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Showing posts from June, 2020

59% of CEOs implemented hiring freezes during the pandemic: Fortune survey

There are 21 million Americans who are unemployed and looking for work. But they’re finding that many employers aren’t accepting any applications. Around six in 10 CEOs say their company has implemented a hiring freeze or deferred new hiring. That’s the finding from a Fortune survey of CEOs in collaboration with Deloitte . We received 222 CEO responses from June 8 to 12.* When a recession hits, employers often cut openings, and companies in the worst shape freeze hiring altogether. But this go-round, they turned to hiring freezes almost immediately. Before the end of March countless businesses, including Uber , and state governments, like Ohio and Michigan , had implemented hiring freezes. Businesses are turning to a lot more than hiring freezes to shore up cash flows. In an attempt to cut costs, CEOs have also turned to decreasing executive pay (35%), reducing employee benefits (15%), and offering voluntary retirement or exit packages (11%). But a small minority of firms are...
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YouTube bans more white supremacist channels for hate speech

Alphabet’s YouTube has banned six channels known to promote white supremacist content — including those of David Duke, Stefan Molyneux and Richard Spencer — escalating the company’s efforts to root out hate speech and respond to recent criticism of the video site. The company said the channels violated its policies by claiming members of protected groups were inferior. Duke is the former grand wizard of the Klu Klux Klan, while Molyneux and Spencer consider themselves philosophers. YouTube, like many of its peers in Silicon Valley, is stepping up efforts to crack down on hate speech in response to growing outcry about such content on social media. The business, which is part of Google, updated its hate speech policy about a year ago, and prohibits any content that promotes violence or hatred among individuals or groups based on factors such as age, race and gender. Earlier Monday, Reddit banned  several message boards  for encouraging hate, and Amazon.com’s video streaming ...
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Warning: Russian hackers may be trying to target you with ransomware. Here’s how

Russian hackers are trying to take advantage of the millions of employees working from home because of shelter-in-place orders. Security firm Symantec  said this week that it had discovered and then notified businesses that the Russian hacking group Evil Corp has been targeting remote employees with so-called ransomware attacks. In a typical  ransomware attack , criminals sends victims an  email —often created to look like it’s from a colleague—that contains a link to a malicious site. When users accesses the fraudulent site, criminals can then take over their computers and demand payment—typically in cryptocurrency like Bitcoin—to regain control of their devices. In the case of Evil Corp’s ransomware attack, Symantec said the hackers wanted to “cripple” a company’s “IT infrastructure by encrypting most of their computers and servers in order to demand a multimillion dollar ransom.” Symantec said that 31 U.S.-based organizations were compromised in the latest series ...
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Epstein’s victims get a chance to claim a share of his $600 million estate

Women who accused Jeffrey Epstein of sexually assaulting them can begin filing claims and collecting compensation from his estate, valued at more than $600 million. The compensation fund opened Thursday after months of back-and-forth between the estate and the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein owned property and took many of the girls and young women he was accused of attacking. The final hurdle was cleared after the estate agreed to set aside funds for future claims, from the Virgin Islands or elsewhere, and strengthened rules to protect the women’s rights and privacy. The program “provides the victims who were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein an opportunity to resolve their claims outside of court, beyond the glare of public proceedings and without the cost and confrontation of litigation,” Jordana Feldman, the fund’s administrator, said at a news conference. She said no amount of money could undo their suffering but that the confidential program offered “some measure of justice...
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Who are the best health care leaders under 40?

Good evening, readers. Some news for you. In July, The Capsule will be going out more regularly to all of our readers. You’ll be receiving the latest news about digital health, drug development, and the business and policy of public health daily. We’d love to know if you have any ideas for what we should focus on in our coverage. The coronavirus pandemic has obviously (and for good reason) taken up a lot of space in medical reporting. But COVID is far from the only issue that needs addressing in U.S. health care. Gene therapies for blood disorders have hit milestones; cancer therapies continue to evolve . None of the public health problems we faced before this bizarre moment have magically disappeared any more than the reality of heart disease or so many other scourges. And to that spirit of crowd sourcing… Fortune is looking for submissions for our 40 Under 40 list . I urge you to send any suggestions of stars in healthcare my way. See you again next week (on a more regular bas...
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Working from home means softer toilet paper—and a significant toll on the environment

With Americans spending a lot of time at home these days, more money is being spent on soft toilet paper. That may be bad news for the environment. The kind of cushy tissue that was sold out earlier in the pandemic uses material that comes primarily from clear-cutting forests, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. Office buildings, on the other hand, tend to use recycled fibers in their toilet paper, the group said. “The side-effect of one crisis shouldn’t exacerbate another,” said Shelley Vinyard, an environment expert with the NRDC, which released a  report  Wednesday on the climate impact of toilet paper. “There’s no real reason why office tissue has to be made with recycled and the consumer tissue has to be made with virgin fiber.” Nearly 60% of at-home toilet paper in the U.S. comes from so-called virgin material, which is sourced from Canada’s northern forests. The NRDC for years has highlighted the impact of tissue that uses non-recycled content. In t...
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Photo finish: Crashing sales force Olympus to sell iconic camera business

Sometimes, the vicissitudes of capitalism force companies to exit the businesses for which they’re best known. Olympus, once a leading light in the photography industry, is now joining that list. On Wednesday, the company said it planned to quit its 84-year-old camera business. The imaging giant, known for its once-pervasive digital cameras, agreed to sell off the declining unit by year’s end. Japan Industrial Partners, a private equity firm best known for buying Sony’s struggling Vaio computer line in 2014, agreed to purchase the business. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. A glance at Olympus’s financial statements provides all the rationale for the divestiture; as at rival manufacturers, camera sales have plummeted over the past decade. For the fiscal year ended March 31, Olympus’s camera unit declined 10% versus the year prior to  ¥43.6 billion, or $407 million. The unit’s sales have collapsed by three-quarters from a decade ago, when the company brought in ¥175 bill...
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The Segway rolls into the sunset

It’s the end of the Segway era. Production of the two-wheeled, self-balancing personal vehicle with handlebars will end July 15, and 21 employees will be laid off from the Bedford, N.H., plant that makes it, according to Fast Company . It will end a disappointing run for what was, before its debut, one of the most anticipated gadgets of all time. Creator Dean Kamen and his team did a masterful job of building anticipation for the Segway, concealing what it was until the last possible moment. Leaks touting its potential to radically transform how people moved led to fevered speculation, including the theory that the Segway (code name: Ginger) was an antigravity device. Time described it at the time as the most hyped high-tech product since the Apple Macintosh . Back then, Kamen predicted that the hype and his technology would make Segway the fastest company in history to reach $1 billion in sales. But it didn’t quite work out that way: According to Fast Company , only 140,000 Segway...
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How the U.S. should incentivize innovation during the coronavirus pandemic

The U.S. is facing a path diverged. During the third month of the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans are rightfully wondering not only how long this health and economic crisis will last, but what the other side of this tragedy will look like. When it comes to supporting the economy and the American business owner, how much of what we’ve implemented during the crisis will remain? What support strategies will disappear? Or, perhaps more broadly, how can the U.S. leverage the obvious resurgence of American innovation during this crisis to compete on a global scale in ways we never have before? While this crisis has certainly held certain aspects of the U.S. economy hostage, particularly the manufacturing industry, it has also put a spotlight on our country’s ability to adapt quickly and innovate rapidly. Congress has admirably reacted quickly to help American taxpayers and businesses in the short term through multiple phases of COVID-19 relief. Where we are failing, however, is the need to...
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Legal protections for LGBTQ people at work are crucial, but it’s on employers to create a welcoming environment

When our firm signed on to an amicus brief in Bostock v. Clayton County and two other cases last summer, we were proud to stand alongside 205 major businesses in expressing the importance of workplace protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Last Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided 6-to-3 in favor of the plaintiffs in this case, which tested the applicability of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to these critical elements of individual identity and experience. Certainly, we believed the case to be strong; as Justice Neil Gorsuch noted in the majority opinion, “The answer is clear. An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids.” Given a shift in the court’s ideological makeup, however, it would be inaccurate to suggest that we exp...
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Microsoft to close game-streaming service Mixer

Microsoft’s Xbox unit will shut down its Mixer video-game streaming service after failing to attract a large global user base and will recommend players and audiences shift to Facebook’s streaming site. The software maker also plans to partner with Facebook on Microsoft’s xCloud mobile game service, which will be widely available by the end of the summer. Starting July 22, users who visit Mixer will be redirected to Facebook Gaming. The surprise move comes less than a year after Microsoft lured popular streamer Ninja — whose real name is Tyler Blevins — from Amazon.com’s Twitch, the leading game-streaming service. The deal was touted as setting off a battle for top gaming talent in the $152 billion video-game industry.  Mixer’s stars, including Ninja and Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, are under no obligation to join Facebook Gaming. It was these top streamers who contributed to Microsoft’s realization that Mixer wasn’t working — some of ...
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Court rules Trump can’t require drugmakers to disclose prices in TV ads

In a major legal setback for President Donald Trump on a high-profile consumer issue, a federal appeals court has ruled that his administration lacks the legal authority to force drug companies to disclose prices in their TV ads. The ruling denies Trump an easy-to-understand win on a major reelection priority for the White House, bringing down the cost of prescription medicines. Where most plans to overhaul the cost of drugs are complex, mandating that companies disclose prices is something any consumer can relate to. Separate from the court case, legislation that would lower drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries with high bills is stuck in Congress. It’s unclear that Trump can get it moving, since it would require some hard compromises for both Republicans and Democrats. There’s also a separate bill that would mandate drug companies to disclose their prices in consumer advertising. Trump, however, is not empty-handed. His administration recently brokered an agreement with drug comp...
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