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HONG KONG and WASHINGTON, July 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Duddell Street Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: DSAC) ("Duddell Street"), a publicly-traded special purpose acquisition company, announced today that its shareholders of record as of June 23, 2022, have voted to approve the previously proposed business combination (the "Business Combination") with FiscalNote Holdings, Inc. (the "Company") at Duddell Street's extraordinary general meeting of shareholders (the "Special Meeting") held earlier today.
92.5% of the votes cast at the Special Meeting were in favor of the approval of the Business Combination, and the other proposals presented at the Special Meeting were also approved by the Duddell Street shareholders. The formal results of the vote will be included in a Current Report on Form 8-K to be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") by Duddell Street.
As a result of the Business Combination, at closing, FiscalNote will combine with Duddell Street and the combined company's name will be "FiscalNote Holdings, Inc.". Following the closing, which is expected to take place Friday, July 29, 2022, the combined company's Class A common stock and warrants are expected to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbols "NOTE" and "NOTE WS", respectively, on Monday, August 1, 2022.
FiscalNote is a leading technology provider of global policy and market intelligence. By uniquely combining AI technology, actionable data, and expert and peer insights, FiscalNote empowers customers to manage policy, address regulatory developments, and mitigate global risk. Since 2013, FiscalNote has pioneered technology that delivers mission-critical insights and the tools to turn them into action. Home to CQ, Equilibrium, FrontierView, Oxford Analytica, VoterVoice, and many other industry-leading brands, FiscalNote serves more than 5,000 customers worldwide with global offices in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. To learn more about FiscalNote and its family of brands, visit FiscalNote.com and follow @FiscalNote.
Duddell Street Acquisition Corp. was formed for the purpose of effecting a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses. Duddell Street is sponsored by Hong Kong-based hedge fund Maso Capital. Since inception, Maso Capital has invested in more than one thousand companies and situations across multiple sectors and geographies. Leveraging its stature and reputation in Hong Kong and its experienced investment team, Maso Capital has had investments in a number of TMT, healthcare, fintech and consumer companies in the region. For more information, please visit DSAC.co.
This communication contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements may include, but are not limited to, statements about future financial and operating results, plans, objectives, expectations and intentions with respect to future operations, products and services; and other statements identified by words such as "will," "are expected to," "is anticipated," "estimated," "believe," "intend," "plan," "projection," "pro forma," "outlook" or words of similar meaning. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding FiscalNote's industry and market sizes, future opportunities for FiscalNote and Duddell Street, FiscalNote's estimated future results and the proposed business combination between Duddell Street and FiscalNote, including pro forma market capitalization, pro forma revenue, the expected transaction and ownership structure and the likelihood, timing and ability of the parties to successfully consummate the proposed transaction. Such forward-looking statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of Duddell Street's and FiscalNote's managements and are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond Duddell Street's or FiscalNote's control. Actual results and the timing of events may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, Duddell Street and FiscalNote do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Media Contact
Nicholas Graham
FiscalNote
press@fiscalnote.com
Investors
ICR, Inc. for FiscalNote
Sean Hannan
IR@fiscalnote.com
Duddell Street Acquisition Corp.
Sam Joshi
IR@masocapital.com
In connection with the Business Combination, Duddell Street has filed relevant materials with the SEC, including a registration statement on Form S-4, which includes a proxy statement/prospectus of Duddell Street, which was declared effective by the SEC on July 1, 2022, and will file other documents regarding the Business Combination with the SEC. Duddell Street's shareholders and other interested persons are advised to read the definitive proxy statement and documents incorporated by reference therein filed in connection with the Business Combination, as these materials contain important information about FiscalNote, Duddell Street and the Business Combination. The documents filed by Duddell Street with the SEC may be obtained free of charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov.
This communication does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities, or a solicitation of any vote or approval, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.
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SOURCE FiscalNote | 2022-07-27T21:46:05+00:00 | kxii.com | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/07/27/duddell-street-acquisition-corp-shareholders-approve-business-combination-with-fiscalnote-holdings-inc/ |
Collaboration aims to make UV disinfection more accessible for healthcare facilities of all sizes
NORTHFIELD, Ill., Jan. 30, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Medline today announced a new partnership with Connecticut-based Integrated UVC Solutions to help healthcare providers enhance UV disinfection practices. Medline is now the exclusive distributor of the integrated surface and air room disinfection device, Spectra 1000, to healthcare providers across the continuum of care.
After nearly five years of declining hospital-associated infections (HAI), a CDC study found a significant increase in HAIs starting in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Spectra 1000's no-touch disinfection technology provides an advanced level of room disinfection within minutes. The portable device on wheels uses proprietary UVC technology to kill pathogens on hard surfaces while simultaneously disinfecting the air at a rate of 250 cubic feet per minute. Spectra 1000 offers cloud-based reporting to help infection prevention directors track data and usage of each device, and units can be linked together for easy maneuverability of units throughout the facility.
"We are excited to partner with a company that shares our goal of offering innovations that help healthcare run better," said Megan Henken, vice president of product management for Medline's Environmental Services division. "The price structure of the Spectra 1000 makes it achievable for facilities of all sizes to buy the number of units needed to fully implement this into cleaning and disinfecting practices and make a measurable impact in reducing infections."
Spectra 1000 is the latest UV disinfection addition to Medline's environmental services portfolio and complements the division's products and programs that create efficiencies and empower environmental cleaning staff. Examples include the S400 Portable Air Disinfection Device, Medline's Clean by Sequence microfiber booklets, and Micro-Kill™ One Disinfectant Wipes, as well as interactive online training courses, posters and in-person education to train staff.
"Many UV disinfection devices come at a high price point. I wanted to create something that considers the budgets of healthcare providers both big and small without sacrificing any efficacy," said John Flynn, founder of Integrated UVC Solutions. "Medline's industry expertise and sales team dedicated to working with environmental services and infection prevention staff are invaluable as we unveil Spectra 1000."
Learn more about Spectra 1000 at https://www.medline.com/product/Spectra-1000-UV-Disinfection-Devices/UV-Disinfection/Z05-PF288623?question=spectra%201000.
About Medline
Medline is a healthcare company; a manufacturer, distributor, and solutions provider focused on improving the overall operating performance of healthcare. Partnering with healthcare systems and facilities across the continuum of care, Medline provides the clinical and supply chain resources required for long-term financial viability in delivering high-quality care. With the scale of one of the country's largest companies and the agility of a family-led business, Medline is able to invest in its customers for the future and rapidly respond to a dynamically changing market with customized solutions. Headquartered in Northfield, Ill., Medline has 34,000+ employees worldwide and does business in more than 125 countries and territories. Learn more about Medline at www.medline.com.
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SOURCE Medline | 2023-01-30T17:18:40+00:00 | kwtx.com | https://www.kwtx.com/prnewswire/2023/01/30/medline-integrated-uvc-partner-offer-cost-efficient-surface-air-uv-disinfection-device/ |
Davidson, Harold
Harold Davidson, age 81, of Franklin, Ohio passed away on Sunday, April 30, 2023 at his residence. Harold was born in Harlan County, KY on February 12, 1942 to the late Luther and Laura Davidson. Harold was employed with General Motors for 32 years. He enjoyed hunting and fishing. He was preceded in death by his brother, L. C. Davidson, Sister, Ethel May Davidson and brother, Baby Davidson. Harold is survived by his wife of 58 years, Betty (Gullett) Davidson; his son, Harold (April) Davidson Jr., four daughters, Amanda Davidson and her fiance, Sam Dunker, Lisa Briggs, Levi Davidson, Anderson Briggs; his brothers and sisters, Berchell Davidson, Monroe Davidson, Linda Robbins, Neleus Kirk and Phyllis McKee. Funeral Services are 12pm Tuesday May 9, 2023 at Anderson Funeral Home 1357 E 2nd St Franklin, OH with Pastor Brian Morris officiating. Burial will be in Miami Cemetery in Corwin. Visitation will be Tuesday from 10am to 12pm at the funeral home.
Funeral Home Information
Anderson Funeral Home
1357 E 2nd St
Franklin, OH
45005 | 2023-05-05T06:06:55+00:00 | springfieldnewssun.com | https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/obituaries/davidson-harold/CFA2R5KBF5ENVJDMAZ2I5UO7XI/ |
BUFFALO, NY (WKBW-TV) — Lenore Tetkowski is being celebrated for her talent and her 100th birthday at the Weavers Guild Of Buffalo's current show at the Unity Church Gallery called "Lenore and More". The honored member says "I am overwhelmed-I mean it's a terrific show."
Lenore got hooked on the fabric arts at a young age and took a weaving course in college. As an art teacher she says she always tried to incorporate weaving into her classes.
Lenore says "I have always enjoyed the way the fibers can do things, how they interlock, I've loved how they feel."
The exhibit includes some of her early pieces as well as her most recent. Her 100th Birthday was in May and she admits that her weaving has slowed down a bit, adding "If only my eyes worked better, if only my ears worked better, the rest of me is pretty good."
The best way to learn about weaving, according to Lenore, is to join the Weavers Guild of Buffalo. The guild offers many resources for beginners and experienced weavers.
There is a reception at The Unity Church Gallery on Sunday July 9th at noon. Otherwise people can check out Lenora Tetkowski's work and some pieces from other featured members of the guild by calling or emailing Unity Church. Their phone is 716-882-0391 and email revmary@unitybuffalo.org
More information can be found at the Weavers Guild of Buffalo website | 2023-07-06T17:42:14+00:00 | wkbw.com | https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/the-weavers-guild-of-buffalo-celebrates-lenore-tetkowskis-talent-and-100th-birthday |
Kia owner insurance coverage struggles amid rising rates
KENOSHA, Wis. - When a car is stolen and crashed, its owner often takes a financial hit. But, what about the people who simply own a car thieves like to target? Contact 6 discovered, they’re paying for the thefts, too.
Since buying her car about two years ago, Jane Shinske in Kenosha says she’s had no tickets, no accidents and no auto insurance claims. So, why is she paying more to drive her car?
"[State Farm] told me it’s because I own a Kia, and they’re known for getting stolen and crashed," Shinske told Contact 6.
Jane Shinske
Shinske says her 2020 Kia Forte has never been stolen. Still, she’s facing her second auto insurance rate increase in a year.
Shinske has auto and homeowners insurance through State Farm. Her homeowner's insurance costs about $10 a month. Back in November, Shinske paid State Farm $116 a month. By February, her bill was $139 a month. In August, it will be $210 a month. Jane works two jobs and says the increase is leaving her in "a horrible position."
"How do you expect people to afford this?" said Shinske. "I brought on extra hours from my part-time job to catch up on my bills, and now it’s going to my car, instead."
Kenosha Police report 20 thefts of Kia and Hyundai vehicles in 2022. So far this year, they report nine stolen Kia vehicles and one stolen Hyundai.
A State Farm spokesperson tells Contact 6, "State Farm considers a variety of factors to determine the most appropriate price for each policy. This includes continuously monitoring and adjusting to trends to make sure we’re matching price to risk." The spokesperson went on to say, "record inflation and supply chain disruptions" also continue to drive rate changes.
Shinske says she called four other auto insurance providers asking for quotes. Two providers told her they’d charge more or similar rates to State Farm. Two providers told her they couldn’t offer her coverage, period.
Jane Shinske
"We’re not going to take you because we do not insure Kia," Shinske recalls one representative telling her.
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Shinske says one of the insurers was Progressive. A Progressive spokesperson tells Contact 6, "we have continued to insure our existing customers who own impacted models, but … have also limited our sale of new policies or increased rates in certain locations."
A State Farm spokesperson, likewise, said, "State Farm has stopped accepting new customer applications in some states for certain model years and trim levels of Hyundai and Kia vehicles because theft losses for these vehicles have increased dramatically."
The Insurance Information Institute (III) says the average auto rate in Wisconsin in 2019 was $767.42. A third of what Shinske will pay.
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"Some insurers are finding that it’s too big of a risk to take on new customers with certain vehicles," said Scott Holeman, an III spokesperson.
Scott Holeman
According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), Wisconsin has the third-lowest average auto insurance rate in the nation. The national average in 2019 was about $1,070.
In Shinske’s case, living in Kenosha seems to be working against her.
"It’s not my fault that Kias are getting stolen," said Shinske.
Despite Shinske’s premium going up, State Farm may still be her best option.
"I might as well stay with State Farm because I’m not going to get a cheaper rate somewhere else," said Shinske.
Contact 6 reached out to Kia and Hyundai for this report but did not receive comment by deadline.
The Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OIC) tells Contact 6, "We are aware of State Farm’s approach to covering Kia and Hyundai vehicles, and we are communicating with the company to learn more about the practice. If Wisconsinites encounter any issues with their insurance agent, adjuster, or company, they are encouraged to contact our office to file a complaint. They may contact OCI at 1-800-236-8517 or visit our website for more information."
Full statement from State Farm
"Due to our customer privacy policy, we’re unable to discuss to specifics of any customer’s policy. However, we can share State Farm considers a variety of factors to determine the most appropriate price to each policy. This includes continuously monitoring and adjusting to trends to make sure we’re matching price to risk. As more people are on the roads, we’re seeing an increase in claims. Auto claim costs are being compounded by record inflation and supply chain disruptions which continue to drive our rate changes. Despite these factors, our focus remains on being there for customers when they need us most. Customers are also encouraged to discuss their individual needs and discount options with their State Farm agent.
"State farm has stopped accepting new customer applications in some states for certain model years and trim levels of Hyundai and Kia vehicles because theft losses for these vehicles have increased dramatically. This is a serious problem impacting our customers and their entire auto insurance industry. We take seriously our responsibility to manage risk and the impact of excess claim costs on all our customers. In this case, it became necessary to take action to protect our policyholders and our business. We are monitoring this situation very closely and will adjust our approach as appropriate."
Full statement from Progressive
"During the past year we’ve seen theft rates for certain Hyundai and Kia vehicles more than triple and in some markets increase by a factor of almost 20. In response to this explosive increase in thefts, we have continued to insure our existing customers who own impacted models, but in fairness to our existing policyholder we have also limited our sale or new policies or increased rates in certain locations.
"We understand Hyundai and Kia have made voluntary software updates to certain vehicles. We’re hopeful this software upgrade will be effective at deterring thefts and strongly encourage our customers and the owners to get it as soon as possible. We will closely monitor manufacturers’ actions, consumer adoption rates, and the effectiveness of the updates and as appropriate will recalibrate our pricing and acceptance criteria accordingly." | 2023-07-25T03:12:05+00:00 | fox6now.com | https://www.fox6now.com/news/kia-owner-insurance-coverage-struggles |
TORONTO, April 13, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- NASPA celebrates National Scrabble Day on April 13th by welcoming the 240th registrant to its Double Down in Las Vegas event, consisting of 10,000 games in nine competitions over two weeks in July to determine the new North American and world champions.
"Ever since I can remember, I always wanted to qualify for the World Championships in something," said Allen Pengelly of Waterloo, Canada, "Now to study some more so that I don't embarrass myself!"
The North American competitions, expected to attract 350 players from most U.S. states and Canadian provinces and many foreign countries, take place on July 14-20, and feature a top prize of $10,000. The invitational World English-language Scrabble Players Association (WESPA) Championship follows on July 21-26, drawing the top 100 players globally and some lucky last-minute qualifiers, also for a $10,000 top prize.
NASPA CEO John Chew said, "A game that started in the United States 75 years ago and captivated the world is finally coming home this summer to where it all began."
Event registration will remain open until June 30th. Both events will be streamed online, but all competition will take place in person under official tournament rules.
Since 2009, NASPA has been the governing body for over 10,000 competitive Scrabble players in the United States and Canada.
SCRABBLE is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. in the USA and Canada, and of Mattel, Inc. elsewhere. NASPA and its activities are neither endorsed by nor affiliated with Hasbro or Mattel.
Downloadable photos: https://bit.ly/naspamedia
Contact: John Chew
Phone: 214-810-2439, 416-876-7675
Email: info@scrabbleplayers.org
Web: www.scrabbleplayers.org
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SOURCE NASPA GAMES | 2023-04-13T15:59:16+00:00 | wagmtv.com | https://www.wagmtv.com/prnewswire/2023/04/13/240-scrabble-experts-heading-las-vegas-world-championship/ |
Wendy’s changes logo to support longtime Canadian journalist
Published: Aug. 29, 2022 at 11:35 AM EDT|Updated: 1 hour ago
(CNN) - One of the world’s most famous redheads has made a change to make a statement.
The Wendy’s mascot, long-known for her ginger pigtails, now has gray hair on Canadian social media sites.
Wendy’s new look was posted to support longtime Canadian journalist Lisa LaFlamme.
In June, LaFlamme found out her contract was not being renewed and her career at CTV was coming to an unexpected end after more than three decades.
Shortly after the announcement, rumors started that LaFlamme was being let go, at least in part, because she was no longer dyeing her hair blonde and allowing it to turn gray.
Bell Media issued a statement denying LaFlamme’s hair color had anything to do with her dismissal.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | 2022-08-29T16:38:40+00:00 | wfsb.com | https://www.wfsb.com/2022/08/29/wendys-changes-logo-support-longtime-canadian-journalist/ |
KENOSHA, Wis. (WFRV) – Officers in southeast Wisconsin were able to pull a driver to safety after their van erupted in flames during an attempted traffic stop.
According to the Kenosha Police Department, the incident happened just after 9 p.m. on Tuesday when officers noticed a minivan driving with a flat tire with sparks coming from the wheel.
Officers say that while attempting to stop the vehicle, the 84-year-old driver did not pull over, and the moment the van erupted in flames was captured on dash cam video.
The van can be seen quickly becoming engulfed in flames and eventually coming to a stop.
Quick-acting officers can then be seen running toward the flames and eventually pulling the 84-year-old driver to safety.
It was noted that nobody sustained any major injuries. Additional details weren’t immediately available. | 2023-04-27T01:28:41+00:00 | qcnews.com | https://www.qcnews.com/news/national-news/video-wisconsin-officers-pull-84-year-old-to-safety-as-van-erupts-in-flames/ |
SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — A group of 142 migrants was detained near North Macedonia’s southern border with Greece early Thursday, authorities said.
A police statement said the detainees were mostly from Syria and Pakistan, and had entered from Greece. They were taken to a shelter pending deportation to Greece.
Police say the number of people illegally entering North Macedonia has doubled so far this year, compared to the same period in 2021.
More than 11,000 people — mostly from Pakistan, Syria and India — have been stopped this year. They usually pay criminal gangs to be smuggled through the Balkans to Europe’s prosperous heartland.
___
Follow AP’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration | 2022-09-16T12:32:11+00:00 | everythinglubbock.com | https://www.everythinglubbock.com/news/international/ap-north-macedonia-detains-142-migrants-near-border/ |
Anthony Davis is healthy. His numbers have never been healthier.
And, not coincidentally, the Los Angeles Lakers are playing like the team they expected to be.
With 99 points in his last two games — his most ever in a span of two regular-season contests — Davis is doing something that few in the league’s history have done before. He shot 40 for 57 from the floor in those games, his 44-point performance at Milwaukee on Friday was followed by a 55-point outburst at Washington on Sunday.
“Body feels great, in the gym working on my game, we’re coming together collectively as a unit, so everything is going well for us right now,” Davis said.
The Lakers are 8-2 in their last 10 games, 7-2 when Davis plays in that span. For some perspective, before this stretch, they were only 7-20 in Davis’ last 27 appearances — much of that because either he, or LeBron James, or both were either sidelined by injuries or trying to play through them.
But, finally, Davis — who was limited to 60 games over the last two seasons — has his health and his game back. He’s averaging 28.6 points, a league-best 12.8 rebounds, and doing it all on 59% shooting. All three of those numbers are on pace to be career-bests for the eight-time All-Star who is making an early run at getting into the MVP conversation.
“The first and foremost thing is his health,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham said. “I think he’s feeling great. His body is feeling great. He had a few back issues early on and he’s worked his way through them. And you can see it in his face as well as you can see it in his play — he’s having fun playing the game of basketball pain-free.”
The Lakers are two games into a six-game road trip that continues Tuesday in Cleveland, a homecoming for James, the former Cavaliers star and northeast Ohio native who is now within 1,000 points of catching Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the NBA’s all-time scoring record.
But right now, even he’s pointing to Davis as the league’s top player.
“He’s been unbelievable on both sides of the floor,” James said. “Playing like the MVP of this league. Straight dominance. Straight dominance. … I just think he’s hit a switch where he knows how dominant he can be, night in and night out.”
Davis is the 25th player in NBA history to score at least 99 points in a two-game stretch; Wilt Chamberlain did it 92 times, which is almost double the amount of times the other 24 players have done it combined.
But this run by Davis is set apart by the accuracy of his shots. He’s only the fourth player to score at least 99 points in a two-game span while shooting at least 70% from the field; Elgin Baylor had three of those streaks, Chamberlain had two and David Thompson had one.
“For me, it’s just being locked-in, staying with a mindset of being aggressive, not taking a game off and coming out with a mindset of dominating and doing whatever I’ve got to do to help the team win,” Davis said. “Whatever it is, I’m just trying to do my part.”
___
More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | 2022-12-06T12:19:11+00:00 | myfox8.com | https://myfox8.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-with-99-points-in-2-games-lakers-anthony-davis-on-big-roll/ |
San Antonio migrant deaths lead to slow effort to ID victims
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Victims have been found with no identification documents at all and in one case a stolen ID. Remote villages lack phone service to reach family members and determine the whereabouts of missing migrants. Fingerprint data has to be shared and matched by different governments.
More than a day after the discovery of a stifling trailer in San Antonio where 51 migrants who died were abandoned in the sweltering heat, few identities of the victims have been made public, illustrating the challenges authorities face in tracing people who cross borders clandestinely.
By Tuesday afternoon, medical examiners had potentially identified 34 of the victims, said Bexar County Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores, who represents the district where the truck was abandoned. Those identities were not yet confirmed pending additional steps, such as fingerprints, and she described it as a challenge with no timeline on when the process might be finished.
"It's a tedious, tedious, sad, difficult process," she said.
The bodies were discovered Monday afternoon on the outskirts of San Antonio in what is believed to be the nation's deadliest smuggling episode on the U.S.-Mexico border. More than a dozen people were taken to hospitals, including four children. Three people have been arrested.
The tragedy occurred at a time when huge numbers of migrants have been coming to the U.S., many of them taking perilous risks to cross swift rivers and canals and scorching desert landscapes. Migrants were stopped nearly 240,000 times in May, up by one-third from a year ago.
With little information about the victims, desperate families of migrants from Mexico and Central America frantically sought word of their loved ones.
Among the dead, 27 are believed to be of Mexican origin based on documents they were carrying, according to Rubén Minutti, the Mexico consul general in San Antonio. Several survivors were in critical condition with injuries such as brain damage and internal bleeding, he said. About 30 people had reached out to the Mexican Consulate looking for loved ones, officials said.
Guatemala's foreign ministry said late Tuesday that it had confirmed two hospitalized Guatemalans and was working to identify three possible Guatemalans among the dead. Honduras' foreign relations ministry said it was working to confirm the identities of four people who died in the truck and carried Honduran papers.
Eva Ferrufino, spokeswoman for Honduras' foreign ministry, said her agency is working with the Honduras consulate in south Texas to match names and fingerprints and complete identifications.
The process is painstaking because among the pitfalls are fake or stolen documents.
Mexico's foreign affairs secretary identified two people Tuesday who were hospitalized in San Antonio on Tuesday morning. But it turned out that one of the identification cards he shared on Twitter had been stolen last year in the southern state of Chiapas.
Haneydi Antonio Guzman, 23, was safe and sound in a mountain community more than 1,300 miles (2,092 kilometers) away from San Antonio on Tuesday when she began receiving messages from family and friends. There is no phone signal there, but she has internet access.
Journalists started showing up at her parents' home in Escuintla -- the address on her ID that was stolen and found in the truck — expecting to find her worried relatives.
"That's me on the ID, but I am not the person that was in the trailer and they say is hospitalized," she said.
"My relatives were contacting me worried, asking where I was," Antonio Guzman said. "I told them I was fine, that I was in my house and I clarified it on by (Facebook page)."
Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard deleted the original tweet identifying her without further comment. The other hospitalized victim Ebrard identified Tuesday turned out to be accurate.
In the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, municipal officials in San Miguel Huautla were traveling to the community of 32-year-old José Luis Guzmán Vásquez late Tuesday to find out if his mother wanted to travel to San Antonio to be with him in the hospital.
Manuel Velasco López, San Miguel Huautla's municipal secretary, said that another cousin had been traveling with Guzmán Vásquez and was now considered missing.
Yet another cousin, Alejandro López, told Milenio television that their family worked in farming and construction and that they migrated because "we don't have anything but weaving hats, palms and handicrafts."
"Growing corn, wheat and beans is what we do in this region and that leads to a lot of our people emigrating and going to the United States," he said.
Miguel Barbosa, the governor of neighboring Puebla state, set off a scramble for information in the town of Izucar de Matamoros on Tuesday when he said publicly that two of the dead hailed from there.
In the heavily migrant town, everyone was asking themselves if their friends or neighbors were among the dead found in the freight truck in Texas. Rumors abounded, but the city government said no dead had been confirmed from Izucar.
But going to the United States is such a tradition that most youths here at least consider it.
"All of the young people start to think about going (to the U.S.) as soon as they turn 18," said migrant activist Carmelo Castañeda, who works with the nonprofit Casa del Migrante. "If there aren't more visas, our people are going to keep dying."
Migrants typically pay $8,000 to $10,000 to be taken across the border and loaded into a tractor-trailer and driven to San Antonio, where they transfer to smaller vehicles for their final destinations across the United States, said Craig Larrabee, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio.
Conditions vary widely, including how much water passengers get and whether they are allowed to carry cellphones, Larrabee said.
Authorities think the truck discovered Monday had mechanical problems when it was left next to a railroad track in an area of San Antonio surrounded by auto scrapyards that brush up against a busy freeway, said Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff.
San Antonio has been a recurring scene of tragedy and desperation in recent years involving migrants in semitrailers.
Ten migrants died in 2017 after being trapped inside a truck parked at a San Antonio Walmart. In 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of the city. More than 50 migrants were found alive in a trailer in 2018, driven by a man who said he was to be paid $3,000 and was sentenced to more than five years in prison.
Other tragedies have occurred before migrants reached the U.S. In December, more than 50 died when a semitrailer rolled over on a highway in southern Mexico. In October, Mexican authorities reported finding 652 migrants packed into six trailers stopped at a military checkpoint near the border.
During a vigil held Tuesday evening in the rain at a San Antonio park, many of the more than 50 people who attended expressed sadness, frustration and anger at the deaths and what they described as a broken immigration system.
Back in Puebla, farmer Juan Sánchez Carrillo, 45, was sickened when he heard the news of the deaths in Texas.
He himself narrowly escaped death, when he and his friends ran away from dozing migrant rustlers in the mountains near Otay Mesa near San Diego. The criminals — who Sanchez Carrillo believes were in cahoots with smugglers who brought him over the border — pointed rifles at the group of 35 migrants and threatened to kill them unless they came up with $1,000 each.
"For the smugglers, we the migrants are not human," Sánchez Carrillo said. "For them we are no more than merchandise."
___
Associated Press Writers Juan Lozano in San Antonio, Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Edgar H. Clemente in Villa Comaltitlan, Sonia D. Perez in Guatemala City and Marlon Gonzalez in Tegucigalpa, Honduras contributed to this report. | 2022-06-29T16:04:24+00:00 | krgv.com | https://www.krgv.com/news/san-antonio-migrant-deaths-lead-to-slow-effort-to-id-victims |
Rockford East put on an offensive clinic to extinguish Metamora for a 5-1 victory for an Illinois boys soccer victory on October 1.
You're reading a news brief powered by ScoreStream, a world leader in fan-driven sports results and conversation. Help us collect and deliver more game results from your favorite teams and players by downloading the ScoreStream app. Nearly a million users nationwide share team scores and player performance stats with this convenient free app. | 2022-10-02T06:20:15+00:00 | pantagraph.com | https://pantagraph.com/sports/high-school/soccer/boys/rockford-east-drums-metamora-with-resounding-beat-5-1/article_f8de1a02-d202-52bc-8d05-057d22efc1ef.html |
House tees up final vote for $1.7 trillion spending bill
WASHINGTON (AP) — A $1.7 trillion spending bill financing federal agencies through September and providing more aid to a devastated Ukraine is expected to clear the House Friday as lawmakers race to finish their work for the year and avoid a partial government shutdown.
Passage of the bill represents a closing act for Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s second stint as House speaker, and for the Democratic majority she led back to power in the 2018 election. Republicans will take control of the House next year and Rep. Kevin McCarthy is campaigning to replace her. He is appealing for support from staunch conservatives in his caucus who have largely trashed the size of the bill and many of the priorities it contains.
The Senate passed the defense-heavy measure with significant bipartisan support on Thursday, but the vote will surely be more split in the House. Some 30 GOP lawmakers promised to block any legislative priority that comes from those Republican senators who voted for the bill, and leadership has urged a no vote.
The bill runs for 4,155 pages, not including amendments the Senate added. It contains about a 6% percent increase in spending for domestic initiatives, to $772.5 billion. Spending on defense programs will increase by about 10% to $858 billion.
The expected passage comes only hours before financing for federal agencies expires. Lawmakers have passed two stopgap spending measures to keep the government operating so far for this fiscal year and a third was set to pass Friday as well to ensure services continue until President Joe Biden could sign the full-year measure, called an omnibus, into law.
The massive bill wraps together 12 appropriations bills, aid to Ukraine and disaster relief for communities recovering from hurricanes, flooding and wildfires. It also contains scores of policy changes that lawmakers worked to include in the final major bill being considered by the current Congress.
Lawmakers provided roughly $45 billion for Ukraine and NATO allies, more than even Biden requested, an acknowledgment that future rounds of funding are not guaranteed with a new GOP-led House.
In a dramatic address to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told lawmakers that the aid was not charity, but an investment in global security and democracy.
Though Ukraine aid has largely had bipartisan support, some House Republicans have been critical of the effort, arguing the money is better spent on priorities in the U.S.
“How can we send an additional $47 BILLION to Ukraine for security while terrorists, drugs, and criminals flood our southern border?” tweeted Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont.
“$100 billion to Ukraine. Let’s put that in perspective,” tweeted Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., including past rounds of aid in his count. “That’s more than $200 million this year from each Congressional district. What could your congressman have done for your district with $200 million?”
McCarthy has warned that Republicans would not write a “blank check” for Ukraine in the next Congress. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after Thursday’s vote he’s having trouble understanding the concerns.
“I’m just befuddled by some of these right-wing Republicans who don’t want to help Ukraine,” Schumer said. “It’s always been, the more hard right who were, the more anti-Soviet you were, but all of a sudden, they’re pro. I hope it’s not a residue of Trump.”
The Senate passed the funding package Thursday by a vote of 68-29 but it takes time for the Senate clerk’s office to review the bill and include amendments that were added that day. As a result, the bill could end up passing a half-empty House chamber. More than 220 lawmakers have the option to vote by proxy, and many raced to get out of town before risking canceled flights and spending Christmas in Washington.
Republicans have vowed that abolishing the practice of remote voting will be among their first acts in the majority next year.
The funding bill also contains roughly $40 billion in emergency spending in the U.S., mostly to assist communities across the country recovering from drought, hurricanes and other natural disasters.
And it includes scores of policy changes largely unrelated to spending that lawmakers worked furiously behind the scenes to include, else they start from scratch next year in a divided Congress where Republicans will be returning to the majority in the House.
One of the most notable examples was a historic revision to federal election law that aims to prevent any future presidents or presidential candidates from trying to overturn an election.
The bipartisan overhaul of the Electoral Count Act is in direct response to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to convince Republican lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence to object to the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | 2022-12-23T17:34:13+00:00 | kcrg.com | https://www.kcrg.com/2022/12/23/house-tees-up-final-vote-17-trillion-spending-bill/ |
Jan. 6 panel asks for Alex Jones' texts
AUSTIN, Texas - An attorney representing two parents who sued conspiracy theorist Alex Jones over his false claims about the Sandy Hook massacre said Thursday that the U.S. House Jan. 6 committee has requested two years' worth of records from Jones' phone.
Attorney Mark Bankston said in court that the committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol has requested the digital records.
The House committee did not immediately return a request for comment.
A day earlier, Bankston revealed in court that Jones' attorney had mistakenly sent Bankston the last two years’ worth of texts from Jones’ cellphone.
Jones' attorney Andino Reynal sought a mistrial over the mistaken transfer of records and said they should have been returned and any copies destroyed.
He accused the Bankston of trying to perform "for a national audience." Reynal said the material included a review copy of text messages over six months from late 2019 into the first quarter of 2020.
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Attorneys for the Sandy Hook parents said they followed Texas' civil rules of evidence and that Jones’ attorneys missed their chance to properly request the return of the records.
"Mr Reynal is using a fig leaf (to cover) for his own malpractice," Bankston said.
Bankston said the records mistakenly sent to him included some medical records of plaintiffs in other lawsuits against Jones.
"Mr. Jones and his intimate messages with Roger Stone are not protected," Bankston said, referring to former President Donald Trump's longtime ally.
Rolling Stone, quoting unnamed sources, reported Wednesday evening that the Jan. 6 committee was preparing to request the data from the parents’ attorneys to assist in the investigation of the deadly riot.
A jury in Austin, Texas, is deciding how much Jones should pay to the parents of a child killed in the 2012 school massacre because of Infowars' repeated false claims that the shooting was a hoax created by advocates for gun control.
Last month, the House Jan. 6 committee showed graphic and violent text messages and played videos of right-wing figures, including Jones, and others vowing that Jan. 6 would be the day they would fight for Trump.
The Jan. 6 committee first subpoenaed Jones in November, demanding a deposition and documents related to his efforts to spread misinformation about the 2020 election and a rally on the day of the attack.
In the subpoena letter, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman, said Jones helped organize the Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse that preceded the insurrection. He also wrote that Jones repeatedly promoted Trump’s false claims of election fraud, urged his listeners to go to Washington for the rally, and march from the Ellipse to the Capitol. Thompson also wrote that Jones "made statements implying that you had knowledge about the plans of President Trump with respect to the rally."
The nine-member panel was especially interested in what Jones said shortly after Trump’s now-infamous Dec. 19, 2020, tweet in which he told his supporters to "be there, will be wild!" on Jan. 6.
"You went on InfoWars that same day and called the tweet ‘One of the most historic events in American history,’" the letter continued.
In January, Jones was deposed by the committee in a hourslong, virtual meeting in which he said he exercised his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination "almost 100 times."
___
Associated Press journalist Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report from Washington, D.C. | 2022-08-04T17:20:01+00:00 | fox10phoenix.com | https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/jan-6-panel-alex-jones-texts |
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --
FMC Corporation (NYSE: FMC) has announced the planned retirement of Dr. Kathleen Shelton, executive vice president and chief technology officer (CTO), following a 33-year career in the chemical industry. Dr. Seva Rostovtsev, director of Discovery Chemistry, has been elected vice president and CTO by the board of directors. Shelton and Rostovtsev will transition responsibilities as part of the succession plan during the next several months until her retirement on March 31, 2023. Rostovtsev, who is a member of the R&D Leadership Team and currently reports to Shelton, will report to Mark Douglas, president and CEO, and will join the company's Operating Committee.
"Innovation and the discovery of new technologies in support of society have been the hallmarks of Kathy's stellar career," said Douglas. "Those who have worked with her, however, know that she brings so much more to the table. She is passionate about research excellence and the development of new products that are more sustainable than today's offerings. Furthermore, she has never forgotten her early years as a chemistry educator, which inspired her throughout her corporate career to encourage students from all backgrounds to consider a profession in science, technology, engineering and math. On behalf of all of us at FMC, I thank her for her leadership and lasting contributions at our company. We wish her a happy, healthy and well-deserved retirement."
Shelton joined FMC as CTO in 2017, where she has led the company's global R&D strategy, overseen an innovation pipeline valued at over $2.5 billion in peak sales from new products and defined a renewed research sustainability platform for new products in discovery and development. Prior to FMC, she spent 25 years with DuPont where she held leadership and senior leadership roles in the U.S. and Europe across several businesses and functions, including crop protection, Regulatory Affairs, Product Stewardship and Central Research. Shelton serves on the boards of directors for the Delaware State University Foundation and the United Way of Delaware, and on the board of trustees for the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute.
Rostovtsev joined FMC as director of Discovery Chemistry in 2017, where he has led a team of scientists that identify and optimize technologies for new, advanced crop protection products used by farmers around the world. As a senior leader in FMC's research organization, Rostovtsev has driven the company's strategy to optimize R&D data management and led improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of agricultural chemistry discovery. Prior to FMC, he held research and technical leadership roles throughout DuPont beginning in 2003, including Process Chemistry and Engineering, Emerging Technologies and Fungicide Discovery Chemistry. He was a postdoctoral scholar at Scripps Research and was the co-inventor of copper-catalyzed Click Chemistry, which won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
"Seva brings extensive experience in R&D management, crop protection chemistry and strategic discovery research to the CTO role," said Douglas. "While his skills extend beyond the lab bench, including serving as a champion for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, he is highly respected by peers and colleagues as an exceptional researcher and R&D leader with nearly 10 published scientific papers and a co-inventor on more than 20 patents. Having worked with Kathy for more than 10 years, he is well prepared and ready to lead FMC's global R&D organization."
About FMC
FMC Corporation is a global agricultural sciences company dedicated to helping growers produce food, feed, fiber and fuel for an expanding world population while adapting to a changing environment. FMC's innovative crop protection solutions – including biologicals, crop nutrition, digital and precision agriculture – enable growers, crop advisers and turf and pest management professionals to address their toughest challenges economically while protecting the environment. With approximately 6,400 employees at more than 100 sites worldwide, FMC is committed to discovering new herbicide, insecticide and fungicide active ingredients, product formulations and pioneering technologies that are consistently better for the planet. Visit fmc.com to learn more and follow us on LinkedIn® and Twitter®.
Statement under the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This release contains forward-looking statements, which are based on management's current views and assumptions regarding future events, future business conditions and the outlook for the company based on currently available information. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by any forward-looking statement. These factors include, among other things, the risk factors and other cautionary statements included within FMC's 2021 Form 10-K filed with the SEC as well as other SEC filings and public communications. FMC cautions readers not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. Forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by the above cautionary statement. FMC undertakes no obligation, and specifically disclaims any duty, to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances arising after the date on which they were made, except as otherwise required by law.
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SOURCE FMC Corporation | 2022-12-14T22:56:13+00:00 | live5news.com | https://www.live5news.com/prnewswire/2022/12/14/fmc-corporation-announces-planned-retirement-executive-vice-president-cto-dr-kathleen-shelton-dr-seva-rostovtsev-appointed-vice-president-cto/ |
Two people recently harassed a bison calf in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming by approaching and touching it, officials said, prompting an investigation into the latest instance of park visitors overstepping boundaries with wildlife.
National Park Service rangers have asked for help in identifying the two individuals who touched the bison calf on June 4 at the southern end of Elk Ranch Flats.
A photo released by the Park Service appears to show two men — one in shorts and sunglasses, the other in long sleeves — standing close to the bison calf, which is by the side of a road.
“The safety of visitors and wildlife depends on everyone playing a critical role in being a steward for wildlife by giving them the space they need to thrive,” the Park Service said in a statement. “Their lives depend on it.”
Park regulations require visitors to stay at least 25 yards away from all wildlife, including bison, elk and deer, and at least 100 yards away from bears and wolves.
The episode was the latest to draw the ire of park officials who, for years, have warned visitors to stay away from animals and not touch them.
That caution holds particular relevance for bison calves, which can weigh 30 to 70 pounds at birth, because human interference with the animals can cause bison herds to reject the offspring.
The Park Service said that in the June 4 case, the calf was successfully reunited with its herd. Often, however, human interactions can result in having to euthanize the animal.
A bison calf had to be euthanized last month at Yellowstone National Park after a man apparently tried to help it, causing the herd to reject it, park officials said. Park rangers had “tried repeatedly to reunite the calf with the herd,” the Park Service said, but those efforts failed.
In 2018, a video of a man harassing a bison at Yellowstone National Park by goading and lunging at it got widespread attention, prompting rangers to arrest him.
In 2016, a bison calf was euthanized after it was placed in the back of an SUV and rejected by its herd. And in 2015, a woman was injured while trying to take a selfie near a bison.
It was not immediately clear what charges, if any, the men being sought could face.
Chad Kremer, the president of the National Bison Association and a bison herd manager in South Dakota, said most instances of people getting close to calves are rooted in well-meaning intentions: They want to help a stray calf find its way to the herd or get out of difficult terrain.
But such efforts pose risks to the animal and the people, Kremer said.
“Even if they do appear to be lost or abandoned, typically that’s not the case,” he said. “When you begin intervening, it will just compound the problem.”
Female bison sometimes put young calves in an area, leave them and go off grazing before coming back for their offspring, Kremer said. But if someone picks up the calf or moves it, that process is disrupted and the female bison may be deterred from returning because of the human scent on the animal.
Visitors can also be in danger, given that bison are the largest mammal in North America.
Male bison, also called bulls, weigh up to 2,000 pounds and stand six feet tall. Females, or cows, weigh up to 1,000 pounds and reach a height of four to five feet.
It is difficult to track the frequency in which people interfere with bison calves, Kremer said, but it is possible that there is more awareness of such episodes because of news coverage.
An uptick in National Park visitations — 312 million recreation visits were recorded in 2022 compared with 297 million recreation visits in 2021 — could also be a factor. | 2023-06-12T20:15:42+00:00 | seattletimes.com | https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/two-people-are-sought-in-harassment-of-a-bison-calf-at-grand-teton-national-park/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all |
Feds begin ‘expedited’ process to help save drought-stricken Colorado River
By Ella Nilsen, CNN
The US Department of Interior announced Friday it is launching an “expedited” process to potentially change water-flow operations on the drought-stricken Colorado River, as Lake Mead and Lake Powell have fallen to alarming new lows.
In the possible actions it laid out, Interior said it will consider using its federal authority to restrict water releases through the Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams to help maintain water in Mead and Powell — the nation’s two largest reservoirs — and prevent the dams from losing the ability to generate hydroelectricity.
Hydropower from the two dams is distributed to customers across eight Western states, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, and the levels of each reservoir are declining so much, experts fear they could stop producing power in the coming years.
The Colorado River system more widely provides water and electricity to more than 40 million people in the West. But the river basin has suffered from the region’s worst drought in 1,200 years.
In an effort to avoid a full-blown crisis on the Colorado River, Reclamation officials have been working for months with Western states, tribes, farmers and cities to encourage massive, voluntary water cuts.
Negotiations have dragged on and proved contentious, and still it is unclear whether states can come to an agreement. If they don’t, Reclamation’s Commissioner Camille Touton said this summer, the federal government would act on its own to save the river system from collapsing.
Touton reiterated at a recent virtual event she would rather strike a deal with the states, but the Bureau was prepared to act on its own if necessary.
“I see our role in the basin to be able to be part of the conversation, but also we are responsible for our facilities,” Touton said of the federal government. “As it’s been proven in the last 100 years — perhaps it’s being tested this year — the right way to go is working with the states and the tribes to be able to get to a path forward. But we’re also realistic about the very real challenges that our organization is seeing across the west that we’ve never seen before in the history of this organization.”
A Colorado River expert told CNN that Interior’s announcement could be a nudge to the states to wrap up those ongoing negotiations — reminding them the federal government can act on its own.
“To me, it expresses a hope that there would be a consensus agreement, which would make life so much easier for the bureau and Secretary of Interior,” said Sarah Porter, the director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. “It’s certainly a signal that the bureau has not forsworn unilateral action.”
California Natural Resources Agency spokesperson Lisa Lien-Mager said that while California is optimistic negotiations with other states including Arizona and Nevada can produce a deal, “we recognize the need for our federal partners to prepare for actions that may be needed to protect critical reservoir elevations” if states can’t agree on water cuts.
Interior said Friday it would soon issue a notice of intent saying the Bureau of Reclamation may need to modify the current operations of Glen Canyon Dam and reduce its water releases downstream — which could cause water levels at Mead to drop further. This would be done in order to make sure the Glen Canyon Dam can continue operating and generating power.
It also said Reclamation may also need to restrict downstream water releases from the Hoover Dam itself “in order to protect Hoover Dam operations, system integrity, and public health and safety.”
Before Reclamation takes action, it will hold a public comment period through December 20 on three courses of action which could be taken:
- A so-called “framework agreement” option where Colorado River basin states, tribes, cities and farmers come to agreement on how much water they can save through voluntary cuts to restabilize Lakes Mead and Powell
- A “reservoir options modification” plan, where the federal government would take unilateral action and tell states how much water each must cut in order to save the river system
- A “no action” option where the current agreements controlling operations at Glen Canyon and Hoover Dam would continue
Porter said that even though a “no action” alternative is standard in federal environmental impact statements, it might be useful for Interior to include it to show how devastating an absence of action would be to the river system.
“We’re perilously close to dead pool,” Porter said. “The bureau is trying to keep that front and center.”
A draft of the changes would be released in the spring of next year, according to the bureau, with a final decision being released in late summer. The decision would go into effect for the water year, which begins in the fall of 2023.
“We are committed to taking prompt and decisive action necessary to protect the Colorado River System and all those who depend on it,” Sec. Deb Haaland said in a Friday statement. “Revising the current interim operating guidelines for Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams represents one of many critical Departmental efforts underway to better protect the System in light of rapidly changing conditions in the Basin.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. | 2022-10-28T21:09:42+00:00 | localnews8.com | https://localnews8.com/news/national-world/cnn-national/2022/10/28/feds-begin-expedited-process-to-help-save-drought-stricken-colorado-river/ |
EDITORIAL: Biden’s economic record an albatross for Democrats
October 25, 2022 - 9:00 pm
As the November election looms, Democrats are in desperation mode, particularly as inflation and high gasoline prices dog voters as they cast their ballots. The president’s response has been to deny reality.
On Monday, the White House put out a release hailing a slight drop in prices at the pump over the past few weeks. “Gas prices have declined by an average of $1.22 per gallon nationwide since their June peak,” the statement gushes, “a decline of 24 percent over more than 18 weeks.”
If you’ve been in an unconscious state for the past 21 months, those numbers might look persuasive. While it’s true that gasoline prices have receded back below $5 a gallon in many places — although not Nevada — they remain, on average, a whopping $1.35 more per gallon than when President Joe Biden took office.
As for inflation overall, Mr. Biden has been so famously wrong at every turn that it’s a wonder his handlers let him talk about the subject at all. First, in July 2021, the president insisted that “there’s nobody suggesting there’s unchecked inflation on the way — no serious economist.” Today, with prices increasing at a 40-year high, Mr. Biden tries to sell Americans on the idea that a persistent month-to-month 8 percent annual inflation rate is a mark of progress.
Yet nowhere is the president’s incoherence more in evidence than when it comes to energy prices. After entering office by promising to drive oil and gas producers out of business and beefing up the regulatory state in an effort to keep fossil fuels in the ground, Mr. Biden was shocked — shocked! — when gasoline prices rose. Now, while blaming evil Big Oil for price gouging, the president manipulates the market for political purposes by once again tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to bring down prices before the election.
Analysts at the Institute for Energy Research summed up the situation nicely: “Biden has imposed constraints on domestic oil production while begging Saudi Arabia for increases in output. Since the latter did not work, Biden released oil from the SPR several times to avoid the political jam that his anti–oil-and-gas policies created, leaving the reserve’s inventory at a 40-year low. U.S. commercial oil in storage is now higher than oil stocks in SPR. While he is manipulating domestic gas and diesel prices by using the SPR, Biden wants to sue OPEC members for ‘price manipulation.’ This is after he restricted supplies by offering the fewest federal acres for oil and gas leasing since WWII.”
It’s no shock that the Democratic members of Nevada’s congressional delegation don’t want to be seen anywhere near the president as voting begins. But Nevadans shouldn’t forget that, when it comes to rising prices and energy policy, there’s no running from the fact that they’ve all been in lockstep with this foundering White House. | 2022-10-26T05:03:30+00:00 | reviewjournal.com | https://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-bidens-economic-record-an-albatross-for-democrats-2664693/ |
WEST BRIGHTON, Staten Island (WPIX) — An on-duty emergency medical worker was shot in Staten Island on Wednesday night, police said.
The victim and his partner had responded to reports of a disorderly person outside of a Staten Island bar, NYPD Inspector Mark Molinari said.
The EMTs found the 37-year-old man, identified by police as Thomas McCauley, in front of the bar and put him into an ambulance, Molinari said. While being transported, McCauley allegedly pulled out a gun and shot a 25-year-old EMT in the shoulder. A revolver was recovered at the scene.
Another EMT in the ambulance, who was unharmed, pulled over after the shooting. Molinari said McCauley then fled out the back door of the ambulance. He was apprehended by a retired New York City Police detective and an off-duty Department of Sanitation lieutenant shortly afterward.
Charges against the suspect are pending. He had one prior interaction with the NYPD, according to Molinari.
Molinari said after the suspect was apprehended, the unharmed EMT drove her injured partner to Richmond University Medical Center for treatment.
The EMT is not employed by the New York City Fire Department, an agency spokesperson said. He’s employed by RUMC, a spokesperson for the hospital later confirmed. He was described as being in stable condition.
Mayor Eric Adams has vowed to tackle gun violence in New York City. He and NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell have launched a number of initiatives aimed at making the five boroughs safer.
“The number of shootings that we are responding to every night is despicable,” Adams said recently after an NYPD officer was shot. | 2022-05-19T03:43:03+00:00 | mytwintiers.com | https://www.mytwintiers.com/news-cat/national-news/emt-shot-in-staten-island-by-man-he-was-helping-suspect-in-custody-police/ |
US investigating complaints that Honda engines won’t restart
DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government’s road safety agency is investigating complaints that the fuel-saving stop-start system on some Honda Pilot SUVs can fail to restart.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the probe covers nearly 195,000 Pilots from 2016 through 2020.
The agency says it has 221 complaints about the problem, but no reports of crashes or injuries.
Owners complained that the engine won’t restart on its own from a complete stop with the stop-start feature in use.
Some complained that a jump start was needed to get the motor going.
The Pilots under investigation have 3.5-liter V6 engines and nine-speed transmissions.
The agency says it’s assessing safety issues and determining how many models are affected.
A message was left Tuesday seeking comment from Honda.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | 2022-06-07T15:42:39+00:00 | waff.com | https://www.waff.com/2022/06/07/us-investigating-complaints-that-honda-engines-wont-restart/ |
Stellantis is going about electrifying trucks in a different way than Ford or GM. Rather than only rolling out a line of full battery electric trucks to keep selling alongside its gasoline models, it will also produce a range-extended Ram electric truck to fit into a middle ground that could get more people to plug in.
In a Q&A session last week at CES, just after the reveal of the Ram 1500 Revolution BEV Concept—and a confirmation of the range-extended truck—Green Car Reports asked Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares about how such a model fits in versus tighter new regulations from California and the EPA.
The CEO’s answer didn’t reveal anything about the truck, but it arrived at a clear point: It’s part of a plan to move fast.
“What we are seeing all over the world is that you cannot wait for regulations; we need to run faster than regulations,” said Tavares.
That’s a notable about-face from Stellantis’ predecessor, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, which opted to pay fines for missing fuel economy targets in the U.S. and spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying emissions credits from Tesla for compliance in Europe
The CEO continued with a reality check: “There is going to be a point in time where you may ask the question: Could we, should we, allow this operation to operate if they are not carbon neutral?”
“So it’s not just about ethics, it’s not just about doing the right things for the planet,” Tavares added. “It’s also about anticipating any kind of regulation that’s to be completely dogmatic on that front.”
Tavares pointed to Euro 7 regulations, and how regulators didn’t follow expert guidance on how quickly the industry could respond and gave companies such a short timeline to comply. At this point, he says, he has wound down lobbying activity and is simply trying to go faster than regulators.
“The conclusion I get from this is that we just need to move fast,” Tavares said.
EVs are more expensive
Moving fast gets complicated for Stellantis, which has 14 vehicle brands and two mobility brands, all with different markets and price points.
Tavares emphasized that electric vehicles still cost 40% more to build than equivalent internal-combustion vehicles.
That leaves global full-line automakers with large manufacturing footprints, such as Stellantis, with a dilemma.
“You cannot pass that percentage to the consumer; it’s much too high and you are going to lose,” said Tavares. “The other direction is you sell at a loss to protect affordability, and you need to restructure your company. Wrong direction.”
“So the only direction that is left is to absorb as quickly as you can the 40% of additional costs, so that you can protect the sustainability of your company by protecting the premium margins,” Tavares explained. “And at the same time you protect the affordability for the middle classes to be able to buy significant volumes of EVs that will then contribute to fixing global warming.”
Battery solutions—in a few years
Tavares suggested that in this race to electrify, automakers face multiple manufacturing issues tied to vehicle affordability, manufacturing cost, and the cost structure of batteries, which is indexed on the volatile cost of raw materials.
The CEO last year said that the added cost of manufacturing electric vehicles was “beyond the limits” of what the auto industry could sustain. On the battery front, the situation hasn’t gotten appreciably better. Global EV battery costs surged by 7% in 2022, breaking a longtime trend showing predictable improvements in affordability each year. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), which compiles the annual index of battery costs, doesn’t expect battery costs to start dropping again until 2024, when more lithium mining and refining capacity will come online.
Some of this might be solved by looking at the batteries themselves, and their weight, the CEO argued.
Looking at battery cell chemistries under development, the potential to double the power density by the end of the decade would provide serious progress.
Tavares also pointed to the future optimization of EV batteries, skipping the battery pack entirely and taking the modular platform approach to its next step.
No more boxes, shift to solid state
“Today we are making boxes, and then we bolt the boxes to the chassis,” he said. “By far, this is not optimized in terms of engineering, so there will be a step of progress where you are going to package your battery modules directly in the physical platform, in a way that is going to be more efficient from a pure architectural perspective—with less tradeoffs in the height of the vehicle, for instance.”
When you do that, Tavares argued, EVs with the same range as an internal combustion vehicle only weigh about 500 pounds more, which helps with other efficiency and manufacturing aspects.
Stellantis could get some of the way there within a few years. One potential path is its investment in the solid-state battery-tech firm Factorial Energy, with production-level cells from that company potentially providing a 50% boost in energy density as soon as 2026.
In the shorter term, the company is up against a challenging set of economic factors in 2023, Tavares summed, as the industry ramps up supply and recovers from the semiconductor crisis while facing higher inflation in costs and energy—all while the CEO feels there will be renewed downward pricing pressure from the market.
Why isn’t greening the grid first?
Tavares believes that clean energy is the common denominator, and that regulators aren’t listening to automakers, or taking into account the pace at which the grid can be greened in some nations or regions of the world.
“The sequence in which we should be addressing this issue is quite clear,” he outlined. “Start with the longest and most difficult part, which is energy, then make sure you are investing in infrastructure in a coordinated way with the guys who are supposed to be selling EVs.”
Otherwise, he argued, you’ll be selling expensive EVs in some parts of the world by regulatory necessity before you have the infrastructure or a significant amount of clean energy.
As Green Car Reports has emphasized, that’s already not the case on the clean-energy front in the U.S., considering the grid. The vast majority of Americans live where driving an EV produces lower emissions than driving a 50-mpg gasoline vehicle, and the payback is short for the additional CO2 emissions to build the EV. A UCS analysis of the F-150 Lightning last year found the electric truck to be the emissions equivalent of an 85-mpg gasoline car.
Will Ram’s range-extended truck provide an even better solution, one that will prompt drivers to use plug-in energy the vast majority of the time but quell anxiety about serious towing and hauling ability to be used once in a while? These are questions that can’t be answered until Ram reveals that truck in detail. For now, Ram is due to reveal specs for the fully electric truck within a few months, with sales due in 2024. Expect the range-extended truck to arrive soon after that.
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- Mercedes plans own EV fast-charging network, starting with America | 2023-01-10T23:23:26+00:00 | wjhl.com | https://www.wjhl.com/automotive/internet-brands/stellantis-ceo-ram-range-extended-electric-pickup-to-outrun-regulations/ |
CHARSADDA, Pakistan — Rubina Bibi was cooking food for her family in her mudbrick home in her village in northwest Pakistan when the nearby mosque blared a warning from its loudspeaker. Flood waters were coming, it announced, everyone should move to safer ground.
This time, however, it was on a different scale entirely. Days of torrential rains had sent a massive surge of water down the nearby Swat River — so powerful that on that day, last Friday, it broke through a reservoir that usually controls the river’s flow.
When the water hit Majooki hours after the warning, it poured into the house where the 53-year-old Bibi lived with her two sons, a daughter-in-law and her grandchildren.
One of her grandchildren, 5-month-old Dua Humayun, was sleeping on a cot in the house’s courtyard. In an instant, the baby was swept away by the rushing waters. It was too fast for anyone to even think of saving her. She was gone.
Pakistani officials say the flooding that has hit across the country over the past weeks is like nothing they have seen before. It has been caused by unprecedented heavy and unrelenting monsoon rains, fueled they say by the world’s changing climate.
Millions in villages, towns and cities around Pakistan were caught off guard by the swiftness and power of the waters.
Bibi spoke to The Associated Press at a tent camp set up in a sports complex in the city of Charsadda for hundreds of people left homeless by the deluge. She spoke of her granddaughter’s death with composure, but inside the tent, her daughter-in-law could be heard sobbing.
“The floodwaters entered our house suddenly. We didn’t have time to take anything as we were leaving,” Bibi said. She, her sons and daughter-in-law carried her surviving grandchildren tightly as they waded through waist-deep water out of their home. They then walked in the stifling summer heat for four kilometers (2.5 miles) to Charsadda.
More than 1,160 people have been killed in flooding across Pakistan since mid-June, hundreds of them in the major surge that began last week. More than 33 million people in the country of 220 million have been affected, including those left homeless by the destruction of more than 1 million homes. Pakistani officials have put the economic damage at some $10 billion, including everything from collapsed bridges and roads to destroyed crops.
The district around Charsadda has been one of the hardest hit areas. The Swat River meets the Kabul River nearby, and the nearby farmlands are laced with tributaries — all of them still surging with swollen waters despite a pause in rain in recent days. Authorities have warned that more rains are expected in coming weeks.
The city of Charsadda, home to more than 120,000, has been trashed. On Tuesday, some neighborhoods remained flooded with water shin-deep or higher.
Residents whose homes still stood took out their soggy blankets and furniture and other possessions to dry. Others surveyed wrecked mud-brick or shoddy cinder-block homes with collapsed walls and roofs. Deep, thick mud coated everything.
Bibi’s home village of Majooki, once home to 2,500 people, remains under waist-deep water. The rice and wheat that residents stored in their homes to meet the year’s need have been ruined. Hundreds of thousands of villages across Pakistan lost crops.
Many of Majooki’s residents are now at the tent camp in Charsadda’s Abdul Wali Khan Sports Complex. Hundreds of tents stood in rows, and children lay inside on plastic mats with what few belongings they took with them piled nearby. Some eat rice or other staples being distributed by the government.
“It is very hot here. We have a tent and a plastic mattress, but there is no fan. We are not getting enough food,” Bibi said.
A widow, Bibi had worked washing clothes and cleaning in homes, and one of her sons was a construction worker. Now they are without work for the foreseeable future. She and others from the village have not been able to return and have no idea what remains of their homes.
“We are facing a lot of difficulties. We want more help so that we can start our life again,” Bibi said.
The floods’ devastation has hit Pakistan as it is already struggling to keep its crisis-stricken economy from collapse. The government is severely strapped for cash, and inflation has been spiraling. The International Monetary Fund gave a boost this week by releasing a long-awaited, $1.17 billion tranche of a bailout negotiated in 2019, but only after the government promised painful austerity measures.
The United Nations on Tuesday launched an emergency appeal for $160 million in aid to help flood victims. Planeloads of food, medical supplies and other aid have arrived in recent days. But Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif warned on Tuesday that any delay in the provision of help would be disastrous.
At the sport complex tent camp, another Majooki resident, Saifoor Khan, recalled how he too ignored the call to flee that came from the mosque loudspeaker that day.
Majooki was hit by the last major floods in 2010, but in that case no houses were destroyed and no one fled, he said. When the waters hit on Friday, the 50-year-old taxi driver, his wife and his seven children also had to wade their way to safety.
“I have no idea for how many days and weeks we will have to live in these tents,” he said.
“I pray that no one faces such an ordeal.” | 2022-08-31T08:02:11+00:00 | washingtonpost.com | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/for-pakistan-flood-victims-waters-hit-swiftly-and-brutally/2022/08/31/7381c03c-28f6-11ed-a90a-fce4015dfc8f_story.html |
BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Florida Highway Patrol arrested a man near Rockledge Wednesday after he sped off from a traffic stop and crashed before trying to run away from troopers through a Publix, a report shows.
Around 12:25 p.m., a trooper traveling north on Interstate 95 in a marked FHP vehicle reported they noticed a car moving erratically, using incorrect turn signals, tailgating, cutting in and out of slower-moving traffic and driving 90-100 mph in a 70 mph zone, according to an arrest report.
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As the trooper attempted to perform a traffic stop, the car accelerated and continued to cut in and out of traffic before entering a 60 mph work zone, the report shows. The trooper said they pursued the car off of I-95 onto Fiske Boulevard, where it proceeded to pass the southbound I-95 ramp and enter southbound Stadium Parkway — a 40 mph zone — still at speeds greater than 100 mph.
The car continued in a reckless manner, troopers said, as it appeared to blow red lights on the way to a Publix located at 5380 Stadium Parkway.
Troopers said the driver, identified as 26-year-old Marcus Marc, fled through the parking lot and eventually crashed into two parked vehicles: a pickup truck and a luxury SUV. According to the report, Marc then exited the car and ran into the Publix on foot.
Employees and customers directed the trooper to Marc, who was overtaken in aisle 14, the report reads. The trooper attempted to arrest Marc at gunpoint before he got up from the ground and ran from the store when a second trooper arrived, according to the report.
FHP said the second trooper was able to catch Marc on the side of Viera Boulevard.
Marc faces charges of fleeing and eluding a law enforcement officer at high speed, driving with license suspended (habitual offender), reckless driving with property damage or personal injury, resisting an officer without violence, DUI damage to property or persons (alcohol) and DUI unlawful BAC 0.08 or higher.
He was booked into the Brevard County jail Wednesday evening and was since released on bond early Thursday.
Get today’s headlines in minutes with Your Florida Daily: | 2022-10-08T20:58:07+00:00 | clickorlando.com | https://www.clickorlando.com/traffic/2022/10/07/man-runs-from-arrest-through-brevard-publix-after-chase-crash-troopers-say/ |
An East Baton Rouge Sheriff's deputy has been arrested and fired, accused of hitting an inmate in parish prison with a chair, the sheriff's office said Sunday.
Aaron Johnson was booked on counts of malfeasance in office and aggravated second degree battery, according to a news release.
During a fight involving another deputy, Johnson hit the inmate with the chair, and was hospitalized with multiple facial fractures, the release said.
Johnson had been employed as a prison deputy since April 2022. | 2023-03-27T01:47:06+00:00 | theadvocate.com | https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/crime_police/sheriffs-deputy-arrested-fired-accused-of-hitting-inmate/article_d2c516a0-cc3b-11ed-b5be-a3183e73ac3f.html |
In this trend, BDM Digital, a means of payment based on blockchain, expands its position in the market. It is a pioneer digital currency both in technology and in concept in the country and remains at the forefront of expanding its products
CAMPO GRANDE, Brazil, July 4, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Although the main use of cryptocurrencies in Brazil is for investments (according to the Central Bank), the use of digital assets as a means of payment has grown in the country in recent months. Data from a recent survey show that around 25% of Brazilians are willing to use cryptocurrencies to make payments at commercial establishments. In Brazil, more than a thousand companies already accept digital currencies as a payment method, according to the CoinMap platform. Globally, that number jumps to almost 30,000 commercial establishments.
Technology advances by leaps and bounds, bringing with it innovations that make people's lives easier. An example of this is BDM Digital, a blockchain-based payment method that offers an alternative payment method to traditional credit and debit cards. To use it, the customer just informs the cashier that they want to pay with that currency, and in a matter of seconds, a QR Code is generated on the computer screen. The customer points the cell phone at the code and makes the payment instantly. To get an idea of its purchasing power, just two coins of this cryptocurrency are enough to buy a 5-kilogram bag of rice.
Another advantage of BDM is its high performance. In recent times, its growth margin has surpassed the 375% mark, which demonstrates a high investment potential. Recently, BDM launched a campaign called "treasure hunt" where it offered one of its investors a prize of one million cryptocurrency assets.
The president of the holding that controls BDM Digital, Urandir Fernandes, is a businessman who remains focused on what is most innovative in terms of new technologies. And he points out: People are starting to look at cryptocurrencies as a substitute for official money and notes printed on paper. Until 2021, the general population saw cryptocurrency as an investment asset like shares on the Stock Exchange, and not as a means for day-to-day purchases. But this is changing, and we are investing in this trend.
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SOURCE BDM Digital | 2023-07-04T15:06:41+00:00 | mysuncoast.com | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2023/07/04/cryptocurrencies-are-already-accepted-more-than-thousand-establishments-brazil/ |
AKRON, Ohio (AP) — The eight police officers who shot Jayland Walker last summer used excessive force when they fired 94 bullets at him during a foot chase and participated in a “culture of violence and racism” within Akron’s police department, according to a lawsuit filed in Ohio federal court Friday.
Months after a grand jury declined to indict the unnamed officers in the death of Walker, a 25-year-old Black man, his family is seeking at least $45 million in damages from the officers, the city of Akron and city officials, according to a press release.
“Jayland Walker’s death has been mischaracterized as his fault,” Bobby DiCello, an attorney for the Walker family, said in a press conference Friday. He called that mischaracterization “repugnant.”
During a routine traffic stop on June 27, 2022, police officers fatally shot Walker after he fired a single bullet from his vehicle, then ran from the officers, according to a state investigation. He left the gun in his still-moving car.
His death gained national attention and roiled yet another city amid heightened tensions with police over the killing of a Black man that started with a traffic stop.
The officers fired the nearly 100 bullets at Walker in less than 7 seconds when he refused to put up his hands and appeared to reach into his waistband, believing him to be armed and a “deadly threat,” the state investigation said.
Police officers violated Walker’s rights to freedom from excessive force under the fourth amendment when they shot him in a hail of gunfire even though Walker was unarmed, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit further alleges that for years, and without consequences, the city of Akron, Mayor Daniel Horrigan and Chief of Police Stephen Mylett have knowingly allowed Akron police officers to engage in “violent behavior” that “disproportionately involves African Americans.”
The lawsuit goes on to list several alleged instances of Akron police officers using excessive force. It also includes a 1998 newsletter disseminated in the police department that repeatedly refers to Akron residents as animals, and states that a past internal investigation found that police officers currently employed by the department “read, received, circulated or found humorous” the newsletter.
“The story of how Jayland Walker died begins in that year, when this newsletter was circulated,” DiCello said, calling the content “hateful, violent porn.”
The city of Akron and the mayor’s office declined to comment about pending litigation. The Akron Police Department did not immediately respond to request for comment.
___
Samantha Hendrickson is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. | 2023-06-17T14:16:03+00:00 | pahomepage.com | https://www.pahomepage.com/news/national/jayland-walkers-family-sues-officers-and-city-alleging-excessive-force/ |
IRS mandatory presidential audit policy goes under spotlight
WASHINGTON (AP) — An IRS policy governing the audits of tax returns filed by U.S. presidents is under new scrutiny after a report published by a congressional panel found the agency failed to perform the mandatory inspection of Donald Trump’s returns until Congress pressed for information about the process.
The three-point policy states that individual returns for the president and the vice president are subject to mandatory review, “should always be kept in an orange folder,” should be kept from the eyes of IRS employees and “should be locked in a secure drawer or cabinet when the examiner or reviewer is away from the work area.”
The report released Tuesday by the Democratic majority on the House Ways and Means Committee said the process, which dates to 1977, was “dormant, at best” during the early years of the Trump administration. Democrats in Congress are responding by introducing legislation that would codify the IRS policy into law with more stringent requirements.
Tax experts say the failure to launch the audit earlier is emblematic of a larger problem regarding the IRS’ capacity to examine high-income taxpayers’ returns — and a reminder of Trump as a norm-defying president.
John Koskinen, who served as IRS commissioner during both the Obama and Trump administrations, said the policy has been out of the public eye because presidents have traditionally released their tax-return summaries to the public.
“It only became an issue with a president who refused to release his tax returns,” Koskinen said. “If Trump had been releasing his returns, nobody would have raised this issue.”
Trump’s tax returns being handed over to Congress recently is the culmination of a yearslong legal fight between Trump and Democratic lawmakers.
Steve Rosenthal, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said the IRS’ failure to audit Trump is a showing that “the mandatory auditing program is broken, we cannot rely on the current system to fairly audit the president, and there’s a general problem of the IRS auditing sophisticated taxpayers.”
Rosenthal added: “This is a much larger problem than Donald Trump — yes, he makes bad things worse, but the situation was bad to begin with.”
A new $80 billion infusion of funds through the so-called Inflation Reduction Act is supposed to remedy the beleaguered agency’s low staffing levels, outdated technology and host of other issues. Republicans who are poised to take control of the House in less than two weeks, however, have said they want to cut that funding.
Tuesday’s committee report revealed that the IRS only began to audit Trump’s 2016 tax filings on April 3, 2019, more than two years into Trump’s presidency and just months after Democrats took control of the House. That date coincides with Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the panel chairman, asking the IRS for information related to Trump’s tax returns.
The report’s findings prompted lawmakers to recommend a statutory requirement for the mandatory examination of the president’s taxes, with “disclosure of certain audit information and related returns in a timely manner.”
Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he will work to pass the bill through the Senate. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the chamber would “move swiftly” to advance the legislation.
The issue highlights frustration with the so-called tax gap, which is the difference between how much money is owed to the federal government and how much is paid. IRS data released in October projects that for 2017 to 2019, the estimated average gross tax gap will be $540 billion per year.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in August, and has repeated at various speaking engagements, that the new funds allocated by Congress would be used to increase audits on high-wealth individuals, firms and complex pass-throughs.
“This is challenging work that requires a team of sophisticated revenue agents in place to spend thousands of hours poring over complicated returns, and it is also work that has huge revenue potential,” she told former IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig in August.
In an application of the IRS policy on mandatory presidential audits, well-trained agents, forensic experts, tax attorneys and others would be required to oversee a presidential audit as complicated as Trump’s, which included hundreds of businesses, properties and complex business interests.
The congressional report highlighted the lack of staffing and availability of experts to examine Trump’s taxes. The report states that the IRS believed that accuracy of his filings was ensured because he had legal counsel and an accounting firm representing him.
The question of whether presidential tax documents should be disclosed is another matter of debate among tax experts and advocates.
Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said Congress would be setting a “dangerous new precedent” by releasing the presidential records. Koskinen said that “it’s a significant serious precedent for a committee to seek returns and then release them.”
“I see two big issues here — what is the IRS going to do to ensure presidents are audited regularly, and what’s the rationale for releasing these returns,” Koskinen said.
Rosenthal said he thinks presidential returns should be publicly disclosed to ensure proper oversight.
“When this information is made public, the president is going to be more wary about cheating on their taxes and making them public — the results would put both the IRS and president on their best behavior,” he said.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | 2022-12-22T11:46:59+00:00 | live5news.com | https://www.live5news.com/2022/12/22/irs-mandatory-presidential-audit-policy-goes-under-spotlight/ |
Wednesday, June 28, 2023: Hot and sunny, temps in the 100s
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You can also follow our KRGV First Warn 5 Weather team on Facebook and Twitter. | 2023-06-28T23:56:32+00:00 | krgv.com | https://www.krgv.com/news/wednesday-june-28-2023-hot-and-sunny-temps-in-the-100s |
The Big Romantic Gesture is alive and well. As a matter of fact, it can still be a thing well into your golden years, if you’re anything like Dr. Thomas McMeekin of Tampa, Florida. One of his patients (@jobuns_) captured the moment that McMeekin reunited with Nancy Gambell, his high school sweetheart at Tampa International Airport.
It had been 60 years since the pair first met, and as you can see, the doctor didn’t want to let another year go by without her as his wife.
@jobuns_ Replying to @jjayyciee ⬠original sound – Jojo
MORE: Al Roker shares first photos of his new granddaughter
“You are the most incredible person I have ever met,” reads a kneeling McMeekin as an overwhelmed Gambell sobs. “Your beauty both inside and out has always captivated me.”
It doesn’t take long for McMeekin to join her in tears, breaking up as he asks, “Will you, Nancy, do me the honor of being my soulmate in life, my partner in every sense of the word.”
The video racked up 2.4 million views as of this week, and it’s the happy ending to a very long courtship. According to Fox 13, the pair started out pining for each other as high school students in Quincy, California. A few dates followed, but the pair ended up growing apart after attending different colleges. They both eventually married others and moved along their own separate paths.
That changed when a 50-year high school reunion brought them together again. And though both were still married to others at the time, there was undeniably a spark. They were both single again by the time McMeekin RSVP’ed to his 60th high school reunion, and Gambell let him know in a message that she “was really looking forward to seeing [him] again.” This time McMeekin didn’t waste any time making his feelings known.
@jobuns_ My heart!! Sweetest proposal He was so excited! #proposal #highschoolsweethearts #fyp #love #tampaflorida #tampainternationalairport ⬠original sound – Haley Solomon
She flew from her home in California to see him in Tampa, and found Thomas waiting with a necklace containing both of their birthstones. Oh, and also a proposal. She said yes, and the rest is viral, heartwarming history. The two have already been shopping for rings and are planning a California wedding.
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Check out Simplemost for additional stories. | 2023-07-07T22:13:23+00:00 | krtv.com | https://www.krtv.com/man-proposes-to-high-school-sweetheart-60-years-later-in-viral-video |
“Barbenheimer” saved the movie universe this week by handing eager audiences an eyeful of two very different planets. Neither “Barbie” nor “Oppenheimer” was “just another,” meaning: not just another sequel to a proven, if fading, franchise. Or just another superhero, trapping in a quantum realm somewhere in a Marvel soundstage in Atlanta, looking for a decent return on the usual $300 million investment.
Co-writer and director Greta Gerwig‘s triumph made $162 million in the U.S. alone from the July 21-24 weekend. That’s the biggest domestic opening ever for a non-superhero film or sequel. Oh, and Monday? Typically the dead zone? The weirdly delightful “Barbie,” a 1959-born doll’s adventures in angst and yearning, broke records for the Warner Bros. opening week-Monday box office, the studio’s previous record-holder being “The Dark Knight” (2008), directed by Christopher Nolan, who wrote and directed … “Oppenheimer.”
That one made $82.4 million in its first four days, and on fewer screens than “Barbie,” and with a three-hour biopic. Meanwhile, looking a little lonely, there’s poor “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” coming off an alarming 64% attendance drop in its second week.
It got “Barbenheimered.” But more than that: However sleek and enjoyable, the seventh “M:I” picture essentially took one for the team made up of all the nervous Hollywood studio franchises with which audiences may be getting just a tiny bit fed up.
The word “Barbenheimer” began as a jest and became, in the words of Slate film critic Dana Stevens, a warning. “Hollywood needs to read the room,” she told me, “and listen to what people want.”
Stevens, 57, recently published a terrific book on Buster Keaton and is also a regular on the Slate Pop Culture Gabfest. Our Zoom conversation, from our respective kitchens in Chicago and New York, has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What just happened? And why does the weekend feel like great news for the film industry, but news the industry will somehow fail to capitalize on?
A: Well, we’ll see, but for now it’s the rising-tide-lifts-all-boats phenomenon. Instead of being pitted against each other, both these movies actually built excitement about the other one. The entire weekend was really huge for the industry, a $300 million industrywide take, fourth biggest in history. To me, that says something very heartening about the film industry. People are really ready, desperate, even, to go back to the movies. It’s a sign of health for the entire industry, even if what just happened wasn’t planned, or easily repeated. It was gratifying to see two movies land like that.
I don’t know, I just woke up Sunday morning and smiled.
Q: So what’s the right call now for the industry? Right now it seems like there’s a preoccupation with the idea of getting as many films off the fall release schedule as possible, because of the strike, and what that’ll do to curtail the promotional machine underneath those new releases.
A: I’m not an industry analyst. And I certainly don’t understand shareholders and whatever’s being done to preserve their profits. But why, when you have this clear, huge message from audiences — We want movies! In a theater! Give them to us! — why would you take the films sitting on your shelf and not release them until next year? It doesn’t seem like the studios understand this is an ecosystem that has to be preserved. It seems so self-sabotaging. I’ve had people try to explain it me, that they need the stars there (at festival premieres or pre-opening junkets) to promote the movies. But right now it seems like the movie industry should be throwing more spaghetti at the wall, different shapes of spaghetti. Not less.
This unsustainable economy of the “tentpole” picture, the big franchise movies — we’ve known for a while it’s not working. And this week is non-depressing proof that something better could come from the wreckage of the film industry right now. … To have one weekend where two movies show up like “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” it’s a great sign of health. It’s like somebody’s on the operating table with a defibrillator, and suddenly they jump up, whistling a tune —
Q: And that tune is “I’m Just Ken.”
A: Right! That sign of health, I think, is also about keeping the theatrical windows (the number of days between theatrical and streaming availability) nice and long. Nothing flattens interest in a movie faster than being able to see it the same day in theaters and at home. … If you have a life, you’re not going to go see a movie that’ll be streaming in two weeks.
To me, the most startling statistic was that “Barbie’s” opening weekend outgrossed both “The Dark Knight” and “The Dark Knight Rises,” two extremely successful comic-book franchise movies directed by Greta Gerwig’s rival director this weekend, Christopher Nolan. Calling them rivals feels odd, given the mutual boost their movies gave each other. But to have a film created by and aimed at women creating greater box-office success than those two very male-coded movies — that makes it feel like a real shift in the zeitgeist. It’s fitting, too, that “Barbie” is, in part, about a world where women’s sensibility reigns, and the Kens have to struggle to find their place within that.
Q: I think both movies offer some surprises. Not to be too glib about the material, but there’s certainly a huge visual “wow” with the most striking scenes in “Oppenheimer,” and millions are making it a priority to see it in a theater because of that. With “Barbie,” I think people are getting a movie that’s funny and surprisingly touching, but stranger than they’re expecting, whatever they’re expecting. The appeal of both films is pretty complicated, in other words.
A: Right. I think that speaks to a debate I saw online somewhere about the word “original,” and how it does or doesn’t apply to “Barbie” in particular. Is “Barbie” original when it’s based on something, in this case, a toy? Well, yes, actually. It’s a non-sequel, and there hasn’t been a big movie — at least a non-made-for-TV movie strictly for kids — about that toy before.
Then there’s the other meaning of “original.” Both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” are movies with original, distinctive filmmakers’ voices. They feel like movies made by someone who had their own ideas, not concocted by a committee trying to give us the next chapter of what they assume we want.
Q: They’re also big enough, and messy enough in a stimulating way, to generate a really interesting range of opinions.
A: Messy’s a good word for it. They could both fuel a good dinner conversation. “Oppenheimer,” for example, I couldn’t say I even enjoyed sitting through that movie; I was often annoyed with it, actively. But I couldn’t forget it afterward. As soon as I felt annoyed, some other stretch of it, like the Trinity test, just awed me. It’s the kind of movie you want to see again. I’ll probably see both movies again.
Q: As far as the inevitable sequel to “Barbie” goes …
A: “Barbie 2,” “Barbie 3″ — bring ‘em on. I do kind of hope Greta Gerwig doesn’t do them, though, as wonderful as she is. I don’t want her to fall into the IP hole Robert Downey Jr. fell into as an actor, where he got so identified with “Iron Man” and the Marvel world he didn’t do anything else, practically. For years.
Q: We’ll end with the big question, restated: What’s the best thing people running things can learn from the success of these two films?
A: Let the creators create! And make space for interesting filmmakers who’ve proven themselves at getting audiences excited in their work, whatever kind of work they’ve done, and let them realize their own original projects. But in order to make that possible: Make a fair deal with your actors and writers, so there’s a big pool of talent eager to make more work for you. Successful movies keep the industry alive, keep movie theaters open, and please audiences, while also allowing all these people to make their livings.
Why not just pay these people who are screaming outside your offices?
———
(Michael Phillips is the Chicago Tribune film critic.)
©2023 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. | 2023-07-27T21:07:11+00:00 | twincities.com | https://www.twincities.com/2023/07/27/the-lesson-hollywood-should-learn-from-barbenheimer-let-originality-come-through/ |
The San Luis Obispo County’s District Attorney’s Office is auctioning off items seized as evidence during a criminal embezzlement investigation.
The DA's office is in partnership with SLOCAL Estate Auctions, Inc. based in Morro Bay to auction jewelry, watches, sports memorabilia, designer shoes, handbags, artwork, and other items.
The District Attorney's Office wants to ease any concerns regarding the source of the auction items, making it clear that the items are not stolen property but rather purchased by a criminal defendant using funds she embezzled from her employer. Therefore it was the funds that were stolen, not the property.
The proceeds from the auction will be turned over to the victim of the embezzlement to offset a portion of his loss.
For many of the items the DA's office was able to locate receipts and other proofs of purchase and COA's (Certificate of Authenticity). The sale was approved by order of San Luis Obispo County Superior Court Judge Jesse Marino.
The auction concludes Thursday night. You will find many items including signed sports and music memorabilia, designer shoes, jewelry, watches, artwork, and handbags.
To see details on this auction, click here. | 2022-06-09T21:56:13+00:00 | ksby.com | https://www.ksby.com/news/local-news/slo-co-das-office-auctions-off-expensive-luxury-items-seized-during-embezzlement-investigation |
MCLEAN, Va., Sept. 29, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Iridium Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: IRDM) ("Iridium") will host a conference call on Thursday, October 20, 2022 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time (ET) to discuss the Company's third-quarter 2022 financial results. In advance of the call on October 20, 2022, Iridium will issue its third-quarter 2022 earnings press release, which will be available on the investor relations page of the Company's website. To participate in the teleconference, callers can dial 1-412-902-6740 and ask for the Iridium Communications Inc. conference call. Please dial in five minutes prior to the scheduled start time to help ensure the conference call begins in a timely manner. The conference call will also be simultaneously webcast on the events page of the Company's website at https://investor.iridium.com/events.
For those unable to participate in the live call, a replay of the webcast will be available in the investor relations section of the Company's website approximately one hour following the conclusion of the call.
About Iridium Communications Inc.
Iridium® is the only mobile voice and data satellite communications network that spans the entire globe. Iridium enables connections between people, organizations and assets to and from anywhere, in real time. Together with its ecosystem of partner companies, Iridium delivers an innovative and rich portfolio of reliable solutions for markets that require truly global communications. In 2019, the company completed a generational upgrade of its satellite network and launched its new specialty broadband service, Iridium Certus®. Iridium Communications Inc. is headquartered in McLean, Va., U.S.A., and its common stock trades on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol IRDM. For more information about Iridium products, services and partner solutions, visit www.iridium.com.
Investor Contact:
Kenneth Levy
Iridium Communications Inc.
+1 (703) 287-7570
ken.levy@iridium.com
Press Contact:
Jordan Hassin
Iridium Communications Inc.
+1 (703) 287-7421
jordan.hassin@iridium.com
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SOURCE Iridium Communications Inc. | 2022-09-29T20:36:15+00:00 | kxii.com | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/09/29/iridium-announces-release-date-third-quarter-2022-financial-results/ |
Huntington Bank infused nearly $1 billion into the economy by supporting 5,675 small businesses in the last year
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (Nasdaq: HBAN) is the nation's largest originator, by volume, of Small Business Administration (SBA) 7(a) loans for the fifth consecutive year. As a national leader in the Small Business sector, Huntington remains committed to lending both expertise and capital to sustain small businesses across the country.
"Small businesses are the backbone of our communities. When they succeed, we all succeed," said Brant Standridge, President of the Consumer and Business Bank at Huntington. "Huntington is proud to serve small businesses by helping them achieve their goals. Our work is driven by Huntington's commitment to help communities thrive through much needed access to capital and supporting our customers through every stage of their business lifecycle. To be a continued leader in SBA lending is a distinct honor for us."
Huntington offers a suite of loan services designed to help small businesses gain access to the capital they need to open, acquire, or expand, including 7(a) loans, SBA express loans, and 504 loans. In 2020, the bank launched a Lift Local Business program designed to create more opportunities for woman-, veteran-, and minority-owned businesses. The program offers loans, business planning support, free financial education courses delivered through Operation HOPE, and other services to help small business owners achieve their goals. Since launching, Huntington's Lift Local Business program has provided funding to more than 500 minority-, woman-, and veteran-owned small businesses -- 997 business owners have registered for Operation HOPE courses.
"The ability to partner with Huntington on the Lift Local Business program continues to increase the number of small businesses who are application ready without creating unnecessary time and expense for the small business owner," said John Hope Bryant, Founder, Chair, and CEO of Operation HOPE. "We're so thankful Huntington has dedicated themselves to helping small businesses across the country."
The number of businesses Huntington helped through SBA lending in each traditional footprint state through the 2022 fiscal year1 includes:
Huntington is the top lender by volume in eight states, including Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, and even Colorado, after entering the market for SBA loans this year.
By committing resources to extend access to capital across expanded states, and through sustained national leadership, Huntington continues to expand leadership in support of underserved small businesses. The SBA 7(a) lending program provides government backing, enabling small business lenders to extend credit to business owners who are not able to access conventional bank financing.
"A wide range of businesses can benefit from SBA loans, and we are eager to use our expertise to support these customers across the country," said Maggie Ference, SBA Lending Director for Huntington. "We are especially proud to partner with small businesses to ensure equitable access to capital. Our continued success is a credit to our colleagues."
In 2021, Huntington announced a new strategy to tackle social, racial, environmental, and economic inequities across its footprint by committing $40 billion toward a Community Plan. This includes expanding its lending programs across the footprint and committing $10 billion over five years to small business lending, of which $2 billion will focus on majority minority census tracts and $100 million to the Lift Local Business Program for women-, minority-, and veteran- owned businesses. Through Lift Local, Huntington has also held nearly a dozen Seeds for Growth events in communities throughout its footprint. These largescale training and community-building events are aimed at maximizing training and networking opportunities for under-resourced small business owners.
For more information, visit: www.huntington.com/SmallBusiness/loans/sba-guarantee-business-loans
About Huntington
Huntington Bancshares Incorporated (Nasdaq: HBAN) is a $179 billion asset regional bank holding company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Founded in 1866, The Huntington National Bank and its affiliates provide consumers, small and middle-market businesses, corporations, municipalities, and other organizations with a comprehensive suite of banking, payments, wealth management, and risk management products and services. Huntington operates more than 1,000 branches in 11 states, with certain businesses operating in extended geographies. Visit Huntington.com for more information.
1 Fiscal year is Oct. 1, 2021-Sept. 30, 2022.
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SOURCE Huntington Bancshares Incorporated | 2022-10-07T00:25:19+00:00 | kalb.com | https://www.kalb.com/prnewswire/2022/10/06/huntington-national-bank-leads-nation-sba-7a-loan-origination-by-volume-fifth-consecutive-year/ |
Opinion: We've turned nonbinary into a third gender. It isn't.
Demi Lovato wasn’t tired of being nonbinary.
In May of 2021, the pop star announced online that they identified as nonbinary and would be using they/them pronouns. On their Instagram, they wrote “This has come after a lot of healing and self-reflective work. I’m still learning and coming into myself.”
Since then, there has been a spew of online backlash — so much that they responded with their song “Freak,” released in August of last year.
Lovato experienced a second round of backlash in April of 2022, when the pop star began publicly using they/she pronouns.
Those who saw being nonbinary as a trend, something young people would get tired of — or who held transphobic beliefs — seemed to see Lovato's change from they/them to both they/them and she/her as confirmation of what they already believed was true. What they didn't do was listen to what Lovato said about their identity.
What does this say about how our society accepts gender fluidity?
Probably not great things.
The United States legally recognized a non-binary person for the first time in 2016, but non-binary people have always existed. For instance, there are Fa’afafines and Fa’afatamas in Samoa, or Two-spirits in native North American cultures.
While there has been a growing movement of acceptance of nonbinary people in modern western culture, it seems as though many people still misunderstand the concept, categorizing non-binary as a "third gender" rather than what it is: the space between.
Being nonbinary means having an identity that does not conform to traditional gender binaries of male or female, not the complete absence of association to these assigned roles. Some nonbinary people feel feminine, some feel masculine, some feel both, or neither. Many feel a combination of these at various points.
Not understanding what it means to be nonbinary may have driven some of the response to Lovato's announcements.
But others misconstrued Lovato's explanation for their move to they/she pronouns to belittle their gender-queerness. This spur of articles mainly capitalized off something Lovato had said: that using they/them pronouns was “absolutely exhausting.” Tomi Lahren, on Fox News radio during August of last year, led off her discussion on Lovato's announcement this way: "A year after changing her pronouns to they/them, singer Demi Lovato is a she/her again." Speaking with such authority on a topic of queer identities when you don't seem to identify the difference between a gender identity and a set of pronouns, is questionable at best.
The journalistic malpractice of taking Lovato's quotes out of context, and the dangerous rhetoric that enables, is harmful to the queer community. To appropriately understand these quotes, as always, one has to look at context.
Lovato didn't find being nonbinary exhausting. “I constantly had to educate people and explain why I identified with those pronouns. It was absolutely exhausting,” Lovato said. The burden on queer people to constantly defend and educate others on their own identities is often overwhelming. Minorities are often put on the forefront of defense through their daily lives. This creates an unfair amount of emotional and cognitive labor. Frankly, who wouldn’t become exhausted from that?
It should be noted that Demi Lovato didn't stop identifying as nonbinary. Like Lovato said, they're "a very fluid person," and her "gender identity is sometimes fluid, too." This can lead to a wide range of gender expression. "I identify more feminine on certain days, and other days, I identify more non-binary." said Lovato. Short hair, flannels, and they/them aren't the only way people can be nonbinary, because, to put it plainly, people are people, and it's unfair to hold anyone to the standard of being completely androgynous.
Using both they/them and she/her pronouns doesn’t eradicate their experience with gender nonconformity. While it is perfectly reasonable for people to explore their own identity, make mistakes and redirect, pretending Lovato just “got tired” of being nonbinary reinforces the idea that gender-queerness is “just a phase.”
While nonbinary people have always, and will continue to, exist everywhere, it has not been something many people had had high exposure to. It is understandable that many of us still have, and might always have, plenty to learn. However, it is key that rather than becoming complacent in our knowledge of gender, we continue to grow and adapt our understanding of what it is to be human.
That's all any of us are, anyway.
Hannah Fathman, a student at Albion College, is Free Press editorial board intern. | 2023-07-19T12:23:48+00:00 | freep.com | https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2023/07/19/demi-lovato-identify-nonbinary-genderqueer/70362812007/ |
STOCKHOLM, Sept. 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Michael Chalsen, Senior Vice President Global Technologies and member of Mycronic's Group Management, has decided to retire. He will stay on in his role until at least December 31, 2022. A recruitment process to find his successor has been initiated.
"Mike's leadership, dedication and experience have been great contributors to Mycronic's success. I want to thank Mike for the remarkable work he has done and wish him all the best in his new phase in life", says Anders Lindqvist, Mycronic's President and CEO.
For additional information, please contact:
President and CEO
Tel: +46 8 638 52 00
E-mail: anders.lindqvist@mycronic.com
Sven Chetkovich
Director Investor Relations
Tel: +46 70 558 39 19
E-mail: sven.chetkovich@mycronic.com
The information in this press release was published on September 21, 2022, at 12:00 p.m. CEST.
About Mycronic
Mycronic is a Swedish high-tech company engaged in the development, manufacture and marketing of production equipment with high precision and flexibility requirements for the electronics industry. Mycronic's headquarters are located in Täby, north of Stockholm and the Group has subsidiaries in China, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, United Kingdom, United States and Vietnam. Mycronic is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm. www.mycronic.com
This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com
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SOURCE Mycronic AB | 2022-09-21T11:40:14+00:00 | kfyrtv.com | https://www.kfyrtv.com/prnewswire/2022/09/21/management-change-mycronic/ |
It's been just over a week since Jaclyn Hill's ex-husband, Jon Hill, died unexpectedly due to undisclosed circumstances, and the Internet celeb and makeup mogul is addressing her "grieving process." Specifically, she's explaining why she's trying to be more private about her mourning.
Jaclyn took to her Instagram story on Thursday to share an emotional update with her followers, while using a moment of her free time to get in some exercise on a treadmill.
"I'm at the point in my grieving process where I just have to trust it, and see what happens every day," she shared. "Right now, I'm just kind of done sharing this with millions of people, and I just kind of need some privacy on this subject."
The YouTuber and cosmetics entrepreneur explained, "Obviously social media is my business... but I can't keep putting myself out there, because grieving that loss is something I can't explain."
Jaclyn explained that, while they divorced nearly five years ago, "We still kept in touch and talked, it is just the saddest, weirdest, thing."
"Ugh, it's so much you guys," she added, getting choked up. "Trying to go through it publicly is just making it so much harder for me."
Jaclyn announced the tragic news the day after Jon's death, writing on her Instagram Story that he died after a "sudden tragedy."
The next day, Jaclyn shared photos of herself and Jon on Instagram, along with a lengthy tribute to her ex, whom she wed in 2009 and split from nine years later.
In July, Jaclyn had revealed that Frankie -- the dog the couple shared while married, who Jon kept after the divorce -- "was lost" when asked about the pet by a fan on Instagram. When asked to elaborate, Jaclyn told the fan "he was lost."
In her posts on Thursday, Jaclyn said she had been inundated with questions about Frankie, but didn't want to address them at the present time. However, in a tear-filled post she shared later in the evening, an emotional Jaclyn seemingly confirmed that Frankie had died.
Jaclyn shared an repost of a TikTok video showing a white puppy -- who resembled Frankie -- running around a lush, green landscape. The video included the text, "POV: your dog is searching for you in the afterlife and finally sees you."
"These videos kept popping up on my page this past week, and it makes me emotional but in the best way possible," Jaclyn shared, adding, "This has been bringing me comfort, so I hope it comforts you."
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner's Office told ET that the late musician was pronounced dead on a sidewalk on Aug. 10. The cause and manner of death have been deferred pending additional investigation, the coroner's office told ET, adding that Jon's body has been released to his family.
Page Six, who was first to report the most recent update on Jon's death, noted that the late drummer's autopsy results won't be ready for "months."
RELATED CONTENT: | 2022-08-19T12:51:43+00:00 | 9news.com | https://www.9news.com/article/entertainment/entertainment-tonight/jaclyn-hill-gives-tearful-update-on-grieving-process-after-ex-husband-jons-death/603-13071562-c6c0-430a-9715-3318c13937ac |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Twitter’s former security chief told Congress Tuesday there was “at least one agent” from China’s intelligence service on Twitter’s payroll and that the company knowingly allowed India to add agents to the company roster as well, potentially giving those nations access to sensitive data about users.
These were some of the troubling revelations from Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, a respected cybersecurity expert and Twitter whistleblower who appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to lay out his allegations against the company.
Zatko told lawmakers that the social media platform is plagued by weak cyber defenses that make it vulnerable to exploitation by “ teenagers, thieves and spies” and put the privacy of its users at risk.
“I am here today because Twitter leadership is misleading the public, lawmakers, regulators and even its own board of directors,” Zatko said as he began his sworn testimony.
“They don’t know what data they have, where it lives and where it came from and so, unsurprisingly, they can’t protect it,” Zatko said. “It doesn’t matter who has keys if there are no locks.”
“Twitter leadership ignored its engineers,” he said, in part because “their executive incentives led them to prioritize profit over security.”
In a statement, Twitter said its hiring process is “independent of any foreign influence” and access to data is managed through a host of measures, including background checks, access controls, and monitoring and detection systems and processes.
One issue that didn’t come up in the hearing was the question of whether Twitter is accurately counting its active users, an important metric for its advertisers. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is trying to get out of a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter, has argued without evidence that many of Twitter’s roughly 238 million daily users are fake or malicious accounts, aka “spam bots.”
Even so, “that doesn’t mean that Musk won’t use Zatko’s allegation that Twitter was disinterested in removing bots to try to bolster his argument for walking away from the deal,” said Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg.
The Delaware judge overseeing the case ruled last week that Musk can include new evidence related to Zatko’s allegations in the high-stakes trial, which is set to start Oct. 17. During the hearing, Musk tweeted a popcorn emoji, often used to suggest that one is sitting back in anticipation of unfolding drama.
Separately on Tuesday, Twitter’s shareholders voted overwhelmingly to approve the deal, according to multiple media reports. Shareholders have been voting remotely on the issue for weeks. The vote was largely a formality, particularly given Musk’s efforts to nullify the deal, although it does clear a legal hurdle to closing the sale.
Zatko’s message echoed one brought to Congress against another social media giant last year. But unlike that Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, Zatko hasn’t brought troves of internal documents to back up his claims.
Zatko was the head of security for the influential platform until he was fired early this year. He filed a whistleblower complaint in July with Congress, the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Among his most serious accusations is that Twitter violated the terms of a 2011 FTC settlement by falsely claiming that it had put stronger measures in place to protect the security and privacy of its users.
Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who heads the Judiciary Committee, said Zatko has detailed flaws “that may pose a direct threat to Twitter’s hundreds of millions of users as well as to American democracy.”
“Twitter is an immensely powerful platform and can’t afford gaping vulnerabilities,” he said.
Unknown to Twitter users, there’s far more of their personal information disclosed than they — or sometimes even Twitter itself — realize, Zatko testified. He said Twitter did not address “basic systemic failures” brought forward by company engineers.
The FTC has been “a little over its head”, and far behind European counterparts, in policing the sort of privacy violations that have occurred at Twitter, Zatko said.
Zatko’s allegation that Twitter was more concerned about foreign regulators than the FTC, Enberg said, “could be a wakeup call for U.S. lawmakers,” who have been unable to pass meaningful regulation on social media companies.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said one positive result that could come out of Zatko’s findings would be bipartisan legislation to set up a tighter system of regulation of tech platforms.
“We need to up our game in this country,” he said.
Many of Zatko’s claims are uncorroborated and appear to have little documentary support. Twitter has called Zatko’s description of events “a false narrative … riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies” and lacking important context.
Still, Zatko came off as a convincing whistleblower who has “a lot of credibility in this space,” said Ari Lightman, professor of digital media and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University. But he said many of the problems he raised can likely be found at many other digital technology platforms
“They avoid security protocols in a sense of innovating and running really fast,” Lightman said. “We gave digital platforms so much autonomy at the beginning to grow and develop. Now we’re at a point where we’re, ‘Wait a minute … This has gotten out of hand.’
Among the assertions from Zatko that drew lawmaker attention was Twitter’s apparent negligence in dealing with governments that sought to get spies a job inside the company. Twitter’s inability to log how employees accessed user accounts made it hard for the company to detect when employees were abusing their access, Zatko said.
Zatko said he spoke with “high confidence” about a foreign agent that the government of India placed at Twitter to “understand the negotiations” between India’s ruling party and Twitter about new social media restrictions and how well those negotiations were going.
Zatko also revealed Tuesday that he was told about a week before his firing that “at least one agent” from the Chinese intelligence service MSS, or the Ministry of State Security, was “on the payroll” at Twitter.
He said he was similarly “surprised and shocked” by an exchange with current Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal about Russia — in which Twitter’s current CEO, who was chief technology officer at the time, asked if it would be possible to “punt” content moderation and surveillance to the Russian government, since Twitter doesn’t really “have the ability and tools to do things correctly.”
“And since they have elections, doesn’t that make them a democracy?” Zatko recalled Agrawal saying.
Sen. Charles Grassley, the committee’s ranking Republican, said Tuesday that Agrawal declined to testify at the hearing, citing the ongoing legal proceedings with Musk. But the hearing is “more important than Twitter’s civil litigation in Delaware,” Grassley said. Twitter declined to comment on Grassley’s remarks.
In his complaint, Zatko accused Agrawal as well as other senior executives and board members of numerous violations, including making “false and misleading statements to users and the FTC about the Twitter platform’s security, privacy and integrity.”
Zatko, 51, first gained prominence in the 1990s as a pioneer in the ethical hacking movement and later worked in senior positions at an elite Defense Department research unit and at Google. He joined Twitter in late 2020 at the urging of then-CEO Jack Dorsey. | 2022-09-14T11:02:12+00:00 | fox59.com | https://fox59.com/news/national-world/whistleblower-china-india-had-agents-working-for-twitter/ |
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden on Tuesday denied that it was providing any “financial assistance or military support” to Kurdish groups or entities in Syria — claims that Turkey's using to back its opposition to Sweden's and neighboring Finland's historic bids to join NATO.
Turkey is citing the Nordic countries' perceived support for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and other groups Turkey labels as terrorists, as well as arms exports restrictions imposed against Ankara following its incursion into Syria in 2019.
“Sweden is a major humanitarian donor to the Syria crisis through global allocations to humanitarian actors," Foreign Minister Ann Linde told the Aftonbladet newspaper.
“Cooperation in northeastern Syria is carried out primarily through the United Nations and international organizations," she said. "Sweden does not provide targeted support to Syrian Kurds or to the political or military structures in northeastern Syria, but the population in these areas is, of course, taking part in these aid projects.”
Turkey has listed five “concrete assurances” it is demanding from Sweden, including what it said was “termination of political support for terrorism,” an “elimination of the source of terrorism financing,” the “cessation of arms support” to the banned PKK and a Syrian Kurdish militia group affiliated with it. The demands also called for the lifting of arms sanctions against Turkey and global cooperation against terrorism.
Listed as a terror group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union — of which Sweden and Finland are members — the PKK has waged an insurgency against Turkey since 1984. Tens of thousands of people have died in the conflict.
Turkey has been requesting the extradition of Kurdish militants and other suspects since 2017 but has not received a positive response from Stockholm.
Among other things, Ankara claims that Sweden had decided to provide $376 million to support the Kurdish militants in 2023 and that it had provided military equipment to them, including anti-tank weapons and drones.
On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to launch a new military operation in Syria to secure Turkey’s southern border.
On Wednesday, a Swedish-Finnish delegation is to visit Turkey to discuss Ankara’s objections to the Nordic countries’ NATO bids. The delegation is expected to meet with Ibrahim Kalin, the spokesman of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal.
At the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said that “we understand that Turkey has some of their own security concerns vis-à-vis terrorism and so forth.”
“We think that we have good answers for those because we are also part of the fight against the terrorism. So, we think that this issue can be settled,” Haavisto said.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said at Davos that NATO will do “what we always do” and “that is to sit down and address concerns when allies express concerns.”
He says he’s confident the military alliance will be able to “solve these issues and to agree and then to welcome Finland and Sweden as full-fledged members of our alliance.” All 30 current NATO countries must agree to open the door to new members.
Stoltenberg recognized “the importance of addressing the concerns that Turkey has raised,” and stressed that Turkey is an important NATO member.
Sweden has welcomed hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East in recent decades, including ethnic Kurds from Syria, Iraq and Turkey.
After being firmly against NATO membership for decades, public opinion in both countries shifted following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, with record levels of support for joining the alliance.
___
Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Suzan Fraser in Ankara and Courtney Bonnell at Davos contributed to this report. | 2022-05-24T15:27:24+00:00 | ourmidland.com | https://www.ourmidland.com/news/article/Sweden-says-it-s-not-providing-money-military-17194953.php |
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel said Sunday that it killed a senior Islamic Jihad commander in a crowded Gaza refugee camp, the second such targeted attack since it launched its high-stakes military offensive against the militant group just before the weekend.
The Iran-backed militant group has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel in response, and the risk of the cross-border fighting turning into a full-fledged war remained high.
Gaza’s ruling Hamas group, which fought an 11-day war with Israel in May 2021, appeared to stay on the sidelines for now, possibly because it fears Israeli reprisals and undoing economic understandings with Israel, including Israeli work permits for thousands of Gaza residents, that bolster its control.
The Islamic Jihad commander, Khaled Mansour, was killed in an airstrike on an apartment building in the Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza late Saturday.
Two other militants and five civilians were also killed in the attack, bringing the Palestinian death toll to 31 since the start of the Israeli offensive on Friday. Among the dead were six children and four women. The Palestinian Health Ministry said more than 250 people were wounded since Friday.
Israel says some of the deaths were caused by errant rocket fire, including one incident in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza in which six Palestinians were killed Saturday. On Sunday, a projectile hit a home in the same area of Jebaliya, killing two men. Palestinians held Israel responsible, while Israel said it was investigating whether the area was hit by an errant rocket.
Mansour, the Islamic Jihad commander for southern Gaza, was in the apartment of a member of the group when the missile struck, flattening the three-story building and badly damaging nearby houses.
“Suddenly, without warning, the house next to us was bombed and everything became black and dusty with smoke in the blink of an eye,” said Wissam Jouda, who lives next to the targeted building.
Ahmed al-Qaissi, another neighbor, said his wife and son were among the wounded, suffering shrapnel injuries. To make way for rescue workers, al-Qaissi agreed to have part of his house demolished.
As a funeral for Mansour began in the Gaza Strip on Sunday afternoon, the Israeli military said it was striking suspected “Islamic Jihad rocket launch posts.” Smoke could be seen from the strikes as thumps from the strikes’ explosions rattled Gaza.
The Rafah strike was the deadliest so far in the current round of fighting, which was initiated by Israel on Friday with the targeted killing of Islamic Jihad’s commander for northern Gaza.
Israel has said it took action against the militant group because of concrete threats of an imminent attack, but has not provided details. Caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who is an experienced diplomat but untested in overseeing a war, unleashed the offensive less than three months before a general election in which he is campaigning to keep the job.
In a statement Sunday, Lapid said the military would continue to strike targets in Gaza “in a pinpoint and responsible way in order to reduce to a minimum the harm to noncombatants.” Lapid said the strike that killed Mansour was “an extraordinary achievement.”
“The operation will continue as long as necessary,” Lapid said.
Israel estimates its airstrikes have killed about 15 militants.
Islamic Jihad has fewer fighters and supporters than Hamas, and little is known about its weapons arsenal. Both groups call for Israel’s destruction, but have different priorities, with Hamas constrained by the demands of governing.
The Israeli army said militants in Gaza fired some 580 rockets toward Israel. The army said its air defenses had intercepted many of them, with two of those shot down being fired toward Jerusalem. Islamic Jihad has fewer fighters and supporters than Hamas.
Air raid sirens sounded in the Jerusalem area for the first time Sunday since last year’s Israel-Hamas war.
Jerusalem is typically a flash point during periods of cross-border fighting between Israel and Gaza. On Sunday, hundreds of Jews, including firebrand ultra-nationalist lawmaker Itamar Ben Gvir, visited a sensitive holy site in Jerusalem, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The visit, under heavy police protection, ended without incident, police said.
Such demonstrative visits by Israeli hard-liners seeking to underscore Israeli claims of sovereignty over contested Jerusalem have sparked violence in the past. The holy site sits on the fault line of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is central to rival narratives of Palestinians and Israeli Jews.
In Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank, Israeli security forces said they detained 19 people on suspicion of belonging to the Islamic Jihad during overnight raids.
The fighting began with Israel’s killing of a senior Islamic Jihad commander in a wave of strikes Friday that Israel said were meant to prevent an imminent attack.
By Sunday, Hamas still appeared to stay out of the battle. The group has a strong incentive to avoid another war. Last year’s Israel-Hamas war, one of four major conflicts and several smaller battles over the last 15 years, exacted a staggering toll on the impoverished territory’s 2.3 million Palestinian residents.
Since the last war, Israel and Hamas have reached tacit understandings based on trading calm for work permits and a slight easing of the border blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt when Hamas overran the territory 15 years ago. Israel has issued 12,000 work permits to Gaza laborers, and has held out the prospect of granting another 2,000 permits.
The lone power plant in Gaza ground to a halt at noon Saturday due to a lack of fuel. Israel has kept its crossing points into Gaza closed since Tuesday. With the new disruption, Gazans can use only four hours of electricity a day, increasing their reliance on private generators and deepening the territory’s chronic power crisis amid peak summer heat.
___
Ben Zion reported from Jerusalem. | 2022-08-07T11:04:08+00:00 | cbs4indy.com | https://cbs4indy.com/news/national-world/ap-international/israeli-airstrike-kills-2nd-top-islamic-jihad-commander/ |
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We've placed cookies on your device to improve your browsing experience. They're safe and don't contain sensitive information. | 2022-09-06T17:20:24+00:00 | tj.news | https://tj.news/telegraph-journal/101958536 |
Will the Colorado Avalanche win the Stanley Cup? Or is this finally Toronto's year? Will any of hockey's all-time records be broken? And how will the NHL answer to a wave of allegations and concerns about sexual assault?
The NHL season begins tonight, and the league is looking to have a complete, uninterrupted season for the first time since the pandemic began. (The 2020 and 2021 seasons were shortened due to scheduling concerns, and last year's season was interrupted by a week-long break when the omicron variant swept across nearly every team in the league.)
Here are some stories to watch for this year:
Will the Colorado Avalanche run it back?
Last year's Stanley Cup winners, the Colorado Avalanche, begin the season as the odds-on favorites to win the championship. They return most of the core who helped propel the team to their first Stanley Cup in two decades, toppling the returning champs Tampa Bay to do so.
In hockey, it's been common in recent years for winners to repeat. The Tampa Bay Lightning won back-to-back titles in 2020 and 2021, following the Pittsburgh Penguins who pulled it off in 2016 and 2017.
The Avalanche have lost a couple key players since winning the Cup, including their goalie, Darcy Kuemper.
But they return two MVP candidates in Nathan MacKinnon, a superlative center, and Cale Makar, the standout defenseman who is at or near the top of the league in practically every scoring statistic for defensive players. Makar could become the first defenseman to win the award in more than 20 years.
Or could this be the year for the long-hapless Maple Leafs?
The Maple Leafs have long been the butt of the joke in the NHL. Even though the team has the second most Stanley Cups in league history, they won their last in the 1960s.
Since then, the Leafs have gone 54 seasons and counting without a championship, by far the longest-ever drought in the league's history. The team hasn't won a playoff series in 17 years.
Now, they're behind only the Avalanche in the odds to win the Cup. They have the league's top scorer, 25-year-old center Auston Matthews, who had 60 goals last season, along with six-time All-Star center John Tavares leading the offense.
On the other hand, the Maple Leafs are the Maple Leafs: They've been playoff material for years now and still haven't managed to win a series – including last year, when they had the fourth best record in the league.
But if they can pull it off, it'll be the first time since 1993 that a Canadian team has won the Cup.
Will Ovechkin move into second place in the all-time goals record?
Baseball isn't the only sport with historic record chases.
Alex Ovechkin, the generational forward who has led the Washington Capitals since 2005, has scored 780 goals over his career.
Last March, Ovechkin moved into third place, reigniting interest over the possibility he could catch hockey GOAT Wayne Gretzky, who holds the all-time career scoring record.
Currently, Ovechkin is 114 goals behind Gretzky, who retired in 1999 after a 20-season career. Ovechkin, 37, has played 17 seasons so far. Last year, he scored 50 goals over 77 games – a pace that, if he's able to keep it up, would put him ahead of Gretzky if he retires after his 20th season.
Barring a major injury, Ovechkin is almost certain to move into second place this season and become just the third player of all time to score more than 800 career goals. And it's possible he could take the lead next year, or more likely, in the '23-'24 season.
How will hockey handle problems with sexual misconduct?
The season is starting at a moment when the sport of hockey is roiling anew over allegations of sexual assault, dredging up questions and criticisms about "hockey culture" and whether the sport fosters an environment for misogyny, assault and racism.
The latest developments are this: Canada's hockey governing organization, Hockey Canada, is currently mired in scandal over paying millions of dollars in settlements to victims of sexual assault by past members of the country's junior national team. That included an incident in 2018 in which eight players, whose names are sealed by a court, were said to sexually assault a woman who later sued the organization.
While the accused men have not been publicly named, a number of the players who played on the 2018 squad are currently active in the NHL, and the league has been investigating their involvement.
Separately, on Friday, a user on Twitter by the name "Emily Smith" accused Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Ian Cole of grooming and sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager. The accuser's identity has not been verified.
Cole has denied the allegations. Tampa Bay has suspended him while officials conduct an investigation. "Our organization takes these allegations very seriously," the team said in a statement.
They're joined by a few smaller-profile incidents, including the Montreal Canadiens' acquisition of a rookie who was convicted of secretly photographing a sexual partner then sharing that photograph with teammates, and an Edmonton Oilers developmental league athletic trainer fired over misconduct charges.
And it's all coming less than a year after the Chicago Blackhawks settled a lawsuit with a former player who was sexually assaulted by an assistant coach during the team's Stanley Cup season in 2010.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | 2022-10-11T10:21:24+00:00 | mtpr.org | https://www.mtpr.org/2022-10-11/the-nhl-season-starts-today-here-are-4-storylines-to-follow-as-hockey-begins |
WASHINGTON – U.S. officials granted full approval to a closely watched Alzheimer’s drug on Thursday, clearing the way for Medicare and other insurance plans to begin covering the treatment for people with the brain-robbing disease.
The Food and Drug Administration endorsed the IV drug, Leqembi, for patients with mild dementia and other symptoms caused by early Alzheimer's disease. It’s the first medicine that’s been convincingly shown to modestly slow Alzheimer’s cognitive decline.
Japanese drugmaker Eisai received conditional approval from the FDA in January based on early results suggesting Leqembi worked by clearing a sticky brain plaque linked to the disease.
The FDA confirmed those results by reviewing data from a larger, 1,800-patient study in which the drug slowed memory and thinking decline by about five months in those who got the treatment, compared to those who got a dummy drug.
“This confirmatory study verified that it is a safe and effective treatment for patients with Alzheimer’s disease," said FDA's neurology drug director, Dr. Teresa Buracchio, in a statement.
The drug's prescribing information will carry the most serious type of warning, indicating that Leqembi can cause brain swelling and bleeding, side effects that can be dangerous in rare cases. The label notes that those problems are seen with other plaque-targeting Alzheimer's drugs.
The process of converting a drug to full FDA approval usually attracts little attention. But Alzheimer’s patients and advocates have been lobbying the federal government for months after Medicare officials announced last year they wouldn’t pay for routine use of Leqembi until it received FDA’s full approval.
There were concerns that the cost of new plaque-targeting Alzheimer's drugs like Leqembi could overwhelm the program's finances, which provide care for 60 million seniors. Leqembi is priced at about $26,500 for a year’s supply of IVs every two weeks.
The vast majority of Americans with Alzheimer’s get their health coverage through Medicare. And private insurers have followed its lead by withholding coverage for Leqembi and a similar drug, Aduhelm, until they receive FDA's full endorsement. An FDA decision on full approval for Aduhelm is still years away.
Medicare administrator, Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, said in a statement Thursday the program will begin paying for the drug now that it has full FDA approval. But the government is also setting extra requirements, including enrollment in a federal registry to track the drug's real-world safety and effectiveness.
Medicare “will cover this medication broadly while continuing to gather data that will help us understand how the drug works,” Brooks-LaSure said.
Some Medicare patients could be responsible for paying the standard 20% of the cost of Leqembi, though the amount will vary depending on their plans and other coverage details.
Hospitals and medical clinics have cautioned that it may take time to get people started on the drug.
Doctors need to confirm that patients have the brain plaque targeted by Leqembi before prescribing it. Nurses need to be trained to administer the drug and patients must be monitored with repeated brain scans to check for swelling or bleeding. The imaging and administration services carry extra costs for hospitals beyond the drug itself.
Eisai has told investors that about 100,000 Americans could be diagnosed and eligible to receive Leqembi by 2026. The drug is co-marketed with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Biogen.
“We want to ensure that appropriate patients only are the ones that get this product,” said Alexander Scott, a vice president with Eisai.
Eisai studied the drug in people with early or mild disease who were evaluated using a scale measuring memory, thinking and other basic skills. After 18 months, those who got Leqembi declined more slowly — a difference of less than half a point on the scale — than participants who received a dummy infusion. Some Alzheimer's experts say that delay is likely too subtle for patients or their families to notice.
But federal health advisers said the difference could still be meaningful and recommended that FDA fully approve the drug at a public meeting in June.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content. | 2023-07-06T22:13:18+00:00 | ksat.com | https://www.ksat.com/business/2023/07/06/alzheimers-drug-leqembi-has-full-fda-approval-now-and-that-means-medicare-will-pay-for-it/ |
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Florida teen gets life in prison for killing young classmate
ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida judge sentenced a 16-year-old Florida boy to life in prison on Friday for fatally stabbing a 13-year-old classmate on Mother’s Day in 2021.
Aiden Fucci, 16, was 14 when he stabbed Tristyn Bailey at least 114 times in the woods near where the teens lived in north Florida, prosecutors said.
“This case is probably the most difficult and shocking case that this county, St. Johns County, has dealt with,” Judge Lee R. Smith said before ordering Fucci to prison for life.
Fucci, who pleaded guilty just before his trial was set to start in February, was not eligible for the death penalty because of his young age at the time of the crime. His case may be reviewed in 25 years, according to Florida law. His attorneys had sought a 40-year sentence.
Before invoking the sentence, the judge spoke to Bailey’s family, noting the tremendous toll the girl’s slaying has had on them.
“Allow ‘Bailey Sunday Fundays’ to return to your home,” he said, adding that Tristyn would have wanted her family to have fun again.
He also said he appreciated that her father, Forrest Bailey, was patient with the court proceedings.
The judge’s order followed two days of testimony in a sentencing hearing. On Wednesday, members of the Bailey family read emotional victim impact statements to the court. Her older sister, Alexis Bailey, began her statement by dropping 114 aqua-colored stone hearts into a jar — one for each stab wound her sister suffered.
Fucci’s grandmother, Deborah Spiwak, also attended that hearing, pleading for mercy for her grandson on Wednesday.
“Please don’t take him out of our lives forever ... I know there’s some good in Aiden,” she said.
The judge noted her comment on Friday.
“That took a lot of courage. That was not easy, for her. But it showed this court that he had a good, stable home environment,” Smith said of Fucci’s upbringing.
Fucci and his parents each wrote letters to the judge, apologizing for his actions and asking for mercy.
Investigators said Fucci had told several friends he planned to kill someone, though it wasn’t clear whether Bailey was his intended target from the beginning.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | 2023-03-24T17:46:45+00:00 | atlantanewsfirst.com | https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2023/03/24/florida-teen-gets-life-prison-killing-young-classmate/ |
What are the best Apple Watch screen protectors?
Like mobile phones, wristwatches get banged up and scratched. Considering their worth, it’s surprising that they don’t come in a titanium box. Yet most of us wear them without considering what would happen if the screen cracked.
There may be an emotional blow with analog watches, but when it happens to a smartwatch, the wrist-worn digital conduit to all our information is erased in a split second. So if you can’t bear the thought of being without your Apple Watch while the display is getting fixed, it might be an excellent time to start looking for a screen protector.
Screen protectors come in different sizes
Just as the Apple Watch comes in different sizes, so do the screen protectors. You must get the exact right size protector — if it’s too small, it will look awkward, and if it’s too big it will hang over the sides. The protectors aren’t made for a quick nip and tuck to make them fit, so don’t consider that as an alternative.
Consider a clip-on over a protective film
Depending on the look you;re going for, you might want to weigh your options between a clip-on cover and the traditional film protector.
- Film: A film protector is a less obvious-looking way of keeping your watch scratch-free. A thin layer of tempered glass is applied to the screen with delicate movements and a steady hand. It provides edge-to-edge protection from scratches, bumps or cracks. They are also made from thermoplastic polyurethane or polyethylene terephthalate.
- Clip-on: A watch case is a solid plastic piece with a built-in screen protector. It clips over the entire display and has a notch on the side to perfectly slip past the crown. There are different styles, so it’s also a quick way to change your watch’s color.
Best Apple Watch tempered-glass screen protectors
Dome Glass for Apple Watch Series 6
This tempered-glass protector uses liquid dispersion technology to cover the watch’s display evenly. It can also fill in small scratches and scuffs to make them invisible, and as it hardens, it creates a robust edge-to-edge layer. The protector comes with a handy installation kit and an ultraviolet curing light.
Sold by Amazon
Alinsea Screen Protector for Apple Watch
This case easily slips over the watch’s glass for all-around protection. It has a built-in tempered glass screen protector that minimizes the impact of drops and scratches. The glass is compatible with touchscreen functions, and no fog or moisture will be trapped in between.
Sold by Amazon
Misxi 2 Pack Hard PC Case with Tempered-Glass Screen Protector
With a built-in tempered-glass screen protector, this case ensures that your watch remains scratch-free. The case clips over the watch face, exposing the crown and side button for easy operation without you having to take the strap off.
Sold by Amazon
Fotbor Apple Watch Tempered-Glass Screen Protector 38mm
Fitting the smaller 38-millimeter watch, this three-pack of screen protectors is made from tempered glass and is scratch-proof. The protectors are treated with a hydrophobic and oleophobic coating, so you can operate your watch even if your fingers are wet.
Sold by Amazon
Goton Apple Watch Screen Protector Case
This display protector comprises three parts: a polycarbonate shockproof outer bumper, a hard PC frame and tempered glass that fits into the frame. The case is flexible and washable, while the glass prevents scratches and fingerprints. The crown and side button are exposed, so the case isn’t waterproof.
Sold by Amazon
OtterBox Alpha Flex Antimicrobial Screen Protector
This antimicrobial tempered-glass protector has a black trim on the outer edge and fits perfectly over the entire display. It has a crystal coating, giving it added strength and visual clarity. The antimicrobial coating helps protect you from many common bacteria. It comes with an easy-to-use installation kit.
Sold by Amazon
Goton Apple Watch Screen Protector Bling Case
There is always this blinged-out option when a plain black or see-through protection case won’t do. The outer edge of this watch case is adorned with a crystal rhinestone inlay, while the built-in screen protector is made from tempered glass. The buttons are exposed, and the rhinestones shouldn’t come off easily.
Sold by Amazon
Best Apple Watch film-screen protectors
MP Mall Screen Protector Compatible with Apple Watch 40mm Series 6
This six-pack of screen protectors is made from TPU and covers the entire surface of the 40-millimeter Series 6. The adhesive side is treated with an oleophobic coating so that no oil residue remains when you remove it. The protectors come with installation instructions and a link for a step-by-step guide.
Sold by Amazon
ArmorSuit MilitaryShield Screen Protector
Laser-cut for a precision fit, this TPU protector matches the contours of your watch and covers the rounded corners, too. The thin film is scratch-proof and won’t go yellow from UV exposure over time. ArmorSuit says that the protector is self-healing, eliminating small scratches.
Sold by Amazon
Yogre Apple Watch Series 6 Waterproof Case With Built-in Screen Protector
This rugged protective case and strap kit are compatible with wireless charging and other Apple Watch health functions. It completely encompasses the gadget and has additional layers to protect the crown and side button from moisture and dust. It is waterproof to a depth of 6.6 feet for an hour. The built-in screen protector is made from scratch-resistant TPU.
Sold by Amazon
LK Screen Protector for Apple Watch
These six screen protectors are made from TPU and are extremely thin, preserving the Apple Watch’s original touchscreen sensitivity. The protective film is self-healing, so any minor scratches or bubbles disappear in 24 hours.
Sold by Amazon
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Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | 2022-07-30T19:29:00+00:00 | valleycentral.com | https://www.valleycentral.com/reviews/br/fashion-accessories-br/watches-br/the-11-best-apple-watch-screen-protectors/ |
Texas teachers have called for better pay and working conditions, but now they’re getting support from a statewide task force created by the governor.
A year ago, Governor Greg Abbott ordered a mix of teachers and administrators across Texas to investigate teacher shortages. Now the Teacher Vacancy Task Force released a report in February recommending lawmakers raise teacher pay, increase training and improve working conditions.
Alejandra Lopez, with San Antonio Alliance, the union for San Antonio ISD, said the report echoes what teachers have been saying for years.
“Its findings are no surprise. our compensation does not match the respect and dignity that we deserve on the job,” Lopez said.
House Bill 1548 would give all Texas teachers a $15,000 raise.
The Teacher Vacancy Task Force also recommends raising the amount of state funding per student.
House Bill 882 would raise the basic allotment from $6,160 to $7,075 per student.
The recommendations come as state lawmakers decide how to spend a $32 billion budget surplus.
“So what makes this year different than other years is that the money is there and we need our elected officials to step up and make a choice to invest in our public schools,” Lopez said.
In a task force survey, teachers said an unsustainable workload is the number one reason they leave the job.
The report recommended that lawmakers fund a study on how teachers use their time in and out of the classroom. | 2023-04-03T04:19:36+00:00 | ksat.com | https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2023/04/03/better-pay-working-conditions-among-recommendations-from-teacher-vacancy-task-force/ |
Summer doesn’t want to end just yet...
There’s a warm up on the way and you’ll especially start to notice it in our mornings. We have to say ‘so long’ to our days starting in the 60s because humidity increases and high pressure starts to become more dominant. We expect a warmer evening and overnight, starting as early as tonight, with temperatures only getting down into the lower 70s. There will be more of a muggier start to your Friday. The extra bump in humidity will also allow for afternoon highs in the low 90s to feel like the mid-to-upper 90s. If we are going to see any rain coming from the higher humidity levels, we’re going to see it Friday or Saturday east of I-35. A few pop-up showers or storms are possible during the afternoon but most likely stay dry since rain chances remain lower than 20%.
Friday will have the highest rain chance of the week/weekend, but we only expect one or two spots to see rain. It won’t be a washout, but definitely want to make a mention of the possibility of rain through the early evening for any area high school football games. The weekend looks mainly dry but rather hot. High temperatures on Saturday and Sunday will be in the mid to upper 90s. More mid to upper 90s rule the forecast next week, so the hotter trend continues and even builds as we go into next week. And with a blocking area of high pressure in control, we might not see cooler days, or even good rain chances for that matter, for the rest of the month.
Tropics Update: Tropical Storm Fiona has also developed over the Atlantic. Further details regarding its path and development are here.
Copyright 2022 KWTX. All rights reserved. | 2022-09-15T22:46:02+00:00 | kwtx.com | https://www.kwtx.com/2022/09/15/summer-doesnt-want-end-just-yet/ |
From ENT to GYN to General Surgery, Electrosurgical "Energy" Solutions Bring Workflow, Ergonomic and Cost Reduction Benefits; Smoke Solutions Help Ensure Adoption of Energy
CENTER VALLEY, Pa., Jan. 23, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Olympus announced today the availability of several Experience Papers focused on the benefits of advancements in electrosurgical devices. Important to the broad range of minimally invasive surgical solutions available to patients, electrosurgical or "energy" devices are designed to allow for efficient dissection and cauterization of tissue. Many times, as explained in these papers, they also contribute to improved workflow in the procedure room. Among these papers developed for a healthcare professional audience, benefits of workflow, ergonomics, cost reduction and control of energy-related smoke were discussed.
New Ergonomic Benefits of Energy Devices Used in General Surgery
Lena Nguyen*, DO, a gynecologist with the Women's Center in Fountain Valley, Calif., discusses the ergonomic benefits of the new Olympus advanced bipolar device in the July 2022 issue of General Surgery News. Her paper, Efficiency and Ergonomic Benefit of Using POWERSEAL™ Sealer/Divider Curved Jaw, Double-Action in Gynecologic Procedures, reflects on the significance of ergonomics to clinicians who perform frequent surgeries. She also details the design elements contributing to the enhanced ergonomics of this latest bipolar energy device, including shorter distances from the device handle to the jaw lever, cut trigger, and rotation wheel.
Dr. Nguyen notes: "For me, the POWERSEAL Sealer/Divider device1 had a better feel than other devices I had used previously. The grip has the right size and design. I have small hands, and this made a difference."
A survey of surgeons who perform minimally invasive gynecologic cancer procedures indicate that most surgeons experience some physical discomfort due to surgery, with female surgeons among those most affected.2
Two more clinical experience papers about the POWERSEAL Sealer/Divider device were recently published in General Surgery News:
- POWERSEAL™ Sealer/Divider Curved Jaw, Double-Action: Utility in Bariatric Surgery by Nikhilesh R. Sekhar*, MD, FACS, FASMBS, Senior Faculty of Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai was published in June 2022.
- Advanced Surgical Energy—Clinical Experience With the POWERSEAL™ Sealer/Divider Curved Jaw, Double-Action by Justin Maykel*, MD, Chief of the Division of Colon and Rectal Surgery at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center was published in April 2022.
Energy Advancements in ENT
Another paper addressing energy to treat the sinuses, entitled "ENT Practices Recognize the Clinical and Financial Benefits of a New Single-Use Debrider,"was authored by Becker's Healthcare staff, based on discussion with three otolaryngologists and discusses the clinical and financial benefits of the CELERIS™ Disposable Sinus Debrider.3
The physicians discussed the utility of minimally invasive technologies like the CELERIS system in the shift to performing more office-based procedures. "Providing certain services in the office in a minimally invasive way means that patients can avoid the cost and inconvenience of general anesthesia," said Jordan Pritikin*, MD Chicago Nasal and Sinus Center. They also discussed the benefit of reducing costs for the practice and the patient by using a portable, single-use debrider that enables in-office treatments. The CELERIS debrider is equipped with a small, reusable power pack that offers mobility and ease of use in an outpatient setting. The CELERIS system requires no special training to use the equipment, making it ideal for facilities that do not have the same nursing staff for all patient cases.4 "A large percentage of patients that I've taken to the operating room could be transitioned to the office setting with the addition of this product," said Shane Pahlavan*, MD, The ENT & Allergy Centers of Texas, in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Offsetting the Energy/Smoke Dynamic
With more healthcare facilities recognizing the benefits of energy devices, adoption has risen, and with it, attention to the potential risks of repeated exposure to smoke in the procedural setting. In the United States, to combat the risk of health effects from surgical smoke, 10 states have implemented laws to require smoke management for laparoscopic procedures and additional states have legislation pending for such requirements, according to the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN).5,6
Jin S. Yoo*, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery, Duke University Health System, Durham, North Carolina, addressed this concern in an article in General Surgery News, entitled "Managing Surgical Smoke Risk While Improving Visualization and Minimizing Patient CO2 Exposure Using the Ultravision™ System During Laparoscopy."
"The Ultravision system7 is the only technology that will allow the surgeon to perform laparoscopy with low-pressure, low-flow, and low-volume CO2," Dr. Yoo said in the article. "This is one way we can take minimally invasive surgery to the next level in an effort to reduce physiological stress and postoperative pain while providing enhanced visualization for the surgeon and protecting OR staff from smoke and particulates generated by the procedure."
More information about the Olympus Energy devices included in these Experience Papers can be found here:
- https://medical.olympusamerica.com/products/powerseal
- https://medical.olympusamerica.com/products/celeris-disposable-sinus-debrider
- https://medical.olympusamerica.com/products/ultravision
About Olympus
As a leading medical technology company, Olympus uses innovative capabilities in medical technology, therapeutic intervention, and precision manufacturing to help healthcare professionals deliver diagnostic, therapeutic, and minimally invasive procedures to improve clinical outcomes, reduce overall costs, and enhance the quality of life for patients. Olympus' Medical portfolio includes endoscopes, laparoscopes, and video imaging systems, as well as surgical energy devices, system integration solutions, medical services, and a wide range of EndoTherapy devices. For more information, visit medical.olympusamerica.com.
1. The POWERSEAL Sealer/Divider devices is intended for single use only and not approved for tubal sterilization procedures. Additional risks include unintended thermal damage.
2. McDonald ME, Ramirez PT, Munsell M, et al. Physician pain and discomfort during minimally invasive gynecologic cancer surgery. 2014;134(2):243-247. doi.org/10.1016/j.ygyno.2014.05.019
3. As with all electrosurgery instruments, inappropriate use of the CELERIS system can cause damage to tissue, both electrically and thermally.
4. Data on file with Olympus as of January 19, 2022.
5. Everyone Deserves a Smoke-Free OR. AORN.org. Accessed January 20, 2023. https://www.aorn.org/get-involved/government-affairs/policy-agenda/surgical-smoke-free-or.
6. Surgical Smoke Legislation Gaining Traction Across the Country. JointCommission.org. Published June 9, 2021. Accessed July 26 11, 2022. https://www.jointcommission.org/resources/news-and-multimedia/blogs/leading-hospital-improvement/2021/06/surgical-smoke-legislation-gaining-traction-across-the-country/.
7. The Ultravision System is not intended to be used in non-laparoscopic surgery procedures. Contact between the Ionwand and uninsulated metallic instruments should be minimized to prevent electrostatic discharge. Always switch off the Ultravision Generator before removing the Ionwand from the patient.
*Physicians are paid consultants to Olympus.
View original content to download multimedia:
SOURCE Olympus | 2023-01-23T21:30:12+00:00 | wbrc.com | https://www.wbrc.com/prnewswire/2023/01/23/olympus-technologies-featured-several-experience-papers-energy-advancements/ |
Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst blocked an attempt by Senate Democrats on Wednesday to pass legislation that would guarantee access to contraceptives nationwide should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn decadeslong precedent, as it did last month on abortion.
Ernst, a combat veteran, also voted against a procedural vote to advance legislation providing health care for military veterans impacted by burn pits. The Red Oak native voted to pass a previous version of the bill.
Some Senate Republicans raised objections to the Honoring Our PACT Act because it would reclassify nearly $400 billion in current Veterans Affairs spending from discretionary to mandatory accounts, thereby potentially freeing up more budget authority to increase discretionary spending on other domestic programs.
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“Senator Ernst supports the PACT Act and believes that if Senator (Chuck) Schumer gets to amend the bill due to his own incompetence, Republicans should be able to make this vitally important bill stronger without sacrificing a single dollar of care for our veterans,” Ernst’s office said in a statement.
The measure passed the Senate in June, 84-14, and by a 342-88 vote in the House. But technical corrections sent the measure back to the Senate for another procedural vote on Wednesday.
Twenty-five Republicans who supported the previous version of the bill, including Ernst, did not support the procedural vote to advance the bill.
Fellow Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley voted in favor of the procedural motion and voted to pass the bill in June.
Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn told Roll Call he expected the bill "ultimately will pass in some form or another," but Republicans are hoping there "will be a negotiation to eliminate some of the mandatory spending in the bill.“
Birth control
U.S. Senate Democrats on Wednesday also tried to pass a bill that would codify a federal right to contraception, which the U.S. Supreme Court first recognized in a 1965 ruling.
Democrats argue that right is threatened by the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision that overturned a federal right to an abortion and by Republican lawmakers in states across the country eyeing restrictions on birth control.
In a concurrence to Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion last month overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision from 1973, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court should now review other precedents, including a 1965 ruling that affirmed the rights of married couples’ use of contraceptives.
Ernst objected to Massachusetts Democratic U.S. Sen. Ed Markey’s request for unanimous consent to pass the bill, saying the measure went too far.
Congressional Republicans, including Iowa Reps. Ashley Hinson and Mariannette Miller-Meeks – who voted against a House-passed version last week – said the bill would lead to more abortions, which supporters deny, allow the use of drugs not yet fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration and force health-care providers to offer contraceptives, even if that contradicted their religious beliefs.
Instead, Ernst offered a proposal that would allow people over the age of 18 to access birth control pills over the counter without a prescription. The bill would incentivize manufacturers of oral birth control to file for over-the-counter approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, giving those applications priority review and waiving associated application fees.
The FDA is currently considering whether to approve over-the-counter contraceptive pills from HRA Pharma.
Ernst was joined by Grassley, Hinson and Miller-Meeks in introducing the bill.
In a statement, Ernst called the proposed measure “an important and common-sense step in expanding health-care choices and removing unnecessary hurdles, especially for those in rural areas who may need to travel long distances in some cases just to see their doctor.”
Senate Democrats contend Ernst’s bill fails to protect access to contraception, as it does not address many kinds of contraception covered under Democrats’ bill, such as long-acting reversible contraceptives, emergency contraceptives, injectables, vaginal barrier methods, transdermal patches and more.
Democrats, too, note that when purchased over the counter, costs typically come out of pocket and are not covered by health insurance. Meaning contraception could still be inaccessible to women if cost is a barrier.
“It’s a priority of mine to make sure that insurance does cover it,” Hinson said Monday during a walking tour of Main Street Vinton to meet with small businesses, which included a stop at a local pharmacy.
“We know that based on need there are many programs where women can access birth control for free,” Hinson said.
Senate Democrats introduced a bill last month to ensure that insurers fully cover over-the-counter birth control without any out-of-pocket costs.
Additionally, the bill backed by Iowa Republicans applies only to adult women, with no mention of teenagers who use birth control pills to help regulate their menstrual cycle as well as those who use it to avoid pregnancy.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that minors have a constitutional right to obtain contraceptives, and states can’t require parental consent.
“That’s a hormone going into your body. I think parents need to be in the driver’s seat there in terms of what’s best for their children,” Hinson said Monday.
Ernst’s office, in a statement Thursday, defended the bill, arguing it “expands health-care choices for women” and “she believes that’s the right approach.” | 2022-07-28T22:49:15+00:00 | wcfcourier.com | https://wcfcourier.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/iowa-sen-joni-ernst-blocks-bill-guaranteeing-federal-access-to-contraception/article_4eeb4615-0dfe-5342-8716-12f170ea5f20.html |
Integration Automatically and Accurately Allocates Tool and Equipment Costs to Job Costs, Reducing Worker Down Time and Manual Data Entry
LAS VEGAS, Nov. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) and the Hilti Group, a global leader providing innovative tools, technology, software, and services to the commercial construction industry, announced today that the Hilti ON!Track asset management system will integrate with Trimble Viewpoint Vista, an ERP solution within the Trimble Construction One suite.
The announcement was made at Trimble Dimensions+ Conference.
The integration is Hilti's first North American integration with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, and provides a solution for unified tool tracking and more accurate, automatic job allocation, giving contractors one source of truth for tracking and managing their tools and equipment.
Now instead of having to manually look, call or guess where tools are or how much to invoice based on their use, contractors can more easily track their tools and equipment in one place and automatically know how much—and where—they were used so that an accurate amount of equipment time can be invoiced. This eliminates the need to spend clerical time manually inputting utilization data, and even manually tracking it in the field.
"Our research shows that each jobsite loses on average one day per month of productivity due to workers searching for tools. In addition, the contractors end up spending up to 90 hours per month tracking tools: in essence, productivity loss for both workers and contractors due to lack of an effective asset/tool management platform," said Michael McGowan, region head and CEO of Hilti North America. "Hilti ON!Track, the world leading asset management solution, helps eliminate this by tracking tools using field-ready active and passive tags, Bluetooth technology and Gateways. An integration between ON!Track and Viewpoint Vista maximizes the benefits of asset/tool tracking data by automatically providing contractors the information they need to track, allocate, bill and estimate for accurate tool and equipment use."
The tracking of tools and equipment use and costs in one centralized place better prevents equipment loss and theft. It also eliminates the need to manually enter tool use and costs, which are often subject to double entry and human error.
"We know that contractors have a lot to manage already, and that equipment is one of their most important assets," said Lawrence Smith, vice president and general manager of construction management solutions at Trimble. "This integration is yet another way we are automating and connecting data for contractors, which streamlines workflows and helps contractors more efficiently deploy their people and assets to build profitable projects."
"Tracking small tools—whether in repair status, on location or with employees and the associated costs—is one of the most ineffective parts of accounting and internal controls in a construction company," said Maria Lumke, CFO of Waterline Industries, a New Hampshire-based civil general contractor. "We have tried many things, including inventorying vans, assigning tools to employees and assigning tools to jobs – to no avail. The product Trimble and Hilti have developed will be a revolutionary step for internal controls and accountability of tools in a construction company."
"Hilti ON!Track has greatly reduced the 'run to the store and buy what you need' when we already own and have tools nearby," said Keeley O'Brien, president and CEO of O'Brien Co., an Oregon-based general contractor. "It takes mere seconds to transfer tools in the field, eliminating excuses about not having the right tools because no one knows where they are. It's made it very easy to inventory, track history, and locate tools and equipment."
Connecting Hilti ON!Track to Trimble Construction One is another way Trimble serves stakeholders across the entire construction lifecycle, providing visibility into true project costs and correct resource allocations so they get the right information at the right time to make the right decisions.
The Hilti Group supplies the worldwide construction and energy industries with technologically leading products, systems, software and services. With about 32,000 team members in over 120 countries the company stands for direct customer relationships, quality, and innovation. Throughout the United States and Canada, Hilti North America includes more than 3,800 highly trained account managers, engineers and other employees. The headquarters of the Hilti Group is located in Schaan, Liechtenstein and has been since its founding in 1941. The company is privately owned by the Martin Hilti Family Trust, which ensures its long-term continuity. The Hilti Group's strategic orientation is based on a caring and performance-oriented culture and the goals of creating enthusiastic customers and building a better future.
Trimble is developing technology, software and services that drive the digital transformation of construction with solutions that span the entire architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. Empowering teams across the construction lifecycle, Trimble's innovative approach improves coordination and collaboration between stakeholders, teams, phases and processes. Trimble's Connected Construction strategy gives users control of their operations with best-in-class solutions and a common data environment. By automating work and transforming workflows, Trimble is enabling construction professionals to improve productivity, quality, transparency, safety, sustainability and deliver each project with confidence. For more information, visit: construction.trimble.com.
Trimble is an industrial technology company transforming the way the world works by delivering solutions that enable our customers to thrive. Core technologies in positioning, modeling, connectivity and data analytics connect the digital and physical worlds to improve productivity, quality, safety, transparency and sustainability. From purpose-built products to enterprise lifecycle solutions, Trimble is transforming industries such as agriculture, construction, geospatial and transportation. For more information about Trimble (NASDAQ:TRMB), visit: www.trimble.com.
GTRMB
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SOURCE Trimble | 2022-11-08T11:57:20+00:00 | kwch.com | https://www.kwch.com/prnewswire/2022/11/08/trimble-hilti-announce-product-integration-help-contractors-streamline-tool-tracking-job-cost-allocation/ |
As we head into the new year and prepare to announce the Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy 2023, there seems like no better time to reflect and revisit our past winner, the Lucid Air.
A year after taking the technology lead with incredible range, power, and efficiency, the Lucid Air has matured its user experience without losing those headlining qualities that made it the new leading edge for EVs.
We spent just over a week with a 2022 Lucid Air Grand Touring to experience exactly how the startup automaker’s improved the only portion of the car that felt a little bit like a work in progress earlier in the year: the interface.
Invisible overhaul
The automaker’s UX 2.0, which is what Lucid dubbed its largest over-the-air update to date and a complete overhaul of its interface, arrived in October.
Just before I pulled out of the Beverly Hills Lucid Gallery, Lucid reminds me that the entire system’s been rewritten despite looking nearly the same. The differences are minor but add up.
The interface itself works nearly the same as before, but now it’s instant-on. The digital gauge cluster and three touchscreens all come online and are ready to use the second the doors are opened. Previously the system took seconds to boot up. Seconds doesn’t sound like a long time, but it feels like it once you’re in the driver’s seat buckled and ready to go.
The system’s varied levels of lag has vanished. Tap a button and it works. Open a menu and it works. Tap the turn signal and the blind-spot camera system engages, placing the view from alongside the car in the cluster. Inputting a destination into the navigation system is a breeze and I wasn’t able to outtype the system.
The largest design change to the interface is the location of the virtual buttons on the right side of the dashboard’s curved 34-inch screen housing the digital gauge cluster, vehicle controls, and media system. Those buttons now are on the left rail closer to the driver rather than on the right closer to the passenger. It takes less of a reach to use them and means the driver’s eyes don’t have to travel as far to locate them.
Lucid’s also added turn-by-turn directions to the right hand side of the digital gauge cluster. Drivers will see their next turn, the turn after that, time of arrival, minutes away, how far away the destination is, and estimated state of charge upon arrival. All of this has been added to the cluster without cluttering the driver’s view of the speedometer, power meter, and other driving aid functions. It remains a clean and simple display layout.
A small but rather noteworthy change is the ability to open the frunk via a hard button on the left side of the gauge cluster. This new button replaced the previous child lock button based on owner feedback. Even as a parent this seems like a smart move as turning child locks on and off isn’t a daily function.
Notably the update added a Highway Assist feature with active lane centering and adaptive cruise control. The adaptive cruise control system operated smoothly without ever eliciting a comment from my wife or daughter who experience motion sickness. But my wife’s tolerance for the lane-centering feature was low as it failed to keep the car centered in the lane with a ping-pong effect between the painted white lines.
Updates galore
Over a week, the Air Lucid deployed three OTA software updates, all of which I installed on my test vehicle via the iOS Lucid app. Two of those updates landed on Thanksgiving day.
Update 2.0.25 arrived on November 22 and claimed enhancements with the vehicle’s onboard connectivity, diagnostics, and wireless communications systems aimed at optimizing the over-the-air update experience. This update installed in about five minutes, which is exactly how long the app claimed it would take.
After this update took place the test-drive Air’s navigation system suddenly lost the ability to speak. It was as if the system was on mute, but it wasn’t. “Key cycling” the car by locking it and putting it to sleep didn’t fix the issue. A quick Google search revealed other owners had experienced this issue and had resolved the problem by switching user profiles. The Internet’s solution worked. Switching from the user profile I had been using to a different profile and then back again brought back voice-guided navigation and the glitch never reappeared.
Update 2.0.28 arrived on Thanksgiving and included a bevy of enhancements ranging from the operation of the charge port door’s automatic close feature (the charge port door already operated in a smoother fashion than that of the Cadillac Lyriq) to optimization of the headlight and automatic high-beam functions, smoothing the automatic side mirror folding operation and more. This update, executed from my phone, took just over 20 minutes to install despite the app claiming it would take 34 minutes.
Update 2.0.33 arrived later on Thanksgiving and was the largest of the three. It installed SiriusXM in beta form, with a full release version said to come via an OTA update in 2023, along with a 3-month trial for owners. The app claimed this update would take 54 minutes and it was accurate. Poof! Suddenly SiriusXM was now one of the source options on the Air’s infotainment system for media. It worked flawlessly. Neat trick, Lucid.
But there’s still no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. Lucid told GCR this is still in the works.
Still gorgeous
The rest of the Air experience hasn’t changed.
A year later and the Air’s still gorgeous with a distinct design that borders on something that might’ve come from Citroën. The clamshell hood provides clean lines while the clamshell trunk lid provides a low liftover height. The slim LED lighting elements accentuate the Air’s width while the long dash-to-axle ratio paired with the long hood give it a proper luxury-car stance.
But that low front profile and ride height that looks so pretty delivers some real-world headaches. Speed bumps must be taken slowly, care must be taken when pulling into a parking lot, and the valet at the hotel had to be extremely careful and go at the most extreme angle to not scrape the underside of the Air. He scraped it once. Sorry about that, Lucid.
The low roofline also makes getting in and out of the Air a painful event if one forgets or doesn’t remember to duck their head. Ask my father.
The Air’s cargo hauling ability is still something to behold. The frunk and trunk both feature false floors with the former having a total of 10.0 cubic feet of space and the latter 22.1 cubic feet of space. The Air swallowed a family of four’s luggage with aplomb.
Still a winner
A year later and the Lucid Air is still the longest-range electric car in production. With the Sapphire model coming online in 2023 it’ll also likely become the quickest, and most powerful, production sedan in the world. The Air Pure model, which is now being delivered, lowers the model’s base price to $88,900 including destination while undercutting the Tesla Model S.
With a refined user interface joining the already winning formula, the Air is somehow even more attractive than it was a year ago.
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- Nio EC7 flagship EV: The most aerodynamic SUV in the world? | 2023-01-05T06:44:56+00:00 | wnct.com | https://www.wnct.com/automotive/internet-brands/review-2022-lucid-air-grand-touring-keeps-getting-better/ |
Percentages: FG .346, FT .652.
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3-Point Goals: 4-23, .174 (Mallette 3-5, Porter 1-4, Lewis 0-4, Mitchell 0-4, Zidek 0-6).
Team Rebounds: 5. Team Turnovers: 2.
Blocked Shots: 6 (Basham 4, Coulibaly, Porter).
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Turnovers: 11 (Mallette 3, Mitchell 3, Lewis 2, Moore, Porter, Zidek).
Steals: 5 (Lewis 2, Basham, Mallette, Mitchell).
Technical Fouls: None.
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Percentages: FG .413, FT .750.
3-Point Goals: 4-19, .211 (Baumann 1-3, Blacksher 1-3, McMillian 1-3, Harrison 1-6, Baker 0-2, McGlothan 0-2).
Team Rebounds: 7. Team Turnovers: None.
Blocked Shots: 4 (Blacksher, Igiehon, McGlothan, Ouedraogo).
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Turnovers: 13 (Baker 4, Harrison 3, McGlothan 2, Blacksher, Igiehon, Knox, McMillian).
Steals: 5 (McMillian 2, Baumann, Blacksher, Ouedraogo).
Technical Fouls: None.
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A_7,072 (7,000). | 2022-12-18T05:10:56+00:00 | seattlepi.com | https://www.seattlepi.com/sports/article/GRAND-CANYON-83-PEPPERDINE-73-OT-17661816.php |
- American Family will integrate Tractable's solutions to increase efficiency and consistency in the review of subrogation auto damage via photos
- Tractable's AI solutions will be integrated across all of American Family Insurance Claims Services (AFICS), improving speed, efficiency and accuracy, underscoring its commitment to providing a superior customer experience
NEW YORK, July 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- American Family Insurance, one of the largest players in US property and casualty insurance, is partnering with Tractable to apply its artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. Specifically, American Family Insurance Claims Services (AFICS) will be using Tractable as part of its claims subrogation settlement process.
American Family is one of the earliest top ten private passenger auto carriers in the US to apply Tractable's AI to claims, demonstrating the carrier's industry leadership in leveraging advanced technological solutions to create customer-driven experiences.
AFICS is launching the partnership by applying Tractable's AI Subro solution to its current inbound subrogation operations; the AI will review requests made by one insurance carrier to another with the goal of faster, easier, and more consistent alignment between parties.
Chris Conti, chief claims officer at American Family, said: "We use technology to create efficiencies that result in our team members having more time and emotional bandwidth to be there for our customers like never before. Consolidating subrogation efforts is an important step toward reallocating our focus to creating better customer experiences."
Alex Dalyac, co-founder and CEO of Tractable, said: "It's an important milestone for us to partner with American Family, a Fortune 500 company regarded for its leadership in uncovering innovative and creative solutions for the industry. Working together, we combine the trust American Family has built as a leading P&C carrier with Tractable's industry-leading AI, to demonstrate the real-time, commercial impact AI is having in insurance and beyond."
The partnership with Tractable stemmed from the AFICS 2021 Innovation Lab, an American Family-led event created to shape the future of loss support.
Gwen Olson, enterprise claims strategy associate vice president, said: "We designed the 2021 Innovation Lab to evolve past collaboration to a place where companies with shared objectives could co-create opportunities to increase the tangible value we provide to customers. We believe our customers deserve the power of choice when they engage with our claims experience; our aim is to cultivate partnerships with those best suited to deliver value in all stages of the claim."
Tractable is an Applied AI company that uses the speed and accuracy of artificial intelligence to visually assess cars and homes for accident and disaster recovery.
Our solutions aim to help people work faster and smarter, while reducing friction and waste – better for businesses, their customers and the planet.
Trained on millions of data points, Tractable's AI-powered solutions process more than $2 billion in vehicle repairs and purchases annually, and connect everyone involved in insurance, repairs, recycling and sales of cars and properties – helping people work faster and smarter, while reducing friction and waste.
Tractable AI is the tool of choice for over 35 of the world's top 100 insurance carriers. Backed by Insight Partners and other top-tier investors, our world-class research and engineering team is based in London, with offices across North America, Asia and Europe.
To learn more about Tractable and request a demo, visit tractable.ai. You can also follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Based in Madison, Wisconsin, American Family Insurance has been serving customers since 1927. We inspire, protect and restore dreams through our insurance products, exceptional service from our agency owners and employees, community investment and creative partnerships to address societal challenges. We act on our belief in diversity and inclusion by constantly evolving to meet customer needs and preferences. American Family Insurance group is the nation's 13th-largest property/casualty insurance group, ranking No. 232 on the Fortune 500 list. The group sells American Family-brand products, primarily through exclusive agency owners in 19 states. The American Family Insurance group also includes CONNECT, powered by American Family Insurance, The General, Homesite and Main Street America Insurance. Across these companies the group has more than 13,500 employees nationwide.
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SOURCE Tractable | 2022-07-13T13:54:13+00:00 | live5news.com | https://www.live5news.com/prnewswire/2022/07/13/american-family-insurance-streamlines-claims-operations-with-tractables-ai/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — The Nielsen company’s list of the 20 most popular prime-time programs for the week of Sept. 12-18, their networks and viewerships:
1. NFL Football: Chicago at Green Bay, NBC, 19.55 million.
2. “NFL Pregame” (Sunday), NBC, 14.55 million.
3. “NFL Postgame” (Sunday), Fox, 10.77 million.
4. NFL Football: Denver at Seattle, ABC, 10.3 million.
5. “60 Minutes,” CBS, 10.2 million.
6. “Football Night in America,” NBC, 8.36 million.
7. NFL Football: Denver at Seattle, ESPN, 8 million.
8. “America’s Got Talent” (Tuesday), NBC, 7.03 million.
9. “America’s Got Talent” (Wednesday), NBC, 6.82 million.
10. “NFL Pregame” (Monday), ABC, 6.31 million.
11. “Emmy Awards,” NBC, 5.92 million.
12. “Big Brother” (Sunday), CBS, 4.47 million.
13. “Password” (Wednesday), NBC, 4.43 million.
14. “NFL Pregame (Monday), ESPN, 4.33 million.
15. “Password” (Tuesday), NBC, 3.88 million.
16. “FBI,” CBS, 3.86 million.
17. “Big Brother” (Wednesday), CBS, 3.85 million.
18. “Celebrity Family Feud,” ABC, 3.83 million.
19. “The Bachelorette,” ABC, 3.55 million.
20. “Young Sheldon,” CBS, 3.51 million. | 2022-09-20T22:08:49+00:00 | everythinglubbock.com | https://www.everythinglubbock.com/entertainment-news/ap-sunday-monday-football-games-fight-for-ratings-supremacy/ |
Ellen Willis was one of the first rock critics — at a time starting in the late 1960s — when serious writing about rock, pop and R&B was rare. She was the first pop-music critic for The New Yorker, starting in 1968. She combined a love of pop culture and an active engagement with feminist theory to create a unique body of writing, which finally gets a proper showcase in a new anthology titled Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music, edited by her daughter, Nona Willis Aronowitz.
The anthology leads off with a remarkable dissection of Bob Dylan circa 1967. Typical of this long piece, which appeared in a short-lived pop magazine called Cheetah, were assertions about her subject that no one had ventured before, yet which afterward became common wisdom.
"His masks hidden by other masks, Dylan is the celebrity stalker's ultimate antagonist," Willis wrote. To have seen this in Dylan in 1967, at a time when he was very much a public pop star, is typical of the way Willis combined close listening to songs, adding everything she knew about the subject's public image and private life, to arrive at a critical position. Willis, Robert Christgau and Greil Marcus were among the very few writers working through this method, and the clarity of Willis' prose and thinking was so immediately striking that she leaped with a single bound from Cheetah to The New Yorker, where she'd captured the attention of editor William Shawn.
Willis loved counterculture stars from Dylan to Janis Joplin, but she also championed cult bands such as Joy of Cooking and the New York Dolls. Her judgments were never predictable. She argued that The Rolling Stones' "diatribe" "Under My Thumb" was less sexist than Cat Stevens' condescending "Wild World," because "Mick Jagger's fantasy of sweet revenge could easily be female" as well as male.
Crafted with a directness and utter lack of fan gush, many of Willis' observations sound as fresh and as appropriate to the present music scene as they did decades ago. Her 1971 criticism of pop music's tendency, among both the audience and the critic, toward "a tedious worship of technical proficiency" would be as appropriate now regarding TV shows such as American Idol and The Voice as it was in addressing music-on-vinyl back then.
At a certain point in post-punk, around the time hip-hop became the dominant sound of popular music, Willis lost interest in rock criticism and pursued her other interests: feminist theory and activism, politics and the philosophy of Wilhelm Reich, among many other topics. She'd become impatient with pop in part for its failure as an agent of social and political change, writing, "There can't be a revolutionary culture until there is a revolution." She was the founder of New York University's Cultural Reporting and Criticism program and, by many accounts, an inspirational teacher. Willis died in 2006 at age 64. Out of the Vinyl Deeps — whether she's writing about Elvis Presley or Moby Grape — resurrects a nearly lost, vital, invaluable voice.
Copyright 2023 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air. | 2023-07-26T18:22:42+00:00 | wboi.org | https://www.wboi.org/2011-06-01/from-the-vinyl-deeps-ellen-willis-wrote-about-rock |
1st missile strike at aerial object over Lake Huron missed
BRUSSELS (AP) — The first U.S. missile fired at an unidentified aerial object over Lake Huron missed the target and “landed harmlessly” in the water before a second one successfully hit, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday.
The acknowledgment of the errant missile by Gen. Mark Milley came amid questions about whether the government was creating unnecessary risk by shooting down aerial objects that military officials say didn’t pose a security threat.
In Washington, Pentagon officials met with senators for a classified briefing on the shootdowns. Lawmakers conveyed concerns from their constituents about a need to keep them informed and came away assured the objects were not extraterrestrial in nature. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said the recent spate of interceptions was likely to have a “calming influence” and make future shootdowns less likely.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters after exiting the briefing that he didn’t think the objects posed a threat.
“They’re trying to figure out — you know there’s a bunch of junk up there. So you got to figure out what’s the threat, what’s not. You see something, you shouldn’t always have to shoot it down,” Graham said.
Milley said the military went to “great lengths” to make sure the strikes did not put civilians at risk, including identifying what the debris field size was likely to be and the maximum effective range of the missiles used. He also said in each case the Pentagon works to make sure that the air space is clear, and to evaluate the potential debris field, before embarking on such a strike.
“We’re very, very careful to make sure that those shots are in fact safe,” Milley said. “And that’s the guidance from the president. Shoot it down, but make sure we minimize collateral damage and we preserve the safety of the American people.”
The object taken down Sunday was the third in as many days to be shot from the skies. The White House has said the objects differed in size and maneuverability from a Chinese surveillance balloon that U.S. fighter jets shot down earlier this month, but that their altitude was low enough to pose a risk to civilian air traffic.
Weather challenges and the remote locations of where the three objects were shot down over Alaska, Canada and Lake Huron have impeded recovery efforts so far, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters Monday.
Milley was in Brussels with Austin to meet with members of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on additional weapons and defense needs for Kyiv in advance of Russia’s anticipated spring offensive.
Fox News was the first to report the missed missile strike.
___
Lisa Mascaro and Stephen Groves contributed reporting.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | 2023-02-14T17:12:23+00:00 | wnem.com | https://www.wnem.com/2023/02/14/1st-missile-strike-aerial-object-over-lake-huron-missed/ |
WFO SPOKANE Warnings, Watches and Advisories for Friday, September 16, 2022
_____
AIR QUALITY ALERT
Air Quality Alert Message
Washington Department of Ecology Yakima WA
Idaho Department of Environmental Quality Coeur d'Alene ID
Kootenai Tribe of Idaho
Idaho Department of Environmental Quality Lewiston ID
Nez Perce Tribe
Relayed by National Weather Service Spokane WA
1151 AM PDT Thu Sep 15 2022
An Air Quality Alert has been issued by the Washington Department of
Ecology in Yakima
* What...An Air Quality Alert for wildfire smoke is in effect until 8
AM Friday, September 16th.
* WHERE...Chelan county
* IMPACTS...When air quality is Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups,
sensitive persons may experience health effects and should limit
prolonged or heavy exertion and limit time spent outdoors. When air
quality is Unhealthy, everyone should reduce exposure, limit time
outside, avoid strenuous activity, and follow tips for cleaner
indoor air. When air quality is Very Unhealthy, everyone should
reduce exposure, stay inside and filter indoor air to keep it
cleaner or go elsewhere for cleaner air as needed.
_____
Copyright 2022 AccuWeather | 2022-09-15T20:46:37+00:00 | sfgate.com | https://www.sfgate.com/weather/article/WA-WFO-SPOKANE-Warnings-Watches-and-Advisories-17444533.php |
GRAPHIC: Man accused of beating a dog in video faces animal cruelty charge
PEORIA COUNTY, Ill. (WEEK/Gray News) - A man in Illinois has turned himself in after a video surfaced that reportedly showed him beating a dog at a home last month.
The Peoria County Sheriff’s Office described the video as disturbing, showing a man, later identified as Nicholas Prince, throwing a dog against a wall and punching the animal several times.
“In this county, if you abuse an animal, you are absolutely going to jail,” Peoria County Sheriff Chris Watkins said.
According to authorities, Prince has been booked into jail on a charge of animal cruelty.
“I am proud to say due to the hard work of our deputies and detectives, this individual is in jail,” Watkins said.
Detectives reported they believe the incident happened on July 5 at a home in Dunlap, Illinois.
Watkins said Prince turned himself in at the sheriff’s office on Wednesday.
According to the sheriff, the dog involved is doing great after the incident and is currently with the Peoria County Animal Protective Services.
Copyright 2022 WEEK via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | 2022-08-05T00:30:06+00:00 | wagmtv.com | https://www.wagmtv.com/2022/08/05/graphic-man-accused-beating-dog-video-faces-animal-cruelty-charge/ |
(NEXSTAR) – A motorist in Minnesota is thanking the officers, state troopers, firefighters and fellow drivers who came to her aid after her car erupted in flames following a collision with a deer.
The accident took place Wednesday morning along Hwy. 47 in Isanti County, according to the Isanti County Sheriff’s Department. The driver was able to leave the vehicle, a Dodge Journey, and retrieve her dog before the fire started.
“A big thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone that stopped to help,” the driver wrote on Facebook, after identifying herself in the comments section of a post shared by the Isanti County Sheriff’s Office.
The woman said a “kind” fellow driver also helped remove her belongings from the car (before it caught fire), and added that one of the responding officers allowed her dog, Paisley, to sit in the squad car.
Photos from the scene of the accident show the car completely engulfed in flames in the middle of the highway. Police vehicles can also be seen blocking the road while a firefighter with the Diablo Fire Department battles the blaze.
Despite the scary scene, neither the driver nor her dog were injured. The deer, however, “did not survive,” the sheriff’s office said. | 2022-09-29T21:28:24+00:00 | kron4.com | https://www.kron4.com/news/national/car-erupts-in-flames-after-driver-hits-deer-on-minnesota-highway/ |
Disinformation board’s ex-leader faced wave of online abuse
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nina Jankowicz, like so many millennials, was excited to share a social media post announcing her new job on Twitter late last month when she was named executive director for a new disinformation board established by the Department of Homeland Security.
But instead of well-wishes, Jankowicz’s tweet set off a torrent of sexist profanities across social media and menacing emails filled with rape or death threats that continue to follow her even after she resigned from that new job on Wednesday morning following the disastrous rollout of the program.
It’s a familiar scenario.
A crush of online harassment, stalking and abuse has driven dozens of women around the globe from powerful positions. The speed and unchecked virulence of the attacks show another way that social media can serve as an accelerant to sowing discord.
“This type of silencing and terrorizing are global, sadly, and unsurprising,” said Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Virginia who studies online privacy and hate crimes. “It is a playbook. And it’s downright scary.”
In 2018, after winning an election that made her the first female, Black legislator in Vermont, Kiah Morris said she was quitting the job because of racist threats, including from one Twitter user who threatened to stalk her at rallies.
Former Ohio health director Amy Acton, one of several female health officials across the U.S. who was subjected to threats online after recommending COVID-19 masking and stay-at-home orders, resigned weeks after protesters show up at her house armed with sexist, antiseemitic signs.
Heidi Allen, a member of British Parliament, stepped down in 2019, saying she was “exhausted” by “vile” online hatred she received, which included one man who posted aerial images of her home with specific threats. He was eventually jailed for his posts.
A United Nations report released earlier this year that studied Finland confirmed what many of those women already suspected: Female politicians, regardless of political affiliation, are subjected to 10 times more abusive messages on Twitter, including hate speech that sometimes suggested the women kill themselves. The online abuse, the U.N. concluded in its report, prevents democracies from being equally representative.
For her part, Jankowicz said Wednesday she won’t be “silenced” by the online harassment and it was not the final provocation that led to her resignation.
But it had a similar effect.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas decided Tuesday to pause the work of the Disinformation Governance Board after such a negative reception and growing concerns that it was becoming a distraction for the department’s other work on disinformation, according to two department officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The board’s pause led Jankowicz to quit Wednesday morning.
To be sure, the board’s bungled launch and the agency’s ensuing struggle to directly answer questions about its purpose, funding or work made the new initiative contentious from the start. Critics and Republican lawmakers raised serious questions about how the board might infringe on Americans’ free speech and privacy rights. Others expressed concerns about Jankowicz’s previous statements around the provenance of a laptop said to belong to Hunter Biden, the president’s eldest son.
Conservative pundits, Twitter users and TV show hosts delivered a relentless campaign full of sexist attacks and misleading statements against Jankowicz. A Fox News personality questioned whether Jankowicz should have agreed to lead the board while pregnant. One far-right extremist called her “mentally ill” and a “nasty ... Jew,” on his podcast; Jankowicz is not Jewish. Last week several conservative news sites circulated a misleading claim that Jankowicz was seeking powers to edit Twitter users’ posts directly.
“I was trying to do important work to protect Americans from a real threat,” Jankowicz said.
But, instead, she was spending time reporting a steady wave of threats about herself.
“It was horrible. It was constant (direct messages), emails, threats on Twitter, threats on other places that I wasn’t looking at. That’s obviously really scary and really unpleasant.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | 2022-05-20T06:00:02+00:00 | foxcarolina.com | https://www.foxcarolina.com/2022/05/20/disinformation-boards-ex-leader-faced-wave-online-abuse/ |
After reading PennLive’s published article on the fentanyl crisis in our area, (published on October 19, 2022) and from the subsequent forum hosted to discuss solutions, we need to do more to get people the help they need.
Statistics show the ratio of mental health providers to patients in Cumberland County is 570 to 1. With the rise in opioid use and abuse in PA and a lack of adequate resources, we face a growing challenge.
There are simply not enough trained providers to care for those in need of substance abuse treatment. A lot of individuals subsequently end up obtaining treatment out of the local or state area, or worse, end up without treatment altogether and risk overdose. Unfortunately, not everyone has the access or means to travel far and wide to obtain treatment.
UPMC highlights the greatest needs in our community to address this problem; that includes more access to health education, better care coordination, compliance engagement, and preventative services. Counseling, medication and educational resources are all part of this initiative.
While Central PA offers some services, more funding and resources are needed. We continue to experience shortages in therapists and treatment facilities. We need to continue to advocate at the local, state, and federal level for better funding for trained professionals and more treatment options to continue to address this epidemic in our area.
Abigail Keys, Mechanicsburg, Pa. | 2022-11-28T16:23:48+00:00 | pennlive.com | https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2022/11/more-resources-are-needed-for-the-fentanyl-crisis-pennlive-letters.html |
CHENNAI, India, May 10, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Sak Abrasives Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Sak Industries Private Ltd announced its acquisition of Jowitt & Rodgers Co located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Jowitt & Rodgers is a leading US based manufacturer of resin bonded grinding wheels, discs and segments. The company was founded in 1951 and has been a fourth generation family owned and family run business with a fully equipped manufacturing plant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company's products are used in the production of automotive parts, bearings, cutlery and hand tools.
Commenting on the acquisition, Fred Rodgers, President said "We are very fortunate to join forces with a Family-owned business that shares similar ethics and values. Together, we remain committed to providing a safe and rewarding place to work for our employees, strengthening our partnerships with our customers and our suppliers. I'm confident that the Jowitt & Rodgers name along with Buffalo and SAK will continue to stand for quality and service for years to come."
Sak Abrasives is a division of Sak Industries Private Ltd and manufactures a full range of industrial abrasives catering to the Indian and overseas markets. During the past 20 years it has built an enviable base of loyal customers in the automotive, steel, fabrication, foundry, bearing, oil and gas industries. It has a manufacturing plant near Chennai and a Pan – India distribution with sales office in Noida, Kolkata, Pune, Ahmedabad and Chennai.
The company also has a strong presence in the US market through its group company, Buffalo Abrasives, Inc. Buffalo Abrasives manufacturers a wide range of custom engineered resin, epoxy & shellac bonded grinding wheels and has become a leading manufacturer in Roll Grinding Wheels.
Commenting on the acquisition, Kanika Krishna, COO said "This acquisition fits our overall company's strategy of focusing on custom made engineered products and manufacturing complimentary products at our various manufacturing locations in India and the US. Our market reach will be greatly enhanced for the combined product lines of the larger entity thus making us a stronger player in the global bonded abrasive industry."
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SOURCE Sak Industries Private Limited | 2023-05-10T18:09:37+00:00 | kfyrtv.com | https://www.kfyrtv.com/prnewswire/2023/05/10/sak-abrasives-inc-acquires-jowitt-amp-rodgers-co/ |
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Legislation moving in the Florida House would ban discussion of menstrual cycles and other human sexuality topics in elementary grades.
The bill sponsored by Republican Rep. Stan McClain would restrict public school instruction on human sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases and related topics to grades 6 through 12. McClain confirmed at a recent committee meeting that discussions about menstrual cycles would also be restricted to those grades.
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“So if little girls experience their menstrual cycle in 5th grade or 4th grade, will that prohibit conversations from them since they are in the grade lower than sixth grade?” asked state Rep. Ashley Gantt, a Democrat who taught in public schools and noted that girls as young as 10 can begin having periods.
“It would,” McClain responded.
The GOP-backed legislation cleared the House Education Quality Subcommittee on Wednesday by a 13-5 vote mainly along party lines. It would also allow parents to object to books and other materials their children are exposed to, require schools to teach that a person's sexual identity is determined biologically at birth and set up more scrutiny of certain educational materials by the state Department of Education.
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McClain said the bill's intent is to bring uniformity to sex education across all of Florida's 67 school districts and provide more pathways for parents to object to books or other materials they find inappropriate for younger children.
At the committee meeting, Gantt asked whether teachers could face punishment if they discuss menstruation with younger students.
“My concern is they won't feel safe to have those conversations with these little girls,” she said.
McClain said “that would not be the intent” of the bill and that he is “amenable” to some changes to its language. The measure must be approved by another committee before it can reach the House floor; a similar bill is pending in the Senate.
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An email seeking comment was sent Saturday to the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is widely seen as a potential 2024 presidential candidate. | 2023-03-18T19:18:16+00:00 | seattlepi.com | https://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/florida-may-ban-girls-period-talk-in-elementary-17847265.php |
CANBERRA, Australia — Australia suspended a complaint to the World Trade Organization in a bid to reopen the Chinese market to Australian barley for the first time in three years in the new government’s latest step toward repairing relations with Beijing.
On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said her center-left Labor Party government, which was elected in May, had reached an agreement with China that “creates a pathway for the resolution of the dispute over Australian barley.”
China had agreed to review its duties on the grain over three or four months, she said, and Australia will temporarily suspend the WTO dispute during that review period.
“Obviously, if the duty is not lifted at the end of the review period, we’ll resume our dispute in the WTO,” Wong said.
The Chinese Embassy in Australia did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. Wong said the Chinese review offered a “significantly shorter time frame” to resolve the dispute than the WTO offered.
Official and unofficial trade barriers are costing Australian exporters an estimated $14 billion a year in products including beef, seafood and wood. Trade Minister Don Farrell said Australia hoped the review would become a template for resolving other trade disputes with China, particularly over wine. While barley growers have found other markets, Australian wine producers have struggled to find alternative buyers after China imposed trade barriers in late 2020.
Australia has denied China’s claims that it was subsidizing wine to export it at artificially low prices.
Grain Producers Australia, which represents barley exporters, welcomed the new agreement.
“This process to reach a resolution would be significantly shorter than if the WTO process continued,” Grain Producers Australian chair Barry Large said in a statement.
“We welcome the Labor government’s constructive dialogue and positive progress towards stabilizing the relationship with China, and creating this process and opportunity to recommence the barley trade,” Large said.
In February, Australian and Chinese trade ministers held their first bilateral meeting since 2019, showing signs of improved relations since the previous government was voted out after nine years in power.
During the online exchange, Farrell accepted his Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao’s invitation to visit China. A date has yet to be set.
In December, Wong became the first Australian foreign minister to visit China in four years. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese raised his concerns about trade in November when he took part in the first formal bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping by an Australian government leader since 2016.
China recently lifted trade restrictions on Australian coal that were first imposed in late 2020. | 2023-04-11T04:56:36+00:00 | washingtonpost.com | https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/11/australia-barley-trade-china/074f5090-d824-11ed-aebd-3fd2ac4c460a_story.html |
Vatican: Benedict XVI lucid, stable but condition ‘serious’
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is lucid, conscious and stable but his condition remains serious, the Vatican said Thursday, a day after it revealed that the 95-year-old’s health had deteriorated recently.
A statement from Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said Pope Francis asked for continued prayers “to accompany him in these difficult hours.”
On Wednesday Francis revealed that Benedict was “very ill” and went to see Benedict at his home in the Vatican Gardens where he has lived since retiring in 2013, sparking fears that he was near death.
The Vatican later said Benedict’s health had deteriorated in recent hours but that the situation was under control as doctors monitored him.
Benedict in 2013 became the first pope in 600 years to retire, and he chose to live out his retirement in seclusion in a converted monastery in the Vatican Gardens. Few had expected his retirement — now in its 10th year — to last longer than his eight-year reign as pope.
Bruni said Thursday that Benedict “managed to rest well last night, is absolutely lucid and conscious and today, while his condition remains grave, the situation at the moment is stable.”
“Pope Francis renews the invitation to pray for him and accompany him in these difficult hours,” he said.
Responding to that call, the diocese of Rome scheduled a special Mass in honor of Benedict on Friday at St. John Lateran, Benedict’s former basilica in his capacity as the bishop of Rome.
Word of Benedict’s declining health immediately posed questions about what would happen when he dies, given the unprecedented reality of having a reigning pope presumably presiding over the funeral of a former pope.
Most Vatican experts expect any funeral would resemble that for any retired bishop of Rome, albeit with the caveat that there would be official delegations to honor a former head of state, as well as pilgrims from Germany — homeland of Benedict, the former Joseph Ratzinger — and beyond.
While St. Peter’s Square was mostly filled with visitors from abroad on Thursday — during peak Christmas tourist season — some Italians were out to pay their respects or at least offer a prayer.
“Obviously it is a bad situation, we are all close to Pope Ratzinger, we are sad about the situation, so we came here to make our small contribution,” said one pilgrim, Giorgio Gibin.
Another visitor to the square, Anna Małcka, noted Benedict’s advanced age and wished him well.
“I think by now he has lived about long enough, poor thing, and since he is sick, he is not well, if God wishes, he will take him away,” she said.
Otherwise, while the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano headlined its Thursday editions with news of Benedict’s health, life continued as normal in the tiny city-state that Benedict and Pope Francis call home.
Francis had a seemingly routine day of audiences Thursday, meeting with his ambassador to Madagascar, the commander of the Swiss Guards and a fellow Jesuit.
In the square, the line of tourists waiting to get into St. Peter’s Basilica wrapped almost entirely around the piazza, with couples and families stopping to pose for selfies in front of the life-sized Nativity scene and Christmas tree set up in the square.
Small groups of nuns hurried across the cobblestones, and tour guides holding flags herded their charges, while nearby souvenir sellers did brisk business hawking Vatican magnets, rosaries and bobblehead Francis statues.
“We hadn’t heard the news,” said Liam Marchesano, a 22-year-old economics student from Mantova who was waiting to see the basilica with his girlfriend. “Maybe that’s why there’s such a long line.”
___
Luigi Navarra and Joel Paqui contributed.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | 2022-12-29T14:29:17+00:00 | atlantanewsfirst.com | https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2022/12/29/vatican-benedict-xvi-lucid-stable-condition-serious/ |
TARRYTOWN, N.Y., July 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: REGN) today announced the winners of the 10th annual Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation, a competition designed to recognize excellence and creativity in biomedical research conducted by postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. Each year, Regeneron invites the country's leading research universities to nominate early career scientists. Applicants present their "dream projects" within the field of biomedical science to a committee of Regeneron scientists and leaders, describing and designing the research they would pursue if they had access to any resource or technology, to compete for the Regeneron Prize and an award of $50,000.
This year's winners are Ryan Emenecker, Ph.D., of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, in the postdoctoral fellow category, and Venkata (Sai) Chaluvadi of the University of Pennsylvania in the graduate student category. Meagan Esbin, a graduate student from the University of California at Berkeley, received a $10,000 prize as an honorable mention. Seven other finalists received awards of $5,000 each. In total, $155,000 in prize money and donations was awarded to winners, finalists and institutions to advance innovative scientific research. The finalists were selected by a committee of senior Regeneron leaders and scientists.
"The Regeneron Prize celebrates the ingenuity of young scientists who are early in their careers but already on the cusp of the next big scientific breakthroughs," said George D. Yancopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., President and Chief Scientific Officer of Regeneron. "Creativity is the engine that drives cutting-edge science, and both Ryan's and Sai's creativity shone brightly in their presentations. I was impressed by this year's winners for their determination to push the boundaries of science and demonstrate scientific courage."
Dr. Emenecker is a molecular biologist with a strong interest in the relationship between sequence composition and encoded function of intrinsically disordered proteins, which can impact aging and neurodegenerative disease. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Alex Holehouse, Ph.D., at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. A prolific researcher, Dr. Emenecker has been a part of over a dozen publications on topics ranging from biomolecular condensate function, to computational tool development, to organismic development.
Mr. Chaluvadi first developed an interest in immunology during his time in Dr. Susan Schwab's lab at New York University where he helped discover the roles of S1P in immune cell trafficking and function, which resulted in publications in Nature and Nature Immunology. He began exploring the intersections between immunology and other fields such as oncology and neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine. Work during rotations resulted in manuscripts related to tumor immunology and microglial replacement therapy that are in preparation. Currently, he is a member of the Bennett Lab, studying the contributions of diseased immune cells to the progression of Krabbe disease—a fatal neurodegenerative condition with limited available therapies.
Ms. Esbin studies transcriptional regulation, with her thesis work probing the human SAGA complex, an important regulator of gene expression. Ms. Esbin's most recent work in this area studied the structure of the SAGA complex and appeared last year in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Esbin took additional work helping to develop open-source methods for COVID-19 detection, illustrating her commitment to applying science to biomedical innovation.
"The Regeneron Prize encourages early career scientists to prioritize independent thinking and creative ingenuity as core components of their future work," said David Glass, M.D., Vice President of Research and Chair of the Postdoctoral Program at Regeneron. "When it comes to the impact these young scientists will have on the world, the work they have presented this year is just the beginning. We applaud their innovative thinking and look forward to seeing what they accomplish next."
Requests for applications are distributed to academic institutions each December. Regeneron asks institutions to nominate two graduate students and two postdoctoral fellows. In addition to the dream project proposals, submissions must include a curriculum vitae and samples of publications that enable the selection committee to review each nominee's scholarly productivity. For more information, please email science.education@regeneron.com.
About Regeneron
Regeneron (NASDAQ: REGN) is a leading biotechnology company that invents, develops and commercializes life-transforming medicines for people with serious diseases. Founded and led for nearly 35 years by physician-scientists, our unique ability to repeatedly and consistently translate science into medicine has led to nine FDA-approved treatments and numerous product candidates in development, almost all of which were homegrown in our laboratories. Our medicines and pipeline are designed to help patients with eye diseases, allergic and inflammatory diseases, cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, pain, hematologic conditions, infectious diseases and rare diseases.
Regeneron is accelerating and improving the traditional drug development process through our proprietary VelociSuite® technologies, such as VelocImmune®, which uses unique genetically humanized mice to produce optimized fully human antibodies and bispecific antibodies, and through ambitious research initiatives such as the Regeneron Genetics Center, which is conducting one of the largest genetics sequencing efforts in the world.
Regeneron believes that operating as a good corporate citizen is crucial to delivering on our mission. We approach corporate responsibility with three goals in mind: to improve the lives of people with serious diseases, to foster a culture of integrity and excellence, and to build sustainable communities. Regeneron is proud to be included on the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index and the Civic 50 list of the most "community-minded" companies in the United States. Throughout the year, Regeneron empowers and supports employees to give back through our volunteering, pro bono, and matching gift programs. Our most significant philanthropic commitments are in the area of science education, including the Regeneron Science Talent Search and the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).
For additional information about the company, please visit www.regeneron.com or follow @Regeneron on Twitter.
Regeneron Media Relations
Ella Campbell
Tel: +1 914-572-4003
ella.campbell@regeneron.com
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SOURCE Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. | 2022-07-26T12:22:15+00:00 | kxii.com | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/07/26/regeneron-announces-2022-winners-regeneron-prize-creative-innovation/ |
By MADISON HIRNEISEN
THE CENTER SQUARE
(The Center Square) – A bill that would have enacted a tax credit for low-income families who do not own vehicles was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom this week due to fiscal concerns.
Gov. Newsom vetoed Senate Bill 457 this week, a measure that would have offered a $1,000 tax credit to certain low-income taxpayers without a registered vehicle. The bill, which was significantly amended before reaching the governor, would have taken effect in January 2023 and applied to couples making $60,000 or less that file jointly and individuals who make $40,000 or less.
In a veto message Wednesday, Gov. Newsom raised concern about the cost of the bill that is not “accounted for in the budget.” He repeated a familiar sentiment written in several other veto messages this year – “With our state facing lower-than-expected revenues over the first few months of this fiscal year, it is important to remain disciplined when it comes to spending, particularly spending that is ongoing.”
Supporters of the bill said they were disappointed with the veto and questioned the state’s ease in spending to provide incentives for zero-emission vehicles. With transportation accounting for a large portion of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory, advocates say incentives to help people transition to car-free life are needed to slash emissions.
“If our goal is to fight climate change, it can’t just be to give people money to buy electric cars – we also have to get people to stop driving so much in general,” Michael Schneider, founder of Streets for All, told The Center Square Thursday. “It remains puzzling to me why we are willing to give thousands so easily to incentivize people to buy an electric car, but we’re not willing to spend the same or even less money to encourage people to not use a car at all.”
A fiscal analysis initially estimated the bill would cost $900 million in its first year of implementation and $950 million in the second year. However, updated scrutiny from the Franchise Tax Board shared with Streets For All shows that the first year of implementation would cost $16 million, followed by $900 million in the second year and $950 million in the third year.
Mr. Schneider said he doesn’t know if the updated figure would have made a “material difference” in gaining the governor’s signature on the measure but said the situation is “frustrating.”
In his veto message, Gov. Newsom wrote that he supports “approaches to incentivize a transition from vehicles to more sustainable transportation,” but contended that bills with a “significant fiscal impact” should be considered as part of the annual budget process.
Streets for All say they plan to support a similar measure next year. Mr. Schneider said he would “love to see something big, bold and ambitious that matches the governor’s rhetoric about climate change in next year’s budget.” | 2022-10-02T19:51:36+00:00 | newspress.com | https://newspress.com/newsom-vetoes-tax-credit-for-low-income-residents-living-car-free/ |
Investing RM 600 Million in Infrastructure
Expansion of facilities to drive development in the local economy and across the region
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, June 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- J&T Express ("J&T"), an international express logistics company, announced today it has completed the acquisition of a 30-acre parcel of land in Bandar Rimbayu, Selangor, Malaysia. The land will be used to build an integrated logistics center for express distribution, logistics and transportation and warehousing to meet J&T's growing business needs in Malaysia.
Charles Hou, Group Vice President of J&T Express, said, "As a global integrated logistics service provider, J&T Express is committed to providing customers with more efficient and convenient services. It remains our emphasis to strengthen our leadership position in Southeast Asia through expanding our presence in existing markets. The new facility will be fitted with our advanced technology, which enables us to better tap on our existing networks to meet the growing demands of the burgeoning e-commerce industry in Southeast Asia.".
"Rimbayu is the golden triangle of Selangor, we believe in the future development potential of this area." CEO of J&T Express Malaysia, Roy Zeng said, "This year marks the fifth year since J&T Express commenced operations in Malaysia. With diversified expansion and the strong momentum thanks to the continuous growth of the regional market, we have decided to invest RM 600 million to purchase a parcel of land and build a logistics centre in Malaysia. In doing this, we hope to drive the development of the local economy, provide jobs for the community, and play an active role in the development of the local logistics industry and the long-term development of the community."
Founded in 2015, J&T Express' localized express network now spans twelve countries including China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Mexico, and Brazil, serving over 2 billion people.
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About J&T Express
J&T Express is a global logistics service provider with leading express delivery businesses in Southeast Asia and China, the largest and fastest-growing market in the world. Founded in 2015, J&T Express' network spans twelve countries, including Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, China, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Mexico and Brazil. Adhering to its "customer-oriented and efficiency-based" mission, J&T Express is committed to providing customers with integrated logistics solutions through intelligent infrastructure and digital logistics network, as part of its global strategy to connect the world with greater efficiency and bring logistical benefits to all.
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SOURCE J&T Express | 2022-06-07T02:35:50+00:00 | kcbd.com | https://www.kcbd.com/prnewswire/2022/06/07/jampt-express-acquires-land-malaysia/ |
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — JBS has agreed to pay $20 million to settle a lawsuit with consumers that accused the giant meat producer of conspiring with other meat companies to inflate the price of pork.
The latest meat-industry settlement will likely reinforce concerns that the White House, members of Congress and trade groups have raised about how the lack of competition in the industry affects prices.
A federal judge in Minnesota approved the settlement of the price-fixing lawsuit last week. But the judge also ruled that nearly $7 million of the settlement will go to the plaintiffs’ lawyers for their work in the case.
The pork lawsuit is one of several price-fixing lawsuits making their way through the courts. Meat producers have also been accused of inflating beef and chicken prices, and several multimillion-dollar settlements have been announced in those cases.
Previously, JBS agreed to pay restaurants and caterers $12.75 million as part of a different settlement in this pork lawsuit, and Smithfield Foods agreed to pay two different groups of pork purchasers $83 million and $42 million in two different settlements in the case.
Despite the settlements, meat companies have defended their pricing practices.
Officials at the Brazilian company’s U.S. headquarters in Greeley, Colorado, didn’t immediately respond to questions about the latest settlement on Monday, but JBS didn’t admit any wrongdoing as part of the deal.
The lead attorneys for the plaintiffs said it’s not clear how much individual consumers who bought pork between 2009 and last year might receive, partly because money from additional settlements may be added to the fund before any payments are sent out. More details about the settlement are available online.
The pork lawsuit remains pending against other major producers including Hormel, Tyson Foods and the Agri Stats database company they allegedly used to share confidential information about price, capacity and demand. JBS agreed to cooperate with the case against those other companies as part of the settlement.
The lawsuit accuses the major meat processors, who together control more than 70% of pork production nationwide, of working cooperatively to limit the supply of hogs and inflate prices.
The White House, several agricultural trade groups and a number of prominent members of Congress have all questioned the industry’s pricing practices although the meat producers argue that supply and demand factors, not anticompetitive behavior, drive prices.
The Justice Department has been looking into allegations of price fixing in the industry at least since 2020, but it hasn’t provided updates on its investigation.
The Biden administration has announced several efforts to increase competition in the meat industry to help reduce prices including a $1 billion program to help establish and expand independent slaughterhouses. And the White House has tweaked administrative rules to make it easier for farmers and ranchers to report concerns or sue over anticompetitive behavior.
The judge who approved the settlement last Wednesday said awarding the lawyers involved 33% of the proceeds, as he did here, was in line with other similar class action lawsuits. | 2022-09-20T14:09:04+00:00 | siouxlandproud.com | https://www.siouxlandproud.com/news/business/ap-jbs-to-pay-20-million-in-pork-price-fixing-settlement/ |
Idaho closes fiscal year with $1.4 billion surplus
The fiscal year 2022 ended on July 1 with a revenue growth of 23.7%
BOISE, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — The state of Idaho announced Friday it will end the fiscal year with a surplus of $1.4 billion.
According to Governor Brad Little, this will mean Idahoans can expect further tax cuts, as well as additional investments, though he did not specify what kind of investments that meant.
“Idaho’s economy is red-hot because of the resiliency of our citizens and businesses. Combined with years of fiscal conservativism, reining in state spending, and our status as the least regulated state in the country, we will be able to provide Idahoans even more tax relief and make key investments where they count,” Governor Little said. “As Idahoans grapple with ever-increasing prices for gas, food, energy, and everything in between under Biden’s watch, in Idaho we are leading the way and showing the rest of the country how to create prosperity for our people.”
The fiscal year 2022 ended on July 1 with a revenue growth of 23.7%.
“This year, we made the single largest investment in public schools in state history. The strength of Idaho’s economy and the sound management of state government mean we will continue to be able to invest record amounts into schools, roads, water, and other key areas to keep up with growth and improve the lives of the people we serve,” Governor Little added.
Copyright 2022 KMVT/KSVT. All rights reserved. | 2022-07-22T16:09:40+00:00 | kmvt.com | https://www.kmvt.com/2022/07/22/idaho-closes-fiscal-year-with-14-billion-surplus/ |
Potter County crews working to contain grass fire
Published: Jan. 10, 2023 at 12:55 PM CST|Updated: 6 minutes ago
POTTER COUNTY, Texas (KFDA) - Fire crews are working to contain a grass fire in Potter County.
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Copyright 2023 KFDA. All rights reserved. | 2023-01-10T19:03:27+00:00 | newschannel10.com | https://www.newschannel10.com/2023/01/10/potter-county-crews-working-contain-grass-fire/ |
SHIJIAZHUANG, China, Nov. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A report from Great Wall New Media:
China International Digital Economy Expo 2022 (CIDEE), an international expo on the digital economy kicked off on Wednesday in Shijiazhuang, the capital of north China's Hebei Province.
The three-day expo are scheduled to showcase, promote and exchange the latest cutting-edge international and domestic information and digital technologies, products, services and business models in the field of digital economy, such as big data, artificial intelligence and 5G.
Meanwhile, it will explore into the new development trends and how to direct the global digital economy toward high-end, internationalization, specialization and industrialization.
Participating are more than 300 heavy-weight distinguished guests, including Boao Forum for Asia Chairman and Ex-UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and ambassadors to China of Turkey, Thailand, Poland and Serbia and two other countries.
Also participating are 24 academicians, including ACM TURING AWARD winner Jack J. Dongarra, 23 Chinese and foreign government officials, CEOs of internationally and domestically leading enterprises in the digital economy, other experts and international scholars.
These guests are supposed to give speeches online at the opening and attend the online summit on the theme.
Activities at the expo are, among others, 30 parallel forums, which will focus on the metaverse, cloud computing, industrial internet, and data safety management, the release of 15 latest research reports on China's digital economic development, China's digital E-Commerce index and China's digital economy and rural reinvigoration development, and the release and promotion of new products and services by leading digital enterprises.
Apart from that, the expo will also hold four large-scale state-class professional contests in privacy-preserving computing technologies, integrated circuit innovations, big data and intelligent vehicles, three industrial matchmaking activities and award presentation to winners.
As the digital economy is booming in China, the Expo is of great importance in deepening exchanges and cooperation and holds out great prospects in exploring ways on how to share the achievements in the development of the digital economy to better benefit the people of the whole world.
CONTACT: Bai Zheng, 284029128@qq.com
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SOURCE Great Wall New Media | 2022-11-16T13:45:55+00:00 | mysuncoast.com | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/11/16/china-international-digital-economy-expo-2022-opens-hebei/ |
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s special forces on Tuesday stormed a counter-terrorism center in a remote northwestern district to free several security officials who were taken hostage earlier this week by a group of detained Pakistani Taliban militants, security officials said.
The operation came after the detainees, who were held for years at the center in Bannu, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, overpowered their guards on Sunday, seized their weapons and took them hostage. On Monday, one officer at the center was reported killed by the hostage-takers.
Pakistani officials tried to negotiate with the hostage-takers but after more than 40 hours of failed efforts, special forces deployed to the area stormed the compound, security and intelligence officials said. They did not elaborate.
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By Tuesday afternoon, thick black smoke billowed into the sky from inside the compound, after two explosions were heard. Intermittent gunshots were reverberating across the area, the officials said. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing situation.
It was not immediately clear what had happened to the hostages or the Taliban fighters. No military or government spokesmen were immediately available for comment.
Earlier, officials said there were about 30 Taliban fighters involved in the takeover of the center. The hostage-takers had demanded a safe passage to the former strongholds of the militant group.
The brazen taking over the center on Sunday was a reflection of the government’s inability to exercise control over the remote region along the border with Afghanistan.
The Pakistani Taliban are also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. They are separate but allied with the Afghan Taliban who seized power in neighboring Afghanistan last year as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final weeks of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war. | 2022-12-20T09:34:15+00:00 | bostonglobe.com | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/12/20/world/pakistan-launches-operation-free-officers-held-by-taliban/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Archives and Records Administration informed lawmakers that a number of electronic communications from Trump White House staffers remain missing, nearly two years since the administration was required to turn them over.
The nation’s record-keeping agency, in a letter Friday to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, said that despite an ongoing effort by staff, electronic communications between certain unidentified White House officials were still not in their custody.
“While there is no easy way to establish absolute accountability, we do know that we do not have custody of everything we should,” Debra Steidel Wall, the acting U.S. archivist, wrote in a letter to Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y.
The letter went on to specify that the National Archives would consult with the Justice Department about how to move forward and recover “the records unlawfully removed.”
It has been widely reported that officials in President Donald Trump’s White House used non-official electronic messaging accounts throughout his four years in office. The Presidential Records Act, which says that such records are government property and must be preserved, requires staff to copy or forward those messages into their official electronic messaging accounts.
The agency says that while it has been able to obtain these records from some former officials, a number remain outstanding. The Justice Department has already pursued records from one former Trump official, Peter Navarro, who prosecutors accused of using at least one “non-official” email account — a ProtonMail account — to send and receive emails while he worked as the president’s trade adviser.
The legal action in August came just weeks after Navarro was indicted on criminal charges after refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The House committee has jurisdiction over the Presidential Records Act, a 1978 law that requires the preservation of White House documents as property of the U.S. government. The request is the latest development in a monthslong back-and-forth between the agency and the committee, which has been investigating Trump’s handling of records.
The letter on Friday also comes nearly two months after the FBI recovered more than 100 documents with classified markings and more than 10,000 other government documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Lawyers for Trump had provided a sworn certification that all government records had been returned.
Maloney and other Democratic lawmakers on the panel have been seeking a briefing from the National Archives, but haven’t received one due to the Justice Department’s ongoing criminal investigation into the matter. | 2022-10-02T12:44:37+00:00 | texomashomepage.com | https://www.texomashomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-archives-records-from-trump-wh-staffers-remain-missing/ |
Which Star Wars collectible is best?
Star Wars fans have been scooping up merchandise since the original trilogy was released in the 1970s. Star Wars collectibles are big business, allowing enthusiasts to bring home a part of the Rebel Alliance or Galactic Empire for themselves. Many collectibles are unique pieces that are a galaxy far, far away from traditional merchandise. However, many of them can also take an adventure to find. Which Star Wars collectibles deserve a spot on your shelf?
What to know before you buy a Star Wars collectible
Pricing
If you haven’t collected before, don’t be surprised by the price tag. Star Wars collectibles are more expensive than toys or other merchandise because they’re meant to be collected. These are items that will be displayed or kept as part of a set rather than played with or used regularly, and as such, they’re typically more expensive. Find the right one, and it’s well worth the extra investment.
Limited editions
Companies often create demand for collectibles by only making a certain number of them. These limited editions can sell out quickly and disappear forever. However, just because an item is limited edition doesn’t mean it’s a must-have. There are also standard editions of Star Wars collectibles that aren’t too much different from the limited edition. Read product descriptions closely before you spend extra money on a limited edition.
Exclusives
Since Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012, there’s been an influx of new Star Wars collectibles on the market. Disney has manufactured collectibles to tie into the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge theme park attraction and many new TV projects. This means that some Star Wars collectibles are exclusive to select retailers or physical stores. If you can’t find what you want online, consider shopping in person.
What to look for in a quality Star Wars collectible
Build quality
The popularity of Star Wars means that there’s no shortage of collectibles available. Not all of them are well-made as companies mass-produce products. The best Star Wars collectibles will last for years, if not decades. Fans should thoroughly read any product description and look at the accompanying photos to make sure any collectible lives up to its price tag.
Something fantastic
The Star Wars universe is full of fantastic characters, amazing starships and cool aliens. Any top-notch collectible should stand out just as much. It might have extra details that make it catch your eye across a room. It could have a neat function like lighting up or playing sounds. Some of the Star Wars collectibles are even wearable. Find something that excites you just as much as the movies.
Official merchandise
Before purchasing any Star Wars collectible, fans should verify that it’s an officially licensed product approved by Disney or Lucasfilm. There are thousands of choices, and not all of them come from an official brand. Making sure your product is officially licensed is another way to ensure that you get a quality collectible. Officially licensed products will normally say so in the item description.
How much you can expect to spend on a Star Wars collectible
The average Star Wars collectible ranges from $50-$150. Some can be more expensive depending on the size and if they’re a limited edition.
Star Wars collectible FAQ
Are Star Wars collectibles appropriate for kids?
A. No. Collectibles are different from toys. They’re intended for adults, and many of them are meant to be displayed. They’re not meant to withstand the wear and tear that kids can put on items. They can also be more delicate or heavier than other items so they can injure children if kids drop or break them. Most collectibles should be kept away from children, but there are plenty of Star Wars toys for kids.
Are there Star Wars collectibles for The Mandalorian?
A. Yes. Disney heavily merchandised “The Mandalorian” after the Disney+ series became a massive hit. There are collectibles available for that show and its upcoming spinoff, “The Book of Boba Fett.” Fans can also find merchandise based on the newest Disney+ program, “The Bad Batch.”
What’s the best Star Wars collectible to buy?
Top Star Wars collectible
Star Wars The Black Series Luke Skywalker Collectible Helmet
What you need to know: This amazingly detailed Star Wars collectible is to be worn and makes an awesome display piece.
What you’ll love: The helmet isn’t just for show. It’s intended to be worn, including two different sets of sound effects (one from the Battle of Yavin and the other from the Battle of Hoth). There are tons of screen-accurate details, making the helmet look realistic and combat-used.
What you should consider: The helmet size is not adjustable, so it may not be wearable if you have a larger or smaller-sized head.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top Star Wars collectible for the money
Robe Factory Star Wars Luke Skywalker Lightsaber Table Lamp
What you need to know: This lightsaber-shaped lamp will light up any Star Wars fan day with its vibrant blue color.
What you’ll love: The lamp closely resembles Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, down to the buttons and small details on the hilt. It’s easy to assemble and use with one wall plug and a clear on-off switch. You can match it with the Darth Vader lightsaber lamp (sold separately).
What you should consider: It doesn’t have any other functions besides being displayed in your home or office.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Worth checking out
LEGO Star Wars Sith Lord Building Kit
What you need to know: This Star Wars merchandise is a one-part interactive toy and one-part collectible as fans can build their own custom art.
What you’ll love: Fans can choose to assemble their own portrait of Darth Vader, Darth Maul or Kylo Ren, so this set is perfect no matter which Star Wars films are your favorite. There are hours of entertainment in the building process. The set has a tangible reward in displaying your finished art, just like any other painting.
What you should consider: Thousands of pieces mean this isn’t a LEGO set for the faint of heart. The pieces are all very small and easy to lose if you’re not keeping a close eye on them.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
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Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | 2022-06-07T19:52:43+00:00 | upmatters.com | https://www.upmatters.com/reviews/br/toys-games-br/hobby-collectibles-br/best-star-wars-collectible/ |
BEIJING, April 24, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Quhuo Limited (NASDAQ: QH) ("Quhuo" or the "Company"), a leading gig economy platform focusing on local life services in China, announced a partnership with Baidu on April 24 to gain access to their recently unveiled ERNIE Bot, a new-generation large language model (LLM). Quhuo will soon have full access to the massive capabilities of ERNIE Bot, which can interpret human languages and deliver accurate, logical, and fluent responses almost on a par with humans. This strategic collaboration marks Quhuo's commitment to harnessing cutting-edge AI technology that can empower multiple business scenarios including front, middle, and back-office functions, while continuing to innovate based on its existing technology solutions.
ERNIE Bot is a generative AI product introduced by Baidu based on its Big model ERNIE family. The company has been developing its artificial intelligence capabilities for over ten years and has developed an industrial-grade, knowledge-enhanced Big Model ERNIE with cross-modal and cross-linguistic deep semantic understanding and generation capabilities, designed to facilitate intelligent transformations across various industries such as finance, energy, media, and public affairs.
Mr. Pan Fan, CTO of Quhuo, commented, "In recent years, the rapid development of technologies such as deep learning and natural language processing has enabled AI technology to be widely used in many fields. As CTO, it is imperative to keep up with the development of AI technology and through this cooperation with Baidu's ERNIE Bot, we expect to be better positioned to apply AI technology to process a large amount of data and information that previously required manual processing, improve the intelligence and automation of our business, and provide multi-product support. We will continue to closely follow the development of AI and explore more application scenarios to enhance momentum and opportunities for Quhuo's development."
Powering up Quhuo's products, front- and back-end business functions with ERNIE Bot
By implementing Baidu's ERNIE Bot, Quhuo+ and SaaS technology, Quhuo will be better placed to serve and empower localized life service providers in China. Through this cooperation, Quhuo will access ERNIE Bot's semantic computing technology and intelligent dialogue engine to improve front-end business efficiency by providing personalized assistants to complete tasks that previously required manual input thereby providing customers with a more intelligent service experience. Specifically, Quhuo will utilize ERNIE Bot's memory mechanisms, contextual understanding, and dialogue planning abilities to improve the customer service level of its front-end Chengtu homestay business by connecting with customers in a timely manner to solve issues they may have.
Quhuo will also use artificial intelligence to support middle and back-end business functions, including business review support, data support and predictive analysis. The Company will empower administrative departments to improve the efficiency of their routine work, complete data and report generation, preparation and review, as well as low-code generation and development of middle and back-end systems.
By integrating the capability of ERNIE Bot into Quhuo's products, more personalized services can be provided, while simultaneously bringing users a more efficient and convenient experience. The application of AI technology is expected to help Quhuo to process a large amount of data and information and provide accurate analysis and prediction, realize business automation and intelligence, and improve efficiency and effectiveness.
Leslie Yu, Quhuo CEO said, "Technology optimizes efficiency. It is crystal clear to us that AI technology is integral to Quhuo's future development hence we have already been testing AI technology for online communication with workers and operations to improve communication efficiency. In this context, we firmly believe the introduction of Baidu's ERNIE Bot will further enhance Quhuo's technical capability to realize multi-scenario business intelligence. We expect that the addition of ERNIE Bot will complement and remold Quhuo's technology in the future."
About Quhuo Limited
Quhuo Limited (NASDAQ: QH) ("Quhuo" or the "Company") is a leading gig economy platform focusing on local life services in China. Leveraging Quhuo+, its proprietary technology infrastructure, Quhuo is dedicated to empowering and linking workers and local life service providers and providing end-to-end operation solutions for the life service market. The Company currently provides multiple industry-tailored operational solutions, primarily including on-demand delivery solutions, mobility service solutions, housekeeping and accommodation solutions, and other services, meeting the living needs of hundreds of millions of families in the communities.
With the vision of promoting employment, stabilizing income and empowering entrepreneurship, Quhuo explores multiple scenarios to promote employment of workers, provides, among others, safety and security and vocational training to protect workers, and helps workers plan their career development paths to realize their self-worth.
Safe Harbor Statements
This press release contains ''forward-looking statements'' within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical or current fact included in this press release are forward-looking statements, including but not limited to statements regarding Quhuo's business development, financial outlook, beliefs and expectations. Forward-looking statements include statements containing words such as "expect," "anticipate," "believe," "project," "will" and similar expressions intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on Quhuo's current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties. Quhuo's actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of these risks and uncertainties, which include, without limitation, risks and uncertainties related to Quhuo's abilities to (1) manage its growth and expand its operations, (2) address any or all of the risks and challenges in the future in light of its limited operating history and evolving business portfolios, (3) remain in its competitive position in the on-demand food delivery market or further diversify its solution offerings and customer portfolio, (4) maintain relationships with major customers and to find replacement customers on commercially desirable terms or in a timely manner or at all, (5) maintain relationships with existing industry customers or attract new customers, (6) attract, retain and manage workers on its platform, and (7) maintain its market shares in relation to competitors in existing markets and its success in expansion into new markets, as well as the length and severity of the development of COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on Quhuo's business and industry. Other risks and uncertainties are included under the caption "Risk Factors" and elsewhere in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, the final prospectus related to the IPO filed with the SEC on July 10, 2020 and the Company's latest annual report on Form 20-F. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement, and Quhuo undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.
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SOURCE Quhuo | 2023-04-24T12:00:20+00:00 | kswo.com | https://www.kswo.com/prnewswire/2023/04/24/quhuo-announces-partnership-utilize-search-giant-baidus-recently-unveiled-ai-powered-ernie-bot/ |
HARRISONBURG, Va., Aug. 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Like teaching a child to ride a bike, sending your student off to college requires a delicate balance of knowing when to hold on and when to let go. Dr. David Onestak, director of the James Madison University Counseling Center shares advice heard often from "veteran" parents on how "new" parents can help students survive the turbulent waters of freshman year.
Sending your student off to college requires a delicate balance of knowing when to hold on and when to let go.
- Convey confidence. Students' bravado as they head off to college normally masks fears and doubts. Parental encouragement is more important than students typically acknowledge.
- Avoid "New Leaf Syndrome." Rather than turning over a new leaf, the transition to college frequently causes old problems to reemerge. Students with a history of mental health concerns should maintain relationships with their providers and continue with prescribed therapies. Help your student take greater ownership of health-related matters such as taking over-the-counter medications, making an appointment, and learning the basics of health insurance.
- Keep the lines of communication open. When parents respond too harshly to a student's mistake, the student may no longer offer important information about grades, roommate problems or dating relationships. As a result, minor problems may become major crises.
- Don't rush in and solve problems. Students often don't step up to responsibility until parents step back. Students need the experience of solving problems on their own.
- Be realistic about grades. Students are going to be faced with difficult and demanding coursework. Not every straight-A student in high school will be a straight-A student in college.
- Use technology to connect, not monitor. Talk with your student about how and how often to touch base. If you are using tracking devices to monitor your student, consider relinquishing them. Doing so communicates that the world is not continuously dangerous and that you trust them to make good decisions.
- Don't rush your student into a major or career. Most eighteen-year-olds do not have the wisdom required to be definite about such an important decision. Pushing them into a major or a career in which there is no interest is a recipe for problems.
- Talk about finances. Let your student know what you will and will not contribute to college expenses. Help them to develop a budget. If your student requests a credit card for "emergencies," a good rule of thumb is: If you can eat it, drink it, or wear it, it's not an emergency.
- Inform your student about important family matters, even if the news is not good. While there is no need to share every family issue, keeping developments from students can make them anxious as they imagine what else might be happening back home without their knowledge.
- Remind yourself that the character you worked to develop will continue to guide them. Students often experiment with values that might be more permissive than the ones at home; this is a normal part of developing identity and independence apart from their parents. Try to bend a little.
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SOURCE James Madison University | 2022-08-09T16:41:08+00:00 | kcbd.com | https://www.kcbd.com/prnewswire/2022/08/09/10-tips-parents-sending-students-off-college/ |
MOSCOW (AP) — Lawyers for American basketball star Brittney Griner on Monday filed an appeal against her nine-year Russian prison sentence for drug possession, Russian news agencies reported Monday.
Griner, a center for the Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was convicted on Aug. 4. She was arrested in February at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport after vape canisters containing cannabis oil were found in her luggage.
Griner played for a women’s basketball team in Yekaterinburg during the WNBA offseason.
Lawyer Maria Blagovolina was quoted by Russian news agencies on Monday as saying the appeal was filed, but the grounds of the appeal weren’t immediately clear.
Blagovolina and co-counsel Alexander Boykov said after the conviction that the sentence was excessive and that in similar cases defendants have received an average sentence of about five years, with about a third of them granted parole.
Griner admitted that she had the canisters in her luggage, but said she had inadvertently packed them in haste and that she had no criminal intent. Her defense team presented written statements that she had been prescribed cannabis to treat pain.
Before her conviction, the U.S. State Department declared Griner to be “wrongfully detained.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the unusual step of revealing publicly in July that the U.S. had made a “substantial proposal” to get Griner home, along with Paul Whelan, an American serving a 16-year sentence in Russia for espionage.
Blinken didn’t elaborate, but The Associated Press and other news organizations have reported that Washington has offered to free Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who is serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S. and once earned the nickname the “Merchant of Death.”
On Sunday, a senior Russian diplomat said exchange talks have been conducted.
“This quite sensitive issue of the swap of convicted Russian and U.S. citizens is being discussed through the channels defined by our presidents,” Alexander Darchiev, head of the Foreign Ministry’s North America department, told state news agency Tass. “These individuals are, indeed, being discussed. The Russian side has long been seeking the release of Viktor Bout. The details should be left to professionals, proceeding from the ‘do not harm’ principle.'” | 2022-08-15T16:09:18+00:00 | everythinglubbock.com | https://www.everythinglubbock.com/news/national/brittney-griners-lawyers-appeal-russian-prison-sentence/ |
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — A prominent opposition leader and lawmaker in Zimbabwe was convicted Wednesday of obstructing the course of justice for recording a video of himself accusing ruling party supporters of killing and dismembering an activist and posting the video to social media.
Job Sikhala, a Parliament member and senior official in the main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change party, was detained nearly 10 months ago. He must pay a $600 fine by Friday or face an additional six months in jail, according to the verdict by a magistrate.
Sikhala was repeatedly denied bail after his arrest in July. Critics have cited his case as another example of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s attempts to silence the opposition ahead of Zimbabwe’s presidential and parliamentary elections this year.
The 80-year-old Mnangagwa became president in 2017 after a coup ended the 37-year rule of autocratic leader Robert Mugabe.
While the coup was initially welcomed by Zimbabweans and Mnangagwa promised democratic reforms, rights groups have recently accused him of being as oppressive as Mugabe.
Amnesty International and other groups have said the arrest and pretrial detention of the 50-year-old Sikhala and other activists, along with the banning of some political meetings, show Mnangagwa’s willingness to use the justice system against his political opponents.
Sikhala was arrested after his comments at a memorial service for Ali, an activist and member of Sikhala’s Citizens Coalition for Change who was missing for weeks before her body was found hacked into pieces and stuffed in a well.
Police have arrested one man in relation to Ali’s slaying and say they haven’t found a political link to the killing. Opposition figures claim the arrested man is an activist with the ruling Zanu PF party.
Sikhala was the lawyer representing Ali’s family during the search for her. At the memorial service, Sikhala accused ruling party members of killing Ali.
He was seen on video making the accusation and it was posted on social media. On Wednesday, Magistrate Marewanazvo Gofa ruled that “Sikhala was the one who recorded and uploaded the video” and his comments “misled” police.
Sikhala must remain in jail even if he pays the $600 fine because he is also on trial on separate charges of inciting public violence for the speech he made at the memorial service for Ali.
Sikhala has been arrested more than 65 times in the past 20 years, but his lawyers say Wednesday brought his first conviction. The verdict came days after Jacob Ngarivhume, the leader of a fringe political party, was sentenced to four years in jail for a tweet that encouraged people to participate in anti-government protests in 2020. One year of the sentence was suspended.
Zimbabwe’s general election will be in July or August. Many opposition figures say they are battling intense government repression similar to the time when Mugabe, who died in 2019, was president. Zimbabwe has had a series of violent and disputed elections since it gained independence from white minority rule in 1980.
Mnangagwa was a Mugabe ally for decades and served as a vice president during 2014-17 before being fired by Mugabe and then taking power in a coup backed by the army. Mnangagwa denies he is clamping down on the opposition and claims his government has improved the political environment.
Yet in recent months, dozens of opposition supporters, political activists, journalists, church leaders, trade union members and student leaders have been arrested on various charges that legal experts say amount to harassment.
___
More AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa | 2023-05-04T17:18:40+00:00 | fox59.com | https://fox59.com/news/national-world/ap-international/zimbabwe-opposition-figure-fined-for-slain-activist-comments/ |
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C., Sept. 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The legal bar is high for a preliminary injunction and such procedural rulings are rarely granted. But it is a preliminary injunction, which by definition happens before the case is fully considered by the court on a complete record. Gogo CEO Oakleigh Thorne released a statement that is intentionally misleading or grossly misinformed, saying "This ruling supports our frequently stated position that Gogo is not infringing on any valid SmartSky patent" and referenced "SmartSky's meritless patent infringement claims." That is not what the court intended nor what its ruling said. Thorne is attempting to misappropriate and twist the court's opinion to create a public narrative that Gogo has not used SmartSky's patents to build their "5G" network. What the preliminary ruling does do, however, is allow SmartSky's underlying case to continue.
The case against Gogo is clear: it could not have created the forthcoming Gogo 5G system without using SmartSky's patented technology. SmartSky maintains the utmost confidence in the merits of its underlying patent infringement lawsuit against Gogo and will continue to vigorously defend its patent holder rights.
This decision does not change the reality that Gogo is illegally using SmartSky technology while ignoring potential damage to its customers, who may be left with inoperable systems when the case is ultimately decided in favor of SmartSky.
SmartSky is eager for the case to proceed expeditiously and will continue to serve its customers with the fastest and most reliable in-flight connectivity that is available, nationwide, for business jets today.
SmartSky Networks was founded to transform aviation through disruptive communications technologies, services, and tools. Its innovative air-to-ground network is now available with full CONUS coverage. The network takes advantage of patented spectrum reuse, advanced beamforming technologies and 60 MHz of spectrum for significantly enhanced connectivity. SmartSky Networks uniquely enables an "office in the sky" experience with unmatched capacity for data transmissions both to and from the aircraft. This real-time, very low latency, bidirectional data link makes SmartSky Networks the best in-flight user experience, and a key enabler for new and enhanced applications and services. For more information, visit SmartSkyNetworks.com
SmartSky Networks. Data moves us.
Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
CONTACT: brit@smartskynetworks.com
T: +1 (800) 660-9982 ext. 729
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SOURCE SmartSky Networks | 2022-09-27T22:37:25+00:00 | kwtx.com | https://www.kwtx.com/prnewswire/2022/09/27/smartsky-comments-preliminary-injunction-mixed-decision-ruling/ |
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must fire a key ally from the country’s new Cabinet, presenting the Israeli leader with a potential coalition crisis and deepening a rift over the power of the courts.
Ten of 11 judges on the high court found that Aryeh Deri, the influential head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party who has served repeatedly in Netanyahu’s previous governments, is disqualified from serving as a minister after he was convicted last year for tax offenses and placed on probation as part of a plea deal. Deri has pledged not to quit and met after the ruling with Netanyahu.
“Most of the judges on the panel decided that this appointment suffers from extreme unreasonability, and therefore the prime minister must remove Deri from his position,” the court said in a statement.
Deri was defiant.
“I’m glad court ruled as it did. Let the people see and judge,” he said, declining specifics. “When they close the door on us, we’ll get in through the window. When they close the window, we’ll break through the ceiling.’’
The much-anticipated ruling comes as Israel is being roiled by a dispute over sweeping changes to the country’s legal system. One such proposal under consideration is the elimination of the court’s “reasonability” test when reviewing government decisions.
Critics say the various changes at issue would place too much power in the hands of the government and weaken the Supreme Court. Proponents say they would correct a power imbalance between the executive and judicial branches.
Netanyahu will now have to decide whether he abides by the court ruling and fires his key ally, Deri — or takes the dispute with the judicial system up a notch and defies it. A spokesman for Netanyahu had no immediate comment.
But the leaders of the parties in the ruling coalition decried the ruling as a slap at voters after the Nov. 1 election. In a statement, they vowed to act “in any legal way that is available to us and without delay to correct the injustice and the severe damage caused to the democratic choice and the sovereignty of the people.”
Dr. Amir Fuchs, senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank, said Netanyahu is unlikely to ignore the ruling because then he’d be in contempt of court and there is no appealing a Supreme Court decision.
“I am sure that he will abide by the ruling. It doesn’t mean that he will respect the ruling,” Fuchs said. “What will probably happen is that they will do very quick legislation that will enable him to appoint Deri again.”
It’s not clear whether the proposed legal changes, including a plan to allow lawmakers to overrule Supreme Court decisions, could retroactively be applied to Deri’s case.
Critics said such a move would bend the rules to accommodate a convict and could encourage corruption among politicians.
The ruling carries potentially troublesome consequences for Netanyahu’s coalition. Some Shas members have urged Netanyahu to find a solution that would grant Deri the title they say he deserves as head of a mid-sized party. Otherwise, the party could bolt the coalition, which would shrink Netanyahu’s 64-seat majority by 11 seats in the 120-member Knesset.
Yakov Margi, a Shas Cabinet minister, told Kan public radio that, “if Aryeh Deri isn’t in the government, there isn’t a government.”
In a move that was seen as crucial to bringing the governing coalition together, Israeli legislators last month changed a law that prohibited a convict on probation from being a Cabinet minister. That cleared the way for Deri to join the government but prompted the Supreme Court challenge.
Deri is currently serving half a term as the minister of health and interior affairs. He was set to become finance minister in the second half of the term and he is also deputy prime minister.
Likud and its ultra-Orthodox and far-right partners captured a majority of seats in the Knesset, or parliament, in Nov. 1 elections, and formed a government that has made changing the legal system a centerpiece of its agenda.
Public opinion polls have shown most Israelis oppose Deri serving as a government minister.
Still, the Deri ruling is only expected to deepen the divide over the legal overhaul. It will be seen by both camps as an affirmation of their views: either that the courts, in determining who can be a Cabinet minister, have too much power, or that judicial oversight can hold back legislators from questionable laws.
“Today it’s clear that the court, which is not elected, is not interested in compromises and wants limitless control over elected officials,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in a statement. “Reform now!”
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that if Deri is not fired, “Israel will enter an unprecedented constitutional crisis and it will no longer be a democracy and will not be a law-abiding state.”
In a sign of the charged atmosphere, a Shas member of parliament said before the ruling that if the Supreme Court barred Deri, the justices were “shooting themselves in the head.”
Deri was sentenced to three years in prison for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in 2000 during a stint as interior minister in the 1990s. He served 22 months in prison but made a political comeback and retook the reins of Shas in 2013. | 2023-01-19T11:56:45+00:00 | wric.com | https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/ap-israeli-supreme-court-says-minister-barred-over-tax-offenses/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — Max Scherzer tied a season high with 11 strikeouts over seven innings and the New York Mets beat the sloppy Atlanta Braves 6-2 Saturday night to complete a doubleheader sweep.
Francisco Lindor had three hits and three RBIs as New York took the opener 8-5, and the Mets stretched their NL East lead to 5 1/2 games.
Mets fans taunted the second-place Braves in the ninth inning of Game 2 by performing the tomahawk chop, a tradition at games in Atlanta despite complaints from some Native American groups that the chant is degrading.
“I’m not going to tell you I didn’t notice it,” New York manager Buck Showalter said. “Of course I did. We all have our personal opinions on stuff like that.”
Pete Alonso had three singles, including one with the bases loaded to match Yankees star Aaron Judge for the major league lead with 93 RBIs. The Mets swept their second doubleheader against Atlanta this season and opened their biggest division lead since June 21. They are 11-3 in seven twinbills this year, including four sweeps.
“Total team wins in both games,” Scherzer said after earning his 198th career win. “We’re just playing great baseball right now.”
Lindor reached twice in the late game and scored on shortstop Dansby Swanson’s throwing error as Max Fried (10-4) was nearly injured on the play.
New York (69-39) is 30 games over .500 for the first time since finishing 97-65 in 2006.
Scherzer (8-2) allowed four hits, including two doubles to Travis d’Arnaud. The three-time Cy Young Award winner produced his fourth scoreless outing this season and third since returning from an oblique injury July 5.
“He’s a great concentrator and he treats every hitter in the same lineup with the same respect,” Showalter said. “And he’s got a plan. It might not always be perfect, but when he’s got command of his pitches and he can execute — and he’s a student of the game.”
Scherzer retired his final nine hitters and ended the seventh with a flourish. He struck out the side on 15 pitches, getting Eddie Rosario to whiff at a cutter before pinch-hitter William Contreras and Marcell Ozuna swung through sliders.
“They’re a great team, great lineup,” Scherzer said. “For us to show up and bring the energy and go out there and beat them, that’s great. It’s great to get these wins, but it’s not over yet. We know how good they can play, and they can get hot.”
The strikeout of Ozuna pulled Scherzer into a tie for 14th on the career list with former Detroit Tigers teammate Justin Verlander at 3,140.
“He’s one of the best pitchers in baseball,” Fried said. “Has been for a long time.”
Scherzer recorded his 109th career double-digit strikeout game and fifth this year. He did not issue a walk for the fourth time this season.
“His consistency is unbelievable,” Alonso said.
New York has won three of four in the five-game showdown and is 13-0-2 in series against NL East rivals this season.
Ronald Acuña Jr hit an RBI single off Mychal Givens in the eighth and Contreras homered in the ninth, but Atlanta dropped to 4-7 in the season series against the Mets and committed three errors.
Swanson made two errors and third baseman Austin Riley had a throwing error in the sixth on a soft grounder by Darin Ruf.
Fried allowed four runs (two earned) and six hits over six innings in his 100th major league start. He also was shaken up after a hard fall during New York’s three-run third.
After Alonso hit a bloop single, Ruf hit a grounder to first baseman Matt Olson, who got the force at second. Swanson’s return throw bounced and caromed off Fried’s chest at first and went into foul territory.
Fried slipped and fell face-first, and his pitching shoulder and head hit the ground hard as he attempted to get Lindor at home. The left-hander remained in the game.
“Just kind of fell and kind of just whipped my neck and hit my head,” Fried said.
New York scored three in the third and then capitalized on Riley’s error in the sixth. Riley’s throw went past Olson on Ruf’s soft infield single, moving Alonso to third.
The slugger broke for home when Mark Canha hit a chopper to Riley down the line. He made a high throw and Alonso was initially called out by plate umpire Manny Gonzalez on an acrobatic tag by d’Arnaud. But replays showed Alonso’s foot grazed the plate before d’Arnaud could apply the tag, and the call was overturned.
After Givens allowed Acuña’s RBI single in the eighth, pinch-hitter Tyler Naquin hit an RBI single and scored on a suicide squeeze by Tomás Nido.
SHOWALTER’S MILESTONE
Showalter got his 1,620th win in the nightcap to move past Ralph Houk into 20th place on the career list. Houk managed the Yankees, Tigers and Red Sox and went 1,619-1,531 in a career that began in 1961 and lasted through 1984.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Braves: D’Arnaud was lifted in the seventh after a trainer checked him during the replay challenge following his collision with Alonso in the sixth. After the game, X-rays on d’Arnaud’s lower right leg were negative
UP NEXT
Atlanta rookie RHP Spencer Strider (5-3, 2.91 ERA) opposes New York RHP Jacob deGrom (0-0, 1.80) on Sunday in the finale of the five-game series. DeGrom makes his 200th career start and first at home since July 7, 2021.
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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | 2022-08-07T15:05:52+00:00 | mytwintiers.com | https://www.mytwintiers.com/sports/max-scherzer-ks-11-pitches-mets-past-braves-for-dh-sweep/ |
LOS ANGLES, Calif. (AP) _ Oaktree Specialty Lending Corp. (OCSL) on Thursday reported a loss of $37.8 million in its fiscal third quarter.
The Los Angles, California-based company said it had a loss of 21 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for investment costs, were 17 cents per share.
The results fell short of Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 18 cents per share.
The specialty finance company posted revenue of $63.1 million in the period.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on OCSL at https://www.zacks.com/ap/OCSL | 2022-08-04T11:14:45+00:00 | sfgate.com | https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Oaktree-Specialty-Lending-Fiscal-Q3-Earnings-17350629.php |
Two new reports paint a dismal picture of nutrition in the U.S. One finds about 70% of products sold by the largest food companies are unhealthy. Investor groups are pushing for change.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Two new reports paint a dismal picture of nutrition in the U.S. One finds about 70% of products sold by the largest food companies are unhealthy. Investor groups are pushing for change.
Copyright 2022 NPR | 2022-10-24T09:17:15+00:00 | kgou.org | https://www.kgou.org/health/2022-10-24/majority-of-products-by-the-largest-food-firms-are-consider-unhealthy-research-shows |
NEW YORK (AP) — A grand jury has indicted a man who put an agitated New York City subway rider in a fatal chokehold, prosecutors confirmed Thursday.
Daniel Penny was initially charged with manslaughter last month in the May 1 death of Jordan Neely, a former Michael Jackson impersonator who struggled in recent years with homelessness and mental illness.
A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg confirmed the grand jury voted to indict, adding the specific charges will be unveiled at a scheduled June 28 arraignment. Penny had initially been charged with manslaughter in the second degree, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, but a grand jury’s approval of charges was needed for the case to continue.
Neely was shouting at passengers and begging for money when Penny, a former U.S. Marine, pinned him to the floor of the moving subway car with the help of two other riders. Penny then held Neely in a chokehold that lasted more than three minutes until his body went limp.
Penny has said he was protecting himself and other passengers, claiming Neely shouted “I’m gonna’ kill you” and that he was “ready to die” or go to jail for life.
“He was yelling in their faces saying these threats,” Penny said in a video released by his attorneys this week. “I just couldn’t sit still.”
A freelance journalist who recorded Neely struggling to free himself, then lapsing into unconsciousness, said he was acting aggressively and frightening people but hadn’t assaulted anyone. Neely was Black. Penny is white.
Neely’s death prompted protests by many who saw it as an example of racial injustice, setting off a debate about vigilantism and public safety in New York City. Several commentators, including Rev. Al Sharpton, compared the chokehold death to the Bernhard Goetz case in 1984, in which a white gunman shot four Black men on a subway train.
Others have rallied around Penny, including several of the Republican candidates for president. A fund set up to pay for Penny’s legal defense has raised more than $2.8 million, according to his lawyers.
The attorneys, Steven Raiser and Thomas Keniff, said they were confident that a trial jury would find Penny’s actions on the train justified.
“While we respect the decision of the grand jury to move this case forward to trial, it should be noted that the standard of proof in a grand jury is very low and there has been no finding of wrongdoing,” they said.
In a statement, attorneys for the Neely family — Donte Mills and Lennon Edwards — said the grand jury’s decisions “tells our city and our nation that ‘no one is above the law’ no matter how much money they raise, no matter what affiliations they claim, and no matter what distorted stories they tell.”
Neely, 30, had been arrested multiple times and had recently pleaded guilty to assaulting a 67-year-old woman leaving a subway station in 2021.
Penny, 24, was released on $100,000 bond following a May 12 court appearance.
In a statement on Wednesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the indictment would allow for justice to move forward.
“I appreciate DA Bragg conducting a thorough investigation into the death of Jordan Neely,” he said. “Like I said when the DA first brought charges, I have the utmost faith in the judicial process, and now that the Grand Jury has indicted Daniel Penny, a trial and justice can move forward.” | 2023-06-16T16:18:14+00:00 | cbs42.com | https://www.cbs42.com/news/national/man-indicted-in-chokehold-death-of-new-york-subway-rider-jordan-neely-prosecutor-confirms/ |
NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Gross Law Firm issues the following notice to shareholders of Rite Aid Corporation.
Shareholders who purchased shares of RAD during the class period listed are encouraged to contact the firm regarding possible lead plaintiff appointment. Appointment as lead plaintiff is not required to partake in any recovery.
CONTACT US HERE:
CLASS PERIOD: April 14, 2022 to September 28, 2022
ALLEGATIONS: The complaint alleges that during the class period, Defendants issued materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) despite representations to the contrary, the number of new members that the Elixir pharmacy benefit management services business was adding during the selling season ending on January 1, 2023 was in material decline; (ii) Rite Aid was likely to recognize a significant charge for the impairment of goodwill related to Elixir due to a decrease in "lives" covered by Elixir's pharmacy benefit management services business; and (iii) as a result, the Company's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.
DEADLINE: December 19, 2022 Shareholders should not delay in registering for this class action. Register your information here: https://securitiesclasslaw.com/securities/rite-aid-corporation-loss-submission-form/?id=33458&from=4
NEXT STEPS FOR SHAREHOLDERS: Once you register as a shareholder who purchased shares of RAD during the timeframe listed above, you will be enrolled in a portfolio monitoring software to provide you with status updates throughout the lifecycle of the case. The deadline to seek to be a lead plaintiff is December 19, 2022. There is no cost or obligation to you to participate in this case.
WHY GROSS LAW FIRM? The Gross Law Firm is nationally recognized class action law firm, and our mission is to protect the rights of all investors who have suffered as a result of deceit, fraud, and illegal business practices. The Gross Law Firm is committed to ensuring that companies adhere to responsible business practices and engage in good corporate citizenship. The firm seeks recovery on behalf of investors who incurred losses when false and/or misleading statements or the omission of material information by a company lead to artificial inflation of the company's stock. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
CONTACT:
The Gross Law Firm
15 West 38th Street, 12th floor
New York, NY, 10018
Email: dg@securitiesclasslaw.com
Phone: (646) 453-8903
View original content:
SOURCE The Gross Law Firm | 2022-11-09T12:43:04+00:00 | wlbt.com | https://www.wlbt.com/prnewswire/2022/11/09/shareholder-alert-gross-law-firm-notifies-shareholders-rite-aid-corporation-class-action-lawsuit-lead-plaintiff-deadline-december-19-2022-nyse-rad/ |
More than $1.4 million has been awarded to the Lefthand Fire Protection District as well as the Lyons Fire Protection District, through the Assistance to Firefighters Grant. These grants, gifted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, help firefighters and other first responders obtain needed equipment and resources.
The Boulder County districts will receive $822,137 and $578,257, respectively. The funds will be put toward improving the organizations’ fire prevention infrastructure and safety operations.
The grants were announced Thursday by Congressman Joe Neguse. Neguse’s Second Congressional District includes the Lefthand Fire Protection District, which covers most of the foothills northwest of Boulder; and the Lyons district, which adjoins Lefthand to the north.
Neguse is the co-chair of the Bipartisan Wildfire Caucus and recently helped pass the Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency package through the House.
“Wildfires in Colorado’s Second District and across the West continue to threaten the safety of our families and our communities,” Neguse said in a statement. “Now more than ever, the first responders who so valiantly work to protect our homes and (our) communities from the threat of these flames need our support.”
Lyons Fire Protection District Chief Peter Zick said that it was an “amazing feeling” to hear that Lyons and Lefthand received the grants.
“The grants are pretty competitive, with every department in the United States putting in for these,” Zick said Thursday. “For me and (Chief) Chris O’Brien in Lefthand to be awarded them … we were ecstatic, to say the least.”
Zick said the districts will use the money to replace equipment — primarily air packs and radios. The new radios will make it easier for both the Lyons and Lefthand districts to help communicate with any department in Boulder County.
“When you look at line-of-duty deaths, communication is one of the biggest factors,” said Zick. “Both of these grants were geared toward the safety of our firefighters so that there’s no question that we can help each other in times of need.”
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CORNELIUS, N.C. — Authorities in North Carolina said the parents of a missing 11-year-old girl know more than they’re telling officials.
Madalina Cojocari, 11, of Cornelius, was reported missing on Dec. 15, by her mother, Diana Cojocari, 37, and stepfather, Christopher Palmiter, 60, according to a police report.
Her parents told investigators she had not been seen since Nov. 23.
Help the @CorneliusPD , #FBI & the @SBI1937 #FindMadalina. https://t.co/SagEKTkKGL pic.twitter.com/9d4ebHaO6e
— FBI Charlotte (@FBICharlotte) December 27, 2022
Both parents were arrested on Dec. 17 and charged with failing to report the disappearance of a child to law enforcement.
On Tuesday, investigators said they have developed and followed about 250 leads. Capt. Jennifer Thompson said in a video posted to Facebook that those leads have been “across state lines and across the globe.”
Police have knocked on 245 doors in the Victoria Bay neighborhood around Madalina Cojocari’s home, Thompson said.
“This is a serious case of a child whose parents are clearly not telling us everything they know,” Thompson said.
Police have said the girls' school reached out to her parents several times between Nov. 23 and Dec. 15.
On Dec. 15, the mother of the missing child went into her school and stated that she had been missing. That's when officials called in emergency response crews from across the state and the FBI for assistance.
According to WSOC-TV, Cojocari told police she’d last seen the girl at about 10 p.m. on Nov. 23.
Diana Cojocari told police that Madalina Cojocari went to her room that night to go to bed.
Diana Cojocari stated she and her husband argued that night, and the next morning he drove to his family's house in Michigan to recover some items.
According to the FBI, Madalina Cojocari had been wearing "jeans, pink, purple and white Adidas shoes, and a white t-shirt and jacket" at the time of her disappearance.
The FBI has released the last known video of Madalina, taken as she got off the school bus on Nov. 21 at 4:59 p.m.
This is the last time investigators have independent confirmation of when Madalina was last seen. She got off the bus on 11-21-22, at 4:59 p.m. We are seeking additional witnesses outside of the family to narrow down the exact timeline of when she disappeared. #FindMadalina pic.twitter.com/dkStKHmjjB
— FBI Charlotte (@FBICharlotte) December 20, 2022
Anyone with any information is asked to contact the Cornelius Police Department at 704-892-7773 or 1-800-Call FBI if you have information. | 2022-12-29T19:24:21+00:00 | wrtv.com | https://www.wrtv.com/news/national/police-say-parents-of-missing-north-carolina-girl-know-more-about-her-disappearance |
The Nation's Weather for Friday, October 7, 2022
_____
NATIONAL SUMMARY
As high pressure from central Canada pushes southeastward,
chilly air is forecast to spread from the North Central
states to the interior Northeast today. The leading edge of
the chilly air can set off showers and thunderstorms in
parts of Kansas and Nebraska, while showers riddle areas
from Michigan to Pennsylvania and Maine. As the air turns
colder, wet snow will mix with the rain in the northern
Appalachians at night. Warm air will hold on over much of
the Southern states. A couple of showers may dot South
Florida, the Keys and South Texas. Thunderstorms are in the
offing for much of New Mexico as they have been all week.
Some of the storms may extend to Southern California and
northwestern Texas. Much of the West will be very warm and
sunny outside of the thunderstorm zone.
SPECIAL WEATHER
No new information for this time period.
WEATHER HIGHLIGHTS
No new information for this time period.
DAILY EXTREMES
National High Thursday 107 at Death Valley, CA
National Low Thursday 21 at Daniel, WY
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Copyright 2022 AccuWeather | 2022-10-07T09:15:25+00:00 | ourmidland.com | https://www.ourmidland.com/weather/article/The-Nation-s-Weather-17493142.php |
MOSCOW (AP) — A senior Russian diplomat sternly warned Washington Friday against supplying long-range weapons to Ukraine, noting that the U.S. is balancing on the edge of direct involvement in the conflict.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also pointed to the country’s military doctrine that envisages the use of nuclear weapons in case of a threat to the existence of the Russian state.
“We have repeatedly warned the U.S. about the consequences that may follow if the U.S. continues to flood Ukraine with weapons,” Ryabkov said. “It effectively puts itself in a state close to what can be described as a party to the conflict.”
Speaking on state television, Ryabkov warned that ”a very narrow margin that separates the U.S. from becoming a party to the conflict mustn’t create an illusion for rabid anti-Russian forces that everything will remain as it is if they cross it.”
He emphasized that Russia will push its offensive in Ukraine until it reaches its aims.
“Russia is capable of fully defending its interests, and the goals of the special military operation will be fully achieved,” Ryabkov said.
He pointed out that Russia’s military doctrine stipulates that it could use nuclear weapons in case of aggression against Russia and its allies involving mass destruction weapons, or an aggression involving conventional weapons that threatens the very existence of the Russian state.
Supplies of the U.S. HIMARS multiple rocket launchers strengthened the strike capability of the Ukrainian army, which has used them to hit key infrastructure facilities and other targets. The truck-mounted systems fire GPS-guided missiles capable of reaching targets up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) away.
U.S. authorities so far have refrained from providing Ukraine with longer range missiles for HIMARS launchers that can reach targets up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) and could potentially allow the Ukrainian military to hit areas deep inside Russia.
“We are warning the U.S. against making provocative steps, such as deliveries of longer-range and more devastating weapons,” Ryabkov said. “It’s a road to nowhere fraught with grave consequences, the responsibility for which will lie entirely with Washington.” | 2022-09-03T04:59:52+00:00 | localsyr.com | https://www.localsyr.com/news/international/ap-russia-warns-us-off-sending-long-range-weapons-to-ukraine/ |
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Authorities say they were able to rescue a woman by helicopter after she was stuck in the vast marshland of a Florida state park.
After hours of searching, the woman was found in one of the deepest, marshiest areas of the preserve. She was overall well but had to be taken out by helicopter and to be checked at a local hospital.
State authorities caution that the trails along coastal marshes in the preserve are rugged and seasonally flooded. | 2022-04-24T19:30:12+00:00 | washingtonpost.com | https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/stuck-in-florida-wetlands-woman-is-rescued-by-helicopter/2022/04/24/a86f6cda-c402-11ec-8cff-33b059f4c1b7_story.html |
HALTOM CITY, Texas (AP) — A gunman killed two people and wounded four others, including three police officers, before taking his own life in a home in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, police said Sunday.
Haltom City Police Det. Matt Spillane said none of those wounded in the shooting Saturday evening in a residential neighborhood have life-threatening injuries.
Spillane said the officers returned fire after being shot at while responding to a report of gunshots at the home around 6:45 p.m. One officer was hit in both legs, and the other two were shot in the arm. The suspect died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
He said the Texas Rangers — the state’s elite police force — would take over the investigation. A motive for the shooting was not immediately clear. Authorities have not released the names of any of the people involved in the attack.
“The main focus is on how and why this happened,” Spillane told The Associated Press.
A woman was found dead inside a house and a man was found dead outside, Sgt. Rick Alexander said , speaking at a news conference late Saturday. A woman who called 911 was also wounded, he said.
The suspect was found with a “military-style rifle” and a handgun, Alexander said.
The incident is one of several in recent days in which law enforcement officers were fired upon while responding to calls.
Three officers were shot dead in eastern Kentucky while trying to serve a warrant. Police took a 49-year-old man into custody late Thursday night after an hours-long standoff at a home in Allen, a small town in the hills of Appalachia. He remains jailed on a $10 million bond charged with two counts of murder of a police officer.
In Chicago, a police officer was hospitalized in serious condition after being shot repeatedly in a Friday morning ambush while answering a domestic disturbance report, police Superintendent David Brown said. A suspect was hospitalized awaiting a psychiatric evaluation and is being held on a $2 million bond. | 2022-07-03T18:40:05+00:00 | wric.com | https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/north-texas-shooter-kills-2-wounds-3-cops-takes-own-life/ |
SHENZHEN, China, March 31, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- CIMC Group announced its 2022 annual results on March 28th. The report showed that CIMC Group's total revenue for 2022 was approximately RMB 141.5 billion, with a net profit of RMB 4.6 billion. Despite a decline from the historical high in 2021, the results exceeded the levels of 2020 and prior years, showcasing CIMC's ability to maintain a high standard and demonstrating its strong business resilience.
In 2021, CIMC achieved exceptional results in the container shipping market, with record-high revenue and net profit. However, in 2022, the Group faced a challenging and volatile environment, and had to navigate various risks and uncertainties. Despite this, CIMC proactively tackled unfavourable factors, consolidated its logistics and energy equipment manufacturing advantages, increased investment in new energy fields, and diversified its business portfolio. As a result, most of its key businesses maintained a favorable growth or stable development trajectory. With the support of shareholders, customers, and the collective efforts of its employees, CIMC achieved a hard-won accomplishment.
Deepened the strategy of "Steady Operation and Quality Growth", with key indicators steadily improving
According to the report, CIMC's container manufacturing division generated an operating revenue of RMB 45.711 billion in 2022, with a net profit of RMB 5.258 billion. The road transportation vehicle division reported an operating revenue of RMB 23.621 billion and a net profit of RMB 1.114 billion, representing a 12.75% YoY increase. The energy, chemical, and food equipment division achieved an operating revenue of RMB 21.250 billion, an 8.82% YoY increase, with a net profit of RMB 1.042 billion, up 17.74% YoY. Tianda Holdings, which focuses on airport and logistics equipment, as well as fire and rescue equipment, generated an operating revenue of RMB 6.672 billion. The logistics service division reported a revenue of RMB 29.346 billion. The recycled load business generated a revenue of RMB 4.849 billion, while the marine engineering division reported a revenue of RMB 5.771 billion.
In view of last year's performance, CIMC proposes to distribute a final cash dividend of RMB 0.18 (tax included) per share to shareholders, which is subject to approval at the shareholders' meeting.
Over the past year, CIMC's businesses have made steady progress in line with the "Steady Operation and Quality Growth" strategy. The Group has maintained a good level of Return-on-Equity ("ROE") and debt-repaying ability, while also decreasing its debt ratio. CIMC's prudent approach has solidified its new business model for achieving high-quality development.
In 2022, CIMC was named the "Most Admired Chinese Company of 2022" by Fortune magazine, ranking 84th on the 2022 Fortune China 500 list, up 35 places from the previous year. In 2022, CIMC remained at the forefront of the manufacturing industry, maintaining its focus on technological innovation and self-reliance while aligning its development with the four strategic emerging directions of "cold chain, clean energy, ecological conservation, and rural revitalization". The Group successfully integrated equipment manufacturing and services, diversifying its business portfolio through the introduction of green products, smart manufacturing, digitalization, asset management, and after-sales services.
Adhered to the solid manufacturing foundation and seized high-quality development with digital intelligence
For four decades, CIMC Group has focused on enhancing its manufacturing capacity, which is the foundation of the company. Its persistent efforts have led to the recognition and respect of "CIMC manufacturing" and "Made in China" worldwide. The Group has consistently consolidated its leading core advantages in various segments of the manufacturing industry, showcasing the attributes of an industry leader.
With the rise of a new era of digital economic growth, marked by trends such as mobile internet, CIMC Group has stepped up its efforts in digital construction and information transformation. Through embracing digital intelligence, the Group is actively seizing opportunities for high-quality development in the manufacturing industry.
In 2022, CIMC's container division entered a new strategic deployment phase while maintaining its position as the global leader in both core and complementary business sales. CIMC is spearheading the green transition of the container industry through "digital workshops" and "future factories" in the production and manufacturing process. Furthermore, the Company has upgraded all of its dry and reefer container production lines to water-based paint, demonstrating its commitment to sustainability.
CIMC remains a top-performer in the vehicle industry, retaining its global leadership in semi-trailer sales and a prominent position in the domestic special-purpose vehicle market. The "Lighthouse Manufacturing Network" has consistently enhanced efficiency, contributing to this achievement.
CIMC's energy, chemical, and liquid food business have achieved stable growth, with a specific focus on energy equipment, chemical equipment, and liquid food equipment. Internationally, CIMC has collaborated with Maersk and other partners to develop the green methanol fuel market. In the domestic market, CIMC provides a comprehensive solution package of "ship oil-to-gas equipment + service" to shipowners, completing the initial stage of the offshore natural gas industry.
In 2022, CIMC's marine engineering business made significant progress in its strategic transformation. According to the report, the Company successfully seized the opportunities presented by the dual boom in marine oil and gas equipment and clean energy, resulting in a 77% increase in newly signed orders and a 122% increase in backlog orders YoY. CIMC LAFORCE was awarded the qualification of general contractor and the title of best supplier for FPSO by the Brazilian national oil company. The Company also gained recognition from mainstream customers, earning the title of one of the world's leading marine engineering companies.
In terms of airport and logistics, fire and rescue business, CIMC further consolidated its leading advantage in airport equipment and officially delivered the first unmanned passenger boarding bridge in Asia, promoting the intelligent revolution of Chinese airports.
In terms of circular transportation business, CIMC seized the opportunity of the booming production and sales of new energy vehicles, and provided customized power battery packaging to leading companies within the industry, thus establishing its leading market position in the domestic market.
In 2022, CIMC Qingdao Reefer was listed among the excellent smart manufacturing scenarios released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, owing to its three intelligent manufacturing scenarios. CIMC introduced the "Digital CIMC" framework, which elevated the Group's information construction to a global level by collaborating with world-class partners like SAP. This initiative facilitated the intelligent upgrade of the business management system. Furthermore, in the competition for the digital transformation and upgrade of the manufacturing industry, CIMC was crowned the "Industrial Internet Platform Application Leader in China" by IDC China in 2021, which was another significant achievement.
Innovation stimulates momentum and opens new door
In 2022, while focusing on its main business, CIMC Group adhered to its core value of "exploring innovation". It believed that technology is the primary driver of productivity, and innovation-based businesses serve as new driving forces for the high-quality development. The report showed that under the product strategy of "maintaining product leadership, strengthening technological innovation, and promoting intelligent manufacturing", CIMC Group continued to increase its research and development investment, with related expenses grew rapidly YoY. In 2022, the Group achieved a total R&D investment of approximately RMB 2.52 billion, a 12.48% YoY increase from 2021.
By the end of 2022, CIMC had acquired nine national-level specialized and "little giant" enterprises, as well as six national-level champion manufacturing enterprises for their products. In addition, four patents from the group (CIMC Lengyun, CIMC Raffles, CIMC Anrui Huanke, and Nantong CIMC Energy) received the 23rd China Patent Award, marking the highest number of patent projects in the Group's history to receive this honor.
CIMC Group insisted on providing an innovative environment, investing in and incubating innovative enterprises. This has led to emergence of new industries such as environmental protection panels, industrial ecological intelligent equipment, AGV intelligent parking, and intelligent land-based and ocean-based fisheries.
CIMC Group's cold chain business has experienced rapid growth in revenue. The land refrigerated trucks in the North American market witnessed a significant increase in sales and market share, while sea refrigerated containers and medical refrigerated containers maintained stable income. The Group continued to expand and develop its cold chain business, focusing on developing new products suitable for modern agriculture and new energy vehicle scenarios, such as planting containers, refrigeration and insulation equipment integrated containers, new energy refrigerated containers, and aviation containers. Moreover, the Group has achieved the objective of being the leader in two-way import and export cold chain logistics service between "China-Southeast Asia" in the food cold chain industry.
CIMC's energy storage technology business witnessed significant growth in 2022, thanks to the increasing scale of the electrochemical energy storage market. The revenue of its container energy storage business reached an all-time high, while the added value of its products continued to improve, resulting in the emergence of a brand effect. In line with the country's new energy strategy, the Group's energy storage business focused mainly on equipment applications such as energy storage and new energy. CIMC achieved crucial breakthroughs in cooperation with industry-leading customers, enhancing its independent research and development capabilities and technological innovation strength. The Group made improvements in the generation side, grid side, and user side, while also on the integration level.
In 2022, CIMC's modular construction business maintained its customer-centric, technology-driven, and innovation-driven approach. The Group offered one-stop, diversified, industrialized, turnkey building solutions to its customers, including consulting, design, manufacturing, construction, and delivery.
CIMC remains committed to its fundamental strategy of global operations while embracing the "internal circulation" strategy. The Group has established strategic partnerships with 15 key players, including ZTE, JD.com, and XCMG, to expand external cooperation and boost domestic business. Currently, there are over 100 projects under discussion, covering various fields such as cold chain, clean energy, ecological conservation, and rural revitalization. The proportion of domestic revenue steadily increased to 51.5% during this period.
CIMC Group leveraged the strengths of each business segment, seized potential opportunities within the industry chain, and fortified technological and product innovation to shape new competitive advantages in each sector. The Group achieved unprecedented heights and made remarkable breakthroughs with the help of technological innovation.
Continuing to deepen the energy revolution by gradually transitioning towards Green and embracing renewables
CIMC Group's business units have placed a strong emphasis on green transformation, with a focus on researching and developing new materials, technologies, and processes to achieve their goals.
In 2022, CIMC's container business segment introduced its first container powder coating technology and continued to explore environmentally friendly manufacturing for containers. The segment achieved significant breakthroughs in various fields, including the development of thermoplastic composite material. This material found application in containers, oil pipelines, automotive parts, new energy batteries, green building materials, communication equipment, and high-speed trains. The container business segment took a leading role in the development and industrial application of thermoplastic composite materials. Moreover, CIMC integrated its container resources, increased research and development of technology and innovation in the field of new energy integrated equipment. The Company also completed several large-scale energy storage projects and is partnered to shape the future of energy.
CIMC Vehicles actively researches and promotes green products that utilize new energy and are lightweight. It has developed a series of safe and energy-saving products, such as the new energy charging concrete mixer truck, KOGEL-9.6 meter lightweight refrigerated truck, and CIMC-Geely Yuan-cheng-xing-zhi 4.2-meter steel flatbed container (pure electric vehicle model).
Centered around the green transformation, CIMC has also actively explored and developed the application and expansion of clean energy businesses. In the revolution of green energy, CIMC has always been ambitious about new energy, remained vigilant towards the change of technological path, and comprehensively deployed equipment towards hydrogen energy, offshore photovoltaic, offshore wind power, and energy storage.
In terms of land transportation, CIMC Enric played a significant role in supporting the Beijing Winter Olympics' aim of achieving carbon neutrality by providing dozens of sets of hydrogen storage and refueling equipment. CIMC Enric also achieved a breakthrough by developing the first 40-foot liquid helium tank container in China, which addressed the domestic gap in liquid helium storage and transportation products. Furthermore, the Company's self-developed small LPG tanker with an unloading pump became the first to pass the "three new" evaluation in China, paving the way for the rural micro gas pipeline construction and promoting comprehensive development of the blue ocean market of gas utilization in rural areas.
In terms of maritime segment, with the synergy of various businesses including CIMC Seaspan and CIMC Enric, CIMC has vigorously developed "gasifying Xijiang River" in Zhaoqing City. The first batch of LNG-powered cement tankers were officially launched, which has helped to completely transform the bulk cement transportation method and make shipping in the Pearl River and Xijiang River basins more environmentally friendly and efficient. CIMC also independently developed the world's largest 20,000m³ LNG transportation and refuelling vessel, as well as the first domestic ammonia fuel refuelling vessel, which are driving the world's shipping decarbonization trend. CIMC Florens is aggressively developing the offshore wind power energy equipment industry, independently constructing the "3060" series, the world's largest and latest generation of wind turbine installation vessels, and 30-meter offshore wind power operation and maintenance vessels. All these developments helped promoting the strategy of offshore clean energy, boosting the sustainable development of the offshore wind power industry, and transforming the Group into the "green practitioner."
Achieving Rural Revitalization upon the implementation of the support measures
Promoting rural revitalization is a responsibility entrusted to CIMC by the Party and the State, and it is also an integral part of fulfilling its social responsibility and building a world-class enterprise. In 2022, CIMC made industrial development and rural revitalization a continuous and routine business. The Group fully supported the "common prosperity" initiative and, through multiple precise and effective assistance measures, the Group actively contributed to the development of local communities, and played a crucial role in rural revitalization.
On one hand, CIMC Group adapted to local conditions and facilitated industrial assistance. By driving upstream and downstream industries and supporting mass employment, the Group enhanced its ability to generate revenue and established a long-term supportive mechanism.
CIMC New Material vigorously develops the bamboo industry and contributes to local economic benefits. In 2022, CIMC New Material further accelerated the development of rural revitalization workshops and completed the construction of 20 new rural revitalization workshops in Anhui, Hunan, Fujian and other places. In November 2022, Zhulian Technology, a subsidiary of CIMC, signed a cooperation framework agreement with the Yueyang Economic Development Zone, planning to build a renewable fiber industrial park. This project will not only promote local economic development but also effectively help the Yueyang Economic Development Zone better solve the problem of reed treatment in Dongting Lake, and make positive contributions to the development of China's degradable materials industry and environmental protection.
Further, as a world-leading supplier of logistics and energy equipment, CIMC Group provides high-quality and reliable equipment and services to global customers and society. The Group leverages its expertise in equipment, supports national strategies and accelerates the modernization of China's agriculture and rural areas.
CIMC Vehicles continues to make efforts in areas such as grain transportation and refrigerated transportation, providing efficient and convenient transportation as well as loading and unloading integrated solutions for grain transportation. At the same time, it strongly supports the safe and economic development of the trunk cold chain logistics industry, and promotes the supply and marketing of agricultural products.
In April 2022, CIMC Enric had developed an LPG tank truck with an unloading pump that passed the national technology review for "new materials, new technologies, and new processes," making it the first batch of LPG micro-network equipment to pass the review. This achievement filled a technical gap in the provision of clean energy to rural areas. As of today, CIMC Enric has delivered two of these LPG tank trucks with unloading pumps to China National Petroleum Corporation, both of which are now in use.
In 2022, CIMC Vehicles supplied Yunnan Yunling Central Processing Center with reusable baskets to replace disposable recycling packaging. This offered a practical logistics solution for reducing carbon emissions, as well as lowering costs and increasing efficiency.
CIMC Cold Chain addresses the problem of preserving agricultural products during long-distance transportation, with the aim of helping farmers achieve common prosperity. In July 2022, CIMC Cold Chain reached a partnership with Guangxi Supply and Marketing E-commerce Co., Ltd. to extend the shelf life of laichee using innovative equipment and technology in mobile cold storage. This approach prolongs the preservation period by 5-10 days compared to traditional pre-cooling methods, effectively reducing the 5-10% loss of fruits and vegetables during circulation, promoting the sale of laichee from Lingshan to a wider market.
CIMC Fisheries has developed a new "container+" approach to promote the transformation and modernization of traditional aquaculture. In March 2022, the first phase of the XinHui CIMC Fisheries Technology Demonstration Base was completed, encouraging local farmers and cooperatives to engage in seedling breeding and raw fish breeding, thereby contributing to the achievement of common prosperity.
Looking ahead: Stand Firm, Fight Hard, Restart
As of 2023, the global economic perspective remains challenging, and the effects of foreign inflation and central bank interest rate increases have yet to be fully reversed. Nevertheless, the domestic market is already experiencing a revival, and the "Maintain Stable Growth" policy has been explicitly prioritized in the Central Economic Work Conference, which presents new opportunities for market development.
The stock market is showing signs of acceleration, signalling the start of a new phase. CIMC Group has clearly stated its future development vision: "To build CIMC into a High-quality, Respected World-class Enterprise". To achieve this, CIMC aims to strengthen, optimize, and expand its logistics and energy equipment industries while exploring strategic emerging sectors that fit within market demand and industry gaps. By building a resilient business portfolio, enhancing profitability, and achieving long-term stability and prosperity.
CIMC Group intends to further integrate its logistics and energy equipment manufacturing and service advantages, with a focus on consolidating its industry-leading position and solidifying and improving its overall performance in the future. To achieve this goal, the Group plans to strengthen its equipment manufacturing main business by integrating upstream and downstream industry chain resources and providing more comprehensive and integrated services. It also intends to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of product greening, digitization, and intelligence, while creating product leadership through technological innovation. Additionally, the Group plans to adhere to the national development strategy by seizing the opportunities presented by "smart logistics" and "clean energy". It aims to expand its existing advantages within the scope of its main business and build new core competencies around four strategic themes: "cold chain," "clean energy," "green environment," and "rural revitalization." By doing so, CIMC Group hopes to further advance its standing within the industry and secure its position as a leading global enterprise.
In 2023, CIMC Group plans to adeptly seize opportunities for advantageous business development, guided by the 2035 Vision Outline and actively investing in the construction based on the 14th Five-Year Plan. The Group is committed to realizing its new vision of "Building a High-quality and Respected World-class Enterprise" and will make unremitting efforts in three key areas: strengthening, expanding, and persisting.
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SOURCE CIMC | 2023-03-31T13:29:25+00:00 | kfyrtv.com | https://www.kfyrtv.com/prnewswire/2023/03/31/cimcs-revenue-reached-rmb-1415-billion-2022-pursue-quality-development-with-greater-resilience/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will hear arguments over a California animal cruelty law that could raise the cost of bacon and other pork products nationwide.
The case’s outcome is important to the nation’s $26-billion-a-year pork industry, but the outcome could also limit states’ ability to pass laws with impact outside their borders, from laws aimed at combating climate change to others intended to regulate prescription drug prices.
The case before the court on Tuesday involves California’s Proposition 12, which voters passed in 2018. It said that pork sold in the state needs to come from pigs whose mothers were raised with at least 24 square feet of space, including the ability to lie down and turn around. That rules out the confined “gestation crates,” metal enclosures that are common in the pork industry.
Two industry groups, the Iowa-based National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation, sued over the proposition. They say that while Californians consume 13% of the pork eaten in the United States, nearly 100% of it comes from hogs raised outside the state, primarily where the industry is concentrated in the Midwest and North Carolina. The vast majority of sows, meanwhile, aren’t raised under conditions that would meet Proposition 12’s standards.
The question for the high court is whether California has impermissibly burdened the pork market and improperly regulated an industry outside its borders.
Pork producers argue that 72% of farmers use individual pens for sows that don’t allow them to turn around and that even farmers who house sows in larger group pens don’t provide the space California would require.
They also say that the way the pork market works, with cuts of meat from various producers being combined before sale, it’s likely all pork would have to meet California standards, regardless of where it’s sold. Complying with Proposition 12 could cost the industry $290 million to $350 million, they say.
So far, lower courts have sided with California and animal-welfare groups that had supported the proposition. But for a number of reasons the law has yet to go into effect.
The Biden administration, for its part, is urging the justices to side with pork producers. The administration says Proposition 12 would be a “wholesale change in how pork is raised and marketed in this country.” And it says the proposition has “thrown a giant wrench into the workings of the interstate market in pork.”
California’s Proposition 12 also covers other animals. It says egg-laying hens and calves being raised for veal need to be raised in conditions in which they have enough room to lie down, stand up and turn around freely. Those parts of the law aren’t at issue in the case.
The case is National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, 21-468. | 2022-10-11T16:51:24+00:00 | keloland.com | https://www.keloland.com/news/politics/ap-supreme-court-to-hear-case-that-could-raise-price-of-pork/ |
BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s economy minister welcomed a deal Friday among European Union countries to increase by more than a third the bloc’s renewable energy target for 2030.
Representatives of the 27 member states approved a package raising the current goal of 32% to 45% by 2030. About 22% of the EU’s total energy consumption came from renewables in 2021, meaning the new target will double the amount in less than a decade.
The deal includes a number of exceptions to cover the interests of various member states, including specific clauses on hydrogen production.
“The new European rules will trigger an investment boom for renewables and make it legally binding,” said Economy Minister Robert Habeck, whose portfolio includes energy and climate.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has accelerated the EU’s green transition. The bloc reduced its dependency on Russian fossil fuels and increased its renewable energy use over the past year.
Under the new rules, countries that fail to add enough solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy each year could be fined by the EU. The share of renewables must increase by 0.8 percentage points annually until 2025, after which it will have to rise by 1.1 percentage points.
This will amount to more than 100 gigawatts of new wind and solar capacity installations across the bloc each year, Habeck’s office said.
The energy, housing, industrial and transport sectors will each have specific targets for renewable energy use.
Agreement had been held up by France and several eastern European countries demanding that hydrogen produced with nuclear power should be counted toward renewable energy targets. The German government, which opposed this, said that will now not be the case, though there will “a bit more flexibility” on hydrogen targets for countries that meet their renewable energy goals.
Separately, countries agreed to introduce binding quotas for the use of e-fuels — made using renewable energy — in the aviation sector, starting with a share of 1.2% in 2030 that rises to 35% by 2050. Biofuels made from waste products and other renewable resources will need to make up a further 35% of aviation fuels used by mid-century.
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Follow AP’s coverage of climate and environment at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment | 2023-06-17T15:03:48+00:00 | pix11.com | https://pix11.com/ap-international/germany-hails-eu-deal-on-renewable-energy-raising-target-for-2030-to-45/ |
- FAST-02 represents a key milestone in the development of Flash therapy
- Flash therapy delivers radiation at ultra-high dose rates in typically less than one second and is capable of being over 100 times faster compared to conventional radiation therapy
PALO ALTO, Calif., June 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Varian, a Siemens Healthineers company, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) to advance Varian's Flash clinical research program with the FAST-02 (FeAsibility Study of Flash therapy for the Treatment of Symptomatic Bone Metastases) clinical trial. Data from FAST-01, the first-ever human clinical trial of Flash, was used to support the approval of the FAST-02 study and will be reported later this year.
The FAST-02 clinical trial builds on the clinical evidence from FAST-01 and will include bone metastases in the chest, providing critical insights into the clinical use of Flash treatment for cancer metastases.
FAST-02 is expected to enroll 10 patients with painful thoracic bone metastases and aims to evaluate treatment-related side effects and efficacy of treatment, which will be assessed using trial participants' reported pain relief.
Similar to FAST-01, FAST-02 was designed with input from leading scientific experts from the FlashForward™ Consortium and will be conducted at the Cincinnati Children's/UC Health Proton Therapy Center with John C. Breneman, M.D., FASTRO, as principal investigator.
"For the last decade, radiation oncologists have been exploring Flash therapy as an important opportunity to create a paradigm shift in the way we treat patients," said Breneman, Medical Director of the Cincinnati Children's/UC Health Proton Therapy Center, University of Cincinnati Cancer Center member. "The FAST-01 trial laid the groundwork for the approval of FAST-02, and we are excited to continue the clinical research and evaluate Flash therapy in a new patient cohort."
In connection with the FAST-02 clinical trial, the Varian ProBeam® system's proton particle accelerator has been modified to deliver Flash therapy, and Varian's Eclipse™ treatment planning system has also been modified to create plans for the Flash treatments. Varian is the only industry partner to advance the development of Flash therapy as an integrated, end-to-end solution that includes innovations in treatment planning, quality assurance, and therapy delivery technologies.
"Receiving IDE approval for FAST-02 reaffirms our confidence in the potential of Flash therapy and represents an important step toward delivering this groundbreaking therapy in a clinical setting," said Agam Sharda, Vice President of Flash Solutions at Varian. "Together with our FlashForward Consortium, we have expanded Flash therapy research using our systems as we work to improve the patient experience. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with experts around the world to push the boundaries of innovation in cancer care."
"Preclinical research of Flash therapy indicates using ultra-high dose rates may be less toxic to patients overall and enhances sparing of adjacent healthy tissue," said Deepak "Dee" Khuntia, M.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Varian. "The FAST-02 study will advance our work toward an important proof of concept, particularly in deep-seated tumors. We are eager to build on our clinical understanding of Flash therapy as we continue our work to transform cancer care."
About Flash therapy
Flash therapy, an experimental treatment modality delivering radiation therapy at ultra-high dose rates in typically less than one second, may be over 100 times faster compared to conventional radiation therapy. The concept of ultra-high dose rate radiation delivery has been studied for many years. Dedicated research and development by the team at Varian has led the advancement of clinical evidence for proton Flash therapy. Varian's efforts include investing in bench and preclinical research and supporting the FlashForward™ Consortium, a group of dozens of institutions from around the world, which includes experts in radiation oncology, translational sciences and medical physics.
About Varian
At Varian, a Siemens Healthineers company, we envision a world without fear of cancer. For more than 70 years, we have developed, built and delivered innovative cancer care technologies and solutions for our clinical partners around the globe to help them treat millions of patients each year. With an Intelligent Cancer Care approach, we are harnessing advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics to enhance cancer treatment and expand access to care. Our 11,000 employees across 70 locations keep the patient and our clinical partners at the center of our thinking as we power new victories in cancer care. Because, for cancer patients everywhere, their fight is our fight. For more information, visit https://www.varian.com/ and follow @VarianMedSys on Twitter.
About the Cincinnati Children's/UC Health Proton Therapy Center
The Cincinnati Children's/UC Health Proton Therapy Center, which opened in 2016, is one of only 39 in the United States. Affiliated with the University of Cincinnati Cancer Center, the proton therapy center is a $24 million, one-of-a-kind research facility, which includes a fully operational proton treatment room dedicated for just research along with integrated laboratories. The unique capabilities of the research center were instrumental in Cincinnati developing the world's first clinical trial of Flash proton therapy. In addition, children and adults from around the world seek treatment for more than 30 types of cancer in two clinical therapy rooms at the center.
Press Contacts
Shay Smith
Health+Commerce
Shay@healthandcommerce.com
Katie Villany
Varian Corporate Communications
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SOURCE Varian | 2022-06-27T15:53:11+00:00 | wymt.com | https://www.wymt.com/prnewswire/2022/06/27/varian-receives-investigational-device-exemption-ide-flash-technology-clinical-trial-fast-02/ |
LONDON (AP) — Ukraine’s allies pledged several billion dollars in non-military aid on Wednesday to rebuild the country’s war-ravaged infrastructure, fight corruption and help pave the country’s road to membership in the European Union.
Stressing the vast scale of the task, diplomats and political leaders at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London urged private-sector companies to invest and revive an economy battered by almost 16 months of war.
Delegates from more than 60 countries attended the conference, which was both a fundraising forum and a message to Russia that Ukraine’s Western supporters are in it for the long haul.
The World Bank has estimated the cost of the invaded nation’s reconstruction at more than $400 billion, a figure rising daily alongside the human toll of Russia’s aggression. Politicians from Europe and the U.S. vowed that Russia would one day be made to pay for the destruction, though officials acknowledged that day is some way off.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. would give more than $1.3 billion in new aid, including more than $500 million to restore and improve Ukraine’s battered energy grid.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced 50 billion euros ($55 billion) in support through 2027, while Britain pledged 240 million pounds ($305 million) in aid and 3 billion pounds ($3.8 billion) in World Bank loan guarantees for Ukraine. Germany announced 381 million euros ($416 million) in humanitarian aid.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who addressed delegates by video, said his country needed action, not just pledges.
“We must move from vision to agreements and from agreements to real projects,” he said.
Zelenskyy, who is pushing for Ukraine’s membership in NATO and the European Union, urged Western leaders to have the “courage” to acknowledge that his country already was part of their economic and defense alliances.
“We are only waiting for the courage of the alliance leaders to recognize this reality, politically,” he said.
NATO leaders are expected to endorse Ukraine’s membership aspiration at a summit next month, but the alliance is wary of admitting the country while the war with Russia is raging.
Britain said Wednesday it would support removing an obstacle to Ukraine’s eventual NATO membership by waiving a a “membership action plan,” which sets out reforms candidate nations must make before they can join the alliance. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland were offered NATO membership without submitting such plans.
U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said “many of the requirements of the membership action plan are actually being delivered” by Ukraine, including armed forces reform.
“I think the U.K.’s position will be very, very supportive if we moved on from the membership action plan,” Cleverly told reporters.
On the issue of Ukraine joining the 27-nation EU, von der Leyen said “I have no doubt that Ukraine will be part of our union” but stressed the country must still meet conditions such as reducing corruption and reforming the judiciary before it can start accession talks.
Such reforms would send “a powerful message” to investors that they will get the “transparency, fairness and the functioning institutions they need to invest in Ukraine,” von der Leyen said.
Blinken also highlighted the importance of anti-corruption efforts by Ukraine, a country long plagued by graft. He said some of the pledged U.S. money would go toward upgrading ports and border infrastructure and digitizing customs procedures to curb rule-breaking
“The goal is to rebuild a Ukraine that is fit for (the) EU,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, whose country will host another recovery conference next year, said.
At last year’s recovery conference in Switzerland, Ukraine called for billions in Russian assets frozen by Western countries since the invasion to be used for Ukraine’s recovery.
That is under discussion in several countries, and getting international agreement on a precedent-setting reparations move could prove tricky. Britain took a step in that direction this week, extending sanctions on Russia so that funds can be kept frozen until Ukraine gets compensation for the invasion.
Cleverly said the U.K. would “explore all legal paths, both domestically and internationally,” to make Russia pay for the destruction it had caused.
Blinken said the principle was clear: “Russia is causing Ukraine’s destruction, and Russia will eventually bear the cost of Ukraine’s reconstruction.”
Many say Ukraine needs the equivalent of the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe after World War II. Russian attacks had decimated its infrastructure even before an explosion collapsed the Kakhovka dam this month, flooding some 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) of land and displacing thousands of people.
The London conference aims to harness private-sector investment. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said BT, Virgin, Philips and Hyundai Engineering were among more than 400 companies from 38 countries that have committed to invest in Ukraine.
Ukraine is a “huge investment opportunity” despite the mounting destruction from Russian attacks, Sunak said.
“In fact, the war has only proved how much Ukraine has to offer,” the prime minister said, citing Ukraine’s tech sector, which had its best-ever year in 2022.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the world’s major grain producers, threatened a global food crisis that was eased by a deal that lets Ukraine export grain through the Black Sea.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for restoration, Oleksandr Kubrakov, said the country was in talks with the U.N. and deal broker Turkey but “not optimistic” that Russia will agree to extend the agreement beyond next month.
“What we see is that even (though) the corridors exist for the moment, till the 17th of July, but since the beginning of May the efficiency of the corridor decreased up to 20%,” Kubrakov told reporters.
“We are doing our best in order to maintain this initiative, this corridor, because for us it’s critical. It’s not only for us critical — for global food security it’s one of the key questions,” he said.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine | 2023-06-21T18:05:49+00:00 | localsyr.com | https://www.localsyr.com/news/international/allies-seek-big-business-investment-to-rebuild-ukraine-at-london-conference/ |
HENDERSON, Nev. (AP)Trey Calvin’s 27 points helped Wright State defeat Abilene Christian 77-61 at the Vegas 4 on Monday night.
Calvin also contributed five assists for the Raiders (4-1). Amari Davis scored 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting.
Ali Abdou Dibba led the way for the Wildcats (2-2) with 14 points, six rebounds and three steals. Cameron Steele added 11 points and two steals.
Wright State led Abilene Christian 42-31 at the half, with Davis (11 points) their high scorer before the break.
Calvin scored 18 in the second half to help his team secure the victory.
NEXT UP
Both teams next play Tuesday. Wright State plays UC Riverside while Abilene Christian takes on Weber State.
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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar. | 2022-11-22T16:28:13+00:00 | krqe.com | https://www.krqe.com/sports/ncaa-mens-basketball/calvin-leads-wright-state-past-abilene-christian-77-61/ |
When Dani Yuengling felt a lump in her right breast last summer, she tried to ignore it.
She was 35, the same age her mother had been when she received a breast cancer diagnosis in 1997. The disease eventually killed Yuengling's mom in 2017.
"It was the hardest experience, seeing her suffer," said Yuengling, who lives in Conway, South Carolina.
After a mammogram confirmed the lump needed further investigation, Yuengling scheduled a breast biopsy for Valentine's Day this year at Grand Strand Medical Center in Myrtle Beach.
Among many concerns she had ahead of that appointment — the first being a potential cancer diagnosis — Yuengling needed to know how much the biopsy would cost. She has a $6,000 annual deductible — the amount her health plan requires she pay before its contribution kicks in — and she wasn't close to hitting that. Whatever the procedure cost, Yuengling knew she'd be on the hook for most of it.
But the hospital wouldn't give her a price. She was told her providers wouldn't know what type of biopsy needle they needed until the procedure was underway and that would impact the price.
The hospital's online "Patient Payment Estimator" showed that an uninsured patient would owe about $1,400 for the procedure.
"That's fine. No big deal," she thought to herself, confident it would be cheaper for her because she did have insurance. A Google search indicated it could be closer to $3,000, but Yuengling thought that price seemed reasonable, too. She wasn't fretting too much about money as she underwent the procedure.
It soon brought the good news that she didn't have cancer.
Then the bill came.
The patient: Dani Yuengling, now 36, who is covered by Cigna through her employer, a human resources contractor for the Mayo Clinic.
Medical service: An ultrasound-guided breast biopsy.
Service provider: Grand Strand Medical Center, a 403-bed, for-profit hospital in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It is one of 182 hospitals owned by Nashville-based HCA Healthcare, which generated $58.7 billion in revenue last year.
Total bill: $17,979 for the procedure, including lab work, pharmacy charges, and sterile supplies. Cigna's in-network negotiated rate was $8,424.14, of which the insurance company paid the hospital $3,254.47. Yuengling was billed $5,169.67, the balance of her deductible.
What gives: It's not uncommon for uninsured patients — or any patient willing to pay a cash price — to be charged far less for a procedure than patients with health insurance. For the nearly 30% of American workers with high-deductible plans, like Yuengling, that means using insurance can lead to a far bigger expense than if they had been uninsured or just pulled out a credit card to pay in advance.
Ge Bai, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, recently published research on this topic and said hospitals in the U.S. often set their cash prices lower than the prices they charge to treat commercially insured patients.
"We can very confidently say this is very common," said Bai, who advised that all patients, regardless of their insurance status, inquire about the cash price before undergoing a procedure. "It should be a norm."
Grand Strand charged Yuengling's insurance an extraordinarily high price for her procedure. By comparison, according to the federal government's website, Medicare patients who need an ultrasound-guided biopsy similar to the one Yuengling received would pay only about $300 — their required 20% coinsurance for outpatient care. Medicare would pay the hospital the remainder of the bill, about $1,200. The hospital expected more than five times the Medicare price from Yuengling and her insurer.
Patients in Conway with private health insurance who are treated at other hospitals also typically are charged less than what Yuengling paid for the same procedure — on average about $3,500, according to Fair Health Consumer, an organization that analyzes health insurance claims.
And uninsured patients who pay cash prices and need an ultrasound-guided breast biopsy at the nearby Conway Medical Center are likely to owe even less — about $2,100, according to Allyson Floyd, a spokesperson for the hospital.
Meanwhile, Grand Strand Medical Center spokesperson Caroline Preusser blamed "a glitch" involving the hospital's online calculator for the inaccurate information Yuengling received and said the correct estimate for the cash price for a breast biopsy at the hospital is between $8,000 and $11,500 "depending on the exact procedure and equipment used."
The hospital removed certain procedures from the payment estimator until they can be corrected, Preusser wrote. She did not say how long that would take.
Resolution: Yuengling tried disputing the charges with the hospital. She called the billing department and was offered a 36% discount, lowering the amount she needed to pay to $3,306.29. Grand Strand Medical Center allows patients to set up payment plans, but Yuengling decided to charge the full amount to a credit card because she wanted the whole thing to go away.
"I could not sleep. It was driving me crazy. I was having migraines. I was sick to my stomach," she said. "I hate having debt. I didn't want to think about it. Obviously, that didn't work because I'm still thinking about it."
She said she requested on multiple occasions to speak to the hospital's patient advocate and was eventually connected with an outside company, Parallon, which conducted an audit of her bill. She eventually received a letter dated May 26 from the hospital's Revenue Integrity Department. It stated: "After a review of the charges in question and your medical record, the following was identified; The charges on your account were appropriate."
"I don't know why I actually expected a different outcome," she said.
The hospital has requested that Yuengling return for a follow-up appointment related to the biopsy. She has refused.
Harlow Sumerford, a spokesperson for HCA Healthcare, told KHN in an email that the hospital system apologizes for any confusion caused by the payment estimator "and we are working to fix the issue."
The takeaway: With a family history of breast cancer, Yuengling was right to follow up with her doctor after feeling a lump. After failing to get a clear answer on her costs from Grand Strand Medical Center, she could have taken an additional step to explore what other hospitals in the area charge. Although her physician referred her to Grand Strand, she was not obligated to use that hospital. She could have saved a significant amount of money by opting to undergo the procedure elsewhere.
Furthermore, patients like Yuengling who have a high-deductible insurance plan should consider paying cash prices for certain procedures and not involving their insurance company at all.
Jacqueline Fox, a health care attorney and a professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, said she isn't aware of any law that would prohibit a patient from doing that. After all, she pointed out, patients with health insurance pay cash prices for prescription medications all the time. It stands to reason they could do the same for medical procedures.
But some facilities make this difficult. Grand Strand Medical Center, for example, offers "self-pay" patients an "uninsured discount," but that discount is limited to people who have "no third party payer source of payment or do not qualify for Medicaid, Charity or any other discount program the facility offers," according to the hospital's website. Only patients confirmed to have no health insurance are offered information about the discount.
In some cases, paying a cash price for a procedure might not make financial sense in the long run because none of it would be applied toward the deductible. Patients might save money on one procedure but end up paying their full deductible if unexpected medical expenses mount later during the calendar year.
Insured patients should reach out to their health plan for a good-faith estimate before a procedure. Under the No Surprises Act, health plans are supposed to give members an idea of their total out-of-pocket costs upon request. Ask for an "Advanced Explanation of Benefits," said Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy, though she points out this part of the law isn't being enforced yet.
The No Surprises Act also allows patients to file complaints with the federal government regarding their medical bills — whether or not they carry health insurance.
Yuengling filed her complaint in June.
Stephanie O'Neill contributed the audio portrait with this article.
Bill of the Month is a crowdsourced investigation by KHN and NPR that dissects and explains medical bills. Do you have an interesting medical bill you want to share with us? Tell us about it!
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. It is an editorially independent major operating program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation).
Copyright 2022 Kaiser Health News. To see more, visit Kaiser Health News. | 2022-08-23T10:21:16+00:00 | nepm.org | https://www.nepm.org/2022-08-23/an-18-000-biopsy-paying-cash-might-have-been-cheaper-than-using-her-insurance |
Purdue’s unquestioned grip on No. 1 in The Associated Press men’s college basketball poll is gone after a weekend loss. That didn’t stop the Boilermakers from remaining at the top anyway.
The Boilermakers earned 38 of 62 first-place votes in the poll released Monday to remain at No. 1 for a third straight week and seventh time this season. Purdue was the unanimous choice last week, the first for any team this season, before falling at Indiana over the weekend for only its second loss.
The Boilermakers (22-2, 11-2) have a leading candidate for national player of the year in Zach Edey and KenPom’s No. 1-ranked offense (121.1 points scored per 100 possessions) to go with a top-25 defense. But they got down big, committed 16 turnovers and allowed the Hoosiers — up to No. 18 this week — to shoot nearly 53% in a 79-74 loss Saturday.
“When we go to Zach and we make some perimeter shots, the defense gets better sometimes when the offense flows,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said at his postgame news conference. “And you can’t do that. You can always rebound, you can always take care of the ball, you can always make your free throws, those things there.”
The loss meant Houston collected 22 first-place votes as it rose one spot to No. 2, followed by No. 3 Alabama and No. 4 Arizona in each claiming one.
THE TOP TIER
Texas jumped five spots to No. 5, shooting past Tennessee, which fell four spots to No. 6 after losing last week at Florida.
UCLA, Virginia, Kansas and Marquette rounded out the top 10, with Shaka Smart’s Golden Eagles cracking the top 10 for the first time since 2019.
RISING
The Longhorns’ jump marked the biggest of the week, followed by Marquette and Miami each rising four spots. No. 13 Xavier, No. 15 Saint Mary’s and No. 21 UConn joined Indiana in each moving up three positions.
In all, 12 teams rose from last week’s rankings.
SLIDING
Kansas State took the week’s biggest tumble, falling five spots to No. 12 after losing at Kansas and at home to Texas last week. No. 16 Gonzaga joined Tennessee in falling four spots after its overtime loss at Saint Mary’s.
In all, nine teams fell from last week’s rankings.
STATUS QUO
Purdue was the only team to remain in the same position this week.
WELCOME
North Carolina State earned its first AP Top 25 ranking in four years, checking in at No. 22.
The Wolfpack (19-5, 9-4 Atlantic Coast Conference) spent six weeks in the poll during the 2018-19 season. N.C. State already has surpassed the win total for each of the last two seasons and is in contention for the program’s first NCAA Tournament berth since 2018.
Creighton and Rutgers joined N.C. State as this week’s new additions to the poll, though both were ranked earlier this season. The Bluejays were No. 9 in the preseason poll and peaked at No. 7 before falling out by mid-December, while the Scarlet Knights spent a week at No. 23 in mid-January.
FAREWELL (FOR NOW)
Florida Atlantic (No. 19), Clemson (No. 20) and Auburn (No. 25) fell out of this week’s poll.
CONFERENCE WATCH
The Big 12 leads all leagues with six ranked teams, including No. 11 Iowa State, No. 14 Baylor and No. 17 TCU. The Big East is next with five ranked teams, followed by the Big Ten and ACC with three each.
The Pac-12, Southeastern and West Coast conferences each have two ranked teams, while the American Athletic and Mountain West each have one.
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Follow Aaron Beard on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/aaronbeardap
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AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25 | 2023-02-06T18:05:25+00:00 | seattletimes.com | https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/purdue-stays-no-1-in-ap-top-25-nc-state-in-at-no-22/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all |
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