Latest news with #Olafsson
CBS News
18-04-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Chester County, Pennsylvania, toy store braces for impact as tariffs are expected to drive up costs
President Donald Trump's tariffs on foreign imports could have a huge impact on the toy industry. And it's not just rattling the big box stores, but small mom-and-pop shops that sell collectables and unique gifts. KC Olafsson is the owner of Monkey Fish Toys in West Chester, which sells everything from dolls and board games to monster trucks and Legos. "The tariff on toys have not been there forever," Olafsson said. "It's going to impact every business, and it really was disappointing." Most of the toys in her shop come from overseas countries like China , which is facing tariffs as high as 145%. Olafsson said if toy manufacturers raise their prices, her shop may have no choice but to pass that cost onto the customers. "Small items such as a $4 item now, tomorrow being over $10, so we don't want to have that happen, especially disappointing the kids who don't understand what is going on," Olafsson said. The shop is taking steps to keep prices as stable as possible ahead of the holidays. "It's going to just now take us more time to look at, potentially other vendors," Olafsson said. Organizations like The Good Toy Group , American Specialty Toy Retailing Association (ASTRA) and The Toy Association are lobbying for toys to be exempt from tariffs. In the meantime, customers are taking advantage of regular prices with the current stock. "The place is great," customer Kevin Mealey from West Chester said. "People are cool. We've been buying toys here forever. You should come by Monkey Fish. Buy some toys." The store offers free gift wrapping and delivery, but Olafsson said those benefits may change. She's worried the tariffs could put her out of business. She's trying to stay optimistic while bracing for what's to come. "It just is so sad," Olafsson said. "We're all trying to pull together and hope that we can make a difference, have our voices be heard."
New York Times
10-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Fridrik Olafsson, Grandmaster Who Led Iceland's Rise in Chess, Dies at 90
Fridrik Olafsson, a chess grandmaster who helped make his native Iceland a bastion of the game, in part by defeating four world champions, including Bobby Fischer, the dominant American player, died on Friday in Reykjavík, the country's capital. He was 90. The death, in a hospital, was announced by the International Chess Federation, the game's governing body. He was the organization's president from 1978 to 1982, when it was known as the World Chess Federation. Mr. Olafsson's rise to the heights of chess was unexpected; Iceland was not known as a chess powerhouse at the time. But by the 1980s, largely because of his example, it had more grandmasters per capita than any other country. Almost entirely self-taught, Mr. Olafsson learned the game by watching his father play. One day, when he was 7 or 8, he was intently studying his father's moves on the chessboard in a friendly match against a relative, Mr. Olafsson recalled in an interview for this obituary in 2014. 'I remember saying he was not playing so well,' he said of his father. His father replied that if Fridrik thought he could do better, he should take his place. Fridrik did, and won. He played in his first tournament at age 11. When he was 13, he was at master level and among the top 15 players in Iceland. At 17, he won the national championship, the first of six such titles. He went on to win the 1953 Scandinavian championship and share first place with Viktor Korchnoi, one of the best players of the 20th century, in the 1955-56 Hastings International Chess Congress, then one of the top tournaments in the world, held in Hastings, England. In 1958, he qualified for the Interzonal Tournament in Portoroz, Yugoslavia, where he met, and then beat, Mr. Fischer. He and Mr. Fischer tied for fifth place, which qualified them for the Candidates Tournament, held to select a challenger for the world championship. His play in that tournament earned Mr. Olafsson the highest title in chess, grandmaster, making him one of about 50 in the world at the time. In the Candidates Tournament in 1959, also in Yugoslavia, he did not do as well, finishing seventh among eight contenders. 'I was not really prepared,' he said. 'I just came up too quickly.' He would never compete in that tournament again. While he continued to compete occasionally, Mr. Olafsson began focusing more on becoming a lawyer, studying at the Icelandic Academy of Law and the University of Iceland, and then working in the Icelandic Ministry of Justice. But then, in 1972, Reyjavik was selected as the site of the world championship between Mr. Fischer and Boris Spassky, the reigning champion from Russia. Mr. Fischer won, in what became known as the 'Match of the Century,' sparking worldwide interest in chess. It also reawakened Mr. Olafsson's passion for the game. He decided to take another stab at playing professionally. 'I wanted to see how much I could achieve,' he said. His second stint was not successful, though he did tie for first in an annual tournament in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands, ahead of top players like Mikhail Tal, the former world champion. Mr. Olafsson was elected the fourth president of the World Chess Federation in 1978. His tenure was dominated by issues surrounding the rivalry between Anatoly Karpov, the champion from the Soviet Union, and Mr. Korchnoi, a former Soviet star who had defected to the West in 1976. Mr. Karpov and Mr. Korchnoi had played for the championship in the Philippines just before Mr. Olafsson took office, in what had easily been the bitterest match in history: Mr. Karpov retained the title by winning six games and losing five, with 21 more ending in draws. In 1981, Mr. Korchnoi again qualified to face Mr. Karpov, this time in Italy. But Mr. Korchnoi's wife, Bella, and son, Igor, were denied exit visas to leave the Soviet Union; Igor had been imprisoned for refusing to join the Soviet army. Mr. Olafsson sought to gain their release and postponed the match for three months as he traveled to Moscow to negotiate. In the end, the Soviet authorities agreed to release the family members, but only after the match, which Mr. Karpov won easily. Despite the resolution, the Soviet authorities lobbied against Mr. Olafsson's re-election as federation president in 1982, throwing their support to Florencio Campomanes, a Filipino, who won the job. Mr. Olafsson retired from chess a second time. In 1983, he was appointed secretary of the Icelandic Parliament and held that post for 22 years until his retirement in 2005. He was born in Reykjavík on Jan. 26, 1935. His survivors include his wife, Audur Juliusdottir; his daughters, Bergljot and Aslaug; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. Over his career, Mr. Olafsson beat Mr. Fischer (twice), Mr. Tal and Tigran Petrosian, an Armenian-Soviet player who was world champion for six years before Mr. Spassky gained the title. He also faced Mr. Karpov in a world championship tournament, in Buenos Aires in 1980, but under curious circumstances. Mr. Olafsson was attending its opening ceremony as head of the World Chess Federation when one competitor did not show up; Mr. Olafsson was recruited to fill the vacancy. And that led him to a match against Mr. Karpov, who was considered all but unbeatable at the time. Mr. Olafsson won, becoming the only sitting president of the federation to beat the reigning world champion in an official competition.
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Drugmakers Mallinckrodt and Endo get a bump from tariffs in $6.7 billion merger
By Sabrina Valle (Reuters) -Mallinckrodt and Endo, drugmakers which recently emerged from bankruptcy after a wave of U.S. opioid lawsuits, announced plans Thursday to join forces in a deal valued at $6.7 billion. Mallinckrodt Chief Executive Siggi Olafsson said the companies' operations and products complement each other. With large manufacturing facilities in the U.S., he said the combined company could actually see some benefit from U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs on imported goods. "We saw (tariffs), in a way, as an opportunity," Olafsson told Reuters, adding that the companies have a manufacturing base in the U.S. for many key products. "That helps us." Endo shareholders will get $80 million in cash and own 49.9% of the combined company, while Mallinckrodt shareholders will own the rest for an enterprise value of $6.7 billion, the companies said on Thursday. The merger transforms two companies, previously at risk of closure due to declining revenue and lawsuits on their highly addictive opioid drugs, into a U.S.-focused entity specializing in generic drugs, urology, and various autoimmune and rare diseases, set to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. TRUMP EFFECT Deals between companies with strong U.S. bases have some protection from the whipsaw policy announcements coming out of Trump administration that have been roiling markets and disrupting M&A activity, four top healthcare bankers told Reuters this week. Those announcements include Food and Drug Administration firings potentially slowing drug approvals as well as a promised crackdown on drug prices that could reduce revenue projections and company valuations, they say. The uncertainty is making CEOs more hesitant to pursue big deals, the bankers added. Olafsson, the future CEO of the merged company, said that a robust U.S. manufacturing base will help the business to grow amid fierce competition from more than 200 generic drug makers. U.S. production also gives the combined company an advantage in an era in which disruptions like COVID-19 pandemic caused Asian product shortages. "It's a very crowded market," he said, adding he considers many of the generic products sold in pharmacies already "extremely low cost." The deal is expected close in the second half of 2025. The merged company will primarily operate in the U.S., with support in Europe, India, Australia, and Japan, and around 5,700 employees. OPIOIDS Both the companies sell generic treatments including highly-regulated drugs such as opioids which once played a bigger role on their sales. The overall market for opioids has gone down, Olafsson said, with the bankruptcy and lawsuits forcing the companies to increase standards and move quality control to the U.S., despite its higher costs. "It's a very different environment than you saw 10 years ago," he said. "We are very proud of the U.S.-based manufacturing, even though we pay our laborers a fair amount more than maybe we would do in Asia." The two firms plan to combine their generic drug businesses and Endo's sterile injectables unit into another company that executives plan to sell or spin off after the deal closes, a person close to the transaction said. Dublin-based Mallinckrodt went bankrupt twice - once in 2020 due to its high debt load and litigation over allegedly deceptive marketing of highly addictive generic opioids, and again in 2023 due to declining sales of its key branded drugs, including Acthar Gel. As part of its second restructuring, Mallinckrodt was able to trim $1 billion from its previously agreed upon opioid settlement that resolved about 3,000 lawsuits. Endo filed for bankruptcy in 2022 and completed its financial restructuring last year. Endo will become a wholly-owned unit of Mallinckrodt. Lazard served as Mallinckrodt's financial adviser, while Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC served as Endo's financial adviser.
New York Times
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Review: Two Star Pianists, Thrillingly Side by Side
When two pianists appear together in concert, the usual setup is for the curves of their instruments to hug in a yin-yang formation. The musicians face off across the expanse, some nine feet apart. But when Vikingur Olafsson and Yuja Wang brought their starry duo tour to Carnegie Hall on Wednesday evening, just inches separated them. They sat side by side, their pianos splayed out in opposite directions like the wings of a butterfly, with the players in the middle. Olafsson and Wang didn't look at each other much during the performance, and Wang, who was closer to the audience throughout, did feel like the dominant presence and sound in this duet. But their physical closeness registered in a consistently unified approach to their richly enjoyable program. There was balanced transparency in even the most fiery moments of Schubert's Fantasy in F minor. Olafsson and Wang's rubato — their expressive flexibility with tempo — felt both spontaneously poetic and precisely shared in the passage when serenity takes over in the first movement of Rachmaninoff's 'Symphonic Dances,' with the yearning melody that's given to the alto saxophone in the work's fully orchestrated version. Their styles were distinguishable, even if subtly. In sumptuously vibrating chords in the first movement of Schubert's Fantasy, Olafsson's touch was a little wetter and more muted, Wang's percussive and as coolly etched as a polygraph. Cool, yes, but she could also be lyrical, as in the delicate beginning of Luciano Berio's 'Wasserklavier,' which opened the concert. Short, gentle, spare pieces by Berio, John Cage (the early 'Experiences No. 1') and Arvo Part ('Hymn to a Great City') gave the program a meditative spine. Those were interspersed with three substantial anchors: the 'Symphonic Dances,' which Rachmaninoff set for two pianos as he was writing the orchestral version; the Schubert Fantasy; and John Adams's 'Hallelujah Junction.' An arrangement by Thomas Adès of Conlon Nancarrow's Study No. 6, one of his ingenious player-piano exercises, somehow transformed complex rhythmic layerings into a blithe, tipsy rumba. Like the concert as a whole, it made virtuosity seem like pure fun. Olafsson and Wang cleverly knit the pieces together. They moved without pause from the Berio into the Schubert, and opened the Fantasy in the same mood of soft mystery as 'Wasserklavier,' the music only gradually taking on shape and definition. Nancarrow's delirious polyrhythms were the perfect teaser for the four-against-three beats of 'Hallelujah Junction,' which began with Olafsson saturating the mix until Wang's line could eventually be glimpsed through the textures. In the second section, they set washes of sound against pinpricks, and by the final section, the two were in a grand, sometimes stormy groove, swelling to organized chaos — later echoed in the half-crazed waltzes and climactic darkness-versus-light battle of the 'Symphonic Dances.' This being a Yuja Wang recital, even if only in part, there was a slew of encores: two graceful Brahms waltzes and one of his 'Hungarian Dances,' one of Dvorak's 'Slavonic Dances' and Schubert's cheerful 'Marche Militaire.' But even if it came well before the end of the program, the music that felt like an ideal encore was 'Hymn to a Great City.' Part dedicated the score to two fellow Estonian émigrés with whom he stayed on a trip to the United States in 1984, when the piece was premiered at Lincoln Center. It's not quite clear whether the composer meant for the city in the title to refer definitively, or solely, to New York, and Wang and Olafsson have been playing it all over in recent months. But on Wednesday, with these two superb players sending out filigree flourishes like sparklers amid the calm, it had the concentrated sweetness of a local love letter.
Yahoo
26-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Inside the race for Greenland's mineral wealth
President Donald Trump has said he thinks the US will gain control of Greenland, underlining a claim on the Arctic island that he has repeated several times recently, on one occasion pointing to "economic security" as the reason. While the autonomous Danish territory has been quick to say it isn't for sale, its vast and mostly untapped mineral resources are in great demand. Jagged grey peaks suddenly appear before us, as the motorboat navigates choppy coastal waters and dramatic fjords at Greenland's southern tip. "Those very high pointy mountains, it's basically a gold belt," gestures Eldur Olafsson, the chief executive of mining company Amaroq Minerals. After sailing for two hours we stepped ashore at a remote valley beneath Nalunaq mountain, where the firm is drilling for gold. It's also scouring the surrounding mountain range and valleys, hunting for other valuable minerals, having snapped up exploration licences spanning over 10,000 sq km (3,861 sq miles). "We're looking for copper, nickel, and rare earths," says the Icelandic boss. "This is uncharted, and still has the potential to have multiple big deposits." The base camp is a cluster of mobile buildings and bright orange accommodation tents housing more than 100 staff, including Greenlanders, Australians, and British former coal miners. From there a road climbs up the valley, and we drive by car into the gold mine, following a dark tunnel upwards inside the mountain. "See here!" says Mr Olafsson pointing to a seam of white quartz and a thin dark line. "Gold, gold, gold. All the way over. Isn't that extraordinary?" Four ways this Trump Greenland saga could go Trump threat casts ominous shadow over Greenland The mine, which Amaroq bought in 2015, had operated for most of the preceding decade, but closed due to then falling gold prices, and high operating costs. Amaroq is confident that the mine will now be profitable. And it plans to ramp up production this year, where it has built a brand new processing plant to crush the ore and refine the precious metal into gold bars. "We can either walk off site every month with a suitcase of gold, versus a 30,000 tonne ship [carrying the ore]," explains Mr Olafsson. He says that Greenland presents an unrivalled opportunity because its huge mineral reserves are largely untouched. "It can be the supplier of all the minerals the Western world will need for decades," adds Mr Olafsson. "And that is a very unique position." Yet currently there are just two active mines on the entire island. Greenland is a self-governing territory that is part of Denmark, but controls its own natural resources. It's endowed with the eighth largest reserves of so-called rare earth elements, which are vital for making everything from mobile phones to batteries and electric motors. It also has large amounts of other key metals, such as lithium and cobalt. There is oil and gas too, but new drilling is banned, while deep-sea mining has also been ruled out. Christian Kjeldsen, director of Greenland's Business Association, says that the global "geopolitical situation right now is driving interest in the world's biggest island". He points to China having the world's largest reserves of rare earth metals, while the West wants to secure alternative supplies. "You have a very strong China sitting very heavily on the critical raw materials," he says. Denmark boosts Greenland defence after Trump repeats desire for US control Up to Greenland to decide its future, Danish PM tells Trump Trump ramps up threats to gain control of Greenland and Panama Canal That has fuelled a growing focus among Western nations to get access to Greenland's minerals. China has also been keen to get involved, but its presence is limited. Reuters recently reported that the US lobbied an Australian mining firm not to sell Greenland's biggest rare earth project to potential Chinese buyers. Greenland's Minister for Business, Trade and Raw Materials, Naaja Nathanielsen, says that interest in the territory's minerals has "absolutely increased within the last five years or so". She adds: "We're used to being a hotspot for the climate crisis. We want to be a part of the solution." Permits have now been given for 100 blocs across Greenland, where companies are searching for viable deposits. British, Canadian and Australian mining firms are the biggest foreign licence holders, while Americans hold just one. But there are many more steps before these sites become potential mines. Yet while Greenland may be sitting on mineral riches, any "gold rush" continues to be slow to materialise. The economy, which has an annual GDP of just over $3bn (£2.4bn), is still driven by the public sector and fishing. And the territory also relies on an annual $600m subsidy from Denmark. Greenland's politicians hope that mining revenues will reduce reliance on the annual $600m subsidy from Denmark, and help boost independence efforts. But in the meantime Greenland is making more money from tourism. Officially mining is still important for independence, says Javier Arnaut, head of Arctic Social Sciences at Greenland University. "But in practical terms, you can see that there are very few mining licenses awarded." Ms Nathanielsen concedes that while there are partnerships being developed with the US and EU, "we still have not seen large amounts of money flowing into this sector". She hopes that there will be another three to five mines operating within the next decade. However mining is not easy in Greenland because of its remote geography and weather. It's the world's largest island and 80% of it is covered by an ice sheet. It has rugged mountains and no roads between settlements. "It's an arctic terrain," says Jakob Kløve Keiding, from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, which has mapped the territory's deposits. "We have problems with harsh conditions in terms of the climate and limited infrastructure. So it's quite expensive to open a mine." Those high costs, coupled with low global metal prices, have held back investors. Others blame red tape for the sector's slow growth. The territory has strict environmental regulations and social impact requirements, and getting permits can take time. Ms Nathanielsen maintains that most communities do support mining, and that it boosts local economies. "They [overseas miners] are shopping in the local shop. They're employing local employees. They're chartering a local boat or helicopter," she says. Yet in the south's biggest town, Qaqortoq, resident Heidi Mortensen Møller is sceptical whether new mines will lead to employment for locals. "When they say they're going to add jobs, who are they talking about?" Jess Berthelsen, head of local labour union, SIK, says that many people think mining income "will leave the country", and not benefit Greenland. But he supports the growth of the sector. "Greenland needs more income and to earn money from other ways than fishing." It's unclear how Trump's latest gambit on Greenland will play out. However, the territory's prime minister Mute Egede said earlier this month that "we need to do business with the US" and that it was "doors open in terms of mining". Mr Kjeldsen from the business association, hopes it will be bring "much needed investment" to the sector. "On the other hand, if the uncertainty surrounding the signals from Trump drag on for a longer period, there is a risk that this might impact the investment environment negatively." The US farm workers coming from Guatemala - on a legal visa What's the secret to Denmark's happy work-life balance? Norway on track to be first to go all-electric 'Trump 2.0' looms large over the global economy
