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(Bloomberg) — Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. unveiled an electric-car battery it said has a range of over 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) on a single charge and is 13% more powerful than one planned by Tesla Inc., a major customer.
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CATL, as the world’s biggest maker of electric-car batteries is known, will start manufacturing the next-generation “Qilin” next year, according to a video the Chinese company streamed online Thursday. The battery charges faster than existing cells, and is safer and more durable, CATL said.
The Qilin battery, named after a mythical Chinese creature, has an energy density of up to 255 watt-hour per kilogram, Ningde, Fujian-based CATL said.
“It’s an important advancement for CATL as it keeps them at the forefront on the innovation side,” said Tu Le, managing director of Beijing-based consultancy Sino Auto Insights. “Being the lowest cost provider isn’t enough to command loyalty, there needs to be more to it — and that seems to be the Qilin battery for CATL.”
CATL’s shares climbed 5.9% in Shenzhen, closing at the highest since Feb. 9.
The company said Wednesday it raised 45 billion yuan ($6.7 billion) in a private placement of shares, with the proceeds intended for production and upgrade of lithium-ion battery manufacturing in four Chinese cities, as well as research and development.
CATL has experienced a wave of volatility this year, grappling soaring prices of raw materials as well as rumors of trading losses. Its first-quarter net income slid 24% from a year earlier to 1.49 billion yuan. The company hasn’t explained a 1.79 billion yuan derivatives liability, the first such charge since it listed.
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Inflation in Egypt keeps on growing
Egypt's annual inflation in December accelerated to 4.7 per cent, a slight growth over the preceding months, data from the official statistics agency showed on Thursday.
Inflation had recorded 4.3 per cent in November, its lowest level since March 2006.
Prices of food and drink, which have the highest weight in the consumer price index, grew 6 per cent in comparison to December 2011 but dropped a 0.2 per cent below November 2012's figures.
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New York Times reports higher revenue, stock jumps
NEW YORK -- The New York Times Co. stock rose sharply on Thursday after the media company reported that second-quarter revenue increased slightly....
Photos: Andy Warhol's Former NYC Pad on Sale for $5.8 Million
Andy Warhol's former 4-bed townhouse in the the Upper East Side of New York City is listed at $5.795 million. The "pop artist" bought the home in 1959 for $60,000 and lived there for 15 years, sharing the home with his mother and using the main floor as his painting studio, according to the New York Times.
Pulitzers Awarded to Times, Journal
The New York Times won four Pulitzer Prizes while The Wall Street Journal received an award for commentary. The award for breaking-news reporting was given to the staff of the Denver Post for its coverage of the movie- theater shooting.
A Bentley Boom? Rising Sales for Luxury Automakers Like Bentley, Jaguar, Porsche
So much for scaling back. The world’s rich and elite — or those who just want to appear so — have been cracking open their wallets in a big way lately, and luxury automakers are the beneficiaries. Bentley Motors announced that sales in the first quarter of 2013 were up 26% globally compared to the same period last year. Sales in the Americas increased 35% for the same time frame. The automaker, which is known for high-price, high-end models like the new Flying Spur (MSRP from $200K), still has a very small portion of the auto market. Just 2,212 new Bentleys were delivered to customers worldwide during the first three months of 2013, compared to 1,759 the year before. Even so, Bentley isn’t a mass-market type of operation, and the automaker is on pace for what it would consider a huge year. In 2011, for example, global sales hit 7,003, a 37% increase over the previous year. This year, Bentley should easily top that 2011 sales total. More importantly, in terms of gauging the state ...
Taylor Family Mulls Bid to Buy Back Globe
The Taylor family, which sold the Boston Globe to New York Times Co. in 1993, is contemplating making an offer to buy the paper back.
Boston Globe former owner mulls buying back paper
The Taylor family, which sold the Boston Globe to the New York Times Company in 1993, is contemplating making an offer to buy the paper back.


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Former Union Minister and parliamentarian Sharad Yadav on Sunday announced that his political front Loktantrik Janata Dal (LJD) had merged with the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) amid speculation that Lalu may send him to the Rajya Sabha on RJD’s symbol. The tenure of five members of Rajya Sabha from Bihar will complete in June this year.
“The merger of our party with the RJD is the first step towards opposition unity. It’s imperative that the whole opposition gets united across India to defeat the BJP. As of now, unification is our priority, it’ll be only after that we will think about who’ll lead the united opposition,” Sharad Yadav said.
The two leaders were seen as rivals in the politics of cow belt since the late 1990s and faced each other in the Lok Sabha elections from Madhepura seat in Bihar. In the run-up to the merger, Sharad Yadav claimed that both the leaders were working behind the scenes for a few months to create a larger socialist bloc for the 2024 general elections.
Yadav added: “This step (merger) has been necessitated as an initiative of my regular efforts for bringing together the scattered Janata Dal parivar in view of the current political situation in the country.”
Political analysts and observers feel that it’s just an attempt by both leaders to show unity and nothing much. “The era of so-called Mandal politics has ended now. No social group in Bihar or Uttar Pradesh is going to accept the leadership of the dominant Yadav community. We have seen the results of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar Assembly polls in the last one-and-a-half years. Lalu Yadav will use Sharad Yadav. I don’t think, RJD would have forgotten that it was Sharad Yadav who played an important role in fodder scam cases against Lalu,” said Binod Kumar Choudhary, a social scientist based in Patna.
Sharad Yadav, who first fought the 1974 by-election from Jabalpur Lok Sabha segment in Madhya Pradesh as the candidate of Jai Prakash Narayan, had shifted his political loyalties many times in his 48-year-old career.
RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav welcomed the move and urged all the opposition parties in the country to stand united, adding that it is imperative for the Opposition to prioritize unification to defeat the BJP.
Tejashwi said: “The decision (merging of LJD into RJD) taken by Sharad Yadav was the demand of the people. It has given a message to other opposition parties that we should have united in 2019 but it’s better late than never. What Sharadji has done is now written forever. It is great to see both the brothers together on the stage.”
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Snehalata Memorial Foundation brings Sambhav on Stage at Triveni Kala Sangam
The event features
Classical Vocal Recital by Abhijeet Mishra
Sarangi – Ejaz Hussain
Tabla – Kamil Khan
Duet Tabla Recital by Saptak Sharma and Ashutosh Verma
Sarangi – Mudassir Khan
Kathak Recital by Harshita Vaish, Disha Gupta, and Sagar Vishwakarma
Sarangi- Ejaz Hussain
Vocal- Zaki Ahmed
Tabla- Shubhan Khan
Padhanti- Aishwarya Rawat
Venue-Triveni Kala Sangam, Delhi
‘WE AT ICCS ARE OFFERING CUSTOMIZED OUTSOURCING SOLUTIONS WITH BEST TECHNOLOGY & INFRASTRUCTURE’
Q: What made you launch this business?
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VIBE, THE SKYBAR REOPENS AT GURUGRAM BAANI SQUARE
Timings: – 04:00 PM–12:00 AM
Average cost for two: INR 3500 plus taxes
For reservations: +91 9711216466
LOGIC OR INSTINCT, WHICH DO WE FOLLOW?
Does this mean that we should trust our ‘gut instinct’ more often?
Can we leverage this power of instinct in our lives? Experience has shown me that there is a way.
Amazon Smbhav announces launch of smart conferences
The third edition of Amazon Smbhav, Amazon India, with the theme ‘Pragati’ discusses innovation and growth along with exploring ideas to drive India’s success towards development in terms of business. The summit has also announced the launch of Smart conferences, an initiative to transform local stores into Digital Dukaans. The initiative aims to digitalise 1 crore small businesses by 2025.
Announcing its launch, Amit Agarwal, SVP, India and Emerging Markets, Amazon said, “We are humbled by how neighbourhood stores from across India are taking advantage of our Local Shops on Amazon program to go online and grow their business, with over 1.5 lakh stores already selling on Amazon.in within two years of launch. Today, we are excited to launch Smart Commerce that will enable any store to truly become a digital dukaan, and serve customers with the best of Amazon no matter where they are in their physical store, directly through their own online storefront, or on Amazon.in. We are just getting started and remain committed to our pledge to digitize one crore small businesses by 2025.”
In the opening session, Manish Tiwary, Country Manager, India Consumer Business, said, “Over the last two years, we have invested significantly towards the pledges we announced at the inaugural Smbhav Summit in 2020. We are humbled to share that we have already digitized over 4 million small businesses and local stores, are on track to enable $5 billion in cumulative exports and have created over 1.16 million direct and indirect jobs in India including 135K new jobs added in the last year.” Many India-First innovations such as Seller Flex and Easy Ship have been implemented in global markets as well. Moreover, technology has been used to bring small businesses online. Moreover, most of the customer orders on Amazon are from tier 2 cities. Around 8 million local stores and businesses are using Amazon Pay, with 75% of the customers (tier 2 and tier 3 cities) using Amazon Pay UPI.
Similarly, Dave Clark also emphasised that Amazon has invested more than $18 billion in its selling partners’ success since 2020. Amazon has also digitized more than 4 million small businesses and enabled exports worth nearly $5 billion. To support the idea of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the minister of state in the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, also focused on using technology to create opportunities for youth. As post-COVID reshaped the value chain of products and services, the growth of small businesses and villages would make India Atmanirbhar.
POLICE BUST INTER STATE DRUG CARTEL IN DELHI, HEROIN WORTH RS 20 CR RECOVERED
A team of Special Cell/Northern Range, on Wednesday, successfully busted an interstate drug cartel after arresting one of its key members from Delhi. The team, led by Inspr. Vivekanand Pathak and Inspr. Kuldeep Singh was under the supervision of Shri Ved Parkash, ACP, and overall guidance of DCP/Spl Cell/NR & STF, Sh. Rajiv Ranjan Singh. The arrested member has been identified as Rajesh Gupta of Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar.
Five kilograms of high-grade heroin worth more than Rs. 20 crores in the international market have been recovered from the possession of arrested 47-year-old Gupta. One mobile handset and two SIM cards used in the drug trafficking activities have also been recovered from the detainee.
Rajesh Gupta has served 12 years in the Indian army, and was court-martialed and dismissed in 2006, after being found involved in a financial scam. Later, Gupta was put in civil jail in Kohima, where he came in contact with a person namely Sushil who lured him to work with him in drug trafficking. Thereafter, Gupta started supplying heroin after procuring it from drug suppliers of Manipur.
Special Cell in its continuous crusade against drug suppliers had busted many narcotic drug cartels in the past by arresting several drug suppliers and by recovering huge consignments of high-grade heroin. Sleuths of Special Cell of Northern Range were working on information that an Interstate narcotic drug cartel is active in the states of Manipur, UP, Delhi etc.
In a statement, police said: “Members of this cartel are involved in the supply of high-grade heroin in Delhi, NCR, UP, after procuring the same from suppliers from bordering areas. This information was further developed through technical as well as human surveillance.”
It took about 3 to 4 months of painstaking efforts to successfully investigate the case. During this process, members of this cartel were identified and their activities were kept under discreet surveillance, police statement added.
Arrested Rajesh Gupta was thoroughly interrogated, and after that, the accused person disclosed that he was part of an interstate narcotics syndicate.
The police statement said: “Rajesh Gupta disclosed that he is indulged in drug trafficking activities for the last five-six years. He used to transport heroin after taking delivery from one Limanthang resident of Manipur. Further investigation is in progress.”
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Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) can now count Google and Twitter among its customers for the next generation of its processors used in data centres.
Unveiled yesterday at a launch event in San Francisco, the AMD EPYC 7002 series claims to have better performance while consuming less power. The chips will also come with advanced security features, increased memory bandwidth and will deliver 23% more instructions per clock – a key aspect of increasing speed.
“Today, we set a new standard for the modern data centre with the launch of our 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors that deliver record-setting performance and significantly lower total cost of ownership across a broad set of workloads,” said Dr Lisa Su, president and CEO, AMD.
“Adoption of our new leadership server processors is accelerating with multiple new enterprise, cloud and HPC [high-performance computing] customers choosing EPYC processors to meet their most demanding server computing needs.”
Google said that it has already deployed the 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors in its data centres.
“AMD 2nd Gen EPYC processors will help us continue to do what we do best in our data centres: innovate,” said Bart Sano, Google vice president of Engineering.
“Its scalable compute, memory and I/O [input/output] performance will expand our ability to drive innovation forward in our infrastructure and will give Google Cloud customers the flexibility to choose the best VM for their workloads.”
The AMD #EPYC 7002 Series processors set more than 80 performance world records. Learn more about the new era of datacenter computing from #AMDEPYCHorizon: https://t.co/LuvjqKuPxb pic.twitter.com/7eJVKuCfNo
— AMD EPYC (@AMDServer) August 7, 2019
Twitter will deploy the next-gen chip across its data centres later this year.
“Twitter is committed to reducing our environmental impact of our data centres by finding innovative ways to increase efficiency. The 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processor provides us the sweet spot of performance and energy consumption that we need to honour that commitment, while supporting the high traffic volume on our platform,” said Jennifer Fraser, senior director of engineering at Twitter.
Lenovo and HPE have also said that they will be using the 2nd Gen AMD EPYC processors.
Securing Google and Twitter will be seen as a big win for AMD over its rival Intel. Both companies vie to supply chips for the data centres of large tech companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
However, Intel remains the dominant supplier of data centre chips, providing some 90% of chips to corporate servers and cloud data centres around the world.
Intel said that Google and Twitter remained customers, according to Reuters.
AMD’s share price is up 8% on the news and is up 58% for the year.
Verdict deals analysis methodology
This analysis considers only announced and completed deals from the GlobalData financial deals database and excludes all terminated and rumoured deals. Country and industry are defined according to the headquarters and dominant industry of the target firm. The term ‘acquisition’ refers to both completed deals and those in the bidding stage.
GlobalData tracks real-time data concerning all merger and acquisition, private equity/venture capital and asset transaction activity around the world from thousands of company websites and other reliable sources.
More in-depth reports and analysis on all reported deals are available for subscribers to GlobalData’s deals database.


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Two new reports in the US emerged late yesterday of Samsung's "safe" replacement Note7 smartphones catching fire. One, in Kentucky, actively went unreported by Samsung (the fire happened on Tuesday) and caused a man to be treated at a hospital for smoke inhalation when his phone caught fire in his bedroom overnight. The second gave a 13-year-old a minor burn when a Note7 battery failed in her hands.
Both reports seem extremely reliable. Read More
Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 sales won't be exploding anymore and neither will its batteries. Yesterday, Yonhap reported that the South Korean juggernaut was about to announce a global recall of its Note7 flagship due to recurrent incidents of exploding devices while charging, and now the news is official.
According to Yonhap, again, Samsung has conducted a press conference in Seoul today and announced the global recall of the Note7. Koh Dong-jin, head of Samsung's handset business division, said that:
As of Sept. 1, a total of 35 claims were registered with Samsung's service centers at home and abroad.


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The bitter truth about Big Sugar
by Laura Brady and Eli Penberthy
This article was originally published in July 2017
For decades the sugar industry quietly skewed public understanding of diet and health. As the truth becomes known, consumers are fighting back.
In a movement likened to the battle against “Big Tobacco,” soda and the sugar industry as a whole are under attack from all sides. Across the country and internationally, a slew of sugary-beverage taxes and lawsuits are targeting the largest soda-producing companies to reduce public sugar consumption, linked to a range of health disorders from obesity and diabetes to heart disease, Alzheimer’s and cancer.
The attacks come at a particularly delicate public relations time for the industry. A series of recently leaked memos reveals a nearly 70-year attempt by sugar industry groups (now commonly referred to as Big Sugar) to cover up the health effects of sugar and influence public health policy. Their tactics include discreet funding of nutrition scientists, attempts to discredit artificial sweeteners, and a coordinated strategy to shift the blame of chronic disease from sugar to saturated fat. They have been stunningly successful at maintaining high levels of domestic sugar consumption over the years, despite mounting evidence of the dangers of sugar to health.
The recent lawsuits and sugar tax initiatives reflect heightened awareness of Big Sugar’s tactics — and the costs to public health.
Shifting blame to fat
In 1951, the American Sugar Refining Company began an ambitious advertising campaign (intended to deliver 900 million messages), stressing the importance of sugar as an energy source for children. At the same time, the recently formed Sugar Research Foundation began funding research to support its claims of sugar’s safety and indispensability. By 1951, the renamed Sugar Association Inc., had awarded $3 million in grants to some of the most prominent researchers in carbohydrate chemistry, nutrition and metabolism at Princeton, Harvard, the California Institute of Technology and other universities.
Internal sugar industry documents discovered last fall by a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), suggest that in the 1960s the industry paid Harvard scientists the equivalent of about $50,000 today to publish a review of studies on sugar, fat and heart disease. The reviewed studies were picked by the sugar industry. Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, they downplayed the role of sugar in heart disease and instead pointed blame at saturated fat.
The finding suggests, according to The New York Times, “that five decades of research into the role of nutrition and heart disease, including many of today’s dietary recommendations, may have been largely shaped by the sugar industry.”
One of the Harvard scientists paid by the sugar industry went on to become the head of nutrition at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where he helped create the predecessor to the federal government’s dietary guidelines in 1977. Another was the chairman of Harvard’s nutrition department.
“It was a very smart thing the sugar industry did because review papers, especially if you get them published in a very prominent journal, tend to shape the overall scientific discussion,” Stanton Glantz told The New York Times. Glantz is the UCSF researcher who uncovered the sugar industry’s history of influence and wrote about it in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Using a combination of strategies — from promoting doubt and redirecting blame to spinning research for its own ends — the industry shaped both public and scientific opinions of the role of sugar in a host of related health issues.
On the topic of dental caries, although its own research pointed directly to sugar being the worst offender, the sugar industry argued that all carbohydrates were equally bad and who was about to eliminate all of them from their diet? Big Sugar told consumers to focus instead on brushing and rinsing after meals.
When weight-conscious Americans switched in droves to diet sodas in the early 1960s and low-calorie sweeteners threatened sugar consumption, the sugar industry spent $4 million in today’s dollars researching all the possible negative health effects of cyclamate artificial sweeteners. On scant evidence, Big Sugar successfully lobbied to have cyclamates and saccharin removed from the U.S. market, coloring all artificial sweeteners as potentially carcinogenic.
Industry influence continues. In 2015, The New York Times reported that Coca-Cola, the world’s largest producer of sugary beverages, provided millions of dollars to researchers who sought to downplay the link between sugary drinks and obesity. In 2016, The Associated Press reported that candy makers were funding studies asserting that children who eat candy tend to weigh less than those who don’t. In March, a University of Colorado nutrition expert stepped down from the research center he founded, after it came to light that he accepted $550,000 from Coca-Cola. The research center he headed, financed by Coca-Cola, emphasized physical activity over calorie reduction for losing weight.
Sugar and heart disease
Today, as conflicts of interest have been exposed and our understanding of nutrition has shifted to align with science, public policy is beginning to catch up. Fat no longer is the enemy. Sugar is.
The USDA’s newest Dietary Guidelines (2015) set no limit for total fat intake. Then in 2016, the American Heart Association (AHA) declared sugar is a major risk factor for heart disease as well as obesity and diabetes. The AHA advised adults to keep intake below 10 percent of calories (or less than 5 percent for more benefits) and that children under age 2 should have no added sugar in their diet.
These advisories followed a seminal 2014 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine by Dr. Frank Hu and colleagues at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The group found an association between a high-sugar diet and a greater risk of dying from heart disease. Over the course of the 15-year study, people who got 17 to 21 percent of their calories from added sugar had a 38 percent higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared with those who consumed 8 percent of their calories as added sugar.
Sugar is unique, Hu says, because “your liver metabolizes sugar the same way as alcohol and converts dietary carbohydrates to fat.” Over time, this can lead to fatty liver disease, a contributor to diabetes, which raises the risk of heart disease.
“Basically, the higher the intake of added sugar, the higher the risk for heart disease,” says Dr. Hu. “The effects of added sugar intake — higher blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, diabetes and fatty liver disease — are all linked to an increased risk for heart attack and stroke.”
By October 2016, the World Health Organization issued a news release, calling on nations around the globe to tax sweet foods to reduce sugar consumption. It said, “If governments tax products like sugary drinks, they can reduce suffering and save lives. They can also cut healthcare costs …”
Resistance bubbles up
In an effort to reduce these risks and costs, eight cities across the country, including Seattle, have approved ballot measures for sweet beverage taxes, despite massive industry spending to counter them. Several more are considering proposals. Politicians are selling the taxes as a way to curb heart disease, obesity and diabetes while raising funds for childhood education, health and public safety programs in low-income neighborhoods.
In Mexico, a sugar tax has been in place since 2014, long enough to measure trends. Studies show it has influenced consumer behavior, driving down sales of sweet drinks with limited or no economic consequences.The largest decrease has been among low-income populations — the group at highest risk of obesity-related diseases. The public health benefits aren’t yet measurable but officials say the results could reduce obesity-related diseases, improve health outcomes and reduce healthcare expenses.
The soda industry has fought back, calling the soda taxes “grocery taxes” to mislead voters into thinking many food items will be taxed. Last fall, public health advocacy group Ninjas for Health revealed that the soda industry actually was paying dietitians to tweet scripted posts against the taxes on Twitter.
Despite the industry’s efforts, Oakland, Albany and Boulder joined the ranks of cities with soda taxes last fall. At press time, Seattle had just passed its own sugar tax. The tax revenue is expected to increase funding for the “Fresh Bucks” program that improves access to fresh produce for low-income people. It also would raise funds for programs that reduce educational disparities between white and historically underrepresented students of color.
Sweet beverages aren’t the only target. A team of attorneys in California has filed a series of false advertising lawsuits against Kellogg, Post Foods and General Mills for claiming their products — such as Frosted Cheerios and Raisin Bran Crunch — are healthy and nutritious, when as many as 40 percent of the calories in a serving come from sugar. The plaintiffs likely face an uphill battle since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not define what constitutes “high” or “low” sugar. At the very least, the lawsuits are drawing attention to the high sugar content of many processed foods that are seen as staples.
Change also is afoot on a national level. In May 2016, after years of stalling due to fierce lobbying from food and sugar industry groups, the FDA announced an overhaul of the calorie labels found on packaged foods. Starting in 2018, Nutrition Facts labels were supposed to disclose added sugars, but the Trump administration has put this on hold.
Seattle’s sugary drink tax
At press time, Seattle’s City Council had just voted 7-1 to approve a new tax on sugar-sweetened drinks to help improve public health and raise funds for healthy food and education programs.
The new ordinance imposes a tax of 1.75 cents per ounce to be paid by distributors of soda pop, sports drinks, energy drinks and other sugar-sweetened drinks. Diet drinks are exempt.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says soda taxes are “the single most effective remedy to reverse the obesity epidemic.” Other supporters include the American Hospital Association, Washington Dental Service Foundation, American Academy of Pediatrics, King County Academy of Family Physicians, and Seattle Education Association.
Laura Brady is a freelance writer in Seattle. Eli Penberthy is editor of Sound Consumer.


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One of the nation’s leading sellers of homemade gun kits was dealt a blow in court this week.
Baltimore city officials announced Wednesday that the Nevada-based unfinished firearm parts manufacturer Polymer80 has agreed to pay $1.2 million to settle claims that guns made with its parts, which opponents label “ghost guns” because they lack traceable serial numbers, have been fueling violent crime in the city. The settlement terms will also permanently prohibit Polymer80 from advertising in Maryland or selling any of its products to Maryland residents, including those who attempt to purchase them in other states.
“This settlement – and the statement it sends about the harmful impact of these ghost guns – is a critical victory for the effort to confront gun violence in our communities,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D.) said in a press release.
The settlement marks yet another legal setback for the most recognizable unfinished firearm parts maker in the country. The city called the settlement “the most expansive and strictest injunctive terms so far” of any lawsuit filed against Polymer80 to date. It comes on the heels of similar settlements reached in lawsuits filed by Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, California. The continued success of these suits suggests they have become an effective tactic in city officials’ and gun-control advocates’ efforts to eliminate at-home gun building.
The settlement means that Polymer80 has or will soon have to pay more than $10 million to various local governments and restrict its business in those jurisdictions. It was ordered to pay $4 million to Washington D.C. in August 2022 after a judge found that it was “falsely and misleadingly” advertising “illegal firearms” in the District. In May 2023, it entered into a $5 million settlement with Los Angeles and agreed to stop selling its products without background checks statewide. A fourth lawsuit, filed by the City of Philadelphia last July, is still ongoing and seeks a similar judgment against Polymer80.
In 2022, the legal arm of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence partnered with Baltimore to bring Polymer80 to court. Philip Bangle, the group’s senior litigation counsel, called the settlement a win in “the fight for gun industry accountability.”
“Polymer80 fueled gun violence in the city by selling ghost guns to subvert lifesaving Brady Background Checks,” Bangle said. “This settlement will staunch the flow of these weapons and force Polymer80 to contribute to healing the City of Baltimore for the injuries and trauma their products inflicted on the city.”
Polymer80 did not respond to a request for comment.
The company has traditionally focused on providing unfinished firearm components as well as the tools needed for do-it-yourself gun makers to assemble them into completed firearms at home. Since the parts they make require additional machining to complete before they can be built into working guns, they have fallen outside most federal and state definitions of firearms. The practice has come under increasing scrutiny from lawmakers and gun-control advocates in recent years. President Joe Biden has attempted to ban selling unfinished parts alongside the tools used to finish them in kits designed to make the home-building process easier, though that effort has now been found unconstitutional by at least one federal appeals court and will likely be litigated at the Supreme Court.
Advocates argue at-home gun building is part of the American tradition, and unfinished parts have never been regulated up to this point in history. Opponents argue the lack of regulation allows minors and people with serious criminal records to buy unfinished parts without going through a background check and build functional firearms out of them.
Baltimore and Brady sued Polymer80 and a local gun retailer that sells its products in June 2022, just as Maryland’s ban on unserialized frames and receivers took effect. The suit claimed that the number of homemade “ghost guns” seized by Baltimore Police had steadily increased every year since 2019 and that 91% of the recovered guns were manufactured by Polymer80.
As part of its settlement, the company agreed to provide Baltimore with quarterly reports documenting all of its sales to purchasers in neighboring states moving forward. The city’s suit against Hanover Armory, the local retailer accused of selling Polymer80 kits without background checks, is still ongoing and is set to go to trial in October.


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SIALKOT,(Pakistan Point News - APP -2nd Sep,2016) :China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project has opended up fundamentals of industrial cooperation between the two friendly countries,paving way for new vistas of economic stability and development in Pakistan. Chief Coordinator, Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufactures and Exporters Association (PRGMEA), Ijaz A. Khokhar said this while talking to APP here. He underscored the need of taking on board the private sector, enabling it to play its instrumental role in setting up businesses in Economic Zones.
"The government must provide an opportunity to private sector to streamline its studies for establishing businesses in Economic Zones",he reiterated. He said CPEC would open up a world of opportunities, as under CPEC projects Chinese Small Manufacturing Enterprises would get linked with SMEs of Pakistan. "We appreciate that present government has identified textile as a key priority area and is making strenuous efforts for formulating right policies and incentives to encourage private sector investment for value addition,and expansion.
All this could lead to wider access to the international markets". He highlighted that there were bright chances of joint ventures between Pakistan and China in the field of textile,adding that a number Chinese businessmen were considering establishing joint ventures and developing business collaboration with their Pakistani counterparts. "Pakistan is transforming from being a stagnant economy to fast paced emergening economy as a result of the structural reforms introduced by the present government in the areas of investment, business and trade", he added.
However,he stressed upon the need of modernization and up-gradation of textile sector for greater value-addition and to cope with fast changing trends and challenges. Ijaz suggested that textile sector should be facilitated,primarily by power tariff reducation.He added that this vital sector needs to be provided those facilities which are being enjoyed by its regional competitors."A separate head of account in tariff structure be declared, and established,alongside aggressive marketing plan for garments export in order to gain maximum benefits of GSP status etc",he concluded.


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The communications office of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin provides media with timely, accurate information about the Wildflower Center. Below are recent press releases related to Center events and to staff expertise on conservation practices, native plant gardening, nature education, and native plant resources and research findings. For more information or photos beyond those on the newsroom site, please contact:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 4, 2009
Join the festivities at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, TX. Look for great events, unusual gifts, store discounts, book signings and more!
These events are planned for the holiday season of 2009:
Holiday Gift Preview. The store features Shou Ping's amazing paper sculpture by artist Shou Ping. Saturday, November 21 and Sunday, November 22.
Wild Ideas Shopping Event. Free admission, special discounts in the store and a weekend full of artists and artisans. On Friday, December 4, stop by Jo Pollock's annual ornament signing party from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and enjoy Chef Keem's newest chocolate truffles from 1 to 3 p.m. A 20 percent off general gifts. On Saturday, December 5, book signings by Kelly Bender, author of Texas Wildscapes, from 12 to 3 p.m., Lance Allred, author of Enchanted Rock, from 1 to 4 p.m., and Jim Stanley, author of Hill Country Landowners Guide, from 1 to 4 p.m. A 20 percent off books. On Sunday, December 6, 20 percent off apparel, the Michael Michaud jewelry show, Franz porcelain jewelry specials and the Kitty Keller bluebonnet ornament special.
Luminations. Come see thousands of luminaries and twinkling lights in the gardens. Free admission with canned food or a donation to the Capital Area Food Bank. Music, crafts for the kids, refreshments and holiday shopping from 6 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, December 12, and Sunday, December 13.


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Island Seafood, a $40 million in annual sales lobster wholesaler that’s been operating on the Maine coast for over 20 years, got a distressing message from a long-time Chinese customer at the end of July.
“I don’t think there is way to import US lobster,” he wrote.
Chinese customs officials have begun to strictly inspect US lobster, requiring “all kinds” of new documents, wrote the importer, who represents hotels in major Chinese cities. Making matters worse, Chinese importers are now being forced to pay tariffs for the lobsters based on a price set by Beijing, not the price agreed with US distributors.
These measures are the Chinese government’s way of fighting back “against the Trump tariff policy,” he explained, “and we fully support our country since all human being are face challenge [sic] for free trade from Trump government.” I hope you can understand, he wrote in closing, adding “I hope the world trade will resume soon, which seems impossible with reign of Trump.”
The US lobster industry is getting slammed from all sides, as Donald Trump escalates a trade war with China, the administration clamps down on seasonal worker visas, and the European Union plans new free trade agreements with Canada. Beijing slapped a 25% retaliatory tariff on US lobster imports in July, as it taxed billions in US goods. Now it has become virtually impossible for Chinese buyers to import any US lobster at all, thanks to a host of Beijing-directed behind-the-scenes measures, lobster wholesalers and industry trade groups told Quartz.
These “behind the border barriers” are a sign of just how serious Beijing is about fighting Trump’s trade tariffs. The near shutdown of the US-China lobster trade suggests that more of the $125 billion in goods sold from the US to China could be impacted by the trade war than trade experts have forecast.
President Xi Jinping controls the wealthiest, most powerful Chinese Communist Party in history, an advantage in any trade war because he can essentially dictate how Chinese companies treat US exporters unlike Trump who heads a divided democracy. Lobster may be just the beginning.
Lobster exports to China have skyrocketed in recent years, thanks to US lobster wholesalers and industry representatives who put in long hours pushing the crustaceans at Asia trade shows and to Chinese hotels and banquet halls. Often called “Boston lobster,” even though most of it comes from Maine, it is featured as a special treat for Chinese New Year or the mid-autumn festival, stir-fried in a chili-crab sauce, or eaten raw as sashimi.
The distinctive cold water North American lobster with two big claws can’t be farmed (they’re cannibals).
Driven by a freak boom in lobster catches that threatened to create a glut, the US industry has essentially created a new market in Asia, and particularly China, since 2012. Now China is responsible for more than 50% of all US lobster exports by value.
But exporting live lobsters on ice (about 80% of all US lobster exports to Asia by value) relies on seamless airport connections within a 60-hour transportation window. Any longer, and they risk arriving dead—and no one wants to cook or eat a dead “live” lobster. That’s where Beijing’s new restrictions are biting.
Chinese importers “don’t buy our lobsters anymore, they buy Canadian lobsters,” said Stephanie Nadeau, owner of the Lobster Company, an Arundel, Maine wholesaler that did that did $30 million in annual sales before the trade war started—about one-third of it with China.
US lobsters used to clear Chinese customs quickly, as an express product, which helped make sure they were still alive when they got to their final destination, Nadeau said. Now Beijing is requiring each shipment to be manually inspected, Nadeau said, with customs agents opening individual boxes, taking up precious hours and threatening profits. “If they are dead, we don’t get paid,” Nadeau said.
As China and the US escalate their trade war, Maine’s lobster industry isn’t alone in facing unexpected hurdles. “Those types of ‘behind the border’ barriers have been a major concern for a lot of industries,” said Jack Caporal, an associate fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Beijing is attempting to inflict pain on US exporters in sensitive areas, in addition to the retaliatory tariffs, he said. Soon after the US said it would tax all steel and aluminum imports, for example, Ford vehicles faced unusual delays in Chinese ports, sources told Reuters.
While Beijing may be breaking World Trade Organization rules about putting up technical barriers to trade related to customs and documentation, Maine’s lobster industry shouldn’t expect immediate relief. “Things are happening too fast for the WTO to keep up,” Caporal said. Challenges at the WTO take years to litigate, “and at that point the lobster industry in Maine is decimated.”
Besides, China and the US “have thrown the rule book in the garbage can,” he said. Another worry: Chinese consumers might start to outright reject US products as a sign of patriotism, Caporal said, as they did with South Korean products and tourism after Seoul installed a US-made missile defense system in 2017.
The Maine lobster industry—which dominates the US—takes in approximately $500 million in annual revenue and puts an estimated $1 billion into the state economy every year. Since the trade war started, Chinese buyers are choosing Canadian lobster instead, and Maine wholesalers, in particular, worry they’ll be crushed.
Fishermen hold individual licenses. Wholesalers buy directly from them, do the lion’s share of marketing to grow exports, and lay out millions of dollars on infrastructure to move and process large numbers of lobsters.
“Our commander-in-chief has handed all of the exports to our competition,” said Mark Barlow, co-founder of Island Seafood, whose head of sales received the text from China. “He’s given everything to Canada, a gift. It is not a rosy picture going forward.”
Because it is peak tourism season in the “Vacationland” of Maine, the brunt of the China downturn hasn’t yet been felt. Tourists are eating up much of the catch, as they do every year. Wholesalers say the situation is going to turn desperate as tourists head back to work and school in coming weeks, unless the trade war with China is ended.
“There is no way the domestic population in the US will ever be able to consume all these lobsters,” Barlow said.
Already, The Lobster Company is scaling back, not hiring new workers to replace those who leave. In the months to come, “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Nadeau said.


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Christmas music spurs Facebook feud
Shoppers Drug Mart posted its decision to pull Christmas music from its stores on Facebook, spurring intense debate among users.
Another shot was just fired in the so-called War on Christmas.
For Shoppers Drug Mart, a Canadian drug store, Nov. 1 marked the first day of holiday mentions, deals, and—most noticeably—Christmas music in all of its stores.
“Hi everyone, due to recent complaints around the Christmas music being played in stores we want to advise you that as of midnight EST tonight, all Christmas music will be suspended until further notice. We do take customer feedback to heart, and it does lead to change. Thank you for your patience around this and have a fabulous Friday.”
Since Nov. 2, the Facebook status has gotten more than 7,600 likes and over 5,700 comments, proving Christmas music is among the season’s most polarizing issues.
“I love Christmas music; but when its Christmas time! Trust me after working 16 years retail one can only hear so many versions of a song,” Krissy Moran wrote.
“I’m pissed that you stopped for a bunch of miserable people who actually found the time to complain about this,” Vito Carlucci wrote.
Perhaps the frosty weather has something to do with it, but playing Christmas music early isn’t unusual for North America’s Northeast. A radio station in Buffalo, New York, for one, announced on Facebook that it’s been playing 100 percent Christmas songs since Nov. 9.
Photo via Hans Splinter/Flickr
Lauren Rae Orsini is a web culture reporter who specializes in anime and the business of fandom. Her work has been published by Forbes and Business Insider.


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In the aftermath of an initial $25 million talcum powder asbestos compensatory verdict for a woman with mesothelioma, a New York jury is hitting Johnson & Johnson with another $300 million in punitive damages to punish the personal care behemoth for actively concealing the dangerous nature of its talcum powder products, including the company’s iconic Baby Powder and Shower-to-Shower product lines.
Donna Olson’s case was the first of four talcum powder asbestos claims slated to go before juries this year.
The staggering combined verdict of $325 million is the first time since the 1980s that the “asbestos court” in New York has levied punitive damages. In general, punitive damages are rare and only used in instances of particularly horrific conduct.
The first phase of Olson’s trial established the basis for compensatory damages by proving she developed mesothelioma from J&J’s talcum powder products. She breathed in asbestos in the talc particles from the time she was approximately eight years old until the mid-1980s. The second phase of her trial demonstrated that J&J knew that its talc was contaminated and not only refused to take corrective action but actively concealed the significant dangers of its products.
Mesothelioma is a rare strain of cancer that appears to be isolated to asbestos exposure. Generally, the disease has an exceptionally long latency period before diagnosis and is often very advanced by this time. Consequently, treatment options are few and far between.
Despite the verdicts piling up in recent years for women with mesothelioma and ovarian cancer from using J&J’s talcum powder products, the company continues to refuse to negotiate talcum powder settlements to resolve the litigation.
Talcum Powder Asbestos and Cancer Lawsuits
Currently, J&J is facing nearly 12,000 Baby Powder and Shower-to-Shower lawsuits nationwide. These lawsuits allege that the company knew about its products’ cancer risks for decades but actively concealed the dangers to product its brand image and profits.
In addition to a growing number of mesothelioma claims, many of the lawsuits allege that J&J specifically marketed its talcum powder products for feminine hygiene to increase use and market share despite knowing that its products can cause ovarian cancer.
District Judge Fred L. Wolfson is currently presiding over the federal talcum powder multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the District of New Jersey.


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February 6, 1967, will forever be a date in Ferrari’s history that nobody could ever forget, it’s the first round of the 1967 International World Sports Car Championship, the legendary 24 Hours of Daytona, right at the heart of Ford’s racing team, Ferrari takes all three leading positions, a 330 P3/4 took home the victory, second place was secured by a 330 P4 while the third position was secured by a 412 P … the Prancing horse obliterated the competition during a time that is now considered as being the golden era of closed wheel endurance racing, those cars would become a reference for the next generation of engineers and designers.
In 2018 Ferrari created the first of their Icona series to pay tribute to this amazing feat in 1967, to celebrate the 1-2-3 finish these were called the Monza SP1 and SP2, but today, November 20, 2021, Ferrari unveiled the Daytona SP3, a limited-edition Targa model that was presented on the famous Mugello Circuit during the 2021 Ferrari Finali Mondiali.
The new Daytona SP3 design is clearly inspired by the legendary 330 P4 racers, while the Targa hardtop was taken from the sports prototype world, as an homage to cars from the sixties, the choice of using a naturally-aspirated V12 was obvious, mid-rear mounted, this beauty comes with 840 cv and a torque number of 679 Nm at 9,500 rpm, this is the most powerful engine Ferrari ever made for a road car.
And while the new Daytona SP3 has no active aero, they created the design in such a way this is the most aerodynamically efficient car ever made at Maranello, the chassis is completely made from composite material taken from Formula One technology, unseen since the LaFerrari, to keep the weight down as much as possible, the seats are an integral part of the chassis on this new limited-edition beauty, and she’s fast too, 2.85 seconds to reach 100 km/h from a standstill, just 7.4 seconds before 200 km/h flies by.
The engine chosen for the Daytona SP3 comes from the magnificent 812 Competizione, but for this model, the V12 was moved to the mid-rear position, at a 6.5-liter capacity this new engine is called the F140C and puts her power through a 7-speed transmission and comes with a host of improvements over the F140B unit in the 812 Competizione, polluting emissions and particulate formation have been reduced by 30% (WLTC cycle) compared to the 812 Superfast.
The Ferrari Icona series was launched in 2018 with the Ferrari Monza SP1 and SP2, inspired by the competition barchettas of the 1950s while the Daytona SP3 takes inspiration from the endurance car from the 1960s, the Icona series celebrates Ferrari history by reinterpreting the timeless styling of the marque’s most iconic cars into the 21st century, these all boast exclusive solutions not seen in the rest of the range and are aimed solely at Ferrari’s top clients and collectors, proud ambassadors for the Prancing Horse marque.


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On January 26, 2011, health care conglomerate Johnson & Johnson announced that earnings had declined in the fourth quarter of the previous year, and lowered its estimates for its earnings for 2010. The firm claimed that the weaker results could be attributed to the depressed economy and to a string of product recalls. Sales figures do indicate that Johnson and Johnson has clearly been hurt by 17 recalls since September 2009, covering several over-the-counter medicines, a batch of contact lenses and some hip replacements.
The most serious problems have surfaced at McNeil Consumer Healthcare, which has had to recall many of its products, including one for an estimated 136 million bottles of children’s Tylenol, Motrin, Benadryl and Zyrtec – the biggest children’s drug recall of all time – that were potentially contaminated with dark particles.
Johnson & Johnson has been excoriated by the Food and Drug Administration for failing to catch McNeil’s quality problems. The agency slapped one of McNeil’s plants with a scalding inspection report, causing the company to close down the factory until 2011.
In response to these problems, Johnson & Johnson recently announced that it intended to revamp its quality controls, creating a single framework for its consumer, pharmaceutical and medical device divisions. Ajit Shetty, the corporate vice president responsible for supply chain operations, will oversee the new system, reporting directly to William C. Weldon, the firm’s chief executive. The company said it also planned to appoint chief quality officers for each of its three major divisions.
The decision to create a more centralized form of quality control was a difficult one for Weldon.
The firm has relied heavily on acquisitions to grow over the years, resulting in a collection of as many as 250 different operating companies that are spread over 60 countries. Johnson & Johnson has been committed to providing each of these units as much autonomy as possible in order to preserve an entrepreneurial culture throughout the organization. “The company really operates more like a mutual fund than anything else,” commented Pat Dorsey, director of equity research at Morningstar.1
In spite of the benefits that Johnson &Johnson may derive from such an arrangement, Weldon had already been thinking about taking steps to be more actively involved with its far flung business units. He recently told investors that he has been particularly concerned about pushing for more internal growth: “We’ll come at it from a variety of different ways, to accelerate top and bottom-line growth.”2 Given the scope of the businesses that J&J manages, he believes that the best opportunities may come from increased collaboration between its different units. But even as he has been pushing for some form of stronger direction for its units, Weldon does not want to threaten the strong entrepreneurial spirit that has been the basis of much of its success. The concerns over quality control have pushed the firm to try to find a more effective method of running its businesses without stripping them of their relative autonomy.
Case developed by Jamal Shamsie, Michigan State University. Material has been drawn from published sources. To be used for purposes of class discussion. Cultivating Entrepreneurship
Johnson & Johnson has relied heavily upon acquisitions to enter into and to expand into a wide range of businesses which fall broadly under the category of health care. Over the last decade alone, the firm has spent nearly $50 billion on 70 different purchases. Since 2008, J&J has made eight acquisitions, including a $1.1 billion acquisition of Mentor Corporation, a leading supplier of products for the global aesthetic market. The acquisition allowed the firm to make substantial move into the growing field of cosmetic drugs and devices. “It’s a natural extension of where J&J would want to go,” said Michael Weinstein, an analyst who specializes in the medical sector for J.P. Morgan Chase & Company.3
As it has grown, Johnson & Johnson has developed into an astonishingly complex enterprise, made up of over 250 different businesses that have been broken down into three different divisions. The most widely known of these is the division that makes consumer products such as Johnson & Johnson baby care products, Band-Aid adhesive strips and Visine eye drops. The division grew substantially after J&J acquired the consumer health unit of Pfizer in 2006 for $16.6 billion, the biggest in its 120-year old history. The acquisition allowed the firm to add well known products to its line up such as Listerine mouth wash and Benadryl cough syrup.
But Johnson & Johnson has reaped far more sales and profits from its other two divisions. Its pharmaceuticals division sells several blockbuster drugs such as anemia drug Procit and schizophrenia drug Risperdal. Its medical devices division is responsible for best selling products such as Depuy orthopedic joint replacements and Cyper coronary stents. These two divisions tend to generate operating profit margins of around 30%, almost double those generated by the consumer business.
To a large extent, however, Johnson & Johnson’s success across its three divisions and many different businesses has hinged on its unique structure and culture. Most of its far-flung business units were acquired because of the potential demonstrated by some promising new products in its pipeline. Each of these units was therefore granted near-total autonomy to develop and expand upon their best selling products. That independence has fostered an entrepreneurial attitude that has kept J&J intensely competitive as others around it have faltered. The relative autonomy that is accorded to the business units has also provided the firm with the ability to respond swiftly to emerging opportunities.
Johnson & Johnson has been quite proud of the considerable freedom that it has given to its different business units to develop and execute their own strategies. Besides developing their strategies, these units have also been allowed to work with their own resources. Many of the businesses even have their own finance and human resources departments. While this degree of decentralization makes for relatively high overhead costs, none of the executives that have run J&J, Weldon included, has ever thought that this was too high a price to pay. “J&J is a huge company, but you didn’t feel like you were in a big company,” recalled a scientist who used to work there.4
Restructuring for Synergies
In spite of the benefits that Johnson & Johnson has derived from giving its various enterprises considerable autonomy, there have been growing concerns that they can no longer be allowed to operate in near isolation. Weldon has begun to realize that J&J is in a strong position to exploit new opportunities by drawing on the diverse skills of its various business units across the three divisions. He is well aware that his firm can benefit from the combination of its knowledge in drugs, devices, and diagnostics, since few companies can match its reach and strength in these basic areas.
Indeed, Johnson & Johnson has top-notch products in each of the areas in which it operates. It has been spending heavily on research and development for many years, taking its position among the world’s top spenders. It currently spends about 12% of its sales or almost $7 billion on about 9,000 scientists working in research laboratories around the world. This allows each of the three divisions to continually introduce promising new products. Its pharmaceutical division, for example, is currently working on a drug to prevent strokes and one to treat prostrate cancer.
Weldon believed, however, that Johnson & Johnson can profit from this convergence by finding ways to make its fiercely independent businesses to work together. In his own words: “There is a convergence that will allow us to do things we haven’t done before.”5 Through pushing the various far-flung units of the firm to pool their resources, Weldon believes that firm could become one of the few that may actually be able to attain that often-promised, rarely delivered idea of synergy.
Even as Weldon has been supportive of the efforts underway at each of its divisions, he is also pushing for all of its units to work with each other to address different health problems. He has appointed one of its rising stars, Nicholas Valeriani to head a new Office of Strategy and Growth that would attempt to get business units to work together on promising new opportunities. “It’s a recognition that there’s a way to treat disease that’s not in silos,” Weldon stated, referring to J&J’s largely independent businesses.6
Such a push for communication and coordination would allow Johnson & Johnson to develop the synergy that Weldon was seeking. But any effort to get the different business units to collaborate must not quash the entrepreneurial spirit that has spearheaded most of the growth of the firm to date. Jerry Caccott, managing director of consulting firm Strategic Decisions Group emphasized that cultivating those alliances “would be challenging in any organization, but particularly in an organization that has been so successful because of its decentralized culture.”7
Benefiting from Collaboration
Weldon, like every other leader in the company’s history, has worked his way up through the ranks. His long tenure within the firm has turned him into a true believer in the Johnson & Johnson system. He certainly does not want to undermine the entrepreneurial spirit that has resulted from the autonomy that has been given to each of the businesses. Consequently, even though Weldon may talk incessantly about synergy and convergence, he has cautious in the actual steps he has taken to push J&J’s units to collaborate with each other.
For the most part, Weldon has confined himself to taking steps to foster better communication and more frequent collaboration among Johnson &Johnson’s disparate operations. “They are the experts who know the marketplace, know the hospitals,” he once said of the people who work in the firm’s various business units.8 Besides the appointment of Valeriani, he has worked with James T. Lenehan, vice-chairman and president of J&J, to set up groups that draw people from across the firm to focus their efforts on specific diseases. Each of the groups has been reporting every six months on potential strategies and projects.
Perhaps the most promising result of this new collaborative approach has been J&J’s drug-coated stent, called Cypher. The highly successful new addition to the firm’s lineup was a result of the efforts of teams that combined people from the drug business with others from the device business. They collaborated on manufacturing the stent, which props open arteries after angioplasty. Weldon claims that if J&J had not been able to bring together people with different types of expertise, it could not have developed the stent without getting assistance from outside the firm.
Even the company’s fabled consumer brands have been starting to show growth as a result of increased collaboration between the consumer products and pharmaceutical divisions. Its new liquid Band-Aid is based on a material used in a wound-closing product sold by one of J&J’s hospital-supply businesses. And J&J has used its prescription antifungal treatment, Nizoral, to develop a dandruff shampoo. In fact, products that have developed in large part out of such a form of cross-fertilization have allowed the firm’s consumer business to experience considerable internal growth.
Some of the projects that Johnson & Johnson is currently working on could produce even more significant results. Researchers working on genomic studies in the firm’s labs were building a massive database using gene patterns that correlate to a certain disease or to someone’s likely response to a particular drug. Weldon encouraged them to share this data with the various business units. As a result, the diagnostics team has been working on a test that the researchers in the pharmaceutical division could use to predict which patients would benefit from an experimental cancer therapy.
Dealing with Setbacks
Even as Johnson & Johnson has been trying to get more involved with the efforts of its business units, it has run into problems with quality control with several over-the-counter drugs that are made by McNeil Consumer Healthcare. Since 2008, F.D.A. inspectors have found significant violations of manufacturing standards at two McNeil plants, leading to the temporary closure of one of these. These problems have forced the firm to make several recalls of some of its best selling products. Weldon admitted that problems had surfaced, but he insisted that these were confined to McNeil. In a recent interview he stated: “This is one of the most difficult situations I’ve ever had to personally deal with. It hits at the core of who J&J is. Our first responsibility is to the people who use our products. We’ve let them down.”9
Quality problems have arisen before, but they were usually fixed on a regular basis. Analysts suggest that the problems at McNeil may have exacerbated in 2006 when J&J decided to combine it with the newly acquired consumer health care unit from Pfizer. The firm believed that it could achieve $500 to $600 million in annual savings by merging the two units together. After the merger, McNeil was also transferred from the heavily regulated pharmaceutical division to the marketing driven consumer products division, headed by Collen Goggins. Because these consumer executives lacked pharmaceutical experience, they began to demand several changes at McNeil that led to a reduction in emphasis on quality control.
Weldon is well aware of the threat faced by Johnson & Johnson as a result of its problems with quality. He is especially concerned about the allegation by F.D.A. that the firm initially tried to hide the problems that it found with Motrin in 2009, hiring a contractor to quietly go around from store to store, buying all of the packets off the shelves. McNeils’ conduct surrounding the recalls has led to an inquiry by both the House Committee on Oversight and Investigations and by the F.D.A.’s office of criminal investigations.
Various changes are underway at McNeil to resolve these quality issues. Goggins was pushed out of her post as senior executive in charge of all consumer businesses. Weldon has allocated more than $100 million to upgrade McNeils’s plants and equipment, appoint new manufacturing executives and hire a third-party consulting firm to improve procedures and systems. Bonnie Jacobs, a McNeil spokeswoman wrote in a recent e-mail: “We will invest the necessary resources and make whatever changes are needed to do so, and we will take the time to do it right.”10
The problems at McNeil, coupled with the recalls of contact lenses and hip replacements, have led Johnson & Johnson to make changes to its corporate oversight of its supply chain and manufacturing. In August 2010, the firm appointed Shetty, a longtime executive to oversee a new systems of companywide quality control that involves a single framework for quality across all of the operating units and a new reporting system. The need for these changes was highlighted by Erik Gordon, a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan: “Nothing is more valuable to Johnson & Johnson than the brand bond of trust with consumers.”11
Is there a Cure Ahead?
Weldon realizes that the recalls have presented additional challenges for Johnson &Johnson which is already facing a tougher economic environment. Sales of its various consumer products such as Tylenol, Benadryl and Rolaids have shown a substantial decline over the last six months of 2010. Weldon has been working hard to reassure analysts, investors and consumers that it was already dealing with its quality problems. But Les Funtleyder, who invests in health stocks for his investment firm said: “These problems are accumulating. At some point investors are going to start to question J&J’s management.”12
But the firm’s diversified portfolio of products that are spread across various areas of heath care have helped it to weather the various problems that it has encountered. In particular, Johnson & Johnson has managed to offset its loss of sales in over-the-counter medications with relatively strong sales from pharmaceuticals and devices. “With interests spread out all over the health-care industry, J&J does not live or die by any one product,” remarked Herman Saftlas, a pharmaceutical analyst for Standard & Poor’s.13
Moving forward, Weldon is hoping to strike a balance between direction and freedom for Johnson &Johnson’s business units as he pushes to get the firm to start to grow again. Until the first quarter of 2009, the firm had managed to increase its earnings, adjusted for special items, for 94 consecutive quarters. Weldon believes that he can only resume Johnson &Johnson’s record growth by pushing its businesses to work more closely together than they have ever done in the past. The firm can tap into many more opportunities when it tries to bring together the various skills that it has managed to develop across different divisions.
At the same time, Weldon has become acutely aware of the problems that can arise when the corporate managers start to push the business units to become more effective or efficient. To a large extent, the quality problems at McNeil can be attributed to the decision by J&J to merge it with the consumer health care unit that it had acquired from Pfizer. The larger merged unit was then moved away from the pharmaceutical division and subjected to more centralized control within the consumer division. As a result of all of these efforts to wring more profits out of McNeil, the firm had to resort to a string of recalls that have tarnished the image of J&J.
Above all, Weldon is acutely aware that much of Johnson & Johnson’s success has resulted from the relative autonomy that it has granted to each of its business units. He knows that even as he strives to push for more control and direction, he does not want to threaten the entrepreneurial spirit that has served his firm so well. But it is clear to Weldon that he has to rethink the process by which his firm manages its diversified portfolio of companies in order to ensure that there are no further threats to its reputation. “This is a company that was purer than Caesar’s wife, this was the gold standard, and all of a sudden it just seems like things are breaking down,” said William Trombetta, a professor of pharmaceutical marketing at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadephia.14
1. Shirley S. Wang & Rhonda L. Rundle. J&J to Acquire Breast-Implant Maker. Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2008, p. B1. 2. Amy Barrett. Staying on top. Business Week, May 5, 2003, p. 61 3. Christopher Bowe. J&J Reveals its Guidant Motive. Financial Times, January 25, 2006, p. 17. 4. Peter Loftus & Shirley S. Wang. J&J Sales Show Health Care Feels the Pinch. Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2009, p. B1. 5. Avery Johnson. J&J’s Consumer Play Paces Growth. Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2007, p. A3. 6. Holly Hubbard Preston. Drug Giant Provides a Model of Consistency. Herald Tribune, March 12-13, 2005, p. 12. 7. Business Week, May 5, 2003, p. 62.
8. Avery Johnson. J&J Realigns Managers, Revamps Units. Wall Street Journal, November 16, 2007, p. A10. 9. Business Week, May 5, 2003, p. 62.
10. Natasha Singer & Reed Abelson. Can Johnson & Johnson Get its Act Together? New York Times, January 16, 2011, p. B4. 11. New York Times, January 16, 2011, p. B4.
12. Natasha Singer & Reed Abelson. After Recall of Drugs, a Congressional Spotlight on J.&J.’s Chief. New York Times, September 29, 2010, p. B4. 13. Johanna Bennett. J&J: A Balm for Your Portfolio. Barron’s, October 27, 2008, p. 39. 14. Natasha Singer. Hip Implants are Recalled by J&J Unit. New York Times, August 27, 2010, p. B1.
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On October 29, our own Larry Keeley gave a talk at Digital October, an initiative in Moscow to help professionals share leading practices, learn about trends, and try new products. Presenting via webcam, Larry described recent work on Doblin’s Ten Types of Innovation framework and talked about how to make innovations effective in business. Making the case that ”the best gift that we can give each other is the right to build the predictable and dependable future in which we want to live,” Larry outlined a playbook for innovation that everyone can use.
Watch the full webcast here.
This is one of the more left-field validations we’ve had for the Total Innovation theory written by Bansi Nagji and Geoff Tuff and originally published in Harvard Business Review. In a Bloomberg Businessweek story, movie star Matt Damon explains the investment thinking at Water.org, a company he co-founded to provide clean water and sanitation to everyone on earth: “Harvard Business Review just put out an article about this that actually broke it down,” he said. “You want 70 percent to be your core business, 20 percent to be adjacencies to that and 10 percent to be highest risk. Funnily enough, they say it pays off exactly inverse to that.”
Read the full article
Larry Keeley is quoted in this article in the New York Times, in which columnist Joe Nocera wonders if the Cupertino-based technology giant is heading for a fall. One of the issues, explains Larry, is that business models become a “gilded cage,” hampering continued success by getting in the way of the constant evolution needed for ongoing innovation. It’s a super interesting read.
If Steve Jobs were still alive, would the new map application on the iPhone 5 be such an unmitigated disaster? Interesting question, isn’t it?
Apple’s chief executive, Jobs was a perfectionist. He had no tolerance for corner-cutting or mediocre products. The last time Apple released a truly substandard product — MobileMe, in 2008 — Jobs gathered the team into an auditorium, berated them mercilessly and then got rid of the team leader in front of everybody, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs. The three devices that made Apple the most valuable company in America — the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad — were all genuine innovations that forced every other technology company to play catch-up.
Read the rest of the article on NYtimes.com.
by Helen Walters
published as an essay in The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules For Winning In The Age Of Excess Everything by Matthew E May, to be published by McGraw-Hill in October.
The first time I saw Twitter being used in the wild was a strange experience. It was 2007. I sat next to a guy I knew in the auditorium of a conference and watched, confused, as he tapped into his laptop: “Sitting with Helen Walters from BusinessWeek.” Why is that interesting? I asked him. “It’s not, really,” he answered, shrugging. So I gave him what I hoped was my most withering look and then turned my attention to the stage to focus on writing and reporting in the traditional way I had long understood.
Since then I’ve come to appreciate the 140-character medium. Twitter seems to embody the essence of subtraction. The brevity forces you to focus on what’s truly important and to harness the restrictions as a challenge. The exercise of paring down meaning and insight into its purest form, formerly the purview of headline writers and the copy desk, is an invaluable one for anyone looking to communicate in the modern world. Such focused, clear thinking feeds back into the writing and thinking of a longer article, too.
Doblin’s Matt Locsin spoke at a recent event organized by IDSA/NYC. Sharing the stage with Allan Chochinov, editor-in-chief of Core77 and founding chair of the new MFA in Products of Design at SVA, Matt chose to follow Allan’s presentation with his own description of how design can be used to develop big, platform level solutions. “By design, innovation in areas other than just products can have dramatic effect,” he said, echoing a key theme of Doblin’s practice.
Doblin’s own Melissa Quinn will be taking part in a session at the IDSA’s international conference, taking place in Boston on August 15th. Here’s the blurb for the session, which takes place in the “Business of Design” track and which promises to be lively and thought-provoking. If you’re there, be sure to say hello!
The definition and practice of design has never been more dynamic. Now wholeheartedly embraced by the business, nonprofit and government communities as a critical success factor, more scope and integration is being demanded of design and its managers than ever before. How is this trend playing out in the far corners of the profession? A set of panelists who sit at some of the furthest edges of where design is being applied will discuss the important trends they are seeing as well as the biggest challenges they face in moving forward in the environments they serve. Melissa Quinn will talk about Doblin/Monitor’s unique approach to design/business integration; Steve Kaneko will talk about the broad range of talent and skills that are required to produce compelling hardware and software products; Jeneanne Rae will talk about what is uniquely required in service design; and Heather Boesch will talk about using design thinking in NGO and government settings.
Doblin associate partner Brian Quinn is quoted in this Chicago Business article on design world darling, Threadless. Explaining the real-world pressures of community-driven businesses, Brian provides an objective voice of reason looking at a company reportedly shifting 10,000 orders every day.
Years before “Chicago” and “startup scene” became frequently strung-together words, local apparel retailer Threadless embraced an entrepreneurial, creative ethos—and turned its scrappy vision into piles of cash.
Now, the 12-year-old company, which has seen sales of its independently designed T-shirts grow from $6.2 million in 2005 to somewhere north of $30 million this year, is moving beyond tees and expanding into large-scale design with corporate partners, including Gap Inc. and Bed Bath & Beyond Inc.
Read the rest of the article, including Brian’s take on Threadless and the challenges that lie ahead as the company continues to expand.


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MyScore - an ecological platform for competition guessing based on blockchain technology, sharing the development dividends of the times
Since 2018, Arsenal, a well-known Premier League club, has launched an operating model combined with blockchain to improve the online experience of sports betting and competitive games. The blockchain and the football world have intersected for the first time. Fans have seen the opportunity to open the capital knot, and the possibility of returning football to fans has emerged.
Today, the World Cup is no longer just a simple football event. Every World Cup will be combined with many elements other than sports to bring fans a new experience. The elements that collide with the World Cup this year will undoubtedly be It is the blockchain. I believe that no one will underestimate the market size covered by the entire prediction market.
According to estimates by a well-known British sports company, the global sports entertainment market will reach US$536 billion in 2020. The competitive entertainment has gradually formed a trend, and the global sports entertainment market has been expanding. With the rapid development of Internet technology, the output value of the competitive entertainment industry has soared rapidly. It is expected to reach US$841 billion in 2022 and maintain steady growth in 2023.
Sports quiz is the most important link and way for the sports industry to connect with other industries. With the development of sports quiz, the value created by the quiz industry is getting higher and higher, the participants are more and more extensive, and the future development is unlimited. The rapid development of technology has also brought new directions to the quiz industry. As the first pan-entertainment payment ecological chain based on blockchain technology, MyScore demonstrates the application value of blockchain technology in the quiz industry.
MyScore is a pan-entertainment payment ecological chain based on blockchain technology, integrating payment, development, entertainment and other functions. MyScore is positioned as a race guessing ecosystem based on blockchain technology. Relying on competitive entertainment and innovating the blockchain entertainment model as its own responsibility, it is committed to building on-chain infrastructure for pan-entertainment industries such as games, quizzes, e-sports, NFT, and the Metaverse, and building cross-domain integration with blockchain. , A cross-ecological and global blockchain entertainment complex based on the entity pan-entertainment industry, providing technology developers and entertainment value creators with an underlying platform support that combines anonymity, openness, reliability and fairness .
MyScore aims to build a decentralized guessing entertainment platform based on the MSC ecological system. It makes full use of the characteristics of blockchain technology and will solve the unreasonable aspects of the current guessing game industry: including traditional guessing game platforms suffering from Criticized low rate of return; lack of products available for participation in quiz games; opacity and opacity of traditional quiz game platform operations, legal risks, potential risks of platform escaping with money, capital security issues, and doubts about operators cheating and many more.
The decentralized quiz entertainment platform built on the MyScore ecological system fully utilizes the characteristics of blockchain technology, which will solve the unreasonable aspects of the current quiz game industry: including the low cost of traditional quiz game platforms that have been criticized. The lack of products available for participation in guessing games; the non-openness and opacity of traditional guessing game platform operations, legal risks, potential platform escape risks, financial security issues, and doubts about the operator’s cheating behavior, etc.
MyScore moved the traditional big event operation to the blockchain, built its own online quiz and guessed large-scale events, and jointly chased high digital currency awards. With the goal of creating high-level quiz events, the competitive and user-friendly product experience will win the favor of users in the segmented market, and the online and offline users will be diverted with unprofitable events, and the ecological mutual diversion of sports quiz will be established. This will be subversive innovation and complete ecological closed-loop operation.
MyScore - a full-race quiz platform in the blockchain world, participates in the carnival of sports events with users, and shares the dividends of the development of the times.


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DAILY BRIEFING: Construction and infrastructure group Kier posts a 45% leap in pre-tax profits
PROFITS LEAP Construction and infrastructure group Kier posted a 45 per cent leap in underlying pre-tax profits to £125million for the year to June 30 after seeing revenues surge by 26 per cent.
The Bedfordshire-based firm saw bottom-line losses of £15million, against profits of £39million the previous year, but said this was down to one-off hits. It has an order book worth £8.7billion.
TRUST DEAL Outsourcing giant Serco has won a £600million contract to manage facilities for Barts Health NHS Trust in London, involving cleaning, linen, catering and pest control services across five Barts sites in east London.
DRINKS ROUND Mitchells & Butlers, the owners of All Bar One, Toby Carvery and Harvester, said the recent hot weather has driven a turnaround in trading.
The company reported a 1.8 per cent rise in sales for the eight weeks to September 17, with drink sales surging by 3.8 per cent and food up 0.4 per cent.
Chief executive Phil Urban said margins for the full year will be lower than last year, following the introduction of the national living wage.
ASSETS FALL Investment management company Miton said assets under management fell in the first six months of the year.
The company had £2.5billion on its books at the end of June, up from £2.2billion at the same point last year but down from £2.8billion at the start of 2016. Profits rose to £3.1million, from £800,000 in the same period last year.
SHIPPING TALKS Global shipping giant Maersk is in talks to buy a portfolio of North Sea assets from Royal Dutch Shell as the Danish group considers adding scale to its oil and gas business ahead of a planned spin off.
Maersk announced a major overhaul that will see it focus on its core transport and logistics businesses, while looking at options for its energy division.
FOOD CHIEF Catering and food company Brakes has announced the appointment of Ton Christiaanse as its new UK chief executive, replacing Phil Wieland who will be leaving the business next year.
Christiaanse has food experience at Unilever, Farm Frites and Vion, and most recently as chairman of AK Stoddart, the Scottish beef processor.
FRENCH CONNECTION Advertising giant WPP has announced that it is investing in a French media firm as it ramps up growth in Europe following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union.
The Sir Martin Sorrell-run firm said that it would invest in Les Nouvelle Editions Independantes, which owns holdings in newspaper Le Monde and VICE France.
Sir Martin was an advocate for the UK remaining in the EU.
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http://www.motortrend.com - Buick is up to something with its new Regal Sportback, as our own senior photographer William Walker has captured a group of prototypes testing in Southern California. It’s difficult to tell exactly what Buick has cooking, but there are a few details that could hint at a future GS variant.
http://news.pickuptrucks.com - With the coming 2019 Ford Ranger getting ready to jump back into the market, rumors have been swirling for some time about if Ford would leverage its F-150 Raptor styling and capability into the smaller 4x4 pickup truck arena, especially now that Chevrolet just brought back its own highly capable Colorado ZR2. Our spy shooters are guessing that this new, heavily camouflaged Ford mid-size pickup is more than just another FX4 package.
http://www.trucktrend.com - Ford isn’t going to take Chevy’s ZR2 attack lying down, as these spy photos of the upcoming Ranger “Raptor” indicate. Expect it in 2020.
http://news.pickuptrucks.com - It was a few years ago that Navistar and GM announced they'd be collaborating on a new platform that would allow GM to re-enter the medium-duty commercial truck segment. Production is reported to begin in 2018 at Navistar's Springfield, Ohio, production plant.
http://www.autoguide.com - A look at the week’s most interesting automotive news stories.
http://www.motortrend.com - The next-gen Ram 1500 pickup has been spotted for the first time testing in production bodywork, and it looks like the new truck will offer an extended cab option, likely sold as a Mega Cab. Though it’s the first time the Ram has stepped out wearing its production sheetmetal, there isn’t much to see, unfortunately.
http://news.pickuptrucks.com - Our spy shooters are getting bolder as they see more Chevrolet and GMC heavily disguised preproduction half-ton pickup truck prototypes cruising around Michigan. Here's what they just sent us.
http://www.motorauthority.com - The Opel Insignia Grand Sport, which we get over here as a Buick Regal Sportback, is about to spawn a high-performance version developed by Opel’s in-house tuner, OPC.
http://www.autoguide.com - In a fast food drive thru.
http://www.autoguide.com - Cadillac is giving its CT6 sedan a facelift.


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Winning a major distributorship for bottled water, PepsiCo (PEP -0.52%) and its subsidiary, PepsiCo Beverages Canada, inked a deal today to be the exclusive distributor for evian brand bottled water in Canada. Danone Waters of America, or DWA, a subsidiary of multinational food processing giant Danone, is the other party involved in the pact.
PepsiCo will begin its Canadian sales and distribution on Jan. 1, 2021, a move its Canadian president Richard Glover says is a strong fit for its "overall hydration strategy and enables us to use our distribution networks and sales capabilities to accelerate the growth of evian in the Canadian marketplace." Pepsi also points out the brand is the leading seller in the country.
Henri de L'Epine, CEO of Danone Waters of America, weighed in on the advantages PepsiCo was bringing to the agreement, again focusing on its "extensive Direct-to-Store Delivery system, strong selling capabilities," and "complementary brand portfolio."
The move comes as PepsiCo experiments with products such as its L-theanine-infused anti-insomnia "DriftWell" enhanced canned water. Following long-term trends, and under pressure from the coronavirus outbreak, multiple soda companies have been revamping their product lines this year. The Coca-Cola Company is planning to ax roughly 200 of its 400 brands as "zombie brands," which together generate just 2% of its revenue, according to Marketing Week, and plans to launch its Topo Chico branded hard seltzer in the U.S. next year.
PepsiCo may have picked a good time to get into the business of distributing evian north of the border. According to Statista research, Canadians are likely to buy $4.46 billion worth of bottled water annually by 2022, a climb of approximately 16.5% from the $3.83 billion sold in 2018.


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Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has launched an “artisanal tasting box” of vegan and paleo treats through food subscription service Farm to People.
The limited-edition gift basket, which will be priced at $129.95 (£85), has been specially released to arrive in time for Father’s Day (June 21). Its contents include sprouted hazelnut butter, bourbon smoked sea salt and chunky coconut raw chocolate bars.
SEE MORE: Billy Corgan’s 16 Philosophical Quotes
Corgan will also write personalised notes for three buyers, a move compared on the Smashing Pumpkins’ website to “Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket” hunt. Boxes are only available in the US.
Corgan said: “All over the country, there are passionate makers creating wholesome, tasty products with real ingredients. By teaming up with Farm To People, I hope to support some of my favourite small businesses, and get their names and delicious products out to a larger community of conscious eaters.”
Meanwhile, Corgan recently revealed that he hopes to help the lives of US military veterans with his band’s upcoming tour. Corgan said: “We kind of want to raise awareness of what’s going on in our veterans’ communities, we want to support families. It sounds like a very simplistic message, but it needs to be branded in a new way in American society.”
The group’s tenth album ‘Monuments To An Elegy’ was released last year, with another record entitled ‘Day For Night’ expected for 2015. Smashing Pumpkins will head on a co-headline tour with Marilyn Manson during the summer, with the North American stint billed as ‘The End Of Times Tour’.
Corgan, who recently revealed that he wants to be known by the name William, not Billy, has taken up full-time role at TNA Wrestling. The role will see him develop characters and create story lines for TNA’s Impact Wrestling. Corgan will attend TNA television tapings where he will serve as a senior producer, working with TNA’s roster which currently includes World Champion Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy and Gail Kim among others.