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Apex Hotels Limited has reported another consecutive year of strong growth, with a 6 per cent rise in turnover (from �61.3 to �65m) and 2.1 per cent rise in underlying profits before tax (up from �10.3m to �10.5m). The company showed its confidence in the market during the financial year with capital investment of �20.... |
Apex Hotels, the Edinburgh-headquartered group with sites in the Scottish capital, Bath, Dundee, Glasgow and London, has posted rising profits and turnover following a year of major investment. |
The group also issued a bullish trading outlook yesterday as it flagged multi-million-pound refurbishment work at its four-star establishments. |
Its latest accounts revealed a 6 per cent rise in turnover – from £61.3 million to £65m – alongside a 2.1 per cent increase in underlying profits before tax, which were up from £10.3m to £10.5m during the year. |
The group said it had displayed its confidence in the market during the financial year with capital investment of £20.7m used to further develop its new hotel, Apex City of Bath. |
The £48.5m, 177-bed hotel is the latest addition to Apex’s now ten-strong portfolio. Its August opening was a significant milestone, marking the Scottish company’s first in England outside of London. |
Angela Vickers, chief executive of Apex Hotels, said: “We are proud to reflect on a financial year that shows considerable capital investment and consistently strong financial performance. |
“In January we promised an exciting year of development and investment and our stunning new hotel in Bath has delivered that – and created 120 jobs. It is the city’s largest in terms of bedroom numbers and events space. |
“Our track record in the four-star market is achieved through our high customer service and brand standards, as well as our ongoing commitment to continued investment in our existing offering. |
The firm said it was already reaping the benefits of investment made in its previous financial year – ending April 2016 – during which it added 134 rooms through Apex City of Glasgow’s opening and the extension of Apex City of London. |
As a result, its latest set of figures highlight 7 per cent growth in rooms sold while occupancy was up by 2.6 per cent. |
The company also restructured long leasehold arrangements in place for Apex City Quay, Dundee, Apex Haymarket and Apex City of London. In return for an annual rent increase the group received a premium of £7m which was utilised to reduce bank debt. |
According to the results, revenue per available room – or RevPAR, a key industry measure – came in at £113.10, up from £108.69 the year before. There was a 6.7 per cent jump in the total number of rooms sold, from 390,261 to 416,630. |
The group recorded a profit after taxation of £8.7m, which was down on the £9.3m posted a year earlier. |
Apex was established in the mid-1990s when the first of its hotels was opened in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket, by founder Norman Springford. |
Filed Under:Afghanistan, Chinatown, Elizabeth OuYang, Pvt. Danny Chen, Sgt. Adam Holcomb, Spc. Ryan J. Offutt, Spc. Thomas Porter Curtis, Staff Sgt. Blaine G. Dugas Jr. |
FORT BRAGG, N.C. (CBSNewYork/AP) — A soldier was sentenced Monday to about three months in prison and demoted to private for his role in the suicide of Pvt. Danny Chen, who authorities say killed himself because he was hazed over his Chinese ancestry. |
Spc. Thomas Porter Curtis pleaded guilty to hazing, assault and other charges in the case of Chen’s suicide last fall in Afghanistan, The Fayetteville Observer reported. |
Chen, who was from Chinatown, shot himself on Oct. 3, 2011 in Afghanistan after weeks of racial slurs, humiliation and physical abuse by his colleagues, military officials said. |
Prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Curtis to up to nine months in prison, reduced rank, loss of pay, and a bad conduct discharge. |
Curtis, 27, of Hendersonville, Tenn., was accused of using racial slurs against Chen, throwing rocks at him and kicking him. Curtis said he punished Chen to humiliate him in front of his peers. Curtis said he was acting on his own. |
Curtis said during a sentencing hearing that his actions were learned during his stint in the Marine Corps before joining the Army. The physical punishments were normal for the Marines, he told the court in an unsworn statement, but that didn’t justify what he did. |
“I know now your honor that it wasn’t right, that I went too far,” Curtis told the military judge. |
Elizabeth OuYang, president of the New York chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans, said allowing Curtis to stay in the Army puts other soldiers at risk. |
Curtis was the fifth of eight soldiers charged in the case. |
Earlier this month, Spc. Ryan J. Offutt pleaded guilty to one count of hazing and two specifications of maltreatment. |
He was sentenced to six months in prison. Offutt will also be demoted to private and receive a bad conduct discharge. He faced several charges, including negligent homicide. |
Staff Sgt. Blaine G. Dugas Jr. was convicted of using alcohol in a combat zone and dereliction of duty, The Fayetteville Observer reported. |
He was demoted to sergeant and sentenced to three months in prison, but was given credit for time served. |
In July, Sgt. Adam Holcomb was convicted of mistreating Chen days before Chen’s suicide, but he was acquitted of being a cause of Chen’s death. He was found guilty of maltreatment of a subordinate and assault consummated by battery. |
Green Tech I cover environmental and green technology issues from San Francisco. |
We’ve seen this movie before: The federal government spends billions of dollars promoting renewable energy and green technologies and then a few years later lets the programs dwindle and die as political priorities and markets shift. |
Now it’s Groundhog Day again. |
A report released Wednesday by a trio of think thanks – the Breakthrough Institute, Brookings Institution and the World Resources Institute – finds that federal support for green tech will plunge from a high of $44.3 billion in 2009 to $11 billion in 2014 with the expiration of key subsidies designed to speed the deplo... |
The upside, according to the report, is the opportunity to reform the entire way the federal government promotes clean energy to make such support and the technologies it underwrites more sustainable. |
A big problem: Nearly 70% of federal green tech programs and expenditures are temporary, which by their very nature results in boom and bust cycles as investors rush to tap stimulus funds and tax incentives and then move to the sidelines when those programs expire. |
A crucial production tax credit for the wind industry, for instance, has expired three times since it was enacted in 1992 and has been extended seven times, often at the 11th hour. It's set to sun set again at the end of 2012 and some analysts predict wind energy installations in the U.S. will plunge from 8-10.5 megawa... |
"The vast majority of U.S. clean tech policy support has always been erratic and temporary by nature, with sunset dates or volumetric limits built into the programs from the beginning," the report's authors write. |
Compounding the dilemma, they say, is an emphasis on getting wind farms, solar power plants and other renewable energy facilities online rather than focusing on promoting innovative technologies that can eventually meet market demand without subsides. |
"Unfortunately, clean tech deployment policies today often closely resemble crop supports, offering a flat production subsidy for any clean energy produced, rather than the demanding military procurement policies that delivered steady improvements and the eventual mass-adoption of everything from radios, microchips, an... |
The solution, they write is to create independent programs to avoid Solyndra-like political circuses and focus will be on long-range strategy. The report advocates the creation of a Clean Energy Deployment Administration to "leverage private finance through a variety of investment, credit, and insurance tools to suppor... |
The goal is to avoid permanent subsidy programs - a la Big Oil - and put more resources into research and development efforts. Of the $150 billion set to be spent on green tech programs between 2009 and 2014, only $28.1 billion has been set aside for R&D. |
"A business-as-usual strategy of perpetual policy expiration and renewal is no longer sustainable," the report concludes. "Yet neither is the immediate cessation of clean tech subsidies in the national interest. Supporting the development of a new portfolio of cost-competitive, scalable clean energy technologies offers... |
Hale Ku’ai Open Market – Thu. Aug 4. Features fresh assorted fruits and vegetables open to the public. Free. 11:00am. Hale Ku’ai, (1977 Main St., Wailuku); 808-984-2156. |
HANA METALS RECYCLING EVENT – Fri. Aug 5 – Sat. Aug 6. The County-sponsored metals collection events allow East Maui residents to properly recycle appliances, scrap metal, auto batteries, tires and labeled propane tanks. Residents are asked to hold these items until the event and to refrain from dumping any materials a... |
Former Yankees and Mets pitcher Al Leiter will not return as a member of the YES Network broadcast booth this season. |
Former New York Yankees and Mets pitcher Al Leiter will not return to the YES Network broadcast booth to call Yankees games this season, according to a report from the New York Post. |
The main reason for Leiter's exit, according to the report, is to free up his schedule to be around for his son Jack's high school baseball season. Leiter will, however, continue his work in the MLB Network studio. |
Jack Leiter, a senior at Delbarton School in Morristown, is following in his father's footsteps. The 6-foot-1 right-hander who committed to Vanderbilt, tossed a no-hitter last year against Don Bosco. |
Al Leiter, who is also a New Jersey product and attended Central Regional High School in Bayville, threw a no-hitter in the major leagues in 1996 as a member of the Florida Marlins against the Colorado Rockies. It was the first in franchise history. |
The phenomenon is most pronounced in same-party or nonpartisan contests. Other races also feature a lot of outside spending, such as the partisan battles in Orange County’s 34th Senate District and the Central Valley’s 14th Senate District, but the candidate committees have raised a lot of money from political parties ... |
The chart below shows the 12 contests on Tuesday’s ballot where outside spending exceeds candidates’ fundraising. There is no daily reporting of candidates’ campaign spending, but candidate campaigns typically spend money soon after they get it in close races. |
Look no further! We have just found your next home! This charming 3bedroom / 2bathroom house that has many features including crown molding, a fenced yard, a good sized kitchen with a window and ceramic tile in the wet areas and the dining room. The neighborhood is just outside of the hustle and bustle of Kissimmee's H... |
Poinciana Neighborhood. Beautiful 3 bedroom 2 bathroom pool home! Ceramic tile throughout the house. Very well maintained. Must see! |
Real Madrid president Florentino Perez made promises to Zinedine Zidane that he would heavily invest in the summer transfer window in order to convince the Frenchman to return to the Santiago Bernabeu. |
Zidane was named as Real manager just 10 months after leaving the club. |
Having won three consecutive Champions League titles with the La Liga giants, Zidane was aware a major overhaul was required and he opted to walk away from the post with Perez preferring to stick with a squad that had won Europe’s top competition in four of the last five seasons. |
But after a disastrous Champions League exit at the hands of Ajax, Perez was convinced that the squad does indeed need a serious overhaul and will now pursue some huge names in the summer. |
Zidane will get £300million to spend on new recruits, while Real chiefs are hoping to generate cash from the sales of Gareth Bale and Luka Modric, according to the Independent. |
It’s possible they will land three ‘galacticos’ with Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Christian Eriksen and Chelsea’s Eden Hazard among the players being considered. |
Paris Saint-Germain duo Neymar and Kylian Mbappe have persistently been linked with a move to the Santiago Bernabeu and the former is thought to be their top target. |
What is clear is that Madrid will spend big, with Perez making a series of promises to Zidane in order to lure him back to the Spanish capital. |
where is the desired order (number of poles). This simple result is obtained when the response is taken to be maximally flat at as well as dc (i.e., when both and are maximally flat at dc).I.1Also, an arbitrary scale factor for has been set such that the cut-off frequency (-3dB frequency) is rad/sec. |
for . These poles may be quickly found graphically by placing poles uniformly distributed around the unit circle (in the plane, not the plane--this is not a frequency axis) in such a way that each complex pole has a complex-conjugate counterpart. |
A Butterworth lowpass filter additionally has zeros at . Under the bilinear transform , these all map to the point , which determines the numerator of the digital filter as . |
Given the poles and zeros of the analog prototype, it is straightforward to convert to digital form by means of the bilinear transformation. |
On April 4, 1984, the fictional hero of George Orwell’s classic novel 1984 begins the taboo practice of keeping a diary. “Down with Big Brother,” Winston Smith writes over and over. |
On April 4, 2017, to commemorate the first day of Winston’s rebellion, art house theaters across the US will coordinate screenings of the 1980s movie adaptation of the book. The film stars John Hurt and Richard Burton. |
“The endeavor encourages theaters to take a stand for our most basic values: freedom of speech, respect for our fellow human beings, and the simple truth that there are no such things as ‘alternative facts,'” the organizers, who call themselves the United State of Cinema, write on their site. |
In the last month, the 1949 dystopian classic has become a bestseller again in the US, primarily for its association with the defense of “alternative facts” in the current era by Kellyanne Conway, adviser to US president Donald Trump. The novel’s totalitarian government employs a similar strategy, systematically erasin... |
At time of writing, 123 theaters in 39 American states, and three in Canada, are planning to screen the film. |
Local boy Leighton Baines is relishing the chance to gain derby revenge after helping Everton book an FA Cup semi-final showdown with Liverpool. |
The blue and red halves of the city meet at Wembley on April 14 after the Toffees joined their neighbours in the last four thanks to a 2-0 sixth-round replay win at Sunderland. |
It also gives Everton an opportunity to make up for the 2-0 Premier League derby defeat at Goodison Park in October, and the 3-0 drubbing they suffered at Anfield earlier this month. Left-back Baines said: âItâs a one-off game. Anyone can win it. Obviously, we will look to fare better than last time and we will fee... |
âPlaying at Wembley in the semi-final is great, and something for all of us as players and fans to look forward to. The fact that itâs against Liverpool only adds to that. |
Merseyside will be buzzing as the clock ticks down towards a match which will spark a mass exodus to north-west London. |
Kirkby-born Baines, 27, grew up in the city and was on Evertonâs books as a schoolboy before making the breakthrough at Wigan, and he knows exactly what to expect. |
The England international added: âItâs massive for the city and being a local lad, I know what it means to everyone. |
For manager David Moyes, Tuesdayâs impressive win â courtesy of Nikica Jelavicâs opener and an own goal by David Vaughan â helped to erase memories of some of his earlier FA Cup disappointments. |
The Blues lost in the third round at fourth-tier Shrewsbury in 2003 and at home to League One Oldham at the same stage five years later. |
This photo of Rudolf Velte in uniform was taken by a photographer sent by a church group that visited the POWs. Velte worked at Pesche’s Flowers. |
Where were German POW camps located around Chicago during World War II? |
Bill’s question screamed for a visual treatment, so we put together this annotated map that shows the camps’ locations and a bit more about them. Below, we also provide some context to make sense of it. |
But with Bill’s enthusiasm as our guide, we kept a lookout for interesting stories about life in and around the camps. We turned up several: A few were sad, a few were uplifting and a few had even grabbed headlines in decades past. Each is a reminder that Chicago’s connection to World War II didn’t just involve sending... |
The main camp was Fort Sheridan, with 1,300 POWs housed there from 1944 to 1945. Fort Sheridan also served as a sort of processing center and distributor of some 15,000 POWs, with prisoners being sent to smaller “branch camps” throughout the Midwest, a handful dotting Chicagoland. |
Although nearly 425,000 POWs came to the United States during World War II, 370,000 of them were German. Many were captured while fighting in German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Corps. |
We brought them to the U.S. for several reasons: First, it was too expensive provide food for prisoners held overseas. Also, camps were overcrowded in Europe, and our ally Great Britain asked for our help. Lastly, POWs could help fill the labor shortage in vital industries such as farming. |
In the Chicago area, another few hundred were based in the Sweet Woods Forest Preserve near south suburban Thornton. They stayed in military-style barracks constructed during the Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps. The Thornton site later housed a Girl Scout camp and even a high school. |
Estimates suggest that between 75 and 250 POWs worked at Arlington Fields, south of Arlington Heights. Prisoners there were assigned to work at the United States Naval Air Station at Glenview. Also in Glenview, nearly 400 POWs were based at U.S. Camp Skokie in 1943. They worked in nearby orchards and farms, as well as ... |
About 200 POWs were based in Camp Pine in Des Plaines at the corner of Euclid and River Road. Some of those POWS worked in the greenhouse of Pesche’s Flowers, which is still open today. |
Rudolf Velte was a German POW who was held at Camp Pine during the end of World War II, from 1945 to 1946. He had fought in German Field Marshal General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps before he was taken prisoner by the French. He escaped. Conditions were abysmal, he said: “There was not much to eat and drink and very bad... |
Curious City’s Edie Rubinowitz went to Des Plaines learn more about this POW who picked carnations and made a special delivery more than fifty years later. She also discovered tapes that caught Velte recounting his story to (and being translated by) an American cousin, Art Bodenbender. |
Not all German POWs had fond memories of their imprisonment in America. Reinhold Pabel’s experience was not as idyllic as Velte’s. Yes, Pabel did get to take courses he wanted to — he learned Persian, for example — but he said the Nazi and anti-Nazi tensions ran high in Camp Grant in Rockford, Ill. Prisoners were force... |
Edie Rubinowitz is a professor of journalism at Northeastern Illinois University and a former WBEZ news reporter. You can follow her on Twitter @edester. |
Dana Bilyeu said nearly every state is looking at shared-risk concepts. |
Officials in nearly every state are considering implementing shared-risk public pension plan designs that help mitigate funded status volatility and investment and longevity risks. |
Such a move is seen as an alternative to drastic benefit freezes or cuts legislatures have imposed on struggling public plans since the financial crisis, and as a way to defuse criticism of public defined benefit plans in general. |
While public plan participants have long been required to contribute to their defined benefit plans, in most cases, employers have assumed all or most of the investment risk. |
Shared-risk plan design allows sponsors to change employee contributions, benefits, or some combination of the two, when the plan's financial condition is affected by market downturns, longevity changes or inflation. |
In the private sector, particularly with multiple employers, interest in the variable benefit, or adjustable pension plan, idea is growing among sponsors like Consumers Union and the $3.7 billion Sheet Metal Workers' National Pension Fund, Fairfax, Va., which in 2013 adopted an approach that ties benefits to the pensio... |
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