Peter Kern became chief executive officer of Expedia Group Inc. last April, during the travel industry’s worst crisis in decades. It was a precarious moment: Calls to the company’s call centers had surged 500% as consumers canceled flights and hotel rooms. Expedia burned through cash in issuing refunds. To weather the downturn, it scrambled to raise about $4 billion in capital last spring. Expedia had troubles that predated the pandemic. A strategy clash between its board and management led to the resignations of Expedia’s then-CEO and finance chief in December 2019. Barry Diller, the company’s chairman, pronounced Expedia on an earnings call as “sclerotic and bloated” as it struggled to compete against Google ’s growing presence in the… Source link

‘Tenet,’ ‘Trial of the Chicago 7,’ ‘Eurovision Song Contest’ also are Golden Reel honorees. Motion Picture Sound Editors spread the wealth in the feature competition of its 68th Golden Reel Awards, giving Greyhound, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Tenet, Soul and Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of the Fire Saga one category win apiece. During the virtual ceremony on Friday evening, Greyhound received the award for FX/Foley; Trial of the Chicago 7 topped the category for dialogue/ADR; Tenet, for musical underscore; Soul, for animated feature; and Eurovision Song Contest, for music. Sound of Metal--which won the BAFTA in sound–and News of the World, both of which led the MPSE feature nominations with three apiece, came up empty-handed. Greyhound and Soul, along with Mank, News… Source link

Barack Obama is one of many who have declared an “epistemological crisis,” in which our society is losing its handle on something called truth. Thus an interesting experiment will be his and other Democrats’ response to a book by Steven Koonin, who was chief scientist of the Obama Energy Department. Mr. Koonin argues not against current climate science but that what the media and politicians and activists say about climate science has drifted so far out of touch with the actual science as to be absurdly, demonstrably false. This is not an altogether innocent drifting, he points out in a videoconference interview from his home in Cold Spring, N.Y. In 2019 a report by the presidents of the National Academies of Sciences… Source link

With Connor O’Brien Editor’s Note: Morning Defense is a free version of POLITICO Pro Defense’s morning newsletter, which is delivered to our subscribers each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day’s biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro. — President Joe Biden previews his defense budget, emphasizing the need for naval power to confront China. — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are heading to Europe to confer on Ukraine. — Austin orders “immediate steps” to weed out extremists and better prepare troops to resist recruitment efforts. HAPPY MONDAY AND WELCOME BACK TO MORNING DEFENSE, where we wish godspeed to Rep. Dan Crenshaw in his latest… Source link

“Don’t ask why, ask why not” John F. Kennedy On the news that the Government has extended $600 million extra in credit to keep Air New Zealand in the air.(taking it to a maximum of $1.5 billion.The interest rate on the loan has also been lowered.) Talk about a missed opportunity. Can we really afford such short term BAU thinking?. If we are ever to tackle climate change, converting airliners to greener fuels will be extremely problematic, (less so for surface vessels). So much so, that I doubt it will ever happen, or wind up being so horribly expensive and impractical that we will be burdening future generations of New Zealalanders with a stranded asset. TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com What if the government instead of making this eyewatering amount of funding available to a… Source link

Alibaba has recently faced a massive lawsuit against its integrity that pressed anti-monopoly charges towards the company in China, asking a massive sum of $2.8 billion (18.23 billion yuan) to pay after investigation. However, despite this happening, Alibaba manages to rise in shares and stocks by eight percent, assuring investors that the company remains strong during these times. (Photo : Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)HANOVER, GERMANY – MARCH 16: Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma attends the 2015 CeBIT technology trade fair on March 16, 2015 in Hanover, Germany. China is this year’s CeBIT partner. CeBIT is the world’s largest tech fair and will be open from March 16 through March 20. The popular e-commerce and multinational… Source link

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Movie Tropes That Make People Mad Reddit  BuzzFeed Source link

Researchers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head Division have reopened the case on low-energy nuclear reactions, or LENRs, largely unexplained phenomena that are at the core of theories about “cold fusion.” Five different government-funded laboratories under the control of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, and National Institutes of Standards and Technology will conduct experiments in an attempt to once and for all settle the debate over this little-understood and highly controversial topic. Despite the controversy and stigma associated with LENR, many experts across the U.S. military believe that the science behind them is sound, and if working technologies can someday be developed, it could transform military operations to an extent not seen in over a century. LENRs are a… Source link

Neil Woodford’s former holdings have continued to haunt his former trust inherited by Schroders which has seen its assets written down by a fifth.  On Wednesday Schroder UK Public Private trust announced the value of its NAV had been slashed from £398m or 43.48p per share at the end of September to £318m or 35.01p a share by the end of Q4 2020. That afternoon the trust’s share price tanked by 12% and continued falling for the remainder of the week to 31p, losing a further 9%. Managers Tim Creed (pictured) and Ben Wicks and the board described the hit to NAV as “disappointing” but stressed significant progress had been made in reducing the trust’s debt which is expected to be fully paid off with the proceeds from the sale of its stake in Kymab to French… Source link

<!– (function(w, l){ w[l]=w[l]||[]; w[l].push({ ‘gtm.start’: new Date().getTime(), event: ‘gtm.js’, }); })(window, ‘dataLayer’); –> Alternative meat company Mission Barns raises new funding for “kosher bacon” quest | Fortune … Source link