Raphael Stevens

The 25th Bond film isn’t perfect, but explosive stunt sequences and a magnetic performance from Daniel Craig are enough to overcome a complicated plot and and long run time, critics say.
“No Time to Die” currently holds an 83% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 138 reviews.
“No Time to Die” debuts in the U.K. on Friday before opening domestically Oct. 8.

Daniel Craig stars in “No Time To Die” the latest James Bond film.
MGM | Universal

After 18 months of waiting, the latest installment in the James Bond saga is finally arriving the in theaters.
A swan song for actor Daniel Craig, who has portrayed 007 since 2006’s “Casino Royale,” “No Time to Die” debuts in the U.K. on Friday before opening domestically Oct. 8.

The 25th Bond film isn’t perfect, but explosive stunt sequences and a magnetic performance from Craig are enough to overcome a complicated plot and long run time, critics say.
Years after apprehending Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), the main antagonist of 2015’s “Spectre,” James Bond has retired and is living a quiet life in Jamaica. When an old CIA agent contact asks for help with one last job, Bond finds himself confronting the sinister Safin (Rami Malek) as well as the woman he once loved Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux).
“No Time to Die” currently holds an 83% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 138 reviews.
Here’s what critics thought of Craig’s final James Bond film ahead of its U.K. opening:

A.O. Scott, The New York Times

It’s clear throughout “No Time to Die” that the film’s producers and writers were keenly aware that this was Craig’s final turn as the iconic 007.

A.O. Scott of The New York Times said the film “is uncommonly preoccupied with memory and leave-taking,” in his review of the film.
“Mortality looms over the quips and car chases — not only the expected slaughter of anonymous minions, but an inky cloud of grief, loss and weariness,” he wrote.
Bond refers to himself as “an old wreck” and Craig, 53, plays the part of a man who’s survived battle, but has not been left unscathed.
“[Director Cary] Fukunaga has a crisp, stylish way with action, and some of the set pieces have the flair and inventiveness of musical numbers, most notably a party in Havana where Ana de Armas shows up to play Cyd Charisse to Craig’s Gene Kelly,” Scott said. “That sequence feels like a throwback and an update, reprising the Bond tradition of elegance, charm and high silliness.”
Read the full review from The New York Times.

Daniel Craig stars as James Bond in “No Time To Die.”
Source: MGM

Nicholas Barber, BBC

“No Time to Die” feels long, but “it packs in so much that you can hardly complain,” wrote Nicholas Barber in his review of the film for the BBC.
The film clocks in at two hours and 43 minutes, the longest of any James Bond flick to date.
“It piles on the grief and raises the emotional stakes, with the help of Hans Zimmer’s operatic music and Linus Sandgren’s warm cinematography,” said Barber. “But it also keeps the jokes and the silliness coming: it’s been decades since Bond had this many groan-worthy one-liners, and he’s never had this many Oliver Hardy-style exasperated glances.”
Barber said the latest James Bond film “does exactly what it was intended to do,” give Craig a proper send-off.
“Beyond that, it somehow succeeds in taking something from every single other Bond film, and sticking them all together,” he said.
Read the full review from the BBC.

John Nugent, Empire

John Nugent, a writer for Empire, also praised Fukunaga’s directing in his review of “No Time to Die.”
“Fukunaga, it seems, was an ideal choice of director, skillfully balancing the contradictions of the character and the franchise, and while he doesn’t quite escape the usual pitfalls — a middle third bogged down by plotting and exposition doesn’t justify that heaving runtime — he has always been an intuitive filmmaker, deeply interested in the humanity of his characters,” Nugent wrote.
He compared Fukunaga’s action sequences to that of John Wick, noting the emphasis on sharp and savage gunfights and intense chases.
“This is a Bond film that dutifully ticks all the boxes — but brilliantly, often doesn’t feel like a Bond film at all,” Nugent wrote. “For a 007 who strived to bring humanity to larger-than-life hero, it’s a fitting end to the Craig era.”
Read the full review from Empire.

Daniel Craig stars as James Bond in “No Time To Die.”

Brian Tallerico, Roger Ebert

For Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com, “No Time to Die” director Fukunaga “plays it too safe and too familiar.”
“Even as it’s closing character arcs that started years ago, it feels like a film with too little at stake, a movie produced by a machine that was fed the previous 24 flicks and programmed to spit out a greatest hits package,” he wrote in his review of the film.
Tallerico was particularly critical of how the film used its supporting cast, noting that returning actors like Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw are given little to do except “push the plot forward to its inevitable ending.”
Lashana Lynch, a new addition to the film as Bond’s 007 replacement, “feels like a self-aware nod to controversy around the casting of Bond, which is cool enough, but then she’s not given much of a character to make her interesting on her own,” he said.
And Ana de Armas, who appears as a fellow spy during a mission to Cuba, “pops up to give the film a completely different and welcome new energy in an action sequence set in Cuba, only to leave the movie ten minutes later.”
Read the full review from RogerEbert.com.

Jason Solomons, The Wrap

“‘No Time to Die’ will be remembered for its emotional impact above all,” wrote Jason Solomons in his review of the film for The Wrap. “And, to cap it all, Craig may well have delivered the most complex and layered Bond performance of them all.”
Many critics have agreed that Craig’s performance is one of the most emotional of any previous James Bond actor. Since “Casino Royale,” the character of Bond has been given more depth than any other portrayal of the iconic character.
“Suffice to say, then, that ‘No Time To Die’ is Daniel Craig’s best incarnation of an iconic role, an iteration that sees Bond travel to emotional spaces the character has never been to before, at least not since ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ or in certain passages of Ian Fleming’s books,” Solomons wrote.
“You feel all the wear and tear on Craig’s body and face, all the strain on Bond of having to save the world one last time (again) yet also all the tantalizing freedom of someone approaching the end of a long run,” he said.
Read the full review from The Wrap.Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal and CNBC. Universal is releasing “No Time To Die” internationally while MGM handles the domestic release. Rotten Tomatoes is owned by NBCUniversal.

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It’s been a rough week for shares of Bed Bath & Beyond.
The retailer’s stock has dropped more than 24% since its Thursday earnings report, which cited slowing traffic in stores and rising costs associated with the supply chain.

With FedEx and Nike flagging similar issues in their latest reports, traders and investors may need to reconsider their exposure to retail, Joule Financial Chief Investment Officer Quint Tatro told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Thursday.
“This is very concerning to us, especially the price action,” Tatro said. “The magnitude of the decline tells us that traders were significantly poorly positioned for this news.”
“Investors and traders have to look through their portfolio, and I don’t think they have to be shy in raising some cash across the board, especially in these sectors,” he said. “We might get bounces along the way, but this is a time period, in our opinion, to start being very defensive.”
Investors should indeed get more cautious in the retail space, MKM Partners’ chief market technician J.C. O’Hara said in the same interview.
“This is a shot across the bow not just to the consumer, but to retail in general over the next one to two quarters,” he said. “Supply chain issues are small until they become large, and we saw Bed Bath & Beyond and the comments from the CEO suggest that this is no minor issue.”

He looked ahead to a different retailer’s report to confirm his concern.
“Next Tuesday, Oct. 5, we get a report from Levi’s,” O’Hara said. “I’ll be very curious to see if, one, they cite supply chain issues, which I’m sure they will, but also what about inflation from commodities?”

Arrows pointing outwards

Prices for cotton, which is widely used in Levi Strauss products, are at decade highs after a nearly 35% run this year, O’Hara said.
“This is real inflation. So I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some further downside to Levi’s sitting on key support right here,” he said. “We could see it down another 20% following earnings, so that’s my bellwether I’m looking at closely next week.”
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Alaska Airlines told its 22,000 employees that the carrier’s work as a government contractor means they must be vaccinated against Covid-19 because of new federal rules.
JetBlue followed with similar guidelines for its staff.
Alaska doesn’t currently mandate its employees be vaccinated but offers $200 to staff who share proof of full vaccination with the company.

A Boeing 737-990 (ER) operated by Alaska Airlines takes off from JFK Airport on August 24, 2019 in Queens, New York.
Bruce Bennett | Getty Images

Alaska Airlines and JetBlue Airways told their employees that the carriers’ work as government contractors means they must be vaccinated against Covid-19 as early as Dec. 8 because of new federal rules.
President Joe Biden last month said his administration would issue rules that would require employees at federal contractors, a category airlines fall into since they transport government employees and provide other services, as well as companies with more than 100 employees to be vaccinated.

Last week, the Biden administration said federal contractors would need to be vaccinated no later than Dec. 8. Both airlines said there will be an approval process for medical and religious exemptions.
“Based on the guidance issued, all JetBlue Crewmembers – regardless of working in the operation, a support center, or at home – will be required by the government to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 to continue performing their role,” JetBlue’s CEO Robin Hayes and COO Joanna Geraghty said in an employee email on Friday.
The executives urged staff to get vaccinated before the busy end-of-year holiday season.
“Our Customers count on us to get them where they’re going during the holidays, and we need to be ready to fully comply with the mandate before the holiday peak starts and to help bring this pandemic to a close,” they said.
Seattle-based Alaska and New York-based JetBlue haven’t mandated that staff be vaccinated but they have repeatedly encouraged employees to get inoculated. Alaska has offered extra pay to those who share proof of vaccination with the company.

“Since our company does significant work for the federal government, we have determined that Alaska Airlines, Horizon Air and McGee employees – all part of Alaska Air Group – do fall under this federal vaccine mandate, along with other major U.S. airlines,” Alaska said Thursday in a staff note. “This means all of our employees, including certain contractors and vendors, will be required to be fully vaccinated, or be approved for a reasonable accommodation such as medical conditions or religious beliefs that prevent them from being vaccinated.”
CNBC saw a copy of the note. A spokeswoman for the airline told CNBC a “significant majority” of the airline’s roughly 22,000 employees are vaccinated, but she declined to give a percentage, noting that staff are still uploading their proof of vaccination.
Alaska extended its $200 incentive for staff to upload proof of full vaccination from Oct. 15 to Dec. 1.
Airlines’ approaches to vaccines have differed, but most haven’t issued mandates and instead used incentives like extra pay or time off for employees to get shots.
Some labor unions have also opposed making vaccines mandatory such as those representing pilots at American Airlines and Southwest Airlines. Both of those carriers said they expected to fall under the new federal vaccine mandates and didn’t immediately comment for this article.
United Airlines imposed the strictest mandate of any U.S. carrier, requiring its 67,000-person U.S. staff to be vaccinated by last Monday or face termination. More than 96% complied and by Thursday 320 employees were at risk of getting fired, down from 593 when the deadline passed this week, the Chicago-based carrier said.
Delta Air Lines plans to impose a $200 monthly surcharge on unvaccinated employees’ company health insurance starting in November. Unvaccinated employees are now undergoing weekly Covid testing, Delta said.
“While we continue to evaluate the Administration’s plan, Delta is proud to have developed a vaccination program that has already seen 84% of employees get vaccinated and is climbing every day,” the Atlanta-based airline said in a statement.
Delta has close to 80,000 employees.

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In this aerial photo taken with a drone, flood waters surround storm damaged homes, Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021, in Lafourche Parish, La., as residents try to recover from the effects of Hurricane Ida.
Steve Helber | AP

Climate change can have a direct impact on your wallet.
Not only can it affect your bills, from insurance to food and utilities, but if you are hit by an event like a wildfire or hurricane, you can lose your home, income or both.

The U.S. Treasury Department is now taking steps to better understand the financial risks of climate change and climate transition to Americans, especially in low-income and historically disadvantaged communities, a senior administration official told CNBC.
It is part of the Biden administration’s overall effort to tackle climate change.
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“Americans across the country have seen firsthand how extreme weather events, which have increased due to climate change, can impact their financial wellbeing,” said Treasury Undersecretary Nellie Liang.
“Beyond events like storms and wildfires, we expect climate change to impact insurance, credit, and household savings,” Liang added.

To begin, Liang plans to meet with members of the Treasury Department’s Financial Literacy Education Commission, which is made up of the heads of 19 additional federal agencies, on Oct. 13 at 2 p.m. ET.
The meeting, which can be viewed online by the public, will not only look at the risks climate change poses to Americans’ finances, but also who is most likely to bear the risk and what resources, tools and policies are needed to help households become more financially resilient, the senior administration official said.

The United Nations recently issued a stark warning about the impact of climate change. Its report said limiting global warming to close to 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels will be “beyond reach” in the next two decades without immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s not just higher temperatures. Storms, droughts and rising sea levels are all a result of climate change, which is attributed largely to human activity.
Disadvantaged communities are particularly vulnerable.
Those with low income or no high school diploma are approximately 25% more likely to live in areas with the highest projected losses of labor hours due to increases in high-temperature days with 2 degrees Celsius of global warming, a September report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found.

It’s vital that Treasury undertake this work, in collaboration with other experts in and outside of government, in order to help families prepare for climate-related financial risk.

Nellie Liang
U.S. Department of the Treasury Undersecretary

In addition, Black Americans are 40% more likely to live in areas with the highest projected increases in mortality rates due to climate-driven changes in extreme temperatures. Hispanics are 50% more likely to live in coastal areas with the highest projected increases in traffic delays from climate-driven changes in high-tide flooding, according to the report.
The Treasury Department understands it isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution and plans to look at the needs of diverse populations, the official said.
While there is no timeline yet for any potential response, it will likely entail resources for Americans to help them make better financial choices, as well as policy changes.
“It’s vital that Treasury undertake this work, in collaboration with other experts in and outside of government, in order to help families prepare for climate-related financial risk and assist local governments, philanthropic agencies and financial intermediaries in building community financial resilience,” Liang said.
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National Basketball Association star Jimmy Butler launched Bigface coffee brand in a partnership with e-commerce company Shopify.
In the agreement, Butler joined the company’s creator program and will not have to split the revenue with Shopify. Instead, Butler will leverage his intellectual property.

Jimmy Butler #22 of the Miami Heat handles the ball against the Milwaukee Bucks during Round One Game Four of the Eastern Conference Playoffs on May 29, 2021 at AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami, Florida.
Jesse D. Garrabrant | National Basketball Association | Getty Images

It started as a joke, but now National Basketball Association star Jimmy Butler has officially launched a coffee brand.
The 32-year-old Miami Heat star started his company in the 2020 NBA Covid bubble in Orlando, Florida, selling cups of coffee for $20 each. After that season, Butler filed for trademarks around Bigface and officially started plans to launch his coffee company. And on Friday he announced that he joined Shopify’s creator program to boost his Bigface coffee brand.

In an interview with CNBC, Butler admitted he isn’t aiming to be “the best at making coffee” but added he’s taking the business seriously.
“I wake up in the morning excited to train and go work out,” Butler said. “Then I want to hurry up and get home so I can practice my bartending,” he said, referring to making coffee drinks. For now, he’ll sell branded merchandise in Shopify like coffee mugs and NFTs. He plans to sell the beans later.

Making big faces

Butler waited to launch Bigface to coincide with Friday’s International Coffee Day, two days after National Coffee Day in the U.S.
Butler said he traveled to coffee farms, including in Costa Rica, to study the coffee business. He said his discussions with farmers were “special,” and that he wants to use Bigface to “tell the story behind the beans and the farmers and their families. The time, the effort, the energy put into a cup of coffee.”
When the NBA went to Orlando to save its season last year, Butler saw a void at the secluded Disney campus because he didn’t consider the coffee options were good. Butler used his espresso machine and coffee beans from El Salvador to sell coffee for $20 per cup.

Butler found that coffee-lovers confined to the campus were willing to purchase a superior coffee. And it allowed him to capture a dominant share of the roughly $2,000 per diem provided to players. He sold options, including the “red eye,” which is coffee combined with a shot of espresso, and macchiatos, cappuccinos and lattes.
Bigface also won bids for coffee beans in the Cup of Excellence auction last August. The purchase totaled over $65,000 for over 1,000 pounds of premium El Salvador coffee.

Jimmy Butler
Source: Bigface

Butler said the bubble business experience provided a challenge away from basketball. “It’s just the competitor in me,” he added.
Shopify selects a group of athlete entrepreneurs for its program and doesn’t take any fees or equity stake. Butler will get all the profit. But partnering with an NBA athlete allows Shopify to integrate a well-known figure into its e-commerce platform and it will use Butler’s name, image and likeness for promotions.
The global coffee sector was valued at more than $102 billion last year, with an estimated compound annual growth rate of 4.28% until 2026, according to firm Researchandmarkets.
Asked what he’ll earn from Bigface, Butler, who has made over $144 million in his NBA career, said: “It’s not about that for me. I think basketball has been a great source of income for me and my family.” He said he’s in the business just to make and talk over coffee.

Jimmy Butler
Source: Bigface

The red eye to Miami 

NBA training camps opened this week, and one of the more intriguing teams in the league is Butler’s team.
The Heat had an active offseason bringing in All-Star Kyle Lowry in a three-year, $85 million sign-and-trade with the Toronto Raptors. The team also signed veteran PJ Tucker, who played last season for the NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks. And Butler agreed to an extension that includes an estimated $52 million player option in 2025.
Asked to compare the 2021-22 Heat to a Bigface coffee option, Butler selected the red eye. “You have a little bit of everything in there,” he said. “You have some coffee, an espresso shot – you have everything. And it’s going to hit you.
“I’m the cup that it’s in – I hold it all together,” added Butler, noting Lowry is “the steam that’s coming off” the red eye. ” You’ve got to have him otherwise it doesn’t make sense. You don’t want a cold red eye. You want it hot.”
With the NBA’s 75th season beginning Oct. 19, Butler is now focusing on basketball, but he has already planned life after his playing days are over. Butler said he’ll be in Miami or San Diego in one of his coffee shops. And this time, he’s not joking.
“After my basketball career, and people are like ‘Man, what is Jimmy doing nowadays,’ you know where to find me,” Butler said. “I will be in my cafe behind the bar making coffee.”

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A phase 3 trial of Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics’ oral antiviral treatment molnupiravir showed it reduced the risk of hospitalization or death by around 50% in Covid patients.
Merck plans to seek emergency use authorization in the U.S. and submit marketing applications to other global drug regulators.
If authorized by regulatory bodies, molnupiravir could be the first oral antiviral medicine for Covid.

A nurse tends to a Covid-19 patient at SSM Health St. Anthony Hospital in Oklahoma City, August 24, 2021.
Nick Oxford | Reuters

Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics said Friday they’ve developed a drug that reduces the risk of hospitalization or death by around 50% for patients with mild or moderate cases of Covid.
The companies plan to seek emergency authorization for the antiviral Covid treatment after the medicine showed “compelling results” in clinical trials.

The drug, molnupiravir, is administered orally and works by inhibiting the replication of the coronavirus inside the body.
An interim analysis of a phase 3 study found that 7.3% of patients treated with molnupiravir were hospitalized within 29 days. Of the patients who received a placebo, 14.1% were hospitalized or died by day 29. No deaths were reported in patients who were given molnupiravir within the 29-day period, while eight deaths were reported in placebo-treated patients.
All 775 trial participants had laboratory-confirmed symptomatic Covid-19 and were randomly given molnupiravir or a placebo within five days of symptoms.
Every participant was unvaccinated and had at least one underlying factor that put them at greater risk of developing a more severe case of the virus. The most common risk factors included obesity, being over age 60 and having diabetes or heart disease.

The phase 3 part of the trial was conducted at more than 170 sites, in countries including the U.S., Brazil, Italy, Japan, South Africa, Taiwan and Guatemala.

Molnupiravir’s efficacy was not affected by the timing of symptom onset or patients’ underlying risk factors, the study showed. It also proved to be consistently effective in treating all variants of Covid, including the widely dominant and highly transmissible delta strain.
Adverse events were comparable in the molnupiravir and placebo groups, with around 10% reporting adverse events. Just 1.3% of the molnupiravir group discontinued therapy due to an adverse event — less than the 3.4% of the placebo group who did so.
Recruitment into the study is being stopped early due to the positive results, at the recommendation of an independent Data Monitoring Committee and in consultation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Merck is also testing molnupiravir in a separate global phase 3 study to evaluate its efficacy in preventing the spread of Covid within households.

‘Profound impact’

Robert M. Davis, CEO and president of Merck, said in a press release Friday that the company would do everything it can to bring molnupiravir to patients as quickly as possible.
“With these compelling results, we are optimistic that molnupiravir can become an important medicine as part of the global efforts to fight the pandemic,” he said.

Ridgeback Biotherapeutics CEO Wendy Holman added: “With the virus continuing to circulate widely, and because therapeutic options currently available are infused or require access to a healthcare facility, antiviral treatments that can be taken at home to keep people with Covid-19 out of the hospital are critically needed.”
“We are very encouraged by the results from the interim analysis and hope molnupiravir, if authorized for use, can make a profound impact in controlling the pandemic,” she said.

Emergency use authorization

Merck said Friday it plans to seek emergency use authorization for the drug in the U.S. as soon as possible. The company also plans to submit marketing applications to other international drug regulators.
If authorized by regulatory bodies, molnupiravir could be the first oral antiviral medicine for Covid. Antiviral treatments now in use, such as remdesivir, are administered intravenously.
Merck has already begun producing molnupiravir. The pharmaceutical giant expects to produce 10 million courses of treatment by the end of 2021, and more doses in 2022.
The company agreed earlier this year to supply the U.S. with around 1.7 million courses of molnupiravir if it receives emergency use authorization or full approval from the FDA.
Merck has also entered supply and purchase agreements for the drug with other governments — pending regulatory authorization — and is in discussions with other governments about the supply of molnupiravir.
The company said it plans to implement a tiered pricing approach based on World Bank country income criteria to ensure molnupiravir can be accessed globally. Merck previously announced that it had entered into nonexclusive voluntary licensing agreements for molnupiravir with generic manufacturers, a move intended to assist low and middle-income countries in gaining access to the treatment. Those agreements are also pending approvals or emergency authorization by local regulators.

Profit share

Ridgeback received an upfront payment from Merck as part of the companies’ development of molnupiravir. The company is also eligible to receive contingent payments depending on developmental and regulatory approval milestones.
Profits arising from the collaboration will be split between Merck and Ridgeback equally.

CNBC Health & Science

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