fortune--2020-01-14--Tonight’s Democratic debate: How to watch, start time—and 4 key issues to watch for during it

This article is about the Jan. 14 Democratic debate. For information on the Feb. 25 debate, click here.
A pending impeachment trial in the Senate, a possible conflict with Iran, and a battle brewing between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren will likely highlight the seventh Democratic presidential debate tonight.
Tuesday’s debate begins at 9 p.m. E.T. and will be co-hosted by CNN and The Des Moines Register at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, CNN political correspondent Abby Phillip, and Brianne Pfannenstiel, the Register‘s chief political reporter, will moderate.
The seventh Democratic debate comes precisely three weeks before the Iowa Caucuses, the first primary of the 2020 election season, take place across the Hawkeye state.
There is a four-way fight among candidates in the latest Iowa Poll, with Sanders maintaining a narrow lead over Warren, Buttigieg, and Biden. Meanwhile, the latest Monmouth Poll of Iowa voters has Biden well ahead of his rivals.
Tuesday’s debate comes amid rising tensions between the United States and Iran following and as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi prepares to send the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate possibly this week.
“It’s not only an incredibly busy week, but the question will also become which candidate can create a narrative that will be an inspiration for voters going forward,” said Dan Sena, former executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Which candidates qualified for tonight’s debate in Iowa?
Daniel Acker—Bloomberg via Getty Images
Six candidates—one fewer than last month’s debate—have qualified for Tuesday’s contest:
Once again, requirements were much stricter to qualify for Tuesday’s debate than last month’s. The candidates had to hit at least 5% in four approved Democratic National Committee (DNC) polls, or 7% in two early-state (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina) polls.
Candidates also needed to have 225,000 donors—an extra 25,000 donors from last month’s debate.
DNC Chair Tom Perez told MSNBC last week there were at least 20 polls that candidates could have qualified for, compared to only five polls before the Democratic debate in Iowa in 2016.
“We have set the rules out. They have been very transparent,” Perez said on MSNBC’s Velshi and Ruhle on Jan. 7. “We’ve given unprecedented access.”
With New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker on Monday announcing his sooner-than-expected departure from the presidential race, tonight’s debate will be the least diverse so far with six white candidates sparring.
While Booker did meet the donor requirement, he again missed getting on the debate stage by not meeting the polling threshold (tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang also met the donor requirement, but not the polling threshold).
Nonetheless, Booker bowing out follows the departure of former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro, the only Latino candidate in the field, who dropped out of the race on Jan. 2 (and endorsed Warren four days later). Last Friday, self-help author Marianne Williamson ended her long-shot campaign bid.
Meanwhile, these candidates failed to qualify for the January Democratic debate:
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard
Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet
Former Maryland Rep. John Delaney
Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick
Billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg
Bloomberg, who has spent a reported $200 million in advertising, has even gone so far to say the current primary structure favors Trump, not the Democratic candidates.
DNC Chair Tom Perez told MSNBC that Bloomberg “obviously has the resources to do a lot of advertising, and that is obviously his right. What we are going to find out, again, we’re less than a month from voting, and the voters will make their choices very clearly.”
Perez thinks there will be a record voter turnout in Iowa and the other early primary states.
“It’s basically a 90-day sprint to the end of April,” Perez said. “We will have 90 percent of the delegates allocated, and it’s a question the voters will answer.”
“The enthusiasm is off the charts,” Perez said Jan. 7. “Women are coming out in great numbers…We have the wind at our backs and we’re going to keep organizing. I look forward to this debate.”
How to watch tonight’s Democratic debate online—even without cable
The January Democratic debate will air live on CNN, CNN en Español, and CNN International.
You can watch the debate for free online via a live stream available at CNN.com and at DesMoinesRegister.com.
The debate is also viewable on mobile devices, including CNN’s and the Register‘s iOS and Android apps.
YouTube and SiriusXM channels 116 and 124, and TuneIn, will also carry tonight’s debate.
4 things to watch for during the debate
The last two debates didn’t bring that much excitement, but tonight the gloves might come off.
1. Will we finally see that ‘Clash of the New England Senators?’
Expect the debate moderators to instigate a possible clash between Warren and Sanders, and watch whether either candidate takes the bait. Justin Sullivan—Getty Images
Sanders denied reports Monday that he privately told Warren in 2018 a woman can’t win the presidency.
On Monday, Sanders said in a statement that it’s “ludicrous” to think that at the same meeting he had when Warren told him she was running for president that a woman couldn’t win.
“It’s sad that, three weeks before the Iowa Caucus and a year after that private conversation, staff who weren’t in the room are lying about what happened,” Sanders told CNN. “What I did say that night was that Donald Trump is a sexist, a racist, and a liar who would weaponize whatever he could. Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course. After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016.”
Previously, reports surfaced that Sanders’ campaign volunteers were encouraged to question Warren’s ability to expand the Democratic party’s coalition beyond highly educated voters.
Warren later told reporters Sunday in Marshalltown, Iowa, that she was “disappointed” to hear the Sanders campaign was apparently “out to trash” her.
“I have never said a negative word about Elizabeth Warren, who is a friend of mine,” Sanders told reporters during a rally in Iowa.
Still, expect the debate moderators to instigate a possible clash between Warren and Sanders, and watch whether either candidate takes the bait.
What’s at stake for the two New England progressive candidates? Not only winning in Iowa, but New Hampshire as well. Keep in mind that every Democrat in U.S. history who has won both the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries has eventually become the presidential nominee.
Sena believes Warren and Sanders will do their best to remain civil to each other.
“I think they both know they are their voter bases second most-favorite candidate,” Sena said. “Given the caucus format, they will do whatever they can because they know there is a mutual benefit to keep their messages positive and clear.
“However, post-Iowa, all bets are off between the two of them.”
2. Was the Soleimani killing justified?
The candidates will definitely use the debate stage to state their individual positions on the Trump Administration’s decision to kill Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and to strike back at Trump, who called Democrats disloyal.
Trump said the U.S. took “a monster” out, who threatened to harm to Americans.
“We killed the number one terrorist in the world by every account. We killed him, and when the Democrats try to defend him, it’s a disgrace to our country,” Trump told reporters on Monday at the White House.
Earlier, Trump tweeted, “The Fake News Media and their Democrat Partners are working hard to determine whether or not the future attack by terrorist Soleimani was “imminent” or not, & was my team in agreement. The answer to both is a strong YES., but it doesn’t really matter because of his horrible past!”
Look for a possible unified stance among the Democratic candidates who will be doing their share of fact checking the President’s position. However, a candidate like Sanders may not resist and call out Biden for voting to authorize the Iraq war in 2003.
If Biden continues to struggle coming up with a good answer, it could potentially lead to this past weekend’s popular hashtag, #JoeVotedForTheWar, to start trending on social media again.
3. Impeachment defense
As Pelosi prepares to hand over impeachment articles to the Senate, the candidates will undoubtedly defend the House Speaker’s actions, and rail against Trump, who wants the two charges against him dismissed, and the Republicans supporting him.
Surely, there will be one candidate during Tuesday’s debate who will echo Pelosi’s televised statement on Sunday, “This president is impeached for life,” which led to a furious tweetstorm by Trump (and the hashtag #ImpeachedForLife to start trending on Twitter).
As three of the six Democratic candidates are sitting senators, each could give an outline of what they expect during the trial and what role they plan to play.
4. Accusations of billionaire Democratic candidates trying to buy the nomination
Money and politics will inevitably come up during Tuesday’s debate as Bloomberg and Steyer are flooding the airwaves with their commercials.
“The alternative is Michael Bloomberg’s version of democracy, and that is billionaires who decide among themselves, who’s going to reach into their pocket and throw a few hundred million on the table and buy, what, a nomination? An election?” Warren said on MSNBC last week, echoing similar comments she’s said on the campaign trail.
“If that’s the case,” Warren continued, “then our democracy becomes something that only works for a tiny number of people, and it’s going to shut everyone else out.”
Perez, the DNC chair, said on MSNBC last week that “the person who is going to win the Democratic primary—I don’t know who that will be—is going to be the person who garners votes across the broad quilt of the Democratic party.”
If you look at the polling, Perez said, it reflects that sentiment.
“Whoever is able to do that, is going to win,” he said. “The voters are speaking very clearly, and we’ve had the most inclusive process in American history.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Donald Trump and the power of incumbency
—Just six candidates qualify for the January Democratic debate
—The wealthiest members of Congress—and how they made their millions
—USPS could privatize as early as next year
—2020 Crystal Ball: Predictions for the economy, politics, technology, and more
Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter.


fortune--2020-01-14--Greta Gerwig, ‘Little Women,’ and an enormous Oscars snub

Ford and GM take a hit in China as German carmakers thrive

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! The Megxit drama continues, sources say Bernie Sanders told Elizabeth Warren a woman couldn’t win (but he denies it), and #OscarsSoMale—again. Have a terrific Tuesday.
EVERYONE’S TALKING
– Misdirection. Nominations for the 92nd annual Academy Awards were out yesterday, and if you were hoping for a woman to finally receive a director nod: better luck next year. Again, the category had only male honorees. Greta Gerwig stands out as the most prominent snub, considering her take on Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women was nominated for six awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Critics of the all-male line-up also faulted the Academy for overlooking other directors, like Lulu Wang of The Farewell, Lorene Scafaria of Hustlers, Melina Matsoukas of Queen & Slim, and Marielle Heller of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
It’s worth pointing out that the Academy ended up with this outcome while consciously trying to up its diversity. Its goal is to double its female and minority membership, but four years into the effort, it remains 68% male and 84% white. Insecure creator and star Issa Rae, who presented the nominations, captured all of our exasperation, when, after announcing the best director list, she quipped: “Congratulations to those men.”
Little Women star Florence Pugh, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, was more direct, calling Gerwig’s snub, “incredibly upsetting.”
“She’s literally made a film about this,” Pugh told Entertainment Weekly. “She made a film about women working and their relationship with money and their relationship with working in a man’s world. That’s literally what Little Women is about, so [this] only underlines how important it is—because it’s happening.”
Taking all this into account, it’s worth revisiting a Vanity Fair interview with Gerwig from Saturday. “I still think we very much have a hierarchy of stories,” she told the magazine. “I think that the top of the hierarchy is male violence—man on man, man on woman, etc. I think if you look at the books and films and stories that we consider to be ‘important,’ that is a common theme, either explicitly or implicitly.” Nevertheless, she said, “I believe that writing about something makes it important. I think Louisa May Alcott, whether she knew it or not, made the ordinary lives of girls and women extraordinary by turning her pen to them.”
And in a new interview with The New York Times yesterday, Gerwig addressed the Academy overlooking female directors head-on. She said the sheer number of female directors is inching upward, and ultimately, that will make the difference. “[I]n terms of it all moving in the right direction,” she said, “that’s all we can do: continue to make the work, make the work, make the work.”
Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman
Today’s Broadsheet was produced by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Can a woman win? Sources told CNN that in 2018, Sen. Bernie Sanders allegedly told Sen. Elizabeth Warren as she prepared to run that he didn't believe a woman could win the race for president. Sanders strongly denied the story, and says it is "ludicrous" that he would make such a comment. Warren's campaign then released a statement that said the fate of a female candidate had come up in their conversation. "I thought a woman could win; he disagreed,” Warren said. The two will likely face questions about the alleged confrontation on the Des Moines debate stage tonight. CNN
- Side-by-side. Queen Elizabeth II issued a statement yesterday agreeing on a "period of transition" for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. But another royal story drew attention, too. This BuzzFeed piece shows side-by-side examples of how the British tabloid press has written about Meghan in comparison to Kate Middleton; one example shows how the same tabloid that cooed over Middleton's experimentation with avocados to ease her morning sickness criticized Markle for eating the same fruit since it's been "linked to human rights abuses."
- Self-defense. How far can abused women go to protect themselves? The New Yorker examines the case of Brittany Smith, charged with murder after killing a man who raped her. Self-defense from rapists or abusers is a "valid legal defense," the piece says, but women still face murder charges. The New Yorker
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Abby Huntsman will leave The View to help run her father Jon Huntsman Jr.'s campaign for governor of Utah. The Guardian Media Group named Annette Thomas as chief executive. Mastercard promoted Raj Seshadri to president of data and services and Linda Kirkpatrick to Seshadri's former role of president, U.S. issuers. Canadian pension plan OMERS named Shelagh Paul VP, global communications.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Airport security? Taking a flight to Saipan anytime soon? Look out for some unorthodox airport screening measures. One airline, Hong Kong Express Airways, asked women to take pregnancy tests before they boarded planes. The U.S. island in the Pacific has stirred concerns about citizens of other countries visiting expressly for the purpose of giving birth there, which grants their baby U.S. citizenship. It's not illegal to do that, but immigration authorities are allowed to deny visitors who lie about their reason for traveling or who can't prove they have the money for a "medical procedure" like giving birth at their destination. One Japanese woman who was heading to Saipan to visit her parents and was asked to take a pregnancy test said the experience was "humiliating and frustrating." Wall Street Journal
- Retirement report. Trends in Japan's workforce and population demographics are combining to leave up to 50% of Japanese women in poverty in their old age. While more women are working than ever, many are predicted to run out of money 20 years before they die. Bloomberg
- Fly me to the moon. Yusaku Maezawa is set to be the first private citizen to go to space with SpaceX. He just wants someone to share it with. The Japanese billionaire posted a website where women can apply to be his "companion" on the journey. Bloomberg
ON MY RADAR
Climate activist turns down Siemens' offer of seat on energy board Guardian
The bearable whiteness of Little Women New York Times
Gigi Hadid called as potential juror in Harvey Weinstein trial Variety
QUOTE
"Have you been talking to my mom?"
-Sen. Cory Booker, on Twitter, after dropping out of the presidential race, in response to a report that fans were "mourning the possibility of First Lady Rosario Dawson"


fortune--2020-01-14--China dodges hit from Trump’s tariffs with exports to the rest of the world

China’s export juggernaut last year showed it can be nimble too, quickly diversifying into new markets to cushion the impact of Donald Trump’s tariff onslaught.
That’s the key trend seen in China’s 2019 trade data published Tuesday, which show exports to the U.S. plunged 12.5% even as overall shipments rose 0.5%. The trade balance tells a similar story, with China’s surplus with the U.S. dropping 8.5% to almost $296 billion even as its overall surplus rose more than 20% to about $422 billion.
The Phase One trade truce due to be signed by the two nations in Washington Wednesday may bring only a temporary respite as deep divisions over issues from subsidies to technological dominance persist. That raises the question of whether China can continue offsetting the impact of Trump’s tariffs as uncertainty threatens to undercut its global supply chain dominance.
“The trade tension between China and the U.S. led primarily to a redirection of trade flows,” said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economics research at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong. “The Phase One deal in itself may not lead to a full snap-back in global trade, with lingering policy uncertainty continuing to weigh on corporate spending.”
China is set to commit to targets already stated by the U.S., and buy about $200 billion more U.S. agriculture, energy, manufactured goods and services over the next two years in a phase-one trade deal, according to people familiar with the matter. That includes about $50 billion in oil and gas, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing the deal which hasn’t been made public. Earlier Tuesday, Politico and Reuters reported differing sets of numbers for the purchase commitments in the trade deal.
Amid the ratcheting-up tariffs, China’s exporters wasted no time finding alternative markets and by year end shipments to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations had surged almost 13% while those to the U.K. rose 10%. So effective was this strategy that China’s share of global exports held firm through the first three quarters.
China’s December trade data showed both import and export growth exceeded expectations. Exports rose 7.6% while imports surged 16.3%.
China shifted from a $5 billion deficit with the rest of Asia at the end of 2018 to a surplus of about $67 billion last year, according to calculations by Christopher Balding, an associate professor at Fulbright University in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City.
“This swing in economic fortunes will change the dynamics for many countries of dealing with China,” he says. “Whatever its faults, the United States’ willingness to import a lot more than it exported to most countries smoothed over many problems.”
China’s exporters aren’t out of the woods yet either. Tariffs remain on both Chinese and U.S. goods, and even after the trade deal is signed, the U.S. will be imposing tariffs that are 14.4 percentage points higher on Chinese imports than before the trade war erupted, according to JP Morgan.
It’s likely that bilateral trade will stay depressed for years with a significant risk of decoupling, and could drop as much as 40%, says Adam Slater, lead economist at Oxford Economics Ltd. in London.
The real impact on China is the coming diversification of supply chains, not just away from China but from over-reliance on any single supplier, says Pauline Loong, managing director at research company Asia Analytica in Hong Kong.
“Recalibrating supply chains takes time,” she says. “So the longer term impact on China is more serious than it may appear right now.”
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Geopolitical events just don’t bounce oil prices like they used to
—The Carlos Ghosn affair: A look inside the motivations of a fugitive CEO
—How the re-election of Taiwan’s president could reshape Asia’s economic landscape
—Laws meant to close down tax havens and shut loopholes could have opposite effect
—7 M&As that defined a decade of dealmaking and reshaped the economy
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-01-16--Apple buys artificial intelligence startup Xnor.ai, but not necessarily for a smarter Siri

What must e-sports ’ first female commissioner do to become a true trailblazer ?
Turn a profit

Apple has quietly acquired Xnor.ai, a Seattle-based artificial intelligence startup, for approximately $200 million, GeekWire reports. But that doesn’t mean a smarter Siri is on the roadmap—at least not yet.
“Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” an Apple spokesperson told Fortune in a statement.
Founded in 2017, Xnor.ai was born inside the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a startup incubator founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Using the startup’s technology, a device can call on a local chipset—or the cloud—to answer A.I. queries, as well as improve images by removing blemishes or blurriness, among other functions.
Currently, most smartphone virtual assistant functions rely on cloud-based servers that identify a need for artificial intelligence and send directions back to the requesting device. So, if Siri is asked to turn off the lights, for instance, that query is sent over the internet to Apple’s cloud server, which interprets the request and sends a command back to the software to activate a function that turns off the desired lights. While it may all take milliseconds (ideally), it’s still a delayed process that burns battery life.
Ken Hyers, a director at Strategy Analytics in the research firm’s Emerging Device Technologies division, says Apple’s acquisition reflects where smartphone artificial intelligence is going.
“It’s a real trend in the industry to move artificial intelligence to the device,” Hyers says. “Google is focused on this, Samsung is working on this as well. Qualcomm with their latest Snapdragon chipsets is also doing it.”
But that doesn’t mean Siri will be any smarter as a result of the Xnor.ai acquisition. While it’s possible that the startup’s technology could improve the latency on Apple’s virtual personal assistant, Xnor.ai won’t be able to improve Siri’s abilities or boost its accuracy, Hyers says.
Instead, Hyers believes Apple will use Xnor.ai’s artificial intelligence to analyze pictures users take and make on-the-fly enhancements to make them look better. Recently, Xnor.ai had driven the people detection on low-cost Wyze cameras, a service it stopped providing in November, The Verge reports.
Apple, however, could easily use Xnor.ai to make iPhones more attractive to shoppers. Strategy Analytics regularly polls consumers on their most-desired smartphone features, and Hyers says camera quality is always in the top three. “Anything that improves picture-taking is going to enhance the saleability of the device,” he says.
It typically takes companies about 18 months to integrate a new chipset into a phone, and since Hyers believes Apple will unveil new iPhones in September, there won’t likely be enough time for this year’s Apple products to take advantage of Xnor’s technology. But Hyers expects to see it integrated into iPhones, iPads, and other devices next year.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Greenpeace ranks China’s tech giants on renewable energy
—Sex tech steals the spotlight at CES
—Why there are so many scooters in Los Angeles
—What a $1,000 investment in 10 top stocks a decade ago would be worth today
—Best of CES 2020? Tech sites’ opinions differ wildly
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-01-15--House Democrats march impeachment articles to Senate

As business and labor leaders , we agree on this : The U.S. needs to stay in the Paris Agreement

In a dramatic procession across the U.S. Capitol, Democratic House leaders marched the formal articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate late Wednesday, setting the stage for only the third trial to remove a president in American history.
Trump complained anew it was all a “hoax,” even as fresh details emerged about his efforts in Ukraine.
The ceremonial pomp and protocol by lawmakers who will be prosecuting the case against Trump moved the impeachment out of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic-run House to the Republican-majority Senate, where the president’s team is mounting a defense aiming for swift acquittal.
“Today we will make history,” Pelosi said as she signed the documents, using multiple pens to hand out and mark the moment. “This president will be held accountable.”
Earlier Wednesday, the House voted 228-193, almost entirely along party lines to deliver the charges. The split reflected the deeply divided nation at the start of this presidential election year. It came one month after the House impeached Trump alleging he abused his presidential power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden, using military aid to the country as leverage. Trump was also charged with obstructing Congress’ ensuing probe.
Trump’s political campaign dismissed the House effort as “just a failed attempt to politically damage President Trump leading up to his reelection.”
The Senate will transform itself into an impeachment court on Thursday. The Constitution calls for Chief Justice John Roberts to preside at the trial, administering the oath to senators who will serve as jurors and swear to deliver “impartial justice.’
Technically, the House was simply notifying the Senate of its delivery of the articles, with a more formal presentation Thursday. Opening arguments are to begin next Tuesday after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
The top Republican in the House, Kevin McCarthy of California, said Americans will look back on this “sad saga” that tried to remove the president from office with the “weakest case.”
The president’s team expects acquittal with a Senate trial lasting no more than two weeks, according to senior administration officials unauthorized to discuss the matter and granted anonymity.
That’s far shorter than the last presidential impeachment trail, of Bill Clinton, in 1999, or the first one, of Andrew Johnson, in 1868.
As Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sets the rules for the trial, Trump has given mixed messages about whether he prefers lengthy or swift proceeding, and senators are under pressure with the emerging new evidence to call more witnesses for testimony.
The seven-member prosecution team will be led by the chairmen of the House impeachment proceedings, Reps. Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee and Jerry Nadler of the Judiciary Committee, two of Pelosi’s top lieutenants.
Ahead of Wednesday’s session, Schiff released new records from Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, about the Ukraine strategy, including an exchange with another man about surveilling later-fired Ambassador Maria Yovanovitch.
Schiff said the new evidence should bring more pressure on McConnell, who is reluctant to allow witnesses to testify and also prefers swift acquittal.
“If McConnell makes this the first trial in history without witnesses, it will be exposed for what it is and that is an effort to cover up for the president,” Schiff said.
McConnell opened the Senate dismissing what he called a rushed impeachment that is more about the politics of Democrats who don’t like Trump than the charges against him.
“This isn’t really about Ukraine policy or military money,” McConnell said. “This has been naked partisanship all along.”
Trump’s trial will be only the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history, and it comes against the backdrop of a politically divided nation in an election year.
The managers are a diverse group with legal, law enforcement and military experience, including Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Sylvia Garcia of Texas, Val Demings of Florida, Jason Crow of Colorado and Zoe Lofgren of California.
Two are freshmen lawmakers — Crow a former Army Ranger who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Garcia a former judge in Houston. Demings is the former police chief of Orlando and Jeffries is a lawyer and member of party leadership. Lofgren has the rare credential of having worked on the congressional staff investigation of then-President Richard Nixon’s impeachment — he resigned before the full House voted on the charges — and then being an elected lawmaker during Bill Clinton’s.
All but one Democrat, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, voted to transmit the articles. All Republicans voted against. One former Republican-turned-independent, Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, joined Democrats.
McConnell faces competing pressures from his party for more witnesses, from centrists who are siding with Democrats on the need to hear testimony and conservatives mounting Trump’s defense.
Senate Republicans signaled they would reject the idea of simply voting to dismiss the articles of impeachment against Trump, as Trump himself has suggested. McConnell agreed he does not have the votes to do that.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is leading an effort among some Republicans, including Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lamar Alexander of Tennesse e to consider Senate witnesses. She told reporters she was satisfied the rules will allow votes on that.
Romney said he wants to hear from John Bolton, the former national security adviser at the White House, who others have said raised alarms about the alternative foreign policy toward Ukraine being run by Giuliani.
Those four senators could force votes. Republicans control the chamber, 53-47, and are all but certain to acquit Trump. But it takes just 51 votes during the trial to approve rules or call witnesses. It also would take only 51 senators to vote to dismiss the charges against Trump.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and other Republicans want to subpoena Biden and his son, Hunter, who served on the board of a gas company in Ukraine, Burisma, while his father was vice president.
McConnell prefers to model Trump’s trial partly on the process used for Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999. It, too, contained motions for dismissal or calling new witnesses.
McConnell is hesitant to call new witnesses who would prolong the trial and put vulnerable senators who are up for reelection in 2020 in a bind with tough choices. At the same time, he wants to give those same senators ample room to show voters they are listening.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Donald Trump and the power of incumbency
—Just six candidates qualify for the January Democratic debate
—The wealthiest members of Congress—and how they made their millions
—USPS could privatize as early as next year
—2020 Crystal Ball: Predictions for the economy, politics, technology, and more
Get up to speed on your morning commute with Fortune’s CEO Daily newsletter.


fortune--2020-01-15--Otis Elevator’s New Boss Leads With A Personal Touch: “Hi, I’m Judy!”

When Judy Marks became CEO at Otis Elevator she was tasked with two huge jobs: spin out from corporate parent United Technologies and reinvent the 166-year-old company into a digital technology powerhouse.
She’s been checking the boxes over the past six months since she took the top job. Otis is expected to be independent of United Technologies by mid-2020. And the world’s leading elevator company has already been designing and installing digital technologies in its new installations.
That remarkable pace of change is largely because of the personal way Marks has won over Otis’ 68,000 employees. She spent her first 100 days as CEO traveling to as many of the company’s 1,400 branch offices, 15 factories and customer facilities spread throughout 200 countries so she could develop a “connection” with Otis employees.
“I walked around. I reached out my hand and said, ‘Hi, I’m Judy!’ And that translates in about every language in the world,” Marks says with a laugh. “I think if you can connect and your team respects you, they’ll follow you.”
And it seems to be working. Marks says she regularly gets phone calls and emails from employees pitching new ideas that will bring innovations to the Farmington, Connecticut-based company. “I love it,” she says. “And I answer every one of them.”
With 2018 revenues of nearly $13 billion, Otis plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange once it becomes a standalone company. At that size, Otis may qualify for a spot on the Fortune 500, making Marks the newest member on the elite list of female CEOs.
Trained as an electrical engineer, Marks has held executive positions at Lockheed-Martin, IBM and Siemens before joining Otis in 2017. But she gives her father most of the credit for teaching her how to be a good leader. Marks says she learned by watching him while working at his small department store near Philadelphia when she was in high school.
“I just learned very basic lessons,” she explains, “that if you satisfy customers and you can really work as a team collaboratively, you can accomplish incredible things.”
Watch the video above for more.


fortune--2020-01-15--What must e-sports’ first female commissioner do to become a true trailblazer? Turn a profit

As the first (and only) female commissioner of an e-sports league, Johanna Faries serves a prestigious, high-profile role within competitive video gaming. And as a former NFL vice president of club business development, she brings a traditional sports background and experience to the post. But laurels and pedigrees aside, as the commissioner of the new Call of Duty League, Faries faces the same hurdle everyone else in e-sports leadership must overcome: Bringing the outfit to profitability.
“To see how the NFL has grown the sport of football in these insanely impressive ways from different viewpoints during my time there was a leg-up,” says Faries of her nearly 12-year run at the league. “We truly believe a Call of Duty League has the potential to do that—if not more—just because of what e-sports can bring to the table.”
The Call of Duty League is made up of 12 teams across the U.S., Canada, England, and France and is run and operated by Activision-Blizzard. Its first season kicks off later this month, when teams will turn the popular first-person shooter game into a professional battlefield.
Overall, when it comes to e-sports, optimism abounds. Its arenas sell out. High-profile investors include Michael Jordan and Drake. And the flashy tech that comes with the territory can even leave e-sports heavyweights wide-eyed. But these leagues have yet to yield big fruit—and Faries isn’t arguing that point.
“I don’t think any of us got into this game for a quick buck, if you will,” Faries says. “That’s not what this enterprise is asking—this is a sports league of the future.”
That’s why Faries is using decades of winning business lessons from the gridiron to jump-start Call of Duty League. For instance, she has developed uniforms for the teams—with jersey, hoodie, and bomber jacket styles that embrace the “sneaker culture” of players—to help fans distinguish between teams. The league is also building a city-based league structure “that is very much a reference back to the NFL’s way of franchising,” Faries says.
And then there’s Call of Duty’s approach to broadcasting events. “We all know on Sundays there’s football,” Faries says. “Appointment viewing is part of the secret sauce there.” Starting January 24, Call of Duty League will have three full days of broadcasted live match content and experiences for fans. “We’ll probably level that up and really make Sunday the day for Call of Duty League,” she adds.
The league’s plan for presenting the first-person-shooter is already next-level. Faries acknowledges that e-sports has challenges from a watchability perspective. “It’s hard to follow,” she says. “Unless you are highly engaged with the game, it’s oftentimes a frenetic experience.” The Call of Duty League aims to solve that problem by rolling out new ways to visualize the game, be it from a third-person view, aerial views, or with cameras that follow the players in a 360-degree manner, Faries says.
Though it’s in an early stage of development, Faries contends that the Call of Duty League has a path to profitability, citing global sponsorships, apparel partnerships, and micro-transactions, among its revenue options. “We believe that these franchises will grow in value at a fast clip over the next several years,” she says. “But we also know that this is a marathon and not a sprint.”
“Operating and launching brand-new team franchises that are going to be on par, ideally, with the likes of city-based traditional sports entities takes time,” she adds. “They take investment, they take resolving.”
And the stakes may be higher for the Call of Duty League than its e-sports competitors. After all, Call of Duty is one of the most successful franchises in gaming history, and its yearly releases have been the best-selling titles for most of the last decade. Faries wants to leverage that massive popularity, partially through efforts like celebrity endorsements and events.
“If you’re going to design an e-sports league and put Call of Duty in front of its name, this thing has to be ambitious and on-par with everything else that comes under that brand,” she says.
To answer that call, Faries is embracing the very thing most people working at the NFL—with its decades of history—would fear: Moving to an up-and-coming e-sports league. She likens the e-sports revolution to a tidal wave, one she plans to surf, rather than let it crash over her.
And leading the e-sports league not only as a woman but as a person of color, does not phase Faries in the least. Instead of gamers challenging her, she says she’s had far more instances of both men and women approaching her saying they’re happy, excited, and inspired that she’s leading the league.
Faries says her first two hires were women. “It’s important to make a statement that Call of Duty League can also have great people who happen to be women developing this league,” she says, boasting that her team is “incredibly diverse in every way that you would define that—backgrounds, ethnicities, race, gender, the whole nine.”
She says she thinks the group is as close and as productive a team as any team she’s ever been a part of, especially when you consider that the organization has gone from being a white sheet of paper to ready to launch in 14 months.
“It proves the point that diverse teams generate the best work,” she says.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Greenpeace ranks China’s tech giants on renewable energy
—Sex tech steals the spotlight at CES
—Why there are so many scooters in Los Angeles
—What a $1,000 investment in 10 top stocks a decade ago would be worth today
—Best of CES 2020? Tech sites’ opinions differ wildly
Catch up with Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily digest on the business of tech.


fortune--2020-01-15--Welcome to the future (of Fortune, that is)

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.
We are pausing our regular programming for an important announcement: A new Fortune is here, one that we believe is designed to meet the needs of the 21st century business person.
Fortune was born as a magazine in 1930, and its first-ever issue was, in retrospect, oddly irreverent: It featured Fortuna, the oft-blindfolded Roman goddess of luck and chance, spinning her wheel on the cover. I read it thusly: If you’re in these pages, you’re as lucky (also privileged) as you are good.
Fortune’s inaugural issue in February 1930. Fortune
Historically, the goddess had been a capricious force in a superstitious world; random, fickle, ever ready to remind the powerful that their fortunes can change every time she used her wheel. “She is spoken of by nearly all the Roman writers as blind, inconstant, unjust, and delighting in mischief,” explains folklore blogger Icy Sedwick. Paying respect to her became a fraught form of uncertainty insurance for merchants, farmers, gamblers, and for the truly downtrodden, like the enslaved.
This year, as we celebrate our 90th birthday, we’re bringing the new Fortune into a very different world.
Here’s just some of what we’ve been working on:
We’ve launched a new site—live today!—where you’ll find the best of what we do all in one place: strategic insights, deep-dive business stories, and exclusive access to what executives are thinking. To access all of our revamped stories, register for free.
Later this month, we’re launching new newsletters: The Bull Sheet, a daily brief on finance news, and The Broadside, a monthly bulletin for career-oriented women. Sign up to stay up to date on their launches.
We’ve launched a new hub for our exclusive videos. It brings together our rich collection of executive stories, insights—the latest and best from our interviews with business leaders, analysis series, and our ground-breaking conference sessions. Access hundreds of hours of content.
Best of all, the team is diligently working on putting the entire Fortune archives online, from Fortuna to today, where diligent researchers, case-makers, and students of business can do deep dives into history. (I expect raceAhead readers will find this feature particularly useful.)
Starting with the February 2020 issue, we’re substantially upgrading our print magazine. You will find more stories per issue, presented with higher quality covers and paper stock. To see for yourself, subscribe to the magazine.
With the pressing issues facing the world—and the unique opportunity business has to address them—it feels like a good time to retire Fortuna to her rightful place in business history.
I’d like to believe that the new Fortune is a better form of uncertainty insurance: When you have excellent business journalism, a mighty network, and a 90-year trove of world-class information at your fingertips, you don’t need to worry so much about luck.
(And let’s leave “privilege” in the past, too.)
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On Point
The Notorious B.I.G. and Whitney Houston are part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 2020 class Six acts make up the wildly diverse class of inductees‚ joining Houston and Biggie will be Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, the Doobie Brothers, and T. Rex. The posthumous inductees include all of T.Rex (except drummer Bill Legend), Doobies drummers Michael Hossack and Keith Knudsen, and of course, Biggie and Houston. Should be a helluva tribute performance though. Click through for the artists who were shut out this year. (Next year, Chaka.)
Rolling Stone
Siemens on the hot seat for Australia’s wildfires? This is the predicament facing the German industrial titan, as activists campaign their relatively small involvement in Australia’s fossil fuel industry. Siemens is providing the signaling infrastructure for a new railroad project that links the country’s biggest planned coal mine to the Australian coast. Their small and largely uncredited role in a much bigger show has made them a target of protesters, who have been cannily plastering the Siemens logo over scenes of fire with photoshopped koalas and kangaroos. The campaign is being sparked by activist Greta Thunberg, who will return to Davos next week having kept her promise to ask powerful CEOs to use their influence to address the climate crisis. Fortune has the scoop.
Fortune
Reclaiming Ivory Coast culture, one emoji at a time O'Plerou Grebet, a 22-year-old graphic design student in Ivory Coast, thinks the challenge with emojis is bigger than skin tone. They’re not truly global if they don’t reflect local. "We are living like we're Western people," he says of the way his country has changed. "It's like we are not proud of our own culture." So he created a set of stickers that he believes better reflects daily life in Ivory Coast and nearby countries. The free pack of some 360 stickers can be found in Zouzoukwa, a mobile app which means “image” in the local language of Bété. They are beautiful and very local—turns out “I told you so” has a very specific gesture associated with it. Enjoy.
NPR
Elizabeth Warren’s plan for people with disabilities In this op-ed for Fortune, the Massachusetts senator says that access to technology that promotes independent living is a core part of her presidential plan. That may mean breaking up big tech. “[M]y administration will use its authority under the Bayh-Dole Act to license patented innovations to companies that will ensure that technologies are affordable and accessible to people with disabilities,” she says. “I will also fight for increased funding for the National Institutes of Health to expand research into affordable and life-changing support for people with disabilities and break up big tech companies to stimulate competition and innovation.”
Fortune
On Background
Ten OTHER things Martin Luther King said Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have turned 91 today, which is an excellent time to reflect on his legacy, the life he would have lived, and his beloved status among the children of the white people who made his life a misery. While he is best known for certain speeches and texts, one of my favorite tribute shares on King-related commemorative days is this video from Jay Smooth, a groundbreaking artist, vlogger, radio host, hip hop expert, and national treasure. Here’s one that speaks directly to me: “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” But the ones on America military and power will give you chills.
YouTube
Guess which book has been checked out of the New York Public Library more than any other? Millions and millions of books have been checked out of the NYPL system since it was born more than 100 years ago, so it’s top ten list is a fascinating look at the lives of readers in New York and beyond. There are lots of children’s books— Charlotte’s Web, Good Night Moon and Where the Wild Things Are make the cut—and Orwell’s 1984 ranks high on the list. But the most checked-out book of all time is the sweetly illustrated tale of a young African- American boy named Peter, enjoying how snow transforms his world. Published in 1962, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats is an early example of diversity in children’s literature.
CNN
“The Jim Crow of climate change” and the battle for the Gulf Coast The second installment of “Black in the Time of Climate Change,” a series from the OneZero online magazine, dives into the disparate post-disaster responses to Black and white communities after Hurricane Katrina. It was a wake-up call for advocates. Then, 12 years later, it happened again: Black communities were largely abandoned after Hurricane Harvey. Now, activists are banding together across the South to prepare for the inevitable next monster storm, helping residents understand climate change, and prodding governments to do better—like helping the poor retrofit their homes and providing community food sources, like public gardens. “The conversations have to be very open and honest, which means a lot of times they’re very painful,” says Katherine Egland, an activist from Gulfport, Miss. “It’s not enough just to admit that you failed. You have to be able to tell us how you’re going to ensure that we don’t have to deal with these same failures next time.”
OneZero
Quote
“Yeah, this album is dedicated
To all the teachers that told me I'd never amount to nothin'
To all the people that lived above the buildings that I was hustlin' in front of
Called the police on me when I was just tryin' to make some money to feed my daughter (it's all good)
And all the niggas in the struggle
You know what I'm sayin'? It's all good, baby baby.”
—Christopher George Latore Wallace, aka. The Notorious B.I.G., "Juicy"


fortune--2020-01-15--As business and labor leaders, we agree on this: The U.S. needs to stay in the Paris Agreement

As the chairman emeritus and former CEO of Dow Chemical, and the vice president and co-chair of the international committee of one of the most powerful union confederations in the U.S., we don’t always see eye to eye when it comes to a vision for how we achieve U.S. economic growth. But we do when it comes to addressing a critical challenge for American workers and businesses: climate change.
We also critically agree that the Paris Agreement provides the U.S. the best, albeit not perfect, framework for addressing the growing climate crisis. This framework allows freedom to pursue a competitive path toward emissions reductions—one that creates American jobs, stabilizes trade, and has a commitment to a just transition at its core.
The Paris accord will help ensure American competitiveness and long-term opportunities for our working families into the future. Research from the New Climate Economy has shown that transitioning to a low-carbon future by 2030 holds a $26 trillion economic prize globally. Reaching that requires policies, aligned with the agreement’s framework, that allow companies to set and deliver on ambitious climate targets.
Paris’s framework supports a level of ambition that has allowed, for instance, insurers and pension funds with nearly $4 trillion under management to set 1.5 degrees Celsius targets for their portfolios. It also encouraged 177 companies to commit to a joint campaign, announced at the recent UN Climate Change Conference (COP 25), aimed at limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. Meeting these ambitious goals will require monumental changes to the way businesses and workers act. It’s incumbent on both, therefore, to make a just transition to a clean economy.
Today, it’s increasingly clear that if we continue with business as usual—only chasing short-term profits—we will destroy our ability to deliver that just transition. Now, it’s time for CEOs and boards to operate their businesses with a long-term focus. We can’t be part of the problem. We have to be part of the solution. We have the technology, we have the will, and we have the staying power.
American unions also stand by the need for a just transition to a green economy. Simply demanding that plants or industries shut down with no plan, jobs, or investment for people that will be put out of work, and showing no solidarity with those whose lives or local economies depend on fossil fuels, will hinder meaningful climate action.
While we must invest in the technologies we need to ensure that emissions come down, we must also invest in implementation of national plans that ensure the jobs created are good, quality jobs that protect workers and their communities affected by these shifts with income support, secure pensions, and skills development and training.
One example of how companies are increasingly focusing on delivering a just transition as part of achieving emissions targets came at September’s UN Climate Action Summit. A coalition of nine major energy companies, led by Isabelle Kocher, CEO of Engie, and Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, committed to ensuring green and decent jobs for their workers through a just transition.
This is a significant step that supports a people-centric shift to a net-zero greenhouse gas economy. The need for cooperation on climate change and a just transition is only increasing. This means that a just transition must respect labor rights and be grounded in dialogue between business, unions, and government.
Four years ago, governments, major companies, unions, and civil society recognized this and came together to rally behind the Paris Agreement. This shared belief was reiterated most recently when more than 80 CEOs, employing more than 2 million people in the U.S., and the AFL-CIO, representing 12.5 million workers, called on the U.S. to remain in the Paris Agreement.
These companies and union leaders stand united behind the Paris Agreement because they believe it will keep the U.S. economy competitive and create opportunity for the growth of green and decent jobs. They are committed to a just transition of the workforce—one that respects labor rights and is achieved through dialogue with workers and their unions. The U.S. economy is moving in the right direction, but with the scale of the climate crisis growing, the cost of failing to deliver a just transition is higher than ever.
It’s not too late to take action. While the U.S. began formal withdrawal from the agreement last month, this period lasts the course of the next year—through Nov. 4, 2020. Until then, it’s up to all of us, including business and government leaders, to make our voices heard for the good of our workers, communities, and economy.
It’s up to all of us to call on the U.S. government to remain in the Paris Agreement.
Stuart Appelbaum is president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union and co-chair of the international committee of the AFL-CIO.
Andrew Liveris is chairman emeritus and former CEO of Dow Chemical.
More opinion in Fortune:
—MGM Resorts CEO: What happens in Vegas no longer stays in Vegas
—I worked at McKinsey. Here’s how the firm needs to change
—Fintech regulation needs more principles, not more rules
—Pharma must stop chasing shiny objects and start embracing practical technology
—The questions companies should ask to prepare for a new era of business
Listen to our audio briefing, Fortune 500 Daily


fortune--2020-01-15--Target gets brutal reminder of turnaround’s challenges from weak holiday season

Even the head of the retail class proved to be fallible this holiday season.
Target, author of one of retail’s greatest turnarounds in recent years, reported disappointing sales on Wednesday for the crucial holiday season, hurt by a weak performance in key Christmas period staples such as toys and electronics.
The discount chain said comparable sales rose 1.4% in November and December. That was better than the declines at Kohl’s, Macy’s, J.C. Penney, and L Brands’ Victoria Secret, but still below both Target’s own forecasts and those of Wall Street analysts, not to mention anemic compared to the 5.7% jump in the 2018 holiday season.
Shares, which hit an all-time high in November, fell 7% in mid-day trading. The company will report full quarterly results in March.
Though Target says it remains on track to report an 11th straight quarter of sales growth, it was a humbling set of results. Target had been on a tear thanks to the launch of dozens of store brands, particularly in clothing, like Cat & Jack and Universal Thread, that have caught on quickly with shoppers and replaced stale ones.
The chain has also gotten a boost by remodeling stores to beautify them and equip them to also serve as e-commerce hubs and speed up delivery. Indeed, about three quarters of its digital sales growth during the holidays came from its ability to have shoppers drive up to a store, go into a store to pick up an order, or use its Shipt service for same-day delivery. But e-commerce rose a paltry 19% during the holidays, about half the clip as in Target’s third quarter.
Target chief executive Brian Cornell called the company’s holiday number a “tough miss” in a blog post, and said, “While we knew this season was going be challenging, it was even more challenging than we expected.”
As if to remind Target, and retail as a whole, that gains can be fleeting, toys sales were a big disappointment for a chain that placed a big bet on toys since the liquidation of Toys ‘R’ Us in 2018. Target’s toy sales were the same as the year before even though it opened mini-Disney stores inside a few dozen Target stores and set up a redirect to its own site for people browsing a relaunched Toys ‘R’ Us website.
Toys, not traditionally a major category for Target, are key to getting young parents—a demographic Target is banking on to keep renewing its clientele—to make in-store visits. Electronics were also a bust for Target, with sales falling 6%. (Target’s results brought down the stock of fellow Minneapolis-area retailer Best Buy, which will report its results next month.)
“The technology lineup in electronics was far from inspiring this season,” Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData Retail, said in a research note.
A big source of solace for Target though was how well its apparel and beauty businesses did. Clothing sales were up 5% as it continued to steal market share from its strip mall neighbor Kohl’s and the department stores, while beauty products rose 7%. Both categories are far more central to Target’s year-round strategy than areas that were a bust.
What’s more, the weak performers like toys and electronics, are disproportionately important to retailers during the holidays, meaning any lingering softness will have less impact on Target as things return to business as usual with the holidays now over. In addition, Target’s ability to use stores to fill online orders has boosted its profitability, allowing it to stick to its full year profit forecast despite the holiday season sales shortfall.
As Moody’s s senior retail analyst Charlie O’Shea, put it to CNBC: “When you start looking at where Target has strength, that is where they need to be strong. Apparel and food are the traffic drivers.”
Still, the results were a sober reminder of how even the most proactive, talented retailers can still stumble as they try to navigate Amazon’s ascent and changing customer behavior, something that will only get harder if the economy cools.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Brazilian beauty company Natura wants to give Avon a makeover
—L’Oréal’s new at-home device makes personalized beauty products
—How the 2010s changed retail forever
—Consumers are turning away from real fur, but faux fur isn’t a perfect fix
—After a decade of e-commerce, convenience just isn’t enough
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-01-15--Retailers reuse and recycle the way to increased growth

For retailers, old is, increasingly, becoming the new new. With retail industry revenue growing at a modest 4% a year, some brands are finding triple-digit growth by selling used goods.
Though used is, clearly, not the preferred term for most retailers. Apple quietly sells old iPhones and Macs as “Certified Refurbished” (you’ll only find the link at the bottom of Apple’s home page, even if Apple Store workers sheepishly acknowledge they see fewer repairs from refurbished goods than from new ones).
Amazon, meanwhile, promotes used electronics and appliances as “pre-owned” or “open-boxed” under its Amazon Renewed site. And REI uses the term “circular economy” when it talks about its efforts to promote recycled outdoor gear as an environmentally-friendly option.
Whatever you choose to call them, the market for used goods is starting to go both mainstream and upmarket.
Yes, secondary markets are as old as commerce itself. From flea markets to classified ads, people looking to sell their old stuff have always found a way to reach others seeking used goods at a bargain price. The Internet introduced companies like eBay, Craigslist, Overstock, and Newegg to help connect buyers with sellers of used goods, but all along mainstream retailers tended to eschew the market, focusing instead on selling new products.
Now that’s changing and it’s not just brand-name retailers like Apple, Amazon, and REI. Upstarts like Back Market and Mac of All Trades—marketplaces connecting shops that spruce up and resell old iPhones and laptops with shoppers who want them—are joining the trend. In the minds of many consumers, “used” isn’t just shedding negative connotations, it’s starting to take on something of a fashionable allure.
Retailers embracing refurbished goods are riding a happy convergence of consumer trends: Not only is the era of Marie Kondo decluttering creating a burgeoning supply of high-quality used goods, many penny-pinching buyers are happy to buy used products as long as they are in near-new condition. More importantly, a growing cohort of consumers weary of the disposable economy are turning to refurbished items as a green alternative.
“Many people these days are looking for high-quality gear at a good price,” says Peter Whitcomb, director of new business development for REI. “Beyond that, we’re seeing a pretty significant shift in values and attitudes toward a more sustainable form of consumption.”
Much of the demand for refurbished goods is coming from a young demographic. At REI, founded in 1938 as a co-operative purchasing outdoor gear collectively to achieve economies of scale, more than a third of customers buying or renting used gear are Millennials or a younger generation, Whitcomb says.
“They’re actively seeking a way out of a market where everything is manufactured overseas with unintended environmental consequences,” Whitcomb says.
That stands in contrast to the consumer stigma that used products long held, especially among Americans. Back Market was founded in 2014 by a group of friends who stumbled on a cottage industry of electronics refurbishers in Europe, where customers were drawn to the bargain element.
“The value proposition there was that consumers could get a used product that was as good as new, ” says Serge Verdoux, who manages Back Market’s North American operations. In 2018, the company raised $48 million in a round led by Bernard Arnault, the majority shareholder of LMVH and Christian Dior. That money helped it expand abroad.
In the U.S., however, Back Market discovered that there was an additional allure to refurbished devices. “In the last six to 12 months, we’ve found that more consumers are influenced by the environmental element,” Verdoux says. “They think it’s not just good for their wallet, but also for the planet.”
In response, Back Market began promoting the environmental savings of refurbished goods. It pointed to Apple’s own figure that each iPhone manufactured creates 44 kilograms (97 pounds) of greenhouse gas emissions and the World Economic Forum’s estimate that digital devices creates $62.5 billion in e-waste each year.
While the market for refurbished goods remains tiny in comparison to the overall retail industry, it’s growing fast. Verdoux says Back Market’s 2018 revenue of $250 million was on track to double last year and may reach $1 billion in 2020.
While REI didn’t disclose revenue from its “circular” business, Whitcomb said the figure doubled in 2019, with nearly a million recycled outdoor products passing through its annual garage sales and its website selling used gear. “It’s wildly exceeding even our pretty aggressive growth plans,” he says, noting that REI may expand the platform it’s building should consumer demand keep growing.
“We think the future of retail is going to increasingly become circular. A decade or so from now, the majority of our transactions may occur through a resale or rental model,” Whitcomb says. “It’s really profound, this notion that everything a consumer may need already exists and just needs to be recirculated into the retail environment.
“We’re building to that future today,” Whitcomb says.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—Brazilian beauty company Natura wants to give Avon a makeover
—L’Oréal’s new at-home device makes personalized beauty products
—How the 2010s changed retail forever
—Consumers are turning away from real fur, but faux fur isn’t a perfect fix
—After a decade of e-commerce, convenience just isn’t enough
Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.


fortune--2020-01-15--House votes to send articles of impeachment to Senate

The U.S. House voted Wednesday to send two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate and approve House prosecutors for only the third impeachment trial in American history.
The nearly party-line vote moved Trump’s impeachment from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic-run House to the Republican-majority Senate, where Trump expects quick acquittal, even as new evidence is raising fresh questions about his Ukraine dealings.
The vote was 228-193, coming at the start of a presidential election year and one month after the House impeached Trump alleging abuse of power over his pressure on Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden, using military aid to the country as leverage. Trump was also charged with obstructing Congress’ ensuing probe..
“We are here today to cross a very important threshold in American history,” Pelosi said, addressing the House before the vote.
“This is what an impeachment is about,” she said earlier, announcing the prosecution team. “The president violated his oath of office, undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections.”
Trump, during an event at the White House, rejected the charges as a “hoax.”
The president’s team expects acquittal with a Senate trial lasting no more than two weeks, according to senior administration officials unauthorized to discuss the matter and granted anonymity.
Trump opposes the calling of additional witnesses, and the officials said they expect the trial to conclude before Trump delivers his State of the Union address Feb. 4.
All but one Democrat, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, voted to transmit the articles. All Republicans voted against. One former Republican-turned-independent, Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, joined Democrats.
The top Republican in the House, Kevin McCarthy of California, said Americans will look back on this “sad saga” that tried to remove the president with the “weakest case.”
Later Wednesday, the House managers were to walk the articles across the Capitol to the Senate in a dramatic procession. The Senate trial is set to start Thursday.
The seven-member prosecution team will be led by the chairmen of the House impeachment proceedings, Reps. Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee and Jerry Nadler of the Judiciary Committee, two of Pelosi’s top lieutenants for only the third presidential impeachment in the nation’s history.
Ahead of Wednesday’s session, Schiff released new records from Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, about the Ukraine strategy. including an exchange with another man about surveilling later-fired Ambassador Maria Yovanovitch.
Schiff said the new evidence should bring more pressure on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is reluctant to allow witnesses to testify.
“If McConnell makes this the first trial in history without witnesses, it will be exposed for what it is and that is an effort to cover up for the president,” Schiff said.
McConnell opened the Senate dismissing what he called a rushed impeachment that is more about the politics of Democrats who don’t like Trump than the charges against him.
“This isn’t really about Ukraine policy or military money,” McConnell said. “This has been naked partisanship all along.”
During Pelosi’s press conference announcing managers, Trump tweeted that impeachment was “another Con Job by the Do Nothing Democrats. All of this work was supposed to be done by the House, not the Senate!”
Trump’s trial will be only the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history, and it comes against the backdrop of a politically divided nation in an election year.
The Senate is expected to transform into an impeachment court as early as Thursday, although significant proceedings wouldn’t begin until next Tuesday after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The Constitution calls for the chief justice to preside over senators, who serve as jurors and swear an oath to deliver “impartial justice.”
The managers are a diverse group with legal, law enforcement and military experience, including Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Sylvia Garcia of Texas, Val Demings of Florida, Jason Crow of Colorado and Zoe Lofgren of California.
McConnell, who is negotiating rules for the trial proceedings, is under competing pressure from his party for more witnesses, from centrists who are siding with Democrats on the need to hear full testimony and conservatives mounting Trump’s defense.
Senate Republicans signaled they would reject the idea of simply voting to dismiss the articles of impeachment against Trump, as Trump himself has suggested. McConnell agreed he does not have the votes to do that.
McConnell said Tuesday. ‘’Our members feel we have an obligation to listen to the arguments.”
A mounting number of senators say they want to ensure the ground rules include the possibility of calling new witnesses.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is leading an effort among some Republicans, including Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska for votes on witnesses.
Romney said he wants to hear from John Bolton, the former national security adviser at the White House, who others have said raised alarms about the alternative foreign policy toward Ukraine being run by Giuliani.
Democrats have been pushing Republicans to consider new testimony, arguing that fresh information has emerged during Pelosi’s monthlong delay in transmitting the charges.
Republicans control the chamber, 53-47, and are all but certain to acquit Trump. But it takes just 51 votes during the trial to approve rules or call witnesses. Just four GOP senators could form a majority with Democrats to insist on new testimony. It also would take only 51 senators to vote to dismiss the charges against Trump.
At Tuesday’s private GOP lunch, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky warned that if witnesses are allowed, defense witnesses could also be called. He and other Republicans want to subpoena Biden and his son, Hunter, who served on the board of a gas company in Ukraine, Burisma, while his father was vice president.
McConnell prefers to model Trump’s trial partly on the process used for President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999. It, too, contained motions for dismissal or calling new witnesses.
McConnell is hesitant to call new witnesses who would prolong the trial and put vulnerable senators who are up for reelection in 2020 in a bind with tough choices. At the same time, he wants to give those same senators ample room to show voters they are listening.
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fortune--2020-01-15--This year will be the first real litmus test for the streaming vs. theater debate

This year will be the first time in five years that an Avengers or Star Wars movie won’t dominate the box office. And while studios have other blockbusters lined up—a Wonder Woman sequel, a new James Bond entry, and a live-action Mulan remake, to name a few—none are expected to reach the box office heights of the mega-franchises Disney pumped out in recent years.
In 2019, Avengers: Endgame became the highest-grossing movie of all time and has made $2.8 billion at the worldwide box office. It was marketed as a “cinematic event,” the culmination of all the Marvel Cinematic Movies that came before it—a film that demanded even the most indifferent of moviegoers to attend. Likewise, the conclusion to the latest Star Wars trilogy, The Rise of Skywalker, has raked in roughly $479 million in the U.S. within its first month of release, which already puts it at 16th on the all-time domestic list. The box office over the past half-decade has been dominated by these movies that attract audiences to theaters for the sake of experiencing pop culture.
But this year is expected to be different. Disney, which accounted for roughly 40% of last year’s box office earnings, isn’t putting out a bonafide mega-blockbuster. Nor is any other studio, really. Popular, established titles will release, but they’re not quite Avengers level—think of the upcoming Top Gun sequel, or the Harley Quinn Birds of Prey stand-alone movie, or Fast & Furious 9. Analysts predict box office returns will go down, and the lack of mega-movies in theaters creates an interesting parallel with the other way we watch movies: at home, via streaming services.
That’s because back in 2014, the last time an Avengers or Star Wars movie didn’t rule the global box office, original streaming content hardly existed. Netflix had just put out House of Cards, the series that revolutionized streaming companies’ approach to producing content, a year earlier. Amazon had just scored its first hit in the fall of 2014 with Transparent; Hulu wouldn’t get its until 2017, with The Handmaid’s Tale. HBO Now, which allowed subscribers to watch the network without a cable package, didn’t yet exist. Neither, of course, did Disney+ or Apple TV+.
Now, streaming services are fully fledged, widespread offerings that are making and releasing the sorts of films that traditional studios do. Much has been made about streaming’s apparent encroachment upon the cinema experience, with contrasting viewpoints. Domestic movie theater attendance in 2017 slumped to a 25-year low, but AMC in its third-quarter earnings report in November said both domestic and international attendance grew. Smaller, independent theaters are struggling to survive—competition from streaming services likely being one factor—but a recent study found that people who see movies in theaters more often are also the people who watch more streaming content at home.
So what to make of this conflicting evidence? One thing we know for sure is that 2020 will be the first year widespread streaming offerings will be available during a “down” year at the box office. It could shed light on moviegoers’ preferences in the age of Netflix. Will the oft-cited assumption that people increasingly prefer to watch movies at home prove to be true?
“This is going to be a litmus test year for studios relying on more mid-range blockbusters and non-franchise films,” says BoxOffice chief analyst Shawn Robbins. “We haven’t had the chance to properly gauge that since those mega-franchises had a presence in each of the last five years.”
Robbins is bullish that both methods of watching content can not only mutually exist but also thrive together. “The landscape has changed, but there’s still a massive market for both,” he says. “These are two entirely different ways to watch content, and often two very different types of content, much like the straight-to-video and DVD booms of years past.”
The lack of mega-blockbusters this year also shines a light on just how much they dominate the movie industry. In 2018, the top 10 releases accounted for roughly 34% of the total box office, according to Box Office Guru founder and editor Gitesh Pandya. In 2019, he pegged that same figure at almost 41%.
“The big are getting bigger and the rich are getting richer,” Pandya says. “The question is, can the little guys survive? There will always be smaller films that do connect with people and make big grosses. I think we’ll see a lot of small and medium-level films come out and give it a try this year.”
Tim League, CEO of Austin-based dine-in theater chain Alamo Drafthouse, attributes that trend more toward the dominance of Disney as of late. “I’m not feeling the air sucked out of the room. We’re currently the No. 4 circuit on Uncut Gems, and it’s performing as a blockbuster for us,” he says, though he concedes that “we’ve always been an odd man out in this arena in that we’re not entirely dependent on the blockbusters.”
Perhaps to the chagrin of cinephile traditionalists, Alamo has embraced partnerships with streaming companies. It worked with Netflix to screen a limited release of Martin Scorsese’s crime epic, The Irishman. “We’re excited about HBO Max,” League adds. “We’ve had great convos with Apple.”
In order for other theaters to thrive in the age of streaming, League says, they need to elevate their game—be it snazzy food and drink options, like Alamo offers, or experiences that can make any screening feel like an “event,” Avengers or Jedi present or not. “It’s our responsibility,” he says, “to make it worthwhile to get out of the house and into the theaters.”
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fortune--2020-01-15--Jack Dorsey makes it clear: Twitter will never get an edit button

Twitter users might be clamoring for an edit button, but the social media site has no plans to honor those requests, said co-founder Jack Dorsey on Tuesday.
Dorsey, answering user questions in a video from Wired, said there were “practical considerations” that make the addition of an edit button challenging.
Twitter, Dorsey said, started as an SMS messaging service, where messages could not be changed once sent. That heritage is a big part of the reason the company resisted initial calls for an edit button.
“We wanted to preserve the vibe and feeling in the early days,” he said.
The edit button is one of the most requested features on Twitter. And Dorsey has teased the idea of adding one before, but now seems to have ruled it out.
With the service now being used on a wider number of platforms, and a much larger number of users, the company’s concerns have shifted. By letting users edit their Tweets, said Dorsey, others could inadvertently spread rapidly changing misinformation or opinions they don’t agree with.
“You might send a tweet and someone might retweet that and an hour later you might completely change the content of that tweet,” he said. “The person that retweeted the original tweet is now retweeting and rebroadcasting something that is completely different. So that’s something to watch out for.”
Don’t think about suggesting a time frame to correct mistakes you notice as soon as you hit the Tweet button, either. Dorsey preemptively ruled that out as well.
“We’ve considered a one minute window or 30 second window to correct something, but that means we have to delay [the Tweet] before we can send it out,” he said. “It’s just work, but we’ll probably never do it.”
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fortune--2020-01-15--Elizabeth Warren: I’ll use the force of government to make tech work for people with disabilities

Our nation’s history of progress is marked by the tireless dedication of leaders unafraid of fighting for their rights and demanding that an unjust status quo be changed. Disability rights leaders have exemplified this fight. Their victories have made this country a better, more just place for everyone.
People with disabilities are fighting for a society that guarantees their and future generations’ economic security, equal opportunity, and inclusion. They are not alone in this fight.
I recently released my plan to protect the rights and equality of people with disabilities—and fulfill the promise of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) signed into law 30 years ago. A core part of my plan is ensuring that technology advances in a way that promotes independent living and accessibility.
In the U.S., 61 million people are living with a disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As president, I will fight to lower the costs of assistive technologies that increase accessibility for people with disabilities.
If companies that receive government funding to develop their products will not or cannot offer key assistive technologies at reasonable prices, my administration will use its authority under the Bayh-Dole Act to license patented innovations to companies that will ensure that technologies are affordable and accessible to people with disabilities. I will also fight for increased funding for the National Institutes of Health to expand research into affordable and life-changing support for people with disabilities and break up big tech companies to stimulate competition and innovation.
As our society becomes more advanced, technology plays a bigger role in our lives. These technological advancements have brought many positive changes for people with disabilities, improving their health, their safety, and the accessibility of our society. But as our world becomes more dependent on these current and emerging technologies, the risk of alienating or unduly burdening people with disabilities increases.
Experts have warned of the alarming potential that artificial intelligence and its algorithms have for discriminating against people with disabilities. Across a variety of areas, including automated job screenings and housing, technological advancements have been obstacles to disability rights. As president, I’ll create a task force that pushes federal agencies to enforce existing anti-discrimination laws, creates new regulations specifically addressing discrimination in current and emerging technologies, and issues guidance to the industry to promote compliance.
In the Senate, I passed the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act to make hearing aids more affordable. As president, I will fight to pass my AIM HIGH Act to ensure that instructional technologies at colleges and universities are accessible to students with disabilities. Across all federal agencies, I will make websites, information, and technology inclusive and usable by all.
Further, I’ll work to ensure digital equity. To accomplish this, I will push to pass the Digital Equity Act, which invests $2.5 billion over 10 years to help states develop digital equity plans and launch digital inclusion projects. This will be critical to creating a digital world that values all people, differently abled or not.
When I am president, the disability community will have a partner in the White House to combat ableism. It’s time we fight for a society where the four goals of the ADA are fulfilled: equal opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency. It’s time we fight for the big, structural changes that will make a more just America a reality.
Elizabeth Warren is the senior U.S. senator from Massachusetts and a Democratic candidate for president.
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fortune--2020-01-15--Fortune poll: Wells Fargo is the big bank that investors like least

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It’s been a while since news broke in 2016 that Wells Fargo had created millions of fraudulent accounts without customer consent. But the fallout isn’t over: On Tuesday, Wells Fargo reported a 53% drop in year-over-year fourth quarter profit, which was pulled down by a variety of legal fees, including those associated with the scandal.
And the bank’s reputation is still taking a hit.
Wells Fargo is the most disliked large financial firm in America among investors, according to a Fortune/Civis Analytics survey* of more than 1,300 investors. The bank has the highest percentage of investors viewing it unfavorably (42%), well above the second and third most unfavorable financial firms, Bank of America (29%) and Citigroup (22%). The good news for Wells Fargo is that 44% of investors rated it favorably.
After the fake accounts scandal, the bank was fined $185 million by regulators. In the fall of 2017, then-Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan spoke at a Senate Banking Committee, where he was told by Senator Elizabeth Warren that he should be fired as a result of the “scam.”
Then in 2018, the bank was fined $2.1 billion by the Justice Department for bad mortgage practices, including allegedly misstating borrowers’ incomes, leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. Later that same year, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $575 million to all 50 states over its sales practices, including opening bogus accounts. And Democratic presidential candidates like Warren continue to use Wells Fargo as a punching bag along the campaign trail.
“Wells Fargo’s new marketing efforts are fine and in the right direction, but so far haven’t gone far enough to change perceptions,” says Tim Calkins, a professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. This month marks one year since Wells Fargo launched the marketing campaign “Re-Established” to rebuild its brand. “This is clearly bad news for Wells Fargo. Perception is so important for financial firms: Their business is all about trust.”
Wells Fargo declined Fortune’s request for comment.
*The Fortune/Civis Analytics survey was conducted among a national sample of 1,315 investors during December 19-20, 2019. We asked these investors to rate their favorable and unfavorable views of 10 of the country’s largest financial firms. We included a mix of banks, online brokerages, and other financial services companies. The national sample of investors has been weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography.


fortune--2020-01-15--The NSA patches up its reputation with a gift to Microsoft

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On Monday, rumors swirled that Microsoft was preparing to release a particularly noteworthy software patch for a serious vulnerability in its Windows operating system.
“I get the impression that people should perhaps pay very close attention to installing tomorrow’s Microsoft Patch Tuesday updates in a timely manner,” tweeted Will Dormann, a vulnerability analyst at CERT-CC, a computer security-focused arm of the Pittsburgh-based nonprofit Software Engineering Institute. “Even more so than others. I don’t know… just call it a hunch? ¯_(ツ)_/¯”
Dormann’s “hunch” proved valid: In a Tuesday bulletin, Microsoft revealed the details of a troubling spoofing vulnerability. If exploited by attackers, the flaw would enable them to trick people into downloading malicious files that appeared to be from trusted sources. Microsoft urged customers in a blog post to “update their systems as quickly as practical.” (The company noted that it had “not seen it used in active attacks.”)
For those of us who are neither hackers nor systems administrators, the most interesting aspect of the flaw was the origin of its discovery: the U.S. National Security Agency. (Kudos to Brain Krebs, an independent investigative reporter, for connecting the dots about this earlier than others.)
This is the first time Microsoft has publicly credited the NSA for disclosing a software vulnerability to the company. (Longtime readers of this newsletter may recall an apparent backchannel between the NSA and Microsoft that seemed to avert a potential security disaster in 2017.) Historically keeping to itself, the NSA—jokingly referred to as No Such Agency—has broken with tradition.
This is not your parent’s NSA. The shadowy agency’s reputation was in shambles after former contractor Edward Snowden began leaking loads of internal documents detailing its practices and capabilities in 2013. In the years since, the NSA has been attempting to refurbish its public image, speaking more openly and showing up, undisguised, at industry events. Now, with the Microsoft patch, we see it even seeking recognition for its security findings.
Heck, Rob Joyce, former White House cybersecurity czar and NSA’s most public face, is now inviting people to drop by the NSA’s table to pick up “swag” at the cybersecurity industry’s RSA Conference in March. (Apparently, the agency will be giving out “I patched” stickers; similar to “I voted” stickers, but much, much nerdier.)
As businesses patch their computers, the NSA patches its reputation.
Robert Hackett
Twitter: @rhhackett
Email: robert.hackett@fortune.com
THREATS
Easy as Apple pie. President Donald Trump called on Apple to "step up to the plate" and help the Justice Department unlock two iPhones said to have belonged to a shooter who killed three people at a Florida Navy base last month. The remarks add to the pressure Attorney General William Barr has been applying to the company. Apple, echoing its stance from several years ago in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting, is preparing for another potential legal battle.
Eye on Iran. The FBI issued an advisory last week warning American companies that Iran has stepped up its "cyber reconnaissance activity" since the U.S. killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. Top targets for the hackers include defense contractors, government agencies, academia and think tanks. The attackers like to exploit "virtual private network," or VPN, applications, the FBI said. Also, buried in a recent New York Times story was the tidbit that if Iran escalated its retaliatory attacks on the U.S., the latter had developed a plan to cripple Iran’s oil and gas sector with a cyberattack.
Hua-wait a minute. Citing national security risks, U.S. intelligence officials are warning UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's administration that using Huawei technology in its 5G network buildout would be "nothing short of madness," the Financial Times reports. Johnson is anticipated to approve Huawei equipment for use in the periphery of Britain's 5G networks, rather than at its core—but U.S. officials believe even this is still too risky. Johnson's dilemma: He is attempting to maintain a good relationship with China and also not jeopardize intelligence-sharing agreements with the U.S. and other Five Eyes countries. China, meanwhile, is decoupling itself economically from the U.S.
Your voice matters. As alleged Russian hackers look to dig up dirt on Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden by attempting to infiltrate Burisma, the Ukrainian oil and gas firm which once employed his son, one might wonder: What have the candidates been saying about cybersecurity lately? President Trump recently made some comments about "the cyber," saying, in reference to the possibility of Iranian cyberattacks, "If we ever get hit, we'll hit very hard." Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders, asked if he uses two-factor authentication on his phone, cryptically told the New York Times: "There is a woman in my office whose name is Melissa who drives me crazy and gets angry at me all the time." (Sounds like you're doing the Lord's work, Melissa.) And Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire businessman, former New York City Mayor, and recent race entrant, just released his own plan for protecting elections.
Everything leaks eventually: r/StarWarsLeaks/DuelofFates.
ACCESS GRANTED
Jumping off President Trump's Apple-cajoling above... As the Justice Department ramps up its efforts to pressure Apple, many cybersecurity experts are wondering why the Feds are having any trouble at all. As the Wall Street Journal notes, a cottage industry has sprouted up that sells hacking tools—including ones designed to divulge data locked away in many iPhone models—that seem to make this a tractable challenge.
Just a few years ago, many iPhones were almost impossible to crack, but that is no longer true, security experts and forensic examiners say. Companies including Grayshift LLC, Israel’s Cellebrite Mobile Synchronization Ltd. and others offer methods to retrieve data from recent iPhones. “We’ve got the tools to extract data from an iPhone 5 and 7 now,” said Andy Garrett, a chief executive of Garrett Discovery, a forensics investigation firm. “Everybody does.”
THE FUTURE OF FORTUNE IS HERE
In 1930, Fortune published its first-ever issue, featuring the goddess Fortuna and her wheel on the cover. This year, on our 90th anniversary, we’re celebrating with a new Fortune. Here’s what’s in store for you:
FORTUNE RECON
Facebook criticized for deleting posts supporting Iranian General killed by U.S. by Alyssa Newcomb
Why Microsoft is leaning into E3—and Sony is bowing out—amid ‘marketing hype war’ by Chris Morris
What the struggles of pizza and coffee-making robots mean for investors by Jonathan Vanian
Disney is ready to roll out new ‘Star Wars’ sagas as one story ends by Dale Rutledge
ONE MORE THING
Wondering how Carlos Ghosn, the erstwhile CEO of Nissan and Renault and fugitive from Japanese law enforcement, made his great escape from Tokyo? Bloomberg Businessweek tells how an Army Special Forces veteran masterminded the extraction. It involves bullet trains, hotels, airports with lax security...and stuffing the executive into an oversized audio gear case.