Latest news with #Counter
Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Business
- Miami Herald
Bankrupt beauty brand to return after $1 billion collapse
As a 31-year-old, I'm starting to enter that grey area when it comes to skincare. The products aimed at my age group either promise to preserve a youthful glow or boldly market anti-aging claims that don't always land. And as I glance ahead to my mid-30s and beyond, I'm noticing how few brands really speak to women in this phase of life. Related: The Birkin and LL Bean mashup you didn't know you needed That's why one particular comeback caught my eye. A beauty brand that once held a $1 billion valuation - before it abruptly collapsed into bankruptcy - is making a return this summer. But it won't be the same brand you remember. Its founder is bringing it back with a bold new focus: women 35 and up. And this time, the mission feels personal. For women like me, caught between skincare marketing aimed at 20-somethings and older demographics, that mission is worth watching. According to Beauty Independent, the company formerly known as Beautycounter will officially relaunch on June 25 - this time, simply as Counter. Founder and CEO Gregg Renfrew, who bought the brand's assets out of bankruptcy last year, is rolling out a soft launch this summer, with a bigger public push planned in the fall. "We're going to do it with respect and with a high level of humility," Renfrew said at a recent event. The new Counter lineup will feature about 50 products (down from 245), focused on clean skincare products and makeup. Gone (for now) are the mass retail partnerships with Ulta and Target. Counter is doubling down on direct-to-consumer, with a flagship store in Nantucket and more branded locations planned. It will also revive its community-based selling model, this time branded as "brand partners." Related: Sephora unveils new brand partnership Gen Z will love "As a woman in her fifties, we are largely ignored, yet we have the spending power," Renfrew said. The goal: make Counter the go-to brand for women 35+, a group often overlooked in the beauty industry. But this comeback isn't just about targeting an underserved age group. It's about raising the bar for clean beauty and how beauty brands do business. "We've always talked about making the impossible possible," Renfrew said. "The whole essence of us was going counter to industry norms, counter to how people always do business." That means a renewed focus on transparency and higher standards, especially as "clean beauty" has become a crowded, sometimes murky space. Counter's comeback is about more than a new name and a smaller product lineup. It's about applying the hard lessons learned from Beautycounter's spectacular rise and fall in the beauty industry. Founded in 2013 to lead the clean beauty movement, Beautycounter built a cult following with its "Never List" - an evolving list of banned ingredients linked to health risks. But after private equity giant Carlyle Group acquired the brand for $1 billion in 2021, the business faltered. A controversial compensation shift alienated many sales reps. A deal with Ulta meant to broaden the brand's reach ultimately undercut its core community-driven model. By April 2024, Beautycounter had entered foreclosure. Renfrew's effort to reacquire the brand wasn't just about nostalgia; it was about giving the company a second chance to do things differently. Now, she's betting on a leaner assortment, a sharper audience focus, and a more sustainable retail strategy. And with clean beauty now mainstream, Counter aims to raise the bar. "Our opportunity is to go in and set the standards, educate people on the standards, and hold ourselves accountable," Renfrew said. For an underserved group of beauty consumers, Counter's return might be the shift they've been waiting for. Related: Steve Madden files wild lawsuit against Adidas The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Business of Fashion
01-06-2025
- Business
- Business of Fashion
Beautycounter Set to Return With New Name and Look
On hiatus for over a year, Beautycounter is making its comeback. The multilevel marketing brand's relaunch is slated for June 25 after it was purchased by founder Gregg Renfrew out of foreclosure in April 2024 with investors from the firm G2G. Renamed Counter, the beauty label will have a new design with updated formulations on original best-selling products. While details on its business model remain scarce, the sales structure will take on an updated format called 'community commerce,' according to a representative for the brand. A pioneer in the clean beauty movement, Beautycounter was acquired by private equity firm Carlyle Group in 2021 with a $1 billion valuation. But by 2024, it closed after a 2023 launch at Ulta Beauty left its legion of over 60,000 direct sellers disillusioned with the increased competition from a major retailer. The brand's return, originally slated for May 2024, will include a lineup of 50 products with new formulations of original best-sellers including its vitamin C serum, Countertime serum and Dew Skin tinted moisturiser. ADVERTISEMENT Counter will not have any retailer partners and it does not have any concrete reopening plans for its former seasonal pop-up store in Nantucket, according to the representative. Learn more: Beautycounter's Biggest Obstacle to a Relaunch: Its Own Salespeople In 2021, the pioneering clean beauty brand sold for $1 billion. Three years later, it was bought out of foreclosure by its founder, without a clear timeline for relaunching.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Yahoo
Palm Springs bombing suspect's YouTube showed tests of homemade explosives, report says
The suspect in the fatal car bomb attack on a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California, posted a string of videos on YouTube documenting his experiments with homemade explosives, according to a report. Guy Edward Bartkus is investigators' only suspect concerning the blast at the American Reproductive Centers of Palm Springs, which took place at 11 a. m. on Saturday morning. The 25 year-old, of nearby Twentynine Palms, is believed to be the person found dead next to the detonated Ford Fusion in its car park. Four people were injured but no members of staff or reproductive materials held at the clinic were harmed in the explosion, according to a statement. Its IVF center, housed in a single-storey building close by, was gutted. The FBI quickly labelled the incident 'an intentional act of terrorism' and law enforcement officers are now reviewing social media accounts believed to have been operated by Bartkus, ABC News reports. One of these is 'Indict Evolution,' a YouTube channel that has been taken down in the wake of Saturday's events but which reportedly dates back at least six years and features videos of explosives tests with titles like 'Uranium Ore Next to Geiger Counter' and 'Thorite from Thorium Mine.' 'We terminated channels associated with the suspect,' a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement, adding that they had been removed for violating the company's policy regarding the promotion of violent extremism. A username that investigators believe was associated with Bartkus shared one of the videos on a suicide-themed message board on May 12, ABC reports. Then, last Thursday, the same account posted about death by carbon monoxide poisoning before alluding to 'some extra drama that I probably shouldn't say haha.' In other writings traced to Bartkus and cited by KCAL News, the suspect expressed antinatalist or 'efilist' beliefs and described himself as a 'pro-mortalist' intent on causing death 'to prevent your future suffering, and, more importantly, the suffering your existence will cause to all the other sentient beings.' In a 30-minute audio clip also uncovered, Bartkus stated: 'I figured I would just make a recording explaining why I've decided to bomb an IVF building or clinic. 'Basically, it just comes down to I'm angry that I exist and that, you know, nobody got my consent to bring me here. These are people who are having kids after they've sat there and thought about it. How much more stupid can it get?' Richard Bartkus, the suspect's estranged father, has since told The New York Times his son played with matches, stink bombs and smoke bombs in his teens but 'nothing major, nothing like a 'bomb' bomb, but he'd build rockets, shoot them in the air.' In a separate interview with KTLA, Richard Bartkus recounted how his son had once set fire to their family home: 'After he had burned the house down, he started changing a little bit, he'd light fires. I was too strict for him, so he wanted to stay with Mom until the divorce came through. Mom was lenient.' While there have been past attacks on abortion clinics and people who work at them in the U.S. for many years, attacks on fertility clinics have been far rarer. Palm Springs is a city of roughly 45,000 people about a hundred miles east of Los Angeles, and has long been known as a vacation spot for the rich and famous. The resort city is situated in the Coachella Valley within the Colorado Desert.
France 24
28-04-2025
- Politics
- France 24
US anti-disinformation guardrails fall in Trump's first 100 days
The moves could have national security implications, experts warn, granting US adversaries such as Russia and China more freedom to sow disinformation as geopolitical rivalries intensify. Combined with social media platforms scaling back content moderation -- and Meta's suspension of third-party fact-checking in the United States -- these developments have left researchers concerned that it may become even harder for the public to separate fact from fiction. The National Science Foundation recently cancelled hundreds of research grants that it said were "not aligned" with the agency's priorities, including projects focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as well as misinformation and disinformation. Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), charged with cutting government spending, praised the NSF's "great work" in cancelling 402 "wasteful" DEI grants -- a move the agency said saved $233 million. "Shocking that understanding how people are misled by false information is now a forbidden topic," said Lisa Fazio, an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, confirming that her NSF grant to examine "how false beliefs form (and) how to correct them" had been cancelled. "Our work will continue but at a smaller scale," she wrote on the platform Bluesky. Several of the terminated grants were focused on health misinformation as well as artificial intelligence and deepfake detection on tech platforms, researchers said, at a time when scams fueled by cheap and widely available AI tools are rapidly proliferating. 'Censorship' "Research on how technology impacts society is critical to holding powerful tech platforms accountable," said Becca Branum, a deputy director at the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT). "Shielding companies from criticism by defunding research is censorship that should trouble all of us." The cuts came just days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio shut down the State Department's Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) hub, which tracked and countered disinformation from foreign actors. "By shutting down the office, Rubio has opened the American information space to the likes of Russia, China, and Iran," said Benjamin Shultz, lead researcher at the American Sunlight Project, an anti-disinformation watchdog in Washington. In a report this month, the anti-disinformation firm Alethea said it had uncovered a Russian network seeking to sow mistrust in US defense and military programs. The targets of the network, linked to a Russian influence operation known as "Portal Kombat," included the US giant Lockheed Martin and the F-35 fighter jet program. The R/FIMI was previously known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC), and once had dozens of employees operating with a budget of around $60 million. Rubio justified its closure, saying in a statement that it was the responsibility of government officials to "preserve and protect the freedom for Americans to exercise their free speech." 'Truth and facts' The GEC, established in 2016, had long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who accused it of censoring and surveilling Americans. Its closing leaves the State Department without a dedicated office for tracking and countering disinformation from US rivals for the first time in over eight years. The move comes as Rubio unveiled wider plans to restructure the State Department, cutting positions and shuttering specialized programs. The Trump administration is also targeting officials who had been examining foreign interference in US elections. The administration has reassigned several dozen officials working on the issue at the FBI and forced out others at the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), reports said. "As we approach 100 days of Trump 2.0, it's harder than ever to believe that American politics -- and society writ large -- have reached a place where truth and facts are optional," said Shultz.
Int'l Business Times
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Int'l Business Times
US Anti-disinformation Guardrails Fall In Trump's First 100 Days
From slashed federal funding for disinformation research to the closure of a key agency combating foreign influence operations, the United States has dismantled vital guardrails against falsehoods within President Donald Trump's first 100 days in office. The moves could have national security implications, experts warn, granting US adversaries such as Russia and China more freedom to sow disinformation as geopolitical rivalries intensify. Combined with social media platforms scaling back content moderation -- and Meta's suspension of third-party fact-checking in the United States -- these developments have left researchers concerned that it may become even harder for the public to separate fact from fiction. The National Science Foundation recently cancelled hundreds of research grants that it said were "not aligned" with the agency's priorities, including projects focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as well as misinformation and disinformation. Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), charged with cutting government spending, praised the NSF's "great work" in cancelling 402 "wasteful" DEI grants -- a move the agency said saved $233 million. "Shocking that understanding how people are misled by false information is now a forbidden topic," said Lisa Fazio, an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, confirming that her NSF grant to examine "how false beliefs form (and) how to correct them" had been cancelled. "Our work will continue but at a smaller scale," she wrote on the platform Bluesky. Several of the terminated grants were focused on health misinformation as well as artificial intelligence and deepfake detection on tech platforms, researchers said, at a time when scams fueled by cheap and widely available AI tools are rapidly proliferating. "Research on how technology impacts society is critical to holding powerful tech platforms accountable," said Becca Branum, a deputy director at the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT). "Shielding companies from criticism by defunding research is censorship that should trouble all of us." The cuts came just days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio shut down the State Department's Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) hub, which tracked and countered disinformation from foreign actors. "By shutting down the office, Rubio has opened the American information space to the likes of Russia, China, and Iran," said Benjamin Shultz, lead researcher at the American Sunlight Project, an anti-disinformation watchdog in Washington. In a report this month, the anti-disinformation firm Alethea said it had uncovered a Russian network seeking to sow mistrust in US defense and military programs. The targets of the network, linked to a Russian influence operation known as "Portal Kombat," included the US giant Lockheed Martin and the F-35 fighter jet program. The R/FIMI was previously known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC), and once had dozens of employees operating with a budget of around $60 million. Rubio justified its closure, saying in a statement that it was the responsibility of government officials to "preserve and protect the freedom for Americans to exercise their free speech." The GEC, established in 2016, had long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who accused it of censoring and surveilling Americans. Its closing leaves the State Department without a dedicated office for tracking and countering disinformation from US rivals for the first time in over eight years. The move comes as Rubio unveiled wider plans to restructure the State Department, cutting positions and shuttering specialized programs. The Trump administration is also targeting officials who had been examining foreign interference in US elections. The administration has reassigned several dozen officials working on the issue at the FBI and forced out others at the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), reports said. "As we approach 100 days of Trump 2.0, it's harder than ever to believe that American politics -- and society writ large -- have reached a place where truth and facts are optional," said Shultz.
