More than 90% of stablecoin transaction volumes aren’t coming from genuine users, according to a new metric co-developed by Visa Inc., suggesting such crypto tokens may be far away from becoming a commonly used means of payment.

The dashboard from Visa and Allium Labs is designed to strip out transactions initiated by bots and large-scale traders to isolate those made by real people. Out of about $2.2 trillion in total transactions in April, just $149 billion originated from “organic payments activity,” according to Visa.

Visa’s finding challenges stablecoin proponents’ argument that the tokens, pegged to an asset like the dollar, are poised to revolutionize the $150 trillion payments industry. PayPal Inc. and Stripe Inc. are among the fintech giants making inroads into stablecoins, with Stripe co-founder John Collison in April citing “technical improvements” for being bullish on the tokens.

“It says that stablecoins are still in a very nascent moment in their evolution as a payment instrument,” Pranav Sood, executive general manager for EMEA at payments platform Airwallex, said of the data. “That’s not to say that they don’t have long-term potential, because I think they do. But the short-term and the mid-term focus needs to be on making sure that existing rails work much better.”

Tracking the “real” value of crypto activity using blockchain data has always been a challenge. Data provider Glassnode has estimated that the record $3 trillion of total market circulation assigned to digital tokens at the peak of the 2021 bull market was actually closer to $875 billion.

With stablecoins, transactions can often be double-counted depending on the platform users are transferring funds to. For example, converting $100 of Circle Internet Financial Ltd.’s USDC to PayPal’s PYUSD on the decentralized exchange Uniswap would result in $200 of total stablecoin volume being recorded on-chain, said Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto.

Visa itself, which handled more than $12 trillion worth of transactions last year, is among companies that could stand to lose out should stablecoins become a generally accepted means of payment.

PayPal launched its PYUSD stablecoin last year, seeking a solution for instant and lower-cost transfers within its wider payment infrastructure. Stripe said on April 25 it’s allowing merchants using its platform to accept stablecoins for online transactions.

Even so, Airwallex has seen tepid demand from its customers for stablecoin-based payments solutions as many still don’t regard the technology as user-friendly enough, according to Sood.

“It’s a really significant barrier to overcome,” he said. “It’s important to remember that in the U.S., people are still using checks to pay for somewhere between 40% and 60% of business payments, which gives you a sense of where the market really is in terms of technological adoption.”

©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

If you want to understand why the two largest U.S. oil companies are together spending in excess of $100 billion on acquisitions right now, look no further than the amount of crude they’re extracting from the two hottest oil fields on the planet.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., which reported earnings Friday, are both predicting their production in the Permian Basin — the U.S. region that already supplies more oil than Iraq — will increase by 10% this year.

Exxon also revealed that production from its massive oil development in Guyana in the first quarter surged 70% from a year earlier. That’s enough to supply almost a fifth of the global demand growth this year that’s forecast by the International Energy Agency.

Guyana and the Permian stand out for relentless levels of production growth in a industry that has otherwise struggled to find new, low-cost resources in recent years. Now Exxon and Chevron are racing to cement their positions, outpacing their biggest European peers in the process. Exxon is set to become the Permian’s biggest producer once it closes its $64 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources Co. while Chevron is spending $52 billion on Hess Corp. to gain a 30% share of Guyana’s prolific Stabroek Block.

The Permian and Guyana “are big growth drivers at both companies,” said Neal Dingmann, an analyst at Truist Securities. “There are definitely fears on U.S. inventory and shortages worldwide because of lack of investment in the group over several years now.”

After years of reduced investment in oil and gas as fossil-fuel companies focused on returns and reducing emissions, crude supplies are once again starting to look tight. Brent oil earlier this month traded above $90 a barrel for the first time since the fall, with tensions in the Middle East threatening to send prices even higher. For all the efforts to transition to greener sources of energy, oil demand is forecast by the IEA to grow by about 1.3 million barrels a day this year to a new record.

European supermajors Shell Plc and BP Plc, who are set to report over the next two weeks, are in a very different position. Shell walked away from Guyana months before Exxon drilled its first discovery in 2015, and sold its Permian position to ConocoPhillips in 2021. BP’s presence in the Permian is much smaller than either of the U.S. majors.

Furthermore, Shell and BP had in recent years sought to push into renewables. They’re now pivoting back toward bolstering oil and gas production. But that’s easier said than done, and both have anemic growth profiles out to 2030 compared with their U.S. rivals — assuming the Pioneer and Hess deals are completed.

For Exxon and Chevron, both of committed to fossil fuels during the initial wave of ESG investing, targeting the Permian and Guyana will not just grow production but also lower their overall cost of supply. Both regions can produce oil at a profit for less than $35 a barrel.

For now, both Exxon and Chevron are stuck in a holding pattern, waiting to close the acquisitions of Pioneer and Hess. The former is waiting approval from the Federal Trade Commission while the latter is tied up in arbitration because Exxon claims it has a right of first refusal over Hess’s 30% stake in Guyana. Even so, both say they expect to complete their respective deals by the end of the year.

“These are big deals that will definitely impact the overall growth trajectory for both companies,” Hummel said. “The focus will be on execution over the next few quarters.”

(With assistance from Laura Hurst.)

©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The Justice Department may file an antitrust complaint as soon as next month aimed at forcing Live Nation Entertainment Inc. to spin off its Ticketmaster ticketing business, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The agency has been investigating the entertainment giant for years amid concerns Live Nation has illegally tied its concert promotion services to use of Ticketmaster, in violation of the terms of the 2010 settlement that allowed it to acquire the ticketing company. Two of the people, who asked not to be named discussing the confidential probe, said the timing of a complaint could still slip.

Several state attorneys general have also been involved in the investigation and could join the Justice Department in an eventual suit, the people said.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Live Nation didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ticketmaster, the largest U.S. ticketing company, merged with Live Nation, the biggest concert promoter, 14 years ago following a lengthy antitrust investigation. The Justice Department required the combined company to pledge that it wouldn’t tie its services together or retaliate against venues that switched promoters or ticketing services.

In 2019, the Justice Department alleged that the company had repeatedly violated that promise, and required it to enter a new settlement imposing an external monitor to ensure compliance and investigate any further disputes.

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported on the potential timing of a Ticketmaster suit.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Tesla Inc. notified workers at its California car plant of pay increases across its U.S. factories, the latest bump by a nonunion automaker the United Auto Workers is trying to organize.

All U.S. production associates, material handlers and quality inspectors are getting a “market adjustment pay increase” to kick off the new year, according to a flyer posted at Tesla’s facility in Fremont, Calif. The document viewed by Bloomberg News doesn’t say how much of a raise workers will get. Tesla’s senior director of human resources didn’t respond to questions.

Tesla is joining the likes of Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen AG and Hyundai Motor Co. in hiking pay at U.S. plants after the UAW secured historic labor contracts last year for workers at Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Stellantis NV. The union is now parlaying success at the bargaining table into a simultaneous organizing drive targeting Tesla and a dozen other manufacturers, looking to double the number of auto workers in its ranks.

Past efforts to represent staff at other major car companies either were rejected by workers at companies including VW and Nissan Motor Co., or never made it to a vote at Tesla and others.

UAW President Shawn Fain has blamed past failures on corruption within the union, coziness with bosses and bad contracts. After unprecedented strikes at Ford, GM and Stellantis led to historic pay bumps, Fain said the union “can beat anybody.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has long been critical of the UAW and unions in general. He also has increasingly emphasized the importance of cost-cutting, saying many consumers still can’t afford the company’s electric vehicles because rising interest rates have offset repeated price cuts.

Tesla’s factory in Fremont alone employs more than 20,000 workers. Employees at the plant have formed a UAW organizing committee, and the union has committed to providing whatever resources are necessary for the campaign there, a person familiar with the endeavor said last year.

The National Labor Relations Board ruled in 2021 that Tesla repeatedly violated labor law during the UAW’s prior organizing efforts, including by firing an activist and suggesting that joining the union would cost workers stock options. Tesla has denied wrongdoing and is appealing the ruling in federal court.

Over the past few years, international climate policy has been shaped largely by a close-knit group of politicians in the twilight of their careers. Now leaders from beyond the traditional U.S.-Europe-China power center — some new to the international stage, others already veterans — are emerging. And women are at the forefront.

“Women are now the decision makers that can increase the likelihood of impactful decisions that actually stick,” says Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s special climate envoy. After all, she says, it was two women — Laurence Tubiana, France’s climate envoy, and Christiana Figueres, who ran the United Nations’ climate body — who helped broker the landmark Paris Agreement in 2015 to slow global warming.

With the world dangerously off track from the target of keeping temperature rise within 1.5C of pre-industrial times, a global plan to tackle climate change is needed more than ever. We take a look at some of the people who will be leading those efforts in the years to come.

Mia Mottley

Few have changed the rules of the climate capital game more than Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley. Through powerful speeches and radical proposals, she’s led a push to rewire the global financial system to make it easier for poor countries to have access to funds.

Mottley, 58, wants to overhaul the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank so less creditworthy countries can borrow more money to invest in protections against deadly weather events and be eligible for temporary debt relief when a disaster hits.

More than 40 world leaders met in Paris earlier this year to discuss her plan, known as the Bridgetown Agenda. The summit closed with support for more nimble IMF emergency funding, early warning systems for disasters, catastrophe insurance and pauses on debt repayments.

“She is an incredible speaker,” says Sebastien Treyer, executive director of French think tank Institut du Développement Durable et des Relations Internationales. “I have heard her speak many times, but every time I am emotionally taken again.”

Island nations play an outsized role in climate talks because their very existence threatened by rising seas and more frequent and forceful cyclones. But it is Mottley who has taken center stage in pitching the solutions for developing countries, while allying herself to the likes of French President Emmanuel Macron to win support.

Her Bridgetown Initiative — a blueprint to overhaul the global financial system to help heavily-indebted climate-vulnerable countries — was forged in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017. After watching the category 5 storm ravage the neighboring island of Dominica, Mottley and her college buddy Avinash Persaud, a development economist, set about drawing up a plan to mitigate the impacts of future storms fueled by global warming.

Mottley wants to overhaul the so-called Bretton Woods institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (as well as their multilateral development bank successors), so that they lend more money to less credit-worthy countries. Those loans would help fund sea defences and provide temporarily debt relief when a disaster hits. Mottley and Persaud have also suggested a climate levy on shipping or financial transactions could help.

The proposals are radical, but they’re starting to gain traction among developed countries that have long been resistant to paying out more. More than 40 world leaders met in Paris earlier this year to work out how the Bridgetown Agenda might become reality. The summit closed with a movement toward more nimble emergency funding from the IMF, early-warning systems for disasters, catastrophe insurance triggered automatically by extreme conditions and pauses on debt repayments.

Jennifer Morgan

A longtime climate activist, Jennifer Morgan has attended every COP summit and spent almost three decades helping lead nonprofits such as Greenpeace and the World Resources Institute. But last year the 57-year-old moved into the political arena herself, reporting directly to Germany’s foreign minister as the country’s climate representative. Morgan, a New Jersey native who’s lived in Germany since 2003, was a surprising pick for a country that rarely appoints foreigners to its top ranks.

She says her past as a heavy-hitter activist hasn’t hindered her. “When you’re an NGO, your job is to be out there, pushing hard and provoking,” she says. “I don’t feel that I am constrained in speaking truth to power, but I have to do it in a different manner. Words matter even more.”

Morgan was instrumental in the setting up of a new fund to pay for climate damages at last year’s COP in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Yet she was left visibly angry at the end of the meeting over the lack of progress on curbing emissions.

It’s imperative that more is done this year, she says, both on slashing carbon pollution and getting countries like China and Saudi Arabia to pay for the impacts caused in part by their emissions. She points out that China is now the world’s second largest economy and Saudi Arabia one of the biggest oil producers. “We don’t live in 1992 anymore,” she says.

Morgan’s profile is set to rise at this year’s COP28 meeting in Dubai now that Frans Timmermans has stepped down as the European Union’s climate chief. “We need a transformational roadmap,” she says. “We need to understand the moment we’re in right now for the future of humanity — that’s what motivates me.’’

Eve Bazaiba

Without the Congo Basin to act as a vast carbon sink, humanity will lose the fight against global warming. Ève Bazaiba, 58, wants to make sure rich countries know that—and pay to defend it.

In two and a half years on the job, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s minister of environment has become a fiery voice in climate talks on behalf of emerging economies fighting for compensation to protect their environment.

At the top of Bazaiba’s list of demands are higher payouts for carbon credits bought by companies and countries seeking to offset their pollution. And she has some bargaining power: Congo is home to the world’s second-biggest rainforest and the largest tropical peatlands.

Positioning herself as a pragmatist, Bazaiba promotes Congo as a “solution country” in the fight against climate change with its forests. The nation has the world’s largest hydropower potential and vast reserves of minerals such as copper and cobalt that are needed to roll out green technologies. Bazaiba also supports opening up parts of the rainforest to oil drilling, saying the government can still protect the environment, a position that’s made her controversial among environmentalists.

But she’s been consistent in her view that no global approach to slowing Earth’s warming can succeed without Congo. “There’s not a single room in the world — north, south, east, west — that can speak about climate questions without the Democratic Republic of Congo,” she said on a recent radio interview.

Barbara Creecy

Bazaiba’s South African counterpart Barbara Creecy has also proven herself to be a deft negotiator when it comes to climate finance. In 2021, she helped broker a groundbreaking deal with developed nations including the US and UK to transition her country away from coal.

Since taking the post in May 2019, the 65-year-old has been a vocal advocate for the developing world. There’s an “injustice that lies right at the heart of the climate crisis, which is the fact that the African continent is responsible for less than 2% of historical emissions,” Creecy says. “But this is a continent that’s gravely affected by climate change.”

The former anti-apartheid activist, a dark horse candidate to become her country’s finance minister, has argued forcefully for more financial support to help developing nations adapt to a warmer planet and cut emissions. At the same time, she’s urged other emerging economies to focus on solutions rather than grievances over broken promises.

“Let’s stop harping on and on about the $100 billion” a year that rich countries promised to deliver by 2020, she says. “Let’s actually talk about the post 2024 environment. What are the new goals? Where are we going to find new public finance?”

Marina Silva

Now in her second stint as Brazil’s environment and climate change minister, 65-year-old Marina Silva has spent a lifetime devoted to nature. The daughter of rubber tappers—hailing from one of the country’s most remote and impoverished states, nestled deep in the Amazon—she brings lived experience of the impacts of deforestation on communities that depend on the rainforest.

As part of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s left-wing government, she’s busy repairing the country’s green credentials following the ouster of Jair Bolsonaro, one of the world’s most unapologetic anti-environmentalists. Silva describes restoring protections for the rainforest as a “postwar recovery.” Since Lula took office in January, there’s been a 49.7% reduction in deforestation in the Amazon.

“There are things that we have to let go of, such as the idea that Brazil is an agricultural power because it covers a large area,” Silva says. “This idea has to be abandoned.”With Brazil set to lead the Group of 20 next year and host the COP30 summit in 2025, Silva has the opportunity in Dubai to stake out the nation’s positions on climate change before it takes the spotlight on the international stage.

Silva’s background gives her a unique voice, says Rachel Cleetus, senior economist and policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “She comes from a perspective of not just understanding the issues at play, but also understanding the role of the people, especially the Indigenous people.”

Others to watch

Tina Stege: The 47-year-old climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, one of the most vulnerable nations to global warming, is an instrumental voice in the campaign to phase out fossil fuels.

Maisa Rojas: A geophysics professor and contributor to major UN climate reports, Rojas, 51, brings a wealth of scientific expertise to her job as Chile’s environment minister.

Wopke Hoekstra: The EU’s new climate chief, who’s 48, is a relatively unknown quantity in environmental circles, but he comes with a reputation for fiscal prudence from his tenure as Dutch finance minister.

Teresa Ribera: The charismatic environment minister for Spain, 54, is at the forefront of EU green policymaking, with her country holding the rotating presidency this year.

Kristin Tilley: Australia’s climate ambassador, 48, is trying to give her country a greener image and pushing for it to host COP31.

Steven Guilbeault: Canada’s 53-year-old climate minister, another Greenpeace alum, will be in focus at COP28 after wildfires ravaged much of his country this year.

©2023 Bloomberg News. Visit at bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

NEW YORK — The only way to fully appreciate the Summer Fancy Food Show, the massive gourmet trade expo held annually at the Jacob Javits Center in New York, is to put on your walking shoes and shelve pre-existing opinions you might have about cinnamon churro-flavored pork rinds. With more than 2,000 vendors set up over 300,000 square feet on two levels, it’s the rare occasion where you can simultaneously triple both your daily step count and caloric intake.

The show, which just completed its 67th year, is hosted by the Specialty Food Association — specialty food being a broad and somewhat vague category of premium priced items including not just the niche, but also fancy ice creams and confections, and gourmet goods such as artisanal olive oils, cheeses, and charcuterie, and upscale versions of dips and salsas. Pet snacks make appearances, too. (If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because until last year, the association’s Winter Fancy Food Show was held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center.)

In 2022, specialty food sales hit $194 billion, a 9.3% increase from the year before, with sales projected to hit $207 billion this year.

Known as a cradle of food trends, the Summer Fancy Food show draws not just buyers for small gourmet shops and big chains like Whole Foods Market Inc., but also people like Melanie Zanoza Bartelme, associate director for food and drink at marketing intelligence firm Mintel — she is one of the Specialty Food Association’s trendspotters. Among the movements she sees this year: a lot of boba, aka bubble tea, products.

Also, a slow shift away from keto and other diets, she says, and the rise of exotic citrus and blueberries. The classic berries were interesting, she observed, while strolling through the stands, because they aren’t new. “All of a sudden blueberries are kind of special again, and that’s really interesting to me.” She also sees that the “White Lotus” effect has extended to food, amplifying a nascent consumer interest in all things Sicilian.

That’s good news for Italy, whose food and beverage exports to the US amounted to $7.3 billion in 2022; that accounted for 11% of Italy’s total exports.

A new pavilion this year featured 10 small Bipoc-owned brands, including Maazah from Minneapolis, who introduced lentil-based dal dips as an intriguing hummus alternative. Many areas were devoted to categories like deli foods, beverages and upcycled products, such as Renewal Mills’ Oat Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix made with oat milk flour.

Mostly though, chaos reigns, with the mundane and the insane sitting cheek by jowl (the jowl having been butchered from a heritage breed hog and cured into bacon-like guanciale). This year featured sprayable duck fat, Austrian-grown wasabi — in powder, paste and gin forms — shrimplike Antarctic krill meat, reportedly known as “the commoner’s caviar” in the former Soviet Union, and from Dave’s Gourmet, an AI-created hot sauce called Chil-AI whose recipe was concocted by a chatbot. “Whale Sperm” tortilla chips were among the show’s more eye-catching offerings.

Whale sperm? Don’t laugh. Actually yes, please laugh.

They are the latest creation of Rob Ehrlich, one of America’s great snack savants. He invented Pirate’s Booty (which Hershey Co. eventually bought for $420 million) and later presaged the great cauliflower boom with the 2009 release of Vegan Rob’s brand Cauliflower Puffs. With the diminishment of diets such as keto, he says, “People are going to become more natural and obviously, more decadent. They want to have stuff to indulge themselves. Nothing can be better than whale sperm.”

The name is a little bit of a non-sequitur — a provocation bound to catch the eyes of consumers, buyers and journalists (guilty). The chips themselves are decidedly noncontroversial, flavored with a seasoning imbued with vegan collagen which is, among other things, beneficial to skin and joints, fitting them neatly into the category of “functional” foods. The non-whale-harming chips will begin to appear in stores this August.

Downstairs at Sfoglini pasta’s booth, “forkability” was another sounds-worse-than-it-is subject of discussion. It was led by Dan Pashman, host of the Sporkful podcast and creator of cascatelli, a pasta shape designed to both hold on to sauce and stay on your fork. (It ranked as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Best Inventions in 2021.) This year, Sfoglini is pushing two new shapes: quattrotini and vesuvio.

“A couple years ago, when we were first launching this, the idea of a $5 box of pasta felt outlandish to some people,” says Pashman. “That’s not happening anymore.”

Nearby, the premium pasta trend continued. Released just last month, the boldly graphic boxes of Giadzy pasta from the show’s keynote speaker, Giada De Laurentiis, sell for $10.50 each. The stylishly conceptual cutout packaging of Greenomic Delikatessen’s Good Hair Day line of pastas fetch between $8 and $17 in Europe, and will likely be priced similarly here.

For saucing supplies, restaurateur and “Top Chef” judge Tom Colicchio was behind the stove in his booth serving up pastas made with his Colicchio Collection line of tomato sauces, being launched at the show.René Bollier, the third-generation owner of Andre’s Confiserie Suisse, a small chocolate producer from Kansas City, Missouri, brought more than 300 pounds of assorted chocolates to dole out from his small stand. “There’s a lot of value in participating in this show. When we first started doing this specialty to show to date, our chocolate online sales have increased by over 500%.”

It’s not all hustle, however. Urbani Truffles, for instance, created a spacious lounge with wood floors, white leather sofas and a bartender preparing Truffle Negroni Sbagliato cocktails made with their new truffle vanilla and hibiscus syrups. The booth shifted into VIP mode with the arrival of Whoopi Goldberg, who had come to the show looking to build relationships with producers for Villa Solanzana, her sometime home (which she rents out when she’s not using it) on its own peninsula on the island of Sardinia.

But the temptations of the Fancy Food Show can take their toll, admits Goldberg, giving voice to another experience familiar to those who attended. “I’m cheesed out,” she said. “I’ve eaten every piece of cheese I’ve seen.”

©2023 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Clusters of infections linked to the use of eye drops have been found in four states, according to U.S. health officials tracking the outbreak that’s already led to the death of one person.

At least 35 of 56 cases related to the recalled eye drops have been reported from California, Connecticut, Florida and Utah, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesperson. Eight other states have also tallied infections, the CDC said, with some leading to permanent vision loss.

Concern is rising about the outbreak among people who used artificial tears sold by closely held EzriCare LLC based in Lakewood, New Jersey, according to the CDC. Laboratory testing found drug-resistant bacteria in opened containers of EzriCare eye drops that matched the strain found in patients.

EzriCare did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company isn’t aware of any testing that definitively links its product to the outbreak, but recommends that people discontinue their use of the eye drops, according to a statement.

Seven New York patients have been linked to the outbreak so far, according to a state health department spokesperson. The department’s Wadsworth Center in Albany is assisting with the multi-state investigation, testing samples from seven states in the northeast, the spokesperson said in an email.

Patients have presented with a variety of conditions ranging from eye infections to blood poisoning, often called sepsis, the CDC said. The infections are caused by a rare strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria that’s resistant to many commonly used antibiotics. The resistant strain had never been seen in the U.S. until the current outbreak, the CDC said.

The tears are primarily available through health care facilities that purchased the product via wholesale distributors, the CDC said. One patient reported buying EzriCare’s product at a Costco Wholesale Corp. store, the CDC said. Costco didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The products were manufactured overseas by Indian company Global Pharma Healthcare Pvt Ltd, which has initiated a voluntary recall of all unexpired lots of EzriCare’s Artificial Tears, as well as another product marketed by New York-based Delsam Pharma LLC. The CDC is testing unopened bottles to determine whether contamination may have occurred during the manufacturing process.

Contamination has yet to be found in Delsam’s products, a company spokesperson said in an email. Although Delsam and EzriCare share a manufacturer, the two brands have different production dates and lot numbers, the spokesperson said.

U.S. regulators recommended the recall because of Global Pharma’s violations of current good manufacturing practice, including lack of appropriate microbial testing, formulation issues, and lack of proper controls concerning tamper-evident packaging, according to a statement from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The agency also placed the Indian company on an import alert list that prevents more products from entering the US, according to the statement. Global Pharma referred questions about the recall to EzriCare and Delsam in a statement on its website.

The U.S. outbreak is the latest health issue linked to products manufactured in India, whose multibillion-dollar drugmaking industry is buoyed by an abundance of cheap generic manufacturers. The World Health Organization said last month that it’s investigating the deaths of more than a dozen children in Uzbekistan that were linked to cough syrup made by companies in India.

U.S. regulators are monitoring the situation for additional cases and other potential products of concern. The CDC and FDA recommend that patients stop using artificial tears from EzriCare and Delsam. Patients who have used the products should watch for symptoms of eye infection, which can include pain or discomfort, discharge, redness and blurry vision.

Amy Cooper, 43, sued San Mateo-based Franklin Resources — more widely known as Franklin Templeton — in May 2021, claiming it publicized the incident on Twitter and falsely claimed it conducted an investigation before firing her.

Cooper lost her job in the company’s New York office the day after the May 2020 incident.

U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams on Wednesday threw out the lawsuit, rejecting her claims of racial and sexual discrimination and defamation.

A video posted on Twitter by the sister of birdwatcher Christian Cooper — no relation to Amy — showed the woman calling 911, complaining an African American man was threatening her and her dog. Amy Cooper made the call after Christian Cooper asked her to leash her dog, as was required in that area of Central Park.

The video went viral, with more than 40 million views, during a national discourse on systemic racism.

Cooper argued the encounter became “international news as a racial flashpoint” and misportrayed her as a privileged White woman because Franklin Templeton cited the incident on Twitter. But the judge rejected the claim.

“The Central Park incident coincided exactly with the date of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, an event which similarly sparked intense discourse nationwide on issues of racial justice and policing,” Abrams wrote. “The contents of the viral video, as well as the dialogue surrounding it both in the media and on social media, were already matters of public knowledge when defendants’ May 26 tweet was posted.”

Cooper’s attorneys didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the decision.

Cooper pointed to three male employees who she said were treated more favorably after engaging in similar conduct, but Abrams said that comparison doesn’t apply because the misconduct they engaged in, “which runs the gamut from plagiarism to insider trading to a felony conviction, is simply too different in kind to be comparable to her conduct in this case.”

The judge also rejected Cooper’s claims of defamation over a company tweet that said they had fired her after conducting an internal review and “do not tolerate racism of any kind,” as well as a comment from Chief Executive Officer Jenny Johnson in an interview about the incident. Abrams said any implication from the tweet that Cooper is a racist is an opinion and that the statement didn’t indicate the company considered any information not already known to the public.

Franklin Templeton said in a statement that it is pleased that the court has agreed that the claims should be dismissed and that it continues to believe the company responded appropriately.

Cooper had worked at Franklin Templeton since 2015 and was a vice president in charge of managing the firm’s insurance portfolio. A native of Canada, she had an undergraduate degree from the University of Waterloo in Ontario and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Concerning the Central Park incident, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office last year dropped a misdemeanor charge against Cooper after she completed education and therapy classes on racial equity. She had been accused of falsely reporting an incident in the third degree.

The case is Cooper v Franklin Templeton, 21-cv-4692, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan.)

A former Tesla Inc. engineer says that after the company dragged his reputation “through the mud” with a trade-secrets theft lawsuit, it’s now trying to prevent him from publicly clearing his name.

Alexander Yatskov was accused in May of duplicitously taking sensitive proprietary information about Tesla’s supercomputer technology when he left his job. He’s now fighting back against the company’s move to push the dispute into private arbitration, saying he wants to contest the “humiliating claims” in open court.

Tesla lost its initial request in court for an emergency order against Yatskov, but argues the matter belongs in arbitration under the terms of its standard employment contract.

The world’s most valuable automaker has been accused in the past of using closed-door arbitration proceedings to keep embarrassing allegations about racial discrimination and sex harassment at its main California factory out of the public eye.

A San Francisco federal judge is set to hear arguments Thursday on whether to put the Yatskov court case on hold while arbitration proceeds.

In this case, Tesla went on the offensive in a May 6 complaint alleging that Yatskov downloaded “extremely valuable” trade secrets about its supercomputer on his personal device and tried to cover up the theft before he left the company.

While the complaint said Tesla employees spent thousands of hours building the supercomputer to deal with massive amounts of data and solve difficult engineering problems, including driver autonomy, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk told investors in a January earnings call that “Project Dojo” isn’t guaranteed to succeed.

“We’re not saying for sure, Dojo will succeed,” Musk said. “We think it will.”

Yatskov’s employment agreement has a mandatory arbitration clause, but allows either party to go to court to seek protection against the “immediate threat” of technology theft before arbitration, Tesla’s lawyers told the judge in a July filing.

The company’s attorneys said that after the suit was filed, the ex-engineer handed over the personal computer specifically sought by Tesla for a third-party forensic inspection and agreed not to disclose any proprietary material.

“Now that Tesla has dragged Dr. Yatskov’s name through the mud, Tesla wants to hide this dispute in private arbitration and deprive Dr. Yatskov of the opportunity to clear his name publicly,” his lawyers said in a filing.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Buzz: The number of homes for sale rose nationally on a year-over-year basis for the first time since June 2019, with some of the biggest gains coming in California markets.

Source: Realtor.com compiles a monthly survey of listings of existing homes on the market.

Top line

The number of active U.S. listings rose 8% year over year in May, likely driven by new sellers and a slowdown in would-be buyers deterred by high prices, Realtor.com said in a report Thursday. Listings were down 12% year over year in April.

The largest increases in new listings were in the West and the South.  Among the 50 metro areas tracked, the year’s largest jump in homes on the market was in Austin (up 86%), then came Phoenix (up 67%), Sacramento (up 55%) and the Inland Empire (up 52%).

Details

Here’s what happened in California in May — and how that activity stacked up nationally, ranked by the size of listing increases within the state …

No. 1 Sacramento

Active listings: Up 55% — No. 3 of 50 nationally.

Median listing price: $649,000 — No. 9.

Year’s price change: Up 11% — No. 29.

Share of price cuts: Up 17.2% of listings — No. 4.

No. 2 Inland Empire

Active listings: Up 52% — No. 4 of 50.

Median listing price: $599,000 — No. 12.

Year’s price change: Up 14.2% — No. 24.

Share of price cuts: 13.9% of listings — No. 7

No. 3 San Francisco

Active listings: Up 32% — No. 12 of 50.

Median listing price: $1.13 million — No. 2.

Year’s price change: Up 3.8% — No. 38.

Share of price cuts: 9.1% of listings — No. 30.

No. 4 San Jose

Active listings: Up 23% — No. 15 of 50 nationally.

Median listing price: $1,494,000 — No. 1.

Year’s price change: 15.1% — No. 22.

Share of price cuts: 9.9% of listings — No. 24.

No. 5 San Diego

Active listings: Up 10% — No. 26 of 50.

Median listing price: $926,000 — No. 4.

Year’s price change: Up 15.9% — No. 19.

Share of price cuts: 11.5% of listings — No. 14.

No. 6 Los Angeles-Orange County

Active listings: Up 5% — No. 31 of 50 nationally.

Median listing price: $972,000 — No. 3

Year’s price change: Up 1.4% — No. 41.

Share of price cuts: 10.5%, of listings — No. 18.

Quotable

“While this real estate refresh is welcome news in a still-undersupplied market, it has yet to make a dent in home price growth,” Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com, said in the report.

Bottom line

The stats suggest housing supply hit a turning point last month.

Still, the uptick in inventory doesn’t necessarily mean that the housing market exuberance is softening. Listings remain 49% below their May 2020 level, and price increases have accelerated in recent months.

The U.S. median listing price rose to a record $447,000 in May, after just crossing the $400,000 threshold in March. And buyers made purchasing more quickly than in any month in Realtor.com data history going back to July 2016.

Nonetheless, the jump in mortgage rates and a softening economic outlook may have thinned the number of house hunters and made bidding wars less exuberant. In an early sign, the rate of sellers making price cuts accelerated in May, Hale said.

Bloomberg News and the Southern California News Group’s Jonathan Lansner contributed to this report.