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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/business/ice-cream-premium-competition.html

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Credit... Photo illustration by Amy Lombard for The New York Times

The Great Read

Small scoop shops fueled the innovation that made frozen treats a hot market. What happens to indie favorites in the golden age of the freezer aisle?

Credit... Photo illustration by Amy Lombard for The New York Times

Put the ice cream near the cash registers.

That is traditional grocery store wisdom, mainly so the product won't melt in the cart as it winds through the aisles.

For shoppers worn down by the journey through a hangar-size Whole Foods, it's also a reward: an ultradecadent bounty in an ever-multiplying variety of daring and imaginative flavors.

It has never been a better time to eat ice cream or a more cutthroat time to try to sell it.

Fueled by pandemic trends of "at-home comfort" and "anytime eating," the $7 billion industry grew 17 percent in 2020, after roughly 2.4 percent annual growth over the previous decade, said Jennifer Mapes-Christ of the market research firm Packaged Facts. Artisan ice cream - a "squishy" term, she said, that usually refers to product with less air and more fat but "mostly just means 'fancy'" - is growing even faster than mainstream ice cream and is considered the industry's future.

Small, indie producers like Jennifer Dundas, the co-founder of Blue Marble in Brooklyn, have driven the innovation in the past decade. Ms. Dundas has been in the field for 14 years, but I've known her even longer - we grew up in the same Boston suburb - and through her have seen how ruthless selling organic banana cream pie ice cream in biodegradable bowls can be.

The spoils of success - tens of millions of dollars in incubation deals, plus the potential for hundreds of millions more if a label is bought by a giant like Unilever - have heightened competition in the $10-a-pint world. Now the business of gourmet ice cream is go big or melt.

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Blue Marble, which Jennifer Dundas co-founded in Brooklyn, expanded with this ice cream shop on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Credit... Cole Wilson for The New York Times

"Everyone's like: 'I'm going to be the next Talenti. I'm going to be the next Halo Top.' But it's one in 1,000, right?" said Crista Freeman, an industry veteran.

Even before Covid-19, the industry had been pinning its hopes on "adult" ice cream, a relatively new category known for subdued sugar and noble flavors such as Earl Grey tea.

"People are increasingly seeing sugar as the bad element, and fat they're less worried about," Ms. Mapes-Christ said.

For Ms. Dundas, who opened her first scoop shop back when an after-dinner ice cream run usually meant a plunge into a bodega freezer or a trip to a dreary chain, the artisan ice cream boom has been the vindication of a vision. But it has not yielded riches. On the contrary, it has triggered thoughts of exiting the business, as it has for other artisan producers.

"Nobody is profitable," Ms. Freeman said. "It's just a game. You have to constantly raise money to compete."

Last winter, after watching several rivals go the private equity route and others quietly fold, Ms. Dundas decided on a middle path. Using the brand's own money, Blue Marble would add a single shop on Manhattan's Upper West Side in time for what Ms. Dundas hoped would be the city's pandemic reawakening. The plan was something of a gamble: a modest expansion while remaining true to Blue Marble's indie roots and hopefully sidestepping the financial risks and loss of control that come with outside funding.

"I just want to stay in the game," Ms. Dundas told me then.

Credit... Cole Wilson for The New York Times

When Blue Marble opened in 2008, it turned its back on Manhattan. Brooklyn was where the energy was, and the passion behind the growing farm-to-table movement. It was also a cheaper place to operate a business. The first Blue Marble debuted on Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill, and expansion soon followed with a pair of shops in Prospect Heights.

Now Ms. Dundas is part of the ice cream old guard. I remember watching her open her shop on Atlantic with puzzlement, knowing that she had essentially no business experience (a not uncommon origin story in the ice cream industry, it turned out).

Moreover, the move was confusing because Ms. Dundas already had a career, one I had watched her develop since she was 9.

Starting in the 1980s, Ms. Dundas began appearing on Broadway and in Hollywood as a child actor. She specialized in playing daughters: Robert Redford's in "Legal Eagles"; Beau Bridges's in "The Hotel New Hampshire"; Diane Keaton's twice, in "Mrs. Soffel" and "The First Wives Club." After hitting adolescence, Ms. Dundas broadened her repertoire but began finding herself pigeonholed. She received acclaim in a starring role opposite Billy Crudup in 1995's "Arcadia" at Lincoln Center and won an Obie Award in 1997 for the play "Good as New." She was having to hustle harder and harder for the roles.

And then in 2008 she appeared at the Roundabout Theater in "Crimes of the Heart," co-starring with Sarah Paulson and Lily Rabe. The play began at the Williamstown Theater Festival in the Berkshires, where, Ms. Paulson said she remembered, there'd be "Jennie sitting at her computer late at night hatching Blue Marble."

Ms. Dundas would take samples to the dressing room, including "the best strawberry I ever tasted," Ms. Paulson said.

After moving to Broadway, the play was a critical success, "but Lily and I, who are both like 8 feet tall and had long blond hair, received more glowing mentions," Ms. Paulson said. Ms. Dundas calls herself "petite even for an actor," and after a reviewer compared her to a squirrel, she said: "Forget it, I'm done. I'm going to focus on ice cream."

Billy Crudup, who once co-starred with Ms. Dundas at Lincoln Center, is an investor in Blue Marble. Credit... Cole Wilson for The New York Times

Ms. Dundas founded Blue Marble with Alexis Gallivan, a nonprofit specialist who had been working in international development. Ms. Gallivan had never run a business, either, but it didn't matter. The timing for an ice cream shop in Brooklyn was right.

At the time, the upstarts of the borough's anti-industrial food revolution were looking for any category they could disrupt through local ingredients or handmade production. Brooklynified beer, chocolate and pizza were gathering hype as well as space on store shelves. Yet frozen dessert remained a maltodextrin wasteland.

"We were like, 'Why is there no great artisan ice cream in New York City?'" Ms. Dundas said.

Ms. Gallivan said there was a "eureka moment" when the women started craving the kind of ice cream that existed in Boston, "where there's this amazing ice cream tradition." In New York, "there was like Tasti D-Lite and Baskin-Robbins - nothing worth the calories, as my mom would say."

Blue Marble's overarching concept, like that of so many Brooklyn brands, was lofty and vaguely European, featuring "elemental" flavors sourced from upstate farms with unimpeachable organic pedigrees and no candy or breakfast cereal. If the flavorings leaned pious rather than juvenile, crass marketing it was not: Ms. Gallivan, leveraging her expertise in international aid, set up ambitious satellite projects in Haiti and Rwanda, the latter of which continues 10 years on.

And the ice cream was good.

"It's in the chew," said Thomas Bucci Jr., a fourth-generation ice cream maker whose Rhode Island factory "co-packs" pints for Blue Marble and other brands. Good ice cream, he said, "has a certain bite, as opposed to the big guys, where it's just air - it doesn't even melt."

To get that texture, Mr. Bucci said, "you can spend $20-30,000 a week on milk and cream alone." He added - emphatically - that there were no shortcuts.

Compromises beckoned, however, as Blue Marble began racking up successes in its early years, including partnerships with JetBlue and Facebook.

"It's really hard in a place like New York to not start compromising, because things are expensive and they eat into your margins," Ms. Gallivan said. Blue Marble refused to cut corners, she said, in the belief that "ultimately quality ingredients and the best ice cream will prevail."

The freezer shelves at Whole Foods tell the story of artisan ice cream's success, with multiplying labels and their recondite flavors jostling for space. Many pints trace their origins to Brooklyn circa 2010, when a scrum of contenders for the mantle of the borough's most authentic ice cream materialized, from Ample Hills and MilkMade to Phin & Phebes and Van Leeuwen. Even Steve's, an iconic Boston label, tried to reposition itself as a Brooklyn brand.

"If the competition at the beginning was what it was four years later, we never would have started," Ms. Dundas said.

The producers strove to promote community and craft above profit, but beneath the it's-all-good vibes the emerging market echoed the competition of global ice cream, a trade dominated by Nestlé and Unilever. Over the previous two decades, the dueling behemoths, one Swiss and one Anglo-Dutch, had gone on acquisition tears, buying up mainstream brands like Häagen-Dazs (Nestlé), Ben & Jerry's (Unilever), Dreyer's (Nestle) and Klondike (Unilever).

"They tried to wipe everybody else out" and divide the market between them, Leo Glynn, one of the industry's most sought-after consultants, explained early this spring, as Blue Marble was planning an expansion. (Mr. Glynn passed away in April.) But it didn't work. "They became so profit-motivated, it gave all these small artisanal guys an opportunity," he said.

Soon, not just in Brooklyn but around the country, true believers in the glory of America's favorite dessert thrived by offering alternatives to ice cream made with chemical stabilizers.

"Most regions have their equivalent of Blue Marble," Ms. Mapes-Christ of Packaged Facts said, citing her own favorite, Mitchell's Homemade in Cleveland.

It didn't take long for Nestlé and Unilever to notice. "The truth of the matter is that you have two world giants that will spend a fortune to protect what they have," Mr. Glynn said. In 2014, Unilever bought Talenti, a former Dallas gelateria whose product had been meticulously reconstructed into an irresistible addition to the multinational corporation's massive portfolio of packaged foods. Now the brand's screw-top clear containers are available at Walmart.

The deal signaled the mainstreaming of artisanal ice cream and ignited a frenzy to create the next blockbuster.

Last year, industry darling Van Leeuwen received $18.7 million in investment from San Francisco private equity firm Nextworld Evergreen. It has opened 17 scoop shops in New York and 27 nationwide.

Scooping ice cream from a shop is one thing. Becoming an acquisition target and working out distribution are another. Credit... Cole Wilson for The New York Times

Crista Freeman saw few investors interested in ice cream when she opened Phin & Phebes in 2010, but after the Talenti sale, "that changed dramatically." Suddenly, she said, "angel investors" were everywhere, offering large investments to incubate the transition from small store into juicy acquisition target. Few owners could resist.

"People are like, 'I'm going to be the next Ben & Jerry's because I listened to whatever that podcast is,'" Ms. Freeman said.

Going down the acquisition path meant a frantic scramble for exposure as well as access to freezer shelves, an expensive enterprise that, people say, can be more about connections than how good the ice cream is.

"The difficulty is the distribution," said Mr. Glynn, who co-founded one of metropolitan New York's largest ice cream trucking networks.

The industry shifted from multiple distribution channels to a "warehouse-driven model" dominated by packaged food corporations, he said. As a result, he added, "artisanal brands have to go to retailers and pay an enormous amount of slotting" - industry speak for fees to get placement on store shelves, which can run as high as $40,000 per flavor.

"This category is ruthless," said Ms. Freeman, who said she planned to write a memoir called "I Screamed." "You have to constantly raise money to avoid burn." In 2018, she exited the industry quietly but on her own terms after giving up on a national retail strategy.

Others have gone out less decorously, the most talked-about being Ample Hills, whose nonadult flavors (Ooey Gooey, Snap Mallow Pop!, The Munchies) attracted the patronage of Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities. Ample Hills had seemed to be on its way to achieving the dream: shops around the country, a partnership with Disney, a factory in Brooklyn.

Within the industry, it is now considered "an extreme example of what not to do," said Mr. Bucci, the Rhode Island co-packer.

After an injection of a reported $19 million in venture capital, Ample Hills went on a breakneck expansion while taking the same approach to financial discipline as its ice cream stylings.

"Too much money and a lack of business expertise," Mr. Bucci said when I asked him what had gone wrong. "It's disheartening," he added. "The waste blows your mind."

Quoted in an article that dissected the collapse for Medium 's Marker publication this year, an Ample Hills co-founder, Brian Smith, called the business "a runaway train of raising and raising and growth and growth."

Given the ice cream's popularity, the flameout was startling but hardly surprising to its peers. "So many brands crash and burn," Ms. Dundas said. "It's a little spooky, because sometimes everything looks great until poof - they're gone."

Other artisan ice cream makers loaded with capital that have gone belly up in recent years include Three Twins, a premium organic brand with wide distribution in the Bay Area, and Trickling Springs Creamery, a Pennsylvania organic dairy provider run by Mennonites whose majority owner pleaded guilty last year to a $60 million fraud scheme.

Credit... Cole Wilson for The New York Times

Credit... Cole Wilson for The New York Times

As premium ice cream markets go, the Upper West Side is a target-rich environment, popular with young families as well as older New Yorkers who fill the benches on Broadway's medians during the 20-week ice cream season. (Both groups are key demographics for the industry.)

Rents are high, but Ms. Dundas, who lives in the neighborhood, found them to be lower than they were before the pandemic, which was how she was able to move into a corner store with expansive sightlines, high ceilings and proximity to a busy subway station.

The previous occupant, a popular cafe, had gone out of business during the pandemic. Its rent was $15,000 a month, which Ms. Dundas managed to reduce significantly. ("I'll just say I negotiated on that," she said, declining to name a figure.)

The expansion from Brooklyn was long in the making. For years, Ms. Dundas and Ms. Gallivan had debated whether to beef up their retail presence, occasionally taking investment offers to the brand's ownership, which consists of a small group of family and friends, as well as Slow Money NYC, a national nonprofit that describes itself as "catalyzing investment in sustainable food and farms."

"Investors have urged us to grow," Ms. Gallivan said. "It's tempting because they're dangling all this money and saying, 'We're going to get you in supermarkets across the United States.'"

She was skeptical. "We've seen a lot of people fall in that trap," she said. "They grow way too quickly, get overextended and ultimately collapse."

Ms. Dundas, however, would be open to being acquired in a "heartbeat!" she exclaimed. "I've been working since I was 9. I'm ready to retire."

Her experience as an actor gave her pause, however. "Maybe I'm paranoid, but I always think something could get canceled at the last second," she said. Like most actors, Ms. Dundas had been humbled by the endless hustle and disappointment of auditions, the flopping of can't-miss hits, seeing other actors go bust.

"My philosophy is, keep your pants on," she added.

In fact, after a hiatus while she started Blue Marble, Ms. Dundas's acting career had resumed. In 2017, Steven Spielberg cast her as Katharine Graham's assistant in "The Post," and a year later she played the prosecutor Mary Jo White in Hulu's "The Looming Tower." Neither role placed her atop the credits. They kept her in the game, however.

"Anyone who sustains any kind of career in the professional acting business is a legend," said Mr. Crudup, who after co-starring with Ms. Dundas in "Arcadia" put seed money into Blue Marble and remains involved. "But for Jennie to start out as a child actor and find a voice as an adult is remarkable."

"I am so not in Kansas anymore," Ms. Dundas said after Blue Marble's arrival on the Upper West Side in March. Credit... Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

Ten days after the Upper West Side store opened in March, Ms. Dundas called. "I am so not in Kansas anymore," she said. "Manhattan is not Brooklyn."

The first week and a half had been unexpectedly bumpy. A windstorm had torn down the awning. The chief operating officer, after eight years on the job, had announced her departure. And then there were the shoplifters.

Like Blue Marble's other branches, the Upper West Side location offered a small, curated selection of nonedible merchandise, like hand-sewn pillows made with certified organic fabric and "We the People" masks from Resistance by Design.

"Somebody shoplifted a sweater yesterday," Ms. Dundas said with a sigh, "and wore it into the smoke shop next door this morning. My friend made it, and there are only five, four of which are still in the store. So I went to the police station, and they said, 'Is this your first business in New York?'"

In the days since, for the first time in her 14 years as a shopkeeper, Ms. Dundas had installed cameras and hired a security guard. "We had shoplifting in Brooklyn," she said, "but never like this."

In Manhattan, she said, she found that city inspectors were more vigilant. Customers were more engaged, whether emailing to demand a summer job for a child or dictating a reset of the store's feng shui.

"It makes me feel like Brooklyn is a Podunk town," Ms. Dundas said.

But the numbers were fantastic, she said. So good that despite the national labor shortage and a still-depleted population on the Upper West Side - "I'll know the pandemic is over when I can't get a parking space whenever I want," Ms. Dundas said - a month after opening, Blue Marble signed a lease for a second Upper West Side scoop shop.

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The Great Read Small scoop shops fueled the innovation that made frozen treats a hot market. What happens to indie favorites in the golden age of the freezer aisle? Credit... Photo illustration by Amy Lombard for The New York Times Put the ice cream near the cash registers.

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Putt - India’s DNA COVID vaccine is a world first

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Putt - India’s DNA COVID vaccine is a world first

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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02385-x

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India has approved a new COVID vaccine that uses circular strands of DNA to prime the immune system against the virus SARS-CoV-2. Researchers have welcomed news of the first DNA vaccine for people to receive approval anywhere in the world, and say many other DNA vaccines may soon be hot on its heels.

ZyCoV-D, which is administered into the skin without an injection, has been found to be 67% protective against symptomatic COVID-19 in clinical trials, and will likely start to be administered in India this month. Although the efficacy is not particularly high compared to that of many other COVID-19 vaccines, the fact that it is a DNA vaccine is significant, say researchers.

It is proof of the principle that DNA vaccines work and can help in controlling the pandemic, says Peter Richmond, a paediatric immunologist at the University of Western Australia in Perth. "This is a really important step forward in the fight to defeat COVID-19 globally, because it demonstrates that we have another class of vaccines that we can use."

Close to a dozen DNA vaccines against COVID-19 are in clinical trials globally, and at least as many again are in earlier stages of development. DNA vaccines are also being developed for many other diseases.

"If DNA vaccines prove to be successful, this is really the future of vaccinology" because they are easy to manufacture, says Shahid Jameel, a virologist at Ashoka University in Sonipat, India.

Fast-tracked development

The urgency of combating COVID-19 has fast-tracked the development of vaccines that use genetic technology, such as messenger RNA and DNA vaccines, says David Weiner, director of the Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

RNA vaccines were quicker to show strong immune responses in clinical trials; they have now been delivered to hundreds of millions of people around the world. But DNA vaccines have a number of benefits, because they are easy to produce and the finished products are more stable than mRNA vaccines, which typically require storage at very low temperatures.

ZyCoV-D was developed by Indian pharmaceutical firm Zydus Cadila, headquartered in Ahmedabad. On 20 August, India's drug regulator authorized the vaccine for people aged 12 and older. The efficacy figure of 67% came from trials involving more than 28,000 participants, which saw 21 symptomatic cases of COVID-19 in the vaccinated group and 60 among people who received a placebo.

ZyCoV-D contains circular strands of DNA known as plasmids, which encode the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, together with a promoter sequence for turning the gene on. Once the plasmids enter the nuclei of cells, they are converted into mRNA, which travels to the main body of the cell, the cytoplasm, and is translated into the spike protein itself. The body's immune system then mounts a response against the protein, and produces tailored immune cells that can clear future infections. Plasmids typically degrade within weeks to months, but the immunity remains.

Both DNA and mRNA vaccines have been under development since the 1990s, says Weiner. The challenge for DNA vaccines is that they need to make it all the way to the cell nucleus, unlike mRNA vaccines, which just need to get to the cytoplasm, says Jameel. So, for a long time, DNA vaccines struggled to induce potent immune responses in clinical trials, which is why they had been approved for use as vaccines only in animals, such as horses, until now.

Injection-free vaccine

To solve this problem, ZyCoV-D is deposited under the skin, as opposed to deep in muscle tissue. The area under the skin is rich in immune cells that gobble up foreign objects, such as vaccine particles, and process them. "This helps capture the DNA far more efficiently than in the muscle," Jameel says. Unusually, the vaccine is delivered using a needle-free device pressed against the skin, which creates a fine, high-pressure stream of fluid that punctures the surface and is less painful than an injection.

But despite being more potent than previous DNA vaccines, ZyCoV-D requires a minimum of three doses to achieve its initial efficacy. This is likely to add to the logistical challenge of administering the vaccine during the current pandemic, says Jameel.

Although ZyCoV-D's efficacy seems to be lower than the 90% or higher achieved by some mRNA vaccines, the figures are not comparable, says Jameel. The ZyCoV-D trials in India earlier this year were conducted while the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 was the dominant variant in circulation, whereas earlier mRNA vaccine trials were conducted when less transmissible variants were circulating. "The efficacy is essentially against the Delta variant, so that is pretty good," he says.

Some researchers have criticized a lack of transparency in the approval process, because no late-stage trial results have yet been published. Zydus Cadila says the trial is still under way and it will submit the full analysis for publication shortly. The company says the first doses will start to be administered in India in September and it plans to produce up to 50 million doses by early next year.

Vaccine pipeline

Several other DNA vaccines are being developed against COVID-19, using a variety of antigens and delivery mechanisms (see 'DNA vaccines in clinical trials'). Two have entered late-stage trials: one by Japanese company AnGes, based in Osaka; the other, which Weiner helped to develop, by Inovio Pharmaceuticals in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. Inovio is injected under the skin and uses a device that hits the skin with short electric pulses to form pores in the cells that the vaccine can slip through.

More than half a dozen DNA vaccines for COVID-19 are in early-stage trials, including one by the South Korean biotech company GeneOne Life Science in Seoul, and another that Richmond is involved in, developed by the Thai firm BioNet in Bangkok. This vaccine is undergoing a phase I trial in Australia.

But Richmond expects many more DNA vaccines to emerge, targeting diseases for which there are currently no vaccines - from cytomegalovirus, which can be passed on to babies during pregnancy, to respiratory syncytial virus. DNA vaccines are also being trialled or developed for influenza, human papillomavirus, HIV and Zika.

DNA vaccines can store lots of information, which means they can encode large, complex proteins or even multiple proteins. Weiner says that gives them promise as anti-cancer vaccines, a possibility he is exploring in his own research.

"It's a very exciting time for genetic technologies. They have finally gotten a chance to show what they can do," he says.

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India's DNA COVID vaccine is a world first - more are coming

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The ZyCoV-D vaccine heralds a wave of DNA vaccines for various diseases that are undergoing clinical trials around the world. The ZyCoV-D vaccine heralds a wave of DNA vaccines for various diseases that are undergoing clinical trials around the world.

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https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/02/business/audi-grandsphere-concept/index.html

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the audi grandsphere concept is the company's vision of a self-driving luxury future - cnn

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The Audi Grandsphere concept is the company's vision of a self-driving luxury future

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The Audi Grandsphere, revealed Wednesday, is the German automaker's idea of what self-driving luxury car could be, with controls that fold away and lounge-style seats in the front.

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https://www.sportingnews.com/au/football/news/cristiano-ronaldo-secures-iconic-shirt-number-at-man-utd/1chqzg6af2vdl1qek7pafwucaw

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Manchester United have revealed that Cristiano Ronaldo will don his favourite No. 7 shirt for the 2021-22 Premier League season.

Ronaldo's blockbuster return to Old Trafford from Juventus was one of the biggest stories of the summer transfer window.

And the club have now unveiled his new shirt, inherited from Edinson Cavani, who switches to 21, as he awaits a second 'debut' with the Red Devils.

What was said?

"Manchester United can confirm that Cristiano Ronaldo will wear the iconic no.7 shirt after returning to Old Trafford," the club explained in a statement published on its official website.

"The Portuguese superstar famously wore the legendary shirt number during his first spell at United and we can now confirm that Ronaldo will have it on his back once again.

"In his first six seasons at the club, between 2003 and 2009, Ronaldo made 292 appearances and scored 118 goals, winning nine trophies including three Premier League titles and the UEFA Champions League.

"As we all know, the no. 7 is a special number in the history of United.

"It has previously been worn by club icons like George Best, Bryan Robson, Eric Cantona and David Beckham. Now, it returns to the man who succeeded Beckham in it, Ronaldo.

"Ronaldo inherits the number from Edinson Cavani, who wore the shirt last season and in our away win at Wolverhampton Wanderers last weekend.

"As our new signing is allocated no.7, El Matador will switch to no.21, the same number our prolific striker wears for the Uruguayan national team."

When will Ronaldo make his bow?

Now his number has been confirmed, attentions will now turn to when Ronaldo will retake the field for United.

While he has made just one short cameo at club level so far in 2020-21, coming off the bench in Juventus' Serie A opener, Wednesday's two-goal turn against Ireland for Portugal showed that there are no doubts over the 36-year-old's fitness.

Furthermore, the striker has secured early release from international duty as he is suspended for Portugal's next World Cup qualifier against Azerbaijan, heightening hopes that the first match of this second spell will come sooner rather than later.

"United's first fixture after the international break, in which Ronaldo could make his return to Old Trafford, is at home to Newcastle United on Saturday 11 September," the club added.

"We are all excited to see our returning no. 7 in action at the Theatre of Dreams once again."

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Cristiano Ronaldo secures iconic shirt number at Man Utd

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Manchester United have revealed that Cristiano Ronaldo will don his favourite No. 7 shirt for the 2021-22 Premier League season. Ronaldo's blockbuster return to Old Trafford from Juventus was one of the biggest stories of the summer transfer window.

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https://investors.zoom.us/node/9271/pdf

Zoom recently released their 2nd quarter report. The earnings per share was higher than most expected at $1.36. As a result ZM has went up by nearly 20% as a result of significant growth.

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Businesses push Biden to develop China trade policy - Mew

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Businesses push Biden to develop China trade policy - Mew

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/business/economy/biden-china-trade-policy.html

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Seven months into a new administration, companies want the White House to drop tariffs on Chinese goods and provide clarity about a critical trade relationship.

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The Port of Oakland in California, one of the main ports for receiving Chinese imports. Any decision on rolling back tariffs could have political implications in the United States, where a tough-on-China mentality has permeated both major parties. Credit... Jim Wilson/The New York Times

WASHINGTON - More than seven months into the Biden administration, American businesses say they are growing increasingly frustrated by the White House's approach to China, with confrontational policies imposed during the Trump era still in place and President Biden offering little clarity about economic engagement with the world's second-largest economy.

The relationship between the two economic superpowers remains deeply fractured. American import duties still exist on roughly $360 billion worth of Chinese goods, and almost all of the exemptions that shielded more than 2,000 products from those tariffs have expired. A thicket of export controls and bans are still in place, leaving U.S. technology giants such as Qualcomm, Intel and Google in the lurch over how to approach the Chinese market and offering little hope that the decoupling of the world's two largest economies will be reversed anytime soon.

To the dismay of some American business leaders, Mr. Biden has amplified some of the Trump administration's punitive moves. In July, the Biden administration expanded the list of Chinese officials under sanctions by the United States for their role in undermining Hong Kong's democratic institutions. In June, the president issued an executive order adding more Chinese companies to a prohibition on American investments in Chinese firms that have links to the country's military or that sell surveillance technology used to repress dissent or religious minorities.

Yet Mr. Biden and his top advisers have yet to elucidate how they view economic relations with Beijing, saying they will make the administration's approach known once a broad review of China trade policy concludes. But the review has stretched on for months with no public timeline for its conclusion.

As a result, businesses are lobbying heavily for the tariffs to be removed, which would make it easier for them to rely on factories in China instead of making investments in the United States or elsewhere. And they want assurances that they can do business with a financially important market.

"There has been frustration for the business community at the lack of concrete China economic policy," said Charles Freeman, the senior vice president for Asia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "It's not as if this crowd came in without any experience or any preconceived thinking about China."

The future of the U.S. trade relationship with China is one of the biggest global economic questions confronting Mr. Biden and his advisers. China has thrown huge resources behind its economic ambitions and plans to dominate cutting-edge industries like artificial intelligence and robotics by providing government subsidies to Chinese firms and using other tactics, including espionage. While the Trump administration signed an initial trade deal with China that included purchase commitments for agricultural and other goods, the agreement failed to address a number of major concerns, including China's state-owned enterprises and industrial subsidies.

During his White House bid, Mr. Biden assailed President Donald J. Trump over his trade war and promised to enlist allies to counter China over its trade practices. Since taking office, Mr. Biden has resolved a longstanding trade spat with the European Union and persuaded European officials to adopt a more assertive trade policy toward China this year. And he has pitched his infrastructure plan as a way to counter Beijing, saying it would "put us in a position to win the global competition with China in the upcoming years."

But the administration has said little about whether it intends to restart economic talks and address outstanding issues, including tariffs. At times, officials have offered somewhat discordant views.

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen told The New York Times this summer that tariffs had harmed American consumers, but she has also warned that Chinese subsidies for exporters pose a challenge for the United States. The United States trade representative, Katherine Tai, has described the tariffs as providing leverage.

Asked on Wednesday about the administration's review of the tariffs, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said, "I don't have any timeline for you on when that review will be completed."

Business impatience with the administration's approach is mounting. Corporate leaders say they need clarity about whether American companies will be able to do business with China, which is one of the biggest and fastest-growing markets. Business groups say their members are being put at a competitive disadvantage by the tariffs, which have raised costs for American importers.

"We should be doing everything we can to increase China's use and dependence on American technology products," Patrick Gelsinger, the chief executive of Intel, said in an interview last week. The administration is "struggling to lay out a framework for how they have a policy-driven engagement with China," he said.

"To me, just saying, 'Let's be tough on China,' that's not a policy, that's a campaign slogan," he added. "It's time to get to the real work of having a real policy of trade relationships and engagement around business exports and technology with China."

In early August, a group of influential U.S. business groups sent a letter to Ms. Yellen and Ms. Tai urging the administration to restart trade talks with China and cut tariffs on imported Chinese goods.

"The main kind of dilemma that companies face right now is just uncertainty," said Craig Allen, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council, which organized the letter. "Will the tariffs remain in place? Are they in place in perpetuity? What is the exclusion process to request an exemption from the tariffs? Nobody knows."

Mr. Allen said his group had organized the letter because it wanted to make sure that businesses' views, in addition to those of labor and environmental groups, would be taken into account during the Biden administration's China review.

"Many find it ironic that the Biden administration is following so closely the playbook laid down by the Trump administration on China," he said.

Other organizations that signed the letter included the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable as well as groups representing sectors of the economy with close business ties to China, such as the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the Semiconductor Industry Association and the American Farm Bureau Federation.

"We're now dealing with all these other supply chain disruption issues that are costing companies millions of dollars," said Jonathan Gold, the vice president for supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation, which also signed the letter and represents a sector that has become heavily dependent on imports from China. "To have the tariffs on top of that is difficult for planning purposes."

On Tuesday, the National Association of Manufacturers sent a letter to the Biden administration urging it to "act as quickly as possible to finalize and publicize" a China strategy.

Businesses of all sizes have been waiting for Mr. Biden to change course from Mr. Trump's trade policies. Arnold Kamler, the chief executive of Kent International, a bicycle wholesaler and manufacturer, said the 25 percent tariffs on bicycle imports from China had been a major drain on the cash flow of his business, forcing him to borrow more from his bank. For the last two years, he has been passing on the cost of the additional import duties to retailers.

"Honestly, we were hopeful that the Biden administration would realize that the trade war didn't work," Mr. Kamler said.

Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, has refrained from offering a preview of what steps the Biden administration may seek to take in the coming months. Credit... Pete Marovich for The New York Times

Adding to the impatience is that a vast majority of the exclusions to the China tariffs that were granted under the Trump administration have now expired, and the Biden administration has not created a process to allow companies to seek new exclusions.

Lawmakers from both parties have written to the Biden administration urging it to restart the exclusion process, and the Senate included a provision to reinstate expired exclusions and set up a process for granting new ones as part of a legislative package to bolster competitiveness with China that passed in June. The Senate provision has been met with resistance in the House, according to a House Democratic aide, so the two chambers may wind up at odds over whether to address tariff exclusions as part of a final China package.

Robert E. Lighthizer, who was Mr. Trump's trade representative and negotiated the trade deal with China, said in an interview that lobbyists were trying to weaken the executive branch's power to impose tariffs.

"People working for China and Chinese importers want to get rid of the last tool that Biden and subsequent presidents will have to deal with Chinese unfair trade practices," Mr. Lighthizer said.

Business groups are not uniformly in favor of lifting tariffs. The National Council of Textile Organizations, which represents the American textile industry, wants the administration to keep tariffs on finished apparel and home textile products from China.

"We have been pretty strong in our message to the administration saying please continue this approach on getting tough on China," said Kimberly Glas, the textile group's president and chief executive.

Any decision on rolling back tariffs could also have domestic political implications in the United States, where a tough-on-China mentality has permeated both major parties. Any steps by the Biden administration to roll back Trump-era policies toward Beijing could be seized on by political opponents seeking to paint Mr. Biden as insufficiently tough on China at a time when the country is engaged in a rapid military buildup.

Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a trade group that represents the United Steelworkers and some domestic manufacturers, noted that concern about China on both economic and national security grounds was "one of the few issues that unites Democrats and Republicans these days."

"A dismantling of the tariffs has no upside for Joe Biden," he said. "At a time when you're trying to build up U.S. capacity in key industries, it would invite a flood of Chinese imports to just overwhelm that."

The Biden administration has said little about its tariff plans or how it will address China's failure to meet its commitments under the Trump trade deal. China has not fulfilled its purchase commitments, according to Chad P. Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who has tracked China's purchases of U.S. goods. But Chinese economists contend that Beijing has been sincere in wanting to meet its promises, and that the pandemic has affected demand in China.

When asked about the administration's review of China trade policy, Ms. Tai has responded by saying she was aware that "time is of the essence." However, she has refrained from offering a preview of what steps the administration may seek to take.

"In terms of how we need to approach this trade relationship," Ms. Tai said at a virtual event last week, "we need to approach it with deliberation."

Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Beijing, and Jim Tankersley from Washington.

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Businesses Push Biden to Develop China Trade Policy

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Seven months into a new administration, companies want the White House to drop tariffs on Chinese goods and provide clarity about a critical trade relationship. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.

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At least 46 people have died after floodwaters from Ida's remnants swamp cities from Virginia to New England - pj

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At least 46 people have died after floodwaters from Ida's remnants swamp cities from Virginia to New England - pj

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https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/02/weather/ida-northeast-flooding-thursday/index.html

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national oceanic and atmospheric administration

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At least 46 people have died after floodwaters from Ida's remnants swamp cities from Virginia to New England | CNN

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The death toll from flooding after the remnants of Hurricane Ida pummeled cities in the East rose sharply to 46 on Thursday after New Jersey announced at least 23 people had died there.

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Amazon offers punctual staff £50 for turning up     -Manhey

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Amazon offers punctual staff £50 for turning up     -Manhey

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In March, Unite, the union, launched a whistleblowing hotline for Amazon workers in the UK. It also called for Amazon to allow British workers to unionise and to have a greater share of the firm's profits.

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Amazon offers punctual staff £50 for turning up

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In March, Unite, the union, launched a whistleblowing hotline for Amazon workers in the UK. It also called for Amazon to allow British workers to unionise and to have a greater share of the firm's profits.

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Apple investigated in UK over 'unfair' App Store claims - nicha

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Apple investigated in UK over 'unfair' App Store claims - nicha

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https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56279514

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In response, Apple said: "We believe in thriving and competitive markets where any great idea can flourish. The App Store has been an engine of success for app developers, in part because of the rigorous standards we have in place - applied fairly and equally to all developers - to protect customers from malware and to prevent rampant data collection without their consent.

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Apple investigated in UK over 'unfair' App Store claims

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In response, Apple said: "We believe in thriving and competitive markets where any great idea can flourish. The App Store has been an engine of success for app developers, in part because of the rigorous standards we have in place - applied fairly and equally to all developers - to protect customers from malware and to prevent rampant data collection without their consent.

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Eateries set to reopen from Wednesday - Matt

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Eateries set to reopen from Wednesday - Matt

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https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2174271/eateries-set-to-reopen-from-wednesday

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Eateries set to reopen from Wednesday

Restaurants at CentralWorld in Bangkok prepare to resume services following the easing of lockdown restrictions by the government. Chanat Katanyu

With the government's lockdown and curfew measures starting to ease on Wednesday, restaurant and retail operators are gearing up efforts to resume services.

Nongchanok Stananonth, assistant vice-president of SLRT Co, operator of Sizzler restaurant under Minor Food Group, said the company is ready on Wednesday to reopen 54 Sizzler restaurants out of the total 60.

However, she said Sizzler branches in some locations such as Bangkok, Pattaya and Nakhon Ratchasima remain closed.

"With many people still working from home and fewer commuters, the company also still halts 'Sizzler to go' services which sell sandwiches and light food at elevated mass transit stations,'' said Ms Nongchanok.

Minor Food closed 300 restaurants at the end of August and is scheduled to reopen on Wednesday 186 restaurants including those of Sizzler.

The remaining 114 restaurants, mostly located in tourist locations, remain closed.

Atchara Burarak, founder and creative director of Iberry Group, operator of Kub Kao Kub Pla, Ros'niyom and Thong Smith, said the company on Wednesday will reopen almost 30 restaurants at shopping complexes such as CentralWorld and EmQuartier and community malls in Bangkok.

"We separate our reopening plan into two phases. In the first phase from Wednesday to Friday, 36 restaurants or 60% of our total will be opened. For the second phase, we will take time to prepare the readiness of our staff and see customers' response from the first phase of our reopening,'' she said.

Ms Atchara said the company still closed restaurants in tourist destinations as foreign tourists have yet to come back and locations where few Thai people visit as well as locations where the landlords won't reduce rental fees.

She said she doesn't understand the logic behind the government's lockdown and curfew measures.

"The government declared tightened restriction measures while the number of infected people was fewer than 10,000, but it later decided to ease the restriction measures and allow restaurants to resume dine-in services, at 75% capacity in outdoor dining spaces and 50% in air-conditioned locations despite the number of infected people reaching 14,000-16,000 per day," she said.

"We are not confident about the government's measures so we have to be more cautious about resuming operations as we have to pay for rent, salaries and raw materials,'' Ms Atchara said.

Somphol Tripopnart, managing director of Shopping Center Business at MBK Plc, said the company is ready to provide services to customers, saying all the company's staff and tenants have already got the first jab.

Up to 50% of tenants have received second jabs, said Mr Somphol.

Amorn Amornkul, deputy managing director for operations at The Mall Group Co, said the company also prepared extra safety measures which align with the guidelines of the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration and Bangkok Metropolitan Administration to increase customers' confidence while spending their time at its retail complexes.

All of the staff, tenants and workers at The Mall Group totalling more than 10,000 have received the first jab.

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Eateries set to reopen from Wednesday Restaurants at CentralWorld in Bangkok prepare to resume services following the easing of lockdown restrictions by the government. Chanat Katanyu With the government's lockdown and curfew measures starting to ease on Wednesday, restaurant and retail operators are gearing up efforts to resume services.

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Walmart raises it's hourly wages by 1$ - Siam

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Walmart raises it's hourly wages by 1$ - Siam

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https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/02/walmart-hikes-hourly-pay-by-1-for-over-550000-workers.html

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Walmart said Thursday that it is raising the hourly wages for more than 565,000 store workers by at least $1, as the retail industry aces a tight labor market as it prepares to staff up for the holidays.

Walmart U.S. Chief Executive John Furner said in a memo to staff that this marks the third investment the company has made in salaries in the past year. Walmart's U.S. average hourly wage is now $16.40, he said.

According to Furner, employees who work on the frontend of Walmart stores and in its food & consumable and general merchandise departments will receive the higher wages, which will be effective Sept. 25.

Earlier in the week, Walmart announced it plans to hire 20,000 workers for its supply chain as it ramps of for the holidays and prepares for more people to shop online. In July, it said it would pay 100% of college tuition and book costs for employees.

The nation's largest private employer is sweetening its perks as companies cope with fierce competition for workers amid ongoing Covid-19 outbreaks.

Other retailers have announced similar perks and policy changes in recent months. Among them, Target rolled out its own debt-free college program. CVS Health and Walgreens Boots Alliance said are boosting starting wages to $15 an hour in the coming months, and CVS said it would drop education requirements for entry-level jobs.
-CNBC's Melissa Repko contributed to this report.

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Walmart hikes hourly pay by $1 for more than 550,000 workers ahead of the holidays

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Walmart said Thursday that it is raising the hourly wages for more than 565,000 store workers by at least $1, as the retail industry aces a tight labor market as it prepares to staff up for the holidays. Walmart U.S.

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Fashion brands sign new deal on Bangladesh garment workers' safety-Vector

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Fashion brands sign new deal on Bangladesh garment workers' safety-Vector

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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/aug/26/fashion-brands-sign-new-deal-on-bangladesh-garment-workers-safety?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

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Campaigners have hailed a new agreement designed to protect garment workers in Bangladesh, signed by the likes of H&M and Inditex, which owns Zara and Bershka.

The accord replaces another agreement signed by more than 200 international fashion companies after the Rana Plaza factory fire in 2013, in which more than 1,100 people died. For the first time, these companies faced legal action if their health and safety standards were found lacking or if they did not address problems in an agreed time period. More than 38,000 inspections have been carried out since 2013, and nearly 200 factories have lost their contracts owing to poor safety standards.

That agreement is due to expire at the end of August, and the negotiations for the new pact were protracted. Union leaders were concerned that the legally binding elements were being threatened and that improvements in conditions, wages and safety made since 2013 would be undermined, along with campaigns to improve safety in garment factories beyond Bangladesh.

The new agreement, which is managed by the Ready-Made Garments Sustainability Council (RSC), is valid until October 2023. Companies signing up commit to expanding general health and safety for workers beyond fire and building safety, human rights due diligence along supply chains, and making the same commitment to garment workers in at least one other country. Signatories have agreed to meet in six months' time to discuss which countries, with the aim of making changes within two years.

Campaigners and union leaders praised the deal. Ayesha Barenblat, the chief executive of the ethical fashion advocacy group Remake, told the Business of Fashion: "This, I think, is truly a model of building back better."

Valter Sanches, the general secretary of IndustriALL Global Union, said: "This international accord is an important victory towards making the textile and garment industry safe and sustainable."

The full list of companies signing on will be revealed on 1 September.

Bangladesh has the third-largest garment industry after China and Vietnam. In 2019 it was estimated there were about 4,000 factories and 4 million workers, and the industry represented 16% of the country's GDP, with $34bn worth of exports.

The pandemic has had an effect on the industry. In March 2020 it was reported that $2.8bn worth of orders had been cancelled or paused. According to a survey of factory employers carried out by Pennsylvania State University's Centre for Global Workers' Rights, most international brands did not contribute to furlough wages of workers and more than 80% of workers were sent home without pay.

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Fashion brands sign new deal on Bangladesh garment workers' safety

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Campaigners have hailed a new agreement designed to protect garment workers in Bangladesh, signed by the likes of H&M and Inditex, which owns Zara and Bershka. The accord replaces another agreement signed by more than 200 international fashion companies after the Rana Plaza factory fire in 2013, in which more than 1,100 people died.

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China bans kids from playing online video games during the week - Nano

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China bans kids from playing online video games during the week - Nano

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https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/31/tech/china-ban-video-games-minor-intl-hnk/index.html

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China bans kids from playing online video games during the week | CNN Business

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China has barred online gamers under the age of 18 from playing on weekdays and limited their play to just three hours most weekends, marking a significant escalation of restrictions on the country’s massive gaming industry.