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☆ A New York grocery store is using biometrics including eye scanners and voice prints to identify repeat shoplifters. Some shoppers say that's creepy — even if it deters theft.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

New York City grocer Fairway is collecting biometric data on its shoppers to catch shoplifters, the New York Post reported. Fairway is gathering facial recognition and other biometric information, such as voice recordings, on shoppers at one of its Manhattan locations, the New York Post reported on Thursday. Fairway told the Post that its system will only be accessed by "trained asset protection associates." Nearly one-third of the arrests made for shoplifting in New York City last year involved the same 327 people, the Post reported in January. But an investigation that year by the San Francisco Chronicle found that the affected stores reported fewer than two shoplifting incidents per month leading up to the closures.

☆ Nordstrom will cut about 2,500 jobs as layoffs creep into the retail world. Here's the full list of major retailers that have laid off workers in 2023.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Avery Hartmans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Layoffs have started trickling into the retail sector, primarily impacting corporate employees. Still, few retailers are laying off store employees as the "labor hoarding" trend continues in 2023. Since the start of 2023, major retailers ranging from department stores to direct-to-consumer brands have cut staff, the latest swing in a sector that's been hit hard by labor challenges and inflation. Brian Ach/Invision for The RealReal/AP ImagesThe RealReal: The luxury consignment company cut 230 employees, about 7% of its workforce. Lidl: Around 200 US-based corporate employees were let go from the German grocery chain.

☆ Silicon Valley Bank catered to Napa Valley wineries and could finance 'French oak barrels' if needed. The bank's demise 'surprised everyone,' a vineyard owner says.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Lloyd Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Silicon Valley Bank lent over $4 billion to wineries in the past 30 years, according to its website. Gavin Newsom as one of its investors, founder John Conover told Insider. A large portion of SVB's clientele came from the startup ecosystem, but it also established a good footing with the west coast's wine industry. Since the division's founding nearly three decades ago, SVB has loaned more than $4 billion to its wine-centric clients, according to the bank's website. On Wednesday, SVB Financial Group announced it was in a cash crunch that caused panic among customers and a massive $42 billion bank run.

☆ A Black couple settled with the appraiser who valued their home almost $500,000 lower than when a white friend posed as the owner, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The Black couple decided to "whitewash" their home and had a white friend pose as the owner. Their home was revalued at $1.48 million and they've now settled with the appraiser, per NBC News. That second appraisal valued the home at $1.48 million – a $487,500, or 49%, increase from Miller's appraisal just three weeks earlier, per the filing. This case isn't the first time discrepancies between Black and white homeownership have been discovered. And last year, the New York Times reported on a Black couple in Maryland who filed a lawsuit after their home was valued $278,000 higher when a white colleague pretended to own the home.

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☆ California flood watch issued as next atmospheric river looms
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Steve Gorman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

LOS ANGELES, March 9 (Reuters) - Flood watch notices were posted across northern and central California for Thursday ahead of an atmospheric river storm expected to douse much of the state with heavy rain, including mountain areas still buried from a near-record snowfall. But smaller, waterfront communities along several major rivers and their tributaries also braced for the possibility of overflowing streams swollen by heavy showers and runoff of melting snow. Elsewhere, the NWS issued "prepare now" alerts for residents along the Big Sur, Carmel, Salinas and Pajaro rivers. "It's really a combination of all this heavy rainfall coming and also rapidly melting snow." The looming deluge follows a three-week barrage of nine atmospheric river storms that struck California in late December through mid-January, triggering widespread flooding as well as hundreds of mudslides, rockfalls and sinkholes across the state.

☆ Elon Musk Calls U.S. Media Racist Over ‘Dilbert’ Comic Strip Backlash
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Gareth Vipers | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

‘The media is racist,’ Twitter CEO Elon Musk said in a thread on the platform. Elon Musk has suggested the U.S. media is racist against white and Asian people as he appeared to defend the creator of the “Dilbert” comic strip, which was recently dropped by several newspapers. The Twitter Inc. chief executive made the remarks in a thread on the platform in response to an article posted by the San Francisco Chronicle that detailed the saga surrounding racist comments by Scott Adams .

☆ Neiman Marcus and The RealReal are the latest to cut jobs as layoffs creep into the retail world. Here's the full list of major retailers that have laid off workers in 2023.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Avery Hartmans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Still, few retailers are laying off store employees as the "labor hoarding" trend continues in 2023. Since the start of 2023, major retailers ranging from department stores to direct-to-consumer brands have cut staff, the latest swing in a sector that's been hit hard by labor challenges and inflation. Most of the cuts so far have impacted corporate retail employees. At a store level, many retailers are actually holding tighter to workers than usual, even seasonal employees, in a practice economists call "labor hoarding." Here are the retailers who have announced layoffs in 2023:The RealReal, founded in 2011, sells secondhand luxury clothing.

☆ Kimberly Guilfoyle says her ex-husband Gavin Newsom will run for president in 2024 because he has 'always wanted' to be POTUS
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Cheryl Teh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Kimberly Guilfoyle says she thinks Gavin Newsom will run for president in 2024. Gavin Newsom, will run for president in 2024. I know he's going to run for president," Guilfoyle said. "I think you're going to see Gavin Newsom versus Donald J. Trump, running against each other for president," Guilfoyle predicted. The couple filed for divorce in 2005 after Guilfoyle moved to New York City, per the San Francisco Chronicle.

☆ Gavin Newsom says Kimberly Guilfoyle 'fell prey' to the culture at Fox News and was a 'different person' when they were married
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Sophia Ankel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Gavin Newsom told CNN his ex-wife Kimberly Guilfoyle "fell prey" to Fox News. Guilfoyle was a "different person" when they were together, Newsom said. Gavin Newsom said that his ex-wife Kimberly Guilfoyle was a "different person" when they were married and that she "fell prey" to the culture at Fox News. "She was a different person," Newsom, who is a Democrat, told CNN. Newsom and Guilfoyle married in 2001 and were together when he was sworn in as mayor of San Francisco in 2004.

☆ Elon Musk's Twitter ordered by officials to properly label bedrooms in San Francisco HQ as sleeping areas — or convert them back to offices within 15 days
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Kate Duffy | Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

San Francisco told Twitter to label converted bedrooms as sleeping areas, per a correction notice. If it doesn't comply, Twitter has 15 days to convert the bedrooms back to offices in its HQ. Officials launched an investigation in December into Twitter's office bedrooms. Patrick Hannan, the Building Inspection Department's communications director, confirmed to Insider in December it was investigating reports that Twitter had converted some office rooms into sleeping areas in its HQ. A former Twitter employee told BBC News that Musk had often slept in Twitter's offices since taking over the company.

☆ Suspect in California's latest shooting rampage due in court
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Alexandra Ulmer | Thomson Reuters | U.S. National Affairs Correspondent Who Spent Four Years In Venezuela Covering President Maduro'S Administration | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/3] A suspect is arrested by law enforcement personnel after a mass shooting at two locations in the coastal northern California city of Half Moon Bay, California, U.S. January 23, 2023 in a still image from video. HALF MOON BAY, Calif., Jan 25 (Reuters) - The man accused of shooting and killing seven farm workers near San Francisco in the latest of two back-to-back gun rampages in California that claimed 18 lives overall was due in court on Wednesday for his initial appearance before a judge. Chunli Zhao, 66, the lone suspect in Monday's massacre at two mushroom farms in the seaside town of Half Moon Bay, is expected to be formally presented with murder and other charges at the San Mateo County Superior Court in nearby Redwood City. The suspect was described as a resident of Half Moon Bay, a community of about 12,000 residents known for its foggy weather, fishing, and agriculture. San Mateo County jail records showed Zhao was booked on suspicion of premeditated murder, attempted murder and firearms offenses.

☆ Tech's ultimate nepo babies: Meet the Drapers, the first family of Silicon Valley
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

The billionaire Tim Draper is part of a lineage often lauded as Silicon Valley's premier VC family. As far as powerful professional networks go, it's hard to top the Draper family tree. Draper's venture-capital career began in the 1950s at his father's own trailblazing firm, Draper, Gaither, and Anderson, an early entrant in a new field. Meet the Draper family, the ultimate tech nepo babies and Silicon Valley royalty. Jesse DraperJesse Draper founded Halogen Ventures, which counts her father as an advisor.

☆ Twitter auctioned off a $16,000 piece of kitchen equipment known as the 'Lamborghini of meat slicers' from its San Francisco office
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Azmi Haroun | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Twitter auctioned off a number of office items from its San Francisco office this week. The auction included luxury kitchen equipment that was being sold at cut-rate prices. During the auction, Twitter's blue bird logo was sold for $100,000, and a high-end machine known as the "Lamborghini of meat slicers," was also sold. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Berkel 330M-STD Manual Fly Wheel Slicer, a top-of-the-line meat slicer used in top restaurants, was one of the items listed during the auction. The meat slicer, which sells for $16,000 at retail price, was originally listed at $7,500 at the start of the auction, and much of the luxury kitchen equipment was highly discounted, per The Chronicle.

☆ Burger King franchise owner ordered to pay $2.2 million to 230 workers for unpaid overtime, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A Burger King franchise owner was ordered to $2.2 million to workers, per the San Francisco Chronicle. Workers from six Burger King stores say they worked overtime without pay and were denied breaks. An investigation was opened into Golden Gate's Burger King franchises in 2019 and a decision reached the following year that was appealed. A group of workers at a Burger King restaurant in Nebraska resigned in July 2021 over working conditions. Calvert and Burger King did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider.

More men are being diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer that is less likely to respond to treatments, a new study from the American Cancer Society suggests. Even more concerning than the rise in advanced cancer diagnoses is the increased number of prostate cancer deaths. “This increase is concerning and requires a new look at prostate cancer screening,” Tewari said. Essentially, that’s like 16 Boeing 747s crashing.”Black men had a 70% higher incidence of prostate cancer than white men. Declines in prostate cancer screeningIn 1994, the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of measurements of the prostate specific antigen (PSA) to be used as part of a screening test for prostate cancer.

☆ ‘Maybe we cried too much’ over shoplifting, Walgreens executive says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Nathaniel Meyersohn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

“Maybe we cried too much last year” about merchandise losses, Walgreens finance chief James Kehoe acknowledged Thursday on an earnings call. Kehoe’s message is a notable shift from comments about theft from Walgreens and other retailers like Walmart and Target over the last nearly three years. Companies and retail industry groups have tried to draw attention to shoplifting and “organized retail crime” rings smashing windows and grabbing aisles full of merchandise off shelves, urging lawmakers to crack down. One of the shuttered stores that closed had only seven reported shoplifting incidents in 2021 and a total of 23 since 2018, according to the newspaper. Overall, the five stores that closed had fewer than two recorded shoplifting incidents a month on average since 2018.

☆ Photos show record California floods led to boat rescues, mudslides, and breached levees. More rain is coming.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

An atmospheric river dumped record rainfall across Nothern California on New Year's Eve. A car is partially submerged on a flooded road after heavy rains in San Francisco, California, December 31, 2022, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video. Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesOakland saw its wettest day on record on Saturday, and San Francisco was just shy of its record. Another person died after being pulled from the waters, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. In Tahoe, the atmospheric river dumped snow onto roadways that left some drivers stranded and prompted authorities to close major roadways.

☆ 5 ways to make affordable housing for all in 2023 — from construction laws to mortgage financing
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-01 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | Alcynna Lloyd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Houston has been able to keep its housing affordable in large part because of just this, he said. Jeff Tucker, the chief economist at Zillow, also told Insider that the biggest hurdle to affordable housing was "zoning reform." California has already done this when its citizens voted to pass Proposition 46, which provides funding specifically for affordable housing. It allocated just shy of $1 billion to the multifamily sector, according to CCIM, and is expected to see $13 billion in private funds be pushed into affordable housing. In July, Ginnie Mae, a federally-backed mortgage provider, specifically focused on affordable housing, requested that a manufactured home mortgage program be extended.

☆ 9 tech companies that have ditched San Francisco offices in 2022 are a warning sign for cities to rethink their reliance on big firms
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Robert Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

San Francisco should be a cautionary tale for cities that rely on tech firms to fill office space. At least nine companies have exited office space in the city, . Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told Bloomberg that San Francisco needed "more diversity" in its economic and tax base, as well as more residential homes and cultural attractions downtown. Meta is planning to leave some of its office space in San Francisco. PayPal left its office in San Francisco this summer.

☆ Wanted: Two lighthouse keepers for tiny island in San Francisco Bay. Must have 'high-quality culinary experience' and a captain's license.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-25 | by ( Ryan Hogg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Two custodians for a historic lighthouse and hotel in San Francisco Bay are being recruited. The East Brother Light Station is looking for two people to become lighthouse keepers for two years on the tiny island just off Point San Pablo in Richmond. Former innkeepers Tiffany Danse (left) and Tyler Waterson (right). Run boat service to the mainland. Run boat service to the mainland again," the Chronicle wrote.

☆ How much should you tip your barista?
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( Nathaniel Meyersohn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

There’s also often an option to leave a custom tip or no tip at all. 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. Others feel guilty if they don’t tip or embarrassed if their tip is stingy. One barista in Washington State said that he understands if a customer doesn’t tip for a drip coffee order. Nearly 60% of Uber customers never tip, while only about 1% always tip, a 2019 University of Chicago study found.

☆ 'Avatar: The Way of Water' review roundup: See it on the biggest screen possible, critics say
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Sarah Whitten | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

"The Way of Water" follows Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) who are now the parents of four Na'vi children. Read more: "Avatar: The Way of Water" could be headed for a $175 million opening weekend Critics are adamant that audiences should watch "The Way of Water" on the biggest screen possible, lauding the film for its you-won't-believe-this-is-computer-generated visuals and bombastic sound design. Here's what critics thought of "Avatar: The Way of Water" before its Friday release. Avatar: The Way of Water Courtesy: Disney Co.Ma did note that "The Way of Water" is "jaw-droppingly beautiful," likening it to watching a David Attenborough documentary rather than a CGI feature. Avatar: The Way of Water Courtesy Disney Co.Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

☆ How 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' became a holiday music hit
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Aj Willingham | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

CNN —The familiar tunes of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” transport us. In 1965, when “A Charlie Brown Christmas” first aired, Christmas jazz wasn’t exactly a thing. The musical formula they created didn’t just make “A Charlie Brown Christmas” an instant hit. “Bossa nova was one of the things that helped smooth its way to popularity.”A still from 1965's "A Charlie Brown Christmas." A woman listens to music from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on her phone in 2013.

☆ San Francisco has backtracked on a policy that would have allowed police robots to use deadly force, following backlash
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

San Francisco officials have halted a policy that would have let police robots use deadly force. A final vote on the policy is expected to take place next week, per the San Francisco Chronicle. The new amendment allows San Francisco police to use remote-controlled robots but explicitly bans the use of deadly force, per the San Francisco Chronicle. Per NPR, the first time a robot used deadly force was in 2016 when police in Dallas used one equipped with an explosive. Representatives for San Francisco's Board of Supervisors did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment made outside normal working hours.

☆ This former tech worker is helping change laws for people who get laid off
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Faith Karimi | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

CNN —Ifeoma Ozoma’s path as an advocate for tech workers started with a series of tweets one morning in June 2020. She emerged as a passionate advocate for tech workers by seeking legal protections for whistleblowers. “So many people reached out when I told my story, and most of them were tech workers or workers within the tech industry,” she said. The 30-year-old mentors activists and other people fighting all over the world against workplace discrimination. After leaving Pinterest, Ozoma moved to a farm near Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she grows her own vegetables and raises a flock of chickens nicknamed the Golden Girls.

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