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NEW YORK, March 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Sources Ltd. (NASDAQ: GSOL) expects to release its financial results for the fourth quarter and year-end 2014 before the market opens on March 26, 2015.
Executive chairman Merle A. Hinrich and CFO Connie Lai are scheduled to conduct a conference call at 8:00 a.m. ET on March 26, 2015 (8:00 p.m. on March 26, 2015 in Hong Kong) to review these results in more detail. Investors in the United States may participate in the call by dialing (888) 765-5574, and non-Hong Kong international participants may dial (1-913) 312-1269. Investors in Hong Kong may participate by dialing (852) 3008-0382. The conference ID is 9303522 and participants are encouraged to dial 10 minutes prior to the call to prevent a delay in joining. A live webcast of the conference call is scheduled to be available on Global Sources' corporate site at http://www.investor.globalsources.com.
For those who cannot listen to the live broadcast, a webcast replay of the call is scheduled to be available on the company's corporate site for 30 days. A telephone replay of the call is also scheduled to be available through April 2, 2015. To listen to the telephone replay dial (888) 203-1112 or dial (1-719) 457-0820 outside the United States, and enter pass code 9303522. For those in the Hong Kong area, the replay dial-in number is (800) 901-108, and the pass code is 9303522.
About Global Sources
Global Sources is a leading business-to-business media company and a primary facilitator of trade with Greater China.
The core business facilitates trade between Asia and the world using English-language media such as online marketplaces (GlobalSources.com), print and digital magazines, sourcing research reports, private sourcing events, and trade shows.
More than 1 million international buyers, including 95 of the world's top 100 retailers, use these services to obtain product and company information to help them source more profitably from overseas supply markets. These services also provide suppliers with integrated marketing solutions to build corporate image, generate sales leads and win orders from buyers in more than 240 countries and territories.
Global Sources' other businesses provide Chinese-language media to companies selling to and within Greater China. These services include online web sites, print and digital magazines, seminars and trade shows. In mainland China, Global Sources has a network of more than 30 office locations and a community of more than 5 million registered online users and magazine readers of its Chinese-language media.
Now in its fifth decade, Global Sources has been publicly listed on the NASDAQ since 2000.


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Fire Phone: first hands-on with Amazon's handset
Amazon has unveiled its first handset, offering 3D visuals - thanks to four face-tracking cameras on its front - and gesture controls.
The Fire Phone allows its user to change an image's perspective by moving their head, rather than creating "pop-out" effects.
The BBC's North America technology correspondent Richard Taylor was among the first to try out the new technology.
Read more: Amazon Fire Phone offers 3D effects
Follow Richard Taylor on Twitter @RichTaylorBBC
18 Jun 2014
- From the section Technology

domain: news


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LOS ANGELES, April 14, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — VEGAMOUR, the leading holistic hair wellness brand, announces their new “Hair You Didn’t Think You Could Have” campaign, which highlights the brand’s holistic hair solutions as real consumers navigate through different life stages. Launching today, the campaign highlights the real and the life-changing results a group of consumers have achieved thanks to the radical innovation and unprecedented ingredient integrity behind VEGAMOUR.
The “Hair You Didn’t Think You Could Have” campaign centers around five actual users, who each experience once of the common causes for hair loss and other hair concerns including stress, hormonal imbalance due to postpartum and menopausal changes, or other health issues. For the campaign, VEGAMOUR identified five authentic, long time users of the brand, including Celebrity hairstylist Ashley Streicher and San Francisco Ballet Principal Dancer WanTing Zhao in the casting. The brand worked with creative agency Bennett & Clive to produce the campaign, with VEGAMOUR Creative Director Vinny Cresta, and External Creative Directors, Ariella Gogol and Helen Steed at the helm.
“‘At VEGAMOUR, our unwavering commitment to incorporating sustainably-harvested, plant-based ingredients with clinically proven efficacy into all of our products has led to genuine transformations in our customers’ personal hair journeys. These transformations have evoked an overwhelming response from thousands of VEGAMOUR customers who continue to graciously share their stories with us,” said Dan Hodgdon, CEO and Founder of VEGAMOUR. “With this exciting new brand campaign, we’re thrilled to be able to share some of these remarkable experiences which detail how our unique, personalized approach to hair wellness has helped improved not only their hair, but also their confidence in themselves and their personal well-being.”
While over 50% of women are estimated to confront hair loss during their lifetime, the topic has remained a taboo, leaving those dealing with the concern feeling alone and vulnerable. This campaign breaks new ground by spotlighting this topic, reflecting on how campaign subjects felt tackling these concerns.
“As a hairstylist for two decades, I see a lot of heads of hair. I’m often the first person women and men turn to when they’re faced with hair concerns” said celebrity stylist and campaign ambassador Ashley Streicher. “I’ve been recommending VEGAMOUR to my clients for years and have seen first-hand the difference it makes to not only achieving hair goals, but also self-confidence. I’m thrilled to help share these results with people across the country, outside of my clientele.”
The “Hair You Didn’t Think You Could Have” will include a fully-integrated mix of advertising across online and streaming video, out of home, podcast, social content, email and SMS marketing channels.
The new brand campaign comes on the heels of the brand’s newest launch, the HYDR-8 Collection, which expanded the brand’s portfolio to address concerns of hydration. VEGAMOUR is one of the fastest rising new brands at Sephora, thanks to their holistic, clean, high-performance approach. The brand sells one of their cult-favorite GRO Hair Serums every 22 seconds. VEGAMOUR’s recent expansion includes territories across the globe, launching in the UK, EU, China, Australia and UAE in 2022. VEGAMOUR plans to continue expanding to new categories throughout 2023.
VEGAMOUR is available at Sephora stores nationwide, Sephora.com and at Vegamour.com.
For more information please visit VEGAMOUR.com, or contact PURPLE:
PURPLE, [email protected]
Jessica Zeller, [email protected]
VEGAMOUR takes a holistic approach to hair wellness that incorporates powerful phyto-actives that work in tandem to address both the symptoms and underlying causes of visible hair damage, thinning and loss. Our inside out approach takes into consideration the health of the entire follicular ecosystem and works to promote a healthy environment for hair to thrive, naturally.
Originally published at https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/vegamour-launches-new-brand-campaign-hair-you-didnt-think-you-could-have-301797711.html
Images courtesy of https://pixabay.com


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This story was originally published in the November 2017 issue of Marijuana Venture, on sale now.
GQ Magazine published an article by Amanda Chicago Lewis in its September 2017 edition titled “The Great Pot Monopoly Mystery,” which focuses primarily on a company called BioTech Institute, LLC.
I highly recommend it. The article explores the possible legal implications of Monsanto-type seed breeders in the cannabis industry.
According to my research, BioTech has several patents on the cannabis plant, the most recent being issued May 9, 2017, for the invention of composition and methods for the breeding, production, processing and use of specialty cannabis (Patent No. 9642317). The inventors on the patents are Mark Anthony Lewis, Michael D. Backes and Matthew Giese.
Monsanto has been a pioneer in applying the biotechnology industry business model to agriculture. To date, the company has patents on a variety of seeds, including, soy, corn, cotton, alfalfa and canola, to name a few. The patents granted by the federal government give Monsanto the exclusive right to make, use and sell these seeds.
Monsanto seeds are genetically modified to make them resistant to the herbicide Roundup, a Monsanto product. So, when Roundup is sprayed on these genetically modified plants, pests are eliminated, but the plant is unaffected, unlike conventional plants that would be damaged by herbicides. The result is larger yields for farmers planting Roundup Ready crops.
Monsanto licenses its seeds to seed sellers who have the farmer sign a license agreement setting forth terms by which the seeds may be used. Terms include: seeds may only be used for one harvest; the seeds from the harvest may not be replanted (meaning the farmer has to purchase new seeds every year); no research may be done on the seeds; and the purchaser has to pay a technology fee (Monsanto Co. v. Scruggs, 2006).
In the GQ article, Ms. Lewis writes, “a source familiar with the BioTech Institute’s patenting process estimated that the company had spent at least $250,000 and legal fees on each of its patents.” Now, I want to be clear, BioTech does not appear to be doing anything illegal by its seed development and plant research. The spirit of this article is not to condemn BioTech’s research. Instead, it is important for every cannabis cultivator and producer of cannabis-infused products to take notice of the potential movement by large companies to dominate the cannabis seed market.
Observing what has happened to farmers using a Monsanto analogy is only prudent. If you are a cultivator or a product manufacturer, you should discuss this with your lawyer. Monsanto has been very aggressive in protecting its patent rights by pursuing farmers who have gone afoul with the use of their seeds.
In April 2008, Vanity Fair ran an article by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele titled “Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear,” that chronicled the ordeal farmers go through due to private investigators hired by Monsanto to police fields in search of farmers engaged in patent infringement. These farmers are forced to defend themselves in costly lawsuits.
Monsanto caselaw is fascinating. Let’s look at three cases, specifically: Monsanto Co. v. Scruggs (2006); Monsanto Co. v. Parr (2008); and Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association v. Monsanto Co. (2013).
Monsanto Co. v Scruggs
Mitchell Scruggs, a farmer, purchased Roundup Ready cotton and soybean seeds from a seed seller, but did not sign a licensing agreement. After the harvest, Scruggs kept some of the seeds to replant them. Monsanto sent an investigator to his farm to take a sample of his crop seeds, which were tested and found to be Monsanto seeds. Monsanto sued. As part of the case, Scruggs’ lawyers argued that Monsanto had an unfair monopoly on the seeds.
However, the court ruled in favor of Monsanto, including awarding attorney fees.
The takeaway is that cultivators need to take heed of the seed. Who are your seed providers? Do they claim any patent rights? Businesses must understand the implications of purchasing seeds like never before. There are companies spending millions of dollars on research and development and patents to make a profit and corner the market on seed genetics.
If you have your own seeds now, or have developed your own strains, consider having them genetically profiled, in the event you ever have to defend your crop.
Monsanto Co. v. Parr
Maurice Parr is the operator of a mobile seed and grain cleaning business. He services farmers, including those that grew Monsanto crops. The farmers were under licensing agreements that did not permit cultivation of seeds after harvest.
Knowing that some of the farmers had harvested Monsanto seeds for him to clean, Parr, when asked, would tell the farmers that the seeds were okay to replant. Monsanto found out about this and sued Parr for inducing patent infringement.
Monsanto prevailed. The court ordered that Parr could not clean Roundup Ready seeds; he was forbidden from telling farmers it was legal or permissible to save and clean Roundup Ready seeds; he had to tell farmers it was illegal to replant Roundup Ready seeds; and his customers had to certify in writing the seeds he was cleaning were not Monsanto.
He also was required to take the certifications and a sample of the seeds and give them to Monsanto for testing. In addition, he was ordered to pay $40,000 to Monsanto. However, Monsanto agreed not to collect, as long as Parr followed the order.
Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association v. Monsanto
This case is interesting because it involved a coalition of more than two dozen seed sellers and agricultural companies suing Monsanto. The association asked the court to compel Monsanto to sign a covenant not to sue for patent infringement in the event that some of the genetically modified seeds got into the association’s seed banks, or for the inadvertent contamination of crops through wind, bee pollination, etc.
These farmers had already begun to take expensive precautions against contamination because of the lawsuits Monsanto had brought against others. For example, the farmers tested seeds and tried to create buffer zones between themselves and their neighbors who grew Roundup Ready crops. The court found that it did not have the authority to issue such an order just because of the association members’ “subjective fear.”
The Monsanto lawyer would not agree to a covenant not to sue, but stated if there were less than 1% of contamination ever found, the company would consider whether or not the contamination was intentional or inadvertent. No legal fees were awarded either party.
There are several lessons from this case.
First, cannabis cultivators and infused product manufacturers need to unite and keep an eye out for the eventual patented seeds from companies that are in the biotechnology sector.
Next, consider lobbying your local legislative body to enact an ordinance making notice of use of genetically modified crops mandatory in the farming community.
Finally, and most important, stay informed and be vigilant.
Michele Brooke’s law practice Brooke Law Group (www.brookelawgroup.com) is a full-service marijuana business law and litigation firm in Los Angeles County, California. As an industry-savvy professional, she strives to assist business owners navigate California’s ever-changing legal and regulatory environment. She is a member of Americans for Safe Access, NORML and the Los Angeles Bar Association.[contextly_auto_sidebar]


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The Coca Cola London Eye will be returning, following its sell out success last year, with 32 Londoners. Curated by A Curious Invitation and Antique Beat, the event will feature 32 talks, in each of the London Eye’s 32 capsules on 32 extraordinary Londoners. The subject of this year’s event will be ‘adopted Londoners’ – with expert speakers celebrating iconic figures, past and present, who were born outside of the city, but came to be associated with it. This year’s list includes Joe Strummer (of The Clash) and Vivienne Westwood with expert speakers including Dan Cruickshank, Don Letts and Jennie Bond.
Fashion Editor, Samantha Ria, and Head Photographer Benjamin Glean went down to the media preview, and it is definitely something to make Londoners proud of. Love your city.
A full list of speakers is available 32londoners.com
Tickets are available now from: www.32londoners.com
Price: £40 per person
Each guest receives:
- Talk on chosen adopted Londoner
- 45 minutes on the Coca-Cola London Eye
- A bottle of Aspall Cyder (non-alcoholic choice will be available)
- Card and cash bar facility (Riverside Rooms)


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New Delhi: Meta-owned Instagram on Wednesday introduced new features to the app in India, including Instagram Gifts and new editing updates on Reels, to help creators unleash their creativity and earn more from their Reels content.
Today, the company showcased the new Instagram features at a product education workshop in its Mumbai office.
“Every day, teens and creators are using Instagram to tell their stories in exciting ways. This is happening on Reels, as well as other surfaces like Feed, Stories and DMs. We wanted to highlight these diverse use cases to inspire creativity, as well as highlight some new features that will help them build an engaged community,” Paras Sharma, Director of Content and Community Partnerships at Facebook India (Meta), said in a statement.
With Instagram Gifts, creators can receive gifts from fans who purchase them directly within the Instagram app using Stars.
“Viewers can purchase stars and use them to send you gifts on Instagram. Instagram will then provide you with a revenue share from your Reels that received gifts on a monthly basis equal to $.01 for every star received from fans,” said Instagram.
Gifts will be rolling out in India in the next few weeks.
Moreover, the company has introduced new updates to its Reels editor globally, which will come in the next few weeks.
The update includes features like Split, Speed, and Replace.
Users can now easily split a single clip into two clips with ‘Split’, and can speed up or slow down their clips with ‘Speed’.
With Replace, users can swap one clip out for another without changing the timing or order of other clips, audio and other elements in their reels.
The company also introduced GIF comments on posts and Reels, which are now available globally.


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320hp, ‘Drift Mode’ and the latest performance hardware, the lineage of high-performance Volkswagen’s continue with the all-new Mk8 Golf R Time and time again, Volkswagen has shown us that size doesn’t matter. Especially not when you hammer in a powerful engine under the bonnet, shove tech that makes petrolhead salivate and let it fly. The […]
Seat is no longer responsible for the development of the MEB Entry project The Volkswagen Group has taken responsibility for the development of its new entry-level electric car project out of the hands of Seat in a reworking of its global operations, according to new reports.
French car sales rose for the first time this year in a sign government incentives toward auto purchases are helping the sector claw back from a deep slump triggered by the coronavirus. Passenger car registrations increased by 1.2% to 233,818 in June compared with the same month last year, according to figures published Wednesday by […]


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- Suzuki factory in Gujarat will supply cars, parts to Maruti
- First line at the factory to start operations in early 2017
Suzuki Motor Corp. received the go-ahead from shareholders to bypass its Indian unit and set up the Japanese automaker’s first wholly owned car plant in its biggest market.
A majority of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.’s minority shareholders voted in favor of its proposal to buy vehicles and components from the planned factory by parent Suzuki, according to an e-mailed statement from the Indian company. The proposed plant in the western state of Gujarat will supply exclusively to Maruti, which is 56 percent owned by the Japanese automaker.
The approval paves the way for Suzuki to gain more control of its operations in India and invest directly to boost production capacity. It also marks the next phase of expansion for the company in the subcontinent after a fractious alliance with Volkswagen AG was dissolved earlier this year. The arrangement will also allow Maruti to expand its sales network and build a new premium brand.
“Now that the job of making cars is somebody else’s, I can put my energy into developing new models because in India sales don’t happen if you don’t put in new models with good regularity,” Maruti’s Chairman R.C. Bhargava said in an interview in New Delhi on Thursday. “I have to concentrate on R&D and need to focus on building the infrastructure so that I can sell these new cars.”
Suzuki expects the bulk of its growth to come from India, which IHS Automotive projects will overtake Japan and Germany by 2020 to become the world’s third-biggest market after China and the U.S.
Suzuki fell 2.2 percent at the close Friday in Tokyo. Maruti rose 0.1 percent as of 12:05 p.m. in Mumbai.
The total investment in the Gujarat factory will be 185 billion rupees ($2.8 billion), Bhargava said, without providing a timeframe. The first line at the Gujarat factory will have a capacity to make 250,000 vehicles annually, and will start operations in early 2017. Suzuki’s car production in India will reach 2 million units by 2022 from the 1.4 million at present, he said.
Suzuki will invest about 57 billion yen ($468 million) to increase the capital of its wholly owned subsidiary Suzuki Motor Gujarat, according to a statement. The funds will be used for the factory in Gujarat.
The Indian automaker has so far invested about 3.5 billion rupees in the Gujarat factory, Chief Financial Officer Ajay Seth said on Thursday. Suzuki will refund this amount as soon as the manufacturing agreement is signed, he said.
Maruti needed 51 percent of its minority shareholders to support its proposal for a contract manufacturing agreement with Suzuki, according to a revised Indian law which lowered the threshold from 75 percent.


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We already know about the new iPhone X and Face ID because of the iOS 11 GM Leak. Now we have some information on the new 4K Apple TV. The existence of the new 4K compatible Apple TV was recently confirmed in the iOS 11 leak.
Developer Steve Troughton Smith has conformed some details about the device, including the native resolution it will have. This can be seen in the tweet below that reveals the device will have a native resolution of 2160p.
Apple TV will render natively at 2160p (1080p@2x) and supports a variety of color formats pic.twitter.com/tURvLe7bKz
— Steve T-S (@stroughtonsmith) September 10, 2017
The new 4K Apple TV is expected to keep the same design as the existing device, the set top box will get a faster processor and also more RAM to handle the 4K content. We are also expecting the device to come with more storage options than the existing models.
We heard last week that the new Apple TV would also support HDR. Apple are expected to charge $20 for their 4K movies, although there are rumors that the movie studios want them to charge more. The studios have apparently asked them to charge between $25 and $30 per movie, although it is unlikely Apple will charge this much. We will have full details about the new 4K Apple TV when it is announced tomorrow.


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Putting photos of yourself and your breastfeeding baby on Facebook is a dicey proposition. Facebook’s official stance on lactating breasts is actually a big green light, but the fact that these pictures still get reported for nudity by disgruntled “friends” have moms pumping the brakes anyway. One mom decided to double down instead of give in, and her photo that highlights the hypocrisy of the online breastfeeding police is going viral for all the right reasons.
Maria Corry is a breastfeeding mother, and like most moms who are trying their hand at parenting in the digital age, she’s run into an issue that more and more of us will find familiar. When she attempts to share a photo of her daughter breastfeeding, she gets reported for sharing naughty photos.
It’s frustrating, and in Corry’s case, particularly so, considering that the photo that got her into hot water was one in which she was fully clothed and even the slightest hint of boob flesh was barely visible. She was understandably pretty angry when she posted the following:
If it had just ended there, this wouldn’t have been anything other than your standard Facebook back-and-forth. But what she posted next is what makes this story remarkable. Her picture functions as a sort of online dare to the trolls on her page who don’t mind the beach pics, sidebar lingerie ads or racy memes that go round and round on Facebook but can’t stand to see a picture of a breast when it’s mostly concealed by a baby’s head:
She posted it with an invitation to other moms to post their own “brelfies” without shame, and they did so in spades. The post has had over 30,000 reactions and nearly 7,000 shares since she posted it in February, and it appears to still be going pretty strong. Chances are that if you haven’t seen it pop up on your timeline or a moms’ group yet, it’s really only a matter of time.
The reason a post like this is so easily proliferated is that it’s so completely relatable. It also touches a major pain point, which is society’s weird dichotomy when it comes to boobs. It’s like being kicked out of a lingerie store for whipping out your breasts to feed in an isolated corner between the garter belts and sheer lace demi-cup push-up bras. Your breasts are great to look at as long as they are pretty, pushed up and presented sexually, but once you attach a baby to one, it’s suddenly icky.
Facebook adds another twist to the puzzle. You’ve probably got hundreds of “friends” on there but only really know a handful of them. People who report other people’s content are rightly anonymous, which makes these self-ascribed morality police even more frustrating to deal with. Who is reporting this stuff? Your college roommate’s grandma, who probably really does think that a bit of boob is obscene? Or your high school frenemy, who couldn’t care less whether breastfeeding is sexual and is only in the “report for nudity” game for the sheer schadenfreude of it?
Maybe it really is an online hypocrite who reports your post in one browser tab and keeps the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show streaming in another.
Whoever it is, Corry’s photo response is pretty much the mic-droppingest response to them we’ve seen yet. One day this kind of picture will stop being controversial and become just as boring as any other photo on a parent’s Facebook timeline, easily scrolled past and forgotten. Until then, it looks like it’s up to moms like Corry to troll the trolls until no one bats an eye at a breast, regardless of its presentation.


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Covid brought shock and a lot of broken habits to tech, but mostly, it accelerates everything that was already changing. 20 trillion dollars of retail, brands, TV and advertising is being overturned, and software is remaking everything from cars to pharma. Meanwhile, China has more smartphone users than Europe and the USA combined, and India is close behind - technology and innovation will be much more widely spread. For that and lots of other reasons, tech is becoming a regulated industry, but if we step over the slogans, what does that actually mean? Tech is entering its second 50 years.
Corrections and updates post-publication: misc typos, Amazon and Nike numbers updated for 2000 year-end, labelling on slide 38 clarified.


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Legality bitcoin country territory – wikipedia, The legal status of bitcoin varies substantially from country to country and is still undefined or changing in many of them. whilst the majority of countries do not.
China verge bursting bitcoin bubble — rt, China’s regulatory clampdown on cryptocurrencies is sparking a mass exodus of bitcoin miners from the country, which has the potential to radically alter both.
India’ leading bitcoin cryptocurrency exchange | zebpay, Zebpay bitcoin & cryptocurrency exchange is the fastest way to buy and sell bitcoins in india. we guarantee fast transaction processing and best cryptocurrency rates..
Bitcoin news, latest breaking news bitcoin | daily news, Bitcoin news – check latest news bitcoin. breaking news updates bitcoin published daily news & analysis..
Bitcoin: bitcoin exchanges seeking clarity levy gst, Indias top bitcoin exchanges, include zebpay, unocoin, coinsecure, plan approach advance authority ruling clear answers questions..
Bitcoin exchange rates india – btcrates., Bitcoin live rates – real time live prices india based exchanges – btcrates..


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Weekly wine tastings in Tel Aviv offer free-spirited wines made by free-spirited people.
A nation situated in the Middle East and on the Mediterranean, Israeli food is made up of cuisine brought to the country by Jewish immigration from all corners of the world as well as custom Middle Eastern cuisine.
Israeli food is generally classified as either Askenazi (European) food - traditional European Jewish meals from Hungary and Poland - or Sephardic (Eastern) - foods rich in spices and flavors, reflecting the cuisine from their countries of origin. Each group has contributed greatly to the evolution of Israeli food. The Arab population of Israel has also contributed to the identity of Israeli food with its North African and Middle Eastern foods like Humus and Falafel.
Israel’s cosmopolitan make up has provided Israeli food with a variety of flavors and choices. Many food establishments in Israel adhere to kosher dietary laws and keep dairy separate from meat; however, food in Israel is not always subjected to these laws. Over the last years Israel has become somewhat of a culinary capital, boasting several high class boutique restaurants in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and more, which serve a fusion of typical Israeli food and flavors from around the world
Israelis are steering away from soft drinks in favor of water and, encouraged by a cut in the alcohol tax, the hard stuff too.
Solomonov isn't the only Israeli to be honored – London-based Yotam Ottolenghi and co-author Ramael Scully won another award.
The new restaurant from the Machneyuda group will pull its influences from North Africa through the Levant, according to chef Assaf Granit.
Following a successful run last year, the Gluteria – chef Eran Zino's gluten-free restaurant – will open its doors for nine days during Passover.
One of the main difficulties stems from the fact that the damage caused by unhealthy food is not immediately felt but accumulated over the years. Another is that unhealthy foodstuffs simply taste good.
A visit to a mall in Tel Aviv this week found it crowded, but Israeli shoppers were less enthusiastic than the merchants and not convinced prices were lower.
There are great Passover recipes everywhere. Here's how to pull them together into a seder menu that will please all.
Tnuva’s sales dropped in the first quarter as rivals grew more aggressive, managers quit.
The developing spat between Israel's health minister and the fast-food giant has left us searching for wholesome alternatives.


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Who would have thought? It turns out hoarding toilet paper in the early days of the pandemic was a wise financial decision. If your bathroom cupboard is still stockpiled with rolls, you don’t have to feel ashamed anymore.
The toilet paper shortage of 2020 was an early warning sign of the large supply-chain disruptions that the global economy was about to suffer. Now wholesale tissue paper prices are surging to a record – a new crisis that indicates inflationary pressures are still building up.
The toilet-paper industry is a microcosm of the much larger, energy-intensive manufacturing sector, where production costs are continuing to rocket in line with soaring wholesale energy prices. It’s the same issue across European industrial commodities – from glass, ceramics and synthetic fibres to aluminium, cement, fertiliser and dozens of other daily-life goods.
Wall Street hopes that the worst of the inflationary wave is behind us. But one look into the industrial sector via the ups and downs of the toilet-paper industry suggests that price pressures are not letting up. Central banks will have to tighten their monetary policy in response, even as economic growth, in Europe in particular, slows down.
As is true for many manufacturers, the core of the problem for toilet paper is the cost of energy.
Transforming wood into pulp and then into toilet tissue is energy-intensive – more so than for other kinds of papers. In Europe, the process is now prohibitively expensive as natural gas and electricity wholesale prices surge to an all-time high.
Higher energy costs
Despite a correction from the record peaks set in late August, European benchmark gas is trading near €250 ($370) per megawatt hour, compared to an average price of less than €20 from 2010 to 2020. European benchmark electricity prices are 15 times higher now than they were a decade ago.
Lorenzo Poli, the head of Italian paper maker Cartiere Saci, recently shared his company’s monthly energy bill on television: It had gone from a little more than €385,000 in 2021 to almost €2 million in 2022. In another sign of the stress, Hakle, a large German toilet-paper maker with a century-long history, filed for insolvency on Monday. The company said “massive” price increases for energy and other commodities drove it into “a corner”.
I have heard other toilet-paper industry executives complain about similar energy cost hikes – 300 per cent to 400 per cent year-on-year seems to be the norm, rather than the exception.
Until very recently, most European governments have focused on helping households cope with the impact of rising prices, largely forgetting the manufacturing industry. From Finland to Spain, manufacturers now worry their only option to stop bleeding cash is to reduce production, which would create a shortage that pushes prices higher but allow margins to recover.
Meanwhile, they are quoting significantly higher prices to their clients, often supermarket chains, than they were at the beginning of the northern summer.
As a result, the wholesale price for European tissue paper (which toilet paper comes from) has surged this week to a record of about €2200 per metric tonne – up from less than €900 in January 2021. And prices are likely to rise further in October, industry executives say.
Even more worrying, the rate of the price increases has accelerated. From January to June, wholesale tissue costs were rising at about 3 per cent to 5 per cent month-on-month; since July, prices have increased by 10 per cent each month.
The price increases will soon find their way on to the supermarket shelves. So far this year, consumer-goods companies such as Proctor & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark have hiked their prices somewhat and reduced the length of the rolls to preserve their margins. On average, industry executives say rolls are 6 per cent to 8 per cent shorter today compared with a year ago while they are 8 per cent to 10 per cent more expensive.
A new round of retail price hikes is now coming, at least in Europe. And you can expect to see even shorter toilet paper rolls in the fourth quarter. Such shrinkflation is getting worse: Instead of toilet paper rolls just getting shorter, the paper sheets are starting to get narrower, too.
The humble toilet paper roll offers a window into the rest of the manufacturing industry. Of course, there are great differences between the rolls and, say, ceramic tiles or a tonne of fertiliser. But one common thread among them is that wholesale prices are still climbing, and production is falling. The shortages will inflate prices even further, despite economies slowing in response to interest-rate hikes.
Central banks will feel compelled to act via ever higher interest rates, as it’s their only lever right now. But fighting inflation this way is a messy business. And now there will be less toilet paper for the clean-up.
Javier Blas is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy and commodities. A former reporter for Bloomberg News and commodities editor at the Financial Times, he is co-author of The World for Sale: Money, Power and the Traders Who Barter the Earth’s Resources.
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- Why electric vehicles aren’t cost-free environmental saviours A new book finds the shift to Teslas and their competitors, financed by tens of billions of dollars of subsidies, also involves significant environmental and geopolitical damage.
- With TikTok out of the picture in India, US tech giants go to battle The prohibition of China’s mega-app has pitted Meta and Alphabet in a fight for the billions of dollars up for grabs.
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Federal regulations on cyber security lead to revenue loss
Even though 87 percent those surveyed in the financial service industry agree that current regulatory changes are very important or critical to keeping their companies and industry secure, new federal guidelines were having an adverse impact on their businesses, according to Radware.
Survey respondents revealed that revenue loss (58 percent), business disruption (57 percent) and productivity loss (54 percent) ranked highly as the biggest consequences of new federal guidelines for the financial services sector. Four in ten respondents stated that federal regulations were adversely affecting bottom line results, causing a significant impact to IT CAPEX and OPEX.
The survey also uncovered that while nearly all claim to be very or somewhat familiar with new guidelines, a substantial number, both in financial services and other industries, are still unaware of the specific regulations that would impact their business such as the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) Joint Statement on DDoS Cyber Attacks and Risk Mitigation.
In order to manage new guidelines, respondents cited investing in new or specialized technologies as the most common approach (53 percent) to currently dealing with these issues, followed by changing security processes, protocols and mandates (49 percent) and creating new security models (47 percent). 43 percent said they assigned extra budgets, with an average increase of 14 percent to address new federal regulations.
Results also show that escalated expenditures and resources were not the only concern. 86 percent of financial services respondents are more concerned about the possibility of cyber-attacks than non-financial organizations, and believe their businesses are ill-prepared to safeguard against them.
A small amount of respondents stated their business does not have a strategy for protecting against DDoS attacks (eight percent).
- Unauthorized access (48 percent), theft of IP (47 percent), sabotage (47 percent), and worm and virus damage (46%) are the most harmful attacks to the business
- Loss of revenue (39 percent) tops the list of negative outcomes resulting from a cyber attack, followed by loss of customers (38 percent)
- 63 percent of respondents indicated a willingness to adopt application and network security best practices from another industry
- 80 percent of respondents place a critical or very high degree of importance on the federal government imposing stricter regulations around application and network security
- 84 percent expect network and applications security to be more tightly regulated by the government over the next 12 months
- 35 percent expect the frequency of cyber attacks in increase over the next year, while 44 percent anticipate the number of attacks to remain the same
- 58 percent of survey respondents have filled out a Security and Exchange Commission questionnaire for compliance in the past 12 months.
Radware commissioned an in-depth survey from IDG Research Services. Chief among the respondents were CIO/CTOs representing the financial services industry with global annual sales of $5 billion or more.


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Journalist, activist and author
Kinne recently published On Sale: Employers Get Good Workers Dirt Cheap. Five years ago she left the newspaper where she had worked for most of her 21-year career in journalism. Her timing couldn’t have been better…or worse. The Great Recession began six months later. She rode out the recession, and the years after, as a low-paid sales associate and cashier at a chain store. On Sale: Employers Get Good Workers Dirt Cheap is her first book, a memoir of her four years at the store she calls Big Box.


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Nintendo has revealed new multiplayer details about their upcoming game, Animal Crossing New Horizons, scheduled to launch on March 20 on Nintendo Switch.
The platform owner has detailed via its official Nintendo Australia website that only one island can exist per Nintendo Switch console, and that’s “irrespective of the number of user accounts registered to or copies of the game used on one console.”
“Up to eight people” are allowed to play on one island via local wireless or online play, while couch co-op will be granted for a maximum of four users.
An Internet connection is required to play online, of course, together with a subscription to the Nintendo Switch Online service. Earlier today, it was revealed that the service has reached 15 million accounts since launch – 8 million more than this time last year.
A Nintendo Switch limited edition bundle will be released alongside the game on March 20 and will feature the colors and themes from the Animal Crossing franchise.
While details about the game itself are sparse, a new set of stickers has just revealed some returning characters and new ones that will be making their debut in New Horizons.


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T-Mobile announced today that it has partnered with Apple to rent customers a brand-new iPhone 5s (“or whatever is the latest and great iPhone”) to test out the company’s network for one week as part of its “Uncarrier 5.0″ event. The offer is part of the “un-carrier’s” new “Test Drive” program that attempts to lure away subscribers on competing networks. The program starts on June 23rd.
Users can sign up on T-Mobile’s website and will receive an iPhone 5s to use for one week on the T-Mobile wireless network. After the trial period ends, customers can drop the phone off at a T-Mobile store. The entire process costs nothing.
The company hopes that this will eliminate buyer’s remorse and give people a chance to see how well the network will work for them on a daily basis. The full press release is below:


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(WASHINGTON) -- The newer the car, the safer it is for women drivers, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a new report Tuesday.
While the NHTSA’s earlier report, published in 2013, found women to be at a much higher risk of fatality in car crashes compared to men, the 2022 report said that newer car technology, in line with strengthened regulations, has decreased the disparity.
According to the National Roadway Safety Strategy published by the Department of Transportation in February, officials said that although men represent more than 70% of drivers involved in fatal crashes, the motor vehicle fatality risk is still higher for a woman than for a man of the same age.
The NHTSA’s new report states the estimated difference in fatality risk estimates for female versus male front row occupants is 6.3% for car models from 2010-2020. Older vehicles, with model years 1960-2009, have a disparity almost three times that at 18.3%.
For vehicles within model years 2015-2020, the disparity closed even further, coming in at 2.9%, the report said.
Newer generations of cars are equipped with dual air bags, which significantly reduces the fatality risk for women in crashes, the NHTSA said. Newer cars also have more advanced seat belts, the agency said, which further reduces women's risk.
However, NHTSA’s Administrator, Steven Cliff, said that the department is still looking to improve the impact upon women who are in car crashes.
“Advancing equity, including across our transportation system, is one of the Biden-Harris Administration’s top priorities,” Cliff said in a press release. “While NHTSA’s new report shows significant declines in differences in crash outcomes between women and men, there is more work required to eliminate any disparities that remain.”
The NHTSA said a number of developments are in action to close the remaining gap, including the development of new biofidelic crash test dummies and of sophisticated computer modeling that can evaluate the effects of different types of crashes on a large range of human body types and sizes.
Further, the agency is researching the degree to which sex disparities in injuries exist in like crashes and the evaluation of new safety standards to eliminate all remaining disparities.
Historically, car crash tests used only male dummies, according to the NHTSA. The agency has used a 4-foot-11, 108-pound “female dummy” in some tests since 2003, the NHTSA said. However, this sizing is not accurate to the average woman’s body in America.
VERITY NOW, a coalition to end gender discrimination in vehicle safety testing, does not think the new report is as positive as NHTSA says, according to a new statement.
“This is an attempt by NHTSA to gloss over gender disparities in crash fatalities. Time and again, NHTSA creates inequitable safety standards for men and women, rewriting the rules or flat out ignoring their own data,” VERITY NOW Co-Chair and former Congresswoman Susan Molinari said in the statement.
"This report is a disgraceful attempt by NHTSA to deny women the same vehicle safety protections the government already provides to men. [Transportation] Secretary [Pete] Buttigieg should step up and fix this mess that NHTSA created," Molinari continued.
Beth Brooke, VERITY NOW co-chair and former global vice chair of public policy for Ernst & Young, said that the data in NHTSA's report is "cherry picked" and doesn't show real change on the issue. Instead, the organization's statement said the new report only examined gender disparities in crash fatalities, not gender disparities in injuries from car crashes.
According to the NHTSA, new federal funding through the major infrastructure bill passed in November will help accelerate research on this front to further close the gap in fatality rates for men and women in car crashes.
(NEW YORK) -- The term "Googling" may be synonymous with "searching" for things online, but for the group known as Gen Z that might be changing.
Nearly 40% of Gen Z members (born from 1997 to 2012, according to the Pew Research Center) prefer TikTok for online searches, according to internal data from Google, which was first reported by TechCrunch.
"They don't have a long attention span; they said that several times," said Adrienne Sheares, a social media consultant, who formed a Gen Z focus group to discuss their searching habits. "They want to get the information really quickly, and get to the meat of it really quickly and not have to sort."
Sheares said Gen Z was dissatisfied with the quality of Google's searches. That's in large part because the search engine forced them to sift through advertisements, which often comprise the first several results in common searches. Sheares said TikTok, by contrast, provides several avenues by which to quickly discover content.
"They use it a couple different ways," said Sheares. "So they could either be looking for it and search kind of similar to how you and I would search. But they also love the 'For You' page that kind of brings the results to them before they're even looking."
TikTok's "For You" page consists of a scrolling feed of videos that the app's algorithm has determined the user may be interested in. As such, searching via the "For You" page is more about discovering content, rather than looking for something specific. TikTok surfaces content based on a variety of factors, including how long a user lingers on a certain type of video, or whether they like or comment on it. Sheares said that algorithm is a big part of why younger users seem to enjoy searching for content on TikTok.
"The chances of [their results] being relevant are extremely high, so they can find information really quickly" she said. "Because if you're an avid user of TikTok, it knows quite a bit of information about you already."
Sheares also said TikTok's use of video is especially appealing to Gen Z users, who feel the format gives them a more comprehensive search result.
"You're seeing a three-sixty view into a destination, or experience, or product," says Sheares. "They wanted to see the makeup swatches; for bars, the thing they kept talking about was the aesthetic, the vibe."
Sheares also said Gen Z tends to search for lighter topics on TikTok - things like recipes, fashion tips and bar recommendations. Meanwhile, they leave heavier topics – like those related to COVID or election information - to Google.
"For the more serious information, they do like Google," said Sheares. "If they do see something on TikTok, they will use other methods to verify, which generally looks like going to Google or a news source to back it up."
The trend of using images and video in online searches could be here to stay. Earlier this year, Google showed off a new feature dubbed "Multisearch," which lets users search with a combination of text and photos.
"Even if people aren't interested in, say, TikTok, I think what we are going to start to see is more visual in search," said Sheares.
(WASHINGTON) --The Inflation Reduction Act, a $739 billion measure signed into law by President Joe Biden on Tuesday, levies a 15% minimum tax on large corporations and marks the most significant climate legislation in U.S. history. Meanwhile, the law will reduce the federal deficit by $305 billion over roughly the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
More immediately, however, the legislation will impact everyday Americans' wallets.
The law, which passed the House and Senate with support from Democrats in party-line votes, empowers a federal agency to negotiate with health insurers over the prices for prescription drugs under Medicare, for instance, which should bring down the cost of some drugs for seniors.
Further, the measure puts a ceiling on out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 beginning in 2025 for people enrolled in Medicare Part D, the prescription drug plan for seniors.
Beyond health care, the Inflation Reduction Act carries a host of tax credits and discounts on everything from electric cars to solar energy.
Americans can determine the financial benefits available to them under the law with help from a savings calculator created by Rewiring America, a nonprofit that aims to achieve energy efficiency through the electrification of "everything in our communities." After entering personal information about the location, size, and income of a given household, the calculator will share all of the savings accessible through the measure.
(NEW YORK) -- Award-winning restaurateur Michael Scelfo has run kitchens post-9/11 and through the 2008 economic downturn, but he said the COVID-19 pandemic and soaring inflation have brought on prolonged issues businesses are still trying to figure out.
"What's so different this time around is it's this sustained, evolving-downward spiral since March of 2020 when things hit the fan with COVID and the shutdown," Scelfo told Good Morning America. "What we're left with is the economic rubble of the aftermath."
Restaurant owners are accustomed to dynamic changes, but even industry veterans like Scelfo said, "it feels like we're continually taking punches and not necessarily getting the relief that we expected."
And problems that began at the onset of the pandemic -- mandated restaurant closures, safety restrictions, staffing shortages and broken supply chains -- have been exacerbated by rising costs on food, fuel and materials, failed federal relief packages and inflation, experts said.
Soaring inflation hits cost of ingredients
Food prices have outpaced the overall inflation rate, which is up nearly 11% year-over-year in July, according to the latest data from Bureau of Labor Statistics. Common restaurant staple ingredients like flour -- when purchased in a U.S. city -- rose 22% in the last year, while eggs have increased 38%.
"It all trickles down to what the baseline cost of whatever the product is," Scelfo said. "If you're paying more for it on the home front, you can be assured that we're paying more."
Scelfo, who has not passed along increases to his guests, looks at that as a last resort.
"I don't want to raise prices on the consumer any more than I have to because I'm sensitive to it too. And I do think there's a limit to what you can realistically charge," he said. "If you're a restaurant that's operating on thin margins, you're really probably up against it right now -- there's kind of this feast or famine out there for restaurants who have the means to navigate this period."
"Inflation is having a tremendous impact on everyone across the board," Leslie Silverglide, co-founder of California casual restaurant chains Split and Mixt, told GMA. "[We've tried to] hold price as much as possible," she added, and "be smarter about how we run our business."
Food shortages, costs impact menus and availability
Brooklyn-based chef-owner Sal Lamboglia of the newly opened Italian hotspot, Cafe Spaghetti, thinks customers may relate more than ever to the challenges of rising food costs as they shift their own spending on groceries.
"So many things that we use that aren't even specialty items -- eggs, milk, cream, butter – have gone up 10, 20 30% -- I'm sure every restaurant is going through this, but I also feel also for the diner," he said. "It's scary because I don't know if things will make their way down again."
And he said Lamboglia's menu has taken a hit.
"We've been getting shorted on certain pastas, and certain grains and flour -- I've had to actually change a brand of pasta," he said. "[We] go back to the drawing board each time and say, 'OK, how valuable is this dish with this exact pasta? Can we change the shape? Are people going to like it? And that's what we deal with now. It's a lot."
Chef David Nayfeld, owner of Che Fico and Independent Restaurant Coalition (IRC) board member, told GMA that some think inflation is "just now happening." "Our costs have been rising steadily and aggressively for nearly two years," he said.
"We've decided to actually lean into quality," Nayfeld said. "It may mean that people will dine out less," but he believes diners will choose restaurants "based on quality."
He also hopes the decision to spend more on employees, products and farms will ensure the support of key players who share his values to "offer a better quality of product to our guests, knowing that they're smart enough to know the difference."
Paying for quality labor impacts every facet of the supply chain: "If nobody is there to support and prop the supply chain up, [it] will collapse," he said. … when we believe in product and believe in farms -- we need to support them."
New strategies to stay afloat
Jake Dickson, owner of Dickson's Farmstand Meats -- a butchery, restaurant and bar -- called "huge increases in labor costs, packaging costs and meat inputs" a "triple whammy" over the last six months.
"Our labor costs per head were up 30%," he told GMA of the overhead and "first punch" at the start of the pandemic. "And that's pretty tough in a business where labor costs are already massive."
Where Dickson was initially "insulated from food cost increases" and able to keep meat prices steady thanks to longstanding relationships with purveyors, he said "unfortunately, those things don't hold right now."
"Our farmers' costs are now going through the roof," he said, noting fertilizer and fuel costs have prompted higher prices.
"They don't want to increase prices on us because they don't want me to buy less and they know that if I raise my prices, we'll probably sell less," Dickson said.
Four months ago, he made a "very purposeful decision to add a beer and wine license," opening a bar that serves as "a high margin business" to offset other new costs.
"We've kept either small increases or no increases in many places because the bar's margins are so much higher," he said, hailing it "a bulwark."
He also strategized his labor costs.
"Now they're pretty much flat because we made a choice to pay our employees really well then and we haven't had to keep giving raises -- we're very competitive -- now we're just kind of figuring out all the other pieces."
Adapting to skyrocketing expenses
In 17 years of opening restaurants across California, Texas and Arizona, Silverglide said her growing list of challenges has been unlike any other.
"We joke that it's like Whac-A-Mole. We solve one thing, then something else pops up," she said. "Especially as we're looking to build out new restaurants, we're finding it really hard to just get standard equipment -- we place the orders and then as we get closer, they're like, 'Oh, actually, it's gonna be another four to six months.'"
"It's a hard place to be running a restaurant today," Silverglide told GMA.
Lamboglia thinks restaurants can strike a balance by offsetting expensive entree lists with a section of the menu that's affordable.
"At least giving the guests the option not to feel like, 'Wow, I almost can't even go out to eat because it's just too much," he said.
Rather than constantly revising menu prices as inflation rose to 7% this spring, Leslie Whitney, the owner of Sunset Grill in Virginia, told GMA she and her husband decided on a "temporary fix" to add an "inflation fee" of 3.5% to diners' checks.
"As food prices were literally rising and changing every day ... we had to do something to recoup some of the money loss," she said. Although the flat fee won't cover all their new costs, they are "simply trying to stop the bleed."
Staffing has been one of the "lasting effects of COVID" that Whitney has grappled with.
"We can fluctuate with rising food prices, but not having appropriate staff really puts a wrench in our operations of service -- we're constantly trying to hire where we are short staffed," she said. "Back-of-the house positions are the hardest to hire because we have high expectations and aren't willing to cut corners in knowledge and experience."
A push for federal funding
"The one big player here that has not done enough is the government," Nayfeld said. "[The government] has had the ability with multiple bills to refill the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which would really do a tremendous amount – not just for now, but for a couple of years, making sure that these restaurants can stabilize."
Scelfo, who applied and said he never received money from the bill that was part of the American Rescue Plan, added that the "RRF only funded maybe a third or half of restaurants that applied for it and they've still never replenished that."
Despite the constant battering, resilience has created a resounding sense of gratitude and respect in the industry.
"To look for a positive in all this, I've never been more proud of our teams," Scelfo said of the staff who continuously rises to the occasion.
"Restaurants are continuing to find a way to provide a great customer experience so that they really try to minimize the effect of what's happening out there and make you feel like you're escaping it … that's why I'm trying not to pass along that cost."
"None of that would be possible without a lot of dedicated people that continue to work in this industry and work harder than they ever had before," Scelfo said.
(WASHINGTON) -- Air travel fares may be starting to drop from their summer highs, but customers could pay the price to see family and take long-awaited vacations in the post-pandemic world, travel experts say.
Hopper predicts this upcoming winter holiday season will be the most expensive in the last five years.
Hopper anticipates 12.6 million people will fly over Labor Day weekend. Average ticket prices for the long weekend are up 20% from 2021 and 2019.
Domestic flights will cost $278 on average for a round-trip, according to Hopper data. For international flights, customers should expect to pay an average $850 for round-trip fares. International prices are up 34% from 2021 fares.
Nonetheless, Hopper said international travel is expected to make up 40% of the weekend’s air traffic, up 7% from 2021.
The most popular destinations for domestic and international bookings are Las Vegas, Denver, Atlanta, Puerto Rico and Mexico, according to Hopper.
Hotel and gas prices are expected to add further expenses compared to 2021 travel, the agency said.
This Thanksgiving, domestic flights are currently up 31% from 2019 prices and 44% from those in 2021. The average round-trip flight is sitting at $380, a Hopper spokesperson told ABC News.
For those going international, prices aren’t jumping quite as high. Hopper reported a 23% and 25% rise in prices from 2019 and 2021, respectively. The average round-trip price is listed at $788, according to Hopper.
Looking ahead to Christmas travel, Hopper said prices are up 25% and 42% from 2019 and 2021 for domestic bookings, and up 9% and 39% from those same years for international trips.
A Hopper spokesperson told ABC News that the best time to start booking your domestic holiday travel is by mid-September into mid-October. For international trips, start as soon as possible, Hopper said, to book by the first week of October.
Some of the most searched destinations for the holidays are facing these price raises, including New York City, Orlando, Atlanta and Los Angeles, according to Hopper.
London and Paris are the top searched international destinations for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, Hopper said.
The high-priced holiday season comes after a summer of airline disasters, as patrons experienced delays and cancellations at high rates throughout the season as severe weather and staff shortages have defined airports across the country.
(WASHINGTON) -- Car buyers hoping to get a tax credit from the government for an electric vehicle after President Joe Biden signs the Inflation Reduction Act into law might find fewer vehicles that qualify.
The Clean Vehicle Credit, a part of the Inflation Reduction Act that passed Congress last week, had a provision that added a credit of up to $4,000 for used EVs. The new law also removes the current 200,000 EV sales cap, which means vehicles made by Tesla, General Motors and Toyota are eligible again for a federal tax credit.
The law also tightens restrictions on which vehicles qualify for the credit. To receive the tax credit, vehicles must be manufactured in North America and made with batteries that have critical components sourced in either North America or supplied by the country's free-trade agreement partners. The new law also means that high-income buyers and more expensive EVs will not be eligible for the credit.
Of the more than 70 EVs currently on the market, one insider says there's a possibilitythat no EVs would qualify for a tax credit in the short term.
"When the Inflation Reduction Act is passed and signed by the president, those rules will change and become a lot more restrictive," said John Boezella, president and CEO of Alliance for Automotive Innovation. "And that's because the purpose of the credit has changed. It's now focused on reducing our dependance on China for raw materials and battery components."
But as manufacturing of EVs and batteries move to the U.S., far more vehicles will qualify for the federal tax credit. Boezella estimates that in five or seven years, there will be as many as 120 EVs on the market that could qualify for the new credit.
"It won't happen overnight despite the fact that companies are investing billions of dollars right now to develop those supply chains," Boezella said. "So what you'll see is a reduction in the number of vehicles that will qualify, and then over time, we would expect that more vehicles will qualify in the future."
The changes have caused confusion for industry experts, manufacturers and consumers.
"Consumer Reports did a survey and we found that half of car buyers are more likely to purchase an EV if there's a tax credit that brings down the price, so those tax credits are obviously important to buyers," said Keith Barry, an auto writer at Consumer Reports. "And if people can't quite figure out which car qualifies, I imagine that will probably stall sales in the short term."
Manufacturers, dealers and others in the auto industry are waiting to see what effect the bill will have on EVs.
"There's a bit of a wait and see," Barry said. "Different manufacturers are saying different things about what cars will qualify during this sort of transition period. And there's no one size fits all answer here, unfortunately, until the regulations are fully written and the dust settles."
(NEW YORK) -- The Trump Organization's longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, is expected to plead guilty to tax charges as soon as this week, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Weisselberg, 75, is currently scheduled to go on trial in the fall, but a hearing in the case is now scheduled for this Thursday, in what could be a sign that he could change his plea then.
An attorney for Weisselberg declined to comment when contacted by ABC News.
Weisselberg, along with former President Donald Trump's namesake family real estate firm, was charged last year with tax fraud after they were accused of compensating employees "off the books" in order to pay less in taxes.
According to the charging documents, Weisselberg avoided taxes on more than $1.7 million over the past 15 years, resulting from the payment of his rent on an apartment in a Trump-owned building and related expenses that prosecutors said included cars and private school tuition for his grandchildren.
The Trump Organization is proceeding to trial, the sources said, with the case currently scheduled to begin toward the end of October.
News of the development was first reported by The New York Times.
It was not immediately clear whether the terms of Weisselberg's plea would require him to cooperate with the ongoing investigation.
However, sources said Weisselberg is expected to serve some prison time.
Last week, Weisselberg lost his motion to have the indictment against him thrown out.
He is no longer the Trump Organization's CFO, but remains employed by the firm.
(WASHINGTON) -- A frozen food manufacturer issued a recall Sunday for more than 13,000 pounds of frozen meat pizza over possible contamination, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service said.
Home Run Inn Frozen Foods said the food products "may be contaminated with extraneous materials, specifically metal," the USDA said.
The company discovered the problem after it received complaints from consumers, according to the USDA.
"There have been no confirmed reports of injuries or adverse reactions due to consumption of these products. Anyone concerned about an injury or illness should contact a health care provider," the agency said in a statement.
The company said the recall affects its 33.5-ounce cartons containing "Home Run Inn Chicago's Premium Pizzeria Deluxe Sausage Classic Pizza" with a "best by" date of "12/03/22." The frozen meat pizzas were produced on June 6, 2022, the USDA said.
The affected products recall bears an establishment number "EST. 18498-A" inside the USDA mark of inspection, according to the agency.
Anyone who purchased these products is urged not to consume them, the USDA said.
(NEW YORK) -- As children are heading back to school this month, Kraft Heinz announced a recall on Friday of more than 5,000 cases of Capri Sun due to a possible contamination.
This voluntary recall comes after the company announced the potential contamination affecting approximately 5,760 Capri Sun cases (each case contains about 10 pouches) of its wild cherry flavor. The company said a diluted cleaning solution was inadvertently introduced into a production line at one of its factories.
The "Best When Used By" date on the products is June 25, 2023, according to the company. No other Capri Sun flavors were listed in the recall.
"The issue was discovered after we received several consumer complaints about the taste of the affected product," Kraft Heinz said in a statement on Friday. "The Company is actively working with retail partners and distributors to remove potentially impacted product from circulation."
Those who believe they might have the product are advised not to consume it and return the product where it was purchased.
Click here to view the company’s full description of the affected product.
"Consumers can contact Kraft Heinz from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Monday through Friday, at 1-800-280-8252 to see if a product is part of the recall and to receive reimbursement," Kraft Heinz said in a statement.
(NEW YORK) -- More than 2 million infant rockers and swings have been recalled due to entanglement and strangulation hazards, leading to at least one death.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the voluntary recall Monday of certain 4moms MamaRoo Baby Swings and RockaRoo Baby Rockers, which were sold at Target and Buy Buy Baby.
When the swing or rocker is not in use their restraint straps can dangle below the seat and non-occupant crawling infants can become entangled in the straps, posing a strangulation hazard, according to the CPSC.
4moms has received two reports of entanglement incidents involving infants who became caught in the strap under the unoccupied MamaRoo infant swing after they crawled under the seat. This includes a 10-month-old infant who died from asphyxiation, and a 10-month-old infant who suffered bruising to his neck before being rescued by a caregiver, according to a press release from the CPSC.
No incidents involving the RockaRoo have been reported, the CPSC said.
Gary Waters, the CEO of 4moms, said his company was "deeply saddened" by the two incidents, adding, "Families put their trust in our company when they choose to bring our products into their homes. That’s why we take every precaution and make the extra effort to ensure that our baby gear products not only meet but exceed all applicable safety standards.
Consumers with infants who can crawl are advised to "immediately" stop using the recalled products and place them in an area where the infants cannot access them.
The CPSC said consumers should contact 4moms immediately to register for a free strap fastener that will prevent the straps from extending under the swing when not in use.
(NEW YORK) -- When Paige West decided to scale back the amount of effort she was putting into her corporate job, she joined a growing workplace trend known as "quiet quitting."
"When I was quiet quitting, I didn't want to constantly feel that stress of working that job and feeling like I needed to put my 1000% in," West, now a digital creator, told "Good Morning America." "So I decided to scale that back and really just do the work that was required of me."
For West, the urge to focus more on her work-life balance and give less to her job came during the coronavirus pandemic, when she, like many workers around the globe, began working remotely from home.
"I was really struggling with just the idea of a 9 to 5, especially when COVID hit and we were all working from home," said West. "I was just stuck at my desk all day from 9 to 5, at a minimum, working on my computer, staring at a screen. For me, that just wasn't the ideal situation."
With the pandemic blurring the lines between work and home, people like West are using quiet quitting as a way to set more boundaries between their professional and personal lives.
The new form of "quitting" sees people keeping their jobs, but mentally stepping back from the burdens of work -- for example, working the bare minimum number of hours and not making their jobs an important center of their lives.
Clayton Farris, a freelance writer, said he heard about the trend on TikTok, where the hashtag #quietquitting has been posted more than 3 million times.
"I just heard about this term called Quiet Quitting, and I realized that is what I've been doing … against my will," Farris said in a video on TikTok.
Farris told "GMA" he has learned in his own life how to set boundaries around work.
"It's about quitting the hustle culture that goes along with work in our society," he said. "I can still be a very productive, active worker and not have to focus on work 24 hours a day."
Data shows the trend of putting limits on one's job and work life, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is most popular among people just starting out in their careers, those who are in their early 20s.
"Being connected to a mission or purpose is a high priority for the younger generation," said Jim Harter, chief workplace scientist at Gallup. "That's something they want but they're not experiencing in their current workplaces."
Rebecca Jarvis, ABC News chief business, technology and economics correspondent, said making a decision to quiet quit a job could come down to a person's career goals.
"If your objective is work-life balance over income and maybe even job security and you're not lookin for big raises and promotions, then this could work for you," Jarvis said, noting the current job market is also amenable to the trend. "It is much easier to pull off when there are nearly two job openings for every job seeker."
The risk of quiet quitting, according to Jarvis, is that an employee who is less invested in their job may be "more likely to be laid off in a down economy."
Jarvis said that for employees who are feeling burned out, it may be the right time to speak with their manager.
"Set time. Talk to them about the fact that you're feeling burned out," she said, adding that employees should also come prepared with solutions for how they can fulfill their job obligations while also taking care of themselves.
Finally, according to Jarvis, employees can look for community within their workplace to make things a little easier on themselves.
"For people who don't necessarily feel it on their team, look around the company. " said Jarvis. "There may be others and when you have that community, those friends at the job, it goes by so much more quickly."
(NEW YORK) -- Lower-than-expected inflation rates last week sent the S&P 500 soaring to its highest level in three months, reflecting optimism that price increases have peaked as businesses and consumers seek relief from budget-busting costs.
While still elevated, price hikes last month waned from the near-historic pace reached in June, according to a release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday. The consumer price index, or CPI, rose 8.5% over the past year as of July, a marked slowdown from a 9.1% year-over-year rate measured in June, the bureau said.
Moreover, the inflation rate saw a 0% rise on a monthly basis in July, after rising 1.3% on that measure in the month prior.
Previous optimism about inflation, however, has proven misguided. Before last month, the problem that most Americans consider their top economic priority had reached its most dire level.
Still, progress on the supply-demand imbalance that sits at the root of price increases suggests that the U.S. has reached peak inflation, economists told ABC News. An easing of supply chain bottlenecks has coincided with an aggressive series of borrowing cost increases from the Federal Reserve, which could very well have slowed the economy and slashed demand, they said.
"We're getting relief on the global supply stage," David Rosenberg, founder of Rosenberg Research and former chief economist for North America at Merrill Lynch, told ABC News. "On top of that, we're seeing disruption of demand."
"Why on earth would you think inflation will go up?" he added, citing the firm commitment to raise interest rates expressed by Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
But economists differed sharply in their assessment of how much the supply-demand imbalance has been resolved, and in their expectations for how much inflation will fall. And even as price hikes slow down, some costs for consumers, like rent, and for businesses, like wages, will persist at elevated levels, economists cautioned.
They also warned that inflation could take a turn for the worst if the global economy suffers a shock, such as a significant escalation of the war between Russia and Ukraine or a more infectious strain of COVID-19.
"The pandemic is kind of like Lucy with the football," Martha Olney, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, told ABC News. "We keep pretending that this time we'll kick the football. We keep pretending that this time the pandemic is over."
Like many economic problems, inflation largely owes to an imbalance between supply and demand.
As the pandemic eased, a surge in demand for goods and services followed a pandemic-induced flood of economic stimulus. Moreover, that stimulus brought about a speedy economic recovery from the March 2020 downturn, triggering a hiring blitz.
But the surge in demand far outpaced supply, as COVID-related bottlenecks slowed delivery times and infection fears kept workers on the sidelines. In turn, prices and wages skyrocketed, prompting sky-high inflation.
Signs point to an easing of these fundamental forces behind price increases, however, Jeffrey Roach, the chief economist at LPL Financial, told ABC News. Import prices fell in July for the first time in seven months, suggesting that supply chain bottlenecks are loosening up, according to data released by the Labor Department on Friday.
Meanwhile, the economy has seen a decline in demand for some key products like gasoline, which on Thursday fell below $4 per gallon on average nationwide for the first time since March. Many economists expect that overall demand will fall in the coming months, as the Fed pursues rate hikes aimed at slowing down the economy.
"Aggregate demand is slowing down, and supply chains are improving," Roach said. "The market is pretty happy we're at that inflection point."
But it remains to be seen just how much supply and demand have balanced out, Olney, of the University of California, Berkeley, said. She questioned whether Fed rate hikes have reduced consumer demand, with the exception of a slowdown in construction that shows appetite in the housing market has waned. "I think the jury is out," she said.
Beyond supply and demand, inflation expectations among consumers and businesses can also impact the trajectory of price hikes, Olney added. Perception helps drive the prices that companies will put forward and consumers will tolerate.
Data on consumer price expectations has shown improvement over the last couple of months. A widely observed measure of consumer sentiment, published by the University of Michigan, markedly increased last month, indicating that inflation fears have eased somewhat, according to a report released on Friday.
Nevertheless, even as inflation declines, price increases for some goods will likely remain elevated or even speed up, Roach, of LPL Financial, said. One such expenditure, rental costs, will stay sky-high over the near term in part because customers sign leases that lock them in at prices for a year or longer. "Folks don't reset rental costs as frequently as the store can reset milk prices," Roach said.
High labor costs for businesses will also likely endure, Michael Pugliese, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities, told ABC News. The economy showed unusually strong hiring last month, along with elevated wage increases that saw hourly earnings go up 5.2% on a yearly basis. Those wage hikes are "still well above what prevailed before the pandemic," Pugliese said.
The economists, including Pugliese, described the inflation data released this week as a welcome development but said more evidence will be necessary to show that a sustained, significant decline in inflation has begun.
In a report he wrote about the new inflation data, Pugliese used the subtitle, "A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step."
(NEW YORK) -- When Katie Quinonez, the executive director of an abortion clinic in West Virginia, saw the Supreme Court decision that overturned the federal guarantee of the right to an abortion, the first word she uttered was an obscenity.
The nonprofit Women's Health Center of West Virginia, located in Charleston, faced the immediate risk of prosecution under a state abortion ban from 1882, so Quinonez and a coworker made 60 calls to patients canceling procedures scheduled for the ensuing three weeks, said Quinonez.
"That was definitely one of the worst days of my entire life so far," she said. "Some of the staff were so upset that they couldn't stop crying."
Not only did the Supreme Court decision stop the clinic from providing abortions, but it delivered a crushing blow to the nonprofit health center's financial stability, Quinonez said. This is a financial reality many abortion clinics -- which often provide key care in communities and already face tight finances -- are now contending with as they decide how, or if, they can move forward.
Abortions accounted for 40% of the Women's Health Center of West Virginia revenue, Quinonez said, adding that there would be no easy way to replace such a large a chunk of the clinic's $1.6 million annual budget. (At least for now, the clinic can again provide abortions, since a lawsuit brought by the clinic days after the Dobbs decision has paused enforcement of the ban.)
"Being unable to provide abortion care absolutely puts us in a precarious financial position," Quinonez said. "Our ability to keep our doors open very much depends on revenue from the services we provide, as well as grants and donations."
The loss of a community clinic dramatically curtails reproductive health care access for women, especially low-income women, according to research. One in three low-income women depend on clinics -- such as a health center, Planned Parenthood or a publicly funded clinic -- to get contraception, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study released in 2019. Another study, published in the Journal of Women's Health in 2019, found that greater travel distance for an abortion is associated with higher out-of-pocket costs, delayed care and negative mental health effects.
Many abortion clinics now must choose between two costly options: stay open but stop providing abortions, or move to an abortion-friendly state, clinic officials and reproductive health organizations told ABC News.
Remaining open but stopping the service altogether denies many clinics a key source of revenue from insurers or patients paying for the procedure, clinic staff said. Meanwhile, the choice to close and move means losing revenue from patients while facing front-end moving costs such as buying or leasing a building, relocating employees and transporting equipment, among other expenses, the clinic staff added.
Within a month of the Dobbs decision, 43 clinics across 11 states in the Midwest and South had stopped providing abortions, either because they had closed or stayed open but no longer offered the procedure, according to a study released last month by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research organization that supports abortion rights.
Even before the onset of state-level abortion bans, clinics struggled to financially sustain themselves, Caitlin Myers, a professor of economics at Middlebury College who specializes in the financial dynamics behind abortion care, told ABC News.
The budgets at many clinics strain under the weight of compliance with onerous regulations, dependence on low-income patients who often lack insurance, and the absence of federal funding and in many cases Medicaid coverage for abortions, she said.
"A lot of abortion providers, from what we can see on the outside, are operating on fairly thin margins," Myers said. "There are already a tremendous number of challenges facing the U.S. health-care industry, and for abortion providers, those challenges are generally even greater."
Clinics also face significant legal costs navigating a maze of measures at the federal, state and local level, which became even more complicated after the court overturned Roe, said Erin Grant, the deputy director at the Abortion Care Network, a membership organization made up of more than 200 independent clinics nationwide.
"The legal and litigation costs are one of the No. 1 barriers," Grant said. "That doesn't just have to do with the abortion ban itself. This is about building regulations, Department of Health inspections and dealing with insurance companies."
For clinics that have chosen to move since the Dobbs decision, a new set of costs has arisen.
Whole Woman's Health, a health care company that manages nine clinics across five states, announced last month that it plans to close four Texas-based clinics after an abortion ban went into effect in the state. To continue to meet the needs of patients in Texas, the company hopes to open one or more locations in nearby abortion-friendly states, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, the founder and CEO of Whole Woman's Health.
The typical annual budget for one of the for-profit clinics run by Whole Woman's Health is $1.5 million, the company said.
The cost of closing clinics and reopening elsewhere is immense, Hagstrom Miller said. Due to the planned closures, Whole Woman's Health has laid off roughly half its staff in Texas. Meanwhile, the company has sought to get out from under leases on two of its Texas facilities at the same time it has pursued a lease on a facility in New Mexico. On top of that, the company has looked for temporary storage for medical equipment and planned the relocation of remaining staff.
"All of that requires capital resources that we don't have now because we're not able to see patients, which of course is the major source of income in any medical practice, not just abortion clinics," Hagstrom Miller said. "You don't have income if you don't have patients."
"It is a big financial burden," she added.
Melissa Fowler, the chief program officer at the National Abortion Federation, an umbrella organization that counts roughly 500 member clinics in the U.S. and abroad, put it bluntly: "It's incredibly difficult to open a clinic, especially in a new state."
It is unclear how many clinics have sought to move since the Dobbs decision, and the number may be relatively small. The financial impact of state-level abortion bans may also be less significant for clinics at which the procedure makes up a smaller proportion of its services.
For instance, Planned Parenthood told ABC News that none of its affiliates had closed or moved since the Dobbs decision. Further, abortion makes up about 3% of services delivered at its affiliates, according to the organization's 2020 annual report, the most recent available.
Needing additional revenue, many abortion clinics have received a surge in donations since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. As of early August, a GoFundMe launched by Whole Woman's Health had raised more than $285,000, though the figure falls short of its $750,000 goal.
Quinonez, the executive director of Women's Health Center of West Virginia, said the organization has raised $225,000 from donations since the Dobbs decision. That makes up more than a third of the nearly $600,000 the organization raised from donations over the entirety of its most recent fiscal year, Quinonez said.
Still, in light of a strict abortion ban passed by the West Virginia Senate during a special session late last month, the organization has cut its anticipated revenue for the coming fiscal year, ending in June 2023, to just a little over half of what the organization brought in over the previous fiscal year.
Quinonez declined to comment on whether the clinic is considering moving to an abortion-friendly state. When asked whether the clinic could remain open if West Virginia imposed a full ban on abortion, Quinonez said, "It remains to be seen."
"Right now, we've received a lot of support from our community," she added. "We certainly aren't going anywhere in the near future and we're working to add more services regardless of what happens to our ability to provide abortion care."
(NEW YORK) -- Just a few months ago, the real estate market was favorable to people selling homes. The amount of buyers was increasing, the number of listings were down and interest rates were dropping, it seemed, across the country.
Now, brokers are saying the market has shifted.
“Today, week after week, we see more and more inventory come on the market and demand is down,” broker Justin Itzen, who sells high-end homes in Orange County, California, told ABC News’ “Nightline.”
“Buyers have more to choose from, they can be more selective,” he said.
In expensive coastal markets such as Orange County, there has been a notable drop in homebuyer interest and other signs of a cooling market, according to Taylor Marr, chief economist of real estate listings site Redfin.
At large, the share of home listings that have been on the market for more than 30 days has increased more than 12% from last year, according to a Redfin report released last week.
As interest rates increase due to inflation, from 2-3% last year for certain mortgages to between 5-6% this month, buyers are more hesitant to take out loans.
“We did feel a very aggressive slowdown,” said Itzen, that happened almost overnight. “During open houses it was like, ‘where's all the buyers?’”
Iesha McTier-Whyte, a broker who sells middle to high-end homes in the Newark, New Jersey area told ABC News’ “Nightline” that she has experienced the same, but doesn’t view it necessarily as a bad thing.
“It's nice to see [the market] cool down and kind of go back to the basics,” she said. “What we experienced last year was like no other.”
Justin Itzen’s real estate partner, Gio Helou, said “buyers are [now] able to actually go through the natural home buying process,” instead of making extraordinary sacrifices to try to secure a home.
And yet the rising interest rates have put pressure on buyers in certain ways.
One couple, Deni and Tim Sherman, started looking to buy a home in California this spring and reached out to Gio Helou for help. They found the process extremely stressful.
“Homes were going within days for way over the asking price,” said Tim Sherman.
When they found a home they wanted to buy in Huntington Beach, California, they said they considered liquidating investments to buy it.
Not only was it “15% over the asking price,” said Tim Sherman, “but it was now over the market estimates of what the property was worth.”
The house fell through, but they were finally able to buy a house. Helou had sent it to them and they put an offer immediately, solely based on photos.


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This spring, when Mitt Romney was campaigning in Youngstown, Ohio, a high school senior asked him what he would do “with regards to college tuition … to make it easier for me and my classmates.”
Romney responded, “The best thing I can do for you is to tell you to shop around … In America this idea of competition, it works. And don’t just go to the [school] that has the highest price. Go to the one that has a little lower price where you can get an education and hopefully you’ll find that and don’t take on too much debt and don’t expect the government to forgive the debt you take on.”
For most Americans, this probably sounds like perfectly acceptable common-sense advice. But not for President Obama.
Campaigning in Reno, Nev., this week, Obama used the “shop around” line to launch an attack on Romney’s education policies.
“Gov. Romney didn’t say anything about grants or loan programs that have helped millions of students earn a college education,” Obama began. “Here’s what he said: ‘The best thing I can do for you is to tell you to shop around.’ To shop around. … That’s his answer to a young person hoping to go to college.”
So you can now add education to the long list of issues on which Romney and Obama have starkly different worldviews. Romney believes college can be more affordable if students are given more information and take the time to shop around and get the best value for their money. Obama believes college will be more affordable if government just keeps giving students more money.
Which solution is better? Let’s look at the data.
Between 1982 and 2008, the cost of attending college increased 439 percent, more than four times the rate of inflation. Over that same time frame, federal spending on higher education also increased 355 percent. Correlation does not equal causation, so we can’t definitively say that higher government spending has driven higher college costs, but it definitely has not made college any more affordable. As Obama has himself admitted in the past, colleges know they can charge more because the government money is there — and charge more they do.
The same story has played out in the health care sector, as well. In 1960, the government accounted for less than 10 percent of all health care spending, and health care spending as a percentage of gross domestic product was just 5.2 percent. Today, the federal government accounts for almost 50 percent of all health care spending, and health care spending has risen to 18 percent of GDP.
It is no coincidence that the two sectors of the American economy most dominated by government, and therefore least accountable to consumers, have also become the two most costly and inefficient sectors.
In his book The Venturesome Economy, Amar Bhide makes the case that one of the factors that makes the U.S. economy exceptionally innovative is the “venturesome consumption” of its citizens. From laptops to coffee shops, Bhide documents how consumers who are willing to take risks on new products and “shop around” are a major driver of U.S. economic growth.
He even quotes a Harvard economist who argues that one reason why the U.S. health care system is so “bloated” and “inefficient” is that government interference in the market doesn’t “allow consumers to reward entrepreneurs who lower costs by improving health.”
So by all means America, follow Mitt’s advice. Shop around.


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Heated up? Cool down! And read a good book.
Iíve received some fascinating responses from pet food company executives regarding the long-term fallout, positive and negative, of the pet food recalls early this year. Iíve received so many, in fact, that Iím going to expand them into a longer article and run it next month. Iíd like you to be able to read, in their entirety, what some of the execs say their companies are doing to ensure that we donít experience anything like ďthe gluten recallsĒ again.