Raphael Stevens

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday and is experiencing mild symptoms, Buckingham Palace said.
The queen has received three jabs of the coronavirus vaccine.
The 95-year-old monarch will continue with light duties at Windsor Castle over the coming week, the officials said.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth reacts during a meeting with members of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery at Windsor Castle in Windsor, Britain, October 6, 2021.
Steve Parsons | Pool | Reuters

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday and is experiencing mild symptoms, Buckingham Palace said. The queen has received three jabs of the coronavirus vaccine.
The 95-year-old monarch will continue with light duties at Windsor Castle over the coming week, the officials said.

“She will continue to receive medical attention and will follow all the appropriate guidelines,” the palace said in a statement.
Both her eldest son Prince Charles and daughter-in-law Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall also have recently contracted Covid. Charles has since returned to work.
Senior politicians sent get-well messages, with Health Secretary Sajid Javid tweeting “Wishing Her Majesty The Queen a quick recovery.” Opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer wished the queen “good health and a speedy recovery. Get well soon, Ma’am.”
People in the U.K. who test positive for Covid must self-isolate for at least five days, though the British government said it plans to lift that requirement for England in the coming week.
With her husband Prince Philip by her side, Elizabeth became queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand upon the death of her father, George VI, on Feb. 6, 1952. Her coronation was June 2, 1953.

Philip died at age 99 on April 9, 2021, the 16th anniversary of the marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla, and the duke’s funeral was four days before Elizabeth’s 95th birthday on April 21.
Fourteen prime ministers have served under Elizabeth — from Winston Churchill on her accession to the throne in 1952 to Boris Johnson presently.
On an early April day in 2020, the queen appeared in a rare video speech from Windsor Castle to promise her subjects that they will prevail over the coronavirus. The speech aired hours before Johnson was hospitalized for Covid-19. 
“While we have faced challenges before, this one is different,” she said. “This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavor, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal.”
During the pandemic, Elizabeth and Philip had been staying at Windsor Castle, where she performed duties remotely. With Covid restrictions easing, she made a rare public appearance at a shrine in nearby Surrey in late March 2021 to mark the centenary of the Royal Australian Air Force. 
A day after Philip’s death, daughter-in-law Sophie Countess of Wessex told well-wishers outside Windsor Castle that “the queen has been amazing.” On his casket, Elizabeth left a handwritten note signed “Lilibet,” and on her 95th birthday four days later, she issued a statement saying she had been “deeply touched” by her subjects’ displays of “support and kindness.”
The queen is the latest monarch to contract Covid. Queen Margrethe of Denmark, 82, and Spain’s King Felipe VI, 54, both tested positive earlier in February and each had mild symptoms.
—The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Discount chain Family Dollar is voluntarily recalling several of its products that shipped to more than 400 stores after an FDA investigation uncovered a rodent infestation at a distribution center in Arkansas.
In addition to the recall, Family Dollar on Saturday also temporarily closed the 404 affected locations, according to The New York Times.
The stores are located across Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi and Tennessee.

A woman walks by a Family Dollar store on December 11, 2018 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Discount chain Family Dollar is voluntarily recalling several of its products that shipped to more than 400 stores in the South after a U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigation uncovered a rodent infestation at a distribution center in Arkansas.
In addition to the recall, Family Dollar on Saturday also temporarily closed the 404 affected locations, according to the New York Times. A spokeswoman did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The FDA said in a release Friday that it recently inspected the facility in West Memphis, Arkansas, after it received a consumer complaint. According to the agency, regulators found live and dead rodents “in various states of decay.” They also found “rodent feces and urine, evidence of gnawing, nesting and rodent odors throughout the facility, dead birds and bird droppings, and products stored in conditions that did not protect against contamination.”
More than 1,100 dead rodents were found following a fumigation at the facility in January 2022, the agency said. Regulators also discovered what appeared to be “a history of infestation,” it said. A review of the company’s internal records indicated the collection of more than 2,300 rodents from March to September of last year.
“No one should be subjected to products stored in the kind of unacceptable conditions that we found in this Family Dollar distribution facility. These conditions appear to be violations of federal law that could put families’ health at risk,” Associate Commissioner for Regulatory Affairs Judith McMeekin said in a statement. Rodent contamination can cause salmonella and other infections diseases, the FDA said. Family Dollar said it was not aware of any reports of illness related to the recall.
Family Dollar said in a release Friday that products covered by the recall include all drugs, medical devices, cosmetics, dietary supplements and human and animal food products that were stored and shipped from the center to 404 stores across Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi and Tennessee.
The alert covers purchases from Family Dollar stores in those six states from Jan. 1 of this year to the present. Products shipped directly to the store by the distributor or manufacturer aren’t included. The recalls also don’t extend to any other locations.

“Family Dollar is notifying its affected stores by letter asking them to check their stock immediately and to quarantine and discontinue the sale of any affected product. Customers that may have bought affected product may return such product to the Family Dollar store where they were purchased without receipts,” the company said.
A full list of the affected locations can be found here.

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The Build Back Better infrastructure bill, which includes proposals to increase capital gains tax and limit business deductions, did not become law and means small business owners avoid potentially significant new taxes.
Several tax credits and relief measures related to Covid have expired, but the Employee Retention Credit is among the key provisions that can still be claimed by some business owners.
The Internal Revenue Service is dealing with a record backlog of tax returns already, so don’t expect a responsive IRS this tax season, experts say.

Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Rules around small business taxes have changed significantly in the last two years. This year is no exception as many of the various pandemic-era deductions and deferrals come to an end. 
The good news is that even though these benefits are ending, the impact on the overall tax rate for most small business owners won’t be significant. Accountants and tax planners say the bigger impact would have come from the Build Back Better infrastructure bill, which includes proposals to increase capital gains tax, limit the 20% deduction for qualified business income under section 199A, and other factors that would increase taxes, but those have not come to pass. Yet. 

“A lot of ways, the tax bill’s been about the dog that didn’t bark. They didn’t do anything on capital gains, they didn’t do anything on state tax. There’s a lot of good news about things that didn’t happen,” said Dean Zerbe, national managing director at Alliantgroup, a tax consultancy. 
Meanwhile, business owners can still apply retroactively for certain pandemic-related benefits. Here are some of the biggest changes that small business owners need to know about this tax season. 

It’s not too late to claim Employee Retention Credit 

Created in 2020 as part of the CARES Act under then-president Donald Trump, the Employee Retention Credit ended in September — a quarter earlier than expected. The ERC is a fully refundable payroll tax credit for employers that can add up to $70,000 per quarter and was created to encourage businesses to keep employees on their payroll. 
The program underwent three major changes in the last two years, which is a big reason why many business owners were unaware of the program or didn’t apply for it.  
The program was originally not open to those who took out a PPP loan. That changed when the second iteration came along. Also loosened up were rules that limited how much a business could get depending on how much it had been impacted by the pandemic. 

For small businesses that missed the program, it’s not too late to file retroactively. Many business owners are not familiar with the program, said Kevin Kuhlman, vice president of federal government relations at the National Federation of Independent Business, but can still apply. Retroactive filings are expected to be a big part of this year’s taxes. 
“We have seen a lot of frustration from business owners about the changes to that program, especially the shortening of it. They kind of felt — especially if they were relying on the tax credit — that they had received a little short shrift,” said Kuhlman. 

Tax treatment of operating losses is less generous 

How business owners can carry back or carry forward net operating loss has changed a lot in the last few years. Previously, NOLs could be carried back two years and carried forward 20 years. Then the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017 changed the rules by limiting NOL deductions to 80% of taxable income and not allowing carrybacks. 
When the pandemic hit, the CARES Act waived TCJA rules and allowed business owners to carry back net operating losses  generated after Dec 31, 2017 and before Jan 1, 2021 up to five years. Moreover, the cap for business interest expenses was raised to 50% of business income, up from 30%. Net operating losses were prominent in 2020 taxes and business owners also amended previous tax returns with net operating losses that they carried back. 
Now, the rules around how business interest expenses and net operating loss can be used have changed back to what they were before the pandemic. Limits on net operating losses could mean additional income tax payments. For instance, if a business owner had a net operating loss in 2018, then had taxable income in 2019, they could use net operating loss to decrease 2019 taxable income. Under the CARES Act that could also be carried backwards if they had a taxable income in 2017. That’s now coming to a close.  

Tax credit for paid Covid-19 leave has expired 

Many people have had to take time off in the last two years due to caretaking responsibilities — caring for a quarantined family member or children who have to be supervised all day because school is closed due to Covid-19. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act, passed in March 2020, required certain employers to provide paid sick leave or medical leave for reasons related to the pandemic. While that expired at the end of 2020, employers that continued to offer such benefits could use payroll tax credits to cover the cost of benefits. Now the tax credit for Covid-19 related paid leave expired in September, making it difficult for smaller employers to give additional paid leave. 

Deferred Social Security payments are due 

Under the CARES Act, employers could defer deposits of the employer portion of Social Security. Now, those payments are due. Half was due at the end of 2021, and the other half is due at the end of this year. Since the payments have already been deferred, the IRS has warned that there will be penalties to any taxpayers who miss the Dec. 31 deadlines. 
Tax planners say this change is less likely to cause business owners pain since few took advantage of it. Edward Renn, a partner in the private client and tax team at Withers, said he’s not seeing too many problems as many clients prudently put the money aside in a bank account so the money would be ready when needed. 
Given all the changes in tax rules over the last two years, small business owners may need to lean on an accountant or tax planner more than ever. Adding to the stress that tax filings often bring is the lack of responsiveness from an overburdened IRS, which is dealing with a record backlog of tax returns. 
“It just it feels like it’s fallen off the rails. There’s 6 million pieces of returns that still need to be filed and maybe one out of every 10 phone calls are being answered,” said Meredith Tucker, principal at Kaufman Rossin, an accounting and advisory service firm. Tax returns from last year are still being processed. Taxpayers that have an overpayment may want to apply that overpayment to the next period, but the earlier tax filings haven’t been processed yet.  More

Inside Liquidity Services’ 130,000-square-foot warehouse in Garland, Texas, the aisles aren’t lined with typical merchandise. Instead, they’re stacked with returns from Amazon, Target, Sony, Home Depot, Wayfair and more, all in the process of being liquidated.
“Liquidators are coming in and they’re buying up all of this product in bulk. They’re then packaging it, palletizing it and reselling it, either to be resold on a site like eBay or Poshmark, or even to individual consumers. So it’s turned into a much bigger portion of the industry than we’ve ever seen before,” said Sonia Lapinsky of consulting group AlixPartners.

The liquidation market has more than doubled since 2008, reaching a whopping $644 billion in 2020, according to data from Colorado State University.
“A lot of this used to be controlled by the mafia,” said Zac Rogers, assistant professor of supply chain management at Colorado State University. “It’s a good way to hide money, honestly, because nobody’s looking at returns. Especially 40 years ago, no one was looking at returns.”
But in 2021, a record 16.6% of all merchandise sold was returned, up from 10.6% in 2020, according to the National Retail Federation. For online purchases, the average rate of return was even higher, at 20.8%, up from 18% in 2020. Processing a return can cost retailers up to 66% of an item’s original price, according to returns solution company Optoro.
“Everyone’s very worried about price increases right now. I would suggest that it’s possible part of the inflation is these huge amount of returns, that have to be sold at a loss, is detracting from the profitability that a company normally has, and they have to raise their prices,” said Tony Sciarrotta, executive director of the Reverse Logistics Association.
There’s also a big environmental cost. Returns that aren’t liquidated are often destroyed by being incinerated or sent to landfills. Optoro estimates U.S. returns generate an estimated 16 million metric tons of carbon emissions and create up to 5.8 billion pounds of landfill waste each year.

This pain point for mainstream retailers is now big business for liquidators. There are now thousands of companies in the booming space. One of them is GoodBuy Gear, which specializes in safely liquidating items for babies and young kids.
“Buying one used item, it saves 82% of its carbon footprint and consumers are really starting to make smart choices. And so I think that the boom in liquidation is really fueled by consumerism and how it’s shifted from new to used,” said Kristin Langenfeld, CEO and co-founder of GoodBuy Gear.
Sustainable shopping options are a growing priority for younger shoppers. 
“The circular economy exists to make sure these items find a home, connect it with a family or a young consumer, and keep it out of the landfill,” said Bill Angrick, CEO of Liquidity Services. He co-founded the company in 1999 as Liquidation.com, with $100,000 of his savings.
“My father and I used to pick up used books and recyclable bottles. Fast forward to the start of eBay. My father and I started toying around with that. We realized that a marketplace model can create value for virtually any type of used item,” Angrick said. 

Liquidity Services CEO Bill Angrick and CNBC Senior Producer Katie Schoolov tour a returns warehouse in Garland, Texas, on January 31, 2022.
Benjamin Farrar

Scoreboards, kayaks and knives

By 2000, a year after it launched, Liquidation.com had its first major sale: a $200,000 marine vessel for the state of Georgia. In 2006, it went public under its new name Liquidity Services. Its stock peaked in 2012, trended downward for the next seven years, then saw a resurgence during the Covid pandemic.
Liquidity Services remains the only major publicly traded liquidator. Another big player is B-Stock Solutions, which runs branded liquidation marketplaces for huge clients like Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot and Costco. Howard Rosenberg founded B-Stock after six years at eBay, where he saw the benefits of specializing in liquidation for others, at scale.
“Companies typically don’t want to spend a whole lot of time and effort focused on that little slice of the pie. They want to focus on the 99% slice of the pie,” explained Rosenberg.
Liquidity Services sells returned items on a variety of marketplaces. There’s Liquidation.com where pallets of returns and some individual items are auctioned off to the highest bidder, Secondipity for direct sale of individual items, and GovDeals for some especially unusual items.
“We’ve sold road paving equipment, entire gymnasium floors, scoreboards. All of the colleges and universities that are publicly funded, all of that equipment and uniforms come through our marketplace. We sell construction equipment. We sell the bucket trucks for power and utility companies,” Angrick said.
Liquidity Services also handles unclaimed mail and packages for the U.S. Postal Service, out-of-service military vehicles, and items left behind at TSA checkpoints, like 14 pounds of assorted knives.
When it comes to electronics, many returns arrive damaged and can’t go right back out for resale. Liquidity Services refurbishes hundreds of TVs every day that it says sell for 60% to 70% of the original price. Refurbished electronics have gained popularity as the supply chain backlog caused a shortage of new goods. Refurbished noise canceling headphones and TVs are in high demand, and also multimillion-dollar refurbished items, like the machines used to make microchips.

A Liquidity Services employee refurbishes a TV at a warehouse in Garland, Texas, on January 31, 2022.
Katie Schoolov

“We’ve seen Fortune 500 companies access used equipment on our marketplace because the time to ship is shorter in the circular economy than originating a newly manufactured good, putting it on a vessel, transporting across the ocean, to a port that’s likely backlogged for six to eight months,” Angrick said.
Many retailers are now selling refurbished items directly as demand for secondhand items grows. Amazon has entire sections of its site devoted to this. There’s Warehouse Deals for used goods, Amazon Renewed for refurbished items, Amazon Outlet for overstock and a tongue-in-cheek daily deal site on the fringes of the Amazon community called Woot that sells a $10 “Bag of Crap.”
Best Buy now has an online outlet where it sells open-box appliances and TVs, and HP has an outlet with refurbished computers and more.
“When it’s refurbished, we get really good recoveries back from it: probably 80% to 100% of recoveries depending upon the seasonality in the market. But right now, the market is very strong because of the supply shortages on the forward side,” said Julie Ryan, HP’s manager of North America returns. 
The liquidation boom has spawned another trend, too. Hundreds of bargain bin stores are popping up all over the country, with names like Dirt Cheap and Treasure Hunt Liquidators. Dozens of customers line up — sometimes even camping overnight — to get first pick after weekly drop-offs of liquidation pallets. They dig through big bins of returns in search of trending items they can flip for a profit.

Shoppers line up to search through bins of liquidation pallets at Treasure Hunt Liquidators in Raleigh, North Carolina, on February 11, 2022.
Treasure Hunt Liquidators

“Stores like Big Lots, Bargain Hunt, Ollie’s Bargain Outlet: All of these stores and then eBay, and even Amazon has gotten into it. So they’re selling the returns back to consumers because 90% of the time, there’s nothing wrong with it,” said Sciarrotta of the Reverse Logistics Association.
Liquidity Services has its own take on the direct-to-consumer trend. At the company’s new AllSurplus Deals warehouse that opened in Phoenix in October, customers pick up items they’ve won in online auctions that usually start at $5. This is especially helpful for liquidating bulky items, like kayaks, which would be prohibitively expensive to ship. Angrick says Liquidity Services will open a second AllSurplus Deals warehouse in Dallas later this year.
Watch the video for an exclusive tour inside a Liquidity Services warehouse, to see the booming business of processing and reselling excess and unwanted goods on the secondary market.

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An eclectic mix of crypto enthusiasts are trying to pool $4 billion to buy the Denver Broncos.
The group, which is comprised of attorneys, accountants, and pro athletes, is doing this crypto crowdraise via a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO.
Unlike a normal pool of investors, DAOs rely on cryptocurrency technology to track and validate participation in the group, as well as to facilitate the inner-workings of how to raise and distribute large amounts of cash.

DENVER — The Denver Broncos are up for sale, and a group of crypto enthusiasts is aiming to raise more than $4 billion using a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, to make it their own.
You can think of a DAO like a group of individuals acting in concert with no single leader. Unlike a normal pool of investors, DAOs rely on cryptocurrency technology to track and validate participation in the group, as well as to facilitate the inner-workings of how to raise and distribute large amounts of cash. This group includes an eclectic mix of attorneys, accountants, software developers, pro athletes, and at least one mathematician.

One of the people spearheading the cause is Sean O’Brien, who spent over a decade in Cisco’s legal department, before leaving the corporate world to run a few small businesses with his wife.
“We know it sounds a bit crazy, but it’s also a bit badass,” said O’Brien. “The purpose essentially is to establish an infrastructure so that fans from all walks of life can be owners of the Denver Broncos.”
The pro football team is valued at just under $4 billion, and it is expected to garner the biggest price tag in North American sports history, according to ESPN.
Trustees of the team said in a statement that the goal is to sell the team by the start of the 2022 NFL season. O’Brien tells CNBC that while the smart contracts and crypto wallets are set up, their DAO doesn’t officially go live until the first week of March, so the “BuyTheBroncos” cause will need to cover a lot of ground fast to have a chance.
But the crypto collective has a secret weapon in Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who recently announced plans to accept cryptocurrencies for state tax payments by this summer. On Friday, the pro-crypto lawmaker told CNBC on the sidelines of ETHDenver — a major conference dedicated to dissecting the present use cases and future of ethereum — that he would be “thrilled” if their effort comes to fruition.

“I would be excited to be part of it myself,” said Gov. Polis.
“The challenge will be it’ll take a lot of money…but you know what, if your imagination is big enough, then it can happen. And anything I can do to make it happen, I’d be happy to,” continued the governor.

Denver Broncos player Drew Lock passes against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Getty Images/Dustin Bradford

They say this DAO is different

DAOs take coordination of resources on the internet to a new level, according to Auston Bunsen, co-founder of QuikNode, which provides blockchain infrastructure to developers and companies.
“They represent a new kind of organization moving at hyper speed,” said Bunsen.
Investor Cooper Turley, who has helped build several popular DAOs, says they’re like an “internet community with a shared bank account.”
“Basically, a small group of people come together to form a chat group, and then they decide to pull capital together, [typically] using an Ethereum wallet,” Turley previously told CNBC.
The BuyTheBroncos contingent joins a long list of DAOs pooling funds to buy real-world assets. In July 2021, PleasrDAO bought a copy of the Wu-Tang Clan album once owned by Martin Shkreli for $4 million, and in Nov. 2021, a consortium of crypto investors formed ConstitutionDAO, pulling together $47 million worth of ether in a week to try and buy a rare, first-edition copy of the U.S. Constitution at a Sotheby’s auction. Although the group didn’t place the winning bid, the movement captured the world’s attention and helped to mainstream the concept of crypto crowdfunding.
ConstitutionDAO’s rallying call was “WAGBI” or “we’re all gonna buy it.” But in fact, the thousands of investors who comprised that DAO would not have received fractional ownership of the document. Instead, they would have become holders of a crypto token known as “People” that would have granted them certain voting rights over the future of the document.

The Denver Broncos cheerleaders perform at a game against the LA Chargers at Empower Field.
Getty Images/Justin Edmonds

“ConstitutionDAO was essentially a fundraiser,” said Derek Sorensen, a mathematician and computer science PhD student at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., who’s advising BuyTheBroncos on how to structure the DAO.
“It was kind of like, we’ll raise money, we’ll buy this Constitution, you don’t own any of the Constitution, or actually have any legal rights to anything about it. You can vote on where we put it, but there’s no legal guarantee,” continued Sorensen.
Sorensen says the BuyTheBroncosDAO will adopt an entirely different governance structure. Though the group will still fundraise in cryptocurrency, the idea is to give people partial ownership, in which they will participate in deciding how the team is run. They also plan to form the group as a cooperative, similar to outdoor sports retailer REI, rather than a LLC, which they believe will exempt the owners from certain SEC regulations governing investing in securities.

Sean O’Brien
Sean O’Brien

Buying the Denver Broncos

$4 billion seems like a huge amount of money, though organizations like BitDAO, which currently has more than $2.3 billion worth of crypto tokens on its balance sheet, show that the effort is not entirely impossible.
“It’s definitely possible in the world of crypto. That sum of money is not unheard of,” said Sorensen. “I’m very, very confident that this sum of money is absolutely doable in web3,” though Sorensen gave the disclaimer that he is an academic mathematician, and thus, probably not the best person to assess the future success of business.
So far, the BuyTheBroncos cause doesn’t have much traction. Its Twitter account had fewer than 50 followers as of the time of publication, and O’Brien’s last two attempts to buy professional sports teams with a DAO were unsuccessful. But the origin story of ConstitutionDAO has a similar tenor.
19-year-old ConstitutionDAO member Miguel Piedrafita told CNBC that ConstitutionDAO was started mostly as a joke. He says that he and his friends saw an article about the Constitution going up on the auction bloc, and they started making memes about buying it. From there, the effort snowballed.
“We made a Twitter, went to bed, and the next day, we had a bunch of followers. So we started working with legal teams, museums, and Sotheby’s to try to put it all into motion, and it ended up kind of working,” Piedrafita said.
The takeaway? Do not underestimate the underdog in the land of crypto.
The BuyTheBroncos group also has a pretty solid plan B. Organizers tell CNBC the more realistic goal is to raise around 25% of the money needed to place the winning bid, and from there, join forces with a consortium of more traditional buyers to make up the difference.
Even if the BuyTheBroncosDAO fails, O’Brien is optimistic that the effort will spread awareness regardless.
“While having a fan-owned Denver Broncos in a DAO-based system would be amazing, that isn’t our final goal,” said O’Brien.
“We want this effort to essentially open up peoples’ eyes to what a DAO can do in the real world and make a tangible connection between this web3 life and the real world. Our thought is that it accelerates DAO adoption for solving real-world problems such as food scarcity or unhoused peoples.”
But as Gov. Polis points out, it sure would be good if these crypto enthusiasts could seal the deal.
“I can’t play favorites. Obviously, whoever buys the team, we’re totally, as a state, we want to have a good owner, but this would be really noteworthy for Colorado if they could pull this off,” said Polis. More

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday rejected calls to sanction Russia now, saying that Moscow should not be sure “exactly” how the West will react.
Speaking at Germany’s annual Munich Security Conference, Scholz told CNBC that Western allies were “well prepared” to sanction Russia — and quickly — if it were to invade Ukraine.
“We want to avoid the situation … we want to go in the direction where peace is having a chance,” he said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday rejected calls from Ukraine’s president to sanction Russia now, saying that Moscow should not be sure “exactly” how the West will respond to a potential invasion.
Speaking to CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at Germany’s annual Munich Security Conference, Scholz said that Western allies were “well prepared” to sanction Russia — and quickly — if it were to invade Ukraine. But he said that such measures should remain a last resort in the hopes finding of a peaceful resolution to ongoing tensions.

“It’s better to say we do it then, instead of doing it now, because we want to avoid the situation,” he said, referring to imposing potential sanctions on Russia. “We want to go in the direction where peace is having a chance.”

Russia has repeatedly denied that it is planning an invasion of Ukraine, but multiple Western officials said this week that the country is actively increasing its military presence on its border.
Scholz would not clarify what sanctions Russia might be hit with if it were to invade Ukraine. Rather, he said that Moscow ought to know “approximately” and not “exactly” the repercussions it would face.

The Russian government cannot be really sure exactly what we’ll do.

Olaf Scholz
German Chancellor

This contrasts with other Western leaders who have made specific remarks about how Russia could be hurt economically, most notably through energy sanctions.
“My view is that it makes no sense to make them public. It is good for what we expect to get that the Russian government cannot be really sure exactly what we’ll do,” he said.

“They will know approximately what we’re talking about, but they will not know it exactly.”
His comments come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday reiterated his calls for sanctions now, saying the West should stop its “appeasement” policy toward Russia.
“We have a right — a right to demand a shift from a policy of appeasement to one ensuring security and peace,” Zelensky said at the Munich Security Conference.
“There is no such thing as ‘this is not my war’ in the 21st century. This is not about the war in Ukraine, this is about the war in Europe.”

Russia launches ballistic and cruise missiles

In a show of its military prowess, Russia on Saturday launched ballistic and cruise missiles as part of a “planned exercise of the strategic deterrence forces.”
President Joe Biden said Friday that the United States believes Russian President Vladimir Putin may carry out an attack on Ukraine “in the coming days.”
“We have reason to believe the Russian forces are planning and intend to attack Ukraine in the coming week, in the coming days,” Biden said Friday in remarks at the White House, noting that any such attack would likely target Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.

Service members of the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces take part in tactical drills at a training ground in an unknown location in Ukraine, in this handout picture released February 18, 2022.
Press Service of the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces | via Reuters

It comes after U.S. intelligence agencies said Moscow had added around 7,000 troops to Ukraine’s border this week, taking its total estimated military presence to around 150,000. Russian forces have also been posted in Belarus, an ally that lies to the north of Ukraine.
Earlier this week, the Russian government claimed that it had started to return some of its troops to their bases. However, Ukraine’s president and Western officials urged caution over taking Moscow’s claim at face value.
Ukraine and Western allies have warned that Russia may create a “false flag” event — in which it would stage a real or simulated attack on its own forces — to create an excuse to invade Ukraine.
—CNBC’s Natasha Turak contributed to this report.

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In 2020, the onset of the coronavirus pandemic changed the way many Americans worked, as companies closed their doors to limit workplace contamination. The uncertainty around Covid-19 caused people to seek hope in religion and spirituality, resulting in an industry boom. For many Black women, like Shontel Anestasia, the current spiritual boom is not only a way to connect to one’s higher self, but also a means of making money.
Anestasia, owner of the Urban Gurvi Mama shop, founded her business in 2017 to cultivate a safe space for women on their spiritual journey. She says she witnessed people seeking to “go back to their roots” at the start of the pandemic.

“For the last two years, there has been a surge of people wanting to go back to their roots. Last year, I did just as well being self-employed at my shop as I did working in corporate America,” she says.

The billion-dollar business

From candles and crystals to metaphysical practices like tarot readings, the spiritual wellness industry saw a significant boom. The psychic business, for example, reached 2.2 billion dollars in 2019. This number is expected to grow to 2.4 billion by 2026.
Furthermore, the number of psychic service businesses in the US is anticipated to grow from 93,939 to almost 100,000 over the next five years, according to IbisWorld. 
Shantrelle Lewis is one of the many Black women who found their entrepreneurial niche in traditional African spirituality. The hoodoo practitioner and co-founder of Shoppe Black used her interest in African Traditional Religions to establish a group of fellow Black women practitioners.
“The resurgence of spirituality has created a market for people to want to purchase supplies that will allow them to create prosperity, to promote health, to bring in love and to bring in all the good things that they want to attract to themselves by supporting people that look just like them,” she says.

Spirituality goes beyond religion for Black Americans

According to Kiana Cox, a research associate at the Pew Research Center, though most Black Americans identify as Christian, they have a wide array of spiritual practices and beliefs that go beyond Christianity.
Pew’s “Faith Among Black Americans” report asked survey participants 3 questions: Have you prayed at an altar or shrine? Have you consulted a divine or reader? And do you burn candles, incense, or sage as part of your religious or spiritual practice?
Twenty percent of Black Americans say they’ve prayed at an altar/shrine, while 12% say they’ve consulted a reader and used candles, incense, or sage.
“About 30% of Black people say that they believe prayers to their ancestors can protect them,” Cox says. “So we have that aspect. And about 40% of Black people say that they believe in reincarnation. So even though they’re not affiliated with African religions, some of these practices and beliefs that we might associate with non-Christian religions are there.”

The pandemic’s positive impact

For some Black women who were already in the spirituality space before Covid, the pandemic helped boost revenue.
Angele, better known as the Hoodoo Hussy, started her business, Hoodoo Hussy Conjure Enterprises, in 2017 while being a full-time educator. She handcrafts her “spirit medicines” by combining her knowledge of the Earth and African-American traditional religion, offering products such as spiritual bath, cleansing smoke and manifestation oils.
The self-proclaimed “root worker” has been able to use the money she’s earned during the pandemic to support her business’ upkeep.
“This is not something that’s is going to cover all of my costs right now. Money that I made during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 was used to up my game and reinvest in my business,” she says. “Even though I’m about to celebrate 5 years of the business, I’m still setting the foundation for growth.”
The ability to make your culture your capital is something many Black women cherish, and they hope this new spiritual awakening opens the eyes of the generations to come. 
“I’m very big on leaving a legacy behind and finishing what my grandma started. So being in this place I’m in right now gives me a strong sense of purpose,” Anestasia says. “When I’m not here anymore, I hope my kids will be doing this.”
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Lufthansa Group’s service to Kiev and Odessa will be suspended starting Monday.
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines had suspended Ukraine flights last week.

Lufthansa planes are seen parked on the tarmac of Frankfurt Airport, Germany June 25, 2020.
Kai Pfaffenbach | Reuters

Lufthansa Group said it would suspend service to Kyiv and Odessa, starting Monday, as concerns grew over whether Russia would invade Ukraine.
“The safety of our passengers and crew members is our top priority at all times,” the airline group said in a statement on Saturday. “Lufthansa continues to monitor the situation closely and is in close contact with national and international authorities.”

Lufthansa also owns Austrian, Swiss and Eurowings. Swiss will also suspend service to Kyiv starting Monday through at least Feb. 28. The airline does not fly over Ukraine to reach other destinations, a spokesman said.
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines suspended Ukraine flights last week.
Ukrainian International Airlines had said it would need to send five of its planes to Spain after a dispute over insurance coverage, but later said it was operating its flights as scheduled.
Another Ukrainian carrier, SkyUp Airlines, said one of its Ukraine-bound flights from the Portuguese Island of Madeira was forced to land in Moldova last weekend after the company that leases its jets said the carrier couldn’t enter Ukrainian airspace.

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