MV TELEGRAPH

Gymnastics superstar and defending champion Simone Biles has decided to withdraw from the all-around individual competition on Thursday at the Tokyo Games to focus on her mental health.

Biles said she had a mental health problem known as “twisties”.

“You saw a little bit of it in practice … a little bit of the twists,” Biles told reporters.

Mental health expert Robert Andrews, who worked with Simone Biles for four years until 2017, told CNBC’s The News with Shepard Smith why he praised her decision.

“The twisties … it’s a symptom of too much stress, pressure, and anxiety on the brain … essentially the brain is saying that it is not safe enough for you to learn these incredibly difficult skills, and if so, it is.” “Then you are at serious risk of injuring yourself so it is wise to listen to your brain and body,” said Andrews, who works with Olympic athletes from four countries.

Andrews told host Shepard Smith that he believed social media and the cruelty displayed on all platforms played an important role in Biles’ mental health problems.

“If I spoke to Simone, I would tell her to even delete some of these apps from her phone if she had to to distance herself from the dark side of social media,” said Andrews, founder and director from the Institute for Competitive Sports.

Biles was replaced by Jade Carey in Thursday’s all-around final.

Wingstop has laid out plans to expand its presence in Manhattan with dozens of new locations set to open in the market, CEO Charlie Morrison told CNBC on Wednesday.

Many of those locations will come in the form of ghost kitchens where the company will lean on digital orders and delivery services in the highly dense market. Wingstop seeks to open 25 company-owned locations in the New York City borough.

“We believe our model being predominantly digital works great with ghost kitchens, which will be probably half the mix of those,” Morrison said in a one-on-one with Jim Cramer on “Mad Money.”

The ghost kitchens can go in places that are not consumer-facing, including on the second floor or in the basement of a building, helping the company to capitalize on its digital strategy, he said.

Digital is at the forefront of Wingstop’s strategy as the company hopes to “digitize every transaction,” Morrison said. The company reported that digital sales made up about 65% of business in the second quarter.

“The key is they are kitchens available to delivery drivers through DoorDash, Uber and others, that can come in, grab the food and take it to everybody,” he said. “Fits great in densely populated areas, cuts back the capital cost substantially.”

Ghost kitchens, or food establishments without dine-in service, have gained traction as the Covid pandemic hobbled the restaurant industry. The cooking facilities have allowed businesses to cut back on costs associated with managing larger properties, especially during lockdowns that fueled demand for deliveries.

Wingstop looks to take advantage of a business model that brands like The Halal Guys, Dog Haus and Wow Bao have found success with. Ghost kitchens could create a $1 trillion global market by 2030, according to Euromonitor.

The first location to open as part of the expansion plan will be on 38th Street in Midtown, according to the company’s website. Wingstop has two restaurants in operation in upper Manhattan, including in the Harlem neighborhood.

Wingstop shares slid more than 2% on Wednesday, though the company posted quarterly results before the bell that beat Wall Street estimates.

Revenue came in at $74 million, up nearly 12% year over year.

After closing at $166.11, Wingstop’s stock is up 25% on the year.

Ken Langone

Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Billionaire Ken Langone told CNBC on Wednesday that all of his companies will vaccinate employees against Covid once the vaccinations have received full approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

“They’re letting the FDA say it’s final, it’s approved, and I can guarantee you all the places I’m involved. If you don’t get vaccinated, you will be fired,” Langone said on Squawk Box. “You are obliged to protect your fellow man and yourself.”

Langone, who serves as chair of the board of trustees at NYU Langone Medical Center, said there will always be a “risk of litigation” when vaccines are prescribed in the emergency phase. He is also the founder of the investment bank Invemed Associates and a co-founder of Home Depot. He’s not on Home Depot’s board of directors, and a Home Depot spokeswoman added Wednesday that Langone is not speaking on Home Depot’s behalf.

Two of the three Covid vaccines currently being administered in the US were approved by the FDA for emergency use in late December. Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech announced in May that they had begun the process for full approval of their two-dose vaccine for use in people 16 years of age and older in the United States.

The third Covid vaccine approved in the US, a single dose from Johnson & Johnson, received its emergency approval in February. J&J has not yet applied for full FDA approval.

Langone’s remarks came against the background of a Covid pandemic, which is being awakened by the highly contagious Delta variant, which is spreading rapidly worldwide and in the USA, especially in communities with lower vaccination rates. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 163 million people – about 49.2% of the American population – are fully vaccinated.

Delta, which was first spotted in India, is expected to cause another spike in new cases this fall as employers figure out how to get employees back to the office – and if they should.

Few companies have instructed their employees to fully vaccinate themselves before returning to the office, Shellye Archambeau, board member at Verizon, Nordstrom and Roper Technologies, told CNBC last week.

Instead, Archambeau said they are strongly encouraging and trying to make it easier for workers to get vaccinated by voluntarily returning to the office and promoting pandemic-related protocols for those who are not vaccinated.

Unlike private companies, however, President Joe Biden is expected to announce this week that his government will require federal employees to vaccinate themselves against Covid or otherwise undergo rigorous testing, NBC News reported Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the CDC updated its mask guidelines to recommend that fully vaccinated people return to wearing masks indoors in areas with high rates of Covid transmission.

While federal health officials believe that fully vaccinated individuals represent a low level of transmission, some vaccinated individuals may still carry higher viral loads than previously thought and potentially be transmitted to others.

An exterior view of an American Airlines B737 Max airplane is seen as a man walks at Dallas-Forth Worth International Airport in Dallas, Texas on December 2, 2020.

Cooper Neill | AFP | Getty Images

Labor unions representing 40,000 American Airlines pilots and flight attendants say the carrier has failed to provide crews with enough transportation and adequate hotels during layovers, a trend that is depriving them of rest in some cases.

In grievances filed with the carrier on Tuesday, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants and Allied Pilots Association said crews are facing hotel booking and transportation delays while on the road.

“We have Flight Attendants sleeping in airports and outside of baggage claim due to the company not providing hotel accommodations in a timely manner,” APFA National President Julie Hedrick said in a statement. “Crew rest is being impacted, and clean, comfortable, and quiet rooms are not being provided for required rest.”

On July 17, several American Airlines’ flight attendants stayed overnight on cots at Glacier Park International Airport in Montana, after flight delays, according to a union official. There weren’t enough available hotel rooms in the popular tourist destination, the official said. They were originally supposed to return to their New York base on the same day.

The case was unusual but flight attendants have often arrived at destinations without lodging, face long waits for rooms and extensive hold times with crew lodging support, the union official said.

Earlier this week, American told flight crews they could use an app to try to rebook themselves because of long waits to book hotels because of “irregular operations” in the network, according to a memo, which was reviewed by CNBC.

As travel restrictions continue to weigh on demand for trips abroad, American and other carriers have ramped up service to smaller airports that are gateways to outdoor destinations, which have been extremely popular in the pandemic. Car rentals and hotel room supply has been hard to find or expensive in those areas this summer.

Tightly packed flight schedules and some crew shortages have worsened disruptions due to weather and other issues.

APFA said it has received complaints from crew members such as finding that no rooms are available when they get to a layover hotel and that they face “excessive” hold times for hotel booking services.

A lack of hotel rooms and long wait times for customer service are issues that have also faced airline customers this summer as the industry grapples with a shortfall of workers to handle the spike in demand that materialized faster than carriers expected.

“Taking care of our crewmembers while they’re away from home is a priority for American,” the airline said in a statement. “We’re looking into the concerns raised by APA and APFA.”

The pilots’ union, APA, said it wants pilots reimbursed for lodging expenses including when they have to find hotel rooms themselves.