Actions have consequences, as our parents likely told us as kids. But inaction has consequences, too. Life or death consequences, in the case of California’s new normal of massive, climate-change-driven wildfires.What happens to PG&E next—whether it sells off bits of the business to survive, or the state forces the company to split up, or it’s turned into a public utility—isn’t clear. But safety will haunt the utility no matter what. “They have a failed track record,” says California state senator Jerry Hill. “They have no safety culture today.”Preventing electrical equipment from sparking fires is not some arcane art. But it does have its complications, and forcing a utility to get its act together might require forceful regulation of the kind typically reserved for a railroad baron.The biggest threat to the electric grid is wind. In California this becomes particularly problematic in the fall, when seasonal winds tear in from the east. These winds are hot and dry, and desiccate the vegetation, making ignition all but certain.“High wind not only makes the fire spread very fast, but it also knocks all those power lines and knocks all the equipment, which can generate explosions of sparks, whether that's arcing between lines or transformers exploding,” says Michael Gollner, a fire protection engineer at the University of Maryland. “It's almost always due to either collapse of power utility poles or contact between different lines.”Those complications aren’t necessarily a problem if the equipment is surrounded by pavement. But miles upon miles of power lines are strung through the wildlands of California, where they are surrounded by unkempt brush.Even before these seasonal winds arrive, the lines are a major liability. “We hit these really, really dry periods throughout the west in the summertime,” says fire ecologist Robert Gray. That means a whole lot of air conditioners running. “There's more juice running through the line and it sags closer to lower vegetation.”One fix is to bury the lines, but that doesn’t work in much of California, where a lot of rock sits at the surface. You could do it, but it would be enormously expensive. Even if lines were buried where there’s dirt, digging them up to do repairs is still pricey.Then why don’t utilities just cut power to lines when they know strong winds are coming? They do, actually, but that call is far from simple. “You also cut off certain communities from vital services,” says Gollner. “You can turn off medical equipment—there's all sorts of things to consider when you make those decisions. They have to weigh both liabilities, which is bizarre.”The best thing to do now, experts say, is to take a page from the era of railroad barons and rein in the utilities. From the 19th century well into the 1920s, America had a serious problem with railway fires. Burning coal or wood threw sparks out of the engine, which easily ignited vegetation around the tracks. It was like dragging a flare across the countryside.Then regulators said: Yeah, that’s going to have to stop. They made the railroads adopt spark arrestors. “They required inspections for brakes,” says wildfire historian Stephen Pyne. “There were laws passed.”Regulators dragged the railroads into court if they didn’t comply. “A century ago, this was a huge industry, big money, big political clout,” says Pyne. “That's not unlike the power line situation.”(PG&E declined to comment for this story, pointing instead to a press release that says it will “make investments in system safety as it works with regulators, policymakers and other key stakeholders to consider a range of alternatives to provide for the safe delivery of natural gas and electric service for the long-term in an environment that continues to be challenged by climate change.”)Utilities know full well how to manage their risk. Both Pyne and Hill point to San Diego Gas & Electric, which regulators found liable for the Witch Fire of 2007, as a model of current safety practices. For instance, it created a weather center that monitors for fire conditions. “They created a new industry standard that has been ignored by PG&E almost in every regard," says Hill. "Ignoring those basic practices I believe resulted in the fires of 2017 and 2018.”In the long term, though, the solution may be for communities to become more independent about their power. It’s not hard to foresee a future (however far off) in which electricity is much more decentralized: Instead of power coming from massive plants dotted throughout California, neighborhoods could establish their own hubs, using solar or wind power to charge large batteries throughout town. Outfitting your home with solar panels still ain’t exactly cheap, sure, but that price will continue to drop as the technology evolves. And decentralization in California very much depends on PG&E’s fate: If the state ends up breaking the utility into smaller entities, that might make things easier.“It's burying lines where we can, where it's feasible and appropriate," says Gray. "It's decentralizing the hub so if you do have a power outage it doesn't impact huge areas. But it's also a system that uses a multitude of different sources of energy.”This is scary new era of climate-change-driven wildfires. But by reining in the utilities, just as we reined in the once-almighty railroads, perhaps we can help avoid catastrophes like Paradise.One couple’s tireless crusade to stop a genetic killerVirtual reality’s latest use? Diagnosing mental illnessNike's new self-lacing basketball shoe is actually smartAs tech invades cycling, are bike activists selling out?The rise of the Swiss Army gadget👀 Looking for the latest gadgets? Check out our picks, gift guides, and best deals all year round📩 Get even more of our inside scoops with our weekly Backchannel newsletter

Two men suspected in a drive-by shooting that killed a seven-year-old black Houston girl and that was initially investigated as a possible hate crime mistakenly thought they were attacking people whom they had fought with at a club hours earlier, a prosecutor said on Monday.One of the men, Eric Black Jr, appeared in court on Monday on a capital murder charge related to the 30 December killing of Jazmine Barnes. Black didn’t speak during the brief hearing and neither he nor his lawyer, Alvin Nunnery, spoke to the media outside.Prosecutors allege that Black told investigators he was driving the SUV from which an unidentified passenger fired at Jazmine, her three sisters and mother as they were on their way to a grocery store.Prosecutor Samantha Knecht told the judge on Monday that the unidentified passenger fired on the family’s car in a case of mistaken identity, thinking it belonged to people he and Black had fought with at a club hours before the shooting. She declined to comment about the second suspect.Activists earlier praised Houston police for pursuing a tip from the writer and activist Shaun King that led to an arrest in the shooting.King acknowledged his role but also wrote on social media “something’s not right” with the case.The Harris county sheriff, Ed Gonzalez, announced on Sunday that prosecutors had arrested and charged 20-year-old Black with capital murder. Black told investigators he was the driver of the SUV from which a passenger fired into another vehicle and killed Jazmine.Gonzalez said police had identified a second suspect, who also is black, but declined to say if they are in custody.The tip that sent the case in a new direction came from King. Before it, police had issued a sketch of a white man based on a description of the shooter provided by Jazmine’s family, and had circulated surveillance video of a red pickup truck he was apparently driving.Gonzalez said there was in fact a red pickup truck driven by a white man seen at a stoplight just before the shooting, but the driver did not appear to have been involved. Gonzalez said it was dark, the shooting happened quickly, and the red truck was probably the last thing seen by Jazmine’s family.King acknowledged on social media his role in providing the tip. In one Instagram post, he wrote: “Was just told by law enforcement that two men who were identified by one of my confidential informants have been brought in for questioning.”In another, he named “two men that I reported” to the sheriff: one was Black and the other a man not yet named by police.King is a New York-based civil rights activist and former senior justice writer at the New York Daily News who highlights racial issues on social media and in his writing. On Sunday, he also wrote on Twitter: “When Jazmine Barnes was killed I pledged to find who killed her. We did that. The men who were arrested shot her. That I know. But I’ve studied this case for nearly 60 hours. And something’s not right. Key details are missing in the story. I no longer trust the timeline.”Gonzalez said : “At this point, it does not appear it was related to race.”Deric Muhammad, an organizer of a rally on Saturday in Houston to demand “Justice for Jazmine”, commended the sheriff for working with the community.“We are still heartbroken at the thought of a seven-year-old innocent child losing her life in such a violent way,” Muhammad said in a statement. “We are no less heartbroken that those person[s] currently charged with this homicide are black; not white.”Prosecutors said the 9mm handgun they believe was used in the shooting had been recovered from Black’s home.Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat who represents parts of Houston, said the community came together to help solve the case.“It’s wonderful to have a sheriff who’s willing to engage in a dialogue about violence, about hate, about guns and we have that along with the [police chief], the mayor of our city,” Lee said.James Dixon, a prominent pastor in Houston, also thanked Gonzalez for working around the clock in the investigation and for fostering a “collegial relationship” between pastors, law enforcement and elected officials. Topics Houston Gun crime US crime Texas news

Most of the baristas employed by the Brooklyn Roasting Company now take home $40 to $60 more a month than they once did. Not by working more hours or getting a raise, but by keeping more of the money they earn. The coffee-shop chain uses a service called Alice, which lets employers offer pretax spending benefits without any setup costs and enrolls their employees via text message.Pretax spending benefits let workers deduct expenses like commuting, child and adult care, glasses, and contact lenses, as well as certain dental care and medical expenses, from their taxable income. “If you have eyes, teeth, and kids, these are the things that you can spend pretax on,” says Avi Karnani, cofounder of Alice. If you spend $100 pretax, $100 of your income becomes tax free and that adds roughly $35 to your paycheck. Employers save money too, since every dollar that an employee spends pretax is a dollar on which the employer does not pay payroll tax.Most employers of white collar workers offer pretax spending benefits as a matter of course, but Alice is aimed at employers like restaurants, retailers, and nail bars who are much less likely to do so.“There’s like 35 million Americans who work at Fortune 1000 companies that have benefit cultures where all the benefits are provided,” says Karnani. “And there’s 80 million Americans who are hourly workers, middle-income workers, and low-income workers who don’t have any of these benefits. They are the ones who are spending the lion’s share of their earnings on commuting, healthcare, and childcare.”In 2017, about 1.8 million hourly workers earned exactly or less than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Two-thirds of those workers were employed in food preparation and serving jobs. In 2016, the annual employee turnover rate in the restaurants and accommodations sector was 73%. Constantly replacing workers costs money, so employers in the hospitality sector are interested in anything that might help them to hire or retain people. That made hospitality an ideal first market for Alice.“If you are a barista at Brooklyn Roasting Company and you take a MetroCard to get there, you’re going to get about a 25¢ an hour raise,” says Karnani. “If you drop your child off at daycare on the way there, it goes up to $1.50 an hour. It takes an act of Congress to get $1.50 more per hour for people.”To offer pretax spending benefits, employers must navigate an administrative obstacle course of HSAs (Healthcare Spending Account), HRAs (Health Reimbursement Arrangements), CRAs (Commuter Reimbursement Account), and FSAs (Flexible Spending Accounts). Alice hides all those accounts under the hood, hooks into the payroll system of an employer, automatically tracks the pretax spending of each employee, and deducts that spending from payroll.Even when employers invest in providing pretax spending benefits, employees often don’t use them. “Most of the industry has enrollment rates at like 5% to 10%,” says Karnani. “Fifteen percent is a good day for those people.” This is because there are hurdles for employees, too. Employers often issue a separate card that employees must remember to use when buying their glasses or their mass transit card. Hourly workers living paycheck to paycheck must pre-select how much money to set aside for glasses or childcare or commuter costs in the following year. “You are asking an hourly employee, ‘Hey, would you rather get your paycheck today, or set aside $400 for the year to cover things that you might not buy?'” says Karnani.[Animation: courtesy of Alice]Alice hooks up to an employee’s existing debit, credit, and prepaid cards–no additional cards are necessary–and examines their spending history to select the benefits for which they may be eligible and how much they could claim. The service then uses text messages to ask workers a few questions about how they get to work or whether they have kids in childcare, automatically tracks spending on each relevant benefit, texts employees to confirm their eligible transactions, and deducts them from payroll. Along with offering a stand-alone version, the startup also partners with Square to offer free automated pretax benefits in that company’s payroll product for small businesses.“What Alice has done is take all of these products that are inherently difficult to use, and stuff them under the hood,” says Karnani. “Our brand promise is no forms, no math, no acronyms.”The origin of AliceIn 2014, Karnani was a fellow at Brooklyn’s Blue Ridge Labs @ Robin Hood, which builds technology products for low-income Americans. He was already the founder of a financial services startup and was interested in how technology could increase financial inclusion. Karnani and his Alice cofounder Paul Barnes-Hoggett noticed a common thread among the low-income New Yorkers they interviewed during the fellowship.“Everybody was using a seven-day MetroCard,” says Karnani. “If you pay for the weekly transit pass, you pay 15% more in New York than if you buy the monthly. In Chicago, it’s like 20%, and Philadelphia, depending on which line you ride, it’s potentially 50% more expensive.”People with low incomes often pay more for products and services than those who can afford to invest more up front or have a better credit score. A minute of call time or a megabyte of data costs less with a monthly phone subscription than with a prepaid phone. A yearly or monthly travel pass costs less per journey than a weekly one.Karnani and Barnes-Hoggett started lending people 30-day MetroCards as a first step toward building a microloan infrastructure for hourly workers in New York. Monthly cards were mailed to users who paid weekly and would hook their credit, debit, or prepaid cards up to a software system that tracked their payments.“We ended up having a 97% repayment rate, which is higher than Capital One,” says Karnani. “And we learned how to have a conversation over messaging about things like loan payments with hourly workers who are not especially financially sophisticated.”[Animation: courtesy of Alice]In the meantime, New York City passed a law requiring companies with more than 20 employees to offer pretax commuter benefits. “Out of nowhere, a bunch of employers called us up,” said Karnani. “They said, ‘We heard a bunch of our workers are borrowing their MetroCards from you guys. Can you turn that into some kind of commuter benefit thing that would make us compliant?'” Karnani stopped lending MetroCards and started building software for pretax spending benefits. One of his first customers was the Brooklyn Roasting Company.Tiia Hyrske manages the accountancy team at Brooklyn Roasting Company, which roasts coffee locally for its eight stores in Brooklyn (plus one in Manhattan) and many wholesale customers. The company employs around 70 hourly workers, most of whom are baristas.Brooklyn Roasting Company uses Alice to offer commuter benefits. New hires get a flyer that explains how they can use Alice to enroll. “Ninety-eight percent of the new hires do enroll with Alice,” says Hyrske. “It’s almost everybody. It couldn’t be easier and it’s tangible money.”Alice charges employers 50% of the money the software saves them on payroll tax. “It’s completely free to us besides the percentage of tax savings that Alice bills to Brooklyn Roasting Company,” says Hyrske. “Alice does the deductions in the payroll. It’s a benefit not to have to invest time administering it.”Karnani declined to disclose exactly how many customers use Alice, but said that the number is in the hundreds, and that those customers employ anywhere between two and 5,000 workers. In the long term, he wants Alice to build user-friendly financial services that are tailored to the needs of low-income workers.“If you are someone who is an hourly worker in the United States, you don’t have a good experience with banks and financial services,” Karnni says. “They do not meet you where they are. Their forms are complicated and scary. Benefits are weird. They’re designed by people who make more money than you and think about their financial lives differently.“We are not helping people buy more stuff they don’t need. We are not taking people’s data and pulling it out from under them. We’re helping a barista get a raise. We’re helping somebody changing bedpans keep more of her money. Tech that does good–why we all got into technology in the first place.”

Laptops and phones, winter coats and scarves, a hubbub of different languages. A row of cameras sits on a bench. John Roberts of Fox News has a steely expression as he clutches a mic. Jim Acosta of CNN, press pass reinstated after his run-in with the president last year, speaks simultaneously to his own viewers: “We’ll see how much time we have Sarah Sanders. As we’ve seen in recent weeks, these briefings can end very quickly.”Then a voice on the public-address system: “The press briefing will begin at 1.20pm. Thank you.” The hundred-or-so journalists crammed into the seats and aisles erupt in knowing laughs and groans. Sanders eventually enters at 1.35pm. It will be the White House press secretary’s sole briefing in the whole of November – a paltry total she will match in December.The question-and-answer session was described as must-see television in the early months of the Trump administration, gripping millions of viewers and earning the accolade of parody on the TV variety show Saturday Night Live. But now the daily press briefing is no more. It has effectively become a monthly press briefing, raising concerns that it might soon disappear altogether.“That would be a tragedy and a campaign point in 2020,” said Anthony Scaramucci, who served as White House communications director for 11 days in 2017. “I pray that that does not happen. For the president to be successful, you don’t want that to be a campaign talking point in 2020. The American people intuitively know that there needs to be an open communication between the White House and the free press.”The first official White House press secretary was George Akerson under President Herbert Hoover in 1929. In recent decades the position became best known to the outside world for the briefing, in which the press secretary stands at a podium and fields questions from reporters in a briefing room (formerly a swimming pool) in the west wing.Spicer’s briefings became a compulsive, car-crash spectacle. There was fluster, ill-fitting suits, gaffes such as “Holocaust centres” and Melissa McCarthy’s deathless impression of him with motorised lectern on Saturday Night Live. Scaramucci said: “They were must-watch television because he made a decision that he was going to lie and so everyone knew he was lying. There was a contradiction to the press briefing. Every Spice Girl has a nickname. His was Liar Spice.”When Spicer was replaced by Sarah Sanders, the ship steadied, even though the falsehoods and acrimonious exchanges did not. Briefings became scarcer and lost the old momentum. It was like a long-running TV series that had passed its prime but did not know when to quit.Sanders gave 11 briefings in January, seven in February, eight in March, eight in April, eight in May, five in June, three in July, five in August, one in September, two in October and one in November, making a total of 59, according to a count by Martha Joynt Kumar, director of the White House Transition Project. Each of the last three was alongside other officials, not on her own.Over the comparable period in 2010, Barack Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, held 95 briefings, Kumar’s research found. And from January to November 2002, George W Bush’s press secretary, Ari Fleischer, held a total of 85 briefings.Sanders is not only more infrequent but also terser. Her briefings were usually around 15 to 18 minutes, according to Kumar, whereas Gibbs’s were usually around an hour and Fleischer’s were about 25 minutes.The shift coincides with the press enjoying increasing access to Trump himself. It has become a ritual for the president to stop on the South Lawn and take questions from a scrum of media, albeit competing with the roar of the Marine One helicopter, before he boards and flies away. Combined with his insatiable tweeting, he has effectively rendered the press secretary close to redundant.Kumar writes: “The basic finding is that Sarah Sanders doesn’t give briefings when Trump is doing multiple interviews and Q&As. October is a clear, though somewhat extreme, example. Together, Trump gave 71 interviews and short Q&As and she gave two briefings. In January, on the other hand, she gave 11 briefings and he did a total of 15 interviews and Q&As.”The White House Correspondents Association has raised the issue with the administration. Olivier Knox, its president and author of a 2013 article headlined “Save the (terrible) White House briefing”, said: “It’s largely happened with the president of the United States being significantly more available in terms of taking questions from reporters on the South Lawn and in a series of interviews. He’s become much more his own spokesman.“I don’t know any White House reporter who thinks the president should take fewer questions. It’s a little bit messy but that’s to be expected. I don’t know if they know they can ask the marines to turn off the helicopter.”But the decline of briefings by the press secretary is concerning, Knox argues. “The people who are hurt the most are the smaller news outlets. If you’re down to one, two or three people in your Washington bureau, having a set time when the White House is available for questions is important.”Scaramucci, who during his brief tenure insisted that live TV coverage of the briefings should resume, said: “Any time that the press can talk to the principal and can talk to the principal in volume, which has been experienced in this White House, is in general a very good thing for free press. I would, however, caution that it is still necessary for the comms team to have a regular interaction with the press because there are many things that go on inside the White House and the administration that the comms team and the press secretary need to discuss that is perhaps different from the principal.“So it’s not a great excuse to use the accessibility of the principal as an alibi for having less press conferences.”Trump’s freewheeling question-and-answer sessions, interviews and tweets, along with a steady flow of White House leaks, have arguably made this the most transparent presidency in American history. Yet in other ways this administration, with its flouting of norms and lurches from crisis to crisis, is also the most opaque.Mike McCurry, who was press secretary to President Bill Clinton in the pre-Twitter 1990s, said: “If you have a president who gives you his innermost thoughts by tweets, why do you need a spokesperson to amplify what the president has already told you? But there’s an accountability function where the press has an opportunity to ask about federal government and all the other things going on.“It was religious that we would do some kind of briefing every day. It was sacrosanct that someone would stand up at the White House every day and answer questions as an essential part of American democracy. The idea you could go a month without a briefing is astonishing.” Topics Trump administration US politics Sean Spicer Anthony Scaramucci news

China is now the fastest-growing consumer market in the world, with private consumption amounting to about $5 trillion, more than 10 percent of the world’s total. Competition for Chinese consumers’ hard-earned renminbi has become intense.Consider the smartphone market. As recently as 2016, Apple was China’s leading maker of handsets. But by the third quarter of 2018, China’s dominant telecommunications company, Huawei, was on top, with 23 percent of the market. The Chinese smartphone makers Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi occupy the next three spots, while Apple ranked fifth, with 9 percent. South Korea’s Samsung, the global leader in smartphone sales, has all but disappeared from China, having failed to recover from the fiasco over its dangerously overheating Galaxy Note 7 batteries.Even industries where American consumers once reigned supreme are now increasingly shifting toward China. General Motors, for example, sells more cars in China than in North America. For global filmmakers, box office sales in 2018 totaled about $9 billion in China, compared with almost $12 billion for North America in 2018. My company made a decision more than a decade ago not to invest in China’s export sector. Costs for Chinese manufacturers are rising, and prices for their exports are flat or falling. Instead, I feel strongly that there is much greater potential for companies — inside and outside China — that cater to the Chinese consumer market. Yes, China’s economic growth has begun to slow, and there has been a decrease in investments as Beijing has moved to tighten credit. And the threat of a trade war with the United States is real. But my long-term outlook has not changed. The Chinese consumer market will continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace, and it will continue to be a market that any global company must pay serious attention to if it wants to remain competitive.

In 2019, it’s time to stand up for the right to privacy–yours, mine, all of ours. Consumers shouldn’t have to tolerate another year of companies irresponsibly amassing huge user profiles, data breaches that seem out of control and the vanishing ability to control our own digital lives.This problem is solvable–it isn’t too big, too challenging or too late. Innovation, breakthrough ideas and great features can go hand in hand with user privacy–and they must. Realizing technology’s potential ­depends on it.That’s why I and others are calling on the U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive federal privacy ­legislation–a landmark package of reforms that protect and empower the consumer. Last year, before a global body of privacy regulators, I laid out four principles that I believe should guide legislation:First, the right to have personal data minimized. Companies should challenge themselves to strip identifying information from customer data or avoid collecting it in the first place. Second, the right to ­knowledge–to know what data is being collected and why. Third, the right to access. Companies should make it easy for you to access, correct and delete your personal data. And fourth, the right to data security, without which trust is impossible.But laws alone aren’t enough to ensure that individuals can make use of their privacy rights. We also need to give people tools that they can use to take action. To that end, here’s an idea that could make a real difference.One of the biggest challenges in protecting privacy is that many of the violations are invisible. For example, you might have bought a product from an online ­retailer–something most of us have done. But what the retailer doesn’t tell you is that it then turned around and sold or transferred information about your purchase to a “data broker”–a company that exists purely to collect your information, package it and sell it to yet another buyer.The trail disappears before you even know there is a trail. Right now, all of these secondary markets for your information exist in a shadow economy that’s largely ­unchecked–out of sight of consumers, regulators and lawmakers.Let’s be clear: you never signed up for that. We think every user should have the chance to say, “Wait a minute. That’s my information that you’re selling, and I didn’t consent.”Meaningful, comprehensive federal privacy legislation should not only aim to put consumers in control of their data, it should also shine a light on actors trafficking in your data behind the scenes. Some state laws are looking to accomplish just that, but right now there is no federal standard protecting Americans from these practices. That’s why we believe the Federal Trade Commission should establish a data-­broker clearinghouse, requiring all data brokers to register, enabling consumers to track the transactions that have bundled and sold their data from place to place, and giving users the power to delete their data on demand, freely, easily and online, once and for all.As this debate kicks off, there will be plenty of proposals and competing interests for policymakers to consider. We cannot lose sight of the most important constituency: individuals trying to win back their right to privacy. Technology has the potential to keep changing the world for the better, but it will never achieve that potential without the full faith and confidence of the people who use it.

On Wednesday, Apple announced it would miss its holiday quarter revenue projection by $5 billion. And it did it in grand style. The company hadn’t halted trading on its stock since 2002. The event had the feeling of some kind of reckoning, requiring a shift in the way we understand the company and its star product. It’s almost as if Apple was telling us, “Hey, Happy New Year, we’re entering the post-iPhone era.”In his letter to investors, CEO Tim Cook stressed the Chinese market’s impact on iPhone sales woes. “Lower than anticipated iPhone revenue, primarily in Greater China, accounts for all of our revenue shortfall to our guidance and for much more than our entire year-over-year revenue decline,” he wrote.The placement of the qualifying word “primarily” in that sentence is significant. The large shortfall quickly surfaced a variety of anxieties relating to Apple’s iPhone business. Is Trump’s trade war with China already hurting Apple’s business? Is the company’s decision to raise prices on its products now coming back to bite it? Are people choosing lower-priced Android phones over iPhones?I seriously doubt many iPhone users are defecting to the Android ecosystem. But I do think Apple’s iPhone problem boils down to a value equation that goes on in the brains of potential phone buyers and upgraders.While we are on the downward slope of Apple’s iPhone bonanza, the company still relies on sales of the device for more than two-thirds of its revenue. In the future, Apple may focus on how many services it can sell through the iOS devices out in the wild, but today it must still worry about how much innovation per dollar is needed to get iPhone owners to upgrade every year or two.It’s that innovation part I worry about. In 2014, Apple unleashed a lot of value with the iPhone 6 series. There was pent-up demand for larger iPhones, and Apple delivered. People suddenly got a lot more iPhone for the buck. “These are not only the best phones in the world, they really are a great value in the world,” Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller said at the time, and he was probably right.The iPhone 6 started at $649 and the iPhone 6 Plus started at $749. For those who qualified for a subsidized carrier plan, the 6 started at $199 and the 6 Plus went for $299. Consumers went bananas for the devices around the world and upgraded rapidly. The company’s holiday quarter revenue in 2014 grew almost 30% from the same quarter the previous year. But fun like that can’t be expected to last. New iPhones for the following few years were really just incremental improvements to the iPhone 6. Accordingly, the big iPhone sales growth tailed off.The next big revision was 2017’s iPhone X, which brought a new design, facial recognition, an edge-to-edge display, “the notch,” and a $1,000 starting price. Despite the imposing price tag, the X sold well in its first couple of quarters on the market, benefiting from an initial wave of buyers excited to get in on Apple’s 10th anniversary rethink of the device. And it’s a mistake to say that Apple decided to simply raise prices starting with the X. The margins it’s making on its current phones is roughly the same as it made on earlier iPhone generations. Apple made the decision to stuff more expensive technology into its phones, including Face ID sensors and the edge-to-edge displays it buys from Samsung.Even if higher prices aren’t about a pure profit grab, the end result is that people aren’t upgrading to new iPhones as quickly as they used to. They’re finding good reasons to stay with the iPhone they already have. People in China may have an added incentives to stay with their old iPhone: The economy in China is slowing, and the brewing trade war isn’t doing much to improve Apple’s image in the country. U.S. brands in general, and particularly Apple, are not the coveted status symbols they were in 2016.If lengthening upgrade cycles are indeed contributing to Apple’s doldrums, it’s fair to ask why new iPhones are not pulling at consumers’ purse strings like they once did. That gets into the value question. To make me want to jump to This Year’s Model, there has to be at least one or two really cool or really useful new features that will demonstrably change the experience of using the device for the better. That bar gets even higher now that iPhones have moved beyond the $1,000 starting price. Guess what? Animoji isn’t going to get it done. Not for me, and not for a lot of people. I personally know a lot of people who use iPhone 7 and 8 series devices, are happy with them, don’t engage in impulse upgrades, and yet have no intention of leaving the iOS ecosystem. They’re different sort of consumers than those who rushed to buy the iPhone X in 2017, and there are a lot of them.Apple’s product marketing people have the schedule of features and upgrades for each new iPhone planned out years in advance. The company may need to accelerate the rate at which it pulls new and cutting-edge features into its devices. For some features, the groundwork might already be laid. For instance, that fancy Face ID camera system should do a lot more for us than just unlocking the phone and letting us create Animoji. Also, other phone makers are already building cameras and other sensors into the screens of their phones, eliminating the need for a notch. When will Apple do that? Maybe the company’s traditional “fast follower” strategy needs to be revisited; Consumers might not want to wait for the Apple version of a new Samsung feature to arrive a year later—even if Apple’s take is far more polished.With any luck, Apple already has some good ideas on the roadmap for its 2019 phones. The next sea-change upgrade for smartphones in general is the addition of 5G radios. But Apple won’t make that move until 2020. Without something impressive in the meantime, people who are generally happy with their old iPhones might wait even longer to upgrade.

LOS ANGELES — Pacific Gas and Electric said on Monday that it would seek bankruptcy protection as “the only viable option” as the giant California utility faces billions of dollars in liability claims from two years of deadly wildfires.The company’s troubles pose a challenge to the state’s elected officials and regulators, who will ultimately decide whether part of the solution will be raising already high electricity rates. The problems could also make it harder to achieve California’s ambitious goals for renewable energy.Experts said PG&E’s predicament could be an early indicator of a wider economic toll from climate change, which is making wildfires more frequent and destructive. At the same time, the financial straits could handicap the utility’s ability to step up the kind of preventive measures it has been faulted for neglecting, like trimming trees and brush around power lines and transformers.For Gov. Gavin Newsom, who took office last week, the bankruptcy disrupts an agenda that until now had focused on early childhood education, paid parental leave and the expansion of the state’s health care program to cover more undocumented residents.Mr. Newsom said Monday that he had been “in constant contact throughout the week and over the weekend” with the company and regulators. “Everyone’s immediate focus is, rightfully, on ensuring Californians have continuous, reliable and safe electric and gas service,” he said.Fire investigators determined PG&E to be the cause of at least 17 of 21 major Northern California fires in 2017. It is also suspected in some of the 2018 wildfires that have been described as the worst in state history, including one that killed at least 86 people and destroyed the town of Paradise.PG&E said it faced an estimated $30 billion liability for damages from the two years of wildfires, a sum that would exceed its insurance and assets. The bankruptcy announcement, in a filing with federal regulators, led the company’s shares to plunge more than 50 percent.The shares had already lost almost two-thirds of their value since a wave of wildfires in early November, and its bond rating had been downgraded to junk status by two rating agencies.California’s utilities have been seeking favorable regulatory and legislative support to guard themselves against wildfire liability — but none more than PG&E, the primary gas and electricity supplier to the northern half of California, serving about 16 million customers over 70,000 square miles.After intense lobbying, the state’s investor-owned utilities, which include Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric, won a legislative shield from having to bear the cost of 2017 fires. The law allows them to pass the cost of wildfires to their customers in the form of higher rates.Now they are seeking the same for last year’s fires. State law requires them to compensate property owners for fire damage caused by their equipment, regardless of whether negligence is proved.Consumer and environmental groups called the bankruptcy decision part of a series of threats and pressure by PG&E on lawmakers and the governor to give the company whatever it wants. “It’s high brinkmanship with the Legislature,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy organization. “I think it’s about hostage taking.”The utility companies acknowledge that they may bear some responsibility for wildfires but say not all of it, because climate change and development in remote areas have made blazes more destructive.Indeed, energy experts said PG&E’s intention to file for bankruptcy was one of the first major financial casualties from climate change — and far from the last.Rising global temperatures driven by man-made greenhouse gas emissions are drying out Western forests and leading to more intense and long-burning wildfires. But that’s just one of the risks that utilities and other major entities are starting to confront.The National Climate Assessment, a broad government report on climate change released last year, found that every part of the country’s energy infrastructure will be stressed by droughts, heat waves, rising seas and fiercer storms.“Today PG&E is confronting this risk from wildfires,” said Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. “Tomorrow it could be insurance companies or state governments that are overwhelmed after an unexpectedly intense hurricane or series of hurricanes.”ImagePG&E’s financial straits could handicap its ability to step up the kind of preventive measures it has been faulted for neglecting, like trimming trees and brush around power lines and transformers.CreditTalia Herman for The New York TimesSome see an opportunity for Mr. Newsom in the current crisis to mitigate future fire risks by requiring more safeguards for power lines, like burying them underground.The California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates PG&E, could play a key role. Mr. Newsom has a vacancy to fill on the commission, and he could make his appointee its president, potentially determining whether the agency will tilt toward consumers or the utilities in its approach.The company’s safety culture has been under scrutiny since it was found at fault in a natural-gas explosion in 2010 that devastated the San Francisco suburb of San Bruno and killed eight people. PG&E was fined a record $1.6 billion by the state for failing to maintain its pipeline system properly, and it paid $900 million to resolve lawsuits related to the explosion.Mr. Newsom said Monday that because the utility had misled regulators after accidents like that one, his approach to dealing with PG&E was trust but verify.The company, he said, “has not been a trusted player in the past.”Public anger over the utility’s efforts to shield itself from wildfire liability boiled over at a November meeting of the commission, which protesters disrupted with chants and signs reading, “No PG&E bailout!”PG&E will need the commission’s approval for any bankruptcy plan that would impose new costs on ratepayers. One possibility is that another utility company would take over all or parts of its business.Part of the company’s reorganization will include replacing its chief executive, Geisha Williams, who had led the corporation since 2017. On Sunday, PG&E announced her departure and a search to fill her job, which for the interim will be held by John Simon, the company’s general counsel.The bankruptcy will allow PG&E to renegotiate its contracts with its electricity suppliers, which could hurt solar and wind farms that might struggle to make money and repay debts if they are forced to accept lower prices.The announcement may also lead to more calls for electricity services in some areas to be taken over by local governments.Dennis Herrera, the city attorney for San Francisco, where PG&E has its headquarters, mentioned the possibility of a publicly owned utility to ensure affordable and reliable power. He said his office would “remain vigilant” that the company would not “shift its failures onto the back of hardworking residents.”PG&E’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday said the company planned to ask a court for bankruptcy protection “on or about Jan. 29,” saying the move was “ultimately the only viable option to restore PG&E’s financial stability to fund ongoing operations and provide safe service to customers.”The filing noted that the company was required to give employees 15 days’ notice of such a move, under a recently passed California law.Tom Dalzell, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245, and the utility said workers would not be affected by the bankruptcy. In fact, Mr. Dalzell said the union supported the bankruptcy effort as a way to ensure that the workers were treated fairly at a time when, he believed, undue criticism was being aimed at PG&E for its fire prevention efforts.“There are minor electrical failures that happen at every utility that cannot be engineered out,” Mr. Dalzell said. “There are 1.1 million trees trimmed a year that our members do.”But a judge in the United States District Court for Northern California criticized PG&E for its safety violations and issued an order Wednesday for the utility to “reinspect all of its electrical grid and remove or trim all trees that could fall onto its power lines.” A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 30.PG&E has filed for bankruptcy once before, after a botched deregulation move by the state in 2000 and 2001 resulted in blackouts and soaring electricity rates.Garry South, a longtime Democratic political consultant who worked for Mr. Newsom when he was mayor of San Francisco, was the chief political adviser to Gov. Gray Davis during the earlier energy crisis.“This will be the first crisis that Gavin Newsom faces as governor,” Mr. South said. “How a governor acquits himself when a crisis likes this hits really has an effect on how people view him as a leader.”

When Apple Inc. said China’s slowing economy contributed to its late-year sales slump, the news rattled the stocks of other major U.S. companies with big operations in the world’s second-largest economy.Now, as U.S. companies prepare to report their quarterly earnings, China’s impact will be revealed. The amount of damage is likely to depend on such factors as who the company’s customers are and how much competition it faces in China....

SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - Qualcomm sought to become the sole supplier of modem chips for Apple’s iPhone to recoup a $1-billion “incentive payment” that Apple insisted on, not to block rivals from the market, Qualcomm’s chief executive testified on Friday. FILE PHOTO: A woman checks her phone at a flagship Apple store at Iconsiam shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand November 9, 2018. REUTERS/Soe Zeya TunThe payment from Qualcomm to Apple - part of a 2011 deal between Apple and Qualcomm - was meant to ease the technical costs of swapping out the iPhone’s then-current Infineon chip with Qualcomm’s, CEO Steve Mollenkopf testified at a trial with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. While such a payment is common in the industry, the size of it was not, Mollenkopf said. Under the 2011 deal, Qualcomm was named Apple’s sole supplier of modem chips, which help mobile phones connect to wireless data networks, in exchange for which Qualcomm agreed to give Apple a rebate - the exact nature of which has not been disclosed. Apple could choose another supplier but it would lose the rebate, effectively increasing the cost of its chips. Antitrust regulators have argued the deal with Apple was part of a pattern of anticompetitive conduct by Qualcomm to preserve its dominance in modem chips and exclude players like Intel. At a federal courthouse in San Jose, California, Mollenkopf testified that Apple demanded the $1 billion without any assurance of how many chips it would buy, which pushed the chip supplier to pursue an exclusivity arrangement in order to ensure it sold enough chips to recover the payment. Qualcomm was not aiming to block rivals like Intel, he said. “The risk was, what would the volume be? Would we get everything we wanted, given that we paid so much in incentive?” Mollenkopf testified. Earlier in the day, Apple supply chain executive Tony Blevins testified that it was Apple’s practice to pursue at least two suppliers and as many as six for each of the more than 1,000 components in the iPhone. The company stopped trying to place an Intel modem chip in the iPad Mini 2 because losing the rebates on Qualcomm’s chips would have made the overall cost too high, he said. “They made it very unattractive for us to use another chip supplier,” Blevins said of the rebates. “These rebates were very, very large.” Reporting by Stephen Nellis; Editing by Sandra Maler and Sonya HepinstallOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

(Reuters) - PG&E Corp (PCG.N) Chief Executive Geisha Williams has stepped down, the company said on Sunday, as pressure from potentially crushing liabilities linked to catastrophic wildfires have pushed the California utility owner to the financial brink and prompted it to make bankruptcy preparations. FILE PHOTO: PG&E works on power lines to repair damage caused by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, U.S. November 21, 2018. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage/File PhotoWilliams, who took the helm of the provider of electricity and natural gas to millions of customers in March 2017, will be replaced by General Counsel John Simon on an interim basis, the company said. She also resigned from the boards of both PG&E and its utility subsidiary, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. “While we are making progress as a company in safety and other areas, the Board recognizes the tremendous challenges PG&E continues to face. We believe John is the right interim leader for the company,” PG&E Chairman Richard Kelly said in a statement. “Our search is focused on extensive operational and safety expertise, and the board is committed to further change at PG&E.” PG&E is reeling from the November Camp fire that began in the California mountain community of Paradise and swept through the town, eventually killing at least 86 people in the deadliest and most destructive blaze in state history. The company faces widespread litigation, government investigations and liabilities that could potentially reach $30 billion, according to analyst estimates, when accounting for the carnage and damage from last year’s fire and blazes in 2017. The company is under pressure from the California Public Utilities Commission to make operational changes. The power provider announced on Jan. 3 that it was reviewing its structural options and looking for new directors with safety experience. The management shake-up comes as PG&E is in discussions with banks for a multibillion-dollar bankruptcy financing package to aid operations during bankruptcy proceedings and the company prepares to alert employees as soon as Monday to its preparations for a potential Chapter 11 court filing, people familiar with the matter said. PG&E, which carries a hefty debt load of more than $18 billion, is expected to disclose soon a large financial charge related to liabilities resulting from the November blaze. The employee-notification plans are not yet finalized and a communication could come later, the sources said. State law requires PG&E to notify employees at least 15 days before any bankruptcy filing. For PG&E, a bankruptcy filing would represent a last resort if the company is unable to get government relief that would allow it to pass on liabilities to customers, a maneuver enacted into law to help the company grapple with 2017 fires, the sources added. California lawmakers have not yet moved to pass legislation that would give PG&E similar flexibility for the 2018 blazes. California Governor Gavin Newsom said last week he was having discussions with PG&E executives, and that he wanted a healthy utility investing in environmentally friendly strategies. “That’s in an ideal world,” he said. “That’s not the case today.” PG&E said in November it could face “significant liability” in excess of its insurance coverage if its equipment was found to have caused the Camp fire in Northern California. Both Moody’s and S&P have cut PG&E’s credit rating deeper into junk territory, citing a challenging environment for the power provider related to the wildfires and the need for dramatic intervention from state officials. Companies negotiate debtor-in-possession loans, often with existing lenders, when they are seriously considering bankruptcy protection so they can continue operations while working through court proceedings. PG&E’s bankruptcy financing, should it be needed, could total between $3 billion and $5 billion, although the exact figure remains in flux and could end up being higher, said people familiar with the discussions. If it seeks bankruptcy protection, the new money could prove critical for PG&E, which spends roughly $6 billion annually. Reporting by Liana B. Baker and Mike Spector in New York; Additional reporting by Jessica DiNapoli in New York and Rama Venkat in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter CooneyOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

A nonprofit trade association whose members include some of the largest corporations in the nation increased its political donations by more than 18,000% in 2017, including a $6 million contribution to a dark money organization with ties to former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI).The contribution by the Business Roundtable occurred as its primary beneficiary, the American Action Network, was spending at least $28 million to push for passage of the most favorable tax legislation for corporations in a generation. The roundtable, which gave $39,500 in grants during the 2016 tax year, contributed more than $7.2 million in 2017, according to tax records obtained by MapLight.The splurge on the Republican-sponsored bill, which cut taxes by $1.5 trillion, underscores the disparity in benefits for corporate and individual taxpayers. In the year since the overhaul passed, corporations have announced plans to repurchase $1 trillion in stock. Workers, meanwhile, have gained an average of 2¢ per hour from the measure.The discrepancy didn’t stop Ryan, who announced his retirement from U.S. Congress last year, from hailing the legislation as a windfall for the U.S.’s beleaguered middle class. In a tweet shortly after the bill passed, he cited an anecdote about a public school secretary whose weekly wages increased by $1.50 as a result of the tax cut–enough for an annual membership at a discount bulk goods store. (Ryan later deleted the tweet.)The American Action Network highlighted the roundtable’s praise for the tax bill when it passed the House. The trade association said the legislation would move the nation “one step closer to a modern system that will help U.S. businesses compete globally, invest and create jobs here in the United States.”“Grassroots organizing”The American Action Network ((AAN), created in 2009 by former Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN), and GOP operative Fred Malek, is one of the most active dark money organizations in the nation.The AAN spent roughly $28 million to support the tax overhaul, claiming that it was “carrying out grassroots organizing at town halls to build momentum for a tax system that lowers rates and prioritizes working families and job creators.” More than half of the nonprofit’s $41.9 million in revenue came from a single, anonymous $24.6 million donation, according to AAN’s latest tax return.Despite the nonprofit’s efforts, the tax changes haven’t been popular. An August poll by Fox News, a reliable supporter of the Republican White House, found that only 40% of registered voters had a favorable view of the law.The changes, however, were a boon to large corporations, which have dedicated much of their savings to stock repurchases. The buybacks reward company investors by increasing the value of existing shares, as well as boosting the compensation of executives whose salaries often are tied to stock prices. Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase and chairman of the roundtable, received $23 million of his $29.5 million in 2018 salary in stock options, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.The tax legislation represented “critical reform that will grow the economy, raise wages for American workers, and boost business investment and hiring in the United States,” Dimon said in a statement released by the roundtable.The Washington, D.C.-based roundtable consists of more than 200 members who include the chief executive officers of corporate giants such as Apple, AT&T Inc., Bank of America, BP, Chevron, Comcast, ExxonMobil, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, PepsiCo, United Airlines, Walmart, and Wells Fargo.This story was produced by MapLight, a nonprofit organization that reveals the influence of money in politics.

Enlarge this image David O'Sullivan, who heads the EU Mission to Washington, D.C., speaks in Brussels in February 2014. Yves Logghe/AP hide caption toggle caption Yves Logghe/AP David O'Sullivan, who heads the EU Mission to Washington, D.C., speaks in Brussels in February 2014. Yves Logghe/AP A European Union legislative group has sent a letter of protest to members of the U.S. Congress blasting "the increasingly harmful approach from the White House" to relations across the Atlantic.The letter came after news reports revealed that the State Department had quietly downgraded the status of the EU's Mission to the U.S., making it an international organization rather than a national delegation.The EU's ambassador in Washington, David O'Sullivan, was not notified of the change in status, but he did notice that he had not been invited to certain affairs in recent weeks, the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports.It became apparent at the state funeral of the late President George H.W. Bush in December 2018. Prior to the change, O'Sullivan would have been among the first 20 or 30 ambassadors to be called up, in line with his seniority as a diplomat serving since 2014. DW reports he was called up last."This is no way to treat partners," the letter notes. "Such moves play into the hands of rival global powers and can only lead to greater fragmentation rather than much needed increased cooperation." National Security 'They Conveniently Forgot To Notify Us': EU Diplomat Downgraded In D.C. The letter was signed by European Parliament members Christian Ehler of Germany, Jeppe Kofod of Denmark and Marietje Schaake of the Netherlands. They are the chair and two vice chairs, respectively, of the parliament's Delegation for Relations with the United States of America."We've seen a series of very, very confrontational and frankly insulting ... approaches from the Trump administration," Schaake tells NPR. "And now on top of that, the status of the EU delegation in Washington has suddenly been downgraded without the EU even being informed. ... That really puts the EU last in line, behind all other countries. And I think it is absolutely necessary that the new Congress speaks out against this."Schaake says she has written to Congress on subjects such as net neutrality, but this is the first time the three delegation leaders have issued a joint appeal to U.S. lawmakers. She says the letter was sent to newly minted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as well as every other member of Congress.Pelosi's office did not respond to NPR's request for an interview.The U.S. State Department also did not respond to requests for comment.Relations between the EU and the U.S. have been strained during President Trump's term in office. Europe Trump's Criticisms Of NATO Not Apparent As It Holds Largest War Games Since Cold War Brussels has bristled over U.S. tariffs on European exports, slapping retaliatory duties on American motorcycles, bourbon and other goods.The White House has withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal, which the EU remains committed to, and has announced that the U.S. plans to pull out of the Paris climate agreement. At a NATO summit in July 2018, Trump berated European countries for not spending more on their military defense — although the U.S. recently participated in the largest war games with NATO since the Cold War, as NPR has reported.Some European countries are trying to bolster ties with the United States. In October, Germany announced a yearlong initiative called Wunderbar Together that will feature about 1,000 events in all 50 U.S. states. In launching the program, Germany appealed to the heavens — summoning a greeting from the first German commander of the International Space Station, Alexander Gerst, who said, "A strong relationship between both sides of the Atlantic is fundamental for successful cooperation — be it on Earth or in space."Schaake of the European Parliament says she sees the relationship between her bloc and the U.S. as "a relationship ending badly.""The EU still believes we should stay together but the U.S. partner is, you know, maybe looking around elsewhere," she says. "I wish the Trump administration could see that a strong trans-Atlantic relationship is in the American self-interest."O'Sullivan has not publicly commented on his downgraded status. His Twitter account still refers to him as the EU's ambassador to the United States, though technically the State Department now considers him the head of a delegation.Recently, O'Sullivan tweeted about how the U.S. is the largest supplier of soybeans to the EU. And he pointed to a report that his bloc is stable: "Happy to note we are very much alive and kicking in 2019!"NPR international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam contributed to this report.

Here’s the match report from Stuart James. And with that I’ll leave you – what a game, and cup shock, that was. Thank you for enjoying it with us! Mike Flynn speaks: “I’m so proud of the players, what they’ve done, they were excellent on and off the ball, we created quite a few chances and I’m very proud of them. We didn’t have any beers in the dressing room so we had to make do with water.” Thank goodness Leicester can now focus on finishing ... seventh eh? This is Newport’s day though. Here’s Matt: “A little bit surreal at the moment, it’s not really sunk in. We all fight for each other and [Amond] has come up with the winner. I thought we had a few chances in the first half to go 2-0 up but in the first half we knew we had to keep calm. We expected them to come out but defended brilliantly, all the boys put in a shift and I’m absolutely buzzing.” And Amond: “Obviously it’s brilliant to score the winner but it’s a big one, we deserved it. I’m sure there’ll be a few celebrations.” As for Leicester, perhaps Puel will wish he’d played Maddison from the start and perhaps Gray, too. Maybe even Vardy. But this was a side that, as I said at the top of the show, should have had enough to win. They didn’t do enough and Puel might find there are further question marks over his position now. Oh, my! What a result. And what a well deserved one. Newport really had to dig in during that second half and there was a touch of inevitability behind Ghezzal’s equaliser. It seemed only one team could go on and win – but it was the League Two side, mustering the wherewithal to go again, earn themselves a penalty and convert it through the ice-cool Amond. What a bold, courageous, gutsy performance from Mike Flynn’s inspirational side. Full-time: Newport 2-1 Leicester They have done it!!! It’s surely the shock of the round! Newport County manager Michael Flynn shakes hands with Leicester City manager Claude Puel after the match Photograph: Carl Recine/Action Images via Reuters 90+4 min: And they only just do, Maddison curling barely a metre wide from 20 yards! Is that it now? 93 min: Choudhury tees up King in the kind of 16-yard zone he used to score quite a lot of goals from ... but he puts it straight into Day’s clutches! Newport have one minute to survive! 90+2 min: Amond releases Semenyo on the left. He goes for the shot rather than the corner flag and it’s deflected narrowly wide of the diving Ward’s post! Newport have exactly what they want now – a corner – but don’t get to play keepball for that long and Leicester win a throw. 90+1 min: Newport have four added minutes to see this through. The tension in there, the anticipation and excitement, is something else. 90 min: This is absolutely gripping. Franks concedes a corner with Iheanacho breathing down his neck. It’s delivered well beyond the back post, though, and Pipe whacks it upfield for Leicester to retrieve and come again. 88 min: Albrighton has a serious error to atone for and swings a decent cross up towards Iheanacho, but Pipe does really well to put him off the header. 87 min: What drama. What a game. Newport kept on going, tried to go forward anew even after what seemed a crushing equaliser. And they earned their shot at a winner! O’Brien now comes on for Dolan to help them see this out. Goal! Newport 2-1 Leicester (Amond 85 pen) He rolls it into the corner, sending Ward the wrong way! They looked out on their feet – but they’re on the verge of doing this! Newport County’s Padraig Amond scores their second goal from a penalty Photograph: Carl Recine/Action Images via Reuters Amond celebrates Photograph: Kieran McManus/BPI/REX/Shutterstock Penalty to Newport! Incredible! Neufville crosses from the left, it strikes Albrighton on the outstretched arm and that is a spot kick all day! They have a chance to win it. It’s Amond ... Goal! Newport 1-1 Leicester (Ghezzal 82) It’s happened in the 82nd minute again, unfortunately. Day makes a sensational point-blank save from Maddison and Newport seem to have survived. But Franks, lying prone, can only half-scoop the ball away to the edge of the area and Ghezzal meets it first time, absolutely *thundering* the ball into the top corner. Heartbreak for Newport and now they need to make sure they don’t lose. Rachid Ghezzal of Leicester City scores Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images Ghezzal celebrates scoring the equaliser Photograph: Carl Recine/Action Images via Reuters 80 min: Willmott, absolutely tireless, slide-tackles against Ghezzal now and wins a goal kick to wild cheers. 79 min: Morgan knocks down a Maddison corner and Willmott blocks Ghezzal’s volley. Some of this has been real bodies-on-the-line stuff. Then Demetriou puts Maddison off enough to prevent him making contact with a raking ball upfield. 77 min: Kane equalised in the 82nd minute last year. It was a bit gutting at that moment for Newport, but by the end they were roared off the pitch. They are entering the period now where an equaliser would seem genuinely upsetting. Semenyo, brilliant here, thunders in to dispossess Albrighton on the near byline before he is joined by another Bristol City loanee, Tareeq Bakinson, who finally does replace Matt. 75 min: Respite comes for Newport in the form of a long throw from Demetriou. There’s a bit of head-tennis around the Leicester box and then a clearance, but they’re enjoying getting up the pitch a bit. BBC Sport pundit Alan Shearer watches the match from their makeshift studio Photograph: Nick Potts/PA 74 min: Matt appeared to be coming off but, apparently, mouthed “There’s no way I’m coming off” at Flynn and, indeed, he isn’t. 72 min: Matt is down getting treatment. He has been excellent up there, holding the ball up so well and of course showing that vital cutting edge too. Andy King now replaces James for his first Leicester appearance in a year! 70 min: Some desperate defending now – Franks heroically blocks a Maddison effort from 12 yards and fist-pumps after doing so. This is going to be one heck of a hairy last 20. 69 min: Now Albrighton takes aim again but it’s not as close as his last one, skidding wide. 68 min: Pipe’s first involvement is to leather a clearance away and you’d fancy a few more of those will be required. Leicester keep up the pressure and Wes Morgan, briefly cameoing as a winger, earns a corner. Matt volleys Maddison’s delivery upfield. 67 min: Newport freshen things up by bringing the experienced David Pipe on for right-back Forbes, who has done well out there. 65 min: Leicester might be well on top now, with Newport looking increasingly flustered whenever they get a rare hold of the ball, but the fact is they still haven’t scored – and they don’t have Harry Kane like Tottenham did last year. They don’t have Jamie Vardy either. So don’t hang your hat on them finding a leveller. 62 min: Demetriou gets away with one! He completely miscues from a diagonal Albrighton ball and tees it up for Iheanacho – who has to spin sharply but should hit the target. Instead he screws wide! 61 min: “As a Leicester fan, I feel obliged to point out that this scoreline is by no means a shock to me. That is all,” writes Rai Skrupskis. It’s probably not surprising to long-serving fans who remember the old days but the current side should be better than this. 59 min: Yes, Leicester are dominant now and starting to look like producing something, although Albrighton is beaten by the pitch and slices a cross over after encountering a bobble. They are going to make a very attacking change now, Simpson replaced by Gray. 57 min: Maddison is starting to get Leicester playing a bit. Newport need to get out a little more; Leicester’s pressure was always going to ramp up but they don’t want to be totally encamped in their own half for 35 minutes or so. 54 min: Leicester’s best effort yet – Albrighton hits the bar! They’ve upped the tempo here and, coming in from the left, he dips a wonderfully-struck effort onto the frame and out! 52 min: Now that was more meaningful from Iheanacho, getting up well to force a save from the solid-looking Day with a combination of head and shoulder. 51 min: And they almost get a chance on the break as Matt can’t quite find Amond in absolutely acres of space, two Leicester defenders dashing back to cover. Iheanacho *gets a touch of the ball* shortly afterwards, winning a header, but his glance runs through to Day. Then it’s back to the other end again and Amond tries a spectacular overhead kick that flies wide! 50 min: Leicester haven’t had the chance to build up any pressure in a stop-start beginning to the half. All good for Newport so far. Matthew James of Leicester City is marked by Matthew Dolan of Newport County Photograph: Ryan Hiscott/JMP/REX/Shutterstock 47 min: Choudhury and James in midfield have made too many “safe” passes for Leicester here. Maddison should at least provide a good, purposeful option dropping in for them. Peeeeep! Big half here! Newport kick us back off. Newport County players take to the pitch for the start of the second half Photograph: Gareth Everett/Huw Evans/REX/Shutterstock Leicester substitution: James Maddison is on for Okazaki and you can colour me not very surprised. “It’s nice to know that in these cynical times that we still have the occasional magic of the FA Cup,” writes Speakeasy Ray. Second half coming right up. Leicester are going to have to improve a *lot*. They can’t say they were not warned by Spurs’ experience of last season. Gareth Davies (@gareth_in_blyth) @NickAmes82 Are you on a bonus for getting in mentions of the pitch at Dave Parade? January 6, 2019 If I am then I’m wasting a huge opportunity to be able to afford to eat this month. Half-time: Newport 1-0 Leicester The half ends with an Okazaki booking. This has been everything you’d want from an FA Cup tie, unless you’re a Leicester fan. Newport deserve their lead. The Premier League side have had a couple of good chances but the hosts, roared on by a raucous home crowd, have not exactly sat back since scoring and had several more dangerous moments themselves. A big shock is most definitely on here – stay with us! 44 min: Newport are just a touch deeper than they had been, now, with the half coming to a close. They’ll want to avoid any errors in the next couple of minutes and Willmott swipes a diagonal ball behind for a Leicester corner. They’ve looked a threat from these but Morgan, swinging a boot at it, can’t make contact. 42 min: Incidentally, I promise you that Kelechi Iheanacho is playing. I’m just genuinely not certain he’s touched the ball yet. 40 min: An escape for Newport there! Fuchs overlaps on the left, crosses and Okazaki is on hand to play a sidefoot volley ... into the flailing form of Franks, who gets in the way before the diving Day! 38 min: FucHs goes for a long throw of his own. It feels like a compliment from Leicester to fight fire with fire but it earns a corner, which Albrighton flicks wide of the near post. 36 min: Semenyo looks a really good young player and shows great feet to start a Newport move out on the far touchline. They genuinely look more likely to score a second, just now, than Leicester do to equalise. 33 min: Another Demetriou long throw is cleared, but only as far as Dolan. His daisycutter is fumbled by the perhaps unsighted Ward; Semenyo looks to pounce on the rebound but is offside. Newport are giving more than they’re getting at the moment. A general view during the match Photograph: Rebecca Naden/Reuters 31 min: Albrighton fires one down the throat of Day, whose protection has been better in the last 10 minutes. 30 min: Close to a second! Amond chases a ball down the left and *just* hooks it back from the byline. Matt is running in and his first touch is brilliant, but he just runs out of space and Ward can gather at his feet. 29 min: Matt and Semenyo are absolute menaces, the latter eventually pulled up for some relentless hassling of Albrighton.

Even a year ago, it would have been (almost) unimaginable that a rising political star would live-stream his dental cleaning as a potential stepping stone to the White House. But that’s the reality we live in today, shaped and suffused and reconstructed by social media. And Beto O’Rourke’s visit to the dentist while discussing the border wall impasse, along with Elizabeth Warren drinking a Michelob Ultra to announce a potential run for president in 2020, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lip-syncing to Edwin Starr’s “War” to mock critics of another dancing video that went viral all represent a new front in the perpetual campaign wars that dominate American politics.It’s the Democrats’ response to President Trump’s Twitter feed which, as everyone knows, allowed him to attract voters in 2016 and has served as a bully pulpit to spread his message, disarm his opponents, and spread misinformation. And so far, it seems to be working for the resistance–due to its visual appeal, its light tone, and its appeal to younger voters.It sounds ludicrous, but building a friendly social media personality can make a candidate seem relatable, likable, and fun, and while none of those should be qualifying attributes to be the president of the United States, in the digital age it can’t hurt and it probably helps. After all, what better way to prove likability than with Instagram likes?While Trump dominates Twitter–which to be honest, has a limited appeal since it largely attracts other politicians, journalists, and publicists rather than regular Americans–Instagram Live attracts a younger and bigger demographic (700 million monthly users). At the front of that wave of Instagramming political celebs is, of course, Ocasio-Cortez. And while she’s too young to run for president in 2020, she has set the standard for engaging social media presence. Her Twitter feed is informative, entertaining, and sassy, but it’s on Instagram that she really shines.She made headlines when she went on Instagram Live to make macaroni and cheese in her Instant Pot while dishing up civics lessons to her 500,000 followers. This wasn’t the first time she cooked and politicked, either. She spent Halloween on a livestream with her Instant Pot, making ramen, using the VCR filter, and even posting the results on her Pinterest account. Yes, she figured out how to make Pinterest political. It’s that social media savviness that makes her so frightening to the old guard. When conservatives come for her–and they have, either judging her clothing or unearthing videos of her dancing in high school–her social media clapbacks are already legendary (even within her own party) and she’s been in office less than a week. While Hillary Clinton was good, she wasn’t this good. View this post on Instagram If Republicans thought women dancing in college is scandalous, wait till they find out women dance in Congress, too! ???? A post shared by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@ocasio2018) on Jan 4, 2019 at 10:36am PST It makes sense that Ocasio-Cortez is a natural at social media–as the youngest member of Congress, she’s a millennial and social media is her natural platform. She unseated a long-time Democrat incumbent with a grassroots, shoestring campaign powered by social media. While the conservative wing of the political spectrum spends hours analyzing her every post, her supporters are smitten by having a representative in Congress who is truly representative of them in their mac-and-cheese eating, dancing in high school, Ben & Jerry’s loving ways. And when Fox News does come for her, she trolls them back by tweeting lyrics in Spanish, claiming they’re obsessed with her. “She makes politics seem relatable, doable, possible for any young person watching,” wrote ELLE magazine. View this post on Instagram “I rise today in opposition to the occupant of the White House.” A post shared by Ayanna Pressley (@ayannapressley) on Jan 9, 2019 at 7:50pm PST As rumors swirl that he’s considering a run for president in 2020, O’Rourke’s dental-cleaning diatribe on border security earned plenty of guffaws but free publicity is still publicity. It’s silly, but it’s humanizing and effective and helps his message rise above the din of talking heads. If done well, social media can make people remember your good deeds and your humanity. (Remember when New Jersey’s Senator Cory Booker, a potential 2020 presidential candidate, was the mayor of Newark and used to talk a constituent through a Hot Pocket crisis?)As the new, diverse crop of representatives enter the U.S. Capitol, they seem to be bringing with them a level of transparency that strikes many as both refreshing and unprecedented. Sure, GOP House minority whip Kevin McCarthy shares pics of his dog, who is a very good girl, but it’s not the same as Ocasio-Cortez Instagramming her bus ride home from freshman orientation, Texas freshman Rep. Dan Crenshaw sharing video of his swearing in, Rep. Ilhan Omar snapping a selfie on the floor of the Capitol, Rep. Pressley toting Compass Coffee, or newly elected Deb Haaland walking into work, social media is making our government—the ones we elect and whose salaries we pay—seem like it’s actually made up of real people. Though it’s also an easy way to build some grassroots cred even when the reality is far different, like former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, a millionaire, posing by his pick-up truck in one of his first campaign ads.So get ready for a presidential cycle that includes politicians in the kitchen, at Cheesecake Factory, hanging with their dogs, getting haircuts, and doing it all for the ‘gram (and the likes, too). Just don’t be surprised if some of them turn out to be Russian trolls purporting to be politicians doing embarrassing things on social media (after all, fake video technology is advancing fast).

China’s ambassador to Canada has accused the country of “white supremacy” in calling for the release of two Canadians detained in China last month.The arrests were in apparent retaliation for the arrest of a top Chinese tech executive in Canada.But Ambassador Lu Shaye said in an op-ed in the Ottawa-based Hill Times on Wednesday that western countries are employing a “double standard” in demanding the immediate release of the Canadians.“The reason why some people are used to arrogantly adopting double standards is due to western egotism and white supremacy,” Lu wrote.“What they have been doing is not showing respect for the rule of law, but mocking and trampling the rule of law.”China detained Canadian ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor on 10 December 2018 on vague allegations of “engaging in activities that endanger the national security” of China.The arrests came 10 days after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada at the request of the US, which wants her extradited to face charges that she misled banks about the company’s business dealings in Iran. A Canadian judge granted Meng bail while she awaits extradition proceedings.Le wrote that “elites” in Canada are completely dismissing China’s law by demanding the immediate release of the Canadians.“It seems that, to some people, only Canadian citizens shall be treated in a humanitarian manner and their freedom deemed valuable, while Chinese people do not deserve that,” Lu said.Lu also wrote that Meng was arrested without violating any Canadian law, suggesting that Canada should never detain someone for extradition.Roland Paris, a former foreign policy adviser to Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, called Lu’s claims “hogwash”.“I don’t know what the ambassador was trying to accomplish but his article won’t help China’s cause,” Paris said.Paris noted Canada is following extradition law while the Canadians were seized in China under suspicious circumstances and China has held them without charge.Julian Ku, the senior associate dean for academic affairs at Hofstra Law, noted China has still not revealed any specific information about what Kovrig and Spavor are charged with and have not given them a judicial hearing and thus Canada is not wrong with calling the arrests arbitrary.“I am struck by how brazen they are being by making this appeal,” Ku said. “He says: ‘You are being racist by not respecting our law.’ That’s an easy card to play.”Lu also seemed to admit detaining the Canadians was in retaliation for the Meng arrest.“I have recently heard a word repeatedly pronounced by some Canadians: bullying. They said that by arresting two Canadian citizens as retaliation for Canada’s detention of Meng, China was bullying Canada. To those people, China’s self-defence is an offence to Canada,” Lu wrote.Alex Lawrence, a spokesman for Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland, did not address Lu’s claims.Huawei, whose billionaire founder Ren Zhengfei has long had ties with both the People’s Liberation Army and the Communist party, has faced national security concerns in multiple countries.Huawei has been banned from involvement in the installation of 5G mobile networks in India, New Zealand and Australia, blocked from making acquisitions in the US and banned from selling phones on military bases by the Pentagon.But, in his column, Lu dismissed such concerns and instead pointed to monitoring and spying programs carried out by the US National Security Agency and the Five Eyes alliance countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US).“Something is considered as ‘safeguarding national security’ when it is done by western countries. But it is termed ‘conducting espionage’ when done by China. What’s the logic?” he wrote. Topics China Canada Huawei Americas Asia Pacific news

Gavin Newsom, 51, will be sworn in today (Jan. 7) as California’s newest governor—and his budget suggests that he plans to make families a priority.According to the New York Times, Newsom’s first budget will include a proposal to give families six months of paid leave after the birth of a child, by far the most generous offer among US states. (There is no federal paid parental leave in the US; five other states offer it, as well as the District of Columbia, offering between four and 12 weeks.)Newsom’s budget, according to the LA Times, includes:$750-million for kindergarten funding, to expand facilities to allow full-day programs$747 million to help train child-care workers and expand local facilities already subsidized by the state, and help parents who attend state colleges and universities$125 million to expand pre-K programs, phased in over three years$200 million for home visits for low-income expecting parents and expanded programs for health-care screenings for young childrenFor now, these are just proposals; the test of Newsom’s mettle will be to see what he can fund. He has other major problems to deal with, including the fact that California has the highest poverty rate in the US, massive income inequality, and a rapidly growing homelessness problem. Nor is he not the first to push for additional early childhood funding in recent years: As the LA Times points out, that has been a key demand of the Legislative Women’s Caucus. However, one lawmaker pointed out that Newsom’s early focus on families is promising: “Quite frankly, to start out with a January proposal that includes that investment in California’s children reflects a new day,” state senator Holly J. Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) told the paper.California already offers six weeks of partially paid leave for parents, and an additional six weeks of disability for birth mothers. The leave is funded with employees’ payroll taxes. But families need more. As James Heckman, a Nobel laureate in economics, has shown, investing in kids early has a far higher rate of return when compared to trying to “fix” drop-out rates, crime, incarceration, and the physical and mental health toll of poverty and exclusion.Newsom seems to have gotten the memo. Let’s see what he can do now that he holds the reins of power.

When Swedish company Teenage Engineering got into the wireless speaker game, it sought to reinvent a classic—the OD-11. Back in 1974, the iconic Swedish sound pioneer Stig Carlsson had created a high fidelity loudspeaker in the shape of a small cube. The OD-11 positioned the subwoofer (bass) and tweeter (treble) cones so as to point sound diagonally upward and outward. Its warm, rich sound appealed to audiophiles, while its design seemed futuristic and forward-thinking. So when Teenage Engineering, highly regarded for its OP-1 synthesizer and sampler’s design and sound aesthetics, released its updated OD-11 in 2014, it seemed appropriate.This past month, Teenage Engineering announced the release of a new OD-11. All of the internals—a built-in computer, 100-watt amplifier, and WiFi to accommodate all devices—remain the same, but Teenage Engineering redesigned the speaker to be sustainable. Built with holocellulose, a complex mixture of polysaccharides that remain after the removal of lignin (a natural polymer) from wood, the company calls it a “loudspeaker for tree-huggers with golden ears.”Teenage Engineering’s Marcus Blom tells Fast Company that they wanted to push the envelope of sustainability. To do this, they started with a basic question: what happens beyond a product’s lifetime? Electronics, in particular, are difficult to recycle, with various plastics, metals, and other materials.“We do a lot of prototyping and know quite well what is possible with the materials that are available on the market,” says Kouthoofd. “What we don’t know is what is possible to do with the materials that are not available on the market yet, so we invited RISE research [to collaborate]… our first step in designing for disassembly, but not the last.”For the initial meeting, Dina Dedic, Senior Research Associate at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, brought a box to Teenage Engineering’s headquarters filled with a number of different sample materials. Each sample showed what was possible with wood, including iridescent films, holocellulose, and a number of other wood derivatives that Dina and her colleagues were working on at RISE.“The newly developed holocellulose has amazing properties when it comes to sustainability and it’s aesthetically really beautiful,” says Dedic. “At that time, it was just a small, thin sample out of the lab. We decided to try and make a lot more of it in order to make an Oriented Strand Board [or flake board].”At that time, the holocellulose was hypothetically rigid enough for a speaker cabinet. In short order, Teenage Engineering’s designers began working with RISE on cabinet specifications. After crafting enough materials and manufacturing an OSB, the designers created the holocellulose OD-11. After testing, Teenage Engineering and RISE realized the holocellulose OSB was as robust as other flake boards. Blom says the designers also learned that the holocellulose didn’t yellow with age, and that the wood components were easy to recycle and repurpose.“The most exciting part with the holocellulose when it comes to design for us is its sustainable properties paired with a beautiful aesthetic,” Dedic says. “[It] comes from wood from sustainably managed Swedish forests. The process of making holocellulose has low energy consumption and researchers are working on recycling chemicals and water.”When in use, holocellulose looks like pure white wood. But, in the right conditions, Dedic says that it can be disintegrated and made into another plant-based product, like transparent film or paper. Typically, composites made of natural fiber and plastics must undergo a separation process with high temperatures and solvents, which can damage materials and ultimately impact their second life. With holocellulose OD-11, no separation of plastics, dye, or paint is necessary.As for the holocellulose OD-11’s sound, Blom says it is as good as any of the other Teenage Engineering speaker cabinets. In short, it is just like the other modern OD-11 speakers, though far more sustainable. But sustainability work is far from finished at Teenage Engineering. The company believes there is much more they can do to push the envelope. And, hopefully, the holocellulose OD-11 will have a much broader impact, influencing product design far beyond music technology.“If this speaker can show manufacturers that materials such as holocellulose are worth investing in, it will be made available to the world and have a real impact,” Teenage Engineering co-founder Jesper Kouthoofd tells Fast Company. “We will keep our dialog with RISE open and keep exploring.”“What if you could make a material hard enough to sustain CNC milling?” Kouthoofd muses. “Then we could replace the OP–1’s [sampler and synthesizer] aluminum chassis with sustainably sourced wood. Wouldn’t that be something?”

The world moves on. Technology develops and evolves. The aesthetics of the spectacle, perhaps, to our wearily nostalgic culture, have less to recommend them than they did, but accuracy at least is guaranteed. Where once epoch-defining line decisions were taken by Azerbaijani men with silver hair and splendid moustaches, now we watch a digital representation of a yellow circle landing on a white line across a green background. What Tofiq Bahramov’s decisive nod was to the 1966 World Cup, so the Goal Decision System may be to the 2018‑19 Premier League.Where the former remains contested (with good reason), there is no disputing what happened at the Etihad on Thursday. Or at least not beyond crazed conspiracists who within hours of the final whistle were already talking about shadows and angles and the grand anti-Liverpudlian plot that is geometry. Perhaps the technology is not perfect. Perhaps the reading that said the ball was 11.7 millimetres from completely crossing the line is affecting an impossible level of accuracy, but it is still much more likely to be right than a 41-year‑old former footballer from Baku.11.7mm. It is the length of a bluebottle, the thickness of a pocket diary, the width of the nail on a little finger. It is nothing on which to lose a football match, still less perhaps a championship. There is a danger now that the measurement comes to haunt Liverpool as surely as Steven Gerrard’s “This does not slip” speech after another game against Manchester City; that when the history of this long title drought is written, the measurement 11.7mm looms so large that every time Liverpool fans see a fly, check an appointment or catch a glimpse of their own hands they are reminded of defeat and failure.But Liverpool are still four points clear, a fact Jürgen Klopp was understandably keen to emphasise, and the tightness of the margins perhaps serve as a useful reminder that football, even at the highest level, is often chaos. However much you plan and organise, there are certain games that are decided, depending how much agency you wish to credit players with, on the whims of fate or by tiny details in the moment. Sadio Mané’s shot hit the post and bounced out; Leroy Sané’s was a fraction nearer the centre of the goal and so hit the post and cannoned in. This was a game won not in the macro but in the micro.That 11.7mm could have a huge impact. It may be that Liverpool can brush off the disappointment. It may be that the sting of defeat elevates them to yet greater heights. But there is a danger that when that 11.7mm is added to the accumulated history of the past 29 years, the pressure becomes intolerable, that the hope and anxiety and hysteria become too much. This is a test, more than anything, of Klopp as a psychologist and a motivator. Looked at coldly, beyond the result, the signs on Thursday for Liverpool were good.Again, they unsettled City with their pace and menace on the counter. Again, City looked uncomfortable when pressed hard, their pass completion rate was down to 80.8% against a season average of 88.7%. This has become a recurring theme of late. Southampton unnerved City in a similar way last weekend. In slightly different ways, Leicester and Crystal Palace have shown City can be got at. It is a risk: play aggressively against them and you might end up being thrashed as City exploit the space that will inevitably be left behind the midfield (just as Sané’s winner came from a rapid transition) but there is a vulnerability there that can be exploited.The one tactical frustration for Liverpool, perhaps, would be how lacking in inspiration their midfield three looked early in the second half once they had to chase the game – and it is probably significant that the three of Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Georginio Wijnaldum had looked equally unimaginative in the second half of the defeat away to Paris Saint-Germain.The shift to a 4-2-3-1 opened the game up, in part perhaps because Fernandinho suddenly had a direct opponent in Roberto Firmino, but also because Mohamed Salah moved more centrally, away from the flank where Aymeric Laporte, a conservative selection at left-back from Pep Guardiola, had done a fine job of marshalling him. Again the lesson is clear for teams playing City: if they are prepared to risk humiliation, pushing a forward high against Fernandinho disrupts City’s rhythm.City are not the relentless machine of the autumn. They look more human now, more fragile. Yet the gap is down to four points and the sense is that momentum is with them. The lead, though, is still with Liverpool thanks to their extraordinary December. All else being equal a four-point lead should still be decisive but, as Sir Alex Ferguson would always say, what matters most is less a defeat than the reaction to it.Defeats happen, even to the best sides, even by the finest margins. What Klopp has to do now is ensure that 11.7mm does not become a millstone, an eternal measure on Merseyside of the gap between aspiration and actuality. Topics Liverpool Manchester City Jürgen Klopp features

A PG&E executive who resigned one day before the California utility company announced it plans to file for bankruptcy is set to receive $2.5m in severance payment.PG&E announced CEO Geisha William’s resignation on Sunday night, one day before the company declared its intention to file for bankruptcy by 29 January. Despite the company’s uncertain future, Williams would receive the severance payment as well as her accrued pension benefits, “the same as any employee of the company”, Matt Nauman, a PG&E spokesman, clarified on Monday.Williams took over leadership of PG&E, which is California’s largest utility and serves 16 million residents, in March 2017. She headed the company throughout a series of crises.Cal Fire investigators determined last year that equipment owned and operated by PG&E sparked a series of fires that struck the north Bay Area in 2017, killing 43 people and destroying more than 14,700 homes.Investigators are also looking into the company’s role in the 2018 Camp fire, which killed dozens of people in and near the town of Paradise.PG&E cited potential liabilities from the two wildfires totaling up to $30bn in its bankruptcy announcement on Monday. It “is ultimately the only viable option to restore PG&E’s financial stability to fund ongoing operations and provide safe service to customers”, the company said in a statement.Consumer watchdog groups and advocates for the wildfire victims expressed dismay at Williams’ severance payment on Tuesday.“For driving the company into bankruptcy and overseeing negligent operations leading to the deadliest wildfires in California’s history, Williams will receive more money than the majority of her customers will earn in their entire lives,” said Mindy Spatt, a spokeswoman for the Utility Reform Network. “If PG&E has an extra $2.5m lying around, it should be donated to fire victims,” she added.Williams joined PG&E in 2007. She was named executive vice-president of electric operations in 2011, a year after a gas line explosion in San Bruno killed eight people and injured 58.PG&E faced billions of dollars in fines following the explosion. On Wednesday, a federal judge overseeing the company following the disaster ordered it to reinspect its grid and “remove or trim all trees” that could fall on power lines ahead of next year’s fire season – a move that is arguably in the interest of public safety, but one that will come at considerable cost for the company.Monday’s filing was a state-law required notification to employees of intent to file for bankruptcy. The fate of the largest utility in the state, which services 16 million Californians, is now in the hands of lawmakers.The California governor, Gavin Newsom, said on Monday he understands the “outsized role” that PG&E plays in the state, noting “their service area represents the size and scope in land mass that is larger than the state of Florida”, but said that avoiding bankruptcy can’t come “at all costs”.“I respect the taxpayer,” Newsom said. “I respect the ratepayer, and I am absolutely cognizant of the stress of those who lost absolutely everything in these fires, that their interests need to also be front and center in this deliberation.”John Simon is serving as interim chief executive while the company searches for its next leader. Topics California Gas Wildfires news