* * * * * * THURSDAY, JULY 16, 2020 ~ VOL. CCLXXVI NO. 13 WSJ.com HHHH $4 .00
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China’sEconomyResumesGrowthBetter-than-expectedrise in GDP of 3.2%follows historic dropwhen virus struck
Scrabble TraditionalistsDecry Baby Dragons
i i i
Hoping to draw new players, mobileversion now features gems, gnomes
One of the hottest new mo-bile games has falling tiles,sparkling jewels and a chatfunction where players can getto know one another.
That game is Scrabble.The new “Scrabble Go” app
was pushed out last month,when its red-and-tan decade-old predecessor was decom-missioned. The candy-colored,fast-paced update was meant
to interest younger players inan older game.
It has alienated many vet-eran Scrabblers in the process.
“It’s an obscenity,” saidJosh Bernoff, a 61-year-oldbusiness author. “It’s like be-ing inside the small intestineof a unicorn that just ate abunch of rainbow Skittles.”
Scrabble Go has spawnedthousands of 1-star reviews onGoogle Play and the App Store
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BY VALERIE BAUERLEIN
phabet Inc.’s Google, and Ama-zon.com Inc.
But Wednesday’s setbackmight at the same time em-bolden Ms. Vestager and otherEU leaders in their push tocreate new regulations for techcompanies because they arguethat existing rules are insuffi-cient to bring big tech compa-nies to heel in areas rangingfrom competition to taxes.
The case stems from a 2016decision by the EuropeanCommission, the bloc’s top an-titrust enforcer, which said
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Apple Inc. won a major bat-tle with the European Unionwhen the bloc’s second-high-est court sided with the U.S.company over a €13 billion($14.8 billion) tax bill EU anti-trust officials had said thecompany owed to Ireland.
The decision was a rebuketo Margrethe Vestager, who isleading the charge at the Eu-ropean Commission to rein inalleged abuses by big techcompanies including Apple, Al-
BY VALENTINA POPAND SAM SCHECHNER
Apple Wins Tax Case,Dealing a Blow to EU
work: a packet of practice college-prep ques-tions she printed from the internet.
“I’m educating him the best way I can,”said Ms. Bunton, a 41-year-old single mother.“I don’t want him to be behind.”
With the next academic year quickly ap-proaching, school districts and parents ev-erywhere are racing to figure out how to re-sume learning during the coronaviruspandemic—with the interruption that up-ended the last school year beginning to looklike a longer-term disruption. Los Angeles’s
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JACKSON, Miss.—After schools shut downin March, LaKenya Bunton would get homearound 7 a.m. from an overnight quality-con-trol job at a factory, doze for a few hours,then become teacher to her 16-year-old son,Amarrius.
Her son, a rising sophomore, had receivedno remote-learning materials from his schooland didn’t hear from most of his teachers.Ms. Bunton’s method included collecting Am-arrius’s cellphone and handing him the day’s
BY TAWNELL D. HOBBS
Remote LearningWidensAmerica’s Education GapA district of mostly Black, low-income students is hard hit
ing incident in Twitter’s his-tory, began shortly before 4p.m. EDT, when compromisedaccounts—many of them re-lated to the digital currencybitcoin—began posting mes-sages requesting money be sentto cryptocurrency accounts.The attacks quickly spread tomore prominent accounts, withthe bogus messages sometimesreceiving thousands of likes be-fore they were taken down,only to be posted again a shortwhile later, sometimes on the
same account.Twitter’s security account
posted around 5:45 p.m. EDTthat the company was investi-gating the incident and takingsteps to fix it. Within roughly ahalf-hour, the company tookthe extraordinary step of limit-ing posts from verified ac-counts with blue check marks,which Twitter designates formore prominent users.
Twitter later said it believedthe hackers perpetrated the at-tack by targeting employees
who had access to internal sys-tems and tools. The hackersmay have accessed informationor engaged in other maliciousactivity, Twitter said, adding itwas still investigating.
The company didn’t sayhow long the hackers had beenable to access its internal sys-tems. Twitter said it had lim-ited access to internal systemsin response to the hack andlocked compromised accounts.
“Tough day for us at Twit-PleaseturntopageA4
Twitter Inc. was hit with awidespread attack Wednesdaythat allowed hackers to takeover an array of accounts in-cluding those of politicians,billionaires and celebritiessuch as Joe Biden, BarackObama, Bill Gates, Kanye Westand Elon Musk, as well as Ap-ple Inc. and other companies.
The attack, which securityexperts called the worst hack-
BY EUIRIM CHOIAND ROBERT MCMILLAN
Cyberattack on Twitter HitsTitans of Business, Politics
workers to wear masks, butlike most retailers, they previ-ously followed local guidelinesfor shoppers. “We recognizeadditional precautions areneeded to protect our coun-try,” Kroger said.
Other chains made similarmoves after Walmart’s an-nouncement Wednesday atother chains, including Kohl’sCorp., which operates about1,000 department stores, andPanera Bread, which has about2,000 restaurants. Best BuyCo. and Starbucks Corp. hadmask rules that kicked in onWednesday.
There is scientific and medi-cal consensus that masks arecritical in slowing the virus’sspread. The federal Centers forDisease Control and Preventionrecommends everyone wear aface covering in public, espe-cially indoors and when socialdistancing isn’t possible. Presi-dent Trump, a Republican whowore a mask in public for the
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Walmart Inc. and KrogerCo. will require customers towear face coverings inside alltheir U.S. stores, joining agrowing chorus of big busi-nesses and state leaders decid-ing that masks are needed tobattle the surge in coronaviruscases and calling for a na-tional policy.
The retail giants, which op-erate more than 8,000 storesacross the country, said theywere adopting their own maskrequirements to protect theirstaff and customers. Walmartsaid a lack of federal rules hadleft it with a patchwork of lo-cal regulations. “We know thisis a simple step everyone cantake for their safety and thesafety of others,” it said.
They join major U.S. air-lines and a number of gover-nors, even those who were ini-tially hesitant to do so, inadopting mask requirementsto stop the spread of the re-spiratory disease, which haskilled more than 136,000 inthe U.S.
Walmart and Kroger havekept their stores open throughthe pandemic and required
BY DAVE SEBASTIANAND SHARON TERLEP
Walmart, KrogerTo Require MasksIn All U.S. Stores
Jamya Eubanks with a math workbook that her mother bought to help with her schoolwork.
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Once spared, Arizona nowsuffers............................................ A3
Bursting hospitals compoundrisks of virus.............................. A6
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PERSONALJOURNAL.
BEIJING—China has be-come the first major economyto return to growth since thecoronavirus started sweepingthe world earlier this year.
China on Thursday reportedgrowth of 3.2% for the secondquarter from a year earlier, asauthorities reaped the benefitsof an aggressive campaign toeradicate the virus within itsborders.
In sequential terms, China’ssecond-quarter growth ingross domestic product repre-sented an 11.5% rebound fromthe first three months of theyear, according to data re-leased Thursday by Beijing’sNational Bureau of Statistics.For the first six months of theyear, China’s economy con-tracted by 1.6% compared withthe first half of 2019.
The strong growth figurefor the three months endedJune 30 beat economists’ me-dian estimate of 2.6% growthand was at the top end of anunusually wide range of fore-casts, from a contraction of3.1% to growth of 3.5%.
It followed a historic 6.8%year-over-year economic con-traction in the first threemonths of the year, when Bei-jing shut down the country inlate January as the coronavi-rus spread across China from
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BY JONATHAN CHENG
TRAVELENTERTAINMENT
TheMiddle Seat: Flyingis safer than you think,but risks remain. A9
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CONTENTSArts in Review... A13Business News B3,5-6Crossword.............. A14Heard on Street. B12Markets..................... B11Opinion.............. A15-17
Personal Journal A9-12Sports....................... A14Streetwise................ B6Technology............... B4U.S. News............. A2-6Weather................... A14World News.... A7-7A
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What’sNews
As the pandemic pusheshospitals in the South andWest near capacity, the ur-gent need for available bedshas stranded patients inemergency rooms, scram-bled ambulances and forcedpatients to relocate hun-dreds of miles to relieveovercrowded wards. A6Senior White House tradeadviser Navarro criticizedFauci in an opinion columnthat the White House saidwasn’t authorized. A6 Biden’s lead over Trumpreached double digits thismonth as the president’s ap-proval rating declined, ac-cording to a newWall StreetJournal/NBC News poll. A4 The president said he isreplacing his campaignman-ager, a move that comes lessthan fourmonths before theelection. Bill Stepienwill takeover from Brad Parscale. A4Trump said his adminis-tration has completed its up-date to the National Environ-mental Policy Act, includingchanges that will mandatedeadlines for completingenvironmental reviews. A3 The president renewedhis fight against a NewYork state grand-jury sub-poena for financial records,including tax returns. A4 The encounter betweenGeorge Floyd and police esca-lated quickly after an officerdrewhisweapon, according topolice body-cam footage. A5 Justice Ginsburg wasreleased from a Baltimorehospital after an overnightstay for treatment for apossible infection, the Su-preme Court said. A5
China has become the firstmajor economy to return
to growth since the coro-navirus began sweeping theglobe, posting 3.2% growthin GDP for the second quar-ter from a year earlier. A1 Twitter was hit with awidespread attack that al-lowed hackers to take over anarray of accounts includingthose of politicians, billion-aires and celebrities, as wellas Apple and other firms. A1Apple won a major battlewith the EU as a court sidedwith the company over a$14.8 billion tax bill that EUantitrust officials had saidwas owed to Ireland. A1Walmart and Krogerwillrequire customers to wearface coverings inside alltheir U.S. stores amid thesurge in coronavirus cases.A1American Airlines told25,000 workers that theirjobs are at risk after federalaid expires Oct. 1, as air-travel demand falls again. B1Goldman, buoyed by itsWall Street roots, postednear-record quarterly reve-nue of $13.3 billion, withprofit remaining steady. B1U.S. stocks rose, with theDow industrials and S&P500 both gaining 0.9%, whilethe Nasdaq added 0.6%. B11Wirecard touted partner-ships in releases that werein some cases misleading orpromoted without the agree-ment of the firms named. B1 Chipotle said it is add-ing as many as 10,000 em-ployees as it opens morestores with drive-throughlanes for digital orders. B1
Business&Finance
World-Wide
Sabotage Probed in String of Fires, Explosions in Iran
ON ALERT: Tehran is investigating a blaze, shown on Iranian state television, at a port Wednesday, the latest of severalfires and explosions that have raised suspicions of coordinated sabotage targeting the nation’s infrastructure. A7A
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