Category: Business

Categories
Business

Biden to choose North Carolina environmental regulator to run EPA

Biden to pick North Carolina environmental regulator to run EPA

Michael Regan listens as North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper announces that Regan will lead the North Carolina Environmental Quality Department at Executive Manson in Raleigh, NC on January 3, 2017.

Chuck Liddy | AP

President-elect Joe Biden will select Michael Regan, secretary for the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, to head the Environmental Protection Agency, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.

Regan, 44, was Biden’s front runner and, if confirmed, will be the first black to head the agency.

Regan previously worked at the EPA for the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and was the national program manager responsible for developing programs to improve energy efficiency, air quality and reduce air pollution.

Regan later worked at the Environmental Defense Fund, where he made efforts to contain the effects of climate change and air pollution.

He will play a crucial role in supporting Biden’s aggressive plan to combat global warming and transform the US economy from fossil fuels to clean energy. Regan is also expected to be heavily involved in environmental racism.

“Regan has dedicated his career to environmental work, promoting clean energy, combating climate change and tackling coal ash pollution,” said Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice, an environmental law nonprofit. “As the EPA administrator, Regan will play a key role in solving the climate crisis and protecting the health of all communities.”

Biden also intends to appoint Rep. Deb Haaland, DN.M., as his Home Secretary. If this were confirmed, Haaland would be the first Native American to be appointed cabinet secretary. She would oversee the management and conservation of the land’s public land and natural resources, as well as the restoration of land that the Trump administration had opened up for drilling and other construction.

Read more from CNBC environment:
Joe Biden’s climate protection agenda faces an uncertain future in the Senate
Biden will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement. Here’s what happens next

Biden has vowed to reintroduce the U.S. to the Paris Agreement and bring the country to net zero emissions by 2050, though his climate agenda will face immense constraints if Republicans retain control of the Senate.

In the past four years, the Trump administration has dismantled more than 70 key environmental regulations, with nearly 30 in the works.

“Regan will take over the helm of the EPA at perhaps the most critical moment in the agency’s history, and he has to do a lot more than just clean up the toxic mess Trump left behind,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biodiversity.

If the GOP retains control of the Senate and hinders climate legislation, Biden’s plans will depend on the EPA to implement regulations to reduce fossil fuel emissions from sites and automobiles.

The Biden government is already planning to put restrictions on oil and gas drilling on public properties, block pipelines across the country and withdraw many of Trump’s executive orders for energy.

Categories
Business

Unemployment Claims Present Toll of Rising Covid Instances: Reside Updates

Vacant retail shops in Columbus, Ohio. The rate of jobless claims has been rising as coronavirus cases remain high across the country.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

Rising Covid-19 cases are taking a steep toll on economic activity, battering the labor market even as new vaccines offer a ray of hope for next year.

The number of Americans filing initial claims for unemployment insurance remained high last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. After dropping earlier in the fall, claims have moved higher, and they remain at levels that dwarf the pace of past recessions.

There were 935,000 new claims for state benefits, compared with 956,000 the previous week, while 455,000 filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federally funded program for part-time workers, the self-employed and others ordinarily ineligible for jobless benefits.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of new state claims was 885,000, an increase of 23,000 from the previous week.

Consumer caution, coupled with new restrictions on business activity like indoor dining, has pummeled the hospitality industry, lodging, airlines and other service businesses. The debut of a coronavirus vaccine this week offers the prospect of relief, but until mass inoculations begin next year, the economy will remain under pressure.

“Businesses are closing, and as a result, we are seeing job losses mount — and that’s exactly what we were fearful of going into the winter,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. “It’s going to be a challenging few months, no doubt.”

At the end of November, more than 20 million workers were collecting unemployment benefits under state or federal programs, Labor Department data indicates.

With the weakening economy as the backdrop, Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress continued talks on Wednesday on another pandemic relief bill, something that economists have warned is overdue. Without action, two key programs for unemployed workers will expire this month, cutting off benefits to millions.

“We are not moving in the right direction,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “With the looming expiration of benefits, it’s even more worrisome.”

Data released on Wednesday showed a 1.1 percent drop in retail sales in November, a disappointing start to the crucial holiday season. Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services, expects economic growth to be weak for the next few months before picking up later in 2021.

“Until we get a lot of people vaccinated, the economy will face a difficult test,” he said. “I don’t know if we will see an outright contraction or the loss of jobs, but the pace of improvement will slow markedly.”

Christian Smalls leads a workers strike at the Amazon fulfillment center on Staten Island in May.Credit…Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times

The National Labor Relations Board said on Thursday that it had found merit in a complaint that Amazon wrongfully fired a warehouse worker in retaliation for organizing colleagues concerned about pandemic safety conditions.

Kevin Petroccione, a congressional liaison for the National Labor Relations Board, said if Amazon did not settle, the board would file a formal complaint against the company.

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment. The finding was earlier reported by Vice.

The charge of unfair labor practices was brought by Gerald Bryson, who worked at Amazon’s warehouse in Staten Island, N.Y. Mr. Bryson had joined with other workers, including one named Christian Smalls, in a protest over safety concerns in late March after the pandemic struck. Amazon immediately fired Mr. Smalls. About a week later, Mr. Bryson protested again in the parking lot of the building.

Amazon fired Mr. Bryson about two weeks later, saying he had violated the company’s vulgar language policy during a confrontation with another worker in the second protest, according to Frank Kearl, Mr. Bryson’s lawyer.

In June, Mr. Bryson filed a case with the National Labor Relations Board, effectively saying that Amazon selectively enforced its vulgar language policy as an excuse to retaliate against Mr. Bryson for his organizing. Mr. Kearl said the agency told him of the finding late last month.

If Amazon does not reach a settlement, which could include back pay or reinstating Mr. Bryson’s job, the agency plans to file a complaint to be heard by an administrative law judge. It filed a similar retaliation complaint against Amazon in a case of a worker in Pennsylvania who protested conditions during the pandemic. That case is pending.

Do you work in an Amazon warehouse and have a labor issue? We want to hear from you. Contact the reporter of this article at karen.weise@nytimes.com.

Nearly a year after the coronavirus outbreak, the full impact of the pandemic on the U.S. economy remains unclear. Some of the most obvious indicators are in conflict: As some companies report enormous profits, the number of unemployed Americans is nearly 10 million more than it was in February, and hundreds of thousands are expected to have filed new unemployment claims last week.

The Times interviewed a rage of economists and experts who suggested looking at eight measures to understand the state of the economy that President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will face on Jan. 20.

  • Wages: That wages and salaries have bounced back quickly is a sign that things are on track for a rapid recovery. During the last recession — which Mr. Biden and then-President Barack Obama inherited in 2009 — drops of wages and salaries took years to recover.

  • Unemployment for Black men: The current crisis has had a particularly negative, persistent impact on employment for Black men, who face an unemployment rate of 11.3 percent, five percentage points higher than the unemployment rate for white men.

  • Long-term unemployment: The number of Americans who are still in the labor force but have been unemployed for more than six months has been increasing since April. A sociologist with a left-leaning think tank said the rise in long-term unemployment, coupled with the fact that millions of workers have left the labor market altogether since February, indicated “a very serious problem in connecting people who are able to produce needed goods and services with the opportunity to do so.”

  • Housing costs: Home prices and rents have risen during the pandemic. But while the rising costs have strained low-income renters, the rise in housing prices typically signals strong economic growth.

  • New businesses: Even as countless businesses have been forced to close over the course of the pandemic, the increase in business applications over the last year is a sign that the economy may be adapting rather than totally seizing.

  • Spending on goods: Though the pandemic has altered Americans’ day-to-day lives, it hasn’t halted their spending as much as some feared it would. Consumption has shifted toward goods over services — buying alcohol from stores instead of from bars, for example — bucking a generational trend toward a service economy.

  • Food scarcity — More families across the country are unable to meet their basic needs for housing and food security, according to a Census Bureau survey.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the Capitol. After months of stalemate, congressional leaders were on the verge of cementing a stimulus deal.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Top Democrats and Republicans in Congress haggled on Thursday over the remaining hurdles to an emerging $900 billion stimulus deal, with Democrats making a last-ditch effort to use the package to deliver more emergency aid to states struggling amid the pandemic.

With Congress running out of time to deliver another round of relief to Americans and stave off a government shutdown on Friday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi reported more momentum toward a compromise that could be ready as early as today.

“We made some progress this morning,” Ms. Pelosi, of California, told reporters at the Capitol. Asked if a final agreement would be announced within the day, she said: “We’ll let you know.”

The plan under discussion would provide a dose of badly needed relief after months of stalled negotiations and amid a national public health crisis that has killed more than 307,000 people.

That includes a new round of stimulus payments, probably $600, to American adults; a temporary infusion of enhanced federal jobless aid of around $300 per week; and rental and food assistance. It would also revive a loan program for struggling small businesses and provide funding for schools, hospitals and the distribution of the vaccine.

With plans to merge a final agreement with a sweeping omnibus government funding package, Congress may have to approve another stopgap spending measure to avert a government shutdown on Friday while negotiators put the finishing touches on the stimulus deal. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, warned Republicans on Wednesday that they should prepare to remain in Washington through the weekend.

“I hope it wouldn’t be more than 24 or 48 hours,” Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, said of a possible stopgap bill, adding, “I really think this is coming to a close.”

Ms. Pelosi, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, spoke late Wednesday evening to continue ironing out differences over the measure, a spokesman for Ms. Pelosi said, and they planned to continue talks on Thursday.

In order to reach an agreement, Republicans appear to have dropped their demand for a sweeping coronavirus liability shield for businesses in exchange for Democrats agreeing to exclude a direct funding stream for state and local governments that are facing fiscal crises, according to two officials familiar with the discussions.

But Democrats were pushing to provide billions of dollars for governors to use for health-related expenses during the pandemic — including vaccine distribution — and extend emergency federal assistance for states and local governments through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Republicans who have fiercely opposed sending more aid to states and cities were resisting the moves, concerned about leaving FEMA with enough money for future natural disasters and about the lack of restrictions on how the funds are spent.

Some Republicans — in particular Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania — were pushing to curtail the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending authority, which Democrats argue would hamper the Biden administration’s ability to continue supporting the country’s economic recovery. After the Federal Reserve used such authority earlier this year after the enactment of the $2.2 trillion stimulus law, Mr. Mnuchin clawed back the remaining funds in part to offset the cost of another stimulus bill.

There is also a push to include billions of dollars in relief for theaters and venues, something that lawmakers in both parties support.

Zach Montague contributed reporting.

By: Ella Koeze·Source: Refinitiv

  • A generally upbeat mood prevailed in global stock markets on Thursday, as lawmakers from both parties in Washington signaled they were close to reaching a deal on an economic aid package, an extraordinary shift in tone from both Republicans and Democrats, and more people received a coronavirus vaccine.

  • Investors are also looking toward an economic recovery sometime next year with one coronavirus vaccine already approved in several countries, and a second close to receiving emergency approval.

  • Still, the pandemic is far from over and continuing to take a staggering human and economic toll. Claims for state unemployment insurance illustrated this on Thursday, with 935,000 filing new claims last week, the Labor Department said.

  • The market gains on Thursday were relatively small: the S&P 500 rose about half a percent in early trading. The Stoxx Europe 600 gained 0.5 percent, while the FTSE in Britain was flat. Most Asian indexes closed the day with gains.

  • In Washington, talks continued on a $900 billion stimulus plan that would provide a new round of direct payments to millions of Americans as well as additional unemployment benefits, food assistance and rental aid. Republicans and Democrats alike signaled that they were ready to coalesce around the main elements, though a final agreement hasn’t been reached.

  • The Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, on Wednesday made a point of saying the central bank was in no mood to begin scaling back its efforts to bolster the economy. He said the Fed’s policy decisions were intended to show that policymakers would “deliver powerful support to the economy until the recovery is complete.” He said the economy would face near-term challenges, but would likely bounce back quickly once vaccines were widely available, perhaps by midyear.

Baiju Bhatt and Vladimir Tenev, Robinhood’s co-founders, in 2018. Millions of investors have turned to the app in recent years.Credit…Reuters

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday said that Robinhood, the stock trading app, had misled its customers about how it was paid by Wall Street firms for passing along customer trades, the latest enforcement action against the popular platform.

Robinhood agreed to pay a $65 million fine to settle the charges, the latest blow to the company whose popularity has surged since its founding, offering commission-free trading and an easy-to-use app. Critics have said that the company relied on practices that hurt its rapidly growing base of customers, who tend to be younger and less experienced.

The charges announced on Thursday apply to Robinhood’s disclosures from 2015 to late 2018, the regulator said.

The S.E.C. had charged Robinhood with “repeated misstatements that failed to disclose the firm’s receipt of payments from trading firms for routing customer orders to them, and with failing to satisfy its duty to seek the best reasonably available terms to execute customer orders,” it said in a statement.

“Robinhood provided misleading information to customers about the true costs of choosing to trade with the firm,” Stephanie Avakian, director of the S.E.C.’s enforcement division, said in a statement. “Brokerage firms cannot mislead customers about order execution quality.”

As part of the settlement, Robinhood did not admit or deny the allegations. But Dan Gallagher, its chief legal officer, said that the company was committed to helping meet its customers’ needs. “The settlement relates to historical practices that do not reflect Robinhood today,” he said in a statement.

Millions of investors have turned to Robinhood in recent years, lured by the simple fact that the site allows investors to trade without paying commissions. Much of the retail brokerage industry has since followed suit, resulting in a surge of retail trading activity this year.

Because they do not charge commissions, brokerage firms like Robinhood make money by charging high-speed trading firms for the right to execute their clients’ orders, a practice called payment for order flow. The trading firms are willing to pay Robinhood because they can eke out incremental gains on individual trades, which because of their speed and scale add up to large amounts of money.

But that also means that the high-speed trading firms determine the price one of Robinhood’s clients would pay for shares, or what they might receive for selling stock.

The S.E.C. said that for several years, the company had failed to be transparent with customers about its use of payment for order flow. It also said that the brokerage firm had violated a duty to get customers the best possible prices for their orders, tying that failure to the high payment rates it received from trading firms in exchange for customers’ trades.

In its order summarizing the settlement, the S.E.C. said that although the company was publicly declaring that its customers were getting trading terms as good as or better than what rivals offered, internal reviews showed that was far from the case.

The federal charges come a day after regulators in Massachusetts accused Robinhood of aggressively courting and manipulating inexperienced investors and then failing to protect them. In a complaint, the Massachusetts secretary of the commonwealth, William F. Galvin, said that Robinhood focused on signing up young traders with perks like free shares, and then used “gamification” marketing techniques to persuade them to trade often.

Matt Phillips and Gregory Schmidt contributed reporting.

Google received a kernel of good news on Thursday when European Union authorities approved its acquisition of the fitness-tracking company Fitbit after a lengthy review to determine whether the $2.1 billion takeover violated antitrust laws.

European regulators had been under pressure to block the deal, first announced last year, but allowed it to move forward after Google agreed not use the health and fitness data collected from Fitbit’s wearable devices and services to target ads at internet users. Google also agreed to continue providing its free Android software to competing makers of fitness and health devices.

The announcement comes as Google faces two antitrust lawsuits in the United States. On Wednesday, 10 state attorneys general accused the Silicon Valley giant of abusing its power in digital advertising. In October, the Justice Department accused the company of using illegal tactics to maintain dominance for its search engine.

The European Commission, the E.U.’s executive body, has brought three antitrust cases against Google in recent years. The company is appealing the fines.

The central bank left its benchmark interest rate at 0.1 percent and did not increase its purchases of government bonds. Credit…Andrew Testa for The New York Times

The Bank of England, which has been battling not only a pandemic but the threat of a disruptive exit from the European Union, made no changes to its monetary policy Thursday amid signs that both threats could be receding.

The central bank left its benchmark interest rate at 0.1 percent and did not increase its purchases of government bonds. In November, at its last meeting, the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee expanded the bond purchases, a way of holding down market interest rates, by £150 billion. The bank said Thursday it would continue to aim for total asset purchases of £895 billion, or $1.2 trillion.

The bank also extended by six months a program that allows commercial banks to borrow money at or close to the benchmark interest rate, if they funnel the money to small and midsize businesses.

Successful development of vaccines against the coronavirus are “likely to reduce the downside risks to the economic outlook from Covid,” the Monetary Policy Committee said in a statement. But the committee also said growth would be “a little weaker” than policymakers expected in November because of sharper lockdowns.

Negotiators for Britain and the European Union continued to meet in Brussels on Thursday, and there were indications they had narrowed their differences, potentially averting a no-deal Brexit that would be bad for both economies, but especially Britain’s.

In one example of the potential damage, the German automaker BMW warned that it would have to significantly raise prices for cars sold in Britain if there were no deal. Nicolas Peter, the company’s chief financial officer, told German media on Wednesday that BMW would also have to raise the price of British-made Minis sold in Europe because of import and export tariffs.

  • Unilever, a major advertiser, said it would resume spending in January on U.S. ads on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter but would continue to monitor the social media platforms for hate speech, misinformation and postelection “polarization.” The company stepped away in June but said on Thursday that it was “encouraged by the platforms’ new commitments and reporting to monitor progress.”

  • Ten state attorneys general on Wednesday accused Google of illegally abusing its monopoly over the technology that delivers ads online. The state prosecutors said that Google overcharged publishers for the ads it showed across the web and edged out rivals who tried to challenge the company’s dominance. They also said that Google had reached an agreement with Facebook to limit the social network’s own efforts to compete with Google for ad dollars. Google said the suit was “baseless” and that it would fight the case.

  • Tyson Foods has fired seven workers accused of being involved in a betting pool over how many employees would get the coronavirus, the company said Wednesday. The son of a meatpacking worker who died in April filed a suit claiming that the manager of the Waterloo, Iowa, pork plant organized a “cash buy-in, winner take all” betting pool. In all, about 1,000 workers at the plant — about a third of the work force — tested positive for the virus. Tyson had hired the law firm Covington & Burling to conduct an independent investigation of the matter, led by Eric H. Holder Jr., the former U.S. attorney general.

The Pandemic’s Toll

Credit…Audra Melton for The New York TimesCredit…Audra Melton for The New York Times

There remains widespread confusion about a key element of the plan to protect some of the most vulnerable Americans against the coronavirus, report Rebecca Robbins and Jessica Silver-Greenberg for The New York Times: how nursing homes will get consent to vaccinate residents who aren’t able to make their own medical decisions.

Some states are starting vaccinations in their nursing homes this week, but a broader nationwide effort will start in earnest on Monday as CVS and Walgreens employees begin to arrive at tens of thousands of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities to vaccinate staff and residents.

A CVS executive said such residents’ legal representatives will be able to provide consent to nursing homes electronically or over the phone, but officials at multiple large nursing home chains said they were not aware of that.

If residents or their representatives have not given consent before CVS or Walgreens employees show up, it is not clear whether or when they will have another chance to be inoculated.

There is no federal requirement for people to give consent before getting vaccinated, but it is standard practice and is often needed for billing purposes. States have different requirements about how medical consent can be given and what information needs to be provided to the person who is consenting. Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is that residents or their representatives should receive a fact sheet about the coronavirus vaccine and then consent to receiving it.

Executives from CVS and Walgreens said in interviews that they had been planning the vaccination campaign for months and were confident it would work. “If there are concerns or challenges, we certainly are open to work with facilities to try to minimize any disruption that they may have,” said Rick Gates, a Walgreens executive leading the company’s planning.

Categories
Business

Billionaire Invoice Gross is a Gilligan’s Island superfan and four different shocking details

Billionaire Bill Gross is a Gilligan's Island superfan and 4 other surprising facts

Bill Gross, co-founder of Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO), and girlfriend Amy Schwartz wear protective masks when they arrive at the State Court in Santa Ana, California, United States on Monday, December 7, 2020.

David Swanson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Billionaire investor Bill Gross has a special place in his heart for the theme song “Gilligan’s Island”. He is an avid dancer. He admits to being very jealous when it comes to his girlfriend. And he’s especially proud of his $ 1 million glass lawn sculpture.

These are some of the many unusual revelations from the legal battle that took place in a California courtroom between Gross and his neighbor, tech entrepreneur Mark Towfiq, in Laguna Beach. At the center of the hearings, which have dragged on for more than two weeks, are claims for harassment and injunctions. Gross says Towfiq is a “peeping Tom” filming Gross’ friend in her bikini. Towfiq said Gross was a “briefly merged billionaire” who played loud music late at night in retaliation for complaints about the glass lawn sculpture.

The final arguments ended yesterday, and Orange County Superior Court Judge Kimberly A. Knill is likely to rule on the legal issues on Wednesday. The legal aspects, however, have become a side effect alongside the more central drama of the case – a colorful portrait of the 76-year-old investment legend emerged from the turf wars and ego struggles of the two rich men.

Here are five of the most surprising revelations about Gross from witnesses, text messages, documents, and videos at the hearing.

Gilligan’s Island

He’s a super fan of Gilligan’s Island – especially the music. Towfiq complained that Gross blasted the Gilligan’s Island theme late at night on a loop over his outdoor sound system to harass Towfiq. Towfiq suggested that Gross choose the song because of its anger factor.

Gross said blasting Gilligan’s Island at any time of the day or night was the order of the day in both houses because it had a special meaning. It all started one day last summer when he was watching old episodes of the show on YouTube and discovered that the footage in the marina title sequence looked like it was taken from the exact location of his Newport Beach home.

“I could look at the television and look out the window, and there were the same palm trees from 55 years ago,” Gross testified. “I said ‘that’s amazing.’ “”

He showed his girlfriend Amy Schwartz, and the song quickly topped the charts in large households.

“We kept playing it and it just became something we did,” he explained. “We play it all the time.”

They also enjoy other theme songs that they play sometimes.

“In the course of time we have learned texts and we act together with hands and pointing. It’s like a little piece … we really like it.”

Also on his playlist: 50 Cent and Kenny Loggins, who played at Schwartz’s birthday party.

‘The jealous guy’

He’s the “jealous guy”. Gross’ girlfriend, or as he calls her “life partner”, is Amy Schwartz, the 51-year-old former tennis player and amateur golfer. Gross said Towfiq often filmed Amy next door, sometimes in her bikini.

Towfiq said he only filmed his neighbors to document the sculpture and its harassment.

“I’m a jealous guy,” said Gross. “She is very attractive. I am very jealous.”

He said the couple referred to Towfiq as a “peeping mark” because Gross assumed he had watched them so often.

“Sometimes Amy went out on the balcony and said, ‘I wonder if Mark is watching, he’s filming this.’ “”

Gross said Towfiq once filmed the couple returning from the beach, “with their hair wet and salt all over their bodies. It almost seemed like this was his full-time job.”

Happy to be standing

For Gross, happiness is complicated and fear is relative. At the beginning of his testimony, Gross was asked if he was “unhappy” when he learned that his sculpture could be removed for violating the Laguna Beach Code.

“At my age, happiness and sadness are not applicable in situations like this,” he said. “I’m just happy to be standing.”

He added: “I don’t judge my mood that way at the moment. I can’t say whether I’m happy or sad.”

Gross’ moods became a frequent topic of discussion. Towfiq said Gross’ previous owner Patrick Boyd Gross described him as “an angry billionaire with a short fuse”. Boyd, a former money manager at Gross’ former company PIMCO, offered Towfiq his “condolences” when he heard that Gross would be the new neighbor.

In a session that sounded more like a therapy session than a court testimony, Gross examined his feelings of anxiety and how they developed over the course of his life as he became more isolated from the world. He said he felt “very scared” when Towfiq was filming Gross in his gym shorts and reading decibel levels on their property line late at night.

“I was very scared,” said Gross. “It was malicious … this man took me in. He crouched behind my own wall.”

Gross then recalled fights in Vietnam and later in life that almost crashed on a plane.

“I saw bullets from Viet Cong and 15 years later on a plane that nearly crashed in North Carolina,” he said. “I’m not saying that this incident was something like that. But for the past five or ten years I have been more protected from anxious situations and have not really been used to them.”

Enthusiastic dancer

He’s a dance machine. Gross said he and Schwartz are enthusiastic dancers – and not just for the theme song “Gilligan’s Island”. When asked to specify what he said he was dancing on the balcony, Gross said, “Oh yeah. On the balcony, in the bedroom, up and down the lawn path entrance because it’s a good long area to get creative Inventing steps. Amy and I do this a lot. “

Gross said they would dance to Gilligan’s Island over and over again sometimes. “Only two or three – I mean, you can only dance until you’re ready for bed.”

Requires privacy

He needs protection from the public. While not exactly a celebrity outside of the investing world, Gross said he is often followed by the public, which is why he has to live behind so many gates and walls.

“We needed privacy,” he said when asked about his purchase of the Laguna Beach home.

“Amy has always emphasized that I am a public figure and that we just have to stand behind a goal.” His lawyer then mentions the risk of people coming off the beach, and Gross said “Millions of people couldn’t come to see where Gross lives”.

Categories
Business

Make-up With out the Markup – The New York Instances

Makeup Without the Markup - The New York Times

Some people are lucky enough to have a good idea in life that they then build into a successful business. Marcia Kilgore had five.

First, in 1996, she founded Bliss, a cult New York beauty center that grew into a lucrative line of beauty products that later became LVMH’s first North American acquisition for an estimated $ 30 million.

Then there was the affordable bath, body and cosmetic brand Soap & Glory, which became a staple of the UK bathroom and was sold to the Boots Alliance drugstore chain in 2014. Next came the FitFlop ergonomic shoe line; and then Soaper Duper, a vegan label for bath and body products.

But it’s her fifth company, Beauty Pie, that the 52-year-old serial entrepreneur thinks is her best idea yet.

“I’ve had some good ones in the past,” said Ms. Kilgore. “I’m proud of them all. But beauty pie? Beauty Pie darkens the rest. “

Headquartered in London, Beauty Pie started operations four years ago and is a shopping club for beauty addicts. Members pay a monthly membership fee for backdoor access to some of the world’s finest fragrance, skin care and cosmetic factories, many of which supply well-known luxury brands that charge sky-high multiples for products after the logo is stamped. With Beauty Pie, members receive regular deliveries of Japanese skin cleansers and South Korean serums, Italian lipsticks and perfumes from Grasse, France, all of which come in pink packaging.

The idea came to Ms. Kilgore one afternoon in a Milan train station when she was returning from a beauty region in Italy known as the Lipstick Valley. She had approximately $ 5,000 worth of free samples from local factories in a shoulder bag.

“I suddenly thought, ‘What if all the women who normally buy these products in Sephora or department stores could feel like I have right now?'” Recalled Ms. Kilgore. “That they got a lot by cutting out the middlemen. That they can access beauty at a real cost, which means they can afford and explore so much more in terms of great products. I knew there was a real power in making customers feel good, even if it would unbalance some noses in the industry. “

After all, what energized your company from the start is what makes customers feel good. Ms. Kilgore was born in Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1968. Her father died when she was eleven years old. Money was tight and after high school she moved to New York with $ 300.

For several years she worked as a personal trainer. After completing a course in aesthetics after recurrent acne bouts, Ms. Kilgore found a new niche: offering facials from her East Village apartment.

In 1996 she opened the Bliss Spa in SoHo. A Vogue article got lyrical about their rubs, scrubs, and wraps. Oprah Winfrey and Calvin Klein and Madonna became customers. The waiting lists for treatments like the Quadruple Thighpass and Double Oxygen Facial with Ms. Kilgore were up to 18 months long. (In 1997, Julia Roberts told people that even she sometimes found it difficult to get an appointment.)

A cheesy bestselling line followed, plus spas and a decade of 90-hour workweek for Ms. Kilgore and her team to have customers relax in the electrolysis room with King Kong videos and talk to them like old friends.

“Bliss stood out as a brand because it had a personality that was quirky, interesting, and different from everything else back then, just like Marcia herself,” said beauty entrepreneur Bobbi Brown.

“She was also a smart pioneer who opened a whole new lucrative sector of the health and beauty sector,” said Ms. Brown. “She’s never been someone afraid to take risks.”

With each of her ventures, Ms. Kilgore seems to be able to fill a moment in the beauty zeitgeist and then sell it, an industry that was once dominated by a handful of global giants. In recent years, however, there has been a proliferation of independent start-ups whose success has been driven by innovative products, social media know-how, and keen consumers.

Beauty Pie has come at a time when customers know more than ever how and where their products are made and are increasingly gaining transparency from retailers. Online subscriptions for toiletries, flowers and housewares are also enjoying increasing popularity, especially since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

An annual Beauty Pie membership costs $ 99 or starts at $ 10 per month. This includes lower prices for more than 300 products.

“At some point I thought I might need a bulletproof vest to ruffle the feathers of the old beauty guard with the fact that I couldn’t do it, that anyone could hate me,” said Ms. Kilgore from Geneva, where she lives with her husband and two Children together. With skin so radiant that it cuts through the fluff of the zoom screen, she is a seductive ambassador for her brand – including on social media, where she often gives tips and gets feedback on new releases.

“But then I thought about it again,” said Ms. Kilgore. “This is about democratizing luxury beauty. It’s about respecting the intelligence and needs of a customer that I know I understand. “

If she had given in to her fears, she said, “I would hate myself. When you’re almost too afraid to do something, there’s usually a reason. The reason for this is that it’s a really good idea. “

Some industry watchers have suggested that the volume of purchases must be up to hundreds of dollars for a Beauty Pie membership to make financial sense in terms of overall savings. Others have found that at a time when the sector is full of innovation and choice, not all beauty lovers want to set their beauty budgets in one place and that the different membership levels could be confusing for some buyers.

Ms. Kilgore said both memberships and revenue have increased significantly since March, despite refusing to provide figures for the company. However, she revealed that Beauty Pie had recently made a venture capital investment – the first time she had borrowed any of her businesses.

“For the first few years, I just put all incoming interests from investors in one folder,” said Ms. Kilgore. “But if you want to play in this arena and attract the best talent for your company, you have to have those resources.” She noted that the money raised by Index Ventures, Balderton Capital and General Catalyst would be used in part to improve Beauty Pie’s technology operations, marketing reach, and product lineup.

Index Ventures’ Danny Rimer said it took a long time to convince Ms. Kilgore that it was worth working with investors

“Marcia has built everything herself so far, but we knew we had to convince her,” said Rimer. “There’s nothing more important to an early or late stage investment – even with a great product – than the entrepreneur behind it. We need to be convinced that this person was brought to the planet to incorporate their vision into a company. “

Ms. Kilgore described herself as a “fierce workaholic,” though one whose normally relentless itinerary had been curtailed by this year’s lockdown. Lately, downtime has been associated with meditation apps, learning Mandarin and French, and hiking in the mountains near her home with a 45 pound vest. Maybe not most people’s idea of ​​relaxing, but she said she wouldn’t have it any other way.

After selling previous businesses like Bliss and Soap & Glory made her rich, Ms. Kilgore had considered stepping back from the roller coaster of start-up life.

Then, she said, she realized that “working on how to make people happy” makes her happy “from the days I did three part-time jobs to support my mother in high school, or when I was doing facials on a box in my apartment and then watched my clients float out the door. “

“It just gives me the greatest thrill,” she said. “And I’m not ready to give that up.”

Categories
Business

French President Emmanuel Macron checks optimistic for Covid

French President Emmanuel Macron tests positive for Covid

French President Emmanuel Macron, wearing a protective face mask, watches as he makes a statement alongside Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas after his meeting at the Elysee Palace on October 28, 2020 in Paris, France.

Chesnot | Getty Images News | Getty Images

French President Emmanuel Macron tested positive for Covid-19, his office announced on Thursday, prompting several other European officials to go into quarantine. It comes just days after France began easing restrictions on the pandemic.

The diagnosis was made “as soon as the first symptoms appeared,” Elysee Palace said in a brief statement that did not provide details of his symptoms. “In accordance with health directives that apply to everyone, the President of the Republic will isolate himself for 7 days.”

Macron, who turns 43 next week, will continue to work remotely, the statement added.

His 67-year-old wife, Brigitte, will also self-isolate, but she has not reported any Covid symptoms, her office said.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex (55), Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (48), Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa (59) and European Council President Charles Michel (44) said they were being quarantined because they were in the past Days of contact with Macron.

Sanchez, who had lunch with Macron on Monday, said he would cease all public activities until Christmas Eve.

Macron also met with Angel Gurria from the OECD this week. The French president hosted a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Covid curfew

France has registered more cases of the coronavirus than any other European nation, trailing only the US, India, Brazil and Russia for the highest number of infections in the world.

According to the Johns Hopkins University, more than 2.4 million people in France have been infected with Covid, including 59,472 deaths.

Champs-Elysees Avenue and the Arc de Triomphe can be seen after the Christmas lights were turned on on November 22, 2020 in Paris, France.

Xinhua News Agency | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images

Earlier this week, Macron relaxed a six-week ban on movement with a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. until mid-January, with the exception of Christmas Eve.

The public health measures stipulate that museums, theaters, cinemas, bars and restaurants must remain closed at least until January.

French ski resorts will also remain closed, but Macron said the hugely popular tourist attractions may reopen “on favorable terms” from next month.

Johnson from Great Britain wishes Macron a “speedy recovery”

Macron is one of several world leaders who tested positive for the coronavirus this year, including US President Donald Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Johnson, who was admitted to intensive care during his personal battle with Covid in April, said via Twitter that he was sorry to hear Macron tested positive for Covid and wished him a speedy recovery.

The UK’s post-Brexit transition period ends on December 31, and there is pressure on talks between the UK and the EU to reach a trade deal by then.

The EU and the UK Parliament have to ratify an agreement if there is an agreement.

One of the sticking points was fishing rights, with Macron pushing for guaranteed access to British fishing waters. The UK has now insisted that a new fisheries agreement must be based on the understanding that “British fishing grounds are primarily for British boats”.

Categories
Business

Auctioning Off a Useless Mall

Auctioning Off a Dead Mall

PHOENIX – The body parts are surprising, even if you expect them to, when they are the only things that are left behind.

When a mall is closed – its stores are closed due to a recession, new spending habits, or a deadly virus – the mannequins sometimes stay. They are stripped and dismembered, their severed legs leaning against bare walls and severed hands thrown into abandoned back rooms. The mall has become a “dead mall” that has been stripped of people and their products.

But not everything is gone; There are still things that are nailed down, like counters and display cases, or scattered, like the fake body parts.

Before a dead mall can be reborn – renovated as a senior housing or office complex as developers recently attempted – these remains must be removed. And because shopping malls are temples of consumption, these items are increasingly being sold to the highest bidder.

Although this is a relatively new phenomenon, public liquidation auctions of shopping malls are becoming more common. The coronavirus has gutted retail sales, but malls were already in trouble. In the United States, 25 percent of closed malls (of which there are 1,200) could close in the next five years.

Two weeks ago the auction began in Phoenix in the empty Metrocenter mall, which was closed in June and will continue weekly until January. Until then, the auctioneers expect around 1,000 lots.

So far, her catalog contained a collection of 37 fire extinguishers (available for $ 140); a neon Wetzel pretzel sign ($ 750); a large mall ($ 275); A security system with cages so large that they can only be called multi-human size ($ 325). Upcoming items include 25 food court tables; the plexiglass containers that were used to keep sweets in a candy store; the contents of an empty Victoria’s Secret; many nine mannequin torsos (six women, three men).

While the majority of buyers at these auctions are surplus buyers and may be more interested in things like lights and racks, EJs Auction and Appraisal, who cleans up the Metrocenter, estimates that about 30 percent are collectors.

“There is a very, very strong market for signage: everything that is neon and retro, but also the newer products have value in the collector’s market,” said Erik Hoyer, CEO of the company.

When the Metrocenter opened in 1973, it was Arizona’s largest mall, a symbol of new prosperity in a suburban desert. Inside, families were skating on an ice rink; Outside, teenagers cruised around the parking lot (and were inspired to cruising again as adults – “one last cruise!” – when they heard the Metrocenter was closing).

Mr. Hoyer, 55, was one of those teenagers “who would cause trouble and do what teenagers did,” he said. “And so we knew that some of the articles would pique the interest of people my age. There’s a lot of nostalgia there. “

Updated

Apr. 16, 2020, 7:32 am ET

But it’s not nostalgia for individual malls attracting national interest in these auctions: like Omaha this fall; in Knoxville, Tenn., last December; or in the suburbs of Detroit and Chicago in 2015. It’s nostalgia for malls themselves.

Large communities have formed online to discover and document dead shopping malls. Groups of people gather to discuss them on Reddit, YouTube, and Facebook, fascinated by the emptiness and decay. Most of these enthusiasts are old enough to remember having spent part of their youth in a busy mall (so at least 30 years old).

Now they realize that they can own parts of the corpse.

In late 2019, Paul Shore placed a bid for a wooden bookcase to be used in the offices of the Knoxville Center Mall in suburban Tennessee. He couldn’t examine the shelves closely, but the disorganized selection of content was part of the deal. He won the lot for $ 60.

Later, when sorting the cargo, Mr. Shore kept all of the Mall brand souvenirs, including a box of pink nail files and individually wrapped hand mirrors. He kept several stuffed cow ornaments from Chick-fil-A and a map that was used in the mall office to mark sound system zones. His best find, however, was a series of laminated marketing posters advertising potential tenants to the mall.

“They were kind of unique,” he said.

In addition to the bookshelf, Mr. Shore won several other auction items: a large metal sign pointing to JC Penney ($ 29) and a collection of 30 Mall-branded cloth bags ($ 52). After collecting the last of his winnings in May, Mr. Shore drove back to his Georgia home for more than three hours.

Mr Shore, 35, said he was “intrigued” by abandoned retail spaces, which include shopping malls but also large stores like Kmart. Acquiring their memorabilia is just a more tangible version of what he does on his RetailWorld YouTube channel: collecting new and old footage that he hopes will hold some malls memories. (His last video about the Knoxville Mall was over 16 minutes long.)

“I only think for myself and other people I know they want the same thing. We want to hold onto this piece of history and have a memento or memory of things in the past from their previous glory,” he said. “To collect something to remember a past time and place.”

His nostalgia is rooted in his Florida childhood when his parents took him to the mall every Friday, he said. Today he tries to shop in malls whenever he can. “I don’t want malls to go away,” said Mr. Shore.

In some corridors of Metrocenter, the recently disbanded shopping mall in Phoenix, floors are covered in plastic BBs from a recent airsoft game that resembles paintball (with no paint) and simulates military combat. At an auction preview last week, little white balls crunched underfoot.

Somewhere in the mall a radio was playing the “linger” of the cranberries, which echoed eerily from the walls and stretched as far as possible over 1.3 million square meters. While most Metrocenter stores were stripped of anything but lights and displays (and those mannequins), their back rooms look searched as if they were quickly vacated.

Documents were thrown on the floor or left forgotten on a desk. Here was someone’s résumé: a 2014 graduate whose skills included self-motivation and graphic design. There was a letter from the corporate commission informing a jewelry store that its organizational item had been approved.

“It can be a little creepy out there,” said Mr. Hoyer. He recently watched “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” which was partially filmed at the Metrocenter, to see if he could see any devices that were still there. He could not. The mall has had too many lives. And deaths.

Erik Pierson, 39, a dead Arizona mall enthusiast, attended the first auction preview and plans to visit more visitors even though he has not yet placed a bid. Most of the time, he enjoyed the experience of seeing the mall in its final, eerie form.

“I went there as a kid and obviously covered it pretty extensively on my YouTube channel,” he said. “But that was the first time I’ve been there since it was closed. And it was bizarre. It was kind of bittersweet because I love this mall. “

Some people remember the ice rink. Others remember the huge fountain that put on timed shows, spitting water up and down, as high as the second floor, before crashing onto tiles with loud splashes. The well was covered years ago.

The mall’s ongoing closure has inspired people to share memories like this one almost endlessly. Everyone has a story about Metrocenter (or put the name of a local mall here). But stories don’t keep malls alive.

“I think a lot of people just forgot,” said Pierson, who predicts that more property owners will turn to auctions as closings accelerate. “And now it’s gone.”

Categories
Business

Shares making the most important strikes after the bell: Roku, Amgen & extra

Stocks making the biggest moves after the bell: Roku, Amgen & more

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Check out the companies making headlines after Wednesday’s bell:

Herman Miller – The office furniture company’s shares rose 0.8% on a better-than-expected result. Herman Miller reported earnings per share of 89 cents, beating a FactSet estimate of 56 cents per share. The company’s sales also increased 7% over the previous year.

Roku-Roku shares rose more than 3% after the company announced it would be transporting HBO Max on its platform.

Amgen – Amgen rose 0.3% after the biotech company increased its quarterly dividend from $ 1.60 per share to $ 1.76 per share.

Categories
Business

10 States Accuse Google of Abusing Monopoly in On-line Adverts

10 States Accuse Google of Abusing Monopoly in Online Ads

Ten attorneys general on Wednesday accused Google of illegally abusing its monopoly over the technology used to display ads online, adding to the company’s legal troubles with a case at the heart of its business.

Prosecutors said Google was overloading publishers for the ads that were running on the internet, crowding out competitors trying to question the company’s dominance. They also said that Google had an agreement with Facebook to curtail the social network’s own efforts to compete with Google for advertising dollars. Google said the suit was “unfounded” and would fight the case.

“If the free market were a baseball game, Google would position itself as the pitcher, batsman, and referee,” Texas attorney general Ken Paxton said in a video on Twitter announcing plans for the suit.

The complaint filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas adds to the fierce bipartisan backlash against one of the largest tech companies in the country. Regulators in the US and Europe have focused on the oversized role Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google play in the modern economy, and everything from the way we shop to the information and entertainment that is available we see shaped.

In October, the Justice Department and eleven states said Google illegally maintained a monopoly over online search engines and the ads in user results. Another case against Google, filed by a separate group of states, is expected shortly. Last week, the Federal Trade Commission and more than 40 states accused Facebook of illegally suppressing competition by acquiring younger rivals, arguing that the company should be wound up. Apple and Amazon are also under federal antitrust investigations.

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, is the first by regulators in the US to focus on the tools that connect ad space buyers with publishers who sell them. Ads make up a large part of business profits. The Justice Department has its own antitrust investigation into advertising technology, said one person with knowledge of the investigation.

Prosecutors asked for fines and structural changes in the company, but did not add any details.

The prosecutors who signed the lawsuit are all Republicans and they are not expected to be part of the Justice Department’s proceedings against the company. The other states’ lawsuit against Google, which could be filed as early as Thursday, is expected to be signed by Republicans and Democrats and could be combined with the federal agency’s case.

Google’s own system of selling ads on the Internet was built over more than a decade. In 2007, Google bought DoubleClick, which offered advertising technology and acted as a marketplace, in a business that has since been criticized as central to Google’s dominance. Google now controls the software at every step of the ad sales process.

The company competes with a wide variety of competitors when it comes to offering advertising technology, and its services work alongside those of its competitors. In the past few years, companies like AT&T and Amazon have been trying to break into the online ad sales market.

“Attorney General Paxton’s ad-tech claims are unfounded, but he carried on despite all the facts,” said a Google spokeswoman, Julie McAlister. “We will defend ourselves emphatically against his unfounded claims in court.”

Publishers like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation have long claimed that Google’s dominance allows the company to make a bigger cut on every sale without adding to the cost of content creation. Google’s success contrasts sharply with shrinking newsrooms and the closure of many local newspapers. This year, Google announced that news publishers would receive more than $ 1 billion through a new licensing program over the next three years.

After attaining a monopoly, Google was able to pressure publishers for a high proportion of every ad sold on its platforms, according to prosecutors.

“The monopoly tax that Google imposes on American companies – advertisers such as clothing brands, restaurants and brokers – is a tax ultimately borne by American consumers through higher prices and lower quality of the goods, services and information provided by these companies,” they said in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit argues that Google used a variety of tactics to become the dominant player in online advertising, hurting publishers, competitors and consumers in the process.

Prosecutors said that after purchasing DoubleClick, Google “quickly began to leverage its new position”.

They said Google then tried to destroy a process developed by publishers to create more competition in the online ad market. Under this system, publishers could sell ad space on more online marketplaces at the same time, making them less dependent on Google’s ad technology.

The states said Google maintained its dominance in part through an agreement with Facebook to limit the social network’s involvement in the process. In return, Google gave Facebook an advantage in other ad auctions it ran, the prosecutor said.

“Companies’ efforts to avoid competition have been successful,” they said in the lawsuit. Facebook, which did not immediately post a comment, is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Ms. McAlister, the Google spokeswoman, said the allegations regarding Facebook were inaccurate. A Facebook representative declined to comment.

With the data behind many of the most popular services on the Internet, the two companies sit together on a treasure trove of data about what people are interested in, where they are going, and who they are interacting with. This information will help advertisers reach the right audience for marketing. Both companies also sell ads for their own websites.

According to research firm eMarketer, the two companies accounted for around 54 percent of digital advertising in the US in 2019. Google’s share was around 31 percent and Facebook’s 23 percent.

The publicly released version of the complaint is heavily edited and obscures important evidence that prosecutors cite to represent their case. However, the document refers to internal documents from Google and Facebook. In several places it is said that Google codenamed projects that were inspired by the Star Wars series, but the names themselves are black on the page.

The complaint widens the focus of lawsuits on Google’s business, said Charlotte Slaiman, director of competition policy at Public Knowledge, an advocacy group that has campaigned for more regulation for Google.

“The strong market position that Google has in search has also helped them build that strong market position in advertising technology and that is part of that complaint,” said Ms. Slaiman. “It’s also an indication of how broad the competitive challenges are in big tech.

Mr Paxton led the investigation into Google despite allegations of abusing the power of his office. Seven of Mr. Paxton’s lawyers said this year that he had done a favor and bribed a friend and donor. The employees have since left Mr. Paxton’s office or have been on leave or dismissed immediately.

Mr. Paxton was also charged with securities fraud in 2015. He has denied these allegations, as well as recent allegations made by his own employees.

He’s also a prominent ally of President Trump, leading some critics to view his investigation into Google as part of a larger conservative campaign against the tech giants.

But Ms. Slaiman said she believed that there would ultimately be bipartisan support for the concerns raised in the lawsuit.

She hoped Washington lawmakers could respond to the concerns by passing laws to contain businesses, rather than leaving the task entirely to prosecutors.

“It is really important that antitrust law is enforced,” she said, “but much more is needed.

Maurice Stucke, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and co-author of “Competition Overdose,” said the online advertising industry is a place for regulators to look and noted that it is also attracting the attention of regulators in Australia has drawn France and Britain.

“In no other market is there a unit that represents most buyers, most sellers, and controls the leading exchange,” he said. “You can create a system that looks tough and competitive on the surface, but really isn’t.”

The allegations of collusion with Facebook were noticed, Stucke said, because such examples of anti-competitive behavior are usually viewed as the linchpin of strong antitrust proceedings – the kind of evidence that should interest more states and even the Justice Department.

Cecilia Kang contributed to the coverage.

Categories
Business

Adidas will preserve opening new shops regardless of Covid e-commerce surge: CEO

Adidas will keep opening new stores despite Covid e-commerce surge: CEO

Kasper Rorsted, CEO of Adidas, told CNBC that the German sportswear company will continue to invest in brick and mortar stores despite the boom in e-commerce sales during the coronavirus pandemic.

“There is no doubt that online business has accelerated in two to three years in the future … but I think if you ask most people, going out and shopping is a great social element and the products are easy to see and feel again, “Rorsted said in an interview that aired on Closing Bell on Wednesday.

“So we’re going to keep building stores. We’ll announce that in March next year, where we’re going to build and create a great store experience,” he added.

Adidas posted a 51% increase in online sales in the third quarter compared to the same period last year. This followed a 93% increase in the second quarter, despite total sales decreasing 34% on a currency-neutral basis. For the year, Adidas plans online sales of more than 4 billion euros (4.9 billion US dollars), said Rorsted, a significant improvement from around 1 billion euros about four years ago.

Rorsted, Adidas CEO since 2016, said the company’s growing e-commerce strength will affect the in-store shopping experience going forward. “We believe the stores are still here, but much closer to the online experience,” he said. “I think most people are really bored of sitting at home,” added Rorsted.

Adidas announced earlier this week that it has initiated a “strategic alternative evaluation” process for Reebok, including a potential sale of the brand, which it acquired in 2006. Rorsted told CNBC that the pandemic was “not at all” the reason Adidas decided to rethink its approach with Reebok. Rather, he claimed that the health crisis had actually improved the underlying fundamentals of the sporting goods industry, as more and more people wear casual clothing while working from home and taking up outdoor recreational activities.

“I think there will still be a long way to go before people want to get back into suits and brown shoes. This trend continued. There is no doubt that the pandemic really accelerated this,” said Rorsted. “Working from home and having a much more casual lifestyle is a big part of a lot of the clothes we have,” he added.

Categories
Business

How Efficient Is the Masks You’re Carrying? You Might Know Quickly

How Effective Is the Mask You’re Wearing? You May Know Soon

There are currently more than 100,000 different face masks for sale. They come in silk, cotton, and synthetics; with and without filter; over the head and over the ears. They have sparkles and sunflowers; friendly greetings and insults; Cartoon characters and teeny reindeer.

What they don’t have is a label that shows how well they block infectious particles, an omission that has frustrated public health officials during the coronavirus pandemic. These experts find that the effectiveness of different designs varies widely and some particles barely filter out.

“The most basic and basic question is, what is the safest mask and how can I make sure I have it and my family members and children have it?” said Fran Phillips, who resigned from her post as Assistant Secretary of Health of Maryland in August. “It’s so amazing that we’re here right now and don’t have that information.”

This could change soon. A division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working to develop minimum standards of filter efficiency and labels showing which products meet them for the vast and confusing market for masks and other face coverings.

The National Institute for Safety and Health at Work, a division of the CDC known as NIOSH, tacitly published guidelines drafted next month with an industry standard organization, ASTM International (formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials).

“When you have a standard, you can know what level of protection is being achieved and you can consistently evaluate these products,” said Maryann D’Alessandro, director of the NIOSH National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been hardly any nationwide supervision of masks and other face coverings. Both the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC have some authority over the industry. The FDA, which regulates medical devices, shares authority with NIOSH for monitoring N95 respirators, which are most protective devices on the market. However, most of the masks worn by the public are just pieces of cloth and are not subject to any government oversight.

Sales of masks spiked after the FDA issued an emergency measure in April – when healthcare facilities struggled to secure enough protective gear – that in part said the agency would not take action against companies that sell them to the general public . At the same time, however, the FDA also stated that these products “may or may not meet the liquid barrier or filtration efficiency”. That warning did no harm to the market, and some critics now blame the FDA for the poor quality of many products sold.

“There were many things the FDA could have done to improve the situation, especially after research was released into which masks worked and which didn’t,” said Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research, a nonprofit health policy group. “The FDA could have issued instructions that masks should be attached, at least two layers of fabric, not made of stretchable materials, etc. Instead, there was one free for all.”

The effectiveness of masks “can be between 0 and 80 percent depending on the material composition, number of layers and layer bonding,” said Dale Pfriem, president of Protective Equipment Consulting Services and member of the working group for the development of standards dealing with mask guidelines.

The gold standard for masks is the N95, which is tight and can filter out at least 95 percent of very small particles. But N95 masks are generally reserved for naturopaths and have been in short supply since the outbreak began. Hospitals desperate for more N95 have been driven to a booming black market to keep them secure.

To make up for the shortage, the FDA approved the sale of the KN95, the Chinese equivalent of the American N95, last spring. However, the agency soon discovered fraudulent and counterfeit products and narrowed the range of allowable KN95 imports. Nevertheless, the agency admits that there is still widespread fraud and that countless companies label masks that do not meet FDA standards with “KN95”.

Updated

Apr. 16, 2020, 4:13 pm ET

One step below the N95 in terms of protection are FDA approved surgical masks that must meet certain government standards. The surgical mask style is often copied by companies that sell imitations that do not offer the same level of protection.

And then there’s the Wild West: Millions of masks made of every possible fabric, from individual layers up, as well as headscarves and gaiters, closed loops of fabric that can be worn around the neck and extend over the lower part of the face.

Almost any mask is better than no mask, say public health experts. The CDC has updated its guidelines on masks several times to find that a tightly woven, multi-layered fabric provides better protection than a single-layer or loose-knit mask – both for the wearer and for those who come in with the wearer Contact. However, the agency’s website does not provide clarity on whether masks with filters provide better protection than those without filters, and how synthetic fabrics compare to cotton or other materials.

“There was a critical need for some sort of national program to test and certify masks and communicate with people about how they are used and cared for,” said Linsey Marr, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech and lead expert for viruses in the air.

A working group of federal and industry representatives has proposed high and low filtration requirements that manufacturers and distributors can adopt and list on their labels. The lower standard is a 20 percent filtration barrier and the higher is 50 percent.

These numbers are more protective than they sound. Filtration Efficiency Percentages are based on a product’s efficiency in filtering 0.3 micron particles, which are the most commonly used particulate matter standard for NIOSH testing.

“A 20 percent efficiency at 0.3 micrometers would mean 50 percent efficiency for 1 to 2 micrometers particles and 80 percent efficiency for blocking particles 4 to 5 micrometers or larger in size,” said Dr. Marr. “I think it will be useful.”

According to Dr. Marr, the coronavirus itself is 0.1 micrometers in size, but is transported in aerosols, which can range in size from around 0.5 micrometers upwards.

Jeffrey Stull, a member who helps write the standards, said the group would also rate masks and face covers for “breathability”. The standard project has been a long way.

“It was a very difficult process,” said Stull, president of International Personnel Protection Inc. “We have been trying to find that consensus on what the level of performance should be. We were initially talking about higher levels and they said,” No. “80 percent of the industry can’t stick to it – it won’t do anyone any good.” So we had to compensate. “

Manufacturers who want to ensure that they meet the ASTM standard must first have their products tested by an accredited laboratory. They should also be able to demonstrate that their masks provide adequate adaptation to the general population. Those who comply with the standards can then determine that they meet the ASTM standard for the product or packaging. However, there is no enforcement mechanism.

Daniel Carpenter, Professor of Government at Harvard, described the work of NIOSH in the development of the standard “Regulatory Entrepreneurship”.

It says, ‘Let’s use the tools we have, even if we don’t have formal regulatory tools, “Carpenter said.” It’s an alternative way of regulating. It can have a pretty important regulatory effect because if it does If you do not comply with the standards, you will not receive a seal of approval.

Mr. Pfriem hopes that the standards will prevail. “What we have here is a really good standard,” he said. “Manufacturers will have something to design their products and incorporate into their marketing materials and packaging, and consumers will have a sense of confidence.”

He added, “I can tell you that a lot of what is marketed on eBay and other websites and manufactured, for example, in your neighbor’s garage, cannot meet this standard.”