fortune--2020-09-03--Apple’s App Store draws scrutiny in yet another country

Epic Games’ decision to sue Apple over its mobile store practices has sparked new scrutiny in the massive Japanese gaming market, prompting complaints and questions about how to counter the tech giant’s dominance.
While Epic, publisher of the hit title Fortnite, focuses on the 30% revenue cut app stores typically take, Japanese game studios have broader concerns. They have long been unhappy with what they see as Apple’s inconsistent enforcement of its own App Store guidelines, unpredictable content decisions and lapses in communication, according to more than a dozen people involved in the matter.
Japan’s antitrust regulator said it will step up attention to the iPhone maker’s practices in the wake of the high-stakes legal clash. And in rare cases, prominent executives are beginning to speak out after staying silent out of fear of reprisal.
“I want from the bottom of my heart Epic to win,” Hironao Kunimitsu, founder and chairman of Tokyo-based mobile game maker Gumi Inc., wrote on his Facebook page.
Apple and Google hold a duopoly over the mobile app market outside China. Any publisher that wants a game to be played on iPhones or Android devices is effectively forced to distribute it via their app stores, sharing revenue from an initial purchase and future, related items.
Epic, whose Fortnite generates more than $1 billion annually from in-game purchases of virtual cosmetics and extras, sued both companies for what it considers excessive fees and for the right to sell game extras directly to players. Apple and Google have disputed those charges in court. The iPhone maker argues its cut is justified by its provision of security, development support and an audience of a billion users.
The iPhone is a huge revenue driver for game creators in Japan, including established names like Square Enix Holdings Co., which gets 40% of its group revenue from smartphone games, and Bandai Namco Holdings Inc. Sony Corp. has a multibillion-dollar mobile hit called Fate/Grand Order.
With 702,000 registered developers, Japan is home to one of the most creative developer communities. A recent study commissioned by Apple estimated the App Store ecosystem in Japan generated $37 billion in billings and sales in 2019 — $11 billion in digital goods and services, $24 billion via physical goods and services and $2 billion from in-app advertising.
Yet the App Store is particularly problematic, according to game developers, compared with Google’s Android Play Store, where the approval process tends to be smoother and there’s better communication. There’s even a third-party service dubbed iOS Reject Rescue, designed to help developers navigate through the unpredictable approval process.
“Apple’s app review is often ambiguous, subjective and irrational,” said Makoto Shoji, founder of PrimeTheory Inc., which provides the rejection service. “Apple’s response to developers is often curt and boilerplate, but even with that, you must be polite on many occasions, like a servant asking the master what he wants next.”
Apple said it strives to give developers high-quality support by telephone or email, including through 1,400 advisers and customer service employees based in Japan. It has translated App Store review guidelines and this week released Japanese subtitles to its developer conference videos from the summer, setting out its latest thinking on optimal app design. Apple said the goal is to offer the best place for customers and developers to get and create apps.
The Japanese games industry is familiar with the 30% revenue share, since it originated with Nintendo Co. console cartridges back in the 1980s. Most developers don’t mind it, but they want to see better service, especially from Apple.
Developers complain that titles waiting for App Store review sometimes take weeks to be cleared. One local games studio said it gave up hosting seasonal in-game events, which can be a big revenue accelerator, because Apple didn’t respond to their update review request for more than a month.
“While Apple will never admit it, I think there are times when they simply forget an item’s in the review queue or they intentionally keep it untouched as a sanction to a developer giving them the wrong attitude,” said Shoji.
Apple said its app review team operates across two time zones and Japanese-speaking representatives are available to discuss particular apps over the phone with developers during local business hours.
In one case in November, cited by several game makers, Apple’s servers went down for more than a day without any notification to developers, undermining their efforts to diagnose the issue. The Cupertino, California-based company’s system status screens were also slow to indicate any trouble. Such malfunctions carry direct economic costs for creators, which Apple does not reimburse. Apple said it works hard to keep its App Store systems fully functional all the time.
Japanese firms also say the company flip flops at times on its interpretation of appropriate content and changes policies without advanced notice. Several game studios reported having characters that were approved on the interpretation they were dressed in swimsuits, then later rejected on the judgment that they were in underwear and thus sexualized. One developer who had implemented an in-game system that Apple approved, later saw the same code rejected by the App Store operator in a subsequent game.
Apple pointed out that its guidelines prohibit “overtly sexual or pornographic material” and stressed it has a responsibility to provide a safe and trusted place for users to get apps.
Tokyo-based games consultant Hisakazu Hirabayashi has seen the challenges first-hand. One development team checked their game’s revenue-making strategy with Apple several times before release, making sure Apple gave the go-ahead. Weeks after the app launched, the App Store owner changed its stance, saying the developer should take the function out of the app or the app’s distribution would be terminated, according to the consultant.
“Apple is a sheriff who sometimes makes unfair interpretations of the guidelines for its own benefit,” Hirabayashi said.


fortune--2020-09-03--Donald Trump has failed to protect me and other students from COVID-19

Elon Musk is now the third-richest person in the world .
Here ’ s how much he ’ s worth

As a law student at the University of Notre Dame, I’ve seen firsthand the struggle to try to make in-person classes work. Since returning to campus four weeks ago, 599 members of our community have already tested positive for COVID-19. That’s unacceptable.
Notre Dame was one of the first universities to announce a robust plan for in-person learning. The institution made significant investments to find a way to make it safe to be here. Our campus rules and procedures mandate masks inside buildings, seat us six feet apart in class, provide quarantine housing, offer ample sanitizer and disinfectant supplies, and facilitate contact tracing.
But it’s not enough.
The fact of the matter is that colleges and universities were set up to fail. Donald Trump’s inaction on the COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating for students, creating ripple effects on our professional careers and personal lives that will last for decades. Nearly 1,000 Americans are dying a day, but Trump dismissed the death toll by saying, “It is what it is.”
The lack of national leadership has worsened the effects of this pandemic. When most schools converted to virtual learning in March, Trump and his administration had months to make a plan for the fall semester. Instead, Trump tried to absolve himself of any responsibility by downplaying the virus. His team sabotaged any efforts by public health experts to raise awareness about the crisis. Trump waited until there were 135,000 COVID-19 deaths before doing the bare minimum of simply wearing a mask in public. (And recently he’s stopped wearing one again.) On top of that, his campaign regularly flouts social distancing guidelines—just take a look at the Republican National Convention event last week at the White House.
It’s easy to throw blame at university leaders and students for the chaos that schools have already experienced this year. In many cases, it’s at least partially warranted. College administrators have enacted inadequate protocols that have jeopardized the safety of their communities. To make the problem worse, some students have demonstrated a lack of personal responsibility. Students have recklessly ignored social distancing rules by hosting and attending large gatherings without masks.
However, even if protocols were enhanced and students were more responsible, the virus would infiltrate schools. At Notre Dame, we have already seen that a few isolated cases can reach 600 very quickly, due to the alarming way the coronavirus spreads. The idea that a school can contain the virus while it’s running rampant across the country is unrealistic. Schools will be unable to safely operate in person until we have competent leadership in the White House.
We need a President who will lead in the face of crisis, rather than cower at the prospect of assuming responsibility. Trump’s inaction has taken away the ability of millions of students across the country to safely learn. It’s been over six months. Where is Trump’s plan?
To students across the nation, this virus is personal. We will be entering the job market after experiencing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Many of us have watched our loved ones suffer through the virus, and some of us have even learned how to cope with loss if they didn’t survive.
The choice couldn’t be more clear: Students need Joe Biden. From the beginning, Biden has led by example. He immediately created a sensible plan to combat the coronavirus, developing a national testing strategy and calling for a universal mask mandate. As our President, Biden will rely on science and experts to guide his coronavirus response, in stark contrast to Trump. (I’m a volunteer for the Biden campaign, but I’m writing this article independently as a private citizen.)
We deserve a President with a proven track record of leadership. Donald Trump had his chance, and he failed to meet the moment every time. He has had a painstakingly long amount of time to show leadership in the face of this pandemic. At every point of his presidency, Trump has put political considerations ahead of the health and safety of the people he was elected to serve. Our President should be a role model, but Trump’s behavior falls far from that.
Students across the country are watching our nation’s leaders. And we will take our frustrations straight to the ballot box to vote Donald Trump out of the White House in November. I look forward to the day when students will finally be able to safely return to our classrooms after the Biden-Harris administration cleans up Trump’s mess.
Rachel Palermo is a third-year law student at Notre Dame Law School. She previously served as the assistant press secretary and director of women’s media at the Democratic National Committee.


fortune--2020-09-03--Over the past three days, Tesla’s stock has dropped 18%

Tesla shares are now officially in correction territory, in a week that saw the electric-vehicle maker announce a share sale that could dilute its value and a top holder cut its stake nearly in half.
Shares of the company closed down 9% on Thursday, bringing the loss since Monday’s close to over 18%, the steepest 3-day drop since mid-March. The decline came amid a broader slump in high-flying tech stocks that pushed the Nasdaq 100 to its worst one-day loss since March.
The Elon Musk-led company has been a standout performer in the U.S. stock market this year, soaring nearly 500% through Monday. The gain was helped by strong second-quarter results that also fueled speculation about Tesla becoming a part of the S&P 500 Index. Its much-hyped “Battery Day” event, to be held later this month, may also have boosted optimism since many expect the company to unveil new technologies that day.
All of these developments, along with Musk’s cult-like following, have made Tesla a darling of retail investors, with it occupying almost a permanent place in online brokerage Robinhood’s list of most popular stocks.
Though it is hard to pinpoint the reason for this week’s pause to Tesla’s previously unstoppable rally, some say it is the law of gravity catching up, possibly aided by news of the company’s largest shareholder after Musk cutting its stake, as well as the market slowly digesting Tesla’s plan to sell as much as $5 billion in shares. The share sale was announced on Tuesday, and it could be the largest equity haul ever for the company if it sells at least $2.34 billion under the plan.
Whatever the trigger, the stock plunged as much as 10% in New York, down about 19% from the closing peak of $498.32 that it touched on Aug. 31. A stock is considered to be correcting when it falls more than 10% from the latest high, while a 20% plunge would put it in a bear market.


fortune--2020-09-03--The ‘under 40’ crowd leading revolutions in health care

Good afternoon, readers.
Fortune published its latest 40 Under 40 list of the innovators, leaders, and otherwise commendable visionaries this week. We did something a little different this time around: We expanded our list to various industries. So it’s really something more akin to 200 under 40.
I’d encourage you to read about every single one of those impressive individuals. But given this is a health care newsletter, I’d like to highlight some of the health care leaders.
I was especially struck by my conversation with Prem Tumkosit of the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund—the youngest ever person to get to that position, a son of immigrants, and a self-identified gay man who is now responsible for investing in the digital health companies of the future.
“Seeing my own immigrant parents with chronic conditions painfully navigating the U.S. health care system and all of its challenges has always stuck with me,” Tumkosit told me, adding that it’s “why I became interested in health care in the first place.”
There are many, many others on the list who deserve your read, from Racquel Bracken of Venrock to Lily Peng of Google Health, who’s developing algorithms that can do things like snuff out diabetes-related conditions by going through standard scans. Our health care list is a spoil of riches.
Read on for the day’s news, and see you again next week.
Sy Mukherjee
sayak.mukherjee@fortune.com
@the_sy_guy
DIGITAL HEALTH
Abbott's diabetes monitor picks up a government endorsement. Abbott, which readers know is already involved with a whole bunch ranging from diagnostic tests for COVID to existing medical devices, just notched another win: Federal government reimbursements for its continuous glucose monitoring device for diabetes patients. According to the company, this will extend its reach to a far wider swath of patients for its FreeStyle Libre 2 system, which can keep a close digital eye on those with diabetes, beyond its already-existing market reach.
INDICATIONS
WHO says common steroids can help slash COVID deaths. The World Health Organization released a study this week saying that common steroids can slash the risk of death from COVID among those who are the most sick—as much as by 35%. Drugs such as hydrocortisone and dexamethasone, which fight inflammation, may be very effective, according to the analysis. Still, stay cautious. COVID is a weird disorder and we have to keep looking at the specific science and validating its usefulness. But such a report from the WHO is encouraging. (Fortune)
THE BIG PICTURE
The college testing conundrum. I've been speaking with a few universities on what life looks like on campus in the COVID era and let me tell you–it's a bit of a mess. I'll have much more on this soon but I've talked to students from the East Coast to Pacific Ocean (NPR has a fine report on just one of the dilemmas schools face as they reopen, virtually or otherwise, related to the coronavirus.) It's gonna be just as tough for schools logistically as it will be for students mentally, from what I've gathered so far.
REQUIRED READING
The advice that helped this year's 40 under 40 forge its own path, by Katherine Dunn
Biogen moves $10 million to Black-owned OneUnited, by Jen Wieczner
New Batman movie shooting put on hold over coronavirus case, by Bloomberg


fortune--2020-09-03--Everything to know about Trump’s halt on evictions

Starting Friday, Sept. 4, a new, expanded eviction moratorium will go into effect with the aim of preventing millions of renters from being evicted due to the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Ordered by the Trump Administration, the mandate was issued through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since those without housing stability are high risks to contract or spread the COVID-19 virus.
The moratorium is set to run through Dec. 31 of this year, offering legal protections for renters. But there are certain requirements that must be met to qualify, some of which could be subjective. Here’s what you need to know.
Who is eligible?
A renter must meet five stipulations to be eligible:
They have used their “best efforts” to first obtain all available government assistance for rent or housing. Some states and cities might have assistance programs already in place. State and local municipalities might also already have a moratorium in place providing the same or better level protection, in which case the local rules would apply over the federal one. They expect to make no more than $99,000 in income as an individual or $198,000 if married or filing a joint tax return in the 2020 calendar year. They can also qualify if they were not required to file a tax return in 2019 or received a stimulus check as part of the CARES Act earlier this year. They are unable to pay the full amount of rent due to experiencing a “substantial” loss of income, or because they were laid off or had to pay “extraordinary” medical expenses. They are using their “best efforts” to continue making at least partial rent payments as close to the full amount as possible, taking into account other nondiscretionary expenses. Eviction would “likely” make them either homeless or force them to move into a shared living situation, where they could get sick or spread the virus to others.
These requirements can be subjective, though, so in the case of disagreement with a landlord, a housing court judge may have to step in to make the final decision on whether a renter is “covered” under the five provisions or not.
The order states that renters must sign a declaration—found here in this document—outlining these five qualifications, and present it to the landlord. The CDC says a landlord would then not be legally allowed to evict the tenant, or the federal government then impose criminal penalties on the landlord.
What does this mean for landlords?
Landlords violating the order would be subject to a fine of no more than $100,000, a year in jail, or both, if the violation does not lead to death of a renter. If the eviction did lead to a death of a renter, the fine could increase to $250,000, or the year in jail, or both. Organizations that commit this violation could receive a $200,000 fine if it doesn’t result in death, or $500,000 if it does.
Assuming the landlord does not ignore the order, they can still collect some rent as outlined under fourth provision for renters pledging to make best efforts to pay at least partial the amount of rent. The order also does not prevent landlords from charging fees or accruing interest, if those are included under the renter’s lease.
As long as renters are still making partial payments to the best of their ability, landlords can’t evict tenants before Dec. 31 for financial reasons. But landlords still could evict a renter for other usual reasons, like the destruction of property or criminal behavior. It’s possible landlords will attempt to use this reasoning to proceed with an eviction before the end of the year, so tenants should stay vigilant in terms of following the rules of their lease.
The order is expected to face legal challenges. Landlord associations have sued in multiple states to halt previous COVID-19-related moratoriums, claiming they are unconstitutional. If this happens again, the final decision will come down to the courts.
When will the rent be due?
It’s unclear, but it’s likely that back rent unpaid over the course of the moratorium would be due once the order expires on Dec. 31. The moratorium doesn’t offer specific instructions on what will happen, but this is the view of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.
“[W]hile an eviction moratorium is an essential step, it is a half-measure that extends a financial cliff for renters to fall off of when the moratorium expires and back rent is owed,” the group said in a statement. “This action delays but does not prevent evictions. Congress and the White House must get back to work on negotiations to enact a COVID-19 relief bill with at least $100 billion in emergency rental assistance.”
The $100 billion figure was included in the House Democrats-sponsored HEROES Act, a follow-up to the CARES Act, but Congress has not yet reached an agreement.


fortune--2020-09-03--Stock market snapback: S&P 500 dives nearly 4%, with tech leading the way down

Could investors be tired of their tech diet?
The S&P 500 plunged over 3.5% on Thursday (its worst day since June), dragged down by the biggest tech names like Apple, which saw an 8% drop just a few days after its 4-for-1 stock split. And according to some strategists, the selloff is indicating a shift out of the high-flying (and expensive) tech names that have led the rally thus far.
“I think part of this is a little bit of carry over of what we saw yesterday, which is some of that rotation out of some of the stay-at-home trades that have been performing well for some time, and … overall, the tech names [are] weighing down the S&P 500,” Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management, tells Fortune.
Part of that rotation may be due to the recent announcement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention telling states to prepare to distribute a vaccine by Nov. 1, giving investors a possible glimmer of hope for beaten-down industries (and stocks). “I think that announcement in particular was probably one of the catalysts [for the rotation out of tech], and if you look at the names that have been doing quite well, the tech names, … it’s that rotation out of those tech names and people taking profits and deciding to reallocate,” Ripley suggests.
Indeed, tech titans including Apple, Facebook, Alphabet, and Amazon were all down at least roughly 4% on Thursday. The Dow, meanwhile, plunged over 800 points, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell roughly 5%.
But for other strategists, “watching this rotation we’re seeing, we’ve had bouts of this in the past and it’s been fledgling and hasn’t lasted more than a few days,” Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, tells Fortune.
And this shift out of tech could easily lose steam. In fact, according to Sonders, “for this shift toward more classically cyclical areas—financials, materials, industrials—[to last], I think it’s going to require some consistency in the economic data, at least marginal improvement,” she says. “That would be the risk for the rotation trade, is it not being enforced by the economic data.”
That may be a challenge moving forward, as although the data has improved somewhat, the recovery appears to be losing steam. And heading deeper into September, investors may need to prepare for more volatility, as the two months before an election are historically a bit weaker for investors.
A ‘healthy little correction’
Meanwhile, the market’s record-breaking month in August, which saw not only a new high for the S&P 500 but a so-called perfect week for markets, may have put valuations at risk: “With valuations already at all-time highs, the market is looking stretched, and stretched valuations have historically been vulnerable to a snapback,” Brad McMillan, chief investment officer at Commonwealth Financial Network, wrote in a note Wednesday.
Looking at the performance of indices like the heavily tech-focused Nasdaq over the past month, “I think it was time for some rebalancing and taking chips off the table,” notes Ripley. “By and large, it looks kind of like a healthy little correction here.”
Indeed, Randy Frederick, Charles Schwab’s vice president of trading and derivatives, told Fortune last week that the markets had become “irrationally exuberant,” and that the subsequent rise in the VIX, or fear gauge, alongside the markets signaled a “reversal to the downside.”
In fact, last week, Frederick called for a 2% to 4% correction—right around the S&P 500’s 3.5% drop Thursday.
But this pullback certainly doesn’t mean the party is over, say some analysts.
“We don’t believe the bull market is going to end any time soon, but a healthy pullback or even a correction is part of all bull markets,” Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Independent Advisor Alliance, wrote in a note Thursday. That why he’s encouraging investors to “stay the course” and “ignore the news of market volatility that is a natural part of investing in equities.”


fortune--2020-09-03--‘Jeopardy!’ is returning with a redesigned set—and a new role for Ken Jennings

“Jeopardy!” is returning for its 37th season, with greater social distance between Alex Trebek and the contestants, and a new role for all-time great contestant Ken Jennings.
A redesigned set for the coronavirus era will allow for the contestants to be further apart and at a greater distance from Trebek, who has continued as host after a diagnosis last year of pancreatic cancer.
Trebek said last month that he’s responding exceptionally well to treatment for and expects to mark his two-year survival next February.
The casting of contestants was done entirely online for this season, which was shot without a studio audience.
This image released by “Jeopardy!” shows Ken Jennings, a 74-time champion the the set of the popular quiz show. Jennings will serve as a consulting producer on season 37, which premieres on Sept. 14. JEOPARDY! via AP
Jennings, the record-setting contestant who won on 74 straight shows and took last year’s “Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time” title, is joining the series as a consulting producer.
He’ll appear on-air with his own video categories, develop projects and act as a public ambassador for the show.
“Though I’ve played my last round of JEOPARDY! as a contestant, I’m delighted to have the opportunity to remain involved with my favorite show,” Jennings said in a statement. “I’m still in on all the action, but I don’t have to worry about phrasing things in the form of a question anymore.”


fortune--2020-09-03--New York City transit needs a $12 billion bailout—or the entire U.S. economic recovery may suffer

The Metropolitan Transit Authority, which runs New York City’s subways, buses, and commuter rail lines, needs a $12 billion cash infusion to offset losses due to the coronavirus. If the federal government doesn’t approve aid, MTA CEO Patrick Foye says massive cuts to staffing and service could be implemented as soon as November.
“There will be a deterioration in service in New York City as we saw in the ’70s and ’80s,” Foye told reporters Thursday morning. “We don’t want to go back to that.”
Foye also argued that because New York City is such an economic powerhouse, a weakened transit system there would slow the entire country’s economic recovery.
“There will be fewer people employed in New York City, and the region, and the nation, if the MTA doesn’t get funding,” he told reporters. “The economic recovery will be stunted and thwarted if that doesn’t happen…the economy will be depressed.”
New York City was an early epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. The MTA reported ridership (and fare revenue) on trains, buses, and subways plummeted as much as 92% in March. Foye says ridership remains down 72% for subways compared to last year and 50% for buses, while increased cleaning protocols have driven costs up. The agency now reports it is losing $200 million weekly and faces a $16 billion deficit through 2024. (After reaching historic highs in 2015, ridership had already begun declining by as much as 5% annually before the pandemic.)
The first installment of the Federal CARES act provided close to $4 billion in relief funding for the MTA, but a second round of relief funds has been stalled in Congress. Foye told reporters an additional $12 billion from Congress would allow the MTA to avoid cuts for the rest of 2020 as well as 2021, when a coronavirus vaccine is expected to become widely available. Without that aid, he said, decisions about service and staffing cuts would be made by MTA leadership in November.
The potential cuts are shocking. Foye said they would include a reduction of as much as 40% in passenger service within the city, and a 50% decrease in service on commuter rail lines, which connect the city to outlying areas where many city workers live. Those reductions would mean much longer wait times and more crowded buses and subways.
Also on the chopping block would be 8,400 jobs across the MTA system and further delays of long-planned upgrades to the system. Foye said fare increases could also be part of the necessary restructuring.
New York has maintained aggressive restrictions on indoor dining and other businesses that can contribute to coronavirus transmission. That has helped the city contain the pandemic in recent months better than most of the U.S., but not without a serious toll: Unemployment in New York City is currently 19.8%, nearly twice the nationwide rate.
Reduced MTA service could make recovery much more difficult. New Yorkers overwhelmingly rely on public transit to access jobs; only 45.4 % of households in the city own a car, dropping to 24.4% in Manhattan. That’s compared to nearly two cars per household on average nationwide. Reliance on transit rather than cars bolsters the city’s economic vibrancy by increasing density and, in turn, labor and capital productivity.
That’s why the MTA’s health is not merely a local issue: The New York City region generates 8% of total U.S. GDP. According to an analysis by SUNY’s Rockefeller Institute of Government, New York’s massive economy means the state sends $116 billion more in tax revenues to the federal government than residents receive in benefits and services, though Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s framing of New York as a “donor state” has been disputed.


fortune--2020-09-03--Facebook, Twitter flag Trump for misleading posts on voting

Facebook and Twitter flagged posts from President Donald Trump, the latest effort by the companies to crack down on misleading voting information.
Twitter added labels to two tweets from Trump for “encouraging people to potentially vote twice,” the company said. Trump suggested on Twitter Thursday morning that people vote in person as well as by mail to be “ASSURED THAT YOUR PRECIOUS VOTE HAS BEEN COUNTED.”
The same post was also flagged on Facebook, where the company added a label that directed users to its voting information center. “Voting by mail has a long history of trustworthiness in the U.S. and the same is predicted this year,” Facebook wrote on the label appended to the president’s post.
Trump has criticized mail-in ballots, suggesting the system will lead to a fraudulent or rigged election. Many Americans are expected to vote by mail this year due to health concerns driven by the coronavirus.


fortune--2020-09-03--‘Batman’ movie starring Robert Pattinson halts filming over coronavirus case

AT&T Inc.’s Warner Bros. halted filming of “The Batman” after a member of the production tested positive for the coronavirus — reportedly the movie’s star, Robert Pattinson.
After Warner Bros. said earlier Thursday that the infection of an unidentified person caused a temporary pause to filming, Vanity Fair reported that Pattinson was that person.
Warner Bros. declined to comment on whether Pattinson was the production member who tested positive. The actor’s representatives didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
“The Batman” was one of the biggest productions to resume after Covid-19 brought the industry to a halt in March. The latest shutdown shows studios are still grappling with how to keep workers safe.
The film, in which Pattinson plays the title role, is a key tentpole for Warner Bros. The studio had previously pushed back its release date to October 2021 from June 2021. The movie, being filmed in the U.K., still needs about three months to finish shooting, according to Variety.
Pattinson, 34, gave an interview to GQ magazine this spring in which he talked about his isolation during the pandemic lockdown, and his worries about the virus. “I went for a run around the park today,” he said. “I’m so terrified of being, like, arrested. You’re allowed to run around here. But the terror I feel from it is quite extreme.”


fortune--2020-09-03--Apple delays iPhone ad tracking changes that rattled industry

Apple is delaying a change to its upcoming iOS 14 iPhone software that Facebook Inc. and other developers have warned would hurt their advertising businesses.
The move, announced in June, requires users to give explicit permission before letting apps track them for advertising purposes. This was due to be implemented this fall with the rollout of iOS 14. It is now being delayed until early next year, Apple said on Thursday.
“We want to give developers the time they need to make the necessary changes, and as a result, the requirement to use this tracking permission will go into effect early next year,” Apple said in a statement.
The company added that the feature will still be implemented when iOS 14 is released, but the delay means it won’t enforce the rule and require developers to adopt it. Apple said it will release more details on implementing the feature later this year.
The debate centers on a unique Apple code linked to each device, known as an Identification for Advertisers, or IDFA. App developers have historically used IDFA to help target users with ads, and track the performance of ads across different devices.


fortune--2020-09-03--Will ‘Tenet’ revive U.S. movie theaters as it’s finally released?

Christopher Nolan’s new film Tenet opens in U.S. movie theaters this weekend, arguably the first major theatrical release since movie houses shuttered in response to the coronavirus starting in late March. The film’s financial performance is being treated as a bellwether for the movie business’s prospects, and even the entertainment industry as a whole, but it faces major headwinds in the form of coronavirus fears, theater closures, and extremely high U.S. unemployment.
Tenet, a time-travel spy thriller starring John David Washington and Robert Pattinson, was originally slated as a summerlong “tentpole” release, expected to be among the highest-grossing movies of the year. In late July, Warner Bros. announced that the film would instead open internationally starting Aug. 26, then in select U.S. cities on Sept. 3.
The film earned $53 million during last weekend’s international opening, a result considered surprisingly strong by movie business watchers. But the coronavirus has been contained much more effectively in markets such as Germany, France, and South Korea than in the U.S. Meanwhile, more than 25% of global box office revenue last year came from North America.
Most U.S. movie theaters have been closed for months, but are beginning to reopen with heightened safety protocols including enhanced surface cleaning and requiring patrons to wear face masks. Still, U.S. unemployment sits at 10.2%—worse than at the peak of the Great Recession—and the U.S. legislature has deadlocked on the renewal of added relief funds for laid-off workers.
Tenet’s Labor Day weekend release, then, faces a tangle of uncertainty. Are people hungry enough for a theater experience to risk illness and even death—or would they rather keep on Netflix and chilling? Even if they do want to see Tenet in the theater, is it showing near them? And finally, how many can lay out $10 or more per ticket in the midst of a historic recession?
There are at least a few positive indicators for ticket sales. Despite continued high infection rates in the state, movie theaters in New Jersey will be allowed to reopen in time for Tenet’s release. However, they will be capped at 25% occupancy, and major chain AMC is unlikely to reopen any of its locations in the state, according to IndieWire.
Regal Cinemas, on the other hand, announced this week that it will reopen theaters in New Jersey, Maryland, Southern California, and Alaska in time for Tenet’s opening. That will add to the 62% of U.S. theaters reopened as of last weekend, according to Variety.
Several lower-profile films, including troubled X-Men spinoff The New Mutants, opened last weekend. Ticket sales were modest, but showed audiences’ willingness to return to theaters despite epidemiologists’ warnings that they remain a serious risk for coronavirus spread. The coronavirus is transmitted largely by exhaled droplets that can float for hours, and the risk is increased by prolonged sharing of indoor space.
Many Americans appear to be taking those warnings seriously. A survey conducted in late June found that 65% of Americans said they are “very unlikely” to return to theaters immediately after they reopen.
Major Hollywood movie studios largely shut down film production in March. Production has already restarted on a handful of major releases, including Jurassic World and Avatar sequels, all of them shooting outside the U.S. and often more reliant on CGI than real locations or large casts. Warner Brothers announced on Sept. 3 that another highly anticipated tentpole film, The Batman, would shut down production after someone on set, possibly star Robert Pattinson, tested positive for COVID-19.
The ongoing production slowdown will likely mean fewer new releases into 2021, until a coronavirus vaccine is expected to become available, making a return to something close to normal likely. But solid U.S. opening returns for Tenet this weekend could motivate studios to restart production more aggressively, despite continued risk.


fortune--2020-09-03--T-Mobile expands promise to connect students for free amid COVID-19

T-Mobile has expanded a program that helps schools provide home Internet connections for all students, part of a package of benefits the company promised to persuade regulators to approve its $26 billion merger with Sprint.
Under the program, known as Project 10Million, T-Mobile is offering free wireless connections and Wi-Fi hotspots to up to 10 million students who lack Internet connectivity at home. The carrier is also offering laptops and tablets at cost, or in some cases free, through partnerships with hardware makers like Apple.
With even more need for connectivity during the COVID-19 pandemic that has forced millions of students to learn completely online, T-Mobile expanded the amount of free or discounted data available to each school district to 100 GB monthly or more, up from an earlier limit of 100 GB annually.
The program had to broaden from a focus just on closing the so-called homework gap now that so many schools are completely online, T-Mobile executive vice president Mike Katz, who helps run the program, tells Fortune.
“As we got into COVID, a lot of the relationships we’d built with schools [gave us] immediate feedback when the shutdowns happened about helping them solve a different problem,” Katz says. “It was no longer just homework, connectivity before and after school, but facilitating school all day, especially for kids that have no broadband access at home.”
Even before the pandemic, some studies have found that more than 10 million U.S. students lacked access to broadband Internet connections at home, making it difficult for them to complete homework assignments. That sparked the original T-Mobile Project 10Million. The pandemic has made the situation even more critical, as schools closed and students had to go online to access classes. In a poignant image that went viral on Instagram last week highlighting the problem, two small girls sat outside a Taco Bell in Salinas, Calif., to use the restaurant’s Wi-Fi for school. A GoFundMe campaign raised over $100,000 for their family, but the problem is widespread.
T-Mobile’s program works with school districts; students and their parents can’t apply directly. During the pandemic, T-Mobile has already connected 1.6 million students online in 3,100 school districts. The carrier values the potential give aways at more than $10 billion over the next five years.
The connectivity program follows the opening of two other major merger-related initiatives that T-Mobile and Sprint had promised in order to persuade regulators to approve their merger, which closed in April. Earlier this year, T-Mobile kicked off a free wireless service for first responders and began offering a low-cost consumer plan, called T-Mobile Connect, for just $15 a month.


fortune--2020-09-03--Why American Express is trying technology that makes deepfake videos look real

American Express is testing technology that is best known for helping create deepfake videos—realistic clips of people saying things they never really said—to fight financial fraud.
In this case, the company is creating fake financial data like credit card transactions that it can feed into machine-learning algorithms to better help them spot credit card scams and other problems. The goal is to more quickly alert customers that their accounts have been compromised, before criminals have a chance to go on spending sprees.
At the heart of American Express’s research is the A.I. technology known as generative adversarial networks, or GANs, which are used to create deepfake videos. In recent years, the technology has improved to the point that it can help create convincing video clips that fool viewers.
Two years ago, for instance, University of Washington researchers used GANs to create a realistic-looking video of former President Barack Obama giving a speech that he never actually gave. More recently, MIT’s Center for Advanced Virtuality lab created a deepfake video of former President Richard Nixon giving a bogus speech about the Apollo 11 moon landing mission failing.
In the case of the fake Nixon clip, MIT researchers trained GAN software on audio clips of Nixon’s speeches so that it could learn to modify an actor’s voice to sound like the former President’s. American Express researchers, on the other hand, trained their GANs on internal data that is normally used for tasks like calculating consumer credit scores, so that the software could create its own financial data.
The goal was for the GANs to create fake transactions “that look normal,” said Dmitry Efimov, the vice president of machine learning research for American Express. Data with obvious anomalies, such as multiple purchases of toilet paper in New York City on one day, followed by a lawnmower purchase in Bakersfield, Calif., the next, would be less effective.
Efimov declined to comment about how American Express could specifically use synthetic financial data to improve fraud detection, citing the risk that criminals could use the information for their benefit. But, generally speaking, the more financial data the company has, the more it can improve its cybersecurity systems.
Other organizations that are researching using GANs to create synthetic financial data include online retailing giant Amazon. In 2018, Amazon published a paper about using the software to create synthetic e-commerce transactions so that the data could eventually be used for “product recommendation, targeting deals, and simulation of future events.”
Researchers at the University of Michigan have also published a paper about using GANs to create fake stock market orders. That information could be used to help uncover stock market manipulation schemes, explained Xintong Wang, a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Michigan’s computer science department.
Still, as American Express researchers described in a paper they presented at this year’s annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, it’s difficult to evaluate how effective the GANs are at creating fake financial data.
Humans can easily look at A.I.-generated images to see if they resemble the real thing. But with financial data, the technology is so new that there are no “commonly accepted techniques” that the researchers can use to grade the software, they wrote.
The American Express researchers ended up using statistical techniques to analyze the A.I.-generated data and found that the results were good but not great. The researchers plan to refine their techniques for future research.
Ultimately, the researchers are optimistic that their work will pay off. As they described in the paper, there’s a lack of publicly available financial data that they can use to train their fraud-detection models. A.I. researchers could release their synthetic data sets to the public, which would be beneficial because other researchers could build on the work, the researchers explained in the paper. But an Amex spokesperson said the financial firm has no plans to do so.
“Customers’ personal data and privacy would be protected using this approach,” the researchers wrote.


fortune--2020-09-03--Match’s CEO explains how dating has changed during the COVID pandemic

After spending several months trying to understand what singles want from online dating during the coronavirus pandemic, Match CEO Hesam Hosseini thinks he’s found the answer.
“The first phase was really, ‘What’s going on? Should I be dating? Do other people still want to date?’” Hosseini said. “It’s evolved now to, ‘Okay, we’ve figured out how to get to know each other virtually. How do I actually form a connection with someone who is wearing a mask and staying distanced?’”
Match’s decision during the pandemic to introduce features like video dating has helped to give its parent company, Match Group, a financial lift. Its revenue grew 12% to $555.5 million during the second quarter, beating analyst estimates of $520.3 million.
While the company credited Tinder—one of its other dating sites—for much of its growth, Match, the flagship brand, has also seen historic highs during the pandemic. The service said that more singles have made more matches in July than during its typical “peak season” around Valentine’s Day.
Hosseini said that’s partly because of Match dating coaches, who have doled out advice during one-on-one conversations with more than 15,000 of the service’s users since the pandemic began. Those coaches then report their findings back to Match, which can then develop strategies based on the problems that users face.
“It really helps us keep a pulse on what’s going on in the mind of our members, and that really is great feedback for the business to evolve and adapt,” Hosseini said.
Hosseini spoke with Fortune recently to mark Dallas Startup Week (Match is based in Dallas). His comments have been edited for length and clarity.
Photo courtesy of Match Group
Fortune: How did the pandemic affect Match’s business initially?
HH: The first two weeks, I would say things were really up in the air. We didn’t know what to expect. There was a lot going on internally, but also with singles. Do they want to date? What’s going through their minds? Very quickly, probably around the beginning of April, we started to see our business stabilize.
Since then it’s grown tremendously. Match has had several record months just this past summer [in matches, messages, and usage. Average subscribers for Match Group was 10.1 million during the second quarter, up 11% year over year]. The core service we provide is needed regardless of the pandemic or a recession. It just looks a little bit different, so we did do a few pivots early on.
How did the business pivot?
We’re the first dating app following the outbreak to launch video. We also have a team of experts at Match that are available via phone to our paid members. We opened that up nationwide for free to the entire country because we knew navigating a relationship and dating in this environment was tricky.
We actually were working on introducing a free tier at Match [which limits users to six matches a day]. As soon as the pandemic hit, it was a no-brainer. We rolled that out to the whole country to make sure Match was as accessible as possible.
What do people want from a dating service like Match right now?
During the pandemic, with hooking up really off the table, we’ve really seen that accelerate a strong demand for services and apps that provide more meaningful connections.
Something that sort of took a turn is video dating. Match has tested several versions of video dating the last 10 years, and prior to the pandemic, interest was really muted. Something like 5% to 6% of singles said they would do it, which was why we didn’t really invest in the feature prior to this.
The pandemic served as a catalyst for video dating to become more common and remove some of the stigma. If you think about it in a non-pandemic world, a quick video date before you decide to meet in person is actually a great tool. In some ways it can be less awkward as a date. You don’t have to decide who’s paying, you don’t have to decide where to go. It’s really just a more low-pressure way to get to meet someone.
Does Match offer any health guidance about dating during a pandemic?
First thing we always say is comply with what’s going on with your city, whatever the guidelines are, No. 1. We always encourage folks to get to know someone digitally at first.
Pre-pandemic, there was this sort of rush of let’s just go out and get to see each other in person. We are encouraging folks to just take a beat. It means you’re going on less dates in real life, and I just think that’s a safer way to approach the dating process.
When the pandemic initially hit, we launched a series of tips around dating during a pandemic, which were safety focused. We published that on our microsite and our blog.
How has Match addressed societal issues like the racial justice movement and the presidential election?
The topic of racial injustice is super important to us. I’m an immigrant myself. I moved to North America from Sydney, Australia, when I was 12.
Around the time when this was put in the national spotlight, we took action. We had a lot of tough but necessary internal conversations about the topic about how we could do better. We also put our money where our mouth is, and we made donations to several charities we felt were progressing these views. We also had donation matching for our employees to make sure the causes they felt passionate about [were supported].
Regarding elections, for the Latinx community we actually launched an initiative to encourage voter registration. Chispa, our dating app for Latinx singles [that emerged from the company’s internal incubator +1 Labs founded by Hosseini], partnered with Voto Latino, a nonprofit focused on getting Latinx folks registered.
How do dating trends change in an election year?
The No. 1 question that we get is when and if users should talk politics on a date. In the past, we would encourage users to get to know someone on the first, and then on the second or third date that’s when you should talk about politics.
One of the things we’ve seen this year is the pandemic has forced a lot of what we call “big talk” on first dates. The pandemic has just got people talking about more intimate, personal topics earlier on in a relationship. It’s a clear trend we’re seeing, so that may lead to more political conversations on dates early on.
In the 12 years I’ve been at Match, I’m always surprised that when we ask our users, politics doesn’t matter that much when it comes to love and a relationship. It’s a vast minority of singles that say politics can be a deal-breaker.
How has Facebook Dating affected Match since it debuted last September?
We haven’t seen any impact to our business as a result of Facebook launching Facebook Dating. Of course, it’s Facebook. We can never rule them out.
What’s ahead for Match?
Video dating, I think, is here to stay. It’s definitely a must-have tool through the pandemic, but I think that users are very interested in continuing to use it in the long run.
Singles are entering into a phase of, “Okay, I’m dating. I do want to meet folks—although safely and cautiously. But how do I get to know them better in this world of social distancing?”
For the next six to 12 months, there is going to be some element of that when it comes to dating. So we are working on a few things that can help members maybe get over those more awkward conversations early on. “Are you going to wear a mask? Do you want me to wear a mask? Are you okay if I take you to a restaurant, or do you want to just walk in a local park social distanced?” Things like that to help members date a little more effectively.


fortune--2020-09-03--Elon Musk’s SpaceX Internet service, Starlink, officially reveals download speeds

Elon Musk’s SpaceX gave the first indication of just how fast Starlink, its upcoming satellite-based Internet service, will be—and the speeds surprised some analysts.
After launching 60 more satellites on Thursday as part of the Starlink service, SpaceX tweeted that its Internet tests have reached speeds of more than 100 megabits per second. Delays in receiving downloads, or latency, were also “super-low,” SpaceX said.
That’s plenty fast enough to stream Netflix in 4K resolution or download an entire movie in less than 10 minutes. It’s also in the ballpark of the average wired home Internet connection speed of 128 Mbps.
SpaceX hasn’t yet said how much the Starlink service will cost or precisely when it will be available. It has now launched almost 700 satellites of a planned constellation of thousands and said service could begin in parts of North America by the end of the year. The privately held startup raised almost $2 billion of backing last month and is valued at $46 billion.
In addition to SpaceX, several other companies are competing in a 21st-century space race to offer broadband Internet speeds from satellites. Amazon’s Project Kuiper has similar aims but has yet to loft any satellites. SoftBank-backed OneWeb got hundreds of satellites in orbit but went bankrupt earlier this year and was bought by a group led by the British government. Whether any of the services will prove popular or financially viable remains an open question after the last round of satellite Internet services two decades ago all failed.
Thursday’s self-reported test speeds from SpaceX come as the service is also trying to qualify for a subsidized federal Internet program run by the Federal Communications Commission. The agency is doling out $20 billion to Internet service providers who can connect customers in rural and underprivileged areas. SpaceX applied to be included, but the FCC said it would first have to prove its service had a latency under 100 milliseconds.


fortune--2020-09-03--A SPAC courts Airbnb

A SPAC courts Airbnb

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In (highly expected) news, Bill Ackman’s mega blank check company reached out to home-sharing unicorn Airbnb about a potential merger.
Given that such companies typically acquire a portion of another company, Ackman’s monster $4 billion Pershing Square Tontine has a pretty limited universe of potential acquirees—it’s one of the reasons you’ll see a lot of blank check companies raising around $200 million to $300 million, where you can cast a wider net. Ackman has narrowed his radar even further, however, saying he plans to acquire a pure-play tech company.
Naturally, Airbnb was among the first names to spring to mind. Except Airbnb has reportedly rebuffed this particular mating dance, per Bloomberg, saying it preferred the traditional IPO route, even if it hasn’t completely ruled out the possibility of a merger with the special purpose acquisition company.
The story does speak to the hesitancy still felt around SPACs. While 2020 has been a veritable festival for the financing vehicle, with over $32 billion raised so far, some venture capitalists that Term Sheet has spoken to have voiced doubts about the structure.
Regardless of how it happens, Airbnb’s listing will also be much watched for how it deals with the issue of employee equity. As a 12-year-old company, its early employees have been calling for a public offering for a while now. So could Airbnb play with its lock-up period in the case of a traditional IPO, or directly offer employee stock if it were to merge with a SPAC?
MAGIC EEP: Augmented-reality startup Magic Leap has gone from being a $6.7 billion company to about $450 million in the books of investors between January and June, per The Information. That comes after the company laid off about half its staff and replaced CEO and co-founder Rony Abovitz with Peggy Johnson.
Lucinda Shen
Twitter: @shenlucinda
Email: lucinda.shen@fortune.com
VENTURE DEALS
- Unacademy, an Indian education company, raised $150 million in a round led by SoftBank's Vision Fund 2, and was joined by investors including Facebook, Blume Ventures, Nexus Partners, General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital. Read more.
- Biofourmis Inc., which uses artificial intelligence-based analytics to monitor patients affected by Covid-19, raised $100 million in funding. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the round.
- SHINE Medical Technologies, a Wisconsin-based nuclear technology company focused on medical isotopes, raised $80 million in Series C funding. Fidelity Management and Research Company led the round.
- PasarPolis, an Indonesian insurance startup, raised $54 million in Series B funding. Investors included LeapFrog Investments, SBI Investment, and Xiaomi.
- Pharmapacks, a New York-based e-commerce platform, raised $40 million in bridge financing. Reckitt Benckiser, The Craftory , The Straus Group, The Emerson Group, and Sawaya Capital Partners invested.
- Transposit, a San Francisco-based engineering operations company for the enterprise, raised $35 million in Series B funding. Altimeter Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Sutter Hill Ventures, SignalFire, and Unusual Ventures.
- Miracor Medical, a Belgium-based provider of treatments for severe cardiac diseases, raised €24 million in Series E funding. Investors include Yonghua, Earlybird, Noshaq, Quest for Growth, SFPI-FPIM, and SRIW.
- Legion, a Redwood City, Calif.-based workforce management solution, raised $22 million in Series B funding. Stripes led the round and was joined by investors including Workday Ventures, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, First Round Capital, XYZ Ventures and Webb Investment Network.
- Conversica, a Foster City, Calif.-based customer conversation platform, raised $20 million in Series D funding. Hollyport Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Providence Strategic Growth, Toba Capital, and Savano Capital Partners.
- Cloudentity, a Seattle-based provider of cloud application security, raised $13 million in Series A funding. Forgepoint Capital led the round and was joined by investors including WestWave Capital.
- Moteefe, a London-based e-commerce platform for retailers, raised $11 million in funding. BGF led the round and was joined by investors including Gresham House Ventures and Force Over Mass Capital.
- Reachdesk, a New York-based direct mail and corporate gifting software platform, raised $6 million. Five Elms Capital led the round.
- uMotif, a London-based data capture software company, raised £5 million in Series A funding. AlbionVC led the round.
- Aspinity, a Pittsburgh-based maker of low-power analog machine learning processors, raised $5.3 million in Series A funding. Anzu Partners led the round and was joined by investors including Amazon’s Alexa Fund, Birchmere Ventures, Mountain State Capital, and Riverfront Ventures.
- PhotoniCare, an Illinois-based provider of physicians with better diagnostic tools, raised $5.2 million in Series A funding. i2E Management Company led the round and was joined by investors including OSF Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, and Dreampact Ventures.
- SenseHawk, a San Francisco-based SaaS company for developing solar and other infrastructure sites, raised $5.1 million in Series A-1 funding. Alpha Wave Incubation led the round.
- CUDDLY, a Seal Beach, Calif.-based fundraising platform for animal welfare organizations, raised $4 million in Series A funding. Lead Edge Capital led the round.
- Mathison, a New York-based hiring platform for diverse communities, raised $2 million in seed funding. Animo Ventures led the round.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Alliance Holdings, the environmental services platform of Align Capital Partners, acquired the U.S.-based emission monitoring business unit of Bureau Veritas. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Providence Strategic Growth invested in Semarchy, a San Francisco-based provider of data management software. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- Applied Composites Holdings, backed by AE Industrial Partners, acquired Alliance Spacesystems, a Los Alamitos, Calif.-based provider of composite structures and assemblies for the commercial, civil and government satellite market. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- The Carlyle Group has agreed to acquire a 5% stake in Salubris, a China-based biopharmaceutical company. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
- A consortium led by Blackstone Group and Global Infrastructure Partners offered to acquire U.S. railroad operator Kansas City Southern (KSU), per Reuters. Read more.
IPO
- Skillz Inc, a mobile games platform, will go public via merger with Flying Eagle Acquisition Corp., a blank check company. The deal implies a valuation of $3.5 billion.
- Hidrovias do Brasil SA, a Brazilian logistics company, plans to raise up to 4.7 billion reais ($876.05 million) in an initial public offering, per Reuters. Read more.


fortune--2020-09-03--Europe relies on foreign raw materials to power its green and digital future. Now it wants to mine t

Europe relies on foreign raw materials to power its green and digital future. Now it wants to mine them at home

The European Union is keen to boost its green and digital ambitions, making them central to its coronavirus recovery plans. But there’s one big problem: raw materials.
Those rare-earth elements needed for the magnets in electric vehicles and wind turbines? Some 98% of the EU’s supply comes from China. South Africa provides 84% of the platinum group metals needed for fuel cells and automotive catalysts. And Europe’s supplies of lithium—critical for battery production and therefore for electric vehicles and renewable-energy storage—come mostly from Chile.
So, on Thursday, the European Commission set out a plan for diversifying its supplies, while also hopefully improving conditions in the mining of these raw materials.
“A secure and sustainable supply of raw materials is a prerequisite for a resilient economy,” said EC Vice President Maroš Šefčovič in a statement. “For e-car batteries and energy storage alone, Europe will for instance need up to 18 times more lithium by 2030 and up to 60 times more by 2050.”
“We cannot afford to rely entirely on third countries—for some rare earths even on just one country,” added Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton. “By diversifying the supply from third countries and developing the EU’s own capacity for extraction, processing, recycling, refining, and separation of rare earths, we can become more resilient and sustainable.”
A new European Raw Materials Alliance, which will take in industry as well as national governments, civil society, and investors, will first focus on rare earths and other materials needed for magnets, then over time other materials as well.
European mining
Much of the strategy involves striking new deals with Canada and countries in the Balkans to diversify supply. But in some cases, the plan is to start mining in the European Union itself, for battery-related raw materials such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and manganese.
Many of these resources lie in what are currently coal-mining regions, which is handy in two respects. First, the mining-waste dumps and landfills in these areas are full of materials that are ripe for retrieval, which provides an extra incentive to clean up the environment there. Second, coal mining is winding down as an activity, and new mines in these regions would give them a much-needed economic boost.
“Many of the mining and engineering skills are transferable to the exploitation of metals and minerals, often in the same regions,” the Commission said in the strategy document published Thursday.
The Commission also pointed out that the EU’s satellite-based earth observation program, Copernicus, could be used to help identify new mining sites and to monitor their environmental performance.
There is also the hope that more of the needed materials can be harvested through recycling. A quarter of the EU’s iron, zinc, and platinum consumption already comes from recycled materials, and the EU’s executive body plans to launch research on how the same principles might be applied to rare earths and other materials.
The Commission has also updated its list of critical raw materials, which is something it does every three years anyway. The list, which is used as a resource in trade negotiations, now runs to 30 materials that for the first time include lithium, titanium, strontium, and bauxite.
Environmental concerns
The addition of lithium is music to the ears of some environmentalists, given its importance in the production of electric-car batteries. “Such products are necessary to help Europe ditch fossil fuels and transition to clean energy,” said the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), the region’s largest network of environmental citizens’ organizations, in a statement.
However, the EEB also called the new strategy a “double-edged sword,” given the environmental and societal costs of the mining itself.
“Simply opening the floodgates to new mining projects in Europe would contradict the European Commission’s ambition to keep resource consumption within planetary boundaries,” said EEB policy officer Jean-Pierre Schweitzer in the statement. “What we need is more efficient, recyclable, and durable batteries produced from responsibly sourced materials to alleviate the burden on the planet.”
Diego Francesco Marin, another of the group’s policy officers, added that it was essential for local communities and civil society groups to be consulted “so that they can raise concerns about new mining projects near their homes before it’s too late.”
Of course, relying on resources from other countries may make for a greener and more socially acceptable situation at home, but it generally just moves the negative impacts of the mining offshore.
In the battery space, lithium mining has been associated with toxic chemical leaks that have contaminated water supplies, while cobalt mining, which takes place largely in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is rife with child labor and unsafe working conditions.
In its Thursday strategy document, the European Commission talked about “supporting improved local governance and dissemination of responsible mining practices” in its partner countries. Here, the meat will supposedly come in the “responsible sourcing” parts of a forthcoming proposal for a batteries law.


fortune--2020-09-03--Cloud gaming gets a lift from COVID-19 and 5G. Here’s how much

Cloud gaming has boomed during the coronavirus pandemic. And with the anticipated spread of superfast 5G mobile networks, it’s expected to grow even more.
Spending on nascent cloud gaming services, in which people stream high-quality video games directly to devices like smartphones instead of video game consoles, is expected to generate $584.7 million this year, more than three times as much as the $170 million spent in 2019, analytics firm Newzoo said on Thursday.
By 2023, the cloud gaming market is expected to balloon to $4.8 billion, Newzoo noted. That’s a nearly 50% increase from the firm’s prior projection, that cloud gaming revenue would be $3.2 billion that year.
Newzoo analyst Guilherme Fernandes said that COVID-19 and ensuing shelter-in-place rules are responsible for the huge growth. People with more time on their hands because of the coronavirus pandemic are more willing to try a cloud gaming service.
Cloud computing giants like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are betting billions of dollars on cloud gaming. Their rivals include Nvidia, Blade, and Parsec.
Fernandes said he expects cloud gaming to gain even more momentum as more telecommunication companies build 5G networks. The increased Internet speed is expected to make the technology more appealing to users.
China will likely be among the biggest markets, Fernandes said. In addition to new 5G networks, Chinese tech giant Tencent is investing heavily in its own cloud gaming service.
In the U.S., after nearly a year of testing, Microsoft plans to debut its xCloud service in mid-September. The service will be bundled into the premium tier of the company’s Game Pass video game subscription service.
Fernandes said that Microsoft is “the strongest player right now,” partly because of the company’s history of selling popular video games via its Xbox gaming console.
Amazon is reportedly developing a cloud gaming service, but problems in the company’s video game unit could delay those plans, Fernandes said. Earlier this summer, Amazon released its much anticipated online shooter Crucible, but then quickly moved the game to a “closed beta version” after a poor reception.
While Google and its Stadia cloud gaming service have benefited from COVID-19, a lack of exclusive video games have muted its success, Fernandes said.
“I think Google’s launch of Stadia was a little bit underwhelming because they have not delivered enough content to really get people on board,” he said.


fortune--2020-09-03--Why AT&T is leaving the lucrative ad-tech business

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It’s not a new concept, but I heard the expression “K-shaped recovery” for the first time Wednesday. The divergent prongs of the half of the letter tell the story: surging, resilient, non-physical sectors of the economy are growing while pandemic-walloped industries that cater to the physical needs of consumers are flailing. Tech firms and service providers are in the former group. Airlines, restaurants, and producers reliant on face-to-face collaboration are in the latter.
I thought about the unfortunate end of the “K” while reading in The Wall Street Journal that AT&T, once merely a phone company, wants to sells its advertising technology business, the unfortunately named Xandr. Two years ago, AT&T spent well over a billion dollars to buy a private company called AppNexus, which became Xandr. (If you must know, the name has to do with Alexander Graham Bell, the founder of AT&T.) “Ad tech” likely seemed like a good idea to the acquisitive AT&T, which also swallowed Time Warner, the former owner of a former owner (sic) of Fortune.
It turns out the business of selling advertising technology is dominated by a few giants, namely Google, Facebook, and Amazon. AT&T needs to hop off the merry-go-round, in part because of its mountain of debt—which Geoff Colvin presciently warned about last year in Fortune—and also because the pandemic has slammed entertainment as cord-cutting already was smothering the traditional TV business. (An Apple-instigated food fight among the behemoths is quickly making ad tech a frightening place all around, but that’s a story for another day.)
Weak strategy and bad timing are a tough combination. It puts a company on the downward slope of the “K”—not the place to be right now.
***
Last month I picked up The Rise of the G.I. Army, 1940-1941: The Forgotten Story of How America Forged a Powerful Army Before Pearl Harbor by Paul Dickson. I thought it would be interesting to be reminded of a time when the federal government accomplished something great, complicated, and highly coordinated—and during intense political polarization. (Interventionist-versus-isolationist tension was so intense that there was a fistfight on the floor of Congress over a law to institute a military draft.)
Some quick nuggets:
The Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps was run by the military, an invaluable precursor to a citizen Army.
John F. Kennedy studied at Stanford University for a time, after graduation from Harvard but before joining the Navy.
Underweight movie star Jimmy Stewart, who wanted to serve, got help in the gym from a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer trainer named Don Loomis, whose job was to help actors put on or lose weight for roles. I’d love to know how his methods compared to today’s fitness techniques.
***
Do you know—or invest in, or run—a startup that is tackling key social or environmental issues as part of its business model? If so, Fortune wants to hear from you. We’re soliciting nominations for the Impact 20, a new Fortune list that recognizes venture-backed and private equity-backed companies that are doing well by doing good.
We’ll be looking for relatively established startups that have already shown that they can solve important problems—and are already generating some revenue doing so. To nominate a company, use this form. Fortune editors will announce the final list in late September.
Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam.lashinsky@fortune.com
This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman.
NEWSWORTHY
Every time a unicorn loses its horn. Virtual/augmented reality startup Magic Leap has been struggling for a while now despite billions down the drain. Now comes word that major investors have written down the value of their stakes by 93%, valuing the startup at less than $500 million. At the other end of the hype cycle, four-year-old Toronto startup Xanadu says its cloud quantum computing platform is open for business. The Beatles-happy firm named its two main products Strawberry Fields and PennyLane. At least they're not more Lord of the Rings fanbois.
Dear Sexy Fish London. They did not make the media section of Fortune's 40 under 40 list, but the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, aka Prince Harry and the former Meghan Markle, signed a wide-ranging deal with Netflix to produce everything from children's programs to documentaries. The couple say they want to make "inspirational family programming" with "powerful storytelling through a truthful and relatable lens.”
California Megahertz Patrol. Feeling a need for speed in your PC? Intel debuted its 11th generation of chips for laptops, dubbed Tiger Lake, with particular emphasis on improved A.I. and graphics performance. Rival Nvidia announced the consumer line up for graphics cards using its latest Ampere architecture, promising double the performance of the prior gen.
Banned in Boston. With election misinformation multiplying at a dizzying rate, Facebook finally joined many of its social media rivals and agreed to ban new political advertising in the week before the November vote (older ads still get to run, it seems).
Who made you king of anything. If you are scoring the mega-legal fights among the mega-tech companies, the battle over the $10 billion Pentagon JEDI project should be Microsoft: 1, Amazon: 0, and Oracle: -1, after Oracle lost a second time. The government already awarded the contract to Microsoft over its two cloud rivals. Now a U.S. appeals court rejected Oracle's attempt to undo the award. In a very different kind of fight, a federal court in Illinois rejected some law enforcement requests of Google for so-called geofence warrants. That's when a crime occurs and the police ask Google for a list of every phone that was in the area at the time. Oh, and Edward Snowden was right: An Appeals Court found the NSA's surveillance program leaked by "Verax" was unconstitutional.
Never make me the underdog. India's upstart wireless carrier Reliance Jio has been making all the headlines and hoovering up all the investor cash this year, but maybe it's time for a comeback from rival Vodafone Idea. Nearly driven to bankruptcy by Jio's cheap plans, the joint venture between Vodafone Group and India's Idea Cellular is on the verge of getting a $4 billion infusion from Verizon and Amazon. That could shake things up. Meanwhile, India banned another 118 Chinese apps including PUBG, Baidu, and Alipay.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
As a fan of getting rid of Daylight Saving Time, I was pleased to see that the American Academy of Sleep Medicine last week called for doing away with the practice. Writer Nora McGreevy explores the debate in a piece for Smithsonian Magazine.
The body’s circadian rhythms, per the National Institute of Health, are the physical, mental and behavioral changes that drive human’s health—otherwise known as one’s “biological clock,” that tells most humans to wake up with the sun and sleep when it goes down. AASM leaders argue that changing to standard time would help align peoples’ social clocks—for instance, when they’re expected to be at work—with their biological ones.
“Standard time is going to be your best situation where your social clock, your internal biological clock and your sun clock are going to be more likely, for the most time, to be better aligned,” as Phyllis Zee, a sleep medicine specialist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, who was not involved in writing the AASM paper, tells the Post.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
From superstar cities to ghost towns: Two-thirds of workplaces in major hubs have yet to reopen By Lance Lambert
MacKenzie Scott is now the wealthiest woman in the world By Emma Hinchliffe
Rocket Internet comes down to Earth By Lucinda Shen
Bill Gates-backed EV battery startup to go public using Wall Street’s latest buzzy trick By Aaron Pressman
First he took energy trading and the NYSE electronic. Now Jeff Sprecher of ICE shares his plans to digitize your mortgage By Shawn Tully
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
Magician and, what...performance artist David Blaine had one for the ages on Wednesday. It's almost too beautiful to describe but the "trick" involved a bunch of colorful helium balloons, wide open blue skies, and–eventually–a parachute. There's plenty of video, but start with the write up from blogger Jason Kottke. Have a floating away kind of day.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com


fortune--2020-09-03--Facebook aims to minimize misinformation, will restrict new political ads in the week prior to the e

Facebook aims to minimize misinformation, will restrict new political ads in the week prior to the election

With just two months left until the U.S. presidential election, Facebook says it is taking more steps to encourage voting, minimize misinformation and reduce the likelihood of post-election “civil unrest.”
The company said Thursday it will restrict new political ads in the week before the election and remove posts that convey misinformation about COVID-19 and voting. It will also attach links to official results to posts from candidates and campaigns that declare premature victories.
“This election is not going to be business as usual. We all have a responsibility to protect our democracy,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on Thursday. “That means helping people register and vote, clearing up confusion about how this election will work, and taking steps to reduce the chances of violence and unrest.”
Facebook and other social media companies are being scrutinized over how they handle misinformation, given issues with President Donald Trump and other candidates posting false information and Russia’s ongoing attempts to interfere in U.S. politics.
Facebook has long been criticized for not fact-checking political ads or limiting how they can be targeted at small groups of people.
With the nation divided, and election results potentially taking days or weeks to be finalized, there could be an “increased risk of civil unrest across the country,” Zuckerberg said.
In July, Trump refused to publicly commit to accepting the results of the upcoming election, as he scoffed at polls that showed him lagging behind Democratic rival Joe Biden. Trump also has made false claims that the increased use of mail-in voting because of the coronavirus pandemic allows for voter fraud. That has raised concern over the willingness of Trump and his supporters to abide by election results.
Under the new measures, Facebook says it will prohibit politicians and campaigns from running new election ads in the week before the election. However, they can still run existing ads and change how they are targeted.
Posts with obvious misinformation on voting policies and the coronavirus pandemic will also be removed. Users can only forward articles to a maximum of five others on Messenger, Facebook’s messaging app. The company also will work with Reuters to provide official election results and make the information available both on its platform and with push notifications.
After being caught off-guard by Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Facebook, Google, Twitter and others companies put safeguards in place to prevent it from happening again. That includes taking down posts, groups and accounts that engage in “coordinated inauthentic behavior” and strengthening verification procedures for political ads. Last year, Twitter banned political ads altogether.
Zuckerberg said Facebook had removed more than 100 networks worldwide engaging in such interference over the last few years.
“Just this week, we took down a network of 13 accounts and two pages that were trying to mislead Americans and amplify division,” he said.
But experts and Facebook’s own employees say the measures are not enough to stop the spread of misinformation –- including from politicians and in the form of edited videos.
Facebook had previously drawn criticism for its ads policy, which cited freedom of expression as the reason for letting politicians like Trump post false information about voting.


fortune--2020-09-03--Biogen moves $10 million to Black-owned OneUnited, joining the Fortune 500 trend to ‘Bank Black’

Moving money to Black-owned or Black-led financial institutions is officially a Fortune 500 trend. Biogen, the Boston-based biotech company working on a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, is depositing $10 million of its capital into OneUnited, a national Black-owned bank, the company said Thursday morning.
It’s the latest in a string of recent moves by large corporations to shift some of their money to Black-owned banks and lenders primarily serving the Black community in the months of unrest over racial injustice following the killing of George Floyd in May.
In late June, Netflix announced it would deposit $100 million—2% of its total cash—to Black-led banks and financial institutions and called on others to “do the same.”
That may have jump-started other efforts by large companies to follow suit: Last week, Costco announced it would put $25 million into the Netflix-seeded Black Economic Development Fund. Created by the Local Initiatives Support Corp. (LISC), a Black-led community-development financial institution, the fund will allocate the money toward deposits to Black-owned banks, credit unions, and other financiers supporting businesses run by people of color and minorities. In addition to deposits, some of the fund may be used for bridge loans to those financial institutions as well, Maurice Jones, LISC’s CEO and president, told Fortune.
Biogen’s decision differs in that it has selected an individual institution, OneUnited Bank, to which to directly make a deposit. While it has chosen to move only $10 million to OneUnited so far, Biogen is also planning to make further deposits to other Black-owned banks in the future, and is currently “identifying those options,” a spokesperson told Fortune. “We want to support minority-owned banks in the U.S. communities where we have operations,” the spokesperson added.
OneUnited, which currently has about $685 million in assets—making it one of the largest Black-led and Black-owned banks in the U.S.—has attracted tens of millions in additional deposits this summer, as calls for greater support of Black communities have increased amid protests over racism and police violence. In announcing Biogen’s deposit, Kevin Cohee, OneUnited’s CEO, highlighted the “#BankBlack movement” as one way “to send a message that is part protest, part progress.”
“For OneUnited’s customers, this deposit could mean allowing them to pursue their dreams or strengthening underrepresented minority businesses,” Chirfi Guindo, Biogen’s executive vice president and head of global product strategy and commercialization, added in a statement.
Meanwhile PayPal, which in early June pledged $500 million to broadly support Black-owned businesses, has since decided to direct the bulk of that money to banks focused on the Black community, a company spokesperson told Fortune. More than half the money—or as much as $300 million or $400 million—will come from PayPal’s deposits, which are currently held in traditional banks, and move to “banks that are either Black-owned or are community banks and credit unions that serve underrepresented minority communities,” the spokesperson noted.
Last week, PayPal picked the first such bank to get a portion of the cash: Optus Bank, a Black-owned bank based in South Carolina, received a $50 million deposit from PayPal. While Optus is smaller than OneUnited, the deposit from PayPal and others has helped its assets swell 67% during the coronavirus pandemic, to $150 million today.
These actions by corporations are not philanthropy; rather than donating the money, moving deposits allows companies to support Black-owned institutions—and by extension, the people and businesses they serve—without putting their cash at risk. That likely makes it easier for companies to put larger sums of money toward the cause: “When you make a deposit, it’s still your money,” added Jones. In other words, companies can still expect to receive their money back in full—while supporting Black communities in the meantime.


fortune--2020-09-03--Bill Gates–backed EV battery startup to go public using Wall Street’s latest buzzy trick

Amid strong investor appetite for electric-vehicle companies, a startup backed by Bill Gates plans to raise $1 billion by going public.
QuantumScape, which is developing quick-charging batteries for electric cars, says it will merge with Kensington Capital Acquisition, an already publicly traded special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, and issue more equity to raise $1 billion. Once merged, QuantumScape, which is still working on its battery technology, would be valued at $3.3 billion.
The deal comes as investors send the stock prices of EV companies soaring, led by Elon Musk’s Tesla. Though Tesla’s share price declined 6% on Wednesday, it’s still up more than fivefold this year. Meanwhile, Chinese EV maker Nio is up almost fivefold, while three-wheeled electric-vehicle maker Arcimoto and charging network Blink are up almost fourfold. That has prompted a number of similar startups, ranging from QuantumScape to Fisker to Canoo, to go public by merging with SPACs.
QuantumScape was founded in 2010 by CEO Jagdeep Singh, a serial entrepreneur who previously founded and sold companies including Lightera Networks, bought by Ciena in 1999 for $1 billion.
Singh’s QuantumScape has partnered with Volkswagen to develop batteries for electric cars and trucks that would double the range of existing battery technology and enable faster recharging. Volkswagen says vehicles with QuantumScape batteries probably won’t be available in cars until 2025, however.
QuantumScape has previously raised a total of $800 million from investors including Microsoft founder Gates and venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. The latest deal has attracted Fidelity Management & Research and Janus Henderson Investors.
“To replace all of the existing cars we need batteries that charge quickly, that take up less space, that cost less and give cars the same range as their gas-powered rivals,” Gates said last week in a video about the company. “QuantumScape has a great battery that is part of the solution to this challenge.”


fortune--2020-09-03--Tory Burch joins Old Navy in paying employees to work Election Day polls

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Meghan and Harry ink a Netflix deal, Jesse Mermell is in the running for Rep. Joe Kennedy’s Massachusetts seat, and Tory Burch joins Old Navy in paying employees to work at the polls. Have a terrific Thursday.
– Working the polls. Earlier this week, we linked to a story about Old Navy’s decision to provide a day’s pay to any U.S. employee who volunteers as a poll worker on Election Day. Now, it seems that the retailer—led by Gap CEO Sonia Syngal—may have provided some inspiration: Tory Burch, which already planned to close stores and offices on Nov. 3 to make it easier to vote, has announced that it will also offer a paid day off to employees who opt to work the polls.
This would be admirable corporate decision making in any election year, but it’s particularly important this cycle, when the U.S. is down 250,000 poll workers. The main factor behind the shortage: many of the usual volunteers are age 60 or older and are opting out amid COVID concerns.
In an email interview with Vogue, Tory Burch, who remains executive chairman and chief creative officer of her eponymous brand, said that “as a businesswoman and a citizen, it is important to me to do what I can to help provide solutions.” She also dropped in a subtle challenge to her peers in the fashion industry—and beyond. “I do think giving people time off to vote and offering employees the opportunity to be poll workers is something the fashion industry can get behind,” said Burch. “But I really think it should be about all industries, as we’re all in this together.”
Frankly, I find it shocking that more companies have not yet followed in the footsteps of Tory Burch and Old Navy. Yes, it’s an incredibly divisive moment in U.S., and it’s understandable that some companies would prefer to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that politics don’t exist. But this is an opportunity to not just encourage Americans to participate in our democratic process—something only a total cynic would try to paint as partisan—but, in enabling poll volunteers, to help solve one of the major challenges facing our nation.
Many in the business world have talked at length about the private sector having the ability to step up to tackle the problems government has proved incapable of addressing. Well, here’s a great opportunity to put that theory into practice.
Kristen Bellstrom
kristen.bellstrom@fortune.com
@kayelbee
Today’s Broadsheet was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- A royal production. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry have signed a multiyear deal with Netflix. The couple have yet to name their production company, but their Hollywood plans resemble the Obamas' post-White House playbook. The pair said they are interested in producing documentaries and scripted material, adding that, "as new parents, making inspirational family programming is also important to us." New York Times
- Up for debate. The Commission on Presidential Debates has chosen moderators for upcoming general election match-ups. NBC News journalist Kristen Welker will run the third debate between President Trump and Vice President Joe Biden, and USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page will moderate the vice-presidential version. CBS News
- Mass exodus. Rep. Joe Kennedy's unsuccessful primary bid against Sen. Ed Markey in Massachusetts left his Congressional seat open; the Democratic primary in the state's fourth district has yet to be called, with candidate Jesse Mermell still in the running. If Mermell wins the primary, she would face GOP contender Julie Hall in November. Boston Globe
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Intel promoted Barbara Whye, chief diversity and inclusion officer and vice president of social impact and HR, to corporate vice president.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Baby steps. California Assemblymember Buffy Wicks gave birth in July and requested to vote by proxy on a housing bill. The State Assembly denied her request, saying that having a newborn or being on maternity did not meet the requirement for a substitute of being high-risk for coronavirus. Wicks traveled from Oakland to the Sacramento Assembly floor with her newborn in tow to cast her vote; the Assembly's speaker apologized afterward. Politico
- Problematic plea. A lawyer for Jamarcus Glover, the ex-boyfriend of Breonna Taylor whose case police used as justification to enter her house in March, says that an initial plea deal presented to Glover required him to name Taylor, after she was killed, as part of an "organized crime syndicate." Her name was removed from later drafts, the attorney says. A lawyer representing Taylor's family says the deal was an effort to "kill her reputation and her good name." The case's prosecutor responded that his office did not name Taylor as a codefendant. NBC News
- I'll make a hit out of you. Before Mulan, directed by Niki Caro, hits Disney+ on Friday, the WSJ looks at how Disney is using the film to make headway in China. The country's movie theaters reopened in July, and executives hope that years of effort to make a film that would appeal to the Chinese audience—familiar with the folk tale the story is based on but unhappy with Disney's 1990s animated version—will pay off despite global circumstances. Wall Street Journal
ON MY RADAR
Barbara Judge, who shattered many glass ceilings, dies at 73 New York Times
Enter Planet Miranda July Vulture
Tracee Ellis Ross felt lost in Hollywood. Then she changed course The Atlantic
The pandemic is the perfect time for a parents revolution Slate
PARTING WORDS
"This is a story told by women about a very specific woman, but it became a universal story about a person looking for their voice and identity and freedom."
-Esther Kling, casting director for the Netflix series Unorthodox