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Vietnam tersely rejected charges from Google that tens of thousands of Vietnamese-speaking PC users around the world were targeted by hackers.
AOL is actively trying to rid itself of Bebo, the social-networking site it acquired two years ago for a whopping US$850 million.
Software developer and political lobbyist Florian Mueller weighed in on the European Commission's investigation of monopoly abuse claims against IBM, accusing the computing giant of deserting the interests of the open-source software community.
Researchers in the U.S. and Canada have tracked and documented a sophisticated cyber-espionage network based in China, dubbed Shadow, that targeted computers in several countries, including systems belonging to the Indian government and military.
CA is planning to cut about 1000 jobs, or roughly 7.7 percent of its workforce, according to a document filed Tuesday with the US Securities & Exchange Commission.
Western Digital announced today that it is shipping its fastest-ever VelociRaptor hard-disk drive, which uses a 6Gbit/sec. serial ATA interface and comes in 45GB and 600GB capacities.
The Blu-ray Disc Association this week announced plans to release a new commercial high-definition disc format that will offer up to 128GB of write-once capacity within months.
Security researcher Jeremy Conway says he has discovered a way to spread malicious code across PDF documents on a victim's computer.
OCZ Technology Group Inc. announced plans today to begin mass producing its PCI-Express (PCIe) Z-Drive R2 Solid State Drive (SSD) series, the second iteration of the product.
A huge task: While NASA's 2011 budget got a lot of attention for what it cut – the Constellation program mostly – it does include funding for a ton of other critical satellite and robotic missions.
Apple's iPad is about twice as fast as the current iPhone, according to recently-published benchmark tests.
Verizon appears to be playing catch-up to broadband rival Comcast with its announcement Tuesday of a residential trial of IPv6, a long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol.
Hewlett-Packard this week started leaking information about its upcomping tablet computer, apparently hoping to take advantage of the hype and buzz surrounding Saturday's release Apple's iPad tablet computer.
A U.S. appeals court has ruled that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission did not have the authority to order Comcast to stop throttling peer-to-peer traffic in the name of network management.
National broadcaster SBS has confirmed it is interested in televising a match from the 2010 FIFA World Cup in 3D. An article in The Australian quotes Paul Broderick, SBS director of technology and distribution, as saying that that the broadcaster is ...
Whether it’s consumer or enterprise security there is one bottom line: there is no point in cutting corners when it comes to security.
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Samsung Electronics has announced its own mini laptop, the Samsung NC10, claiming that it delivers longer battery life and a better user experience than rival models.
Available from October for £329, the NC10 has a 10.2in display and a normal-sized ergonomic notebook-style keyboard. It also ships with a six-cell battery that is claimed to offer up to eight hours of use.
Dinesh Chand, UK product manager for laptops at Samsung, explained that the firm had been watching the market for 'netbooks' for some time before developing its own model.
"Through our extensive R&D network, we have gained a true insight into consumers' frustrations with these products, such as small keyboards and short battery life, which has been very valuable and has allowed us to develop a product we feel fits our customers' needs," he said.
The NC10 is based on Intel's 1.6GHz Atom mobile processor with up to 1GB of memory and hard drive options from 80GB to 160GB.
It ships with Windows XP Home edition, supports 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and has three USB ports and a 3-in-1 reader slot for Flash storage cards.
Samsung claims that its SuperBright LED backlit screen uses less power than those in rival mini laptops, while being thinner and up to 33 per cent brighter.
The company also claims that the chassis is designed for greater reliability and durability.
BT wants to make the public switched telephone network history within eight years
Personal data being purloined by third parties via Facebook Login API
MacOS and iOS are better off apart, says CEO Tim Cook
Or they'll no longer be entitled to updates and bug patches

domain: news


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Ulta Beauty will open 12 new stores in DDR shopping centers by year-end 2013.
Ulta Beauty has selected Mary Dillon, the president and CEO of U.S. Cellular, as CEO, effective July 1, 2013.
Ulta Beauty reported a double-digit gain in third-quarter sales and net income.
Transwestern’s Chicago Retail Advisory Services said it has represented Zip Fitness in four transactions across the Chicagoland area.
Forest City Commercial Management in partnership with social shopping network, Shoptopia, kicked off Project Style, the award-winning fashion competition for guys and girls ages 13 and up.
As attention has turned from enclosed malls to open-air shopping centers, all eyes this December...
Opened in 2004, the $285 million Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., town center called Victoria Gardens spans...


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When the Columbia Health Department sent Mike Knoll a letter saying he had to start paying $150 for city business license and health inspection fees to sell his eggs at the Columbia Farmers Market, he stopped selling his eggs there.
“I wasn’t going to pay that fee, and I don’t think anybody really did,” said Knoll, who runs Bonne Femme Farm LLC.
Last summer the Columbia Health Department sent a letter to all Columbia Farmers Market egg vendors demanding they buy a $25 city business license and pay a $125 health inspection fee, which included funding for a criminal background check, for a total cost of $150.
“They wanted to see if we were upstanding enough to sell eggs,” Knoll said.
Before this, egg vendors only had to buy a $5 wholesale or $10 retail state license fee.
Extra fee wasn't legal
So, egg vendors and Guy Clark, the president of the Columbia Farmers Market, took matters into their own hands. They did some research on the Internet and found two state statutes that deny the city the right to charge vendors.
Missouri state statute 71.630 says, “No incorporated city, town or village in this state shall have power to levy or collect any tax, license or fees from any farmer, or producer or producers, for the sale of produce raised by him, her or them, when sold from his, her or their wagon, cart or vehicle, or from any person or persons in the employ of such farmer or producer in any such city, town or village.”
State statute 150.030 says almost the same thing, but applies this mandate to counties as well.
“We ended up just getting a lawyer to tell them (the city) that they couldn’t charge us that,” Knoll said.
The city repealed the fee.
“We had our legal staff look over the letters and statutes and they agreed,” said Gerry Worley, environmental health manager with the Columbia/Boone County Health Department.
As to the reason for the fee, the answer is a little unclear. Worley said the reason was a city ordinance that says food establishments making less than $250,000 require the $125 health inspection fee. But he said another city ordinance exempts raw produce from that fee. The real issue, he said, was whether eggs are raw produce.
“Up until this issue, we thought they weren’t (raw produce),” Worley said.
Another complicating factor is that meat vendors and “value-added” product vendors who sell things such as jam or pickles have always had to pay the $150 fee. When the fee was first enacted, the city said it was because eggs were a value-added product.
“They said that washing the eggs off after we take them out from underneath the hens was adding value to them,” said Jim Thomas, egg vendor from Share Life Farms.
As to why the fee hadn’t been instituted before, Worley said, “I don’t know; I guess they just slipped under our radar.”
The city now has removed the fee for meat vendors and egg vendors but has kept it in place for value-added products; eggs are no longer considered a value-added product and are now considered raw produce.
“We’re still working on whether the statutes can apply to the value-added products, too,” said Guy Clark, president of the Columbia Farmers Market.
Meat vendors thinking about trying to get refunds
Some meat vendors have had to pay the fee for years and now that the fee has been taken away, some are wondering whether the city owes them some money.
“I don’t think they could, but if one were to push it ... I don’t know,” Clark said about getting a refund from the city.
The mandatory state license for all vendors includes an inspection, and those inspectors also were baffled by the implementation of the added fee for egg vendors.
“Even the state inspectors coming through were asking, ‘What’s going on here?’” Clark said.
Clark is also working with the Missouri Department of Agriculture, which has found that a lot of other towns in Missouri are having problems with their city government in relation to farmers markets.
“This may have a big effect across the state,” Clark said.
So far, the Boone County Farmers Market has had no involvement in this issue.
“No one came to me with any problems; we weren’t really aware of the concern,” said Steve Sapp, president of the Boone County Farmers Market.
Free from the $150 fee, egg vendors, including the reappearing Knoll, were out in full force starting at 8 a.m. Saturday at the Columbia Farmers Market, state licenses hanging from their tables.
“The eggs are usually gone by 8:45 or so,” Knoll said.


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News – Sine Mora headed to PlayStation Network
Xbox Live Arcade release Sine Mora is now coming to PlayStation Network, Digital Reality has announced.
Sine Mora, originally released on XBLA in March, is a side scrolling shooter with a time control mechanic, and is one of those tough games that makes you happy with yourself when you manage to conquer it.
The PS3 version has yet to be dated. A Vita version is also in the works.


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Independent and employee owned - local news stories, weather, sports, events and more
Vancouver Island man who secretly filmed woman on toilet gets conditional discharge
February 14th, 2019
One July day in 2016, an American tourist was using a coffee shop bathroom on Vancouver Island when she noticed a smartphone hidden under the sink. When she picked it up, she found a video recording of herself on the toilet.


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Unruly reaches 89% of total mobile internet users in the US
2017 is the year of mobile! Now, how many years have we been saying that? Jokes aside, mobile consumption and media spend does continue to grow, while also remaining a challenge for marketers.
In fact, mobile is increasingly the device of choice for consumers watching video online, with more than half of all global digital video views now taking place on mobile (source: Oolaya Global Video Index) and a quarter of global consumers watching more than 10 videos a week on their phones (source: Unruly Mobile Video Survey).
But, between Snapchat’s recent IPO and Twitter’s expected revenue decline, digital marketers might be wondering how to properly invest their mobile spend. The first thing to keep in mind is that mobile video consumption takes place on more than a handful of platforms.
Let’s take a look at the numbers.
Unruly reaches 89% of the mobile Internet population in the US. Meanwhile, YouTube reaches 86%, and Twitter and Snapchat reach 44.6% and 42.1%, respectively.
That means Unruly’s mobile reach in the US is greater than Twitter and Snapchat combined, according to new data from comScore (Mobile Metrix, Jan 2017).
So what does this mean for advertisers.
Despite mobile video spend growing 27% this year, publishers still struggle to monetize this mobile traffic, as 43% of mobile traffic comes via social (Parse.ly). In fact, Mary Meeker has released data stating there is a $22B opportunity in the US alone if publishers can close this mobile monetization gap.
It’s important to remember that there are a number of different ways to hit your target audiences. In the US and abroad, Twitter and Snapchat are only pieces of a much larger pie.
Unruly’s mobile formats can be purchased in either vertical or horizontal formats and provides advertisers the opportunity to hit the majority of the US mobile population by appearing on premium publishers. Our outstream video formats creates new video ad inventory within article pages in premium media environments.
Want to learn more about Unruly’s mobile offerings? Email us at email@example.com.


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How well will consumer packaged goods (CPG) purchases ultimately hold up?
Not only is CPG demand forecasting arguably more difficult than ever, it is also more critical than normal since many CPGs have to decide whether to continue with high-cost contract manufacturing that served as a way to find capacity during the pandemic when demand for CPGs was generally elevated.
The latest consumer data paints a picture of a consumer who lacks confidence, has reassessed priorities and is cutting back in select areas while still trying to maintain the same standard of living, which is currently being supported by dipping into savings accumulated during the pandemic and by credit card spending. There hasn’t (yet?) been tremendous consumer retrenchment in terms of the absolute dollars being spent, but it remains to be seen how sustainable current spending levels are.
Here are a few recent data points and anecdotes that highlight the latest consumer trends:
- Discount retail is taking share from traditional grocers. Walmart is growing in grocery while higher food prices are leaving less money available for the rest of the store, where the retailer earns higher margins. The demographic looking to big-box discounters for savings on groceries is wide — three-quarters of Walmart’s market share gains in food came from consumers with annual household incomes of $100,000 or more.
- Inventory levels remain bloated. It’s been one quarter since Walmart and Target made it clear to investors that they had way too much inventory, and despite major initiatives to right-size inventory levels, that appears to be a process that will take a number of quarters, exacerbated by still-high import volumes and continued consumer caution. At the end of the second quarter, Walmart’s inventory was 26% higher y/y and down only 2% sequentially. Similarly, Target’s inventory levels were 36% higher y/y and 2% higher sequentially.
- Consumers are buying cheaper cuts of meat. Tyson reported a mix-shift toward chicken and away from beef and pork, which both experienced volume declines in the past quarter. That is notable because consumers had been accepting meat price increases of 20%-40% during the pandemic with little demand destruction.
- Private-label brands are taking share. According to private-label food manufacturer TreeHouse Foods, private-label brands posted volume growth of 2% in the second quarter, as compared with a 5% volume decline for the national brands. Tyson also cited a market share loss in meat to less costly private labels.
- Most publicly traded CPGs maintain that their elasticities remain below historic levels. However, even those bullish comments reflected a change in tone and wording from prior releases. Previously, the CPGs had discussed quarterly results while citing little to no demand degradation in response to rising prices.
- The recent decline in fuel prices has provided some relief. That appears to be showing up in the latest data on consumer spending, which increased 0.8% m/m in July.
- The personal savings rate hit a recent low. The personal savings rate in July was just 5.1%, which is well below the average of the past 10 years.
- Consumers are borrowing more. After accumulating savings during the early days of the pandemic, consumers have been making up for lost time and putting more on their credit cards, with balances now above pre-pandemic levels. That comes in addition to higher balances of nonrevolving credit associated with the recent housing boom (which now may be behind us) and record home prices.
Here are a three other SONAR charts that stand out:
Van contract rates (national average — white line), which average $2.80 a mile, excluding fuel, are down from their high near $3 a mile. Spot rates (green line), which are adjusted to remove fuel, are 71 cents a mile lower at $2.09. That spread is unsustainable and suggests that contract rates have considerable room to fall.
National dry van and reefer tender rejection rates are currently 6 and 6.8%, respectively, and are consistent with a deflationary freight rate environment. At the beginning of this year, those rates were around 20% and 40%, respectively.
Ocean rates have fallen in recent months in the trans-Pacific lanes from China to the U.S. (above left). Rates have declined more sharply from China to the U.S. West Coast (white line) than from China to the U.S. East Coast (orange line), resulting in a higher spread (right chart above). Those rates suggest that some shippers have opted to avoid the West Coast to avoid congestion (though eastern ports have become more congested). In addition, many shippers have become less willing to pay a premium to transport goods in the quickest manner from China to U.S. consumption centers in the East and Midwest, which involves using the west coast ports and a domestic transportation “land bridge.”
To subscribe to The Stockout, FreightWaves’ CPG supply chain newsletter, please click here.
NOVEMBER 7-9, 2023 • CHATTANOOGA, TN • IN-PERSON EVENT
The second annual F3: Future of Freight Festival will be held in Chattanooga, “The Scenic City,” this November. F3 combines innovation and entertainment — featuring live demos, industry experts discussing freight market trends for 2024, afternoon networking events, and Grammy Award-winning musicians performing in the evenings amidst the cool Appalachian fall weather.


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Facebook earlier this month launched Home, which essentially makes Facebook the platform on selected Android phones. The move was an important one in Facebook’s goal to become more influential on mobile. The company’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, told reporters in London Monday that mobile could be a more important advertising medium than television.
Facebook released another ad promoting its Home overlay for certain Android devices, with this one featuring Facebook Co-Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg not exactly doing a stellar job of capturing his employees’ attention.
Facebook Co-Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is all over newsstands Thursday, having penned an op-ed in The Washington Post to introduce political advocacy group FWD.us, as well as gracing the cover of Fortune for a wide-ranging chat with Senior Writer Jessi Hempel.
When users start getting Facebook Home on Android devices, there won’t be paid advertising. But much like other Facebook products, it’s likely coming. Co-Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t rule it out when the product was announced last week. Todd Herrold, senior director of product marketing at Kenshoo Social, talked with AllFacebook about how Facebook Home can change mobile advertising.
Much to many users’ chagrins, Facebook is testing a service that charges users $1 to message people to whom they aren’t connected. As a test that has now been completed, it set users back $100 to get in Facebook Co-Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s inbox (or anyone else with a high amount of followers), but with no guarantee that he’ll even see or respond to their messages. Now Facebook is testing a similar service in the U.K., charging users to contact celebrities and other people with swarms of followers.
The launch plan for the political advocacy group being led by Facebook Co-Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg encountered a few issues, as Joe Green, the plan’s author and a roommate of Zuckerberg at Harvard University, confirmed to Politico that it contained several inaccuracies.
Not long after Facebook announced its redesigned News Feed, with its heavy emphasis on photos, many brands’ images looked improperly cropped for this new format. Images were centered on peoples’ waists, with text on their heads. Facebook recently revealed to AllFacebook the official measurements for photos in this more visual News Feed, as well as how pages and people can make sure their photos look good.
Facebook Thursday unveiled the closest thing to a Facebook phone, with Home. Select Android devices will have access to Home starting April 12, and it will later become available to more users. This news was met with curiosity, excitement, and a little bit of fear, knowing that Facebook would go from being a part of the phone to being a part of the entire mobile experience.
Facebook Co-Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke with Fortune Senior Writer Jessi Hempel last week, one week before the social network’s introduction of its Home overlay for Android phones, saying of Facebook’s earlier mobile efforts, “We were just kind of really behind in terms of the quality level we wanted to be providing.”


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Trends: Foodies hit a raw nerve
Sunday 11 May 2008
Californians' obsession with raw food – and not just sushi – is starting to catch on over here, and cafés, restaurants and food shops are cashing in.
Scotland's first raw-food café, Red Sugar (www.red-sugar.co.uk), opened in Edinburgh in February, serving a range of uncooked produce and smoothies, while in London Britain's first gourmet raw-food restaurant, Saf ( www.safrestaurant. co.uk), opened last month, serving up cauliflower risottos and veggie lasagnes.
The American store Whole Foods in London's Kensington, (www.wholefoods market.com) is leading the high-street charge, while Andrew Davis, co-founder of The Raw Food School ( www.theraw foodschool.com), which is based in Soho, London, plans to release a raw-food range in Waitrose later this year.
Thanks to thefuturelaboratory.com
Daniele Watts: Django Unchained actress detained by Los Angeles police after being mistaken for a prostitute
Scottish independence referendum: A nation divided against itself
Scottish independence: David Cameron is becoming the 'George Bush of Britain'
Russia freezes Ukraine into submission: Kiev admits country doesn't have enough fuel for winter
Scottish independence: The Queen breaks silence on referendum debate – as think tank warns of £14bn black hole if Scotland votes Yes
Archbishop of Canterbury admits doubts about existence of God
- 1 Mario Balotelli: Staff at arson-hit Manchester Dogs' Home convinced Liverpool striker is behind five-figure donation
- 2 Friends 20th anniversary: Alison Jackson photographs reunited cast
- 3 A bottle of wine a day is not bad for you and abstaining is worse than drinking, scientist claims
- 4 The response to my Pizza Express review has been overwhelming, and taught me a lot about journalism
- 5 Free U2 album: How the most generous giveaway in music history turned into a PR disaster


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The parent group of Currys and PC World today said its profits had more than doubled during the six months of the year, but sounded a note of caution over the outlook for the rest of the year.
Dixons, which has been selling loss-making businesses across Europe, posted an underlying pre-tax profit of £30.2 million for the six months to the end of October, up from £14m a year earlier, on total sales 7 per cent higher at £3.4 billion.
Chief executive Sebastian James said the retailer had gained from the demise of rival Comet, which fell into administration last November, but those benefits will begin to tail off in the second half.
James added: “We remain cautious about the outlook for consumers in our markets – very strong trading this time last year, together with the fact that we have now annualised Comet’s exit makes the second half more challenging.”
Richard Hunter, head of equities at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “Dixons has already come a long way since the depths of recent years and today’s update is further confirmation that the company remains on track to deliver a full recovery.”


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(FiveNation.com)- Roughly 200,000 Ellume COVID-19 home testing kits have reportedly been recalled after giving multiple false-positive results.
The rapid antigen tests are some of the most popular tests used in the United States and are often used to help people decide whether or not they should quarantine for 10 days. They may also stop people from traveling, going to work, or attending important meetings based on a positive test result.
Just how many people have been forced into quarantine for no reason?
Ellume CEO Dr. Sean Parsons admitted the problem to The New York Times, describing how the issue was noticed in September and is understood to have been caused by variations in the quality of some of the raw materials used in creating the product.
These tests were given emergency use authorization by the United States Food and Drug Administration in December of last year. The company, which is from Australia, has shipped some 3.5 million tests to the United States since.
Not only have 200,000 tests been recalled, but some 427,000 tests are believed to have been affected by the issue – meaning hundreds of thousands of Americans may have been impacted by the problem.
Parsons claimed, however, that out of the 227,000 tests that were used, some 42,000 people tested positive. So assuming that the tests weren’t also giving false negatives, that brings the number down slightly.
But who knows?
He predicted that it’s hard to know how many of the positive results may have been wrong, but estimated that it could have been one quarter.
Retailers have been asked to stop selling the recalled testing kits and consumers have been notified about the problem. If you believe you may have an affected kit, Parsons recommended you visit the Ellume website to receive a replacement or call them on 1-888-807-1501.


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New York State policymakers Sen. Alessandra Biaggi and Assembly Member Dr. Anna Kelles introduced the Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act (S7428 / A08352), known more familiarly as the Fashion Act, in October.
In short, the Fashion Act aims to keep fashion’s multinational corporations — those with more than $100 million in global revenues and doing business in New York — accountable. Companies that fall under the Act’s purview would be required to map 50 percent of their supply chain (from the farms they draw their raw materials from to the factories that cut and sew their garments). Environmental and social responsibility criteria (like greenhouse gas emissions or median wages) will also need to be summed up in reports — and all within an 18-month timeline if the bill passes.
Although in its still in its early stages, many believe the bill has potential. Sen. Biaggi called the bill “historic in the U.S.,” emphasizing there has never before been legislation introduced to regulate and address the harms caused by the fashion industry in such a “comprehensive” way.
What It Does
Companies will have to report on their biggest impact areas — across everything from emissions, energy, water and plastic use to chemical management — and outline what they’re going to do to lessen them, a form of social due diligence.
As it’s currently written, greenhouse gas emissions reporting, for one, would be required to conform to the universal environmental accounting standards set forth in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard and the GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard. The world-recognized standard helps companies set targets, identify, calculate and report their GHG emissions around three areas: Scope 1 (company facilities and vehicles), purchased activities (like electricity) or Scope 2 and indirect emissions or Scope 3 (including all upstream activities where the majority of impact lies).
When it comes to social due diligence, that, according to the bill, encompasses “the process companies should carry out to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address actual and potential adverse impacts in their own operations, their supply chain and other business relationships.” This translates to how companies are incentivizing suppliers to advance worker rights (including contract renewals, price premiums and longer-term contracts). Due diligence protocol would align with the United Nations guiding principles for business and human rights and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development outline for responsible business conduct. Companies would also have to disclose median worker wages.
Given that New York City’s annual textile waste towers as high as the Empire State Building, according to the Sanitation Foundation, companies would also have to disclose their material use, including type. For any noncompliant companies, fines would be instilled to the tune of 2 percent of their annual revenues going forth to fund “projects specifically for New York’s environmental justice communities.”
What It Doesn’t Do
Some stakeholders worry the bill needs work.
Labor and reuse groups banded together to express support, in a series of letters sent to the legislators last month, identifying further elements — like tightened disclosure enforcements and a “circularity hierarchy” which expands outside simply recycling as a means to an end — for consideration.
Addressing the need for joint-liability, “Our primary concern is that the Fashion Act focuses primarily on disclosure. As such, brands will only be held accountable for failures to report, not failures to actively identify, prevent, mitigate and account for adverse impacts on people and planet on an ongoing basis, as set out by the U.N. Guiding Principles and OECD Guidelines and Guidance. It furthermore places no requirements on companies to provide for or cooperate in remediation for harms they cause or contribute to where appropriate. Liability, likewise, is only for failure to report,” said a letter from 20 labor rights groups, among them Remake, Custom Collaborative, Fashion Revolution, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre and Human Rights Watch among others.
Meanwhile, a group of 28 reuse sector advocates — among them Circular Services Group, The OR Foundation, ThredUp, Intersectional Environmentalist and The Renewal Workshop — penned support but appealed for further considerations like a “circularity hierarchy” defined as a new paradigm based on lifecycle analysis on the next best use of resources by the World Resources Institute and “reparation funds that would be committed to global communities most socially and environmentally harmed by the fashion industry’s textile waste,” per the letter.
Regardless of the elements it currently espouses, the groups, as well as the initial supporting organizations, have underlined their commitment and support for the Fashion Act.
As Sen. Biaggi mentioned in an email interview with WWD, stakeholder engagement on all sides is necessary to ensure the strongest version of the Fashion Act materializes, so critics are welcome. WWD confirmed conversations are underway between groups.
Where It Stands
At the start of the legislative season, the bill was met with much support.
New Standard Institute; the Natural Resources Defense Council; Environmental Advocates New York; New York Communities for Change; South Asian Fund for Education Scholarship and Training, or SAFEST; Ferrara Manufacturing; EarthDay.org; Oceanic; Uprose, and the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, are among the initial supporters.
The bill currently resides in the state’s Consumer Protection Committee in the Senate and the Consumer Affairs and Protection Committee in the Assembly, with potential to route through other committees as well, especially on the Assembly side where additional review is common. Once the bill passes through Committee in either house, it will then be brought to the floor for a vote. The legislature convenes in Albany from January to June, with June as the end-cap to the regular season.
Sen. Biaggi stressed stakeholder engagement has been built into the Fashion Act from the start.
“From the very origin of this bill, we set out to ensure this legislation drives the most positive change for the people most impacted by the fashion industry, and since introducing the bill, we have been so grateful for the attention and input we’ve received from so many groups,” she said. “We have been in continuous discussion with stakeholders from all sides — labor rights and environmental advocates, legal experts, fashion industry and business leaders, and manufacturers and brands — to ensure that we can advance the strongest and most transformative piece of legislation possible.
In the legislative process, it’s very common and necessary for bill language to be amended between its introduction and passage, so I welcome any and all conversations with necessary stakeholders to improve this bill. From its inception, I have been working with the New Standard Institute to build a wide-reaching coalition of all stakeholders. If we are to enact real change in the field, then we must have buy-in from all stakeholders to develop the most transformative legislation possible, and I am committed to that.”
Where It’s Going
Why is the Fashion Act something to watch?
Citing fashion’s estimated 4 percent to 8.6 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, Sen. Biaggi decried the industry’s nefariousness “for its exploitative and harmful labor practices around the world,” and believes it can no longer go unchecked.
“This bill has the power to change that, and would transform the fashion industry into one that prioritizes environmental and labor justice — substantially reducing carbon emissions globally and making a direct impact on communities across the globe, including in my own district, in the Bronx. Ultimately, I hope that this legislation not only sets a precedent for other states to follow suit, but for our nation at large. If the U.S. is to tackle climate change head on, we must ensure that our business practices and regulations, no matter the industry, are made with environmental justice in mind,” she added.
“We have the power to make history and set an example — not just for the $2.5 trillion fashion industry,” Sen. Biaggi said. “The Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act can also serve as a model for the future of how we do business — with profit, people and planet in mind.”


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Jay Z’s Aspiro Purchased At $56 Million Last Month, Today Worth $250 Million
Last month, Jay Z finalized the acquisition of Aspiro for $56 million. Now, the an online streaming company is valued at $250 million. The subscription music service has generated over 100,000 new users within 3 days, and aggressively competing with Spotify and Apple.
Although Sprint and parent SoftBank have bought a minority stake in the Aspiro investment.
Jay Z remains the biggest shareholder in Aspiro, the Swedish company behind high-definition streaming sites WiMP and the subscription music streaming service, “Tidal”.
Tidal made a big splash earlier this week, when the hip-hop mogul held a star-studded event in New York.
Tidal claims to have signed up 100,000 subscribers since Kanye West, Rihanna, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Alicia Keys and even Daft Punk joined Jay Z on stage, according to industry sources.
At the same event, Tidal’s chief investment officer, Vania Schlogel, said the service had been working closely with Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure, although Tidal reps declined to say if the No. 3 wireless provider was also an investor.
The Post reported ahead of the Monday event that Tidal was seeking to raise money and had held talks with Softbank and private-equity firm KKR.
Sprint is preparing to offer Tidal’s service on its phones although the details and the pricing are unclear. A Sprint store manager in Manhattan told The Post he would have more details on the rollout in the next few weeks, adding that “there may be some specials,” or promotions.
In general, there’s confusion around the pricing. Tidal says it offers two tiers: a standard version for $9.99 a month and a $19.99 “premium sound” version. The app, however, lists the prices at $12.99 and $25.99, respectively, with a 30-day free trial.


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The DC UNIVERSE streaming service has just released a new trailer for the world’s most Dysfunctional Super-Hero Team Doom Patrol.
Doom Patrol is an organization with a shifting line up made up of super freaks. The one consistent member has always been former racing driver Robotman (Cliff Steele played by Brendan Fraser), whose metal body is often destroyed along with the rest of his team and replaced just as promptly.
The announcement of the dream casting line up is nothing short of amazing! Negative Man (played by Matt Bomer), Elasti-Woman (played by April Bowlby), Crazy Jane (played by Diane Guerrero), their ambiguous leader Dr. Niles Caulder (played by Timothy Dalton), and for the first time in Doom Patrol history they will not be joined by Beast-Boy (who is currently busy with the Titans) instead they are getting Cyborg (Joivan Wade).
Most excitingly of all is the announcement of the Dadaist villain Mr. Nobody played by Alan Tudyk! The team’s current line up is made up of members from throughout the entirety of Doom Patrol’s many publications.
With an unusual, retro tone this feels more like a freaky live-action Venture Brothers than anything resembling the Dark Knight or Smallville. So far the released materials seem to perfectly capture the twisted tone of Doom Patrol.
If they can keep this up and follow almost any of the comic book storylines, Doom Patrol will almost certainly be more unique and exciting than anything we have seen in the DCTVU* so far and is sure to be one to watch out for!
Doom Patrol is launching Stateside February 15, 2019, only on the streaming service DC UNIVERSE. Check out the trailer below and stay tuned to n3rdabl3 for your comic book, TV and video game news, reviews and rumors.
*DCTVU: n3rdabl3’s official name for the Detective Comics Television Universe that is taking shape on the streaming service DC UNIVERSE.


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MANILA - Metrobank’s investment arm said Tuesday it remains optimistic about the Philippines’ growth despite the ongoing surge in COVID-19 infections.
First Metro Investment Corporation (FMIC) said while daily infection tallies are breaking records, the economy remains open.
“We are mobile, even if we are already at 33k. That is really the result of our vaccination rate of 50 percent," said Cristina Ulang, FMIC’s head of research.
Ulang said she expects economic recovery to continue this year, even with the omicron surge, as vaccination continues.
“We will be able to reopen in a bigger way once we have a booster shot.”
Business groups have been calling on the government to refrain from further tightening mobility restrictions in Metro Manila despite the surge, saying an escalation to Alert Level 4 would weigh down businesses.
Economist Victor Abola from the University of Asia and the Pacific also said the experience of other countries with omicron shows that it is not as severe as previous variants.
“Infection rate is quite fast, because it is really very transmissible. However it is less deadly,” Abola said.
“The experts say, based on South Africa and other areas, omicron will be a matter of weeks not months,” Abola added.
Ulang forecasts the PSEI to hit between 7,900 and 8,100 this year, as corporate earnings grow by as much as 35 percent.
Abola meanwhile said he expects the Philippine economy to grow 6 to 7 percent this year, which is below the government’s own forecast of 7 to 9 percent, but higher than the expected growth for 2021 of between 5 and 5.5 percent.
Inflation is also expected to ease 3.7 percent this year, from over 4 percent last year, Abola said.
This he says will allow the Philippine Central Bank to keep key interest rates at record lows, which in turn should continue providing support for the economic recovery.
FMIC Chairman Francisco Sebastian meanwhile said that foreign investors will be playing a bigger role this year, with the government passing amendments to allow offshore capital to play a bigger role in retail and other sectors.
Sebastian noted that net inflows of foreign direct investments were already at $8.1 billion as of October last year.
“In the past 5 or 7 years, FDI is about 1 to 2 billion USD a year. So it is running about 7 times of what it was before. It is FDIs that will bring us jobs, give us economic growth.”
President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law an amendment to the Retail Trade Liberalization Act, lowering the capital requirement for foreign retailers to enter the Philippines, and FMIC expects this will generate more FDI in the near future.


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While Android has for sometime been outpacing iOS on the consumer side in terms of growth and market share, developers have still clung to iOS for building new apps.
However, new research shows that 2012 might be the year that changes.
According to research and analysis firm Ovum, developers will start thinking of Android as more important than iOS for development projects and apps in the coming 12 months.
“A smartphone platform’s success is dictated not only by the pull of consumers and the push of handset vendors and mobile operators but also by a healthy economy of applications delivered by third-party developers,” said Adam Leach, Ovum’s devices and platforms practice leader and author of the research, in a release.
“Therefore, it is important for all players in the smartphone ecosystem to understand the choices developers are making today and the downstream impact of those choices.”
In its second annual developer survey, Ovum also learned that developers have a strong interest in the Microsoft Windows Phone platform, which has seen some interesting consumer-side activity, and in developing for BlackBerry devices.
Mobile development in general is the single largest area of interest for devs, with a full 66 percent of developers in a recent survey saying they planned to work on mobile projects in 2012.
However, the split between operating systems has been decidedly in Apple’s favor since the dawn of the smartphone age.
Research published late last year showed around 73 percent of apps created in Q4 2011 were for iOS devices, while Android devices only captured around 27 percent of apps. And that uneven split was more in Apple’s favor than just three quarters before, when the figures were 63 percent for iOS and 37 percent for Android.
Of course, all this is driven by money; and while some research suggests that iOS apps make more money, Android advocates tell another story.
In a recent op/ed on VentureBeat, ad network CEO Dale Carr wrote, “Click-through rates on iOS are more than double what they are on Android, but the cost per thousand is only 30 percent higher. This would indicate that Android developers are getting more bang for each click.
“Combine this with another recent statistic that Android generates twice the ad impressions of iOS, and you have Android earning more in real dollar terms from ad revenue.”
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Mozilla has identified 10 high-priority bugs in Firefox 3.0, three of them pegged "critical," but won't decide until next week whether to release the browser anyway or restart the final stretch by issuing a second release candidate (RC2).
Symantec is setting a high bar for performance for the new versions of its security products due in 2009.
There has been a lot of speculation in recent weeks about whether global oil demand could soon outstrip global production capacity. During a panel discussion sponsored by the Internet Innovation Alliance, several experts pondered whether something si...
Despite numerous security measures by online banks and e-commerce sites to secure consumer data, few have been able or even willing to directly protect customers using their sites from phishing scams and data-stealing malware.
Critical vulnerabilities remain in Apple's iCal calendar program, a security company said Wednesday in an advisory that showed months of back-and-forth between Apple and the researchers over whether bugs were serious enough to warrant patches, and if...
After years of closely guarding the formula for its search algorithms, Google is opening up a little.
Facebook is disclosing more details about the planned redesign for its core member profile pages, as it attempts to regain the layout's orderly, streamlined look that had been one of its trademarks and a differentiator from competitors like MySpace.
Wi-Fi moochers beware: eTelemetry has released a new device that's designed to spoil your free ride.
Extending its dominance in the search market, Google grew its share of queries in April at the expense of rivals Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL and Ask.com.
Australia's $8 billion National Broadband Network (NBN) has been set back for at least another 12 weeks, after the government bent under pressure to extend the tender October deadline.
A harbinger of how US consumers may access the Web for entertainment and information, Roku, Wednesday introduced the first player that streams movies from the online, subscription service Netflix to televisions using open source software. Roku's Netf...
Local victims of Nigerian online scams now have a new ally in the fight against fraud with a partnership between the Queensland Police Service, Nigeria's Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and industry.
After vague statements over the last weeks about internal investments that will allow it to compete in search without Yahoo, Microsoft on Wednesday laid out more of its vision for improving on its current "underdog" position in search.
Like Facebook before it, MySpace is having to take corrective steps to curb spam from applications built by external developers using its new application development platform.
The FBI is warning Americans looking to send donations in the aftermath of the massive May 12 earthquake in China to beware of a rising number of e-mail scams that tout "relief" efforts.
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The Panasonic GH5 has been out for less than a year but now it’s joined by the GH5S. Is it a replacement or something all new?We find out in the ultimate Panasonic GH5 Vs GH5S comparison.Read More
Panasonic News & Reviews
Although it didn’t get serious about stills cameras until 2001, electronics giant Panasonic was the first company to introduce a mirrorless system camera. The debut model, the Panasonic Lumix G1 was unveiled at the Photokina trade show in September 2008 and was the first Micro Four Thirds camera. Since then Panasonic has created a range of interchangeable lens Micro Four Thirds cameras with models to suit beginners and enthusiast photographers. The GH series has also proved very popular with videographers with the GH5 delivering features that have previously only been available in high-end movie cameras.


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SNAFEL ™ nano airgel composite another warm epoch of new materials
SNAFEL ™ Nano Aerogels research and development team announced the launch of a national initiative nano airgel warm clothing series, using SNAFEL ™ nano airgel composites – more warm, lighter, more breathable, is the second substitution down after natural cotton, another epoch of new materials to keep warm. Airgel is considered to be the world\’s lightest solid, with excellent insulation effect, and can even help astronauts withstand the cold in space, thus becoming aerospace materials by NASA NASA favor from the United States, \”Mars Pathfinder by \”probe of the C919 aircraft, aerogels are irreplaceable super insulating material . This the first to be used in aerospace field of new cutting-edge nano-materials, also known as a \”change the world of magical material\”, the NDRC has now been listed as a national strategic emerging industries. By the SNAFEL ™ airgel nano research team independently developed SNAFEL ™ nano airgel composites, airgel and other substrates by the HSE in line with standard composite from. It full nano airgel material excellent hydrophobicity and excellent thermal properties, and permeability through perfect pore structure uniformly distributed in the whole body of material. SNAFEL ™ airgel nano-warm new material, it will provide reliable warmth, cold, protection, and more eco-friendly, clean and green. SNAFEL ™ airgel nano research and development team said that as SNAFEL ™ nano airgel composites design at the beginning, then full consideration to the human motion feedback effects on the wearing comfort, so the square grams of the material weight, breathability, etc. It has put forward a very stringent standard, even if the whole dress fully filled SNAFEL ™ airgel nano-composite materials, it will not feel too heavy or hot. Currently thickness of only 2mm of SNAFEL ™ Ranger series intercity nano airgel warm jacket, down jacket has the same 40mm insulation effect, can bid farewell to winter bloated, slimmer, more self-cultivation, activities smarter. In liquid nitrogen to minus 173 ℃ injection of the test, the internal temperature can be maintained at the paragraph jacket around 28 ℃, while wearing temperature at 20 ℃, is still able to maintain a comfortable somatosensory without overheating. Currently, the Ranger series intercity SNAFEL ™ nano airgel warm jacket, logged SNAFEL ™ at the official websiteLine pre-sale, and plans to launch one after another recently paid public project in crowdfunding platform, such as all goes well, expect the first users will be able to experience in October 2017 by the SNAFEL ™ airgel nano warm clothing brought full superiority. In addition, strong demand by those who first tried feedback, SNAFEL ™ airgel nano R & D team will continue to launch built by SNAFEL ™ airgel nano new material to keep warm pants, gloves and hats.


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As we ramp up into 2023, it’s more important than ever for retailers and brands to understand the financial pressures their shoppers continue to experience. While it may feel like we’re cresting the hill — with inflation rates lower month-to-month — consumers are still seeing significantly higher prices in some categories, like food-at-home.
Let’s take a look at some of the numbers.
The consumer price index (CPI) for December 2022 was 6.5 percent, down from its high at 9.1 percent in August 2022. However, while food-at-home has also consistently dropped month-to-month since the fall, shoppers were still looking at prices nearly 12 percent higher YOY as of December. That’s a big hit on the average shopper’s wallet.
What can retailers and brands do to make shopping more affordable and accessible? The first step is to listen to shoppers, so you can truly understand the pressures they’re facing. Then you can use that learning to create tailored experiences — from promotional offers to loyalty programs — that will meaningfully help.
Here at Inmar, we’ve been fielding quarterly surveys of 1,000 consumers to listen and understand how these increased prices are impacting them, and how they’re adjusting.
We’ve compiled some of the data we collected in a one-page resource you can download by completing the form on this page.
By reading it you’ll understand:
- How many shoppers are really concerned about inflation, and how that’s changed over the last 10 months
- What’s really influencing purchase behavior changes
- Who’s most impacted by price increases
At a time when shoppers are hunting for savings, promotions are critical for brands. You have to make it easy to save to win loyalty these days. Do you have a flexible, efficient promotions strategy to win these weary shoppers?
OUR ONE-PAGER HAS MORE IN-DEPTH INFORMATION ABOUT CONSUMERS AND INFLATION IN 2023


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Vision Health Alliance, The Vision Council’s new consumer education initiative that champions eye health as an important part of overall health and eye health exams as essential components of healthcare, announced that its website and social media channels are now live.
The website can be accessed at visionhealthalliance.org. Resources available on the website include: educational information on eye health, eye conditions, and vision correction options and treatment; interactive activities, including quizzes that test vision health knowledge; and specially designed educational activities for kids.
Vision Health Alliance’s social media channels are also now live. For the latest updates on The Vision Council’s new consumer education initiative, follow @visionhealthalliance on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn; and on Twitter.
Vision Health Alliance is proud to have the commitment of the following industry supporters: Alcon, Eschenbach, EssilorLuxottica, Eyemart Express, Healthy Eyes Advantage, Hilco, MyEyeDr., Shopko Optical.
“Over the past 15 months, consumer healthcare attitudes and behaviors have shifted in meaningful ways. We knew this was the right time to bring eyecare and eye health to the forefront of the healthcare conversation and are excited to launch an impactful consumer campaign later this month,” said Jane Balek, Executive Director of Vision Health Alliance. “What’s really exciting about Vision Health Alliance is that, in addition to supporting consumer-facing education and awareness campaigns, the initiative will also serve as a vehicle for strategic professional and industry partnerships that will further amplify these important messages to key audiences.”
Ahead of Vision Health Alliance’s first consumer campaign launch in late August, the organization seeks to broaden support from the industry. Companies interested in joining Vision Health Alliance as founding partners should contact Jane Balek at email@example.com.
“The pandemic elevated the importance of vision health as we all asked our eyes to work harder,” said Sue Downes, CEO of MyEyeDr. “All eyecare providers share a special responsibility to continue to amplify the message that vision care is a key component of healthcare and serves as an entry point for a lot of people into the healthcare system. We are proud to support Vision Health Alliance and its mission to raise awareness about the importance of an annual eye health exam.”
“The Vision Health Alliance initiative is critical in helping educate patients on the importance of annual eye exams and the right eyewear. We are very pleased to be partnering with Vision Health Alliance on this initiative,” said Kirk Lauterback, COO at Shopko Optical.
“We are proud to be a Visionary Supporter of Vision Health Alliance and its important mission,” said Rick Weisbarth, OD, Vice President of Professional Affairs at Alcon. “For decades the eye care industry has talked about the need to create a campaign that would educate consumers about the role of yearly eye examinations. Vision Health Alliance takes this desire to the next level by emphasizing the importance of an annual comprehensive eye exam as a critical component of overall health and well-being.”
About The Vision Council
As the vision care leader in enabling better vision for better lives, The Vision Council positions its members for success by promoting growth in the vision care industry through education, advocacy, research, consumer outreach, strategic relationship building and industry forums. Furthermore, through Vision Health Alliance, The Vision Council supports consumer education around eyewear and eyecare.
About the Vision Health Alliance
A program of the Better Vision Institute, the related educational foundation of The Vision Council, Vision Health Alliance serves as a multi-faceted consumer education initiative, featuring a new consumer education campaign and supported by strategic professional and industry partnerships and a robust digital marketing effort. Reflecting an effort to broaden the scope and reach of The Vision Council’s consumer education and awareness work, Vision Health Alliance champions eye health as an important part of overall health and eye health exams as an essential component of healthcare; educates consumers about categories of industry products that are solutions to eye health, eyecare and lifestyle concerns; and positions the vision care industry as part of the solution to healthcare access and equity.


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Toyota is on its way back to Forza, starting with the 1998 Supra RZ in Forza Horizon 4.
Microsoft has announced that Toyota cars are coming back to Forza Horizon 4. This all starts with the iconic 1998 Supra RZ, which should be familiar to anyone who played street racing-themed games in the past.
The Supra arrives as part of Forza Horizon 4's Series 17 update, due out on December 12, though it's not yet clear if more will follow.
Forza and Toyota have joined forces once again! It all starts on December 12th when #ForzaHorizon4 players can get behind the wheel of the 1998 Toyota Supra RZ as a part of the Series 17 update. pic.twitter.com/7WhGjIqsys
— Forza Motorsport (@ForzaMotorsport) November 19, 2019
The reason this is big news is that Toyota has been absent from many racing games for a couple of years now. Its cars were missing in Horizon 4, as well as Need for Speed: Payback/Heat and even Grid. Although trucks could be found in Forza 7, the company later revealed it has an exclusive deal with Polyphony Digital, since Gran Turismo Sport is the only recent game that featured Toyota cars.
Toyota UK's official Twitter account confirmed back in August that the company has no plans to license its cars to games other than Gran Turismo.
Officially, Toyota Motor Corporation has no concrete plans to license its model range to any other games besides Gran Turismo Sport at the moment. 3/5
— ToyotaUK (@ToyotaUK) August 21, 2019
This could indicate a return for Toyota cars to racing games in general, but we'll have to wait and see. For now, Forza Horizon 4 players can look forward to tuning a street racing icon next month.


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The latest issue of Just Style’s digital magazine which focuses on eco-friendly initiatives and tackling climate change during an ongoing period of instability and uncertainty is out now. Read it for free online on all devices.
From rising inflation, an energy crisis and an ongoing war in Ukraine – the period of uncertainty that started with the pandemic back in 2020 is continuing to sweep across the globe.
The devastating floods in Pakistan, which is the world’s fifth largest producer of cotton, only highlight why it is so incredibly important for all industries, and especially highly polluting ones such as apparel, to not drop the ball when it comes to sustainability.
In this issue Just Style explores who’s leading the eco charge within the fashion industry and what we can learn from those succeeding.
Thankfully, he points out the work of NGOs hasn’t slowed. If anything, he says the industry’s supply chain issues over the past couple of years underscore the importance of sustainability.
Plus, Peter Needle, president at supply chain management software specialist Segura suggests environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues are becoming critical for all companies across all industries. He highlights consumers are giving priority to products that have little to no social or environmental impact so for the apparel sector to survive it needs to address these issues head-on.
Achieving circularity continues to be a focus for the entire apparel supply chain and carbon neutral fibre regeneration tech company, Infinited Fiber Company, explains how brands are deviating from vague green claims and are seeking concrete solutions.
China is probably not the first country that springs to mind when it comes to sustainability, but environmental damage is becoming a growing concern. In this issue Just Style investigates how this change in perception has created an opportunity for fashion brands that can demonstrate sustainable manufacturing and sourcing processes.
This month, we explore all of these topics and how they’re each affecting the wider apparel industry. Plus, we discuss why collaboration is key to building a greener and more prosperous future and how digitisation can be used to make apparel companies more eco-friendly.
You can subscribe here to receive email notifications when a new issue is available. As always, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and let us know your thoughts on this issue.


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Foxconn is continuing to diversify its manufacturing footprint with plans to invest $500 million building plants in India’s Telangana region.
Apple and its suppliers, including Foxconn, have been working to reduce dependence on China amid deteriorating relations and trade wars between China and the West. As part of that effort, Foxconn has been heavily investing in manufacturing plants in India.
According to a tweet by the Minister for Municipal Admin & Urban Dev, Industry & Commerce, ITE&C, Foxconn has broken ground on its first plant in the state of Telangana.
India has increasingly grown in importance for Apple as the company looks to emerging markets to continue driving growth. The company recently opened its first Apple Store in Mumbai, and Apple has been snapping up additional office space. Meanwhile, the company has begun assembling its latest iPhones in-country.


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Ansi Arumeel joins InPost locker supplier Retail Robotics
Ex-Omniva CEO Ansi Arumeel has joined Polish firm Retail Robotics, which makes parcel lockers for InPost, as a Deputy Managing Director.
The move comes after he was dismissed from his position as CEO of Estonian postal group Omniva in September last year following disagreements over strategy.
At Retail Robotics, Arumeel will manage the further development of new innovative technologies and services for its delivery networks globally. As his direct responsibility, he will lead a group of over 100 specialists and engineers for Retail Robotics’ new products Arctan and PickupHero and also functional units of R&D, IT, Testing & Industrialisation.
“I’m very excited to join Retail Robotics. As a true believer in e-commerce growth and last mile automation, I can see a great potential for the company to change the world by introducing new business models and technologies. With the help of the current leading position, best market knowledge and very talented team, I’m sure that Retail Robotics will make a significant impact on the whole e-commerce value chain and consumer experience,” Arumeel said.
The Estonian-born executive has 15 years of experience in the e-commerce and parcel delivery segment, including general and operational management. He co-created the densest parcel-locker network in the world, converting over 80% of parcel volumes to automated machines.
In 2006, he joined Omniva where he worked for 15 years. Arumeel successfully contributed to the transformation of the Estonian postal operator into the leading e-commerce driven parcel operator in the Baltic region as its CEO.
Julian Kozankiewicz, the current head of divisions who built and managed these teams over the last three years - will move to the newly created role of Chief Growth Officer - responsible for maintaining the pace of commercial growth and Retail Robotics’ presence in international markets.
Retail Robotics has provided parcel locker solutions in Europe since 1994. For many years, the company has been cooperating with the Polish fast-growing parcel locker company InPost, which received over 150 million parcels in 2020. Retail Robotics has produced more than 30,000 parcel locker units for Inpost while continuing to build its own robotic solutions.
The company has developed a unique robotic technology “Arctan” for the pick-up of groceries ordered online. The solution has already been piloted by one of the top French retailers and has been an operational success ever since. The parcel locker specialist has also created “PickupHero” – a robotic click&collect solution for e-commerce in places with limited space, such as convenience stores.


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Alkem Sees Nearly 20% Growth Domestically
As Company Filed One ANDA And Received Six Approvals In Q3 FY22
India’s Alkem has delivered another healthy quarter as the company continues to perform domestically. However, the company’s US sales continues to be under pressure despite new launches.
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Kelix bio has announced two deals to expand its presence in Africa. The company is set to acquire 14 oncology injectable products from Germany-based Vitane. Furthermore, Kelix has acquired Pharmaceutical Institute, a pharmaceutical company established in Rabat, to enter Morocco. The pan-African company has also invested in Malta.
Cipla has partnered with mAbxience to supply oncology and respiratory-related biosimilars on the WHO model list of essential medicines to South Africa.
British Columbia has added three new biosimilar versions of the anti-clotting drug enoxaparin to PharmaCare, including Redesca, Noromby and Inclunox. The move comes after the Canadian province recently included additional biosimilars in its switching program.


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WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s employers unleashed a burst of hiring in March, adding 916,000 jobs in a sign that a sustained recovery from the pandemic recession is taking hold as vaccinations accelerate, stimulus checks flow through the economy and businesses increasingly reopen. The March increase — the most since August — was nearly double February’s gain of 468,000, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate declined from 6.2% to 6%.
Global stocks rise; Treasury yields rally after jobs report
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rose in many of the markets worldwide that were open on Good Friday, while Treasury yields rallied after a report showed U.S. employers added hundreds of thousands more jobs last month than economists expected. In Asia, stocks in Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai all climbed a day after the S&P 500 passed the 4,000-point level for the first time. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 1.72% from 1.68% late Thursday. Futures for U.S. stock indexes also rose, suggesting the S&P 500 may add to its record set on Thursday when trading resumes on Monday.
Biden’s ‘jobs Cabinet’ to sell infrastructure as GOP resists
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden says Republicans have talked for years about the need to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure and predicts GOP lawmakers will face pressure from their supporters if they don’t act. Biden is setting about convincing America it needs his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan and is deputizing a five-member “jobs Cabinet” to help. Biden says the public likes the road, water and other improvements his plan promises. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell objects to the plan’s corporate tax increases and vows to oppose “every step of the way.” Biden said Friday he thinks “Republican voters are going to have a lot to say about whether we get a lot of this done.”
Biden aims to juice EV sales, but would his plan work?
DETROIT (AP) — Dangling tax credits and rebates in his drive to fight climate change, President Joe Biden wants you to trade your gas-burning car, truck or SUV for a zero-emissions electric vehicle. Some buyers would find his offer persuasive. Yet Biden’s goal is a daunting one: Even if Congress approves his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, along with its incentives, it would take many years to replace enough internal combustion vehicles with EVs to make a huge dent in tailpipe emissions. Right now, there are about 279 million vehicles on the road in the United States. Of the 14.5 million new vehicles that were sold last year, 2% were fully electric.
Russian entrepreneurs adapt to virus lockdown challenges
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia had a six-week coronavirus shutdown last spring, but was never fully locked down again after that, easing some suffering for its economy, industries and enterprises. But it also saw its mortality rates rise. When virus infections surged again in the fall, the government resisted imposing restrictions that would have shut many businesses. Russia emerged from 2020 with an economy that overall has shrunk much less than in many Western countries. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Russia’s gross domestic product fell by just 3.6%. That’s a little more than the global average of 3.4%. Still, it was Russia’s biggest plunge since 2009. In recent years, its GDP grew by about 1% to 2% per year.
Tesla 1Q sales of 185K more than double last year’s numbers
DETROIT (AP) — Tesla delivered nearly 185,000 electric vehicles in the first quarter despite a shortage of computer chips that has hit the global auto industry. The number was more than double the deliveries for the same period last year. And it beat Wall Street estimates of 168,000 for January through March. The company says the Model Y small SUV in China has been well received. Tesla listed no quarterly production figures for its older models, the S sedan and X SUV, but it delivered just over 2,000 of them. It says new equipment has been installed at the Fremont, California, factory and production of new versions is in the early stages.
China says H&M changed online map after criticism
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese regulators say H&M has agreed to change a “problematic map” online following government criticism, adding to pressure on the Swedish retailer amid a conflict with Western governments over China’s policies in its Xinjiang region. The ruling Communist Party lashed out at H&M, Nike and other shoe and clothing brands last week after the United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada imposed sanctions on officials accused of abuses in Xinjiang in China’s northwest. The announcement by a Shanghai city government agency about maps gave no details, but airlines, clothing brands and others have been pressured to change how Taiwan, the island democracy claimed by Beijing as part of its territory, and other sensitive areas are depicted in maps.
CEO of Google’s self-driving car spinoff steps down from job
SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) — The executive who steered the transformation of Google’s self-driving car project into a separate company worth billions of dollars is stepping down after more than five years on the job. John Krafcik announced his departure as CEO of Waymo, a company spun out from Google, in a Friday blog post that cited his desire to enjoy life as the world emerges from the pandemic. Two of Krafcik’s top lieutenants will replace him as co-CEOs. Under Krafcik’s leadership, Waymo forged partnerships with several major automakers and launched the first ride-hailing service to pick up passengers without a driver or anyone else in the vehicles in Phoenix.


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The AnTuTu score of the Snapdragon 875 has leaked out online, showing a 25% jump in performance.
The Snapdragon 875 (codenamed Lahaina) has reportedly scored a whopping 847868.
Rumours are also rife that Qualcomm is working on its gaming phone in collaboration with Asus.
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Qualcomm has confirmed it will hosting the annual Snapdragon Summit from December 1, but this time in a virtual avatar due to the COVID-19 pandemic where the company is highly anticipated to launch the successor to the Snapdragon 865, likely called the Snapdragon 875. And before its official launch, we may already have an idea of how powerful the next-gen flagship really is.
The AnTuTu score of the Snapdragon 875 has leaked out online, showing a 25% jump in performance, than the previous generation. According to the leak, the Snapdragon 875 (codenamed Lahaina) has scored a whopping 847868, which is claimed to be around 25% more than the AnTuTu score of the Snapdragon 865+.
However, the leak comes from an unverified Twitter leakster, and we suggest taking this information with a pinch of salt.
While it’s not clear yet how small or densely packed, the scores indicate the Snapdragon 875 would mark a big leap in raw performance. Both Apple and Huawei embraced 5nm architecture in the chipsets used in the new iPhones and Mate 40 series respectively. It’s likely that Samsung and Qualcomm will also follow suit. Just how much will the difference in performance be, that remains to be seen.
Rumours are also rife that Qualcomm is working on its gaming phone in collaboration with Asus, likely as a reference to showcase the performance chops of the new chipset. With top-end performance plateauing when it comes to real-world usage, it’s in gaming where the might of a new processor would likely flourish.
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Cobalt is used to create the lithium-ion batteries required for electric vehicles and energy storage
Over the past decade, China has established a monopoly over cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo where the vast majority of the metal resides. Felix Todd reports.
In an argent rendition of 1848’s Gold Rush, a single silver-tinged metal has caught the world’s attention: Cobalt.
Critical to the construction of batteries, it has emerged as central to some of the industries set to determine the future.
Roughly 10kg of the precious resource is needed to make an electric car, for example, and, without it, the feasibility of grid-scale battery storage is severely compromised.
The vast majority of the planet’s cobalt is located within the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where a plethora of interested parties are engaged in a frantic contest for control over mining operations.
That particular race may have already been won, however, as China appears to have established a monopoly over the metal in the politically unstable region.
Here, GlobalData’s Mike Orme, a senior analyst with the market intelligence firm’s thematic research team, shares his thoughts on the matter.
China and the Cobalt factor
China is in pole position to win the battery arms race, and with it hold the balance of power in the automotive and energy storage industries.
Its control of the mining, processing and trade in the key battery material cobalt is a case in point.
By 2025, the lithium-ion battery will become the new oil barrel as the world drives to electrify its vehicles and run its power grids on battery-based energy storage.
But Casper Rawles at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence pinpoints a major concern, noting there is no electric vehicle industry without DRC cobalt, but the region is among the most politically unstable, volatile and dangerous places on earth.
Cobalt is an essential element within lithium battery cells – along with Lithium, nickel and manganese, it makes up the metal oxide slurry of the battery cell’s cathode from which electricity is generated.
The metal acts as the cathode stabiliser and helps stop batteries overheating, going up in flames or exploding, which they can and still do despite having cobalt in their cathodes.
Cobalt stakes around the world
About 70% of the world’s cobalt comes from DRC, with Cuba leading the rest of the world with a mere 5%, although investment is now slowly going into Idaho, Alaska and Australia to extract cobalt from nickel deposits as the US, in particular, wakes up to the situation.
So, for that reason, coupled with the supply risk, the drive is on among automakers led by Tesla, Toyota and BMW working with their battery suppliers to reduce the cobalt content in batteries and even replace it entirely with a nickel alternative.
But the latter involves chemical properties that shorten their batteries’ lifetimes and the former raises general concerns about the incendiary risk posed by batteries even at current levels of cobalt content.
A third much-talked-about alternative lies with solid state cells but, so far, solid state candidates have fallen short on their energy density and their arrival keeps on getting delayed.
The consensus among experts at Liberum and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence is that cobalt will not be engineered out of cathodes before 2025 if at all.
Moreover, the demand for cobalt is likely to at least double, after allowing for some reduction in cobalt content in the mix in the interim, as the production of electric vehicles escalates from under two million units to a forecast 11 million units in 2025, with China accounting for over 50% of it.
The US (barring Tesla), European, Japanese and Korean automakers and the dominant Korean and Japanese battery manufacturers give every sign of having been caught off guard by the cobalt DRC factor.
They have left it very late to design and implement strategies to deal with the situation – China, however, was not caught off guard and is not without a strategy.
The importance of Made in China 2025
A key goal of China’s now notorious and all-embracing Made in China 2025 initiative, framed in 2015, is that China will become the dominant force in the global electric vehicle industry by 2025, and that the full resources and focus of its “market-Leninist” system will be deployed to that end.
Made in China 2025 and the economic model behind it are at the heart of the economic stand off between the country and the US.
Over the past decade, China has systematically set about creating and securing global supply lines in strategic raw materials, including securing its own forward supplies of key raw materials and battery-ready high-grade chemicals for its electric vehicle sector, all at the expense of the rest of the world.
It has done this largely through “soft diplomacy”, being non-judgemental about political regimes, particularly in Africa, by building them infrastructure when nobody else would – while “debt trapping” some of them in the process – and by a series of acquisitions, investments and alliances across the world.
It has also built up the world’s dominant minerals refining capacity and competence.
At the same time, it leads the world in terms of megafactories built to supply what will be an explosion in battery demand from 2022 onward.
It has 46 of the world’s 70 megafactories currently planned, including the Tesla Shanghai megafactory currently under construction.
It is also spawning a domestic battery industry to eliminate or at least radically reduce any future dependence on Panasonic, Samsung and LG Chem.
The country’s “State champion” Contemporary Amperex Technology also now claims to be the world’s biggest battery maker.
A mining monopoly
On the cobalt front, China controls seven of the largest DRC mines, led by Molybdenum, and in the process over half DRC’s cobalt supplies.
Moreover, the owners of the mines it doesn’t control mostly sell to Chinese traders and Chinese cobalt refineries in any case, and that includes Glencore, owner of the Katanga mine, DRC’s single largest mine.
China’s refineries, fed in large part by feed stuff from Chinese owned mines, supply 80% of the world’s battery-ready high-grade cobalt.
In the global scramble to secure forward supplies and escape the vagaries of the “spot” market, China holds the whip hand.
Control of the critical raw materials, including cobalt, and the world-beating processing and manufacturing capacity will determine who holds the balance of industrial power in automotive and energy storage.
At the moment it looks as though China has that control, at least in the medium-term.


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Battery-electric vehicles will account for a majority of new light-vehicle sales worldwide by 2035 as government mandates begin and automakers roll out new models, according to a forecast by Boston Consulting Group.
BCG anticipates 59 percent of all new vehicles sold worldwide will be BEVs by 2035, a double-digit upward revision from its estimate in 2021, which called for a 45 percent market share. Likewise, the consulting firm anticipates BEVs will make up 20 percent of worldwide sales in 2025, up from last year's forecast of 11 percent.
"We really think the switch has been flipped," said Aakash Arora, managing director and partner at BCG. "It used to be a few years ago that for many companies, both OEMs and suppliers, EVs were a very important piece of their strategy but still just a project. Now, we're seeing that EVs are the company and that ICE is the project."
BCG's report released June 9 said BEVs are likely to benefit in the coming years because of a significant shift away from internal combustion engine vehicles as well as a "lower uptake" of mild-hybrid vehicles across the globe.
By 2035, gasoline-powered internal combustion vehicles and those that run on diesel are expected to account for just 10 percent of global vehicle sales, compared with 85 percent in 2021, according to the report. The share of mild hybrids in the global marketplace is expected to grow from 3 percent last year to about 19 percent in 2025 before flattening out.
BEVs, meanwhile, are projected to grow from a 6 percent share in 2021 to 20 percent in 2025, 39 percent in 2030 and 59 percent in 2035.
The European Union is expected to lead the world in BEV uptake, driven by strict environmental regulations that come into effect over the next several years. BCG expects 93 percent of all new-vehicle sales in the region to be BEVs by 2035, compared with 9 percent in 2021.
While the U.S. is expected to lag behind the EU, the country's BEV share should grow quickly, the report said, and be roughly in line with China's growth. About 68 percent of new-vehicle sales in the U.S. are expected to be BEVs by 2035, up from 3 percent in 2021.
Arora said the U.S. is benefiting from a "fundamental shift" in the regulatory environment under the Biden administration, which has raised climate targets and set a goal of having half of all new-vehicle sales in the country be zero-emission by 2030.
"The U.S. is now very committed to electrification in terms of the emissions targets and what we see in funding coming in," Arora said.
But significant challenges face the industry and government as both push to electrify, what BCG calls "the sting in the tail of this rosy outlook."
Supply chain constraints, geopolitical uncertainty and increased demand have pushed prices for lithium, nickel and other raw materials needed for battery production up significantly over the last two years, leading to higher battery costs.
BCG said the solution is for producers to build new facilities to meet demand, though that will "not be easy" given long lead times on such projects.
"As long as supply gaps persist, they could hamper the buildout of additional battery production capacity, hinder efforts to improve the battery range and lifespan of technologies, and delay — or even reverse — the declines in EV ownership costs," BCG wrote.


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Guy Fieri barbecue makes debut on Carnival Magic cruise ship
Open a Guy Fieri-inspired eatery with a ribbon cutting? How blasé.
Then the crew of Carnival's Magic welcomed guests to the new Guy's Pig & Anchor Bar-B-Que Smokehouse on Wednesday, occasion was marked by cutting into a 6-food pulled pork sandwich.
The event was part of the ceremony welcoming the Magic to Port Canaveral. Previously docked in Galveston, Texas, the Carnival Magic is now the port's largest cruise ship. It has 14 guest decks and can hold up to 4,724 passengers, plus 1,386 crew members.
After a good bit of laughter and lots of pictures, local dignitaries including port commissioners and tourism officials got to sample dishes such as Championship Pork Butt, Blue Ribbon Chicken, Smoked Beef and Smoked Andouille Sausage. Those were accompanied by Mac Daddy Mac N Cheese, Scratch-Made Slaw, Old Skool Potato Salad, Collard Greens and Molasses Baked Beans.
Sameer Shaikh, chef de cuisine for the Magic, said Carnival worked with Fieri to set the menu for the Pig & Anchor and Guy's Burger Joint.
The Food Network chef is very particular, said Jennifer de la Cruz, a Carnival spokesperson. The restaurants definitely reflect his personality, she said.
Shaikh expects the Pig & Anchor to be popular.
"Guy Fieri is a household name in America," he said. "I means a lot when you see his name, and the food is tasty."
In addition to the casual, counter-service barbecue place, the Magic has fine-dining restaurants, two main dining rooms, a pizzeria and other specialty food options, plus 24-hour room service.
"There's food everywhere," said Narsing Jindam, food operations manager.
The coordination that goes into feeding a floating city seems daunting.
"We make, every day, almost 20,000 meals," said Shaikh. That doesn't include room service or food for the crew.
Of those 1,386 crew members, 585 are on the food and beverage team, which includes 162 chefs. Each deck has a chef in charge.
"Cooking for 4,700 people by itself is an art," Shaikh said. But the chefs really get the chance to shine at the ship's Chef's Table, a reservation-only dining opportunity.
"The Chef's Table is a beautiful, multi-course meal," de la Cruz said. "And the chefs really get to showcase their talent."
Among the other dining and refreshment experiences aboard the Magic are:
- RedFrog Rum Bar, a poolside bar, Caribbean-themed bar.
- BlueIguana Tequila Bar, an outdoor, Mexican-themed bar.
- BlueIguana Cantina, a poolside Mexican eatery.
- Pizzeria del Capitano, an Italian eatery that offers five varieties of pizza 24-hours a day
- Alchemy Bar, a vintage-themed cocktail bar.
Carnival Magic Food Facts
In one week, guests will be served:
3,660 pounds of prime rib
7,840 pounds of chicken
The kitchens go through:
- 20,870 tomatoes
- 23,600 potatoes
- 10,160 heads of iceberg lettuce
- 8,400 bananas
- 34,360 cans of soft drinks
- 1,210 gallons from the bar fountain
- 1,575 gallons of iced tea


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Where Are They Now?
It's been a tough slog for former Entrepreneurs of the Year. That's the nature of the game.CHARLES RIVER LABS INTERNATIONAL--2002
Despite annual gains in sales (14%) and eps (11%), the Wilmington, Mass. drug researcher slipped in our ranking to 57 from 26 last year; its stock is down 16% to $30. Chief James Foster says his biotech and pharma client base, source of some 80% of his total revenue, has been squeezed. His solution: Diversify service offerings. Charles River (NYSE: crl - news - people ) acquired two drug-safety testing companies last year and branched into studying proteins for pharmaceutical companies this year. He has also tightened his organization by centralizing management and creating a dedicated sales force. Next year, he thinks, will bring a sharp upturn in the business of his clients--and his own.
GREEN MOUNTAIN COFFEE--2001
Sales are up 12% over the last year to $111 million at the Waterbury, Vt. roaster--which is something of a surprise given the downturn in the office market, 22% of total sales. More worrisome: Earnings are down 8%, pinched by losses from coffee-machine maker Keurig, in which the company has a 42% stake, losses caused by rising costs of development and marketing. As a result, Green Mountain (nasdaq: GMCR - news - people )'s share price has suffered, hovering in the $20 range for the past two years--a dismal performance when compared with rivals Starbucks and Peet's Coffee & Tea, whose shares have doubled. Green Mountain moves to 70 on our 200 Up & Comers list, down from 62 last year, and 16 when Chief Robert Stiller was on our cover.
This Boulder, Colo. provider of broadband equipment imploded along with the rest of the telecom sector: Between year-end 2000 and 2002 sales dove 66% and losses approached $53 million. After goodwill and restructuring charges last year, Carrier (nasdaq: CACS - news - people )'s share price dropped to 30 cents in October 2002. Cofounders Roger Koening and Nancy Pierce let 200 people go--half the work force--and shifted its customer base from competitive local exchange carriers (down from 80% of sales to 30%) to government contracts (chiefly the Pentagon) and partnerships with the likes of Alcatel and Fujitsu. Initial results: Carrier has been in the black the past two quarters. Shares now trade around $4.50, down 65% from three years ago. Says Pierce, "I wish people would just get over it."
It's been a rocky year for women's contemporary apparel and accessory retailer Bebe (nasdaq: BEBE - news - people ), which eked out a 2% sales gain in a generally weak retail sector. But analysts say the company's problems have been self-inflicted, suggesting that Bebe walked away from its young urban professional clientele to focus on distractions like logo products--T shirts, bags, sunglasses. Sales per square foot dropped 30% over three years to $611. Earnings have been hit as a result, declining 31% over the last 12 months as depreciation costs from Bebe's growing store base offset gains. Four years ago the company relied on TV stars like Calista Flockhart (Ally McBeal) and Brooke Shields (Suddenly Susan) to flog its brands. Today it has no celebrity endorser; stars like Jennifer Lopez and Sean (P. Diddy) Combs are designing their own collections.
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L.A. Considers Gun Restrictions
January 18, 1999
The Los Angeles City Council is considering restricting handgun sales. L.A. officials are also debating whether to join the growing movement among cities to sue gun manufacturers for contributing to handgun violence.
The proposed city ordinance would prohibit individuals buying more than one handgun a month in Los Angles, which has 87 registered gun dealers. The intent is to reduce the flow of handguns to criminals through "straw purchasers" who legally buy several weapons for resale on the street.
- Supporters say Los Angles had 27,000 incidents of gun violence in 1996.
- The incidents cost the city an estimated $35 million in police and firefighter time.
- California's new Attorney General, Bill Lockyear, has agreed to help enforce the one-gun-per-month limit by giving dealers in the city access to a state database that would show whether a customer had bought a gun anywhere in the state in the previous 30 days.
The ordinance is based on some research suggesting a link between the legitimate retail gun market and secondary black markets where criminals obtain guns. A study conducted for the L.A. Police Department found that more than half the handguns recovered by police had been sold by a legitimate retailer within the previous two years, and that only 10 percent to 15 percent of the recovered guns had been stolen.
Local limits on sales are likely to have little affect, say experts, because gun buyers can simply go elsewhere.
Source: "Los Angeles Weighs Gun Sales Limit and a Possible Suit Against Manufacturers," New York Times, January 18, 1999.
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The UK’s leading large-capacity motorcycle manufacturer, Triumph, is pledging its support to the future of the industry, with the launch of a national dealer apprenticeship programme.
The Hinckley-based firm is calling for budding technicians to apply for the scheme, which will see 12 apprentices – from dealerships across the country – undertake expert training with some of the industry’s most skilled motorcycle mechanics.
Throughout the three year course, each apprentice will spend around six weeks at Triumph’s purpose-built training workshops, with the rest of the programme undertaken at their respective dealerships. Following completion, each participant will be fully ATA-accredited with a City & Guilds qualification in Motor Vehicle Engineering. The course gives young technicians a grounding in technology, enables them to diagnose and repair problems and become familiar with key financial management and legal principles.
Rick Cawley, UK general manager at Triumph, comments: “As one of the most well-known names in motorcycling, we recognise the importance of supporting our dealerships and growing new talent. Our apprenticeship program will give young technicians the best of both worlds, allowing them to earn money while gaining vital qualifications.
“We feel this new scheme will go a long way to securing the future of the industry, with key skills preserved in the next generation of technicians. So, if you’d like to be part of the scheme, get in touch!”
The government-funded scheme is recruiting now, with the first intake due to start in November. For more information, visit www.triumphmotorcycles.co.uk or call 01455 452193.


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LAST UPDATED : Jan 22, 2020, 05:49 AM IST
- Today, make your way to Kothrud for fun and fitness
Citizens living in and around Kothrud have one last chance to kick-start their Sunday morning with Happy Streets. The event will be conducted on January 15, 6.30am to 9.30am, on Shrikant Thakare Path, between DP Road junction and Rajkamal Departmental Store.
- Service provider told to refund Rs 85,000 as damages
The district consumer court has directed a New Delhi-based kitchen equipment manufacturer to refund Rs 85,000, along with a 10% annual interest since August 2016, and Rs 15,000 towards compensation and damages, to a physically-handicapped owner of a pizza outlet for causing deficient service.