With the U.S.-versus-the-world trade war threat heating up, Harley-Davidson Inc. and Jack Daniel’s maker Brown-Forman Corp. may just be the canaries in the coal mine.

For Anthony Nighswander, rock-bottom unemployment is both a headache and an opportunity. For businesses and workers, it could be the key to reversing one of the country’s most vexing economic problems: slow productivity growth.

A Nebraska city with more job listings than applicants has extended a special offer to employers: It will match signing bonuses for out-of-town hires — up to $5,000.

Animal welfare in fashion has had a huge boost last week. Asos — the second biggest clothing site in the U.K., with 64.4 million visitors in the six months to May 2018 — has pledged to ban silk, mohair, cashmere and feathers from its site from January 2019. In addition, products using down, teeth and bone — including mother-of-pearl, which is taken from the shell of some molluscs — also fall under the planned ban.

Challenge: A major international automotive manufacturer was experiencing a high rate of supply chain damage. The component racks which held car parts during transit had passed impact and vibration testing, but shipments were still arriving damaged. With no way to tell what was causing the damage, the automotive company had to get creative.