German fashion brand Hugo Boss has booked a drop in earnings in its last fiscal year, weighed down by declines in its core Boss brand and in its domestic market.

German sportswear brand Puma has raised its full-year guidance as it revealed higher sales and earnings in its first-quarter.

Growth in the volume of world merchandise trade is expected to rebound this year from its tepid performance in 2016, but only if the global economy recovers and governments pursue the right policy mix, World Trade Organization (WTO) economists say.

By innovating the production process and utilising highly-skilled local labour to produce limited runs of high-end footwear, the domestic footwear industry in the US is carving its own niche to stay competitive, according to a new briefing.

UK textile and clothing manufacturing is enjoying a revival, new figures suggest, with production increasing by 2.5% to GBP9.1bn (US$11.4bn) over the last two years.

The chief executive of an IT staffing company with an Irvine office will pay $135,000 to settle claims she mistreated a former domestic employee, forcing the woman to sleep with the family dogs and work 15½-hour days, seven days a week.

The U.S. Labor Department filed a complaint Aug. 22 against Himanshu Bhatia, the CEO of Rose International. The company’s headquarters is in Chesterfield, Mo., but it also has an office at 18952 MacArthur Blvd.

Bhatia allegedly made domestic employee Sheela Ningwal “work and live in servitude, without any understanding of her rights as an employee or ability to adequately enforce her rights, since Ms. Ningwal’s attempts to enforce her rights resulted not only in the loss of her employment, but of food and shelter,” according to the complaint.

Bhatia denied the claims but decided to settle the case to avoid a costly lawsuit, she said.

“Mrs. Bhatia firmly denied all of the claims made by the department regarding the employee, whom Mrs. Bhatia contended had been treated as a virtual member of the family.  The lawsuit was resolved for less than the cost of continuing to litigate the case and will allow Mrs. Bhatia to focus on her business affairs,” the family said in a statement.

Bhatia will pay $54,348 in wages, and additional $54,348 in liquidated damages and $26,304 gross sum damages, the Labor Department stated.

Bhatia was accused of paying Ningwal, an Indian national, $400 a month plus food in exchange for housework performed seven days a week at Bhatia’s homes in San Juan Capistrano, Miami, Las Vegas and Long Beach, according to the DOL complaint.

She worked for Bhatia from July 2012 to December 2014.

The Labor Department said Ningwal was forced to sleep in the garage on a piece of carpet near Bhatia’s dogs while she was sick and was left without food if Bhatia left her home. Ningwal’s passport was also confiscated, according to the Department of Labor.

Bhatia fired Ningwal after she discovered the woman was researching labor laws on a computer. The worker also refused to sign a document written by Bhatia claiming a fair salary, according to the complaint.

Bhatia and her husband, Gulab, started Rose International in 1993 in their home near St. Louis.

Bhatia’s business specializes in consulting and IT services. Clients in 2011 included AT&T, Chevron, Verizon and the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, according to a Smart Business article.

Rose International had $318 million in revenue in 2015 and claimed 6,000 employees, according to the St. Louis Business Journal.

Asking F. Gary Gray to direct “The Fate of the Furious,” the eighth chapter in the hugely popular “The Fast and the Furious” movie franchise, was a no-brainer for the folks at Universal.

He’d just made the studio’s hit N.W.A music biopic “Straight Outta Compton.” He’d helmed a successful car-caper film before, the 2003 “The Italian Job.” Gray had even worked with many members of the sequel’s sprawling cast before: Vin Diesel on “A Man Apart,” Jason Statham and new villain Charlize Theron on “Italian Job,” Dwayne Johnson on “Be Cool.”

Although the South Central L.A.-raised Gray and Universal had enjoyed a great working experience with “Compton,” the filmmaker had one concern before taking on their golden baby, though.

“It was like, ‘What are you going to do next? What CAN you do next?’,” Gray, 47, explains. “There’s been seven movies; it’s been a massive success. So when I heard that Dom was going to go rogue, I thought that is exactly where you need to go in order to make an eighth film work – and not only work, but great. When you have a franchise that’s so used to serving this theme of family, family, family, and then the family falls apart, I wanted to be a part of that story.”

In “Fate’s” script by Chris Morgan, who’s been driving the franchise’s intersecting plot lines since the third installment, Diesel’s Dominic Toretto is seduced/blackmailed/something by Theron’s superdiabolical cyberterrorist Cipher to betray his hard-driving ad hoc family and aid her nefarious scheme – while he’s on his honeymoon in Cuba with Michelle Rodriguez’s Letty, no less.

The love of Dom’s life – as well as fed-turned-friend Hobbs (Johnson), goofball Roman (Tyrese Gibson), tech whizzes Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) and their mysterious government overseer Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) – doesn’t know what to make of Dom’s sudden, dark shift.

But they do know they have to stop what he and Cipher are up to because The World. Vehicular mayhem ensues in Germany, New York City, Arctic Russia, below the sea, up in the sky …

It was a daunting undertaking on a scale Gray had never attempted before.

“?’The Italian Job’ was fun. This movie is insanely massive – in a fun way, but it’s just on a whole ‘nother scale,” he admits. “Y’know, we took the Mini Coopers through Los Angeles, drove through the subway, had a little race with the train. But it’s nothing like having cars fly through the streets of Manhattan off of buildings and having nuclear subs chasing Lamborghinis and going to what could be considered a forbidden city – Havana – and racing these vintage cars through the streets at 100 miles an hour without killing everyone. It was a ton of challenges that we certainly didn’t come close to facing with ‘The Italian Job.’?”

Gray thinks he managed to put his personal touch on “Fate,” though, while making sure to acknowledge that he couldn’t have made the movie without series veterans such as picture car coordinator Dennis McCarthy and the second unit action/stunt teams headed by Spiro Razatos, Jack Gill and Andy Gill.

“It seems like most of my earlier movies prepped me for this one: Working with the actors, doing some action, traveling around, getting performances with drama and humor and all that,” Gray reckons. “You find my humor in here, you find some of the dramatic pockets that you’ve seen in the past with me, and this action is unique; I wish I could take all of the credit for that, but I can’t.”

It took an unprecedented kind of preparation to stage and shoot “Fate’s” opening sequence in Havana, a drag race through the city’s colonial streets in the ancient automobiles Cubans have famously kept running since the U.S. embargo of the Communist nation came down more than half a century ago. Former President Obama’s relations thaw with the Castro regime enabled “Fate” to become the first major Hollywood production to shoot on the island in decades.

Further diplomacy was required, however.

“If you could imagine having to bring the entire infrastructure in to shoot what we shot, that was just the beginning,” Gray notes. “That was just kind of a logistical challenge. Having to consider not only all of the things we needed to consider creatively – and it’s a beautiful place to shoot – but we had to consider a lot of things that were being negotiated between the two countries. We had the State Department negotiating, ambassadors; there were people on a level I’ve never had to consider negotiating on our behalf.

“Some of the simplest shots that we dreamt up required major negotiations. For example, we couldn’t bring a drone into Cuba; that could be considered a spying device. But we brought in helicopters, and that was one of the first times there’s been an American airship over Havana. You could race at 100 miles an hour with cars that were 60 years old up and down the streets of Havana, but you could barely send an email. So it was a major contrast, but it was a phenomenal experience, profound in a lot of ways, for all of us. Well worth it.”

Speaking of negotiators (interestingly, Gray also made a movie about one in 1998), Dom later goes after a Russian ambassador’s motorcade in Manhattan. Former friends and enemies haul after him, but Dom’s got his own posse: 100 or so driverless vehicles whose computer systems have been hacked by Cipher. Many of which while parked in structures stories above the street.

“The experience of shooting a car chase, and then raining cars in New York, was unique,” says Gray, noting that some elements of the unprecedented urban insanity were filmed in Manhattan and some elsewhere. “Some of our movie magic and secrets, we keep ’em secret. There was a combination of techniques for different vehicles at different times. But some of it was very timely, with all of the hacking going on. Hopefully, this is just kind of a movie thing you can have fun watching on the big screen, but the ability to do at least parts of what you see in the movie is already here.”

According to “Fate,” nuclear submarines can be hack-jacked too. Iceland stood in for Russia during filming of a multivehicle race across a frozen lake, with the sub underneath, but not always.

The lake part was real.

“Beside the cost of destroying and drowning three Lamborghinis,” Gray starts, “having to work with engineers to make sure it’s safe to have 40 vehicles racing on top of melting ice was quite a thing. As a matter of fact, we lost a tractor; it just kind of fell in. So, you can imagine the level of engineering it took to make sure our stuntmen were cool, our actors were cool and our crew was cool. Otherwise, the story wouldn’t be how cool this movie is, but you just sunk 1,000 people and their vehicles for the sake of getting a creative shot or two.

“We had to strategically place everyone in order to make sure that the shots were safe. Otherwise, one wrong turn and a crack, and suddenly you have an entire crew in danger.”

The debate will go on forever – or at least for the run of F&F movies, of which “Fate” is reportedly Chapter?1 of the final trilogy – as to whether it’s the ridiculous action or the character relationships that fuel the series’ popularity. Ironically, this “family no more” episode may boast the most complex family values seen yet.

And that, it appears, is what Gray may be proudest of engineering.

“One of the reasons why it’s a global phenomenon is because of the family thing,” he says. “If you turn that on its head, which we’ve done, it’s a different approach. It’s the family that’s falling apart. But it’s taking the theme of family to the next level. You don’t want to roll your eyes and say, ‘OK, we’ve seen this before.’ This storyline helps to make you feel that this is fresh. If you’re going to experience eight … give me something different, and I think we did.”

What’s up with mortgage rates? Jeff Lazerson of Mortgage Grader in Laguna Niguel gives us his take.

Rate News Summary

From Freddie Mac’s weekly survey: The 30-year fixed rate improved again, landing at 4.08 percent, two basis points better than last week’s 4.10 percent. Ditto for the 15-year fixed, which averaged 3.34 percent, two basis points better than last week’s 3.36 percent.

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported a 1.5 percent increase in loan application volume from the previous week.

Bottom Line: Assuming a borrower gets the average 30-year fixed rate on a conforming $424,100 loan, last year’s rate of 3.58 percent and payment of $1,923 was $121 less than this week’s payment of $2,044.

What I See: Locally, borrowers can get the following fully amortizing fixed-rate loans with zero cost: A 15-year at 3.25 percent, a 20-year at 3.875 percent, a 30-year at 4.0 percent, a Federal Housing Administration or Veterans Administration 30-year at 3.75 percent, a 15-year conventional high-balance loan (or a loan from $424,101 to $636,150) at 3.5 percent, a 30-year conventional high-balance loan at 4.25 percent, an FHA/VA 30-year high-balance loan at 4.0 percent, a 15-year jumbo (or loans for amounts over $636,150) at 4.50 percent and a 30-year jumbo at 4.625 percent.

Contact mortgage broker Jeff Lazerson at 949-334-2424, jlazerson@mortgagegrader.com or on Twitter: @mortgagegrader_.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee plans to open a western regional office in Irvine, further emphasizing the national party’s hopes of picking up House seats in Orange County. Western regional staff has been headquartered in Washington D.C. since at least the 2004 election cycle.

“Moving out west is one of the improvements that we’re making at the DCCC in order to maximize gains in the midterms,” said Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-New Mexico, chairman of the committee.

Of the 23 GOP districts that Hillary Clinton won nationwide last year, four are in Orange County. The national party is hoping to flip all 23 of those seats and, 18 months before the general election, two Orange County organizers – hired by the state party with earmarked DCCC funding – are already in place.

The local GOP incumbents being targeted are Darrell Issa, Ed Royce, Mimi Walters and Dana Rohrabacher. Orange County was a natural choice for the new office, according to DCCC spokesman Tyler Law.

“If you have to pick a place in the West, it makes the most sense because of the cluster,” Law said.

Plans call for at least eight staffers to work out of the office, including a political director, a fundraiser, a regional press secretary, a digital strategist and a data analyst, Law said. The staff will work directly with congressional candidates’ campaigns in eight western states.

Zarkades vs. Rohrabacher

American Airlines pilot Tony Zarkades hasn’t made the splashiest entry of the four Democrats challenging Rohrabacher.

Fellow candidates Harley Rouda and Laura Oatman both had consultants onboard – in Rouda’s case, three consultants and a fundraiser – who made sure I was up to speed on their clients before their bids became official.

Zarkades, who doesn’t have a consultant or even a campaign account yet, has been toiling more quietly on his Facebook page and website, which articulately lays out his positions on nine key issues. But he’s been thinking of running longer than the others.

Rouda, Oatman and Boyd Roberts all say they were motivated to run by Donald Trump’s unexpected victory, Rohrabacher’s support of the president, and their desire to redirect the balance of power in Washington.

While Zarkades sounds similarly appalled by the policies and demeanor of Trump and Rohrabacher, he says he was considering a bid when polls and mainstream pundits were still pointing to a Hillary Clinton presidency.

“I was thinking I’d wait until the end of this year to start running, but the whole county is on fire to replace Rohrabacher” and other Republican members of Congress, said the 51-year-old. “There’s a lot of grassroots activity.”

Zarkades spent eight years as a Marine helicopter pilot and flight instructor, including a stint at the now-defunct Marine Corps Air Base Tustin. He’s lived in Huntington Beach with his wife and two kids since 1999.

Rouda and Oatman appear to be the early Democrats to watch in terms of fundraising in the race, with Rouda saying he’d raised $200,000 by the end of March and Oatman saying she expected to have $250,000 by the end of June.

Beside having done little or no fundraising, what Zarkades and Roberts have in common is that theirs are the only two whose websites explicitly express support for single-payer universal healthcare. The two also supported Bernie Sanders in last year’s Democrat primary, while Rouda and Oatman voted for Clinton.

You’d figure renters in the Los Angeles/Orange County area would have a tougher time than in many other places scrapping together a down payment for  a home.

A new Zillow analysis shows how high that hurdle is: The Los Angeles/Orange County region came in third in the nation where coming up with a down payment was cited as the No. 1 barrier to home ownership.

San Jose and San Diego came in first and second, respectively.

Saving enough money for a down payment was a problem for more than two-thirds of renters Zillow surveyed across the U.S.  It was cited more than any other issues, including  job security or qualifying for a mortgage.

In San Jose, 73.9 percent of renters surveyed said the down payment was the biggest barrier; that compares with 72.9 percent in San Diego and 72.2 percent in Orange County.

Being able to afford a down payment was the top obstacle for 67.9 percent of those polled across the U.S.

A 20-percent downpayment on a U.S. home at the $195,700 median price eats up more than two-thirds of the national median annual household income of $57,667, according to the analysis.

In expensive markets, Zillow says, it can cost more than 180 percent of the average annual income.

In San Jose, where the median income is $105,455, a down payment on the median home – $961,600 – is $192,320.

In the L.A./O.C. area, Zillow places the median home value at $590,000, with a median 20 percent down payment of $118,000.

The median income is $64,806. That puts the down payment at 182 percent of income.

These were the percentage of renters around the U.S. citing barriers:

Affording the down payment: 67.9%

Qualifying for a mortgage: 53.2%

Debt: 50%

Job security: 38.5%

Not in a position to settle down: 20.1%

Not enough homes for sale: 11.2%

Other: 4.1%

None: 6.9%