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Image credit: apnews.com The size of the tobacco crop increased despite increased fertilizer prices caused by the war in Ukraine. Zimbabwe expects to harvest 230 million kilograms (254,000 tons) of the golden leaf this season, up from 212 million kilograms (234,000 tons) last year, officials said at the official opening. The southern African country now wants to make its tobacco industry more lucrative by manufacturing more cigarettes at home and limiting foreign funding of farmers. Currently, China funds the bulk of production and buys the lion’s share of Zimbabwe’s tobacco. The war in Ukraine affected Zimbabwe’s tobacco farmers “quite badly because it happened at the time when we were planting our crop, so we did pay more for fertilizer than we should have,” said Patrick Devenish, chairman of the regulatory body, the Tobacco Industry Marketing Board. He attributed the spike in production to more growers taking up the crop, from about 123,000 farmers last season to about 150,000 this ...

   Nissan is recalling at least 712,458 vehicles in its Rogue line over an issue with malfunctioning car keys that can inadvertently cause engines to shut off. The recall affects “S” grade trim-level Nissan Rogue Sport and Nissan Rogue vehicles equipped with jackknife keys, including the 2017-22 Nissan Rogue Sport and the 2014-20 Nissan Rogue. As a result of the defective keys, drivers could inadvertently make contact with them and turn the vehicles off while driving, increasing the risk of crashes, Nissan said. Nissan said that while it prepares a remedy, registered owners will be notified to avoid attaching accessories to key fobs and to use the key in the "nonfolding" orientation. Dealers and rental fleets will also be instructed to insert fasteners into the key slots that will prevent the keys from folding.   According to Autoweek, the Rogue was the eighth-best-selling used vehicle of 2022. It is also a top seller for Nissan overall.

  Lanny Smith wants someone to challenge sportswear giants like Nike, Adidas and Reebok — so much that he’s trying to do it himself. Smith, 38, is the founder and CEO of Actively Black, the sportswear company he launched in 2020 in the wake of George Floyd’s death. At the time, plenty of big companies were issuing statements condemning racism while pledging to promote diversity and invest in Black communities. The promises rang somewhat hollow for Smith, a former University of Houston basketball star who saw the $170 billion industry as reliant on the Black community’s culture, influence and consumer dollars. Rather than lobbying for change within multibillion-dollar giants, Smith wanted to try beating them at their own game. “A lot of these sports apparel brands have profited off of Black talent,” Smith tells CNBC Make It, referring to numerous endorsement deals with superstar Black athletes. ”[The companies] have profited off of the consumerism from the Black ...

   Hyundai Motor Group is providing donations totaling USD 2 million to be used for the relief efforts in Türkiye and Syria. Under Hyundai Motor Group, Hyundai Motor Company, Kia, and Hyundai Mobis are all contributing to the donations, which will be made through the Korean Red Cross and used for local relief activities and damage recovery. In addition to the donation, Hyundai Motor’s local subsidiary, Hyundai Assan Otomotiv Sanayi Ve Ticaret A.S., the Group’s automaking affiliate in Türkiye, had earlier extended emergency support, providing EUR 500,000-worth of casualty relief equipment, including cutters and grinders, and daily necessities such as food, sanitary goods and cold weather supplies.

  Meta, the parent company of   Facebook   and   Instagram , is launching a paid verification service that will give their users a blue checkmark. “This week we’re starting to roll out Meta Verified — a subscription service that lets you verify your account with a government ID, get a blue badge, get extra impersonation protection against accounts claiming to be you, and get direct access to customer support,” Mark Zuckerberg broadcasted on Instagram. The bundled service for Instagram and Facebook starts at $11.99 a month and $14.99 as an in-app purchase on iOS, which takes into account the 30% that Apple takes for its service. Meta Verified is rolling out in Australia and New Zealand first with “more countries soon.” Meta Verified is propped up to be catering to social media creators giving them “more protection from impersonation with proactive account monitoring for impersonators who might target people with growing online audiences.” Another advantage of the serv...

The donation of 11.6 million shares was described in   a filing with US regulators   as "a bona fide gift". The filing did not name the recipient, or recipients, of the donation. Also on Wednesday, Mr Musk said that towards the end of this year would be a "good time" to find someone to succeed him as the chief executive of Twitter. The document lodged with the US Securities and Exchange Commission showed the donation was made between August and December last year. Tesla did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment. It is not the first time Mr Musk, who has an estimated net worth of $197.5bn, has given Tesla stock to charity. He donated around $5.74bn worth of shares in 2021, according to a regulatory filing. He also said on Twitter that year, that he planned to donate $20m to schools in Cameron County and $10m to the city of Brownsville in Texas for "downtown revitalization". Mr Musk has also hinted that he plans to find his successor as chief ...

The firm's new boss said it could lose hundreds of millions of dollars this year if it decides not to sell its stock of Yeezy sneakers. The sportswear giant cut ties with West, known as Ye, after he posted anti-Semitic comments on social media. The announcement marks the company's fourth profit warning since July. "The numbers speak for themselves. We are currently not performing the way we should," the company's chief executive Bjørn Gulden, said in a statement Adidas said it was still deciding whether to scrap its remaining Yeezy stock and would take a €500m ($536m; £443m) hit to its profits if it is all written off. On top of that the company expects a shake-up of the business to cost another €200m. That could mean it is pushed to an operating loss this year totalling €700m, the company warned. Adidas is expected to return to profit in 2024, it added. At the same time the company revealed that its operating profit for last year had fallen to €669m, two thirds l...

Google's launch event came a day after Microsoft unveiled plans to integrate AI chatbot ChatGPT into its Bing search engine and other products. Google published an online advertisement in which its much-anticipated AI chatbot Bard delivered an inaccurate answer.  The tech giant posted a short GIF video of   Bard   in action via   Twitter , describing the chatbot as a "launchpad for curiosity" that would help simplify complex topics. In the advertisement, Bard is given the prompt: "What new discoveries from the  James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can I tell my 9-year old about?  Bard responds with a number of answers, including one suggesting the JWST was used to take the very first pictures of a  planet   outside the   Earth 's solar system, or exoplanets. This is inaccurate. The first pictures of exoplanets were taken by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in 2004, as confirmed by  NASA . The error was spotted ...

  Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has had the opportunity to meet and work alongside major tech giants, including late Apple co-founder,   Steve Jobs . In an interview with   Bloomberg , Gates was asked whether his contemporary Elon Musk could be considered the "next Steve Jobs," due to the advancements his companies Tesla and SpaceX have made in electric cars and reusable rockets, respectively.  "If you know people personally, that kind of gross oversimplification seems strange," Gates told Bloomberg in the interview published Thursday. There are some key differences between the way Musk and Jobs operate, Gates said. "Elon's more of a hands-on engineer. Steve was a genius at design and picking people and marketing," Gates said. "You wouldn't walk into a room and confuse them with each other." Indeed, Musk often talks about his  demanding schedule  and his hands on approach. For example, on a  Tesla earnings call  in November 2017, Musk s...

There are so many marketing ideas for small businesses these days with many varying costs and associated expenses. The cost of traditional advertising whether a Facebook ad or direct-mail campaign could put you in the red. But not all marketing tactics break the bank. So if your marketing budget is slim or nonexistent, be sure to check out the below list of free marketing ideas as well as some inexpensive marketing ideas for small business that can help you spread the good word about your business.   31 Inexpensive Small Business Marketing Ideas These free, or nearly free, marketing ideas can help you get your business’s marketing strategy off the ground. 1. Develop a customer referral program. It’s often overlooked, but word of mouth marketing for small business is a super-powerful way to market your business. There’s a reason why word of mouth is number one on our list of small business marketing ideas. It is believe that a recommendations from friends and family is an ove...