Raphael Stevens

A newly built cliff-side mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Southern California comes with an ambitious $32.5 million asking price.
It’s only Las Vegas-based builder Blue Heron’s second home project outside of Sin City.
At nearly 8,900 square feet, the home includes five bedrooms, eight bathrooms and three kitchens.

Blue Heron’s cliffside spec house spans four levels in San Diego’s La Jolla neighborhood.
Blue Heron

This newly built cliff-side mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Southern California comes with an ambitious $32.5 million asking price. It’s one of the most expensive homes for sale in San Diego County, and that price tag puts it in the running to break a local record in the picturesque beach-side community of La Jolla.

View from infinity pool and raised hot tub.
Blue Heron

Perhaps more interesting than its potentially record-breaking price is the fact that the home was designed and constructed by Las Vegas-based builder Blue Heron, which almost exclusively designs and builds luxury mansions in the Mojave desert.

Living area seamlessly flows into an outdoor deck.
Blue Heron

“I would consider us the authority and the experts in luxury real estate in all of Las Vegas without a doubt,” said Blue Heron’s founder, Tyler Jones, a fourth-generation Vegas native.
Building on the ocean is more similar to building in the desert than you’d imagine, according to Jones. In both environments, Blue Heron’s design is focused on blurring the lines between indoor and outdoor living.
“The Mojave Desert is a great place to do that,” he said. “But arguably, you know, La Jolla, San Diego, is actually a much better place to do that.”
Over the past 18 years, Blue Heron has built several hundred homes — every one of them (except for two in La Jolla) in the Las Vegas area, according to the CEO. Today, the starting price for one of the firm’s more affordable desert homes is about a million bucks, but the average sale price for one of the company’s newly constructed desert mansions is about $8 million. Just last year, Blue Heron made headlines when one of its Sin City spec mansions broke a record when it sold for $25 million to billionaire LoanDepot founder Anthony Hsieh.

The 15,000 sq. ft. Las Vegas mansion designed and built by Blue Heron which sold for a record-breaking $25 million.
Blue Heron

About 300 miles away from its core business in Vegas, Blue Heron’s new coastal spec mansion spans four levels with an expansive deck and infinity pool out back on the edge of the Pacific.

Ora House’s outdoor deck includes an infinity pool, fire feature and impressive views.
Blue Heron

A glass bridge floats above a lower lounge area and delivers visitors to the home’s second floor. At nearly 8,900 square feet, the home includes five bedrooms, eight bathrooms and three kitchens.

A stone and glass bridge appears to float above a seating area and fire feature on the lower level.
Blue Heron

The mansion, known as the Ora House, is the second residence Blue Heron has built outside of Vegas. The first one, also a spec house located in La Jolla, was on the market for about nine months before selling last year for $20 million. The median price of a single family home in La Jolla was $3.6 million in the second quarter this year, according to data provided by real estate brokerage firm Compass.
So why has a builder who’s been betting big on luxury real estate in Vegas turned his attention to shattering a local record on the edge of the Pacific?

Blue Heron’s Ora House perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean.
Blue Heron

Jones said he has a soft spot for La Jolla, and it’s filled with childhood memories of vacationing in the beachfront town with his family. That’s just one of the reasons he had his eye on the area in 2016, when he bought the $4.7 million oceanfront home at 5228 Chelsea Street. It was what developers call a “teardown.” Blue Heron was more interested in the site than the existing home that sat on it. The company tore down the old home and over six years developed a new $32.5 million spec house in its place.
That price puts the home at the very top of La Jolla’s ultra high-end market. Since 2018, the community has recorded 11 sales at $20 million or more, according to title records. One of the most publicized was back in 2018, when singer-songwriter Alicia Keys and her record-producing husband Swizz Beatz spent $20.8 million on the waterfront residence known as The Razor House.

The facade of the Razor House blends glass and concrete to deliver sharp lines and dramatic curves.
Gary Kasl – Douglas Elliman Realty

But La Jolla’s top sale price was achieved in 2019, when the oceanfront mansion located at 8466 El Paseo Grande sold for $24.7 million, according to public records.
And while Blue Heron’s Ora House is the most expensive home for sale in La Jolla at $3,660 price per square feet, it’s actually a relative bargain compared to the over $4,000 per square foot price achieved on the El Paseo Grande sale.
“People love the San Diego lifestyle,” said real estate broker Brett Dickinson of Compass, who was involved in six of the neighborhood’s transactions of $20 million and more. Dickinson is co-listing agent on Ora House with Deborah Greenspan of Sotheby’s. Dickinson told CNBC the attraction to the area is fueled by a tech boom that’s migrating from the northern part of the state southward.

One of Ora House’s five bedrooms with an ocean view.
Blue Heron

Jones told CNBC Ora House’s jumbo-sized price tag is partially a function of the cost of developing on the California coastline, which requires more time, more effort and a lot more money because development is complicated by heavy regulation.
“It’s not worth it for a smaller dollar project,” he said.

Rooftop bar and lounge area
Blue Heron

But a lot has changed since Blue Heron bought the site in 2016, and the company’s beachfront spec home is now facing a trifecta of headwinds: rising interest rates, diving equity markets and sky-rocketing inflation.
Dickinson told CNBC those are serious factors, but they are mitigated by La Jolla’s limited housing inventory. According to the broker, typically the number of homes available for sale in the neighborhood hovers around 150 to 200 units, but this month there are just 89 homes listed. The market is even tighter when you focus on the higher-end oceanfront inventory.

Ora House’s outdoor deck areas and balconies.
Blue Heron

“Inventory is extremely low,” he said. “And to build a waterfront property is a six-to-eight-year process.”
That’s likely one of the reasons the Vegas-based developer remains confident the odds in La Jolla are stacked in his favor.
“We have a great deal of confidence that we can deliver that exceptional experience that’s going to speak to people,” Jones said. “And I believe we’re going to find high net worth individuals that are willing to pay for that.”
In Vegas they say the house always wins, but only time will tell if that holds true in La Jolla.

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EVOLVE GLOBAL SUMMIT 2022
Evolve Events

With consumers staying home amid the pandemic, many shifted to new, pricier alcohol brands and bigger bags of candy, Beam Suntory and Mars Wrigley execs said.
Those habits are sticking, along with a desire to buy more snacks and spirits online.
Ready-to-drink cocktails have also seen a boom as drinkers want that at-home bar experience without the work.

People visit the M&M store in Times Square on July in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images

The Covid-19 pandemic significantly changed consumer behavior from where they shopped to what they bought. That was felt throughout the snacks and spirits industries and some of those habits have hung on, senior executives from Beam Suntory and Mars Wrigley said at CNBC’s Evolve Global Summit.
Jessica Spence, brands president of Beam Suntory which produces a variety of spirits, from bourbon whiskeys like Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark to cognac Courvoisier and tequila Sauza, said that “all of a sudden when you couldn’t go out to your favorite restaurant or the holidays were out of balance, spending a little bit more on that bottle of whiskey or tequila became a bigger treat.”

Spence said that resulted in a lot of consumers moving to higher-priced brands or “premiumization,” a trend that has continued. She also noted the boom in e-commerce sales, especially in the U.S., where online shopping for alcohol has lagged in the past. Among online buyers of alcohol in the U.S., 54% said they made their first purchase during the pandemic, according to spirits industry market analysis firm IWSR.
Perhaps the biggest boom has come in the form of premixed and ready-to-drink cocktails and drinks.
“There were a lot of people experimenting and had the time to have fun with cocktails, and there were a lot of people who realized they were not the greatest bartender in the world,” Spence said. “When you want that cocktail, maybe you don’t want to do all the hard work.”
Premixed cocktails were the fastest growing spirits category last year with 42% year-over-year revenue growth to $1.6 billion, compared to 30% growth for tequila and mezcal and 16% for Irish whiskey, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S.

Arrows pointing outwards

Ready-to-drink cocktails were second only to vodka in terms of volume consumption in 2021, and several major spirits companies further invested in the category with expectations of further growth. For example, Anheuser-Busch InBev bought Cutwater Spirits, while Diageo has ready-to-drink cocktails using alcohol from its brands like Ketel One Botanical and Crown Royal.

Beam Suntory has several ready-to-drink options, including On The Rocks cocktails, which use several of the company’s other spirits such as Effen vodka and Hornitos tequila.
“That’s something that’s going to continue and the innovation in that space is going to continue to grow,” Spence said. “It’s a tough category already but I think there’s still space to push it more into the premium.”
The candy industry also saw shifts in consumer behavior, said Anton Vincent, Mars Wrigley North America president.
While some of that was premiumization as shoppers looked for different kinds of confections or chocolates, one of the main trends was around people buying bigger packs of candy while they were staying home, Vincent said.
Vincent said as the pandemic has waned, convenience store sales have returned to normal levels, but the company is still seeing strength in ecommerce and other types of sales channels, something he thinks points to a larger shift in viewpoint towards small snacks like candy bars.
“I think people really got back in touch with treating themselves… in very small inexpensive ways,” he said. More

“Knock at the Cabin,” a new film by director M. Night Shyamalan, is the first film adaptation of one of Paul Tremblay’s horror novels. It is set to be released in February.
Tremblay, whose novel “The Pallbearers Club” was published this month, spoke with CNBC about what it’s like having one of his works translated to film.
“I’ve had multiple producers say to me that they’re looking for horror that isn’t grim and has a happy ending, which means they’re not really looking for horror,” he said.

Paul Tremblay
Source: Paul Tremblay

Want to hear a scary story?
It was 2015. Paul Tremblay, a New England math wiz with a couple crime novels to his name, was experiencing his big breakthrough in horror fiction. His book, “A Head Full of Ghosts,” an internet-era spin on the demonic possession genre, arrived in June to rave reviews. It would go on to win the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award for best novel of the year. Stephen King, the master of horror, tweeted that it “scared the living hell out of me, and I’m pretty hard to scare.”

A Hollywood adaptation appeared to be right around the corner. Indeed, a month before “A Head Full of Ghosts” was published, production company Focus Features won an auction for the film rights. Robert Downey Jr.’s Team Downey was attached as a producer. Given the novel’s reality TV-heavy premise and its tense family drama, it seemed like a natural candidate for adaptation. A no-brainer.
It’s been in development hell ever since.
“I don’t know who first coined the following, but I’ll credit writer Chuck Wendig as I first heard him say it: In publishing, it’s no, no, no, no, until it’s yes. In Hollywood, it’s yes, yes, yes, until it’s no,” Tremblay told CNBC in an interview conducted through email.

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Tremblay, 51, took the Tinseltown terror in stride, though. He and his wife have been raising two kids — one of them now a senior in college, the other a senior in high school. Tremblay also kept teaching math at a small private high school outside of Boston. (He will take his first sabbatical this coming year as he works on a novel due in May and pitches a film adaptation of one of his short stories.)
He also kept publishing stories and books, building a bigger audience and snaring more sparkling blurbs from King, a longtime showbiz favorite.
Tremblay’s works include “Survivor Song,” a novel about a deadly viral outbreak that happened to be published in summer 2020, just as the world was coming to grips with Covid-19 pandemic. His latest novel, the Hüsker Dü-infused “The Pallbearers Club,” about a teenage misfit who strikes up a friendship with a strange woman who may or may not be some kind of vampire, was published this month.
OK, so maybe it’s not such a scary story, after all — especially when you consider that one of Tremblay’s books has indeed been filmed for the big screen.
Director M. Night Shyamalan, the filmmaker behind twisty and disturbing hits such as “The Sixth Sense” and “Split,” just wrapped filming on an adaptation of Tremblay’s novel, “The Cabin at the End of the World.” The work focuses on a family besieged by apocalypse-obsessed strangers. The movie, titled “Knock at the Cabin,” is set to be released by Universal Pictures in February.
Here’s the Shyamalan-esque twist: After all that waiting, dealmaking and deal-remaking, Tremblay had to keep hush-hush about the movie’s source material. For months. Even after the film’s premise was revealed earlier this year, prompting many horror fans to say, “Gee, that sounds an awful lot like ‘The Cabin at the End of the World.”‘
Still, “Knock at the Cabin” – which features WWE star-turned-actor Dave Bautista, “Harry Potter” movie veteran Rupert Grint and Jonathan Groff, the voice of the “Frozen” movies’ Kristoff — may end up representing a sort of Hollywood beginning for Tremblay. A “Survivor Song” adaptation is in the works. And, yes, there is renewed hope for an eventual “Head Full of Ghosts” movie.
Tremblay is now clear to talk about “A Knock at the Cabin,” and he revealed to CNBC what it’s like to go from “cautious optimism to real-time excited” as his book was being made into a movie. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you find out M. Night Shyamalan was adapting “The Cabin at the End of the World” into a movie? What ran through your head?
I signed an option with FilmNation in late 2017. The production team then went on a search for a director and other talent to attach. While another director was briefly attached, I’d heard that Night had read the screenplay and was interested in possibly producing. When it didn’t work out with the first director, Night was still interested in producing, which then became him wanting to rewrite the script and direct as well.
Of course, it was thrilling to hear that he was interested as I’ve enjoyed a number of his movies. At the time, though, given my prior experience with the ups and downs and the waiting game of development, I’d heard lots of exciting names attached to or interested in my prior novels and then things inevitably would fall apart.
When it became clear that not only was Night interested and attached, that the movie was in fact going into preproduction and then production, I then moved from cautious optimism to real-time excited.
How much did you work directly with Shyamalan? What’s his process like?
I have no contractual say over the screenplay or filming, but at the start FilmNation was great about keeping me in the loop with the early draft of a screenplay and asking my input. Much later, when we were introduced via phone, Night and I discussed the book and I answered a bunch of his questions about character and story, about why I did what I did. I can’t speak to his screenwriting process. I did get to visit the set and watch him and crew work for two days. I came away impressed with the positive creative atmosphere he engendered.

“Glass” director M. Night Shyamalan.
Angela Weiss AFP | Getty Images

How did the actors respond to the material? How close did they come to your vision of the characters?
The actors were fully committed, engaged and emotionally connected to the story, and embodied the spirit of the characters from what I could see. Between shots, they asked me thoughtful questions about the book, and they were beyond generous with their time and attention. Getting to chat with them was one of my favorite parts of the set visit.
Shyamalan movies come with their own mystique, the way Alfred Hitchcock movies or, more recently, Jordan Peele movies have. How do you balance the marketing needs of the movie versus your own needs as an author looking to sell some books?
I honestly spent a chunk of my 2022 spring quelling internet rumors and putting out Twitter fires connecting the book and movie. It reached a point in early June where that became impossible, however, with all the information out there, including the IMDb page. I have been doing my part to be respectful of movie marketing desires and certainly wouldn’t dream of spoiling anything. Like the majority of adaptations, there will be story changes and differences compared to the book so my readers will still be surprised by the film.
No need to get into spoilers, but how did it feel to have your text adjusted for a movie that will, in large part, be someone else’s vision, as well?
I’ve always been fascinated by influence and the retelling of tales, particularly within the horror genre, a genre built on stories building off the stories and monsters that came before. Most of my novels, including “A Head Full of Ghosts,” riff on other films and novels. “The Cabin at the End of the World” is itself a reaction to the home invasion film subgenre. Most of me is excited and intrigued at the prospect of seeing my story reimagined or refracted on screen. But I’d be lying if I said I was egoless about the whole experience. This novel means a great deal to me. I lived inside the book for the year and a half I wrote it. Any story and character changes will be something I’ll have to deal with. A good problem to have, of course.
What has it been like waiting for something to come of “A Head Full of Ghosts?”
It has been a long wait for sure. The book has been under option since 2015. We’ve had many close calls, different directors and actors attached, a whole bunch of screenplay drafts, and like many projects, the pandemic derailed its momentum toward production. Luckily, the producers, Allegiance Theater and Team Downey, haven’t given up and remain committed to the book as well as communicating, being professional and honest with me, which I very much appreciate. We have a new director and screenplay, and it feels like we’re again getting close to something really cool being made.
How would you describe what it’s like to work with big studios and filmmakers versus working with the publishing industry?
No comment? Ha! I’m partially kidding. I don’t know who first coined the following, but I’ll credit writer Chuck Wendig as I first heard him say it: In publishing, it’s no, no, no, no, until it’s yes. In Hollywood, it’s yes, yes, yes, until it’s no.
Producing stories and art is not a science, clearly, and both industries have plenty of pitfalls, plenty of talented people and plenty of people who, let’s say, aren’t in it for the same reasons I’m in it. I’m just trying to navigate it all the best I can, advocating for the stories that feel important enough upon which to spend a year-plus of my writing life. I haven’t gone full Barton Fink. Yet.

Paul Tremblay’s novel “The Pallbearers Club” is displayed at Barnes and Noble in Woodland Park, NJ, on July 10, 2022.
Mike Calia | CNBC

Netflix has given several horror writers’ work a big platform. Take Adam Nevill’s “The Ritual,” for instance. How is the horror writer community reacting to recent warnings of cutbacks at streaming companies such as Netflix?
I haven’t been aware of a horror writing community-specific reaction to the financial shake-ups. I’ve heard more from friends who work in Hollywood and worry that studios and financers will take even fewer chances on stories that aren’t tentpole superhero blockbusters, will take less chances on horror stories that actually, you know, horrify. I’ve had multiple producers say to me that they’re looking for horror that isn’t grim and has a happy ending, which means they’re not really looking for horror. “Stranger Things” is fun and all, but we can’t make all “horror” into that. So many of us horror fans (most of the ones I know) also find hope and comfort in the horror that is grim and challenging.
How much do movies influence your work versus, say, music or other books?
Film was my first exposure to story. I spent my tween and teenage years watching and re-watching movies on cable and VHS. Three of my recent novels were directly inspired and informed by movies as well as novels. But I look to all the artistic modes you mentioned for inspiration. So many of my stories are inspired and informed by songs/lyrics, and my newest, “The Pallbearers Club,” is partly a love letter to ’80s punk and ’90s indie music.
Will we ever see a “Screenplay by Paul Tremblay” credit?
I hope we do, with the caveat that I don’t expect to be great or even good at writing screenplays right off the bat, or ever, being that it’s a format quite different than novels and short stories.
I’ve written a screenplay for my short story “Nineteen Snapshots of Dennisport.” It’s OK. Needs some work. I mentioned my short story adaptation group pitch earlier, and if “The Pallbearers Club” were to be optioned, I’d like to be in on the adaptation in an active capacity. Whether or not screenwriting opportunities arise, the Hollywood experience is all going into the next novel, though. I’ve already written about 60 pages. Muhahahahaha!
Disclosure: CNBC, Focus Features and Universal Pictures are all part of Comcast’s NBCUniversal.

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President Joe Biden on Friday said he will move forward with his own efforts to combat climate change and curb greenhouse gas emissions, a day after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., told Democratic leadership that he won’t support the climate provisions in the reconciliation bill.
The comments by Manchin, a key centrist who holds the swing vote in the 50-50 Senate, could potentially sink months of negotiations in Washington over the sweeping policy package and end hopes of Congress passing any major climate change legislation this summer.
Biden did not mention specific climate and clean energy policies but said his actions will create jobs, improve energy security and bolster domestic manufacturing and supply chains.

U.S. President Joe Biden holds a news conference before departing the NATO summit at the IFEMA arena in Madrid, Spain, June 30, 2022.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

President Joe Biden on Friday said he will move forward with his own efforts to combat climate change and curb greenhouse gas emissions, a day after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., told Democratic leadership that he won’t support the climate provisions in the reconciliation bill.
The comments by Manchin, a key centrist who holds the swing vote in the 50-50 Senate, could potentially sink months of negotiations in Washington over the sweeping policy package and end hopes of Congress passing any major climate change legislation this summer.

“If the Senate will not move to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry, I will take strong executive action to meet this moment,” Biden said in a statement.

The president did not mention specific climate and clean energy policies but said his actions will create jobs, improve energy security, bolster domestic manufacturing and supply chains and protect the economy from future oil and gas price hikes.
“I will not back down: The opportunity to create jobs and build a clean energy future is too important to relent,” the president said. Biden also urged lawmakers to act quickly to pass other portions of the package that the senator does support.
Manchin, who comes from the coal-rich state of West Virginia, has previously opposed some efforts by Democrats to address climate change and curb emissions. Because of the 50-50 vote split in the Senate, Democrats would not be able to move the legislation forward without Manchin’s support for the domestic policy bill, which would allocate billions of dollars in incentives to slash emissions.

U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) delivers remarks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., November 1, 2021.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

During a West Virginia radio station interview, Manchin said that he was still open to negotiations and that he would only support swift action on the drug-pricing portion of the plan while holding off on other parts. He said he would not support any climate provisions until he had a better understanding of the inflation figures for July.

“I want climate. I want an energy policy,” Manchin said. “I would not put my staff through this — I would not put myself through this — if I wasn’t sincere about trying to find a pathway forward to do something that’s good for our country.”
Biden must now depend on imposing executive actions to address climate change, which can be overturned by future administrations. Potential executive actions include curbing oil and gas drilling on federal lands and imposing new Environmental Protection Agency regulations on power plant emissions.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., argued that the administration could impose a carbon border tariff on imports from countries with relatively worse greenhouse emissions, as well as require carbon capture from all major emitters and create stronger emissions controls on cars, lightweight trucks and heavy-duty vehicles.
“There is opportunity in this moment. The Biden administration has a wide lane to step up and start taking vigorous action to fight the climate crisis,” Whitehouse wrote in a tweet on Friday.
“With reconciliation foreclosed as a path for ambitious climate action, Congress must pivot to potentially bipartisan climate solutions such as a border carbon adjustment,” Whitehouse wrote in a second tweet. “Meanwhile, the executive branch has lots of tools at its disposal.”
Some environmental groups called on the president to declare a national climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act, a move that would unlock authorities like reinstating a ban on crude oil exports.

More from CNBC Climate:

Climate groups also urged Biden to direct the EPA to establish national limits for greenhouse gases and require the Interior Department to end new oil and gas leases and phase out the production of oil and gas on public lands and waters.
“This is the time for fast and furious executive action on climate,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement. “Again and again, we’ve seen Manchin’s bluff and bluster come to nothing.”
Ashley Thomson, senior climate campaigner at Greenpeace USA, said the president “has no more excuses” after Manchin’s opposition to the climate legislation, and must use executive powers to prevent the worst consequences of climate change.
“President Biden can end public land lease sales to fossil fuel companies, start regulating [greenhouse gases] through his existing powers with the EPA, and declare a climate emergency,” Thomson said. “We cannot continue to wait around for a bunch of corporate shills in Congress to do nothing while people are dying.” 
Biden has pledged to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52% from 2005 levels by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by mid-century. However, without a reconciliation bill that includes climate provisions, the country is on track to miss the president’s goal, according to a recent analysis by the independent research firm Rhodium Group.

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Kohl’s said its chief technology and supply chain officer, Paul Gaffney, is set to depart the retailer on Aug. 1.
Company exec Siobhan McFeeney is set to step into the chief technology role, effective immediately.
The current executive vice president of Kohl’s supply chain will now report to CEO Michelle Gass, a company spokeswoman told CNBC.

People walk near a Kohl’s department store entranceway on June 07, 2022 in Doral, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images

Kohl’s said its chief technology and supply chain officer, Paul Gaffney, is set to depart the retailer on Aug. 1, according to a securities filing.
Kohl’s said that Siobhan McFeeney, who has been with Kohl’s since January 2020 and most recently served as executive vice president of the retailer’s technology division, is set to step into the chief technology role, effective immediately.

The current executive vice president of Kohl’s supply chain will now report to CEO Michelle Gass, a company spokeswoman told CNBC.
Kohl’s didn’t give a reason for Gaffney’s departure in the 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Gaffney wasn’t immediately available to comment.
News of Gaffney’s departure comes about two weeks after Kohl’s announced it was terminating talks to sell its business, saying the retail environment has significantly deteriorated since the beginning of what turned into a monthslong bidding process. Kohl’s had narrowed down a list of potential bidders to The Vitamin Shoppe owner Franchise Group.
Kohl’s also in late June cut its outlook for the fiscal second quarter, citing softer consumer spending amid decades-high inflation. It now sees sales down high single digits, compared with a prior forecast of a low single-digits decline.
Retailers in the U.S. have continued to grapple with supply chain complications as the cost to transport goods from overseas weighs on profits and as resources to move inventory — from truck drivers to pallets — remain hard to come by.

This dynamic has backlogged shipments and means that many retailers are receiving orders of goods weeks or even months after they had planned. These challenges are expected to persist through the all-important holiday season, too.
Kohl’s shares closed Friday at $28.23, down more than 42% year to date.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed more than 1,400 monkeypox infections across 44 states and territories in the U.S.
The federal government has made more than 300,000 doses of the Jynneos vaccine available to states since May, but demand is outstripping current supply.
The U.S. now has the capacity to conduct 70,000 monkeypox tests per week, according to the CDC.

A person arrives to receive a monkeypox vaccination at the Northwell Health Immediate Care Center at Fire Island-Cherry Grove, in New York, U.S., July 15, 2022. 
Eduardo Munoz | Reuters

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed more than 1,400 monkeypox infections across 44 states and territories in the U.S. and said it expects the outbreak to grow.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the demand for monkeypox vaccines is outstripping the available supply, which has led to long lines in places such as New York City — an epicenter of the outbreak.

“We know that this is frustrating,” Walensky said in a call with reporters Friday. The Health and Human Services Department is working to increase supply, she added.
Walensky said the agency expects cases to increase through July and August since symptoms of the virus usually start within three weeks of exposure. People who don’t yet know they’re infected will likely seek medical attention and get tested in the coming weeks.
The U.S. now has the capacity to conduct 70,000 tests per week after recruiting several commercial labs including Quest Diagnostics and Labcorp, Walensky said. The labs test for orthopox, the family of viruses that includes monkeypox. People who test positive for orthopox are assumed to have monkeypox infections, according to CDC official Dr. Jennifer McQuiston.
The tests involve a swab of the painful lesions that are characteristic of the disease, but it can take weeks from the time of exposure for those to develop. Walensky said there are no approved tests that can confirm orthopox another way.
The outbreak right now is primarily impacting gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men. Of the 700 patients who provided demographic information, the vast majority identified as men who have sex with men, according to Walensky.

More than 11,000 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed worldwide across 55 countries, according to the CDC.

Vaccine distribution

The U.S. has shipped out all doses of the monkeypox vaccine that states have ordered so far, 156,000 shots in total, with the vast majority them delivered in the past week, according to HHS. The federal government made an additional 131,000 doses available to local authorities on Friday, bringing the total supply made available since May to more than 300,000 shots.
The CDC vaccination campaign relies on the two-dose vaccine Jynneos, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2019 for adults ages 18 and older who are at high risk of monkeypox or smallpox infection.
The U.S. is also working with the Danish manufacturer, Bavarian Nordic, to accept delivery of another 786,000 Jynneos doses currently stored in Denmark. HHS will preposition those doses in the U.S., and they will become available for distribution once the FDA signs off on the company’s facility. That approval is expected by the end of the month, according to Dawn O’Connell, the HHS official who leads the office that oversees the U.S. strategic national stockpile.
HHS has ordered 2.5 million more doses of the Jynneos vaccine from Bavarian Nordic that will ship to the U.S. strategic national stockpile over the next year. The U.S. placed an order for an additional 2.5 million doses on Friday, which will ship to the national stockpile in 2023. In total, the U.S. should have nearly 7 million Jynneos doses by mid-2023, according to HHS.
Local health authorities can also request the older generation smallpox vaccine ACAM2000 that is likely effective against the monkeypox virus, but the vaccine can have serious side effects and is not recommended for people with weak immune systems such as those who have HIV, individuals with some skin conditions and women who are pregnant. The U.S has more than 100 million doses of ACAM2000.
CDC recommends that people get vaccinated if they have had known or suspected monkeypox exposures in the past two weeks. Federal health authorities are prioritizing vaccine distribution to places with a growing number of infections but are also offering the shots to all jurisdictions with people who are at increased risk of monkeypox infection, Walensky said.
“It’s critically important for states and jurisdictions to quickly and accurately report all of their cases through CDC recommended reporting,” Walensky said.
The Jynneos vaccine is administered in two doses 28 days apart. Walensky emphasized that a single dose does not provide sufficient protection against the virus and that it takes two weeks for the second shot to provide full protection.

Symptoms and risk factors

Monkeypox is primarily spreading through skin-on-skin contact, close face-to-face interactions such as kissing and contaminated materials such as sheets and towels, according to the CDC.
In the past, the disease typically began with flulike symptoms and then progressed to a rash that can spread across the body. But the current outbreak has produced symptoms that are atypical, with some people developing a rash first or without any flulike symptoms at all. Many people have developed a rash, which can look like pimples or blisters, on intimate areas such as the genitals or anus.
Walensky said the CDC recommends that people avoid intimate physical contact with individuals who have a rash that looks like monkeypox, and consider minimizing sex with multiple or anonymous partners. People should also consider avoiding sex parties or other events where people aren’t wearing a lot of clothing. Individuals who do decide to have sex with a partner who has monkeypox should follow CDC guidance on lowering their risk, Walensky said.

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