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☆ The High Seas Treaty, Explained
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Haphazard Authority On Ocean Resources | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +12 min

Global News Changing Tides The first international agreement to protect the world's oceans aims to create “international parks” in the high seas. The high seas represent 95% of the world’s total habitat by volume, but the nautical world remains largely unexplored. “A sentiment we often encountered was that there’s not much in terms of biodiversity out there in the high seas,” he said. MPAs that already exist mostly occupy exclusive economic zones and only make up about 3% of the high seas. A 2016 Pew study on mapping governance in the high seas showed 19 governing bodies with a high seas mandate.

☆ Jim Cramer says these 7 currently undervalued 'franchise names' are stocks worth buying
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

"Franchise names, doing well, undervalued in the portfolio," Jim said during the Club's Morning Meeting on Thursday. TJX 1Y mountain TJX Companies' 12-month stock performance. CAT 1Y mountain Caterpillar's 12-month stock performance. SBUX 1Y mountain Starbucks' 12-month stock performance. As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade.

☆ Disney Lays Off More Than 300 Streaming-Focused Employees in China
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Jessica Toonkel | Joe Flint | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The $5.5-billion Shanghai Disney Resort is among Disney’s biggest amusement parks in the world. Walt Disney Co. has laid off more than 300 employees in Beijing who worked on its streaming services, according to people familiar with the situation, part of a cost-cutting and restructuring effort at the entertainment company. The layoffs in China come as Disney this week started carrying out the first wave of cuts in a previously announced plan to slash 7,000 jobs.

The supply chain woes that sent costs soaring and spurred shortages of everything from toilet paper to passenger cars are easing for retail-focused industries, but remain stubbornly persistent in important growth sectors like autos, machinery, defense and non-residential construction, experts said. "One of the big issues as we're trying to ramp up the military industrial base is having enough electronic components," Miller said. Companies that make war weapons like shoulder-fired Javelin and Stinger missiles are awaiting U.S. funding before starting new production for Ukraine. "Any general shortage in semiconductors will affect defense," said Brad Martin, director of Rand Corp's National Security Supply Chain Institute. "As we've moved through the past year or so, we have seen gradual improvement in our supply chain, including semiconductors ... Short-term disruptions will continue to happen," GM spokesman Dan Flores told Reuters in an email.

☆ Disney cuts metaverse division under Iger's restructuring
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Disney is cutting its metaverse division as part of the layoffs set to begin this week, CNBC has confirmed. Disney, like most companies in 2021, hopped on the metaverse hype train after Facebook changed its name to Meta and outlined bold claims to create a new digital world. Chapek told employees in a memo at the time that White's task was "connecting the physical and digital worlds" for Disney entertainment. The cuts in the metaverse division were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The job cuts will be cross-company, hitting Disney's media and distribution division, parks and resorts, and ESPN.

☆ Disney is ditching its metaverse plans after laying off an entire team focused on interactive storytelling, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Sawdah Bhaimiya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Disney laid off its entire metaverse team, which included around 50 people, in recent cuts. It's the latest firm to abandon its metaverse ambitions, despite assembling a team just a year ago. The company recently announced plans to lay off 7,000 people in a major cost-cutting effort. White's team was responsible for exploring ways of interactive storytelling through new technological formats. Now, Disney managers are under pressure to identify employees to layoffs and areas where they can reduce budget, a person familiar with the company told Insider's Claire Atkinson earlier in March.

☆ Belt and Road Initiative: China spending billions to bail out megaproject's debtors
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Jessie Yeung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

For one, China’s loans are far more secretive, with most of its operations and transactions concealed from public view. The PBOC requires an interest rate of 5%, compared to 2% for IMF rescue loans, the study said. There is also public concern in some countries over issues like excess debt and China’s influence. Accusations that Belt and Road is a broad “debt trap” designed to take control of local infrastructure, while largely dismissed by economists, have sullied the initiative’s reputation. In January, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang rejected the accusations of China creating a “debt trap” in Africa, a major recipient of Belt and Road investments.

☆ US consumer confidence rises; house price inflation slows
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Lucia Mutikani | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

The Conference Board's consumer confidence index rose to 104.2 this month from a reading of 103.4 in February. Housing affordability, which deteriorated as mortgage rates surged in response to the Fed's fight against inflation, is starting to gradually improve as house price gains continue to moderate. Annual house price growth remained strong in the Southeast, with double-digit gains in Miami and Tampa. The region had experienced rapid house price increases in prior years. Goods trade balanceThe Commerce Department also reported that wholesale inventories rose 0.2% in February after falling 0.5% in January.

MAYA BAY, Thailand, March 27 (Reuters) - On any given day in Thailand's Maya Bay, up to 40 blacktip reef sharks cruise in the cyan shallows while about 4,000 tourists visit its white-sand beach flanked by towering cliffs. Marine researcher Metavee Chuangcharoendee said that thanks to the pause in tourism the island was once again functioning as a nursery for young sharks. A number of factors affect the sharks around Phi Phi Leh Island, including seasonal movement patterns and human activity like fishing, Metavee said. For Phi Phi Island National Park, annual revenue was almost halved from 638.3 million baht ($18.7 million) in 2018 to 373.6 million baht in 2019 after authorities closed the beach. "If you can create a new image of Maya Bay as a nature reserve ...

REUTERS/Thomas Suen/File PhotoJOHANNESBURG, March 28 (Reuters) - China spent $240 billion bailing out 22 developing countries between 2008 and 2021, with the amount soaring in recent years as more have struggled to repay loans spent building "Belt & Road" infrastructure, according to a study published Tuesday. People's Bank of China (PBOC) swap lines accounted for $170 billion of the rescue financing, including in Suriname, Sri Lanka and Egypt. China's rescue lending is "opaque and uncoordinated," said Brad Parks, one of the report's authors, and director of AidData, a research lab at William & Mary College in the United States. China is negotiating debt restructurings with countries including Zambia, Ghana and Sri Lanka and has been criticised for holding up the processes. In response, it has called on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to also offer debt relief.

☆ Walt Disney Co begins 7,000 layoffs
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Dawn Chmielewski | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

LOS ANGELES, March 27(Reuters) - Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) on Monday began 7,000 layoffs announced earlier this year, as it seeks to control costs and create a more "streamlined" business, according to a letter Chief Executive Bob Iger sent to employees and seen by Reuters. Several major divisions of the company - Disney Entertainment, Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, and corporate - will be impacted, according to a person familiar with the matter. Iger said Disney would begin notifying the first group of employees who are impacted by the workforce reductions over the next four days. Josh D’Amaro, chair of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, sent a memo to theme parks employees in February warning that the profitable division would experience cuts. Officials for two of the unions representing cast members at Walt Disney World Resorts in Orlando, Florida, said “guest-facing” services were not expected to be affected by the layoffs.

☆ Salesforce, Caterpillar and Disney are in the news. Here's our take on the headlines
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Meanwhile, analysts who cover Caterpillar (CAT) put out fresh research that cuts against our own thinking, and layoffs will soon begin at Disney (DIS). The Salesforce co-founder echoed the we-can-learn-from-everybody philosophy he laid out on March 1 in an interview with Jim Cramer. Salesforce shares, which rose modestly Monday, has surged more than 44% this year, the third-best performing Club stock behind Nvidia (NVDA) and Meta Platforms (META). Baird turns bearish on CAT CAT 1Y mountain Caterpillar's 12-month stock performance. "It's very hard to get in and out of CAT," Jim said Monday.

☆ Disney layoffs will begin this week, CEO Bob Iger says in memo
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Alex Sherman | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Disney will begin layoffs this week, the first of three rounds before the beginning of the summer that result in about 7,000 job cuts, according to a memo sent by Chief Executive Bob Iger. "This week, we begin notifying employees whose positions are impacted by the company's workforce reductions," Iger wrote in the memo, which was obtained by CNBC. "Leaders will be communicating the news directly to the first group of impacted employees over the next four days. This week, we begin notifying employees whose positions are impacted by the company's workforce reductions. I want to thank each of you again for all your many achievements here at The Walt Disney Company.

☆ Car dealers fight the threat of extinction as the Teslafication of their industry intensifies
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Alexa St. John | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The modern car shopping experience, from initial research to final purchase, can now be done online — and the pandemic accelerated that shift. Others are emulating firms like Carvana and moving some parts of the buying process online. We don't exactly know how the car business is going to look going forward with this EV shift, and how much the EV shift is actually going to take place." Ford has set stringent requirements for its dealers to sell EVs — though some dealers have called its EV certification program unfair and dropped out. Some dealers are having a hard time committing to changes when the return on investment — especially with EVs — isn't yet clear.

☆ AOC said the story of Rosa Parks is 'too woke' for the GOP after mention of her race was removed from teaching materials
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Her comments came after a publisher in Florida removed mention of Parks's race from draft teaching materials. Look at these books that have already been banned due to Republican measures," Ocasio-Cortez said before holding up several books. "'The Life of Rosa Parks' — this apparently is too woke by the Republican Party," she said, referencing a book by Kathleen Connors. In another incident, a textbook publisher used in Florida schools removed references to Parks's race in a draft lesson plan in an effort to comply with the state's Stop WOKE Act, legislation pushed by Florida Gov. The Florida Department of Education later said the publisher was wrong to remove mention of Parks's race.

☆ A Million Bodies Are Buried Here. Now It’s Becoming a Park.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Corey Kilgannon | More About Corey Kilgannon | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The morgue trucks, loaded with plain, unmarked pine boxes, still arrive regularly by ferry to Hart Island, a potter’s field where the city has long buried its unclaimed dead. The island was once a penal colony, and it has been run since the 19th century by New York’s jail system, which used inmate gravediggers and kept it off limits until 2021, when the city transferred the island over to its parks department. Now, in a remarkable break with the decades-old policy of keeping Hart Island burials secretive and its graves unseen, the department is opening New York’s most forbidden place for public access.

Persons: gravediggers Locations: Hart, York’s

☆ The top 4 sports and sports tech VCs are ready to open their checkbooks. Here's what they're looking for.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Matthew Kish | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Courtside Ventures in January closed a $100 million fund, its biggest yet. KB Partners late last year closed a $127 million fund, also its biggest yet. If you're not in one of those lanes, don't bother reaching out, even though the firm has the new $100 million fund to dole out. Parikh expects fewer investments in media companies out of the new fund, but more investments in gaming. It's doling out the money through two accelerator programs and an investment fund.

About 75% of the full-time hourly workers covered under the deal currently get about $15 an hour, according to the unions. But the unions were able to get a much more front-loaded pay package in this tentative deal. About 96% of membership who voted on that previous offer rejected it, following the recommendation of their union leadership. “I can’t help but believe the overwhelming result of the previous vote played a role in reaching this agreement. In fact, Disney has been struggling to fill some of the job openings it has at Disney World.

☆ A 26-year-old influencer tried working from Mallorca for a month. She realized she can explore during the day and still keep East Coast hours.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Jordan Pandy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Olivia Marcus is over the lack of work-life balance in the US, so she tried working from Spain. Her 9-to-5 on the East Coast is a 3-to-11 gig in Mallorca, giving her all day to explore. While in Mallorca, Marcus continued to work her 9-to-5 job, but on a 3-to-11 schedule. (Mallorca is five hours ahead of the east coast of the United States.) She said working East Coast hours while in Spain was more than doable.

☆ The SEC charges Tron founder Justin Sun and 8 celebrities including Lindsay Lohan and Jake Paul in crypto lawsuit
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The SEC sued Tron founder Justin Sun in a lawsuit involving Tronix and BitTorrent crypto tokens. It also charged eight celebrities with promoting the tokens without disclosing they were paid. Eight celebrities including the actress Lindsay Lohan, YouTuber Jake Paul, and singer Akon were also charged. The SEC said the celebrities it charged promoted crypto assets without making it clear they were being paid. Insider did not immediately receive comment from the charged celebrities it contacted ahead of publication.

☆ Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul and other celebrities charged $400,000 for violating crypto rules
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( David Goldman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday charged Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul and several other celebrities with failing to disclose that they were paid to promote crypto. The celebrities agreed to pay $400,000, including fines, and return what they were paid for the promotion. For their violations, Lohan agreed to pay $30,000 in fines in addition to the $10,000 she earned for the promotion. Paul agreed to pay $75,000 in fines on top of the $25,000 he earned. “At the same time, Sun paid celebrities with millions of social media followers to tout the unregistered offerings, while specifically directing that they not disclose their compensation.”

Lindsay Lohan attends/performs during a photocall for "Speed The Plow" at Playhouse Theatre on September 30, 2014 in London, England. The Securities and Exchange Commission has unveiled fraud and unregistered securities charges against crypto founder and Grenadian diplomat Justin Sun, alongside separate violations against the celebrity backers of his Tronix and BitTorrent crypto assets, which included Jake Paul, Lindsay Lohan and Soulja Boy. The unregistered offer and sale charges, on the other hand, are similar to charges the SEC has unveiled against other crypto offerings and exchanges, including Genesis, Gemini and Do Kwon's Terraform Labs. “This case demonstrates again the high risk investors face when crypto asset securities are offered and sold without proper disclosure,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Tron and his backers' alleged behavior was part of an "age-old playbook to mislead and harm investors," SEC enforcement chief Gurbir Grewal said in a statement.

[1/5] People hold up special edition newspapers, reporting Japan's victory at the World Baseball Classic final, as others queue to try to get them, in Tokyo, Japan, March 22, 2023. REUTERS/Kato IsseiTOKYO, March 22 (Reuters) - With cherry blossoms reaching full bloom in Tokyo, Japanese sports fans erupted in jubilation on Wednesday after their countrymen defeated Team USA to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC). "Nihon yusho," or "Japan victory," was the No. Japan pitchers set a WBC record for strikeouts throughout the series, according to Fox Sports. With sublime serendipity, Japan's victory comes as Tokyo cherry blossoms reached their zenith, bathing the city's parks and streets in pink and white.

☆ Disney executives are being directed to identify thousands of layoff candidates and propose other budget cuts by April
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Claire Atkinson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Bob Iger is on a push for profitability at Disney and announced plans to cut 7,000 positions. Managers must identify candidates for layoffs by April, according to a source close to Disney. Disney bean counters have been looking carefully across the company in an attempt to find redundancies and eliminate executives where they can. Earlier this month, Disney announced that top human resources executive Paul Richardson would exit. In February Iger announced a restructure of Disney into three divisions: Entertainment, ESPN, and Parks, Experiences and Products.

☆ Failure of Silicon Valley Bank Mirrors the Myth of the Wild West
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

As Silicon Valley Bank went down the tubes, it wasn't surprising that the loudest mouths in Techworld started demanding that the federal government cover everyone's losses. They were pioneers on the frontier of tech and finance, and as such they acted the way pioneers always do. Myths of the frontiersIt's unfashionable for people in the tech industry to dispute the central role that government-funded infrastructure and academic projects have played in the development of Silicon Valley and the digital age. Shout down into Silicon Valley and you'll hear echoes of this same pioneer myth. They see themselves as heroes not of a Western frontier but of space — the Final one — as refracted by the legendary writers of the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

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