Prohibition "halted the rise of small local brewers"

From a lengthy article titled "The End of Craft Beer":

Prohibition (1920-1933) interrupted the progress of the American brewing industry. A little known fact: it also halted the rise of small local brewers, who had been growing at a faster rate than the national breweries since 1895 and had steadily been cutting into the big boys’ profits.[7] Prohibition was hardest on them because they did not have the capital reserves to weather the hard times or switch production to non-alcoholic goods. By the time Prohibition ended, the field had winnowed and the giants were poised to conquer it.

Conquer it they did. The second half of the twentieth century witnessed a formidable concentration of the brewing industry. There were 421 mass-producing beer companies in 1947, but only 24 in 2000, three of which—Anheuseur-Bush, Miller, and Coors—accounted for nearly 89% of U.S. beer production. The consolidation of the post-World War II market bore little resemblance to that of the late nineteenth century. The brewers of the industrial revolution had proudly touted their quality and consistency. The postwar breweries, by contrast, shifted to selling lifestyle. Technological advances, once a driver of quality, now served to cut production costs. Small firms had to discount their beer just to compete, leading to price wars that they were destined to lose.

To put it simply—the costs of entering the beer market were high, profit margins slim, and the chance of failure great. All economic signs from 1980 on should have pointed to futility for small breweries. Yet this was precisely when craft beer flourished. Just as the industry was consolidating at the top, diversity in production was increasing at the bottom. Eighteen microbreweries were producing beer in 1984. A decade later the number was 537. By 2016, it was over 3,000.

There were structural reasons for the rise of craft beer.

"The Mysterious Printer Code That Could Have Led the FBI to Reality Winner"

Atl:

As you can probably see now, the dots are printed in a repeating rectangular pattern. They’re a code.

...

“In a purported effort to identify counterfeiters the U.S. government has succeeded in persuading some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each page with identifying information,” they write.

The idea was that color laser printers might be (or become) so good that anyone could just print money. So, manufacturers were persuaded to add this countermeasure into the software that’s baked into some printers. When someone prints in color on one of these machines, the printer does everything normally, but also adds this nearly invisible identifying stamp. (If they print in black and white, though, there are no dots.)

"Visitors watch in horror as live donkey is fed to tigers at Changzhou zoo"

Sh:

In a video that has gone viral on Chinese social media

...

It took them 30 minutes to kill the donkey

"the Trump Organization announced plans for a new three-star hotel chain with a patriotic flair, echoing President Trump’s campaign slogan about putting America first"

NYT:

The intention is to differentiate the chain, called American Idea, by featuring artifacts of American culture in the hotels, such as an old Coca-Cola machine in the lobby or American-made sundries in the rooms.

...

The chain will make its debut in little-known towns in Mississippi, a state in the heart of Trump country that favored him over Hillary Clinton by a margin of 18 percentage points. The organization’s business partner in Mississippi is a family-owned hotel company whose co-owner met Mr. Trump at a campaign event last summer and donated to his campaign.

...

The first hotels are expected to come online quickly because they will involve rebranding existing properties like Holiday Inns and Comfort Inns.

"Wrestling Content On YouTube Continues To Be Demonetized"

BC:

Essentially, for no other reason we can think of beyond the fact that professional wrestling depicts simulated violence (because while wrestlers are athletes, they’re not beating the hell out of each other, and by that definition fall under that classification on YouTube), any channel with wrestling as a focus is being demonetized. That includes podcast channels that feature audio and no actual wrestling, because they’re still promoting the subject as a whole.

"Myanmar's wild elephants are being poached in record numbers with at least 20 killed this year due to surging demand for their hide"

Yahoo:

Elephant skin has become one of the latest animal products to be touted by some as having medical properties, although there is no scientific support for those claims.

...

Much of the trade runs through the country's lawless eastern periphery, controlled by a sophisticated criminal network who are thought to be armed and funded by powerful "kingpins" in China.

"AAA said premiums for Tesla vehicles could go up 30 percent based on data from the Highway Loss Data Institute and other sources"

"based on data showing that the Model S and Model X had abnormally high claim frequencies and high costs of insurance claims compared with other cars in the same classes."