Latest News
See the latest news and get GPT analysis of articles
Nvidia could mint $300 billion in AI revenues by 2027, 10 times the expected takings this year, analyst says 2023-07-24 - Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh said Nvidia's share price has another 20% upside to run on the AI boom. He added the chipmaker could generate $300 billion in AI-specific revenue by 2027. The stock has already doubled so far this year and is trading around $446 apiece. 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. Chipmaker Nvidia's having a great year with its stock price doubling amid the artificial intelligence, or AI hype — and it could get even better. Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh has given Nvidia's stock price another 20% upside to run — and even this new target of $530 is "conservative," according to a Sunday client note seen by Insider. Rakesh's previous price target for Nvidia was $400. Nvidia shares closed 0.7% higher at $446.12 apiece on Monday. The stock has surged 205% so far this year. He also expects Nvidia to maintain its dominant position in AI chips till at least 2027. The company could generate around $300 billion in AI-specific revenue by 2027 with a 75% market share of AI server units, Rakesh added. That's 10 times his projection of $25 billion to $30 billion in AI revenues this year, he told Dow Jones on Monday. "With demand for generative AI accelerating, we see significant opportunities for hardware suppliers powering the higher compute needs for large-language models, particularly AI powerhouse NVDA," Rakesh wrote, referring to the Santa Clara-based chipmaker by its stock symbol. Rakesh's endorsement of Nvidia followed the company's blockbuster first-quarter results from the generative artificial intelligence boom that was posted in May. Nvidia posted first-quarter revenue of $7.2 billion — beating Wall Street forecasts. The company didn't provide information about how much revenue it generated from AI-specific businesses. Consequently, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's wealth has also nearly doubled this year, per Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He is now the 32nd richest person in the world with a net worth of $40 billion — up 189% so far this year. Huang owns 86.9 million Nvidia shares, or about 3.5% of the Santa Clara-based chipmaker, per the company's 2023 annual report. Mizuho's Rakesh is not the only analyst bullish on Nvidia. In June, Morgan Stanley called Nvidia its "top pick" on the back of demand for its AI chips.
Most COVID deaths in Florida happened after vaccines were readily available: NYT 2023-07-24 - Gov. Ron DeSantis was an early proponent of the COVID vaccine, urging the elderly to get the shot. But as Republican sentiments toward the vaccines shifted, DeSantis began downplaying his support. A New York Times report this week suggests a spike in Florida Covid deaths in July 2021 could be related. 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 Gov. Ron DeSantis is building his fledgling 2024 presidential campaign on the supposed merits of his COVID-19 response in Florida, often touting the state's prioritization of protecting personal freedoms over mask mandates and vaccine requirements. But a New York Times report published Saturday suggests the Florida governor's shifting public attitude toward vaccines throughout the pandemic may correlate with an unnecessary spike in deaths throughout the state during the brutal Delta wave in the summer of 2021. The Times found that the majority of Florida's COVID deaths took place after vaccines were readily available to all adults — not before, as was the case in many Democratic-led states, as well as nationwide. A spokesperson for DeSantis did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Florida was initially one of the early success stories of the pandemic. The state's death rate throughout the first year of the pandemic was lower than all but 10 other states, The Times reported, and Florida was ahead of the curve in vaccinating people 65 and older in early 2021. While DeSantis made efforts to get elder Floridians vaccinated early on, his approach seemed to shift as the Republican party stoked increased skepticism about the science behind the shots. By the spring of 2021, as the vaccines became more readily available to adults of all ages, DeSantis was instead emphasizing his opposition toward mandates and offering some appraisals of the shot, according to The Times. The governor also bolstered medical officials who have downplayed the severity of the virus, including appointing Florida State Surgeon General, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, in September 2021, who publicly questioned the vaccine's effectiveness and would not say whether he himself got the shot. By July 2021, Florida's vaccine numbers had fallen from their early lead, and rates of vaccination among younger adults in the state were below the national average, the outlet reported. The consequences of that downward trend would be on full display when the Delta variant ravaged the country in the summer of 2021. The Times analysis found that Floridians died at a higher rate, adjusted for age, than people in almost any other state during the Delta wave. Florida made up 14% of deaths between July and October 2021, despite representing less than 7% of the country, according to The Times. Twenty-three-thousand Floridians died during the Delta wave, and 9,000 of them were younger than 65 — a majority of whom were either unvaccinated or had not finished their two-dose regimen, the newspaper reported. DeSantis suddenly began recommending vaccinations again as July 2021 came to a close and cases skyrocketed, The Times reported. The governor has previously taken issue with the suggestion that his comments about vaccines played a role in Florida's case count, suggesting that his opposition was toward mandates and not the shots themselves. But local officials in Florida told The Times that DeSantis' public shift on vaccines was notable. Dr. Alina Alonso, the recently-retired health director for Palm Beach County, told The Times DeSantis' messaging went from, "Let's get everybody vaccinated 65 and older" to "Vaccines are not really useful." Florida's death rate eventually fell in the autumn, as many other states' rates did when the wave subsided. In total, Florida's death numbers throughout the pandemic, when adjusted for age, actually trended better than the national average, according to The Times. But DeSantis' vaccine pivots are worth reckoning with, Dan Gelber, the Democratic mayor of Miami Beach, told The Times. "There are people in the state who will do what he says," Gelber said. "He's a popular governor."
Apple faces $1 bln UK lawsuit by apps developers over app store fees 2023-07-24 - BRUSSELS, July 25 (Reuters) - Apple (AAPL.O) on Tuesday found itself the target of a 785-million-pound ($1 billion) class action lawsuit brought by more than 1,500 apps developers in the UK over its App Store fees. Apple's services business, which includes the App Store, has seen revenues grow at a rapid pace in the last few years and now hovers around $20 billion per quarter. However, the commissions of 15% to 30% that the company charges some app makers for use of an in-app payment system has been criticised by apps developers and targeted by antitrust regulators in several countries. Apple has previously said that 85% of developers on the App Store do not pay any commission and that it helps European developers to access markets and customers in 175 countries around the world through the App Store. The UK lawsuit at the Competition Appeal Tribunal is being brought by Sean Ennis, a professor at the Centre for Competition Policy at the University of East Anglia and a former economist at the OECD, on behalf of 1,566 app developers. He is being advised by law firm Geradin Partners. "Apple's charges to app developers are excessive, and only possible due to its monopoly on the distribution of apps onto iPhones and iPads," Ennis said in a statement. "The charges are unfair in their own right, and constitute abusive pricing. They harm app developers and also app buyers." ($1 = 0.7802 pounds) Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Aurora Ellis Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
3 reasons countries around the world want to break up with the dollar 2023-07-23 - The US dollar has been the world's reserve currency for decades, but its dominance is fading. Sanctions against Russia have spurred other countries into considering backup currencies for trade. US monetary policies, the strong USD, and structural shift in the global oil trade also contribute. 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 The dollar has been the world's reserve currency since World War II, but a combination of political and economic reasons is slowly chipping away at its supremacy. Nearly 60% of international reserves are held in dollar-denominated assets, according to the International Monetary Fund. The dollar is also the most widely used currency for trade. Now, Western-led sanctions against Russia related to its invasion of Ukraine are making other countries wary of potential consequences of crossing Washington. Some, such as Brazil, Argentina, Bangladesh, and India, are lining up backup currencies and assets — such as the Chinese yuan and bitcoin — for trade and payments. While the macro-geopolitical environment is spurring countries to seek alternative currencies, there's long been uneasiness over the dollar's outsized dominance in global trade and finance. This de-dollarization talk has come back in waves every few years since at least the 1970s. Here are three other reasons countries around the world are attempting to line up plans to possibly move away from a dollar-dominated world. 1. US monetary policy holds too much sway over the rest of the world The US is the issuer of the world's reserve currency, which is also the dominant currency in international trade and payments systems. Consequently, it has an outsized hold on the world economy and is often overvalued, the Wilson Center think tank reported in May. This position has afforded the US what Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the president of France from 1974 to 1981, called an "exorbitant privilege." One facet of this privilege is that the US might not run into a crisis if it is unable to pay its debt when the value of the dollar falls sharply because Washington could simply issue more money. It also means that countries around the world have to tail US economic and monetary policies closely to avoid a spillover impact on their economies. Some countries, including India, have said that they are sick and tired of US monetary policies holding them hostage — going as far as to say that the US has been an irresponsible issuer of the world's reserve currencies. A working group at the Reserve Bank of India is now pushing to use the Indian rupee for trade — a stance that is in with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision for the currency. 2. The strong USD is getting too expensive for emerging nations The greenback gaining strength against most currencies around the world is making imports far more expensive for emerging nations. In Argentina, political pressure and a decline in exports contributed to a fall in US-dollar reserves and pressured the Argentinian peso which, in turn, fueled inflation. This has spurred Argentina to start paying for Chinese imports using yuan instead of US dollars, the nation's economy minister said on Wednesday, Reuters reported . "A stronger USD would weaken its role as reserve currency," economists at Allianz, an international financial-services firm, wrote in a June 29 report. "If access to USD becomes more expensive, borrowers will search for alternatives." Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been one of the most vocal proponents of setting up alternative trade-settlement currencies, going as far as to egg on Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa to move away from the US dollar. 3. Global trade and oil demand is diversifying — putting the petrodollar at risk A key reason the US dollar became the world's reserve currency is that the Gulf countries in the Middle East used the greenback to trade oil — because it was already a widely used trade currency by the time they were trading oil. The arrangement was formalized in 1945 when the oil-giant country Saudi Arabia and the US reached a historic deal wherein Saudi Arabia would sell its oil to America only using the greenback. In return, Saudi Arabia would reinvest excess dollar reserves into US treasuries and companies. The arrangement guaranteed US security for Saudi Arabia. But then the US became energy independent and a net oil exporter with the rise of the shale-oil industry. "The structural change in the oil market brought about by the shale-oil revolution can paradoxically hurt the role of the USD as the global reserve currency since oil exporters, which play a crucial role in the USD status, would need to re-orient themselves to other countries and their currencies," Allianz economists reported. It's not just oil, either. The relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia — which has been described as similar to "frenemies" — has also been testy over several issues in recent years, such as when then-President Donald Trump complained that Saudi Arabia wasn't paying the US a fair price for its defense , and when President Joe Biden snubbed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Such tensions, against the backdrop of the shale-energy revolution, raise the possibility that Saudi Arabia could abandon its US-denominated oil pricing one day, Sarah Miller, an editor at Energy Intelligence, an energy-information firm, wrote in November last year.
Elon Musk plans to rebrand Twitter as 'X' — an idea that harkens back to the CEO's early days when he was ousted from PayPal 2023-07-23 - Elon Musk announced Saturday that he plans to rebrand Twitter and change the bird logo to 'X.' The rebrand is part of Musk's long-touted vision to create an 'everything app.' Musk previously wanted X to be the name of a banking services site now known as PayPal. 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. Elon Musk announced plans on Saturday to ditch Twitter's bird logo for an "X" — a reference to the CEO's vision to create an all-encompassing "everything app" that may incorporate shopping and banking services, among other features. The domain X.com now redirects users to Twitter. Musk said a new "interim" X logo will go live Sunday. He did not respond to a request for comment. Twitter's potential new logo recalls Musk's earlier tech entrepreneur days when he was a 28-year-old in Silicon Valley with ambitions to start an online banking company in 1999. By that point, Musk launched and sold Zip2 — a company that provided city travel guide software to newspapers — for about $341 million. Musk earned $22 million out of the deal. Using that cash, his next venture focused on banking services. The idea was to create an online tool for mutual fund management, according to a 1999 Marketwatch article. Elon Musk in Palo Alto, California, on August 7, 2000. Pauline Lubens/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images What would this online service be called? According to Julie Anderson Ankenbrandt, a former PayPal executive, the name was born in a classic Silicon Valley setting: a café. "There was a night early on where Elon, the other founders of the company ... and I sat around a backroom table at a long-defunct bar called the Blue Chalk (Cafe) in Palo Alto, trying (to) decide what the name of the company should be," Ankenbrandt wrote in a 2016 Quora post. "At that point, early 1999, the intent was still to build a revolutionary full-service financial platform (credit card, mutual fund, and standard banking data all in one place - just imagine! :) ) and the question at hand was whether to be q, x, or z dot com." According to Ankenbrandt, a waitress at the café would have the final say. "Elon asked her what she thought, and she said she liked x.com," Ankenbrandt wrote. "Elon pounded the table and said, 'That's it then!'" The former PayPal executive noted the founders felt branding would be an issue because of the "pornographic associations of the letter X." Although, nowadays, Musk arguably might welcome the crude association. "But it never really came to that in the end given the trajectory of the company," she wrote. Ankenbrandt could not be reached for comment. X.com launched in late 1999. In 2000, the company merged with its competitor Confinity, which was co-founded by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin. The name never stuck: Disagreements within the company, including around the x.com name, would soon be followed by Musk's ousting in late 2000. Thiel was named the new CEO. While issues with the name didn't lead to Musk's firing — one of the internal arguments revolved around where to move the company's servers — most employees didn't favor the name as much as Musk. According to Ashlee Vance's biography "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future," almost everyone in the company preferred the name PayPal. In 2001, x.com was rebranded accordingly. Musk soon moved on to other ventures, including founding SpaceX and investing in Tesla. But after more than a decade, Musk never let the name go. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment sent during the weekend. In 2017, Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed sum. "No plans right now, but it has great sentimental value to me," Musk tweeted at the time. Eight years later, after he purchased Twitter for $44 billion, Musk formally merged his newly-purchased social media company into a Nevada-incorporated entity called X Corp. "Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app," Musk said in October 2022. The Twitter CEO said in a live forum that he envisions a service that "does everything — sort of like Twitter, plus PayPal, plus a whole bunch of things, and all rolled into one, with a great interface."
AMC files revised stock conversion settlement plan in court 2023-07-23 - Companies AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc Follow July 23 (Reuters) - AMC Entertainment (AMC.N) CEO Adam Aron said on Sunday the company filed a revised petition for a stock conversion plan to address the Delaware court's concerns over other shareholders. AMC had proposed a plan to allow it to convert preferred stock to common stock and issue millions of new shares. It was sued in February by investors over how the shareholder vote on the plan was conducted. Delaware Vice Chancellor Morgan Zurn on Friday denied approval to a settlement which would provide AMC common stock holders with shares worth an estimated $129 million, since it would also settle potential claims by preferred shareholders who were not represented in the lawsuit. "Yesterday we along with the plaintiffs, filed with the Delaware Court, a modification of the legal release surrounding the settlement of the Delaware litigation in an effort to address the Court's voiced concern," Aron said in an open letter to investors. loading Reuters could not immediately obtain the newly filed court documents while lawyers for the investors and AMC did not immediately respond to queries. AMC had previously warned of burning cash at an unsustainable rate and said it could not carry out its capital raising plans until the litigation had been resolved. If AMC was unable to raise equity capital, there would be an increased risk of the company running out of cash in 2024 or 2025 or being unable to satisfactorily refinance and stretch out the maturity of some of its debt, Aron's letter added. The investors who sued alleged that AMC had enacted the plan to circumvent the will of common stock holders who opposed the company diluting their holdings. The proposed settlement had received more than 2,800 objections from shareholders, a level of interest Zurn called "unprecedented" during Friday's ruling. Reporting by Shubhendu Deshmukh and Jyoti Narayan in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Scorching summer temperatures could strain the economy even further 2023-07-23 - Minneapolis CNN — A 119-degree day in Phoenix hits like a blast of hot air from the oven with no relief in sight, and for a business owner like Lyn Thomas, there’s hardly any avoiding it. Thomas serves up authentic Cajun and Creole dishes from recipes passed down through generations at her Zydeco’s Louisiana Kitchen Food Truck and her newly opened Zydeco’s 2 Geaux walk-up window. But at a time when the summer desert heat comes sooner, grows more extreme and lingers longer (Phoenix has seen temperatures north of 110 degrees for 23 days), it’s not realistic or safe for Thomas to park her truck and wait for customers. So instead, she’s shifted gears to build up a catering business in the meantime. “The heat, it’s just miserable, I don’t know how to explain it other than you feel like you’re breathing in hot air,” she said. “Even at nighttime, the sun is down, but it’s still hot.” Video Ad Feedback This is what happens to your body when temperatures soar 03:24 - Source: CNN In the dead of night, the temperature remains in the triple digits. As Phoenix and a large chunk of the United States bake under a record heat wave, the massive swath of extreme heat is not only taking a toll on millions of Americans, it’s also driving up costs for businesses and putting pressure on the economy. $100 billion productivity drain While the true economic impact has yet to be tabulated for this weather event — the nature of excessive heat, its varying effects and sizable reach make that a tall order — recent studies have shown that extreme heat could cost the United States $100 billion annually from the productivity loss alone. If left unchecked, it could sap away one-sixth of global economic activity by the year 2100. “The recent heat waves and scorching summer temperatures demonstrate the economic cost of heat stress,” Chris Lafakis, Moody’s Analytics’ director of economic research, wrote in an emailed response to a CNN query. “Heat waves can cause mortality and produce disruptions in business continuity. Heat waves can also stress regional power grids, driving up the cost and availability of space cooling.” A billboard displays the temperature as Phoenix breaks a heat record of 19 consecutive days above 110 degrees Fahrenheit on July 18. Liliana Salgado/Reuters Workers, especially those who work outdoors, are less productive, Lafakis added. Moody’s Analytics estimates that chronic physical risk from heat stress could reduce worldwide GDP by up to 17.6% by 2100. “The way that heat hits us, our thinking gets slowed down, our concentration is really tough, our hand-eye coordination is off, we’re tired, we make mistakes,” said Kathy Baughman McLeod, director of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at the Atlantic Council, which in 2021 released a report analyzing the potential $100 billion in productivity losses. The losses are steepest in sectors such as agriculture and construction, but no industry or business is immune, she said. Even if an employee works in an air-conditioned environment, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are afforded the same luxury at home, she said, adding that disruptions in sleep could lead to exhaustion and poor performance the following day. “The heat is accelerating so quickly that our self-perceptions of risk are not keeping pace,” she said. “And so that also means as an employer, our perceptions of our workers’ risks are not keeping pace either.” The Arsht-Rockefeller center is trying to build awareness of this “invisible, silent risk” by testing the naming of heat waves and creating a health-based warning system, she said. And while states such as California have heat-specific worker protection requirements, there are no national regulations in place. Electricians with IBEW Local 11 pull out an old copper cable line under excessive heat from the old Cesar Chavez Avenue Viaduct in Los Angeles, Thursday, July 13, 2023. Damian Dovarganes/AP ‘Ice, water, shade’ In Holtville, California, a farming community known as the “carrot capital of the world,” the temperature neared 115 degrees on Wednesday. That’s about eight degrees warmer than the 30-year average, but Jack Vessey wasn’t batting an eye. He’s a fourth-generation farmer in California’s Imperial County, the hottest county in the West. “It’s just a part of living in the desert,” said Vessey, who runs produce grower and shipper Vessey & Company. While extreme heat is nothing new to Vessey and his crew, the family operation closely abides by the state’s regulations for preventing heat illnesses, and the field supervisors closely monitor the nearly 100 workers out prepping the fields for the coming planting season. “Ice, water, shade; make sure everybody on the ranch has that available to them,” he told CNN. “We start work a little earlier and try to end a little earlier as well. We don’t want anybody getting hurt out there.” Over in Texas, the Lone Star State’s climate allows for roofing to be a year-round business; but right now, the heart of the hot summer is the slow season for companies like Roofer Chicks. Zeyla Alcantara of New Braunfels-based Roofer Chicks works on a roof in late May in Texas. Patrick Tiseth The New Braunfels-based roofing contractor still keeps busy enough in July and August, but the work itself takes longer, especially in 100-degree days. Jobs take about twice as long to allow for breaks and ensure worker safety, said owner Ami Feller. “On the roof, you can add, for sure, 20 degrees; I think it’s even more than that,” she said, adding that under certain temperatures roofs can be scalding to the touch and the materials can tear apart more easily. An important part of Feller’s job has become education. “The worker is typically young, typically super-fit, and they might feel a little bit nauseous and they just blow it off — and then it becomes too late,” she said. “Because it comes up on you fast, and you lose time with it if you don’t stay on top of it; and I’ve had a hard time explaining that to people who are young, because they think they’re invincible.” For animals, more water and ‘bloodsicles’ And for many operations, that extends to keeping animals safe as well. Just south of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the tiny town of Los Cerrillos, Harrold Granthan has run the Broken Saddle Riding Company horseback riding center for 30 years. “Every summer we have a stretch [of excessively hot weather], where it might last from four days up to a week,” he said. “It’s common, and we avoid riding.” Any riding that occurs is done on the margins — in the mornings or at sunset — and care is taken to ensure the horses have enough protection from the heat and access to water, he said. On hot days, they’ll drink about 15 gallons of water, triple what they drink on average. The Phoenix Zoo, which has a $20,000 annual budget for water bottles and electrolyte packs alone, has made a slew of accommodations to ensure patrons, zookeepers and, especially, the animals are safe during the summer months, said Bonnie Mendoza, chief operating officer and chief financial officer. Female Sumatran tiger Joanne inspects a paper mâché snowman surrounded by snow and a bloodsicle on July 11. David Wagner/Phoenix Zoo For the animals, that includes the addition of pools and shade in many of the habitats, “bloodsicles” and fishsicles — frozen ice pops with blood and fish, respectively, from the animals’ diets — and access to air-conditioned indoor environments. For the humans, that includes a free tram to reduce walking time, plenty of water and beverages on-hand, preventative maintenance to ensure the cooling systems run smoothly and reduced hours. However, this record-breaking heat already is forcing broader operational changes, Mendoza said. The zoo announced plans this week to further shave its already reduced summer hours to 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. “We recognize that there will be revenue losses, but we also are looking at the attendance trends that have already, over the last decade, shown a dramatic drop-off of the last couple of hours of being open,” she said. “So if it’s going to be a ghost town on campus, we’re going to adjust accordingly.” Further adjustments may be in store for the longer run to ensure the protection of the animals, patrons and staff and to manage costs and guard against financial losses. “We have to look at the potential of our business model shifting to a nine-month facility going forward,” she said. Climate ripple effects On-premise consumption is the lifeblood for many craft breweries, and at Arizona Wilderness Brewing’s two Phoenix-area locations, the outdoor patios serve as critical arteries: They account for roughly 60% of overall revenue, said Zach Fowle, the brewery’s head of marketing. Save for a few brave souls here and there, the typically bustling patios have grown mostly barren. And sales have sunk accordingly, to near levels not seen since the pandemic. With some revenue going flat, it makes it all the more crucial to ensure that everything inside the operations — the patrons; the employees; the kitchen staff who work over the 350-degree fryers; and, of course, the beer — is appropriately cooled. The downtown Phoenix patio at Arizona Wilderness Brewing is typically bustling and packed with patrons; however, on the 21st day of 110-plus-degree heat, the patio was barren. Kyle Ledeboer/Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co. The brewery’s operators dropped $2,500 on a new evaporative cooler for one of their kitchens, they’re putting in additional air movers, and they’re shelling out even more for preventative maintenance to help avoid the Whac-A-Mole repair game. “The brewing process hinges on keeping beer cold, and the hotter it gets outside, the bigger temperature differential there is, the harder your A/C units are going to be working,” Fowle told CNN. “So what we see almost every summer is our coolers will break down just because they can’t keep up with the amount of work they have to put in to keep the beer cold.” They’ve successfully avoided having to dump beer due to temperature; however, the extreme weather patterns have upturned one of the biggest beer releases for the sustainability- and conservation-driven brewery: The seasonal and highly popular watermelon Gose beer will launch two weeks later because of harvesting delays. “We work pretty closely with farmers, and they’re at the mercy of the weather, and then that impacts their supply, which then impacts our menu, which then impacts our team and our guests,” said Justus Swanick, head of restaurant operations at the brewery. A GDP dip? Excessive heat has long been an issue that outdoor-specific industries have to manage; however, the increasingly extreme nature of these events will increasingly be a drag on businesses and the economy, said Joshua Graff Zivin, an economist and University of California San Diego professor who has studied heat’s effect on workers. “You think about the kind of heat we’re seeing now, and there’s not an early enough time to start to make this work,” Graff Zivin said. That leads to diminished hours worked and, ultimately, to less output, he said. “This might be the first time in modern US history where we might see a small dip for quarterly GDP, if not annual,” he said. “It’s not crazy to imagine this quarter’s GDP is going to look a little bit different.”
San Francisco-based company that pioneered craft beers open to buyout from employees 2023-07-23 - SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Anchor Brewing is open to a purchase offer from its employees but warned that time is running out as the 127-year-old trailblazer of craft beers prepares to cease operations, the San Francisco company said in a statement over the weekend. Spokesman Sam Singer confirmed Saturday that Anchor Brewing Company had received an email from Anchor’s union representative that workers are launching an effort to purchase the brewery. The effort is on behalf of a group of employees and not the union itself. He said the company would “gladly consider” an offer should they make one that includes “a verifiable source of funds.” But Singer warned that time was running out and the company will move ahead with liquidation in early August. The interested workers said on social media Saturday that things were moving fast and promised more information when available. “Overwhelmed with the responses for help. We are working behind the scenes to try and figure out the best possible way to raise funds and actually do this,” the group said. Anchor Brewing, which was sold to Japanese brewer Sapporo Holdings in 2017, stunned beer lovers when it announced earlier this month that it would discontinue the brand amid declining sales and tough economic conditions. Two dozen investors and individuals have expressed interest in acquiring some or all of the brewery, Singer told the San Francisco Chronicle last week. He said any decision to sell would be made by liquidators.
NBA Board of Governors approves Michael Jordan’s sale of the Charlotte Hornets, AP source says 2023-07-23 - CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The NBA Board of Governors has voted to approve Michael Jordan’s sale of the Charlotte Hornets to an ownership group led by Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall, according to a person familiar with the situation. The person spoke to The Associated Press on Sunday on condition of anonymity because the sale won’t become official for at least another week. The decision ends Jordan’s 13-year run as majority owner of the franchise. He will remain on as a minority owner. Jordan agreed to sell the team on June 16. However, when an NBA owner decides to sell it first must be approved by the league’s Board of Governors. Jordan’s decision to sell leaves the NBA without a Black majority owner. Plotkin has been a minority stakeholder with the Hornets since 2019, while Schnall has been a minority owner of the Atlanta Hawks since 2015. He has been forced to sell his investment in that team. The sale price is reportedly around $3 billion, according to ESPN. As an owner Jordan never came close to matching his success as a player, where he won six NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls while becoming one of the game’s greatest players ever. Charlotte went 423-600 under Jordan, the 26th-best record over that span. The Hornets never won a playoff series in that time and haven’t been to the postseason in the past seven seasons. The owner members of the Hornets new ownership group include artist J. Cole, Dan Sundheim, Ian Loring, country music singer-songwriter Eric Church, Chris Shumway and several local Charlotte investors, including Amy Levine Dawson and Damian Mills. ___ AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
‘Barbie’ takes the box office crown and ‘Oppenheimer’ soars in a historic weekend 2023-07-23 - “ Barbenheimer ” didn’t just work – it spun box office gold. The social media-fueled fusion of Greta Gerwig’s “ Barbie ” and Christopher Nolan’s “ Oppenheimer ” brought moviegoers back to the theaters in record numbers this weekend, vastly outperforming projections and giving a glimmer of hope to the lagging exhibition business, amid the sobering backdrop of strikes. Warner Bros.’ “Barbie” claimed the top spot with a massive $155 million in ticket sales from North American theaters from 4,243 locations, surpassing “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (as well as every Marvel movie this year) as the biggest opening of the year and breaking the first weekend record for a film directed by a woman. Universal’s “Oppenheimer” also soared past expectations, taking in $80.5 million from 3,610 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, marking Nolan’s biggest non-Batman debut and one of the best-ever starts for an R-rated biographical drama. It’s also the first time that one movie opened to more than $100 million and another movie opened to more than $80 million in the same weekend. When all is settled, it will likely turn out to be the fourth biggest box office weekend of all time with over $300 million industrywide. And all this in a marketplace that increasingly curved towards intellectual property-driven winner takes all. The “Barbenheimer” phenomenon may have started out as good-natured competition between two aesthetic opposites, but, as many hoped, both movies benefitted in the end. Internationally, “Barbie” earned $182 million from 69 territories, fueling a $337 million global weekend. “Oppenheimer” did $93.7 million from 78 territories, ranking above “Barbie” in India, for a $174.2 million global total. The only real casualty was “Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part I,” which despite strong reviews and a healthy opening weekend fell 64% in weekend two. Overshadowed by the “Barbenheimer” glow as well as the blow of losing its IMAX screens to “Oppenheimer,” the Tom Cruise vehicle added $19.5 million, bringing its domestic total to $118.8 million. “Barbenheimer” is not merely counterprogramming either. But while a certain section of enthusiastic moviegoers overlapped, in aggregate the audiences were distinct. Fans go out in style to watch the year’s most unlikely double feature - “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” on opening night in Los Angeles. (July 21) Women drove the historic “Barbie” opening, making up 65% of the audience, according to PostTrak, and 40% of ticket buyers were under the age of 25 for the PG-13 rated movie. “It’s just a joyous time in the world. This is history in so many ways,” said Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros.’ president of domestic distribution. “I think this marketing campaign is one for the ages that people will be talking about forever.” “Oppenheimer” audiences meanwhile were 62% male and 63% over the age of 25, with a somewhat surprising 32% that were between the ages of 18 and 24. Both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” scored well with critics with 90% and 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively, and audiences who gave both films an A CinemaScore. And social media has been awash with reactions and “takes” all weekend – good, bad, problematic and everywhere in between – the kind of organic, event cinema, watercooler debate that no marketing budget can buy. “The ‘Barbenheimer’ thing was a real boost for both movies,” Goldstein said. “It is a crowning achievement for all of us.” “Oppenheimer” had the vast majority (80%) of premium large format screens at its disposal. Some 25 theaters in North America boasted IMAX 70mm screenings ( Nolan’s preferred format ), most of which were completely sold out all weekend — accounting for 2% of the total gross. Theaters even scrambled to add more to accommodate the demand including 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. screenings, which also sold out. “Nolan’s films are truly cinematic events,” said Jim Orr, Universal’s president of domestic distribution. IMAX showings alone made up 26% of the domestic gross (or $21.1 million) from only 411 screens and 20% of the global gross, and “Oppenheimer” will have at least a three-week run on those high-demand screens. “This is a phenomenon beyond compare,” said Rich Gelfond, the CEO of IMAX, in a statement. “Around the world, we’ve seen sellouts at 4:00 a.m. shows and people travelling hours across borders to see ‘Oppenheimer’ in IMAX 70mm.” This is the comeback weekend Hollywood has been dreaming of since the pandemic. There have been big openings and successes – “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Avatar: The Way of Water” among them, but the fact that two movies are succeeding at the same time is notable. “It was a truly historic weekend and continues the positive box office momentum of 2023,” said Michael O’Leary, President & CEO of the National Association of Theatre Owners. “People recognized that something special was happening and they wanted to be a part of it.” And yet in the background looms disaster as Hollywood studios continue to squabble with striking actors and writers over a fair contract. “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” were the last films on the 2023 calendar to get a massive, global press tour. Both went right up to the 11th hour, squeezing in every last moment with their movie stars. “Oppenheimer” even pushed up its London premiere by an hour, knowing that Emily Blunt, Matt Damon and Cillian Murphy would have to leave to symbolically join the picket lines by the time the movie began. Without movie stars to promote their films, studios have started pushing some falls releases, including the high-profile Zendaya tennis drama “Challengers.” But for now, it’s simply a positive story that could even continue for weeks to come. “There could be a sequel next weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “The FOMO factor will rachet up because of this monumental box office event centered around the movie theater experience.” Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday. 1. “Barbie,” $155 million. 2. “Oppenheimer,” $80.5 million. 3. “Sound of Freedom,” $20.1 million. 4. “Mission: Impossible-Dead Reckoning Part I,” $19.5 million. 5. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” $6.7 million. 6. “Insidious: The Red Door,” $6.5 million. 7. “Elemental,” $5.8 million. 8. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” $2.8 million. 9. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” 1.1 million. 10. “No Hard Feelings,” $1.1 million.
Japan govt sees inflation slowing next year, calls for BOJ coordination 2023-07-23 - Summary Inflation seen around 1.5% next year excluding one-off factors Govt urges BOJ to align decision with joint agreement Top FX diplomat Kanda expects BOJ to upgrade price forecasts BOJ seen wary of phasing out stimulus too soon - sources TOKYO, July 24 (Reuters) - Japan's inflation will likely slow to around 1.5% next year when stripping away the effect of one-off factors, a government spokesperson said on Monday, calling on the central bank to work towards achieving its 2% inflation target. The remarks came amid simmering market speculation that creeping inflation and robust wage growth will prod the Bank of Japan (BOJ) to tweak its yield control policy at a two-day rate review ending on Friday. "Specific monetary policy means fall on the jurisdiction of the BOJ. But we hope it takes appropriate, necessary steps in close coordination with the government based on an understanding agreed upon in our joint statement," government spokesperson Yoshihiko Isozaki told a news conference. Under the joint agreement with the government signed in 2013 and re-confirmed by the current administration, the BOJ pledges to achieve 2% inflation at the earliest date possible. In a mid-year review of its forecasts, the government said last week it expects overall consumer inflation to hit 2.6% for the fiscal year that began in April and 1.9% in 2024. "The forecasts take into account the base-effect of the government's utility subsidies. Excluding the effect, we expect inflation to move around 1.5% in fiscal 2024," Isozaki said, suggesting that trend inflation will fall short of the BOJ's target next year. "We'd like to continue doing our utmost to achieve a positive cycle of wages and inflation, as well as growth and distribution, with an eye on ending deflation," he said. Isozaki's comments came in response to a question on whether the government saw conditions falling into place for the BOJ to phase out its massive stimulus. The remarks differ in tone from those made earlier on Monday by top currency diplomat Masato Kanda, who said recent inflation and wage rises were overshooting expectations. "It's become a shared view at home and abroad that changes are seen in Japan's corporate price- and wage-setting behaviour," Kanda told reporters, adding that he expects the BOJ to revise up its inflation forecasts this week. On Friday, Kanda told Reuters that "various expectations and speculations are spreading about the possibility of some kind of tweak to monetary policy." Sources have told Reuters the BOJ is leaning toward keeping its yield control policy steady this week, though there is no consensus within the bank. While the board is likely to revise up its core consumer inflation forecast for the year that began in April, those for fiscal 2024 and 2025 will likely remain largely unchanged from current projections, they said. BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda has said the central bank is focusing on whether recent inflation and wage growth will be sustained next year, and backed more by domestic demand, in deciding whether to tweak yield curve control. Reporting by Leika Kihara and Tetsushi Kajimoto; Additional reporting by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Kim Coghill, Lincoln Feast & Shri Navaratnam Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Here's what the bears are missing, and why there's still money to be made in this bull market 2023-07-23 - If you had to ask me what the bears got most wrong, it's pretty simple: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's remarkable ability to divine the moment and do the right thing. This week, I will have confidence, again, in his decision-making and while anything he says can cause a hiccup in an admittedly overbought stock market, his non-magisterial presence will leave the bears grasping once again. We know there are so many reasons why this bull market has eluded so many. It's mysterious way of starting in October 2022, so long before a tightening cycle was (or is!) near ending. It's second wind, whipped into a frenzy of mega-cap tech buying, as scared bulls went for our equivalent of nation-states with better balance sheets. It's sudden broadening into health care, transports and financials just when we were told the bull was slain by its lack of breadth. No matter what, this bull, regarded as chimerical by some, and fraudulent by many, refuses to be recognized by so many BECAUSE the Fed is committed to fighting inflation at all costs, even as the Fed should be lauded for preserving the value of financial assets at a time of Washington-stoked inflation. If we go back in time, the narrative's been simple. Powell took rates too low, and we are all paying the price. It's NEVER stated as Powell, unlike all other central bankers worldwide, sensed potential economic disaster from the Covid omicron variant, an unknown new and inexplicable wave of the pandemic, and kept rates low enough to be sure that this strain could be contained and then began the inexorable return of higher rates and beyond as he sought to rein in inflation caused by the president and Congress. As we prepare for rates to go to a range of 5.25% to 5.5%, the 11th increase in 16 months, it's time to explore why in hell Powell continues to be underestimated despite some trying times including inflation the likes of which we haven't seen in more than 50 years. You would think by now that the naysayers would have forgotten his late start and recognized the insane amount of stimulus that's here and is beckoning, but there has to be a face on inflation and that face is Powell's, not President Joe Biden's. I think that Powell's deft handling of the public health crisis, taking rates to zero just when large companies were about to go bankrupt and his equal ability to start crushing inflation in a sotto voce way, maybe unheralded because this man seeks no acclaim whatsoever. He has never once boasted about anything to anyone. It's almost eerie in present-day Washington to have someone who flies so low under the radar as to alienate no one but Wall Streeters and the Wall Streeters started digging in their heels months ago. The bill of particulars against Powell is losing its cogency each time the averages rally — this time the Dow with ten straight days up, not seen in five years — and I think that it will disappear when wages stabilize and unemployment nears 4%. That's when the critics might realize that we are entering a period of growth with modest inflation, with most of that coming from hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in much-needed infrastructure, climate control and manufacturing subsidies that are way too big for the economy. One only needs to listen to the plaintive Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) conference call to realize that our nation doesn't have the manpower or the national ability to build one large chip fabrication plant let alone the many that are supposed to be headed our way. Powell's been playing for time with these rate increases — and if it weren't for his earnest nature and the slowing one by one of the different components, we would realize that playing for time isn't kicking the can, but much more an attempt to create growth with as little inflation as possible, AS OPPOSED to slowing growth no matter what the consequences. I have been searching for a better term than "playing for time," one less pejorative. Something like reining in softly but playing for time just nails it. Think about it. There wasn't a category of inflation that didn't explode higher at the outset. But after food and clothes and cars and, retail, oil, natural gas, heating, and medical — all that's left are housing and travel and leisure, with the latter pretty self-selected and inflected. Of course, it's easy to say that everything's for naught if housing stays hot, but we are finally realizing that there are impediments that keep the price of housing up 40% since 2019, impediments that aren't responding to higher short rates. Everything from a lack of supply to the difficulty to build homes, to the lack of a desire to hurt gross margins, something that's made the companies' stocks the belles of Wall Street, have made prices immune to higher fed funds rate entreaties. The job creation that Blackrock CEO Larry Fink talked about recently with us on "Squawk on the Street," the kind stoked by Washington, will keep home prices high, which could spur more building but not enough to lower rates substantially, although the small decline in price from DR Horton 's quarter is duly noted. Plus, the rally in the financials will soon prove to be still one more test of Powell's skills. Powell didn't get the bank failures he needed to help break the economy. They never even got to Western Alliance nor PacWest , both up 25% this week. The equity market's been shut down for ages, but that's mostly because of the incredible greed of Wall Street and the SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) promoters. I believe the tens of billions of dollars destroyed by errant IPOs (initial public offerings) and SPACs have helped him in his quest against inflation. So has the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and Justice Department) in their desire to rein in deals perceived as being anti-competition, the standard that resonates throughout the proposed antitrust guidelines promulgated last week by the regulators. A quick read of CEO David Solomon's comments from Goldman Sachs about how the dry spell is about as long as it can get, tells you that his firm sees green shoots in IPOs after, of all things, restaurant chain Cava — and M & A (mergers and acquisitions) after the FTC's loss in its battle against Club name Microsoft (MSFT) in its attempt to buy Activision Blizzard . So, to go full circle, the reason why the markets do not fear another quarter-point rate hike, or even one more after that, is that huge Congressional spending and a more robust capital market coupled with intractable housing issues are being curbed by Powell's judicious hikes. It's too bad that we all seem to focus on the Fed so much. I hope readers here know that I felt that only by tuning out the Fed could you make maximum money in the market. You simply had to ignore the verbiage, block out the gasbags who simply failed to see the two-staged bull market right in front of them. The first started in crazy fashion, with the remaining industrials: talk about a scarcity. The second was equally nutty: a brand new technology still not understood and a handful of tech companies that had some clue of how to make money with it, turbocharged by the collapse of a couple of errant banks. But now we are in the third phase where the left behind catch up and new companies join the fray. That's where we find ourselves these last two weeks. The gains in the banks and health care were astounding. It wouldn't surprise me if we didn't see a new wave of buying in retail and entertainment after this weekend's boffo box office numbers from "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer." The top-down navel gazers will get all of this wrong. They have long since stopped looking under the hood of the S & P 500 . However, the strategists who actually follow stocks and their movements are quietly stunned into bullishness because the sales are fine and gross margins strong. There will be nitpickers. I have gone over that American Express quarter nine-ways-to-Sunday and come up with estimates so far ahead of the company, based on the "long on money, short on time" thesis, that I don't think they were doable, leaving a frustrated CEO, Steve Squeri, to remind us how these numbers were truly strong but not phenomenal. Squeri had the unenviable position of running the company that was supposed to be the poster child of spend. But corporate just hasn't come back at all and individuals are spending slightly more than expected not outrageously so. Now we are overbought — at plus five on our trusted S & P Oscillator —which makes Jeff Marks, Club portfolio director, and I reluctant to do more than put a new name in the Bullpen — our alert on the DuPont (DD) addition went out on Saturday. If you were to pop into one of our daily Morning Meeting livestreams, you would hear my palpable pleas to myself and Jeff to find new names. But when you see Club names like a Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) come to life just as you were about to waiver or you recognize that a Constellation Brands (STZ) was almost cashiered ahead of activist Elliott Management's foray— your temptation is to hang on to a Disney (DIS) a Danaher (DHR), which reports this week, an Estee Lauder (EL)and even the once-pathetic Bausch Health (BHC) that now seems on the verge of breaking out. Needless to say, if you needed any evidence that we are in a bull market, the rally in that dog may be enough to make the prosecution rest. For us, we wait and just try to make more money within the confines of tempering our own bullishness fueled relentlessly by negativity. It's ironic. You want so much to call it quits with winners newfound and old. The gains are staggering. But the set-up for strength beckons each week including one that will be rife with people on air talking about the pause, the one and the two and what else, Jackson Hole — in Wyoming where the annual Economic Policy Symposium of top monetary policymakers is held. How about this? As long as the bears can't help themselves and insist on telling us how little we know about failed Fed policy and a befuddled Fed chief, you, too, can "play for time" owning stocks. Maybe the moral of the story is simple: as long as Powell's the actual goat of the game and not the GOAT (greatest of all time), we can still make more money on the long side, a lot more. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED. Visitors around the Charging Bull statue near the New York Stock Exchange, June 29, 2023. Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Chevron appoints Eimear Bonner as new finance chief and issues preliminary second-quarter earnings results 2023-07-23 - Cars drive past sign with logo at the entrance to the world headquarters of petroleum company Chevron in the Bishop Ranch office park in San Ramon, California. Chevron on Sunday said the company's Chief Financial Officer Pierre Breber will retire next year, and named long-time company veteran Eimear Bonner, chief technology officer of Chevron Technical Center, as his successor. Separately, the company also said it waived the mandatory retirement age requirement for its Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth. Bonner, 49, has been with Chevron for over 24 years. Bonner will report to Chevron's chief's executive in her new role. The upcoming chief executive will take the position starting March 1, 2024, the company said in a statement. The second-largest U.S. oil firm also reported preliminary second-quarter earnings results. Net profit fell to $5.8 billion, or $3.08 a share. It was not immediately clear how that compared with analysts' estimates. Chevron noted, however, that the financial results reported Sunday don't represent a comprehensive statement of its second-quarter results and said it will issue its complete second-quarter earnings figures on Friday, July 28. Chevron said it issued record shareholder distributions of $7.2 billion in the latest quarter, including dividends of $2.8 billion and share repurchases of $4.4 billion. Chevron also produced 772,000 barrels of oil equivalent at the Permian Basin, another record quarter. The company said that early 2023 Permian well performance in company-operated assets is on track with its full-year guidance. —Reuters contributed to this report.
Spain's election ends with no clear majority, throwing the country into political limbo 2023-07-23 - Spain's election Sunday ended with no clear majority for either of the two main parties, throwing Europe's fourth-largest economy into political limbo. With all votes counted, Spain's conservative Partido Popular party secured 136 parliamentary seats, followed by the incumbent socialist party PSOE with 122 seats. Far-right party Vox came third with 33 seats, while the leftish Sumar party got 31. All parties fell short of the required 176 seats needed for an absolute majority. Ahead of the election, there was speculation that PP could join forces with Vox — potentially marking the first return to power of the far right since the 1975 dictatorship of Francisco Franco. PP and Vox have joined forces previously in some regions, but never at a national level. However, their combined 169 seats remain below the 176 required to form a coalition majority. On the other side, incumbent leader Pedro Sanchez's PSOE could potentially join forces with Sumar, but again, their combined 153 seats also fall short. Alberto Feijóo, leader of the PP, claimed responsibility for forming a government, given that his party won the most seats. "I am going to start a dialogue with the rest of the parties," he said on Twitter. "I ask for responsibility so that Spain does not suffer blockades." He added that he hoped other parties would not join forces themselves and prevent him from forming a government.
Elon Musk Says Twitter Will Change Its Logo 2023-07-23 - Elon Musk said he was about to make one of the most visible changes to Twitter since he took control of the social media company last fall: replacing its widely recognized bird logo. In a tweet early Sunday morning Eastern time, Mr. Musk said that “soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.” He added shortly after, “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight,” it would “go live worldwide tomorrow.” “X” is a term for what Mr. Musk has described as an “everything app” that could combine social media, instant messaging and payment services, akin to the popular Chinese app WeChat.
‘Barbie’ Box Office to the World: The Pandemic Is Officially Over 2023-07-23 - “Barbie” arrived as a full-blown cultural event, with thousands of moviegoers draping themselves in pink for screenings, doll memes flooding social media and marketers scrambling (sometimes awkwardly) to glom onto the moment. The audience was 65 percent female. “For a film this pink, you would have expected the audience to be closer to 90 percent female — we got a ton of guys,” said Jeff Goldstein, president of domestic distribution at Warner Bros. “It exploded everywhere: large markets, small markets, coast to coast.” Image Harrison Hood, 24, arrived at the AMC Kips Bay theater in Manhattan wearing “Barbie” regalia. Credit... Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times Some theaters seemed to be caught off guard. One high-end theater in the Washington, D.C. suburbs went all out on promotion, with pink lights to highlight “Barbie” and a wall of movie posters featuring both films. But the theater may have miscalculated Saturday attendance. By the 10 p.m. showing, it had run out of multiple food items. It also lacked soft drinks and, amazingly, ice. Another theater in Arlington, Va., had it worse: The air conditioning went out, leading to a sweltering experience. While the theater offered refunds, many ticket buyers stayed. The question now is whether Hollywood can keep the momentum going. Studio executives have long pointed out that moviegoing begets moviegoing — that the habit of watching movies in theaters is crucial. Coming up, however, studios are facing another crisis: A strike by unionized actors, which started on July 14, could force movie companies to push back coming films because striking stars cannot take part in publicity campaigns. “Challengers,” a sports drama involving a love triangle and staring Zendaya, has already been pushed from September to April. There are no talks scheduled between SAG-AFTRA, as the actors’ union is known, and studios. “Oppenheimer” helped fuel “Barbie” and vice versa, with their simultaneous release nicknamed Barbenheimer and movie fans captivated by their wild incongruity. Nolan’s film, which cost Universal Pictures at least $100 million to make, not including a megawatt marketing campaign, is a three-hour period drama about Robert Oppenheimer, the man known as “the father of the atomic bomb.” About 200,000 people purchased tickets to see “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” as a double feature, according to the National Association of Theater Owners, a trade organization.
Rethinking the Circus 2023-07-23 - The idea of Cirque du Soleil might invite images of extravagant live shows with clowns, acrobats and fire breathers. The company is trying to change that. Cirque du Soleil came out of the pandemic in rough shape. So it decided to build a more expansive, catastrophe-proof brand — aiming to sell not just shows but also sunglasses, perfumes and video games, as my colleague Emma Goldberg wrote in a story documenting its transformation. “Cirque is a funny example of an attempt at cultural reinvention because I don’t even think of circuses as trying to be relevant,” Emma told me. “They were asking the question, ‘Why isn’t Gen Z interested in the circus?’ That almost feels rhetorical. It’s because 5-year-olds are into the circus.” The decision came after months of meetings with consultants. Because they were talking about the circus instead of, say, banking, people dropped phrases like, “I think there’s a real opportunity to elevate the art of clowning” and “Don’t focus on the Cirque, focus on the Soleil.”
How a Mexican Lager Quietly Rose to Become America’s Best-Selling Beer 2023-07-23 - More beers in America are being paired with lime than ever before. The story of how Modelo Especial, a Mexican lager, surpassed Bud Light as the top-selling beer in America predates the conservative backlash that Bud Light faced in April over a collaboration with a transgender influencer. The country’s steadily growing Hispanic population is only part of the story, too. Rather, the factors that, for the better part of a decade, put Modelo on its triumphant track include an increasing preference among American consumers for imported, more expensive beer; a decade-old antitrust deal; and effective marketing campaigns aimed at attracting young, non-Hispanic consumers to the Mexican beer. “Most people in the beer industry have assumed Modelo was going to overtake Bud Light at some point,” said Bart Watson, chief economist for the Brewers Association, a trade group representing over 6,000 American breweries. “It was a question of when, not if.” The switch occurred at the start of June, after Bud Light had held the No. 1 spot for about 20 years. In the four-week period that ended July 8, Modelo made up 8.7 percent of retail beer sales in the United States, compared with Bud Light’s 6.8 percent, according to Nielsen IQ data analyzed by the consulting firm Bump Williams.
Drugmakers Are ‘Throwing the Kitchen Sink’ to Halt Medicare Price Negotiations 2023-07-23 - The legal push comes just weeks before the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is scheduled to publish a long-awaited list of the first 10 drugs that will be subject to negotiations. The list is due out by Sept. 1; the makers of the selected drugs have until Oct. 1 to declare whether they will participate in negotiations — or face steep financial penalties for not doing so. The lower prices will not take effect until 2026. Earlier this month, the chamber asked a federal judge in Ohio to issue an injunction that would block any negotiations while its case is being heard. Lawrence O. Gostin, an expert in public health law at Georgetown University, said the Supreme Court might be sympathetic to some of the industry’s arguments. In particular, he pointed to a claim by drugmakers that by requiring them to negotiate or pay a fine, the law violates the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on the taking of private property for public use without just compensation. “The Supreme Court is openly hostile to any perceived violation of the Fifth Amendment,” Mr. Gostin said, adding, “It would not surprise me at all to see these cases go up to the Supreme Court and have them strike it down.” For Mr. Biden and his fellow Democrats, that would be a painful blow. The president and Democrats have long campaigned on reducing drug prices and plan to make it a central theme of their 2024 campaigns. The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said in a statement that Mr. Biden was confident the administration would win in court.
Oppenheimer and Barbie give Vue cinemas best UK weekend since Covid 2023-07-23 - The success of Barbie and Oppenheimer at the box office has led to Vue International reporting its biggest weekend for UK cinema ticket sales since before the pandemic. On Sunday, the cinema chain said a fifth of its customers had bought tickets to see both films in a double bill given the moniker Barbenheimer on social media. More than 2,000 of Vue’s screenings for Barbie were sold out, according to the company. The two films, released on Friday, have contrasting storylines with Greta Gerwig’s comedy about the famous doll and Christopher Nolan’s biographical thriller chronicling the physicist J Robert Oppenheimer’s role in developing the first atomic bomb. The company said the comedy drama Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, would exceed ticket sales for Super Mario Bros and expected Oppenheimer to become the biggest film of the year. Tim Richards, chief executive and founder of Vue International, said: “Vue saw its highest weekend admissions since Avengers: Endgame in 2019 with the release of Barbie and Oppenheimer, proving that when the movies are there our customers will come to watch them on the big screen. “Barbie is tracking to become the biggest film of 2023 and has a good chance of getting into the Top 10 highest grossing films of all time. “It is an incredibly exciting moment for the industry, and we expect this trend to continue for the coming weeks.” In total, the cinema chain had more than 4,000 sell-out sessions across the country for both films. It comes after cinema chain Odeon reported on Thursday that more than 200,000 advance tickets had been bought and more than 10,000 guests were expected to see both films during the opening weekend. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Film Weekly Free newsletter Take a front seat at the cinema with our weekly email filled with all the latest news and all the movie action that matters 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 Universal Pictures said Oppenheimer, which stars Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh, had made £8.05m in the UK and Ireland since Friday. The film production and distribution company said the biopic is on track to have a better opening three days than Nolan’s other blockbusters Dunkirk, Interstellar and Inception. It comes during a problematic period for the industry due to the pandemic when many cinemas were closed for months on end in 2020 and 2021. Last month, Cineworld, the world’s second-largest cinema chain, said its screens will remain open despite its plans to file for administration to reduce its debts of $5bn (£3.9bn). The firm, which owns the Picturehouse chain in the UK, said it was still business as usual for its cinemas. Cineworld filed for bankruptcy protection in the US last September.