Whether your escape of choice is football, J. Lo or Buffalo chicken dip, today is your day — it’s been quite a week. But first, here’s what you need to know in business and tech news before heading into Monday.

Image Credit... Giacomo Bagnara

What’s Up? (Jan. 26-Feb. 1)

Containing Contagion

As the death toll of China’s coronavirus outbreak kept climbing, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Thursday that he believed the disease “will help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America.” It was an insensitive comment at the very least, and possibly also wrong: The global health emergency could hurt the world’s economy much more than it ever helps the United States. American companies like Apple and Starbucks could also suffer significant losses in their Chinese business. Starbucks has closed more than half of its stores in the country, its second-biggest market. And Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, said the outbreak was already affecting its financial forecasts. By the end of the week, several airlines began canceling flights to China, disrupting business travel as well as the transport of goods.

Test-Tube Bust

The chair of Harvard’s chemistry department and one of its most respected scientists, Charles Lieber, was arrested last week and charged with making false statements about his relationship to the Chinese government. Namely, that he wasn’t forthcoming about how much money that Chinese funders were paying him, particularly for his participation in a program to attract foreign-educated scientists to China. His case comes as the Justice Department is making an aggressive push to hunt down and prosecute scientists who it says are stealing research and intellectual property from American laboratories, particularly those who are working closely with China.