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Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson on Thursday denied reports the coffee company was running out of essential supplies, telling CNBC that it had enough cups and coffee for customers.

There is “no shortage of cups, no shortage of coffee,” said Johnson in an interview with Jim Cramer, which will be broadcast on “Mad Money”.

Johnson responded to previous reports – including one from the Wall Street Journal – that said some Starbucks stores were short of cups and coffee syrups, among other things, as traffic at Starbucks recovered from last year’s slowdown. The article quoted information from a few store clerks and an unnamed spokeswoman who said the scarcity was hampering select markets.

To be sure, Johnson said Starbucks continues to face operational challenges elsewhere that test the resilience of the company’s supply chain.

“We had some bottlenecks at the bakery, that’s certainly true,” he said. “If there’s one area we’ve focused on, it’s our delivery partners who put together breakfast rolls and some of the groceries in our bakery suitcase. We saw some pressure there.”

Starbucks stock rose 0.39% Thursday to close at $ 111.99. The stock is up less than 5% since the start of the year.

A man walks in front of Nike products exhibit, on February 22, 2021 in New York City.

John Smith | Corbis News | Getty Images

Nike on Thursday reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and sales that topped analysts’ estimates, fueled by record revenue in its largest market, North America.

The company continues to benefit from consumers seeking out comfortable clothing to wear for workouts but also around the house. Even as people return to schools, offices and other social settings, many are still searching for relaxed options like sneakers and stretchy pants.

Nike also saw a boost to its wholesale business — something that was largely inactive a year earlier during the Covid pandemic, when shopping malls and department stores had to temporarily shut their doors and put orders for merchandise on pause.

Nike shares jumped more than 4% in after-hours trading.

Here’s how the company did during its fiscal fourth quarter, compared with what analysts were anticipating, using Refinitiv estimates:

• Earnings per share: 93 cents vs. 51 cents expected
• Revenue: $12.34 billion vs. $11.01 billion expected

Nike’s net income for the period ended May 31 rose to $1.5 billion, or 93 cents per share, compared with a loss of $790 million, or 51 cents per share, a year earlier. That topped analysts’ forecast of 51 cents per share, using Refinitiv data.

Total revenue rose to $12.34 billion from $6.31 billion a year earlier, topping estimates for $11.01 billion.

In North America, Nike’s biggest market, sales more than doubled to a record $5.38 billion as the company surged from a year earlier when the Covid pandemic was hitting the retail industry the hardest. The region’s sales were up 29% on a two-year basis.

In Greater China, sales were up just 17% at $1.93 billion. Typically one of the fastest-growing markets for Nike, consumers in China have threatened a boycott after some Western brands like Nike expressed concern about allegations of forced labor in Xinjiang.

Digital sales were up 41% compared with the prior year, and rose 147% compared with the same period in 2019.

“Fueled by our momentum, we continue to invest in innovation and our digital leadership to set the foundation for Nike’s long-term growth,” said Nike CEO John Donahoe.

Find the full earnings press release from Nike here.

The cruise ships “Carnival Sunrise” (L) and “Carnival Vista” (R) part of the Carnival Cruise Line, are seen moored at a quay in the port of Miami, Florida, on December 23, 2020, amid the Coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Daniel SLIM / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)

DANIEL SLIM | AFP | Getty Images

Carnival said Thursday that bookings were up 45% in the second quarter compared with the first quarter as the cruise industry continues its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The company also said its cumulative advanced bookings for 2022 are ahead of those from 2019.

However, Carnival reported an adjusted net loss of $2 billion for the second quarter of 2021. It expects a net loss on an adjusted basis for the third quarter and full year as well.

The company’s monthly cash burn rate for the first half of 2021 was $500 million.

Due to several outbreaks aboard cruise ships last year, the cruise industry was one of the last sectors allowed to resume operations.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allowed cruises to return this year with strict safety protocols and requirements in place to prevent outbreaks from occurring onboard.

Carnival has resumed sailing or announced plans to resume sailing 42 ships from eight of the company’s nine cruise brands by the end of November this year.

“We are working aggressively on our path to return our full fleet to operations by next spring. So far, we have announced that 42 ships, representing over half of our capacity, have been scheduled to return to serving guests by this fiscal year end,” Carnival Corporation President and CEO Arnold Donald said in a press release.

Cruise line stocks are slowly rebounding this year after suffering huge losses during the pandemic.

Shares of Carnival fell more than 2% on Thursday. Carnival’s stock has risen 28% this year, putting its market cap at just over $27 billion.

Kristen Deptula, Center, with her husband and two children, says paying an hourly wage of $ 15 helped them grow their business in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Little did they know when Kristen Deptula and her husband bought the Canalside Inn in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware in October 2019 that the upcoming summer season in the coastal city would largely be a bankruptcy due to Covid-19.

The innkeepers were able to access federal funding through the paycheck protection program to keep them going.

Deptula also credits another decision to pay its employees a minimum wage of $ 15 an hour to help transition business through the pandemic.

This wage is well above the current state mandate of $ 9.25 an hour. But Deptula, a native of Washington, had seen the higher rate succeed in Seattle.

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“It was just something I thought was good practice,” said Deptula.

Now Delaware is poised to gradually move towards a state minimum wage of $ 15 an hour by 2025 once Governor John Carney signs a bill that the state legislature passed earlier this month.

The move is a push to raise the federal minimum wage from $ 7.25 to $ 15 an hour and hit a roadblock when it wasn’t included in the final US bailout bill. However, it was approved by the House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, other states have raised their minimum wages. Florida is in the process of gradually moving towards a minimum wage of $ 15 an hour by 2026 after voters approved an election last November.

Currently, 22 states have higher minimum wages than Delaware.

However, it remains to be seen whether the anticipated move by the Diamond State to increase that rate could contribute to changes at the federal level.

“I don’t think the Delaware vote will change the momentum much,” said Michael Saltsman, executive director of the Employment Policies Institute.

‘Essential Tool’ for Recovery

Still, groups like Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, a network of business organizations, owners, and executives, welcome the Delaware decision.

A wawa store in Bethany Beach, Delaware, closes.

Stephanie Dhue | CNBC

When the cost of living goes up, people can’t even afford the bare minimums, said Alissa Barron-Menza, vice president of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage. Bottom line: Companies need customers who can afford their products and services, she said.

Getting by on just $ 9.25 an hour in Delaware can be tough, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s living wage calculator. It shows that in this childless state, a single worker must earn at least $ 15.32 an hour to earn a living to meet all of his or her basic needs.

It is bad for companies and communities when workers cannot even afford the bare essentials.

Alissa Barron-Menza

Vice President of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage

The Delaware Restaurant Association had advocated a change to postpone the state’s minimum wage by a year to give restaurants and other small businesses more time to recover from the lost revenue caused by Covid-19. However, the law was passed without this change.

Barron-Menza points out that the minimum wage was first introduced during the Great Depression to stimulate the ailing economy.

“As we continue to emerge from the pandemic in this current economy, we need that kind of boost again,” Barron-Menza said. “It’s bad for business and communities when working people can’t even afford the bare essentials.”

Potential Invisible Cost

The Delaware pay rise eliminates what is known as the minimum wage for service workers and bartenders, which has proven to be a point of contention in the battle for a higher standard wage rate.

Although some groups of workers across the country have pushed for the complete abolition of the separate minimum wage for tips, they have encountered resistance from some service workers and bartenders who don’t want their tips to be compromised, Saltsman said.

A higher minimum wage is not always unilaterally beneficial, Saltsman said.

Certain industries, such as rural agricultural business in Delaware, could be adversely affected by the change.

Companies facing higher labor costs can take measures such as reducing the number of employees or limiting working hours, which could lead to lower benefits and other ancillary costs.

“It kind of makes up for the cost, and I think that cost is usually borne by the staff,” Saltsman said.

More stability

Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, is a city on the Atlantic Ocean.

DenisTangneyJr | iStock | Getty Images

Canalside Inn, which hosts corporate retreats and events, was successful in giving employees a minimum wage of $ 15 an hour.

The higher wage rate was instrumental in keeping the inn’s first employee during the pandemic, Deptula said.

“I really feel that because she had the stability of $ 15 an hour, she was able to figure out what her life goals were,” said Deptula of the clerk, a pediatric nurse who still helps out from time to time.

The inn now has five employees, which has helped get this summer season underway as people are vaccinated and eager to travel.

“We have really happy team members,” said Deptula. “I think it’s partly because they don’t have to worry about where their next paycheck is coming from and they have more stability.”

Sarah Titus, owner of the comic book store in Wilmington, Delaware, said she supported the move to a $ 15 minimum wage.

Since she and her partner bought the shop around 11 years ago, they have been paying an hourly wage above the statutory minimum wage.

Your decision has helped retain staff at the store, which requires a lot of knowledge about the comic industry. More importantly, she said, it also helps give the staff some peace of mind.

“We want to know that our people have no problems,” said Titus. “We want them to be fresh for the day and not stressed about paying their bills.”

June 2021, people are standing in front of a vaccination center in Sydney as residents have largely been banned from leaving the city in order to stop a growing outbreak of the highly contagious Delta-Covid-19 variant in other regions.

SAEED KHAN | AFP | Getty Images

The “Delta variant” dominated the headlines after it was discovered in India, where it sparked an extreme spike in Covid-19 cases before spreading around the world.

But now a mutation of this variant has emerged, known as “Delta plus”, which worries global experts.

India has named Delta Plus a “worrying variant” and there are fears that it could potentially be more transferable. In the UK, Public Health England noted in its last roundup that routine scanning of Covid cases in the country (where the Delta variant is now responsible for the bulk of new infections) found nearly 40 cases of the Delta variant that the Spike protein mutation K417N, ie Delta plus.

It found that by June 16 there were also cases of the Delta Plus variant in the United States (83 cases at the time the report was published last Friday), as well as in Canada, India, Japan, Nepal, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Switzerland and Turkey.

India third wave?

As usual with all viruses, the coronavirus has mutated repeatedly since its appearance in China in late 2019. As the pandemic progressed, a handful of variants have emerged that have altered the communicability, risk profile, and even symptoms of the virus.

Read more: The rapidly spreading Delta Covid variant could have different symptoms, experts say

Several of these variants, such as the “Alpha” variant (formerly known as “Kent” or “British” variant) and then the Delta variant, have become dominant varieties worldwide, hence the attention to Delta Plus.

The Indian Ministry of Health reportedly said on Wednesday that it had found around 40 cases of the Delta Plus variant with the K417N mutation. The ministry released a statement Tuesday saying that INSACOG, a consortium of 28 laboratories that are sequencing the virus in India during the pandemic, had told it that the Delta Plus variant had three properties of concern.

These are: increased transmissibility, stronger binding to receptors on lung cells, and the potential reduction in monoclonal antibody response (which could reduce the effectiveness of life-saving monoclonal antibody therapy in some hospitalized Covid patients).

The Indian Ministry of Health said it had alerted three states (Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh) after the Delta Plus variant was discovered in genome-sequenced samples from these areas.

The discovery of a variation on the Delta variant, largely blamed for India’s catastrophic second wave of cases, has raised fears that India is ill-prepared for a possible third wave. But some experts call for calm.

DR. Chandrakant Lahariya, A doctor, epidemiologist and vaccine and health systems expert based in New Delhi told CNBC on Thursday that while the government should remain vigilant on the progress of the variant, there is “no need to panic”.

“Epidemiologically, I have no reason to believe that ‘Delta plus’ is changing the current situation to accelerate or trigger the third wave,” he told CNBC via email.

“If we stick to the evidence currently available, Delta plus is not very different from the Delta variant. It’s the same Delta variant with an additional mutation. The only clinical difference we know of so far is that Delta plus some resistance to monoclonal antibody combination therapy. And that’s not much of a difference since the therapy itself is under investigation and few are suitable for this treatment. “

He advised the public to follow the Covid restrictions and get vaccinated as soon as possible. An analysis published last week by Public Health England showed that two doses of the Pfizer BioNTech or Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines are highly effective against hospitalizations from the Delta variant.

The WHO has stated that it is following recent reports of a “Delta Plus” variant. “An additional mutation … has been identified,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical director for Covid-19, at a briefing last week.

“In some of the Delta variants, we saw one less mutation or one deletion instead of an additional one, so let’s look at everything.”