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Grape plants sold at several Costco locations in California may pose a serious threat to California vineyards and agriculture after inspectors discovered an invasive insect known for spreading a deadly grapevine disease.

The San Joaquin County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office said inspectors discovered the glassy-winged sharpshooter on grape plants sold at Costco stores in Stockton, Lodi, Manteca and Tracy. The plants were supplied by a wholesale nursery in Fresno County.

The insect spreads the bacterium that causes Pierce’s disease, which kills grapevines and can also damage almond, citrus and ornamental plants. Officials said the pest feeds on more than 250 plant species and poses a significant threat to California’s grape industry, vineyards and home gardens.

THE $1,600 LETTUCE: CALIFORNIA GROWERS WARN OF ‘MASTER PLAN’ STRANGLING FAMILY FARMS

County officials said the food supply is not affected and Costco was not responsible for the issue because the infestation originated with the nursery supplier.

Officials said the county is working with Costco Wholesale and state and local partners to identify affected plants and prevent the pest from spreading further.

Residents who purchased grape plants from the affected Costco stores between April 21 and May 19 are being urged to contact their county agricultural commissioner’s office.

POPULAR COSTCO PATIO SWINGS RECALLED AFTER INJURIES LINKED TO DANGEROUS FALL HAZARD

The San Joaquin County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office advised residents to isolate the plants and keep them away from other vegetation. Officials also advised residents not to place the plants in the ground, move them to another location or dispose of them in trash or compost bins.

If possible, officials recommended placing the plants inside sealed double trash bags until an inspection can be arranged.

Residents in San Joaquin County can contact the agricultural commissioner’s office at 209-953-6000 or StocktonAg2@sjgov.org to schedule an inspection. Agricultural inspectors will examine the plants and nearby vegetation, and if the pest is found, officials will remove and safely dispose of the plants. Inspectors may also place monitoring traps on affected properties.

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California’s Pierce’s Disease Control Program works to slow the spread of the glassy-winged sharpshooter through inspections, trapping, treatment programs and research efforts designed to protect vineyards and other crops statewide.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture did not immediately respond to FOX Business’ request for comment.

Good packaging is often overlooked in business, but it plays a much bigger role than most people think. It is not just about wrapping a product and sending it out the door.

It affects cost, customer satisfaction, branding, and even how often people buy from you again. For many small and growing businesses, improving packaging can bring real and measurable benefits without needing huge changes elsewhere in the company.

When a product is sent out in poor packaging, it often arrives damaged or looking unprofessional. That can quickly lead to refunds, complaints, and bad reviews. On the other hand, well-designed packaging builds trust from the moment the parcel lands on a customer’s doorstep. It sends a clear message that the business cares about quality, right through the whole buying experience. Even simple improvements like stronger materials or better fitting boxes can make a noticeable difference.

Why packaging choice matters for everyday shipping

One of the most practical upgrades a business can make is improving its choice of postal boxes. These are not all the same, even if they look similar at first glance. The right size, strength, and design can reduce movement inside the box, which helps protect the product during transport. This means fewer damaged items and fewer replacement costs, which can save money over time. It also helps businesses look more professional, especially when customers receive clean, well-packed deliveries that feel organised and reliable.

Good postal boxes also help with storage and packing speed. If a business uses standardised sizes that fit its products well, staff can pack orders faster and with less waste. This is especially useful during busy periods when every minute counts. It also reduces the need for extra filler, which cuts down on cost and improves efficiency in the packing process. Small changes like this often have a bigger impact than expected.

How packaging materials affect cost and customer experience

The type of packaging materials used is just as important as the box itself. Businesses often focus only on the outer packaging, but what goes inside matters too. Bubble wrap, paper fill, air cushions, and protective wraps all play a role in keeping products safe. Choosing the right combination can help prevent damage while keeping costs under control.

However, it is not just about protection. Packaging materials also affect how customers feel when they open their order. A neat, well-packed parcel creates a better first impression. It can even make the product feel more valuable. On the other hand, messy or excessive packaging can feel wasteful and cheap. Many customers today are also more aware of environmental impact, so using recyclable or reduced packaging materials can improve a brand’s reputation.

Businesses that take time to balance protection, appearance, and sustainability often see better customer feedback. It is a simple shift, but it can improve repeat purchases and word-of-mouth recommendations. In a competitive market, those small details matter more than many realise.

Improving brand value through smarter packaging

Packaging is also a powerful branding tool. It is often the only physical interaction a customer has with a business, especially in online retail. That moment when a parcel is opened can shape how the brand is remembered. Clean design, consistent colours, and thoughtful presentation all help build a stronger identity.

Investing in better packaging can also reduce long-term operational problems. Fewer returns, fewer complaints, and fewer damaged goods all help improve efficiency. Over time, this creates a smoother system where staff spend less time fixing issues and more time focusing on growth.

Even small businesses can benefit from making these changes early. It is easier to build good habits from the start than to fix problems later when order volumes increase. Packaging is often seen as a cost, but in reality, it is an investment that supports every part of the customer journey.

Final thoughts on smarter packaging choices

At the end of the day, packaging is more than just a box and some filler. It is part of how a business presents itself to the world. Better choices lead to fewer problems, happier customers, and a stronger brand image. From postal boxes that protect products properly, to carefully chosen packaging materials that balance safety and presentation, every detail plays a part.

Businesses that take packaging seriously tend to stand out for the right reasons. They look more professional, run more smoothly, and build stronger relationships with customers. Suppliers such as Bestbuyenvelopes make it easier for companies to access reliable packaging options that support growth without overcomplicating the process. In a competitive market, those small improvements can make a big difference over time.

Americans around the country continue to face a tight housing market and a new report breaks down the hottest rental markets with summer fast approaching.

An analysis by Zillow finds that the majority of the nation’s most in-demand rental markets will be found in the Northeast and California this summer – though there are several notable exceptions.

“In Zillow’s hottest rental markets, the math is simple: More people want to live there than there are homes to rent – whether for access to amenities, strong job markets or family ties, renters are competing over a limited supply,” said Kara Ng, senior economist at Zillow.

“The U.S. built more new units in 2024 than any year in the past half-century, but that boom largely bypassed the Northeast and coastal California, which is exactly why rental competition there is so intense,” Ng said. 

THESE 5 CITIES ARE SEEING BIG HOME PRICE CUTS

“Markets that missed out on the list aren’t necessarily lacking demand; they just did a better job bringing new supply online,” Ng added.

Here’s a look at the 10 hottest rental housing markets in the U.S. for summer 2026, according to Zillow, based on the annual rent growth, vacancy rate forecast and the Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI):

Providence, Rhode Island

• Annual rent growth: 5%
• Vacancy rate forecast: 5.1%
• ZORI: $2,154

New York, New York

• Annual rent growth: 4.5%
• Vacancy rate forecast: 4.3%
• ZORI: $3,406

San Francisco, California

• Annual rent growth: 5.4%
• Vacancy rate forecast: 4.3%
• ZORI: $3,206

ONE TYPE OF PROPERTY IS QUIETLY SAVING AMERICANS THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS

Hartford, Connecticut

• Annual rent growth: 3.9%
• Vacancy rate forecast: 4.3%
• ZORI: $1,940

Los Angeles, California

• Annual rent growth: 2.4%
• Vacancy rate forecast: 4.5%
• ZORI: $2,892

Chicago, Illinois

• Annual rent growth: 5.7%
• Vacancy rate forecast: 5.3%
• ZORI: $2,219

Boston, Massachusetts

• Annual rent growth: 2.5%
• Vacancy rate forecast: 6.3%
• ZORI: $3,184

THESE 8 US HOUSING MARKETS FAVOR BUYERS

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

• Annual rent growth: 4.1%
• Vacancy rate forecast: 3.8%
• ZORI: $1,540

Virginia Beach, Virginia

• Annual rent growth: 4.8%
• Vacancy rate forecast: 4.1%
• ZORI: $1,843

San Jose, California

• Annual rent growth: 4.1%
• Vacancy rate forecast: 4.9%
• ZORI: $3,534

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Gordon Brothers, the Boston-based turnaround investor that snapped up Poundland for a pound last summer, has bagged another high-street name, adding the British handbag and accessories brand Radley to a growing stable of distressed retail assets, in a transaction that will cost 42 staff their jobs.

The deal, completed through a pre-pack administration brokered by restructuring specialists at FTI Consulting, secures Radley’s intellectual property, most notably the brand itself, its design archive and the Scottie dog logo that has been a staple of British gift-giving for more than two decades. Crucially, however, the transaction does not include the company’s 21 UK retail outlets, leaving the future of those shops, and the jobs attached to them, hanging in the balance.

In a statement confirming the appointment, FTI Consulting said: “The administration appointment follows a sustained period of challenging economic conditions for the retail environment, including declining customer demand and increasing operating costs, all of which have had a negative impact on trading.”

A founder-led label that ran out of road

Founded in the 1980s by Australian-born designer Lowell Harder from a market stall in Camden, north London, Radley grew into one of the more recognisable mid-market British accessories brands of the past 25 years, building a footprint across the UK, continental Europe and the United States. It was acquired by mid-market private equity house Freshstream in 2016 and, after a difficult post-pandemic trading period, was put up for sale earlier this year.

The numbers behind the auction tell their own story. For the year to 26 April 2025, Radley posted a pre-tax loss of £5.5 million, a sharp deterioration on the £1.7 million loss recorded the previous year. Turnover slipped to £65.8 million from £72 million, with the group blaming the closure of unprofitable US stores and “softer international wholesale performance” for the top-line decline.

The board had warned in its full-year accounts that consumer headwinds — chiefly elevated energy bills and a wave of households remortgaging onto materially higher interest rates — created “material uncertainty” over the company’s ability to continue as a going concern, even as directors expressed hope of trading through to 31 October 2026. In the event, the cash ran out faster than the forecast.

Gordon Brothers’ British shopping list

For Gordon Brothers, Radley is the latest brick in a fast-growing UK retail portfolio that increasingly resembles a curated index of distressed Great British high-street names. The 122-year-old firm — headquartered in Boston, with more than 30 offices worldwide, first made its name in the UK by acquiring Laura Ashley out of administration in 2020, before flipping the homeware and fashion label on to New York-based Marquee Brands in January 2025.

Last summer it bought Poundland from Warsaw-listed Pepco for a symbolic £1, embarking on a brutal restructuring that has so far seen 149 stores shuttered and roughly 2,200 jobs cut as the discount chain refocuses on lower price points. More recently the firm also scooped up the womenswear label LK Bennett out of administration, adding yet another well-known British label to a portfolio that is starting to look strikingly similar to the kind of brand-licensing platforms favoured by US peers Authentic Brands and Marquee.

According to its own statement on the transaction, Gordon Brothers intends to run Radley as an “asset-light” business, leaning on wholesale partnerships and licensing deals to extend the brand into adjacent categories such as watches, jewellery, eyewear and beauty gifting, while pushing harder into international markets.

A wider warning for the British high street

The Radley pre-pack lands in a market that, while quieter than the carnage of 2024, remains acutely fragile for mid-market specialists caught between value retailers and luxury houses. Data published by the Centre for Retail Research shows that even as headline administration numbers have eased from last year’s peak, the cumulative drag of higher wage costs, increased employer national insurance contributions and stubbornly cautious consumer spending continues to expose brands without scale, pricing power or a defensible online proposition.

For owners and management teams running SMEs in adjacent categories, the lessons from Radley are uncomfortably familiar: a strong heritage brand and loyal customer base are necessary but not sufficient conditions for survival when wholesale channels weaken, US expansion misfires and refinancing windows narrow. Pre-pack administrations, controversial though they remain, are increasingly the mechanism of choice for preserving brand equity while shedding loss-making stores and legacy obligations, a route that has now been travelled, in quick succession, by Laura Ashley, LK Bennett and Poundland under Gordon Brothers’ stewardship.

Whether Radley’s Scottie dog can be re-energised under a wholesale-and-licensing model, and whether any of those 21 displaced UK stores can be saved by other operators, will be the next test of both the brand’s resilience and Gordon Brothers’ increasingly assertive playbook for rescuing British retail.

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New Delhi: The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) is set to press ahead with tax recovery proceedings against online gaming companies, after the Supreme Court upheld its decision to retroactively levy 28% GST on the full face value of bets.

“This is a big win and now we can go ahead with the aggressive recovery process,” a DGGI official told ET.

The DGGI had issued show-cause notices alleging tax evasion of around ₹1 lakh crore against about 80 online gaming companies and casinos. Gaming companies approached various high courts challenging the tax demands. The Supreme Court later transferred pleas from nine high courts to itself.

The top court’s ruling on Wednesday validates the revenue authorities’ stance.

Senior officials from the revenue department said they will study the judgment.

The revenue department remains open to engaging with industry stakeholders on concerns regarding penalties and interest following the Supreme Court ruling, the official added.
In the original show-cause notice issued to Gameskraft in 2022, the DGGI had sought GST dues of about ₹21,000 crore for the period between 2017 and 2022, along with interest and penalties, in one of the largest tax demands ever raised.This became a template for similar proceedings initiated against several online gaming operators.

The verdict is expected to impact major gaming companies including Gameskraft, Dream11, Mobile Premier League, Games24x7, Junglee Games and Delta Corp, several of which are facing ongoing GST investigations or disputes.

Good morning, I’m filling in for Spencer Jakab. The U.S. and Iran appeared headed for a deal to extend their cease-fire over the long weekend, until hostilities broke out again on Monday. That’s left markets searching for direction, with oil and overseas stocks both mixed. American equities appear to be headed for a positive open, with futures tied to the S&P 500 about half a percent higher.

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NEW YORK — SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) has delivered extraordinary returns in 2026, with shares surging over 500 percent year-to-date amid booming demand for NAND flash memory driven by artificial intelligence data centers, leaving investors debating whether the rally has further room to run or if current valuations warrant caution.

The former Western Digital subsidiary, which became an independent publicly traded company following its spin-off in February 2025, has benefited enormously from the global AI infrastructure buildout. Strong multi-year supply agreements and favorable NAND market dynamics have propelled the company’s financial performance and stock price to new heights.

SanDisk reported robust fiscal third-quarter 2026 results in late April, with revenue significantly exceeding expectations and earnings showing dramatic year-over-year improvement. The company has secured long-term contracts guaranteeing substantial revenue through 2031, providing greater visibility and stability in the traditionally cyclical memory industry.

Strong AI Tailwinds Support Bull Case

Analysts bullish on SanDisk point to structural demand growth for high-capacity NAND used in AI servers, enterprise storage and consumer electronics. Barclays recently doubled its price target to $2,300 from $1,200, citing innovative multi-year contracts that guarantee at least $42 billion in revenue through 2031, backed by $11 billion in safeguards. These deals provide supply certainty for customers and steady revenue streams for SanDisk.

The company’s focus on high-performance SSDs and enterprise solutions has positioned it well as data centers expand to support large language models and generative AI applications. Analysts project continued strong earnings growth, with some forecasting EPS could reach triple digits in coming years if current trends persist.

SanDisk’s rebranding efforts and product innovation, including new Optimus and Optimus GX lines, have helped maintain momentum. The stock’s inclusion in major indices and strong institutional interest have further supported its upward trajectory.

Valuation Concerns Temper Enthusiasm

Despite the impressive performance, some analysts recommend a more measured approach. SanDisk trades at elevated multiples compared to historical memory sector averages, reflecting high expectations for sustained growth. A recent analysis suggested the stock could face downside risk if NAND pricing weakens or if AI capital expenditure slows.

Western Digital’s ongoing sale of its remaining stake in SanDisk, announced earlier in 2026, has added some selling pressure at times but has not derailed the overall bullish sentiment. The parent company’s decision to monetize its position was viewed as a positive step for balance sheet management rather than a lack of confidence in SanDisk’s prospects.

Market Context and Competitive Position

SanDisk operates in a NAND flash market that has tightened considerably due to AI-driven demand. The company competes with Samsung, Micron, SK Hynix and others, but has carved out a strong position in enterprise and high-end consumer segments.

Global semiconductor industry forecasts remain robust, with memory demand expected to grow significantly through the end of the decade. However, the sector’s cyclical nature means periods of oversupply can emerge quickly if new manufacturing capacity comes online faster than expected.

Geopolitical factors, including U.S.-China technology tensions, represent additional variables that could impact supply chains and pricing dynamics. SanDisk has worked to diversify its manufacturing footprint to mitigate these risks.

Analyst Consensus

Wall Street coverage of SanDisk is generally positive but shows a wider range of opinions than more mature technology names. The consensus leans toward Buy, with average price targets implying moderate upside from current levels, though some firms have Hold ratings citing valuation.

Recent upgrades have focused on the company’s contract wins and margin expansion potential. However, a minority view suggests the stock’s rapid appreciation has already priced in much of the near-term optimism.

Investment Considerations for 2026

Investors considering SanDisk stock face a classic growth-versus-valuation decision. The bull case rests on continued AI infrastructure spending and SanDisk’s ability to maintain strong pricing and market share. The bear case centers on potential cyclical downturns in memory pricing and execution risks in a highly competitive industry.

For long-term investors comfortable with volatility, SanDisk offers exposure to a critical component of the AI megatrend. Shorter-term traders may prefer waiting for pullbacks before establishing positions. Diversification across the semiconductor sector is advisable given the inherent cyclicality of memory stocks.

The company’s strong balance sheet and focus on high-value enterprise solutions provide some downside protection compared to pure commodity memory plays. However, investors should monitor quarterly results closely for any signs of softening demand or margin pressure.

As 2026 progresses, key catalysts will include additional contract announcements, production ramp updates and broader AI spending trends. SanDisk’s performance will likely remain closely tied to the overall health of the artificial intelligence investment cycle.

The remarkable turnaround and growth story since its spin-off demonstrate the potential rewards in the memory sector during periods of strong secular demand. Whether SanDisk represents a buy or sell opportunity in 2026 ultimately depends on individual risk tolerance and conviction in the sustainability of current AI-driven tailwinds.