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Amid a month of skyrocketing stock prices and unprecedented social media buzz, Hims & Hers is expanding its territory into at-home blood testing and diagnostics. Hims has acquired at-home lab testing facility Trybe Labs, the telehealth company said Wednesday. Using at-home blood draws, Hims will now offer over 70 at-home diagnostics tests, ranging from heart health to certain cancer detection tests. All these can be arranged through the app, without a doctors visit. At-home lab testing is one more exciting step towards elevating the personal, comprehensive care customers in this country should expect, Dr. Patrick Carroll, Hims & Hers chief medical officer, told CNBC. Trybe Labs is based in New Jersey, and Hims & Hers will use these labs to process blood tests at low-cost for Hims & Hers members, using state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment, according to its webpage. Pricing information for these tests will come out within the next year, according to the company. Hims & Hers stock was up 23% during midday trading on Wednesday, following the news of the acquisition. By offering at-home testing, Hims & Hers now puts itself in competition with industry juggernauts like Labcorp and Quest Diagnostics. Shares of Hims have jumped 230% in the last three months, while Labcorps and Quests have grown only by 4 and 6%, respectively. The move comes during what has seemed like a month of Hims & Hers domination. The telehealth company, which vows to let its members skip the awkward doctors visits, recently entered the public consciousness with a viral and controversial Super Bowl ad. The ad criticized the pharmaceutical industry while promoting itself as a cheaper alternative. Within the ad, a spokeswoman says: There are medicines that work, but theyre priced for profits, not patients. After the ad aired, Hims & Hers saw a 650% increase in website traffic and an 11% increase in stock price.
Category:
E-Commerce
President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday ordered a halt to New York Citys congestion pricing system, which thins traffic and funds mass transit by imposing high tolls on drivers entering some parts of Manhattan. Launched on January 5, the citys system uses license plate readers to impose a $9 toll on most passenger cars entering Manhattan neighborhoods south of Central Park. In its early days, transit officials say the toll has brought modest but measurable traffic reductions. That charge comes on top of what drivers already pay to use bridges and tunnels to get onto the island. Drivers who take a tunnel in from New Jersey during peak commuting hours now pay $31.81, or a discounted rate of $22.06 if they are enrolled in the E-ZPass toll collection program. In a statement, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced the federal government has rescinded its approval of the program, calling it slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners. Duffy said his agency will work with the state on an orderly termination of the tolls. Similar tolling programs intended to force people onto public public transit by making driving cost-prohibitive have long existed in other global cities, including London, Stockholm, Milan, and Singapore, but the system had never before been tried in the U.S. Trump, whose namesake Trump Tower penthouse and other properties are within the congestion zone, had vowed to kill the plan as soon as he took office. He previously characterized it as a massive, regressive tax. It will be virtually impossible for New York City to come back as long as the congestion tax is in effect, Trump said in November as New York prepared to implement the plan before he took office. Revenue from the tolls is intended to raise billions of dollars in revenue for the citys creaky and cash-strapped transit system, which carries some four million riders daily. The tolling system has been divisive. Transit advocates and environmentalists have heralded it as an innovative step to reduce air pollution from vehicle exhaust, make streets safer for pedestrians and bikers, while speeding up traffic for vehicles that truly need to be on the road, like delivery trucks and police cars. But the high tolls are hated by many New Yorkers who own cars, particularly those that live in the suburbs or parts of the city not well-served by the subway system. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, had fought the tolls and court and wrote a letter Trump on Inauguration Day imploring him to kill the program. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul also had misgivings. Last June, she abruptly halted the tolling systems planned launch, citing concerns about its impact on the local economy. The Democrat then revived the toll in November following Trumps election, but reduced the toll for passenger vehicles from $15 to $9. Since then, she has lauded it as a win for the city and has discussed the issue multiple times with the president. The tolling plan was approved by New York lawmakers in 2019, but stalled for years awaiting a required federal environmental review during Trumps first term before being approved by the administration of President Joe Biden. As in other cities, the New York congestion fee varies depending on the time and the size of the vehicle. Trucks and other large automobiles pay a higher rate, and the fee goes drops to $2.25 for most cars during the quieter overnight hours. The toll survived several lawsuits trying to halt it before its launch, including from the state of New Jersey, unionized teachers in New York City, a trucking industry group and local elected leaders in the Hudson River Valley, Long Island, and northern New Jersey. Philip Marcelo, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
Starbucks is shaking things up with a new approach to its cold drink cups. Instead of the usual clear plastic, many locations are now serving iced drinks in cold compostable cupsa big step toward cutting down on plastic waste. The switch officially rolled out on February 11 across 14 states, according to Fox Business. A Starbucks spokesperson confirmed that the company “switched to commercially compostable cups and lids as part of our efforts to reduce waste and meet local market requirements.” Right now, about 580 stores have made the change, which is just a small fraction of Starbucks 17,000+ locations in the U.S. But if you’re grabbing an iced coffee in California, Washington, Hawaii, Minnesota, Arizona, New Mexico, Massachusetts, Michigan, Maryland, Connecticut, Virginia, South Carolina, Colorado, or Georgia, you might notice the new cups in action. Starbucks explained the purpose of the new cups, which were redesigned with a strawless lid, in a note on its website called “A Better Cup for All.” “Weve set an ambitious goal for our cups to be 100% compostable, recyclable, or reusable; sourced from 50% recycled materials; and made using 50% less virgin fossil fuel derived sources by 2030. In the U.S. and Canada, were rolling out a more sustainable and accessible cold cup made with 10-20% less plastic just one way were driving single-use packaging innovation.”The chain also mentioned other ways it’s working towards sustainability, such as the use of “for here” cups, which are coffee mugs and glasses that can be used for orders being consumed in the store and personal cups. The brand also explained that it’s testing reusable cups in more than 30 markets. “For instance, in Petaluma, California, we piloted a program that makes reusables the default option for to-go drinks across an entire city,” it said.According to a December 2024 CBS News report, about six million cold Starbucks drinks are sold each day, adding up to about 2.2 billion plastic cups a year. In April, Starbucks announced the invention of the new cold cups, and explained they could eliminate 13 million pounds of plastic wastemost of which ends up in landfills. The waste-reducing moves are, of course, good for the environment. But Starbucks cups have always been a hot-button issue. Whether it’s disagreements over holiday designs, or pushback over sustainability efforts, changes rarely go unnoticed, and they haven’t this time, either. Social media users were quick to critique the new compostable design, especially the new lid. “Trying to sip cold foam through them is awful,” one Reddit user shared. “The lid has an odd taste and texture and the hole is too small.”Many customers shared the insight that they prefer to see their drink before consuming it, especially drinks with layers, or that are meant to be aesthetically pleasing. And several comments pointed to the fact that it will be tough for TikTokkers to show off their drinks in the new cups, which are not see-through. “No more Tiktok drinks. Can’t flaunt a drink if it’s hidden,” the commenter lamented. While the change certainly will be noticeable on TikTok, as posting food and drink reviews is a wildly popular pastime, plenty of customers applauded the move. Because while the cup isn’t clear, the environmental impact sure is. “I’m all for that. I think we need more paper cups and less plastic ones,” one customer wrote. Another echoed the sentiment, writing, If it means dramatically reducing the amount of plastic cups, we should all be rejoicing.”
Category:
E-Commerce
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