Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Aug 19, 2019 (II)

choi

(1) David Rocks and Yaacov Benmeleh, Gaza Needs Cement to Rebuild. Israel Dominates the Market. (a feature story)
("The market is dominated by Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises * * * Deliveries [of cement from Nesher company to Gaza] are governed by the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM), the complex set of rules [Palestinians] face[ when buying cement]. That system monitors so-called dual-use materials -- things needed by civilians that also have potential military applications. Israel restricts shipments of more than 100 broad categories of goods, ranging from smoke detectors and glues to precast concrete sewage conduits and iron reinforcement bars.  The biggest and most contentious commodity is cement, something that's rarely, if ever, been considered a dual-use material. It's easy to confuse it and concrete. The former is a builder's equivalent of glue, the stuff that binds the sand and gravel that make up the bulk of concrete, which is used in just about every structure in the industrialized world. Making cement isn't complicated  -- the recipe hasn't changed appreciably in two centuries -- but it requires vast amounts of energy and facilities the size of a small city.  Ideally, a cement factory will be located adjacent to a limestone quarry. The limestone [calcium carbonate, CaCO3] is crushed, combined with clay [chemical composition: silica  SiO2] and small amount of additives such as [fly] ash or iron ore [both ash and iron ore supply ferric oxide Fe2O3], and heated to 1,500C (2,700F). What comes out the other end is called clinker -- a dark, rocky substance that looks something like charcoal briquettes. The clinker is mixed with a bit of gypsum or limestone and ground into a powder that becomes cement")

Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: Osraeli-Palestinian politics hamper the pace of recvery in the territory
(b) Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises is based in Ramla
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramla
("Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises, Israel's sole producer of cement, maintains its flagship factory in Ramla")

But the company website under "History" talks up "the first bag of cement to exit the gates of the Nesher plant in Haifa in 1925." That is Nesher company's first plant, in Nesher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nesher
(a city now that was founded in 1924 as company town for Nesher company)
(c) fly ash
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_ash
(a coal combustion product; compared with bottom ash; section 1 Chemical composition and classification: The mineralogy of fly ashes is very diverse ]but includes] iron oxides hematite)
(d) gypsum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsum
(calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O; section 1 Etymology and history)
(e) cement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cement
(section 3 Modern cements, section 3.1 Portland cement: "Portland cement is by far the most common type of cement in general use around the world. * * * liberates a molecule of carbon dioxide from the calcium carbonate to form calcium oxide")

(2) Ali Breland, If the Student Loans Don't Break You, The Rent WILL; Luxury developers are driving costs around public university campuses. (a feature story)
("Average student debt [in America] has climbed from about $11,000 in 1990 to around $35,000 in 2018. The cost of [in-state] tuition at public colleges roughly tripled in that time, to $10,270, but that's far fro the only expense forcing students to take on loans.  In a 2015 analysis, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development found that 'housing costs [are] likely a significant portion' of individual student debt. At UT [University of Texas] Austin, the median annual rent in the neighborhoods closest to the campus exceeds the annual in-state tuition -- about $11,000 for the coming academic year -- even without including other costs such as utilities and groceries. * * * live in a [Austin campus] dorm * * * at a total cost of more than $10,000 [a year], which included a meal plan. * * *  national developers [are] starting to eye the areas around public universities as a growth market. Real estate companies bulldoze aging buildings to put up the kinds of amenities-rich, luxury apartments that might appeal to upper-middle-class parents looking for a safe, comfortable place for their student to live but which students from lower-income families * * * couldn't possibly afford") (the first pair of brackets in original)

choi

(3) Tony Rehagen, Craft Beer for Nondrinkers.
("Opened in 2016, Wellbeing [Brewing Co at Maryland Heights, Mo, a suburb of St Louis] says it's the first North American brewery dedicated solely to the making of nonalcohoic, or NA, beer * * * NA (0.5% alcohol by volume [ABV] and below) and low-alcohol (2.8% ABV) constitute 5% of US beer consumption * * * Traditionally there have been two ways to make non-alcohol beer: either halt the brewing process before the sugars ferment, cutting short the period when beer develop its taste profile; or boil the alcohol off a finished batch, essentially scorching the flavor. Either way, what's left is just plainly skunky, to sweet or too watery -- have you actually ever tried an O'Doul's?  Wellbeing's Jeff] Stevens brews his NA beer differently. In 2015 he found researchers at the University of Munich who'd developed a method of vacuum distilling beer that lowers its boiling point, preserving the flavor * * * [which needs] a vacuum-distillation machine (they retail for about $800,000) * * * Stevens's flight is among the tastiest. At 68 calories per 12-ounce can, his flagship Heavenly Body golden wheat (0.2% ABV) is crisp, with the frothy texture of a Blue Moon")

Note:
(a) summary underneath the title in print: Taste-testing the best of healthy 'low-and-no' category
(b)
(i) flight (n): "4a : a group of similar beings or objects flying through the air together  <a flight of geese>
                      b : a number of competitors (as in a sport) grouped together on the basis of demonstrated skill or ability or for purposes of elimination contests prior to a final test  <At a meet, shot putters and discus throwers are often separated into flights. — Kristin Wolden Nitz>
                      c : a selection of alcoholic drinks (such as wines, beers, or whiskeys) for tasting as a group  <Most of the 20 people attending the tasting were German wine collectors and they seemed almost always to prefer the most powerful wine in each flight. — James Suckling>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flight
(ii) flight (n): "2:  flock or large body of birds or insects in the air, especially when migrating  <flights of whooper swans>"
Oxford dictionaries
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/flight
(c)
(i) Blue Moon (beer)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_(beer)
("a Belgian-style witbier brewed by MillerCoors under the name the Blue Moon Brewing Co. It was launched in 1995")
(A) Dutch-English dictionary:
* witbier (noun neuter; Compound of [adjective] wit [white] +‎ [noun neuter] bier [beer])
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/witbier
(B) wheat beer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_beer
(section 1 Varieties, section 1.2 Witbier: It gets its name due to suspended yeast and wheat proteins which cause the beer to look hazy, or white, when cold)
(ii) blue moon  润月
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_moon

(4) Shuli Ren, R&D Spending May Be China's Achilles' Heel
("In its bid for technological supremacy, China has one small problem: Its research and development spending, at a little more than 2% of gross domestic product, is dwarfed by that of Israel, Japan and even the US. A global behemoth like Huawei Technologies Co can still wow the world with its tens of thousands o active patents, but most Chinese companies don't invest nearly enough in cutting-edge technology to compete.  That's because excessive R&D spending can hamper Chinese businesses' ability to go public. Unlike in the US, Chin's stock exchanges require companies to be profitable for at least three years before making an initial public offering [Amazon lost money years after years for decades following its founding]. R&D [if pursued] spending shows up on income statements as an operating expense and thus keeps young companies in the red for longer.  Starting in late July, technologically ambitious companies can list on a Nasdaq-style platform: the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Science and Technology Innovation Board, colloquially known as STAR, where profitability doesn't matter. Among the 20 or so industrial and tech companies that have listed so far, R&D spending averages 12.8% of their 2018 sales, more than double that of their counterparts on the more established exchanges [if it were 'exchange,' I knew it alludes to Shanghai's; but it is 'exchanges,' so I am lost about what the word means]")

Note:
(a) "Shanghai Stock Exchange's Science and Technology InnovAtion BoaRd, colloquially known as STAR"  上海证券交易所科创板
(b) The article mentions "Han's Laser Technology Industry Group" Co, Ltd 大族激光, whose English website says it was founded in 1996 and is "headquartered in the US [without specifying where]," whereas its Chinese website says 集团总部 is in "广东省深圳市南山区深南大道9988号大族科技中心大厦,"