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A European heat wave helped fuel a virulent wildfire in Spain that killed two farmers before hundreds of firefighters brought it under control thanks to a timely rainstorm, authorities said Wednesday.The blaze that broke out late on Tuesday in the rural province of Lleida created an enormous thick plume of ash and smoke that reached 14,000 meters (45,000 feet) of altitude, making it the largest registered by firefighters in Catalonia, a northeastern region of Spain.Firefighters said that the fire spread at 28 kph (17 mph) at one point, making it one of the fastest fires registered in Europe, they said.Catalan regional president Salvador Illa announced the deaths, which occurred late Tuesday, in a social media post around midnight. Firefighters said that the two victims were found near the small village of Coscó in the county of La Segarra near a vehicle. Regional official Nuria Parlón said that the two victims were a farmer and one of his workers. She said that it appears that they were caught by the flames as they were trying to flee the farm.Two firefighters also needed to be treated a local hospital for injuries. Rain played a helping hand A total of 6,500 hectares (16,000 acres), mostly of fields growing grains and cereals, was burned before firefighters got some help from a rainstorm and established a perimeter. Authorities issued warnings to residents via messages to smartphones and ordered 14,000 people to stay indoors, firefighters said. That order was lifted late Tuesday as more than 500 firefighters participated in the deployment.Firefighters said that the rainstorms “quickly changed the situation and helped speed up getting the fire stabilized.”The fire destroyed mostly farmland, but it also incinerated at least three old farmhouses and some other farm buildings before it was declared under control early Wednesday.“Wildfires today are not like they were before,” Illa, the regional president, said. “These are extremely dangerous. From the very first moment, it was considered to be beyond the capacity of extinction. I mean that not even with two or three times the number of firefighters, they have told me, it would have been possible to put out.”The heat wave in parts of Europe has set record high temperatures for June in Spain and Portugal.More hot weather is expected on Wednesday with temperatures in the Lleida region forecast to reach a high of 39 C (102 F).“It will be a difficult day due to the high temperatures and until we get past the hottest part of the afternoon we will have to be on our guard,” Illa said. Spain bakes Spain has been sweltering under its first heat wave of the year since the weekend. Its weather service said that the national average for June of 23.6 C (74 F) was a new record. It was the first time that June was hotter than the average temperatures for both July and August.Except for Spain’s northern Atlantic coast, the country remained under alert for high temperatures and for wildfire risk on Wednesday.In Spain’s southern city of Malaga, the international Red Cross set up a “climate refuge” that is air-conditioned down to the low 20s C (about 70F) to help residents “cope with the heat in comfort and with company, avoiding the isolation and loneliness” that extreme heat can impose as people stay indoors.The Spanish Red Cross was also providing an “assisted bathing service” to help people with reduced mobility to cool down in waters at the beach.The European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts said that it was closely monitoring the abnormally hot temperatures for the continent. Weather experts link the heat wave to climate change.More than two-thirds of the severest heat waves in Europe registered since 1950 have occurred since 2000, the World Meteorological Organization says.France’s national weather agency kept four departments under red alert on Wednesday after temperatures exceeded 40 C (104 F) in many towns. The summit of Paris’ iconic Eiffel Tower remained closed until Thursday for “everyone’s comfort and safety.” Air conditioning strains Italian power Heat alerts were issued for 17 Italian cities Wednesday. The corresponding surge in air conditioning was straining the electric grid and causing periodic blackouts. On Tuesday, parts of Florence’s historic centerwhich is packed with hotels, restaurants, and shopshad a blackout following a surge in electricity use, energy company Enel said.Italy’s labor ministry, meanwhile, summoned union representatives to a meeting Wednesday to finalize a protocol on protecting farm, construction and other workers who labor outdoors from heat exposure.This came after a construction worker died in Bologna this week. Switzerland protects river In Switzerland, one of the two reactors at the Beznau nuclear power plant was shut down as part of efforts to prevent excessive warming of the Aare River, so as not to further burden wildlife and the overall ecosystem in already hot weather, operator Axpo said. Samuel Petrequin in Paris, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, and Nicole Winfield in Rome, contributed to this report. Joseph Wilson, Associated Press
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Versant, the new company thats being spun off from Comcast, and which will be the new home to several of its cable networks, is building out a new, independent news-gathering operation as it disentangles MSNBC from NBC News. For decades, the two brands worked hand-in-hand, sharing reporting and resources. However, with the two entities soon to be part of different companies, they need to decouple, which includes determining where some of the companys talent will go. Thats a complicated process, and it means that MSNBC, for the first time since its inception in 1996, will rely on its own stable of reporters and correspondents, rather than the combined efforts of its staff and NBC News. And right out of the gate, the news is good for MSNBC, as it has managed to bring aboard one of NBC News’s most prominent journalists. Brandy Zadrozny is joining MSNBC as the networks new senior enterprise reporter, based in New York. She moves to the new role after serving as a senior reporter at NBC News, where she covered the internet with a focus on politics, tech, and extremism. Brandy Zadrozny [Photo: courtesy MSNBC] Zadroznys work won her an Emmy, a Webby Award for a six-episode NBC News podcast she created, and includes stories related to radicalization, vaccine skepticism, and QAnon. Im thrilled to be joining MSNBC after years of reporting alongside its journalists, Zadrozny tells Fast Company. At a moment when theres real hunger for fact-based journalism with a clear mission, Im grateful for the opportunity to keep investigating stories that matterabout disinformation and the fringe forces reshaping our politicswith the support and reach of a network that knows exactly what it stands for. Filling out the ranks Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp. announced in late 2024 that it would spin out its cable TV networks, including USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, SYFY, and Golf Channel, into a separate publicly traded company, initially dubbed “SpinCo,” which it said at the time had generated $7 billion in 2024. The company name was revealed as Versant in May, with the spin-off expected to be completed later this year. Shares of Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) are down roughly 3% since the announcement. Zadrozny is one of several key hires that MSNBC is making, bringing in talent with diverse media backgrounds, including alumni of the Wall Street Journal, Politico, CNN, and even the upstart Crooked Media. That includes Scott Matthews, who will be MSNBCs senior vice president of news-gathering, along with NBC Newss Joey Cole and ABC Newss Erin Zimmerman, who will be in charge of day-to-day and long-term planning for the news team. Sudeep Reddy, formerly of Politico, is the networks new Washington bureau chief, and Madeleine Haeringer, formerly of NBC News and Crooked Media, is the new head of digital, audio, and long-form operations. In addition, Vaughn Hillyard will be the networks senior White House correspondent, and Laura Barrón-López (a former White House correspondent for PBS NewsHour) will be MSNBCs White House correspondent. David Noriega will be a correspondent based in Los Angeles, and Marc Santia will be an Investigative Correspondent. But thats not all: MSNBC is also welcoming a batch of correspondents and contributors, including Eugene Daniels, Jackie Alemany, Antonia Hylton, Elise Jordan, Ken Dilanian, and Erielle Reshef. Programming shifts There will also be some programming shakeups. That includes Jen Psakis show airing at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday through Friday, with Rachel Maddow holding down the slot on Monday nights. Ali Velshis program is being supersized to three hours on Saturdays and Sundays. Its expected that MSNBC will be fully independent from NBC News within a few months, and that the full spin-off of Versant from NBCUniversal and Comcast will occur by the end of the year. Versants properties will reach 70 million households in the United States. In the meantime, MSNBC and NBC News will continue the work of separating. Notably, both MSNBC and CNBC will retain their names, despite no longer being affiliated with NBCmuch in the same way that MSNBC has kept MS as a part of its branding, despite no longer being affiliated with Microsoft, which helped launch the brand in the 1990s. (Disclosure: The author of this story previously worked for CNBC.)
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When Plufl co-founders Yuki Kinoshita and Noah Silverman pitched their “dog beds for humans” prototype to Shark Tank in 2022, they envisioned making the plush, snuggly, memory foam beds in China and selling them at retail in the U.S. for $299. Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner invested $200,000 jointly for 20% of the company, which went on to make over $1 million in sales in 2023, selling beds on Amazon and their own website. After U.S. President Donald Trump slapped a 145% tariff on items imported from China in April, Kinoshita and Silverman sprung into action, investigating if retailers would be interested in selling a U.S. made version of their human dog beds. The retail price might go higher, but they thought a “made-in-the-USA” label might be an attractive selling point and help ease some U.S. retailers’ concerns about the impact of China tariffs. Silverman and Kinoshita had previously toured a factory in Las Vegas that could make the memory foam beds for $150 per unit compared to the $100 overall cost to make the beds in China. But that $150 manufacturing cost didnt include the faux fur lining for the cover, which would still need to be imported from Chinaadding another $100 per unit. They pitched a sub-$500 made-in-the-USA version to Costco, which it turned down, saying it couldnt stock the product this year and might revisit the idea next year. Costco did not respond to a request for comment. The duo behind Plufl are among tens of thousands of American small and midsize manufacturers facing the choice between paying steep tariffs on Chinese imports or taking on significantly higher domestic production costs. Even those willing to pay more to make goods in the U.S. are confronting another reality: retailers set prices for consumers and have been largely unwilling to budge in the face of tariffs. On June 11, when Trump announced a deal to lower tariffs on Chinese goods to 55%, Kinoshita and Silverman decided to stay the course manufacturing their human dog beds in China and maintain the $299 retail price. “We’re absorbing costs in a number of ways, such as finding shipping efficiencies by shrinking the box down more and also taking some hit on our margin,” Kinoshita said. White House spokesperson Kush Desai said the Trump administration remains committed to reviving U.S. manufacturing, citing provisions in the Big, Beautiful Bill, which passed on Tuesday with a slim majority in the Senate, such as allowing businesses to fully expense equipment investments. “These complementary policies will turbocharge growth and drive investment throughout the supply chain, he said in an emailed statement. DRINKING MARGINS Similarly, Aisha Chottani, another Shark Tank veteran, found that tariffs threaten her ability to sell her products in grocery stores. Chottani, CEO-founder of Moment, makes her healthy, stress-reducing carbonated beverages in Wisconsin, but her packager, CanWorks imports pre-formed aluminum from China, and is thus subject to aluminum tariffs which raised the price of cans from by 20%. When Chottani tried to pass on the 4 cents in additional costs to Albertsons, which carries her $3.99 Strawberry Rose beverage at about 30 locations in Texas and New Mexico, her answer was swift. “Albertsons refused any price increases,” she said and suggested she either keep the same price or leave. Albertsons did not respond to a request for comment. In February, she launched Moment beverages in Sprout Farmers Markets across the U.S., but was forced to do so with higher-priced cans. “There wasn’t enough time to shift production to factories in Vietnam or other places,” she said. For now, Chottani is keeping her wholesale price the same even as her costs have gone up. She’s raising additional cash from investors and looking to cut costs. “Even in the short term a 20% price hike is huge and is going to wipe out all your cash,” she said. BABY TARIFFS It’s not just startups that are struggling. Bugaboo, the Netherlands-based maker of expensive baby gear, owns its own factory in China and would seem to be well-prepared to weather tariffs. The company’s popular “Fox 5” stroller, which retails for about $1,500 in the U.S., is made at its factory in Xiamen, China, where 97% of strollers and car seats imported to the U.S. are made, according to ImportGenius, which tracks U.S. import, export records and shipping manifests. But when Trumps tariffs hit, Bugaboo started to reevaluate that strategy. The company had begun studying moving production to other countries in Asia to have more regional production flexibility as well as the U.S., but any move would be years away. It took Bugaboo a number of years to establish its Xiamen operations. If it had to build a similar setup in the United States, it would take the same time. “Even if we start now, it would take several years to set up operations,” said Chief Commercial Officer for North America, Jeanelle Teves. The U.S. currently lacks a specialized manufacturing footprint for baby strollers that requires advanced tooling, high-grade materials, and a skilled labor force. “It’s not just about assembling parts; it’s about engineering performance and safety,” she said. In the meantime, Bugaboo decided to pass some of those costs onto customers, raising prices $50 to $300 on several products including high chairs, play pens, and a new version the Fox 5 stroller on May 20. The increases do not fully offset the tariff, and Bugaboo is continuing to absorb part of the cost in order to minimize the impact on American families and retailers, Teves said. TAKING NOTES Pensacola, Florida-based Simplified, maker of high-end notebooks, cards and stationery, can make a day planner complete with a hard cover, gold corners, foil and color printing for about $12 in Shenzhen, China, where many U.S.-bound paper products are made. After the tariffs hit and small businesses began feeling the pain, CEO-founder Emily Ley said many people asked why she didnt just move her manufacturing to the U.S. The United States simply does not have the infrastructure,” said Ley. The problem? Producing the same planner in the U.S. would cost $38 and thats with lower-quality materials. Ley said she keeps her manufacturing costs at 25% of the $64 retail price of the planners. She said she can’t pass on the cost of tariffs, because then her planners would cost $100. People aren’t gonna pay $100 for a paper planner, nor should they, said Ley, who has filed a lawsuit against Trump alleging that his use of emergency powers to enact tariffs was illegal. In the meantime, Ley is absorbing the cost and continuing manufacturing in China, which means cutting back on other areas like investing in growth, jbs, salaries and advertising. “You know, we’re all encouraged to pursue the American dream and create businesses, Ley said. The tariffs at any level are truly punitive. It seems kind of counterproductive to the whole point of this whole thing. Siddharth Cavale, Reuters
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