Author: openjargon

• Zyn has stopped online sales after receiving a subpoena from the District of Columbia.
• DC banned flavored tobacco products, including nicotine pouches, in October 2022.
• Online sales make up a "very small" share of overall sales, Zyn's parent company said.

Zyn, which was already in short supply in some stores, could get tougher to buy after the company halted online sales.

On Monday, the maker of the popular nicotine pouch said the company received a subpoena from the District of Columbia's attorney general about sales of flavored products. Zyn's flavors include peppermint, cinnamon, and citrus.

Flavored tobacco products, including flavored nicotine pouches, have been banned in DC since October 2022.

Zyn parent company Philip Morris International said it intends to comply with the subpoena.

"Our preliminary investigation indicates that there have been sales of flavored nicotine pouch products in D.C., predominantly related to certain online sales platforms and some independent retailers," PMI said in a statement on Monday.

The company said a "material liability is reasonably possible," and that Zyn.com sales make up a "very small" share of nationwide sales volumes. In February, PMI said that it shipped nearly 385 million cans of pouches in the US in 2023, 62% higher than its 2022 shipments.

Zyn produces two "unflavored" varieties called Smooth and Chill — these are advertised as "Flavor Ban approved" on its website. It is unclear if these two varieties are allowed for sale in DC.

Similar flavored tobacco bans are also in place in California, New York, and Massachusetts.

PMI did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment sent outside standard business hours. Zyn's website said it expects to restart shipments "in the coming weeks."

Zyn has also been on the government's radar for underage sales.

In April, the Food and Drug Administration said it sent 119 warning letters to retailers and filed 41 civil complaints for sales of Zyn to underage buyers last year and this year. In its statement about the DC subpoena, PMI said only those 21 and above can access Zyn's website.

Medical experts and research studies warn nicotine — including in pouches — can be addictive and can have harmful effects on the body, including its cardiovascular and respiratory systems, BI previously reported.

A suspension of online sales could worsen the Zyn shortage, which has caused a frenzy among loyal fans of the chewing-gum-like nicotine pouches.

PMI's chief financial officer acknowledged the shortages in recent conferences and said that the company is looking to fill supply chain gaps by the end of the year.

• Monique Pizano, 27, is a general manager of a Raising Cane's branch in California.
• The college graduate says she can make as much as $174,000 in a year, per The Wall Street Journal.
• Pizano's earnings have allowed her to go on a honeymoon to Japan and save for a house down payment.

Monique Pizano's decision to work for Raising Cane's instead of taking a regular desk job has paid off handsomely.

The 27-year-old college graduate told The Wall Street Journal in a report published on Monday that she makes as much as $174,000 a year working as a general manager at the fast-food chain.

"Sitting at a desk and fixing documents, I wanted to fall asleep," said Pizano, who decided to join the restaurant industry after interning at the public-planning department in Riverside, California.

"I wanted to be on my feet," she continued.

Pizano is one of the many fast-food employees in California who have benefited from Gov. Gavin Newsom's move to raise the industry's wages.

Since April 1, California fast food staff have been entitled to a minimum wage of $20 per hour. This is 25% higher than California's $ 16-an-hour minimum wage for other industries.

Salaried employees like Pizano enjoyed pay hikes as well, with the state now requiring managers to be paid a minimum annual salary of $83,200.

Pizano told The Journal that her salary was raised from $79,000 to $85,000 in March, alongside other Raising Cane's employees. That's not including the monthly bonuses — which could range from $5,000 to $7,500 — that Pizano can receive if her branch hits its financial targets.

"It's been life-changing for my family," said Pizano, who says her earnings helped her pay for a honeymoon to Japan and allowed her to save for a house down payment.

Representatives for Raising Cane's didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.

To be sure, Raising Cane's isn't the only fast-food chain that pays managers well. Other chains like Chipotle and Taco Bell have been paying supervisors six-figure salaries.

In fact, a restaurant manager at In-N-Out could even make more than $180,000 a year, per a book written by owner Lynsi Snyder about the company's history.

"Offering the highest wages in the industry is one way we attract the best people to care for our customers," Snyder said in her book.

• Shein's CEO Xu Yangtian is staying out of the spotlight despite a hotly-anticipated IPO.
• Xu is so under the radar that his own employees don't recognize him in the office, the SCMP reported.
• Shein's executive chairman is more public, but he sparked scrutiny in a recent speech.

Fast-fashion giant Shein is gearing up for its widely-anticipated debut as a public company. But one key figure has stayed out of the spotlight: CEO Xu Yangtian, also known as Sky Xu.

The reclusive 40-year-old CEO, earlier referred to as Chris Xu, has avoided the kind of attention executives typically attract. He doesn't give interviews, speak at conferences, or have any public social media footprint despite leading a company boosted by TikTok.

Even Xu's own employees don't recognize him in the office, the South China Morning Post reported on Monday.

Shein senior advisor Frances Townsend told The Wall Street Journal — which ran an illustration of Xu in a December profile — that when she was in Shein's Guangzhou office last summer, nobody acknowledged the CEO sharing the elevator with them. Townsend highlighted the lack of interaction to Xu, who told her, "That's not our culture."

No verified photos of Xu exist, internally or externally. The SCMP said Xu's company photo is a basic landscape with the phrase: "If you have dreams, you are remarkable."

Bloomberg ranks Shein's founder as the 86th richest man in the world, with a net worth of $21.5 billion, based on the private company's scant filings. Bloomberg said a Shein spokesperson disputed that figure without explaining what was wrong.

Shein is expected to go public this year, although the big details, like when and for how much, are still under wraps. The Wall Street Journal reported in late May that a London filing could come weeks after the company faced roadblocks in the US.

If and when the company starts trading, Xu may finally emerge on the public stage. As a public company CEO, he'll be expected to participate in regular updates — UK companies are not required to have quarterly earnings calls, but most do — and interact with investors.

American culture celebrates founders who turn ideas into multi-billion-dollar companies. But Chinese executives must take care not to invite too much attention from party officials, who can exert significant power over their companies and personal lives. Alibaba founder Jack Ma disappeared from public for years after criticizing the government, and several other Chinese billionaires have similarly vanished in recent years.

Loyalty to China under scrutiny

So far, Shein's public face has been executive chairman Donald Tang. The Shanghai-born businessman, who became a US citizen as an adult, moved up the ranks at now-defunct investment bank Bear Stearns and joined Shein in 2021.

A recent speech Tang gave underscores the careful tightrope all Chinese executives walk — and why Xu may be staying out of public view. At the Milken Institute last month, Tang said Shein's roots are Chinese, while its headquarters make it Singaporean, but its ethos is American.

Tang's attempt to pacify officials on both sides of the Pacific attracted significant attention in Beijing. The company is still waiting for officials to greenlight its application to list outside of China.

"It raises questions of loyalty to China that some in Beijing find uncomfortable," a person familiar with the listing issue told the Financial Times on Friday.

Two Chinese business writers told the FT that Shein pressured them to skip writing about Tang's apparent gaffe, and the Milken Institute removed a video of the speech. The group did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment sent outside standard business hours, nor to the FT.

Shein did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.

• Ukraine is set to receive a hybrid air defense tank from Germany.
• It consists of a Skyranger turret mounted on a Leopard 2 chassis, per arms manufacturer Rheinmetall.
• This comes as both Russian and Ukrainian armies struggle against exploding drones.

Ukraine's war effort may soon get a boost from a new hybrid tank that merges a Cold War-era tank chassis with an advanced air defense system.

Rheinmetall, a German arms manufacturer, revealed in a media release on Monday that the new design consists of a Skyranger turret mounted on a Leopard 2 chassis.

Björn Bernhard, Head of Land Systems at Rheinmetall, hinted to German media outlet Bild that more such hybrid tanks could be in the works.

"There are still a lot of Leopard 1 battle tanks on whose chassis we could put the Skyranger turret with the 35mm machine gun," Bernhard told Bild.

According to Rheinmetall, the new system "offers an optimum combination of mobility, protection, flexibility and precision to meet the growing requirements of challenging threat scenarios in the near and closer range."

Amalgamations of newer military hardware with aspects of older technology have been rolled out on the Ukrainian battlefield. Ukraine has been deploying the "FrankenSAM," a hybrid air defense system that combines US missiles with Soviet launchers.

The new tank design comes as both Ukraine's and Russia's militaries have been grappling with the overwhelming presence of exploding drones, which fly into military vehicles and explode or burst into flames.

Even the most powerful tanks need to be protected by cage armor. Both armies have adopted the practice of welding "cope cages" to tanks to try to prevent drone attacks.

Russia has also taken to installing metal tent-like structures on tank roofs to protect against anti-tank fire. Also called "turtle" tanks, the metal sheets cover the tanks so extensively that they can barely turn their guns, as seen in a video uploaded by the open-source intelligence Telegram channel CyberBoroshno.

However, makeshift armor is not always effective. Video footage posted on May 6 by the 8th Separate Mountain Assault Battalion shows Russian tanks sporting "cope cages" being hit and destroyed by Ukrainian drones.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's supply of Leopard 2 tanks from Germany is also dwindling.

Sebastian Schäfer, an economist and member of Germany's Green Party, wrote a letter to weapons manufacturers, urging them to improve the repair process and supply of parts for the damaged tanks, per German outlet Der Spiegel in a report on January 2.

Rheinmetall didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

• Jon Stewart came out swinging on Monday about how he thinks the POTUS race has devolved.
• Stewart said it's now "boiled down to each candidate accusing the other of having soup where there should be brain."
• Biden and Trump are slated to go head-to-head in a debate at CNN's Atlanta studio on June 27.

Jon Stewart isn't mincing words about how he thinks the 2024 presidential race has devolved into mud-slinging about the state of each candidate's cognitive abilities.

In his Monday monologue on "The Daily Show," Stewart kicked off his segment by giving a "quick state of play."

"I guess the election has basically boiled down to each candidate accusing the other of having soup where there should be brain," Stewart quipped.

Stewart, 61 years old, then went on to do something that got him plenty of flak back in February when he first started doing Mondays at the Comedy Central show: He called out both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump for their advanced ages.

Biden is 81, and Trump is 78.

"For instance, for President Biden, it is his habit of seemingly staring at what can only be considered ghosts or out-of-frame paratroopers," Stewart said as an embarrassing clip of Biden appearing to wander off at the G7 summit played. "And then when he's pulled back into frame, somehow giving the impression someone has just quantum leaped into his body."

Stewart also slammed Trump, commenting on how Trump recently crowed about having great cognitive abilities at a GOP event.

"The case he's making to the American public is that he's the sharpest tool in the shed. See if you can find the flaw in his logic just one sentence later," Stewart said.

The show then played a clip of Trump bragging about acing a cognitive test — then getting the name of the doctor who gave him that test wrong.

"I took a cognitive test, and I aced it. Doc Ronny — Doc Ronny Johnson," Trump said, garbling then-White House physician Ronny Jackson's name. "Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor."

"He got the guy's name wrong on his cognitive test," Stewart said, laughing. "I don't even know what to say."

Stewart, in a February episode of "The Daily Show," also expressed his concern about the candidates' advanced ages.

"The stakes of this election don't make Donald Trump's opponent less subject to scrutiny. It actually makes him more subject to scrutiny," Stewart said in February.

But Stewart's critics pummeled him and said he'd unfairly equated the aging president with his opponent, a four-times indicted, now-convicted felon.

Trump and Biden are set to face off on stage in the first presidential debate of 2024. This debate will be hosted on CNN on June 27 at the network's Atlanta studio.

Representatives for Trump and Biden did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

• Japan's abandoned homes are casting a shadow on nearby properties, a Nikkei report revealed. 
• The homes cost the Japanese property market some $24.7 billion over five years through 2023.
• Japan has been offering these abandoned homes at throwaway prices to lure buyers. 

Japan's glut of abandoned homes — or akiya — has hit the prices of surrounding properties, and the damage goes into the tens of billions.

A report by Nikkei Asia on Tuesday estimated that the country's property market suffered losses of some $24.7 billion over the last five years due to the falling property values of homes near derelict buildings.

The report quoted research from the Japan Akiya Consortium, a group of 14 companies and a research institution that aims to tackle Japan's akiya problem.

According to the consortium's research, land prices for properties within a 165-foot radius of the akiya are cratering.

This is due to various factors. For one, potential buyers concerned about vegetation overgrowth and pest infestations from the abandoned homes are steering clear.

Pest infestations aside, the houses can also pose serious safety hazards. Poorly maintained properties, for one, could collapse in earthquakes, landslides, or extreme weather.

An akiya also can't be occupied or demolished without tracking down the original owner — a time-consuming exercise, as descendants may have moved away or become uncontactable. As such, these houses have led to the formation of "ghost villages" in Japan's rural prefectures.

The Japanese government is offering incentives, such as cheap $500 homes and tax reliefs, to entice residents to move from urban areas back to rural towns.

Foreigners have jumped on the deals, snagging large properties for low prices and renovating them into their dream homes.

However, Chris McMorran, an associate professor in the Department of Japanese Studies at the National University of Singapore (NUS), told BI in 2021 that the outlook for rural communities remains bleak.

"The fact that there are so many empty houses is a blight on the landscape, and a further deterrent, because people don't want to live in a terminal village surrounded by 'ghost houses,'" McMorran said to Insider's Lina Batarags and Cheryl Teh.

Japan'a akiya have ballooned to nine million as of October 2023, accounting for nearly 14% of all homes in the country. The number is set to increase as Japan's population shrinks, ages, and moves from rural to urban dwellings.

Akiya also includes abandoned condominiums. According to Nikkei, owners who leave their homes and don't pay the condominium management and maintenance fees could lower the value of the building as a whole.

"Our estimate was limited to the impact of abandoned single-family houses on land prices," Teppei Kawaguchi, CEO of Crassone, a construction and demolition services company that heads the consortium, told Nikkei. "The actual negative impact may be even greater."

There is a flip side to this property crisis. While buyers may be shying away from purchasing homes around akiya, some abandoned homes have caught the fancy of people wanting to buy cheap property in the Japanese countryside.

And in November, Airbnb told Nikkei that it wants to partner with local governments to encourage homeowners to renovate their abandoned homes, so that they could be used as tourist attractions.

"It can be a good source of income after people retire as our lifetime gets longer. If the owners of idle assets refurbish them and convert them into lodgings, that would be a solution," Airbnb's head of Japan, Yasuyuki Tanabe, told Nikkei.

Crassone, a construction and demolition services company that heads the consortium, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.