fortune--2020-12-14--Should top U.S. officials get Pfizer vaccine first? Trump says they can wait

President Donald Trump and other top U.S. officials will be offered the newly approved coronavirus vaccine within days as part of a plan to ensure continuity in government amid the pandemic, people familiar with the effort said.
The vaccinations will be offered to critical personnel in all three branches of government deemed essential, and could start as soon as Monday. The shots will be staggered over the following 10 days to ensure staff don’t experience possible side effects all at the same time.
Trump said in a tweet on Sunday, following reports about the plan, that he had directed that top government officials would be vaccinated “somewhat later.” He said he personally is not “scheduled” to be vaccinated.
People working in the White House should receive the vaccine somewhat later in the program, unless specifically necessary. I have asked that this adjustment be made. I am not scheduled to take the vaccine, but look forward to doing so at the appropriate time. Thank you! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 14, 2020
The measure also comes as health officials seek to build public confidence in the treatment. Offering the vaccine to top government members was recommended by public health officials and career national security staff, according to the people.
National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot confirmed the plan in a statement late Sunday.
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“The American people should have confidence that they are receiving the same safe and effective vaccine as senior officials of the United States government on the advice of public health professionals and national security leadership,” Ullyot said.
President-elect Joe Biden will follow the guidance of Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, about when to take a coronavirus vaccine and will have it administered in public, a transition official said.
In general, the first people in the U.S. to get the Pfizer Inc./BioNTech SE vaccine approved on Friday will be health-care workers and vulnerable residents of care homes. Various other groups, from airline workers to teachers to meatpackers, are keen for early access too.
U.S. health officials on Sunday warned that skepticism about the vaccines among many Americans may be a barrier to the nation achieving “herd immunity” against the coronavirus.
“The way we get through this is to achieve herd immunity,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief Stephen Hahn said on ABC. “And that means we need to vaccinate a significant number of people in this country, including those who are hesitant.”


fortune--2020-12-14--Cleveland’s baseball team plans to drop its ‘Indians’ name

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Cleveland’s baseball team plans to drop the word “Indians” from its name, the New York Times reports, citing three people familiar with the decision.
The team doesn’t have a plan for its new name yet, and could use the Indians name for the 2021 season before shifting away from it, one of the people said. Another option could be to proceed without a replacement name and come up with one in the future, two of the people said. The plans could be announced as soon as this week, according to the report.
The Cleveland team, which has moved away from its cartoonish tribal chief logo and had earlier announced plans to reconsider its moniker, didn’t immediately comment to the Times.
In the months since George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, a global reckoning on race and equality has prompted several name and branding changes to drop racist slurs and imagery. The Washington Football Team dropped the word “Redskins” earlier this year. Several other professional U.S. sports teams with tribal names and imagery, including the Atlanta Braves, Kansas City Chiefs and Chicago Blackhawks, have said they will keep their names.


fortune--2020-12-15--Can Joe Biden reunite America? The answer lies in his past

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With bigotry emboldened, ever-escalating partisanship, and a deafening silence from GOP senators as dangerous conspiracy theories spin to their advantage, America is decidedly off-course. Can Joe Biden navigate a post-Trump America back to center? Will his legacy be that of healer-in-chief?
Fortunately, Joe Biden’s long-held core beliefs will fare well in this time of unprecedented division. Ideally suited to calm a climate of anarchy, Biden’s values include an insistence on civility; an instinct for reaching across the aisle, often creating solutions at times when impasse seems inevitable; and a belief in giving voice to the next generation, evidenced by a lifetime of dedication to youth empowerment.
How do I know of these long-held core beliefs? I was present when these values guided and defined Biden’s earliest steps in public service and observed their maturation through the decades to follow.
As a teenage volunteer charged with the logistics of implementing youth education and volunteerism for the 1972 Biden Senate campaign (and the son of state party chairman, Henry Topel, who helped usher a young Joe Biden onto the national stage), I had a front row seat to observe and engage with the behaviors and choices that continue to define the character of our President-elect.
After the defeat of most of the Democratic candidates in our home state of Delaware in the 1970 election, there was a drastic need for change within Delaware’s Democratic Party. Henry Topel appointed a renewal commission to examine and reevaluate the Democratic Party statewide and suggest changes. The 25-member commission was helped by 100 volunteers who served on one or more of eight task forces to conduct a six-month study of the party.
Among the 25 appointed members was Joseph R. Biden Jr., a 27-year-old New Castle County councilman. Biden chaired the political education task force, having already been known for voicing his belief that one of the greatest responsibilities of politicians was to educate, motivate, and activate youth. On May 26, 1971, Biden presented his findings, concluding, “We must identify issues of significant interest to young people—poverty, racism, the draft, pollution—and develop legislative programs. We must integrate youth into the party organization at all levels.”
The following month, ratification of the 26th Amendment gave 18-year-olds the right to vote. Biden immediately put his youth empowerment theories into action, personally seeing that Delaware’s teenage population learned the power of their voice and their vote—an effort that inspired an army of youth to the most unlikely political upset of its day with Biden’s 1972 Senate win.
As a fundamental component of the 1972 Biden Senate campaign, political education unfolded swiftly in nearly every high school in the state. Biden, in addition to presenting the basics of how to participate in the democratic process, also emphasized a respect for competing perspectives—a glimpse into what would later become his practice of reaching across the aisle in bipartisan compromise.
I first observed this trait in Biden’s visits to high schools, where he would reflect on questions raised by soon-to-be first-time voters. He explained precisely why others might hold opposing views. “I hear you, and here’s why a 70-year-old retired teacher might feel threatened by that view.”
He taught empathy. It was palpable. He taught passion. It was contagious. He taught the essential need for respectful compromise—the art of listening to find common ground on which to move forward. It won him an election.
Through the years, the legislation he cosponsored in the Senate exemplified his gift and inclination for reaching across the aisle. On the Bipartisan Ranking Index, the nonpartisan measure of one’s ability to work across party lines in the House and Senate, Biden’s lifetime average score is in the top 20% of elected officials. This is a stunning achievement given the country’s ever-increasing partisanship. And now, with the power of the presidency, Biden’s bipartisan vision could be fully realized for the first time.
Admire Biden or not, it is his process, his trust in empowering the next generation, and his belief in reaching across the aisle in the spirit of compromise and respect that can spark the restoration of a system sorely lacking in bipartisanship and end a civil war that has torn our nation apart.
The 2020 presidential election has determined more than a simple balance of power. It has opened an opportunity to move in the direction of civility, compromise, inclusion, and bipartisanship.
Through a lifetime of service, Joe Biden has shown an instinct for fair-handed compromise; an insistence for civility and respect; and an intangible, wholly American strength forged from being knocked down again and again and always pulling himself up. The result is a level of familiarity, empathy, and authenticity that will serve him well as healer-in-chief.
David Topel is the author of The Heart of a Leader: The ’72 Biden Senate Campaign: Lessons from a Youth-Driven Upset.


fortune--2020-12-15--Apple’s Fitness+ workout service: enthusiasm, energy, and plenty of integration

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Apple’s new workout video service, called Fitness+, is a lot like other app-based exercise programs. It includes a wealth of videos led by fit and enthusiastic instructors who guide users through activities like yoga, treadmill running, and indoor rowing.
But while Fitness+ is less sophisticated than many rival apps used by workout mavens, deep integration with Apple’s other apps and devices makes it a solid choice for the company’s fans. In fact, you must own an Apple Watch to sign up for the service and an iPhone, iPad, or anApple TV set-top box to review the videos.
As an avid Apple Watch user, that sounded fine with me. But the device requirements are a departure from competing apps, like Sweat and Fitbod, which don’t require an Apple Watch and are often compatible with a variety of wearables.
In testing Fitness+ over one day, I found the video production values high, the music choices varied but all first rate, and the instructors to have energy to spare. There’s also a large selection of videos in each of the 10 workout categories–with more added every week.
Watching the videos on a phone or tablet works best when using exercise equipment like an indoor bike or treadmill. But I enjoyed my free standing workouts most when following them on a big TV screen.
Another element I liked was that Apple let the personalities of the various exercise leaders shine through. In a high-intensity workout, Bakari was all smiles as we sweated to the beat of 80s classics from Rick James and Devo. Meanwhile, Kim, teaching in the same category, seemed a little tougher and she preferred more current tunes from KDA and Jax Jones. In a “mindful cooldown” to end my fitness fest, Jessica was warm and encouraging.
Each instructor has their own page in the Fitness+ app that features a mini biography about them, a list of their videos, and a link to their Instagram accounts (otherwise I never would have guessed that strength and core training leader Amir played offensive lineman in at UCLA).
And Fitness+ is, as I mentioned, deeply integrated with Apple’s devices. When watching a video, you can start, pause, or end it from your Apple Watch. You can also add any song from a video in Fitness+ to your Apple Music app playlists. And Fitness+ users can watch videos not just on their own Apple TV, but any Apple TV (as long as its running the latest software). The device logs into the Fitness+ user’s account and doesn’t leave any data trail behind. That could be handy if I travel after the pandemic is over.
Despite all those benefits, the Apple Fitness + seems best suited for beginners and intermediate exercisers, and not more advanced users. Videos are classified only as “absolute beginner” or just typical. There are no double black diamond workouts here. And unlike popular services from exercise-equipment makers like Peloton and NordicTrack, there’s no way for the Fitness+ app to get performance readouts from the machines you’re working out on. It only tracks heart rate data from the Apple Watch and makes its own calorie burning calculations (the Apple Watch on its own tracks some other metrics like step counts and blood-oxygen levels but those aren’t connected to the Fitness+ app).
Apple’s service also doesn’t track or calculate any progression on your journey to becoming more fit. My Strava app for running and biking, for example, has all sorts of training trackers like a daily fitness score and a weekly intensity measure. It uses my performance, perceived exertion tracking, and heart rate over time to calculate those. In contrast, Fitness+ reports all workouts to Apple’s old ring-based daily fitness goal tracker, but it fails to offer much advice beyond that.
Instead, the service recommends workout more like a streaming music app. What songs, I mean workouts, did you like in the past? Let’s try some more of those.
Some rival services offer more sophisticated suggestions based on users’ actual performance in their exercises. Apple says Fitness+ will try to recommend other kinds of exercises if you’re piling up workouts that are too similar (all rowing all the time? Maybe it’s time to try some yoga).
A subscription to Fitness+ alone costs $10 monthly or $80 for annually, and it can be shared among up to six family members. That’s cheaper than many rival apps, though as mentioned, Fitness + isn’t as sophisticated.
Anyone who already has an Apple Watch can get one month of Fitness+ for free and new Apple Watch buyers get three months free. Some gyms are also bundling Fitness+ free with their memberships, starting with Life Time. And the exercise service is also included in Apple’s mega-bundle, the Apple One Premier plan, which costs $30 monthly and also includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, and other services.
And that may be the most logical source of early Fitness+ users. Many people who haven’t been focused on fitness may get it merely by signing up for the premier plan needing extra the cloud storage space or seeking the more established music and TV services.
Fitness+ is perfect for people getting back into workouts after slumping off during the pandemic or deciding to dabble for the first time—as long as they own an Apple Watch, that is.


fortune--2020-12-14--Attorney general William Barr resigns, effective December 23

Attorney General William Barr, one of President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies, is resigning amid lingering tension with the president over the president’s baseless claims of election fraud and the investigation into President-elect Joe Biden’s son.
Barr went Monday to the White House, where Trump said the attorney general submitted his letter of resignation. “As per letter, Bill will be leaving just before Christmas to spend the holidays with his family,” Trump tweeted.
Trump has publicly expressed his anger about Barr’s statement to The Associated Press earlier this month that the Justice Department had found no widespread election fraud that would change the outcome of the election. Trump has also been angry that the Justice Department did not publicly announce it was investigating Hunter Biden ahead of the election, despite department policy against such a pronouncement.
Barr in his resignation letter said he updated Trump Monday on the department’s “review of voter fraud allegations in the 2020 election and how these allegations will continue to be pursued.” He added that his last day on the job would be Dec. 23.
Trump said Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen, whom he labeled “an outstanding person,” will become Acting Attorney General.
Despite Trump’s obvious disdain for those who publicly disagree with him, Barr had generally remained in the president’s good graces and has been one of the president’s most ardent allies. Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that mail-in voting could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the coronavirus pandemic as Americans feared going to polls.
But Trump has a low tolerance for criticism, especially public criticism, from his allies and often fires back in kind.
Barr, who was serving in his second stint as attorney general, sought to paint himself as an independent leader who would not bow to political pressure. But Democrats have repeatedly accused Barr of acting more like the president’s personal attorney than the attorney general, and Barr had proved to be a largely reliable Trump ally and defender of presidential power.
Before releasing special counsel Robert Mueller’s full report on the Russia investigation last year, Barr framed the results in a manner favorable to Trump even though Mueller pointedly said he couldn’t exonerate the president of obstruction of justice.
He also appointed as special counsel the U.S. attorney who is conducting a criminal investigation into the origins of the FBI’s probe of the 2016 election that morphed into Mueller’s investigation of possible Trump-Russia cooperation, following Trump’s repeated calls to “investigate the investigators.”
Barr also ordered Justice Department prosecutors to review the handling of the federal investigation into Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn and then sought to dismiss the criminal charges against Flynn, who had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Trump later pardoned Flynn.
Barr’s break from Trump over election fraud wasn’t the first. Earlier this year, Barr told ABC News that the president’s tweets about Justice Department cases “make it impossible for me to do my job” and tensions flared just a few months ago when the two were increasingly at odds over the pace of the Durham investigation.
Trump had been increasingly critical about a lack of arrests and Barr was privately telling people he was frustrated by Trump’s public pronouncements about the case.
Trump was also said to blame Barr for comments from FBI Director Chris Wray on election fraud and mail-in voting that didn’t jibe with the president’s alarmist rhetoric.


fortune--2020-12-14--Pinterest pays $20 million to settle sex discrimination lawsuit

Pinterest paid $20 million to settle a legal case with Francoise Brougher, its former chief operating officer, who alleged gender discrimination.
The company is also investing $2.5 million in programs to improve representation in the technology industry, a Pinterest spokeswoman confirmed. It admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement.
“Francoise welcomes the meaningful steps Pinterest has taken to improve its workplace environment and is encouraged that Pinterest is committed to building a culture that allows all employees to feel included and supported,” Pinterest said in a joint statement with Brougher.
Brougher alleged that she was fired for speaking out about discrimination. The executive also said she was paid less than male peers and was left out of Pinterest’s initial public offering process despite her role as the No. 2 executive. She portrayed CEO Ben Silbermann as a leader who relied on the same group of men to make decisions and did not listen to different voices.
She had previously said she was prepared to take the case to trial. “While I was given a seat at the table, I had no power or I was not empowered to use my talent to drive Pinterest forward,” she said in August.
Brougher was encouraged to come forward after public statements by two Black women who left important jobs on Pinterest’s policy team in late May. The women, Ifeoma Ozoma and Aerica Shimizu Banks, also said they were underpaid and had their discrimination concerns dismissed by the company’s human resources department. Pinterest has said it investigated those cases and found no wrongdoing.
Since then, Pinterest has added more diverse directors to its board and taken steps to improve its process for hiring and compensating employees.


fortune--2020-12-14--With COVID raging, why are we even still playing college basketball?

It was public, shocking, and very real. In a game against rival Florida State on Saturday, the University of Florida basketball star Keyontae Johnson, just 21, collapsed facedown on the court, unconscious. He was removed by paramedics and taken to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, where he was reported to be in critical, but stable condition. His Gators teammates, some in tears, huddled to pray, and after some discussion the game continued, with Florida State putting away a comparatively meaningless win.
While the cause of Johnson’s collapse was not immediately clear, one of the details that we already have is worrisome enough: Many members of the Florida team, including Johnson, tested positive for COVID-19 during the summer.
And while I’ll explain in a moment how those two events—the COVID diagnosis and Johnson’s medical emergency—might be related, we need to first step back and ask a much larger question: Given what we already know about the spread of the virus, why is the NCAA powering ahead with basketball at all?
Nationally, the pandemic continues to rage. We’re at roughly 200,000-plus daily cases, an increase of 30% over the past two weeks; 2,400 people are dying per day, up 67% for the same period. We know that hospitals around the country are getting slammed, with intensive care units (ICUs) nearing capacity. Staffing shortages are real, with health care workers falling ill or some even leaving the profession, and hospital providers are exhausted, pleading for help from the community to take the situation more seriously and stay home.
Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert leading our national COVID effort, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers For Disease Control (CDC)—all have recommended restricting large gatherings, prioritizing outdoor activities over indoor ones, and distancing six feet or more from those not living in your same household. They recommend limiting attendance at indoor training sessions, as well as wearing masks.
Playing basketball indoors pretty much flies in the face of all these recommendations. How much closer can you be to someone than when you’re right in their face guarding them, breathing heavily, running into one another, amid dripping or flying sweat? (Anyone who calls basketball a noncontact sport never played it at the higher levels.) Traveling to various cities, staying in hotels, visiting various schools and facilities, then returning back to your own college community—none of it makes sense medically, and it’s dangerous.
It’s almost as if the NCAA is not aware of COVID-19’s droplet and aerosol spread, which is frankly hard to believe. Time and again we have seen outbreaks occurring in indoor settings such as restaurants, bars, church services and weddings, etc. We understand now, too, that via aerosols, the coronavirus can spread at even greater distances—20 to 30 feet—and can linger in the air for minutes to hours, infecting others. Just last week, a study from Korea reported on a case of coronavirus transmission documented indoors after just five minutes of exposure without any direct contact—from 20 feet away.
“Indoor basketball increases the risk of COVID-19 in multiple and concerning ways,” said Lupita Montoya, an indoor air quality and aerosol expert at the University of Colorado. “The generation of aerosols from the players is increased by physical activity, and unabated by a mask.”
Is it any wonder that 15 to 20 college basketball coaches already have tested positive for COVID-19, or that multiple teams have players testing positive, or that there have been a slew of game cancellations? Keep in mind, the college season only began on Nov. 25th. Duke, USC, Florida A&M, George Mason, Towson, Baylor, the Connecticut women’s team, Utah, Wichita State, Tennessee, and many others have canceled games because of at least one player or staff member testing positive for the virus.
It prompts the question, why? Why are we playing college basketball, putting athletes and coaching staff at risk of a deadly virus? The NBA, with all of its protections and testing ability, still had 48 of 546 players test positive during the last week of November—almost 9%. (The pro league is not imposing the same “bubble” conditions that kept players and staff free of infection during the NBA playoffs earlier this year.) College players and teams, meanwhile, do not have the same resources as the pros. What will their positive-testing percentages turn out to be? And why take that risk?
The short answer is that there’s significant money involved. Basketball produces more than $1.1 billion for the NCAA in a normal year, which includes the March Madness tournament, a massive moneymaker for the organization. But just as that tournament was canceled last season, so should this entire 2020–21 schedule be reconsidered.
A troubling link
We have no idea at this point whether Keyontae Johnson’s collapse is related to COVID-19, or to something entirely different. But you can bet his physicians will be evaluating the COVID angle.
What we do know is that, speaking generally, there are multiple possible etiologies of a sudden loss of consciousness in athletes. The causes can range from something as benign as dehydration to much more serious health problems. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a disease in which heart muscle becomes abnormally thick, is a common cause of cardiac death in competitive athletes. But another culprit in incidents like this is a heart condition that has been closely linked to COVID: myocarditis.
Myocarditis is a rare condition that generally is due to either an unknown cause (“idiopathic”) or a viral illness. It leads to inflammation of the heart muscle, which can affect its ability to pump. It is known to occur more commonly in males than in females, ages 20 to 40, and can result in serious arrhythmias, loss of consciousness, heart failure, and even sudden cardiac death.
According to some scientific reports, as many as 7% of deaths from COVID-19 may result from myocarditis. (Others feel that estimate is too high.) Arrhythmias have been found to be fairly common among COVID-19 patients.
In COVID patients, myocarditis appears to result from the direct infection of the virus attacking the heart, or possibly as a consequence of inflammation triggered by the body’s overly aggressive immune response. At autopsy, researchers have reported the presence of viral protein in the actual heart muscle of deceased patients—so viral involvement is possible, though the true etiology may be multifactorial.
According to reports, cases of myocarditis have been seen to occur both in patients during their acute COVID illness or hospital stay and in the many weeks or even months following infection—even in those who experience only mild or asymptomatic illness initially.
The true incidence of myocarditis developing in recovered COVID patients is not known. But one non–peer reviewed study, involving 139 health care workers who developed coronavirus infection and recovered, found that about 10 weeks after their initial symptoms, 37% of them were diagnosed with myocarditis or myopericarditis—and fewer than half of those showed symptoms at the time of their scans.
Similarly, a recent small study from Ohio State University reported on 26 COVID-positive male and female college athletes from a range of sports, all of whom had mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 while sick. Using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans performed between 11 days and nearly two months from the athletes’ recommended quarantine, researchers found that 15% of the athletes (all males) had findings suggestive of myocarditis, and 30% showed changes consistent with prior injury to the heart. The Big Ten Conference, to which Ohio State belongs, reported that 35% of its COVID-positive athletes had myocarditis.
Statistically, most young people do quite well with coronavirus (though not everyone), but the long term is a concern here, too. We know of tragic cases like that of former Florida State basketball player Michael Ojo, who died of suspected heart complications just after recovering from a bout of COVID-19 in Serbia, where he was playing pro ball.
In college football, Indiana University offensive lineman Brady Feeney dealt with possible heart issues. University of Houston player Sedrick Williams opted out of the season because of “complications with my heart.” From both the college and pro sports ranks, there are many other stories like these.
And we haven’t even discussed the “long haulers,” people who experience worrisome symptoms for weeks or months after their initial illness: shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pain, relapsing fevers, “brain fog,” on and on. Some of these are young, healthy people who had mild or even asymptomatic initial COVID infections.
My son was a college athlete. I understand how hard these athletes train, how much they want to compete, and what great fun and joy the games bring to avid sports fans. I also know how important college athletics is to universities and their bottom lines, and how much is generated from television revenue. On so many levels, I get it, and I pray for Keyontae Johnson’s safe recovery. But one player dead is too many, and another pitching forward unconscious on the basketball court should prompt a complete reconsideration of what we’re doing here.
With the findings of myocarditis and other ailments in COVID-positive athletes, and the real potential of long-hauler symptoms in previously healthy young adults, it’s irresponsible to continue indoor sports at this point. We know enough now. Vaccines are on the way. Let’s postpone this season for six months in order to vaccinate players when the shots become available.
For the 2020–21 college basketball campaign, August Madness is clearly the way to go. It may not have the same ring to it. Then again, nothing about this pandemic is normal.
Carolyn Barber has been an emergency department physician for 25 years. She is cofounder of the homeless work program Wheels of Change and the author of many articles and a new book, Runaway Medicine: What You Don’t Know May Kill You.


fortune--2020-12-14--Photos: U.S. health workers begin receiving COVID-19 vaccine

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Monday was a momentous day in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. As the nation surpassed the grim milestone of 300,000 deaths from COVID-19, some Americans began receiving Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine, which earned emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration on Friday.
As anticipated, high-risk health care workers are the first in line for inoculations; Sandra Lindsay, an intensive care nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, N.Y., is believed to be the first American to receive the vaccine outside of a clinical trial. After frontline health care workers, nursing home residents—who have accounted for a disproportionate number of COVID-19 deaths—are expected to be next in terms of priority. The vaccine likely won’t be available to the vast majority of Americans until next spring at the earliest, according to government officials.
Still, the relief comes not a moment too soon. Coronavirus cases and deaths continue to escalate across the country, forcing many states to reinstitute lockdown measures that have already devastated huge swaths of the American economy. Health officials fear that the situation will only get worse over the course of the winter, and continue to warn Americans to wear face masks, avoid indoor and group gatherings, and practice social distancing.
But the arrival of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, as well as the pending approval of Moderna’s own COVID-19 shot, offers hope to a nation whose very way of life has been upended by a once-in-a-century pandemic. With hundreds of sites across the U.S. set to receive the vaccine this week, the beginning of mass inoculations indicates that the tide may be turning against the virus—and that an end to all the death and economic devastation, and a return to normalcy, may finally be on the horizon.
Below, some images from the first day of the historic vaccine rollout in the U.S.:
Nurse Sandra Lindsay bumps elbows with hospital publicist Joseph Kemp after she is inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, N.Y. Mark Lennihan—Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Richard Guarino, supply chain operations associate director at Boston Medical Center, delivers Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to the BMC pharmacy. Jessica Rinaldi—The Boston Globe/Getty Images
Pharmacy technicians receive a delivery of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine at UW Health in Madison. John Maniaci—UW Health/Reuters
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear watches as UPS driver Byron Bishop delivers COVID-19 vaccinations to University of Louisville Hospital. Jon Cherry—Getty Images
A frontline health care worker prepares to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at University of Louisville Hospital. Scotty Perry—Bloomberg/Getty Images
Pharmacy staff unpack vials of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine at University of Louisville Hospital. Scotty Perry—Bloomberg/Getty Images
Syringes for the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the University of Louisville Hospital. Scotty Perry—Bloomberg/Getty Images
A freezer where vials of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine are stored at the University of Louisville Hospital. Scotty Perry—Bloomberg/Getty Images
Yves Duroseau, MD, chair of emergency medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital, volunteers to be the second person to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at Northwell Health Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, N.Y. Timothy A. Clary —AFP/Getty Images


fortune--2020-12-14--Why Adidas is finally putting Reebok up for sale

Sometimes it’s best to just admit that you can’t make something work.
Adidas announced on Monday that it will put its struggling Reebok footwear business up for sale. The decision, which analysts have been expecting for months, is part of the German sportswear company’s assessment of “strategic alternatives” for Reebok, a brand that reached its cultural zenith in the 1980s.
Adidas bought Reebok for $3.8 billion in 2005, hoping it would help the company take on Nike more effectively in the U.S. market, thanks to Reebok’s long-standing credibility with basketball aficionados and its then licensing deal with the National Basketball Association. (Nike won that license from Reebok a few years ago.) What’s more, Reebok’s pop culture cred was bolstered by products like a line of shoes in partnership with rapper 50 Cent.
But Reebok has been on a long decline. And Adidas, facing off not only with longtime rivals like Nike but also up-and-comers like Under Armour and Lululemon Athletica, has struggled to turn that trend around: In 2007, Reebok generated nearly a quarter of Adidas’s overall revenue, but in the first nine months of 2020, that was down to 6.9%.
Some of that percentage drop has stemmed from the namesake Adidas brand’s healthier growth. Still, it’s hard to deny that Reebok has been flailing for too long, fleeting improvements in 2019 aside.
Despite efforts like relaunching Reebok Classics a few years ago, the brand never regained much of its cool aura, retro or otherwise. Collaborations haven’t changed its overall trajectory either: It has worked with big names like Cardi B and Kendrick Lamar in recent years. Nor has a stab at couture: Reebok is currently selling a Maison Margiela Instapump shoe at Bergdorf Goodman for $1,500.
Reflecting the brand’s decline, media reports in October suggested Reebok could fetch around $2 billion, or barely half of what Adidas paid for it 15 years ago.
In addition to cutting financial losses, shedding the brand should reduce distractions for the company. Selling off Reebok will “allow it [Adidas] to focus more on the core namesake brand, which needs to accelerate momentum to tighten its revenue gap with Nike” in North America, analysts with Bloomberg Intelligence recently wrote.
And true enough, while Adidas has been growing stateside, its position in North America is comparatively weaker than it is in other markets. According to Euromonitor, Nike and Adidas are virtually tied in terms of market share in Western Europe (both at about 16%) and in China (21%). But in North America, Nike is nearly three times as big as Adidas.
As if to echo the wisdom of letting go of brands acquired in long-ago ill-advised M&A, Bed Bath & Beyond announced on Monday that it was selling its 243-store Cost Plus World Market chain, which it bought only eight years ago. The decision is part of the company’s aim to refocus on its core brand, an effort that has included ditching excess baggage like its Christmas Tree Shops stores and fixing its finances.
And just as with Adidas and Reebok, the Bed Bath & Beyond deal “will allow management to focus on the core business without getting distracted by smaller divisions,” GlobalData wrote in a research note.
The retail landscape is littered with companies mired in fixing brands they bought with the belief that the businesses could be turned around with relative ease—think of Tapestry with Kate Spade, Men’s Wearhouse, and most ill-fated of all, the now bankrupt Ascena buying Ann Taylor. But while no one likes to admit defeat, in the case of Adidas, Bed Bath & Beyond—and perhaps others—it makes sense to cut one’s losses and focus on the winning, core brand.


fortune--2020-12-14--Voting machine maker threatens to sue Fox News over conspiracy claims

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In the weeks after the election, guests on Fox News and other Trump-allied media outlets have repeatedly suggested that voting machine company Smartmatic helped rig the outcome for President-elect Joe Biden. The claims are problematic—not least because, aside from one in a California county, U.S. voters didn’t use Smartmatic machines in the first place.
For Smartmatic, the claims about its machines—which appear to have come primarily from the networks’ guests rather than the hosts—are not just frustrating examples of disinformation but a major business risk as well. According to its CEO, the company has lost contracts in other countries because of the controversy. As a result, Smartmatic issued a statement on Monday warning it will sue Fox News, as well as smaller media outlets NewsMax and OANN, for defamation if they don’t retract “dozens” of inaccurate statements.
Since Smartmatic’s statement, Lou Dobbs has walked back his false claims about the company’s machines, while NewsMax on Monday sought to “clarify” its coverage with a segment disavowing its earlier nonsense allegations.
The initial statements included Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani telling Lou Dobbs of Fox News that Smartmatic owned Dominion, a rival voting machine company that has been the target of conspiracy theories promoted by the President. Meanwhile, former Trump attorney Sidney Powell has suggested to Fox that the recent election involved collusion between Smartmatic and Dominion as part of a broader scheme by foreign governments.
Such theories have been repeatedly debunked, with the Associated Press stating that “Both Dominion and Smartmatic have released statements saying no ownership relationship exists between the two competing firms.”
According to some observers, Smartmatic’s decision to threaten Fox and the other outlets with defamation claims could offer a new tool to combat the flood of disinformation unleashed by Presiden Trump and his allies following his election defeat. Erin Geiger-Smith, an election historian and author of Thank You for Voting, tweeted that other companies and individuals may undertake similar legal campaigns.
Moves like this seem like they’ll be increasingly necessary to right the ship of corporate-sponsored disinformation.
But it will be a lot of effort for potentially little return w/o a groundswell of cases/demands from those maligned. And individuals will need to do it, too. https://t.co/KnIK20WKw1 — Erin Geiger Smith (@erin_gs) December 14, 2020
There is also the question of whether Smartmatic would succeed in court. According to long-time media lawyer Ed Klaris, companies are subject to the same rules of defamation as individuals—including the need to clear the high bar of “actual malice” in the event they are so-called public figures.
Klaris says it’s unclear if Smartmatic is so well-known that it would have to meet the actual malice standard. He also predicted that Fox would likely try to pass off the claims about the voting machines as opinion rather than statements of fact. While matters of opinion—including those thrown out in the hurly-burly of a talk show segment—are typically outside the realm of defamation, courts may find at least some of the “dozens” of allegedly false claims do not qualify as opinion.
Smartmatic’s potential lawsuits could also serve to bring judicial scrutiny of some of the more outlandish claims—like plots by Venezuela to rig the election—advanced by the likes of Giuliani and Powell. While the pair has repeatedly advanced such claims in the media, they have not included claims of fraud in their numerous court challenges. Legal watchers say this is because, as attorneys, they can be sanctioned for making baseless claims before a judge.
Fox News did not respond to a request for comment about Smartmatic’s allegations, nor did OANN. A spokesperson for Newsmax, which is positioning itself as a rival to Fox for Trump devotees, said it has never made direct allegations of impropriety about the company, but that its guests have commented on legal documents related to Smartmatic.
“As any major media outlet, we provide a forum for public concerns and discussion. In the past we have welcomed Smartmatic and its representatives to counter such claims they believe to be inaccurate and will continue to do so,” said the spokesperson.
The distinction between a media outlet’s positions and those of its guests may not always matter in court, however, according to Klaris. He notes that a victim of defamation is entitled to sue both the person who made the statement as well as the outlet on which the statement was aired.
Klaris also noted that, if Smartmatic has indeed lost out on contracts because of false claims about its voting machines, it will be in a strong position to seek damages.
“Absolutely, they’re suffering harm. That’s what libel law is meant to fix. It’s meant to fix reputational harm,” said Klaris.
This story was updated on Dec 21 to note the retractions by Dobbs and Newsmax.


fortune--2020-12-14--TikTok, YouTube, Amazon targeted by FTC in privacy review

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission issued orders to Amazon.com Inc., Google’s YouTube and Facebook, among others, as it launched a study into the data practices of technology platforms.
The FTC is seeking documents from nine social media and video companies that detail how they collect, use and present personal information, according to a statement Monday.
The agency is also asking about the companies’ advertising and user engagement practices, and how their practices affect children and teens.
The FTC is issuing the orders under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, which authorizes it to conduct wide-ranging studies that don’t have a specific law enforcement purpose.
The orders are also being sent to ByteDance, which operates the short video service TikTok, Discord, Reddit, Snap, Twitter and Facebook’s WhatsApp. The companies will have 45 days from the date they received the order to respond.


fortune--2020-12-14--After a blockbuster IPO, DoorDash’s challenge now is to deliver profits

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Down the street from Stanford University, 20 young techies crammed into a two-bedroom apartment that served as their office. Their furniture, bought on the cheap, included a lipstick-red couch, mismatched tables, and folding chairs.
The company was focused on providing food delivery for restaurants—in this case just eight in the neighborhood. Employees, no matter their job, spent part of their day shuttling food to front porches, in an effort to learn how to improve the business, even if it meant shaving only a few seconds off the time it took to get orders to their destinations.
“Everyone in the company did deliveries—it didn’t matter what you were,” said Tony Xu, CEO of the delivery upstart, DoorDash. Back then, it was about “trying to become an expert early on.”
Seven years later, DoorDash has become the biggest player in U.S. food delivery. And last week, amid a food delivery boom fueled by the coronavirus pandemic, it became a newly minted public company.
Following a blockbuster IPO, DoorDash is now valued at around $50 billion. That’s more than big established companies like General Mills, Kraft Heinz, and Ford.
Still, DoorDash must prove that its growth during the pandemic was no fluke. Other than a profitable blip in one recent quarter, it has hemorrhaged money for years, losing $204 million in 2018, $667 million in 2019, and, in the first nine months of this year, $149 million.
“The biggest questions investors have is how durable the current growth levels are,” said Mark Shmulik, an analyst at AB Bernstein. “Food delivery has become a part of normal life, but at what sustainable level?”
On Monday, DoorDash’s shares slid 12% to $153 in midday trading after another analyst questioned whether investors had been too optimistic following the company’s IPO. In a reprise of the dotcom boom days of 20 years ago, DoorDash’s shares had soared 86% on their first day of trading.
DoorDash points to a couple of signs that suggest its business is sound. After operating in certain cities for several years, it’s able to make a profit in them, excluding certain costs. The company also points to being cash flow positive, a metric often touted by startups to show progress that also excludes certain costs. It means that the company, in this case, over the first nine months of this year, had more cash coming in than going out, a result that was accelerated, but not created, by the pandemic.
Whatever the case, DoorDash faces a number of challenges. Those include regulation that could increase employee costs; the demise of mom-and-pop restaurants, which is reducing the number of merchants using its service; and competition with well-funded rivals including UberEats and Just Eat Takeaway.com–owned Grubhub.
At the end of the day, DoorDash wants to deliver more than just food: It wants to be the go-to app for shopping and delivery from nearly all Main Street stores.
Getting buy-in
DoorDash’s early days were driven by efficiency and frugality—mostly out of necessity. Starting with just $20,000 from Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator in 2013, DoorDash has spent years tinkering with its operations to lower costs.
“We watched profitability like a hawk from day one because we had to,” Xu said. “We always made sure we built a business that had a path to profitability.”
Initially, DoorDash expanded in urban markets in addition to suburban ones, said Christopher Payne, the company’s chief operating officer. At the time, the conventional wisdom was that delivery companies needed to dominate big, dense cities, where lots of customers live within short distances, to be successful. But after the Cheesecake Factory asked DoorDash to serve its restaurants nationwide, DoorDash executives doubled down on the suburbs despite concerns about making those areas profitable.
“We were like, ‘We’re just going to figure it out,’” Payne said. “In hindsight, it looks like we were brilliant because it turns out that DoorDash works as well or better in suburbs as it does in urban environments.”
By focusing on the suburbs, DoorDash reached more families, who in turn bought more food per order. Though drivers traveled farther, they often reached their destinations and parked faster.
“Fast-forward, and those are the markets all growth is coming from,” said Tom White, an analyst at investment bank D.A. Davidson.
The suburban strategy was partially what helped lure big Silicon Valley venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, which led a $17.3 million funding round in DoorDash in 2014. The other attraction was Xu.
After initially passing on DoorDash—the category was once viewed as too capital intensive by investors—Sequoia partner Alfred Lin was finally sold in 2014 after speaking with Xu at a Sequoia-sponsored networking dinner. Xu, a Chinese immigrant who grew up washing dishes in a restaurant that also employed his mother, dissected the restaurant’s operations for Lin, even going so far as to explain how the restaurant timed the delivery of its food. Xu then tied the efficiency of the restaurant to that of DoorDash, sealing the deal for Lin.
“He was probably the only person to talk to me about the math of it all,” Lin said. “It changed my mind.”
Xu’s obsession with efficiency eventually trickled down into what has become the culture at DoorDash, said Sarah Wagener, the company’s chief people officer. The idea is to focus on areas where the business needs improvement, forcing employees to constantly look for problems they can solve. “It’s not like anything I’ve seen,” she said.
An overnight shift
Following rapid growth, DoorDash began eyeing an initial public offering in early 2019. Then in March, after filing for an IPO confidentially, the unimaginable happened: The coronavirus became a global pandemic.
As the virus spread, restaurants grappled with citywide shutdowns, some of which limited them to takeout and delivery. Many restaurants quickly signed up with third-party delivery services like DoorDash.
“Thousands and thousands of merchants were realizing in a moment’s notice they had to switch from a dine-in to delivery and pickup-only model,” Wagener said. “Tony, the management team, and thousands of employees across the company spent nights, weekends, their spare time…onboarding merchants onto the platform.”
To respond to the coronavirus, DoorDash temporarily waived sign-up fees for new restaurants joining the service and cut commission fees in half for local restaurants with five or fewer locations. It also spent $120 million on masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer for drivers plus the waiver of the fees it charges restaurants, and built a no-contact delivery option, in which drivers leave food on the doorstep to avoid close contact with consumers.
For Krazy Hog, a Chicago-based barbecue restaurant, DoorDash became vital. Owned by husband-and-wife duo Victor and Dana Cooksey, Krazy Hog shut its doors after the pandemic hit. But just weeks later, with guidance from DoorDash, the restaurant moved into a shared kitchen owned by a third-party operator and set up for pickup and delivery alone. DoorDash also helped the restaurant lure more customers through the use of the data it collects, such as customer demographics and ordering frequency, and is working to include Krazy Hog’s barbecue sauce in DoorDash’s digital convenience store that debuted earlier this year.
“When they told us about all this…You know the little emoji with the brains being blown out? It was that,” Dana Cooksey said, suggesting she was mind-blown.
“I view the delivery totally different now,” Victor added.
But not everyone is sold on DoorDash. For one, Darden Restaurants, the parent of the Olive Garden and Yard House chains, has been unimpressed by the sales and quality of third-party delivery services generally. Darden said it still stands by a statement its CEO, Gene Lee, made two years ago about delivery: “We just don’t see this as something that we want to get involved in today with the current way it’s being executed.”
Some restaurants have sued DoorDash for allegedly adding their eateries to the service without permission. For example, Chicago-based Burger Antics filed a lawsuit against DoorDash in 2018, saying that customers claimed they had received cold food from drivers after long waits. And In-N-Out Burger sued DoorDash in 2015.
By listing what the company calls “non-partner” restaurants, DoorDash hoped to convert those restaurants into customers by proving that its service increased their business. DoorDash said it stopped the practice in November.
No stranger to scrutiny
DoorDash has had its share of scrutiny.
Some restaurants have complained that food-delivery services like DoorDash hurt profits by charging excessive commissions, which analysts say amount to 15% to 20% per order. The complaint has received so much traction that cities nationwide have started implementing caps on delivery commission, most of which have been added since the pandemic started.
“We don’t know how permanent or temporary these caps are,” said Shmulik of AB Bernstein. “Is this just the pandemic, or is this going to be a permanent thing that is going limit them?”
Several state regulators have also targeted DoorDash and its fellow gig companies, arguing that drivers should be classified as employees rather than independent contractors who get no benefits. California has taken the lead on the matter, enacting a new law that would have required companies to reclassify their drivers as employees. But that law was nullified after voters approved a November ballot initiative called Proposition 22 that lets gig workers remain independent contractors while receiving a few additional benefits like a minimum hourly wage and medical coverage.
Xu touted the passage of the proposition, which DoorDash helped fund, and said he hopes that the company leads the effort on finding similar solutions for drivers in other states. “We need to build upon what began in California to find innovative solutions elsewhere,” Xu recently wrote in an op-ed for Business Insider.
Though other states are still considering their options, “driver classification is certainly going to remain an issue,” said White of D.A. Davidson. DoorDash has said it can survive the adoption of Prop 22–like laws elsewhere, but so far the company has mostly been working through hypothetical outcomes and costs. Any adverse decision by state or federal regulators may delay DoorDash’s plans to become profitable in upcoming years.
In 2019, DoorDash faced a customer revolt over a tipping policy that appeared to allow DoorDash to pocket tips that were meant for drivers. Under pressure, DoorDash reversed that policy, which it said was initially implemented to increase driver earnings.
Beyond criticism, DoorDash must fend off rivals. The company’s main one, UberEats, reported a 125% gain in third-quarter revenue to $1.45 billion. By comparison, DoorDash had $879 million in revenue during the same period, a gain of 268%.
As it expands internationally—DoorDash currently operates in Australia and Canada—it faces growing competition including from the U.K.’s Just Eat and Deliveroo. UberEats has also extended its reach through a $2.65 billion acquisition of rival Postmates and by taking a majority stake in Latin American grocery-delivery startup Cornershop.
As DoorDash expands into other categories like grocery delivery and convenience, the list of rivals is growing. As a result, it could face competition from grocery-focused giants Instacart and Target-owned Shipt, and even e-commerce behemoth Amazon.
Working in DoorDash’s favor is that it has already attracted more than 18 million users to its service and more than 390,000 merchants. “It’s hard to see how they lose share moving forward,” said Shmulik. “The only question is, can they penetrate these other categories or do they leave the door open for others to gain that share?”
Despite the growth and mounting challenges, Xu said his focus remains on restaurants, diners, and operations. And the IPO, well, that’s the icing on the cake.
“When we started the company, I wasn’t thinking about an IPO; I was thinking about, ‘How I am going to make sure we have enough Dashers on the road tonight, in addition to me schlepping hummus from my Honda,’” he said, using the company’s terms for its delivery workers. “It’s a bit of an incredulous moment.”
Clarification: This article was updated from the original to provide more detail about DoorDash’s spending during the pandemic.


fortune--2020-12-14--Apple app store users will now see privacy nutrition labels

Apple will begin spelling out what kinds of personal information is being collected by the digital services displayed in its app stores for iPhones and other products made by the trendsetting company.
The additional disclosures will begin to appear in apps made for iPads, Mac computers and Apple’s TV streaming device, as well as its biggest moneymaker, the iPhone. Apple announced the changes were coming six months ago as part of an effort to help its customers gain a better understanding of how apps monitor their habits, tastes and whereabouts.
In many instances, the data scooped up by apps is used to sell ads targeted at a particular person’s interest and location, especially if their services are being offered for free.
The increased transparency about the collection and handling of personal information is designed to help people make more informed decisions about which apps they choose to install on their phones and other devices.
The changes were worked out with European regulators and mesh with Apple’s efforts to position itself as a trustworthy guardian of its customers’ privacy — an issue CEO Tim Cook has been framing a “fundamental human right.” In the process, Cook has been taking veiled shots at Google and Facebook, which make most of their money from digital ads that are driven by the mining of personal information.
Apple also has plans to impose a new mandate that will require all iPhone apps to obtain permission before tracking a person’s activities on the device. That surveillance is currently done automatically by many apps, forcing people to go to the time and trouble to block the tracking in the settings of each app.
The anti-tracking feature was supposed to be released in September, but Apple delayed after Facebook and many other app makers protested. Apple is vowing to oust apps from its stores if they try to bypass the new anti-tracking rule when it becomes effective next year.


fortune--2020-12-14--France opens tax evasion investigation into Carlos Ghosn

Auto executive-turned-fugitive Carlos Ghosn is under investigation in France for possible tax evasion during his last three years heading Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co., according to a person familiar with the matter.
Ghosn and French tax authorities have been discussing since the middle of last year whether the former chief executive officer should have been considered a French resident during 2016, 2017 and 2018, said the person, who asked not to be named because the information isn’t public. Ghosn declared in 2012 that he had moved to the Netherlands and was subsequently treated as a non-resident, the person said.
The newspaper Liberation reported Monday that a French judge allowed authorities to seize almost 13 million euros ($16 million) in assets from Ghosn and his wife, Carole, pending the outcome of the probe. Authorities are preparing a “major” tax adjustment, the paper said.
A spokeswoman for Ghosn declined to comment.
The tax probe adds to Ghosn’s legal woes in France, where authorities are already investigating his role in expenses covered by Renault and the Dutch subsidiary that oversaw its alliance with Nissan. Ghosn was arrested in Tokyo two years ago and accused of financial crimes including underreporting his compensation at Nissan. He has denied the charges and escaped last year to Lebanon.
Seized Assets
The assets seized include an apartment in Paris owned by Carole worth 5.9 million euros, half the ownership of a house in the western suburb of L’Etang-la-Ville and shares in Renault, according to the report, which didn’t say where the information came from.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Monday declined to confirm a probe into Ghosn’s tax affairs. While he has access to information about these kinds of investigations, Le Maire said he wouldn’t intervene.
“Whether he is on the run, in the country or not in the country, he is a French citizen and will be treated like a French citizen,” the minister said of Ghosn on France Info radio.
‘Clear Conscience’
In his book published last month, Ghosn said he used his residence status in the Netherlands as a “signal of neutrality” since he headed the three-company alliance that also includes Mitsubishi Motors Corp. It was also justified by the salary he was paid by the Renault-Nissan BV subsidiary, he wrote.
In separate probes, authorities in France are investigating the former Renault chairman’s interactions with a car distributor in Oman and spending on events and trips that may have been personal, as well as payments that Renault-Nissan BV made to consultants. Ghosn said last month that French criminal investigators will travel to Beirut next year to question him.
“Why should I flee the French judiciary?” he said in a broadcast interview. “I will answer the questions that come my way. I have a clear conscience.”
Ghosn also said he won’t risk traveling to France and Brazil out of fear that any problem along the way could give Japanese authorities an opportunity to obtain his extradition. He said he is forced to remain in Lebanon and retains armed bodyguards.


fortune--2020-12-14--Companies that talk the talk on diversity are more likely to walk the walk

Companies that claim to care about being socially responsible are often greeted with a cynical eye. Sure, they talk the talk, but do they actually walk the walk?
While we understand the deep skepticism that many people have, our latest research suggests that at least when it comes to diversity and inclusion, there is a meaningful connection between how companies talk and whether or not they walk.
To explore the relationship between what corporations say and the actions they take, we examined statements of corporate purpose and values published on the websites of 640 large, publicly traded companies. Of those, 101 list diversity and/or inclusion as one of their handful of core values.
For instance, software provider F5 Networks says that it is “committed to a diverse and inclusive” company, adding: “We know the magic ingredient is our differences, when embraced with humility and respect. And because we know this, we believe that top talent is found in a diversity of individual backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.”
To test whether such assertions amount to anything, we then compared gender diversity in the top ranks of the 101 companies with the other 539. And we discovered that there is, in fact, a real difference between the two cohorts.
Among the 101 companies that say they value diversity and inclusion, women account for 21% of C-suite executives and members of senior management, according to financial-information provider Refinitiv Eikon. At the other companies, it’s only 16%.
In addition, 26% of board members at the 101 companies are women, versus 23% at the other 539—not as big a gap, but still statistically significant.
Unfortunately, we were forced to limit our analysis to gender diversity because firm-level information on racial and ethnic diversity is not widely available. But we surmise that the findings there would be similar.
Why?
When a company articulates a particular set of values on its website, it stands to be held accountable by employees, investors, and customers—especially in an age of constant scrutiny on social media.
Indeed, it is telling that a mere 16% of the companies we looked at have incorporated diversity and inclusion as one of their core values on their website. This indicates that such proclamations are not made lightly.
Verbalizing values appears to be an essential part of the way that companies process and internalize change. There is a seriousness of purpose to all of this—and that, in turn, can drive better performance.
Notably, our research shows that the 101 companies score slightly higher than do their 539 peers on the Drucker Institute’s assessment of corporate effectiveness. They also score slightly higher on each of the individual categories that the institute measures: customer satisfaction, employee engagement and development, innovation, social responsibility, and financial strength.
On a series of other financial indicators, the 101 companies also have markedly better results than do the 539, outpacing them on net income; gross profit; earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization; and other key metrics.
In the months ahead, we expect more companies to issue values statements pledging a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our own scouring of corporate websites was completed before the killing by police of George Floyd in May, and many companies have spoken out about the need for racial justice since then.
That’s encouraging. Based on our findings, we would expect over time that the act of stating such values will lead to more companies living them.
In the end, though, it’s important to stress that saying something isn’t the same as doing it, and that the numbers across corporate America remain woefully small. That women make up 21% of the senior management ranks at the 101 companies we’ve highlighted means that 79% of those positions are occupied by men.
It’s good for companies to be talking. But in terms of walking, they all need to pick up the pace—by a lot—as there is a long, long way to go.
Signe Spencer is a client research partner at the Korn Ferry Institute. Evelyn Orr is the institute’s senior vice president and chief operating officer. Michael Hyter is Korn Ferry’s chief diversity officer.


fortune--2020-12-14--The IPO slate for 2021 gets heavy

The IPO slate for 2021 gets heavy

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.
Good morning, Term Sheet readers.
Last week was one to remember for tech companies going public: DoorDash, Airbnb, and C3.ai all more than doubled in their initial public offerings, valuing the combined companies upward of $140 billion on an undiluted basis as of Monday. The enormous pops fanned criticism once more that IPOs were being mispriced and that money was being left on the table (and while I won’t go into it now, there are some worthy reads arguing some of this criticism is overdone).
Now after seeing these extreme first-day pops, unicorns Affirm and Roblox have both reportedly pushed their listing timetable back to 2021, per the Wall Street Journal. Roblox in particular is said to be seeking a way to potentially take advantage of a pop. It hasn’t helped that the Securities and Exchange Commission has been flooded with listing filings. The fintech lender and gaming company were previously set to close out the busiest December for IPOs in history.
At any rate, even without companies doing anything to tamp down and capitalize on the first-day pop, the phenomenon may curtail itself naturally if BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s predictions are anything to go by. The chief executive cautioned that “there are going to be many accidents” around the recent IPO ebullience during a fintech conference.
But for now, 2021 is looking to be another bang-up year for startups going public. Names also considering going public include Robinhood, Instacart, Nextdoor, Better.com, Marqeta, Coinbase, Coursera…the list goes on (and SoFi has reportedly considered going public via merger with a SPAC).
A ROYAL STARTUP INVESTMENT: There are a lot of folks you don’t expect to see investing in startups. At one point it was hedge funds, then celebrities, and then TikTok stars. Oh, and now, the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, per my colleague Emma Hinchliffe. The new investor put her dollars behind Clevr Blends, a startup making instant milk lattes that has yet to take any outside funding, as part of her broader push to support gender equality. The company is led by a female CEO, Hannah Mendoza. It won’t be the royal’s last investment, if this story is anything to go by. Read more.
Lucinda Shen
Twitter: @shenlucinda
Email: lucinda.shen@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- Grove Collaborative, a San Francisco-based seller of natural home and personal care products, raised $125 million, raising its valuation to $1.3 billion. Investors included Counterpoint Global at Morgan Stanley, Sculptor Capital, Nextview Ventures, and Glynn Capital.
- Huice, China-based maker of retail software, raised roughly $100 million in Series C funding. GIC led the round and was joined by investors including Legend Capital, Hillhouse Capital, and SoftBank. Read more.
- Tink, a Swedish-based maker of open banking and API tools, raised €85 million ($103 million). Dawn Capital and new investor Eurazeo Growth led the round.
- CG Oncology, an Irvine, Calif.-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel oncolytic immunotherapies,raised $47 million in Series D funding. Kissei Pharmaceutical led the round and was joined by investors including ORI Healthcare Fund, Camford Capital, and Perseverance Capital Management.
- Indico, a Boston-based maker process automation software, raised $22 million of Series B funding. Jump Capital and Sandbox Ventures led the round and were joined by .406 Ventures, Osage Venture Partners, Hyperplane Venture Capital, Boston Seed Capital, as well as a new investment from Nationwide's venture capital arm.
- GoFor Industries, a Canadian on-demand and same-day delivery company, raised $20 million ($15.7 million) in Series A funding. Builders VC led the round and was joined by investors including MetaProp, GroundBreak Ventures, Plug & Play Ventures and Panache Ventures.
- German Bionic, a German startup designing exoskeletons specifically aimed at industrial and physical application, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Samsung Catalyst Fund and MIG AG led the round. Read more.
- Bionic, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based application monitoring company, raised $17 million in funding. Investors include Battery Ventures and Cyberstarts.
- IRALOGIX, a Pittsburgh, Penn.-based provider of software for IRA accounts, raised $7.5 million in Series B funding. Great North Labs led the round and was joined by investors including Trog Hawley Capital, Riverfront Ventures, and Circadian Ventures.
- Dreamdata, a Danish company sales and marketing platform using data and algorithms, raised $4.4 million in funding. InReach Ventures and Crowberry Capital led the round and were joined by Seedcamp, Futuristic.vc, and Preseed Ventures.
- PLNAR, an Austin-based company using A.I. and V.R. in home insurance and inspections, raised $3.5 million in Series A funding. Investors included Dallas Venture Capital.
- Cledara, a London-based purchase and management platform, raised $3.4 million in funding. Nauta Capital led the round and was joined by Anthemis.
- IntellectoKids, a London-based maker of educational apps for children, raised $3 million in Series A funding. Allrise Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Genesis Investments. Read more.
- Homebuyer, a Cincinnati, Oh.-based maker of software for digital mortgages to first-time home buyers, raised $1.4 million in seed funding. Investors included BetterLife Group, Techstars, and Saturn Five.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Vista Equity Partners agreed to acquire Pluralsight, (NASDAQ: PS) a Silicon Slopes, Ut.-based maker of IT education for workforces, for about $3.5 billion.
- A group of investors including Blackrock, Mubadala Investment, and Goldman Sachs Group plan to take Calisen, a U.K.-based smart metering company, private in a deal valuing it at about 1.43 billion pounds ($1.9 billion).
- Apollo Global Management agreed to refinance Alorica, an Irvine, Calif.-based customer service company. Apollo invested $750 million via equity and debt.
- NEOGOV, backed by Warburg Pincus, acquired PowerDMS, an Orlando, Fla.-based provider of cloud-based compliance software. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
EXITS
- The German government agreed to acquire a 25.1% stake in Hensoldt (ETR: HAG), a German defense supplier, from KKR for 464 million euros ($562 million), per Reuters. Read more.
- Carlyle Group is weighing a potential spinoff for the industrial arm of Nouryon, an Amsterdam-based specialty chemicals firm. A deal could value the arm at $3 billion or more, per Bloomberg. Read more.
- Liberty Hall Capital Partners acquired Comply365, a Beloit, Wis.-based provider of operational content and compliance management for aerospace and rail industries, from Luminate Capital Partners. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
OTHER
- AstraZeneca (LON: AZN) agreed to acquire Alexion Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ALXN), a U.S.-based maker of rare drugs, for $39 billion.
- Huntington Bancshares (Nasdaq: HBAN) and TCF Financial (Nasdaq: TCF), two U.S.-based regional banks headquartered out of Ohio and Michigan respectively, agreed to merge in an all-stock deal valuing the duo at $22 billion.
- Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: EA) will acquire Codemasters, the U.K.-based game developer and publisher, valuing the latter at about $1.2 billion.
- MSP Sports Capital agreed to take a significant minority stake in McLaren Racing, a U.K.-based Formula One team, in a deal valuing the latter around $750.5 million. Read more.
- Roblox, agreed to Loom.ai, a company specializing in real-time facial animation technology for 3D avatars. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- State Street, the New York-based investment services firm, is exploring a potential merger of its asset management business with that of a rival’s, per Bloomberg. Read more.
SPAC
- Senior Connect Acquisition I, formed by the founder of UnitedHealth Richard Burke, raised $360 million.
- Motive Capital, formed by Motive Partners, raised $360 million.
- Gores Holdings VI, formed by The Gores Group, raised $300 million.
PEOPLE
- Benchmark named Miles Grimshaw as its newest and fifth general partner.Grimshaw was previously at Thrive Capital.
- Oak HC/FT promoted Andy Smith to vice president.


fortune--2020-12-14--Former White House insiders on Biden’s 4 biggest day one priorities

With Inauguration Day a little more than a month away, all eyes are on the initial moves of the incoming Biden administration. What will the new President do first—and how will he tackle it?
In an attempt to answer those questions, Fortune on Thursday convened a group of women who held key roles in previous administrations. The virtual gathering, which was attended by members of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women community, covered a variety of issues, ranging from the fight against COVID-19 to the need to address systemic racism to the plight of America’s small businesses.
Below, four likely Biden priorities, according to veterans of the Barack Obama and George W. Bush presidencies:
COVID-19 vaccine distribution
The challenge most often raised during the hour-long conversation was that of COVID-19 vaccine distribution. The incoming Biden administration will need to determine “where it needs to go…who’s going to get get it, making sure they’re getting not just a first dose but also the proper second dose…and really reaching out to everyone about this vaccine and why it matters, reassuring that it has been developed in a science-driven way without corners being cut,” said Dr. Margaret “Peggy” Hamburg, former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration during the Obama years.
Another essential aspect of the distribution plan is making sure that lower-income communities and communities of color aren’t left out in the cold.
“This crisis has unveiled the systemic inequities baked into our system,” said Dr. Laurie Zephyrin, VP of health care delivery system reform at the Commonwealth Fund, who served in the Department of Veterans Affairs from 2009 to 2018. COVID-19 has killed Black people and other people of color at much higher rates than whites, the result not of genetic differences, but of unequal access to care, lower quality of care, disproportionately high representation in “essential” jobs, and other systemic failures.
“The vaccine distribution is a chance…to really start centering equity,” said Zephyrin. It’s essential that the Biden administration ensure that it doesn’t roll out the vaccine in a way that reinforces existing inequities—or creates new ones, she said.
Confronting vaccine skepticism
While doubts about the safety of the vaccine aren’t limited to communities of color, it’s vital that the administration be sensitive to the concerns of Black communities and others with a history that gives them “reason to be skeptical” of medical authorities, said Hamburg. Some steps toward increasing confidence: bringing Black scientists into communities to talk about the safety of the vaccine; working with community leaders to share information; and partnering with groups like Black Coalition Against COVID-19.
Providing aid to small businesses and American workers
If the current Congress fails to pass a stimulus package, Biden must “right away” pass a package addressing people who have lost their unemployment benefits, extending the moratorium on evictions, helping small businesses and schools, and providing paid leave, said Valerie Jarrett, former senior adviser to President Obama and a distinguished senior fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. She added: “And that’s just to stabilize, that’s not even to grow the economy—which I know he intends to do. So there will be a need for a second, more robust package.”
Echoing the need for small-business support, Maria Contreras-Sweet, former head of the U.S. Small Business Administration and currently of Rockway Equity Partners and Contreras-Sweet Enterprises, told attendees: “Main Street is being annihilated.” Small boutiques, restaurants, and other retailers are necessary to “create economic vitality and tourism,” she said.
Repairing ties with the rest of the world
Looking beyond domestic priorities, the panelists suggested that the Biden administration will move quickly to try to reinforce some of the bonds between the U.S. and other nations that have frayed during the Trump era.
Expect President-elect Biden to make his first foreign visit to Europe, said Frances Townsend, vice chairman, general counsel, and chief administration officer at MacAndrews & Forbes—and former assistant to President George W. Bush for homeland security and counterterrorism. Biden is likely to prioritize the mending of ties with NATO allies, after President Trump declined to affirm that the U.S. would come to the aid of the other NATO members, should they be attacked, she said.
“There’s a tremendous amount of repair work to do,” said Townsend.


fortune--2020-12-14--Airbnb and DoorDash show the IPO market is going haywire

The debate over the best way to take a company public has raged for decades in Silicon Valley, but it feels like we may be reaching a turning point.
The traditional IPO method relies on Wall Street bankers to divine an initial price and gather investors. An occasional twist uses a Dutch auction to set the price (as Google did). Then the direct listing method relies on bankers a lot less and the market a lot more (Spotify, Palantir). And lately we’ve seen a boom in the special purpose acquisition company merger, once considered a sketchy technique but now mainstream (DraftKings, Fisker).
Into the debate comes Airbnb and Doordash, a couple of recent initial public offerings using the traditional method that made headlines for the wrong reasons.
Doordash sold 33 million shares at $102, raising about $3.3 billion. But its shares opened for trading at $182. That extra $80 per share, in theory, would have added another $2.6 billion in the company’s coffers if its bankers had been more aggressive.
Airbnb sold 51.5 million shares at $68, raising $3.5 billion. But its bankers may have left even more than that on the table. Its shares opened at $146. The difference would have generated another $4 billion or more for Airbnb.
Some first-day “pop” is said to be desirable to keep investors coming back for future IPO deals. And bankers are humans, with all the imperfections that entails. Pushing the initial price too high may also scare away investors and cause excessive volatility. My former colleague and CNBC commentator Michael Santoli noted that IPOs for companies like Uber and Zillow traded below their initial price at first. “There’s no transcendent, enduring wisdom contained in the initial print,” he tweeted.
But even with all the asterisks and excuses and what not, something is clearly amiss when a company leaves a theoretical $4 billion on the table, enough to qualify as one of the 20 or so largest U.S. tech IPOs ever and more than Goldman Sachs, co-manager of the Airbnb deal, raised in its own mega-IPO 20 years ago.
Some people are also worried that we’re entering 1999-ish speculative bubble territory, including BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. “Is the market pricing in too large of a forward growth rate for these companies?” Fink asked rhetorically on Friday at a virtual tech event, and then answered: “There are going to be many accidents.”
Another shocking consequence: Roblox and Affirm are delaying their IPOs, pointing to the pricing issues with the DoorDash and Airbnb deals. “Based on everything we have learned to date, we feel there is an opportunity to improve our specific process for employees, shareholders and future investors both big and small,” Roblox CEO David Baszucki wrote to his employees explaining the delay, the Wall Street Journal reports. In all my years following IPOs, I can’t remember a time when deals were postponed because the market was too strong.
One simple solution may be to sell more shares. Airbnb sold 51.5 million shares but 70.4 million traded on the first day. Overall, the company’s fully diluted share count (including unexercised options and other contingent shares) is around 700 million, so it could have enlarged the deal pretty easily. When too many investors are clamoring for too few shares, the result is the giant share price jump, the bad look of money left on the table, and general unhappiness in the board room. Maybe even bigger deals are the solution.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com
NEWSWORTHY
When you go after honey with a balloon, the great thing is to not let the bees know you’re coming. Russia's sweetly named but devastatingly effective hacking unit, Cozy Bear, penetrated the email systems of the U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments and was also behind the recent attack on cybersecurity firm FireEye. No word yet on the scale of the damage, but the National Security Council met on Saturday to hear details of the attacks, Reuters reports. Hopefully there's no hacking connection to the widespread but sporadic Google outages on Monday morning.
No pay protest. Perhaps overly reliant on manufacturing in China, Apple has been expanding operations in India. But workers in southern India attacked an iPhone factory amid reports that Apple's contractor, Wistron, hadn't paid them in months. An Indian trade union rep pilloried "the brutal exploitation" of workers at the factory. Wistron blamed the violence on outside intruders and pledged to follow local labor laws.
You talkin' to me? Just how far off are fully self-driving cars? Amazon's Zoox unit says not too far, as it introduced an electric-powered robotaxi on Monday that has no steering wheel and seats four. But Zoox wasn't too specific about when it would introduce a commercial taxi service, only saying it would be after 2021 and starting in San Francisco, Las Vegas and other cities.
Foot stomping fury. In a move weighty with symbolism but with unclear economic impact, Oracle on Friday said it was shifting its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas. The database giant already had offices in both locales and isn't closing its Redwood City, Calif., outpost. Google isn't moving its HQ, but it is delaying the return of employees yet again. In an email Sunday night, CEO Sundar Pichai pushed back the return until September and said the company was considering implementing a flexible schedule with most people coming to work only three days a week.
Winning by a nose. In more concrete wheeling and dealing, video game giant Electronic Arts is buying racing game specialist Codemasters for $1.2 billion, snatching the company away from a rival bid from Take-Two Interactive. Private equity shop Vista Equity Partners is buying online education software developer Pluralsight for $3.5 billion including debt. And in a third billion-dollar deal, Vista rival Thomas Bravo is snapping up a controlling stake in security software firm Venafi at a valuation of $1.2 billion.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
As Google, Apple, and other tech giants fight about controlling online ad-tracking technology, Rupert Goodwins has another idea. Goodwins, a columnist at The Register, proposes a law requiring that all online ads include a "never again" blocking button.
If a legally mandated ad-block technology was blessed with enough finesse to let the good ads through – and we're the only people who can make that judgement – then advertising revenue wouldn't fall to zero. Good advertising – the sort targeted at readerships by the reader's own actions – would prosper because the stuff that reaches only the right people is worth far more than the stuff that gets spaffed across all our screens. Platforms that could offer that targeting – we used to call them newspapers – would prosper too.
Bad advertising – the stuff that makes our lives hell and the ad-tech monsters rich – would suffer, but the crazification factor, that 35 per cent of people who seem certifiably and irretrievably permanent strangers to logic, would probably keep it going enough so the rest of us still enjoy some free stuff.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Exclusive: Meghan Markle makes her debut as a startup investor By Emma Hinchliffe
How will tech’s biggest policy fights play out in 2021? This VC has some predictions By Lucinda Shen and Bradley Tusk
How Biden can avoid China getting its hands on sensitive military technology By James Marks and Robert S. Walsh
How FedEx, UPS, and Amazon prepared for holiday shipping deadlines this year By David Z. Morris
Graphene gets real: Meet the entrepreneurs bringing the wonder substance to market By David Meyer
OnJuno, a new online bank aimed at Asian-Americans, offers a 2.15% savings rate By Jeff John Roberts
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
Even in a pandemic, Italian truffles remain an expensive delicacy. Fortune senior writer Bernard Warner, stationed in Rome, is such a truffle hound that he acquired a special dog just to hunt for the rare fungus treat. As I read his searching tale, I felt like I could almost hear music from Alessandro Cicognini or Ennio Morricone wafting in the background. The search didn't all go as planned, but there was a happy ending. Who could ask for more than that?


fortune--2020-12-14--Disney’s profits on streaming services are expected to plunge—and investors love it

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Don’t believe that investors are irrationally short-term-biased, unwilling to let companies make sound investments that may take years to pay off. For evidence, consider what happened when trading in Walt Disney stock opened on Friday morning.
Shares had closed at about $154 on Thursday afternoon. On Friday morning they rocketed to $174, an all-time high. Only one explanation was possible: After trading hours on Thursday, Disney announced plans for its Disney+, Hulu, and other streaming services. When Wall Street analysts crunched the numbers, they concluded that Disney’s profits for fiscal 2021 (which ends Sept. 30) would plunge as a result. For example, Michael Nathanson of the MoffettNathanson research firm calculated that profits would be 30% less than he had previously estimated. The streaming services would lose $700 million more than they were already estimated to lose. And investors loved it.
It isn’t really surprising. Overall, Disney’s presentation was breathtakingly positive. When the company launched its Disney+ streaming service in November 2019, it told Wall Street it expected to reach 60 million to 90 million subscribers by the end of 2024. Turns out that with a strong boost from the pandemic, the service now has 87 million subscribers. The company’s new forecast for Disney+ by the end of 2024: 230 million to 260 million subscribers worldwide, a result of continued U.S. growth and more aggressive global expansion.
The company didn’t just promise big numbers. It explained how it would reach them, detailing what Cowen analyst Doug Creutz called an “enormously impressive array of new content”—movies and series like the Star Wars–based Mandalorian series that has been a huge hit on Disney+. By 2024, Disney expects to be spending $14 billion to $16 billion a year on programming exclusive to its streaming services. That’s more than analysts were expecting, prompting them to cut forecasts of profit and free cash flow, a measure that many investors consider even more important than profit. Yet investors didn’t mind; they could see how all that investment is meant to pay off.
Investors tend to give Disney the benefit of any doubts because it has been managing for the long term for a long time and has built a record of credibility. Former CEO Bob Iger began assembling a content colossus in 2006, a year after he became chief, when he bought Pixar (Toy Story, Cars), followed by Marvel (Avengers, Spider-Man) in 2009, Lucasfilm (Star Wars) in 2012, and 21st Century Fox (Terminator, Bohemian Rhapsody) in 2019. He was accused of overpaying for all of them, but in retrospect they all look like bargains. So when Disney told Wall Street in 2019 that its streaming services would lose billions for years but would eventually become profitable after 2024, investors tended to believe it.
It doesn’t hurt that, though Iger handed the CEO job to longtime Disney executive Bob Chapek this past February, Iger remains executive chairman, which means he’s still the boss.
Only a year ago, the entertainment industry and the analysts that follow it were talking about the advent of “the streaming wars,” a melee among Amazon, Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, Netflix, Peacock, and others. Now it looks more like a two-horse race, Netflix vs. Disney, with the others fighting for a distant third place or even for survival. Total worldwide subscribers to Disney streaming services (Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+) “are now expected to hit 300–350 million…in fiscal year ’24,” Macquarie analyst Tim Nollen wrote. “This compares with our estimate for Netflix of 295 million global subs.” No other player would now seem able to approach those numbers.
Competing will only get harder for the also-rans. Nathanson’s conclusion: “The sheer size and quality of the content tsunami headed to Disney+ was mind-blowing and frightening to any sub-scale company thinking about competing in the scripted entertainment space.” That’s why the stock is at a new all-time high.
All of which is a reminder to CEOs and directors who complain that investors won’t let them pursue a visionary strategy: Maybe the problem isn’t the investors. Maybe it’s the strategy.


fortune--2020-12-14--Stimulus update: Congress enters critical week to make a deal

For the latest information on the ongoing stimulus negotiations, please check out our coverage here
Congress is now truly down to the wire with only one week left to put pen to paper on a relief package.
On Friday, Congress passed a one-week spending bill to avert a government shutdown and to give leaders another week to hash out a stimulus package before crucial programs expire at year’s end. Both sides have said they would prefer to come to an agreement this week for both an omnibus spending bill and another COVID-19 relief deal.
The stakes are high. Without action from Congress, a slew of pandemic benefits will expire this month—including some unemployment benefits and eviction moratoriums. That is something the already weakened economic recovery may struggle to absorb.
Of the more than 19 million Americans currently receiving jobless benefits, around 13 million would lose their benefits the week of Dec. 26 when Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) expire. Passed as a part of the CARES Act back in March, PUA expands who is eligible for unemployment benefits—for instance, gig workers and self-employed Americans—while PEUC grants 13 weeks of additional unemployment benefits to qualified individuals.
“If we don’t get that help, [the recent unemployment] report suggests that the economy is going to start backtracking. We’re going to start losing jobs, and unemployment will start rising again,” Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi recently told Fortune.
Where negotiations stand
Last week both sides of the aisle voiced their opinions and proposals for the next deal, but neither provided a drafted bill.
A $908 billion bipartisan proposal has been gaining traction in recent weeks, though it’s unclear if influential party members like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will get on board. The White House also released its own $916 billion proposal, though it included minimized benefits for unemployment but $600 stimulus checks. Democrats quickly shot down the White House proposal.
However Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the leaders of the bipartisan bill, still seems optimistic. The bipartisan bill “hasn’t fallen apart,” he said on Fox News Sunday. “We’ve been meeting day and night for the last month,” he said. “We’ll have a bill produced for the American people [on Monday], $908 billion, [unveiled] before the end of the day.”
Still, there remain several long-standing sticking points for the two sides, namely state and local funding, COVID-19 lawsuit protection for businesses, and another round of stimulus checks. McConnell earlier proposed dropping the two most hotly debated issues (state and local funding and business liability) in the interest of time, though some like Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer didn’t initially react well to the proposal.
But the latest iteration of a deal may look a bit different. On Sunday, Politico and CNN reported that the $908 billion bipartisan bill may now come in two parts: one $748 billion piece for common ground items like funds for health care and jobless benefits, and the other, a $160 billion chunk, for the key sticking points of state and local funding along with temporary liability protection. Though it could be a compromise, it’s unclear if there will be sufficient support for this new deal to pass.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin are set to speak again on Monday following a Sunday afternoon conversation about spending, Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff Drew Hammill wrote in a tweet. And according to Hammill, Pelosi is sticking to her guns: “The Speaker believes, at a time when the virus is surging, that the need for state and local funding is even more important, especially given the states’ responsibility for distributing and administering the vaccine.”
This week will be critical for both sides to compromise, especially on those contested issues, in order to pass a package and get relief to the millions still suffering during the holidays as a result of the pandemic.


fortune--2020-12-14--Google outage takes out Gmail, YouTube, Meet, Classroom, Stadia, and more

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Google suffered a service outage Monday morning that lasted at least an hour.
The problem struck around 6:30 a.m. ET, affecting most of Google’s services with the notable exceptions of Search and Chrome; Gmail, Calendar, Drive, YouTube, Stadia, Meet, and Classroom were all out of action.
Some services, such as Gmail, were down for about two hours for some users.
Although the company has not yet explained the incident, Google’s rare outage comes at a particularly inopportune time: As a result of the pandemic, some of its work-related services have become crucial to many people.
Also deeply inconvenient: The outage took out Google’s smart devices.
So we had to manually turn on our bedside lights because Google Home was also down. Such weird dependencies in this age of cloud, digital assistants, and smart homes. — Drei (@_drei) December 14, 2020
For around half an hour at the start of the outage, Google’s Workspace Status Dashboard showed no issues. Then it became a sea of red—a situation that persisted even after some of the services began to reappear for many users.
“We are aware that many of you are having issues accessing YouTube right now,” the video site’s Twitter account announced shortly after 7 a.m. ET. “Our team is aware and looking into it. We’ll update you here as soon as we have more news.”
YouTube then became one of the first Google services to reappear, before the dashboard became a sea of green again.
Google had not responded to a request for comment. However, as the BBC noted, this may be because its communications team uses Gmail.
This article was updated to note how long some of the service outages lasted.