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Pakistan is in political turmoil as the South Asian country awaits a key court ruling that will decide whether embattled Prime Minister Imran Khan's plan for an early election can go ahead.
Khan called the election in a dramatic attempt to cling to power after the deputy speaker of parliament blocked a no-confidence motion against him last Sunday that had appeared almost certain to succeed.
That move, and Khan's subsequent dissolution of parliament, enraged an opposition that for months have been demanding his removal over claims of poor governance and economic mismanagement.
The opposition responded by accusing Khan of treason and asking the country's highest court to rule on whether the Prime Minister had breached the constitution. The court battle is the latest escalation in a crisis that has been smoldering for weeks, with Khan already having lost the backing of key political allies and the country's powerful military.
Khan's main hope now appears to be that his enduring popular appeal with voters -- fueled by his stellar former cricket career, his unique brand of Islamic populism and his claims of foreign interference in Pakistan's affairs -- can keep him in the driving seat.
But an unfavorable ruling by the Supreme Court -- which resumes its hearing on Tuesday -- would leave Khan's leadership hanging by a thread.
Why is Khan in trouble?
Pakistan, a nation of 220 million, is notoriously hard to govern. It has struggled with political instability since its formation in 1947 with multiple regime changes and military coups. No Prime Minister has ever completed a full five-year term.
Khan's problems date back to 2018, when he rose to power in an election mired in accusations of vote-rigging and foul play.
More recently, he has been dogged by claims of economic mismanagement. The cost of basic necessities such as food and fuel are skyrocketing, with inflation in the double digits, and the government's foreign exchange reserves are fast depleting.
Some members of Khan's coalition government had deserted him over his perceived failure to work with them and he has alienated the military -- long a kingmaker in the country's politics -- that once supported him.
On March 8, the opposition filed for a no-confidence vote to be held in parliament as they urged Khan to resign. The Prime Minister's subsequent actions have only fueled his critics, with opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif calling them "nothing short of high treason."
Why has the military abandoned Khan?
Pakistan's military, which has long influenced foreign policy, appears to have been angered by a series of diplomatic moves by Khan that have shifted the country away from the United States and closer to China and Russia.
For much of his term, Khan has pushed anti-American rhetoric, blaming the US for the situation in Afghanistan. In a sign of how frayed relations have become, US President Joe Biden and Khan have not spoken since Biden took office last year.
In a move that further distanced Pakistan from the US, Khan recently refused to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, even meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow the day Russia began its war.
The military has appeared to clash with Khan on these issues. In an April 2 speech, Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, said the country shared "a long history of excellent relationship with the United States." Maintaining relations with Washington was "vital" to Pakistan's national interests, he added.
"Russian aggression on Ukraine is very unfortunate. This is a huge tragedy," Bajwa said. "Pakistan desires immediate cessation of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine and is doing everything it can to resolve the issue."
Despite this, the military says it has "absolutely no" connection to the current crisis, which it described as "purely a political matter."
How has Khan responded?
Throughout the crisis, Khan has rejected criticism of his leadership.
Instead -- and without offering evidence -- he has repeatedly claimed the moves against him are an attempt at regime change backed by Washington and some members of the opposition.
Both the US State Department and Pakistani opposition have denied Khan's allegations.
But when Khan called for parliament to be dissolved and an early election to take place, the deputy speaker -- who was appointed by Khan -- justified the move on the basis of an alleged "foreign conspiracy."
For now, Khan remains in power. Last Sunday, Pakistan's information minister said Khan will continue with his responsibilities under the rules of the constitution.
But his future as Prime Minister will depend largely on the Supreme Court ruling and whether an early election can go ahead.
What could the Supreme Court decide?
Analysts say there could be three possible outcomes.
The first -- most favored by the opposition -- is that the court says the dismissal of the no-confidence vote was unconstitutional and overturns Khan's decision to call for an early election. If this happens, Khan could once again face a no-confidence vote he is widely expected to lose.
In a second scenario, the court may rule Khan's move was unconstitutional but refuse to restore the assembly, arguing it lacks jurisdiction to do so. In this scenario, an early election could go ahead anyway.
A third potential outcome could see the court decline to make a ruling, effectively upholding Khan's actions and paving the way for early elections.
If Khan prevails, Pakistan could head to the polls within 90 days.
Would Khan win a snap election?
Some 16 years after becoming a lawmaker, Khan was elected Prime Minister in 2018, vowing to eradicate poverty and corruption and promising a "new Pakistan."
He has enjoyed widespread popular support since then, with tens of thousands taking to the streets in the capital, Islamabad, in recent days to support him.
Khan's allegations of foreign interference appear aimed at shoring up his support among a public in which anti-American sentiment can sometimes run strong.
Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, director of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency, said this would be a "tough" move for the opposition to counter.
"He's a great orator. Still a large number of people continue to support (Khan). This is populism in its full glory," Mehboob said.
Khan has dialed things up with repeated calls for his supporters to rally in Islamabad. He has also accused the opposition of corruption.
"We have made the decision to dissolve (parliament) because ever since I came to power I was being asked to resign," he said in an address to the nation on Monday.
Still, Surya Deva, a professor at Macquarie Law School in Sydney, said Khan's move for an early election could backfire. Khan has "not been able to manage the economy well and with a growing rift with both external and internal allies, even elections will not be easy for him," Deva said.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://www.albanyherald.com/news/pakistans-imran-khan-is-fighting-to-hold-on-to-power-heres-what-happens-next/article_9d78c9ba-6847-5440-a0c7-6cda07bdb9cd.html | 2022-04-05T10:58:12Z |
CHICAGO (WGN) — Former “Cheer” star Jerry Harris has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in his federal child porn case.
Additionally, the 21-year-old is facing eight years of supervised release after his prison term. He will be required to register as a sex offender for life and faces an initial fine of $55,000 with more restitution to be determined.
In February, Harris pled guilty in a deal to one count of receipt of child pornography and another of traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.
At the time, prosecutors said if the case had gone to trial, their evidence would have shown that in the summer of 2020, while Harris was living in Naperville, Illinois, he communicated with a minor – whom he knew was under 18 – via Snapchat, repeatedly asking for photos of a sexual nature.
Regarding the second charge, Harris traveled from Dallas to Orlando in May 2019 with the intent to engage in sexual conduct with a 15-year-old, whom he asked to meet in a public bathroom.
Earlier this year, the defense team shared a statement with Nexstar’s WGN, saying the criminal conduct “took place in the context of a competitive Cheer Community where inappropriately sexualizing and sexually abusing children was far too common and too often overlooked. Jerry was himself exploited, manipulated, and sexually abused as a child within the Cheer Community in a way that perversely made him believe that this sexual conduct was somehow normal when it was not.”
The statement went on to say Harris had been in therapy since his incarceration in October of 2020.
“Cheer” was a successful Netflix docuseries that followed the competitive cheerleading squad from Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas. Harris became popular for his upbeat attitude during the show. | https://cw33.com/news/nexstar-media-wire/former-cheer-star-jerry-harris-sentenced-to-12-years-for-child-porn/ | 2022-07-07T00:17:47Z |
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Sept. 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- RFG Advisory, an innovative and fast-growing platform for independent Advisors, is proud to announce that they've won the 2022 Wealthmanagement.com Industry Award in the category of Non-Custodial RIA Support Platform for their RFG Assist initiative.
The victory, which comes after three consecutive nominations in the same category, is a testament to RFG's continued dedication to improving their robust suite of solutions to better serve their independent Advisors' needs.
RFG Assist offers Advisors fractional allocation for an administrative assistant who has been hired, trained, coached, and mentored by RFG. Since the program's inception in 2020, RFG has allocated a total of 33 admin team members with significant impact to both RFG's and their advisors' success. In the 18 months following the initiative's launch, RFG grew their total AUM by $1.13 billion, or 51%. Their Advisors reaped the benefits of RFG Assist, too, reporting enhanced profitability and revenue creation, increased retention of client assets, and decreased NIGO (not in good orders) at the firm level.
"We're honored to have been selected as the winner in such a competitive category," said RFG's President, Shannon Spotswood. "Taking home the Wealthy for RFG Assist reflects our larger mission of building an RIA of the future. We're putting together the must-have toolkit modern independent Advisors need to thrive in our evolving landscape, enabling them to grow, deliver exceptional client experiences and redefine their limits."
In addition to their groundbreaking RFG Assist initiative, which is part of the larger RFG University training program, RFG empowers their Advisors with end-to-end technology and operational support, practice management consulting, marketing and branding resources, an investment management platform, and StrongHer Money, built to help women take control of their financial lives, as well as ongoing educational and networking opportunities, like the upcoming Warrior Advisor Conference being held in Cape Coral, Florida, this October 12- 14.
"It's important to us that our Advisors understand that they're in business for themselves, but never by themselves," said Bobby White, RFG's Founder and CEO. "The Warrior Advisor Conference will bring together growth-focused professionals in an environment that challenges them to approach their practices and their lives with purpose, tenacity, and fearlessness."
The Warrior Advisor Conference, open to any Advisor interested in honing their leadership abilities and building the skills necessary to succeed in today's environment, combines motivation with actionable strategies for growth, featuring inspiring keynote speakers like Tim Tebow and navy SEAL veteran Dom Raso, as well as industry giants Eric Clarke, Kelly Waltrich, Bobby White and Shannon Spotswood.
To learn more about RFG and their suite of solutions for independent Advisors, click here.
If you'd like to be a part of the Warrior Advisor Conference, click here.
To learn more about Wealthmanagement.com's award methodology, click here.
RFG Advisory is an innovator in the wealth management industry. Passionately committed to serving independent financial advisors and their clients, RFG Advisory prides itself on being a service company first, a technology company second and a hybrid-RIA third. RFG Advisory delivers a turn-key integrated platform that provides Advisors all of the tools and resources they need to be the CEO of their practice, not the COO, including turn-key technology, institutional-caliber investment management, marketing, compliance, business consulting and operational support. Focused on amplifying independence, Advisors who affiliate with RFG Advisory maintain all of the equity in their business and pay a basis point fee for access to RFG's investment and technology platform. Additionally, through RFG Capital, the firm buys stakes in advisor practices to facilitate succession planning and provide loans to advisors to enable the move to full independence.
Securities offered by Registered Representatives through Private Client Services. Member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory products and services offered by Investment Advisory Representatives through RFG Advisory, a Registered Investment Advisor. Private Client Services and RFG Advisory are unaffiliated entities.
Contact:
Kelly Waltrich
kelly@growintentionally.com
Intention.ly Co-Founder & CEO
610-304-6538
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SOURCE RFG Advisory | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/09/09/rfg-advisory-takes-home-wealthmanagementcom-industry-award-non-custodial-ria-support-platform-category-thrice-nominated-rfg-assist-initiative/ | 2022-09-09T15:33:33Z |
ALBANY – Albany Technical College received formal notification recently of its Practical Nursing program’s accreditation decision granted by the Accreditation Commission for Education In Nursing Board of Commissioners at its meetings in March 2022.
The deliberation and final decision were in part based on peer evaluators who came on-site at Albany Tech as a visiting team. Evaluators observed best practices and fostered the instructors and nursing program development at the college.
“We’ve worked hard to get to this level," Lisa Stephens, dean of Business/Healthcare Technology at Albany Tech, said in a news release. "With this accreditation in the Practical Nursing program here at the college, we offer students the very best education possible in the nursing field. This accreditation body stamp of approval means that we can provide the best in terms of time or resources."
The purpose of the ACEN is to provide specialized accreditation for all levels of nursing education and transition-to-practice programs located in the United States, U.S. territories and internationally. Accreditation is a peer-review, self-regulatory process by which non-governmental associations recognize educational institutions or programs that have been found to meet or exceed standards and criteria for educational quality.
Accreditation also assists in further improving the institutions or programs as related to resources invested, processes followed, and results achieved. The monitoring of certificate, diploma, and degree offerings is tied closely to state examination and licensing rules and the oversight of preparation for work in the profession.
“This is great news for the community as we expand our nursing program over the next year," Albany Tech President Anthony Parker said. "The need for trained and qualified nurse graduates has never been greater. This allows for better results as we move forward and graduate more medical professionals than ever before."
The Practical Nursing program teaches students the skills needed to help patients in nursing homes and other health care facilities. Licensed practical nurses (LPNs) work under the direction of doctors and registered nurses (RNs) and check patients’ vital signs, change dressings, and provide other types of basic patient care. They also help patients bathe and dress when needed.
The Practical Nursing program includes courses in anatomy and physiology, pharmacology and nutrition, among others. Students will be taught how to collect fluid samples, administer IV medications, maintain patient records, and teach families to help care for sick or injured relatives.
Students in the program earn a Practical Nursing diploma and will be prepared to take the National Council Licensure Examination to become an LPN. Graduates qualify for LPN positions in hospitals and long-term care facilities as well as home health agencies.
Following completion of the Practical Nursing program and successfully passing the licensure exam, students can choose to continue their education by enrolling in higher-level nursing or medical programs at Albany Technical College and other institutions.
The Practical Nursing Program is approved by the Georgia Board of Nursing, 237 Coliseum Drive, Macon, Ga. 31217-3858. (Phone: (844) 753-7825)
Effective June 22, “The Practical nursing program at Albany Technical College's main campus located in Albany is a candidate for initial accreditation by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing.” This candidacy status expires on June 22.
The most recent accreditation decision made by the ACEN Board of Commissioners for the Practical Nursing program is candidacy. View the public information disclosed by the ACEN regarding the program at http://www.acenursing.us/accreditedprograms/programSearch.htm. | https://www.albanyherald.com/local/albany-tech-practical-nursing-program-achieves-accreditation/article_6e27061a-cfbe-11ec-973b-fff6bdb16759.html | 2022-05-09T19:00:59Z |
CogniSure will deliver unstructured insurance text extraction solutions on InsureMO Ecosystem and Marketplace.
JERSEY CITY, N.J., July 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- InsureMO® and CogniSure announced a partnership that CogniSure, the leading insurance-specific unstructured text ingestion platform for P&C and health insurance using AI technologies, will unlock valuable insights trapped in unstructured data leveraging InsureMO® digital insurance platform. With 3,000+ product SKUs and thousands insurance and non-insurance APIs, InsureMO® (for "Insurance Middle Office") will enable CogniSure provide its world class products and solutions to its clients in North America.
P&C insurers face daunting tasks to identify key trends and insights that are locked within unstructured text documents such as loss runs, Schedules, SOV, and supplemental forms, that are attached to submission emails.
CogniSure alleviates this challenge and automates the ability to highlight thresholds and key data indicators to allow insurance personnel gain efficiencies and accuracy when processing and evaluating insurance transactions.
InsureMO® is a global leading insurance middleware platform which enables various use cases across 300+ insurers, 5,000+ channels and insurtechs in nearly 40 countries globally and powers more than $20 billion in premiums per year. CogniSure will leverage InsureMO's platform, ecosystem and marketplace including the following products:
- Digital Insurance Product Library
Digital Insurance Product Library (DIPL) a one-stop depository of global insurance products, models, templates, components to enable fast and automatic launch of a massive number of products and variations. - Insurance Services
Insurance industry specific microservices, APIs, and other capabilities to enable fast insurance innovations. - Non-Insurance Services
Typical and relevant non-insurance services and APIs that are commonly required in insurance sales and services, such as payment, communication, AI and robot assisted automation, OCR, and so on. - Utility and Admin
For managing insurance products, services, APIs, users, tenants, DevOps, and operation monitoring.
In addition to this partnership, InsureMO will offer its clients extended functionality available through APIs and on its eco-marketplace.
"At CogniSure, we digitize insurance document processing, helping insurers unlock insights that are otherwise difficult and costly to harness. When processing these unstructured documents with CogniSure, insurers are no longer burdened with tedious manual entry and can focus more on analysis instead. We are excited to bring our solution to InsureMO clients." said Sai Raman, Founder & CEO, CogniSure.
This partnership reflects the ongoing need to simplify and automate what traditionally has been supported by inefficient and error-prone back office manual processes.
"E&S, specialty, MGA, and middle market segments of P&C and A&H have traditionally been supported by many manual-prone back-office processes in support of underwriting and claims. CogniSure is a leader in the AI/ML field of solution providers that offer unstructured text ingestion engines," said Chuck Gomez, Head of North America Operations, InsureMO.
About InsureMO
InsureMO® (for "Insurance Middle Office") is designed to accelerate insurance innovation, improve connectivity among stakeholders, and handle the massive volume, variation, and velocity of insurance business in the "Digital Age." As a platform-as-a-service (PaaS), InsureMO acts as middleware for the insurance industry, freeing insurers from legacy constraints, and unlocking their ability to innovate and connect to stakeholders. With a full set of insurance APIs and microservices for general (P&C), life, and health insurance businesses covering the entire policy lifecycle, InsureMO supports Open API collaboration, is managed via Cloud Container (based on Docker and Kubernetes), and enables third parties to develop applications. Explore more or sign up now at InsureMO.com
About CogniSure
The CogniSure AI Platform unlocks insights trapped in unstructured documents such as loss runs, submissions, quotes, and policies. Its deep learning algorithms accurately extract, validate and analyze data from these documents to create new growth opportunities, develop risk insights, reduce costs, and help customers prevent losses. Learn more at www.CogniSure.ai or contactus@cognisure.ai.
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SOURCE InsureMO | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/07/26/insuremo-expands-strategic-partnership-with-cognisure/ | 2022-07-26T15:12:13Z |
CHICAGO, June 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Chicago-based investment firm AIR Asset Management ("AIRAM") announced it is advancing its educational efforts about the life settlement industry to support increased transparency for both prospects and investors. Recognizing that the space has grown considerably in terms of invested assets, its level of sophistication, and its ability to appeal to a broader group of investors, improving the understanding of this once hard-to-access asset class is at the forefront of the firm's plans.
As an example, in May 2022 AIRAM hosted its inaugural Private Life Settlement Symposium to deliver the latest life settlement market insights, news, and trends from industry participants to current and prospective investors. The agenda included input from subject matter experts such as the Life Insurance Settlement Association (LISA), Houlihan Lokey, Life Equity, Longevity Asset Advisors, Life Insurance Settlements, and ISC Services. Attendees also heard from a world-renowned expert on aging and longevity, S. Jay Olshansky, Ph.D. This event brought together registered investment advisors (RIAs), wealth advisors, and institutional investors focused on gaining a deeper understanding of the asset class.
Additionally, an ongoing initiative of the firm is to provide regular educational content through articles, videos, and digital communications. These content pieces cover a broad range of life settlement related topics, including their positive social impact, the asset class's evolution, portfolio allocation and risk considerations, regulatory and legal frameworks, and the compelling investment case for double-digit targeted returns largely uncorrelated with traditional financial markets. In addition, AIRAM plans to release a continuing education course for financial advisors this fall to give a comprehensive overview of these topics.
"Clearing up the mystery that once was the life settlement asset class allows investors to confidently allocate to assets that have historically delivered compelling double-digit annual returns with low correlation and volatility compared to the those of traditional asset classes. Providing an educational forum and the tools for proper due diligence on the space is a joy for us at AIR Asset Management, as we believe this asset class is a win-win for investors and society alike."
- Taylor Colby, Director of Marketing
AIRAM reports strong asset inflows of almost $70M to its longevity-based multi-strategy products throughout the first half of 2022. The firm believes its focus on spreading awareness, in addition to the current tumult in equity and fixed income markets, is contributing to sizeable investor allocations.
AIRAM is a rapidly growing hedge fund management firm founded in 2014 and based in downtown Chicago. As an SEC-registered investment adviser, AIRAM provides qualified investors with unique growth opportunities in longevity-linked investments such as life settlements and annuities. The Firm's objective is to offer attractive risk-adjusted returns largely uncorrelated to traditional asset classes. AIRAM is also a strong believer in socially responsible investment strategies, and we promote these efforts through our voluntary membership in the Principles for Responsible Investment.
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SOURCE AIR Asset Management | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/06/22/air-asset-management-commits-increasing-education-life-settlement-asset-class/ | 2022-06-22T20:28:57Z |
Catalyst Housing Group further demonstrates its commitment to delivering equitable social and environmental impact with new certification
LARKSPUR, Calif., Sept. 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Catalyst Housing Group, a mission-driven investment firm, announced that it has officially become a Certified B Corporation, documenting its commitment to effective and sustainable change, and demonstrating its continued leadership in developing innovative, scalable pathways to delivering housing affordability for all.
Over the past two years, Catalyst has participated in rigorous B Corporation certification and assessment processes requiring tangible documentation of its mission-aligned business practices. Having formally obtained B Corporation certification, Catalyst joins a growing community of mission-driven businesses adopting rigorous social and environmental impact standards and committed to fostering effective and sustainable change. Prioritizing transparency, sustainability and the common good, Catalyst was built on ideals that remain fully aligned with the requirements for B Corporation certification, further demonstrating its relentless pursuit of a more inclusive, equitable, and affordable housing market.
"Catalyst was founded with the belief that a mission-driven investment firm, fueled by innovation and impact, could radically alter the delivery of desperately needed affordable housing," said Jordan Moss, Founder and CEO of Catalyst Housing Group. "Obtaining Certified B Corporation status is a direct reflection of our team's successes to date and continued dogged pursuit of scalable solutions to the lack of quality affordable housing across the socioeconomic spectrum."
Catalyst's financial innovations include the formation of an entirely new asset class, which Catalyst coined "Essential Housing," to provide affordable rental housing to California's essential workforce - the nurses, teachers, and first responders who earn too much to qualify for traditional affordable housing, yet not enough to live directly within the communities they serve. Catalyst's leadership in the development of an open-sourced Essential Housing framework have resulted in the creation of approximately 14,000 units of governmentally owned, income-restricted rental housing throughout California.
Catalyst Housing Group is a mission-driven housing provider investing at the intersection of innovation and impact. We bridge wealth and opportunity gaps through the scaled delivery of pioneering capital solutions that empower generational change for our residents, our communities, and our environment. For more information, please visit www.catalysthousing.com.
Media Contact:
Anna Sugg
asugg@actumllc.com
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SOURCE Catalyst B Corp | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/09/06/catalyst-housing-group-announces-b-corp-certification/ | 2022-09-06T14:30:29Z |
Thousands of Americans who had been priced out of routine medical care
are now accessing the highest quality physicians at a fraction of the typical cost,
exclusively in the Sesame Marketplace
Led by CEO David Goldhill, a transformative figure in US healthcare policy
and reform, Sesame has now raised $75 million to-date
NEW YORK, June 14, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Sesame, the only company proven to lower the price of medical care for American consumers, today announced that it has raised $27 million in Series B financing to expand its national marketplace of high-quality, ultra-affordable medical care for all Americans, whether they are insured or not.
The round was led by GV (formerly Google Ventures), and Cathy Friedman, Executive Venture Partner at GV, will join the Sesame board of directors. Virgin Group, TeleSoft Partners and FMZ Ventures also participated in the round as new investors, alongside existing investors General Catalyst, Industry Ventures, Coefficient Capital, Giant Ventures and Alumni Ventures Group.
By using innovation to succeed where legislation and bureaucracy have failed, Sesame delivers half-price, whole quality medical care, assuring that no American is priced out of accessing the primary and specialized care they need. In fact, the average price paid for care in the Sesame Marketplace is less than $40, while the company maintains a Net Promoter Score of 87 (considered world class), and nearly 80% of physicians in the Sesame Marketplace have 5-star reviews.
"The same high quality care from the same world-class physicians at a fraction of the typical price; this is the radical innovation that is Sesame," said David Goldhill, Sesame co-founder and CEO, and the author of The Real Costs of American Health Care. "By stripping out all the cost and complexity of insurance, physicians offer care on Sesame at prices that are roughly half of what is typical. The quality of our investors is a testament to the power of this innovation."
"Sesame provides greater access to healthcare for a meaningful percentage of the population, and we're inspired by the company's mission to drive better patient outcomes for underserved communities," said Cathy Friedman, Executive Venture Partner at GV. "Sesame presents a compelling opportunity to develop a dynamic marketplace at a scale unlike any in the current U.S. healthcare ecosystem. We're thrilled to partner with David Goldhill and the entire Sesame team as they move into this next phase of growth."
According to the 2020 US census, 28 million Americans still do not have health insurance. At the same time, according to research, 52.9% of American workers covered by private health insurance through their employer were enrolled in high-deductible health plans (HDHP) in 2020, an increase of more than 33 percent in just five years.
Sesame is a two-sided marketplace populated by physicians and patients only. As with other online marketplaces, consumers can research and shop for a physician – and book an appointment – with the same price transparency and zero-friction they experience when making other purchases.
By virtue of these marketplace dynamics, Sesame saw prices for all manner of care types drop as much as 67 percent in 2021. Sesame offers complete, longitudinal health care delivered either in-person or via telehealth, and includes primary care, acute consults and chronic care management, specialty medicine, dentistry, labs, imaging and more – all for as little as $25 per visit nationwide.
Health care providers in the marketplace leverage Sesame's tools for maximizing the value of their time and equipment, just as in any other industry, to offer variable pricing based on peak and off-peak windows.
In addition to using the proceeds to accelerate the company's growth, Sesame will use the Series B proceeds to evolve its Sesame membership product from beta into general availability. The Sesame membership works on a monthly subscription basis, and entitles its members to free services, deep discounts and exclusive access to all of the everyday care services that matter most: primary care visits, prescriptions, dental, labs, imaging and more. The beta launched in November 2021 and has seen tremendous traction among Sesame patients, who book 33 percent more appointments than non-members.
Sesame is the healthcare marketplace that delivers "half-price health care" to Americans who have been priced out of the everyday care they need. With thousands of healthcare providers - covering all 50 states and every major health category - the Sesame marketplace has driven prices on dozens of common health care types down by as much as 67 percent. Sesame lowers prices, but not quality standards, by applying technology to build a marketplace that gives consumers the most choice, convenience and quality at the best price. This allows providers to focus purely on patient care, and make the most of their training, time and equipment. For more information, please visit www.sesamecare.com.
CONTACT
Liz Murphy
liz.murphy@sesamecare.com
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SOURCE Sesame | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/06/14/sesame-secures-27-million-series-b-financing-led-by-gv-expand-its-half-price-whole-quality-medical-care-marketplace/ | 2022-06-14T14:54:22Z |
Live call and webcast will occur on August 3 at 9:00 a.m. ET
SANTA MONICA, Calif., Aug. 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TrueCar, Inc., (NASDAQ: TRUE) today announced financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2022 in a stockholder letter, which is available HERE and on the TrueCar investor relations website at ir.truecar.com.
The Company will host a question and answer session to discuss its second quarter results on Wednesday, August 3 at 9:00 a.m. ET/6:00 a.m. PT. A live webcast of the call will be available through TrueCar's Investor Relations website and the link below.
An archived version of the call will also be available upon completion on the Investor Relations section of TrueCar's website at ir.truecar.com.
TrueCar has used and intends to continue to use its Investor Relations website (ir.truecar.com), LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter as means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD.
TrueCar is a leading automotive digital marketplace that lets auto buyers and sellers connect to our nationwide network of Certified Dealers. With access to an expansive inventory provided by our Certified Dealers, we are building the industry's most personalized and efficient auto shopping experience as we seek to bring more of the process online. Consumers who visit our marketplace will find a suite of vehicle discovery tools, price ratings and market context on new, used and Certified Pre-Owned vehicles. When they are ready, shoppers in TrueCar's marketplace can connect with a Certified Dealer in our network, who shares our belief that truth, transparency and fairness are the foundation of a great auto shopping experience. As part of our marketplace, TrueCar powers auto-buying programs for over 250 leading brands, including AARP, Sam's Club, Navy Federal Credit Union and American Express.
TrueCar Investor Relations Contact:
Zaineb Bokhari
VP, Investor Relations
investors@truecar.com
TrueCar Public Relations Contact:
Sara Morgan
PR Manager
pr@truecar.com
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SOURCE TrueCar.com | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/08/02/truecar-releases-second-quarter-2022-financial-results-stockholder-letter/ | 2022-08-03T00:53:09Z |
BEIJING, June 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Waterdrop Inc. ("Waterdrop", the "Company" or "we") (NYSE: WDH), a leading technology platform dedicated to insurance and healthcare service with a positive social impact, today announced its unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2022.
Financial and Operational Highlights for the First Quarter of 2022
- Recovery to positive business growth: For the first quarter of 2022, the first-year premiums ("FYP") generated through our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace amounted to RMB1,866.1 million (US$294.4 million), and our net operating revenue was RMB648.7 million (US$102.3 million) which represented an increase of 7.4% quarter over quarter, resuming positive growth after our business strategy has been adjusted from pursuing fast growth to enhancing quality development and profitability.
- Effective cost control and consistent profitability improvement: For the first quarter of 2022, our sales and marketing expenses decreased by 75.6%, and total operating costs and expenses decreased by 60.4% year over year, respectively, resulting in a US GAAP net profit of RMB105.0 million (US$16.6 million) for the first time following the non-GAAP profit in the fourth quarter of 2021. Our non-GAAP net profit was RMB127.3 million (US$20.1 million) for the first quarter of 2022, a significant increase quarter over quarter. These results have showcased our effective cost control and consistent commitment to achieving profitability.
- Steady growth in the number of insurance customers: The number of cumulative insurance customers reached 111.1 million and cumulative paying insurance customers reached 28.8 million as of March 31, 2022.
- Positive cash flow: As of March 31, 2022, our cash and cash equivalents and short-term investment balance increased by RMB137.1 million from the end of 2021 to RMB2,924.2 million (US$461.3 million), as we continued to generate positive operating cash flow, partially offset by the investing and financing cash outflow.
- Further expanded product offerings: As of March 31, 2022, we offered 408 insurance products on our platform, as compared with 364 as of December 31, 2021. Over 90% of the FYP generated through our Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace was contributed by our exclusive customized insurance products. In the first quarter of 2022, the FYP of critical illness insurance increased by 39.9% quarter over quarter, and accounted for 27.6% of overall FYP, up by 8.2 percentage points as compared with the fourth quarter of 2021.
- As of March 31, 2022, over 403 million people cumulatively donated an aggregate of approximately RMB50.9 billion to nearly 2.5 million patients through our Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding.
Mr. Peng Shen, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Waterdrop, commented, "2022 marks the sixth anniversary of Waterdrop, and we are embracing a new beginning. For the first quarter of 2022, I am pleased to report we achieved a US GAAP net profit for the first time in our operating history after turning profitable on a non-GAAP basis in the prior quarter. We managed to further reduce sales and marketing expenses and operating costs. Our operating performance and business trends over the past two quarters also increased our confidence in being able to keep the momentum and achieve the overall profitability goal we set for the full year.
For our insurance business, the first quarter of 2022 was the second full quarter after upgrading our business model, and we have already significantly improved our operational efficiencies. We systematically optimized the operating model of 'multi-platform, multi-supply and multi-service mode'. We leveraged innovative operational scenarios to effectively increase engagement with users, and further increased the repurchase rate and renewal rate to over 70% and 90%, respectively. We also added new medical insurance products to our portfolio such as the chronic disease and the kidney disease-specific versions, and launched multiple critical illness protection plans that cater to the needs of diverse customer groups with different price sensitivities. Meanwhile, we continued to evolve our AI-empowered business and increased our efforts in exporting our AI capabilities to our insurance partners.
In terms of healthcare business exploration, we made further progress in solidifying our market position in patient recruitment for clinical trials. We helped with the enrollment of over 50 new clinical trial programs by partnering with leading domestic and international pharmaceutical companies. Over 500 patients have been successfully registered for clinical trial programs on our platform in the first quarter, representing a solid growth compared with the previous quarter. Leveraging our large patient pool and capability in precisely and efficiently matching patients with suitable programs on our AI-powered platform, we have effectively addressed the pain points of patient recruitment services and are fully committed to becoming one of the best third-party patient recruitment platforms.
As a company with positive social impact and strong sense of ESG responsibilities, we became a participant of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), joining hands with more than 16,000 companies in 161 countries around the world to shape a sustainable future together. We remain committed to our mission of 'leveraging internet technologies to make insurance protection more inclusive and accessible to all, and bring insurance and healthcare service to billions'. We also proactively leveraged our competitive strengths and digital service capabilities to promote, implement and achieve our sustainable development goals."
Financial Results for the First Quarter of 2022
Operating revenue, net
Net operating revenue for the first quarter of 2022 decreased by 26.6% year over year to RMB648.7 million (US$102.3 million) from RMB883.4 million for the same period of 2021, which was primarily due to the decrease in insurance-related income. The net operating revenue increased by 7.4% compared with the fourth quarter of 2021, mainly driven by the increase in insurance-related income.
- Insurance-related income includes insurance brokerage income and technical service income. Insurance brokerage income represents brokerage commissions earned from insurance companies. Technical service income is derived from providing technical services to insurance companies, insurance brokerage, and agency companies, which include customer relationship maintenance, customer complaint management, claim review, user referral services, among other things. Our insurance-related income amounted to RMB628.2 million (US$99.1 million) in the first quarter of 2022, representing a decrease of 23.9% year over year from RMB825.4 million for the first quarter of 2021, which was mainly due to the decrease in insurance brokerage income.
- Net operating revenue from management fee income was nil for the first quarter of 2022, compared to RMB2.7 million for the same quarter of 2021, which was mainly due to the cessation of the mutual aid business at the end of March 2021. Following this adjustment, the corresponding management fee income from the mutual aid business is no longer a revenue stream for the Company from the second quarter of 2021 and onwards. Excluding such management fee income, the adjusted net operating revenue(1) for the first quarter of 2022 decreased by 26.3% compared with the same period of 2021.
Operating costs and expenses
Operating costs and expenses decreased by 60.4% year over year and 21.5% quarter over quarter to RMB532.0 million (US$83.9 million) for the first quarter of 2022, due to the effective cost control measures taken since the third quarter of 2021.
- Operating costs decreased by 48.5% year over year to RMB154.9 million (US$24.4 million) for the first quarter of 2022, compared with RMB300.6 million for the first quarter of 2021, which was primarily driven by (i) RMB38.6 million decrease in professional and outsourced customer service fees; (ii) RMB5.2 million decrease in payout investigation cost due to the cessation of mutual aid business, (iii) a decrease of RMB35.3 million in personnel cost for our expanded consultants and insurance agents team and (iv) a decrease of RMB76.8 million in relation to the cessation of the Waterdrop Mutual Aid business. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, operating costs decreased by 21.4% as compared to the fourth quarter of 2021, primarily due to a decrease of RMB44.9 million in personnel costs.
- Sales and marketing expenses decreased materially by 75.6% year over year to RMB204.3 million (US$32.2 million) for the first quarter of 2022, compared with RMB837.2 million for the first quarter of 2021. The decrease was primarily due to (i) RMB619.8 million decrease in marketing expenses to third-party traffic channels and (ii) RMB17.9 million decrease in outsourced sales and marketing service fees to third parties, offset by an increase of RMB14.4 million in payroll and related expenses for the employees involved in sales and marketing functions. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, sales and marketing expenses decreased by 15.2% from RMB241.0 million for the fourth quarter of 2021. This was mainly due to the decrease of RMB26.5 million in marketing expenses to third-party traffic channels, RMB5.4 million in payroll and related expenses for employees, and RMB3.3 million in outsourced sales and marketing service fees to third parties under our cost control plan and more strict budgeting for expenses.
- General and administrative expenses decreased by 15.9% year over year to RMB102.0 million (US$16.1 million) for the first quarter of 2022, compared with RMB121.3 million for the first quarter of 2021. The year-over-year variance was a net impact of the decrease of RMB45.1 million in share-based compensation expenses offset by (i) RMB7.2 million increase in D&O insurance premiums, (ii) RMB4.7 million increase in professional service fees, and (iii) RMB11.5 million increase in allowance for doubtful accounts. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, general and administrative expenses decreased by 31.4% from RMB148.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2021, which was mainly due to the combined impact of a decrease of RMB39.0 million in impairment loss and RMB15.9 million in personnel cost and share-based compensation expenses.
- Research and development expenses decreased by 16.6% year over year to RMB70.8 million (US$11.2 million) for the first quarter of 2022, compared with RMB84.9 million for the same period of 2021. The decrease was primarily due to RMB13.8 million decreases in research and development personnel costs and share-based compensation expenses. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, research and development expenses decreased by 22.1% compared to the fourth quarter of 2021, mainly due to the optimization of our organizational structure.
Operating profit for the first quarter of 2022 was RMB116.6 million (US$18.4 million), compared with an operating loss of RMB460.6 million for the first quarter of 2021 and a loss of RMB73.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2021.
Interest income for the first quarter of 2022 was RMB14.5 million (US$2.3 million), compared with RMB13.2 million for the same period of 2021. The increase was primarily due to the increase in our bank balance and short-term investments as a result of the receipt of net proceeds from the completion of our initial public offering in May 2021 and positive operating cash flow generated from the business during the first quarter of 2022.
Income tax expense for the first quarter of 2022 was RMB51.3 million (US$8.1 million), compared with an income tax benefit of RMB74.3 million for the same period of 2021.
Net profit attributable to Waterdrop for the first quarter of 2022 was RMB105.0 million (US$16.6 million), compared with a net loss of RMB370.2 million for the same period of 2021, and a net loss of RMB71.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2021.
Adjusted net profit attributable to Waterdrop for the first quarter of 2022 was RMB127.3 million (US$20.1 million), compared with an adjusted net loss of RMB203.1 million for the same period of 2021, and an adjusted net profit of RMB5.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2021.
Cash and cash equivalents and short-term investment
As of March 31, 2022, the Company had combined cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments of RMB2,924.2 million (US$461.3 million), as compared with RMB2,787.1 million as of December 31, 2021.
Share Repurchase Plan
Pursuant to the 12-month share repurchase program announced on September 8, 2021, since the announcement up to the end of the first quarter of 2022, we cumulatively repurchased approximately 3.1 million ADSs from the open market with cash for a total consideration of approximately US$5.1 million.
Business Outlook
The Company expects to achieve overall profitability on a non-GAAP basis for the year 2022 under the circumstances that we keep investing in established businesses and new initiatives. We also expect the net operating revenue growth to continue quarter over quarter in the second quarter of 2022. This forecast is based on the current market conditions and reflects the Company's preliminary view and estimates, which are all subject to changes.
Exchange Rate
This announcement contains translations of certain RMB amounts into U.S. dollars ("USD" or "US$") at specified rates solely for the convenience of the reader. Unless otherwise stated, all translations from RMB to USD were made at the rate of RMB6.3393 to US$1.00, the noon buying rate in effect on March 31, 2022 in the H.10 statistical release of the Federal Reserve Board. The Company makes no representation that the RMB or USD amounts referred could be converted into USD or RMB, as the case may be, at any particular rate or at all. For analytical presentation, all percentages are calculated using the numbers presented in the financial statements contained in this earnings release.
Non-GAAP Financial Measures
The Company uses non-GAAP financial measures, such as adjusted net operating revenue and adjusted net profit/loss, in evaluating the Company's operating results and for financial and operational decision-making purposes. Adjusted net operating revenue represents net operating revenue excluding management fee income from mutual aid business. Adjusted net profit/loss represents net profit/loss excluding share-based compensation expense, the impact of terminating the mutual aid plan, foreign currency exchange gain or losses, impairment loss, and share of results of equity method investee. Such adjustments have no impact on income tax.
The non-GAAP financial measures are not presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP and may be different from non-GAAP methods of accounting and reporting used by other companies. The non-GAAP financial measures have limitations as analytical tools and when assessing the Company's operating performance, investors should not consider them in isolation, or as a substitute for net loss or other consolidated statements of comprehensive loss data prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP. The Company encourages investors and others to review its financial information in its entirety and not rely on a single financial measure. Investors are encouraged to review the Company's historical non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Adjusted net operating revenue and adjusted net profit/loss presented here may not be comparable to similarly titled measures presented by other companies. Other companies may calculate similarly titled measures differently, limiting their usefulness as comparative measures to our data. The Company encourages investors and others to review its financial information in its entirety and not rely on a single financial measure.
The Company mitigates these limitations by reconciling the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable U.S. GAAP performance measures, all of which should be considered when evaluating the Company's performance. For more information on the non-GAAP financial measures, please see the table captioned "Reconciliation of GAAP and Non-GAAP Results" set forth at the end of this press release.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains statements that may constitute "forward-looking" statements pursuant to the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "aims," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "likely to" and similar statements. Among other things, quotations in this announcement, contain forward-looking statements. Waterdrop may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its periodic reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about Waterdrop's beliefs, plans and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: Waterdrop's mission, goals and strategies; Waterdrop's future business development, financial condition and results of operations; the expected growth of the insurance, medical crowdfunding and healthcare industry in China; Waterdrop's expectations regarding demand for and market acceptance of our products and services; Waterdrop's expectations regarding its relationships with consumers, insurance carriers and other partners; competition in the industry and relevant government policies and regulations relating to insurance, medical crowdfunding and healthcare industry. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in Waterdrop's filings with the SEC. All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release, and Waterdrop does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.
Conference Call Information
Waterdrop's management team will hold a conference call on June 15, 2022 at 8:00 AM U.S. Eastern Time (8:00 PM Beijing/Hong Kong Time on the same day) to discuss the financial results. Dial-in details for the earnings conference call are as follows:
Please dial in 15 minutes before the call is scheduled to begin and provide the Elite Entry Number to join the call.
A telephone replay will be accessible two hours after the conclusion of the conference call through June 22, 2022 by dialing the following numbers:
A live and archived webcast of the conference call will also be available at the Company's investor relations website at http://ir.waterdrop-inc.com/.
About Waterdrop Inc.
Waterdrop Inc. (NYSE: WDH) is a leading technology platform dedicated to insurance and healthcare service with a positive social impact. Founded in 2016, with the comprehensive coverage of Waterdrop Insurance Marketplace and Waterdrop Medical Crowdfunding, Waterdrop aims to bring insurance and healthcare service to billions through technology. For more information, please visit www.waterdrop-inc.com.
For investor inquiries, please contact
Waterdrop Inc.
Xiaojiao Cui
IR@shuidi-inc.com
Christensen
In China
Mr. Eric Yuan
Phone: +86-1380-111-0739
E-mail: Eyuan@christensenir.com
In the US
Ms. Linda Bergkamp
Phone: +1-480-614-3004
Email: lbergkamp@christensenir.com
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SOURCE Waterdrop Inc. | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/06/15/waterdrop-inc-announces-first-quarter-2022-unaudited-financial-results/ | 2022-06-15T07:03:30Z |
On May 25, the day after the Uvalde school massacre, state and local leaders gathered at a news conference and voiced their support for the community, vowing to learn more about the circumstances that led to the killings of 19 children and two teachers.
Yet in the weeks since, a cascade of shifting narratives and updated timelines over what transpired during the shooting has now left one city official who was at that news conference airing his grievances publicly, accusing agencies of stonewalling and leaking information about others to minimize their own mistakes.
"I'm just as frustrated -- maybe not as frustrated as the families that have lost their loved ones -- but it pisses me off that I can't give you answers or can't get you answers," Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin told residents at a city council meeting Tuesday.
With families demanding answers over how police were slow to intervene as 19 children and two teachers were killed in two connected classrooms at Robb Elementary, the leaking of select information from authorities while demonstrating a general lack of transparency "continues to create chaos in our community and keeps the whole truth from coming out," he said.
Officers from at least eight law enforcement agencies were in the hallway outside the classrooms, the mayor said, and accused the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, Col. Steven McCraw, of trying to direct attention away from the response by the department and its Texas Ranger Division.
"Col. McCraw has continued to -- whether you want to call it -- lie, leak, mislead or misstate information in order to distance his own troopers and Rangers from the response. Every briefing he leaves out the number of his own officers and Rangers that were on-scene that day," McLaughlin said.
Earlier Tuesday, McCraw testified before a Texas Senate committee that the response from law enforcement was an "abject failure," laying the blame at the feet of Uvalde school district police chief Pedro "Pete" Arredondo, who McCraw and others have identified as the on-scene commander.
Meanwhile, the mayor on Tuesday slammed leaks from unnamed DPS sources in the week following the shooting that were critical of local or school district law enforcement, including reports that they were not cooperating with investigators.
"Col. McCraw has an agenda, and it's not to present a full report and to give factual answers to the families of this community," he said. "What matters to Uvalde is that these brokenhearted families and this grieving community get a full investigation and an accurate report of what happened that day. The petty infighting, the clickbait headlines and the politically motivated scapegoating is not helping anyone. It is dividing a community and further frustrating grieving families."
McLaughlin was adamant to residents that he has no desire to ever pursue elected office again and is "not covering up for anybody," saying all responding agencies should be held accountable.
CNN has reached out to the Texas Department of Public Safety for comment.
McLaughlin has criticized the lack of transparency from investigators before, saying at a city council meeting on June 7, "We had some missteps with the DPS releasing some facts or different things, but that wasn't the Rangers who were leading the investigation. I'm not blaming anybody," he said.
"We were told one thing one day, and the next day the narrative changed. You were told for a week that a teacher propped the door open with a rock, and at the end of the week that story was gone too. That's the missteps I'm talking about," he added.
Hours before Tuesday's council meeting, McLaughlin initially announced he would not be commenting on the investigation on request from Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee, and that the "premature release" of any material relating to the investigation "is a disservice to families who lost children or parents because the true facts need to come out once all investigations/reviews, which the City expects will be thorough and fair, are complete."
Mayor: 'We are not going to hold back anymore'
Tuesday's developments came after reporting from CNN, the Texas Tribune and the Austin American-Statesman previewed some of the DPS timeline and revealed further flaws in the police response.
Details of the first moments of the massacre include that 11 officers were inside the building within three minutes of the gunman opening fire. Rifles and ballistic shields were available shortly after, reports revealed.
But 77 minutes passed from the time the gunman started shooting to when a tactical response team entered the classroom and killed him, according to a timeline of events from DPS. Authorities said they believed the classroom doors were locked and worked to locate a key, but security footage of officers testing the doors has yet to be found, according to the reports.
Arredondo previously told The Texas Tribune he didn't consider himself the incident commander and left his police radio and campus radio outside the school because he thought carrying them would slow him down.
Citing a DPS assessment, McCraw told the state Senate committee Tuesday that Uvalde school police officers' radios would not have worked inside the school building due to a weaker signal. Border Patrol agents had the only portable radios that could have worked, he said, but when Border Patrol tried to patch their signals together with local law enforcements' devices, their radios didn't work either.
Arredondo, elected to the city council this year and remaining out of the public eye since the shooting, testified behind closed doors to a Texas House committee Tuesday. At the Uvalde meeting Tuesday night, he was unanimously denied by fellow council members a leave of absence from future meetings.
To gain a fuller picture of law enforcement response to the shooting, McLaughlin has requested bodycam footage from every law enforcement agency that was present that day, he said, but has not received any.
"I have no power," he said. "I have to answer to a bunch of bureaucrats that don't do their jobs, and that's why I'm calling them out today."
McCraw addressed the release of bodycam footage during his testimony Tuesday, saying, "Whenever the district attorney approves it, we are going to release all the body camera coverage, we're going to release all the school video and the funeral video."
McLaughlin said he was meant to receive a daily briefing from authorities over the investigation since its onset, but has not had any provided. At other agencies' requests, the few updates received by the city were not released publicly in deference to a formal investigation, McLaughlin said, yet he slammed officials having public hearings "and not share a damn thing with this city."
"The gloves are off. As we know it, we will share it. We are not going to hold back anymore."
CNN has reached out to the district attorney's office, the chair of the Texas House investigating committee and the San Antonio office of the FBI for further comment.
McLaughlin also reiterated Tuesday that, in consultation with the school superintendent, Robb Elementary would be demolished.
"You could never ask a child to go back or a teacher to go back to that school. Ever," he said.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://www.albanyherald.com/news/uvalde-mayor-accuses-state-police-head-of-lying-leaking-and-misleading-as-new-timeline-of/article_8f47c91b-37a2-53e2-b999-524993da3c69.html | 2022-06-22T13:21:54Z |
Nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year, but even more deaths could have been prevented if international targets for the shots had been reached, researchers reported Thursday.
On Dec. 8, 2020, a retired shop clerk in England received the first shot in what would become a global vaccination campaign. Over the next 12 months, more than 4.3 billion people around the world lined up for the vaccines.
The effort, though marred by persisting inequities, prevented deaths on an unimaginable scale, said Oliver Watson of Imperial College London, who led the new modeling study.
“Catastrophic would be the first word that comes to mind,” Watson said of the outcome if vaccines hadn’t been available to fight the coronavirus. The findings “quantify just how much worse the pandemic could have been if we did not have these vaccines.”
The researchers used data from 185 countries to estimate that vaccines prevented 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths in India, 1.9 million in the United States, 1 million in Brazil, 631,000 in France and 507,000 in the United Kingdom.
An additional 600,000 deaths would have been prevented if the World Health Organization target of 40% vaccination coverage by the end of 2021 had been met, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.
The main finding — 19.8 million COVID-19 deaths were prevented — is based on estimates of how many more deaths than usual occurred during the time period. Using only reported COVID-19 deaths, the same model yielded 14.4 million deaths averted by vaccines.
The London scientists excluded China because of uncertainty around the pandemic’s effect on deaths there and its huge population.
The study has other limitations. The researchers did not include how the virus might have mutated differently in the absence of vaccines. And they did not factor in how lockdowns or mask wearing might have changed if vaccines weren’t available.
Another modeling group used a different approach to estimate that 16.3 million COVID-19 deaths were averted by vaccines. That work, by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, has not been published.
In the real world, people wear masks more often when cases are surging, said the institute’s Ali Mokdad, and 2021’s delta wave without vaccines would have prompted a major policy response.
“We may disagree on the number as scientists, but we all agree that COVID vaccines saved lots of lives,” Mokdad said.
The findings underscore both the achievements and the shortcomings of the vaccination campaign, said Adam Finn of Bristol Medical School in England, who like Mokdad was not involved in the study.
“Although we did pretty well this time — we saved millions and millions of lives — we could have done better and we should do better in the future,” Finn said.
Funding came from several groups including the WHO; the UK Medical Research Council; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
___
AP health and science reporter Havovi Todd contributed.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. | https://cw33.com/health/ap-health/covid-vaccines-saved-20m-lives-in-1st-year-scientists-say/ | 2022-06-24T15:03:08Z |
Experienced cybersecurity marketer will spearhead organization's growth
RESTON, Va., June 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Atlantic Data Security, a leading cybersecurity consulting firm, today announced the hiring of Cristelle Michael as Vice President of Marketing. Cristelle brings more than 20 years of experience in the technology and security industry to Atlantic Data Security and will support EVP and General Manager Scott Kasper's growth and scaling efforts.
Most recently serving as Director of Marketing with Connectwise, Cristelle has led multi-million dollar cybersecurity marketing and growth initiatives for organizations including Fidelis Cybersecurity, GuidePoint Security, Ekahau, and Ironbow. She brings keen demand and lead generation insight to Atlantic Data Security, which offers end-to-end cybersecurity services as well as technology advisory services, managed services, security staffing, professional services, and architecture support
"Cristelle is the perfect person to help take Atlantic Data Security to the next level," said Kasper. "Our growth so far has shown that we've got a rock-solid security model supported by a well-trained staff. To get to the next level, we needed someone with experience with creating and implementing breakthrough marketing strategy in a crowded industry, and Cristelle was the perfect fit."
A veteran of the Dulles Technology Corridor, Cristelle's achievements include helping to develop a cybersecurity channel marketing program that led to a 139% partner cybersecurity sales increase in less than 12 months with ConnectWise, running GuidePoint Security's market development activities, and planning and executing numerous award-winning strategic marketing campaigns in the technology and cybersecurity space. When looking for her next opportunity, she was looking for something a bit more personal.
"What attracted me to Atlantic Data Security was the quality of the people, combined with the company's partnership approach to its clients. We have a saying here, 'our success is your success'. That environment and connection is what I want our customers to see and feel. I know that once they do, our growth will follow."
About Atlantic Data Security
With upwards of 30 years in the cyber security industry, we are experienced in all the essential elements of an organization's security infrastructure. We are fully trained on the security solutions we represent, and provide end-to-end value from architecture to professional services, managed services, post-deployment support, and consulting.
Our success hinges on your success. That is why we developed a security model to secure and prepare your organization against potential threats that are now a given in today's business world. Our goal is to be an extension of your existing IT team, helping you to accelerate your business by providing a resilient and secure working environment. To learn more, visit atlanticdatasecurity.com
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SOURCE Atlantic Data Security | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/06/02/atlantic-data-security-announces-hiring-cristelle-michael-vice-president-marketing/ | 2022-06-02T15:51:01Z |
NEW YORK, Aug. 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- InvestorsObserver issues critical PriceWatch Alerts for DLTR, NVDA, OXY, ROKU, and RCL.
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SOURCE InvestorsObserver | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/08/01/thinking-about-trading-options-or-stock-dollar-tree-nvidia-occidental-petroleum-roku-or-royal-caribbean-cruises/ | 2022-08-01T16:04:19Z |
BRISBANE, Australia, Aug. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Tracer DAO has announced that its DAO has voted on and successfully passed a historic proposal to merge with their core service provider, Mycelium. The consolidation will bring with it the launch of a new Perpetual Swaps derivative product, transition to a new token with greater utility, and reduced focus on DAO governance.
Tracer DAO is a decentralized finance protocol that released a new derivative primitive Perpetual Pools, hosted on leading Ethereum scaling solution Arbitrum in 2021. The product allows traders to trade without liquidations, or margin. The mechanism uses an innovative model to rebalance positions, protecting traders from liquidations, unlocking very long-term trading opportunities compared with traditional derivatives that optimize for short-term trades (<1 day). Over the last year, Perpetual Pools saw over $800M USD in trade volume.
As the core service provider to Tracer DAO since the beginning of 2021, Mycelium was responsible for developing the smart contracts for Tracer DAO's Perpetual Pools derivative product. Mycelium has been building blockchain infrastructure since 2019 with the establishment of one of the first and most performant Chainlink Oracle Nodes, Mycelium Node. Mycelium will bring its significant data infrastructure capabilities and expertise to enhance Tracer's existing derivative product and add bespoke price feeds to create new derivative markets exclusive to the platform.
As part of the transition, Mycelium has also announced that a market leading Perpetual Swaps product will launch this month on Arbitrum. The product will deliver extremely low trading fees, on average 50% cheaper than centralized competitors.
In addition, as an industry first on Arbitrum, Mycelium Perpetual Swaps will deploy markets for DeFi tokens CRV, BAL, and FXS for users to trade with. Blue chip DeFi tokens BTC, ETH, LINK, and UNI will also be on the trading platform, making Mycelium Perpetual Swaps the home of the largest range of trading markets within the Arbitrum ecosystem.
Besides the Rari/Fei and Gamma/Visor Finance mergers, there is little precedent for token and community transitions in the cryptocurrency industry. The Mycelium proposal entitles all TCR holders to change their token 1:1 to MYC, a token with greater utility. The move will also see a reduced focus on DAO governance with voting reduced to deployment of new markets. This new model will prioritize creating more value and streamlining product delivery for DeFi users.
The proposal to consolidate with Mycelium highlighted the added capability and resources Mycelium can provide to help realize Tracer's core vision: to enhance access and efficiency for everyday users via decentralised technology.
"The reality today is 99% of the population is not comfortable utilising the financial products available in DeFi. Creating wallets, storing seed phrases, understanding smart contracts, oracle risk and bridging assets is often a very cumbersome process and beyond what the average individual is willing to devote time and attention to mastering. To successfully realize the vision for widespread adoption, Mycelium believes a transition from Tracer to Mycelium, to act as an access point into DeFi, is a compelling proposal that would benefit existing and future adopters of decentralised finance," the proposal posted by CEO and Co-Founder of Mycelium Patrick McNab outlined.
Mycelium has been building blockchain infrastructure since 2019 with the establishment of one of the first Chainlink Oracle Nodes, Mycelium Node. The company specializes in blockchain data and derivatives. Mycelium built a new derivative primitive Perpetual Pools (known as Tracer) with zero liquidations, which launched on Arbitrum in September 2021, and will be launching their Perpetual Swaps product in August 2022.
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SOURCE Mycelium | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/08/12/tracer-dao-votes-historic-proposal-merge-with-core-service-provider-mycelium-launch-new-derivative-product/ | 2022-08-12T14:08:43Z |
Democratic governor candidates debate issues of education, gun safety and Blue Oval City and UT Martin
Thursday night’s gubernatorial debate at University of Tennessee at Martin, which saw the attendance of three candidates for the Democratic nomination for governor and four candidates for the Congressional District 8 seat, was rife with a unified passion for change and equal amounts of disagreement on how to achieve such change.
The two debates were the third of their kind in a series of debates presented in partnership with the University of Tennessee System and the USA TODAY Network.
Attending for the Democratic nomination for governor were Dr. Carnita Atwater of Memphis, Dr. Jason Martin of Nashville and Councilman JB Smiley of Memphis.
Topics ranged from the state of education rates within Tennessee, to Blue Oval City Development and gun safety, particularly in the face of recent mass shootings such as the Uvalde, Texas shooting.
Education a central focus
In a question that seemed to resonate heavily with the gathered crowd of college students, candidates were asked about the “crisis” of falling collegiate education rates in the state. Each candidate agreed that a heavier emphasis needs to be placed on trade skills, though their answer for traditional higher education accessibility varied.
Martin, who specifically mentions the burden of student loans on his campaign website, advocated for “financially affordable for options for students.”
“People are often discouraged against higher education because they don’t want to be saddled with student loans,” he said. “We need to make sure we’re running a lean and efficient cost-effective system for students in Tennessee.”
Smiley disagreed that it was a crisis, explaining that the “traditional path” is not right for everyone.
“I think we do ourselves a disservice when we say that every person is going to go to college,” Smiley said. “We need to invest in (trade) programs…. If folks do decide to purse high education, we need to make sure those programs are affordable and attainable.”
Atwater refuted Smiley’s statement of the lack of crisis, and placed heavier emphasis on the involvement of youth in education.
“I think we do have a crisis in higher education,” she said. “I think if higher education went to middle schools and started a program…I think we could recruit people at an early age. I also think universities should have partnerships with trade schools.”
Candidates also expressed strong opposition to Governor Bill Lee’s continued support of the Education Savings Account voucher program, which gives families in Shelby and Davidson County taxpayer-funded vouchers to attend private schools.
“I am 150% for public schools,” Atwater said. “I would not support them. I find it ironic that Gov. Lee would support school vouchers when he did not release $730 million for Tennessee Assistance for Needy Families funding. I think that’s hypocritical.”
More:Report: Tennessee has $730 million in unused block grant funds for poor working families
Martin stated firmly that the voucher programs were “weapons against public schools,” and that they needed to “be off the books.”
“Lee has waged war against public education his entire term in office,” Martin said. “Whether it's working to politicize school boards, firing teachers for teaching American history as it happened, or going after librarians and not speaking out against the burning of textbooks, this program is just another weapon he’s using to defund and weaken our public school system and we need to stand up against it.”
Smiley agreed.
“This administration has been hell-bent on destroying funds for public education,” he said. “They’re attempting to make private school with public funding. That’s not how are funds are supposed to be spent.”
Future of development in Blue Oval City
Candidates expressed careful support for the Blue Oval City development, which will see the creation of the highly-anticipated Ford electric vehicle plant in Stanton.
More:Jackson Chamber talks initiatives, excitement for Blue Oval City changes
“I’m all for economic development, but not on the backs of the taxpayers,” Atwater said. “I think we need to consider—before any corporation comes to our cities—I think we need to have a community engagement agreement so people will have some type of benefit when they come to their community. I do not believe that we should give tax incentives to large corporations without accountability.”
Martin stated his support for the plan, expressing appreciation for the stipulations of the deal.
“I fully support what’s going on in Blue Oval City and the development in West Tennessee,” he said. “It will be so transformative for the region and I’m really glad that the General Assembly was able to build some claw-backs into the agreement—essentially, if they don’t meet their end of the deal, they don’t get those incentives and the money comes back to the taxpayers of Tennessee.”
Smiley took a different route, stating his support but also his hesitance in the face of the recent legal issues surrounding the town of Mason.
“I think economic development in relation to Blue Oval City is amazing,” he said. “However, I want to acknowledge the fact that there is a city not too far from here that was in the direct path of Blue Oval City called Mason, Tennessee. And for some reason, our state government attempted to take their charter. It wasn’t because they were illegitimately handling their finances—it was because our state wanted to keep their foot on the necks of marginalized communities.
“That type of leadership should not be tolerated. Everyone should be up in arms when our state comes to small communities and (takes control). We’re all for economic development, but we don’t want to overly insensitive larger corporations to come to our town. We want to give equal incentives to our small communities so they can scale up.”
More:State comptroller to take over Town of Mason's finances, citing decades of mismanagement
“He’s wrong about guns”: Strong words for state gun safety response
When asked about the recent executive order signed by Gov. Lee to “strengthen accountability and transparency around existing school safety,” candidates decried the lack of reasonable action in light of the recent rise—and long-standing issue—of mass shooting violence.
More:Gov. Bill Lee signs executive order on school safety, but quiet on gun control
‘I think for Gov. Lee to not address the gun control of Tennessee is a blatant oversight,” Martin said. "I think we need to make sure that yes—schools have access to School Resource Officers. Yes, we need to examine our entrance points to make sure that is as controlled as it can be, but we also need to talk about the fact Gov. Lee is wrong about guns in Tennessee.”
Martin went on to explain that Lee’s passage of permit-less carry was a “blatant disregard of advice” from state officials and an “oversight.”
“Permit-less carry gave a decades-long practice of having a background check and a basic level of safety training away from having a permit,” he said. “If someone is around you with a concealed weapon, don’t you want to know that they’ve had a background check and a decent level of training?”
Smiley disagreed that the law was “an oversight,” and called it an “intentional omission.”
“(Lee) spent the whole time talking about how he was going to make schools safe, but he did not acknowledge the fact that there are funs out there, there are people out there with ill intent to come in our schools to make them unsafe for a lot of people,” Smiley said, stating his support for the immediate return of background checks and “an outright ban on assault rifles.”
“They have no place in civilized society. They are killing weapons and we need to get rid of them….We have to call it out—we cannot ignore guns.”
Atwater advocated for a “comprehensive crime prevention plan,” to address gun safety.
“I see where the governor is coming from, but I think it’s a little too late,” she said. “We need to stop playing games and get to the meat of the matter.”
Calls to action
Candidates concluded their discussion with closing statements.
Smiley expressed his appreciation for the number of young people in the room.
“I’m so eager, so happy to see all of you here,” he said. “I’m just like you—I saw a need in my community and want to use my skills and everything I have to do something about it...the same passion I put into my current work in Memphis, I will bring forward to the state of Tennessee.”
Martin placed emphasis on the need for the people of Tennessee to come together.
“I’m new to politics….but the biggest lesson I’ve taken away from this process is that there is so much more bringing us together than that which divides us. We all want good healthcare, good schools for our kids, a good job, a chance to have a productive future. That’s what we’re fighting for….no matter who you are, Tennessee should be the land of opportunity for us all.”
Atwater reiterated her “boots on the ground” stance to change in her campaign.
“I want to take my spirit of humanity into the capitol,” she said. “I want to address poverty, economic disparities, healthcare disparities, homelessness—which is very close to my heart—and I want to be a unique governor. I have a proven record of being a servant of the people.”
Early voting begins on July 15th, with the primary election on August 4th.
Voter registration is due by July 5th. Registration can be done online at ovr.govote.tn.gov.
Have a story to tell? Reach Angele Latham by email at alatham@gannett.com, by phone at 731-343-5212, or follow her on Twitter at @angele_latham. | https://www.jacksonsun.com/story/news/2022/06/10/democratic-governor-candidates-debate-issues-education-gun-safety-and-blue-oval-city-and-ut-martin/7569042001/ | 2022-06-10T17:17:31Z |
Blaze Pizza restaurants across the nation will donate 25 percent of net sales to local school groups and organizations that host fundraisers during the month of September
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Blaze Pizza, the leading fast-casual pizza franchise concept, today announced that in honor of back to school season, its restaurants across the country will increase ongoing donations by five percent for school-related organizations that host dine-in and online fundraisers hosted in the month of September at a local Blaze location.
During the month of September, local Blaze restaurants will donate 25 percent of fundraiser net sales to support school-related organizations. By hosting a fundraiser in the month of September through a local Blaze Pizza restaurant, customers will be prompted to use the beneficiaries' unique promotion code for dine-in, carry-out, and app orders. From those orders, 25 percent of the proceeds will be donated directly back to the organization or school.
"Blaze Pizza encourages affiliated groups to partner with their local restaurant for the opportunity to raise funds and improve the lives of local educators and students," said Mandy Shaw, CEO of Blaze Pizza. "One of our core values is built around community support, and we look forward to continuing that by rallying local supporters for this back-to-school cause!"
Blaze Pizza's commitment to using fresh sustainable ingredients is only matched by the brand's dedication to delivering each guest with a unique pizza that truly reflects what they're craving. Guests can combine more than 45 different options, including ingredients like roasted peppers, artichokes, roasted garlic, and plant-based chorizo or keep it simple with a classic pepperoni and cheese pizza. With five crusts to choose from, including our signature made from scratch dough, a Keto crust with 6g net carbs, and cauliflower, as well as nitrate-free meats and fresh pizza sauce and drizzles, Blaze goes to great lengths to provide customers with an unmatched dining experience that meets their lifestyle.
All 340+ Blaze Pizza locations are participating in the back-to-school fundraiser opportunity in September. For more information about hosting a local fundraiser at Blaze Pizza, visit https://www.blazepizza.com/fundraising and follow Blaze Pizza on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for details on additional back to school incentives and values that will be rolled out in September.
Founded in 2011, Blaze Pizza is the nation's leading fast-casual pizza franchise concept with more than 340 restaurants across 38 states and 6 countries. Headquartered in Los Angeles, Blaze Pizza is committed to delivering a one-of-a-kind guest experience and unparalleled high-quality products. Known for its savory artisanal pizzas and customizable made-to-order in 180 seconds menu featuring fresh, natural ingredients free from artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives, Blaze leads the industry in menu innovation and product excellence. The rapidly growing franchise has received numerous accolades including Entrepreneur's Franchise 500, as well as #1 spots on Fast Casual's Top 100 Movers and Shakers and Franchise Times' Fast and Serious list. Visit blazepizza.com for additional information and stay connected on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTok @BlazePizza.
CONTACT:
Erin Jacobs
Blaze Pizza
(954) 893-9150
ejacobs@fish-consulting.com
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SOURCE Blaze Pizza | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/08/09/blaze-pizza-celebrates-back-school-with-increased-donation-opportunities-participating-organizations/ | 2022-08-09T13:41:05Z |
SEOUL, South Korea, July 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Eye Level, celebrating its 10th anniversary, provides educational services as its CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities. Starting from July, students who need private basic education but cannot afford it are offered a unique opportunity.
More than two hundred students in the US, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong SAR benefit from this program. Eye Level instructors who are specially trained for individualized coaching diagnose the students' mathematics and English ability and provide coaching services at each student's eye level. This is based on the organization's core philosophy of educating each child at his or her learning rate and level. Through this tailored learning support, students improve their mathematical and English skills and are further motivated to learn.
Eye Level will continue to support CSR activities for students - especially in regions with an Eye Level learning center - and continue to empower all students to learn to read, add and subtract.
About Eye Level
Eye Level is a global leader in Mathematics and English programs for students between the ages of 4 and 15. With academic achievement as the top priority, Eye Level believes that each child has untapped potential for greatness - and Eye Level provides the door to success.
Depending on each student's level, they will have access to level-appropriate booklets, worksheets, readers, additional practice problems, online games, and other supplementary materials.
Visit myeyelevel.com to get access to Eye Level Free learning materials and gauge your math and English capabilities through the Level Quiz.
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SOURCE Eye Level | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/07/21/eye-levels-csr-activity-excites-students-company-donates-its-educational-booklets-services/ | 2022-07-21T20:28:10Z |
STOCKHOLM, July 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --
- Group sales and operating profit increased strongly on the back of continued solid momentum for the US smokefree business and currency tailwind.
- Group sales increased by 23 percent to 5,561 MSEK (4,505). In local currencies, Group sales increased by 11 percent for the second quarter.
- Group operating profit increased to 2,227 MSEK (1,956).
- Operating profit from product segments increased by 14 percent to 2,271 MSEK (1,988). In local currencies, operating profit from product segments1) increased by 1 percent for the second quarter.
- In local currencies, operating profit grew by 14 percent for the Smokefree product segment despite higher market investments across geographies to support future growth. For the Cigars product segment, operating profit declined, impacted by lower volumes. For Lights, underlying operating profit increased, but items of temporary nature drove a decline in reported operating profit.
- Profit after tax increased to 1,624 MSEK (1,441).
- Earnings per share increased by 17 percent to 1.07 SEK (0.92).
- The full year outlook for 2022, found on page 14, has been updated based on developments during the first six months.
1) Excludes Other operations and larger one-time items.
For the full report: www.swedishmatch.com/Investors/Financial-reports/Interim-reports/
Swedish Match telephone conference
A telephone conference will be held today, Friday, July 22 at 2:00 p.m. (CET), (1:00 p.m. UK time). At this time we will review and comment on the results. Participants will include Lars Dahlgren, Anders Larsson, and Emmett Harrison.
Listen to the telephone conference: www.swedishmatch.com/Investors/Presentations/Webcasts-and-audiocasts/
Telephone conference presentation: www.swedishmatch.com/Investors/Presentations/
Contacts:
Lars Dahlgren, President and Chief Executive Officer
Phone +46 8 658 0441
Anders Larsson, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President Group Finance
Phone +46 10 139 3006
Emmett Harrison, Senior Vice President Investor Relations
Phone +46 70 938 0173
Johan Levén, Investor Relations and Business Analysis Manager
Phone +46 70 207 2116
This information is information that Swedish Match AB (publ) is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation and the Securities Markets Act. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact persons set out above, at 08.15 a.m. CET on July 22, 2022.
This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com
The following files are available for download:
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SOURCE Swedish Match | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/07/22/swedish-match-half-year-report-january-june-2022/ | 2022-07-22T08:22:10Z |
The Special "BROS Presents Your Favorite ComRoms" Screenings Will
Include Exclusive Pre-Show Commentary from BROS Director
Nicholas Stoller and Stars Billy Eichner and Luke Macfarlane
September 19, 20 and 21
DENVER, Aug. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The guys behind Universal Pictures' new, groundbreaking, R-rated romantic comedy BROS (in theaters September 30) are here to save date night! BROS director Nicholas Stoller, along with star and co-screenwriter Billy Eichner and star Luke Macfarlane are bringing some of their favorite, hilarious movies back to theaters—"Forgetting Sarah Marshall," "Trainwreck" and "Knocked Up"—each for ONE NIGHT ONLY events on September 19, 20 and 21.
Join them for a "thruple" of exclusive screenings on three consecutive nights in select theaters nationwide, with each screening preceded by a unique introduction from Stoller, Eichner or Macfarlane that highlights why the film is one of his favorite romantic comedies.
Tickets for "BROS Presents Your Favorite ComRoms" can be purchased at www.FathomEvents.com or at participating theater box offices. Fans throughout the U.S. will be able to enjoy the event in select movie theaters; for a complete list of theater locations visit the Fathom Events website (theaters and participants are subject to change).
VIEW TRAILER HERE:
Event Overview:
Monday, September 19 at 7:00 pm local time
BROS PRESENTS – FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL
- General Event Description: Peter (Jason Segel) is a struggling musician who finds his world turned upside down when his TV celebrity girlfriend, Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), dumps him for a tragically hip rock star (Russell Brand). Directed by Nicholas Stoller from a screenplay by Jason Segel.
Tuesday, September 20 at 7:00 pm local time
BROS PRESENTS – TRAINWRECK
- General Event Description: Since she was a little girl, Amy (Amy Schumer) has been taught that monogamy isn't realistic. Now a magazine writer, Amy lives by that credo, but when she finds herself starting to fall for the subject of an article she's writing (Bill Hader), Amy starts to wonder if other grown-ups might be onto something. Directed by Judd Apatow from a screenplay by Amy Schumer.
Wednesday, September 21 at 7:00 pm local time
BROS PRESENTS – KNOCKED UP
- General Event Description: They say that opposites attract. Well, for slacker Ben (Seth Rogen) and career girl Alison (Katherine Heigl), that's certainly the case—at least for one intoxicated evening. Two months and several pregnancy tests later, Ben and Alison go through a hysterically funny, anxious and heartwarming journey to parenthood. Written and directed by Judd Apatow.
About BROS
This fall, Universal Pictures proudly presents the first romantic comedy from a major studio about two gay men maybe, possibly, probably, stumbling towards love. Maybe. They're both very busy.
From the ferocious comic mind of Billy Eichner (Billy on the Street, 2019's The Lion King, Difficult People, Impeachment: American Crime Story) and the hitmaking brilliance of filmmakers Nicholas Stoller (the Neighbors films, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and Judd Apatow (The King of Staten Island, Trainwreck, The Big Sick), comes Bros, a smart, swoony and heartfelt comedy about how hard it is to find another tolerable human being to go through life with.
Starring Billy Eichner, the first openly gay man to co-write and star in his own major studio film—and featuring an entirely LGBTQ+ principal cast, including Luke Macfarlane (Killjoys), Ts Madison (The Ts Madison Experience), Monica Raymund (Chicago Fire), Guillermo Díaz (Scandal), Guy Branum (The Other Two) and Amanda Bearse (Married …with Children)—Bros is directed by Nicholas Stoller from his screenplay with Eichner. The film is produced by Judd Apatow, Stoller and Josh Church (co-producer Trainwreck, Step Brothers) and is executive produced by Eichner and Karl Frankenfield.
About Fathom Events
Fathom is a recognized leader in the entertainment industry as one of the top distributors of content to movie theaters in North America. Owned by AMC Entertainment Inc. (NYSE: AMC); Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CNK); and Regal, a subsidiary of the Cineworld Group (LSE: CINE.L), Fathom operates the largest cinema distribution network, delivering a wide variety of programming and experiences to cinema audiences in all of the top U.S. markets and to more than 45 countries. For more information, visit www.FathomEvents.com.
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SOURCE Fathom Events | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/08/24/fathom-events-universal-pictures-announce-special-three-night-block-classic-com-roms-celebrate-release-new-romantic-comedy-bros/ | 2022-08-24T17:14:05Z |
PARIS (AP) — A special French terrorism court on Monday opened the trial of eight people accused of helping a man who, on Bastille Day six years ago, plowed a heavy truck through crowds in a southern French resort town leaving 86 dead.
During the planned three and a half months of court proceedings in Paris, survivors and those mourning loved ones will recount the horrors inflicted along the beachfront of Nice on the night of July 14, 2016.
Veronique Marchand, whose husband was killed, said she’s still haunted by the attack.
“It’s this constant replay of the night in slow-motion, every detail of it,” she said in an interview at the courthouse. “I feel as if I’m watching this tape that was recorded and that it just keeps happening.”
Danielle Leechailler, who witnessed the attack, said she and other survivors want justice.
“The emotional damage has left a scar over the past 6 years but now we expect sanctions from the judicial system and to see the sentences enforced,” she said.
Seven of the eight accused were in court. The eighth is being tried in absentia. The chief judge told the court that he is in detention in Tunisia and that Tunisian authorities hadn’t responded to a French judicial request concerning him.
The verdict is expected in December. The proceedings will be broadcast live to the Acropolis Convention Center in Nice for those who don’t travel to Paris. Audio of the trial will also be available online, with a 30-minute delay.
Thousands of locals and tourists had packed Nice’s famed boardwalk on the Mediterranean coast that summer night to celebrate France’s national day, strolling along the Promenade des Anglais with friends and family members, laughing and dancing on the beach just below.
Shortly after the end of a fireworks display, the truck careered through the crowds for two kilometers (1¼ miles) like a snow plow, hitting person after person. The final death toll included 15 children and adolescents, while 450 other people were injured. Of the dead, 33 were foreign nationals.
The attacker, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was killed by police soon after.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the carnage. However, French prosecutors said that while Bouhlel had been inspired by the extremist group’s propaganda, investigators found no evidence that IS orchestrated the attack.
Investigators didn’t find evidence that any of the suspects in the current trial was directly involved in the carnage. Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian with French residency, is considered solely responsible for the deaths.
With the perpetrator dead, few expect to get justice.
“Our clients expect everything and nothing from the trial,” said Gerard Chelma, a lawyer for some victims’ families. “Some feel (the trial) will be useless. Other are hoping for convictions and as much attention as there was during the trial of the Paris attacks.”
Three suspects have been charged with terrorist conspiracy for alleged links to Bouhlel. Five others face other criminal charges, including for allegedly providing arms to the assailant. If convicted, they face sentences ranging from five years to life in prison.
____
Surk reported from Nice, France. AP journalist Alex Turnbull in Paris contributed.
___
This story has been corrected to show that the trial is expected to last 3 1/2 months, not 2 1/2. | https://cw33.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-nice-bastille-day-attack-trial-begins-in-paris-terror-court/ | 2022-09-05T17:36:44Z |
NEW YORK, May 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Jakubowitz Law announces that a securities fraud class action lawsuit has commenced on behalf of shareholders of Ironnet, Inc. (NYSE: IRNT).
To receive updates on the lawsuit, fill out the form:
https://claimyourloss.com/securities/ironnet-inc-loss-submission-form/?id=27759&from=4
The lawsuit seeks to recover losses for shareholders who purchased Ironnet between September 15, 2021 and December 15, 2021.
Shareholders interested in acting as a lead plaintiff representing the class of wronged shareholders have until June 21, 2022 to petition the court. Your ability to share in any recovery doesn't require that you serve as a lead plaintiff.
According to a filed complaint, Ironnet, Inc. issued materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) the Company had materially overstated its business and financial prospects; (ii) the Company was unable to predict the timing of significant customer opportunities which constituted a substantial portion of its publicly- issued FY 2022 financial guidance; (iii) the Company had not established effective disclosure controls and procedures to reasonably ensure its public disclosures were timely, accurate, complete, and not otherwise misleading; and (iv) as a result, the Company's public statements were materially false, misleading, and/or lacked any reasonable basis in fact at all relevant times.
Jakubowitz Law is vigorous in pursuit of justice for shareholders who have been the victim of securities fraud. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
CONTACT:
JAKUBOWITZ LAW
1140 Avenue of the Americas
9th Floor
New York, New York 10036
T: (212) 867-4490
F: (212) 537-5887
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SOURCE Jakubowitz Law | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/05/27/irnt-shareholder-alert-jakubowitz-law-reminds-ironnet-shareholders-lead-plaintiff-deadline-june-21-2022/ | 2022-05-27T11:40:10Z |
K-9 who escaped backyard found shot; had to be euthanized
ATLANTA (WGCL/Gray News) – A K-9 in Georgia who went missing from his backyard was later found shot and had to be euthanized.
K-9 Perro with the Lithonia Police Department disappeared Sunday afternoon after digging a hole in his handler’s backyard and climbing under the fence.
“He dug a hole in the yard and put a hole through the fence and got out,” J. Patterson, Perro’s handler, said.
The next day, following an expanded search, K-9 Perro was spotted. He was picked up by DeKalb County Animal Control and was suffering from a gunshot wound.
The bullet caused significant damage, and an emergency decision was made to put K-9 Perro down.
Patterson said this was the first time the dog escaped the backyard in the nearly four years he has been Perro’s handler.
The Lithonia Police Department is asking for privacy to grieve after Officer Perro’s death.
“At this time, we would ask for privacy for our K-9 handler Major Patterson and his family as they grieve not only for the loss of Major Patterson’s partner but a true friend and family member within his family,” the department said in a statement.
The police department did not provide details on any leads to find out who shot Perro.
Copyright 2022 WGCL via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.mysuncoast.com/2022/08/31/k-9-who-escaped-backyard-found-shot-had-be-euthanized/ | 2022-08-31T18:22:29Z |
FLORENCE, Italy , July 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Intense emotions and immense satisfaction were in the air during the final event of the XXVI Fair Play Menarini International Award. Yesterday evening, the award ceremony for the winners of the 2022 edition in Castiglion Fiorentino (Arezzo) drew an enjoyable end to this celebration of the values of sportsmanship, organised by the Fair Play Menarini Foundation.
Ethics, loyalty and respect once more took centre stage to be celebrated through the sporting personalities who, as of today, have officially become ambassadors for the message of the Award. This prestigious accolade once again provided an extraordinary opportunity to acknowledge and share the best of sporting culture, whilst flying the flag for universal ideals, success stories, altruism and hope, the fight against discrimination, and friendship despite differences.
"We are pleased to have rewarded champions who, during their careers, have been the standard bearers of very important principles, such as ethics, loyalty and respect" – stated Lucia and Alberto Giovanni Aleotti, shareholders and Board Members of Menarini – "Inspired by these past few days, we look forward to seeing you at the next edition so that we may continue to elevate the values of fair play ever higher."
The wonderful final evening of this celebration of fair play, hosted by Lorenzo Dallari and Rachele Sangiuliano and broadcast live on Sportitalia, was made all the brighter for the dazzling light of "la Divina" Federica Pellegrini, winner of the first Olympic gold in Italian swimming history and the eternal pride of the national sport scene. A trio of football giants stepped out onto the stage in Castiglion Fiorentino, including former heroes of the pitch Roberto Donadoni and Massimo Ambrosini.
Those present in the piazza gave an unforgettable welcome to record-breaking Australians Casey Stoner and Ian Thorpe, champions of the race track and the pool respectively, and to ex-footballer Fabrizio Ravanelli, winner of the Paolo Rossi Special Award in the "Youth Role Model" Category, presented by the wife of "Pablito" himself, Federica Cappelletti. Also taking their turn in the Fair Play limelight were diver and champion of the water Tania Cagnotto, volleyball star Marco Bracci and Olympic target-shooting champion from San Marino Alessandra Perilli, as well as this edition's rising young stars: taekwondo champion Vito Dell'Aquila and Stefania Constantini, Italy's first-ever Olympic medal winner for curling in the mixed doubles. Two plaques were awarded in the "Sport beyond Sport" category, to the super-duo of Paralympic Alpine skiing: Giacomo Bertagnolli and Andrea Ravelli. Completing the roster of new Fair Play Menarini Ambassadors, journalist Giorgio Porrà who was presented with the Franco Lauro Special Award "Narrating Emotions".
"With the conclusion of this latest edition, which was managed entirely by our Foundation, we are advancing a mission that we believe to be crucial: using the world of sport to spread ideals that we hope will gain more and more ground in all of our everyday lives," remarked Antonello Biscini, Valeria Speroni Cardi and Ennio Troiano, Board members of the Fair Play Menarini Foundation. "Today, as we already turn our attention to the next edition, we want to thank the award-winning champions and everybody who contributed to the success of the XXVI Fair Play Menarini International Award."
The categories and winners of the XXVI Fair Play Menarini International Award are:
- Category: Carriera Fair Play (Career in Fair Play) — ROBERTO DONADONI
- Category: Fair Play — MASSIMO AMBROSINI
- Category: Lo sport oltre lo sport (Sport Beyond Sport) — GIACOMO BERTAGNOLLI and ANDREA RAVELLI
- Category: Il Gesto (The Gesture) — MARCELO BIELSA
- Category: Sport e vita (Sport and Life) — CASEY STONER
- Category: Una vita per lo sport (Lifetime Achievement in Sport) — MARCO BRACCI
- Category: Personaggio mito (Legendary Figure) — IAN THORPE
- Category: SUSTENIUM Energia e Cuore - Personaggio mito (Energy and Heart SUSTENIUM - Legendary Figure) — FEDERICA PELLEGRINI
- Category: Paolo Rossi Special Award Modello per i giovani (Youth Role Model) — FABRIZIO RAVANELLI
- Category: I valori sociali dello sport (Social Values in Sport) — VITO DELL'AQUILA
- Category: Promozione dello sport (Promotion of Sport) — ALESSANDRA PERILLI
- Category: Un sorriso per la vita (A Smile for Life) — TANIA CAGNOTTO
- Category: I valori educativi dello sport (Educational Values in Sport) — STEFANIA CONSTANTINI
- Category: Franco Lauro Special Award Narrare le emozioni (Narrating Emotions) — GIORGIO PORRÀ
- Category: Fiamme Gialle Special Award Studio e Sport (Study and Sport) — BEATRICE CORADESCHI
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SOURCE Menarini Industrie Farmaceutiche Riunite | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/07/08/sports-finest-gather-under-stars-grand-finale-xxvi-fair-play-menarini-international-award/ | 2022-07-08T17:18:03Z |
Teams get creative crossing US-Canada border in NHL playoffs
By STEPHEN WHYNO
AP Hockey Writer
NHL teams are taking different approaches to crossing the U.S.-Canada border during the first round of the playoffs. The U.S. is still requiring a negative COVID-19 test for all passengers arriving on international flights. The Edmonton Oilers flew to Vancouver and took buses into Washington state before flying to Los Angeles to avoid that. The Toronto Maple Leafs took buses to New York before flying to Florida. Other teams opted to test and and then fly direct when their respective series shifted from Canada to the U.S. late this week. | https://localnews8.com/sports/ap-national-sports/2022/05/06/teams-get-creative-crossing-us-canada-border-in-nhl-playoffs/ | 2022-05-06T21:20:51Z |
TOKYO, Aug. 3, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Star Asia Group and its affiliates ("Star Asia Group") announced today that it has made a strategic investment in two listed Japanese hotel operating companies, Greens Co. (TSE: 6547) and Washington Hotel Corp (TSE: 4691). Star Asia Group also currently owns over 76% of Polaris Holdings Ltd (TSE: 3010) which is the owner and/or operator of 45 hotels with 8,135 rooms across Japan and the Philippines. Polaris has opportunistically grown its rooms under operation by 2.62x over the last 2 years and is looking to further grow through additional accretive hotel acquisitions as well as corporate M&A.
Strategic Overview
Star Asia Group believes that the stress and dislocation in the Japanese hospitality market caused by ongoing COVID-19 pandemic unleashed unique investment opportunities not seen since the Global Financial Crisis, nearly 15 years ago. As the Covid-19 restrictions are gradually being lifted in Japan and globally, Star Asia Group believes the Japanese hospitality sector is in the early stages of a strong turnaround and should begin to show the strongest growth metrics in the entire real estate universe.
Star Asia Group believes that Greens Co. (TSE: 6547) and Washington Hotel Corp. (TSE: 4691) have both been trading at significant discounts to their intrinsic value. Star Asia Group is now one of the largest shareholders of both companies, currently owning over 6% of Greens and over 6% of Washington Hotel. Star Asia Group believes that both companies are solid hospitality operators and will be supported by their ability to generate significant cash flow post COVID-19, as the market opening accelerates, and many more domestic and foreign guests start traveling in Japan. Star Asia Group's senior management intends to work closely with Greens and Washington Hotel to unlock the significant value intrinsic to both companies. "We have initiated constructive dialogue with both companies' management, and we are now exploring strategies to further maximize shareholder value," said Taro Masuyama, Star Asia Group Co-Founder and Managing Partner. Star Asia Group will continue actively engaging with the management of Polaris Holdings, Greens and Washington Hotel, and is prepared to provide all necessary financial and strategic resources to facilitate unlocking shareholder value for all 3 companies.
Star Asia Group has already been actively taking tactical advantage of the extensive dislocation in the hospitality space through its sponsorship of its listed hotel operating affiliate, Polaris Holdings (TSE: 3010). Together with Star Asia Group, Polaris has acquired or assumed operations of 33 hotels and over 5,830 hotel rooms since the beginning of the pandemic. Polaris now operates 45 hotels with 8,135 hotel rooms under management and is very well-positioned to capitalize on the re-opening of the Japanese hospitality market.
Star Asia Group's senior management believes that the fiercely competitive limited-service hotel space should and will likely undergo structural changes as well as consolidation. "In the fiercely competitive limited-service hotel sector, economies of scale are critically important to assure strong guest loyalty, operating efficiency, and improved financing terms. We think consolidation of smaller hotel operators is inevitable for them to maximize their shareholder value. Star Asia Group is prepared to make additional investments in both companies to facilitate a potential transaction," said Malcolm MacLean, Star Asia Group Co-Founder and Managing Partner.
About Star Asia Group
Founded by Malcolm F. MacLean IV and Taro Masuyama in 2006, Star Asia Group is an independent fund management company focused on Japanese and Asian real estate and real estate related assets. Since its founding, Star Asia Group has invested over JPY1 trillion and has current assets under management of over JPY400 billion. Star Asia Group has 371 officers and employees with over 55 professionals in finance, investment and real estate area located primarily in Japan with a few employees based in North America.
Star Asia Group's partners and employees share a long-term perspective and always operate under our Guiding Principles which continuously drive the group to become and remain one of the leading real estate investment management firms in Japan and Asia. Star Asia Group's strong track record and long-term partnership approach with our investors have been integral in attracting significant capital from sophisticated global investors, including large American university endowments and foundations, Japanese and European pension funds, Sovereign Wealth Funds, U.S. and Asia based family offices as well as other global real estate investors. Star Asia Group is committed to its disciplined Investment Philosophy with a single goal of meeting and exceeding our client's expectations for the mandates we are given.
For further information, please see our website: www.starasiamanagement.com
CONTACT: Yohei Taguchi, y.taguchi@starasiamanagement.com
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SOURCE Star Asia Group | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/08/03/star-asia-group-makes-strategic-investments-2-listed-hotel-operators/ | 2022-08-03T12:16:00Z |
Combining Andersen's industry-leading window and door innovations with Ubiquitous Energy's patented transparent solar technology to bring solar-powered windows and doors into homes
BAYPORT, Minn., Aug. 17, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Andersen Corporation, manufacturer of the #1 innovative window and door brand*, and Ubiquitous Energy, the world leader in transparent solar technology, have entered into an agreement to jointly develop a first-of-its-kind energy generating window and door products.
The companies are working together to bring products to market that will revolutionize solar generation for residential and light commercial buildings. The products will leverage Ubiquitous Energy's UE Power™ technology, the only patented and visibly transparent photovoltaic glass coating that harnesses solar power to generate electricity, while remaining almost indistinguishable from traditional windows. With this revolutionary technology, the products the companies are jointly developing are intended to bring renewable energy generation to windows and doors while providing a clear, natural experience that is similar to what is expected from traditional windows and doors.
"By combining Andersen's expertise in crafting innovative window and door products that deliver quality, design aesthetic and energy efficiency with the unique properties of UE Power™ technology, our vision is to develop products that go beyond energy efficiency to energy generation," said Brandon Berg, senior vice president, research, development and innovation, Andersen Corporation. "This is a powerful opportunity to leverage our industry leadership, product development expertise and manufacturing capabilities to help bring innovative new products to the marketplace that will improve the homeowner experience and make the world a better place."
Andersen is a leading investor in Ubiquitous Energy and a longtime pioneer in the window and door industry with more than 225 patents to its name over time. Andersen's investment in Ubiquitous Energy represents the company's future-focused interest in advancing the fenestration industry with disruptive technology solutions that have the potential to elevate the industry and contribute to a healthier environment.
The companies began their relationship with an investment from Andersen in Ubiquitous Energy's Series B financing in 2021. Since then, Ubiquitous Energy has demonstrated significant progress, validating its large area coating equipment with the ability to uniformly coat floor-to-ceiling glass in addition to advancing its next-generation materials pipeline using artificial intelligence. UE Power™ technology serves as a visibly transparent solar panel that adds renewable energy generation capability to window and door glass while maintaining visual aesthetics. Ubiquitous Energy is actively raising funding to accelerate commercialization efforts, including funding for a U.S.-based manufacturing facility that will supply the first transparent solar window and door units to Andersen and other partners and customers.
"We are excited to continue to deepen our relationship with Andersen to together create the first UE Power™ window and door products for residential and light commercial buildings. Our companies have a shared goal of changing the way the world uses solar power and positively impacting the environment in a big way without compromising aesthetics or function," said Susan Stone, chief executive officer, Ubiquitous Energy.
ABOUT ANDERSEN CORPORATION
Andersen was founded in 1903 on the philosophy of working "all together" to deliver on its promise to its customers. Every day, the company's more than 13,000 employees are empowered to imagine what's possible and do what's right. Andersen delivers products for the way people live, unmatched performance for the comfort and security homeowners desire, and endless design options to achieve any style.
Headquartered in Bayport, Minn., Andersen Corporation and its subsidiaries manufacture and market window and door products under the Andersen®, Renewal by Andersen®, EMCO® and MQ™ brands. Andersen, a privately held company, operates manufacturing sites across North America and Europe. Andersen has earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2022 ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year – Sustained Excellence Award. Visit us at andersenwindows.com.
Follow us on Facebook @AndersenWindows, Twitter @AndersenWindows, and Instagram @andersen_windows.
ABOUT UBIQUITOUS ENERGY, INC.
Founded in 2011, Ubiquitous Energy was started by a group of MIT and MSU scientists and engineers looking for new ways to reduce humanity's carbon footprint by seamlessly integrating solar power technology into everyday products and surfaces. With nearly 200 global patent filings, Ubiquitous Energy has the world's leading transparent solar technology – the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials all while maintaining visible transparency. To both residential and commercial building occupants, Ubiquitous Energy's solar windows provide a clear, vibrant experience that is expected from traditional Low-E windows, but with self-contained, on-board power and smart functionality. For more information please visit us at www.ubiquitous.energy or connect with us via LinkedIn.
* 2022 Andersen brand surveys of U.S. contractors, builders & architects
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SOURCE Andersen Corporation | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/08/17/andersen-corporation-ubiquitous-energy-announce-plans-develop-first-energy-generating-windows-doors-without-aesthetic-compromises/ | 2022-08-17T16:47:46Z |
As the Official Technology Partner of The Championships for the past 33-years, IBM continues to accelerate innovation at Wimbledon and improve the digital fan experience
LONDON, June 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the All England Lawn Tennis Club today unveil new ways for Wimbledon fans around the world to experience The Championships digitally, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) running on IBM Cloud and hybrid cloud technologies. Co-created by the All England Club and IBM for Wimbledon.com and the Wimbledon app, the new features join a comprehensive suite of digital fan experiences - including the award-winning1 IBM Power Index with Watson, IBM Match Insights with Watson and Personalised Recommendations and Highlights Reels – all designed to help global audiences stay more informed and engaged with players, matches and the tournament.
New features for 2022 include:
- 'Win Factors' brings enhanced explainability to 'Match Insights': Building on the existing Match Insights feature of the Wimbledon app and Wimbledon.com, IBM is providing an additional level of explainability into what factors are being analysed by the AI system to determine match insights and predictions. Win Factors will provide fans with an increased understanding of the elements affecting player performance, such as the IBM Power Index, court surface, ATP/WTA rankings, head-to-head, ratio of games won, net of sets won, recent performance, yearly success, and media punditry.
- 'Have Your Say' with a new interactive fan predictions feature: For the first time, users can register their own predictions for match outcomes on the Wimbledon app and Wimbledon.com, through the Have Your Say feature. They can then compare their prediction with the aggregated predictions of other fans and the AI-powered Likelihood to Win predictions generated by IBM.
The Wimbledon digital features are underpinned by IBM Watson and leverage a hybrid cloud approach – using a combination of on-premises systems, private clouds, and IBM Cloud - enabling increased flexibility and efficiency. IBM Cloud provides the foundation and scalability for these digital experiences. It hosts and processes data from matches that is fed into AI models built using IBM Watson Studio and IBM Watson Discovery to produce insights for fans, commentators and media.
Alexandra Willis, Communications & Marketing Director, The All England Club, said: "Leveraging technology to help fans become more informed, engaged and involved throughout the Wimbledon Fortnight is at the core of our strategy to ensure we are leveraging innovation to keep Wimbledon relevant and deliver outstanding digital experiences for fans, wherever they may be. In partnership with IBM, we are thrilled to bring an even more dynamic and interactive digital experience to fans around the world this year as Wimbledon returns to full capacity. Core to these experiences is our ambition to help fans get closer to Wimbledon by understanding which players to follow and analyse, and inviting them to get involved with new match predictions and insights features, alongside our extensive scoring, news and video content across our channels."
Kevin Farrar, Sports Partnership Leader, IBM UK & Ireland, said: "The digital fan features on the Wimbledon app and Wimbledon.com, beautifully designed by the IBM iX team and powered by AI and hybrid cloud technologies, are enabling the All England Club to immerse tennis lovers in the magic of The Championship, no matter where they are in the world. Sports fans love to debate and we're excited to introduce a new tool this year to enable that by allowing people to register their own match predictions and compare them with predictions generated by Match Insights with Watson and those of other fans'."
As the Official Technology Partner of The Championships for the past 33-years, IBM has developed solutions to modernise and streamline workloads, and delivered innovative digital experiences to engage sports fans around the world through IBM iX, the experience design arm of IBM Consulting. Leveraging the same technologies IBM uses with businesses across industries and around the world, Wimbledon continues to accelerate innovation and improve the digital fan experience. The full suite of IBM-powered digital experiences on Wimbledon.com and the Wimbledon App includes:
- IBM Power Index with IBM Watson
- IBM Match Insights with IBM Watson
- Personalised Recommendations and Highlights Reels
The Championships, Wimbledon will run from June 27 – July 10, 2022. To see the technology in action, visit Wimbledon.com or download the Wimbledon app on your mobile device, available on the App Store and Google Play Store.
IBM Contacts:
Gregor Hastings
Gregor.hastings@ibm.com
1 The All England Club and IBM were awarded 'Best Fan Engagement by a Brand' at the 2022 Sports Technology Awards
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SOURCE IBM | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/06/21/ibm-reveals-new-ai-cloud-powered-fan-experiences-wimbledon-2022/ | 2022-06-21T06:14:42Z |
Four High-Power 300 kW Inductive Chargers Now in Use by Link Transit in Washington
MALVERN, Pa., June 18, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- With three solid years of regular daily operation, Link Transit's electric buses are proving their worth, according to Richard DeRock, General Manager of the Wenatchee, Washington, public transit agency. Now with 12 electric buses in operation, all using wireless chargers installed by Momentum Dynamics, the global leader in efficient, automated high-power wireless charging for electric vehicles, Link operates one of the largest electric bus fleets of any transit system in the nation. DeRock reports that the operating cost of their electric buses is about 51% of a diesel-fueled bus.
Momentum Dynamics installed the first wireless charging system at Link in late 2017 and more recently completed installation of four 300kW inductive chargers in 2021, three at Columbia Station and one in Leavenworth, WA. These four shared chargers support all of Link's electric buses and keep them in constant service throughout the day.
"Momentum's wireless chargers have been a game-changer for us," said DeRock. "They charge our electric buses for a few minutes on the layover between routes and provide additional range, allowing our buses to stay in service for 12 to 14 hours a day – even during the harsh cold of winter. Buses typically end their day with 40-50% of battery charge still remaining even on the coldest days. The cost savings are real and measurable. Along with the availability of inexpensive, clean, renewable hydro-power from the Columbia River and lower maintenance costs, it makes expansion of our fleet of battery-electric buses a financially sensible solution to combating climate change."
To replace aging diesel buses and allow for service expansion, Link will take delivery of three more 35' buses in early 2023 and another eight 30' buses later in 2023, all of which will use Momentum's wireless chargers to extend range and allow for operational efficiency.
"We are very pleased to support Link Transit in their drive to a healthier future in an economically beneficial way," said Andy Daga, CEO of Momentum Dynamics. "Wireless charging makes fleet management very efficient because the system delivers increased range and eliminates the need for a depot full of cables and chargers, all of which are subject to wear and tear and create a hazardous condition for workers. It is the most reliable and cost-effective charging system for fleets available today."
Other communities now using wireless chargers for their mass-transit buses installed by Momentum Dynamics include Indianapolis, Martha's Vineyard, Chattanooga, TN, and new installations across Washington, Oregon, California, and other states. The new terminal at Kansas City International Airport has been equipped with the wireless chargers to support their buses which will transport passengers between the terminal and parking facilities with an initial fleet of 7 (eventually 28) buses that will be kept in constant operation using only two shared wireless chargers.
Momentum Dynamics, located in Malvern, PA, is the global leader in high-power inductive charging for all types of electric vehicles, including passenger vehicles, buses, delivery trucks, and heavy trucks. The company practices world-class technology innovation through modular design and is recognized for the extraordinary accomplishments and unique expertise of its engineers and scientists. Momentum was a winner of the 2019 Emerging Technology Award from Mechanical Engineering Magazine. Please visit www.momentumdynamics.com or LinkedIn for additional information about Momentum.
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SOURCE Momentum Dynamics Corporation | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/06/18/one-americas-largest-electric-bus-fleets-reveals-operating-costs-ev-buses-using-wireless-chargers-momentum-dynamics-is-half-diesel-fueled-bus/ | 2022-06-18T16:50:18Z |
SANDY, Utah, April 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Vutility, Inc. (vutility.com), an award-winning, Utah-based startup providing leading-edge IoT and cloud-native sustainability, energy management hardware and data services, announced today a new feature for their multi-patented "HotDrop" product line.
"BeatDrop", will soon be available as an over-the-air (OTA) configuration update. BeatDrop utilizes the LoRaWAN IoT protocol to transmit compressed music files to existing, non-intrusive HotDrop submeters installed inside an electrical panel. Using the HotDrop Core's edge-intelligence, the 11-byte LoRaWAN packets are converted into a proprietary high-fidelity "lossless" audio format that inductively transfer to the electrical wiring system, turning wall outlets into reference-grade speakers.
"As the leader in scalable real-time energy monitoring solutions, our technology is advancing a more sustainable future," said Matthew Barber, CEO at Vutility. "We believe that the built world should not only be efficient, but also restorative. Music can be soothing and even healing, and it literally resonates as a way we can change the world through data that matters."
In addition to enabling each circuit in a building to stream unique, custom playlists, the company is exploring triggered alerting using AI and machine learning to deliver sonic messaging for critical equipment maintenance, grid-signaled demand events, safety notifications, and more.
"Developing the HotDrop was an engineering miracle, as we delivered minute-by-minute transmissions of true-RMS, revenue-grade energy monitoring from a completely wireless and battery-less, inductively-charged device the size of a domino," reflects Micheal Austin, CTO at Vutility. "Now, transmitting over 500,000 data points annually from an individual circuit feels like making a volcano in kindergarten in comparison to BeatDrop. Having previously overseen the emergence of the mobile phone industry, BeatDrop Alerts will be like ringtones on steroids!"
About Vutility, Inc.
Vutility was founded in 2016 with a vision to change the way the world works through data that matters. With proprietary IoT sensors and data services, the company provides scalable, cost-effective real-time visibility into energy and utility usage, enabling innovative and disruptive building and energy management offerings around the globe. Vutility's technologies deliver data that powers the solutions of leading providers of energy and building management services across a wide variety of industries, including energy efficiency, measure and verify (M&V) audits, demand response (DR), sustainability, building automation, critical equipment monitoring and optimization and more. Key investors include Chevron, Constellation, and Cycle Capital. Visit Vutility.com to learn more.
Happy April Fool's Day!
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SOURCE Vutility | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/04/01/vutilitys-disruptive-iot-based-hotdrop-energy-monitoring-technology-add-new-music-streaming-feature-beatdrop/ | 2022-04-01T11:30:41Z |
NOVI, Mich., Sept. 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- EnerDel, a leading Li-ion battery pack manufacturer will display the next generation iEGO pack and greet customers at the Battery Show North America! The Battery Show presents the latest on advanced battery technology for a variety of electric and hybrid products. Meet the EnerDel Team at the show in the Pearl Meeting Room at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, MI on September 13th and 14th from 9:15am to 4:30pm (EST).
The latest chapter in EnerDel's long history is new ownership by Mr. Paul Herbert. We are now an American-owned company with a new leadership team members who will be in attendance at the Show to highlight our new products and operations.
Learn more about the new EnerDel by attending Kev Adjemian's (EnerDel CSO) talk on the New Beginnings at EnerDel. The speech will take place in the Gold Ballroom at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, MI on September 15th at 2pm (EST).
The iEGO Pack is the next gen pack answer for flexible configurations and state of the art battery management system controls! It is well suited for customers wanting custom pack configurations, used in many applications, like mining, agriculture, construction, industrial lift, micro-grid, specialty transportation, and marine.
Be sure to check out EnerDel's new website at www.enerdel.com
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SOURCE EnerDel | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/09/02/enerdel-display-iego-pack-battery-show-north-america/ | 2022-09-02T23:15:15Z |
Second Year Effort Offers $10,000 Donation to a Golf Fundraiser Plus Exclusive Golf Membership and Prizes
LINCOLN, Neb., June 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- GolfStatus, the leading technology platform for nonprofit and charity golf fundraisers, is teaming up with its giving partners at Dormie Network and Dormie Network Foundation for the Play It Forward campaign to give back to organizations that are using golf to make an impact.
Now in its second year, the campaign is a unique opportunity to "play" it forward. Individuals nominate a golf fundraiser to receive a $10,000 donation and have the chance to win a one-year honorary membership to Dormie Network, a national network of private golf clubs, plus a $10,000 credit toward onsite golf and lodging.
"From small, local fundraisers to massive charity tournaments, golf is a great way to bring people together in support of a cause," said Brian Schenk, Chief Philanthropy Officer at the Dormie Network Foundation. "Play It Forward celebrates organizations golfing for good and doing incredible work in their communities and beyond."
The 2021 Play It Forward nonprofit winner was the Cameron Steinberg Foundation's inaugural golf fundraiser, which was nominated by Dr. Michael Gaies. The Foundation honors the life of Cameron Steinberg, who was born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome and tragically passed away at just two months old. Cami's parents, Mel and Sam, created the Foundation to help families affected by congenital heart disease. The $10,000 donation was made to the Foundation's second annual golf tournament, held May 23, 2022. The event's second year utilized GolfStatus's golf event management platform—which is available at no cost to qualifying nonprofit organizations through the Golf for Good program—and more than doubled the dollars raised from its first year.
The giveaway launched May 31 and nominations will be accepted through July 4. Winners will be announced via press release and on GolfStatus's and Dormie Network's social media channels in August.
Visit www.golfstatus.org/play-it-forward for official rules and to submit a nomination.
About GolfStatus
GolfStatus is golf's premier tournament management solution and golfer engagement platform. Its full-service tournament management software streamlines outings from start to finish, yielding professional, high-end events that add value for golfers, sponsors, and golf facilities. Through GolfStatus.org, we make our powerful technology accessible to nonprofits to streamline fundraisers and help charitable organizations engage more supporters, raise more mission-critical funds, drive impact, and do more good. Learn more at golfstatus.org.
About Dormie Network and Dormie Network Foundation
Dormie Network is a national network of private destination golf clubs that includes ArborLinks in Nebraska City, Nebraska; Ballyhack Golf Club in Roanoke, Virginia; Briggs Ranch Golf Club in San Antonio, Texas; Dormie Club in West End, North Carolina; Hidden Creek Golf Club in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey; Victoria National Golf Club in Newburgh, Indiana; and a seventh course built from the ground up in the Nebraska Sandhills, with a planned opening of 2024. Each offers a premier golf experience in a relaxing and accommodating environment ideal for business or leisure. The Dormie Network Foundation supports nonprofits through in-kind donations and direct cash grants, and seeks to build long-term relationships with its nonprofit partners to help them raise the bar on fundraising opportunities. Learn more at dormienetwork.com.
Media contact:
Ashley Watson
ashley@golfstatus.com
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SOURCE GolfStatus | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/06/01/golfstatus-dormie-network-launch-play-it-forward-campaign/ | 2022-06-01T23:00:19Z |
TYSONS, Va., July 18, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Judges for the 2022 Gold Nugget Awards have named The Mather in Tysons, VA, as a recipient of the Award of Merit in its annual competition, which honors architectural design and planning excellence and draws entries from throughout the United States and internationally. The Mather, which is in development at 7929 Westpark Drive, was honored for Best Senior Housing Community, On-the-Boards.
"We're developing The Mather with today's consumer in mind, who want flexibility and choice; outdoor spaces to enjoy; and a focus on wellness," said Mary Leary, President and CEO, Mather. "We are so pleased for The Mather to be recognized by the Gold Nugget Awards for its innovative design."
Located in Tysons, Virginia, with first move-ins expected in 2024, The Mather is a luxury Life Plan Community for those age 62+. The Mather, which is pre-certified LEED Gold, is pursuing a WELL Building certification, and will feature Biophilic design, a human-centric approach focusing on incorporating natural elements into design to prioritize wellness and mental health.
Situated on nearly three acres of green space, The Mather abuts a publicly accessible park, offering residents opportunities to enjoy outdoor concerts, walking paths, a dog park, badminton court, and bocce court. Onsite, The Mather's amenities include a fitness center, spa, indoor pool, multiple restaurants, outdoor terraces, art studio, rooftop clubroom, and more.
"Gold Nugget Award winners reflect our industry's best, brightest and most innovative architects, planners and builder/developers," said Judging Chairman and Gold Nugget ceremonies administrator Lisa Parrish. "We applaud them all."
Now in its 59th year, GNA is the largest and most prestigious competition of its kind in the nation. It honors design and planning achievements in community and home design, green-built housing, site planning, commercial, retail, mixed-use development and specialty housing categories. Winners this year were chosen from over 600 entries from around the world.
For more information and to view floor plans, visit www.themathertysons.com.
Based in Evanston, Illinois, Mather is an 81-year-old, unique, not-for-profit organization that enhances the lives of older adults by creating Ways to Age WellSM. To learn more about Mather senior residences, Mather Institute, or community-based initiatives, find your way to www.mather.com.
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SOURCE Mather | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/07/18/mather-tysons-virginia-earns-coveted-architectural-design-honor/ | 2022-07-18T19:23:33Z |
ROCKDALE — Services for Alvin John Wilganowski, 79, of Rockdale and formerly of Bremond will be 11 a.m. Friday in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Bremond with the Rev. Celso Yu officiating.
Mr. Wilganowski died Sunday, May 15, at a Temple hospital.
He was born Oct. 8, 1942, near Bremond to Joseph Ike and Mary Christine Wachel Wilganowski. He graduated from Bremond High School in 1960. He married Janis Flanagan in 1965 in Bremond. He worked in the metal service department for Alcoa in Rockdale for 32 years. He was a member of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Rockdale.
Survivors include his wife of Rockdale; two daughters, Angie Wilganowski and Ashlie Blair, both of Montgomery; a sister, Bernadine Kitchen of Grand Prairie; and two grandchildren.
Visitation will be 10:30 a.m. Friday at the cemetery. | https://www.tdtnews.com/obituaries/article_47a94802-d6ff-11ec-9b65-438bc3532b9a.html | 2022-05-19T07:53:54Z |
Officials continue to monitor blue-green algae in Milford Lake
Residents warned to avoid harmful blooms
GEARY CO., Kan. (WIBW) - Officials are continuing to monitor the levels of blue-green algae in Milford Lake and have warned residents to avoid harmful blooms.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment says it and the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks issued several public health advisories on Thursday, Aug. 11, for Kansas lakes due to blue-green algae.
The KDHE noted that a harmful algal bloom could look like foam, scum or paint on the water and could be colored blue, bright green, brown or red. Blooms can develop quickly, so if water appears suspicious, residents should avoid contact and keep dogs away.
Active advisories are as follows:
- Warning
- Carbondale City Lake (Strowbridge) - Osage Co.
- Ford Co. Lake - Ford Co.
- Gathering Pond - Geary Co.
- Hain SFL - Ford Co.
- Jerry Ivey Pond - Saline Co.
- Milford Lake Zone B - Geary Co.
- Milford Lake Zone C - Geary and Clay Co.
- Watch
- Crystal Lake - Anderson Co.
- Lake Scott State Park - Scott Co.
- Louisburg Old Lake (City Lake) - Miami Co.
- Marion Reservoir - Marion Co.
- Melvern Outlet (River) Pond - Osage Co.
- Milford Lake Zone A - Dickinson and Geary Co.
- Overbrook City Lake - Osage Co.
- South Lake Park - Johnson Co.
- Summercrest Lake - Johnson Co.
- Lifted
- Norton Lake - Norton Co.
For more information about blue-green algae in Kansas, click HERE.
Copyright 2022 WIBW. All rights reserved. | https://www.wibw.com/2022/08/13/officials-continue-monitor-blue-green-algae-milford-lake/ | 2022-08-13T19:22:13Z |
Virus found in pig heart used in human transplant
(AP) - Researchers trying to learn what killed the first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig have discovered the organ harbored an animal virus but cannot yet say if it played any role in the man’s death.
A Maryland man, 57-year-old David Bennett Sr., died in March, two months after the groundbreaking experimental transplant. University of Maryland doctors said Thursday they found an unwelcome surprise — viral DNA inside the pig heart. They did not find signs that this bug, called porcine cytomegalovirus, was causing an active infection.
But a major worry about animal-to-human transplants is the risk that it could introduce new kinds of infections to people.
Because some viruses are “latent,” meaning they lurk without causing disease, “it could be a hitchhiker,” Dr. Bartley Griffith, the surgeon who performed Bennett’s transplant, told The Associated Press.
Still, development is under way of more sophisticated tests to “make sure that we don’t miss these kinds of viruses,” added Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin, scientific director of the university’s xenotransplant program.
The animal virus was first reported by MIT Technology Review, citing a scientific presentation Griffith gave to the American Society of Transplantation last month.
For decades, doctors have tried using animal organs to save human lives without success. Bennett, who was dying and ineligible for a human heart transplant, underwent the last-ditch operation using a heart from a pig genetically modified to lower the risk that his immune system would rapidly reject such a foreign organ.
The Maryland team said the donor pig was healthy, had passed testing required by the Food and Drug Administration to check for infections, and was raised in a facility designed to prevent animals from spreading infections. Revivicor, the company that provided the animal, declined to comment.
Griffith said his patient, while very ill, had been recovering fairly well from the transplant when one morning he woke up worse, with symptoms similar to an infection. Doctors ran numerous tests to try to understand the cause, and gave Bennett a variety of antibiotics, antiviral medication and an immune-boosting treatment. But the pig heart became swollen, filled with fluid and eventually quit functioning.
“What was the virus doing, if anything, that might have caused the swelling in his heart?” Griffith asked. “Honestly we don’t know.”
The reaction also didn’t appear to be a typical organ rejection, he said, noting the investigation still is underway.
Meanwhile doctors at other medical centers around the country have been experimenting with animal organs in donated human bodies and are anxious to attempt formal studies in living patients soon. It’s not clear how the pig virus will affect those plans.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.kxii.com/2022/05/08/virus-found-pig-heart-used-human-transplant/ | 2022-05-08T05:49:49Z |
New role created to further accelerate the challenger brand's growth trajectory
NEW YORK, June 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Today, BioSteel Sports Nutrition Inc. ("BioSteel") announced the appointment of Bruce Jacobson as President of BioSteel, who, together with Co-Founders John Celenza and Michael Cammalleri, will be responsible for accelerating the growth of BioSteel into a top-4 sports hydration company.
Jacobson joins BioSteel with a wealth of experience from the beverage industry. Having served in several senior leadership roles, he is an experienced brand builder and business strategist who has led organizations to best-in-class growth and market dominance. Most recently, Jacobson served on the advisory board and as Chief Operating Officer of an alcohol seltzer company, where he led a team in scaling the business to achieve profitable growth while balancing its entrepreneurial spirit and identity. Prior to that role, he spent 17 years at Constellation Brands, including four years in the role of Chief Commercial Officer, where he and his team achieved 36 consecutive quarters of industry-leading growth, while delivering an aggregate of more than $5B in revenue and strong margins.
"Bruce will be an invaluable addition to the company's leadership team as BioSteel continues to grow at a record pace by challenging the status quo in hydration," said David Klein, CEO of Canopy Growth. "With deep experience building brands, driving profitability, developing distribution strategies, and leading cross-functional teams, we are confident that Bruce will complement and enhance the capabilities of the current leadership team and further advance BioSteel's standing in the market."
"It is an honor to join BioSteel and be a part of an innovative challenger brand that is already revolutionizing the sports hydration industry," said Jacobson. "I've seen first-hand the passion that everyone at BioSteel brings to the table for our brand and products, and I am eager to partner with this exceptional team to build on the success to-date and accelerate our growth into the future."
Founded in 2009 by NHL veteran Michael Cammalleri and business partner John Celenza, BioSteel has achieved a reputation for being the hydration product of choice for athletes and consumers looking for a healthy alternative. The brand is committed to using premium ingredients, maintaining product transparency, and delivering essential nutrients needed to support physical activity. Each electrolyte-packed sports drink comes in an eco-friendly 16.7 fl oz Tetra Pak, in flavors ranging Blue Raspberry, Mixed Berry, Peach Mango, Rainbow Twist and White Freeze to keep consumers hydrated throughout the day.
"Michael and I are excited to welcome Bruce to the BioSteel team," said Celenza, Co-Founder of BioSteel. "We are deeply committed to the long-term success of BioSteel, and with Bruce's track record of championing brands, we are confident that he will progress the achievement of our business objectives, including cementing BioSteel at the forefront of the sports hydration category. We look forward to working with him to bring to fruition the incredible opportunities that lie ahead for BioSteel."
BioSteel products, which include both ready to drink sports drinks and sports hydration mixes, are available across North America and globally with select retail partners or direct to consumers online through www.biosteel.com.
BioSteel is a North American beverage brand committed to delivering premium Clean. Healthy. Hydration. to consumers and athletes across the globe. Each BioSteel sports drink is sugar-free and comes in an eco-friendly Tetra Pak filled with premium ingredients, natural flavors and essential nutrients needed to support physical activity. Perfect for everyone from health and environmentally conscious consumers to world class athletes, BioSteel hydration products are currently readily available across North America, globally with select retail partners, and direct to consumers online through www.biosteel.com.
In 2019, Canopy Growth acquired a majority stake in BioSteel, and the brand has been able to expand distribution in the U.S. market by leveraging the Constellation Brand's Gold Network. With the backing of Constellation Brand's ecosystem, BioSteel secured partnerships with more than 200 distributors and now has distributor presence in every county in the U.S.
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SOURCE BioSteel Sports Nutrition Inc. | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/06/30/biosteel-welcomes-bruce-jacobson-president/ | 2022-06-30T12:30:31Z |
Bio-Techne is extending ACD's leadership in the spatial biology market by passing a milestone of offering 40,000 custom probes in over four hundred species
MINNEAPOLIS, May 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH) today announced Advanced Cell Diagnostics (ACD), a brand of Bio-Techne, reached an extraordinary milestone of developing over 40,000 unique RNAscope in situ Hybridization (ISH) probes in over 400 species. ACD's broad portfolio of RNAscope probes enables ground-breaking scientific discoveries, accelerates the development of next generation therapeutics, and delivers critical diagnostic applications.
Bio-Techne's ACD has been pioneering the spatial biology market for over 10 years with patented RNAscope ISH Technology, enabling RNA tissue imaging at single-molecule sensitivity and single-cell resolution, while retaining the tissue morphological context. With over 5,800 peer reviewed publications, RNAscope has become the gold standard for RNA tissue imaging by enabling detection of the widest range of RNA subtypes in the industry with unrivaled sensitivity.
The RNAscope Technology portfolio, including HiPlex™, Multiplex™, BaseScope™, DNAscope™ and the Integrated Co-Detection Workflow (ICW) for proteins, can be readily performed in most laboratories. The portfolio has enabled academic, biotech and clinical research labs around the world to advance the understanding of cancer, neuroscience, cell and gene therapy, infectious disease, and more recently Covid-19 with our discriminating SARS-CoV-2 probes.
"I am proud of the significant role that Bio-Techne is playing in advancing the spatial biology market by providing gold standard RNAscope detection with fast and flexible probe design," said Kim Kelderman, President of Bio-Techne's Diagnostics and Genomics Segment. "We are pleased to offer a portfolio of over 40,000 unique probes, and we will continue to expand our offering with custom probes to enable researchers to study any gene, in any tissue, in any species."
To learn more about our probes or request a custom-designed probe, visit: https://acdbio.com/catalog-probes
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SOURCE Bio-Techne Corporation | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/05/26/bio-techne-celebrates-40000-unique-rnascope-situ-hybridization-probes-targeting-any-gene-any-tissue-any-species/ | 2022-05-26T11:51:09Z |
Key metrics show solid employment gains and vigorous employer hiring activity
DOWNERS GROVE, Ill., July 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Hiring activity for technology workers remains on an upward trajectory, countering reports of layoffs and reaffirming tech's essential role in powering the nation's economy, according to analysis by CompTIA, the nonprofit association for the information technology (IT) industry and workforce.
Technology industry companies added 20,300 net new workers in June, the 19th consecutive month of employment growth, CompTIA's analysis of today's "#JobsReport" from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows.[1] Tech sector employment for the first half of 2022 is tracking 59% ahead of the same period last year.
Companies across the economy added 160,000 core technology workers in June. The unemployment rate for tech occupations fell back to 1.8%, compared to the overall national unemployment rate of 3.6%.
Employer job postings for new tech hiring totaled 505,663 last month, up 62% from June 2021.
"The stronger than expected job gains reaffirm the critical role of tech across every sector and every business in the economy," said Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA. "It also highlights the limitations in projecting company-specific hiring practices to the broader tech workforce."
Employer hiring intent was strong across several industry sectors, led by professional, scientific and technical services, finance and insurance, manufacturing, information, retail trade, health care and social assistance and public administration. Job postings for software developers and engineers led the list of the most in-demand positions, followed by IT support specialists, IT project managers, cybersecurity professionals and network engineers and architects.
New hiring in the IT services and custom software development occupation category paced June's job growth in the tech sector. Four other occupation categories also saw employment growth – data processing, hosting and related services (+3,700), other information services, including search engines (+3,600), computer and electronic products manufacturing (+2,300) and telecommunications (+700).
The "CompTIA Tech Jobs Report" is available at https://www.comptia.org/content/tech-jobs-report. For more analysis and perspective visit the CompTIA Tech Job Report video series at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuqIJd7KnBU_nZd2oXEwa0I5X7Vt124eM.
The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) is a leading voice and advocate for the $5 trillion global information technology ecosystem; and the estimated 75 million industry and tech professionals who design, implement, manage, and safeguard the technology that powers the world's economy. Through education, training, certifications, advocacy, philanthropy, and market research, CompTIA is the hub for unlocking the potential of the tech industry and its workforce. https://www.comptia.org/
Steven Ostrowski
CompTIA
sostrowski@comptia.org
+1 630-678-8468
[1] Employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and job posting data from Lightcast may be subject to backward revisions.
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SOURCE CompTIA | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/07/08/tech-jobs-growth-exceeds-expectations-month-comptia-report-shows/ | 2022-07-08T18:50:39Z |
UN warns Earth ‘firmly on track toward an unlivable world’
BERLIN (AP) — Temperatures on Earth will shoot past a key danger point unless greenhouse gas emissions fall faster than countries have committed, the world’s top body of climate scientists said Monday, warning of the consequences of inaction but also noting hopeful signs of progress.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change revealed “a litany of broken climate promises” by governments and corporations, accusing them of stoking global warming by clinging to harmful fossil fuels.
“It is a file of shame, cataloguing the empty pledges that put us firmly on track toward an unlivable world,” he said.
Governments agreed in the 2015 Paris accord to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) this century, ideally no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit). Yet temperatures have already increased by over 1.1C (2F) since pre-industrial times, resulting in measurable increases in disasters such flash floods, extreme heat, more intense hurricanes and longer-burning wildfires, putting human lives in danger and costing governments hundreds of billions of dollars to confront.
“Projected global emissions from (national pledges) place limiting global warming to 1.5C beyond reach and make it harder after 2030 to limit warming to 2C,” the panel said.
In other words, the report’s co-chair, James Skea of Imperial College London, told The Associated Press: “If we continue acting as we are now, we’re not even going to limit warming to 2 degrees, never mind 1.5 degrees.”
Ongoing investments in fossil fuel infrastructure and clearing large swaths of forest for agriculture undermine the massive curbs in emissions needed to meet the Paris goal, the report found.
Emissions in 2019 were about 12% higher than they were in 2010 and 54% higher than in 1990, said Skea.
The rate of growth has slowed from 2.1% per year in the early part of this century to 1.3% per year between 2010 and 2019, the report’s authors said. But they voiced “high confidence” that unless countries step up their efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the planet will on average be 2.4C to 3.5C (4.3 to 6.3 F) warmer by the end of the century — a level experts say is sure to cause severe impacts for much of the world’s population.
“Limiting warming to 1.5C requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025 at the latest and be reduced by 43% by 2030,” he said.
Such cuts would be hard to achieve without without drastic, economy-wide measures, the panel acknowledged. It’s more likely that the world will pass 1.5C and efforts will then need to be made to bring temperatures back down again, including by removing vast amounts of carbon dioxide — the main greenhouse gas — from the atmosphere.
Many experts say this is unfeasible with current technologies, and even if it could be done it would be far costlier than preventing the emissions in the first place.
The report, numbering thousands of pages, doesn’t single out individual countries for blame.
However, the figures show much of the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere was released by rich countries that were the first to burn coal, oil and gas when the industrial revolution really got going in the 1850s.
The U.N. panel said about 40% of emissions since then came from Europe and North America. Just over 12% can be attributed to East Asia, which includes China. The country took over the position as world’s top emitter from the United States in the mid-2000s.
Many countries and companies have used recent climate meetings to paint rosy pictures of their emissions-cutting efforts, while continuing to invest in fossil fuels and other polluting activities, Guterres warned.
“Some government and business leaders are saying one thing – but doing another,” he said. “Simply put, they are lying. And the results will be catastrophic.”
The report isn’t without some hope, however.
Its authors highlight myriad ways in which the world can be brought back on track to 2C or even, with great effort, return to 1.5C after that threshold has been passed. This could require measures such as the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere with natural or artificial means, but also potentially risky technologies such as pumping aerosols into the sky to reflect sunlight.
Among the solutions recommended are a rapid shift away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy such as increasingly cheap solar and wind power, the electrification of transport, less meat consumption, more efficient use of resources and massive financial support for poor countries unable to pay for such measures without help.
The situation is as if humanity has “gone to the doctor in a very unhealthy condition,” and the doctor saying “you need to change, it’s a radical change. If you don’t you’re in trouble,” said report co-author Pete Smith, a professor of soils and global change at the University Aberdeen.
“It’s not like a diet,” Smith said. “It is a fundamental lifestyle change. It’s changing what you eat, how much you eat and get on a more active lifestyle.”
One move often described as “low-hanging fruit” by scientists is to plug methane leaks from mines, wells and landfills that release the potent but short-lived greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. A pact forged between the United States and China at last year’s U.N. climate conference in Glasgow aims to do just that.
“You can see the first signs that the actions that people are taking are beginning to make a difference,” said Skea, the panel’s co-chair.
“The big message we’ve got (is that) human activities got us into this problem and human agency can actually get us out of it again,” he said.
The panel’s reports have become increasingly blunt since the first one was published in 1990, and the latest may be the last before the planet passes 1.5C of warming, Skea told the AP.
Last August, it said climate change caused by humans was “an established fact” and warned that some effects of global warming are already inevitable. In late February, the panel published a report that outlined how further temperature increases will multiply the risk of floods, storms, drought and heat waves worldwide.
Still, the British government’s former chief science adviser David King, who wasn’t involved in writing the report, said there are optimistic assumptions about how much CO2 the world can afford to emit.
The U.N. panel suggests there’s still a “carbon budget” of 500 billion metric tons (550 billion U.S. tons) that can be emitted before hitting the 1.5C threshold.
“We don’t actually have a remaining carbon budget to burn,” said King, who now chairs the Climate Crisis Advisory Group.
“It’s just the reverse. We’ve already done too much in the way of putting greenhouse gases up there,” he said, arguing that the IPCC’s calculation omits new risks and potentially self-reinforcing effects already happening in some places, such as the increased absorption of heat into the oceans from sea ice loss and the release of methane as permafrost melts, he said.
Such warnings were echoed by U.N. chief Guterres, citing scientists’ warnings that the planet is moving “perilously close to tipping points that could lead to cascading and irreversible climate impacts.”
“But high-emitting governments and corporations are not just turning a blind eye; they are adding fuel to the flames,” he said, calling for an end to further coal, oil and gas extraction that the report said might have to be abandoned anyway, resulting in losses of trillions of dollars.
“Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness,” said Guterres.
Vulnerable nations said the report showed big polluters have to step up their efforts.
“We are looking to the G-20, to the world’s biggest emitters, to set ambitious targets ahead of COP27, and to reach those targets – by investing in renewables, cutting out coal and fossil fuel subsidies,” said Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands. “It’s long past time to deliver on promises made.”
___
Borenstein reported from Washington.
___
Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate
___
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wibw.com/2022/04/04/un-warns-earth-firmly-track-toward-an-unlivable-world/ | 2022-04-04T19:06:13Z |
Oxford Police and the University of Mississippi Police departments say they are using all available resources to locate Jimmie Jay Lee, according to a joint statement.
The father of missing 20-year-old University of Mississippi student Jimmie "Jay" Lee is pleading for the public's help in bringing the college student home after the discovery of the student's car.
Oxford Police and the University of Mississippi Police departments say they are using all available resources to locate Jimmie Jay Lee, according to a joint statement.
Oxford Police Department
The father of missing 20-year-old University of Mississippi student Jimmie "Jay" Lee is pleading for the public's help in bringing the college student home after the discovery of the student's car.
The father of missing 20-year-old University of Mississippi student Jimmie "Jay" Lee is pleading for the public's help in bringing the college student home after the discovery of his car.
"If anyone knows anything or sees anything, say something. Contact law enforcement. Just tell them what you know. This is my plea that you help find my child," Lee's father Jimmie Lee, Sr. said in a video plea posted online by police in Oxford, Mississippi.
In social media posts reviewed by CNN and images released by authorities, although Lee dresses in women's clothing and makeup in some pictures and videos, Lee writes that he identifies as a gay male.
Reached by CNN, Lee's father says that while he is not ready to give interviews, he hopes the intensified media coverage will help find his son. Lee's father said the best way the media can help the investigation is to "show his face."
Police are asking anyone with tips to reach out to them. Lee was reportedly last seen July 8 around 5:58 a.m. wearing a silver robe or housecoat, gold cap and gray slippers leaving Campus Walk Apartments.
On Monday, police recovered Lee's car, a 2014 black Ford Fusion with a gold racing stripe down the middle of the hood, from a local towing company.
The car with the license plate "JAYLEE1" was towed Friday afternoon from Molly Barr Trails apartment complex. It was taken to the Mississippi State Crime Laboratory for processing while teams from multiple law enforcement agencies searched areas of interest in Oxford, the police department said.
Police believe Lee was visiting someone who lives in Molly Barr Trails before disappearing.
Oxford Police and the University of Mississippi Police departments say they are using all available resources to locate Lee, according to a joint statement.
This has included executing around a dozen search warrants "on both physical and digital entities," the statement said. Numerous interviews have also been conducted, it said.
Crimestoppers has pledged a $1,000 reward for anybody with information that could lead to finding Lee, according to Oxford Police.
Any tips or information about Lee's whereabouts should be sent to the Oxford Police Department 662-232-2400, University of Mississippi Police Department at 662-915-7234 and Crime Stoppers at 662-234-8477.
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SAN DIEGO, May 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Independent Financial Group, LLC (IFG), a San Diego-based independent broker-dealer, donated a combined $232,500 to seven charities in 2021: Promises2Kids ($50,000); Wayfinder Family Services ($50,000); Challenged Athletes Foundation ($50,000); The Mitchell Thorp Foundation ($50,000); Just in Time for Foster Youth ($25,000); The San Diego Nice Guys ($5,000); and the Well Community For Women ($2,500).
IFG's donations went to charities operating in San Diego and in the state of California, supporting foster children, youth, and adults; children with critical illnesses; children and adults with disabilities; and families facing economic hardships.
"When Joe Miller, David Fischer, and I founded IFG, we agreed that giving back to our community, quietly and consistently, would be a central part of our mission," explained IFG CEO and co-founder Scott Heising. "The three of us are fathers, and our community has been good to us and to our families. We want to make sure that all children and young adults in San Diego, and in the state of California, are being raised with the support and opportunities they need to thrive." To date, IFG has donated nearly one million dollars to various charitable organizations.
About IFG's Selected Charities
Promises2Kids responds to the needs of foster children and those who have been removed from their home due to abuse and neglect. The Challenged Athletes Foundation provides opportunities and support for physically disabled athletes so they can pursue active lifestyles and competitive athletics. Wayfinder Family Services (formerly Junior Blind of America) offers a full range of essential services that meet the needs of people of all ages, including the visually impaired, foster youth, youth with serious medical conditions or trauma, and their families. In memory of their son Mitchell, Brad and Beth Thorp founded the Mitchell Thorp Foundation with the goal of supporting families whose children suffer from life-threatening illnesses and disorders. Just in Time for Foster Youth aims to help foster youth as they transition to adulthood, supporting their efforts to achieve self-sufficiency and well-being. The Nice Guys of San Diego have worked since 1979 to support local families who have fallen on tough times. The Well Community for Women is a San Diego-based nonprofit dedicated to serving women by offering coworking spaces, childcare support, after-school enrichment programs, and other programs and events.
About Independent Financial Group
Independent Financial Group, LLC (IFG) is a privately held independent broker-dealer based in San Diego, California. Founded in 2003, IFG provides an array of business solutions supporting more than 640 independent financial professionals across 389 offices nationwide. IFG was named among the "Fastest Growing Private Companies in the US" by Inc. 5000 in 2020, for the eighth time since 2010. San Diego Business Journal ranked IFG "#12 Among the Largest Private Companies in San Diego" in 2020. In 2022, IFG was ranked 19th largest among national independent broker-dealers by Financial Advisor Magazine, based on revenue.
To learn more about IFG, visit ifgsd.com.
Media Contact:
Pamela Saunders
IFG
(800) 269-1903
psaunders@ifgsd.com
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SOURCE Independent Financial Group | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/05/25/independent-financial-group-donates-over-230000-children-focused-california-charities-2021/ | 2022-05-25T16:06:14Z |
Russia tries to press its offensive into Ukraine’s east
POKROVSK, Ukraine (AP) - Russian forces tried Monday to press their offensive deeper into eastern Ukraine after taking control of a key stronghold.
The Ukrainian military confirmed that its forces had withdrawn from the city of Lysychansk, the last bulwark of Ukrainian resistance in the Luhansk province, one of the two regions that make up the country’s eastern industrial heartland of Donbas. The Russians also control about half of Donetsk, the second province of Donbas.
Luhansk governor Serhii Haidai said Ukrainian forces retreated from Lysychansk to avoid being surrounded.
“There was a risk of Lysychansk encirclement,” Haidai told the Associated Press, adding that Ukrainian troops could have held on for a few more weeks but would have potentially paid too high a price.
“We managed to do centralized withdrawal and evacuate all injured,” Haidai said. “We took back all the equipment, so from this point withdrawal was organized well.”
Then Ukrainian General Staff said Russian forces were now focusing their efforts on pushing toward the line of Siversk, Fedorivka and Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. The Russian army has also intensified its shelling of the key Ukrainian strongholds of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, deeper in Donetsk.
On Sunday, six people, including a 9-year-old girl, were killed in the Russian shelling of Sloviansk and another 19 people were wounded, according to local authorities. Kramatorsk also came under fire on Sunday.
An intelligence briefing Monday from the British Defense Ministry supported the Ukrainian military’s assessment, noting that Russian forces will “now almost certainly” switch to capturing Donetsk. The briefing said the conflict in Donbas has been “grinding and attritional,” and is unlikely to change in the coming weeks.
While the Russian army has a massive advantage in firepower, military analysts say that it doesn’t have any significant superiority in the number of troops. That means Moscow lacks resources for quick land gains and can only advance slowly, relying on heavy artillery and rocket barrages to soften Ukrainian defenses.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made capturing the entire Donbas a key goal in his war in Ukraine, now in its fifth month. Moscow-backed separatists in Donbas have battled Ukrainian forces since 2014 when they declared independence from Kyiv after the Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea. Russia formally recognized the self-proclaimed republics days before its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
Putin’s defense minister reported to him Sunday that the Russian army and its separatist allies now hold all of the Luhansk region after taking “full control” of Lysychansk.
In his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged the withdrawal, but vowed that Ukrainian forces will fight their way back.
“If the command of our army withdraws people from certain points of the front where the enemy has the greatest fire superiority, in particular this applies to Lysychansk, it means only one thing: We will return thanks to our tactics, thanks to the increase in the supply of modern weapons,” Zelenskyy said.
Since failing to take Kyiv and other areas in Ukraine’s northeast early in the war, Russia has focused on Donbas, unleashing fierce shelling and engaging in house-to-house combat that devastated cities in the region.
Russia’s invasion has also devastated Ukraine’s agricultural sector, disrupting supply chains of seed and fertilizer needed by Ukrainian farmers and blocking the export of grain, a key source of revenue for the country.
In its Monday intelligence report, Britain’s defense ministry pointed to the Russian blockade of the key Ukrainian port of Odesa, which has severely restricted grain exports. They predicted that Ukraine’s agricultural exports would reach only 35% of the 2021 total this year as a result.
As Moscow pushed its offensive across Ukraine’s east, areas in western Russia came under attack Sunday in a revival of sporadic apparent Ukrainian strikes across the border. The governor of the Belgorod region in Western Russia said fragments of an intercepted Ukrainian missile killed four people Sunday. In the Russian city of Kursk, two Ukrainian drones were shot down, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
In other developments:
— Ukrainian soldiers returning from the front lines in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region — where Russia is waging a fierce offensive — describe life during what has turned into a grueling war of attrition as apocalyptic.
— Two Russian airplanes departed Bulgaria on Sunday with scores of Russian diplomatic staff and their families amid a mass expulsion that has sent tensions soaring between the historically close nations, a Russian diplomat said.
___
Associated Press journalists Maria Grazia Murru and Oleksandr Stashevskyi contributed from Kyiv, Ukraine.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.kxii.com/2022/07/04/russia-tries-press-its-offensive-into-ukraines-east/ | 2022-07-04T09:41:47Z |
NEW YORK (AP) — “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” writer-director Rian Johnson’s follow-up to his whodunit hit “Knives Out,” will premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
The Canadian festival announced Wednesday that “Glass Onion” will make its world premiere at the 47th edition of TIFF, running Sept. 8-18. “Knives Out” also launched in Toronto, in 2019.
While “Knives Out” was released by Lionsgate, Netflix last year bought two sequels for $450 million. The streamer will release the film in late 2022.
In “Glass Onion,” Daniel Craig’s Detective Benoit Blanc travels to Greece for a new mystery. It co-stars Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick and Madelyn Cline. | https://cw33.com/entertainment-news/ap-entertainment/glass-onion-a-knives-out-mystery-to-debut-at-tiff/ | 2022-06-29T17:37:21Z |
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Delinea, a leading provider of privileged access management (PAM) solutions for seamless security, today announced that Chief Security Scientist and Advisory CISO Joseph Carson has been recognized as a Top 50 Information Security Professional in the 2022 OnCon Icon Awards.
The awards recognize the top 100 Information Security professionals who have made a considerable impact on their organization and/or previous organizations, made strong contributions to their professional community through thought leadership, innovate in their role/career, and exhibit exceptional leadership. The OnConferences team determines finalists based on the applications and nominations, and public voting determines the recipients of the Icon Awards. Winners represent some of the top information security professionals in the entire world.
"I'm very grateful to receive this Icon Award recognition, especially since nominations come from Information Security professionals and are determined by peer observation," said Carson. "I'm honored to be placed among such an amazing and respected list of leaders who are all working toward a common goal of making our digital and physical worlds safer and more secure."
Carson is an active member of the cybersecurity community and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). He is also a cybersecurity adviser to several governments, critical infrastructure organizations, and financial and transportation industries. He speaks frequently at industry and government events all around the world and is often quoted as an expert resource in global cybersecurity, technology, and business publications. He is also host of 401 Access Denied, an award-winning cybersecurity podcast with Cybrary which recently surpassed 100,000 listens.
To learn more about Delinea, visit https://delinea.com/
About Delinea
Delinea is a leading provider of privileged access management (PAM) solutions that make security seamless for the modern, hybrid enterprise. Our solutions empower organizations to secure critical data, devices, code, and cloud infrastructure to help reduce risk, ensure compliance, and simplify security. Delinea removes complexity and defines the boundaries of access for thousands of customers worldwide. Our customers range from small businesses to the world's largest financial institutions, intelligence agencies, and critical infrastructure companies. Learn more about Delinea on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.
© Delinea Inc. (formerly Centrify Corporation) 2022. Delinea™ is a trademark of Delinea Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.
Contacts:
Brad Shewmake
Delinea
brad.shewmake@delinea.com
+1-408-625-4191
John Kreuzer
Lumina Communications
delinea@luminapr.com
+1-408-963-6418
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SOURCE Delinea | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/06/30/delineas-joseph-carson-receives-2022-oncon-icon-award-recognizing-top-100-information-security-professionals/ | 2022-06-30T13:02:50Z |
FROM THE ALZHEIMER'S ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2022
Top Tier Clinicians and Researchers Find the Tests Are:
- Full of Revolutionary Potential
- Valuable Now For Research and Treatment Trials
- Not Ready Yet for the Healthcare Provider's Office
CHICAGO and SAN DIEGO, July 31, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Alzheimer's disease blood biomarkers (BBMs) may revolutionize the diagnosis of Alzheimer's in the future, but are not yet ready for widespread use, according to a newly-published article by leading international clinicians and researchers convened by the Alzheimer's Association®. At the same time, they are important and valuable for current research trials and cautious initial use in specialized memory clinics.
"Blood-based markers show promise for improving, and possibly even redefining, the diagnostic work-up for Alzheimer's," said Maria C. Carrillo, Ph.D., Alzheimer's Association chief science officer and a co-author of the article. "Remarkable progress has been made, but additional data are needed before BBMs can be used as a stand-alone test for diagnosis, and before considering broad use in primary care settings."
"In this article, the expert workgroup clearly defines both short- and long-term research priorities needed to fill significant knowledge gaps that still exist, such as how well these blood-based markers work in diverse communities and in those living with multiple health conditions," Carrillo added. "Also included are consensus appropriate use recommendations for use of BBMs in the clinic and in research trials."
"The Alzheimer's Association Appropriate Use Recommendations for Blood Biomarkers in Alzheimer's Disease," by Oskar Hansson, M.D., Ph.D., et al, is published online today by Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association. The recommendations will be reported today and tomorrow at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference® (AAIC®) 2022 in San Diego and online.
"Blood-based biomarkers for Alzheimer's are already improving the design of clinical trials, and they are very likely to revolutionize the diagnosis of Alzheimer's in the future," said Oskar Hansson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases at Lund University and Skane University Hospital, Malmo, Sweden, and first author on the newly published article. "That said, the implementation of such markers in trials and practice must be done in a careful and controlled way so as not to accidentally cause more harm than good. Much more research is needed before widespread clinical use of BBMs."
According to the article, BBMs show "great promise" — especially markers for Alzheimer's-related brain changes related to nerve cell damage/death, and tau and beta amyloid accumulation — for "future use in both clinical practice and trials. However, few prospective studies have investigated the implementation of such BBMs in more heterogeneous populations."
Not ready for "prime time"
The workgroup points out that no studies have extensively evaluated BBMs for neurodegenerative diseases in primary care, and calls for "well-performed BBM studies in diverse primary care populations." Such studies should also evaluate the impact of BBMs on diagnostic accuracy and change in patient management.
In addition, use of BBMs for general population risk screening and as direct-to-consumer risk tests are not recommended.
The workgroup also says that BBMs should not yet be used as primary endpoints in pivotal treatment trials. However, this does not preclude the use of certain BBMs for decision making in clinical trials with adaptive design, where they could be used to inform decisions on continuing a trial or not.
Many current uses
There are current uses for Alzheimer's BBMs, according to the workgroup. For example, they "recommend use of BBMs as (pre-)screeners to identify individuals likely to have Alzheimer's pathological changes for inclusion in trials evaluating disease-modifying therapies, provided Alzheimer's status is confirmed with positron emission tomography (PET) or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) testing."
BBMs can be used as exploratory outcomes in most clinical trials in Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative dementias. In non-Alzheimer's trials, BBMs can be used to identify patients who likely have Alzheimer's-related brain changes, if that is a condition of exclusion from the study.
"We also recommend cautiously starting use of BBMs in specialized memory clinics as part of the diagnostic work-up of patients already experiencing cognitive symptoms, as long as the results are confirmed whenever possible with CSF or PET, which are the current reference standards," said Charlotte E. Teunissen, M.D., Ph.D., head of the Neurochemistry Laboratory at Amsterdam University Medical Centers, the Netherlands and senior author on the article.
"The implementation of BBMs in primary care will likely take a much longer time because there are very few relevant and high-quality research studies on Alzheimer's-related BBMs conducted in this setting, but more prospective studies are expected to launch in the coming years," Teunissen added.
Establishing the path for BBMs in research
The appropriate use recommendations (AURs) provide specific guidance for current use of, and research needed on, the four most advanced types of Alzheimer's plasma biomarkers: plasma amyloid-beta 42/ amyloid-beta 40 (Aβ42/Aβ40), phospho-tau (p-tau), neurofilament light (NfL), and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), as well as potential combinations of markers. For example, the need for:
- Real-world studies on the robustness of plasma Aβ42/Aβ40 as a diagnostic test for cerebral Aβ pathology.
- Head-to-head studies comparing the performance of different forms of p-tau in different clinical contexts and across disease stages.
Most important and enlightening are the recommendations repeated by the authors throughout the AURs or those they say apply across the biomarkers, including:
- Perform prospective studies in primary care settings, including representative and diverse populations with cognitive symptoms. Evaluate the causes of false positives and negatives; the reference standard must be of high quality and preferably include CSF or PET.
- Study whether BBMs outperform what is already available today in primary care, and if they also improve diagnosis and management, including treatment decisions.
- [Gain] better understanding of biological and disease-associated variability and potential impact of medical comorbidities and concomitant medications.
- [Learn whether] certain BBM-based algorithms can be used alone to support an Alzheimer's diagnosis, or should they only be used as a gatekeeper to CSF/PET.
- Eventually (a) perform head-to-head comparisons of different plasma biomarker assays, and (b) establish the most optimal combinations of easily accessible biomarkers.
Defining the need
According to the workgroup, about 25-30% of patients with a clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's dementia are misdiagnosed when assessed at specialized dementia clinics, and the accuracy of clinical diagnosis is similar or even lower for other dementias, including frontotemporal dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies and vascular dementia. In fact, in most countries, most patients with cognitive or behavioral symptoms are managed in primary care where the misdiagnosis is even higher. The problem is especially acute in the earliest stages of the disease.
"There is a great global need for accurate BBM-based diagnostic and prognostic algorithms that can substantially improve the accuracy of a diagnostic work-up of Alzheimer's, particularly in the early stages of the disease," said Reisa Sperling, M.D., professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, and a co-author of the article.
The established CSF and PET measures have excellent diagnostic properties, but are less useful outside very specialized clinics due to limited accessibility, invasiveness (e.g., CSF measures require a lumbar puncture, and PET requires infusion of stable isotopes and exposure to radiation) and high costs. This precludes use of CSF and PET biomarkers in most primary and secondary care settings worldwide.
"A major benefit of the use of blood-based biomarkers is that the collection of blood is less invasive and likely less costly than CSF or neuroimaging markers, and more feasible for primary care practitioners," said Adam Boxer, M.D., Ph.D., Endowed Professor in Memory in Aging at the Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco and a co-author of the article. "This may enable earlier and more equitable referral of individuals to dementia specialists and participation in clinical trials of potential new therapies."
For full disclosures from all authors, please see the published article.
Alzheimer's & Dementia: Journal of the Alzheimer's Association
Alzheimer's & Dementia: Journal of the Alzheimer's Association bridges the knowledge gaps across a wide range of bench-to-bedside investigations. Content emphasizes interdisciplinary investigations and integrative/translational articles related to: etiology, risk factors, early detection, disease modifying interventions, prevention of dementia and applications of new technologies in health services.
About the Alzheimer's Association International Conference® (AAIC®)
The Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC) is the world's largest gathering of researchers from around the world focused on Alzheimer's and other dementias. As a part of the Alzheimer's Association's research program, AAIC serves as a catalyst for generating new knowledge about dementia and fostering a vital, collegial research community.
AAIC 2022 home page: www.alz.org/aaic/
AAIC 2022 newsroom: www.alz.org/aaic/pressroom.asp
AAIC 2022 hashtag: #AAIC22
About the Alzheimer's Association®
The Alzheimer's Association is a worldwide voluntary health organization dedicated to Alzheimer's care, support and research. Our mission is to lead the way to end Alzheimer''s and all other dementia — by accelerating global research, driving risk reduction and early detection, and maximizing quality care and support. Our vision is a world without Alzheimer''s and all other dementia®. Visit alz.org or call 800.272.3900.
At AAIC 2022, the talk on The Alzheimer's Association Appropriate Use Recommendations for Blood Biomarkers in Alzheimer's Disease will be held during the developing topics session on Sunday, July 31, 2022 starting at 8 a.m. PT. They will also be discussed briefly as part of the symposium titled, "The Road To Clinical Implementation Of Plasma Biomarkers," on Monday, Aug. 1, 2022, 11:15 a.m.-12:30 p.m. PT.
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SOURCE Alzheimer’s Association | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/07/31/alzheimers-association-global-workgroup-releases-recommendations-about-use-alzheimers-blood-tests/ | 2022-07-31T15:48:11Z |
DALLAS (KDAF) — “YOU OTTER KNOW,” the Dallas Zoo tweeted on Wednesday afternoon. If you’re having a tough week at work or whatever stress you’re dealing with in life you may be searching for some relief.
Well, according to the zoo, you might just need to hop on over to the Dallas Zoo and hang out with some animals. Why?
The zoo tweeted, “Being around animals reduces stress by lowering levels of cortisol, a hormone associated with stress, and boosts serotonin, a chemical associated with wellbeing. So if you’re having a tough week, you know where to find us.”
So, now that you know that, here’s a look at their hours, 9-5 p.m., seven days a week (closed on December 25). “Ticket prices range from $8 to $21 based on seasonal attendance at the Zoo. This gives you the freedom to plan your Zoo day around your schedule and budget! Please note that this ticketing model does NOT mean an overall price increase.” | https://cw33.com/news/local/tough-week-dallas-zoo-says-being-around-animals-reduces-stress/ | 2022-06-29T19:30:22Z |
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Thursday that the state’s new Office of Election Crimes and Security has uncovered 20 instances of voter fraud since its establishment on July 1.
“The Office of Election Crimes and Security, in conjunction with the Attorney General’s office and FDLE of the state of Florida, has charged and is in the process of arresting 20 individuals across the state for voter fraud,” DeSantis said.
The governor claimed that the 20 individuals from Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties voted despite being disqualified due to previous convictions of either murder or sexual assault.
The state of Florida does not allow convicts of serious crimes including homicide and sexual assault to retain voting rights.
The 20 being charged with voter fraud face up to five years in prison in addition to a $5,000 fine for the third-degree felony, according to DeSantis.
DeSantis added that Florida’s election security office will continue to review the 2020 election in search of fraud, as well as monitor upcoming elections.
“One of the things that we did in the most recent legislative session, though, is recognize, yes, you can have all these great policy reforms, and it’s important to do it, but if it’s not actually enforced then what difference is it going to make at the end of the day?” DeSantis said in support of the election security office and its work.
The Office of Election Crimes and Security was proposed in a voting bill passed by the Florida House in March. DeSantis named lawyer Peter Antonacci director of the office on July 6, shortly after its establishment as part of the Florida State Department. | https://cw33.com/hill-politics/desantis-announces-20-charges-of-voter-fraud-by-new-election-security-office/ | 2022-08-19T00:01:09Z |
Weekend weather concerns Northern California firefighters
FORESTHILL, Calif. (AP) — A weekend weather system could hamper firefighters’ efforts in Northern California to battle the week-old blaze that’s become the largest in the state so far this year.
The system is forecasted to bring colder temperatures and precipitation — from 1/4 inch (0.6 centimeters) to more than 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) of rainfall over several days — to the Mosquito Fire about 110 miles (177 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.
But stronger winds are also expected to arrive in the area beginning Saturday, and the winds could throw burning embers and create spot fires despite the rain.
“That’s a bit of a mixed blessing here,” fire behavior analyst Jonathan Pangburn said Thursday.
The forecast came as firefighters again prevented flames from entering a mountain town and reported major progress Thursday, just two days after the fire roared back to life and burned structures near Foresthill. Crews on the ground built up containment lines while water-dropping helicopters knocked down hotspots.
Conditions on the ground Thursday were “looking a whole heck of a lot better,” according to fire spokesman Scott McLean.
“It’s looking really good on the west end where we had that dramatic increase of fire earlier this week,” McLean said. Flames raced up a drainage ditch into a neighborhood, but firefighters saved all the homes.
Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. In the last five years, California has experienced the largest and most destructive fires in its history.
Evacuation orders remained for some 11,000 residents because of the unpredictable nature of the winds, McLean said, which typically blow in the direction of several canyons and could rapidly spread flames if gusts pick up.
The Mosquito Fire was 20% contained after destroying at least 70 homes and other buildings. Total containment of the fire is expected to occur around Oct. 15.
The 109-square-mile (282-square-kilometer) blaze on Wednesday surpassed the size of the previous largest conflagration in 2022 — the McKinney Fire — although this season has seen a fraction of last year’s wildfire activity so far.
In Southern California, dogs aided the hunt for a person missing in a heavily damaged area of the San Bernardino Mountains where thunderstorms unleashed rocks, trees and earth that washed away cars, buried homes and affected 3,000 residents in two remote communities. Nearly 2 inches (5 centimeters) of rain fell Monday at Yucaipa Ridge between Oak Glen, home to apple orchards that are a fall tourist destination, and Forest Falls, once a summer getaway for cabin owners that has become a bedroom community.
“This entire area is blanketed with up to 6 feet (1.8 meters) of mud, debris, large boulders,” said Jim Topelski, a San Bernardino County fire chief.
The mudslide damage in Oak Glen and Forest Falls served as a powerful warning to residents of the lingering damage wildfires can cause months or even years after flames are extinguished and the smoke clears.
An intense amount of rain even over a short period of time can have catastrophic effects on hillsides where fire has stripped vegetation that once held the ground intact.
Also in Southern California, firefighters were close to completely surrounding a deadly wildfire that erupted Sept. 5 and initially spread very quickly.
The Fairview Fire was burning about 75 miles (121 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. The 44-square-mile (114-square-kilometer) blaze was 94% contained Friday. Two people were killed trying to flee the fire, which destroyed at least 35 homes and other structures in Riverside County.
___
For more AP coverage of the climate and environment: https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.kxii.com/2022/09/16/weekend-weather-concerns-northern-california-firefighters/ | 2022-09-16T18:54:44Z |
Stark golf courses report increase in play, beginner golfers
Ryan Johnson started playing golf less than a year ago. Already, he prefers hitting the range in his free time.
For his 19th birthday last month, his parents bought him new golf clubs. And his social media feeds are filled with golf content.
"I've recognized and noticed a lot more people coming out to golf," said Johnson, of Jackson Township. "I know a bunch of my friends have been asking to golf and stuff like that a lot more often than we would have in the past."
Johnson and his friends are among the many people who started playing the sport in recent years, a movement that is evident at golf courses across Stark County where parking lots are full, tee times are booked and business is booming.
Carrie Lowry, PGA director of golf and general manager at the Legends of Massillon Golf Course, estimated business at her course has risen 30% since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S in spring 2020. Last year, she said, about 48,000 rounds of golf were played at the Legends, which amounts to nearly 300 golfers per day.
Across the U.S. in 2021, 37.5 million people above the age of 6 participated in on-course and off-course golf activities, according to data from the National Golf Foundation. More than 3.2 million people played golf for the first time last year, breaking the previous record, set in 2000, by 800,000 people.
People flocked to golf courses because playing the sport was a way to relieve stress, Lowry said, and it allowed people to be outdoors, away from health restrictions imposed on indoor areas. That ushered in a new era for the sport in which people not traditionally associated with it — like teenagers and women — played a major role in growing the game.
More young people, women enjoying golf
"There's a tremendous amount of growth in the younger age groups," said Andy Lyons, owner of Lyons Den Golf Course near Canal Fulton. "Several years back it was just the opposite. All the growth was in and forecasted to be in the senior (age group), and now we're seeing a dramatic shift from that."
Lyons said places like Topgolf and 1899 Indoor Golf — which both utilize elements of traditional golf in competitive-style games — have incentivized people to try their hands on real golf courses.
Topgolf Swing Suite at HOF Village:The Brew Kettle, Cleveland-area craft brewery, to join Hall of Fame Village
1899 Indoor Golf in Canton:Hitting the (simulated) links at 1899 Indoor Golf
Sue Snode, business manager at Tannenhauf Golf Club in Alliance, agreed, saying more people in their 20s and 30s are coming to the golf course than ever before. Tannenhauf offers a number of junior programs and golf clinics for beginners, she added, which has increased the amount of young players.
At Sable Creek Golf Course near Hartville, women have been playing much more, too, said Director of Golf Ray Headley. He attributed the increase to people being allowed to work from home, which gives them a lot more time to try new things, especially during the summer months.
Bringing home the bacon
As the amount of people playing golf increases, so does the amount of money Stark golf courses are making this year. Diane Simms, manager of Edgewater Golf Club in Minerva, said there's been a sizable increase in play at her course this year.
She pointed to Edgewater's rates and a steady stream of weekday and weekend golfers as reason for the course's financial prosperity. With recent favorable weather, she said, people are just trying to find a way to get outside.
Doug Sweitzer, superintendent at Spring Valley Golf Course in East Sparta, said his course has experienced a large increase in between 2019 and 2021. This year, however, the course is slightly down from its 2021 trend, but he attributed that to rainy and cold weather earlier in the year.
Sweitzer added that the closures of local golf courses, like Skyland Pines and Tam O'Shanter, have have also driven up business at Spring Valley.
"A lot of people have come in and said that the course they used to play at was Skyland or Tammy, and they didn't realize that our course was down here until COVID hit," he said. "With those courses closing, they found us and they've been coming around ever since."
Contact Ryan via email at rmaxin@gannett.com, on Twitter at @ryanmaxin or by phone at 330-580-8412. | https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/local/2022/07/25/golf-courses-across-stark-county-getting-more-business-2022/10105848002/ | 2022-07-25T11:01:23Z |
ROSEMONT, Ill., Aug 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Catalog Manager is a Product-led-growth model SaaS software that is on a mission to "make eCommerce effortless". The SaaS product is making waves in the retail world by providing retailers with cleaned, structured, standardized manufacturer catalogs that can be accessed by retailers in several formats tailored for each business. Catalog Manager aims to enable retailers to sync up-to-date catalogs directly onto their online storefronts.
"On average, we've seen retailers save 50+ hours a month using Catalog Manager."
- Avinash Reddy, Head of Product
As the global B2B eCommerce industry continues to grow exponentially, online sellers are under immense pressure to keep their websites up to date. The reason is – today 73.7% of B2B buyers' research that precedes any purchase begins on an online platform. And a large part of their sales journey happens online across a multitude of online channels with no intervention from the seller.
However, with retailers juggling dozens of product feeds every day from multiple suppliers, manually checking for data accuracy and uploading them to the website in real-time can be a daunting task.
And that's where Catalog Manager comes into the picture for it serves to bridge the gap between suppliers and sellers by automating the catalog management process so online retailers can publish consistent, standardized data on their eCommerce portals.
Catalog Manager works by sourcing latest product information from 130+ brands scrubs data and pushes it to eCommerce stores of subscribing retailers. All retailers have to do is subscribe for catalog updates to their choice of suppliers, and automatically receive the latest product information to feature on their online stores.
Top Reasons to Use Catalog Manager to Keep Your Webstore Up-to-date
- Subscribe to 130+ uniform brands
- Integrates with Shopify, Volusion, WooCommerce & BigCommerce
- Get daily inventories updates
- Access catalogs via XML, FTP or APIs
- Stay on top of every product update or pricing change
"Catalog Manager is freaking amazing! I'm super glad to not have my team tangled up in scrubbing spreadsheets anymore and do some real business. In the past 2 months, our website traffic has gone by 37% resulting in a significant increase in sales."
- Sarah Corbynn, Shopify Seller
The current version of Catalog Manager can be used by uniform retailers and distributors to receive updated catalogs for their eCommerce stores.
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SOURCE SellersCommerce | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/08/22/catalog-manager-is-making-ecommerce-effortless-with-real-time-product-updates-online-retailers/ | 2022-08-22T11:06:28Z |
Economist: Alex Jones, his company worth up to $270 million
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his company Free Speech Systems are worth up to $270 million, an economist testified Friday to a jury trying to determine if Jones should have to pay punitive damages to the family of a 6-year-old killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.
The same jury ordered Jones to pay Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis $4.1 million in compensation for defamation. Punitive damages are determined as a separate issue, and the parents want to punish Jones for a decade of pushing false hoax claims that they say led to a decade of trauma and abuse from the Infowars host’s followers.
Bernard Pettingill, who was hired by the plaintiffs to study Jones’ net worth, said records show that Jones withdrew $62 million for himself in 2021, when default judgments were issued in lawsuits against him.
“That number represents, in my opinion, a value of a net worth,” Pettingill said. “He’s got money put in a bank account somewhere.”
The money that flows into Jones’ companies eventually funnels its way to him, said Pettingill, who added that he has testified in approximately 1,500 cases during his career.
“He is a very successful man,” Pettingill said, calling Jones a “maverick” and “revolutionary” for finding ways to monetize his online messaging.
While the $4.1 million award Thursday was less than the $150 million the parents sought, it marked the first time Jones has been held financially liable for repeatedly claiming that the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history was a hoax perpetrated to try to bring about tighter gun restrictions.
Mark Bankston, an attorney for parents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose 6-year-old son Jesse was among 20 children and six educators killed in the school attack in Newtown, Connecticut, insisted that the $4.1 million compensation award wasn’t a disappointment and warned that they would be trying to punish Jones in the next phase.
“We aren’t done yet,” Bankston said Thursday. “After tomorrow, he’s going to owe a whole lot more.”
Jones still faces two other defamation lawsuits from Sandy Hook families in Texas and Connecticut that put his personal wealth and media empire in jeopardy.
Jones — who was in the courtroom briefly Friday but left before Pettingill’s testimony — told jurors earlier this week that any award over $2 million would “sink us.” And a week ago, his company Free Speech Systems, which is Infowars’ parent company, filed for federal bankruptcy protection.
Lawyers for the family suing Jones contend that Jones has tried to hide evidence of his true wealth and have sued him claiming he’s tried to hide money in various shell companies.
During his testimony, Jones was confronted with a memo from one of his business managers outlining a single day’s gross revenue of $800,000 from selling vitamin supplements and other products through his website, which would approach nearly $300 million in a year. Jones called it a record sales day.
Jones, who has portrayed the lawsuit as an attack on his First Amendment rights, conceded during the trial that the attack was “100% real” and that he was wrong to have lied about it. But Heslin and Lewis told jurors that an apology wouldn’t suffice and called on them to make Jones pay for the years of suffering he has put them and other Sandy Hook families through.
The parents told jurors about how they’ve endured a decade of trauma, inflicted first by the murder of their son and what followed: gun shots fired at a home, online and phone threats, and harassment on the street by strangers. They said the threats and harassment were all fueled by Jones and his conspiracy theory spread to his followers via his website Infowars.
A forensic psychiatrist testified that the parents suffer from “complex post-traumatic stress disorder” inflicted by ongoing trauma, similar to what might be experienced by a soldier at war or a child abuse victim.
Throughout the trial, Jones has been his typically bombastic self, talking about conspiracies on the witness stand, during impromptu press conferences and on his show. His erratic behavior is unusual by courtroom standards, and the judge has scolded him, telling him at one point: “This is not your show.”
The trial has drawn attention from outside Austin as well.
Bankston told the court Thursday that the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol has requested records from Jones’ phone that Jones’ attorneys had mistakenly turned over to the plaintiffs. Bankston later said he planned to comply with the committee’s request.
Last month, the 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 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.
___
Find AP’s full coverage of the Alex Jones trial at: https://apnews.com/hub/alex-jones
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.kxii.com/2022/08/05/economist-alex-jones-his-company-worth-up-270-million/ | 2022-08-05T16:53:09Z |
NEW YORK, Aug. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Gross Law Firm issues the following notice to shareholders of Wells Fargo & Company.
Shareholders who purchased shares of WFC 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: This lawsuit is on behalf of persons and entities that purchased or otherwise acquired Wells Fargo common stock between February 24, 2021, and June 9, 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) Wells Fargo had misrepresented its commitment to diversity in the Company's workplace; (ii) Wells Fargo conducted fake job interviews in order to meet its Diverse Search Requirement; (iii) the foregoing conduct subjected Wells Fargo to an increased risk of regulatory and/or governmental scrutiny and enforcement action, including criminal charges; (iv) all of the foregoing, once revealed, was likely to negatively impact Wells Fargo's reputation; and (v) as a result, the Company's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.
DEADLINE: August 29, 2022 Shareholders should not delay in registering for this class action. Register your information here: https://securitiesclasslaw.com/securities/wells-fargo-loss-submission-form/?id=30692&from=4
NEXT STEPS FOR SHAREHOLDERS: Once you register as a shareholder who purchased shares of WFC 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 August 29, 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
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SOURCE The Gross Law Firm | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/08/10/shareholder-alert-gross-law-firm-notifies-shareholders-wells-fargo-amp-company-class-action-lawsuit-lead-plaintiff-deadline-august-29-2022-nyse-wfc/ | 2022-08-10T10:58:57Z |
New backing follows a surge in customer demand and triple revenue growth for 1H 2022
1,000+ companies and close to $1B annualized payment volume (TPV) flow through the Mesh platform
NEW YORK, Sept. 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Mesh Payments, the insight-driven finance automation platform, today announced $60 million in new financing, bringing the total amount raised to $123 million. Alpha Wave leads the equity round with participation from existing investors, including Tiger Global, TLV Partners, Entreé Capital, and Meron Capital. The funding will enable Mesh to expand its GTM efforts and further accelerate product innovation as it captures a growing share of the $100T+ B2B payments market.
Mesh brings efficiencies and innovation to the entire CFO tech stack so companies can operate more nimbly against changing market conditions. The 1,000 mid-market companies using Mesh today are 5X more efficient, in aggregate, saving their finance teams, on average, three days a month. Mesh powers some of the world's fastest-growing brands, including Monday.com, Hippo Insurance, Sezzle, Riskified, and Snyk.
Amidst a surge in customer demand and a dramatic shift from companies hyper-focusing on growth to cutting spend and costs, Mesh continues to enhance its platform to help finance teams automate, control, and optimize their corporate spend — from travel and expense (T&E) to SaaS subscriptions. Powerful integrations, including the category's most robust integration with NetSuite, bring additional efficiencies and reduce time spent on manual data entry and work.
"Since day one, Mesh has focused on giving CFOs the automation and insights they need to more effectively manage their day-to-day operations," said Oded Zehavi, co-founder & CEO, Mesh Payments. "And as companies operationalize distributed and remote workforce models, holistic visibility over company spend is even more critical. The confidence in Mesh from investors and customers, even in a turbulent market, reinforces that our finance automation platform is what companies want to help them navigate a cost-cutting environment.
"The best CFOs are looking to get the most out of every dollar and hour, particularly during times of economic turbulence. With its strategic partnerships and best-in-class finance automation platform, Mesh Payment delivers exceptional value to its customers," said Rick Gerson, co-founder chairman, and chief investment officer, Alpha Wave Global. "Mesh Payments represents the type of innovative, customer-focused company that we look for, that gives customers a clear and lasting benefit. The number of companies that are open to finding new and better ways to spend less and save more is pretty large and the Mesh team brings a best-in-class solution that is continually improving."
Mesh makes legacy corporate cards obsolete with its insight-driven automation platform that gives finance managers more granular control and leverage over their corporate spend. A focus on contextual payment models — including SaaS subscription management and other models to innovations including the industry's only numberless VISA physical card that syncs with virtual cards for added flexibility and control — are key differentiators that appeal to busy finance teams. Mesh continues to disrupt the CFO tech stack by bringing innovation and automation to every corner of finance operations to free up finance teams to focus on better managing day-to-day financial operations
Earlier this year, Mesh announced a strategic partnership with global payroll provider Papaya Global to remove friction from employee expense management. Mesh is set to announce additional strategic partnerships with global payments infrastructure providers in the near future.
For more information, visit www.meshpayments.com or follow on LinkedIn.
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SOURCE Mesh Payments | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/09/07/mesh-payments-announces-60-million-new-funding-accelerate-automation-control-finance-teams/ | 2022-09-07T15:18:02Z |
INCREASES DIVIDEND TO $0.42 PER SHARE FOR FIRST QUARTER
MEDFORD, Ore., April 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Lithia & Driveway (NYSE: LAD) today reported the highest first quarter revenue and earnings per share in company history.
First quarter 2022 revenue increased 54% to $6.7 billion from $4.3 billion in the first quarter of 2021.
First quarter 2022 net income attributable to LAD per diluted share was $11.55, a 99% increase from $5.81 per diluted share reported in the first quarter of 2021. Adjusted first quarter 2022 net income attributable to LAD per diluted share was $11.96, a 103% increase compared to $5.89 per diluted share in the same period of 2021.
First quarter 2022 net income was $344 million, a 120% increase compared to net income of $156 million in the same period of 2021. Adjusted first quarter 2022 net income was $356 million, a 125% increase compared to adjusted net income of $158 million for the same period of 2021.
As shown in the attached non-GAAP reconciliation tables, the 2022 first quarter adjusted results exclude a $0.41 per diluted share net non-core charge related to a non-cash unrealized investment loss and acquisition expenses, partially offset by a net gain on the sale of stores. The 2021 first quarter adjusted results include a $0.08 per diluted share net non-core charge related to a non-cash unrealized investment loss, a net loss on the sale of stores, insurance reserves, and acquisition expenses.
First Quarter-over-Quarter Comparisons and Operating Highlights:
- Revenues increased 54.4%
- New vehicle retail revenues increased 39.6%
- Used vehicle retail revenues increased 65.2%
- Driveway reached 1 million monthly unique visitors
- Driveway achieved 3,100 transactions in March, quarterly transaction volumes increased over 1,000%
- Driveway Finance (DFC) became #1 lender to LAD customers with 6.2% penetration rate
- F&I per unit increased 28.6% to $2,260
- Service, body, and parts revenues increased 55.4%
- Total vehicle gross profit per unit increased 55.4% to $6,825
- Adjusted SG&A as a percentage of gross profit improved by 550 basis points from 62.6% to 57.1%
"Our teams delivered another record quarter with strong results across all channels," said Bryan DeBoer, Lithia & Driveway's President and CEO. "Our highly adaptable model generated significant free cash flows and Driveway and DFC each achieved impressive milestones. Combined with our teams' unique ability to quickly integrate acquired businesses, our path forward to being a diversified, omni-channel retailer has never been clearer."
Corporate Development
LAD recently acquired three Stellantis stores in Las Vegas, diversifying our brand mix in that growing market. Collectively the stores are expected to generate $400 million in annualized revenues. Year-to-date, LAD has acquired $1.1 billion in annualized revenues and since the announcement of the 2025 Plan in July 2020, we have acquired $11.5 billion in annualized revenues.
"Our recent strong performance has provided significant optionality in our execution of the 2025 Plan," said DeBoer. "We have deployed incremental capital to Driveway and DFC while maintaining our accelerated acquisition cadence and providing immediate shareholder return through opportunistic share repurchases. These actions are transforming LAD and bringing us closer to the day when each billion dollars of revenues produces significantly more than a dollar of EPS."
Balance Sheet Update
We ended the first quarter with approximately $1.6 billion in cash and availability on our revolving lines of credit. In addition, our unfinanced real estate could provide additional liquidity of approximately $1.1 billion.
Dividend Payment and Share Repurchases
Our Board of Directors approved a dividend of $0.42 per share related to first quarter 2022 financial results. We expect to pay the dividend on May 27, 2022 to shareholders of record on May 13, 2022.
Year-to-date, we have repurchased 515,130 shares at a weighted average price of $292.80. Approximately $572 million remains available under our authorization.
First Quarter Earnings Conference Call and Updated Presentation
The first quarter 2022 conference call may be accessed at 10:00 a.m. ET today by telephone at 877-407-8029. An updated presentation highlighting the first quarter 2022 results has been added to our investor relations website. To listen live on our website or for replay, visit investors.lithiadriveway.com and click on quarterly earnings.
About Lithia & Driveway (LAD)
LAD is a growth company focused on profitably consolidating the largest retail sector in North America through providing personal transportation solutions wherever, whenever, and however consumers desire.
Sites
www.lithia.com
investors.lithiadriveway.com
www.lithiacareers.com
www.driveway.com
www.greencars.com
www.drivewayfinancecorp.com
Lithia & Driveway on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/LithiaMotors
https://www.facebook.com/DrivewayHQ
Lithia & Driveway on Twitter
https://twitter.com/lithiamotors
https://twitter.com/DrivewayHQ
https://twitter.com/GreenCarsHQ
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this presentation, and at times made by our officers and representatives, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "Safe Harbor"provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Generally, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as "project," "outlook," "target," "may," "will," "would," "should," "seek," "expect," "plan," "intend," "forecast," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "potential," "likely," "goal," "strategy," "future," "maintain," and "continue" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terms. Examples of forward-looking statements in this presentation include, among others, statements regarding:
- Future market conditions, including anticipated car and other sales levels and the supply of inventory
- Our business strategy and plans, including our 2025 Plan (or "50/50" Plan) and any business expansion
- The growth, expansion, make-up and success of our network, including our acquiring additional and accretive stores
- Annualized revenues from acquired stores
- The growth and performance of our Driveway e-commerce home solution and Driveway Finance, their synergies and other impacts on our business and our realizing Driveway and Driveway Finance-related targets
- The impact of sustainable vehicles and other market and regulatory changes on our business
- Our capital allocations and uses and levels of capital expenditures in the future
- Future expected operating and financial results, such as projections of improved store performance and generation of future revenue or earnings
- Our anticipated financial condition and liquidity, including from our cash and the future availability of our credit facility, unfinanced real estate and other financing sources
- Our continuing to purchase shares under our share repurchase program
- Impacts from the continued COVID-19 pandemic
- Our compliance with financial and restrictive covenants in our credit facility and other debt agreements
- Our programs and initiatives for employee recruitment, training, and retention
- Our strategies for customer retention, growth, market position, financial results and risk management
Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and our actual results of operations, financial condition and liquidity and development of the industry in which we operate may differ materially from those made in or suggested by the forward-looking statements in this presentation. Therefore, you should not rely on any of these forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from estimated or projected results include, without limitation:
- Future national and local economic and financial conditions, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and governmental programs and spending
- The market for dealerships, including the availability of stores to us for an acceptable price
- Changes in customer demand, our relationship with, and the financial and operational stability of, OEMs and other suppliers
- Changes in the competitive landscape, including through technology and our ability to deliver new products, services and customer experiences and a portfolio of in-demand and available vehicles
- Risks associated with our indebtedness, including available borrowing capacity, interest rates, compliance with financial covenants and ability to refinance or repay indebtedness on favorable terms
- The adequacy of our cash flows and other conditions which may affect our ability to fund capital expenditures, obtain favorable financing and pay our quarterly dividend at planned levels
- Disruptions to our technology network including computer systems, as well as natural events such as severe weather or man-made or other disruptions of our operating systems, facilities or equipment
- Government regulations and legislation
- The risks set forth throughout "Part II, Item 7. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" and in "Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors" of our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, and in "Part II, Item 1A. Risk Factors" of our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and from time to time in our other filings with the SEC.
Any forward-looking statement made by us in this presentation is based only on information currently available to us and speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.
Non-GAAP Financial Measures
This presentation contains non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted net income and diluted earnings per share, adjusted SG&A as a percentage of revenue and gross profit, adjusted operating margin, adjusted operating profit as a percentage of revenue and gross profit, adjusted pre-tax margin and net profit margin, EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, leveraged EBITDA and adjusted total debt. Non-GAAP measures do not have definitions under GAAP and may be defined differently by and not comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies. As a result, we review any non-GAAP financial measures in connection with a review of the most directly comparable measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. We caution you not to place undue reliance on such non-GAAP measures, but also to consider them with the most directly comparable GAAP measures. We present cash flows from operations in the attached tables, adjusted to include the change in non-trade floor plan debt to improve the visibility of cash flows related to vehicle financing. As required by SEC rules, we have reconciled these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in the attachments to this release. We believe the non-GAAP financial measures we present improve the transparency of our disclosures; provide a meaningful presentation of our results from core business operations, because they exclude items not related to core business operations and other non-cash items; and improve the period-to-period comparability of our results from core business operations. These presentations should not be considered an alternative to GAAP measures.
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SOURCE Lithia Motors, Inc. | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/04/20/lithia-amp-driveway-lad-increases-revenue-54-eps-99-adjusted-eps-103-record-first-quarter-performance/ | 2022-04-20T09:55:23Z |
These days, mass shooters like the one now held in the Buffalo, New York, supermarket attack don’t stop with planning out their brutal attacks. They also create marketing plans while arranging to livestream their massacres on social platforms in hopes of fomenting more violence.
Sites like Twitter, Facebook and now the game-streaming platform Twitch have learned painful lessons from dealing with the violent videos that often accompany such shootings. But experts are calling for a broader discussion around livestreams, including whether they should exist at all, since once such videos go online, they’re almost impossible to erase completely.
The self-described white supremacist gunman who police say killed 10 people, all of them Black, at a Buffalo supermarket Saturday had mounted a GoPro camera to his helmet to stream his assault live on Twitch, the video game streaming platform used by another shooter in 2019 who killed two people at a synagogue in Halle, Germany.
He had previously outlined his plan in a detailed but rambling set of online diary entries that were apparently posted publicly ahead of the attack, although it’s not clear how may people might have seen them. His goal: to inspire copycats and spread his racist beliefs. After all, he was a copycat himself.
He decided against streaming on Facebook, as yet another mass shooter did when he killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, three years ago. Unlike Twitch, Facebook requires users to sign up for an account in order to watch livestreams.
Still, not everything went according to plan. By most accounts the platforms responded more quickly to halt the spread of the Buffalo video than they did after the 2019 Christchurch shooting, said Megan Squire, a senior fellow and technology expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Another Twitch user watching the live video likely flagged it to the attention of Twitch’s content moderators, she said, which would have helped Twitch pull down the stream less than two minutes after the first gunshots per a company spokesperson. Twitch has not said how the video was flagged. In a statement about the shooting Tuesday, the company expressed thanks “for the user reports that help us catch and remove harmful content in real time.”
“In this case, they did pretty well,” Squire said. “The fact that the video is so hard to find right now is proof of that.”
That was little consolation to family members of the victims. Celestine Chaney’s son, Wayne Jones, found out his mother had been killed when someone sent him a video screenshot from the livestream. Not long after, he saw the video itself.
“I didn’t find out, nobody knocked on my door like the usual process,” he said. “I found out in a Facebook picture that my mom was gunned down. Then I watched the video on social media.”
Danielle Simpson, the girlfriend of Chaney’s grandson, said she reported dozens of sites after the video kept appearing over and over in her Facebook feed and she worried that Chaney’s family would see them.
“I think I reported about 100 pages on Sunday because every time I got on Facebook it was either pictures or the video was right there,” she said. “You couldn’t escape it. There was nowhere you could go.”
In 2019, the Christchurch shooting was streamed live on Facebook for 17 minutes and quickly spread to other platforms. This time, the platforms generally seemed to coordinate better, particularly by sharing digital “signatures” of the video used to detect and remove copies.
But platform algorithms can have a harder time identifying a copycat video if someone has edited it. That’s created problems, such as when some internet forums users remade the Buffalo video with twisted attempts at humor. Tech companies would have needed to use “more fancy algorithms” to detect those partial matches, Squire said.
“It seems darker and more cynical,” she said of the attempts to spread the shooting video in recent days.
Twitch has more than 2.5 million viewers at any given moment; roughly 8 million content creators stream video on the platform each month, according to the company. The site uses a combination of user reports, algorithms and moderators to detect and remove any violence that occurs on the platform. The company said that it quickly removed the gunman’s stream, but hasn’t shared many details about what happened on Saturday — including whether the stream was reported or how many people watched the rampage live.
A Twitch spokesperson said the company shared the livestream with the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, a nonprofit group set up by tech companies to help others monitor their own platforms for rebroadcasts. But clips from the video still made their way to other platforms, including the site Streamable, where it was available for millions to view. A spokesperson for Hopin, the company that owns Streamable, said Monday that it’s working to remove the videos and terminate the accounts of those who uploaded them.
Looking ahead, platforms may face future moderation complications from a Texas law — reinstated by an appellate court last week — that bans big social media companies from “censoring” users’ viewpoints. The shooter “had a very specific viewpoint” and the law is unclear enough to create a risk for platforms that moderate people like him, said Jeff Kosseff, an associate professor of cybersecurity law at the U.S. Naval Academy. “It really puts the finger on the scale of keeping up harmful content,” he said.
Some lawmakers have called for social media companies to further police their platforms following the gunman’s livestream. President Joe Biden did not bring up such calls during his remarks Tuesday in Buffalo.
Alexa Koenig, executive director of the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, said there’s been a shift in how tech companies are responding to such events. In particular, Koenig said, coordination between the companies to create fingerprint repositories for extremist videos so they can’t be re-uploaded to other platforms “has been an incredibly important development.”
A Twitch spokesperson said the company will review how it responded to the gunman’s livestream.
Experts suggest that sites such as Twitch could exercise more control over who can livestream and when — for instance, by building in delays or whitelisting valid users while banning rules violators. More broadly, Koenig said, “there’s also a general societal conversation that needs to happen around the utility of livestreaming and when it’s valuable, when it’s not, and how we put safe norms around how it’s used and what happens if you use it.”
Another option, of course, would be to end livestreaming altogether. But that’s almost impossible to imagine given how much tech companies rely on livestreams to attract and keep users engaged in order to bring in money.
Free speech, Koenig said, is often the reason tech platforms give for allowing this form of technology — beyond the unspoken profit component. But that should be balanced “with rights to privacy and some of the other issues that arise in this instance,” Koenig said.
___
AP journalists Robert Bumsted and Carolyn Thompson contributed from Buffalo.
___
This story has been updated to clarify that all 10 of the people killed in the shooting were Black. | https://cw33.com/technology/ap-technology/carnage-livestreamed-tech-platforms-role-in-mass-killings/ | 2022-05-17T20:22:23Z |
Covenant Metabolic Specialists
Metabolic Specialists
Dr. Neff received his medical degree from Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. He trained Residency and Chief Resident at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. From there Dr. Neff trained in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Louisiana State University, with advanced fellowships in Advanced Endoscopy, Hepatology, and Transplant Medicine at the University of Miami. Dr. Neff served on the faculty as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at University of Miami. He then transferred to the University of Cincinnati as an Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical Director for Liver Transplantation. Dr. Neff then transferred to Tampa Florida at Life-Link to become Chief of Hepatology and Medical Director of Liver Transplantation. Dr. Neff then served as the United States Medical Director for AbbVie Pharmaceuticals.
Dr. Neff then helped create Covenant Metabolic Specialists, LLC.
Dr. Neff is the President and CEO of Covenant Metabolic Specialists, LLC located in Sarasota and Fort Myers Florida. He is an active consultant for many pharmaceutical companies that are creating remedies for patients suffering from various liver diseases.
Dr. Neff has served as the primary investigator for dozens of clinical trials in various phases of drug development. His research interests include nutrition and endocrine, fatty liver disease, cholestatic liver diseases, and autoimmune diseases. He has lectured extensively both nationally and internationally for cirrhosis and nutrition, transplant outcomes, liver dialysis, sarcopenia and nutrition, and management of viral diseases.
Dr. Neff has authored over 200 publications and more than 300 abstracts and presentations. His work has been published in numerous journals, including the American Journal of Gastroenterology, Clinical Transplantation, Liver Transplantation, and Transplantation Proceedings. He is on the review board for Alimentary Pharmacology and Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
Covenant is a unique clinical setting, where academic medicine and metabolic specialists bring advanced healthcare to the community. The clinical team at Covenant Metabolic Specialists has over 150 years of combined clinical experience involving various healthcare services. This level of expertise, offers the community treatment options not currently available to other medical professionals or practices.
Copyright 2022 WWSB. All rights reserved. | https://www.mysuncoast.com/2022/06/02/covenant-metabolic-specialists/ | 2022-06-02T21:06:35Z |
PRINCETON, N.J., May 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Radiate Holdco, LLC ("Radiate") announced today that it released its first quarter 2022 financial results on its secure investor website. The financial results were provided in accordance with the terms of the Indentures governing Radiate's 4.5% Senior Notes due 2026 and 6.5% Senior Notes due 2028 (together, the "Notes").
Radiate will hold a conference call to discuss its results at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, May 24, 2022. The dial-in information for the call will be posted to Radiate's secure investor website. During the conference call, representatives of Radiate will discuss and answer questions concerning the company's business and financial matters.
Access to the financial results and conference call will be limited to holders and beneficial owners of the Notes, qualified prospective investors in the Notes, holders of Radiate's term loan, and certain security analysts and market makers. Radiate will post all of its reports required to be furnished pursuant to the Indenture governing the Notes on its secure investor website maintained by Intralinks. Reports will also be posted to Syndtrak for term loan holders. If you meet one or more of the criteria set forth above and would like to access, but have not yet been granted access to, the secure investor website, please contact Radiate's contact below.
Contact details:
Radiate Contact: Jamie Hill, SVP Finance & Treasury
Telephone: 301-531-2720
Email: James.Hill@rcn.net
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SOURCE Radiate Holdco, LLC | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/05/14/radiate-holdco-llc-releases-first-quarter-2022-financial-results/ | 2022-05-14T06:40:26Z |
(The HIll) – Eight prominent conservatives released a 72-page report Thursday refuting claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election in dozens of unsuccessful court cases brought forth by former President Trump and his allies.
The group — which includes former federal judges, Republican senators and Republican-appointed officials — said they reviewed all 64 court cases Trump and his allies initiated challenging the election outcome, saying they had reached an “unequivocal” conclusion that the claims were unsupported by evidence.
“We conclude that Donald Trump and his supporters had their day in court and failed to produce substantive evidence to make their case,” the group wrote.
The eight conservatives repeatedly condemned the election fraud claims, but said they have not changed their allegiance to the Democratic Party and have no “ill will” toward Trump nor his supporters.
The group consists of former Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.); longtime Republican lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg; former federal Judge Thomas Griffith; David Hoppe, chief of staff to then-Speaker Paul Ryan; former federal judge J. Michael Luttig; former federal judge Michael McConnell; Theodore Olson, solicitor general under former President George W. Bush; and former Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.).
“We urge our fellow conservatives to cease obsessing over the results of the 2020 election, and to focus instead on presenting candidates and ideas that offer a positive vision for overcoming our current difficulties and bringing greater peace, prosperity and liberty to our nation,” the group wrote.
The Hill has reached out to a Trump spokesperson for comment.
The group’s report includes an analysis of the claims in each court case challenging the election results in six swing states President Biden narrowly won in 2020: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The cases included unfounded widespread claims of improperly counted ballots, rigged voting machines, mail-in ballot irregularities, ineligible voters who casted ballots and blocked access for observers in polling places.
The claims have also been a focus of numerous investigations, including the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and a criminal investigation led by the Fulton County, Ga. district attorney.
Two members of the group, Ginsberg and Luttig, have testified publicly before the House panel. Luttig served as an informal adviser to then-Vice President Pence in the lead-up to Jan. 6, telling Pence he could not constitutionally overturn the Electoral College votes.
The eight conservatives acknowledged the election administration was not “perfect” Thursday, noting a relatively small number of cases where authorities found irregularities.
“But there is absolutely no evidence of fraud in the 2020 presidential election on the magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation as a whole,” they wrote.
“In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct,” the report continued. “It is wrong, and bad for our country, for people to propagate baseless claims that President Biden’s election was not legitimate.”
Beyond the court cases, the conservatives’ report also discussed post-election reviews conducted outside of the legal system by the six swing states, all of which the group said also “failed to support” Trump’s allegations.
In one example, the group noted the Arizona’s state senate’s review of Maricopa County election results, which was conducted by private firm Cyber Ninjas. The firm’s final analysis found 99 additional votes for Biden and 261 fewer votes for Trump, according to the report.
Cyber Ninjas later shut down after a judge ordered it to pay $50,000 per day in fines until it turned over public records to The Arizona Republic.
In another example, the conservatives referenced a full manual recount of Georgia ballots by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), which confirmed Biden’s victory in the state.
Trump had pressured Raffensperger in a now-infamous call to “find” enough votes to reverse Biden’s victory in the state.
“There is no principle of our republic more fundamental than the right of the people to elect our leaders and for their votes to be counted accurately,” the conservatives wrote. “Efforts to thwart the people’s choice are deeply undemocratic and unpatriotic.” | https://cw33.com/news/nexstar-media-wire/conservative-group-finds-absolutely-no-evidence-of-widespread-fraud-in-2020-election/ | 2022-07-15T12:35:22Z |
A Grand Rapids, Michigan, police officer was "justified in his use of force" and not guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Patrick Lyoya, the officer's lawyer said at his client's arraignment Friday.
Lyoya, a Black man, was shot to death on April 4 by Christopher Schurr, a White officer trying to arrest him after a traffic stop in a case that has drawn national attention.
Lyoya was shot in the back of the head during a struggle. His final moments were captured in multiple videos later released to the public.
Schurr appeared in court Friday via videoconference, wearing an orange jumpsuit and a blue medical face mask. His attorneys present inside court.
Mark Dodge, the officer's lawyer, said his client was "justified in his use of force" and entered a not guilty plea on behalf of Schurr. He said his client has offered "nothing but cooperation" during the investigation.
A judge set Schurr's bond at $100,000 and put in place a number of conditions for his pretrial release, including that Schurr not buy or possess guns and not drink liquor or use drugs. A probable cause conference was set for June 21.
Schurr surrendered Thursday after a Kent County judge signed an arrest warrant for him.
Kent County Prosecuting Attorney Christopher Becker on Thursday emphasized his decision to charge Schurr was "not a message."
"This is just based on the facts and making a decision in this case," Becker told reporters, referring to the second-degree murder charge.
Lyoya, 26, was pulled over by Schurr for an allegedly unregistered license plate. Lyoya got out of the car and ran. He resisted Schurr's attempt to arrest him, and the officer shot him while the two were on the ground as Schurr wrestled for control of Lyoya.
Lyoya had three outstanding warrants at the time he fled Schurr, and an autopsy revealed his blood-alcohol concentration was more than three times the legal limit.
After the death protesters poured out onto the streets of Grand Rapids, a city with a history of tension between Black residents and police.
The shooting led the state's civil rights agency to renew a request for a pattern-and-practice investigation by the Justice Department into the Grand Rapids Police Department, just one month after a new police chief took office.
The county's medical examiner's office released its autopsy results in early May, and the Grand Rapids Police Department released dispatch records and reports written by officers who responded to the shooting.
The radio traffic, an accompanying computer-aided dispatch log and redacted incident reports shed light on the moments before and after the officer shot Lyoya.
Radio traffic and other records released by police show that Schurr told supervisors after the shooting that Lyoya "has my Taser."
Schurr notified his dispatcher he stopped a tan car around 8:11 a.m. He told the dispatcher that one person was running from the stop about 75 seconds later and asked for more officers to respond about two minutes after the stop. Schurr told the dispatcher that he had been "involved in a shooting" about four minutes after the initial stop. The dispatcher said emergency medical services were en route about 11 seconds after that.
Lyoya was driving on a revoked license at the time of the traffic stop. His license was revoked in March because of a third substance abuse conviction in 10 years, according to public records. He had three open warrants at the time of the traffic stop, according to a CNN review of state records.
It's not clear if Schurr knew of the warrants or the revoked license at the time Lyoya fled on foot shortly after the stop.
Records show he was wanted in connection with a domestic violence case from April, charged as a second offense. Another warrant was issued in early April for failure to appear or pay. Another open warrant appeared in the court record relating to a property damage traffic crash Lyoya's alleged to have fled. His family's attorneys have declined to comment on the open warrants.
Grand Rapids Police Department Chief Eric Winstrom said Thursday he was recommending to the city Schurr's suspension without pay, pending termination. The officer will have a discharge hearing, and the final determination on his employment will be made by the city manager.
Winstrom, who took over as chief in March, said he was comfortable with the decision to seek the officer's termination.
"I recognize the impact this will have on a longtime employee and a friend to many at the Grand Rapids Police Department, but I think it is the right thing to do," he said.
Peter Lyoya, Patrick's father, said Thursday that the charge brings some relief to the family, even though his son is never coming back.
"My heart was really broken during the past two months because a lot of things were said," he told reporters at a news conference through an interpreter. "And I was thinking maybe there's no justice in America."
But he added that if it weren't for the videos that captured his son's final moments, there would be no second-degree murder charge today.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://www.albanyherald.com/news/grand-rapids-officer-was-justified-in-fatally-shooting-patrick-lyoya-his-lawyer-says-at-arraignment/article_1ab48446-f9d1-573d-a95f-6f7df14b3895.html | 2022-06-10T19:46:16Z |
BOSTON, July 27 2022
- Appointment aligns with recognized high growth potential for INNOVO® in the US.
- A strong endorsement for the scientific and clinical credibility of INNOVO® as an accessible treatment for Stress Urinary Incontinence (SUI).
- Endorses FemTech as a high potential investment category.
/PRNewswire/ -- Today Atlantic Therapeutics, a Galway, Ireland and Boston, USA-based MedTech innovator, announces the appointment of Russell Medford MD, PhD as Chairman. The addition of Dr Medford to the Board is a significant step to fulfill the potential of the INNOVO® brand in the large and under-served US stress urinary incontinence (SUI) market.
Dr Medford is a senior healthcare and life sciences executive with extensive private and public company experience. Currently he serves as Chairman and CEO of Covanos, Inc, a medical technology company focused on advanced cardiovascular diagnostics.
He has also led companies and organizations engaged in comprehensive therapeutic drug research and development and has executed multiple strategic partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies.
He has extensive experience in both the private and public financial markets, including initial public offerings raising over $500 million for corporate, clinical development and research programs and returning over $2.5 billion in shareholder value. He currently serves as a Board member of ThermoGenesis Holdings (Nasdaq:THMO), engaged in development and commercialization of automated cell processing technologies for cell and gene therapy. He has served on multiple public and private company Boards.
Dr Medford is a board-certified physician, an inaugural Fellow of the Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences of the American Heart Association and has held faculty positions at Harvard Medical School and the Emory University School of Medicine.
He currently serves as Chairman of the Center for Global Health Innovation, past Chairman and current member of the External Advisory Board for the Petit Institute of Bioscience and Bioengineering of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors for the Global Center for Medical Innovation.
On joining the Board of Atlantic Therapeutics, Dr Medford commented: "From the first conversations with CEO, Susan Trent and other Board members, I could clearly see the huge potential of INNOVO® to positively change the outcome for women living with SUI. This very prevalent, yet under-served condition impacts the lives of many millions of women. It requires a treatment that is safe, clinically proven and easily accessible.
Since its FDA approval and launch onto the US market in 2020, INNOVO® has demonstrated that it can fulfil that requirement and has already transformed the lives of tens of thousands of women. I am delighted to apply my experience to help this innovative company realize its full potential"
Susan Trent, CEO commented: "I am delighted to welcome Dr Medford to the Atlantic Therapeutics Board. His experience in both clinical and commercial environments, as well as his obvious passion for delivering effective and innovative healthcare solutions in areas of unmet need, will be a major catalyst to maximize the potential for INNOVO®"
INNOVO® is an FDA-Approved, CE-marked treatment for women suffering from Stress Urinary Incontinence. It works by delivering clinically proven, safe, non-invasive pelvic- floor stimulation via unique wearable technology. In the privacy of their own home, women can simply wear the INNOVO® shorts technology for a 30-minute pelvic floor workout. Innovative NMES (neuromuscular electrical stimulation) technology embedded in the INNOVO® shorts does the work to strengthen and re-educate their pelvic floor muscles, giving women the opportunity to live life free from bladder leaks in as little as three months. Extensive clinical trial outcomes conducted on over 600 subjects consistently confirm improvements in key outcomes, symptoms and acceptability. Underpinned by this compelling peer-reviewed science, INNOVO® has received numerous prestigious awards for innovation and technology and is revenue generating in both the USA and Europe.
Based in Galway, Ireland and Boston, MA, Atlantic Therapeutics develops consumer medical devices, related software, apps and connected health technologies to treat all types of incontinence. The company's mission is to improve the quality of life of millions of people each year, by enabling them to restore and strengthen their pelvic health, thus regaining the confidence and control to lead active lives. Atlantic Therapeutics has attracted both international VC investment and enterprise grant funding and is experiencing high growth, establishing INNOVO® as the leading Femtech solution to treat SUI. For more information, please visit www.myinnovo.com.
Contacts: Daniel Forde, 00353 852823340, dforde@myinnovo.com
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SOURCE Atlantic Therapeutics | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/07/27/atlantic-therapeutics-announces-appointment-russell-medford-md-phd-new-us-based-chairman/ | 2022-07-27T12:30:34Z |
BUFFALO, N.Y., June 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- It's the moment a basketball player dreams about – hearing his named called at the NBA Draft, heading to the stage, and donning a fresh New Era Cap.
Fans can celebrate with their favorite teams, and welcome the newest players to the league, with the NBA Draft Collection from New Era Cap LLC, the international lifestyle and sports brand and official on-stage cap of the 2022 NBA Draft.
- NEW ERA OFFICIAL 2022 NBA DRAFT 9FIFTY® SNAPBACK AND 59FIFTY® CAPS: Welcome the newest members to your team in style with this chrome white and team-color cap in either the 9FIFTY® snapback style or the 59FIFTY® fitted style. Both aps feature two embroidered designs on the front – the primary team logo and the first three letters of the team's city with a contrasting NBA logoman over it. The NBA logo also appears on the back of the cap, above the team-color closure to finish the look.
- NEW ERA OFFICIAL 2022 NBA 9TWENTY CAP®: An adjustable-fit cap in chrome white and team color cotton features the team's primary logo on the front. The side of the cap showcases the first three letters of the team's city with a contrasting NBA logoman over it. The rear of the cap features a women tab with the NBA logoman to complete the look.
- NEW ERA OFFICIAL 2022 NBA DRAFT CUFF POM KNIT: This chrome white and team color Acrylic Fleece cuff Pom Knit has the team's primary logo on the front of the cuff while the crown shows off the first three letters of the team's city in a contrasting color. The city letters repeat on the back of the crown with the rear cuff displaying the NBA logoman.
"It's a simple act, putting on that team cap, but it's the culmination of years of sweat and sacrifice to be drafted into the NBA," said Todd Sokolowski, Director of Licensed Products for New Era Cap. "This is a collection that celebrates that moment and allows fans a way to express their connection to their favorite team and represent the next generation of NBA players with flair."
Fans can shop the official NBA Draft collection at neweracap.com and other select retail outlets.
ABOUT NEW ERA CAP: Since 1920, New Era has been hand-crafting the finest headwear in the world. Today, with apparel and accessories lines, the brand is a market leader rooted in sports and an influencer of street and lifestyle culture around the globe. With over 500 licenses in its portfolio, New Era is the brand of choice in the worlds of sport, fashion, music and entertainment. The Company is headquartered in Buffalo, N.Y., and its products are sold in more than 120 countries. For more information on New Era's global offices and partnerships, visit www.neweracap.com and social channels @neweracap.
PRESS CONTACT:
John Mackowiak
The Martin Group for New Era Cap
518-618-1175 | jmackowiak@martingroupmarketing.com
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SOURCE New Era Cap LLC | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/06/22/next-generation-nba-players-ready-sport-new-era-draft-day-caps/ | 2022-06-22T14:21:00Z |
VIENNA — The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says that Russian forces’ departure from the decommissioned Chernobyl power plant is “a step in the right direction” and the U.N. nuclear watchdog plans to be there “very, very soon.”
IAEA director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi says he will head a support mission to Chernobyl, the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster, and that further nuclear safety missions to Ukraine will follow.
Grossi spoke Friday after visits to Ukraine and Russia. He said Russian nuclear and foreign ministry officials didn’t discuss with him why Russian forces left Chernobyl.
Of the overall situation in the area, he said: “The general radiation situation around the plant is quite normal. There was a relatively higher level of localized radiation because of the movement of heavy vehicles at the time of the occupation of the plant, and apparently this might have been the case again on the way out.”
Ukraine’s state power company said Russian troops received “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches in the exclusion zone around the plant. But Grossi said “we don’t have any confirmation” that soldiers were contaminated.
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR:
— Ukraine top of agenda as China, EU prepare to meet at summit
— Russians leave Chernobyl; Ukraine braces for renewed attacks
— UK, Russia foreign ministers visit India amid Ukraine crisis
— Kremlin decree says foreign currency can still buy natural gas
— War in Ukraine fuels fears among draft-age Russian youths
— African refugees see racial bias as US welcomes Ukrainians
— Go to https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine for more coverage
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OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
MOSCOW — Russian officials say their demand that natural gas be paid for in rubles doesn’t mean supplies will be immediately interrupted.
Gas used for heating and electricity was still flowing from Russia to Europe on Friday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “payments on shipments in progress right now must be made not this very day, but somewhere in late April, or even early May.”
President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia would start accepting ruble payments Friday and gas supplies would be cut off if buyers don’t agree to the new conditions.
A decree he signed gave Russian authorities and Gazprombank 10 days to make arrangements. It also says countries could pay foreign currency to the bank, which would convert it to rubles in a second account.
The European Commission’s energy chief tweeted that the European Union was coordinating “to establish a common approach.” Western leaders have said they will keep paying in euros and dollars.
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LVIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s general staff says the country’s armed forces have retaken control over 29 settlements in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions, where Russia has pulled back some of its troops.
The Russian military in the northeast continues to block and shell Chernihiv and Kharkiv, the general staff said Friday.
In the southeast of the country the Russians are trying to seize the cities of Popasna, Rubizhne and Mariupol in order to expand the territory of separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, according to the Ukrainian military.
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LVIV, Ukraine — Authorities in Mariupol say it is not possible to enter the besieged Ukrainian city and that it is dangerous for people to try and leave it on their own.
“We don’t see a real desire from the Russians … to provide an opportunity for Mariupol residents to evacuate to territory controlled by Ukraine,” Petro Andryushchenko, adviser the mayor of the city, said Friday on the messaging app Telegram.
“Since yesterday, the occupiers have categorically not allowed any humanitarian cargo, even in small volumes, to enter the city,” he added.
Russian officials on Friday allowed 42 buses with Mariupol residents to depart from the neighboring occupied city of Berdyansk, which Mariupol residents were able to reach on their own.
A convoy of about 2,000 refugees, escorted by the Red Cross, on Friday afternoon was heading to the city of Zaporizhzhia, which is under Ukrainian control.
The Mariupol city council on Friday said Russia’s actions in Ukraine and in their bombed-out city amounted to genocide.
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WARSAW, Poland — Ukraine’s foreign minister says that now his country’s government is back in control of the Chernobyl nuclear site, it will work with the U.N. atomic agency to determine what the occupying Russians did there and mitigate any danger.
Russian troops left the heavily contaminated nuclear site early Friday after returning control to the Ukrainians.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the Russians behaved irresponsibly at the site during the more than four weeks that they controlled it, preventing staff at the plant from performing their full duties and digging trenches in contaminated areas.
Kuleba told a news conference in Warsaw that the Russian government had exposed its soldiers to radiation, endangering their health.
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ROME — Venice is preparing special material to send to Lviv’s National Art Gallery and other museums in the Ukrainian city so artworks can be better protected during the war.
Mariacristina Gribaudi, head of the Venice Civic Museums Foundation, said in a statement Friday that some 65,000 artworks and 2,000 sculptures have been placed in Lviv storerooms as a precaution, but the objects aren’t adequately protected.
The Venice foundation will oversee a shipment of special fabric that can cover paintings and graphic art as well as furniture, costumes and materials made from glass or marble to protect the objects from the majority of solvents and gasses. The fabric also impedes mold and fungus growth while the works are in storage.
Also being sent are polyethylene foam shock-resistant panels.
Venice museums experts also gave advice in a video call with the Lviv gallery’s management about how to best store artworks.
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian says that new sanctions against Russia are needed “to force (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to end this crazy aggression.”
Le Drian, who was in Estonia and spoke through an interpreter, also said Friday that “Russia cannot expect to win this war.”
Le Drian was to travel later in the day to Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.
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ISTANBUL — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reiterated that he would like to host a meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian leaders in Istanbul, in the hope that it would “turn the negative course of events into a positive one.”
Erdogan made the comments on Friday hours before he was scheduled to hold a telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. During the call, he was expected to renew an offer to host a leaders’ meeting.
Erdogan told reporters that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with whom he spoke on Thursday, had a “positive outlook” toward such a meeting in Turkey and that Putin’s attitude had been positive in the past.
Russian and Ukrainian delegations held a face-to-face meeting in Istanbul earlier this week during which Ukraine presented a list of proposals, including that it would have neutral status guaranteed by a range of foreign countries.
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LVIV, Ukraine — Talks between Russia and Ukraine have resumed via video link.
Russian delegation head Vladimir Medinsky published a picture of the talks under way Friday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office confirmed to The Associated Press that the negotiations had resumed.
Friday’s talks came three days after the last meeting, in Turkey, between Russian and Ukrainian delegations.
Medinsky, the Russian lead negotiator, said “our positions on Crimea and the Donbas are unchanged.”
Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in southern Ukraine in 2014. The Donbas is the predominantly Russian-speaking industrial region where Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian forces since 2014.
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BRUSSELS — The European Union’s executive arm is proposing that the 27-nation bloc’s countries allow the millions of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine to exchange their hryvnia banknotes into the currencies of host member nations.
The European Commission said Friday its proposal aims at promoting a coordinated approach within the region.
“This approach was necessary in light of the fact that the National Bank of Ukraine had to suspend the exchange of hryvnia banknotes into foreign cash in order to protect Ukraine’s limited foreign exchange reserves,” the commission said.
“As a consequence, credit institutions in EU Member States have been unwilling to carry out the exchanges due to the limited convertibility of hryvnia banknotes and exposure to exchange rate risk.”
According to EU figures, more than 3.8 million of people fleeing the war have arrived in the European Union. More than 4 million have fled Ukraine.
The Commission proposed a maximum limit of 10,000 hryvnias (306 euros) per person, without charges, at the official exchange rate as published by the National Bank of Ukraine.
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BERLIN — The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog says he will head a team to the decommissioned Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine “as soon as possible.”
Rafael Mariano Grossi wrote on Twitter that the International Atomic Energy Agency “assistance and support” mission to Chernobyl “will be the first in a series of such nuclear safety and security missions to Ukraine.”
Grossi’s comments followed his visits to Ukraine and then to Russia this week. He didn’t elaborate on his plans or give a more precise timeframe. He was due to hold a news conference in Vienna later Friday.
Russian forces took control of Chernobyl, the site of a 1986 nuclear disaster, at the beginning of the war. But authorities say the troops have now left after returning control to the Ukrainians.
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The Norwegian government is proposing a national 14.4 billion kroner ($1.7 billion) crisis package for the war in Ukraine, including spending on refugees and national defense.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told a press conference Friday, “We should take good care” of the Ukrainian refugees while they are in Norway. “This will demand the best of us,” he said.
If the proposal is passed by parliament, as expected, some 7.1 billion kroner ($815 million) will be spent on the refugees, police and the Norwegian immigration agency. Norway expects to receive 35,000 refugees this year.
Money is also going to strengthening the country’s military and civilian defense. Earlier the government has said it wants an extra allocation of 3.5 billion kroner ($402 million) for 2022 to strengthen NATO member Norway’s Armed Forces and civilian preparedness.
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MOSCOW — The Kremlin says reports that Ukrainian helicopter gunships attacked a fuel depot inside Russia, setting it ablaze, are not conducive to talks between the two sides in the war.
Asked if the reported incident could be viewed as an escalation of the conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “Certainly, this is not something that can be perceived as creating comfortable conditions for the continuation of the talks.”
Russia-Ukraine talks were expected to continue Friday via video link.
The governor of the Russian border region of Belgorod accused Ukraine of flying helicopter gunships into Russian territory early Friday morning and targeting the oil depot, in what if confirmed would be the first attack of its kind.
It was not immediately possible to verify the report.
Peskov said President Vladimir Putin had been informed about the reported fire. He told a daily conference call with reporters that Russian authorities were taking measures to ensure fuel supplies in the region were not disrupted.
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BEIJING — China is accusing the United States of instigating the war in Ukraine and says NATO should have been disbanded following the break-up of the Soviet Union.
“As the culprit and leading instigator of the Ukraine crisis, the U.S. has led NATO to engage in five rounds of eastward expansion in the last two decades after 1999,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters at a daily briefing Friday.
“The number of NATO members increased from 16 to 30, and they have moved eastward more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) to somewhere near the Russian border, pushing Russia to the wall step by step,” Zhao said.
While China says it is not taking sides in the conflict, it has declared a “no limits” partnership with Moscow, has refused to condemn the invasion, opposes sanctions on Russia and routinely amplifies Russian disinformation about the conflict, including not referring to it as an invasion or a war in keeping with Russian practice.
Zhao’s comments came as Chinese and European Union leaders were meeting virtually for a summit at which Ukraine was expected to dominate discussions. EU officials say they are looking for a commitment from China not to undermine sanctions and assist in efforts to halt the fighting.
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GENEVA — The International Committee of the Red Cross says it’s not sure that a planned delivery of aid into Mariupol and an evacuation of civilians out of the besieged Ukrainian city will happen Friday.
Spokesman Ewan Watson told a U.N. briefing in Geneva that the humanitarian group has sent three vehicles toward Mariupol and a frontline between Ukrainian and Russian forces, but two trucks carrying supplies for the city were not accompanying them.
Dozens of busses that have been put together by Ukrainian authorities to take people out also have not started approaching the dividing line, he said Friday.
Watson called it an “extremely complex” operation, adding that “not all details are in place to ensure that this happens today.”
He said the hope was that “thousands” of people could be ferried out, and their destination would be into parts of Ukraine less affected by the fighting that has been ongoing since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24.
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Europol, the European Union police agency, has sent teams to countries bordering Ukraine in an effort to protect refugees from criminals.
The Hague-based agency said Friday its teams are supporting local authorities by running secondary security checks and seeking to “identify criminals and terrorists trying to enter the EU in the refugee flow and exploit the situation.”
The Europol teams are operating in Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Moldova and are planning to deploy to Romania, too.
The agency says they also are gathering intelligence to feed into criminal threat assessments across Europe.
The United Nations says that more than 4 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24.
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Police in Norway say they have intensified information and intelligence gathering as a result of the security situation in Europe.
The move is to help “prevent and detect crime as a result of the migration flow and the tense security policy situation,” National Police Commissioner Benedicte Bjørnland said in a statement Friday.
She added that “we are particularly aware of the crime challenges that may arise as a result of the migration flow.” She did not elaborate.
More than 7,800 Ukrainians have sought asylum in Norway.
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TOKYO — Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi says he is heading to Poland later Friday to assess the need for the war-displaced Ukrainians in that country and assist those who seek refuge in Japan.
Hayashi, during his five-day trip through Tuesday, is set to meet with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and other top officials, as well as international organizations. Officials are still making arrangements for a possibility of his government plane bringing some Ukrainians on his way back, Hayashi said.
“In order to support the Ukrainian people facing the difficulty and to show our solidarity with Ukraine, Japan is pursuing our effort to accept those who fled to a third country,” Hayashi said.
Japan’s government last month launched a taskforce to prepare accepting Ukrainian war-displaced as part of humanitarian support — a rare move for a country known for its strict and reluctant refugee policy. Several municipalities, including Tokyo, Kanagawa, Ibaraki and Osaka, have offered to be their host towns and provide support for medical needs, education, jobs and housing.
Ukrainian Ambassador to Japan Sergiy Korsunsky told reporters Friday that some 300 relatives of Ukrainian residents in Japan have been granted entry, and more arrivals are expected from next week.
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BRUSSELS — The president of the European Parliament says she is traveling to Kyiv.
Roberta Metsola announced the trip to the Ukrainian capital city on her Twitter account late Thursday, posting a picture of her standing in front of a railcar.
Metsola is the first president of an EU institution to travel to the Ukrainian capital since the war began on Feb. 24. Details about her travel plans and who she will meet have not been announced.
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SYDNEY — Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday that his country will be sending armored Bushmaster vehicles to Ukraine to help in its war against Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyyaddressed the Australian Parliament on Thursday and asked for the Australian-manufactured four-wheel-drive vehicles and other aid.
Morrison told reporters the vehicles will be flown over on Boeing C-17 Globemaster transport planes, but he didn’t specify how many Bushmaster vehicles would be sent or when.
“We’re not just sending our prayers, we are sending our guns, we’re sending our munitions, we’re sending our humanitarian aid, we’re sending all of this, our body armor, all of these things and we’re going to be sending our armored vehicles, our Bushmasters as well,” Morrison said.
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LVIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he has stripped two generals of their military rank.
Zelenskyy said “something prevented them from determining where their homeland was” and they “violated their military oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people.”
According to Zelenskyy, one of the generals had headed internal security at the SBU, the main intelligence agency.
He said the other general had been the SBU head in the Kherson region, the first major city to fall to the Russians.
Zelenskyy didn’t say anything about the fates of the two generals other than them being stripped of their rank.
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LVIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian government said Russian forces blocked 45 buses that had been sent to evacuate civilians from the besieged port city of Mariupol, and only 631 people were able to get out of the city in private cars.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said late Thursday that 12 Ukrainian buses with humanitarian aid left Melitopol for Mariupol, but the Russian forces stopped the buses and seized the 14 tons of food and medicines.
According to Ukrainian officials, tens of thousands of people have made it out of Mariupol in recent weeks along humanitarian corridors, reducing the prewar population of 430,000 to about 100,000 by last week.
Vereshchuk said about 45,000 Mariupol residents have been forcefully deported to Russia and areas of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed separatists.
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LVIV, Ukraine — The last Russian troops left the Chernobyl nuclear plant early Friday, according to the Ukrainian government agency responsible for the exclusion zone around the plant.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Russian troops who dug trenches in the forest were exposed to radiation, but that could not be confirmed.
The Ukrainian nuclear operator company Energoatom said Thursday that Russian troops were headed toward Ukraine’s border with Belarus.
Energoatom said that the Russian military was also preparing to leave Slavutych, a nearby city where power plant workers live. | https://cw33.com/news/international/ap-international/live-updates-japan-fm-to-assess-refugee-needs-in-poland/ | 2022-04-01T19:17:51Z |
STOCKHOLM, Sept. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bictory Finance, a web3 software technology company, tackling safety & regulatory problems across chains in the DeFi & NFT space, has launched the Concordium Name Service (CNS), a wallet naming system that maps human-readable names to blockchain addresses for a more friendly on-chain experience.
The Concordium Name Service (CNS) enables users to mint blockchain domains to replace the lengthy string of alphanumeric characters, which serves as wallet addresses, with human-readable and memorizable names, like john.ccd. This allows to simplify transactions and dapp interactions by giving it human-friendly names.
CNS domains can also serve as a decentralized website domain name. The names on this service have the ".ccd" top-level domain derived from Concordium's token ticker, and it supports single digit and character combinations, such as a.ccd or 0.ccd.
"The top level domain market (TLD), like .com and .io extensions, which are issued and controlled by a centralized authority is now being challenged by the open and free market of blockchain domains. For example, unlike TLD domains, a CNS user has full control over the domain, with all records live on the public ledger, and the ability to earn royalties from secondary sales," says Joha Sulaymonov founder at Bictory.
Besides, the advanced CNS domains on Concordium enable a person's unique ID to have an authentic, web3 identity, which could be the dominating factor when decentralized domains become widely adopted.
Registering a domain name on CNS attracts two fees; a yearly subscription fee and network fees. CNS domains start at $10 per year for a 6+ character domain. Domain names with fewer characters are priced higher in subscription fees, the priciest being a two characters domain which costs $150 per year. Single characters will be auctioned out. Mint one today at ccd.domains.
Contact
Bictory Finance
Media team
marketing@bictory.io
https://bictory.io
bictory.ccd
Concordium
Maria Amalia Rojas
mar@concordium.com
https://concordium.com
concordium.ccd
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SOURCE Concordium | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/09/15/bictory-finance-launches-web3-domains-concordium-simplify-transactions-blockchain/ | 2022-09-15T17:57:01Z |
A look at what’s happening around baseball today:
___
UNLUCKY 13
Free falling toward a dreadful bit of team history, the Angels fired manager Joe Maddon on Tuesday and appointed third base coach Phil Nevin to the role on an interim basis.
Los Angeles still lost its 13th straight game Tuesday night against Boston, matching a franchise record. The slide comes weeks after the club had one of the best records in the American League and amid an unprecedented slump for star Mike Trout.
Trout left Tuesday’s game with left groin tightness, and the Angels went on to lose 6-5 in 10 innings.
The 68-year-old Maddon went 130-148 with the Angels, who hired him before the coronavirus-shortened 2020 season for his self-described dream job. Maddon spent three decades of his career as a player and coach for the Angels before going on to an impressive managerial career that has included three Manager of the Year awards.
Reid Detmers (2-2, 4.20 ERA), who threw a no-hitter May 10 against Tampa Bay, is set to start against Boston’s Nathan Eovaldi (3-2, 3.41).
CLOSE CALL
The Mets are tenatively feeling fortuante after slugger Pete Alonso got negative X-rays after being hit in the right hand by a pitch.
Alonso was hit by a 96 mph sinker from San Diego starter Yu Darvish early in a 7-0 loss Tuesday night, and Alonso fell awkardly after getting drilled. While X-rays came back negative, New York still planned to send Alonso for additional testing.
The 2019 NL Rookie of the Year is tied for the NL lead with 16 homers and tops the majors with 54 RBIs.
New York is also awaiting word on the status of outfielder Starling Marte, who left Tuesday with left quad tightness. Marte was sent for an MRI.
CORREA CLOSE
The Minnesota Twins are on track to get shortstop Carlos Correa back from his COVID-19 hiatus, and the fact that they’re playing the major league-leading Yankees in a matchup of AL division leaders wasn’t lost on the two-time All-Star.
“Absolutely, this is an important series, and we’re facing a tough team, so I’m going to make sure I’m out there with the boys,” Correa said Tuesday before sitting out for the eighth straight game.
Correa tested positive in Detroit last week and flew on a medical plane back to Minnesota. He said he experienced “pretty strong” symptoms, including a “massive headache,” sore throat, excessive coughing and body chills, but over the last three days he’s fared better during his workouts at Target Field than he expected.
“The first two days it was tough, but it’s been getting better ever since,” said Correa, one of 16 players the Twins had on the injured list or COVID-19 list. “I’m very optimistic about going out there this series.”
FLUSTERED FISH
Marlins players and coaches met for 90-minutes prior to the club’s home series opener against the Nationals on Tuesday night, then went out and routed Washington.
“A lot of people spoke,” Marlins manager Don Mattingly said. “It was more of a lot of things that the group needed to get out in the open and talk about. It wasn’t designed about wins and losses, honestly. It’s more about the group coming together and trying to reach their potential.”
After a 12-8 start, the Marlins were 7-19 in May. They are fourth in the NL East and 12 1/2 games behind the division-leading Mets.
“It was my idea to get the group together and talk,” Mattingly said. “We have higher expectations for ourselves as a team. On the baseball side, I’m disappointed about that. On the other part, it was really more about to have everybody talk.”
Budding ace Sandy Alcantara (6-2, 1.81 ERA) looks to extend his recent run of dominance when he starts Wednesday.
Alcantara pitched seven innings of three-hit ball last Thursday in a 3-0 win over San Francisco. The 26-year-old right-hander has gone at least seven innings in his last five starts and allowed only three earned runs. The outstanding stretch has featured one complete game, two eight-inning outings and another two that lasted seven.
AGAINST A GREAT
Rays right-hander Corey Kluber (2-2) is slated to face St. Louis, and he has had tremendous success against Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols. The surefire Hall of Famer is 1 for 20 with a single career against Kluber.
“Obviously, when you face a guy like Albert, you’re aware of it, and I wouldn’t say that it’s an at-bat that I have circled or anything,” Kluber said. “I just think that he’s a really good hitter, and for whatever reason, maybe past matchups have gone my way. But I think I’m going to treat him with just as much respect coming into this game as I would have when I was first getting my feet wet.”
The three-game series marks the Cardinals’ first trip to Tropicana Field June 10-11, 2014.
NEW ATHLETIC
Oakland left-hander Jared Koenig is set to make his major league debut in a start against Braves righty Ian Anderson (4-3) in Atlanta. The 28-year-old Koenig has a 2.21 ERA in nine games with Triple-A Las Vegas.
Koenig will try to end the A’s seven-game slide, a tough test against surging Atlanta, which has won six straight.
___
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://cw33.com/sports/ap-sports/leading-off-angels-skid-goes-on-sans-maddon-correa-ready/ | 2022-06-08T23:45:55Z |
Self-checkout growing even though no one likes it
(CNN) - Despite the fact that both consumers and retailers aren’t always happy with self-checkout, it’s a trend that is here to stay.
Retail analysts say COVID-19 hastened the growth of self-checkout as customers avoided interactions with cashiers. The labor shortage is also responsible for its rise.
Of shoppers surveyed last year, 67% said they had issues with self-checkout. The service now accounts for 29% of grocery sales.
For retailers, self-checkout hasn’t saved as much money as anticipated, with the increase in losses due to error or theft.
Still, Walmart, Kroger and Dollar General are pilot testing stores that only offer self-checkout.
Retail trends indicate – like it or not – scanning and bagging your own purchases is here to stay and likely to become even more common.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.kxii.com/2022/07/10/self-checkout-growing-even-though-no-one-likes-it/ | 2022-07-10T04:18:52Z |
NEW YORK, May 17, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Klein Law Firm announces that a class action complaint has been filed on behalf of shareholders of Arqit Quantum Inc. f/k/a Centricus Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: ARQQ) alleging that the Company violated federal securities laws.
This lawsuit is on behalf of: (i) all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired Arqit securities between September 7, 2021 and April 18, 2022, inclusive; and/or (ii) all holders of Centricus securities as of the record date for the special meeting of shareholders held on August 31, 2021 to consider approval of the merger between Arqit and Centricus (the "Merger") and entitled to vote on the Merger.
Lead Plaintiff Deadline: July 5, 2022
No obligation or cost to you.
Learn more about your recoverable losses in ARQQ:
https://www.kleinstocklaw.com/pslra-1/arqit-quantum-inc-f-k-a-centricus-acquisition-corp-loss-submission-form?id=27284&from=4
Arqit Quantum Inc. f/k/a Centricus Acquisition Corp. NEWS - ARQQ NEWS
CLASS ACTION CASE DETAILS: The filed complaint alleges that Arqit Quantum Inc. f/k/a Centricus Acquisition Corp. made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Arqit's proposed encryption technology would require widespread adoption of new protocols and standards for telecommunications; (2) British cybersecurity officials questioned the viability of Arqit's proposed encryption technology in a meeting in 2020; (3) the British government was not an Arqit customer but, rather, providing grants to Arqit; (4) Arqit had little more than an early-stage prototype of its encryption system at the time of the Merger; and (5) as a result, Defendants' statements about its business, operations, and prospects, were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times.
WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOU AS A SHAREHOLDER: If you have suffered a loss in Arqit Quantum Inc. f/k/a Centricus Acquisition Corp. you have until July 5, 2022 to petition the court for lead plaintiff status. Your ability to share in any recovery doesn't require that you serve as a lead plaintiff.
NO COST TO YOU: If you purchased Arqit Quantum Inc. f/k/a Centricus Acquisition Corp. securities during the relevant period, you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out-of-pocket fees.
HOW TO PROTECT YOUR FINANCIAL INTERESTS: For additional information about the ARQQ lawsuit, please contact J. Klein, Esq. by telephone at 212-616-4899 or click this link: https://www.kleinstocklaw.com/pslra-1/arqit-quantum-inc-f-k-a-centricus-acquisition-corp-loss-submission-form?id=27284&from=4.
ABOUT KLEIN LAW FIRM
J. Klein, Esq. represents investors and participates in securities litigations involving financial fraud throughout the nation. The Klein Law Firm is a boutique litigation firm with experience in a wide range of areas including securities law, corporate finance and commercial litigation. Since 2011, our experienced attorneys have achieved superior results for our clients with a personalized focus. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
CONTACT:
J. Klein, Esq.
Empire State Building
350 Fifth Avenue
59th Floor
New York, NY 10118
jk@kleinstocklaw.com
Telephone: (212) 616-4899
www.kleinstocklaw.com
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SOURCE The Klein Law Firm | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/05/17/arqq-alert-klein-law-firm-announces-lead-plaintiff-deadline-july-5-2022-class-action-filed-behalf-arqit-quantum-inc-fka-centricus-acquisition-corp-shareholders/ | 2022-05-17T10:34:33Z |
International Software Awards Program Announces Finalists
TEL AVIV, Israel, Aug. 23, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Perception Point, a leading provider of advanced threat prevention across digital channels, announced today that it has been declared a finalist for the Best Security Innovation in a SaaS Product (B2B, Enterprise) category this week in the international business software program, The SaaS Awards.
Perception Point's next-gen SaaS threat prevention solution addresses today's rapidly changing cybersecurity landscape by offering a one-stop-shop for protecting organizations by isolating, detecting, and remediating all threats across their main attack vectors including email, web browsers and cloud collaboration apps.
The solution boasts the best detection rates in the industry, powered by a combination of seven layers of proprietary static and next-gen dynamic detection engines, scanning 100% of content including text, files and URLs, and comes with an all-included managed Incident Response service, which optimizes detection engines on-the-fly. The free-of-charge Incident Response service fully manages and analyzes all incidents and handles end-user requests, drastically reducing the strain on SOC teams, saving up to 75% of their resources.
Deployed within the organization's existing infrastructure, including in Office 365 and Google Workspace, the cloud-native, easy-to-use SaaS solution replaces cumbersome legacy systems to detect all threats, such as APTs, zero-days, phishing, ransomware, BEC, Account Takeovers, and spam, in both Windows and Mac - a duality that other solutions have not been able to achieve.
"With the rise of digitization, organizations of all sizes are experiencing a growing number of cyberattacks that are more sophisticated than ever before and require modern advanced threat protection solutions that can protect their main attack vectors without compromising productivity," said Karen Krivaa, CMO of Perception Point.
"We are proud to have been named a finalist in this highly competitive year for the SaaS Awards and to be recognized as one of the world's most innovative SaaS security solutions. We are committed to delivering unbeatable isolation, detection and remediation solutions to protect our customers, and this latest success demonstrates the growing market awareness of the uniqueness and utility of our solution."
In its seventh edition, SaaS Awards categories include "Best SaaS for Productivity," "Highest Customer Satisfaction in a SaaS Product," and "Best Product for Financial Services."
Head of Operations for the SaaS Awards, James Williams, said: "This year the SaaS Awards received a very strong shortlist. All chosen finalists demonstrated a remarkable commitment to innovation.
"Perception Point is a worthy finalist of the SaaS Awards as its SaaS solution takes the industry a step forward. It was a pleasant surprise to see so many innovative solutions in the shortlist, but Perception Point proved to the judging panel it was a clear choice to make it to the next stage, with every possibility of being selected as the ultimate category winner."
Hundreds of organizations entered, with entries coming from across the globe, covering the Americas, Australia, Europe and the Middle East. You can view the full shortlist and all finalists here: https://www.cloud-awards.com/2022-saas-awards-finalists/
Notes for editors
About the SaaS Awards
The SaaS Awards is a sister program to the Cloud Awards, which was founded in 2011. The SaaS Awards focuses on recognizing excellence and innovation in software solutions. Categories range from Best Enterprise-Level SaaS to Best UX or UI Design in a SaaS Product.
Finalists were selected by a judging panel of international industry experts. For more information about the SaaS Awards, please visit https://www.cloud-awards.com/software-as-a-service-awards/.
About the Cloud Awards
The Cloud Awards is an international program which recognizes and honors industry leaders, innovators and organizational transformation in cloud computing. The awards are open to large, small, established and start-up organizations from across the entire globe, with an aim to find and celebrate the pioneers who will shape the future of the Cloud as we move into 2023 and beyond.
The Cloud Awards currently offers two awards programs, the Cloud Computing Awards and the Software-as-a-Service Awards.
Categories for the Cloud Computing Awards include Most Promising Start-Up, Best SaaS, and "Best in Mobile" Cloud Solution.
About Perception Point
Perception Point is a Prevention-as-a-Service company for the fastest and most accurate next-generation detection and response to all attacks across email, cloud collaboration channels, and web browsers. The solution's natively integrated incident response service acts as a force multiplier to the SOC team, reducing management overhead, improving user experience and delivering continuous insights; providing proven best protection for all organizations.
Deployed in minutes, with no change to the enterprise's infrastructure, the patented, cloud-native and easy-to-use service replaces cumbersome legacy systems to prevent phishing, BEC, spam, malware, Zero-days, ATO, and other advanced attacks well before they reach end-users. Fortune 500 enterprises and organizations across the globe are preventing content-borne attacks across their email, web browsers, and cloud collaboration channels with Perception Point.
To learn more about Perception Point, visit our website, or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
Contact details
For Perception Point
Ben Crome
Headline Media
ben@headline.media
+1 914 336 4922
For the Cloud Awards
James Williams – Operations
www.cloud-awards.com
james@cloud-awards.com
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SOURCE Perception Point | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/08/23/perception-point-finalist-2022-saas-awards/ | 2022-08-23T15:17:48Z |
Canton-area home prices fall 2.5% in April, with houses for sale in high demand
A typical Stark County home listed for $174,900 in April, down 2.5% from a month earlier, an analysis of data from Realtor.com shows.
The median list home price in April was down about 7.9% from April 2021. Stark County's median home was 1,652 square feet for a listed price of $112 per square foot.
The Stark County market was busy, with a median 34 days on market. A month earlier, homes had a median 37 days on market. The market added 504 new home listings in April, compared with the 476 added in April 2021. The market ended the month with some 238 listings of homes for sale.
Information on your local housing market is available through the USA TODAY Network, with more data from Realtor.com.
Carroll County home prices rise 8.2% to $274,900
Carroll County's home prices rose 8.2%, to a median $274,900, from a month earlier. The typical house was on the market for 29 days, from 20 days a month earlier. The typical 1,896-square-foot house had a list price of $143 per square foot.
Across all of Ohio, median home prices were $214,900, rising 5.7% from a month earlier. The median Ohio home for sale had 1,652 square feet at list price of $127 per square foot.
Across the United States, median home prices were $425,000, up 5% from a month earlier. The median American home for sale had 1,821 square feet, listed at $220 per square foot.
The median home list price — the midway point of all the houses or units listed over a period of time — is used more often in this report instead of the average home list price because experts say the median offers a more accurate view of what's happening in a market. In finding the average price, all prices of homes listed are added and then divided by the number of homes sold. This measure can be skewed by one low or high price.
The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from the Realtor.com residential listings database.. The story was written by Mike Stucka and Sean Lahman. | https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/2022/05/19/gda-homes-for-sale-20220518-oh-nrep/65356280007/ | 2022-05-19T11:25:03Z |
TAMPA, Fla., Aug. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Pinnacle Fertility launches the Save IVF campaign aimed to provide education on potential new legislation that poses a threat to family-building treatment. With Roe V Wade no longer federal law, state lawmakers have the opportunity to introduce new legislation that could have a devastating impact on IVF and the families in need of the treatment. The Save IVF campaign urges those to take action and pledge their commitment to standing up for access to fertility care through the #SaveIVF Pledge. Signing up for the pledge enrolls participants in timely action alert emails regarding legislative threats to fertility care and actions they can take from RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association.
"We must stay informed and spread this information. Many people don't know or understand that these bills popping up targeting abortion actually have a disastrous impact on family-building options like IVF that so many people need to start their families," says Beth Zoneraich, COO of Pinnacle Fertility. "As healthcare providers, it's our responsibility to protect our patients' rights to access these treatments and maintain their decision-making power in regards to growing their family. 1 in 8 couples experience infertility, so many people rely on these treatments."
Pinnacle Fertility, a nationwide network of patient-first fertility practices, is asking their community and the general public to spread awareness and join the conversation online by sharing their personal stories and using #SaveIVF and #Access2IVF on social media.
Many states will begin to see new legislation proposed in the upcoming sessions that, while designed to restrict or ban abortion, may also intentionally or unintentionally target in vitro embryos. This legislation could have disastrous repercussions for the future of family-building in the US, including outlawing and criminalizing the ability to freeze embryos, utilizing genetic testing, miscarrying and pertinent care provided to the patient. Punitive measures could result in criminal felony charges, civil and licensure ramifications for physicians and healthcare providers.
"As a physician, we need to be able to provide necessary care to our patients. The language tossed around in these bills not only restricts patients' rights to access care necessary to build their families, but it also limits and threatens a physician's ability to provide essential medically-sound care without the looming fear of severe consequences," shares Dr. Fred Larsen, Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility Specialist at Advanced Fertility Care, a Pinnacle Fertility clinic located in Phoenix, AZ.
Learn more, get involved, and take the #SaveIVF Pledge at savefertiltitycare.com.
Pinnacle Fertility is the nation's fastest-growing physician-centric fertility care platform, supporting high-performing fertility clinics and comprehensive fertility service providers nationwide. Under a united mission of fulfilling dreams by building families, Pinnacle clinics offer innovative technology and processes, compassionate patient care, and comprehensive fertility treatment services, ensuring families receive a high-touch experience on their path to parenthood.
For more information about Pinnacle Fertility, visit pinnaclefertility.com.
For more information about RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, visit resolve.org.
Media Contact:
Walt Conrad
wconrad@pinnaclefertility.com
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SOURCE Pinnacle Fertility | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/08/25/pinnacle-fertility-launches-saveivf-pledge-campaign-educate-public-threats-fertility-care-abortion-focused-state-legislation/ | 2022-08-25T11:45:24Z |
Residents and visitors react to no swim advisory at seven beaches in Sarasota County and one in Manatee County
SIESTA KEY, Fla. (WWSB) - No Swim Advisory signs could be seen at beaches and swim areas in Sarasota County, from the northern part of the county all the way to the south and everywhere in between. Seven beaches experiencing higher than normal bacteria levels in the county. Palma Sola South in Manatee County also continues to have a No Swim Advisory. Experts say runoff from the rain is the likely culprit.
“When water comes from all over into a discharge location, then the concentrations could be high,” said Abbey Tyrna, Executive Director of Suncoast Waterkeeper. “It’s likely caused by a rain event pushing water from our landscapes into the bay.”
One woman and her husband enjoying the water at Bird Key, not even knowing about the no swim advisory until after getting out of the water.
“Not that good, let me tell you, I wish I would’ve known before I got in the water and stayed there for an hour-and-half,” said Lori Kahn.
Despite the warning, many beachgoers at Siesta Beach still making the most of a hot day by cooling off in the Gulf waters.
“It’s a little bit concerning, but we only have one week of vacation for the year, so we’re taking advantage of it,” Amanda Amann, a Siesta Beach visitor from Kentucky.
Health officials say swimming in these waters is not recommended while a No Swim Advisory is in place.
“People who have immune system problems can be affected by the water,” said Steve Huard, Spokesperson for the Sarasota County Health Department. “If you got a rash or an open wound on your skin, that can become infected, if you ingest the water, it can cause diarrhea.”
Health department officials say they test water at these beaches once a week. Suncoast Waterkeeper says they test the water at 11 different locations where Sarasota and Manatee Counties don’t.
“You don’t want to be swimming around poop bacteria, I don’t want to be swimming around poop bacteria,” said Tyrna. Take caution and be aware.”
County health officials say these no swim advisories could be lifted by as early as Friday afternoon.
The seven Sarasota County beaches impacted by the No Swim Advisory include Bird Key/Ringling Causeway, Siesta Key Beach, Service Club Beach, Venice Fishing Pier, Brohard Beach, Casperson Beach and Manasota Key.
Copyright 2022 WWSB. All rights reserved. | https://www.mysuncoast.com/2022/07/29/residents-visitors-react-no-swim-advisory-seven-beaches-sarasota-county-one-manatee-county/ | 2022-07-29T01:26:57Z |
Financing Will Support Growing Investment Strategy in Solar Energy Assets
NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Fundamental Renewables, an established provider of financing for solar and other renewable energy projects, today announced that it has secured a $400 million credit facility. Delaware Life Insurance Company ("Delaware Life"), a Group 1001 company, acted as the arranger of the facility and is a lead lender. Other lenders include CDPQ American Fixed Income V Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of CDPQ, and East West Bank. Fundamental Renewables is the clean energy investment arm of Fundamental Advisors ("Fundamental").
The facility provides Fundamental Renewables with additional resources to support long-term growth and build on the momentum across the business as it continues to invest in premier renewable and clean energy assets and provide flexible financing solutions to leading clean energy developers. Fundamental Renewables is well positioned to capitalize on the growing shift toward renewable energy and to support the needs of renewable energy developers throughout the United States.
"We are pleased to build on our longstanding relationships with our institutional financing partners to create new partnerships that will allow us to invest more in solar energy assets, while supporting the businesses that are spearheading the energy transition to a lower carbon economy," said Ryan Keane, Managing Director at Fundamental. "This financing will help provide creative and flexible capital solutions as we continue to differentiate our platform as the partner of choice for innovative, industry-leading renewable energy developers across the country."
"We are pleased to continue our partnership with Fundamental and look forward to playing an important role in their continued growth as they create innovative clean energy financial solutions," said Andrew Kenney, Chief Investment Officer of Delaware Life. "This credit facility represents our fourth financing for Fundamental, and will provide additional capital to enhance their ability to offer more efficient and flexible financing solutions across a broad array of renewable energy assets. This project continues Delaware Life and Group 1001's commitment to ESG initiatives around the country."
"Fundamental Renewables has adapted to the evolving needs of clean energy developers by offering tailored financing solutions for solar power projects. Supporting an industry partner who plays a leading role in enhancing the availability of renewable energy for communities helps meet CDPQ's ambition to accelerate the transition to a lower carbon economy," added Marc Cormier, Executive Vice-President and Head of Fixed Income at CDPQ.
"More than ever, innovative solutions are needed to ensure our society makes a smooth transition to a lower carbon economy," said Joseph Weingarten, Senior Vice President-Relationship Manager of Structured Finance at East West Bank. "It is why East West Bank is proud to be a part of this partnership with Fundamental Renewables as they take their clean energy investments to the next level to help drive change in the sector."
Fundamental has extensive experience investing in public purpose and community assets, including renewable energy, and provides the expertise and added flexibility to offer new and complementary financing solutions. Since commencing its renewable energy strategy in 2015, Fundamental has closed on over $5 billion of renewable energy development and construction loans.
About Fundamental Advisors
Fundamental is a leading alternative asset manager dedicated to municipal, public purpose and community assets. Founded in 2007, the firm is focused on targeting control-oriented investments in stressed and distressed assets or securities, financing the development or revitalization of public purpose or community assets, and acquiring undervalued securities in the secondary market. Fundamental Renewables is the renewable and clean energy investment arm of Fundamental and an established provider of debt financing for renewable energy projects. For more information, please visit www.Fundamental.com.
About Delaware Life Insurance Company and Group 1001
Founded in 2013, Delaware Life is an affiliate of Group 1001 Insurance Holdings, LLC ("Group 1001") and currently provides over 315,000 active annuity and life insurance policies. Delaware Life's investment activities span the corporate, asset-backed (securitizations, lender finance and asset-based lending facilities) and real estate sectors, with an emphasis on private, direct origination. Learn more about Delaware Life at www.delawarelife.com.
Group 1001, with assets under management of $57.5 billion as of June 30, 2022, is a financial services enterprise powering the next generation of insurance businesses with solutions that are useful, intuitive, and accessible to everyone. Learn more about Group 1001 at www.group1001.com.
About CDPQ
At CDPQ, we invest constructively to generate sustainable returns over the long term. As a global investment group managing funds for public pension and insurance plans, we work alongside our partners to build enterprises that drive performance and progress. We are active in the major financial markets, private equity, infrastructure, real estate and private debt. As at June 30, 2022, CDPQ's net assets totalled CAD 392 billion. For more information, visit cdpq.com, follow us on Twitter or consult our Facebook or LinkedIn pages.
CDPQ is a registered trademark owned by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and licensed for use by its subsidiaries.
About East West
East West Bank, the largest independent bank headquartered in Southern California, provides financial services that help customers reach further and connect to new opportunities. East West operates over 120 locations in the United States and abroad. In the United States, East West has locations in California, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Texas, and Washington. In China, East West's presence includes full-service branches in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shantou, and Shenzhen, and representative offices in Beijing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, and Xiamen. For more information on East West, visit the Company's website at www.eastwestbank.com.
Media Contacts
Fundamental Advisors
Jon Keehner / Woomi Yun / Erik Carlson
Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher
212-355-4449
Delaware Life and Group 1001
CDPQ
Media Relations Team
+ 1 514 847-5493
medias@cdpq.com
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SOURCE Fundamental Advisors LP | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/09/15/fundamental-renewables-secures-400-million-credit-facility/ | 2022-09-15T13:25:41Z |
Highly prestigious award endowed with €500,000 to uphold the United Nations 2030 Agenda
- Picture is available at AP Images (http://www.apimages.com) -
BERLIN, April 4, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The nomination phase of the newly established Virchow Prize for Global Health has begun. This major international award honours outstanding achievements towards addressing today's complex health challenges. The Prize is awarded annually in Berlin, with the inaugural ceremony held 15 October 2022, on the eve of the World Health Summit.
The Virchow Prize for Global Health aims to incentivize and spur great minds in their commitment to global health. Laureates will be awarded an endowment of €500,000 for their longstanding contributions towards improving health and well-being for all.
Eligible are individuals, organisations, or institutions who have made significant contributions towards strengthening health worldwide – whether through long-standing scientific, academic, political, humanitarian, social, research or economic engagement, in line with the United Nations 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals.
Each year, the official announcement of the Virchow Prize for Global Health laureates is released on 13 October, the birthday of Rudolf Virchow. Virchow united in one person the interdisciplinary and humanistic concept of well-being, while serving as a role model in overcoming complexity and bridging challenges to improve health at a global scale.
By establishing and granting the Virchow Prize for Global Health, the Virchow Foundation for Global Health strives to raise awareness of current global health issues and to award achievements which significantly improve the impact on the broad health challenges we face today. The Foundation was established with support of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, alongside civil society and leading experts within global health.
Details on nomination process: https://virchowprize.org/nominations/
Contact:
Virchow Foundation for Global Health
c/o Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
Jägerstr. 22/23 , DE-10117 Berlin, Germany
press@virchow.foundation
SOURCE Virchow Foundation for Global Health | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/04/04/international-virchow-prize-global-health-launched/ | 2022-04-04T09:26:04Z |
Titans agree to terms on deals with 4 of their 9 draft picks
NASHVILLE Tenn. (AP) — The Tennessee Titans have agreed to terms with four of their nine draft picks. The Titans announced Thursday they have deals with running back Hassan Haskins, wide receiver Kyle Philips, safety Theo Jackson and linebacker Chance Campbell. Haskins is the highest of the draft picks as the 131st pick overall in the fourth round out of Michigan. He ran for 1,327 yards and a school-record 20 touchdowns in 14 games last season. Philips is Tennessee’s fifth-round selection at No. 163 overall out of UCLA. He had 163 catches for 1,821 yards and 17 touchdowns. Jackson is a Nashville native who grew up attending Titans’ games. | https://localnews8.com/sports/ap-national-sports/2022/05/12/titans-agree-to-terms-on-deals-with-4-of-their-9-draft-picks/ | 2022-05-13T02:18:15Z |
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ORLANDO, Fla., June 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Transportation Marketing & Sales Association (TMSA) announced today the winners of its inaugural Trailblazers Awards program during the 2022 Logistics Marketing & Sales Conference in Orlando.
"With our new awards program and expanded categories, the number of submissions for projects and nominations exceeded our expectations," said Courtney Keenan, TMSA Recognition Committee Chairperson and RLS Logistics Marketing and CX Manager. "We are honored to recognize the successes of 25 brands for their skill to blaze a trail at their companies or in their communities."
A panel of industry veterans and non-biased judges selected companies and individuals for their excellence in sales or marketing accomplishments in the past 12 to 18 months. The Trailblazer Awards program also features the TMSA Purpose Award, which highlights companies that have devoted efforts to giving back to their communities at large.
"We rebranded the awards program because our membership base is consistently growing and shifting, and we want to grow right along with them," said Jennifer Karpus-Romain, Executive Director at TMSA. "I was blown away by the submissions this year and I am thrilled to celebrate each and ever one of them."
The TMSA Trailblazer Winners are as follows:
Excellence in Sales or Marketing Campaign
- Drop & Hook
- RLS Logistics
- TransImpact
- BlueGrace Logistics
- Emerge
- Digital Dispatch Podcast
- The Shippers Group
- Matson Logistics
- Sonwil Logistics & Farmers Marketing Inc.
- Sol de Naples, on behalf of TAGG Logistics
- The Leverage Marketing Group, on behalf of Odyssey Technology and Logistics
- Sol de Naples, on behalf of Conrad Winter
Purpose Award:
- Verst Logistics
- ITS Logistics
- The ERB Group of Companies
- ReedTMS
- TransImpact
Marketing Mountain Mover of the Year:
- Robin Siekerman, Vice President Marketing & Customer Solutions, The Shippers Group
Top Brand Innovators:
- Noelle Taylor, Director of Sales and Marketing, Taylor Logistics Inc.
- Katerina Jones, Vice President Marketing and Business Development, Fleet Advantage
- Kate Speer, Vice President of Marketing, Engagement, and Investor Relations, JLE Industries
Sales Mountain Mover of the Year:
- Manny McElroy, Sr. Vice President of Transportation, ITS Logistics
Top Rainmakers:
- Jeff Miller, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Select Carriers
- John Gaudet, Vice President of Business Development, RLS Logistics
- Scott Carver, National Sales Manager, ReedTMS Logistics
Rising Stars:
- Mackenzie Hill, Marketing Coordinator, Jacksonville Port Authority
- Laura Gomez, Marketing Communications Manager, NFI
- Kyle Olsen, Branch Manager, Trailer Bridge
TMSA Member of the Year:
- Jeff Price, Director of Marketing, Jacksonville Port Authority
TMSA Partner of the Year:
- Michelle LeBlanc, Founder/CEO, Drop & Hook
TMSA is the only association dedicated to advancing the success of marketing and sales professionals in all modes of the commercial freight transportation market. From president and vice president to manager, director and coordinator, members are at all levels and represent all market segments including motor carriers, 3PLs, railroads, air carriers, ocean lines, port authorities, OEMs, media and suppliers.
TMSA's mission is to enable sales and marketing professionals to learn and give back to the transportation and logistics industry through education, connections and resources, ultimately strengthening their individual development, their businesses and the industry-at-large. TMSA's vision is to be the pre-eminent non-profit sales and marketing association that transportation and logistics professionals turn to for industry-specific education, connections and resources.
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SOURCE Transportation Marketing & Sales Association (TMSA) | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/06/07/transportation-marketing-amp-sales-association-announces-2022-trailblazers-award-winners/ | 2022-06-07T00:51:01Z |
CSX 1Q profit jumps 22% on higher rates despite service woes
By JOSH FUNK
AP Business Writer
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — CSX railroad struggled to keep up with demand in the first three months of the year. But it still managed to deliver 22% more profit thanks to higher shipping rates offsetting a slight decline in the number of shipments it handled. The Jacksonville, Florida-based railroad said Wednesday it earned $859 million, or 39 cents per share, in the first quarter. That’s up from $706 million, or 31 cents per share, a year ago. The results beat Wall Street expectations. CSX CEO Jim Foote said demand remains strong but the railroad has struggled to handle all those shipments because of crew shortages. Hiring is the key to improving service, and CSX is making progress on adding workers. | https://localnews8.com/news/ap-national-business/2022/04/20/csx-1q-profit-jumps-22-on-higher-rates-despite-service-woes/ | 2022-04-20T23:27:53Z |
Brittney Griner's legal team has filed an appeal against a Russian court's verdict sentencing the WNBA star to nine years in prison for smuggling drugs into Russia, Griner's lawyer Maria Blagovolina told CNN on Monday.
The US State Department maintains Griner is wrongfully detained, and her case has raised concerns she is being used as a political pawn in Russia's war against Ukraine. US officials have offered a potential prisoner swap with Russia to try to bring her home safely.
Griner, 31, was detained in February for carrying vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage. The two-time US Olympic basketball gold medalist pleaded guilty to drug charges and said she accidentally packed the drugs while in a hurry.
The nine-year sentence, along with a fine of about $16,400, was issued August 4 by Khimki city court Judge Anna Sotnikova, who said the court took into account Griner's partial admission of guilt, remorse for the deed, state of health and charitable activities.
Of the more than 19,000 towns and cities in North America, 38 are greener than the rest, according to a list compiled by Calgary.com based on data from the Carbon Disclosure Project. Click for more.
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accounts, the history behind an article. | https://www.albanyherald.com/news/brittney-griners-defense-team-appeals-verdict-sentencing-her-to-9-years-on-drug-smuggling/article_8c796f44-3185-51ce-89e4-e200c0e5b9d0.html | 2022-08-15T10:51:02Z |
‘Birtherism’ to the ‘Big Lie’: Inside Obama’s fight to counter disinformation
By Dan Merica and Donie O’Sullivan, CNN
Former President Barack Obama is urgently throwing himself into the fight against disinformation, taking a yearslong private fascination into the open as he makes addressing the issue a key pillar of his post-presidency.
More than a decade after the false and infamous “birther” conspiracy theory was promulgated by his political opponents, including by the then-private citizen Donald Trump, Obama is hoping his personal experience with disinformation and his knowledge of its ramifications can help determine the best way to regulate social media platforms that promulgate disinformation and find ways to address what he calls the “demand for crazy on the internet” that has filled a void as local news outlets have diminished.
Obama’s effort has been sweeping, say the former President’s confidants and outside advisers with experience in the tech industry, with Obama convening meetings and conversations with academics, activists, researchers, tech sector leaders, media executives, former government officials and former regulators. People who have met with the former President describe him as gripped by the issue, showing up to meetings with handwritten notes and questions and often referring to reading he has done on the topic, including reports by the RAND Corporation and the Aspen Institute, and a research study on partisan media by David Broockman and Joshua Kalla.
Eric Schultz, an Obama adviser, said the former President views disinformation as a “through line for all of the challenges we face right now,” including the pandemic, climate change and racial injustice. And for Obama, Schultz added, the “arc of this issue also tracks the arc of his public life” — while social media helped get Obama elected in 2008, the misinformation that spread on different platforms also accelerated during his time in office.
Obama made this focus public on Wednesday when he headlined a conversation on disinformation at a conference sponsored by the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics and The Atlantic magazine. He will put a finer point on the topic later in the month when he delivers a keynote speech during a conference at Stanford University.
“It is difficult for me to see how we win the contest of ideas if in fact we are not able to agree on a baseline of acts that allow the marketplace of ideas to work,” Obama said Wednesday, lamenting that while attendees had access to all the information they wanted on their phones, there were still large swaths of Americans who believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and that the coronavirus vaccine was not something they needed.
Obama admitted that he “grappled with a lot” during his presidency, including “the degree with which information, disinformation was being weaponized.” But recalling his time in office, he said he and his staff “underestimated the degree to which democracies were as vulnerable to (disinformation) as they were, including ours.” On baseless questions about where he was born, he said, “That wasn’t an example of people being misinformed. There was an agenda behind that promotion of what was clearly a false fact.”
Obama told the audience Wednesday that he could “draw a direct line” from his time on the campaign trail to the proliferation of lies about his place of birth and the falsehood that his signature health care law was establishing “death panels” for older Americans, as 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had put it.
“There was what has been called truth decay. There was an erosion of what was considered acceptable to assert in the press, period. That is all pre-social media,” he said. “And then when social media hits, then I think you saw it spread and accelerate. … I think it was actually in my second term that you start to see now just bad information, but you also start to see an acceleration of misinformation.”
“And by 2016, that is when, well, we know what happened,” Obama said, trailing off, acknowledging what everyone in the room knew — the same man who pushed the birther conspiracy theory was elected as his successor.
‘He understands this world’
Obama, now a 60-year-old, gray haired former politician, has fully embraced the technological intricacies of the disinformation issue, according to an outside adviser who has worked in the tech industry, mostly because the former President is “naturally kind of a geek.”
“It’s not as though it’s like this is some new-fangled, whatchamacallit that you will never see on my lawn or whatever,” the adviser told CNN. “He understands this world.”
The adviser said Obama has more time to focus on the issue because “now he has the ability to talk to a range of experts without it being an official function of government,” and so he has convened a range of people to look at the problem.
And that has given him, this person said, not just a better understanding of the way disinformation has personally affected his life and career but also a deep concern that the spread of disinformation will lead to a form of “political nihilism,” where many Americans don’t know what to believe and just check out from politics all together.
“That is the real nemesis and the real environment that disinformation creates and allows autocracy to flourish,” the outside adviser said. “Birtherism is obviously a part of that story, but the stakes have, in some ways, changed so dramatically since then, that it’s become part of the context of democracy itself.”
In retrospect, “birtherism”, or the belief that Obama was not born in Hawaii, was a warning of what was to come, the dark and dystopian route American political discourse was about to take.
“Birtherism” and the “Big Lie” undermining the 2020 election are not at all dissimilar. Both are viral baseless conspiracy theories, with prejudicial undertones, championed by Trump to engage an enthusiastic base and to sow seeds of doubt in the wider population.
The birther conspiracy theory first emerged sometime during the first decade of the century — Obama said it had been pushed as early as his Senate race in Illinois. It’s precise genesis is unclear and disputed.
Come 2011, however, Trump had become a standard-bearer of the birther movement, launching a campaign for Obama to release his long-form birth certificate.
“He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one, but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim,” Trump told Fox in 2011.
Obama did have a long-form birth certificate, and the White House released it. Obama later went on to roast Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that year.
Lee Foster, an expert in tracking disinformation and senior vice president at Alethea Group, told CNN that the birther conspiracy theory was “merely a precursor to the barrage of falsehoods we find ourselves facing in today’s political environment.”
Foster, who has been involved in exposing foreign disinformation campaigns targeting the United States through social media, said that it is important to remember that this goes beyond the internet.
“Big Tech plays a role in this, but so do our media institutions, our political parties and, frankly, all of us. It requires all of us to tackle,” he said.
Despite Obama’s keen interest, answers about the best way to counter disinformation have proved more elusive.
During his remarks Wednesday, Obama alluded to the need for transparency about social media algorithms that determine what people see in their online feeds and the issue of anonymity on social media sites.
He said also expressed support for toughening regulations on social media companies. He said that while he is not for “entirely eliminating” Section 230, a rule that protects the companies’ ability to moderate content on their site as they see fit, he questioned whether the protections were fair for “paid advertising that is microtargeting certain groups. … That can be really damaging.”
And Obama somewhat mockingly responded to protests from social media companies, who say their algorithms and product design contain proprietary information that can’t be shown to regulators or the public.
“I don’t know exactly how the inspections on meat are done. And if somebody says we have a proprietary technique to keep our meat clean, that’s fine, take it up with the meat inspector,” he said sarcastically. “This notion that we have to preserve this because somehow we have proprietary interests, that is wrong.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://localnews8.com/politics/cnn-us-politics/2022/04/10/birtherism-to-the-big-lie-inside-obamas-fight-to-counter-disinformation/ | 2022-04-10T13:50:59Z |
Industry veteran brings extensive experience to accelerate EV charging growth
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y., Sept. 9, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Autel Energy, an EV charging and energy solutions provider, appointed John Thomas to lead its newly created North American business unit as Chief Operating Officer. John will oversee sales, marketing, manufacturing and strategy at Autel Energy and report to Chloe Hung, CEO of Autel U.S.A.
"John is the right person to lead Autel Energy through our dynamic growth," said Hung. "We are aggressively investing in people and products, positioning ourselves as a leading global player in the electric vehicle and energy space. Together, John and I will pursue the North American market, creating partnerships, growing initiatives and brand expansion, and maintaining and building on the strengths and culture of our core business."
Thomas brings over 30 years of automotive, government relations and transportation expertise, including more than five years of leadership in the EV space. He previously served as president and CEO of Webasto Charging Systems Inc., leading the organization's transition from its core business as a Tier I automotive parts supplier to the EV charging space. He set a comprehensive strategy leading to substantial business growth and transformation.
"As the nation pivots toward renewable energy solutions, Autel Energy is poised to help the transition through disruptive technology that benefits our team, our customers and the planet," said Thomas. "As Autel Energy embarks on its journey to becoming a powerhouse in the North American market, I am confident that my experience, combined with Autel Energy's products and value proposition, will drive the company into a leading position in the EV market during this pivotal moment."
Autel Energy is a global company focused on positively impacting carbon neutrality through developing and deploying sustainable infrastructure solutions. These solutions help accelerate the adoption of clean vehicles and technologies. Autel Energy's mission is to set the industry standards for quality, reliability, functionality and value through comprehensive turnkey energy management solutions.
Learn more about Autel Energy at www.autelenergy.com.
Established in 2004, Autel—an abbreviation of Automotive Intelligence—is built on innovation, quality, performance and excellent service. The company is an automotive leader offering a complete line of premium diagnostic, alignment and calibration tools and components for automobiles, including Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) and components, EV and traditional battery testing and diagnostic tools, tire alignment systems and vehicle diagnostics hardware and software. Autel's products are sold through and to large national distributions, national and regional retailers, independent shops and repair shops.
Autel Energy's vision is to create a seamless customer experience to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles and energy management solutions worldwide. Autel Energy makes advanced products accessible and convenient for residential and commercial users, offering hardware, software, apps and cloud-based solutions to cover almost every use case and application. This includes world-class charging hardware for A/C (Level 2) home and commercial, D/C Bi-directional, V2X applications and D/C (Level 3) fast charging from 60kW to 480kW with innovative configurability and modularity
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SOURCE Autel Energy | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/09/09/autel-energy-appoints-john-thomas-chief-operating-officer/ | 2022-09-09T14:05:14Z |
5 things to know for May 23: Biden in Asia, Ukraine, Baby formula, Half marathon, Gas prices
By Alexandra Meeks, CNN
The megarich are getting richer. A new billionaire was minted nearly every day during the pandemic, according to a new report. At the same time, data shows growing levels of inequality and rising food prices could push as many as 263 million people into extreme poverty this year.
Here’s what you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day.
(You can get “5 Things You Need to Know Today” delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here.)
1. Biden in Asia
On his first trip to Asia since taking office, President Joe Biden said today that the United States would respond militarily if China tries to take Taiwan by force. “That’s the commitment we made,” he told reporters in Tokyo. The President’s statement caught several of his top administration officials off guard, CNN was told by multiple aides. However, this is not the first time Biden has gone further than longstanding US public policy toward the self-governing island. The US provides Taiwan defensive weapons, but has remained intentionally ambiguous on whether it would intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese attack. Following Biden’s remarks, the White House issued a statement that said the US’ official position remained unchanged.
2. Ukraine
Tomorrow marks three months since Russia launched its assault on Ukraine. Since then, a staggering 8 million people in the country have been displaced, the UN Refugee Agency said today. Separately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a “historic” joint customs control with Poland yesterday, stressing “unity of Ukrainians and Poles is a constant that no one will break.” Zelensky also signed a decree introducing a new award to thank cities of partner countries that have helped Ukraine the most — and the Polish city of Rzeszow became the first to be added to the list. On the ground, tensions remain high and Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Saturday he has ruled out a ceasefire with Russia, emphasizing Kyiv would not accept any deal with Moscow that involved ceding territory.
3. Baby formula
A shipment of 35 tons of baby formula arrived yesterday in Indiana on a US military aircraft from Germany to address the nationwide shortage — but none of it will land on store shelves in the US, a Biden administration official told CNN. The recent batch of formula is a specialized prescription and will be fed to babies intolerant of protein in cow milk, the official said. The shipment will provide enough formula for 9,000 babies and 18,000 toddlers for one week, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. As for more upcoming shipments, the White House announced yesterday that additional flights to import formula from abroad will “take place in the coming days.” Biden announced Operation Fly Formula last week. His administration said the total amount of formula in the first round equals up to 1.5 million doses of eight-ounce bottles.
4. Brooklyn Half Marathon
A 32-year-old runner died Saturday after finishing a half marathon in Brooklyn where 15 others were injured, officials said. The marathoner was found unconscious, lying on the pavement, having collapsed after crossing the finish line just before 9 a.m. in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach neighborhood, an NYPD detective said. An official cause and manner of death have not been released. The runner immediately received attention from on-site medical staff, but was pronounced dead at the hospital approximately 45 minutes later, officials said. Fifteen other individuals were transported to local hospitals from the race and at least four were in serious condition. During the marathon, temperatures ranged from the low 60s to the high 70s Fahrenheit and the relative humidity was between 96% and 97%, according to the National Weather Service.
5. Gas prices
The White House is exploring the possibility of tapping into an emergency diesel reserve to ease the spike in gas prices, a senior White House official said. The emergency declaration under consideration would enable President Biden to release diesel from a rarely used stockpile, but the reserve is relatively small and will only serve as a temporary solution to buy time. The national average price for diesel stood at $5.56 a gallon as of yesterday, just shy of the record of $5.58 set last week, according to AAA. Diesel is a vital fuel for the US economy, powering not only farm and construction equipment but the trucks, trains and boats that move goods across the country. Skyrocketing diesel prices often get passed down to consumers.
BREAKFAST BROWSE
‘SNL’ says goodbye to Kate McKinnon and Pete Davidson
“Saturday Night Live” closed out its 47th season with a funny, yet emotional episode. Grab a tissue… your eyes may get a little sweaty when you watch their goodbye moments.
Justin Thomas wins 2022 PGA Championship
Another tee-rific victory for 29-year-old golf star Justin Thomas. If you ask me, he’s the best by par.
Manchester City produces stunning comeback to secure English Premier League title
That game goes down in history as one of the most exciting championship Sundays EVER. Talk about a dramatic ending!
Netflix released the first 8 chilling minutes of ‘Stranger Things’
Season 4 will air in two parts with the first seven episodes dropping this Friday. Oh, the suspense.
A Wisconsin couple survived after a bear charged through their window and attacked them
Panic mode: activated. What would you do in this heart-racing situation?
TODAY’S NUMBER
100
That’s around how many confirmed or suspected cases of monkeypox have been reported in 12 countries, including the US, the World Health Organization announced Saturday. Monkeypox is a rare virus transmitted to humans from animals with symptoms very similar to those previously seen in smallpox patients. President Biden today said he doesn’t believe an outbreak of monkeypox is as risky as the Covid-19 pandemic, tempering comments he made yesterday that people should be “concerned.”
TODAY’S QUOTE
“Maybe I would’ve died. But psychologically, they never would’ve broken me.”
— Trevor Reed, recounting the horrifying conditions of his detention in Russia, as well as the prisoner swap that ended a nearly three-year ordeal for him and his family. Reed, an American citizen and former Marine, was sentenced to nine years in prison in July 2020 after being accused of endangering the “life and health” of Russian police officers in an altercation the previous year. He and his family have denied the charges against him. In his first television interview since returning to the United States, Reed told CNN he’s feeling a little better each day since coming home less than a month ago.
TODAY’S WEATHER
Check your local forecast here>>>
AND FINALLY
Rise and shine, Monday is calling you
It’s time to plug in and get started with your week. Check out this short video of a man who owns thousands of cell phones — and all of them still work! (Click here to view)
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://localnews8.com/news/national-world/cnn-national/2022/05/23/5-things-to-know-for-may-23-biden-in-asia-ukraine-baby-formula-half-marathon-gas-prices-2/ | 2022-05-23T13:22:57Z |
WASHINGTON, May 31, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The United States Hispanic Business Council (USHBC) issued the following statement regarding comments filed by the USHBC and other business groups in opposition to the United States Army Corps of Engineers' (Corps) notice that it would be reviewing and considering wholesale changes to Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP-12). NWP-12 is a permit issued by the Corps that provides streamlined approval for minor oil and gas pipeline projects that have been determined not to pose significant environmental impacts. The Corps reviewed and re-issued the permit in January 2021.
Energy issues are crucial to the USHBC's mission in three main respects. First, the energy sector is a crucial source of direct and indirect employment and entrepreneurial opportunities for Hispanic-Americans.
Right now, there are approximately 30,000,000 employed Hispanics making up 19% of the total 157,000,000 Americans in the workforce. And of the 30,000,000 employed Hispanics, 8,797,393 (30%) are employed in the energy sector and/or a set of directly impacted industries including: Oil, Gas and Other Energies, Agriculture, Construction, Manufacturing and Transportation. Second, higher energy prices operate as an "invisible tax" on all businesses – but they bite particularly hard on small businesses and new business owners. Every dollar spent on fuel, and every dollar lost to higher delivery prices, is a dollar that can't be invested in our businesses, hiring more people, raising wages for existing employees, or expanding our operations. And third, skyrocketing prices at the pump are the most regressive form of inflation imaginable. Upper-income Americans won't feel much pain; those who are just starting to build their own American dream will.
"It is incomprehensible that the United States Army Corps of Engineers would choose this time to initiate a discretionary re-review of Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP 12). NWP 12 is a crucial tool that allows for expedited approval of minor oil and gas pipeline activities that the Corps has determined will have no, or minimal, environmental impacts. It's important to remember that the Clean Water Act expressly allows the Corps to take this approach, and that federal courts have repeatedly upheld it, and just last year the Corps completed the required five-year review and reissued the permit with a careful consideration of environmental and other factors as required by federal law," said Javier Palomarez, President & CEO of USHBC. "This sort of capricious rule making threatens the very livelihood of hard working Americans, because it kills jobs in critical industries."
"Our nation needs an abundant, reliable, and affordable supply of all forms of energy. Especially in this moment of crisis, with Russia using its own energy resources to blackmail and bully our European allies. We support President Biden's commitment to help Ukraine and our allies push back against Russia. To do so, they will need help to replace Russia's energy with cleaner gas and other fuel from the United States and other responsible players. To give them that help, we must maintain a robust American energy infrastructure," said Don Salazar, USHBC Chairman of the Board.
"The Corps has arbitrarily decided to reopen the permit for further review, years before the 2026 deadline. This calls into doubt the Corps' commitment to the permit, and this will deter needed energy infrastructure investment, slow important projects, and render us less able to achieve energy security at home and abroad. The Corps should commit to leaving the permit in place until 2026, and focus on its mission of protecting our nation's waters while allowing for responsible infrastructure development," said Palomarez.
About the United States Hispanic Business Council
The United States Hispanic Business Council (USHBC) is a voice for the Hispanic business community. A 501(c)6 non-profit organization, the USHBC focuses on improving access to contracting in the public and private sector, fair representation of Hispanics in business, media, and politics and ensuring Hispanics have a voice in the national dialogue.
NOTE: Comments as Submitted Below
Comments submitted on behalf of the United States Hispanic Business Council, Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Texas Association of Business, Hispanic Chamber of E-Commerce, Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Utah's Latinoamerican Chamber of Commerce, Florida Hispanic American Chamber of Commerce Inc., Brazoria County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Irving Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey in response to the United States Army Corps of Engineers' (Corps) Federal Register publication titled Notice of Virtual Public and Tribal Meetings Regarding the Review of Nationwide Permit 12; Establishment of a Public Docket; Request for Input, 87 Fed. Reg. 17,281 (Mar. 28, 2022), Docket ID No. COE–2022–0003 (Review Notice).
I submit these comments in my role as the President and CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council (USHBC). We are a 501(c)6 nonprofit organization focusing on improving access to contracting in the public and private sector and fair representation of Hispanics in business, media, and politics.
Energy issues are crucial to USHBC's mission in three main respects. First, the energy sector is a crucial source of direct and indirect employment and entrepreneurial opportunities for Hispanic-Americans.
Right now, there are approximately 30,000,000 employed Hispanics making up 19% of the total 157,000,000 Americans in the workforce. And of the 30,000,000 employed Hispanics, 8,797,393 (30%) are employed in the energy sector and/or a set of directly impacted industries including: Oil, Gas and Other Energies, Agriculture, Construction, Manufacturing and Transportation. Second, higher energy prices operate as an "invisible tax" on all businesses – but they bite particularly hard on small businesses and new business owners. Every dollar spent on fuel, and every dollar lost to higher delivery prices, is a dollar that can't be invested in our businesses, hiring more people, raising wages for existing employees, or expanding our operations. And third, skyrocketing prices at the pump are the most regressive form of inflation imaginable. Upper-income Americans won't feel much pain; those who are just starting to build their own American dream will.
We strongly oppose the Corps reopening Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP 12) for review at this time. The nationwide permit is a crucial mechanism for maintaining a robust American energy infrastructure. It ensures that pipeline projects that have only a minimal environmental impact can be approved and carried out quickly, which protects our natural resources while ensuring that we can responsibly and flexibly harness our energy resources. The Corps has no legal obligation to take this step now. It just recently concluded the required five-year review cycle, and in fact it is defending NWP 12 in court.
However, the Corps has now suggested that every material aspect of NWP 12 is back up for review. The questions that the Review Notice poses suggests the Corps may alter the nationwide permit in ways that contradict the entire point of having this kind of categorical pre-approval for projects with minimal impact. The Corps has asked for public input on, among other things, the following: Should the permit be revised to discriminate against new construction as compared to maintenance of existing facilities?
Should the permit be revised to discriminate against oil pipelines as compared to gas pipelines?
Should the Corps insert a second round of public notice and comment at the back end, even though the entire point of issuing these nationwide permits as a notice and comment rule in the first place is to avoid unnecessary delays at the individual project stage?
The answer to all of these questions is the same answer that the Corps just reached in January 2021 and which the Department of Justice is currently, and rightly, arguing in court: No. In fact, NWP 12 is fully legal and sufficiently protects the environment. The Clean Water Act specifically allows the Corps to issue this type of general permit where it finds that the activities authorized will have only minimal impacts. The Corps did make that finding little over a year ago, in a thorough and careful rulemaking process with full public input. All that has changed over the past year is that our energy security is now much more under threat than ever before – making NWP 12 all the more important, and the Corps' Review Notice all the more inappropriate, irresponsible, and even harmful.
Russia's war on Ukraine shines a spotlight on the connection between energy security and national security. Russia has been emboldened to take its egregious actions largely because Europe is dependent on Russian energy. President Biden has rightly rallied the West to reject this energy blackmail, and specifically promised that we will help our European allies find other sources of liquified natural gas and other fuels. At the same time, the sanctions on Russian energy that the West has been compelled to impose have supercharged the pre-existing problems of general inflation, energy-specific inflation, and supply chain disruption.
The answer to these related international and domestic concerns is the same: we must ensure an abundant domestic supply of energy and the infrastructure to deliver it at home and abroad. Nationwide Permit 12 helps do that. This unnecessary Review Notice does the opposite. Anyone who thought they could rely on NWP 12 to plan and carry out needed energy infrastructure projects now has to wonder whether the Corps will pull the rug out from under them. The five-year review cycle that Congress established in the Clean Water Act is a careful balancing of the need for periodic environmental review on the one hand, and the need for certainty in infrastructure development on the other. Short-circuiting the review cycle four years before its time is due distracts from the Corps' mission and chills needed infrastructure investments.
We understand that President Biden has announced a national policy of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and increasing our use of renewable energy. This is a worthy goal, and these comments should not be understood to oppose it. But these long-term policies of shifting the balance of our energy sector have to be carefully planned and deliberately executed in a responsible and clear manner. At this moment of crisis, the Review Notice represents the opposite of the needed approach. It is a solution looking for a problem. The Corps should withdraw its Review Notice and make it clear that it will not proceed with review until it is legally required to do so.
Respectfully submitted,
Javier Palomarez
President & CEO, United States Hispanic Business Council
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SOURCE U.S. Hispanic Business Council | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/05/31/us-hispanic-business-council-opposes-united-states-army-corps-engineers-re-review-nationwide-permit-12/ | 2022-05-31T21:36:43Z |
Massive UPS strike may happen next year, experts warn
(CNN) - Labor experts say a massive strike could be brewing within the next year at UPS, the world’s biggest package courier.
It comes ahead of a high-stakes showdown between the company and the Teamsters, one of America’s oldest labor unions.
Their current contract is set to expire at the end of July 2023, and contract negotiations between UPS and the Teamsters are set to begin in the spring.
But before talks have even started, experts are predicting the company’s drivers and package handlers will end up going on strike.
It would be the largest strike against a single business in U.S. history and would affect nearly every household in America.
An estimated 6% of the nation’s gross domestic product is moved in UPS trucks every year.
The shipping giant moves 21.5 million U.S. packages a day.
The U.S. Postal Service, Amazon and Fed-Ex wouldn’t be able to cover the shortfall in the event of a strike at UPS.
Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.kxii.com/2022/09/06/massive-ups-strike-could-be-looming/ | 2022-09-06T12:55:37Z |
BOULDER, Colo., June 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- NICE Recovery Systems, an invention company in the sports and injury recovery space, has announced a three-year agreement to be an "Official Medical Supplier" of U.S. Ski & Snowboard. The agreement marks a deepening relationship between NICE Recovery and the skiers and snowboarders that use the company's NICE1 technology to recover faster and stronger from injury and training.
"We've already been helping many U.S. Ski & Snowboard athletes to excel for years by providing them with our technology," says NICE Recovery founder and CEO Michael Ross. "We're delighted to help even more athletes and trainers as an official medical supplier for the team and an integral partner in helping athletes thrive on and off the snow."
The company's NICE1 tool is a state-of-the-art iceless system of cold compression therapy that is a first in the market. Because the NICE1 delivers precise cold therapy without ice – with programmable and customizable pneumatic compression – it has been quickly adopted by top orthopedic surgeons, pro athletes and pro teams as a groundbreaking tool in helping people recover faster post-surgery and post-workout.
"NICE Recovery has been helping U.S. Ski & Snowboard athletes recover from their day-to-day activities and get back on snow after injuries for several years now," says Steve Nyman, a World Cup alpine ski racer on the U.S. Ski Team. "Their product is second-to-none and I'm fired up they're continuing their partnership with U.S. Ski & Snowboard. NICE Recovery is a must-have for any sports team."
The NICE1 unit does not require any ice and is the smallest and lightest cold and compression tool on the market. In fact, many US Ski & Snowboard athletes travel with the NICE1 to their international races.
"I have used NICE machines after each of my knee injuries," says World Cup and Olympic alpine skier Breezy Johnson. "NICE provides an easy means for icing without the hassle of having to fill a machine with ice. I can set the machine to run overnight for maximum anti-inflammatory support or a one-time run after training."
NICE is an invention company in the sports and injury recovery space. Its NICE1 iceless cold and compression therapy tool has established itself as the market leader in technology and design embraced by leading orthopedic surgeons, athletic trainers and professional athletes, including the Steadman Clinic, CU Sports Medicine, New York Yankees and US Ski & Snowboard Team. NICE technology is designed and manufactured in the United States at its headquarters in Boulder, CO.
U.S. Ski & Snowboard is the Olympic National Governing Body (NGB) of ski and snowboard sports in the USA, based in Park City, Utah. Tracing its roots directly back to 1905, the organization represents nearly 200 elite skiers and snowboarders in 2022, competing in seven teams; alpine, cross country, freeski, freestyle, snowboard, nordic combined and ski jumping. In addition to the elite teams, U.S. Ski & Snowboard also provides leadership and direction for tens of thousands of young skiers and snowboarders across the USA, encouraging and supporting them in achieving excellence. By empowering national teams, clubs, coaches, parents, officials, volunteers and fans, U.S. Ski & Snowboard is committed to the progression of its sports, athlete success and the value of team. For more information, visit www.usskiandsnowboard.org
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SOURCE NICE Recovery Systems | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/06/30/nice-recovery-systems-us-ski-amp-snowboard-enter-multi-year-official-medical-supplier-partnership-help-athletes-thrive/ | 2022-06-30T21:53:19Z |
GUADALAJARA, Mexico, April 28, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Betterware de Mexico S.A.P.I. de C.V. (NASDAQ: BWMX), ("Betterware" or the "Company"), announced today its consolidated financial results for the first quarter fiscal year 2022. The figures presented in this report are expressed in nominal Mexican Pesos (Ps.) unless otherwise noted, presented and approved by the Board of Directors, prepared in accordance with IFRS, and may include minor differences due to rounding. The Company will host a conference call at 9:00 am (Eastern Time) on April 29, 2022, to discuss its results for the first quarter of 2022.
Key Highlights of Q1 2022
- Profitability recovery after Q4 2021 one-time impacts: Gross margin recovered 993 basis points QoQ to 63.6% and EBITDA margin expanded 1,003 basis points QoQ to 29.3%, reflecting Betterware´s ability to efficiently manage costs, despite global supply chain disruptions, higher input costs and a softer than expected economic environment in Mexico.
- Return to normality and the effects of inflationary pressures on disposable income continued generating short-term changes in consumption patterns. Our focus in long-term growth strategy and future opportunities remains.
- Successfully completed the acquisition of Jafra's operations in Mexico and the US, along with JAFRA's trademark rights worldwide.
Luis G. Campos, Executive Chairman of the Board, stated, "The strength and resiliency of our asset-light business model combined with the successful execution and agility with which we operate our strategy served us well in the first quarter, driving significant recovery in gross profit margin and EBITDA margin compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. Furthermore, we were able to navigate the environment well, offsetting cost pressure, commodity price inflation and supply chain disruptions while implementing and developing innovative product, pricing, and growth initiatives. To this end, we focused on innovation planning to introduce new categories and concepts; we will launch Betterware+ App in May providing our Associates and Distributors with enhanced tools to grow orders while elevating their rewards program. We were also delighted to announce the closing of the acquisition of Jafra on April 7th, which expands our category and geographic reach. While we expect the overall economic and operating environment to remain tenuous, we remain confident that our strategy and the discipline with which we execute has us positioned to adapt to market conditions as they develop and deliver improving trends in the second quarter and as the year progresses for the organic business. Overall, we are still excited by the growth potential we see for our business long term and expect our strategy to result in increased value for all Betterware stakeholders."
Luis G. Campos
Executive Chairman of the Board
Q1 2022 Results
The first quarter of 2022 was marked by uncertainty in several fronts. Supply chain bottlenecks have continued worldwide, and current geopolitical conditions are driving commodity price and inflation rate increases.
In Mexico, we experienced lower demand for household products relative to the difficult comparison base of Q1 2021, driven mainly by two factors:
- Return to normality: economically active population continues to shift back to their pre-pandemic lifestyle and consumption patterns.
- Softer economic environment: weaker than expected economic growth and the highest consumer inflation rate since 2001, reaching 7.45% YoY as of March 2022.
Both factors have resulted in a lower share of disposable income spent on discretionary products.
Despite a challenging external environment, during the quarter we were able to efficiently manage cost increases and, as anticipated, recover profit margins compared to Q4 2021: +993 bps gross margin expansion and +1,003 bps EBITDA margin expansion quarter-on-quarter, which reaffirms the flexibility of our business model to adapt to different market conditions while maintaining profitability.
We remain fully confident in our long-term growth strategy and in our ability to overcome any temporary external situation. We are certain that we can take advantage of future opportunities which will lead us to continue growing profitably, as we have in the last 20 years, to reach our target of 40% household penetration in Mexico by 2025.
The COVID period (2020-2022) brought about an abnormal expansion of the market with the consequent impact on our revenues, which have now adjusted to "back to normal" conditions. Despite the adjustment, the need for order and organization solutions for the home continues, therefore we remain confident in our ability to return to year-on-year growth, and we have the commercial strategies in place to achieve this.
On the innovation front, we have revised our three-year innovation development focus, to make sure we reinforce products in existing core categories, while simultaneously attacking new categories and concepts. Accordingly, we are mainly strengthening our "to go", "home renovation" and "home organization" categories, and we keep exploring new categories, such as "smart home", "home restoration", among others. Also, as we are aware of the effects of inflationary pressures on consumer spending capacity, we continue adapting our SKU range to cater to these needs.
Additionally, we are carrying out a "market size" study, which will be ready by the end of the 2Q. This will give us more insight into the "total market size", our share within it, and potential category opportunities. We will share insights on this in our Q2 earnings report.
As for our technology pillar, we are pleased to announce the launch of our new Betterware+ App on May 22. The third version of our proprietary sales force app will help us to enhance support, training, and motivation of our Distributors and Associates. At the same time, we have rolled out the first version of "Natural Language Processing" technology within our service BOT, as well as our intelligent outbound messaging system, which reminds all Distributors and Associates of specific actions they should take to continue growing.
Finally, regarding the Business Intelligence pillar, we have overhauled our rewards programs to continue motivating market penetration and sales force growth. We are also making progress on researching the Associates behaviors and motivations to cater better programs and service to them, which we are sure will contribute to increase attraction and retention starting on May 1st, 2022 and going forward.
This entire set of initiatives is key to achieving a turning point in Q2. Overall, we see 2020-2022 as an abnormal period within our long-term focus on market penetration. We continue deepening our understanding of the market, and the most effective actions to deploy to seize existing opportunities. Thus, we are fully confident our long-term target of reaching 40% market penetration remains valid.
As expected, given the difficult comparison base of Q1 2021, which was the strongest quarter in the Company´s history both in the level of associates and distributors base and in activity levels, net revenues for Q1 2022 decreased 36% to Ps. 1,869.1M from Ps. 2,901.7M in Q1 2021, which represented a 205% net revenue growth relative to in Q1 2020.
The lower level of net revenue was mainly a result of a lower average distributors and associates base. For the period, on average we had 48.1 thousand distributors, 24% lower than in Q1 2021, and 997.8 thousand associates, 20% lower than in Q1 2021, coupled with a mild decline in their activity levels relative to Q1 2021, which was partially offset by a higher average price per SKU sold.
Gross margin expanded 610 bps to 63.6% in Q1 2022 from 57.5% in Q1 2021. The improvement derives mainly from the product price increase of 12% announced at the beginning of the year, efficient cost management and planning for freight expenses.
For 2022, we expect our full year gross margin to be in the range of 58% and 60%.
As in the case of net revenues, EBITDA for Q1 2021 was the highest level achieved by the company yet, showing a 287% growth compared to Q1 2020, representing a tough comparison base for this year.
For the first quarter of 2022, Betterware's EBITDA decreased 41% Year-on-Year to Ps. 547.8M, compared to Ps. 923.6M in Q1 2021, in line with the expected lower level of net revenue and lower operating leverage relative to the prior year period.
EBITDA margin contracted 252 bps to 29.3% in Q1 2022 compared to 31.8% in Q1 2021, reflecting lower operating leverage and higher costs due to surging inflation.
EBITDA margin expanded 1,003 bps versus Q4 2021, recovering our profitability levels after the negative impacts due to extraordinary expenses seen during the preceding quarter, thus reflecting our ability to quickly adapt to market conditions while efficiently controlling costs and maintaining profitability levels.
For 2022, we expect our full year EBITDA margin to be in the range of 27% and 29%.
Due to the difficult comparison base relative to Q1 2021 after the 339% growth in net income during Q1 2021, and the unfavorable non-cash expense of Ps. 99.4 M related to the unrealized loss in mark-to market valuation of financial derivative instruments, which do not affect the Company's cashflows or operating income, net income for Q1 2022 decreased 58% to Ps. 267.3M, relative to Ps. 638.5M in 1Q 2021.
Adjusted net income, which excludes the non-cash expense related to the unrealized loss in mark-to market valuation of financial derivative instruments, decreased 27% relative to Q1 2021, aligned with the lower level of net revenue.
Adjusted earnings per share decreased 29% to Ps. 9.83, relative to adjusted earnings per share of 1Q 2021.
As of the end of Q1 2022, the Company's financial position remains strong, reflecting the main attributes of our differentiated business model, namely high cash flow generation and asset light business model. We ended the quarter with a conservative Net Debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.4x, slightly higher than our leverage ratio in Q1 2021 of 0.01x and the company's cash conversion cycle stands strong at -16 days in 1Q 2022.
Betterware has a proven track record of performance and a clear and executable long-term growth plan, which includes expansion of our household penetration and share of wallet. We are certain in our ability to navigate well during the year ahead despite uncertainty regarding external conditions given our strategic advantages and initiatives in place.
Regarding our full year expectations, at this point we anticipate, on the one hand, net revenue to be slightly below and, on the other hand, EBITDA to be close to the previous guidance. We look forward to providing guidance for Jafra, within our Q2 report, once we have more visibility into the external situation and have properly assessed Jafra's synergies and its accretive impact within Betterware. For now, we can gladly share 2021 Jafra's preliminary figures of Net Revenue at Ps. 5.8 billion and EBITDA of Ps. 0.9 billion, pending release of audited financials from the external auditor and IFRS adoption.
In the longer term, we are fully committed and confident of Betterware´s growth opportunities in the years to come, which will lead us to reach our target of 40% household penetration in Mexico by 2025, as well as expand our geographic reach starting with expansion to the United States by the end of 2023.
Given our ability to generate strong cash flows and our asset light business model with low CAPEX requirements, our Board of Directors has proposed to pay a Ps. 350M dividend to shareholders for the quarter. The dividend is subject to approval at the Ordinary General Shareholders' Meeting of April 28th, 2022.
As mentioned in our Q4 2021 conference call, we began with the execution of our share repurchase program in February and since then, we have purchased 72,626 shares for Ps. 25.3 million. Given the uncertainties that lay ahead, we will continue to conservatively execute the repurchase program, always focused on maximizing long-term shareholder´s value while maintaining a strong balance sheet.
On April 7, 2022, we announced the successful completion of the acquisition of 100% of JAFRA's operations in Mexico and the United States, along with JAFRA´s trademark rights worldwide. As previously stated, JAFRA will operate as a separate subsidiary with its management team remaining fully focused on its operations and growth strategies.
We will adopt Betterware´s three strategic pillars of Product Innovation, Technology and Business Intelligence across JAFRA's operations to capitalize on operational synergies and cost reductions, which we expect start achieving by year end 2022. We strongly believe that our technology tools and platforms will enable JAFRA to achieve a greater market reach and to take advantage of the e-commerce opportunity in Mexico and the US.
In addition, JAFRA's know-how and presence in the US market of over 65 years, will pave the way for us to enter the attractive US market by the end of 2023 to continue expanding our business and increase our overall revenue growth at increasing rates of profitability for the combined company in the long-term.
This announcement includes certain references to EBITDA, EBITDA Margin, Net Debt:
EBITDA: defined as profit for the year adding back the depreciation of property, plant and equipment and right of use assets, amortization of intangible assets, financing cost, net and total income taxes
EBITDA Margin: is calculated by dividing EBITDA by net revenues
EBITDA and EBITDA Margin are not measures recognized under IFRS and should not be considered as an alternative to, or more meaningful than, consolidated net income for the year as determined in accordance with IFRS or as indicators of our operating performance from continuing operations. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this information and should note that these measures as calculated by the Company, may differ materially from similarly titled measures reported by other companies.
Betterware believes that these non-IFRS financial measures are useful to investors because (i) Betterware uses these measures to analyze its financial results internally and believes they represent a measure of operating profitability and (ii) these measures will serve investors to understand and evaluate Betterware's EBITDA and provide more tools for their analysis as it makes Betterware's results comparable to industry peers that also prepare these measures.
Founded in 1995, Betterware de Mexico is the leading direct-to-consumer company in Mexico focused on creating innovative products that solve specific needs regarding organization, practicality, space saving and hygiene within the household. Betterware's wide product portfolio includes home organization, kitchen, commuting, laundry and cleaning, as well as other categories that include products and solutions for every corner of the household.
The Company has a differentiated two-tier network of distributors and associates that sell their products through twelve catalogues per year. All products are designed by the Company and under the Betterware brand name through its different sources of product innovation. The Company's state-of-the-art infrastructure allows it to safely and timely deliver its products to every part of the country, backed by the strategic location of its national distribution center. Today, the Company distributes its products in Mexico and Guatemala, and has plans of additional international expansion.
Supported by its asset light business model and its three strategic pillars of Product Innovation, Business Intelligence and Technology, Betterware has been able to achieve sustainable double-digit growth rates by successfully expanding its household penetration and share of wallet.
This press release includes certain statements that are not historical facts but are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as "believe," "may," "will", "estimate", "continue", "anticipate", "intend", "expect", "should", "would", "plan", "predict", "potential", "seem", "seek," "future," "outlook", and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters. The reader should understand that the results obtained may differ from the projections contained in this document and that many factors could cause our actual activities or results to differ materially from the activities and results anticipated in forward looking statements. For this reason, the Company assumes no responsibility for any indirect factors or elements beyond its control that might occur inside Mexico or abroad and which might affect the outcome of these projections and encourages you to review the 'Cautionary Statement' and the 'Risk Factor' sections of our annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2020 and any of the Company's other applicable filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for additional information concerning factors that could cause those differences
The Company undertakes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date hereof. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Further information on risks and uncertainties that may affect the Company's operations and financial performance, and the forward statements contained herein, is available in the Company's filings with the SEC. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.
Management will hold a conference call with investors on April 29, 2022 at 8:00 am Central Standard Time (CST)/ 9:00am Eastern Time (EST). For anyone who wishes to join live, the dial-in information is:
Toll Free: 1-877-451-6152
Toll/International: 1-201-389-0879
Conference ID: 13728901
If you wish to listen to the replay of the conference call, please see instructions below:
Toll Free: 1-844-512-2921
Toll/International: 1-412-317-6671
Replay Pin Number: 13728901
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SOURCE Betterware de México, S.A.B. de C.V. | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/04/28/betterware-reports-first-quarter-fiscal-year-2022-results/ | 2022-04-28T21:11:30Z |
Share it: @Nickelodeon @NickJr #FacesMusicParty
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BURBANK, Calif., May 5, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Nickelodeon's beloved '90s Nick Jr. mascot Face returns to the network in Face's Music Party, a brand-new music variety show premiering Monday, June 6, at 11 a.m. (ET/PT). The interactive series that combines animation and live action (13 episodes) will feature a reimagined Face (voiced by Cedric Williams, Hunter x Hunter, The Promised Neverland) as host and VJ, playing modern pop hits and revamped nursery school classics to create the ultimate music party. Face's Music Party will debut as part of the ongoing "Music Mondays"-themed preschool programming block and air regularly Mondays at 11 a.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon.
In the premiere episode, "Robots/Imagination," Face showcases popular robot-themed music videos as well as the coolest songs about imagination. Each episode of Face's Music Party will center around themes that inform the song playlist and consist of four segments: a kid-friendly music video from popular contemporary artists; remixed sing-alongs of iconic nursery rhymes; exploration time in Face's music box, where kids can play and learn about an instrument, sound or musical concept; and a high energy dance-along finale, with kid dancers demonstrating moves to viewers at home.
Beginning Monday, June 6, and airing on Mondays throughout the summer, fans can tune into the Nick Jr. preschool block on Nickelodeon for "Music Mondays," a five-hour programming block (7 a.m.-12 p.m. ET/PT) featuring music-themed episodes of PAW Patrol, Blaze and the Monster Machines, Bubble Guppies, Peppa Pig, Baby Shark's Big Show! and more, leading up to a premiere episode of Face's Music Party at 11 a.m. "Music Mondays" will continue to air on the Nick Jr. channel from 12 p.m.-5 p.m. (ET/PT).
Face first debuted on Nick Jr. on Sept. 5, 1994 and served as the animated host and mascot of Nickelodeon's preschool programming block for over a decade. A good friend to all preschoolers, Face greeted Nick Jr. viewers daily in interstitials, musical shorts, show intros and bumpers. With endless color changes, funny voices and silly expressions, Face could also appear in almost any location, use props to play dress up and play with other characters on screen. Face's playful voice and sound effects, such as the signature imitation three-note "brr brr brrr" trumpet, were a mainstay on Nickelodeon until Sept. 10, 2004.
Face's Music Party is produced by Nickelodeon Animation in Burbank, Calif., in partnership with Jonas and Company, Inc. David Kleiler serves as showrunner and executive producer along with executive producer Hema Mulchandani and executive producer Jonas Morganstein. Production for Nickelodeon is overseen by Eryk Casemiro, Executive Vice President, Nickelodeon Animation, Global Series Content. Niki Williams serves as Nickelodeon's Executive in Charge of Production for the series.
Nickelodeon, now in its 43rd year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The brand includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, digital, location-based experiences, publishing and feature films. For more information or artwork, visit http://www.nickpress.com. Nickelodeon is a part of Paramount's (Nasdaq: PARA, PARAA) global portfolio of multimedia entertainment brands.
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SOURCE Nickelodeon | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/05/05/nickelodeons-90s-mascot-face-returns-faces-music-party-brand-new-music-variety-show-premiering-monday-june-6-11-am-etpt/ | 2022-05-05T18:40:21Z |
Which cabin tent is best?
If you’re looking for a spacious tent for a comfortable camping trip, you might consider a cabin tent. Cabin tents are tall enough for most people to stand inside, making everything from getting dressed to evening downtime a more comfortable experience.
You need to find one that’s the right size for your camping party and durable enough to stand up to the frequency with which you camp. The Coleman Prairie Breeze Lighted Cabin Tent is an excellent, spacious choice.
What to know before you buy a cabin tent
Height
The major draw of cabin tents is their straight sides and sizable interior heights. This lets most campers stand up and move around easily inside. If you’re buying a cabin tent because you want to stand up fully inside, you must find the interior height.
Most have center heights at 74 to 84 inches, but their roofs slope slightly toward the outer edges so that the rain rolls off. This means the tallest people may have to duck somewhat, especially towards the edges of their tent. However, you’ll still get much more vertical space than a dome tent or tunnel tent.
Size
You can find cabin tents that sleep anywhere from two to 16. However, the listed size isn’t quite what it seems. A nine-person tent, for instance, fits an absolute maximum of nine people, sleeping right next to each other on the ground or on mats. If you want enough space to store gear and sleep on air mattresses, a nine-person tent only sleeps four to five people.
Look at the listing because some manufacturers list how many queen or full-size air mattresses fit in their tents. This gives you a good idea of how many people can comfortably sleep within the tent. Otherwise, assume a tent comfortably fits around half its listed capacity.
Interior compartments
Larger cabin tents often have more than one interior compartment or come with optional room dividers to separate the space. This is great when camping with friends or teenagers who want some privacy. It also means you can use one compartment as a bedroom and another as a living room. Having a dedicated living space is ideal when the weather isn’t great, and you want to spend evenings socializing inside your tent.
What to look for in a quality cabin tent
Ventilation
Tents can feel stuffy in hot weather, so ventilation is important. Some have large mesh windows for ventilation that you can close in wet or cold weather or when you want privacy.
Instant setup
You can find plenty of instant cabin tents that it’s possible to pitch in just 1 to 2 minutes. These have fixed poles, so you just need to snap them together and peg the tent down.
Interior storage
Internal storage pockets are great for holding small or medium-sized items that you need easy access to or don’t want to leave lying around on the floor.
How much you can expect to spend on a cabin tent
They come in a wide range of prices from $100-$1,500, depending on size and quality. You can find decent mid-sized tents for around $250-$500, but you may want to spend more if you camp regularly or in all weathers.
Cabin tent FAQ
Are cabin tents good family tents?
A. Their roominess makes them excellent tents for family camping trips. If you’ve ever tried to wrangle a toddler or dress a small child in a tent that’s only a few feet high, you’ll understand why plenty of headroom is an advantage. While they vary in size, you can also commonly find versions with room dividers or separate sleeping areas and living areas, which are also great features for families.
Are cabin tents waterproof?
A. Technically speaking, no tents are fully waterproof as they wouldn’t be breathable. However, all camping tents are water-resistant to varying degrees. Some only withstand light showers before they start to leak, while others keep you dry in a torrential downpour.
Cheap tents are generally less waterproof than more expensive options. Tents for three-season or four-season camping usually hold up well to moderate or heavy rain.
What’s the best cabin tent to buy?
Top cabin tent
Coleman Prairie Breeze Lighted Cabin Tent
What you need to know: Measuring 14 by 10 feet, it comfortably fits two queen airbeds or up to nine people if you’re willing to squeeze in.
What you’ll love: It comes with a battery-powered interior ceiling light and fan. Campers stay dry and comfortable thanks to the fan and “WeatherTec” system. The snag-free poles make pitching this tent a breeze.
What you should consider: The zippers could be of better quality, so you need to be gentle with them.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top cabin tent for the money
Ozark Trail Instant Cabin Tent
What you need to know: Sleeping up to 11 people, this is a spacious option.
What you’ll love: You can divide the interior into three rooms for privacy or create a separate living area. The poles are already fixed, so it takes just two minutes to set up.
What you should consider: It’s not the most durable tent overall, so it’s best for occasional use.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Worth checking out
Core Nine-Person Instant Cabin Tent
What you need to know: It fits two queen air mattresses with room for gear but can sleep nine at a push.
What you’ll love: The “H2O Block” technology does a great job of keeping the rain out. Stashing small items off the ground is easy with the internal storage pockets. You can set it up in around a minute.
What you should consider: It doesn’t provide insulation when camping in cold weather, so it’s only good for warmer parts of the year.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
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Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://cw33.com/reviews/br/camping-outdoors-br/tents-br/best-cabin-tent/ | 2022-08-31T20:05:13Z |
Knoxville, TN, Agency Joins National Top 20 Independent Insurance Firm
FORT WORTH, Texas, May 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- PMG Benefits Consulting, an independent broker of employee benefits, life and ancillary insurance plans in Knoxville, TN, has joined Higginbotham, an insurance, financial and HR services firm ranked as the 20th largest independent broker in the U.S. The deal expands Higginbotham's presence in Tennessee by adding a fourth location in the state and positions PMG Benefits Consulting for growth by providing access to more client services.
Higginbotham is strategically growing to expand its footprint and increase its service capability by selectively partnering with other independent agencies that have strong reputations in their local markets, a desire to keep growing by tapping into Higginbotham's single source solution and a strong cultural match.
Johnny Pitts, managing partner for Higginbotham's Tennessee region, said, "The growth we've experienced in Tennessee since first entering the state in 2020 is a testament to Higginbotham's new partner strategy. Our partner agencies get the strength that comes with our size. Their clients get additional products and services. And, Higginbotham gets localized support to spread our solutions. It's a win for everyone."
PMG Benefits Consulting serves employers in all industries ranging in size from as few as two employees to as many as several thousand. The agency gains the ability to offer commercial and personal property and casualty insurance as well as HR consulting and other risk management and benefit plan services by tapping into Higginbotham's expansive resources.
In a joint statement, PMG Benefits Consulting CEO Debbie Perry and COO Ryan Grose said, "We were particularly drawn to the fact that Higginbotham is employee-owned, so we're not beholden to shareholders like a publicly-traded company. We put our clients first and felt that Higginbotham provided the best opportunity to continue doing so, plus the ability to immediately start offering property and casualty insurance and risk management services by teaming up with their local experts. We've already seen the culture that permeates Higginbotham, and it's exactly what we've always strived for at PMG."
Higginbotham named Perry and Grose managing directors, and they will continue overseeing PMG Benefits Consulting's operations.
About PMG Benefits Consulting
For 22 years PMG Benefits Consulting in Knoxville, TN, has created lasting partnerships with employers by adhering to the core values of its region: honesty, integrity, leadership and hard work. These principles have resulted in one of the fastest growing employee benefits firms in East Tennessee. PMG helps clients deliver the best available employee benefits value to their workforce, and its consultants serve as advocates for every client employee. Visit pmgbenefits.com for more information.
About Higginbotham
Employee owned and customer inspired, Higginbotham is a single source solution for insurance, financial and HR services. The firm was established in 1948 and ranks by revenue as the nation's 20th largest independent insurance firm. Serving thousands of businesses and individuals through locations coast to coast, Higginbotham's approach to finding insurance, employee benefit and risk management solutions is more individual and less institutional. By understanding customer priorities, eliminating inefficiencies and committing to transparency, Higginbotham is a place that leads with values so value leads. Visit higginbotham.com for more information.
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SOURCE Higginbotham | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/05/26/pmg-benefits-consulting-combines-with-higginbotham-position-growth-east-tennessee/ | 2022-05-26T19:29:46Z |
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A former deputy leader of the al-Shabab extremist group has been named a government minister by Somalia’s new administration in what some call a chance to persuade fighters to denounce violence.
Mukhtar Robow was given the post of religious affairs minister, the government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said Tuesday. Not all Somalis supported his ministerial appointment, with some calling it disrespectful to those who lost loved ones in al-Shabab attacks.
Robow, who once had a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, defected from the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab in 2017 and at first was greeted with praise by Somalia’s government. But when he tried to seek the leadership of the country’s Southwest region in 2018, he was detained.
The reason behind Robow’s arrest has never been made clear, Somalia’s current president on multiple occasions has said the detention had no legal grounds. Somalia’s government didn’t comment on his appointment Tuesday.
Robow, who is believed to be in his early fifties, studied Islamic law in Sudan and is believed to have participated in the anti-Soviet fighting in Afghanistan. He once praised Osama bin Laden and tried to impose an Islamic state in Somalia. In 2008, the U.S. imposed sanctions on him and named him a “specially designated global terrorist.”
He left al-Shabab after a dispute with the group’s hardliners. “I disagreed with their creed, which does not serve Islamic religion,” he said at the time.
His defection occurred shortly after the U.S. removed the bounty from his head at the Somali government’s request. Somalia has engaged in U.S.-backed efforts encourage fighters to leave al-Shabab in the belief that each defection exposes weakness in the extremist group, which has thousands of fighters and still controls large parts of the rural south and central regions. | https://cw33.com/news/international/ap-international/somalia-names-former-al-shabab-deputy-a-government-minister/ | 2022-08-03T14:39:36Z |
POXINDEJE, Mexico (AP) — A painter in orange overalls touches up the image of a hand holding a rifle while an artist perched on scaffolding painstakingly places bits of colorful ceramic in a mosaic of a guerrilla fighter.
The artists aren’t just decorating a wall: Together, they are helping to revive muralism, a movement that put Mexico at the vanguard of art a century ago.
Just as their famous predecessors did shortly after the Mexican Revolution, teachers and students of the Siqueiros School of Muralism are on a mission to keep alive the practice of using visual imagery to share messages of social and political importance.
The mural in progress is on three walls of a municipal building in San Salvador, a small town of about 29,000 people north of Mexico City in Hidalgo state. The Siqueiros School is based in a converted elementary school in the nearby hamlet of Poxindeje, and one of its co-founders is Jesús Rodríguez Arévalo, a pupil of disciples of Mexico’s three muralism masters: Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco.
“The school is small, a humble space, but it is very serious and it is professional,” Rodríguez said.
One hundred years ago, Rivera, Siqueiros and Orozco also started out at a colonial-era school-turned art laboratory. It was 1922, and they were charged with fulfilling the then-Mexican education minister’s mission to take art out of the galleries and into public spaces. The plan, part of a national literacy campaign sponsored by the national government, transformed Mexico and permeated the entire continent.
The artists’ manifesto was to make “ideological propaganda for the good of the people” and give art “a purpose of beauty, of education and combat for all.”
They identified with the agrarian and proletarian revolutions and mingled with European artists who fled to Mexico from both world wars. Sponsored by the government, they had access to the country’s most majestic buildings and the necessary resources to experiment with new techniques. Eventually, they began to paint in other nations: Argentina, Chile, Cuba and the United States among them.
Despite the backing of Mexican political leaders, their work turned out to be too provocative in some places outside the country: A mural Rivera painted in New York’s Rockefeller Center was censured and then demolished because it glorified communism.
“We are a bit more cowardly,” said Ernesto Ríos Rocha, 53, a muralist who is currently trying to found Mexico’s first muralism university in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa. “We talk more about peace.”
The murals being created in San Salvador and other small towns today still have much in common with those created in the early 20th century, however: They encapsulate themes of war, injustice, and oppression — as well as 21st century issues such as climate change and violence against women.
But Rodríguez and his students don’t anticipate monumental reverberations from their work. Their aspirations are lower and their income more modest, coming mostly from local governments that commission them to paint murals and support from community members who donate meals and house foreign students.
The Poxindeje school bets on recycling and reusing discarded materials donated by glassmakers or flooring manufacturers, said Janet Calderón, who co-founded the Siqueiros School with Rodríguez five years ago. They’re even making murals from garbage.
Luz Asturizaga, a 36-year-old sculptor from Bolivia, has enjoyed every moment of her stay in the iconic home of muralism. She wasn’t able to learn much about the art form in her own country, where she said professional artists’ circles are very closed. In Mexico, “they give you opportunity, they teach you,” she said.
Few students have completed training at the school — about 40 since it opened five years ago — but all leave with clear ideas instilled by their instructors: “Go to the communities, teach, carry out a comprehensive work of historic themes, of social content, of criticism of everything that oppresses man,” Rodríguez said.
The first step for the artists is to decide what elements they want to include, what metaphors to lay out. Then they build a sort of collage of portraits and photographs of historical figures whom they want to immortalize.
Composition and perspective are key. Dressed in paint-splotched jeans, his black hair tied back in a ponytail, the 54-year-old Rodríguez closes one eye in front of the mural in progress in San Salvador, and with the other glances through a transparent sheet of paper containing sketches of figures intended for the wall. The goal is to calculate the right scale, taking into account from where and what distance people will be viewing the work.
“You have to know local history and then begin with the sketches,” said Luis Manuel Vélez, 52, a worker for Mexico’s national oil company who spends his weekends painting murals.
Sometimes models for the work come from the neighborhood. A 6-year-old girl passing by the mural in San Salvador pointed and smiled before exclaiming: “That’s me and my grandpa.”
Purists have long lamented that starting in the late 20th century, muralism was replaced by urban art or short-lived graffiti.
Ríos Rocha agrees, but is still optimistic.
“Muralism is in intensive care, but it is not going to die,” he said.
Historian David Martínez Bourget is a researcher at the 88-year-old Bellas Artes Museum, a palatial art nouveau performing arts center in Mexico City whose interior walls are graced with famous murals by Rivera, Siqueiros and Orozco.
Martínez Bourget said the art movement that the fathers of muralism began in the 20th century is over, but its spirit remains — not just in Poxindeje and San Salvador — but also in marginalized Chicano communities in the western United States and in Zapatista villages in southern Mexico. In both places, public art displays capture the communities’ history and rebellion, he noted.
As long as people are fighting for social justice, this kind of artistic expression will exist, Martínez Bourget says, because in difficult moments “art is politicized.” | https://cw33.com/news/ap-top-headlines/reviving-mexicos-groundbreaking-muralism-a-century-later/ | 2022-08-11T08:30:57Z |
CAUGHT ON CAM: Homeowner uses ‘AK-47-style gun’ to fire back at invaders
PENSACOLA, Fla. (WALA/Gray News) – A homeowner in Florida fired an AK-47-style gun at three invaders in self-defense, officials said.
According to Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons, one person has been arrested in the case, but officials are still looking for the other two suspects.
The home invasion took place just before midnight on July 7. The incident was captured on home surveillance video.
At least one of the suspects was armed, as seen in the video.
Simmons said the suspects forced their way into the home. The homeowner had a handgun, but it was wrestled away by one of the suspects. The homeowner then ran to another room to grab another weapon.
“The homeowner went and got an AK-47-style gun and he started shooting for his own protection to get them out of his house and to protect himself,” Simmons said.
The three invaders are seen on video running away after the homeowner began shooting. Officials said the homeowner will face no penalties for acting in self-defense.
“So those of you who might ask the question, ‘Is the homeowner going to be charged for shooting at these people?’ Absolutely not. The homeowner is protecting himself and in Florida, in Escambia County, you can protect yourself,” Simmons said.
Da’Torrance Hackworth, 20, was arrested and charged with use/display of a firearm during a felony, possession of a firearm by a felon, larceny, grand theft of a firearm, and robbery/home invasion with a firearm.
The sheriff has identified the other two suspects as Antonio Dewayne Dean Jr. and Joseph Roman Sanders, but they are not in custody.
The sheriff’s office is asking anyone with information about Dean and Sanders’ whereabouts to call deputies at 850-436-9620 or call Crime Stoppers at 850-433-STOP.
Copyright 2022 WALA via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wibw.com/2022/07/15/caught-cam-homeowner-uses-ak-47-style-gun-fire-back-invaders/ | 2022-07-15T20:18:23Z |
- Partnership will enable OPay customers to pay on global online platforms backed by Mastercard's secure Mastercard virtual payment solution linked to the OPay wallet
- OPay consumers will enjoy a superior digital experience for multiple lifestyle services and new digital commerce opportunities for, with or without a bank account
- In addition to digital commerce enablement, the two parties will jointly develop solutions to position OPay at the leading edge of financial services within the markets they operate in
CAIRO, Egypt, May 18, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Fintech giant OPay and Mastercard today announced a strategic partnership, which marks a significant boost for wider financial inclusion and economic prosperity by opening up digital commerce to millions of people across Middle East and Africa.
The collaboration enables OPay consumers and merchants in the region - including Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Pakistan, South Africa and the UAE - to engage with brands and businesses anywhere across the globe, thanks to a Mastercard virtual payment solution linked to the OPay eWallet.
This partnership is the latest milestone in Mastercard's emerging market strategy where the technology company is collaborating with growing Fintech's such as OPay to expand access to digital payments, enable multiple lifestyle services, create new pathways to financial inclusion and support the next generation of super-apps. Consumers are increasingly looking for seamless user experiences on a single platform offering easier interactions to complete various day-to-day needs, including sending and receiving money, ordering food and groceries, organizing transport, lending, investing and listing items they wish to sell.
In the initial phase of this partnership, OPay customers will benefit from the Mastercard virtual payment solution linked to their OPay wallets, to shop at well-known global brands for leisure, travel, accommodation, entertainment, streaming services and more. The service is available regardless of whether or not the customer has a bank account. It also allows small business owners to purchase from suppliers abroad and pay with the secure virtual payment solution.
Amnah Ajmal, Executive Vice President for Market Development, Mastercard EEMEA, said: "At Mastercard, our innovation strategy is rooted in partnerships to support inclusion at scale. Our partnership with OPay demonstrates our commitment to supporting payments providers across the world to create an interconnected global payments ecosystem that benefits an array of consumers with unique needs."
Yahui Zhou, CEO of OPay,said: "As the leading fintech in the Middle East and Africa, we are delighted to be partnering with Mastercard as we continue on our journey to promote financial inclusion, helping to open up the global economy to more consumers and businesses across Middle East and Africa."
Since its operations started in 2018, OPay's active users have grown to 15 million in dozens of markets in which it operates. The company processes millions of transactions per day on average. In Nigeria alone, where OPay takes significant market share, users have saved billions of US dollars in the last four years through credit-linked savings accounts from their mobile wallets and small loans from lenders that use its platform.
Plans are in place to launch OPay services in other markets in the next three to five years, significantly driving the growth of digital inclusion and digital commerce, while at the same time widening OPay customer inclusion into the global economy.
Mastercard has made a worldwide commitment to financial inclusion, pledging to bring 1 billion people and 50 million micro and small businesses – with a focus on 25 million women entrepreneurs – into the digital economy by 2025.
-ENDS-
About OPay:
OPay is a fast-growing mobile payment fintech company. OPay has achieved significant growth in the past three years and has become one of the largest fintech companies in Africa and Middle East with a decent market share in key markets including Nigeria, Egypt, and Pakistan among others. OPay offers bespoke services to different clients in order to suit their needs; some of these services include offline payment, online payment, digital wallet service through AI and other fintech innovations. OPay boasts over 15 million registered wallet users, 600,000 merchants nationwide and surpassed $6 billion in monthly transaction value.
About Mastercard
Mastercard (NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com, Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments and businesses realize their greatest potential. Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.
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SOURCE OPay | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/05/19/opay-mastercard-announce-strategic-partnership-grow-cashless-ecosystem-advance-digital-financial-inclusion-millions/ | 2022-05-19T02:17:40Z |
New Ownership Group Continues to Upgrade Facilities at Western Home of Golf in America®
LA QUINTA, Calif., May 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- As PGA WEST® wraps up another stellar season as the Western Home of Golf in America®, its Members reveled in the extensive renovations made to the The Palmer Private Course — one of four Private Courses on property. Brandon Johnson, a long-time senior architect for Arnold Palmer Design Company, oversaw the project, which is part of ownership's effort to enhance the overall playing experience and restore the course to its original splendor.
PGA WEST® is in the process of upgrading all nine of its renowned courses, representing some of the top golf course architects in the world including Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman, Tom Weiskopf and Pete Dye. Specific enhancements to the Palmer Private Course:
- Replaced existing TifDwarf bermudagrass with TifEagle bermudagrass on all greens.
- Restored the greens back to Arnold Palmer's original design, allowing for more hole locations.
- Reshaped greenside bunkers, added new greenside bunkers, and added sand to all bunkers.
- Renovated green surroundings and irrigation needs on holes No. 14-17 to make them more playable and aesthetically pleasing.
"Our Palmer Private Course has a rich history of hosting Professionals and celebrities as well as being a Member favorite," said Executive Director Ben Dobbs. "The Course has an amazing design, and the improvements we made last year will make it even better and more enjoyable for our PGA WEST® Members."
Also recently renovated is the Greg Norman Course, the only one of its kind in the Coachella Valley, which re-opened this past season following its own extensive makeover. For more information, visit www.pgawest.com.
About PGA WEST®
In 2020, Century Golf Partners, an established operator of high-end clubs and resorts, teamed with Hankuk Industry, which owns golf courses throughout the United States and Japan, to acquire PGA WEST® and The Citrus Club. That set off a whirlwind of activity with the new ownership pouring millions of dollars into their resources and facilities.
Founded in 1985, PGA WEST® is home to nine championship golf courses, five clubhouses, two private clubs and multiple restaurants. It boasts 163 holes of championship golf designed by five golf legends: Arnold Palmer, Tom Weiskopf, Pete Dye, Greg Norman, and Jack Nicklaus. PGA WEST® has hosted more than 45 PGA tour events, including epic and unforgettable moments in golf history. Known as The Western Home of Golf in America®, it has been owned by Century Golf Partners and Hankuk Industry since 2020. PGA WEST® is located at 55-955 PGA Blvd., La Quinta, CA 92253. For more information, visit www.pgawest.com
Contact:
Janet Galippo
Marketing Manager
(760) 564-7111
jgalippo@pgawest.com
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SOURCE PGA WEST | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2022/05/16/pga-west-members-revel-palmer-private-course-enhancements/ | 2022-05-16T17:49:02Z |
SANTA ANA, Calif., May 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Regional Center of Orange County (RCOC) will honor 10 individuals and organizations at its 25th annual Spotlight Awards Monday, May 2. Guest-hosted by Emmy Award-winning reporter Michele Gile of CBS2/KCAL9, the event is happening virtually through streaming media (for the third time, due to the COVID pandemic), with a welcome by Nancy Bargmann, Director of the Department of Developmental Services for the State of California, and introduction by RCOC Board Chair Chip Wright.
RCOC created the Spotlight Awards in 1997 to honor those in Orange County who have advanced the quality of life for people with developmental disabilities. The 2022 Regional Center of Orange County Spotlight Award Recipients are:
- Family Member: Joan Williams, of Glendora
- RCOC Achievement: Beth Ann Pierce, of Lake Forest; Service Coordinator at Regional Center of Orange County
- Direct Support Professional: Jordan Mapes, of Tustin; employed by L'Arche Wavecrest
- Community Partner: Irvine Barclay Theatre, Irvine
- Healthcare Professional: Bryan Nokelby, DDS, of Rancho Cordova, Dental Program Consultant, California Department of Health Care Services in Sacramento
- Employer: Chevron Stations, San Ramon-based with stations throughout Orange County
- Self-Advocate: Alex Zavala, person with autism, of Cypress; Environmental Services employee at Kaiser Permanente, Irvine
- Lifetime Achievement: Liza Krassner, of Irvine; administrator, Manager for Accreditation, Program in Public Health, Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences, UC Irvine
- Service Provider: Clear Motivations, Anaheim
- Health & Wellness Achievement: My Day Counts, Anaheim
About Regional Center of Orange County: Regional Center of Orange County is the private, nonprofit organization contracted by the State of California to coordinate lifelong services and supports for more than 23,000 Orange County residents with developmental disabilities and their families. The Regional Center is the first stop for those seeking to obtain local services and supports to help them live safely and with dignity in the community. Developmental disabilities include intellectual disabilities, autism, epilepsy and cerebral palsy. Learn more at www.rcocdd.com.
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SOURCE Regional Center of Orange County | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/05/02/regional-center-orange-county-announces-2022-spotlight-award-honorees-10-individuals-organizations-honored-workon-behalf-people-with-developmental-disabilities/ | 2022-05-02T17:26:15Z |
DUBLIN, Aug. 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Perrigo Company plc (NYSE: PRGO), a leading global provider of Consumer Self-Care Products, today announced that its Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.26 per share, payable on September 20, 2022, to shareholders of record on September 2, 2022.
About Perrigo
Perrigo Company plc (NYSE; PRGO) is a leading provider of Consumer Self-Care Products and over-the-counter (OTC) health and wellness solutions that enhance individual well-being by empowering consumers to proactively prevent or treat conditions that can be self-managed. Visit Perrigo online at www.perrigo.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release are "forward-looking statements." These statements relate to future events or the Company's future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements of the Company or its industry to be materially different from those expressed or implied by any forward-looking statements. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "could," "would," "should," "expect," "forecast," "plan," "anticipate," "intend," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "potential" or the negative of those terms or other comparable terminology. The Company has based these forward-looking statements on its current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections. While the Company believes these expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections are reasonable, such forward-looking statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's control, including: the effect of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and its variants and associated supply chain impacts on the Company's business; general economic, credit, and market conditions; the impact of the war in Ukraine and any escalation thereof, including the effects of economic and political sanctions imposed by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, and other countries related thereto; the outbreak or escalation of conflict in other regions where we do business; future impairment charges; customer acceptance of new products; competition from other industry participants, some of whom have greater marketing resources or larger market shares in certain product categories than the Company does; pricing pressures from customers and consumers; resolution of uncertain tax positions, including the Company's appeal of the draft and final Notices of Proposed Assessment ("NOPAs") issued by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and the impact that an adverse result in any such proceedings would have on operating results, cash flows, and liquidity; pending and potential third-party claims and litigation, including litigation relating to the Company's restatement of previously-filed financial information and litigation relating to uncertain tax positions, including the NOPAs; potential impacts of ongoing or future government investigations and regulatory initiatives; uncertainty regarding anticipated regulatory approvals; potential costs and reputational impact of product recalls or sales halts; the impact of tax reform legislation and/or changes in healthcare policy; the timing, amount and cost of any share repurchases; fluctuations in currency exchange rates and interest rates; the Company's ability to achieve the benefits expected from the sale of its Rx business and the risk that potential costs or liabilities incurred or retained in connection with the transaction may exceed the Company's estimates or adversely affect the Company's business or operations; the Company's ability to achieve the benefits expected from the acquisition of HRA Pharma and the risks that the Company's synergy estimates are inaccurate or that the Company faces higher than anticipated integration or other costs in connection with the acquisition; risks associated with the integration of HRA Pharma, including the risk that growth rates are adversely affected by any delay in the integration of sales and distribution networks; the consummation and success of other announced and unannounced acquisitions or dispositions, and the Company's ability to realize the desired benefits thereof; and the Company's ability to execute and achieve the desired benefits of announced cost-reduction efforts and strategic and other initiatives, including the Company's ability to achieve the expected benefits from its supply chain reinvention program. An adverse result with respect to the Company's appeal of any material outstanding tax assessments or pending litigation, including securities or drug pricing matters, could ultimately require the use of corporate assets to pay such assessments, damages from third-party claims, and related interest and/or penalties, and any such use of corporate assets would limit the assets available for other corporate purposes. There can be no assurance that the FDA will approve the sale of daily oral contraceptives without a prescription in the United States. These and other important factors, including those discussed under "Risk Factors" in the Company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, as well as the Company's subsequent filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, may cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this press release are made only as of the date hereof, and unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
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SOURCE Perrigo Company plc | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/08/02/perrigo-announces-quarterly-dividend/ | 2022-08-02T14:26:08Z |
2 children admitted to Tennessee hospital due to nationwide formula shortage
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC/Gray News) – At least two children in Tennessee are being treated at the hospital due to the nationwide formula shortage.
According to WMC, neither doctors nor their families can find the formula these children need on store shelves.
Officials say both children are at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Tennessee, and they both have special medical needs and the normal formula they use is out.
“This is a crisis for us in health care,” said Dr. Mark Corkins, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.
Corkins is currently treating the two children hospitalized. He says is preschool age and the other is a toddler, and both are living with intestinal conditions.
“This is not every child, not normal children, but literally the formula recall has led to these children requiring hospitalization,” Corkins said.
According to Corkins, the children’s bodies did not tolerate the switch to a different formula, when their parents could no longer find the formula they normally use.
Now doctors are treating the children with IV fluids and nutrition until formula becomes available.
“This recall started in February. Even if you had several weeks of stock, we’re now out for the special formulas,” Corkins said. “So literally we have what we have. We have some things that we’re trying to find. We’re trying to use some alternatives but the standard ones, the ones you would think of, there is none to be had.”
Abbott Nutrition reached an agreement with the FDA Monday to re-open their manufacturing plant to help with the formula shortage. The company’s Michigan plant had been closed due to bacterial contamination.
That news is a relief for parents desperately searching for formula, but it could take at least eight weeks for products to start showing up on store shelves.
Corkins and other medical professionals say parents should not use a homemade formula to feed their children. They also say people should not dilute formula.
Call your doctor if you have questions or need help. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has a website with information to help families with this crisis.
Copyright 2022 WMC via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.mysuncoast.com/2022/05/17/2-children-admitted-tennessee-hospital-due-nationwide-formula-shortage/ | 2022-05-17T18:43:20Z |
New versions of Omicron variant make gains against BA.2
by Brenda Goodman, CNN
Arguably the most successful version of the Omicron coronavirus variant to date has been BA.2 — but it hasn’t been resting on its laurels.
BA.2 has been picking up mutations, sometimes shifting into sleeker and, incredibly, even faster versions of itself.
Global variant trackers have found 21 viral offspring associated with BA.2. Most of these look like underachievers, with mutations of little consequence. But two of these offshoots — BA.2.12.1 and BA.2.12 — have been fueling a rise in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations in central New York state. And one of them, BA.2.12.1, is outpacing BA.2 in other regions, too.
New data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that BA.2.12.1 caused 19% of new Covid-19 infections in the US last week, up from an estimated 11% of cases the week before and 7% the week before that.
The speed at which BA.2.12.1 is outpacing BA.2 is roughly as fast as BA.2 outcompeted its cousin BA.1, according to Trevor Bedford, an epidemiologist and genomic scientist at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health.
Though BA.2 is still very much around, it’s lost some ground. Last week, it caused an estimated 74% of Covid-19 cases, according to the CDC data, down from nearly 76% percent the week before.
Together, BA.2 and BA.2.12.1 accounted for an estimated 93% of new Covid-19 cases in the US last week.
“BA.2.12.1 has increased rapidly in proportion in the US compared to other BA.2 sublineages,” especially in the region that includes New York and New Jersey, CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund said in an email.
New sublineages emerge
Last week, the New York State Department of Health alerted residents to the new sublineages, warning that they were spreading about 25% faster than BA.2 and were causing Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations to increase, particularly in the central part of the state. It urged New Yorkers to “act swiftly” to consider wearing masks, to get booster vaccine doses, to get tested if they had symptoms and to seek treatment if infected.
Officials are concerned about BA.2 offshoots because they have swapped pieces of their spike proteins at key locations called L452Q and S704L.
Virologists have seen mutations at those positions before. The Delta variant had a switch at 452, and this helped the virus bind more tightly to ACE2 receptors on our cells.
“And those mutations are allowing the virus to enter cells faster and also contributing to evading antibody responses that are generated from vaccination or infection,” said Andy Pekosz of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“What we really just don’t know right now is how much those mutations are going to be contributing to increased spread or increased disease severity,” he said. “That’s something that’s going to take some time for us to figure out.”
Pekosz says he and others are working on that right now.
That cases are rising in New York is a bit worrisome, too. It means these viruses are good at getting past our immune defenses.
“The vast majority of people in New York have either been vaccinated or infected or both. And so what we’re seeing is reinfections. We’re seeing this immune evasiveness,” said Dr. Daniel Griffin, a physician and researcher at Columbia University Medical Center.
Two other Omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, have begun to circulate at low levels in other parts of the world, including South Africa, Botswana, Germany and Denmark. They also have mutations at 452, among others.
“I think it’s interesting that we were moving into a different kind of regime for SARS-CoV-2 evolution, in that the virus is able to pick up mutations that are more transmissible, at least we’ve seen three times now with Omicron. So I think from a scientific point of view, that’s interesting,” said Shishi Luo, associate director of bioinformatics and infectious disease at Helix, a company that’s been tracking variants of the coronavirus.
Will new sublineages affect public health?
What that might mean for public health is still very much an open question. Luo says it’s too early to know how well the current Covid-19 vaccines defend against the subvariants, but she’s hopeful that because they are related to BA.2, protection against severe outcomes like hospitalization and death will hold up.
She notes that experts haven’t seen new subvariants drive up Covid-19 hospitalizations in countries like South Africa. So she’s hopeful that even if cases start to rise here, hospitalizations will continue to stay low.
If you were vaccinated or previously infected — if your immune system has seen and recognized some of the virus before — and you catch Covid again, your chances of going to the hospital are reduced by about 90%, Griffin says. If you test positive quickly enough and get treatment, like monoclonal antibodies or Paxlovid, that’s another 90% reduction in the likelihood you’ll wind up in the hospital.
“If we do everything right from here on out, we should not see a lot of people end up in the hospital,” Griffin said.
He points out that getting Covid is still not risk-free. He does occasionally see people who wound up with long Covid after being vaccinated and boosted.
“It’s just a gamble. As long as people are getting infected, you keep having a chance of that despite vaccines,” Griffin said.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://localnews8.com/health/cnn-health/2022/04/19/new-versions-of-omicron-variant-make-gains-against-ba-2/ | 2022-04-20T01:55:36Z |
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taipei on Tuesday, marking a significant show of support for Taiwan despite China's threats of retaliation over the visit.
Pelosi's stop in Taipei is the first time that a US House speaker has visited Taiwan in 25 years. Her trip comes at a low point in US-China relations and despite warnings from the Biden administration against a stop in Taiwan.
Pelosi and the congressional delegation that accompanied her said in a statement on Tuesday that the visit "honors America's unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan's vibrant democracy."
"Our discussions with Taiwan leadership will focus on reaffirming our support for our partner and on promoting our shared interests, including advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific region," the statement said. "America's solidarity with the 23 million people of Taiwan is more important today than ever, as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy."
China responded by announcing military exercises and with bellicose rhetoric warning that the speaker's visit "has a severe impact on the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and seriously infringes upon China's sovereignty and territorial integrity."
"It gravely undermines peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and sends a seriously wrong signal to the separatist forces for 'Taiwan independence,' " China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. "China firmly opposes and sternly condemns this, and has made serious démarche and strong protest to the United States."
China's military said it was on "high alert" and would conduct exercises around Taiwan in response to Pelosi's trip, saying in statements it was launching a series "targeted military operations to counteract the situation."
Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said that 21 Chinese warplanes made incursions into its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Tuesday. In response, the Taiwanese military issued radio warnings and deployed air defense missile systems to monitor the activities, it added.
China frequently sends warplanes into Taiwan's self-declared ADIZ. The highest number of incursions ever recorded was on October 4 last year, when 56 military planes flew into the area on the same day. An ADIZ is unilaterally imposed and distinct from sovereign airspace, which is defined under international law as extending 12 nautical miles from a territory's shoreline.
Pelosi to meet with Taiwan's president Wednesday
The House speaker is expected to visit Taiwan's presidential office and parliament on Wednesday morning (local time), a senior Taiwanese official told CNN. She will first visit the parliament before heading to the presidential office for a meeting with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, the official said.
Pelosi is expected to depart Taiwan later on Wednesday, according to a news release issued by the foreign ministry. The official was not authorized to speak about Pelosi's travel plans that have not been publicized.
Pelosi is traveling with House Foreign Affairs Chairman Gregory Meeks of New York, Veterans' Affairs Chairman Mark Takano of California and Reps. Suzan DelBene of Washington state, Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois and Andy Kim of New Jersey.
The American Institute in Taiwan said Pelosi's delegation will meet with senior Taiwanese leaders "to discuss US-Taiwan relations, peace and security, economic growth and trade, the Covid-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, human rights, democratic governance, and other significant issues of mutual interest."
Pelosi wrote an op-ed that published in The Washington Post after she landed Tuesday, arguing that her trip demonstrated the US commitment to Taiwan under threat from China. "In the face of the Chinese Communist Party's accelerating aggression, our congressional delegation's visit should be seen as an unequivocal statement that America stands with Taiwan, our democratic partner, as it defends itself and its freedom," the California Democrat wrote.
Pelosi's stop in Taiwan was not listed on the itinerary of her congressional visit to Asia, but the stop had been discussed for weeks in the lead up to her trip. The potential stop prompted warnings from China as well as the Biden administration, which has briefed the speaker about the risks of visiting the democratic, self-governing island, which China claims as part of its territory.
The White House said Tuesday that Pelosi's trip was consistent with US policy on Taiwan, and that the US would be watching China's actions closely after Pelosi leaves.
"Obviously, we're going to be watching this closely. There is no reason for this visit to become a spurring event for a crisis or a conflict or for a pretext that the Chinese might try to whip up for some sort of military action," National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby said on CNN's "At this Hour with Kate Bolduan" on Tuesday.
"Of course, we're concerned about that, which is why part and parcel of her trip is to reaffirm the United States commitment under the Taiwan Relations Act to help Taiwan with its self-defense," Kirby added. "Again, there's no reason for this to erupt in to conflict. There's no change to our policy. This is absolutely consistent with it. And we're just going to watch as things unfold."
Bipartisan praise
A group of more than two dozen Senate Republicans, including Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, issued a statement supporting Pelosi's congressional delegation, which was all Democrats, landing in Taiwan.
"We support Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan," the Republicans said. "For decades, members of the United States Congress, including previous Speakers of the House, have travelled to Taiwan. This travel is consistent with the United States' One China policy to which we are committed. We are also committed now, more than ever, to all elements of the Taiwan Relations Act."
McConnell praised Pelosi's arrival in Taiwan, saying Tuesday that he believes "she has every right to go."
"It's been unseemly and counterproductive for President Biden and his aides to have publicly sought to deter her from doing so," the Kentucky Republican said. "I welcome the speaker's display of support for Taiwan's democracy, but I hope she returns from Asia more mindful of the military dimensions of the Chinese threat, and more committed to working with Republican to address the changing balance of military power out in the region."
US President Joe Biden said publicly before Pelosi's travel that the US military did not believe it was a good time for Pelosi to visit Taiwan, but he stopped short of telling her directly not to go, two sources previously told CNN.
Biden did not speak to Pelosi before her trip, Kirby said Tuesday.
The issue of Taiwan remains among the most contentious in US-China relations. Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, discussed it at length during a phone call last week that lasted more than two hours.
Administration officials are concerned that Pelosi's trip comes at a particularly tense moment, as Xi is expected to seek an unprecedented third term at the upcoming Chinese Communist Party congress. Chinese party officials are expected to begin laying the groundwork for that conference in the coming weeks, putting pressure on the leadership in Beijing to show strength.
While Biden has not endorsed Pelosi's visit, US officials believe Chinese leadership may be conflating the House speaker's trip with an official administration visit, and they're concerned that China doesn't separate Pelosi from Biden, much, if at all, since both are Democrats.
Pelosi has long been a China hawk in Congress. She's previously met with pro-democracy dissidents and the Dalai Lama -- the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader who remains a thorn in the side of the Chinese government. She also helped display a black-and-white banner in Beijing's Tiananmen Square two years after the 1989 massacre, and in recent years she's voiced support for the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.
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HONG KONG, June 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- JS Global Lifestyle Company Limited (HKEX stock code: 1691) ("JS Global" or the "Company") has been awarded by Institutional Investor, a renowned international financial magazine, in multiple categories of Asia Pacific (Ex-Japan) Executive Team Awards.
In the consumer staples sector, JS Global won five category awards in "2022 Asia Pacific (Ex-Japan) Executive Team", including Most Honorable Company, Best CEO- Mr. Wang Xuning, Best CFO- Ms. Han Run, Best Investor Relations Team, and Best ESG.
Every year, Institutional Investor magazine asks thousands of analysts, fund managers and researchers at securities firms and financial institutions to select the best performing firms and individuals across categories such as Best CEO, Best CFO, Best Investor Relations Professional and Best Investor Relations Company. The rankings have become a benchmark for superior corporate governance standards as they are voted on by recognized members within the financial sector, and the rigorous evaluation process ensures the legitimacy of the awards.
This year, a total of 5,000 portfolio managers and buy-side analysts, and 670 sell-side analysts participated in the 2022 All-Asia Executive Team Honored Companies survey. The 1,612 companies nominated across 18 sectors this year were rated on core areas, including, Accessibility of Senior Executives, Execution of Strategy, Well Informed and Empowered IR Team, Productivity of NDR/Conferences/Calls, Responsiveness, Business & Market Knowledge, Consistency & Granularity, ESG Information, Timeliness of Disclosure, and more.
Mr. Wang Xuning, Chairman and CEO of JS Global said: "We are greatly encouraged and honored to receive these awards from the Institutional Investor. We wish to express our sincere thanks to the entire investment community for their recognition and continuous support of our group's efforts to achieve excellence in corporate governance, investor relations, public disclosure, communications, and transparency. Since our IPO in 2019, the Company has always upheld high standards in practicing investor relations and maintaining timely, open, transparent, efficient and professional communication with the capital markets. In the future, we strive to continue to maintain good standards on investor relations and outstanding corporate governance to the investment community and the general public."
About JS Global
JS Global Lifestyle Company Limited (Hong Kong: 1691) is a world leading producer of small household appliances. It ranks fourth globally in the small household appliance industry and third among small household appliance-focused companies. It primarily operates three major brands: Shark, Ninja and Joyoung. The Company's success is centered around its deep understanding of consumer needs, and is built on its strong product innovation and design capability powered by a global research and development platform, marketing strengths driving high brand engagement, and an omni-channel distribution coverage with high penetration.
About SharkNinja
SharkNinja is an innovation leader in the housewares industry and creator of the familiar household brands Shark® and Ninja®. SharkNinja provides the latest in easy-to-use innovative technology with a growing line of solutions that consist of Shark cleaning and home care products and Ninja kitchen appliances. Products are sold at major retailers and through distributors around the world. Ninja and Shark are registered trademarks of SharkNinja Operating LLC. SharkNinja is a subsidiary of JS Global Lifestyle Company Limited (Hong Kong: 1691) a leader in small household appliance innovation.
About Joyoung
Joyoung (002242.SZ) is SharkNinja's sister brand and has become a well-known small household electrical appliance enterprise and one of the market share leaders in China. Joyoung invented the first soymilk maker in China and closely connect the concept to plant-based solutions. With 27 years of experience and over 8,000 patented technologies, Joyoung specializes in the research and development, design, manufacturing, and sale of its innovative product categories including small household appliances, primarily focusing on kitchen. Joyoung is a subsidiary of JS Global Lifestyle Company Limited (Hong Kong: 1691) a leader in small household appliance innovation.
Company Contacts
Venus Zhao, Head of Investor Relations, Public Relations and Compliance, JS Global Lifestyle
venus.zhao@jsgl.com
Adam Quigley, VP of Finance at SharkNinja
AQuigley@sharkninja.com
Investor Relations
ir@jsgl.com
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SOURCE JS Global Lifestyle | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/06/27/js-global-wins-five-awards-institutional-investors-2022-all-asia-executive-team/ | 2022-06-27T11:32:50Z |
- Delivery network and related route refinements may alter the appropriate mix of vehicles to be procured under the NGDV contract
- USPS will soon publish a Notice of Intent to supplement the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV) to determine if changes to the delivery fleet mix are warranted based upon the implementation of our delivery strategy
- Postal Service reiterates commitment to the fiscally responsible roll-out of electric-powered vehicles for America's largest and oldest federal fleet
WASHINGTON, June 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The United States Postal Service today announced it will soon publish a Notice of Intent to supplement its environmental impact statement (EIS) related to its Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDV) plan. The decision comes as the Postal Service accounts for expected changes following a recently announced plan to improve the Postal Service's delivery network. The plan to modernize and aggregate delivery operations will make delivery routes more efficient, which may affect the appropriate mix of vehicles to be procured for the Postal Service's delivery fleet, including NGDV.
Postmaster General and CEO Louis DeJoy laid out the framework of the USPS delivery network modernization plan at the 2022 National Postal Forum on May 18. As part of the initiative, the Postal Service will aggregate much of its delivery operations into Sort and Delivery Centers, with modern building systems and adequate space, docks, conveyors, and mail, and material handling equipment to operate more efficiently while modernizing and leveraging currently underutilized plants around the nation.
"As I noted when we placed our initial NGDV delivery order, the Postal Service would continue to look for opportunities to further increase the electrification of our fleet in a responsible manner, as we continue to refine our operating strategy and implement the Delivering for America plan," said DeJoy. "A modernized network of delivery facilities provides us with such an opportunity. This is the right approach —operationally, financially, and environmentally."
Delivery Network and Route Refinements Will Improve Operations and Potentially Change Considerations for the Delivery Fleet Vehicle Mix
Postal delivery vehicles currently operate from almost 19,000 facility locations around the country. As part of the current network, the Postal Service can have as many as 40 delivery facility locations concentrated within a ten-mile radius. Many of these buildings are in disrepair, have outdated mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems and poor employee amenities, and they cannot accommodate our current mix of mail and packages. The number of locations also requires significant sorting operations at our plants, underutilizes numerous truckloads from plants, and diminishes the efficiency and commercial utility of our mail carrier route structure.
"We will place large carrier operations inside our unused mail processing plants, dramatically improving transportation efficiency by eliminating unnecessary trips, reducing mail handlings, increasing reliability, and decreasing time to delivery," said DeJoy. "These changes will take years to accomplish, but each plant or delivery unit tackled will provide immediate systemwide financial and service benefits. We will have the greatest reach and be the most reliable and affordable delivery provider."
These proposed improvements to the Postal Service's delivery network may alter the appropriate mix of vehicles to be procured under our NGDV contract. Aggregating carrier operations will change our delivery route structure, including adding miles to most delivery routes at both the front and back end—more miles out to the delivery stops and more miles to return from the route to the Sort and Delivery Centers. It may also streamline the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, as it would reduce the number of facilities where charging installations are needed and it would permit the upgraded electrical systems and infrastructure that are needed for the task. This available industrial infrastructure significantly reduces the risks associated with deployment of new electric vehicles to facilities with less robust infrastructure.
As part of the plan to significantly improve the delivery network, carrier operations (often co-located with Post Offices) will shift to larger, modernized facilities. This move will result in improved conditions for our carriers and fewer underutilized truck trips and will allow postal delivery routes to be revamped to make them more efficient and cost-effective. The plan will not change the Postal Service's retail presence and will improve the Postal Service's appeal to both small and large shippers because it will enhance our ability to reach a much broader range of businesses and consumers under our new USPS Connect suite of products.
Postal Service Will Supplement Environmental Impact Statement
The Postal Service's NGDV plan currently calls for the procurement of at least 10 percent battery electric vehicles (BEVs), but it is designed to increase the number of BEVs in the mix as financial resources become available and as the Postal Service refines our network and vehicle operating strategy. In the initial NGDV delivery order of 50,000 NGDVs, the Postal Service announced that a minimum of 10,019 vehicles (or more than 20 percent of the order) would be BEVs, based on a determination that increasing the level of BEVs made sense from an operational and financial perspective.
To examine the environmental impacts of the potential delivery network changes to our delivery fleet mix, we will soon publish a Notice of Intent to supplement the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the NGDV, pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act. The Postal Service also intends to explore options for accelerating the production of the initial 10,019 BEVs towards the front of the production line and anticipates taking advantage of the flexibility built into the contract with Oshkosh Defense to increase the number of BEVs purchased in the initial delivery order.
USPS Committed To Cleaner, Safer Fleet
As the operator of America's largest and oldest federal fleet, the Postal Service is committed to cleaner, safer vehicles for its employees. The NGDV program provides for the introduction of internal-combustion and electric-powered, purpose-built vehicles that deliver significant reductions in vehicle emissions and improvements in fuel economy versus the existing delivery vehicle fleet. The search for replacement vehicles for the Postal Service's delivery fleet, which started in 2015, resulted in the purpose-built NGDVs that will deliver air conditioning and heating, improved ergonomics, and some of the most advanced vehicle and safety technology — including 360-degree cameras, advanced braking and traction control, air bags, a front-and rear-collision avoidance system that includes visual, audio warning, and automatic braking. The vehicles will also have increased cargo capacity to maximize efficiency and better accommodate higher mail and package volumes.
NGDVs, including electric vehicles, are expected to be on Postal Service routes in late 2023.
The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.
Please Note: For U.S. Postal Service media resources, including broadcast quality video, audio and photo stills, visit the USPS Newsroom. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the USPS YouTube Channel, like us on Facebook and enjoy our Postal Posts blog. For more information about the Postal Service, visit usps.com and facts.usps.com.
For reporters interested in speaking with a regional Postal Service public relations professional, please go to about.usps.com/news/media-contacts/usps-local-media-contacts.pdf.
Contact: Kim Frum
kimberly.a.frum@usps.gov
usps.com/news
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SOURCE U.S. Postal Service | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2022/06/01/usps-delivery-network-improvement-plan-offers-potential-expand-number-electric-vehicles-postal-fleet/ | 2022-06-02T00:31:04Z |
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