Amazon and other big companies are trying to keep their employees healthy by banning business trips, but they’ve dealt a gut punch to a travel industry already reeling from the virus outbreak.The Seattle-based online retail giant has told its nearly 800,000 workers to postpone any non-essential travel within the United States or around the globe. Swiss food giant Nestle told its 291,000 employees worldwide to limit domestic business travel and halt international travel until March 15. French cosmetics maker L’Oreal, which employs 86,000 people, issued a similar ban until March 31.
Other companies, like Twitter, are telling their employees worldwide to work from home. Google gave that directive to its staff of 8,000 at its European headquarters in Dublin on Tuesday.
Major business gatherings, like the Geneva International Motor Show and the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, have also been canceled.
On Tuesday, Facebook confirmed it will no longer attend the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, which is scheduled to begin March 13. And the 189-nation International Monetary Fund and its sister lending organization, the World Bank, announced they will replace their regular spring meetings in Washington — scheduled for mid-April — with a “virtual format.”
Michael Dunne, the CEO of ZoZo Go, an automotive consulting company that specializes in the Chinese market, normally travels from California to Asia every six weeks. But right now he’s not planning to cross the Pacific until June.
“With everything at a standstill, I do not feel a sense of missing the action,” Dunne said. “But there is no better catalyst for business than meeting people in person.”
Robin Ottaway, president of Brooklyn Brewery, canceled a trip to Seoul and Tokyo last week. He has indefinitely suspended all travel to Asia and also just canceled a trip to Copenhagen that was scheduled for March.
“I wasn’t worried about getting sick. I’m a healthy 46-year-old man with no preexisting conditions,” Ottaway said. “My only worry was getting stuck in Asia or quarantined after returning to the U.S. And I’d hate to be a spreader of the virus.”
The cancellations and travel restrictions are a major blow to business travel, which makes up around 26% of the total travel spending, or around $1.5 trillion per year, according to the Global Business Travel Association.
The association estimates the virus is costing the business travel industry $47 billion per month. In a recent poll of 400 member companies, the group found that 95% have suspended business trips to China, 45% have cut trips to Japan and South Korea and 23% have canceled trips to Europe.
“It’s a big deal,” said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst in San Francisco who estimates that airlines get 55% of their revenue from business travelers, since they’re more likely to sit in pricier business or first-class seats.
“On a long-haul flight to Europe or Asia, a business-class traveler can be five times more profitable than someone in coach,” Harteveldt said.
Figures from the Airlines Reporting Corp. indicate that airline ticket sales fell about 9% during one week in late February, compared with a year earlier.
Hotels are also worried about declines in business travel. In the U.S. alone, hotel bookings for business travel were expected to reach $46.8 billion this year, according to Phocuswright, a travel research firm.
In the week through Feb. 22, San Francisco saw an 11% decline in hotel occupancy, according to STR, a hotel data company. AT&T, Verizon and IBM were among the companies that pulled out of the city’s RSA cybersecurity conference, which began Feb. 24.
Backing out of industry events can be a tough call for businesses. Luke Sorter, owner of Pavel’s Yogurt, spent last weekend agonizing over whether his company should attend Natural Products Expo West, a major industry gathering in Anaheim, California.
Sorter spent nearly $20,000 on conference fees and travel expenses, but then rumors began circulating that nearly all the major retailers he was hoping to pitch were pulling out.
“This was going to be our big push to make some sales and open up some new accounts, and we were really disappointed because all of the major buying groups had pulled out of the show,” said Sorter, whose San Leandro, California-based company pulls in about $1.2 million to $1.5 million in revenue per year.
On Tuesday, Expo West announced it would be postponed until a later date.
“I was relieved because it just didn’t seem safe to put 50, 60, 70,000 people in a building together and the whole show is predicated on sharing and sampling food and handshakes, and person-to-person interaction,” Sorter said.
Some experts say it’s smart for companies to curtail travel before things get worse. Worldwide, 92,000 people have been sickened by the virus and 3,100 have died.
“If you knowingly put your employees in harm’s way during travel, you can be held responsible for their injury or their death,” said Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, which advocates for corporations and governments that hire travel management companies.
In some cases, workers themselves are demanding a halt to travel. The pilots’ union at American Airlines sued last month to make the airline stop flying to China. American agreed to suspend flights to mainland China but initially tried to keep serving Hong Kong. Pilots wouldn’t do it.
When pilots began reporting nervousness about going to Milan and flights were less full, American suspended that service much more quickly, said Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the union.
In some cases, companies are also asking employees to cancel meetings with outside visitors to cut down on the risk of transmission. In a memo sent to Ford Motor Co.’s nearly 200,000 employees Tuesday, Ford CEO Jim Hackett asked employees to meet with suppliers and others by phone or virtually.
Ford also said only the most critical travel will be approved for employees through March 27.
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The Supreme Court wrestled Tuesday with how much power the president should have to fire the head of an independent agency, a question important to future presidents of both parties. The high court heard arguments in a case involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency Congress created in response to the 2008 financial crisis. The agency was the brainchild of Massachusetts Senator  Elizabeth Warren, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, and arguments took place as voters in 14 states were deciding whom they want to nominate to take on President Donald Trump in the next presidential election. At the Supreme Court, Trump’s administration argued that the president should be able to fire the CFPB’s head for any reason. It was unclear from arguments how the court might rule, but the case seemed to divide the court’s liberal and conservative members, with Chief Justice John Roberts’ vote key to the outcome. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s most recent appointee to the court, suggested existing restrictions on the president’s ability to fire the head of the CFPB were “troubling” because they meant that a new president could be saddled with a CFPB director appointed in the previous administration. “The next president in 2021 or 2025, or whenever, will have to deal with a CFPB director appointed by the prior president potentially for his or her whole term without being able … to do anything about that difference in policy,” Kavanaugh said. ‘Modest’ restrictionsBut Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seemed willing to let the restrictions stand, describing them as “modest.” “It stops the president from at whim removing someone, replacing someone with someone who is loyal to the president rather than to the consumers that the bureau is set up to serve,” she said. Under the Dodd-Frank Act that created the CFPB, its director is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term. The president can remove a director only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” It was unclear from arguments whether the justices might let the restriction stand but interpret it in a way that gives the president broad power to remove the director; strip the restriction from the law; or resolve the case another way. Defenders of the law’s removal provision say it insulates the agency’s head from presidential pressure. But detractors say the restriction is unconstitutional and improperly limits the power of the president. The impact of the justices’ decision in the case could go beyond the CFPB because the heads of other so-called independent agencies have a similar restriction on being fired. Those agencies include the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission. Unlike the CFPB, however, those agencies are headed by multimember boards. How case originatedThe case was brought to the court by the Orange County, California-based consumer law firm Seila Law. As part of an investigation, the CFPB demanded information and documents from the firm, which is run by a solo practitioner. Seila Law responded by challenging the CFPB’s structure.  Two lower courts ruled against the law firm, upholding the restrictions on president’s power to remove the CFPB’s director. The fact that the dispute in front of the justices wasn’t the result of the president trying to fire the CFPB’s director weighed on at least one justice. “Shouldn’t we do what we’ve done for over 200 years of this country and wait until there’s an actual dispute between the president and a director that he or she … wants to fire?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked. 
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The U.S. Federal Reserve took the unexpected step on Tuesday of cutting its target interest rate by half of one percentage point, joining policymakers across the globe in an effort to prevent the spreading coronavirus outbreak from plunging the world economy into recession.The action by the U.S. central bank followed the announcement earlier Tuesday that central banks in Australia and Malaysia had lowered their rates, and sparked speculation that their counterparts in other countries would follow suit.The Bank of Japan and the Reserve Bank of India have both indicated readiness to take action if necessary. Analysts in Europe, where some interest rates are at or below zero, said that they expected the European Central Bank to lower them further.In Britain, Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, said the institution’s Monetary Policy Committee was assessing the effects of the virus, and “will come to quick conclusions about the appropriate stance of policy.”FILE – The Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, speaks to the Scottish Economics Forum, via a live feed, in central London, Britain, March 2, 2018.In a joint statement on Monday, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank both pledged “emergency financing, policy advice and technical assistance” to countries whose economies are damaged by the spreading virus.China, the epicenter of the virus, has announced a raft of policy measures meant to help its economy recover, including lower interest rates, tax cuts and changes to accounting rules that allow lenders to avoid writing down bad debts.In the U.S. and around the world, the impact of the rate cuts announced today was unclear. After a brief jump when the Fed’s move was announced, stock markets plunged again, as investors moved money into bonds and other assets viewed as less affected by short-term risks.The move by the Fed was unusual because the central bank almost always waits until scheduled meetings of its Open Market Committee to change interest rates. Tuesday morning, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters that the decision was made to lower the target range to between 1% and 1.25% on an emergency basis because the virus is already having a demonstrable negative impact on the global economy.”The outbreak has disrupted economic activity in many countries and prompted significant movements in financial markets,” Powell said. The Fed chief has long been under pressure from President Donald Trump to lower interest rates and bring them more in line with those in Europe.The move surprised experts in the United States, who as recently as Tuesday morning had been predicting that the Fed would wait until its next meeting in two weeks to lower rates. The last time the Fed cut rates outside the context of a scheduled FOMC meeting was in the midst of the financial crisis of 2008.”The Fed must have figured that moving early and decisively was more important than waiting for a meeting,” said David M. Wessel, director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “There’s always a risk that when they do something like this, people think, ‘Oh, things must be even worse than I thought.’ But I think they must have figured it’s important to get ahead of the curve here.”The Fed response came just hours after the finance ministers and central bank governors of the G-7 — representing the largest economies in the world — issued a statement that gave no hint of imminent action.A hand sanitizer dispenser is installed at the entrance to the New York Stock Exchange trading floor, March 3, 2020.The G-7 statement said that leaders were “monitoring” the impact of the virus on markets, and that “G-7 central banks will continue to fulfill their mandates, thus supporting price stability and economic growth while maintaining the resilience of the financial system.”However, it fell short of committing to any specific action. The U.S., and by extension the Federal Reserve, were both parties to that statement.World leaders are struggling to respond to the fast-moving virus that has spread to a minimum of 60 countries on every continent except Antarctica. The global toll so far is more than 90,000 confirmed cases and more than 3,000 deaths. The vast majority of both have been in China, where the virus first emerged in December.Government responses in a number of countries, including China and the United States, have raised concerns about the readiness of public institutions to cope with such an unprecedented global health crisis.In China, the government tried to suppress news about the virus when it first appeared, potentially allowing it more time to spread.In the United States, virus test kits provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were defective, and the government has been slow to roll out replacements, putting the country weeks behind in the effort to track how widespread the virus is.”I think one of the problems is that this comes at a point in time when people don’t seem to have very much confidence in government,” said Wessel. “We’ve seen this in China, it’s certainly true here, and it’s true in Europe. So, this makes it harder for governments to reassure people that they’re doing everything necessary to avoid overreaction.”This is a real test of the political systems around the world,” he said. “Can they rise to this occasion, do what’s necessary but not cause panic and bring the global economy to a halt? I don’t think we really know.”
  
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Tensions over how to contain the fast-spreading coronavirus escalated Tuesday in the United States as the death toll climbed to nine and lawmakers expressed doubts about the government’s ability to ramp up testing fast enough to deal with the crisis.All of the deaths have occurred in Washington state, and most were residents of a nursing home in suburban Seattle. The number of cases in the U.S. overall climbed past 100 scattered across at least 14 states, with 27 in Washington.“What is happening now in the United States may be the beginning of what is happening abroad,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noting that in China older and sicker people are about twice as likely to become seriously ill as those who are younger and healthier.In the nation’s capital, officials moved on a number of fronts.The Federal Reserve announced the biggest interest-rate cut in over a decade to try to fend off damage to the U.S. economy from the factory shutdowns, travel restrictions and other disruptions caused around the globe by the outbreak. On Wall Street, stocks briefly rallied on the news, then slumped badly.“We have seen a broader spread of the virus. So, we saw a risk to the economy and we chose to act,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said.Also, the Food and Drug and Administration moved to ease a shortage of face masks by giving health care workers the OK to use an industrial type of respirator mask designed to protect construction workers from dust and debris.On Capitol Hill, lawmakers expressed skepticism about U.S. health officials’ claims that testing for the new virus should be widely available by the end of the week. Authorities have said labs across the country should have the capacity to run as many as 1 million tests by then.But testing so far has faced delays and missteps, and “I’m hearing from health professionals that’s unrealistic,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state said at a Senate hearing.The chief of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Stephen Hahn, said the FDA has been working with a private company to get as many as 2,500 test kits out to labs by the end of the week. Each kit should be able to allow a lab to run about 500 tests, he said. But health officials were careful about making hard promises.“I am optimistic, but I want to remain humble,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC.In Washington state, researchers believe the virus may have been circulating undetected for weeks. That has raised fears that there could be hundreds of undiagnosed cases in the area.But some people who want to be tested for the virus in the state are encountering confusion, a lack of testing options and other problems as health authorities scramble to deal with the crisis.“The people across my state are really scared. I’m hearing from people who are sick, who want to get tested and don’t know where to go,” Murray said. “It’s unacceptable that people in my state can’t even get an answer as to whether or not they are infected.”One lab was already testing for coronavirus in Washington state and a second was scheduled to begin doing so Tuesday.Amid the rising fears, a school district north of Seattle closed for training on conducting remote lessons via computer in case schools have to be closed for an extended period, while a private school said it would conduct online-only classes through the end of March.“We do not feel it is prudent to wait until there is a known case to take action,” the school, Eastside Prep in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland, said on its website.A Department of Homeland Security facility just south of Seattle instructed all its employees to work from home after a worker became ill after visiting the nursing home at the center of the outbreak.Elsewhere around the world, the crisis continued to ebb in China, where hundreds of patients were released from hospitals and new infections dropped to just 125 on Tuesday, the lowest in several weeks. But the crisis seemed to shift westward, with alarmingly fast-growing clusters of infections and deaths in South Korea, Iran and Italy.Worldwide, more than 92,000 people have been sickened and 3,100 have died, the vast majority of them in China.“What China shows is that early containment and identification of cases can work, but we now need to implement that in other countries,” said Dr. Nathalie MacDermott, an infectious-diseases expert at King’s College London.
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The publisher of John Bolton’s highly anticipated memoir has pushed back the release date from March 17 to mid-May.
Simon & Schuster cited the ongoing government security review of the former national security adviser’s “The Room Where It Happened.”
The new date is May 12, the publisher said in a news release.
“The new date reflects the fact that the government review of the work is ongoing,” Simon & Schuster said.
The Associated Press reported last November that Bolton had reached a $2 million deal with Simon & Schuster. The book focuses on Bolton’s contentious time in the Trump administration. It is expected to contain allegations that President Donald Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden. The issue was at the center of the impeachment process. In February, the Senate acquitted Trump.
Trump has denied the allegations.
Bolton was widely criticized for not sharing details from his book during the hearings. He had stated his willingness to testify, but Senate Republicans rejected calls to hear from any additional witnesses.  
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