system — including the Board of Governors and the 12 regional banks — 1.3 percent of economists identified as Black. The Fed has been making efforts to hire more broadly, Mr. Powell said, including by working with historically Black colleges.

“It’s a very high priority,” Mr. Powell said of hiring more diversely. “Institutions that focus on diversity and do it well are the successful institutions in our society.”

The Fed chair was also asked about how he would rate the central bank’s sweeping efforts to rescue the economy as markets melted down at the start of the coronavirus outbreak last year. In addition to cutting its policy interest rate to near zero and rolling out an enormous bond-buying program, the Fed set up a series of emergency lending programs to funnel credit to the economy.

Rolled out over a frantic few weeks, the programs included ones that the Fed had never tried before to backstop corporate bond and private company loan markets.

“I liken it to Dunkirk,” Mr. Powell said, referring to the rapid evacuation of British and Allied forces from France in World War II. “Just get in the boats and go.”

Despite the speed of the decision-making, Mr. Powell said that he looked back on the results as positive.

“Overall, it was a very successful program,” he said. “It served its purpose in staving off what could have been far worse outcomes.”

Esther George, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, said she expected inflation to “firm,” given time.Credit…Ann Saphir/Reuters

Esther George, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, says that although the outlook for growth has improved as vaccinations increase and the government rolls out relief packages, the path of the pandemic remains a major question hanging over the U.S. and global economies.

“We’re not out of this yet,” Ms. George said in an interview on Wednesday. “It’s hard to know what the dynamics will be on the other side.”

Ms. George said she was focused on labor force participation as a sign of the job market’s strength more than the headline unemployment rate, which has fallen to 6.2 percent from a 14.8 percent peak but misses many people who aren’t looking for new jobs after losing theirs during the pandemic. Participation, the share of people working or looking, remains a hefty two percentage points below its prepandemic levels.

“That might be the thing I really watch in the coming months,” she said.

Ms. George expects inflation to “firm,” but that the process is likely to take a while, she said, and it is “too soon to say” whether it will end with a more meaningful rise. Some prominent economists have begun to warn that prices, which have been low for decades, could rise rapidly as the government spends big and the Fed keeps rates at rock bottom to support the economic recovery.

“Wages are a very telling factor in a story about inflation,” Ms. George said.

Many economists look for faster growth in compensation as a signal that inflation is sustainable, not just driven by short-lived supply constraints or temporary quirks in the data.

Ms. George’s colleagues, including Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, have been clear that they expect prices to move higher this year but will not necessarily see that as an achievement of their inflation goal. The Fed redefined its target last year and now aims for 2 percent annual price gains, on average, over time.

Ms. George did not venture a guess of when the Fed will hit its three criteria for raising interest rates: full employment, 2 percent realized price gains and the expectation of higher inflation for some time. Some Fed officials expect to raise rates next year or in 2023, but most of them expect the initial increase to come even later.

Dan Gilbert, the chief executive of Quicken Loans, which has been based in Detroit since 2010.Credit…Tony Dejak/Associated Press

Dan Gilbert, the Quicken Loans founder, has spent more than a decade putting billions into downtown Detroit. Now he’s broadening his scope.

The Gilbert Family Foundation and the Rocket Community Fund, the philanthropic arm of Quicken Loans’ Rocket Mortgage company, announced on Thursday a $500 million investment in Metro Detroit, to be spent over the next 10 years. The first $15 million will be put toward paying off property tax debt of low-income homeowners who qualified for Detroit’s Pay As You Stay initiative.

Quicken Loans has been based in Detroit since 2010, and Mr. Gilbert and his real estate firm, Bedrock, have spent billions buying and redeveloping properties there. Those efforts have been praised for revitalizing a downtown area of roughly seven square miles, but also criticized by some who contend they did not do enough to help those who live in the rest of the city.

“We feel like we’ve made Detroit into a tech boomtown,” said Mr. Gilbert. But he acknowledged that some may have felt left behind. “This can bridge that,” he said.

Mr. Gilbert added that his focus outside of Detroit’s city center stems from his work on President Barack Obama’s Blight Removal Task Force in 2014 as the city was emerging from bankruptcy. “Property taxes was the No. 1 issue that was causing the blight foreclosures,” he said.

Detroit’s housing crisis dates to “racial covenants” in the 1920s. In the mid-2000s, the city became a center of risky lending that defined the financial crisis, with subprime lending accounting for three-fourths of the mortgages in the city. (Quicken Loans settled a lawsuit with the Justice Department for its own lending practices during that time, but admitted no wrongdoing.)

The economic crisis that followed toppled a city already grappling with a dwindling population and shrinking revenue. Those who paid for the recovery were largely low-income housing owners — in many cases Black — whom the city was also accused of overtaxing. Poverty rates ascended and city services deteriorated as a result.

The investment announced on Thursday is an effort to address the lingering effects of the crisis. Twenty thousand families qualify for the tax-relief program, said Mr. Gilbert’s wife, Jennifer, who founded the Gilbert Family Foundation with her husband.

“By preserving that wealth, we also preserve opportunities for intergenerational wealth transfer,” she said. “The stability of the home allows for people to then focus on other economic opportunities that allow them to thrive.”

After the first $15 million of the initiative is spent paying back taxes of low-income homeowners, the remaining funds will be focused on, among other things, home repair and narrowing the digital divide.

The community will be vital for input, including those who qualify for the initial tax relief. “We can learn a lot about where we want to invest next and how best we can positively impact them and their lives,” Ms. Gilbert said.

A Nike store in Beijing on Thursday. Nike shares fell in premarket trading after it was criticized on Chinese social media over a statement it made about reports of forced labor in Xinjiang.Credit…Greg Baker/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Stocks on Wall Street dropped on Thursday even as the latest weekly data showed that state unemployment claims fell to the lowest level since the start of the pandemic.

The S&P 500 index and Nasdaq composite both fell less than half a percent in early trading.

Stock trading has grown choppy lately as investors weigh news of rising Covid-19 cases and new lockdowns, or the rollback of efforts to reopen economies, against mounting signs of economic recovery as more people are vaccinated and the effects of the $1.9 trillion stimulus package emerge.

On Thursday, the Labor Department reported that initial claims for unemployment benefits fell last week to 657,000, a decrease of 100,000 from the previous week. On a seasonally adjusted basis, new state claims totaled 684,000.

As Europe grapples with an emerging third wave of the pandemic, Germany has canceled a strict five-day lockdown that was set to start at the beginning of April. Chancellor Angela Merkel said she took “ultimate responsibility” for the reversal, which came after a large backlash to the plan, even from within her own party, and anger from retailers and restaurants.

“In the near term, this avoids the negative economic consequences of a lockdown,” Paul Donovan, an economist at UBS Global Wealth Management, wrote in a note. But over a longer a period of time, markets will question whether this will just delay Germany’s ability to restrain the virus and slow down the recovery, he added.

European stocks were lower Thursday. The Stoxx Europe 600 index was down 0.8 percent and the FTSE 100 in Britain fell 1 percent.

Oil prices dropped. Futures of Brent crude, the European benchmark, fell 1.5 percent to $63.45 a barrel and futures of West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, fell 1.8 percent to about $60 a barrel.

On Wednesday, oil prices jumped more than 5 percent after a container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking one of the world’s key shipping routes, which is also an important artery for the flow of oil. On Thursday, efforts to dislodge the ship were ongoing as some 150 other ships were waiting on either side.

The company trying to move the ship warned it could take weeks. Shipping has already been heavily disrupted by the pandemic, sending freight prices soaring.

  • Nike shares dropped more than 3 percent in early trading, and H&M shares fell close to 4 percent in Stockholm after Chinese social media users called for a boycott of the companies. The two fashion retailers published statements expressing concern over reports of forced labor in Xinjiang. Nike’s statement said the company didn’t source cotton from the region, but the online attacks have called it a boycott of the region’s cotton farmers.

  • Yields on 10-year Treasury notes fell to about 1.6 percent.

“We are here to help our small businesses, and that is why I’m proud to more than triple the amount of funding they can access,” said Isabella Casillas Guzman, the Small Business Administration’s administrator.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Companies harmed by the coronavirus pandemic can soon borrow up to $500,000 through the Small Business Administration’s emergency lending program, raising a cap that has frustrated many applicants.

“The pandemic has lasted longer than expected,” Isabella Casillas Guzman, the agency’s administrator, said on Wednesday. “We are here to help our small businesses, and that is why I’m proud to more than triple the amount of funding they can access.”

The change to the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program — known as EIDL and pronounced as idle — will take effect the week of April 6. Those who have already received loans but might now qualify for more money will be contacted and offered the opportunity to apply for an increase, the agency said.

The Small Business Administration has approved $200 billion in disaster loans to 3.8 million borrowers since the program began last year. Unlike the forgivable loans made through the larger and more prominent Paycheck Protection Program, the disaster loans must be paid back. But they carry a low interest rate and a long repayment term.

Normally, the decades-old disaster program makes loans of up to $2 million, and in the early days of the pandemic, the agency gave some applicants as much as $900,000. But it soon capped loans at $150,000 because it feared exhausting the available funding. That limit — which the agency did not tell borrowers about for months — angered applicants who needed more capital to keep their struggling ventures alive.

The agency has $270 billion left to lend through the pandemic relief program, James Rivera, the head of the agency’s Office of Disaster Assistance, told senators at a hearing on Wednesday.

  • Tribune Publishing’s board recommended that shareholders approve a purchase offer from the hedge fund Alden Global Capital over a higher bid from a Maryland hotel executive, according to a securities filing Tuesday. Alden, Tribune’s largest shareholder, agreed last month to buy the rest of the company at $17.25 per share and take it private in a deal that would value the company at $630 million. Last week, Stewart W. Bainum Jr., a hotel magnate, made an $18.50 per share offer for the whole company.

Jane Fraser in 2019. “The blurring of lines between home and work and the relentlessness of the pandemic workday have taken a toll on our well-being,” she told Citigroup employees.Credit…Erin Scott/Reuters

Complaints of “Zoom fatigue” have emerged across industries and classrooms in the past year, as people confined to working from home faced schedules packed with virtual meetings and often followed up by long video catch-ups with friends, reports Anna Schaverien of The New York Times.

But Citigroup, one of the world’s largest banks, is trying to start a new end-of-week tradition meant to combat that fatigue: Zoom-free Fridays.

The bank’s new chief executive, Jane Fraser, announced the plan in a memo sent to employees on Monday. Recognizing that workers have spent inordinate amounts of the past 12 months staring at video calls, Citi is encouraging its employees to take a step back from Zoom and other videoconferencing platforms for one day a week, she said.

“The blurring of lines between home and work and the relentlessness of the pandemic workday have taken a toll on our well-being,” Ms. Fraser wrote in the memo, which was seen by The New York Times.

No one at the company would have to turn their video on for any internal meetings on Fridays, she said. External meetings would not be affected.

The bank outlined other steps to restore some semblance of work-life balance. It recommended employees stop scheduling calls outside of traditional working hours and pledged that when employees can return to offices, a majority of its workers would be given the option to work from home up to two days a week.