Month: August 2020

It’s time to say goodbye to the $200 ticket-change fee.

United Airlines on Sunday said that it will permanently scrap fees to change domestic flights, a big bet that more flexible policies will win over much-needed customers as the pain from the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on air travel continue to mount.

It’s a page from the playbook of rival Southwest Airlines, which doesn’t charge customers fees to change their flights.

“Following previous tough times, airlines made difficult decisions to survive, sometimes at the expense of customer service,” said United CEO Scott Kirby in a news release. “United Airlines won’t be following that same playbook as we come out of this crisis. Instead, we’re taking a completely different approach – and looking at new ways to serve our customers better.”

United’s announcement that it will no longer charge travelers the $200 fee comes as airlines are scrambling to find ways to revitalize their businesses, which have been battered by the pandemic. This summer, Transportation Security Administration screenings at U.S. airports are hovering around 30% of

Coronavirus cases in the Midwest are beginning to increase following warnings from top U.S. health officials that the country’s heartland could be vulnerable to new outbreaks. 

Coronavirus cases were growing by 5% or more, based on a weekly average to smooth out daily reporting, in 21 states and Washington D.C. as of Saturday, according to a CNBC analysis of data collected by Johns Hopkins University, an increase from 12 states on Monday. 

Several Midwestern states were among those reporting growing cases— Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and South Dakota. 

Nationally, however, cases continue to decline, though at a slower pace than reported in previous days. The U.S. reported an average of 41,638 new infections a day over the last week, a decline of more than 5% compared with the prior week, according to a CNBC analysis of Hopkins’ data. 

Sun Belt states that have spent the summer months grappling with outbreaks are showing signs of improvement. Texas, Florida, California and Arizona all reported declines greater than 15% compared

Elon Musk’s brain-machine interface company, Neuralink, conducted a live demo of its technology on Friday, showing a coin-sized device without wires.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO brought along three pigs, who had varying levels of interest in cooperating. Eventually, the audience was shown real-time neural signals from one of the pigs, which Musk named Gertrude. According to Musk, Gertrude has had the implant for about two months. 

The start-up, which launched in 2016 and is funded primarily by Musk, said it is designing tiny flexible ‘threads’ that are 10 times thinner than a human hair with the goal of treating brain injuries and trauma, along with someday enabling symbiosis between humans and artificial intelligence. The design has been tested on at least 19 different animals with robots with around an 87% success rate, according to the venture’s presentation last year. 

Musk described it on Friday as “like a Fitbit in your skull.”

This was one the company’s first demonstrations of the tech in action.

“We will show neurons firing in real-time on August