Axios

Hawaii's all-important tourism sector is bouncing back, but the state's climb out of its pandemic-sized hole is moving more slowly.

Why it matters: Hawaii's tourist-dependent labor market suffered one of the worst blows in the country last year.

Abbott on Tuesday cut its profit guidance for the rest of this year after the medical device and diagnostics company projected lower demand for its coronavirus tests. Abbott's stock plunged 9%.

The big picture: COVID-19 cases have dropped heavily in the U.S. and other high-income countries due to mass vaccination campaigns. That's good for society, but now means less money for Abbott and other test makers that have profited from the pandemic's testing.

The lending world's slow move away from the Libor benchmark interest rate has been going on for more than a decade. But things are finally speeding up — with some investment banks planning to arrange new loans based on alternative benchmarks as soon as July, multiple sources tell Axios.

Why it matters: Banking regulators have been trying to phase out Libor since a 2008 rate-manipulation scandal, but it is still widely used in the U.S. The long transition has given rise to multiple replacement options, leaving borrowers and investors in limbo when making certain investment decisions.

An early contender for trade of the month comes from meme stock (and movie theater chain) AMC, which sold 8.5 million shares over the long weekend to hedge fund Mudrick Capital Management for $230 million.

Driving the news: The price per share was $27.12, a 3.8% premium to Friday’s closing price. The news caused AMC shares to spike in early trade on Tuesday, allowing Mudrick to then reportedly exit at a substantial profit.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Friday announced that U.S. employers are allowed under federal law to require that workers get coronavirus vaccinations.

Axios Re:Cap goes deeper with Carol Miaskoff, the EEOC's acting legal counsel, to learn more about the new guidance, how it interacts with state laws against such requirements and whether further guidance could be coming.

Speaking to employees Tuesday from the Warner Bros. studio lot in California Tuesday, Discovery CEO David Zaslav announced the name for the new company that will be formed via the combination of WarnerMedia and Discovery: Warner Bros. Discovery.

Be smart: Zaslav notably made the announcement alongside WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar, who was left in the dark about the deal for most of its inception, and is likely to exit the company after this year.

Audacy, the radio giant formerly called Entercom, has struck a multi-station, two-year deal to broadcast Dana Loesch’s nationally-syndicated ‘The Dana Show’ in 11 markets, executives tell Axios.

Why it matters: It's the first example of a major radio network opting not to air the show pioneered by the late Rush Limbaugh now that its new hosts have been named.

Outside, the media company home to dozens of outdoor enthusiast brands, is launching Outside+, an annual membership that combines more than 30 of its editorial brands and apps into a single offering.

Why it matters: Outside is an anomaly in the magazine world for turning print subscriptions into digital subscriptions over the past few years.

Substack now has hundreds of newsletters from journalists based outside the U.S., co-founder Hamish McKenzie tells Axios.

Details: The company is looking to expand its international footprint in the coming months, and will start hiring more people with experience in expanding businesses globally.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to consider Johnson & Johnson's appeal of a 2018 verdict that awarded $2.1 billion to 22 plaintiffs who claimed the company's talcum baby powder caused ovarian cancer.

Why it matters: J&J still faces over 25,000 lawsuits claiming its baby powder causes cancer, after the 2018 suit awarded a total of $4.7 billion to the plaintiffs, per Bloomberg Law. The company removed talcum baby powder from shelves in the U.S. and Canada in 2020 and has denied the allegations.

• Johnson & Johnson had argued that the lower court proceedings in St. Louis violated the Constitution’s due process clause by combining claims from 22 plaintiffs from 12 different states.

Circle, a Boston-based provider of payment and treasury infrastructure solutions for online businesses, raised $440 million.

Why it matters: It's the largest-ever VC round for a crypto business.

Cloudera is returning to the private markets, after an underwhelming four-year run as a public company.

Why it matters: Cloudera was one of the earliest enterprise software unicorns.

What does being good at Legos have to do with tech know-how? A lot, says Philip Straatsma, a contestant in the new season of "Lego Masters" which starts Tuesday night on Fox.

Driving the news: Straatsma is one of at least three of the contestants in the upcoming season of "Lego Masters" who works in the tech industry.

Amazon is getting pushback after announcing a plan that connects Alexa, Ring and other Amazon devices by default to a network that opens people's broadband connection to shared use by others.

Why it matters: While users can choose to turn off such sharing, most people don't change default settings, meaning their devices will automatically start sharing bandwidth after June 8.

Twitter is partnering with veteran climate journalist and meteorologist Eric Holthaus to launch a local weather news service on the platform called "Tomorrow" that will be built using all of Twitter's new creator products — from paid newsletters to ticketed live audio rooms and more.

Why it matters: "It's the largest collective of writers and experts we've launched with," Twitter's VP of product Mike Park tells Axios.

President Biden will announce new actions on Tuesday aimed at closing the racial wealth gap as he commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Driving the news: Biden will unveil the policies during a visit to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where a white mob destroyed America's wealthiest Black neighborhood in 1921 in what is considered to be the single worst episode of racial violence in U.S. history.

Doughnut chain Krispy Kreme on Tuesday filed for an initial public offering, saying that it plans to trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol "DNUT."

Inside the numbers: Krispy Kreme reported a 23% revenue increase between Q1 2020 and Q1 2021, but the North Carolina-based chain remains unprofitable.

Fanatics, Galaxy Digital, and Gary Vaynerchuk have set up and invested in Candy Digital, a new company focused on sports-related non-fungible tokens (NFTs), with a debut deal with Major League Baseball.

Why it matters: NFTs saw an explosion in mainstream popularity in recent months thanks to a new twist on sports trading cards popularized by Dapper Labs' NBA Top Shots digital collectibles of basketball content.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce today will launch America Works, a plan to mobilize industry and government to alleviate what the group calls "America’s deepening worker shortage crisis."

• "This is Operation Warp Speed for jobs," said Suzanne Clark, the Chamber's president and CEO. "As we stand on the cusp of what could be a great American resurgence, a worker shortage is holding back job creators across the country."

AMC's share price reached an all-time high last week, thanks to retail investors looking to stick it to institutional shareholders.

Why it matters: The theater chain's wild ride on Wall Street points to the power of "meme stocks" in boosting distressed assets even when markets are volatile.

The holiday weekend saw a resurgence at the box office, breathing new life into an industry that barely survived the pandemic.

Why it matters: "There may not be enough adjectives to describe the importance of this weekend’s box office performance to movie theaters," Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian tells Axios.

Of the 150 disinformation campaigns that Facebook has caught and removed in the past four years, the U.S. has been the most frequent target by far, according to a new threat intelligence report from Facebook.

Why it matters: While most of the campaigns targeting the U.S. have originated abroad, Facebook found that a significant number of campaigns targeting people in the U.S. have originated from inside the U.S.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) vowed Monday to veto funding for the state legislature in response to state House Democrats walking out to block Republicans' voting restrictions bill.

Driving the news: Abbott had vowed to sign the bill into law, but Democrats prevented it from passing with Sunday night's walkout before a midnight voting deadline.