At a Vietnamese coffee shop a ‘drink saved our business’ 

Business News

James Huynh flicked on a blowtorch and toasted the top of an egg coffee until it was golden brown. He handed the cup to his wife, Vicky Huynh, who placed it on the counter. The tip of an ice cube poked out of the thick, creamy foam made from condensed milk whipped with egg yolk. Vicky used a straw to nudge it back into the dark coffee underneath.“This drink saved our business,” Vicky said, tapping the edge of the cup with the straw. When the Huynhs first opened Café Mollie in 2021, it was a boba store that also served a menu of standard coffee drinks like lattes, as well as one Vietnamese coffee drink. The shop had a great initial turnout, but over the next year and a half, Café Mollie struggled. “I think it kind of fell flat because we didn’t really have an identity,” Vicky said. “We weren’t special.” The Huynhs went into debt to sustain the business. They borrowed money from family members. “We were losing so much money every day,” Vicky said. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.It got to the point where they were several months behind on rent. The stress of balancing the business with caring for their three children, ages 13, 10 and 3, had become overwhelming and the couple found themselves arguing often. “So we were like, let’s just take the family on a trip to Seattle, the capital of coffee,” Vicky said. They visited six or seven coffee shops and left feeling inspired. They realized they needed to change the concept of Café Mollie or accept that they’d have to close. The answer turned out to be right in front of them. They shortened their menu by a third and made Vietnamese coffee the star.Bringing Vietnamese coffee culture to PhoenixCafé Mollie’s first step in transitioning into a Vietnamese coffee house was introducing egg coffee. The drink’s signature whipped egg topping was invented during milk shortages caused by Vietnam’s war for independence from France during the 1940s. The drink was a hit, giving James and Vicky the confidence to play with their menu more. They started serving Vietnamese coffee topped with cream flavored with ube, a lightly fragrant root vegetable popular in Southeast Asian cuisines, and pandan, a tropical bush whose leaves create a flavor Vicky described as “vanilla and fresh cut grass.” The foundation for all the drinks is classic Vietnamese coffee made with dark roast drip coffee and condensed milk. The only change they made was to substitute Arabica beans for Robusta beans to give the coffee a slightly lighter and less bitter flavor.Despite the alteration, some customers still complained about the Vietnamese coffee, saying that it was too strong and had too much ice, much to Vicky’s frustration. In Vietnam, drinking coffee is a leisurely activity, so the ice has time to melt into the drink and soften it. “You would spend hours at the coffee shop,” Vicky said. “So you kind of wait for the ice to melt and then you shake it up and it emulsifies with the drink.”Vicky and James decided to keep the Vietnamese coffee’s original recipe, but as a compromise, Café Mollie also serves a drink called the Saigon Latte, which is made with fresh milk, which makes it lighter.Their experiment paid off. On any given Sunday, all the seats in the small café are full, with patrons spilling outside into the courtyard, soaking up sun with colorful drinks in hand.And though Café Mollie is now profitable, the Huynhs continue to tinker with the menu, creating a rotating list of seasonal items like a maple hojicha. Vicky also recently finalized the designs for a line of cactus-decorated paper cups for the café. “I want to treat this business like a new boyfriend,” Vicky said, laughing. “We’re always trying to impress our customers.”A tribute to her motherCafé Mollie’s success has deep, personal meaning for Vicky. Her family immigrated to the U.S. as refugees from the Vietnam War when she was 7. Stories of her mother’s tea stand were the few memories of their life in Vietnam that her mother chose to share, perhaps, Vicky hypothesized, because of trauma from the war. The family ran a small tea-processing business, buying fresh tea leaves, cooking them in a giant wok, drying them out and then selling the tea at the local wet market. “She’d put me on her bike and then we’d go to the wet market and pick out green tea and jasmine, and she’d drop me off at school,” Vicky said. Before opening Café Mollie, Vicky was a cosmetologist specializing in brows. But she always knew she wanted to open a coffee and tea shop because of her mother. “It’s like a calling,” Vicky said. “She’s my hero.”How to visit Café MollieCafé Mollie offers indoor and outdoor seating as well as WiFi. In addition to coffee, matcha and tea, it also serves a menu of banh mi sandwiches.Hours: Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.Price range: Drinks range from $4 – $7.Details: 6031 N. 16th St., Suite 5, Phoenix. 602-612-2313. @cafemollie on Instagram.A delicious quest for Sichuan food:Seeking comfort in a new city, I went on a search for malatang and found more than soupReach the reporter at [email protected]. Follow@reia_reports on Instagram.

Here’s how to enter your movie in the 2025 Athens Film Festival 

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

Athens is a small town with a big number of talented people living in it, and there simply aren’t enough stages for every musician to perform on.With last year’s successful revival of the Athens Film Festival (AFF), the number of available places to screen movies increased, but it still wasn’t enough to play everything that was sent in. The earlier you submit your film, the better chance you have of getting into the festival.Though it opened for submissions last October, the AFF this month made a public announcement via its Facebook page seeking entries for their 2025 program, scheduled to take place Aug. 14-17. Submissions will be accepted via the Film Freeway website at filmfreeway.com/athensfilm through July 1 at the very latest. There is no fee to enter, and the early deadline is coming up soon on Feb. 15.The 2024 AFF took place on Aug. 15-17 and downtown venues Ciné, The Morton Theatre, Flicker Theatre & Bar and The Globe all participated in screening the movies. Because the AFF is an international festival, submissions are open to any filmmaker in the world, and favor is not necessarily given to movies made by Athens-based artists. In addition to features and shorts, the AFF also has categories for music videos, student films and more.Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

Marcus Garvey short film ‘Mosiah’ explores presidential pardon

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

Marcus Mosiah Garvey, political activist and Jamaica’s first national hero, is the subject of the short film Mosiah, which is directed by Jirard and written by Samuel Lee Fudge. Fudge also portrays the national hero, which is the first depiction of Garvey as the main character in his own story.
The responsibility of telling the story on film for the first time was not something taken lightly by the film-makers, who sought an opportunity to “change the misguided American perspective on who Marcus Mosiah Garvey was”.
As part of the film’s worldwide tour, it was screened last Saturday, 109 years to the day of Garvey’s lecture at the Burchell Memorial Baptist Church in Montego Bay. In celebration of the anniversary, the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) gathered at that same location.
Mosiah gives both a look into Garvey’s psyche, as well as a gripping courtroom drama. It sees Garvey as plagued by nightmares and anxieties, tied to his childhood in Jamaica, and his new-found position of purpose and leadership. It also takes the allegations against Garvey and plays them out in a legal battle, with the film itself posing a defence for the legacy of the late Marcus Garvey. Mosiah depicts the persecution by federal authorities who infiltrate privately held UNIA meetings, which ultimately led to Garvey’s wrongful arrest and conviction.
The short film has become extraordinarily relevant. Less than 24 hours after the screening event, it was reported that Garvey received a presidential pardon from former President Joe Biden for the very conviction of mail fraud that is the subject of the film. It’s an unprecedented sequence of events that serves as vindication for the case made by the film.
The event itself was hosted by current UNIA-ACL President Steven Golding who fielded questions after the screening was finished, along with Samuel Lee Fudge. Fudge described his motivation for playing Garvey as coming from a place of anger, and wanting to be more proactive about the things that angered him. He has a masters in film and resides in Miami, where he grew up, and identifies as a Pan Africanist.

His preparation to play Garvey was thorough. Fudge speaks of periods of fasting, libations and praying to Garvey’s spirit. He also underwent copious amounts of research, as he saw his role as something decided for him for many years. “I was compelled to be Marcus Garvey. It was my calling from a very early age.”
Authenticity
The push for authenticity came from an awareness that Garvey’s story is heavily protected by many.
As Steven Golding put it, “The very idea of a movie about Garvey comes with a lot of criticisms and adversity. We had people saying young Garvey was too fat, that there were not enough Jamaican actors in the film. A whole lot of things.”
The film does feature one Jamaican actor, Shevon Thomas, who portrays Malchus Garvey, Marcus’ father.
The event was well attended. Members of Montego Bay’s teaching community were granted a lower price of admission and several guests were educators.
The film-makers encouraged the use of the film in classrooms, with Fudge speaking about a surprising lack of awareness about Garvey in the film’s tour around the globe.
Now that the film is being shown around the world, Fudge hopes the impact will be this: “I want to be the fuse to the fire in the youth just like Garvey, and to be a guiding voice to make the black youth across the world feel inspired and hear his voice. I want to feed that hunger of wanting to change the world.”
Mosiah is currently being shown at film festivals, and available now for rent or purchase on Amazon Prime.
Damian Levy is a film critic and podcaster for Damian Michael Movies.

Philippines, Thailand forge five-year tourism cooperation deal

Travel

The Philippine Department of Tourism (DOT) and Thailand’s Ministry of Tourism and Sports have extended their tourism development cooperation with the signing of the Implementation Program of the Agreement on Cooperation on Tourism on January 19 on the sidelines of the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2025.
Both agencies first established a tourism partnership in March 1993 through the Agreement on Cooperation on Tourism.
From left: Thailand minister of tourism and sports Sorawong Thienthong and Philippine tourism secretary Christina Garcia Frasco ink the Implementation Program of the Agreement on Cooperation on Tourism
Philippine tourism secretary Christina Garcia Frasco said: “For the Philippines, this collaboration provides an exciting opportunity to tap into Thailand’s remarkable success in attracting visitors, particularly in areas such as cultural tourism and medical tourism. We can benefit from Thailand’s robust arrival numbers, its internationally recognised cultural heritage, and world-class medical services, which will undoubtedly enhance our own tourism offerings.
“In return, Thailand stands to gain from the Philippine expertise in hospitality, where we have earned a reputation for excellence. Additionally, the Philippines is a premier destination for dive tourism – home to some of the world’s most biodiverse marine ecosystems – and for English language tourism, where our world-class language schools attract students from all over the globe.”
The programme, set to run from 2025 to 2030, aims to enhance bilateral tourism cooperation, promoting mutual growth and development within the tourism sectors of both nations. Key areas of focus include cooperation in strengthening travel facilitation, enhancing research and development, and improving tourism management and operations; exchange of best practices; talent development; exchange of officials and staff delegation; and joint tourism promotions and marketing.
A Joint Working Group will be established to oversee coordination and monitor the activities and deliverables of the programme.

Conditions pave the way for more Chinese travellers to Penang

Travel

The ongoing visa-free entry for Chinese tourists to Malaysia, introduced in December 2023, combined with a gradual improvement in air connectivity between Chinese cities and the Malaysian state of Penang, has led to a remarkable surge in Chinese arrivals.
Last year, Penang International Airport (PIA) recorded 120,245 Chinese tourist arrivals, the highest annual figure to date. This far surpassed the pre-pandemic total of 66,854 arrivals from China in 2019, showcasing Penang’s strong recovery and growing appeal.
New and rejuvenated attractions, such as Biofluorescent Odyssey in Entopia Penang, pictured, are keeping Penang fresh for repeat visitors
With 50 weekly flights between Chinese cities and Penang, China leads as Penang’s top medium-haul source market. Arrivals are expected to continue to grow through 2025 and 2026, bolstered by federal and state government efforts to promote the Visit Malaysia 2026 campaign in China as well as to other main source markets.
According to Mint Leong, president of the Malaysian Inbound Tourism Association, Penang’s diverse offerings, coupled with the convenience of direct flights, make it an irresistible destination.
“The capital, George Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is complemented by a vibrant arts and culture scene, stunning beaches, and natural attractions. Penang is also renowned for its street food and Michelin-starred restaurants,” she said.
Leong added that Penang continually rejuvenates itself with new attractions, thus ensuring something fresh for repeat visitors to discover.
She said: “Recent additions include Ferringhi Bay and the world’s first biofluorescent garden, Biofluorescent Odyssey in Entopia Penang. March will see two new attractions, Penang History Museum and Penang River Cruise. These new experiences make it easy to promote Penang as a standalone four- or five-day holiday destination for the Chinese leisure and bleisure segments.”
To further capitalise on the strength of the destination, Penang Global Tourism (PGT) is working to promote medical tourism and education tourism niches to the Chinese market.
PGT CEO, Ooi Chok Yan, highlighted Penang’s edge in attracting Chinese medical tourists.
“Medical treatments in Penang are significantly more affordable compared to similar treatments in China.
“Since 2023, we’ve actively promoted medical tourism in China, emphasising the cost advantages of cosmetic surgery, dental care, and health screenings. Our internationally accredited hospitals are equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and staffed by professionals fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, and other Chinese dialects. This ensures smooth communication and provides cultural familiarity, easing patients’ anxieties.”
Education tourism is another niche that has gained traction among the Chinese. Ooi elaborated: “Chinese students often visit Penang for short English courses or school trips, while corporations send employees for basic English training. The combination of high-quality education, affordable living costs, and rich cultural experiences makes Penang an attractive choice for these programmes.”

Trump ‘energy emergency’ centers on tech boom, national defense

Technology

President Donald Trump declared his much-anticipated “energy emergency” Monday that says the U.S. energy supply is “precariously inadequate” to meet the needs of a booming technology industry and national defense.
“The United States’ insufficient energy production, transportation, refining, and generation constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to our Nation’s economy, national security, and foreign policy,” Trump declared.
In his inaugural address, Trump riffed on plans to dismantle the Democratic climate agenda (a version of the “Green New Deal”) and go after more “liquid gold” oil and gas. He echoed his pledge during the campaign to declare an emergency over rising energy costs.

Advertisement

But it wasn’t until 9:30 p.m. that details and text of the energy emergency emerged. In the preamble to an executive order that carries the weight of the presidency, Trump blamed local and state officials in the Northeast and along the West Coast for risking the nation’s security through their opposition to fossil fuel production and pipelines. Then, he turned to policies under former President Joe Biden.
“The policies of the previous administration have driven our Nation into a national emergency, where a precariously inadequate and intermittent energy supply, and an increasingly unreliable grid, require swift and decisive action,” the order said.
“Without immediate remedy,” said the order, “this situation will dramatically deteriorate in the near future due to a high demand for energy and natural resources to power the next generation of technology.”
The drip, drip, drip of rumors of executive orders turned into a flood of real ones. Almost as soon as Trump entered the Oval Office for the start of his second term, he rescinded orders signed by Biden directing federal action on energy and climate change. Seventeen in all.
Then the new White House began coloring in the lines of a Trump “energy dominance” agenda that, by its very nature, is a dramatic shift away from the American pursuit of lower greenhouse gas emissions and a much cleaner energy portfolio.
In one order, Trump directed agencies and departments to “eliminate harmful, coercive ‘climate’ policies that increase the costs of food and fuel.”
“In particular, the assault on plentiful and reliable American energy through unnecessary and illegal regulatory demands has driven up the cost of transportation and manufacturing,” wrote the White House as it described one of Trump’s first major energy orders.
Before heading to the inaugural balls, Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris international climate agreement for a second time in eight years. He froze pending regulations, a step toward the promised deregulatory blitz.
Soon, he would sign orders to boost domestic mining of critical minerals used by big technology companies, battery makers and the defense industry. He planned to halt federal leasing for wind power and reverse pollution standards that have spurred the production of electric vehicles.
With the flare of a master showman, Trump sat in front of the cameras, signed orders and complimented his nominees for Interior and Energy secretaries, Doug Burgum and Chris Wright. With that, U.S. energy policy swung again toward fossil fuels.
The United States produces more oil than any other country, and it exports the most natural gas. The crisis is in electricity — the need for more power plants and pipelines to produce more electricity isn’t keeping up with a rapidly expanding high-tech economy.
Trump’s emergency declaration tied actions to increase the nation’s electricity to a national defense purpose.
The order directs the secretary of Defense, working with the Interior and Energy secretaries, to make a 60-day assessment of vulnerabilities that could limit the supply of electricity, oil, gas and other fuels “needed to protect the homeland.” A 2015 law requires the Energy Department to identify military facilities that could be immobilized if the power grid were knocked out by an attack or natural disaster.
A focus of the 60-day study will be inadequate refining and transportation infrastructure needed to move energy within the Northeast and West Coast.
Shortages of electric power during extreme weather didn’t get a mention. But the secretary of Energy has wide-ranging authority to take actions to protect or restore the reliability of electricity infrastructure in an emergency. How the Trump administration will use that authority remains to be seen.
‘Electricity is at the brink’
The North American Electric Reliability Corp., the nation’s power grid monitor, has warned of the dangers of blackouts during periods of extreme heat and cold. Most of America’s electric grids face “mounting resource adequacy challenges over the next 10 years,” NERC said in a December report.
Power demand for new data centers to serve the booming artificial intelligence business is surging. Solar power and battery storage projects are not keeping up with the announced and planned retirements of coal- and gas-fired generation.
“The trends point to critical reliability challenges facing the industry: satisfying escalating energy growth, managing generator retirements, and accelerating resource and transmission development,” the report said.
NERC Chief Executive Jim Robb spelled out the challenge.
“We’ve got to figure out how to build a new generation,” he said last week. “We’ve got to figure out how to build long-distance transmission, and those projects don’t happen quickly, despite exhortations.”
“To the extent that a presidential emergency order can grease the skids for permitting reform to get projects in place to address some of the fuel supply issues that we’re starting to see, particularly with natural gas. God bless them!” Robb said. “That’s exactly what this country needs right now.”
Clues to Trump’s energy emergency plans may have been dropped last week by Burgum during his Senate confirmation hearing as Trump’s choice to lead Interior. Burgum has also been assigned to coordinate a new White House National Energy Council.
Following Burgum’s appearance, ClearView Energy Partners published an analysis noting that Burgum repeatedly described the grid’s crisis as a shortage of “baseload” power, most likely referring to gas- and coal-fired power plants that can run steadily, independent of the weather or sunlight.
“Electricity is at the brink,” Burgum said. “Our grid is at a point where it could go completely unstable.”
Older coal-plants that struggle to compete in energy markets are candidates for retirement. But with electricity prices relatively high, gas-fired power plants have reason to stay open, particularly if Trump cancels the Biden administration’s restrictions on power plant carbon emissions.
“Trump’s only legal directive is to order EPA to reconsider regulations that impact fossil fuel generation, as he is likely to do, in order to keep such entities profitable,” said Brett Hartl, governmental affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity.
Powering AI
Almost 80,000 megawatts of power plants, dominated by gas- and coal-fired units, are listed as confirmed retirements over the next decade.
Plant owners have announced plans to retire another 115,000 MW in the coming decade. Most of new generation projects proposed to replace the shuttered capacity are either solar or solar-battery combinations, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports.
EIA projects that about 50,000 MW of new generation will come online by the end of 2026, not a one-for-one replacement because renewable power meets only one-third to one-half of the same amount of gas-fired capacity that shuts down.
Robb has warned that grid operators have to face the possibility that more than 200,000 MW of new power demand than was anticipated just a few years ago will be needed for new data centers.
The crisis point could come in a future brutal winter storm when gas production pumps and processing equipment freezes and wind and solar power drops to near zero.
Moreover, even if gas infrastructure holds up, pipeline capacity additions over the past seven years have trended downward, and some parts of the U.S. could run short of gas resources in the worst winter weather.
Democrats and Republicans both say energy is in crisis because of extreme weather. That’s one thing that is hard to deny. Democrats talk about climate change. Republicans lean on the idea that climate policies affecting the power grid are a threat to electric reliability.
To Trump, it’s simply about incompetence.
“Our country can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergency,” Trump said during his inaugural speech.
People are still suffering from Hurricane Helene that touched down in Florida and barreled across the Southeast, Trump noted.
“More recently Los Angeles, where we’re watching fires still tragically burned from weeks ago without even a token of defense,” he said.
Trump the candidate repeated false claims that the Federal Energy Management Agency had run out of funds because it had spent its budget helping immigrants illegally enter the United States. California Gov. Gavin Newsom opened a webpage to counter Trump’s claims about the causes of the wildfire catastrophe.
“Everyone is unable to do anything about it. That’s going to change,” Trump said Monday.
How FEMA responds to disasters and how federal agencies charged with ensuring the reliability of electricity in the face of climate change are now his responsibility.

Members of Council for tourism economy announced

Travel

The Visitor Economy Advisory Council, which met for the first time yesterday (20th January 2025), has had its members announced, and will aim to boost collaboration between the government and the tourism industry. This comes part of the government’s Plan for Change to grow the sector and boost the economy.First announced last November, the council will inform the government’s forthcoming National Visitor Economy Strategy, as well as also working on the UK’s goal to welcome 50 million international visitors per year in 2030. The UK’s tourism industry is worth £74 billion and four per cent of the gross value added (GVA).
The council is co-chaired by tourism minister Sir Christ Bryant and Karin Sheppard, IHG Hotels & Resorts’ managing director for Europe.Other members of the council include leading figures from British Airways, VisitBritain, Trainline, and the Royal Shakespeare Company. The Visitor Economy Advisory Council will focus on attracting tourists to regions and cities outside of London, which already brings in tens of millions of foreign visitors each year, as well as making sure outbound tourists have a smooth experience when travelling.
Tourism minister Sir Chris Bryant said: “The UK is one of the most visited countries in the world and domestic and international tourism are a key part of our economy. I want to build on this success and enable even more visitors to experience our fantastic culture and landscape.
“That is why I want to increase cooperation between the government and the tourism sector so that we can make the UK the best destination that it can be. That means building investment, improving visitors’ experience and enabling the sector to grow. By working together we can create jobs and drive economic growth as part of our Plan for Change, while also providing fantastic holidays that showcase the best that our country has to offer.”
For the full list of members, click here.

Members of Council for tourism economy announced

Travel

The Visitor Economy Advisory Council, which met for the first time yesterday (20th January 2025), has had its members announced, and will aim to boost collaboration between the government and the tourism industry. This comes part of the government’s Plan for Change to grow the sector and boost the economy.First announced last November, the council will inform the government’s forthcoming National Visitor Economy Strategy, as well as also working on the UK’s goal to welcome 50 million international visitors per year in 2030. The UK’s tourism industry is worth £74 billion and four per cent of the gross value added (GVA).
The council is co-chaired by tourism minister Sir Christ Bryant and Karin Sheppard, IHG Hotels & Resorts’ managing director for Europe.Other members of the council include leading figures from British Airways, VisitBritain, Trainline, and the Royal Shakespeare Company. The Visitor Economy Advisory Council will focus on attracting tourists to regions and cities outside of London, which already brings in tens of millions of foreign visitors each year, as well as making sure outbound tourists have a smooth experience when travelling.
Tourism minister Sir Chris Bryant said: “The UK is one of the most visited countries in the world and domestic and international tourism are a key part of our economy. I want to build on this success and enable even more visitors to experience our fantastic culture and landscape.
“That is why I want to increase cooperation between the government and the tourism sector so that we can make the UK the best destination that it can be. That means building investment, improving visitors’ experience and enabling the sector to grow. By working together we can create jobs and drive economic growth as part of our Plan for Change, while also providing fantastic holidays that showcase the best that our country has to offer.”
For the full list of members, click here.