Coronavirus continues to spread across Europe and the Middle East and has officially made its first appearance in South America, sending officials scrambling to keep up and pushing businesses that are struggling to adapt to the economic effects of an outbreak showing no signs of pause.
With the uncertainty of a new virus whose vaccine the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said is 12-18 months away, travelers are pausing vacation plans.
Travel website Trivago's CEO Axel Hefer told Cheddar Tuesday the company has seen "quite a significant effect" on its markets across Asia.
But the spread of the infectious disease is hard to predict, as seen in Europe over the past week, where the number of cases ballooned in Italy over a few days.
"In travel, it's all about uncertainty, obviously," Hefer said. "So if there is insecurity, whether you can travel healthy, then it has a big impact on the short term travel and people tend to push out the travel to a later point in time."
To accommodate, Trivago has reduced its marketing spend and shifted it to a later time. Hefer said the company has worked with its marketing partners to alter their schedules even past a point where they can typically pull back spending.
Germany, and the European Union more broadly, are struggling to contain small outbreaks in the economic region known for its open borders.
"Things can change very quickly," he said. "Europe was pretty much isolated until last week. And then it all changed in the last seven days. So it's impossible to quantify [the financial impact on Trivago this quarter] and as a reason why, for the first time ever, we've not given any guidance."
However, the Düsseldorf-based company is treating the virus as a temporary setback, one that is unlikely to last for the next three to four quarters, Hefer said.
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A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
