San Francisco to ease more coronavirus restrictions, mayor says

Disney will lay off 28,000 employees across its parks, experiences and consumer products segment. The company blamed prolonged closures and capacity limits at open parks for the layoffs.

In a memo sent to employees on Tuesday, Josh D'Amaro, head of parks at Disney, detailed several "difficult decisions" the company has had to make in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, including ending its furlough of thousands of employees. 

While Disney's theme parks in Florida, Paris, Shanghai, Japan and Hong Kong have been able to reopen with limited capacity, both California theme parks have remained shuttered. —Sarah Whitten

San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced that the city will lift more coronavirus restrictions on businesses beginning Wednesday after the area was granted permission to do so by the governor's new four-tiered reopening plan. 

Restaurants, bars that serve meals and places of worship will be allowed to reopen for indoor operations at 25% capacity up to 100 people with health precautions, according to a statement from Breed's office. Indoor shopping centers and malls will be allowed to reopen at 50% capacity. 

The city will also allow "children's carousels, miniature trains, and Ferris wheels, like the Observation Wheel in Golden Gate Park," to reopen with safety precautions. 

San Francisco officials are eyeing an Oct. 7 reopening date for indoor movie theaters with limited capacity, and public outdoor parks could reopen in mid-October, the statement said. — Noah Higgins-Dunn

One of the rare winners in the restaurant industry during the coronavirus pandemic is the fast-food sector.

Eateries known for their quick service and drive-thru lanes are expected to grow their market share by 8% this year, according to Technomic. Fast-food restaurants have been able to rebound from the pandemic much faster than the broader industry, which has been flipped on its head by the crisis.

Overall, the restaurant industry is expected to lose $240 billion in sales because of the pandemic, based on estimates from the National Restaurant Association. —Amelia Lucas

The coronavirus has crippled the live theater industry, especially in its central hub in New York City. Popular shows like "Hamilton," "The Lion King" and "Moulin Rouge," which sold millions of dollars in tickets each week, aren't generating any revenue and won't for at least four more months.

The absence of theatergoers, who spent billions at restaurants, hotels and public transportation, is taking a further toll on the city's economy.

Broadway tourists are particularly important to the area because of how long they stay in the city and how much time they spend in and around Times Square. For 2019 stays, these tourists spent $1.8 billion collectively on food and drink in the city, $2.2 billion on accommodations and $1.04 billion shopping at local retailers. —Sarah Whitten

Six months after the pandemic restrictions began, movie theaters are among the many businesses without a clear path to recovery.

As the world races to find a vaccine, theater operators continue to struggle. There are no major, big budget Hollywood films set for theatrical release until the weekend before Thanksgiving, and audiences remain hesitant to return to cinemas despite new safety protocols.

Since January, AMC, IMAX, Cinemark and Marcus Theaters have seen their stocks stumble. On a combined basis, the sell-off has wiped out nearly $2.7 billion in market value for these stocks since the beginning of the year.

The threat of a resurgence of cases in the cooler autumn and winter months makes the future of the industry even more uncertain. —Sarah Whitten

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned during a press briefing that clusters of coronavirus cases are growing around New York City, specifically in ZIP codes that "overlap" with large Orthodox Jewish communities. 

State health officials are investigating 20 of the state's ZIP codes where Covid-19 hot spots appear to be growing. The percentage of total tests returning positive in some of those ZIP codes has reached above 10%, far beyond the roughly 1% infection rate New York has reported for weeks. 

Cuomo said he plans to meet with religious leaders from the Orthodox Jewish community and warned that health measures he ordered to curb the spread of the coronavirus "apply to every religion." 

"This is a concern for their community, public health concern for their community. It's also a public health concern for surrounding communities," Cuomo said. "A cluster today can be community spread tomorrow." —Noah Higgins-Dunn

Almost nine months into the pandemic and with more than 1 million lives lost, doctors across the world are still learning about and adapting to the virus as they discover new and horrible ways it affects the body — as well as which treatments are most effective at keeping people alive.

"We're seeing clinical case-fatality rates slowly drop," Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization's health emergencies program, said Friday. "We're seeing doctors and nurses making better use of oxygen, better use of intensive care, better use of dexamethasone."

Physicians who spoke with CNBC said they are also increasingly confident that new treatments, clinical strategies and even lessons learned about patient care by hospital administrators have helped reduce the risk of death from Covid-19. —Will Feuer

The NFL and players union announced that three players and five staffers with the Tennessee Titans tested positive for Covid-19, NBC News reported.

The Titans and the Minnesota Vikings "will suspend in-person club activities starting today," the joint statement said.

The Titans are next set to host to the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Vikings are taking on the Houston Texas. Both games are set for 1 p.m. ET on Sunday, but it was unclear whether those games will be played as scheduled, NBC News reported. —Terri Cullen

Amazon remains one of the few companies to benefit from the coronavirus pandemic, which has now claimed more than 1 million lives worldwide. 

The company became an essential retailer for many Americans at the height of the pandemic. Consumers turned to the e-commerce giant for essential items like hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes, as well as groceries when it wasn't safe to make a trip to the store. The flood of online orders propelled Amazon to record sales during the second quarter.

It wasn't a foregone conclusion that Amazon would successfully navigate the coronavirus pandemic. CEO Jeff Bezos acknowledged early on that the company was experiencing the "hardest time we've ever faced." 

Tensions grew between Amazon and warehouse workers, as employees that pick, pack and ship packages argued the company wasn't doing enough to keep them safe from the virus. Lawmakers, regulators and worker rights groups criticized Amazon's treatment of warehouse workers and called on the company to do more.

The pandemic also generated unprecedented strain on Amazon's fulfillment and logistics operations. In a rare moment, Amazon was unable to meet its vaunted two-day delivery times, while many items showed out of stock notices across the site. The company is still working to return its operations to normal as the holiday shopping season looms. —Annie Palmer

Small businesses say they are prepared for a second wave of coronavirus cases, according to a new survey.

Some 78% of respondents to a Comcast Business survey said that they could handle a resurgence, even though nearly two-thirds say they have lost at least a quarter of revenue this year.

The survey also showed that about three-quarters of small- and mid-sized firms see operations returning to normal within a year. —Jeff Cox

Disney+ rolled out its co-watching feature on Tuesday, allowing subscribers to sync movies and shows with their friends no matter where they are. 

The move, a convenient option during the pandemic, could help Disney attract new subscribers. Disney-owned Hulu introduced Hulu Watch Party in late May, while Amazon added a co-watching feature to Prime Video in June.

Up to seven people can watch Disney+ at once, and each user has the ability to pause, play, rewind or fast forward for the whole group, keeping everyone in sync. It works on the Disney+ website, on the Android and iPhone apps, smart TVs and connected devices. —Jessica Bursztynsky

A wave of retail bankruptcies. The rise of contactless shopping. And a widening gap between wealthy shoppers and those who must penny-pinch.

As the global death toll topped 1 million people, the retail industry and companies' long-term trajectories have been permanently changed by the coronavirus pandemic. 

For some shopping mall staples, such as Brooks Brothers, J.C. Penney and J.Crew, the global health crisis was the final blow that forced them to file for bankruptcy protection. Others, such as Target, Home Depot, Peloton and Lululemon, have benefited from consumers' interest in fixing up their homes, looking for ways to entertain themselves and adapting their daily routines and wardrobes has amounted to a leap forward for their businesses.

Across the industry, however, retailers have had to act quickly to stay relevant and keep up with consumers' shopping habits. They're adjusting as more sales move online, more consumers seek out options like curbside pickup and more Americans dress in athleisure and casual clothes as they work from home. —Melissa Repko and Lauren Thomas

The pandemic is forcing airlines to reimagine how they treat their most price-sensitive customers. With business travel mostly halted due to the spread of Covid-19, carriers are reshaping their networks to cater to leisure travelers, adding more beach and mountain destinations, where travelers can safely physically distance.

Airlines are also reversing course on ticket-change fees, which can run as much as $200. While most tickets are flexible because of the pandemic, United, Delta and American have said they will never again charge travelers to change their standard-economy flights, a bid to win over customers who might be placing a new value on flexibility.

Another change airlines have had to adapt to is how to service travelers who are hesitant to book a flight at all. Those who are are booking are doing so close to the departure time, about a week to 10 days ahead, compared with vacationers pre-pandemic who would plan their trips months in advance.

Despite the reshaped networks and changes, air travel demand remains low, hovering around 30% of last year's levels. —Leslie Josephs

House Democrats released a $2.2 trillion coronavirus aid bill as they try to revive talks with the White House to forge a stimulus deal. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are set to discuss a fifth pandemic relief package after Democrats released their latest legislation. It is unclear whether the sides can make progress toward an agreement as they sit roughly $900 billion apart on how much they want to inject into the federal response to Covid-19. 

The Democratic proposal would reinstate the $600 per week enhanced unemployment benefit through January, send another $1,200 direct payment to most Americans and allow hard-hit small businesses to get a second Paycheck Protection Program loan. The bill would send $25 billion in aid to airlines for payroll, authorize rental assistance and education funds, and inject $75 billion into coronavirus testing and tracing. 

Lawmakers have recently become more pessimistic about the chances of passing a relief bill before the Nov. 3 election. —Jacob Pramuk

Air travel demand this year is worse than expected because of the coronavirus, unwelcome news as airlines continue to bleed cash.

While bookings have been stronger than the low-point hit in April, there has only been a tepid recovery. The International Air Transport Association lowered its forecast for revenue passenger kilometers, a gauge of demand, to a 68% drop this year from 2019. The trade group that represents most of the world's airlines had expected traffic would be down 55% by December from last year.

"Based on flight data, the recovery in air passenger services was brought to a halt in mid-August by a return of government restrictions in the face of new Covid-19 outbreaks in a number of key markets," IATA said. "Forward bookings for air travel in the fourth quarter show that the recovery since the April low point will continue to falter."

For the full year, IATA expects traffic to be off 66% from a previous estimate of 63% from 2019. —Leslie Josephs

Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC he is concerned about the level of new coronavirus infections in the U.S. as the nation enters the fall and winter, which will bring more people indoors. 

"We're taking an awful lot of infection into probably what is going to be the most dangerous season for this virus," the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner under President Donald Trump said on "Squawk Box." 

"Kids are back in school, kids are back in college campuses. Work is trying to restart. People are becoming more complacent and tired of the restrictions, and so all of those conditions are going to set up a fall and winter that, I think, is going to create a lot of risk," he said. —Kevin Stankiewicz 

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic-testing start-up Tempus and biotech company Illumina. He also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings′ and Royal Caribbean's "Healthy Sail Panel." 

Bankruptcies in the New York City region have surged 40% during the coronavirus pandemic, compared with the same time a year ago, according to Bloomberg.

From March 16 to Sept. 27, 610 businesses filed for bankruptcy in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the publication reported. The two districts include some counties in the city's neighboring suburbs.

Another flurry of bankruptcies and permanent closures is expected as cold weather arrives, along with a forecast for a second wave of coronavirus cases. —Amelia Lucas

U.S. stocks were essentially flat at the open as the market took a breather following a sharp rally in the previous session, reports CNBC's Fred Imbert and Jesse Pound. 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded just 36 points lower, or 0.2%. The S&P 500 dipped 0.1% along with the Nasdaq Composite. —Melodie Warner 

Russia moved forward with mass public vaccinations alongside the main human trial of its potential Covid-19 vaccine, leaving some scientists and public health officials skeptical about the vaccine's safety and effectiveness. 

Alexander Gintsburg, head of the Gamaleya Institute that produced Russia's Sputnik V vaccine for Covid-19, told Reuters that the pace of its development was necessary under the "wartime" conditions caused by the pandemic, but no corners were being cut. 

Russia plans to share preliminary results of its Covid-19 vaccine trial based on the first six weeks of monitoring participants. The first of 5,000 volunteers was vaccinated on Sept. 9, which means interim results could be issued some time after Oct. 21, Reuters reports. —Melodie Warner 

The Department of Health and Human Services amended a notice seeking bids from contractors that can carry out a plan to test up to 30% of the country's wastewater for the coronavirus in order to attract more competition for the contract.

The notice was posted on Thursday and bids for the contract were initially due on Friday at 5 p.m. ET. Only women-owned small businesses were eligible to bid on the contract. On Monday, the federal procurement officers revised the contract, making it open competition for all small businesses and extending the deadline for bids to Oct. 2.

The government said it made the revision "to promote further competition and anticipates receiving sufficient competition for this COVID-19 requirement."

The amendment comes after CNBC reported on the contract notice and the unusually short period for bids. —Will Feuer

New cases of the coronavirus are growing — rising by 5% or more on a weekly basis — in 30 U.S. states as of Monday, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins data. That's up from 26 states on Sunday. 

Wisconsin is seeing one of the most aggressive outbreaks, reporting 1,726 new Covid-19 cases on Monday. It's seven-day average of daily new infections now sits at 2,155, 20% higher than a week earlier.  

Reporting of new infections can lag over the weekend, as local health offices close and leave a backlog to clear early in the week. —Sara Salinas

The U.S. meatpacking industry, more so than other food-production industries, has suffered severe and deadly coronavirus outbreaks, Reuters reported. The reason for the persistent spread is, in part, because production-line workers often work side-by-side for long shifts.

Despite being so affected by Covid-19, many major companies in the industry are refusing to pay for workers' compensation claims for employees who fall ill or die from the virus. 

JBS, the world's largest meatpacker, has claimed employees' infections were not work-related in denying workers' compensation claims, according to the wire service. As more Americans return to workplaces, the experience of JBS employees highlights the difficulty of linking infections to employment and getting compensation for medical care and lost wages. 

"That is the ultimate question: How can you prove it?" Nick Fogel, an attorney specializing in workers' compensation at the firm Burg Simpson in Colorado, told Reuters. —Terri Cullen

Death toll exceeds 1 million people worldwide