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☆ Coinbase buys digital asset firm One River Digital in growth push
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

March 3 (Reuters) - Coinbase Inc (COIN.O) has acquired One River Digital Asset Management (ORDAM), the cryptocurrency exchange said on Friday as it aims to beef up services and take advantage of weak valuations of digital asset companies. The company did not disclose the financial details of the deal, in which ORDAM will become Coinbase Asset Management and operate as a fully-owned unit of Coinbase. ORDAM is a digital asset manager that provides institutional clients exposure to digital assets through investment products. Eric Peters will continue to serve as chief executive of Coinbase Asset Management as well as One River Asset Management, the parent company of ORDAM. "Coinbase and ORDAM share an ethos grounded in prudent risk management, a trait which has enabled both firms to successfully navigate the recent market turmoil," Coinbase said in a blog.

☆ Factbox: What to look for as China kicks off its annual session of parliament
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Laurie Chen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Besides meeting annually to deliberate legislation and appoint government personnel, it oversees the State Council, China's cabinet. Its top body, the roughly 170-member NPC Standing Committee, meets more frequently to pass legislation. The Standing Committee also has the power to amend semiautonomous Hong Kong's mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law. The NPC will also appoint top government positions including vice president, NPC chair, vice premiers, state councillors, head of the Supreme Court and ministers. China will announce its central and local government budgets, military spending budget and economic growth target on the opening day of the NPC.

SAO PAULO, March 2 (Reuters) - A confirmed case of mad cow disease in Brazil discovered last month is "atypical," the agriculture ministry said on Thursday, adding it will work to lift beef export suspensions swiftly enacted by several countries in Asia. In a statement, the agriculture ministry pointed to an analysis conducted by the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) that confirmed the unusual case of mad cow disease. The case of mad cow disease, known scientifically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), was found in a nine-year old bull from northern Para state. Earlier on Thursday, three additional Asian markets - Thailand, Iran and Jordan - slapped temporarily bans on beef imported from anywhere in Brazil. Officials explained that atypical cases of mad cow disease can occur spontaneously in cattle populations and such infections do not depend on ingestion of feed contaminated by abnormal pathogens known as prions.

☆ Big Investor Still Has a Beef With Wendy’s
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Spencer Jakab | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Wendy’s release of full-year earnings Wednesday brought little cause for cheer. While grabbing headlines at the moment for his pressure on Walt Disney , activist investor Nelson Peltz has held far more sway for far longer at burger chain Wendy’s . Last summer Mr. Peltz raised the prospect of the chain being sold or of his firm, Trian Fund Management, itself buying the approximately 80% of the shares it doesn’t yet own. Instead, Wendy’s announced a corporate redesign and doubled its dividend, sending the shares higher. It also announced an enlarged $500 million stock-buyback program.

☆ Millions of Americans are facing a hunger cliff as food stamps are slashed: 'The poorer you are, the poorer you eat'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | Madison Hoff | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Those emergency allotments ending will leave some with hundreds less in SNAP benefits each month. Courtesy of David WelchWelch is one of the millions of Americans suddenly contending with the end of pandemic-era expanded food stamps. The emergency allotments also helped keep many out of poverty. For some, the emergency allotments meant more than just sustenance — it also meant nutrition. The recipients Insider spoke to are just a handful among the millions of people who were still receiving the emergency allotments.

It’s a sunny day in early January, and Steven Yeun is happy to be out of the house. He’s wearing trail sneakers, brown pants, a shaggy mohair cardigan and sunglasses. With some actors, sunglasses serve as armor when they’re out in public, but Yeun, 39, shows no such guardedness. It’s a sunny day in early January, and Steven Yeun is happy to be out of the house. He’s wearing trail sneakers, brown pants, a shaggy mohair cardigan and sunglasses.

☆ Ron DeSantis admits getting married to Casey DeSantis at Disney World ended up being 'kind of ironic'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-25 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Ron and Casey DeSantis got married at Walt Disney World in 2009, Insider first reported. In the interview, Casey DeSantis acknowledged that the revelation, which came ahead of Election Day, "created a lot of news." The comments confirm Insider's reporting, after interviewing a wedding guest, that Casey DeSantis "wanted something all-inclusive and put together." Casey DeSantis said in the SiriusXM Patriots interview that she didn't know DeSantis would wind up going into politics. "We went out and we had a beer," at family sports restaurant Beef o' Brady's, Casey DeSantis said in the forthcoming interview.

☆ Brazil Suspends Beef Exports to China After Finding Mad-Cow Disease
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Samantha Pearson | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A municipal slaughterhouse in São Félix do Xingu, in the Brazilian state of Pará . SÃO PAULO—Brazil, the world’s largest beef exporter, halted shipments of meat to China after confirming a case of mad-cow disease, raising concerns among farmers over a drawn-out beef ban from the country’s biggest trading partner. Brazil’s agricultural ministry said late Wednesday it had notified the World Organization for Animal Health and sent samples for testing in Canada after detecting a case of the disease, bovine spongiform encephalitis, at a small farm in the Amazonian state of Pará.

☆ Ex-Bon Appétit editor Marissa Ross says the wine world ruined her. Now she's back and ready to give it hell.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Anna Silman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +40 min

Her rise was tied to a period of reinvention for the wine world during which natural wine conquered millennial taste buds and became ubiquitous on menus across the US. Marissa Ross, Bon Appétit's wine editor from 2016 to 2020, often posted pictures of herself chugging straight from the bottle — a technique she called "The Ross test." "Natural wine," a nebulous term that generally refers to wine made with minimal intervention and without additives like sulfites, was tentatively entering the American wine world. Many in the wine world took the idea that you didn't have to be educated to know about wine as a personal insult. When she first told BA that she planned to cover only natural wines, Ross said, Rapoport called to try to change her mind.

☆ Brazil to halt beef exports to China after mad cow disease case
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

SAO PAULO, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Brazil's beef exports to China will be halted starting Thursday after a case of mad cow disease was confirmed in the northern state of Para, the country's agriculture and livestock ministry said on Wednesday. The suspension is part of an animal health pact previously agreed between China and Brazil and is expected to be temporary. It is a blow to Brazilian farmers, as China is the main destination for Brazil's beef exports. A case of the disease, formally called bovine spongiform encephalitis, was confirmed earlier by Para's agricultural defense agency. In 2021, two cases of the disease triggered a suspension in beef exports to China that lasted more than three months.

☆ Pakistan seeks breakthroughs in high-level U.S. trade talks
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Andrea Shalal | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

WASHINGTON, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Pakistan is looking for breakthroughs in agriculture and information technology during the first ministerial level meeting of a U.S.-Pakistani trade and investment body in seven years, Pakistan's commerce minister said on Tuesday. Commerce Minister Syed Naveed Qamar will meet on Thursday with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and other senior U.S. officials under the U.S.-Pakistan Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA). Now that we are starting, there are many areas where we expect some breakthroughs, and that is on both sides." Qamar said Pakistan was looking to increase its exports of mangoes to the United States, and ensure smooth, increased trade in information technology and computer programming services. "When we talk about trade, we're talking about the entire spectrum, but we're focusing on these things because that's where things would start happening right away," he said.

☆ Costco's new roast beef sandwich costs as much as 6 of the retailer's hot dogs
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Nancy Luna | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Costco's food court is known for cheap fast-food staples such as $1.50 all-beef hot dogs. But some are balking at the price of the $9.99 roast beef sandwich. Many hard-core warehouse fans complained it was too expensive for Costco's food court, known for cheap fast-food staples such as $1.50 all-beef hot dogs and $10 whole pizzas. It is made with sliced roast beef, onion relish, a mayonnaise and mustard blend, lettuce, and roasted cherry tomatoes and served on a hoagie-style roll. When asked about the status of the roast beef sandwich, a food court worker answering the phone at the Lynnwood warehouse said 29 were left.

☆ We're having loyal Costco shoppers share their grocery lists with us. Here are their favorite things to buy there.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Business Insider | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +36 min

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☆ Even hackers are getting laid off: As companies beef up cybersecurity, one hacker group reportedly let go of 45 telemarketers tricking people into inviting ransomware
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

More countries are targeting payments made to appease ransomware attackers, according to Gartner. As US Department of Justice investigators and companies beef up their oversight of cybersecurity threats, the impact of ransomware attacks — hackers demand ransom payments from targets — has been blunted, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Ransomware hacks can have high stakes, especially when hackers blackmail targets over private information in order to extract payments. In 2021, the agency created new groups internally, including the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and the Ransomware and Digital Extortion Task Force. Countries are generally also stepping up their oversight of ransomware attacks and trying to improve privacy regulations, according to the research and consulting firm Gartner.

☆ The soft landing is still alive for the economy, but so is inflation
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Bob Pisani | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

The soft landing is still alive, but so is inflation Watching the stock market from Yucatan last week, it was pretty clear that firmer inflation numbers from the consumer price index and producer price index meant the glidepath to lower inflation will likely be bumpier than the bulls have been hoping for. The problem is clear: We have to figure out the glidepath of the inflation decline. We'll get more inflation data this week with the personal consumption expenditures price index on Friday. The good news is that other economic data indicates that the economy is very strong, particularly on the jobs front . The problem is a lack of bounce in growth stocks: Technology is expected to be flat in 2023, with only a modest 8.7% bounce in communication services earnings expected.

☆ This startup is using precision fermentation to make plant-based food taste better. Check out the 10-slide pitch deck Paleo used to secure $12.8 million.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Belgian startup Paleo just raised $12.8 million to make plant-based food taste better. A European foodtech startup cofounded by a former Belgian senator has just raised 12 million euros (around $12.8 million) to make plant-based food taste better. The proteins are a form of heme, which has been deemed key in unlocking a meaty look, taste, texture, and aroma for plant-based food. Paleo will sell its products to other plant-based food companies so they don't have to develop it in-house. "The main challenge now in the plant-based food space, it's taste, and that's exactly where we offer a solution," he said.

☆ Paraguay president seeks to calm China jitters on Taiwan trip
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and visiting Paraguay President Mario Abdo Benitez attend a welcome ceremony in front of the Presidential building in Taipei, Taiwan, February 16, 2023. Paraguay is one of only 14 countries to have formal diplomatic relations with Chinese-claimed Taiwan, and Beijing has been stepping up efforts to get those remaining allies to abandon Taipei. "Nobody is going to dare to go ahead with a process of diplomatic rupture with the Republic of China, Taiwan," he said, referring to Taiwan's official name. Santiago Pena, the ruling Colorado Party candidate, has said Paraguay's relations with Taiwan would remain intact if he wins on April 30. China views Taiwan as one of its provinces, with no right to state-to-state ties, a position Taipei hotly disputes.

☆ Sanitation company pays $1.5 million penalty for hiring children for 'hazardous' factory work like cleaning beef bone saws, officials say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( Jordan Hart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The US Labor Department filed a complaint against PSSI following a three-month investigation into unlawful child labor claims in November. PSSI was charged $1.5 million in penalties as a result of the investigation, officials said. The department accused the sanitation contractor of having employees as young as 13 working "hazardous" overnight shifts. The DOL filed a complaint seeking a temporary restraining order and injunction against the food safety sanitation service following its investigation. The company added that no children are currently employed, and many hadn't worked for the business in years.

☆ U.S. Watchdogs Want to Deploy Staff to Ukraine War Zone to Track Arms, Aid Up Close
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Warren P. Strobel | Gordon Lubold | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—Top oversight officials responsible for tracking over $110 billion in U.S. military and economic aid to Ukraine said they would press to deploy auditors and investigators directly into the war zone to beef up monitoring as the scale and scope of American assistance expands. Inspectors general from the Pentagon, State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development said in a joint interview with The Wall Street Journal that, thus far, they have been able to conduct critical oversight tasks remotely using personnel based in Washington, Poland and Germany.

☆ Exclusive: Tencent scraps plans for VR hardware as metaverse bet falters - sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Josh Ye | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The world's largest video game publisher had ambitious plans to build both virtual reality software and hardware at an "extended reality" XR unit it launched in June last year, for which it hired nearly 300 people. One of the sources said the XR project was not expected to become profitable until 2027, according to an internal forecast. The company also said on Thursday that it was not disbanding the XR unit. It also entered into a race against Western peers such as Meta Platforms (META.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O), which are building their own metaverses and have their own virtual reality hardware projects. Pico, a virtual reality (VR) headset manufacturer owned by TikTok's Chinese developer ByteDance, said on Friday it was laying off a small number of people, after local media reported the start of hundreds of redundancies earlier this week.

☆ I work at Trader Joe's. Here are 7 things I refuse to buy there—and what to get instead
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Christian Beltran | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Christian Beltran (left) has been working at Trader Joe's since 2021. I started working at Trader Joe's in 2021. Instant Cold Brew CoffeeWhat to buy instead: Organic Cold Brew Coffee, $5.49Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards Photo Courtesy of Trader Joe’s ©2023Trader Joe's Instant Cold Brew Coffee is a fine, dark powder made of 100% Arabica coffee beans. Shredded HashbrownsWhat to buy instead: Hashbrowns, $2.49Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards Photo Courtesy of Trader Joe’s ©2023I prefer Trader Joe's hashbrown patties over its shredded version, which tends to clump up in the bag and is more difficult to prepare. Poppy Pinot NoirWhat to buy instead: Loudenotte Cuvée Réservée Pinot Noir, $6.99Zoom In Icon Arrows pointing outwards Photo Courtesy of Trader Joe’s ©2023

☆ Privacy Regulators Step Up Oversight of AI Use in Europe
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Catherine Stupp | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +6 min

European privacy regulators are intensifying their scrutiny of companies’ use of artificial intelligence, hiring experts and opening new units to crack down on data violations. “AI is appearing in all sectors,” said Kari Laumann, head of a division for research, analysis and policy at Norway’s data protection authority. The regulator’s office has worked with 64 companies to test AI initiatives under its supervision, in a program started in 2020. Regulators have fined companies for privacy failings in their AI applications in recent years, but European data protection officials and privacy analysts say it is still unclear how to apply some aspects of European privacy law to the technology. Mr. Jairaj said he expects the EU’s coming legislation to force companies to look closely at third-party suppliers of AI products.

☆ Europe’s now dealing with an oversupply of natural gas after hoarding it for months before winter
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The benchmark price for natural gas futures has cratered about 28% this year, and it's trading roughly 85% cheaper than record highs reached in August. At that time, natural gas was costing buyers about 10 times more than usual ahead of the winter months. As a key energy supplier to Europe, many feared that Russia would cut off natural gas flows in retaliation to Western sanctions. Europe enjoyed its third hottest January ever last month, meaning people used less heating and thus less natural gas. A former Gazprom official told Reuters this week that all the years of work to build up Russia's natural gas exports have become moot.

☆ Destiny unites us, Paraguay leader says as Taiwan ties hang in balance
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/5] Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and visiting Paraguay President Mario Abdo Benitez arrive at the welcome ceremony in front of the Presidential building in Taipei, Taiwan, February 16, 2023. Speaking at a welcome ceremony in Taipei attended by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, Abdo said the Taiwanese people deserve the highest admiration, respect, and affection from his country. Tsai, recalling her two trips to Paraguay as president, said the two sides continued to deepen their friendship. Paraguay's Taiwan ties have been under pressure in recent years, especially from the country's beef producers and farmers, who see the relationship as an obstacle to gaining access to the world's largest market for their products. China views Taiwan as one of its provinces, with no right to state-to-state ties, a position Taipei hotly disputes.

☆ In Argentina's drought-hit fields, billion dollar losses and farmers going under
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Lucila Sigal | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/5] Dried sunflowers are seen on a farm, amid Argentina's worst drought in sixty years, in Tostado, northern Santa Fe Argentina February 8, 2023. The wheat harvest was already slashed in half by drought. Like many farmers, Giailevra - who has experienced bad droughts before - has seen his livelihood hammered over the last year. Many farmers in the area say they have lost early-sown corn, wheat and soy, so to rake back income they have planted fields with more drought-resistant cotton. The government has rolled out some tax relief measures for farmers, though with depleted state coffers has limited firepower.

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