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USA TODAY — L awrence J ournal -W orld
IN MONEY
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Some tax refunds will be delayed
‘La La Land,’ ‘Star’ put energy back in musicals
12.06.16 DANIEL ACKER, BLOOMBERG
ROSEMARIE DEWITT AND RYAN GOSLING IN “LA LA LAND” BY DALE ROBINETTE, AP
Check it out: Amazon’s no-line grocery Pilot store in Seattle lets customers grab items and just go Elizabeth Weise @eweise USA TODAY
Amazon is testing a grocery store in Seattle that lets customers walk in, grab food from the shelves and walk out without going through a checkout line. Instead, customers tap their
cellphones on a turnstile as they walk into the store. That logs them into the store’s network and connects to their Amazon Prime account through an app. The service, Amazon Go, uses machine learning, sensors and artificial intelligence to track items customers pick up. They are then added to the virtual cart on their app. If customers pick up an item but put it back on the shelf, it is removed from their cart. When customers leave, the app adds up everything they took and charges their Amazon account.
Amazon calls it “Just walk out technology.” The Seattle-based company, which began working on the project in 2012, is testing the system with Amazon employees. It will open to the public in early 2017, the company said. The technology “is amazing,” said Phil Lempert, a food marketing expert based in Los Angeles. He’s even more intrigued by the multiple images of “meal kits” shown in Amazon’s video. These “everything you need to cook a quick, high-quality dinner” kits
AMAZON
Amazon announced its checkout-free Amazon Go “just walk out” store Monday.
have become popular, but the economics of delivering them has meant they’re difficult to make viable. Stores such as Amazon Go may provide a sweet spot for them. “When you look at the store itself in the video, they have done a great job of merchandising, and having ‘meal kits’ available is simply brilliant,” Lempert said. “As the ‘meal kit’ industry struggles due to the shipping/logistics aspect,” Amazon Go could be a venue where it could succeed, Lempert said.
A rock to some, a millstone to others Pedestrians pass the final resting place of Cuba’s former president Fidel Castro at the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba on Monday, the day after his funeral. Sunday's interment of Castro’s ashes completed an emotional, conflicted nine-day period in which Cubans lamented the loss of their revolutionary icon, and Cuban Americans 90 miles away in Florida celebrated the long-awaited death of the dictator who forced them into exile. JACK GRUBER, USA TODAY
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USA SNAPSHOTS©
Japan’s wealthy club booms
Ryan: Phasing out Obamacare will take a while Republican leader expects long process to make sure ‘no one is worse off’ in changes Craig Gilbert
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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738,000 Number of new millionaires added in Japan from 2015 to 2016 NOTE New total is 2.8 millionaires. SOURCE Credit Suisse MICHAEL B. SMITH AND VERONICA BRAVO, USA TODAY
predicted that a GOP strategy of quickly voting to repeal the program but delaying its effective end date would create chaos and disruption for the people in it. Ryan rejected that idea, saying, “Obamacare is failing and failing quickly,” and “there is nowhere to go but up with respect to Obamacare.” Ryan addressed other issues:
WASHINGTON House Speaker Paul Ryan said Monday he envisions an extended transition from Obamacare that ensures “no one is worse off” after Congress votes to repeal the program. The speaker declined to say how long it would take Republicans to design a replacement so the millions of people covered by the Affordable Care Act could be transitioned off it. “It will clearly take time. It took them about six years to
stand up Obamacare. It’s not going to be replaced come next football season,” he said in an interview with the Journal Sentinel. Ryan said there will be an early repeal vote next year, but after that, “clearly there will be a transition and a bridge so that no one is left out in the cold, so that no one is worse off. The purpose here is to bring relief to people who are suffering from Obamacare so that they can get something better.” Some Republicans have suggested it would take years to replace the health care law. Critics and some analysts have
MEDICARE
ALEX WONG, GETTY IMAGES
“It took them about six years to stand up Obamacare. It’s not going to be replaced come next football season.” House Speaker Paul Ryan
No decisions have been made on Republican plans for a Medicare overhaul, he said. “We haven’t addressed that. That’s an unresolved issue. I haven’t even spoke with the president-elect about that,” Ryan said. Ryan has long advocated huge changes to Medicare for people 55 and under, converting the entitlement program into a system where beneficiaries use government subsidies to help them buy private health insurance. “We have a future of insolvency with Medicare that needs to be addressed. How and when we adv STORY CONTINUES ON 2B
Tony Blair sees dangerous times ahead for democracies
Former British prime minister Tony Blair warned that political upheaval from Great Britain’s Brexit vote in June to the collapse of the Italian government Sunday signals the most dangerous time for Western democracies in decades. “It does feel perilous, actually, because I think there are decisions that are being taken of vast WASHINGTON
moment in circumty founded by former Nazis lost — but after stances where systems are fragile,” he told Capicommanding 46% of the vote. tal Download on Monday. “And that is troubling.” Blair, who was in Washington to address a It has been a year of unexpected victories by conference sponsored by the bipartisan group populist and nationalistic forces challenging the esNo Labels, announced USA TODAY last week the launch of tablishment: passage of the referendum pulling Tony Blair an organization that will Britain from the Eurotry to help build a more pean Union, the election of Don- muscular policy agenda for cenald Trump as president in the trists and encourage networking USA, defeat of a measure in Italy among them across Europe, in that prompted the prime minis- the USA and elsewhere. Given the ter to announce his resignation. rise of extreme voices on the left In an Austrian election Sunday, and right, he said, “I’m not sure the candidate representing a par- we’re asking the right questions
right now, never mind giving the right answers.” Of particular concern to him is a “longing” for an authoritarian leader. “It’s amazing how many people you will find who will reference a style of leadership of (Russian) President Putin in a positive way,” he said. “I think people want their country moving, and they think that if the present system is not moving it and not making the changes that they want to see, then maybe someone who just says, ‘I don’t care what anyone thinks; I’m just going to go for it, and this is what I’m going to do’ — that has a certain attraction.
“If the center isn’t a place of strength and vitality, and it looks kind of flabby and just managing the status quo, then you’re at risk of someone ... doing that.” In his speech to the No Labels conference, he faulted some centrist political leaders for failing to improve the economic prospects for workers disrupted by globalization and to ensure a sense of personal safety. “People will only put aside prejudices if they think there are rules,” he said. NOW SHOWING AT USATODAY.COM
Watch the complete interview with Tony Blair.