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Exactly 20 years ago, America met Michael Scott and a certain Dwight Schrute. When The Office launched in 2005, it quickly became a cultural touchstone, and its main titlecomplete with that dreadfully catchy tunewas so popular it was soon parodied by The Simpsons. Now, the pseudo-film crew that introduced us to our favorite Dunder Mifflin characters is back for another mockumentary. But instead of the dying paper supply industry, they have set their sights on a struggling daily newspaper in Toledo, Ohio. The Paper, which premiered on Peacock yesterday and has already been renewed for Season 2, follows the ambitious publisher Ned Sampsons as he tries to revive the fictional Toledo Truth Teller along with a team of largely incompetent reporters who have never written a real article in their lives. (Not unless you count You wont believe how much Ben Affleck tipped his limo driver, which Truth Teller reporter like Esmeralda Grand is most proud of.) So will Ned succeed in reviving the Truth Teller? The shows main title might have some clues. [Photo: Aaron Epstein/Peacock] Misusing newspapers Showrunners Greg Daniels and Michael Koman created The Papers main title in collaboration with co-executive producer and editor David Rogers. In just 30 seconds, it shows a flurry of people usingor as Rogers put it to me in an email, misusingnewspapers. The shows shooting schedule was tight, so instead of including actual show footage, like in The Office main title, the team scoured stock libraries for shots of people using newspapers in unique and entertaining ways. A worker is plastering newspapers on a window, a group of men play cards on a table lined with newspapers, a puppy Fox Terrier gets potty-trained on a newspaper. We also see a man wearing a hat made of a newspaper, and hands wrapping bread in it, too. Greg and Michael had a concept of showing people using newspapers in various ways, except of course, for actually reading them, Rogers says. The underlying message, then, seems to be that newspapersonce beacons of informationhave become so superfluous that their only value now lies in prosaic household uses. Like with The Office, which includes footage of Scranton, Pennsylvania, The Papers main title also gives us glimpse of Toledo, including its famous Love Wall mural. We wanted to highlight this new city that the show resides in, and it gave the sequence energy and a nice contrast with some of the vintage still frames, says Rogers, who also edited the original title sequence for The Office. [Photo: Aaron Epstein/Peacock] Bad omen or red herring? The Paper is a spinoff of The Office, so naturally, the team wanted to echo The Offices main title without duplicating it. This extended to the theme song, for which the team hired Canadian musician and composer Nick Thorburn (most famously known for composing the soundtrack for the hit podcast Serial). Chances are, when you think of The Office, you are already humming its catchy tune. Here, too, Thornburn has composed a song that’s already etched itself into my brain. But its definitely its own song, Rogers notes. Still, discerning listeners who stay on until the very end will notice that the last few piano notes are the exact same as those in The Office theme song. Another reason not to hit that skip button? The very last image of the title sequence portrays one of the reporters scraping a poop-soiled newspaper from the bottom of a bird cage and into a recycling bin that reads Paper. Then, just like with The Office, where the team found a real sign that said Office and popped a preposition before it, the paper recycling bin gets its own preposition in front of it, leading to the shows title. Is the recycling bin scene a harbinger for what will happen to the Toledo Truth Teller? Or is it just the beginning of an upward journey? Seems like this title sequence just might be burying the lede.
Category:
E-Commerce
U.S. employers added just 22,000 jobs last month as the labor market continued to cool under uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s economic policies.The Labor Department said Friday that hiring decelerated from 79,000 in July and came in below the roughly 80,000 economists had expected for August. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3%, also worse than expected and the highest level since 2021, the Labor Department reported Friday.When the department put out a disappointing jobs report a month ago, an enraged President Donald Trump responded by firing the economist in charge of compiling the numbers and nominating a loyalist to replace her.Talking to reporters Thursday night at a dinner with wealthy tech executives, Trump had seemed to shrug off whatever hiring numbers would come out Friday. “The real numbers that I’m talking about are going to be whatever it is, but will be in a year from now,” the president said.Factories shed 12,000 jobs in August, the fourth straight month that manufacturers have cut payrolls. Construction companies cut 7,000 jobs, and the federal government 15,000.Labor Department revisions cut 21,000 jobs off June and July payrolls and revealed that employers had actually cut 13,000 jobs in June, the first monthly job losses since December 2020.The U.S. job market has lost momentum this year, partly because of the lingering effects of 11 interest rate hikes by the Fed’s inflation fighters ve in 2022 and 2023 and partly because Trump’s policies, including his trade wars, have created uncertainty that leaves managers reluctant to make hiring decisions.“The warning bell that rang in the labor market a month ago just got louder,’ Olu Sonola, head of U.S economic research at Fitch Rates, wrote in a commentary. “It’s hard to argue that tariff uncertainty isn’t a key driver of this weakness.”Workers’ average hourly earnings rose 0.3% from July and 3.7% from August 2024, exactly what forecasters expected. The year-over-year figure is nearing the 3.5% that many economists see as consistent with the Federal Reserve’s 2% inflation target.The weak numbers make it all but certain that Federal Reserve will cut its benchmark interest rate at its next meeting, Sept. 16-17. Under chair Jerome Powell, the Fed has been reluctant to cut rates until it sees what impact Trump’s import taxes have on inflation.Trump has repeatedly pressured Powell to lower rates, and has sought to fire one Fed governor, Lisa Cook, over allegations of mortgage fraud in what Cook claims is a pretext to gain control over the central bank.The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits a proxy for layoffs rose last week to the highest level since June, though the number of claims remained within a healthy range.The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Wednesday that U.S.-based employers have announced more than 892,000 jobs cuts this year through August, more than the 761,000 reported for all 12 months of 2024.After seeing the weak July jobs numbers, Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, baselessly claiming the hiring report had been rigged to hurt him politically.He has nominated a partisan idealogue, E.J. Antoni, to replace her. But for now, pending Antoni’s confirmation by the Senate, the jobs report is in the hands of the acting BLS commissioner, William Wiatrowski, a career Labor Department official.Economists and others familiar with how the jobs numbers are collected have expressed confidence that Labor Department procedures will keep the data are safe from political interference.The revisions are standard practice, and necessary because many companies surveyed by the government submit their responses late or correct what they’ve already sent in.Government economists are also contending with a big drop in the share of companies that respond to the surveys. A decade ago, about 60% of companies surveyed responded. Now only about 40% do.And it’s an international problem for data collectors, especially since COVID-19. The United Kingdom even suspended publication of an official unemployment rate because of inadequate responses.“I remember being at an international conference where the chief statistician of the Russian Republic was complaining about how the Russians don’t want to complete their surveys,” William Beach, BLS commissioner from 2019 to 2023, said in an interview last month. “What could he do? If you can’t compel completion in Russia, you can’t compel it anywhere.” Paul Wiseman, AP Economics Writer
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E-Commerce
Broadcom is ending the week on a high note. On Thursday, September 4, the semiconductor and infrastructure software company announced its third-quarter financial results, including $15.95 billion in revenue. This figure was a 22% jump year-over-year (YOY) and beat Wall Streets predicted $15.83 billion, according to consensus estimates cited by CNBC. Broadcom anticipates this streak to continue, announcing an expected $17.4 billion in revenue for quarter-four, up from Wall Streets prediction of $17.02 billion. Broadcom also beat estimates for earnings per share, coming in at $1.69 adjusted, rather than $1.65 expected. ‘Demand for custom AI accelerators’ Unsurprisingly, the artificial intelligence boom factored heavily into Broadcom’s results. Revenue growth was driven by better-than-expected strength in AI semiconductors and our continued growth in VMware, Broadcoms president and CEO, Hock Tan, said in an earnings call. Demand for custom AI accelerators from our three customers continued to grow. However, Broadcom also announced that its bringing a fourth very significant customer into the mix. The mystery customer has ordered $10 billion worth of custom AI chips or XPUs. These should ship early next year, with Broadcom expecting a significant improvement to its fiscal 2026 AI revenue from its previous estimations. These positive announcements culminated in Broadcoms stock price (Nasdaq:AVGO) rising more than 15% after-hours and into premarket trading on Friday. Its a big turnaround from earlier this week when Broadcoms shares fell 2.1% alongside a 2.3% dip by fellow chipmaker, Nvidia. Last month, Apple also named Broadcom as one the suppliers its working with to accelerate American manufacturing.
Category:
E-Commerce
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