By Walt Hickey

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Shazam! Apathy of the Crowds

The new sequel to the 2019 D.C. comics film Shazam! bombed at the box office, with Shazam! Fury of the Gods bringing in just $30.5 million domestically amid expectations it might bring in $35 million to $40 million. It brought in another $35 million overseas across 77 markets. That’s a particularly rough opening given that the film cost over $110 million to make and another $100 million to market. It’s been a disappointing run for superheroes at the box office, following an underperforming Ant-Man: Quantumania and a disastrous Black Adam last fall, though the genre is poised to get a boost from Guardians of the Galaxy and animated Spider-Man movies this year.

Rebecca Rubin, Variety

Black Lotus

A Black Lotus Magic: The Gathering card sold for $540,000 at auction, a new record, but all is not necessarily well in the collectible card universe. Two years ago the previous record-selling card sold for $510,000. That’s clearly an increase in value, but when adjusting for inflation it’s not entirely clear that it’s actually an increase at all, and it’s definitely a disappointment compared to the threefold increase in value for Black Lotus cards seen from 2019 to 2021.

Oli Welsh, Polygon

Strawberry

Strawberries are a $3 billion business in California, but torrential rains are jeopardizing the harvest in much of the state. Berries were supposed to start being harvested in two to three weeks, but many strawberry fields in California are now underwater. There are 40,000 acres of strawberries planted in the state, and it accounts for about 90 percent of U.S. production. The damage is likely to wipe out some acreage — it costs $30,000 to grow an acre of strawberries — and will likely cause further increases in the price for consumers later this year. A 12-ounce package of strawberries goes for $3.17, already rather high following an 8.7 percent price jump last year and a 41 percent increase in 2021.

Kim Chipman, Bloomberg

Animal Cafes

A charming staple of Japan is their iconic animal cafes, where customers can enjoy food or a beverage alongside cute, exotic, or otherwise compelling animals. There’s a dark side, though: A new study published in Conservation Science and Practice that surveyed 142 of Japan’s exotic animal cafes found 3,793 individual animals from 419 different species in the cafes. Of those species, 52 are threatened with extinction, and nine of them are banned from international trade, including slow lorises and radiated tortoises. Of all the species, 62 percent were birds with owls alone making up 40 percent of them.

Rachel Nuwer, The New York Times

Cash

Germany carried out a crackdown on what law enforcement said was a number of gangs that were blowing up cash machines. Germany — which still loves cash even as the rest of the world has transitioned to electronic payments and charge cards — has seen a rash of attacks against ATMs, with 496 cases in 2022 where thieves blew up ATMs and stole off with whatever cash they could grab, a 27 percent increase year over year. It’s getting annoying for regular customers who access ATMs by a means other than dynamite, as banks have begun to close cash machines in their foyers overnight. Police detained 42 people and searched 5,300 vehicles and 8,000 people.

The Associated Press

Wine

Silicon Valley Bank was a major bankroller of the California wine industry, and while attempts to auction off the bank have so far been unsuccessful, the winery portfolio is reportedly very attractive to potential buyers, with seven parties reportedly interested in buying the wine division, three of which are banks. As of the end of last year, SVB had $1.158 billion in active loans to wineries, and the estimated value of the loan portfolio and related business was $1.4 billion. The rolodex of 400 wineries that were clients of SVB is also an attractive asset, and the must-read annual State of the Wine Industry Report produced by the bank would potentially find a way to continue or find a new sponsor.

Travis Gillmore, VinePair

Air Traffic Control

Following a spate of incidents on U.S. runways where there were close calls between arriving, departing, and taxiing jets, there’s renewed congressional scrutiny over air traffic and those tasked with controlling it, and increasing budgets to bolster their number. The Department of Transportation is seeking $117 million to hire another 1,800 air traffic controllers next year, on top of the 1,500 being hired this year. There are today 1,200 fewer certified air traffic controllers today than there were a decade ago.

David Shepardson, Reuters

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