• Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' reported deal to purchase late Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen's Beverly Hills property has fallen through, according to the Los Angeles Times. 
• The 120-acre development site, which spans five empty lots, was put on the market for $150 million after Allen's death in October 2018.
• The massive plot of land is currently on the market for $110 million.
• The property is mostly undeveloped except for utilities, a one-mile private road, and two entrances that Allen added while he owned it.
• According to the listing, the land has space for a private compound as well as multiple guest houses and facilities such as a sports arena, a spa and wellness center, an entertainment complex, equestrian facilities, or a winery.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Jeff Bezos' plans to buy a massive plot of land in Beverly Hills belonging to late Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen has reportedly fallen through.

The Wall Street Journal reported in February that Bezos had paid $90 million for the undeveloped land, on top of the reported $165 million he paid to buy the Warner estate, the sprawling compound formerly owned by entertainment mogul David Geffen. 

But according to a report from the Los Angeles Times' Neal J. Leitereg, Bezos has since pulled out of his deal to buy Allen's property, which is called Enchanted Hill for its seclusion and sweeping views of Los Angeles.  

The development site, which spans five empty lots, is largely empty. Allen reportedly planned on turning it into a personal private compound, but only ended up adding utilities, a one-mile private road, and two entrances to the property during the more than 20 years he owned it.

The land was listed for $150 million in October 2018 following Allen's death after a battle with cancer and is currently listed for $110 million. The property is listed with Jeff Hyland, Rick Hilton, Jesse Lally, and Zach Goldsmith of Hilton & Hyland.

Take a look at the 120-acre Los Angeles property.

SEE ALSO: Everything we know about the massive $165 million compound Jeff Bezos reportedly just purchased, the Warner estate

Allen, who cofounded Microsoft in 1975 with Bill Gates, bought Enchanted Hill for $20 million back in 1997 and demolished a home that had been built there.

He once had plans to turn it into a personal private compound, according to the LA Times.

Beverly Hills, where the land sits, is one of the most affluent parts of Los Angeles.

In the 90210 zip code, the current median listing price for a home is $6.75 million.

Foreign billionaires and celebrities including Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, Cher, and Ellen DeGeneres have been known to call Beverly Hills home.

Enchanted Hill comprises five separate parcels, which offers many possibilities for development, according to the listing.

The road winds past four of the parcels before arriving at the four-acre main estate site.

According to the listing, the land has space for a private compound as well as multiple guest houses and facilities such as a sports arena, a spa and wellness center, an entertainment complex, equestrian facilities, or a winery.

Enchanted Hill's lofty position offers prime views of downtown Los Angeles.

It's about an hour's drive from downtown Los Angeles.

In the 1920s, Enchanted Hill belonged to renowned screenwriter Frances Marion and her husband, silent screen star actor Fred Thomson, according to Variety. It got its name from actress Greta Garbo, who was their neighbor at the time, according to the LA Times.

Allen's plans to build a compound never materialized, but he did add utilities, a one-mile private street, and two gated entrances to the property while he owned it.

The property is one of the largest sites that remains undeveloped in the Beverly Crest neighborhood of Beverly Hills.

After Allen's death in October 2018 from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the property was put on the market. It was originally listed for $150 million, according to the LA Times.

Source: Los Angeles Times

The property is among several of Allen's sizable former assets that were put up for sale by the late billionaire's estate since his death.

A MiG-29 fighter jet that belonged to Allen was put up for sale in August 2019, and his 414-foot superyacht, Octopus, was listed for more than $300 million last September.

In February, the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was buying the plot of land for $90 million.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

The purchase was on top of the $165 million Bezos reportedly spent on the sprawling Warner estate, breaking the record for the most expensive home sale in California state history.

Source: Business Insider

The Warner estate is just down the road from Enchanted Hill — the two properties are less than two miles apart, according to Google Maps.

But Bezos has now reportedly pulled out of the deal to buy Enchanted Hill, according to the LA Times. The listing is still up, with the current sale price listed at $110 million.

Source: Los Angeles Times, Zillow

• The reduction in the demand for travel has caused some airlines to move up retirement dates for their aging aircraft.
• Older, inefficient aircraft are among those on the chopping block as airlines turn to next-generation aircraft such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350 XWB. 
• Virgin Atlantic Airways retired its Airbus A340-600 aircraft ahead of time earlier this week while KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has confirmed its Boeing 747-400 aircraft will be retired by the end of March.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Aircraft are quickly becoming casualties of coronavirus. 

As Boeing and Airbus continue to roll out new aircraft, airlines the world over have embarked on fleet renewal projects that will see aging aircraft being retired in favor of more efficient birds. 

The past few years, especially, have seen the gradual retirement of iconic quad-engine aircraft such as the Boeing 747 and Airbus A380 from global airline fleets in favor of twin-engine aircraft.

Both Boeing and Airbus themselves are largely stopping production on such aircraft to focus on the next-generation planes being adopted by airlines such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, Airbus A350 XWB, and Boeing 777X. 

Aging twin-engine aircraft are also on the chopping block, with airlines seeking to clean house with newer types that provide their passengers with better experiences and relief for their bottom lines. 

While some airlines had planned to slowly phase out these older aircraft over the next few years, the reduction in demand caused by the global spread of COVID-19 has accelerated some of the retirements meaning more iconic aircraft will be permanently grounded sooner than originally expected. 

Using the coronavirus-related downturn as a catalyst for aircraft retirement isn't new for the industry as airlines typically use periods of low demand to restructure their fleets around newer aircraft, as seen with the post-9/11 period that saw a similar reduction in air travel, according to The Points Guy."

Take a look at some of the aircraft being eyed by airlines for early retirement as the novel coronavirus continues to cripple demand for air travel around the world.

SEE ALSO: Low-cost European carrier Norwegian Air may be the first casualty of Trump's Europe travel ban as it slashes thousands of flights and plans to lay off up to 50% of staff

DON'T MISS: Here's why Delta, American, United, and other airlines won't be quick to offer refunds even though travel from the US to some European countries is largely banned due to the coronavirus pandemic

American Airlines' Boeing 757-200

American Airlines confirmed to Business Insider that it will speed up the retirement of its Boeing 757-200 narrow-body aircraft to shortly after the 2021 summer season. In American's fleet are 34 Boeing 757s with the oldest being nearly 27 years old, according to planespotters.net.

The aircraft has played a vital role in American Airlines' route network both on domestic and international routes. In addition to the numerous domestic routes on which it is deployed, the aircraft operated transatlantic services from American's New York hub to cities such as Edinburgh, Scotland and South American services from its Miami hub including to cities below the equator. 

The Boeing 757 will be replaced by its Airbus competitor, the A321.

The A321, with a similar capacity and range to the 757, currently operates American's flagship transcontinental services between New York and Los Angeles and San Francisco. 

American Airlines' Boeing 767-300ER

American Airlines will also be speeding up the retirement of its aging Boeing 767-300ER wide-body aircraft. With only 16 left in its fleet, according to planespotters.net, the Boeing 767 will be retired by the end of May 2020. 

Newer wide-body aircraft in American's fleet including the Boeing 787 Dreamliner will take the place of the 767, offering similar capacity, greater range and efficiency, and a slew of modern passenger-friendly features. In addition to select domestic routes, American's 767s can be seen flying routes to Europe and South America from the airline's hubs east of the Mississippi River. 

American retired its Boeing 767-200s in mid-2014, using them for transcontinental service between New York and the California cities of New York and Los Angeles. The larger 767-300ER variant has been used by the airline to start transatlantic flights to cities such as Dubrovnik, Croatia.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines' Boeing 747-400

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines will be advancing the retirement of its Boeing 747-400 fleet to the end of March, according to De Telegraaf. Plans for the Dutch flag carrier to say goodbye to the aircraft initially called for a January 2021 retirement date but the reduction in demand from the spread of COVID-19 made it possible for an early finish date.

With only seven of the type left in its fleet, according to planespotters.net, the aircraft will give way to the more efficient twin-engine aircraft comprising KLM's fleet including the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and 777 aircraft. The newest arrival in the airline's fleet is the Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner, replacing the 747 on key routes including Amsterdam-New York.

KLM operated two types of the Boeing 747, the 747-400 and 747-400M. The former is a standard Boeing 747 in an all-passenger configuration while the latter was a mixed-use passenger and cargo aircraft, referred to as the "747 Combi."

The Boeing 747-400 is being retired from fleets across the globe, with Qantas aiming to retire its Boeing 747s within the year and British Airways within the next few years. US airlines Delta and United both retired their Boeing 747 fleets in the past three years.

Virgin Atlantic Airways' Airbus A340-600

Virgin Atlantic moved forward the retirement of its Airbus A340-600 fleet, originally scheduled for May. The quad-engine aircraft was planned to be retired by the airline last year until issues with the airline's Boeing 787 Dreamliner and its Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines forced Virgin to hold off on retirement and even resurrect some previously-grounded aircraft.

Retiring the last of its A340 fleet earlier this week, the airline said goodbye to one of its most iconic aircraft that is continuing to disappear from the world's skies. In Europe, only Lufthansa and Iberia remain as the last two major operators of the aircraft.

Virgin's fleet renewal began with the arrival of its Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, continuing it with the purchase of the Airbus A350-1000 XWB and A330-900neo. 

Delta Air Lines' McDonnell Douglas MD-88/MD-90

Delta's CFO Paul Jacobson announced the possibility of his airline retiring older airframes including the McDonnell Douglas MD-88 and MD-99, according to The Points Guy, as COVID-19 continues to reduce demand. The iconic T-tailed aircraft has largely been retired by US airlines such as Allegiant Air and most notably, American Airlines, in recent years, leaving Delta as the only airline to operate it. 

The near-identical MD-88 and MD-90 primarily operate on domestic routes from Delta's Atlanta hub with not much international usage outside of North America. The aircraft features a unique 3-2 configuration not commonly found on modern airliners. 

The aircraft are scheduled to be replaced by Delta's Airbus A320 family fleet as well as the incoming Airbus A220-300.

Lufthansa, Korean Air, and Qantas Airbus A380

The Airbus A380 may be the largest casualty of the coronavirus-lead airline industry downturn as numerous airlines have grounded Airbus A380s to account for reduced demand for travel. Lufthansa was the first to announce it would be grounding its Airbus A380s, according to Aero Telegraph, used primarily for intercontinental routes to North America and Asia, due to the reduction in demand.

Korean Air followed suit earlier this week, grounding its entire Airbus A380 fleet, Forbes reported. Last month, it was reported that a Korean Air flight attendant with COVID-19 may have worked flights on the 400-seat aircraft between Seoul and Los Angeles. 

Qantas elected to ground most of its Airbus A380 fleet. Out of 14 aircraft, 10 have been grounded while two are undergoing maintenance checks, the airline reported, leaving only two in operation on the Sydney-Los Angeles and Sydney-Singapore-London route. 

Airlines have been opting not to continue with the Airbus A380 as the bulky plane has been overtaken by twin-engine aircraft such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350 XWB.

Airbus is ceasing production on the aircraft in the next year.

Qantas' Boeing 747-400

After a final transpacific flight from Santiago, Chile to Sydney, Australia, Qantas has effectively retired its Boeing 747-400 fleet. The aircraft are parked while Australia's flag carrier rides out the downtown caused by COVID-19 but the airline confirmed to Simple Flying that they are not officially retired. 

The aircraft were scheduled for final retirement at the end of 2020 as the airline completes a fleet renewal focused on the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner and Airbus A380. The Australian Queen of the Skies, once a staple of transpacific travel between Australia and the US, has slowly been replaced on routes to North America over the past few years.

Should the recovery take longer than expected, especially as Australia prepares to enter its winter season, it's possible the aircraft will never again grace the skies with passengers onboard.

Air Transat's Airbus A310

Air Transat has removed the Airbus A310 from its schedule after March, Routes Online reported, indicating that the retirement of the aging aircraft will be moved up from April. The A310 is one of the first wide-body aircraft to be produced by Europe's Airbus. Canada's Air Transat is the only passenger airline in North America to still operate it.

As one of the oldest airliners still flying, the A310 has acquired a following and was sought after for aviation enthusiasts looking to get a glimpse into aviation's past. Air Transat used the plane for intra-Canada hops as well as transatlantic services to Europe. 

• The coronavirus pandemic has spread across the US without being contained, forcing business closures, job losses, and a plummeting stock market. 
• Some business leaders are forfeiting their paychecks.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The US now has the most confirmed coronavirus cases in the world, more than 156,000. 

The outbreak has created an unprecedented challenge for the world economy. Many sectors shut down virtually overnight, causing a wave of job losses and a plummeting stock market. 

Companies across the US are grappling with the sudden financial stress caused by the pandemic and taking measures to mitigate the inevitable blow it will have on business. 

Leaders from some of the companies most affected by the pandemic, particularly airlines, are forfeiting their paychecks as the pandemic worsens. These leaders include the cofounders of Lyft and the CEO of Marriott. And in the media and entertainment sector, Disney's Executive Chairman Bob Iger is forgoing his salary for 2020.

Keep reading for the full list.

SEE ALSO: The coronavirus was declared a pandemic right at the start of spring renting season — and is sending it into deep freeze

DON'T MISS: The US housing market got off to a strong start in 2020, but it's plummeting as the coronavirus pandemic grips the country

Delta Air Lines

On March 13, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian sent out a memo to all Delta employees updating them on how COVID-19 is impacting the company and the steps being taken to "protect the financial position of the company."

Bastian said Delta would offer voluntary short-term, unpaid leaves and institute an immediate hiring freeze. He also announced in the memo that he would be giving up 100% of his salary for the next six months.

Alaska Air Group

In a memo released on March 16, Alaska Air Group — the parent company of Alaska Airlines — laid out an update on its financial and operational outlook amid the pandemic. These included offering employees unpaid leaves of absences for 30-, 60-, and 90-day timeframes, and freezing hiring except for essential roles.

In addition, the memo said that as of March 7, CEO Brad Tilden and President Ben Minicucci had reduced their base salaries to zero. 

United Airlines

In a memo that was sent out to United employees on March 15, CEO Oscar Munoz and President Scott Kirby laid out pandemic responses including schedule reductions, a hiring freeze, and introducing a voluntary leave program.

In addition, Munoz and Kirby reduced their salaries to zero through June.

Allegiant Air

In a memo to employees on March 18, Allegiant laid out a strategic plan of operations during the pandemic. The plan includes halting hiring and reducing airline capacity.

In addition, the memo stated that CEO Maurice Gallagher and President John Redmond would take a full pay cut.

Lyft

In an email to drivers, Lyft co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green said they would donate their salaries through June to support drivers during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Marriott

In a video message, Marriott CEO and President Arne Sorenson responded to the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the company by, among other things, suspending new hires except for critical positions and stopping all hotel initiatives for 2020.

In addition, he said he will not be taking a salary for the balance of 2020 and his executive team will take a 50% pay cut.

General Electric

On March 23, General Electric Chairman and CEO H. Lawrence Culp, Jr. released a statement to employees about how it is handling the economic impacts of the coronavirus. The company will reduce of its total U.S. workforce by about 10%, among other things.

In addition, Culp will give up his full salary for the remainder of 2020. The vice chairman of GE and president and CEO of GE Aviation, David Joyce, will give up half of his salary starting April 1.

United Talent Agency

The Beverly Hills-based United Talent Agency has announced that it will cut the salaries of its staff as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the Los Angeles Times reported.

A person familiar with the situation told the LA Times that CEO Jeremy Zimmer and co-Presidents Jay Sures and David Kramer will give up their salaries for the rest of 2020.

Union Square Hospitality Group

Tweet Embed:
//twitter.com/mims/statuses/1240002340544843776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
We've created a relief fund for @ushgnyc team members. To seed the effort, I'm immediately contributing my entire compensation & our exec team is taking a meaningful pay cut. Thru 3/24, 100% of all USHG gift card sales will go to the fund. Join us please. https://t.co/E82YicvQcR

Danny Meyer, the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG) and the founder of Shake Shack, donated his entire compensation to USHG at the same time that he laid off 80% of the company's staff. He also set up a relief fund for his workers, he wrote on Twitter.

Texas Roadhouse

Wayne Kent Taylor, the CEO of Texas Roadhouse, has given up the rest of his annual base salary and bonus to help pay front-line employees during the coronavirus pandemic. The change will go into effect starting with the March 18 pay period.

In 2018, Louisiana Business First reported that Taylor made $1.3 million, which included his base salary of $525,000.

Disney

Bog Iger, the executive chairman of Disney, has forgone his salary for the remainder of the year amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to a Variety report which cited an internal memo.

Bob Chapek, who recently succeeded Iger as Disney's CEO, will be taking a 50% pay cut, according to the report. Starting April 5, all VP-level executives will be receiving a 20% cut in salary, senior VPs will see a 25% cut, and executive VPs will see a 30% cut.

As Business Insider previously reported, Disney has shaken up its digital strategy amid the pandemic, releasing its "Frozen 2" animated movie on the Disney Plus platform months ahead of schedule.

• Video chatting platforms like Zoom can be great tools for connecting face-to-face with friends, family, and loved ones.
• After installing Zoom and participating in a few one-on-one calls, as well as calls with small groups of my friends, I decided I wanted to throw a Zoom party over the weekend.
• My Zoom party was a success, and I brought 8 of my friends together for a fun night, after which everyone left feeling less lonely – here's what I learned and how you can throw your own perfect Zoom party.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

If you've been learning or working remotely, you're probably already familiar with Zoom. It's similar to Skype, Houseparty, and Google Hangouts, but has exploded in popularity and quickly become the dominant platform for everything from virtual preschool to business meetings.

Once I started seeing Zoom memes, I knew I had to try out the platform. But I don't use Zoom for work, so instead, I asked my friends to download it and began calling them casually to hang out and chat after work and over the weekend. After a group Zoom session with a few of my pals, I had the idea to throw a Zoom party.

In the process of planning, executing, and hosting my Zoom party, I picked up a few tips and tricks to share. I was worried that it might be awkward or function differently than a normal in-person party – and it was definitely different – but my party ended up being fun for everyone, and it made our Saturday night less lonely.

Here's what I learned, and how you can throw your perfect Zoom party, too.

SEE ALSO: Teachers are attempting to use streaming platforms like Zoom for kindergarten classes. Here's how they say it's going.

DON'T MISS: Stars and fans are flocking to Cameo during quarantine, and the platform's CEO says 'Cameo Con' will be another way to connect

NEXT UP: Summer camps are stepping up to fill quarantine's activity void for kids with programming over Zoom and Instagram

If you want to throw a Zoom party, you need to have an account to set up a meeting.

For a quick Zoom primer, you can either install the Zoom app on your phone or use Zoom on your computer or laptop. I always recommend using Zoom on your laptop or computer, but especially for hosting a party. It gives you more freedom to access your phone, including if you need to text a guest who's joining the party late and needs an access link or code. 

You don't need a Zoom account to join a meeting, but you do need one to create a meeting and invite others, so you'll need to create an account if you don't have one already. 

You'll want to invite fewer people than you would to a regular party.

If I want to throw a party in real life, I'll usually invite at least 15 people to get into the party spirit. On Zoom, you'll want to choose signficantly fewer people than you would for a real-life party, since everyone has to talk to one another at the same time. 

You can technically host hundreds of people in one Zoom, but for the purposes of my party, I invited 7 of my friends. This turned out to be the perfect amount of people for a conversation that everyone could be included in to flow naturally for a couple of hours.

At most, I'd recommend you cap your party at 10 people, because at that point, people will probably get left out of the conversation. For a true party, you have to invite at least 5 people, though. Any fewer and you are simply "hanging out" on Zoom – that's my official ruling. 

Before the party starts, you'll want to make sure everyone knows how to access Zoom.

I started floating the idea of a Zoom party to my friends a few days before I set the date and time. I knew everyone I invited already had Zoom set up, but as a responsible host you should take it upon yourself to double-check that your guests know how to access a meeting.

Next time I host a Zoom party, I'm considering sending digital invitations to liven up the proceedings, but this time I invited people casually over text messages.

I set my party for 8 p.m. on a Saturday so that people had time to eat dinner with their families and roommates ahead of time, and hang out with people virtually or in real life afterward if they already had plans to do so. 

You can schedule a Zoom meeting in advance, or pass around a link a few minutes before the party is set to start.

Since Zoom is usually intended for virtual meetings, and not parties, there are a lot of functions to integrate meetings into peoples' digital calendars. Because I wanted to keep my party casual, I didn't send a Google invite or schedule the meeting in advance.

Instead, at around 7:50 I headed into my designated party room and clicked the "New Meeting" button in the Zoom app on my laptop.

Then, I clicked "Invite" in the bottom toolbar, clicked "Copy URL" at the bottom left of the pop-up screen, and texted the URL to my 7 friends I had invited. You can also invite people through the app itself or send a numerical code around, too.

Be sure to have the most stable WiFi possible, especially as the host.

This tip may seem like a no-brainer, but as someone with notoriously shaky WiFi, I took extra precautions to make sure I didn't leave my party host-less. At times, my unstable connection can cause me to be ejected from Zoom meetings. If that happens while you're the host, it won't necessarily crash your party (I know this from experience), but it's still awkward. 

My best advice is to sit as close to your WiFi router as humanly possible. I actually evacuated the room in my home where the router is and set up shop there for the party. 

I staggered my invitations so that everyone wouldn't join the call all at once.

During a normal party, people don't all enter exactly on time. I didn't want to delay anyone "arriving" to my party, but I also didn't want to have all 7 people pop up onscreen at once, because I prefer a more gradual flow.

I texted my URL to a few people at a time starting at about 7:55 p.m. and staggering every one or two minutes, which ended up being a great way to start the party, because it allowed me to introduce people who hadn't met each other one at a time, instead of all at once, which would have been more awkward. 

But you should definitely introduce people to one another who haven't met before.

It may be weird to see 7 faces staring at you and try and coordinate introductions from behind a screen. But in practice, it's actually not that weird at all.

Just be sure that you introduce your friends to one another if they haven't met before, because that's what you would do as a host of a regular party and it makes it less awkward for people to engage in conversation with one another. 

Don't steer the conversation, but try and be mindful of who's being included.

During a regular party, people usually split off into little groups and talk to one another, which isn't an option during a Zoom party because everyone is tuned into the same conversation.

My biggest fear during my Zoom party was that the conversation wouldn't flow and that there would be awkward periods when people weren't talking to one another. Luckily, with enough people, someone will usually have something to keep the conversation going.

But I did try and make sure everyone was included in that conversation, and nudged it toward one person or another if they had been quiet for a while. 

You can also use filters, emojis, and a custom background on Zoom, which can work as great conversation starters.

In my opinion, the best Zoom feature is the ability to add a custom background. You can add one, change it, and remove it at any point during a video chat. You can also use the "Touch up my appearance" button to apply a smoothing and brightening filter over your face.

Both these options can be found during the chat by clicking the up arrow next to the "Stop Video" button in the bottom left corner of the screen. After you click the arrow, click "Choose Virtual Background..." to be taken to the settings screen where there are some preset backgrounds and a "+" button where you can upload any image saved to your computer. 

This is another reason to use Zoom on your laptop, because the phone version doesn't come fully equipped with all these capabilities, and setting your background as a funny meme is maybe the best way to keep the party entertained. 

Another way to keep the party exciting is by bringing a drink or a snack.

Lest your Zoom party become too professional (unfortunately, I don't recommend attempting to play music, as the audio will not function well), encourage your party guests to bring their favorite alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverage to the virtual function. 

If you could provide snacks through Zoom, it would truly be the best quarantine platform. Alas, if you want to throw a Zoom dinner party, everyone will have to cook separately. 

Theoretically, you could also play drinking games at your Zoom party, or maybe even a card game if you're feeling experimental. My Zoom party just chatted, but in the future, I'm considering introducing the concept of a themed costume Zoom party. I've even heard about people throwing Zoom murder mystery parties. 

After 40 minutes, Zoom lets the host upgrade the meeting for free.

Like many companies and platforms offering free perks during quarantine, Zoom is letting hosts upgrade Zoom meetings past the usual 40-minute limit for free. 

If you're the one hosting the party, you shouldn't have to do anything. At the 40-minute mark, Zoom automatically notified everyone in the group that the party had been upgraded for free and could go on, theoretically, forever. If your meeting is still timing out, there's a Zoom FAQ on the platform's website to troubleshoot. 

Ending the party is your call as the host, and it's good to know when to let the conversation die out.

After two hours, my first Zoom guests started to exit the conversation to do other virtual or in-person activities with friends and loved ones. I kept the party going with the remaining members for about half an hour after that, but it's good to know when it's time to end the call.

Preferably, you want to end your party before it gets awkward, so once I was down to about 4 others and myself, I let the conversation come to a close and we said our group goodbyes. When you exit a Zoom call, you can choose to end it for the group as a whole. 

Unfortunately, if you're stuck in a Zoom party that's been going on for ages and you're not sure how to make a graceful exit, you can't slip out like a regular party. Whatever you do, don't pretend your internet froze. Just tell your awkward fellow partiers that you promised your mom you would call her, or something like that. 

One thing I wish I had done before the party is gotten into the party groove with some music.

Apart from trying out Zoom games or themed Zoom parties in the future, there isn't anything I would change about my party. However, to quell my hosting fears, I wish I had (and would suggest) getting into the party spirit ahead of time. 

If you're gearing up to host your first Zoom party, you may find it helpful to do what people do before hosting regular parties – get into the spirit! Turn on some music, dance around, and put on a smile, because your Zoom party is going to be legendary. 

Table of Contents

• Travel rewards credit cards
• Cash-back credit cards
• Airline credit cards
• Hotel credit cards
• Business credit cards

Travel rewards credit cards

First up are the cards that can get you the most value if you're willing to put in the work: rewards credit cards that earn Amex, Chase, and other bank points. You can transfer these points to various airline and hotel partners, as well as use them to book travel directly through your credit card issuer.

The mega-popular Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve®, American Express® Gold Card and others fall into this category.

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card—  The rewards card that started it all. For a $95 annual fee, you get 2x points on travel and dining, not to mention valuable protections like primary car rental insurance and baggage delay insurance. Read the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card review.

Chase Sapphire Reserve®— The premium sibling to the Sapphire Preferred has a $550 annual fee, but offers more perks like a $300 annual travel credit and 3x points on travel and dining. Read the Chase Sapphire Reserve review.

American Express® Gold Card— If dining is one of your top spending categories, the Amex Gold is a great card for you. It earns 4x points at restaurants (and 4x at US supermarkets on up to $25,000 each year, then 1x) and each month you get up to $10 in statement credits when you use the card at GrubHub, Seamless, The Cheesecake Factory, Ruth's Chris Steak House, Boxed, and participating Shake Shacks. There's a $250 annual fee. Read the Amex Gold Card review.

The Platinum Card® from American Express— It's one of the most premium personal credit cards out there, with a $550 annual fee and a long list of benefits. You get annual statement credits for airline incidental fees, Saks purchases, and Uber rides, and can access a variety of airport lounges including Amex's own Centurion Lounges. Read the Amex Platinum review.

Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card— Like the Sapphire Preferred, the Venture Rewards Card packs in a lot of benefits for a sub-$100-annual-fee card, and in this case the $95 annual fee is waived the first year. You'll earn 2x miles on all purchase, and you can redeem miles to cover travel purchases on your statement, or transfer them to a selection of airline programs. Read the Capital One Venture Rewards card review.

American Express® Green Card— Amex recently revamped its Green card from the ground up, and the result is a great rewards card with a moderate annual fee of $150. That fee is especially easy to justify if you can use the card's annual statement credits: up to $100 toward CLEAR membership each year, and up to $100 toward airport lounge access through LoungeBuddy each year. Read the Amex Green card review.

Cash-back credit cards

Not everyone travels enough to make cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card worth it. If you'd prefer to earn money back on your spending, you have plenty of great options as well. Unless otherwise specified, these cash-back cards don't have an annual fee.

Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express— This card has a $95 annual fee, and it has some great bonus categories. These include 6% back on select US streaming services, 6% back on up to $6,000 spent at US supermarkets each year (then 1%), 3% back at US gas stations and on transit, and 1% on everything else. Read the Blue Cash Preferred Card review.

Capital One® Savor® Cash Rewards Credit Card— If you want to earn extra cash back on your dining purchases, this is a good pick. The Savor card earns an unlimited 4% back on dining and entertainment, 2% back at grocery stores, and 1% back on everything else. There's a $95 annual fee that's waived the first year, and no foreign transaction fees. Read the Capital One Savor card review.

Capital One® Quicksilver® Cash Rewards Credit Card—  For those who don't want to worry about different cash-back bonus categories, the Quicksilver is a straightforward choice. It earns 1.5% cash back on all purchases, with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fees. Read the Capital One Quicksilver card review.

Chase Freedom Unlimited®— This card offers a solid flat rate (1.5% back) on every purchase, and it's one of the most flexible cash-back cards around, because it gives you options. If you decide you'd like to get into travel rewards further down the line, you can combine your cash-back earnings from the Freedom Unlimited with Chase Ultimate Rewards points from a card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred to use them toward travel. Read the Chase Freedom Unlimited review.

Chase Freedom®—  Like the Freedom Unlimited, the Chase Freedom earns cash back on every purchase. But instead of offering a flat cash-back rate, it offers 5% back on up to $1,500 spent each quarter of the year in rotating bonus categories, such as gas stations and streaming services, and 1% back on everything else. You have to activate the bonus each quarter to earn the 5% back. The Freedom's cash-back earnings can be combined with Ultimate Rewards points if you have a more premium Chase card. Read the Chase Freedom review.

Citi® Double Cash Card— If your priority is simplicity when it comes to earning cash back, the Citi® Double Cash Card is hard to beat. You'll earn 2% cash back on every purchase: 1% back when you buy, and 1% back when you pay your bill. There's no annual fee, and there are no bonus categories to keep track of. If you have another Citi card, you have the option to redeem your cash back as Citi ThankYou Rewards points that can be used for travel. Read the Citi Double Cash review.

Wells Fargo Propel American Express® card — This is a top cash-back card thanks to its many bonus categories. You'll earn 3x points (3% cash back) on eating out and ordering in, on travel, gas stations, rideshares, and transit, and on popular streaming services, and 1% back on everything else. It's also one of the rare no-annual-fee cash-back cards to waive foreign transaction fees. Read the Wells Fargo Propel Amex card review.

Airline credit cards

If you're loyal to a specific airline — or even if you just travel with the same airline multiple times a year — it could be worth holding a co-branded credit card to get a free checked bag, priority boarding, and other perks. Airline credit cards run the gamut from entry-level to premium options, and the best choice for you will depend on how frequently you travel.

Alaska Airlines Visa Signature credit card— Alaska miles are very valuable, and also hard to come by. Alaska's co-branded card (with a $75 annual fee) is a great way to earn them, and you also get a companion fare each year. Read the Alaska Airlines Visa review.

Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite™ Mastercard®— This is one of the best credit cards for American Airlines flyers, offering 2x miles at gas stations, restaurants, and eligible American Airlines purchases, along with a free checked bag on domestic itineraries with the airline. Read the Citi / AAdvantage Platinum Select card review.

Delta SkyMiles® Blue American Express Card— If you want to earn Delta SkyMiles without paying an annual fee, this card is a good option. You'll earn 2 miles per dollar on eligible Delta purchases and at restaurants, and 1 mile per dollar on everything else. You'll also get 20% off eligible in-flight purchases with Delta. Read the Delta SkyMiles Blue Amex review.

Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card— If you fly Delta a handful of times each year, this card is a good option. It has a $99 annual fee that's waived the first year, and offers the basic airline perks like a free checked bag, priority boarding, and 2 miles per dollar on Delta purchases (and at restaurants worldwide and US supermarkets). Read the Delta SkyMiles Gold Amex review.

Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card— For more frequent Delta flyers, the Platinum Delta Amex could make sense thanks to additional benefits like an annual companion certificate and the ability to earn Medallion Qualification Miles (MQMs) toward Delta Medallion elite Status. The card has a higher $250 annual fee, but if those perks are useful to you, it can be worth it. Read the Delta SkyMiles Platinum Amex review.

Delta SkyMiles® Reserve American Express Card— Delta's most premium credit card offers an annual companion certificate and the ability to earn MQMs, but also complimentary access to Delta Sky Clubs and American Express Centurion lounges when you're flying Delta. It has a $550 annual fee. Read the Delta Reserve Amex review.

Southwest Rapid Rewards® Performance Business Credit Card— If you qualify for a small-business credit card and you frequently fly Southwest, this card gives you lots of benefits to make your travel more comfortable. You get four upgraded boardings per year (where available), in-flight Wi-Fi credits, and up to a $100 statement credit to cover the application fee for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck. You also get 9,000 points each year after your cardmember anniversary. There's a $199 annual fee. Read the Southwest Rapid Rewards Perfomance Business card review.

Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card— This card has a $99 annual fee, and earns 2 points per dollar on Southwest purchases. One of the top reasons to consider it — or any other Southwest credit card — is that the sign-up bonus you earn from meeting the minimum spending requirement counts toward the Southwest Companion Pass. The Companion Pass lets you designate one person to travel with you on Southwest for free (minus taxes and fees) when you have a flight booked. Read the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier card review.

Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card— Southwest's most premium personal credit card has a $149 annual fee and comes with some valuable benefits for the frequent Southwest flyer. You get up to $75 in Southwest travel credit each year, plus four upgraded boardings per year (where available). The points you earn with this card count toward the Companion Pass as well. Read the Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority card review.

United℠ Explorer Card— United's co-branded credit card with a $95 annual fee stands out for offering bonus miles on categories other than just United purchases, and an application fee credit for up to $100 for TSA PreCheck or Global Entry. As a cardholder, you also get access to additional low-level award space, which makes it easier to stretch the miles you earn. Read the United Explorer card review.

United℠ Business Card— This card has a $99 annual fee, and it offers bonus miles at gas stations, office supply stores, and restaurants, in addition to on United purchases. Read the United Business card review.

Read more:The best airline credit cards

Hotel credit cards

Hotel credit cards can get you complimentary elite status, bonus points on stays, and other solid perks. As with airline credit cards, the options run the gamut from basic cards with annual fees under $100 to premium picks that offer fancier benefits.

Hilton Honors Aspire Card from American Express— This card has a $450 annual fee, but if you have even just a few Hilton stays in a year it can be well worth it. You get complimentary Hilton Diamond status, which can get you free breakfast and complimentary room upgrades, and each cardmember year you'll get up to $250 in Hilton resort credits and up to $250 in airline fee credits each calendar year. Read the Hilton Aspire card review.

The World Of Hyatt Credit Card—  Hyatt has a smaller portfolio of hotels than some of the other chains like Hilton and Marriott, but it has some great luxury properties, and there are some real sweet spots in the Hyatt award chart. This card earns you bonus points on Hyatt stays, at restaurants, on gym memberships, and more, and it gets you a free night at a Category 1-4 hotel each year. Read the World of Hyatt card review.

Hilton Honors American Express Business Card— If you qualify for a small business credit card and are a Hilton loyalist, consider this card with a moderate $95 annual fee and benefits like bonus points on Hilton stays and complimentary Gold Hilton status. Read the Hilton Honors Amex Business card review.

Hilton Honors American Express Surpass Card— If you don't want to pay the $450 annual fee of the Hilton Aspire card but still want to enjoy some benefits with Hilton, this card is a good option, with a moderate $95 annual fee. You get complimentary Gold Hilton status, and you'll earn 12 points per dollar on Hilton purchases. Read the Hilton Honors Surpass card review.

IHG® Rewards Club Premier Credit Card— This card gets you a lot in exchange for an $89 fee. Each year you get an anniversary night that you can use at hotels that cost up to 40,000 points, and you get complimentary IHG Platinum status. It often runs lucrative sign-up offers, to boot. Read the IHG Rewards Club Premier card review.

Marriott Bonvoy Boundless™ Credit Card— If Marriott is your hotel chain of choice but you don't stay in hotels often enough to justify a higher-annual-fee card, the Boundless card (with a $95 annual fee) is a great option. Each year after your cardmember anniversary, you get a free night at any property that costs 35,000 points or less. Read the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card review.

Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant™ American Express® Card— Marriott's premium consumer card has a $450 annual but offers lots of benefits to justify it, like up to $300 in annual statement credits for Marriott purchases (including stays) and complimentary Marriott Gold status. Read the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Amex card review.

Marriott Bonvoy Business™ American Express® Card— If you're a small-business user who stays at Marriott hotels when you're on the road, this card offers bonus points and complimentary Silver status to make your stay more rewarding. Read the Marriott Bonvoy Business Amex review.

Business credit cards

If you run your own company or even if you just have a side gig like freelancing or selling items online, a business credit card is a great way to separate your work expenses and earn rewards targeted to business spenders. Many business credit cards offer bonus points on categories like office supplies, and if you opt for a high-end card you can enjoy luxury travel benefits like airport lounge access.

Capital One® Spark® Miles for Business— The Spark Miles for Business earns 2 miles per dollar on all purchases with no cap on what you can earn, and you can either redeem your miles to cover travel expenses or transfer them to airline partners like Air Canada and Singapore Airlines. There's a $95 annual fee, but it's waived the first year. Read the Spark Miles for Business review.

Capital One® Spark® Cash for Business— This card is similar to the Spark Miles for Business, except it has no annual fee and earns cash back instead of miles. You'll earn 2% back on all your purchases, with no cap on how much you can earn. Read the Spark Cash for Business review.

Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card— This Chase Business card has one of the best sign-up bonuses around, and it offers great points-earning potential on categories like travel and online advertising for a reasonable $95 annual fee. Read the Ink Business Preferred card review.

Ink Business Cash℠ Credit Card— This no-annual-fee business card from Chase earns bonus cash back on categories like office supply stores, internet, cable, and phone services. If you pair it with a Chase card that earns Ultimate Rewards points, you can redeem the Ink Card's cash back as travel rewards with partners like British Airways and Hyatt. Read the Ink Business Cash card review.

The Business Platinum® Card from American Express— The business version of the Amex Platinum Card comes with several unique benefits, including up to $200 in statement credits for Dell purchases each year, and a 35% points rebate when you book eligible air travel through Amex. There's a $595 annual fee, but it could be worth it for frequent business travelers. Read the Amex Business Platinum card review.

Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express— This is a great option for anyone who's looking to earn Amex points and can qualify for a business credit card. The Blue Business Plus has no annual fee, and it earns 2x points on the first $50,000 spent each year (then 1x point). Read the Blue Business Plus card review.

American Express® Business Gold Card— If your business spends a lot on categories like US advertising and airfare purchased directly from airlines, the Business Gold is a great choice. It earns you 4x points on your top two spending categories each month (from a list of six categories), on up to $150,000 in combined purchases each year (then 1x). The card has a $295 annual fee. Read the Amex Business Gold card review.

Ink Business Unlimited℠ Credit Card— This card has no annual fee, and earns a flat 1.5% back on every purchase. If you want a simple card that doesn't require keeping track of any bonus categories, this could be a good choice. Read the Ink Business Unlimited review.

Brex Corporate Card for Startups and the Brex Corporate Card for Ecommerce — Brex's corporate credit card comes in two versions with slightly different benefits tailored for startups and ecommerce companies. Both flavors have no annual fee, and if you make the Brex card your exclusive corporate credit card, you can earn up to 7 points per dollar on spending, and transfer points to airlines like JetBlue. Read the Brex corporate card review.

• More credit card coverage
• What's the best airline credit card?
• The best cash-back credit cards
• Southwest credit card review
• Best rewards credit cards

• Off-White founder and Louis Vuitton's Menswear Creative Director Virgil Abloh redesigned Drake's $185 million private plane.
• The plane's exterior is now sky blue with white clouds, reminiscent of the cover art for Drake's album "Nothing Was the Same."
• Abloh, who has a degree in engineering, is known for collaborating with brands from Evian to Ikea.
• Drake is a noted lover of luxury cars, with a collection worth millions. 
• But not everyone was happy with Drake seemingly flaunting his wealth in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Drake made sure to let everyone know he's "social distancing" — by unveiling his private, converted Boeing 767-300F, newly redesigned by Louis Vuitton Menswear Creative Director and Off-White founder Virgil Abloh. 

CargoJet reportedly gave Drake the plane for free last year in exchange for publicity, according to TMZ, though this hasn't been confirmed by either the rapper or the company. The plane is worth about $185 million and can seat 30 people. 

Abloh shared a behind-the-scenes look at his redesign process on Instagram, captioning the photo, "The tail number is a problem and the FBO (fixed-base operator) is a whole other story..." 

Abloh is known for his industry-spanning artistic collaborations, having worked with brands like Ikea, Supreme, and even Evian.

Critics have called out Drake's apparent wealth-flaunting during the global pandemic

After Drake shared his own post about the plane's revamp on Instagram — with the caption "'SOCIAL DISTANCING' c/o ABLOH ENGINEERING" — he became the latest celebrity to be criticized for flaunting their wealth during the pandemic. Over the weekend, billionaire Hollywood mogul David Geffen deleted his Instagram account entirely after being criticized for a post about social distancing aboard his $590 million superyacht. 

It's not clear whether Drake is actually self-isolating aboard his private plane or simply referencing a viral tweet that imagined how social distancing might be inspiring his songwriting.

The redesigned plane wasn't the only reveal Drake made on Instagram this weekend. Soon after showing off his plane, Drake posted the first photos of his "secret" son, Adonis, who was born in 2017. The caption seemingly referenced the difficulties of social distancing and being away from family, ending with the rapper noting, "I can't wait for the joyful day when we are all able to reunite. Until then please keep your lights on."

Drake, who has a net worth of around $150 million, is known for his lavish lifestyle. Aside from owning a 12,500-square-foot, $8 million mansion in Los Angeles, he also has another sprawling 35,000-square-foot home, which was built on land he purchased in Toronto in 2016 for $6.7 million. He's also an avid car collector, with an extensive (and expensive) car collection that almost rivals Kylie Jenner's famously pricey fleet.

SEE ALSO: A look at the life of Virgil Abloh, the man The New York Times called the 'Karl Lagerfeld for millennials,' but who should probably best be known as the first Virgil Abloh

DON'T MISS: Louis Vuitton designer Virgil Abloh and Evian have teamed up to create limited edition glass water bottles tied to the launch of a $54,000 sustainable design contest

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Traditional Japanese swords can take over 18 months to create — here's what makes them so special

• The new $2.2 trillion stimulus package signed into law by President Trump last week will provide more than $300 billion in loans to small businesses.
• The loans are meant to help struggling businesses pay their employees during the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
• The money can go toward payroll, including the equivalent of cash tips.
• Many of the country's 15.6 million restaurant workers, who make an average of $12.49 per hour, rely on cash tips to make ends meet.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The new $2.2 trillion stimulus package signed into law by President Trump last week offers small businesses a lifeline in the form of more than $300 billion in zero-interest loans, some of which can be forgiven.

The loans, meant for businesses with fewer than 500 employees, could be particularly impactful for the restaurant industry, which employs 15.6 million Americans. Seventy percent of the country's one million restaurants are single-unit, and 90% have fewer than 50 employees, according to the National Restaurant Association. Thousands of establishments have been forced to close down and lay off many of their employees. The association estimates the industry will take a $225 billion hit because of the pandemic, and that between five and seven million restaurant workers could lose their jobs by June.

The stimulus package creates the Paycheck Protection Program, which provides eligible small businesses with government-backed loans that can be forgiven if businesses fulfill all requirements. The loans, which are meant to incentivize businesses to keep employees on payroll, can be used for expenses including payroll, mortgage and rent payments, and utilities. 

Crucially for the restaurant industry, the money can be used to pay for any kind of employee compensation — including the equivalent of cash tips.

Cash tips make up a huge chunk of restaurant workers' income

Many restaurant workers rely on cash tips to make ends meet. The average hourly wage for restaurant workers is $12.49, or less than $26,000 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In New York City, the minimum wage is $15, which can be broken down to a $10 cash wage plus a $5 tip credit for food service workers.

Alex Lynch, a captain at the NoMad in Manhattan who was furloughed earlier this month when the restaurant closed, recently told Business Insider that her tips could more than triple her hourly takehome pay.

Paul Einbund, owner of the upscale New American restaurant The Morris in San Francisco, said the provision specifically mentioning cash tips is the most important part of the stimulus bill. 

"I don't think I'm going out on a limb by saying the vast majority of small restaurant owners are worried more about their staff and regulars then business right now," Einbund told Business Insider.

Einbund, who's had to lay off nearly all of his 20 employees but has kept his restaurant open for curbside pickup, said it's crucial that restaurants get these funds as quickly as possible.

"Survival for most of us isn't about knowing the funds might be coming, it's about getting the funds so we can start dispersing them," he said, adding that it's "crushing" not being able to pay staff and vendors.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in an interview with Fox Business Network on Monday that he expected the loans to be available starting Friday.

Employers who have already laid off workers can still apply — if they rehire their employees

Restaurant owners like Einbund, who've already had to lay off the majority of their employees, can still be eligible for the full loan amount — as long as they rehire all their full-time employees by the end of June.

But as Eater's Ryan Sutton reported, that may not be feasible for restaurants that are already barely keeping their heads above water.

Another form of assistance restaurant owners can apply for is the payroll tax-relief program. The program allows employers who continue to employ workers through the coronavirus crisis to defer their payroll taxes so they can keep paying those employees, as Business Insider's Jennifer Ortakales and Bartie Scott recently reported.

Employers can apply for either the small-business loan or the payroll tax-relief program — but not both.

SEE ALSO: 'Blindsided' with no backup plan and rents closing in: Laid-off NYC restaurant workers describe how their lives have changed as their industry collapses around them

DON'T MISS: Everything you need to know if you've recently been laid off and are applying for unemployment benefits

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Traditional Japanese swords can take over 18 months to create — here's what makes them so special

• Rachel Beaton is a third grade elementary school teacher, and after having her third child in June 2019, she began a full year of maternity leave.
• The coronavirus outbreak has caused schools across the country to shut down, and Beaton has developed tips to be productive and have fun while teaching her kids at home.
• As a teacher, Beaton stresses the importance of having a schedule, setting daily expectations, and being understanding to your children's emotions.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

My husband and I had our third child last June.  The wonderful school where I teach third grade granted me a full year of maternity leave. Our two older children are 7 and 5, so they had been at school while I was enjoying a leisurely home stay with the baby.  People had been saying to me all year, "Three kids! I don't know how you do it." Every time I replied, "I'm very lucky; there's no way I could do this if they were all home."

Cue: Foreboding music. Enter stage left: COVID-19.

To be clear, we're privileged even in the current circumstances. My husband has a secure job, we're all currently healthy, we have food and a place to live. Sure, we have to take care of three children in our apartment for an undetermined amount of time, but who's here to take care of them? Their parent, who has two education degrees, an impressive history of being able to corral children in various situations, and just happens to be on maternity leave. Not to mention, her sister (a beloved librarian) is also staying with them. Windfall!

Since we have the luxury of not having to worry about necessities, I've had more time to think (stress) about other things. When it became apparent that I was really going to be caring for three children within a confined space for possibly months, I went with my first instinct honed from years of teaching: I made a schedule.

I've been planning, prepping, and instructing. We've read books, written letters, and played math games. We've had socially distant morning walks and drawn with chalk on the roof. We've had video chats with family, and ample amounts of screen time. This has all been possible because I'm not currently working, and we just started distance learning with their teachers, which means we have even more support.

This all sounds pretty rosy, and, in many ways, it is. I've gotten to know my kids as learners. I've been able to spend some much needed quality time with them, and they have had more time with each other. We have yet to have more than three major quarrels in a day, thanks to bribery! So you may be surprised that the other day when a friend asked how I was doing, I said, "It's like I've been training my whole life for this. And then someone asked me to do it while holding a baby."

I am sure that there are people who are reading this thinking, "Why doesn't she just let it go? Just relax without worrying about a schedule!" I wish that I could do that — I wish that it worked for me and for my kids. But it doesn't. It is better for our family to have an imperfect day attempting to follow a schedule than no schedule at all, and that's okay.

Flexibility and differentiation are key in the classroom, and they're also key at home. There's room for us all to parent the way that works for our nuclear unit to prevent things from going … well … nuclear.

These are my top tips for how to manage your kids at home.

SEE ALSO: 10 tips for working from home with your kids there, from a freelancer who's been homeschooling her kids for 3 years

DON'T MISS: My husband and I started couples counseling just before the coronavirus outbreak — here's why therapy is now more necessary than ever if you're quarantined with your partner

1. Make a schedule

It doesn't matter if your schedule is all academics all the time or barely glances at a book. Kids benefit from knowing what to expect throughout the day.

2. Have a morning meeting

Morning meeting is a staple of classrooms across the country and is a great time to go over the schedule of the day, discuss the weather, talk about how the day before went, and remind kids of any behavior management plan you've created. Which brings me to my next point ...

3. Create a behavior management plan

It can be logical consequences that enforce themselves, positive praise, a points system, or really any system that allows kids to reflect on positive and negative behaviors.

4. Provide a model

Whether or not your kids are working on math or working on sharing the couch while watching a movie, I have found that success is much more likely if you show kids what you expect from them.  Show them how to play a board game without arguing. Write an example of what a paragraph should look like. 

5. Reach out to teacher friends or use the internet

If you need help understanding the academics that your kid is working on, reach out to their school or find online resources. 

6. Feed and water your kids often

Kids are infinitely better able to self regulate when their blood sugar is level and they are hydrated.  We're keeping water within reach at all times and granola bars on standby.

7. Honor kids' feelings

This is a time of immense change and they are going to struggle. We instituted a new family rule — anyone can ask for a hug at any time and it will be delivered post-haste by as many people as are in the vicinity.

8. Be kind to yourself

There is no other job besides teaching where you receive performance feedback on a constant basis. It's okay to decamp to the bathroom for phone time or to plop the kids in front of the TV for however long you need to reboot.  Are the kids relatively happy, safe, and fed? You're doing a great job, and they're lucky to have you!

This has been an incredibly difficult time for so many. I'm worried about our healthcare system and what this means for the national economy and the  individuals who've lost their jobs. I mourn for the people who have gotten sick and those who have lost their lives. I worry about my family members who are high risk.  I am fortunate to have someplace productive to channel my energy into — nurturing my children's academic and emotional growth — and the time to do this. It is an opportunity for me, both as a teacher and as a parent.  How can I strengthen my bond with my kids while also practicing self-care? How can I use my knowledge as an educator to continue to foster my kids' love of learning during this challenging time? How can I find time to go to the bathroom and eat lunch without all three children winding up in a pileup with the baby on the bottom? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do know snack time is at 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 2 p.m., and 4 p.m. 

• The coronavirus pandemic has fueled fears of a recession as the US stock market drops.
• But most self-made millionaire early retirees who largely rely on investments to fund their lifestyle told Business Insider they're not worried about their money.
• Some are relying on cash cushions and others are investing during the downturn. 
• It shows the importance of having smart savings strategies.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The coronavirus pandemic has the stock market teetering.

As government shutdowns occur across the globe to prevent the coronavirus from spreading, countries are being forced to choose between the economy and health. Several Wall Street economists have predicted that the US will fall into a recession from the shock of the coronavirus pandemic.

It can be scary news for everyone, especially those who have taken on an alternative lifestyle. Consider early retirees; the FIRE (financial independence, retire early) movement has grown in popularity over the past 20 years among those seeking financial freedom. But many of these early retirees rely on investments, especially in the stock market, to fund their living.

Business Insider spoke to several people who retired before age 40 as self-made millionaires to see how they feel about the current economic turmoil. Will they still be able to fund their lifestyle? Or will they need to return to work?

Turns out, most aren't very worried for themselves, and it's because they planned for their early retirement anticipating economic downturns. It all shows the power of a smart savings strategy.

Here's how they're handling it — and what they're doing with their money right now.

Note that this is not investing advice.

SEE ALSO: A day in the life of a 34-year-old early retiree who lives in NYC, grew his net worth to $1.25 million in just 5 years, and wakes up at 7:30 a.m.

DON'T MISS: The top 25 recession-proof cities in the US

Chris Reining is gradually investing in stocks.

Chris Reining retired at age 37 as a self-made millionaire. He told Business Insider the recent stock market drop was a "quick, scary fall."

"What I've been doing is staying fully invested," he said. "Any extra money generated by my portfolio, I'm using to buy stock. But I'm investing in stages, knowing the market could fall further."

He said he anticipates a "horrible economic fallout" in the near-term. "But there will be a point when investors stop selling," he said. "A point when people go back to work. A point when life returns to normal. Someday it will all be in the rearview mirror. So my long-term bet is the economy recovers and the market moves higher."

He added: "The timeline is anyone's guess. So, as for how to play the uncertainty? I'm old-fashioned. I don't try. I stay invested."

Justin McCurry is counting on his seven years' worth of living expenses that he's saved in bonds and cash.

Justin McCurry of Root of Good retired at age 33 in 2013 with an investment portfolio of $1.3 million, which he built with his wife. He told Business Insider he was fortunate to retire early during a bull market. "We watched our portfolio roughly double in value by the peak in February 2020 and it's still about 50% higher than when we started this early retirement journey," he said.

Because they have about six years of living expenses in bonds and another year's worth saved in cash, he said they won't have to sell stocks for "quite some time."

"I shifted from a 100% stock portfolio back in 2017 and 2018 by selling some equities and buying those bonds just so that I wouldn't have to worry during the next big recession," he added. "Very smart move in hindsight because I'm sleeping well at night!"

He said they can survive a very prolonged recession for two reasons: They paid off their mortgage in 2015 so their core monthly expenses are very low, and the bulk of their discretionary spending is on travel — which they won't be doing during the pandemic.

"We have the short and intermediate term spending needs covered right now," he said. "Long-term, I think we will be okay as our current spending is much lower than the classic 4% rule would allow us from our portfolio."

Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung are relying on a cash cushion and plan to cut back on living expenses.

Kristy Shen and Bryce Leung of Millennial Revolution retired from their computer engineering jobs at age 31 as self-made millionaires. They recently wrote the book, "Quit Like a Millionaire."

Leung told Business Insider they started investing in 2008, but he's "seen Dow drops like I've never seen before" in the current economic climate. But, he said, "We're not scared at all, and we're probably the most pessimistic, cautious people." Leung explained this is because they don't rely on just the stock market.

Instead, they have a cash cushion — a reserve fund in a savings account to pay for living expenses to avoid a full stock portfolio withdrawal during down years — to act as a buffer during a declining stock market. This cushion allows them to last four to eight years without selling stock, he said.

Shen added: "In the worst-case scenario, we're projecting we'll be able to drop living expenses so that we won't need to withdraw from the cash cushion at all."

Like Shen and Leung, Tanja Hester is also relying on a three-year cash cushion.

Hester, blogger of Our Next Life and author of "Work Optional," saved about 37 times her annual spending with her husband to retire early at age 38.

She told Business Insider she suspects the US is in the beginning of a real recession. "Given how long the bull market was, we always knew there was a virtual guarantee that it would end and we'd see a recession in the first few years of our early retirement," she said, adding that their financial plan is built to withstand such downturns. "We use a much more conservative safe withdrawal rate than the oft-quoted '4% rule.'"

A big component of their plan is the three-year cash cushion that she says gives them the ability to go years without selling shares: having three years worth of expenses in a high-yield savings account.

"Depending how long we all end up socially distancing and isolating ourselves, that money could stretch a lot longer because we're spending very little right now with no travel happening," she said. "But we'll aim to keep spending a bit lower as long as the markets are dramatically down, something our budget allows because it's not a rock bottom budget with every fun thing already scrubbed out of it."

Steve Adcock is reinvesting his dividends and living off a high-interest savings account.

Adcock, who retired with his wife at age 35 as a self-made millionaire, is a bit optimistic about the economy. He told Business Insider he doesn't think the fallout the coronavirus pandemic has caused will create a "long-term devastating change."

"I believe we will pull out of this and march forward as we slowly get back to normal," he said. And even if it does last long-term, he said, he and his wife wouldn't need to pull from their stocks in a down market for three years.

He said they're now reinvesting their dividends and living entirely off their high-interest Ally savings account. "Before retiring, we accumulated three years of living expenses in our savings account," he said. "Most people thought that we were keeping way too much in cash, but we definitely appreciate all that cash right now."

Apart from diversifying his stock portfolio, Grant Sabatier isn't touching his investments.

Sabatier, blogger of Millennial Money and author of "Financial Freedom," retired at age 30 after building up a $1.25 million net worth in just five years. "I've always recommended saving one to two years of living expenses in a high interest savings account," he told Business Insider. "I had a little over two years saved in cash so I'm living off that and not touching my investments."

He added that for his stock investments, he reduced his exposure to Amazon and diversified his portfolio a bit more after the first 8% market drop.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Sabatier was looking at investing beyond stocks and savings accounts. He said he was considering investing in real estate and in another website "in an always-in-demand niche to diversify and create more passive income" and still plans to do so.

Sam Dogen is using the downturn to fund his children's college savings.

Dogen, of The Financial Samurai, retired from his Wall Street job eight years ago at age 34 with $3 million. He told Business Insider he thinks an economic recession is "all but a certainty at this point. Hopefully, we'll see a V-shaped recovery in the second half of the year as the coronavirus gets better contained. But it's going to be really tough-going for a while."

He plans to make use of the downturn to fund both of his children's 529 college savings plans and build a larger dividend stock portfolio. 

His ultimate goal, he said, is to build his equity exposure to 25%. He said he has a conservative portfolio — with just 20% of his net worth in equities — he's "still down hundreds of thousands of dollars." While the rest of his net worth consists of real estate, bonds, cash, and business equity, he says the lost money on his existing equity exposure is still "very painful."

• Bob Iger, executive chairman and former CEO of Disney, will forgo his entire salary this year as the company braces for massive revenue losses amid the coronavirus pandemic. 
• Iger made $47.5 million in total compensation last year, down from the $65.6 million he made in 2016 as chairman and CEO of Disney, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
• He started his career in a lowly position at ABC and spent over 40 years working at what's now The Walt Disney Company. Iger was at the helm of the company during Disney's acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and most recently, 21st Century Fox. 
• Iger has also built up a sizeable net worth of $690 million, making him significantly richer than the current Disney heir, according to Forbes. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

On Monday, Disney announced that all of its top executives would be taking a salary cut, with executive chairman Bob Iger forgoing his entire salary for the year. The news comes as the company braces for the inevitable economic impact the coronavirus pandemic will have on its bottom line. Since March, all of the Disney parks have been closed due to the outbreak, with some experts estimating that the company will lose $3.4 billion in revenue as a result.

Iger has amassed a sizeable personal fortune since becoming CEO in 2005. He made $47.5 million in total compensation last year (with a base salary of $3 million), down from the $65.6 million he made in 2016, as chairman and CEO of Disney, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Iger started his entertainment career in 1974 as a studio supervisor at ABC and climbed through the show business ranks to lead one of the most powerful businesses in the world. Iger recounted this journey in his memoir "The Ride of a Lifetime," released in September, in which he chronicled how he went from making $150 a week doing "menial labor" on ABC shows to earning over $60 million a year running The Walt Disney Company. 

Forbes reported that Iger has a net worth of $690 million, which is thought to be higher than that of Abigail Disney; the Disney heiress said in July she's worth about $120 million. Iger, meanwhile, was compensated $65.6 million in 2018— which Forbes notes is 1,424 times what the average Disney employee makes.

The Walt Disney Company didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Here's what we know about Iger's life and rise, including how he made and now spends his multimillion fortune.

SEE ALSO: Acquisitions, global growth, and Baby Yoda: How CEO Bob Iger's leadership style turned Disney into a $260 billion colossus

DON'T MISS: Disney CEO Bob Iger steps down from Apple's board ahead of the launch of the tech company's new streaming service

Bob Iger is known as one of the most influential business leaders in the world. He was the CEO of Disney from 2005 to 2020 and has a net worth of $690 million, per Forbes' estimates.

Forbes reports that Iger's net worth is actually higher than the Abigail Disney's. The Disney heiress said in July that she's worth about $120 million.

On March 30, it was announced that Iger would forgo his salary this year, as Disney deals with presumed multibillion-dollar losses due to the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent shutdowns. His base salary was $3 million last fiscal year and he made $47.5 million in total compensation.

Iger was born Robert Allen Iger in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in the small town of Oceanside, New York.

"I am very lucky," Iger told Laurene Powell Jobs at The Atlantic Festival in Washington in September. "I was a lower middle class kid or middle class. My father had manic depression so he had trouble holding a job. I started as a $150-a-week employee at ABC 45 years ago and rose up to be CEO of this company. It is a great story, but it is not necessarily because I was extraordinary."

He attended Ithaca College where he graduated magna cum lade in 1973 with a degree in Television and Radio.

At Ithaca College, Iger hosted a campus television show called "Campus Probe." He graduated, originally wanting to be a news anchor, and briefly worked as a local weatherman in Ithaca, New York.

But he quickly realized that being a news anchor was not going to work out for him.

In 1974, Iger joined ABC, working in New York City. He wrote in his memoir "The Ride of a Lifetime" that he did "menial labor" for basically every show ABC produced out of Manhattan at the time.

Iger wrote in his book that he got his first job at ABC because of his uncle, who was in the hospital for eye surgery. His uncle was in the room next to someone who claimed to be a top executive at ABC, who said he would give the younger Iger a job.

Iger took the "top executive" up on his offer, though he quickly realized that the person was not a "top executive" but instead a lower-level one. Still, the person ran a small department at ABC known as Production Services and was able to secure Iger an interview with the department.

At age 23, Iger was brought on as a "studio supervisor."

But after a confrontation with his boss, Iger was almost fired and forced to look for a new job. Soon after, he moved over to a position at ABC Sports.

Iger has said that one of his bosses accused Iger of spreading rumors about him, causing the young Iger to almost be fired.

"He called me in and accused me of spreading rumors about him," Iger recalled at the UCLA Awards Gala in 2013, "when I knew the rumors happened to be based in fact. He told me I wasn't promotable and I had two weeks to find another job somewhere in the company or I was gone. Fortunately, I was able to find another job in the company. They didn't think I wasn't promotable, I guess."

He worked his way up the ABC Sports ladder, working closely with Roone Arledge, "a relentless perfectionist," who was the head of ABC Sports at the time.

Iger wrote in his book that Arledge was the one who taught him the mantra which would follow Iger for the rest of his life: "Innovate or die."

Iger went on to become the vice president of ABC Sports. ABC was later sold to Capital Cities Communications for $3.5 billion, in a deal finalized in 1986.

Source: The Ride of a Lifetime, The Los Angeles Times

Shortly after, Tom Murphy and Dan Burke — the heads of Capital Cities/ABC — tapped Iger to become the head of ABC Entertainment, and Iger moved to Los Angeles, California.

Iger wrote in his memoir that the constant traveling put strain on his first marriage, to Kathleen Susan. Eventually, the two divorced. They have two daughters.

While at the helm of ABC Entertainment, Iger was the one who took a chance and put David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" on air.

The critically-acclaimed series was cancelled after two seasons, but Iger wrote in his book that the risk he took putting it on television caught the attention of other famed directors such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. 

Iger and Lucas then developed a show based on the Indiana Jones franchise, which was cancelled after two seasons. But, Iger wrote in his book, Lucas never forgot the risk Iger took on his show, and he remembered it years later when he decided to sell Lucasfilm to Disney.

In 1993, Iger became president of ABC Network's Television Group. When Burke retired, Iger was tapped to replace him as president and chief operating officer of Capital Cities/ABC.

Source: C-SPAN

In 1995, Iger married journalist Willow Bay who, at the time, was a stand-in weekend news anchor on Good Morning America, and was poised to take over for then-full time host Joan Lunden.

Iger and Bay became engaged in 1995. But after Disney agreed to buy Capital Cities/ABC that same year, Iger had quick decisions to make.

At that time, he wrote in his memoir, he had been commuting weekly to Los Angeles to meet his new Disney colleagues. He knew that after the acquisition was approved, he and Bay would not have much time to honeymoon. So, they quickly married later that same year.

"Willow and I also knew we'd have no chance for a honeymoon once the deal closed," he wrote. "We radically shortened our engagement and got married in early October 1995."

They are still married, living in Brentwood, California, and have two children together.

In 1996, The Walt Disney Company bought Capital Cities/ABC for $19 billion, and renamed it ABC, Inc.

Iger wrote in his memoir that he heavily considered walking away from Disney at this point. But as part of the Disney-ABC merger, Iger agreed to run a media division at Disney for five years.

In 1999, Iger became the president of Disney International, the business division overseeing Disney's global operations. A year later, he was tapped to become the chief operating officer of Disney, working directly under then-CEO Michael Eisner.

Forbes reported that between 1994 and 1999, Eisner made $631 million. In the year 1997 alone, Eisner reportedly made more than $550 million. Over the years, Eisner invested his Disney money and became a billionaire by 2008— perhaps predicting the financial path Iger is well on his way to following.

Source: Variety

In the early 2000s, tensions began to brew between Eisner and Roy E. Disney, the heir of Disney. After Eisner stepped down, Iger became the CEO of the Walt Disney Company in 2005.

Iger wrote in his book that, despite being the COO and thereby second in command behind Eisner, his promotion to CEO was not a guarantee. If anything, he wrote, many had associated him with the turbulence of Eisner's era and wanted an outsider for the job. Iger said he campaigned for months until he was officially named CEO in 2005. 

Forbes reported in 2019 that in his first year as CEO, Iger made $22 million, a salary which did not include the stock options worth $2.9 million.

One of Iger's first major moves as CEO was to rebuild Disney's relationship with Pixar. At the time, the relationship between Disney and Pixar was strained, and Iger felt the future of Disney Animation relied on repairing it.

Before he officially became the CEO of Disney, he called to let Steve Jobs — who was the majority shareholder in Pixar— know he was being appointed CEO and shared his hope they could discuss working together in the future. From there, the two began to slowly work on repairing the fraught relationship between the two companies. 

Iger wrote in his memoir that he felt Disney needed Pixar to help enter the future of animation. Pixar at the time was using technologies to produce content that had never been seen before, Iger wrote in his book.

Iger wanted Disney to be in on it — not just as a distributor for the films, as their previous agreement had stated, but to actually own what Pixar was bringing to the table.

In 2006, Disney announced that it would acquire Pixar for $7.4 billion, making Jobs, the majority shareholder in Pixar at the time, the majority shareholder in Disney.

Iger wrote in his book that the two companies were able to come together after he reached out to Jobs to forge a friendship and address any issues between the two companies. 

Iger and Jobs would go on to have a long friendship until Jobs passed away in 2011. A month after Jobs died, Iger joined the Apple Board, where he remained until he stepped down in 2019 ahead of launching Disney+.

In 2009, Iger led Disney's acquisition of Marvel for $4 billion. This gave Disney access to the Marvel comic book library, which was the beginning of the now multibillion-dollar, box office record-breaking Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Iger wrote that part of the reason Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter was willing to sell the company was because Jobs called Perlmutter to "vouch for" Iger and praised how Iger had handled the Disney-Pixar merger.

Still looking to help Disney expand into the future, in 2012, Iger led Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion. This gave Disney control of not just the Star Wars franchise, but also the Indiana Jones franchise.

Iger said that he knew Lucas was nervous to sell Lucasfim to Disney— mostly because the "Star Wars" creator knew he would be selling his legacy along with it. But eventually, Lucas warmed up to the idea.

Lucas enlisted Kathleen Kennedy to lead Lucasfilm right before the company was sold to Disney. The first Star Wars film made without Lucas was released a few years later, in 2015 — "The Force Awakens," directed by J.J Abrams.

The company's acquisition spree continued in 2018, when Disney agreed to buy 21st Century Fox. Fox at the time was owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch who, after the sale, became one of the largest shareholders in Disney.

Forbes reported in March that, if Murdoch were to cash in all stock available to him from the Disney deal, he owns about $10.5 billion worth of Disney stock. In addition, Variety reported that collectively, the Murdoch family members are now "the largest individual shareholders in Disney."

Iger wrote in his memoir that Murdoch selling the company he had built from scratch was an indicator that the "disruption" which was threatening the entertainment industry was now inevitable. 

"As [Rupert Murdoch] pondered the future of his company in such a disrupted world, he concluded the smartest thing to do was to sell and give his shareholders and his family a chance to convert its 21st Century Fox stock into Disney stock, believing we were better positioned to withstand the change and, combined, we'd be even stronger," Iger wrote in his book. 

In March 2019, the merger between 21st Century Fox and Disney was completed, with a price tag of $71.3 billion. This move made Disney the second-largest media company in the world, Forbes reported.

Source: Forbes, Business Insider

He was also named Time's businessperson of the year for 2019.

"In a year when the tide has shifted against Big Business, Big Media and Big Tech, Iger has transformed his enormous media company into a gargantuan media and tech business while ensuring that the Walt Disney Co.'s products remain widely beloved," Belinda Luscombe wrote in Time's profile of him. "But for now, for just this moment, Iger is unassailable. He's transformed his company from a stuffy media doyen into a sexy cultural force."

On January 28, Iger — along with Seth MacFarlane and Cicely Tyson, among several others — was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.

Source: The Walt Disney Company

On February 25, Disney announced that Bob Iger would step down as CEO and assume the role of executive chairman until his contract expires on December 31, 2021.

Iger was replaced by Bob Chapek, former chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Product. Chapek will similarly take a 50% salary cut amid potential multibillion-dollar revenue losses due to the coronavirus pandemic, Business Insider's Ashley Rodriguez reported.

Iger is known among peers for being a very kind leader and has been praised by his contemporaries for the way he has handled the mergers of Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm.

During his years as CEO, Iger grew Disney's profits 335% to $260 billion, Business Insider reported.

Forbes also reports that under Iger, Disney created more than 70,000 new jobs. 

"Literally, I have never heard one person say a bad thing about him and I have never seen him be mean," billionaire David Geffen told The New York Times in a profile on Iger. "To be honorable, decent, smart, successful, and a terrific guy is unusual anywhere. But it is most unusual in the entertainment business. He's in a category of one."

Iger's own increasing fortune has paralleled the rise in Disney's value over the years he's been at the helm.

Forbes reports that Iger's net worth is now a staggering $690 million, making him richer than the current Disney heir, Abigail Disney, who has said she's worth about $120 million.

Forbes reported that that Iger's fortune is split between his Disney shares "and cash or other investment from sales of Disney shares over the decades."

According to Forbes, Iger was compensated $65.6 million in 2018, which is 1,424 times the average Disney employee's salary. He had been given another $26.3 million in stock after he successfully closed the Disney-Fox merger and for agreeing to extend his contract until 2021. His initial compensation last year was $39.3 million (not including stock rewards).

In April 2019, Abigail Disney publicly criticized Iger's high pay on Twitter and later wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post elaborating on her thoughts. 

"I'm not arguing that Iger and others do not deserve bonuses. They do," Disney wrote. "They have led the company brilliantly. I am saying that the people who contribute to its success also deserve a share of the profits they have helped make happen."

As Iger is a very private person, not much is known about his spending. He lives in a $19 million home in Brentwood, California, with his wife and their two children.

They bought their Brentwood home in 2006 from actress Michelle Pfeiffer for about $19 million, the Orlando Sentinel reported that year.

The home is 7,500 square feet and has five bedrooms with nine bathrooms, with a guest house, a tennis court, and a pool. As of a 2018 interview with Vogue, Iger was still living in Brentwood.

The Igers also previously owned an apartment on the Upper East Side of New York City. The property sold in 2018 for $18.75 million, Business Insider reported.

The Igers' former home has a library, living room views of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park, and four bedrooms, including one master suite with two bathrooms and a walk-in closet.

Iger also spends time — and likely money — maintaining his mental and physical health, about which he's notoriously rigorous. He told The New York Times that he wakes up at 4:15 every morning and doesn't touch his phone until he's finished with his morning exercise routine.

Iger has also said that he doesn't eat carbs unless it's pizza, recalling that during his high school years, he worked at his local Pizza Hut.

When he's "off the clock," he travels. Iger is a regular attendee at the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. The media conference is a hub for entertainment and tech moguls, and it attracts titans like Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Variety reports that in 2019, Iger attended the conference along with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Shari Redstone, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, and even former Democratic presidential candidate John Hickenlooper.

Source:Business Insider

Iger also spends some of his fortune on vacations. Beyond their business dealings related to Disney and Pixar, Iger was also close personal friends with Jobs and has said the two would vacation together in nearby resorts in Hawaii.

"We vacationed at adjacent Hawaiian hotels a few times and would meet and take long walks on the beach, talking about our wives and kids, about music, about Apple and Disney and the things we might still do together," he wrote in his book. "You don't expect to develop such close friendships late in life, but when I think back on my time as CEO — at the things I'm most grateful for and surprised by — my relationship with Steve is one of them."

In December, the former CEO and his wife committed $1 million to launch the Iger-Bay Endowed Scholarship at Iger's alma mater, Ithaca College. The scholarship aims to boost diversity in the media industry.

The scholarship was funded through the proceeds from Iger's memoir "The Ride of a Lifetime."

In his personal life, Iger has a set of A-list friends who have been known to rave about him. One of those friends is media mogul Oprah Winfrey, who has said that if Iger were to run for president, she would not just vote for him but eagerly campaign on his behalf.

"I'll tell you the truth, this is not really where I intended to be tonight," Winfrey said at the Centennial Awards, where Iger was being honored, in October. "I was hoping that by this time in early fall, I would be knocking on doors in Des Moines, wearing an 'Iger 2020' t-shirt. Because I really do believe that Bob Iger's guidance and decency is exactly what the country needs right now."

He is also close to Jeffrey Katzenberg, cofounder of Dreamworks and former chairman of Walt Disney Studios. Katzenberg has a net worth of $900 million.

After Comcast bought Dreamworks in 2016 for $3.8 billion, Katzenberg's net worth rose to $900 million. 

Iger and Katzenberg have been friends for years, and Katzenberg is among the group of people who have been trying to encourage the Disney CEO to run for president.

"No matter how much I begged Bob," Katzenberg said while presenting the Simon Wiesenthal Center Humanitarian Award to Iger in April. "He just wasn't willing to run for president of the United States."

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Iger has been seen on billionaire David Geffen's yacht. In August 2017, Iger was seen on the yacht with Winfrey, Diane von Furstenberg, and Diane Sawyer.

Geffen owns a megayacht, known to be a common hang-out spot for celebrities and fellow billionaires (including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos) during the summer months, as seen on his Instagram page.

As previously reported by Business Insider, the yacht is worth $590 million.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Iger has also spent his free time involved in politics in the past. Shortly after Donald Trump was elected president, Iger joined Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum.

Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum was a business council created to hear the perspectives of different leaders on how to improve job growth in the US. 

But Iger stepped down from the role in 2017 after Trump announced the US would withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, Variety reported.

Iger announced his resignation from the council in a tweet stating: "As a matter of principle, I've resigned from the President's Council over the #Paris Agreement withdrawal." 

The council, which has now completely disbanded, also included JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, and Stephen A. Schwarzman, the cofounder of private equity firm Blackstone.

In his book, Iger admitted that he once considered running for president, but ultimately decided against it.

"I think the Democratic Party would brand me as just another rich guy who's out of touch with America who doesn't have any sense for what's good for the plight of the people," he told The New York Times in a September profile.

Despite many people — including some major Hollywood players— urging him to run for president in late 2019, Iger publicly remained firm that he had no plans to pursue a presidential campaign.

In September 2019, however, Iger did outline what would have been the central themes of his campaign, had he decided to run.

"America is gravely in need of optimism, of looking at the future and believing that so many things are going to be all right, or that we as a nation can attack some of the most critical problems of our day," Iger said at The Atlantic Festival in Washington in September. "And that could be the environment, that could be income disparity, that could be the technology's impact on the world from a disruption perspective. It could be the cost of education, availability of affordable housing, healthcare. You name it."

• The restaurant industry lost an estimated $25 billion in sales and more than three million jobs in the first 22 days of March, as the coronavirus outbreak swept the US. 
• Roughly 30,000 restaurants have already closed for good across the country, with more than 110,000 expected to shutter in the next month, according to estimates by the National Restaurant Association. 
• "Any pundit who thinks that they're going to use a recent history — and by recent history, I mean the last 100 years, including the Depression — as a template for what is going to go on here? They're kidding themselves," said restaurant industry investor and advisor Roger Lipton. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The fate of the restaurant industry is uncertain as the coronavirus outbreak keeps customers home and forces the closure of thousands of locations.

The impact has already been devastating across the industry. 

11% of the more than 4,000 restaurant owners and operators surveyed by the National Restaurant Association (NRA) last week said that they anticipate they will permanently close within the next 30 days. 3% said that they had already permanently closed their doors. 

If these figures are applied to the more than one million restaurants that the NRA estimates exist across America, that would mean 30,000 restaurants are already gone. Roughly 110,000 more are expected to go the same way within the month, based on these calculations. 

During the first 22 days of March, the restaurant industry lost an estimated $25 billion in sales and more than three million jobs, according to the same survey. 

Roger Lipton, a restaurant industry analyst, investor, and advisor who recently penned a blog post about the upcoming "restaurant apocalypse," told Business Insider that the restaurant industry is facing an unexpected and unprecedented challenge.  

"Any pundit who thinks that they're going to use a recent history — and by recent history, I mean the last 100 years, including the Depression — as a template for what is going to go on here? They're kidding themselves," Lipton told Business Insider on Monday. 

Business is plummeting

Restaurants have faced massive upheaval, with new safety regulations, forced closures, and customers staying home.

Total restaurant transactions were down 36% in the week ending March 22, compared to the same week last year, according to The NPD Group. At full-service restaurants — which are less equipped for drive-thru and delivery orders — transactions fell a whopping 71%. 

In a report last week, Cowen analyst Andrew Charles forecast "a steady, double-digit decline in same-store sales that began on March 16th and persists through the end of July."

Cowen cited a call with Jordan Thaeler, founder of foot traffic tracking company WhatsBusy, who said that fine dining sales had dropped by more than 90%. Casual dining was down 75%, fast causal dropped 65%, and quick service or fast food dropped by roughly 50%. 

This extreme financial downturn would be enough to inspire panic on its own. Now, Lipton says, this financial stress is being coupled with photos of body bags outside of hospitals. 

Restaurants are already laying off millions of workers

The layoffs and pay cuts have already started across the industry, especially at sit-down-centric restaurants and chains that are less prepared to transition to takeout, delivery, and drive-thru. 

The Cheesecake Factory furloughed 41,000 hourly workers. Ruth's Chris furloughed the majority of its employees who worked in restaurants, including managers at the chain's 23 locations where carry-out and delivery was not viable. Chuy's closed nine of its 101 locations, as well as placing roughly 40% of its corporate and administrative staff on furlough. 

Punch Bowl Social has laid off more than 1,000 employees as it closes locations around the US, according to states' WARN notices. A representative for the trendy arcade chain said that the closures would be temporary. 

Industry CEOs including executives at Texas Roadhouse, Olive Garden parent company Darden Restaurants, and Yum Brands, which owns Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut, have said they will not accept a salary at this time.

It is hard to predict which restaurants will reopen and which will stay shut forever, while loans, rent, and governments' reactions remain in flux. Lipton predicts that many struggling restaurant chains won't consider filing for bankruptcy until early winter, in part simply because their lawyers will have been overstretched and working from home for the prior months. 

In 2021, the restaurant industry will be functioning with an entirely new set of rules, Lipton says. The $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill will provide a massive cash infusion. Lipton predicts a period of reckoning for major franchisors, many of which are already heavily indebted and will have to deal with an abrupt loss of royalties from struggling franchisees. Venture capitalists still have billions of dollars that they could invest in struggling concepts.

At this point, it is impossible to say which chains will survive the restaurant apocalypse. The period of disruption will likely last months or years, as opposed to weeks. 

"The good news is people have to eat," Lipton said. "Some companies are going to figure it out. And others, for one reason or another, won't be able to." 

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• The majority of the country is under a stay-at-home order which asks residents to only go out for essential services like buying food and medicine. 
• Unacast, a location and data analytics firm, analyzed how well states are handling social distancing. 
• Unacast utilized anonymous location services data enabled in games and shopping apps already downloaded onto millions of American smartphones.
• Each state was assigned a letter grade based on its population's decrease in average distance traveled— states with a 40% decrease receive an A while states with less than a 10% decrease receive an F.
• As of March 30, 13 states scored As and one state — Wyoming — scored an F. Most high-scoring states are under stay-at-home orders.
• Business Insider ranked the highest-scoring states.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Social distancing has been recommended by the CDC as the best way to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Social distancing, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine, consists of "deliberately increasing the physical space between people to avoid spreading illness," which includes staying at least six feet away from other people, the canceling of events, and working from home if possible. 

President Donald Trump extended nationwide social distancing guidelines until at least April 30, and three-quarters of all Americans are already under a local government-mandated stay-at-home order.

Some states are handling social distancing better than others, like Hawaii and Massachusetts. 

Unacast, a location data and analytics firm based in New York, launched a live Social Distancing Scoreboard last week that maps how well states are social distancing.

Unacast used location services data from games and shopping apps already downloaded onto millions of Americans phones to determine the total distance people are traveling now versus the typical total distance traveled in pre-coronavirus times.

The method of data collection is legal, with users of third-party apps consenting to the sharing of their location data. The third party apps then partner with Unacast, which insists on high privacy standards.

Each state is assigned a letter grade based on how the state's population decreased its average distance traveled, and thus its everyday behavior. States with populations that exhibited a 40% decrease in the average distance traveled were assigned a grade of A, while those that exhibited less than 10% decrease were assigned an F. 

As of March 30, only Wyoming scored an F. Here are the states that received an A, ranked in ascending order. All of the states on the list, except for Nevada, are under statewide stay-at-home orders.

T13. California's population exhibited a 40% decrease in its average distance traveled.

Source: Unacast

T13. Connecticut's population exhibited a 40% decrease in its average distance traveled.

Source: Unacast

T13. Washington's population exhibited a 40% decrease in its average distance traveled.

Source: Unacast

T10. Rhode Island's population exhibited a 41% decrease in its average distance traveled.

Source: Unacast

T10. Alaska's population exhibited a 41% decrease in its average distance traveled.

Source: Unacast

8. Colorado's population exhibited a 42% decrease in its average distance traveled.

Source: Unacast

7. Vermont's population exhibited a 43% decrease in its average distance traveled.

Source: Unacast

6. Michigan's population exhibited a 44% decrease in its average distance traveled.

Source: Unacast

5. New York's population exhibited a 45% decrease in its average distance traveled.

Source: Unacast

4. New Jersey's population exhibited a 46% decrease in its average distance traveled.

Source: Unacast

3. Massachusetts' population exhibited a 47% decrease in its average distance traveled.

Source: Unacast

2. Nevada's population exhibited a 50% decrease in its average distance traveled.

Source: Unacast

1. Hawaii's population exhibited a 56% decrease in its average distance traveled.

Source: Unacast

Do you have a personal experience with the coronavirus you'd like to share? Or a tip on how your town or community is handling the pandemic? Please email covidtips@businessinsider.com and tell us your story.

• Video conferencing apps were downloaded over 62 million times in one week this month — setting a new record — according to a new report.
• Government lockdowns and social distancing measures amid coronavirus have forced people across the globe to work from home this month, leading businesses to flock to video conferencing services.
• Apps like Zoom, Google Hangouts Meet, and Microsoft Teams all saw downloads skyrocket, with Zoom topping the charts globally.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As the spread of COVID-19 forces millions of people worldwide to stay home, companies are pivoting to video conferencing software en masse.

In just seven days from March 14-21, business conferencing apps topped 62 million downloads worldwide, according to a report published by the mobile data and analytics provider App Annie on Monday.

It's an unprecedented spike in downloads — the number of business conferencing apps downloaded by iOS and Android users that week was up 45% from the week prior, and up 90% from the weekly average in 2019.

The majority of those apps downloaded were Zoom, Google Hangouts Meet, and Microsoft Teams, according to the report.

Zoom has led the charts for business conferencing apps in both February and March, but the number of search queries for Zoom in the App Store hasn't seen a similar spike, according to a similar report from analytics firm Sensor Tower — that could reflect that people are being referred to Zoom directly from their employers or schools.

Beyond business-focused apps, people are also downloading video conferencing apps meant for fun, according to the App Annie report. Houseparty, a social networking app that hosts video chat rooms, has seen a surge in downloads across Europe. The jump is especially pronounced in countries hit hard by the coronavirus like Spain, where Houseparty downloads were 2,360 times higher than the 2019 weekly average, and Italy, where Houseparty saw a 423 times increase in downloads over 2019.

"It is an unprecedented time for the world and an incredibly dynamic time for mobile," App Annie wrote in its report. "We are seeing shifts in consumer behavior surface daily across virtually every sector."

App Annie and Sensor Tower both provide unique insights into app download metrics that official vendors, like the iOS App Store and Google Play Store, don't publish. The analytics firms do so by collecting data through other unrelated apps that they own, including VPN services and ad blockers. 

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Inside the US government's top-secret bioweapons lab

• This year's Equal Pay Day falls on March 31 and represents the date on which it would take a woman in the US to earn what a man would have earned over the previous year. 
• Even though a lot of progress has been made on the gender wage gap, there is still work to be done.
• The median full-time, year-round female worker made just 81.6 cents for every dollar her male counterpart made in 2018.
• That gap in pay varies widely based on location, race, and several other factors.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

March 31 is Equal Pay Day, which symbolizes the day on which working women earn as much as men earned over the previous year.

That is, a woman starting work on January 1 last year would have finally earned on March 31 what a man earned during just that year.

The day shows that there is still progress needed to close the pay gap between men and women. The gap is especially prevalent during the economic struggles during the novel coronavirus pandemic.  

According to the National Women's Law Center as reported by Fortune, working women are especially affected by the coronavirus as women make up a large percentage of the labor force in industries that are seeing large numbers of layoffs. "Women hold 70% of restaurant server positions, generally earning 79% of what men do," Fortune wrote. 

Over half a century after the US passed the Equal Pay Act, American women still face a substantial gender wage gap across the spectrum.

In 2018, a woman working full time earns 81.6 cents for every dollar a man working full time earns on average. Additionally, women's median annual earnings are $9,766 less than men's, according to the most recent available data from the US Census Bureau.

The Fortune article also noted that many women on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak, such as nurses helping treat patients with the coronavirus or store workers keeping groceries and goods stocked, make less than men in the same occupation on average. 

While progress has been made toward pay parity between the sexes, the Institute for Women's Policy Research estimates that it will not be reached until 2059.

The seven charts below illustrate the significant pay discrepancies between men and women based on race, age, geographical location, and more.

SEE ALSO: The 34 jobs in the US where women typically make more money than men

DON'T MISS: INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY: The ultimate guide for women who want to get ahead in their careers

The gender wage gap varies widely depending on the state

According to data from the US Census Bureau, the average gender pay gap in the United States in 2018 was around 18.9%, meaning that a woman working a full-time, year-round job earns 81.1% as much as her male counterpart earns.

The pay gap varies, however, by state.

In Wyoming, for instance, the gender pay gap is 30.9%, the biggest wage gap in the nation. Louisiana is followed closely behind at 30.8%. In 30 states, the gender pay gap is larger than the national average.

Most states have implemented laws against gender discrimination, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects women at the federal level, yet disparities persist.

California had the smallest pay gap in 2018 at 12.2%, with full-time, year-round women over 16 making a median salary of $49,177, while men made $56,023.

Major cities show an even bigger discrepancy

Around the US, salaries in large cities show an even greater range of pay discrepancy between men and women.

A 2019 report from the American Association of University Women, a nonprofit that advocates for gender equality, examined how much women earn compare to men in 25 major metro areas using 2018 US Census data from the American Community Survey.

Out of the 25 cities, the narrowest gender wage gap overall is in Miami, where women make approximately 91.4% of the median salary for men. Detroit had the widest wage gap: Women earn around 72.4% of what men make in the city.

Overall, black and Hispanic women face the biggest pay gap when compared to white men

Black and Hispanic women are most affected by the wage gap, especially when compared to white men, who make up the largest demographic segment of the workforce.

We looked at the wage gap for different racial and ethnic groups using median earnings data for full-time, year-round workers from the US Census Bureau's 2018 1-year American Community Survey.

Asian women face the smallest wage gap — they earn 97% of what white men earn, resulting in a pay gap of just 3%. White women earn 80% of what white men do, while black women earn 66% and Hispanic women earn 58%, a pay gap of 42%.

When compared to black men, black women earn 89.4%, and Hispanic women make 84.8% of what Hispanic men do.

The larger disparity between white men's and women of color's earnings could be attributed to the fact that "women of color suffer both because of their gender and their race," according to an April 2016 report released by the Senate Joint Economic Committee's Democratic Staff.

Another way of looking at that gap for women of different racial and ethnic groups is to consider when "equal pay day" for each group falls.

The above calendar graphic shows how many days into the next year a woman has to work in order to earn what a white man would have earned in the previous year using estimates from the American Association of University Women.

Equal pay day for all women falls this year on March 31. Equal pay day falls much later in the year for some racial and ethnic groups.

For example, a typical full-time, year-round employed black female worker starting on January 1, 2019, would have finally earned on August 13, 2020, what a similarly employed white male worker would have made over the course of 2019 alone. 

It takes full-time, year-round employed Asian women the shortest time to make what a white man would have made the year before. It would take an Asian female worker 42 days into 2020, or until February 11, to earn what a white man earned the year before.

Women with children gain no salary boost, while men with children are rewarded

In 2015, women with children were earning roughly the same as women without children, $727 and $726 respectively. However, working fathers with children earned about $141 more than a men without children. 

That gap has slowly been closing since then, as 2018 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that women with children now make slightly more than women without kids under 18 at home.

Men with children see an earnings boost, and the difference between their weekly take-home pay was on average $179 higher than their counterparts without kids in 2018.

For working women, the difference in earnings between women with and without children is minimal. Working mothers only made $15 compared to other working women in 2018.

While this disparity can be attributed to differences in careers and work hours between men and women who have children and those who do not, a 2016 report released by the Senate Joint Economic Committee Democratic Staff says that there is also a difference in how working mothers and fathers are perceived by management.

According to the report, some employers may view motherhood as a "signal of lower levels of commitment and professional competence." Working fathers, on the other hand, may be viewed as having "increased work commitment and stability."

Women's earnings are lower than men's over the course of a lifetime

The gender pay gap exists for workers across a lifetime.

Using Census data from the Minnesota Population Center's IPUMS program, we found that the median full-time, year-round male worker earns more than his female counterpart at every year of age.

The gap is narrower for younger workers, with the median 25-year-old woman earning about 94.3% of the median 25-year-old man. Meanwhile, the median 50-year-old woman earns just 77.4% of her 50-year-old male counterpart.

Women over the age of 75 are almost twice as likely to live in poverty, according to the Senate report.

Many women that age didn't work when they were younger, so they have fewer sources of retirement income than men their age.

In 1950, about 34% of American women were in the labor force, compared to 86% of men, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

By 1980, the numbers were 52% and 77% respectively — and the numbers have largely plateaued since then. In 2018, about 57% of women are part of the workforce, compared to 69% of men, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The number of women promoted to the highest levels within companies reveals unconscious biases

Very few women are CEOs of major corporations, or in the C-level suite of executives running corporate America.

Data from a study put together by McKinsey & Co. and Lean In show how men are promoted up, while women fall by the wayside.

They surveyed 329 companies employing more than 13 million people, and found only one in five C-level executives were women.

Women of color are furthermore underrepresented at the executive level, making up only 1 in 25 C-level executives.

Since 2015, there's been an increase in the share of women in the C-Suite, while women in lower-level management roles have seen a smaller increase since that year.

The latest McKinsey report suggested that more women are working in senior positions, but it is still hard for women to move up from entry-level jobs into higher roles. "For every 100 men promoted and hired to manager, only 72 women are promoted and hired," the report said, which affects the number of women being promoted to higher positions in the corporate pipeline.

However, women consistently ask for promotions and raises more. One of the reasons for the disparity between women asking for promotions and actually getting them was because when women negotiate, people like them less for it, according to a previous McKinsey study covered by Business Insider found.

According to Lean In, women who negotiate are more likely than men who negotiate to receive feedback that they are "intimidating," "too aggressive," or "bossy."

Another recent poll by American Express and The New York Women's Foundation found that less than one-third of women were comfortable with calling themselves ambitious. According to psychologists interviewed by Business Insider, the reasoning behind this is that the word could be seen as aggressive.   

Harvard Business Review found in their research that women ask for raises just as much as men but men are more "successful" with their requests, with a success rate of 15% for women and 20% for men.

• The coronavirus pandemic is already having a devastating impact on the restaurant industry across the US. 
• Roughly 110,000 restaurants are expected to close permanently in the next month, with more than 30,000 already shuttered, according to the National Restaurant Association.
• Orders at full-service restaurants dropped by 71% for the week ending March 22. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The coronavirus outbreak is already devastating the restaurant industry. 

Roger Lipton, a restaurant industry analyst, investor, and advisor who recently penned a blog post about the upcoming "restaurant apocalypse," told Business Insider that the restaurant industry is facing an unexpected and unprecedented challenge.  

"Any pundit who thinks that they're going to use a recent history — and by recent history, I mean the last 100 years, including the Depression — as a template for what is going to go on here? They're kidding themselves," Lipton told Business Insider on Monday. 

The data backs up Lipton's prediction of a "rough, rough road" for restaurants. Here are eight facts and figures that reveal the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the restaurant industry in the US. 

SEE ALSO: RESTAURANT APOCALYPSE: More than 110,000 restaurants expect to close up forever in the coming weeks, with millions out of work and the industry's future uncertain

Roughly 110,000 restaurants are expected to close for good in the next month.

11% of the more than 4,000 restaurant owners and operators surveyed by the National Restaurant Association (NRA) last week said that they anticipate they will permanently close within the next 30 days. With more than a million restaurants in the US, that would mean more than 110,000 closing for good. 

An estimated 30,000 restaurants have already shuttered permanently.

According to the same NRA survey, 3% said that they had already permanently closed their doors. 

Restaurants have lost an estimated $25 billion in sales.

The NRA estimated that the industry lost $25 billion in sales in the first 22 days of March.

Three million people have already lost their jobs.

The same NRA survey found that three million jobs had already been lost, with some major chains already laying off workers. 

The Cheesecake Factory furloughed 41,000 hourly workers. Ruth's Chris furloughed the majority of its employees who worked in restaurants, including managers at the chain's 23 locations where carry-out and delivery was not viable. Chuy's closed nine of its 101 locations, as well as placing roughly 40% of its corporate and administrative staff on furlough. 

Punch Bowl Social has laid off more than 1,000 employees as it closes locations around the US, according to states' WARN notices. A representative for the trendy arcade chain said that the closures would be temporary. 

Orders at full-service restaurants dropped by 71% in the week ending March 22.

Total restaurant transactions were down 36% in the week ending March 22, compared to the same week last year, according to The NPD Group. At full-service restaurants — which are less equipped for drive-thru and delivery orders — transactions fell a whopping 71%. 

Fine dining sales have dropped by more than 90%.

In a report last week, Cowen analyst Andrew Charles forecast "a steady, double-digit decline in same-store sales that began on March 16th and persists through the end of July."

Cowen cited a call with Jordan Thaeler, founder of foot traffic tracking company WhatsBusy, who said that fine dining sales had dropped by more than 90%. Casual dining was down 75%, fast casual dropped 65%, and quick service or fast food dropped by roughly 50%. 

Two-thirds of people say they're ditching casual dining chains.

In a Gordon Haskett survey of more than 300 households across the US, 67% of people said they decreased their casual dining chain visits in the week that ended on March 27. 62% said they decreased their visits during the week that ended March 20, and 35% said their visits dropped in the week ending March 13. 

Half of restaurants can't survive more than 16 days if they stop bringing in money.

A JPMorgan Chase Institute analysis of 597,000 small businesses from February to October 2015 found that half of the companies held a cash buffer large enough to support 27 days of business. Half do not. 

Cash buffer days are the number of days that a business can continue paying its typical outflows — such as payroll, purchasing supplies, or repaying loans — without bringing in any money, in the form of things like revenue, tax rebates, or transfers from investors' or owners' private savings. 

JPMorgan Chase Institute calculated cash buffer days by computing the ratio of how much money a business had at the end of the day on average to its average daily outflows. Most companies ran out of buffer days within a month. 

On median, restaurants only have 16 buffer days, in part because of how labor-intensive they are to operate. As restaurants struggle to bring in customers, this lack of a buffer is quickly becoming a massive problem. 

• Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is in the hot seat for how he's handling the coronavirus pandemic.
• Critics have said he's been to slow to enforce measures to curb the spread of coronavirus, as he has refused to shut down beaches or implement a statewide stay-at-home order.
• DeSantis is an experienced politician with a legal and military background, having served as a prosecutor, congressman, and now, governor.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is under fire for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The backlash began as spring breakers were spotted crowding Florida's beaches. DeSantis refused to shut the beaches down, leaving the decision up to local governments. As of Monday morning, Florida is nearing 5,000 identified cases of coronavirus and DeSantis has yet to issue a stay-at-home order. For comparison, the governors of Ohio and Illinois respectively issued similar mandates for their home states at significantly lower confirmed case numbers.

On Monday, DeSantis said that he would sign a "Safer-at-Home" order for four counties, three of which have been hardest hit by the pandemic. But critics have said the restrictions still aren't enough. DeSantis' response is in tune with his party's pro-business, small government stance — his way of trying to keep Florida's economy strong in a time when a pandemic has sparked nationwide shutdowns, already crippling the economy. 

In less than a decade, DeSantis, who has a military background, has served as a House representative, attempted to run for US Senate, and become governor, according to a Miami Herald profile of the politician. 

A representative for DeSantis did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment. Here's a look at how DeSantis, who is backed by Trump, rose to political prominence in Florida.

SEE ALSO: Florida's spring break problem shows a political pandemic divide: Red and blue states are treating coronavirus differently

DON'T MISS: 'We're not worried about it:' Photos show the coronavirus pandemic isn't stopping spring breakers from crowding beaches and partying on booze cruises

Ron DeSantis, age 41 and a native Floridian, grew up in the Tampa metro area in a working class family.

"He was bright. He was very, very attentive," Dee Centinaro, DeSantis' first grade teacher told Emily L. Mahoney of The Miami Herald. "I knew he would do his work, I knew he would pay attention, and I knew I could trust him."

He went on to study history and political science at Yale before attending Harvard Law School, where he graduated with a JD in 2005.

DeSantis was captain of the baseball team while at Yale. He reportedly considered becoming a history teacher in Georgia before heading off to law school.

While at Harvard, DeSantis earned commission in the US Navy as a JAG officer. He remained in active duty after graduation, working as a lawyer in Guantánamo Bay and Iraq.

DeSantis advised troops on their legal parameters when handling prisoners, reported Mahoney. According to DeSantis' official website, he served as an adviser to a US Navy SEAL commander in Iraq in support of the SEAL mission in Fallujah, Ramadi.

His honors include the Bronze Star Medal for Meritorious Service and the Iraq Campaign Medal.

After leaving active-duty service in 2010, DeSantis stayed in the reserves as a lieutenant commander and served as a federal prosecutor on "sensitive military cases," according to the Miami Herald.

DeSantis advised active duty military lawyers on cases ranging from drug use to rape allegations, according to Mahoney.

In 2010, he married his wife, television host Casey DeSantis. The two live in Ponte Vedra, Florida, with their children.

They met on a driving range, according to First Coast News. "He's always been a guy that's been pushing me in the right direction to succeed," Casey told the local outlet.

They have a daughter, Madison, and a son, Mason, who are both toddlers. On March 30, they announced the birth of their third child, daughter Mamie.

Those who know DeSantis have described him as hardworking and efficient, although not the most personable.

"Former colleagues on Capitol Hill describe a hardworking but aloof congressman who walked through the halls with earbuds, effectively shielding him from interaction," wrote Mahoney. "Even when he's meeting with other politicians who might be prospective supporters, he'll scan emails and texts on his phone in mid-conversation."

She added: "Former coworkers have described a military-like efficiency and restraint as being core to his character, qualities that perhaps don't help him ooze charisma or connect with strangers."

But Casey is said to soften his "aggressive" demeanor.

Mahoney wrote that Casey's natural ability on camera has given "affability and eloquence" to her husband, telling stories about him and making him appear more relatable to the public.

In 2011, DeSantis wrote a book on American politics. His wife said it inspired him to run for office.

When he promoted the book, "Dreams of Our Founding Fathers," people told him to run for office, Casey told Mahoney. "And so lo and behold, an open congressional seat opened up in our backyard."

But not everyone was a fan of the book. Critics said that the book excused slavery and complained about women's rights.

In 2012, DeSantis was elected to Congress for Florida's sixth district after winning a seven-way Republican primary.

While there, "he quickly cultivated an image on Capitol Hill of sticking to a strict ideology," Mahoney wrote, citing DeSantis' fight for term limits, habit of sleeping in his office, and rejection of Congressional pension and health insurance plan as examples.

According to DeSantis' website, he refused the latter because he's "against special deals for politicians." His website also states that he fought to cut taxes, sponsor legislation that makes it easier for the military to prosecute sexual assault, and wrote a bill to end a secret Congress slush fund funded by taxpayers to make hush payoffs for sexual harassment. 

He also fought for the No Budget/No Pay Act, which provided that Congress members wouldn't receive a salary unless Congress passed a budget by October 1, 2012.

As a US Representative, he regularly appeared on Fox News and became a familiar face to the channel's conservative viewers.

He was later endorsed by Fox hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham during his race for governor, according to Segers.

While in Congress, DeSantis established a reputation as one of Florida's most conservative representatives.

In 2015, DeSantis helped found Freedom Caucus, a conservative congressional caucus in the House. Its ideology has roots in the Tea Party movement, and it opposed the Obama Administration's policies, threatening a government shutdown the year it was founded, according to TIME.

But according to the Pew Research Center, not all members of the Freedom Caucus are on the rightmost end of the spectrum. The caucus was established to help push House GOP leadership rightward on certain fiscal and social issues. It wanted to give committees more power on which bills could move forward.

In 2015, DeSantis announced he would run for Marco Rubio's Senate seat. When Rubio changed his mind about forgoing his re-election bid, DeSantis decided to run for re-election in the House.

"America needs a new generation of leaders to address the big issues facing the country," DeSantis had said in a statement announcing his Senate candidacy.

Rubio originally wasn't going to run for re-election but had changed his mind two days prior to the filing deadline for the primary ballot.

In January 2018, DeSantis announced his candidacy for Florida governor. By September, he had resigned from Congress to focus on his campaign.

He said it would be "inappropriate" to earn his $174,000 annual salary while on the campaign trail and missing out on congressional business, and thus resigned and gave up his Congress salary. The move was in line with DeSantis' "fiscally conservative persona," wrote Matt Dixon for Politico.

Trump endorsed DeSantis during his race for governor, calling him "a warrior." DeSantis, in turn, has become one of Trump's biggest supporters.

DeSantis supported Trump in an effort to unite the Republican Party to defeat Hillary Clinton, Segers wrote. He has since voted with Trump 94% of the time. 

Trump tweeted his support for DeSantis and hosted a July 2018 rally for him in Tampa. DeSantis often used the endorsement as a talking point, Dixon wrote. His website during the campaign reportedly read: "Iraq Veteran. #1 Conservative in FL. Endorsed by President Trump." 

DeSantis was also backed by GOP mega-donors like Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and Marvel Chairman Isaac "Ike" Perlmutter, according to Mahoney.

DeSantis supported the president during the Mueller investigation, often calling for its end.

DeSantis proposed an amendment to the 2018 spending bill that would defund Mueller's investigation in 2017 and pushed to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the investigation, Segers reported. DeSantis reportedly "grilled" him in a congressional hearing.

But in January 2019, DeSantis signed an NDA with the FBI in exchange for a briefing on Russian hacking into Florida voter systems, which was revealed in the Mueller report, reported Marc Caputo for Politico. The about-face, wrote Caputo, didn't sit well with fellow Republicans, who called DeSantis' signing of the NDA a "misstep" and "cover-up."

DeSantis pointed his governor campaign toward Trump supporters. It received national attention for a TV ad that featured his toddler daughter building a wall with cardboard blocks. "Build a wall," he said in the ad.

The ad was an attempt to gain Trump supporters, according to Dixon.

In the ad, DeSantis is also shown reading Trump's book, "Art of the Deal" to another child and reading "Make America Great Again" to his daughter.

After winning the Republican primary for governor, DeSantis took a lot of heat for saying that Floridians shouldn't "monkey this up," which many viewed as a racist remark.

"The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state. That is not gonna work. That's not gonna be good for Florida," he had said in an interview on Fox News. 

Critics called out DeSantis, saying the phrase "monkey this up" was a racist comment toward his opponent, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who would have been Florida's first black governor, according to Vox.

His campaign released a statement calling the accusation "absurd," Mahoney wrote.

DeSantis took the governor's seat in 2019. During his first three months on the job, he appointed three justices to the Florida Supreme Court — Barbara Lagoa, Robert Luck, and Carlos Muniz.

The new appointments secured a conservative majority on the court, a lack of which had "long been a source of frustration for Republicans," according to the Pensacola News Journal.

During his first year as governor, DeSantis made efforts to improve Florida's education and healthcare systems.

He formed four advisory committees: economy, education, environment, and public safety.

According to the list of accomplishments on the Florida government website, DeSantis has helped make record investments in the state's education system and created the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program for children of families with limited financial resources.

In healthcare, he legalized smoking medical marijuana, created the Patient Savings Act to help lower healthcare costs, took steps to lower the cost of prescription drugs in the state, and established the Opioid Task Force while securing over $120 million to fight the opioid epidemic.

DeSantis has been praised for his environmental efforts, especially for Everglade protection.

In November 2019, DeSantis proposed a $91.4 environmental billion budget. That includes $2.5 billion over the next four years to preserve the Everglades — a $1 billion increase in spending over the past four years and a record high level of funding for restoration.

The Everglades Foundation praised his proposed budget, but Aliki Moncrief, executive director of Florida Conservation Voters, said it needed more action "to invest in climate solutions," according to CBS Miami.

DeSantis has also established two environmental committees: the Blue-Green Algae Task Force and Office of Environmental Accountability and Transparency.

He's also received praise from disaster experts for his storm response, a contrast to previous Republican Gov. Rick Scott's response.

DeSantis provided televised briefings twice daily, avoided pushing for early evacuations, and reached out and listened to local emergency managers during Hurricane Dorian, according to local outlet Daytona Beach News Journal.

Scott had closed daily conference calls with disaster managers to the media, but DeSantis opened them back up to reporters.

DeSantis has held a stricter stance on gun rights than other Republican state lawmakers after the Parkland shooting, according to The Miami Herald.

DeSantis has said he wouldn't have signed the Florida Legislature's post-Parkland gun bill into law, which Scott did. It was Florida's first gun control measure in nearly a decade, according to The Herald. It implemented a three-day waiting period to buy gun buys and raised the purchase age from 18 to 21.

During Trump's 2019 impeachment trial, DeSantis established the Presidential Protection Fund — which was essentially a fundraiser for Trump.

"When I served in Congress, I fought back against the Democrats' witch hunts every single day," DeSantis wrote in an email blast, according to The Miami Herald. "I REFUSED to let them overturn the 2016 election and erase your vote from history. Now the Democrats are officially moving to impeach our duly elected president, my duty to protect him isn't over."

He added: "As Governor of Florida, I want the president to know that we have his back in this fight 100%, so today I'm issuing the Presidential Protection Fund to fight back against this disgusting attempt to overturn a legitimate U.S. election."

DeSantis is well liked by Floridians. As of February 2020, he had a 65% approval rating in the state, which extended across party lines and races.

That's according to a Mason Dixon poll. Hispanic, African-American, Independent, and Democrat voters showed approval in the poll, according to local news outlet Venice Gondolier.

But DeSantis has recently received criticism for being slow and reluctant to enforce strict measures during the coronavirus pandemic — particularly for not shutting down Florida's beaches during spring break.

"The message I think for spring breakers is the party is over in Florida," DeSantis told "Fox and Friends" mid-March. But DeSantis didn't make an official order, leaving the decision to close beaches in the hands of local governments. 

After public backlash over the crowded beaches, DeSantis signed an order that will limit beach parties to 10 people per group and closed all bars and nightclubs in the state for 30 days. He eventually issued an executive order closing all beaches and businesses in Broward and Palm Beach counties, which are among the largest and hardest hit by pandemic, until March 31. But his office said governments will have the ability to enforce, relax, modify, or remove these closures as they see fit. 

The New York Times has suggested that DeSantis is hesitating to enforce measures that may hurt the state's $86 billion tourism industry.

As of March 30, he has yet to issue a shelter-in-order place for Florida, saying, "This is not a virus that is impacting every corner of the state."

In a news conference on March 24, DeSantis called a potential shelter-in-place order "a very blunt instrument."

"When you are ordering people to shelter in place, you are consigning a number — probably hundreds of thousands — of Floridians to lose their jobs," DeSantis said. Florida's population tops 20 million.

"We have 20 counties that have zero cases at all and about 25 counties that really only have a few cases," he added. As of March 30, the number of counties in Florida without coronavirus cases has dropped to 16.

Ten Democratic members of Florida's congressional delegation sent DeSantis a letter asking for a shelter-in-place order, reported The Hill. One Florida attorney is even suing him for not closing public beaches statewide to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Even some Florida citizens are angry, implying his lack of decision-making is leading to coronavirus deaths.

But Trump and the Florida Medical Association have both praised DeSantis for his coronavirus response.

In a news conference, he also slammed "reckless" New Yorkers for bringing the coronavirus to Florida.

In a news conference, DeSantis called out New Yorkers for getting on flights out of the city even though the state is under a shelter-in-place order, Business Insider's Taylor Borden reported.

"You're having people be reckless and cause problems for other communities," DeSantis said. "Tens of thousands have defied [state directives in New York] and so we're ending up in a situation where we're having to pick up some of those pieces.

DeSantis issued an executive order requiring everybody arriving from the New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut area to self-quarantine for 14 days. He said the National Guard would be stationed in major Florida airports and would ask passengers of flights coming from the New York area to self-isolate on arrival.

He later ordered the same restrictions for travelers from Louisiana. He's having the Florida Highway Patrol set up a checkpoint on the interstate to intercept drivers, reported Mary Ellen Klas for The Miami Herald.

DeSantis barred the Miami Times and Tampa Bay Herald from attending a coronavirus press conference on Saturday.

Mary Ellen Klas, the Herald's bureau chief for the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times Tallahassee Bureau, said she was refused entry to a press briefing on March 28, reported David Smiley for the Miami Herald.

Klas she was told she was being refused access because she had requested "social distancing" at the governor's briefings. "I asked for social distancing. I didn't ask to be excluded," Klas said. 

While a reporter from the Orlando Sentinel was admitted, reported Smiley, the decision to bar Klas elicited condemnation among media folk and some state lawmakers for "limiting access to information during a time of crisis."

On March 30, DeSantis said he would sign a Safer at Home executive order for Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Monroe counties.

DeSantis said 60% of all COVID-19 cases in the Sunshine State are currently in southeast Florida, reported local station Local10.

"It gets all four counties operating under the same sheet of music," he said.

The order encourages people to stay inside and practice social distancing to help slow the spread of coronavirus, reported local station WPTV, but specific details of the initiative weren't immediately announced.

• Marietta Gentles Crawford is a writer and personal brand strategist who founded Mari Brands For You.
• Crawford landed a lucrative speaking gig — among other jobs — through her personable and easy-to-read LinkedIn profile.
• Her tips for creating a profile to attract job offers include using keywords, positive reviews, and a call to action.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories. 

When I resigned from my corporate job in 2018 to pursue my writing and brand consulting business Mari Brands For You, I questioned everything. Luckily, I had been building my business on the side for seven years, so at least I had a plan.

But I was also 15-weeks pregnant when I made the leap. Expecting a baby and taking on an entire entrepreneurial adventure at the same time can make you second-guess the spelling of your own name. 

So more than ever, knowing that making a name for myself was the key to gaining clients and driving business, I focused on finding opportunities to build my personal brand, something I was already an expert in because I trained under William Arruda's "Reach Personal Branding" certifications. Known as the personal branding guru globally, Arruda has worked with Fortune 100 companies, so I soaked up a lot of his expertise — especially when it came to LinkedIn.

Four months later, an opportunity knocked on my door. I got a message from a leadership and development manager at a $5 billion global tech company. She was organizing an event and needed a speaker to talk about personal branding. 

Bingo! I scheduled a call.    

I remember asking, "How did you find me?" as I tried to play it cool. "Your profile came up when I was searching for a personal brand strategist on LinkedIn," she answered. 

After we spoke, I was officially offered the gig. We then confirmed the details, which included a $5,000 half-day fee for a keynote presentation and workshop based on my book "From Nine to Thrive," paid hotel and travel expenses, and car service. 

The morning I emailed the final contract, I was admitted to the hospital for labor (that was not on my to-do list that day!). And I delivered the speaking gig eight weeks after my son was born. 

This gig, among other paid opportunities, came to me because I was found on LinkedIn. And while it may seem like a crowded social media platform, there are opportunities waiting for you, too. What made me stand out? Here's my profile— and here's what makes it shine.    

A keyword-centric headline

This may sound like "duh" advice, but using keywords is key (no pun intended). My headline has a combination of titles that are keywords (for example, "speaker," "personal brand strategist," "writer") and a statement that describes what I do. 

While I may sometimes tweak my statement, I always include keywords because I know using them in my headline, and strategically throughout my profile, increases my chances of being found via search results. Remember, the manager at the company found me when she was doing a search.

Your headline isn't the time to be super clever or vague. Instead, use title-based keywords related to the opportunities you want to attract. Ask yourself, "What words would my target audience search for?" 

Social proof that I'm an ideal choice

My philosophy is to let your reputation precede you. And one of the best ways to do this is to establish your authority as an expert in your field and let other people sing your praises. 

While I don't have the bragging rights of influencers with six-digit followings, I have an engaged audience, several posts that trend under the hashtag "#personalbranding," and recent recommendations from clients, conference coordinators, and attendees from events where I was a speaker. All these factors made LinkedIn a lucrative platform for my personal brand — even with a small network. 

The truth is, as much as I was pleasantly surprised when the company found me, I know that my profile validated my experience before I even got on the phone with the manager. A company isn't going to seek out or pay a premium speaking fee to an amateur. 

There are plenty of experts on LinkedIn. And many of them do exactly what you do. So, the next question you need to ask is, "Does my profile accurately reflect my experience once I'm found?"

Support your personal brand by including recommendations, articles, and any media features that prove your expertise. 

A call to action 

I've made several changes to my profile over the years. Some have been obvious, like photos and background banners. But a change that had a bigger impact was subtle: I included a call to action at the end of my "About" section. 

There's a link to my website and free LinkedIn guide so that people interested in learning more and contacting me know exactly what to do. (Remember, attention spans are short!)

During the call about the speaking gig, the manager mentioned that she liked my content and appreciated that I showed my personality. She was able to get a clear snapshot of my brand because she easily found both my LinkedIn profile and website, which was my intention.

Few things happen simply by chance, so include information like your email address, website, or freebie directly in your profile. Tell people what action you want them to take. 

If you haven't thought of your LinkedIn profile as a magnet for dream opportunities, consider these questions: "What is my target audience looking for?" and "What action do I want them to take when they find me?" 

These answers will help you optimize your profile. And make it easy for the perfect opportunity to knock on your door. 

SEE ALSO: The 5-step guide to transitioning from a full-time job to freelancing — from a career coach who made the shift herself

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• Misinformation regarding the coronavirus has proliferated online amid the outbreak, to the extent the World Health Organization has declared a news "infodemic."
• One of the internet's oldest fact-checking organizations, Snopes, has seen a 50% uptick in traffic in the last 30 days as people rush to find the truth behind coronavirus-related information flooding the web.
• Vinny Green, Snopes' chief operating officer, told Business Insider that we're nearing "the deadliest information crisis we might ever possibly have."
• Snopes is fighting to balance time constraints and the onslaught of interest, forcing the site to pick and choose the most important claims to debunk amid a life-or-death pandemic that's claimed nearly 40,000 lives.

• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Lemons won't cure the coronavirus. Eating bananas will not reduce your chances of contracting COVID-19. And Nostradamus did not predict this pandemic. 

Snopes, one of the internet's oldest fact-checking organizations has been fighting the spread of misinformation for more than 25 years, but the exponential spread of COVID-19, the coronavirus disease, has made fact-checking a matter of life or death. That's a responsibility the industry is "grossly unprepared" for, Snopes' Chief Operating Officer Vinny Green told Business Insider.

Since its founding in 1994 as an online database to debunk internet urban legends, Snopes has grown to be a reliable site to fact-check stories that — often with little evidence of legitimate sourcing — quickly gain traction on social media. 

Now, amid what the World Health Organization has dubbed a fake news "infodemic," Snopes is tasked with answering the questions tens of millions of internet users may have about the truth of conspiracies, scams, and hoaxes proliferating online. 

"These are rumors and grifts and scams that are causing real catastrophic consequences for people at risk," Green said. "It's the deadliest information crisis we might ever possibly have."

Since the coronavirus outbreak began in China in late 2019, more than 800,000 cases and nearly 40,000 deaths have been recorded worldwide. The virus's catastrophic and rapidly expanding impact has left no industry or person untouched, leading people to turn to the internet in search of preventive measures, self-diagnoses, and predictions for the future.

The desperation and high demand for answers about the coronavirus has created an atmosphere rife with misinformation. Snopes has seen around 36 million unique users visit its site in the last 30 days, a 50% increase in traffic compared with the previous 30-day period.

The website has positioned itself at the forefront of separating the truth from fiction: Its team has posted hundreds of articles since the outbreak started, debunking stories about vodka acting as a homemade replacement for hand sanitizer, stores issuing recalls for their toilet paper, and a cattle vaccine being effective in treating coronavirus patients, to name a few.

Yet Snopes is merely 10 employees, and is currently looking to fill an additional five positions. The small team is struggling to keep up with the onslaught of demand while maintaining its established vetting process, Green told Business Insider.

In an open letter Snopes recently published on its website, the team told its readers it wouldn't be able to ramp up productivity to respond to a growing demand for information and allow its employees' lives "spin out into more disorientating and distressing states." The team has reduced its 6-times-a-week newsletter to just twice each week, and has concentrated its resources to focus on the most important coronavirus-related fact-checks while "a never-ending mound of misinformation" circles the internet.

"People are taking medication they think are cures and getting sick. People are recommending participating in everyday activities when they could be killing vulnerable people," Green said. "We are so grossly unprepared, and have no way to increase our production capacity."

With people increasingly ordered to work from home and stay inside, they're turning to social media to glean and share coronavirus-related information. And even as Snopes works to tear down potentially life-threatening claims one by one, social platforms are nevertheless flooded with conspiracy theories, viral stories and reports, and unverified claims from government officials. 

Misinformation is spreading faster than tech companies are able to take it down. The failure to prevent this spread during the coronavirus outbreak highlights the breakdown of the fact-checking industry as a whole, Green told Business Insider. Facebook, Twitter, and Google have made policy changes in an attempt to stymie the flow of inaccurate information. Some companies have been forced to leave content moderation in the hands of artificial intelligence-powered algorithms while their human moderators are forced to do their jobs remotely. 

And some platforms are trying to build on already established fact-checking missions. Facebook and Google have dedicated fact-checking efforts to tackle misinformation and fake news on their platforms that launched in 2016 and 2018, respectively.

Yet today, Snopes' established team of fact-checkers and misinformation moderators is going unused by Facebook and Google. Snopes ended its partnership with Facebook in February 2019, citing the platform's refusal to compensate participating organizations for their work. Green said these platforms expect this work to be done for "nominal sums" of money. 

"There's so much misinformation flowing through the pipes, but there's no payment structure scaling with that demand," Green said. "We tried to get Facebook to change, but it became too long to wait."

Since the coronavirus outbreak has become more critical, Facebook and WhatsApp have donated $2 million to Poynter's International Fact-Checking Network to help fact-checkers covering coronavirus produce multimedia content, work with health experts, and to increase their audience development. Facebook's $1 million, which will go into $50,000 flash grants, is only available to the fact-checking organizations who are part of Poynter's #CoronaVirusFacts Alliance. PolitiFact, the Agence France-Presse, and other mostly international organizations comprise the Network. Snopes is not a member.

"A hundred million dollars is a nominal sum of money to Facebook and to our industry," Green told Business Insider. The fact-checking industry, he said, "cannot exist hoping for the generosity of Facebook, at a time when [social media's] misinformation problem is costing people's lives. Our industry is dying and we can't keep hoping for handouts and being thankful for whatever trickles down."

SEE ALSO: Instagram sped up rollout on its new feature that lets friends quarantined apart watch videos together

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• CNN anchor Chris Cuomo has tested positive for the coronavirus. 
• His brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has been in the national spotlight for leading New York State through the coronavirus pandemic. Recent Business Insider polling found that he was one of the most trusted figures in the US amid the crisis.
• New York is one of the states most heavily affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. As of March 31, Governor Cuomo said there were over 75,000 reported cases in the state.
• The governor has responded to the crisis by demanding more ventilators for hospitals, advocating more widespread coronavirus testing, and imposing a statewide stay-at-home order.
• Their father is the late Mario Cuomo, a former governor of New York.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Cuomo family is one of the most notable dynasties in New York politics. Mario Cuomo was the governor of New York for over a decade, serving three terms. His eldest son, Andrew, is the current governor of New York, while Mario's youngest son, Chris, is a primetime news anchor on CNN.

On Tuesday, CNN reported that Chris tested positive for the coronavirus. His older brother, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has been leading New York State through the pandemic. As of March 31, the state had over 75,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, with over 43,000 positive cases reported in New York City alone.

Before his diagnosis, Chris had been covering the health crisis on CNN, even bringing his brother on the air to discuss it with him. A trending clip showed the two brothers on air not only talking about the pandemic, but getting into a tiff about who their mother's favorite child is. Chris said he is feeling well and, in a message announcing his diagnosis on Twitter, confirmed he will continue to anchor "Cuomo Prime Time" from home while "quarantined in [his] basement."

Representatives for Andrew and Chris Cuomo didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider about the brothers' personal lives, careers, real estate, earnings, and respective controversies.

Keep reading to find out more about the Cuomo family and some of its most prominent members.

SEE ALSO: 'Job one has to be save lives': Cuomo implores Trump not to rush toward reopening the economy at the expense of human life

DON'T MISS: New York's governor just warned that the coronavirus' spread could last as long as 9 months, with up to 80% of the population getting the virus

The Cuomo family is one of the most powerful and influential New York political dynasties.

The most notable members of the family are Mario Cuomo, the former three-term governor; Andrew Cuomo, the current governor; and Chris Cuomo, a CNN primetime news anchor.

On March 31, CNN reported that Chris tested positive for the coronavirus, though he's feeling well.

Previously, he had been hosting his prime time show from the basement of his home. Chris confirmed that he'll continue to do so while "quarantined in [his] basement."

"In these difficult times that seem to get more difficult and complicated by the day, I just found out that I am positive for coronavirus," Chris wrote on Twitter. "We will all beat this by being smart and tough and united!"

Source: CNN

His older brother, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been in the national spotlight in recent weeks as people praise his leadership of New York State through the coronavirus pandemic.

New York is the hardest-hit state in the US, with more than 75,000 reported cases as of March 31.

Cases are expected to peak within weeks, and a temporary morgue was built outside of New York City's Bellevue Hospital.

On March 20, the governor signed an executive order mandating that all nonessential businesses keep their employees home starting on March 22, Business Insider's Bryan Pietsch reported. The order also encouraged New Yorkers to avoid gathering in groups and using public transportation unless absolutely necessary.

He also enacted "Matilda's Law," named for his mother, which seeks to protect vulnerable people, including those over the age of 70, during the pandemic.

A recent Business Insider poll found that Cuomo and Dr. Anthony Fauci, a White House expert on infectious diseases, were Americans' most trusted leaders on the coronavirus outbreak; both ranked far above President Donald Trump.

His father, Mario Cuomo, was born in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens on June 15, 1932.

Mario Cuomo's parents, immigrants from southern Italy, owned a grocery store in South Jamaica.

Cuomo attended St. John's University as an undergraduate and for law school, graduating with his JD in 1956. He worked for various small firms before joining Corner, Weisbrod, Froeb & Charles, though he left in 1974 to run for lieutenant governor.

However, the gubernatorial ticket he ran on lost. Instead, Governor-elect Hugh Carey brought him on as secretary of state, a position Cuomo held from 1975 to 1978. After that, he served as the lieutenant governor from 1979 to 1982.

Before becoming lieutenant governor, Mario Cuomo unsuccessfully ran for New York City mayor.

The race between Mario Cuomo and US Rep. Ed Koch was famously heated.

Mario Cuomo was the governor of New York from 1983 to 1994.

As governor, Cuomo was known for his bold public presence and often found himself at odds with the state Legislature over issues such as taxes and program cuts. He was a noted liberal and a "tenacious debater."

As John Cassidy of The New Yorker wrote, Cuomo became known for his speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco, where he famously told President Ronald Reagan that he "ought to know that this nation is more 'A Tale of Two Cities' than it is just 'a shining city on a hill."

Cuomo described his political philosophy as "progressive pragmatism" and spoke up for many marginalized communities, Cassidy wrote. He did increase the state's spending on public education and healthcare, but he also built more prisons than any other state elected official before him.

In 1991, Mario Cuomo almost ran for president.

In his profile of Andrew Cuomo, The Atlantic's Edward-Isaac Dovere recounted how Mario Cuomo almost flew to New Hampshire to file his presidential bid for the 1992 election but backed out at the last minute because "state Senate Republicans were fighting him over the budget."

"It seems to me I cannot turn my attention to New Hampshire while this threat hangs over the head of the New Yorkers that I've sworn to put first," he said at a news conference afterward.

Mario Cuomo was also nearly President Bill Clinton's first appointment to the Supreme Court in 1993.

According to The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg, Clinton "had long known whom he wanted for his first appointment" to the Supreme Court: Mario Cuomo.

After "two weeks of back-and-forth" between Clinton's aide George Stephanopoulos and Andrew Cuomo, Mario Cuomo decided he wouldn't accept the appointment, Hertzberg wrote. But he wavered on that decision when Clinton finally decided on his second choice, and Andrew Cuomo told Stephanopoulos that his father would accept the Supreme Court appointment if it were offered again.

Ultimately, that June, Mario Cuomo decided he couldn't accept after all and told Stephanopoulos not to have the president call him.

"I surrender so many opportunities of service if I take the Court. I feel that I would abandon what I have to do," Mario told him, according to Stephanopoulos' White House memoir, "All Too Human."

Mario Cuomo married Matilda Raffa in 1954, when he was still a law student.

The two met in 1951, when she was attending the teachers' college at St. John's while he was in law school there.

They had five kids together — Andrew, Maria, Margaret, Madeline, and Chris — all of whom were born and raised in Queens.

Mario Cuomo died of heart failure in 2015.

Both of Matilda's parents were Italian immigrants, hailing from Sicily.

Mattia, known as Matilda, was born in 1931. The Chicago Tribune's Paula Cohen wrote that her name was changed to Matilda because her teachers used to call her that rather than Mattia.

A noted advocate for women and children, Matilda Cuomo founded Mentoring USA, a program that assigns mentors to students to help curb the dropout rate. In 2017, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame for her lifetime of advocacy.

In March 2020, her son Andrew Cuomo announced a law named after his mother, "Matilda's law," designed to protect New Yorkers over the age of 70 and those with compromised immune systems and underlying diseases during the coronavirus pandemic.

Andrew Cuomo, the oldest Cuomo sibling, is the governor of New York.

He attended Fordham University and Albany Law School.

Before becoming governor, Cuomo was the secretary of housing and urban development in the Clinton administration, from 1997 to 2001.

In 2006, he became the New York attorney general. He was sworn in as governor of New York in 2011 and reelected in 2015.

It was the first time in the state's history that a father and son had both been elected governor, according to The New York Times.

As governor, he helped to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, helped form the United States Climate Alliance, passed strict gun-control laws, increased the minimum wage, and legalized medical marijuana.

As Business Insider previously reported, Cuomo makes at least $200,000 a year as the governor of New York.

In a March 2019 profile by The Atlantic's Dovere, Cuomo was described as "irritating, confounding, and egotistical" but also "engaging, intense, and charismatic."

Dovere wrote that even though "most politicians in New York and beyond can't stand him," Cuomo wins elections "in landslides."

Andrew Cuomo's tenure has not been without controversy.

In 2014, his administration faced criticism when it was accused of interfering with an ethics commission, Vox's Andrew Prokop reported. And in 2018, Joseph Percoco, a close family friend and Cuomo's aide, was convicted of corruption.

In October, Cuomo again faced controversy when he used a racial slur on the radio as he quoted a New York Times op-ed article about slurs against Italian Americans.

He was once married to Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy.

Cuomo and Kerry Kennedy got married in 1990 after dating for 18 months, according to People magazine.

Their first date, according to a 2003 Times article, was a tour of a homeless shelter. Kennedy said this is where she first fell in love with him.

They had three kids together before divorcing in 2005.

Andrew Cuomo later dated the Food Network host Sandra Lee. They split in 2019.

Lee and Cuomo met in 2005 at a cocktail party in the Hamptons, according to People. They began living together in 2008.

Their home in Westchester was on the market with an asking price of $1.7 million as of August, Curbed reported. It first hit the market earlier in May, with a $2.3 million price tag.

According to a 2012 interview with The Times, when Lee first met Andrew Cuomo, she described him as a "huge, musclebound man."

In the interview, Lee also addressed why they'd never married, even though Cuomo was rumored to be making a presidential run and, as the interviewer said, "people without spouses don't get elected president anymore."

"Andrew is focused on being governor. He's not running for president," Lee told Andrew Goldman. "We're happy in the relationship the way it is. Still, I can tell you that Andrew's kids want us to get married. It's very sweet."

She also pushed back on the notion that Cuomo was "hot-tempered," saying he was "patient and mellow" with her.

"We never fight," she said, adding, "He doesn't give me grief."

Andrew Cuomo also likes to vacation. He's particularly fond of Saranac Lake in New York.

In a 2011 article, The Times described Saranac Lake as a lesser-known tourist attraction where visitors can fish, shop, and eat near Lake Placid.

The village is also near Whiteface Mountain, where Cuomo took his daughter skiing. Lee also said Saranac Lake was one of her favorite vacation spots.

"I've been all across the country; the Adirondacks are a national treasure," Cuomo said. "It renews me. It just gets you in touch with nature and it's just one of the really special places on the planet — period."

Though he barely leaves New York, he took a vacation to the Caribbean in 2015.

Cuomo and his family were vacationing in the Caribbean while Mayor Bill de Blasio was in Puerto Rico with his family, though it wasn't disclosed where exactly the Cuomos traveled to, the Observer's Ross Barkan reported.

Barkan said that Cuomo, like his father, would rarely leave the state. However, after his reelection, Cuomo said he would travel out of the state more.

City and State New York reported in May that throughout his years in office, Cuomo had been out of the state for only 33 days, most of which were visits to Washington, DC, and occasional "short overseas trips."

Andrew Cuomo has also become known for his clashes with President Donald Trump.

Cuomo has called Trump a "coward" and "un-American."

In his 2019 interview with The Atlantic's Dovere, the governor said Trump was "personally and emotionally motivated" and "without long-term strategy and tactics," adding, "He's scared."

"He's lost a lot [of supporters] who have lost faith in him," he told Dovere. "Once you lose faith in the person, the message loses credibility."

Cuomo added: "He was a businessman, outsider, successful, articulate. And a fresh face. He had all that going for him. Now he is mercurial. Obnoxious. Alienating."

Trump tweeted in March 2019 that New York and Cuomo were "now proud members of the group of PRESIDENTIAL HARASSERS."

"It is very hard and expensive to live in New York. Governor Andrew Cuomo uses his Attorney General as a bludgeoning tool for his own purposes," Trump tweeted in July, adding, "I even got sued on a Foundation which took zero rent & expenses & gave away more money than it had."

In his March 2019 profile of Andrew Cuomo for The Atlantic, Dovere said the differences between Cuomo and his father were "huge."

"Mario would blow up in a rage, while Andrew tends to bide his time for revenge; Mario was more of a book guy, while Andrew is more of a car guy," Dovere wrote. "Andrew ran his father's campaigns as his political bruiser; Mario wrote policy memos for his son's campaigns and taped cards from supporters to them with long notes explaining why he should call them."

Despite their personality differences, the two were close. Andrew Cuomo referred to his father in his second inaugural address, given the night his father died.

"He was my best friend. He was my best ally," Cuomo told Dovere. "My best colleague. Brilliant. Principled."

Mario and Matilda Cuomo's oldest daughter, Maria Cuomo, is married to the fashion designer Kenneth Cole.

She is the chairwoman of Help USA, a charitable foundation.

Cole's eponymous company used to be public, but he took it private again in 2012, when it had a valuation of $280 million, Inc. reported.

The second-oldest daughter is Margaret Cuomo, a radiologist.

She also attended St. John's University and is the cofounder, alongside her mother, of the Italian Language Foundation.

In 2011, she and her mother were awarded the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity, an award Italy gives to expats who have made a meaningful contribution to Italy since World War II. The award was presented to her by Giorgio Napolitano, the president of Italy at the time.

The youngest daughter is Madeline Cuomo. She lives a very private life.

In 1993, she married her high-school sweetheart, Brian O'Donoghue. The Times reported that she was an associate at the New York law firm Shea & Gould, which closed in 1994.

She attended the State University at Albany and earned her JD from Albany Law School.

The youngest son, Chris Cuomo, is a primetime news anchor for CNN.

Cuomo hosted "New Day," with Alisyn Camerota, from 2013 until 2018, when he moved to host "Cuomo Prime Time."

Before CNN, Cuomo worked at ABC; from 2006 to 2009, he was an anchor for "Good Morning America." He also served as ABC News' chief law and justice correspondent and was a "20/20" c0-anchor. Before ABC, he was a correspondent for Fox News.

He attended Yale University and Fordham Law.

In August, Chris made headlines when a video surfaced of him yelling at a Trump supporter who called him "Fredo."

In "The Godfather," Fredo is the older brother of Michael Corleone who is unable to live up to his little brother's charm and glory.

In the video, Cuomo yelled that "Fredo" was "an Italian aspersion" and "like the N-word to us." He said he would throw the man down the stairs "like a f---ing punk."

Donald Trump Jr. tweeted: "Take it from me, 'Fredo' isn't the N word for Italians, it just means you're the dumb brother."

The president also responded to the video: "I thought Chris was Fredo also. The truth hurts."

CNN stood with Cuomo during the controversy. CNN's president of communications tweeted: "Chris Cuomo defended himself when he was verbally attacked with the use of an ethnic slur in an orchestrated setup. We completely support him."

Since 2001, Chris Cuomo has been married to the magazine editor Cristina Greeven.

The two were married in Southampton and live in Manhattan with their three children.

The family's five-bedroom, four-bathroom home in Southampton was put on the market last year with an asking price of $2.9 million.

They have reportedly lived in a $2.9 million apartment on Park Avenue since 2011.

In announcing his coronavirus diagnosis via Twitter on March 31, Chris confirmed that he is "quarantined in my basement" and will "do my shows from here."

In early March, Andrew Cuomo went on Chris Cuomo's CNN show to talk about the coronavirus pandemic.

A clip showed the brothers talking about the pandemic and the measures the governor was taking to lead the state through it— as well as getting into a tiff about who their mother's favorite child is.

"I called Mom just before I came on this show, by the way, she said I was her favorite," Andrew Cuomo said. "Good news is she said you were her second favorite."

"No," Chris Cuomo responded. "We both know neither of us are Mom's first or second favorite."

Governor Cuomo addressed his brother's diagnosis during his daily briefing on March 31, the same day Chris announced it.

"This virus is the great equalizer," Andrew said. "My brother, Chris, is positive for coronavirus. Found out this morning." The governor also called his younger brother "my best friend" and poked fun at him: "[Chris is] young; in good shape; strong — not as strong as he thinks, but he'll be fine."

• Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the only one of the world's five richest people that hasn't lost money in 2020, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows.
• Bezos made nearly $6 billion in the past three months, bringing his total net worth to $121 billion.
• Since being identified in Wuhan, China, in December, the virus has infected over 820,000 people and killed more than 40,000 across the globe.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Ultrawealthy people across the globe have lost billions of dollars because of the coronavirus pandemic, but Jeff Bezos's bank account is doing just fine.

Bezos' net worth has soared $5.9 billion in 2020 so far, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows. Bezos is the only person in the top five on Bloomberg's Billionaires Index that hasn't lost money in 2020, a review of the index shows.

Other billionaires including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg have seen their net worth plummet as the novel coronavirus caused unprecedented market volatility. The ultrawealthy are often disproportionately affected by market sell-offs because of their equity-heavy portfolios. Billionaires across the globe lost 7% of their collective net worth in 2018 due to market instability at the end of 2018, far more than ordinary 401k millionaires, according to reports from Wealth-X and Capgemini. Only one person other than Bezos in the top ten slots on the Billionaires Index— Microsoft cofounder Steve Ballmer — is now richer than they were at the end of 2019.

Bezos is the richest person on Earth, Business Insider reported. The majority of his fortune stems from his stake in online retailer Amazon, which he founded in his garage in 1994. While other retailers are struggling to make ends meet and laying off employees because of the coronavirus outbreak, Amazon has seen a surge in demand and is recruiting 100,000 new employees.

Bezos isn't the only person that has profited during the outbreak. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan's net worth has risen over $4 billion in 2020 as Americans embrace video conferencing for both work and socializing in order to comply with social distancing guidelines designed to help slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Since being identified in Wuhan, China, in December, the virus has infected over 820,000 people and killed more than 40,000 across the globe.

SEE ALSO: Warren Buffett has lost more than $21 billion in the first months of 2020. Here's how the notoriously frugal billionaire spends his $67.6 billion fortune.

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