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With President Joe Biden dropping out of the race, Vice President Kamala Harris may become the Democrats’ new nominee.

In announcing his plans, Biden offered his “full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” while Harris said her “intention is to win and earn this nomination.” That said, it’s not clear whether other Democratic politicians will challenge her for the nomination at an open convention, or through some other selection process.

If Harris is selected, the Democrats will have a presidential nominee with roots in the Bay Area — she was born in Oakland — and a long relationship with the tech industry. (Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance is also deeply connected to Silicon Valley.) She was San Francisco’s district attorney, then California’s attorney general, before being elected to the Senate in 2016.

VCs like John Doerr and Ron Conway were among her early supporters, and as a presidential candidate, she was quickly endorsed by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Other industry figures, including Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, have been more circumspect or called for an open convention.

Some of the industry’s critics have complained that she didn’t do enough as attorney general to curb the power of tech giants as they grew.

At the same time, she has been willing to criticize tech CEOs and call for more regulation. As a senator, she pressed the big social networks over misinformation. During the 2020 presidential campaign, when rival Elizabeth Warren was calling for the breakup of big tech, Harris was asked whether companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook should be broken up. She instead said they should be “regulated in a way that we can ensure the American consumer can be certain that their privacy is not being compromised.”

As vice president, Harris has also spoken about the potential for regulating AI, saying that she and President Biden “reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation.”

Biden had issued an executive order calling for companies to set new standards around the development of AI, and Harris said these “voluntary commitments are an initial step toward a safer AI future with more to come, because, as history has shown, in the absence of regulation and strong government oversight, some technology companies choose to prioritize profit over the wellbeing of their customers, the safety of our communities, and the stability of our democracies.”

Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz recently pointed to concerns that the Biden Administration will “overregulate” AI as one of their reasons for supporting Donald Trump.

On another hot button issue, a recent bill that would ban TikTok if its parent company ByteDance doesn’t sell it, Harris said, “We need to deal with the owner, and we have national security concerns about the owner of TikTok, but we have no intention to ban TikTok.”

Harris has been less vocal on the issues around cryptocurrency, though she would presumably support the Biden Administration’s crypto regulations.

An attack on Tel Aviv attributed to Yemen’s Houthis exposes a hole in Israel’s high-tech air defenses

KIRYAT SHMONA, Israel—On Friday, Israel’s vaunted aerial-defense system tracked 65 rockets fired across its northern border by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, intercepting some and letting the rest fall harmlessly into open areas.

That same day, Israel missed a single drone it believes flew more than 1,000 miles from Yemen to explode in the commercial capital Tel Aviv.

Israel has a problem with drones. They can be small and hard to detect, and they don’t move on predictable trajectories or emit the intense heat of rocket engines that make missiles easier to track and destroy. They are also cheap and plentiful, and are being deployed by the country’s adversaries in increasing numbers and sophistication.

Hezbollah has demonstrated the ability to strike Israel with drones in the near daily exchanges of fire since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack in which Israeli authorities say 1,200 people were killed and some 250 were taken hostage, prompting Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip.

The group often sends several at once—at least one for reconnaissance and another rigged with explosives—and has hit border towns and military bases, killing and injuring civilians and soldiers. It also has hit sensitive military equipment—including a radar surveillance balloon called Sky Dew in May and a multimillion-dollar antidrone system called Drone Dome in June.

Goading the Israeli military, Hezbollah flew surveillance drones across northern Israel in recent months, collecting aerial images of sensitive sites and publishing them in an unsubtle reminder of Israel’s vulnerability.

The Iron Dome, Israel’s famed air-defense system, has struggled to cope with the challenge. The alternative has been to scramble jet fighters, a costly and potentially dangerous solution that forces pilots to fly low in mountainous areas and exposes them to Hezbollah’s antiaircraft systems.

When all else fails, Israeli soldiers are told to use their rifles, some of which have been rigged with technology that can make their shots more accurate, according to Israeli military and defense officials.

“UAVs have turned into the main threat in terms of our ability to deal with it, because the army right now has no means of prevention except using F-16s,” said Ariel Frisch, deputy security officer of Kiryat Shmona, an Israeli city near the border with Lebanon that has been hit by at least six explosive drones since Oct. 7. “We are very, very worried about it.”

Israel’s vulnerability to uncrewed aerial vehicles is a sign of the challenges it would face in any full-scale war with Hezbollah and the difficulty it will have ever feeling confident it has eliminated threats from the adversaries around its borders. It is a threat all modern armies are struggling with as their opponents make use of the fast advances in civilian technology to develop cheap and highly accurate weapons.

The drone that hit Tel Aviv early Friday morning was a large model that air-defense experts say should be easier to knock down. The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it used a new drone that can evade air-defense systems.

The drone approached from the Mediterranean Sea to the west and was identified by Israeli radar minutes before it struck, a senior Israeli air-force officer said Sunday. Those on duty needed to decide whether it was an Israeli drone, an allied aircraft, a civilian aircraft or even a flock of birds.

During the war, Israel has been focused on aerial attacks from the north, south and east—in fact, an enemy drone was coming in from the east at about the same time, and Israel shot it down. Complicating matters, the drone from Yemen was flying in on routes generally used by civilian aircraft, though at a much lower altitude, the officer said.

“All of this, on top of the humans in the process, unfortunately caused them to classify it not as a threat,” the officer said.

Just over a mile from the border with Lebanon, Kiryat Shmona today is a ghost town with dusty cars, abandoned homes and unraked leaves covering its streets. Most of its some 20,000 residents have been evacuated from their homes since the start of the fighting. Hezbollah has hit targets across northern Israel with rockets, antitank missiles and drones.

Hezbollah has launched about 1,000 drones at Israel since the beginning of the war, mainly targeting towns and military bases within 3 miles of the border, including Kiryat Shmona. Their use has increased sharply this year, and the militant group has exhibited an ability to learn and take advantage of blind spots in Israeli defenses by mapping northern Israel with its surveillance drones, said Sarit Zehavi, founder and president of Alma Research and Education Center, a think tank in Israel.

The group has an arsenal of at least 2,500 drones and the ability to assemble more from parts supplied by Iran, according to estimates by Alma.

Drones force militants’ stronger adversaries to allocate scarce and costly resources to defend against them. While the Iranian Ababil drones used by Hezbollah can cost $5,000 apiece, an hour of flight time for an F-16 shooting two missiles is roughly $45,000, said Yehoshua Kalinsky, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies. An interception by the Iron Dome is even more expensive and can cost $100,000 or more.

Shooting down drones with a jet requires pilots to locate hard-to-detect devices and distinguish them from friendly drones, other warplanes and civilian aircraft. The drones have low heat signatures, so the jets need to get behind them and as close as possible for the heat-seeking missiles to engage, an Israeli air-force pilot said.

The combination of friendly or enemy drones and jets, civilian aircraft and birds is like “a Rubik’s Cube in the sky,” said an air-force officer involved in aerial threat detection.

Samuel Bendett, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, who studies drone warfare, said Israel could learn from Ukraine’s experience. After 2½ years of drone-intensive war with Russia, the country has developed more cost-effective solutions for detecting and intercepting them.

They include spreading acoustic sensors throughout the country to pick up the sound of drone motors. Ukraine also has established specialized truck-mounted mobile defense units armed with large-caliber machine guns, projector lights and electronic warfare systems that are then dispatched to intercept approaching drones.

Israel’s defense system has known about the drone threat for years, but hasn’t developed effective solutions in time, said Liran Antebi, a senior researcher also at the Institute for National Security Studies, who has been warning about the threat since 2013.

“Israel underestimated the size of the threat, the amounts of the systems in the hands of the other side and its willingness to operate them,” she said.

llan Bitton, the former head of Israel’s air defenses in the air force and a former senior official at Israel Aerospace Industries, said drones for years were seen as a “side issue”—not a big enough threat to divert resources from efforts to counter rockets and missiles.

Solutions have been late in coming, but Bitton was optimistic that Israel will create a multilayered defense against drones within one to three years. Israel’s Ministry of Defense has now allocated larger sums to the task and is working with big defense companies and new technology outfits. A new accelerator program for Israeli startups lists sensors to detect small aircrafts as one of the ministry’s areas of interest.

One highly expected response is the “Iron Beam,” which will fire a concentrated laser to take down aerial threats. A defense official said it would be rolled out sometime in 2025. The energy used for each interception is expected to cost a dollar or two per target, significantly cheaper than using interceptor missiles.

Still, the system has its weaknesses. Its effectiveness goes down in bad weather, and it can only shoot down one threat at a time, when adversaries are expected to attack with swarms. Israeli defense officials said it would need to be integrated into a multitiered defense system similar to what Israel now uses against rockets and missiles.

Moshik Cohen, an Israeli tech entrepreneur who previously worked on defense-missiles development at the Israel Aerospace Industries and autonomous vehicles at Samsung, is now working on building a platform to detect and classify threats, such as drones and UAVs, so they can be shot down. But he is aware that the drones are improving quickly as well. Israel is in a technology race, he said, not a typical arms race, and doesn’t have the advantage of time.

“This is an agile, software-defined conflict,” Cohen said. “If something is evolving, you need to evolve and move faster to win. Otherwise, you have no chance. You don’t have three years for development.”

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The Italian luxury retailer is betting on the U.S. market as it eyes further international growth.

MILAN — A year-and-a-half after news circulated that the luxury e-tailer was plotting a retail push into the U.S., LuisaViaRoma on Monday will open its first international brick-and-mortar flagship — and second physical unit overall — at 1 Bond Street in Manhattan’s NoHo.

The 11,300-square-foot, two-story space joins the storied existing unit on Florence’s Via Roma, which opened in 1929, and a VIC and press suite in Milan, in addition to LuisaViaRoma’s e-commerce platform.

The move reflects both the dynamism of the U.S. market for the retailer and its growing ambitions for the region.

“LuisaViaRoma generates 25 percent of its online sales in the U.S., and New York is its biggest market. We hope to continue this forward momentum by pouring our energy toward the American consumer,” said Tommaso Andorlini, chief executive officer of LuisaViaRoma since late July 2023.

The executive said that since starting its online business in 1999, LuisaViaRoma’s American audience and consumer base have grown steadily over time.

In 2024 LuisaViaRoma’s sales generated in the U.S. are poised to increase 50 percent, Andorlini revealed, and are expected to double by 2026 “helped by brand awareness generated through the Bond Street store and further development of the digital platforms,” the executive explained.

The Italian retailer is reportedly paying $3.2 million in annual rent for the space, according to leasing advisory firm Mona.

The New York flagship replicates the format of the Florentine flagship, which boasts a minimal interior concept, and will blend custom-made and vintage furnishings. About 2,200 square feet of the new store will be dedicated to VIP clients, who will have a dedicated entrance and get access to key services including concierge styling sessions and selections of curated products.

The unit will sell men’s and women’s ready-to-wear with selection geared toward local customers. For the opening the flagship carries luxury brands including Maison Margiela, Jil Sander and Chloé, as well as New York fashion darlings Gabriela Hearst, Proenza Schouler and Helmut Lang.

“The New York store features a curated, full-look product edit that combines globally dominant true luxury brands with iconic New York designers and international emerging talent,” Andorlini said, adding that he expects the selection to eventually include about 100 brands as the store reaches full execution.

“We will continue to refine the brand mix based on our interaction with the local audience. Our product curation strategy is continuously evolving, and we see the next phase of our business as a shift toward quality and creativity, rather than irony and hype,” he added.

In keeping with its existing partnership with Vestiaire Collective on secondhand fashion, the Manhattan flagship will also carry an edit of vintage pieces in-store, in addition to providing clients with a consignment service for their pre-loved luxury goods in exchange for LuisaViaRoma credit.

Asked about balancing its on- and offline presence in the country, Andorlini said that LuisaViaRoma is “continuing to build an omnichannel ecosystem that combines the ease of digital access with the tactile joy of our true luxury physical environments.”

To this end, at the onset of 2024 the retailer acquired Holding IT, a firm helmed by Andorlini and the parent company to FFW Srl, which has created and managed e-commerce sites for fashion brands since 2011, and Playground Srl, which operates luxury sportswear stores under the banner SOTF. In light of the deal, which was seen as further fueling LuisaViaRoma’s digital capabilities, the LuisaViaRoma Group, a new entity, was established.

Aimed at boosting awareness in the U.S., LuisaViaRoma is plotting a “LVR Digital Catwalk” in coming months. Conceived as a multibrand digital fashion show to showcase the store’s and e-commerce’s curation and product assortment, the activation is seen as a combination of the retailer’s physical and digital prowess, the CEO said.

LuisaViaRoma already tested the brick-and-mortar waters in Manhattan, opening a pop-up store in 2018 in partnership with Spring Studios and Spring Place.

Elsewhere on the physical retail front, the company is planning to revamp its nearly 100-year-old flagship in Florence at the end of 2024 and will open the first LuisaViaRoma Kids unit in its hometown in September. But Andorlini sounded cautious about opening more physical stores.

“LuisaViaRoma recognizes an opportunity in this [physical retail] consolidating business sector. We will address this market trend with a focus on steady, sustainable growth and meticulous cost optimization. We have the team, product selection, omnichannel ecosystem, and the financial backing to remain a leader and excel in the business while the market finds its footing,” the CEO said.

LuisaViaRoma was established by president Luisa Jaquin — the grandmother of the retailer’s president Andrea Panconesi — who planted the seeds of the family company’s success by opening the concept store in 1929.

Following Style Capital’s investment of 130 million euros to acquire a 40 percent stake in the retailer in 2021, Panconesi left his post as CEO — now held by Andorlini, who succeeded Yoox veteran Alessandra Rossi — to be president of the company, while his daughter Annagreta serves as creative director of both the website and physical stores.

New billionaire owner has embarked on sweeping changes in an effort to restore club’s fortunes

Sir Jim Ratcliffe promised to reboot one the world’s most famous sporting institutions when he bought a 27 per cent a stake in Manchester United in December. The petrochemicals billionaire has wasted little time.

Eight months on, new executives have been drafted in, hundreds of job cuts announced, the playing squad upgraded and the coaching staff bolstered. The lengthy process of upgrading the club’s tired stadium and outdated training ground has started.

But after years of disappointment and drift, can a hard-driving approach honed in the cut and thrust of the chemicals industry restore the 20-time champions of English football to glory? 

“Sports teams aren’t generally known for being leading edge in terms of efficiency,” said Tim Fidler, director of research at United shareholder Ariel Investments. “Ineos has clearly built up a business over many years that has that as a strategy.”

Ratcliffe is driving the changes with a handful of trusted lieutenants from his chemical empire Ineos, which has a wealth of experience in elite cycling, sailing and motorsport, even as the billionaire Glazer family remain majority owners of United.

In keeping with Ineos’ reputation for a ruthless focus on lean operations, Ratcliffe has moved quickly to make his mark at United, a club known in the industry for a bloated workforce. Around 250 jobs — almost a quarter of the workforce — are at risk in a redundancy programme.

The plan is to “cut very deep on costs”, according to one person with knowledge of the situation, who said that staff morale is low. “These guys are not messing around . . . it could be a bumpy ride.” 

The rapid steps to transform the club are in contrast to the experience at OGC Nice, the French football team that Ratcliffe acquired in 2019.

Ineos initially took a light-touch approach, leaving power left in the hands of long-standing executives. When results failed to improve, more drastic changes followed. 

The overhaul at United also supports the view that disentangling United’s sporting operations, which Ratcliffe assumed responsibility for as part of his purchase of a stake, from the rest of the club would prove impossible.

With the start of the Premier League season just a month away, some question whether Ratcliffe’s methods will successfully translate to English football’s most successful club.

“Ineos very much have the approach of big industry; they’ve been spectacularly successful and feel like they can apply those to football,” said one senior United figure. “But every business is different, and there’s a lot of soft skill in football.”

Ratcliffe’s task is one of the toughest in football. United has failed to win a league title since Sir Alex Ferguson, the club’s most successful manager, retired in 2013. Last season the team finished eighth, United’s lowest position since the formation of the Premier League more than 30 years ago. 

The prolonged period of underachievement cannot be pinned on a lack of money. Since Ferguson’s retirement, the club has paid €1.85bn on transfers, according to figures from Transfermarkt, while recouping around €500mn from sales.

The €1.34bn net spend in that period is the highest in global football. 

Andrea Sartori, founder of consultancy Football Benchmark, said the post-Ferguson era had been “very bad” across a range of metrics.

“Whether we are looking at the transfer market spending or success on the pitch — all of the numbers, they just don’t look great,” he said. “Looking at profit before or after tax, the last ten years have pretty much been a disaster.”

Following last season’s disappointing performance in the league, United held talks with several potential new managers but ultimately opted to extend the contract of Dutch head coach Erik ten Hag, who led the team to victory in the FA Cup.

But there have been changes in the dugout, with former United fan favourite Ruud van Nistelrooy among the new arrivals on the coaching team, while Dan Ashworth, previously of Newcastle United, has been installed as the new sporting director.

Changes in senior management have been significant, a sign that Ratcliffe’s influence has extended well beyond sport.

Omar Berrada joined from arch rival Manchester City as chief executive, Ineos executive Roger Bell replaced long-standing finance chief Cliff Baty, while general counsel Patrick Stewart stepped down after more than 18 years at the club. 

“It’s about time someone acted sensibly. It shouldn’t be seen as revolutionary that an overblown workforce is trimmed and a clear governance structure is implemented,” said Chris Brady, chief intelligence officer at sports advisory firm Sportsology.

United has also moved quickly to strengthen the squad, bringing in Netherlands forward Joshua Zirkzee from Bologna for €42.5mn and talented young centre back Leny Yoro from Lille for €62mn. In a letter to fans this week, Berrada said the summer transfer window would be among his “immediate priorities”. 

“I can promise you that we will do everything we can to deliver the titles, trophies and culture expected of this club,” Berrada wrote.

But United is operating in a tougher regulatory environment than in years gone by. The Premier League has come down hard on teams for breaching rules that limit losses to £105mn over three seasons.

United, which has not generated an annual profit since before the pandemic, has been among those pushing for the rules to be rethought. 

Earlier this month, the club reported a third-quarter net loss of more than £71mn, compared to £5.5mn a year earlier, in part due to £30mn in costs related to Ratcliffe’s stake purchase.

Meanwhile the Monaco-based billionaire’s changes are being brought in without him having full ownership of the club.

The Glazers, particularly executive co-chair Joel, remain heavily involved in many of the big decisions, including senior appointments, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

One said the ownership group was “very aligned”.

A senior sports executive who knows the club well said Ineos would have to be keen to demonstrate change. “The message to the players is: ‘It wasn’t you, it was the environment’,” the executive said. “Hopefully it creates a honeymoon period.”

While improvements on the pitch remain the short-term focus, the Ineos founder’s equity injection has also given United the impetus to begin investing in its infrastructure, including a £50mn project to modernise the men’s training complex at Carrington. 

The far bigger challenge will be upgrading or replacing the club’s home ground. Old Trafford remains the biggest club stadium in English football, but rivals, such as Tottenham Hotspur, have built more modern facilities that generate significant revenue beyond match days.

Ratcliffe has put together a task force to consider the options that includes former United player Gary Neville and Lord Sebastian Coe, who chaired the London 2012 Olympics. He has also floated the idea of seeking public money to help with the costs of creating a “Wembley of the North”.

But with tighter regulation and a recent history of losses, Sartori said the challenges facing Ratcliffe are “significantly more difficult to fix” now than they might have been 10 years ago.

“In other businesses you have a certain degree of predictability on your return on investment,” he said. “I don’t think football does — that’s the beauty of it.”

United decline to comment.