fortune--2020-08-24--Trump’s push to approve COVID-19 convalescent plasma treatment could delay efforts to better underst

Trump’s push to approve COVID-19 convalescent plasma treatment could delay efforts to better understand it

The Trump administration’s decision to authorize the use of a blood-plasma treatment for COVID-19 with no clear evidence it works could frustrate efforts to better understand the therapy’s benefits.
Several clinical trials are examining the use of so-called convalescent plasma for COVID-19, but none have been completed and results aren’t expected for at least several more weeks.
Subscribe to The Capsule , a weekly brief monitoring advances in health care and biopharma, delivered free to your inbox.
Some of the studies are struggling to attract participants because of programs that give patients a more certain path to the therapy and a way to avoid the risk of ending up with a placebo in a clinical trial. Researchers fear that Sunday’s decision by the Food and Drug Administration to issue an emergency waiver will make it harder to get patients into clinical trials and get a more definitive picture on whether and how convalescent plasma actually works to treat COVID-19.
Plasma is the liquid portion of the blood. Convalescent plasma collected from those who have recovered from the coronavirus contains antibodies that some researchers say could help patients who have been newly diagnosed with COVID-19. President Donald Trump has called the therapy “something very special.”
Political Controversy
The emergency-use clearance followed accusations by Trump that U.S. regulators had held off in order to dim his chances of re-election. Some senior U.S. health officials had been reported to have cautioned against issuing a clearance until researchers could collect more data.
Antibodies are one of the main infection-fighting compounds produced by the immune system. They remain in the blood of patients who have recovered from disease, and using them to help another person fight infection is an old idea. Convalescent serum was used to fight the 1918 flu pandemic. The first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Emil von Behring in 1901 for his work studying serum therapy for diphtheria.
However, there are many questions that remain about what convalescent plasma is and who should get it. People sickened by a pathogen produce their own antibodies; sorting out which antibodies actually fought off a disease is a complicated task for researchers. Doctors also want to make sure that introducing foreign antibodies won’t make people sicker.
Expanding Access
The Mayo Clinic is running a program that has helped expand access to convalescent plasma in the pandemic. So far, almost 70,000 people have been infused at more than 2,700 sites around the U.S., according to its website. Data show that patients were 35% less likely to die if they received a high dose of convalescent plasma, compared with those who got lower doses.
All of those enrolled, however, were given the plasma and the antibody levels weren’t checked before it was administered, making it difficult to determine exactly how much benefit patients would get over current care.
The results have been posted online but not yet published in a medical journal, and theydon’t have the same rigor as a clinical trial, which typically compares a treatment to the standard of care. The FDA asked Mayo Clinic for more data, which the clinic said in an e-mailed statement it has shared with agency reviewers.
“We agree on the need for randomized clinical trials as a scientifically sound approach,” the Mayo Clinic said in the statement. Data from the expanded-access program “is significant and could be used to provide evidence” to conduct trials in the future.
Enrollment Issues
National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins recently held a Zoom meeting with scientists conducting plasma clinical trials, according to Mila Ortigoza, an infectious-disease specialist at New York University who is leading a study on the use of plasma as a treatment in hospitalized patients. She said in an interview that Collins wanted to know how NIH could help. Her team has since been sending NIH enrollment updates daily, and she said she will share data with NIH as it becomes available.
The trial that NYU is conducting with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine recently expanded to three states outside of New York when researchers were only able to enroll 190 patients out of the 300 they’re seeking. Ortigoza said many hospitalized patients want to be guaranteed they will get plasma and choose to go through the Mayo Clinic’s program instead of enrolling. She fears an emergency authorization by the FDA could exacerbate the situation.
“We don’t want to go through another pandemic 100 years from now not knowing if this therapy works,” she said.
Ortigoza hopes her trial will enroll enough people to start producing data on whether convalescent plasma works by the end of September. An effort to pool trial data on hospitalized patients led by NYU could have data sooner, she said.
Data Delay
Two trials by Johns Hopkins University researchers have also had trouble attracting patients to participate, which has pushed back the delivery of results. Researchers there are investigating plasma’s potential to prevent contracting the virus and its ability to help in the early stages of infection.
The studies may produce preliminary data in October, Shmuel Shoham, an expert in oncology infectious diseases who is co-leading the studies, said in an interview.
“Initially, I was thinking we’d have information by now,” he said.
The Johns Hopkins researchers would like to enroll 1,100 people total in the trials but so far have enrolled 60, Shoham said. Recruitment has been difficult at some of the 30 sites around the country. The virus has disproportionately affected Black and Latino people, who often either aren’t sought after or don’t participate in clinical trials.
“I believe that progress happens at the speed of trust,” Shoham said. “We’re trying, in a very compressed timetable, to gain the trust of communities where there is a trust deficit.”


fortune--2020-08-24--Tencent shares soar as Trump administration clarifies WeChat ban

AstraZeneca denies it is in discussions to fast-track U.S. approval of its COVID-19 vaccine

Tencent Holdings Ltd. jumped the most in two weeks after White House officials are said to have reassured American businesses that a ban on its WeChat app won’t be as broad as feared.
The WeChat owner jumped as much as 4.2% in Hong Kong Monday after people familiar with matter said the Trump administration is privately seeking to reassure U.S. companies including Apple Inc. that they can still do business with Tencent’s WeChat messaging app in China. In recent days, senior administration officials have been reaching out to some companies, realizing that the impact of an all-out ban on the popular app could be devastating for U.S. technology, retail, gaming, telecommunications and other industries, according to the people.
Company management earlier this month sought to reassure investors that the executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Aug. 6 may apply only to WeChat’s overseas operations. The ban, which came amid efforts by the White House to curtail the rise of Chinese-owned technology giants like Huawei Technologies Co. and TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd., had erased roughly $66 billion from Tencent’s value, though today’s rebound means the stock has recouped all but $22 billion of those losses.
Intense lobbying by representatives of U.S. businesses such as Walmart, General Motors, Best Buy and Target reinforces the indispensability of WeChat for reaching consumers in China. The sales impact on Tencent from President Donald Trump’s WeChat ban may be minimal as the administration appears to be narrowing the scope of the order to protect U.S. businesses in China.
Spreads on Tencent’s dollar bond due 2030 tightened 2 basis points, according to credit traders in Hong Kong Monday morning, the most since August 11.
Trump ignited a furor after signing the order to ban U.S. entities from dealing with WeChat. Confusion reigned as investors grappled with the sweeping language of Trump’s order — which bars “transactions” with the Chinese company — that leaves the door open for the administration to extend it well beyond the service in America. Apple’s shares fell on fears the action could hurt sales of iPhones in its largest market after the U.S.
Still, risks remain until details of the executive order are finalized. Senior administration officials are deliberating over the scope of the ban ordered by Trump, one of the people said, and the president could ultimately overrule anything they decide.
Even if corporations are permitted to do business with WeChat, individuals may still face restrictions on using the app in the U.S. A group of U.S. WeChat users filed a complaint at the federal court in San Francisco Friday in an attempt to block the Trump administration from imposing a ban on the app, saying it would violate their rights.


fortune--2020-08-25--TikTok reveals new stats in court filing—including the claim that one third of Americans use the pla

TikTok reveals new stats in court filing—including the claim that one third of Americans use the platform

PepsiCo CEO : ‘ Black Lives Matter , to our company and to me.
’ What the food and beverage @ @ @ @

The video sharing app TikTok arrived in the U.S. only two years ago, but has already become one of the most popular social platforms in the country. According to figures shared by the company this week, more than 100 million Americans use TikTok every month—nearly a third of the population.
To put that in perspective, TikTok’s user numbers may now exceed those of long-established social networks like Twitter, Pinterest and Snapchat. The research firm Statista claims those companies monthly average user (MAU in industry speak) totals were 81 million, 67 million and 46 million as of last September.
Meanwhile, Statista found that Facebook-owned Instagram had 121 million MAUs as of last year. Based on TikTok’s stunning growth rate—it claims it had around 40 million users last October before topping 100 million this August—it could match or surpass Instagram by next year.
That growth, revealed in a TikTok court filing cited by CNBC, may explain why Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly sought to spread fears in Washington, DC last fall about TikTok’s Chinese ownership.
Those concerns over TikTok have led President Trump to declare the U.S. will ban the app in coming weeks unless its parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, sells it to a U.S. company like Microsoft or Oracle. On Monday, TikTok sued the Trump Administration over the threatened ban.
The numbers disclosed by TikTok could not be independently verified, and have raised some eyebrows. Longtime media reporter Peter Kafka expressed skepticism on Twitter:
There are 330 million people in America. So ~ one in 3 of them has downloaded TikTok and uses it at least once a month? I understand it’s very popular! Especially with the young folks. Still don’t get this number though. https://t.co/xeWFT6nsWV — Peter Kafka (@pkafka) August 24, 2020
TikTok’s self-reported numbers may also be suspect given a new Fortune Analytics survey that found only 11% of Americans said they use TikTok.
The Fortune findings, however, are based on a survey of adults, and so do not account for the huge popularity of TikTok with teens.
Whatever the precise number of TikTok users, there is no denying the platform has become a cultural force in the U.S., affecting politics and even leading the creator of American Idol to turn to the platform in hopes of finding a new superstar.


fortune--2020-08-25--Farmers are selling soybeans two years in advance in rare trade

Farmers in Brazil, the world’s biggest soybean producer and exporter, are locking in sales two years in advance with prices in the real rising to a record.
The institute of agribusiness in Mato Grosso, the top state grower, said 1.3% of the production for reaping in 2022 was sold at the end of July amid a murky outlook for economies and currencies.
Selling crops for delivery in two years “is unprecedented,” Daniel Latorraca, a superintendent at Imea, the state’s rural economy institute, said in a telephone interview.
The majority of the sales are related to barter trading with farmers getting fertilizers and chemicals before planting in exchange for part of the harvest.
Domestic soybean prices in Brazil rose to a record as the real slumped against the dollar and oilseed demand picked up. This year, the real has posted the biggest drop among major currencies, while ending oilseed stocks this season are expected to decline to an an all-time-low after exports climbed to the highest ever.
Farmers sold 43% of the 2020-21 crop through Aug. 7, compared with a 16% historical level, according to figures from Safras & Mercado, a consulting firm.
“Farmers are trying to reduce the uncertainties, and the foreign exchange rate is one of them,” Safras analyst Luis Fernando Roque said.


fortune--2020-08-24--Apple judge weighs in on fight over Fortnite

The judge hearing Apple Inc.’s fight with Epic Games Inc. said she’s “inclined” not to order the iPhone maker to immediately reinstate the Fortnite app as the companies faced off in their first courtroom showdown.
But U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said during a hearing Monday that the dispute over Apple’s App Store isn’t a “slam dunk” for either side. She was sympathetic to the game developer’s argument that Apple retaliated against it by threatening to cut off Epic’s graphics technology, known as Unreal Engine, a suite of software used by millions of developers to build 3-D games and other products.
After subjecting both sides to tough questions and critical comments for more than an hour, Rogers said she will issue a temporary order soon and will hold a Sept. 28 hearing on a longer-term solution.
Apple faces a backlash from some developers who say its standard App Store fee of up to 30% and other policies are unfair and designed to benefit iPhone maker’s own services. The fight blew up Aug. 13 when Epic told customers it would begin offering a discounted direct purchase plan for items in Fortnite, and Apple then removed the game app, abruptly ending access for more than a billion iPhone and iPad customers.
Rogers appeared unconvinced by Epic’s argument that it’s suffering “irreparable harm” from the damage to its reputation by customers complaining that they can’t play Fortnite.
The judge asked Epic’s attorneys why the company can’t “flip the switch” on its independent storefront and return to “status quo” so gamers can get back to playing Fortnite.
That is “really asking us to require that consumers pay more than they should,” Epic’s lawyer Katherine Forrest said.
But the judge also said Apple’s decision to block access to the Unreal Engine “does to me look retaliatory.”
The bigger issue in the case is whether Apple’s control over its App Store amounts to a monopoly. Apple isn’t alone in taking a commission. Rogers noted that Epic takes a 12% cut from third-party game developers in its store that offers computer games.
“The definition of the market will be an interesting and complicated issue.“ Rogers said. “The battle here will not be won or lost on a temporary restraining order” or a preliminary injunction, she said.
Apple’s lawyer defended its App Store policies, saying they take into account other stores and mobile platforms.
“Apple, while a serious and ardent competitor in that arena, is nothing approaching a monopolist once you look at the entirety of the situation,” attorney Richard Doren said.
But Rogers said iPhone users can’t make app-based purchases from Amazon and other mobile platforms.
“So the question is: Without competition, where does that 30% come from?” the judge said. “Why isn’t it 10, 15, 20? How is the consumer at all benefiting from the fact that you get to say what you want it to be?”
Of the 2.2 million apps available on the App Store, the 30% fee is billed to more than 350,000. Apple reduces the fee to 15% after a consumer uses a subscription for more than a year.
Cutting off Epic from Apple’s iOS and Mac developer tools would mean the gaming company can no longer distribute Unreal Engine to other developers, Epic said Sunday in a court filing. Microsoft Corp., which makes the Xbox, uses the technology for games developed for consoles, PCs and mobile devices and is backing Epic in court.
Apple has said that Epic Chief Executive Officer Tim Sweeney sought a “side” deal seeking an exclusive storefront for Fortnite, a move that Apple executives argued would fundamentally upend how the App Store works. Sweeney maintains he wasn’t asking for special treatment but for Apple to make the same option available to all developers.
The case is Epic Games Inc. v. Apple Inc., 20-cv-05640, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (Oakland).
(Updates with judge questioning lawyers at hearing)


fortune--2020-08-24--Of all used cars, this Tesla model sells the fastest

It’s early, but there are signs Tesla’s Model 3 could be as exceptional in the used market as it has been in the new-car world.
The sedan has sold at volumes no other electric vehicle has come close to reaching, turning Tesla into the most valuable auto company in the world. But it takes a while to see how well a car performs on the used market — owners typically hold onto their wheels for at least a few years.
Car-shopping websites still have small samples sizes to work with for how used Model 3s are doing, but so far the data are encouraging. The sedans are selling quickly once owners list them for sale, and TrueCar Inc.’s ALG unit sees their presence in the premium-electric vehicle market having a dramatic impact on the segment.
“If you’re looking for a used Audi A4, you have other comparable options like the BMW 3 Series, Mercedes-Benz C-Class and Lexus IS,” said George Augustaitis, director of automotive industry and economic analysis at CarGurus Inc. “If you’re looking for a Model 3, there’s no substitute.”
Early plug-in models such as the Nissan Leaf and BMW i3 depreciated much faster than conventional cars. Demand was low, driving range was limited and battery degradation was a concern.
Low residual value — the amount cars are worth after a few years of ownership — was one of many factors holding back wider adoption of EVs. But ALG’s outlook is for vast improvement. The 64-year-old company formerly known as Automotive Lease Guide forecasts that the premium electric-car segment will go from currently having the lowest auction-value retention after three years to the fourth-highest 36 months from now.
Used Model 3s took just 29.3 days to sell on average from March through June, according to iSeeCars.com. The Tesla sedan was the fastest-selling used car the vehicle-listing aggregator tracked during that span.
Tesla’s ability to deliver over-the-air software updates are likely helping its cause.
“You’ll frequently hear people say, ‘The car I own is better than the one I purchased,’” said Gene Munster, a managing partner at venture capital firm Loup Ventures.
Tesla started production of the Model 3 in the second half of 2017, but it took the company months to ramp up output. It also didn’t begin offering leases until April 2019.
“There still aren’t a lot of Teslas in the aftermarket,” said George Chamoun, chief executive officer of ACV Auctions. Some independent used-car dealers don’t sell them, but he expects this to change.
ACV sold triple the number of Teslas in July compared with the beginning of this year, and the average number of bids for the cars are 20% more than for the rest of the company’s inventory.
“Demand is outpacing the limited supply,” CarGurus’ Augustaitis said of the Model 3. “Its range and tech and price point are still unique.”


fortune--2020-08-24--Why 2020 might be the year cryptocurrency goes mainstream

I run an online platform that helps people buy and sell digital assets (like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies). In 2016, I knew little about the industry, and today I lead one of the foremost digital asset marketplaces in the U.S. I’m evidence that anyone can learn about crypto.
For the most part, the world of crypto has operated in a strange lane all by itself, confined to Twitter and Telegram private chats. But in 2020—amid the coronavirus pandemic—interest in crypto has boomed. Whether it’s been TikTok cheering on DogeCoin or a twenty-something hacking into high-profile Twitter accounts and asking for Bitcoin, 2020 might just be the year everyone from teens to nonagenarians learns about cryptocurrencies and digital money.
There are a few factors contributing to this change, and they are important enough that Americans should be paying attention. First, government payments to individuals and businesses alike are weakening the U.S. fiat (physical cash) system. Second, large banking institutions like JPMorgan Chase are condoning and even welcoming digital currencies onto their platforms. And third, more Americans are home, witnessing the discrepancy in the market’s growth and the nation’s unemployment rate.
The weakening dollar
With numerous sports and large events canceled, and many Americans receiving government aid, the U.S. has a captive audience for financial change. While most things we took for granted have halted, two things have stayed the same: the Internet and the exchange of money.
What has changed notably is the value of money, in particular the U.S. dollar. As Americans continue to receive public financial assistance and businesses utilize Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loans, the inherent value of the dollar is dropping. Earlier this week, the U.S. Dollar Index reported that the value of the dollar dropped to its lowest level since May 2018.
What does this mean? More people will hedge their bets on currencies that act outside the confines of the dollar and buy other fiat currencies. However, we are also seeing more people invest in cryptocurrencies: Some even had an influx of exact deposits of $1,200 in the weeks after initial stimulus checks were received.
Bank momentum
The best performing asset of the last decade was not Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, real estate investment trusts (REIT), or real estate—it was Bitcoin. When the best performing asset doesn’t even exist in traditional banking models, banks get interested.
In May, the largest retail bank in America, JPMorgan, which has historically been a staunch opponent of Bitcoin, announced it is already processing crypto transactions on its platforms, and has plans to create JPM Coin, a digital currency tied to the dollar, that would expedite global payment transfers. In June, CoinDesk reported that PayPal and Venmo might be joining the crypto community by offering direct sales of cryptocurrencies. Earlier in August, we saw Goldman Sachs bring in a new head of digital assets to scale up its crypto operations.
Crypto—once reserved for the gamers, coders, and early tech millionaires—is now a place where more people have the opportunity to participate in an alternative system where they can have more control over their wealth. Anyone with a smartphone can access crypto without waiting for banks to open up or for a debit card to be mailed to them. What’s more, because crypto is decentralized and uses a public ledger to notate payments, there is an opportunity for a level of transparency government assistance programs do not provide.
Disconnect between actual wealth and the stock market
Many Americans remain unemployed and feel the disconnect between the stock market’s success and the financial reality of their lives. New personalities entering the crypto world—from Paul Tudor Jones to William Shatner to Olympian Christie Rampone—are helping initiate an honest conversation about whether our financial systems are helping or hurting us all.
These names are also an important part of showing everyone that cryptocurrencies and digital currencies are real. Although there may not be a Tom Brady of crypto due to the fact that the originator of Bitcoin is anonymous, everyone who talks about cryptocurrencies and digital assets helps validate the industry. Because crypto and Bitcoin were built to be decentralized and without one governing body, there are impassioned contributors across the globe who work constantly to improve access to digital assets. I expect that soon there will be more who come forward to provide credibility to crypto and digital assets, as their relevance and benefits are unavoidable.
The future of Bitcoin
Whether or not you’ve heard of Bitcoin, it’s a word and a concept that is not going anywhere. There is a reason why the most prestigious university endowments, such as those affiliated with Harvard, Stanford, and MIT, all invest in crypto funds.
Crypto is building in credibility. If for no other reason than curiosity, investigate Bitcoin and digital assets and see what everyone is talking about. After all, crypto will keep going while we are locked in our homes—a surefire sign that, pandemic or not, crypto is a huge part of our future.
Catherine Coley is CEO of Binance.US.


fortune--2020-08-24--Apple CEO Tim Cook is fulfilling another Steve Jobs vision

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in 2011, was a tough act to follow. But Tim Cook seems to be doing so well at it that his eventual successor may also have big shoes to fill.
Initially seen as a mere caretaker for the iconic franchise that Jobs built before his 2011 death, Cook has forged his own distinctive legacy. He will mark his ninth anniversary as Apple’s CEO Monday — the same day the company will split its stock for the second time during his reign, setting up the shares to begin trading on a split-adjusted basis beginning Aug. 31.
Grooming Cook as heir apparent was “one of Steve Jobs’ greatest accomplishments that is vastly underappreciated,” said long-time Apple analyst Gene Munster, who is now managing partner of Loup Ventures.
The upcoming four-for-one stock split, a move that has no effect on share price but often spurs investor enthusiasm, is one measure of Apple’s success under Cook. The company was worth just under $400 billion when Cook the helm; it’s worth five times more than that today, and has just become the first U.S. company to boast a market value of $2 trillion. Its share performance has easily eclipsed the benchmark S&P 500, which has roughly tripled in value during the past nine years.
But it hasn’t always been easy. Among the challenges Cook has faced: a slowdown in iPhone sales as smartphones matured, a showdown with the FBI over user privacy, a U.S. trade war with China that threatened to force up iPhone prices and now a pandemic that has closed many of Apple’s retail stores and sunk the economy into a deep recession.
Cook, 59, has also struck out in into novel territory. Apple now pays a quarterly dividend, a step Jobs resisted partly because he associated shareholder payments with stodgy companies that were past their prime. Cook also used his powerful perch to become an outspoken advocate for civil rights and renewable energy, and on a personal level came out as the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company in 2014.
Apple declined to make Cook available for an interview. But it did point to 2009 comments Cook made to financial analysts when he was running the company while Jobs battled pancreatic cancer.
Asked what the company might look like under his management, Cook said that Apple needs “to own and control the primary technologies behind the products we make.” It has doubled down on that commitment, becoming a major chip producer in order to supply both iPhones and Macs. He added that Apple would resist exploring most projects “so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us.”
That laser focus has served Apple well. At the same time, though, under Cook’s stewardship, Apple has largely failed to come up with breakthrough successors to the iPhone. Its smartwatch and wireless ear buds have emerged as market leaders, but not game changers.
Cook and other executives have dropped hints that Apple wants make a big splash in the field of augmented reality, which uses phone screens or high-tech eyewear to paint digital images into the real world. Apple has yet to deliver, although neither have other companies that have hyped the technology.
Apple also remains a laggard in artificial intelligence, particularly in the increasingly important market for voice-activated digital assistants. Although Apple’s Siri is widely used on Apple devices, Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s digital assistant have made major inroads in helping people manage their lives, particularly in homes and offices.
Apple also has stumbled a few times under Cook’s leadership.
In 2017, it alienated customers by deliberately but quietly slowing the performance of older iPhones via a software update, ostensibly to spare the life of aging batteries. Many consumers, though, viewed it as a ploy to boost sales of newer and more expensive iPhones. Amid the furor, Apple offered to replace aging batteries at a steep discount; later it paid $500 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over the matter.
Apple has also faced government investigations into its aggressive efforts to minimize its corporate taxes and complaints that it has abused control of its app store to charge excessive fees and stifle competition to its own digital services. On the tax front, a court ruled in July that Apple did nothing wrong.
Cook has turned the app store into the cornerstone of a services division that he set out to expand four years ago. At the time, it was growing clear that sales of the iPhone — Apple’s biggest money maker — were destined to slow down as innovations grew sparse and consumers kept their old devices for longer.
To help offset that trend, Cook began to emphasize recurring revenue from app commission, warranty programs and streaming subscriptions to music, video, games and news sold for the more 1.5 billion devices already running on the company’s software.
After doubling in size in less than four years, Apple’s services division now generates $50 billion in annual revenue, more than all but 65 companies in the Fortune 500. Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives estimates Apple’s services division by itself is worth about $750 billion — about the same as Facebook currently is in its entirety.
That division could be worth even more now had Cook done something many analysts believe Apple should have done at least five years ago by dipping into a hoard of cash that at one point surpassed $260 billion to buy Netflix or a major movie studio to fuel its video streaming ambitions.
Buying Netflix seemed like within the realm of possibility five years ago when the video streaming service was valued at around $40 billion. Now that Netflix is worth more than $200 billion today, that idea seems off the table, even for a company with Apple’s vast resources.


fortune--2020-08-24--Asana files for direct listing amid slew of software IPOs

Asana, a corporate software maker started by a Facebook co-founder, filed to go public via a direct listing, revealing a net loss that has more than doubled year over year.
The San Francisco-based startup filed paperwork for the listing Monday. Unlike a traditional initial public offering, no new money is raised in a direct listing, which usually sees existing investors start selling their stock as soon as trading starts with no lockup period.
Asana reported a net loss of $36 million in the three months through April on revenue of $48 million. That compared to a loss of $15 million on revenue of $28 million in the same period a year earlier.
The company, which makes workplace productivity software, was started by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz.
Asana has recently been trading on the secondary market at a value of around $5 billion, a person with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg this month. The secondary market valuation is an important element of a company’s price discovery process in a direct listing, since no new shares are sold.
Asana plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange. The NYSE, a subsidiary of InterContinentalExchange Inc., has been the venue for both of the high-profile direct listings so far, Spotify Technology SA and Slack Technologies Inc.
While companies planning direct listings don’t hire banks in traditional underwriting roles, Asana is working with Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Credit Suisse Group AG and Jefferies Financial Group Inc. as financial advisers.


fortune--2020-08-24--As Apple stock tops $500, bulls cite these key reasons it could still go higher

Is there a world where a $2 trillion price tag can be considered reasonable?
Well, if you ask Morgan Stanley, Apple’s newly-achieved market cap isn’t excessive.
In fact, the firm just raised Apple’s price target to $520—about 3% higher than its Monday close at $503, as analysts at Morgan Stanley wrote in a note Sunday they “believe [Apple] can continue to outperform peers and the S&P 500 in the near-term” as it nears its 4-for-1 stock split next week and the launch of the behemoth’s first 5G iPhone in October, the analysts wrote.
Indeed, Apple’s stock has seen a massive run in the past few months, up roughly 70% this year, and its upcoming 5G launch has some bulls digging their hooves into the ground in anticipation. But after becoming the first company to hit a $2 trillion market cap last week, it’s easy to understand why investors may be asking, is Apple too expensive now?
At over $500 a share, Apple is bumping right up against Wedbush’s Dan Ive’s 12-month price target of $515 per share—but the bull says he can see Apple hitting the $600 mark. Meanwhile, Edward Jones’ Logan Purk believes the stock is “priced appropriately,” but there’s “a lot of optimism priced in,” he tells Fortune.
Identity crisis
Apart from regulatory headwinds or its upcoming product cycle, Apple has been undergoing something of an identity crisis for investors.
Apple is still predominantly a hardware company, with over 70% of its sales from hardware products, Edward Jones’ Purk notes. But at these prices, he says investors are treating Apple like a software company (think: Microsoft) that can take advantage of big trends like work from home and the continual transition to cloud. “All things considered, Apple is a premium brand and deserves a higher multiple than your standard hardware name, but I’m not so sure it deserves a software multiple either,” Purk argues.
At Apple’s current levels, the stock is trading at a next 12 months price-to-earnings ratio of around 35, per Bloomberg data. That’s pricey by any standard, and it also tops software titan Microsoft’s forward P/E of around 33.
Meanwhile, although Apple has long been in the value camp, investors have also begun to treat it like a growth stock: Fortune‘s Shawn Tully recently wrote that, “for investors, the rub is that most of the gigantic spike in Apple’s price that started in mid-2019 wasn’t driven by a rise in profits, but by a leap in what folks and funds are paying for each dollar of those shares––in other words, an explosion in its P/E multiple that’s arguably made this one-time bargain exorbitantly expensive.”
But analysts note that if Apple can keep growing its services business, which recently made up about 22% of the company’s total sales, that “will stoke further optimism among a lot of the bulls out there,” Purk suggests. (Ives predicts services will generate $60 billion in annual revenue next year, and estimates the whole business will be worth over $700 billion.)
A ‘super cycle’ for upgrades?
The biggest reason for investors to be bullish on the stock right now is the imminent upgrade cycle for the iPhone come fall, with the launch of its 5G phone, analysts suggest. Ives believes this year in particular will be what he deems a “super cycle,” with roughly 350 million of the company’s 950 million iPhone users due for an upgrade.
“I believe the Street continues to underestimate the magnitude of this iPhone 12 upgrade cycle,” Ives argues. Overall, Ives estimates there’s demand for about 200 million to 210 million iPhone units going into the 2021 fiscal year, with about half of that coming from iPhone 12.
But it’s also a possible nail-biter: For the stock to go higher (and make it worth it for investors to buy in at that $500 mark), Purk believes “there’s a huge bet that 5G upgrade cycle is massive,” he notes. That bet may not pay off if people want to save money generally amid the pandemic and aren’t looking to buy high-priced 5G phones, he suggests. And Ives concedes the stock has already risen a lot in anticipation of high demand this cycle, and thinks “now it’s really more of an execution story.” The “stock [has] had a massive run, and any bad news, you could see selloffs,” he adds.
Headwinds brewing
One of the big stories for Apple lately is Fortnite creator Epic Games’ lawsuit against Apple’s App Store fees—a key part of the titan’s services business that has long come under fire for antitrust concerns.
But Ives, Purk, and Morgan Stanley analysts don’t see the antitrust challenge as taking a major hit to Apple’s overall business, and argue that while there is some risk of Apple being “attacked on multiple slides,” ultimately, the “outcome being priced in is that investors assume this is settled or it goes away and it’s just business as usual for Apple,” Purk suggests.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s ban of Tencent’s hugely popular app WeChat in the U.S. has been a concern for Apple investors—and Apple’s formidable China business (which Morgan Stanley analysts note makes up roughly 20% of the tech titan’s revenue and operating income) could suffer a “detrimental” hit if WeChat were banned on iPhones in China, too, Purk notes.
But in light of reports over the weekend that the administration will still let Apple do business with WeChat in China, analysts like Ives aren’t too worried: “The bark is worse than the bite,” he tells Fortune. Indeed, analysts at Wedbush including Ives wrote in a Monday note that the WeChat ban shouldn’t “negatively impact or disrupt Apple’s iPhone ecosystem” in China—a market they estimate will be 20% of all upgrades in the next 12 to
18 months.
Yet for investors mulling an Apple purchase at $500, Ives says to keep in mind: “The haters are going to continue to hate as the stock continues to move higher, [but] I think it’s a combination of the upgrade cycle, which I think is a true super cycle over the next two years, combined with more monetization of its install base” that will get the stock to his $600 target. “Investors need to view this as a call for the next year rather than for the next few days or months.”


fortune--2020-08-24--Salesforce, Amgen, and Honeywell Int’l will join Dow Jones Industrial Average

S&P Dow Jones Indices announced new changes to its Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) late Monday evening. It will add San Francisco business software company Salesforce, Los Angeles biotech firm Amgen, and Charlotte, N.C. industrial stalwart Honeywell International to the index before trading opens on Monday, August 31.
Those companies replace oil giant ExxonMobil, pharmaceutical pioneer Pfizer, and aerospace company Raytheon Technologies, respectively.
S&P says the changes are prompted by, and intended to offset, Apple’s decision to split its stock 4:1, which will reduce the index’s weight in the information technology category. The changes won’t disrupt the level of the index, the company says.


fortune--2020-08-24--American Airlines touts a new tool to combat COVID. But does it really make flying safer?

American Airlines announced federal approval of a new disinfectant that the airline says it will use on some flights to improve protection against surface transmission of the coronavirus. The product will be integrated into what American calls its Clean Commitment, an effort to keep its planes safe enough to draw back travelers.
But the evolving science on COVID-19 points to ongoing uncertainty about whether it’s safe to fly—and about the airline industry’s broader prospects.
The new approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is for a product called SurfaceWise2, produced by Dallas-based Allied BioScience. The disinfectant will be applied using electrostatic sprayers, which add an electromagnetic charge to particles of cleaner, making them better adhere to surfaces. Electrostatic disinfectant spraying is already widely used by airlines, including American competitors Southwest and Delta.
The key difference is that SurfaceWise2 is effective for up to a week with a single application. That may be as much of a boon to labor efficiency as safety. Existing disinfectant sprays are similarly effective, but are applied by airline staff after every flight.
Founded in 2005 and privately held, Texas-based Allied secured a large new investment in April premised on its work on anti-COVID products. According to Allied, the new EPA approval makes SurfaceWise2 the only coating approved for long-term continuous disinfection of COVID-19. Its effectiveness has also been supported in independent lab tests.
But the EPA approval, issued on an emergency exemption basis, is quite limited. For one year, the product can be used by American Airlines flights that pass through airports in Texas, and by two physical therapy clinics operated in Texas by Total Orthopedics Sports & Spine. Speaking to the press today, EPA chief Andrew Wheeler said other entities that want to use the product may apply separately for an emergency exemption via their state authorities. Allied BioScience told CNBC it will pursue broader approval that would make its disinfectant more easily available.
More effective disinfection on planes should reduce the transmission of coronavirus via surfaces, such as armrests, where virus left behind by an infected person can stay alive for hours. The World Health Organization warns that COVID-19 can cause an infection if it’s carried from surfaces to the eyes, nose, or mouth.
The bigger risk: The air you breathe
Better surface disinfection, however, increasingly pales next to worries about air quality on passenger flights. There is now strong scientific consensus that COVID-19 is primarily spread by direct social contact, with surface transmission playing a smaller role. And there is increasing evidence that micro-droplets exhaled by infected individuals can remain airborne and infectious for hours.
That is particularly worrying in the case of airliners, in which many passengers are confined in a small space. Restaurants, offices, and other businesses have been severely curtailed during the pandemic because gathering people in closed spaces increases the risk of infection.
Despite appearances, most airliners are considerably safer than eating indoors in a restaurant. American says that on all planes in its fleet, air is either replaced with outside air, or scrubbed using hospital-grade HEPA filtration, every two-to-four minutes. That’s nearly twice the average replacement rate in an office building. Additionally, air is recycled only within horizontal ‘zones,’ reducing spread along the length of a plane. American says these features have been standard since the late 1990s.
Nonetheless, there is clear evidence of airborne transmission risk on passenger flights. A 2003 study of the transmission of the SARS coronavirus on a passenger plane found that a single symptomatic person spread the virus throughout the cabin of the plane, infecting as many as 22 others. More recently, a study of COVID-19 transmission on a March 2020 international flight found possible transmission at a distance of up to two rows.
All major U.S. carriers now require masks, which reduce the distance exhalations spread. But American has rolled back one of the most significant measures to control the spread of COVID: since July 1, it has not blocked off seats to maintain greater social distancing during flights. United and Spirit airlines have also rolled back those policies, despite evidence that they are very effective at reducing transmission risk. Delta and Southwest, by contrast, have said they will continue blocking seats until at least the end of September.
Continued uncertainty about safety has become an existential threat for individual airlines, and is expected to upend the airline industry as we know it. S&P Global has estimated air travel demand will be down 55% for 2020, and won’t recover until 2024.
Those declines have triggered huge cuts across the industry. One running tally lists more than 20 airline bankruptcies globally so far this year. And major U.S. carriers have been forced to reduce service. Last week, American announced it will cut service to 15 U.S. cities, and has signaled that more cuts could be coming.


fortune--2020-08-24--Here’s how much these tech giants are making in profit per employee

Facebook, Apple, Google parent Alphabet, and Microsoft are the top tech companies as measured by the profit-per-employee, or PPE, metric.
That’s according to recent research from financial tech company Tipalti, which analyzed data from the Fortune 500 list to determine how much money companies are making per employee. Companies calculate profits per employees by dividing their net income by the number of their full-time employees.
As you would expect, the most profitable companies like Facebook and Apple, have the highest profits per employees. Facebook’s PPE, for instance, is a whopping $411,308, while Apple’s PPE comes in slightly less at $403,328.
Meanwhile, Alphabet’s PPE is $288,842 followed by tech peer Microsoft, which has a PPE of $272,500.
These are the top tech companies with the largest PPE, based on the research:
Data via Tipalti
However, not every tech company is flush with profits. The research also revealed the top three companies that are losing the most money per each employee.
It should come to no surprise that Uber, which has always been unprofitable, tops the list with a PPE of negative $316,208.
Data via Tipalti
A full list of companies, along with their profits and losses, can be seen here.


fortune--2020-08-24--New York’s AG is investigating whether Trump’s company falsely reported asset valuations to get loan

New York’s AG is investigating whether Trump’s company falsely reported asset valuations to get loans

New York is investigating whether President Donald Trump’s company falsely reported the value of his assets to secure loans and get tax benefits as claimed last year by Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said Monday that she’s suing to enforce seven subpoenas seeking thousands of documents and testimony from multiple witnesses. They include Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, who refused to show up for a subpoena interview, she said.
The investigation is looking into transactions involving a Trump skyscraper in Manhattan called 40 Wall Street, as well as the president’s highrise hotel in Chicago and a Los Angeles golf club. James said a particular focus of the investigation is an obscure property called Seven Springs on 212 acres outside New York City.
Cohen triggered the probe after he handed Congress a series of Trump financial records from 2011 to 2013, New York said in a filing in state court in Manhattan. The investigation is looking into whether Trump inflated the value of assets to secure favorable terms for loans and insurance, as well as whether he devalued other assets to avoid taxes, according to the filing.
The suit also names a Trump lawyer, tax attorney Sheri Dillon. She didn’t respond to emails or calls seeking comment.
Read More: Trump Challenge to New York Tax Subpoena Is Tossed by Judge
James “has not concluded its investigation and has not reached a determination regarding whether the facts identified to date establish violations of any applicable laws,” her office said in one of the court filings.
Trump attorney Alan Garten said in an email that the complaint is “simply a discovery dispute over documents and the like.”
“As the motion papers clearly state, the NYAG has made no determination that anything was improper or that any action is forthcoming,” Garten said. “We will respond to this motion as appropriate.”
The White House didn’t comment.
The dispute comes as Trump is fighting subpoenas for his tax records and financial documents in a separate grand jury investigation led by the Manhattan district attorney.
In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Trump’s claim to be immune from state investigations while in office. A judge last week threw out the president’s lawsuit to block the subpoenas on the grounds that they were too broad. District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. has signaled that his probe goes beyond the hush payments to a porn actress that triggered the investigation.
Read More: Trump Pays $2 Million to Charities Over 2016 Foundation Misuse
In the attorney general’s case, the Trump Organization has claimed for months to be cooperating while refusing to produce documents on invalid grounds, James said in a press release Monday.
New York said in the court filing that one area of focus is valuations of the Seven Springs property in Bedford, New Castle and North Castle in Westchester County. James says the valuations were apparently used to claim about $21.1 million in tax deductions for donating a conservation easement for the 2015 tax year.
The disputed subpoenas have been met with “various unfounded and overbroad privilege assertions,” according to the court filing. Some of the Trump Organization’s claims relate to attorney-client privilege, though New York argues they don’t apply.
Eric Trump is president of Seven Springs LLC, according to the filing.
“Eric Trump’s categorical refusal to appear is unlawful, and he should be compelled to testify,” James said in the court filing.(Updates with comment from Trump Organization lawyer)
–With assistance from Jordan Fabian.


fortune--2020-08-24--As states mull expanding vote by mail, they’re turning to Oregon for advice

Subscribe to How To Reopen, our weekly newsletter on what it takes to reboot business in the midst of a pandemic.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Running an election by mail is a major undertaking, involving the U.S. Postal Service, armies of volunteers and even librarians.
But for election officials and voters in Oregon — which pioneered all vote-by-mail 20 years ago — there’s no turning back to the old way of having people cast ballots at neighborhood polling places.
They cite its convenience and security. Democrats and Republicans alike dismiss President Donald Trump’s attacks on vote-by-mail as a vehicle for fraud.
“He’s afraid to count the votes of the people,” said Bill Bradbury, a Democrat who was secretary of state during Oregon’s first all vote-by-mail election.
Since Oregon took the plunge, Colorado, Hawaii, Utah and Washington state have followed. Other states are edging toward it, at least this year, amid concerns that forcing voters to polling places will reduce turnout and expose them to the coronavirus.
Bruce Hipple, who owns a shoe store in Salem, said he doesn’t miss voting at a precinct and thinks the system is working fine. He noted that people have the convenience of using the mail or drop boxes and don’t need to congregate at polling places, a potentially dangerous proposition during the virus outbreak.
“I wish the rest of the country would do it the same,” he said.
State Elections Director Steve Trout said officials from around 30 states have asked him for advice about expanding mail-in voting. He says it’s important to establish a relationship with the U.S. Postal Service.
Trump’s attempts to deprive the Postal Service of more money to make it harder to process mail-in ballots has created uneasiness in Oregon, although election managers say postal officials have reassured them.
Postal workers expedite millions of ballots to voters and then bring completed ones to county election offices, where they are tracked using bar codes. On Election Day, local election officers have even gone to post offices to help watch for late-arriving ballots.
“Fortunately, Oregon has over two decades of experience working with our local partners at USPS and has an excellent working relationship with them to ensure ongoing support for our elections,” said Secretary of State Bev Clarno, the state’s highest-ranking Republican.
The state has numerous safeguards to try to prevent fraud.
Each signed ballot is examined by workers at county election offices to ensure that voter signatures match the digital versions on file. Each ballot return envelope contains a unique bar code that cannot be duplicated to make sure voters can return just one ballot, Clarno said.
Her spokeswoman, Laura Fosmire, cited statistics indicating that fraud is negligible. After the 2016 general election, 54 cases were referred to law enforcement for possible prosecution. In less than half those cases, 22, people were found guilty of voting in two states. That accounted for far less than 1% of ballots cast.
Still, the president’s attacks on mail-in voting — a practice he also uses — have some people wondering if the process could be made even more secure.
Shelby Babcock, 26, lives in the tiny town of Hines in sparsely populated eastern Oregon, a Republican bastion in the Democratic-leaning state. She likes voting by mail because it means she doesn’t have to take time off from her job as a cook to stand in line at a polling station and just has to walk five minutes from her home to the post office.
She thinks having a fingerprint verification might tighten security of the ballots even more.
“I have to put my thumbprint every time I have to cash my check at the bank,” Babcock said. “They’re doing that for money, so why aren’t they doing that for votes?”
Babcock voted for Trump in 2016 but is undecided this year..
Vote-by-mail existed for several years in Oregon for special and local elections before voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure in 1998 to expand the system to primaries and general elections.
Once they receive their ballots and fill them out, voters have the option of returning them by mail (the postage is pre-paid beginning this year), dropping them at official ballot drop boxes or returning them to their county elections office.
Before this year, an average of only 35% of ballots were returned by mail, with the rest deposited in drop boxes or taken straight to election offices. In Multnomah County, drop boxes are placed next to a McDonald’s drive-thru, at a plumbing supply store, other businesses and at libraries.
When the pandemic forced the county’s 19 libraries to close during the state’s primary, librarians and election officials allowed voters to return ballots through the outdoor slots where people return books. Deputized librarians then separate the ballots from the books.
“That’s one of those innovations that came about because of the pandemic, but we’re keeping it because it was such a big boost for access to voters,” said Multnomah County Elections Director Tim Scott.
Election officials here believe other states can do similar pivots so they can offer voting by mail — noting that all states already have absentee voting in some form.
“Yes, they can do it, because we’ve already paved the way to do it,” said Bill Burgess, the chief elections official for the county that includes Salem, the state capital. “Is it going to take more time and resources to gear up to it? Yes.”


fortune--2020-08-24--Number of states allowing to-go cocktails has surged from 2 to 33 during coronavirus

The coronavirus is shaking up America’s liquor laws.
At least 33 states and the District of Columbia are temporarily allowing cocktails to-go during the pandemic. Only two — Florida and Mississippi — allowed them on a limited basis before coronavirus struck, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.
Struggling restaurants say it’s a lifeline, letting them rehire bartenders, pay rent and reestablish relationships with customers. But others want states to slow down, saying the decades-old laws help ensure public safety.
Julia Momose closed Kumiko, her Japanese-style cocktail bar in Chicago, on March 16. The next day, Illinois allowed bars and restaurants to start selling unopened bottles of beer, wine and liquor, but mixed drinks were excluded.
Momose spent the next three months collecting petition signatures and pressing lawmakers to allow carryout cocktails. It worked. On June 17, she poured her first to-go drink: a Seaflower, made with gin, vermouth, Japanese citrus fruit and fermented chili paste. A carryout bottle, which serves two, costs $32.
Momose has been able to hire back four of her furloughed employees. A group she co-founded, Cocktails for Hope, is now helping restaurants buy glass bottles in bulk for carryout.
“Part of getting cocktails to go approved was embracing the fact that this isn’t going to fix everything, but it is going to fix something,” Momose said. “All these little things that we do will keep us open and keep our staff employed.”
U.S. liquor laws — many of which date to the end of Prohibition in 1933 —are a confusing jumble that vary by state, city and county.
Carryout cocktail regulations — which were passed starting in March — only deepen that confusion. Lawmakers approved carryout cocktails in some states; governors approved them in others. Nevada passed no statewide measure, but individual cities like Las Vegas and Reno allow them. In Pennsylvania, only restaurants and bars that lost 25% of average monthly total sales can sell cocktails to go.
Most carryout cocktail regulations require customers to buy food with their mixed drinks. Lids or seals are generally required, but some states say drinks also need to be transported in the trunk. Marbet Lewis, a founding partner at Spiritus Law in Miami who specializes in the alcohol industry, says IDs should be checked — online or in person — by restaurants and bars as well as by delivery drivers.
Some states, like Arizona, allow third party delivery companies like DoorDash to deliver cocktails; Kansas only allows delivery within a 50-foot radius.
The laws also have different sunset dates. Alabama is only allowing carryout cocktails through Sept. 15, while Colorado and Massachusetts have extended them into next year. Michigan is allowing them through 2025.
Last month, Iowa became the first state to permanently allow carryout and delivery of cocktails. Lawmakers in Ohio and Oklahoma are considering a similar measure, and the governors of Texas and Florida have expressed support for the change.
There is overwhelming public support for making cocktails to go permanent, says Mike Whatley, vice president of state and local affairs for the National Restaurant Association. Between 75% and 80% of respondents have said they support carryout cocktails in numerous state polls, Whatley said.
U.S. restaurants and bars have lost an estimated $165 billion since March due to lockdowns and social distancing requirements, the association said. In a May survey of 3,800 restaurants, the association found that 78% of operators who were selling alcohol to go had brought back laid-off employees, compared to 62% of operators overall.
But some are urging states not to be too hasty. Mothers Against Drunk Driving worries that permanent carryout cocktails will lead to an increase in drunken driving unless laws make clear that the drinks can’t be consumed until the buyer is in a safe location.
The U.S. government hasn’t released preliminary drunk driving data for 2020. But Jonathan Adkins, the executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, said there’s no anecdotal evidence that drunk driving has spiked during the pandemic.
Patrick Maroney, a former liquor control officer in Colorado who is now a consultant, said carryout beer and wine — which was allowed in around 15 states prior to the pandemic — are different from cocktails because the containers are sealed by the manufacturer and the alcohol content is lower. Cocktails are mixed at the bar, so the alcohol content can vary and they may not be properly sealed, he said.
Maroney said states need to make sure police and health officials are consulted before changing laws that have worked for decades. He noted that California reported a spike in reports of alcohol delivery to minors in April.
“Are law enforcement officials worried about an ‘open air’ type atmosphere?” he said. “Is the law restricted to at-home consumption? How do they enforce it?”
Even before the coronavirus hit, there was a push to modernize alcohol laws to reflect the growing popularity of food delivery, Lewis said. She thinks lawmakers will have a hard time reinstating bans on carryout cocktails once the pandemic eases.
“Once you get the genie out of the bottle and there hasn’t been a problem, how do you get it back in?” she said.
Still, restaurant and bar owners say they’re not worried that patrons will get so used to carryout that they’ll stop going out even after the coronavirus has passed.
“I think that people are social. People enjoy the bar experience and like being waited on,” said Dave Kwiatkowski, who owns the Sugar House cocktail bar in Detroit, which closed March 15 but was able to reopen July 10 for carryout service.
Kwiatkowski normally employs a staff of 16. For now, it’s just him at the door and a bartender making drinks.
“It’s enough to pay the electricity and the insurance, and it’s nice to give at least a couple of people some jobs,” he said.
Kwiatkowski does wonder how he’ll handle carryout demand once the pandemic has ended and there’s a crowd in the bar on a Saturday night. But that will be a good problem to have, he said. He wants carryout cocktails to be permanently legalized.
“I think this is probably going to change how we do business forever,” he said.


fortune--2020-08-24--Why an Amazon and Airbnb vet joined a digital health company that wants to slash drug prices

Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.
Geoffrey and Matt Chaiken have an ambitious plan to lower the price that consumers have to pay for their prescription drugs. And they’ve enlisted the help of a prominent player who’s both an Amazon and Airbnb veteran to help achieve their mission through his knowledge of the interplay between consumers and technology: Vinayak Hegde is now the COO and president of the Chaiken brothers’ company, Blink Health.
While Blink made their announcement about Hegde’s appointment earlier this month, this is the first time that Geoffrey Chaiken, and Hegde himself, have spoken with a media organization.
The prescription drug business is pretty bizarre. It’s a maze of supply chain components that are largely obscure, and the consumer doesn’t really know what they’ll have to pay. Out of pocket costs depend on your insurance, and on the various middlemen—including pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs), pharmacies themselves, drug distribution companies, and all sorts of other players—which have the ability to hike up prices. The grand irony being that they all blame each other for, well, who’s to blame.
What Blink Health set out to do, as Fortune has previously reported, is bypass the middlemen who make drugs more expensive. But in the past few years, they’ve changed strategies, Hegde and Chaiken tell Fortune, including by leveraging the large market of Americans who have health insurance. In essence, what they’re striving for is to scale a business model—with a relatively limited audience—that the company claims can cut prescription drug costs by as much as 80 percent.
“I think I can make a difference to expand health care to a massive amount of people,” says Hegde. “And they are set up in a place where we can actually make that set scale in terms of like, you know, helping patients who have insurance and helping patients who don’t have insurance dramatically make a difference to their outcome.”
It’s no secret that prescription drug costs in the U.S. are among the highest in the world. Politicians ranging from President Donald Trump to former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to current Democratic nominee Joe Biden have all vowed to take action that will lower the out-of-pocket costs paid by Americans for their prescriptions. Some proposals, such as both Trump’s and Biden’s recommendations that programs like Medicare have the power to directly negotiate the price of drugs, have been more aggressive than others. But none have actually been enacted.
Hegde has had an interesting transformation over the course of his career. A 12-year veteran of Amazon, and a technology professional at heart, he eventually went into the marketing side of business. He was one of the head honchos for Groupon’s marketing group. At Airbnb, he was the chief marketing officer for the global homes business and tasked as a VP of growth for the entire company.
What this adds up to is: Hegde is a pupil of the school of supply and demand, and the way in which certain regions have very specific needs—and, most significantly for Blink, the ability to scale. When it comes to prescription drugs, that’s a critical skill.
“Six days after I joined Amazon, an analyst from Lehman Brothers said, like, Amazon will run out of money and die,” says Hegde. “So I spent one and a half years at Amazon doing a bunch of things such as launching the third party business in the U.K. and Germany, launching payment systems, allowing people to use their bank accounts.” He then continued to build out strategies for turning Amazon’s original functions as a provider of a catalog of goods into a more comprehensive web services provider linked to those very goods.
Such systems may seem commonplace today within e-commerce, but they form the very backbone of digital health companies. Turning an industry like prescription health care, which has historically been an in-person service system at, say, your local pharmacy, into a scaleable but convenient business takes knowledge of technology, logistics, and marketing.
“When you have such a huge market, the obvious question is, you know, like why hasn’t this been cracked?” says Chaiken. “And the basic reason for that is that it’s an incredibly complicated problem to solve. And the problem I’m talking about solving is getting patients the lowest price on their prescriptions and giving them control and agency over their prescription so they can control where it’s built.”
While Blink began by catering to those who didn’t have insurance, or didn’t want to use insurance in order to purchase drugs, the new plan—and part of what Hegde was hired to propel—is expanding into a network of insured patients. It boils down to this: The nexus of e-commerce and direct delivery of both generic and branded medications could significantly cut costs for American patients—if they can crack the code.


fortune--2020-08-24--This product kills COVID for 7 days—and just got EPA approval for some American Airlines planes

The Trump administration on Monday gave American Airlines Group Inc. emergency approval to deploy a new weapon against Covid-19: a surface coating that kills coronaviruses for as many as seven days.
The Environmental Protection Agency issued the emergency declaration for Allied BioScience Inc.’s SurfaceWise2 product, allowing it to be used in some American Airlines planes and airport facilities, as well as two Texas locations of Total Orthopedics Sports & Spine. All three companies are based in Texas, which sought the exemption.
“This is a major, game-changing announcement for our efforts to combat coronavirus and Covid-19,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told reporters on a conference call. “This is a groundbreaking step that is expected to provide a longer-lasting protection in public spaces, increasing consumer confidence in resuming normal air travel and other activities.”
The move comes as the Trump administration seeks to propel emerging treatments and protections against the coronavirus, and as several companies race to deliver an effective, safe vaccine. On Sunday, President Donald Trump announced the administration was authorizing the use of a blood-plasma treatment for Covid-19.
The emergency approval could help restore public confidence in flying amid the coronavirus pandemic. Airlines have used a variety of products and measures to clean aircraft and help convince consumers it’s safe to fly, but the industry is still suffering from the demand collapse that began in April as Covid-19 spread and governments imposed travel restrictions. Air traffic remains less than 30% of where it was a year ago, based on passenger screenings by the Transportation Security Administration at U.S. airports.
The EPA issued the emergency exemption to Texas under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act. Wheeler said he expects other states to seek their own exemptions, potentially opening up the product’s use in other airlines, schools and other facilities. Allied BioScience is already pursuing a broader EPA approval to allow widespread use of the disinfectant.
SurfaceWise2 works by binding to surfaces and continuing to kill the viruses and bacteria that land on it, including the virus that causes Covid-19, said Maha El-Sayed, chief science officer for Allied BioScience.
American Airlines will swiftly begin electrostatically spraying the product across its fleet, including, eventually its regional aircraft, though it is limited to applying the disinfectant in the state of Texas under the current EPA authorization.
Chief Operating Officer David Seymour said American Airlines needs to spray more than 1,000 aircraft — including some planes that don’t typically stop in the state. As a result, the company plans to work with other states to seek emergency exemptions allowing SurfaceWise2’s use within their borders, he said.
“What we really like about SurfaceWise is it provides a continuous protection versus most electrostatic products that provide momentary cleaning,” Seymour said.
The EPA’s exemptions can only be offered in response to applications from states and other federal agencies, Wheeler said. And for now, as the EPA hasn’t granted a blanket authorization, the agency needs to vet proposed uses on a surface-by-surface basis.
–With assistance from Mary Schlangenstein.


fortune--2020-08-24--As a new school year begins, Zoom endures a 4-hour outage

The timing couldn’t have been worse.
On a day when white-collar workers returned to work and school-age children logged on for a new, virtual school year, Zoom—the popular videoconferencing software—experienced a service outage that has since been resolved. (You can see the operational status of the cloud-based tool here.)
“We have resolved the issue causing users to be unable to start and join Zoom Meetings and Webinars,” the San Jose company wrote at 9:37 a.m. PT. “Users are now also able to sign up for paid accounts, upgrade, and manage their service on the Zoom website. We are currently monitoring to ensure that these services are operational.”
Reports of issues with Zoom began before 6 a.m. PT, 9 a.m. ET—prime time for users on the U.S. East Coast. People were unable to visit the company’s website at Zoom.us and unable to start and join virtual meetings and webinars.
The company’s engineers identified the problem within an hour and began deploying a fix within two. In all, the service was down for about three hours.
But that’s a long time for thousands of school-age children—let alone their instructors—to stay focused.
“First Day of School for Thousands and Zoom Gets Glitchy,” screamed one Associated Press headline.
“Triad schools respond to nationwide Zoom outage,” read another from local North Carolina news outlet WFMY.
“Zoom outage kicks metro Atlanta students offline on first day of school,” states a third from CBS 46, a Georgia broadcast channel.
As the novel coronavirus pandemic set in earlier this year, many parents and instructors alike fretted that the virtual experience would stunt children’s emotional and social growth and force a complete rethink of the American education system.
“All across the world, students and parents are involved in a vast cyber-education experiment,” writes Lizzie Widdicombe in a prescient New Yorker item from April titled “The Great Zoom-School Experiment.” It’s a project not without substantial consternation, she adds: “Day-care centers were doing sing-alongs and circle time via video chat. Parents were moonlighting as technical assistants and home-school instructors. (Many were Tweeting bleak updates: ‘All control has been lost. Please send help’; ‘Fed the math homework to the dog myself’; ‘Day 6(?) of #homeschooling and the four year old has started saying “yes, master” to my every instruction.’)”
All are concerns worthy of consideration, of course. But they’re moot if school is suddenly unavailable and offline.
For Zoom’s part, the fast-growing company—its stock started the year trading at $70 and is now hovering near $300, valuing it at more than $79 billion, or almost twice as much as automaker General Motors—has been plowing resources and attention into network capacity and security.
But there’s nothing like a first day of school.
“We were humbled by the accelerated adoption of the Zoom platform around the globe in Q1,” the company’s chief executive, Eric Yuan, said following the company’s latest earnings report in June. “The COVID-19 crisis has driven higher demand for distributed, face-to-face interactions and collaboration using Zoom.”


fortune--2020-08-24--The biggest threat to mail-in voting isn’t security—it’s politics

Mail-in voting works. Despite it having been characterized by President Trump as being “fraudulent” and “corrupt” there is no evidence to support those allegations—nor has the President offered any.
Thirty-four states permit mail-in voting, including six swing states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. All six of those states allow absentee ballot voting or mail-in voting without providing any reason for voting by mail. Five states do their elections almost entirely by mail, including Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington, and they have reported very little fraud.
According to the federal Election Assistance Commission, approximately 25% of the votes in the 2018 national and state elections were cast via mail-in votes. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, this number can certainly be expected to increase, as this spring’s primaries have indicated.
Mail-in ballots are not perfect. Some have been rejected for a number of reasons, including having been received by election officials late and voters failing to sign them. However, there is no evidence whatsoever to support the President’s allegations that mail-in voting is “fraudulent in many cases.”
Despite his criticism of mail-in voting in general, the President did tout the mail-in voting system of Florida, which he attributed to that state’s Republican leadership, He went on to say that “Florida is different from other states,” which is puzzling because Florida operates mail-in voting in the same manner as the other 33 states, without requiring a reason for voting by mail.
Delays will occur with processing mail-in ballots. Delays, however, do not mean that the system is fraudulent. Quite the contrary, the delays help ensure legitimacy of the votes. Unfortunately, Congressional Republicans have resisted attempts to provide additional needed funds to the states to help strengthen the mail-in voting process.
The President has continued railing against mail-in voting, calling it “ a great embarrassment to our country,” “fraudulent” and “corrupt,” and creating the perception that this proven safe and secure method of voting could be suspect. This behavior isn’t surprising—in fact, it’s part of a pattern. A disgruntled President Trump who lost the popular vote in the 2016 election by approximately 3 million votes established a panel to investigate election fraud in the 2016 presidential election, and then dissolved the panel in 2018 when its preliminary investigation indicated no significant fraud.
A key factor in the efficiency of mail-in voting is the efficiency of the U.S. Postal Service. Rather than gearing up to deal with increased volume of precious votes, the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, whose primary qualification for the job appears to be having contributed more than $1.5 million to President Trump’s campaigns, has taken steps to slow down mail processing by banning necessary overtime, which DeJoy nonsensically defended as intended to “improve operational efficiency.”
A July 10th directive from the postmaster general disturbingly states, “One aspect of these changes that may be difficult for employees is that—temporarily—we may see mail left behind or on the workroom floors or docks.”
Mark Dimondstein, the president of the American Postal Workers Union, noted in response, “Anything that slows down the mail could have a negative impact on everything we do, including vote by mail.”
According to Kristen Clarke, the president of the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the capability of the Postal Service “to timely deliver and return absentee ballots and their work to postmark those ballots will literally determine whether or not voters are disenfranchised during the pandemic.”
Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans have blocked funding for the Post Office necessary to insure efficient mail-in voting. At the end of last week, some glimmers of hope emerged: In response to intense public pressure, the postmaster general agreed to suspend his cost-cutting measures including those eliminating overtime pay until after the election. And the House, with some Republican votes joining the Democratic majority, passed $25 billion in emergency spending to support the post office—although the president immediately greeted that bill with a veto threat.
Mail-in voting has demonstrated success when President Trump and his party are not actively working to undermine the process. During a pandemic, requiring voters to weigh exercising their civic duty to vote against concerns for their own personal health is an obstacle of the Trump camp’s creation and design.
Steve Weisman is a senior lecturer in law, taxation and financial planning at Bentley University. He is also the author and creator of www.scamicide.com.


fortune--2020-08-24--34% of would-be parents say they may have children sooner because of COVID-19

For parents, the coronavirus has forced into upheaval everything from childcare to work to their kids’ education. For would-be parents, the pandemic has changed nearly as much.
The coronavirus crisis has led 34% of people to plan to have children sooner than they would have otherwise, according to a Fortune-Civis Analytics survey. The poll surveyed 7,000 U.S. adults, including 1,700 who identified as “would-be parents,” between mid-July and mid-August.
The Brookings Institute has predicted that births will decline by 300,000 to 500,000 in 2021—a model based on fertility behavior during both the 1918 Spanish Flu and the more recent Great Recession. But in yet another indication that the COVID-19 crisis is unique from past challenges, Fortune‘s survey results indicate that the outcome of the pandemic could be entirely different.
The survey didn’t delve into why people are moving up their family-planning timelines. One couple, however, told the Wall Street Journal that spending more time at home led them to appreciate the kind of lifestyle that would come with raising young children; others struggling with fertility said they didn’t want to risk losing out on time they need to get pregnant.
But the pandemic has also caused 22% of people planning to have children to delay their timelines for pregnancy or adoption, according to the Fortune survey. The most common reason people cited for delaying the expansion of their families is directly related to the virus itself: 47% cite COVID-19 health concerns. The next-most common reason comes from the pandemic’s associated economic crisis: 26% mention financial insecurity as a factor affecting their family plans. Sixteen percent say pandemic-imposed restrictions at hospitals and doctors’ offices are discouraging them from moving forward.
Respondents to Fortune‘s survey included would-be parents making plans for their first child and parents weighing whether to have more kids. The respondents didn’t identify how they had planned to have children before deciding to wait, but the crisis has put a hold on everything from international adoptions, stalled by closed borders, to in-vitro fertilization, with procedures considered nonessential hard to come by. (Clinics have begun to reopen for fertility procedures, but barriers remain.)


fortune--2020-08-24--Tropical Storm Laura, not yet a hurricane, threatens coastal Texas and Louisiana

Tropical Storm Laura, currently a few miles south of Cuba, is expected to make landfall in Louisiana and Texas late Wednesday night, bringing flooding rainfall and potential hurricane danger to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Heavy rain and strong winds are already on tap for Cuba, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands, according to meteorologists. By early Tuesday, Laura is expected to enter the Gulf of Mexico, where conditions could allow the storm to “strengthen significantly” into a proper hurricane, according to the Weather Channel.
A tropical storm is has maximum sustained surface winds between 39 mp.h. and 73 m.p.h. It becomes a hurricane once those winds reach 74 m.p.h.
An Aug. 24, 2020 forecast for Tropical Storm Laura from the National Hurricane Center. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
How bad could the damage be? It’s too early to tell, experts say. (Here’s the National Hurricane Center’s page for Laura, where you can track the storm’s progress.)
The center of the storm is currently forecast to make landfall near Lake Charles, La., about 140 miles east of Houston and 200 miles west of New Orleans. (Both of those cities are low-lying and prone to flooding, though neither is currently in the storm’s path.)


fortune--2020-08-24--Three more women have died from cancer linked to Allergan’s recalled breast implants, FDA says

Three more women have died from a cancer associated with certain kinds of breast implants—all within a six-month period starting just weeks before those implants were recalled.
At least 36 women have now died of a cancer known as BIA-ALCL, for “breast implant–associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma,” according to data the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released last week. The disease, which is not a breast cancer, has been linked in academic studies to a “textured” type of breast implants made by several manufacturers, and has especially affected patients with implants made by Allergan.
In July 2019, after at least 33 women had died from BIA-ALCL, Allergan complied with an FDA request to voluntarily recall its textured implants. But the disease associated with those implants continued to claim lives, as I reported in a Fortune investigation earlier this year.
The three new fatalities from BIA-ALCL were all women who had Allergan implants, and whose deaths were reported in a six-month period starting just before the recall, according to the FDA. A spokesperson for Allergan, which pharmaceutical company AbbVie bought in May, did not respond to requests for comment.
It’s possible that the current death toll from BIA-ALCL is even higher than 36. The new data made public by the FDA is only current as of early January, and is based on medical device reports the agency received in the second half of last year. An FDA spokesperson did not provide an explanation for the lag in publishing that data, although the agency has of course spent most of this year responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
At least one woman who had received Allergan implants, 68-year-old Missouri resident Paulette Parr, was hospitalized with BIA-ALCL at the time of the recall and died less than a month later, as I reported in May. But at the time that story was published, ten months after her death, the FDA had not yet updated its public data to officially include Parr in its count of BIA-ALCL fatalities.
The agency now seems to have recorded her death. While the FDA did not disclose the identities of the three women it has added to its count of BIA-ALCL fatalities, it says that one woman died in the United States; the two other deaths were recorded outside of the United States.
David Randolph Smith, a lawyer who represents Paulette Parr’s widower, acknowledged the FDA’s apparent recognition of Parr’s death and said he is “actively pursuing” Calvin Parr’s wrongful-death lawsuit against Allergan. The case is part of a slew of implant-related lawsuits Allergan is facing, many of which have been consolidated into multi-district litigation in the U.S. District of New Jersey. Allergan this month filed a motion asking the court to have the litigation dismissed on the grounds of federal preemption, a legal argument that individual lawsuits can’t be filed over medical devices the FDA has already approved.
The FDA also recorded 160 new cases of BIA-ALCL in the six months ending early January, including 139 cases linked to Allergan implants. More than 733 women worldwide have now developed the disease, including 620 with Allergan implants and 384 women in the United States, according to the FDA’s new data. (That still lags the more up-to-date count kept by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, which recognizes 953 global cases of BIA-ALCL as of July 21.)
Breast implants made by other manufacturers, including Johnson & Johnson and Sientra, have also been linked to some cases of BIA-ALCL. But the overwhelming majority of cases have been traced back to Allergan, which first started warning investors about the potential impact of the disease on its business in 2011.
All three manufacturers have received warning letters from the FDA over their breast-implant operations. In the wake of Fortune‘s reporting this spring, the FDA sent Allergan one such warning over the manufacturer’s “unacceptable” failure to study the long-term health impact of its implants. The agency also asked Allergan to make more of an effort to locate and warn tens of thousands of women that they might be affected by the recall of their breast implants.
The FDA is currently working with the manufacturers “to assess corrective actions to the issues cited in the warning letters,” an agency spokesperson said Monday by email, adding that the FDA “will continue to hold manufacturers accountable if they fail to fulfill their obligations.”
In another sign that regulators are paying more attention to the risks of breast implants, the FDA last week also recognized almost 2,500 new cases of “breast implant illness,” or BII, a large collection of symptoms that does not have an official diagnosis but which can include joint pain, memory loss, and chronic fatigue. Earlier this month, the celebrity Ashley Tisdale cited some of these symptoms when publicly discussing her decision to have her breast implants removed.
While women with breast implants have widely complained about these symptoms for years, doctors and regulators now appear to be taking these complaints more seriously. The FDA said last week that it had received those 2,500 reports of BII symptoms between November 2018 and October 2019. That more than doubles the 1,080 reports of BII symptoms the agency says it received over the previous decade.
“While the FDA doesn’t have definitive evidence demonstrating breast implants cause these symptoms, the current evidence supports that some patients experience systemic symptoms that may resolve when their breast implants are removed,” the agency said in its press release.


fortune--2020-08-24--In an ominous turn, U.S. debt is on track to soar past World War II levels

In 1946, President Harry Truman confronted an economic downturn and a whopping bill for the Second World War. The country’s debt level stood at 119% of GDP—meaning the U.S. owed more than its total annual economic output.
This year, as a result of massive federal spending and the economic toll of the coronavirus, the ratio of debt to GDP is even higher. According to research from The Balance, that ratio will reach 136% by the end of the third quarter.
The figure is a source of concern because interest payments on that debt could eventually crowd out other national priorities such as health or defense.
The new 136% figure reflects an acceleration of a trend that has been taking place since 1979 when the U.S. debt-to-GDP stood at 31%. While debt levels dipped between 1995 and 2005, figures from the St. Louis Federal Reserve show the overall trend has been steadily upwards:
US debt-to-GDP levels since 1966
The current fiscal situation raises the question of whether the U.S. economy will be able to replicate its performance of the years following World War II when debt levels shrunk rapidly thanks to rapid growth.
Unfortunately, that scenario is unlikely since most economists believe 1950s style growth rates, which averaged over 4%, are not achievable, in part because of the country’s changed demographics. Compared to the post-war era, the U.S. population is significantly older, meaning there is a smaller share of younger workers to help drive the economy.
In the absence of strong growth, the U.S. will likely to have to rely on cutting spending in order to prevent its debt levels from becoming unmanageable.
In the short term, though, spending cuts are unlikely as the U.S. seeks to protect the country and the economy from the ravages of the coronavirus. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, one expert likened the fight against COVID to what the U.S. faced during World War II.
“The war analogy is exactly the right one. We were and are fighting a war. It’s a virus, not a foreign power, but the level of spending isn’t the problem,” Glenn Hubbard, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, told the Journal.


fortune--2020-08-24--TikTok is suing the U.S. over Trump administration ban

TikTok said it is asking a judge to block the Trump administration from enacting a ban on the social media network, bringing a geopolitical fight over technology and trade into a U.S. courtroom in the run-up to the presidential election.
TikTok said in a blog post Monday that its Chinese parent, ByteDance Ltd., is challenging an Aug. 6 order from President Donald Trump prohibiting U.S. residents from doing business with TikTok under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The order doesn’t take effect for weeks, but it escalated tensions as the U.S. declared Chinese businesses a security risk and Beijing assailed the administration as targeting China to score political points. TikTok argues it poses no security threat.
The White House issued a second order Aug. 14 under a separate national security law that would force ByteDance to sell its U.S. assets. The suit sidesteps the second order. That order is based on an investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. Decisions by the interagency panel, which is led by the Treasury Department, are all but impossible to overturn in court.
The Justice Department declined to comment on TikTok’s challenge.
The suit comes as Trump steps up his campaign against China, betting it will help him win November’s election despite upsetting millions of younger TikTok users. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has urged American companies to bar Chinese applications from their app stores, part of his “Clean Network” guidance designed to prevent authorities in China from accessing the personal data of U.S. citizens.
The outcome will also have implications for an increasingly interconnected global economy. Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp. are among those already showing interest in buying TikTok.
The challenge faces an uphill fight, according to James Dempsey, executive director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley. Courts don’t generally review the president’s determinations on questions of national security, Dempsey said before the case was filed.
But the company may be successful with a due process argument “that focuses not on the president’s ultimate decision but on the company’s lack of an opportunity to respond to the evidence against it,” Dempsey said. “A First Amendment challenge is also possible, but TikTok will have to establish that it has a First Amendment right to be on the phones of Americans or that TikTok is a publisher, separate from the First Amendment rights of its users.”
Trump has threatened penalties on any U.S. resident or company that conducts transactions with TikTok or WeChat, a popular Chinese messaging app, saying that having Americans’ personal data exposed to China creates a national security risk. The apps could get bumped off Apple Inc. and Google’s app stores.
While the order blocks all transactions involving the WeChat app, it doesn’t amount to a broader ban on dealings with its owner, Tencent Holdings Ltd., according to a U.S. official. Still, Tencent’s U.S.-listed shares fell 7.4% in the immediate response to Trump’s Aug. 6 decree.
On Friday, a group of WeChat users sued in a San Francisco federal court saying Trump’s ban on the messaging app violated their right of free speech and due process rights because it doesn’t provide notice of the specific conduct that’s prohibited.
“This executive order risks undermining global businesses’ trust in the United States’ commitment to the rule of law, which has served as a magnet for investment and spurred decades of American economic growth,” TikTok said in a statement hours after Trump’s order. “And it sets a dangerous precedent for the concept of free expression and open markets.”
–With assistance from Shelly Banjo, Sara Forden, Kurt Wagner, David McLaughlin and Jordan Fabian.


fortune--2020-08-24--Berlin Film Festival will make acting prizes gender neutral next year

The organizers of the Berlin International Film Festival say they will stop awarding separate acting prizes to women and men beginning next year.
Berlinale organizers said Monday the performance awards will be defined in a gender-neutral way at next year’s festival, for which a physical event is planned.
The festival awards a Golden Bear for the best film and a series of Silver Bears, which until this year included best actor and best actress honors. Organizers said those prizes will be replaced with a Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance and a Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance.
In a statement, the co-heads of the festival, Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, said “not separating the awards in the acting field according to gender comprises a signal for a more gender-sensitive awareness in the film industry.”
At the same time, the Alfred Bauer Prize, which is named after the festival’s founding director, will be permanently retired. The prize was suspended this year due to revelations about Bauer’s role in the Nazis’ moviemaking bureaucracy.
Commenting on the decision to hold a physical event next year, despite uncertainties due to the coronavirus pandemic, the two directors stressed the need for a “lively relationship with the audience.”
“In times of the corona pandemic, it has become even clearer that we still require analogue experience spaces in the cultural realm,” they said, noting that other festivals have also resumed holding physical rather than virtual events.
The 2021 festival is scheduled for Feb. 11-21. This year’s festival was one of the last major events that took place before the coronavirus pandemic largely shut down public life in Germany.