• Austin, Texas, is the fastest-growing major metro area in the US with a vibrant music scene and a relatively low cost of living.
• It's where many are moving to from the pricey Silicon Valley tech region.
• Big tech has noticeably made itself more at home in the capital city in the last decade, but the industry has a long history in Austin.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Austin, Texas, is a hotbed for millennials, has a vibrant music scene, and is the country's fastest-growing major metro area. 

It's also where droves of tech talent from Silicon Valley and beyond are headed if they haven't landed there already. 
Google, Facebook, Atlassian, and Oracle have thousands of workers in Austin collectively. And most recently, Apple announced that it's shelling out $1 billion for a new campus in North Austin, with the potential to add 15,000 more workers to its existing 7,000.

Austin's considerably lower cost of living offers a nice reprieve from the sky-high costs in the Bay Area. It also has a vibrant movie scene like its annual South by Southwest media and music festival, which was just canceled this year due to concerns surrounding the outbreak of the coronavirus disease known as COVID-19. 

Big tech has grown more in the last eight years especially, but the tech boom isn't Austin's first rodeo — the industry has a long history in the capital city.

Here's how the tech industry has ballooned in Austin — and why "Silicon Hills" is so appealing to workers and companies alike.

SEE ALSO: Big tech has so heavily invaded Austin, Texas, that the capital city now has its own $1 million neighborhood. Here's what it's like in the affluent and exclusive Barton Creek district

As the tech industry continues to blossom in Austin, Texas, the capital city earns more and more comparisons to its West Coast tech hub cousin.

Source: Bloomberg

Both it and Silicon Valley have experienced rapid tech growth in recent years and are grappling with the side effects that come with it.

Source: Bloomberg

Gentrification, rising housing costs, and a homelessness crisis are just some of the issues plaguing them.

Source: Austin-American Statesman and Bloomberg

But Austin is still leagues behind San Francisco in many respects, which might be why the Texas city has increasingly become a favorable relocation destination for San Francisco techies.

Source: Business Insider

A 2018 LinkedIn survey placed Austin in the No. 5 spot in a list of the top 10 US cities San Francisco LinkedIn users were migrating to.

Source: Business Insider

According to the US census, that influx is noticeable — Austin is the fastest-growing major metro area in the country.

Source: Curbed Austin

And a 2018 Brookings report cast Austin as No. 6 in a list of US cities attracting the most millennials, making Austin a hotbed for young professionals specifically.

Source: Brookings

For those seeking a progressive culture, Austin's got it — it's the third-best LGBTQ city in the US, for one thing.

Source: Austin Culture Map

And although Texas is typically a red state, the city of Austin skews left. As the Austin-American Statesman's Eric Webb writes, Austin is a "blueberry in the tomato soup of Texas."

Source: Austin Culture Map and Austin-American Statesman

Throw in a vibrant nightlife and music scene, and you've got a good place to live in the "Live Music Capital of the World."

Source: NME

Austin has also earned another moniker in recent years: Silicon Hills, named after the Central Texas region's signature hill country.

 Source: The New York Times

But Austin is no stranger to tech — not even close. The industry has had a foothold in the capital city for decades.

Source: Austin-American Statesman

IBM's Austin track record traces all the way back to 1937 with the opening of a sales office. It was an early move that cemented the city as a future tech hub.

Source: Austin American-Statesmen

The same goes for Dell Technologies, the Austin area-based company established by now-billionaire Michael Dell in 1984. Dell currently employs 138,000 workers worldwide, a reported 13,000 of which are in the Central Texas region.

Source: Austin Business Journal

And in 1983, Austin won a national competition to host the country's first for-profit computer research consortium, providing a resource pool for the top tech companies in the US.

Source: Austin-American Statesman

Known as the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corp, or the MCC, it helped establish Austin as a bigger player in the tech world. The MCC stopped operations in 2000.

Source: Austin-American Statesman

In the 1990s, the Capital of Texas Highway to the northwest of downtown was a stretch where many tech companies setting up shop. They started congregating in downtown Austin instead in the early 2000s.

Source: Austin-American Statesman

In 1996, Samsung planted its first chip manufacturing center in Austin.

Source: Austin-American Statesman

And as far as the Silicon Valley lineup goes, Apple has had a presence in Austin for over two decades now. There are 7,000 workers currently employed by Apple in Austin.

Source: City Lab

And there's potential for many more — 15,000 to be exact. Apple recently announced that it's shelling out $1 billion for a new campus in North Austin.

Source: Business Insider

The new 133-acre space will be less than a mile away from its current location that it opened in 2016, and will add an immediate 5,000 employees to Apple's existing 7,000 Austin workers.

Source: Business Insider and City Lab

And Apple isn't the only California company to have moved into the Texas city.

Mountain View-based juggernaut Google entered Austin's tech ecosystem in 2007 with its acquisition of the email security and archiving service Postini.

Source: Google

There are now over 800 Google employees in Austin.

Source: Austin American-Statesman

A good portion of them work in Google's swanky new offices down the street from the Fiber space. Teams here work on everything from Android and G Suite operations to finance and marketing.

Source: Curbed Austin and Austin Culture Map

The company snagged 300,000 square feet across five floors in this sky-scraping building, which opened in 2017.

Source: Curbed Austin

Right next door to it is a tower currently under construction, all 35 floors of which Google has leased, as reported by the Austin American-Statesman.

Source: Austin American-Statesman

The 35-story tower will stand right next to the Austin Public Library. When the tower is complete, it will open up hundreds more Google jobs in the capital city.

Source: Austin American-Statesman

Google's office is right smack in the middle of downtown, where many other companies have gravitated toward in recent years.

Source: Austin-American Statesman

There's the $42 billion co-working firm The We Company, previously called WeWork, that has a handful of locations throughout the city.

Source: Business Insider

Job site Indeed occupies 10 floors in a downtown office building, with more locations to the north of downtown in The Domain shopping center. There are more than 1,600 Indeed employees in Austin.

Source: Indeed and Austin American-Statesman

The $19 billion software maker Atlassian opened an Austin office in 2014 for its then-150-person team. The company now employs more than 400 people in its Austin office, though it announced a series of layoffs for 100 employees in August 2018.

Source: Austin Business Journal and Silicon Hills News

And thousands more are employed by other tech giants. Facebook has 700 employees in the Austin area, Amazon has 5,600, and software company Oracle has 5,000 in its new waterfront campus.

Source: CNBC and Business Insider

The newer tech fledglings have also sprouted up in recent years. Local Austin startups, including RigUp and DISCO, raised a collective $400 million in venture capital in January 2019.

Source: Built In Austin

Tech accelerator Capital Factory specifically has injected thousands of dollars into Austin, fueling the city's tech reputation.

Source: Austin-American Statesman

The city's established tech sector has also helped attract the US Army. Austin was chosen out of 150 US cities to house its new high-tech futures command center.

Source: US News

The unit's goal is to develop new defense technology — and it purposefully chose Austin in hopes that its "weirdness" culture could inspire some out-of-the-box thinking.

Source: US News

Clearly, tech has been a part of Austin's DNA for decades now.

In the past eight years or so though, tech's influence on Austin has begun to show considerably more ...

Source: Bloomberg

... specifically, in the area's real estate market: Austin's median home value currently sits at $368,300, compared to the national average of $226,800.

Source: Zillow and Zillow

The blossoming tech presence has spurred an affordability crisis, just as it has in San Francisco. As tech companies and workers continue to pour into the city, demand and home prices have increased as a result ...

Source: KXAN and Forbes

... so much so that Austin now has its first $1 million neighborhood, where the majority of homes boast an asking price of at least $1 million.

Source: Business Insider

The Barton Creek neighborhood has historically been one of the city's priciest zip codes and has seen its share of tech elite move in within the past couple of decades.

Read more: Take a look inside Barton Creek, Austin's first $1 million neighborhood

Renters in the city don't have it much easier. The average rent price has grown substantially in recent years to $1,750, higher than the national average of $1,715.

Source: Zillow and Zillow

And as more millennials that usually rent instead of buying flock to the city, the market will grow even more saturated, raising the rent in the process.

Source: Zillow, Austin Culture Map and Austin Curbed

Home prices are projected to continue to rise as well, though at a more stable rate than in years prior ...

Source: Forbes

... especially as West Coast companies continue to move to the Texas capital.

Source: Forbes

An estimated 300 California companies have relocated their offices to Texas within a one-year period.

Source: Forbes

And Austin's considerably low cost of living, lower than in other tech-oriented cities, likely offers a nice reprieve for the transplanted workers.

Source: Bloomberg

A one-bedroom apartment in the city by the bay cost almost $3,700, and the average rent overall sits at $4,580, according to Zillow.

Source: Zillow and Business Insider

Granted, Silicon Valley salaries are the largest in the industry. But even for the highest-earning Bay Area tech workers, the area's cost of living ensures that property-owning and other aspects of a higher quality of life may remain just out of reach.

Source: Forbes

Making the move to Austin can translate to a bigger bang for your buck — salaries simply go further.

Source: Forbes

Austin's zoning restrictions are also more lax than San Francisco's, so developers have a better chance of keeping up with housing demand by building new inventory throughout the city.

Source: Bloomberg and City Lab

Some of that inventory leans more toward luxury than affordable, like the Austonian downtown where condos sell for anywhere between $1,490,000 and $6,995,000.

Source: Realty Austin

Though with so many high-earning techies in the city, there likely is a market for high-priced living.

With a wealth divide comes a homelessness crisis, which Austin is grappling with. Homeless encampments on city streets have grown more and more pronounced recently.

Source: Fox 7 Austin

And most recently, the city of Austin made it legal for homeless people to sleep and set up camps in public areas that aren't parks or sidewalks. The city council told Fox 7 Austin that helping to solve the homeless crisis in Austin is its No. 1 priority for 2019.

Source: KLEW and Fox 7 Austin

Another side effect of Austin's growing tech presence is the industry's pervasive culture, which has brought a bout of change to the fabric of the city.

Case in point: electric scooters.

In April 2018, California-based electric scooter startups Bird and Lime illegally dropped hundreds of the dockless vehicles onto the streets of Austin before the city could impose regulations.

Source: Texas Tribune

A similar ploy played out in San Francisco, angering residents and politicians alike, just like in Austin.

Source: Business Insider

But Austin soon adapted by establishing guidelines for the ambitious companies.

 Source: KXAN

And now, the city is crawling with licensed scooters, with locals and tourists alike taking to them to get around town.

There are over 14,700 dockless scooters scattered throughout the area.

Source: KXAN

And they don't all sport the Bird or Lime branding.

JUMP bikes and scooters are also included in the mix.

Ride-sharing giant Uber acquired the startup in April 2018 for $200 million. Riders can use the Uber app for both its ride-hailing and e-scooter services.

Source: Business Insider and Business Insider

The same goes for fellow ride-hailing company Lyft, whose scooters landed in the Austin market in December 2018.

Source: Austin Curbed

Spin, which was recently bought by Ford, also touched down in Austin in December 2018.

Source: Austin Curbed

Iconic Austin sites are speckled with them ...

... like the "i love you so much" wall in the South Congress district.

Some are even found stashed inside parking garages.

And more and more scooters are projected to hit the capital's streets.

The California company Skip announced that it planned to drop 500 scooters in June.

Source: Curbed Austin

With the newly introduced Skip, eight scooter companies now operate on Austin's turf.

Source: Curbed Austin

Rider safety has been an issue since scooters entered Austin's landscape, but safety concerns have been even more heightened since an exchange student at the University of Texas was killed while riding a Lime scooter in February 2019.

Source: Curbed Austin

And researchers with the Austin health department found that almost 200 people were injured while riding an electric scooter from September to November in 2018.

Source: US News

They also found that only 1% of the nearly 200 people injured were wearing a helmet.

Source: US News

A Texas Senate bill approved in May will ensure that riders under the age of 16 are banned from using the electric scooters, that riding them on sidewalks is prohibited, and that riders will need to abide by speed limits.

 Source: US News

And the city is working to educate riders on safety precautions, mostly for the younger population, which comprises a hefty portion of the city's workforce.

Source: US News

Younger workers will likely continue to make up Austin's workforce, especially with the nearby University of Texas serving as a talent pool for companies seeking to recruit freshly minted tech workers.

Source: Bloomberg

But job opportunities are just one of the drivers bringing millennials to Austin.

Austin also has vast music, art, food, and adventure scenes. Once the workday comes to an end, there's no limit to what Austin has to offer.

The Live Music Capital of The World provides an endless stream of concerts throughout the city year-round.

Austin City Limits Live at The Moody Theatre is famous for its shows, like The Shins in 2012.

Source: KUT

There are also annual music festivals, like Austin City Limits every fall.

Source: ACL Festival

There's also South by Southwest, an annual music festival that kicked off in 1987 and is held every March.

Source: CNN

It's since evolved from a music-only event and now includes, among other things, a prominent tech conference, where techies and startups discuss industry trends and new innovations.

Source: Curbed

For adventurous folk, there's Barton Springs Pool, the Greenbelt, and plenty of outdoor spaces.

But it's Austin's bar and eatery scene that keeps Austinites entertained morning to night.

There's the city's Sixth Street stretch in downtown Austin.

Not far away is Rainey Street, a drag of historic houses turned into bungalow bars.

And Austin's East Side, although having been increasingly gentrified in recent years as a result of the influx of workers, also sports a hip bar scene.

Source: Bloomberg

So young workers have their reasons for moving to Austin.

And as long as big tech continues to expand in the capital city, so will the number of millennials.

• Uber says it is considering paying drivers who have been quarantined or diagnosed with coronavirus, though it doesn't have specific plans as of yet.
• Their statement comes in response to a concerned senator's letter requesting that the company do more to support its workers: 'I have concerns it does not address some broader challenges that workers could face,' Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) wrote in his letter to Uber leadership.
• Gig workers for food delivery and ride-hailing apps, whose on-demand jobs don't provide insurance or other benefits, are bracing for the spread of coronavirus.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Uber is considering paying its drivers who have been quarantined for diagnosed with COVID-19, the coronavirus disease, although it has not yet pinned down how they would be paid. 

In a statement, the company says that its "global team" tasked with handling its response to the outbreak is "exploring compensation for drivers who have been quarantined or diagnosed with coronavirus, whether independently, through a fund, or in partnership with peer companies."

Business Insider has previously spoken with drivers and delivery workers for Uber, who told reporters Aaron Holmes and Mary Meisenzahl that their constant contact with dozens of strangers, and a lack of of health insurance and benefits, had rendered them extremely anxious about how the outbreak of coronavirus would impact them. 

The statement comes largely in response to a letter from a concerned Virginia Senator Mark Warner, who asked that the company consider taking steps to better protect its gig workers as the coronavirus outbreak spreads across the US.

In a letter addressed to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Warner wrote that Uber's current steps to support its drivers — who, as contractors, don't enjoy a regular salary or benefits from the company — was lacking in addressing issues beyond hygiene and disease containment. 

"While this is prudent and good advice, I have concerns it does not address some broader challenges that workers could face," Warner said, and went on to recommend measures to support drivers through any financial hardships that they face during this time. 

"I strongly urge that you attempt to address the potential financial hardship for your workers if they are sick or have to self-quarantine during this time," Warner wrote.

As of Friday, the coronavirus has spread to at least 93 other countries. More than 360 deaths have been reported outside mainland China, including 14 in the US. 

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NOW WATCH: Watch Google reveal the new Nest Mini, which is an updated Home Mini

Devoted Health wants to change the way the U.S. takes care of its senior citizens, and it has big plans in its first five years to do just that.

The startup, which has been gathering lots of buzz in the last year, was founded to sell private health insurance plans to U.S. seniors, a market that is growing rapidly as Baby Boomers age.

Using one pitch deck, Devoted Health managed to secure $300 million from investors in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz late last year, with a valuation of $1.8 billion – all before it signed up a single customer.

But the deck also outlined the company's aggressive plans for its first five years. Devoted Health planned to sign up 5,000 members for 2019 and grow that to 103,722 by 2023. It expects to make about $1.2 billion in revenue in 2023 while generating a small net loss.

Here's what else Devoted Health laid out in the pitch deck:

• How the company, in part, plans to make money by owning its own medical group in addition to the insurance operation
• Its plan to take on the healthcare giants in Medicare Advantage
• Why it thinks it can generate better margins than other Medicare Advantage health insurers
• How the company can eclipse 100,000 members
• And more about the company's aggressive five-year plan

BI Prime is publishing dozens of stories like this each and every day. Want to get started by reading the full pitch deck?

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• Salesforce Executive VP and former MuleSoft CEO Greg Schott is leaving the company, Business Insider has learned.
• Schott came to Salesforce in March 2018 after the cloud software giant bought MuleSoft and was then prompted to executive VP of emerging API initiatives at Salesforce in May.
• MuleSoft makes tools that helps bring data from one piece of software into another, whether or not they have an official integration, making it a key piece of Salesforce's overall strategy.
• The news comes not long after the departure of co-CEO Keith Block.
• Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Salesforce Executive VP Greg Schott is leaving the company, Business Insider has learned. An update to Schott's LinkedIn profile shows his employment at Salesforce ending this month.

Schott came to Salesforce in March 2018 after the cloud software giant bought MuleSoft, where he had been chairman and CEO since 2009, for $6.5 billion. He was promoted to executive VP of emerging API initiatives at Salesforce in May. 

News of his departure comes shortly after former Salesforce co-CEO Keith Block made the surprise announcement that he would be stepping down from the role, remaining only as an advisor to CEO Marc Benioff.

MuleSoft, for its part, has gone on to become a key part of the company. MuleSoft makes tools that helps bring data from one piece of software into another, whether or not they have an official integration.

That's important for Salesforce, which has been working towards a goal of helping its customers get a "360-degree view" of all of the data in their company, across all of their various software systems in the sales, service, and marketing departments.

MuleSoft is Salesforce's second biggest acquisition, with its more recent $15.7 billion acquisition of Tableau being the biggest. 

Schott joined MuleSoft as its CEO and chairman in 2009 and led the company to its IPO in 2017, before it was acquired by Salesforce in 2018. Prior to that he held roles at other software companies. 

Schott's exit is not unusual for a CEO whose company has been acquired. Ross Mason, MuleSoft's founder, left the company to join the SignalFire venture fund after the acquisition. Scott McCorkle, the former president of ExactTarget, which Salesforce bought for $2.5 billion in 2013, became the head of Salesforce Marketing Cloud. He then left the company in 2016 and later founded a startup called MetaCX. 

However, Schott's departure is notable for coming so soon after Block announced his own exit, raising the question of whether other execs will follow.

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at pzaveri@businessinsider.com or Signal at 925-364-4258. (PR pitches by email only, please.) You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

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NOW WATCH: A 45-year-long study discovered trends in successful hyper-intelligent children

• This is a preview of the AI in Telecommunications research report from Business Insider Intelligence.
• Purchase this report.
• 14-Day Risk Free Trial: Get full access to this and all Connectivity & Tech research reports.

In the face of rising demand for data, increasingly saturated mobile markets, and stiff opposition from legacy players, tech entrants, and startups, global telecoms are locked in a battle for market share. These market pressures have led to vicious price wars for mobile services and, as a result, declining average revenue per user (ARPU).

Making matters worse, improvements in infrastructure and technology have made telecoms largely comparable in terms of coverage, connection speeds, and service pricing, meaning companies must transform their businesses if they hope to compete.

For many global telecoms, shoring up market share under today's pressures while also future-proofing operations means having to invest in AI. The telecom industry is expected to invest $36.7 billion annually in AI software, hardware, and services by 2025, according to Tractica.

Through its ability to parse large data sets in a contextual manner, provide requested information or analysis, and trigger actions, AI can help telecoms cut costs and streamline by digitizing their operations. In practice, this means leveraging the increasingly vast gold mine of data generated by customers that passes through wireless networks — the amount of data that moves through AT&T's wireless network has increased 470,000% since 2007, for example. 

In the AI in Telecommunicationsreport, Business Insider Intelligence will focus on the use of AI to enhance the customer experience, which can directly impact revenue. Each year, an estimated $62 billion is lost by US businesses after inferior customer experiences, according to NewVoiceMedia. We will discuss the forces driving firms to AI, pinpoint some of the top use cases of AI along the customer journey, and identify some of the leading companies in the space

The companies mentioned in this report are: AT&T, CenturyLink, China Mobile, IBM, Spectrum, Sprint, Swisscom, Telia, T-Mobile, and Vodafone.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• Telecoms have long struggled with their customer experience image: In 2018, telecommunications had the lowest average Net Promoter Score (NPS), a measure of how favorably a company is viewed by customers, of any industry.
• Companies that use advanced analytics, which can be accessed via AI, to improve this image and the overall customer experience are seeing revenue gains and cost reductions within a few years of adoption. 
• Most (57%) executives believe that AI will transform their companies within three years, per Deloitte's State of AI in Enterprise. 
• Overall, telecoms should focus on a hybrid organizational model to move beyond pilots to launch full-scale AI solutions that can have the biggest impact on their companies.

In full, the report:

• Outlines what factors are leading telecoms to turn to AI technology. 
• Describes the benefits of using AI in telecommunications. 
• Highlights players that have successfully implemented AI solutions.
• Discusses how telecoms should move forward with AI projects. 

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• The Grand Princess cruise ship is sitting off the coast of San Francisco, waiting for the CDC's next instructions after 21 passengers and crew tested positive for the new coronavirus.
• President Trump said Friday that despite what experts tell him, he wants to keep passengers and crew on the ship so that coronavirus cases in the US don't "double."
• One passenger responded: "He can come on board if he wants and serve us our food and bring me my towel."
• Japan kept thousands of people onboard the Diamond Princess, another cruise ship from the same company, in a failed quarantine that may have helped the virus spread.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Grand Princess cruise ship hangs in limbo off the coast of San Francisco after 21 of its passengers and crew members tested positive for the new coronavirus.

It is unclear what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plan to do next, or whether the California state government will allow the ship to dock. In the meantime, the 2,422 passengers onboard have been asked to stay in their rooms. The ship also holds 1,111 crew members, many of whom continue to bring meals to passengers' rooms. 

During a tour at the CDC on Friday, President Donald Trump said that the experts he consults, including Vice President Mike Pence, want to take people off the ship. However, Trump said that he didn't want the passengers raising the total case count in the US.

"I like the numbers being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault," Trump said in a Fox News interview.

But Trump said that he left the decision to the experts even though he disagreed with them.

"It wasn't the fault of the people on the ship either, ok? It wasn't their fault either, and they're mostly American, so I can live either way with it," he added. "I would rather have them stay on personally, but I fully understand if they want to take them off. I gave them the authority to make the decision."

Debbi Loftus, a current passenger on the Grand Princess, responded to Trump's comments in an interview with CNN.

"He can come on board if he wants and serve us our food and bring me my towel," Loftus said. 

An on-ship quarantine in Japan led to over 700 coronavirus cases

The Grand Princess cruise ship is from the same line as the Diamond Princess, which hosted one of the largest outbreaks of the new coronavirus outside of China.

More than 700 people who were on the Diamond Princess tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new virus. The ship sat in the port of Yokohama, Japan, for two weeks in February as the local government placed everyone on board under quarantine.

Experts have criticized the Japanese government's decision to keep passengers and crew on the Diamond Princess, and some have said the quarantine procedures may have even helped the virus spread.

"I'd like to sugarcoat it and try to be diplomatic about it, but it failed," Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told USA Today. "People were getting infected on that ship. Something went awry."

Other experts said that quarantine was unethical and violated human rights.

"The quarantine was not justified, and violated the individual rights of the passengers while allowing the virus to literally pick them off one-by-one," Dr. Amesh Adalja with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security previously told Business Insider.

He added, "the whole idea of the cruise ship quarantine was ill-conceived, and the resultant slew of infections it spawned was completely predictable."

Crew members were especially at risk on that ship, since they still had to share cabins, bring food to passengers, and eat together in a mess hall. 

Dr. Norio Ohmagari, director of Japan's Disease Control and Prevention Center, told CNN that the quarantine "may not have been perfect" and that "scientifically speaking," crew members should have been isolated just like passengers.

But given the conditions on the ship, crew members could not be completely isolated, Yosuke Kita, a senior coordinator at Japan's Ministry of Health, said in a press conference on February 24.

"I admit, our isolation policy was not perfect," Shigeru Omi, another health adviser to the Japanese government, said in the conference. "No place is perfect except in a hospital."

Do you work for Princess Cruises? Are you on the Grand Princess? Contact this reporter at mmcfalljohnsen@businessinsider.com. You can also reach out securely on Signal at 646-768-4730.

• Read more:
• 2 US grad students who were on the Diamond Princess cruise share harrowing details and photos from their quarantine and 'zombie movie' evacuation
• How the 'failed' quarantine of the Diamond Princess cruise ship started with 10 coronavirus cases and ended with more than 700
• What to do if someone in your home has the coronavirus, from leaving meals outside their door to finding a dog-sitter
• Limited coronavirus testing in the US has meant its death rate appears alarmingly high — but it will likely drop

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Pathologists debunk 13 myths about the coronavirus, including why masks won't help

• President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he will replace acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney with Republican Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina.
• Mulvaney will now serve as the US's special envoy to Northern Ireland, Trump said.
• The former acting chief of staff played a central role in Trump's efforts to strongarm Ukraine into delivering politically motivated investigations against his Democratic rival while dangling vital military aid and a White House meeting.
• Meadows, meanwhile, was one of Trump's biggest defenders and attack dogs throughout his congressional impeachment inquiry and has cozied up to the president in recent months.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President Donald Trump announced on Friday that Republican Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina will replace Mick Mulvaney as the White House chief of staff.

Trump added that Mulvaney will now serve as the US's special envoy to Northern Ireland.

Mulvaney served as acting chief of staff for more than a year while also running the White House's Office of Management and Budget.

A former member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, Mulvaney is a hardcore loyalist and has a long record of going to bat for the president, even on fiscal issues where their views may not have traditionally aligned.

Mulvaney was a fixture in the national news over the last several months because of his deep involvement in what witnesses described as Trump's efforts to strongarm the Ukrainian government into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, over bogus allegations of corruption.

Trump's actions — and Mulvaney's role in facilitating them — later became the focus of a congressional impeachment inquiry.

The former acting chief of staff sparked a public firestorm in mid-October when he admitted Trump held up nearly $400 million of taxpayer-funded military aid to Ukraine in part because he wanted the Ukrainian government to launch a politically motivated investigation into a baseless conspiracy theory targeting the Democratic Party.

The acknowledgment sent shockwaves through the White House and among the president's allies on Capitol Hill, who for weeks had said Trump did nothing wrong by pressing for the investigation because there was no quid pro quo involved.

Mulvaney's acknowledgment explicitly tying the aid to Trump's demand for investigations — and his defiant command that the public "get over it"— threw a wrench into every defense that had been trotted out in the wake of the controversy.

It resulted in a hasty walk back from Mulvaney during the Sunday talk shows, and it also prompted the Justice Department and Trump's lawyer to release rare statements distancing themselves from Mulvaney's claims.

That said, Mulvaney's job was in peril even before his disastrous press briefing. The Atlantic reported that the president had been souring on Mulvaney for weeks since the Ukraine controversy erupted, and his unforced error only exacerbated his situation.

Meadows, meanwhile, is also a member of the House Freedom Caucus and is one of Trump's biggest attack dogs on Capitol Hill. After House Democrats launched their impeachment inquiry into Trump in September, Meadows was frequently seen conversing with Trump at the White House as the president strategized about how to emerge from the investigation unscathed.

The North Carolina congressman announced in December that he would not seek re-election and would leave Congress at the end of his term in January 2021.

He strongly hinted, however, at his future plans to work with the president.

"For everything there is a season. After prayerful consideration and discussion with family, today I'm announcing that my time serving Western North Carolina in Congress will come to a close at the end of this term," Meadows said in a statement. "My work with President Trump and his administration is only beginning."

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• An employee at financial giant TIAA has contracted coronavirus, Business Insider has learned. 
• The worker in New York was quarantined and classified as low-risk. They tested positive for the virus days after their quarantine began. 
• The employee worked in TIAA's WeWork space at 575 Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, TIAA's temporary home while nearby headquarters are renovated. 
• The WeWork in Midtown Manhattan where the employee was working has been closed. In a memo to its employees on Friday, TIAA said it expects to reopen the office on Thursday after a deep cleaning.
• All employees at the WeWork location are barred from the building and must leave their personal belongings at home. Even WeWork employees are self-quarantining for 14 days. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A worker at TIAA, the investment firm that oversees $1.1 trillion, has contracted coronavirus, according to a memo seen by Business Insider. 

The employee worked in TIAA's WeWork space at 575 Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, TIAA's temporary home while nearby headquarters are renovated. WeWork has five floors at the building, according to its website, and houses other customers there besides TIAA. 

That location is now closed and employees' keycards have been disabled, per a WeWork email to tenants at the building, including TIAA, reviewed by Business Insider. 

In a separate memo to its employees on Friday, TIAA said it expects to reopen the office on Thursday after a deep cleaning. Employees from the 575 Lexington location are required to work from home until then. 

"We continue to be in close touch with this particular [coronavirus-stricken] associate and the associates who were in close proximity, and we're offering them the company's full support," the memo said. 

A WeWork representative confirmed that the office company notified its members at the building and closed the office.

More than 100,000 people have been infected with coronavirus globally and more than 3,400 have died. The US has reported 14 deaths.

14-day self quarantine for WeWork employees

TIAA first sent out an email on March 4 that one of its employees had been exposed to the coronavirus and was quarantined, the New York Post previously reported. The building was then deep-cleaned. On Friday, employees learned their colleague had tested positive. 

TIAA told employees on Friday it was trying to ascertain how to connect them with laptops for remote work, asking them in the memo to share their specific technology needs.

The WeWork email said members at the location could not access the space until further notice, nor could any personal items be retrieved. Members at 575 Lexington are not allowed to work in other WeWorks. 

The WeWork email said its employees at the location would self-quarantine for 14 days. On Tuesday, the office company issued guidance about coronavirus, the first time it addressed the virus in an all-member email, Business Insider previously reported.

Some tech firms have reported cases of the coronavirus, including two Microsoft employees, a Google employee in Switzerland, and a Facebook contractor in Seattle. 

Two HSBC employees, one in China and the other in London, have contracted the virus, according to a Bloomberg report. 

Wall Street firms are implementing travel bans and splitting teams to work remotely.

SEE ALSO: Bank of America is splitting up its Wall Street traders and sending some to Stamford amid concern over coronavirus

SEE ALSO: Morgan Stanley is moving about half of its Wall Street traders to its disaster-recovery site outside NYC to prep for the coronavirus spread

SEE ALSO: WeWork just gave its US tenants guidance on coronavirus outbreak — weeks after the outbreak started

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NOW WATCH: WeWork went from a $47 billion valuation to a failed IPO. Here's how the company makes money.

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. This report is exclusively available to enterprise subscribers. To learn more about getting access to this report, email Senior Account Executive Jeff Jordan at jjordan@businessinsider.com, or check to see if your company already has access.

Although competition in the US wireless carrier market remains fierce, the price war among the Big Four US carriers — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint — began to cool over the past year.

In an attempt to avoid further competition on price, carriers began shifting their focus to adding value to their mobile plans with new offerings to differentiate from the competition. This helped average revenue per user (ARPU) start to stabilize across all carriers in Q1 2018, after declining over the last two years.

The Big Four have now begun reshuffling their unlimited plans to lure subscribers by providing more options. This strategy has been unrolling in two flavors: introducing new, expensive unlimited plan tiers loaded with an array of features and choices, while also catering to price-sensitive customers with more affordable plans that strip away extra perks like free digital content and international coverage. As a result, a new battleground is emerging, with differentiation now coming down to the value loaded in their mobile plans.

Looking forward, the US carrier market will see competitive pressure pick up due to a number of trends: 

• The US smartphone market is creeping toward saturation. Penetration in the US hit 85% in 2018, up from 82% in 2017 and 77% in 2016.
• eSIM technology is making it easier for consumers to switch carriers. eSIM technology is a nonphysical SIM card slot that pairs with the physical SIM card to enable dual-SIM functionality — allowing customers to switch carriers without changing to a different SIM card or device.
• And cable mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) are edging in on US carriers' share of wireless adds. Cable MVNOs, such as Comcast's Xfinity Mobile and Charter's Spectrum Mobile, are expected to snag roughly 50% of total wireless customer net adds, or about 2.2 million subscribers, by 2020.

All of this means fostering loyalty and winning over new subscribers is more important than ever for the Big Four, making it crucial for these mobile carriers to understand consumer sentiment around their services.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence uses consumer survey data from our proprietary panel, collected during 2017 and 2018, to evaluate which features are most important to consumers when selecting a mobile provider, as well as to determine which features would convince them to switch to the competition. It contains insights that can help telecoms guide strategic investment and marketing decisions to win and retain customers in this increasingly competitive space.

The companies mentioned in the report are: AT&T, Amazon, Apple, Charter, Comcast, Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, Sprint, T-Mobile, Tidal, and Verizon.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• T-Mobile came out on top again, outpacing the rest of the Big Four US carriers on value, loyalty, and satisfaction. T-Mobile customers want to see coverage improvements, though. 
• Verizon customers don't see much more value in its offerings than a year ago.
• AT&T was the only carrier to show declines in all capacities. 
• Sprint is still a good deal, but it doesn't offer much else.
• When it comes to features, subscribers still value the basics most. However, demand for international coverage is growing.
• 5G is the next major battleground for the Big Four, and the winner of the 5G race has the potential to leap ahead in customer volumes. 

 In full, the report:

• Determines the features that are most important to consumers when selecting a mobile provider.  
• Identifies which features are nice to have or essential in consumers' willingness to switch carriers. 
• Examines consumers' feelings on emerging technologies and trends in the mobile industry, such as 5G, new network-connected devices, and the T-Mobile-Sprint merger.

SEE ALSO: 5G in the IoT: How the next generation of wireless technology will transform the IoT

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• Millions of people visit Mecca and Medina in Saudia Arabia every year for pilgrimages. The region is central to the faith of 1.8 billion Muslims across the world. 
• Saudi Arabia banned visitors amid the new coronavirus outbreak on February 27th.
• The two holiest sites in Mecca and Medina were closed for cleaning on March 5th, but reopened the next day, according to Reuters.
• Another holy site that's been impacted is the Hazrat Masumeh Shrine in Qom, Iran, which is central to the outbreak in the country. Millions of Shiite Muslim pilgrims visit the shrine and city every year. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Last week, Saudi Arabia temporarily suspend pilgrimage visits in order to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. On March 5, they also closed the sites for deep cleaning, but reopened them the next day, according to US News. 

Al-Haram Mosque in Mecca and Al-Masjid al Nabawy in Medina, the two holiest sites in Islam, and central locations to the pilgrimage were closed as a precautionary measure to stop the spread of the new coronavirus. 

Saudi Arabia also suspended Umrah travel, but not the mandatory Hajj which would take place in late July of this year.  

While Hajj is mandatory and more expensive, Umrah is a voluntary pilgrimage that millions of Muslims elect to do at any time during the year.

According to the Middle East Eye, the voluntary pilgrimage is like a "spiritual quick fix" for those who want to "refresh their faith, seek forgiveness and pray for their needs." 

The country banned visitors on February 27. Photos from that week show how quickly the attraction went from being bustling with people, to entirely empty in a matter of a few days.

Another holy site impacted by the coronavirus outbreak is in Iran, which has been badly hit by the spread of the virus. 

While the Hazrat Masumeh Shrine in Qom, has not officially been shut down and some still visit, according to the BBC, satellite images show a stark difference in how many people are visiting. 

Iran has had almost 5,000 COVID-19 cases and a little more than 120 deaths, including some top officials. In fact roughly 8% of the country's parliamentis infected. 

Other prominent religious sites in the region have also closed including the Nativity Church in Bethlehem, the Associated Press reported.

SEE ALSO: Saudi Arabia suspends pilgrimage visits in effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus

Mecca, one of the holiest Islamic sites, is usually bustling with people making their way around the Kaaba as part of their pilgrimage.

That Kaaba, the cube at the center of the Great Mosque in Mecca is central to the Hajj but also considered when of the most sacred spots in Islam. Muslims everywhere pray in its direction and locals and foreigners alike visit the site all year around.  

Source: Business Insider

The site is significant for the 1.8 billion Muslims around the globe, and millions visit every year.

Source: Pew Research Center

On March 5, the Kaaba was completely empty for sanitation. It was reopened on March 6, but it's still unclear if pilgrims would be allowed in.

Source: Middle East Eye , Reuters

Saudi residents have apparently also been banned from visiting the holy sites, as authorities step up efforts to prevent the spread of the virus in the country.

Source: Middle East Eye

Millions of pilgrims and tourist visited the Hazrat Masumeh shrine every year, but has become entangled in the new coronavirus outbreak in Iran.

Source: BBC

While travel to the shrine, and city of Qom has not been banned, new precautions were put in place. Visitors can not go in before they've been given hand sanitizer, masks, and health information.

Source: BBC

• President Donald Trump said on Friday he would continue to hold 2020 campaign rallies in spite of growing fears over the spread of coronavirus. 
• "Doesn't bother me at all," Trump said when asked by a reporter if he's worried about the risk of having so many people stand so close together. 
• But there are currently no rallies scheduled, according to the Trump campaign's website. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President Donald Trump has continued to hold 2020 campaign rallies amid growing fears over the novel coronavirus, which has led major events like SXSW to be cancelled, and on Friday signaled that he has no intention of stopping.

As he visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, a reporter asked Trump if he'd consider holding off on future rallies due to concerns over the virus.

"I haven't had any problems filling them. We just had one in North Carolina, South Carolina, all of the place and we have tens of thousands of people standing outside of the arena," Trump said. 

When pressed on whether he thought it was a risk to have that many people standing close together, Trump replied, "Doesn't bother me at all, and it doesn't bother them at all."

Trump has had about half a dozen rallies in the past month, often occurring in states holding Democratic primary contests as a form of counter-programming or "trolling," as the president recently described it. 

"We like to troll, we like to go the night before one of their primaries. We do a little trolling. It's called we do a little trolling,"Trump said on Monday. 

Though Trump on Friday signaled he would not halt rallies because of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, there are currently none on the calendar. "No rallies scheduled," Trump's 2020 campaign website said as of Friday evening.

It's unclear if this is due to the novel coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, China, and has spread to dozens of other countries. More than 100,000 people have been infected and over 3,400 have died from the virus, including 15 in the US. 

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Though it's clear many Americans are concerned about coronavirus, the CDC's website states: "For most of the American public, who are unlikely to be exposed to this virus at this time, the immediate health risk from COVID-19 is considered low."

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• Staffers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were taken by surprise when President Donald Trump told reporters of a suspected coronavirus case at the agency, reported Politico.
• Trump said that a scheduled visit to the agency had been cancelled because of the suspected case, but it was back on because the person had tested negative. 
• The president has caught people off-guard with information he's released before, tweeting out a map of an Iranian missile facility last year, which experts said contained sensitive information. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Staffers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only found out about a suspected case of the coronavirus at the agency after President Donald Trump told reporters about it in remarks on live TV, Politico reported.

Trump hastily cancelled a visit to the agency in Atlanta, Georgia, Friday morning — but soon after told the reporters the visit was back on and explained what had been happening. 

"They thought there was a problem at CDC with somebody that had the virus," Trump told reporters Friday morning. "It turned out negative so we are seeing if we can do it. They've tested the person fully and it was a negative test. So I may be going. We're going to see if they can turn it around with Secret Service. We may be going."

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham in remarks to reporters on Air Force One later confirmed that the trip had initially been cancelled out of an "abundance of caution,"reported The Hill, and that "thankfully" the suspected case of coronavirus at the agency had turned out to be negative.

The news of the suspected case though reportedly came as a surprise to staffers at the agency preparing for the president's visit. Three staffers told Politico that they had not been told there was a suspected infection at the CDC, and only found out about it from the president's televised remarks. 

"CDC has many employees who have deployed in support of the nation's response to COVID-19, some of whom are returning from areas where COVID-19 may present," a health department spokesperson told Politico. "No CDC employees have tested positive."

It wouldn't be the first time information released by the president in public communications has taken people by surprise, with the president in August tweeting out a satellite map with sensitive information showing an Iranian missile facility.

In recent days the CDC has been criticised for problems with its diagnostic tests for the coronavirus, and placing excessively narrow limits on the type of suspected cases it was testing, which experts say could have resulted in the disease spreading undetected.

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NOW WATCH: Extremists turned a frog meme into a hate symbol, but Hong Kong protesters revived it as an emblem of hope

• The number of coronavirus cases outside China could see a tenfold increase every 19 days in the absence of "strong intervention" by government officials worldwide, a study has found.
• Chinese researchers believe that "34 unobserved founder patients" with "mild symptoms" triggered the spread of COVID-19 outside mainland China.
• "The situation is dangerous" and "powerful actions on public health should be taken to combat this epidemic all over the world," according to the study.
• Other experts like Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch have also issued warnings, stressing that COVID-19 could reach pandemic levels and infect around 3 billion people globally.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The number of coronavirus patients outside mainland China could climb tenfold every 19 days, if countries don't enforce stringent restrictions to deal with the mounting crisis, researchers have found.

A study, led by geneticist Jin Li, of Shanghai's Fudan University, found that an estimated "34 unobserved founder patients" triggered the spread of COVID-19 outside mainland China.

They may have only presented with "mild symptoms," the study says, and so didn't go to a hospital to get tested for coronavirus.

Based on data gathered through the end of February, the researchers built a "mathematical model to capture the global trend of epidemics outside China."

"The situation is dangerous," the study said, underscoring the need for "strong intervention."

"Powerful actions on public health should be taken to combat this epidemic all over the world," the researchers wrote, highlighting China and Singapore as two countries where drastic containment measures have helped to control the spread of the coronavirus.

These findings were published on medrxiv.org, which is a preprint server for health sciences, according to its website. This means the study has not yet been peer-reviewed.

According to the South China Morning Post, a woman who traveled from Wuhan, in Hubei province, to Thailand was the first coronavirus carrier outside China. She tested positive for COVID-19 on January 13.

As of Saturday, the illness has now hit every continent, except Antarctica, and affected over 101,000 people.

Other experts have also issued equally bleak predictions, with Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch telling the Deep Background podcast that the coronavirus has the potential to erupt into a pandemic that would affect around 3 billion people or between 40% and 70% of the world's adult population.

A webinar presentation hosted by the American Hospital Association projected that there could be as many as 96 million cases in the United States alone along with 4.8 million hospitalizations and 480,000 deaths associated with the novel coronavirus.

• Read more:
• The coronavirus death toll has reached 1,875, with more than 73,000 infected. Here's everything we know about the outbreak.
• We combed through dozens of new studies on the coronavirus. The research suggests 80% of cases are mild, but the epidemic could 'rebound.'
• Airlines are burning thousands of gallons of fuel flying empty 'ghost' planes so they can keep their flight slots during the coronavirus outbreak
• CDC staffers only found out about a suspected case of the coronavirus at the agency when Trump told reporters

Join the conversation about this story »

Digital transformation has just begun.

Not a single industry is safe from the unstoppable wave of digitization that is sweeping through finance, retail, healthcare, and more.

In 2020, we expect to see even more transformative developments that will change our businesses, careers, and lives.

To help you stay ahead of the curve, Business Insider Intelligence has put together a list of 30 Big Tech Predictions for 2020 across Banking, Connectivity & Tech, Digital Media, Payments & Commerce, Fintech, and Digital Health.

This exclusive report can be yours for FREE today.

Join the conversation about this story »

• Prices of Off-White fashion masks have skyrocketed on the resale website StockX amid coronavirus concerns.
• Several listings of items from the buzzy fashion brand are showing bids of upwards of $200, up from previous months' averages of $80. 
• The uptick comes following ongoing concern over global mask shortages as demand mounts.  
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

While the efficacy of face masks in preventing coronavirus remains murky, some resellers looking to make a quick buck are finding success by selling designer "fashion masks" on StockX.

StockX, the resale marketplace best known as a destination for sneakers and streetwear, is selling a bevy of masks from the buzzy fashion brand Off-White's 2019 collections, with some bids coming in at more than $200. One such design, which in previous months sold for an average of $80, just sold for $211 on the site. 

In a graph of the product's historical sales over time, there's a significant spike in the last week as incidents of the coronavirus have risen across the US. It also comes following a scarcity of masks that has persisted since January, when concerns about the virus' spread began to mount. 

Another mask that was formerly selling at an average of $83 is now going for $185. StockX did not immediately return Business Insider's request for comment. 

Meanwhile, on Off-White's official website, the masks are completely sold out. 

Still, most medical professionals say masks aren't especially helpful in preventing the spread of the coronavirus.

"There's little harm in it," Eric Toner, a scientist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told Business Insider's Holly Secon. "But it's not likely to be very effective in preventing it."

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NOW WATCH: These melons can sell for as much as $22,500 each in Japan

• New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency on Saturday as the number of novel coronavirus cases surge across the US.
• Twenty more people in New York have tested positive for coronavirus, officials said Saturday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the state to 76.
• Cuomo said there are 11 confirmed cases in New York City, 57 in Westchester County, two in Rockland County, four in Nassau County, and two in Saratoga County.
• The total number of confirmed cases across the US is 312, and there have been 17 deaths as of Saturday.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency on Saturday as the number of novel coronavirus cases surge across the US.

Twenty more people in New York have tested positive for coronavirus, Cuomo said Saturday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the state to 76.

Cuomo said there are 11 confirmed cases in New York City, 57 in Westchester County, two in Rockland County, four in Nassau County, and two in Saratoga County.

In New York City, there are seven more confirmed cases in addition to the four reported on Friday. Two of those people recently got off a cruise, and five seem to be cases of community spread, Cuomo said. One of the newly confirmed individuals is currently hospitalized.

The governor declares a state of emergency when they believe a disaster may be imminent or severe enough to require state aid to local officials. Declaring a state of emergency also authorizes the governor to quickly direct state agency resources to communities in need. In extraordinary circumstances, it may also enable the state to request federal assistance if the state doesn't have enough resources to address or contain the emergency.

Officials have reported 312 cases of coronavirus and 17 deaths across the US as of Saturday. Florida reported the first death on the East Coast on Friday and a number of new cases along with Georgia on Saturday. Meanwhile, 21 people on board the Grand Princess, a cruise ship docked off the coast of California, have tested positive for the virus.

In New York, according to The New York Times, a taxi or ride-hailing driver tested positive, resulting in more than 40 doctors and others at the hospital treating him to go into self-quarantine.

Also on Saturday, Amtrak canceled its nonstop service between New York and Washington, DC, because of a lack of demand.

The company said it would cancel service until May 26 and said in a statement, "We are making temporary adjustments to our schedule, such as removing train cars or canceling trains when there is a convenient alternative with a similar schedule that will have minimal impact to customers."

The Trump administration, meanwhile, is facing intense scrutiny over its response to the coronavirus outbreak.

President Donald Trump has largely downplayed the severity of the outbreak and placed officials with little to no background in managing public health crises or infectious diseases in charge of spearheading the White House's response.

On Friday, the president drew sharp backlash when he told reporters that although scientific and medical experts had urged him to bring infected Americans off the cruise ship, he didn't want to do so because it would cause the number of reported cases to go up and it "wasn't our fault."

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NOW WATCH: How to find water when you're stuck in the desert

• Erik Prince, a sometimes unofficial advisor to President Trump, worked to recruit former spies to infiltrate left-wing organizations, The New York Times reported.
• Undercover operatives recorded leaders in liberal campaigns and organizations in an attempt to release information that could damage them. 
• The operations were spearheaded by Project Veritas, a right-wing group known for secretly recording and releasing tapes of members of the news media. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Project Veritas, the right-wing group known for secretly recording and releasing clips attempting to expose the news media, used former British and American intelligence officials to infiltrate at least two left-wing groups in an attempt to release damaging information about them, according to a report from The New York Times on Saturday.

The operations were orchestrated by Erik Prince, a security contractor and founder of Blackwater, a private military company he sold in 2010 following years of controversy, criminal complaints, and lawsuits. Prince, who has ties to the Trump administration, reached out to former intelligence community members so they could assist Project Vertias' efforts, the report said.

Prince — also the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — has at times served as an informal advisor to the President Donald Trump, advising on projects like the president's transition into office in 2017, according to the report. Project Veritas also has known ties to Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr., is listed as an invited guest on the website for the wedding of the group's founder, according to the report.

Prince, in one instance, helped recruit a former member of M16, UK's Secret Service organization, to infiltrate the American Federation of Teachers, the New York Times reported. The man, identified in documents as Richard Seddon, directed an undercover woman to secretly film leaders of the union in order to obtain information potentially damaging to their organization.

Emails and other documents that revealed the Project Vertias operation were revealed as part of the discovery process in a lawsuit leveled against Project Vertias by the American Federation of Teachers, the NYT reported. 

The same undercover individual later joined the Congressional campaign of Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA operation officer. When Spanberger's campaign discovered the woman was an undercover operative, it fired her, according to the report Saturday.

As The New York Times reported, it is unclear whether anyone with ties to the Trump administration was aware of the Prince/Project Veritas operation. 

"No one tells Project Veritas who or what to investigate," James O'Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas told The New York Times. Prince declined to comment on the report, the New York newspaper added.

As The Wall Street Journal reported in February, the US Justice Department is deciding whether to charge Prince with lying to Congress as part of its probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and determining whether he violated laws in his business dealings with foreign countries.  

Read more: 

Elon Musk is showering Bernie Sanders with memes since his own favorite Democratic candidate Andrew Yang dropped out of the race

Trump inaccurately claims the Obama administration is to blame for slowing down diagnostics testing

CDC staffers only found out about a suspected case of the coronavirus at the agency when Trump told reporters

Trump says he'll keep holding rallies amid coronavirus, but he has none scheduled after holding 6 in the past month

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 9 items to avoid buying at Costco

• This is a preview of The Payments Ecosystem research report from Business Insider Intelligence.
• Purchase this report.
• Business Insider Intelligence offers even more consumer coverage with Payments & Commerce Pro. Subscribe today to receive industry-changing payments and commerce news and analysis to your inbox.

The power dynamics in the payments industry are changing as businesses and consumers shift dollars from cash and checks to digital payment methods. Cards dominate the in-store retail channel, but mobile wallets like Apple Pay are seeing a rapid uptick in usage.

At the same time, e-commerce will chip away at brick-and-mortar retail as smartphones attract a rising share of digital shopping. Digital peer-to-peer (P2P) apps are supplanting cash in the day-to-day lives of users across generations as they become more appealing and useful than ever.

And change is trickling down into bigger industries long-dominated by cash and check, like remittances and business-to-business payments.

In response, providers are scrambling for market share. Skyrocketing consolidation that creates mega-giants is forcing providers to diversify in search of new volume.

New entrants, especially from big tech, are threatening the leads of giants. And as payments become increasingly effortless, new types of fraud are threatening data security and privacy. While demand for richer payments offerings is creating opportunities across the space, it's also leaving the industry in search of ways to adapt to change that is putting trillions in volume and billions in revenue up for grabs.

In this report, Business Insider Intelligence examines the payments ecosystem today, its growth drivers, and where the industry is headed. It begins by tracing the path of an in-store card payment from processing to settlement across the key stakeholders. That process is central to understanding payments, and has changed slowly in the face of disruption.

The report also forecasts growth and defines drivers for key digital payment types through 2024. Finally, it highlights three trends that are changing payments, looking at how disparate factors, such as new market entrants and surging fraud, are sparking change across the ecosystem.

The companies mentioned in this report are: ACI Worldwide, Adyen, Amazon, American Express, Apple, Bank of America, Braintree, Bento for Business, Capital One, Citi, Diebold Nixdorf, Discover, Earthport, Elavon, EVO, Facebook, First Data, Fiserv, FIS, Global Payments, Goldman Sachs, Google, Green Dot, Honda, Ingenico, Intuit, JPMorgan Chase, Kabbage, Macy's, Mastercard, MICROS, MoneyGram, NatWest, NICE, NCR, Oracle, Paymentus, PayPal, Rambus, Remitly, Ria, Samsung, SiriusXM, SF Systems, Square, Stripe, Synchrony Financial, The Clearing House, Target, Tipalti, Toast, Transfast, TSYS, Venmo, Verifone, Vocalink, Visa, Walmart, Wells Fargo, WePay, Western Union, Xoom, Zelle

Here are some of the key takeaways from this report:

• In-store payment methods are still on the rise in the US, comprising 89% of retail volume this year. Credit and debit cards continue to lead the segment, as cash and check usage slowly ticks downward. But surging contactless penetration is set to bring mobile in-store payments to prominence for the first time in the years ahead.
• Surging e-commerce will eat away at in-store payments' share of overall retail. PCs will continue to lead the way, but smartphones will inch closer to being the top channel for purchasing, in turn driving growth. At the same time, new payment tools, like voice assistants, wearables, and even cars will begin to give consumers even easier ways to pay.
• The digitization of payments isn't just contained to retail, though, with mobile P2P payments, digital remittances, and digital business payments continuing to blossom as change spreads through the ecosystem.

In full, the report:

• Traces the path of an in-store card payment from processing to settlement across key stakeholders.
• Discusses emerging alternatives to card payments.
• Examines the shifting role of key categories of providers as the ecosystem digitizes and matures.
• Forecasts growth in key categories, including in-store payments, e-commerce, mobile P2P payments, remittances, and B2B payments.
• Identifies three trends set to shape payments in 2020 and evaluates what changes the ecosystem is set to undergo.

Interested in getting the full report? Here's how to get access:

1. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now
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• Police in New South Wales, Australia, are urging people to not give in to violence amid the global coronavirus outbreak.
• Three women got into a fight over toilet paper, complete with screaming and hair-pulling, in the Woolworths Supermarket on Saturday.
• Video from the scene shows a woman saying, "I just want one packet." But the person with the cartful of toilet paper says, "No, not one packet."
• "We just ask that people don't panic like this when they go out shopping. There is no need for it. It isn't the Thunderdome, it isn't Mad Max, we don't need to do that," Acting Police Inspector Andrew New said.
• Panicked over COVID-19, shoppers are stocking up on groceries and basic necessities, leading to long lines and empty shelves at stores around the world.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A trio of women got into a scuffle in an Australian supermarket on Saturday morning over toilet paper.

The incident occurred at a Woolworths store in Chullora, New South Wales, and led to police being called to the scene, the Guardian reported. A video of the altercation was shared on social media by Nine News Australia and reveals the shoppers screaming and shoving each other over a cartful of rolls.

"Get off me," a woman yells in the footage, which also shows one woman yanking another's hair.

After they stop brawling, a woman says, "I just want one packet." But the person with the cart filled with toilet paper responds by saying, "No, not one packet."

The video shows bystanders watching the brawl unfold as a pair of employees tried to separate the women, and calling the police.

"Look at what you're doing" over some "tissues," one of the Woolworths workers can be overheard saying.

More than 101,000 people have been infected by the ever-worsening coronavirus outbreak, which has now affected every continent except Antarctica. The panic has triggered shoppers to stock up on groceries and basic necessities, leading to long lines and empty shelves at stores.

In the United States, the demand for items, including face masks, hand sanitizer, oat milk, toilet paper, water, thermometers, and a variety of snacks has surged, according to Nielsen data. At the end of January, the sales of hand sanitizer spiked by 428% when compared to the same period last year.

"We just ask that people don't panic like this when they go out shopping. There is no need for it. It isn't the Thunderdome, it isn't Mad Max, we don't need to do that," said Andrew New, an acting police inspector in New South Wales, according to the Guardian.

Such violence "will not be tolerated" and those who are caught in tussles will end up in court, New stressed, adding, "There is no need for people to go out and panic buy at supermarkets, paracetamol and canned food or toilet paper."

No one has been arrested, but police are asking for people to identify the women involved in the argument.

Just days ago, Woolworths began rationing toilet paper and rice because shoppers were cleaning out their shelves.

"We will not tolerate violence of any kind from our customers in our stores and we are working with police who are investigating the matter," a Woolworths spokesperson said.

Saturday's incident follows Abdu Sharkawy, an infectious disease expert from Canada, going viral for saying that people's selfishness — evidenced by the theft of face masks and hoarding of household items — could make an already dire situation worse.

"I am not scared of Covid-19," he wrote on Facebook. "What I am scared about is the loss of reason and wave of fear that has induced the masses of society into a spellbinding spiral of panic, stockpiling obscene quantities of anything that could fill a bomb shelter adequately in a post-apocalyptic world."

• Read more:
• Instacart says demand is surging amid the coronavirus outbreak, and it will now offer grocery deliveries without human contact
• Walmart, McDonald's, Home Depot, and 13 other retailers share how the coronavirus outbreak could affect business
• Photos of empty shelves, long lines at grocery stores around the world reveal real panic as the spread of coronavirus intensifies

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