The Wall Street Journal - 09.08.2019

***** FRIDAY, AUGUST 9, 2019 ~ VOL. CCLXXIV NO. 34 WSJ.com HHHH$4.

DJIA26378.19À371.12 1.4% NASDAQ8039.16À2.2% STOXX 600374.71À1.7% 10-YR. TREAS.g 8/32, yield 1.710% OIL$52.54À$1.45 GOLD$1,497.70g$9.60 EURO$1.1179 YEN106.

Lost in Life, El Paso Suspect

Found a Dark World Online

Gunman who allegedly killed 22 with an intent to attack Hispanics

told investigators he came to his views on the internet

Kyrgyzstan Forces Move In to Detain Ex-Leader

STANDOFF: One policeman was dead and 80 people injured after Kyrgyzstan special forces on

Thursday battled with supporters of former President Almazbek Atambayev, who was accused of

corruption. Mr. Atambayev, who was detained after the clashes, said the charges were fabricated. A

IGOR KOVALENKO/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

Shirtless in Seattle: When

Remote Video Calls Go Wrong

iii

Telecommuters devise strategies to avoid

embarrassing mishaps; ‘he looked great’

ble to turn off the camera,” Mr.

Trahan recalls.

Companies are increasingly

allowing employees to work re-

motely, eager to keep them

happy in a hot job market. But

telecommuters are finding all

that freedom comes with pit-

falls. They’re attempting to

mitigate the risk of

threats like small

children interrupt-

ing, rogue technol-

ogy and lack of a

dress code by ob-

sessively tinkering

with user settings

and creating obsta-

cle courses to im-

pede entry into home offices.

Vigilance can’t protect

against all mishaps. In 2017,

professor Robert Kelly’s

daughter and son famously

crashed his live interview

PleaseturntopageA

At first, Tom Trahan

thought it was just a very ca-

sual Friday.

The 50-year-old software

executive logged on to the

computer at his home office in

Bellevue, Wash., to take a call,

and found his fellow

meeting attendee

surprisingly shirt-

less.

“Honestly, he

looked great,” Mr.

Trahan said of the

person with whom

he was set to dis-

cuss product part-

nerships. The two men started

chatting, one with tan skin,

muscles, and gray chest hair

on display. Then the topless

executive realized it was a

video call.

“It was just this mad scram-

BYRACHELFEINTZEIG

Quiet please

IndexperformanceThursday

Source: FactSet

Nasdaq

Composite

Dow Jones

Industrial

Average

S&P 500

2.

0

0.

0.

0.

1.

1.

1.

1.

2.

%

10 a.m. 11 noon 1 p.m. 2 3 4

Falling bond yields have

pushed mortgage rates to their

lowest level in nearly three

years, spurring a rush by home-

owners to refinance.

The rate on a 30-year, fixed-

rate mortgage fell to 3.6%,

mortgage-finance giant Freddie

Mac said Thursday. That rate

was nearly 5% in November.

Mortgage rates are closely

linked to yields on 10-year Trea-

sury notes, which on Wednes-

day fell to 1.675%, the lowest

ByMatt Wirz,

Christina Rexrode

andRachel Louise

Ensign

Stocks Climb as Yuan Fears Ease

Markets advanced around the world after China’s latest currency

move allayed concerns over its trade fight with the U.S. B

An effort by the FBI to

more aggressively monitor so-

cial media for threats sets up

a clash with Facebook Inc.’s

privacy policies and possibly

its attempts to comply with a

record $5 billion settlement

with the U.S. government

reached last month.

The Federal Bureau of In-

vestigation is soliciting pro-

posals from outside vendors

for a contract to pull vast

quantities of public data from

Facebook, Twitter Inc. and

BYJEFFHORWITZ

ANDDUSTINVOLZ

other social media “to proac-

tively identify and reactively

monitor threats to the United

States and its interests.” The

request was posted last month,

weeks before a series of mass

murders shook the country

and led President Trump to

call for social-media platforms

to do more to detect potential

shooters before they act. The

deadline for bids is Aug. 27.

As described in the solicita-

tion, it appears that the ser-

vice would violate Facebook’s

ban against the use of its data

for surveillance purposes, ac-

cording to the company’s user

agreements and people famil-

iar with how it seeks to en-

force them.

PleaseturntopageA

FBI Surveillance

ProposalSetsUp

Facebook Clash

Agency’s newpush on

social media appears to

violate company policy,

its settlement with U.S.

since October 2016.

Still unknown is whether the

falling rates will boost a home-

buying market that looked mor-

ibund last year. Low interest

rates often encourage pur-

chases, but worries about the

economy—telegraphed by the

low rates—may hold purchasers

back.

The rate boon is prompting

borrowers to flood lenders with

calls. They are hoping to save

hundreds of dollars a month by

refinancing mortgages or use

lower-rate loans to buy more-

expensive homes.

“My applications are up

across the board,” said Angela

PleaseturntopageA

Falling Rates Drive

Refinancing Spree

 News outlets get pitch from

Facebook for content............ A

IPO Costs Push Uber to Big Loss

Uber Technologies Inc. re-

corded its largest-ever quar-

terly loss as it was weighed

down by heavy competition in

Latin America and elsewhere,

as well as a big expense related

to its initial public offering.

Revenue at the ride-hailing

company climbed 14% to $3.

billion in the second quarter,

its smallest quarterly increase

on record and below analysts’

expectations of $3.3 billion.

Shares of Uber, which

closed Thursday 4.5% below

the May IPO price, fell as

much as 12% in after-hours

trading.

The results show that Uber

is still growing its overall

business, but continuing to

struggle with high levels of

competition throughout the

world—and still paying heavy

levels of rider subsidies and

driver incentives that have

been a key part of ride-hail-

ing since its inception a de-

cade ago.

Analysts and investors are

still expecting years more of

losses for Uber and the overall

ride-hailing sector, a factor

that has weighed on its stock

and that of rival Lyft Inc.

Uber said it expects losses

to start narrowing and gave an

outlook for the year better

than analysts expected, target-

ing a loss of $3 billion to $3.

billion, when excluding

charges like interest, taxes and

depreciation.

Chief Executive Dara Khos-

rowshahi told reporters the

company’s bookings, which in-

clude money Uber pays driv-

ers, are still increasing at an

impressive rate—above 30%—

and he is confident driver sub-

sidies will fall in the long term

as the company keeps expand-

ing in areas like Uber Eats

food delivery.

“We continue to have newer

markets. We continue to have

businesses like Eats that have

amazing growth rates,” he

said, adding that he thinks

2019 will be the company’s

peak year of losses, which

should start to narrow in 2020

and beyond.

Uber has been grappling

with an onslaught of competi-

tion around the globe, particu-

larly over the past year.

While ride-hailing was once

thought by early venture-capi-

PleaseturntopageA

BYELIOTBROWN

ALLEN, Texas—The family

of Patrick Crusius, the alleged

gunman in El Paso’s mass

shooting, worried he was a

little lost, with few friends,

but thought he wasn’t any

more aimless than many oth-

ers his age, said family lawyer

Christopher Ayres.

When Mr. Crusius dis-

cussed current events, history

and politics with his grandfa-

ther, with whom he lived for

a while, his ideas didn’t ap-

pear to be out of the main-

stream, according to Mr. Ayres. Like many

young men in Texas, he occasionally went to

the gun range with his father.

Evidence is emerging, however, that Mr.

Crusius, 21 years old, cut a much different

profile on the internet, where he spent some

eight hours a day, according to his LinkedIn

profile.

He has told investigators that he came to

his views by doing research online, according

to a law-enforcement official with knowledge

of the investigation, and didn’t speak to or or-

ganize with other white na-

tionalists in person. He said

he read the manifesto by the

perpetrator of the Christ-

church massacre in New Zea-

land and thought it had the

right message.

According to law enforce-

ment, shortly before the at-

tack in El Paso began on Sat-

urday, he posted a manifesto

on an online forum called

8chan. The document ex-

pressed a desire to kill as

many Hispanics as possible,

claiming they were culturally replacing na-

tive-born Americans and taking away job op-

portunities.

8chan has long been a home for users

who want to discuss mass shootings and rac-

ist, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic and antigay

ideologies. Law-enforcement officials are in-

quiring about the extent to which Mr. Cru-

sius may have become radicalized on sites

such as 8chan.

The anonymity of users on the platform

PleaseturntopageA

ByErin Ailworth,

Georgia Wells

andIan Lovett

Attacks’ Aftermath

 McConnell, Trump discuss

possible steps.................. A

 On trip home, lawmaker

defends firearms............ A

 After El Paso, workers

plan escape paths........... A

 Heard on the Street: Uber

tries to maintain speed..... B

LowRider

Uber’s quarterly net profit/loss

Source: the company

$

• 
  


• 
  


• 
  

0

2

billion

2017 ’18 ’

2Q 2019

t$5.2B

CONTENTS

Business News.. B3,

Crossword.............. A

Heard on Street. B

Life & Arts....... A10-

Mansion.............. M1-

Markets..................... B

Opinion.............. A13-

Sports........................ A

Streetwise................. B

Technology............... B

U.S. News............. A2-

Weather.................. A

World News........ A7-

s2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

All Rights Reserved

>

What’s

News

Trump and McConnellare

discussing how to tackle gun

violence, with the majority

leader saying red-flag and

background-check proposals

will be “front and center” in

Senate deliberations.A

The president ousted

Gordon, the nation’s No. 2 in-

telligence official, and named

counterterrorism chief Ma-

guire to be acting director

of national intelligence.A

Major Wall Street banks

have given congressional

panels thousands of pages

of documents related to

Russians who may have had

dealings with Trump, his

family or his business.A

Climate expertsrecom-

mended changes to the foods

people eat and farm to stave

off the disruptive effects of

rising global temperatures.A

Harvey Weinstein began

selling off personal real es-

tate months before articles

enumerated a flood of sexual-

misconduct allegations.M

Prominent GOP groups

said they were temporarily

freezing spending on Twitter

after it locked the McCon-

nell campaign’s account.A

Ex-FBI deputy McCabe,

who was fired by the

Trump administration, filed

suit over his dismissal.A

India’s Modi defendedthe

move to end the autonomy

of Jammu and Kashmir.A

The head of Italy’sfar-

right, Matteo Salvini, sought

to trigger snap elections.A

An off-duty Israeli soldier

was found stabbed to death

in the West Bank.A

A

n FBI effortto more ag-

gressively monitor so-

cial media for threats sets

up a clash with Facebook’s

privacy policies and possibly

its attempts to comply with

a recent FTC settlement.A

Facebook is offering

news outlets millions of

dollars for the rights to

put their content in a news

section that the company

hopes to launch this year.A

Falling bond yieldshave

pushed mortgage rates to

their lowest level in nearly

three years, spurring a rush by

homeowners to refinance.A

Uber reportedits largest-

ever quarterly loss, weighed

down by heavy competition

abroad as well as a big ex-

pense related to its IPO.A

Kraft Heinz postedfalling

sales and wrote down the

value of its brands for the

second time in six months.

Its shares sank nearly 9%.B

The Dow rose1.4% and in-

vestors sold safer assets such

as bonds and gold, as China’s

latest move on the yuan

eased currency-war fears.B

Chinese exportsrebounded

in July, buoyed by shipments

to Europe and Southeast Asia,

but economists expect the

turnabout to be short-lived.A

Viacom and CBSboth

reported revenue increases,

as the firms are locked in

advanced merger talks.B

Broadcom strucka

$10.7 billion deal to ac-

quire Symantec’s enter-

prise security business.B

Adidas postedhigher

quarterly earnings on

strong sales in China, but

warned of trade dangers.B

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