2020年10月3日 |
Disney decided to lay off 28,000 workers at its theme parks. Last year the parks accounted for more than a third of Disney’s profit, income that vanished when they were ordered to close during the pandemic. Those that have reopened have seen visitor numbers plummet because of social distancing. Disney’s parks in California remain shut, which one executive said had “exacerbated” the situation. Most of the jobs being shed are part-time.
迪斯尼决定在主题公园裁员28，000人。去年，这些公园占迪斯尼利润的三分之一以上，在新冠病毒大流行期间，这些公园因为被命令关闭所以没有收入。那些重新开放的迪斯尼公园由于需要保持社交距离而使游客人数暴跌。加州的迪斯尼乐园仍然关闭，一位高管表示：情况更糟了。大部分被裁的工作都是兼职。
Shell said it would cut 9,000 jobs, more pain for an oil industry beset by falling demand and low prices. bp’s share price dropped to a 25-year low, evidence that it is finding it hard to convince investors that its ambitious switch to low-carbon energy will be profitable.
壳牌表示，将裁员9000人，这对于受需求下降和低价格困扰的石油工业来说，更加痛苦。英国石油公司的股价跌至25年低点，表明它发现很难让投资者相信其雄心勃勃的转向低碳能源是有利可图的。
注：
beset：v. 困扰
LVMH filed a lawsuit arguing that it was walking away from the deal it struck last November to take over Tiffany because the American jeweller’s performance has been disastrous during the pandemic and its prospects are poor. Tiffany wants the French luxury-goods company to complete the $17bn agreement.
LVMH 提起了诉讼，称它正放弃去年11月达成的接管蒂芙尼的交易，因为美国珠宝商在新冠病毒大流行期间的表现很糟糕，而且前景不佳。蒂芙尼希望这家法国奢侈品公司（LVMH）完成这项价值170亿美元的协议。
注：
disastrous：损失惨重的; 极坏的
A judge granted TikTok a reprieve from a ban by the American government, hours before it was due to be imposed. Donald Trump had ordered a halt to downloads of the Chinese-owned video-sharing app. But the judge found that the act from the 1970s on which the president based his order does not cover “informational materials”, including film, photographs or artwork. TikTok argued that 100m Americans use its platform to share those very materials.
一名法官在 TikTok 即将实施禁令前几小时批准了缓期执行。特朗普已下令停止下载中国的视频共享应用程序 TikTok。但是法官发现，总统根据20世纪70年代法律做出的行为不包含“信息材料”，包括电影、照片或者艺术品TikTok辩称，有1亿美国人使用其平台共享这些材料。
注：
grant：（尤指正式地或法律上）同意
reprieve: 缓期执行
Democrats in America’s House of Representatives unveiled a revised pandemic stimulus package with a lower price tag of $2.2trn, around $1trn less than the bill they presented in May that Republicans deemed too costly. Most of the savings in the new bill come from reductions in aid to state and local governments.
美国众议院的民主党人公布了一项修订后的新冠病毒大流行刺激方案，降低了2.2万亿美元，比他们5月提出的共和党认为过于昂贵的法案低了1万亿美元。新法案中大部分节省来自对州政府和地方政府的援助。
Despite the gains of past decades, the median wealth of black families in America was still some 85% below that of white families last year, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. Conducted every three years, the survey listed the factors, such as intergenerational transfers and homeownership, that explain the gap. The median wealth of black households has risen by 33% in real terms since 2016 (and by 65% for Hispanic ones), compared with 3% for white families. But that cannot make up for the loss of wealth during the recession a decade ago, which hit blacks and Hispanics the hardest.
美国联邦储备委员会（Federal Reserve）的消费者金融调查显示，尽管过去几十年有所增长，但美国黑人家庭的财富中位数仍比去年的白人家庭低85%左右。该调查每三年进行一次，列出了可以解释这一差距的因素，例如代际间的转移和房屋所有权。自2016年以来，黑人家庭的财富中位数实际增长了33％（西班牙裔家庭增长了65％），而白人家庭则为3％。但这无法弥补十年前经济衰退期间财富的损失，而经济衰退对黑人和西班牙裔的打击最大。
注：
intergenerational transfers：代际间的转移
Palantir Technologies, a secretive software provider founded in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001, floated its shares in New York. A highly complex shareholder structure means its three founders—Peter Thiel, Alex Karp and Stephen Cohen—will retain control.
帕兰蒂尔技术公司是一家在2001年9/11恐怖袭击后成立的秘密软件提供商，在纽约上市。高度复杂的股东结构意味着其三位创始人Peter Thiel，Alex Karp和Stephen Cohen将保留控制权。
American authorities slapped JPMorgan Chase with a $920m fine for placing hundreds of thousands of spoof orders in precious metals and other contracts on three exchanges. Spoofing is the illegal practice of placing and cancelling orders rapidly in order to fool markets about the demand for an asset. The fine is the largest ever for such a tactic.
美国当局对摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）处以9.2亿美元的罚款，原因是它在三个交易所中下达数十万份贵金属和其他合约的 spoofing 订单。Spoofing 是快速下订单和取消订单以欺骗市场对资产需求的非法做法。这是迄今为止，美国针对 “幌骗”（spoofing）这种非法行为的最大金额的惩罚。
NTT, Japan’s legacy telecoms company, announced a deal to buy the remaining shares it does not own in NTT DoCoMo, the country’s biggest mobile operator, for ¥4.3trn ($41bn). The company dismissed reports that the takeover is linked to pressure from the new prime minister, Suga Yoshihide, to lower phone charges, but said there “will be room to cut the fees”.
日本传统电信公司 NTT 宣布了一项交易，以4.3亿日元（合410亿美元）的价格购买其在日本最大的移动运营商 NTT DoCoMo 中不拥有的剩余股份。该公司驳斥了有关收购与新首相西贺吉希德（SugaYoshihide）要求降低电话费有关的报道，但称”将还有降低电话费的余地”。
The Tokyo stock exchange suspended trading for at least a day because of a glitch in its system for communicating market information. It was the worst disruption the Japanese bourse has experienced since going fully electronic in 1999.
东京证券交易所因市场信息交流系统出现故障而暂停交易至少一天。自从1999年全面电子化以来，这是日本交易所遭受的最严重的破坏。
Ramping up its ambition to overtake Tesla as the world’s premier maker of electric cars, Volkswagen said it was investing €15bn ($17bn) on “e-mobility” in China with its three Chinese joint-ventures.
大众汽车雄心勃勃地表示将超越特斯拉，成为全球最大的电动汽车制造商。该公司表示，将与中国的三个合资企业在中国投资150亿欧元（合170亿美元）用于“电动汽车”。
Caesars Entertainment, which owns casinos and hotels in Las Vegas, took a bet on expanding its sports-gambling ventures when it agreed to buy William Hill for £2.9bn ($3.7bn). Listed in London, William Hill’s business has grown rapidly in America as states loosened some restrictions on gambling; its British and other European operations are to be sold off by Caesars.
拥有拉斯维加斯赌场和酒店的凯撒娱乐公司（Caesars Entertainment）同意以29亿英镑（合37亿美元）的价格收购威廉希尔（William Hill），扩大其体育博彩业务。威廉·希尔（William Hill）在伦敦上市，随着各州放宽对赌博的限制，其业务在美国迅速发展。它在英国和欧洲的业务将由凯撒出售。
Uber can continue operating in London, after a judge upheld its appeal against the suspension of its licence last year by the city’s transport authority, the latest battle in a long-running saga between the ride-hailing giant and the regulator. The new licence is valid for 18 months. London is a very different place since the outbreak of covid-19 and its famous black cabs have struggled because of absent customers. Uber drivers may be roaming the streets of the capital, but their passengers are not.
优步可以继续在伦敦运营，因为一名法官维持了对去年伦敦交通管理局吊销执照的上诉，这是这家打车巨头和监管机构之间旷日持久的争执中的最新一场战斗。新许可证有效期为18个月。自 covid-19 爆发以来，伦敦是一个完全不同的地方，其著名的黑色出租车因缺少顾客而举步维艰。Uber 司机可能正在首都的街道上漫游，但乘客却不在。
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