China Finds California Wine Pairs Well With a Trade War

BUSINESSLeave a comment

China Finds California Wine Pairs Well With a Trade War
Retaliatory tariffs are a blow to exporters increasingly catering to young, newly wealthy Chinese looking for bottles with cachet.

Cabernet isn’t the most obvious pawn in a trade war between the United States and China. Airplanes and their parts are the leading American export to China. Soybeans and wheat grow in Trump country.
But China’s selection of wine as a target of retaliatory tariffs did not surprise Michael Honig, a winemaker in the Napa Valley, where the tariff would hit hardest.
“The reason the government realizes they should penalize us is, we are branded,” said Mr. Honig, the president of Honig Vineyard and Winery. “It’s hard to go after a wheat grower, because who is a wheat grower? It’s a commodity. We are not a commodity.”
The news was an unwelcome turn of events for Mr. Honig and many California winemakers, who have spent years trying to carve out a place in the hearts of wealthy Chinese consumers. That hard wor..

What It Was Like to Finally Write My Will

BUSINESSLeave a comment

Supported by Smarter Living What It Was Like to Finally Write My Will Photo Credit Alamy Did you know Prince died without a will? It’s true!
All that money, and one of the greatest performers I ever saw onstage didn’t spend a little of it on sorting out his estate? It amazes me.
Death is inevitable, but we continue to make long-term bets: We shop at Costco. My wife, Jeanne, and I might have enough economy-size jugs of Tide and gigantic packages of toilet paper rolls to survive into the next century.
Still, preparing for an eventual demise — at least by drawing up a will — is a good idea. A will smooths the way for your heirs to inherit whatever you’re going to give them, saving time and money. Wills can also help you avoid tax pitfalls and feuding heirs. (Remember: The conflict at the heart of Dickens’s “Bleak House” is a generations-long lawsuit over an inheritance. No spoilers, but the case did not end well for anyone involved, over several generations, except the lawyers.)
Will..

Sky News could be sold off to Disney early in bid to push through sale of Sky to US media giant

ECONOMYLeave a comment

Sky News could be sold off to Walt Disney or ringfenced under concessions put forward by Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox, as part of the corporation's efforts to seize full control of the broadcaster Sky.
Fox, which is attempting to buy the 61 per cent of Sky it does not already own, faces a number of regulatory hurdles after the UK's competition watchdog found the £11.7bn deal was not in the public interest.
It has proposed either a legal separation and comprehensive ringfencing of Sky News or a sale of the loss-making channel to Walt Disney, which is itself attempting to acquire 21st Century Fox.
Business news: in pictures 9 show all Business news: in pictures 1/9 Amazon's new Seattle headquarters mimics a greenhouse, with 40,000 different plants aimed at boosting workers productivity
REUTERS
2/9 Trinity Mirror, which owns the Daily Mirror, is set to incorporate the parent company of the Daily Express, Sunday Express and the Daily Star. Trinity Mirror stat..

2 Founders of $32 Million Centra Virtual Currency Project Are Arrested

BUSINESSLeave a comment

Supported by

Technology

2 Founders of $32 Million Centra Virtual Currency Project Are Arrested

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal authorities have arrested two founders of a virtual currency that raised $32 million from investors last year and won an endorsement from the boxer Floyd Mayweather.
The co-founders of the Centra virtual currency, Sam Sharma and Robert Farkas, were arrested on Sunday, a day before the Securities and Exchange Commission released a complaint against the men and announced that it was halting the project.
Centra raised $32 million last summer and fall in a so-called initial coin offering, a method of fund-raising in which companies sell custom virtual currencies. The Centra team said at the time that the Centra token would give investors access to a new virtual currency exchange and a virtual currency debit card that would operate on the Visa and Mastercard networks.
The S.E.C. said in its complaint that the Centra team had never received approval from Visa and Ma..

To Trump, It’s the ‘Amazon Washington Post.’ To Its Editor, That’s Baloney.

BUSINESSLeave a comment

Supported by Media To Trump, It’s the ‘Amazon Washington Post.’ To Its Editor, That’s Baloney. Photo Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, bought The Washington Post in 2013, but Amazon itself has no role in the ownership of the newspaper. Credit Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times Amazon does not own The Washington Post. President Trump, however — impervious to certain facts and armed with a Twitter account — has tried hard to convince the public otherwise.
On more than one occasion, the president has called the newspaper the “Amazon Washington Post.” He has also accused it of being used as a “scam” to keep Amazon’s taxes low. And on Twitter over the weekend, he escalated his attack, declaring the “Fake Washington Post” a “lobbyist” for Amazon and demanding that it “REGISTER.”
Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, bought The Post for $250 million in 2013. Under his ownership, the paper has flourished. Buoyed by new resources, it has added more than 20..

DealBook: Facebook Should Consider a ‘Why Me?’ Button

BUSINESSLeave a comment

Supported by

Facebook Should Consider a ‘Why Me?’ Button

“One of our biggest responsibilities is to protect data.”
That’s what Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive and co-founder, said just over a week ago after revelations that the data research firm Cambridge Analytica had gained access to the profiles of 50 million Facebook users.
Over the past year, the downside of social media companies — Facebook foremost among them — has become glaringly apparent. They have been platforms for information campaigns that influenced elections and endangered lives. They have failed to keep users’ personal information private. And the carefully targeted ads that appear on them can be, well, creepy.
Now the drumbeat for regulation of social media on both sides of the aisle — and from many in Silicon Valley — is getting louder by the day. “I think that this certain situation is so dire and has become so large that probably some well-crafted regulation is necessary,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chie..

New York Envisions a State-Run Retirement Plan for Private Workers

BUSINESSLeave a comment

Supported by Business Day New York Envisions a State-Run Retirement Plan for Private Workers Photo The state budget that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is expected to sign includes a program to create a state retirement option for private sector employees without 401(k)-like programs at work.
Credit Jeenah Moon for The New York Times New York is close to joining a growing list of states that are creating a retirement plan option for private sector employees who do not have access to 401(k)-like programs at work.
The New York program was included in Friday’s budget deal, which Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is expected to sign. The plan would enable businesses to provide workers with access to Roth individual retirement accounts overseen by the state. An estimated 3.5 million private sector employees in New York work for employers that do not offer a pension, a 401(k) plan or another savings option, according to AARP, which has lobbied in support of the plans.
“For years, we have been working to devel..

Potential Cosby Jurors Are Asked About #MeToo Bias

BUSINESSLeave a comment

Supported by Television Potential Cosby Jurors Are Asked About #MeToo Bias Photo Bill Cosby, center, arriving at the Montgomery County Courthouse for jury selection in his sexual assault trial in Norristown, Pa. Credit Corey Perrine/Associated Press NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Bill Cosby sat in a courtroom here Monday. So too, in a way, did hundreds of women who have accused other powerful men of sexual assault in recent months as the #MeToo movement swept across America.
As jury selection got underway in Mr. Cosby’s criminal trial, no one could ignore that the atmosphere surrounding the case was much different than it had been last summer, during Mr. Cosby’s first trial, before one famous figure after another fell in the face of accusations of sexual misconduct or harassment.
Judge Steven T. O’Neill made that clear as he questioned the 120 potential jurors gathered at the Montgomery County Courthouse on a variety of potential conflicts.
“Do you have knowledge, have you read or seen anythin..

Calling Standards ‘Too High,’ E.P.A. Moves to Relax Car Pollution Rules

BUSINESSLeave a comment

Supported by Climate Calling Standards ‘Too High,’ E.P.A. Moves to Relax Car Pollution Rules Photo The Environmental Protection Agency did not say how far the Obama-era rules should be rolled back, only that it would seek “more appropriate” standards. Credit George Etheredge for The New York Times The Trump administration on Monday launched an effort to weaken Obama-era greenhouse gas and fuel economy standards for automobiles, moving to reverse one of the single biggest steps any government has taken to rein in emissions of earth-warming gases.
“The Obama Administration’s determination was wrong,” Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said in a news release. “Obama’s E.P.A. cut the Midterm Evaluation process short with politically charged expediency, made assumptions about the standards that didn’t comport with reality, and set the standards too high.”
Photo Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, announced the plan ..