2020

Here's the Mail It Sometimes Fails

Politicians say everything except what they mean. Except for President Trump, who yesterday told Fox Business that he opposes Democrats’ funding proposals for the Postal Service because they would support the expansion of mail-in voting, which he’s made clear he doesn’t want. 

The proposals: Democrats want $3.6 billion for mail-in voting and $25 billion for the USPS under a new pandemic relief bill.

The USPS is in trouble

In June, former supply chain exec Louis DeJoy took over as postmaster general and was tasked with steering the Postal Service out of a financial crisis (it lost $2.2 billion in the quarter ended June). 

Over the last month, he’s implemented cost-saving measures including cutting overtime, ordering mail to sit until the next day if it causes routes to run late, and shaking up leadership.

Businesses and consumers started to complain about delays and congressional Democrats have demanded an investigation. DeJoy and USPS say deliveries haven’t slowed.

Why this matters

Up to 70% of voters could use mail-in voting this fall because of a little thing called COVID-19. Some states are automatically mailing ballots or ballot applications to voters.  

Trump’s not a fan. The president has said mail-in voting could lead to “the greatest fraud in history” this election—claims he hasn’t backed up with any sort of proof. His reelection campaign sued two Iowa counties yesterday that made it easier for voters to apply for mail-in ballots.

Big picture: To deliver an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots on time, USPS needs more funding.

With 81 days until the election....

Uncertainty about mail-in voting requirements and sudden changes to USPS operations could confuse voters. 

The Biden campaign said Trump’s comments are an “assault on democracy,” and the president was sabotaging “a basic service that hundreds of millions of people rely upon.”

• Democrats asked DeJoy to roll back his changes or else risk disenfranchising voters. 

Zoom out: Negotiations for that new COVID-19 relief bill continued to flounder this week, and the Senate is out on recess until September.

GAMING

It’s Taking All Our Willpower Not to Call This an Epic Battle

You know when a business battle is high-stakes? When the $17 billion company is the underdog. 

The drama started when the company that owns the videogame Fortnite, Epic Games, threw the Silicon Valley equivalent of a fiery trash can at Apple's HQ: It added a direct payments feature to its app. 

That's a declaration of war. All products sold in Apple’s App Store are required to use the store’s in-app purchase system, which takes up to a 30% bite out of every purchase. Developers have criticized that system for years, arguing it disadvantages anyone who’s trying to get a non-Apple app off the ground. 

Apple returned fire by kicking Fortnite off the App Store—which Epic had anticipated and came prepared with a 1984-themed PR campaign parodying Apple's iconic commercial. Epic capped off the day by suing Apple. 

• Hours later, Google got in on the action, removing Fortnite from the Google Play Store for the same reason as Apple. 

Zoom out: With Fortnite among the top-grossing games on iOS, Epic is one of the few players with the firepower to take on the App Store. And it’s drawing attention to Apple's payments policy before CEO Tim Cook’s burns have finished healing from last month’s antitrust grilling.

GEOPOLITICS

Historic Middle East Peace Deal Reached

Yesterday, Israel and the United Arab Emirates reached a historic agreement, dubbed the Abraham Accord, to “fully normalize” their diplomatic and commercial relationship. 

• President Trump brokered the agreement as part of his and son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner’s plan for the Middle East region. 

We don’t throw the h-word around lightly. When both countries sign bilateral agreements, which they're expected to do at the White House in the coming weeks, the UAE will become the third Arab country Israel has normalized relations with (it also struck deals with neighbors Egypt and Jordan in 1979 and 1994, respectively). 

• Why the kumbaya moment? The UAE and Israel are economic power players with shared commercial interests in sectors such as energy, tourism, and tech; they'll also establish direct flights between each other.
• Plus...remember Poli Sci 101: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Both Israel and the UAE are wary of Iran and its nuclear ambitions. 

The terms: Israel will (for now) hold off on annexing parts of the occupied West Bank at the request of President Trump, but PM Benjamin Netanyahu said he'll move forward with the plan eventually.

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AGRICULTURE

What Sorcery Is This?

Not the storm that blew Dorothy to Oz, but good guess. That is a derecho, a fast-moving wall of wind that whipped through a swath of the Midwest from South Dakota to Ohio on Monday, flattening crops and damaging buildings. 

• It was the U.S.’ worst derecho since 2012. Winds exceeded 100 mph in some areas, and the storm sped across 770 miles in just 14 hours. 

Hundreds of thousands of Midwestern residents remain without power, and state officials are still assessing the damage.

It’s expected to deal an especially hard blow to farmers in Iowa, the top corn producer in the country. Early estimates say 10 million farm acres (almost a third of the state's cropland) could be damaged. 

Not only were crops blown over just weeks away from harvest, but silos with last year’s grains were busted open across the state. Iowa was expected to produce record yields and 18% of the nation’s corn crop this year.

Daniel Acker/Getty Images

QUIZ

Quizposting

We've been through a lot together this week. Throw on "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield, grab a granola bar, and relive all the memories by taking our weekly news quiz. 

COMMUNITY

Headline Contest

Did you think audience participation week was over? Yeah right, we’re not going to give up this opportunity to pawn off our jobs on our lovely readers—which is what it’s all about today. 

The contest: We’ll give you a business story, your task is to come up with a headline that the Brew would run.  

The story: After a long delay, AMC said it's finally opening up 100 U.S. theaters on Aug. 20. On the first day of the reopening it's running a promotion called "Movies in 2020 at 1920 Prices," and each ticket will cost only 15 cents. Yes, there's lots of potential. 

Remember, we try to make the headlines witty/funny, but don’t let the humor get in the way of the information people need. One last rule: no longer than 55 characters. 

Share your headline submission here. We’ll publish our favorites tomorrow.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• The DOJ following a two-year investigation said Yale University illegally discriminates against white and Asian undergrad applicants. Yale called the allegations "meritless." 
• 40% of S&P companies discussed diversity and inclusion policies on Q2 earnings calls, compared with 4% in Q1, per RBC.
• Manhattan apartment rents fell 10% in July, according to Miller Samuel Inc. and Douglas Elliman. But urban home prices are generally staying strong elsewhere.
• Chinese companies have raised more than double their haul from the same period last year in U.S. IPOs, despite threats to delist them from U.S. stock exchanges.
• Minority owners of the Washington Football Team are pressuring owner Dan Snyder to sell the franchise, the WSJ reports.

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BREW'S BETS

Follow Friday: Last week, we asked readers to send us their favorite social media accounts. Here are our favorites from what you sent in... 

• Instagram: Kids continuing to say the darndest things, the best comments on NYT recipes, San Francisco’s infamous fog incarnate, a compilation of cool maps, real-life rom-com meet-cutes, and some really aesthetic floors. 
• YouTube: Two violinists playing amazing things for fun, an in-depth look at nostalgic shows and films like Shrek, a channel that’s making conceptual math more interesting than your calculus textbook ever could, and, well, some cat videos.
• Reddit: Ogle sous vide and homemade bread, explore underground places and old recipes, rate meadows, watch cute animals break into sprints, and identify impossible-to-Google objects. 

FROM THE CREW

• The TV ad market's uphill battle
• What's happening with TikTok
• Some of the best marketing partnerships of 2020

FRIDAY PUZZLE

Love this brain exercise from The Guardian:

Which single word can be placed in each of the eight marked spaces to make eight meaningful sentences?

1.  _ I kicked him in the leg yesterday.
2. I _ kicked him in the leg yesterday.
3. I kicked _ him in the leg yesterday.
4. I kicked him _ in the leg yesterday.
5. I kicked him in _ the leg yesterday.
6. I kicked him in the _ leg yesterday.
7. I kicked him in the leg _ yesterday.
8. I kicked him in the leg yesterday _.

FRIDAY PUZZLE ANSWER

The word is "only." Seems so obvious now, doesn't it? 

** A Note From Fundrise

We like to include this Fundrise legal jargon, if you please.