fortune--2020-08-21--Photos of California’s fires reveal massive destruction across the state

Northern California is fighting off a a series wildfires that have scorched 771,000 acres and continue to threaten parts of the state.
More than 560 fires have started, from Santa Cruz to Napa to Vacaville, mostly caused by what California officials have described as a “historic lightning siege.” A heat wave has exacerbated the problem.
People watch the Walbridge Fire, part of the larger LNU Lightning Complex fire, from a vineyard in Healdsburg, Calif. on Thursday. JOSH EDELSON—AFP/Getty Images
So far, five people have died in the fires and more than 119,000 others have had to evacuate from their homes. Cal Fire, the state’s fire authority, continues to battle the fires, including some of the largest in recent state history. One fire burned through Big Basin State Park, home of redwood trees, some of which are more than 1,000-years old.
An aircraft drops fire retardant on a ridge during the Walbridge fire, part of the larger LNU Lightning Complex fire as flames continue to spread in Healdsburg, Calif., near Napa, on Thursday. JOSH EDELSON—AFP/Getty Images
Air quality across in Northern California continues to be an issue with some areas near Santa Cruz and San Jose reporting some of the world’s worst pollution levels on Friday. And the state is struggling to provide enough firefighters to help contain the blazes. During previous wildfires, California has used state prison inmates who volunteer for reduced sentences and a small amounts of money. But this year, access to those volunteers has dwindled as coronavirus outbreaks in prisons requires many inmates to be quarantined.
A man trying to save a home in Vacaville, Calif., watches as it goes up in flames on Wednesday.. Karl Mondon—MediaNews Group/The Mercury News/Getty Images
Earlier this week, California called for support from surrounding states to fight the fires. Ten have said they would send help.
A resident runs into a home to save a dog while flames are getting close as the Hennessey fire continues to rage out of control near Lake Berryessa, near Napa, earlier this week. JOSH EDELSON—AFP/Getty Images
At a news conference on Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said fires at the SCU Lightening Complex and the LNU Lightening Complex, which have burned nearly 450,000 acres combined, rank as the seventh and tenth largest fires in recent state history. He also said the weekend is expected to bring “monsoon-type weather conditions,” which could complicate matters.
Flames surround Lake Berryessa during the LNU Lightning Complex fire in Napa, California on August 19, 2020. JOSH EDELSON—AFP/Getty Images


fortune--2020-08-21--Apple fires back at Epic Games, saying it sought ‘side’ deal on Fortnite fee

This chipmaker was a winner in the U.S. crackdown on Huawei .
Now , it ’ s another victim

Apple fired back at Epic Games in their fight over the iPhone maker’s app fees, saying the game developer’s boss sought a special “side” deal that would fundamentally upend how the App Store works.
“Having decided that it would rather enjoy the benefits of the App Store without paying for them, Epic has breached its contracts with Apple, using its own customers and Apple’s users as leverage,” Apple said in a court filing Friday.
Epic is set to ask a federal court on Monday to force Apple to restore the Fortnite app to the App Store, and block the company from cutting off Epic’s developer tools and limiting its ability to provide key graphics technology to other apps. Apple is urging a judge in Oakland, Calif., to reject Epic’s request.
The dispute is shaping up into a major antitrust showdown as friction between developers and Apple has been building for more than a year. Developers have been increasingly calling out Apple’s App Store fee policies and rules, complaining they are unfair and only benefit the company’s own services.
Apple has said Epic made trouble for itself by offering customers a way to directly buy items for Fortnite and circumvent the App Store fees. Apple said it won’t bend its rules for Epic.
Epic Chief Executive Officer Tim Sweeney emailed Apple on June 30 seeking to set up its own competing Epic Games Store app through the App Store but was rebuffed, according to Apple’s filing. Despite being told that “Apple has never allowed this,” Epic went ahead and launched its own storefront on Aug. 13, Apple said in its filing.
This is “egregious behavior” prohibited under Apple agreements that “can lead to removal from the Apple Developer Program,” Apple said in its filing.
“Apple has offered Epic the opportunity to cure, to go back to the status quo before Epic installed its ‘hotfix’ that turned into its hot mess, and to be welcomed back into the App Store,” Apple said in its filing. “All of this can happen without any intervention of the Court or expenditure of judicial resources.”
Epic didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Spotify also has been sparring with Apple, and this week news publishers confronted Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook over why they can’t qualify for a discounted fee — 15% — that Amazon.com Inc. gets for its Prime video app.
Match Group Inc., operator of many popular online dating apps, said it’s backing Epic but has stopped short of joining the court fight. “Apple uses its dominant position and unfair policies to hurt consumers, app developers and entrepreneurs,” Match.com said in a statement.
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% for subscriptions after a user signs up for more than a year.


fortune--2020-08-21--Here’s what NASA’s next moon lander may look like

The competition to build the next spacecraft to delivery astronauts to the moon is getting serious. Four months after NASA chose three teams as finalists, one of the teams, led by Jeff Bezos’ rocket company Blue Origin, on Thursday delivered a 40-foot tall mock-up lander to the space agency for testing.
The craft was designed by the team of Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Draper—known as the National Team in the moon-landing competition. The other two teams are Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Alabama rocket maker Dynetics.
Each group received almost $1 billion and 10 months to develop lander designs. Next year, NASA will decide whether to go forward with one or more of the teams in the hopes of returning humans to the moon by 2024 as part of the Artemis program.
The National Team delivered its full-scale engineering mock up to the Johnson Space Center in Houston so that NASA engineers can determine how well it serves the needs of crew members and give feedback to the companies. The full-scale replica allows NASA to see how easily crew members could load and unload supplies and equipment.
“Physically being able to see, interact, and evaluate a full-up lander in person is critical,” Kirk Shireman, vice president of Lunar Campaigns at Lockheed Martin Space, said in a statement. “It will inform our design and requirements earlier in the program allowing us to accelerate our development and meet the 2024 lunar landing goal.”
The design has two main components. One module ferries the crew to the moon’s surface from a larger ship in orbit. It’s based on Blue Origin’s previously announced robotic moon lander for carrying cargo. An additional section launches the crew back into orbit around the moon. That portion is based on Lockheed Martin’s Orion crew capsule that will be used to take humans into space on other missions.
A team including Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin delivered a full-scale mock up of a proposed new moon landing space craft to MASA for testing. Courtesy of Blue Origin
The lander also includes components from the team’s two other partners. Northrup Grumman is contributing designs from its Cygnus spacecraft for parts of the lander that will propel it from orbit to the moon and Draper is designing guidance and avionics systems.
Here are some additional illustrations from the companies of what the moon lander would look like in operation:
The National Team lander as it would appear heading down to land on the moon.
The lunar lander as it would appear docked to a another spacecraft in orbit around the moon.


fortune--2020-08-21--Wells Fargo cuts jobs as the pandemic and penalties for past scandals take their toll

Wells Fargo is resuming layoffs, as the beleaguered bank looks to cut costs to cope with the coronavirus pandemic and long-running regulatory issues that have hampered its growth.
While Wells Fargo pressed pause on job cuts in March amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Bloomberg reports today that the lender proceeded with layoffs earlier this month. The staff reductions are part of a larger cost-cutting initiative, meant to deal not only with the economic impact of the pandemic but with costly regulatory penalties associated with a series of high-profile scandals.
The cuts reportedly could cost thousands of people their jobs. Initial layoffs will affect many employees that the San Francisco–based banking giant had already planned to lay off earlier this year.
“We expect to reduce the size of our workforce through a combination of attrition, the elimination of open roles, and job displacements,” a Wells Fargo spokesperson told Bloomberg. Company executives have also recently floated the likelihood of branch closures and other spending reductions in an effort to save money.
Wells Fargo has set aside billions of dollars to account for loan losses exacerbated by COVID-19’s toll on the U.S. economy. Additionally, the bank is constrained by a $2 trillion asset cap imposed on it by the Federal Reserve. That asset cap serves as punishment for a wide range of misbehavior that emerged at Wells Fargo in the late 2010s, most notably a scandal in which employees opened hundreds of thousands of fake credit card and deposit accounts in customers’ names.
The asset cap has hindered Wells Fargo’s ability to keep up with its competitors among major banks. Most recently, the bank has had to sell hundreds of millions of dollars in assets to stay under that cap even as competitors expanded their corporate lending during the coronavirus crisis.
The latest moves come as Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf looks to conclude a strategic review of the company that he launched upon joining the bank last fall. Already, the bank has been ringing in some changes; CFO John Shrewsberry will depart this fall after 22 years with the company, while chief compliance officer Mike Roemer is leaving his position after only two years in the role.


fortune--2020-08-21--National Association of Theater Owners announces health and safety protocols as movie theaters reope

National Association of Theater Owners announces health and safety protocols as movie theaters reopen

As movie theaters come back to life across the country, the National Association of Theater Owners is helping to take the guess work out of safe operating practices in the era of COVID-19.
The trade organization is announcing a set of health and safety protocols Friday based on research and guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and the Occupational Safety and Heath Administration. Over 300 companies representing more than 2,600 theater locations in the U.S. have already signed on to the CinemaSafe program.
“In this new pandemic world, moviegoers need to know that there is a consistent, science and experience-based set of health and safety protocols in place no matter what theater they visit,” said John Fithian, the association’s president and CEO, in a statement. “This unprecedented industry-wide effort is a promise designed to meet that need.”
The guidelines outline comprehensive mask policies, which are required for employees and patrons with a few exceptions for children under 2 years old and when consuming concessions — but only when approved by state and local health authorities. The rules state that masks should also be provided to employees who don’t have them.
They also sketch out recommendations for reduced capacity screenings, air filtration optimization, cashless concessions, mobile ticketing, enhanced cleaning policies and employee health training about hand hygiene and the signs and symptoms of COVID-19.
The association has been working for months to develop the rules in consultation with epidemiologists and industry experts. The organization’s executive board includes the leaders of the major exhibition chains, like AMC Entertainment, Cinemark and Cineworld/Regal.
Most indoor movie theaters shuttered in mid-March to help prevent the spread of coronavirus. This week, the major theater chains in the U.S. have started to slowly reopen locations. Although many have said they are complying with local mandates and generally accepted best practices, there was not until now a set of industry-wide guidelines. This lack of oversight led to situations like the mask backlash that resulted in all the major exhibitors reversing course to require face coverings.
The CinemaSafe protocols are voluntary. Companies complying with the guidelines can display a CinemaSafe badge on their websites and, eventually, at their locations so patrons are aware.
Dr. David F. Goldsmith, an occupational and environmental epidemiologist at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health, reviewed the CinemaSafe guidelines.
“These protocols, and the way they were developed, demonstrate a serious, comprehensive effort by movie theater owners to examine every aspect of their operations, identify potential risks, and reduce them,” Goldsmith said.
Dr. Joyce Sanchez, an infectious disease specialist and director of the Travel Health Clinic at Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin, said that the protocols address, “Two of the three general concepts that factor into activity risk: distance, dose and duration.”
Sanchez said that duration can’t be controlled but noted that movie runtimes are similar to that of a domestic flight or time spent at a restaurant.
“While every activity outside the home carries risks, these additional measures can help to mitigate them,” she added.


fortune--2020-08-21--Half of Americans oppose Trump’s potential ban of TikTok

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in early August that would ban TikTok and WeChat from operating in the U.S. unless its parent Chinese company, ByteDance, sells it to an American company by mid-September. The White House argues that the social media platform, known for its short videos, is nothing short of a security threat.
Microsoft and Oracle already announced plans to make bids to acquire ByteDance. Trump has publicly showed support for Oracle’s bid.
To better understand where they stand on the executive order and TikTok, Fortune and SurveyMonkey teamed up to poll 2,478 U.S. adults between August 17 and 18.*
We found the public isn’t thrilled by the executive order. But they aren’t strongly opposed to it either. Among U.S. adults, 50% oppose Trump’s executive order to force a sale of TikTok’s U.S. business, compared to who 41% support the order, and 9% are unsure.
But there is a massive divide in support for the order among Republicans (79%) and Democrats (13%), suggesting Americans’ opinions might be shaped more by political views than by the actual executive order or companies in question.


fortune--2020-08-21--Lori Loughlin gets two months in prison after judge accepts plea deal in college bribery scandal

“Full House” actor Lori Loughlin must serve two months in prison and her fashion designer husband, Mossimo Giannulli, must serve five months for paying half a million dollars in bribes to get their two daughters into the University of Southern California as rowing recruits, a federal judge ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton accepted Loughlin’s plea deal with prosecutors in a hearing held via videconference because of the coronavirus pandemic after sentencing her husband in an earlier hearing.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin O’Connell said Loughlin wasn’t content with the advantages her children already had thanks to their wealth and “was focused on getting what she wanted, no matter how and no matter the cost.” He said prison time was was necessary to send a message that “everyone no matter your status is accountable in our justice system.”
Loughlin appeared calm, showing little emotion as her attorney BJ Trach said she is “profoundly sorry” for her actions. Trach said Loughlin has sought to repair her relationship with her daughters and has begun volunteering at a elementary school in LA with children with special needs.
In the first display of remorse either of them have made publicly over the fraud, Giannulli told the judge earlier Friday that he “deeply” regrets the harm that his actions have caused his daughters, wife and others.
“I take full responsibility for my conduct. I am ready to accept the consequences and move forward, with the lessons I’ve learned from this experience,” Giannulli said in a stoic statement.
In accepting Giannulli’s plea deal, Gorton said the prison terms are “sufficient but not greater than necessary punishment under the circumstances.” Gorton scolded Giannulli for what he described as “breathtaking fraud” made possible by his wealth and privilege.
“You were not stealing bread to feed your family. You have no excuse for your crime and that makes it all the more blameworthy,” the judge told Giannulli before officially sentencing him. Giannulli was ordered to surrender Nov. 19.
Under the plea deal, Giannulli will also pay a $250,000 fine and perform 250 hours of community service. Loughlin will pay a $150,000 fine and perform 100 hours of community service. Unlike most plea agreements, in which the judge remains free to decide the defendant’s sentence, Loughlin’s and Giannulli’s proposed prison terms were binding once accepted.
The famous couple’s sentencing comes three months after they reversed course and admitted to participating in the college admissions cheating scheme that has laid bare the lengths to which some wealthy parents will go to get their kids into elite universities.
They are among nearly 30 prominent parents to plead guilty in the case, which federal prosecutors dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues.” It uncovered hefty bribes to get undeserving kids into college with rigged test scores or fake athletic credentials.
Loughlin and Giannulli had insisted for more than a year that they believed their payments were “legitimate donations” and accused prosecutors of hiding crucial evidence that could prove the couple’s innocence because it would undermine their case.
Their about-face came shortly after the judge rejected their bid to dismiss the case over allegations of misconduct by federal agents.
The case shattered the clean image of Loughlin, who gained fame for her role as the wholesome Aunt Becky in the sitcom “Full House” that ran from the late 1980s to mid-1990s, and later became queen of the Hallmark channel with her holiday movies and the series “When Calls the Heart.”
Other parents who’ve been sentenced to prison in the case have later urged the judge to allow them to serve their terms in home confinement because of the coronavirus pandemic, but Gorton, known in the courthouse for handing out tough sentences, has denied such requests.
Before Friday, the couple had not made any public statements since their arrest and — unlike every other parent sentenced to far in the case — they did not submit letters expressing regret or notes of support from family and friends to the judge by the deadline, although the Gorton said he received two letters in support of Loughlin the day of the sentencing.
Prosecutors said Giannulli deserves a tougher sentence because he was “the more active participant in the scheme,” while Loughlin “took a less active role, but was nonetheless fully complicit.”
The couple funneled money through a sham charity operated by Singer to get their two daughters into USC as crew recruits, even though neither was a rower, authorities said. Singer, who has also pleaded guilty, was expected to testify against them if they had gone to trial.
Investigators had recorded phone calls and emails showing the couple worked with Singer to get their daughters into USC with fake athletic profiles depicting them as star rowers. In one email, Singer told Loughlin and Giannulli he needed a picture of their older daughter on a rowing machine in workout clothes “like a real athlete.”
Prosecutors said the couple allowed the girls “to become complicit in crime,” instructing them to pose on rowing machines for photos and warning their younger daughter not too say too much to her high school counselor to avoid getting caught.
When the counselor began questioning their crew credentials, Giannulli angrily confronted the counselor and asked why he was “trying to ruin or get in the way of their opportunities,” the counselor wrote in notes detailed in court documents.
After the couple successfully bribed their younger daughter’s way into USC, Singer forwarded them a letter saying she was let in because of her “potential to make a significant contribution to the intercollegiate athletic program,” prosecutors wrote.
Loughlin responded: “This is wonderful news! (high-five emoji),” according to court filings.
Among the high-profile parents who have been sent to prison for participating in the scam is “Desperate Housewives” actress Felicity Huffman. She served nearly two weeks behind bars late last year after she admitted to paying $15,000 to have someone correct her daughter’s entrance exam answers.


fortune--2020-08-21--What to watch this weekend on Netflix, Hulu, and more

Between traditional television, video-on-demand releases, and a growing number of streaming services, it can be hard to keep up with what one should watch week to week. Fortune is here to help you keep track of new releases as well as the occasional older title worth checking out. Take a look at this weekend’s notable arrivals, a couple you may have missed earlier in the week, and what else is coming soon:
Netflix
The first part of “Lucifer” season five arrives on Netflix Aug. 21. Netflix
Lucifer: Part one of the fifth season returns to Netflix on Aug. 21. This was supposed to be the last season, but in case you missed the news, the show has been renewed for a sixth season, which means there’s still more devilish fun to be had in future.
Hoops: This new animated comedy series about a high school basketball coach, which stars Jake Johnson (New Girl), arrives on the streamer Aug. 21.
For something more kid-friendly, Aussie animated comedy series Alien TV is also new to the streaming service this weekend, along with movie The Sleepover, about a suburban mom with a thieving past.
And in case you missed it, gaming documentary series High Score arrived on Netflix earlier this week.
Hulu
Find Me in Paris: The teen time-traveling dramedy’s third season will come to Hulu on Aug. 21.
The fifth season of NBC series Blindspot also comes to the service on Aug. 23.
Amazon Prime Video
Chemical Hearts: The new coming-of-age film starring Lili Reinhart and Austin Abrams, based on the novel by Krystal Sutherland, will be on Prime Aug. 21.
And here’s one for the little ones: The second part of Clifford season two will also be available to watch Aug. 21.
On TV
Leslie Odom Jr. on the set of Freeform’s “Love in the Time of Corona,” which is set during the pandemic. Freeform
Love in the Time of Corona, a two-night limited series that does in fact center around the ongoing pandemic, will be on Freeform on Aug. 22 and 23 at 8 p.m. ET. And it won’t look like a televised Zoom call: Several of the actors involved already live together, as this Hollywood Reporter article points out.
Documentary series The Vow, which takes viewers into the world of NXIVM, airs on HBO on Aug. 23 at 10 p.m. ET (and will also be available for streaming on the HBO and HBO Max apps).
On VOD
Note: Some movies may also be playing at select theaters.
Tesla: Ethan Hawke stars as inventor Nikola Tesla in this biopic, with Kyle MacLachlan as Thomas Edison. The film will be on demand Aug. 21.
The 24th: After it was originally supposed to premiere at SXSW, the movie, which takes place during the early months of World War I and tells the story of the Houston Riot of 1917, will be available on demand Aug. 21.
Horror film The Pale Door and RZA’s Cut Throat City will also be available on demand Aug. 21.
Coming Soon
Dating show Love Island, filmed in a quarantine bubble in Las Vegas, returns for a second season to CBS at 8 p.m. ET.
The season finale of I May Destroy You airs on HBO Aug. 24 (and will be available to stream on HBO and HBO Max apps) at 9 p.m. ET.


fortune--2020-08-21--Amazon has tapped Dave Clark as chief of its retail business

Amazon.com Inc. has tapped Dave Clark as chief of its retail business.
He will replace Jeff Wilke, a longtime lieutenant to founder and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos. Wilke plans to retire in the first quarter of 2021, the company announced in a securities filing.
Clark, a veteran Amazon executive, will run the Worldwide Consumer unit, a group that encompasses most of what shoppers know of Amazon, including the retail website and the growing logistics empire that stocks and delivers items.
Clark joined Amazon out of business school the same year as Wilke. He was named logistics chief in 2013, and his first holiday shopping season was marred by weather disruptions and logistical bottlenecks that helped convince Amazon to proceed with a massive buildout of its capacity to move its own goods.
The company went from dozens of warehouses to hundreds, backed up by long-haul trailers, tens of thousands of Amazon-branded delivery vans and an air-cargo fleet — a logistics empire that is now among the largest in the world. Clark recently added oversight of Amazon’s physical retail footprint, including Whole Foods Market stores.
He has emerged as one of Amazon’s highest-profile executives, taking to his Twitter to post whimsical videos like delivery drivers dancing, or to defend the company’s reputation from news stories critical of Amazon’s practices.
Wilke was widely considered a potential successor to Bezos, so his pending retirement is a surprise to Amazon watchers. Hailing from the Pittsburgh area, he joined Amazon in 1999 after stints at Andersen Consulting and AlliedSignal, and was instrumental in building out the logistics machine that would help Amazon make ever more aggressive promises to get shoppers their items quickly.
In 2016, Wilke was elevated to chief executive of the global consumer business. In a parallel move, Andy Jassy was named chief executive of the Amazon Web Services cloud computing division, a structure that made both men natural candidates to succeed Bezos were he to step down.
In an email to employees, Bezos saluted Wilke and called him a tutor to him and everyone at the company. “Jeff has also set us up to succeed in his absence,” Bezos wrote. “I can’t think of someone more suited to step into Jeff’s role than Dave Clark.”


fortune--2020-08-21--Paul Ryan jumps onto the SPAC train

Paul Ryan jumps onto the SPAC train

This is the web version of Term Sheet, a daily newsletter on the biggest deals and dealmakers. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.
It seems as if just about everyone is getting into the SPAC hype.
Former House speaker Paul Ryan is starting a special purpose acquisition company that will seek to raise about $300 million, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources. Ryan, who was also the 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee, is set to serve as chairman of the SPAC known as Executive Network Partnering Corp. Solamere Capital, a private equity firm run by Mitt Romney’s son, is set to be the main sponsor.
SPACs, also known as blank check companies, as their main purpose is to acquire a business, have raised an unprecedented $31.2 billion so far this year, surpassing the $13.6 billion raised in all of 2019. The funding vehicle has gained traction amid the pandemic as private equity shops, hedge funds, CEOs seek to take advantage of the market dislocation. Just two days ago, the CEO of bed-in-a-box mattress company, Casper, also filed to raise $300 million via a SPAC.
Of note: The SPAC structure has also been gradually shifting. The largest blank check company, which raised $4 billion this year with Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman, was among the first to shake it up: While the creators of the SPAC typically take a 20% cut of the vehicle for a nominal price, Pershing Square decided to forego that form of compensation, receiving options to buy shares after investors get a 20% return on the merger price.
“Twitter for celebrities” gets hit by a lawsuit: Community, a Santa Monica-based company messaging platform focused around celebrities, is now embroiled in a lawsuit. Co-founders Charles Buffin and Max Levine are accusing CEO Matthew Peltier of fraud, saying the executive misled them about the value of the company, leading Buffin and Levine to each sell 10% of their shares of the company back for $22,002. It was after the sale that the duo alleged that they learned the company was working with celebrities Guy Oseary and Ashton Kutcher in 2019.
Now, they allege Community and Peltier caused them damages in excess of $30 million. Community, which is backed by Ashton Kutcher, is raising funding at a valuation of over $450 million, the lawsuit says.
Lucinda Shen
Twitter: @shenlucinda
Email: lucinda.shen@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- Waterdrop, a Chinese crowdfunding medical expenses firm, raised $230 million in funding. Swiss Re and Tencent led the round.
- Lambda School, an online computer sciences academy, raised $74 million in Series C funding. Gigafund led the round.
- Drizly Group, a Boston-based alcohol delivery firm, raised $50 million in Series C funding. Avenir led the round and was joined by investors including Tiger Global.
- Science 37, a Los Angeles-based clinical trials platform, raised $40 million in funding. Lux Capital, Redmile Group, and PPD, Inc. (Nasdaq: PPD) led the round, and are joined by investors including Novartis, Amgen, Sanofi Ventures, GV, Glynn Capital, LifeSci Ventures and Mubadala Ventures.
- Shef, a San Francisco-based homemade food marketplace for cooks to sell meals, raised $8.8 million in seed funding from investors including Y Combinator, Craft Ventures, and M13.
- See-Mode Technologies, a Singapore-based medtech startup, raised $7 million in Series A funding. MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia led the round and was joined by investors including Blackbird Ventures, Cocoon Capital, Entrepreneur First, and SGInnovate.
- Showbie, a Canada-based classroom workflow platform, raised CAD$5 million ($3.8 million) of Series A funding. Rhino Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Point Nine Capital and Azure Capital.
- iFarm, a Helsinki-based startup that agriculture tech startup, raised $4 million in funding. Gagarin Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Matrix Capital, Impulse VC, and IMI.VC.
- PANDA AI, a Seattle-based company using AI to organize information for individuals and teams, raised $3.3 million of seed funding. Investors included Pioneer Square Labs Venture Fund, the Allen Institute for AI Seed Fund, and Ascend VC.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- KKR acquired Citation Group, a UK-based provider of HR and employment law services, from Hg. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Nautic Partnersformed HES Facilities, a Knoxville, Tenn.-based provider of maintenance services to K-12 and higher education institutions. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- CTS Bioprocessing, backed by 3i Group, acquired Sani-Tech West, a Southern California-based maker of medical components. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Mammoth Holdings, backed by Red Dog Equity, acquired Mr. K Car Wash, a Montgomery, Ala.-based car wash. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
OTHERS
- Wirecard inked a deal to sell its assets in Brazil. Read more.
- Lifesize acquired Kaptivo, a San Mateo, Calif.-based digital whiteboard tech company. Kaptivo investors previously included Draper Esprits and HarbourVest Partners, per Pitchbook. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Experity acquired Calibrater Health, a feedback management company. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Kadenwood agreed to acquire EcoGen Laboratories, a CBD products company, valuing the combined company at $250 million. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
IPOS
- Horizon Acquisition Corp., a blank check company led by the CEO of Eldridge Industries, Todd Boehly, raised $500 Million in an IPO. Read more.
- Nano-X Imaging, a Neve Ilan, Israel-based medical imaging systems, raised $165 million in an offering of 9.2 million shares at $18.
- Kymera Therapeutics, a Watertown, Mass.-based developing therapies for inflammatory diseases, raised $174 million in an offering of 8.7 million shares at $20.
EXIT
- Kingspan Group will acquire Trimo, a European maker of building envelope solutions, from Innova Capital. Financial terms weren't disclosed. Read more.
F+FS
- March Capital launched the March Gaming Fund with $60 million to invest in seed and series A companies.


fortune--2020-08-21--When will the $300 enhanced weekly unemployment benefits get issued?

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Thirteen states received approval this week to send out $300 per week in federal funds on top of their regular unemployment benefits. These enhanced benefits, created under a memorandum signed by President Trump, replace the $600 enhanced benefit that expired the week ended July 25.
Unemployed Americans have gone three benefit-check cycles without enhanced benefits, and around one in three has already cut household spending as a result, according to a Fortune–SurveyMonkey poll conducted between Aug. 17 and 18.
When should people expect these enhanced checks to actually hit their bank accounts? In the 13 states that have received federal approval, it should be this week or next. That’s the case for unemployed Arizonans, who received the $300 supplement payment on Monday for the week ended Aug. 15, on top of their state benefits. And Arizona state officials say the federal payment for the weeks ended Aug. 1 and Aug. 8 should come this week or next.
The $44 billion allocated by Trump for the enhanced unemployment benefit is expected to last five weeks, through the week ending Aug. 29, according to a report by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Trump pulled the $44 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) budget, and every day the agency announces the new states approved for the $300 weekly benefit. Fortune is tracking the list of approved states here.
But not every state will get the benefit. Among the states that won’t is South Dakota, which became the first state to turn down the offer, citing a strong economic rebound and no need for the additional aid. The June unemployment rate in South Dakota was 7.2%, compared with an 11.1% national jobless rate. FEMA has yet to announce the status of the remaining 38 states.
The White House has already made it clear the benefit will be paid retroactively to the week ended Aug. 1. And the $300 a week in enhanced benefits will go only to jobless Americans who are already receiving at least $100 in state benefits. That is a smaller pool of recipients than the one for the first round of enhanced checks, which wasn’t limited in this manner.
There still remains the possibility the memorandum could face a legal challenge, given that Trump bypassed Congress to pull the funding from FEMA to pay for the enhanced benefit.


fortune--2020-08-21--Erdogan hails Turkey’s biggest ever energy discovery. The markets are unimpressed

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey has found 320 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the Black Sea, its biggest ever energy discovery, and hopes to begin production by 2023.
The Fatih drilling ship located the deposit in the so-called Tuna-1 field, Erdogan said Friday in a much-trailed press conference in his Istanbul palace. Exploration is continuing in other fields, he said.
The lira reversed earlier gains against the dollar after the announcement. It was down 0.3% as of 3:42 p.m. in Istanbul. The Borsa Istanbul 100 index also gave up gains and fell as much as 1.8%, possibly reflecting disappointment over the size of the find.
Turkey bought three drilling ships in recent years as it dramatically expanded energy exploration in the Black Sea and contested waters of the eastern Mediterranean. It’s keen to find sizable energy reserves to ease its heavy reliance on imports from Iran, Iraq and Russia, and support one of the biggest economies in the Middle East.
The Fatih has been drilling to a depth of 3,500 to 4,000 meters (11,500 to 13,000 feet), Energy Minister Fatih Donmez said last month. TPAO, however, has no experience in deep-sea gas production and would likely need to enlist a major oil company to exploit a field. With oil and gas prices having slumped, the economics of developing such a find may be less attractive than in the past.
Tuna-1, some 150 kilometers from Turkey’s coast, is close to an area where maritime borders of Bulgaria and Romania converge and not far from Romania’s Neptun block, the largest gas find in the Black Sea in decades discovered eight years ago by Petrom and Exxon.
Romania has shallow-water gas projects, but a major deep-water find by eight years ago has still to be exploited. A company backed by the Carlyle Group is also exploring off Romania, aiming to get gas in 2021. Rosneft has explored in the Russian part of the Black Sea but without concrete results.
Turkey is mired in territorial disputes with Greece and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean as it searches for oil and gas in contested waters. France has temporarily increased its military presence to ward off Turkish steps, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday said the EU was concerned over the increased tensions.
Erdogan said he also expects “good news” from exploration activities in the eastern Mediterranean.


fortune--2020-08-21--Why Barack Obama would be taking down TikTok, too

This is the web version of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top tech news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
In an alternate universe where Barack Obama was President, we would still be talking about banning TikTok—or at least freeing it from Chinese owner ByteDance’s control. One of the minor tragedies of the current President is that even when he faces problems that needs facing, his approach is so confused and, at times, unhinged that it overshadows the real issues.
Exhibit A: Trump didn’t seem to care a whit about TikTok until after the video service started making headlines for helping spread the word about an anti-Trump prank (when thousands of teens claimed they falsely reserved tickets for the president’s Tulsa rally). That happened in late June and by early July, secretary of state Mike Pompeo and then Trump himself were suddenly all over the dangers of TikTok.
But set aside the self-centered attention span and dig a little deeper. Many politicians in Washington from both parties have been sounding the alarm about Chinese control of U.S. mobile apps and services in general, and TikTok in particular, for several years. The very mechanism that Trump is now using to reverse ByteDance’s 2018 acquisition of the app, a national security review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, got a huge upgrade from Congress not long ago to better address this very sort of situation.
And let’s be clear, this very sort of situation needs addressing. As Columbia law professor and my favorite net neutrality advocate Tim Wu wrote in an op-ed this week, China’s use of the Internet to censor and spread propaganda while banning foreign apps and services requires democratic countries to move against Chinese internet offerings now. “The asymmetry is unfair and ought no longer be tolerated,” Wu wrote.
Unfortunately, based on Trump’s rhetoric, it sounds like the government’s forced sale of TikTok is one of those questionably legal moves like messing with the census or opening the country’s entire coastline to oil drilling. That’s not the case, as ByteDance will find out in court if they challenge the process. Presidents have been blocking and undoing mergers for years through the long-established and carefully proscribed CFIUS process. President G.W. Bush undid the completed sale of an aircraft parts maker to a Chinese company in 1990. Obama banned the sale of a semiconductor firm to a Chinese-owned company and blocked the sale of a wind farm near a Navy base to Chinese investors. The Trump administration earlier, without comment from the president, forced Beijing Kunlun Tech to sell dating app Grindr, although it got more than 90 days. And TikTok has been under investigation by CFIUS without any involvement from Trump since at least November 2019.
Still, the President has repeatedly said that the U.S. government should also get a big portion of the proceeds of any sale, because “we’re making it possible for this deal to happen.” There’s no legal basis for such a demand. And this week, Trump appeared to back Oracle, run by one of his political supporters, as the best buyer of TikTok even though there’s no plausible reason for the enterprise database giant to own an app teenagers use to watch silly videos.
The problem of China’s one-sided Internet policies and even scarier efforts requires a serious, unified global response. Maybe the next inhabitant of the White House will be more up to the task.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com
NEWSWORTHY
Duck, duck, goose. Ride sharing companies avoided their day of reckoning in California. A state appeals court ruled Thursday that the law forcing Uber and Lyft to recognize their drivers as employees cannot take effect while the legal challenge is ongoing. The companies said they'd have had to shutdown in the state if the deadline took effect. In other court matters, Uber's former security chief Joseph Sullivan was charged with obstruction of justice and failing to report a felony for covering up a 2016 data breach at the company. A spokesman for Sullivan denied the charges and said the former chief is the one who identified the breach.
First chest starter pack. The Apple versus Epic battle just keeps getting more and more interesting. On Thursday, a major news publishing group that includes the New York Times and Wall Street Journal wrote to Apple asking how they could get the same deal as Amazon and pay only 15% commissions on their subscription sales on the iPhone. And Epic announced a new tournament called the the #FreeFortnite Cup with promotions and prizes related to its campaign against Apple. The top 20,000 players get a "Free Fortnite" baseball hat and some winners will get non-Apple laptops, phones, and other gear.
M dot Zuck and J dot Sim. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified at the Federal Trade Commission, where chairman Joseph Simons is overseeing an antitrust investigation of the social network. The remote testimony was under oath, and staff from the offices of state attorneys general also probing Facebook were allowed to listen in.
The little one stops to pick up sticks. In the IPO market, we're looking at a possible record breaker, though not on a U.S. exchange. Jack Ma's online payments giant Ant Group may raise $30 billion in a debut on exchanges in Hong Kong and Shanghai. That would beat the $22 billion raised by Ma's 2014 Alibaba IPO, which included a U.S. listing on the New York Stock Exchange. I wonder if something weird is going on in U.S.-China relations?
It’s not helpful but it’s fun to think about. After lower courts ruled that President Trump cannot block critics on Twitter, the administration is appealing to the Supreme Court. "The President uses his account to speak to the public, not to give members of the public a forum to speak to him and among themselves," White House lawyers argued in a petition to SCOTUS to take the case. "Government officials can't suppress speech simply because they disagree with its message," responded Jameel Jaffer, executive director of The Knight First Amendment Institute, which sued to stop the blocking.
Triple yikes. A bug in the latest version of Adobe's Lightroom app for iPhones and iPads deleted some users photos–forever. Adobe acknowledged the problem and said they “sincerely apologize” because the lost images are “not recoverable." Did I mention triple yikes!
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Colleges and universities are struggling to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and some have already closed. But in future years, the challenge to expensive, degree-granting institutions may come from Silicon Valley. Google has set up a new online professional certification program and senior vp Kent Walker says the company "will now treat these new career certificates as the equivalent of a four-year degree for related roles." Consultant Justin Bariso digs into the implications at Inc.
Although traditional degrees are still deemed necessary in fields like law or medicine, more and more employers have signaled that they no longer view them as a must-have--Apple, IBM, and Google, just to name a few.
So, if you're an employer or hiring manager, ask yourself:
Is it time to rewrite our own job descriptions, to eliminate the requirement of a four-year degree?
Can we take advantage of educational programs like those offered by Google and other online platforms?
Or, better yet, do we have the resources to design our own online training, to help increase our pool of qualified candidates and simultaneously provide an additional source of revenue for our business?
Remember: Nowadays, it's all about skills. Not degrees.
FOR YOUR WEEKEND READING PLEASURE
A few long reads I came across this week:
Inside NSO, Israel’s billion-dollar spyware giant (MIT Technology Review)
The world’s most notorious surveillance company says it wants to clean up its act. Go on; we’re listening.
Amazon’s Project Kuiper is More Than the Company’s Response to SpaceX (IEEE Spectrum)
Amazon Web Services and Blue Origin could mean the satellite constellation becomes part of a larger ecosystem.
A math problem stumped experts for 50 years. This grad student from Maine solved it in days (Boston Globe Magazine)
“That’s ridiculous,” Lisa Piccirillo thought when she first learned about the Conway knot problem. “We should be able to do that.”
Why is this interesting? - The Punk Edition (WITI)
My story today is about punk, and how it prepared me for Down syndrome.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
An F-16 pilot took on A.I. in a dogfight. Here’s who won By Aaron Pressman
COVID-19 has spurred rapid transformation in health care. Let’s make sure it stays that way By Gianrico Farrugia
Investors ride the Big Tech rally even as COVID cases and unemployment spike By Bernhard Warner
Are these big discounts enough to get you back into a movie theater? By David Z. Morris
A guide to giving gifts for postponed and shrunken weddings By Brooke Henderson
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
On my family staycation, we rewatched all three seasons of Netflix's great series Stranger Things. When season 4 comes out is an open question given the pandemic-induced shutdown of Hollywood productions. But good news, Hawkins fans: creators Ross Duffer and Matt Duffer tell the Hollywood Reporter that the story will go on even longer. "Season four won't be the end," Ross says. "We know what the end is, and we know when it is." Lots more interesting tibits in the interview. Have a great weekend and go easy on the Eggo waffles.


fortune--2020-08-21--The Chinese and U.S. Internets are drifting apart. Why that’s bad for the whole world

China’s recent actions in the geopolitical sphere have included a new national security law that tightens its grip on Hong Kong, a border scuffle with India, saber-rattling with Taiwan, and diplomatic spats with Australia, Canada, and the U.K. Tensions with the U.S., already high from the trade war, have been heightened during the pandemic. This culminated recently in President Trump’s executive order concerning “the threat” posed by TikTok.
The collective effect of these developments has been to accelerate a global trend toward the fracturing of the Internet. This is the phenomenon, sometimes termed “tech decoupling,” of the schism of the Chinese and U.S. digital worlds into two largely separate ecosystems, with different firms operating within each, following different playbooks when it comes to data privacy, regulation of free speech, and state control of information.
China has long sought to control the flow of information within its borders by sometimes shutting out, and otherwise tightly regulating, U.S. tech companies. This helped create a vibrant and flourishing “Chinese Internet,” with its own tech giants such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent, and popular apps such as TikTok and WeChat. These companies and apps now have a footprint that extends well beyond China’s borders. Their rise has been good for China and the world.
In recent times, Beijing has been tightening its control on the flow of information. Its attempts to control news of the novel coronavirus on Chinese social media, and then to control the narrative on the government’s response, are well known. The most recent fear is that the draconian new Hong Kong security law will expand China’s sphere of control, with the government accessing information from tech companies to aid in enforcement.
However, growing unease on a number of fronts has been building for a while. Advances in surveillance technologies, including artificial intelligence and facial recognition, are starting to be widely deployed. The social credit system, currently running in pilot form in a number of cities, is set to go nationwide sometime this year. This is a system that assigns trustworthiness scores to individuals, companies, organizations, and governments on the basis of a variety of behaviors. These can range from timely repayment of debts and abiding by laws, to spreading rumors, donating blood, and making “insincere” apologies. It also requires companies to turn over vast amounts of information to government entities for the purpose of computing the score.
The world’s tech firms find themselves faced with high-stakes decisions relating to data requests from governments and pressure to censor content. TikTok, Zoom, and others have come under criticism for restricting speech critical of the Chinese government. In wake of the new Hong Kong law, TikTok decided to exit the territory. It has repeatedly emphasized that its data servers lie outside China, and that it does not share data with the Chinese government. U.S. companies, such as Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn, have also put a pause on the sharing of information with Hong Kong authorities.
Within the U.S., these firms are under pressure to provide better privacy protections, police hate speech, and combat misinformation. The rules for data handling are distinct in the U.S. and Chinese spheres, and it appears the two are moving farther apart.
That geopolitical events would provide a push toward tech decoupling was unexpected. In Ladakh, near the contested India-China border, a deadly clash between the two countries left 20 Indian soldiers dead (exact Chinese casualties are unknown). In retaliation, New Delhi banned 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok and WeChat. In the U.S., President Trump’s executive order bans TikTok and WeChat from operating in the U.S. within 45 days if they are not sold by their Chinese parent companies (a subsequent order appears to give TikTok 90 days). Interestingly, the executive order cites India’s ban in support of the decision. Although security risks of the apps are cited, broader strategic objectives appear to be behind this choice of targets.
Two primary factors are driving the recent push toward tech uncoupling. First, although there has been much talk of reducing America’s reliance on Chinese manufacturing, both for finished products as well as for components, this is not an economically appealing option. The impact of extreme restrictions on manufacturing would be to substantially raise prices that U.S. consumers and companies pay, making this politically unpalatable.
In contrast, as the Indian government determined, Chinese tech companies make for a more attractive target in disputes both economic and political. Although Chinese tech companies have become formidable forces, people outside China are not so reliant on them yet that people would experience severe disruption.
Second, U.S. and Chinese tech companies are engaged in a global competition for users. For instance, they have both invested heavily in the Indian market in recent years, and the current India-China tensions are likely to play to America’s advantage. The giant Chinese tech firms’ U.S. competitors, such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter, have long been excluded from Chinese markets. A ban on Chinese firms is likely to benefit them, with no countervailing risk of their being shut out of China’s market in retaliation.
Tech firms on both sides of the fault line will try to span the divide, playing by different rule books in different spheres. However, this will become more difficult the farther apart the two systems drift. China’s increasing control over the flow of information, its muscular geopolitical policies, and the success of its tech firms will all push us toward greater fracturing of the Internet. The realization in the U.S. that strategic competition with China is increasingly about technology will continue to lead to policies that limit the freedom of U.S. companies to engage with China in this sphere. This will dent China’s global tech ambitions but is bad for the world as well.
The world would be better served by a free Internet that connects people globally and serves as a vehicle for the free exchange of ideas. It would also benefit from innovative tech companies competing across borders to offer products and services that improve our lives. We can only hope that China and the U.S. work to de-escalate their conflict and reverse the process of decoupling.
Kislaya Prasad is a research professor and the academic director of the Center for Global Business at the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business.


fortune--2020-08-21--Women are finally reclaiming the ‘house dress’

This is the web version of the Broadsheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Good morning, Broadsheet readers! We review the last day of the DNC, Malala starts a book club, and women are reclaiming the ‘house dress.’ Have a wonderful weekend.
– Dress for success. It was just in January that Kristen took us along for the ride as she dove into the world of women’s custom suits. That was the Before Times, of course, when a sharp-shouldered jacket and fitted trousers were daily workwear.
Fast forward seven months, and our wardrobes have been turned upside down (or inside-out?) along with the rest of our lives by a devastating pandemic and accompanying stay-at-home orders. Seemingly overnight, we traded tucked-in and tailored for stretchy and over-sized.
The evolution of the pandemic-era wardrobe has been fascinating to watch—from DIY tie-dye t-shirts (Trendy? Check. Time-killer? Check!) to bike shorts (a personal favorite) to, yes, sweatpants forever.
But wearing what equates to sleepwear nonstop can make you, well, sleepy. As New York Times fashion writer Vanessa Friedman warns in her latest story on ‘workleisure:’ “just because you can wear your stretchy old workout gear in front of the computer, doesn’t always make it a good idea.”
So I was especially interested to learn about the ‘house dress’ is having a renaissance. NPR reports that the house dress—”Billowing linen, cozy cotton, floating silk”—is the perfect 2020 staple: “a small expression of control during the uncontrollable, a taste of free-flowing freedom in a time rife with restrictions, a sense of structure and style on the days that feel hazy and dull.”
An added benefit? Women who are opting for house dresses now are reclaiming the garment from the ‘bad reputation’ bin. It used to symbolize a time when women were confined to housework. NPR reports its origins trace back to Victorian gowns that were considered a relief from corsets but still relegated women in a different way, cloaking them in “baggy matronly smock named after ‘Mother Hubbard’ from old nursery rhymes.”
But this year, the house dress is proving to be the perfect transitional piece for home-bound professionals, taking women from a business call to the backyard. As NPR puts it: “The 2020 house dress is not here to judge or cast expectations.”
Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman
Today’s Broadsheet was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Day 4. The Democratic National Convention drew to a close last night with former VP Joe Biden officially accepting the party's nomination for president. Also appearing last night were Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D–Ill.), who called Trump a 'coward in chief;' Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who paid tribute to the late John Lewis; and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, whose emceeing and Trump zingers drew praise—from Democrats, at least.
- Groundbreaking portrait. Washington, D.C.'s Union Station doesn't have as much foot traffic as usual these days, but it's still home to an important monument for the suffrage centennial. The floor of the train station will soon feature a giant portrait of Ida B. Wells, journalist, anti-lynching activist, and advocate for the right to vote. DCist
- Reading list. Looking for your next read? Malala Yousafzai has a new book club. The Nobel Peace Prize winner and recent university grad will curate and annotate selections through the platform Literati. The Lily
- A primary challenge. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi waded into a controversial Democratic primary, endorsing challenger Joe Kennedy over incumbent Sen. Ed Markey. Insiders say it's unusual for Pelosi to get involved in a contested primary—particularly on the side of the challenger. Boston Globe
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: MGM hired producer Alana Mayo to lead its Orion Pictures division with a new focus on underrepresented filmmakers. Dentsu Aegis Network hired executive director of advertising for Time's Up Christena Pyle as chief equity officer, Americas. Brightcove added Harvard Business School professor Tsedal Neeley and Google Finance director of product management Ritcha Ranjan to its board of directors. Modern Hire named former 1WorldSync CEO Karin Borchert its own chief executive.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Big shoes to fill. Nikema Williams will appear on the ballot in Georgia in November after she was chosen to succeed the late Rep. John Lewis in his Atlanta district. Lewis was a friend to Williams, and she says it's been difficult to grieve while preparing to mount a campaign. Elle
- Survey says. A new survey by All Raise finds that female founders have less financial runway to make it through the pandemic than their male peers. Among the broader group of female founders, 26% say they have a year of runway; that number is 19% for women of color and 38% for men. Forbes
- OOO. How has the world changed since the mass work-from-home experiment began? The NYT has a package called "OOO," addressing everything from what office gossip looks like now to what we're wearing to, of course, working while parenting. New York Times
ON MY RADAR
How Yaa Gyasi found religion (in literature) New York Times
Schools are enforcing dress codes during online classes Teen Vogue
TikTok sensation Sarah Cooper developing CBS comedy series based on her book EW
PARTING WORDS
"You can’t be polite, or tiptoe, or be modest about those things."
-Issa Rae on asking for her worth


fortune--2020-08-21--Retail continues to charge back, this time in the U.K. But clothing, fuel sales lag

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Positive news out of the United Kingdom: Retail sales haven’t just rebounded from the horror show of lockdown; they’ve already surpassed the U.K.’s pre-pandemic-lockdown levels.
According to July figures released Friday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), retail sales volumes grew by 3.6% month on month. That may be small compared with the 13.9% growth seen in June and the 12% growth in May, but those were increases from a very low base, and July’s boost now means volumes are 3% higher than they were in February, before lockdown.
The trend echoes that in the U.S., where retail spending also surpassed pre-lockdown levels in July.
“Retail sales have now regained all the ground lost during the height of the coronavirus restrictions as more stores open for trade and online sales remain at historically high levels,” said the ONS’s deputy national statistician for economic statistics, Jonathan Athow, in a statement.
Indeed, online sales seem to be a prime driver here, up 44% from the start of the year.
“The flip side is sales at many traditional retailers are still well down on pre-virus levels, and in fact the latest footfall data…shows that there has been only a minor, and very steady, improvement in retail traffic since shops reopened back in June,” ING developed markets economist James Smith wrote in a Friday note.
Smith attributed the sluggish return of physical shopping to safety concerns. “Clearly, keeping COVID-19 transmission controlled is going to be a key factor in determining how Britain’s high street recovers through the rest of the year,” he wrote.
The other notable aspect here is that of an uneven retail recovery among sectors. Sales in the clothing sector, which was particularly hard hit by the lockdown—who cares about new clothes when you’re stuck at home, anyway?—were still 25.7% lower in July than in February. Fuel sales are also still 11.7% down, corresponding with decreased car road traffic.
The ONS’s Athow also noted that food sales “fell back from their recent peaks as people started to venture back into pubs and restaurants.” Clearly, the situation remains volatile.
The U.K. isn’t the only European country to see consumption returning in force. As outlined in a Friday Berenberg note, receipts from sales taxes in Germany have “rebounded almost like a V.” Retail sales in that country were already up year on year during May and June, by 5.2% on average.
“After a catch-up effect in these months, we expect retail sales to oscillate around current levels in coming months before embarking again on a gradual uptrend,” Berenberg said.
However, the latest IHS Markit purchasing managers’ indexes for the U.K. and Germany suggest diverging trends when it comes to manufacturing and services.
An early reading of these indexes—which indicate economic output from these sectors, with a score of 50 being the threshold for growth—shows the U.K. at a lofty 60.3. This is almost a seven-year record. In Germany, however, July’s promising score of 55.3 appears to have fallen back to 53.7 this month. France, too, has seen its PMI drop significantly this month.
“There were encouraging signs that customer-facing service providers have started to catch up with the rebound seen earlier this summer across the wider economy,” said IHS Markit economics director Tim Moore, regarding the U.K. figures.
However, employment fears continue to weigh heavily everywhere. In the U.K., where grocery giant Marks & Spencer this week announced 7,000 job cuts, the big crunch will likely come as the government winds down its wage subsidy scheme in the coming months.
And even in Germany, where the government is set to extend its Kurzarbeit furlough scheme for perhaps another two years, IHS associate director Phil Smith noted that “a sustained decline in overall employment…continues to undermine domestic demand.”
Another thing worth noting about the U.K.’s situation is that the country’s national debt has now exceeded 2 trillion pounds ($2.63 trillion) for the first time, the result of all the government borrowing during the pandemic. However, it is likely that this figure would have been even higher, had it not been for the tax revenues from that better-than-expected retail revival.


fortune--2020-08-21--Is the economy about to head backwards?

Is the economy about to head backwards?

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At this point it’s clear we haven’t seen a true V-shaped recovery from the economic damage wrought by COVID-19. But is the economy about to start heading back in the wrong direction?
On Thursday, weekly initial jobless claims jumped back up over the 1 million mark to 1.1 million, after dropping to 963,000 the previous week. And while the total number of people receiving state unemployment benefits actually dropped below 15 million on Thursday for the first time since April, some economists see dark clouds on the horizon.
In essence, the pace of the recovery has shifted its shape, recently looking more like a reverse square root symbol—a shape Brett Ryan, senior U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank, predicted to Fortune back in June.
But Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, boils his main concern down to this: “We fell into a deep dark hole early on, we have dug ourselves halfway out roughly, and that’s where we’ll stay until we’re on the other side of this pandemic,” he tells Fortune. “The risk is we slide back into the hole if we don’t get continued, additional support from policymakers.”
Jobs data could be losing steam
Thursday’s initial unemployment claims show only one week. But they could be the start of a worrying trend back toward weaker unemployment reports, as labor markets face a few key issues over the coming weeks and months.
For one, much of the recent bounce in job growth has come from industries that are particularly sensitive to shutdowns and social distancing, namely restaurants, travel, transportation and retail.
“At some point the job gains in these frontline industries is going to come to an end, it might already have,” Zandi notes. Plus, with some states having stalled or even backtracked reopening, Zandi suggests we “can’t count on those jobs to continue to drive the economy forward.”
Right now, unemployment for July sits at 10.2%, having declined consistently from its peak in April at 14.7%. But the pace of improvement has been slowing in recent weeks. And Zandi, like many others, thinks that chances for that number continuing to tick down hinge on Congress: “By the second, third week of September, if Congress hasn’t gotten [a stimulus package] together, I suspect very strongly we’re going to get a negative September job number.”
Consumer confidence and spending is tapering off
There’s been a bit of a slump in recent weeks for consumer confidence after an initial surge at the start of the recovery. Now, consumer spending itself seems to be tapering off—and even showing a little bit of “slippage,” Deutsche Bank’s Ryan notes.
While the data may still be too early to call a trend and should be taken with a grain of salt, high frequency credit- and debit-card data (which tracks real-time spending) shows consumer spending is leveling off, and even slumping downward slightly in the past few weeks, per data from Affinity Solutions analyzed by research group Opportunity Insights. “It’s really early so we don’t want to jump the gun here,” Ryan tells Fortune, but “consumer spending has leveled off, it looks to be down around 3% nationally from the June peak.”
And with $600 enhanced unemployment benefits having expired at the end of July, Ryan says he’s trying to “tease out” whether that’s had an impact on spending activity. Indeed, a Fortune-SurveyMonkey poll between August 17 and 18 found that 31% of Americans who were getting enhanced unemployment benefits have cut their household spending since the benefits ended in July.
While it’s not a code red just yet, those like Zandi and Ryan are watching spending with a close eye. “It’s the consumer spending data I’m most uncertain about, and that happens to be 70% of the economy,” says Ryan.
Speaking of consumers, here’s another ominous statistic: A Bankrate survey out Thursday found that almost three times as many Americans said they had less emergency savings to fall back on than before the pandemic versus those that said they had more. In those households, especially among those recently unemployed, people “will have to start making difficult decisions about spending,” Ryan notes.
A fall wave?
While there’s a lot of chatter around a possible surge in coronavirus cases come fall, economists note there may also be chilling headwinds for the labor market and small businesses in the next few months.
With many schools seeking to have entirely or partially virtual classes for the start of the school year, the burden falls on parents to care for and possibly stay home with their kids.
That could mean an employment quandary for parents (particularly single parents and mothers) whose children are home doing virtual school. While the impact to the overall labor market won’t be “cataclysmic,” Zandi says, Moody’s estimates there are roughly 2.5 million households that include kids between the ages of 6 and 12 and just one parent. Even if many of those households figure out a way to make it work, Zandi estimates that might still leave 500,000 to 1 million single parents in danger of losing their jobs.
Meanwhile, Ryan believes colleges shifting to mostly online (and shedding those on-campus jobs they would otherwise add) may also be “a drag on employment.”
And the colder weather itself might spell bad news for small business owners in the restaurant and hospitality industries. “This is where the next fiscal stimulus bill really matters,” says Ryan, “for people in these industries that are continuing to be affected as we go into the winter season where you don’t have the outdoor option and even if you have indoor dining at 50% capacity, they can’t operate their businesses profitably.”
The need for speed from Congress
Most economists say more stimulus is needed—and fast. But so far, Congress hasn’t agreed on inking a new bill. Ryan notes the biggest near-term risk is that lawmakers continue to “dilly dally and [don’t] reach an agreement for a meaningful stimulus package.”
Zandi believes “some in Congress are concluding the coast is clear much too prematurely,” he says. “It would be a grievous mistake to conclude this economy is off and running and they don’t need to provide additional support.” Failing to pass another round could mean “we’re going back into the economic darkness, we’re going back into recession,” he declares.
Both Zandi and Ryan say a new round of stimulus to the tune of around $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion would likely need to get done in early September (Ryan emphasizes the first week may be crucial). Without more enhanced unemployment benefits (and possibly stimulus checks) passed soon, “You’re talking about $1.2 trillion, $1.3 trillion less cash to be spent in the 3rd quarter. The economy will feel that,” Ryan estimates.
Meanwhile, state and local governments are in dire need of more aid, too: “These states are hemorrhaging red ink and are just going to slash payrolls, they already are,” notes Zandi.
But with each passing week Congress stalls on a new bill, “it will do more damage and the more difficult it will be to resurrect the economy again, and the cost to them will be even greater,” Zandi believes. That means the there may be need for more funds “because of the damage that they’re going to do.”
The one thing that might prompt Congress to jump into action? If the stock market starts to falter off of its all-time highs.
Randy Frederick, Charles Schwab’s vice president of trading and derivatives, recently told Fortune: “If the market starts to [drop], Congress will come together and put stimulus out there very quickly.”


fortune--2020-08-22--A Chinese company says its vaccine will be ready by December—but it won’t be cheap

The Chinese and U.S. Internets are drifting apart .
Why that ’ s bad for the whole world

Sinopharm, a state-owned Chinese pharmaceutical company, says that its COVID-19 vaccine will reach market by December, but its likely price tag is much higher than any put forward for a coronavirus vaccine so far.
“It is expected to cost a few hundred yuan for a shot, and for two shots it should be less than 1000 yuan ($145),” Sinopharm CEO Liu Jingzhen, told a Chinese newspaper this week.
Liu said that the cost is “not very high,” but, in fact, it’s significantly more expensive than the projected prices of its peers.
Moderna, the American vaccine maker, says it will charge $32 to $37 per dose of its vaccine. Johnson & Johnson, the American pharmaceutical company, recently struck a deal with the U.S. government that suggests its vaccine will cost around $10 per shot.Pfizer, the U.S. pharmaceutical firm, confirmed in July that it would set a price ceiling of $20 per dose of its potential vaccine. In the U.K., AstraZeneca, the British pharmaceutical company, and Oxford University may offer their vaccine candidate for as low as $3 per injection.
Johnson & Johnson has said that it favors a single shot approach, but—like Sinopharm, Moderna, Pfizer, and Oxford—it will likely administer its vaccines in two doses. In the two-shot approach, a second, booster jab of the vaccine is administered to patients roughly four weeks after the first to increase the vaccine’s effectiveness.
In the newspaper interview, Liu did not explain how Sinopharm arrived at its price point, and the company declined Fortune’s request for comment. Liu suggested, however, that widespread distribution of the vaccine may not be necessary in China given that the country has largely stopped the spread of the disease.
“Not all of China’s 1.4 billion people will need to be injected,” he told the newspaper, saying that a vaccine may only be needed for students and office workers living in densely populated cities, but not necessary for people living in rural areas.
That view conflicts with the advice of other experts, who want as many people as possible to receive a coronavirus vaccine, as soon as one is proven safe and effective.
GAVI, an organization that provides vaccines to underserved populations, says that at least 60% of the world’s population will need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity and begin stamping out COVID-19. “You can’t go back to your normal trade, travel or movement of people” unless everyone gets vaccinated, GAVI CEO Seth Berkley recently told the BBC. “It’s really important to have that mindset: we’re not safe, unless everybody is safe.”
Liu said in the interview that Sinopharm has invested nearly $300 million in building two new vaccine production workshops; the more it charges for its vaccine the more of that investment it might recover. He said the facilities, one in Beijing and one in Wuhan, will be capable of producing a combined 220 million doses per year.
The high price of the Sinopharm vaccine sparked worries on Chinese social media. A survey on China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo asked users whether they could afford Sinopharm’s $145 price point; more than 50% of the 5,000 respondents said they could not, according to the state-run news outlet the Global Times.
It’s unclear to what extent the Chinese government may subsidize vaccine costs or provide free or discounted rates to medical and other essential workers. Chinese media reported in late July that Sinopharm offered to immediately inoculate frontline medical workers vaccine in China for free. Liu says that he has also been injected with the vaccine.
In the interview, Liu said that he expects one dose of Sinopharm’s vaccine to be 97% effective in producing an immune response, a rate that would climb to close to 100% once a second dose is administered 28 days later.
Researchers, however, say it is still too early to tell if Sinopharm’s candidate will be successful.
On Aug. 13, Sinopharm published the results of its phase II trials that were conducted in China.
“We’re going to need more data” to see if the vaccine produces a robust immune response, Derek Lowe, vaccine expert and pharmaceutical industry veteran, wrote about Sinopharm’s phase II study for his blog on Science Translational Medicine.
Sinopharm launched phase III trials of the vaccine on 15,000 volunteers in the United Arab Emirates in July. The large-scale stage of testing is intended to evaluate the vaccine’s effectiveness and safety. The company has reportedly also made agreements to conduct similar trials in Peru, Morocco, Brazil, and Pakistan.
To find out if the vaccine actually offers protection, Lowe writes, we need to “stay tuned” for results of these trials.


fortune--2020-08-22--The U.K.’s ever-changing COVID travel rules are baffling a nation that just wants to get away

If your holidays lack excitement, try something truly high-stakes: taking a flight from continental Europe back to the U.K.
Until recently, even amid years of Brexit negotiations, travel not just in continental Europe but between Europe and the U.K. was nearly seamless: countless bargain-basement flights left airports across the country daily, and Paris and London were just a relaxed, two-hour train journey apart.
That ease has been ended by the COVID-19 pandemic, but it hasn’t stopped Britons from going on holiday this summer. Instead, it’s added a new level of chance and risk to the proceedings, with countries rapidly being added to or taken off the country’s 14-day quarantine list with less than 48 hours notice—infuriating travel bookers, confusing tourists, and provoking scrambles to cross the English Channel.
“Only travel if you are content to unexpectedly 14-day quarantine if required (I speak from experience!)”, transport minister Grant Shapps warned on Twitter. Shapps was forced to return early from a family holiday in Spain in July after the country was placed on the quarantine list.
This week, Croatia, Austria and Trinidad & Tobago were added to the quarantine list, giving tourists who wish to avoid self-isolation just 36 hours to get back to the country before the rules enter effect from Saturday morning at 4 a.m. On the other hand, Portugal—a beloved travel destination—was taken off the quarantine list, raising hopes for a late-summer holiday rush.
Data shows we need to remove Croatia, Austria and Trinidad & Tobago from our list of #coronavirus Travel Corridors to keep infection rates DOWN. If you arrive in the UK after 0400 Saturday from these destinations, you will need to self-isolate for 14 days. — Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) August 20, 2020
Croatia is estimated to be currently host to up to 20,000 British tourists, according to travel expert Paul Charles, who is the CEO of the travel consultancy The PC Agency.
That switch followed similar high-drama announcements for travelers arriving from France, last week, and previously Spain, provoking mad dashes to get back to the U.K.
The rules have drawn outrage from travel bookers and travel companies, who are wrestling with cancellations and extreme fluctuations in bookings. When the U.K.’s quarantine rules went into effect in June, they drew vast complaints from the sector that they had called for quarantine rules ahead of or in the midst of the country’s two-month lockdown—when no such rules were in place—and that applying them in June, by which time the U.K. had the highest death toll in Europe, made no sense.
Since then, a cottage tracking service has sprung up, with travel experts like Charles posting regular updates on infection rates among popular holiday destinations to warn of future changes, rumors flying of where to go, and when, and others tracking flight prices once quarantine restrictions go into place.
Croatia: trying to find flights home to the UK before 4am on Saturday?
The only direct departure I can see is British Airways, Zagreb to Heathrow (£376 one way).
Booking connecting flights? Please don't route via Paris or Amsterdam – changing planes at either triggers quarantine. — @simoncalder (@SimonCalder) August 20, 2020
Some of the calls to moderate the quarantines have included calls for “regional” restrictions—including from the Croatian Ambassador, who noted that cases were rising in the capital, not in the tourist hotspots—and testing services at the airport. Both have been dismissed by the U.K. government: in the first case, transport minister Shapps said other countries didn’t have the detail or level of testing found in the U.K., making it difficult to assess their regional infection rates; in the case of airports, he said that it was “a bit more complicated” than often suggested, and would require a second test days later.
Chaos has reigned in other ways, too. Scotland, for example, has put Switzerland on the quarantine list—even as the country remains on the safe list for England. And there are other twists, in keeping with the U.K.’s byzantine rule-setting on everything from seeing parents during a lockdown (one at a time), to going to the pub (don’t sing, please.)
A bizarre move for @scotgov to add #Switzerland to the quarantine list from Saturday, in defiance of @transportgovuk – just fly to #Manchester or #Newcastle and drive north. #Switzerland on 18.5 is below 20 threshold and the policy confuses consumers even more. #PlayingPolitics? — Paul Charles (@PPaulCharles) August 20, 2020
This week, fact checking service Full Fact confirmed with the U.K. government that a returned traveller may leave quarantine within the two week period—to go to another country. Whether they then need to complete a quarantine at all when they return to the U.K. depends on where they went, and for how long.
However, there was a lingering question hanging over the quarantine list: whether quarantines were actually being enforced. On Friday, the transport minister Grant Shapps said on BBC Breakfast he did not know how many people had been fined under quarantine rules, as travelers said there were no checks to see where they had arrived from, or if they quarantined at all.


fortune--2020-08-22--Travelers left nearly a million dollars at airport checkpoints last year

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

Travelers left behind nearly a million dollars at U.S. airport security checkpoints last year, including about $19,000 in foreign currency, a newspaper reported Friday.
A Transportation Security Administration report said travelers lost $926,000 at 75 airports in the year that ended in September, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported. Federal regulators say much of the lost money came from people emptying their pockets for security scans.
The paper says the largest sums were lost at airports in New York, San Francisco, Miami, Las Vegas and Dallas. At the newspaper’s hometown Pittsburgh International Airport, travelers parted with $5,000 .
The Transportation Security Administration suggests putting cash into carry-on bags, and reminds travelers who have lost money that they can contact the TSA’s lost-and-found office at the airport.


fortune--2020-08-22--5 companies that want to track your emotions

Faced with ongoing social isolation, a turbulent economic climate, and continued uncertainty about when life will return to a simulacrum of normalcy—and what that normal will even look like—many adults are exhibiting mounting signs of clinical anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
As the world’s public health and economic crises give rise to a mental health one, researchers are exploring a bevy of innovative solutions to help people monitor and regulate their emotions. Case in point: Researchers at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, recently created a new app that users can download to keep tabs on their mental well-being. The app analyzes data like users’ voice recordings, keystrokes, and sleep patterns.
This is part and parcel of a larger trend: Thanks to new advances in technology, human emotions are becoming increasingly measurable and quantifiable. From emotion-sensing robots to cars with sensors to digital wristbands, the field of emotion detection technologies is blossoming, with forecasters projecting that the market size will surge from $21.6 billion in 2019 to $56 billion by 2024.
Emotions are a powerful force in how we relate to the world and how we make life’s everyday decisions—as well as the most consequential ones—which is why innovation in this space is so welcome, both in times of crisis and beyond.
Some of the biggest advances in the field build on more elementary forms of detecting emotions, from measuring the (largely uncontrollable and unconscious) changes in our speech patterns to monitoring biomarkers like heart rate variability to gauge our stress levels.
Of course, measuring emotions is highly complex, and given how subjective and multifaceted they are, quantitative measurements will never entirely displace the qualitative element of evaluating and describing what we’re thinking and feeling. But if used correctly, emotion-sensing technologies can help transform our well-being by empowering individuals to better understand, monitor, and regulate their feelings—and a diverse array of innovative startups are hard at work making this vision a reality.
These five companies offer an inspiring look at what’s possible.
Healium
Healium, founded in 2013, utilizes augmented and virtual reality and wearable technology to enable users to “see their feelings.” Biofeedback collected by an Apple Watch or an EEG headband (a device that monitors the brain’s electrical activity) is transmitted to an app where users see their feelings in the form of butterflies flying in front of backgrounds of users’ choosing, like a tranquil field or a soothing beach.
The empirically backed idea behind the project? Visualizing our feelings using virtual reality can help us keep calm and better manage anxiety and stress. Peer-reviewed studies have found that Healium reduced anxiety and increased positive affect in users. Among the app’s users is the U.S. Navy.
Reflect Innovation
Founded in 2018, Reflect Innovation, a Joy Ventures portfolio company, has developed a portable interactive textile product that utilizes biofeedback to help people become aware of their emotional state and experience moments of calm. The product’s light changes color in response to signals from the user’s body, helping them gain control of their emotions. Reflect founder Noga Sapir combined her passions for neuroscience and textile design to create this tool—a contrast to the many tech solutions on the market that feature hard surfaces and screens.
Inner Balance
HeartMath’s Inner Balance sensor for iPhone and Android measures heart rhythm patterns to gauge users’ emotional states with an app that also includes guided meditations, real-time coaching tips, and journaling. The app is designed to help users regulate their heart rhythms and mental well-being to achieve a state of “coherence,” characterized by reduced stress, increased resilience, and better overall emotional health.
The company points to more than 300 peer-reviewed or independent studies that support its technologies and techniques, and has worked to broaden access to its solution during the pandemic. In April and May, HeartMath waived registration costs for its program, and the company recently added six new languages due to high demand.
Sonde Health
Digital health company Sonde Health measures the human voice as a vital sign and predictor of conditions including depression, hypertension, sleepiness, and respiratory illness. Smartphones, laptops, smart watches, tablets, and smart speakers track vocal patterns and detect changes in health, enabling preventive, proactive self-care.
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company introduced a new tool, Sonde One, which uses a six-second sample of users’ voices to detect respiratory problems. To bring the solution to market, Sonde partnered with the wellness company Wellworks for You, making the tool available for its 1.4 million members.
Feel
Launched in 2015, Feel combines cognitive behavioral therapy with a digital wristband that quantifies users’ emotional states based on biomarkers. The Feel app connects users to real-time insights and proven interventions, including mood journaling and breathing exercises. Fifteen-minute weekly sessions with licensed therapists provide people the chance to discuss their emotional states with a designated professional.
According to data from Sentio Solutions, which developed Feel, usage has spiked during the coronavirus pandemic, with users spending 50% more time per week on the app and 97% participation in weekly therapy sessions.
The future of emotion tracking
These companies offer only a taste of the possibilities emotion-sensing technologies hold. Robust analysis of the emotional aspect of dreams (as opposed to their content) is another underdeveloped and exciting field. And technologies that analyze facial expressions or that detect sexual attraction may well hit the market in the coming years.
Innovative companies and cutting-edge startups have a vital role to play in developing this field, as do science and research. Already slated for dramatic growth prior to COVID-19, the emotion detection market is more vital than ever. As we learn more about how we process and experience emotions—and as entrepreneurs tap new opportunities based on the latest science and research—inspiring new products will help us all live more joyfully.
Miri Polachek is CEO of Joy Ventures.


fortune--2020-08-22--Can an air purifier help protect you from COVID-19?

Soon after the coronavirus pandemic hit, people started snatching up portable air purifiers for their homes and offices. Their thinking? The devices will scrub the air of the virus (it can float for up to three hours indoors), reducing their risk of falling sick.
But do air purifiers actually work? The answer is yes—to a point, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The effectiveness of air purifiers depends on how well they catch air particles and their size in relation to the space they must filter. And it helps to use the devices in concert with other techniques such as increasing ventilation indoors, using high-end filters in central heating and air conditioning systems, and adhering to social distancing.
Here’s what you need to know before buying an air purifier.
Who needs a portable air purifier?
Air purifiers are expensive relative to some other solutions—improved ventilation, for instance, can be as simple as opening a few windows. You should think of them as an extra precaution, or as a last resort when other options are unavailable.
For instance, windows in high-rise buildings often can’t be opened. Or maybe you’re at home with a coronavirus-infected family member, or with people who are regularly in risky situations outside of the home. For example, teachers worried about exposure from their students may want the extra protection for their families. Experts have even recommended air purifiers as part of schools’ broader reopening plans.
What types of air-purifying technologies are available?
Air purifiers aren’t created equal. The first thing to look at is how a purifier filters the air.
The most widely used air purifier technology is what’s known as mechanical filtration. This simply means a purifier pushes air through a physical filter that catches airborne particles, in essentially the same way a sieve removes particles when you pour water through it.
A second, increasingly widespread method involves ionization. This technology adds an electric charge to particles, which makes them stick to surfaces instead of floating airborne. However, some research has found ionizing purifiers are less effective than other options. And the EPA has warned that some ionizing devices generate ozone at levels that may be damaging to human lungs. Thanks to better technology and pressure from regulators, ionizing filters that don’t generate ozone are now available, and the California Air Resources Board has created a list of those that emit only safe levels of ozone.
Finally, there are a number of unconventional air purifying technologies available. Some of these, such as the proprietary PECO filtration technology used by Molekule, are widely vetted. But since air purifier claims are subject to limited regulatory oversight, approach experimental technology with caution.
Which filters catch the coronavirus?
The easiest way to ensure your air purifier can filter coronavirus is to buy a mechanical purifier that uses a HEPA filter, which capture 99.97% of particles that are 0.3 microns or larger. This is the filter grade commonly used by hospitals, and is widely considered effective for removing coronavirus from the air.
The size of the coronavirus is only around 0.1 microns, or smaller than what a HEPA filter is rated to reliably catch. But to get airborne, the virus requires a carrier, usually water droplets, which are much larger and therefore can be captured.
Adding to the confusion, some purifiers may be advertised as having “HEPA type” filters, which could be misleading, since these may not be as effective as a true HEPA filters.
Other devices, including ionizing and electrostatic purifiers, clean the air without using filters. That can save hassle, but the effectiveness of filterless purifiers varies widely, and research on their effect on the coronavirus specifically is still limited. So in general, a mechanical HEPA filter is the safest bet.
There is one notable exception: Laboratory tests show Molekule’s proprietary PECO technology catches particulates more effectively than HEPA, and destroys them instead of just trapping them. But Molekule’s devices are among the most expensive on the market (see below).
Is your purifier big enough?
Air filters are rated on a metric known as Clean Air Delivery Rate, or CADR. This rating reflects how well a purifier removes contaminants, though understanding the number is difficult.
Most purifiers have three CADR ratings, for pollen, dust, and tobacco smoke, which are filtered at slightly different rates. The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) recommends buying a filter with a tobacco smoke CADR of at least two-thirds of the volume of the room in which you’ll use the device.
For example, if you’re buying a purifier for a room that’s 12 feet by 10 feet, or 120 cubic feet, you’d want a purifier with a tobacco smoke CADR of at least 80.
If you want to be especially cautious, you can buy a purifier rated for a larger room, which will simply mean your air is being filtered even more often than necessary. Also, for rooms with ceilings higher than eight feet, AHAM says you’ll want a purifier rated for a larger room (though the group doesn’t specify how to adjust your measurement).
This doesn’t apply to all purifiers, though: Neither Dyson nor Molekule have submitted their devices for measurement under the CADR standard. But they offer their own recommendations for the room size each model can protect.
Freestanding air purifiers are largely intended to work for single rooms, so if you want protection in more than one part of your house, you may need multiple purifiers.
Which air purifiers are best?
A few air purifier models are consistently highly ranked by reputable reviewers, though you’ll have to make your own judgment when balancing factors like price, room size, and design.
The Coway AP-1512HH Mighty purifier was the top pick from both Tom’s Guide and the New York Times’ Wirecutter, and was also highly rated by Cnet. The Blueair Blue Pure 411 and the Honeywell HPA 300 also placed consistently high in all three rankings.
How much does an effective air purifier cost?
Air purifier prices can vary a great deal depending on their filtering capacity and the technology they rely on.
Among the most expensive air purifiers is the $799 Molekule. On the other end of the spectrum, the highly-rated Blueair 411 purifier costs just $119.
Also worth considering: An air purifier’s total price includes not only the sticker price, but also the cost and frequency of replacement filters, and the electrical cost of running the device. That’s one clear advantage for ionizing purifiers, which don’t have a filter that needs replacing. But they do generally cost more up front than mechanical filters, and you have to clean the metal plates that collect particulates, which some users say is unpleasant.
Where to find more information about air purifiers
One very useful tool for evaluating air purifiers is this directory of room air cleaners maintained by AHAM. The directory includes room size (CADR) and performance data for a wide variety of purifiers, verified by independent lab tests.
You can also look for AHAM’s “Verifide” mark on a purifier’s packaging or marketing materials. This indicates that the manufacturer’s claims about filtration power and other details have been independently verified.