Tag: iab-food & drink

Shelter-in-place order is issued for neighborhoods near a burning fishing vessel as the EPA conducts air monitoring | CNN

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A shelter-in-place order was issued Sunday for neighborhoods near a burning fishing vessel in the Hylebos Waterway in Tacoma, Washington, where a “significant explosion” took place and fire conditions have worsened, officials said.

The burning vessel – which is believed to be carrying 55,000 gallons of diesel and 19,000 pounds of freon on board – caught fire early Saturday morning while moored in the waterway, the US Coast Guard said in a news release.

“We were very fortunate that the fire was quickly spotted and reported and the crew onboard was able to safely evacuate,” US Coast Guard Lt. Stephen Nolan told CNN affiliate KING-TV.

There was a “significant explosion” linked to a heated compressed gas cylinder on the vessel, and smoke production shifted toward Northeast Tacoma, Port of Tacoma officials said Sunday night, citing fire officials.

“Due to smoke from a boat fire in Tacoma, Twin Lakes and Green Gables residents should avoid prolonged outdoor exposure whenever smoke odors are present or if smoke is visible,” Federal Way mayor Jim Ferrell tweeted late Sunday night.

By Sunday, the fire had spread throughout the vessel and was about 100 feet from the ship’s freon tanks, according to the Coast Guard. Freon is a trademark name typically used to refer to several different refrigerants, including chlorofluorocarbons, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

As the fire continues to burn, the heat from the flames can build pressure in the freon tanks, which have built-in heat-activated pressure relief valves designed to release pressure from the tanks in an emergency, according to the Coast Guard.

“While freon can be toxic if inhaled in large quantities or in a confined space, the release of freon into the atmosphere is not expected to pose any health and safety risks to the public,” the Coast Guard said.

Still, the City of Tacoma Fire Department asked residents of the Northeast Tacoma, Browns Point and Dash Point neighborhoods to “remain indoors and limit exposures to smoke.”

“Residents concerned about smoky conditions can provide additional protections by keeping doors closed and shutting outside air vents. Residents may also want to avoid any strenuous activity or exercise outdoors,” the mayor tweeted.

The EPA has been conducting air monitoring in the surrounding areas and first responders have deployed floating barriers around the vessel to contain any spills, the release said.

The Coast Guard has also closed the Hylebos Waterway for all commercial and recreational vessel traffic.

As of Sunday night, no injuries had been reported and there were no signs of maritime pollution, the Coast Guard said.

As crews continue to battle the fire with cooling spray, it remains unclear what ignited the blaze. Authorities said the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

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April 10, 2023
Some customers are complaining the new olive oil-infused Starbucks drink is making them run to the bathroom | CNN Business

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Starbucks is betting big on olive oil infused coffee, hoping customers will be enticed by the anomaly and the health benefits of extra virgin olive oil.

“It is one of the biggest launches we’ve had in decades,” Brady Brewer, Starbucks’ chief marketing officer, told CNN. Former CEO Howard Schultz added in an interview with Poppy Harlow that it will “transform the coffee industry,” and be “a very profitable new addition to the company.”

But what the company may not have taken into account: Some customers say it’s making them have to run to the bathroom.

“Half the team tried it yesterday and a few ended up… needing to use the restroom, if ya know what I mean,” a barista on the Starbucks Reddit page posted. CNN has reached out to the Redditor for comment.

It might be the sheen from the oil. Or it could be the aftertaste. Social media was swift with condemning the drink – and the after effects.

“That oleato drink from starbs makin my stomach speak,” one user tweeted.

Those with sensitive stomachs are already weary.

“IBD patient here. I wouldn’t touch these drinks with a ten-foot pole,” one Redditor said.

The new platform, Oleato, rolled out in Italy in February. Each beverage – an oat milk latte, ice shaken espresso with oat milk and a golden foam cold brew – are made with a spoonful of oil, adding 120 calories to a drink. Select Starbucks stores in Seattle and Los Angeles and Reserves in Chicago, Seattle and New York are now serving the platform of beverages.

CNN has reached out to Starbucks for comment.

Olive oil is a staple in Mediterranean culture and some drink bits of olive oil in the region daily.

But the Starbucks drink has a potentially fragile combination: caffeine, which is a stimulant, and olive oil, which is a relaxant.

A 16-ounce drink has as much as 34 grams of fat, which is more than what many find in a meal, registered dietitian nutritionist Erin Palinski-Wade said. And mineral oils like olive oils tend to be used to treat constipation because it helps soften the stool, making it easier to go the bathroom.

“If you combined high fat in a meal or in a beverage along with coffee, which already stimulates the bowels,” Palinski-Wade said, “that combination can cause cramping. It can cause increased mobility in the colon and therefore have that laxative effect.”

Some customers said the speed at which they had to use the restroom after having the drink caught them off guard. But high fat meals take longer to digest than liquid olive oil, which will hit the digestive track faster, Palinski-Wade said. And most people in the US are drinking coffee on the go and aren’t pairing the drink with any carbohydrates and fibers to negate the impact.

The benefits of olive oil are widely circulated, linked to lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease to lowering blood pressure (though the positive health outcomes could be because the Mediterranean diet replaces unhealthy fats like butter with olive oil, The New York Times reported.)

“(The drink) is not going to make somebody physically ill from the standpoint of having a negative impact on health,” Palinski-Wade said. “But more of that uncomfortable feeling of having to go in the bathroom or potentially cramping.”

In the Mediterranean, taking a spoonful of olive oil a day is part of a daily routine. Former CEO Howard Schultz picked up this habit himself from olive oil producer Tommaso Asaro while in Sicily, Italy.

“When we got together and started doing this ritual I said to [Asaro], I know you think I’m going to be crazy, but have you ever thought of infusing a tablespoon of olive oil with Starbucks coffee?” Schultz told CNN’s Poppy Harlow. “He thought it was a little strange.” Asaro is the chairman of United Olive Oil, through which Starbucks is sourcing its olive oil.

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April 8, 2023
Here’s why beef is still pricey | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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A slowing economy may lead to a decline in sales of pricey beef cuts, but don’t look for any bargains just yet.

Market forces that have been building for a long time, including devastating droughts, will likely keep hamburger and steak prices steady — and relatively expensive.

In part, that’s because there’s less beef. A contraction in beef supplies “has been coming for a while,” said David Anderson, a professor in Texas A&M University’s agricultural economics department. “We’re starting to see the effects that we knew were going to be coming for a couple of years.”

When extreme drought hit the United States in recent years, farmers started to rapidly sell cattle because the dry conditions, along with higher feed costs, made it expensive or impossible to maintain their herds. That wave of sales, particularly of cows used to breed, has led to supply constraints this year.

“Tightening cattle supplies are expected to cause a significant year-over-year decrease in beef production, the first decline since 2015,” a March market outlook from the US Department of Agriculture noted.

“If we produce less beef, the pressure’s on for higher prices,” said Anderson. The “big unknown is going to be consumer demand.”

The beef supply tends to grow and shrink in roughly 10-year cycles, said Lance Zimmerman, senior beef analyst for the North American market with Rabobank. When supply shrinks, consumer prices tend to go up. But with people nervous about the economy, this year’s more complicated.

“The biggest thing that looms large, in all of our minds as market analysts right now, is do we have recession risk that we need to price into the market for next year,” Zimmerman said. “If that’s the case, beef prices may be steadier.”

And with food inflation stubbornly high, consumers are already cutting back on certain items, including beef.

Tyson

(TSN), which processes about a fifth of the country’s beef, poultry and pork, noted a sales dip in beef in the three months ending December 31, 2022.

Beef sales “were down 5.6% compared to record high sales in the prior year,” said CFO John Tyson during a February analyst call discussing the quarterly results, noting that prices were down in the quarter due to “softer domestic demand for beef.” The company said that it expects its beef margins to fall this year because of the smaller domestic supply.

“Retailers through last year continued to push price on the consumer,” said Adam Speck, senior livestock analyst at Gro Intelligence. Now they have to answer a question as they plan for the year: Will demand be high enough to warrant raising prices even more?

“The answer is probably no,” said Speck. That may not be a huge relief, as beef prices are still relatively high. In 2022, fresh choice beef retailed for $7.59 per pound, according to March data from the USDA. That’s up from $7.25 per pound the previous year.

Stores may try to test the waters during barbecue season.

In the spring, “we’re at the bottom of our traditional seasonal demand,” said Bernt Nelson, an economist with American Farm Bureau Federation. Demand for beef typically dips after the holidays, and picks up when people fire up their grills in the summer, he noted. If demand remains strong, “we may see some higher beef prices,” towards the fall and later, Bernt said.

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April 5, 2023
California’s salmon fishers warn of ‘hard times coming’ as they face canceled season | CNN

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CNN
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Sarah Bates, the captain of a fishing boat in San Francisco, had a feeling something was wrong with the chinook salmon population back in December.

“The fish weren’t coming up the river, and to a certain extent, we were just waiting,” Bates, 46, told CNN. “We thought the run was late. And then at some point, it just became clear that fish weren’t coming.”

But she and other fishermen weren’t sure how bad it could be. It later turned out that catchers along much of the West Coast likely won’t be fishing for salmon at all this year.

“Salmon is my livelihood. It’s my main fishery,” she said. “And it’s the main fishery for a lot of folks in Fisherman’s Wharf. So, I think there are a lot of us that have some hard times coming.”

In early March, West Coast regulators announced that they may recommend a ban on salmon fishing this year. It would be only the second time salmon fishing season has been canceled in California.

The looming ban comes as the West sees a massive decline in fish populations following a blistering, multiyear drought that drained reservoirs and dehydrated much of the land, particularly in California.

The potential closure, which the Pacific Fishery Management Council is discussing in a multi-day meeting that began Saturday, would affect tens of thousands of people like Bates who depend on salmon fishing for their economic livelihood. It will also upset thousands of Californians who enjoy recreational fishing during the summer.

The council, which manages fisheries off the Pacific Coast and advises the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on potential bans like this one, had previously recommended three options for this year – but all of them would result in a cancellation of the salmon fishing season through at least next spring.

These are necessary measures, according to California and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife officials, to protect the dwindling Chinook salmon populations, which scientists say have fallen to their lowest levels in recent years due to rampant dam construction as well as climate change-fueled droughts.

“The outlook is really bad,” Ben Enticknap, Pacific campaign manager and senior scientist with Oceana, told CNN.

Beginning their lives in freshwater systems, then traveling out to the salty ocean and back again to their spawning grounds, Pacific salmon face a variety of dangers.

Manmade dams, which were built decades ago and are prolific on Oregon and California rivers, prevent many salmon species from swimming back to their spawning grounds. Large swaths of wetlands and other estuaries, where smaller fish can feed and find refuge, have also been plagued by infrastructure development.

Then there are the consequences of the climate crisis: Warmer water temperatures and drought-fueled water shortages in rivers and streams can kill salmon eggs and juvenile fish.

Michael Milstein, a spokesperson for NOAA Fisheries, also said the models that many scientists use to forecast salmon returns and fishing success “appear to be getting less accurate.”

“They have been overestimating returning salmon numbers and underestimating the number caught,” Milstein told CNN. “That has further complicated the picture. Since the models are based on past experience, they struggle with conditions we have not seen before.”

In late 2022, one of California’s driest years on record, estimates show that the Sacramento River chinook returned to the Central Valley at near-record-low numbers. Meanwhile, the Klamath River, which flows from Oregon to California, had the second-lowest forecast for chinook salmon since 1997, when the current assessment method started.

State and federal scientists forecast that less than 170,000 adult salmon will return to the Sacramento River this year – one of the lowest forecasts since 2008, which was the only other time the salmon season was closed. They also estimate that less than 104,000 will likely return to the Klamath River.

“Climate change is expected to be detrimental to Pacific salmon populations at every life stage,” Enticknap said. “We know that the salmon need cold and clean freshwater for spawning and for growth, and that climate change and this megadrought have decreased water flows and increased river temperatures in a way that’s lethal for salmon.”

The US Bureau of Reclamation, which controls some of the dams in the Klamath River, announced in February that it would cut flows on the river due to historic lows from the drought, prompting concerns it would kill salmon further downstream.

“There’s a lot at stake with the Pacific salmon in the West; they’ve been so important to communities as a source of food, and when that’s at risk, those communities and cultures are at risk,” Enticknap added. “There’s also so many species of wildlife that depend on healthy populations. They’re the backbone of the ecosystem here.”

The $1.4 billion salmon fishing industry provides 23,000 jobs to California’s economy, and businesses that rely on large salmon populations have been particularly devastated, according to the Golden State Salmon Association.

“When someone catches a salmon, it’s really an emotional experience because the fish is so magnificent,” Andy Guiliano, a 59-year-old owner of a charter boat company, told CNN. “People really have a connection with the salmon.”

In the past 52 years, the family-owned business Fish Emeryville has chartered patrons to fish for chinook salmon. Guiliano said salmon fishing is what reels in roughly 50% of the business’ revenue.

During the ban, Guiliano said, he and other fishermen would have to make do with other fish, though he emphasized that nothing can compete with the revenue that salmon brings in.

“It’s a poor second tier. It won’t sustain the amount of effort and it is not a replacement,” Guiliano said. “We might get 10 to 15 % [of business] back.”

While the megadrought largely contributed to the downfall in salmon numbers, some fishing groups blame the way California distributes its water.

“The shutdown we are seeing now is completely avoidable,” said John McManus, the senior policy director of the Golden State Salmon Association. “Decisions made during the drought deprived salmon of the water that they need to survive. By doing so, they took away our livelihood.”

Jordan Traverso, a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said water management is part of the salmon strategy. But Traverso argues that water policy in California is much more complex, underscoring concerns with regards to agriculture and pointing to the rapidly warming climate.

“Recent decisions about agriculture aren’t the reason for low numbers because these fish are returning from the ocean voyage as part of their journey,” Traverso told CNN. “Climate disruption is causing strings of dry years and hotter temperatures, shrinking salmon habitat and eliminating the space for them to rebound.”

The rivers in the middle of California are largely diverted to agriculture. The result is that these rivers are not cold enough for salmon to reproduce and not high enough to help baby salmon swim back to the ocean.

“We have major issues with barriers to passage in their historic habitat, with dams preventing them from utilizing hundreds of miles of it,” Traverso said.

The chain reaction from the announcement has already affected a huge swath of business, from bait shops to restaurants that put salmon on the table.

“San Francisco is all about the two iconic California fisheries, which are Dungeness crab and our local king salmon,” Joe Conte, owner of Water2Table, a fish distribution company, told CNN. He said he has been delivering to some of the best restaurants in the Bay Area for more than a decade.

“It’s disastrous for the fishermen and for us on the pier,” Conte added.

To meet needs, fishermen can dip into other species, but they run the risk of depleting those populations as well, as they did in 2008.

“We know exactly what’s going to happen,” Guiliano said. “We saw an enormous amount of effort on the California halibut inside of San Francisco Bay. And then there was four or five years following where the fishery was really poor.”

Up north in the Klamath River basin, the impact is taking an additional emotional and cultural toll on Native Americans. The Karuk, Hoop and Yurok tribes, in particular, have long fished for the chinook for subsistence. Other fish along the basin like the two endangered native suckerfish – the C’waam and Koptu – are also under threat.

While some tribes have set their own catch limits, others have made the tough decision to stop their hunting and fishing in hopes of the species’ recovery.

But as planet-warming pollution rises in the atmosphere, the impacts on biodiversity are ubiquitous. Without salmon, which are a keystone species, other wildlife that depend on it will suffer.

Last month, the West Coast fishery managers held a public hearing to allow stakeholders to comment on the proposed cancellation.

What’s surprising, experts say, is that many fishermen support the closure to save the dwindling salmon population, noting that they need every fish to come back to the river.

“One striking thing is that the fishing community – the commercial fleet and recreational fishing groups – have largely supported the closure of the salmon season,” Milstein said. “That has been apparent in the public comments at the council and elsewhere. They argue that they should not be fishing when the stocks have declined to this level.”

On the Klamath River, salmon recovery efforts are underway. After a decadeslong campaign by tribal organizers, the federal government in 2022 approved the removal of four dams there. The first dam is set to come down this summer; the rest will be removed by 2024.

And there are also “hopeful” signs of rebound, Enticknap said. The recent barrage of storms that pummeled the West has replenished drought-stricken rivers and reservoirs and alleviated arid conditions in California, providing somewhat of a relief for fisheries.

“We’re hoping that this is going to help salmon populations get back on track and that it’s not an anomaly – in that, this happens once and then we slip back into a drought,” Enticknap added. “My concern right now is that with climate change we’re expecting hotter conditions and more drought and marine heatwaves, where it’s ultimately worse for salmon.”

Despite the recent onslaught of rain and snow, advocates say they need federal and state officials to implement fair water allocations, since the fishing industry would have to compete with larger California markets like agriculture for the same water supply.

Although Bates says she is still digesting the new reality they’re facing, she remains hopeful.

“Don’t waste a crisis, right?” Bates said. “This is a forced opportunity, but it is an opportunity nonetheless, to fix some things that have been broken in California for a long time … so I am somewhat optimistic that this is not the end. It’s just a chapter in the middle.”

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April 2, 2023
Iranian women arrested for not wearing hijab after yogurt thrown on them | CNN

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Two women in Iran were arrested after a man threw yogurt on them for not wearing the hijab at a store in the northeastern city of Shandiz, according to a video and report published by the Mizan News Agency, the state-run media for Iran’s judiciary.

Video of Thursday’s incident shows a man approaching one of the women who is unveiled and speaking to her before proceeding to grab a tub of yogurt from the store and throwing it, hitting both women in the head.

Iranian women risk arrest for not covering their hair. Many have been defying the mandatory dress code as part of protests that followed the death of a young woman in custody who allegedly violated hijab rules.

The video appears to show a male staff member removing the suspect from the store. CNN is not able to verify what was said immediately before the confrontation.

The two women were arrested after being issued an arrest warrant for failing to wear the hijab in public, according to Mizan News Agency. The incident is under investigation, and the male suspect has been arrested for a disturbance of order, Iranian officials said.

On Saturday the Iranian authorities repeated their stance that wearing the hijab was compulsory,

“The important matter is that today we have a legal mandate,” said Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, according to Reuters. “The legal mandate makes it mandatory for everyone to follow the law.”

“If there are people who say that they do not share this belief of ours (the mandatory hijab), then this is a place for scientific and cultural centers as well as schools to discuss this and convince them,” Raisi added.

Iran’s Ministry of Interior said that the “hijab is an unquestionable religious necessity,” according to a tweet from the agency on Saturday.

Iranians have taken to the streets nationwide in protest for several months against Iran’s mandatory hijab law, and political and social issues across the country, following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police in September.

Women have burned their headscarves and cut their hair, with some schoolgirls removing their headscarves in classrooms.

Those arrested for participating in anti-government demonstrations have faced various forms of abuse and torture, including electric shocks, controlled drowning, rape and mock executions.

School students who protested faced being detained and taken to mental health institutions.

Some protestors have even been sentenced to death and executed.

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April 2, 2023
UK reaches its biggest trade deal since Brexit, joining trans-Pacific partnership | CNN Business

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Atlanta/Hong Kong
CNN
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Britain has reached an agreement to join a major trans-Pacific partnership, calling it its biggest trade deal since Brexit.

The country will become the first new member, and the first in Europe, to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) since it came into force in 2018.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the move early Friday, hailing it as a historic move that could help lift economic growth in the country by £1.8 billion ($2.2 billion) in the long run.

“The bloc is home to more 500 million people and will be worth 15% of global GDP once the UK joins,” Sunak’s office said.

The CPTPP is a free trade agreement with 11 members: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, Singapore and Vietnam. It succeeded the Trans-Pacific Partnership after the United States withdrew under former President Donald Trump in 2017.

The UK agreement comes almost two years after it began talks to join the pact.

As a member, more than 99% of UK exports to those 11 countries will now be eligible for tariff-free trade. That includes major exports, such as cheese, cars, chocolate, machinery, gin and whisky.

In the year through September 2022, the United Kingdom exported £60.5 billion ($75 billion) worth of goods to CPTPP countries, Sunak’s office said in a statement.

Dairy farmers, for example, sent £23.9 million ($29.6 million) worth of products such as cheese and butter to Canada, Chile, Japan and Mexico last year, and were set to “benefit from lower tariffs,” it added.

The deal also aims to lift red tape for British businesses, which will no longer be required to set up local offices or be residents of the pact’s member countries to provide services there.

Services made up a huge chunk — 43% — of overall UK trade with CPTPP members last year, according to Sunak’s office.

“We are at our heart an open and free-trading nation,” the prime minister said in the statement, seeking to cast the deal as an example of the “economic benefits of our post-Brexit freedoms.”

“As part of CPTPP, the UK is now in a prime position in the global economy to seize opportunities for new jobs, growth and innovation,” Sunak added.

Several businesses expressed their support for the deal in the government statement, including global bank Standard Chartered

(SCBFF) and spirits maker Pernod Ricard

(PDRDF).

Joining the pact “is a big opportunity for our Scotch whisky business,” said Anishka Jelicich, Pernod Ricard’s UK director of public affairs.

“Five of our top 20 export markets are CPTPP members. We expect tariff cuts and smoother access to some of the world’s fastest growing economies to increase exports and secure jobs and investment in the UK, with sales doubling in some markets.”

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March 30, 2023
WHO advisers to consider whether obesity medication should be added to Essential Medicines List | CNN

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Advisers to the World Health Organization will consider next month whether to add liraglutide, the active ingredient in certain diabetes and obesity medications, to its list of essential medicines.

The list, which is updated every two years, includes medicines “that satisfy the priority health needs of the population,” WHO says. “They are intended to be available within the context of function health systems at all times, in adequate amounts in the appropriate dosage forms, of assured quality and at prices that individuals and the community can afford.”

The list is “a guide for the development and updating of national and institutional essential medicine lists to support the procurement and supply of medicines in the public sector, medicines reimbursement schemes, medicine donations, and local medicine production.”

The WHO Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines is scheduled to meet April 24-28 to discuss revisions and updates involving dozens of medications. The request to add GLP-1 receptor agonists such as liraglutide came from four researchers at US institutions including Yale University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

These drugs mimic the effects of an appetite-regulating hormone, GLP-1, and stimulate the release of insulin. This helps lower blood sugar and slows the passage of food through the gut. Liraglutide was developed to treat diabetes but approved in the US as a weight-loss treatment in 2014; its more potent cousin, semaglutide, has been approved for diabetes since 2017 and as an obesity treatment in 2021.

The latter use has become well-known thanks to promotions from celebrities and on social media. It’s sold under the name Ozempic for diabetes and Wegovy for weight loss. Studies suggest that semaglutide may help people lose an average of 10% to 15% of their starting weight – significantly more than with other medications. But because of this high demand, some versions of the medication have been in shortage in the US since the middle of last year.

The US patent on liraglutide is set to expire this year, and drugmaker Novo Nordisk says generic versions could be available in June 2024.

The company has not been involved in the application to WHO, it said in a statement, but “we welcome the WHO review and look forward to the readout and decision.”

“At present, there are no medications included in the [Essential Medicines List] that specifically target weight loss for the global burden of obesity,” the researchers wrote in their request to WHO. “At this time, the EML includes mineral supplements for nutritional deficiencies yet it is also described that most of the population live in ‘countries where overweight and obesity kills more people than underweight.’ “

WHO’s advisers will make recommendations on which drugs should be included in this year’s list, expected to come in September.

“This particular drug has a certain history, but the use of it probably has not been long enough to be able to see it on the Essential Medicines List,” Dr. Francesco Blanca, WHO director for nutrition and food safety, said at a briefing Wednesday. “There’s also issues related to the cost of the treatment. At the same time, WHO is looking at the use of drugs to reduce weight excess in the context of a systematic review for guidelines for children and adolescents. So we believe that it is a work in progress, but we’ll see what the Essential Medicines List committee is going to conclude.”

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March 30, 2023
Crucial Antarctic ocean circulation heading for collapse if planet-warming pollution remains high, scientists warn | CNN

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Brisbane, Australia
CNN
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Melting ice in the Antarctic is not just raising sea levels but slowing down the circulation of deep ocean water with vast implications for the global climate and for marine life, a new study warns.

Led by scientists from the University of New South Wales and published Wednesday in the journal Nature, the peer-reviewed study modeled the impact of melting Antarctic ice on deep ocean currents that work to flush nutrients from the sea floor to fish near the surface.

Three years of computer modeling found the Antarctic overturning circulation – also known as abyssal ocean overturning – is on track to slow 42% by 2050 if the world continues to burn fossil fuels and produce high levels of planet-heating pollution.

A slow down is expected to speed up ice melt and potentially end an ocean system that has helped sustain life for thousands of years.

“The projections we have make it look like the Antarctic overturning would collapse this century,” said Matthew England, deputy director of the Australian Research Council’s Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, who coordinated the study.

“In the past, these overturning circulations changed over the course of 1,000 years or so, and we’re talking about changes within a few decades. So it is pretty dramatic,” he said.

Most previous studies have focused on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the system of currents that carry warm water from the tropics into the North Atlantic. The cold, saltier water then sinks and flows south.

Its Southern Ocean equivalent is less studied but does an important job moving nutrient-dense water north from Antarctica, past New Zealand and into the North Pacific Ocean, the North Atlantic and Indian Ocean, the report’s authors said in a briefing.

The circulation of deep ocean water is considered vital for the health of the sea – and plays an important role in sequestering carbon absorbed from the atmosphere.

According to the report, while a slowdown of the AMOC would mean the deep Atlantic Ocean would get colder, the slower circulation of dense water in the Antarctic means the deepest waters of the Southern Ocean will warm up.

“One of the concerning things of this slowdown is that there can be feedback to further ocean warming at the base of the ice shelves around Antarctica. And that would lead to more ice melt, reinforcing or amplifying the original change,” England said.

As global temperatures rise, Antarctic ice is expected to melt faster, but that doesn’t mean the circulation of deep water will increase – in fact the opposite, scientists said.

In a healthy system, the cold and salty – or dense – consistency of melted Antarctic ice allows it to sink to the deepest layer of the ocean. From there it sweeps north, carrying carbon and higher levels of oxygen than might otherwise be present in water around 4,000 meters deep.

As the current moves northward, it agitates deep layers of debris on the ocean floor – remains of decomposing sea life thick with nutrients – that feed the bottom of the food chain, scientists said.

In certain areas, mostly south of Australia in the Southern Ocean and in the tropics, this nutrient-rich cold water moves toward the surface in a process called upwelling, distributing the nutrients to higher layers of the ocean, England said.

However, Wednesday’s study found that as global temperatures warm, melting sea ice “freshens” the water around Antarctica, diluting its saltiness and raising its temperature, meaning it’s less dense and doesn’t sink to the bottom as efficiently as it once did.

The report’s co-author, Steve Rintoul from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership, said sea life in waters worldwide rely on nutrients brought back up to the surface, and that the Antarctic overturning is a key component of that upwelling of nutrients.

“We know that nutrients exported from the Southern Ocean in other current systems support about three quarters of global phytoplankton production – the base of the food chain,” he said.

“We’ve shown that the sinking of dense water near Antarctica will decline by 40% by 2050. And it’ll be sometime between 2050 and 2100 that we start to see the impacts of that on surface productivity.”

England added: “People born today are going to be around then. So, it’s certainly stuff that will challenge societies in the future.”

The report’s authors say the slowing of the Antarctic ocean overturning has other knock-on effects for the planet – for example, it could shift rain bands in the tropics by as much as 1,000 kilometers (621 miles).

“Shut it down completely and you get this reduction of rainfall in one band south of the equator and an increase in the band to the north. So we could see impacts on rainfall in the tropics,” said England.

Earlier this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in its latest report that the impacts of rising global temperatures were more severe than expected. Without immediate and deep changes, the world is hurtling toward increasingly dangerous and irreversible consequences of climate change, it added.

The IPCC report found that the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels was still possible, but it’s becoming harder to achieve the longer the world fails to cut carbon pollution.

England points out that the IPCC predictions don’t include ice melt from Antarctic ice sheets and shelves.

“That’s a very significant component of change that’s already underway around Antarctica with more to come in the next few decades,” England said.

Rintoul said the study was another urgent warning on top of all the ones that have come before it.

“Even though the direct effect on fisheries through reduced nutrient supply might take decades to play out, we will commit ourselves to that future with the choices we make over the next decade.”

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March 29, 2023
Off-the-radar destinations every visitor to China should consider | CNN

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CNN
—

With China finally reopening to the world, it’s time to dust off that travel wish list and start planning.

Being one of the world’s most visited tourist destinations pre-pandemic, the country has long lured international travelers to popular attractions like Beijing’s Forbidden City, Xi’an’s Terracotta Warriors or Chengdu’s giant panda research base.

And those are still amazing destinations worth visiting.

But for travelers looking to experience some of the country’s less-visited regions, we’ve put together a list of culturally-rich and beautiful places to consider as you start planning your next trip to China.

Dubbed the porcelain capital of the world, Jingdezhen has been firing quality pieces of “white gold” for more than 1,700 years.

Today, travelers can visit the historic kilns that have produced beautiful pieces of china for centuries, some of which ended up in the hands of the imperial family.

Traders and artists continue to flock to Jingdezhen for inspiration and to shop for ceramics in the city’s shops and markets. Many workshops are open to the public, while some offer demonstrations showing how porcelain is made.

For a crash course in the city’s porcelain history, visit the newly built and photogenic Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum of China. Treasure hunters will want to visit the city’s Ghost Market, which is featured in the video at the top of this page.

Meanwhile, a new crop of young artists and entrepreneurs has been injecting fresh energy into the ancient city in recent years. One of the hottest creative hubs is Tao Xi Chuan, also called Ceramic Art Avenue.

Located in an old, defunct ceramic factory, it’s home to a few museums, a boutique hotel, a theater, weekend markets and many studios and shops.

Read more about Jingdezhen here.

For 16 years in a row, the annual China Happy Cities Forum has named Changsha, the capital city of Hunan province, as the country’s happiest city.

And it’s easy to understand why – it has one of the most vibrant nightlife and street food scenes in China.

After sampling some black stinky tofu and fish head topped with duo jiao (chopped chile peppers) on Pozijie, a pedestrian-only street, travelers can head to Huangxing South Road to be dazzled by the countless billboards and neon signs.

Other attractions include the historic Gulushan Temple and the futuristic Zaha Hadid-designed Changsha Meixihu International Cultural and Arts Centre.

In addition to winning praise for its happy residents, the landlocked destination has also been dubbed China’s hottest influencer city, luring flocks of young domestic travelers over the last few years.

One of the reasons for its popularity may be its wildly famous homegrown brand, Sexy Tea. The beverage has such a dedicated following across the country that people waited in line for eight hours to enjoy a cup of this famous brew at a recent pop-up store in the city of Shenzhen.

The southern autonomous region of Guangxi offers a limitless supply of jaw-droppingly beautiful landscapes and unique cultural celebrations.

One of the best times to visit the region is during the Song Festival, a multi-day event that begins on the third day of the third month on the Lunar calendar (in 2023, it falls on April 22).

An important festival for several ethnic groups, including the Zhuang people, revelers sing folk shan-ge (mountain songs), eat glutinous rice and perform bamboo dances. Wuming district is where you’ll find one of the largest Song Festival celebrations.

While you are in Guangxi, you should also visit Sanjiang County, home to some of the most beautiful wooden bridges in the world.

Called fengyu qiao (wind and rain bridges), they were built without nails and often feature intricate multi-story pavilions and verandas.

Chengyang Bridge is one of the most famous Fengyu bridges in Sanjiang.

Though still relatively unknown outside of China, Linhai is now on many food lovers’ radars. Namely, because it’s the birthplace of famous Chinese restaurant chain Xin Rong Ji.

Opened about two decades ago in Linhai – a small “county-level city” in coastal Taizhou in Zhejian province – Xin Rong Ji now has a few dozen locations around China, including Beijing’s first three-Michelin-star restaurant and a two-star branch in Shanghai.

But nothing compares to the original. Some of the must-try dishes at Xin Rong Ji include braised sea anemone with sweet potato noodles and the crispy fried silver ribbon fish.

In general, Taizhou cuisine is known for its umami-filled seafood dishes and savory carb-heavy street snacks, including maixia (wheat shrimp) noodles and seaweed cakes.

Food aside, travelers should leave time to admire this historic city that dates back more than 2,000 years. To experience beautiful architecture from different dynasties up close, check out Ziyang Old Street and the old Donghu (East Lake) Garden.

For two years in a row, Chinese citizens voting in an online survey have named Aba, an autonomous prefecture in Sichuan province, one of the country’s “best-hidden gems.”

You may have heard of the otherworldly beauty in Aba’s Jiuzhaigou valley – but there is much more to experience in this vast prefecture’s 13 counties.

There’s Dagu Glacier National Park, one of the youngest and lowest glaciers in the world (Heishui County). Aba is also where you’ll find some of the best-preserved Diaolo – Qiang-style stone-wood architecture – which can be seen in the village of Taoping in Li County.

Over in Jinchuan County, visitors can take in a mesmerizing sea of snow pear blossoms every spring.

Few in China would dispute that the Chaoshan region – an area in eastern Guangdong province that includes cities like Chaozhou and Shantou – is a food lover’s paradise.

But its cuisine is still very much underrated outside of China.

It’s impossible to list all the foods visitors should try, but here are a few: tender and rich braised goose; chilled fish; uber bouncy hand-hammered beef balls; and the countless types of rice cakes and rice noodle soups.

It’s also the place to enjoy Dancong, a type of Oolong tea, served in the local Gong Fu, or Kung Fu, ceremonial style.

If you want to walk off some calories between meals, check out the old architecture and temples of the Chaozhou Ancient City.

Home to one of the biggest harbors in the world, it’s no surprise that Quanzhou and its series of historic maritime sites was among the latest Chinese destinations to be inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List (2021).

An important Maritime Silk Route port city during the 10th to 14th centuries, this port city in southern Fujian is filled with landmarks that showcase how different cultures and religions flourished.

Kaiyuan Temple (built in 686), for example, isn’t only the largest Buddhist temple in Fujian province, but it’s also home to many rare reliefs and decorations of Hinduism, said to be the remaining relics of a Hindu temple in Quanzhou.

Collectively called the Song-Yuan Quanzhou Emporium System, the UNESCO-listed sites also include administrative buildings, religious landmarks and transportation networks that showcase the city’s colorful past.

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March 28, 2023
FDA sketches out plan to bolster fragile US infant formula supply management | CNN

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CNN
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The US Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday its initial strategy to boost and strengthen the management of the country’s supply of infant formula.

The announcement came just ahead of a hearing of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee about what went wrong during last year’s infant formula shortage.

Committee members and experts who testified were critical of formula makers and the FDA’s food safety program, which the agency has pledged to revamp in order to protect the nation’s food supply and promote better nutrition. Many experts are concerned that the formula shortage of 2022 could easily happen again, even with those changes.

“While we stand here today, more than a year since the recall, it is my view that the state of the infant formula industry today is not much different than it was then,” testified Frank Yiannas, who stepped down from his role as the agency’s deputy commissioner of food policy and response in late February.

“The nation remains one outbreak, one tornado, flood or cyberattack away from finding itself in a similar place to that of February 17, 2022.”

A formula shortage that started in 2021 was exacerbated when the United States’ largest infant formula maker, Abbott Nutrition, recalled multiple products in mid-February and had to pause production after FDA inspectors found potentially dangerous bacteria at its Sturgis, Michigan, plant.

A former Abbott employee filed a whistleblower complaint about the plant with the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration in February 2021. The complaint suggested that the plant lacked proper cleaning practices and that workers falsified records and hid information from inspectors.

The complaint was filed February 16, 2021, and was passed on to Abbott and the FDA three days later.

Yiannas testified that because of the siloed nature of the agency, he wasn’t made aware of the complaint until February 2022. It was only then that he learned that children had gotten sick with Cronobacter after consuming powdered formula made at the plant.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigated at least four illnesses and two deaths in three states in connection. The agency sequenced bacteria from two of the children to compare against the samples the FDA took at the facility, but it did not find that the samples were closely related.

Cronobacter infections are rare but can be serious and even fatal, especially in newborns. The bacteria lives in the environment, but when these infections are diagnosed in infants, they are often linked to powdered formula.

“Clearly, I really wish, and I should have been notified sooner, so I could have initiated containment steps earlier. Had that happened, I believe we might not be here today,” Yiannas said Tuesday. “Had the agency responded quicker to some of the earlier signals, I believe this crisis could have been averted or at least the magnitude lessened.”

With more demand for other brands after the Abbott recalls, families across the country had to hunt through multiple stores for formula last year. Stock rates of baby formula stayed lower than they were the year before for much of 2022. Even in October, when rates had improved, nearly a third of households with a baby younger than 1 said they had trouble finding formula over the course of one week, according to a survey by the US Census Bureau.

The FDA said Tuesday that its new national strategy helps ensure that the country’s supply of formula will remain constant and safe.

The agency said it will work with the industry on redundancy risk management plans that will help companies identify possible supply chain problems. It will also continue to enhance inspections of infant formula plants by expanding and improving training for agency investigators.

According to the strategy, the FDA will expedite review of premarket submissions for new products to prevent shortages. It will continue to closely monitor the formula supply and has developed a model to forecast any potential disruptions.

It also plans to work closely with the US Department of Agriculture to build in more resiliency with its Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children program, or WIC, the nation’s largest purchaser of infant formula.

The new strategy is just a first step; the long-term strategy is expected to be released in early 2024.

Dr. Susan Mayne, director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said in a statement that the new strategy aims to incentivize “additional infant formula manufacturers to enter the market.”

Many parts of the strategy are underway, the FDA said.

“Safety and supply go hand-in-hand. We witnessed last year how a safety concern at one facility could be the catalyst for a nationwide shortage. That’s why we are looking to both strengthen and diversify the market, while also ensuring that manufacturers are producing infant formula under the safest conditions possible,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said in a news release. “Now, with this strategy, we are looking at how to advance long-term stability in this market and mitigate future shortages, while ensuring formula is safe.”

Formula stock rates are still not where they once were before last year’s crisis, Yiannas said, but the problem can’t be solved overnight. He said it was a good step for Congress to ask for a resiliency report from the industry.

One positive development that came out of the crisis is that manufacturers are reporting formula volume to the FDA on a weekly basis even though there is no legal requirement to do so, he said.

Historically, the FDA has focused on food safety and nutrition, not supply chain availability, but the Covid-19 pandemic opened eyes and served as the “biggest test on the US food system in 100 years,” Yiannas said. Food supply shortages made experts realize that the agency needed more intelligence on how companies’ supply chains worked.

“Progress is being made, but it’s not being made fast enough,” Yiannas said.

The FDA is now tracking sales and stock rates of baby formula. He said he’s talked to formula companies that say they have ramped up production, even though they might have cut back on the number of varieties of product they offer.

The FDA said Tuesday that it has also done a study to better understand what led to the recall of infant formula at the Abbott plant. The agency had conducted a routine surveillance inspection at the plant in September 2021 and even then found problems like standing water and inadequate handwashing among employees.

Abbott is facing additional investigations from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the US Federal Trade Commission and the US Department of Justice as well as lawsuits from customers.

Yiannas told the House committee Tuesday that one strategy to head off similar shutdowns would be to require manufacturers to report Cronobacter bacteria found in its products. Currently, only the Abbott plant in Michigan is required to report the bacteria as part of the consent decree that allowed it to reopen.

The FDA said in November that it would like Cronobacter infections added to the CDC’s list of national notifiable diseases, which would require doctors to report cases to public health officials so the CDC and the FDA could keep better track of infections. Only two states have such a reporting requirement now.

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March 28, 2023
The company behind Johnnie Walker and Guinness appoints first female CEO | CNN Business

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London
CNN
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One of the world’s largest alcoholic drinks companies has appointed its first female CEO.

Diageo, which makes Guinness beer and Johnnie Walker whisky, said Tuesday that chief operating officer Debra Crew would succeed Ivan Menezes, who will retire from the company after 10 years at the helm.

Crew is to take over on July 1, the company said in a statement. Her appointment means women will make up more than 50% of Diageo’s executive committee, it added.

Diageo is the seventh-largest member of the FTSE 100

(UKX) index and will now become the largest UK-listed company led by a woman. There are just nine other FTSE 100

(UKX) companies led by women, including pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline

(GLAXF) and bank NatWest.

Diageo is the world’s fourth biggest alcoholic drinks company by market value, after AB InBev

(BUD) and China’s Wuliangye Yibin and Kweichow Moutai. It is fifth biggest if French luxury goods group LVMH

(LVMHF), which sells Moët champagne and Hennessy cognac, is included.

Menezes is stepping down following a very successful tenure at Diageo, during which the company’s share price has almost doubled. It sells more Scotch whisky, tequila, vodka and gin by net sales value than any other business in the world.

“Ivan has transformed Diageo’s global footprint, brand portfolio and strategic focus, positioning our business as a clear leader in premium drinks,” chairman Javier Ferrán said in the statement.

“The Board has diligently planned for Ivan’s successor, and we are delighted to have appointed a leader of Debra’s calibre to the role,” he added. “I have no doubt that Diageo is in the right hands for the next phase of its growth.”

Crew joined Diageo in 2020 from Pepsi

(PEP)Co. She is the former CEO of tobacco company Reynolds American and has worked at Kraft Foods, Nestle

(NSRGF) and Mars.

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March 28, 2023
How scientists are decoding what the past smelled like | CNN

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CNN
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Smells hover just below our conscious awareness, conjuring up emotions and memories that shape how we perceive and navigate the world.

An unexpected whiff of a long-forgotten snack or a dusty book can transport a person to years past — enabling a kind of time travel that makes hazy memories more vivid.

It’s puzzling then that smell is a sense that, according to scientists, has been largely — and unfairly — ignored in most attempts to understand the past. A growing number of researchers now want to reconstruct ancient aromas and use them to learn more about how we used to live.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many people who caught the disease temporarily lost their sense of smell, prompting a newfound appreciation of the importance of odor in their lives. New research projects are underway to understand what the past smelled like and identify what contemporary scents should be preserved for posterity.

“It’s a very vital sense. Smell was also very important in the past and it was probably even more important because in the past not everything was so sanitized,” said Barbara Huber, a doctoral researcher of archaeology at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany.

The challenge of finding past smells is how to capture an ephemeral phenomenon: Archaeologists typically find and study things we can touch, and these are the artifacts we encounter in museums.

Odor compounds are volatile in nature — once their source is gone, they too disappear, evaporating into the air. And most smells stem from biological materials — plants, food, human and animal bodies — that decay rapidly, Huber explained.

Despite all these challenges, Huber said a few new and powerful biomolecular approaches are helping scientists decode ancient scents.

The key to unraveling smells of the past is often invisible to the naked eye.

Scientists can study imperceptible biomolecular residues left on incense burners, perfume bottles, cooking pots and food storage jars using techniques like chromatography, a process for separating components in a mixture, and mass spectrometry, which can detect different compounds by calculating the weight of different molecules.

The most informative biomolecules, according to Huber, include lipids — fats, waxes and oils — that aren’t soluble in water. They’re often found embedded in porous ceramics, after having been used in items such as lamp fuel or scented ointments people once put on their bodies or on corpses. Lipids are also found in feces.

Huber also studies secondary metabolites, organic compounds produced by plants and left by plant-based products used in the past, including resins, scented woods, herbs, fruits and spices. The compounds can reveal the ingredients, and scent of, incense, drugs and food.

Sequencing of ancient DNA and proteomics, the study of proteins found preserved in things like calcified dental plaque, have detected amino acids that signal conditions like gum disease — associated with bad breath.

But, as Huber’s research illustrates, collecting these olfactory clues is often only the beginning.

In her work, Huber has studied incense burners found in the archaeological site of Tayma, Saudi Arabia’s oldest settlement that dates back 5,000 years, in order to try and reconstruct the “olfactory landscape” of the ancient oasis.

She detected secondary metabolites that revealed the use of scented resins containing frankincense, myrrh and pistachio in private buildings, graves and temples, respectively. Huber then worked with a perfumer to try and recreate the scents, revealing what these places might have smelled like thousands of years ago.

“The resins looked really similar … but when you burn them, they have a totally different smell. So for example, the frankincense was really a rich smell — very balsamic — and you could really feel maybe this was used in order to kind of clean out the houses right to avoid an unliked smell or something like that,” Huber explained.

Sean Coughlin, a researcher of ancient and medieval thought at the Czech Academy of Sciences, is attempting to recreate the perfumes Cleopatra herself might have worn, based on recipes recorded in ancient Egyptian texts and from inscriptions on temple walls.

“The problem is a simple one. Normally, when you follow a recipe, you kind of know what you’re supposed to get. When you reproduce a historical recipe, you have no target,” Coughlin said.

“What we’re really trying to do is use organic chemistry to be able to tell us something about the process, because we think that the process was actually what would determine the range of possible scents,” he added.

Coughlin likens his experiments to the testing process of the cooking show “America’s Test Kitchen.” While the results have been hit-and-miss, he said they are making progress.

For example, one perfume recipe Coughlin studied known as Mendesian indicated that ancient perfumers heated oil for 10 days and 10 nights before infusing it with woods like cinnamon and resins like myrrh.

“That was a big mystery to us,” he said. “If you’ve ever cooked oil for 10 days it stinks.” But after his team heated oil in test tubes for up to 12 days, Coughlin found that the technique accelerated the natural process of the oil going rancid, removing any smelly compounds and ultimately allowing the perfume to last longer.

“There is also a stage, after heating the oil, but before making the perfume itself, where they added mildly aromatic things like roots, wine and resins. Our hypothesis is that these not only covered up the bad smell (by adding a pleasant scent), but also absorbed the bad odor in the oil,” he explained.

Most present-day perfumes use ethanol, a type of alcohol, as a base, Coughlin said, although some delicate natural scents still require the use of oil or fat, which needs to be refined in some way.

But today’s chemists still owe a lot to these ancient perfumers, he added. They pioneered many techniques still used in modern science, such as distillation and methods of fractionating liquids.

Similarly, researchers are now taking steps to preserve currently available smells to give future generations a sense of our time and the more recent past.

The Institute for Sustainable Heritage at UCL, a London university, identified the chemical recipe for old book smell — specifically capturing the scent of the library at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London prior to a renovation that started in 2018.

Visitors to the library, which until the renovation had changed little since it was built in 1709, often remarked they found the old book smell appealing.

“In the age of digitization, working with physical records is an increasingly rare practice, and therefore the opportunity to touch and smell the documents is perceived as valuable,” a 2017 study on the project noted.

Researchers used information from volatile organic compounds retrieved at the library to reproduce the historic book smell. They also put together an odor wheel — a tool used by perfumers and winemakers and a first step toward documenting and archiving smells of the past.

Cecilia Bembibre, a lecturer at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage, said preserving the scent of the library was important because the smell was an integral part of its identity.

“Since the space has been undergoing important conservation work in the last few years, and the collection was removed, it is reasonable to assume the scent has gone,” said Bembibre, who’s also a participant in Odeuropa, a European research project that aims to bring historic aromas back to life. “Now the preservation kit we created…(is) now the only existing archive of a lost heritage smell.”

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March 27, 2023
From 20 dollars in his pocket to a dumpling empire: Din Tai Fung founder dies, age 96 | CNN Business

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CNN
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The founder of one of the world’s biggest dumpling empires has died.

Yang Bing-yi, who set up the Taiwanese restaurant chain Din Tai Fung, “passed away peacefully” at the age of 96, the company said in a statement Saturday.

It did not mention the cause of death but said that private funeral arrangements were underway and that the family has asked for privacy.

Born in 1927 in China’s northern Shanxi province, Yang immigrated to Taiwan when he was 20 “with 20 dollars in his pocket,” the company said.

He opened a small shop in Taiwan’s capital Taipei with his wife, naming it Din Tai Fung and selling cooking oil and Xiao Long Bao, steamed Chinese soup dumplings often made with pork.

The business took off and the restaurant became synonymous with dumplings as well as dishes like steamed buns, egg fried rice and noodles.

It expanded into a franchise, with outlets in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, United Arab Emirates, South Korea and Singapore.

Further recognition followed – it was awarded its first Michelin star in 2009 and listed as one of the “world’s best travel franchises” on a CNN Travel list in 2014.

Its restaurant at the Taipei 101 skyscraper hosted Hollywood star Tom Cruise in 2013, who dined and joined chefs to make soup dumplings.

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March 25, 2023
How Girl Scouts found itself in a cookie debacle | CNN Business

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CNN
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For decades, Girl Scouts has used cookie sales to raise funds and teach scouts about entrepreneurship. This year, thanks to the Raspberry Rally cookie, members got a painful lesson in what can happen when high demand meets limited supply.

The much-hyped Rally, a raspberry-flavored spin on the Thin Mint, was always supposed to be a limited-edition cookie. But interest in it seemed to have taken Girl Scouts leadership by surprise — perhaps because of a new online-only ordering system.

As demand surged, with some cookies even ending up on eBay, in some cases listed for about $40 per box, supply stayed the same because cookie makers couldn’t quickly pump out more Rallies. One of the Scouts’ manufacturers, ABC Bakers, said it needs lots of lead time to make limited-edition cookies. The other, Little Brownie Bakers, said bad weather caused power outages at a Kentucky plant, contributing to other inventory issues that lead to tight supply.

As a result, the Rallies sold out rapidly, leaving scouts and parents to explain the situation to annoyed shoppers even as they tried to make sense of it themselves.

For young scouts, having to tell customers there are no Rallies available “is a particularly frustrating transaction,” scout parent Betsy Everett told CNN. “When people ask for the new cookie, we tell them the situation and then they don’t want to buy anything. It’s disappointing for the girls.”

Some parents have been frustrated not only by the shortages, but by what they say is piecemeal communication from Girl Scouts USA. And after years of Covid-related disruptions, their own patience is wearing thin.

“Right now we are focused on ensuring all Girl Scouts have a successful Cookie Season,” Girl Scouts USA told CNN in a statement, adding that it is also focused on optimizing its operations “in real-time, and [capturing] learnings that will inform our strategy going into future seasons.”

But for the scouts, those learnings have been hard-won.

Predicting demand for the Rallies may have been especially difficult, because Girl Scouts introduced a whole new way to buy them, said Terry Esper, associate professor of logistics at the Fisher College of Business of the Ohio State University.

Unlike other cookies, the Raspberry Rally was offered exclusively online with shipments sent directly to customers. That meant shoppers could order it themselves, though Girl Scouts encouraged them to ask scouts to place the orders. Girl Scouts, which has been relatively slow to move sales online, said when it introduced Rallies that the sales channel would help scouts learn about e-commerce. The Rallies aren’t supposed to be sold at scouts’ cookie booths.

“Whenever you introduce a new way of buying a product, or a new channel to get access … that opens new [consumer] behavior,” Esper explained.

The ease of online ordering may have attracted more customers. Plus, Girl Scouts built a lot of hype with the limited-time offer, creating a sense of urgency, Esper noted.

Yet as customers clamored for the cookie, scouts and their parents learned there was no chance of increasing supply by the end of the cookie season in April.

ABC fulfilled the “seasonal plan that was communicated to councils in June 2022” in regard to the Rallies, says an FAQ dated February 16 on the Girl Scouts Iowa site. “We cannot produce more at this time, as we do not have unique materials and packaging. The lead times … are too long to produce in time for the remainder of this season,” according to the FAQ.

In March, Little Brownie Bakers informed local chapters about the multifaceted issues it was facing.

“We share the frustration that some Girl Scout troops feel this cookie season,” a Little Brownie Bakers spokesperson told CNN. “Global supply chain issues, compounded by local labor shortages and a weather-related power outage … continue to impact production.” LBB’s problems constrained supply for other cookies, as well.

Scout parents responsible for ordering the cookies have been left to deal with the fallout, on top of the usual job of helping scouts through the cookie-selling season, which runs roughly from January to April.

Everett, the scout parent, orders cookies for three troops in Southeastern Michigan. She ended up getting a few cases of Raspberry Rallies but other families in her troop could not.

“Out of our 30 scouts [across the troops], about three of them managed to order some cookies before they were gone,” she said.

This is just another disruption for Everett, who said part of her initial cookie order went unfilled last year, meaning that cookies were missing from early cookie booths and only showed up weeks later.

Chad Huset, whose two daughters are scouts in the Minneapolis area, watched his daughters field question after question about the unavailable Rallies at a recent cookie-selling event.

Earlier in the season, when his wife placed an order for Rallies, it was promptly canceled. A separate Raspberry Rally FAQ page, posted to a Wisconsin Girl Scouts page, explained “ABC’s selling platform did not immediately shut down access to customers ordering [Rallies]…Because of that time lapse, they were selling cookies that were not available.”

Huset’s wife received a similar explanation following the cancellation in a series of emails. ABC referred CNN’s request for comment for this story to Girl Scouts USA.

Huset thinks Girl Scouts should have been clearer about the situation earlier, to allow the troops time to pivot.

“It comes down to communicating what’s happening, not after the fact,” Huset said.

Some of the scout community is finding silver linings, however.

Deb Perry, a scout parent and co-leader of a Girl Scouts troop outside of Seattle, didn’t even bother to try ordering Raspberry Rallies. The selling season starts earlier in other parts of the country, and she heard the many reports of shortages elsewhere.

“We didn’t even push it, or encourage it with our troop,” she said. “We just encourage them to sell what we have on hand.”

Perry saw the situation as a chance to teach the scouts how to adapt and embrace the challenge. Scouts in her daughter’s troop have been encouraging shoppers who ask for the Rally to try the Adventureful, introduced last year, instead.

“When things don’t go as planned, or when people say no,” she said, “the girls learn from that.”

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March 25, 2023
It’s not just your imagination. More places are asking you to tip | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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More stores now offer customers the option to tip, from coffee shops to ice cream stores.

Around 48% of quick-service restaurants like Starbucks, Panera and McDonald’s now give customers the option to tip, according to data released this month from Toast, a restaurant management software company. That’s up from 38% in 2020.

But Americans are tipping less.

The tipping percentage for quick-service restaurants last quarter was 15.9%, dropping from 16.4% last year.

People are tipping less in part because of inflation, experts say. They are also overwhelmed with the number of places that give them the option to tip with a card on an iPad, leading people to be less generous.

Customers and workers today are confronted with a radically different tipping culture compared to just a few years ago — without any clear norms.

Although consumers are accustomed to tipping waiters, bartenders and other service workers, tipping a barista or cashier may be a new phenomenon for many shoppers.

It’s being driven in large part by changes in technology that have enabled business owners to more easily shift the costs of compensating workers directly to customers.

Adding to the changing dynamics, customers were encouraged to tip generously during the pandemic to help keep restaurants and stores afloat, raising expectations.

The shift to digital payments also accelerated during the pandemic, leading stores to replace old-fashioned cash tip jars with tablet touch screens. But these screens and the procedures for digital tipping have proven more intrusive than a low-pressure cash tip jar with a few bucks in it.

Customers are overwhelmed by the number of places where they now have the option to tip and feel pressure about whether to add a gratuity and for how much. Some people deliberately walk away from the screen without doing anything to avoid making a decision, say etiquette experts who study tipping culture and consumer behavior.

Tipping can be an emotionally charged decision. Attitudes towards tipping in these new settings vary widely.

Some customers tip no matter what. Others feel guilty if they don’t tip or embarrassed if their tip is stingy. And others eschew tipping for a $5 iced coffee, saying the price is already high enough.

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March 25, 2023
Supreme Court humors itself as it considers whether Jack Daniel’s can stop a dog toy company from parodying its brand | CNN Politics

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Washington
CNN
—

The Supreme Court on Wednesday delved into the complexities of federal trademark law in a case concerning a poop-themed dog toy that resembles a Jack Daniel’s bottle, at times erupting into laughter as the justices explored how much protection should be given to parodists that rip off trademarks they don’t own.

At the center of the case is a “Bad Spaniels Silly Squeaker” toy created by VIP Products that is strikingly similar to Jack Daniel’s bottles. The distiller sued the company over the toy – which is replete with scatological humor – claiming it violated federal trademark law, which usually centers around how likely a consumer is to confuse an alleged infringement with something produced by the true owner of the mark.

But at oral arguments, at least one justice admitted she didn’t understand the joke being sold by VIP Products.

“What is there to it? What is the parody here?” Justice Elena Kagan asked an attorney for the toy company, leading the courtroom to burst into laughter. “Because maybe I just have no sense of humor. But what’s the parody?”

Kagan went on to list a number of different marks the company pokes fun at, drawing laughter from Justice Clarence Thomas: “Doggie Walker, Dos Perros, Smella Arpaw, Canine Cola, Mountain Drool. Are all of these companies taking themselves too seriously?”

And a misunderstanding by Lisa Blatt, an attorney representing Jack Daniel’s, over a hypothetical posed by Justice Samuel Alito led to another round of giggles.

Alito was trying to ask how likely it was that a reasonable person would believe Jack Daniel’s approved the toy at hand or a similar theoretical toy that joked it contained “dog urine.”

“So a reasonable person would not believe Jack Daniel’s had approved this?” he asked Blatt.

“I think if you’re selling urine you’re probably going to win on a motion to (dismiss), but you’re probably also violating some state law,” she replied.

“Oh no, you’re not selling urine. It’s exactly this toy, which purportedly contains some sort of dog excrement or urine,” Alito said, humoring the courtroom as he attempted to clarify his hypothetical.

“Well, just showing how confused I was suggests that I would be your perfect consumer,” Blatt said.

Jokes – intentional or not – aside, some of the justices were skeptical of the distillery, whose attorneys want the court to toss out a heightened standard of review an appeals court used when it ruled in favor of the toy maker.

“I have some hesitation doing away with the Rogers Test,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in part, referring to a court-created test used to determine whether a potential trademark infringement in non-commercial instances enjoys constitutional protection.

Alito seemed to agree.

“Well, I’m concerned about the First Amendment implications of your position and you began by saying, by stressing that Rogers is atextual, it was made up.”

“You know, there is a text that says that Congress shall make no law infringing the freedom of speech. That’s a text that takes precedence over the Lanham Act and you said there are no constitutional issues,” he added, referring to the trademark law at the center of the dispute.

Joining the dog pile, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she was “concerned about impairing artists” if the court sided with Jack Daniel’s and issued a decision that effectively prevents the unauthorized use of marks in artistic works.

The case pits the rights of a famous trademark holder against the First Amendment rights of a company that wants to use those marks to sell a humorous product.

VIP’s “Bad Spaniels Silly Squeaker” toy has the same general shape of a Jack Daniel’s bottle. The plastic bottle, like its glass counterpart, has a similar font style and uses a black label.

VIP borrows Jack Daniel’s “Old No. 7 Brand Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey” to sell “The Old No. 2 On Your Tennessee Carpet,” a reference to dog excrement. And it changes the liquor bottle’s “40% ALC. BY VOL. (80 PROOF)” with “43% POO BY VOL.” and “100% SMELLY.”

A tag affixed to the toy notes that it’s “not affiliated with Jack Daniel Distillery.”

That, however, was not enough to keep Jack Daniel’s from suing the company to take the toy off the market. The distiller argues VIP violates federal trademark law and that the toy, especially the references to dog excrement, damage its reputation because it could confuse consumers into thinking the product belongs to the “oldest registered distillery in the United States.”

“To be sure, everyone likes a good joke,” lawyers for Jack Daniel’s wrote in court papers. “But VIP’s profit-motivated ‘joke’ confuses consumers by taking advantage of Jack Daniel’s hard-earned goodwill.”

Depending on how they rule, the justices could strip away some trademark protections by giving entities cover to legally use registered marks not belonging to them so long as they do so in a way that expresses humor.

A district court ruled in favor of Jack Daniel’s, finding that the toy infringed on the distiller’s trademark. But an appeals court later sided with VIP Products, invoking the so-called Rogers Test.

The court said VIP’s use of Jack Daniel’s trademark was non-commercial and that because it was done humorously for an “expressive work,” it’s protected by the First Amendment.

The case “deals with a very common thing of pitting somebody who has trademark rights … against another who is saying, ‘I’m entitled to (use those marks) under the First Amendment because it is parody. And I need to take enough of the mark in order to make it funny. People have to get the joke,’” said Mark Sommers, a trademark attorney based in Washington, DC.

Sommers added that the justices’ decision in the matter has the potential to be a landmark ruling if they “help define that line that exists between the First Amendment right of expression – be that parody, be that art, whatever you want to express – versus the important trademark issues that are here where brand owners who have invested a tremendous amount of goodwill don’t want their trademarks used in a manner which could result in potential confusion among the consuming public.”

Attorneys for Jack Daniel’s told the justices in court papers that the appeals court ruling “gives copycats free license to prey on unsuspecting consumers and mark holders,” and warned that if it wasn’t reversed, companies could use trademarks they don’t own to flood the markets with allegedly unserious products.

Santa Claus, the KKK, and other bizarre hypotheticals raised by Supreme Court in LGBTQ rights case

“No one disputes that VIP is trying to be funny. But alcohol and toys don’t mix well, and the same is true for beverages and excrement,” they wrote. “The next case could involve more troubling combinations – food and poison, cartoon characters and pornography, children’s toys and illegal drugs, and so on.”

VIP argues consumers can easily distinguish between the two products, with lawyers for the Arizona-based company writing in court papers that it “has never sold whiskey or other comestibles, nor has it used ‘Jack Daniel’s’ in any way (humorously or not). It merely mimicked enough of the iconic bottle that people would get the joke.”

“This is a case about speech, and a popular brand’s attempts to control that speech by weaponizing the Lanham Act,” they wrote, referring to the federal trademark law at the center of the dispute.

“It is ironic that America’s leading distiller of whiskey both lacks a sense of humor and does not recognize when it – and everyone else – has had enough,” the toy company told the court.

The Biden administration had urged the justices to take the case, with the Justice Department siding with Jack Daniel’s in the dispute.

“The First Amendment does not confer any right to use another person’s trademark, or a confusingly similar mark, as a source identifier for goods sold in commerce,” the department wrote in court papers. “Indeed, the absence of any such right is a basic animating premise of trademark-infringement law. If such a right existed, states and the federal government might lack authority to prohibit trademark infringement.”

Several major companies also filed briefs to the court in support of Jack Daniel’s, including Nike and Levi Strauss & Co.

“Though defendants will often have an incentive to label it as such, not every humorous use of another’s trademark is a parody,” Nike wrote in its brief. “Courts therefore should take a disciplined approach to this important classification in cases where ‘parody’ is claimed.”

The Supreme Court is expected to rule later this term in another high-profile intellectual property law case, with the justices having heard arguments last year in a copyright infringement case concerning the late Andy Warhol and the late musician Prince. During those arguments, the justices attempted to determine when a new work based on a prior piece is substantially transformative, and when it simply amounts to a copycat version of an existing work subject to copyright rules.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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March 23, 2023
Price hikes are double whammy for pet owners who are crushed by inflation | CNN Business
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Minneapolis
CNN
—

As head of PAWS Atlanta, Joe Labriola can get a good sense of the region’s economic well-being from the day-to-day activity of the city’s oldest no-kill animal shelter.

Through the course of the past year, it’s become increasingly clear to him that people in the area are struggling under the weight of inflation and economic uncertainty.

Practically the entirety of the daily call volume consists of requests to rehome pets. The shelter’s “surrender queue” is full, awaiting adoptions to free up space in the main shelter. And the shelves at PAWS Atlanta’s Pet Food Pantry quickly go bare.

But perhaps the most heartbreaking indicator is something this particular shelter never had to track before 2022. Last year, 166 pets were found abandoned at the shelter’s front gate.

“A number of animals are being abandoned that have serious medical issues,” Labriola told CNN. “The only thing we can guess is that people just can’t afford those expenses, and they’re hoping by dropping off [their pets] at our facility that we’re going to be able to pick up the slack. And we do as best we can, but it’s really putting a strain on our resources.”

Overall inflation remains high across the United States, but has slowly and methodically stepped down since setting a fresh 40-year record of 9.1% in June 2022, as measured by the Consumer Price Index. However, during the past eight months, inflation in pet-related products and services has only worsened, rising in some cases to record-setting levels.

In February, when annual CPI declined to 6%, the catch-all “pets, pet products and services” index rose to 10.9%, veterinary services jumped nearly 2 percentage points to 10.3% and pet food increased to 15.2%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Those price increases are a double whammy for pet owners whose household finances have been weakened by persistently high inflation and for those who fear for rising instances of “economic euthanasia,” when animals are humanely put to death for financial reasons.

The recent pet-specific price spikes also are compounding pressures facing organizations tasked with providing a safety net for animals in need.

Nationwide, shelters are not seeing increases in pets being surrendered, said Kitty Block, chief executive officer and president of the Humane Society of the United States. However, when there are certain communities seeing spikes in abandoned or surrendered pets, that’s a sign of broader societal hardship, she said.

“When people are having to surrender their animals for economic reasons or because they’re in the middle of a horrible disaster or war zone area, that’s a people problem; this is not some issue that is not relevant to people,” Block said. “This is bigger than dogs or cats in shelters. It’s about the people who love them.”

At the store level, many pet products saw double-digit average unit price increases during the past year, with several items — including pet food, non-clumping cat litter and bird grooming items — seeing year-over-year price hikes north of 20%, according to Nielsen IQ data for the 52-week period ended January 28, 2023.

“Throughout 2022, price increases were pretty extensive — all the way up to 20% and almost 30% price hikes versus the year prior — across the pet department,” said Andrea Binder, vice president of NielsenIQ North America. “In early 2023, we have started to see those start to taper off a little bit. Prices are still increasing but at a lower rate than they were in 2022.”

The price hikes have been attributed to rising input and ingredient costs, she added.

“The cost of chicken, the cost of beef, the cost of aluminum to make a wet cat food can … a lot of those commodity prices have been rising pretty dramatically throughout 2021 and 2022, which has caused manufacturers to increase their costs, and then therefore a lot of retailers follow suit,” she said.

Pet products, services and food have become “exponentially” more expensive, said Linda Harding, who lives in San Diego with two dogs. She said her pet food costs for Lola, her Australian Shepherd mix, and for Phoebe, her Golden Retriever, have doubled to $250 per month.

Harding has cut back on her own expenses. She hasn’t turned on the heat much all winter, she’s limited electricity use and she has stopped buying items like clothes and eggs.

“When you take on a pet, you take on a big responsibility,” she said. “It’s almost like when you buy a car, you’re going to have a lot of responsibility with that car. That car is going to break down, that car’s going to need repairs. It’s an investment.”

She added: “And they’re our furbabies. We love them to pieces. So it’s not really even a question. I need to find the money to keep them as healthy as possible so we can love them as long as possible.”

Mary Avila, a disabled veteran who lives on a fixed income, keeps things simple.

She doesn’t go clothes shopping anymore, she buys cheaper cuts of meat, and she does try to sock away money in case her pets need a small medical procedure.

“They always give,” said Avila, who lives in Bakersfield, California, with her cat, Jack, and two dogs, Domino and Squirt. “The cat doesn’t give as much, because cats. But the dogs, they always give, they’re always happy, they always want you around. They always are there for you.”

Patricia Kelvin of Poland, Ohio, said her Social Security benefits and pension can only go so far, so when the cost of utilities, food or trash collection go up, she has to cut back.

But not for her cat, Jesse.

“If he had some major medical concern, there are a lot of things I would give up so he would get care,” she said. “There’s just no question in my mind. If my diet was going to be more beans than something else, I wouldn’t hesitate. If I had to sell my sterling silver, which I’ve had for 60 years, that would go before my little ‘Whiskers’ would be deprived.”

The Animal Rescue League of Iowa is the largest nonprofit rescue organization in the Hawkeye State and adopted out 8,400 dogs, cats and small farm animals throughout last year.

As pet support services manager, Josh Fiala’s role at ARL is to help keep animals out of the shelter by offering programs — such as a pet food pantry, vaccine clinics, veterinary assistance and crisis care — to help keep pets with their people.

“We definitely, without question, have seen a dramatic increase in pretty much every one of those services,” he said, noting that the pet food pantry in particular has seen spikes in demand.

ARL gave out about 40,000 pounds of pet food in both 2020 and 2021. Last year, it distributed 146,000 pounds of food.

Waggle, a pet-dedicated crowdfunding platform for medical expenses and emergencies, has seen recent spikes in the volume of postings on its website — with some of the biggest increases coming from pet owners in rural communities and areas with high costs of living, said Steven Mornelli, chief executive officer and founder. Additionally, Waggle has also seen a 30% increase in posting for help with medical bills $250 and under, he told CNN.

“We have taken that as a correlation with the stresses of inflation,” he said.

In 2022, 4% more animals entered shelters than left, according to Shelter Animals Count, a national database of animal shelter statistics launched by some of the largest animal welfare organizations in the United States.

That’s the largest gap seen in the past four years and is the result of fewer pets leaving shelters, not increases in surrenders, said Christa Chadwick, vice president of shelter services at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Adoption levels have remained essentially flat, but there has been a large decline in animals being transferred to other shelters because of staffing and driver shortages, she added.

But she also highlighted the economic pressures affecting current and prospective pet owners.

“It’s heartbreaking to know that there are situations where pet owners are being put in a position where they are making a decision about their pet, whether it’s to surrender that pet to an animal shelter or they have to make a decision about euthanasia because they can’t afford care, she said.

“People tend to get angry at the pet owner when they [abandon or surrender their pet] but our experience has shown that when pet owners get to that point, it’s the only option they see available to them,” Chadwick. “And that’s real, and that’s hard for everybody involved, and that’s really hard for the animal who’s at the center of that.”

Chadwick sees a role for shelters and other organizations to provide a safe and welcoming place for owners who may feel like they have no other option.

Despite the broader economic challenges occurring within the US, PAWS Atlanta’s Labriola has had its share of feel-good success stories this year.

Donations have remained strong as has the volunteer program, he said. The low-cost public vaccination and spay and neuter clinics are sold out, indicating that people are taking advantage of inexpensive ways to care for their pets, he added.

And just recently, the shelter’s focus of working with dogs who have been there for more than a year, or “long-term guests,” is starting to pay off, he said.

“We’ve been able to place three long-termers into forever homes recently, freeing up space to rescue more homeless dogs,” he said.
Shelters, veterinarians and local rescue groups can serve as first points of contact.

The Humane Society of the United States’ website has a variety of resources for people facing financial challenges and need vet care, food, boarding, supplies and information to help keep pets with their families. The website has a list of national, state and local organizations.

Inquire if veterinarians accept Care Credit, ScratchPay or a similar service but be sure to carefully review the terms of repayment and how interest rates would be applied.

Ask if your veterinarian has a client-driven donation fund to help other clients in need; consider fundraising platforms such as Waggle and GoFundMe

Consider purchasing pet health insurance.
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March 19, 2023
Inspired by a trip to Indonesia, Snoop Dogg launches new coffee line | CNN Business

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Hong Kong
CNN
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Rapper and entrepreneur Snoop Dogg is expanding his business empire yet again, this time branching out into a line of premium coffee products with beans sourced locally from Indonesia.

He has partnered with Indonesian coffee entrepreneur Michael Riady to launch INDOxyz: “a premium lifestyle coffee brand created for and inspired by the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators,” according to a press release sent to CNN.

“My relationship with coffee goes way back,” Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, said in the statement. “The many long nights in the studio making hit after hit, coffee provided the fuel which kept us going. Today marks the launch of a new company I created along with my partner Michael, who introduced me to the best tasting Indonesian coffee,” he said. “All it took was one sip and Snoop was hooked.”

Snoop added: “Indo is going to change the industry, I can promise you that,” referring to his coffee brand, which is also a common abbreviation for Indonesia. The country is a top global producer of coffee.

Coffee cultivation began in the late 1600s during the Dutch colonial period. Indonesia produces both Arabica and Robusta beans as well as Kopi Luwak, or civet coffee, a historic yet controversial brew which consists of partially digested coffee berries from civet cats.

Snoop’s coffee beans will be sourced from Gayo, a region in Aceh on the island of Sumatra.

“The Gayo region is renown for producing a high quality Arabica, grown in the lovely mountain basin surrounding Lake Tawar and the town of Takengon,” the statement said.

In addition to releasing more than a dozen studio albums and receiving multiple Grammy nominations as a rapper, Snoop Dogg has been expanding his business empire. The rapper has expanded into pet accessories and a gluten-free cereal called Snoop Loopz.

In 2020, he launched his own wine label. As a vocal cannabis advocate, he has his own line of cannabis products.

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March 16, 2023
Not just casinos: Macao reimagines tourism post-pandemic | CNN

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Editor’s Note: Sign up for Unlocking the World, CNN Travel’s weekly newsletter. Get the latest news in aviation, food and drink, where to stay and other travel developments.

Macao, China
CNN
—

Like many of his peers, Dan McAulay was furloughed from his job as a pilot during the pandemic.

Being based in Macao, a city that had one of the world’s strictest approaches to the coronavirus pandemic, he found himself with a lot of time on his hands.

McAulay and his wife, Rebeca Fellini, started learning how to distill alcohol as a lockdown hobby. And by the end of the nearly three years that Macao was a relative fortress, they had grown their pastime into a bona fide business – a gin brand called Owl Man, a play on the Chinese pronunciation of the city’s name “Ah Mahn.”

Now, McAulay is back in the skies with Air Macau and Fellini manages the distillery’s day-to-day business.

Even though their business was born during lockdown, they – like so many other businesses around the city – are pinning their hopes on the return of tourism.

Macao, an hour’s ferry ride from Hong Kong, is the only place in China where gambling is legal.

Often called the “Vegas of Asia,” in pre-pandemic times it wasn’t unusual to see a high-spending “whale” helicopter in and out of the city for a single afternoon at the craps table.

As a result, the city’s primary economy is the casinos and the businesses supporting them, from hotels to spas to high-end shops.

Macao only has about 600,000 residents – compared to seven million in Hong Kong – but brings in six times as much revenue as Las Vegas in a typical year.

Before the pandemic, 80% of Macao’s government revenue came from the gaming industry. Big players like Wynn, Venetian and MGM all have a significant presence in the city.

Covid threw that all into a tailspin. Nearly three years of intermittent lockdowns and blocked travel from the mainland and Hong Kong had a devastating effect on the city’s primary source of income.

But it also provided time for innovation.

“The government realized they can’t focus all their efforts on gaming and (tourists from) the mainland. Gastronomy is one of their big pushes,” explains McAulay.

“Being the only distillery in Macao, it’s working out amazing for us. The hotels and casinos are encouraged to support local food and beverage companies. It has given us quite a strong start.”

He isn’t the only entrepreneur who used the tourism slowdown to rethink his business model.

Asai, who uses only his first name professionally, owns several Portuguese restaurants and cafes around the territory. As a former Portuguese colony, Macao is known for food traditions like egg tarts, African chicken and bacalao (codfish fritters).

But Asai wants visitors to know there’s still an active, thriving Portuguese community in Macao – and they’re offering more than the usual favorites.

Egg custard tarts, or pasteis de natas in Portuguese, are one of the most popular souvenirs from Macao, with long lines at establishments like Lord Stow’s and Margaret’s.

Pasteis de Chaves is a small, trendy-looking cafe that wouldn’t be out of place in Brooklyn. Though it does sell egg tarts, its name comes from the signature offering – beef stuffed pastries that offer a savory complement to the sweet eggy ones.

Across the road, Three Sardines is a romantic, dimly lit spot specializing in petiscos, a Portuguese equivalent of tapas with small plates like fried octopus and grilled peppers.

“Competition is high for Portuguese restaurants, but many are localized twisted versions of Portuguese food,” says Asai, who has been in Macao for 18 years and stayed through the pandemic. “We try to offer more traditional and unique experiences. This is a niche and helped us survive the pandemic.”

Now, he is one of many local business owners looking outward for the first time in several years as tourists slowly trickle back to Macao.

Like Owl Man, Asai’s restaurant group has received government support as Macao diversifies its food and drink scene.

For instance, he and head chef Pedro Almeida worked with the Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) on a video to explain the origin of egg tarts and how they’re different in Macao and Portugal.

As the first international tourists began returning to Macao in February 2023, it was clear that a lot had changed.

Many small neighborhood restaurants closed during lockdown, and those that have reopened have had trouble staffing up after so many workers left the city permanently.

But new attractions have opened as well, with casinos trying to diversify their offerings and become more family-friendly.

The city’s first-ever outdoor zip line, ZipCity, opened at Taipa’s Lisboeta casino complex in January 2023. The timing worked out well, as mainland Chinese tourists flooded the city during Lunar New Year – a representative for the company says that ZipCity operated “at 90% capacity” during that holiday week.

Despite the pandemic, ongoing construction projects were still completed – if not necessarily on schedule.

Popular Japanese immersive art experience TeamLab opened an outpost at the Venetian in June 2020, and a new British-themed resort, The Londoner, opened in 2021 complete with penthouse suites designed by David Beckham.

Arguably the city’s most well-known landmark, the ruins of St. Paul’s Church, has been reinvigorated by a new on-site VR experience that enables visitors to see what the church looked like during different historical periods.

The city is rolling out incentives to bring back those tourists, as well.

People coming over via ferry from Hong Kong qualify for a buy-one-get-one free boat ticket if they’re staying at least one night in a hotel – an incentive to stay longer and not just make it a day trip.

Most businesses and vendors in Macao, including taxi drivers, will accept Hong Kong dollars – while very few of their counterparts in Hong Kong will accept the Macanese pataca.

Macao’s tourism authority also announced programs aimed at international travelers, including deals on package trips.

On the ground, things look lively.

Weekend ferries from Hong Kong have been selling out, and popular areas like Senado Square and the Guia Fortress – which is part of the city’s UNESCO-listed historical center – are thronged with visitors.

That includes casinos as well. On a recent mid-week visit, tables at the MGM and Venetian casinos were full of both gamblers and gawkers.

Macao dropped its mask mandate on February 26, with Hong Kong following suit a week later. However, many casino-goers still sported masks indoors once it became voluntary, perhaps due to the close quarters at blackjack tables.

For now, though, tourism is mostly regional.

According to data from Macao’s tourism authority, the majority of visitors arriving in January 2023 were from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia.

In January 2019, 3.4 million tourists came to Macao, with most from mainland China. In January 2023, 1.4 million visited, most during the Lunar New Year holiday.

Hometown airline Air Macau has been steadily ratcheting up capacity to add more flights from Singapore and Taipei, two of Macao’s biggest markets. More mainland China routes will return by March 26.

Low-cost Asian carriers like Cambodia Airways and Thai Vietjet also brought back their pre-pandemic air links.

“I think everyone expected (tourism) to bounce back, but talking to all our friends in the hotels and casinos, they’re saying their fourth quarter predictions have bounced back faster than they anticipated,” says McAulay, the Owl Man co-founder.

“I think it’s re-energizing.”

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March 14, 2023
Tyson is laying off nearly 1,700 poultry plant workers | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
—

Tyson is laying off nearly 1,700 workers as it closes two poultry plants in an effort to boost profits.

The company will shutter a chicken processing plant in Glen Allen, Virginia that employs 692 people, as well as one in Van Buren, Arkansas, with 969 employees, on May 12.

The closure decision “[reflects] our broader strategy to strengthen our poultry business by optimizing operations and utilizing the full available capacity at each plant,” a Tyson Foods

(TSN) spokesperson told CNN in an emailTuesday. The scale of the facilities as well as an “inability to economically improve operations has led to the difficult decision to close the facilities,” according to the spokesperson.

Tyson had about 124,000 US employees as of October.

Several companies have been laying off workers amid still-high inflation and fears of a recession, many of those workers in the tech sector. In this case, Tyson is pointing to weakness in its poultry operations.

Tyson, a major meat and poultry processor, mentioned problems in its chicken business during a February analyst call discussing the company’s most recent quarterly results.

In the three months ending on December 31, “demand didn’t appear in the parts of the market where we had expected,” Tyson CEO Donnie King said on the call. “As a result, we had to move things around.” That led to higher costs and lower prices, he added.

“As we think about moving forward, efficiency in our operations in our company will be the focal point for us,” he said.

The company has been shaking up that part of the business amid broader turnover.

Tyson announced Wes Morris as the new head of its poultry business in January. Morris, a long-time employee of the company, left Tyson in 2017 and had since consulted for its poultry business. He replaced David Bray, the previous poultry president, who had just stepped into that role in 2021 -— the same year that Tyson reported its chicken volumes were low because of breeding issues.

Also in 2021, King became CEO, replacing the previous chief executive Dean Banks, who had been at the helm for under a year. Tyson also tapped a new head of its fresh meats division in December.

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March 14, 2023