By Jordan Valinsky, CNN

New York (CNN) — At 261 years old, Cognac brand Hennessy is starting to show its age.

After a pandemic-era surge in demand, the amber-colored spirit is navigating a sobering reality. Consumers, particularly younger ones, are moderating their drinking or shifting toward premium tequila. As a result, exports from France’s Cognac region have plummeted. At the same time, tariffs from the United States and China are also taking a sizable bite out of profits for parent company LVMH.

That has put immense pressure on one of the most recognizable liquor brands to evolve.

“It’s a strange thing to have a brand that is not consumed, but culturally very relevant,” said Hennessy CEO Charles Delapalme.

Hennessy is a mainstay in hip hop, with its name used in the lyrics of more than 4,000 tracks and has a strong footprint in sports. In 2020, it became the NBA’s first spirits sponsor and went viral last year with its ad with longtime partner LeBron James. It was also recently named the official Cognac of Formula 1 through a broader sponsorship deal with its parent company.

But these campaigns have not shed the image that Cognac has been “pigeonholed as a ‘dusty’ spirit — something your dad sips once a year while staring into a fireplace,” said Tom Khan-Lavin, CEO of YesMore, a drink marketing agency.

He added that it has “lacked the consistent, fresh reinvigoration needed to stay relevant.”

Hennessy’s US depletions, a key measure of sales from distributors to retailers, slid 9% to 2.92 million cases last year, according to Impact Databank. That’s a sharp decrease from its peak of 5.13 million in 2020, when customers spent heavily on spirits during the Covid-19 lockdown.

“The category hasn’t effectively communicated why a younger audience should care about it, let alone buy it,” Khan-Lavin told CNN. “While rappers have done a heavy lift in keeping a few specific brands in the cultural conversation, that success hasn’t trickled down to the rest of the category.”

Repairing the shine of the top-selling Cognac brand is the biggest challenge facing Delapalme, who was named Hennessy’s CEO a year ago.

“We have a great history and heritage,” Delapalme told CNN. “But we cannot only refer to this heritage and assume it’s going to shape the next 260 years.”

Making a ‘big move’

To help future-proof Hennessy, Delapalme’s first major initiative is entering ready-to-serve cocktails category — one of the few bright spots in the ailing alcohol industry.

Although overall alcohol consumption in the United States fell 5% last year, sales of spirits-based bottled cocktails rose 14%, according to trade group IWSR.

For Hennessy, it’s a “big move,” because it’s the first time in the brand’s nearly three-century history that it has sold a product containing ingredients besides Cognac itself, Delapalme said, adding that it “ticks many boxes” to appeal to a younger customer.

First

We begin Monday with some portions of marine layer. Slow clearing and a mostly sunny afternoon is ahead. Onshore flow will cool us down from the weekend but we remain slightly warmer than average. Maximum temperatures hold into the 70s and 80s for many areas. Winds pick up by the evening.

Mostly cloudy skies arrive for all areas Tuesday. Dense marine clouds cool temperatures further and will be slow to clear for many beaches. Highs rise into the 70s for most, many areas close to average. Slow clearing clouds and breezy winds arrive by the evening. Marine waters are calm and it'll be a pleasant beach afternoon for ma ny.

Rinse and repeat weather Wednesday other than slightly changing clouds. A bigger weather pattern shift arrives Thursday into the weekend. A cooling trend appears and temperatures fall back to 60s for most. Overcast skies are in the forecast as well.

The post Warm start to June, cool by the weekend appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN

(CNN) — On paper, the job market looks pretty darn good.

The 4.3% unemployment rate is below both the 10-year average of 4.6% and the 50-year average of 6.1%. For the second month in a row, the official government tally of jobs added blew past economists’ expectations. And the most recent Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed hiring surged in March.

So why are so many people struggling to get hired lately?

Many of the challenges job seekers face today stem from a yearslong decline in job openings, which has intensified competition for available roles. In response, more people pursued advanced degrees hoping to gain an edge in the market, but for many, that hasn’t materialized. At the same time, major workforce cuts in sectors like the federal government have added even more candidates to an already crowded field.

“When we look at that payroll number … that is just not reflecting what most people’s experience in the labor market today is,” said Kory Kantenga, head of economics at LinkedIn, referring to the April jobs report, which indicated employers added 115,000 new jobs that month.

Here’s what’s going on.

New opportunities aren’t universal

In April, half of the new jobs created came from healthcare, while the other half came from retail, and transportation and warehousing.

However, “most people are not looking for jobs as couriers and messengers,” Kantenga told CNN. And even if that were the case, he said it’s unreasonable to expect the pace of job creation on the retail and transportation and warehousing side to be long-lasting, since many roles in those fields are more vulnerable to automation.

The healthcare sector has remained robust since demand for workers keeps rising as the population ages — and also because many services can’t easily be automated.

In other sectors, however, competition has widened while the pool of new postings has not.

DOGE layoff effect still being felt

Sophie Duryee, a political economy major who graduated from UC Berkeley last year, dreamed of working in the public sector, ideally in a regulatory compliance role.

But that’s been an uphill battle. Since reaching peak levels in 2024, federal employment is down by nearly 350,000 as of April, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The decline stems from Department of Government Efficiency cuts, and it’s made state and local government jobs harder to land because of increased competition from laid-off federal workers.

“Rather than relying on government spending to pad employment data as Joe Biden had done, the Administration is delivering with a proven economic agenda to boost private-sector job growth,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement to CNN.

Duryee also had little success applying for private-sector roles last year, as laid-off federal workers were likely flooding the same job pool.

“Within the span of a year, essentially something that I had been working my entire life around was kind of like pulled out from under me,” she told CNN.

AI is intensifying the competition

AI is reshaping the job market, from reducing the number of open roles in some industries to changing how candidates search and apply for positions.

AI can now enable job seekers to quickly fire off potentially hundreds of tailored job applications. Some AI tools can even handle the application process from start to finish — and potentially overwhelm hiring systems.

Mid-t

Por Brian Stelter, CNN

Las dos películas más grandes en Estados Unidos en este momento, “Backrooms” y “Obsession”, provienen de cineastas veinteañeros que perfeccionaron su oficio en YouTube.

Sus películas se realizaron con presupuestos relativamente bajos y se promocionaron en línea. Ahora que están llenando las salas de cine con adolescentes y jóvenes adultos que rara vez van al cine, todo Hollywood está prestando atención, y los expertos predicen que los estudios copiarán este modelo de producción cinematográfica muchas veces.

“Obsession”, dirigida por Curry Barker, de 26 años, se estrenó en cines el 15 de mayo. Filmada con aproximadamente US$ 750.000, la película de terror con humor negro ha recaudado casi US$ 150 millones hasta la fecha, un retorno de inversión asombroso para Focus Features y Blumhouse Productions.

Luego llegó “Backrooms”, dirigida por Kane Parsons, de 20 años, quien desarrolló el proyecto durante años en su canal de YouTube.

Parsons tuvo un presupuesto mayor —alrededor de US$ 10 millones— y actores famosos como Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve y Mark Duplass. Pero aun así fue sorprendente ver a “Backrooms” dominar la taquilla de manera tan contundente en su fin de semana de estreno.

La película de horror psicológico ocupó el primer lugar en la taquilla del fin de semana, recaudando alrededor de US$ 80 millones en América del Norte y US$ 120 millones en todo el mundo, con ventas de boletos impulsadas por la Generación Z.

El estudio A24, que ha estado esforzándose por impulsar a jóvenes directores, dijo que Parsons ahora ocupa el puesto de director más joven en la historia de Hollywood en lanzar una película que terminó en el primer lugar de la taquilla del fin de semana.

“Obsesión” fue la número 2 del fin de semana, empujando a “Star Wars: The Mandalorian y Grogu”, que se estrenó una semana antes, al número 3.

Para la mayoría de las películas, el fin de semana de estreno es el más lucrativo, con las ventas de boletos disminuyendo a partir de ahí. Pero “Obsesión” sigue creciendo: Focus Features dijo el domingo que, “excluyendo la Navidad, ‘Obsesión’ es la primera película desde 1982 que aumentó su recaudación en taquilla durante su segundo y tercer fin de semana”.

¿Entonces, qué significa esta racha de éxito? Bueno, significa que los jóvenes realmente están dispuestos a comprar boletos de cine si conocen y se identifican con el talento de la era de YouTube.

Y significa que los estudios de Hollywood van a perseguir el éxito de “Obsesión” y “Backrooms” buscando en sitios de videos en línea al próximo gran autor.

Incluso podría significar que algunos jefes de estudio apostarán un poco más por conceptos originales en lugar de franquicias y secuelas predecibles.

Duplass, quien interpreta a un científico en “Backrooms”, dijo en un video en redes sociales que las dos películas le estaban dando a la industria cinematográfica “un rayo de esperanza”.

“Tenemos un ejemplo de creadores que están perfeccionando sus proyectos, poniéndolos en línea, construyendo una audiencia”, dijo. “Y ahora las personas que controlan el dinero van a darse cuenta… porque ven lo que pueden lograr en la taquilla, ya sabes, en la forma de estas dos películas que están superando las expectativas”.

Productores y agentes han estado construyendo una vía de YouTube a Hollywood desde hace un tiempo. Y las sólidas ventas de boletos el invierno pasado para la película autofinanciada del YouTuber Mark Fischb

By Melanie Swan, CNN

(CNN) — Traffic is building in Dubai again, restaurant tables are filling up and flights have largely resumed. On the surface, life in the Gulf’s tourism powerhouse looks close to normal.

Beneath it, the city is facing a harder reality — although infrastructure is up and running, confidence hasn’t followed. And now, hotels, airlines and hospitality businesses are working harder than ever to persuade visitors to return.

For decades, Dubai has built its global tourism brand on a promise few destinations in the Middle East could match: stability. Even when conflict flared across the region, the emirate remained a luxurious safe haven and efficient global transit point for international visitors.

But months after the conflict involving Iran disrupted airspace across the Gulf and brought drone attacks to some of Dubai’s most recognizable landmarks, the city is facing one of the most significant tests in its modern history as it seeks to restore traveler confidence and revive a tourism sector that has long been a cornerstone of its economy.

For many residents, everyday life has returned. Drone strikes on the UAE are still occurring sporadically, but the wide-scale alerts of the early conflict have ceased — along with the associated distress. The good times are returning, they say.

Return of the party crowd

At Zuma, a stalwart venue of the usually busy lifestyle scene in the Dubai International Financial Centre, some of the party crowd are back, getting down to DJs and knocking back pricy cocktails. But an evening bottomless food and drink deal on offer suggests room for improvement.

Crowds are going out less, as salaries have been reduced for many, and the cost of living continues to rise with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Food and gas have both seen significant leaps.

Travel warnings remain in place from several Western governments. Australia has advised citizens not to transit through countries including the United Arab Emirates, while Canada continues to advise against all travel to the UAE and the United States urges travelers to reconsider travel to the country. Although flights have largely resumed, industry experts say rebuilding confidence may prove far more difficult than reopening air routes.

There are tourists, just not the same ones.

Visitors from countries such as Russia and Lebanon seem unfazed by the situation, with the UAE a relative haven compared to home. In recent days, families from around the region were flocking to Dubai’s malls for the Eid al-Adha break, while beauty salons have reportedly seen a constant flow of Russian women coming for a glamorous getaway.

Fatma Ammar lives in Beirut and came to the city to visit her two sons for the Eid Al Adha Islamic holiday. “Dubai still feels like a much safer place for me than Beirut,” she said. “The way the UAE has handled the war is very reassuring and I feel extremely safe being here compared to home, but sadly, I’m used to war, so something like this would not stop me seeing my sons.”

The regional conflict has left its mark though. While Fairmont The Palm has already repaired minor damage from drone strikes and is now trying to lure visitors with special offers, other landmarks like the Burj Al Arab have closed for “refurbishments.”

At Dubai International Airport, more than 40 airlines are still operating, with transit passengers continuing to keep the traffic flowing a