Blog Left Sidebar

Six leading apparel brands have stepped forward to be featured on a new online map that claims to be the only tool in the world to openly link leading multinational corporations to their suppliers’ environmental performance.

Newly-listed Hong Kong-based apparel manufacturing giant Crystal Group is to expand its worker empowerment programme to facilities in Bangladesh and Cambodia – and says it expects all of its wholly-owned factories will have adopted the Higg Index Facility Environmental Module (FEM) 3.0 to measure environmental performance in 2018.

“Drastic changes” are needed to generate shopper appeal at Debenhams according to one analyst, as the struggling UK department store retailer warned it expects to miss full-year profit forecasts after a disappointing end of season sale.

The Italian Government has published a strategic paper that sets out a new vision for adopting a national circular business model that could change the practices of many of the country’s textile and apparel brands and manufacturers.

Vietnam’s textile and garment industry is targeting exports of US$34bn in 2018 as it looks to invest more in technology to increase productivity and shorten delivery times, and increase its focus on markets such as Australia and Russia.

FULLERTON – Three people were injured, including a pregnant woman, in a multi-vehicle crash prompted by a driver avoiding an animal in the road on Thursday, Jan. 4, police said.

Around 9:20 a.m. a woman driving a Chevrolet Tahoe west in the 2200 block of West Walnut Avenue swerved to miss the animal, Sgt. Jon Radus said.

She lost control and hit a parked, unoccupied Nissan Frontier, authorities said.

The Tahoe rolled and struck a parked Honda Odyssey, occupied by a woman who is seven months pregnant and a man, he said. The impact pushed the Odyssey into a parked, unoccupied Honda Accord.

The three people were transported by ambulance to area hospitals for treatment of what appeared to be minor injuries, Radus said.

The crash was under investigation.

Little did the motorsports world know that, in addition to future stars such as Phil Hill and Carroll Shelby, a sports car race at Grand Central Airport in Glendale would also produce another big name.

Norma “Dusty” Brandel was covering that November 1955 race for the Glendale Citizen-News. Six decades later, on the opposite end of the country on Jan. 12, Brandel will be honored at the NASCAR Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Charlotte, N.C., as the recipient of the Squier-Hall Award. Named after NASCAR broadcasters Ken Squier and Barney Hall, the award was created in 2012 to honor media contributions to the sport. Squier and Hall were the initial recipients.

Past winners include Chris Economaki, Tom Higgins, Steve Byrnes and Benny Phillips. Brandel was chosen from a field of eight that also included the late L.A. Times writer Shav Glick, Russ Catlin, George Cunningham, Bob Jenkins, Bob Moore, Taylor Warren and Steve Waid.

“As the first woman to report from inside the NASCAR garage, Dusty Brandel blazed a trail for generations of reporters who followed her lead,” said Brian France, NASCAR chairman and CEO last summer when the 2018 winner was revealed. “Though she was a pioneer for female journalists, that fact soon became just a footnote in an exemplary career – her journalistic talents and her dedication throughout a more than six-decade career far transcended gender. We look forward to honoring her with the well-deserved Squier-Hall Award.”

In 1972, Brandel created NASCAR history by reporting live from the Ontario Motor Speedway garages. A year earlier, she was among the first women allowed in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway press room. Brandel was also among the first to drive Riverside International Raceway and has been a regular at Fontana’s Auto Club Speedway since opening day in 1997.

“Dusty’s commitment to auto racing coverage nationally and here at Auto Club Speedway over the years has been second to none,” said Dave Allen, ACS president. “As a trailblazer in the industry, being honored with the Squier-Hall Award is long overdue. As an award-winning journalist and an ambassador for the motorsports industry, we look forward to her outstanding coverage for years to come.”.

Brandel, a Southern California resident, has also been very active in the American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Association, which annually selects an All-American racing team. She is president and executive director of the 400-plus member organization.

“Dusty Brandel has been simply tireless in her in-front and behind-the-scenes work that has kept AARWBA both pertinent and vital,” said veteran publicist Doug Stokes, a 30-year member of the organization. “Her leadership is always delivered with a smile and a timely measure of encouragement and our membership is universally appreciative of what she has meant to the profession.”

Brandel is also a member of the West Coast Stock Car Hall of Fame

“I’ve been very fortunate to have been involved it motorsports early and have so many friends in the racing community,” said Brandel.

SUPERCROSS OPENER

Anaheim Stadium will once again be the site of the AMA Supercross season opener on Saturday, the first of two events at the stadium and three in Southern California. It’s the start of a wide-open championship race as Ryan Dungey, who won the last three riding champions, retired after the 2017 season and creates an opportunity for three riders fro Southern California.

Blake Baggett of Grand Terrace, who suffered from a thumb injury most of the ’17 season, finished sixth aboard a KTM. Sherman Oaks’ Cole Seeley was seventh on a Honda while Josh Grant of Wildomar, who rides a Kawasaki, was slowed by nagging injuries. They’ll be competing against Eli Tomas (Kawasaki), Marvin Musqion (KTM) and Ken Roczen (Honda) for top honors.

As the Anaheim stops on the circuit are usually sold out, fans will notice a few changes in the series that has competed in Southern California for 40 years. It’ll be the debut of a new points system that organizers hope will create a more competitive race at each stop and for the season. Semifinal races have been eliminated, meaning the top nine racers in each heat advance to the main event and 10-20 to the last chance qualifier.

A Triiple Crown format will also be introduced with competition in Anaheim, Atlanta and Minneapolis. The 22 riders in the finals will compete in 8-, 12- and 15-minute finals (6, 10 and 12 for the 250cc class). An Olympic-style scoring system will determine the main event winner, with the lowest combined score being declared the first-place finisher.

PIT STOPS

* Hallie Deegan, daughter of legendary X-Games athlete Brian Deegan, will be part of the Bill McAnally Racing team for the 2018 NASCAR K&N Pro Series, running the West full-time and some of the East series. The Temecula resident will drive the No. 19 Mobil/NAPA Toyota Camry.

She has a background in off-road racing, as well as super late model competition.

“She’s a very talented driver, who brings with her a lot of energy and excitement,” said McAnally. “We look forward to being a big part of Hailie’s development as she takes this next step in her racing career. We anticipate great things ahead for everybody, including our partners and fans.”

* Perris Auto Speedway will host its annual Winter Heat — featuring IMCA Modifieds, Super Stocks, Street Stocks and American Factory Stocks — on Jan. 13 and 14

Tickets are $15 for each day. Active military (with proper ID), teens 13-18 (with school ID) and kids 6 through 12 are $5. Children five-and-under are free. Gates will open at 2 p.m. and racing will start at 3.

The shows will feature heat races, B mains (if applicable) and A mains for all classes. IMCA Modified for each show will pay national, regional, state and PAS points.

* Damion Gardner, a regular at Perris Auto Speedway, will compete in the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals next week in Tulsa, Okla. The 2008 winner of the event and six-time USAC/CRA Sprint Car champion will be joined by Terry Klatt, Bob East and longtime open wheel car owner Doug Schloss in his quest.

The car is being raced in honor of Jason Leffler, the Long Beach driver who was fatally injured in a 2013 crash. Schloss at the 32nd annual race inside the River City Expo Center in Tulsa. Schloss was no stranger to Leffler as he worked for Kyle Busch when Leffler was driving one of his trucks in NASCAR.

The largest midget race in the world, the Chili Bowl attracts more than 300 cars annually with drivers from NASCAR, Indy Cars, World of Outlaws, NHRA, USAC and more. The race will be spread over five nights commencing on Tuesday and finish with the finals on Jan. 13.

* According to ESPN’s Bob Pockrass, Roush Fenway racing has sold one its NASCAR charters to Penske Racing, which will be used by Ran Blaney in the No. 12 Cup car. Roush Fenway has two charters remaining, for drivers Ricky Stenhousse Jr. and Trevor Bayne.,

Striving to fulfill a campaign promise, the Trump administration moved Thursday to facilitate the interstate sale of health insurance policies that cost less but may not cover as much.

The proposed regulation from the Labor Department would provide more health insurance options for self-employed people and small businesses, but its success depends on buy-in from insurers, state regulators, plan sponsors and consumers themselves. Some groups already have concerns.

Don’t look for revolutionary changes, said analyst Elizabeth Carpenter of the health industry consultancy Avalere Health. “The impact on the markets and on consumers really may depend on whether it is easy enough for the groups potentially affected to take advantage of the rule,” she said.

No sweeping consequences are seen for the more than 170 million Americans with employer-sponsored coverage, or the nearly 30 million still uninsured.

The complex proposal aims to deliver on President Donald Trump’s long-standing pledge to increase competition and lower costs by promoting the sale of health plans across state lines. Unable to repeal the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, the administration is pursuing regulations to change the marketplace.

The new rule would make it easier for groups, or associations, to sponsor health plans that don’t have to meet all consumer protection and benefit requirements of the Obama law. Those requirements improve coverage, but also raise premiums.

Insurance industry groups are skeptical of Trump’s idea, saying it could undermine the current state markets. Patient groups are concerned about losing protections. Some state regulators object to federal interference.

In a recent interview, Trump predicted big changes would result from the combination of this expected proposal, known as “association health plans,” and the GOP’s recent repeal of the ACA’s requirement that most people get health insurance or risk fines.

“So now I have associations,” Trump told The New York Times last week. “I have private insurance companies coming and will sell private health care plans to people through associations. That’s gonna be millions and millions of people. People have no idea how big that is. And by the way, and for that, we’ve ended ‘across state lines.’ So we have competition.”

Trump appeared to be referring to current obstacles that deter an insurer in one state from marketing to customers in another state. Some of those barriers have to do with state regulations that differ in the kinds of benefits that insurers must cover. For example, one state may require robust coverage for children with autism, while another may not.

Under the administration’s proposal, health plans sponsored by associations would gain enhanced status under a federal law that generally exempts large employer plans from state regulation. Experts are poring over the proposal to determine precisely to what degree such exemptions would apply to the new plans.

The Labor Department said the proposal could benefit up to 11 million people who are self-employed or work for small businesses, and lack employer coverage. Association plans, called “Small Business Health Plans” in the proposal, would be open to small employers and sole proprietors and their families.

The plans could be organized along the lines of an industry, enabling them to market anywhere in the country. Or they could be set up to serve communities, including major metro areas that span several states, such as the tri-state New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area.

The department said such plans would not be able to charge individuals higher premiums because of health issues or turn down applicants with medical problems.

“The Affordable Care Act’s ending of discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions has become almost sacrosanct,” said Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

However, the regulations allow higher premiums based on age, gender and other factors, said legal analyst Timothy Jost. Interested parties have 60 days to comment.

The main insurance industry groups, along with organizations representing patients and consumers, worry that the administration’s approach could siphon healthy people away from the health law’s insurance markets, creating a spiral of rising premiums for people who need comprehensive benefits.

“We are concerned that this could create or expand alternative, parallel markets for health coverage, which would lead to higher premiums for consumers, particularly those with pre-existing conditions,” according to a letter last month to state regulators, signed by America’s Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

Even before Thursday’s development, Pennsylvania’s acting insurance commissioner, Jessica Altman, had her own concerns. “Generally speaking, these types of plans are exempt from state law and outside my jurisdiction,” the Democratic appointee said in an interview. “That means any issues that consumers have, I won’t be able to help them. More and more people would fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government, and I think state regulators would say we really do it better.”

The administration plan won accolades from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., long an advocate of association health plans. But groups on the political left denounced it as another attempt to sabotage former President Barack Obama’s health law.

One way or another, two words are likely to dominate the complicated politics of California’s housing crisis in 2018: rent control.

Next week state lawmakers will hear a proposal from Assemblyman Richard Bloom, Democrat from Santa Monica, that would allow cities to dramatically restrict what landlords can charge tenants year-over-year. The bill couldn’t even get a hearing last year amid intense opposition from landlords.

But looming over legislators’ heads this time around is a potential ballot initiative supported by tenants’ rights groups that would do much of the same. If the bill stalls, experts say there’s a good chance you’ll see rent control on your November ballot.

What should your average Californian know about a rent control debate poised to gobble up so much political oxygen? Here are five key points:

1. Under current state law, a wide swath of California’s housing stock can’t be placed under rent control.

Rent control or rent stabilization policies come in different shapes and sizes depending on the city you may find them in. Some place a hard cap on how much a landlord can raise rents year over year, others may be indexed to inflation. Currently 15 California cities have some form of rent control on the books, including major population centers like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland.

But current state law prohibits any locality in California from imposing rent control on properties built after 1995. That’s the year the state passed the Costa-Hawkins Act, which also prohibited cities that already had rent control laws on their books from updating them for new properties. Thus in Los Angeles. rent control only applies to buildings constructed before 1978, and in San Francisco, rent control only applies to buildings built before 1980.

A bit of background: After some cities responded to tenants’ concerns about rising rents in the 1970s and 80s by adopting rent control ordinances, real estate interests first tried to stop them in the courts. Unsuccessful there, they focused on the Legislature. Bills to preempt local rent control would routinely pass the Assembly and then die in the Senate, held up by then-Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti, a West Hollywood Democrat. The year after he was termed out of office, Costa-Hawkins passed by a one-vote margin.

Both Bloom’s bill (as it is currently written) and the initiative would fully repeal Costa Hawkins, massively expanding the number of properties on which cities could impose rent control. That includes single-family homes, which Costa-Hawkins also excluded from rent control protections.

2. Most economists–left or right-leaning–think rent control is bad.

Economists have a hard time agreeing on most things. But regardless of partisan leaning, most economists would say rent control is not great policy. Even prominent progressives like Paul Krugman have expressed opposition to it.

Rent control is quite literally the textbook example of a “price ceiling”– undergrad economics textbooks will often feature problem sets with questions about what’s wrong with rent control. The classic microeconomic downsides include killing the incentive to build more housing, causing landlords to neglect maintenance and repair, and inflated prices for non rent-controlled units. A poll of ideologically diverse economists found that only 2 percent agreed with the statement that rent control had had a positive impact on housing affordability in cities like New York and San Francisco.

3. Scholars in other fields are generally bigger fans. And if you took away rent control, the results could be disastrous for affordability

Many urban planners and other scholars studying gentrification and displacement cite rent control as an effective policy to keep long-time residents in the communities in which they live and work. And because rent control has become so deeply embedded in the housing markets of some cities, taking it away—no matter how economically inefficient it may be—could spell disaster for current residents.

The Bay Area Council Economic Institute—a business-aligned policy think tank—ran a simulation of 20 policy changes that could improve or worsen housing affordability in San Francisco. The policy that would make things worst? Getting rid of rent control, which they found would plunge 16,000 households into an unaffordable housing situation.

4. One of the best studies of rent control shows that it primarily benefits older households at the expense of households without rent control.

There actually aren’t a ton of empirical studies looking at how rent control plays out in practice. But a groundbreaking Stanford University study released last year on San Francisco’s rent control experience has shed new light on who wins and who loses from the policy.

Looking at a roughly 20-year span of proprietary rental and migration data, the study authors found that rent-controlled tenants age 40 or over saw average savings of nearly $120,000 from rent control; by contrast, younger rent-controlled tenants only saved an average of $40,000.

That’s because younger households were more likely to move out of rent-controlled apartments because of various life milestones—a new job, a new family, buying a house in the suburbs, etc.

5. The study also found that rent control paradoxically fueled gentrification, as landlords converted units to condos.

The Stanford study also found that rent controlled buildings were 10 percent more likely to be converted to a condominium or some other type of non-rental property, as landlords searched for ways to evade the law. Those units being drawn off the market parlty drove up rental prices for tenants searching for apartments in San Francisco. In this sense, the study authors argue, rent control paradoxically contributed to the well-publicized gentrification the city has experienced over the past few decades.

While the study also found that rent-controlled tenants were more likely to stay in the city than tenants without rent control, the gap may not be as wide as you think. After 10 years, about 11 percent of tenants without rent control were living at the same San Francisco address.Tenants with rent control? Thirteen percent stayed put.

How to participate in the debate: The rent control bill will be heard by the Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee on Thursday, Jan. 11 at 9 a.m., and will include a public comment period. You can watch the hearing—which should be pretty lively as far as legislative hearings go—here.

CALmatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.  

HBO announced Thursday that “Game of Thrones” Season 8 won’t arrive until sometime in 2019.

Nothing more definite than that was revealed. Season 7 aired this past summer, while previous seasons had aired during spring seasons. The network had said 2019 was a possibility because of the long production schedule.

The new season has already been filming for several months. Series star Sophie Turner had previously hinted to a number of publications that production was going slowly.

The final season will only consist of six episodes, and many fans were hoping it would air sometime this year.

The finale of Season 7 – the most-watched episode in series history – left a lot of plot points hanging, including the fate of one of the dragons that became part of the White Walkers army.