As the highly contagious Delta variant surges across the world, the health and safety protocols established for cruise ships are being put to the test. Over two weeks in late July and early August, 27 coronavirus infections were identified aboard the Carnival Vista cruise ship sailing out of Galveston, Texas.

One of those infected, a passenger, later died.

It was the highest number of cases aboard a ship reported since June, when cruises restarted in the Caribbean and United States, and the first death.

The passenger and 26 crew members were immediately isolated after testing positive for the virus. Contact tracing and further testing was conducted, with no new cases reported by Aug. 11, when the ship arrived at the port of Belize City on the northeastern coast of Central America, Carnival said.

Though the ship sailed out of Texas, which bans businesses from requiring vaccinations, more than 96 percent of passengers were vaccinated and all but one crew...

WASHINGTON — For months, Apple and Google have been fighting a bill in the South Korean legislature that they say could imperil their lucrative app store businesses. The companies have appealed directly to South Korean lawmakers, government officials and the public to try to block the legislation, which is expected to face a crucial vote this week.

The companies have also turned to an unlikely ally, one that is also trying to quash their power: the United States government. A group funded by the companies has urged trade officials in Washington to push back on the legislation, arguing that targeting American firms could violate a joint trade agreement.

The South Korean legislation would be the first law in the world to require companies that operate app stores to let users in Korea pay for in-app purchases using a variety of payment systems. It would also prohibit blocking developers from listing their products on other app stores.

How the White House responds...

Anthony M. Scotto, a former leader of the longshoremen’s union whose polished manners and soft-spoken approach made him seem out of place in the turbulent, often corrupt world of the waterfront until he himself went to prison for labor racketeering, has died. He was 87.

His death was announced on Sunday on Instagram by his daughter, Rosanna Scotto, a co-host of the Fox Five New York news program “Good Day New York.” She gave no other details. Mr. Scotto had homes in New York City and Southampton, N.Y.

Mr. Scotto (pronounced SKOE-toe) was not yet 30 when he became president of the Brooklyn-based Local 1814 of the International Longshoremen’s Association in 1963, succeeding his father-in-law, Anthony Anastasio, who had died of a heart attack at 57. Before Mr. Scotto took over, Mr. Anastasio had risen from dock worker to union leader and consolidated 10 small locals into Local 1814, the biggest in the I.L.A. and the most powerful along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts,...

SAN FRANCISCO — Before the pandemic, Roya Joseph’s days at the office were defined by interaction. She looked forward to casual conversations with co-workers, mentorship sessions with managers and periodic, freewheeling chats — known as “teatime” — in the office kitchen.

All that was swept away when Ms. Joseph, a water engineer for Black & Veatch, an engineering firm, was sent home from her Walnut Creek, Calif., office along with the rest of her colleagues as the coronavirus began spreading through the United States last year. She jumped at the opportunity to return when her office reopened to some employees in June.

But two weeks ago, the rug was pulled out from under her again. Black & Veatch shut its offices as virus cases rose nationwide, driven by the contagious Delta variant.

“It’s depressing,” Ms. Joseph, 32, said. “I feel like we’re being pushed back to that isolation bubble. I feel like, mentally, I’m not ready to face that again.”

Emboldened by a California election victory that maintained the independence of their drivers last year, gig economy companies like Uber and Lyft have in recent months accelerated a push for what they call a “third way” of working, a classification of independent gig workers who receive limited benefits without gaining employee status.

But that plan was upended on Friday evening by a California judge who ruled that the ballot initiative backed by Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other so-called gig economy companies violated the state’s Constitution. It was a potential setback for the companies and a victory for labor organizers and drivers who argue they are being treated unfairly.

Here is an explanation of this long-simmering fight and what happens next:

SAN FRANCISCO — Before the pandemic, Roya Joseph’s days at the office were defined by interaction. She looked forward to casual conversations with co-workers, mentorship sessions with managers and periodic, freewheeling chats — known as “teatime” — in the office kitchen.

All that was swept away when Ms. Joseph, a water engineer for Black & Veatch, an engineering firm, was sent home from her Walnut Creek, Calif., office along with the rest of her colleagues as the coronavirus began spreading through the United States last year. She jumped at the opportunity to return when her office reopened to some employees in June.

But two weeks ago, the rug was pulled out from under her again. Black & Veatch shut its offices as virus cases rose nationwide, driven by the contagious Delta variant.

“It’s depressing,” Ms. Joseph, 32, said. “I feel like we’re being pushed back to that isolation bubble. I feel like, mentally, I’m not ready to face that again.”

Emboldened by a California election victory that maintained the independence of their drivers last year, gig economy companies like Uber and Lyft have in recent months accelerated a push for what they call a “third way” of working, a classification of independent gig workers who receive limited benefits without gaining employee status.

But that plan was upended on Friday evening by a California judge who ruled that the ballot initiative backed by Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other so-called gig economy companies violated the state’s Constitution. It was a potential setback for the companies and a victory for labor organizers and drivers who argue they are being treated unfairly.

Here is an explanation of this long-simmering fight and what happens next:

Anthony M. Scotto, a former leader of the longshoremen’s union whose polished manners and soft-spoken approach made him seem out of place in the turbulent, often corrupt world of the waterfront until he himself went to prison for labor racketeering, has died. He was 87.

His death was announced on Sunday on Instagram by his daughter, Rosanna Scotto, a co-host of the Fox Five New York news program “Good Day New York.” She gave no other details. Mr. Scotto had homes in New York City and Southampton, N.Y.

Mr. Scotto (pronounced SKOE-toe) was not yet 30 when he became president of the Brooklyn-based Local 1814 of the International Longshoremen’s Association in 1963, succeeding his father-in-law, Anthony Anastasio, who had died of a heart attack at 57. Before Mr. Scotto took over, Mr. Anastasio had risen from dock worker to union leader and consolidated 10 small locals into Local 1814, the biggest in the I.L.A. and the most powerful along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts,...

General Motors said on Friday that it was expanding its recall of Chevrolet Bolt electric cars that have been found to be at risk of overheating and catching fire as a result of manufacturing defects.

The company said it was recalling Bolts from the 2020 through 2022 model years and a few 2019 Bolts that were not covered under a previous recall. The move means all 141,000 Bolts that G.M. has produced — going back to the 2017 model — are under recall.

The Bolt’s troubles are a setback from G.M. and its chief executive, Mary T. Barra, who is betting heavily that consumers will rapidly switch to electric vehicles in the years ahead. The company plans to spend $35 billion on electric and autonomous vehicles from 2020 to 2025, build four battery plants in the United States and end production of gasoline-powered cars and trucks by 2035.

G.M. said the move announced on Friday would cost the company $1 billion on top of the $800 million it had allocated for previous...

The oil and gas giant Chevron will require some of its employees to receive coronavirus vaccinations, becoming the first major U.S. oil producer to announce that it was requiring field workers to be protected against the virus at a time when other large corporations are making similar demands on office workers.

The mandate applies to employees who travel internationally and expatriates, as well as the offshore work force in the Gulf of Mexico and some onshore support personnel, the company said on Monday. Chevron is the second-largest oil and gas producer in the United States after Exxon Mobil.

“As part of our fitness for duty safety standard, workers in certain jobs are required to be vaccinated against Covid-19,” a Chevron spokeswoman said in an email. “We will continue to carefully monitor the medical data and follow the guidance of health authorities in order to protect our work force.”

The news was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

Exxon...

For New York City and its trillion-dollar economy, September was supposed to mark a return to normal, a moment when Broadway theaters reopened, stores and restaurants hummed, and tourists and office workers again filled the streets.

But that long-awaited milestone has been upended by the Delta variant of the coronavirus. One big company after another has postponed plans to come back to Manhattan’s soaring towers. Trade shows have been canceled. Some small businesses have had orders evaporate.

It is a setback for a city that has lagged behind the rest of the country in its economic recovery, with a 10.5 percent unemployment rate that is nearly twice the national average. Now, rather than seeing the fuller rebound it was counting on, New York is facing fresh challenges.

“The Delta variant is a meaningful threat to the city’s recovery,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “This is not going to be easy. It’s going to be a long time before...

For New York City and its trillion-dollar economy, September was supposed to mark a return to normal, a moment when Broadway theaters reopened, stores and restaurants hummed, and tourists and office workers again filled the streets.

But that long-awaited milestone has been upended by the Delta variant of the coronavirus. One big company after another has postponed plans to come back to Manhattan’s soaring towers. Trade shows have been canceled. Some small businesses have had orders evaporate.

It is a setback for a city that has lagged behind the rest of the country in its economic recovery, with a 10.5 percent unemployment rate that is nearly twice the national average. Now, rather than seeing the fuller rebound it was counting on, New York is facing fresh challenges.

“The Delta variant is a meaningful threat to the city’s recovery,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “This is not going to be easy. It’s going to be a long time before...

Cathie Wood, the hottest fund manager on Wall Street, didn’t rise to prominence in the typical way. A common path to success for money managers is to land larger and larger accounts, transitioning from managing billions of dollars from wealthy individuals to handling trillions from pension funds, endowments and sovereign wealth funds. Wood has taken the reverse route, explains The Times’s Matt Phillips in a big new profile of the fund manager.

Since leaving the world of traditional money management, Wood’s bold bets on Tesla, Robinhood and cryptocurrency have won her clients and followers among the masses of tech-loving, risk-seeking small investors who dove into the market over the past year or so. Her recent success is as much about her investment acumen as her willingness to go against the grain, an approach that has captured the anti-establishment mood of the markets. Can she keep it up?

How she got here: Wood, 65, used to manage money for pension funds at...

The cutoff of federal unemployment benefits in much of the country was meant to bring a flood of workers back to the job market. So far, that flood looks more like a trickle.

A total of 26 states, all but one with Republican governors, have moved to end some or all of the expanded unemployment benefits that have been in place since the pandemic began. The governors, along with many business owners, have argued that the benefits discourage returning to work when many employers are struggling to hire.

Several recent studies, however, have concluded that the extra payments have played only a small role in this year’s labor shortages. And they found at most a modest increase in employment in states that abandoned the programs — most of them in June — even as millions of jobless workers have had to cut spending, potentially hurting local economies.

“The idea was that there were lots of jobs — it was just that people weren’t looking. That was the narrative,” said...

The cutoff of federal unemployment benefits in much of the country was meant to bring a flood of workers back to the job market. So far, that flood looks more like a trickle.

A total of 26 states, all but one with Republican governors, have moved to end some or all of the expanded unemployment benefits that have been in place since the pandemic began. The governors, along with many business owners, have argued that the benefits discourage returning to work when many employers are struggling to hire.

Several recent studies, however, have concluded that the extra payments have played only a small role in this year’s labor shortages. And they found at most a modest increase in employment in states that abandoned the programs — most of them in June — even as millions of jobless workers have had to cut spending, potentially hurting local economies.

“The idea was that there were lots of jobs — it was just that people weren’t looking. That was the narrative,” said...

CARMEL, Calif. — In an acting career spanning four decades and dozens of roles, Tom Hanks has never starred as a used-car salesman. But last week, he had a convincing turn as one, selling off four vehicles from his private collection at a Bonhams classic car auction.

The autos that Mr. Hanks put on the block, and that he had kept at his backwoods ranch in Ketchum, Idaho, fetched over half a million dollars, at least twice as much as expected.

The centerpiece was a unique Airstream 34-foot travel trailer from the 1992 model year, bought new in the days before Airstreams would become wildly popular in all shapes and sizes. The sales price was $235,000, including buyer premiums, especially notable since the Airstream was not lavishly equipped as a new one that size would be.

“I got it in the days when movies moved slower,” Mr. Hanks said in an interview before the auction when he was preparing it for the auctioneer.

In the endless struggle to rein in high drug prices, one glaring failure has been grabbing the headlines: the exorbitant cost of drugs that need to be administered by physicians.

Such drugs were once a rarity. But they are now more than one-fifth of all Medicare drug spending and growing rapidly, thanks in part to the biotechnology revolution, which has yielded an array of drugs that must be injected, infused or inhaled.

One of them, an Alzheimer’s drug called Aduhelm, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in June and is being priced by its maker, Biogen, at $56,000 annually. That’s roughly equivalent to the cost of 45 hours of home health care for an Alzheimer’s patient each week for an entire year.

The F.D.A.’s approval of Aduhelm has come under close scrutiny and protest. The agency has already reversed itself, narrowing the drug’s suggested use to those with early symptoms of dementia, as opposed to everyone with Alzheimer’s.