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Outer Banks Counties Announce Date For Reopening To Visitors

Three counties on North Carolina's tourist-reliant Outer Banks have announced plans to lift coronavirus-related visitor restrictions. Officials in Currituck, Dare and Hyde counties released a joint statement on Wednesday announcing restrictions on entry for visitors will be lifted at noon on Saturday, May 16. According to the statement, reopening to visitors on that date will allow local businesses, attractions, and accommodation providers time to follow the new business operating requirements put in place by Gov. Roy Cooper's executive order. Officials are also reminding potential visitors to observe restrictions such as social distancing because the pandemic is not over.




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Fort Macon Reopens Saturday, Record Number Of Visitors Expected

As Governor Roy Cooper’s order to ease restrictions takes effect later this week, 29 state parks will reopen to the public on Saturday, May 9th. That includes Fort Macon, which is one of the most visited state parks each year. “Our main goal is to give people access to the park without it getting too crowded,” said Katie Hall, the Public Information Officer for the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation. Fort Macon State Park closed almost seven weeks ago because of the COVID-19 pandemic. On Saturday, beach areas, trails, and restrooms will reopen to the public. However, the visitors center and the exhibit will remain closed. Hall said park rangers are expecting a record number of visitors this weekend, surpassing park visitation numbers during the Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Independence Day holidays. “We’re not really opening the park for people to hang out. The idea is to get to the park, get some fresh air, get some exercise, run on the beach, whatever you like to do, and




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Perspective: COVID-19 Exposes Flawed Food Security System

“I never thought I would have to ask for food.” The young mother said as a box was placed in her car. In the last three weeks over 500,000 Illinois residents have filed for unemployment. We have never seen such a sudden, dramatic increase in the need for food in our region. There are now growing lines at area food pantries. Numbers of those seeking help has tripled. For 70% of them this is their first visit to a food pantry. This is occurring when food banks are receiving fewer donations from their sources. The food banks are dependent upon the donations from large food chains. Usually food whose shelf life has nearly expired, or produce that is about to go bad. Because nervous buyers have cleared out so many store shelves there is less leftover to donate. When you live at the bottom of the food chain and depend on leftovers, it is extra frightening when there is little left behind. We need to use this crisis to question our present food system built on dependence. We need to ask how




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Perspective: The Promise And Peril Of COVID-19 Tracking

The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred efforts to control the spread of the virus through development of innovative digital contact tracing tools. In Singapore, Israel and India there is already an app for that. In Europe there’s debate between two competing frameworks, which have names that sound like Star Wars’ droids: PEPP-PT and DT-3T. And in the US, Apple and Google recently announced collaboration on a contact tracing feature that will eventually be integrated with updates to the mobile device operating system. Although providing promising solutions, these technologies are not without problems. First, the privacy protections for such systems need to be carefully scrutinized. The US currently does not have a general data protection law, like the EU's GDPR, that would permit government oversight and review of these contact tracing solutions. Second, contact tracing only works when a significant number of users opt-in and agree to use the technology. But there is no guarantee that




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Budweiser to invest more in e-commerce as virus hits offline demand

The company, which has a portfolio of more than 50 beer brands including Stella Artois, Corona and Harbin, reported quarterly revenue of $956 million, down from $1.6 billion last year.




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Assam, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh may levy COVID cess on liquor

Assam finance minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma said, “We had an informal discussion with these states and we may increase the tax on liquor. Tomorrow we are having a cabinet meeting in Assam and a decision in this regard will be taken.”




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Madras High Court orders for TASMAC shops closure as TN crosses 6,000 Covid-19 positive cases

The High Court passed the interim order on Friday as a result of the blatant violation of the conditions that the court had prescribed under which liquor shops could function. These conditions included adhering to social distancing norms while also deploying additional staff to manage the crowd.




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Nike says virus to have 'material impact' on China operations

"Similar to others in the marketplace, approximately half of Nike-owned stores have been temporarily closed," while it is "experiencing lower than planned retail traffic in stores that do remain open."




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Agra footwear industry stares at losses due to coronavirus

Every year, leather shoes worth over Rs 3,000 crore are exported to European countries from Agra. The US and several African countries are also important destinations for Agra footwear, say industry sources.




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Adidas closes China stores over virus outbreak

The outbreak that has infected over 24,000 people and killed nearly 500 in mainland China has forced many stores and factories to close and airlines to cancel flights.




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Nike temporarily closes European headquarters due to coronavirus case

Dutch news agency ANP, citing an internal email, reported overnight that the office in Hilversum would be disinfected. The employee was staying home in isolation for 14 days, it said.




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Covid-19: Bata to donate one million pairs of shoes to healthcare workers, volunteers

The donation will impact a number of countries in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia-Pacific, including India.




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Small towns purchase more sportswear via e-platforms

Sportswear makers say sales in tier II and III towns have grown exponentially in the last few years and contribute a sizable percentage of their revenue now.




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Coronavirus slams Adidas, Puma sales in China

"Our business activity in Greater China has been around 85 percent below the prior year level since Chinese New Year on January 25," Adidas said in a statement.




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India is driving Puma’s global growth: CEO

Puma operates 365 owned stores in India, and over the past three years, has signed up cricketer Virat Kohli, boxer Mary Kom, footballer Sunil Chhetri and actress Sarah Ali Khan to endorse its products.




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Tie-up with Virat Kohli's One8 contributes 10% of Puma India sales

According to the company, Puma's collaboration with the Indian cricket captain saw a massive rise in sales in FY2019 with sales through One8 accounting for almost 10 per cent of its overall sales, and cementing the leadership position by a wider margin.




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Adidas warns of big coronavirus hit to China sales

China accounted for 20% of Adidas sales in 2018. It sells its products from about 12,000 stores in China, most franchises plus fewer than 500 of its own stores. Almost a fifth of its shoes and apparel are produced in the country.




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Adidas apologises after backlash over refusing to pay rent amid coronavirus scare

"We would like to wholeheartedly apologise. We have paid our landlords the rent for April." Adidas, which made a net profit of nearly two billion euros ($2.2 billion) in 2019, has been hard hit by a slump in Chinese sales and store closures around the world.




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Titan’s optical division forays into smart eyewear segment

​​The Bluetooth-enabled smart sunglasses by Titan’s eyewear division will allow users to listen to music with 8-hour playtime. An in-built mic will give access to Siri and Google assistant and allow hands-free calling.




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Titan acquihires HUG Innovations, with an aim to strengthen its smart wearables division

The watchmaker will form a development centre in Hyderabad with HUG in hardware, firmware, software and cloud technology and has appointed the company's founder Raj Neravati to head technology for wearables at Titan Company.




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Lavie launches newbrand Lavie Sport

According to the company, each piece will have features such as front quick-access pockets, anti-theft zippers, mesh back padding and multiple spacious compartments found throughout the collection.




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The Visit, realistic simulation of a reality that already exists

The elderly Viv notices our presence and invites us to sit in her kitchen, right there in front of her, where she can see us. Thus began the interactive video experience “The Visit“, born from the collaboration of the artist



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Alan Licht – Sound Art Revisited

Bloomsbury Academic, ISBN-13: 978-1501333774, English, 208 pages, 2019, UK

This is the second (revisited edition) of one of the first books addressing sound art as such, attempting through a diversified research a consistent and universal




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Virus impact: Offline retailers running out of handsets as distributors hoard

Industry watchers say wholesalers are holding back stocks of popular phone models in anticipation of a price rise by the month-end as production in China slows; brands as yet unaware of complaints.




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China-made phones off speed dial as supply chains disrupted amid coronavirus outbreak

“There are supply issues for several brands. There is no clarity when the situation will normalise,” said Nilesh Gupta, director at Vijay Sales, a leading electronics retailer in Mumbai and New Delhi. “If it doesn’t get corrected fast, we may move into a stock-out situation from next month.”




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COVID-19 forces Apple to temporarily close retail store in Italy

Due to an 'abundance of caution' as the coronavirus threat loomed, Apple closed all retail stores, corporate offices and contact centres in Mainland China. Last week, Apple warned that coronavirus outbreak will affect its business in the January-March quarter as worldwide iPhone supply will be temporarily constrained




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Coronavirus : Apple reopens 90 per cent of retail stores in China

Apple reopened 38 Apple stores which were temporarily closed after the epidemic, state-run China Daily reported. Only four stores remain closed.




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COVID-19: Offline retailers urge FM, NBFCs to allow delays in EMI payments

The industry body represents 1.50 lakh mobile retailers who may be unable to pay their monthly instalments and interest towards credit cards, vehicle loan, home loan and business loans taken by them. A similar letter highlighting the concerns of the mobile retailers was also sent to non-banking finance companies (NBFCs).




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Covid lockdown: Smartphone makers ping government for essentials tag

Industry bodies Manufacturers’ Association of Information Technology (MAIT) and India Cellular & Electronics Association (ICEA) have written to the government seeking concessions in the delivery of smartphones among other electronics devices and removal of restrictions on the movement of components for inland and export purposes.




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Handset makers, traders urge govt to allow device sales via offline retail

Handset makers and offline traders have urged the commerce and home ministries to allow the sale and service of mobile devices and its accessories through offline stores in the country.




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'Essentials tag' call divides handset makers, retailers

All India Mobile Retailer Association (AIMRA), which represents 1.5 lakh such retailers across the country, wrote to commerce minister Piyush Goyal to not consider mobile handsets as essential items.




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One of the biggest video game franchises might come to the iPhone

Pokemon is the most successful and lucrative video game franchise in the world, second only to Mario.




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Rovio Entertainment,owner of the Angry Birds franchise, aims to become default app on India smartphones

Rovio’s India head also said that the company wants to have its own retail store where it can sell Angry Birds merchandise such as shirts and stuffed toys.




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NVIDIA to expand gaming footprint in India, add 100 gaming cafes this year

There are nearly 100 such gaming cafes currently and less than 1000 non-exclusive cafes, said Vamsi Krishna, Head of Consumer Marketing, South Asia, NVIDIA.




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Rotomac boss was among top 100 key invites to UP summit

Barely a week before he was taken into CBI custody on charges of defaulting on bank loans to the tune of Rs 3,000 crore, Rotomac chairman Vikram Kothari was among the top 100 key invitees to the mega UP investor summit.




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Rotomac case: I-T dept files 6 charge sheets against Vikram Kothari

The Kanpur-based group is being probed by the CBI and the ED in connection with the alleged swindling of Rs 3,695 crore of loan funds.




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CBI court rejects bail plea of Rotomac owner Vikram Kothari

The court considered the facts and found that he was not entitled for interim bail on the said grounds.




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CBI has quizzed six officials of Bank of Baroda in connection bank fraud involving Rotomac case

The total outstanding amount, according to the agency, is approximately Rs 3695 crores. The agency had sealed the office and house of Vikram Kothari’s residence, in New Delhi.




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Navneet Education signs Prithvi Shaw as brand ambassador for Youva

Shaw will feature in a line of exclusive limited edition stationery, inspired by and with inputs from him.




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An inside view of India's pencil business and the four families that control it

Complicated manufacturing and investment needs may have a role in keeping new players out of the business.




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CBI gets one-day transit remand for Rotomac owner Vikram Kothari, son

The court allowed a day's transit remand for both the accused, who were arrested on Thursday for alleged default on loan repayment.




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Rotomac scam: How Vikram Kothari used virtual offices, round-tripping to dupe banks

Rotomac violated FEMA rules and worked for interest rate differential in local and foreign currency in the guise of trade without having any genuine business transactions.




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Rotomac loan default swells to Rs 3,695 crore, CBI files case against Vikram Kothari

Earlier, the loan default was estimated at over Rs 800 crore but scrutiny of documents by CBI revealed that the amount is much larger.




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Vikram Kothari, Rotomac promoter raided by CBI: Live Updates

After Rs 11,360 crore PNB scam , another ace businessman - Vikram Kothari from Kanpur -has been accused of defaulting on repayment of more than Rs 800 crore loans from five government banks




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Boutique Living to be a Rs 500 cr brand in 5 years: Asim Dalal, MD, Indo Count

The Rs.13000 crore domestic bed linen market is expected to be more than Rs 19,000 cr market by 2021 and there is a scope for us to explore the domestic market at this point in time.




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Bombay Dyeing draws strategy to revive retail business

The reinvention started more than a decade ago, soon after the company decided to exit textile manufacturing.




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Kajaria Group ropes in Anushka Sharma to promote Kerovit brand

The Group has launched a marketing campaign including digital, outdoor, television and cinema to promote the brand, the company said in a statement.




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Covid-19 fear: Electronics brands Samsung, Apple let offline stores sell online

Samsung has created an ecommerce platform in partnership with Benow.in along with mobile phone retailers across the country that will allow them to sell and deliver smartphones. Offline stores are also being used to fulfil orders placed on Samsung’s e-store for television and appliances.




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Consumer durables Q4 earnings preview: Profits may fall up to 40% on erratic sales

Most consumer durables companies in India rely on imported components. Poor input supplies since January and later closure of factories, malls, shops and offices due to the lockdown hit consumer demand badly.




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Samsung Electronics expects Q2 profit fall as virus hits sales of smartphones, TVs

"Sales and profits of set products business, including smartphones and TVs, are expected to decline significantly as COVID-19 affects demand and leads to store and plant closures globally," Samsung said in a statement.