Posts tagged with "Bloomberg"

Above, some of Target’s Pride merchandise at a store in Chicago. (Photo source: Christopher Dilts for Bloomberg News)

Threats to employees prompt Target to pull some LGBTQ-themed goods from the shelves

May 25, 2023

Target is removing some LGBTQ -themed merchandise from the shelves after threatening behavior by some customers ahead of Pride Month in June, which honors lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, reports Bloomberg.

“For more than a decade, Target has offered an assortment of products aimed at celebrating Pride Month,” the company said in a statement released on Wednesday, May 24. “Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work.”

The threats and the company’s reaction are thrusting Target into U.S. culture wars around same-sex relationships and transgender people, which have roiled social media websites and corporate boardrooms. Anheuser-Busch InBev NV’s Bud Light brand lost sales after engaging with a transgender influencer to promote the beer.

What’s more, Walt Disney is locked in a feud with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) after opposing legislation barring discussion of sexual identity in the state’s schools.

Target didn’t say which items it will remove. One product that generated criticism on social media was a “tuck-friendly” swimsuit with “extra crotch coverage” that could be used by transgender people, the Associated Press reported. While some posts on social media said the bathing suit was for kids, Target said it’s only available in adult sizes, according to the AP.

Research contact: @Bloomberg

Above, the prototype for Bluesky Social. (Photo source: Bluesky)

Bluesky is Jack Dorsey’s attempt at a Twitter redo and it’s already growing fast

April 28, 2023

Since buying Twitter last year, Elon Musk has made a series of chaotic changes to the social media platform that have alienated legions of users, reports Fortune Magazine.

That’s been good news for Bluesky Social, an invite-only rival app that has quickly gained a following since debuting in February. So far, its app has been downloaded 360,000 times from Apple’s app store worldwide, consumer data group Data.ai recently told Fortune, and over a million more users are on the waitlist to join. Most of the new users have been added this month, according to Bloomberg.

Bluesky was created by Jack Dorsey, who happens to also be Twitter’s original co-founder. In contrast to Twitter, he wanted to build a decentralized service, meaning its user data is stored in independent servers rather than in ones owned by one company—thereby giving users more autonomy in how they interact on the platform.

“We envision an open social media ecosystem where developers have more opportunity to build and innovate; and users have more choice and control over which services they use and their experience on social media as a whole,” Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky, wrote in a blog post last year.

Dorsey has said that one of his regrets was commercializing Twitter. If he had a chance to do it over again, he’d make it more like an open source project.

“The biggest issue and my biggest regret is that it [Twitter] became a company,” Dorsey tweeted in August 2022, responding to a question about whether the platform turned out like he wanted it to.

Bluesky’s rise comes amid growing scrutiny over data security on social media sites, as well as complaints about Twitter under Musk’s leadership. Those include Twitter requiring users to pay for blue check marks that signal their identities have been verified (these check marks were previously free) and then deciding to give away blue check marks to certain high-profile people (in some cases, dead people). Some recipients of free check marks are angry because the marks falsely make it appear as if they paid.

The origin story of Bluesky is closely linked to Twitter. It received its initial funding in 2021 from Twitter—Dorsey was the CEO until November of that year (it’s unclear exactly when the funding was received). Dorsey is also on Bluesky’s board.

Research contact: @FortuneMagazine

Above, the extinct dodo bird (center). (Photo source: Bagheera)

Startup backed by ‘Jurassic World’ producer to revive extinct dodo using complete genome

February 2, 2023

The flightless bird known as the dodo has been missing since the late 17th century, when humans hunted them into extinction—but that’s not stopping the biotech startup Colossal Biosciences from trying to bring it back from the dead, reports Futurism.

A self-branded “de-extinction” company, Colossal already has made headlines— vaunting its ambitious plans of reviving other animals, including the wooly mammoth and the tasmanian tiger.

Now, Bloomberg was first to report, Colossal is armed with a boatload of additional money, bagging another $150 million in investor backing, bringing the total to $225 million since 2021.

And even more tantalizingly, according to lead paleogeneticist Beth Shapiro, Colossal is now the sole possessor of a complete dodo genome, sequenced from a DNA sample that was extracted from preserved remains in Denmark.

Shapiro says that the company isn’t bringing the dodo back on a whim, of course, but to find methods to combat the ongoing extinction crisis that is, bluntly put, very, very grim.

“We’re clearly in the middle of an extinction crisis,” Shapiro said, as quoted by CNN. “And it’s our responsibility to bring stories and to bring excitement to people in [a] way that motivates them to think about the extinction crisis that’s going on right now.”

Actually resurrecting the dodo, even with a complete genome, will be extremely challenging, and some would argue impossible. At best, the result would be the closest possible proxy—a hybrid that’s slightly altered—and not a wholly original dodo.

And anyone that’s watched the blockbuster 1993 movie, Jurassic Park, could tell you that this might be a bad idea, or at least one that should be approached with extreme caution.

That isn’t deterring investor Thomas Tull, though, whose United States Innovative Technology Fund has been among Colossal’s biggest backers (in full disclosure, the managing partner of Futurism’s parent company, North Equity, is an investor in Colossal, although neither was involved in this story in any way.)

Strikingly, Tull also produced the sans-Spielberg 2015 sequel, Jurassic World, an installment in a franchise that warns that resurrecting long-extinct creatures is not a great idea.

Then again, dodos aren’t anywhere near as ferocious as velociraptors or the mighty T-Rex; but the impact of any creature introduced (or reintroduced) into a new ecosystem and food chain—no matter how feeble or fearsome—is difficult to foresee.

“When you’re doing big things like this, who knows what you’re going to discover along the way,” Tull said, as quoted by Bloomberg.

Hopefully we won’t be discovering the hard way that, in Jeff Goldblum’s iconic words, “Life, uh, finds a way.”

Research contact: @futurism

Photo source:EnBW

Germany and Denmark plan to invest $9 billion in an island of wind parks to replace Russian gas

August 31, 2022

Germany and Denmark have agreed on a $9 billion deal to build an offshore wind power project in the Baltic Sea that authorities said would provide enough power for up to 4.5 million households—out of a total of 40.1 million nationwide—by 2030, reports Business Insider.

Prior to the announcement, German residents had worried what would happen to them without Russian power for the grid during the coming winter. Both nations said the new project represents a step toward reducing the region’s reliance on Russian gas and oil.

Under the deal, announced on Monday, August 29, Denmark will boost its planned wind power capacity on Bornholm Energy Island from 2 to 3 gigawatts, per State of Green, an energy and climate arm of the Danish government.

The deal also includes a 292-mile subsea cable that links Bornholm’s wind parks to the German grid.

Currently, Denmark and Germany have offshore wind power capabilities of 1.5 gigawatts and 1 gigawatts, respectively, in the Baltic Sea, accounting for more than 90% of the region’s wind energy, State of Green wrote in its statement.

The infrastructure to connect the wind parks will cost $3 billion, while $6 billion would be needed to bolster the wind parks, Bloomberg reported, citing the Danish government.

In State of Green’s Monday statement, Dan Jørgensen, Denmark’s minister for climate, energy, and utilities, called the project a “landmark in energy history” at a time when “international cooperation is more urgent than ever before.”

Robert Habeck, Germany’s minister for economic affairs and climate action, said the “flagship project” would help Europe achieve “energy security and climate neutrality.”

On Friday, August 26, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbockv emphasized her nation’s desire to pursue the “enormous” potential of offshore wind energy in the Baltic Sea, which she said could generate up to 90 gigawatts of power.

“Wind energy from the Baltic Sea will help us fight the climate crisis. And it is an investment in our security: it will help make us less dependent on gas from Russia,” she said.

The world’s total wind power capacity—both onshore and offshor3 is now up to around 837 gigawatts, according to the Global Wind Energy Council. China holds the largest share in the world’s offshore wind market, having raised its offshore wind capacity to 27.7 gigawatts in 2021, per the GWEC.

The European Commission has set a target for increasing its nations’ total wind power capacity to 300 gigawatts by 2050, up from the 16 total gigawatts installed as of May.

Research contact: @BusinessInsider

Above, a Domino's pizza. (Photo source: #dominos/Instagram)

Ciao to U.S. chow: Domino’s Pizza quits Italy after locals shun American pies

August 10, 2022

Domino’s Pizza’s footprint in the Home of Pizza has proven to be short-lived—with Italians favoring local pies over the American version, reports Bloomberg.

After starting operations in Italy seven years ago, Domino’s now has closed all 29 branches nationwide. The company borrowed heavily on its plans to open 880 stores; but faced tough competition from local restaurants that expanded their delivery services during the pandemic. It finally sought protection from creditors after running out of cash and falling behind on its debt obligations.

The company already had reduced operations in the country from its peak in 2020 and stopped offering delivery from its website on July 29.

The U.S.-based chain entered Italy in 2015 through a franchising agreement with ePizza SpA and planned to distinguish itself by providing a structured national delivery service; along with American-style toppings, including pineapple.

“We attribute the issue to the significantly increased level of competition in the food delivery market with both organized chains and ‘mom & pop’ restaurants delivering food, to service and restaurants reopening post-pandemic and consumers out and about with revenge spending,” ePizza said in a report to investors accompanying its fourth-quarter 2021 results.

Still, the closures came as a surprise to some of its customers, who turned to the chain’s Italian social-media channels—questioning why their calls and orders weren’t going through or why their local store had shut.

Research contact: @Bloomberg

Above, the Obamas. (Art source: @shop.ahstudios/#obamas/Instagram)

Obamas to end exclusive deal with Spotify

April 22, 2022

Higher Ground, the media company started by former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, is ending its exclusive podcast deal with Spotify and is shopping for other partners in the podcasting space, reports Variety.

The Obamas are exiting their exclusive pact with Spotify, originally inked in 2019, after being frustrated with the company’s exclusive terms: They want to have their podcast programming distributed as widely as possible, according to two sources familiar with the situation.

Higher Ground also has disagreed with Spotify over how many of its shows would feature the former POTUS and FLOTUS, as first reported by reported by Bloomberg.

Higher Ground’s current deal with Spotify runs through October. According to one source, Spotify declined to make an offer to renew the agreement.

Podcasts that Higher Ground has produced for Spotify will continue to launch on the streaming platform through the fall, according to the Bloomberg report. But the company is currently in talks with other audio distribution companies, including Amazon-owned Audible and iHeartMedia, in hopes of reaching a nonexclusive deal for its podcast content.

Higher Ground’s first podcast for Spotify was “The Michelle Obama Podcast,” released in mid-2020, which at one point had ranked as the most-listened-to Spotify original to date. The company also produced “Renegades: Born in the USA,” a series of conversations between Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen, released on Spotify last year.

In January, Higher Ground’s “The Big Hit Show,” focused on transformational moments of pop culture, premiered on Spotify. The company also released “Tell Them, I Am,” a podcast collection of universal stories from Muslim voices on the platform.

Spotify will retain certain distribution rights to “The Michelle Obama Podcast” and other Higher Ground shows in perpetuity. In addition, wherever the Obamas take their next podcast deal, it is likely that those new projects would be distributed on Spotify on a nonexclusive basis.

Separately, Higher Ground has a pact to produce films and TV shows exclusively for Netflix. The company’s first film, “American Factory,” won the 2019 Oscar for best documentary feature.

Reps for both Spotify and Higher Ground declined to comment.

Research contact: @Variety

Above, President Joe Biden. (Photo source: PBS)

Biden orders lawmaker access to Trump’s White House visitor logs for January 6

February 17, 2022

President Joe Biden has directed the National Archives to release to Congress former President Donald Trump’s White House visitor logs for January 6—rejecting his predecessor’s claims that the logs are subject to executive privilege, reports Bloomberg.

“The president has determined that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the best interests of the United States, and therefore is not justified, as to these records and portions of records,” White House Counsel Dana Remus wrote in a February 15 letter to David Ferriero, the national archivist of the United States.

Remus directed Ferriero to turn over the records within 15 days of providing notice to Trump, barring a court order.

“The majority of the entries over which the former president has asserted executive privilege would be publicly released under current policy,” she said.

The panel probing the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has requested logs for White House visitors on that and other days, as well as other Trump-era records.

A spokesperson for the committee had no immediate comment Wednesday. A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Supreme Court last month rejected Trump’s bid to block the release of records to the January 6 panel—a victory for the committee and its Democratic chairman, Bennie Thompson. In addition to the visitor logs, the investigative committee has requested all photographs, videos, and other media; including any digital time stamps, taken or recorded within the White House that day.

Trump sought to override Biden’s earlier decision to waive executive privilege and argued that a former president’s need for privacy can outweigh the views of the current chief executive.

The committee has been focusing on the false claims that Trump and his allies pushed about the election outcome and how that played roles in stoking the violence on January 6, 2021. Trump’s lawyers argued that the release “would be a substantial blow to the institution of the presidency.”

In an unsigned, one-paragraph order, the high court said the case didn’t offer the opportunity to decide that question because a lower court found that Trump’s claim would be rejected even if he were still in office. Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative, was the only dissent.

The committee agreed to treat entries associated with sensitive appointments, including those related to national security, as confidential and to refrain from sharing or discussing them without prior consultation, Remus wrote. The committee also will receive the records without birth dates or social security numbers.

Research contact: @Bloomberg

Above, Jeff Bezos and the Koningshaven 'De Hef' bridge in Rotterdam. (Photo source: The Times UK)

Yokesters: The Dutch vow to egg Jeff Bezos’ yacht if a bridge is dismantled to let it pass through

February 11, 2022

It’s not exactly smooth sailing these days in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, where locals are voicing their objection to a plan that would temporarily dismantle an historic bridge to enable the passage of a mega-yacht reportedly owned by former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, reports NPR.

In fact, some already are making plans—albeit, in jest—for what they will do if the project comes to fruition: Throw eggs at the yacht as it traverses the water under the Koningshaven Bridge, known locally as “De Hef.”

Some 13,000 people are “interested” and nearly 4,000 have said they will attend a Facebook event titled “Throwing eggs at superyacht Jeff Bezos,” which has been shared more than 1,000 times in the week since its creation.

“Calling all Rotterdammers, take a box of rotten eggs with you and let’s throw them en masse at Jeff’s superyacht when it sails through the Hef in Rotterdam,” wrote organizer Pablo Strörmann.

He told the NL Times that the protest started as a joke among friends and has quickly gotten “way out of hand.” (The English-language news site also notes that this isn’t Strörmann’s first campaign to go viral.)

The news of De Hef’s potential disassembly, however brief, has clearly struck a chord with both locals and international observers.

It all started last week when Dutch broadcaster Rijnmond reported that the city appeared willing to grant a request to dismantle the centuries-old steel bridge so that Bezos’ yacht could pass through.

De Hef was built in 1927 as a railway bridge, with a midsection that can be lifted to allow ship traffic to pass underneath, according to The Washington Post. It was replaced by a tunnel and decommissioned in 1994–but was saved from demolition by public protests and later declared a national monument.

The yacht’s three masts apparently would be too high for the bridge’s roughly 130-foot clearance. The yacht in question was reportedly commissioned by Bezos and currently is being built at the Oceanco shipyard in The Netherlands, according to Boat International. It will comprise three masts with aluminum and steel construction and will measure more than 415 feet in length.

Once delivered, not only will she become the world’s largest sailing yacht, but she also will hold the title for the largest superyacht ever built in the Netherlands.

The waterway where the bridge sits is the only way the ship can get from the shipyard in Alblasserdam to the open seas, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. So Oceanco asked Rotterdam officials to temporarily remove the middle section of the bridge.

City spokesperson Netty Kros told the CBC that “the applicant” would cover the costs of the project but did not clarify whether that refers to the yacht’s owner, the shipbuilder or both.

Bloomberg reports that Oceanco will foot the bill. NPR has reached out to Amazon and Oceanco to confirm these details.

The city appeared to agree to the arrangement last week, with municipal project leader Marcel Walravens telling Rijnmond that the project would proceed for logistical and economic reasons. He said an exact plan was being developed but estimated it would take about a week to prepare and another week to “put everything back in place.”

Research contact: @NPR

Photo source: Sustain Charlotte

Commuting by bike is booming in five U.S. cities

January 28, 2022

In 2019, just 0.5% of U.S. commuters rode a bike to work—the smallest share of any mode. But tiny shifts can make a big difference. Data-driven bike plans, safety improvements, and supportive political leadership have helped boost bike commute rates in several cities nationwide in recent years, according to a new report from the League of American Bicyclists, reports Bloomberg.

In Benchmarking Bike Networks, the country’s largest bicycling advocacy organization takes stock of the best infrastructure and policy practices for getting more people pedaling.

The report spotlights Boston; Chicago; Austin, Texas; Oakland, California; and Missoula, Montana—cities of diverse size and geography where bike commute shares are more than twice the national average and have increased over the last decade.

Ken McLeod, the league’s policy director, hopes they can serve as models for other communities. “Benchmarking shows what really good communities are doing and what others can do so that we’re all pushing towards the same goal of safe bike networks that are accessible to everyone,” he said.

Consistent across the five cities was how long local officials have been planning for better cycling facilities—updating their proposals regularly. In Oakland, a suite of improvements focused on a “ladder” of two parallel streets and seven connecting streets on either side of the MacArthur BART station—especially after a 2007 bike plan showed how many more residents lived a short bike ride away from the station versus a short walk.

With a targeted approach, the number of bike lanes and dedicated bike lanes has soared across Oakland, often replacing shared lane marking —also known as sharrows—following best safety practices for high-traffic streets, McLeod said.

The report also identifies street repavement cycles as an efficient way to stripe lanes and add protections. Austin’s faster-than-average repaving schedule, where streets are resurfaced every 10 years rather than the usual 20, has helped to build bike lanes at breakneck speed; the city recently passed the halfway point on building a planned 400+ mile cycling network, marking a 34% increase in miles since 2014.

Political support also played a powerful role in that rollout, with Austin voters approving bond measures in 2016 and 2019 that supplied dedicated funds for biking and walking improvements.

Along the same lines, culture change led by top decision-makers laid important groundwork in nearly every city. In 2015, Missoula’s city council adopted a 30-year growth plan that highlighted needed infrastructure improvements to support its sustainability, affordability and safety objectives. That process led to a citywide goal of tripling the share of commuters who bike, walk, and take transit by 2045, which then guided the creation of a more ambitious bike plan.

“Knowing that policy makers had wanted the mode share to look different in 30 years, it enabled the staff and advocates to push harder,” McLeod said.

Helpful as these examples may be as cities adapt to pandemic-era commuting, they come with a significant caveat: Because the U.S. Census Bureau didn’t release biking and walking commute data from its tumultuous 2020 survey, the report doesn’t capture COVID-19’s effects on cycling—which were complicated, given that overall commuting plummeted at the same time as interest in recreational cycling surged.

While analytics companies have tracked both trends, the lack of standardization from year to year prevents a fair comparison.

This ties into a broader problem that disadvantages the cycling community, McLeod said: The federal government doesn’t routinely collect data on bike facilities the way it does for highways and bridges—making a national assessment of cycling conditions all but impossible. That’s also true for pedestrian networks. McLeod pointed to how data collection and mapping of deteriorating bridges informed President Joe Biden’s recent announcement of a $27.5 billion investment in those spans over the next five years.

“The lack of biking and walking network data means we can’t use similar messaging or provide accurate estimates of needs for bicycle and pedestrian networks,” McLeod said. “I hope this report helps us move towards

Research contact: @Bloomberg

Above, Richard Branson, from left, during an R360 networking tennis match with Michael Cole and Christopher Ryan. (Photo source: R360)