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U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show that opioid abuse is ripping through the U.S. workforce with deaths at a record level. The drug's toll added a record 90,722 overdose deaths in the U.S. for the year through November 2020. Once benefiting from agriculture, mining and steel, businesses in Bristol, which is roughly six hours southwest of Washington, have grappled with the opioid epidemic for years, reports the Chicago Tribune. At some white-collar companies, only four out of 10 applicants can pass a drug test, with many showing recent opioid use. Other firms have eliminated the tests altogether to get people in the door, said Beth Rhinehart, head of the region’s Chamber of Commerce. “We hear all the time from folks that you have people who are capable and apply, and when they get to the drug-screen portion, they don’t pass,” said Rhinehart. “It certainly does kick a lot of people out of a lot of jobs. Our businesses need warm bodies right now.”

 

Chicago Tribune

Germany’s Verdi trade union is urging workers at seven Amazon warehouses to go on strike today for several days to coincide with the retailer’s global Prime Day promotion. The union said the three-day strike was being organised as part of a continuing battle with Amazon in Germany over better pay and working conditions. "The workers in the mail order centres have to cope with the rush of customers and don't get a cent more for the additionally intensified workload," said Verdi representative Orhan Akman. Verdi has been organising strikes at Amazon in Germany since 2013 to protest low pay and poor conditions. An Amazon spokesperson said the company offers excellent pay and benefits.

 

Reuters

The Coca-Cola Company and other companies that sell leading bottled-water brands are being sued by consumers in California and the Sierra Club, who are accusing them in separate lawsuits of deceiving consumers in the state by claiming their bottles are “100% recyclable” while they are not. Oaklander David Swartz and two other California residents in a class action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California also accuse BlueTriton Brands and Niagara Bottling of violating the California Business and Professions Code (CBPC) because U.S. recycling facilities lack the capacity to recycle the types of plastic that make up the main parts of their single-use water bottles labelled as fully recyclable. The Sierra Club filed a separate lawsuit making similar allegations.

 

Reuters

Ocado has lost its latest court battle with rival AutoStore Technology after a judge sitting in London refused to grant an injunction that would stop the use of certain information in a separate U.S. patent infringement case. Ocado had sought to restrain its Norwegian rival from referring to discussions they held regarding their patent disputes in 2018 at a key hearing at the U.S. International Trade Commission in August. Judge Richard Hacon denied the interim injunction in the ruling. The judge in Washington’s ITC “is better placed to decide what evidence should be admitted in his own court than is an English judge in an interim hearing,” he said. AutoStore and Ocado have been at loggerheads since October last year with a series of disputes over patent infringement in multiple jurisdictions. The heart of the matter is that AutoStore argues its warehouse system is the foundation of the technology used by Ocado and is attempting to block the British company’s expansion in the U.S. and U.K.

 

Bloomberg

The House has approved legislation requiring standardized metrics and disclosures of environmental, social and governance (ESG) measures by companies, along with disclosures of offshore tax havens. The ESG Disclosure and Simplification Act and the Disclosure of Tax Havens and Offshoring Act both passed as part of the larger Corporate Governance and Investor Protection Act. The ESG bill would require the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to create a standard definition of ESG metrics and mandate that the SEC require standardized ESG disclosures. The tax havens bill would provide investors and the public with greater transparency about corporations’ use of tax havens and tax incentives for outsourcing jobs abroad. The tax haven legislation was introduced by Rep. Cindy Axne, D-Iowa. “For decades, we’ve accepted that publicly traded corporations should regularly provide operating information about their business to the public in the interest of those looking to invest in their company and those whose hard-earned dollars can be included in those investments,” she said. “But the current disclosure requirements do not adequately cover the realities of the modern world — and allow corporations to avoid U.S. taxes, offshore U.S. jobs, and underinvest in the workers that keep their companies strong.”

 

Accounting Today

The Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) from Republican-led states, with a 7-2 ruling that they lacked legal standing to bring the case. The states, led by Texas, had sought to strike down the law on technical arguments after Congress reduced to zero the tax penalty for failing to carry health insurance. The challengers went on to say that, as a consequence, the rest of the law must also fall. The decision, written by Justice Stephen Breyer, concluded that none of the plaintiffs suffered any injury from zeroing out the penalty and thus did not have any standing to bring the lawsuit at all. It was the third time the court has preserved the 2010 health care law. Joining the majority were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. In dissent, Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, accused the majority of ducking the constitutional issues that opponents of the ACA for years have argued make the federal health care overhaul unconstitutional.

 

Fox News

New York Times

Politico

Wall Street Journal

U.S. homebuilding rebounded in May, supported by an acute shortage of previously owned homes available for sale, but construction continues to be hampered by very expensive lumber and shortages of other building materials. The Commerce Department recorded a 3.6% rise in housing starts last month, to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 1.572m units. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast starts increasing to a rate of 1.630m units. Though lumber prices dropped from a record high set in early May, softwood lumber prices increased 154.3% year-on-year in May, according to the latest producer price data. “We expect housing starts to mostly move sideways over the balance of 2021,” Nancy Vanden Houten and Gregory Daco, economists at Oxford Economics, said in a note. “Strong demand, a need for inventory and homebuilder optimism will keep a floor under activity, but builders continue to face supply constraints that may hamper or at least postpone construction.”

 

Bloomberg

CNBC

Market Watch

US News and World Report

An Ohio company that operates dozens of U.S. shopping and strip malls  has filed for federal bankruptcy protection, citing a drop in foot traffic at its properties during the coronavirus pandemic, according to court records. Washington Prime Group filed a petition for Chapter 11 protection earlier this month in federal bankruptcy court in Texas. The company has entered into a restructuring agreement with creditors, led by SVPGlobal, that includes $100m in new financing. The company said in a statement that business at its properties will continue uninterrupted.

 

US News and World Report

A new report suggests that there could be $300bn in annual U.S. spending up for grabs by the Black community because corporate America is not creating enough products that appeal to them. Research by McKinsey and Co found that Black Americans are more unhappy with offerings in categories ranging from personal care to financial services and housing than the overall population. “It’s an opportunity for everyone because it’s a customer segment that has been frankly neglected across categories,” said Shelley Stewart, a partner at McKinsey and co-author of the report. Brands’ recent efforts to create offerings for Black shoppers still fall short, according to the report. Companies often focus on products for a mass audience and lose sight of the gains they could see when changing a product to suit a smaller audience like Black shoppers, Stewart said.

 

Bloomberg

According to the Real Estate Board of New York, commercial rents fell across Manhattan retail corridors in the past year. In tourist-magnet Soho, asking rents on Broadway between Houston and Broome streets have fallen by 37% since last spring, to $310 per square foot. Midtown also saw sizable declines. In Times Square, asking rents on Broadway and 7th Avenue, between 42nd and 47th streets, fell 26% to $1,480 per square foot. On East 57th Street, between 5th and Park avenues, they fell 22% to $531 per square foot. Robin Abrams, vice chairman at Compass Inc., said: "There were really no tourists to speak of. And in the business areas, it was a ghost town." She said the market was "extremely challenging."

 

New York Post

Carolyn Rogers, secretary general of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, has warned that unless toxic corporate culture is purged there is a significant risk it could lead to “large scale failures.” Ms Rogers said: “This is a topic that bank supervisors and banks themselves actually need to focus on over the next few years. We still see scandals, we still see billions of dollars in fines levied on banks for various, what I would call, cultural failings or misconduct risk.”

 

The Daily Telegraph