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Dry cleaners, restaurants, hotels: the ripple effects of Hollywood’s strike 2023-07-29 - At first glance, not much seems amiss at Milt & Edie’s dry cleaners, a stone’s throw from the Warner Bros studio where a long summer of labour turmoil in Hollywood has brought production to a shuddering halt. The decor is an optimistic Barbie-pink, the counters are jammed with customers, even on a weekday morning, and the cavernous rear of the store is so stuffed with freshly pressed clothes snaking along the line it’s hard to spot any obvious portents of trouble. Then Robert Shapiro, the manager, takes a moment to explain what has happened since Hollywood’s writers stopped work in May, followed by actors earlier this month. First, he said, the studio stopped sending its chatshow guests for alterations or last-minute cleanings because, without writers, the chatshows could no longer go on the air. Then, when the actors stopped working, the usual nightly loads from film and television productions dried up. So did the regular stream of tailoring and cleaning jobs that come in ahead of galas and premieres, because the actor’s union has forbidden its members to do publicity for as long as the strike endures. Business is down 20% because of the hit we’ve taken to our studio accounts Robert Shapiro of Milt & Edie’s dry cleaners “Business is down 20% because of the hit we’ve taken to our studio accounts,” Shapiro said. And it’s not just Warner Bros. Disney is barely a mile away, and Universal about two. Milt & Edie’s is an institution (“Over 70 years cleaning clothes in southern California,” says a sign on top of a 1940s-era cleaning truck stationed in its parking lot), which means it has a lot of loyal customers. Even institutions are not immune to the Hollywood strikes, however, especially in the workaday city of Burbank, where more than 1,000 companies employing 30,000 people depend in some way on the entertainment industry. When the studios lay off large numbers of security guards because their lots are empty and are likely to stay that way, that hits the dry-cleaning business. When company executives are no longer dressing up for meetings, that hits the dry-cleaning business. Shapiro said loyal customers worried about paying their rent have started asking him for work, but of course as long as the strike persists Milt & Edie’s isn’t hiring. “What really sucks,” Shapiro said, “is that business was finally back to normal [after the pandemic]. We were finally hitting our pre-Covid numbers.” It’s a similar story across large swaths of Los Angeles. The industry is not confined to the area of the city called Hollywood (home to the Walk of Fame and the Kodak Theater that hosts the Oscars), but is spread across a much larger geographical area, from the flatlands of Burbank and Glendale behind the Hollywood Hills, through the mini-malls of the suburban San Fernando valley, and over the mountains to Culver City (where MGM once made its classic musicals and it is now home to Sony). In many of these places, businesses with an industry clientele – whether they service Hollywood directly as drivers, caterers and makeup artists, or are part of a secondary economy of restaurants, coffee shops, photo studios, hair and nail salons, and so on – are experiencing the strike as a double whammy after Covid and its aftershocks. You couldn’t put Los Angeles in a worse position Angela Marsden of the Pineapple Hill Saloon & Grill “You couldn’t put Los Angeles in a worse position,” said Angela Marsden, an outspoken restaurant owner whose Pineapple Hill Saloon & Grill in the San Fernando valley regularly hosts musicians and comedians and has industry clients on both sides of the dispute. “We went through all the horrendousness of Covid. Then we had a crime wave, and prices were going through the roof … Finally we thought we were getting a little bit of a reprieve, then bam! I was set to raise my prices this month, but now the actors and writers who support us are on strike. Maybe they still have savings, but they’re going to start feeling it soon and they’re not going to be able to spend money.” Members of the WGA and Sag-Aftra walk a picket line outside of the Warner Bros studio in Burbank, California, on 26 July 2023. Photograph: Valérie Macon/AFP/Getty Images Visits to popular industry coffee shops, bakers and cafes appeared to bear out Marsden’s analysis that real trouble may be only starting. Managers at spots in and around Burbank said they were seeing no signs yet of a drop-off in lunch custom, but they were experiencing unusual dead spots during the mornings and were thinking about cutting staff. For businesses that depend more directly on film and TV production, the impact has been much more immediate. Jordyn Palos, who owns a public relations firm, said the strike was worse than Covid because at least then there was room to pivot to new ways of doing the job in cyberspace. “Now,” she wrote in the industry publication Variety, “we are being told we cannot do our jobs at all.” skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to First Thing Free daily newsletter Start the day with the top stories from the US, plus the day’s must-reads from across the Guardian Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion Ken Fritz, who has a fleet of 900 cars he rents to the industry, said he’d just been robbed of $250,000 worth of catalytic converters, and with his income now down to a trickle he had no way to pay for replacements. Greg Twiford, the head of a Hollywood animal trainers’ association, said his members didn’t know how much longer they could go on feeding their animals – everything from snakes and house pets to lions and elephants, many of them kept on ranches in the northern reaches of Los Angeles county where the mountains meet the desert. “The animals are starving,” Twiford said. “There’s a saying in this industry: ‘One day you’re eating chicken, the next day you’re eating feathers.’” There’s a saying in this industry: ‘One day you’re eating chicken, the next day you’re eating feathers’ Greg Twiford Assessing the overall damage of a protracted strike is difficult. Los Angeles has a highly diversified economy, people who work multiple jobs and consumers who can easily switch their spending to other things – sports, or video games – if, say, they run out of content that interests them on Netflix. One widely cited estimate put the economic cost of the 100-day writers’ strike in 2007-2008 at more than $2bn, though other experts suggest that figure is greatly exaggerated. For now, at least, community support for the strike is strong, and despite the economic upheavals – social media is rife with stories of people facing eviction or defaulting on their debts – it is difficult to find Angelenos outside studio executive suites who oppose what the writers and actors are fighting for. Initially, a perception took hold in some quarters that this was a dispute pitting Hollywood millionaires against each other, but that has shifted as the strike leaders have articulated their grievances and more people understand that the vast majority of actors and writers struggle like everyone else to make a decent living. At the Warner Bros picket line one day last week, drivers zipping past in everything from a big food delivery truck to a beaten-up two-seater sedan honked in support. Some local businesses have started distributing free iced water or offering discounts even though they are tightening their own belts. “People need help,” said Patricia Rivera, who owns Tequilas Canteen & Grill and offers 15% off to any struggling union member, not just those on strike. “When it was difficult for us, during the pandemic, many customers were there for us. This is about helping the community.” Konstantine Anthony, the mayor of Burbank who is a former actor and a regular presence on the picket lines, said he’d had several conversations with skeptical business owners and helped them understand that their own financial wellbeing was at stake, too. “They realize that if the actors and writers get less and less, they won’t have money to spend,” Anthony said. “They see that they have more in common with the strikers than they thought.” I stand by them in their fight. I hope every other union will join them Angela Marsden of the Pineapple Hill Saloon & Grill It certainly helps that many restaurants and bars employ aspiring actors. It helps, too, that unions across different economic sectors have been vocal this summer about taking a stand against their employers and seeing all their struggles as one. Hotel workers, truck drivers and even strippers have shown up on the Hollywood picket lines, all of them arguing they are in the same fight for basic fairness against corporate executives who care about their shareholders more than their employees. Marsden, the outspoken restaurant owner, likened the fight to an attention-grabbing moment during the Covid lockdown when she erupted in fury at local elected officials because they wouldn’t let her open her outdoor patio to diners, even though a Hollywood production was serving food to its workers in a parking lot less than 50ft away. “I was calling out the big people who were picking and choosing who’s essential and who isn’t. That’s the fight the actors and writers are in now,” she said. “I don’t think they have a choice … If they give in, the industry’s not going to need them at some point. There are businesses that won’t make it through if this goes on. But I do stand by them in their fight. I hope every other union will join them.”
Portugal’s bid to attract foreign money backfires as rental market goes ‘crazy’ 2023-07-29 - By 7.30 on a summer night, Lisbon’s steep, beautiful streets are beginning to fill with visitors taking selfies in the soft light, trailing from bar to bar and wrestling with the nightly conundrum of where to have dinner. Margarida Custódio, who sits at home with her three-year-old daughter, Pilar, has more pressing matters on her mind. Like so many people in Portugal, where rental prices make a mockery of the low salaries, Custódio lives through a monthly agony when it comes to covering the costs of her flat. Despite a good job in human resources, she earns €930 (£795) a month after tax – of which €700 goes on rent. Margarida Custódio, pictured with her three-year-old daughter Pilar, says she spends almost 90% of her salary on rent. Photograph: Gonçalo Fonseca/The Observer “Here, you spend almost 90% of your salary on rent each month,” she said. “Whatever you have left over goes on gas, water, electricity and food. It’s like living on the edge.” Meanwhile, in the Bairro da Jamaica, a rundown housing development in the city of Seixal, which lies on the other side of the 25 de Abril Bridge that is linked to Lisbon in the north, Lizandro Batista de Sousa Pontes and his children are in even more perilous straits. The once abandoned housing estate that has been home to the 47-year-old bricklayer’s family since he came to Portugal from the African island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe in the late 1990s is scheduled for demolition. The local council says the blocks need to come down as they were never properly finished before they were occupied and consequently lack “habitable conditions”. Although Seixal council has so far rehoused 545 people from 185 families, De Sousa Pontes is hanging on and has brought a legal challenge to the demolition of his block, arguing that he and his children are better off there than having to squeeze into his sister’s two-bedroom flat, which is already home to five people. Builder Lizandro Batista de Sousa Pontes lives in the Bairro da Jamaica, a rundown housing development in Seixal, a city near Lisbon Photograph: The Observer “They demolished the next-door block last week,” he said, while sitting in the room that was once his mother’s cafe. Outside, children were playing among the rubble and steering clear of the drug users who have already moved into the now skeletal blocks. “We were inside the house when they were knocking it down. The house was shaking. My six-year-old started crying when he saw the demolitions because he was afraid we’d be out on the streets.” Custódio and De Sousa Pontes know only too well what it is like to live in a country that narrowly escaped the maw of the 2008 financial crisis only to crawl, exhausted, into the waiting jaws of a resultant housing crisis. Portugal’s economic recovery, fuelled by deregulation and a series of schemes designed to lure foreign investment, has distorted the housing market beyond all recognition in a place where the monthly minimum wage is €760 and where 50% of people earn less than €1,000 a month. The liberalisation of the rental market, the issuing of “golden visas” that confer residence permits in exchange for buying properties worth €500,000 or more, the introduction of tax-saving “non-habitual residency scheme” for foreigners, and, most recently, the creation of a digital nomad visa to allow well-off foreigners to work remotely and pay a tax rate of just 20% have all played a part. So too – perhaps most obviously – has the snapping up of flats to be converted into lucrative short-term rentals. And the crisis now playing out in Lisbon, Porto and other Portuguese cities, was not exactly unforetold. Six years ago, the UN’s special rapporteur on housing warned that “unbridled touristification” would undermine the right to housing for Portugal’s most vulnerable people and predicted that the deterioration of housing and living conditions would give rise to the emergence of a “new poor”. Agustín Cocola-Gant, a research fellow at Lisbon University’s Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning, offered a four-word summary of the crisis: “The situation is crazy.” Like many academics and activists, Cocola-Gant uses the word “transversal” to describe the impact of the disparity between salaries and rental prices. “It affects everybody right now – not just the vulnerable population,” he said. “Some families aren’t sending their children to university because they can’t pay for a room for them, and young professionals earning €1,000 a month – which is the average salary – are finding it impossible to live.” Rita Silva, a veteran housing campaigner and researcher, said the crisis is only serving to increase existing inequalities. “Doctors aren’t coming to big cities where they’re very much needed because they can’t afford a place to live,” she said. “It’s the same with teachers.It’s affecting society in different ways, and it’s going to have an economic impact in the future.” She adds: “The market has become decontextualised in that it’s a market that’s no longer turned towards the people who live and work in Portugal. It’s a market that, through the policies of the government, is turned towards foreign investment.” Both Silva and Cocola-Gant argue that the rush to drag Portugal out of the financial crisis and put the country on the global investment map has led directly to the situation today. The liberalisation and deregulation of the property market between 2009 and 2012 saw rent controls and lifetime tenancies scrapped, and developers handed fiscal incentives for renovating abandoned and derelict buildings without any requirement to guarantee a percentage to be given over for social housing. Then came the non-habitual residents programme, the golden visas scheme – and the arrival of Airbnb and other short-term rentals. “There are 200 tourist beds in hotels and short-term rentals per 100 residents in the city centre – it’s double,” said Cocola-Gant. “That’s crazy. In the gothic quarter of Barcelona, which has the highest tourist pressure, there are 73 tourist beds per 100 people.” Concerns are now growing over what Silva terms the “huge, huge influx of digital nomads”, the remote-working foreigners who have been able to secure visas since last October if they can meet a series of requirements, include monthly earnings of more than €3,040 – four times the average Portuguese salary. French machine-learning engineer Baptiste Cumin is among the digital nomads working remotely in Portugal Photograph: The Observer According to Nomad List, a global online community of remote workers, there are now 15,200 such individuals in Lisbon alone. “They’re a privileged population who take advantage of this global inequality, and they basically come here to gentrify and stress the housing market even more,” said Cocola-Gant. “But, for me, digital nomads are only a small part of the problem.” Such accusations are not lost on some of those who have relocated to Lisbon. Baptiste Cumin, a 26-year-old machine-learning engineer who is originally from France, said he “tortured” himself for a long time over his decision to move to the Portuguese capital with his girlfriend “The deal I sort of made with myself is: ‘We’ll move here but we’ll try to do it properly. I took my intensive Portuguese classes and learned about Portuguese history,’” he said in his shared working space at Second Home, a luminous and plant-filled office above Lisbon’s Time Out Market. Despite doing his best to integrate – and stressing that he wants to be seen as an immigrant rather than an expat – Cumin is under no illusion about what is going on. “Before, you had people gentrifying neighbourhoods,” he says. “Now, with remote working, you can gentrify countries.” Iva Divic-Baetens, a freelance marketing consultant from Croatia, says she is aware of the impact that she and other foreigners working remotely is having on housing in Lisbon. Photograph: Gonçalo Fonseca/The Observer Iva Divic-Baetens, a freelance marketing consultant from Croatia who has been in Lisbon since last May, is equally aware of the impact she and others are having on housing in Lisbon. “There’s just a huge discrepancy between what Portuguese people can afford and what we can afford,” she said. “I think my Portuguese friends are pissed at the government first of all, but I also meet a lot of people randomly who are Portuguese, and who are like: ‘Oh, you expats are taking over.’ Maybe we are a problem right now but I think we can find a solution, and I think the government is doing a bad job by not putting a cap on the market.” Portugal’s socialist government, which won an unexpected absolute majority in last year’s snap general election, says it has already made the housing crisis a priority. “Over the past seven years, we’ve discarded the public housing policy intended to guarantee public housing only for the social classes with fewer resources, replacing it with a universalist approach to public housing policy,” said a spokesperson for the ministry of housing and infrastructure. The government has also announced measures to stop the golden visa scheme, declared a moratorium on short-term let licences – except those in less populated areas – and brought in a new rent subsidy that supports more than 185,000 people. Other recently announced initiatives include increasing housing stock through building, renovation and conversion, and offering tax exemptions to landlords who offer more affordable rents. Lisbon city council, meanwhile, has already embarked on a nine-year plan to invest €800m in the “promotion of affordable housing involving the construction of new housing, rehabilitation of buildings, acquisition of affordable rental properties, reconstruction of municipal neighbourhoods for relocation, and promotion of affordable housing cooperatives, among other measures”. Thousands of protesters gathered in Lisbon in April to demonstrate against the housing crisis in the city. Photograph: Gonçalo Fonseca/The Observer But as far as Silva is concerned – not to mention the tens of thousands of people who took to the streets of Portugal on 1 April for the country’s biggest housing protest – the solution is both far simpler and far more complicated. The campaigner points out that there are 48,000 homes standing empty in Lisbon alone and 750,000 across Portugal as a whole. Portugal, she adds, has understandably become addicted to overseas money and investment. She compares it to a country rich in gold that is prepared to let its water be polluted and its environment be destroyed in the pursuit of growth. “It’s always the same dilemma but there are alternatives: we’re asking for rent caps and rent regulation; we’re asking for the mortgages to be regulated to guard against huge interest rate rises,” said Silva. “We’re asking for the empty houses to be made available because it’s not acceptable to have thousands of empty houses during a huge emergency. We’re also asking for evictions to be suspended because people have nowhere to go, as happened during the pandemic. “I don’t think that what we’re asking is impossible or radical or unrealistic. We’re just asking for things that would help solve the housing crisis.” Custódio also believes a fundamental rethink is in order. “The thing is, you can’t solve the problem with measures like these from the government,” she said. “It needs to be solved structurally, otherwise you’re just putting a plaster on a gaping wound.” De Sousa Pontes’s plea is even simpler: “All I’m asking is to be treated like a normal citizen, to be given the same rights as everyone else, and to have a decent place to live.”
From Brexit to Coutts – has Nigel Farage become Britain’s most influential politician? | Andrew Anthony 2023-07-29 - Who is the most consequential British politician of the 21st century? Tony Blair? David Cameron? Liz Truss? OK, the last one was a joke, but someone else who is also widely regarded as a punchline has a strong claim to the title. Whatever one thinks of Nigel Farage, back in the news for bringing about the resignation of NatWest’s chief executive Alison Rose and Coutts boss Peter Flavel, he has been instrumental in changing Britain. Few observers would argue that his campaign to remove the UK from the European Union has led to a beneficial change, but almost everyone would agree that it’s been a profound one. In Britain, where the first-past-the-post voting system neuters small parties, single-issue politics tends to be the preserve of eccentrics and obsessives, carrying about the same parliamentary influence as David Icke or the Monster Raving Loony party. The glaring exceptions are Farage’s Ukip and the Brexit party, which between them helped deliver the harshest of Brexits. An almost anachronistically English figure with his beer and blazers, his Carry On laughter and golf-club rhetoric, Farage is an easy man to underestimate. But, as his biographer Michael Crick says, he is “one of the great communicators of our age”. A virtuoso on the dog whistle, he is also a master of the tai chi strategy of using his opponent’s strength to his own advantage. He rose by encouraging dissident Tories to drag the party down to his level. Ukip was a crank outfit before he took over in 2006 and reverted to one again the moment he left, following the EU referendum, in 2016. But in between it was a crank outfit that got the Tories to dance to Farage’s Little Englander tune, eventually securing the referendum that his side won. He is a gifted blamer of others: bureaucrats, the establishment, immigrants, Tories, Labour, anyone and everyone In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, confidence in globalism and political elites plummeted. Plenty of politicians on the left sought to capitalise on the discontent, but it was Farage and wealthy backers like Arron Banks who saw the opportunity for rightwing anti-elites populism. Untainted by political office – the only election Farage has ever managed to win, ironically, is to the European parliament – he was free to play the professional rabble-rouser or, as it’s also known, “man of the people”. He excelled in the role because he is a gifted blamer of others: Europeans, bureaucrats, the establishment, immigrants, Tories, Labour, anyone and everyone. As a serial loser in British politics (he stood in seven constituency elections and lost them all), what he’s never had to worry about is outcomes. His power has always been at one remove, where responsibility rests with some fool who will sooner or later be subject to Farage’s I’m-just-telling-it-like-it-is brand of scorn. He even expressed disappointment with Brexit, as if its grey reality was not of his making. In this respect, if no other, Farage is resolutely modern: a born disrupter, a habitual fomenter of grievance with zero obligation to produce results. He is the loudmouth curmudgeon, the carefree voice of old fogeyism, the bar-room bore who thrives on the national stage. But after the grim spectacle of Brexit, and his proclaimed retirement from politics, where could he go? Not to the House of Lords, because Boris Johnson, in jealous protection of his own saviour myth, had no desire to honour his progenitor. So the obvious answer was GB News, where rightwingers move to moan about the state of the nation after so many years of rightwing government. Condemned to live among the undead with Dan Wootton and Eamonn Holmes, he was rescued last month by Coutts. You don’t have to be a semiotician to see that the bank, with a background in offshore tax avoidance, was guilty of virtue-signalling when it closed his account because of his political beliefs. That error was compounded by Rose briefing a BBC journalist with false information about Farage. He is not really a politician but a consummate complainer, because his animating passion is to be against things As a consequence, the BBC was forced to apologise, Rose lost her job and Farage found new purpose in his. He’s calling for the rest of the NatWest (of which Coutts is a subsidiary) board to resign and wants to guarantee the right to have a bank account. Some commentators wonder if this is the opening skirmish in a battle to rein in the ESG (environmental, social and governance) movement aimed at building sustainability and progressive values in corporations. For the moment, Farage is maintaining his focus on matters of individual rights, although he’s already calling it a “war on woke banks” – this weekend it emerged that Britain’s newest “consumer champion” was launching a tool to help consumers who believe they have been “debanked”. What’s not in doubt is that he is back in the headlines, and once more able to present himself as the little guy taking on the establishment – Coutts, renowned for its royal clients, is nothing if not a conspicuous emblem of elitism and entitlement. It doesn’t matter that there is little the ex-public schoolboy, one-time commodities trader and former Coutts client has in common with the average person in the street. Nor is it much of hindrance to him that his populist opinions are not that popular with the British public. The point is he makes himself a kind of lightning rod for public disaffection. There remains a huge reservoir of anger towards the banks, and he will know how to draw on it, although the libertarian friend of hedge-fund owners is unlikely to push for meaningful regulation in that regard. In the end, he is not really a politician but a consummate complainer, because his animating passion is to be against things. It led to the event by which history will remember him, Britain’s inglorious exit from the EU. But it’s essentially a destructive talent. What replaces the targets he so vociferously attacks will always be somebody else’s concern.
‘Like eating battery acid’: British tongues on fire as sales of hot sauce soar 2023-07-29 - In March this year, Florence Pugh, Oscar-nominated actor, 2019 winner of the Trophée Chopard at Cannes, was on a chat show to promote her new movie in which she co-starred with Morgan Freeman. She appeared flustered, before things quickly went downhill. “This is like eating battery acid,” she told host Sean Evans. Tears rolled down her face and she started dribbling, then she was sweating from her eyebrows. Pugh, like a growing number of British celebrities, was a guest on Hot Ones, a YouTube chat show that has got 385m views on TikTok so far this year. It attracts a bafflingly high calibre of A-list guests to eat increasingly spicy chicken wings, perform tasks and answer interview questions. Like many others from the UK and Ireland, these stars, who have included Lewis Capaldi, Harry Kane, Idris Elba, Niall Horan and Colin Farrell, have succumbed to the delights of hot sauce. The traditional British aversion to spicy food seems to have finally been allayed as sales for hot sauces increased significantly in the last year. According to Waitrose, sales of hot sauces are up 55% year on year. Sales of sriracha are particularly strong with a rise of 22%. The Thai chilli sauce has become a bona fide social media star – #sriracha has over 550m views on TikTok. Ongoing shortages of Huy Fong sriracha have made headlines in the US. Waitrose now stocks more than 20 different hot sauces ranging from mild chipotle to a habanero sauce with a rating of 30,000-50,000 heat units on the Scoville scale, which measures chilli heat. The number of small-batch hot sauce producers has been growing in the UK for a while. Meanwhile, Nando’s has replaced HP – famous for its brown sauce – as the third biggest name in table sauces in the UK. Nando’s BBQ sauces, sold in supermarkets, have grown 9.5% this year with sales of £22.4m, while traditional British condiments have declined in unit sales. Brown sauce is down 8.1%, but mayonnaise is also down 2.2% and ketchup has dipped by 4.5%. The UK is not just embracing the taste of chilli but an accompanying cultural scene is growing too. Bauce Brothers is a subscription hot sauce club founded in 2018 by Jess Karia and Ben Uraszewski. The club started annual awards for the best sauces in 2021. Karia was introduced to hot food by his father, who carried a box of green chillies around with him so he could add them to sandwiches and burgers. Uraszewski’s entry point was Caribbean food flavoured with the scotch bonnet pepper. “We’ve shared a love of hot sauce for many years, but found it difficult to easily discover great UK ones,” says Uraszewski. “Buying sauces online was challenging as there’s a huge amount of choice, and many focused on extreme heat rather than flavour. We started the club to help hot-sauce heads like ourselves find great sauces made in the UK, that put flavour first.” Hot Sauce Society, London’s largest festival of its kind, attracted its biggest crowds yet in May. Photograph: Alistair Veryard Photography/Alistair Veryard The pair also saw a parallel between the hot sauce market and craft beer scene, particularly in terms of growing customer interest in small-batch producers and independent manufacturing. “Small-batch sauces, to us, are those that you can’t find in your supermarket, contain all natural ingredients and are often recipes passed down through family. Each batch might be slightly different and this, we feel, adds to the charm.” These artisanal spicy sauces are a key feature of the chilli festivals that are now a part of British summer time. Over the last 10 years these events have sprung up around the country. While eating competitions are often a staple, they have become important for sauce makers too. Event producer Allie Behr runs the Hot Sauce Society, London’s largest hot sauce festival, which in May had its biggest audience to date and they’re running a pop-up shop in Shepherds Bush at the end of August. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Word of Mouth Free weekly newsletter Recipes from all our star cooks, seasonal eating ideas and restaurant reviews. Get our best food writing every week Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion “The hot-sauce community are such lovely people,” says Behr. “It’s not hairy blokes like you get with craft beer. It’s very diverse and the sauce makers are often selling family recipes and they share their stories with each other. It’s so nice.” UK based sauce maker Pat Hinds’ sells a Guyanese pepper sauce, Pat & Pinky’s, flavoured with the wiri wiri chilli and inspired by his mother, Pinky, and her cooking. The wiri wiri is not well known outside Guyana but Hinds believes it’s a great introduction to the country’s culture. “We’re bringing our national chilli to the world,” he says. “Guyanese cuisine is amazing – it’s the glue that brings people together.” Hinds worked in marketing for 25 years before launching Pat & Pinky’s. He first saw the rise of hot sauces in the US, particularly New York. Then the trend arrived in the UK. “Street food has become massive and it’s a great way to experience food from other countries. People’s taste buds have definitely gotten more adventurous with foods from around the world.” He says that social media and YouTube have also changed the game as it means you can experience and see different food long before you actually eat it. He does advise people who are still scared of hot sauce to give it a try. ”We’ve found events really work as people can sample sauces and we can take people on a journey. They just have to jump in and have a go.” As Uraszewski from Bauce Brothers points out: “Hot sauce is a sure fire way to transform any bland meal into something more magical.”
Sad, lonely losers or indulging a pleasure? Why solo diners are being judged 2023-07-29 - Luxury never comes cheap, but some divine experiences are more expensive than others. Last week the Michelin two-star restaurant Alex Dilling at Hotel Café Royal on London’s Regent Street, had to defend its policy of charging solo diners double. As the price for the seven-course tasting menu is soon to rise to £195 a head, for the likes of aged Kaluga caviar with Cornish crab, and Shetland cod with smoked butter and black truffle, that would mean a bill of £390 for one, before service and wine. The restaurant’s owner, Victoria Sheppard, argues that they are a small venture with just 34 covers across 11 tables. “We have ever-increasing staff and ingredient costs,” she told me. “Our business would simply not be viable without implementing this policy.” In the depths of both huge challenges for the hospitality industry and a wider cost-of-living crisis, our appetite for fighting the corner of either side is arguably rather blunted. Won’t someone think of the struggling, ultra-luxe gastronomic restaurant? Or by contrast, won’t someone think of the cruelly treated, napkin-sniffing gastronome who merely wants to sit alone being pelted with caviar and truffles, while being hosed down with Cristal, all at a fair price? No, perhaps not. But it would be a crying shame if the main takeaway from this whole episode is that eating alone in restaurants is a niche pursuit for the weird and the sad. It’s nothing of the sort. In the right circumstances it can be one of life’s most sublime adult pleasures: a great plate of food, a good bottle of wine you don’t have to share or compromise on, perhaps a great book and the certainty that the company is reliable. After all, a restaurant meal alone really should be with someone you love. Of course, it’s not always so. Once, in Birmingham for work, I called around restaurants trying to book a table for one, only to be met repeatedly with bafflement. Eventually one receptionist had the guts to say what the others had clearly been thinking. “A table for one on Valentine’s night? Tough break.” I hadn’t clocked the date. I ended up in the “restaurant” of the Holiday Inn, alongside all the other sad, lonely travellers who happened to be on the road that night. What a bunch of losers. That’s the stereotype, robust because occasionally it’s true. But it needn’t be. For a start, British restaurants have finally embraced the joys of counter eating, usually around an open kitchen. Who needs conversation when you have a floor show in front of you? Watch the flames leap, enjoy the attentions of the team on the other side of the counter, and when you’re bored with that turn back to your book or, of course, your phone. You’re eating alone. There’s no one here to judge you. Do what you like. Eating alone can be one of life’s great pleasures – after all, a restaurant meal really should be with someone you love Or sit at a table and indulge in that other pleasure of solo dining: the people watching. Clock the couple over there, mirroring each other’s gestures in a way that makes it blatantly obvious this is the beginning of something beautiful. Shortly after dessert, they will surely be without their clothes, ideally once they’ve left the restaurant. Or look at that other couple who are clearly at the end of something; the ones with literally nothing to say to each other. It doesn’t matter if these readings are not true. This is your night out. Curiously, the solo dining experience I don’t hugely enjoy is the one that initiated this debate: the single seat in a restaurant of gastronomic ambition. I’ve eaten alone in Michelin three-starred restaurants, always for my so-called job, and the waiters often appear to think you need a friend and they should be it. Dish descriptions become longer. Enquiries about your day are more personal. Approval of your menu choices become more effusive. When I eat out alone, I don’t need any of this. I’m here to show myself a good time. I’m here for the comfort of my own thoughts. I’m here for some great things to eat and drink. That is all.
‘We’ll just keep an eye on her’: Inside Britain’s retail centres where facial recognition cameras now spy on shoplifters 2023-07-29 - At 11.12am last Tuesday, a woman in her 70s sauntered through the main entrance of the Ruxley Manor garden centre in Sidcup, south-east London. Upstairs in its offices, the phone of director James Evans pinged. Facial recognition cameras had identified the pensioner as a potential criminal. Two weeks earlier, she had been caught stealing £15 worth of toys for her granddaughter and her image uploaded on to a private watchlist of known shoplifters. Evans deployed staff to discreetly follow her around his store. “We’ll just keep an eye on her,” he said. Even if she was caught stealing again, Evans had already ruled out calling police, confirming Ruxley Manor as among the growing cohort of retailers that have effectively given up contacting officers as a way of tackling the soaring problem of retail crime. Faced with the cost of living crisis and corresponding surge in shoplifting, the Co-op last week became the latest retailer to express concern that officers are not taking rising retail crime seriously. Announcing that crime in its outlets had hit record levels – increasing by more than one-third over the past year – the chain shared footage of masked, often armed, youths smashing through glass doors and brazenly ransacking shelves. Elsewhere, images circulated on social media of Sainsbury’s encasing chocolate bars in security tagged containers to prevent them being stolen. Evans, 48, says that the number of shoplifters has never been higher at Ruxley Manor. Yet the chosen alternative to policing – the move to install facial recognition technology by hundreds of retailers – has reignited familiar concerns over mass surveillance, privacy and human rights. Although use of the technology by police has provoked widespread controversy, its adoption by private companies has, by comparison, received little scrutiny. Police keep an eye on Oxford Street in London. Photograph: John Angerson/Alamy The revelation that the Home Office is covertly backing the rollout of facial recognition cameras by British company Facewatch to tackle retail crime – effectively sanctioning a private business to do the job that police once routinely did – is likely to change that. “Facial recognition can help businesses protect their customers, staff and stock by actively managing shoplifting and crime,” said a Home Office spokesperson. Simon Gordon, founder of Facewatch, said that police should not be expected to help stores improve security in order to keep staff safe from offenders and abusive shoppers, saying that businesses had the responsibility to look after employees. “It’s not the police’s job to look after your staff – you’ve got to take basic precautions,” said Gordon. Evans agrees that the UK retail industry had moved beyond a point where it could consistently rely on the police. “In an ideal world [we would], but we’re far from there at the moment. The police have got enough to do as it is,” he added. On Wednesday, ministers attempted to alleviate the pressures on policing by telling forces to slash the number of mental health-related 999 calls they responded to in order to free up an estimated million hours a year of police time. Monitoring all entrances, Ruxley Manor has four Facewatch cameras that read the biometric information of a face as a shopper enters, before checking it against a database of flagged people. The garden centre has put up notices saying it uses the technology. Before the system was introduced in early 2020, Evans relied on the police to deter criminals, calling officers when catching even low-level shoplifters. Eventually, though, he gave up. “We needed to keep staff with them, sometimes tying up vital workers for four to five hours as we waited for the police to turn up.” Of the dozens of shoplifters apprehended at Ruxley Manor and handed over to police, only one prosecution was recorded. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to First Edition Free daily newsletter Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion The Co-op last week cited data showing that, on average, 71% of serious retail crime is not responded to by police. A police facial recognition camera in use at the Cardiff City Stadium. Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images Already more than 400 British retailers have installed Facewatch cameras, prompting calls from campaigners for the deployment to be halted, with some arguing that their use to tackle low-level offending could be unlawful under privacy law, which decrees biometric technologies must have a “substantial public interest”. Mark Johnson, advocacy manager of Big Brother Watch, said: “Live facial recognition is an authoritarian mass surveillance tool that turns the public into walking ID cards. When used in retail settings, these face-scanning systems work by adding customers to secret watchlists with no due process, meaning people can be blacklisted and denied the opportunity to enter shops despite being entirely innocent. “This may sound like something from an episode of Black Mirror but it is happening in Britain today.” An investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office into Facewatch requested a series of changes to the way it operated, before concluding in March that its system was permissible under law. “We are satisfied the company has a legitimate purpose for using people’s information for the detection and prevention of crime,” stated the privacy regulator. Gordon argues that Facewatch has few downsides, stating that images of innocent shoppers are kept on the system for 14 days – “less than the 30 days of CCTV” – and that the current accuracy of its camera technology stands at 99.85%. Misidentifications are rare, he added, and even then the implications are minor. “You’re not being thrown in prison – there’s no miscarriage of justice,” said Gordon. For retailers struggling on slim margins, he said, it has an economic incentive, costing £10 a day, or approximately the hourly wages of a security guard. “It pays for itself really quickly. Within the first 90 days, normally it’s paid for the first year’s cost.” Back on the shopfloor of Ruxley Manor, staff continued to follow the pensioner around the store. Evans noted she had visited the garden centre since her theft without stealing anything. “It might have been a one-off. We’ll just keep an eye on her.”
The cost of living crisis can only be beaten by tackling the climate crisis | Ed Miliband 2023-07-29 - This summer has been defined by two crises: the continuing, painful cost of living crisis afflicting millions in our country and the climate crisis, which is playing out in horrifying ways across the world. The Conservative party is saying we can’t tackle both these crises together – and is, in fact, tackling neither. The Conservatives are wrong. Tackling both these crises goes hand in hand. That’s what Labour’s green prosperity plan will do – cutting energy bills, creating good jobs, delivering energy security and providing climate leadership for our country. To listen to the Conservatives, you might think the status quo is serving us well. It isn’t. Putin’s strangulation of international fossil fuel markets has sent energy bills soaring, plunged countries like ours into the deepest cost of living crisis in memory and stoked inflation to further pile the pain on to families and businesses. The UK has been the worst affected country in western Europe. We have been so exposed because 13 years of failed Conservative energy policy has left us so dependent on fossil fuel markets. The Conservatives’ failure is made worse by the fact that there is a clear answer staring us in the face: clean, cheap, low-carbon power, made in Britain. Over the last decade, the costs of solar energy have fallen 89% and wind energy has dropped by 60%. As a result, renewables are significantly cheaper than fossil fuels – last summer they were nine times cheaper. That’s why the Tories’ nonsensical ban on onshore wind in England, in place since 2015, means energy bills are now £180 higher for every family in the country, because that onshore wind has been substituted by expensive gas. The fact that a managed transition away from fossil fuels is also crucial to tackling the climate crisis means we can cut costs for families while also taking the urgent action we need to drive to net zero. For the scientists at the UN, who have warned this week that the “era of global boiling” has arrived, and the economists at the Office for Budget Responsibility, who say delaying action by a decade doubles its costs, acting now is the economic, rational and blindingly obvious choice. That’s why the centrepiece of Labour’s mission on climate and energy is to provide all of our power from zero carbon sources by 2030. It will cut bills by £93bn over the coming years – or an average of £400 a year for every household in the country. The Tory plan to stay on fossil fuels as long as possible is a recipe for higher bills, energy insecurity and deepening climate disaster. Why would we possibly choose this path? It is not just in energy where taking action will lower costs. The lifetime costs of an electric car are already lower than those of a petrol or diesel vehicle. And by 2027, the forecasts are that the upfront cost of an electric car will be lower than the fossil fuel equivalent. So it’s right to stick with the 2030 phase-out date for new petrol and diesel cars – for the environment and for lowering costs. The Tories are lurching desperately towards a culture war on climate, seeking to upend the consensus of 15 years Of course, in some areas, unleashing the benefits of moving away from fossil fuels does require investment. As we make the transition to cleaner, cheaper alternatives, the vital principle is that individuals or sectors should not be left to bear the transition costs on their own. This is one of the purposes of our green prosperity plan, the investment ramping up to £28bn a year in the second half of the parliament. Take energy efficiency. We do need to invest. Instead of leaving families to waste money on cold, draughty homes, as the Conservatives have, our warm homes plan will bring up to a good standard the 19m homes that need it. This is as close to a policy no-brainer as you can get; cutting energy bills for families across the country, creating thousands of good jobs for construction workers and electricians, tackling fuel poverty and providing climate leadership. A Labour government will act to make the transition work to the benefit of all, in particular lower- and middle-income families. We will not leave workers on their own either, but will protect them through this period of change. This is where the Conservatives’ negligence is most acute. They won’t invest to make this transition work for working people, in areas such as energy efficiency or helping to fund a car scrappage scheme in London, and they are content to sit on the sidelines as investment in green industries pours into the US and Europe. But there is no solution to the cost of living crisis without improving the number of well-paid, good jobs in our economy. That’s why our national wealth fund will invest in boosting our ports, automotive and steel industries and GB Energy, our publicly owned energy-generation company will drive jobs in the UK. While Labour focuses on lower bills and good jobs, the Tories have decided to double down on their disastrous mistakes – lurching desperately towards a culture war on climate, seeking to upend the climate consensus of the last 15 years. This will not work; as poll after poll reiterates, the vast majority of the British people, in towns and cities across the country, are united in their desire for action on the climate crisis and action on the cost of living. The stakes at the next election could not be higher. Together, Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and I have spent three years painstakingly devising an ambitious plan to tackle the climate and cost of living crisis that is equal to the scale of the twin crises we face. It will mean lower bills, more jobs, energy security and climate leadership once again. That is what we will offer at the next general election.
The remains of long-lost climbers are appearing as climate change melts glaciers 2023-07-29 - Swiss officials found the body of a climber missing for 37 years after portions of a glacier melted. Just last year, another glacier in Switzerland melted enough to reveal a 1968 plane crash. Glaciers melting, driven by climate change, may result in extreme sea-level rise, experts say. Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest on the culture & business of sustainability — delivered weekly to your inbox. Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy Melting glacier ice — a worrying symptom of worsening climate change — is leading to the discovery of people thought lost for decades. Earlier this month, Swiss officials found the remains of a German mountain climber missing for almost 37 years after a portion of the Theodul glacier melted, local police said Thursday. The explorer's identity was confirmed using a DNA sample from the human remains, police said. He went missing in 1986 at 38 years old. This is not the first time melting ice has helped solve a cold case. Last summer, thawing ice on the Chessjen glacier in Switzerland revealed the remains of two people who died following a 1968 plane crash, Insider previously reported. Back in 2015, Swiss officials found the remains of two Japanese climbers who went missing in 1970 after a portion of the Matterhorn glacier melted, CNN reported at the time. Experts say melting glaciers could lead to extreme and rapid sea-level rise as the planet continues to warm. Even if the world reduces carbon emissions to meet current climate goals, glaciers worldwide could lose half their mass by the end of the century, a major study published in January in the peer-reviewed journal Science found.
Subway fans have until Friday to win free subs for life, but the catch will require some legal fees 2023-07-29 - Subway's latest change will grant one fan free sandwiches for life. Hopefuls must legally change their name to Subway by Thursday night to enter the contest. The chain says it will also cover the legal and processing fees for the name change of the winning participant. Get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in business, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley — delivered daily. Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy Subway is promising free sandwiches for life to one lucky fan, but they'll have to make a pretty permanent change to qualify for the deal. You have until Friday at midnight to legally change your first name to Subway if you want to score free sandwiches for life from the chain, according to a press release. Fans can visit SubwayNameChange.com to enter starting Tuesday. "Subway brand love and dedication run deep, especially when free sandwiches are up for grabs," the announcement read. "In 2022, one superfan camped out for two days to get a footlong tattoo of the Subway Series logo in exchange for free Subway for life." The winner will also be reimbursed for the legal fees of changing their name. Earlier this month, Subway introduced its Deli Hero subs made with meat sliced in-house to 20,000 US locations, and it pledged to give away one million six-inch subs. The sandwich chain began overhauling its menu with new ingredients and sandwiches in 2021. According to the press release, 2023 is the third year of Subway's "multiyear transformation journey." If you're considering entering its latest contest, no purchase is necessary, but it's only open to legal US residents ages 18 years or older, with higher age limits in Alabama, Nevada, and Mississippi. Subway did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
A Trump strategist compared Ron DeSantis' candidacy to New Coke, which was released to much fanfare in 1985 but quickly flopped 2023-07-29 - Ron DeSantis has sought to paint himself as a conservative without Donald Trump's political baggage. But DeSantis remains mired as Trump's distant second-place competitor in most national polls. Trump strategist Chris LaCivita told the Washington Post DeSantis' candidacy was like New Coke. Get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in business, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley — delivered daily. Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy When Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida entered the GOP presidential primary, his candidacy was widely seen as the one with the most potential to dethrone former President Donald Trump's frontrunner status. Three months later, DeSantis is still Trump's most direct competitor, but he's facing a rising threat from Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. And as DeSantis has seen his numbers in early-voting states remain relatively stable in recent weeks, his campaign has sought to reboot his candidacy in an effort to chip away at Trump's longstanding advantage. While DeSantis has sought to frame his candidacy as that of a conservative warrior who's unyielding in battling it out in defense of the party's values, he's also said that his candidacy would focus on the future and would be free of the political drama that surrounded Trump during his presidency and after he left the Oval Office — which is heightened by the former president's indictments. But Trump campaign strategist Chris LaCivita has flat-out rejected DeSantis' strategy, remarking that the GOP voters who have favorable views of both the former president and the governor generally go with Trump. "Those who have an opinion of both overwhelmingly choose Donald Trump. That's where the race is now, and that's where the race will be in January, period, end quote," LaCivita told the Washington Post. "He's trying to run to the right of Trump or he's trying to be Trump without the baggage — that's not a message," he said of DeSantis. "New Coke fell flat." New Coke, left, and a can of Coca-Cola Classic, right. AP Photo/Charles Kelly, file In April 1985, Coca-Cola debuted New Coke — a reformulated Coca-Cola that was tweaked to have a smoother and sweeter taste — to much fanfare. But the newer Coke was a dud among the public. While thousands of taste testers preferred the taste of New Coke to the longstanding soda, they had only consumed the newer version in small amounts. When people consumed the New Coke in larger quantities, there was minimal appeal to its sweeter taste. By that July, Coca-Cola announced that it would bring back the old Coke formula while also selling the newer product. The introduction of New Coke is widely seen as one the biggest marketing blunders in modern times. New Coke was renamed as Coke II in 1990 before being discontinued in 2002. The DeSantis campaign didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
The US told several Afghans to await relocation in Pakistan after escaping Taliban rule. Two years later, many are facing deportation. 2023-07-29 - Several Afghan refugees in Pakistan who were promised relocation to the US are now facing deportation, CNN reports. For Afghans who served the US military, returning to a Taliban regime could be a death sentence. One expert told CNN many Afghans have yet to receive visas because the US has not established a processing center in Pakistan. Get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in business, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley — delivered daily. Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy After the Taliban overthrew the Afghanistan government on August 15, 2021, hundreds of thousands of Afghans fled the country, fearing for their lives under the new regime. Thousands of them entered Pakistan, acting under American guidance to wait outside Afghanistan as their US visas were processed. Now, nearly two years later, several Afghans who were promised relocation to the US are still in Pakistan — and time is running out as they face imminent threats of deportation, CNN reports. Pakistan officials have deported at least 530 Afghans this year, according to CNN, and have made no exception for those awaiting Afghan Priority 2 or Special Immigrant Visas from the US State Department. Special Immigrant Visas in particular are for those who served the US military in Afghanistan, for whom returning to Taliban rule could be a death sentence. One former US military contractor told CNN the Taliban "will punish me, they will put me in jail. Maybe they will kill me? I'm sure they will." This crisis is in part because the US has not established a Resettlement Support Center in Pakistan to further support visa application processing, Haseeb Aafaq — a spokesman for volunteer group the Afghanistan Immigrants Refugees Council — told CNN. Meanwhile, the State Department told the outlet in a statement that staff in Pakistan are actively working to expand their processing capacity. Since August 2021, 90,000 Afghans have resettled in the US.
GOP Rep. John James, one of the party's highest-profile Black lawmakers, blasts Ron DeSantis over Florida's new slavery curriculum: 'You've gone too far. Stop.' 2023-07-29 - GOP Rep. John James called out Gov. Ron DeSantis over the new slavery curriculum in Florida. James on the social media platform X said DeSantis is now "so far from the Party of Lincoln." DeSantis has pushed back against Rep. Donalds and Sen. Scott over their critiques of the changes. Get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in business, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley — delivered daily. Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy Republican Rep. John James of Michigan on Friday blasted Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida over the governor's response to criticism from key Black conservatives over the state's new Black history education guidelines, stating that the presidential candidate had "gone too far" and needed to "stop" his defense of the changes. James — a Black freshman lawmaker who was the GOP nominee in two highly competitive Senate races in 2018 and 2020 — took to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, to lambast DeSantis for attacking Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina after they pushed back against the new slavery curriculum. "#1: slavery was not CTE! Nothing about that 400 years of evil was a "net benefit" to my ancestors. #2: there are only five black Republicans in Congress and you're attacking two of them. My brother in Christ … if you find yourself in a deep hole put the shovel down," the congressman wrote. "You are now so far from the Party of Lincoln that your Ed. board is re-writing history and you're personally attacking conservatives like @VoteTimScott and @ByronDonalds on the topic of slavery. You've gone too far. Stop," he added. The revised state education guidelines for middle schoolers mandate that teachers include instruction about "how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit" — which has created a firestorm among top Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, who last Friday condemned DeSantis over the new standards and again on Tuesday during a ceremony commemorating a new Emmett Till national monument. But it is the pushback from Black conservatives, who would normally be political allies of virtually any Republican presidential contender, that has caused many people to turn their heads. Donalds — who was a featured speaker at DeSantis' election night party last November before later endorsing Trump's 2024 presidential bid — described the revised standards as "robust" and "accurate" earlier this week. But he also said that "the attempt to feature the personal benefits of slavery is wrong" and "needs to be adjusted." "That obviously wasn't the goal & I have faith that FLDOE will correct this," Donalds added, referencing the Florida Department of Education. Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images When DeSantis got word of the remarks, he lashed out at Donalds when asked about the issue by reporters in Iowa. "At the end of the day, you got to choose: Are you going to side with Kamala Harris and liberal media outlets or are you going to side with the state of Florida?" the governor said. "I think it's very clear that these guys did a good job on those standards. It wasn't anything politically motivated." Donalds on Friday made an appearance on Fox News, where he pointed to the DeSantis campaign over the dustup. "Let's be clear. I don't even have a criticism," Donalds said. "My issue is with one sentence of the entire thing, one sentence of 200 pages. And the DeSantis team wants to make a big issue out of it? That's ridiculous." Scott — who has been rising in the Republican presidential polls in recent weeks and could threaten DeSantis' current status as the most formidable alternative to former President Donald Trump — called out the governor on Thursday over the curriculum regarding slavery. "What slavery was really about was separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives. It was just devastating," the senator told reporters. "So I would hope that every person in our country — and certainly running for president — would appreciate that." "People have bad days," Scott added. "Sometimes they regret what they say. And we should ask them again to clarify their positions." DeSantis also responded to Scott on Friday, remarking that Washington Republicans "all too often accept false narratives" and "accept lies that are perpetrated by the left." "The way you lead is to fight back against the lies, is to speak the truth," the governor said while taking a campaign swing through Iowa. "So I'm here defending my state of Florida against false accusations and against lies, and we're going to continue to speak the truth."
Some Apple users say its parental controls aren't working properly. A CEO who has 4 kids called it 'frustrating.' 2023-07-29 - Parents say Apple's parental controls are failing them, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company has acknowledged the issue and promised to make "updates to improve the situation." Issues with Downtime and Family Sharing have been reported as far back as 2020 in Apple forums. Morning Brew Insider recommends waking up with, a daily newsletter. Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address By clicking “Sign Up,” you also agree to marketing emails from both Insider and Morning Brew; and you accept Insider’s Terms and Privacy Policy Click here for Morning Brew’s privacy policy. Some families who use Apple products say they're having issues with the parental Screen Time controls, The Wall Street Journal reported. Apple introduced Screen Time in 2018, and it included a setting called Downtime. The feature is meant to allow parents to restrict apps and limit screen time on their children's iPhones, iPads, and iPods from their own devices. Lately, parents are reporting that their changes haven't gone into effect, and kids are getting extra time on their apps or even facing no restrictions on adult content. "We are aware that some users may be experiencing an issue where Screen Time settings are unexpectedly reset," an Apple representative told the Journal. "We take these reports very seriously and we have been, and will continue, making updates to improve the situation." When iOS 16.5 was released in May, Apple said the update would fix "an issue where Screen Time settings may reset or not sync across all devices." It's unclear when the issue first began, but an Apple discussion page has complaints of parental control issues from as far back as 2020 and as recently as this month. "I've used screen time for my kids to limit time on certain apps," one user wrote in December. "It worked well for years, but now I will set the limits and then they will suddenly disappear after a day or even less." Apple Community Others in the thread said they'd struggled with the issue for "months," with some contacting Apple directly for help. Mark Rowe, a CEO based in Boston, told the Journal he noticed one of his four children had no limits on their access to adult websites when he checked the Family Sharing settings. "It's frustrating that something that's so simple and should work doesn't," Rowe told the newspaper. "How much time can I spend on this every week?" In April, Apple CEO Tim Cook advised parents to set "hard rails" on their children's screen time, and he's previously voiced his concerns with technology usage in schools. Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider, made outside regular working hours.
U.S. Hunts Chinese Malware That Could Disrupt American Military Operations 2023-07-29 - The Biden administration is hunting for malicious computer code it believes China has hidden deep inside the networks controlling power grids, communications systems and water supplies that feed military bases in the United States and around the world, according to American military, intelligence and national security officials. The discovery of the malware has raised fears that Chinese hackers, probably working for the People’s Liberation Army, have inserted code designed to disrupt U.S. military operations in the event of a conflict, including if Beijing moves against Taiwan in coming years. The malware, one congressional official said, was essentially “a ticking time bomb” that could give China the power to interrupt or slow American military deployments or resupply operations by cutting off power, water and communications to U.S. military bases. But its impact could be far broader, because that same infrastructure often supplies the houses and businesses of ordinary Americans, according to U.S. officials. The first public hints of the malware campaign began to emerge in late May, when Microsoft said it had detected mysterious computer code in telecommunications systems in Guam, the Pacific island with a vast American air base, and elsewhere in the United States. But that turned out to be only the narrow slice of the problem that Microsoft could see through its networks.
China is installing offshore wind turbines as tall as 30 Rock in the Taiwan Strait 2023-07-29 - China recently switched on a 16-megawatt offshore wind turbine in the Taiwan Strait. It's the largest, most powerful turbine in the world, at 499 feet tall with 404-foot blades. That dwarfs the size and capacity of American and European wind turbines currently in use. Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest on the culture & business of sustainability — delivered weekly to your inbox. Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy China now has the most powerful wind turbine in the world. The MySE-16-260 was connected to the grid on July 19, IFLScience reported. The China Three Gorges Corporation behind the monstrosity says the 16-megawatt turbine should generate enough electricity to power 36,000 households a year. For comparison, the Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island has five wind turbines capable of generating 30 megawatts of electricity combined, which the company behind it says can power 17,000 homes. Workers install the world's first 16-megawatt offshore wind turbine at an offshore wind farm operated by China Three Gorges Corporation on June 28, 2023 in Pingtan Comprehensive Experimental Zone, Fujian Province of China. Lyu Ming/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images Standing at 499 feet tall with three 404-foot blades, the turbine in China reaches about 900 feet at its apex. That's taller than the 67-story 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, which is 850 feet. And it's not the only massive wind turbine in the area. Look how many stretch across the shore of Pingtan Island, located about 80 miles from Taiwan: The sun sets over wind turbines at the north end of Pingtan Island, in China's southeast Fujian province on April 10, 2023. GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images While China may be building so many turbines in the Taiwan Strait to shore up its territorial claims, the area does boast strong winds ideal for generating wind power. But the 16-megawatt turbine won't be the biggest for long. GE is developing an 18-megawatt turbine, Electrek reported in March, though it's not clear when it could debut. GE could retake the top spot — if China doesn't unveil an even bigger one before then.
A large explosion at a fireworks warehouse in Thailand kills at least 10 people and wounds dozens 2023-07-29 - BANGKOK (AP) — A large explosion at a fireworks warehouse in southern Thailand on Saturday killed at least ten people and wounded dozens, officials said. The Narathiwat province’s Public Relations Department also said that at least 118 people were hurt, and that residents of more than 200 households were affected. It said that officials believe there are still a number of people trapped under the debris waiting to be rescued. Videos posted on social media from the site show a huge plume of smoke over the area and many damaged structures, cars and motorbikes, as well as streets covered with debris. Many of the houses and other buildings have collapsed roofs and walls. The local public relations agency reported that the explosion caused damages in a radius of about 500 meters (1,640 feet). About 100 residences in the area were damaged, according to the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation. Sanan Pongaksorn, the provincial governor, told public broadcaster Thai PBS that the blast was likely ignited by construction work that was taking place in the warehouse, with sparks from metal welding causing the fireworks stored inside to catch fire and explode.
India cuts rice exports, triggering panic-buying of food staple by some Indian expats in the US 2023-07-29 - NEW YORK (AP) — Chatter on one of Prabha Rao’s WhatsApp groups exploded last week when India announced that it was severely curtailing some rice exports to the rest of the world, triggering worry among the Indian diaspora in the United States that access to a food staple from home might soon be cut off. As in any crisis situation — think bottled water and toilet paper— some rushed to supermarkets to stock up, stacking carts with bags and bags of rice. In some places, lines formed outside some stores as panic buying ensued. But Rao, who lives near Syracuse, New York, was reassured when the proprietor of her Indian market sent out an email to customers to let them know there was no need to worry: There was an ample supply of rice. At least for now. An earlier than expected El Niño brought drier, warmer weather in some parts of Asia and is expected to harm rice production. But in some parts of India, where the monsoon season was especially brutal, flooding destroyed some crops, adding to production woes and rising prices. Hoping to stave off inflationary pressures on a diet staple, the Indian government earlier this month imposed export bans on non-Basmati white rice varieties, prompting hoarding in some parts of the world. The move was taken “to ensure adequate availability” and “to allay the rise in prices in the domestic market,” India’s Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution announced July 20. Over the past year, prices have increased by more than 11%, and by 3% over the past month, the government said. Non-Basmati white rice constitutes about a fourth of the rice exported by India. “On WhatsApp, I got a lot of messages saying that rice was not going to be available. I think there was a lot of confusion in the beginning because, as you know, rice is very important for us,” Rao said. “When we first heard the news, there was just mild confusion and people started panic buying because they thought that it may not be available,” she said. There are scores of different varieties of rice, with people having their preference depending on taste and texture. India’s export ban does not apply to Basmati rice, a long-grain variety that is more aromatic. The ban applies to short-grain rice that is starchier and has a relatively neutral flavor — which Rao says is preferable in some dishes or favored in specific regions of India, especially in southern areas of the country. At Little India, a grocery store in New York City’s Curry Hill neighborhood in Manhattan, there was no shortage of Basmati rice and other varieties. That wasn’t the case at other Indian groceries. On its Facebook page, India Bazaar, an Indian grocery chain in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, told customers not to panic. “We are working hard to meet all our shoppers’ demands,” the post said. Customers cleared shelves and waited in long lines to stockpile bags of rice, reported NBC Dallas affiliate KXAS. “They really wanted to purchase ten, 12, 15 bags,” India Bazaar’s president, Anand Pabari, told the station. “It was a really crazy situation.” India’s move came days after Russia backed out of a deal to allow Ukrainian wheat safe passage through the Black Sea, prompting warnings that the action could lead to surging prices. Some economists say the ban might further hurt food supplies around the world, and some governments have urged the Indian government to reconsider the export ban. At least in the United States, the supply of imported rice from India may not yet be a problem — despite the panic buying — but a long-term ban would certainly deplete that stock. Roa says she and others will just have to adapt by purchasing rice grown in the United States or imported from other countries. “I might have to substitute Basmati rice,” she said, “but it doesn’t taste that good, especially with South Indian dishes.” A U.S. resident for three decades, Rao said she is accustomed to improvising. “When we first came here, there was not even that much rice from India,” she said. “So I’ve learned to substitute, and I’m fine with the other brands that we get.”
Paris booksellers angry at plans to ‘hide’ their stalls during Olympics 2023-07-29 - Booksellers in Paris have hit out at plans to “hide” them during the 2024 Olympics, after they were told by local authorities to remove their stalls for the opening ceremony for security reasons. The bouquinistes along the River Seine make up the largest open-air book market in Europe and represent a 400-year-old tradition. However, about 570 of the stalls, which make up about 60% of the total along the river, need to be dismantled and moved, according to city authorities, for the opening ceremony on 26 July next year. Police told the booksellers earlier this week their stalls are within the perimeter of protection for the ceremony and must be removed for “obvious security reasons”. But the booksellers argue the move threatens to erase a symbol of the city, Reuters reported on Saturday. Jerome Callais, president of the Paris booksellers association, told the news agency: “People come to see us like they come to see the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, [but] they want to hide us during a ceremony that is supposed to represent Paris.” ‘People come to see us like they come to see the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame’ –Jerome Callais Photograph: Ed Alcock/MYOP Paris 2024 organisers expect at least 600,000 people to attend the opening ceremony on the Seine, during which athletes and delegations will sail along the river – the first time the ceremony has been held outside a stadium – and that the public will have free access to it. The French government is making plans to ensure the security of the event, for which 35,000 security agents and the military will be deployed. But Albert Abid said he felt he and his fellow booksellers were being excluded from the celebrations, and was concerned his 100-year old wooden stall would be damaged in the process. He said: “[They] are very fragile … our stalls will not be able to withstand this operation, nor will the morale of the booksellers.” The Paris authorities said in a statement that they met the booksellers earlier this month and offered to pay for the costs of removing the stalls and to pay for any repair work in the event of damage in what they called a “renovation”. “This renovation is part of the Games’ heritage and will help support the application to have the Seine booksellers recognised as intangible cultural heritage by Unesco,” the authorities said. It was not clear whether the booksellers had been told they must move for the duration of the Games or only for the opening ceremony. But the city has invited them to move to a specially created “bookseller village” in a “literary neighbourhood near to the Seine” for the duration of the 33rd Olympiad between 26 July and 11 August. However, Callais said the proposed location of Bastille square was not a realistic solution and no other compensation had been proposed. “No one is going to go to that market,” he said. Despite frequent bans by various French kings, bouquinistes have been selling texts along the Seine since the 16th century, originally from handcarts, voluminous pockets and trestle tables. In 1891, having survived an attempt at outright banishment by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, the architect of modern Paris, they won permission to display and store their books in their boxes. The bouquinistes were hard hit during Covid lockdowns. “The culmination of three disastrous years,” Callais told the Guardian in December 2020. “First the gilets jaunes and their protests. Then the transport strikes … And now Covid: travel bans, lockdowns, curfews. In financial terms, a catastrophe.” Sellers pay no rent, but must undertake to open at least four days a week and to “exercise the profession of bookseller” – selling mostly secondhand books, magazines, documents and prints, although one of their four boxes may also offer ephemera and trinkets.
International talks end without go-ahead for deep-sea mining 2023-07-29 - An international meeting in Jamaica to negotiate rules over deep-sea mining has ended with no green light to start industrial-scale mining and with an 11th-hour agreement to hold formal discussions next year on the protection of the marine environment. The agreement ended intense week-long negotiations at the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an intergovernmental body based in Kingston that regulates sea-bed extraction, over a proposal spearheaded by Chile, France and Costa Rica and backed by a dozen countries to discuss a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining to ensure the protection of the marine environment. China, which is keen to see mining go ahead, had blocked the motion for a discussion all week, but finally agreed to allow it on the agenda in 2024. Gina Guillén Grillo, Costa Rica’s representative to the ISA, said it was “very disappointing that one country by themselves can kidnap the assembly”, where all member states have a voice, and “hoped the objecting country will honour their word” to allow discussion next year. “We believe the protection of the marine environment is such a huge part of our obligation as member states,” she said. Environmentalists welcomed the compromise as an “open door” to a proper discussion by the ISA assembly, which comprises 168 member states and the EU, on whether mining should go ahead at all. Overall, they said, “important strides forward” had been made towards the protection of the marine environment. It was a crucial, three-week-long meeting of the ISA, a UN-affiliated body, which was under pressure to finalise rules governing mining by this month. The ISA’s 36-member council, the body that oversees rules and regulations, decided it needed more time to finalise rules. Last week, in a decision that effectively delayed the start of any mining operations, it said it would work “with a view” to adopting regulations in 2025. The council did not decide how to consider any application requests that might arrive in the meantime, however, prompting criticism that a legal loophole remained open. In March, the council said exploitation should not be agreed until a mining code was agreed. In a speech on Wednesday, the French secretary of state for seas, Hervé Berville, reinforced France’s call for a ban on deep-sea mining: “We cannot and must not embark on a new industrial activity when we are not able to fully measure its consequences and therefore risk irreversible damage to our marine ecosystems.” More than 20 countries in the assembly have called for a pause or ban. They argue that not enough is known about mining’s impact on deep-sea ecosystems to proceed. Brazil has called for a pause of 10 years, and several other countries have resisted. Earlier this week, Nauru’s president, Russ Kun, expressed disappointment that the ISA had not yet adopted regulations. He told delegates: “We have a window of opportunity to support the development of a sector that Nauru considers has the potential to help accelerate our energy transition to combat climate change.” Advocates for deep-sea mining say it is needed to meet the increasing demand for metals such as cobalt and nickel that are used in batteries powering the green transition from fossil fuels. Louisa Casson, the global project leader for Greenpeace’s campaign to stop deep-sea mining, said: “These last three weeks have seen important strides forward for ocean protection. Industry really thought this was the moment when mining would go ahead.” Sofia Tsenikli, of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, said: “What is clear is that the growing opposition to deep-sea mining has burst the ISA bubble, and pro-mining interests now know business as usual is over. “The need to protect the ocean from the impacts of mining took centre stage inside and outside of the ISA during these weeks, despite efforts to silence the debate.” Over the past month, the UN high commissioner for human rights, 37 global financial institutions, seafood groups, scientists and Indigenous groups have called for a halt to deep-sea mining.
You may hate what Twitter — sorry, X — has become. But it's just what the company needs right now, brand experts say. 2023-07-29 - The social media platform Twitter rebranded to X, Elon Musk announced last week. The move was quickly condemned and mocked by users of the site. Some experts said it destroyed a beloved brand. Others said it's a much-needed new beginning. Morning Brew Insider recommends waking up with, a daily newsletter. Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address By clicking “Sign Up,” you also agree to marketing emails from both Insider and Morning Brew; and you accept Insider’s Terms and Privacy Policy Click here for Morning Brew’s privacy policy. It's been a whirlwind week for Twitter, or X — whatever you decide to call it now. The social media platform's signature sky-bound bluebird and iconic lingo (tweet, retweet) of 17 years are no more after owner Elon Musk decided to take his recently-acquired platform in a new direction last Sunday. The decision to do so was a contentious one — some, like Jenn Takahashi, the founder of San Francisco-based Takahashi PR and the lively personality behind Best of Dying Twitter, described it as brand suicide. Other branding experts who spoke to Insider said it could be an opportunity for Musk to clean his slate, and present a new, less controversial, vision for the platform. Musk declared the change to X last Sunday and said it eventually would become an "everything app," allowing users to "conduct" their "entire financial world" on it. In response, many users swiftly objected to the news that the mainstay platform would now be called X, accompanied by a darker image and logo. "I didn't know about your rebrand idea and was looking for Twitter Verified, and scrolled right past your X logo, thinking it was a porn site," one user said among a barrage of other comments comparing the new name to an adult entertainment site. "I'm not calling it X," said another. In a post on the social media site, a former Musk loyalist — who had once slept on the floor of then-Twitter's office before she got fired by the company — hinted at the idea that Musk would be "destroying" his product or brand. And analysts and brand agencies who spoke to Bloomberg said that the company could lose billions of dollars in brand value. Takahashi told Insider that there was no way she would have stayed at Twitter (she'll never call it X, she said) if she worked there. "If I were Twitter's PR person and he tried to rebrand as 'X,' if he like insisted on it, I actually would have quit," Takahashi said of the company, which got rid of its communications department last November. "Because imagine how bad it would be as a PR person to monitor for that stuff. 'Okay, let me just see what 'X' has been doing in the news today.'" —Best of Dying Twiter (@bestofdyingtwit) July 29, 2023 For Takahashi, much of the value of Twitter's brand is embedded in pop culture history. She pointed out that not many other social media companies have taken a verb such as" tweet" and made it their own — that was the power of Twitter. "If you're watching a movie, or if you're listening to a, I don't know, a presidential speech, there might be the word tweet in it or retweet in it," Takahashi said. "Can you just imagine the shift? It's just so confusing for everybody." Perhaps a reason why X garnered so much media attention is because, as founder of branding company NameStormers Mike Carr told Insider, it is in complete contrast to what people have come to know of the brand. Carr said that the name X evokes a technology-forward position (he described it to the New York Times as "Big Brother" vibes) and, in some cultures, it could represent death. Twitter, on the other hand, is much softer and appeals to the more Millenial/Gen X audience that Twitter has come to represent, he said. "Birds are cute, they're fun, they chirp, they make noise, they talk to one another, they fly around," Carr said. "It's just a very approachable to me." "X is on the other opposite end," he added. "X is sort of extreme. It's techy, It's harsher." But Elon Musk, long obsessed with the idea of a brand named X, trudged on in the face of disapproval from users. On Friday night, a gigantic flashing X logo was displayed atop the company's San Francisco building, blinding the surrounding neighborhood. "If you actually look at the logo that they put up on the side of the building, it was black with a white outline," Carr said. "It was sort of ominous. One part of the X was a double line, the other part of the X was a single line. It was a little bit off-kilter or a little bit off-center." 'I would never bet against Elon Musk' A brand pivot will always ruffle feathers, but some experts who spoke to Insider said that how Musk moves forward with this shift could actually help the brand, which Musk himself said is losing money as advertisers pull out. Carr told Insider that Musk has probably considered all the associations the name would evoke when renaming the company. Carr even saw a positive in all the press attention that Musk is receiving. He said that the risky move could inject newfound excitement and interest into the social media company. "I would never bet against Elon Musk," Carr said. "I think he's proven his critics wrong many times." And it's not all criticism that Musk has been receiving. A new survey — albeit, one with a tiny sample size of 5,000 people compared to the 250 million daily average users on Twitter — conducted by CivicScience found that 36% of daily users and 43% of weekly users felt positive about the transition to X, compared to 27% of daily users and 27% of weekly users who felt negatively. Vanitha Swaminathan, a professor of marketing and director for the Center for Branding at the University of Pittsburgh, told Insider that a rebrand is usually a sign that a company is taking its mission in a different direction. "I think Elon Musk and X should really use this as an opportunity to solidify and change their positioning, lose some of the negative PR, be very, very disciplined in building up this brand as a positive brand name with positive associations," Swaminathan said.