Axios

For months now, American workers, families and small businesses have been saying they can't keep up their socially distanced lives for much longer. We've now arrived at "much longer" — and the pandemic isn't going away anytime soon.

The big picture: The relief policies and stopgap measures that we cobbled together to get us through the toughest weeks worked for a while, but they're starting to crumble just as cases are spiking in the majority of states.

A panel of federal judges upheld the Trump administration's cuts to Medicare payments for routine medical visits in a hospital outpatient office — a blow to the hospital industry, which will lose hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

The big picture: Hospitals last year successfully quashed a similar rule, which would have equalized Medicare's pay rates for basic doctor visits, regardless of whether they took place in a hospital-owned or independent clinic. The American Hospital Association said in a statement it is "carefully reviewing the decision to determine our next steps."

Heavy truck manufacturer Navistar announced a strategic partnership with TuSimple, a leader in self-driving technology, to co-develop a line of autonomous semi-trucks that would be on the road by 2024.

Why it matters: It's a giant milestone toward deployment of TuSimple's driverless technology and would shave up to five years off the industry timeline for autonomous semis, writes FreightWaves, a trucking publication.

The 2020 Audi Q7, a top-of-the-line family hauler, has looks to kill and a price tag to boot.

The big picture: Competition in the luxury three-row SUV category is tough with models like the Mercedes-Benz GLE, BMW X5, and Volvo XC90. So Audi refreshed the Q7 from bumper to bumper, with enhanced technologies and various design improvements.

One of the expected benefits of autonomous vehicles is improving access to transportation for underserved populations.

Why it matters: Transportation is often too expensive, inconvenient or even non-existent in poor communities.

Car designer Henrik Fisker this week raised more than $1 billion for his namesake electric car company, but unlike other electric vehicle entrepreneurs attracting capital recently, making cars is not part of his plan.

Why it matters: In an industry ripe for reinvention, Fisker's aim is to become the Apple of the automotive world — a fabless manufacturer that designs and markets cool cars but farms out the production to others, avoiding the huge capital outlays and manufacturing pitfalls that have dogged Tesla for a decade.

3M said Thursday it has investigated over 4,000 reports and filed 18 lawsuits in response to suspected price gouging, counterfeiting, and fraud regarding the sale of N95 respirator masks.

Why it matters: The U.S. is potentially staring down another severe shortage of face masks, gowns and other protective equipment — which are especially needed by health care workers — amid the coronavirus surge.

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), an industry body consisting of the world's biggest advertising companies — including a few Big Tech companies — has agreed to evaluate some issues collectively, including deciding how to better define hate speech across the entire industry.

Why it matters: Social media companies have faced increased scrutiny for how they moderate content on their platforms. This is a step towards tackling the issue together, despite the fact that it's mostly a formality for now.

The corporate debt market is beginning to follow the public equity market's lead in decoupling from the real economy.

Why it matters: Private equity and its lenders spent 2009 staring into the abyss. In 2020, they're just pretending it doesn't exist.

EBay's board of directors will meet Friday to pick a buyer for the company's classified ads business, which could fetch between $8 billion and $10 billion.

Why it matters: This would be yet another big-money example of activist investor Elliott Management getting what it wants. Elliott in January 2019 began urging eBay to restructure, including by separating its classified and StubHub units from its flagship marketplace platform. EBay completed its StubHub sale this past February, just before the pandemic eviscerated the live events industry.

The number of bonds trading at distressed levels has continued to fall since the Fed stepped in with its QE infinity program and promise to buy hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate debt.

Why it matters: The recovery has disproportionately benefited sectors where the Fed has shown it is willing to intervene, as companies with weak credit ratings have issued far less debt this year and still face elevated default risk.

Brokerage firm Charles Schwab's earnings report Thursday sent the company's stock down more than 2%, but the numbers in the report also called into question the sustainability of the zero-fee model it has pioneered.

What's happening: Schwab now manages a record $4.11 trillion in client assets from 14.1 million accounts, having added 1.62 million new clients during the quarter, but still managed to see weak revenue and net income numbers.

Nearly four months after the coronavirus pandemic began to rock the economy, the number of people filing claims for unemployment insurance because of COVID-19-related job losses is increasing.

By the numbers: Applicants for the newly created Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program have risen consistently since the week ending April 11 when the government first started reporting claims figures.