May 25, 2025

Amazon will tell you what to wear

US e-commerce giant Amazon announced on Thursday it will open its first-ever non-virtual clothing store. It will also be the world’s first interactive shop at the proposed scale, where you won’t be followed around by a group of fussy consultants. Instead, you will get more than the average share of shopping assistance from an app.

The planned ‘Amazon Style’ store near Los Angeles will be smaller than the traditional department store (less than 3,000 square meters), but it is set to offer a number of perks to compensate for its size. For instance, customers will be able to scan any item they like with Amazon’s mobile app to select the desired color and size. Most of the clothing will be kept in the back of the store, with only one sample of each item out on the sales floor. To try on the clothes, shoppers will enter a virtual queue for a fitting room, using the app to unlock it when it is ready and packed with the clothes they chose.

The room, dubbed “a magic closet” by Amazon’s Managing Director Simoina Vasen, is far larger than your average fitting cubicle, according to the promotional video shared by Amazon on Twitter. It has a touchscreen which enables shoppers to request more items, which are delivered straight into a two-sided closet, never interrupting the customer’s fitting process. The touchscreen also works as a virtual fashion adviser, offering items that could accompany the chosen garments and keeping a record of the clothes each customer scans to personalize recommendations.

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We wouldn’t do anything in physical retail unless we felt we could significantly improve the customer experience,” Vasen said, commenting on the store concept. According to her, Amazon will offer hundreds of well-known brands in the new shop, but no named examples have been disclosed so far. The date when the store’s doors will open for fashionistas is also yet to be announced.

Amazon had 611 physical stores in North America as of December 31, 2020, but none of them were specifically clothing shops. The company has grown into America’s largest fashion retailer since it started selling clothes online back in 2002.

Meanwhile, interactive shopping technology is not an entirely new concept for clothing stores. Nike shops, for instance, allow Nike app members to scan codes on shoes and clothes while shopping to request them for fitting. Clothing brands Reformation and American Eagle, among others, also offer different assistive options. However, it seems for now that Amazon has combined them all.

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M&M’s unveils changes to candy mascots

Mars announced on Thursday an overhaul of the visual identity of its iconic MM’s candy brand, including slight adjustments to the logo and characters – the six different colored “lentils.” It said they have gotten a modern makeover for a “more dynamic, progressive world.”

According to Mars, the redesign is focused on creating a sense of belonging and community, as well as spotlighting the characters’ “personalities, rather than their gender.” Mars said it has opted to provide an added emphasis on the ampersand in its logo to “demonstrate how the brand aims to bring people together.”

The company said it has made some slight changes, namely to the shoes the characters wear. Blue, Brown, and Orange have kept their footwear since they happen to be the company’s latest iterations. Green has been changed from wearing high-heeled boots to a pair of low sneakers, while Red and Yellow have had their shoes altered to more modern versions.

The changes will carry over into the brand’s marketing efforts, Mars said, as MM’s marketing executives have also evolved the characters’ look, personalities, and backstories in an attempt to “be more representative of today’s society.” 

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“The new MM’s brand purpose – and the sense of belonging it intends to create – will be reflected across advertising platforms, including but not limited to the graphics, fonts and language we use, the actors, directors and creatives we cast and the scenes we choose to highlight,” the company’s spokesperson said. 

The changes will be rolled out online this week and incorporated into the packaging and other marketing materials this year.

MM’s were first sold in 1941, and the characters arrived on the scene in 1954. Old MM’s commercials starred Red and Yellow, representing regular and peanut MMs. In the late 1990s, new characters were added to the mix. Brown, the most recent addition, joined in 2012. Each of the six characters has their own personality: Red is the sarcastic one, Yellow the simple one, Blue the cool one, Green the sexy one, Orange the neurotic one, and Brown the intelligent one.

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World Bank rips Microsoft purchase of Activision Blizzard in social justice rant

World Bank President David Malpass has questioned Microsoft’s multi-billion dollar takeover of video game developer Activision Blizzard, saying one has to wonder if it is “the best allocation of capital.”

The American technology giant announced earlier this week that it was to pay nearly $69 billion for the game studio behind ‘Call of Duty’, the world’s best-selling first-person shooter video game franchise.

Speaking at a virtual economics event on Wednesday, Malpass said the scale of the acquisition deal “struck” him and he drew a contrast with the amount of money that wealthier nations donate to the International Development Association, the World Bank’s fund for the globe’s poorest countries.

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In December, 48 high- and middle-income governments pledged to allocate just under $24 billion over three years to help poor countries fight poverty, deal with the impact of Covid-19, and restructure their ‘staggering’ debt payments.

Malpass pointed out that the funds from the acquisition would go to the bond market, which poorer nations have very little access to. Bond financing is a type of long-term borrowing used by governments to raise money from investors (companies and individuals), primarily for infrastructure development purposes. 

“That gets you into a situation where a huge amount of the capital is being allocated to already capital-intensive parts of the world – the advanced economies – building more and more on top of already heavily built infrastructure and real estate, for example,” Malpass said, Reuters reported.

The World Bank chief added that instead, more money should be going into developing countries to help “address the refugee flow and that malnutrition that’s going on.”

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US warns it may ban chip exports to Russia

In a phone call last Friday, White House National Security Council (NSC) officials Peter Harrell and Tarun Chhabra reportedly told representatives of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) to get ready for immediate actions in the chip sector if Russia invades Ukraine.

Following the phone call, the SIA director wrote in an email to the board seen by Reuters that “the [US] administration is actively considering any and all options,” including potentially blocking Russia’s access to global electronic supplies.

The NSC relayed in blunt and stark terms the gravity of the situation they are currently grappling with in Ukraine, noting that this is an extraordinary situation and potentially the worst cross border invasion to take place since World War II,” the message reportedly read.

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According to the email, the range of potential measures could include broad financial sanctions and export restrictions like those currently in place for Iran and North Korea, as well as for Chinese telecoms giant Huawei. The latter is tied directly with the chip industry. Under the so-called Foreign Direct Product Rule, the US can block Huawei from receiving shipments of chips, computers, and other electronic equipment made anywhere in the world if they were produced using US technology. The same fate may now await Russian tech firms.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki declined to confirm the phone call, but she said Washington has been “very clear that if Russia further invades Ukraine, the United States is looking at a range of options – with allies and partners – to deliver severe costs to the Russian economy.”

The SIA reportedly had a conference call with its members on Tuesday to discuss the conversation with the NSC. SIA government affairs official Jimmy Goodrich told Reuters that the proposed export control measures could land the industry “in uncharted waters.”

 “We are still trying to assess what the ripple effect may be to global supply chains,” Goodrich said.

Washington is mulling ways to deter Moscow’s supposed plans to invade neighboring Ukraine, after reports emerged that Russian troops were massed on its western border. Moscow has repeatedly denied having any plans whatsoever for a military offensive, with Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov stating recently that the movement of a country’s armed forces on its own territory is an internal matter and of no concern to anyone else.

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Will Ukraine crisis destroy Russian economy?

The Western media, as well as multiple US officials, have repeatedly warned of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine over the past few months and threatened Moscow with severe sanctions if this happens. Washington and its allies have cited the movement of Russian troops within the country’s vast Western territory as ‘proof’ of such plans. Moscow has consistently denied the allegations, insisting it has a right to carry out military maneuvers within its borders as it pleases.

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UK aims to bring crypto ads to heel

The UK government is working on tighter rules to regulate cryptocurrency advertisements, the Finance Ministry and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have announced. The government will amend the existing laws on financial advertising to include crypto ads.

[Crypto] adverts will be brought into line with other financial advertising, ensuring they are fair and clear. New rules will increase consumer protection while encouraging innovation,” the Finance Ministry stated in its official report regarding the new legislation, published on GOV.UK on Tuesday.

In the report, the ministry warned that cryptocurrencies are currently not regulated, and that people investing in them should be prepared to lose all their money, which must be made clear in the relative ads.

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Crypto assets can provide exciting new opportunities, offering people new ways to transact and invest – but it’s important that consumers are not being sold products with misleading claims,” Finance Minister Rishi Sunak was quoted in the report as saying.

The FCA, which regulates financial institutions, said on Wednesday the legislation for cryptocurrency ads is to be ready by the summer. The FCA’s draft rules include categorizing crypto assets as “Restricted Mass Market Investments,” which means that only “high net worth or sophisticated investors” would be able to respond to crypto promotions. The FCA also plans to ban crypto-related firms from using incentives such as refer-a-friend and new-joiner rewards in their ads.

Under the UK’s existing financial advertising regulations, “a business cannot promote a financial product unless they are authorized by the FCA or the PRA (Prudential Regulation Authority at the Bank of England).” The rules also state that all financial promotions must be fair, clear, and not misleading.

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Crypto-related promotions have been flooding London’s underground rail network and its buses over the past few months. Some of the ads praised cryptocurrencies as an investment, while failing to highlight the risks they pose. The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) had to step in after commuters filed complaints. The regulator banned several ads from crypto exchange platforms Coinbase, Luno, and Crypto.com as a result.

Although the proposed regulation effectively means tighter rules on crypto-related operations in the UK, some see it as good news. London-based fintech company Revolut, which offers trading in both crypto and stocks, praised the news.

Clear guidance in how companies describe their crypto offering will benefit consumers and help improve trust in the sector,” Ed Cooper, head of the crypto department at Revolut, said. Blair Halliday, the UK head of crypto exchange Gemini, approved by the FCA, also welcomed the move, noting that a lack of regulation in the sphere could lead to consumers “doing business with organizations that are advertising products and services not subject to regulatory oversight.”

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Global super-rich say ‘tax us now’

A group of millionaires and billionaires from around the world published a letter on Wednesday calling the current tax system unfair and demanded that governments tax them more to help hard-working people. 

The super-rich signatories, including Disney heiress and philanthropist Abigail Disney, admitted that while the world has gone through an “immense amount of suffering” during the two years of the pandemic, they have seen their wealth rise, and yet “few if any of them” paid their “fair share in taxes.”

The letter, released as the world’s most powerful people meet for a virtual World Economic Forum in Davos, goes on to point out that a “complete overhaul of [the] system” is necessary as up until now it has been “deliberately designed to make the rich richer.”

“Restoring trust requires taxing the rich. Tax us, the rich, and tax us now,” the letter reads. 

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Some of the signatories are part of the Millionaires for Humanity movement, which has been campaigning for higher taxes on multimillionaires to help overcome the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and reduce inequality.

The initiative follows a damning report from Oxfam this week, ahead of the Davos forum. The anti-poverty charity says that the world’s 10 richest people doubled their fortune during the two years of the coronavirus crisis, while the poorest 99% have seen their income go down.

Last October, a group of UK millionaires petitioned the British government to introduce a wealth tax to help pay for the economic recovery from Covid-19. A similar letter was published in the US in 2019, calling on the candidates of the then-upcoming presidential election to create a wealth tax on the ultrarich. Among the signatories were investor George Soros, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, and Abigail Disney.

Estimates suggest that, in 2021, the richest 10% of American families hold some 70% of the country’s wealth.

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Orange juice prices go bananas

The US Agriculture Department (USDA) issued a gloomy forecast last week for Florida’s orange crop, forecasting that the state will harvest merely 44.5 million 40-kilogram boxes of oranges in 2022 amid citrus disease and bad weather. This would be the smallest crop yield since the 1944-45 season, an analyst from the USDA told CNN Business.

The Sunshine State provides most of the orange juice in the US.

Meanwhile, according to Statista.com, demand for orange juice in the US soared during the Covid-19 pandemic after falling for the previous two decades. The sales of 100% non-concentrated juices jumped from $5 billion to $5.5 billion in 2020, and stayed largely at that level last year, data from Euromonitor International shows. This has already pushed orange juice prices higher, and experts predict the trend will continue. Overall, frozen concentrated orange-juice futures in the US closed on Friday at $1.50 a pound (0.45 kilograms), which is nearly a 50% increase from early 2019.

You have your classical supply-demand mismatch,” Shawn Hackett, president of Hackett Financial Advisors, which specializes in agricultural commodities analysis, told CNN. He warned that consumers should expect “much higher prices [for orange juice] at the supermarket.

However, Brandon Saltmarsh, president of Florida-based HomeMaker Juice, told the Wall Street Journal that “the fundamentals do not support prices at these levels,” as “there’s still too much juice in the world.”

According to the USDA, Brazil, one of the globe’s largest orange producers, is expected to harvest 12% more oranges this year despite the drought that damaged its crop yield in 2021. Mexico, the US’ major citrus supplier, is also forecast to have a robust harvest “on optimal weather conditions.

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Tesla investors demand billions from Elon Musk

Tesla investors on Tuesday asked a judge to order Elon Musk to repay the electric carmaker for the 2016 acquisition of solar panel producer SolarCity. The company has been integrated and reorganized, and is now known as Tesla Solar.

The plaintiffs on the case filed last year claim Musk used his position as Tesla’s controlling shareholder to coerce the electric vehicle maker’s board into the deal to acquire the company that was highly indebted and unstable at the time. Shareholders say the deal was needless and heaped Tesla with SolarCity’s financial problems and debt.

This case has always been about whether the acquisition of SolarCity was a rescue from financial distress, a bailout, orchestrated by Elon Musk,” Randy Baron, an attorney for shareholders, told the court hearing via Zoom on Tuesday, as cited by Reuters.

Also, the all-stock deal cost Tesla some $2.6 billion at the time, but Tesla’s market price has soared since then. Shareholders claim the deal would be worth around $13 billion at Tesla’s current price.

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In 2016, Musk was a major stakeholder in SolarCity, founded by his cousins, with a 22% stake. He was also SolarCity’s chairman of the board, as well as CEO and chairman of Tesla. In the legal complaint regarding the SolarCity acquisition, shareholders accuse Musk of profiting from the deal much more than Tesla did.

In July 2021 hearing, Musk defended the deal as part of his master plan to create an integrated energy generating company that would combine SolarCity’s solar panels and Tesla’s cars and batteries. He and his attorneys claim that SolarCity was far from failing at the time of purchase and had high growth prospects.

Moreover, Vanessa Lavely, one of Musk’s attorneys, stressed that “without Elon Musk, Tesla might not exist let alone have a $1 trillion value.”

“That doesn’t make him a controller. That makes him a highly effective CEO,” she added.

Musk blasted the proposed compensation for the deal as a “windfall” for plaintiffs and said it would be at least five times the largest award ever in such a lawsuit. The ruling on the case is expected within three months.

Tesla’s stock was losing nearly 2% on Wednesday, trading at around $1,030 per share at 08:00 GMT.

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China names its most successful financial app

China’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) wallet has become one of the country’s fastest-growing apps by downloads, attracting millions of users so far, the bank revealed on Tuesday.

According to Zou Lan, the head of financial markets at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), 261 million individual users, which is roughly one-fifth of the entire Chinese population, have installed e-CNY wallets since the app was launched earlier this month. Lan also revealed that a total of 87.5 billion yuan ($13.78 billion) worth of transactions were made using the e-CNY since trials started.

China started developing the concept of a national digital currency in 2014, stepping up the work in the past two years. It has piloted the use of the e-CNY in five major cities so far, including Shanghai and Shenzhen. On January 4, the PBOC launched the e-CNY wallet on the iOS and Android app stores.

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However, though the wallet is now available for download across the entire country, only users from the five pilot cities and the upcoming Winter Olympics venue, set to start in the Chinese capital on February 4, can sign up and actually use the digital currency. Also, the e-CNY for now can only be used for a limited number of transactions, like paying for Didi rides or Alibaba purchases.

Unlike decentralized crypto tokens which are banned in China, the e-CNY is effectively a clone of the yuan in the form of a digital asset, controlled and governed by the central bank.

The PBOC intends for the e-CNY to complement rather than replace China’s existing payments services, like WeChat Pay and Alipay.

Due to its traceability, the regulator sees the e-CNY as a means to tackle corruption, as it would make large money transfers between provincial and local governments more transparent.

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