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Presidents, billionaires, Olympians: Allisen Corpuz continues Hawaii private school’s illustrious reputation with US Women’s Open win – CNN
- Presidents, billionaires, Olympians: Allisen Corpuz continues Hawaii private school’s illustrious reputation with US Women’s Open win CNN
- Why Allisen Corpuz nearly had to WD — and one of the BEST lines in response Golf.com
- Hawaii’s US Open winner Corpuz showed championship mettle at Punahou KHON2
- Allisen Corpuz wins the U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach by three shots, first major title for 25-year-old from Hawaii – KION546 KION
- Allisen Corpuz up to No. 6 in world after U.S. Women’s Open win – ESPN ESPN
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A-B marketing reputation takes a huge hit with Bud Light misstep – St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- A-B marketing reputation takes a huge hit with Bud Light misstep St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney controversy deepens: Chicago gay bars roar at beer maker’s ‘abandonment’ of cause Fox Business
- ‘Not a formal campaign’: Anheuser-Busch distanced itself from the Bud Light controversy — says it was one camp, one post, one influencer. But is it enough to win back drinkers? Yahoo Finance
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Study Challenges “Love Hormone” Oxytocin’s Reputation As the Key To Pair Bonding
New research from the University of California, San Francisco and Stanford Medicine is challenging the long-held belief that the receptor for oxytocin, known as the “love hormone,” is essential for forming social bonds. The study, published in the journal Neuron, found that prairie voles bred without oxytocin receptors showed similar monogamous mating, attachment, and parenting behaviors to regular voles, and even gave birth and produced milk albeit in smaller quantities. This contradicts the previous idea that oxytocin is critical to these social behaviors and raises new questions about the role of the hormone in bonding.
Removing the Oxytocin Receptor Does Not Interfere with Monogamy or Giving Birth
Turning a decades-old dogma on its head, new research from scientists at University of California, San Francisco and Stanford Medicine shows that the receptor for oxytocin, a hormone considered essential to forming social bonds, may not play the critical role that scientists have assigned to it for the past 30 years.
In the study, published on January 27, 2023, in the journal Neuron, the team found that prairie voles bred without receptors for oxytocin and showed the same monogamous mating, attachment, and parenting behaviors as regular voles. In addition, females without oxytocin receptors gave birth and produced milk, though in smaller quantities, than ordinary female voles.
The results indicate that the biology underlying pair bonding and parenting isn’t purely dictated by the receptors for oxytocin, sometimes referred to as the “love hormone.”
“While oxytocin has been considered ‘Love Potion #9,’ it seems that potions 1 through 8 might be sufficient,” said psychiatrist Devanand Manoli, MD, PhD, a senior author of the paper and member of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. “This study tells us that oxytocin is likely just one part of a much more complex genetic program.”
This is a photograph of two prairie voles. Credit: Nastacia Goodwin
CRISPR Voles Pack a Surprise
Because prairie voles are one of the few mammalian
To the researchers’ surprise, the mutant voles formed pair bonds just as readily as normal voles.
“The patterns were indistinguishable,” said Manoli. “The major behavioral traits that were thought to be dependent on oxytocin – sexual partners huddling together and rejecting other potential partners as well as parenting by mothers and fathers – appear to be completely intact in the absence of its receptor.”
Labor and Lactation
Even more surprising for Manoli and Shah than the pair bonding was the fact that a significant percentage of the female voles were able to give birth and provide milk for their pups.
Oxytocin is likely to have a role in both birth and lactation, but one that is more nuanced than previously thought, Manoli said. Female voles without receptors proved perfectly capable of giving birth, on the same timeframe and in the same way as the regular animals, even though labor has been thought to rely on oxytocin.
The results help to clear up some of the mystery surrounding the hormone’s role in childbirth: Oxytocin is commonly used to induce labor but blocking its activity in mothers who experience premature labor isn’t better than other approaches for halting contractions.
When it came to producing milk and feeding pups, however, the researchers were taken aback. Oxytocin binding to its receptor has been considered essential for milk ejection and parental care for many decades, but half of the mutant females were able to nurse and wean their pups successfully, indicating that oxytocin signaling plays a role, but it is less vital than previously thought.
“This overturns conventional wisdom about lactation and oxytocin that’s existed for a much longer time than the pair bonding association,” said Shah. “It’s a standard in medical textbooks that the milk letdown reflex is mediated by the hormone, and here we are saying, ‘Wait a second, there’s more to it than that.’”
Hope for Social Connection
Manoli and Shah focused on understanding the neurobiology and molecular mechanisms of pair bonding because it is thought to hold the key to unlocking better treatments for psychiatric conditions, such as autism and schizophrenia, that interfere with a person’s ability to form or maintain social bonds.
Over the past decade, much hope was pinned on clinical trials using oxytocin to address those conditions. But those results were mixed, and none has illuminated a clear path to improvement.
The researchers said their study strongly suggests that the current model – a single pathway or molecule being responsible for social attachment –is oversimplified. This conclusion makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, they said, given the importance of attachment to the perpetuation of many social species.
“These behaviors are too important to survival to hinge on this single point of potential failure,” said Manoli. “There are likely other pathways or other genetic wiring to allow for that behavior. Oxytocin receptor signaling could be one part of that program, but it’s not the be-all end-all.”
The discovery points the researchers down new paths to improving the lives of people struggling to find social connection.
“If we can find the key pathway that mediates attachment and bonding behavior,” Shah said, “We’ll have an eminently druggable target for alleviating symptoms in autism, schizophrenia, many other psychiatric disorders.”
For more on this research, see Were We Wrong About the “Love Hormone” Oxytocin?
Reference: “Oxytocin receptor is not required for social attachment in prairie voles” by Kristen M. Berendzen, Ruchira Sharma, Maricruz Alvarado Mandujano, Yichao Wei, Forrest D. Rogers, Trenton C. Simmons, Adele M.H. Seelke, Jessica M. Bond, Rose Larios, Nastacia L. Goodwin, Michael Sherman, Srinivas Parthasarthy, Isidero Espineda, Joseph R. Knoedler, Annaliese Beery, Karen L. Bales, Nirao M. Shah and Devanand S. Manoli, 27 January 2023, Neuron.
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.12.011
Additional authors include: Ruchira Sharma, Rose Larios, Nastacia Goodwin, Michael Sherman and Isidero Espineda of UCSF, Maricruz Alvarado Mandujano, YiChao Wei, Srinivas Parthasarthy and Joseph Knoedler of Stanford, and Forrest Rogers, Trenton Simmons, Adele Seelke, Jessica Bond, and Karen Bales of UC Davis, and Annaliese Beery of UC Berkeley.
This work was supported by NIH grants R01MH123513, R01MH108319, DP1MH099900 and R25MH060482, NSF grant, 1556974, and philanthropy. For details, see the study.
Southwest Starts On Reputation Repair After Cancellations
DALLAS (AP) — With its flights running on a roughly normal schedule, Southwest Airlines is now turning its attention to repairing its damaged reputation after it canceled 15,000 flights around Christmas and left holiday travelers stranded.
CEO Robert Jordan said Thursday that Southwest has processed about 75% of the refund requests it has received. The airline has also returned most lost bags to their owners, and hired an outside firm to sift through requests for reimbursement of things like hotels and meals that stranded passengers paid out of their own pockets, he said.
The massive disruptions began Dec. 22 with a winter storm, and snowballed when Southwest’s ancient crew-scheduling technology was overwhelmed, leaving crews and planes out of position to operate flights. It took the airline eight days to recover.
Jordan said in a brief interview that Southwest is still studying what went wrong, and he doesn’t want to make changes in technology until that review is done. He expressed optimism but offered few specifics about avoiding a repeat meltdown.
Southwest is giving 25,000 frequent-flyer points to customers whose flights were canceled or significantly delayed between Dec. 24 and Jan. 2, and seems to be making progress on refunds, but executives concede it will take many weeks to process the reimbursement requests.
Danielle Zanin is still waiting to hear whether Southwest will cover the $1,995.36 that she spent during a four-day odyssey getting her family of four home to Illinois after their flight was canceled in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Even if she eventually gets the money, it may not be enough for her to try Southwest again.
“It would take a lot for the airline to prove to me that they can fix whatever technology they use to get flight crews and planes where they need to go. It’s just not worth the hassle that I went through,” Zanin said. She said she plans to go back to flying on American Airlines even if it costs more.
Southwest hopes that refunds, reimbursements and loyalty points will persuade people not to switch to other airlines, known in the industry as “booking away.”
“Book-away typically has a short half-life, perhaps as little as a month, given it appears from many accounts that Southwest is being very generous reimbursing not only flight but other out-of-pocket costs” and is serious about fixing the technological shortcomings that made the crisis worse, said Robert Mann, an airline consultant in New York.
Retaining loyal customers is crucial if Southwest is to limit the financial damage of the meltdown. The company has yet to say how much money it lost because of the canceled flights — Jordan promised more information before Southwest reports quarterly results on Jan. 26.
Raymond James airline analyst Savanthi Syth estimated that the storm will cost Southwest about $585 million in lost revenue, plus higher expenses. Mann figures it’s between $500 million and $600 million in cash, vouchers and frequent-flyer points.
Airlines — including Southwest as recently as October 2021 — have recovered quickly from previous meltdowns, whether they were caused by bad weather, crew shortages, IT outages or other factors. Passenger numbers, if they declined at all, recovered quickly.
“The reputational damage is only as relevant as what consumers can do about it,” said Michael Mazzeo, who teaches strategy at Northwestern University’s business school and has examined airline competition. “In a lot of markets, there is little or no competition to Southwest. When there is no outlet for consumers, the damage is more limited.”
Southwest, American, United and Delta control about 80% of the domestic air-travel market. Southwest — it started 50 years ago as a low-cost competitor to big airlines but has gradually become much more like them — has a particularly outsized presence in some big states including California, Arizona and Texas.
Southwest remained relatively quiet for several days even after it became clear that it was struggling while other airlines recovered from the winter storm — and after it came under repeated criticism from consumers, media reports and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
As canceled flights piled up day after day, Southwest gave few updates and rejected requests for interviews with key executives. It posted a video apology by Jordan Dec. 27, followed a day later by a video with another executive. Company executives did not speak generally to the media until Dec. 29, when they announced that Southwest would resume normal operations the following day.
“The company was slow to come forward in terms of corporate PR communications until the government went after them, the (Transportation) secretary called the CEO directly and demanded they move fast to take care of those people,” said Larry Yu, a George Washington University professor who studies crisis management in the tourism industry. “Short-term, it’s big damage.”
But Yu also noted that Southwest has decades of reputation for relatively low fares and good service to fall back on. He praised the airline for promising refunds, reimbursements and frequent-flyer points.
“They have to do something to win back those customers,” Yu said. Now, he added, Southwest must make good on vows to improve its technology, “because you don’t want to equate low-cost with low-tech.”
Jordan said Southwest has good technology, but he said the airline will re-examine IT priorities once it better understands how the December failure unfolded.
The debacle has also focused attention on Southwest among lawmakers in Congress.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Wednesday that he will re-introduce a “passenger bill of rights,” which failed to become law in the last Congress.
“The Southwest debacle creates a moment when the forces in favor of this kind of consumer-protection measure could prevail,” he said in an interview.
The Senate Commerce Committee said this week it will hold hearings on the Southwest meltdown. Blumenthal said witnesses should include executives from Southwest and other airlines.
“This problem (of flight disruptions) is hardly limited to Southwest, it’s hardly the first meltdown in airline travel, and it’s hardly unforeseeable,” Blumenthal said. He said it was baffling why Southwest had not improved its crew-scheduling technology after it had failed during previous disruptions in the summer and fall of 2021.
Buttigieg has said repeatedly that his department is watching Southwest closely and will hold it accountable to treat customers fairly.
Consumer groups have given mixed grades to the Transportation Department’s oversight of airlines. They viewed the Trump administration as a low point, with few enforcement actions taken against airlines even in the face of record consumer complaints. The Biden administration fined Frontier Airlines and several foreign carriers last year for not quickly paying refunds to travelers whose flights were canceled during the early months of the pandemic, but advocates were disappointed that none of the four largest U.S. airlines were fined.
The Transportation Department has the burden of enforcing consumer-protection laws aimed at protecting airline travelers. Several consumer groups are urging Congress to let state officials and private parties sue airlines to enforce those laws — an effort that has been unsuccessful so far.
“The airlines are going to lobby hard to have as little regulation as possible, but with each passing meltdown it becomes more apparent that real change is needed,” said John Breyault, vice president of public policy at the National Consumers League.
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Sergey Surovikin, Russia’s new top commander in Ukraine, has a reputation for brutality
CNN
—
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s devastating war on Ukraine is faltering. Now, there’s a new general in charge – with a reputation for brutality.
After Ukraine recently recaptured more territory than Russia’s army took in the last six months, Russia’s Ministry of Defense last Saturday named Sergey Surovikin as its new overall commander for operations in the war.
Notably, he previously played an instrumental role in Russia’s operations in Syria – during which Russian combat aircraft caused widespread devastation in rebel-held areas – as Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces.
CNN spoke to a former Russian air force lieutenant, Gleb Irisov, who served under him in Syria.
He said Surovikin was “very close to Putin’s regime” and “never had any political ambitions, so always executed a plan exactly as the government wanted.”
Analysts say Surovikin’s appointment is highly unlikely to change how Russian forces are carrying out the war but that it speaks to Putin’s dissatisfaction with previous command operations. It is also, in part, likely meant to “mollify” the nationalist and pro-war base within Russia itself, according to Mason Clark, Russia Lead at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think-tank.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who has called for Russia to “take more drastic measures” including the use of “low-yield nuclear weapons” in Ukraine following recent setbacks, welcomed the appointment of Surovikin, who first saw service in Afghanistan in the 1980s before commanding a unit in the Second Chechen War in 2004. Praise from Kadyrov, who is a key Putin ally, is significant, perhaps, as he himself is notorious for crushing all forms of dissent.
“I personally have known Sergei very well for almost 15 years. I can definitely say he is a real general and warrior, experienced, headstrong and foresighted commander who always takes patriotism, honor and respect above all,” Kadyrov posted on social media, following news of Surovikin’s appointment last Saturday. “The united army group is now in safe hands,” he added.
Irisov, Surovikin’s former subordinate, left his five-year career in the armed forces after his time in Syria because his own political views conflicted with what he experienced. “Of course, you understand, who is right and who is wrong,” Irisov said. “I witnessed a lot of stuff, being inside the system.”
Irisov then began what he hoped would be the start of a career as an international journalist, as a military reporter with Russian state news agency TASS. His wife worked there and he felt at the time it was “the only main information agency” that tried to cover news in an “unbiased” way, with “some opportunity of freedom of speech,” he said.
“Everything changed” on February 24, 2022, when Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began and TASS received orders from the FSB security service and defense ministry “that everyone will be prosecuted if they don’t execute the propaganda scheme,” Irisov said.
He had family in Kyiv, hiding in bomb shelters, and told CNN he knew “nothing could justify this war.” He also knew from his military contacts that there were already many casualties in the first days of the war.
“For me it was obvious from the beginning,” Irisov recalled. “I tried to explain to people this war will lead to the collapse of Russia… it will be a great tragedy not only for Ukrainians but also for Russia.”
Irisov fled Moscow with his pregnant wife and young child on March 8, 2022, after standing against the invasion. He had quit his job at TASS and signed petitions and an open letter against the war, he told CNN. After traveling to Armenia, Georgia, Turkey and finally Mexico, where they contacted the US embassy to ask for help, they are now working to start a new life in West Virginia.
While serving at Latakia air base in Syria in 2019 and 2020, the 31-year-old says he worked on aviation safety and air traffic control, coordinating flights with Damascus’ civilian airlines. He says he saw Surovikin several times during some missions and spoke to high-ranking officers under him.
“He made a lot of people very angry – they hated him,” Irisov said, describing how the “direct” and “straight” general was disliked at headquarters because of the way he tried to implement his infantry experience into the air force.
Irisov says he understands Surovikin had strong connections with Kremlin-approved private military company the Wagner group, which has operated in Syria.
The Kremlin denies any connections to Wagner and insists that private military companies are illegal in Russia.
Surovikin, whose military career began in 1983, has a checkered history, to say the least.
In 2004, according to Russian media accounts and at least two think tanks, he berated a subordinate so severely that the subordinate took his own life.
And a book by the think tank the Washington DC-based Jamestown Foundation says that during the unsuccessful coup attempt against former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991, soldiers under Surovikin’s command killed three protesters, leading to Surovikin spending at least six months in prison.
CNN has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment on Surovikin’s appointment and regarding allegations about his harsh leadership.
In a 2020 report, Human Rights Watch named him as “someone who may bear command responsibility” for the dozens of air and ground attacks on civilian objects and infrastructure in violation of the laws of war” during the 2019-2020 Idlib offensive in Syria. The attacks killed at least 1,600 civilians and forced the displacement of an estimated 1.4 million people, according to HRW, which cites UN figures.
During his time in Syria, the now-56-year-old was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation.
In February this year, Surovikin was sanctioned by the European Union in his capacity as head of the Aerospace Forces “for actively supporting and implementing actions and policies that undermine and threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine as well as the stability or security in Ukraine.”
Irisov believes there are three reasons why he has been put in charge in Ukraine now: his closeness to the government and Putin; his interbranch experience with both the infantry and air force; and his experience since the summer commanding Russian forces in the southern Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea. These are areas that Putin is trying to control “at any cost,” said Irisov.
Just two days after Surovikin’s appointment on Saturday, Russia launched its heaviest bombardment of Ukraine since the early days of the war.
Surovikin is “more familiar with cruise missiles, maybe he used his connections and experience to organize this chain of devastating attacks,” Irisov said, referencing the reports that cruise missiles have been among the weapons deployed by Russia in this latest surge of attacks.
But Clark, from the ISW, suggests the general’s promotion is “more of a framing thing to inject new blood into the Russian command system” and “put on this tough nationalist face.”
His appointment “got widespread praise from various Russian military bloggers as well as Yevgeny (Prigozhin), who’s the financier of the Wagner Group,” Clark said.
He believes what’s happening now is a reflection of what happened in April, when another commander, Alexander Dvornikov, was appointed overall commander of the operations in Ukraine.
“Similarly, he before then was a commander of one of the groupings of Russian forces and had sort of a master reputation in Syria much like Surovikin for brutality, earning this sort of name of the ‘butcher of Aleppo,’” Clark said.
Dvornikov was also seen at the time as the commander “that was going to turn things around in Ukraine and get the job done,” he added. “But an individual commander is not going to be able to change how tangled Russian command and control is at this point in the war, or the low morale of Russian forces.”
Andrea Kendall-Taylor, director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, also told CNN this week that Surovikin’s appointment “reflects the ascendancy of a lot of hardline voices inside Russia… calling on Putin to make changes, and to bring in someone who would be willing to execute these ruthless attacks.”
Clark reasons that “from what we’ve seen, it’s highly probable that Putin is involved in decision-making down to a very tactical level and in some cases bypassing the senior Russian military officers to interact directly on the battlefield.”
Surovikin personally signed Irisov’s resignation papers from the air force, he says. Now, Irisov sees him put in charge of operations in Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine – but what impact the general will or can have is not yet clear.
According to Clark, “there isn’t a good Kremlin option if Surovikin doesn’t perform or if Putin decides that he is also not up to the task. There aren’t many other senior Russian officers and it’s just going to lead to a further degradation of the Russian war effort.”
Johnny Depp’s Former Agent Details Reputation, Unprofessional Behavior – The Hollywood Reporter
Johnny Depp’s former agent recounted on Thursday the destruction of the actor’s career and reputation stemming from his issues with alcohol and drugs.
United Talent Agency’s Tracey Jacobs told jurors in Depp’s ongoing defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard that the actor went from “the biggest star in the world” to a liability that studios were wary of due to his “unprofessional behavior.”
Depp had become notorious for regularly showing up late to set and holding up filming, Jacobs testified. At one point, the actor had to start wearing an earpiece to have his lines fed to him.
“His star had dimmed due to it getting harder to get him jobs given the reputation he had acquired due to his lateness and other things,” Jacobs said, adding that “people were talking” about his substance abuse.
The testimony directly contradicted one of Depp’s central allegations against his ex: that a December 2018 op-ed Heard wrote in The Washington Post led to him being boycotted by Hollywood. He’s claimed that he was cut from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise shortly after the column — which didn’t name him specifically but described “domestic abuse” in a time frame consistent with their marriage — was published.
On Thursday, Jacobs detailed Depp’s immense popularity before his issues, which she attributed to alcohol and drug use, became a dealbreaker for studios.
Depp was paid $25 million upfront with backend compensation for starring in 2017’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, according to Jacobs. She said his deal for Murder on the Orient Express, released the same year, netted him “$5 million for four consecutive weeks [of work] plus a great backend, which he has received significant money on subsequently.”
Asked whether Depp has starred in a major film since Depp fired her in 2016, Jacobs said he was considered for The Invisible Man but that Universal ended up making it “at a much lower budget with a woman.”
“Initially, crews loved him because he was always so great with [them],” Jacobs said from the stand, “but crews don’t love sitting around for hours and hours waiting for the star of the movie to show up. It also got around town. People talk. It’s a small community. It made people reluctant to use him toward the end.”
Further contesting Depp’s alleged injuries as a result of Heard’s op-ed, Disney production executive Tina Newman testified that she wasn’t aware of the column playing a role in the company’s choice not to move forward with another installment in the Pirates franchise. She pointed to emails among Disney executives Sean Bailey, Alan Horn and Alan Bergman discussing issues with Depp on- and off-set.
Depp’s current agent, Jack Whigham, previously testified that Depp was slated to be paid $22.5 million for reprising his role as Jack Sparrow in the sixth Pirates movie, but that Disney went in a different direction after Heard’s op-ed.
Following his role as evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald in Warner Bros.’ Fantastic Beasts franchise being recast, Depp hasn’t appeared in any major studio films. His most recent movie, Minamata, secured a U.S. theatrical release a year after its originally scheduled date. Director Andrew Levitas complained that MGM, which held the North American rights to the film, was burying Minamata because of the abuse allegations against Depp.
The jurors were also shown the deposition of Adam Waldman — one of Depp’s lawyers, who was thrown off the case after leaking information covered by a protective order to the press — regarding his role in an alleged smear campaign launched against Heard, by Depp, after she publicly alleged that he abused her.
Heard’s lawyers tried to get Waldman to admit to making statements to the press on behalf of Depp claiming that Heard’s claims of abuse were a hoax, but he was largely able to evade the questions by citing attorney-client privilege.
In one statement to The Daily Mail, Waldman claimed that Heard “set Mr. Depp up by calling the cops,” referencing a visit from law enforcement to the couple’s house, after which Heard refused to press charges against Depp for domestic abuse. He said in another, “We have reached the beginning of the end of Ms. Heard’s abuse hoax against Johnny Depp.”
Asked whether he had reason to believe Heard was lying, Waldman pointed to witnesses who’ve testified “in various forms at various times that there were no injuries to her face” following an incident in May 2016 in which Depp allegedly threw a phone at Heard and beat her. Depp has argued that Heard faked her injuries, which were used to obtain a domestic violence restraining order.
Waldman added that videos and photographs provided to him by Marilyn Manson, a close friend of Depp’s, “demolished” Heard’s claim that the actor beat her on Thanksgiving in 2013.
The jurors also heard testimony from Joel Mandel, Depp’s former business manager. He detailed the collapse of the actor’s finances after his spending had grown “untenable.” This followed testimony from Jacobs, in which she recounted an instance in 2016 of Depp demanding $20 million from UTA, which agency partners Jeremy Zimmer and Jim Berkus refused. UTA subsequently secured him a loan.
Depp sued Mandel and his other former managers for $25 million in 2017, accusing them of stealing money from him. Joel and Robert Mandel’s The Management Group countersued, claiming that Depp spent millions of dollars on multiple homes, wine and private jets, among other expenses that they advised him he could not afford. (The cases were settled in 2018.)
Grocery apps try to shed NYC hubs’ ‘crackhouse’ reputation
Grocery delivery apps are looking to satisfy angry neighbors and New York City council members by rebranding their barebones and potentially illegal delivery hubs as high-tech retail locations that are open to the public.
As the legion of apps — including Gopuff, Getir, Gorillas and Jokr — have launched in the five boroughs over the past year, they’ve gobbled up space for dark stores that was previously occupied by delis and boutiques, turning the spaces into “dark stores” that house groceries and are closed to the public.
Some local politicos have accused the apps of violating zoning laws by running warehouses out of properties zoned for retail, while local residents have griped about constant E-bike traffic, as well as workers loitering and smoking outside delivery hubs at all hours of the day.
“Rapid grocery delivery companies have come to realize that a dark store was nothing more than the modern day version of a crackhouse,” Brittain Ladd, a retail consultant who works with rapid delivery companies, told The Post. “They had the ugly covering over the window, people couldn’t go inside if they didn’t work there. It attracted people who would hang out and there were a number of complaints about the noise and the traffic.”
In some instances, The Post observed the floors of delivery hubs littered with trash. In others, delivery workers were seen riding E-bikes and scooters at lightning-fast speeds on city sidewalks. Even the cleanest and most well-organized hubs seem to feature fluorescent lighting and threadbare decor.
But now, in an apparent effort to satisfy both zoning laws and peeved neighbors, many of the delivery apps, including Getir, Gopuff and Gorillas, have started opening up their stores to walk-in customers.
Getir delivery hubs across the city added “Walk-ins welcome” signs to their storefronts in March. Gorillas hubs also removed film from their windows and added “in store pick-up!” signs to their stores in March, as first reported by The Post. GoPuff told The Post its stores have always welcomed walk-in customers, but some of its stores did not have posted “walk-in” hours until recently. Jokr did not respond to a request for comment on whether it accepts walk-ins or plans to add them.
Critics counter that the startups’ in-store pickup signs amount to little more than an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of concerned city council members like Gale Brewer and Christopher Marte, who have both urged city agencies to investigate whether the apps are violating zoning laws.
That idea is bolstered by the fact that the Getir, Gorillas and GoPuff apps do not appear to give users the option of selecting in-store pickup, instead offering delivery only.
“While currently customers can walk in and place orders for in-store pickup, we recognize that the process isn’t as streamlined as we’d like it to be,” Getir founder Nazim Salur told The Post. “We are always working to improve our store operations, including enhancing the in-store experience. We expect these changes to be completed in the near future.”
“We are here for the long-term and look forward to working with city officials and community leaders, as we create good jobs throughout New York City and provide a time-saving service that New Yorkers have already started to embrace,” Salur added.
Gorillas declined to comment. Jokr did not respond to requests for comment.
Many of the stores that are open to the public also flout city rules requiring stores to accept cash and include clearly labeled prices on all items, among other regulations, according to council member Brewer.
“You have to have labels on the cereal,” Brewer fumed to The Post. “That’s the law.”
Ladd, the retail consultant, said that delivery apps must work to make their stores “as inviting as possible” in an effort both to appease the city council and to satisfy neighbors, who may then begin to view the stores as neighborhood establishments rather than bleak eyesores.
“What I told Getir and what I told Gorillas is you have to change the perception of rapid grocery delivery from being something mysterious to being something inviting,” Ladd said.
But Ladd added that many of the startups have been reluctant to let outsiders into their stores because they “falsely believed they needed to keep what they did in those stores secret.”
“I’ve told all of them: none of you have a competitive advantage in this,” he said. “You all do the same thing.”
Fridge No More and Buyk, two other rapid delivery startups that folded in March, as exclusively reported by The Post, did not have signs welcoming customers into their stores.
Carmelo Anthony, already fitting in with Los Angeles Lakers, clears up ‘misconception’ about his reputation — ‘I’m easily adaptable’
LOS ANGELES — With Carmelo Anthony’s solid start to his Lakers tenure continuing Sunday — his game-high 23 points helped lift Los Angeles to a 95-85 win over the Houston Rockets — the 19-year veteran wanted to clear something up about his reputation.
“I think people don’t really understand me,” Anthony said. “I think there’s a misconception out there about me and not being able to adapt to situations. But I’m easily adaptable, man, to any situation.”
After scoring 20 or more points per game for his first 15 seasons in Denver and New York, having the offense run through him and commanding star treatment from both franchises, Anthony’s past handful of years in the league have been a mixed bag.
In 2017-18 he played for the Oklahoma City Thunder and started 78 games for an OKC team that ended up losing in the first round of the playoffs. He scoffed at playing a bench role for that team, famously quipping back, “Who, me?” to a reporter asking about his willingness to be a reserve.
The following season he played just 10 games for Houston, starting only two of them, before he and the franchise parted ways, leaving Anthony without an NBA home for more than 12 months as teams passed on someone who was seen as a high-volume scorer uninterested in taking on anything less than a featured role.
Of course, the fact that Anthony’s “misconception” comment came after playing the team that gave up on him three years ago might not have been so coincidental.
Eventually, the Portland Trail Blazers resuscitated his career, and Anthony played his first season with Portland as a starter before transitioning to a bench role last season.
He has been an elite substitute in L.A., averaging 16.7 points on 50% shooting (52.2% from 3) in coming off the bench in all seven games, and he did something on Sunday he hadn’t since his rookie season in December 2003: register four blocks and two steals in the same game.
Which is another reputation — being a defensive sieve — that he is looking to shed himself from.
“I didn’t expect him to have a defensive performance like he did tonight,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said. “It was great. I mean, forget about the steals and blocks and strips. He’s always good with his hands. But he’s in the right position. When you watch him on tape coming into this year, Iike, the effort’s there. He plays hard on that side of the ball. …
“And when he’s providing that kind of performance on the defensive side of the ball, with the way he’s shooting it, he’s a huge part of our win tonight.”
Anthony shot 8-for-14 from the field against Houston and 5-for-8 from 3. The Lakers improved to 3-0 this season when Anthony scores 20 or more points.
“When it comes to efficiency and as far as what he’s doing right now, we’re just trying to break down the defense and he’s finding himself, either his man is guarding him and leaving him or he’s in a great rhythm,” Lakers forward LeBron James said. “He’s just taking his shots and knocking them down.
Anthony, 37, has been one of the most consistently optimistic voices when it came to L.A.’s growing pains, and with the Lakers above .500 for the first time this season at 4-3, he explained his mindset.
“I think for me now it’s just about being mentally prepared for whatever is being thrown at us. And the rest will take care of itself,” he said. “It’s basketball at that point. If you’re open, shoot it. If not, make a play for yourself, make a play for others. The more that I can simplify the game of basketball, the easier the game becomes, especially at this stage of your career.”
Already seemingly at home in L.A., the man who goes by “Melo” wanted reporters to know just how malleable he considers himself to be. “It was all about me being able to adapt,” Anthony said. “I’m always going back to just being able to adapt to whatever situation that I’m put in.”
Assassin’s Creed creator says Sony has “the best reputation for supporting the creative process”
Assassin’s Creed creator Jade Raymond has explained why her new studio chose to partner with Sony for its first game.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Raymond was asked what had drawn new studio Haven to Sony. In response, she said that “Sony really does have the best reputation for supporting the creative process and supporting dev teams. I’ve done a lot of talking to different developers about their experience working with different publishers, and Sony does stand out as being a company that really understands the creative process, and developing games, and supports the dev teams, and gives them the autonomy they need. So that was a big attractor.”
The team’s reasoning wasn’t strictly business, however, as Raymond said that many of the developers on the team have been fans of Sony “since we were kids, so there’s something really cool about getting to work on a first-party PlayStation game that was really appealing to us. For a lot of people [this was] the dream of something they wanted to do. So we’re all super, super excited about the opportunity.”
Raymond, who worked on multiple Assassin’s Creed games before moving to Google to work on Stadia, announced Haven in March after the streaming service failed to take off. The team is yet to clarify what it’s working on, but recruitment information suggests the studio is working on a live-service PlayStation game. Whatever’s in store, however, it sounds as though Haven is still some way off revealing its first project to the world.
With Haven’s effort a long way off, here are some upcoming PS5 games that will be with you a little sooner.