Friday, May 15, 2020

6:30 pm ET: Feel Good Friday

Cheddar Social Media Director Aly Ellis shares three stories that made us smile this week.

Have a great weekend!

5:50 pm ET: Stock Indexes Mostly Flat on Wall Street After a Bumpy Start

Stock indexes were mostly flat Friday afternoon after a wobbly day of trading on Wall Street as optimism over the gradual reopening of businesses shuttered due to the coronavirus is kept in check by more data showing how the pandemic is crippling the economy.

The government reported that U.S. retail sales sank a record 16% in April, the second steep decline in a row as store closures kept shoppers away. The Federal Reserve also reported that industrial production plunged a record 11.2% last month. Overseas, Germany’s economy shrank in the first quarter, meaning that Europe’s largest economy is in a recession.

At the same time, investors have grown cautiously optimistic that the economic fallout from the outbreak will begin easing as more U.S. states and countries around the world take steps to reopen their economies.

“Investors are really torn,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance. Read more...

— The Associated Press

5:00 pm ET: Upstate New York Mayors Embrace Reopening but Disagree on Next Steps

As large swaths of New York begin to reopen this weekend, mayors and local officials across the state are feeling the squeeze from budget cuts, furloughs, and frustrated constituents. While leaders on both sides of the aisle agree they are ready to get their communities open once again, questions about how exactly to do that are still up for debate.

Overall, the state's regional approach has gotten widespread support from upstate officials, who are eager to differentiate themselves from downstate communities ravaged by coronavirus. But who should take responsibility for their economic woes settles along more conventional partisan divides. 

"Every small community would obviously like extra money, but I don't think the federal government is there to bail out every state," said Watertown Mayor Jeffrey M. Smith, a Republican. "From our perspective, let us open up and fend for ourselves, and if there is some extra federal money to help our community out that's great." 

Watertown is located on the Canadian border in the state's vast North Country, one of five regions that were eligible for the first phase of the state's reopening plan. The other four include the Mohawk Valley, Southern Tier, Central New York and Finger Lakes regions. All them qualified based on criteria that looked at net hospitalizations, deaths, and the availability of beds and ICU units. 

This weekend's phase 1 reopening covers manufacturing, construction, and select curbside retail. It also allowed drive-in movie theaters and landscaping businesses to open statewide. 

"The way we're doing this makes sense," said Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick, a Democrat. "The president could not possibly issue orders that say 'Okay, movie theaters are fine in this zip code, but in that zip code you need to wait until next week.' What would make sense is a federal government that recognized that even if we all reopen slowly and cautiously, the economy is not going to be what it was without enormous amounts of stimulus." Read more...

— Alex Vuocolo

Cornell University in Ithaca, NY (Photo via Getty images)

4:17 pm ET: Around the World in 90 Seconds

Babies stranded in Ukraine as travel restrictions stay surrogates and Kenyan ballerina keeps the music alive while in lockdown. There are your coronavirus headlines from around the world.

— Megan Pratz

1:45 pm ET: NASCAR Exec Touts Return of Racing This Weekend

NASCAR drivers will be returning to Darlington Raceway this weekend in South Carolina, but even with those loud engines, it'll be a much quieter racetrack. After a two month suspension due to COVID-19, the racing organization will hold it's first race without fans in the stands or high fives in Victory Lane.

“When we go back it’s going to have to look much much different than it did before, namely with no fans in the stands, but also how we operate the race. We know we have a real responsibility to protect the health and safety of our competitors, our industry and local communities we race in,” Jill Gregory, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at NASCAR, told Cheddar Friday. Read more...

— McKenzie Marshall

11:50 am ET: U.S. Ramps Up Sanctions on Chinese Tech Giant Huawei

The U.S. government is imposing new restrictions on Chinese tech giant Huawei by limiting its ability to use American technology to build its semiconductors.

The Commerce Department said Friday the move aims to cut off Huawei's undermining of existing U.S. sanctions. Read more...

— The Associated Press

10:20 am ET: U.S. Retail Sales Plunged in April

U.S. retail sales tumbled by a record 16.4% from March to April as business shutdowns caused by the coronavirus kept shoppers away, threatened stores across the country and weighed down a sinking economy.

The Commerce Department’s report Friday on retail purchases showed a sector that has collapsed so quickly that sales over the past 12 months are down a crippling 21.6%.

The sharpest drops from March to April were at clothiers, electronics stores, furniture stores and restaurants. A long-standing migration of consumers toward online purchases is accelerating, with that segment posting an 8.4% monthly gain. Measured year over year, online sales surged 21.6%.

For a retail sector already reeling from the migration of consumers to online shopping and to app-based delivery services, a back-to-back free-fall in spending poses a grave risk. Department stores like Neiman Marcus and J.Crew have filed for bankruptcy protection. Hotels, restaurants and auto dealerships are in danger. Read more...

— The Associated Press

8:07 am ET: Need2Know: Path to Reopening, Grocery Prices Spike & NASCAR Is Back

Get your news over easy every morning by listening to the Need 2 Know podcast (Stitcher, iTunes) and signing up for our morning newsletter.

REOPENING GUIDELINES: The CDC has issued basic guidelines to help businesses and schools determine how to reopen, though many states are already pushing forward with their own plans. New Jersey will reopen its beaches, with restrictions, by Memorial Day weekend. Customers flooded bars in Wisconsin after the state’s lockdown order was overruled in court. In NYC, some traders will be allowed to return to the New York Stock Exchange after Memorial Day. ABC NEWS

WHISTLEBLOWER TESTIMONY: For the first time in this crisis, a federal official went before Congress and publicly accused the Trump administration of bungling the coronavirus response so badly that “lives were lost” as a result. Dr. Rick Bright, who was pushed out of his job leading a major scientific research agency, testified that the White House ignored warnings of a mask shortage and politicized the efforts to find a COVID-19 treatment. President Trump dismissed Bright as a “disgruntled employee.” NY TIMES

OPERATION WARP SPEED: President Trump has named two officials to run Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year. Moncef Slaoui, a former pharmaceutical executive, and Gustave Perna, a former four-star general, will be in charge of developing a vaccine and then rolling it out to millions of people. The president said he would mobilize the military to help those efforts. NPR

SENATE STOCK SCANDAL: Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) is stepping down as chairman of the influential Senate Intelligence Committee while he’s under investigation by the FBI for his stock trading. In a very rare move, the authorities served Burr with a search warrant and seized his cell phone. Burr is under investigation for dumping stocks just before the coronavirus crashed the market. POLITICO

UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS: Another three million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, bringing the total number since March to about 36 million. New data from the Fed shows how unequally the pain from the downturn is being spread: nearly 40 percent of households with incomes below $40,000 reported a lost job in March. WSJ

GROCERY PRICES SPIKE: Gas is cheap, there are retail sales everywhere, airfares are rock bottom, and new cars are barely going above invoice — and yet, groceries keep getting more expensive. New stats from the government show prices shot up last month for everything from eggs (16%) to donuts (5%) to pork (3%). Simple economics are at work: grocery demand is sky-high, and supply chains have been disrupted. CNN

SPORTS: NASCAR: It’s not the NBA playoffs, but there will be, for the first time in months, a live sporting event on television this weekend. NASCAR is returning to the racetrack on Sunday at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina. There will be no one in the stands, and only a bare-bones pit crew, with crewmembers getting regular health checks. ESPN

SPORTS: NFL: Fox Sports broadcaster Joe Buck says the network is considering pumping in artificial crowd noise and populating stadiums with virtual fans if the NFL season goes forward in September without spectators. Dr. Fauci has said he envisions the possibility of the league opening on schedule, with stadiums either empty or only partially full. SI

SUMMER MOVIE SEASON: Warner Bros. is still planning to open the new Christopher Nolan blockbuster Tenet in theaters on July 17, and the fate of the movie industry may depend on how it goes. One studio exec says if Tenet’s open is a failure, “it’s no movies until Christmas.” But if people come out and pack theaters — assuming they’re even open — more studios would likely follow in the back half of summer. WASH POST

'FROZEN' LET GO: Disney is closing Frozen on Broadway for good, blaming the pandemic and making the theatrical adaptation of the hit movie the first Broadway musical to shut down because of coronavirus. Disney says it remains committed to its two other big musicals — Aladdin and Lion King — whenever Broadway reopens, which will be September at the earliest. BROADWAY WORLD

LEFTOVERS: POOL NOODLE HATS: A cafe in Germany came up with a novel way to enforce social distancing guidelines as it reopens. The cafe in the city Schwerin is giving out straw hats with foam pool noodles attached to them to its customers: SEE PIC

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