Doom for holiday sales

Amazon.com sellers are bracing for a bleak holiday shopping season as consumers slow their spending. Many merchants—who sell more than half of the goods on Amazon’s web store—fear they’ll be forced to cut prices to move a mountain of unsold inventory. It’s an abrupt change from the previous two years of the pandemic, when sellers scrambled to get enough products into Amazon warehouses to meet Covid-fueled demand even as chronic shortages let them boost prices. —David E. Rovella

Bloomberg is tracking the coronavirus pandemic and the progress of global vaccination efforts.

After a relatively calm start to the wildfire season, California is bracing for things to get much, much worse. A blistering heat wave and deepening drought have left the state tinder dry weeks before the arrival of seasonal hot winds that can whip a spark into towering flames. These factors are converging to set up a return of the massive blazes, choking smoke and fire-related deaths that have tormented the region in recent years. “I am kind of holding my breath,” said Daniel Swain, a climatologist with the University of California, Los Angeles. “If we do get those ignitions and the wind events, all bets are off.” And while there’s a tropical storm coming north, it may both help and hurt the situation.

Soft landing? Perhaps not. Investors are rushing out of US equities as the likelihood of a downturn increases amid a myriad of risks, Bank of America strategists warn. The nation’s stock funds had outflows of $10.9 billion in the week to Sept. 7, according to data cited by the bank. Still, Friday was a good day, as stocks were jumping. Here’s your markets wrap.

Google pays billions of dollars each year to Apple, Samsung and other telecom giants to illegally maintain its spot as the No. 1 search engine, the US Justice Department told a federal judge this week.

A Ukrainian counteroffensive appears to be progressing in the north, but less so in the southern Kherson region that has attracted greater attention and Russian reinforcements. Ukrainian officials and Russian military bloggers alike described a counteroffensive in the north that has surprised in its speed. Meanwhile, the US Army plans to use $867 million in Ukraine emergency funding for a new contract and accelerated production of an improved armored personnel carrier to replenish its own inventory.

Josh Harris, co-founder of Apollo Global Management, is building out his firm to focus on private equity, credit and insurance. In a statement, 26North Partners said it will launch with more than $5 billion in assets.

What’s keeping women from management roles? It turns out that a meta-analysis of six decades of studies shows that women aspire to leadership roles less often than men do. The findings suggest that corporations’ standard approaches to promote women and remove structural barriers may never result in full parity.

King Charles III pledged “lifelong service” to his subjects in his first televised address to the UK as monarch, in which he paid tribute to his late mother Queen Elizabeth II. Here’s the story of her final portrait.

The buzziest drinks these days in the United Arab Emirates won’t give you a hangover. Menus at luxury hotel bars and Michelin-starred restaurants are increasingly featuring visually dazzling, nonalcoholic cocktails made with sophisticated gastronomic techniques and attention to detail—and prices to match.

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