fortune--2020-04-17--Is a $1,200 stimulus check enough? For many, it’s ‘chump change in the long run’

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Melanie Hayes and tens of millions of other Americans are asking the same question as stimulus checks begin to arrive: How do I prioritize spending a one-time relief payment that won’t be enough?
Hayes and her family will receive $3,400—$1,200 apiece for herself and husband, Matt, and $500 for each of their two children. The plan was to use it to cover two months of mortgage payments on their house in Chesapeake, Virginia, where they own the Cutting Edge Cafe.
“And that’s probably what we’re going to do,” Hayes, 33, said. “But then in the middle of all of this, Matt’s car finally died on us.”
The cafe is still in business, filling take-out and delivery orders, but sales are down by at least 50%, Hayes said. Would the $3,400 be better applied there? Another tough question.
“I’m grateful for any sort of help we’re getting,” she said, “but it’s not going to go far for us.”
The Internal Revenue Service processed more than 80 million stimulus payments on April 10 in a centerpiece of a $2.2 trillion effort to shore up the battered U.S. economy. Americans earning $75,000 or less, or $150,000 and below as a couple, are eligible for the full $1,200 payout per adult, plus $500 for each child under 17.
“This is not enough money to keep most families afloat,” said Sandra Black, an economics professor at Columbia University and a Brookings Institution senior fellow. “And this shutdown is far from over.”
That reality is adding to the pressure for another round of federal assistance in the coronavirus pandemic. Some Democrats, including House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters of California, have proposed that thousands of dollars a month be allocated for families until the health crisis ends.
The impact of the checks will vary widely. For many—if not most—of those who have lost jobs or seen incomes plunge, the Economic Impact Payment, as it’s called, won’t cover expenses alone. At least 22 million Americans have filed jobless claims so far, and some who are still working have seen their wages cut.
Moreover, some lenders reportedly are garnishing the stimulus payments of customers who are overdrawn.
“It is essential to keep in mind the critical feature of this shock: It hits people very unevenly,” said Juan Sanchez, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Barely a bridge
For Larrilou Carumba in San Francisco, the stimulus money will barely be a bridge. She’s been on unpaid furlough from her $26-an-hour housekeeping job at a four-star hotel since early March. She’s still paying contributions to her health-care plan while her union fights to keep those benefits in place.
“I have a lot of bills,” said Carumba, 47. She plans to use a chunk of the $2,200 check she received Wednesday to cover expenses, including on her $10,000 in credit-card debt.
She’s been offered deferrals on her car and credit-card payments, but that means she’ll owe more down the road, she said, and she wants to stay current to maintain a good credit rating so she can access student loans for her children.
Even for people still working, the specter of lost income will linger and potentially affect spending and saving habits well into the future.
Rolando Trevino, an electrician who installs power systems for telecommunications infrastructure in San Antonio, Texas, has an “essential” job and makes about $65,000 a year. It has not been lost on him that some of his colleagues have been furloughed.
Hoard the windfall
Considering his relatively flush position, he was surprised when his $1,200 stimulus check showed up in his bank account. He thought briefly about paying off his $1,000 Visa card balance. Then he decided to hoard the windfall as a cushion against further deterioration in economic conditions.
“It’s good to have a little set aside. I mean, if this goes on through the summertime,” he said. “You never know.”
In Boxford, Mass., Amanda Bridge is struggling to figure it all out. Just before the pandemic, she moved the two children she was in the process of adopting to her parents’ farm where she also lives, thinking that what it has to offer—horses, goats, chickens and a donkey—would be the ideal family setting.
The stimulus money will fund “food, bills and entertainment” and possibly a kiddie pool as the weather gets warmer, said Bridge, 34, who’s still employed from home in her human-resources job.
Meanwhile, David Klotz, 38, a senior graphic designer for a Houston engineering company, views the $1,200 as a sort of bonus that won’t make a huge difference, even though his annual income just dropped 9% to less than $72,000 when his employer cut salaries.
“I’m going to let it sit in the bank, and I’ll have it if I need it,” Klotz said. “But even if I did need it, it would not be enough to get me by long-term.”
The truth is that for most Americans, he said, “it’s chump change in the long run.”
More personal finance coverage from Fortune:
—What to do if you can’t pay your bills this month
—Stimulus checks are depositing: How people are spending the money
—Couldn’t track your stimulus check? Errors and long waits plague IRS portal rollout
—No, you don’t have to repay your stimulus check money
—What you should know about mortgage forbearance and skipping payments
—Everything you need to know about furloughs—and what they mean for workers
—Freelancers and independent contractors can now apply for SBA Paycheck Protection Program loans. What you need to know
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—VIDEO: 401(k) withdrawal penalties waived for anyone hurt by COVID-19
Subscribe to Fortune’s Bull Sheet for no-nonsense finance news and analysis daily.


fortune--2020-04-17--The essential workers hoping to survive

The essential workers hoping to survive

China now has more leading coronavirus vaccine candidates than any other country

This is the web version of raceAhead, Fortune’s daily newsletter on race, culture, and inclusive leadership. To get it delivered daily to your inbox, sign up here.
Freddie Gray’s former Baltimore home is demolished, Kelly Rowland serves up some hot “Coffee,” and a band of Chief Human Resource Officers are teaming up to keep us all employed.
But first, here’s your week in review, in Haiku.
Maybe now would be
a good time to turn away
from television
doctors, quarantine
truthers, and pointless briefings.
Instead, consider
intrepid colleagues:
Dispensing severance
tips like Kleenex, and
the people—through no
fault of their own—who need them.
The custodians,
clerks, transit workers
hoping to survive their now
essential service,
the teachers who
just learned to say, “can everyone mute?”
through their silent tears.
It’s the weekend, right? So hard to tell. Try to have one. There is goodness around if you drown out the noise.
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On point
The controversial West Baltimore public housing project is being demolished The Gilmor Homes became the epicenter of a national conversation about policing, race, and systemic barriers after the arrest and subsequent death of Freddie Gray. The project (and the lack of services they received) was a blight on the community, but residents are worried that too few affordable homes are replacing them. “I’m glad that they’re gonna tear them down,” Tia Shaw, 35, told the Baltimore Sun. “But I would like them to replace them with something that would help us all.”
Baltimore Sun
Kelly Rowland serves the "Coffee" And yes, it is hot. Rowland released her latest single and music video exclusively with Essence, and it is a jolt of beauty in a time of darkness. “I want to celebrate the women in video—every shade, every coffee color, every curve, every essence, and what they gave me,” Rowland says. “My intention I set for the video was to take the light in yourself and your sexuality [and put it in] a God perspective, in a way where you don’t have to get any approval from anybody else."
Essence
Read the new Grist 50 list and know hope The now fifth-annual list of emerging environmental leaders is notable for many reasons. First, it’s filled with young, highly trained, and dedicated professionals employing an impressive array of skills in the service of climate change action and beyond. And, not a one is from central casting. Case in point: Cecilia Aldarondo, whose feature documentary Landfall came about when she kept her eye on Puerto Rico after the Hurricane Maria coverage dried up. “Puerto Rico is a place that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough, and yet it’s a really important case study for understanding the social experiments that happen after a natural disaster—or an unnatural disaster,” she says.
Grist
CHROs unite to keep people working Expect more reporting on this, I literally just got off the phone with Service Now’s Chief Talent Officer Pat Wadors, but this post from Accenture’s Ellyn Shook will get you started. People+Work Connect is a new platform that helps furloughed or laid-off employees find open positions as quickly as possible. (One smart idea: Agreeing that a background check from one company will be honored by another. Right?) Click through for the long list of companies who are signing on, and how this collaboration came together. “With unemployment around the globe rising at unprecedented rates, my peers and I were discussing that at times like this it is important that we not only take time to understand the opportunity, but take seriously our obligation as responsible leaders,” writes Shook. They got it done in 14 days. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Ellyn Shook on LinkedIn
Coronavirus in the community
On background
Newly revealed documents shed light on the lives of enslaved people It is truly a trove worthy of a feature film opener: Stacks of business documents, customer correspondence, and other records found dusty and abandoned in a West Virginia attic. The attic is owned by the descendants of a salt mine magnate named William Dickinson, who operated in the early 1800s. That trove, combined with another, paints a deeply chilling picture of the Dickinson family’s robust trade in buying, leasing, and selling enslaved people. It’s not the cotton fields we’re used to. “We don’t appreciate often how much slavery was worked into the very fabric of American society,” says a curator of the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino. You’re going to want to put on your do-not-disturb for this one.
Los Angeles Times
A nearly forgotten documentary of James Baldwin is back Access to James Baldwin is at an all-time high, thanks to a documentary about his life, and the return of his collected works to the Schomburg Center in Harlem. But a largely forgotten feature-length documentary has also reappeared, and it’s well worth your time. I Heard It Through the Grapevine chronicles Baldwin’s return 20 years later to key sites of the civil rights movement—Atlanta, Newark, Selma, and beyond—and spending time in deep conversation with luminaries like Lonnie King, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, and Amiri Baraka. “It was 1957 when I left Paris for Little Rock. This is 1980. How many years is that? Nearly a quarter of a century,” he begins “What has happened to all those people, children, I knew then? What happened to this country? And what does this mean for the world? What does this mean for me?” The lack of progress is palpable and Baldwin’s disappointment is keen. The project was executive produced by Baldwin and co-directed by Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley. Trailer below, available for rental via public libraries.
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Confront bias and still stay friends When confronting bias, it’s better not to call people names, tempting as it may be to explain to someone how racist or sexist they sound. For one thing, science shows it won’t change their minds. Name-calling and shaming people will “automatically put them on the defensive,” says Alexis McGill Johnson, the co-founder and director of Perception Institute. So what to do? Start by evaluating your relationship with the person, and assessing opportunity costs, risks, and goals. If the person is important to you, remember that “you're coming from a place of shared values” and it’s an “opportunity to build a bridge rather than break it,” says Johnson. Listen, ask questions, and don’t attempt to fight facts with facts. To move forward, Johnson says we need to learn to “reset conversations so that people aren’t worried about being perceived as biased, but are instead focused on growing...”
Fast Company
Tamara El-Waylly produces raceAhead and manages the op-ed program.
The big number
2x
Black Americans are almost twice as likely as white Americans to live in the 566 counties at the highest risk of economic and public health disruption from the coronavirus pandemic.
Black Americans will experience a disproportionate share of the disruption from COVID-19—from health and mortality to unemployment and bankruptcy. While 30% of the overall population lives in these high-risk counties, for instance, 43% of the Black population (17.6 million) live there.
—From "COVID-19: Investing in Black lives and livelihoods," a new McKinsey report by Jason Wright and Shelley Stewart.
Today's mood board


fortune--2020-04-17--The Coronavirus Economy: Working as a therapist in an anxious time

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This is a difficult time for practicing mental health. Therapists know it.
LaToya Gaines, a clinical psychologist based in New York City, has a private practice and also works as a staff psychologist at the campus counseling center at Rutgers University in Newark. “In both places, I have seen an increase in referrals,” she says.
Gaines has had to transition to virtual therapy under stay-at-home orders. Some of her clients who didn’t find the new model ideal chose to suspend treatment for the time being. But that has given her openings to accept new referrals, and she has been getting inquiries: “Some in need of services to cope with situations related to the pandemic, and others wanting to commit to therapy for some time whom the pandemic has given the ‘boost’ to get started.”
At the university, the counseling center was and remains popular. Gaines says students are calling in for appointments.
Fortune spoke with Gaines for a new series, The Coronavirus Economy, to ask about how COVID-19 has affected her work as a therapist. She also shared some advice for people experiencing coronavirus-induced anxiety at the moment. The following Q&A has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
LaToya Gaines, a clinical psychologist based in New York City, has a private practice and also works as a staff psychologist at the campus counseling center at Rutgers University. LaToya Gaines
Fortune: What do you find yourself discussing with your clients lately?
Gaines: In both settings, I am definitely discussing how to exist within this “new normal.” Having such a sudden and drastic change in lifestyle has been jarring for people, and the work has been focused on how to adjust in the best way possible.
For my students, they have had to transition to distance learning, and most have moved out of the dorms and back with family members, lost jobs, and had senior activities and ceremonies canceled. In terms of academics, there has been a sudden shift in the way material is being delivered and graded, and students are trying to keep up. Some students have challenging relationships with family members, so moving back home is not ideal, especially while trying to keep up with coursework. The disappointment of graduation being canceled has had an impact on some students’ mood, which has also impacted motivation. I work at a school with a high percentage of first-generation college students, so having their families be able to witness them graduate is a huge deal for many.
In private practice, I work with mostly professional women of color. Most are fortunate to work from home. For them, the challenges include adjusting to remote work, and continuing to maintain some sense of normalcy—interacting with friends and family, getting exercise, using coping skills, and dealing with relationship issues (family, live-in partners). This is in addition to whatever goals we were working on prior to the pandemic.
How much do you discuss the coronavirus with them?
In terms of the actual virus, it depends to what degree the person’s life has been impacted by it. For the most part, individuals that I work with have not been directly affected by it. There is some level of anxiety about becoming infected, but that is to be expected. For a small percentage, there are concerns about loved ones who have been diagnosed or who are at a high risk of exposure. For them, the work is focused on processing the range of emotions that come with their experience, providing support and validation, managing expectations, challenging negative thinking patterns, and making sure they have accurate information and are using effective coping skills.
What advice do you have for people experiencing anxiety, stress, trauma, etc., because of the pandemic?
This is an unprecedented time, and there are many unknowns. Some level of anxiety is to be expected. Anxiety is often the result of thinking about the worst-case scenario and trying to control things that we can’t. In such a time, it is important to create as much structure as possible and focus on the things we can control.
1. Make a daily schedule, or stick to your usual routine as much as possible.
2. Maintain communication with family and friends. Think about a variety of things to do together in your virtual chats (play games, have spa days, pray or meditate together, have Netflix parties).
3. Continue to maintain good eating and sleeping habits. Usually when we are stressed, we tend to overlook the basics, but it is so important to pay attention to these things. Our bodies need proper nutrition and adequate sleep—lack of these can also have an impact on our mood.
4. Exercise! Even if it is just going for a walk outside. Endorphins, which are released during physical activity, are the body’s natural mood-booster. There are fitness apps that are offering free content, so definitely take advantage!
5. Practice mindfulness. Thinking about the future and its uncertainties and unknowns can cause one to feel overwhelmed. Practicing mindfulness will help you focus on the here and now. This can help you feel more grounded.
6. Limit exposure to the news and social media. If you want to stay informed, limit the amount of time you spend each day reading or watching the news, and limit it to accurate sources.
7. Practice gratitude. It is easy to get swept up in the difficulties this has brought, but reminding yourself of two to three things you are thankful for each day can help with coping.
8. If you are having trouble managing, find a licensed therapist to help you. Some insurance companies are waiving cost-sharing for teletherapy, so it’s possible that there will be no cost to you if you see an in-network provider. (Check with your insurance company to verify.)
What is teletherapy like? How does it compare with therapy in person?
Teletherapy can include a phone or video chat. For video chat, therapists use a HIPAA-compliant platform that is encrypted to ensure your confidentiality. Sessions are typically conducted in the same way an in-person session would be done. Providing therapy through any electronic medium is going to feel different than sitting across from someone face to face.
However, it does not mean that it is any less effective. The most important part of any therapy—in-person or virtual—is the establishment of a strong relationship between client and therapist. The strength of the relationship is the strongest predictor of treatment success no matter the delivery method or type of treatment.
How does your work impact your personal mental-health concerns over the pandemic?
I remind myself daily that I am human too and I am going through the same experience as everyone else. Although I am in a position to support others, I have to acknowledge the parts of myself that also worry about my own health and that of my family and friends. I also have to practice good coping skills and have compassion for myself when I have an off day. What also helps is having the support of other clinicians who understand and are willing to lend an ear to listen.
How do you think the pandemic will change how you practice therapy in the future, if it will?
Personally, this has forced me to learn how to use teletherapy and become comfortable with it rather quickly. Prior to the pandemic, I had no experience providing teletherapy. It is not something that most training programs teach us how to do. It does require a different skill set.
If I am being honest, I had no interest in learning about it. One of the things I enjoy most about therapy is the privilege to sit with someone face to face and be a partner in navigating whatever difficulty they are faced with. I can say that this experience has changed my mind about incorporating it into the services I provide. While there are still some aspects of treatment that I prefer and need to do in person (initial intakes, psychological assessments), I can definitely see myself using teletherapy in the future for individuals who are a good fit for it.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—This famed economist doesn’t think we’re headed for another Great Recession
—South Korea has the most comprehensive coronavirus data. What it’s taught us so far
—10 questions about the 2020 election during the coronavirus pandemic, answered
—6 steps to sustainably flatten the coronavirus curve
—How hackers are exploiting the coronavirus—and how to protect yourself
—Hong Kong launches a surveillance operation to track suspected coronavirus patients
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: The race is on to create a coronavirus antiviral drug and vaccine
Subscribe to Fortune’s Outbreak newsletter for a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus and its impact on global business.


fortune--2020-04-17--Coronavirus puts craft beer industry at risk

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While alcohol consumption is on the rise as people stay at home during the coronavirus pandemic, America’s craft brewers could be on the verge of a crisis that may well devastate the industry.
Because people are largely unable to visit taprooms, the small- and medium-size brewers that run them have lost a primary source of income—and many may not be able to weather an extended lack of customers.
The numbers might be best illustrated in a recent study by the South Carolina Brewers Guild. On average, sales from breweries and brewpubs throughout the state are down 70%, and nearly 45% are seeing sales declines of more than 80%. And 80% of the breweries that responded said they would be unable to remain open after three months; 15% said they might not last another month.
While the results are limited in scope, they do reflect a growing problem that many brewers throughout the country are experiencing.
There were 8,386 breweries operating across the U.S. in 2019. And most of those don’t have significant packaging operations. Instead they rely on on-premise sales for the majority of their income. And many states (including South Carolina) ban small brewers from shipping or delivering beers in-state. (Shipments throughout the country are regulated by federal law.)
“Releasing the data wasn’t done to scare, but it was done to show that we need further relief to aid these small businesses, as we have no idea how long this will last or when anyone will be able to move back to an on-premises model, or when we do, how limited that will be,” said Brook Bristow, executive director of the South Carolina Brewers Guild, on Twitter.
The year 2020 was already threatening to be a rougher one than the past several in terms of brewery closures. Bart Watson, chief economist at Brewers Association, said in a recent State of the Industry presentation that he expected, pre-pandemic, to see 400 breweries close this year (vs. 294 in 2019).
More must-read retail coverage from Fortune:
—“Ugly March” leads into “hideous April” for retail as sales slip the most they ever have
—How the on-demand liquor delivery business changed overnight
—These robot-powered warehouses could save grocers
—How Fortune 500 companies are stepping up during the pandemic
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: The greatest designs of modern times
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-04-17--What to stream (and skip) on Netflix and Amazon Prime this weekend

Stay home. As COVID-19 spreads, that’s the advice stressed by epidemiologists racing to combat the virus, who have implored Americans to avoid all nonessential travel and limit all person-to-person interactions. “Social distancing,” it seems, is our new normal—at least for now.
Though it can be challenging to look for silver linings in times as tumultuous as these, those sheltering indoors can at least rest assured that there’s now little reason to put off catching up on Netflix. And particularly with movie theaters shuttering across the country in response to the growing pandemic, Americans are looking to VOD and streaming platforms in search of their next binge-watch.
Fortune’s (still) here to help you navigate the week’s latest offerings, boiling down all the entertainment out there to a few distinct recommendations: Put more simply, should you rent it, stream it, or skip it? Find out below.
RENT IT: ‘Extra Ordinary’ (VOD and virtual cinema screenings)
With its rambunctious improv stylings and a gaggle of inspired sight gags, Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s What We Do in the Shadows (and its subsequent FX series adaptation) did more to pump flesh blood through the veins of the supernatural comedy than anything since Ghostbusters. There was an exquisite absurdity to its humor, and concealed beneath it a real appreciation for the hallmarks of this subgenre, from send-ups of vampires’ sleeping habits to a memorable run-in with lethal werewolves.
Extra Ordinary, from Irish filmmakers Enda Loughman and Mike Ahern, shares that same duality, skewering the paranormal with a warm attentiveness that looks a lot like love. It’s provincial in the manner of Edgar Wright’s Three Cornettos trilogy (especially The World’s End), taking place in a quaint Irish town where cheery driving instructor Rose (Maeve Higgins) hides her born ability to commune with the spirits. Years earlier, her ghost-hunter father (Risteárd Cooper) perished in an accident, and Rose still blames herself for what happened. But despite her reluctance to engage with the supernatural, Rose finds herself called to duty when a local man, Martin (Barry Ward), asks for her help in dealing with his dead wife’s peristent, from-beyond-the-grave nagging; to he and daughter Sarah (Emma Coleman), this haunting is not so much sinister as it is headache-inducing. That is, until Martin and Rose discover that Sarah has become possessed, floating above her bed in fine, freaky Exorcist form.
When a washed-up rock star (Will Forte, clearly having a scream of a time) becomes convinced he must sacrifice a young virgin in order to resurrect his music career, Rose, Martin, and Sarah all end up caught in his crosshairs—and en route, after a few other scattered hijinks, to a castle on the other side of town, where a full-on hell pit is fated to open during the conveniently upcoming blood moon.
Extra Ordinary, overrun with such genre-appropriate ingredients as these, doesn’t lead its narrative through them in any orderly fashion as such, instead whirling its central kooks and spooks together in a sticky, ectoplasmic gumbo that only grows stranger and more piquant by the minute. That’s not to say audiences will have trouble engaging with the characters; Higgins and Ward make for an endearing odd couple, and the latter even manages to isolate some moments of grace in his conflicted widower. It all comes together in a goofy, Gothic finale that hits just the right note of chills, thrills, and ramshackle charm.
STREAM: ‘Selah and the Spades’ (Amazon)
Comparisons to Heathers are both inevitable and reductive, so it’s perhaps worth getting them out of the way early. This darkly glimmering debut feature from writer-director Tayarisha Poe is indeed set within a high-school ecosystem where cliques war for dominance while holding down their own respective corners of the school yard. And yes, its teenaged antihero, Selah (Lovie Simone), is cunning and clever beyond her years, certainly enough to run circles around any administrators.
But Selah and the Spades is really, in its lithe and literate way, a stinging rebuke of the subgenre it’s dressed as, employing a provocative unrealism through its stylish filming and heightened performances that ultimately works to skewer fluff like Mean Girls and Pretty in Pink, not honor it. At the Haldwell School, an upscale Pennsylvania boarding school where five student cliques—known, tellingly, as “factions”—pull the strings, Selah fancies herself more mobster don than queen bee. Her faction, the Spades, controls the distribution of illegal substances, from booze to coke, around school. Other factions handle gambling, partying, and ensuring students are supplied with answers to upcoming tests—Haldwell’s student life is predicated upon the coexistence of these quasi-mafioso families. There’s one cardinal rule: no snitching. Goody-two-shoes don’t last long and best watch their back on stairwells.
For Selah, being on top demands perfection. As she rules over the Spades— with an assist from hopelessly loyal bestie Maxxie (Jharrel Jerome)—this 17-year-old senior employs charm, menace, and manipulation like weapons in her arsenal. Whether she’s trying on a Crest Whitestrip smile in the mirror or practicing cheerleading routines as the head of spirit squad, control is the mission. Cleverly, Poe frames her film through Selah’s perspective, which includes a few fourth-wall-breaking asides to the audience (“Boys,” she muses. “They’ll only like you if you look impossible“), and when cracks begin to appear in her carefully manufactured facade, it becomes clear that Selah hasn’t been telling us the whole truth.
But Poe’s film isn’t just a character study, and its early ripples of humor dissipate into something darker and more surreal as Selah begins to groom her maybe-successor, Paloma (Celeste O’Connor), to inherit the Spades. For a first-time filmmaker, Poe displays an impressive talent for lobbing aesthetic curveballs at the audience, visually referencing Bring It On one minute and Blue Velvet the next; red strings dangling across a black backdrop in one scene lend giallo qualities to a particularly charged conversation between Selah and Paloma.
Broadly, Rian Johnson’s Brick comes to mind, both through its transposing of crime noir into high-school hallways and its playfully heightened atmosphere. There’s a little here, too, of Miroslav Slaboshpitsky’s The Tribe, that Ukrainian drama’s wildly bleak view of nurtured criminality and the brutal power dynamics that can take hold within a hermetically sealed high school environment. But Selah and the Spades is less formally ambitious and more accessible in its narrative goals, charting this queen bee’s descent into darkness with stylistic verve while never quite pushing her past the point of no return. News that Amazon plans to develop Selah and the Spades into a series is scarcely surprising; Poe’s film feels like an initiation into Haldwell’s elite world more than a full-scale exploration of it, but it casts a hypnotic, tantalizing spell that draws you in all the same.
SKIP IT: ‘Sergio’ (Netflix)
There’s a fascinating real-life figure at the center of Netflix’s Sergio, a well-intentioned but lumpily structured biopic about the influential United Nations diplomat Sérgio Vieira de Mello, who was killed by a bomb blast at Baghdad’s U.N. headquarters.
The film’s director, Greg Barker, would surely agree; a documentarian by trade, he made a nonfiction film about Vieria de Mello back in 2009 (which, notably, marked the last-completed work of editor Karen Schmeer). Also named Sergio, that potent doc painted the diplomat as a career idealist and a born negotiator, using the ultimately failed search-and-rescue mission to recover him alive from beneath UN HQ as a framing device through which to explore the rest of his remarkable career. What emerged was a human tragedy and a grim omen, a portrait of a man whose legendary dedication to peacemaking was no match for the growing chaos of a U.S.-occupied Iraq. In at least one interview, Barker has described Vieria de Mello as “a mix between James Bond and Bobby Kennedy,” and his doc was on that front quite convincing.
Adapting that same story into a feature film, with Narcos star Wagner Moura playing Vieria de Mello (referred to as Sérgio throughout), Barker is more or less pursuing the same end-goal of tribute and light hagiography, again using the bombing to anchor his narrative. As we open, Sérgio and refugee expert Gil Loescher (Brían F. O’Byrne) are trapped under the rubble, both seriously injured as two soldiers (Garret Dillahunt and Will Dalton) sift through the wreckage in search of them. And from there, flashbacks pull the audience back across various episodes in Sérgio’s career, especially those related to his key role in averting mass deaths in a conflict in East Timor, between militant groups and the central occupying force of Indonesia.
But Barker’s clear admiration for his subject, the glue that held his documentary together, here tempts him to needlessly twist the truth. Taking some dramatic license is to be expected, but too many of the film’s cornerstone conversations about diplomacy have been noticeably watered down by scribe Craig Borten (Dallas Buyers Club), denied the nuance and more authentic complexity such boots-on-the-grounds characters would have discussed as pure matter-of-fact. The entire character of Loescher, to that effect, is a composite—albeit one, oddly, bearing the name of a columnist for openDemocracy in Baghdad the day of the bombing to interview Sérgio.
But Sérgio‘s broader problem concerns Barker’s decision to tell this story as a tragic romance, between the titular figure and Carolina Larriera (Ana de Armas), who’d later become his fiancée and was formerly a U.N. economics officer in East Timor. Moura and de Armas sizzle in scenes where the pair cautiously then ardently court one another, setting down the armor their profession forces them to wear and breaking in an unfamiliar, almost radical intimacy. But wonderful as both actors are, this marriage of geopolitics and romantic passion feels imbalanced in skewing more toward the latter. Not helping matters is the editing; with so many moments sometimes choppily shifting us back on the day of the bombing, it’s difficult to invest in what came before, particularly conversations between the two lovers about a future Sergio has already told us they’ll never have.
The use of archival footage throughout the film and in its final few minutes, intended to further bring Sergio in line with the real events it depicts, ultimately leaves the fictionalized scenes it’s set against—especially one of de Armas’s Carolina swimming in the ocean—feeling more like Hollywood artifice than the important dramatic beats they’re meant as. Sérgio’s accomplishments in peacemaking deserve to be seen as those of a humanitarian hero, and his relationship with Carolina was surely an important part of his off-duty life. But, speaking broadly, the choice to salute this man as first a lover, then a fighter, unnecessarily softens the real tragedy of his death and melodramatizes the substance of his life.
The best of the rest:
On VOD platforms, The Quarry leads some strong character actors into Texas noir territory for a slow-burning tale of crime and consequences. Michael Shannon’s best of all, bringing a combustible energy to his hard-jawed hawk of a small-town police chief, who becomes suspicious of the new preacher (Shea Whigham) on the block. Tense, sun-scorched, and sinewy, the film—from co-writer/director Scott Teems—takes its sweet time going anywhere, but it’s a sturdy entry in the evermore crowded subgenre of cat-and-mouse games in the new West, between hardened men of higher and lower orders.
Playing in virtual screening rooms nationwide, political thriller Balloon dramatizes the unlikely true story of two families who made a dangerous bid to escape from communist East Germany, circa 1979, using a hot-air balloon they made themselves. Taut and atmospheric, with some welcome flashes of visual wit from director Michael Herbig, this film piles on the twists and turns, finding creative ways to mine suspense from practically every aspect of these characters’ fraught, paranoid existence. And the performances are strong across the board, especially that of Thomas Kretschmann as a devious Stasi lieutenant colonel.
Hulu, meanwhile, has partnered with FX to deliver Mrs. America, a star-studded miniseries about the ’70s movement to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, as seen through the eyes of its most fierce advocates and detractors. Cate Blanchett has perhaps the most fascinating role as Phyllis Schlafly, a tireless conservative activist who opposed women’s liberation; but the cast is an embarrassment of riches, from Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem to Tracey Ullman as Betty Friedman. Also in the rotation: Sarah Paulson, Elizabeth Banks, Uzo Aduba, Margo Martindale, James Marsden, Ari Graynor, John Slattery, Melanie Lynskey, Niecy Nash, and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Three episodes are streaming, with the remaining six to come at a one-a-week pace.
Netflix’s true-crime devotees will want to check out The Innocence Files, a new series from the documentarian dream team of Liz Garbus (Lost Girls), Alex Gibney (Going Clear), and Roger Ross Williams (Life, Animated). A journalistic high-water mark in an arena overrun with sensationalized and often misguided projects, this brilliantly conceived and far-reaching work of TV activism uses The Innocence Project, dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions, as a base from which to explore three key areas of the criminal justice process: evidence, witnesses, and prosecution. Three episodes are allocated to each subject, allowing The Innocence Files to essentially weave together three feature-length documentaries into an insightful, enraging, and tremendously emotional indictment of our flawed, sometime brutally unjust system.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—How Mrs. America designers revived a ’70s feminist showdown
—Peacock’s early preview kicks off, with national launch still on track for July
—How movie theaters can make a comeback after the coronavirus pandemic
—After Fleabag, Vicky Jones was ready to Run toward a tricky HBO thriller-comedy
—Tigertail director Alan Yang on making the past not “a memory, but a beautiful dream”
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-04-17--Looking for a travel refund? Here’s what airlines, hotels, and theme parks are offering

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As more and more cities and states issue and extend “stay at home” orders as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. travel industry is sinking deeper into crisis. And consumers are realizing the money they spent on a planned vacation could be better used for day-to-day expenses.
Getting that money back isn’t as easy as it might seem, though. If, for instance, you booked through a third-party site, that could complicate things (and slow down any refund you might be eligible for). Even if you booked directly with the airline, hotel, or resort, though, it’s not guaranteed that you’ll be able to get a refund.
Here’s a look at how several travel-related companies are handling those requests.
Is Disney World refunding tickets? What about other theme parks?
To ensure the safety of guests and employees, major theme parks across the country have closed their gates and, for now, don’t have estimated dates on when they’ll reopen. Disney, in early April, furloughed 43,000 employees (who will keep their insurance benefits), and the Orlando Sentinel reported that the company is poised to furlough most of its 77,000 Disney World employees. Universal Studios, meanwhile, has furloughed part-time workers and reduced the pay of full-timers.
And the parks are handling the situation in different ways.
Walt Disney World
Disney has waived all change and cancellation fees through June 30 for guests who booked a room or vacation package. And if the park is closed during your planned trip, Disney World will automatically cancel it for you and refund your original form of payment. Unused tickets that remain on a multiday pass have been extended until Dec. 15, 2020. And wholly unused tickets can have their value applied toward any future date.
Annual pass holders who have paid in full will see their pass extended for as many days as the parks are closed. Those who are on a monthly payment plan will see a refund for the March 14 to April 4 period, and payments have been suspended. (The passes will expire on their original expiration dates.)
Universal Studios
Guests can modify or cancel room and package reservations with no penalty or fee. You will need to cancel hotel reservations 24 hours before your scheduled arrival, however. New reservations made before May 31 can be modified or canceled with no fee at least 24 hours prior to arrival.
The resort is not offering refunds on tickets, but says unexpired single-day tickets can be used on any day 365 days from the purchase date. That’s also true of multiday passes, but it’s unclear where people who were in the midst of using a multiday pass when the shutdown occurred stand in terms of a credit or refund.
Disneyland
Like Disney World, Disneyland has waived all change and cancellation fees through June 30 for guests who booked a room or vacation package. Guests who are unable to reach the park before their arrival date will not be penalized or subject to fees for modifying their reservations. Single-use tickets and unused multiday tickets can be used at a later date, with some exceptions. The policy regarding annual pass holders is the same as that of the Orlando park.
SeaWorld
Reservations for vacation packages booked before April 19 can be rebooked on any date through Dec. 31, 2021, with no change fee. Expiration dates on tickets are being extended, but the park is not offering refunds for those.
Will my airline refund my ticket price?
Refunds are unlikely, but most major carriers have waived their change fees, meaning you can reschedule your flight to a different day without paying an additional fee of several hundred dollars. However, you will likely have to pay the difference in the cost of the ticket. So, if you paid $300 for a flight that was scheduled for late April and reschedule the trip for August, but the price of that ticket is $500, you’ll still have to pay the additional $200 out of pocket.
How about hotels? Are they offering refunds?
Because people’s travel plans have been blown out of the water, major hotel chains are altering their change and cancellation policies. In general, the dates and forward-looking changes are the same, but there are some subtle differences.
Here’s what some of the major chains are now offering:
Marriott
Guests with existing reservations for any future date (even prepaid rates) can change or cancel their trips without charge through June 30, as long as they give 24 hours notice. (Note that if room rates are different for rescheduled trips, you will have to pay the difference.) If you make a new reservation between now and June 30, you’ll be able to change or cancel that up to 24 hours before your scheduled arrival with no penalty as well.
Hilton
Hilton, also, is relaxing its cancellation and change policies to let guests adjust their reservations through June 30 at no fee with 24 hours notice. And new reservations will have that same 24-hour notice window if booked by June 30. Guests requesting refunds may see delays of up to 30 days, though, the chain warns. Hilton Honors members who cancel an advance purchase rate reservation may be eligible for a free-night certificate for each canceled night.
Hyatt
Reservations through June 30 can be changed or canceled for no fee, including advance purchase rate reservations. And future reservations will also have the 24-hour window in which to do so. Hyatt will refund your money if you’d like, but you can choose to have 10,000 World of Hyatt bonus points added to your accounts instead, which can be used toward a future stay.
Best Western
Like other chains, any changes or cancellations to reservations made through June 30 will carry no penalties if made within 24 hours of scheduled arrival. And that protection will be extended to any future reservations made before that date. Best Western notes that a more restrictive cancellation policy may apply to a limited number of high-demand dates at individual hotels.
IHG Hotels & Resorts
Existing bookings made before April 6 at all IHG hotels can be changed or canceled with no penalty through June 30. This encompasses Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Kimpton, Avid, Staybridge, and more. Be aware, though, that refunds might take up to 90 days to be processed. The chain has a number of options for future travelers, as well.
What is Airbnb’s refund policy?
Guests were told March 11 they could cancel reservations made through May 31 and receive a full refund, including all Airbnb fees. (That didn’t sit well with some property owners, who weren’t told the announcement was coming.) The organization has since vowed to pay $250 million to help its hosts cover COVID-19 related costs and created a $10 million relief fund for certain hosts who rent out their own home and now need help with their mortgage.
Note: The policy does not cover any bookings made after March 14. Those will all be handled according to the listing’s cancellation policy as usual, so buyer beware.
More must-read retail coverage from Fortune:
—Costco’s big March sales jump isn’t such good news for other big box retailers
—How the on-demand liquor delivery business changed overnight
—Cannabis companies get a big bump in sales and not just from the wake-and-bake set
—How Fortune 500 companies are stepping up during the pandemic
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: The greatest designs of modern times
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-04-17--The U.K. green-lights Amazon’s investment in Deliveroo, a lifeline for the coronavirus-stricken firm

Amazon.com Inc.’s proposed investment in food delivery firm Deliveroo got a green light from the U.K.’s merger watchdog, which said it was likely to clear the transaction.
The coronavirus outbreak is hurting Deliveroo’s business, the Competition and Markets Authority said Friday as it released its provisional findings on the deal. Under the normal timeline, the CMA would hold discussions with the companies early next month before issuing its final report in late May, a year after the proposal was announced.
“Deliveroo recently informed the CMA that the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on its business meant that it would fail financially and exit the market without the Amazon investment,” the regulator said.
The decision moves Amazon closer to regaining a presence in the U.K. food delivery market as the lead in the $575 million investment. The CMA warned that the purchase could hurt competition by discouraging the American company starting its own operation from scratch.
It shuttered its Amazon Restaurants delivery unit in 2018.
The CMA stunned investors in June by starting an in-depth probe into the transaction with Deliveroo. The deal doesn’t include a controlling stake, prompting warnings from investors and startup groups that the regulator’s intervention risked starving firms of capital at the very moment they need it most.
The regulator, which has been taking a tougher line on deals by the largest technology firms, has been seeking concessions from Amazon to get approval. Bloomberg reported in March that the CMA wanted Amazon to relinquish a board seat or lower the size of its stake in Deliveroo.
The regulator has been considering how hard of a line to take against the companies, whose employees have been designated as critical workers by the government and act as a potential lifeline to vulnerable people amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Even before instigating a formal second-phase probe, the CMA was interviewing Amazon’s senior management. That came after the regulator found internal documents indicating that the U.S. company had also considered other plans to re-enter the British market through the purchase of another platform.
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—22 million lost their jobs in the past month—real unemployment rate likely near 18%
—How Fortune 500 companies are utilizing their resources and expertise during the pandemic
—Inside the surreal “Mask Economy”: Price-gouging, bidding wars, and armed guards
—The IRS just launched “Get My Payment” portal for tracking your stimulus check status
—How every sector of the S&P 500 has been impacted by the coronavirus selloff
—If you’ve been a little busy lately, here’s what’s going on with the 2020 election
—Military experts: We need to fight coronavirus like we fight insurgents on the battlefield
—PODCAST: COVID-19 might have upended the concept of the best companies of the year
—VIDEO: 401(k) withdrawal penalties waived for anyone hurt by COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-04-17--After missing U.S. bailouts, Carnival CEO remains loyal to Panama

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Carnival Corp. is raising billions of dollars to weather the pandemic, and the near-total shutdown of its business—but it’s not giving up Panama.
The world’s largest cruise company and its main competitors have long maintained headquarters in Miami but legal incorporation elsewhere, largely for tax reasons. That foreign allegiance backfired on the industry last month, when cruise companies were left out of the $2 trillion U.S. stimulus package.
Now Panama-based Carnival, like Liberia’s Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Bermuda’s Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, is trying to survive though non-government-guaranteed means. Yet Carnival is “not at all” reconsidering its Panama incorporation, or thinking about moving its legal home to the United States, CEO Arnold Donald told Fortune Thursday, during a conference call with reporters.
“There’s no particular reason to do that,” Donald said. “We operate under a lot of international maritime laws and jurisdictions of all different countries that we visit, and the vast majority of the revenue we generate is in fact earned outside the U.S.”
That vast majority of that revenue is also protected from U.S. taxes. By incorporating in countries like Panama, cruise operators can take advantage of a section of the tax code that exempts “gross income derived by a foreign corporation from the international operation of ships.” As a result, Carnival says in regulatory filings, “substantially all” of its $3 billion in profit last year was “exempt from U.S. federal income and branch profit taxes.”
But about half of the industry’s passengers come from North America, where the U.S. government has warned Americans not to travel by cruise ship and extended a “no sail” order for all cruise ships through at least mid-July.
Now Carnival, owner of the Princess ships that became early and spectacular coronavirus disasters, says it’s bracing for business to be shut down through the rest of 2020. The company this month raised about $6 billion in debt and equity, after fully tapping its existing $3 billion revolving credit facility, and is reducing its capital spending and operating expenses.
These measures “should provide sufficient liquidity to fund our operations through the end of the year and beyond, potentially, without any significant revenue coming in,” Donald said Thursday. “We hope that will prove to be unnecessary, but we need to be prepared for the worst.”
More coronavirus coverage from Fortune:
—22 million lost their jobs in the past month—real unemployment rate likely near 18%
—How Fortune 500 companies are utilizing their resources and expertise during the pandemic
—Inside the surreal “Mask Economy”: Price-gouging, bidding wars, and armed guards
—The IRS just launched “Get My Payment” portal for tracking your stimulus check status
—How every sector of the S&P 500 has been impacted by the coronavirus selloff
—If you’ve been a little busy lately, here’s what’s going on with the 2020 election
—Military experts: We need to fight coronavirus like we fight insurgents on the battlefield
—PODCAST: COVID-19 might have upended the concept of the best companies of the year
—VIDEO: 401(k) withdrawal penalties waived for anyone hurt by COVID-19
Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily newsletter roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business. It’s free to get it in your inbox.


fortune--2020-04-17--Can Verizon build a Zoom killer after acquiring its own video conferencing app?

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There may never be a hotter trial by fire than the one currently burning up the video conferencing market. With businesses, schools, and just plain people around the world on lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, meeting live on video is one of the only ways available to interact safely.
That’s been a headline-generating boon for leading player Zoom, though obviously in ways both good and bad for the company’s future. Going from 10 million users a day to 200 million in the span of a few weeks without any major hiccups is an incredible testament to the reliability of Zoom’s platform. Did I say no major hiccups? Perhaps that doesn’t give enough credit for adding the term “zoombombing” to our daily lexicon.
But the user boom has given the company a huge lead on the competition—and Wall Street has noticed. Zoom’s stock price closed Thursday at just over $150, doubling since the end of January while most of the rest of the market has cratered.
My Fortune colleague Michal Lev-Ram is out today with a deep dive into Zoom’s development. CEO Eric Yuan, an engineer who’s been working in the video streaming market for decades, says that he’s deeply embarrassed about the privacy and security glitches that have arisen. “I’m ashamed,” he tells Lev-Ram. “I blame myself.” Zoom has halted development on new features to fix the issues with its current code.
Yuan needs to act fast. Already Microsoft and his former employer, Cisco Systems, are nipping at Zoom’s heels with their own video platforms. Now BlueJeans Networks, one of Zoom’s peers among smaller, more focused video companies, is getting a huge boost. Telecom giant Verizon paid somewhere under $500 million to acquire BlueJeans on Thursday, adding the well-regarded if market-trailing video technology to its array of services and applications.
Half of a billion dollars is a pittance compared to Zoom’s almost $40 billion stock market value. But Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg could take a page out of the playbook of former Cisco CEO John Chambers. The ceaseless dealmaker was famous for snapping up technically advanced but under-marketed products, strapping them to Cisco’s vast corporate sales force, and watching sales take off. Vestberg and Tami Erwin, CEO of Verizon’s business unit, could easily do the same with BlueJeans, which is currently bringing in revenue at only about a $100 million annual run rate.
It should be quite the battle. Gartner analyst Mike Fasciani, who follows the video conferencing market, tells me BlueJeans has excellent underlying technology, maybe the best, but hasn’t spent as much time perfecting its usability and customer experience. It also hasn’t ever offered a free version—plans start at $20 a month. BlueJeans oversees its network from an operational command center that reminds Fasciani of a telecom carrier, and he predicts a good fit for the company inside Verizon.
Now Verizon can provide plenty of cash for funding a free version, if it so desires. But the telecom giant doesn’t necessarily seem like the place you go for great user interface design. Apple and others have proven over and over again how the easier-to-use product can often beat more full-featured or technically superior rivals. So the race is on: Can Yuan fix what’s ailing Zoom before Vestberg and crew can launch BlueJeans into orbit?
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com
NEWSWORTHY
Calming the waters. Some interesting tidbits from Apple CEO Tim Cook's virtual all-hands meeting on Thursday. Cook said he'll keep R&D spending strong despite the weak economy and played down concerns about possible layoffs, noting Apple's strong finances and long-term approach. The award for the most intriguing tidbit comes from COO Jeff Williams who said the company's health product work isn’t "limited to the wrist."
Listen to them, the children of the night. Left for dead by some original participants, Facebook's Libra digital currency project is revivifying. The multi-company Libra Association which oversees the effort announced plans on Thursday to create an infrastructure for multiple cryptocurrencies and said it was in talks with Swiss regulators for a payments license. In more tangible fintech news, Stripe raised $600 million of additional backing in a deal that valued the payments startup at almost $36 billion.
Hard stop. Speaking of the walking dead, ICANN's controversial deal to sell the .org Internet domain name registry to private equity firm Ethos Capital for $1 billion is looking shakier by the day. On Thursday, the California attorney general's office weighed in with a letter saying the sale “raises serious concerns that cannot be overlooked.” ICANN's board postponed a decision until May 4.
Do not pass go, do not collect $200. On Wall Street, Uber was the latest tech company to acknowledge the damaging power of the coronavirus outbreak. The company withdrew its financial guidance for the year and said it would write down the value of investments in other startups by about $2 billion. Uber's shares, down 9% in 2020, jumped 6% in pre-market trading on Friday.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Some years ago, two scientists made a bet. University of Alabama professor Steven Austad wagered with his friend University of Illinois professor Jay Olshansky that someone born in 2000 will live to the age of 150. They likely won't know who's correct until the year 2150, but each scientist put a small sum into an investment account that could reach $1 billion as a payoff for the winner's heirs. On Thursday, the pair had dueling essays in the Wall Street Journal. I prefer Austad's world.
We have to stop thinking about age-related diseases as independent entities. Diseases associated with aging have extensively overlapping causes, so that a treatment (like rapamycin) affects most or all such ailments. Treating aging itself thus can dramatically change the mortality rates currently seen in our later years. If we could freeze the age-induced mortality rate at age 50 so that one faces no increased odds of falling sick, life expectancy soars to more than 125 years. Hundreds of life-extending animal experiments show that what we previously thought of as “limits” can be burst through with the right treatment.
FOR YOUR WEEKEND READING PLEASURE
A few long reads that I came across this week:
How China’s “Bat Woman” Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus (Scientific American)
Wuhan-based virologist Shi Zhengli has identified dozens of deadly SARS-like viruses in bat caves, and she warns there are more out there.
An MIT Lab Is Building Devices to Hack Your Dreams (One Zero)
From improving your mood to focusing your creativity, scientists at MIT’s Dream Lab want to prove the power of dreams.
This Man Owns the World's Most Advanced Private Air Force After Buying 46 F/A-18 Hornets (The Drive)
The owner of Air USA talks about his incredible private aircraft purchase and the future of his adversary business.
A Rich (Very Rich) History of the Jewish Dairy Restaurant (New York Times)
In a new book, the writer and illustrator Ben Katchor celebrates the places that have fed New York’s craving for blintzes, matzo brei, and other delicacies.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Researchers working on ‘contact tracing’ say they welcome Apple and Google’s help By David Z. Morris
Streaming church, Zoom seders: How coronavirus has pushed Easter and Passover services online By Robert Hackett
Facebook gives users a way to take a break from notification hell By Danielle Abril
From NBA2K to eNASCAR, are e-sports the new, well, sports? By Chris Morris
Dean of Stanford Medicine: How virtual care can make medicine even more human By Lloyd B. Minor
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. There is a 50% discount for our loyal readers if you use this link to sign up. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
I know some newsletters provide almost daily updates about squid, and that's never been our strength. But I couldn't pass up the story of the six-foot-long Humboldt squid that scientists say communicates via backlit patterns on its body resembling the e-ink of e-books. There's even video. Have a healthy, relaxing, and hopefully killer-squid-free weekend.


fortune--2020-04-17--Why this VC thinks there will be billions of dollars of fraud from the SBA’s $350 billion PPP loan p

Why this VC thinks there will be billions of dollars of fraud from the SBA’s $350 billion PPP loan program

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Two week ago, the U.S. government rolled out a $350 billion small business loan program as part of a $2 trillion stimulus package aimed at keeping the economy afloat through the coronavirus.
But the rollout was frustrating and messy, to say the least: It was unclear which banks would take PPP applications while small businesses struggled to pull together payroll documents required for the application for the banks. Online, applicants complained of waiting days for a response from banks. Now, there are questions as to which companies are actually real as banks try to cycle through applications as quickly as possible.
The problem, says Alex Rampell, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz who focuses on financial technology, is a fintech issue. Why can’t the government directly decide who needs the SBA loan, and disburse it as such without a bank?
“I would be shocked if there is not billions of dollars worth of fraud,” Rampell says. “Right now, the most profitable possible heist is not robbing the Wynn—it’s going and robbing the U.S. government of the PPP loans.”
Rampell led the firm’s investment in Plaid (which Visa recently agreed to acquire), and has ample experience also leading fintech companies. Rampell co-founded TrialPay, a payments company that sold to Visa in 2015, and co-founded point-of-sale lender Affirm, alongside PayPal co-founder Max Levchin.
Recently, Rampell has been speaking with officials in the Treasury Department and Small Business Administration about how fintech could speed up the process.
So we hopped on the phone to talk about why he thinks the government’s financial infrastructure needs an upgrade.
Here is our conversation, edited for clarity:
I think most generally agree the PPP disbursement has been messy. How are you approaching the problem from a fintech perspective?
You used to buy airline tickets from a travel agent 20 or 30 years ago. You would call the agent, who would then type your information into a little green screen, and that would go into a computer system known as Sabre.
Then Kayak and Expedia came and said we don’t need that person in the middle who might spell your name wrong. Let’s directly connect you to the computer system.
One problem this overall PPP process has exposed is that there’s no way to just have the government directly send a check. So it’s been so, so complicated because the government doesn’t really have a means of sending money to small businesses as it can’t identify them, it can’t adjudicate who deserves what, and it can’t really disburse funds. Banks are the only organs that can [do it.]
As a result, you also have this really Byzantine, Rube Goldberg-like apparatus. Instead of directly applying to the government, it’s “let’s have you apply to the bank, then the bank vets you, and then the bank goes into the SBA, and then sells the loan back to the federal government. Oh, and the government is going to spend billions of dollars [to banks] to process the PPP. (Term Sheet note: As part of the program, lenders are encouraged to participate with between 1% to 5% in fees to process PPP loans).
Wouldn’t it be cool in a future state of America if your Social Security actually represents a bank account? So say the government wants to send $1,200 to every American. Easy. We just put it in every social security account number directly. But that doesn’t exist. Instead, banks exist as an intermediary.
It’s so complicated, but it comes down to the fintech question of why can’t this be done in a better manner?
And you think this isn’t the end of the PPP’s problems because we lack the technology.
I would be shocked if there is not billions of dollars worth of fraud. Right now, the most profitable possible heist is not robbing the Wynn—it’s going and robbing the U.S. government of the PPP loans. How many times in history, has $350 billion been given away with no face-to-face verification and a few PDFs in two weeks?
Because you want to make this process as easy as possible to get loans out ASAP, there’s a small amount of information that is being required and high throughput. It’s a bad situation for fraud and for adjudicating the process in general for legitimate businesses. The bank gets a PDF of your payroll statement, they get a copy of your paychecks, and then they have to make the fast decision because Marco Rubio is telling them “go make more loans”—though as he should be since the U.S. economy is relying on this happening quickly.
What do you think is the long-term fix?
Hopefully there’s a lesson from this. When there’s an earthquake, you change the building codes. When you have a flood, you change your flood codes. We have an economic calamity right now—and if there is an economic calamity again, the way to make the building more resilient in future downturns is to say we need to have a way [for the government to] instantly see payroll data, see all [the information needed to issue a loan].
This is not a splitting of the atoms, but it is a checklist of what we need to do to get our financial services infrastructure into the 21st century on the government side so that we identify, adjudicate, and disburse funds as quickly as possible.
That also has other ramifications for simplifying the [tax process]. I have to gather all these documents], for example, I get my 1099 that the IRS also gets a copy of [from the employer], and then I have to send that same information back to the IRS. It doesn’t make any sense! They should just know how much you earned, as opposed to me re-reporting income and how much I owe. And that’s where an API-based approach would solve that.
Right now, getting the funds out as quickly as possible is a defcon one situation, so I think people are focused on that. But eventually, I think the infrastructure overhaul will happen. I can’t imagine a world in 2100 where the U.S. doesn’t have this.
But I can imagine a U.S. in 2025 that does not have this.
How are you talking to your portfolio companies about going through a downturn?
I’d say I have some examples of companies where demand is higher, like Propel that helps people manage food stamps. It’s a sad fact for the American people but there has been a surge there. Then there are the neutral cases and then the negative cases where your business is really impacted by the coronavirus—and they have to make some really hard decisions. Sometimes those hard decisions are unfortunately layoffs or go under.
AN IPO!!!
The IPO market has been a graveyard in recent weeks. But Apollo-backed cloud-computing company Rackspace has filed confidentially for an IPO. The deal could value it at over $10 billion including debt, Reuters reports. “Emboldened” by the work-at-home trend that has lifted shares in peers Fastly and Datadog, Apollo is apparently seeking to IPO as soon as the market volatility subsides. Read more.
VENTURE DEALS
- Stripe, the San Francisco, Calif.-based company payments infrastructure company, raised $600 million in additional Series G funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, GV, and Sequoia. Read more.
- VAST Data, a New York-based data storage startup, raised $100 million in Series C funding giving it an $1.2 billion valuation. Next47 led the round and was joined by investors including 83North, Commonfund Capital, Dell Technologies Capital, Goldman Sachs, Greenfield Partners, Mellanox Capital and Norwest Venture Partners. Read more.
- RefleXion Medical, a Hayward, Calif.-based therapeutic oncology company focused on biology-guided radiotherapy, raised $100 million in funding. Public Sector Pension Investment Board led the round and was joined by investors including TPG’s The Rise Fund, KCK Group, Sofinnova Partners, Venrock, T. Rowe Price, Pfizer Ventures and Johnson & Johnson Innovation.
- Trade Republic, a Berlin-based fintech for mobile saving, investing, and trading, raised a €62 million ($77 million) in Series B funding. Accel and Founders Fund led the round.
- Anodot, a Redwood City, Calif.-based autonomous business monitoring company, raised $35 - million in Series C funding. Intel Capital led the round and was joined by investors including SoftBank Ventures Asia, Samsung NEXT, and La Maison.
- Movandi, an Irvine, Calif.-based company focused on 5G millimeter wave networks, raised $27 million in Series C funding. WRVI Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Cota Capital and DNX Ventures.
- Yellow Messenger, a Bengaluru, India-based conversational AI platform, raised $20 million Series B. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round. Read more
- Bridgecrew, a San Francisco-based maker of automated cloud security tooling aimed at engineers, raised $14 million in Series A funding. Battery Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including NFX, Sorensen Ventures, DNX Ventures, Tectonic Ventures, and Homeward Ventures. Read more.
- RDMD, a San Francisco-based healthcare technology company focused on accelerating drug research for rare diseases, raised $14 million in Series A funding. Spark Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including Lux Capital, Village Global, Garuda Ventures, and Maveron Capital.
- Kebotix, a Cambridge, Mass.-based platform for AI-discovered chemicals and materials, raised $11.4 million in Series A funding. Novo Holdings led the round. Read more.
- Everee, a Utah-based startup for payroll, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Origin Ventures and Signal Peak Ventures led the round.
- Natterbox, a London-based provider of voice cloud services, raised £7.5 million ($9.4 million) in funding from Octopus Investments.
- Learn In, a Salt Lake City, Ut.-based maker of education, development and training tools for employees with company sabbaticals, raised $3.5 million in seed funding from Album, GSV, and Firework Ventures.
- Gembah, an Austin-based product development platform, raised $3.3 million in seed funding. Silverton Partners led the round, and was joined by investors including ATX Venture Partners and Capital Factory. Read more.
Grain, a San Francisco-based startup that captures Zoom content for sharing across platforms, raised $4 million over two seed rounds. Investors include Acrew Capital, Founder Collective, Peterson Partners, Slack Fund, Scott Belsky, Sriram Krishnan, Andreas Klinger, Scooter Braun, and others. Read more.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- TPG invested in LifeStance Health, a Bellevue provider of outpatient behavioral health services. Existing investors include Summit Partners and Silversmith Capital Partners. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
OTHERS
- Providence Equity Partners agreed to lead the purchase of $400 million in convertible preferred stock in Outfront Media, a New York-based outdoor media company, alongside Ares Management Corp.
- Hargol FoodTech, a portfolio company of The Trendlines Group (SGX: 42T) raised $3 million in funding from existing shareholders, Sirius Venture Capital and SLJ Investment Partners.
EXITS
- Hellman & Friedman acquired Checkmarx, and Israeli cybersecurity firm, from Insight Partners in an all cash transaction valued at $1.15 billion. TPG will hold a minority interest in the company alongside with Insight Partners.
F+FS
- Arbour Lane Capital Management raised $1.2 billion for its Arbour Lane Credit Opportunity Fund II, exceeding its initial target of $750 million.
- Biz Stone, who co-founded Twitter and Medium, plans to raise as much as $200 million in capital for a new venture fund, the Information reports citing sources. Read more.
- Sterling Road, a venture capital firm investing in pre-seed B2B companies, raised $9 million for its second fund.
PEOPLE
- ORIX Capital Partners hired three vice presidents: Peter Loibner, Sean Ellis, and Zaid Nesheiwat.


fortune--2020-04-17--Researchers working on ‘contact tracing’ say they welcome Apple and Google’s help

Researchers who pioneered the ideas driving a high-profile partnership between Apple and Google to help combat the coronavirus are happy to see that initiative implemented and are creating related apps that they say may be ready as soon as mid-May.
Last week, Apple and Google announced an alliance to bolster what’s known as “contact tracing,” a crucial step to both controlling the pandemic in the short term and eventually reopening the economy. The plan involves using smartphones to identify and warn people who have come in contact with anyone infected with the coronavirus, while preserving individual privacy.
Apple and Google said they would introduce new features that would allow smartphones to identify other nearby devices. Those contacts would be recorded anonymously and temporarily using a standard data-sharing structure by contact tracing apps. If a user of a device later reported through an app that they had been diagnosed with the coronavirus, anyone with a recorded contact with that device would receive an alert that they may have been exposed so they can self-isolate and be alert for symptoms of infection, helping prevent further spread.
“Everything they’ve [announced] looks like it will be compatible with our ideas,” says Dana Lewis, cofounder of the contact tracing project CoEpi, and a founding member of the Temporary Contact Number Coalition, a group of a half-dozen contact tracing projects worldwide.
Since the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, a variety of U.S. nonprofit and academic projects have been trying to leverage smartphones to make contact tracing more widespread and automated. Those include efforts by researchers at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as those at nonprofits. Most have been testing early versions of contact tracing apps using the same basic system that will soon become standard in iOS and Android devices.
One major problem solved by Apple and Google’s initiative is improving the ability of phones to communicate with each other using Bluetooth, a short-range wireless data standard.
“Bluetooth is very, very clunky, and doesn’t work very well between phones,” says Ramesh Raskar of MIT’s SafePaths contact tracing team. “The fact that Apple and Google stepped up made everybody’s life easier.”
Google and Apple have said that their technology will only be usable by government-designated health authorities, in part to reduce the risk of false infection reports by users. CoEpi, SafePaths, and Stanford-based Covid Watch all say they are in discussions with a variety of state and national governments to help develop apps.
Those apps would be able to communicate with each other using the underlying Google-Apple data system. That’s crucial, according to Tina White, a Stanford machine-learning researcher and executive director of Covid Watch. “If you have multiple competing systems you’ll have interactions that aren’t caught…that’s really bad.”
But in contrast to monitoring systems that are used in China, agencies using the Google-Apple system will lack access to information about the location or identity of individual users. The system simply doesn’t generate or transmit that data, according to White.
“We were really trying to fight against the centralized version of this,” she says, because it would create additional privacy risk, including potentially exposing sensitive medical information.
White says the Apple-Google announcement has slowed the push in the U.S. for a centralized infection database, which the White House had reportedly considered. The anonymous system adopted by Apple and Google was first publicly described by Scott Leibrand, another cofounder of the CoEpi project, and James Petrie, a Ph.D. student at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and a member of the Covid Watch team. Leibrand says other teams independently developed “nearly identical” designs, though, and it’s unclear which may have influenced Apple and Google.
Uncertainty remains over whether enough people will use the apps to make the system truly effective—particularly in countries like the U.S., where their use is almost certain to be voluntary. Trust in the system’s anonymity could be key to widespread U.S. adoption.
Spokespeople for Apple and Google cited Oxford University research estimating that 60% of a population using a combination of contact tracing apps and widespread testing would be enough to contain the coronavirus pandemic. Lower adoption rates could still help control the virus’s spread.
The system developed by Apple and Google could be used for apps worldwide, including in countries that are more aggressive about collecting data about users. In addition to the decentralized Apple-Google system, some apps may include more centralized or detailed tracking, such as sharing GPS data.
Raskar, from MIT, says that additional data would generate more detailed public health insights, such as “heat maps” identifying geographic areas with high infection or transmission rates.
Variations are expected between the designs of apps relying on the Apple-Google system, likely including how cases are reported. One major hurdle to rolling out digital contact tracing is determining how to give doctors the ability to confirm cases through apps, if health authorities choose to implement that feature, according to White.
This and other issues to be worked out between developers and state health authorities will be a major factor in how soon apps are available, she says. Once Apple and Google release their new protocol in May, she estimates the apps using it could be available as little as one week later.
“We have the technology,” says White. “The issue now is working with states.”
More must-read tech coverage from Fortune:
—How the coronavirus stimulus package would change gig worker benefits
—Zoom meetings keep getting hacked. How to prevent “Zoom bombing”
—Why China’s tech-based fight against the coronavirus may be unpalatable in the U.S.
—Hospitals are running low on the most critical supply of all: oxygen
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: Best earbuds in 2020: Apple AirPods Pro Vs. Sony WF-1000XM3
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-04-17--The feminist TV show to watch this weekend

This is the web version of the Broadsheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.
Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Land O’Lakes overhauls a long-debated symbol, Angela Merkel inspires calm with science, and we dive into Mrs. America. Happy Friday.
– What to watch. If you’re looking for something to watch this weekend, have we got the show for you.
FX and Hulu on Wednesday released the first three episodes of Mrs. America, a series that dramatizes the 1970s battle over the fate of the Equal Rights Amendment. Cate Blanchett leads the cast as anti-ERA activist Phyllis Schlafly—who changed the fate of the once-bipartisan amendment—while Rose Byrne, Uzo Aduba, Tracey Ullman, and more play Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan and other leading feminists of the era.
I loved the series for a few reasons: a prestige drama about feminism! Cate Blanchett’s chilling performance! Gloria Steinem’s ’70s hair!
But there were two standout episodes for me. One tells the story of Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, who in 1972 was the first woman to mount a serious campaign for president. Many in the feminist movement left her out to dry as they latched onto George McGovern—choosing someone they thought would get elected—over the dream of putting a woman in the Oval Office. Those activists, especially Bella Abzug as portrayed by Margo Martindale, spend an episode arguing that achieving policy goals is more important than a “symbolic” campaign, only to be moved to tears by the sight of Chisholm onstage at the Democratic National Convention.
A later episode follows pro-ERA Republican White House aide Jill Ruckelshaus, played by Elizabeth Banks. Ruckelshaus was in a “dual-career marriage;” her husband was a prominent figure in Republican politics. And, at least in this telling, she weighs her own goals and feminist principles against her husband’s career.
I talked to Mrs. America creator Dahvi Waller, who says that the Ruckelshaus marriage struck her as “such a modern story” about “who’s going to get to shine and who’s going to stay home with the kids;” it was also educational for the many viewers who have never heard of the era’s Republican feminists. The themes of the Chisholm plotline, meanwhile, will be familiar to anyone who just watched the 2020 presidential primary. By the time the creative team was in the editing room, “everyone knew the pressures on Elizabeth Warren to drop out,” Waller told me. Chisholm faced the same pressures, along with racism and doubt from the Congressional Black Caucus.
The entire arc of the series is more current than Waller could have imagined when she began working on the historical drama five years ago. The ERA came roaring back to life in 2017, and in January, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the amendment—the elusive goal activists fell short of almost a half-century ago.
Read my full conversation with Waller here. And for more weekend reading, dig into this piece by my colleague Erika Fry from the May issue of Fortune. Erika examines how the companies headquartered in Seattle confronted the earliest U.S. coronavirus outbreak. Former Washington Gov. Christine “Chris” Gregoire, Kaiser Permanente Washington president Susan Mullaney, and Symetra Financial head Margaret Meister were among the key decision-makers.
Have a relaxing weekend—hopefully with some binge-watching.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Scientist-in-chief. Angela Merkel's background as a scientist has sometimes frustrated her colleagues in German politics who wanted more passionate, and less scientific, rhetoric from the chancellor. But her detailed, clear explanation of the science behind her plan to reopen the country is now drawing praise and sweeping social media: Guardian
- The plan to save childcare. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tina Smith introduced a $50 billion plan to save the American childcare system. The bailout, proposed as part of the next coronavirus relief package, would provide hazard pay to childcare workers caring for the children of essential workers, money for providers to pay staff while they are closed, and long-term higher wages. "We will not be able to rebuild our economy if this country’s childcare system has collapsed," the senators say. Vox
- A butter option. Land O'Lakes, led by CEO Beth Ford, in February announced a redesign to its butter packaging to more prominently feature the "farmer-owners" whose milk is used in the products. But the redesign also removed the brand's 92-year-old "Indian maiden" image, which has been criticized as culturally insensitive and for "depicting Native women as sex objects." Land O'Lakes hasn't commented on the removal of the symbol. Pioneer Press
- Fertility struggles. Aspiring parents have been devastated by the sudden halt of fertility treatments; companies in the sector are bracing for challenges, too. Egg-freezing businesses are especially vulnerable. Those that have priced their services in anticipation of a recession are more likely to emerge from the crisis intact, says Kindbody founder Gina Bartasi. Fortune
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: The American Journalism Project hired Sarabeth Berman as its first CEO. Booster hired Jordan Valdés of APCO Worldwide as head of public affairs. Age of Learning hired Bonnie Matosich, former VP for corporate brand management at Disney, as EVP, brand.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Defying orders. The Michigan Conservative Coalition organized a protest against the state's stay-at-home order issued by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Protesters broke social distancing guidelines to register their displeasure with the order, which is among the strictest in the country. NPR
- Health crisis. Sen. Kamala Harris is sounding the alarm: the coronavirus is disproportionately infecting and killing black Americans. In an op-ed for Elle, the senator argues that the disparity isn't a surprise to anyone familiar with racial inequality in the U.S. Elle
- Jobs report. The latest installments in Fortune's series "The Coronavirus Economy" feature Rebecca Palsha-Hopkins, an assistant news director for an Anchorage, Alaska TV station, and Marisa LaValette, a women's coach in the health and wellness industry. Palsha-Hopkins is preparing her staff for the yet-to-arrive coronavirus peak in Alaska, while LaValette is experiencing self-employment during an economic downturn for the first time.
ON MY RADAR
I’m working remotely. Can I keep hiding my secret baby? New York Times
Hell yeah, basketball nuns The Cut
New Zealand TV presenter 'deeply sorry' for her disturbing Jacinda Ardern cake Guardian
A woman living alone Washington Post
PARTING WORDS
"Now, when I’m on court, I am just really thankful to be out there."
-16-year-old tennis phenom Coco Gauff on struggling with depression after her rapid success


fortune--2020-04-17--The U.K. may not let Trump-target Huawei build part of its 5G network after all

Boris Johnson’s plan to let Huawei Technologies Co. help build the U.K.’s fifth-generation mobile networks is under threat from mounting opposition to the Chinese company in his ruling Conservative Party, government officials say.
The government had hoped to win over Tory rebels with an information campaign about Huawei ahead of an as-yet-unscheduled vote in Parliament on the company’s involvement in the country’s 5G infrastructure. But two people familiar with the government’s thinking now believe that a hardening of positions among rank-and-file Conservative MPs will make it difficult — if not impossible — to get the legislation passed.
China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has triggered calls from prominent Tories for a rethink of the U.K.’s push for closer ties to China after former Tory Prime Minister David Cameron and Chinese President Xi Jinping promised a “golden era” in 2015. Even Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said at a televised press conference on Thursday it can’t be “business as usual” with China once the pandemic is over.
That’s put the spotlight firmly back on Huawei. Johnson’s government decided in January to give the company a limited role in 5G wireless networks and fiber, while capping its market share and restricting it from the network core which sees and controls sensitive information.
The go-ahead came after the U.K.’s security services said risks associated with Huawei — the U.S. and other countries say the company is an arm of the Chinese Communist Party and could enable spying — can be managed. Huawei has repeatedly denied that its equipment poses a security risk.
“We hope the U.K. side can uphold principles of freedom and openness, maintain policy independence and provide Chinese companies with an open, fair and nondiscriminatory business environment,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a briefing in Beijing on Friday. “This will help Chinese companies maintain confidence in the U.K. market.”
Rebellion
British and Chinese reassurances haven’t persuaded a group of senior Tories. They include former party leader Iain Duncan Smith, who led a rebellion over a relatively minor piece of telecommunications legislation in the House of Commons last month to warn ministers of the strength of feeling about Huawei. The government, which has an 80-seat majority, passed the bill by just 24 votes.
“I think the mood in the parliamentary party has hardened,” Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview. “And I think it’s a shared realization of what it means for dependence on a business that is part of a state that does not share our values. That has become clearer.”
Asked if he agreed that the government won’t get its legislation through, Tugendhat replied: “Yes.”
It’s a view also shared by Damian Green, de facto deputy in former Prime Minister Theresa May’s government.
“We need to devise a proper, realistic exit strategy from relying on Huawei, which will be difficult for some of our telecom providers so they need to know the government is determined to drive down Huawei’s involvement to zero percent over a realistic timescale, because that will affect everyone’s procurement decisions,” Green said in an interview.
William Hague, a former Conservative leader and foreign secretary who now sits in the House of Lords, said Wednesday the U.K. cannot be dependent on China as it’s demonstrated it does not “play by our rules.”
Separately, the British government paid Chinese firms $20 million for two million coronavirus home testing kits that didn’t work, the New York Times reported on Friday.
High Cost
A similar rethinking of China relations is visible in the U.S. Republican Party, as the Trump campaign on Tuesday sent out a fund-raising email that accused China of “lying” about the outbreak and saying it must be held accountable.
But whereas the U.S. had already banned Huawei from its 5G networks, the U.K. planned to push ahead with a company that is already present in all four of the country’s next-generation networks rolled out to date.
“The new 5G networks which the U.K. government agreed we should help build out will give the economy a huge boost and create jobs by making it easier to get online or set up a business no matter where you live,” a Huawei spokesman said in an e-mailed statement. “We remain focused on working with our customers — the telecoms operators — to build a better connected Britain.”
If the government’s plan is defeated, new laws would still be required to ban the Shenzhen-based vendor explicitly, a significant U-turn for Johnson. A blanket ban would in turn incur billions in costs for the country’s telecom carriers, who would have to rip out their existing Huawei equipment, and delay the U.K.’s 5G rollout by more than a year, the industry has said.
“Our position has not changed,” a government spokesman said in an email Thursday. “We are clear-eyed about the challenge posed by Huawei, which is why we are banning them from sensitive and critical parts of the network and setting a strict 35% cap on market share.”
Limiting Access
Under the U.K.’s policy, that 35% cap will be imposed on Huawei’s share of the non-sensitive section of the next-generation networks, such as antennas, masts and even fixed-line fiber-to-the-home components.
Merely complying with the cap within the three-year deadline is set to cost BT Group Plc 500 million pounds ($623 million), the company has said, as it needs to rip Huawei equipment out of its 4G network, which undergirds its early 5G systems.
High-risk vendors, a category including China’s ZTE which is already banned from the U.K., are also to be “excluded from sensitive geographic locations, such as nuclear sites and military bases.”
The cap will be kept under review and could be reduced over time, the government has said. The cap is roughly in line with Huawei’s current overall market share in 4G, and Huawei said it was expected and reasonable.
Duncan Smith’s group has been trying to ban operators from using any equipment from so-called high-risk vendors beyond December 2022.
More must-read tech coverage from Fortune:
—How Fortune 500 companies are utilizing their resources and expertise during the pandemic
—Everything to know about Apple’s iPhone SE—a new $400 phone
—YouTube TV’s fight against big cable has gotten a big boost during the pandemic
—Should you fear government surveillance in the coronavirus era?
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO
—WATCH: Best earbuds in 2020: Apple AirPods Pro Vs. Sony WF-1000XM3
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-04-17--How Starbucks is getting ready to reopen more U.S. stores

Starbucks is laying the groundwork for an accelerated return to business next month, betting its technology will help it recover quickly.
The company, which operates just under 9,000 U.S. stores and licenses thousands more at other retailers, plans to “gradually expand” operations on a store-by-store basis by using a “monitor and adapt” approach, in consultation with local authorities and in line with customer sentiment, its chief executive Kevin Johnson told staff in a memo sent on Thursday.
“This will be a journey,” he wrote. “We are thoughtfully preparing for this next phase as we adapt in the U.S.”
As the coronavirus pandemic surged across the United States, the company closed many stores on March 20 and limited operations at others. It had initially planned to shutter them for two weeks, but then extended that date to May 3. As of now, Starbucks doesn’t offer any in-store seating in the U.S. But at many locations, it is offering services like drive-thru pickup, available at 58% of its stores. (The company said last week that three-quarters of stores with drive-thru are open.)
All the closings, limited operations, and the fact that tens of millions of people are working from home rather than at the office have taken a toll: The company’s U.S. comparable sales were down as much 70% in the last week of March. So the company is eager to ramp things up all the more, Johnson said, since there has been a decline in the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases.
“We are ready for this new, dynamic period,” he wrote.
To do so, while respecting social distancing guidelines, Starbucks has been testing contactless service, such as order pickup via a specific store entryway or at curbside, as well as at-home delivery—it began working with Uber Eats this year—from 300 of its U.S. stores. Some locations will remain drive-thru only, while some will allow people to come in and place orders to go. Johnson’s letter made no mention of when in-restaurant dining might resume.
It isn’t always high-tech. As Fortune’s John Buysse observed last week, at a Starbucks in Chicago (at West Logan Blvd. and North California Ave.), employees used colored chalk on the sidewalks to set up lines.
While Starbucks is taking a hit, it could have been a lot worse without its big investments in tech in recent years. In 2019, the Starbucks app had 25.2 million users, making it second only to Apple Pay among mobile payment apps, according to eMarketer. And it has been essential to Starbucks’ loyalty program, which generates nearly half its revenue.
What’s more, Starbucks has made big strides in mobile ordering, something that is proving to be a lifeline right now. In China, where the vast majority of Starbucks stores are now open again after closing in late January and February, mobile ordering was behind 80% of sales at the peak of that country’s lockdown, when stores could only offer pickup. That has fallen back down to 27% as business has begun to normalize. That capability will serve Starbucks well in the U.S., even after stores have reopened, given the likely reluctance of customers to linger by a cash register waiting for their order.
The company has set up a market-by-market dashboard for local managers including information on regional coronavirus cases. Johnson said that as testing becomes more widely available, that data will be added to the dashboard, which aims to help local managers decide how far their store can go toward full operation.
“We are finding new, innovative ways to serve our communities safely while working hard to exceed public health requirements and adjust to new customer expectations,” Johnson wrote.
More must-read retail coverage from Fortune:
—“Ugly March” leads into “hideous April” for retail as sales slip the most they ever have
—How the on-demand liquor delivery business changed overnight
—These robot-powered warehouses could save grocers
—How Fortune 500 companies are stepping up during the pandemic
—Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEOs
—WATCH: The greatest designs of modern times
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