Dollar Tree taking 'very defensive approach' to shoplifting, CEO says

 The CEO of Dollar Tree Inc. said Thursday the discount retailer is taking a "very defensive approach" to shoplifting.

The company, which runs Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, has "several new shrink formats" that it intends to roll out in the final six months of the year, CEO Rick Dreiling said in the morning. "Shrink" typically means theft and other types of inventory losses in the retail industry. 

"It goes everything from moving certain SKUs [stock-keeping units] to behind the check stand," he explained to those who tuned into the company’s earnings call. "It has to do with some cases being locked up. And even to the point where we have some stores that can’t keep a certain SKU on the shelf just discontinuing the item."

The CEO of Dollar Tree Inc. said Thursday the discount retailer is taking a "very defensive approach" to shoplifting. (Fox News)

Dollar Tree pointed to shrink as a factor affecting its gross margin. That metric hit 29.2% in the second quarter, marking a 220-basis-point drop year over year.

The company said "lower initial mark-on, unfavorable sales mix … and wage investments in distribution center payroll" also played a role.

CFO Jeff Davis noted at one point that shrink "is a sort of a trailing indication because stores are shrinking over the course of the year," adding it "takes time" for measures to "actually take hold."

Dollar Tree pointed to shrink as a factor affecting its gross margin. That metric hit 29.2% in the second quarter, marking a 220-basis-point drop year over year. (Mario Tama / Getty Images)

In the prior quarter’s earnings call, the discount retailer flagged shrink as an issue it was facing, too.

Thursday morning’s comments from Dollar Tree Inc. executives come just a day after Kohl’s CFO Jill Timm described shrink as an ongoing "retail industry problem" and said it had "weighed in on our margins." Like Dollar Tree, she explained some of the measures Kohl’s has taken to address it.

Measures taken by Kohl’s include "cabling products to fixtures," only having testers of beauty products, upping the presence of staff in fitting room areas and having more workers near the front doors, Timm said.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
DLTR	DOLLAR TREE INC.	123.88	-18.34	-12.90%
KSS	KOHL'S CORP.	25.66	-1.37	-5.07%
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Other companies such as Walmart and Target have raised the alarm on shoplifting and organized retail crime in recent weeks.

Other companies such as Walmart and Target have raised the alarm on shoplifting and organized retail crime in recent weeks. (Bing Guan/Bloomberg / Getty Images)

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
WMT	WALMART INC.	156.89	-1.21	-0.77%
TGT	TARGET CORP.	124.10	+0.89	+0.72%

The 2022 edition of the annual retail security survey from the National Retail Federation found that total losses from shrink increased roughly 4% in 2021, coming in at $94.5 billion. The survey, which came out in mid-September, linked the losses "primarily" to external theft like organized retail crime.

Shrink and factors like sales mix, increased diesel prices, ocean freight savings and more factored into Dollar Tree’s updated projects for the fiscal year, according to the company. For consolidated net sales, Dollar Tree projected they would come in at $30.6 billion to $30.9 billion while diluted earnings per share would be in the $5.78 to $6.08 range.

Davis said Dollar Tree "see[s] nothing systemic or structural in the current environment that would have a lasting negative implication for the multiyear outlook that we shared in June."

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/dollar-tree-taking-very-defensive-approach-shoplifting-ceo-says

Taibbi And Orfalea: The COVID Lie That Started It All

 by Matt Taibbi via Racket News,

Look on the WHO webpage and you’ll see a count of over 769 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, above 6,955,141 (as of this writing) cumulative deaths.

This is still a serious mortality rate, but as Matt Orfalea’s damning new video above shows, far short of what the same organization estimated at pandemic’s start.

We were told experts estimated a 3.4% death rate, which scared the pants off a lot of people, leading to fears of interaction with workers delivering food and all sorts of other behaviors.

I’m going to defer to Matt’s written research on this piece as well this week at the Orf Report (www.censorednews.substack.com), but a few quick notes on the above-described phenomenon:

It’s clear looking back now that “misinformation” during this period became synonymous with acts like “contradicting health officials,” or offering “information discarding what the health officials are saying,” or “using a hunch instead of listening to the global authority on public health,” as Anderson Cooper put it. My man Willie Geist of Morning Joe, whom I always liked, is seen here saying, “It’s not a time for Donald Trump to be calling in to cable shows.”

This was a key advance in the evolution of “misinformation.” Once Covid-19 arrived, defying health experts by having one’s own opinions or hypotheses was deemed a species of public deception, not just on the part of Donald Trump but among figures like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, also shown above. Like “AntiVax Barbie,” Jimmy Kimmel’s caricature of an antisocial menace who wore a cutoff tee reading “I CALL MY OWN SHOTS,” any person failing to accept what authorities said was quickly termed a “danger” by figures ranging from Kathleen Sibelius to Ben Rhodes to Brian Stelter.

This created a Catch-22 for people of all political persuasions. If disagreeing with “global health authorities” could be “dangerous,” even credentialed experts like Bhattacharya risked de-amplification or removal for advancing conflicting policy ideas that implied a different interpretation of facts. This phenomenon began with a pair of doctors in Bakersfield who were removed from YouTube for posting content that “disputes the efficacy of local health authority recommended guidance” on social distancing, among other things by suggesting death rates were not that high (“Millions of cases, small amounts of deaths”).

Episodes like this led to confusion over whether disagreeing on policy prescriptions like social distancing and lockdowns constituted “dangerous” speech, and this was observed in the often hyper-cautious coverage of New York Times reporters like David Leonhardt and even Apoora Mandavilli, who drew fire from readers and colleagues alike for reporting true numbers about the low impact of the disease on school-age kids, or relaying quotes with questions about booster efficacy. I heard from reporters during this time who didn’t know if they’d be cited for encouraging an end to lockdowns even if they just included a selectively less alarming facts about Covid-19.

As Orf shows above via his inimitable Newspeak-smashing style, the early apocalyptic predictions that so freaked out the population were eventually walked back by the same authorities. However, none of these furious opponents of questioning “experts” went back and corrected their records. This was once an expected convention even on TV media, where episodes like Dan Rather’s “At the time, CBS News and this reporter fully believed the documents were genuine” Bush-era self-mortification broadcast were considered necessary to retain public trust. Because the ostensible target of these early broadcasts was Trump, no one feels a need to correct anything, but people all over the world soon learned to hesitate to criticize health authorities — and for good reason, as yesterday’s news involving colleague C.J Hopkins showed.

This episode shows: not only can health authorities be wrong on facts, but they can use their supposed infallibility on facts to clamp down on policy criticisms as well, putting whole populations in the uncomfortable position of having to accept both numbers and policy answers on faith.

Thanks once again to Orf for a superior job of collecting material before it’s lost down our widening memory hole. Increasingly it looks like this is now a primary role of authority-era journalism, making sure we don’t give in to institutional pushes to forget what was said when, and by whom. This was a big one, and don’t let anyone tell you it wasn’t.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/taibbi-and-orfalea-covid-lie-started-it-all

Verrica 1st Commercial Sale of YCANTH

 YCANTH™ is the first and only FDA-approved treatment for molluscum, a highly contagious viral skin infection affecting approximately 6 million people annually in the United States, primarily children

FFF Enterprises is Verrica’s exclusive distribution partner for YCANTH™

 Verrica Pharmaceuticals Inc. (“Verrica” or “the Company”) (Nasdaq: VRCA), a dermatology therapeutics company developing medications for skin diseases requiring medical interventions, today announced the first commercial sale of YCANTH™ to its exclusive distributor, FFF Enterprises Inc. (“FFF”).

“We are pleased to announce the first commercial sale of YCANTH™ to our exclusive distribution partner FFF Enterprises,” said Ted White, President and Chief Executive Officer of Verrica Pharmaceuticals. “As one of the nation’s most trusted specialty pharmaceutical distributors, FFF is well positioned to help Verrica introduce YCANTH™ as the first FDA-approved therapy for the treatment of molluscum contagiosum in the U.S. With this first commercial sale of YCANTH™, we continue to execute our launch plans and we look forward to providing a more detailed update on our progress in November.”

“FFF has a well-established reputation for partnering with companies like Verrica that develop innovative products to address a significant unmet medical need,” said Patrick M. Schmidt, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of FFF. “As the first FDA-approved product to treat molluscum, YCANTH™ clearly addresses a significant unmet need for the millions of children and adults with this viral skin disease. Through this distribution partnership with Verrica, we plan to introduce YCANTH™ into the U.S. dermatology and pediatric communities so that millions of patients can finally gain access to the first FDA-approved therapy for the treatment of molluscum.”

“FFF has consistently demonstrated true partnership and customer centricity that we value at Verrica,” said Joe Bonaccorso, Chief Commercial Officer of Verrica Pharmaceuticals. “With our sales and marketing team fully in place, we are excited to work in partnership with FFF so this large and underserved patient population can benefit from YCANTH™ therapy.”

About FFF Enterprises
Founded in 1988, FFF Enterprises Inc. is a privately held, multibillion-dollar specialty pharmaceutical distributor and diversified healthcare company. FFF Enterprises is the parent company to leading specialty pharmacy Nufactor, Inc., as well as InCircle, LLC and RightNow Inventory™. Our partners include global pharmaceutical and biologics manufacturers, prestigious healthcare systems, large and independent retail pharmacies, and leading alternate care sites. Our nationwide commerce is supported by a network of distribution and infusion pharmacy locations utilizing world-class technology and cybersecurity solutions.

Please visit FFF Enterprises' news site, as well as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for more information about the company.

About Molluscum Contagiosum (Molluscum)
Molluscum is a highly contagious viral skin disease that affects approximately six million people — primarily children — in the United States. Molluscum is caused by a pox virus that produces distinctive raised, skin-toned-to-pink-colored lesions that can cause pain, inflammation, itching and bacterial infection. It is easily transmitted through direct skin-to-skin contact or through fomites (objects that carry the disease like toys, towels or wet surfaces) and can spread to other parts of the body or to other people, including siblings. The lesions can be found on most areas of the body and may carry substantial social stigma. Without treatment, molluscum can last for an average of 13 months, and in some cases, up to several years.

About YCANTH™ (formerly VP-102)
YCANTH™ is a proprietary drug-device combination product that contains a GMP-controlled formulation of cantharidin delivered via a single-use applicator that allows for precise topical dosing and targeted administration for the treatment of molluscum. YCANTH™ is the only product approved by the FDA to treat molluscum — a common, highly contagious skin disease that affects an estimated six million people in the United States, primarily children. Please visit YCANTHPro.com for additional information.

In addition, Verrica has successfully completed a Phase 2 study of VP-102 for the treatment of common warts and a Phase 2 study of VP-102 for the treatment of external genital warts.

https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/verrica-pharmaceuticals-announces-first-sale-of-ycanth-to-fff-enterprises/

Amneal: Phase 3 Comparison of IPX203 to Immediate-Release Carbidopa/Levodopa for Parkinson’s Published

 IPX203 demonstrated statistically significant improvement in daily “Good On” time compared to optimized IR CD/LD, with fewer daily doses

 

Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE: AMRX) today announced that JAMA Neurology has published results from the RISE-PD clinical study assessing the efficacy and safety of IPX203 versus optimized immediate-release carbidopa/levodopa (IR CD/LD) for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease (PD). The study met its primary and secondary endpoints finding that IPX203 provided more hours of “Good On” time per day, less “Off” time per day, and more “Good On” time per dose than optimized IR CD/LD, even when dosed less frequently. “Good On” time is defined as the sum of “On” time without dyskinesia and “On” time with non-troublesome dyskinesia. The manuscript titled, “IPX203 vs Immediate-Release Carbidopa-Levodopa for the Treatment of Motor Fluctuations in Parkinson Disease,” was published online on August 14, 2023.

https://www.biospace.com/article/releases/jama-neurology-publishes-phase-3-study-results-comparing-ipx203-to-immediate-release-carbidopa-levodopa-for-parkinson-s-disease/

Hundreds involved in Bay Area Tough Mudder race sick with possible staph, bacterial infections

 A health advisory has been issued for those who competed in the popular Tough Mudder obstacle race at Sonoma Raceway last weekend, a race that has participants crawling through mud and swimming in muddy water.

Many participants have contacted authorities saying they are dealing with possible staph or serious bacterial infections. The race is advertised as having the 'World's Best Obstacles' but complaints are coming in by the hundreds.

"I look like I have a severe rash on both sides," explains Nicole Villagran as she pulled up her shirt to show us what looks like pimples on her sides.

"Pretty much gone, you can't really see much of it but from the elbows up and knees down, I was just covered in these like pimply red blister type things," said Curtis Vollmar as he showed us his arms.

"I don't know if this is visible, I do have one mark on my arm," said Ashwin Chatwani.

In the video, you can see participants crawling in the mud, and waist to neck deep in water.

Sonoma County Health Services has issued a health advisory for those who participated, saying they have received complaints of staph infections and serious bacterial infections from some who participated.

"There was a few times during the race where I could smell cow manure. I didn't go through all of the obstacles," said Villagran.

But Nicole Villagran still ended up with flu like symptoms and bumps all over her body.

"You wake up the next day and you're like, what is all this on my arm? Like what is going on here? And it's on both arms. That's where I was digging and doing army crawls and it's on the inside of my knees where I was pushing off of as well," said Villagran.

"We have an email chain to the Tough Mudder organization and there have been 350 people plus and counting that have been affected by the incidents so pretty severe," said Ashwin Chatwani.

We did reach out to Tough Mudder to get their side of what may have happened but have not heard back. They did send out an email saying they are taking all necessary steps to fully investigate the matter.

"There was 13 of us total and 12 of us that did it got it," said Vollmar.

"We want answers, like what are you going to do to change this next time? What are you going to do to warn future runners? People are going to think it's okay and they just sweep it under the rug. That is not fair," said Villagran.

The health department now advising individuals who raced and may be affected to seek medical treatment.

Sonoma Department of Health Services issued this statement:

"The County of Sonoma Department of Health Services has issued a Health Advisory concerning multiple reports of participants in a Tough Mudder race at Sonoma Raceway on Aug. 19 and 20 having developed rash with fever, muscle pain, or nausea/vomiting occurring about 24 hours after the event. The Health Advisory is as follows:

"The Tough Mudder race involved extensive skin exposure to mud. Most affected persons have pustular rash, fever, myalgias, and headache. These symptoms could be indicative of a minor illness called Swimmers' Itch, but they can also indicate a Staph infection or other more serious bacterial infection such as Aeromonas. If you participated in the race and have a rash with fever or other symptoms, please see your medical provider or, if you do not have a medical provider, your local emergency department. You may wish to take this Advisory with you. Incubation period is 12 to 48 hours."

In an email to participants Tough Mudder wrote:

"We are reaching out, as we are aware of some reports of individuals experiencing an adverse health reaction following participation in the Tough Mudder Sonoma event this past weekend.

We want to let you know, that the health and safety of the Tough Mudder community is always our top priority, and accordingly, we are actively taking all necessary steps to fully investigate the matter.

If you are experiencing any medical concerns, please consider seeing your doctor.

We thank you for understanding and patience as we continue to look into the matter.

Thank you for being a part of our community."

https://abc7news.com/tough-mudder-race-skin-rash-sonoma-raceway-infections-health-advisory/13692922/

It’s the Drugs, Stupid

Quick Fixes: Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st-Century Binge, by Benjamin Y. Fong (Jacobin, 264 pp., $24.95)

Drugs make for easy symbols. Breaking Bad, the mid-aughts prestige TV hit about methamphetamine, is not really about methamphetamine, but about the sin of pride—the meth is a pretext. Pick up a book about the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma, and prescription opioids become, in the hands of so many middling journalists, a symbol for the evils of capitalism.

It is so easy, in fact, to make drugs into a symbol that some people go one step further. Their view is that drugs are not really “about” drugs, but that their characteristics are epiphenomenal to the particular social context in which they are consumed. Their cultural and political significance becomes our primary interest, their psychoactive effects and addicting properties an afterthought.

In Quick Fixes, academic Benjamin Y. Fong offers an example par excellence of this approach. Quick Fixes is billed as a history of drugs, but it is more a mishmash of drug-related tidbits, linked by the conceit that drugs are not really “about” drugs. “Drug policy is not about drugs,” Fong asserts, which is to say that “when people aim to control or regulate drugs, they are actually aiming to control or regulate other things about society.” And as the book reveals, once you take this leap—once you try to ignore that drugs are the problem—you are free to make all sorts of odd arguments.

Quick Fixes is organized into brief essays, each nominally about a specific drug—alcohol, cocaine, meth—and its social significance. Fong dwells little on the pharmacological effects of these substances, and only some on the experience thereof. Rather, he prosecutes his case that drugs are primarily tools, either of social control or, on occasion, of personal liberation.

To his credit, this approach produces an admirable skepticism of drugs. Fong is willing, for example, to skewer the over-prescription of amphetamine for ADHD, despite the fact that many of his Jacobin-subscribing readers are probably on it. He seems less taken in than some by the psychoactive revolution. And while Fong insists, against medical consensus, that marijuana is not addictive, he at least glances at the idea that corporate marijuana production might be a problem.

At the same time, avoiding discussion of the substances themselves produces some absurdities. Writing about nicotine, Fong suggests that “it is this straightforwardly destructive element of cigarette smoking that is ultimately the source of its appeal…. Every cigarette puff is a daring ‘Fuck you’ to the neoliberal ethic of self-care, deadening relief from a deadened society.” I would suggest, to the contrary, that the appeal of nicotine is that it is a stimulant, and also eventually that it is addictive. Similarly, responding to anthracite miners’ habit of “tak[ing] a day’s supply of whiskey down into the mines at the start of each shift,” Fong writes that “[n]eedless to say, such practices chafed against the capitalist sensibility.” Perhaps I am a victim of such “capitalist sensibility,” but being drunk in a mine seems intrinsically hazardous.

Once you disconnect your history of drugs from the drugs themselves, in fact, you can talk about almost anything you want. Fong hits the usual notes: pioneering drug warrior Harry Anslinger makes many appearances, with the usual embarrassing quotes rolled out. (I assure you, I can find embarrassing quotes from 1930s lefties, too.) So do CIA crack-dealing and MK-ULTRA experiments. But free-floating social analysis also lets Fong make strange assertions, such as his claim that the crack cocaine markets of the late 1980s served to “fill part of the void left in the wake of deindustrialization,” and that many people opted to work on the street rather than at McDonalds because of the low wages paid by the latter—ignoring the evidence that crack-dealing, in particular, was not wage-maximizing behavior.

Once you maintain that drug policy is not really about drugs, then you can make policy about whatever you want, too. In the book’s brief discussion of how we could be handling drugs differently, Fong predictably endorses a “demand reduction” approach. But by demand reduction, he does not mean drug treatment, but, quite literally, Medicare for All and a Federal Jobs Guarantee. Problematic drug use is about the poverty and suffering engendered by capitalism, Fong argues, and policies preferred by the progressive Left are how to address it.

That’s a silly argument on empirical grounds alone. As Stanford drug policy expert Keith Humphreys notes in his recent book Addiction: A Very Short Introduction, lots of evidence rebuts the idea that drug use is driven primarily by poverty. Youth alcohol problems are more common in more economically egalitarian societies; surveys suggest that lower-income people who get a job or increase their earnings increase their consumption of tobacco and alcohol; globally, as societies develop, their consumption of addictive drugs increases. “Although there are many good reasons to attempt to reduce poverty,” Humphreys writes, “promising that this will reduce drug use and addiction in unwise.”

Fong’s poverty argument is both wrong and telling. If drugs are not really about drugs—if we understand drug problems as merely part of the context of deeper social forces—then drug policy does not need to be about drugs, either. We do not need, for example, to design specific solutions to the specific problem of 100,000 drug deaths per annum. Instead, we can simply wait: come the revolution, such wounds will heal themselves.

Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/its-the-drugs-stupid

After Maui Fires, Food Security Is a Major Concern — And Opportunity

 The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of food supply chains and highlighted Hawaii’s reliance on food imports. The fires that have devastated Maui provide another warning and perhaps an opportunity.

The full impact of the deadly Maui fires on food resilience strategies remains to be seen and discussed by those on the frontlines, but the disaster nevertheless highlights an urgent need for a systems-based approach to address both food security and wildfire prevention. 

The amount of active farming and ranching land in Hawaii fell by over 60% in the last five decades, which has contributed to both the fragility of the island’s food supply and to its vulnerability to wildfires.

The decrease in acreage devoted to agriculture has facilitated unchecked growth of invasive grasses on former agricultural lands. These fire-prone grasses grow and dry out rapidly, creating ample fuel for wildfires. Unlike native vegetation, guinea grass and other invasive species bounce back quickly after burning.

Estimates suggest that non-native grasses blanket one-quarter of the state, including West Maui, where Lahaina is located. Early Hawaiians in West Maui and across Hawaii practiced an integrated socio-ecological system of land management, much of which was disrupted by Western colonization and agriculture. These included parts of West Maui, where land was eventually taken over by monoculture agricultural plantations until the decline of large-scale pineapple and sugarcane production led to their abandonment in the 1980s.

After immediate emergency aid is dispersed and resources are allocated for reconstruction, federal agencies like the Department of Agriculture, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the U.S. Forest Service should collaborate to establish funding avenues that prioritize the integration of food security and wildfire prevention strategies in Hawaii.

Through collaboration with state agencies, this funding could support the expansion of Indigenous and community-based food forests and agroforestry systems, which blend farming or pasture with trees and shrubs. Some Native Hawaiians across the state have continued to utilize traditional land management systems, and others are reviving them, but targeted funding could expand these efforts across abandoned and idle agricultural land full of fire-prone invasive species. 

Tight profit margins in the farming sector in Hawaii have contributed to a decline in ranching, but grazing animals like sheep, goats and cows can also play a pivotal role in fire resilience through curbing invasive grasses and maintaining firebreaks — without the use of pesticides. Subsidies for ranchers could be utilized to support this fire resiliency strategy at scale. This strategy would not only support local livestock production and aid wildfire prevention, it could also slow the pace at which fires advance, creating more time for evacuation and fire management. 

Achieving the necessary levels of collaboration among government agencies, private landowners, Native Hawaiians, grassroots and Indigenous-led organizations, and others could be a significant challenge.

However, research has found that disjointed management of forests, croplands and pastures increases landscape susceptibility to wildfires, making coordinated land management efforts, although difficult, essential.

In Spain, agroforestry systems, in particular, have been found to demonstrate greater resilience against wildfires compared to forests, shrublands, Western agricultural systems and grasslands.

Ultimately, direct financial support and subsidies earmarked for expanding ranching and local, Indigenous agricultural methods on abandoned agricultural lands would represent a significant step toward heightened food security and reduced wildfire risk in Hawaii. The integration of wildfire management and food system resilience is not only a practical response to the current crisis, but an opportunity to reshape the landscape for current and future generations. 

By acknowledging the link between food security, wildfire risk, as well as Indigenous and local agriculture and leadership, efficient multi-purpose solutions can be accelerated, contributing to recovery from the immense physical and cultural losses left in the aftermath of the Maui wildfires.

Lena Easton-Calabria is a policy analyst at nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and program manager for the NOAA Mid-Atlantic Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments Center. Easton-Calabria’s background includes disaster mitigation and response, environmental justice and climate adaptation in the United States and remote Indigenous communities in the Amazon rainforest.

https://themessenger.com/opinion/after-maui-fires-food-security-is-a-major-concern-and-opportunity