fortune--2020-09-24--Trump’s TikTok saga continues pattern of inartful deals with China

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In journalistic argot, a “tick-tock” is a type of news story that focuses on the minute-by-minute chronology of events as they unfold. Reuters published a humdinger yesterday about a company named—you guessed it—TikTok.
The Reuters account goes a long way towards explaining how a White House “deal” to save the Chinese-owned short video app from a presidential ban blew up—and offers fresh ammunition for critics of the Trump administration’s chaotic and often contradictory dealings with China.
The broad contours of a TikTok agreement, according to Reuters, were hashed out by Friday in a frantic round of negotiations led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Key points were spelled out in a 20-page revision, “awash in red font with mark-ups,” to an initial proposal submitted four days earlier by TikTok’s parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance.
The revised term-sheet called for: ByteDance to sell shares in the venture to Oracle Corp. and Walmart; Oracle to act as “technology partner,” reviewing software updates from Beijing, hosting data of the app’s 100 million American users on its cloud, and assuring U.S. regulators that data was inaccessible to officials in China; TikTok to move headquarters to Austin, Texas, create 25,000 new jobs, and launch an educational initiative for children.
The deal wasn’t done. Fundamental questions—about ownership, management control, and the tech specs for maintaining and updating the algorithms that make TikTok so popular—remained unresolved. No one had signed anything. But never mind. Trump couldn’t resist crowing publicly about a U.S. victory on Sunday.
By Monday, parties on both sides were backpedalling, and issuing conflicting statements about what had been agreed. On Wednesday, Beijing denounced the proposed sale in state-controlled media and signalled that it would rather let Trump put TikTok, with an estimated value of up to $60 billion, out of business than allow him to expropriate a Chinese company for American gain.
China, declared the Global Times, would not “hand over control of an outstanding high-tech Chinese company to extortionists.” China Daily, the state-owned English language newspaper, deplored the deal as based on “bullying and extortion.”
The two sides may yet find common ground. The Commerce Department has extended until Sunday its deadline for the companies to come to terms. Meanwhile, on Thursday ByteDance said it is now officially seeking Beijing’s approval for a potential sale.
But Tom Mitchell, writing in the Financial Times, sees a pattern in Trump’s inartful handling of the TikTok deal. Mitchell compared it to Trump’s 2018 failure to secure Chinese regulatory approval of U.S. chip-maker Qualcomm’s acquisition of Netherlands-based NXP in exchange for a U.S. reprieve from sanctions for Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE Corp. In that instance, “Mr. Trump gave [Chinese President] Xi what he wanted on ZTE…and mistakenly assumed that his concessions would smooth over other matters. China quickly pocketed the ZTE present but continued to withhold approval of the Qualcomm-NXP deal.”
Bloomberg‘s Andrew Browne—noting that China’s trade surplus with the U.S. has grown 25% since the start of the Trump administration while China is nowhere near meeting its target for increasing U.S. imports under January’s “phase one” trade agreement—goes even further in skewering Trump’s record in dealing with China. “The final scorecard is already in,” he writes. “On just about every metric that matters, Trump seems to have been outplayed and outsmarted throughout the global trade war that began shortly after he took office.”
Browne also points out that China’s economy is recovering while the U.S. remains mired in recession, and argues Trump’s efforts to decouple the U.S. and Chinese economies have succeeded only in pushing China further towards economic and technical self-sufficiency.
The New York Times piled on this week with a long assessment of how Chinese authorities view the prospect of a Biden presidency. The ostensible focus is on Biden, but it’s hard to miss the implicit criticism of Trump—whom the Times seems to suggest Xi would much prefer to his Democratic rival.
“In Beijing, Mr. Trump is viewed in some ways as favorable because of his transactional approach, despite the sharp deterioration in relations since the coronavirus pandemic,” the Times observes. “The Communist Party has also benefited from images of chaos and division that have emerged from the United States under Mr. Trump. That has allowed the propaganda organs to highlight the strengths of China’s authoritarian system in curbing the coronavirus outbreak.”
Trump supporters may find solace in this recent Politico survey finding that U.S. relations with China ranked “dead last” in importance among all issues presented to a sample of nearly 2,000 U.S. registered voters — from the economy (which took top billing) to the Supreme Court, to taxes. Politico‘s takeaway: whatever voters’ opinion of Trump’s record in dealing with Beijing, the issue won’t be a factor in deciding the outcome of the November election.
Eastworld takes a break next week as China celebrates its national day.
More Eastworld news below.
Clay Chandler
clay.chandler@fortune.com
This edition of Eastworld was curated and produced by Grady McGregor. Reach him at grady.mcgregor@fortune.com.
Eastworld news
Rock and an HSBC place
The London-based HSBC’s stock fell to its lowest point since the 2008 financial crisis this week as it attempts to put out fires on multiple fronts. On Sunday, leaked U.S. government documents that are now known as the FinCEN Files implicated HSBC in moving money from the U.S. to Hong Kong for an $80 million Ponzi Scheme. Over the weekend, China’s Ministry of Commerce also released more details about its long-anticipated unreliable entities list. China still has not disclosed the companies that may be on the list, which is thought of as China’s version of the U.S.’s blacklist, but Chinese state media reported this week that HSBC may be among the companies vulnerable to Chinese retaliation. South China Morning Post
Power grab
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim claimed on Wednesday that he has enough support to form his own government and wrest power from current Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin. Yassin denounced Ibrahim’s bid as “rash” and challenged Anwar to prove his assertion. Anwar’s next step will be to try and convince Malaysia’s king, known as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, that he has enough support among Malaysia’s lawmakers to form a government. Anwar’s Tuesday meeting with the king, however, was postponed due to the king’s health issues and has yet to be rescheduled. Bloomberg
Flying again
Asia is starting to loosen its travel restrictions. This week, China announced that it will lift its ban on foreign nationals with valid Chinese residence visas entering the country starting on Sept. 28. The measure will come as a relief to the 250,000 foreign professionals working in China that have been stranded outside the country since China imposed the ban in March. Japan, which currently imposes entry bans on 159 countries, may begin allowing up to 1,000 foreign nationals per day from around the world to enter the country beginning in October. Neither China nor Japan will allow foreign tourists to enter their borders. Caixin
Mass detention
A pair of think tank reports this week reveal that China has ramped up campaigns to suppress its ethnic minorities. In China’s western Xinjiang province, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found that China has built at least 380 internment camps that are used to detain and suppress its Uyghur Muslim population. This is over 100 more than previous investigations found, and highlights that construction has been ongoing in the last two years even as China has pledged to wind down construction of what it calls “re-education” camps. In a new report from The Jamestown Foundation, researchers found that China has begun to construct similar vocational training camps in the southern Chinese region of Tibet, which has forced thousands of rural Tibetans into military-style work and education camps. Washington Post
Loose cannon
Ren Zhiqiang, a Chinese property tycoon nicknamed 'Big Cannon' for his outspoken criticisms of the Chinese government, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in China this week on charges related to corruption and bribery. Ren, once an ally of high-level government officials, was detained in March after penning an essay critical of Chinese President Xi Jinping's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts say that Ren's imprisonment is likely to send shockwaves among China's elite, as the arrest showcases that Xi is willing to crack down on even wealthy and connected individuals if they dare to challenge the party line. New York Times
Coronavirus by country
Vietnam
The Southeast Asian nation has now beat COVID-19—twice. Vietnam has gone two weeks without recording a single locally-transmitted case after a July outbreak, which infected over 500 people in the eastern city of Da Nang, threatened to derail the country’s successful efforts to contain a first wave of the virus in the spring and summer. To contain the second outbreak, Vietnam imposed localized lockdowns in Da Nang, a mass testing and contact tracing scheme, and a universal mask wearing policy. Some critics have criticized Vietnam's heavy-handed approach in imposing lockdowns and restricting free speech during the pandemic, but analysts believe that its successful battle against the pandemic will ensure that its economy will fare better this year in comparison to neighbors experiencing larger COVID-19 outbreaks. Australia Broadcast Corporation
Markets and movers
Apple India – Apple opened its first online store in India on Wednesday, marking the first time Indian consumers will be able to buy Apple products directly from the American tech giant in the world’s second-largest smartphone market. Fortune
Ant Group – The financial technology firm, backed by China’s Alibaba, may debut in a dual-listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai as early as October, sources tell the Financial Times. Ant Group has already received a go-ahead from Shanghai’s Star Market and Hong Kong’s exchange may vet the company’s filing early next week. South China Morning Post
WM Motor – The Chinese electric vehicle start-up raised $1.5 billion from state-backed investors in the company’s largest-ever funding round. The five-year-old company hopes to become Tesla’s most formidable challenger in China, and may go public in Shanghai later this year. Nikkei Asian Review
Byju – The Indian ed-tech start-up is being valued at $11.1 billion as it seeks to raise over $500 million in a new fundraising round. The online tutoring and education company now has over 70 million registered students on its platform, up 25 million from the beginning of lockdowns in India. Deal Street Asia
WeWork – The co-working giant is scaling down in China, announcing this week that it is selling a majority stake in its China business to venture capital firm Trustbridge Partners for $200 million. Bloomberg
Final figure
2060
Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged this week that China will be carbon neutral by 2060, a bold announcement for the world’s largest carbon emitter. Xi made the pledge to the United Nations over video on Tuesday, and said that China’s carbon output will peak by the end of the decade. The pandemic has shown “humankind can no longer afford to ignore the repeated warnings of nature," and thus the world’s economy should pursue a "green recovery” in the post-COVID-19 era. Environmental activists heralded the announcement, but warned that China’s environmental pledges have not always aligned with its actions. Fortune


fortune--2020-09-24--China pledges to be carbon neutral—but remains addicted to coal

Facebook users in Illinois can now apply for a privacy payout of up to $ 400

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s bombshell declaration on Tuesday that China will achieve “carbon neutrality” before 2060 coincides with a spurt of approvals for the construction of new coal power plant projects in a country that is already the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal.
Carbon neutrality means China is aiming to produce net zero carbon emissions in the next 40 years. It’s also planning for its carbon emissions to peak by 2030. Xi didn’t provide any specifics on how the country plans to meet those goals or kick its coal habit—but in order to meet the neutrality goal, China needs a drastic cutback on coal.
China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, consumes half the world’s coal. Li Shuo, a Beijing-based policy adviser for Greenpeace China, described the country as “addicted” to the resource.
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That means the stakes are high: A carbon-neutral China by 2060 would lower global warming projections by 0.2 to 0.3 degrees Celsius, according to Climate Action Tracker.
But it also means China reducing its dependence on coal is a tall order.
Energy security concerns and entrenched industrial interests, Li said, have made it “very difficult to get rid of the dirty little rock from our energy system.”
But it needs to be done. Suspending new coal plant projects and phasing out reliance on coal power, Li said is “the No. 1 priority if we are going to have any chance to fulfill the neutrality vision.”
Entrenched interests
China’s coal consumption peaked in 2013 and declined between 2014 and 2016, before starting to rise again, as pressure to mitigate an economic slowdown over the past two years took priority over reducing emissions and pollution.
Overall, China has gradually reduced its reliance on coal over the past decade, said Guo Hongyu, director of the climate and energy program for Greenovation Hub, a Beijing-based environmental nongovernmental organization.
Even as coal consumption has decreased, coal-fired power plant projects keep getting approved for construction.
“There’s an irony there—on the one hand China does not need as much coal as before, but on the other hand it’s still building coal plants,” Li said.
Around the same time that coal consumption was decreasing, between 2014 and 2016, provincial authorities approved a slew of coal-fired power plants equivalent in energy capacity to the entire U.S. coal fleet.
For provincial authorities, the coal plant projects are a surefire way to generate jobs and boost economic growth and investment on paper. China’s coal industry is dominated by state-owned enterprises with an “entrenched industrial interest” in continuing coal production, Li said, and many provincial authorities pursue coal projects regardless of their long-term economic viability.
“If you bring in a large-scale new infrastructure, what happens on the account book of the local government is if the project costs 10 billion then 10 billion GDP is created. As a local governor, that’s your legacy,” Li said. “But over the medium- to long-term, you’re not going to make that investment back…It doesn’t really contribute to the sustainability of the environment and our economy.”
Renewable energy, by comparison, has a higher share of private-owned enterprises. As an energy source, it’s also less reliable than coal, since it depends on environmental factors like sunshine and wind that can’t be controlled.
China is the largest producer, exporter, and installer of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and electric vehicles, said Gørild Heggelund, a senior research fellow at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo who researches China’s environmental, energy, and climate policy.
Although China already has policies that promote renewable energy, like the Clean Energy Consumption Action Plan, launched in 2018, “there are of course challenges here,” Heggelund said, since “coal is still regarded as the most reliable source [of energy.]”
Pandemic boost
Nationwide coronavirus lockdowns in early 2020 led to a decline in coal use and carbon emissions in China, but now, the country is focused on economic recovery, and constructing large-scale infrastructure projects like coal plants is one way to boost gross domestic product and create jobs.
“China is still building more coal-fired power plants, this year in particular at a higher pace,” Li said. “This needs to be immediately put on the shelf.”
By the end of June, provincial governments in China had approved 17 gigawatts of new power plants, more than the amount approved in 2018 and 2019 combined, Guo said. Though approval doesn’t necessarily mean the plants will actually be built or become operational.
“China needs to stop building new coal-fired power plants,” Guo said. And it also “needs to accelerate the phasing out of existing coal-fired power plants.”
Energy security
Another reason China is so wedded to coal is that it has huge reserves of the resource, meaning it doesn’t need to rely on other countries. China has the fourth-highest concentration of coal in the world after the U.S., Russia, and Australia, with 13% of global reserves.
“China is endowed with coal as a resource, so there’s also an energy security concern, right? We don’t need to import any coal, we are more than self-sufficient,” Li said.
Self-reliance in the energy sector is a strategic priority for China, and coal is central to that strategy; for its second-largest energy source, oil, it is highly dependent on imports. In 2017, it passed the U.S. to become the largest crude oil importer in the world, and its oil imports are only projected to increase.
“Energy security is a key issue for China and tops the leadership agenda,” Heggelund said.
Mixed signals and hope
Heggelund said that although China is emitting “mixed signals” by issuing renewable energy policies as it renews its emphasis on coal plants, the release of its five-year plan, a regular set of reforms and economic growth targets, will give some indication of the country’s energy and climate priorities.
Xi’s Tuesday message, Heggelund said, “is clear, and it should be expected that China will intensify and strengthen its policies and measures to achieve [carbon neutrality.]”
The government needs to set a firm target for decreasing coal consumption, a “much higher” target for renewable energy use, and an absolute carbon reduction target, Li said.
“There needs to be a transition away from the fossil [fuel] industry to a more cleaner way of development,” Li said.


fortune--2020-09-24--Experts praise China’s pledge to be carbon neutral by 2060—but more could be done

Monday saw the launch of Climate Week in New York—an annual network of environment-minded events, hosted across the city in the week that coincides with the UN general assembly. This year, with the pandemic still raging, Climate Week and the UN have both gone virtual.
So far the highlight has been President Xi Jinping’s “pledge” that China will be a net-zero carbon emitter by 2060. Globally, the commitment has been well received by climate advocates. The timing of Xi’s pledge, too—minutes after President Donald Trump reaffirmed his disdain for the Paris Agreement—has potentially established China as the new political leader in the fight on climate change.
Today, I thought I’d share some more reactions (and my comments) to Xi’s announcement:
“With this announcement, the world’s largest carbon emitter finally shifted from its long-term position of having limited responsibility to reduce global emissions as a developing country, to assuming clearer leadership in tackling climate change.” – Alex Whitworth, research director, Wood Mackenzie
Beijing’s target of achieving carbon neutrality “before 2060” still identifies China—the world’s second largest economy—as a “developing nation,” however. Under the Paris Agreement, developed nations are supposed to target net-zero by 2050. By maintaining status as a developing nation, China ekes extra benefits out of the WTO.
“This target goes beyond its current commitment and will eventually make a big difference to future warming levels. However, its near term target of peaking emissions before 2030 is unaltered and it is this near term ambition that counts…. Why does it need to increase emissions from today? I cannot see a compelling economic, environmental or social reason for doing so.” – Piers Forster, professor of climate change, University of Leeds
How China will achieve its new goal will likely be set out in Beijing’s next five year plan, due in March. Until then, policy and practice is unlikely to change. China’s post-pandemic recovery, for instance, is being primarily fueled by coal.
“This announcement is an important step toward the world meeting the goals in the Paris Agreement. The Chinese government has a capacity for long-term planning far beyond that of most governments.” – David Sandalow, China Energy and Climate Program, Center on Global Energy Policy
Chinese presidents typically serve for ten-year terms, during which time the government passes two five-year plans, so there is some greater stability to Chinese policy planning than in a shorter-term democratic system. Perhaps even more so under Xi Jinping, since Xi removed the limit on how long a President can serve for in 2018.
“With China’s economic power, the benefits in technological progress that come with such an endeavor will undoubtedly spill over to other parts of the world.” – Dr. Joeri Rogelj, lecturer in climate change and the environment, Grantham Institute, Imperial College London
China is currently the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the No. 1 consumer of coal. But the country is also the primary market for and provider of renewable energy tech. Yesterday, I wrote how China’s edge in green energy might incentivize it to turn away from fossil fuels.
The global transition to net zero could see China emerge as a new powerhouse for green energy. As evidenced by Xi’s speech, Beijing is already angling to be the new political leader of the greener future.
More below,
Eamon Barrett
— eamon.barrett@fortune.com
CARBON COPY
On fumes
California will phase out sales of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, making it the first U.S. state to set a date for eliminating petrol car sales. The deadline was set by an executive order signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. California already accounts for roughly half of the U.S. market for electric cars, with 34 electric vehicle makers operating in the state. The executive order doesn’t say cars post-2035 must be electric—only that they be zero carbon emission.
Walmart target
Walmart is targeting zero emissions for its global operations by 2040 and aims to power its facilities with 100% renewable energy by 2035. The retailer’s zero emissions target only applies to its own operations—known as Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. Scope 3 emissions are those from a company’s suppliers, distributors and broader “value chain.” For Walmart, over 90% of its emissions are Scope 3.
Countdown
Public artwork Metronome—a giant digital clock facing Union Square in Manhattan—has been recalibrated. Before, it told the time by counting down to midnight, now it is counting down to when a critical window for mitigating the worst effects of climate change closes—just a little over seven years away. Sadly, the countdown is only commissioned until Sept. 27.
Fracked
FTS International, a fracking-services company based in Texas, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy following a downturn in the U.S. market. With demand for oil and gas dented by the pandemic and oil prices deflated by the Russia-Saudi Arabia price war, drilling in the U.S. has plummeted. Under its filing, FTS will swap $440 million in debt for the majority of its equity.
Chained
The world’s largest meat packing company, Brazil-based JBS, has long faced criticism that its suppliers are providing meat from cattle reared on illegal ranches—the kind that are devastating the Amazon rainforest. After much inaction, JBS announced Wednesday that it is turning to blockchain technology in order to track cattle from farm to factory.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
After the boom: Canada’s oil capital faces an uncertain future by Katherine Dunn
Can emissions cuts and economic growth coexist? Europe is certain they can by David Meyer
Check out Airbus’s concepts for the world’s first ‘zero-emission commercial aircraft’ by David Meyer
Allbirds is stepping up for the planet—by treading lightly on it by Sheila Marikar
CLOSING NUMBER
4
With more than two months left in this year’s Atlantic storm season, there are only four names remaining on the list of 21 monikers used for identifying hurricanes. The National Hurricane Center rotates six sets of 21 names to identify storms, doling them out in alphabetical order. But 2020’s storm season has been far more active than normal. If a fifth storm strikes between now and November 30, the center will have to switch to the Greek alphabet to name it—something that has only happened once before, in 2005.


fortune--2020-09-24--Why healthcare stocks may be poised for a breakout year post-election

Ever since 2019, the health care sector has been white-knuckling and preparing itself for what may be a volatile and uncertain election year for stocks. But according to UBS, 2020 is shaping up to look a whole lot like 2009 for the sector—which could actually help put some investors’ minds at ease.
Historically, “the market reaction has been largely to sell much of the health care sector, lowering valuations until clarity arrives after the election,” UBS’s Americas health care analyst Eric Potoker wrote in a note Tuesday. “The market’s current treatment of health care stocks falls into that familiar pattern.”
Potoker argues the “most relevant” comparison for how the health care sector is shaping up today is the 2008–9 election, when, in early 2009, President Obama “made health reform a legislative priority, and a dark cloud enveloped the sector.” But instead of massive, painful reforms to the sector that hurt health care and insurance stocks, he argues the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) had a “relatively modest” impact on the sector, and, barring a few areas that saw increased regulation, “left health care markets largely intact” while actually increasing “overall demand for health care products and services” because of expanded health coverage.
That had a positive impact on health care stocks between 2009 and 2015, Potoker writes, as the health care sector “significantly outperformed the broader equity market, partly due to this added growth and the removal of policy uncertainty”—with health care trading up from a 0.8x relative price/earnings versus the S&P 500 up to a 1.1x relative P/E from late 2009 through mid-2015.
That outperformance, however, stopped short ahead of the 2016 election when health care was once more in the spotlight. This time around, as if “on cue,” health care valuations started slumping last year, and the sector has even recently traded below its 2009 trough valuation compared to the S&P 500, he notes.
But today, “we actually think 2021 will play out very similarly to 2009 for the health care sector,” UBS’s Potoker argues. “If in fact the political prediction markets are correct and Democrats seize control of the presidency and the U.S. Senate…the rhetoric on changes to health care policy exceeds the reality of what can be accomplished,” and in lieu of big reforms to drug pricing or insurers, he anticipates “modest reforms that will lift the overhang on health care valuations.”
The “bark worse than the bite” argument for a Biden presidency is one that applies to other sectors beyond health care. JPMorgan, for one, has pointed out the hit to corporations may not be as bad because a President Biden likely won’t raise the corporate tax rate on “day one,” as he is currently declaring.
So what names are poised to benefit? Back in November of last year Fortune highlighted several health care stocks that may be more shielded from election woes and have since seen mixed but largely positive performance, like Becton Dickinson (down roughly 11% from November), Hologic (up 23%), Zoetis (up 32%), Merck (down 3.5%), and UnitedHealth Group (up 3.5%).
With 2009 as an example, Potoker says he remains “hopeful that the election outcome will begin the clearing process for the policy risk hovering over the sector,” and with that clarity, “we think investors will reward the health care sector for its reliable growth with significantly higher valuations.” Adds Potoker: “In short, we anticipate a period of strong health care stock performance similar to the five-year period following passage of the ACA.”


fortune--2020-09-24--Measuring stakeholder capitalism just got easier

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning.
Critics of the movement toward “stakeholder capitalism” like to argue that until corporate accounting and governance rules change, shareholder primacy will reign supreme. (If you didn’t understand that last sentence, read my story here.) I agree with their point. It took over a century for us to develop the elaborate accounting scaffolding that surrounds today’s public companies, and it will take more than one statement from the Business Roundtable to change it.
But an important step forward occurred yesterday. The World Economic Forum, working with the big four accounting firms, released a report with the ponderous title Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism: Towards Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of Sustainable Value Creation. You can download it here. It’s a large document and will take some time to digest. But if you care about this issue, it is an absolute must read.
I’ve attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, for more than 20 years now—mainly for the unmatchable opportunity to network with so many powerful, famous and even thoughtful people—all packed into one tiny mountain village. To be honest, I’ve never considered it much more than an elaborate gabfest.
This new paper, however—which is the result of an extensive, year-long effort—is something different. We know that what gets measured gets managed. Without an agreed upon set of metrics, shareholder capitalism would remain a mere promise. Now we have them: 21 core metrics that set a common framework for measuring how companies are meeting the needs of people and planet. I’m sure CEO Daily readers will find things to disagree with in here—and I welcome hearing your feedback. But in my view, this is one big step forward.
By the way, in addition to WEF head Klaus Schwab, a big dose of credit goes to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, who headed the committee that produced this work and lent his considerable credibility to the effort. I talked with Moynihan about it a few weeks ago on our podcast Leadership Next. You can listen to that episode here.
Let me know what you think. More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Online liability
The Justice Department has proposed curbing legal protections that shield the likes of Facebook and Twitter from liability related to their users' actions on their platforms. President Trump describe the proposal as "concrete legal steps to protect an open internet and a free society." Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who co-authored the legal protections, claimed the proposal was "a warmed-over mishmash of existing Republican proposals to force private companies to host lies, misinformation, hate speech and other slime online." That said, Joe Biden also wants to revoke the relevant protections, in order to counter the spread of false information. Wall Street Journal
Peaceful transition
President Trump yesterday declined to commit to a peaceful transition of power, in the event that he loses to Joe Biden in November. Trump: "We're going to have to see what happens. You know, I've been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster." Democrat Adam Schiff responded with: "This is how democracy dies." BBC
Cinema loss
Cineworld Group, the London-listed owner of U.S. cinema chain Regal, has posted a loss of $1.64 billion for the lockdown-heavy first half of the year. It also warned about fresh lockdowns: "If governments were to strengthen restrictions on social gathering, which may therefore oblige us to close our estate again or further push back movie releases, it would have a negative impact on our financial performance and likely require the need to raise additional liquidity." MarketWatch
Vaccine trials
The British government is considering so-called "challenge trials" for candidate coronavirus vaccines, which would involve deliberately exposing healthy people to the pathogen. Challenge trials could speed up the testing process, as it means not having to wait for trial participants to become naturally exposed to the virus. But they raise ethical questions, too. Fortune
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Drug war
Documentarians Sebastian Junger and Nick Quested write for Fortune that U.S. policies are largely to blame for the dysfunction that leads many Central Americans to flee north. But, they say, better U.S. policy could also fix the problems by improving living conditions in Central America and Mexico and fighting corruption there. Fortune
Sweetheart deals
EU competition czar Margrethe Vestager seems determined to appeal the striking-down of her $15 billion Irish back-tax bill for Apple. Many experts say that would be a risky move, both legally (an appeal would need to be based on points of law, and the judgement striking down the tax ruling was largely based on the facts of the case) and politically. But meanwhile, the European Commission is pressing on with its campaign against sweetheart corporate tax deals. Politico
COVID maps
The iOS and Android versions of Google Maps now feature a COVID-19 layer, showing case numbers and trends for many cities, counties, provinces and countries. Google says the tool will help people "make more informed decisions about where to go and what to do." CNBC
Pandemic algorithms
Consumer behavior changed drastically once the pandemic hit, so consumer-focused businesses' algorithms have had to change too. As Accenture applied intelligence chief Lan Guan put it in a Fortune-organized online chat, "A.I. is actually a living and breathing engine." Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.


fortune--2020-09-24--Under fire, AstraZeneca CEO defends transparency of COVID-19 vaccine trials

Pascal Soriot, the chief executive of pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, has defended his company’s transparency amid criticism it has not been forthcoming enough about safety concerns that led to a pause in testing its COVID-19 vaccine.
“We all want to be as transparent as possible honestly, but the reality is we need to protect not only patient privacy but the integrity of the study,” Soriot said Thursday.
He said that revealing more information about the specific issue that had caused the testing to be temporarily paused around the world might inadvertently reveal the identity of the volunteer who developed a serious medical issue while taking part in the study. It also might “unblind” the study, allowing the doctors conducting it to know whether they were administering the vaccine or a placebo to certain groups, possibly invalidating the results, he said.
“Medicine should not be practiced for the media, it should be practiced by experts,” Soriot said, speaking on a panel at a World Economic Forum virtual event on sustainable development.
The CEO said that while he understood why people wanted more information about why the trial had been paused and why scientists decided it was then safe to resume the testing, “at the end of the day, people have to trust” that regulators around the world are doing their jobs and will not approve a vaccine for use that isn’t safe.
Shares in AstraZeneca fell 1.5% on Thursday morning in London, underperforming the FTSE.
The company has been criticized for not revealing enough information about the exact nature of the safety concern, which led worldwide testing of its vaccine candidate to be paused on Sept. 6, or about why an independent review board later concluded it was safe to resume testing.
It is known that testing was paused after one volunteer in the U.K. portion of the trials developed serious neurological symptoms. But the company did not proactively reveal this information to the general public and only confirmed the safety issue—as well as a previous temporary pause due to a similar safety concern—after news organizations broke the story.
On Sept. 13, trials resumed in the U.K., Brazil, South Africa, and India after an independent review board and British regulators determined there was no clear evidence the volunteer’s symptoms resulted from the vaccine.
But trials have not yet resumed in the U.S.
Soriot said that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was still reviewing the data the company had submitted about the incident in the U.K. trial. AstraZeneca had been in the lead in the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine for approval in the U.S. and Europe, but the long pause in trials in the U.S. may mean another company gets approval for a vaccine first. Both Pfizer and U.S. biotechnology company Moderna have vaccine candidates in late-stage testing in the U.S., with Pfizer saying its inoculation may be ready for approval on an emergency basis by late October.
Soriot has said previously that AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate “remained on track” despite the delays.
In his comments Thursday, Soriot seemed to lay the blame for any delay in restarting the U.S. study on AstraZeneca’s partners at the University of Oxford. Scientists at Oxford developed the vaccine and are in charge of conducting the clinical trials for it outside the U.S., including in Britain, where the safety concerns arose. “Oxford is the sponsor of the study, and they focused originally on providing all this [data] to the [U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency] and regulators in other countries where they are the sponsor,” he said. “We then provided all this data to the FDA and are waiting to hear their decision.”
Unusual steps
Soriot said that AstraZeneca is now talking to other pharmaceutical companies about agreeing on an industrywide standard on the level of public disclosure that is appropriate for the COVID-19 vaccine trials, given how much global attention is focused on them. “We are trying to come up with a consensus about what we feel is reasonable to disclose which is typically not disclosed, but in this special set of circumstance where people want maximum transparency, what we can disclose,” he said.
He noted that AstraZeneca and several other pharmaceutical companies have already taken the unusual step of publishing the protocols for their vaccine trials while those studies are still underway. Normally, that information would not be made available to the general public until after testing had concluded—if at all.
Speaking at the same event, Paul Stoffels, vice chairman and chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson, reiterated that his company believes that its COVOD-19 vaccine candidate, which the company said earlier this week is now entering late-stage human testing in the U.S., might provide protection from just a single dose. This would give J&J’s vaccine an advantage over other leading candidates, which are all being tested with a two-dose protocol. A single dose makes a mass vaccination program simpler and less expensive.
Stoffels said that J&J had used a similar vaccine technique for other diseases, such as Zika virus, which gave the company a reasonable expectation that a single dose would provide sufficient immunity. “That experience told us if we develop it in a certain way and optimize, that we can get to a single shot,” he said. He said the single shot protocol had shown promising results in animal studies and early human testing too. But he also said that company will test a two-dose version just in case a single dose does not confer enough immunity.
Availability
Stoffels and Soriot both downplayed expectations a vaccine will be ready for widespread use this year. While Stoffels said it was possible J&J’s vaccine would be ready for emergency approval before January, the end of the first quarter of 2021 was more likely. When asked for his timeline, Soriot said, “[Stoffels] described it very well.”
AstraZeneca’s and J&J’s vaccine candidates are based on similar technology. Both use a different virus, called an adenovirus, that has been genetically modified so that it can’t replicate and so that it prompts the body to make a protein found on the surface of the coronavirus. This protein then hopefully prompts an immune response that gives a vaccinated person protection against the coronavirus. This technique has several advantages over other vaccine technologies, one of which is that the vaccine does not need to be stored at subfreezing temperatures, making it easier to use, particularly in the developing world, where cold storage and supply chains are limited.
But there is a key difference between the two vaccines. J&J is using a human adenovirus—one that is among the causes of the common cold—while AstraZeneca is using an adenovirus normally found in chimpanzees.


fortune--2020-09-24--As infection rates rise, Europe embraces a ‘lockdown lite’ strategy

Fresh off a summer of relative freedom after harsh lockdowns at the beginning of the pandemic, Europe is trying a new strategy to halt the coronavirus’s next surge: Lockdown Lite.
Unlike the blanket stay-at-home orders that characterized responses to Covid-19’s first wave, a partial lockdown isn’t designed to stop transmission completely. Instead, the idea is to home in on hot spots — certain neighborhoods, nightclubs or private parties, for example — while leaving large parts of the economy open for business.
With death rates running at only a small fraction of the levels last spring despite surging infections in France, Spain, the U.K. and other countries, governments want to avoid draconian measures that caused their worst recessions in memory. Partial and shifting lockdowns are likely to become the norm into next year at least, as countries wait for an immunization that’s effective and broadly accessible.
“We have a lot left to go,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “I don’t think people really fully understand that. We’re still in the middle innings of a baseball game at the best.”
One lesson from the Asia-Pacific region, further along in the pandemic timeline, is that Lockdown Lite works only when paired with a broader strategy of testing and tracing. Europe’s inability to meet surging demand for testing and some countries’ lack of tracing capacity suggest the region could struggle with the new approach.
New Measures
That hasn’t stopped governments from trying. Across western Europe this week, authorities have cracked down on nightlife, restricted gatherings and tightened rules on mask-wearing in public spaces.
In the U.K., Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked residents to work from home for six months if they can and ordered pubs and restaurants to close at 10 p.m.
In France, bars in the Paris region and other cities will be forced to close by 10 p.m., starting Monday, while in the Marseille area, currently one of the most affected, all restaurants and bars will be shuttered, Health Minister Olivier Veran said Wednesday evening. The new restrictions will apply for two weeks.
While the government isn’t currently considering lockdowns, even local ones, Veran said, it will reduce crowd-size limits for public events and has added new restrictions on private gatherings beginning Saturday.
In Spain, Health Minister Salvador Illa urged Madrid residents not to leave home unless they must, even as restaurants outside the worst-affected areas are allowed to stay open until 1:30 a.m.
The goal should be to create a sustainable situation where schools and economies aren’t hobbled by the virus, rather than simply hoping that a vaccine will soon solve the problem, said Robert Schooley, infectious disease specialist at the University of California San Diego.
“We really have to get on with it, about how to operate in the Covid era where the virus is kind of going to be looking over our shoulder for a while to come,” Schooley said.
Testing, Tracing
If the progression of the pandemic in the Asia-Pacific region is any precedent, targeted measures can work if they’re combined with rigorous testing and tracing, and if local populations follow them. Facing flare-ups from late June through August that were sometimes higher than the initial spread of contagion, countries initially refrained from blanket orders.
After an outbreak in Beijing in June, China abandoned its previous strategy of confining millions of people to their homes. Instead, the government shut schools, ordered more than 11 million tests and told residents in high-risk housing compounds to stay home, while leaving a majority of the city’s more than 20 million people free to move around.
The targeted approach reaches its limits in places where infections of unknown origins grow to account for a high percentage of new cases. That’s when contact-tracing breaks down, leaving officials unsure where asymptomatic virus cases could be lurking. In Australia and Hong Kong, that led authorities to turn again to across-the-board lockdowns to slow the virus’s advance.
Australia’s second-largest city, Melbourne, first tried to lock down only the public housing blocks that were hot spots of infection. But as unlinked cases kept emerging, the government closed down the city of 5 million people from July until September.
Hong Kong, which saw its worst outbreak erupt in July, couldn’t fully lock down because tiny apartments leave some families without their own kitchens or bathrooms. Instead, the Asian financial hub limited restaurant dining hours, banned public gatherings of more than two people and mandated masks even when exercising outdoors. It adapted measures every seven days to calibrate the blow to the wounded economy.
Alternating Weeks
European authorities could try something similar, alternating two weeks of strict lockdown with four weeks of “less rigid” steps, according to David Salisbury, an associate fellow at the global health program at Chatham House, the London-based think tank.
“It’s a possible interim approach that never lets transmission really take off,” Salisbury said. “You don’t have to have a total shutdown.”
In its patchwork response to the new flare-up, Europe now looks more like the U.S., where targeted lockdowns have been imposed on college campuses and other infection clusters even as reopening proceeds elsewhere.
Lockdown Lite has shown some success in Europe. In Italy, authorities closed nightclubs at the first signs of another wave of infections in August — and have managed to avoid the same degree of resurgence as in France or Spain. Germany has imposed local restrictions on areas with high case numbers.
Yet the new measures have also created confusion over government flip-flops — such as the U.K.’s abandonment of a drive to get workers to return to offices — as well as some grumbling about mixed messages.
In Munich on Wednesday, with Oktoberfest canceled and a five-person limit on gatherings set to go into place the following day, a trio of tour guides in front of the neo-Gothic city hall wondered how long they’d be able to scrape together even a handful of sightseers. “The rules are really inconsistent,” said Brett Gooden, one of the guides. “It’s hard for the public to adjust.”
–With assistance from Marco Bertacche, Rudy Ruitenberg, Thomas Gualtieri, James Paton, Tim Loh, Zoe Schneeweiss and Francois de Beaupuy.


fortune--2020-09-24--To jumpstart the COVID vaccine race, the U.K. considers ‘challenge trials’ exposing people to the vi

To jumpstart the COVID vaccine race, the U.K. considers ‘challenge trials’ exposing people to the virus

The U.K. government is considering carrying out the first studies that would deliberately expose healthy people to the coronavirus in a bid to accelerate the development of a vaccine.
The idea of challenge trials has gained momentum as the pathogen has spread around the world, sparking a debate over what kind of sacrifice is acceptable and the benefits the tests could bring. A growing number of volunteers have signed up to take part in such studies should researchers decide to proceed.
“We are working with partners to understand how we might collaborate on the potential development of a Covid-19 vaccine through human-challenge studies,” a government representative said Wednesday in an email. “These discussions are part of our work to research ways of treating, limiting and hopefully preventing the virus so we can end the pandemic sooner.”
Waiting for participants to become exposed to the illness to figure out whether a vaccine works can take months or even years. Challenge tests can hasten the work by placing volunteers in the path of the virus, though scientists are still learning about a pathogen that has killed almost 1 million people in just months.
Such tests also raise ethical questions about exposing people to a potentially fatal virus, and whether some test subjects would receive a placebo for control purposes.
The government declined to provide further details, including about which vaccines would be involved. U.K.-funded studies are expected to begin in January at a facility in London, the Financial Times reported earlier. In Britain, the University of Oxford is working with AstraZeneca Plc on a Covid vaccine, one of the front-runners in the global effort. Imperial College London is also working on an experimental inoculation.


fortune--2020-09-24--‘It’s all about the dollar:’ As the greenback strengthens, the markets tumble

This is the web version of the Bull Sheet, Fortune’s no-BS daily newsletter on the markets. Sign up to receive it in your inbox here.
Good morning. Yesterday’s sell-off in the U.S. is sweeping the globe, with Asia and European shares edging lower. You can add a soaring dollar to the growing list of markets headwinds—right up there with rising COVID cases, a breakdown in fiscal stimulus talks, election jitters and vaccine timeline worries.
Let’s check in on the action.
Markets update
Asia
The major Asia indexes are in the red in afternoon trading, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng down 1.7% .
are in the red in afternoon trading, with down . “ I’ve lost faith .” That’s what one powerful HSBC shareholder said as the bank sunk to a 25-year-low and loyalist investors harbor second thoughts about their stakes.
.” That’s what one powerful shareholder said as the bank sunk to a and loyalist investors harbor second thoughts about their stakes. Day-traders the world over aren’t all that different. Take Malaysia, where newbie investors jumped into the market earlier this year when the government put a six-month freeze on loan repayments. Why not put that spare cash into shares? What could go wrong?
Europe
The European bourses were down out of the gates with London’s FTSE falling 1.3% , erasing Wednesday’s gains.
were down out of the gates with falling , erasing Wednesday’s gains. With COVID cases rising across much of Europe, localized lockdown measures are going into force in the U.K., France and Spain. Elsewhere, countries are trialing innovative new measures to get business off the ground. Case in point: the Finns are deploying coronavirus-sniffing dogs at Helsinki Airport.
rising across much of Europe, are going into force in the U.K., France and Spain. Elsewhere, countries are trialing innovative new measures to get business off the ground. Case in point: the Finns are deploying at Helsinki Airport. Airbus shares sank 3.3% this morning as news broke one of its largest customers, Delta Air Lines, is in talks with the planemaker to delay an order for at least 40 aircraft due next year.
U.S.
U.S. futures are in the red again. That’s after the Dow slumped 525 points and the Nasdaq dropped a further 3% . The tech-heavy exchange is now 12% off its Sept. 2 all-time high.
are in the red again. That’s after the Dow slumped and the Nasdaq dropped a further . The tech-heavy exchange is now off its Sept. 2 all-time high. Tesla fell a further 10.3% yesterday after Tuesday’s Battery Day event failed to charge up investors. The EV pioneer is down 24% this month, but there are a number of analysts saying, don’t lose faith.
yesterday after Tuesday’s Battery Day event failed to charge up investors. The EV pioneer is down this month, but there are a number of analysts saying, don’t lose faith. Nike was the rare bright spot yesterday, climbing nearly 9% . That’s after the athletic gear maker reported it had hit its e-commerce sales goal a whopping three years early .
. That’s after the athletic gear maker reported it had hit its e-commerce sales goal a whopping . What’s on the calendar today? U.S. unemployment data and new home sales.
Elsewhere
Gold is dropping again, trading near $1,850/ounce , off roughly 100 bucks in the past week.
is dropping again, trading near , off roughly 100 bucks in the past week. The dollar is up again, and that’s spooking the equities market.
is up again, and that’s spooking the equities market. Crude is off, sending Brent down 1%.
***
Buzzworthy
On stimulus spending
The optimists
According to CNBC, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich) asked point blank: “Yes or no, do you believe another stimulus check could help stabilize the economy?” “I do,” Mnuchin said. “The administration does support another stimulus payment.” Powell also expressed agreement that the economy needed more help from the government.
The pessimists
Dollar daze
Strong dollar: it’s sinking equities and gold. Run for the hills!
Weak dollar: it’s inevitable:
Economist Stephen Roach warns next year will be brutal for the dollar.
Not only does he see growing odds of a double-dip recession, the Yale University senior fellow believes his “seemingly crazed idea” that the dollar would crash shouldn’t be so crazy anymore.
“We’ve got data that’s confirmed both the saving and current account dynamic in a much more dramatic fashion than even I was looking for,” Roach told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Wednesday.
Bull or bear?
Which one are you?
***
Have a nice day, everyone. I’ll see you here tomorrow.
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
As always, you can write to bullsheet@fortune.com or reply to this email with suggestions and feedback.
Today's reads
Turnaround specialist. In late August, I spoke with Sergio Ermotti, the outgoing CEO of Swiss banking giant UBS. You may recall UBS as the foreign bank most exposed to America's subprime crisis. That debacle forced the lender into a painful and embarrassing bailout by Swiss authorities in 2008. Ermotti came on the scene a few years later, taking the reins of the bank at one of the lowest points in its 158-year history. Ermotti deftly turned the bank around, and now UBS has become a model in the lucrative sector of wealth management, calling half of the world's billionaires, clients. If you like turnaround stories, this one's worth your time.
What CEOs think... about work-from-home. "I don't see any positives," says Netflix's Reed Hastings. "We’ve seen productivity drop in certain jobs and alienation go up in certain things," says JPMorgan Chase's James Dimon. It's hard to find a good word for WFH from the bosses of the world's biggest companies. I'm a bit surprised, however, they're this down on it.
Some of these stories require a subscription to access. There is a discount offer for our loyal readers if you use this link to sign up. Thank you for supporting our journalism.
Market candy
Quote of the day
“It’s been a big win... We are short and still are short.”
That's Nathan Anderson, the now infamous short-seller who took down the EV manufacturer Nikola earlier this month. Anderson spoke to the Wall Street Journal's Gregory Zuckerman about the report that made him famous, and which sent Nikola shares plummeting, forcing out founder Trevor Milton. “The story is definitely not over,” Anderson says. Stay tuned.


fortune--2020-09-25--COVID showed why we need to make financial literacy a national priority

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to upend our lives, Americans are facing issues they couldn’t have imagined even months ago. What started as a health threat quickly morphed into something much bigger, not just impacting our physical well-being but also wreaking havoc on our financial health as well.
Tragically, those who were most vulnerable to begin with have been hit the hardest. Many in marginalized communities who were struggling before the pandemic are now bearing the brunt of the pain. And as our nation reckons with questions of social injustice, it’s clear that too many Americans have been left out and let down.
Our country’s lack of financial literacy has contributed to this crisis—and now, as so many Americans face unprecedented financial stress, we must make financial literacy a national priority.
Increasingly, Americans agree. In fact, two-thirds of Americans believe that financial education should be a high school graduation requirement. When our survey respondents reflect on their own lives, the majority wish that they had been better about saving, goal setting, and investing.
Looking beyond themselves, they overwhelmingly (89%) believe that a lack of financial education contributes to bigger social issues in America, including poverty, lack of job opportunities, and wealth inequality. When asked what they would teach future generations, the majority would still prioritize teaching personal finance basics, ranking responsible money management as the most important life skill for kids today to learn.
At the same time, there’s a common misconception that financial literacy is only for kids. And while it’s ideal to start educating our youth about money at an early age, the truth is that the learning can’t stop there. All of us, regardless of our age, race, ethnic background, gender, or educational level, need to know how to effectively manage our money. It’s part of being an independent and secure adult—whether you’re 21 and just starting out on your own, 30 and starting a family, or 65 and looking forward to retirement.
The need is especially great for women and minorities, who continue to face unique challenges at home and in the workplace. For the most vulnerable segments of our society, financial literacy can be a life-changer—impacting everything from getting a college education, to supporting a family, to following a chosen career, to starting a business. At the macro level, it can help bridge the wealth gap and support economic mobility.
On the positive side, in the last decade or so we have made progress. Currently 21 states require high school students to take a personal finance course. This is great for those students who take the courses, but it leaves out far too many.
Nonprofits have also stepped up to the plate; as just one example, Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) has engaged more than 1 million teens nationwide in its Money Matters personal finance program. In my decades of work with BGCA and as its incoming chair, I have witnessed the life-changing impact of Money Matters. Participants learn how to apply for college aid and complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form, making them more likely to attend college, which improves their chances for economic mobility.
Completing the FAFSA unlocks federal grants, loans, and work-study opportunities, as well as many state and college scholarships, making college more accessible for many underserved students. Millions of eligible students who would have qualified for Federal Pell Grants fail to file the FAFSA.
Financial literacy has been shown to increase both student applications for financial aid and the use of lower-cost private loans, while simultaneously decreasing the use of higher-cost private loans and credit cards. Smart financial decisions when it comes to borrowing can help students graduate with less debt.
These are steps in the right direction, but Americans want—and deserve—more, both for themselves and for future generations. That’s why we need to make financial education a requirement in all 50 states, and we need more support for teachers who provide it.
We need more employers to provide financial education to their workforce, including topics beyond retirement preparedness. Employees should have the opportunity to learn smart strategies for saving, managing credit and debt, and protecting themselves through insurance.
We need our government leaders and Congress to prioritize this issue and provide the leadership and long-term commitment to address it. And because it’s equally needed across party lines, financial literacy can be an issue where lawmakers can work together to improve our individual and collective financial security and freedom. Regulations and protections are important, but not enough.
And in our own homes, we need to gather around the kitchen table and have more open conversations about money and how it can be a tool to achieve what matters most to us.
As I look beyond the pandemic, I see financial literacy as an essential pillar in a changed world. When we emerge from this crisis, the world may look different in fundamental ways. But as two-thirds of Americans recognize, financial literacy is the foundation that will allow all of us, and in particular those who have suffered the most, to make the decisions that will support a healthy and financially secure future.
Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz is president of the Charles Schwab Foundation and senior vice president of community services and consumer education at Charles Schwab & Co.


fortune--2020-09-24--Amazon debuted a long list of products today. Here are 3 standouts

Amazon introduced several new products on Thursday, ranging from upgraded versions of its flagship Echo Internet-connected speakers to an indoor surveillance drone.
The online retail giant’s unveilings on Thursday underscores Amazon’s self-described “ambient home” strategy. It’s another way of describing the “smart home,” in which household appliances and home entertainment equipment are wirelessly tethered together via the Internet.
For technology giants like Amazon and Google, it’s a potentially lucrative market. In addition to selling the devices themselves, the companies collect data about how people use the devices and what they do in their homes. That information is a marketer’s gold mine that could help the companies better target customers with ads or suggest products they’re likelier to buy. It can also help the companies decide which new services to offer, like music or game streaming.
“The home has always been important, but perhaps it’s never been as important until this COVID crisis,” Amazon senior vice president of Alexa Tom Taylor told Fortune.
At the center of Amazon’s smart home strategy are voice technologies, exemplified by the Alexa voice assistant. Amazon wants customers to control their homes merely by using their voices, including by using voice-technologies from competitors like Spotify, Facebook, and Garmin.
Increasingly, Amazon is introducing features other than voice-technologies to make more compelling smart-home gear. For instance, Taylor highlighted a new Echo Show video conferencing device that can move around a table to follow people while they talk. Amazon says it makes for more natural online conversations because people don’t have to sit still.
Here are some other products Amazon debuted.
Amazon’s new surveillance drone
Amazon’s new Ring Always Home Cam is a camera-equipped drone that flies inside homes, like a security camera with propellers.
The company pitched the drone, which costs $250 and will ship sometime next year, as a way for people to see what’s happening everywhere in their homes without having to buy and install several surveillance cameras.
In effort to reduce privacy concerns, Amazon said the drone’s cameras will only record when flying. Additionally, the company said that the drone was deliberately designed to be loud, so that people know when they’re being recorded.
Of course, for many privacy advocates, surveillance drones capturing people’s every move is a dystopian nightmare. Asked about the privacy implications, Taylor said, “We don’t think people should have to choose between privacy and innovation.” However, he conceded, “not everybody may choose to have some of these products.”
Amazon’s security move with Tesla
Amazon also debuted several new car security systems under its Ring brand that will be available sometime next year.
The Ring Car Alarm, which will cost $60, is Amazon’s take on the traditional car alarm, and it comes with features like location tracking so people can remember where they parked.
The Ring Car Cam security camera, which costs $200, is similar to the Ring Car Alarm but it comes with a video camera so people can see live video feeds, in case they want to scan for thieves while not away from their cars.
The Ring Car Connect system, which also costs $200, integrates with the various cameras and sensors like back-up assist cameras in newer cars to convert them into security cameras that link to the Ring smartphone app, among other features.
While Tesla is the first auto company whose automobiles are compatible with the new Ring Car Connect system, Taylor said that the new product will eventually work with cars sold by other manufacturers. A Ring spokesperson later added that Amazon did not create a formal partnership with Tesla for the Ring Car Connect system.
Amazon’s new cloud gaming service
After years of rumors, Amazon finally detailed its cloud-gaming service Luna, which lets people stream certain video games to devices like personal computers without having to buy a video game console.
“We really think it can bring more people to gaming,” Taylor said, adding that “high-end gaming can be expensive.”
Currently, there are no exclusive games on the new service. People can sign up for a trial version of Luna for $6 monthly and get access to games like the retro Sonic the Hedgehog game and Resident Evil 7, and eventually, more games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla through a partnership with game developer Ubisoft. Amazon didn’t say when an upcoming Ubisoft game channel would be available or if it would cost extra.
Amazon is also selling a game controller that lets users more easily play streamed games, similar to Google’s Stadia cloud video gaming service, which debuted in November.
Update: Sep 25, 14:00 ET – added comment from Ring spokesperson explaining that Amazon did not create a formal partnership with Tesla for the Ring Car Connect system.


fortune--2020-09-24--Corporate leaders strive to make allyship a real thing at work

It has been a momentous year for tackling issues of social justice in the workplace—one that has seen many who are not directly impacted by racial and gender inequality look to step up to the plate as allies to the cause.
But being an ally is easier said than done, and Fortune gathered a group of women well-versed in what it should mean and what it should look like to kick off the virtual, 2020 edition of the Most Powerful Women Summit on Thursday.
“Being a good ally is about taking concrete steps to turn your good intentions into actions,” Carin Taylor, chief diversity officer at Workday, said in her introductory remarks for the panel, entitled “Allyship and Accountability: It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint.” Allyship, Taylor added, is about “taking a stand for those who may have a smaller voice” in a given organization and “driving equity for everyone.”
The three panelists, moderated by Fortune senior editor Ellen McGirt, further expounded on that idea and what good allyship entails, in a corporate environment and beyond. As Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, corporate vice president and chief diversity officer at Microsoft, noted, “there’s no amount of empathy and proximity that substitutes for lived experience”—which makes the task of being an ally all the more difficult for those who’ve never directly experienced race- or gender-based discrimination.
McIntyre stressed that it’s important to recognize allyship as “a behavior” and “something we work on every day” in the workplace, rather than “something performative” that people can claim to support without the actions to back it up.
Barbara Whye, chief diversity and inclusion officer and corporate vice president of social impact at Intel, echoed that sentiment.
“An ally is a partner that’s partnering with you for your good; we want someone that’s listening, that’s empathetic, someone that’s actionable,” Whye said. At the same time, Whye noted, it’s important to recognize that “allies are also discovering things about themselves and their own self-awareness on this journey that they’re on”—with allyship itself an experience that enables those of privilege to better learn and understand the challenges facing others.
At her own company, Whye said they’ve tried to “make sure every team inside Intel has an ally who can ensure peoples’ ideas are being heard, and that there’s a safe environment for people.” And she echoed McIntyre in adding the importance of “being actionable, rather than just having conversations.”
“It’s best if other people call you an ally—you can’t self-proclaim it,” Whye added. “You’re deemed an ally by others, based on your actions and words.”
McIntyre said that at Microsoft, they’ve placed an emphasis on ensuring that efforts to promote allyship are not “intended to shame the source of the non-inclusive behavior.” While the company doesn’t tolerate “hateful, harmful behavior,” she noted it’s important to “invite folks into the allyship journey so that they can be self-aware” and develop positive habits, rather than being shamed for their previous non-inclusive actions.
McIntyre and Whye were also joined by author and activist Sophie Williams, whose books Millennial Black and Anti-Racist Ally—as well as her popular Instagram account—examine topics like anti-racist activism and the challenges facing women of color in the workplace and society at large.
“My perspective has always been that we didn’t make this mess or these problems; it’s not realistic to tell us, ‘Here’s what you need to do,’ when the system was never made for us,” Williams said.
And while the work of fighting and organizing for social justice can be hard, tiresome, and thankless, Williams added that it’s important to understand that “you’re never going to see a quick fix” to many of the challenges and ills plaguing society—and that change is a long, arduous process that requires patience and perspective.
“Most people start this work knowing they’re never going to live to see the benefits,” she said. “We’re not doing it for us; we’re doing it for people other than us, the people who are marginalized by society.”


fortune--2020-09-24--COVID and the flu present a clash of viruses

Good afternoon, readers.
It’s that time of year again. Yes, the time of year when public health experts bug you to get your flu shot.
We all know that the flu shot isn’t perfect. Sure, you may still get influenza after getting your yearly jab. Sure, its effectiveness varies wildly from year to year given that the flu virus mutates.
But the pathogen still kills tens of thousands of people every year—one of the main reasons that those trying to downplay the coronavirus risk have compared that virus to influenza.
This year, however, COVID has already claimed more than 200,000 American lives in a far shorter timeline than what we see from the flu. And as we step towards October, flu season will rear its head again as the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage unabated.
That’s a problem on multiple fronts. For one thing, it might be difficult to distinguish who has the flu and who has COVID. Hospitals may continue to see surging cases of both diseases which can drain their resources. And a country eager to just get back to normal may not be willing to avoid close indoor contact during the holiday season.
Read on for the day’s news, and see you again next week.
Sy Mukherjee
sayak.mukherjee@fortune.com
@the_sy_guy
DIGITAL HEALTH
Google Maps adds a COVID feature. Google's latest Maps update will soon show users how prevalent COVID is in their region. It will be a rolling average of seven days among every 100,000 people—but it's a striking example of digital contact tracing that's already been deployed in multiple other countries. While Johns Hopkins University, the New York Times, and Wikipedia are primarily feeding the system's data, you can trace the source all the way to the World Health Organization (WHO). It will reportedly be available on both iOS and Android devices. (CNN)
INDICATIONS
The state of the 4 major coronavirus vaccine candidates. I explored the state of play for the four COVID vaccine candidates that are, at least in the U.S., furthest down the line—experimental treatments from Pfizer and partner BioNTech, upstart biotech Moderna, the U.K.'s Moderna and Oxford, and Johnson & Johnson, which made waves this week through its rigorous trial design and a dosing regimen which, if effective, would only require one shot of its treatment. More details here. (Fortune)
THE BIG PICTURE
A post-RBG Supreme Court has huge implications for health care. The passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has thrown the political circle into a maelstrom. But partisan theatrics aside, what happens next could determine the fate of health care for millions of Americans. The Trump administration has openly declared war upon the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, seeking to strike down the law in its entirety. That's a consequential stance in the midst of a pandemic given that insurers could, theoretically, revert to the bad old days of pre-existing medical conditions being a reason to preclude people from coverage or jack up their prices. The Trump administration has stated that it would not let that happen by issuing executive orders—however, such orders would likely not be enforceable without underlying legislation which currently doesn't exist.
REQUIRED READING
Health care stocks could break out after the election, by Anne Sraders
How to make A.I. smarter, by Jonathan Vanian
The activist employee hasn't gone away, by Geoff Colvin


fortune--2020-09-24--Healthcare experts want to use COVID-19 to address medical disparity due to race

It didn’t take the spread of coronavirus to realize that the American healthcare system had large problems with disparity of care and treatment based on socioeconomic status and race, but the pandemic certainly highlighted and exacerbated the issues already at play. Now, healthcare leaders are hoping that they can use the crisis to address these problems at their core and develop longstanding solutions to the inequalities that have long existed in the system.
Nationally, the percentage of Black, Hispanic, and Native American cases and deaths of COVID-19 exceed their share of the population, according to the most recent data. Black Americans get infected with and die from the virus at rates more than 1.5 times their share of the population.
“Obviously this is systemic, so for us to say at this point in time that we’re just learning about this [disparity] would be somewhat disingenuous,” said Rhonda Mims, the regional vice president of community affairs at Centene Corporation at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women conference on Thursday.
“In order for us to tackle something like this we have to face the truth and realize that we got here through generations of unhealthy eating, stress, climate change, and lack of housing. There are a host of things that drove us to not having great health outcomes but now is the time for us to face up to it and tackle it. We’re not going to bury our heads,” she continued.
Centene, a healthcare insurer that focuses on managed care for uninsured and low-income individuals, announced a new initiative in May: a Health Disparities Task Force made up of medical leaders across the country who will meet regularly with a focus on studying the causes of healthcare disparities among the most vulnerable populations and recommend solutions to help them.
“We at Stanford medicine often talk about how zip codes are the greatest predictor of our long term health, more than genetic health,” said Priya Singh, chief strategy officer at Stanford Medicine. Her team has been focusing on precision health instead of precision medicine, she said. Her team tries to treat populations from preventive and predictive lenses instead of just treating ailments in primary care clinics. A permanent increase in telemedicine will also help underserved communities, she said.
There also has to be more outreach to minority communities in drug trials, said Dr. Susanne Schaffert, president of Novartis Oncology.
“When we develop normal medicines…we haven’t put emphasis on including diverse populations. This is critical because outcomes can be different with different backgrounds, and it also ensures that diverse populations get the same early access to new treatments,” she said.
Recent data has found that people of color are underrepresented in COVID-19 vaccine trials. New guidance from the Food and Drug Administration, meanwhile, strongly encourages diverse populations in clinical drug trials to guarantee effectiveness.


fortune--2020-09-24--From Airbnb to Peloton, these pandemic-era strategy pivots may stick

“Pivot” is a word well understood in corporate-speak as a change of course for a business, but the idea has taken on a whole new meaning in 2020.
That’s certainly what leaders who spoke at Fortune’s MPW Summit conference on Thursday have found in their own endeavors. Be it pivoting overnight to build online “Experiences” at Airbnb or shifting an entire election conference to go virtual, leaders have had to turn on a dime to meet the new challenges of this environment. But for some, those pivots have actually sparked ideas for how to change things moving forward—even when we’re allowed to congregate in larger numbers again.
More flexibility
For Catherine Powell, the global head of hosting for travel and rental site Airbnb, COVID-19’s impact on travel meant she had to scrap plans during her first two months on the job and quickly switch to offering so-called Experiences, which include things like cooking classes and hiking tours, online instead of in person. While some in-person events are coming back, she believes the company’s new online Experiences “have shown you can actually connect incredibly personally and emotionally” in a virtual setting, while also acknowledging “we’re going to come back to a hybrid world where people are going to need to connect and want that social interaction,” she said at a virtual conference session Thursday. That’s key for Airbnb’s hosts, who are “all about human connection,” says Powell.
But she’s also noticed an uptick in people doing long-term stays in Airbnb homes as they work from home. In the future, “I think people will feel less tethered,” she said. “I think certainly from our point of view, with homes, those who can continue working from home in different places and travel the world will do so.”
The virtues of virtual
Meanwhile, Stephanie Cutter, the founding partner of Precision Strategies and program executive and producer of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, had a big task ahead of her when the convention had to go remote. “It was ripe for some reinventing, let’s just say that,” Cutter said. Apart from the fact the convention had to switch to a virtual format, Cutter says she used the opportunity as a chance to get more “creative” and make some strategic changes, including shorter segments, more diversity of content (not just candidates speaking into the camera), elements of entertainment, and various formats.
But even in the future when convention halls may well be packed once more, she says there are few things that might work for next time: The virtual format allowed, in some cases, a more “intimate” connection with viewers, Cutter says—something she says they may want to implement next time around. And the idea of incorporating send-in stories from “average Americans” like Brayden Harrington, who shared his journey dealing with a stutter, and Kristin Urquiza, who lost her father to the coronavirus, is something that might stick, says Cutter. In the future, she says, she “would look to find more ways to include real stories of where the country is at that moment.”
Fewer office hours
As many leaders are finding out, working from home has not meant a slump in productivity. In fact, Dara Treseder, the senior vice president and head of global marketing and communications at workout behemoth Peloton, has found her team has thrived working remotely, even in light of the massive spike in demand Peloton is seeing for homebound workout products. “This time has really shown us the power of flexibility,” Treseder said. So much so that she says she’s asked employees, “When COVID is over, what would you like to see?…Do we actually need anyone to come in five days a week? And our answer has been ‘no.'”
Moving forward, Treseder’s team will come in a few days a week (“We think there’s still benefit in having a few days that everybody comes in for those hallway conversations, for that culture,” she said), but allow for a new world of flexibility without sacrificing productivity.
The benefit of this new approach, Treseder says, is also that it “allows us to tap great talent anywhere, because you don’t have to be in New York City to work at Peloton in marketing anymore,” she said. “It allows us to also open up to more diverse candidates.”


fortune--2020-09-24--Amid vaccine trials, the FDA is on trial itself

This week, the public health community was shocked by another possibly politically driven flip-flop on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website as, just days after posting it, the agency withdrew widely supported recommendations regarding aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 beyond the standard six-foot social distance range.
By contrast, in a Wall Street Journal column this weekend titled “You Can Trust the FDA’s Vaccine Process,” two highly respected former Food and Drug Administration commissioners, Scott Gottlieb and Mark McClellan, argued that “the FDA process doesn’t lend itself to meddling” and proclaimed it was immune from political influence, despite rising skepticism that that is the case. This was premature, since safeguards, such as trust and confidence in the FDA’s professional staff, are no longer in place to prevent meddling.
Alex Azar, the secretary of Health and Human Services who reports directly to President Trump, announced this week that he was blocking the FDA from discharging any new rules regarding the nation’s therapeutics and vaccines without his review. Whether this was a rebuke to the current FDA or a power grab by Azar, the assertion of politics over science cannot be ignored.
Similarly, we have seen problems at the CDC, such as when Paul Alexander, senior adviser to Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Michael Caputo, pressured the CDC to change its policy on testing those without symptoms. This was just one sample of the campaign by Trump political appointees to meddle with science and muzzle scientists. Caputo made groundless accusations that government scientists are conducting “sedition” and warned of coming left-wing violence before taking leave from his position.
On top of this political intrusion, our country’s core health institutions have suffered repeated controversies, reversals, and misinterpretation of evidence, which, in turn, have eroded the public’s confidence. This includes the FDA’s controversial and premature Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for hydroxychloroquine, which has been advanced by Trump. This was later reversed, following extensive peer-reviewed research that questioned the safety and effectiveness of this treatment.
This month, we have seen our nation’s top public health officials, Trump, Azar, and current FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn misrepresent or, at best, misinterpret the scientific evidence on convalescent plasma, announcing that 35 out of 100 COVID-19 patients “would have been saved because of the administration of plasma.” The actual Mayo Clinic researchers who authored the cited study complained that the FDA “grossly misrepresented” their data.
Since its creation in 1906, the FDA was charged to reassure us that we can trust the U.S. government’s authorization of a drug’s proper use. This trust has been eroded: A Kaiser Family Foundation survey last week found 62% of Americans across parties believe that the FDA will cave to political pressure for premature clearance of COVID-19 vaccines. Similarly, a recent survey by Morning Consult found only 47% of U.S. adults across political parties would accept a COVID-19 vaccine if it became available, a fall from 72% acceptance this past April.
Of note, Johnson & Johnson on Wednesday trumpeted a new vaccine candidate advancing to a 60,000-participant Phase III trial. This would be for a single-shot drug, which, unlike other vaccines, would not require frozen storage. Also, Johnson & Johnson has joined with other drugmakers in a rare display of public transparency over its research.
Hence a paradox has emerged. The new data from Morning Consult, which we shared at our Yale CEO Summit earlier this week (and is diagrammed below), shows that while the public trust of drugmakers is soaring, trust in a potential vaccine is plummeting—raising concerns over the public acceptance of these prospective breakthroughs.
Courtesy of Morning Consult
Courtesy of Morning Consult
Thus, on what basis should we trust the reassurance of the two former FDA commissioners? Is their logic anchored on their loyalty to the old rules of conduct? Political pressures mount, with the U.S. just crossing the 200,000 COVID-19 death milestone and the infection rate increasing in half of the states.
The nostalgic scientific independence Gottlieb and McClellan cherished is at risk and must be fortified. First, political voices from the Trump administration, such as Azar, need to pledge to abide by the recommendations of FDA professional staff and its independent expert committees—rather than hijack its scientific process. Second, advance guidance for COVID vaccine EUAs should be shared. Third, there needs to be transparency regarding the data collected and the analysis relied upon to inform FDA rulings.
On Tuesday, the FDA announced plans to introduce stricter guidelines for EUAs to be granted to new COVID vaccines, which would include more independent expert vetting of data. We are all eager to see these guidelines. Yet on Wednesday night, Trump threatened to intervene and invalidate these proposed new FDA guidelines for vaccine release.
Given the Trump administration’s pressure to have a vaccine approved before Election Day, the FDA is on trial along with the vaccines themselves.
Albert Ko is a professor and chair of epidemiology of microbial diseases at the Yale School of Public Health.
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld is a senior associate dean and professor of management practice at the Yale School of Management, where he is president of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute.


fortune--2020-09-24--Mark Cuban wants every American to get a $1,000 stimulus check every 2 weeks through November

There’s stimulus, and then there’s stimulus.
Mark Cuban, the investor and owner of the Dallas Mavericks told CNBC’s Make It that he thinks every American, regardless of income, should receive a $1,000 check every two weeks for the next two months. Under Cuban’s plan, “the whole goal is to get that money every two weeks into the economy,” CNBC reported. “Once businesses start having demand, even if they’re closed and working online, then there is a reason for them to be able to bring back employees and retain those employees if demand is sustained.”
But Cuban’s plan would come with a catch: you’d have to spend the money within 10 days, or lose it.
Cuban originally laid out the idea back in May. In a Twitter thread he wrote, “It’s time to face the fact that PPP didn’t work. Great plan, difficult execution. No one’s fault. The only thing that will save businesses is consumer demand. No amount of loans to businesses will save them or jobs if their customers aren’t buying.” He then proposed: “We need to consider an interim spending stimulus program. All 128m households could get a $1k check every 2 weeks for the next 2 months that MUST BE SPENT WITHIN 10 DAYS OF RECEIPT OR IT EXPIRES.”
Cuban has long been a promotor of—and investor in—small businesses through his role on the TV show Shark Tank. He did not clarify in his remarks to CNBC how the government could track who had spent their money, or the total pricetag for such an aggressive stimulus package.
Interestingly, direct payments via stimulus checks have been one of the few items that Republicans and Democrats initially agreed on including in the next package. But talks subsequently broke down over the size of the overall stimulus package, and items like aid to state and local governments, which Republicans opposed. Last week Trump weighed in, saying he was warming up to a bipartisan compromise bill that did include $1,200 direct payments.
Though the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the nascent fight over her replacement has heightened tension on Capitol Hill, on Thursday Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said that negotiations would be starting up again. Nancy Pelosi confirmed that talks would restart, though neither side gave any timeline.
At last count, the two parties were $900 billion apart.


fortune--2020-09-24--Congress and Trump to restart stimulus negotiations as $300 unemployment benefit expires

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Congress on Thursday that the White House and Democratic leaders will resume stimulus negotiations.
Earlier talks stalled at the end of August after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to come down from her party’s offer of $2.2 trillion in economic aid, and the White House wouldn’t budge from its offer of $1.3 trillion. Pelosi confirmed that talks would restart, though as of now no firm timeline has been announced by either side.
Democratic and Republican leaders haven’t publicly said if they’ve changed their offers. However, President Donald Trump suggested an openness last week to a $1.5 trillion compromise package—$200 billion more than his last offer—put forward by a bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives.
There are items that both parties still support including in the next package, such as a second round of stimulus checks, an extension of enhanced unemployment benefits, and more aid for small businesses and hospitals. They’re in disagreement on items like a steep increase in federal aid to state and local governments, which Democrats support, and COVID-19 lawsuit immunity for businesses, which Republicans support.
Why suddenly an increased sense of urgency? For starters, the economic recovery is showing signs of slowing, and economists are calling for more economic aid. Look no further than the more than 870,000 additional new unemployment claims filed last week as employers continue to lay off workers en masse.
And the $300 enhanced weekly unemployment benefits, paid on top of state benefits, that President Donald Trump issued through a memorandum in August are set to expire before the end of the month as funding runs out. Already, more than a dozen states have announced they’ll stop paying it. If the enhanced unemployment benefits are to be extended, it will likely take an act of Congress.
But getting a stimulus package passed won’t be easy, especially in light of the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Senate Republicans announcing plans to vote on Trump’s soon-to-be-announced Supreme Court nominee, which have heightened partisan tension on the Hill.


fortune--2020-09-24--To meet net zero emissions targets, China—and the rest of the world—needs these technologies

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage will be critical for China—and the world—to meet current net zero emissions targets, the International Energy Agency said Thursday.
China announced on Tuesday that it would target net zero emissions by 2060, a target IEA executive director Fatih Birol said the Paris-based agency welcomed. China is the world’s largest emitter and consumes half of the world’s coal.
However, he cautioned that meeting such a target—which is a decade later than most current net zero goals for 2050—would require finding a way to capture and utilize the carbon emitted by China’s relatively young energy infrastructure.
It’s a conundrum facing not just China. In a report released Thursday, the IEA said carbon capture, utilization, and storage (collectively known as CCUS) would be critical to offsetting existing infrastructure and the emissions from difficult to decarbonize sectors—like concrete production and aviation—as well as creating hydrogen and pulling carbon from the atmosphere.
Simply eliminating the emissions of relatively young infrastructure with decades left in their technical lives will require advanced CCUS technology—capable of eliminating 600 billion tons of CO2 emissions over the next five decades, a figure equivalent to roughly 17 years of emissions, the IEA said.
Doing so would require overt government support, Birol said in the Thursday report. Without CCUS technology, “our energy and climate goals will become virtually impossible to reach,” he said.
The push for governments to back CCUS projects was also echoed on Thursday by the Prime Minister of Norway, which is creating a new project to link two CCUS projects to a storage facility under the North Sea.
The country has already used such technology, as pointed out by Prime Minister Erna Solberg.
“We know that this is a safe procedure. We know the technology is there,” Solberg said. “What we now really have to work for is cutting costs.” Governments should bear the “start up costs” to help bring the burden down, she said.
CCUS projects are still relatively few in number, with just 20 commercial projects worldwide, but the numbers are growing. Thirty projects have been approved over the past three years, the IEA says, on track to double the total carbon capture from about 40 million tons today.
While the technology has long been used in some natural gas and fertilizer projects, none of the current projects are in the industries that need them most, said the IEA: steel and, in particular, concrete manufacturing, which has virtually no viable alternatives to the current emissions-heavy process. Concrete production currently produces about 7% of global emissions, the IEA says, more than double the amount produced by global aviation—itself a notoriously difficult-to-decarbonize sector. In aviation, CCUS is critical to produce hydrogen, one of the most likely solutions to aviation’s dependence on jet fuel.
That has produced an influx of investment just this year, the IEA said, with $4 billion from businesses and governments since the start of the year until September. However, the IEA warned that CCUS projects must be a critical part of COVID-19 recovery plans, and are at risk of slowing momentum from the ensuing financial crash.


fortune--2020-09-24--Amazon just did a major overhaul of its Echo smart speakers

Amazon’s popular lineup of Echo Internet-connected speakers has received a major redesign, the company announced Thursday during an online event.
The company’s flagship Echo speaker, which costs $99.99, now resembles a small sphere instead of its older incarnation as a mini-cylinder.
Miriam Daniel, vice president of Amazon Echo, said the new version is “completely redesigned” and now comes draped in a thin fabric available in three colors, including the classic gray look, and also has a so-called smart home hub built in, which lets people use the Echo to control other Internet-connected devices.
Amazon has redesigned its Echo smart speaker. Courtesy of Amazon
“We worked hard at bringing form and function together in a new lineup of Echo products,” Daniel said.
The new Echo Dot, a smaller version of the Echo speaker, also has a new sphere shape and costs $49.99. A version of the Echo Dot with an electronic clock display costs $59.99.
Amazon also debuted the Echo Dot Kids Edition, which costs $59.99 and comes in silly spherical designs including a tiger and panda model. The new speaker has educational features for kids and can automatically filter explicit lyrics in songs, Daniel said.
It will also include a “reading sidekick,” in which “Alexa can read with your child and encourage the child when the child reads well,” she said.


fortune--2020-09-24--Can Disney+ dethrone Netflix?

Can Disney+ dethrone Netflix?

The pandemic has rocked Disney: Its amusement parks closed, its blockbuster premieres delayed, and its cruise ships sat empty.
The silver lining for the company is the streaming boom that has helped Disney+ add tens of millions of subscribers, climbing to 54.5 million.
But can Disney (which owns Hulu and Disney+), or another streamer, for that matter, catch up to Netflix? To find out, Fortune and SurveyMonkey teamed up to poll 1,335 U.S. adults between September 3 and 4.*
We found that 40% of U.S. adults say they’re streaming with Disney+, up from 31% in May. But it still has a long way to go to catch Netflix, which has 76% of Americans using its streaming service. The No. 2 spot goes to Amazon Prime Video (61%), followed by Hulu (46%).