SUMMARY

U.S. FACTORY OUTPUT DIPS 0.1% IN JUNE ON AUTO CHIP SHORTAGE 08

DEVICE TAPS BRAIN WAVES TO HELP PARALYZED MAN COMMUNICATE 14

GM WARNS SOME BOLT OWNERS TO PARK OUTDOORS DUE TO FIRE RISK 22

REGULATOR SUES AMAZON TO FORCE RECALL OF HAZARDOUS PRODUCTS 32

THAT WAS FLEETING: TWITTER KILLS OFF EPHEMERAL MESSAGES 38

TAIWAN CHIPMAKER TSMC SAYS PROFIT UP 11.2% AS DEMAND RISES 44

TOYOTA REVS UP ITS DIGITAL MAPPING SUBSIDIARY WOVEN PLANET 50

US UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMS FALL TO 360,000, A NEW PANDEMIC LOW 58

‘THE CROWN,’ ‘MANDALORIAN’ TOP EMMY NOMINATIONS WITH 24 EACH 64

ELECTRIFY AMERICA TO DOUBLE EV CHARGING STATIONS BY 2025 74

SPORTS: THE DIVERSIFICATION & EXPANSION OF APPLE TV+ 78

FAA: NEW TOOL LIMITS DISRUPTIONS CAUSED BY SPACE OPERATIONS 98

BILLIONAIRE RICHARD BRANSON REACHES SPACE IN HIS OWN SHIP 102

BEZOS’ BLUE ORIGIN GETS OK TO SEND HIM, 3 OTHERS TO SPACE 110

FIRM HACKED TO SPREAD RANSOMWARE HAD PREVIOUS SECURITY FLAWS 114

MUSK ON TRIAL: DEFENDS SOLARCITY, CALLS LAWYER ‘BAD HUMAN’ 124

G-20 FINANCE MINISTERS BACK PLAN TO STOP USE OF TAX HAVENS 134

‘FOREVER PURGE’ GETS POLITICAL ON SOUTHERN BORDER 140

WARNER BROS STUDIO TOUR EXPANDS WITH DC UNIVERSE, POTTER 150

SKIP COLLEGE? NOT IF YOU WANT TO MAKE MORE MONEY 158

ONE TRICK TO TRAVELING CHEAPLY: FLEXIBILITY 168

UN CALLS FOR GLOBAL DATABASE OF HUMAN GENE EDITING RESEARCH 176

EUROPE TAKES ANOTHER STEP TOWARD INTRODUCING DIGITAL EURO 182

GOOGLE FINED $592 MILLION IN DISPUTE WITH FRENCH PUBLISHERS 186

WHATSAPP FACES EU CONSUMER COMPLAINT OVER PRIVACY UPDATE 192

CUBA’S INTERNET CUTOFF: A GO-TO TACTIC TO SUPPRESS DISSENT 196

AS FEARS ABOUT CLIMATE GROW, SIEMENS CEO SEES OPPORTUNITIES 206

U.S. FACTORY
OUTPUT DIPS
0.1% IN JUNE
ON AUTO CHIP
SHORTAGE

08
09
U.S. factory output slid last month as a shortage of
computer chips disrupted auto production.

Manufacturing production dipped 0.1% in June

— third drop in five months, the Federal Reserve
reported Thursday.
Overall, industrial prdouction — including output
at factories, mines and utilities — rose 0.4% last
month after increasing 0.7% in May. Industrial
output is up 9.8% from a year earlier.
The chip shortage pushed production of cars,
trucks and auto parts down 6.6% in June.
Excluding autos, industrial production rose 0.4%
last month.

“The manufacturing sector continues to be

hobbled by supply constraints,”said Stephen
Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont
Securities. “The highest profile example is the
struggle by automakers to manage through a
chip shortage.”

Utility output climbed 2.7% in June as Americans

cranked up the air conditioning to battle a heat
wave across much of the country. Mining output
rose 1.4% on an uptick in oil and gas production.

American industry has been bustling as the

coronavirus threat recedes, despite a shortage
of workers and trouble getting supplies in
time. The Institute for Supply Management, an
association of purchasing managers, reported
that its manufacturing ticked slightly lower last
month compared to May. But it still came in at
60.6 on a scale where anything above 50 signals
growth. Still, factory hiring shrank, ISM found,
largely because manufacturers are struggling to
fill job openings as the economy rebounds with
unexpected speed from the coronavirus recession.

10
11
14
 DEVICE TAPS
BRAIN WAVES
TO HELP
PARALYZED MAN
COMMUNICATE

In a medical first, researchers harnessed the

brain waves of a paralyzed man unable to speak
— and turned what he intended to say into
sentences on a computer screen.

It will take years of additional research but the

study, reported this week, marks an important
step toward one day restoring more natural
communication for people who can’t talk
because of injury or illness.

“Most of us take for granted how easily we

communicate through speech,” said Dr. Edward
Chang, a neurosurgeon at the University of
California, San Francisco, who led the work. “It’s
exciting to think we’re at the very beginning of a
new chapter, a new field” to ease the devastation
of patients who lost that ability.
Today, people who can’t speak or write
because of paralysis have very limited ways of
communicating. For example, the man in the

15
16
experiment, who was not identified to protect
his privacy, uses a pointer attached to a baseball
cap that lets him move his head to touch words
or letters on a screen. Other devices can pick up
patients’ eye movements. But it’s a frustratingly
slow and limited substitution for speech.

Tapping brain signals to work around a disability

is a hot field. In recent years, experiments with
mind-controlled prosthetics have allowed
paralyzed people to shake hands or take a drink
using a robotic arm -- they imagine moving
and those brain signals are relayed through a
computer to the artificial limb.

Chang’s team built on that work to develop a

“speech neuroprosthetic” -- decoding brain
waves that normally control the vocal tract, the
tiny muscle movements of the lips, jaw, tongue
and larynx that form each consonant and vowel.
Volunteering to test the device was a man in
his late 30s who 15 years ago suffered a brain-
stem stroke that caused widespread paralysis
and robbed him of speech. The researchers
implanted electrodes on the surface of the man’s
brain, over the area that controls speech.

A computer analyzed the patterns when he

attempted to say common words such as
“water” or “good,” eventually becoming able
to differentiate between 50 words that could
generate more than 1,000 sentences.

Prompted with such questions as “How are you

today?” or “Are you thirsty” the device eventually
enabled the man to answer “I am very good” or
“No I am not thirsty” -- not voicing the words but
translating them into text, the team reported in
the New England Journal of Medicine.

17
It takes about three to four seconds for the
word to appear on the screen after the man
tries to say it, said lead author David Moses,
an engineer in Chang’s lab. That’s not nearly
as fast as speaking but quicker than tapping
out a response.

In an accompanying editorial, Harvard

neurologists Leigh Hochberg and Sydney Cash
called the work a “pioneering demonstration.”

They suggested improvements but said if

the technology pans out it eventually could
help people with injuries, strokes or illnesses
like Lou Gehrig’s disease whose “brains
prepare messages for delivery but those
messages are trapped.”

Chang’s lab has spent years mapping the brain

activity that leads to speech. First, researchers
temporarily placed electrodes in the brains of
volunteers undergoing surgery for epilepsy, so
they could match brain activity to spoken words.
Only then was it time to try the experiment
with someone unable to speak. How did
they know the device interpreted his words
correctly? They started by having him try to
say specific sentences such as, “Please bring
my glasses,” rather than answering open-
ended questions until the machine translated
accurately most of the time.

Next steps include ways to improve the device’s

speed, accuracy and vocabulary size — and
maybe one day allow a computer-generated
voice rather than text on a screen — while
testing a small number of additional volunteers.

18
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GM WARNS SOME
BOLT OWNERS TO
PARK OUTDOORS
DUE TO FIRE RISK

General Motors is telling owners of some older

Chevrolet Bolts to park them outdoors and not to
charge them overnight because two of the electric
cars caught fire after recall repairs were made.

The company said that the request covers 2017

through 2019 Bolts that were part of a group that
was recalled earlier due to fires in the batteries.

The latest request comes after two Bolts that

had gotten recall repairs caught fire, one in
Vermont and the other in New Jersey, GM
spokesman Kevin Kelly said.
Owners should take the steps “out of an
abundance of caution,” he said. The steps should
be continued until GM engineers investigate
and develop a repair, he said.

22
23
The cars should be parked outdoors after
charging is complete, GM said in a statement.
“We are moving as quickly as we can to
investigate this issue,” the company said.

Vermont State Rep. Tim Briglin, whose 2019

Bolt caught fire, said he drove it to work and
back home in Thetford, Vermont, on June 30,
depleting the battery to around 10% of its
range. He plugged it into a 240-volt outdoor
charger around 8 p.m. and left the Bolt in his
driveway after the car messaged that it would be
fully recharged by 4 a.m.

Around 6:30 a.m. the next day, he saw smoke

coming from the rear of the car and called the
fire department. Volunteer firefighters arrived
within 10 minutes and extinguished the blaze
with a lot of water, but stayed for another three
hours, using an infrared camera to make sure the
battery temperature didn’t increase and the fire
didn’t restart, he said. Nothing other than some
nearby plants were damaged, he said.

Briglin said he had the recall repairs done on

June 9, and charged his Bolt to 100% of its
battery capacity the morning of the fire, he said.

Briglin said he is happy GM is taking the action,

because he’s heard from Bolt owners who didn’t
know what to do because of the recent fires. “I’ve
had a great experience with it, but at the same
time, an unhappy ending for this Bolt,” he said.

GM, he said, plans to find him a 2021 or 2022

model to replace his, which was a total loss.

In April, GM announced that it had developed

diagnostic software to look for anomalies in the
batteries of 69,000 Bolts worldwide. If problems
are found, the company will replace faulty parts
of the battery.

24
25
Kelly said owners who haven’t had the recall
repairs done should still take their cars to dealers
to get the fixes.
In November, GM recalled the electric vehicles
after getting reports of multiple battery fires.
Two people suffered smoke inhalation and a
house was set ablaze.
At first the company didn’t know what was
causing the problem, but it determined that
batteries that caught fire were near a full charge.
So as a temporary fix, owners and dealers were
told to make software changes to limit charging
to 90% of a battery’s capacity.

GM traced the fires to what it called a rare

manufacturing defect in battery modules. It
can cause a short in a cell, which can trigger
a fire. Under the remedy, dealers were to
install software designed to warn owners
of problems, and any defective cells were
to be replaced.

Each Bolt has 288 battery cells, and engineers

worked to analyze data from hundreds of
thousands of cells, the company said.

The recall came after the U.S. National

Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened
an investigation into the fires last year. The
agency said in documents that the fires began
under the rear seat while the cars were parked
and unattended.

In a statement this week, the safety agency also

urged people to park the cars outdoors and
away from structures.
“Vehicles should be parked outside regardless of
whether the interim or final recall remedies have
been completed, the agency said.

26
27
Engineers determined the fires took place in
Bolts with battery cells made at an LG Chem
factory in Ochang, South Korea, from May of
2016 to May of 2019.

Some 2019 Bolts and all 2020 and 2021 versions

have cells made at an LG Chem plant in Holland,
Michigan, and are not included in the recall.
Once the final recall repairs are made, the Bolts’
full range will be restored. Older Bolts can go
about 238 miles (383 kilometers) per charge.

28
29
REGULATOR SUES
AMAZON TO
FORCE RECALL
OF HAZARDOUS
PRODUCTS

Safety regulators are suing Amazon to force

it to recall hazardous products sold on its site,
including flammable children’s pajamas, faulty
carbon monoxide detectors and hair dryers that
don’t protect users from getting electrocuted.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission,

which filed the complaint this week, said the
online shopping giant stopped selling some of
the faulty products.

32
33
34
Amazon said in a statement that it was
“unclear” why the safety commission filed
a complaint when the company already
removed the “vast majority” of the hazardous
products, notified customers, gave refunds
and asked shoppers to get rid of the
products themselves.
The safety commission said Amazon’s actions
were “insufficient” and it wants the company
to do more, including issue recalls with the
commission and destroy any of the goods sent
back by customers.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from

Connecticut who is chair of the consumer
safety committee, said in a statement that
the lawsuit sends a message to Amazon and
other online marketplaces: “Knowingly selling
dangerous and defective products that imperil
Americans will not be tolerated,” he said.

The safety commission said it tested the

products and found thousands of them to
be hazardous.

Nearly 400,000 hair dryers didn’t have a device

in the plug that protects users from being
electrocuted when dropped in water. And
24,000 carbon monoxide detectors didn’t work
when the gas was present.

The safety commission didn’t say exactly how

many flammable sleepwear garments it found,
but it said there were “numerous” children’s
pajamas, night gowns and bathrobes that
violated fabric safety standards and risked burn
injuries to kids.

35
THAT WAS
FLEETING:
TWITTER KILLS
OFF EPHEMERAL
MESSAGES

Twitter is disappearing its disappearing tweets,

called fleets, after they didn’t catch on.
The company began testing tweets that
vanish after 24 hours last March in Brazil.
Fleets were designed to allay the concerns
of new users who might be turned off
by the public and permanent nature of
normal tweets.

38
39
40
“However, we haven’t seen an increase
in the amount of new people joining the
conversation with Fleets like we hoped,”
Twitter said in a statement this week. “So as
of August 3, Fleets will no longer be available
on Twitter.”

Kayvon Beykpour, head of consumer product

at Twitter, stressed that this is part of how the
company works.

“(Big) bets are risky and speculative, so by

definition a number of them won’t work,”
he tweeted. “If we’re not having to wind
down features every once in a while, then
it would be a sign that we’re not taking big
enough swings.”

Fleets are reminiscent of Instagram and

Facebook “stories” and Snapchat’s snaps, which
let users post short-lived photos and messages.
Such features are increasingly popular with
social media users looking for smaller groups
and and more private chats. But people use
Twitter differently than Facebook, Instagram
or messaging apps — it’s more of a public
conversation and a way to stay up to date with
what’s going on. Fleets, it turns out, did not
make sense.

There was also a matter of the name. Called

fleets because they were fleeting, the word is
also a brand name for an enema — something
many people pointed out on Twitter when the
feature launched.
In a tweet announcing the decision, Twitter
wrote “we’re sorry or you’re welcome,
acknowledging mixed user reactions to
the feature.

41
TAIWAN
CHIPMAKER TSMC
SAYS PROFIT
UP 11.2% AS
DEMAND RISES

TSMC, the biggest contract manufacturer of

processor chips for Apple Inc. and other global
brands, said Thursday its latest quarterly profit
rose 11.2% over a year earlier to $4.8 billion
as demand for smartphones and consumer
electronics increased.

Sales in the three months ending June 30

rose 19.8% to $13.3 billion, said the company,
headquartered in Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Inc. has
said it expects faster growth as next-generation
telecoms and computing generates demand for
chips. A shift to working remotely in response
to the coronavirus pandemic helped propel
demand for communications technology.
The company, whose customers also include
Qualcomm Inc., said in April it plans to invest
$100 billion over the next three years to expand
manufacturing and research and development.

44
45
46
Most semiconductors used in smartphones,
medical equipment, computers and other
products are made in Taiwan, South Korea and
China. Shortages have cropped up as supply
failed to keep up with demand.
TSMC operates a semiconductor wafer fabrication
facility in Camas, Washington, and design centers
in San Jose, California, and Austin, Texas.

It has announced plans to invest $3.5 billion

in a second U.S. manufacturing site, in North
Phoenix, Arizona, as concern grows over heavy
American reliance on Asian sources for high-
tech components.

TSMC: www.tsmc.com

47
TOYOTA REVS
UP ITS DIGITAL
MAPPING
SUBSIDIARY
WOVEN PLANET

50
Toyota plans to hire more people and invest
heavily in its subsidiary Woven Planet to
work on mobility technology so the Japanese
automaker stays competitive amid the global
shift to using artificial intelligence and robotics
in everyday driving.

“Toyota’s traditional strength in hardware is

something we never want to lose. To make
safe mobility we need both, great hardware
and great software,” Woven Planet Holdings
Chief Executive James Kuffner said. “The world
is changing. The automotive industry is going
through this once-in-a-hundred-year revolution.
And so how do we remain relevant?”

Woven Planet, fully owned by Toyota Motor

Corp., announced Thursday it had acquired
CARMERA Inc., based in Seattle and New York.
The value of the deal was not disclosed.

CARMERA specializes in sophisticated road

mapping updates made cheaper and faster
by using crowdsourced information obtained
in real time from millions of net-connected
Toyota vehicles.

Winning social acceptance for such technology

is as much of a challenge as perfecting the
software, Kuffner said.
“When a person crashes, we have empathy for
that person. We all make mistakes, and we think:

51
That could have been me. If a computer crashes,
people have no empathy,” Kuffner said in an
interview from Portland, Oregon.
“Making a computer system that is just as
good as a human may not be good enough,”
said Kuffner, who sits on Toyota’s board and is
based in Tokyo. He earlier was part of the initial
engineering team that built Google’s self-
driving cars.

In April, Woven Planet acquired Level 5, the

self-driving division of Lyft, for $550 million.
That deal, once approved, will increase Woven
Planet’s headcount from 860 to more than
1,000 people.

Kuffner said he wants to possibly quadruple that

number, while avoiding getting “too bloated or
too bureaucratic.”

Toyota has held up relatively well during the

pandemic and has cash, while companies that
did not fare as well are downsizing. That is
providing investment opportunities, he added.

Woven Planet’s Woven Alpha team is developing

an automated mapping platform. Formerly
called the Toyota Research Institute, it has been
collaborating with CARMERA since 2018.

All major automakers are working on similar

technologies, and no one is ahead of the pack,
said Koji Endo, auto analyst with SBI Securities
Co. in Tokyo

“We’re talking about two or three decades into

the future, and so no one really knows for sure,
to be honest,” Endo said. That’s why automakers
are partnering or investing in several players to
hedge their bets. “But one thing is clear: No one
wants to fall behind.”

52
53
54
Image: Koji Sasahara

Technologies that allow cars to communicate

with each other, drive themselves and slash
emissions will mean improved safety, less traffic
congestions and quicker parking, he said.
Kuffner said he hoped to bring his Silicon Valley-
type expertise to Toyota, a company known for
its craftsmanship in hardware.
“Some things we’re going to do are going to fail.
But, as I always tell my team, it isn’t a failure if you
learn. We are always going to be learning, in the
spirit of ‘kaizen’ and improvement,” Kuffner said,
using a long-time Toyota manufacturing term.

55
US
UNEMPLOYMENT
CLAIMS FALL TO
360,000, A NEW
PANDEMIC LOW

The number of Americans applying for

unemployment benefits has reached its lowest
level since the pandemic struck last year,
further evidence that the U.S. economy and
job market are quickly rebounding from the
pandemic recession.
Thursday’s report from the Labor Department
showed that jobless claims fell by 26,000 last
week to 360,000. The weekly tally, a proxy for
layoffs, has fallen more or less steadily since
topping 900,000 in early January.
The U.S. recovery from the recession is
proceeding so quickly that many forecasters have
predicted that the economy will expand this year
by roughly 7%. That would be the most robust
calendar-year growth since 1984.

The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has sharply

reduced new viral cases — from a seven-day
average of around 250,000 in early January to
roughly 25,000 recently — despite a recent
uptick. As the health crisis has receded, cooped-

58
59
60
up Americans have increasingly emerged from
their homes, eager to spend on things they had
missed during pandemic lockdowns — dinners
out, a round of drinks, sports and entertainment
events, vacation getaways and shopping trips.
In response, businesses have scrambled to meet
the unexpected surge in customer demand: They
are posting job openings — a record 9.2 million in
May — faster than they can fill them. The worker
shortage in many industries is causing employers
to raise wages and in some cases to raise prices to
offset their higher labor costs.

The supply of potential hires is being held back

by a variety of factors. Many Americans still have
health concerns about working around large
numbers of people. Many people, mostly women,
are no longer working or looking for work because
they had to care for children when schools and day
care centers shut down. And roughly 2.6 million
older workers took advantage of enlarged stock
portfolios and home values to retire early.

A temporary $300-a-week federal unemployment

benefit, on top of regular state jobless aid, may
be enabling some people to be more selective
in looking for and taking jobs. Roughly half the
states plan to stop paying the supplement by the
end of July in what proponents say is an effort to
nudge more of the unemployed to seek jobs.
“As life normalizes and the service sector
continues to gain momentum, we expect initial
jobless claims to remain in a downtrend,″ said
Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at the
consulting firm Maria Fiorini Ramirez.
Last month, employers added a hefty 850,000
jobs, and hourly pay rose a solid 3.6% compared
with a year ago — faster than the pre-pandemic

61
annual pace and evidence that companies are
being compelled to pay more to attract and
keep workers. Even so, the United States remains
about 6.8 million jobs short of the number it had
in February 2020, just before the virus erupted
across the country and paralyzed the economy.
And weekly applications for unemployment
benefits remain high by historical standards: Just
before the pandemic, they amounted to about
220,000 a week. All told, 13.8 million Americans
were receiving some type of unemployment
aid during the week of June 26, down from 30.6
million a year earlier.

62
63
‘THE CROWN,’ ‘MANDALORIAN’
TOP EMMY NOMINATIONS
WITH 24 EACH

64
“The Crown” tied with “The Mandalorian” for
the most Emmy nominations Tuesday with
24 apiece, but the Marvel universe also got
bragging rights with runner-up “WandaVision.”

The nominations reinforced the rapid rise of

streaming, with most of the top-nominated
scripted shows on services that emerged in the
past two years. In the top three categories —
drama, comedy and limited series — broadcast
networks scored only two nominations,
for the NBC drama “This Is Us” and the ABC
xcomedy “black-ish.”

65
During an oppressive pandemic in which
housebound Americans relied more than ever
on television for distraction, TV academy voters
recognized a varied mix of storytelling and a
diverse group of actors and creators.
One example: Mj Rodriguez of “Pose” is the first
trans woman to be nominated in a lead acting
category. The show also earned a best drama
series nod.

Netflix’s “The Crown” received its fourth

nomination for best series, and is likely the
streaming service’s best chance to win its first-
ever top series trophy. The British royal drama
moved closer to contemporary events with its
version of the courtship and rocky marriage of
Prince Charles and Diana Spencer, played by
Josh O’Connor and Emma Corrin.
O’Connor and Corrin received lead drama
acting nods, as did the series’ Olivia Colman
for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II, with a
supporting bid to Gillian Anderson for her role
as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Oprah Winfrey’s headline-making interview with

the late Diana’s son Harry and his wife Meghan
earned a nomination for best hosted nonfiction
series or special.

The showings by “The Mandalorian,” an

extension of the “Star Wars” franchise, and
the inventive “WandaVision” featuring the
Marvel characters Wanda and Vision, put
the series in the ranks of past sci-fi and
fantasy Emmy favorites “Game of Thrones”
and “Lost.”
“The Boys,” Amazon’s comedy-tinged take on
superheroes, earned a best drama nod.

66
67
“I would never have thought in a million years
that playing a witch in a Marvel show would
lead to this. It’s like a dream,” said “WandaVision”
co-star Kathryn Hahn. The show’s total of 23
nominations was especially sweet.
“I’m so moved that the whole of it has been
recognized,” Hahn said. “It was incredibly
difficult. It was a hard, hard shoot. But ... the
experience of making this meant so much to me
and it was so unexpectedly deep.”

The nominations haul by Disney+, which

launched in late 2019, was impressive, but the
triumph of streaming was predictable, said Eric
Deggans, TV critic for National Public Radio.

“Disney+ came out of nowhere and got the

third-most nominations of any platform at
71. ... We’re a point now where this is this is
increasingly becoming a streamers’ game and
the Emmy nominations reflect it,” Deggans said.

HBO and streaming service HBO Max edged into

lead with 130 total nominations, with Netflix
close on its heels with 129.

The frontrunner on the comedy side is the good-

hearted “Ted Lasso,” about a middling American
football coach imported to England to handle
a soccer team. The Apple TV+ series received
20 nominations, including for top comedy, star
Jason Sudeikis and six cast members.
“Hacks,” starring Jean Smart as a stand-up
comedian who resists getting aged out of Las
Vegas and life, was next with 15 nods, including
a lead actor award for Smart and a supporting
bid for Hannah Einbinder.

Smart, who some have said is enjoying a career

“Jeannaisance,” earned a second nomination for

68
69
her supporting role in “Mare of Easttown.” The
limited series received 16 nods, including for
star Kate Winslet.
Among the others who doubled down on
nominations: “Saturday Night Live” stars Kenan
Thompson and Aidy Bryant, who received
supporting acting bids for the variety show
as well as lead comedy series acting nods for,
respectively, “”Kenan” and “Shrill.”
Other top nominees include previous best
drama series winner “The Handmaid’s Tale,” with
21 nods, tied with “Saturday Night Live”; “The
Queen’s Gambit,” 18; the costume-drama romp
“Bridgerton” and “Hamilton,” with 12 each.

“Lovecraft Country,” a horror-infused drama

set in 1950s segregated America, earned an
impressive 18 nominations — but was canceled
by HBO after one season.

“The Flight Attendant” earned nine nominations,

including a best comedy actress nod for Kaley
Cuoco and a supporting actress bid for Rosie
Perez — who becomes the second Latina
nominated in the category, after Sofia Vergara
for “Modern Family.”
There were surprises, as usual. Nicole Kidman
failed to receive a nomination for limited series
“The Undoing,” while co-star Hugh Grant was
recognized. But the critically acclaimed miniseries
“I May Destroy You” and its star and creator,
Michaela Coel, grabbed nine Emmy nods after
being snubbed by the Golden Globes.

One blast from the past getting new respect:

“Cobra Kai,” set 30 years after the events of the
“Karate Kid” film, earned a best comedy nod and
four nominations in all.

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The other nominees for best drama series are
“The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Lovecraft Country.”
Other comedy series nominees are “Emily in
Paris”; “The Flight Attendant”; “The Kominsky
Method” and “PEN15.”
The nominees for best miniseries are: “The
Queen’s Gambit”; “I May Destroy You”;
“Mare of Easttown”; “The Underground
Railroad”; “WandaVision.”
Father-and-daughter actors Ron Cephas
Jones (“This Is Us”) and Jasmine Cephas Jones
(“Blindspotting”) and TV Academy head
Frank Scherma announced the nominees.
There were awkward moments when the
pair mispronounced some nominees’ names,
including referring to Anya Taylor-Joy
as “Anna.”
The Sept. 19 ceremony, which last year was
held virtually because of the COVID-19
pandemic, will air live on CBS from a theater
and include a limited in-person audience of
nominees and guests. Cedric the Entertainer is
the host.
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74
 ELECTRIFY
AMERICA TO
DOUBLE EV
CHARGING
STATIONS
BY 2025

Electrify America, an electric vehicle charging

network funded with money paid by
Volkswagen as punishment for its emissions
cheating scandal, says it plans to more than
double its number of charging stations
throughout the United States and Canada.
The expansion will include 1,800 fast-charging
stations and 10,000 individual chargers to
be installed by 2025 and is part of Electrify
America’s previous commitment to invest
$2 billion over 10 years on EV infrastructure,
education and access in the U.S.

75
Automakers have ramped up production of
electric vehicles that can go farther and charge
faster, but are concerned that consumers
interested in EVs may wait to buy until there’s
better, faster charging infrastructure.
The latest generation of EVs, many with ranges
around 300 miles (480 kilometers) per charge,
can accept electricity at a much faster rate than
previous models could, but most charging
stations can’t keep up with the vehicles’
advanced technology.

There are about 42,000 public charging stations

in the U.S., but only about 5,000 are considered
direct-current fast chargers, according to the
Department of Energy. The rest require roughly
eight hours to fully charge longer-range batteries.

The higher cost of fast-charging stations is

an issue President Joe Biden’s administration
will have to take into account as it develops
incentives to encourage companies and
governments to build more charging stations.
The administration’s goal is to have 500,000
charging stations nationwide by 2030.

Electrify America’s expansion plan increases

its presence in established U.S. regions as well
as adding new states such as Hawaii, North
Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming
and Vermont. The additions bring its network to
49 states and the District of Columbia, Electrify
America said. It also plans to add a new electric
vehicle charging highway to the “upper Midwest”
but did not say specifically where it would be.
Since its first charging station opened in May
2018, the Reston, Virginia-based company
said it has installed an average of four stations
per week.

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 Image: Shutterstock
78
 SPORTS
THE DIVERSIFICATION &
EXPANSION OF APPLE TV+

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With Apple reportedly expressing an interest
in streaming rights for the National Football
League’s “Sunday Ticket” package, there’s
never been a better time to sign up for Apple’s
streaming service. With a raft of award-winning
TV shows and movies, and perhaps soon live
sporting events available to stream from your
iPhone, Apple TV+ is coming into its own.

A TURBULENT START FOR APPLE TV+

Whether you’re an Apple die-hard with shares
in the company or you’re a casual fan of the
firm and its hardware, there’s no denying that
the Cupertino company’s foray into services
has been challenging at best. Although Tim
Cook and Co have found great success in
some services like Apple Music (which recently
launched its new lossless streaming feature,
much to the concern of Spotify) and iCloud
(which will launch a raft of new features
in September like Private Relay and Email
Open Track disabling), other services have
struggled to attract much attention or praise.
Apple News+, for instance, has been met with
widespread criticism from journalists and
publishers on the platform, with The New York
Times being one of the most high-profile
companies to admit defeat and leave the
platform citing low revenue. Apple Arcade,
despite offering users a series of games from
some of the world’s biggest developers and
studios, has also struggled to generate
much of interest amongst consumers, with
Apple reportedly canceling deals it had
with studios. The success of Apple Fitness+
remains to be seen, but it has received positive
feedback and reviews from fitness enthusiasts

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and technology fans, calling it a “must-have”
for users, but it’s perhaps the biggest service
of all - Apple TV+ - that is still struggling to find
its feet.

According to data from Justwatch, Apple

TV+ has a market share of three percent in
the US, which places it in seventh place on
the list of the most popular streaming video
services. It’s natural that the company would
struggle to compete with giants like Netflix
and Amazon Prime in the short time it’s been
around, or Disney+ for that matter, which has
an impressive back catalog of content that
even the biggest streaming services couldn’t
compete with. But it’s the fact that almost
two years on from its launch, Apple TV+ is
yet to make a serious dent or launch a roster
of shows that capture the general public’s
attention. Sure, it’s had some success stories
like The Morning Show, See, and Ted Lasso, but
considering that Netflix and Amazon pump
out dozens of new television shows, movies,
and secure distribution deals with some of the
biggest entertainment studios in the world,
Apple has a long way to go to make its service
a compelling subscription. What’s more, the
company is set to start charging for Apple
TV+ after offering the service for free for
the past 18 months, and it’s then when
we’ll see exactly how successful Apple wants
its streaming service to become. The easiest
way for Apple to drive subscribers would be
to start buying content from other parties
to fill out its back catalog. The company still
only offers a handful of (albeit high-quality)
shows, compared with Netflix and Amazon’s
thousands of titles, and though it has shown

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some interest in acquiring studios like MGM,
it’s failed to do so, with Amazon coming out
front and center and taking over the rights
to the iconic studio.

BRINGING SPORT INTO THE FOLD

One area where Apple hopes to capture the
attention of consumers and turn Apple TV+
into a hub worth subscribing to is with sport.
Amazon has shown that streamers can handle
live sporting events like tennis and the Premier
League, and now Apple wants a bite of the
same pie. The company is reportedly bidding
for streaming rights for the National Football
League’s “Sunday Ticket” package, and is in
with discussions with NFL executives, though
it’s thought that NFL is also speaking to other
television networks and technology firms, so
there’s no guarantee that Apple will come out
victorious. Right now, Sunday Ticket streams on
DirecTV, but if Apple was to acquire the rights,
users would be able to watch non-prime time
games from all 32 NFL teams on Apple TV+.
It’s believed that DirecTV pays around $1.5
billion for rights to Sunday Ticket games, but
with a bidding war afoot, Apple might need
to open its purse a little wider than that. It’s
worth noting that Apple acquired MGM for
$8.4 billion, but that offered the company more
than 4,000 films and 17,000 hours of TV - if
Apple paid $2 billion for Sunday Ticket games,
it’d be a seriously expensive commitment and
the firm would need to work hard to encourage
consumers to make the leap over to the
platform.

It’s believed that Disney is also interested in

acquiring the rights for its ESPN streaming

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service, and Apple has yet to be seen as
a serious contender for the rights as it’s
failed to invest big money in entertainment
programming thus far. However, it’s worth
noting that the company has a relationship
with the National Football League, hiring
James DeLorenzo to run a sports division
for the company back in 2020. DeLorenzo
was previously responsible for negotiating
Amazon’s deal with the NFL to stream live
games, so it could be that Apple finally wants
to spend some money and give Apple TV+ the
content and attention it needs.

And talks over Sunday Ticket aren’t the first

sporting excursions Apple has made: the
firm had previously expressed an interest in
live streaming college sports, but nothing
came of those talks and there’s still very
little sports-related content on Apple TV+,
which right now focuses more on dramas,
documentaries, and comedies. Introducing
sports content makes a great deal of sense
for the United States market, and as reported
by Jacob Feldman of Sportico, “Apple has the
theoretical means to do just about anything it
wants regarding sports content. Nearly $200
billion in available cash alone would be, on
paper, more than enough to purchase every
NFL team—twice. And yet, years since Apple
CEO Tim Cook announced the company’s
Apple TV+ streaming service, he has not yet
landed exclusive rights to any sports activity.”
He revealed that the company has been
expressing interest in sports content since
2018 when Apple was reportedly bidding
for The Match, a “head-to-head match play
contest between golfers Tiger Woods and
Image: Sam Greenwood
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Phil Mickelson,” but the firm added that it was
“not yet ready to wade into live rights.” With a
dedicated Sports tab in the Apple TV app and
dozens of deep integrations, like sports results
inside of Siri, Apple offers the perfect sports
fan’s platform.

Others have pointed out that the COVID-19

pandemic has slowed down the production
of new shows like The Morning Show, See,
Foundation, and Ted Lasso, and thus adding
sports into the mix would encourage users to
give Apple TV+ another chance, especially if it
was pushed with a major marketing campaign.
Add in multiple streaming tiers that offer
more access to games and behind-the-scenes
sporting content and analysis, and Apple
could easily make Apple TV+ the home of live
sporting entertainment around the world
- whilst still building its portfolio of quality,
poignant television shows and movies for the
whole family.

THE FUTURE IS IN SPORT

If Apple is serious about sport, the company
would need to secure global rights that
solve the problems of international digital-
first distribution. For example, if Apple only
acquired rights to games in the United States,
the rest of its subscribers on the other three
corners of the globe would suffer, and perhaps
even retreat from the service entirely. But
soccer isn’t the only sport that Apple could
engage with. Last year, it bought virtual reality
streaming specialist and NBA partner NextVR
for a reported US$100 million, and so even
without any formal relationship with sports
organizations, Apple could still make a serious

93
influence over health and wellbeing through
Apple TV+, bringing together the power of
Apple Watch and its new fitness service Apple
Fitness+. Apple’s mantra has always been to
“think different,” and so instead of blowing
billions of rights to short-term wins, Apple
could instead be refining a sporting strategy
that changes the way we work out and
consume sports entertainment.

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In recent years, as Apple expands and diversifies
into new areas, it’s becoming harder than ever to
work out what moves the firm will make. For an
investor, that can be challenging, but for Apple
fans, it’s never been more exciting. Although
not every venture will prove to be as fruitful as
the iPad or Apple Watch, the future of sport and
Apple is certainly very bright, and whatever form
or relationship it takes, we can’t wait to see what
comes next!

97
FAA: NEW TOOL
LIMITS DISRUPTIONS
CAUSED BY SPACE
OPERATIONS

98
Federal regulators said they now can better
track rocket launches and space vehicles
returning to Earth, which could cut the amount
of time that airplanes must be routed around
space operations.
The Federal Aviation Administration said a new
tool automates the near-instantaneous delivery
of data about a space vehicle’s flight path to the
nation’s air traffic control system.

The tool, called the Space Data Integrator, will

replace a system in which much of the work of
giving telemetry data about space vehicles to air
traffic control managers is done manually.

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100
Elon Musk’s SpaceX was the first company to
share flight telemetry data with the FAA, and
others including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have
since joined the program, according to the FAA.

The FAA said the new technology was first

used on June 30 for the launch of SpaceX’s
Transporter 2, which lifted off from Cape
Canaveral, Florida, carrying dozens of satellites
into orbit. It will be used again with the
pending return of a SpaceX cargo ship from the
International Space Station, the agency said.

“With this capability, we will be able to safely

reopen the airspace more quickly and reduce
the number of aircraft and other airspace
users affected by a launch or reentry,” FAA
Administrator Stephen Dickson said.

During space operations, the FAA shuts down

a huge section of airspace for hours in case the
rocket or the space vehicle breaks apart. Airlines
must reroute flights, which causes them to burn
more fuel and fall behind schedule. A single
launch can affect hundreds of flights.

The growth of the commercial space industry,

and with it the number of launches and
reentries, has raised concern among airlines that
disruptions will become more frequent.
According to the FAA, there were 45 space
launches and reentries last year, a record, and
that could rise to more than 70 this year.
The FAA said other changes it has already made
have reduced airspace closures from an average
of more than four hours to a little more than two
hours for a launch. The agency said the Space
Data Integrator will reduce that further, but
didn’t give a precise time.

101
BILLIONAIRE
RICHARD
BRANSON
REACHES SPACE
IN HIS OWN SHIP

102
Swashbuckling billionaire Richard Branson
hurtled into space aboard his own winged
rocket ship last Sunday, bringing astro-tourism
a step closer to reality and beating out his
exceedingly richer rival Jeff Bezos.
The nearly 71-year-old Branson and five
crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space-
tourism company reached an altitude of 53.5
miles (86 kilometers) over the New Mexico
desert — enough to experience three to four
minutes of weightlessness and witness the
curvature of the Earth — and then glided back
home to a runway landing.

“The whole thing, it was just magical,” a jubilant

Branson said on his return aboard the gleaming
white space plane, named Unity.

The brief, up-and-down flight — the space

plane’s portion took only about 15 minutes,
or about as long as Alan Shepard’s first U.S.
spaceflight in 1961 — was a splashy and
unabashedly commercial plug for Virgin
Galactic, which plans to start taking paying
customers on joyrides next year.

Branson became the first person to blast off in

his own spaceship, beating Bezos, the richest
person on the planet, by nine days. He also
became the second septuagenarian to go into
space. Astronaut John Glenn flew on the shuttle
at age 77 in 1998.
Bezos sent his congratulations, adding: “Can’t
wait to join the club!” — though he also took
to Twitter a couple of days earlier to enumerate
the ways in which be believes his company’s
tourist rides will be better.
With about 500 people watching, including
Branson’s family, Unity was carried aloft

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underneath a twin-fuselage aircraft. Then, at
an altitude of about 8 1/2 miles (13 kilometers),
Unity detached from the mother ship and fired
its engine, reaching more than Mach 3, or three
times the speed of sound, as it pierced the edge
of space.

Spectators cheered, jumped into the air and

embraced as the rocket plane touched down on
Earth. Branson pumped his fists as he stepped
out onto the runway and ran toward his
family, bear-hugging his wife and children and
scooping up his grandchildren in his arms.

Mike Moses, a top executive at Virgin Galactic,

said that apart from some problems with the
transmission of video images from inside the
cabin, the flight was perfect, and the ship
looked pristine.

“That was an amazing accomplishment,” former

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, a one-time
commander of the International Space Station,
said from the sidelines. “I’m just so delighted at
what this open door is going to lead to now. It’s
a great moment.”

Virgin Galactic conducted three previous test

flights into space with crews of just two or three.

The flamboyant, London-born founder of Virgin

Atlantic Airways wasn’t supposed to fly until
later this summer. But he assigned himself
to an earlier flight after Bezos announced
plans to ride his own rocket into space from
Texas on July 20, the 52nd anniversary of the
Apollo 11 moon landing. Branson denied he
was trying to outdo Bezos.
Branson’s other chief rival in the space-
tourism race among the world’s richest men,

105
SpaceX’s Elon Musk, came to New Mexico
to watch and congratulated Branson for a
“beautiful flight.”
Bezos’ Blue Origin company intends to send
tourists past the so-called Karman line 62
miles (100 kilometers) above Earth, which
is recognized by international aviation and
aerospace federations as the threshold of space.

But NASA, the Air Force, the Federal Aviation

Administration and some astrophysicists
consider the boundary between the
atmosphere and space to begin 50 miles (80
kilometers) up.

The risks to Branson and his crew were

underscored in 2007, when a rocket motor test
in California’s Mojave Desert left three workers
dead, and in 2014, when a Virgin Galactic rocket
plane broke apart during a test flight, killing
one pilot and seriously injuring the other.

Ever the showman, Branson insisted on a

global livestream of the Sunday morning
flight and invited celebrities and former space
station astronauts to the company’s Spaceport
America base in New Mexico. R&B singer Khalid
performed his new single “New Normal” — a
nod to the dawning of space tourism — while
CBS “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert served as
master of ceremonies.

Before climbing aboard, Branson, who has kite-

surfed the English Channel and attempted to
circle the world in a hot-air balloon, signed
the astronaut log book and wisecracked: “The
name’s Branson. Sir Richard Branson. Astronaut
Double-oh-one. License to thrill.”

But asked afterward whether he is planning any

more adventures, Branson said he will “definitely

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give it a rest for the time being” because “I’m not
sure it would be fair to put my family through
another one.” He said he thinks he holds the
record for being pulled out of the sea five times
by helicopter.
Virgin Galactic already has more than 600
reservations from would-be space tourists, with
tickets initially costing $250,000 apiece. And
upon his return to Earth, Branson announced a
sweepstakes drawing for two seats on a Virgin
Galactic jaunt. Blue Origin is waiting for Bezos’
flight before announcing its ticket prices.

Kerianne Flynn, who signed up in 2011 to fly

with Virgin Galactic, had butterflies ahead of the
launch Sunday.

“I think there’s going to be nothing like going

up there and looking back down on the
Earth, which is what I think I’m most excited
about,” she said. She added: “Hopefully the next
generations will be able to explore what’s up
there.”
Blue Origin and Musk’s SpaceX both fly Apollo-
style, using capsules atop rockets, instead of an
air-launched, reusable space plane.
SpaceX, which is already launching astronauts
to the space station for NASA and building
moon and Mars ships, plans to take tourists
on more than just brief, up-and-down trips.
Customers will instead go into orbit around the
Earth for days, with seats costing well into the
millions. The company’s first private flight is set
for September.
Musk himself has not committed to going into
space anytime soon.

109
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 BEZOS’ BLUE
ORIGIN GETS OK
TO SEND HIM, 3
OTHERS TO SPACE

Jeff Bezos’ rocket company has gotten

government approval to launch people into
space, himself included.
The Amazon founder will climb atop his New
Shepard rocket next Tuesday in West Texas,
joined by his brother, an 82-year-old female
aviation pioneer and a $28 million auction
winner. It will be the first launch with passengers
for Blue Origin, which like Richard Branson’s
Virgin Galactic plans to start flying paying
customers in the months ahead.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued its

OK. The license is good through August.

111
On Sunday, Virgin Galactic’s billionaire founder
Richard Branson rode his own rocket plane
to space, accompanied by five company
employees. A specially designed aircraft carried
the winged ship aloft over New Mexico. The
space plane dropped away, fired its rocket motor
and soared to 53.5 miles (86 kilometers), before
gliding to a runway touchdown.

Blue Origin’s flight — featuring an automated

capsule launched atop a reusable booster —
should reach a maximum altitude of roughly
66 miles (106 kilometers) before parachuting
into the desert.

Joining Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic in the

chase for space tourists is Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
But SpaceX plans to send its customers into
orbit, not on brief up-and-down hops. Musk has
yet to commit to a launch himself.

Bezos, 57, stepped down last week as Amazon’s

CEO. He founded Blue Origin in 2000.

112
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 FIRM HACKED
TO SPREAD
RANSOMWARE
HAD PREVIOUS
SECURITY FLAWS

For 21 years, the software company Kaseya

labored in relative obscurity — at least until
cybercriminals exploited it in early July for
a massive ransomware attack that snarled
businesses around the world and escalated U.S.-
Russia diplomatic tensions.

But it turns out that the recent hack wasn’t the

first major cybersecurity problem to hit the Miami-
based company and its core product, which IT
teams use to remotely monitor and administer
workplace computer systems and other devices.

“It feels a little like déjà vu,” said Allie Mellen, a

security analyst at Forrester Research.
In 2018, for instance, hackers managed
to infiltrate Kaseya’s tool in 2018 to run a
“cryptojacking” operation, which channels
the power of afflicted computers to mine
cryptocurrency — often without its victims
noticing. It was a less harmful breach than
the recent ransomware attack, which was
impossible to miss since it crippled affected

115
systems until their owners paid up. But it
similarly relied on Kaseya’s Virtual System
Administrator product, or VSA, as a vehicle to
get access to the companies that rely on it.

A 2019 ransomware attack also rode into

computers through another company’s add-on
software component to the Kaseya VSA, causing
more limited damage than the recent attack.
Some experts have tied that earlier assault to
some of the same hackers who later formed
REvil, the Russian-language syndicate blamed
for the latest attack.

And in 2014, Kaseya’s own founders sued the

company in a dispute over responsibility for
a VSA security flaw that allowed hackers to
launch a separate cryptocurrency scheme.
The court case does not appear to have been
previously reported outside of a brief 2015
mention in a technical blog post. At the time,
the founders denied responsibility for the
vulnerability, calling the company’s charges
against them a “bogus assertion.”

Nearly all of Kaseya’s security problems

have as their root cause well-understood
coding vulnerabilities that should have been
addressed earlier, said cybersecurity expert
Katie Moussouris, the founder and CEO of
Luta Security.
“Kaseya needs to shape up, as does the entire
software industry,” she said. “This is a failure to
incorporate the lessons the bugs were teaching
you. Kaseya, like a lot of companies, is failing to
learn those lessons.”
Many of the attacks relied at least in part on
what’s known as a SQL injection, a technique
hackers use to inject malicious code into web

116
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queries. It’s an old technique that Mellen said
has been considered a “solved problem” in the
cybersecurity world for a decade.
“It points to a chronic product security issue in
Kaseya’s software that remains unaddressed
seven years later,” she said. “When organizations
choose to brush over security challenges, the
incidents continue, and, as in this case, get worse.”

Kaseya has noted that it’s long been a target

because many of its direct customers are
“managed-services providers” that host IT
infrastructure for hundreds, if not thousands, of
other businesses.

“In the business we’re in, and the number of

endpoints we manage around the world, as
you might expect, we take security extremely
seriously,” Ronan Kirby, president of the
company’s European operations, said at a
Belgian cybersecurity conference. “You attack
a company, you get into the company. You
attack a service provider, you get into all their
customers. You get into Kaseya, that’s a very
different proposition. So obviously we’re an
attractive target.”

Kaseya declined to answer questions from the

press about the previous hacks or the legal
dispute involving its founders.

Mark Sutherland and Paul Wong co-founded

Kaseya in California in 2000. They had previously
worked together on a project protecting the
email accounts of U.S. intelligence workers at
the National Security Agency, according to an
account on the company’s website.
But more than a year after selling Kaseya in
June 2013, court records show that Sutherland,
Wong and two other former top executives sued

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the company to recoup $5.5 million in stock
buybacks they said they were unfairly denied.

At the heart of the dispute was an attack by

hackers who used Kaseya’s VSA as a conduit
to deploy “Litecoin” mining malware, which
secretly hijacks a victim computer’s power to
make money for the hacker by processing new
cryptocurrency payments.

Kaseya publicly disclosed the attacks in a March

2014 notice to customers. Privately, it was blaming
the company’s previous leadership for not
warning about “serious vulnerabilities” in Kaseya’s
software. It sought to deprive them of the final
$5.5 million of the acquisition price to compensate
for the loss of business and damaged reputation.

The founders, in turn, blamed the new leadership

for scaling back on coding expertise and
eliminating a “hotfix” system for rapidly fixing
bugs, according to the lawsuit from Sutherland,
Wong, former CEO Gerald Blackie and former
Chief Operating Officer Timothy McMullen.
They also argued that the SQL injection
technique used by the hackers was highly
common and “inherent in any computer code”
that uses the SQL programming language.

“Ensuring that each and every piece of database

access code is immune to SQL injection is
essentially impossible,” said their lawsuit. Mellen
and Moussouris both rejected that assertion.
“That is a bold statement and provably
false,” Moussouris said. “It highlights the fact
they lacked the security knowledge and
sophistication to protect their users.”

None of the plaintiffs or their lawyers responded

to requests for comment. They agreed to dismiss

121
the case in December 2013, just a month after
they filed it. It’s not clear how it was settled.
Kaseya is privately held.
LinkedIn profiles for Sutherland and Wong list
them as retired, with Sutherland also growing
wine grapes. Blackie went on to become CEO of
another Miami-based provider of remote-control
software, Pilixo, where he was joined by McMullen.
Pilixo didn’t return a request for comment.
New vulnerabilities affecting Kaseya’s VSA
— including the one exploited by the REvil
ransomware gang — were discovered this year by
a Dutch cybersecurity research group that says it
confidentially warned Kaseya in early April. “In the
wrong hands, these vulnerabilities could lead to
the compromise of large numbers of computers
managed by Kaseya VSA,” the Dutch Institute for
Vulnerability Disclosure said in a blog post last
week explaining the timeline of its actions.

Some of those Kaseya fixed by May, including

another SQL injection flaw, but the Dutch
group said others were still unpatched when
ransomware started hitting hundreds of
businesses in early July. Kaseya has said up to
1,500 businesses have been compromised as a
result of the attack. Kaseya rolled out patches
to the vulnerabilities used in the REvil attack.

Moussouris said there’s a pattern of

ransomware syndicates going after easily
detectable software flaws.
“It’s collective technical debt around the world
and the ransomware gangs are technical debt
collectors,” she said. “They’re coming after
organizations like Kaseya” and others that
haven’t invested in better security.

122
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124
 MUSK ON TRIAL:
DEFENDS
SOLARCITY,
CALLS LAWYER
‘BAD HUMAN’

Tesla founder Elon Musk took to a witness stand

to defend his company’s 2016 acquisition of a
troubled company called SolarCity against a
lawsuit that claims he’s to blame for a deal that
was rife with conflicts of interest and never
delivered the profits he’d promised.

And to the surprise of no one, the famously

colorful billionaire did so in the most personally
combative terms.

“I think you are a bad human being,” Musk told

Randall Baron, a lawyer for shareholders who
was pressing Musk to acknowledge his mistakes
in helping engineer the acquisition of SolarCity,
a manufacturer of solar panels.

“I have great respect for the court,” Musk later

added, “but not for you, sir.”

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The long-running shareholder lawsuit asserts
that Musk, who was SolarCity’s largest
stakeholder and its chairman, and other Tesla
directors breached their fiduciary duties in
bowing to Musk’s wishes and agreeing to buy
the company. In what the plaintiffs call a clear
conflict of interest, SolarCity had been founded
by Musk and two of his cousins, Lyndon and
Peter Rive.

In the Delaware Court of Chancery on Monday,

Baron sought to establish that Musk has sought
to run Tesla without interference and therefore
bears responsibility for any failures. The lawyer
showed a video clip in which Musk said he liked
running his own companies because he doesn’t
want anyone to make him do what he doesn’t
want to do.
As an example of what he characterized as
Musk’s imperious management style, Baron
mentioned that the CEO once declared himself
“Technoking of Tesla” and gave his chief financial
officer the title “master of coin’’ — a reference to
HBO’s “Game of Thrones” — in a filing with the
Securities and Exchange Commission.

The hostility between the billionaire CEO and

the plaintiffs’ lawyer dates to at least 2019 and
a deposition in which Musk insulted Baron
and questioned his professionalism. Baron
played clips from that deposition to try to
portray Musk’s stance toward what he might
regard as criticism.
Pushing back, Musk insisted that “I don’t want to
be the boss of anything.”
“I prefer to spend my time on design and
engineering,” he said.

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Musk, who is well-known for rejecting
skepticism of himself or his company, insisted
that he welcomes criticism:
“If I’m mistaken,” he said on the witness stand, “I
view critical feedback as a gift.”
Musk said his off-beat titles and other quips
simply reflect his sense of humor.
“I think I’m funny,” he offered.

What’s more, he said, the resulting media

attention often plays to Tesla’s benefit.

“If we’re entertaining, people will write

stories about us,” and the company can save
on advertising.”

Regarding Tesla’s all-stock acquisition of

SolarCity, Musk asserted that he had nothing
to gain financially from it because he owned
shares of both companies.

Musk also argued that SolarCity’s failure to

meet aggressive sales forecasts and its loss of
market share were only temporary setbacks. He
said they reflected his decision to divert Tesla
resources toward salvaging production of the
Tesla Model 3 electric car — and then running
“headlong into a pandemic.”

The effort to salvage Tesla 3 was “all-hands-on-

deck” operation — so desperate that even the
company’s lawyers were enlisted in the effort,
Musk said, drawing laughter in the court.

Musk’s defense noted that SolarCity had been in

Tesla’s plans as early as his 2006 master plan for
the electric carmaker. In saying so, he asserted
that the joining of the companies 10 years later
wasn’t an emergency bailout as the plaintiffs
have alleged.

129
But Baron pointed out that the 2006 document
mentioned only a potential marketing
arrangement, not a full-fledged merger or
acquisition, between Tesla and SolarCity.

Baron repeatedly pressed Musk about evidence

that SolarCity had been in trouble — short of
cash, unable to obtain financing, in danger
of violating the terms of an existing loan
agreement — before the Tesla buyout.
Musk conceded nothing. He argued that
SolarCity could have raised money, if it wanted
to, by issuing shares of stock. And he noted
that fast-growing young companies, including
Amazon and Tesla itself, often bleed cash in their
early years before achieving success later.

Why, Baron asked, did another Musk company,

Space X, waive its own investment guidelines
to buy risky SolarCity bonds? Musk replied that
those bonds offered a better payout than did
bank accounts that paid little more than zero.

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Image: Sergio Flores/
131
“I had faith,” Musk said, “in the future of SolarCity.”
Baron tried to pin down whether Musk
had recused himself from Tesla-SolarCity
negotiations to avoid a conflict of interest.
“I had no material role,” Musk said.

“What’s is a ‘material role?’ ” Baron fired back.

”That sounds like a wiggle word to me.”

“You’re the expert in wiggle words,”

Musk countered.

The trial marks the culmination of seven

shareholder lawsuits, consolidated into one,
that alleged that Tesla directors breached their
fiduciary duties in bowing to Musk’s wishes and
agreeing to buy SolarCity. Last August, a judge
approved a $60 million settlement that resolved
claims made against all the directors on Tesla’s
board except Musk without any admission of fault.

That left Musk, who refused to settle, as the

sole remaining defendant. The trial had been
scheduled for March of last year but was
postponed because of the viral pandemic.

Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities,

has called the acquisition a “clear black eye” for
Musk and Tesla, in large part because SolarCity
has failed to turn a profit.
“It basically was putting good money after bad,”
Ives said. “For all the successes and all of the
unimaginable heights Musk has achieved, this is
one of the lowlights.”
Even if the trial ends with Musk having to pay
personally for the whole SolarCity deal, $2.5 billion
won’t much hurt the world’s third-wealthiest
person. Forbes magazine has estimated that
Musk is worth roughly $163 billion.

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 G-20 FINANCE
MINISTERS
BACK PLAN TO
STOP USE OF
TAX HAVENS

Top finance officials representing most of the

world’s economy have backed a sweeping
revision of international taxation that includes a
15% global minimum corporate levy to deter big
companies from resorting to low-rate tax havens.

Finance ministers from the Group of 20

countries endorsed the plan at a meeting last
weekend in Venice.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said
the proposal would end a “self-defeating
international tax competition” in which countries
have for years lowered their rates to attract
companies. She said that had been “a race that
nobody has won. What it has done instead is to
deprive us of the resources we need to invest in
our people, our workforces, our infrastructure.”

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The next steps include more work on key details
at the Paris-based Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development and then a final
decision at the Group of 20 meeting of presidents
and prime ministers on Oct. 30-31 in Rome.
Implementation, expected as early as 2023,
would depend on action at the national level.
Countries would enact the minimum tax
requirement into their own laws. Other parts
could require a formal treaty. The draft proposal
was approved July 1 in talks among more than
130 countries convened by the OECD.

Italy hosted the finance minister’s meeting in

Venice because it holds the rotating chair of the
G-20, which makes up more than 80% of the
world economy. The event also attracted around
1,000 protesters under the banner “We Are The
Tide,” an umbrella group of environmental and
social justice activists, including opponents of
large cruise ships and the hordes of tourists
they bring to the lagoon city. A small group
scuffled with police after breaking away from an
approved demonstration area.

The U.S. already has a minimum tax on overseas

earnings, but President Joe Biden has proposed
roughly doubling the rate to 21%, which would
more than comply with the proposed global
minimum. Raising the rate is part of a broader
proposal to fund Biden’s jobs and infrastructure
plan by raising the domestic corporate tax rate
to 28% from 21%.
Yellen said she was “very optimistic” that Biden’s
infrastructure and tax legislation “will include
what we need for the United States to come into
compliance” with the minimum tax proposal.

136
Image: Demetrius Freeman

137
Republicans in the Congress have expressed
opposition to the measure. Rep. Kevin Brady of
Texas, the top Republican on the tax-writing Ways
and Means Committee, has blasted the OECD deal,
saying, “This is an economic surrender to China,
Europe and the world that Congress will reject.”

The international tax proposal aims to deter the

world’s biggest firms from using accounting and
legal schemes to shift their profits to countries
where little or no tax is due — and where the
company may do little or no actual business.
Under the minimum, companies that escape
taxes abroad would pay them at home. That
would eliminate incentives for using tax havens
or for setting them up.

From 2000-2018, U.S. companies booked half of

all foreign profits in seven low-tax jurisdictions:
Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Ireland, Luxembourg,
the Netherlands, Singapore and Switzerland.

A second part of the tax plan is to permit countries

to tax a portion of the profits of companies that
earn profits without a physical presence, such
as through online retailing or digital advertising.
That part arose after France, followed by other
countries, imposed a digital service tax on U.S.
tech giants such as Amazon and Google. The U.S.
government regards those national taxes as unfair
trade practices and is holding out the threat of
retaliation against those countries’ imports into
the U.S. through higher import taxes.
Under the tax deal, those countries would have
to drop or refrain from national taxes in favor of
a single global approach, in theory ending the
trade disputes with the U.S. U.S. tech companies
would then face only the one tax regime, instead
of a multitude of different national digital taxes.

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140
 ‘FOREVER PURGE’
GETS POLITICAL
ON SOUTHERN
BORDER

The dystopian action-horror “Purge” franchise

has previously made stops in New York City, Los
Angeles and Washington, DC. Now it’s time to
pull on cowboy boots and get ready for a little
twangy Purge.

“The Forever Purge” is set along the U.S.-Mexican

border and it’s perhaps the most overtly political
of the series, portraying a ragtag group of
Americans trying to flee the anarchy and white
supremacy of Texas for the safety of Mexico as
the annual U.S. bloodlust event turns into an
everyday abomination.
The film jettisons its horror roots for an aggressive
— some may call it ham-fisted — social critique
of modern America. But watching video of real
insurrectionists on Jan. 6 try to violently take over
the U.S. Capitol makes portions of “The Forever
Purge” seem like a documentary.

141
“We are the real patriots of America,” announce a
group of the mask-wearing white supremacists
during the latest fictional bloodletting, hoping
to exterminate anyone Black or brown. “America
will be America once again.” There’s no escaping
the feeling that “The Forever Purge” is a poison
pen letter to Trumpism.
For those just joining creator James DeMonaco’s
“Purge” series, here’s how it works: In a near-
future, the government, led by a nefarious party
called the New Founding Fathers of America,
allows an annual 12-hour period of lawlessness
without recriminations.

Over the course of a single night, rape, murder,

robbery and everything else is permitted across
the nation as a way to release anger but also a
way to cull from an overpopulated nation and
lower crime.

The last chronological film in the series —

2016’s “The Purge: Election Year” — seemed to
end with an outlawing of the purge, but that
clearly didn’t last. The New Founding Fathers
are back in charge as “The Forever Purge” opens
and their annual horror shows have been
reinstalled. There’s also a wall established along
the southern border.

“It’s starting, y’all,” one main character in a

Texas town announces as the purge
countdown begins. She is protected by wealth
in her ranching compound but her immigrant
employees must huddle for safety in a
makeshift shelter.
This time, the annual purge time passes without
anyone we care about ending up dead, but then
the event doesn’t end. The film cracks open at
this point, adding class resentment to the mix.

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Groups of poor disenfranchised whites across
the country begin targeting their white bosses
and vowing that the purge won’t stop. “Ever
After!” is their war cry.

That makes strange allies of the Tucker ranching

family and a pair of newly arrived immigrants
from Mexico: Adela (Ana de la Reguera) and her
husband Juan (Tenoch Huerta).

Up until then, the Tucker’s son, Dylan, (Josh

Lucas) was flirting with outright white
supremacy, not wanting Spanish to be heard
in his house and not believing that cowboys
could be anything but white Americans. Now,
he and his family are being kept alive by the
very people he disdained.

Martial law is declared but the Army can’t stop

the lawlessness. A potential escape may come
from America’s neighbors: Canada and Mexico,
who have opened their borders for six hours to
any refugees from the madness.

The film under Everardo Gout’s direction then

becomes a quest as the Tuckers — including
Dylan Tucker’s pregnant wife — together
with Adela and Juan fight their way to El
Paso, hunted by masked men demanding
purification of the white race.
DeMonaco is not at all subtle with his script
and maybe that’s for the best. In one scene,
a crazed white supremacist with a swastika
face tattoo listens to various gunfire cracking
outside, identifying each weapon by its blast
— AK-47, Glock, AR-15. He calls it a very
American sound: “Homegrown music from
the American heartland.”

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 The Forever Purge - Official Trailer

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 The First Purge – Official Trailer

148
Over the past films, DeMonaco has explored all
kinds of different facets to this rich and complex
purge notion, from gun control to the behavior
of predatory corporations, to government
brutality against people of color and class wars.
They have hardly felt like sci-fi when neo-Nazis
really have marched openly in U.S. streets.
Here DeMonaco finds richness in flipping the
script on traditional right-wing notions of
the border and immigration. In the film, it is
people of color who are kind, resourceful and
brave, saving a well-off white family from white
horrors, with one refugee hoping to give birth in
a place better than America — the reverse of the
so-called traditional anchor baby notion.

They are all led to safety to Mexico — and

this is a genius move by DeMonaco — by a
Native American guide and fighter. “This is not
your fight,” he is told. But he responds: “We’ve
been fighting this fight for 500 years.” Happy
Independence Day, y’all!
“The Forever Purge,” a Universal Pictures
release, is rated R for “strong/bloody violence
and language throughout.” Running time: 103
minutes. Three stars out of four.

Online: www.theforeverpurge.com

MPAA definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying

parent or adult guardian.

149
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 WARNER BROS
STUDIO TOUR
EXPANDS WITH
DC UNIVERSE,
POTTER

Batman’s secret cave, Harry Potter’s cupboard

under the stairs and the apartment from
“Friends” are major centerpieces to the huge
Warner Bros. studio lot expansion.
Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood recently
reopened more than a year after doors were
shuttered because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, attendees will have a chance to explore
the studio’s nearly 100 years of television
and filmmaking history, highlighting the DC
Universe and “Harry Potter.”

A firsthand look took place a couple of days

before the tour opened in late June at the
Southern California studio, which now welcomes
families with children ages 5 and older.

Warner Bros. officials said the expansion — that

includes a new building — took five years to
develop in Burbank. Officials say the studio tour
will follow all city, state, and federal COVID-19
safety protocols.

151
“One of the most incredible things about Warner
Brothers is the incredible history of epic films that
are legendary,” said “Wonder Woman” director
Patty Jenkins, who helped reopen the tour.

Here are some of the tour’s key features:

STORYTELLING SHOWCASE
Selfie opportunities will be a plenty at the
replicated, iconic “WB” water tower as attendees
are able to walk along an aerial view of the
sprawling studio lot. The walls are lined with
mementos of the studio’s film, TV animation
titles, dating back to 1923. Some of the highlights
in this room include photos from classic films
such as “Casablanca” and “Little Caesar.”

There is a dedicated wall area of the Oscar-

winning film “Million Dollar Baby” and the
boxing gloves worn by Hilary Swank. J.R.’
Ewing’s boots and hat from the television series
“Dallas” are also on display. Several miniature
soundstages with the words “PLEASE DO NOT
SIT” are throughout the exhibit.

DC UNIVERSE
Step into the behind-the-scenes universe of
DC superheroes and villains. One of the
compelling aspects is the secret Batcave, where
guests will find the authentic Batmobile from
Tim Burton’s original “Batman,” the Tumbler
from “The Dark Knight” and the Batwing from
“Batman v. Superman.”

Costumes worn by Superman, Batman, Wonder

Woman, Aquaman and the Flash are on display.
Other standouts include Margot Robbie’s Harley
Quinn and Jared Leto’s Joker costumes from
“Suicide Squad.” Along with Christopher Reeve’s

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“Superman” costume, the exhibit has Michael
Keaton’s suit from the 1989 film “Batman” and
Lynda Carter’s “Wonder Woman” costume from
the classic 1970s television show.

In an interactive experience, visitors can touch

the glowing Lasso of Hestia from “Wonder
Woman 1984.”
Director of the recent “Wonder Woman”
films, Patty Jenkins, said she enjoyed seeing
the costumes worn from her movies along
with the rest of the DC characters featured
in the exhibit.
“For there to be a museum to celebrate, that
seems like something that is so important,” she
said. “Then to have things for my own films in
there as well, it’s an incredible honor and a very
surreal crossing of the line of those two things.”

HARRY POTTER & FANTASTIC BEAST

Create a photo opportunity inside Harry
Potter’s cupboard under the stairs at 4 Privet
Drive and understand the art of making
potions on the re-created sets of “Harry Potter”
and “Fantastic Beasts.”
Guests can sit underneath the Sorting Hat,
which determines one’s Hogwarts house.
And class is in session to learn about the
unique creatures at Newt Scamander’s Shed
of Magical Creatures.

“You get to experience the action, the magic

and fun, and the props and costumes and
the re-created sets,” said Bonnie Wright, who
starred as Ginny Weasley in the Harry Potter
film series.

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FRIENDS BOUTIQUE
Stage 48: Script to Screen is home to the “Friends”
boutique that will be accompanied by the expanded
Central Perk Café. The area features re-created sets
inspired by the show including Joey and Chandler’s
apartment, Monica’s apartment and Central Perk.
Some costumes worn by the cast and other props
from the show are from the 25th anniversary in
2019. Monica’s famous door frame and a “Friends”
reunion-inspired spirit jersey, coffee mugs along with
souvenirs and collectibles are included.

Central Perk offers a New York deli-inspired

menu that includes a special blend of Central
Perk coffee, pizza wedges, corned beef melts
and cold sandwiches.

“I don’t think people are going to want to leave,”

said Maggie Wheeler, who played the recurring
role of Janice on “Friends.” The hit TV series
starred Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, David
Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc and Lisa Kudrow.

“It feels like the show,” Wheeler continued. “It

feels like memory lane. I think people are going
to be really, really excited to walk through and
spend time here.”

CELEBRATE AWARDS SEASON

The tour concludes with an exhibit spotlighting
costumes and props, including the jersey worn by
the late Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson in
the film “42” and the miniature blimp from Ridley
Scott’s “Blade Runner.” The trombone that Robert
Preston played in “The Music Man” is also on display.
Guests will have an opportunity to hold an
authentic Oscar trophy. (Be sure to grasp with
both hands. It’s heavy.)

157
158
 SKIP COLLEGE?
NOT IF YOU
WANT TO MAKE
MORE MONEY

Skeptical of the four-year college degree? It’s still

your best bet to make money.

Backlash against college as a common stop on

the road to adulthood has mounted over the past
decade. Critics say four-year degree programs
saddle most students with five-digit debt without
a clear path from classroom to career.
Nearly half (46%) of all families surveyed in
November and December 2020 by Gallup for
the Carnegie Corporation of New York said they
would prefer their children attend alternatives to
four-year institutions — even when there were
no financial barriers.

159
But when you compare the value of a four-year
degree with other credentials — a high school
diploma, certificate programs and associate
degrees — it still puts workers at an advantage
in the labor market and leads to higher lifetime
earnings, on average.

BACHELOR’S DEGREES ARE TYPICALLY A

GOOD INVESTMENT
If a college degree is an investment, it’s a good
one, according to the New York Federal Reserve.
The annual return on a typical four-year degree
is around 14%, it calculates, well above the
threshold of “good” returns for stocks (around
7%) and bonds (3%).
In dollar terms, graduates with a bachelor’s
degree will earn on average about $78,000
annually, compared with a high school diploma
earner who receives around $45,000 annually,
according to 2019 data from the New York
Federal Reserve.

However, “on average” doesn’t mean that the

return on your education, or college earnings
premium, will always be a gain. Where you
attend school, how much debt you take on,
what you study and where you live after school
all help determine your return. Many of those
factors are influenced by your race, ethnicity
and gender.

YOUR ABILITY TO REPAY DEBT AFFECTS

YOUR DEGREE’S VALUE
Student loan debt is difficult to avoid and even
more challenging to repay. College costs rose
117% from 1985-86 to 2018-19, according to
federal data. Wages, meanwhile, didn’t keep

160
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pace, growing only 19% during the same period,
according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

However, loans are still the primary vehicle

for families without wealth to obtain college
degrees. In order to make your degree worth
it, you have to earn enough to justify it. That
means carrying debt that won’t put you
underwater — a manageable student loan
payment is around 10% of your discretionary
after-tax income.

To get the best return and be able to repay debt,

graduation is crucial — many borrowers who
default will have debt but no degree.

“That’s the worst-case scenario — you’re

incurring some of those costs but with very, very
little benefit,” says Jonathan Rothwell, principal
economist at Gallup.

DEMAND FOR YOUR MAJOR MATTERS

What you study in school will affect the type of
job you can get, your earnings and your ability
to repay debt.

Average earnings at mid-career are highest

among those who hold a bachelor’s degree in
fields like science, technology, engineering and
math, or STEM ($76,000), business ($67,000)
and health ($65,000), according to a 2015 data
report from Georgetown University’s Center for
Education and the Workforce.
The same report found the lowest median
mid-career earnings among those whose
bachelor’s degrees were in field s like arts,
humanities and liberal arts ($51,000), as well
as teaching and serving roles such as social
work ($46,000).

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To estimate earnings, graduation rates,
typical student debt loads and other factors
at individual schools, use the Education
Department’s College Scorecard tool. You can
search and compare earnings as well as debt by
fields of study.

WHERE YOU LIVE AFTER GRADUATION

ALSO MATTERS
Where you live after attaining your degree also
affects its value, according to the results of a May
2020 study for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute ,
a conservative nonprofit think tank.

“In general, college degrees are a good

investment, but the return in terms of
cosmopolitan areas is phenomenal,” says John
Winters, associate professor of economics
at Iowa State University, who conducted
the study.

In cities, bachelor’s degree holders earn

$95,229 on average, an 86.2% premium
compared to a worker with a high school
diploma and a 55.7% premium compared to an
associate degree holder.
Winters says that’s primarily because cities have
a higher concentration of jobs in fields that
often demand workers have four-year degrees,
such as tech, finance and marketing. Workers in
these fields earn higher wages, which leads to a
greater return on investment for degrees.
However, Winters’ findings also mean it’s less
critical to have a four-year degree if you want to
live in a smaller metro or rural area. Bachelor’s
degree holders in nonurban areas have
mean earnings of $67,893, which puts their
wages at a 46.4% premium compared to high

164
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166
school diploma holders and a 29.6% premium
compared to associate degree holders.

DEGREE ATTAINMENT DOESN’T

GUARANTEE EQUITY
In some ways a college degree can exacerbate
income and racial inequalities, such as student
debt and ability to repay that debt, says
Marshall Anthony Jr., a senior policy analyst at
Center for American Progress, a public policy
research organization.

“A college degree doesn’t usually work the same

for everybody,” Anthony says

Black borrowers tend to take on greater

amounts of debt — about $25,000 more, on
average, than white borrowers, according to
federal data.

In 2016, among those with a bachelor’s or

higher degree, Asian full-time, year-round
workers ages 25-34 had higher median
annual earnings ($69,100) than their white
peers ($54,700), and median earnings for
both racial/ethnic groups were higher than
those of their Black ($49,400) and Hispanic
($49,300) peers, according to the most recent
available data by the National Center for
Education Statistics.

Higher debt and lower wages also means

Black borrowers will accrue more interest over
time: Four years after graduating from college,
Black graduates have $52,726 in student
loan debt compared to White graduates
at $28,006, according to a 2016 Brookings
Institution study.

167
ONE TRICK TO
TRAVELING
CHEAPLY:
FLEXIBILITY

So you want to travel on a budget. Who

doesn’t? Yet it’s easy to get overwhelmed by
all the cheap travel tips, hacks and strategies
out there that promise unbelievable deals on
airfare and hotels.

In reality, there’s only one important tactic

for traveling cheaply: being flexible with your
travel dates, destination and plans. It might
sound simple — or even simplistic — but
you would be surprised how few travelers are
willing to take this piece of advice to heart.

To be fair, this flexibility-first mindset requires

a paradigm shift for many in terms of how they
start planning vacations. It requires moving
from this type of planning:
“I want to go to Amsterdam from Sept. 5th
through 13th.”

168
169
170
To this:
“I want to go somewhere fun in September.”
For some, this degree of flexibility is simply
impossible. Yet for those who can loosen their
preconceptions about how to plan travel, it can
lead to big savings — and maybe even more
fun — whether you’re paying with cash or
using points.

WHY RIGIDITY IS SO EXPENSIVE

The cost of travel depends on the interplay

between many factors, including:

— Demand.

— Supply.

— Randomness.
— Number of options.

When you make specific plans from the get-

go, you essentially constrain the last variable
— you give yourself fewer options. This
means that the cost of your trip will depend
entirely on the first three variables, which are
completely outside of your control.

This economic interplay will sometimes fall in

your favor, and you’ll score a good deal on the
exact destination and dates you wanted. But
more often than not, you’ll end up paying more
than average simply by starting with a severely
limited set of options.

HOW TO PLAN TRAVELS WITH FLEXIBILITY

You can still set some boundaries around your
search. Example parameters might include:
— I want to travel in the fall.

— I want to sit on the beach.

— I don’t want to spend more than $X.

171
From here, you can begin weighing different
destinations and dates to see which could
maximize your preferences. For example, you
might start with flights to Hawaii, but notice
that airfare is through the roof. So you switch
to the Caribbean, narrow your interest to a
few destinations with cheap flights, then start
researching hotel prices.
Finally, you can find the dates and destinations
that offer the best combination of price and
features, then book your travel.

Think about how many times you (or someone

you know) have gone about it the other way —
by starting with dates and a destination, then
accepting whatever costs come up.

THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR THE JOB

As this flexible travel approach gains in

popularity, travel booking sites and services
have begun offering helpful tools specifically
designed for the task.

AIRFARE DEAL ALERTS

Airfare deal newsletters, like Scott’s Cheap

Flights and Dollar Flight Club, are how many
travelers start thinking in terms of flexibility.
These newsletters send a blast to subscribers
whenever they discover a low-cost airfare deal.
But there’s usually a catch: These airfare deals
are available only on certain dates, or to very
specific destinations. You can’t sit around
waiting for a great deal from Atlanta to Sydney,
because that may not come around in time.

But you can wait for an exciting fare from

Atlanta to … somewhere, and jump on it when
it becomes available.

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GOOGLE FLIGHTS EXPLORE
Many travel search engines, like Kayak or
Orbitz, have highly flexible search tools. Google
Flights offers a feature called “Explore” that
allows you to search in a totally wide-open way.
You enter your departure city, the length of
trip you’re looking for and your price range,
and Google returns a handful of deals to a
bunch of destinations at random times within
your date range.

POINTS AND MILES

Travel bloggers love to rave about how they

scored a first-class ticket using miles, but
they don’t often describe their true secret:
extreme flexibility.

Redeeming points and miles for reward travel

all but requires a high degree of flexibility to
get the most value from them. For one thing,
the availability of these awards can be spotty.
Before you can even determine if an award
booking is a good deal or not, you need to
actually find an available award booking
option. For another, airlines often double the
price or more during high-demand dates.

In short: If you’re looking to use miles on a

specific flight on a specific day, you might
either pay too much — or not be able to score
a ticket at all.

To make things easier, many airlines offer

award calendars that let you see which dates
and prices are available by month, which can
be especially helpful when rooting out hard-to-
find premium cabin tickets.

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 UN CALLS
FOR GLOBAL
DATABASE
OF HUMAN
GENE EDITING
RESEARCH

The World Health Organization issued new

recommendations on human genome editing,
calling for a global registry to track “any form of
genetic manipulation” and proposing a whistle-
blowing mechanism to raise concerns about
unethical or unsafe research.
The U.N. health agency commissioned an
expert group in late 2018 following a dramatic
announcement from Chinese scientist He
Jiankui that he had created the world’s first
gene-edited babies.

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In two reports, WHO’s expert group said all
studies involving human genome editing
should be made public, although the
committee noted that wouldn’t necessarily
stop unprincipled scientists.
“In the field of stem cell research, unscrupulous
entrepreneurs and clinics have deliberately
misused clinical trial registries by registering
procedures they plan to undertake as if they
were properly sanctioned clinical trials,” the
group said, calling for WHO to ensure that all
genetic editing research registered in their
database are reviewed and approved by an
ethics committee.
When Chinese scientist He announced he had
altered the DNA of twin babies to prevent
them from catching HIV, he said the university

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where he worked was not aware and that he
had funded the work himself. He was later
sentenced to three years in jail for conducting
“illegal medical practices.”

WHO’s expert group also said the U.N. agency

should develop ways to identify any potentially
concerning gene editing trials, saying a
mechanism should be developed “for reporting
violations of research integrity.”
Robin Lovell-Badge of the Francis Crick Institute,
one of the experts on the committee, cited
several instances where scientists in Russia,
Ukraine and Turkey planning controversial
genetic editing experiments were pressured not
to proceed and called for a more formal whistle-
blowing mechanism.

Still, the group acknowledged that as gene

editing techniques become cheaper and easier
to use, the ability of WHO to monitor such
research is limited. The U.N. agency also has no
authority to compel countries to cooperate,
even during a public health emergency.

During the coronavirus pandemic, for example,

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
has repeatedly criticized rich countries for not
sharing their vaccines, warning in January that
the world was on the brink of a “catastrophic
moral failure.”
But rich countries have made little effort to
immediately share their doses with poor
countries, even as COVID-19 spikes across
Africa and Southeast Asia. Of the more than 3
billion vaccines that have been administered
globally since then, fewer than 2% have been
in poor countries.

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 EUROPE TAKES
ANOTHER
STEP TOWARD
INTRODUCING
DIGITAL EURO

The European Central Bank said it is launching a

two-year investigation on whether to introduce
a digital version of the euro that would
complement cash, taking a cautious step toward
introduction as central bankers around the
world eye digital currencies and their potential
impact on policy and the financial system.
The ECB said in a statement that the digital euro
must be able to meet consumers’ needs while
helping prevent illegal activity such as money
laundering and must not have an adverse impact
on financial stability and monetary policy.
Digitalization “is reaching all areas of our lives,”
Fabio Panetta, a member of the ECB’s executive
board, wrote in a blog post. “The coronavirus
(COVID-19) pandemic has shown just how fast
such change can happen. And this is affecting
the way we pay. We are increasingly buying
digitally and online.”
Image: Ralph Orlowski
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He said that there were many questions to be
answered and that “a decision about whether
or not to issue a digital euro will only come at a
later stage.” If the idea gets a green light at the
end of two years, it would take three more to
actually develop the digital euro.

The central bank for the 19 countries that use

the euro is launching the in-depth study after
already gathering input from citizens and
financial professions. The U.S. Federal Reserve
is also looking into the implications of issuing a
digital currency.

In simple terms, a central bank digital currency

would be a digital banknote. It could be used
by individuals to pay in shops, or each other.
The Bank for International Settlements, an
international association of central banks, says
digital currencies issued by central banks could
promote diversity in payment options, make
cross-border payments faster and cheaper,
increase financial inclusion for people without
bank accounts, and possibly facilitate fiscal
stimulus transfers in times of economic crisis,
such as a pandemic.

A BIS survey showed that 86% of central

banks were researching the potential for
digital currency, 60% were experimenting
with the technology and 14% were deploying
pilot projects.

They would be different from cryptocurrencies

such as Bitcoin because central bank digital
currencies would be legal tender and thus usable
for any transaction, and their value would remain
stable. Panetta said they would also be more
environmentally friendly, since they would use
less electricity than “mining” or creating Bitcoin.

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GOOGLE FINED
$592 MILLION
IN DISPUTE
WITH FRENCH
PUBLISHERS

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France’s competition regulator fined Google
500 million euros ($592 million) this week for
failing to negotiate in good faith with French
publishers in a dispute over payments for
their news.

The agency threatened fines of another

900,000 euros (around $1 million) per
day if Google doesn’t come up with
proposals within two months on how it will
compensate publishers and news agencies
for their content.

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Google France said in a statement it was
“very disappointed” by the decision, and
that the fine “doesn’t reflect the efforts
put in place or the reality of the use of
news content on our platform.” It said it is
negotiating in good faith toward a solution,
and that it’s on the verge of reaching an
agreement with some publishers.
The dispute is part of a larger effort by
authorities in the European Union and
around the world to force Google and other
tech companies to compensate publishers
for content.

The French antitrust agency had issued

temporary orders to Google in April 2020
to hold talks within three months with
news publishers, and fined the company for
breaching those orders.
“When the authority imposes injunctions
on companies, they are required to apply
them scrupulously, respecting their letter
and their spirit. In the present case, this was
unfortunately not the case,” the watchdog’s
president, Isabelle de Silva, said in a statement.

“Google’s negotiations with publishers and

press agencies cannot be regarded as having
been conducted in good faith.”

The company was forced to negotiate with

French publishers after a court last year
upheld an order saying such agreements
were required by a 2019 European Union
copyright directive. France was the first of
the bloc’s 27 nations to adopt the directive,
which lays out a way for publishers and news
companies to strike licensing deals with
online platforms.

189
Google had initially balked at paying for
news, saying news companies benefited
from the millions of readers it sends to their
websites. News companies, meanwhile, have
been demanding for years that digital giants
pay for news content they siphon from
commercial media while taking the lion’s
share of ad revenue.
The watchdog focused on a few specific
violations of its orders by Google. It said
the company pushed news publishers to
negotiate deals for its News Showcase
product, which lets publishers package
stories with panels and features like
timelines, while excluding income from
general search results. Google also told
French news agencies including AFP they
couldn’t pursue payments if their content
appeared on other news sites and came up
in search results.

In Australia, Google and Facebook have signed

licensing deals with news companies after the
government passed a law this year requiring
digital giants to help pay for journalism.

Google has been repeatedly targeted

by French and European Union antitrust
authorities for various business activities seen
as abusing its market dominance, including
a 220 million euro fine that the French
competition watchdog issued the company
last month for abusing its ‘dominant position’
in the online advertising business.

190
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WHATSAPP FACES
EU CONSUMER
COMPLAINT OVER
PRIVACY UPDATE

Facebook’s WhatsApp faces a complaint from

European Union consumer groups who say
the chat service has been unfairly pressuring
users to accept a new privacy update in what
it calls a breach of the bloc’s regulations.
The European Consumer Organisation, or
BEUC, filed a complaint this week over the way
WhatsApp has brought in changes to its terms
of service and privacy policy, saying they aren’t
transparent or easily understood by users.

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Many WhatsApp users switched to other chat
apps like Signal and Telegram because of
privacy concerns when the update was rolled
out earlier this year because of concerns the
changes would give Facebook access to more
information on users.

“WhatsApp has been bombarding users for

months with aggressive and persistent pop-
up messages to force them to accept its new
terms of use and privacy policy,” BEUC Director
General Monique Goyens said. “They’ve been
telling users that their access to their app will
be cut off if they do not accept the new terms.
Yet consumers don’t know what they’re actually
accepting.”
BEUC and consumer rights groups from eight
member countries filed the complaint to the
EU’s executive Commission and the bloc’s
network of consumer authorities.

WhatsApp said the complaint is based on a

misunderstanding of the update’s purpose and
effect and would welcome the opportunity to
explain it to the BEUC.

“Our recent update explains the options people

have to message a business on WhatsApp
and provides further transparency about how
we collect and use data,” WhatsApp said in a
prepared statement. “The update does not
expand our ability to share data with Facebook,
and does not impact the privacy of your
messages with friends or family, wherever they
are in the world.”

194
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 CUBA’S INTERNET
CUTOFF: A GO-TO
TACTIC TO
SUPPRESS
DISSENT

Cubans facing the country’s worst economic

crisis in decades took to the streets over the
weekend. In turn, authorities blocked social
media sites in an apparent effort to stop the
flow of information into, out of and within the
beleaguered nation.

Restricting internet access has become a

tried-and-true method of stifling dissent
by authoritarian regimes around the
world, alongside government-supported
disinformation campaigns and propaganda.

197
On the extreme side, regimes like China and
North Korea exert tight control over what
regular citizens can access online. Elsewhere,
service blockages are more limited, often cutting
off common social platforms around elections
and times of mass protests.

There was no formal organizer of protests;

people found out about the rallying points over
social media, mostly on Twitter and Facebook,
the platforms most used by Cubans. The
thousands of Cubans who took to the streets
— protesters and pro-government activists
alike — wielded smartphones to capture
images and send them to relatives and friends
or post them online.

Cuban authorities were blocking Facebook,

WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram, said Alp
Toker, director of Netblocks, a London-based
internet monitoring firm. “This does seem to
be a response to social media-fueled protest,”
he said. Twitter did not appear to be blocked,
though Toker noted Cuba could cut it off if it
wants to.

While the recent easing of access by Cuban

authorities to the internet has increased
social media activity, Toker said, the level of
censorship has also risen. Not only does the
cutoff block out external voices, he said, it also
squelches “the internal voice of the population
who have wanted to speak out.”
Internet access in Cuba has been expensive
and relatively rare until recently. The country
was “basically offline” until 2008, then gradually
entered a digital revolution, said Ted Henken,
a Latin America expert at Baruch College,
City University of New York. The biggest

198
Image: Oscar Gonzalez
199
change, he noted, came in December 2018
when Cubans got access to mobile internet for
the first time via data plans purchased from
the state telecom monopoly. These days, more
than half of all Cubans have internet access,
Henken said.

Many Cubans now have real-time, anywhere-

you-are access to the internet and the ability
to share information among themselves,
he added. Since early 2019, this access has
facilitated regular, if smaller, events and protests
on the island. In response, the government has
periodically shut down access to social media,
mostly to hide its repressive tactics from both
citizens and foreigners, he said.

The Cuban government also restricts independent

media in Cuba and “routinely blocks access
within Cuba to many news websites and blogs,”
according to Human Rights Watch.

Cuba is going through its worst economic

crisis in decades, along with a resurgence of
coronavirus cases, as it suffers the consequences
of U.S. sanctions imposed by the Trump
administration. The protests now, the largest in
decades, are “absolutely and definitely fueled by
increased access to internet and smartphones
in Cuba,” said Sebastian Arcos, associate director
of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida
International University.

Social media posts from within and outside

of Cuba are “not the root causes of the
rebellion, but they are a factor in connecting
the desperation, disaffection that exists in the
island,” said Arturo López-Levy, an assistant
political science professor at Holy Names
University in California.

200
Image: Yamil Lage

Image: Yamil Lage

201
López-Levy, who grew up a few blocks from
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, said the
country’s current leader has embraced the
economic potential of digital technology far
more than his predecessors, but may have
calculated that a large segment of Cubans will
accept a temporary internet shutdown if it helps
restore order in the streets.

Elsewhere, government internet shutdowns

after or ahead of protests have also become
commonplace, whether for a few hours or
extending for months. In Ethiopia, there was
a three-week shutdown in July 2020 after civil
unrest. The internet blackout in the Tigray region
has stretched on for months. In Belarus, the
internet went down for more than two days
after an August 2020 election seen as rigged
sparked mass protests. Mobile internet service
repeatedly went down during weekend protests
for months afterwards.

A decade ago during the Arab Spring, when

social media was still in its early years and Egypt,
Tunisia and other countries in the Middle East
faced bloody uprisings that were broadcast on
social media, headlines declared the movements
“Twitter Revolutions” and experts debated about
just how important a role social media played in
the events. Ten years later, there is no question
that social media and private chat platforms have
become an essential organizing tool. Restricting
them, in turn, is a routine move to suppress
dissent. Internet service was disrupted in Cali,
Colombia during May anti-government protests.
This year has also seen disruptions in Armenia,
Uganda, Iran, Chad, Senegal and the Republic
of Congo.

202
Image: Yamil Lage

203
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But authoritarian regimes aren’t the only ones
getting into the act. India routinely shuts down
the internet during times of unrest. Toker
of NetBlocks said the imposition of internet
restrictions in Cuba follows an emerging
global pattern and not always in the countries
you most expect them, such as a recent
Nigerian cutoff of Twitter. On the plus side, he
said, the world is much more aware of these
incidents because it’s easier to monitor and
report them remotely.

Last Sunday, all of Cuba went offline for less

than 30 minutes, after which there were
several hours of intermittent but large
outages, said Doug Madory of Kentik, a
network management company. He said large
internet outages were very rare in Cuba until
very recently.
“There was an outage in January just for
mobile service following the ‘27N’ protests,”
Madory said, referring to a movement of
Cuban artists, journalists and other members
of civil society who marched on the Ministry of
Culture on Nov. 27, 2020, demanding freedom
and democracy.

Henken said he doesn’t believe the

government would shut off access for an
extended period of time, even though that is
its go-to tactic for dissidents and activists.

“The problem they have now is that it’s not a

handful of activists or artists or independent
journalists — it’s now a massive swath of the
population all throughout the country,” he
said. “So the genie is out of the bottle. They’re
trying to put it back in.”

205
AS FEARS
ABOUT CLIMATE
GROW, SIEMENS
CEO SEES
OPPORTUNITIES

As the world increasingly focuses attention

on climate change, Roland Busch, the CEO of
Siemens AG, says his company is well-positioned
to help manage the challenges.

Munich-based Siemens specializes in making

buildings, factories and railroads more efficient
through digitalization and automation. And its
medical unit includes technology that could
lead to faster treatments for stroke patients.

Siemens has predicted 5% to 7% annual

revenue growth for the next three to five years,
based largely on its expectation that demand
for its products involved in energy efficiency
will steadily increase. Siemens’ stock is up
roughly 14% this year. And 13 of 21 industry
analysts who follow it give the company a buy
rating, according to FactSet.

Busch, who became CEO in February, has been

with Siemens for more than a quarter-century.

The Associated Press spoke recently with him

about energy savings, manufacturing efficiencies,
Image: Enno Kapitza
206
207
208
medical imaging and the the future of rail travel.
The interview was edited for clarity and length.

Q: The United States and other countries are

emphasizing efficient buildings as one way to
fight climate change. Is that what’s fueling much
of your growth predictions?

A: We talked about our core markets, 440

billion euros, growing 4% or 5%. These are
already markets driven by sustainability as
well as automation and digitalization, which
is, I think, where all the stimulus money goes.
Why would you invest in old stuff when
you really can stimulate the new? Your new
administration has clear targets to expand
or defend technology leadership against
others, eventually China. We can contribute.
We have very strong software business in
the United States. A very strong footprint in
building technologies.

Q: How would a consumer benefit from

factory automation?
A: Let me start with the automotive industry.
If you are building a combustion engine and
a hybrid-electric battery vehicle at the same
factory, you have to manage all the variants
as products are personalized. We help with
either the software of the automation or the
personalization (with many combinations of
options). A second example is what we do in
terms of pharmaceutical. We help them bring
the vaccinations to market in shorter time, but
also ramp up faster. A new mutant comes, a new
kind of vaccination is needed, to make it fast.
One day you produce a vaccination for COVID,
another one for whatever kind of disease you
want to fight.

209
Q: How does Siemens help make
vaccines faster?

A: You create a digital twin of your products.

You’re simulating what your products look like.
GSK is a pharmaceutical company that provides
raw material to vaccination providers. They
have to do a lot of tests and different mixes. We
simulated that with them, so they could really
shorten time to market by 20% or even more.
We make a different twin of your manufacturing
and look at how to get rid of bottlenecks in
assembly lines, how to automate manufacturing.
Once you simulate it, you don’t need to try it
and change it again. You do it right the first time,
wrap up your manufacturing fast.
Q: How does Siemens make a building
more efficient?

A: Something like 70 percent of the energy

consumption is still in buildings. Heat goes
through the roof. If you cover your roof properly,
most of the job is done. You have automation
technology, which is using every device that you
have in a smarter way. The next big thing is the
decentralized energy system. You combine it
with rooftop photovoltaic (solar cells), eventually
a (natural) gas engine, which provides energy for
a campus with a lower energy footprint. Battery
storage, fitting the whole thing with renewables.
It’s meaningless to cool a building if there’s
nobody in it. We have a software company
which is managing buildings. You just gear it for
the needs of the people who are currently in the
room or who are going to be in the room.
Q: You make high-speed rail and transit system
rail cars. Do you see growth, given decreased
mass transit ridership due to the coronavirus?

210
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A: Operators who run public transport see this
whole thing coming back as life gets normal. It’s
a problem currently but that will fade away. Any
large city without public transport, it will not
function. We discussed whether we would put
money into the next generation of high-speed
trains. We have prototypes running. This may be
one of the finest trains Siemens has ever built. It
runs about 300 kilometers (186 mph) an hour. It
has the highest efficiency. It has an aerodynamic
profile. It works with different propulsion systems,
is lightweight. Eventually you will see less and less
national cities connected by flights. Wherever you
have a good one-to-one connection with a high
speed train, you can eliminate flights totally. We
have a good business, globally. I do believe that
has a good future.

Q: You’ve said you can use medical imaging to

cut stroke treatment costs in half. How would
you do that?

A: There are some cities where if you have a

stroke, you’re better off. A person has a stroke, so
an ambulance comes, brings you to a hospital.
You get a scan. Then you need a specialist for
surgery. Very often the person doesn’t sit at the
hospital closest to where the person has a stroke.
So you either put the person in a helicopter or
you fly the surgeon to the hospital. This takes
another half an hour, hour. If every second counts,
that’s a problem. A startup we acquired is doing
high-precision surgery by joystick. One hundred
miles apart, you have the best surgeon working
with good equipment, which also ensures that
you have a very precision movement. That cuts
the time substantially. I think they are working on
getting an approval for some of the procedures. It
will take a couple of years.

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