A2| Friday, April 3, 2020 ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.**
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Our newspapers are 100% sourced from sustainably certified mills.GOT A TIP FOR US? SUBMIT IT AT WSJ.COM/TIPSFrederick Law Olmsted
wrote the “The Cotton King-
dom.” A Life & Arts article
Thursday about Supreme
Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s
quarantine experience incor-
rectly gave the author’s name
as Thomas Law Olmsted. Also,
public-relations agency Schoe-
sslers was misspelled as
Schösslers in a nearby articleabout Julia Schössler, who
lives in Berlin.Johnston City, Ill., was
misspelled as Johnson City in
photo captions with a March
11 Business & Finance article
about Foresight Energy LP and
a March 27 Banking & Finance
article about a zero-coupon
bond index.Readers can alert The Wall Street Journal to any errors in news articles by
emailing [email protected] or by calling 888-410-2667.CORRECTIONSAMPLIFICATIONS
U.S. WATCH
CALIFORNIA
PG&E Fire Victims
Seek Pact ChangesLawyers for victims of Cali-
fornia wildfires sparked by PG&E
Corp. are demanding modifica-
tions to their $13.5 billion settle-
ment with the company due to
concerns that it may no longer
pay them the expected amount.
Attorneys for the fire victims
said in a court filing Thursday
that the value of the settlement,
which is supposed to pay vic-
tims in equal parts cash and
company shares, was no longer
guaranteed because the shares
could be worth less than antici-
pated after the decline in the
stock market as a result of coro-
navirus concerns.
They also criticized the Cali-
fornia utility for making last-
minute changes to its bank-
ruptcy restructuring plan that
could further affect the value of
the equity.
As a result, they argued,
PG&E was in breach of the set-
tlement terms and needed to
adjust some of them to ensure
that fire victims received $13.
billion.
The demands pose another
challenge for PG&E as victims
and other creditors prepare to
vote in its plan to restructure
and exit from chapter 11.
Some victims are campaign-
ing for rejection of the exit plan
on concerns that the equity
component of their settlement
exposes them to greater risks
than other creditors.
PG&E didn’t respond to a re-
quest for comment.
—Katherine BluntFIREARMS INDUSTRYEstimated Gun Sales
Set Record in MarchThe number of gun back-
ground checks hit a record high
in March as some Americans
rushed to buy firearms duringthe coronavirus pandemic.
The Federal Bureau of Inves-
tigation conducted an estimated
2.375 million background checks
for gun sales, the record for a
single month since the modern
background-check system was
instituted in 1998, according to a
new analysis. In March 2019, the
FBI performed 1.3 million.
The analysis was done by the
National Shooting Sports Foun-
dation, a firearms industry trade
group, and excludes background
checks for concealed weapons
and others unrelated to gun pur-
chases. The numbers from the
group offer the best proxy for
gun sales, but are still an esti-
mate.
Before the coronavirus pan-
demic, the high for background
checks in a single month was
2.237 million in December 2012,
when President Obama called
for tighter restrictions on guns
after the Sandy Hook Elemen-
tary School massacre.
—Zusha ElinsonWYOMINGBody of Skier Caught
In Avalanche FoundA skier has been found dead
a day after an avalanche in
northwestern Wyoming.
The victim was identified by
the Teton County coroner as 28-
year-old Trace Jordan Carrillo, of
Dubois. Searchers with a rescue
dog found Mr. Carrillo under 2
feet of snow Thursday.
Almost 30 volunteers from
Teton County Search and Rescue
searched for Mr. Carrillo until
dark on Wednesday.
About 40 people continued to
search for him Thursday with
the help of dogs, the rescue
team said.
Three other avalanches were
also triggered in the southern
Teton Range on Wednesday by
skiers and a snowmobile, the
Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center
said.
—Associated PressU.S. NEWS
day showed that a record 6.
million Americans applied for
unemployment benefits last
week. That was double the
number of claims two weeks
ago.
Economists warned that the
February data are just the
start of an expected massive
contraction in trade flows in
the coming months.
Measures taken to curb the
spread of the new coronavirus
could lower economic activity
in the U.S. and other devel-
oped countries by a quarter,
the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development
said last week.
The deficit in goods trade
with China in February was
the smallest since March- The goods deficit with
Germany was the lowest since
January 2013, the Commerce
Department said.
Overall, U.S. exports
dropped 0.4% in February, the
Commerce Department report
showed, while imports fell
2.5%, the biggest decline in
nearly four years.
As the coronavirus pan-
demic spreads across the
globe, its economic impact is
shifting from a disruption of
supply chains—many of which
run through China—to a sharp
drop in demand as consumers
hunker down.
At RH, formerly known as
Restoration Hardware, the
flow of supplies from Asia “is
pretty much back to normal”
since factories there are
largely back up and running,
said its chief executive, Gary
Friedman.
On the other hand, “de-
mand is down,” he said this
week on an earnings call. “It
may stay down throughout the
year. And most likely, at this
point, we believe it will.”
Other factors were weigh-
ing on U.S. exports even be-
fore the coronavirus spread
widely there, such as the halt
in production of Boeing Co.’s
troubled 737 MAX jetliner
since January.
For the first two months of
2020, U.S. exports of civilian
aircraft were down by a sea-sonally adjusted $4.47 billion
compared with the period of
2019.
U.S. exports of consumer
goods such as pharmaceuticals
fell in February, while exportsof travel, transport and finan-
cial services also decreased.
American imports of industrial
supplies and capital goods also
dropped to multiyear lows.
As February began, the U.S.had reported only seven coro-
navirus cases, and started to
impose entry restrictions on
foreign nationals and quaran-
tines on Americans returning
from the Chinese province at
the center of the virus out-
break. By the end of February,
there were 64 confirmed cases
in the U.S., and airlines were
suspending flights.
The number of confirmed
U.S. cases has now risen above
230,000, with more than 5,
deaths, according to data com-
piled by Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity.
The economic disruption
caused by the pandemic
threatens to undermine the
“phase one” trade agreement
that the Trump administration
signed with its Chinese coun-
terparts in January.
As part of the deal, China
agreed to increase purchases
of U.S. goods and services by
$77 billion in 2020 and $
billion in 2021, for a total of
$200 billion over two years.
—David Harrison
contributed to this article.WASHINGTON—The U.S.
trade deficit narrowed sharply
in February as the spread of
the novel coronavirus dis-
rupted global commerce.
The deficit shrank 12.2%
from January to a seasonally
adjusted $39.93 billion, the
smallest since September
2016, the Commerce Depart-
ment said Thursday.
The narrowing trade gap
was driven in part by a steep
decline in the goods deficit
with China, where the virus
originated and caused facto-
ries to shut there in February.
U.S. demand for goods and
services from overseas is
likely to slide further as steps
to curb the coronavirus pan-
demic force businesses to lay
off workers.
“The recession we’re look-
ing at here is unprecedented,
it’s turning the spigot off,”
said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S.
economist at MFR Inc.
A separate report from the
Labor Department on Thurs-
BYHARRIETTORRY
Trade Gap Smallest in Years as Commerce Ebbs
The deficit in goods with China have fallen to its lowest levels
since 2009 while the total trade deficit has also narrowed.Monthlygoodsdeficit
withChinaU.S.tradedeficit
changefromayearagoSource: Census BureauNot seasonally adjusted Seasonally adjusted
$0102030402008 ’10 ’3001020%2017 ’18 ’19 ’billion12-month rolling averageSchona Kessler found some
flour in her pantry and her
bread machine, and decided to
giveitatry.
“I looked into the window
throughout the process and
figured ‘Hmmm, this is not
looking quite right, but hey, we
followed the recipe, so it
should be fine,’ ” she said.
Three hours later, when she
took it out, it was not fine. “It
was ugly,” she said. “Turns
out, my flour was past due by
almost three years! I didn’t re-
alize flour could expire.”
Ms. Kessler is among the
many amateur bread bakers
who have emerged amid the
coronavirus lockdown, only to
find how easily it can go
wrong.
Sales of baking yeast surged
647%, more than any other
food, beverage or consumer
product in the week that
ended March 21, according to
market research firm Nielsen,
and eventually both yeast and
flour became hard to find in
grocery stores. (Although so-
cial media is full of tips on
how to cultivate wild yeast.)
Andrew Bush, a civil de-
fense attorney in Chicago, said
he had seen a lot of people
posting about pandemic-in-
spired homemade bread on so-
cial media.
“It’s a weird phenomenon,”
he said. “I thought, ‘why is ev-
eryone making bread? I don’t
know, but I’m going to do it
too.’ ” He started with a
French baguette, mixing and
kneading the dough while
wearing his baby in a carrier.
“The electric mixer kind of put
him in a trance,” the 30-year-
old said of his 10-month-old
son.
Amanda Greiwe of Orange
County has been baking for
years while training to become
a therapist. The first time she
attempted to make bread, she
accidentally killed the yeast in-
stead of activating it. The
bread “came out looking like a
hockey puck,” she said.
But now that she’s gotten
the hang of it, baking has be-
come a form of therapy. “You
feel resourceful and accom-
plished,” she said. “The reward
of having a successful loaf
gives you a type of high.”
With social media, posting
photos of your bread, com-
menting on others’ and swap-
ping recipes gives people a
connection that they’ve been
missing while stuck at home,
she added.
Still, many bread-baking ef-
forts are doomed. In some
cases, it’s the lack of the right
ingredients. In others, it may
be a lack of basic knowledge.
Ken Forkish, author of the
bread-baking guide “Flour Wa-
ter Salt Yeast” and founder of
Ken’s Artisan Bakery in Port-
land, Ore., said some aspiring
bakers buy books like his but
don’t read them. “I actually
wrote a book that was meant
to be read,” he said.
Stores were already out of
yeast when McKenna Mobley,
a 22-year-old music publicist
in Murrieta, Calif., went shop-
ping, so she resorted to a
packet at her home that was a
ContinuedfromPageOne
We All
Want to
Bake Bread
few months past its use-by
date. Her challah failed to rise
to the occasion. She didn’t
bother to even taste it.
“We threw it in the garden”
as compost, Ms. Mobley said.
Ms. Mobley’s adventure in
baking came through a connec-
tion with Alexi Bardha, a lab
technician in Los Angeles.
Mr. Bardha, 22, had limited
bread-making experience, and
decided that the lockdown was
a good time to refine his bak-
ing skills. He set up an iMes-
sage group chat with 20 or so
friends across the U.S. and
urged them to synchronize
their trials.
To decide which type of
bread to make, Mr. Bardha
painted a square of cardboard
and affixed a spinning arrow
to the center. The arrow can
land on any of a dozen bread
types whose names he wrote
in segments radiating from the
center.
“I was thinking Wheel of
Fortune,” he explained.
Every few days, he holds aFaceTime “breadcast” with his
friends and spins the wheel.
Challah was the first chal-
lenge. Then came kulaç, an Al-
banian soda bread. Sydney
Grana, who works at a wilder-
ness-camp school in Southern
California, was missing a vital
ingredient—baking soda. In-
stead, she doubled the dose of
baking powder. She was also
missing cow’s-milk yogurt, so
she made do with goat’s-milk
yogurt. And she went with glu-
ten-free flour instead of all-
purpose.
“The outside looked beauti-
ful,” Ms. Grana said, but the
inside was “a little sad.” She
turned the bread into crou-
tons.
Eve Hauser, an American
University psych major stuck
at home with her parents in
Brooklyn, also tried making
kulaç. It was rock hard and so
bad “I ended up not even pho-
tographing it,” she said. An-
other lesson: sour cream isn’t
a good substitute for yogurt.
For others, bread baking isless of a game and more of a
coping mechanism.
Maya Lewis and John Sand-
berg were supposed to get
married on April 4 in Chicago,
followed by a honeymoon in It-
aly. They had to postpone the
wedding until after the pan-
demic.
“We’re baking through our
sadness,” Ms. Lewis said.
She had never made bread
before, but after succeeding at
homemade naan, a leavened
flatbread, during the first
week of social distancing, she
decided to attempt a braided
challah loaf. She was talking
on the phone to a friend while
making the dough, and she
didn’t add enough flour. Or
maybe it was because she
swapped sugar for honey. In
any case, “it was extremely
sticky. It got everywhere—on
my watch, my shirt. I thought
I was going to have to throw it
out,” she said.
Since it was difficult to find
flour and yeast at the store,
she didn’t want to waste it.
She slowly added more flour
until it was manageable.
“It didn’t look good, but it
was still really tasty,” she said.
Another common beginner’s
bread is pizza dough. Thomas
Muellner, a marketing copy-
writer in Chicago, has been
baking it quite a bit during the
city’s shelter-in-place order.
Nowhewantstostepuphis
game and try to make his own
sourdough starter—which
makes use of wild yeast—and
chapati, even though the
homemade pizzas haven’t all
gone smoothly.
“I have set off the fire alarm
more times than I am proud
of,” he said. “I ended up just
disconnecting it.”Baker and therapist Amanda Greiwe with her 6-month-old son and her loaf of sourdough. Below,
Alexi Bardha, a lab technician in Los Angeles, who encouraged friends around the country to bake
bread. Every few days, he spins an arrow to choose which type they should bake next.FROM TOP: SCHONA KESSLER; MICHAEL D. STENNIS JR.