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1/11/22, 8:03 p.m.
Commissioners approved a contract to continue the Bird Electric Scooter Rental Program in a unanimous vote.
The scooters will now stay in Bismarck until Dec. 31.
1/11/22, 5:21 p.m.
Bismarck City Commissioners are considering if the Bird Electric Scooter Rental Program will stick around for another year.
The electric scooters were first introduced to the city early last year. The contract was supposed to last until Dec. 31, 2021.
Scooters are available by installing an app on a smartphone and then purchasing a ride. The operating season runs from spring through fall.
According to the City of Bismarck, while there are those who enjoy using the scooters, some business owners complained the scooters were being left in their parking lots.
The city is working with the company on ways to improve.
“They’re ending up in locations where there’s not a demand to bring it back to the downtown or wherever it came from. They rebalance those scooters on a daily basis and that’s just a frequency they might have to increase if a scooter finds its way on the outer edge and doesn’t find its way back,” City of Bismarck Engineer Gabe Schell said.
If approved, use of the scooters will last until the end of this year.


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The DOOM series is one that many players hold close to their hearts, as it is one of the very first first-person shooter series that has managed to make the genre popular.
While new games have been released over the years, many just wish to replay the classic entries in the series on modern hardware, and it seems like another one of these games may become available on Nintendo Switch in the near future.
The Australian Classification Board recently rated DOOM 64 for multiple platforms. While the listing doesn’t mention which platforms, it’s highly likely the game will release on Nintendo Switch as well, which would make a lot of sense considering the original game released on a Nintendo console, the Nintendo 64.
The Nintendo Switch is proving to be a good home for the DOOM series. The latest entry in the series, DOOM, has been ported to Nintendo Switch, and the next entry, DOOM Eternal, is also releasing on Nintendo Switch.
A few weeks back, Bethesda also released DOOM and DOOM II on Nintendo Switch, allowing players to enjoy the two games on the go with physical controls.
The game launched with a required Bethesda.net login, but thankfully this has been patched out recently. Another update is also in the works, aiming to improve the games’ lighting and more.
DOOM 64 will launch on a yet to be confirmed release date on multiple platforms.

domain: news


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India-based Inventia Healthcare Limited, a three-decade young pharmaceutical company built on the ethos of developing products with novel drug delivery platforms, has launched its new brand, Nutriventia, providing innovative nutraceutical ingredient solutions through extensive technical expertise and scientific research to enable industry brands to bring various finished formulations and claims to the market.
Inventia called on U.S.A.-based Baker Dillon Group, a foremost nutraceutical industry marketing communications and public relations firm to develop its brand marketing promotion strategies in the North American nutraceutical marketplace.
“We provided Baker Dillon Group with an overview of our company which allowed them to build a strategic launch proposal for our nutraceutical brand and tell our story,” said Arun Narayanan, Inventia assistant general manager of nutraceutical business development.
“Their plan allowed us to educate our target audiences with insight about the benefits, and applications of new technologies which Inventia has developed for the nutraceutical space and how we have transitioned into it from the pharmaceutical manufacturing,” added Narayanan.
“The strategy Baker Dillon Group presented met our objectives and provided robust brand visibility and awareness along with lead generation,” added Anand Godbole, Inventia marketing and strategy assistant vice president. “Their hard work and industry connections were evident right from the start and our brand got the launch pad it needed. They have continuously created new opportunities in the digital and print media for us to showcase our product brands and company ideology. It has been a fantastic campaign which focused on brand promotion within our budget and with incredibly high standard.”
Inventia supplies ingredients to 28 countries. Its pharmaceutical plant has been U.S.-FDA approved for over 10 years, along with being approved by all major global regulatory bodies. Strong technical expertise and marketing knowledge has been the key drivers of its strong growth.
“We realized that our technology platforms are well-suited for many applications beyond pharmaceuticals, namely in the nutraceutical and food ingredient categories,” Godbole commented. “Our analysis of the nutraceutical market further confirmed our belief, which led to our focused activity during the past three years to develop nutraceutical and food ingredients.”
The Nutriventia technology platforms allow the company to rationalize dosages, thereby making the active more effective with sound scientific backing. This approach enables Nutriventia to contribute in a small way to alleviate the burden on the already limited active natural supply. Inventia honestly believes in the adage that less is more, albeit when supplemented by their unique technology platforms.
The company’s branded ingredients offer solutions based on science and technology. From market experience and working with their customers, they identify critical challenges in currently available products, then utilize their novel delivery platforms to address formulation issues and develop scientific substantiation to offer unique claims to their customers.
“We have a clear focus on enhancing benefits for the end consumer,” said Godbole. Like converting a product that needs to be administered 2-3 times a day to a single dose, improving taste, and creating a specific delivery system. We also achieve this by avoiding harsh excipients with a focus on using clean, diet-based excipients as much as possible,” Godbole added.
“We are delighted to have the opportunity to add another global company to our client roster,” said Sheldon Baker, chief executive officer for Baker Dillon Group and recent recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the Consultants Association for the Natural Products Industry (www.cani-consultants.org). “Our brand marketing strategies, has allowed us to showcase numerous companies and brands, including work for manufacturers from six different countries who have or are marketing their products in the U.S.A. nutraceutical arena.”


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Once it was a pub, for many years it was a Marks & Spencer - but now the iconic Bedford building on the corner of Midland Road and Harpur Street will be home to B&M.
Since M&S closed its doors in May 2019, the building has sat empty and been a depressing reminder to shoppers.
But now B&M is creating 50 jobs by opening its third store in Bedford.
A spokesperson from B&M said: “We’re thrilled to be opening our new store in Bedford on Midland Road and look forward to welcoming customers through its doors.
“It is great that we have been able to bring our third store to the area and create many job opportunities for local people.”
The discount retailer will officially opening its doors at 9am on Saturday, December 4.
Customers can expect to find a wide variety of branded products including toys, food & drink, pet range, health and beauty and homeware.
The other B&Ms in Bedford are in Alban Retail Park, London Road as well as Riverfield Drive.


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CBD for PTSD: bioMD+ Announces July 4th Sale in Honor of America’s Disabled Veterans
New Study Documents Positive Results Using CBD as PTSD Treatment
ATLANTA, GA / ACCESSWIRE / July 2, 2020 / Highly respected CBD maker bioMD+ has announced a massive sale on all products in celebration of the upcoming July 4th holiday. During the sale, customers will enjoy a 60 percent discount on all products.
For more information visit: https://biomdplus.com/.
Speaking about the upcoming July 4th holiday and recent study, bioMD+ founder Tina Marie, “If CBD can be a helpful treatment for veterans suffering from PTSD, then I believe wholeheartedly that CBD should be affordable for those veterans because we need to get this revolutionary product in the hands of the people who need it most. The 60-percent July 4 discount at BioMDPlus.com is my gift to America’s veterans and to anyone else who wants to save money on CBD.”
A new study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine suggests that CBD could hold great potential as an additional treatment option for patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. In the study, the mental health clinic Wholeness Center administered CBD to 11 PTSD patients over an eight-week trial period. The patients received open doses of CBD while maintaining their existing psychiatric treatments. Using the PCL-5 scale for measuring anxiety levels, the clinic concluded that CBD appeared to reduce anxiety in 10 out of 11 patients.
As exciting as the loud explosions of July 4th fireworks displays are for many, they can also symbolize the firefights and explosions of the past for many veterans suffering from PTSD. Some of the very people whose sacrifices the fireworks celebrate can derive little enjoyment from those celebrations because the loud explosions trigger extreme anxiety.
About bioMDplus, Ltd: bioMD+ is the manufacturer of the world’s top CBD oil tinctures. Supervising the production process from seed to bottle, bioMD+ believes that the world’s best CBD oil can only come from the world’s best hemp. The company’s seed stock produces a plant that’s exceptionally rich in phytocannabinoids and terpenes. The company further enhances its products with proprietary terpene blends designed to support specific health needs and goals.
SOURCE: Popular CBD Brands
View source version on accesswire.com:


text: La Sportiva has announced the appointment of a new general manager, Marcello Favagrossa. Working alongside Lorenzo Delladio, CEO and president of the Italian family-owned mountain sports company, he will be taking the place of Lanfranco Brugnoli, who is retiring after more than 19 years in the position. Favagrossa, most recently served as GM of Eataly in Milan, a globally operating food and beverage chain, and prior to that spent 11 years with Luxottica in the U.S. and Italy, including nearly four years as GM of Sunglass Hut. After graduating from university, he started his corporate career at Barilla and the Bolton Group before joining Parmalat as marketing director. In the recent past, La Sportiva has reorganized its business processes. In particular, marketing has taken on a central role with the appointment of Giulia Delladio as corporate marketing director. She is the fourth generation of the family and will most likely take over the reins of the company should her father, Lorenzo, retire one day. More in The Outdoor Industry Compass.


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Big Tech Is Just the Beginning: House Dems Seek Major Changes to Antitrust Law
Last week, Democrats on the House Subcommittee on Antitrust released their much-ballyhooed report on competition in tech to great fanfare. It’s a beast of a crie de couer, clocking in at 449 meandering pages of disputations on the power (but not so much the efficacy) of big tech companies. To absolutely no one’s surprise, antitrust hawks love it while antitrust doves (and the targeted companies) are picking it apart.
There was a minor subplot involving Republican subcommittee members splitting into two slightly differing dissenting reports, with ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan focusing on censorship against the outer party and Rep. Ken Buck offering a “third way” of marginal reforms (data portability, more merger scrutiny, more funding for regulators) that fall far short of the Democrats’ proposed radical antitrust overhaul. But for the most part, the reports didn’t break new ground (or really, much new news) beyond underscoring battle lines with a thick permanent marker.
Here’s what the Democrats want: to remove “the narrow construction of ‘consumer welfare’ [e.g. effects on prices and quality] as the sole goal of antitrust laws” with legislation that would be designed to protect “workers, entrepreneurs, independent businesses, open markets, a fair economy, and democratic ideals” through a grab bag of new prohibitions on specific practices like mergers.
That might sound nice to many. The problem is that protecting workers can mean not protecting entrepreneurs (or vice versa) depending on the case and the judge. And what is a “fair economy”? What are “our democratic ideals”? “Open markets”—a term favored by both George Soros and Charles Koch (do they agree)? Would any two Supreme Court justices—let alone our army of lower court judges—come up with the same definitions?
A great strength of the consumer welfare standard is that it’s, well, a standard. Some of us are workers, some of us are entrepreneurs, some of us own businesses, but we are all consumers. Setting the most inclusive group as the focus of attention removes the potential for inconsistently biasing exclusive groups.
You can measure economic changes. How do you measure democratic ideals? This is why critics say the Democrat plan would “politicize antitrust”—the proposed system introduces judicial subjectivity that could empower enforcers to effectuate social agendas through antitrust. Indeed, some antitrust hawks proudly admit this is the point.
Where the Democrats have been in lockstep, the Republicans have been a bit schizophrenic. It’s easy to see why. On the one hand, Silicon Valley has no love for the GOP. Executives from the firms now under antitrust scrutiny had a bit of an open-door policy with the Obama administration (and vice versa). Needless to say, those chummy visits have stopped under the Trump administration.
On the other hand, the consumer welfare standard that is in the Democrats’ crosshairs is arguably the greatest legal victory of mov
Article from Latest – Reason.com


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Last Updated on March 20, 2023 by Larious
Today, OpenAI’s ChatGPT might be facing an outage as a huge number of users from different places around the world are reporting about it on certain websites.
This downtime came to notice this morning, and many users are facing still facing it. Let’s discuss all details regarding this outage and what are the possible reasons for it below.
ChatGPT Down: All Details
An outage shows that the company that is running the platform may be facing some issues with its server, or they might be doing some changes to it, and it doesn’t matter if these changes are for upgrades or downgrades.
And in the ChatGPT scenario, it seems that the company’s website might be facing these down issues because today, they are getting higher requests than their daily requests.
Besides, numerous ChatGPT Plus users also revealed that even they are facing the same outage issue as every other user, even after paying. For further details, you can see their screenshot above.
Also, the well-known website Downdetector got a down report from around 1000 users around the globe in just an hour. Even the company officials identified it and stated that “they are currently investigating this issue”.
As we all know, an outage is not a common issue for such a huge platform that is being used by millions of people, and many users whose work now relies on this AI chatbot are stressing about it on various Reddit forums.
But the good news is that now after one hour of the announcement, the company has finally resolved this outage on chat.openai.com, but some users are still getting the same issue.
Separately, Microsoft-backed OpenAI has recently also launched the next version of its trained data language model called GPT-4, and you can check out all detail about it in this article.


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GM Appoints Pamela Fletcher Vice President – Global Electric Vehicle Programs
DETROIT, October 16, 2017 /3BL Media/ - General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) is appointing Pamela Fletcher, who led the team that successfully launched the Chevrolet Bolt EV and created the plan to accelerate us along the pathway to our vision of a zero emissions world, to the newly created position of vice president, Global Electric Vehicle Programs.
In this new role, Fletcher will lead the vehicle program execution for GM’s entire global electric vehicle portfolio, including the commitment to launch more than 20 all-electric vehicles globally by 2023. She will report to Doug Parks, vice president, Autonomous and Electric Vehicle Programs.
“Nobody is more prepared to help us lead the way to a zero emissions future than Pam Fletcher,” Parks said. “Under Pam’s leadership, GM will continue to deliver electric vehicles that delight our customers and exceed their expectations.”
For more than a decade, Fletcher has been in leadership roles supporting the engineering of GM’s electric vehicle and self-driving technologies, most recently as executive chief engineer for Electrified Vehicles and New Technologies. She has led the teams responsible for development of several of GM’s most awarded vehicles, including the second-generation Chevrolet Volt, Chevrolet Spark EV, Cadillac ELR and the Chevrolet Bolt EV, the industry’s first mass-market, long-range affordable electric vehicle. Her team also led development of Super Cruise, the industry’s first hands-free highway driver assist system.
General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM, TSX: GMM), its subsidiaries and joint venture entities produce and sell vehicles under the Chevrolet, Cadillac, Baojun, Buick, GMC, Holden, Jiefang and Wuling brands. GM has leadership positions in several of the world's most significant automotive markets and is committed to lead the future of personal mobility. More information on the company and its subsidiaries, including OnStar, a global leader in vehicle safety, security and information services, can be found at http://www.gm.com.
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NEWBURGH, Ind. (WEHT) – Thursday is Miracle Treat Day at Dairy Queen, a day each year where the restaurant chain donates $1 to the Children’s Miracle Network for every Blizzard sold.
All the money raised stays within local hospitals.
Last year, Dairy Queen raised $5.5 million.
Employees said they love the event.
Even some former workers came back to help just for the one big day.
The Newburgh location is making a special Eyewitness News Blizzard made of chocolate chunks, chocolate chip cookie dough bites, and peanut butter.
This story was originally published on July 25, 2019


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We wrapped up 2018 with the news that we acquired revenue recognition software ProRata. We’re happy to announce that their team and technology has been seamlessly integrated into Chargify.
Our new reports automate revenue recognition (goodbye spreadsheets!) and simplify ASC 606/IFRS 15 compliance that all subscription businesses must adhere to in 2019.
We’re happy to announce that we have partnered with GoCardless to offer Direct Debit payments, which in turn, helps subscription businesses expand globally and quickly adapt to customers’ changing payment preferences.
This release adds support for the following countries and currencies: SEPA (Eurozone/EUR), BACS (UK/GPD), BECS ( Australia/AUD), and PAD (Canada/CAD).
You can now sync Chargify customers and transactions to NetSuite. Mapping your product catalog from Chargify to NetSuite item types ensures that revenue, and even inventory, is reported based on your NetSuite configuration—which can vary from business to business.


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Tech, ecomm, digital, fintech, consumer, IT and manufacturing are among the sectors leading the charge, offering enticing hikes of 30-40% for in-demand talent.
The move is in line with Infibeam's continued focus to divest its non-core businesses including consumer marketplace (B2C) and broadband satellite communications services
Anil Kumar joins the company after a 12 and half year stint at Oracle. He's also worked at companies like i2 Technologies and Grasim Industries.
The central bank had last week announced it will release a white paper for discussion and consult companies before introducing regulations.
Open helps SMEs automate business payments combined with an automated bookkeeping tool.
Anil Ambani’s Reliance Realty has received the Maharashtra government’s final clearance to develop a 30-million-sqft smart fintech hub at Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City
In order to compete with cash transactions which can be done without Pan details upto Rs 50,000, the payment industry wants to replicate in the digital payments space as well.
The lending programme is running only for existing Axis Bank customers but Freecharge has plans to extend the product to non-Axis Bank customers of Freecharge as well.
With improvements in natural language processing and advancements in artificial intelligence, bankers say they are on the cusp of an automated future.
Deloitte has estimated that digitally invested assets under management (AUM) are likely to grow by nearly 80% from Rs 250 billion in 2018 to Rs 450 billion in 2019.
Streamsource allows lenders to buy and sell consumer leads in a secure and private way. It is currently working with a few mid-size lenders in the United States
MoneyOnClick provides a lending platform to consumers who fall outside the margins of the formal banking system due to their lack of credit history or low credit ratings
Varsity gets around 45,000 footfalls every day and has already collected more than 40,000 comments on the articles it has put out.
This is the third appointment for Paisadukan on its board of advisors which includes Uttam Prakash Agrawal, independent director at Yes Bank and V Balakrishnan a former CFO at Infosys.
Fintechs have emerged globally across all sectors of finance, including lending, banking and wealth management.
Details sought on borrowers, lenders, their financial profiles, participants’ total exposure, health of platforms
Editor's Picks ›
- Twitter to enforce stricter policies for political advertisers
- Genpact’s PE investors to sell 10 million shares, cutting stake to about 20%
- Social media loyalty app Brandie taps brands to reach out to local users
- Government announces new electronic policy to promote domestic manufacturing
- Govt’s angel tax fix gives VCs, angel groups edge over HNIs
- PayU names Reliance Payments senior executive as new India CEO
- XpressBees raises Rs 35 crore in venture debt financing from InnoVen Capital
- Ola confirms Sachin Bansal's Rs 650 cr investment
- Infosys settles Bansal case with SEBI; pays Rs 34 lakh as consent fees
- L&T says it has no evidence of paying bribe for Cognizant building permit


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But that wasn’t the case, at least until recently, for a Muskegon firm.
Engineering Dimensions Inc. (EDI) had always used the word-of-mouth technique until it recently added Director of Business Development Al McAvoy to the staff to take the company to a different level.
“We would always make contacts through past customers or do a number of jobs for the same company and we didn’t see a need to advertise. Now, in order to stay with and ahead of the competition, we need to get our name and services out there,” said Mark DeVries, president.
As a “one source” engineering company, EDI provides “one-stop engineering” for its customers. With staff in varied backgrounds from automation, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical and controls, industrial, and environmental quality, EDI can virtually build a company from the ground up.
“With all that this company had to offer they thought it was important the customers knew how it stood out from the competition and what it was capable of. That is one reason I was brought on,” said McAvoy.
EDI split from SPX in 1988 and has been growing rapidly since then. As part of a large corporation, DeVries and Vice President Mike Lemkuil saw the importance of putting integrity and value into everything they did.
“For us it is important to operate under professionalism and integrity,” said Lemkuil. “We have our name on the things we do and we want to be proud of each and every thing we put our name on. It is not about how big the project is, it is about helping the customer and doing a quality job.”
Since adding a sales and marketing department, the company has changed the look of it promotional materials. “Al has designed brochures, media guides, and even a presentation we give to potential customers,” said DeVries.
EDI also is accessible on the World Wide Web at www.engineeringdimensions.com.
In the past the engineers would establish word-of-mouth contacts in the area. They were responsible for being out in the community, in companies’ plants and staying in constant contact with customers to maintain good relationships.
Now, although the engineers still maintain relationships with their clients and are involved in what is happening with companies in the area, some of the marketing pressure has been removed and placed specifically in McAvoy’s area.
“Instead of being reactive to what came our way, we now have the ability to be proactive and choose what comes our way. And that will, in turn, cause us to be more successful in the long run,” noted McAvoy.
Another goal for the sales and marketing force is to bring the company into new markets and new places.
“In the past we have been associated with only working with metals, foundries and hard goods, but we are capable of doing so much more. Now, with the marketing capabilities Al has brought to us, we are able to demonstrate all of our abilities and therefore reach into new marketplaces,” said DeVries.
With a goal of doubling in size in the next five years, EDI has some work on its hands, but DeVries said McAvoy’s help will be invaluable. “It may be a little pressure but we are looking to him to bring us over the top and we think with all of our employees working toward this common goal we can make it happen.”


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October isn’t the only month when breast cancer awareness is at the forefront. On Feb. 3, the San Antonio Rampage will trade their typical black and gray jerseys for pink when they face off against the Texas Stars on rose-colored ice—all for breast health awareness and fundraising efforts. After the game, bid on one of the specialty jerseys to support area breast cancer charities. sarampage.com
Behind the Ice
8-10 hours are needed to turn the ice pink
To start, ½ inch of ice is shaved off from the rink.
2 layers of light pink dye are then handsprayed onto the ice by technicians.
1 inch of ice is needed before the game can begin so a thin layer of water is added over the pink ice and a Zamboni smooths out the rink.


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DENVER — A 25-year-old is shot dead trying to sell marijuana the old-fashioned, illegal way. Two men from Texas set up a warehouse to grow more than they would ever need. And three people buying pot in a grocery store parking lot are robbed at gunpoint.
While no one expected the state's first-in-the-nation recreational sales would eliminate the need for dangerous underground sales overnight, the violence has raised concerns among police, prosecutors and pot advocates that a black market for marijuana is alive and well in Colorado.
“It has done nothing more than enhance the opportunity for the black market,” said Lt. Mark Comte of the Colorado Springs police vice and narcotics unit. “If you can get it tax-free on the corner, you're going to get it on the corner.”
It's difficult to measure whether there has been an increase in pot-related crimes beyond anecdotal reports because no one at either the federal or state levels is keeping track of the numbers of killings, robberies and other crimes linked directly to marijuana.
Pot advocates say the state is in a transition period, and while pot-related crimes will continue, they will begin to decline as more stores open and prices of legal marijuana decline.
“It's just a transition period,” activist Brian Vicente said. “Marijuana was illegal for the last 80 years in our state, and there are some remnants of that still around. Certainly, much like alcohol, over time these underground dealers will fade away.”
Sales are to begin in June in Washington, where authorities will watch for similar cases.
“There's going to be a black market here,” said Cmdr. Pat Slack of the Snohomish Regional Drug/Gang Task Force, which covers an area outside Seattle. “There will be drug rip-offs and drug debts that haven't been paid. All of that is going to stay.”
Under Colorado's voter-approved law, it is legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana. Authorities are concerned that means illegal dealers and buyers believe they can avoid prosecution. These dealers and their customers also tend to be targets, if robbers know they are flush with cash.
Arapahoe County, outside Denver, has seen “a growing number of drug rips and outright burglaries and robberies of people who have large amounts of marijuana or cash on them,” said District Attorney George Brauchler.
His district has seen at least three homicides linked to pot in recent months and a rising number of robberies and home invasions.
Among them was a February case in which a 17-year-old boy said he accidentally shot and killed his girlfriend while robbing a man who had come to purchase weed.
Elsewhere, prosecutors say, Nathaniel Tallman, 25, was killed during a January drug deal when he was robbed and shot, and his body dumped in Wyoming.
The next month, a dealer mugged three people who were trying to buy marijuana from him in a Denver grocery store parking lot.
Such deals are the exception, said Vicente. The “average customer” prefers to buy in a well-lit, regulated store, he said, citing the roughly $2 million Colorado made in marijuana taxes in January alone.
Whether dangerous or not, it can still be cheaper to buy pot from a drug dealer.
Voters who approved recreational sales in Colorado also agreed to a 12.9 percent state sales tax and a 15 percent excise tax on it. Local jurisdictions can also add their own taxes. Medical marijuana is taxed, too, but at a much lower rate — a 2.9 percent sales tax.
Those taxes mean an ounce of pot can go for $400 or more at a state-sanctioned store, depending on quality and potency. An ounce on the street can run between $200 and $280, depending on how much a dealer wants to profit, Comte said.


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Apollo Global to buy US specialty grocery retailer Fresh Market for $1.36 bn
15 March 2016
Private equity firm Apollo Global Management yesterday struck a deal to buy US specialty grocery retailer The Fresh Market Inc for about $1.36 billion in cash.
Greensboro, North Carolina-based The Fresh Market had in October hired investment bank JP Morgan Chase to assist in a review of strategic options, including a sale of the company.
Apollo emerged highest bidder in auction for The Fresh Market with a cash offer of $28.50 per share, a premium of around 24 per cent to The Fresh Market's closing share price on 11March.
Under the deal, Fresh Market said it has a 21-day period to solicit superior offers.
The transaction was unanimously approved by the board of The Fresh Market, excepting Ray Berry, chairman and founder of The Fresh Market, who rescued himself from all Board discussions related to the review and from the board vote approving the transaction.
Ray Berry and his son Brett Berry, who collectively own around 9.8 per cent of The Fresh Market's stock, have agreed not to tender their shares to the offer and will rollover the vast majority of their holdings in the transaction with Apollo.
''We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Apollo, which follows a comprehensive review of strategic and financial alternatives that generated interest from numerous parties. After an open and thorough process, our Board concluded that this offer maximizes value for our
Rick Anicetti, The Fresh Market's president and CEO, said, ''Apollo is a highly-regarded investor, bringing deep industry expertise and financial resources, and we look forward to working with them to build on our progress in achieving our strategic plan to deliver long-term profitable growth.''
Founded in 1982 by Ray and Beverly Berry, The Fresh Market is a chain of gourmet supermarkets.
It operates 186 stores in 27 states, located in the Southeast, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, and has plans to expand throughout the country.
The North Carolina-based company posted net income of $63 million last year on revenue of $1.75 billion.


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The development firm VanTrust Real Estate plans to start work this year on a 500-acre business park in New Albany to cater in part to suppliers of the two new Intel factories being built next door.
VanTrust, which has developed several other New Albany buildings, is buying the land, located on the north side of Jug Street immediately south of the Intel site, for what will be called the VanTrust New Albany Tech Park.
“The plan is to start earthwork this year. We will have buildings under construction soon after and expect to complete the first by the end of 2023,” said Andy Weeks, executive vice president of VanTrust, which is based in Kansas City, Missouri.
More on Intel:Intel spends $111 million on 750 acres of land for its New Albany factories
Weeks said he didn’t yet know yet who — or how many buildings — would occupy the park. He expects the park to be developed over the next few years with a mix of “spec” buildings — those without tenants — and buildings designed for specific tenants. In total, the buildings could reach 5 million square feet.
“We would expect a mix of uses consistent with the type of companies currently located in New Albany International Business Park, but we do expect, obviously, a much higher percentage of companies that focus on supplying the semiconductor industry,” Weeks said.
Weeks said preliminary conversations with prospective tenants have been encouraging.
“We’ve been excited with the amount of interest we’ve received so far,” he said.
More Intel news:Intel construction starts in New Albany with excavation work
Intel begins construction in New Albany
Intel started work last week on its $20 billion development of two semiconductor factories. The company has said it expects multiple suppliers to set up shop near Intel, including four companies it identified in January: Air Products of Allentown, Pa., and Applied Materials, LAM Research and Ultra Clean Technology, all based in California.
While the new business park development will be called the VanTrust New Albany Tech Park, it will be part of the New Albany International Business Park, where VanTrust has developed eight buildings since 2019 ranging from 250,000 square feet to 768,000 square feet.
“VanTrust has been a dependable partner in the New Albany International Business Park, delivering high-quality development that has attracted businesses that are new to the market, as well as expansions of existing businesses,” said Bill Ebbing, president and CEO of The New Albany Company, developer of the New Albany International Business Park.
“In most instances, VanTrust has leased the spaces before the buildings have been completed,” Ebbing said.


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Trucking news and briefs for Friday, Oct. 15, 2021:
Wreaths Across America's new partnership ahead of big December campaign
Nonprofit Wreaths Across America (WAA) has inked an agreement with the International Association of Movers (IAM), whose members have long supported Wreaths' mission by hauling of veterans’ wreaths across the country. The new agreement between the two groups outlines five key elements. These include setting a cadence of regular meetings to share opportunities and develop tools to support each other’s initiatives, encouraging IAM member involvement in helping to move the mission, and sharing the stories of members giving back in their communities.
“The partnership with International Association of Movers aligns perfectly with our mission to Remember, Honor, Teach,” said Don Queeney, WAA's director of transportation.
“This partnership is a perfect fit for IAM members, our domestic asset-based movers, as well as our international partners can offer an awful lot to help move the mission of Wreaths Across America,” said Charles “Chuck” White, president of the International Association of Movers. “My father is buried at Quantico National Cemetery, where I have participated in the Wreaths Across America program for many years. The impact and the importance of this mission resonates with so many, and it's something I am proud to support.”
This year National Wreaths Across America Day will take place on Saturday, December 18, 2021, at more than 2,700 participating locations nationwide.
New procurement options from Fullbay
Fullbay customers among trucking fleet shops, as well as outside repair shops, stand to get a new parts-search-and-order experience via the new Fullbay Marketplace.
The new tool streamlines the part-purchasing process for independent and fleet shops, the company said, eliminating multiple steps related to ordering parts. The integrated parts-purchasing tool will allows shops to view part cost, availability, and shipping times across vendors and then perform a single-click order.
Additionally, the system enables users to drill down on landed costs for each part, something shops struggle to do without an automated system, Fullbay said.
The Fullbay Marketplace module, free to all Fullbay customers, is being launched with FinditParts as its first integrated parts vendor. On October 26, Fullbay and FinditParts will conduct a webinar to provide background and best practices on overcoming the current parts shortage, including how Fullbay Marketplace can help.
New Love’s opens in Illinois
Love’s Travel Stops this week opened a new location in Grant Park, Illinois, located at 8316 N. Route 1.
The new location offers 33 truck parking spaces, Chester’s Chicken and Godfather’s Pizza restaurants, five diesel bays, four showers and more.
The store is the company’s 30th in the state.


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Qualcomm’s mid-cycle “plus” chip refresh—the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1—has been announced. As usual, Qualcomm is promising some modest improvements over the existing 8 Gen 1 chip. The company said the chip will provide “10 percent faster CPU performance,” thanks to a 200 MHz peak CPU boost (up to 3.2 GHz now) and a 10 percent faster GPU. The real shocker is a “30 percent improved power efficiency” claim for the CPU and GPU.
For the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus, Qualcomm is moving the chip from Samsung Foundry to TSMC, which is apparently where the power improvements are coming from. That’s a serious slam against Samsung’s 4 nm process versus TSMC’s 4 nm process, but it lines up with earlier reports of troubles at Samsung Foundry.
Swapping foundries as part of a mid-cycle upgrade is not normal, and it seems that Qualcomm has a bit of a salvage operation on its hands with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The chip has not fared very well in the real world, with the CPU regularly turning in lower benchmark scores than 2021’s flagship Snapdragon 888.
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Microsoft appears to be in the process of renaming at least one of its MSN-branded applications, MSN News, with its own Microsoft brand in what may only be the first of several steps back from the branding. The change was spotted in an update to the app’s beta channel, which Android users can sign up for in the Google Play Store by scrolling to the bottom of the app’s page – if beta slots are available. Interestingly enough, although a few small user interface tweaks have been made with the update and a new red Microsoft icon, the most easily noticed difference is in the app’s initial splash screen. That shows up when it’s first launched. That now announces the name change and reads, “Trusted news from the world’s best journalists.”
The current speculation about the change is that Microsoft is taking a step back from the MSN name, which is often viewed as a left-biased branding. In addition to presenting itself in a more favorable light to more potential subscribers and users, it’s also not unlikely that the company just wants to bring all of its services back under its original moniker. The latter move and the adjustments to the app’s U.I. do seem to bring quite a bit more consistency between the mobile app and the Windows 10 operating system the company is most well known for. However, as noted by the source, there have been fewer new applications and a reduction in the overall number of apps bearing the MSN name. Meanwhile, there are no other changes or new features added in the beta for the app. So, in any case, the change appears to be primarily centered around the branding itself.
It isn’t immediately clear whether or not the rebranding will extend to other Microsoft services and applications which currently bear the brand. Those are apps such as MSN Weather, MSN Sports, and MSN Money. If Microsoft is simply trying to distance itself or tone back the use of “MSN” then changes similar to these will almost certainly arrive in those in the near future. As with News, the change will also probably hit beta channels for those apps as well. No timeframe has been revealed with regard to when this app will roll out to the wider, general userbase.


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After 1:00 p.m. local time, a gradual blockade of cargo transport commenced in the direction of the border checkpoints at Yahodyn-Dorohusk, Krakovets-Korchova, and Rava-Ruska-Hrebenne. Border guards report disruptions in cargo vehicle traffic at these three major border crossing points, both for entry into Poland and exit.
The protest’s organizers intend to permit the passage of one cargo vehicle per hour, with exceptions for cargo vehicles carrying goods of a security or humanitarian nature, those transporting animals, perishable products, and the like.
Previously, it was reported that Polish transporters planned to initiate a strike at the Ukrainian border, but later, the start of the blockade was postponed for several days.
Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine


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Facebook's 2FA accused of violating user privacy
Facebook's enhanced security feature has received public outcry and not for the first time
A viral tweet has sparked further condemnation of Facebook after one user reported an inability to publicly unlist his phone number that the social network indexed following two-factor authentication (2FA) security implementation.
The website encourages its users to set up 2FA account protection which requires a phone number. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, many sites that hold sensitive account information prompt users to adopt 2FA.
The real kicker here is that Facebook takes the phone number you use to activate 2FA protection, ties it to your account and then the number can be used to find your profile in the 'Look Up' feature of the site.
People are speaking out against the company because users cannot opt-out of having the number used to index the profile. The only workaround to the issue is to change the account privacy settings to ones that only permit friends to find you through the site's search function.
Jeremy Burge, the Twitter user that exposed the issue, took to the site to express his disdain for the practice saying that "using a phone number to sign up for services has been the single greatest coup for the social media and advertising industries".
It's "one unique ID that is used to link your identity across every platform on the internet", he added.
Users can hide their phone number if it's linked to their account so other users and friends cannot see it. But it's still possible to discover user profiles in other ways, such as "when someone uploads your contact info to Facebook from their mobile phone," according to a Facebook help article.
The report comes amid more serious privacy concerns for Facebook, but this won't be overlooked, considering that something very similar was reported last year by Gizmodo.
Numbers associated with a Facebook account were used for targeted ads within weeks of adding them to the site, the investigation showed.
"In April 2018, we removed the ability to enter another person's phone number or email address into the Facebook search bar to help find someone's profile," said a Facebook spokesperson. "Today, the 'Who can look me up?' settings control how your phone number or email address can be used to look you up in other ways, such as when someone uploads your contact info to Facebook from their mobile phone. We appreciate the feedback we've received about these settings and will take it into account."
Amid the outcry from industry leaders, people are now urging others to pursue different methods of account security.
Google's Authenticator App is one third-party offering that could be used to mitigate such issues. Facebook doesn't require a phone number to enable 2FA, although it's common practice for phone numbers to be used.
It's an attractive concept: account security traded for a phone number - there's no need to sign up for an outside service and it's something that you likely have memorised so you don't even have to get up from your chair.
But, the thing is: 2FA and enhanced account security are taken seriously, even by those who can't be bothered to sign up for an outside 2FA service. Some think that using a trusted security measure to violate the privacy expectations of users is a step too far.
Zeynep Tufecki, security expert and academic likened the findings to the controversial anti-vaccination movement.
Facebook is now facing as many as 10 GDPR probes, according to reports last week. A leaked internal memo has also surfaced recently which showed that the company lobbied against a proposed data directive in 2012 and 2013 which later became the GDPR.
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Accusonus has launched the first five episodes of the Audio Tech News Flash series, a weekly podcast designed to cover the most important audio industry news in less than 3 minutes.
Audio Tech News Flash presents newsworthy software and hardware product announcements and mainly discusses the latest electronic music production trends. The Audio Tech News Flash will be soon available as an Amazon Alexa skill.
“As podcast fans ourselves, we think that our users will appreciate being kept up to date on the most important news of the audio industry. We hope that making this podcast available as an Alexa skill, will make it a perfect addition to our users’ weekly routine”, says Alex Tsilfidis, CEO, and co-founder of Accusonus.
The first five episodes are available immediately and cover highlights starting from the 2018 NAMM show until today. These episodes include headlines from Ableton, Avid, LANDR, Output, Splice, Teenage engineering and more.
Markkus Rovito, a longtime DJ and audio journalist, hosts the News Flash. Markkus has edited and contributed to Mix Magazine, Electronic Musician, DJ Tech Tools, Icon Collective Music Production School, Glow Marketing, Hyperink and others.


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Twenty-four hours after learning about Pokemon Go, Bill Wyatt is calculating how much real money he should spend on in-game currency to buy “lures,” a digital item that attracts digital animals to a real-world location.
It’s a business expense.
“I need to figure out if there’s a way to make it cost-effective,” he explained, consulting the piece of scratch paper he’d been scribbling on behind the counter at his store, Y-Que Trading Post, a T-shirt and gift shop in the walkable Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. “If I sell a T-shirt every four hours, I think it’d be worth it. But just because I can get a lot of people to come over here doesn’t mean I can get a lot of sales.”
In case you’re just coming out of a week-long coma, Pokemon Go is the extremely popular, newly released smartphone game that sends its players out into the physical world, wandering around the real geography that surrounds them. The game has gone from being successful to being a massive phenomenon. On Monday, just days after the game was released, Nintendo’s stock jumped 36 percent to the tune of $7.5 billion. It’s been downloaded over 15 million times in less than a week, and is already more popular in the U.S. than Twitter. And as with any phenomena, there are offshoot opportunities surrounding the game—a fact compounded by how Pokemon Go forces you out into the real world, into stores and restaurants. We may never be able to actually make America great again, but at least the economy will get a boost.
The goal of the game is to find and capture Pokémon, the little creatures from Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s popular video games, cartoon series, movies and card game. The game’s developer, Niantic Laboratories, has also dotted the maps with other virtual features: There are “PokéStops,” which are usually landmarks like murals, churches, restaurants and other places people might gather and where players can pick up useful in-game items, and “Gyms,” where players can battle each other for the good of one of three teams. Beat the Pokémon in a gym and you can take it over for your side, earning bonuses to buy more virtual stuff that’ll help you get more Pokémon.
It’s the PokéStops that concern Wyatt—more specifically, the one located two doors down from Y-Que, in front of The Dresden Restaurant, a well-known neighborhood bar and eatery. (Its claim to fame, besides being a fixture of the East Hollywood area for half a century, is featuring heavily in the 1996 cult comedy Swingers). PokéStops let you attach “Lure Modules” to them, or in-game items that make Pokémon appear at that spot for 30 minutes.
Only one person needs to place a lure for it to appear in Pokemon Go for everyone in the area. So players naturally congregate to lures. Wyatt hopes that when they do, they’ll head into his store.
Trouble is, there’s no way to be sure they will. Pokemon Go encourages players to move around, but it’s lax with distances. A lure has an effective radius of about 50 feet. So anybody who wants to catch Pokémon can just hang out across the street, or a few doors down, and never make it to Y-Que.
And there are plenty of options on the often-bustling block of Vermont Avenue where Y-Que and The Dresden are located. The stretch is filled with restaurants, boutique shops, and wall murals. It sports a post office and a movie theater, as well as two coffee shops. It's littered with PokéStops—eight in total on just this stretch, including one near a parking lot behind the businesses. Every night since Pokemon Go launched, Vermont Ave. has been littered with players and their own lures.
Wyatt said he sees potential in utilizing Pokemon Go, despite it being only a few days old at this point. Customers have wandered into his store more or less for no reason, he said, as they pursue the local desert Pokémon wildlife of Geodudes, Sandshrews and Ekanses. It hasn’t greatly impacted his business yet, but he’s been experimenting with lures since Sunday when he first learned about the game, seeing when they’re effective, how effective they are, and how much they’ll cost him. The more in-game currency you buy at once, the more value you get out of it, and Wyatt said he’d talked to the owners of The Dresden about possibly pooling lure resources—and in so doing, he said, clued them into Pokemon Go’s existence.
Wyatt, like other savvy business owners across the country, is trying to take advantage of the huge Pokemon Go trend. Images are cropping up on Internet forums and websites like Reddit and the gaming-centric NeoGAF, showing places where business owners have offered discounts to Pokemon Go players, hoping to turn all that extra walking players are doing into extra sales.
“I’ve been looking for a new way to market the store, like going down to Hollywood Boulevard in a fuzzy costume,” Wyatt said. “Maybe Pokemon Go will burn out as fast as it started, but I think it could get bigger.”
Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom, a Pennsylvania amusement park and waterpark, is embracing the sudden additional interest on social media as Pokemon Go players discover the various virtual creatures that can be captured in its parks. On social media, the company has noticed players excited about the prospect of hunting Pokémon in the park, and is encouraging them to share photos of what they’ve found under the hashtag #DorneyPokemon.
“We just started posting about it yesterday afternoon,” said Caitlin Stibitz, Dorney Park's manager of public relations and communications. “We’ve seen an increase in people tagging us on social media. We’re embracing it as a park.”
Dorney Park is definitely looking for ways to further encourage people to head out to the park and go Pokémon hunting, Stibitz said. It posted a series of tips on its blog on Monday to help players find Pokémon in the park in locations they might not expect, while gently reminding Pokemon Go players about “Pokémon etiquette,” Stibitz said—like avoiding accidentally bumping into other guests while playing, and staying out of the park’s restricted areas.
Stibitz said the two parks together sport 36 PokéStops and three gyms, all created by players of Niantic’s previous game, Ingress, and none of which were the result of the company asking for locations to be placed on its properties.
Nothing’s conclusive, Stibitz said, but Dorney Park staff are considering promotions that play off the popularity of the game. “We have a season pass that includes ride nights and movie nights after park hours,” she explained. “We are looking at options for Pokémon meetups—we’re always looking at ways to add value to the season pass.”
However, though Los Feliz and Dorney Park is bustling with Pokémon activity, other businesses have yet to really notice whether the game is affecting them. At the corner of Vermont and Franklin Avenue in Los Angeles, at the far end of the block from Y-Que, sits the original House of Pies, a diner-esque restaurant that opened in 1969. It sports many of its titular desserts, but aside from that, it’s a restaurant open until 2 a.m.—and it sits on top of a PokéStop. Most nights since Pokemon Go launched last Thursday, House of Pies gleams with lures well into the evening, when it seems most players in the area are out, about, and catching ’em all.
But while people who eat at House of Pies might be playing Pokemon Go, manager Noi Paija said she hasn’t noticed more people eating at House of Pies because of Pokemon Go.
“I know about it because of my servers,” Paija said. “All my servers have been talking about it. I’ve seen people playing here at night, but I haven’t noticed a change in business.”
Down the street is Fred 62, which sits across the street from two PokéStops, and well within the lure radius for both. Management there said the same as Paija: they were aware of the game, but it wasn’t necessarily driving people in, as far as they could tell.
But at the very least, Pokemon Go is forcing people to explore places they’ve never been. Businesses owners who have noticed increased interest and traffic aren’t imagining it, although actually predicting or capturing that traffic might be difficult to do. Carlos Guillen, 24, and Bianca Fonseca, 21, were sitting near a lure on street over from Vermont, on New Hampshire Avenue, on Monday night in front of an apartment building. The pair said Pokemon Go hadn’t led them into a new business—instead, they’d made plans on where they wanted to go to hunting, and the businesses in that area profited.
“We went to The Morrison (a Los Feliz-area pub) because we wanted to go to the LA river,” Guillen said. The mission: catch the local Pokémon, which change based on the area in which they’re found. Much of LA is littered with Pokémon suited to desert conditions, but nearer to bodies of water, players can discover Pokémon like Squirtle, Magikarp and Tentacool.
“We took a trip to the beach with intent [to catch Pokémon],” Guillen said, laughing. “I haven’t been to the beach all summer.”


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10 Million Players Strong…& Counting
Hologate Hits Major Milestone & Continues VR Innovation
by Matt Harding
From a startup company in 2017 to one of the world’s biggest names in location-based VR by 2021, Hologate continues exceeding all of its founder’s initial expectations. This year, they’ve hit the major milestone of 10 million players and there are no signs of slowing down.
“It’s fantastic – we never thought that the company and the system would go this big this quickly,” said founder and CEO Leif Petersen. “We brought Hologate Arena to market in 2017 and started pretty slow, then took off with a huge bang. We’re very happy it got to this scale.”
That the 10 million player milestone happened during the Covid-19 pandemic makes it all the more astounding.
“It represents the encouraging bounce back of our company,” said Gregg Katano, Hologate’s senior vice president of U.S. operations. “Through the resilience of our entire team and our ability to continue to innovate, we found ourselves emerging from the storm, and in the summer of 2021, we saw peak numbers at 450,000 players per month.”
That number represented the company’s all-time highest recorded number of player activity across the hundreds of partner venues in 36 countries.
On an industry-wide scale, Katano said it represents the bounce back of the entire LBE sector. “People were more than ready to get out of their homes and back to entertainment venues,” he said. “There was a conscientious effort by the venues to create a safe environment through health and safety protocols as they received guests once again. This instilled confidence in customers and they showed their appreciation by coming back in droves.”
The road to get them here started with the Hologate Arena in 2017, which the company boasts was the first compact, multiplayer VR system to be introduced to the market. “Through a combination of adept German engineering, an unwavering commitment to innovation and experiences that were mind-blowing, addictively fun and appealed to every type of player, it brought amazing ROI to operators around the world,” Katano said.
They followed it with their 2019 creation Hologate Blitz, a single-player VR motion simulator. Katano explained that the “futuristic craft” allows players to “explore fantastical worlds across land, sky, sea, space or other dimensions.”
And as the company continues its role as one of the major players in the out-of-home VR world, it’s possible that neither the Arena nor Blitz…or Hologate for that matter…would exist had Leif Petersen not played VR for the first time back in 1993. It was that experience, he told RePlay, that influenced him to want to work in the field.
He noted, “The technology for VR wasn’t that great until 2016 and we saw this great chance to build something that could be big –– or even bigger –– than virtual reality in the ’90s,” he noted. “We thought the Arena would be a great product a lot of people around the world would like – from a player and operator perspective.”
They were certainly right, and the success of Hologate’s Arena and Blitz has put them in a position for even greater achievement. But also important to that future is how the company reacted to the pandemic.
“Throughout the crisis we didn’t downscale the company,” said Peterson, who added that the company’s 50-person team is invested in and dedicated to delivering exceptional VR experiences. “We believed it would kick back eventually.”
Hitting the 10 million player milestone proves that, they assert, and so do the company’s plans for the future. Earlier this year, RePlay reported that they were starting Hologate World, which they say will be the largest extended reality (XR) entertainment space in Germany.
Located in Fürth, the roughly 13,000-sq.-ft. venue, complete with a bar and lounge with food service as well as indoor and outdoor gathering areas, will feature Hologate’s virtual reality systems, as well as XR escape rooms and a competitive esports arena. Among the VR lineup will be the company’s latest, the brand-new Hologate X and futuristic Hyper Golf experiences.
Hologate X is a next-gen, free-roam VR adventure platform (find full details at www.hologate.com/xpect-xceptional). It features what they call Hologate Xperience Reality (HXR), a proprietary hyper-reality technology that Katano says “integrates a perfect blending of the latest in high-end, next-level virtual reality, full-body tracking and 4D physical effects inside of a high-fidelity immersive and social experience.”
It streams “high-resolution cinematic virtual reality worlds directly into the headsets,” he said, allowing players to freely explore the expansive gameplay space without being weighed down by the traditional, heavy backpack.
“Not only does this reduce the significant overall costs that inherently come with typical free-roam VR systems for the minimum two sets of backpacks for every player,” Katano said, “but by eliminating the need to swap out backpacks when the battery runs low, this also significantly increases the revenue due to the continuous player throughput.”
The company’s other new experience, Hyper Golf, is what they describe as “an exciting and unprecedented fusion of miniature golf and next-level gamified social experience.”
Hyper Golf holes are modular and designed with their own unique theme, which make up a customizable course. Each one of the nine holes has digital scoring and sensors in each ball to track how many times the ball has been played, automatically tallying each player’s score.
The game is played on a unique geometric layout populated with bumpers and challenging obstacles that is further enhanced by activated animations, movement of physical props, sound and lighting effects and music tracks. Each Hyper Golf ball is equipped with LED lights that assign an individual color to each player and emit reactive lighting signals during gameplay.
Both Hyper Golf and Hologate X will debut at Hologate World later this year and will be available to customers worldwide shortly after.
Stay up to date with all of Hologate’s products and happenings by visiting www.hologate.com.


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By Nancy Dahlberg
With more than 50,000 boat listings in 700 markets around the globe, Boatsetter is already a leading marketplace for boat rentals and on-the-water experiences in the sharing economy.
Now with a new funding round, the South Florida startup will expand its boat inventory and boating experience offerings as well as launch new markets.
Boatsetter announced today that it has raised $38 million in Series B funding led by Level Equity, with participation Suntex Marinas, Certares and others. In total, Boatsetter has raised $65 million, according to Crunchbase, including a $10 million Series A in 2019.
“We are so excited about the next chapter for Boatsetter,” said Jaclyn Baumgarten, co-founder and CEO of Boatsetter. “This funding is going to play an important role in allowing us to grow our team and talent, expand our product offering with unique on-water experiences, and continue to invest in new features and capabilities that enable more boat owners and business owners to achieve financial flexibility and freedom, and become entrepreneurs on the water through our vibrant marketplace.”
The capital will also support Boatsetter’s market expansion. In the US, this will include Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa Bay and Fort Myers in Florida as well as lake-centric locations in Georgia and the Carolinas, Baumgarten told Refresh Miami.
On the Boatsetter platform, people can search and book unique experiences on the water that fit a variety of price points and interests. New boaters who are gaining confidence at the helm can rent a boat with a Coast Guard certified captain, and they can benefit from this summer’s launch of Boatsetter Academy, which provides a free introduction course for new boaters.
For boat owners, Boatsetter’s owner-facing mobile application makes it easy for them to earn money by supplying them with qualified renters and managing the logistics – from easy booking flow to secure payment collection, said Baumgarten, and there is more to come. “We are very excited about this new round of funding to further enhance our owner success program, the next evolution of Boatsetter Academy, and the rollout of our loyalty program and VIP club membership.”
During the pandemic, when people were searching for safe and fun outdoor experiences, demand surged – and the growth has continued. “Since the start of 2022, we have both doubled our bookings and seen a 50% increase in the number of boats listed year-over-year — including 140% growth in the number of available fishing boat rentals and fishing charters,” Baumgarten said.
Instant and Multi-Day bookings have contributed to Boatsetter’s growth by reducing lead times to book a boat or experience at the last minute, or for several consecutive days. Boatsetter is the first and only online marketplace to launch and offer these booking options on the app and website, she said. Over the last year, Boatsetter saw a 140 percent increase in Instant Book requests, as well as a 20 percent increase in Multi-Day bookings.
To date, more than one million boaters and boat owners have used the platform, which features more than 20,000 makes and models of boats, kayaks to yachts. “We are committed to making on-water experiences accessible and affordable, and we love to see first-time boaters discovering new boating activities and all that the boating lifestyle has to offer,” Baumgarten said.
Boatsetter, co-founded by Baumgarten and Andrew Sturner nearly a decade ago, is one of South Florida’s most successful homegrown scaleups. Boatsetter’s team totals nearly 100 people, and the majority of them live in Florida. “We’re actively recruiting from local universities and communities to support our growing initiatives — for marketing and product positions to sales associates, UX/UI designers and Software development engineers,” said Baumgarten, who is also an Endeavor Entrepreneur.
Boatsetter launched Boatsetter Lux last year, growing its yachts business in hundreds of locations around the world, including the Bahamas, the Caribbean, Mexico, Greece, Italy, Turkey, France and Southeast Asia. Also last year, Boatsetter acquired Fisher Guiding to expand in the fishing charter market, enabling Boatsetter to to provide fishing experiences at all budgets.
“We were attracted to how Boatsetter has taken the often intimidating arena of boat rental and ownership and made it remarkably intuitive,” said Gautam Gupta, Partner at Level Equity, in a statement. “They’ve put extensive work into building the infrastructure it takes to make a business like this successful in the long term, and they’ve cracked open a market for water experiences that was previously quite narrow – attracting hundreds of thousands of new boaters and boat owners of all ages and backgrounds in the process.”
This story has been updated. Follow Nancy Dahlberg on Twitter @ndahlberg and email her at email@example.com
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SPARTANBURG, S.C. -- Advantica Restaurant Group Inc. announced Thursday it plans to sell its Quincy's Family Steakhouse division for $85.7 million to an Atlanta-based acquisition firm.
Buckley Acquisition Corp. will pay $81.5 million in cash for the 125-store chain and assume $4.2 million in leases and other liabilities. The deal is expected to close in the next few weeks.
"Quincy's is not a real good strategic fit for our company," Advantica spokesman Larry Gosnell said. "We're going to focus on family dining and specialty chicken because that's where most of our restaurants are."
This came as Advantica announced that it lost $43 million, or $1.08 per share, in the first quarter of 1998. This compares with a $51.7 million loss in the same quarter last year by its predecessor, Flagstar Cos. Inc.
Advantica's first-quarter revenue also dropped to $473.8 million from $538.2 million in the year-ago quarter.
Last year's first-quarter per-share amount was not provided because Advantica issued new shares when it emerged from Chapter 11 reorganization, the company said.
Flagstar changed its name to Advantica after emerging from bankruptcy reorganization in January.
Advantica also owns the Denny's, Carrows, Coco's and El Pollo Loco chains. The company also was the largest franchisee of the Hardee's fast-food chain, but sold all of its holdings in April to CKE Restaurants Inc., for $427 million.
Advantica had closed 71 underperforming Quincy's locations since the beginning of last year, including its five Charleston-area restaurants.
Quincy's first-quarter revenue of $49.7 million was down 22 percent from the year-ago quarter's $64.1 million, Advantica said Thursday. Same-store sales also fell 9.5 percent in this year's first quarter from the year-ago period.
As part of the Quincy's deal, Buckley Acquisition will continue to employ all the division's 8,000 workers. Quincy's has stores in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio.
Buckley's chairman, Greg Buckley, would not discuss plans for the Quincy's chain. Buckley was president of Quincy's from 1993-95 and now heads a group of Atlanta restaurants.
"I like the fact that Quincy's is a wholly-owned chain, which makes it very easy to make modifications to the concept across the entire system rapidly," Buckley said. "It's in very good locations with a strong management team that's been there a long time."
Quincy's will operate as a sister company to the Atlanta restaurant portfolio, which includes Mick's, a casual dining chain with 11 locations, and The Peasant, an upscale concept with eight locations.
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Bitcoin (BTC) hit its highest ranges in two weeks on Dec. 15 as contemporary bullish motion took the most important cryptocurrency to close $20,000.
Cryptocurrency market overview from Coin360.
BTC worth highest since Dec. 1
Knowledge from Cointelegraph Markets, TradingView and Coin360 confirmed BTC/USD hitting $19,760 throughout buying and selling on Wednesday.
BTC/USD 3-day chart. Supply: TradingView
The transfer reverses bearish sentiment which characterised the market as lately as Tuesday. After failing to crack resistance between $19,500 and $20,000 all through December, Bitcoin noticed lows of $17,550 earlier than reversing upwards.
This week, the reemergence of purchaser assist intensified, with Bitcoin displaying a transparent want to quash the most important vendor wall at $20,000 as soon as and for all.
As Cointelegraph famous, past $20,000, little is in the way in which for Bitcoin because it hits uncharted territory, with solely minor promoting deliberate at increased ranges, information exhibits.
BTC/USD purchase and promote ranges on Binance as of Dec. 15. Supply: TensorCharts
“#Bitcoin breaking above the resistance zone, which is near a brand new all-time excessive. Bullish!” Cointelegraph Markets analyst Michaël van de Poppe summarized to Twitter followers in regards to the newest actions.
“Nonetheless, you’d need this pink zone at $19,400-19,500 to turn out to be assist. If that occurs, worth can proceed in the direction of $20,500-21,000.”
Quant analyst PlanB in the meantime advised that experiences of america agreeing on a $900 billion coronavirus stimulus bundle was contributing to Bitcoin’s good points.
At press time, Bitcoin circled $19,700 as volatility remained heightened on quick timeframes. Inventory markets had been additionally up on the day.


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eBay’s mission is to be the world’s favourite destination for discovering great value and unique selection
32 countries now served by eBay Global Shipping Programme
eBay has added 12 new countries to the Global Shipping Programme this month. You can find out all about GSP here.
That takes the total to 32. The countries already served are: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden and the USA
The new countries are: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
How does that look on a map?
Here is a global view:
And zooming in closer to home, much of Europe is covered:


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By Laura Hurley, Bleacher Sports|February 25, 2019, 3:24:12In the age of the cheap prescription glasses, the trend is growing even more of a trend.
While we’re all familiar with brands like Bose and Amazon, there’s one more company to get your attention in the ear plugs category.
According to research by brand-name sunglasses brand Casio, there are now more than 200 brands in the market.
The company’s study looked at the popularity of each brand in the United States over the past five years.
They found that over the course of the same period, they saw that brands like Casio jumped from 10 percent to 25 percent in popularity.
This is what you see when you compare the brands in this report:When you look at the full report, there were some surprises.
For example, Casio saw a 50 percent jump in popularity with men, but it saw an 80 percent jump with women.
While it might seem like the majority of the market is female, it’s not.
While men and women tend to shop at different stores, there is a clear gender gap when it comes to purchasing earplugs.
In fact, it looks like there are more brands in that space than there are women.
This was even more true when you look for earplug brands.
As you can see in the chart above, only two brands were actually in the top three: Nike and JVC.
It’s worth noting that while the two brands in front of Nike, JVC, and Casio were all brand names, there was one brand that wasn’t in the report: Dyson.
The study looked specifically at the sales of each company’s earplUGs and sunglasses.
The company also looked at how many brands sold the products and the percentage of the company’s total sales from each brand.
It also looked into the number of sales per brand.
This looked at sales per unit, which is basically the number that is added to the price of a pair of sunglasses.
For each brand, the study looked to see how much each brand sold from a single unit of the product.
The chart below shows the results for the brands with the most units:There are several interesting trends here.
For one, brands like Nike and Dyson are very popular with men.
Nike is in the number one spot and Dyer is in a number two spot.
While this is certainly true for men, it also shows that Dyson is one of the brands that is still catching up.
And even though brands like Dyson have a growing presence in the women’s market, they still don’t seem to be quite as popular as the men’s brand.
The bottom line is that there are so many brands in different categories that it’s hard to gauge just how popular they are.
However, when you factor in the fact that these are brand names that people have already heard of, it shows that they’re a solid alternative to the brands currently on the market, if you will.
As always, you can find all of the study’s data here:Casio report, Earplug and Sunglass sales, Women’s brands, Top brands for women, Top women brands, Casiores survey, U.S. EarplUG market share, U,S.
Sunglasses market share


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With its new Robin phone, Nextbit promises to move little-used items from users' handsets to the cloud.
Comcast inches closer to box-free TV in the country's tech hub by adding streaming of live TV to mobile devices in the home and the ability to download anything recorded to its DVR onto a gadget.
The search giant is bolstering its cloud service offerings by adding a company whose technology was used on films like "Star Trek: Into Darkness" and "Looper."
FreshBooks for Android arrives, giving users another way of accessing the popular accounting program while on the go.
The company says its service now works for more than 19 million people living around the New York metropolitan area.
Google touts that its new Maps Engine API can be used for virtually any kind of application, with business use cases ranging from health care to retail.
Shutterfly plans to incorporate ThisLife's technology into its own platform to make it easier for users to store and share their images on the Web.
Free service called Drive will allow users to upload and retrieve photos, documents, and videos, sources tell The Wall Street Journal.
This latest acquisition adds to company's ever-expanding pool of apps and could bolster Google Docs service.
Apple offers its iCloud service, but there's a variety of alternatives that might be more appealing to OS X users.


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SEARCHED FOR:SMITA AGGARWAL
Make proposed regulatory sandbox inclusive, fintech experts tell RBI
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Buy Gokaldas Exports, target Rs 124: Nirmal Bang Securities
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Fintech startup Bon raises $1.1 million in a seed round led by Omidyar Network, Axilor, Better Capital
Bon facilitates digital credit for workers in the gig economy, like taxi and ride-share drivers and other contractors, many of whom are first-time borrowers of formal credit.
Kaleidofin raises Rs 18 crore in seed round led by Omidyar Network
The capital raised in its seed round will accelerate Kaleidofin’s customer acquisition pan-India, expand the company’s network of strategic partners and enable deep investments in technology and analytics.
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Fintech startup Indifi Technologies raises Rs 66.5 crore in round led by Omidyar Network
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The owners of Fliway Group will sell at least half their interest in the freight management company, in the first share float of the year.
The company plans to raise between $27.3 million and $44.5 million from institutional investors in an initial public offering, or IPO, and list on the stock exchange's main board on 9 April.
The owners will retain between 30 and 50 percent of the company.
Fliway's managing director Duncan Hawkesby said the balance of the money, up to $10.5 million, would also be used to reduce debt and invest further in the business.
"We've got aspirations to be a more significant player in the sector we operate than we are today," he said.
Looking ahead, Fliway expected a net profit of $4.4 million in the year to December and revenue of $85 million.
Fliway Holdings has over 400 staff, 17 New Zealand locations, 170 vehicles and offers international freight, warehousing and domestic delivery services.
The near 40-year-old business has an international and domestic division, and a 50-50 partnership with UPS, as the operator of the global courier's New Zealand business.


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Upper Darby in Pennsylvania just decriminalized the possession of marijuana in small amounts through an ordinance passed at a council meeting held on Wednesday.
“It was a historic event last night. I’m proud of it,” said Michelle Billups, one of the members of the council.
Under the ordinance, penalties previously applicable on possessing 30 grams or less of marijuana were relaxed. Similar liniencies were also made towards hashish, whereby possessing 8 grams or less of the drug does not require incarcerations.
Changes brought about through the ordinance
The minor possession offences have now been classified as summary offences.
According to Police Superintendent Tim Bernhardt, “It’s a win-win for everybody and will help law enforcement dealing with the community instead of bringing them back and putting them into the system.”
Other localities in the state like Harrisburg, Lancaster, Norristown and York Bethlehem have also implemented similar reforms. The main aim behind these reforms is to promote the well-being among the people by ensuring a just and equal law enforcement.
Why is there such widespread support for the ordinance?
There are a number of reasons for such a widespread support for the reform from almost all those involved.
Most stakeholders sight it as a huge step towards reducing racial discrepancies.
There is a significant amount of data to support the view that most of the marijuana related arrests have been motivated by racial discrimination by law enforcers. This has led to widespread cases of police brutality against people of color, giving rise to hatred and fueling xenophobia.
American Civil Liberties Union has collected latest statistics on the matter. According to them, marijuana possession has led to 3.64 more black arrests than whites, despite of similar usage rates.
This has always been a big issue in the region of Upper Darby as well. They see this ordinance not only as a way to limit racially motivated arrests, but also as a way to pave way for a better life among the youth of the community.
The problems faced by the youth due to the convictions following possession are endless. Their personal records are scarred forever and they have to face difficulties in finding decent career opportunities. The moment their background check shows a ‘criminal’ record pop-up they see many doors close before them.
Earlier, marijuana possession convictions have landed people in jail for up to 90 days, and fined them between $500 to $1000. In other cases, convicts have also lost their drivers license, and had to deal with a tag of a criminal offense for the rest of their lives.
In addition, through this ordinance, police officers will be able to focus on more worthy matters. Usually, a typical marijuana possession arrest would consume two to three hours of an officers time. Everything from paperwork to holding the convict in the cell for a judge costs time to the officers.
With the relaxation in these offences, the community can feel safer. It is also going to free up resources from the court system for other viable causes. Above all it is going to ”halt the continuous cycle of mass incarceration that disproportionately affects black and brown residents.”
Mayor Barbarann Keffer sees this move as a huge step towards promoting a balanced institutional reform. He sees this move as something that will prove beneficial for the interest of the community.
Although the community is looking forward to seeing a positive change around them, law enforcers still need to do more. Cases where people of color have encountered sever racism in their daily life is not something that is unheard of.
Ensuring strict disciplinary measure against these actions may give some sense of security to a large proportion of the discriminated population.
Cannabis Home Delivery Services Likely to commence in Massachusetts
The CCC has agreed upon setting up a substructure for beginning cannabis home delivery services in the state of Massachusetts. The organization has presented a draft highlighting a timeline and new industry rules for starting the delivery services. Operations may begin in about a month.
The Commission has proposed an outline that would permit two types of delivery licenses for operators. Its limited delivery license would allow authorized personnel to make deliveries from CCC licensed retailers and dispensaries. Furthermore, the wholesale delivery license would allow operators to buy cannabis in wholesale directly from the cultivators. The purchased commodities will be allowed storage at a CCC approved warehouse facility. Warehouses are required to have a docking facility or sally port for a secure loading of delivery vehicles.
In additio.3n to these requirements, the CCC’s delivery draft regulations has fixed a $1,500 application fee for the licenses. Along with this, a $5,000 annual license fee for limited delivery licensees and a $10,000 annual license fee for wholesale delivery licensees is also proposed. As per the initial drafts, the CCC has decided to relinquish the application fee and first year license fee for limited delivery licensees. In the second year, the fees will be halved.
Chairman Steven Hoffman has pushed the Commission to provide finalized delivery regulations by October 20th. In the light of this, the CCC will shortly open a public comment period on the delivery regulations.
What would these cannabis delivery licenses mean for licentiate?
These delivery permits would allow licensees to supplement retail stores and provide new channels of recreational marijuana purchase.. Obtaining delivery licenses would provide a boost to small businesses. This is because the barriers to obtaining retail licenses are much more pronounced than the delivery category.
According to Commissioner Britte McBride, who wrote the regulations, “What we’ve done in addition to creating those two license types is also to establish new fees and fee structures, to require warehousing for wholesale delivery licensees, to authorize white labeling for wholesale delivery licensees. We’re defining specific operational requirements that will be in addition to the general operational requirements, and we are amending existing relevant regulations to incorporate the license types and the activities that they can undertake,”
Is it too early to allow cannabis home delivery services?
Is the requisition of cannabis really going to be just a phone call away?
For marijuana opponents, the idea of getting such convenient doorstep delivery is surely not going to be taken in good spirits. According to ballotpedia, about 46.34% of voters in Massachusetts were against the legalization of marijuana and its regulation as alcohol in 2016. For this particular segment of the population, home delivery of the drug may be an advancement that is taking place too fast. There will be concerns related to identity thefts, rise in crime rates, and products falling into wrong hands, particularly children.
Contrary to this, for the advocates of marijuana, this advancement of licenses would allow them a much needed convenience. Look at this from the perspective of bed-ridden medical marijuana patients. Leaving beds, let alone houses, is a painful endeavor for this segment of marijuana users. If other medications are already being delivered to their doorsteps, why cant medicinal marijuana join the delivery market?
For the recreational users, home deliveries might prove catalytic in reducing the stigma attached to marijuana usage. For years, marijuana has been shelled with the “not in my backyard” attitude. Despite of being advocates, most marijuana users have had to hide their association with the drug to curtail themselves from the society. If home delivery vans arrive right at the door step, it may lead to a normalization and acceptance of marijuana at some point.
Why allow delivery now?
Delivery of medical marijuana is not a new concept, even in the state of Massachusetts. Almost six authorized medical dispensaries have provided this service to registered patients since 2018.
If more licenses are granted for more legal businesses, illegal delivery services may be controlled right in infancy. In addition, this will also provide low cost business opportunities to aspiring market entrants.
The government provides no support to the marijuana industry due to its illegal federal status. By creating such opportunities at the state level, barriers to entry may be successfully reduced.
Study Shows No Significant Mental Effects In Elderly Patients Using Medicinal Cannabis For Chronic Pains
The elderly, often subjected to various medical conditions, need therapies and treatments as much as any other age group. Yet unfortunately, some point out that the field sometimes doesn’t get as much attention as younger groups. That may explain why pediatric doctors greatly outnumber geriatric specialists. And then, there does exist the tendency for the elderly to be more likely to be dismissed, compared to younger patients. Regardless, one of the most common aliments in the elderly is that of chronic pain in different parts of their aged bodies. Luckily, medicinal cannabis may hold the solution for them, as numerous experts find its properties useful for old people.
A recent study from Israel set out to ascertain whether or not weed would harmfully affect the cognitions of a sample of aged individuals. The participants included both middle-aged individuals and the elderly ones, as both seemed likely to have chronic pains. Furthermore, because the aim was to find effects on cognition, both types had fully-developed brains. What the scientists found may further the needle for the campaign to normalize medicinal cannabis.
The study set up strict controls and parameters to keep it as accurate as possible
The problem that arises with any diverse sample is the presence of individual differences. If not adjusted for, these can lead to a skewed data set and make the results questionable. In this case, the researchers strove to ensure all participants were as similar as possible. They were all above the age of 50, and no significant history with alcohol abuse or hard drugs. Some of the participants were on medicinal weed licenses, meaning they actively used it regularly. Others used it very sporadically. However, all abstained from cannabis use at least 3 hours prior. They also had similar education levels and all medically recognized as mentally sound.
The study included exactly 63 licensed individuals with the remaining 62 unlicensed. The male to female ratio was also about half and half, so sex didn’t affect the results. This almost even split served to better reproduce a normal distribution with acceptable standard deviations. Furthermore, they used a reliable software called ‘CogState’, which comprises of computerized cognitive exams. These exams covered everything required, from memory to attention spans.
The results indicated that regular cannabis use to treat chronic pains left no significant impact on cognition in the elderly
By all standards of scientific research methodology, the study mainly came out as a success. The results showed the initial hypothesis proved correct, and cannabis caused no major mental changes. In practically all participants, cognition was on par with normal levels and the frequent cannabis users did not vary much from rare users. Hence, the paper claimed that treating chronic pains with CBD (cannabidiol) and THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) would leave no lasting mental effects.
However, one interesting and alarming finding the study showed was an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease from cannabis. In addition, regular users also showed elevated frequencies of depression. The former of these may occur due to smoking cannabis rather than eating it. However, it does corroborate what a recent American Heart Association (AHA) paper claims.
While the study did have some limitations, it still shows important findings for those on the fence about medicinal weed
No truly scientific study can claim to have zero room for improvement. While they accounted for most extraneous factors, the biggest factor was the cross-sectional aspect. This means that due to broad generalizations about samples, the study cannot definitively establish cause and effect. Also, they didn’t account for previous medicinal histories.
However, the study still puts to rest many fears about brain damage from weed. For more on medicinal cannabis, stay tuned!
Why New Jersey’s Telemedicine For Prescription Cannabis Is A Big Deal
Earlier this month, legislation in New Jersey seems like it may take a turn in favor of medicinal cannabis using ‘telemedicine’. In a world, and nation, devastated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, even visiting a physician may prove deadly. After all, hospitals, now overrun with emergent coronavirus cases, may become cesspools of airborne pathogens. Even healthcare providers still face significant risk of infection in their line of work. And this despite them donned in full protective gear and thoroughly disinfected regularly. As a matter of fact, going out anywhere public unnecessary remains inadvisable by the WHO and health authorities.
Recently, the members of the New Jersey state assembly convened to talk about various concerning issues. One of the biggest and most immediate issues, the plight of millions of patients needing prescription drugs at home, needing resolving. This especially held true of those requiring medicinal cannabis treatments, a drug not available at every nearby pharmacy. Therefore the members ruled to permit the use of telemedicine, a game-changing new service in the United States.
Telemedicine holds the key to quality healthcare in the middle of a dangerous pandemic
Not many outside of the medical field would immediately know what the concept refers to. Broadly speaking, telemedicine refers to any healthcare practice done without the patient and physician needing to interact in person. Looking at the etymology (the origin of the word), it’s all in the name (translating to long distance medicine). Therefore, video conferencing consultations between the patient at home and the doctor is an example of telemedicine. In addition, the purchase and delivery of prescription drugs from and to home online also counts as such.
So while it may not seem like anything more than ‘Zoom/Amazon but for medicine’, this is a gross understatement. Regular meetings, related to business, casual chatting and interviews, already occurred online before COVID-19. That classes and work began conducting over video conferences wasn’t anything unforeseeable as the pandemic grew. However, in traditional medical schools, few students receive training for how to treat patients online. After all, a good diagnosis usually comes with thorough rapport, careful inspection of the body and various examinations. So now the COVID-19 pandemic has doctors scrambling to learn an entirely new modality of work. And the concept of sitting safe at home while your lifesaving drugs come to you, risk-free is incredible.
The move comes unexpectedly, as cannabis legislation in New Jersey still holds some previous prejudices
The truth of the matter is that the United States is still a nation where recreational cannabis usage is federally illegal. And medicinal cannabis, despite modern scientific studies extolling its proven health benefits as a therapeutic agent in many conditions, as well. That means that the ‘default’ law for any state is that the drug is banned, with even possession resulting in criminal offence. The only state exceptions to this practice worked hard to exempt themselves. Even in New Jersey, recreational cannabis remains off the table, but medicinally it gained allowance.
As a result, the cannabis industry, which makes everything cannabis related (from hemp to CBD oils), doesn’t do well here. There simply isn’t a big enough market for products in states where cannabis is literally banned. In the case of New Jersey, only specially licensed dispensaries can legally sell prescription marijuana. Law makers historically have shown very little care to make medicinal weed more accessible, in addition. Furthermore, even healthcare providers may show hesitance to prescribe cannabis due to the amount of legal work required by state laws.
All in all, this move signals a step in the right direction. Hopefully, patients will receive their medications soon and safely.
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