Sabah Meddings | (TNS) Bloomberg News Just a year after he became chief executive officer of Philip Morris International Inc., Jacek Olczak swooped on rival nicotine pouch maker Swedish Match in a $16 billion deal. Related Articles National News | NORAD’s Santa tracker was a Cold War morale boost. Now it attracts millions of kids National News | Bill Clinton is out of the hospital after being treated for the flu National News | Heavy travel day off to a rough start after American Airlines briefly grounds all flights National News | Social Security’s full retirement age will jump in 2025. When can you collect your full benefits? National News | Today in History: December 24, former defense secretary pardoned in Iran-Contra scandal Olczak wanted the company’s vast U.S. distribution network and popular Zyn nicotine pouches, which are about the size of a chiclet and meant to be placed between a user’s gum and upper lip. Hailed by some as a product that can give users “unstoppable force,” demand for Zyn is now so great that the company is on track to sell 580 million tins in the U.S. this year, up from 385 million a year earlier. It’s all part of Olczak’s plan as he charts a way for the world’s largest tobacco company to generate two-thirds of its revenue from smoke-free alternatives to cigarettes by 2030. The problem? It’s becoming increasingly clear that the huge wave in popularity for Zyn is also sweeping up kids. There are already an estimated half million underage users in the U.S. who are developing a taste for nicotine — a highly addictive, toxic chemical. Philip Morris was fined $1.2 million this month for sales in Washington, D.C., of pouches made with banned flavors, which are seen as more attractive to children. Olczak is clear that the tobacco company may never be able to stop kids from trying its products. “The unfortunate thing is that with young people, there is an element of experimentation,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg at the company’s headquarters in Switzerland. “It doesn’t matter which country. This age is about experimentation, and they will experiment with the things the adults are doing.” His own 16-year-old son is curious about nicotine, he said. “You have to understand that ‘zero’ will not exist.” For Philip Morris, which reported $35.2 billion in net annual sales last year, the company is at a precipice: navigating the potential huge upside in the U.S. could depend on its ability to prove that it’s not hooking a new generation of young people on nicotine. The cautionary example here is Juul, the high strength e-cigarette brand accused in multiple lawsuits of targeting underage users through stylishly-designed vaporizers and advertisements on youth-focused websites. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned Juul from marketing its products in 2022, and rescinded the order earlier this year. Olczak, 59, insists the marketing of Zyn is “day and night” compared to Juul, pointing to his company’s focus on age verification. Still, a quick search on TikTok turns up a stream of videos promoting the pouches, including endorsements from Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson. The CEO maintains that Philip Morris has never paid for influencer promotion. The company is “very careful about which audiences we talk with,” he said. “We don’t mind our consumers sharing their happiness,” he added, “but we would like them to watch who follows them.” With sales climbing, the FDA has already begun to crack down, penalizing retailers caught selling to minors, and sending warning letters to online sellers offering unauthorized flavors of Zyn products. The regulator says that nicotine, which is addictive, can harm adolescent brain development and impact attention, learning and memory. To Olczak’s frustration, Zyn and other nicotine pouches have not yet been authorized by the FDA — Swedish Match filed an application in March 2020 — but are permitted to stay on the market while the request is being considered. That hasn’t dampened demand: Zyn sales grew 41.4% in the third quarter in the U.S. compared to a year earlier, reaching 149.1 million cans. Following reports of supply shortages in the U.S., Philip Morris made a fresh investment in its Owensboro, Kentucky plant, and announced plans to build a new factory in Colorado. Other Philip Morris products are facing similar regulatory challenges. Sales of a heated tobacco stick called IQOS are expected to decline slightly this year as a result of what Stefan Volpetti, who oversees the company’s inhaled smoke-free products, calls “short-term turbulence” related to regulation. The EU has banned flavored heated tobacco products, and Taiwan has banned heated tobacco outright. In the UK, Philip Morris has also come under fire for its ambitions to expand into health care. In September, it announced plans to sell British inhaler-maker Vectura Group Ltd. for roughly a third of the price it paid just three years ago. The $1.2 billion deal was criticized by scientific organizations, health charities and anti-smoking campaigners who said that Big Tobacco should not benefit from a company whose products are used by Britain’s National Health Service, among others. Some even recommended that doctors stop proscribing Vectura-made inhalers. Olczak believes that this response crossed a line. “The scientists of Vectura were cut off completely from any symposia or gathering,” he said. People were “obsessed with the fact Philip Morris was the shareholder.” The controversy illustrates the challenges facing the company, as it attempts to leave cigarettes behind and push into new product areas. Philip Morris still has a long way to go before it sells its last pack, Olczak sees the launch of IQOS in the U.S. and a surge in Zyn sales as an opportunity to step in the right direction. “The destination is a given,” he reflected. “It’s written on the wall.” ©2024 Bloomberg News. Visit at bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.PREP PREVIEW: Pleasanton teams hope for return to the top
Heavy travel day starts with brief grounding of all American Airlines flightsGrade: Senior School: Davenport North Notes: Bourrage, the reigning Iowa Gatorade Player of the Year, ranked second in the MAC scoring (19.8 ppg) and first in rebounds (9.3) and assists (5.6) last season. ... Has 1,042 points and 533 rebounds for her career. ... Signed with LSU earlier this month. Grade: Senior School: Davenport North Notes: Enters the season with 1,229 points and 603 rebounds. ... Missed the last eight games last season because of a knee injury. Shot 63.8% last season. ... Averaged 18.6 points, 8.4 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 4.6 steals per game as a junior. ... Signed with Iowa earlier this month. Grade: Junior School: Bettendorf Notes: McCorkle, who played at Davenport North as a freshman, ranked fifth in the MAC in scoring last season at 15.9 points per game. ... The 5-foot-8 guard also accounted for 3.1 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 3.5 steals per game. ... Has D-I college offers from Ball State and Buffalo. Year: Senior School: Pleasant Valley Notes: 5-6 guard was second in assists per game last season (5.0) behind only North’s Divine Bourrage. ... Scored 12.5 points per game and added 3.6 steals per contest. Career totals: 793 points, 263 assists, 255 steals. ... Signed with D-III Wartburg. Grade: Senior School: Central DeWitt Notes: Led the MAC in scoring (21 ppg) and ranked fourth in 4A last season. ... Also averaged 5.8 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 2.7 steals per game as a junior. ... Has 1,008 career points. ... Signed with D-II Lewis University of the Great Lakes Valley Conference. Sent weekly directly to your inbox! Sports Editor {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.The biggest vessel-ordering program since the eve of the global financial crisis is putting a squeeze on the shipbuilding industry’s capacity to construct new vessels. ET Year-end Special Reads It's all Gucci for Indians' luxury craving even as economy shows wrinkles Investing in 2025: Will domestic funds continue to counter FPI sell-offs amid rising valuations? 2024 exposed the underbelly of India's Silicon Valley Owners plowed more than $188 billion into newbuilds in the first 11 months of the year, on course for the strongest pace in terms of both value and capacity since 2007, according to Clarkson Research Services Ltd, a unit of the world’s largest shipbroker. Two of the world’s three largest shipbuilders say customers would need to wait until 2028 to receive new ships ordered today. The surge comes against the need to serve an ever-growing base of global trade, which has continued to expand despite an elevated interest rate environment and a slowing Chinese economy. Though the proportion of ships being added to the fleet is small by historical standards, the outright volume of orders this year is one of the highest on record, highlighting the pressures on yard space. “You’ve had very little development in shipyard capacity, other than it has reduced in size,” said Jan Rindbo, chief executive officer of D/S Norden A/S which operates both bulk carriers and oil tankers. “You don’t have the ability to quickly increase production.” The spending on new ships is a boost to the industrial bases of South Korea, Japan and China, the three countries that dominate new construction. The trouble is that some vessels, particularly ships that move coal, ore and crops, aren’t lucrative enough for yards to make. Finance A2Z Of Money By - elearnmarkets, Financial Education by StockEdge View Program Entrepreneurship Startup Fundraising: Essential Tactics for Securing Capital By - Dr. Anu Khanchandani, Startup Coach with more than 25 years of experience View Program Data Analysis Animated Visualizations with Flourish Studio: Beginner to Pro By - Prince Patni, Software Developer (BI, Data Science) View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) AI and Analytics based Business Strategy By - Tanusree De, Managing Director- Accenture Technology Lead, Trustworthy AI Center of Excellence: ATCI View Program Design Canva Magic Write: Ideas to Stunning Slides in No Time By - Prince Patni, Software Developer (BI, Data Science) View Program Entrepreneurship Marketing & Sales Strategies for Startups: From Concept to Conversion By - Dr. Anu Khanchandani, Startup Coach with more than 25 years of experience View Program Marketing Digital Marketing Masterclass by Neil Patel By - Neil Patel, Co-Founder and Author at Neil Patel Digital Digital Marketing Guru View Program Data Science SQL for Data Science along with Data Analytics and Data Visualization By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) Learn InVideo AI: Create Videos from Text Easily By - Prince Patni, Software Developer (BI, Data Science) View Program Marketing Modern Marketing Masterclass by Seth Godin By - Seth Godin, Former dot com Business Executive and Best Selling Author View Program Data Science MySQL for Beginners: Learn Data Science and Analytics Skills By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) Master in Python Language Quickly Using the ChatGPT Open AI By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Design Microsoft Designer Guide: The Ultimate AI Design Tool By - Prince Patni, Software Developer (BI, Data Science) View Program Entrepreneurship Boosting Startup Revenue with 6 AI-Powered Sales Automation Techniques By - Dr. Anu Khanchandani, Startup Coach with more than 25 years of experience View Program Data Science SQL Server Bootcamp 2024: Transform from Beginner to Pro By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Web Development Master RESTful APIs with Python and Django REST Framework: Web API Development By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Web Development C++ Fundamentals for Absolute Beginners By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Marketing Future of Marketing & Branding Masterclass By - Dr. David Aaker, Professor Emeritus at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, Author | Speaker | Thought Leader | Branding Consultant View Program Office Productivity Mastering Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and 365 By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Entrepreneurship Building Your Winning Startup Team: Key Strategies for Success By - Dr. Anu Khanchandani, Startup Coach with more than 25 years of experience View Program Office Productivity Advanced Excel Course - Financial Calculations & Excel Made Easy By - Anirudh Saraf, Founder- Saraf A & Associates, Chartered Accountant View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) Generative AI for Dynamic Java Web Applications with ChatGPT By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) AI-Powered Python Mastery with Tabnine: Boost Your Coding Skills By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Office Productivity Zero to Hero in Microsoft Excel: Complete Excel guide 2024 By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Web Development A Comprehensive ASP.NET Core MVC 6 Project Guide for 2024 By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Artificial Intelligence(AI) Java Programming with ChatGPT: Learn using Generative AI By - Metla Sudha Sekhar, IT Specialist and Developer View Program Bloomberg Instead, they’re are increasingly full with container ships, where diversions around Africa have helped create meteoric profits for the world’s major lines, and gas carriers, whose demand is set to surge over the coming years as seaborne flows rise. Limited Space In addition to cautioning on the lead time for deliveries, a spokesperson for Samsung Heavy Industries Co., the world’s third-largest shipbuilder, said its yard space in South Korea is very tight due to high demand for commercial vessels, especially LNG carriers. HD Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., the second-biggest, has taken $20.5 billion of orders for 181 vessels so far this year, exceeding its own annual target by 52%, a spokesperson said. It will take about three-and-a-half years to clear its backlog, the firm said. More than a quarter of those are for LPG and ammonia carriers, and the company is seeking value-added products like gas ships or green-energy vessels rather than bulk carriers or oil tankers that generate lower margins. The largest ships in gas and container shipping can cost significantly more than $250 million each to build new. By contrast, large bulk carriers cost about $80 million, Clarkson data show. Average industry wait times for large vessels are the highest since the mid-to-late 2000s. “The more specialized shipbuilders from Korea and Japan are poised to enjoy better earnings by focusing on filling their shipyards with profitable and reliable orders,” ING analysts Min Joo Kang and Rico Luman wrote in a note. “Shipbuilding will continue to be a significant growth driver in Asia.” Bloomberg Owners have been able to increase their spending as many have been flush with cash from an earnings boom that began soon after the Covid-19 pandemic. For the past three and a half years, average daily vessel earnings have been above the levels they were at between 2010 and 2019, according to Clarkson data. Trade Growth That stems in part from continued robust demand for vessels that’s not expected to reverse any time soon: global seaborne trade should expand in both 2025 and 2026 despite concerns about global manufacturing and the health of the Chinese economy. Red Sea diversions and the war in Ukraine have also boosted the distances ships are sailing and, by extension, demand for the carriers. At the same time owners are investing in modernizing a fleet in which the average ship’s age is more than 17 years, the oldest since at least 2005, according to Clarkson data. The push has coincided with a move to cleaner fuels in some corners of the market — particularly container shipping where the largest companies have the biggest direct exposure to end users. “There’s a market growth component underlying all of the sectors,” said Niels Rasmussen, chief shipping analyst at trade group Bimco, referring to the need for shipowners to build more vessels as trade volumes expand. “On top of that you have decarbonization as a driver for container ships, then somewhere in amongst all of that there is the fact that some sectors have recently seen high profits and its time to contract for replacement.” Nominations for ET MSME Awards are now open. The last day to apply is December 31, 2024. Click here to submit your entry for any one or more of the 22 categories and stand a chance to win a prestigious award.
CHICAGO — Shoplifting rates in the three largest U.S. cities — New York, Los Angeles and Chicago — remain higher than they were before the pandemic, according to a last month from the nonpartisan research group Council on Criminal Justice. The sharp rise in retail theft in recent years has made shoplifting a hot-button issue, especially for politicians looking to address public safety concerns in their communities. Since 2020, when viral videos of smash-and-grab robberies flooded social media during the COVID-19 pandemic, many Americans have expressed fears that crime is out of control. Polls show that perceptions have improved recently, but a majority of Americans crime is worse than in previous years. “There is this sense of brazenness that people have — they can just walk in and steal stuff. ... That hurts the consumer, and it hurts the company,” said Alex Piquero, a criminology professor at the University of Miami and former director of the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, in an interview. “That’s just the world we live in,” he said. “We need to get people to realize that you have to obey the law.” At least eight states — Arizona, California, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, New York and Vermont — passed a total of 14 bills in 2024 aimed at tackling retail theft, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The measures range from redefining retail crimes and adjusting penalties to allowing cross-county aggregation of theft charges and protecting retail workers. Major retailers have responded to rising theft since 2020 by locking up merchandise, upgrading security cameras, hiring private security firms and even closing stores. Still, the report indicates that shoplifting remains a stubborn problem. In Chicago, the rate of reported shoplifting incidents remained below pre-pandemic levels throughout 2023 — but surged by 46% from January to October 2024 compared with the same period a year ago. Shoplifting in Los Angeles was 87% higher in 2023 than in 2019. Police reports of shoplifting from January to October 2024 were lower than in 2023. Los Angeles adopted a new crime reporting system in March 2024, which has likely led to an undercount, according to the report. In New York, shoplifting rose 48% from 2021 to 2022, then dipped slightly last year. Still, the shoplifting rate was 55% higher in 2023 than in 2019. This year, the shoplifting rate increased by 3% from January to September compared with the same period last year. While shoplifting rates tend to rise in November and December, which coincides with in-person holiday shopping, data from the Council on Criminal Justice’s sample of 23 U.S. cities shows higher rates in the first half of 2024 compared with 2023. Researchers found it surprising that rates went up despite retailers doing more to fight shoplifting. Experts say the spike might reflect improved reporting efforts rather than a spike in theft. “As retailers have been paying more attention to shoplifting, we would not expect the numbers to increase,” said Ernesto Lopez, the report’s author and a senior research specialist with the council. “It makes it a challenge to understand the trends of shoplifting.” In downtown Chicago on a recent early afternoon, potential shoppers shuffled through the streets and nearby malls, browsing for gifts ahead of the holidays. Edward Johnson, a guard at The Shops at North Bridge, said that malls have become quieter in the dozen or so years he has worked in mall security, with the rise of online retailers. As for shoplifters, Johnson said there isn’t a single type of person to look out for — they can come from any background. “I think good-hearted people see something they can’t afford and figure nothing is lost if they take something from the store,” Johnson said as he patrolled the mall, keeping an eye out for lost or suspicious items. Between 2018 and 2023, most shoplifting in Chicago was reported in the downtown area, as well as in the Old Town, River North and Lincoln Park neighborhoods, according to a separate by the Council on Criminal Justice. Newly sworn-in Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke this month lowered the threshold for charging retail theft as a felony in the county, which includes Chicago, from $1,000 to $300, aligning it with state law. “It sends a signal that she’s taking it seriously,” Rob Karr, the president and CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, told Stateline. Nationally, retailers are worried about organized theft. The National Retail Federation’s latest attributed 36% of the $112.1 billion in lost merchandise in 2022 to “external theft,” which includes organized retail crime. Organized retail crime typically involves coordinated efforts by groups to steal items with the intent to resell them for a profit. Commonly targeted goods include high-demand items such as baby formula, laundry detergent and electronics. The same report found that retailers’ fear of violence associated with theft also is on the rise, with more retailers taking a “hands-off approach.” More than 41% of respondents to the organization’s 2023 survey, up from 38% in 2022, reported that no employee is authorized to try and stop a shoplifter. (The federation’s reporting has come under criticism. It a claim last year that attributed nearly half of lost merchandise in 2021 to organized retail crime; such theft accounted for only about 5%. The group announced this fall it will no longer publish its reports on lost merchandise.) Policy experts say shoplifting and organized retail theft can significantly harm critical industries, drive up costs for consumers and reduce sales tax revenue for states. Those worries have driven recent state-level action to boost penalties for shoplifting. California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom a package of 10 bills into law in August aimed at addressing retail theft. These measures make repeated theft convictions a felony, allow aggregation of crimes across multiple counties to be charged as a single felony, and permit police to arrest suspects for retail theft even if the crime wasn’t witnessed directly by an officer. In September, Newsom an additional bill that imposes steeper felony penalties for large-scale theft offenses. California voters also overwhelmingly a ballot measure in November that increases penalties for specific drug-related and theft crimes. Under the new law, people who are convicted of theft at least twice may face felony charges on their third offense, regardless of the stolen item’s value. “With these changes in the law, really it comes down to making sure that law enforcement is showing up to our stores in a timely manner, and that the prosecutors and the [district attorneys] are prosecuting,” Rachel Michelin, the president and CEO of the California Retailers Association, told Stateline. “That’s the only way we’re going to deter retail theft in our communities.” In New Jersey, a bipartisan making its way through the legislature would increase penalties for leading a shoplifting ring and allow extended sentences for repeat offenders. “This bill is going after a formally organized band of criminals that deliver such destruction to a critical business in our community. We have to act. We have to create a deterrence,” Democratic Assemblymember Joseph Danielsen, one of the bill’s prime sponsors, said in an interview with Stateline. The legislation would allow extended sentences for people convicted of shoplifting three times within 10 years or within 10 years of their release from prison, and would increase penalties to 10 to 20 years in prison for leading a retail crime ring. The bill also would allow law enforcement to aggregate the value of stolen goods over the course of a year to charge serial shoplifters with more serious offenses. Additionally, the bill would increase penalties for assaults committed against retail workers, and would require retailers to train employees on detecting gift card scams. Maryland legislators considered a similar during this year’s legislative session that would have defined organized retail theft and made it a felony. The bill didn’t make it out of committee, but Cailey Locklair, president of the Maryland Retailers Alliance, said the group plans to propose a bill during next year’s legislative session that would target gift card fraud. Better, more thorough reporting from retailers is essential to truly understanding shoplifting trends and its full impact, in part because some retail-related crimes, such as gift card fraud, are frequently underreported, according to Lopez, of the Council on Criminal Justice. Measuring crime across jurisdictions is , and the council does not track organized retail theft specifically because law enforcement typically doesn’t identify it as such at the time of arrest — if an arrest even occurs — requiring further investigation, Lopez said. The council’s latest report found conflicting trends in the FBI’s national crime reporting systems. The FBI’s older system, the Summary Reporting System, known as SRS, suggests that reported shoplifting hadn’t gone up through 2023, remaining on par with 2019 levels. In contrast, the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS, shows a 93% increase in shoplifting over the same period. The discrepancy may stem from the type of law enforcement agencies that have adopted the latter system, Lopez said. Some of those communities may have higher levels of shoplifting or other types of property crime, which could be what is driving the spike, Lopez said. Despite the discrepancies and varying levels of shoplifting across the country, Lopez said, it’s important for retailers to report these incidents, as doing so could help allocate law enforcement resources more effectively. “All law enforcement agencies have limited resources, and having the most accurate information allows for not just better policy, but also better implementation — better use of strategic resources,” Lopez said. ©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Why Are VF Corp (VFC) Shares Soaring Today