US retailers are adding security and locking up goods after flash-mob heists involving dozens of thieves at once stunned luxury stores in the San Francisco area and southern California, as the holiday shopping season opens.
In the most shocking of recent thefts, about 80 masked people in 25 cars raided a Nordstrom department store in Walnut Creek, California, east of San Francisco at the weekend, plundering its first-floor luxury goods counters in only a few minutes before fleeing.
This took place a day after 40 people swarmed a Louis Vuitton store in San Francisco's tony Union Square shopping district, emptying its shelves in seconds before jumping in cars to speed away. Other nearby shops including Burberry and Bloomingdale's were also hit.
In Santa Rosa, four young men ran into an Apple store on Wednesday morning and fled with $20,000 in goods, police said.
In nearby Palo Alto, 30 to 40 people over the course of 20 hours tried smashing into luxury consignment store The RealReal, but the shop's glass held.
To the south, retailer Nordstrom was the target of two separate mob robberies this week — one at the posh Grove Shopping District in Los Angeles, which involved 20 people and another at the Canoga Park location where a security guard was pepper-sprayed.
Meanwhile, authorities are investigating the smashing on Sunday of storefront windows at the Louis Vuitton store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills as well as at nearby Saks Fifth Avenue, though nothing was taken from either store.
“The level of organised retail theft we are seeing is simply unacceptable,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Tuesday.
“Businesses and customers should feel safe while doing their holiday shopping.”
The thefts come at a key moment on the shopping calendar, with Black Friday sales after Thanksgiving in the US leading into the Christmas season.
Mr Newsom ordered a special task force in the California Highway Patrol to work with local officials to address the theft problem.
He said increased enforcement would start immediately “in and around areas that are highly trafficked and coming into the holiday season [and] Black Friday in shopping malls”.
The thefts are believed to be part of sophisticated criminal networks that recruit mainly young people to steal merchandise in stores throughout the country and then sell it in online marketplaces.
Chicago was also hit by a series of similar thefts when a gang of 14 crooks swept into a Louis Vuitton store in the Oak Brook suburb, snatching more than $100,000 worth of luxury bags and garments — the third such attack on a Chicago-area Louis Vuitton outlet in a month.
Retailers around the country are taking notice and precautions against possible copycat hits as the sheer size of the robbery gangs and their ability to plan secretly have made them nearly impossible to halt.
The National Retail Federation said a recent survey found stores are seeing an increase in organised thefts and perpetrators being more aggressive.
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4/5
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MATCH INFO
Uefa Champioons League semi-final, first leg:
Liverpool 5
Salah (35', 45 1'), Mane (56'), Firmino (61', 68')
Roma 2
Dzeko (81'), Perotti (85' pen)
Second leg: May 2, Stadio Olimpico, Rome
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Results:
6.30pm: Maiden Dh165,000 2,000m - Winner: Powderhouse, Sam Hitchcott (jockey), Doug Watson (trainer)
7.05pm: Handicap Dh165,000 2,200m - Winner: Heraldic, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar
7.40pm: Conditions Dh240,000 1,600m - Winner: Walking Thunder, Connor Beasley, Ahmed bin Harmash
8.15pm: Handicap Dh190,000 2,000m - Winner: Key Bid, Fernando Jara, Ali Rashid Al Raihe
8.50pm: The Garhoud Sprint Listed Dh265,000 1,200m - Winner: Drafted, Sam Hitchcott, Doug Watson
9.25pm: Handicap Dh170,000 1,600m - Winner: Cachao, Tadhg O’Shea, Satish Seemar
10pm: Handicap Dh190,000 1,400m - Winner: Rodaini, Connor Beasley, Ahmed bin Harmash
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Scoreline:
Manchester City 1
Jesus 4'
Brighton 0
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The story in numbers
18
This is how many recognised sects Lebanon is home to, along with about four million citizens
450,000
More than this many Palestinian refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with about 45 per cent of them living in the country’s 12 refugee camps
1.5 million
There are just under 1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UN, although the government puts the figure upwards of 1.5m
73
The percentage of stateless people in Lebanon, who are not of Palestinian origin, born to a Lebanese mother, according to a 2012-2013 study by human rights organisation Frontiers Ruwad Association
18,000
The number of marriages recorded between Lebanese women and foreigners between the years 1995 and 2008, according to a 2009 study backed by the UN Development Programme
77,400
The number of people believed to be affected by the current nationality law, according to the 2009 UN study
4,926
This is how many Lebanese-Palestinian households there were in Lebanon in 2016, according to a census by the Lebanese-Palestinian dialogue committee
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Engine: 6.4-litre V8
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Iraq negotiating over Iran sanctions impact
- US sanctions on Iran’s energy industry and exports took effect on Monday, November 5.
- Washington issued formal waivers to eight buyers of Iranian oil, allowing them to continue limited imports. Iraq did not receive a waiver.
- Iraq’s government is cooperating with the US to contain Iranian influence in the country, and increased Iraqi oil production is helping to make up for Iranian crude that sanctions are blocking from markets, US officials say.
- Iraq, the second-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, pumped last month at a record 4.78 million barrels a day, former Oil Minister Jabbar Al-Luaibi said on Oct. 20. Iraq exported 3.83 million barrels a day last month, according to tanker tracking and data from port agents.
- Iraq has been working to restore production at its northern Kirkuk oil field. Kirkuk could add 200,000 barrels a day of oil to Iraq’s total output, Hook said.
- The country stopped trucking Kirkuk oil to Iran about three weeks ago, in line with U.S. sanctions, according to four people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because they aren’t allowed to speak to media.
- Oil exports from Iran, OPEC’s third-largest supplier, have slumped since President Donald Trump announced in May that he’d reimpose sanctions. Iran shipped about 1.76 million barrels a day in October out of 3.42 million in total production, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
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Yuki Means Happiness
Alison Jean Lester
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if you go
The flights
Air France offer flights from Dubai and Abu Dhabi to Cayenne, connecting in Paris from Dh7,300.
The tour
Cox & Kings (coxandkings.com) has a 14-night Hidden Guianas tour of Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. It includes accommodation, domestic flights, transfers, a local tour manager and guided sightseeing. Contact for price.
Brief scores:
Day 1
Toss: South Africa, field first
Pakistan (1st innings) 177: Sarfraz 56, Masood 44; Olivier 4-48
South Africa (1st innings) 123-2: Markram 78; Masood 1-4
Gender equality in the workplace still 200 years away
It will take centuries to achieve gender parity in workplaces around the globe, according to a December report from the World Economic Forum.
The WEF study said there had been some improvements in wage equality in 2018 compared to 2017, when the global gender gap widened for the first time in a decade.
But it warned that these were offset by declining representation of women in politics, coupled with greater inequality in their access to health and education.
At current rates, the global gender gap across a range of areas will not close for another 108 years, while it is expected to take 202 years to close the workplace gap, WEF found.
The Geneva-based organisation's annual report tracked disparities between the sexes in 149 countries across four areas: education, health, economic opportunity and political empowerment.
After years of advances in education, health and political representation, women registered setbacks in all three areas this year, WEF said.
Only in the area of economic opportunity did the gender gap narrow somewhat, although there is not much to celebrate, with the global wage gap narrowing to nearly 51 per cent.
And the number of women in leadership roles has risen to 34 per cent globally, WEF said.
At the same time, the report showed there are now proportionately fewer women than men participating in the workforce, suggesting that automation is having a disproportionate impact on jobs traditionally performed by women.
And women are significantly under-represented in growing areas of employment that require science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills, WEF said.
* Agence France Presse
