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Bitcoin slides to two-month low as Fed signals it's not ready to cut rates yet 2024-07-04 17:09:00+00:00 - A worsening macroeconomic climate and the collapse of industry giants such as FTX and Terra have weighed on bitcoin's price this year. STR | Nurphoto via Getty Images Bitcoin's price slumped to around $57,000 apiece Thursday, hitting a two-month low after the U.S. Federal Reserve released minutes from its June meeting indicating the central bank isn't yet ready to cut interest rates. At around 2:30 p.m. London time, the digital currency fell around 5% in 24 hours to $56,837, falling below the $57,000 mark for the first time since May 1, according to data from crypto ranking site CoinGecko. Since then, bitcoin has pared losses somewhat and was trading at $57,932.57, down 3.4% as of 5:05 p.m. London time. Rival token ether, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency, was down 5% at $3,120. It comes after the Federal Reserve on Wednesday released minutes from its June meeting which showed officials are reluctant to lower interest rates until additional data shows inflation moving sustainably toward the central bank's 2% target. Higher interest rates are typically less favorable for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as it dampens investor risk appetite. Bitcoin stormed to an all-time high of above $73,700 in March this year after the Securities and Exchange Commission approved the first U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund, or ETF. ETFs allow investors to buy a product that tracks the price of bitcoin without owning the underlying cryptocurrency. Crypto proponents say this has helped legitimize the asset class and make it easier for larger institutional investors to get involved. Since then, however, bitcoin has been trading within a range between roughly $59,000 and $72,000. Recently, the world's largest cryptocurrency has been pressured by news of collapsed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox readying the distribution of around $9 billion worth of coins to users, which is expected to lead to some significant selling action. watch now On Thursday, a small amount of bitcoin was moved from three wallets previously associated with Mt. Gox, according to Arkham Intelligence. The largest movement was for $24 worth of the cryptocurrency. It was not immediately clear if this transaction was made in connection with the Mt. Gox repayment plan. Elsewhere, the German government on Thursday sold roughly 3,000 bitcoins — worth approximately $175 million as of today's prices — from a 50,000-bitcoin pile seized in connection with the movie piracy operation Movie2k, according to blockchain analysis firm Arkham Intelligence . Arkham, which is tracking the German government's bitcoin wallet, said that the assets were moved to crypto exchanges Kraken, Bitstamp, and Coinbase, as well as an separate, unidentified wallet. "These funds are likely moving to a deposit for an institutional service or OTC," Arkham said in a post on X. Can bitcoin still gain from here? However, analysts at crypto data and research firm CCData said in a research report Tuesday that bitcoin hasn't yet reached the top of its current appreciation cycle and is likely to hit a fresh all-time high. According to the report, historical market "cycles" have shown that bitcoin's so-called "halving" event — which cuts the supply of new bitcoins to the market — has always preceded a period of price expansion that can last between 12 to 18 months “before producing a cycle top.” watch now
What's open and closed on July 4th? See which stores and restaurants are operating today. 2024-07-04 17:04:00+00:00 - 4 things to know from July 4, 2024 4 things to know from July 4, 2024 01:45 July 4th has arrived and millions of people plan to celebrate the nation's independence simply by having fun with family and friends. For many Americans, the festivities will most likely include hosting a barbecue or attending one. But if you're short on burger buns or looking to eat out, no worries, many retailers will be open. Here's a list of what is and isn't open on the Fourth of July. What places are open on July 4th 2024? Retailers Academy Sports + Outdoors Barnes & Noble Bass Pro Shops Bed Bath & Beyond Best Buy BJ's Wholesale Club Cabela's Crate & Barrel CVS Dollar General Dollar Tree Family Dollar Food Lion Guitar Center Home Depot HomeGoods Kohl's Krogers and its network of grocery stores — including Ralphs, King Soopers, Metro Market, Pick'n Save and more Lowe's Macy's Marshalls Menards Michaels Petco Publix REI Rite Aid Sam's Club Sephora T.J. Maxx Target Trader Joe's Tractor Supply Company Walgreens Walmart Whole Foods Restaurants, fast-food chains open on July 4th 2024 Bahama Breeze Bob Evans Buffalo Wild Wings Burger King Chili's Chipotle Chick-fil-A Cracker Barrel Cold Stone Creamery Dairy Queen Denny's Dunkin' Golden Corral IHOP Olive Garden Pizza Hut Popeyes Ruby Tuesday TGI Fridays Sonic Subway Waffle House Places with special hours of operation on July 4th 2024 Applebee's Aldi Ace Hardware Foot Locker GameStop IKEA Old Navy Starbucks Wendy's What places are closed on July 4th 2024? Costco Natural Grocers UPS FedEx Government offices Post offices Courts Schools U.S. stock markets Banks
Ray Kurzweil Still Says He Will Merge With A.I. 2024-07-04 17:00:13+00:00 - Mr. Kurzweil, a renowned inventor and futurist who built a career on predictions that defy conventional wisdom, made the same claim in his 2005 book, “The Singularity Is Near.” After the arrival of A.I. technologies like ChatGPT and recent efforts to implant computer chips inside people’s heads, he believes the time is right to restate his claim. Last week, he published a sequel: “The Singularity Is Nearer.” Now that Mr. Kurzweil is 76 years old and is moving a lot slower than he used to, his predictions carry an added edge. He has long said he plans to experience the Singularity, merge with A.I. and, in this way, live indefinitely. But if the Singularity arrives in 2045, as he claims it will, there is no guarantee he will be alive to see it.
Women’s soccer draws private-equity interest as team valuations soar 2024-07-04 16:56:00+00:00 - Women's soccer is bringing private equity off the sidelines. While other major U.S. sports leagues – Major League Soccer, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League – have allowed private equity investors to take passive, minority stakes, only the National Women's Soccer League has allowed these firms to take majority control of the economics. "We really see institutional capital as a way to really infuse additional capital behind our assets," Jessica Berman, commissioner of the NWSL, told CNBC in an interview. Sixth Street was the first to own a team in building out the San Francisco women's team, Bay FC, last year. At the time, the firm paid a record $54 million for the league's 14th franchise. The second-ever such deal closed a few weeks ago, as Carlyle partnered with men's team, the Seattle Sounders FC, to buy that city's counterpart in the NWSL, the Reign FC. The transaction valued the Reign at $58 million – far beyond the $3.5 million it sold for just five years ago. As part of the deal, Sounders FC owner Adrian Hanauer serves as governor of Reign FC on the NWSL Board, while Carlyle's head of private credit, Alex Popov, serves as alternate governor. Popov said NWSL attendance, up more than 40% this year, is evidence of the momentum in the sport. "We're seeing that inflection point, we're seeing it for the right reasons," Popov said. "And there is a lot of things for all of us to do, to continue to have growth."
I'm a tech CEO who moved from California to Nevada after my home was burglarized. I feel safer in Las Vegas, which has nearly everything San Francisco had and more. 2024-07-04 16:32:38+00:00 - By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time by visiting our Preferences page or by clicking "unsubscribe" at the bottom of the email. Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Teddy Liaw, the 45-year-old CEO of contact center solutions company NexRep, who moved from San Francisco to Summerlin, Nevada, a Las Vegas suburb, in 2021 after he grew frustrated by crime in the Bay Area. Liaw founded the Vegas Tech Summit, a multi-day tech conference promoting Vegas as a burgeoning tech center. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. The following has been edited for length and clarity. I absolutely loved the Bay Area. I loved the culture, the food, the people, the intellect, and the gorgeous views of the water surrounding an amazing city. But COVID-19 absolutely wrecked the city. It's not the same San Francisco as before. It's still rebounding, and it's not all the way back yet. Advertisement I had been living in San Francisco for about 15 years before I moved. I owned a condo that had a gorgeous bay view on the top of the hill. The Bay Area had so much to offer, including a thriving entrepreneurial and tech ecosystem that made very smart people smarter. But during the pandemic, there was rampant crime. I don't appreciate it when people turn it into a homelessness issue because San Francisco has had homeless people before and found ways to provide services. That was the narrative during COVID. But it's not a homelessness issue. It was a safety issue. At the end of 2020, my house was burglarized. My experience with law enforcement was not positive. That was the last straw. Advertisement I've got two young kids, and I asked myself: Is this the type of environment that will be safe for my family? The answer, unfortunately, was no. Everywhere was on the table I was considering Los Angeles, Washington State, and Texas. In January 2021, right in the middle of COVID, I decided to do a scouting trip to Vegas. It opened my eyes to what Vegas had to offer, including new houses, clean living, and ample playgrounds for children. Related stories There was amazing food of all ethnicities, cuisines, and cultures. Vegas has entertainment, family life, and suburbia life, just 20 minutes away from all the socializing you would ever want. Advertisement It became a very easy decision. Summerlin is a suburb about 20 minutes outside Las Vegas. halbergman/Getty Images Summerlin is a master-planned community about 20 minutes from all the action. You can't go more than half a mile without running into a park. We're in a desert, but there's a lot of greenery. Summerlin is designed for families. It has an amazing list of school options from preschool through high school, including some of the top private schools in the state. Plus, I like to play golf, and there are so many golf options. Advertisement I got close to 7,000 square feet and two swimming pools here for the same price as I got my four-bedroom condo in the Bay Area. I needed a house that my friends wanted to visit. As soon as I moved, I started inviting friends to come and visit. Many of them ended up being overwhelmed by what Vegas had to offer. I convinced a bunch of my friends to move. There is a whole wave of people I "imported" from California. Everyone is always concerned about the 110-degree heat, but in just 35 minutes, you can be at Mount Charleston and it's only 85 degrees there. Yes, we're in a desert, but we can drive 35 minutes and find sledding in the wintertime. Quite frankly, Vegas has over-delivered on quality of life. Advertisement Vegas is well on its way to being a thriving tech ecosystem There's nothing as good for work as the Bay Area. It offered serendipitous opportunities. Back in the day, you could get in a shared Uber, sit with the VP of some tech company, and have a great 20-minute conversation. Or you could be at a restaurant and overhear an executive's conversation next to you. That was the spirit of San Francisco. That magic of the Bay Area hasn't fully made its way over to Vegas, but it's going to happen. When I came to Vegas, I started meeting with public officials and was appointed to the previous governor's startup and venture council. I later founded a nonprofit called Vegas Tech Summit. It's already attracted successful entrepreneurs and tech folks from all over the country who come and see what Vegas offers. Advertisement My goal is to make people see that Vegas has the potential to be a thriving tech ecosystem, and we're well on our way to achieving that. I see a lot of VCs and entrepreneurs who have already moved here. The last thing I'm missing here is an existing group of friends. You can't replace decades of friendship. But I've realized that there are so many new people moving here, and everybody's eager to find good people and build community. That's the spirit of Vegas.
A CEO explains the simple way he deters his employees from 'quiet vacationing' 2024-07-04 16:25:19+00:00 - By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time by visiting our Preferences page or by clicking "unsubscribe" at the bottom of the email. Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview Quiet vacationing — or taking time off or working from across the world without telling your boss — is growing in popularity. Millennials, in particular, seem to be especially fond of the trend. A recent Harris Poll found that nearly four out of 10 millennial respondents admitted to taking time off without informing higher-ups. So what's a boss to do if he wants to stop employees from sneaking out of the office behind his back? This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. David Barkoe, the CEO and founder of Florida-based PR firm Carve Communications, said it all comes down to creating a culture of trust with your employees. Advertisement "Go live your life, but get the job done," Barkoe told Business Insider while describing his approach. "I'm going to trust you from minute one, from the moment I hire you, to just get the job done, however you feel best to do it." In practice, that culture takes a lot of forms. Sometimes, it's an employee working a couple hours early in the morning so they can sign off early to make their kid's swim meet. Other times, it's an employee taking a three-week trip to Europe where the first week is PTO, and the next two, they simply work from another time zone. Barkoe said the open and flexible culture, which is actively encouraged and practiced by higher-ups, makes it so employees do not feel like they need to sneak away just to get a break. "It's absolutely culture-driven," he said. Advertisement Barkoe believes a reason people are taking quiet vacations is because they feel like their employer is not giving them trust and respect, so they just take the vacation they want anyway. Related stories As for bosses who are worried having such a flexible culture would result in less work getting done, Barkoe has found the opposite to be true. When Carve went fully remote in 2020, Barkoe said he realized very quickly they were never going back to the office. "It was just working. People were more motivated," he said. Although it may be different at a company with thousands of employees, Barkoe said, "As a small organization, if you're not doing your job, it's pretty hard to hide." He added that if someone does take advantage, then they're probably not the right person for your team, regardless. Advertisement Ashton Mathai, the associate director of content at Barkoe's firm, told BI she fully takes advantage of Carve's unlimited PTO policy and work-from-anywhere culture. A recent survey found millennials were more likely than other generations to take time off without telling their bosses. Mariya Borisova/Getty Images Last year, Mathai traveled to Europe for two months. She took 10 days of PTO to start the trip and then spent the remainder of the time working from places like Scotland, Amsterdam, Portugal, and Italy. Because she was in a different time zone, she'd often work 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. local time and spend the morning doing a tour or going to the beach. "I would live my life in the morning and then in the afternoon, night I would do my work," she said. Mathai said before she went, her bosses told her they had total confidence in her that she would get her work done while she was gone. Advertisement "It wasn't a threat. It was truly total confidence," she said. "So I kind of went there knowing like I want to make them proud. I want to make myself proud and do my work." In addition to working from abroad, she said she also takes plenty of full-fledged PTO. Earlier this year, she traveled to India for two weeks with family and didn't work. "There's a lot of encouragement from leadership, from David himself, to take time off," Mathai said of Barkoe. Barkoe said a lot of companies have unlimited PTO in theory but that there's a difference between saying it and doing it. He tries to actively encourage and call people out, in a good way, when they take advantage of Carve's flexible culture. Advertisement "You just got to have the mindset and the willingness to say personal life is part of the work culture," he said. "Not the other way around, where work culture is part of the personal life."
Why this Wall Street trailblazer believes furniture can unite America 2024-07-04 15:18:00+00:00 - When Lulu C. Wang immigrated to the United States from Shanghai with her family in 1948, she only knew one word of English. “I remember going to school for the first day … walking in and thinking, ‘Oh, how am I going to understand what these people are saying?’ And one little girl came up to me and she said something, and I had no idea. I knew one word, ‘What?’ So I said ‘What?’ And then she repeated it two or three times and I said, ‘What,’ two or three times … I found out later on she was asking me, ‘Where’s the wastepaper basket?’ It was a good beginning and I’ve come to learn to love the English language,” Wang told MSNBC in a recent interview. Wang was just 4 years old when her family was forced to call America their new home amid the Chinese communist revolution. “We came to the U.S. thinking we were coming on vacation. Little [did] we know that when we were here, the communists would come into Shanghai. The revolution began, so we were not able to go back. My father had worked for the nationalists, and so we just started from scratch. We left everything behind, and we only had our family and our dream of a life together.” Not only did Wang and her family rebuild their life together, she went on to embody the American Dream. She conquered Wall Street, had a family of her own and now dedicates her life to philanthropy, specifically the arts. Wang, who will turn 80 this fall, resides in New York. But for her, it’s New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art that she considers her second home. “I live two blocks away so you can see me very often,” Wang laughed. “My husband thinks I live here. In fact, on the third floor, we have a 17th century bedroom with a beautiful bed [in the collection]. And he accuses me of living there sometimes because he seldom sees me at home.” Wang serves as a trustee for the MET and funded six galleries alongside her husband Anthony Wang. The galleries are located in the museum’s American Wing (which is celebrating its 100th anniversary) and are centered around 18th Century American Art. The installation reopened this year with 45 pieces of furniture, which are displayed on pedestals. It features everything from chairs, a card table and a high chest made by highly skilled wood workers from 1720 and 1775. “I think art has incredible power,” Wang said. “It has the power to excite, but most importantly, the power of connecting. And art allows us to connect with people like us and not like us, and to learn from that experience.” Wang said giving back to the country that made her dreams possible brings her immense joy. Wang immigrated to America from Shanghai with her family when she was a child. Courtesy Lulu C. Wang “I think the American Dream is a wonderful thing. It’s of having a positive attitude, wanting to make a difference, but also includes wanting to give back,” Wang said. “And that’s what makes our country so great. People came with nothing. They built lives and communities together and then they gave back. That’s really been the vision that I’ve had, to achieve something, make a difference, but then also take time to give back to my community.” Wang’s road to success was no easy feat. Propelled by a combination of curiosity and determination, the young girl who didn’t know more than one word of English went on to graduate from Wellesley College and major in English Literature. She married her childhood sweetheart, and had a son. But while she was a stay-at-home mom, she had the desire for another challenge — to join the workforce, specifically Wall Street. “I stayed at home with my son till he was five and ready for full day school,” she said. “And then I needed something else and I thought Wall Street was an interesting place to go. It was a place to ask, ‘Why?’” Wang started off her career as a financial editor but then quickly realized she wanted to work on the investment side. She began in the wine industry and eventually became a consumer industry analyst. It was the late 1970s, and not many women worked on Wall Street. But Wang said she didn’t feel like an anomaly. “I never really thought of myself as just a woman or just a Chinese person,” she continued. “I really thought I was Lulu and Lulu wanted to learn, Lulu wanted to succeed. And I think that was always the driving factor.” But she didn’t stop there. Wang went to Columbia Business School and earned an MBA. Eventually she started her own hedge fund, Tupelo Capital. Wang became one of the only women on Wall Street in the 1970s, where she worked in portfolio management and trading at Equitable Capital Management. Courtesy Lulu C. Wang Wang’s humility is palpable when asked if she feels she paved the way for other women in finance. “I suppose you might say I was a trailblazer on Wall Street and there were very few women there,” she said with a smile. “And when I wanted to start my own firm, people always said, ‘Well, it’s been a hard area for women to get traction.’ And, again, since I never really thought of myself as just a woman, I was an individual [who] really had a vision of what my firm should be.” Amid the division in United States as the country celebrates its 248th birthday, Wang believes art can unify the nation. “Art reminds us that we are all human beings. And when you see a beautifully made piece of art, whether it’s from wood, or from canvas, you’re reminded of the human effort behind it,” she said. “And we all have that in us and to support it and work together on it, admire it together, really does bring us together.” As she looks back on her seven decades in this country and all she has accomplished, Wang said she’d tell her younger self “the sky’s the limit.” “It’s so important to achieve something but it’s far more important to be able to share it with others. And this is what makes America great.”
Microsoft's Surface Pro is fine, but it isn't the AI device to change personal computing 2024-07-04 14:56:00+00:00 - In this article MSFT Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT With Microsoft's new Surface Pro Flex Keyboard, you can type and use the trackpad without the accessory being physically connected to the 11th edition of the Surface Pro. Jordan Novet | CNBC When Microsoft announced its new line of Windows PCs in May, the company said the computers were "designed for AI" with new chips from Qualcomm that are more energy efficient than previous Intel processors. Among the first of the devices — called Copilot+ PCs — to hit the market is a Surface Pro convertible tablet. It can handle heftier computing tasks and boasts a longer battery life than laptops with Intel processors. It's a similar strategy to what Apple embarked on in 2020 when it started shipping custom energy-sipping Arm-based chips into its MacBooks, a move that has proved hugely successful. But what Microsoft has ultimately released with the Surface Pro amounts to a nice upgrade over its predecessor. To think it's ushering in a new era of AI computing is a bit farfetched. At least for now. The Surface line of computers doesn't drive a big business for Microsoft. The company reported $1.07 billion in device revenue, including from Surface PCs, in the first quarter, a small slice of its total $61.86 billion in revenue. I've been reviewing the Surface Pro for two weeks. Here's what you need to know about it. What's good The Surface Pro hardware is high end. Microsoft sent me a review unit with Qualcomm's 12-core Snapdragon X Elite chip, a 512GB solid-state drive, 16GB of RAM and an OLED display. The device starts at $999, but this model costs $1,499.99. Performance is snappy for web browsing — Google shipped an Arm version of Chrome for Windows in March — and productivity software and a few video games, including "Retrowave World" and "Poly Bridge 3," ran fine. The display is detailed and bright, with smooth scrolling thanks to a 120Hz refresh rate. The touchscreen is responsive. The iconic kickstand propping up the display is still solid. Under the kickstand, you'll find a compartment protecting the SSD, making hard drive replacements or upgrades easy. The Surface Pro delivered over eight hours of battery life in my early testing. Microsoft promises up to 10 hours of web browsing. The Surface Pro 9 with Microsoft's Arm-based SQ3 chip, released in 2022, was billed as having up to 19 hours of battery life, but reviewers found that app compatibility remained problematic. And unlike previous Arm-powered Surface PCs, such as the Surface Pro X from 2019, this model can run a wide assortment of applications, meaning buyers won't have to make a big compromise on compatibility. That's because Microsoft introduced a new emulator called Prism to help these new computers run programs designed for Intel and AMD chips. The Surface Pro retains its familiar kickstand design. Jordan Novet | CNBC Almost daily, developers show off smart software relying on AI models for a range of purposes. Most of the time, the programs use servers in data centers to run difficult processing chores. But increasingly, developers are delegating some processing to users' phones and computers. A Copilot+ PC should be well suited for this emerging type of software, thanks to a neural processing unit, or NPU. The architecture leads to longer battery life because the rest of the chip can do other work. Microsoft includes some of its own artificial intelligence features in Windows 11 that draw on the NPU. If you join video calls, you can open the Settings app on the Surface Pro Copilot+ PC and turn on an option called Eye Contact. It will make you appear to be looking right at your webcam during calls, even when you're reading text. Apple has a similar simulated eye contact feature for FaceTime calls on the iPad. In Paint, you can enable a Cocreator mode to produce an image inspired by whatever you draw on the screen and using a description you type in. The computer's NPU spits out the image, but only after Microsoft sends your text prompt to the cloud to make sure you're not trying to craft something harmful or offensive. I found it fun to see how Cocreator would interpret my suggestions, but the results were not very impressive. I was better off pressing the Copilot key on the keyboard, which brings up a window for chatting with Microsoft's Copilot, and asking it to create images in a text chat. But you only have so many free image-generation credits with Copilot before it starts handling requests more slowly, whereas the Paint feature is consistently speedy. An AC adapter in the box magnetically latches on to Microsoft's proprietary Surface Connect port. It will be familiar to those who have bought Surface devices in the past decade. But you can also charge with one of the two USB-C ports, which is convenient. The Surface Pro can be hooked up to three monitors at 4K resolution, while the MacBook Air with an M3 chip can drive a single external display with up to 6K resolution at a 60Hz refresh rate. There's no headphone jack on the $999 tablet. Nor does it come with a keyboard, following tradition. After all, an iPad still doesn't come with a keyboard. A standard Surface Pro Keyboard that magnetically snaps onto the bottom of the Surface Pro sells for $139.99, and if you'd also like a model with Microsoft's Slim Pen stylus, you'll pay $279.99. Microsoft sent me its new Surface Pro Flex Keyboard with a Slim Pen included, a bundle that costs $449.98. It's more expensive than the regular attachable keyboard because it connects over Bluetooth. Microsoft promises 41 hours of continuous typing with the accessory. It charges while attached to the Surface Pro. For some users, it might be helpful to pull off the keyboard and use it while keeping the tablet a short distance away. I didn't find the accessory to be a big upgrade from the good old Surface Pro Keyboard. The Copilot key to the left of the arrow keys brings up a window for chatting with Microsoft's multipurpose virtual assistant. Jordan Novet | CNBC What's bad The biggest AI feature coming to this new Surface Pro and other Copilot+ PCs isn't available yet. When Microsoft announced Copilot+ PCs in May, executives spent ample time talking about Recall, which will let you type in a few words to search through your PC activity and see matching results. The company delayed the launch and said Recall would be off by default after security researchers found that hackers might be able to get to users' private data through screenshots the feature captures. Meanwhile, some applications, including Google Drive and ExpressVPN, still won't work on these new computers, at least for the moment. And as Windows on Arm gains early traction, there can be times when a traditional version of an app will be available in Microsoft's app store, but a native Arm version can be found on the developer's website. (That's the case with the media player VLC, for example.) But as a rule, software is less of an issue now for Surface PCs sporting long battery life. And Microsoft has reduced the powers of the Copilot to control your PC on this device, making it similar to just visiting the chatbot on the web. When the company brought Copilot to Windows 11 last fall, the assistant could open programs, switch to dark mode and disable Bluetooth. It's easy to replace the solid-state drive on the new Surface Pro. Jordan Novet | CNBC Should you buy it? The 11th edition of the Surface Pro is worth considering, so long as you can be assured that the apps that you need will work on an Arm-based machine. That's more likely to be true than it was five years ago. The battery life is good, I like that it's easy to upgrade and swap out storage and the screen is excellent. It's a solid upgrade over earlier models. Microsoft made the right decision to move to Arm-based processors. But, the company has been billing this as an "AI PC," but, for now, the biggest AI features aren't here yet.
Cineworld ‘considers closing a quarter of its 100 UK cinemas’ 2024-07-04 14:48:00+00:00 - Cineworld is reportedly considering closing a quarter of its UK cinemas as part of a wide-ranging restructure. The cinema operator, which delisted from the London Stock Exchange last year after its share price collapsed, is drawing up plans to shut as many as 25 cinemas and renegotiate rent agreements at 50 more of its 100 or so UK sites, sources told Sky News. The chain, which is being advised by the consultants Alix Partners, owns cinemas including the Picturehouse chain and employs thousands of people. The proposals were expected to be outlined formally to creditors, including landlords, in the coming weeks and the mechanism adopted by the cinema operator was expected to be a restructuring plan rather than a company voluntary arrangement, Sky reported. Cineworld said: “We continue to review our options but we don’t comment on rumours and speculation.” The debt-laden chain struggled during the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to enforced closure of its sites for months. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US in 2022 and lodged a reorganisation plan with an American bankruptcy court from which it emerged last year. It tried to sell its US, UK and Irish businesses last year, but did not receive any acceptable offers. Cineworld was founded in 1995. It expanded under the leadership of the Greidinger family and later listed on the London Stock Exchange. Its acquisition of Regal Entertainment created the second largest cinema business in the world by number of screens, and it operates in central and eastern European markets including Poland and Hungary as well as Israel and the US. The restructuring comes as the sector continues its recovery from the lows of pandemic lockdowns. Tim Richards, the founder and chief executive of the cinema operator Vue International, told the BBC’s Wake up to Money programme that the industry had been recovering slowly after the pandemic but was hit again last year by the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes, which affected film productions. The sector was still suffering from the impact of the stoppages, he said: “We are not going to see a return to post-pandemic levels until some time probably 12 months from now.” Vue had gone through a restructuring with shareholders last year and was now “in very very good shape”, he added. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up 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 Richards said there were 35% fewer films released in 2022 than in the pre-pandemic era and 20% fewer in 2023. This compared with the period between 2017 and 2019 when there were three consecutive box office world records set, he said. “The pandemic hit and then we had a pretty slow recovery both in film production and as an industry … and then the strikes hit,” he said. “It could not have been a worse time. We have a supply issue and not a demand problem.”
Tall Ships Races with 50 classic vessels seek to draw attention to Baltic Sea’s alarming condition 2024-07-04 14:26:37+00:00 - HELSINKI (AP) — Dozens of classic sailing vessels from 13 countries that are plying the Baltic Sea arrived in the Finnish capital on Thursday at the end of the first leg of the Tall Ships Races that began in the Lithuanian port city of Klaipeda in late June. This year’s competition, with a total of 50 ships of different shapes and sizes, is themed around the alarming environmental status of the Baltic Sea, which is suffering from eutrophication — an excessive accumulation of nutrients that has led, among things, to the growth of harmful blue-green algae. “The Baltic Sea isn’t doing well,” said CEO Annamari Arrakoski-Engardt of the Finland-based John Nurminen Foundation that supports projects protecting the shallow sea’s marine environment. “It suffers from eutrophication and nature loss that are accelerated by climate change. But it’s not yet too late to save the Baltic Sea and its heritage for the future generations,” she said. The international charity sailing race is normally held every four years but returns to the Baltic Sea after a seven-year hiatus because the planned 2021 competition was canceled due to COVID-19. According to co-organizer Sail Training International, the race aims to teach the young global crews group dynamics while training them to handle the impressive old-school sailing ships, including some that are over a hundred years old. One of vessels, the naval training vessel Guayas, sailed to northern European waters from Ecuador in South America. The 2024 competition sails between six Baltic Sea ports: Helsinki, Turku and Mariehamn in Finland, Tallinn in Estonia, Szczecin in Poland and Klaipeda in Lithuania. Though a rather small sea internationally, the Baltic Sea is a major trade, passenger and military shipping route for the nine nations around it, including Russia, and has played a vital role in the history of northern Europe. “Helsinki is a maritime city and the Baltic Sea has shaped our southern coast and the history” of Finland, Helsinki Mayor Juhana Vartiainen said at the official welcoming ceremony aboard the elegant Polish training ship Dar Młodzieży. “Sea has always been of vital importance to our city’s trade and an important transport route out to the world” from the Nordic nation of 5.6 million, he said. A change from previous Tall Ships Races is that Russian vessels have been banned from taking part after Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Since Finland and Sweden joined NATO in 2023 and this year, respectively, Russia’s key port of St. Petersburg and its Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad are completely surrounded by members of the Western military alliance. The Tall Ships Races 2024 will end at the Polish seaport of Szczecin near the German border in early August.
Europe is slapping tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles — for now. Here’s what to know 2024-07-04 14:26:10+00:00 - FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The European Union is imposing sharply higher customs duties on electric vehicles imported from China. EVs are the latest flash point in a broader trade dispute over Chinese government subsidies and Beijing’s burgeoning exports of green technology to the 27-nation bloc. The higher duties go into effect on Friday, pending a final decision in four month’s time. Here are some basic facts about the EU’s planned customs duties: What did the European Union do? After an eight-month investigation, the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, found that companies making electric cars in China benefit from massive government help that means they can undercut rivals in the EU on prices, take a big market share and threaten European jobs. It announced the higher duties on June 12 and they go into effect from Friday. The duties are provisional, meaning they will be totaled up but won’t need to be paid until they’re confirmed by a vote of EU governments before Nov. 2. The EU will only collect the duties if there’s a further finding that the European auto industry would have suffered material harm without them. That gives the EU and the Chinese government time to negotiate. Talks have been held between Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU commissioner for the economy, and Chinese Trade Minister Wang Wentao, as well as at the level of technical experts. The higher duties are not a goal in themselves but “a means to correct an imbalance,” commission spokesman Eric Mamer said Thursday. “We certainly hope we can come to a solution which would allow us not to have to move forward on this path.” The rates, if applied, would be: 17.4% on cars from BYD, 19.9% on those from Geely and 37.6% for vehicles exported by China’s state-owned SAIC. Geely has brands including Polestar and Sweden’s Volvo, while SAIC owns Britain’s MG, one of Europe’s bestselling EV brands. Other EV manufacturers in China including Western companies such as Volkswagen, BMW and Tesla would be subject to duties of at least 20.8%. The commission mentioned that Tesla might get an “individually calculated” rate if duties are definitively imposed. Under EU rules it’s possible — though at present it seems unlikely — that the higher duties could be blocked ahead of the Nov. 2 effective date by vote of what the EU calls a “qualified majority” of countries. That means at least 15 of the 27 EU member governments representing at least 65% of the bloc’s population. Why did the commission take action? Chinese-built electric cars jumped from 3.9% of the EV market in 2020 to 25% by September 2023, the commission said, in part by unfairly undercutting EU industry prices. The commission says companies in China accomplished that with the help of subsidies all along the chain of production, from cheap land for factories from local governments to below-market supplies of lithium and batteries from state-owned enterprises to tax breaks and below-interest financing from state-controlled banks. The rapid growth in market share has sparked fears that Chinese cars will eventually threaten the EU’s ability to produce its own green technology needed to combat climate change, as well as the jobs of 2.5 million workers at risk in the auto industry and 10.3 million more people whose jobs depend indirectly on EV production. Subsidized solar panels from China have wiped out European producers — an experience that European governments don’t want to see repeated with their auto industry. Unusually, the commission acted on its own, without a complaint from the European auto industry. Industry leaders and Germany, home to BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, have been skeptics about the subsidy investigation. That’s because many of the cars that will be hit with tariffs are made by European companies, and because China could retaliate against the auto industry or in other areas. How do the EU tariffs compare to ones announced by the U.S.? The Biden administration is raising tariffs on Chinese EVs to 100% from the current 25%. At that level, the U.S. tariffs block virtually all Chinese EV imports. That’s not what Europe is trying to do. EU officials want affordable electric cars from abroad to achieve their goals of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 — but without the subsidies EU leaders see as unfair competition The planned tariffs are aimed at leveling the playing field by approximating the size of the excess or unfair subsidies available to Chinese carmakers. European countries subsidize electric cars, too. The question in trade disputes is whether subsidies are fair and available to all carmakers or distort the market in favor of one side. Just how cheap are Chinese EVs? Chinese carmakers have learned to make electric vehicles cheaply amid ferocious price competition at home in the world’s largest car market. BYD’s Seal U Comfort model sells for the equivalent of 21,769 euros ($23,370) in China but 41,990 euros ($45,078) in Europe, according to Rhodium Group figures. The base model of BYD’s compact Seagull, due to arrive in Europe next year, sells for the equivalent of around $10,000 in China. What does this mean for European drivers and carmakers? It’s not clear what impact the duties will have on car prices. Chinese carmakers are able to make some cars so cheaply that they could absorb the duties in the form of lower profits instead of raising their prices. While consumers might benefit from cheaper Chinese cars in the short term, allowing unfair practices could eventually mean less competition and higher prices in the long term, the commission argues. Currently, Chinese carmakers often sell their vehicles in Europe at much higher prices than the same cars fetch in China, meaning they are favoring profits over market share, even given their recent market gains. Five of BYD’s six models would still earn a profit in Europe even at a 30% tariff, according to Rhodium Group calculations. The fear is Europe is that Chinese competitors will turn to lowering their prices closer to the ones they are charging in China. and gain an even bigger chunk of the market. How is China likely to react? Beijing was sharply critical of the higher duties when they were announced, calling them “a naked act of protectionism.” On Thursday, He Yadong, a spokesperson for the Chinese Commerce Ministry, said that the two sides had held several rounds of technical consultations and noted that a final EU ruling won’t be made for four months. “It is hoped that the European side and the Chinese side will move in the same direction, show sincerity, expedite the consultation process and reach a mutually acceptable solution as soon as possible on the basis of facts and rules,” he said at a weekly media briefing in Beijing. He also said that China hopes the EU will seriously listen to the voices of the European automakers and governments that have come out against the tariffs and avoid anti-subsidy measures that would harm cooperation between the Chinese and European auto industries. It’s not clear what agreement might look like. One move could be to agree on minimum prices for Chinese cars. China could retaliate against European products such as pork or brandy imports, or against European luxury car imports. Over the longer term, Chinese carmakers could avoid tariffs by making cars in Europe. BYD is building a plant in Hungary, while Chery has a joint venture to build cars in Spain’s Catalonia region. ___ Moritsugu reported from Beijing.
Biden says he saw a doctor after the debate and acknowledges: 'I screwed up' 2024-07-04 14:25:00+00:00 - President Joe Biden told Democratic governors Wednesday that he’d been cleared by a doctor after last week’s debate, contradicting earlier statements from the White House about his medical care. The president met with the Democratic governors in person and by video call Wednesday evening and faced questions about last week’s devastating debate performance. Asked whether he’d received medical care after the debate, he told the assembled governors he was checked out by a doctor and that everything was fine, according to two sources familiar with the exchange. A few hours earlier, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated that Biden hadn’t undergone any medical exams since February when he last received a thorough physical and took several tests. Politico first reported Biden’s comments, which come as the president seeks to shore up supporters on the left amid concerns about his ability to do his job — and defeat Donald Trump in November. In a radio interview with a Wisconsin station that aired in full Thursday, Biden told listeners: "I had a bad night, I had a bad night. And the fact of the matter is ... I screwed up, I made a mistake." He continued: "I didn't have a good debate. That’s 90 minutes onstage. Look at what I’ve done in 3.5 years. I led the economy back from the brink of collapse." Acknowledging their earlier omission, the White House now says that Biden hasn’t had a physical since February but that he has seen a doctor regularly since then for brief check-ins, including after the debate. “Several days later, the President was seen to check on his cold and was recovering well,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates told NBC News in a statement Thursday morning. The White House added that Biden hasn’t undergone any kind of neurological scan since the debate a week ago. Like other presidents, Biden has a personal physician who travels with him and is on hand for any needs. Biden's meeting with governors was organized by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, as part of a broader effort to tamp down on concerns about his poor debate performance and the path forward.
Pubs furious at Co-op ad urging Euro 2024 fans to ‘stay in’ with a meal deal 2024-07-04 14:22:00+00:00 - Publicans have called on the Co-op to pull a “disgraceful” TV advert that urges the supermarket’s customers to watch the Euro 2024 football tournament at home rather than going to the pub. The Co-op Food ad says it is hard to see the TV screen in the pub and suggests customers instead “stay in” and take advantage of a beer and pizza deal the supermarket is promoting. Publicans responded furiously, accusing the Co-op of going against its much-vaunted ethical credentials by deliberately targeting an industry that is already struggling. In a letter to Co-op’s chief executive, Shirine Khoury-Haq, the Campaign for Pubs group said people in the hospitality sector were “deeply angry” about the advert. “You and your management team must surely be aware of what a challenging time it is for pubs and publicans, yet here you are, a supposedly ethical business, openly and deliberately undermining pubs and publicans’ livelihoods at this difficult time,” it wrote. “At the time when businesses in England should be uniting in support of the national football team, the Co-op has instead cynically and shamelessly sought to attack another important business sector to try to boost your own profits from the tournament. It really goes against everything that the Co-op movement stands for. Who on earth thought this was an acceptable thing to do?” The group called on Khoury-Haq to remove the “utterly crass and divisive” advert and apologise to publicans. The British Institute of Innkeeping and the beer enthusiasts’ group Camra have also criticised the ad. The BII’s chief executive, Steve Alton, told the Morning Advertiser it was “incredibly disappointing”, and Camra’s chief executive, Tom Stainer, said he hoped the supermarket would not run it again. Supermarkets performed well during the pandemic, but the pub trade was badly hit by lengthy forced closures, which have had a lasting effect on an industry already battling decline. More than 500 pubs closed in the UK last year, according to the British Beer & Pub Association, with many struggling to pay punishing rent and energy bills and the effect of the cost of living crisis on customers’ spending. Supermarkets also benefit from lower overheads on alcohol because they have much lower staff costs and can sell at artificially low prices as a “loss leader” to bring customers in, who then buy other products. A Co-op spokesperson said: “The 10 second advert is a light-hearted way of highlighting to our members and customers that, if they have made the choice to stay in to watch the football, we have a cracking pizza and beer deal they can purchase to enjoy in their homes, with the sole intention of providing great value on relevant products which customers tell us they want, especially at a time when the cost of living is high”.
Major retailers are backtracking on self-checkout 2024-07-04 14:00:00+00:00 - After years of investing in self-checkout machines, some major retailers are starting to reverse course. Dollar General said it has eliminated self-checkout options at about 12,000 locations, a majority of its stores, after it began the process in the first quarter this year. Five Below is working to remove self-checkout entirely in some of its “highest-risk” locations. Target also announced steps to limit or eliminate self-checkout options at some stores this year, and Amazon is pulling its “Just Walk Out” cashierless checkout system from its grocery stores. The U-turns are occurring at retailers that once touted the upsides of fully self-service stores. As recently as 2022, Dollar General described self-checkout technology’s potential to “enhance the convenience proposition, while enabling our associates to dedicate even more time to serving customers.” The company had tried to test stores with 100% self-checkout kiosks in hundreds of its retail locations. Five Below said it’s removing self-checkout options in locations it considers at high risk for thefts. Angus Mordant / Bloomberg via Getty Images file The decisions come amid retailers’ ongoing efforts to tamp down on “shrink,” an industry term for all the ways inventory can get lost, including through error or theft by shoppers or employees. Some of the companies shifting gears on self-checkout have blamed theft for their moves. In March, Five Below CEO Joel Anderson said the most significant change the company made in testing theft mitigation efforts was to replace self-checkout options with employees. Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos said in May that the company’s goal is to restrict self-checkout to high-traffic, low-theft locations. Still, the industry’s shoplifting complaints have occasionally raised eyebrows, and at least one retail executive admitted last year to overstating shrink concerns. Shrink at self-checkouts “can be absolutely intentional from bad actors,” said Claire Tassin, a retail and e-commerce analyst at Morning Consult, “or it could be accidental.” “I know I’m not the only one who has struggled with a self-checkout machine,” she said. In some cases, though, customers may be purposefully “pretending to scan something and just bagging it anyway.” People are always complaining about the machines’ being difficult to use, or loud, or just challenging in some way. Morning Consult ANalyst Claire Tassin According to a LendingTree survey last year, 15% of self-checkout users admitted to stealing while they were using the machines. About 41% of consumers said they almost always use self-checkout when it’s available, but 21% said the option feels like they’re performing “free labor,” and 14% saw it as taking a job from a would-be cashier. Representatives for Dollar General and Five Below didn’t immediately comment. Tassin said some retailers may also be looking to improve the customer experience. “People are always complaining about the machines’ being difficult to use or loud or just challenging in some way,” she said. That’s how Jerome Osei described them recently at a Morton Williams supermarket in New York City. “I have to wait for someone to come in and fix it, and it’s just a waste of time,” he said, opting for the cashier checkout, instead. Other shoppers there had more favorable views. “Super fast, easy, convenient” was fellow shopper Jessi Clayton’s review. “It’s a great option to have, especially when you’re in a hurry.” Consumers who’ve fretted about self-checkouts’ impact on jobs might be cheered by the recent rollbacks. Five Below and Dollar General said they’re reinvesting in workers as part of their changes. “It tells us that it is more profitable for the retailer to pay employees to manage checkout,” Tassin said. “And they’re of course going to be better at it than the average untrained consumer than it is to support the machines, where they’re probably getting less-than-accurate checkouts from consumers.” But despite the shift back toward human cashiers, she doesn’t expect shoppers to have to pay more. “Retailers know consumers are pretty pressed for prices. So I don’t think this will make a massive, meaningful difference in consumer prices” at the moment, she said. While some stores are moving away from self-checkout, the option doesn’t look like it’s going away any time soon. An estimated 44% of transactions at grocery stores took place in self-checkout lanes last year, according to the Food Industry Association, up from 29% in 2022.
EU brushes aside risk of China trade war over electric vehicle tariffs 2024-07-04 13:37:00+00:00 - The EU’s top trade official, Valdis Dombrovskis, has brushed aside concerns of trade-war retaliation from Beijing against European business, after the European Commission imposed duties on Chinese electric vehicles. Dombrovskis, a European Commission vice-president, told Bloomberg Television that talks with China were ongoing, adding: “We are not seeing the basis for retaliation as what we are conducting is indeed in line with WTO [World Trade Organization] rules.” Provisional tariffs on Chinese EV imports to the bloc ranging from 17.4% to 37.6% will apply from Friday, after the two sides failed to reach an agreement on what the EU executive called “unfair” subsidies from Beijing. These tariffs – far lower than the 100% tariffs imposed by the US – will come on top of the EU’s existing 10% duty on electric vehicles from China. Europe’s biggest carmaker, Volkswagen, reiterated its criticism on Thursday of the commission’s proposed tariffs on EVs made in China, arguing that they would not strengthen Europe’s car industry in the long term. Volkswagen, which is grappling with falling market share in China, has previously warned of retaliation from Beijing. “The timing of the EU Commission’s decision is detrimental to the current weak demand for [battery electric vehicles] in Germany and Europe,” the company said on Thursday. Stellantis, owner of brands including Citroën, Fiat and Vauxhall, has said it will not take a defensive stance in the battle for electric car sales and preferred to “fight to stay competitive”. The tariffs are the result of an ongoing EU investigation launched last October, which found Chinese producers benefited from subsidies at every stage of production, from the mining of lithium used in batteries to shipping the vehicles to EU ports, such as Rotterdam and Antwerp. “Based on the investigation, the commission has concluded that the BEV [battery electric vehicle] value chain in China benefits from unfair subsidisation, which is causing a threat of economic injury to EU BEV producers,” it said in a statement to accompany a legal decision published on Thursday. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, told Xi Jinping during the Chinese president’s recent visit to Europe that “imbalances” caused by state support for Chinese industry, leading to artificially cheap products, threatened jobs in Europe, which was “a matter of great concern”. China, which has said it is looking for a “mutually acceptable solution” to the dispute, is investigating French cognac and pork imports over subsidies, raising the prospect of tit-for-tat measures. “It is plain for all to see who is escalating trade frictions and instigating a ‘trade war’,” the Chinese commerce ministry said last month. China has won a 25% share of the EU market for electric-battery powered cars, up from 3% in 2020. EU officials fear that without action a European industry that employs 2.5 million people and 10.3 million in the wider supply chain could be seriously hurt, just as the EU saw its solar-panel companies lose out to subsidised Chinese competitors. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up 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 From Friday, importers of Chinese vehicles into the EU will be required to give bank guarantees to customs officers to pay the duties. Money will be collected only if the commission concludes in the autumn that the car industry would have been harmed without these duties. A final decision on definitive duties – which would be in force for five years – will only be taken in the autumn, pending a vote by the EU’s 27 member states. Under the provisional measures, China’s BYD, which vies with Tesla for the spot of the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles, faces a tariff of 17.4%; Geely will pay 19.9% and SAIC 37.6%. The rates, calculated according to total subsidies and company turnover, have been modestly adjusted downwards in most cases since the required pre-disclosure of tariffs last month, after technical talks with the companies. The tariffs enter into force despite staunch opposition from Germany, Europe’s largest exporter to China. The German government has called for an “amicable solution”, but also said “serious movement is needed on the Chinese side”. German officials do not expect to reverse the measures, which can only be overturned by a weighted majority of 15 EU member states, representing 65% of the union’s population.
British electricity prices could hinder switch to green technology, says steel industry 2024-07-04 13:34:00+00:00 - British electricity prices were double those paid in France and Spain in the spring, with the steel industry saying the disadvantage could hinder UK efforts to switch to greener technology. UK companies paid nearly £66 per megawatt hour (MWh) for wholesale electricity in the second quarter of 2024, well over double the French and Spanish equivalents in the same period, according to analysis of industry data by the lobby group UK Steel. The gap between UK prices and those of Spain and France has widened to its largest since at least 2015, when the group started tracking price movements. During that time the UK has been consistently more expensive, except during the energy crisis sparked in 2022 by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when prices were extremely volatile. The growing divergence between the UK and rivals’ electricity costs represents a big challenge for an expected Labour government, which has voiced full-throated support for the steel industry in switching to electric technology and away from polluting coal. It has pledged £3bn in subsidies. Within hours of polls in the UK general election closing on Thursday evening, Tata Steel will tap the last iron from one of its two blast furnaces at Port Talbot in south Wales after a closure process lasting several days. The Indian-owned company is planning to close its second blast furnace and the rest of its steel-making process in September before building a much cleaner electric arc furnace. The plans, which have been at the centre of a row with unions, involve as many as 2,800 job losses. Jonathan Reynolds, who will be business secretary if Labour wins the election, is expected to meet Tata Steel executives as soon as Monday to discuss government support for the company. The Conservative government agreed £500m in subsidies, but unions are hopeful that Labour will push for a deal that protects more jobs. Tata executives have said they will consider the business case for further investments which could save more jobs, although Labour has not said what it plans for the remainder of the promised £3bn. Relatively high energy prices in the UK, however, act as a brake on investment by heavy industry. Much of the European investment in steel innovation – such as making direct reduced iron using hydrogen – has been directed to Sweden, where there is abundant cheap hydropower. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up 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 average electricity prices for France and Spain were £26.68 and £27.89 respectively in the second quarter of 2024, according to UK Steel. The figures refer to wholesale prices only, and do not include policy levies and network charges. French costs have been helped by the return to service of several nuclear power plants, while Spain has used abundant solar power. Executives in energy-intensive industries ranging from steel and glass to ceramics and chemicals have long complained that UK electricity costs leave them at a significant disadvantage relative to their European rivals. UK plants and factories often compete directly with EU counterparts for investments. UK Steel’s energy and climate change policy manager, Frank Aaskov, said: “The steel industry is the foundation of the UK’s manufacturing and economic strengths. We must not lose sight of how important electricity costs are in the move to green steel as we fully switch to electric arc furnace technology to secure steel for our nation. “The UK steel industry cannot continue to face electricity prices that are more than double what our main European competitors benefit from. For the UK steel industry to prosper and deliver on its decarbonisation targets, a new government must deliver the lowest electricity prices in Europe.” The government has taken some action to reduce industrial energy costs, including the so-called supercharger policy which cuts levies funding renewable energy for some big electricity users. Room for manoeuvre is limited, however, because UK electricity prices are closely related to prices for methane burned in power stations.
The pool party’s over as Americans ease up on backyard upgrades 2024-07-04 13:00:00+00:00 - Americans will be splashing around this summer in the backyard pools they’ve already got, but not splashing out as much on new ones. Swimming pool installations were part of the home improvement frenzy that swept the country during the pandemic as Americans were stuck at home. But recent signs show demand is slowing as households with spending money shift it more toward vacations than renovations. Pool Corp., a national pool equipment distributor with a roughly $11 billion market valuation, said last week it expects new pool construction to fall by 15% to 20% this year. Some local contractors across the country are seeing a pullback, too. Skip Ast III, sales director at Shasta Pools in the Phoenix metropolitan area, said the local industry has been having a harder time since roughly 2022. We’re very, very busy still. Pool Installer Scott Payne, Hatfield, Pa. “If 2023 wasn’t already considered — by pool volume — kind of disastrous, this year’s been worse,” he said, but added that the company has managed to adapt. While consumers aren’t cutting back on overall record spending, those with extra money in their budgets are increasingly burning it on experiences like travel, dining out and other service-sector purchases. Airlines and hotels are expecting a strong travel season, cruise lines are seeing record bookings, and tickets for concerts and sporting events are still hot at sky-high prices. By contrast, nonessential household purchases are cooling off amid higher food costs and the Federal Reserve’s push to tame inflation by keeping interest rates elevated — triggering a long stretch of steep mortgage and credit card rates. The falloff in big-ticket home purchases has been many months in the making, and pools aren’t the only backyard feature facing slower demand; Traeger Grills reported declining revenues in the first quarter, part of a trend that began early in the post-pandemic recovery. But businesses that rely on Americans’ appetite for home upgrades are still adjusting to leaner times — including pool builders. In 2020, installations of all kinds of pools, from in-ground and hot tub pools to typically cheaper inflatable and above-ground models, rose by 20%, according to property analytics firm Cape Analytics. At the time, “people started settling in for, ‘OK, we’re going to be at home for a while, we need to bring the vacations into our backyards,’” said Ast, whose family has been in the pool construction business for nearly 60 years. He recalled suppliers struggling to keep up with a crush of orders and contractors facing monthslong backlogs. Scott Payne, a pool installer in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, also saw business explode during the pandemic: “As a company, we doubled revenue five of the first seven years. Two of those years were during Covid.” He described taking eight to 10 calls a day at the peak of demand. But despite the more recent declines nationwide, Payne and Ast said their businesses are doing well, even as both have raised prices due to rising materials costs. Both said their work during the pandemic helped lay a foundation to weather this slowdown. Responding to surging demand in an affluent area several years ago allowed Payne’s company to develop an “omnipresence” there that it’s still cashing in on, he said. While he has fewer projects in the works today, he’s doing more expensive ones, allowing his business to maintain its higher revenues. The lines get blurred a little bit between luxury and need in the middle of the desert. Skip Ast III, Sales Director at Shasta Pools, Phoenix “A lot of companies have maybe pulled back a little,” he said. “I can’t say we’re not seeing it, but we’re maybe a little isolated from it. We’re very, very busy still.” Ast said Shasta’s own moves during the pandemic are also paying off as demand cools. It rolled out an online calculator to help potential clients estimate the costs of their projects, and it launched a new pool care division that offers maintenance services after installation. All these factors combined have allowed the company to take in a greater share of revenue from fewer consumers in the overall market, Ast said. Even Pool Corp. pointed to a silver lining in the slowdown: After so many households recently built new pools or upgraded existing ones, there’s higher demand for upkeep services like the kind Shasta now offers. “We are encouraged as maintenance-related product sales have remained stable, evidenced by volume growth in chemicals, and equipment sales (excluding cleaners) being down only 2% for the year, an improvement from the 3% decline realized in the first quarter of 2024,” the company said in its earnings release. And with climate change contributing to earlier, hotter, more frequent heat waves — like those that scorched much of the country in mid-June — some consumers may be starting to see swimming pools as more of a must-have. In Arizona, Ast said, “the lines get blurred a little bit between luxury and need in the middle of the desert.”
Penalise startups that take state aid then list abroad, says UK Finance 2024-07-04 10:28:00+00:00 - The British banking sector has called for the next government to penalise startups that take state aid and then list abroad amid concerns about young companies choosing foreign stock exchanges over London. UK Finance suggested subsidies and tax breaks could be clawed back, arguing in a paper published this week that companies in receipt of government help should have “a two-way commitment”. British businesspeople and City grandees have said for several years that London’s stock market is in decline relative to other exchanges, notably in the US, where some fast-growing companies have said it is easier to attract investments. Recent departures from the London Stock Exchange have included the building materials company CRH, the betting company Flutter and the plumbing products company Ferguson. Perhaps most galling for the LSE, however, was the failure to attract the huge flotation of the Cambridge-based chip designer Arm, which plumped for New York despite the personal lobbying of Rishi Sunak. In a paper co-written by Global Counsel, the lobbying consultancy set up by the former Labour business minister Peter Mandelson, UK Finance suggested commitments to stay in the UK in exchange for government support could help to arrest the movement of companies abroad. “The government should also consider ways in which an expanded set of taxpayer-funded supports for early-stage growth companies involve a two-way commitment and would become repayable in part or full if a recipient ultimately chooses to list, or move valuable operations, outside the UK,” it wrote. “Where a UK company chooses to join public markets or locate is a choice for the company. However, there is a strong case for linking taxpayer supports to future commitments to using UK public markets and operating in the UK.” Regulators, politicians and executives have prescribed various remedies for the perceived exodus. The Financial Conduct Authority last year unveiled sweeping reforms to make it easier for startup founders to keep controlling stakes, apeing the US. The chief executive of the LSE, Julia Hoggett, argued last year that UK companies were not on a “level playing field” because British asset managers tended to vote against larger, US-style pay packages. Conor Lawlor, the managing director for capital markets and wholesale policy at UK Finance, said: “We want to see UK companies grow and be hugely successful. We also want to bolster our capital markets and the number of companies that choose to list on UK markets. Our aim is to make the UK as attractive a destination as possible. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up 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 “We have set out a range of ideas for discussion, including giving enhanced government support to growing companies, and also looking at whether that support could incentivise a UK listing. Where a UK company chooses to list will of course always be a choice for that individual company.” The banking body also suggested tapering early-stage government support for startups, rather than cutting it off abruptly when they reach a certain size, and said there could be benefits to making it easier for pension funds to invest in unlisted UK companies. There were 2,101 companies listed on London’s main market in 2003, but that figure has fallen to 1,022, according to LSE data.
‘They have you over a barrel’: how scammers, touts and bots took over driving tests 2024-07-04 10:01:00+00:00 - I have much good fortune in my life, but in one respect I am unlucky: I live in the part of the country with the longest waiting times for driving tests, and I have been learning to drive. I began learning in 2022. In June 2023, I was test-ready. But when I tried to book my test, there were none available until mid-November, meaning I had to pay for six extra months of lessons so I wouldn’t forget what I had learned. I failed that test – a stupid, nervous mistake. After time off to lick my wounds, I rebooked my test in January. The earliest test I could get? In late June 2024. The result of all this was that by the time I went for my second test last month, I had spent at least £1,000 on a year of unnecessary lessons. And I had the pressure of knowing that if I failed, I’d have to wait another six months, and pay out yet again. I am not alone. In 2019, the average waiting time for a driving test at my local London test centre was 2.8 weeks. As of 4 March 2024, it was 24 weeks. Four years on from the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused driving tests to be suspended, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), which carries out the tests in Great Britain (Northern Ireland is the responsibility of the Driver and Vehicle Agency), has not recovered. While waiting times are coming down in Wales and Scotland, in England the situation is getting worse. In March 2022, the average waiting time for a practical car driving test in England was 14.5 weeks. In March 2023, it was 15.8 weeks. As of March 2024, it was 17.8 weeks, more than double the seven-week target set out in the DVSA’s annual report. You give them your personal information, they use it to abuse the system, and create a bigger backlog, and it goes on’ Max Sobol But according to the DVSA, I am the problem. Me and all the other learner drivers, for booking driving tests before they’re ready. As a result, says the DVSA chief executive, Loveday Ryder, in a chiding blog post, “those who need to drive for their job, such as nurses and carers” aren’t able to access tests. If only we’d stop being so irresponsible, NHS nurses and carers could go to work. There is a straightforward way to determine whether this is true. If learner drivers booking tests when they aren’t ready is causing the backlog, the pass rate would be down post-Covid. But Guardian analysis of DVSA data reveals that the pass rate for learner drivers has actually gone up post-pandemic. In the five years from April 2014 to March 2019, the average pass rate in England was 47.8%, whereas post-Covid, from April 2021 to December 2023, it averaged 48.2%. England is no outlier: throughout Great Britain the pass rate post-Covid is higher – 46.6% for April 2014 to March 2019, versus 48.9% for April 2021 to December 2023. So if learner drivers aren’t the problem, what’s really going on at the DVSA? “It’s like waiting for festival tickets,” says Calu Malta, 27, who works for a non-profit organisation. In March, she woke up at 6am on a Monday morning, when the DVSA releases new tests, to book a driving test near her home in north London. Malta will have to wait six months for her test, in August. When a test becomes available, says Sue Smith, 62, a Newbury driving instructor who searches for her students, “it’s like having heart palpitations. You have to have the fastest fingers in the west.” As a result, some learners are seeing their theory tests, which are only valid for two years, expire before they can pass. There is a way to get a test faster – on the black market. Dozens of businesses offer fast-track tests, advertised through WhatsApp groups, websites and driving schools. The array of dates on offer is staggering. Fees range from £120 to £350 for tests that should cost £62. View image in fullscreen Max Sobol: ‘I suppose it’s silly giving these companies your driving licence details, but it’s the only way you can get a test.’ Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian When faced with an impossible dilemma – spend hundreds on extra lessons, or pay touts – many decide that the second option is cheaper. “It’s unfair,” says Dan Cloake, a 35-year-old lighting technician from east London. In April, he paid £170 for a fast-track driving test through a WhatsApp group promising “early driving bookings”. “This is a public service and we are having to pay this private tax.” In order to book his test, Cloake sent the touts a photo of his provisional driving licence. “It had my home address, my date of birth, quite a lot of personal information on it,” he says. Is he worried about what the touts have done with his data, I ask. “Yeah,” says Cloake slowly. “A little bit. Now I am thinking about it.” “It is a constant battle to keep on top of these bot things,” said Ryder when giving evidence to the transport committee last July. Touts use automated software, known as bots, to reload the DVSA website until a test becomes available, then grab it. “It’s all above board,” insists a Bradford-based driving instructor as he offers me a fast-track driving test slot for £200. “Nothing illegal.” I’ve called asking for his assistance in booking a driving test in Thornbury, where waiting times last year averaged 24 weeks. “You tell me when you need it,” he says genially. He’s right. It’s not illegal to sell a driving test for profit, although it is a violation of the DVSA’s terms of use. But when you examine how the touts operate, evidence of illegality emerges. There are two main ways to book a driving test: the public access system, open to the general public, and the business system, accessible to driving instructors and driving schools. On the business system, instructors and schools can book multiple tests, and, crucially, they can swap tests between different learners. But in order to book a test, everyone, including instructors, needs a provisional driving licence, registered to someone who has passed their theory test. So how do the test companies do it? “On our system,” boasts the director of one firm that offers fast-track test slots for between £190 and £250, “we have loads and loads of other licences, all looking for test dates. So what we’re able to do, using their licence, is hold and reserve test dates, basically swap people in.” The smooth-talking Londoner says that one of the agencies he partners with to book tests has “8,000 licences able to hold and reserve test dates for other customers. And as soon as one comes available, they’ll hold it, reserve it, wait for the customer to confirm, then just swap them in.” View image in fullscreen Waiting for a driving test is like ‘waiting for festival tickets’, says learner driver Calu Malta. Photograph: macana/Alamy This is how some touts operate: by reserving tests using other people’s driving licences without their consent, in a probable violation of data protection laws, and then switching in the details of whoever buys the test. A Time Out writer recently wrote about having her driving licence used to book 53 tests without her knowledge. She’d previously given her details to touts. Fraudsters have even sent out phishing emails, purporting to be from the DVSA, asking driving instructors to share learners’ licences. “The police don’t have the resources to take proper action against fraud,” says Dr Ben Collier, an online crime expert at the University of Edinburgh. “Frauds like this are almost seen as not illegal.” In the driving instructor community, it’s common knowledge that some instructors participate in these scams, to the frustration of their peers. “Instructors are buying tests,” says Simon Brady, 59, an instructor from Bradford. “They do it without their pupil’s knowledge. They get their driving licence details and sell it to someone else.” When Max Sobol, a 39-year-old film director from east London, paid £132 for a fast-track driving test in April 2022, he sent a photo of his driving licence over WhatsApp to the touts. Sobol failed his test in May and struggled to book another. Not wanting to pay for another black market test, Sobol’s partner contacted the DVSA in July 2022 – only for the DVSA to tell her that Sobol actually had a test booked for that October. Stopping the ability to swap tests means the scam will fall to pieces. It’s the only solution. But the DVSA won’t do it Simon Brady, driving instructor “I suppose it’s silly to be giving these companies your driving licence details,” Sobol says. “But it’s the only way you can get a test. You give them your personal information, they use it to abuse the system, and create a bigger backlog, and it goes on. You’re over a barrel with it.” Like an arsonist who burns down your house, then sells you a tent, the touts offer a solution to a problem they created. But Ryder doesn’t see the black market touts as fuelling the crisis, only as a symptom of it. “This problem,” she told the committee, “will go away when the wait times come down.” As well as blaming long waiting times on the public, for booking tests before they are ready, the DVSA has pointed the finger at the people who carry them out. Driving examiners went on strike in December 2022 and January 2023. “We were seeing a steady improvement … until the industrial action part started,” Ryder told the select committee. The DVSA does not appear to have undertaken much soul-searching about whether it might have done anything differently. After scores of driving instructors left angry comments under a post about waiting times, the DVSA turned off comments on a subsequent post. “This is not about censoring your views,” it said. Yet the cause of the waiting times crisis is simple. There aren’t enough tests to clear the backlog, and many of those that are available are being sold on the black market. According to Guardian analysis of DVSA data, as of 2024, the total Covid backlog for Great Britain is more than 1m tests. Since pandemic restrictions ended in 2021, the agency has made available an extra 212,000 tests, meaning that, at the current rate, it will not clear the Covid backlog until 2026. “The core of this problem is that there are not enough practical tests for everyone,” says Rachel Newland, 46, a driving instructor from Reading. “And the reason for that is that there is an examiner retention crisis. Until the DVSA acknowledges that, nothing will be fixed.” Newland campaigns for the DVSA to increase examiner pay: a petition she set up currently has 1,883 signatures. View image in fullscreen Paul Weinberger, who has created a bot to get around block bookings by companies. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian As of July 2023, the DVSA had recruited 474 new driving examiners since March 2021. But about 15 examiners quit each month. It’s not hard to see why. Examiners test seven students a day, work weekends for no additional pay and are often abused by members of the public. For all of this, they are paid about £27,000 a year. As civil servants, driving examiners cannot speak to the media. But conversations with well-placed sources reveal a stressed-out workforce. Candidates are angry at having to wait so long for tests, and take it out on them. They are being sent out with unsafe candidates in non-dual control cars. They are genuinely fearful of crashes. They feel frustrated and underappreciated. Another strike was narrowly avoided earlier this year. Because the government determines civil service pay, the DVSA cannot put up salaries. But it could ask the government to make reselling tests illegal. “Stop the ability to swap tests,” says Brady. “Then the whole scam will fall to pieces. It’s the only solution. But the DVSA won’t do it.” The DVSA is resistant to this change because most driving instructors use the test-swapping service responsibly, to trade candidates who aren’t ready for their tests with candidates who are. Yet those benefits are marginal, given the way the system facilitates an exploitative black market. We cannot swap GP appointments, or primary school places, or NHS operations. Why must we be able to switch driving tests? In the absence of the one change that would work, the DVSA has reduced the amount of times driving tests can be changed from 10 to six, and implemented more anti-bot protections incorporating AI technology. It says it has created nearly 150,000 new tests and redeployed managers to help clear the backlog. It has a counter-fraud team that reports to social media networks if necessary. To date it has issued 231 warnings, suspended 687 accounts, and closed 570 accounts for misuse of the booking system, and removed 4,700 accounts that were not linked to approved driving instructors. It urges the public only to book their driving tests themselves, or through their driving instructor, to prevent their information being misused. In January 2023 it made it a violation of its terms of service to sell driving tests for profit, or use driving licences without consent. But dozens of touts continue to flout these rules. And so English learners must choose between waiting six months for a test, or paying the touts and risk having their data misused. But there is a third way. “It didn’t feel right that I should have to pay the black market for something that’s a public service,” says Paul Weinberger. In July 2022, Weinberger, who is 31 and lives in south London, needed a driving test, but his test centre had an 18.5-week wait. It took Weinberger, who is a software developer, one evening to build a bot to search the DVSA website, and it took that bot two days to find him a test. “It was quite simple,” he says. After he’d passed his test, Weinberger uploaded details of the bot to Reddit. “Please be kind,” he wrote, “and do try to not make a business out of this.” Since Weinberger built his bot, the DVSA has introduced stricter anti-bot protections. I meet Weinberger in a cafe to see if his bot still works. He instals it on my laptop and smiles as it begins reloading the DVSA page, looking for slots. “It still works,” he says. One woman had her driving licence used to book 53 tests without her knowledge. She’d previously given her details to touts Ryder has said that the DVSA plans to rebuild its booking system. If that removes the ability to switch tests, an exploitative industry will slam to an emergency stop. But the conditions that allowed it to start up will remain. “It feels like a lot of public services are broken,” says Cloake. “This is just another example.” Fourteen years since austerity began, we are used to non-functioning public infrastructure. We pay a tax to access basic services, such as booking driving tests, because we have no expectation of things getting better. “I’m originally from Brazil,” says Malta. “In Brazil, you have to pay to make things accessible. It’s scary to see that happening here.” As for me, I passed my driving test. If I’d failed, I wouldn’t have waited another six months for a test. I’d have fired up Weinberger’s bot instead: my indefatigable friend, a middleman who’s not trying to make money from my misfortune. With data by Tural Ahmedzade
After 67 years, two small Maryland towns tore down the racial barrier dividing them 2024-07-04 10:00:41+00:00 - One day in 1957, a road crew pulled up to Windom Road and put a corrugated metal highway barrier sideways across the street. The barrier stopped cars from going down the road connecting two small Maryland towns just north of Washington, D.C. But it also made clear the danger for residents of the historically Black town of North Brentwood if they crossed the border into majority-white Brentwood, a "sundown town" where they would be at risk of violence after dark. The barrier wasn't unique. Across the country, in cities as far apart as Miami, Detroit, Atlanta and Fort Worth, Texas, people in white neighborhoods and towns put up similar "segregation walls" in the 20th century to create physical barriers that would reinforce racial divisions. Some have been torn down or fallen into disrepair. A few have historical markers to explain the racist reason they were built. The two Brentwoods, though, chose to tear down their barrier and replace it with art, which was officially unveiled last weekend. How they did it is a lesson for the rest of the country. Despite their similar names, the towns had long been divided. Both were built on farmland along the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River subdivided by a white Civil War veteran who had commanded a regiment of Black soldiers. He sold the flood-prone land along the river to Black families who built homes, formed churches and opened a juke joint frequented by Duke Ellington and Pearl Bailey in what became North Brentwood. The land farther south where white families lived became the town of Brentwood. Before they were incorporated, the towns were sometimes called "Black Brentwood" and "White Brentwood." Like other segregation walls, the barrier was more of a physical reminder of the attitudes and laws that kept the races apart than an enforcer of it. North Brentwood Mayor Petrella Robinson, who was 7 when the barrier was erected, said she and her friends used to walk past it on the way to middle school without incident, though they were aware that they needed to be careful in Brentwood. "It was more of a sign than anything else, saying, 'You are not welcome here,'" she said. But in recent decades, attitudes changed. Brentwood saw an influx of immigrants from Central America and other new residents, and racial tensions between the towns ebbed, though they didn't go away entirely. Some Brentwood residents gradually forgot why the barrier had been constructed, and many people who lived in the surrounding area didn't even know it was there. Over the years, there were intermittent discussions of tearing it down that didn't lead anywhere. In 2016, representatives from the local volunteer fire department asked Brentwood Mayor Rocio Treminio-Lopez if the barrier could be removed so that fire trucks could pass more easily between the towns. Treminio-Lopez, who lived near the barrier, had always assumed it had been put there to keep cars from using it as a shortcut for a busy state road nearby, but she agreed to talk with Robinson about it. The two mayors quickly agreed that it needed to be taken down, but they didn't want it to be forgotten either. At a meeting with town staff and former officials, the history of the barrier came out. Horrified, Treminio-Lopez said it should be taken down, but Robinson said she didn't want people to forget that it had been there and what it symbolized. The two mayors, one Black and one a Latina immigrant from El Salvador, worked together over the next seven years to decide what to do. Joe's Movement Emporium, a nearby arts organization, held a dance performance that highlighted the barrier's history. The towns received grants to upgrade the area into something of a miniature park and make plans to connect it to nearby historical sites. And the towns hired a local artist, Nehemiah Dixon III, to create a piece of public art marking the history of the barrier. Dixon, whose day job is at the Phillips Collection, a trendy modern art museum in Washington, D.C., had never done anything like it. His initial ideas were more abstract, but as he talked with neighbors and the two mayors, they kept emphasizing that they wanted something that would send a message of unity. Eventually, Dixon came up with the idea of two hands lifting the barrier, bringing in local sculptor Wesley Clark to help build it. After building a steel and foam core, the two began fabricating the hands from epoxy resin. Each artist focused on a different hand so that their varying styles would make them look more like the hands of two people working together. They then finished with a patina that gives the hands a greenish hue reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty. Dixon said that also leaves the race of the two hands ambiguous. "The community is changing," Dixon said. "We wanted to reference the past, but also the future. We don't know who these two people are, and it doesn't matter. They can be Black and white, old and young, strong and weak — however you want to interpret it. The only important part is taking that barrier from horizontal to vertical." The location is also meaningful. The sculpture is located directly on the boundary identified by a surveyor, so one hand rises from North Brentwood, and the other from Brentwood. Windom Road, which once divided the two towns, now brings them together.