fortune--2020-07-03--The must-have gear, gadgets, and accessories for safer summer travel

‘ Super Saturday ’ marks the reopening of English pubs .
Just don ’ t sing , chant , or @ @ @ @ @ orders of the government

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Even though the pandemic is still ongoing—and will be for the foreseeable future—some travel restrictions are being lifted here and there. And after months inside, many people are antsy to get out and on the road (or in the air) for any kind of vacation.
If you’re planning to take a journey somewhere this summer, here’s a list of useful travel accessories and apparel that could improve and streamline your trip.
Accessories
Roomy construction leaves enough give to wear the Sentry face mask over an N95 respirator. Courtesy of Rendall Co.
Rendall Co.: The must-have accessory of 2020—and maybe for 2021, too—for all passengers is a face mask. The Sentry from Rendall Co. is made for all-day wear, with a built-in pocket so you can add your own filter and embedded copper nose-band bends for a custom fit while reducing eyewear fogging. The mask’s dual layers of high-density, 100% woven cotton also offer full-face coverage minimizing heat trapping—a relief for enduring summer weather. SRP: $19.
NiceSeats covers are designed for all standard economy and business-class seats on airplanes. Courtesy of NiceSeats
NiceSeats: These easy-to-use covers provide a barrier between the user and airline seat, and are designed to ensure the passenger avoids the top two dirtiest places on airplanes: the headrest and the seat pocket. They are 100% machine washable, and are also sized for buses, trains, and movie theater seating. SRP: $60.
The PowerExpand+ 7-in-1 USB C Hub Courtesy of Anker
Anker: New MacBook owners likely know the frustration of only having a trio of USB-C ports and nothing else. With the Anker PowerExpand+ 7-in-1 USB-C Hub turn your laptop’s USB-C port into USB, HDMI, and Ethernet ports as well as an SD/TF card reader—a must for photographers. SRP: $40.
The Drop hat clip Courtesy of TopTote
Toptote: Hatboxes are a thing of the past, but chic tourists may still want to bring a favorite wide-brimmed or panama hat along for the summer. A brilliantly simple accessory, the Drop from Toptote is a sophisticated, woven Italian leather and embossed magnet closure that keeps your hat attached to your suitcase (rather than crushed inside). SRP: $48.
The Porter bowl Courtesy of W&P
W&P: Not even Tupperware is allowed to be boring anymore. W&P’s Porter collection was designed to encourage buyers to ditch single-use plastics in favor of its simple but elegantly designed reusable containers. There are two versions of the portable Porter bowl—ceramic, and yes, plastic. But this plastic is durable with a protective nonslip exterior and snap-tight silicone strap. SRP: $25.
The Owala FreeSip Courtesy of Owala
Owala: Not only is this water bottle leak-proof but it also keeps the reusable straw and mouthpiece entirely covered, clean, and locked down under a flip-top lid. The 25-ounce “Tritan” bottle has a wide opening for cleaning and adding ice, and a cup holder-friendly base. Made of BPA- and phthalate-free, stain and odor-resistant durable plastic, the Owala FreeSip is also dishwasher-safe. SRP: $15.
Silvr sports a portable design in which where the handle becomes the case, turning the fork into the size of a lipstick or pocket knife when you’re done using it. Courtesy of Silvr
Silvr: Even utensils can be fashionable now. Although many restaurants and cafés are switching back to one-time-use plastic (at least for the duration of the pandemic), there still might be instances where it would be more environmentally friendly and still safe to bring your own reusable silverware. Enter Silvr, a chic line of reusable forks that use anti-microbial 304 stainless steel with a light aluminum handle, and they’re dishwasher safe. Perfect for using on-the-go or during socially distanced picnics and day trips. SRP: $22.
The meatless 10-pack is available at Walmart, Target, and additional retailers nationwide. Courtesy of Beyond Meat
Beyond Meat: The plant-based meat producer is launching a new limited-edition cookout kit, which could be ideal for packing in your car for a summer road trip—regardless of dietary preference. The limited-edition kit includes a mini charcoal grill, a Bluetooth speaker, a tabletop Cornhole game, a barbecue apron with a full BBQ tool set, and a voucher for Beyond Meat’s Cookout Classic 10-pack of Beyond Burgers. SRP: $50.
The Grid Linen towel Courtesy of Outlier
Outlier: This Brooklyn-based retailer reengineers discarded apparel for new clothing and accessories. The Grid Linen towel is made of 100% linen, sheds sand easily, and dries quickly, making it a lightweight choice ideal for summer hikes or trips to the beach. SRP: $75.
The Memory Foam Travel Pillow with Silk Pillowcase Courtesy of NIGHT
Night: This might be the first neck pillow that actually looks stylish. But more important, the silk pillowcase and memory foam make for a smoother ride, providing more comfort to your neck while also protecting your skin, possibly nixing travel-induced breakouts. Based on the company’s cult favorite Night Pillow, the ergonomic design of the brand’s signature AirLight Memory Foam supports neck and spine alignment, and the midnight-black hue keeps any additional light from reflecting back into your eyes while you are trying to sleep. (The brand also recently started making a companion face mask, made from the same breathable fabric as the pillows.) SRP: $80.
Luggage
The Studio Bag Medium Vegan is identical to the brand’s bestselling style, but made with vegan leather. Courtesy of Caraa
Caraa: You might have seen this one all over Instagram, but its popularity is justified. Caraa’s Convertible Studio Bag—available in multiple shades and fabrics, including regular leather and vegan leather—is a versatile road warrior. It easily transitions from satchel to backpack to crossbody simply by changing straps. SRP: $395.
Wellness
Green Goo hand sanitizer is WHO and FDA compliant and kills over 99% of germs. Courtesy of Green Goo
Green Goo: Moisturizing is important for your skin, but killing germs takes priority. Don’t leave home without hand sanitizer—and better yet, stock up in the meantime to avoid any rush on grocery stores and online retailers in the fall. Green Goo bundles a hand sanitizer mix, featuring one 16-ounce bottle with a flip-top cap and five two-ounce bottles with screw-top caps. You can mix and match the caps, making this sanitizer set ideal for situations in which you need a little flexibility. SRP: $36.
The SPF + Moisturizer duo Courtesy of Cardon
Cardon: Cofounded by Korean skin care experts Narae Chung and Jacqueline Oak, Cardon targets male-specific skin care needs (such as skin irritation and redness from shaving), providing a simple daily routine to follow with three products: a broad-spectrum SPF moisturizer, a clay-based cleanser, and a 3-in-1 gel moisturizer. The cofounders say they were inspired to launch the brand after attending an informative focus group in college in which men opened up and expressed a desire to learn more about skin care. SRP: $18 for the Purifying Clay Cleanser; $20 for the SPF + Moisturizer.
The bkr x Wander Beauty Jet Setting Essentials Duo set Courtesy of Wander Beauty
Wander Beauty: Having an all-in-one routine is ideal for travelers of all types. The bkr x Wander Beauty Jet Setting Essentials Duo is next level with five mini Wander Beauty essentials (including the Baggage Claim Gold Eye Masks Packette with hyaluronic acid, a favorite among beauty bloggers), a travel case, and a TSA-friendly, refillable glass water bottle. SRP: $75.
The Serum Stick Treatment and Touch-Up Balm Courtesy of Tatcha
Tatcha: Every skin care routine needs at least one active step, whether it be serum or oil. A concentrated solid serum of 80% squalane and Japanese lemon balm, the Tatcha Serum Stick is especially portable and mess-free, targeting signs of aging and dryness while keeping your face fresh throughout the day. (And no hands required when applying—a bonus in an age when you’re not supposed to touch your face.) SRP: $48.
Supergoop Glowscreen SPF 40
Supergoop: Glowscreen is an SPF doubling as a primer. The sheer liquid texture gives skin a healthy dose of pearlescence, adding instant, glowing protection with no visible glitz or glitter. It also delivers a boost of hydration with a cocktail of hyaluronic acid and vitamin B5 that leaves skin feeling supple and dewy. SRP: $36.
The Prebiotic + Probiotic supplement Courtesy of The Nue Co.
The Nue Co.: Studies are still mixed about just how effective ingestible beauty is, but not all supplements are about improving your hair or your skin from the inside. The Nue Co.’s Prebiotic + Probiotic supplement targets your gut, delivers 15 billion spores per dose, and was formulated specifically to help combat symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome and long-term digestive issues. And when you’re traveling and your internal clock is upside down, this could help get you back on schedule. SRP: $75.
Footwear
The TechLoom Wave is APL’s bestselling model of running shoe. Courtesy of APL
Athletic Propulsion Labs: The TechLoom Wave, APL’s top-tier running shoe, features a unique convertible design in which the wearer can remove the laces completely, transforming the shoes into a slip-on while still providing the same fit and support. The shoes also sport strategically placed ventilation zones, allowing enhanced airflow to keep feet cool and dry. And all APL shoes are unisex. SRP: $225.
The Reef Ortho Coast flip-flips are made with vegan leather and PVC-free materials. Courtesy of Reef
Reef: When temperatures soar to record highs, even sneakers can feel too heavy on your feet. Fortunately, many shoemakers are getting better about making more durable sandals for all-day wear with extra cushioned support. The Ortho-Coast, with styles available for men and women, are outfitted anatomical arch support to keep the wearer comfortable. The shock absorbent cushion footbed is designed to reduce impact under every step. SRP: Starts at $60.
Apparel
The Zenith Dress Shirt is versatile, ideal for pairing with a blazer for more formal occasions, layered under a vest for cooler weather, or worn over a T-shirt for a casual look. Courtesy of BluffWorks
Bluffworks: A classic button-down shirt should be in your suitcase for any trip. Bluffworks makes versions for men and women that are designed to be odor- and wrinkle-resistant. Made from 86% polyester and 14% spandex, the touted “better-than-silk material” was constructed from a lightweight weave with a healthy amount of stretch. SRP: $98 for Women’s Azores Blouse; $98 for Men’s Zenith Performance Dress Shirt.
The Nylon Packable Jacket Courtesy of Tory Sport
Tory Sport: Made from lightweight tech nylon, the Nylon Packable Jacket lives up to its name as it easily folds into a pouch. It’s an ideal choice for travelers who plan to exercise outside because it’s breathable but also water-repellent and wind-resistant. It also features a functional media pocket with headphone channel. SRP: $150.
The Perfect Black Pant, Ankle 4-Pocket Courtesy of Spanx
Spanx: Snug pants might not seem like the ideal choice for travelwear on paper, but in practice, they’re actually more flexible for movement, making them a more comfortable option for longer days. The Perfect Black Pant provides that extra stretch with its smoothing ponte fabric and a comfortable, pull-on design. SRP: $110.


fortune--2020-07-03--The good news: The U.S. just added 4.8 million jobs. Here’s the bad news

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In the annals of economic surprises, the news that the U.S. added 2.7 million jobs in May, marking an astounding reversal from COVID-19’s crushing blow to employment, was one for the ages. Few predicted that such a momental jump could be repeated, let alone surpassed in the next month, but the seemingly impossible just happened. At 8:30 a.m. on July 2, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that 4.8 million more Americans returned to work in June. That almost doubles the May dazzler, itself an all-time record, and beats any monthly number in history prior to the pandemic by a margin of 4 to 1.
Predictably, the stock market cheered, the S&P jumping 35 points, or 1.15%, by midmorning on Thursday to stand within 3% of where it started the year, as the Nasdaq notched another all-time high. The jobs jump is as heartening as it is stunning. But to stage a full comeback, to restore America’s consumer spending and confidence to the robust levels that prevailed before the crisis, the U.S. needs to get back to the pre-pandemic jobless rate of 5% or below.
Put simply, we’re now benefiting from the easy part, adding millions of positions in retail, restaurants, and hotels as the economy (albeit haltingly) reopens. Many of those jobs that vanished so quickly are returning far faster than predicted. Nevertheless, for many of the “temporarily unemployed” in hospitality, stores, and health care, getting back to work will be a long slog. And for folks who were just plain laid off, with no prospect of being rehired, the road will be even longer and tougher.
In fact, returning to 5% unemployment will probably take another five years, according to an analysis by Chris Rands, a fixed-income portfolio manager at Nikko Asset Management. Rands presents the most logical forecast this reporter has seen on how fast jobs will return. His outlook calls for a two-stage recovery consisting of the strong bounce back that’s unprecedented because it follows a collapse that’s also unprecedented, followed by grinding gains that reflect America’s much slower historical pattern for growing the employment. So let’s dig into Rands’ analysis, updated for the big gains posted in the June report.
Two categories of jobs
It’s instructive to review how suddenly and deeply the jobs picture collapsed, and how much ground it has retraced. In March and April, U.S. employment dropped from roughly 158 million to 137 million, a loss of 20.6 million jobs that quadrupled the unemployment rate, from 3.5% to 14.3%. The gains in May pushed the shrinkage to 18.3 million. Still, that’s twice the damage reached at the depths of the Great Recession.
Rands points to the gap between both the rise in joblessness, and prospects for recovery, in the two categories of the unemployed: what the Department of Labor calls “on temporary layoff” and “not on temporary layoff.” The first group consists mainly of service workers in such sectors as restaurants, stores, and airlines where business suffered the most sweeping shutdowns. Those now on the sidelines believe they’ll be rehired quickly, and for good reason: It’s already happening in a big way. The second cohort, “not on temporary layoff,” is made up of folks who lost their jobs and have no idea when they’ll get back to work.
In January, the “temporary” count was just 742,000, much lower than the “non-temporaries” at 1.9 million. But in a reversal that stands out even in these times of surreal data, the “temporary” contingent by April jumped by over 17 million to 18.1 million, or 25-fold, and the “non-temporary” group rose by 500,000 to 2.6 million. In May, the big improvement came only for the “temporaries,” as their number declined to 15.3 million. The no-job-in-sight crowd lost more ground.
Different rates of rebound
Rands’ study is based on the May numbers, but with his permission, I’ve updated his analysis for the hugely positive data for June. His model predicts that as the economy reopens, all of the jobs created in the next six months to a year will go to the “temporary” people who dominate the “reopening” sectors recovering right now. He figures that in that period, roughly three-quarters of that group will be working again. If so, 11.6 million of the 15.3 million in that camp who were jobless in May will find employment by mid-2021 at the latest.
It was the temporary group that made all of the gains in June, continuing the trend from May. The folks that see themselves as quickly returning regained 4.8 million jobs. By contrast, the “not on temporaries” saw their numbers swell to 3.71 million from 2.95 million in June.
Things are improving fast for the customer-facing employees whose bars and shops shut down fastest and are who are now serving drinks and burgers, giving haircuts, selling sports shoes, and managing boutiques. In May and June, “retail trade” added 1.1 million jobs, and leisure and hospitality a staggering 2.5 million, while health care—benefiting from a ramping up in elective procedures—restored 800,000 positions. Employees at airlines or commercial construction are seeing only trudging progress that portends a much slower return to work.
A slow slog back to 5%
Let’s update Rands’ figures for the June report. Of the 11.6 million he’s expecting to win back their jobs in six months to a year, 4.8 million got there in June alone. “It is happening more quickly than I expected,” he told Fortune. Still, Rands believes that the June surprise doesn’t change the numbers in the temporary category who will remain unemployed, probably at least until mid-2021. His best estimate of the jobless in the “temp” ranks a year hence is still the one-quarter of May’s 15.3 million, or 3.8 million. Add to that group the 3.7 million “not on temporary” cohort with no current prospects for a job.
That brings the total likely to remain unemployed by mid-2021 to 7.5 million, for a rate of 7% to 8%. That’s still more than double the figure at the start of 2020.
Here’s the crucial question for America’s economic future: Once three out of four of those who expect to be rehired quickly return, how long will it take to whittle down the hard core that remains jobless? The key target is the 5% that generally represents full employment and signals healthy growth. Rands points out that in a recovery, the U.S. generally adds between 150,000 and 200,000 jobs a month. He believes that after the initial surge, the job creation will return to that historic pace.
The slow recovery from the Great Recession, he says, provides a useful guide. “It took seven years from when the Fed took rates to zero to achieve 5% unemployment in 2015,” he says. Rands predicts that in an optimistic scenario, it will take the U.S. three to five years, starting in mid-2021, to once again achieve that target. He believes that the Fed’s prediction that unemployment will return to 5% in 2022 is way too optimistic. More likely, the Fed will be forced to hold rates at zero to wrestle down the jobless rate for several years to come.
Of course, a lot could go wrong that would drag out that timetable. Already the opening of bars, restaurants, stores, and airline flights has started to be pushed back, or even reversed in some states. Meaning it’s time for everyone to get realistic about how long it will take us to get to anywhere near the great job numbers that seemed our destiny six months—and an economic age—ago.


fortune--2020-07-03--SoftBank shares shake off WeWork losses to hit one year high

SoftBank Group Corp. shares just reached a new high this year, propelled by a series of buybacks that have seen the stock recoup the losses suffered during the coronavirus market rout.
The stock rose 2.6% on Friday to 5,778 yen ($54), the highest since July 2019. That’s more than double the level of a March low.
The recovery is something of a vindication for CEO Masayoshi Son, who unveiled plans to sell 4.5 trillion yen of assets to reduce debt and bankroll record share buybacks. Son has frequently complained that SoftBank’s shares, even at their peak, trade at less than the value of its portfolio of investments.
SoftBank has also had a series of wins over the same period, finally solving the puzzle of Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile Inc. with their merger completed in April, and seeing a welcome return to successful investment bets as online home-insurance provider Lemonade Inc. surged as much as 86% in its U.S. IPO. Thursday.
“The steps being taken to improve its balance sheet, such as repurchase of its debt, are being recognized,” said Tomoaki Kawasaki, a senior analyst at Iwaicosmo Securities Co.
SoftBank shares have had a volatile run over the past year as portfolio companies such as WeWork ran into trouble and the coronavirus hammered many of its businesses. That triggered a record 1.36 trillion yen operating loss for the last fiscal year. Optimists believe the worst is over for the company.
“After the trillion-yen level writedowns last quarter, it’s not possible that it’ll be worse than that,” said Kawasaki.
Citigroup Global Markets analyst Mitsunobu Tsuruo raised his price target for the stock by 100 yen to 7,200 yen on Wednesday, lifting his expectations for the company’s forthcoming first-quarter earnings and noting that there is “still plenty of room for the shares to advance” given the buybacks and steps to clean up its balance sheet.
SoftBank has already repurchased 500 billion yen of shares based on a resolution adopted March 13, separate to its 2 trillion yen pledge. Under that larger program, it has already formally announced plans to buy 1 trillion yen of buybacks through next March, with Son indicating he hoped to carry out the full amount.
Whether the shares can continue their increase depends on future catalysts, Iwaicosmo’s Kawasaki said.
“The shares will need another catalyst that boosts shareholder value, such as the second Vision Fund,” he added.
Son said in May that SoftBank will use its own cash for the second Vision Fund for now, until an improved investment performance attracts outside partners.


fortune--2020-07-03--‘Super Saturday’ marks the reopening of English pubs. Just don’t sing, chant, or speak too loudly, b

‘Super Saturday’ marks the reopening of English pubs. Just don’t sing, chant, or speak too loudly, by orders of the government

Prepare for departure : What you should know about summer travel in 2020

Just days before the U.K. went into a nationwide lockdown in late March, Prime Minister Boris Johnson stood in front of a room full of television cameras and acknowledged the impact the shutdown would have on one of the country’s single greatest institutions.
“We’re taking away the ancient, inalienable right of free-born people of the United Kingdom to go to the pub,” he said. “And I can understand how people feel about that.”
Beginning Saturday, the English will finally be able to exercise that most British of rights to “go down to the pub” again, as drinking establishments, restaurants and cinemas are permitted to reopen. (Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland set their own rules). It’s an opening the country’s tabloids have already dubbed “Super Saturday.”
But there’s a catch: with safety being so stressed, going out for a pint will likely not feel “super” at all.
Ahead of the reopening, Johnson is expected to urge pub goers “not to overdo it” and to drink responsibly— Britons have been ranked the world’s worst binge drinkers as recently as last year—while the head of the Metropolitan Police Federation in London likened the reopening to “policing New Year’s Eve.”
Meanwhile, U.K. government guidelines on pub-going offer a list of guidelines so byzantine they seem outright discouraging. In addition to bog-standard social distancing requirements, it includes rules on how many people a customer can socialize with at once: inside, it’s a group that no larger than two other households (yes, “households”); outside, up to five people from different households. You can meet with up to 30 people outside, but there’s a catch—the 30 must come from no more than two households. So, 28 people from two households plus a few friends would constitute an illegal gathering. (Are you following?)
That said, you can meet with an unlimited number of households throughout the day—just not all at once. However, such meetings should under no circumstances be a “party” or celebration of any kind, unless it is a wedding, in which case you can invite close friends and family. And while you’re there, keep it quiet: no singing, no shouting, chanting, or “conversing loudly,” which could cause an additional risk of infection, guidelines warn.
“This applies even if others are at a distance to you,” government advice notes.
However, you do not have to wear a mask, which is mandatory in England only on public transit.
Those restrictions have a geographic element, too. Pubs will not be open in Leicester—the central English city that is under lockdown after COVID-19 infections spiked—but the city’s suburbs and nearby towns will have pubs on offer.
What if you live in southern Scotland—where pubs are still closed—and fancy slipping south of the border for a pint? Don’t even think about it, said Nicola Sturgeon, head of the Scottish National Party.
“And remember—and I’m sorry about this—but the five mile limit means you should not travel to pubs south of the border over this weekend,” Sturgeon warned Scots at a Wednesday news conference. “I know this will not be welcome news for people in these areas and I am genuinely sorry about that.”
The reopening, in fact, comes despite warnings by top scientists that the country risks loosening restrictions too quickly. Earlier this week, Sir Jeremy Farrar, a scientific advisor to the government, warned that England in particular was already on “knife’s edge” and risked a spike in infections in the coming weeks. The U.K. has seen worst outbreak in Europe, with 313,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported and nearly 44,000 deaths as of Tuesday.
That may mean that Brits do not actually want to go to the pub quite as much as politicians like Johnson assume, especially as concerns rise about local infection spikes and lockdowns, including the first such lockdown, in the city of Leicester.
The re-opening has also brought out that other English trait: morbid sarcasm.
“I think the pubs are opening because the government wants us drunk enough to think they are doing a good job,” tweeted novelist Matt Haig. Others joked the reopening should be called “Super Spreader Saturday.”
In fact, pollsters at Ipsos MORI found that 60% of Britons were not very comfortable, or comfortable at all, with going to a bar or restaurant as soon as they reopen.
The only things that made them slightly more uneasy were going to large public gatherings, like music festivals or sporting events—and using public toilets.


fortune--2020-07-03--Beijing promises retaliation if Trump signs sanctions bill rebuking Hong Kong law

Congress has approved a bill rebuking China over its crackdown in Hong Kong amid protests against a strict “national security” law that outlaws so-called subversive or terrorist acts, as well as collusion with foreign forces intervening in the city’s affairs.
Critics say the new law effectively ends the “one country, two systems” framework under which Hong Kong was promised a high degree of autonomy when it reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
The U.S. legislation would impose sanctions on groups that undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy, including police units that have cracked down on Hong Kong protesters, as well as Chinese Communist Party officials responsible for imposing the new security law. The bill also imposes sanctions on banks that do business with entities found to violate the law.
The Senate gave final legislative approval to the measure on Thursday, a day after the House approved it. It now goes to the White House.
Ahead of the Senate vote, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said no amount of pressure from external forces could “shake China’s determination and will to safeguard national sovereignty and Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability.”
He urged the U.S. to abide by international law and stop interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs, and not sign the sanction bill into law. If President Donald Trump signs the bill, “China will definitely take strong countermeasures, and all consequences will be borne by the U.S. side,” Zhao told reporters Thursday.
The White House declined to comment, but in a television interview Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence called the new Hong Kong security law a betrayal of the international agreement China signed.
“President Trump has made it clear that we’re going to be modifying our trading relationship and the trading status with regard to Hong Kong and we’re going to continue to speak out on behalf of the people of Hong Kong and on behalf of human rights of people within China,” Pence told CNBC.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., a co-sponsor of the Senate bill, said passage of the “Hong Kong Autonomy Act” makes it clear that the United States “will not stand by as China seeks to crush freedom, human rights and democracy in Hong Kong.”
The Chinese government “is already flagrantly using their new authorities to punish and imprison those who have stood up against the recent implementation of their sweeping national security law,” Van Hollen said. “Our legislation mandates severe consequences on those who participate in this unconscionable repression.”
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., the bill’s other lead sponsor, urged Trump to sign it into law. “With our bill, the CCP will learn there are ramifications for repressing Hong Kongers’ freedom,” Toomey said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also praised the sanctions bill as “an urgently needed response to the cowardly Chinese government’s passage of its so-called national security law.”
Lawmakers from both parties have urged the Trump administration to take strong action in response to the crackdown by China against the former British territory, which was granted partial sovereignty under a treaty that took effect in 1997.


fortune--2020-07-03--His net worth grew by $25 billion in 6 months. Then this 40-year-old CEO called it quits

Colin Huang’s ascent is one for the history books: In just six months, his fortune swelled by $25 billion — one of the biggest gains among the world’s richest people.
His Pinduoduo Inc., a Groupon-like shopping app he founded in 2015, has become China’s third-largest e-commerce platform, with a market value of more than $100 billion. In the first quarter, as the coronavirus pandemic caused most of the nation’s economy to grind to a halt, PDD’s active users surged 68% and revenue jumped 44%, the company said in May.
Now Huang, who has overseen the firm as its American depositary receipts have more than quadrupled in less than two years, has stepped down as chief executive officer.
At one point, his net worth climbed as high as $45 billion, placing him just behind China’s wealthiest people — Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s Pony Ma and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Jack Ma — on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That’s even as PDD continued to post losses, primarily because it chases growth with the help of generous subsidies and has been known to spend more on marketing than it earns in sales.
“Pinduoduo was perfectly positioned for people being stuck at home,” said Tom Ronk, CEO of Century Pacific Investments in Newport, California.
Huang, who controlled 43.3% of PDD shares, has reduced his stake to 29.4%, according to a June 30 regulatory filing. His fortune now stands at $30 billion.
Colin Huang announced this week he is stepping down as chief executive officer of Pinduoduo, a kind of Facebook-Groupon mashup that’s gained users in the pandemic. Qilai Shen—Bloomberg/Getty Images
That excludes a $2.4 billion charitable holding that he shares with PDD’s founding team, and $7.9 billion that went to Pinduoduo Partnership, of which Huang and newly named CEO Lei Chen are members. The partnership will help fund science research and management incentives, according to a letter following Huang’s resignation. The wealth estimate also excludes $3.9 billion that people familiar with the matter said was transferred to an angel investor.
PDD declined to comment on Huang’s holdings or net worth.
Facing Challenges
He will remain chairman and work on the company’s long-term strategy and corporate structure to help drive the future of the e-commerce giant, PDD said.
“PDD is still facing some high-level challenges in product supply, relationship with brand merchants, logistics and payments,” said Shawn Yang, an analyst at Blue Lotus Capital Advisors. “Colin may want to focus more on these issues.”
PDD’s success hinges on deals, which have become particularly popular with customers looking for bargains as the world’s second-largest economy slows. Most of its users come from smaller Chinese cities, and the app gives them extra discounts when they recommend a product through social networks and get friends to buy the same item.
Fen Liu, a homemaker in Quanzhou, a provincial city in Fujian, said she accrued enough coupons with her friends’ help to reduce the price of a suitcase to zero.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw my suitcase arrive in the mail,” she said. “It’s made me a loyal Pinduoduo user ever since.”
‘Bargain Hunters’
While PDD’s aggressive price-reduction strategies have helped win over people with lower incomes, they may stifle the company’s efforts to attract wealthier consumers, according to Charlie Chen and Veronica Shen, analysts at China Renaissance Securities in Hong Kong.
“PDD’s users are largely bargain hunters reluctant to buy large-ticket items,” they wrote in a June 29 note, adding that the company’s image remains a key obstacle to users spending more. “We believe PDD is working to change its low-price brand image — but this could be costly.”
That may require heavy marketing and hurt margins further despite a strong user-base foundation for future growth, the analysts said. And PDD’s management has offered no clear path to profitability.
Last year, the company’s “10 Billion RMB Subsidies” campaign, which is ongoing, led to a $2 billion increase in sales and marketing expenses to $3.9 billion, and those costs have been at 90% to 120% of revenue for the past two quarters, China Renaissance said.
For the nation’s June 18 shopping festival, PDD provided a subsidy program with no cap across different product categories to push spending and attract more users. Other fast-growing Chinese startups — including rival Meituan Dianping, ride-hailing app DiDi Chuxing and Starbucks Corp. competitor Luckin Coffee Inc. — have also adopted subsidies strategies to maintain customer loyalty.
Huang, 40, grew up in the eastern city of Hangzhou, where Alibaba has its headquarters. After receiving a degree at Zhejiang University, he went to the University of Wisconsin for a master’s in computer science. He began his career at Google in 2004 as a software engineer and returned to China in 2006 to help establish its operations in the country.
He then became a serial entrepreneur. He started his first company in 2007, an e-commerce website called Ouku.com that he sold three years later after realizing it was too similar to thousands of others. He then launched Leqi, which helped companies market their services on websites like Alibaba’s Taobao or JD.com Inc., and a gaming firm that let users play on Tencent’s messaging app WeChat. Both took off and Huang found himself “financially free,” according to a 2017 interview.
After getting an ear infection, he decided to retire in 2013 at age 33. But following a year of pondering what to do with his life — he contemplated starting a hedge fund and moving to the U.S. — he came up with the idea of combining e-commerce and social media. At the time, Alibaba dominated the online business, and WeChat became a must-have application on smartphones in China.
The tables have turned since. In 2018, Alibaba launched a PDD-style app in an attempt to lure smaller-town users with bargains. It came months before Huang took his company public in New York, raising $1.63 billion in its July 2018 initial public offering. Since then, PDD has surged 389%, while Alibaba has gained just 13%.
In 2017, Huang had said he was unlikely to spend the rest of his life at PDD. While he’s still chairman of the company, he now wants to give more responsibility to younger colleagues to keep the entrepreneurial spirit as PDD matures, he wrote in a letter to employees.
“We envision Pinduoduo to be an organization that creates value for the public rather than being a showoff trophy for a few or carry too much personal color,” Huang said. “This will allow Pinduoduo to continually evolve with or without us one day.”


fortune--2020-07-03--Chicago’s 14-day quarantine order applies to travelers from these 15 states

People traveling to Chicago from 15 states with increasing numbers of confirmed cases of the coronavirus will have to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival or face possible fines, city officials announced Thursday.
To comply with the order that takes effect Monday, travelers must stay at a single home or other dwelling for 14 days except to seek medical care or be tested for COVID-19.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said on Twitter that the order is intended to “preserve the gains Chicago had made.”
The city has reported 52,569 confirmed cases and 2,611 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Both categories have trended down in recent weeks and the city has allowed many businesses to reopen, including bars and restaurants with limits on customers.
The city’s Department of Public Health Commissioner said the specific states listed are based on the rate of new confirmed cases per 100,000 residents.
As of Thursday, that means people coming from Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah will be affected.
The order also applies to city residents returning from a visit to a designated state.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last week that people from nine states hit hard by the COVID-19 virus will be required to quarantine for two weeks when they arrive in his state, Connecticut and New Jersey.
Cuomo’s announcement came as Florida’s new confirmed coronavirus cases skyrocketed by 5,500, which was a 25% jump from its previous one-day record and triple the level of just two weeks prior.
It wasn’t immediately clear how Chicago officials will enforce that state’s order.
According to a website explaining the change, people could face fines of between $100 and $500 per day, totaling up to $7,000.


fortune--2020-07-02--FedEx ramps up pressure on NFL’s Washington Redskins to finally change team name

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The National Football League’s Washington Redskins are facing renewed pressure over their racist team name. And this time, it’s coming from Wall Street.
On Friday, FedEx—the delivery and freight giant that has sponsored the NFL franchise’s home field for more than 20 years—said that it has “communicated to the team in Washington our request that they change the team name,” according to a statement obtained by ESPN.
The move comes after FedEx, as well as fellow team sponsors Nike and PepsiCo, received letters from shareholders demanding they cut ties with the organization unless it changes its name, Adweek reported Thursday. The three companies are said to have each heard from nearly 90 different investment firms and shareholders worth a combined $620 billion, who are calling on them to end their relationship with the team so long as it is nicknamed after a Native American racial pejorative.
The Redskins organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
FedEx has owned the naming rights to the franchise’s Landover, Md., stadium since 1998, under a $205 million deal that runs through 2025, according to ESPN. FedEx founder, chairman, and CEO Frederick Smith also owns a minority stake in the team.
The reignited controversy is the latest chapter in a decades-long saga over the Redskins name, which has been used since 1933 and is again in the spotlight in the wake of social justice protests following the killing of George Floyd. For years, team owner Daniel Snyder has been steadfast in his refusal to budge on the matter, once telling USA Today: “We’ll never change the name. It’s that simple. NEVER—you can use caps.”
Yet in a cultural moment that has seen statues of racist American luminaries taken down and the state of Mississippi finally remove Confederate imagery from its flag, it’s clear that tolerance for the archaic views and symbols still featured in American society is hitting an all-time low. Corporate America has proven no exception, as PepsiCo has witnessed firsthand; the company’s Quaker Oats subsidiary announced last month that it would be renaming and changing the logo of its Aunt Jemima breakfast brand.
Washington’s NFL team has budged to the pressure somewhat, having removed the name of founder George Preston Marshall from the “Ring of Fame” at its stadium, FedEx Field. Marshall was a vocal segregationist and under his ownership, the franchise was the last NFL team to integrate Black players into their roster, in 1962.
But not even multiple, high-profile court cases in which opponents sought to cancel the franchise’s trademarks—arguing that they violated federal laws prohibiting the trademarking of “disparaging” terms and symbols—have been able to divorce the team from its racist nickname and logo.
This time, however, things feel “different,” as one former team employee told ESPN this week. The intolerance for racist symbols and signifiers has even forced NASCAR—as culturally tied to the southern United States as any professional sports enterprise—to ban Confederate flags from its tracks.
More importantly, the current backlash threatens Snyder and his franchise where it hurts the most: their bottom line. Time and again, Snyder has proven himself one of the more profit-driven owners in league awash with them; he once infamously charged fans for parking and admission to the team’s preseason training camp, one in a series of price-gouging tactics that have characterized his more than two decades at the organization’s helm.
Snyder’s steadfastness on the matter is already costing him a chance to return the team to Washington, D.C., where he hopes to build a new state-of-the-art stadium on the site of its former RFK Stadium. That site is located on federally-owned land, and government officials reiterated this week that there is “no viable path” for Washington’s NFL team to return to the city without changing its name first.
Yet it’s unlikely any argument will be as convincing to Snyder and his organization as the one now being made by FedEx—and potentially other sponsors facing pressure from their own investors. If corporate America really is beholden to the interests of its shareholders above all else, then it may well be capitalism that ends up accomplishing what no socially-driven interest group could: succeed in getting the Redskins to give up that old, racist nickname.


fortune--2020-07-03--Hong Kongers are suddenly the world’s most sought-after emigrants

How your July 4th plans could affect the economy , according to Wall Street analysts

On Friday, one of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy activists announced that he had fled the city two days after Beijing implemented a new national security law in Hong Kong.
“No Hong Konger is under the illusion that Beijing has any intention to respect our basic rights and honor its promises to us,” tweeted Nathan Law, who has been a leading figure in pro-democracy activism since playing a major role in Hong Kong’s 2014 umbrella movement. “So I bade my city farewell.”
Law, who departed for a still-undisclosed location, was perhaps Hong Kong’s first public emigrant of the security law era. Others may follow him.
Beijing’s new sweeping national security law in Hong Kong aims to arrest and prosecute those accused of jeopardizing China’s national security via subversion, secession, terrorism, or collusion with foreign forces. Critics see it as undercutting Hong Kong’s promised autonomy, squelching anti-Beijing protests, and snuffing out the free, civil society that’s set Hong Kong apart from its mainland peers.
Since Beijing introduced the law in May, thousands of Hong Kongers have applied for foreign immigration documents; immigration consultants in Hong Kong report that caseloads have doubled since the legislation’s proposal.
A man looks across the harbor towards the Hong Kong island skyline in 2019. Hong Kong residents considering leaving the city could have ample options for resettlement as nations vie to welcome them. DALE DE LA REY/AFP via Getty Images
Hong Kong is especially ripe for a mass exodus given its sizable population of dual passport holders. In the city of 7.5 million, for instance, 90% of the city’s 300,000 Canadian passport holders are estimated to also hold dual Hong Kong and Canadian passports.
As some Hong Kongers consider leaving, a growing number of countries are preparing to receive them. Since the law’s introduction, at least five nations have taken steps to welcome individuals and families departing Hong Kong. Nearly all the measures are framed as acts of goodwill, but most of the countries coming forward are also at odds with China’s central government. Offering refuge may benefit Hong Kongers, but it’s also another means of dealing a blow to Beijing.
Here’s where the five measures stand:
U.K.
Hong Kong’s former colonizer is the furthest along in offering a route for Hong Kong citizens to permanently emigrate from the city.
On Wednesday, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his government will move forward with plans to give up to 3 million Hong Kong citizens a chance to gain British citizenship. The U.K. government has said further details of the law will be provided “in due course.”
The policy will be focused on Hong Kong’s British National Overseas (BNO) population. BNOs are Hong Kong residents who applied for the status before the 1997 handover, and previously had the right to go to the U.K. for six months without visas. Now, the U.K. government says BNOs will be able to live and work in the U.K. for five years and then have the chance to apply for full citizenship.
Currently, there are 350,000 active holders of BNO passports in Hong Kong, and roughly 2.5 million others in Hong Kong are eligible
For its part, China argues that the change in U.K. policy undermines international law and has vowed retribution.
“The British side made an explicit commitment that it will not confer the right of abode to Chinese citizens in Hong Kong who hold BNO travel documents,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, said on Thursday. “China strongly condemns this and reserves the right of further reactions, the consequences of which shall be borne by the British side.”
U.S.
Hours after the national security law went into effect on Wednesday, a group of bipartisan legislators introduced the Hong Kong Safe Harbor Act, which would force the U.S. state department to give refugee status to Hong Kong residents that had participated in the protests and feared government reprisal.
In a separate bill introduced on Tuesday, U.S. legislators pushed to expedite admission and permanent residency processes for highly-skilled Hong Kongers, a population that includes business owners, holders of advanced degrees, and people who had previously studied in the U.S.
Hong Kongers looking to flee to the U.S., however, may face some delays. Neither of the bills have been passed into law, and the U.S. government has largely put a stop to immigration pathways for the remainder of 2020 due to COVID-19.
Taiwan
On Wednesday, the Taiwanese government set up an office in its capital Taipei that is specifically geared to helping Hong Kong residents migrate to Taiwan. At the office’s Wednesday opening ceremony, Taiwanese officials said they hope to use the office to aid asylum seekers fleeing from persecution in Hong Kong as well as help attract capital and highly-skilled professionals to Taiwan.
“Many things have changed in [Hong Kong] since 1997,” Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said on Twitter on June 30. “But [Taiwan’s] commitment to supporting [Hong Kongers] who want freedom and democracy has never changed.”
At the ceremony, officials declined to comment on how many asylum cases they have received thus far.
A spokesperson for China’s government has called Taiwan’s actions to provide safe harbor for Hong Kongers as an attempt to “sabotage the prosperity and stability” of Hong Kong and warned that “harboring Hong Kong rioters will only bring problems to Taiwan people.”
Australia
At a press conference on Thursday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his government was considering offering a “safe haven” to Hong Kong residents fleeing the city. He said the government was considering options similar the U.K.’s offer to provide long-term residency to Hong Kongers and pathways to citizenship.
Morrison’s government hasn’t made a final decision on the policy, but he said on Thursday, “Are we prepared to step up and provide support [to Hong Kongers]? The answer is: Yes.”
In response, China’s spokesperson Zhao warned Australia to “stop interfering in China’s internal affairs with Hong Kong” and should “refrain from going further down the wrong path.”
Japan
Japan’s efforts to help Hong Kongers are squarely focused on the city’s financial professionals. In early June, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stressed the need for Japan to attract more financial talent to boost its own economy, and suggested that the government would seek to attract finance employees and other specialized professionals from Hong Kong amid Beijing’s imposition of the national security law.
On Thursday, Abe’s government started to weigh policies that would provide tax breaks and shortcuts to permanent residency status for Hong Kong’s financial professionals.
A history of mass migration
The prospect of mass migration from Hong Kong recalls the city’s pre-handover years. The U.K. and China agreed in 1985 to the 1997 handover that returned Hong Kong to Chinese rule. The years in between saw an exodus of residents from Hong Kong. An estimated 250,000 to 1 million Hong Kongers left the city between 1988 and 1994, averaging 55,000 departures per year, according to the Encylopedia of Immigrant Health. (In the early 1980s, the city averaged 20,000 emigration cases annually.)
In the lead up to the handover, many Hong Kong residents feared that Beijing wouldn’t keep its promises and would crack down on the city’s freedoms and institutions. Some Hong Kongers who left before the handover returned later on, when they saw that Hong Kong largely had retained its autonomy.
The number of Hong Kong emigrants fell in years after the handover to 6,000 to 7,000 during the 2010s, yet Beijing’s new law may spur another outward movement.


fortune--2020-07-03--How your July 4th plans could affect the economy, according to Wall Street analysts

What to watch this July Fourth weekend on Disney+ , Netflix , and more

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Who cares if you don’t wear a mask to your barbecue for Fourth of July weekend? Well, Goldman Sachs does.
Heading into the holiday weekend, cases of the coronavirus are spiking in key states like Texas, Florida, California, and Arizona, which have also begun putting restrictions back in place, including on restaurants, bars, beaches, and more.
While many states don’t require wearing masks to be worn all the time, economists at Goldman Sachs wrote in a note Monday that creating a national mandate to wear masks could help prevent 5% of GDP from being lopped off, which could be the result if shutdowns were put reinstitute across the country.
Whether or not your state requires you to wear a mask at all times right now, the firm says its research suggests making it mandatory to wear face masks “could raise the percentage of people who wear masks by 15 [percentage points] and cut the daily growth rate of confirmed cases by 1.0 [percentage point] to 0.6%,” economists led by Jan Hatzius, Goldman’s top economist, wrote. Plus, the group notes the mandate “could increase U.S. face mask usage by statistically significant and economically large amounts, especially in states such as Florida and Texas that currently don’t have a comprehensive mandate and are seeing some of the worst outbreaks.” That, in turn, could translate to lowering the “daily growth rate in the group of states without a mandate from 2.9% to just over 1%,” the firm wrote.
Beyond masks, where you eat over the weekend may also have an impact on spending trends and the spread of the virus, another Wall Street firm notes.
JPMorgan analyst Jesse Edgerton recently wrote in a report there appears to be a connection between a surge in spending inside restaurants and a surge in coronavirus cases three weeks after. In a report last week, Edgerton wrote that the “level of spending in restaurants three weeks ago was the strongest predictor of the rise in new virus cases over the subsequent three weeks,” with dining-in (versus buying food online) proving “particularly predictive” to a later spread of the virus (although he noted there were other factors at play apart from restaurant spending in states seeing spikes).
Since then, however, the firm also wrote in a separate note Wednesday that there’s been a notable pullback in spending from recent highs, based on data from 30 million Chase credit and debit card users through June 27. Of note: the slowdown was more pronounced in Texas, where cases have spiked, although Edgerton points out that the pullback is “surprisingly widespread,” and that “states like Arizona, Florida, and South Carolina are closer to the middle of the pack in their change in spending, even though they have also seen virus cases rising rapidly.”
The two reports suggest something of a Catch-22: More spending inside restaurants may contribute to a faster spread of the virus, but a pullback in spending (even in the absence of reimposed restrictions) may hamper the rebound of consumer spending, which has been on the rise again (having bounced up 8.2% in May).
For some Americans, at least, the spread of the virus may be putting a dampener on weekend plans: A Fourth of July report by Bank of America found that of the “43% of survey respondents not planning on attending/hosting a barbecue/cookout this upcoming Fourth of July, 71% cited their worries concerning the spread of COVID-19.”
That, the firm notes, might indicate a “potential consumer backslide” owing to spiking viruses cases.


fortune--2020-07-03--What to watch this July Fourth weekend on Disney+, Netflix, and more

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Between traditional television, video-on-demand releases, and a growing number of streaming services, it can be hard to keep up with what one should watch week to week. Fortune is here to help you keep track of new releases as well as the occasional older title worth checking out. Take a look at the long weekend’s notable arrivals, a couple you may have missed earlier in the week, and what else is coming soon:
Disney+
The filmed version of “Hamilton” comes to Disney+ on July 3. Disney+
Hamilton: The hit musical about Founding Father Alexander Hamilton arrives on Disney+ July 3, forgoing the theatrical release originally planned for 2021. (Note: Disney+ recently shut down its free trial, so you will need to be a paid subscriber to watch.)
Netflix
“The Baby-Sitters Club,” based on the bestselling book series, follows the friendship and adventures of middle-schoolers who start a babysitting business. Kailey Schweren—Netflix
The Baby-Sitters Club: The newest adaptation of the popular book series by Ann M. Martin arrives on the streamer July 3. The first season draws inspiration from the early books, and the series “actually allows the girls to have personalities,” according to this EW review.
Cable Girls: The second part of this Spanish period drama’s final season arrives on Netflix July 3.
JU-ON: Origins: The long-running Japanese horror franchise, known as The Grudge in American adaptations, will now be a series on Netflix, available July 3—and it’s probably not one for the faint of heart.
Desperados: This new Netflix movie, arriving July 3, is almost something of a mini New Girl reunion thanks to actors Nasim Pedrad and Lamorne Morris. A summary? A young woman (Pedrad) and her best friends (Anna Camp and Sarah Burns) fly to Mexico, while on a mission to delete an angry email she sent to her new boyfriend. When they arrive, they run into her ex (Morris), who also gets caught up in the whole affair.
Earlier this week, George Lopez’s special We’ll Do It for Half arrived on the streaming service.
Amazon Prime Video
From left: Yasmin Monet Prince as Clara, Esmé Creed-Miles as Hanna, Áine Rose Daly as Sandy, and Gianna Kiehl as Jules in “Hanna” season two on Amazon Prime Video. Christopher Raphael—Amazon Prime Video
Hanna: The second season of the series, based on the 2011 action thriller film of the same name, arrives on Amazon on July 3.
On TV
PBS will air A Capitol Fourth at 8 p.m. ET on July 4. The show, hosted by John Stamos and Vanessa Williams, will feature pre-taped concert performances by artists including Patti LaBelle, John Fogerty, the Temptations, and more, alongside fireworks from Washington, D.C. The program will also be available to listen to on NPR member stations throughout the country, will stream on Facebook, YouTube, and the PBS website, and can be watched on-demand through July 18.
Outcry, a five-part documentary series that examines the case of Texas high school football star Greg Kelley—who was exonerated in a child sexual assault case—premieres July 5 on Showtime at 10 p.m. ET.
Earlier this week, documentary Welcome to Chechnya debuted on HBO.
On VOD
John Lewis in “John Lewis: Good Trouble” a documentary that chronicles the life and career of the legendary civil rights activist and Democratic representative from Georgia. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
The Outpost: This adaptation of Jake Tapper’s book about U.S. soldiers who battled a Taliban attack will be released in select theaters and on VOD July 3. The film stars Orlando Bloom, Scott Eastwood, and Caleb Landry Jones.
John Lewis: Good Trouble: The civil rights icon and congressman is at the center of this documentary, available on demand July 3, at a time that “couldn’t be any more ideal,” as Variety says.
Coming soon
Walter Mercado—the iconic, gender-nonconforming astrologer—is the subject of Netflix’s “Mucho Mucho Amor: the Legend of Walter Mercado.” Netflix
Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado focuses on the famed astrologer, what he meant to Latin American immigrants, and why he stepped away from the public eye. It comes to Netflix on July 8.
Close Enough, an adult animated series from JG Quintel (Regular Show), arrives on HBO Max on July 9.


fortune--2020-07-03--If you barbecue on July 4th, you’re building on a Black American legacy

Dearly beloved, we are gathered in this moment to celebrate the culinary union of barbecue (a.k.a. barbeque, bar-b-que, bar-b-q, and BBQ) and Independence Day (a.k.a. July 4 or “the Fourth of July”). This moment is a culmination of the Founding Fathers’ need for the right to party.
Early in our republic, Independence Day was often the biggest community festival of the year. Barbecue, which had developed as a fusion cuisine by the late 1600s, became the ultimate party food during the later period when Fourth of July celebrations gained civic and social momentum. The two have been linked up ever since.
Barbecue, of course, was a thing long before the British colonists ever thought about declaring independence from their sovereign. I’m not talking about hamburgers on a kettle grill. I’m talking about “old school” barbecue, where a whole animal carcass was skewered with wooden poles and cooked over a trench filled with burning coals from hardwood trees. Pre-20th century, African Americans typically did the labor-intensive cooking. They used the piercing poles to flip the carcasses periodically and seasoned the meat by basting it with a sauce primarily made of vinegar and red pepper. Cows, pigs, sheep, and even opossum were the most common.
A barbecue in the antebellum South, from a sketch by Horace Bradley. Corbis/Getty Images
In the South, the ideal setting for a barbecue was a rural open space with beautiful trees and a spring nearby. In between plates of food, people would play games, get their drink on, and shoot guns. By the late 1700s, barbecue was already a cooking process (verb), a descriptor for a kind of cooked meat (adjective), and a form of entertainment (noun).
Barbecue’s backstory is rooted in the culinary traditions of indigenous people. Historian Joseph Haynes has shown that British settlers in the Virginia colony melded their meat-cooking techniques with the meat-smoking techniques of the Powhatans. Barbecue, as we understand it today, was born.
An engraving by de Bry based on a watercolor by the French artist Jacques Le Moynes. Bettmann/Getty Images
In the Northern colonies, British cooks didn’t quickly embrace the barbecue their counterparts developed in Virginia. Northern cooks often stuck to what they knew: the “ox roast.” This festive tradition in England dates to the Middle Ages. With this method, the oxen carcass was pierced with a metal rod and cooked evenly before a fire, with a team of cooks slowly rotating the spit from each side.
An ox is roasted at the Mop Fair in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis via Getty Images
Though some July 4th celebrations featured an ox roast, southern-style barbecue gradually became the favorite meal. Independence Day celebrations shared common elements: a military procession, a reading of the Declaration of Independence, speeches by local politicians, toasts to local and federal dignitaries, music, fireworks, and a free meal for the masses—usually barbecue.
Crowds at a public barbecue in Dalhart, Texas, August 1947. Fox Photos/Getty Images
These events were usually hosted by prominent white men who covered all of the costs. These men secured the land where the event was held, procured the meat, and hired the workers. In many cases, though, enslaved African Americans did the work of clearing the land, preparing the food and serving it to guests. Typically, whites ate first, and the African Americans present ate afterward.
For some whites, what distinguished a barbecue from a bunch of adequately cooked meat seemed to be the involvement of African Americans. In 1919, John Bell Keeble, while serving as dean of Vanderbilt Law School, told a national convention of architects in Nashville: “Some things have always been typical of a Tennessee welcome….A barbecue was one of them. I do not know whether altogether we have lost the art or not. So many of the old negro barbecue cooks are dead that a barbecue is a rather difficult matter to bring up to the old-fashioned standard.”
The segregated crowds at an annual barbecue given on the plantation of F.M. Gay in Alabama, in the 1930s. Library of Congress/Interim Archives/Getty Images
After the Civil War, Southern whites who supported the Confederacy harbored sore feelings about being on the losing side. Independence Day celebrations in the South dropped off because they reminded white rebels of their defeat. But African Americans in the region continued to celebrate Independence Day with barbecue and fried chicken. In 1901, the Atlanta Constitution newspaper reported that the Fourth of July “is here, as in most places in the south, given over to the negroes, who celebrate [it] in truly royal fashion.”
Chicken and pork cooking on the grill during a Florida barbecue. Lynn Pelham—The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images
By the 1920s, Southern whites were back to hosting civic celebrations of Independence Day. But the traditional gargantuan Independence Day festivities downsized in the 20th century in two ways. First, due to higher meat prices and having to pay actual wages for labor, communities shifted to smaller events—and they started charging people to attend in order to recoup their costs. Second, the trench method fell out of fashion as cooks shifted to using brick-lined pits and cooking smaller cuts of meat. By the 1920s, more people were eating barbecue in restaurants or building barbecue pits in their back yards, paving the way for the kettle grills that would explode in popularity during the 1950s.
There’s a lot more to the story of barbecue, much of it hotly contested: African methods of cooking meat outdoors and whether they did or didn’t influence American cooks; the various types of sauce; regional differences in the American South, and more. Thanks to technological innovation, barbecue can now happen almost anywhere, and cooks feel free to throw anything on the grill. My own Fourth of July plate is usually piled high with pork spareribs, hot link sausages, chicken, baked beans, coleslaw, an ear of grilled corn, potato salad, and a nice, ripe wedge of watermelon for dessert.
The spread at a 1950s cookout L. Fritz—ClassicStock/Getty Images
For me, it’s about celebrating with friends and family—and reflecting on what it means to “celebrate” a nation that still falls short of its promise. Perhaps having diverse people enjoying barbecue together in its glorious forms, even kosher and “vegan,” can be a first step to a more perfect union. When it comes to barbecue and the Fourth of July, what pitmasters and politicians have beautifully joined together, let no one pull asunder!
Adrian Miller is a James Beard Award-winning food writer who lives in Denver, Colorado. He is the author of The President’s Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, From the Washingtons to the Obamas.
This was written for Zócalo Public Square.


fortune--2020-07-03--Silicon Valley companies are rethinking in-office perks for a post-pandemic era

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Silicon Valley companies pioneered and popularized the “fun” office. From catered meals to on-site acupuncture to “whiskey Fridays,” tech players lured employees—not just to come and work for them but to log long hours (why leave when there’s a free juice bar just a few feet away from your desk?). Now, as the pandemic has forced these same companies to work from home and rethink their in-office culture, some will have to rethink their perks strategy as well. And that might have all sorts of repercussions, good or bad.
“The [new] perks can be more inclusive and easily used by any employee regardless of work location—whether in the same building, a different company office, or working remotely,” says Sara Sutton, the founder and CEO of FlexJobs, a marketplace for remote talent. “This can also help create a more cohesive and consistent culture.”
Some in the industry say that there was already a slow shift away from in-office perks and toward other types of benefits—the kind that are also attractive to those who work remotely or whose lifestyles don’t enable them to stay in the office until 10 p.m. The pandemic, they say, is just accelerating the necessary shift in thinking.
“It was kind of like an arms race where everyone finally got to an end point,” Laszlo Bock, Google’s former head of human resources, says about the competition among tech companies to offer cushier and cushier in-office amenities.
Bock now runs Humu, a startup that uses machine learning to help organizations transform (think A.I.-powered “nudges” that show up as reminders or acclamations in employees’ Slack messages and across other communication channels). But he was instrumental in creating the culture—and perks—at Google. And the longtime tech exec says that, almost from the get-go, many outsiders got it all wrong.
“People confused correlation with causation,” says Bock. “Everyone said, well, if Google is doing this, I want to do it too. And they all designed microkitchens.”
Bock argues that Google’s in-office perks weren’t designed to keep people trapped at the Googleplex. “It was about creating moments of serendipity,” says Bock. The real goal? Not just to offer free gourmet meals but to give employees plenty of opportunities to organically connect and brainstorm new products and features. “Google News famously grew out of two engineers talking in line.”
While a move away from an in-office culture makes it much harder to create those serendipitous moments of creativity, some CEOs are already reframing their physical locations as a place designed only for brainstorming and teamwork, not individual work.
“We’ve already plowed into our real estate assumptions,” Ginni Rometty, the former CEO and current executive chairman of IBM, told the audience at a recent Fortune virtual event. “What we envision is the office becoming an innovation hub. You’ll come in for a purpose.”
Those rethought real estate assumptions translate to plenty of cost-cutting opportunities for companies. But organizations who are doing away with some or all of their office space also need to think about what benefits will be important to a remote workforce. That’s especially true when workers have been accustomed to a certain level of perks in the office. And it’s even more vital for companies who are turning to a hybrid workforce—you can’t offer free yoga classes for in-office workers and nothing for those working remotely.
What’s more, even those returning to offices likely won’t be able to enjoy all of the perks once offered by their employers. For the foreseeable future, new health and safety rules will likely nix some of the more, um, hands-on benefits.
“Snacks that you have to stick your hands in to get is not gonna happen,” says Robby Kwok, senior vice president of people at collaboration service Slack.
Kwok says that Slack has always focused its perks and benefits on the well-being of employees and their families, not on swanky office amenities. “What matters to people is pay, health, and flexibility,” says Kwok. “I hope to see more companies focus on those things.”
That said, Slack is rethinking some of its benefits in light of the pandemic and expectations that more and more people will opt to work from home even after the crisis subsides. “We are going to be a company that’s more distributed going forward,” says Kwok. “The culture of how we work together has to change.”
Slack is already offering childcare credits to employees with young children and offering caregivers unlimited days off. But the company is also rethinking simple things like what meetings can and should look like in the future. In the past, it was common to have a meeting where eight people were physically in the room and two were dialed in from a remote location, says Kwok. Now, Slack is considering making it mandatory for everyone to dial in from their desk, whether they are in the office or at home. The thinking? It will make it easier for everyone to speak up, putting less pressure and onus on those who opt to work out of the office.
To be sure, going remote has been a massive, forced experiment, and most companies—even the most forward-thinking tech players—were wholly unprepared for it. But now, as reopening plans start to come to fruition, tech companies have an opportunity to rethink perks and benefits in a much more impactful and inclusive way. Hopefully, they will seize that opening and, just as in the past, other sectors will follow in their footsteps.


fortune--2020-07-03--Iconic department store Harrods opens its first outlet store—and lays off hundreds of staff

Harrods opened its first outlet store Friday only days after announcing hundreds of job cuts—moves that the London luxury emporium’s managing director said are necessary to adapt to the realities of a post-lockdown retail landscape.
“I don’t think people understand how painful the last 90 days has been,” Michael Ward said in an interview while walking through the new site in the U.K. capital’s Westfield shopping mall.
During the shutdowns aimed at containing the coronavirus, unsold goods piled up at Harrods’s million-square-foot flagship store in London’s Knightsbridge district. That site has reopened, but with safety restrictions and reduced hours that limit customer traffic.
Now, shoppers can hunt for bargains in 80,000 square feet of space set over two floors at the mall in West London. Ward said Harrods snapped up the store as soon as its previous tenant, Debenhams Plc, went into administration, a form of insolvency in Britain. Within five weeks it created the outlet, which is manned by 80 employees and selling an edited version of the brands available at the original site.
“Our normal sale in the Knightsbridge store takes us four weeks to clear and that is with 80,000 people going through the store each day,” Ward said. “We are currently limited to 4,500 at any one point in time. It was going to take us months.”
The opening of the outlet comes in the same week Harrods announced that 600 to 700 of its 4,800 employees would lose their jobs.
‘New Norm’
“We have to position ourselves for the 4,200 people who will remain in the business,” he said. “There is a reality that has to come into all of this. We are in a new norm and we have to adapt very quickly.”
Harrods is just one of a host of British companies shedding jobs as fears about the economy’s resilience grow. Retailers have been hit particularly hard, faced with enforced store closures and high fixed costs, including rent. A shift to more online shopping during lockdowns could have lasting effects for physical stores.
Harrods generates most of its revenue from the Knightsbridge site, with its airport outlets and online division a growing but still relatively small part of its business. Ward, who has run Harrods for 15 years, said luxury shoppers will “always want a bricks-and-mortar experience,” but business may not be back to normal until 2022.


fortune--2020-07-03--Has Facebook’s largest shareholder and CEO become its greatest liability?

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Much of the country got its first impression of Mark Zuckerberg through Jesse Eisenberg’s unlikable portrayal of the Facebook founder in the 2010 biographical film The Social Network. With that kind of pop-cultural image, Zuckerberg was never going to have the generally warm reception of, say, Warren Buffet.
But since then, his public image has worsened. Zuckerberg’s net favorability is underwater at -14, finds a Fortune-SurveyMonkey poll of 1,276 U.S. adults between June 25 and 26.
Zuckerberg is the only Big Tech CEO with an underwater net favorability. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has a +29 net favorability despite his routinely facing media scrutiny as well. And the highest big tech favorability scores went to Apple CEO Tim Cook (+41) and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (+41).
This image problem follows years of controversy surrounding Zuckerberg’s inability to keep foreign-bought political ads from Facebook’s platform during the last U.S. election or moderate hate speech and misleading posts on the site. And because of the latter, he’s currently staring down a growing Facebook advertising boycott.
And the U.S. public is split on his company, with 49% viewing it favorably and 49% viewing it unfavorably. That’s subpar for Facebook, especially considering the average U.S. adult spends 37 minutes of their day on the platform. Meanwhile, more than 7 in 10 U.S. adults have a favorable view of Amazon (85%), Alphabet (76%), Microsoft (75%), and Apple (72%).
The CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook have agreed to appear in a House antitrust hearing later this month as even some Republicans are joining Senator Elizabeth Warren in calls for the federal government to break tech giants up. And this summer the Justice Department is expected to bring an antitrust lawsuit against Google for its digital and search dominance.
But the greatest weapon that Amazon, Alphabet/Google, Microsoft and Apple might have in fighting off a government crackdown is the public’s adoration and enthusiasm for their products. That’s something Facebook won’t be able to lean on as much, in the scenario that Congress or the Justice Department comes after the Menlo Park social media giant.
*Methodology: The Fortune-SurveyMonkey poll was conducted among a national sample of 1,276 adults in the U.S. between June 25-26. This survey’s modeled error estimate is plus or minus 4 percentage points. The findings have been weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography.


fortune--2020-07-03--To fight the coronavirus budget crisis, act like Alexander Hamilton

Some U.S. states are facing disproportionate financial challenges due to the pandemic. Plunging tax revenue, unemployment, and rising healthcare expenses, coupled with high levels of existing state debt have driven some states into acute financial distress – threatening the nation’s unity.
This is not the first time the U.S. has confronted a common, disparately borne struggle. In 1790, Alexander Hamilton spurred the federal government to take over the debt accumulated by states in the fight for independence. It was the “price of liberty.” The agreement caused controversy, particularly among the states asked to contribute more. In the event, unity prevailed, and the nation strengthened.
Today, a similar act of solidarity is needed. To be clear, we are not suggesting indebted states be bailed out, but they should not be made to pay for their pandemic-induced financial strain. Instead, the incrementalcosts states incur during recovery should be considered the “price of unity” and shared at a national level, as they were over 200 years ago.
Investors, however, seem pessimistic about U.S. unity. In fact, judging by financial market indicators, they have already chosen which states are likely to come out on top post-crisis (the likes of Texas and Florida), and which will pay most dearly (California, Connecticut, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York). This divisive verdict does not foster “a more perfect union,” which the US needs today to maintain its status as the world’s most powerful economy.
What are the markets saying?
We know which U.S. states investors are most wary of; we can see the evidence in the current, volatile prices of state-specific default insurance that we examine in our research. The trajectory of these prices, as calculated based on data from IHS Markit, predicts that, over the next five years, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut have a 1-in-10 chance of defaulting on their debt, and Illinois a whopping 1-in-4. These numbers are in stark contrast to the 1-in-60 risk of default recorded for Florida and Texas over the same horizon.
This is surprising. While Illinois’ protracted financial woes and pension obligations are not new, investors’ negative perception of the other five states is. In January 2020, the cost of insuring against the default of California, New York, Florida, or Texas was roughly equal. Today, default insurance for California and New York costs around four times that for Florida or Texas.
What explains the market reaction?
There are three reasons for such a large disparity in default perceptions across states.
First, some states have higher COVID-19 infection rates, which certainly strain a state’s finances. But, infection rates do not tell the whole story; Florida has the largest share of at-risk population, and its per capita infection rates are roughly equal to California’s, while its default risk has hardly budged since January.
Second, all six states with the largest spikes in default risk have high debt levels and overextended budgets. In short, as we have seen with the EU, the markets believe that only the fiscally strongest states avoid default. Yet, unlike the members of the EU, each state is not a separate entity, but an integral part of the United States (whose default probability has remained low, despite unprecedented debt levels).
Last, these six states are predominantly Democratic. While Democratic-favored policies, such as subsidized healthcare, certainly left these states with less fallback finances, Republican implications that they be left to go bankrupt after suffering a shock beyond their control seems irresponsible.
Why does debt matter?
The sting of negative market perception is felt as tax bases shrink, rainy day funds of even well-managed states run dry, and state governments are forced to turn to financial markets to borrow additional funds to meet their budget commitments.
States perceived more likely to default will pay higher interest rates on their debt, making their recovery more arduous. Raising additional debt is more difficult and expensive, as Illinois recently discovered when it committed to paying a punitive 5.85% interest on its $800 million of new debt. Had Illinois issued the same debt before the pandemic, they would have paid half as much.
Although some may experience schadenfreude in seeing a “poorly-run” state forced to tighten its belt, it seems unjust not to aid a struggling state amid a global economic and health crisis.
Where is the unity?
Unfortunately, withholding support seems to be exactly what some leaders favor. Senator Rick Scott (R, Fla.), in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, asserts that states should not be rewarded for their “poor choices”. This solution is particularly unfair to strapped cities on those states. Detroit, for example, despite having recently emerged from near-crippling municipal bankruptcy, is being bowled over again by the financial consequences of the pandemic; its recovery will almost certainly require state government aid. With no compromise in sight for easing the economic burden of the most indebted states, residents of cities like Detroit face steeper taxes, reduced efficacy of municipal services, and risk having to choose between pensions and medical coverage.
Although the $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill recently passed by the House ($1 trillion of which will be reserved for state and local governments) is a step in the right direction, President Trump’s veto threat suggests that the U.S. may not be quite ready to set aside their party politics. Unfortunately, such comments will only serve to deepen market concerns, making it more difficult for the overburdened states to finance themselves.
What the U.S. needs now are the same actions it took over two centuries ago: compromise and unity. Indeed, now is not the time for them to practice political distancing – at least not in the room where it happens.
Patrick Augustin is an associate professor of finance in the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University.
Valeri Sokolovski is an assistant professor of finance at HEC Montreal.
Marti G. Subrahmanyam is the Charles E. Merrill Professor of Finance, Economics, and International Business in the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Davide Tomio is an assistant professor of business administration in the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.


fortune--2020-07-03--India’s Reliance Industries launches Zoom competitor

Zoom, one of the few success stories of the Covid-19 pandemic, now faces a new competitor in an app backed by Asia’s wealthiest person Mukesh Ambani.
Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd., which has scored billions of dollars of investments from Facebook Inc. to Intel Corp. for its digital businesses, has launched the JioMeet video conferencing app after beta testing. The app has already garnered more than 100,000 downloads on the Google Play Store after becoming available Thursday evening.
Like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and other services, JioMeet offers unlimited high-definition calls—but unlike Zoom, it doesn’t impose a 40-minute time limit. Calls can go on as long as 24 hours, and all meetings are encrypted and password-protected, the company said on the JioMeet website.
The launch coincided with a nationwide ban on dozens of popular apps from Chinese technology giants including ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s UC Web, on grounds they threatened security and data privacy. JioMeet went viral Friday on social media alongside the hashtag #MadeinIndia.
The app is one facet of Ambani’s rapidly expanding digital empire, which includes India’s largest telecom operator with nearly 400 million users. On Friday, Reliance announced Intel Capital has invested $253 million into Jio Platforms Ltd., a unit of Ambani’s oil-to-retail conglomerate. The U.S. chipmaker’s arm is the 11th investor in about as many weeks to announce its backing for the digital services platform, which has now raised about 1.2 trillion rupees ($15.7 billion).
“JioMeet will be a very credible disruptor in the space,” said Utkarsh Sinha, managing director of boutique consultancy Bexley Advisors. “Just the fact that it has no time limits on calls makes it a serious challenger to Zoom, despite its entrenchment.”
Jio Platforms is amassing a wide range of services from music streaming to online retail and payments, fast turning into an ecommerce juggernaut that can take on Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Amazon.com Inc on its own home turf. Like elsewhere, video conferencing apps have become lifelines for millions of Indians working in cramped homes during Covid-19 lockdowns.
JioMeet is also debuting at a time Zoom users have accused the service of security flaws. It’s been accused of siding with China after deactivating accounts of pro-democracy activists in the U.S and Hong Kong, which it said was intended to comply with Chinese law.
–With assistance from P R Sanjai.