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☆ Britain is getting so desperate to tame inflation it’s talking about food price caps
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( Hanna Ziady | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Food inflation dipped slightly to 15.4% in May, but that’s still the second-highest rate on record. But chocolate and coffee prices are rising as global commodity prices soar, British Retail Consortium CEO Helen Dickinson said. Price controls anyone? “The current food price shock does not warrant such an intervention,” he added. Brexit is responsible for about a third of UK food price inflation since 2019, according to researchers at the London School of Economics.

☆ For the first time since it invaded Ukraine, Russia is expected to start buying Chinese yuan again to replenish its foreign reserves
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Russia is likely to start buying Chinese yuan to replenish its FX reserves as soon as May 2023, per Bloomberg Economics. This would be the first time Russia has replenished its FX reserves since it invaded Ukraine. The move indicates that Western sanctions and a G7-led price cap on Russian crude aren't enough to curb Russia's energy revenues. Russia stopped buying foreign currency in late January 2022 due to market volatility, shortly before it invaded Ukraine. US crude oil futures are down 5.8% so far this year to around $76 a barrel, but are up nearly 14% from this year's low of around $67 a barrel.

☆ What are AT1 bonds and why are Credit Suisse’s now worthless?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Anna Cooban | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

But it is the owners of Credit Suisse’s $17 billion worth of “additional tier one” (AT1) bonds who have been left fully in the cold. David Benamou, chief investment officer at Axiom Alternative Investments, a French wealth management firm with exposure to AT1 bonds, called the decision “quite surprising, not to say … shocking.”What are AT1 bonds? AT1 bonds are also known as “contingent convertibles,” or “CoCos”. It is not the write-down of Credit Suisse’s AT1 bonds that has rocked investors, but the fact that the bank’s shareholders will receive some compensation when bondholders will not. But because Credit Suisse’s demise has not followed a traditional bankruptcy, analysts told CNN, the same rules don’t apply.

☆ 38-year-old mom launched a frozen yogurt startup from her kitchen—now she's a 'Shark Tank' CEO with a $1.5 million company
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( Ashton Jackson | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The whipped, frozen Greek yogurt delicacy she put together became Sweetkiwi, a Dallas-based food startup founded in 2011. And on Friday's episode of ABC's "Shark Tank," Eigbe and her business partner — her husband, Michael Kindele — landed a $250,000 investment deal with Robert Herjavec valuing the company at more than $1.5 million. She initially offered the Sharks 5% of her company for that $250,000 investment, noting that the money would go toward brand-building and marketing. The duo expressed confidence despite their industry's heavy competition, noting that Sweetkiwi pints have less sugar than most other frozen yogurts. Herjavec's final offer was $250,000 for a 16% stake in the company — which Sweetkiwi accepted.

☆ Amazon employees think the company is lowering the bar with a streamlined interview process
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Matt Weinberger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

This is Matt Weinberger, deputy editor of Insider's tech analysis team, filling in once again for your regular captain Diamond Naga Siu. Stop me if you've heard this one: Amazon walks into a bar... But seriously folks, my colleague Eugene Kim reports on a big, meaningful change in the online retail giant's hiring process. Some employees think so, Insider's Eugene Kim reports. He says that "current and former bar raisers I talked to were not too happy about this decision and were concerned about its potential to drag down Amazon's hiring bar."

☆ Mark Meadows won't face voter fraud charges in North Carolina
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-30 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

RALEIGH, N.C. — Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff to President Donald Trump, won’t face voter fraud charges related to his 2020 registration and absentee vote in North Carolina, the state’s attorney general announced Friday. Meadows drew the attention of government attorneys when details that he was simultaneously registered to vote in North Carolina and two other states surfaced. Meadows cast a North Carolina absentee ballot by mail for the November general election, when Trump won the battleground state by just over 1 percentage point. Meadows began arousing public suspicion of widespread voter fraud leading up to the 2020 general election as the polls showed Trump trailing President Joe Biden. Election officials from both parties, as well as judges and Trump’s own attorney general, concluded there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election.

☆ 'A symbol of holiday dread': Stores pick beloved holiday classic songs to put shoppers in a jolly mood - but retail workers so are over it
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Jordan Hart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

In the final months of the year, some retail workers start dreading the holiday playlists they hear on the job. In a Change.org petition, one person compares Mariah Carey's 'All I want For Christmas Is You' to torture. Music playlists are carefully created by musicologists to put shoppers in the 'perfect mood,' Bloomberg reports. But it's not just Carey's catchy classic that has retail workers at their wits' end. Streaming companies like SiriusXM and Pandora have teams dedicated to creating store playlists, and brands use musicologists to choose songs that strike "a perfect mood for customers," Bloomberg reported.

☆ Pablo Escobar was gunned down 29 years ago today — here are 3 theories about who took the Medellin kingpin's life
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Christopher Woody | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

By 1993, Colombian authorities, the US government, and rival criminals were all after Pablo Escobar. "Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar," or People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar — known as Los Pepes — was made up of rival drug traffickers, paramilitaries, and others scorned by the Medellín cartel boss. His son, Juan Pablo Escobar Henao, who has changed his name to Sebastián Marroquín, has insisted that his father took his own life on that Medellín rooftop. "I have no doubt" that Pablo Escobar planned his own death, Marroquín said in a 2014 interview. The question of who killed Pablo Escobar is likely to go unresolved, probably by design.

Copeland, who uses they/them pronouns, said their store manager held a team meeting this morning to talk about the Chesapeake store shooting. Share this -Link copiedInvestigators search Walmart gunman's house Investigators on Wednesday scoured the home of the Walmart employee who opened fire at the Chesapeake store where he worked. "We can and must do more to reduce gun violence in America," he tweeted, linking to a news article about the shooting at a Walmart store in Chesapeake. Warner, Kaine of Virginia condemn the violence Virginia's two Democratic senators — Mark Warner and Tim Kaine — decried the mass shooting at the Walmart store in Chesapeake. "The Walmart shooting in Chesapeake is horrific.

☆ Wall Street finally has the leverage it's been wanting over Big Tech
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Matt Weinberger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Take one giant step back, and there's one group benefitting from all the tech carnage: Wall Street investors, who finally have leverage over Big Tech after years of having to swallow spending to excess. Wall Street is ready to slice and dice. The balance of power has shifted: With tech companies struggling on the public markets, Wall Street has more leverage than it's held in a long time. Read more about how Wall Street is taking the driver's seat in tech here. Their mutual interest is complicated by fights over licensing and costs, Insider reports here.

“When something comes up that requires a fast, human, unambiguous action, very few companies are prepared,” said Mr. DiMassimo. “If the talent retains some ownership, then you have to stop making the product entirely instead of just taking their name off,” said Mr. Chase. The offensive behaviors may be specific to the company in question; alcohol brands commonly include contractual clauses forbidding D.U.I. arrests or drunk and disorderly behavior among their representatives, said Mr. Chase. And that is not just because such behavior could occur again, according to Mr. Chase.

☆ Trump ally Steve Bannon should get 6 months in prison for defying the House January 6 committee, federal prosecutors say
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-17 | by ( C. Ryan Barber | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Federal prosecutors on Friday recommended that longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon receive a six-month prison sentence for defying the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In a 24-page court filing, federal prosecutors said Bannon should also pay a $200,000 fine for his "sustained, bad-faith contempt of Congress." The Justice Department pursued charges against Bannon following a referral from the House recommending a prosecution against the former Trump advisor. After that initial referral, the House went on to hold three other former Trump White House advisors — Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, and Peter Navarro — in contempt. At the end of the hearing, the House January 6 committee voted unanimously to subpoena Trump to testify.

☆ Europe has enough energy to survive the winter. Next year might be different
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Anna Cooban | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Cornelius Poppe/NTB/AFP/Getty ImagesBut success has come at a heavy cost to the economy: the scramble for alternative sources has sent energy prices soaring. Alexei Miller, CEO of Russian state energy giant Gazprom, said on Wednesday that there was “no guarantee” that Europe would survive the winter with its current reserves. “Adopting policies that prevent the pass-through of high energy prices to consumers is an expensive gamble that is doomed to fail if wholesale energy prices will stay high in the future,” he added. Carlos Torres Diaz, head of power analysis at Rystad Energy, told CNN business that Europe’s energy transition “has been put on hold” as it prioritizes energy security. “These sources of energy also help reduce the dependency on energy imports,” Torres Diaz added.

☆ UK brings budget forward in another attempt to reassure markets
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Hanna Ziady | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Kwarteng announced the Oct. 31 date in a letter to the Treasury on Monday, pulling his midterm budget forward by more than three weeks in an attempt to reassure rattled markets and rebellious party colleagues. He also confirmed that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the independent fiscal watchdog, will publish its assessment of the budget on the same day. Investors have been awaiting clarity on a revised date for the budget, which was initially set for November 23. It was widely expected to be brought forward after Kwarteng’s “mini” budget on Sept. 23 crashed the pound and sent shockwaves through financial markets with its promise of £45 billion ($49.8 billion) of unfunded tax cuts. The pound has recovered all of its losses but UK government bond yields remain higher than they were before the crash.

☆ UK's mini budget slashes taxes and borrows heavily as recession hits
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Anna Cooban | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

London CNN Business —A huge gamble by the UK government aimed at rescuing the economy from recession and boosting long-term growth sent the pound plunging on Friday. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, an independent think tank, called the government’s plans “extraordinary.”“It’s half a century since we’ve seen tax cuts announced on this scale,” he said in a tweet. The pound sank almost 2% to $1.10 on Friday after Kwarteng’s announcement to its lowest level since 1985. The measures come a day after the Bank of England warned that the country was already likely in a recession. ‘Unfunded giveaways’News of the heavy additional government borrowing rattled investors already concerned that the country is spending beyond its means.

☆ Special elections are confusing, chaotic messes that bleed taxpayers — and could often be avoided if politicians quit before leveling up, flaming out, or dropping dead
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-18 | by ( Grace Panetta | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +23 min

Young's death triggered an unprecedented series of three statewide votes — a special primary, a special general election held along with a regular primary, and a regular general election — within five months. The Alaska special election is just one of the more than 120 congressional special elections conducted over the past two decades, an Insider analysis found. Special elections bombard votersSpecial elections routinely attract special attention. Rebecca Blackwell/APIn 2022, special elections are 'a perfect storm of confusion'Special congressional elections are, on balance, less democratic than regular elections. "We knew from the beginning that it would be harder to win a special election," McCready said of his September 2019 special election.

CNN —Kenya’s Supreme Court on Monday upheld results declaring William Ruto winner of last month’s presidential elections. However, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected his claims and decided the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) held a credible election last month. We commend Raila Odinga and other candidates for abiding by the Supreme Court ruling. It was Odinga’s fifth time running and his third time challenging his loss in presidential elections through the Supreme Court, having filed a case after the last two elections in 2013 and 2017. But the Supreme court said the commission needed “far-reaching reforms” due to major dysfunction and governance failures.

☆ Власти Нидерландов продлевают ограничения в связи с коронавирусом
▼ + stars: | 2021-03-24 | by ( ) nokta.md time to read: +1 min

Ограничительные меры в рамках борьбы с распространением коронавируса в Нидерландах продлеваются до 20 апреля, сообщил во вторник вечером премьер-министр Марк Рютте после заседания кризисного штаба. Премьер заявил, что за неделю до 20 апреля кризисный штаб вновь соберется и решит, что делать дальше. «После 20 апреля мы не вернемся к нормальной жизни», — предупредил Рютте. Daarom blijven we tot en met 20 april in lockdown. Meer informatie ⤵️https://t.co/NyyyRQlFF9#AlleenSamen pic.twitter.com/tPlFslFvtH — Mark Rutte (@MinPres) March 23, 2021К настоящему времени число подтвержденных инфицированных коронавирусом в стране достигло 12595 человек, 1035 человек скончались.

Persons: Марк Рютте, Рютте Organizations: СМИ Locations: Нидерландах

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